How did Sparta, a mere city state with an agrarian economy and barely any economic growth to speak of,

rise to become at one point the supreme power in ancient Greece?

For thousands of years, the answer to that was obvious.

They were the Spartans.

They were the fiercest warriors in all the land.

They were tougher, better trained, more able to endure hardship, and willing to die rather than surrender.

If you ever came face to face with a Spartan phalanx on the battlefield, God help you.

That's what we all thought. Until a few years ago, when a series of publications began cropping up by a small group

of academics and independent writers claiming to debunk the so-called myth of Sparta. As it turned

out, everything we thought we knew about the Spartans was a big bronze lie. They were not

exceptional warriors after all. In fact, they were losers on

the battlefield almost as often as they were winners. Or so these new writers claimed. Longtime listeners

of this program will remember that I hosted such a revisionist scholar on the podcast a couple

years ago. Go back to episode 54 or click here to revisit

that. Now my sense in looking at the comments to that video and elsewhere on the internet and from

communicating with listeners is that this new take on Sparta raises a big and obvious question.

If the Spartans weren't as badass on the battlefield as we thought,

then how did they become the preeminent power in Greece? And furthermore, how did they maintain

that power for the better part of two centuries? In other words, what was the Spartan recipe or

formula for dominance?

That's what we're going to discuss today.

Our guest today is Eric W. Robinson, professor of history at Indiana University and the author of a couple of

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