Who would win?

[M.ilionario]

Okay, pay attention to this: 15+ years of military life, with constant training and exercises throughout. You did say veteran legionaries. So, take my original estimates for how long the combat would last and halve them.

Look, Jim, I said veteran legionaries not elite legionaries with 25 years of experience....
Do you need 25 years to become veteran? If you need then you're not up to the title.

@Zenodoros
I think that 30 years was the age when they started being allowed to fill civilian jobs.
But yeah,
Mental training- 7 years
Mental & Phisical- 10 years
Practice- all the way til 30 y.o.
Then at thirty they were ready for battle....

A veteran legionary would probably die in that training while less than half of the spartan teenagers suffered that fate.....
So, individually, even a spartan teenager was better than a legionary.
I think the one-on-one question is answered here

To all those believers in the all-might of the romans (like I am about spartans) I say this:
Even if there was flanking the romans would lose.
Why? Because when they had flanked the phalanx and it was forced to disband the spartans would kill the romans even if they had to do so with their bare hands, something the romans would find terrifiyng, I mean who in this world continues to fight after losing his weapons?

And you must remember: There is no cavalry going for the flanks or the rear, nor archers weakening them, it's just that, let's say 100 spartan hoplites vs 100 veteran roman legionaries.

If the romans broke the formation the it would be even worse for them:
Fencing would start....
The romans are trained to fight in close order, and so are the spartans, but the spartans, unlike all the other greeks are also trained in fencing and dueling, so.....goodbye romans.

The romans developed the auxilia for some reason don't you think?

[Tarbicus]

I said 15+, which is 10 years shy of 25 years.

I don't know why you're posing the question, but if you don't like the answers you're getting don't ask the question in the first place.

Legionaries were probably just as capable as Spartan hoplites. Even Republican legions mashed the Macedonian phalanx. Taking flanking manoeuvres out of battle tactics is pointless and loads the question.

even if they had to do so with their bare hands,

One dead legionary was pulled off an enemy who was barely alive. The legionary's arms had been broken, and the injured adversary had had most of his face bitten off while they were on the ground still fighting. Don't lecture about legionaries being whimps.

[M.ilionario]

I don't know why you're posing the question, but if you don't like the answers you're getting don't ask the question in the first place.

I just wanted a reasonable answer, not an answer like those I or most of you give....[size=150:3ql1xkif]a reasonable answer[/size]

Legionaries were probably just as capable as Spartan hoplites. Even Republican legions mashed the Macedonian phalanx. Taking flanking manoeuvres out of battle tactics is pointless and loads the question.

Are you making a comparison between a weakened and badly commanded 'shadow of the past' Macedonian army and a spartan phalanx?
Are you insane?
The Macedonians were so afraid of the spartans they couldn't conquer them...
The geat empire of Alexander without Sparta.
It's like the Roman Empire without northern Italy....

Sorry, I understood 25 years....then that's more reasonable...

[hoplite14gr]

I have a feelling its getting out of hand gentlemen.

1) The question is most speculative.
2) Opponents are facing a restriction that no army in history ever resisted using (flanking).
3) With this restrictions there is ony one one real issue: pilum effectiveness.
4) There would be onlý one single fight in these conditions. The loosing side would never made the same mistake. They would either change tactics or equipment.

Most fights of these type have taken place on the wargaming table with opponents arguing about rules accuracy in the end. Hardly real life stuff.

In my oppinion no general Roman or Greek would fight in the conditions described above unless he knew that his tactics or equipment would give him a reasonalbe chance.
Why resist flanking if I was a Roman?
Why not trying to hit "obliquley" if I was Saprtan?

Kind regards

[Tarbicus]

With this restrictions there is ony one one real issue: pilum effectiveness.

Proven ineffective against a Macedonian phalanx. The Romans couldn't get through frontally, so the question is loaded and excludes the only truly effective means.

You're right, it's out of hand and I'm out of this topic. Sorry for boring everyone with my getting rather irritated. I just get wound up by visions of Roman soldiers being weak, dumb, unskilled automomous robots with no sense of warrior mindset and no initiative. Even from the 5th C a legion coin was found depicting a Roman killing an enemy with the words (IIRC) "The good old days are back".

Have fun. :wink:

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

OK, either continue this discussion in a normal way or this one will be closed.

M.ilionario: i want a good discussion. Stating that "spartans would kick Romans ass anytime" is not good.

i will give this one one more try.

[M.ilionario]

Ok, sorry, I was letting my heart think instead of my head...

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

Khairete, Zenodoros!

Nice analysis, really,

... and this is without bias, friends, for I honestly think the Romans could defeat just about anything else.

Except the Sassanid Persians ;-) )

best regards!

[P. Lilius Frugius Simius]

All my comments above were with the picture in mind that we had only heavy infantry in both armies.

Comparing a (whole) Spartan army of V BCE against a Roman army of II CE is like comparing day and night. The weapons, tactical organization, types of terrains it could optimally operate... It's not comparable.

Anyway, History has taught us some interesting lessons. For example, the combined arms of professional, well trained soldiers of Phillippus of Makedonia under Alexander III's command in Asia showed unstoppable; however the same combination under Phyrrus's was less effective, and the Seleucid use of the sarissa-style phalanx w/o any other arms proved really uneffective once the optimal conditions failed to be met (specially flank attacks by cavalry or intelligent use of light infantry).

The same goes for the Roman legions: under a good general, they swooped basically anything, but we all know of sound defeats that only the Romans could bear (and afford!): during the Samnite War II, against the Germans before C. Marius became consul, against the Germans and the Persians through the pre-Constantine times, or the Germans, Huns, and Persians until it got eventually "dissolved" (and the Turks, Arabs, etc during Byzantine times...)

We are talking about huge time spans in here, and technical, human, and military progress was spectacular. The idea of such "what-if" questions is to have some fun and explore particular aspects of the involved systems.

There's no doubt that in a prepared (not-surprise) battle between Spartans and Romans (involved a time warp) would yield little interest to the Romans, but a lot to the engineers and artillery (!!).

We can be reasonable and gentle, because we have successfully discussed hotter topics than this one, haven't we?

That provided, I wouldn't fight C. Iulius Caesar commanding a V BCE Spartan army and me commanding a II CE Roman army, specially because his Greek was surely better than my Latin! :-D D

laters!

[Magnus]

This thread/topic is becoming woaded.

[tlclark]

I think that the answer is obvious. The Spartan would win hands down! A 2nd century roman army would be too busy rubbing their eyes with amazement seeing an army of supposedly dead 5th century BC Greeks marching against them. :lol:

Best. Answer. Ever.

[tlclark]

This thread/topic is becoming woaded.

Ok I stand corrected.

THIS. is the best post ever! LOL!

Travis

[tlclark]

Just a thought...

Hasn't this question already been answered?

For example, hadn't the training of the Spartans already taken its toll on the ranks and essentially could not be maintained, resulting in a vastly depreciated elite fighting force by the end of the Spartan period?

Meanwhile, the Romans, even in the republican period, had moved to a citizen army made of mostly farm owners. This later gave way to a legionaire system that was far more capable of delivering sustained forces. Ultimately it's not a question of training (although I agree with Tarby that the roman training is vastly underrated) It's a question of logistics.

Limiting the fight to 300 spartans and 300 is silly.

This is a lot like the argument between the WWII German Tiger tank and the American Sherman tank. Ounce for ounce, the Tiger is a far superior tank. It had a longer range, faster speed, thicker armor, the works. This begs the question, how did the Americans ever win? Easy, the Tiger may have been better, but it was also a boondoggle and expensive and complicated to make. We could crank out four shermans for the same price in the same time it took the Germans to make one tiger! Does this make the Sherman inferior? Hardly, since making more of them then the Germans could make Tigers was always part of the strategy.

Now had some God like alien come down and enforced a parity between Allied and German tanks, I have no doubt that Americans could have made a tank the equal of the Tiger. However with no such controlling mechanism, we opted for an entirely different strategy. And we were right. We won.

Now let's go back to our Spartan vs. Roman match-up. If we had some Star Trek like god-like alien to enforce a one on one match, (or 300 on 300 match) then maybe, just maybe, the spartans might win, but it's hard to say, but that's not a reasonable match up anyway.

Let's look at it from a logistical angle and include not just the soldiers, but the blacksmiths, slaves, baggage, and even the dumb farmers growing the food the army has to eat! All of these are part of a society's capacity to wage war. If you killed all the farmers, and destroyed their farms, it doesn't matter how good their soldiers are.

So let's have our god-like aliens take a Roman city, and a Spartan city of equal size and drop them on a planet, about...oh...500 kilometers apart. Then tell them they have to destroy each other.

How long does it take the Spartans to make a force of 300? My bet, in the time the aristocratic and structured spartan society made a force of 300, the Romans would have two legions.

The best evidence for this of course is the Romans' parity with nearly every enemy they came up against.

In the immortal words of Bill Paxton. "Game over, man!" :wink:

Travis

[M.ilionario]

Well, I am aware that the romans have better logistics and a better supply system. That's why I only asked about the soldiers....
It's obvious the roman society is superior...they continuously proved it during their existence. I too think the roman army was superior, they had auxiliaries - something that made their army better than anything that was before them.
So all I want to know is your opinion, because mine is being given since the thread has been created.
Please tell me what do you think, but please don't be a blind fanatic, also post the reasons why you think that way.

The question is:

In your oppinion who would win in each of these matches?

The Spartans are 5th c. BC
The Romans are 2nd c. AD

1- A Spartan Hoplite vs A Roman Legionary;

2- The 500 best Spartan Hoplites vs The 500 best Roman Legionaries.
Conditions:
Only those types of soldiers;
Flat terrain.

[tlclark]

It's obvious the roman society is superior...

Sorry, I just had to repeat that.

Someday everyone will concede Byzantine society is superior, (and sexier too!)

Ok, time to get serious.

The question is:

In your oppinion who would win in each of these matches?

The Spartans are 5th c. BC
The Romans are 2nd c. AD

Assuming that there isn't some 'haze' effect produce by time travel (getting pulled through a wormhole's a bitch I hear:winkor they aren't forced to go naked like the terminator...here are my answers.

1- A Spartan Hoplite vs A Roman Legionary;

Well that's just meaningless. All men are not created equal. It all depends on the individual doesn't it? There are some Spartans that could beat 90% of all Romans, and undboutedly some Romans that could beat 90% of spartans. Then there are those of us like me that can't whip a 90 lb octogenarian pedestrian with a Mac Truck even if we had her sited up in the crosswalk.

The only way to answer this is to pit individuals against individuals so maybe Leonidas against Trajan or something like that.

Haven't got a clue really but I guess I gotta give it to Leonidas since he presumably was trained as a foot soldier but Trajan wasn't, but that's a meaningless evaluation of Trajan's considerable military talents, but I think you win this one in any individual match-up I can consider.

2- The 500 best Spartan Hoplites vs The 500 best Roman Legionaries.
Conditions:
Only those types of soldiers;
Flat terrain.

The only sure prediction is blood. Everything else is chance. I think the Spartans and Legionaires are pretty evenly matched if we are talking formed ranks. Then it all comes down to who the leaders are doesn't it?

In this case, I give it to the Romans, not that the Spartans didn't have discipline, but the practical experience of field commanders and centurions in the Roman Army would be greater. They were very inventive and creative bastards when it came to killing people. It would be a head on clash for as long as it took the centurions to figure out they needed to break out and how. Then, it's up to the judgment of the leaders, and a lot of luck. I give it to the Romans, but then, I would have given Adrianople to the Romans and we know how that turned out.