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These were pro-Spartan men. Originally voted into power by the Assembly with a mandate to codify the laws, they immediately requested the assistance of the Spartan garrison to arrest their enemies. [69] With them they assassinated persons who were pro-democracy and confiscated their property. [70]
The Spartans used the same typical hoplite equipment as their other Greek neighbors; the only distinctive Spartan features were the crimson tunic (chitōn) and cloak (himation), [38] as well as long hair, which the Spartans retained to a far later date than most Greeks. To the Spartans, long hair kept its older Archaic meaning as the symbol of ...
Sparta's allies were further alienated when, in 402 BC, Sparta attacked and subdued Elis, a member of the Peloponnesian League that had angered the Spartans during the course of the Peloponnesian War. Corinth and Thebes refused to send troops to assist Sparta in its campaign against Elis.
A full 40 years after the battle, Leonidas' bones were returned to Sparta, where he was buried again with full honours; funeral games were held every year in his memory. [ 116 ] [ 123 ] With Thermopylae now opened to the Persian army, the continuation of the blockade at Artemisium by the Greek fleet became irrelevant.
In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades. Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour. [89] The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land. Helot women were often used as wet nurses. Helots also travelled with ...
The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare, the soldiers were expected to go home to participate in the harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long.
The Spartans eventually breached the fortifications and entered the Theban countryside, devastating the Theban fields in their wake. Though the Athenians had at this time joined the Theban forces, they were still outnumbered by the Spartans; their combined forces numbering only at 1,700 cavalry, 12,000 hoplites, and around 5,000 light infantry.
The Spartan right was hurled back with a loss of about 1,000 men, of whom 400 were some of Sparta's most experienced soldiers, including King Cleombrotus I. [ 2 ] Wilhelm Rüstow and Hermann Köchly , writing in the 19th century, believed that Pelopidas led the Sacred Band out from the column to attack the Spartans in the flank.