Who would win?

[Ghostmojo]

Lastly, you cannot say 'no balistae', because that was part of the Roman arsenal, as were archers, pila, gladii etc, just as you cant simply say 'no hoplons', because that is what they had....

Well I can do - and I did :lol:, because I assumed a basic infantryman against infantryman scenarios sans archers, light troops etc. as you go on to suggest yourself:

The only way it can be done is to level the playing field, so to speak, and have a Romans v Spartan fistfight!

The Spartans (at Thermopylai) fought with their spears, and when they were broken with their swords, and according to Herodotos, when they were broken with their fists and teeth!!! 8-)

They [Spartans] would have had a single long spear and a short sword, plus their usual shield, helmet and bronze cuirass armour (at this time).

All of them? Bronze cuirasses wouldn't be limited to officers and wealthier hoplites? Sparta, if I'm not mistaken, was an impoverished country like most of Greece at this period. I can envision the first and second ranks having bronze breastplates but all eight? IDK...

Yes - all of them. The Spartan state could afford to equip 300 warriors with bronze cuirasses, which was their standard gear at this time. I see NO problem with that. This is before the linothorax and other forms of quilted protective dress had taken over. Sparta was not that impoverished. Infact, it was rather better off than many with its vast land reserves farmed by helots that produced the wealth to support the military state.

The Spartans would also rotate the front line.

Could they pull that off if fighting in a tight phalanx formation? We don't even know how the Romans did this in their manipular formations.

I believe they could Theo. I suggest you read up upon Spartan military manoeuvring practices - countermarching, and directional changes etc. They were about the only Greeks who could do this.

I have already mentioned some of their usual feint techniques, and these battle hardened, well-campaigned Romans may have fallen for their own myth of invincibility and not seen the smarter Spartans duplicity

But you're taking generalship into account, right? If we are then I'd say Caesar would make short work of Leonida's Spartans. And what's this sense of invicibility? I thought this was a Spartan mentality. Romans suffered terrible defeats against the Teutons and Cimbri. Caesar's men at least could justifiably feel invicible, IMO.~Theo

So could Leonidas' Spartans. And I'm not really talking about generalship. The Spartan army was one of the most regulated there had ever been. Each unit had a commander. Each sub-unit had a commander. This went right the way on down the line to the smallest sworn band company. It was an army almost entirely composed of an officer class (to a large degree). Therefore, commands could be and were very quickly relayed throughout the ranks. However, picking up on your point about generalship - it is an unfair advantage knowing so much about Caesar (from his own hand and others) and knowing so very little about Leonidas I. What we do know about this Agiad king is that he was probably about 60 at Thermopylai, and nothing of his previous military career. However, as the second of three brothers (and third if you include his half-brother Kleomenes I) he was not expected to succeed the throne. Therefore, he underwent the agoge discipline. He would have been as tough as they came. Because Kleomenes I went mad and killed himself, and Leonidas' older brother Dorieos was killed fighting abroad - then quite unexpectedly he found himself one of the dyarchs around 490BC. He may well have fought at the side of his older half-brother during his campaigns in the Peloponnese and in Attika. We really don't know. But speculating admittedly, Leonidas acquitted himself well at Thermopylai making sound strategic and tactical decisions. Was he of the same stuff as Julius Caesar? Well, I guess we'll never know for sure.