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The Spartan army was the principle ground force of Sparta. It stood at the center of the ancient Greek ... being deployed on the honorary right side of the battle line.
During the Carneia, military activity was forbidden by Spartan law; the Spartans had arrived too late at the Battle of Marathon because of this requirement. [50] It was also the time of the Olympic Games, and therefore the Olympic truce, and thus it would have been doubly sacrilegious for the whole Spartan army to march to war.
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The siege of Sparta took place in 272 BC and was a battle fought between Epirus, led by King Pyrrhus, (r. 297–272 BC) and an alliance consisting of Sparta, under the command of King Areus I (r. 309–265 BC) and his heir Acrotatus, and Macedon.
As the battle began, each side's right wing began to outflank the other's left, due to the erratic movements of each hoplite trying to cover himself with the shield of the man beside him. Agis tried to strengthen the line by ordering the Sciritae and his left to break off contact with the rest of the army and match the length of the Argive line.
A Spartan army under Aristodemus, the guardian of the boy king Agesipolis, was sent north from Sparta to challenge the allies. The allied army, meanwhile, waited at Corinth, while the council debated over who should command it. Before a decision was reached, the Spartan army entered Corinthian territory, burning and plundering along the way.
Agesilaus first sent out skirmishers to test the combined Theban and Athenian lines. [7] These were easily dispatched by the Theban and Athenian forces, probably by their more numerous cavalry. Agesilaus then commanded the entire Spartan army to advance. He may have hoped that the sight of the massed Spartan forces resolutely moving forward ...
Early in the battle Antipater's lines broke, but in the end it was the sheer weight of numbers that brought victory to the Macedonians. It is written that 5,300 died on the Spartan side and 3,500 on the Macedonian side, [5] though it may have been as little as 1,000 for the Macedonians, Curtius agrees that there were 5,300 Spartans killed. [7]