The Spartans Never Surrendered, Until This Battle

 

 

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It is often said that the Spartan warriors never retreated and never surrendered. They would fight to the death no matter the odds, and were trained to do so from a young age. However, there’s at least one clear exception.
The titanic struggle that was the Peloponnesian war saw the surrender of the most elite class of Spartans. At the battle of Sphacteria, the Spartans not only lost to a force of mostly light infantry, but they were forced into a shameful surrender that changed the dynamics of the war.
The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta was a long war with multiple swings of momentum and a lot of switching sides. The Spartan strategy was simple: invade the Athenian territory of Attica, destroy farmland, and threaten Athens itself. It should have been a simple and effective tactic considering Sparta’s impressive soldiers. The Athenians had a strategy based off of their imposing navy that sent them all over Greece.