SPT-04A
John Jenkins Designs
The Peloponnesian War reshaped the ancient Greek world. On the level of international relations, Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war's beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity.
Ancient Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the golden age of Greece.
The city of Sparta was just one of the cities located in the ancient Greek state called Lakedaimon. Most of the other cities of Lakedaimon by this time had become subjects of Sparta.
Around the middle of the 5th Century BC the Lakedaimonians started to lighten the equipment of their holpites. The traditional greaves and cuirass were discarded, and the closed Corinthian helmet was replaced by the open-faced “Pilos Helmet”. A crimson short sleeved tunic, the “exomis” was commonly worn, with the right shoulder unpinned and allowed to fall leaving the right arm and shoulder free for action. In the 4th Century the army of Agesilaos was clad entirely in Crimson. This had become the colour of the soldier and especially of the Lakedaimonian soldier. Apparently the Lakedaimonian soldier was even buried in his crimson robe.
During this period the Lakedaimonians were allowed to grow their hair and beard when on campaign, a style which had fallen out of fashion elsewhere in Greece at this time.