Experts Believe That the Battle

¶ … experts believe that the Battle of Leuktra puts on display the fact that the Spartan state was ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of the 4th century, and therefore Sparta's defeat was inevitable. The many battles and wars between the Spartans and the Athenians for control of Greece raged in the central Mediterranean area, along the Asia Minor coastline and of course in mainland Greece. These clashes took place over a long period of time and were a unique display of the differences between the two clashing cultures. More importantly, Sparta, like a few of today's modern societies that feature despots, dictators and governments that control with an iron fist, attempted to militarize its people into submission. The militarization worked, for a time, but then collapsed not only with the defeat of Leuktra, but also under its own bureaucratic stultifying form of coercive government.

Their defeat surely was not due to the demise of their military might or their military will, the aura of Sparta's arrogance was still very much alive, but the defeat could have been due to the fact that a majority of the individuals comprising the Spartan army were not true Spartiates. Instead, these individuals were slaves, captured soldiers and men from various societies that had been previously conquered by Sparta. The will to use that might may have been suspect for quite a few years leading up to that defeat, but in the end it was neither the lack of will nor the lack of military power that spelled defeat for the Spartans, but the fact that there were so few true Spartiates in the Spartan army.

The Spartan army was composed primarily of Spartiates who have "both to have been through the agoge, the education system, and to make one's contribution to the common messes, the syssitia," (Cawkwell, 1983, p. 393). If an individual could not meet these two standards, they were labeled as 'inferiors' and certain military positions were not available to them. Since the number of individuals who were able to meet those two standards had been gradually declining for a number years, it should come as no surprise that the number of Spartiates in the army in 371 BC was drastically different than the number just 50 years before that time. What is important about this fact is that there is a huge difference between those individuals who qualified as Spartiates, those that were Spartans but not necessarily Spartiates, and those slaves and conquered individuals who were assimilated into the Spartan army.

A true Spartiate would have been indoctrinated in the Spartan way of life, a life filled with uncompromising violence, stringent adherence to the rules of society, and a punishment of death for violating many of those rules. There lives were filled with an ingrained sense of honor and duty; men with the honor of fighting and death, women with the honor of providing infants who would grow up to be those men fighting with honor. It was a proud arrogance that allowed them to quell many other societies and rule much of the Mediterranean with fanaticism. Most Spartiates truly believed that not only were they bred to fight (and win) but that they would do so in an honorable fashion. They even fought in a certain way, unless of course, that way led to defeat.

In 425 BC the proud Spartans had been disastrously introduced to a tried and true weapon that they had spurned for hundreds of years. The bow and arrow decimated the Spartans. "The proud, arrogant Spartan hoplites despised archery. Their way - in their eyes the only honorable way - was to fight as heavy infantrymen in close quarters, any other form of combat was viewed as cowardly" (Hind, 2006, p. 12)

What is remarkable about the acceptance by the Spartan military of the necessity for archers is an often missed point of fact that there are very few mentions of any archers in the battle of Leuktra.

That example of the Sparta arrogance shows how such arrogance was instilled in each Spartan male from the time they were born. To even live as a Spartan meant that they had been found worthy enough to participate in the Spartan society. Those infants that were not deemed worthy were left to die. This inbred sense of accomplishment was prevalent throughout Spartan society, and could been seen as a societal advantage and as well as a detriment to that same society. In any case, Spartans were raised as fierce and honorable fighters who would willingly die for their country. Not only would they willingly die for their country, but they were raised to believe that the only honorable event in their life was that death. Such fanaticism did not extend to those conquered individuals who were allowed to become part of the Spartan army.

That many of the citizens of the cities conquered by Spartan armies remained loyal to Sparta is a clear sign of how brilliant the light was emanated from that Spartan arrogance.

Many of those conquered individuals were enticed by a society that was seen as one, if not the most powerful society at that time.

While they may have hated being the victim of such a totalitarian state, at the same time they were given the opportunity to become part of that state, which in all likelihood, was a major reason why the Spartans tasted defeat and ultimately the disintegration of their society.

There is however a vast difference between a conquered citizen and a Spartiate whose entire life was based on the honor of being a Spartan, and what that honor entailed. According to Cawkwell, the Persian war was won and a Spartan empire established with as few as 8,000 Spartiates. Also according to Cawkwell, "by 371 B.C. there were no more than 1000, a figure derived from Xenophon's account of the battle" (Hell. 6. 4. 15, 17 and cf. 6. 1. 1). That figure is a drastic decline from the 8,000 mark and could have easily spelled disaster for the Spartans, although there were certainly extenuating circumstances that not only led to the decline in number, but also to the general defeat of not just the Spartan army but the Spartan society as well.

Cawkwell states, "The Spartiates, who devoted their whole time to training for way, may have been as good as ever, but, it is thought, they were so few in number that the Spartan army as a whole must have been weaker and the disaster was for that reason inevitable" (Cawkwell p. 397).

An additional factor in how the Spartan army got to this point was that as they conquered various entities, many of the entities were either assimilated into Spartan culture and the Spartan army.

Those citizens that were not assimilated into the army came under the strict guidance of the Spartan government. If these individuals were assimilated into the army they would have had to undergone intense training in order to master the complicated movements expected of the entire regime. Therefore, the individuals would have had to be trained in those maneuvers. The key here is that it was not just the assimilation of the conquered foes into the army, but the fact that Spartans had non-Spartiates in the army as well, and those non-Spartiates would have had to undergo the exact same training, training that could be used against the Spartans at some future date, after all, the Spartans were the conquerors and even though the were revered and admired to some degree, there was also much resentment on the part of those playing the role of victim. Cawkwell states, "the non-Spartiates must have had a great deal more military training than was usual elsewhere in the fifth century...even if the Spartiates were vastly superior in physical fitness and in weapon training, for drill the whole army would have had to practice" (Cawkwell, p. 398)

Not only would training have to be conducted with the inferiors and the Spartiates but the allies formed for any particular battle or war would have to be trained as well, and there were plenty of alliances formed by the Spartans in order to achieve their objective(s). Sparta's eventual victory hinged on its pragmatic readiness to cooperate with anyone, from besieged Syracuse to the traitor Alcibiades, who would help it against Athens" (Walker, 2001, p. 1).

The victory was not at Leuktra, however, but almost fifty years earlier in the Peloponnesian War between Athenian forces and the army of Sparta. The training, the army and the Spartan society had all changed immensely since the Pelopennesian Wars when Sparta had decisively defeated the Athenians, especially as it is written about by Thucydides, an Athenian general officer who led "a failed campaign at Amphipolis, and he accepted banishment rather than return to Athens where failed generals were always excoriated and sometimes executed" (Jackson, 2007, p. 174).

Because Thucydides was an active observer in the long lasting war for supremacy of Greece between Athens and Sparta there is very little skepticism by knowledgeable experts on the words he wrote. Thucydides was an Athenian, but had very little reason for offering a distorted view of the war that was eventually won by Sparta.

Jackson states, "Thucydides was an active participant in Athens for a time, he had a network of contacts, while banished to Thrace he observed the war there first hand, and as an Athenian exile he traveled along the Peloponnese" (Jackson, p.175). Thucydides wrote of a Sparta that used an eight deep fighting stance against the Athenians who could not, or did not, adapt to a style that would lead to victory when battling against that type of tactic.

Other army tactics began to be used after the Peloponnesian War, many of which were introduced by the Spartans in order to maintain their military might. One such tactic would play a key role in the battle of Leuctra.

Of particular relevance to Leuctra, however, was the battle of Nemea in 394 B.C. In this action the right wings of both armies began by moving to the right with the aim of encircling their opponents. Encirclement was not new, but the deliberate attempt to prepare for it in the approach march certainly was" (Cawkwell, p. 399)

The Spartan army adapted tactics and techniques designed to overpower, overwhelm or overcome their targeted enemies but their enemies learned from these engagements as well. When Sparta adapted an eight man deep wedge formation that forced their opponents into attacking into the strongest part of the army, other armies adapted the same tactic and took it a step further, sometimes lining up 12 and 16 deep. Sparta in the battle of Leuctra "abandoned their ancient favored depth of eight and formed up twelve deep, and sought to move to their right" (Cawkwell, p. 399) most likely in anticipation of the same movement they experienced approximately twenty years earlier at Nemea. The Thebans, however, did not react accordingly. Instead they piled their army fifty-deep and moved to the left, leaving no room for Spartan encirclement. "It is clear that the Spartans were confronted by a wholly new tactical situation. They fought with great bravery but were utterly out-generalled" (Cawkwell, p. 399).

Where Cawkwell sees the Spartans as being entirely 'outgeneralled" other observers might see a society that had run its course, that had self-destructed by violating its own standards.