Spartans actually weren't that enviable.
ignoratio elenchi!
They practiced male infanticide etc.
between 1970 and 2013 there were over 51,888,000 abortions in the US alone. Fifty One Million!
(Stab it in the neck when its inside = not murder. Stab it in the neck when its outside its murder.)
Fierce warriors, but were incapable of long drawn out campaigns, and could not adapt to new situations.
How long did the Peloponnese war go on for? Who won it? I think that both the invasion of Greece by the Persian Empire (up to that point the biggest that ever existed I do believe) and the growing Athenian Empire could rightly be considered new situations.
Some of the battles that Athens lost (unrelated to Sparta) would have crippled the Spartans for generations but the Athenians were able to recover very quickly.
Yes because Athens was a navel power. If the Spartans lost on land like the Athenians did then by definition they wouldn't have been the best fighters on land. If the Athenians lost at sea like the Spartans did then it would have been a much shorter war and the Spartans would still have won. Didn't the Spartans control the WHOLE of Greece for decades after the war, until the end of the Corinthian war where it took Thebes, Athens, Corinth, Argos, and the Persian Empire to defeat them?
The last two quotes are a bit irrelevant to why I originally made the post.
Sources: Last year of BA Philosophy and Classical Studies.
Edit."(unrelated to Sparta)" If you mean the Sicilian expedition then the Spartans definitely had a big hand in that.