Legionaries V.S Spartans

[Ghostmojo]

And? Alexander Severus was a bit obsessed with his namesake. That comparison is kind of moot, really, considering Sparta came before Rome and was thus of historic renown. The Spartans could never have known Rome would become the greatest empire ever.

I was making an observation, nothing more. Just trying to put this into some kind of context (which is admittedly difficult). As for the greatest empire ever - well there might be a few who could claim that - but let's not go there!

In many ways the whole discussion becomes a non sequitur - but it is interesting. Perhaps the only way one could resolve it is to consider when it was realistically possible that Romans might have faced Spartans across a battlefield. It is obviously not possible to set the classical Spartan warrior (peak period perhaps 450BC?) against one of the Roman apex periods (perhaps 50BC? - I'm no expert on the Romans but I'm guessing Caesar's soldiers were about as good as they got). Therefore, we have to look to the occasions this might conceivably have occured actually, historically, and I think there are four possibilities:

Firstly, we have the fact that a number of Spartan kings, regents and princes campaigned in Southern Italy, usually in support of Taras against local Calabrians, Apulians, Lucanians etc. Generally they didn't take sizeable Spartan units with them, but they may have had some, on occasion. In this instance Romans may have witnessed such events even if not participating in them. The possibility for some interaction does exist here, however. But it is unlikely they fought. If some incident in this theatre or war had sparked a confrontation, then this is the scenario I think most likely to have seen a first meeting.

Secondly, we have the 1st Punic War. Sparta had by then been producing condotierres for some time and Xanthippos is perhaps one of the most famous. His reorganising and leading Carthaginian forces to victory at the River Bagradas meant a Spartan and a Roman commander had squared off - but did any troops? Again it seems unlikely. He was probably accompanied by some advisors and colleagues, but not substantial Spartan infantry units.

Thirdly, we have the rather sorrowful state that Sparta got into under the tyrant Nabis when they fought off the Romans under Flamininus. His troops included mercenaries, pirates and perhaps a few citizens. These troops would have been very unlikely to have been hoplites by that period. Probably thureophoroi or similar. But they did fight. Not Spartan warriors at their peak though.

Fourthly, and perhaps finally we have the fact that Spartans fought during the Roman Civil Wars at both Pharsalos (48BC) and Philippi (42BC). They managed ultimately to be on the winning side and due to this (and for perhaps other reasons) they became a Free city under the principate. At both of these battles they were obviously allied troops and may well have faced opponent allies rather than Romans - but who can say for sure? How these particular troops were armed is anybody's guess. I assume, like many of the more powerful Successor kingdoms that still survived they may have Romanised their equipment and tactics - but I really don't know.