The Spartan army was the toughest in the world. Every Spartan man was enlisted, and they were feared around the world. Sparta did away with city walls, believing its men strong enough to make walls useless. It was the only country that Alexander the Great saw and left unconquered—and he never even had the courage to march his men into their land.
Spartan men were warriors because Spartan boys suffered through some absolutely incredible experiences. A child raised in Sparta wasn’t raised by his mother. He was raised by the state, and he was put through an education unlike any other in history.
[Read the full article at Listverse.com]
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Sorry, but you are wrong about Alexander the Great and Sparta. By the time Alexander had come to power Sparta was a shell of her former self. Her glory days were long past. A low birthrate doomed the nation to a slow death on the battlefield of Greece. When Sparta was defeated at Leuctra by Thebes only one in ten of her soldiers were in fact Spartans. She had to lower her standards and allow non Spartans into her army. Philip of Macedon and his son Alex did not see Sparta as a real threat to their control of Greece and when Sparta did attempt to rise up one of Alexander’s generals marched south and promptly defeated the Spartans. Alexander was away in Asia conquering the Persian Empire. When Alexander heard about the Spartan defeat he famously stated that while his general was defeating mice he was conquering Asia.