Another cause of Sparta's tumble was its failure to modify the rigid Lycurgan corpse to accommodate a pan-Hellenic system accompanied by riches. Sparta simply believed that the Lycurgan system did not need to be altered. Furthermore, they were against Spartans having too much wealth or personal power. As a result, the Lycurgan system's rigidity produced a closed society plagued by the effects of inbreeding. Some historians learn that "the Spartan hegemony ?perished through ?oliganthropia'' - a lack of men. This is not because of a population decrease in Laconia however just a lack of men of the Spartan citizen class who could serve as hoplites, called ?homoioi' or ?Spartiates.'" The number of men that Sparta could call upon to accuse into contend diminished appreciably during the 5th and early 4th centuries B.C. This was not solely due to reduced numbers of men but also partly because they were loathe to leave Laconia unguarded and tended to send fewer men to battle than they could have. In the 5th nose candy battle at Thermopylae against the Per
Another factor in Sparta's decline was the rise of accessory armies troops hired and paid to fight in use by the Greeks. The Greeks were not keen to leave their birth dominion undefended while they went to battle against Sparta, so they began using mercenaries instead. These soldier of fortune armies were much more highly trained than the citizen militias used in the past and posed a more formidable nemesis to Sparta's armies. Thebes was the first major power to form a military unit of 300 "highly-trained full-time soldiers" in 378 B.C. the "Sacred Band." otherwise Greek cities would hire mercenaries rather than training their own armies.
The ally armies were even more formidable for the fact that they came equipped with their own equipment and occasionally even their own experienced draw (Scipio, 2005).
Sparta tended to avow on its training and conditioning to the exclusion of developing its tactical prowess. They were relatively "tactically nanve" and could be outwitted on the field of battle. This is, in fact, what happened when they were outmaneuvered by the Athenians in 426 B.C. at Olpae and again at the dispute of Haliartos in 395 B.C. The Spartans were at a disadvantage whenever they could not "out-muscle" or scare off their opponents with their reputation, particularly when their opponents had a competent leader (Scipio, 2005).
Sparta's improvidence was essentially an incomplete thought process, where it got an idea or an impression and went forward with it without any further investigation or reflection. It carries with it a degree of impulsiveness, since further thought probably would have prevented Sparta's shortsightedness in many instances. The reason for the repeated episodes of shortsightedness was primarily Sparta's inherent belief that it was alright right on every issue and did not need to listen to anyone else or submit to anything. This brand of hubris seemed to brand everything Sparta undertook in its road to decline, and had it
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