If you have paid attention, I like to read about ancient and medieval warfare. Myke Cole’s The Bronze Lie is an Osprey publication from 2021 that is a hefty 464 pages. The cover blurb under the title is “Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy.”

I have not read Cole’s Legion Versus Phalanx which I have been told has some controversial opinions. Cole describes in the introduction that he wrote three short pieces questioning Spartan superiority. Two of the pieces got him death threats. Cole does not like Laconophilia.

“We live in age where the term ‘toxic masculinity’ is repeated by a world grappling with an epidemic of violence, xenophobia and a resurgence of political extremism that has severely darkened our horizons. This term is an effort by intellectuals to dial in on what’s going on. At the heart of what can make masculinity toxic, we see the Spartan myth at work – adopted as a sacred cow by right-wing extremists worldwide, held a lot as symbol of beleagured nativists standing, as they believe the Spartans did at Thermopylae.”

Cole gives a history of Sparta’s mythic founding, through the Dorian invasion, the transformation of the Lycurgus system of training of the young men.

He is very methodical sifting through any history of battles. The Spartans system was not fully formed during the Messenian Wars where Sparta conquered neighboring region of Messenia and reduced the inhabitants to the status of helots.

Along the way, Cole will show contradictions documented in the Spartan way of life. He repeats that the peers were not super soldiers who constantly worked out but an aristocracy who spent their time doing lots of non-military pursuits.

This is a good book on phalanx warfare. It is interesting to read of one battle of Spartan vs. Argive champions and how when it was done, there were two Argives left standing and one wounded Spartan. The Spartans were great at movement within the phalanx while the other Greek city states did very little practice of the phalanx.

Every major phalanx battle the Spartans fought is covered. I have Paul Cartledge’s The Spartans which is a great shorter history of Sparta. Cartledge does not have an agenda either. Victor Davis Hanson is not mentioned. Hanson’s A War Like No Other emphasized there were really only two big phalanx clashes in the Peloponnesian War as no one wanted to face the Spartans. The Peloponnesian War was mostly raiding of enemy territory using light infantry.

Cole’s opinion is Thermopylae was not a suicide mission but an attempt to stop the Persian Army long enough for them to use up their food and start discontent. Leonidias’ plan failed with the Immortals getting behind the Spartans and allies at Thermopylae. It was not even a speed bump. His take on the Battle of Platea is interesting as the Spartans seemed skittish taking on the Persians instead of Persian allied Greeks.

The Spartans often used religious festivals as a reason not to fight. They also used treachery to win battles. They attacked the Argives during a truce and then killed the survivors who had taken refuge in a sacred grove by setting it on fire.

This book comes out and says the system of not allowing men to marry until 30 and the homo-sexual relationships resulted in an ever decreasing number of Spartan men. Cole is ever emphasizing the Spartans were not that much better than other Greeks. I will interject that there are cases, mostly of other Greeks reorganized and led by Spartan advisors who turned things around. The Athenian expedition to Syracuse is the most notable though there were others. The Spartan Xanthippus led the Carthaginians in the First Punic War inflicting a devastating defeat on Regulus’ legions.

The last section of the book is entitled “The ‘Moron Label’: The Spartans and the Far Right.”

“The myth of Sparta’s military prowess has become a sacred symbol of the far right, embraced by groups like Greece’s neo-fascist Golden Dawn, Euroeps burgeoning Identitarian movement and hard-right organizations in the United States like National Rifle Association (NRA).”

“Hate crime watchdog group the Southern Poverty Law Center sent us a bulletin detailing the logos and symbols used by the hate groups involved. The ancient symbology on identity was impossible to miss. It incuded the vexillum of the Roman Republic (SPQR), the ancient sun wheels of Germanic tribes, and of course the Greek lambda.”

“In August of 2018, Stewart Rhodes, the found of the right-wing anti-government and anti-immigration American militia group Oath Keepers appeared on right-wring conspiracy media outfit Infowars to announce the launching of ‘Spartan training groups’ that would prepare people to defend the country against the ‘violent left.’”

This book is a mixed bag with history sandwiched between opinion in the introduction and end. I would love to see Victor Davis Hanson write a review or a counter-argument.