"The Best Soldiers in the World."

This project's title, "The Best Soldiers in the World," comes from the exiled Spartan king Demaratus' description of Sparta's military to the Persian king Xerxes I. Apparently, the Spartans themselves would have told you that throughout all of their campaigns, they "had suffered no disaster" (Pausanias, Description of Greece: 1.13.5). In modern scholarship, however, a principle called 'The Spartan Mirage' has developed, which, in short, considers the possibility that "Sparta, for better or worse, is a 'brand,' not just a name" (Cartledge [2006]: 41). This project, therefore, aims to investigate a selection of Sparta's most renowned battles, in order to determine whether or not the Spartans lived up to their reputation.

All of the battles in question can be viewed in relation to one another on the Map Tour below. Following this, each battle will be explored individually, alongside relevant points of interest.

Of the ten battles that this project has investigated, the results are as follows: the Spartans won five times, lost four times, and broke even once. Of course, this project only had room for so many battles; there are plenty of victories, such as the Messenian War's Battle of the Great Foss, and defeats, such as the Peloponnesian War's Battles of Pylos and Sphacteria, which would have made fine additions to this collection. Nevertheless, hopefully, this project will prove useful in illustrating the fact that the declaration that the Spartans were 'the best soldiers in the world' was not as cut and dried as Herodotus and the Spartans made it out to be.