King Pyrrhus of Epirus
The Siege of Sparta is a battle that occurred in the city of Sparta in Greece in Spring 272 BC. It features in Rome: Total War as a historical battle. You take the role of Pyrrhus of Epirus (represented ingame by the Seleucids, though he was not related to them historically) as you atempt to capture the city before reinforcements can arrive.
Units
Pyrrhus of Epirus (Seleucids)
The Pyrrhean army is composed mainly of phalanx pikemen, with a few cavalry, archers, slingers, elephants and artillery units.
(Sparta)
The Spartan garrion is composed mainly of hoplites with a few skirmishers and one unit of peasants and bodyguards
.
The reinforcement army is smaller and is composed only of a few hoplites and a bodyguard.
In History
King Pyrrhus of Epirus liked to believe that he was the last in a long line of kings, a great warrior in the tradition of Alexander the Great and worthy enough to be from the heroic age of Greece. The truth was different. After his early succeses against his Greek and Macedonian neighbours, his luck changed when matched agains the Romans at Asculum in 279 BC. Altough he won the battle, the cost was so high in men that "pyrrhic victory" is still used to describe a triumph brought at a terrible cost. Bloodied by his campaigns in Italy and Sicily, Pyrrhus returned to Epirus and raised a new army to conquer Greece and Macedonia. He managed quick victories against the Macedonian king, Antigonus, and then turned his attention south, to Greece itself, and a great prize beckoned him on: Sparta.
The Spartan reinforcements
The city-state was only a shadow of what it once had been. The great days of Spartan warriors were long gone, but the lands of Sparta were still well worth conquering. More importantly, Sparta had always relied on its elite hoplites for defence, men trained from infancy to do nothing but fight. As a result the city had no walls - it had never needed them!
With most of the Spartan army away on campaign with King Areus, the city looked terribly vulnerable...