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The groin and throat were among the favorite targets. According to Plutarch when a Spartan was asked why his sword was so short he replied, "So that we may get close to the enemy." [45] In another, a Spartan complained to his mother that the sword was short, to which she simply told him to step closer to the enemy.
A passage in Suetonius reveals that the Spartans were clients of the powerful patrician clan of the Claudii. Octavians's wife Livia was a member of the Claudii which might explain why Sparta was one of the few Greek cities that backed Octavian first in the war against Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC then in the war against Mark Antony in 30 BC. [143]
In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades. Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour. [89] The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land. Helot women were often used as wet nurses. Helots also travelled with ...
While the helots and the perioeci were the workforce in agriculture and industry, the Spartans could devote themselves to training, maintaining, and operating the military. The reason for the continual strong military existence was to preserve order in Sparta and hold the large enslaved populations in check.
The defeat of the pro-Athens forces and the triumph of Sparta in the preceding Corinthian War (394–386 BC) was especially disastrous to Thebes, as the general settlement of 387 BC, called the Peace of Antalcidas or "King's Peace", stipulated the complete autonomy of all Greek towns and so withdrew the other Boeotians from the political control of Thebes.
Spartiate women, as well, were expected to remain athletic, since the Spartans believed that strong and healthy parents would produce strong and healthy children. Spartiates were expected to adhere to an ideal of military valor, as exemplified by the poems of Tyrtaeus, who praised men who fell in battle and heaped scorn on those who fled. Such ...
The Spartans then dispatched their fleet from the Gulf of Corinth, under Teleutias, to assist. After picking up more ships at Samos, Teleutias took command at Cnidus and commenced operations against Rhodes. [48] A Greek trireme. Alarmed by this Spartan naval resurgence, the Athenians sent out a fleet of 40 triremes under Thrasybulus.
The two armies were evenly matched and neither could gain the upper hand. They fought until nightfall, and after a bloody battle only three men remained, two Argives and one Spartan. The Argives, Alcenor (Ἀλκήνωρ) and Chromius (Χρομίος), believing that they had killed all of the Spartans, left the battlefield racing home to Argos ...