# Sparta wasn't that effective in war; were there any hyper-militarized groups that DID have success (besides Rome)? ## Metadata - Author: [[rAskHistorians]] - Imported: 2021-12-29 - Real Title: Sparta wasn't that effective in war; were there any hyper-militarized groups that DID have success (besides Rome)? : AskHistorians - Link: https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any - [i] Outline - [[political stability was Spartas main achievement]] - [[hypermilitarized states do not always lead to aggrandizement of warriors]] - [[Qin China was very militarized]] - [[the Peloponnesian War is an artificial label]] - [[Persia is why Sparta won the Peloponnesian War]] - [[Athens depended on sea power]] - [[Spartan egalitarianism was a reaction to economic instability]] - [[stringent Spartan citizenship rules led to culture collapse]] - [[Qin China optimized infrastructure to support warfighting]] ## Highlights ### id263995758 political stability was Sparta's main achievement > When we look at Sparta, we're not looking at a society that minmaxed on militarism but didn't get the expected result. We're actually looking at a fairly ordinary Greek society that was the subject of much myth-making by outsiders because of a few notable achievements (mainly internal political stability). I cannot speak for all of history, but my baseline assumption is that something similar will apply to other societies that have traditionally been pigeonholed as "military cultures". Did such cultures ever really exist? - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=4%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A171%2C4%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A698#:~:text=When%20we%20look%20at%20Sparta%2C%2Csuch%20cultures%20ever%20really%20exist%3F) - Author: [[Roel Konijnendijk|u/Iphikrates]] ### id263995768 hypermilitarized states do not always lead to aggrandizement of warriors > The Warring States basically put the competitors on a war footing, or a "total war" style mobilization. But even then, there were cultural pursuits, huge monuments and palaces, religious rituals, etc. So I'd argue that China wasn't a "military culture" or "minmaxed military power", just state(s) that had been under prolonged and increasingly heavy military mobilization. Certainly neither the Qin nor the rest of China did what popular image painted Sparta or say Klingons, which is everything done for the military and nothing else. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A45%2C0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A580#:~:text=The%20Warring%20States%20basically%20put%2Cthe%20military%20and%20nothing%20else.) - [[ParallelPain|u/ParallelPain]] ### id263995767 Qin China was very militarized > Qin and to a lesser extent other states in the Warring States qualify as trying to "minmax military power". The end result looks nothing like Sparta, real or imagined, though. > > They aren't "military and nothing else" or even close to "military and agriculture and nothing else" even if the more misanthropic parts of the Book of Lord Shang might like them to be, and absolutely weren't a popular image warrior cult or whatever, and don't militarize culture in like a modern totalitarian sense. > > When increasingly large and destructive wars leads leaders and ministers to put the state on a total war footing and reorient a large part of society to support total war in very explicitly mechanical terms, I feel kinda counts as creating a militarized society. For example, the agricultural reforms, attempting to standardize land holdings, forcing extended families in to nuclear or stem families, then registering households just effects everyone, and when you're doing it to increase state penetration and military power... even when that doesn't subsume everything else, and I totally agree with you here, it's still something, you are militarizing the basic structures of society or at least reorienting them towards military goals, whatever you want to call it. > Lord Shang and various other reformers absolutely are attempting to minmax state power and stability, they are very clear in this. The legalist reformers were explicitly creating a society that maximized military power, The Book of Lord Shang has large parts that are just "how do we structure society to create as strong a military as possible", and are strikingly mechanical about it. They were absolutely led to it by the exigencies of total war, which they were also quite explicit about. And it makes sense, in total war states try to increase military power and ministers try to take the most effective means to do so. The legalists are just very upfront about it, and a "people hate fighting, therefore structure society so they are willing to fight" is very different from a "Spartan" warrior culture thing, in the end legalists feel much more minmaxy to me in a very unspartan way lol. > > If stuff like this and the system of rewards and punishments it led to isn't minmaxing a states war capabilities, I don't know what is. The sheer scale of Qin forced labor as punishments and just how much of the population excavated records show have some merit rank show just how far in reorienting society they would go towards this maximization (with a caveat quite a bit of the excavations were post unification, and it's a little unclear on if or how this changed) . > > It's further notable to the degree that Qin was unwilling or unable to leave this footing even after they won. There was further military conquests, and labor was redirected to massive monuments and projects, but even at a local level post conquest documents at Liye show them imposing large scale conscription, forced labor, and also extending rewards and ranks to the conquered population. In both Pines and Korolkov it seems like this just became part of Qin society to an and wasn't one off military mobilization. There were simultaneously quite a few changes, especially in the bureaucracy and systems of commerce as they struggled to integrate the empire, and the Han view of "evil Qin couldn't adjust and drove the peasants to rebellion" seems to just be wrong, but a lot of it remained. > > I guess in the end I'd still agree with you that this this definitional. The structure of society was remade for total war and the state that did the totalist war won, but there was plenty that wasn't militarized, and religion and whatever existed, they weren't klingons or Spartans, so it depends on what you want to call that. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F14%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C0%2F15%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A329#:~:text=It's%20further%20notable%20to%20the%2Cyou%20want%20to%20call%20that.) - Author: [[rememberthatyoudie|u/rememberthatyoudie]] ### id263995851 the Peloponnesian War is an artificial label > Sparta did win the Peloponnesian War. But there's a couple of reasons why that doesn't necessarily support their reputation as a military power. > First, the "Peloponnesian War" is an artificial grouping of a series of conflicts across a 27-year period. Many Greeks at the time actually regarded these as several separate wars. And it would be fair to say that Sparta actually *lost* the first of these, the Archidamian War of 431-421 BC. The Spartans achieved nothing militarily against the Athenian Empire until the final years of this conflict, and suffered a humiliating defeat on Sphakteria which strategically crippled them. The peace treaty that ended this war mostly reconfirmed the status quo, showing that Sparta had been unable to even reduce Athenian power, let alone destroy it. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F10%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A5%2C2%2F1%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F10%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A408#:~:text=Sparta%20did%20win%20the%20Peloponnesian%2Cpower%2C%20let%20alone%20destroy%20it.) - Author: [[Roel Konijnendijk|u/Iphikrates]] ### id263995852 Persia is why Sparta won the Peloponnesian War > if we do regard the Peloponnesian War as a single conflict, it does not reflect well on Sparta's military capabilities that it needed 27 years and a massive injection of foreign financial aid (from Persia) to achieve victory. It is clear that Sparta had no way to bring Athens to its knees except to challenge its rule of the sea, which it simply couldn't afford to do until the king of Persia got annoyed enough with the Athenians to decide to back their enemies. > > the way in which it achieved that final victory was in many ways the most "un-Spartan" thing it could have done. The Spartan army hardly came into it, and only small numbers of Spartan hoplites ever fought Athenians in hand-to-hand combat during this war (with mixed results). Instead, the war was won at sea, where Sparta had no prior reputation whatsoever. Its fleet was wiped out twice over before finally catching the Athenians by surprise. Again, the only way the Spartans could even maintain a fleet (let alone rebuild it several times) was because they were receiving huge sums of money from the Persians. > > In short, while the Spartans eventually succeeded in defeating Athens and dismantling the Athenian empire, it was not at all due to their traditional military strengths, which were proven to be of little to no value in this war. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F3%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F10%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C0%2F4%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F10%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A228#:~:text=Third%2C%20the%20way%20in%20which%2Cno%20value%20in%20this%20war.) - Author: [[Roel Konijnendijk|u/Iphikrates]] ### id263995876 Athens depended on sea power > We cannot quantify the sources of the Athenian food supply, but we do know that Athens had been importing grain from the Black Sea to supplement domestic production for more than a century. Wartime reliance on imports meant only a shift in an existing balance, not a wholesale transition to a new source of food. In any case, before the establishment of the fort at Dekeleia, Spartan ravaging caused only superficial damage and left most of the countryside unaffected, as *Hell. Oxy.* 17 makes clear. In other words, even with the Attic countryside operating normally (or something close to it), Athens would still need access to grain from across the sea. > > The importance of sea power for Athens also extends beyond the protection of their food supply. Control of the sea allowed them to rule over their subject allies and extract tribute. Without that source of income their naval and imperial power would have dissipated quickly. The entire structure was built on their unchallenged dominance at sea. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F12%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A38%2C0%2F1%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F12%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A345#:~:text=Athenian%20food%20supply%2C%20but%20we%2Ctheir%20unchallenged%20dominance%20at%20sea.) - Author: [[Roel Konijnendijk|u/Iphikrates]] ### id263995880 Spartan egalitarianism was a reaction to economic instability > The modern understanding of Lykourgos and his supposed reforms is far more complex. It is clear that there was no single grand introduction of Spartan laws and customs, but rather a system that changed over time to meet new circumstances, with each change being *attributed* to a mythical lawgiver. This involved a lot of deliberate doublethink, where things that had only recently been introduced were presented as the old way of the ancestors. Some of the elements you mention (common education and mess halls) cannot be identified in the sources before the late 6th century BC, and are now mostly explained as responses to growing economic inequality. They were attempts to create a superficially egalitarian society to prevent extreme competition for wealth leading down a path to civil war, as it did elsewhere in the Greek world. Other elements, such as land redistribution, have been shown to be post-Classical fictions. The idea that each Spartan held an equal lot (*kleros*) was created in the late third century BC to legitimise a last-ditch effort to reverse Sparta's fortunes by redistributing the land, which had fallen into the hands of just 100 families, to create a new army of 4500 landed citizens. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F18%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C4%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F18%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A233#:~:text=The%20modern%20understanding%20of%20Lykourgos%2Carmy%20of%204500%20landed%20citizens.) - Author: [[Roel Konijnendijk|u/Iphikrates]] ### id263995971 stringent Spartan citizenship rules led to culture collapse > This may of course just reflect the concerns of historians living in the present day, but yes, much of the reconsideration of Spartan society foregrounds their efforts to *appear* - though certainly not to *become* - a community of socio-economic as well as political equals. > > The main element of this was a very high property requirement for citizenship, which required all Spartiates to be members of the leisured elite, whose income was secured by a vast enslaved underclass. Only those who were free of the need to work could be ciitzens, and those who fell short of this were ruthlessly cast out of the citizen body. > > On the other hand, the Spartans made huge efforts to *seem* as if they didn't care much for personal wealth and lived austere lives in service of their community. The Spartans state mandated simple dress and diet for all citizens, forbade the adornment of houses and female bodies, and probably deliberately did not muster any cavalry so that all citizens appeared uniform in battle. The Spartan education system and mess groups were collective and mandatory, setting a sort of "lowest common denominator" for upbringing and lifestyle, and denying the rich a chance to set themselves apart. > > All this served to mask a society that was deeply riven by inequality, and ultimately brought to its knees by its rigid adherence to its own property requirements. As wealth accumulated in fewer and fewer hands, more and more Spartans lost their rights, until at the last there were only a handful of them left. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F21%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C0%2F3%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F21%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A311#:~:text=This%20may%20of%20course%20just%2Ca%20handful%20of%20them%20left.) - Author: [[Roel Konijnendijk|u/Iphikrates]] ### id263996200 Qin China optimized infrastructure to support warfighting > This is explicit in how they designed the system of meritocratic ranks. Rank would be available to anyone, including peasants, based off of success in battle, with the presentation of enemy heads or ears leading to promotion. In order to properly motivate people, ranks could be passed on to children, but with a reduction in rank, quite drastic for much of the high nobility, but the exact same rank could be passed if the owner died in battle. > The opposite was also true. Failure in battle would be monitored through pervasive social surveillance: family and fellow soldiers would be punished as well, and rewards given to people who informed on others. Such surveillance was extended throughout society to ensure that people dutifully followed their tasks, with the population divided into mutually responsible blocks of families that would be expected to spy on each other and inform of any misbehavior. Punishment was varied, but often meant forced labor, in anything from building projects to industry. > > This apparently led to a ferocious army, as commented on by people from other states, with Qin soldiers fighting over enemy heads in the aftermath of victorious battles. It apparently didn't, however, lead to the type of glorified militarism seen in say, movies about Sparta: Legalist reformers thought that people would naturally be disinclined to fight, and would therefore need to be coerced into it. Evidence from excavations suggests that lower ranks were quite widespread by unification, with a quarter of the population holding ranks giving them status as low nobility. They would be granted immunity or reduced duties from corvee or conscription, lower tax rates, and as they ascended laborers of their own. There is a recorded, but probably very rare case of a slave ascending to a general. At the same time, forced labor as punishment also pervasive from agriculture to industry. > > The reforms were far more reaching than just the ranks system, and extended into agriculture, industry, and how the population was mobilized. In order to maximize agricultural output and weaken aristocrats, widespread land reform was enacted, creating freeholding households and granting land allocations directly to the peasantry, which would be responsible for both conscription as well as taxation by the state, instead of a aristocracy between the central government and the peasantry. To maximize state control of peasant households, the peasantry was divided into nuclear households and prohibited to have adult males coinhabiting, though in practice a son (generally the eldest) was allowed to live with and support his parents as they got old. > > To further increase agricultural output, large scale irrigation projects were undertaken, rewards and rank given out in some cases for high agricultural productivity, and the state pushed widespread use of iron farming implements and cultivation of wasteland. This was taken to an extreme in Qin's colonization of Sichuan, where the local elites crushed, and lacking any local aristocracy to push back, a massive irrigation project, that shapes Sichuan's geography carried out. Settlers were encouraged to move through rewards, convicts turned into settlers and forcibly relocated, and proto industrialists incentivized to open mines and foundries and so on. > > Aristocrats still existed, but were brought more firmly under state control. They were granted labor by the state according to their rank for both agriculture and household purposes, but the state maintained their primacy to this, and would have the ability to arbitrarily pull labor if they had greater demands or punish those who mistreated convicts too badly. In one case, a county had a death rate of something like 20% in forced laborers, and pretty much every important official got hauled off to trial. > > Finally, the state exercised great control over industry and merchants. Though the Book of Lord Shang is very negative towards merchants and artisans, many of the other surviving legalist works are less negative, and simply seek to ensure that the output of them is structured towards the goals of a strong state. Qin seems to have worked that way in practice. There were both large, centralized state workshops with expert artisans and large scale use of forced labor, as well as a distributed network of private factories run by industrialists under state supervision. The later can be seen in the manufacture of crossbows, where a private network of factories in a cellular manufacturing process was broadly overseen by government officials. The parts were probably not truly interchangable, but showed a much higher degree of standardization than random, and were all stamped to indicate where they came from, so defects could be traced. Mining was similar, though may have not used forced labor as it was hard to control in remote areas that mines were often located in, rather run by private enterprises under government supervision. > > This all led to a highly militarized state designed to optimize for military power. Highly productive agriculture supported large, conscript armies, which were motivated through a brilliantly designed system of rewards and punishments, and supported by a network of state supervised resource extraction and large industry. This state, in the form of Qin, would succeed in ending the Warring States, but the extreme levels of militarization would fade after Qin's collapse and into the Han. Maximizing agricultural output, manufacturing a ton of crossbows and iron farming implements, then giving them to peasant conscripts who, through success on the battlefield can ascend to the nobility, all looks very different from, say, our image of elite Spartan warriors. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q3bowq/sparta_wasnt_that_effective_in_war_were_there_any?__readwiseLocation=0%2F14%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F27%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C15%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F27%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0#:~:text=This%20all%20led%20to%20a%2Cimage%20of%20elite%20Spartan%20warriors.) - Author: [[rememberthatyoudie|u/rememberthatyoudie]]