For instance that helotry was 'worth it' because it enabled the Spartans to be the greatest warrior-badasses ever.' Obviously not - the Spartans were militarily mediocre viewed against the broad Mediterranean. 11/
The U.S. military’s admiration of a proto-fascist city-state is based on bad history.
Sparta was marginally more capable at land battles than most poleis, but not dramatically so, and that capability came with crippling drawbacks in terms if tactical inflexibility, strategic incompetence and brutishly ineffective diplomacy. 12/
I'm curious, then, where the Spartans' reputation comes from. Is it Thucydides' prominence? If you know one piece of Greek history, it's that Sparta beat Athens {the greatest city ever, therefore Sparta must be amazing}. Were later Athenians invested in inflating the city that defeated them?