Or, much less than an army of super warriors. They did not win more battles than their rivals. I think of them as Greece's FARC, distinguished mainly by their abuse of their own children and everyone they depended on for their own survival.
Specifically, part VI and VII of that series.
> In short: Sparta’s overall military performance is profoundly average over the Classical period. They don’t even manage a winning record!
> It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while Spartan tactics may have been modestly better than most other Greek states, Spartan operations were dismal, placing severe limits on how effectively the Spartan army could be utilized.
Better equiped? check
Better trained? check
Winning record? nope
What axe are you wanting to grind?
The problem with Sparta was their inability to incorporate other people into their culture. An example of a warrior tribe very similar to Sparta but did properly incorporate new cultures is Rome, and they conquered the entire Mediterranean that way. We would probably have called it "The great Spartan Empire" if Sparta was a bit different.
Edit: I think the "myth" part was that Spartan warriors were any better than others elite soldiers. They weren't. But they fielded a disproportionally large amount of elite warriors for their size. Rome did the same, and made their new territories also adopt that culture, which allowed them to just expand and expand.
No, it wasn't. It had a broadly similar population; it's just that most of that population were slaves. And they did have slave auxiliaries, so it wasn't necessarily a manpower issue.
They had conquered other territories which they used as auxiliaries, yes, but those were just normal Greek troops and wasn't anything special or unique to Sparta. And the reason small Sparta could conquer them in the first place was the strong army they had. Not strong as in super human, but strong as in numerous well trained soldiers. Anyone who made their kids practice warfare got soldiers to that level.
https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
counterpoint: a lesbian is able to have sex with a man but that doesn't make her straight either.
I don’t care about Sparta one way or another. But simply “looking at numbers” can be deceiving.
The upshot though is: Think of battle at the time as being a little bit like some sort of bizarre college sport where everyone lines up, locked arms, and then smashes into each other. With, yes, weapons, but fatality rates were not enormous.
Spartiates - the tiny warrior elite of Sparta - are a bunch of very rich asshole frat boy jocks who are far too cool to train or anything, but that was fine because training doesn't really matter for a glorified shoving match, and nobody else was bothering to train either. What matters a bit more is that they spend every day living together, eating lots of meat, getting drunk, raping and torturing slaves, and if they feel like it, going hunting, so they're all beefy, well fed, fit, and can afford the very best gear. Also they have excellent cohesion thanks to all that bonding while drinking and/or torturing slaves, so man for man, they're pretty effective. Of course, these battles/shoving matches are big enough that they have to drag along a bunch of non-citizens and slaves and allies from other Greek city states to pad out the numbers, so that undercuts their advantage. Although note that Spartiates are by far the most prestigious, and there's a strict rule that both teams line up with the most prestigious on the right side, facing the enemies left side (where the weakest, poorest, and least prestigious units are slotted in).
So yes, individually, Spartiates were...well, not great warriors, but man for man they were the most effective fighters on the field, especially since they consistently faced the weakest opponents. But Spartan armies were not unusually effective, and Sparta as a polity failed to achieve its strategic objectives. History is full of glorious defeats where Spartiates lost impressively; so much so that in one famous instance where a bunch of Spartiates were captured by Athenians, they had to confirm that they were actually Spartans - not because they lost (that wasn't unexpected) but because they were expecting a doomed fight to the end.
So yes, Sparta was let down by truly horrible logistics and diplomacy, but their military record wasn't much better. Quite good at beating up their slaves and/or the weakest unit on the opposing army though, so there's that?
Carthaginian sacred band had better equipment, fitness, tactics and discipline, combined with a religious zeal that made their morale unbreakable. They also ate meat, whatever that's worth. Apart from a single dubious and assuredly propagandized solo account from well known liar in history, Sparta simply has no consistent feats to backup any of the mythology that has been popularized by comic books and movies.
It’s easy to be on the winning side when you’re cruising around on a horse, protected from random arrows and blows from unarmored people on foot, and hacking away at same from above with a sword or axe.