Is Sparta Overrated? A List of Spartan Defeats

 via History & Headlines

Sparta has however won a number of victories, although you might notice this list is actually shorter than the list of Spartan defeats.  These include the following battles:

In c. 682 BC, Sparta won a decisive victory over Messenia and Arcadia in the Battle of the Great Foss.

In 457 BC, 11,500 Spartans defeated 14,000 Athenians in the Battle of Tanagra.  Casualties and losses for the battle are unknown.

In 494 BC, Sparta defeated Argos in the Battle of Sepeia.  Argos’s casualties and losses numbered 6,000.

In 417 BC, in the Second Battle of Hysiae, the Spartans captured the Argive town of Hysiae, taking all the male citizens as hostages before subsequently killing the hostages.

In 411 BC, 9,000 Spartans defeated 8,000 Athenians in the Battle of Syme.  Spartan casualties and losses numbered 900, whereas Athens’s casualties and losses numbered 2,900!

In September 411 BC, 8,000 Spartans defeated 11,000 Athenians in the Battle of Eretria.  Sparta’s casualties and losses numbered 1,100; Athens’s casualties and losses numbered 4,000+.

In 406 BC, Sparta with 90 ships managed to defeat Athens with 80 ships at the Battle of Notium.  Sparta suffered no casualties, but Athens lost 15-22 ships.

Also in 406 BC, Sparta’s 170 ships defeated Athens’s 70 ships in the Battle of Mytilene.

In 405 BC, 180 ships fighting for Sparta, Persia, Corinth, and the Peloponnesian League won the decisive Battle of Aegospotami over 170 ships fighting for Athens and the Delian League.  While Spartan losses were minimal, Athens lost 150 ships and also 3,000 sailors who were executed.  Athens was then besieged.  Athens’s surrender ended the Peloponnesian War.

In 403 BC, Sparta defeated Athenian exiles in the Battle of Piraeus.  Although Spartan losses are unknown, over 180 Athenian exiles were killed.

In 394 BC, 18,000 Spartan hoplites defeated 24,000 hoplites from Thebes, Argos, Athens, and Corinth in the Battle of Nemea at a cost of 1,100 dead or wounded Spartans and 2,800 dead or wounded Thebans, Argives, Athenians, and Corinthians.

In 394 BC, Sparta and Orchomenus with a strength of 15,000 defeated Thebes, Argos, and allies with a strength of 20,000 in the Battle of Coronea.  The victors suffered casualties and losses numbering 350 versus the losers suffering casualties and losses numbering 600.

In Spring 272 BC, 2,000+ Spartans and Macedonians defeated 27,000 men and 24 elephants from Epirus in the Siege of Sparta.  Casualties and losses were heavy on both sides.

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Interesting.

Are the Spartans as we know them today a product of a fucking comic book?

Oh what's that?  You didn't know that the movie "300" was based on a comic?

Yeah.

From my recollection that's when Sparta and Spartans gained or regained their modern day fame (when the movie came out).

I've been checking out ancient battles and when it comes to warriors of note, the Spartans are just one of many groups. I think the society...every man a warrior is part of the appeal, but the same could be said of other nations of that era too.

One thing is certain.

While famed, the societal model was flawed. As with everything from the past you can take bits and pieces to form a "perfect union" but as a whole it just wouldn't work.

Quite honestly the society as seen in Starship Troopers (the book) is probably the closest thing that we could put together considering modern society...but even that would take bloodshed to get to.