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[edit]The Battle of Spartolos took place in 429 BC between Athens and the Chalkidian League and their allies, in the early part of the Peloponnesian War.
The Athenians under Xenophon marched into Thrace to attack Spartolos. They destroyed the crops outside the city and began negotiating with pro-Athenian factions in Chalcidice, but the anti-Athenian factions asked for help from Olynthus. An army from Chalcidice, Spartolos, and Olynthus met the Athenians in battle, but their hoplites were defeated and they retreated to Spartolos; their cavalry and peltasts, however, gained the advantage over the Athenian troops. Peltasts were light infantrymen who were armed with shields and javelins.[1] Reinforcements soon arrived from Olynthus, and they launched a second attack on the Athenians. The Athenian hoplites could not come to grips with the enemy light troops or horsemen. Eventually the Athenians panicked and were routed, with all of their generals and 430 other men killed.
In the Athenian tribute list of 429/8 BC the only cities of Chalcidice are: Mende, Aphytis, Scione, Stageira and Acanthus (Athos). Acanthus and Mende had not even joined the Chalkidian League.
Bolded sentence is what I added to the article. I also added the citation afterwards. Citation link at bottom of page.
Article Evaluation
[edit]The Battle of Spartolos took place in 429 BC between Athens and the Chalkidian League and their allies, in the early part of the Peloponnesian War.
The Athenians under Xenophon marched into Thrace to attack Spartolos. They destroyed the crops outside the city and began negotiating with pro-Athenian factions in Chalcidice, but the anti-Athenian factions asked for help from Olynthus. An army from Chalcidice, Spartolos, and Olynthus met the Athenians in battle, but their hoplites were defeated and they retreated to Spartolos; their cavalry and peltasts (light infantry armed with javelins), however, gained the advantage over the Athenian troops. Reinforcements soon arrived from Olynthus, and they launched a second attack on the Athenians. The Athenian hoplites could not come to grips with the enemy light troops or horsemen. Eventually the Athenians panicked and were routed, with all of their generals and 430 other men killed.
In the Athenian tribute list of 429/8 BC the only cities of Chalcidice are: Mende, Aphytis, Scione, Stageira and Acanthus (Athos). Acanthus and Mende had not even joined the Chalkidian League.
Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
A: Everything is relevant to the article topic, but there isn't enough information to go on.
Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
A: The author does a good job of staying neutral. The author writes this historical piece with no bias to any side.
Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
A: The only underrepresentation is the whole battle. There is not enough information on the battle.
Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
A: Yes all the links work. the source supports the claim of the article. Its funny though, the links had more written about them than the main article had.
Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
A: The author only references two sources. The author uses Thucydides and the History of the Peloponnesian War. I would not say the references are reliable because they are Wikipedia articles. If the sources were books by a person with a Doctorate, then the sources would hold more weight, because when writing a paper a professor wants a citation from a credible source. Wikipedia isn't a credible source.
Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
A: Again the author doesn't have much information on this topic so a lot could be added. The author could give specifics of the battle or why the battle was important and is still remembered to this day. I thought that a link of what a peltast is because I had no clue what one was.
Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
A: There is only one conversation put up on the talk page. It was submitted in 2003. The person seemed to be confused on the battle which makes sense considering there is limited information put forth by the author.
How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
A: This article is rated as a stub for obvious reasons. This article is part of three projects. One project is of Greece, the other is Classical Greece and Rome, and the last is a project about Military History.
How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
A: This differs in that we haven't gone over this specific battle in class, but we went over the Peloponnesian War.