How powerful could Sparta be?

I meant the system, of course there's always luck, good leaders, and the like. Yet qualitatively in a heads on fight of exhaustion the Roman Legions post-Sammite wars always won. While the Spartans could maneuver and outlast like the Romans as both had professional militaries the Romans could easily muster more legions, there were only so many Spartans and their subjects without a professional military couldn't compete.
Neither side had a professional army. If you're talking about tactics, you're flat out wrong. The Romans never fought a Classical style hoplite phalanx outside sort of their early wars in Italy that aren't well recorded; the phalanxes they fought were completely different animals. The legions of the mid Republican era lost dozens of conventional battles. On the strategic level, you have more of an argument, but in terms of fighting the Romans, they would have great difficulty projecting power into a Greece controlled by Sparta; the Romans never really deployed more than 30,000 men in their expeditionary armies in Greece, whereas the Spartans could muster as many as 60,000 men in their field army. Moreover, a classical Greece PoD could butterfly the whole rise of Rome; by 338, they were still only about the size of like Attika, and their most important victory was that against the Veii 12 miles away.
 
Lineage isn't the problem, the fragmentation of inheritance and increasing concentration of the resulting fragmentation into the hands of a few extremely wealthy buyers is. Spartiate men having concubines would make the problem worse since more children means less land for each, making it less likely any of them will be able to meet their monthly contributions to maintain citizen status. The most obvious reform everyone here is missing is primogeniture, which would make sure the Spartiate population remains stable and prevent an entire crop of children from falling below citizen status.

Based on the resources of it's own territories and its allies in the Peloponnesian League, Sparta had the strength to dominate Greece south of Thessaly, with the possible exception of Athens. Sparta could fight wars quite effectively anywhere 30 men can travel; 30 Spartiates leading forces of allies and mercenaries are a formidable challenge to anyone in open battle. The main limiting factors are their lack of naval expertise, and the overwhelming power of the Persians. The former might disappear from the ledger in the fourth century, as larger warships designed for frontal ramming come into play, and the latter can be mitigated by the civil strife often seen in the empire.
I have read that the upper caste of Sparta, from which they drew their main army, was forbidden from engaging in industry and mercantile activity. Members of the upper caste could fall away into the lower caste for native Spartans, but be precluded from civic activity. Perhaps, in association with your primogeniture idea, they also allow the upper caste to engage in commercial activity so second sons can build their wealth in lieu of a divided inheritance.
 
Population isn't a Spartan specific problem but a Greek city state problem in general. The population growth limited to just a single city can't exceed all of its rivals. The solution isn't growth by conquest either, Athens and Sparta tried that and only managed to piss everyone else off.

The contemporary solution to the population problem was through colonies. Greece proper was overcrowded as it was, the seed of your colonist population would yield more dividends and grow faster overseas than if you had kept them at home. Bonus in that creating a powerbase overseas would offend the other city-states less than empire building at home and that it serves as a release valve for excess and malcontented populations (such as those in danger of losing citizenship resulting from our antiquity natalism program mentioned previously). Plus the expected resource and trade benefits of colonies, grain imports to support a larger population for example. Normally I would say slaves but the Spartans did not trade in slaves.

Except.... Roman civic nationalism was based on the Republic/Empire. Macedonian civic nationalism was based on the king. Both settled colonies of soldiers wherever they went which expanded their power and population base (and I guess Alexander kind of did it just for fun), but the resulting cities and their citizens still considered themselves part of something bigger.

Greek civic nationalism was based on the polis. After the founding their citizens considered themselves no longer part of Athens/Sparta/Corinth, at best there would be a nominal alliance with the motherland. Taras and Lyttos went to Sparta only whenever they needed something from the Spartans. Syracuse was a power in its own right equal to any in Greece and only rarely bothered involved itself in the homeland. Unless someone smart can find a way to work around this (by potentially uprooting the entire Greek concept of citizenship?) this idea is also a dead end.
 
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I have read that the upper caste of Sparta, from which they drew their main army, was forbidden from engaging in industry and mercantile activity. Members of the upper caste could fall away into the lower caste for native Spartans, but be precluded from civic activity. Perhaps, in association with your primogeniture idea, they also allow the upper caste to engage in commercial activity so second sons can build their wealth in lieu of a divided inheritance.

I will bet you all that will result in is something like the Ottoman Janissary corps, and Sparta ends up with a large number of artisans and merchants that are technically the army and bloomin' useless in a fight (because trade and making things to sell is a much better life by the standards of most than living life to be a honed warrior).

That's literally not how it worked. The laws of Lykourgos didn't actually exist anywhere except in the common consensus of the citizen body; if they decided to change their way of doing things, they would just call whatever they decided to do the Laws of Lykourgos.

So the laws of Lykourgos weren't written and likely the constitution of the city was the work of many people, not a single legendary genius. So? I was trying to not get side-tracked in debating the minutae. The Spartan constitution (which existed just as definitely as the British one does - constitutions don't need to be written to be strong, and constitutions that are written are not by definition strong) was still constructed in such a way that it was very hard for anyone to change it without their efforts being torn down by the other parts of the political machinery.

fasquardon
 
I will bet you all that will result in is something like the Ottoman Janissary corps, and Sparta ends up with a large number of artisans and merchants that are technically the army and bloomin' useless in a fight (because trade and making things to sell is a much better life by the standards of most than living life to be a honed warrior).

A possible alternative, if Sparta decides to shift to a more direct ruling/heavy handed influence route via some kind of alternate conquests/assimilation of it's regional Bloc, is to go the Samueri route and create a class of adminstrators/Gentry in the military colony model. Land and manpower management and dispensing justice could easily fit into the acceptable range of proffesions, though it's likely to still hit a Poland-like problam of too many petty nobles unless you can get conquering. Still, gives you time for a slow grind Spartian beuracratic Empire if you can manage it, maybe similar to the Aztecs
 

Hecatee

Donor
I started a timeline with this idea a while back, but let it die due to the lack of interest (https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/spartas-illyrian-debt.140604/ )

I'd say that Sparta's main problem was that it was not geared to rule distant places, so its ambitions would remain rather local (even if it did campaign in Asia Minor) : I don't see it ever becoming a power larger than an unified Greece, which would already be a powerhouse ! But it had neither the ethos, drive or abilities to actually push much further than that, and would only be drawn into other conflits by Illyrians of Thracians raids, or by call for help from Magna Graecia, but without staying there long term because of Rome on one side getting them out of Italy (and probably Sicily) or because of lack of developpement of the balkan lands.
 
I started a timeline with this idea a while back, but let it die due to the lack of interest (https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/spartas-illyrian-debt.140604/ )

I'd say that Sparta's main problem was that it was not geared to rule distant places, so its ambitions would remain rather local (even if it did campaign in Asia Minor) : I don't see it ever becoming a power larger than an unified Greece, which would already be a powerhouse ! But it had neither the ethos, drive or abilities to actually push much further than that, and would only be drawn into other conflits by Illyrians of Thracians raids, or by call for help from Magna Graecia, but without staying there long term because of Rome on one side getting them out of Italy (and probably Sicily) or because of lack of developpement of the balkan lands.

However, that same critique can be levied at the Roman Republic, but it still reformed.

Part of it I think comes from the Spartan idea that in some ways they weren't native or welcome (at least if I remember my reading correctly). So they had an element of insecurity about their own position.

Sparta probably COULD become an Empire, but it would depend on how they do it, and it almost certainly means addressing the Helot Problem.

A Spartan Empire and the Helots are either Fundamental, or Incompatible. It really can't be a mix here.

Either the Helots are part of the system, a permenant underclass that persists throughout the Lacedaemonic Empire, but are effectively brainwashed into obedience and service, or the Helot system needs to be replaced with a system of "Offset Levy" - or something of the like, where every polis and village is required to send either men to serve as Lacedaemonic soldiers, but they can pay goods in kind. This replaces the terror system with a more peaceful system of obligation, whilst still maintaining the Spartan Warrior Elite.

I think that could establish a Lacadaemonic Empire that was built around that system, you could effectively establish Lacedaemonic Barracks/Fortresses throughout, but otherwise have a tribute system be how soldiers are fed and paid. The Agoge system can stay. It was both prestigious, and a powerful cultural tool for transforming say a Massalian into a Lacedaemonic Warrior.

I think the system of Obligation is more stable in the long run, and would be a significant improvement for the Helots, even if the trust aspect needs to be dealt with. But a series of Lacedominc Warriors from the Helots (now no longer Helots, but (forgive the modern greek : ypochreoménos 'Obliged')) and the proof of good faith may well allow the momentum of the old systems authority to allow the new system to maintain its territory.

After that, you need a power dynamic. At the moment I'm just describing a tributary Empire. If it was more than that, we likely need a much larger conversation. A Defence For Tribute style Empire could work under Spartan ideals from what I can tell. Otherwise you need to somehow bring some sort of representation for either the Barrack-Fortresses, or other cities to the Spartan Constitution.
 
I will bet you all that will result in is something like the Ottoman Janissary corps, and Sparta ends up with a large number of artisans and merchants that are technically the army and bloomin' useless in a fight (because trade and making things to sell is a much better life by the standards of most than living life to be a honed warrior).
No more useless than other Greek cities'; the Spartans were the only state that had any public training for war. Moreover, this training in formation drill was deliberately delayed until the whole army -mercenaries, helots, pereoikoi, and allies- have assembled for campaign, so that the whole army would learn the same skills. If anything, they would still be better fighters than most Greek cities.
 

Hecatee

Donor
the Spartans were the only state that had any public training for war

Not really true : they had a more extreme training regimen than most but we know other cities had training for their youth : ephebia had a number of military training elements in it and Xenophon remembers us of formal cavalry training for the the elite of the Athenian youth
 
Not really true : they had a more extreme training regimen than most but we know other cities had training for their youth : ephebia had a number of military training elements in it and Xenophon remembers us of formal cavalry training for the the elite of the Athenian youth
The ephebia program is generally considered to have assumed this form in the run up to the Lamian war in the Hellenistic period; in Xenophon's day, he was as explicit as can be stating "The city does not publicly train for war."
 
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