Actual Reason Why Spartan Empire Went Extinct

In this video, we explore the actual reason why the Spartan empire went extinct.

The Spartans were one of the most feared warrior cultures in history, but their empire ultimately fell. In this video, we take a look at what factors led to their decline and eventual downfall.

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Sparta and Athens are like two brothers constantly fighting and wanting the better toy, but always fought together when a bigger kid threatened both. I love it.

[davidweum]

I read something I found very interesting: during a war between two Greek city states, one combatant poisoned the water supply of the other's non combatant civilians with a population of 25, 000.
At some point a truce was called and all city states were involved and they agreed that this "biological warfare" must never be perpetrated on the enemie"s civilians.
This agreement must have been the fist of its kind.

[starkdragon]

And here I thought it was because one Spartan destroyed all of Greece in his quest to bring his wrath down upon the gods of Olympus.

[ILovePorkInMyMouth]

That one surviving spartan: ZEUS!! ZEUUSS!!!!

[turtlemann]

This show gives me more knowledge in 15 minutes than an entire history lesson at school. Well done guys 👍

[scottforsythe]

Sparta is an excellent cautionary tale about overemphasizing military dominance. They could have been what Rome became if they had been as dedicated and meticulous about running their economy as they were about running their combat training

[alexaskew]

"Generals and soldiers became more interested in themselves rather than keeping Sparta strong. These changes in attitude and the desire to accumulate more wealth for themselves rather than bolster the status of the state led to a wealth gap within Spartan Society." Hmm somethings never change.

[AstroLean]

This is the alternate universe where Kratos didnt ask Ares for help

[raidang]

The only mistake that Sparta did was same as Carthage was keeping their citizenship policy within their city and not expanding it thus limiting their manpower.. Rome on the other hand expanding their citizenship and influence to conquered territories thus giving them enormous manpower

[joemacinnis]

This is fascinating. Maybe the Spartans should have taken many more people into thei army for secondary roles. Like transportation and cooking etc. Letting the warriors do the fighting while the others took care of logistics

[leestewart]

What the Spartans could've done would be to encourage large families, give the first son or two over to the state for military training, then use the other sons for civil use such as farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc. This would have eliminated the need for keeping Helots, and made the kingdom far more stable and sustainable.

[EvilxSausage]

It's an over simplification to say that there was a Spartan empire. There was a balance of power among the Greek city states, and whenever one grew too powerful, the others united against that one. So none of them were able to build up an empire. It is true that Sparta was more militaristic than any of the others, and they did take territory from their neighbors, but they didn't preside over an empire in the sense that modern historians use the term.

[SpartanIsGaming]

The funny thing is the reason the Spartan Empire fell was because they didn’t have enough Spartans…
If they had let any ally try the Agoge to become a Spartan they would have conquered all of Greece.

[sayeeds]

Imagine if the Spartans had the same amount of soldiers as the Romans 💀

Edit: I understand everything you guys are saying but I was more talking about if they had the same number of soldiers as like a Roman legion against the Persians

[AlecTheNomad]

So cool an entire civilization was founded from the movie 300. Good to see how far cosplay has come.

[StephanieClarke]

This seem like a calm and reasonable explanation

[dominicawesomenessnettles]

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Helot rebellions more. That’s what really crushed Sparta was the fact they had like 60-70% of their population being slaves of former warriors who they defeated and forced to do work at their home while Spartans were away at war. Leaving Sparta completely vulnerable to attack by their own slaves

[hxiplmd]

Additional points:
1. Before the Dorian Sparta of 1.000 BCE and on, there had been an Achaean Sparta for quite enough centuries.
2. In Persian wars, the Athenian army had fought off the first Persian attack of 490 BCE alone, and during the second one of 480 - 479, their navy played a crucial role too, by crushing the Persian navy.
3. Up until the Peloponnesian war, Athenians were not very popular among other Greeks, because leaving the Athenian League, even declining a proposal to join, in some cases, was NOT an option.
4. The Spartans had their first defeats by other Greeks in the hands of the Thebans some years later. When some Spartan mothers learned about the defeats, they begged gods that their sons had NOT survived defeated and that they had died fighting.
5. Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who wrote about the Persian wars, was considered the father of historiography. Later, Athenian Thucydides, who wrote about the Peloponnesean Wars, was the first to introduce the strict, precise, objective and rigid investigation methods modern historiography stll uses. He was the father of ACADEMIC historiography. Some excerpts of his opera are taught even in modern military academies, involving the USA, at least for a period.

[oliverdelacruz]

I was taught in middle school that spartans were excellent in combat, and known around the world for their skills and what not but they weren’t the number 1 in terms of military might. What they’re known for is the beauty of their women among all of greece.

[MrAkaacer]

So many lessons in Sparta and we can see history repeating itself in real time.