How Thebes Defeated Sparta - Battle of Leuctra 371 BC Analyzed

Yes, the Spartans were not invincible. After Sparta and Athens fought it out in the Peloponnesian War, Thebes and Sparta went at it. In this historical exploration, we look at how Thebes beat Sparta in a land battle at Leuctra. This is one of the climaxes from the Theban-Spartan War that went from 378 BC to 362 BC. The details of the battle, especially how the Thebans utilized a non-traditional Phalanx formation, is extremely fascinating to examine. In this talk, we'll use some note cards to look at the Echelon Formation (sometimes called Oblique order) and how the Thebans used it to smash the Spartan right. Hope you enjoy my analysis. A lot more to come!

Hope you guys like this video. As always, looking forward to your suggestions and comments!

Timecodes:
0:00 Intro
0:15 History leading up to battle
1:16 Clarification
1:33 Phalanx fighting basics
2:22 Right side of the Phalanx
3:23 Solution to the phalanx drift
3:43 Leuctra formations
5:06 How the battle went
5:28 The sacred band
6:04 How the battle tide turns
6:40 Analysis

[JerryExploresHistory]

Also, the Echelon formation is sometimes called the Oblique order.


Finally, like viewer Bryan said, I made a slight error. It was Phillip (Alexander's father) that beat the Thebans!

[brentjhaynumbaddo]

Spartan : this is Sparta
Thebian : your wrong

[kevinmills]

Can you do Boudica's uprising and defeat?

[richhall]

The Spartans could easily have won the battle of Leuctra if they had been armed with AK-47s.

[kaiza]

Epaminondas was highly underrated as a general by historians. Him and Peleopidas did some damage on Sparta and they are they ones that influenced Phillip of Macedonia (Alexander the Greats father) to turn his troops into a an effective war machine. I wish there was more knowledge on those two Thebians.

[BuriedAlien-TRN]

If only Achilles were there to help the Spartans 😉🙏

[Moneyaddthenmultiply]

Nice channel. Would you consider talking about the Third Messenian War and the big earthquake in Sparta?

[carala]

The problem is that Spartan hardly gave a break between wars. And they lost too many soldiers during the first and second war, before Thebes War.
The rate of male Spartan soldiers was not high. They just didn't have time to produce the same quality mass they once had, and their ranks started to fall short because they embraced non-Spartans (born and raised as a Spartan) to their phalanx. Sparta just didn't had the Empire like structure Rome had to produce mass soldiers each month with extreme quality, and when they did lack in quality, they had in quantity and really well equipped.

[joseluislowe]

The persians only managed to defeat the spartans was because someone betrayed the spartans and gave the persians vital information that had lead to the downfall of sparta but man did they put up a fight the persians were being defeated almost everytime even though they were out numbered.. All good things come to an end

[cocogregory]

And Thebes LGBT lobbies controlled the Greek peninsula afterwards, since there is an expression in French that means "homosexual like a Greek".

[bryanfong]

It was not alexander but Phillip the one who wiped everyone’s ass in the greek city states. Also, spartans were also known to swing the other side, jerry.