Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The hippeis belonged to the first mora and were the Spartan army's elite, being deployed on the honorary right side of the battle line. They were selected every year by specially commissioned officials, the hippagretai, drafted from experienced men who already had sons as heirs. This was to ensure that their line would be able to continue.
[2] [16] In events preceding the ten-year conflict between the Spartans and the Messenians that resulted from the helot revolt, the Spartan leadership covertly killed two thousand helots who had participated in the war. It is thought that the Crypteia were the primary perpetrators of the massacre or were at least somehow involved in carrying it ...
The proportion of helots in relation to Spartan citizens varied throughout the history of the Spartan state; according to Herodotus, there were seven helots for each of the 5,000 Spartan soldiers at the time of the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. [3]
Both sides utilized an explosive incident to settle the rivalry by full-scale war. The war was prolonged into 20 years. The result was a Spartan victory. Messenia was depopulated by emigration of the Achaeans to other states. Those who did not emigrate were reduced socially to helots, or serfs. Their descendants were held in hereditary ...
The effects of the war were to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in the Greek political system. [ 81 ] In 382 BC, Phoebidas , while leading a Spartan army north against Olynthus made a detour to Thebes and seized the Kadmeia , the citadel of Thebes.
At the end of the first year of the war, Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration (431 BC). The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare, the soldiers were expected to go home to participate in the harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept ...
The effects of the war were to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in the Greek political system. [51] Sparta entered its long-term decline after a severe military defeat to Epaminondas of Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra.
War against Polycrates: c.525, Corinth and exiled Samians encouraged Sparta to launch an attack against Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. The expedition was a failure. [96] War against Hippias: c.511, Sparta sent a first naval army against Athens, at the time ruled by the tyrant Hippias, perhaps because of his pro-Persian policies, or a