Spartan surrender at Pylos

[1889]

Basically in 425 BC an enormously outnumbered Spartan force (120 Spartans plus 300 allies) is defeated by 14,000 Athenians.

Some sources say the Spartans were captured some say they surrendered but in any case Spartan ambassadors rush to the scene to end the war and negotiate their release.

Can some one please help me understand a few things?

1. Did the commander actually order his troops to surrender? Just how do you capture a Spartan?
   
2. How did they fight at all during the Peloponnesian War if their lives were so precious that the capture of 120 men can throw an entire war?
   
3. This is quite different attitude than that displayed at Thermopile in 480 BC. Did the Peloponnesian War and the creation of a Spartan empire somehow corrupt their martial virtue?

 

[Dachs]

Hey, I had a midterm on this yesterday. (It was far more enjoyable than the midterm later today that involves macroeconomics will be.)

Did the commander actually order his troops to surrender?

The Lacedaemonians hearing this offer, most of them lowered their shields and waved their hands to show that they accepted it. Hostilities now ceased, and a parley was held between Cleon and Demosthenes and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other side; since Epitadas, the first of the previous commanders, had been killed, and Hippagretas, the next in command, left for dead among the slain, though still alive, and thus the command had devolved upon Styphon according to the law, in case of anything happening to his superiors. Styphon and his companions said they wished to send a herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland, to know what they were to do. The Athenians would not let any of them go, but themselves called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions had been carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man that passed over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this message: "The Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so long as you do nothing dishonourable"; upon which after consulting together they surrendered themselves and their arms. The Athenians, after guarding them that day and night, the next morning set up a trophy in the island, and got ready to sail, giving their prisoners in batches to be guarded by the captains of the galleys; and the Lacedaemonians sent a herald and took up their dead. The number of the killed and prisoners taken in the island was as follows: four hundred and twenty heavy infantry had passed over; three hundred all but eight were taken alive to Athens; the rest were killed. About a hundred and twenty of the prisoners were Spartans. The Athenian loss was small, the battle not having been fought at close quarters.

Styphon and his buddies, none of whom were high-level commanders, said "holy crap we're surrounded". They made a point of asking the leaderheads out in Sparta about what to do, and then did what they thought was necessary.

Just how do you capture a Spartan?

You say "yer surrounded, punk", jab him with a spear a few times maybe, and he throws down his arms and says "uncle"?

How did they fight at all during the Peloponnesian War if their lives were so precious that the capture of 120 men can throw an entire war?

Relied heavily on allies. Their citizen body was pretty small even then, after all. And note that it didn't throw the war. They ended up winning it after all, and didn't even agree to a peace immediately afterward. It took the victorious Thraikian campaign and the death of the primary hawk Brasidas to get the Spartans to agree to Nikias' peace.

This is quite different attitude than that displayed at Thermopile in 480 BC. Did the Peloponnesian War and the creation of a Spartan empire somehow corrupt their martial virtue?

First off, the dudes at Thermopylai were the royal agema. That's like comparing regular US soldiers nowadays with the Secret Service dudes at the White House. (Sort of. Close enough.) Secondly, the Spartan empire wasn't there yet, and although it is sometimes said to have 'corrupted the martial virtue' of the Spartans (a characterization I would largely call bull) it can't have done that yet because Sparta hasn't even entered the naval phase of the war yet (which happens after 413, the destruction of the Athenian fleet at Syrakousai, and the abrogation of the peace by Sparta).

I hope that helped.

 

[Agent327]

@2 & 3:

One of the major problems of the later Spartan society was the steady decline in fully enfranchised citizens, which also meant a decline in available military manpower: the number of Spartiates decreased from 6,000 in 640 BC to 1,000 in 330 BC.[2] The Spartans were therefore forced to use helot hoplites, and occasionally they freed some of the Laconian helots, the neodamodeis, and gave them land to settle in exchange for military service.[11]

@Dachs: I'm not sure what you mean by agema, which seems to apply to the Macedonian army than the Spartan:

The full army was nominally led in battle by the two kings; initially both went on campaign, but after the 6th century BC only one, with the other remaining home.[4] Unlike other states, their authority was severely circumscribed; actual power rested with the five elected ephoroi.[1] The kings were accompanied by a select group of 300 men as a royal guard, who were termed hippeis ("cavalrymen"). Despite their title, they were infantry hoplites like all Spartiates. Indeed, the Spartans did not utilize a cavalry of their own until late into the Peloponnesian War, when small units of 60 cavalrymen were attached to each mora.[19] The hippeis belonged to the first mora and were the elite of the Spartan army, being deployed on the honorary right side of the battle line. They were selected every year by specially commissioned officials, the hippagretai, from among experienced men who had sons, so that their line would continue.[15] It was the hippeis who participated in a celebrated contest in 546 BC against the Argive knights, and it was these who accompanied king Leonidas in his famous last stand at Thermopylae.

 

[1889]

Yes very helpful, thanks.

So the gang at Thermopile was hand picked and led by the king in defense of Greece. At Pylos they were basically on a raid, the captain and sergeant were killed, and then corporal Styphon is granted a cease fire to call HQ but really gets no helpful response. I think that makes more sense to me now. Still, I wonder if Styphon had much of a career after that.

 

[Dachs]

One of the major problems of the later Spartan society was the steady decline in fully enfranchised citizens, which also meant a decline in available military manpower: the number of Spartiates decreased from 6,000 in 640 BC to 1,000 in 330 BC.[2] The Spartans were therefore forced to use helot hoplites, and occasionally they freed some of the Laconian helots, the neodamodeis, and gave them land to settle in exchange for military service.[11]

Yes, that's very true. However, the manpower problem was not nearly as acute during the Peloponnesian conflict. It would only be after Leuktra that the loss of Messenia and the constant attrition of the Spartan military would take their toll. Hence the 330 BC(E) number: this was after about forty years' worth of Empire and another forty of vastly decreased holdings.

@Dachs: I'm not sure what you mean by agema, which seems to apply to the Macedonian army than the Spartan:

It's Greek for 'guard'. Yeah, hippeis would be more applicable to the Spartans specifically, but I usually default to agema which is a more general term.

So the gang at Thermopile was hand picked and led by the king in defense of Greece. At Pylos they were basically on a raid, the captain and sergeant were killed, and then corporal Styphon is granted a cease fire to call HQ but really gets no helpful response. I think that makes more sense to me now. Still, I wonder if Styphon had much of a career after that.

Haha, probably not.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's Greek for 'guard'. Yeah, hippeis would be more applicable to the Spartans specifically, but I usually default to agema which is a more general term.

Wasnt Sphakteria an island full of trees? Hippeis sounds strange for spartan soldiers, who were on foot. It is the greek word for horseman

 

[Dachs]

Wasnt Sphakteria an island full of trees?

Funny story about that. The Athenian soldiers who were blockading it were feeling kind of cramped in the Pylos fort, so some went over to the island and had dinner there. Their cooking fire raged out of control and burned off most of the tree cover there, so Demosthenes and the other Athenian generals could see the Spartan dispositions.

 

[innonimatu]

Basically in 425 BC an enormously outnumbered Spartan force (120 Spartans plus 300 allies) is defeated by 14,000 Athenias.

14000? Somehow I doubt that Athens would ship its whole army to that island!

 

[caketastydelish]

Why are the Spartans always so outnumbered? Is it because of lack of population growth due to them killing their babies?

 

[Dachs]

Why are the Spartans always so outnumbered? Is it because of lack of population growth due to them killing their babies?

That was certainly part of it. They also weren't particularly interested in extending the franchise. But they weren't "always so outnumbered", either. At Mantineia in 418 BC(E), they were able to outnumber the Argive coalition by 9,000 to 8,000. And it was because of their larger land army that they were able to seasonally devastate the Attikan fields with virtually no opposition during the Peloponnesian War. In this particular case, the Spartan army was outnumbered because the force left on Sphakteria was just a garrison that got trapped when the supporting fleet was smashed at the previous naval Battle of Pylos. The demographic problems would mostly take effect later on, in the later part of the fourth century and into the third, causing a rather notable social revolution in the 220s BC(E).

 

[Gooblah]

Why are the Spartans always so outnumbered? Is it because of lack of population growth due to them killing their babies?

Not really...

To begin, we must have a solid understanding of Spartan society; it rested on the labor of the helots, who were basically a downtrodden, conquered people reduced to the status of the serfs. EVERYONE in greece knew how much the helots wanted to kill the Spartans, and they outnumbered the Spartans on (IIRC) a 8:1 margin. Thus, the Spartans were forced to create the greatest army in Greek history to combat both the helots and external threats that could spark a rebellion.

At any given time, the Spartans refused to marshal their full military, knowing that a period of more than a month without significant presence in Laconia would lead to a general helot rebellion, and the death of Sparta as they knew it. Therefore, the Spartans relied on strong leaders that used unorthodox and orthodox tactics to defeat a numerically superior opponent (though, that backfired at times during the Peloponnesian War due to the lack of a large, experience navy).

 

[Verbose]

About Spartan numbers:

There were always a fairly small number of "spartiates", the Spartans from actual Sparta, the elite of the elite. But then there were a greater number of Lakedaimonians in general, "regular" Spartans. Add to that the fact that Sparta was in fact the leader and "hegemon" of a large alliance consisting of most societies on the Peloponnessos peninsula (with the primary exceptions of Corinth and their traditional enemies and continued rivals the "Argives", i.e. the city state of Argos).

Consequently every time the Spartan army drew up their full battle-line, as per tradition and as a special sign of honour, they placed the troops of their now subserviant former rivals from Tegea on the extreme left wing, while the Spartiates always took the right wing. The custom was only waived at Plataia, fighting the Persians, as the Athenians demanded and got that second-most honourable spot on the battle-field ahead of the Tegeans.