Thermopylae was a major victory for the Persians. Again, Thermopylae, whether an attempt to delay or not, was a crushing strategic defeat.Their initial strategy was to hold the pass against the Persians successfully, not to get surrounded and be massacred. Plain and simply strategic disaster. It allowed the Persians to continue down the peninsular. They were barely delayed. There is little to no evidence it actually inspired the Greeks, and it almost certainly in fact demoralized them and inspired the Persians, which when you think about it is not at all surprising. The Athenians had to flee Athens and let it burn. Attica was conquered. In what way did a couple days delay change any of this? The last stand wasn't even what allowed the tactical retreat. The knew from their scouts the night before that the Persians had surrounded them, and the rest then disengaged without the Spartans last stand making a difference. In any case the group was small, and so was not decisive in the future.
At Plateia, the Spartans would even try to get out of the main position in the battle line, offering it to the Athenians, who a generation before had beaten the Persians at Marathon, which also contradicts the idea that at the time they felt themselves militarily superior. They were probably also aware that in this open space their would suffer at the hands of the Persian archers and cavalry.
On the Salamis point: Herodotus directly refutes the point by noting the Athenians tricking them. The Athenians knew that they would have a better chance at Salamis, rather than in open waters which is what the Spartans wanted. The Spartans wanted to retreat to the Isthmus, to repeat Thermopylae essentially.
The Peloponnesian war is a whole other can of worms, because we are talking about a generation later. At the outset, as Thucydides makes clear, the Athenians appeared to have the clear advantage due to their navy and economic superiority. Sparta had no navy and was economically backwards in comparison, with no public treasury. Furthermore, Sparta's citizen population was declining steadily in a trend that would never reverse. The Spartan's used their dominance of the Peloponnese to form militias from other poleis as the bulk of their force against the Athenian alliance, giving them a land army larger than the Athenians. We can call this entire group 'the Spartan forces' if one likes, but that just seems misleading.
In the early stages of the war, they proved how ineffective they were. They had one strategy: marching a larger land army up to Attica and hoping the Athenians would be stupid enough to face them on the open field. They came, they burnt some farms, then they went home when campaigning season was over. At the same time the Athenians easily dominated the seas. The Athenians won at Sphakteria in 425 BC., and lost at Delion in 424 BC and Amphipolis in 422 BC. The Spartan's more effectively sent a force to Thrace to threaten Athenian economic interests. The Peace of Nikias, 421 BC left Athens as well of as at the outset of the war. Sparta had achieved no main war objectives. They were vulnerable in the middle of the war due to their treaty with Argos expiring, who declared war on Sparta soon after. The Spartans at this point were desperate for a treaty.
The Athenians were showing a clear overall superiority in the war, up to this point. The Spartans were simply unable to beat them soundly and achieve any serious objectives. In fact they were begging for a treaty to get their capture men back. They could only beat them once the Athenians stupidly, in their hubris, took on the catastrophic expedition to Sicily, where they lost half their fleet and thousands of their veteran soldiers. The Spartans then allied with the Persians, because the Persians correctly perceived Athens as the bigger geopolitical threat.
In other words, Sparta's victory was due to a singe majorly stupid but lucky strategic error by the Athenians, tactical mistakes of the commander, all indicating hubristic overconfidence due to their superior position, combined with support for Sparta from Persia (the greatest power in that part of the world at that time). But it in no way demonstrates that the Spartans were better at war in any systematic or institutional sense. Once they had won well then of course they could dominate for 30 years. War is the continuation of politics by other means, and how effective you are is based on your general, systematic, institutional capacity to engage in violent, coercive action that will allow you to achieve your political aims. Sparta did get the latter, but by luck, frankly.
the can of worms most relevant to impressions of spartan superiority, because they won. if the Spartans were so disadvantaged in all of these myriad ways you're talking about--and war is so intimately a production of the polictical and social forces of a state as you state--how did they win? how can it be just luck that produces success or failure if who makes the decisions, who fights, who does diplomacy, etc. are the products of the totality of sociopolitical circumstances in a state?
why is the lucky mistake that precipitates spartan victory against all odds ten years(!) before their victorious conclusion of the conflict--with brutal terms levied against their rivals
Calm down. Again, you haven't read what I wrote. Your mixing up different periods. It's a different can of worms because if you want to actually understand Sparta's military you have to understand it in context, historically. Sparta's military changed over time. Again: there is literally no evidence from the time of Thermopylae that the Spartans were militarily superior. The only indication we have is that they were, later, slightly, marginally better at drilling and moving in formation than most other Greeks, but this only came later and did not given them overwhelming superiority in phalanx warfare, and did not make up for their gaping inadequacies in cavalry, light infantry, the navy, and having and economic base to do any of those things. The other Greeks states they competed against were not particularly militarily impressive by historical standards either until the post-Phillip II Macedonian military. Economic organization is a part of warfare. There are many components to military effectiveness and the Spartans only had a minor, marginal, historically unimportant one which doesn't explain their brief dominance over the local weak Hellenic poleis of the Peloponnese. I've spelled this out in my comments above. We were talking about Thermopylae on the one hand. I explained clearly why I think you were wrong. If you want to read serious historical analysis on it then go ahead.
I'm not sure what you're not understanding. You are literally just saying that because they won this war, hence they were superior militarily. What do you think you are even arguing here? This just becomes a kind of tautological trivialism. You're literally just doing vulgar materialism as a form of hand-waving metaphysics. You don't just wave your hand and say 'war and so victory are the product of these forces' and then someone leap to the conclusion that this tells you that Sparta military was greatly significant from a military pov. No one is arguing whether they won. By your logic, if Mount Etna has irrupted and wiped out the Athenians, and the Spartan's had been superstitious (a social factor) and escaped, then they would have been superior. Absurd.
It's been explained clearly and carefully all of the ways in which they were militarily backward and how they won the Peloponnesian war not out of any institutional superiority, but out of luck and Persian intervention. The discussion is about whether Sparta's military reputation and significance was a myth. It very, very largely was. No-one studies any of those aspects of military strategy, tactics, operations, combined arms, or military development. You put words into my mouth and said that I said that Sparta was 'insignificant', which, apart from the vagueness of what you even mean here, if you'd actually read what I wrote, is clearly not the case. Again, the point it just that their military importance and significance has been massively overinflated, overstated, mystically glorified when in fact they were not better at war than anyone else on average. If you're going to put words in my mouth and not respond properly to anything, then frankly, I'm completely justified in responding by making that clear.
You're wrong, and the current group of experts disagree with you. If you want this clarified I recommend you go read serious studies of Sparta released in the last few decades which have revolutionized our understanding of them, above all Stephen Hodkinson.
I have been polite and explained yourself, and you are suddenly getting aggressive like a teenager. If you are going to get angry and show your ignorance because you can't bothered to read what I said, not respond to any points, then disengage and kindly fuck off. You're trying to start an internet argument with some Marxist on the internet (who thought it was just a friendly discussion about history, but more the fool me) about Sparta of all things.
Thermopylae was a major victory for the Persians. Again, Thermopylae, whether an attempt to delay or not, was a crushing strategic defeat.Their initial strategy was to hold the pass against the Persians successfully, not to get surrounded and be massacred. Plain and simply strategic disaster. It allowed the Persians to continue down the peninsular. They were barely delayed. There is little to no evidence it actually inspired the Greeks, and it almost certainly in fact demoralized them and inspired the Persians, which when you think about it is not at all surprising. The Athenians had to flee Athens and let it burn. Attica was conquered. In what way did a couple days delay change any of this? The last stand wasn't even what allowed the tactical retreat. The knew from their scouts the night before that the Persians had surrounded them, and the rest then disengaged without the Spartans last stand making a difference. In any case the group was small, and so was not decisive in the future.
At Plateia, the Spartans would even try to get out of the main position in the battle line, offering it to the Athenians, who a generation before had beaten the Persians at Marathon, which also contradicts the idea that at the time they felt themselves militarily superior. They were probably also aware that in this open space their would suffer at the hands of the Persian archers and cavalry.
On the Salamis point: Herodotus directly refutes the point by noting the Athenians tricking them. The Athenians knew that they would have a better chance at Salamis, rather than in open waters which is what the Spartans wanted. The Spartans wanted to retreat to the Isthmus, to repeat Thermopylae essentially.
The Peloponnesian war is a whole other can of worms, because we are talking about a generation later. At the outset, as Thucydides makes clear, the Athenians appeared to have the clear advantage due to their navy and economic superiority. Sparta had no navy and was economically backwards in comparison, with no public treasury. Furthermore, Sparta's citizen population was declining steadily in a trend that would never reverse. The Spartan's used their dominance of the Peloponnese to form militias from other poleis as the bulk of their force against the Athenian alliance, giving them a land army larger than the Athenians. We can call this entire group 'the Spartan forces' if one likes, but that just seems misleading.
In the early stages of the war, they proved how ineffective they were. They had one strategy: marching a larger land army up to Attica and hoping the Athenians would be stupid enough to face them on the open field. They came, they burnt some farms, then they went home when campaigning season was over. At the same time the Athenians easily dominated the seas. The Athenians won at Sphakteria in 425 BC., and lost at Delion in 424 BC and Amphipolis in 422 BC. The Spartan's more effectively sent a force to Thrace to threaten Athenian economic interests. The Peace of Nikias, 421 BC left Athens as well of as at the outset of the war. Sparta had achieved no main war objectives. They were vulnerable in the middle of the war due to their treaty with Argos expiring, who declared war on Sparta soon after. The Spartans at this point were desperate for a treaty.
The Athenians were showing a clear overall superiority in the war, up to this point. The Spartans were simply unable to beat them soundly and achieve any serious objectives. In fact they were begging for a treaty to get their capture men back. They could only beat them once the Athenians stupidly, in their hubris, took on the catastrophic expedition to Sicily, where they lost half their fleet and thousands of their veteran soldiers. The Spartans then allied with the Persians, because the Persians correctly perceived Athens as the bigger geopolitical threat.
In other words, Sparta's victory was due to a singe majorly stupid but lucky strategic error by the Athenians, tactical mistakes of the commander, all indicating hubristic overconfidence due to their superior position, combined with support for Sparta from Persia (the greatest power in that part of the world at that time). But it in no way demonstrates that the Spartans were better at war in any systematic or institutional sense. Once they had won well then of course they could dominate for 30 years. War is the continuation of politics by other means, and how effective you are is based on your general, systematic, institutional capacity to engage in violent, coercive action that will allow you to achieve your political aims. Sparta did get the latter, but by luck, frankly.
the can of worms most relevant to impressions of spartan superiority, because they won. if the Spartans were so disadvantaged in all of these myriad ways you're talking about--and war is so intimately a production of the polictical and social forces of a state as you state--how did they win? how can it be just luck that produces success or failure if who makes the decisions, who fights, who does diplomacy, etc. are the products of the totality of sociopolitical circumstances in a state?
why is the lucky mistake that precipitates spartan victory against all odds ten years(!) before their victorious conclusion of the conflict--with brutal terms levied against their rivals
Calm down. Again, you haven't read what I wrote. Your mixing up different periods. It's a different can of worms because if you want to actually understand Sparta's military you have to understand it in context, historically. Sparta's military changed over time. Again: there is literally no evidence from the time of Thermopylae that the Spartans were militarily superior. The only indication we have is that they were, later, slightly, marginally better at drilling and moving in formation than most other Greeks, but this only came later and did not given them overwhelming superiority in phalanx warfare, and did not make up for their gaping inadequacies in cavalry, light infantry, the navy, and having and economic base to do any of those things. The other Greeks states they competed against were not particularly militarily impressive by historical standards either until the post-Phillip II Macedonian military. Economic organization is a part of warfare. There are many components to military effectiveness and the Spartans only had a minor, marginal, historically unimportant one which doesn't explain their brief dominance over the local weak Hellenic poleis of the Peloponnese. I've spelled this out in my comments above. We were talking about Thermopylae on the one hand. I explained clearly why I think you were wrong. If you want to read serious historical analysis on it then go ahead.
I'm not sure what you're not understanding. You are literally just saying that because they won this war, hence they were superior militarily. What do you think you are even arguing here? This just becomes a kind of tautological trivialism. You're literally just doing vulgar materialism as a form of hand-waving metaphysics. You don't just wave your hand and say 'war and so victory are the product of these forces' and then someone leap to the conclusion that this tells you that Sparta military was greatly significant from a military pov. No one is arguing whether they won. By your logic, if Mount Etna has irrupted and wiped out the Athenians, and the Spartan's had been superstitious (a social factor) and escaped, then they would have been superior. Absurd.
It's been explained clearly and carefully all of the ways in which they were militarily backward and how they won the Peloponnesian war not out of any institutional superiority, but out of luck and Persian intervention. The discussion is about whether Sparta's military reputation and significance was a myth. It very, very largely was. No-one studies any of those aspects of military strategy, tactics, operations, combined arms, or military development. You put words into my mouth and said that I said that Sparta was 'insignificant', which, apart from the vagueness of what you even mean here, if you'd actually read what I wrote, is clearly not the case. Again, the point it just that their military importance and significance has been massively overinflated, overstated, mystically glorified when in fact they were not better at war than anyone else on average. If you're going to put words in my mouth and not respond properly to anything, then frankly, I'm completely justified in responding by making that clear.
You're wrong, and the current group of experts disagree with you. If you want this clarified I recommend you go read serious studies of Sparta released in the last few decades which have revolutionized our understanding of them, above all Stephen Hodkinson.
I have been polite and explained yourself, and you are suddenly getting aggressive like a teenager. If you are going to get angry and show your ignorance because you can't bothered to read what I said, not respond to any points, then disengage and kindly fuck off. You're trying to start an internet argument with some Marxist on the internet (who thought it was just a friendly discussion about history, but more the fool me) about Sparta of all things.
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love hasn't acted like that in this thread specifically, but in the comments below things did get a bit heated tbf
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