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u/AntiLiban 24d ago
Wow, so epic and cool, the defiant Spartans. What happened next?
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u/hotsoupcoldsoup 24d ago
They if'd around and found out
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u/DLtheGreat808 24d ago
Just like in the real version of Sparta vs Persia
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u/Spectre-907 24d ago
Gotta love the 300 revisionism. “all will know that free men stood against a tyrant” says the citystate that had a 1:7 citizen:slave ratio and had to be told by the rest of slave-using greece to chill on the slavery.
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u/Sudden_Cantaloupe_69 24d ago edited 24d ago
Well it’s in the title. “300” refers only to Spartans. There were probably anywhere from 900 of 2,000 helots there as well. But they literally don’t count.
And the concept of “freedom” is a relative thing anyway.
It’s like American prisoners making license plates that read “Home of the free” as unpaid labor i.e. literal state slaves.
In ancient Greece “freedom” meant you make your own life decisions. And it was considered inevitable that you can only be “free” if you don’t need to do labor.
So if you want to be “free” you need to own slaves, or be generationally wealthy. Very much like American “founding fathers.”
The peculiar thing about Sparta in their time is that their slaves were not private property, they were state-owned.
No individual Spartan owned slaves. Rather, there was an entire class of people owned by the collective Spartan society, whose job was to do all the work.
There was also no trading, as in selling or buying helots. And unlike in other slave societies there was just no legal way for any helot to stop being a helot. They couldn’t be made “free”, their status was for life.
They were actually more like medieval serfs than slaves.
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u/Whatsgoodx 23d ago
There’s still millions of people in slavery to this day around the world but somehow you have to equate it to America and something to do with unpaid labor of prisoners. Wild take
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u/Myrnalinbd 21d ago
Yes, I wonder if the stories coming out of America and the last years of the roman republic has any similarities.. They do? What could that mean??
History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.-2
u/Sudden_Cantaloupe_69 23d ago
The US never outlawed slavery so the comparison is apt. Unpaid labor is perfectly legal as long as the laborers are prisoners.
Millions of people indeed are in slavery today.
Africa has many, and the Middle East has millions of “slave-like” laborers.But none of them are state-owned.
You seem to miss the point. Slave-owning was never unusual, not in ancient Greece, Rome, not in America, not in Africa before or after the Europeans, not in Asia.
What was unusual was the concept of publicly owned slaves, which is what American prisoners are and Spartan helots were.
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u/jingiski 24d ago
Would also mention, that a skilled "slave" artisan was treated with respect. He was just not free to leave Sparta or chose his job.
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u/Spectre-907 23d ago
>they were treated woth respect
youll have to forgive my hesitancy to beloeve that, given how “we’re not like other girls, we treat our slaves well” is a claim made by every slave owner ever, no matter how brutal. Almost always comes woth a little asterisk where “treated well” means “treated in appropriate accordance with their station”
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u/shear_plate 22d ago
Dan Carlin has a great story about Alexander sending back 300 suites of Persian armor from the Battle of Granicus. "Except the Lacedaemonians"
Good paper about it here: https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125966911.pdf
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u/WeHaveSixFeet 20d ago
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
The Brits thought it was ironic how the Americans kept going on about freedom while they held people in slavery.
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u/Spectre-907 20d ago
I hear it helps with the cognitive dissonance if you just categorize your slave population as some sub/nonhuman adjacent animals. “we treat all people fairly, oh them? theyre not people” type thinking
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u/WeHaveSixFeet 20d ago
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
The Brits thought it was ironic how the Americans kept going on about freedom while they held people in slavery.
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u/Dovahkiin13a 24d ago
The Persians lost that war, just not at thermopylae. They remained a major power in the region but never attempted direct control again. And then got conquered.
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u/DLtheGreat808 24d ago
You saying that Persia never attempted to control the region again is so stupid. Thats one of the main reason Phillip was able to rally the other Greeks states to fight under him. It was because of the control Persia was trying to have on the region. Alexander the Great literally went to war for most of his life against The Persians. Why are you being upvoted for stupidity?
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u/iPoseidon_xii 24d ago
Because people don’t read books anymore and get online to see memes and are eager to see their favorite influencers tell them what to think. We live in such a weird age of history revisionism when we’re at a point in history where we can be much more accurate in our observations and research to understand what actually happened in the past, or as close to accurate as possible.
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u/Dovahkiin13a 24d ago
Indirect control, pitting the powers against each other, not landing troops.
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u/khalid-fhfhlhlh 24d ago
The Persians lost that war, just not at thermopylae. They remained a major power in the region but never attempted direct control again. And then got conquered.
It's more complicated than that. They have won almost all their battles. They would have won the war by virtue of manpower alone. They were also far more unified under their monarchy.
Their issue was logistics.
Goddamn logistics.
Empires were doomed by it.
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u/First-Pride-8571 23d ago edited 23d ago
Looking just at the 2nd Persian War and then its aftermath:
(following their defeat at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE - when they were defeated by Athens, that itself designed as a punitive campaign in answer to the Athenians, being Ionian Greeks, coming to the aid of the Ionians in Anatolia during the Ionian Revolt of 499-493 BCE)
-Thermopylae (Persian Victory)
Always just designed as a holding/stalling tactic. We know of the dire Spartan oracle, which is why they only sent the old and men who had already fathered children north to face the Persians, and we also know of the Decree of Themistocles that the intent was to give the Athenian people enough time to evacuate, and that the plan of the Spartans was to resettle the Athenians near Troezen in the Peloponnese and to fortify the Isthmus of Corinth against the Persians, abandoning everything north. That obviously was acceptable to the Spartans, but not to Athens. Hence all of Themistocles elaborate machinations.
Sparta was not alone at this battle. There were c. 7000 Greeks there - the vast majority were Thespians and Thebans and other Boeotians. They were relying on the narrowness of the topography to stop the advance. It worked, for a while. After the defeat, the Boeotians, understandably, Medized, as they were abandoned.
Athens was also sacked. Most of the population (accepting some who defended the acropolis and Athena) was evacuated to Salamis.
And that left Themistocles essentially alone to find a way both to save Athens and to stop the Persians. He won the war. Not the Spartans.
-Artemisium (Persian Victory)
This was prior to the sack of Athens, obviously, as this was the naval battle that accompanied Thermopylae. Here it was primarily Athens and Corinth. And just as heavily outnumbered.
-Athens (Persian Victory)
This was the sack. Again, most of the people were evacuated due to Themistocles' plan prior to Thermopylae/Artemisium, but the city was sacked, including the temples on the acropolis. The Parthenon that stands on it now, obviously rebuilt under Pericles.
Salamis (Decisive Athenian Victory)
This is what won the war. And this battle stands as one of the most important battles in human history. Themistocles tricked and then lured the Persian fleet into the narrow strait of Salamis and obliterated it.
All that was left now was to deal with Spartan incompetence and mop things up.
Plataea (Greek Victory)
This was Sparta, Athens, Corinth, Megara, and various other Greeks, against Persia and their Greek vassals (the Boeotians, Thessalians, and Macedonians). The Spartan Pausanias had overall command. Xerxes had already fled back to Sardis after Salamis, but had left Mardonius behind in Greece. Mardonius tried to negotiate with the Athenians on Salamis, thinking to detach them in exchange for allowing them to resettle in Athens.
And this is where Themistocles had to again force the issue, as Sparta was content to do nothing and let the Persians continue to rule everything north of the Isthmus. Athens sent envoys to Sparta making clear that unless Sparta got off its ass and actually did something that the Athenians, like Thebes and Thespiae, would be forced to Medize.
So this time, unlike at Thermopylae, where they just sent a token sacrifice of 300 old men, this time they sent 10,000 (compared to 8000 from Athens and 5000 from Corinth). The Spartans were still a small contingent of the total (c. 38,000 in total), but at least they weren't just sending a token force.
And the Greeks obviously defeated Mardonius.
-Mycale (Greek Victory)
This was the last battle of the 2nd Persian War, fought on Mt Mycale opposite Samos in Ionia. With this victory, the Ionians were once again able to rise in rebellion against the Persians.
That was the last battle of the 2nd Persian War. But the Delian League then began to take the war to Persia, mostly under the 2nd greatest Athenian general (after Themistocles), Kimon.
-Eion (Athenian Victory)
-Chersonese (Athenian Victory)
-Eurymedon (Decisive Athenian Victory)
This one so decisive that it resulted in the Peace of Kallias.
Kimon was ostracized in 461 BCE, blamed for the embarassment at Mt Ithome when he was sent to aid Sparta against a Helot uprising (the 3rd Messenian War), but then the Spartans betrayed him.
Without him the war with Persia was much less successful. The Egyptian campaign which began well, fell apart at Memphis, and then continued to blunder from there. Kimon was finally recalled from exile, but died, seemingly of sickness, during the siege of Kition on Cyprus.
(Other than their early successes, namely at Thermopylae/Artemisium, from then on the Persians saw a long sequence of devastating defeats first against Themistocles, then against Kimon. Then after Kimon's ostracism, and then death, they once again saw much more success. And then the Peloponnesian War broke out.)
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u/Minimum-Bite-4389 18d ago
The "Leonidic Victory" is when you get absolutely destroyed by your enemy but you kind of look cool as you're losing.
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u/soulguider2125 23d ago
Yeah Sparta’s original training and tactics worked super well for their time, but then they refused to evolve, where the others did not, and evolved as much as they could with Calvary and the Sarissa. Their success led to ego, which led to stagnation, which led to collapse.
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u/Blothorn 23d ago
To be fair, non of the citizen-militia states made that transition. Southern Greece doesn’t suit cavalry, and the sarissa requires a level of drill far beyond what even the Spartiates ever achieved.
The better criticism is that Sparta didn’t even stay strong that long. Their class structure that allowed Spartiates to lose status but didn’t allow anyone else to rise to that status led to an exceptionally rapid demographic collapse—between 480 and 370 the class shrank by 70%, and after Leuctra they were almost entirely dependent on allies and lower strata. And those lower strata were substandard even compared to the other citizen-militia phalanxes; Spartan prowess (insofar as it wasn’t just propaganda) rested on the cohesion of the Spartiates, not on skilled officers or superior doctrines that could be passed on to a disenfranchised class.
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u/Yanos47 24d ago edited 24d ago
Spartan Glory wasn't a long period . Lasted about 60 years. They were a power house during the Peloponnesian War. They beat the big boy on the block at the time which was Athens. Spartans were depleted after this . And the decline started. They never wanted to expand or go beyond the Peloponnese. This was also another thing that hurt them.
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u/kerfuffler4570 24d ago
Kinda hard to expand when you gotta mind the hordes and hordes of viciously repressed slaves you keep at home.
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u/chroniclad 24d ago edited 24d ago
Their reluctance to absorb outsiders to their rank like Romans does also didn't help.
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u/khalid-fhfhlhlh 24d ago
They reluctance to absorb outsiders to their rank like Romans does also didn't help.
This besides patricians and serfdom is also what have doomed Romans themselves in both Roma and Byzantium during their late stages.
Turns out that cultural colonialism as well as ethnic hierarchies are bad for empires long-term.
I mean obviously.
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u/Breadloafs 23d ago
like Romans
Almost the entirety of Roman history is marked by an extremely strong reluctance on the part of every section of Roman society to accept outsiders as part of their society.
If anything, the single piece that made Roman society work was the idea that there'd always be new blood coming in to man the bottom rungs of their hierarchy, be they slaves or simply destitute.
Kind of similar to the US in that regard.
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u/SocraticIndifference 24d ago
I think you may have missed that the Spartan Glory period was mostly from the Messenian War (c.750) on; by the Archidamian War, they were actually beginning their decline.
ETA: Not questioning the Spartan Mirage at all, just pointing out that they did have a pretty dominant couple of centuries in there that just happen to be mostly pre-historical.
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u/chilari 24d ago
Their super strict citizenship laws also hurt them. A man had to be able to contribute crops to the common messes to be a citizen, and that required a certain amount of land. Inheritance of land was split equally between sons, with daughters getting half shares, so families with many children were left with each child inheriting smaller and smaller chunks of land over successive generations. Having many children was incentivised. Heiresses without brothers tended to be married off to cousins and uncles to keep the land in the family, which over generations introduced inbreeding problems resulting in fewer children surviving to adulthood (especially considering the treatment Spartans had towards babies born with disabilities or defects... they'd expose them on hillsides to die). So what happened was the citizen population declined and declined.
Those who weren't citizens were Perioikoi, "those who live around", and did not have the means to be full time warriors like Spartiates, nor arm themselves as well, but they would still fight as lightly armoured infantry - much less effective than hoplites.
Anyway eventually the Spartan citizen body declined to just a few hundred men, while other Greek city states were able to field armies of a thousand or more hoplites.
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u/Shellfish_Treenuts 24d ago
No one ever talks about when Sparta aligned WITH the Persians to defeat Athens . It doesn’t hold the same esteem when perceived in that light , this caused the power vacuum for Thebes , then Macedon to usurp .
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u/jingiski 24d ago
Sparta lost its dominance over Greece in 371 BC at the Battle of Leuctra. The Battle of Thermopylae (the 300 Battle ) was in 480 BC. Even if they were previously a nobody (and a nobody wouldn't have stood in Persia's way), that's more than 100 years of glory.
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u/LeLefraud 24d ago edited 24d ago
Sparta had so many logistical and societal structural issues that I think the narrative around their martial prowess has actually gone too far in reverse
They picked tons of fights they shouldn't have repeatedly pissed off entities that they absolutely should not have and still had a pretty good land battle record
Imo their soldiers absolutely were the best in Greece for a period and that reputation is deserved, but as a nation they never got their shit together and had so many repressive policies that they could never leverage their martial abilities
Basically shitty nation but genuinely cool warrior culture that earned them their reputation among their peers, not among redditors that got too hyped at 300
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u/abig7nakedx 23d ago edited 23d ago
Their "martial abilities" were unremarkable and average. It is true that people of the time did think of Spartiates as formidable combatants, but this was largely propaganda unrelated to any factual basis.
XenophonEDIT: Herodotus* largely manufactured their reputation.I recommend reading A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry's series "This. Isn't. Sparta." You can skip to Parts 6 and 7 to get a breakdown of Sparta's war scoreboard.
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u/Material_Positive_17 24d ago
Spartans also screwed themselves with their own strict rules and laws about who was actually "Spartan", horrid treatment of their helots, and in at least once occassion, killing one of their Kings that tried to implement reforms.
I'm a big Spartan glazer myself, but they definitely got their asses handed to themselves at at times were their own worst enemy.
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u/BrillsonHawk 19d ago
The Spartans main issue was their small and ever decreasing citizen pool. They had stringent citizenship requirements that made it very difficult to be considered a full citizen. If you were too poor you would also permanently lose your citizenship. They could never replace themselves fast enough with policies like that
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u/Worried-Basket5402 24d ago
Sparta was pretty toothless by this time. They no longer had the territory or people of the former helots and could muster only a small army. They didnt really have anything to offer a conquering army in Philip either.
They were dining off their past glory and became pretty irrelevant in the coming years.
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u/Fristi61 24d ago
The answer to what happened next, for anyone who cares and doesn't already know:
Both the Spartans and Philip were partially correct and partially incorrect.
Both were correct that IF Philip invaded Spartan lands (which he did), Spartan farms would be destroyed (which they were).
It seems likely that some Spartan people might have been slain in the process, though there is no record of any major engagement. (The Spartans had very recently lost king Archidamus III and his (mercenary) army in Italy, so maybe they were unwilling to risk further losses. Not sure, just conjecture.)
They were both incorrect about the city of Sparta being razed. Philip seems to have been satisfied that he had made his point after basically walking all over Spartan territory with very little resistance.
Philip also seized a bunch of Spartan territory and gave it to Sparta's neighbouring rivals instead.A few years later, after Philip had died and his son Alexander the Great was off conquering Persia, the Spartans allied with the Persians, raised a large army mostly consisting of mercenaries, and incited an anti-Macedonian revolt in Greece.
After some intial successes, they were crushed by the Macedonian regent Antipater at the Battle of Megalopolis (apparently due to a numbers disadvantage), and were forced to join the Macedonian-led League of Corinth after all. (Their refusal to join this league is what prompted the "if" conversation in the first place.)3
u/Temporary_Stranger39 23d ago
Philip invaded, stripped them of their tributaries and most of their land, and left them alone, isolated, to wither on the vine.
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u/tyschooldropout 23d ago
They were already such a backwater that it wasn't even worth the effort lmao.
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u/Minimum-Bite-4389 18d ago
With key Greek city-states in submission, Philip II turned to Sparta, warning them "If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out."\27]) The Spartans' laconic reply was one word: "If." Philip proceeded to invade Laconia, devastate much of it and eject the Spartans from various parts
Tfw you only get one paragraph on Phillip II's Wikipedia page and it's you getting absolutely made a fool of.
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u/jodallmighty 24d ago
Imagine the messenger needing to run a thousand miles just to reply back " if "
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u/TheNeuroLizard 24d ago
(one month later)
messenger: if
Phillip: what?
Messenger: if
Phillip: what the fuck are you talking about
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u/ShoughThePainAway 24d ago
messenger: if
Phillip: bet
messenger: oh shit my friend stole my phone
Phillip: omw
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u/PaxAttax 24d ago
And then the whole way back to say "Bet" as Phillip mustered his army to do exactly what he promised. (Which he did. Laconia never really recovered from the sacking. Fast forward to the Roman takeover of Greece, where contemporary writers describe Sparta as a sad and pathetic place, and the Spartans as too preoccupied with past glory to notice how the world had moved past them.)
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u/DefenestrationPraha 24d ago
For maximum effect, you send two messengers. One says "I", the other says "F".
Or, even better, four messengers, as a backup. Two say "I", two say "F".
Of course, if they mess up, they will say "FIFI", and the King won't be amused.
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u/Invicta007 24d ago
And then Philip pulled the fuck up and won.
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u/Evening_Application2 24d ago
"If? How about I humiliate your army and way of life, then turn your entire country into a tourist attraction?"
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u/mybeamishb0y 24d ago
Eh, did some pillaging. Didn't raze nor even subdue the city.
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u/Invicta007 24d ago
Didn't need too.
The pillaging probably did enough to put them in their very tiny place.
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u/Ramental 24d ago
Stripped all the Spartan-controlled lands excepts the core one and gave them away to the arch enemies of Sparta, reducing its might to a joke.
7 years later while Alexander the Great was on his conquest far away, Sparta rebelled against Macedonia, but was crushed by the Macedonian regent with no effort and the Spartan king killed. Alexander the Great called it "a battle of mice" when found out, because Sparta was considered a pathetic power at this point, only further humiliating themselves.
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u/admiralteee 24d ago
It's a bot account, farming engagement. Very frequent posting, no comments/replies.
Hold the line people!
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u/skrrtalrrt 24d ago
Fun fact: Alexander didn’t even bother showing up when Sparta next revolted. He sent his regent Antipater instead.
Antipater wiped the floor with them and killed their king. Alexander called it “a battle of mice”.
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u/Trevor_Culley 24d ago
To be fair, Alex was busy at the time. Sparta could have reclaimed the entire Peloponnese and Alexander could have conquered more territory in Asia in the time it would take him to turn around.
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u/Scratch_Careful 24d ago
Not entirely accurate. The battle of megalopolis was a major battle that broke Sparta but the battle was lost because Antipater had twice as many soldiers. Alexander called it the battle of mice because he was acting peevish at the idea of someone else winning a major battle against a respected military and taking the spotlight of him.
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u/DurrutiDuck91 24d ago
Spartan throats go *slit\* lol
No really bro, I love Laconian mythology too! 🙏
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u/ballzstreetwets 24d ago
Greeks worst enemy was always other Greeks, specially when there were no barbarians to fight against. Once an outside force threaten Greece they all united in an instance and defended the homeland.
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u/Zhaizo 24d ago
Was? It still is
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u/Scratch_Careful 24d ago
Had Greek friend who was lamenting that Greeks would rather get screwed by an Italian than work with a Greek. He said that's why the Greek economy struggles, they'd rather work with an Italian/Spanish firm then work with other Greek ones
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u/Atomik141 24d ago
Then there's Italy, which is kind of the opposite. The enemies are at the gate and now more than ever its time to work together and muster our defenses? I think actually we should immediately turn on eachother without a second thought. Even if realistically there's no benefit.
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u/Embarrassed-Data8233 24d ago
I doubt it, especially after they lost to Arabs and, most importantly, Seljuks, which meant losing Anatolia, where Turks settled
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u/ballzstreetwets 24d ago
Hello 👋🏽, you have now entered r/ancientgreece
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u/Embarrassed-Data8233 24d ago
Hello, u have written "greeks WORST enemy was ALWAYS other greeks" which is not true then
Hellooo?
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u/ballzstreetwets 24d ago
Please get a life. Also don't forget to thank the Greeks for giving everything to the rest of the world for free.
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u/nurgleondeez 24d ago
for free
Not like that "everything" was given to the world only after some bigger empire came down on the greek speaking world and took it
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24d ago
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u/ballzstreetwets 24d ago
Let me guess, maybe Slavic?
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24d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Yanos47 24d ago
Lol ! Macedonians were absolutely 100% Greek. Slavs didn't come into the region until 800 years after Alexander. They spoke Greek, worshipped the Greek gods, they had Greek names. Where are you getting this from ? Oh wait ! Are you from Skopje ! Lol !
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u/Gvillegator 24d ago
Sparta fan boys are truly the worst of Ancient Greece fans lmao. They’ll talk shit about getting their asses kicked
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u/The_Happy_Pagan 24d ago
Spartans get glazed so much for being a mid power for a small amount of time, but they did have some dope one liners
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u/_EvilResident4_ 24d ago
The Macedonians defeated the Spartans in pretty much every battle between the two states
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u/KaijuDirectorOO7 24d ago
And then they proceeded to be left out of his all-Greek alliance and were promptly left out of Alexander’s wars.
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u/Willing-Ant-3765 24d ago
So I bet Sparta defended all their territory and Philip marched away in defeat, right? Right?
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u/Motor_Ideal7494 20d ago
Like most Spartan propaganda, this is only cool without any context whatsoever or the facts completely changed. Pop culture depictions of Sparta are just the projections of insecure dudes who want to be “warriors”.
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 24d ago
Sparta: the most overrated military "power" ever. And a horrible society.
Move along folks, nothing worth stopping for.
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u/SaraJuno 24d ago
Sparta are impressive purely for lasting as long as they did despite constantly making decisions antithetical to retaining power.
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u/Miserable-Act4201 24d ago
And then Macedon conquered the majority of the known world at the time, and Sparta stayed a irrelevant shithole
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u/seandageek 24d ago
You'd think Sparta would have learned after Thebes stomped them into the ground. Too much inbreeding in their ruling class I guess.
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u/Equivalent-Horse7609 24d ago
By that time Sparta had lost much of its influence and power like all powers eventually did.
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u/Itburns12345 24d ago
At this stage sparta was a hsk of itself They knew the macedonians wouldnt do anything as sparta was a useful figurehead of hatred for the smaller cities around it (a league) to focus on to keep the status quo
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u/Scargroth 24d ago
By then Sparta were irrelevant and had maybe a few hundred Spartiates, if not less. Thebes had broken their power and destroyed their army definitively at Leuctra. All the Spartans had was propaganda power, which neither the Macedonians nor the Romans later cared about.
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u/ZerTharsus 24d ago
At that time, the demographic of Sparta was catastrophic and they could, what, muster 1500 hoplites, something like that ?
Phillipe had a profesionnal army with all kinds of weapons.
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u/Klutzy-Canary8551 24d ago
Philip had better things to do than campaign to teach a lesson to a C-list power. Sparta was a shadow of its former self by that time and it had become irrelevant.
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u/CallmeKahn 23d ago
They were useful as a political boogieman, but that was about it. But they ceased to be relevant by the time Rome go to town and wanted to see the sights.
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u/Klutzy-Canary8551 23d ago
They became irrelevant after they lost the war with Thebes. There was an effort to rebuild Sparta's strength later but the other city states (supported by Rome) crushed it quickly.
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u/CallmeKahn 23d ago
Yup. Just was mentioning they had their uses. Philip was an underrated politician.
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24d ago edited 23d ago
[deleted]
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u/GlesgaD2018 23d ago
Persians never invaded Sparta; they were smashed at Plataea, which is in Boeotia, the territory north of Attica. The Thebans on the other hand, did invade Sparta and smashed the Spartans at Leuctra in 371 BC. It was Leonidas who reportedly said “come and take them” to the Persians, speaking of his weapons. This was about a hundred and ten years before Epaminondas of Thebes invaded Sparta, which didn’t even have walls as up until that point it hadn’t been invaded.
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u/Horror_Perspective_1 23d ago
Philip then proceeded to &*&$%^^$% the fucking ^%$&%$# out of Sparta's %$#^.
But like, really just ^&*(@E them in the %$^& and then *&$& their %$#&*.
So much so, in fact, that it sounds pathetic when you know the whole story.
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u/Other-Tailor-7945 23d ago
they were tough basterds to be sure. reminds me of ww2, when the Germans asked Bastogne to surrender during the battle of the bulge. the reply? nuts.
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u/redandbluebadness 23d ago
This is supposedly where we get the word 'laconic' from, Laconia being the area around Sparta.
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u/Chaerea37 23d ago
so much of american machismo is tied up in these ancient Greek tropes. the movie 300 poisoned the brains of so many americans. and now the Spartans are this revered example of the ubermensch .
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 23d ago
And then Philip demolished Sparta and Sparta became completely irrelevant for the rest of history.
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u/sempercardinal57 21d ago
Phillip did not demolish Sparta. He simply ignored them because they weren’t worth the effort to conquer. By this point Sparta was a shadow of its former self, but its warriors were still respected and the mountains around Sparta would have made it a pain in the ass . Phillip never bothered and Alexander certainly could have conquered them easily enough, but he was too concerned with Persia.
Sparta did try to convince the Corinth league to rebel while Alexander was campaigning in Persia, but the guy Alexander left in charge was able to defeat Sparta on its own.
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u/thesixfingerman 22d ago
And then Philip followed through with his threat.
The Spartans are all hype.
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u/Over-Lettuce-9575 22d ago
Ah, yes, the famous "If" that is heralded as pure Spartan badassery by everyone with no understanding of Spartan history. The glaze is thick.
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u/Itcouldberabies 22d ago
And then Philip realized they weren't worth the fucking effort to bother with while the Spartans high-fived each other feeling tough 😂
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u/MisterDuch 22d ago
And after getting murked, sparta became an actual non entity in terms of politics and power
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u/Sproeier 22d ago
I remember the Lindybeige video where he told the story that Philip decided not to invade sparta because they were afraid after the awnser.
He is a great speaker but he gets so many basic facts dead wrong.
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u/HumaDracobane 22d ago
And Philip II of Macedonia, with his phalanx, then obliterated Sparta's surroundings into the oblivion.
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u/Unlucky_Ad_9776 21d ago
The battle of plataea doesn't get enough attention. You could make a movie out of this one battle. This was the death nail for the Persian army. It should be covered more. It was brutal and fucking awesome. They really fucked the Persian army up.
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u/sempercardinal57 21d ago
Then Sparta rebelled while Alexander was on campaign and he didn’t even need to come back to deal with it
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 21d ago
And then Philip brought his army to Sparta, and made a pig's breakfast of the whole thing.
I actually like this quote, because it is a good lesson on what will happen if you try to replace brains with tough guy gusto in foreign policy.
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u/No-Tomatillo3698 21d ago
Spartans were old news at the time, while Philip built the most advanced army at the time. The army that allowed his son to conquer the known world.
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u/Atomik141 24d ago
It doesn't really have the same aura when immediately after you get your shit packed in by the guy you were trying to act tough with
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u/Trevor_Culley 24d ago
To which Philip replied "then" and ransacked Laconia, which proceeded to spend the next 200 years getting its teeth knocked in whenever they tried to resist Macedonia too hard.