They were as good as any other....myth!

[Astiryu1]

I would like to reply from a martial artists point of view. Training for long periods of time in any activity will make one better. It helps if one starts at an early age they retain more and are built as they grow. When training/sparring with another individual you pick up on how they react, now do so with everyone in the school and you have very different outcomes. Everyone has their niche and good schools exploit that by pairing people off to learn from each other. So at the end you have standardised drills paired with muscle memory, a confidence in skill and wide range of different techniques, and finally everyone in the school has the skill level and cohesion with each other that is not found in many places. Asians have been doing these things for centuries. Tae Kwon Do can be traced back to around the time of Jesus Christ more or less.
The Koreans have the Hawrang-do warriors, the Japanese have Samurai and Shinobi, and the Chinese have Shaolin Monks.
All shared these qualities and so did the Macedonians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and just about every civilisation on earth.
There is NO superior martial art! The individual needs skill and luck in any REAL fight. And to stand toe to toe with any adversary one needs courage and will. Techniques differ and on might defeat the next but it always depends on whether you're fighting at all. Nothing beats hands on experience. :!:

[hoplite14gr]

There is NO superior martial art!

I would add that there is NO superior military unit or ideal warrior type or fighting skill for that reason.

Just certain groups who achieved legendary status because of the exploits and are being refered as an example to moderm generations.
Especially if someone wants to increase the "staying power" or "effort investment" of a group engaged in something risky because even the
"elite of the elite" can take so much punishment before it degenerates in a panic stricken mob.

And after having served in elite units I conclude that there is no analogy between ancient and modern.
Just preferences, likes and dislikes.

Each individual is simply comfortable with its own.

Kind regards

[Astiryu1]

Very true! I have my preferences just like any other yet I am willing to learn something new if it is a valid technique or mode of thinking. I have trained in mixed martial arts since before UFC started. One style can not accomplish everything
neither can one man. It is the pursuit of greatness to accomplish everything you can. My thought on the "legendary" status
of Spartans is, they trained in mental warfare as well as physical ; so that the enemy feared them before they stepped on to the battlefield. The historians ancient and modern most undoubtedly were not Spartans. So we must base our studies of man on logic, something the Greeks invented after all. Leave the mythology to the gods ; we are human...

P.S.- Thermopylae broke the Persians will to fight. That mixed with homefield advantage, knowledge of terrain, and brilliant tactics cemented Greece as the superpower it became. If that isn't mental warfare then I need to read more.

[Polinik]

There is NO superior martial art!

I would add that there is NO superior military unit or ideal warrior type or fighting skill for that reason.

I would agree on this as well.
Though I disagree that there is no correlation between ancient and modern...Training away from home or isolated for enough time,brutal punishing of ALL mistakes,deleting all individuality,demanding perfection,obeying orders,mental toughening...That roughly sounds like Agoge to me,and sure is same as any training in any respectable military/police unit today.We learned it from them I would say.Agree?

And for the rest I read here:
I will have to defend the point of my dear brother here...No matter how much attention you give to the phalanx,which was a lot of time undoubtedly, in your two decade organized and strict training you had to go trough training in wrestling,boxing,pankration...trough hoplomachia training,physical and mental toughening or even torture etc.
And no matter how little attention it was given to hoplomachia compared to phalanx training (debatable how little exactly?) it is still considerably more and more serious than most of other Greeks spent (Of course there were good carefully trained warriors throughout Greece,but in what number?).

That is why I will defend the point that Spartan full citizen could be matched in hoplomachia by some well enough trained men,and probably beaten by let's say half of them(WELL TRAINED)...and it would be an even fight.

But certainly the point that majority of average weekend soldiers could challenge Spartan(or any other well trained Greek) when not in phalanx is ridiculous.They were whipped more times than they made love to their women,they fought with teeth remember?They were fanatics.Read Tyrtaios!!
And someone says they are not better than an armed shoemaker?Come on....

If that was true we should ask ourselves: What the **** did they do for twenty years. Why such fearsome discipline and training? It sure does not take more than two decades,and such a brutal system to master just the phalanx movement(complicated but not that complicated,it's one of the simplest way of warfare).

They had to be as much as possible complete soldiers,as well as a doctor has to be complete,they don't go and practice brain surgery in week one of their school. It comes when you are READY TO DO THAT RIGHT,and only then you practice that until you can do it blindfolded.Not the other way around. Same is with hoplites same is with every single thing in our world,ancient or modern. You all seem to have skipped probably around 50% of Agoge here.

And try not to make arguments like "they were not Holywood superheros" because I don't see anyone here said that! Above average or well trained is just what it says, no one said it is invincible or superhero or Chuck Norris.

To conclude -no one is trying to make gods out of Spartans,just to make point what two decades of training MUST do to a man. It will not make a terminator, but it sure will not make a soldier "beatable by any armed shoemaker".

Happy New Year to everybody,

All best

[PMBardunias]

But certainly the point that majority of average weekend soldiers could challenge Spartan(or any other well trained Greek) when not in phalanx is ridiculous.

And yet the Spartans were regularly getting beaten in wrestling, as at Thebes, and pankration to the point that they stopped competing in events that required them to submit to others shamefully.

You bring up the notion of “well trained” other Greeks. You can’t somehow pull them out of the population of the other poleis and then compare the Spartans to the remainder! Why not just say that Spartiates could beat all the lame men and every woman! Clearly there was variation in talent within each polis, and a large number of men trained in the gymnasium and by the end of the 5th with hoplomachia as well.

If that was true we should ask ourselves: What the **** did they do for twenty years. Why such fearsome discipline and training? It sure does not take more than two decades,and such a brutal system to master just the phalanx movement(complicated but not that complicated,it's one of the simplest way of warfare).

Giving orders and taking them so as to move men in the field is by all ancient accounts far more difficult that hoplomachia. Remember as well that the agoge was not about making Spartans the most fearsome warriors in Greece, but about keeping them masters of Laconia and Messenia.

They had to be as much as possible complete soldiers,as well as a doctor has to be complete,they don't go and practice brain surgery in week one of their school. It comes when you are READY TO DO THAT RIGHT,and only then you practice that until you can do it blindfolded.Not the other way around. Same is with hoplites same is with every single thing in our world,ancient or modern. You all seem to have skipped probably around 50% of Agoge here.

Not sure where you are going with this because the vast majority of doctors never perform brain surgery. Not sure exactly what 50% you have in mind, but we have very little evidence for, and some evidence against extensive hoplomachia-style training. It may well be that because such training was only seen as useful for men in broken ranks (Plato, Laches) that Spartans specifically downplayed any advanced type of training in fighting as individuals.

You write this:

And try not to make arguments like "they were not Holywood superheros" because I don't see anyone here said that! Above average or well trained is just what it says, no one said it is invincible or superhero or Chuck Norris.

But then you write this, in which you describe a "hollywood" version of a Spartiate!

They were whipped more times than they made love to their women

Code:

To conclude -no one is trying to make gods out of Spartans,just to make point what two decades of training MUST do to a man. It will not make a terminator, but it sure will not make a soldier "beatable by any armed shoemaker".

Unless that shoemaker spends a few days a week in a gymnasium training as in individual combatant and springs for sessions with Hoplomachoi. His training to fight AS AN INDIVIDUAL may well exceed that of a Spartiate.

Even if he is just a simple farmer, he may well be conditioned to a level consummate with a Spartiate for all the hard work he does and inured to pain and hardship. He has a lot of experience swinging bladed tools and has killed creatures and been covered in blood more often than any Spartiate. We see over and over again in history that farmers make the best soldiers because of this. What the farmer lacks is the one thing we know that the Spartan system provides- a superior ability to fight together in groups.

[Polinik]

And yet the Spartans were regularly getting beaten in wrestling, as at Thebes, and pankration to the point that they stopped competing in events that required them to submit to others shamefully.

Regularly? Which centuries are you referring to? Certainly not those times when they ruled Olympia for 44 years in wrestling. And I hope evidence in this brave and maybe too confident statement of yours does not lie in the painfully incomplete lists of victors in competitions including Olympic games.What reference is there to this,just name it,I will trust your words.

Giving orders and taking them so as to move men in the field is by all ancient accounts far more difficult that hoplomachia.

No one compared the two.But neither take 20+ years to master.Especially when you start at +-7y.o. Both of them together on the other hand do take 20+ years. There has to be a reason for agoge being so long.

Not sure where you are going with this because the vast majority of doctors never perform brain surgery.

Ok I will rephrase. Following are „individual fighting skills“ many of you say are useless.
When in phalanx,do you need to have stamina to be able to swing spear on several men without tiring or being pulled down by their body weight on your spear? Do you need technique to aim for exposed parts and hit them with accuracy? Does your left hand need be strong enough to lift shield for yourself and your brother on the left,and do it for as long as it takes? Do you have to have strong legs and back,so enemy or two of them will not push you and therefore brake the line? Do you have to have guts,skill and body to survive when wounded,grounded or left weaponless in fight,to disarm or kill the enemy in same situations without any or with improvised weapons?..Do you have to be aware not to be surprised with some spear tip? Do you also have to be mentally strong and disciplined not to brake and forget you duty in this hellish environment(personally I think this was the point of agoge)?
-You answer is yes...And what are all this than „individual fighting skills“? And how can they be useless or neglected on purpose by any army? What tactics can win when othismos starts if arms and legs are week,and if it takes 10 swings of a spear to hit a right spot,and if broken spear means certain death...? If you are weaker/less brave or worse in technique than the opponent you will die,multiply this by 8,10,20 and you will have a broken line and eventually a broken phalanx...

But then you write this, in which you describe a "hollywood" version of a Spartiate!

How it is Holywood version when I say only men who trained in warfare long and hard could chalenge the other who trained long and hard.
It does not matter what they do,or where do they come from but what training did they went trough...You explained this yourself „Unless that shoemaker spends a few days a week in a gymnasium training as in individual combatant and springs for sessions with Hoplomachoi. His training to fight AS AN INDIVIDUAL may well exceed that of a Spartiate...“
SO, UNLESS HE RECEIVED THE SAME AMOUNT OF TRAINING he can not challenge anyone who did...Spartiate,Theban shoemaker or Corinthian farmer,of Argive hoplite or any other who trained systematically and completely- „well trained Greeks“ are „those who received a training,and a lot of it“ .And not all Greeks trained the same.

The thing is we know all Spartan citizen received organized training,and about other people from other cities and their number we can speculate. So we can not generalize and say „Spartiate was the same as any other...“,because it would mean that he was the same as the one who barely trained,or did not train at all.

What the farmer lacks is the one thing we know that the Spartan system provides- a superior ability to fight together in groups.

Agree.I still support the fact that group fighting won the wars,and was prime goal of Spartan army training.I just can not let the individual skill part being left behind.

Nice discussion by the way.

All best

[hoplite14gr]

Ah! The Olympic Games is a dubious argument.
Spartans dominated wrestling but not pankration or (...and thats very odd) not hoplitodromy.

Kind regards

[PMBardunias]

Regularly? Which centuries are you referring to? Certainly not those times when they ruled Olympia for 44 years in wrestling. And I hope evidence in this brave and maybe too confident statement of yours does not lie in the painfully incomplete lists of victors in competitions including Olympic games.What reference is there to this,just name it,I will trust your words.

I was specifically referring to what happened at Thebes, where the Thebans were heartened because they could beat the Spartan garrison at wrestling.

No one compared the two.But neither take 20+ years to master.Especially when you start at +-7y.o. Both of them together on the other hand do take 20+ years. There has to be a reason for agoge being so long.

The reason has more to do with social control of the youth that either sort of military training.

Ok I will rephrase. Following are „individual fighting skills“ many of you say are useless.
When in phalanx,do you need to have stamina to be able to swing spear on several men without tiring or being pulled down by their body weight on your spear? Do you need technique to aim for exposed parts and hit them with accuracy? Does your left hand need be strong enough to lift shield for yourself and your brother on the left,and do it for as long as it takes? Do you have to have strong legs and back,so enemy or two of them will not push you and therefore brake the line? Do you have to have guts,skill and body to survive when wounded,grounded or left weaponless in fight,to disarm or kill the enemy in same situations without any or with improvised weapons?..Do you have to be aware not to be surprised with some spear tip? Do you also have to be mentally strong and disciplined not to brake and forget you duty in this hellish environment(personally I think this was the point of agoge)?
-You answer is yes...And what are all this than „individual fighting skills“? And how can they be useless or neglected on purpose by any army? What tactics can win when othismos starts if arms and legs are week,and if it takes 10 swings of a spear to hit a right spot,and if broken spear means certain death...? If you are weaker/less brave or worse in technique than the opponent you will die,multiply this by 8,10,20 and you will have a broken line and eventually a broken phalanx...

All most everything you listed are not "individual fighting skills", but "group fighting skills". Perhaps there is confusion, no one thinks that the Spartans could not fight, but only that the skills they stressed were those used in group fighting. Things like covering your friend with your shield, pushing in othismos in cohesion and with great strength, knowing how to stab not only the man ahead of you, but the men to either side who might not see it coming are skills that are useless in single combat. Thus in single combat as Spartan could be no better than any other man, and perhaps less skilled than a man who trained extensively with a hoplomachus on how to use his shield to protect only himself and his spear to stab only the foe ahead. It is the training you described above that made the Spartans the unmatched group combatants they were.

But then you write this, in which you describe a "hollywood" version of a Spartiate!

How it is Holywood version when I say only men who trained in warfare long and hard could chalenge the other who trained long and hard.

It was the unfounded and truly misleading statement that they were whipped more often that they slept with their wives that was a problem- no man with a wife was getting whipped at all.

The thing is we know all Spartan citizen received organized training,and about other people from other cities and their number we can speculate. So we can not generalize and say „Spartiate was the same as any other...“,because it would mean that he was the same as the one who barely trained,or did not train at all.

Not at all, it simply means that Spartans as a rule were no better at single combat that any other men. Some Spartans surely were no better than the simplest farmer- there were tresantes after all. The quote simply states the general impression of Demaratus through Herodotus. So it is either that of a Spartan himself or that of a historian who would know not to write something that his audience would think unlikely.

Nice discussion by the way.

Thank you, you too.

[Polinik]

Ah! The Olympic Games is a dubious argument.
Spartans dominated wrestling but not pankration or (...and thats very odd) not hoplitodromy.

Kind regards

Indeed it is,you are right, but consistency such as this can give a clue(a weak one though) what was at a price at the time. Also with almost 2/3 of unknown Olympic victors we can not know who truly dominated in almost any discipline.

PMBardunias\\n[quote]All most everything you listed are not "individual fighting skills", but "group fighting skills". Perhaps there is confusion, no one thinks that the Spartans could not fight, but only that the skills they stressed were those used in group fighting.........[quote]

Perhaps there was a confusion indeed...With these lines and the rest of what you said I agree.I think the underlined part is the conclusion of this whole discussion.

PMBardunias\\n[quote]It was the unfounded and truly misleading statement that they were whipped more often that they slept with their wives that was a problem- no man with a wife was getting whipped at all.[quote]

It was a figure of speech,they were all adolescents once - while others bothered with everyday problems Spartiates bothered with shield and spear(military problems). I used that to emphasize the mind set which took 20-30years to develop that could hardly let them accept the fact they are no better than a common man...But OK, it is a speculation on my part and let's forget it.

PMBardunias\\n[quote]...and perhaps less skilled than a man who trained extensively with a hoplomachus....[quote]

Certainly.And vice versa...But in addition Spartiates had to go trough some hoplomachia for sure,they were not idiots...while men from other cities did or did not.
Those who trained with hoplomachus extensively were more skilled than average Spartiate for sure,those who did not train enough didn't.
It's that easy. If you say virtually all other Greeks trained hard with hoplomachus than ok. But if not - than the "as any other" part seems like an overstatement.That is the whole point.

All best

[PMBardunias]

Those who trained with hoplomachus extensively were more skilled than average Spartiate for sure,those who did not train enough didn't.
It's that easy. If you say virtually all other Greeks trained hard with hoplomachus than ok. But if not - than the "as any other" part seems like an overstatement.That is the whole point.

No need ot overthink this, the quotation reflects an impression, like: women doctors are as good as male doctors. Is it true? I don't know, probably the top doctors are still male. But if you pick a woman and a man to be doctors, we could not decide which would eventually be better with any accuracy.

Another problem that I mentioned above is the different population scale between Spartiates and other poleis citizens. This even posed a challenge to Sparta's superiority in group fighitng. When the argives field 1,000 picked men who are specially trained hoplites, this elite unit equals a substantial percentage of the Spartiates that would have been fielded at any time. Even small elite units of 300 were a problem when Spartiate numbers fell.

[hoplite14gr]

I have written an article in hoplitodromy.
It has the most complete surviving list of victors from 520 B.C. till the time that hoplitodormy was abandoned 185 A.D.
Only 460 B.C and 456 B.C are missing. Even if the winners were Spartans, it its a bad percentage for such martial people

As I have posted elsewere Spartans truly dominated the Peloponnese when Kleomenes burned the Argive Sacred Band of 4000 men alive at Sepeia.
Spartans dominated because they fielded the largest elite complement than other cities or "commonwealths".
When Epameinondas helped the Arcadians to field 5000 "Eparritoi" that was the end of Sparta.


Kind regards

[Old Husker]

I think that the bulk of the information suggests that the Spartans were considered hardy fellows, but hardly supermen. Indeed, there seems to have been generally greater respect for the physical prowess of the Thebans. In terms of weapons skills, the demands on a hoplite were rather modest (advance in order, thrust a spear and shove in othismos) and thus it didn't take all that much training and/or experience to reach peak capabilities. Clearly, it's in the realm of mass maneuver (at least on an elite wing of the phalanx) where the Spartans outdid their competition. Still, even this didn't make them invincible. In reviewing Sparta's battle record at its peak in the 5th century B.C. we see that its army engaged in 29 recorded battles of significant size. They won 15 of these engagements and lost 14, hardly overwhelming. However, nearly all of their defeats came when deploying smaller forces, many of them with few or no spartiate elites. Thus, one could say that the Spartans were unmatched in the 'major' battles that they fought during the 5th century. Looking at a subset of eleven actions fought directly against Athens in this period, we see a definite pattern. Sparta won all of the engagements involving 10,000 or more hoplites (Tanagra in 457, Mantinea in 418, and Halae Marsh/Piraeus in 403), but lost all of those involving smaller numbers of spearmen (eight in all). The implication is that the Spartans (at least their elites) were outstanding in situations where they could utilize formation skills in which they were better drilled than their more amateur opposition. However, they had trouble adapting those abilities to other situations that demanded something other than a rote maneuver. Indeed, they probably displayed a certain predictability that let experienced armies (like those of Athens, which fought more than four times as many battles as the Spartans in the 5th century at 95 vs 29) to repeatedly put them at disadvantage. Sources: "Land Battles in 5th Century B.C. Greece" (McFarland, 2009, p. 298-299) and "Sparta Versus Athens" (Military Heritage, February 2010, p. 34-41).

[Old Husker]

OOOPS! For those who do math better than myself (a likely majority) there is an obvious error in my foregoing comment. Clearly, at 95 vs 29 the Athenians didn't fight four times as many battles as Sparta during the 5th century B.C. I seem to have crossed my ratios in haste. The proper assessment is that 5th century Athens won more than four times as many battles as Sparta (64 vs 15 with 1 draw) over the course of fighting more than three times as many battles (95 vs 29) for a superior rate of victory (69% vs 52%). Sorry for the misinformation!

[hoplite14gr]

The statistics are indeed very useful.
I am sure that the mods would have PM you already but can I too ask you to add your name to your signature?

Thanks kind regards

[Old Husker]

I'm glad that you found the statistics of interest. - Fred Ray