pankration wrote:As for the Spartans being overrated? Sometimes it only takes a particular event to immortalize you forever. The Spartans succeeded in that at Thermopylae.
A particular event? Yes, that's true. I do believe that the general misconception of the "300 Spartans" sees this action overrated for mine. They were not alone – at the beginning nor at the end.
For a long time the Spartans were the only "professional" army in Greece. Their discipline and attention to drill enabled them to – often – defeat an enemy before the gap between the phalanxes was closed. In fact, the news that the Spartans were to lead a Peloponnesian army into the filed often negated the need for them to do so. I've often thought that this contributed much to their "slowness to act" – something the Corinthians were known to bang on about like the "fishwives" of the Peloponnesian League they often appear to be.
That said, I believe their finest actions to be two battles some forty years apart. The first is ill attested and the second is often not accorded the importance it certainly had for Laconia. Both included significant levies of Homoioi, the second with some 80% of the remaining Homoioi.
Tanagra took place in 457. The Spartans had used the pretext of settling matters in Phocis as the reason for their involvement in central Greece. Nicomedes (regent for Pleistoanax), with 1,500 Homoioi and 10,000 allied infantry – and the agreement of the Ephorate – had eyes on Athens ascendancy in the same area. The issue was forced when the army could not return via the Isthmus (as Megara had returned to the Athenian alliance) and Athens (with 1,000 Argive hoplites) marched out to meet them with 14,000 hoplites. It would not do to have a Spartan levy destroyed at sea. The battle was vicious and occasioned "great losses on both sides" (Thuc. I. 107-108) with the Spartans emerging victorious and, abandoning hopes of tearing down Athens newly completed long walls, happy to be able to march home.
Mantinea was fought during the "Peace of Nikias" in 418. That self interested, mongrel and chameleon, Alkibiades, had put together an alliance – hinged on Athens – including Argos and Mantinea. Defeat for Sparta here would be tantamount to Leuktra and Mantinea (362) combined. Putting a new corps, the Sciritae, and Perioecic hoplites into the field, the Spartans first fell back - their line broken - before the king and his "knights" charged the enemy and put their centre to flight. The Spartan right then wheeled left and summarily "rescued" their left. There was great carnage and many a Homoioi fell.
A cursory glance at a map of the Peloponnese will quickly demonstrate the result of a Spartan defeat in this engagement. Possibly the legend was not "born" here, but, it most certainly was rescued.