Sparta Vs. Athens

Originally posted by conon394 I�m not convinced to can show Athens made a series of political, tactical and strategic mistakes. I would that lost from mostly simple bad luck � the plagues wiped out some 20-30% of Athens fighting force and impacted the whole course of the war. Athens could not fight an effectively during the initial 10 years or so of the war and lost the reserves of manpower that had in previous generations allowed her to shrug off serious loses (ie compare the Syracuse venture to Egypt 50 or so years earlier).

Your right of course Conan I was trying to make a point to Diomedes about the flaws of his argument and I was more than a little lazy.......the plague was indeed a crucial factor in deciding the war/s along with the Syracuse expedition but unlike the Syracuse expedition the plague and the equally decisive aid of the persians to the spartans was largely just poor fortune, however there was some diplomacy involved and the plague would not have been nearly as deadly if the Athenians from the surrounding countryside were not crowding the city because of the threat of the Spartan army.

but I have not forgotten that the Spartens had thier own military disasters and so I believe that without the plague and Persian assistence the stalemate would have continued.

Regards, Praetor

Originally posted by Joinville There was no defeat of the main body of a Spartan hoplite army in a pitched battle before Leuktra. They lost wars before, but never a land-battle. I'm just stating the traditional ancient Greek view of warfare. You march out, line up for battle, and the slug it out. No one did this better than the Spartans, which meant a place like Athens had to become creative to get a leg up.

Firstly it doesn't need to be a pitched battle to be a land battle, secondly they lost pitched battles anyway, some examples are: the battes of Tegyra and the �Battle of the Fetters� (thanks conan) there are more I know but they are extremely difficult to find on the internet.

Originally posted by diomedes The Athenians by far. The Spartans may have been more badass, but their political and social structures were too rigid.  They were way too xenophobic too. The Athenians, on the other hand, contributed to philosophy, science, politics, art, poetry, etc. Sparta's government wasn't suited for effective conquest. Oligarchies have never been effective for conquest of any kind. Power needs to be shared on society's most basic levels. Athens also had the superior fleet; they would have won the Peloponnesian War if it weren't for the numerous strategic and political errors, particularly its invasion of Sicily.

Though I agree that the very nature and structure of Spartan society after Lycurgus made it impossible to expand beyond a certain point and that it was an incredibly inflexible and undaptive system (which is largely why I voted for Athens). However it is inaccurate to say that oligarchies have never been effective at conquest an oligarchy with a very different structure: the Roman Republic conquered vast amounts of land. Power for the purpose of conquest does not need to be shared at the most basic level as most of the great empires of history were feudal or absolute monarchies and not even Athens shared power at the most basic levels as to be a citizen you had to be male, of a certain age, of Athenian ancestry and not a slave, this group is a clear minority though I would not go nearly as far as calling it an oligarchy.

I also agree that Athens had the superior navy and that the war was lost via a series of political, tactical and strategic mistakes on the part of the loser and brilliance on the part of the winner (there were really multiple Pelponesian wars hence wars not war and so this is an oversimplification). As it is clear when studying the Pelopenesian wars that the states were too evenly matched for the result to be a foregone conclusion eg. though Athens had the superior navy, Sparta had the superior army and though Athens had more wealth personally Sparta had more allies so I fail to see how you can prove Athenian superiority by its more powerful fleet (counterbalanced by Spartas army) and its strategic and political errors as Sparta could just as easily done something stupid unless something about the sparten character or way of operating prevented it.

Regards
Praetor


Edited by Praetor - 24-Mar-2007 at 09:06

The Athenians by far. The Spartans may have been more badass, but their political and social structures were too rigid.  They were way too xenophobic too. The Athenians, on the other hand, contributed to philosophy, science, politics, art, poetry, etc. Sparta's government wasn't suited for effective conquest. Oligarchies have never been effective for conquest of any kind. Power needs to be shared on society's most basic levels. Athens also had the superior fleet; they would have won the Peloponnesian War if it weren't for the numerous strategic and political errors, particularly its invasion of Sicily.

Originally posted by Joinville No, that actually mattered quite a lot to the Greek themselves.   They were traditionalists with a keen eye for symbolism and gestures in their war fighting, to a degree that can be surprising to us.   It wasn't simply a matter of outfighting the other guy, but of making him admit that he had been bested.   The Spartans never did that before Leuktra. For the first time they themselves admitted that the Thebans were the better men. To the Greek that mattered quite a lot.

Just because the Spartens didn't admit that they lost before Leuctra doesn't mean that they didn't. I know of Americans who insist that they didn't lose the Vietnam war, does that mean they didn't? of course not! you claimed that Leucta was the first time a "Spartan army was defeated on the battlefield" and it clearly wasn't, the defeats may not have had much psycological impact before leuctra or a great influence on the history of greece like Leuctra did but that doesn't mean they weren't defeats! (I have already said that Leuctra was the most decisive defeat of the sparten war machine but it wasn't the first.)

Regards Praetor

Originally posted by Joinville Well, iirc Olpae wasn't fought by Spartiates, even if the command was Spartan. Sphacteria was hardly a pitched battle, but rather the Spartans placing themselves in an impossible situation (300 of them cut off on an island with no food or water in the high summer and pestered by missile troops). It certainly was a schock to them, but not a test of their battlefield qualities. Lechaeum was again a form of ambush on a small Spartan force. It certainly made waves at the time, but again wasn't seen as reflecting an actual defeat of the Spartan war machine. Tegyra has the best claim on being a Spartan defeat in a pitched battle, four years prior to Leuctra. It was the up-and-coming Thebans who did it, and the reason in pales compared to Leuctra has to do with scale. Tegyra was small. Leuctra was a massive battle, Sparta in full force taking on Thebes, getting bloodied and for the first time since Lycurgus appraoching the Thebans to ask permissions to remove their dead, i.e. admitting defeat.

Yes Leuctra was the most decisive defeat the Spartens ever had and was one of the most brilliant (on the Theban side) battles in the history of ancient greece. But that is largely irrelevant there were sparten defeats "on the battlefield" before and it doesn't matter if it was an ambush or they were facing missile troops or if the battle was small and it also doesn't matter if the Spartens asked permission to collect thier dead (though the point you made about Olpae was legitimate...sorry I didn't have too much time and I just scanned through a few wiki articles). If what you meant by "on the battlefield" was only pitched battles (as far as I'm concerned any field or area were a battle takes place is a battlefield) then thier are still sparten defeats before leuctra like the afor-mentioned Tegyra so it is simply untrue that Leuctra was the first.

However for the purpose of the debate the Sparten army (though not the navy) was indeed superior to the Athenian one and at its height the strongest in greece and the most potent for its size in the world, there is no need to exaggerate thier astounding ability.


Edited by Praetor - 19-Mar-2007 at 03:37

Originally posted by Joinville I think you're missing the point of the Theban victories: Leuktra was the first instance since passing the laws of Lycurgus where a Spartan army was defeated on the battlefield. The first...   Don't knock the Theban achievement here. Defeating Sparta in battle was absolutely extraordinary, and required innovative tactics for it to work. Tactics then adopted by the Macedonians.

Though the Thebans achievements under Epaminondas were very impressive and though Spartan defeats were RARE, thier was such a thing as a Sparten defeat before Leuctra.

Some examples are the battles of: Olpae, Sphacteria, Lechaeum and Tegyra. All these battles were land battles.

Originally posted by Herakleios average citizen still had less say in the affairs of his state than he or she would today in most democratic or federal states or a republic.

In Athens (particularly after the reforms of Pericles, but before too) the average citizen had more say then most democracies now, it's just that there were less citizens (not just in numbers but in percentage of population) than in moden democracies. The reason for this is that Athens was a direct democracy and the states we live in are representative democracies. We vote for representatives who decide on laws and how to run the state. The Athenians were thier own representatives, with a direct say on such issues in their equivalent of parliament, senate etc. and because there were far fewer citizens, their votes really did matter.

i think athens is the greatest city.for a very simple and naive reason.you can ask ordinary people about famous persons of greece they told you plato,socrates,aristotle...but they can't give a single known spartan.

For those that watched 300, don't vote. The movie greatly exaggerated the Spartan military.

Rome, even after the military decline, did not collapse for a long time not because of their military, but by their advance culture. After the Huns fled, the barbarians began to rip Rome apart for their's to command. But Rome was not destoryed. In fact, it was the noble barbarians that adopted and was slowly assimilated to Roman culture.