Spartan Mora regiments at Battle of Plataea

[Paullus Scipio]

If Herodotus and Thucydides did not feel it necessary to explain the internal make-up of Athens or other state's armies by 'class', why should they have done so in Sparta's case ? ( even if they knew, unlikely in any event)

Thucydides knew - don't worry. maybe..but that goes against his own words: "The secrecy with which their affairs are conducted meant that no-one knew the numbers of the Spartans..." (V.68 regarding Mantinea) He candidly admits he didn't/couldn't even know overall spartan numbers, let alone individual contingents, especially when all were 'uniformly' displaying lambdas on their shields. How could he or his informants possibly tell? And his informants couldn't either ( who may have observed the seven 'units' but wouldn't have had time or leisure to count shields in each)..... The secretive spartans certainly weren't spilling any state secrets.... He - like other ancient authors - wasted few words over Athens' thetes and "lower classes". That his knowledge of Sparta was more than reasonable is shown by his treatment of the city in his history.Your dismissal of him [and Herodotus] "even if he [they] knew, unlikely in any event" ignores the wealth of information that resides in Thucydides' history about Sparta.Errr...no, I was relying on his own words ( see above, and above comments on his sources of information) His use of many Spartan patronymics, as one example, indicates that his knowledge might have been "more likely in most events" than you'd allow.

I do not see that the later "subclasses" made up the Plataean army; this is Sparta in her pomp and those will have been, at his time, largely - if not totally - unnecessary. And your unequivocal evidence for that would be.....?

There is much preceding that I'd likely take issue with but - I've written it all before and repetition is boring.

In fact, I still await the enumerating of the periocoic forces that were at Mantinea (418) and, more so, Leuktra. It seems the "Spartans" fought both battles without their assistance.

Well, at Mantinea Thucydides says: " Now at last the Spartans moved quickly and came to the help of Tegea with their entire force both of citizens and helots in greater numbers than any other occasion..." Pretty unequivocal, eh? :wink: No 'perioikoi' at all....unless like Herodotus he has 'forgotten' them. I would agree that Thucydides knew a good deal about Sparta - after all he gets numbers of 'lochoi' pretty right, just didn't realise there were two 'lochoi' to a Spartan 'division/unit/Mora.( and from his words, clearly knew something was wrong with his calculations).
Like Xenophon, he must have known that 'perioikoi' were not spartan citizens, so one must presume he uses the word correctly...and logically therefore, only spartans were present ( it takes a while to round up 'perioikoi from 80 plus 'cities/villages' ). This is one of the pieces of evidence for thinking that 'perioikoi' didn't generally serve against 'internal' enemies in the peloponnese..... Similarly, for whatever reason, Cleombrotus' expeditionary force, which was to the north of Thebes, does not seem to have included 'perioikoi' either....unless they were 'overlooked'. None of our four sources refer to 'perioikoi'. ( perhaps, in all likelihood, they were retained for the defence of Lacedaemon/Lakonia).
On balance of evidence therefore, I agree with you...

It seems the "Spartans" fought both battles without their assistance.