Brett and Kate McKay ·12 min read
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This article series is now available as a professionally formatted, distraction free ebook to read offline at your leisure. Click here to buy. Welcome back to our series on The Spartan Way, which seeks to illuminate the lessons the ancient Spartans can teach modern men – not in their details, but in the general principles that lie beneath, and can still be extracted and applied today. At its peak, the Spartan army was the most dominant, and feared, military force in ancient Greece, and its prowess was built on the singular mentality and strategy it brought to the art of war.
In this final installment of the Spartan Way series, we’ll take an expansive, inspiring, and thoroughly fascinating tour of the essential mindset and tactics that allowed these warriors to battle fiercely and come out the victor.
Spartan men not only had the skills and training to back up their reputation as formidable warriors, they enhanced that reputation — and their efficacy on the battlefield — by cultivating an external appearance that matched their internal prowess.
The Spartans terrorized their enemy before they even got within spears’ length of them. As they awaited the command to advance, they stood straight and steady in formation, and everything from their clothes to their equipment bespoke strength, discipline, and ferocity.
Spartan warriors were clothed in a scarlet tunic and cape (discarded prior to battle), for, Xenophon tells us, the color was thought to have “the least resemblance to women’s clothing and to be most suitable for war.”