What did Spartan soldiers actually look like?
What did Spartan soldiers actually look like?
Benjamin Stewart
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Alexander Nelson
They looked like normal Greek soldiers with armor, helmets, shields and everything
and they would have an aneurysm if they saw someone breaking formation
Cooper Cruz
Reminder that Spartans were matriarchal cuckolds
Jayden Lopez
Not at all, Sparta was Patriarchal.
Anthony Torres
>and they would have an aneurysm if they saw someone breaking formation
Not at the time of thermopylae. Back then the formation only lasted during deployment and broke into more or less indvidual combat as soon as it charged, which it always did
Jackson Ross
Got a source on that? The orthodoxy seems to be that formations were held at all costs.
Jayden Bailey
Depends on the era. According to Herodotus they made faint charges at the Persians at Thermopylae to draw them out of formation, fled, and charged those who withdrew from formation. However he could've been talking about sallies since the Greeks rebuild the Phocians' wall.
The fighting at Plataea also seems to have been loose combat.
At the time of the Persians Wars, probably no different than your average Greek hoplite. Sometime during the Classical era they adopted the iconic uniform:
>In the equipment that he devised for the troops in battle he included a red cloak, because he believed this garment to have least resemblance to women's clothing and to be most suitable for war, and a brass shield, because it is very soon polished and tarnishes very slowly.1 He also permitted men who were past their first youth to wear long hair, believing that it would make them look taller, more dignified and more terrifying. Xen. Const. Lac. 11.3
Joseph Bailey
>got a source on that, bitch?
...and so it begins
ALALE ALALE ALALE
Asher King
As he said, it depends. At least if we're talking Spartans. This is what Herodotus describes their method of fighting at Thermopylae.
>The Lakedaimonians fought memorably, showing themselves skilled fighters amidst unskilled on many occasions, as when they would turn their backs and feign flight. The barbarians would see them fleeing and give chase with shouting and noise, but when the Lakedaimonians were overtaken, they would turn to face the barbarians and overthrow innumerable Persians. Herodotos 7.211.3
In the Classical Era the Spartans were noted to keep calm in battle, march in step to the sound of flutes and maintain their cohesion on the move while the other Greeks charged like mad men.
Caleb Hernandez
WE
Nathaniel Fisher
Pic-related is an Athenian tomb-stone relief from 350-330 B.C., and the bottom figure is believed to be a Spartan due to his abnormally short sword (which they were noted for using) and pilos.
Grayson James
That is indeed the orthodoxy, but the orthodoxy is pretty much completely discredited outside of pop history
Jacob Garcia
Spartan inheritance laws dictated that women inherited all of the wealth when her husband died.
This sounds pretty normal to a 21st century person, but Sparta isn't a 'normal' society. It's a society where there were very few male citizens and these male citizens were always in a state of war and paranoia.
The nature of Spartan society meant that male citizens were dying a lot and most of the country's wealth ended up in the hands of a few elite women. Spartan women held an unprecedented and disproportionate amount of financial power that would make Wall street bankers cry foul and demand regulations.
With this kind of power, Spartan women would decide how elections went by buying out politicians who promised to not change inheritance laws.
Major cuckolds indeed.
Evan Rivera
>Major cuckolds indeed.
It was to the point where Aristotle called them a "Gynocracy", a place ruled by women and intrigue. He was not being nice about it, either.
Although he may have been a little butthurt about losing the Peloponnesian war
Landon Gray
Like that but with looser assholes
William Richardson
Was this still a factor even when the Romans rocked up?
James Thompson
en.wikipedia.org
>Along with plural marriage, older men seem to have allowed younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives.
>matriarchy where women control all finances and men are nothing more than disposable sources of labor and wealth and are sent off thanklessly to die in endless wars
The Spartans prefigured the 20th and 21st centuries pretty well.
Jacob Gonzalez
probably something like this.
Grayson Powell
So Sparta was the original mangina cuntslaves state
Jayden Russell
Delet this
Aaron Sullivan
Yeah, they basically died for waifus that got fucked by other men.
Jordan Reyes
They died for their country. And gave up part of their lineage to produce offspring that were less likely to be weak and better able to serve their country after they're gone. It would be irresponsible for an old man to father children, especially since he knows he may be wasting nine months of his wife's precious fertility for a baby that is likely to be killed outright.
I don't really get how making a sacrifice for the good of your community and committing to raising a strong child is in any way unmanly or weak. Maybe you're just too weak to put your personal pride and feelings aside. Maybe you'd rather see your seed carried on by a spaz, tard or -plegic, for it all the better resembles yourself.
Carson Sullivan
The breastplate and greaves are anachronistic compared to the helmet.
Jeremiah Turner
Now you get why Sparta is so admired these days, it was a paradise for cuntslaves and their roastie overlords.
Jaxson Young
I bet you think Romans didn't have three feet of fighting space in between each man.
There's a reason surrounding a melee force leads to annihilation, if you don't have sufficient space to move then you can't fight.
Northern European historians tended to believe that everyone fought like Saxons and Norsemen with their shieldwall nonsense.
Real wars were not between bands of medieval gangsters huddling together, it was between masses of individual fighters who relied on personal skill and a basic formation with enough room to fight while not getting isolated.
Elijah Cook
he looks pretty anime desu
Tyler Campbell
no.
Spartan men probably had real wives whom they didn't share and these children if unfit would become periokoi or something.
The young men would impregnate the breeding women.
Leo Anderson
most of the people here are still children, you cant expect boys to know about men. I think you are reading far too much into the flippant comment of someone obviously lacking the necessary skills to produce something of depth which will make you think. Read some Seneca, he had the same problem and took steps to fix it. Think its in his book on stoicism, if not its referred to several times in Seneca: A Life by Wilson.
Kayden Morgan
>It would be irresponsible for a wh*te man to father children, especially since he knows he may be wasting nine months of his wife's precious fertility for a baby that is likely to be wh*te.
Brody Howard
Okay, but I don't just post to dispute a wrong comment. I also post in the hope that there's some benefit to others reading and to sort out my thoughts for myself.
Aaron Butler
Will we ever have accurate ideas of how pre-modern battles were fought?
Depictions of Legions and Phalanxes are ridiculed but what did an ancient battle actually look like? How did the men fight?
Brandon Wood
So the best thing that could happen to a woman was the death of her husband, so she could inherit all his wealth and marry a younger man
Thats pretty mangina
Jeremiah Wilson
Lmao why do pasteskins think they wuz greeks?
Pic related is what an actual native greek looks like
Noah Davis
Doesn't look that different from Gerald Butler in 300.
Camden Garcia
> muh cuckery
> muh women controlling finances
It was still, by definition, a Patriarchal society. Women holding financial power or domestic power is still within the boundaries of this (even matrilineal societies are worldwide, mostly patriarchal - it has nothing to do with inheritance). Yeah it was a weird society, and one where women did hold significant power (especially compared to Athens), but that doesn't make it a "matriarchy". It's just a society where the state ruled everything, and everyone was more or less a slave to the community/state.
A matriarchal society is where women have legitimate power, politically/socially, higher than that of men. This just was not the case.
Brandon Butler
He is an Anatolian Greek, here is an example of a main-lander. The differences are like in any Mediterranean countries like Italy or Spain for example where you can find people of every kind.
John Lewis
>thankless deaths
you think they weren't properly rewarded in the afterlife for their bravery?
Caleb Turner
Armoured, and they probably didn't have the token blond guy.
Gavin Hughes
>this thread
Jaxson Smith
Gee, i wonder who could be behind this post.
Matthew Garcia
>pasteskins
Uhhh...
Noah Reyes
>mfw Cleomenes feigns death and then stabs me in the dick when I'm not looking
Angel Miller
Doubtful. In the case of Greek combat we know next to nothing on how it was actually done. We do have Xenophon's fictional battle in the Cyropedia, which may very well reflect how an actual Greek battle went down since the Cyropedia has parallels to Xenophon's own world:
>And when the Persians, charging on, set foot upon the missiles that had been discharged, Cyrus shouted, “Bravest of men, now let each press on and distinguish himself and pass the word to the others to come on faster.” And they passed it on; and under the impulse of their enthusiasm, courage, and eagerness to close with the enemy some broke into a run, and the whole phalanx also followed at a run.
>And even Cyrus himself, forgetting to proceed at a walk, led them on at a run and shouted as he ran: “Who will follow? Who is brave? Who will be the first to lay low his man?”
>And those who heard him shouted with the same words, and the cry passed through all the ranks as he had started it: “Who will follow? Who is brave?”
>In such spirit the Persians rushed to the1 encounter, and the enemy could not longer stand their ground but turned and fled back into their entrenchments.
>They flee into their entrenchments
>And the Persians on their part, following them up to the gates, mowed many of them down as they were pushing and shoving one another; and upon some who fell into the ditches they leaped down and slew them, both men and horses; for some of the chariots were forced in their flight to plunge into the ditches. Xen. Cyrop. 3.3.61-64
You have many different theories and some books like Christopher Matthews Storm of Spears and Hoplites at War by Paul M. Bardunias who sought to test out their theories via reenactors and other tests.
John Collins
Please user I can't relapse on interracial porn for the 4th time today
Benjamin Ward
I wanna know the context behind this webm.
Ryan Cooper
Ancient greek battles were probably kinda boring to watch.
Hoplites of opposing armies would meet each other on the battlefield and get into a giant shoving contest with their shields. There were some opportunities to thrust your spear into their ranks and inflict casualties, but the purpose of these kinds of engagements wasn't to kill the enemy in droves but to hold them down and keep them occupied while the cavalry swings around and deals the decisive flanking maneuver.
Ryder Price
I don't subscribe that they were giant shoving matches. I think people take the whole push thing too literal. If I said the Russians pushed the Germans back during WW2 would you think of it as literal shoving?
There's instances where the sources touch on the usage of deep ranks and never do they mention anything on shoving. They mention that deep ranks raise the moral of men. Xenophon in the Cyropedia writes that the ideal formation would be two ranks deep since only the first two ranks do any real fighting. Finally there's an episode where the democratic rebels face of against the thirty tyrants and the rebels are formed up in a phalanx that is 10 ranks deep while the forces of the thirty were drawn up 50 ranks deep. Demosthenes assures the men who are afraid of fighting the tyrants on equal grounds that they have the terrain and missile advantage. The fact that the rebels think that fighting a 50 rank deep phalanx constitutes an equal fight might seem ridiculous if we think of the fighting as showing matches. At Leuctra the Spartans managed to hold down a 50 deep phalanx and even managed to drag away their wounded king away from the front lines, an almost impossible feat if they were giant shoving matches.
Brayden James
>overarm