READ - RESPOND - REPEAT

Peltasts in Sparta

Falco asked a question about my last post, and in response...
Sparta was a city-state within pre-Greece Hellenica. They were actually a wide-spread confederation with Sparta as a main city of sorts. These were the famous Peloponesians who were such badass warriors because of their 'Spartan' values and lifestyle. Pretty much whenever you read about tough Greek warriors you can think Peloponesians/Spartans such as the legendary Agamamnon, Achiles, and Odysseus of the Trojan war or Leonidas and his 300 expendables at Thermopylae, though there are notable counter-examples. For instance, Phidippides was an Athenian (Sparta's rival city-state known for philosophers rather than warriors) whose fatal 176+ mile run during the Peloponesian Persian war inspired the modern marathon. Pericles was also a famous general of Athens during parts of the Persian and Peloponesian wars. Philip and Alexander were Macedonians - and the Macedonians before these two men were not known for anything in particular so far as I know, except maybe being rednecks.
But anyway, back to the peltasts. The proto-Greek city states (i.e. Sparta, Athens, etc...) all gathered troops, both hoplite and peltast, from their allied villages in time of war. One can see this demonstrated in Herodotus' Histories as well as Thycydides' Peloponnesian War and Xenophon's Anabasis. Their use of peltasts as bait while the hoplites got the glory is my generalization that I can't really come up with specific references for right now, but it seems right to me. I hope that sorta answered your question (somewhat accurately) about peltasts in Sparta.
You've inspired me to add Herodotus and Thucydides to the top of my short list of things to read and blog about...

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