Legionaries V.S Spartans

[Ghostmojo]

It really depends on many factors such as terrain, leaders, equipment...

Let's not forget the Spartan led under Leonidas at Thermopylae were no less well trained than the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra, in which the Thebans were able to outwit and outsmart the predictable Spartans. The Spartans were so conservative and traditional that they refused to evolve better techniques and essentially taught they Thebans how to fight them.

The Spartans refused to build walls and siege equipment even, that's how traditional they were. Had the warrior state of Sparta kept their excellent agoge training in addition to exploiting new fighting techniques they could have dominated the known world, but unfortunately they didn't.

That said even though I tend to more interested in Roman history, I find the Spartans exceptionally interesting

There is much truth in that Matt. However, I would add that:

The Spartan mirage presents an image of the Spartans as being more conservative militarily than they actually were. They were constantly evolving. But your comment about the Thebans having been taught by them is true. I think it was Agesilaos II (no friend of Thebes) who had said the Spartans should not fight the same enemies too often for precisely the reasons you suggest.

The Spartans only finally built walls when they needed them. Originally their men were their walls. They were far from alone in their attitude to seige equipment. Few Greeks of the time needed or specialised in this. Sparta was not originally an empire-building force. It had conquered the territory it required and controlled the rest into acquiesence as necessary. Only very occasionally did they try and subdue a city and they used other techniques.

Ironically, the Spartans had no desire to dominate the world. That is neither unfortunate or otherwise. They dominated the Peloponnese for a few hundred years and influenced the wider Greek world. That was the limit of their ambition. When they briefly acquired an empire (resulting from the defeat of Athens in 401 BC) they proved their system was totally unsuitable to handling it. And the imperial ambitions that did surface were usually the personal desires of key individuals (Pausanias or Agesilaos) which were not usually supported by the state. Any Spartan adventurer king or regent faced exactly the same problems that Hannibal did with Carthage - division, emnity, opposition, jealousy, outright hostility and machiavelian manoeuvring at home.