Units of History: The Skiritai - Sparta's Elite Irregulars DOCUMENTARY

when we talk about the spartan military discussions almost universally focus on their citizen hoplites famous units like the 300 royal guard and even your average sparty warrior claim all the glory distracting us from the critical role played by the rest of the army diving into our sources we actually find that victory often depended on one non-spartan unit in particular the skiritai known to be first into war and last to retreat they were a crack force whose particular set of skills acquired over a long career made them a nightmare for enemies of sparta today let us take a closer look at this mysterious warrior elite this video was sponsored by magellan tv they're an awesome documentary streaming service run by filmmakers with the selection of over 3000 videos to choose from among the categories of history science nature space and more when it comes to history documentaries magellan tv has the richest and most varied content anywhere ancient modern current war biography and even related genres like science and crime which are historical in nature you can learn more about elite forces through the ages with their series top 10 warfare which covers fascinating units like the french foreign legion and the sas magellan tv is compatible with roku amazon fire tv apple tv google play and ios which means you can watch it anytime anywhere on your television laptop or mobile device sign up today to get thirty percent off an annual membership which starts with a two week free trial that's less than three fifty a month for access to thousands of documentaries the offer is available for both new and returning users so be sure to click the link in the description below or go to try.magellantv.com slash invicta enjoy the spirits i are named after their homeland the skirtus this is a rugged mountainous area of about 100 square kilometers on the border between the spartans to the south and its northern neighbour tajir at the time it did not contain any cities being composed instead of several small hilltop communities and was not organized as a typical greek city-state for a time they seemed to have kept to themselves but were inevitably drawn into the squabbles of their neighbors for instance the spartans to the south and the tajins to the north fought from the 6th century bce onwards in these matters the buffer region obscuritis proved key and would have been an important area that either side sought to bring into their sphere of influence we don't know exactly when sparta first lay claim to the territory but it seems that by the fifth century bce spiritus was considered part of laconia the skirts eye however were not spartans some ancient sources are confused about this but the ones with inside information clearly separate the skeretai from the general levy of lachedemonian periocoi the freeborn non-citizen population of laconia rather the skeretai were arcadians and throughout antiquity would continue to see themselves as such this group was among the oldest in greece having long inhabited the interior highland region of the peloponnese the relative isolation helped protect them from the changing demographics of the surrounding coastal plains as such the arcadians had different customs and even spoke a different dialect of greek than their neighbours the skiratai therefore were actually more culturally related to the arcadian tajians to the north than to the doric spartans to the south this meant that even though the skiritsai were an ordinary part of the spartan militia they were effectively foreigners in spartan service it may be because of the ethnic difference that the skiritai always remained a distinct unit in spartan armies rather than blending into the phalanx like the typical periocoi for instance when the spartans raised the militia for a campaign other communities in laconia would send their men to stand in the ranks with the spartates but the men of the skewatis would fight separately as if they were allies and not subjects of sparta the cohesion of their small local levy fixed at a strength of 600 men made them a convenient force to use in roles for which large masses of hoplites were not well suited over time the skirts eye would take on a growing range of responsibilities becoming one of the most hardworking and essential elements of a spartan army in the field there is a lot about the security that we simply don't know and one of the biggest questions is how they were equipped their range of roles on campaign and in battle does not fit those of any other warrior type known from classical greece the easiest solution is to assume that their equipment and fighting style changed over time but even that doesn't answer all our questions the earliest evidence for the skirts hike comes from the historian thucydides who states that they traditionally held the left wing of the spartan battle line it is possible that this emerged after the greek victory against the persians at platya when the tajins sparta's arcadian neighbors had been awarded the position to the left of the spartan line perhaps the skiratsai who were not attested at platia took on this honor after the persian wars were over after all this was a very important position given that one of the simplest and most common greek battle plans was to outflank the enemy left wing with an extended right wing and to roll up the line from there battles therefore often hinged on whether the troops on the far left of the line would stand their ground from the fact that the skeretai were traditionally deployed there we can reasonably assume that they were trusted to hold their own ground doing so is quite difficult as a ranged or skirmishing force and so they must have been able to close into hand-to-hand combat following this line of thinking they must therefore have been equipped as hoplites such conjecture is reasonable since the arcadians had a reputation for their skill at hoplite fighting and arcadia would later become the main recruiting ground for mercenary hoplites it is therefore understandable that the spartans should have expected the arcadian skeretai to perform well in their role on the left flank so what does this all mean in terms of equipment well by the time thucydides writes about them in the peloponnesian war hoplites in spartan service tended to be lightly equipped for defense they often wore a linen corras and a conical open-faced pilos helmet their main source of protection was the large round double grip shield called the aspis freed helets carried the uniform spartan shield blazon the lambda and the skirotype may have done so as well for offense they carried a thrusting spear about 2 to 2.5 metres long with a leaf-shaped iron spearhead and the bronze butt spike as a secondary weapon they may have carried either a makaira slashing sword or a double-edged short sword after the peloponnesian war though the role of the skewer thai seems to have changed they are no longer described as the unit on the extreme left of the phalanx instead the historian xenophon who was good friends with the spartan king says that the skeretite now advanced ahead of the spartan marching column with the cavalry to scout the way and sniff out enemy ambushes he also says they guarded the camp at night this was a clear sign of sparta's trust in the loyalty and skills of these arcadian soldiers but even that doesn't answer all our questions beyond the mention of the use of thrusting spears by centuries he tells us nothing about the equipment of the skirotype a much later source the historian deodora siculus claims that the skeretai were attached to the kings as a mobile reserve to respond rapidly to any crisis situation in battle but again he does not say what weapons they used some have argued that the new mobile skeretai must have been mounted troops if so they would have been equipped as light cavalry probably without armor with either potassos sun hats or beyoshian style helmets on their heads and with no more than a lance and perhaps a few javelins to use in combat but most scholars have assumed that their new tactical role must mean that the skeretai had become some form of specialist light infantry in other armies working together with the cavalry to protect the marching column was the job of peltasts light-armed warriors with javelins and small shields this fighting style was common to the more rugged parts of the greek mainland where towns and their militias were smaller and where forming large hoplite formations was difficult the skirotype may have taken to light-armed fighting naturally it also filled a niche within the spartan army the spartias themselves specialized in hoplite service but they also made increasing efforts to raise a strong force of cavalry what they lacked was a mobile force of missile infantry the skiritai as a distinct part of their militia may have been reformed to meet that need [Music] surviving sculpture shows there was indeed a unique type of light infantry on the spartan side and these may be the skerotype we are looking for if this is correct then it seems they carried a pylos helmet but no body armor instead of the common crescent-shaped pelter shield they wore a thick animal skin over their left arm for protection its paws tied around their neck to hold it in place they were armed with a thrusting spear and may also have carried some javelins making them a flexible fighting force however it's important to remember that we are working with very little concrete evidence here it is not certain that the skiratai were indeed light infantry and if so that they were equipped this way they may very well have been hoplite troops who merely acted outside of the battle line they may have been horsemen or they may have been some other kind of force that is not so easily classified unfortunately it's impossible to be sure similar uncertainty clouds the topic of their training and tactics we do not know if they trained at all or if they relied mostly on practical experience like other greek militias from the evidence we do have though it is quite clear that the skeretai were not a standing force but rather a regional levy raised only when the spartans called up the whole army for war the men who formed the skiratai in wartime were therefore primarily farmers and shepherds in peacetime the wealthy among them may have exercised regularly but the poorer levees would have been too busy putting food on the table their only preparation for war was normal everyday life which accustomed them to long days of hard work in rough terrain outside sparta as a rule typical greek militias did not train for war in a regular manner yet the arcadians may have been a partial exception arcadian war dances were more like formation drills than those of other greek communities and the arcadian city of mantanea actually seems to have organized some collective training for hoplites which was otherwise quite rare if the skiratai had similar customs it would have made it easier for them to serve alongside the more well-trained spartan phalanx yet once their role on campaign shifted from pitched battle to screening duties this kind of hoplite training would no longer have been very useful what they needed for their duty as the vanguard of the marching column was the opportunistic tactics of light-armed infantry these troops moved aggressively against any exposed target like lighter troops or enemies caught out of formation their jobs included seizing heights and strong positions driving off enemy missile troops and chasing down routed foes at the same time they had to be fit and agile enough to withdraw the instant they spotted troops they couldn't handle like formed hoplites or horsemen they had to be able to move quickly in loose swarms make quick decisions based on the terrain and the enemies they faced and to work closely with friendly cavalry to some extent the life of shepherds in the securities would have prepared them for this style of fighting but the rest had to be learned when the army set out for war in this regard there would have been no shortage of opportunities according to xenophon the spartans used the skiretike constantly while on campaign sparing them neither from hard work nor danger always making sure it was the skirts i who bought the brunt of any task and not the spartans themselves when we turn to the service history of the skiretai we run into another serious problem almost everything the ancient greeks tell us about this unit is a generalization thucydides says they always held the left wing in battle xenophon says they always marched ahead of the king and guarded the camp at night theodorus says they were always in reserve ready to fight when needed such contradictory statements would be great to cross-check against a detailed service history but unfortunately we have but two concrete examples of the skeretai in action the first of these is the battle of mountaineer in 418 bce here sparta was fighting to keep its supremacy in the peloponnese against a challenge from their eternal rival argos in this battle the skeretai held the extreme left of the spartan line with a detachment of veteran mercenaries to their right followed by the main spartan levy the maneuvers of the battle put the skiretai in an impossible position aegis the spartan king was afraid that the enemy would outflank his left so he ordered the skuritai and the mercenaries to march further to the left to prevent it this opened up a gap in the line aegis intended to plug it with units from his right but these units thought the plan was bad and refused to move with no other option aegis sent an order for the skirotay to march back and close the gap but it was already too late the mountaineens and archives on the enemy right poured into the gap and surrounded the isolated skeretai and mercenaries who broke under the pressure and fled aegis managed to win the battle with the rest of his army but the skiritai had been decimated nearly all the losses sparta suffered that day were from the two units on the left of the line despite thucydides generalizing claim this is the last time we see the skeretai play a role in pitched battle the only other occasion where the skeretai are seen in action at all is during one of the spartan invasions of theban territory four decades later in 377 bce during the boeschian war on this occasion the theban army had taken up position on a hill the spartan king adjusts decided not to attack them there but instead to make straight for thieves itself seeing him advancing the thebans panicked and rushed back through the hills to the city the spartans attacked parts of the theban army as it ran past driving them off hill after hill as they neared thieves the skirts eye and the cavalry took the lead they rushed to the top of the hill near the city rained missiles down on the fleeing thebans and pursued them right down to the city wall but when they reached the wall the theban militia rallied and the skeretai wisely broke off their pursuit just in time they did not lose a single man it was a flawless hurrying operation it showed the capabilities of the well-managed force of experienced light troops that the skiritai had become we never see the skiretai in action again after this even when the spartans were defending the securities from invasion the garrison they placed there to guard the pass from tajia did not include the skereta themselves but we can be sure that they served whenever sparta called out the ban as spartan power waned and their manpower resources dwindled they would have leaned more and more heavily on local levees like the 600 skeretai their long experience fighting in sparta's wars would have made them an invaluable flexible force but it did not take long for the spartans to lose this asset as well after philip of macedon's victory over the greeks at kyronia in 338 bce he marched south into the pelepinis the spartans famously rebuffed his threats but did nothing to stop him when he stripped away the last of their ancient conquests leaving sparta a rump state that controlled only the valley of the eurotas the lands he liberated included the spiritus which became a free arcadian community for the first time in more than 200 years it's at this point that the faithful skeretai finally stopped serving the spartans and disappeared from the pages of history we hope you've enjoyed this exploration of the lesser-known aspect of the spartan roster let us know what other units of history you would like to see covered next a huge thanks is owed to our patrons for funding the channel and to the researchers writers and artists who made this episode possible be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these other related videos thanks for watching

Channel: Invicta

Views: 740,522

Keywords: sparta, spartan army, units of history, spartan royal guard, history of sparta, greek warfare, greek warfare tactics, greco persian war, peloponnesian war, spartan, skiritai, invicta, rise of sparta, 300 sparta, athens, argos, battle of mantinea, battle of mantinea 418, battle of chaeronea

Id: MSsUYZBd414

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 07 2021