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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.
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]
Plato called the ephors tyrants, who ran Sparta as despots while the kings were little more than generals. [16] Up to two ephors would accompany a king on extended military campaigns as a sign of control, and they held the authority to declare war during some periods in Spartan history. [17]
[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 ...
Spartan mercenary general hired by the Carthaginians to aid in their war against the Romans during the First Punic War. Credited for developing military tactics used by Carthage, he led Carthaginian soldiers into the battle of Tunis where the Roman expeditionary force was routed and the Roman consul Marcus Atilius Regulus was captured.
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 ...
The war continued the rivalry between the Achaeans and the Dorians that had been initiated by the purported Return of the Heracleidae. 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.
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.