[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

It is a very interesting series. However, I think he understates classic Spartan military prowess.

If you look at Deveraux's list of military victories and defeats, you will see a lot of the defeats came after the Peloponnesian war. I believe even Greek sources talked about how Spartan society became softer after winning the Peloponnesian war.

Also, the Spartans were famous for their army not their navy.

If you take the list and remove naval battles and battles fought after the Peloponnesian War, you end up with something like 12 victories and 4 defeats with is a 75% win rate which is likely pretty impressive all things considered.

[lq313c]

He also points out that the Spartans fought primarily against much weaker opponents, making their military prowess not so impressive. If I constantly pick fights against children, my win rate would be quite high as well.

[klipt]

But isn't "all their opponents were weaker" just another way of saying "Sparta was unusually strong"?

[jcranmer]

What was pointed out was that the way the Greeks organized their battle formations, the strongest of their formation would generally face the weakest of their opponents' formation. Since Spartans were usually seen as the strongest, this meant they faced generally those seen as the weakest. And he also points out that when this general model is explicitly broken, the Spartans really suffer in their documented military effectiveness.

[klipt]

That's pretty interesting. So it was basically confirmation bias: people thought they were strong, so they were put in positions where they performed well, which perpetuated the idea that they were strong?

[nsajko]

No.