Quote Originally Posted by Spuddly

According to wikipedia, fighting tactics between phalanxes (charging at full run) resulted in their spears breaking. Once fully engaged, having run into each other at full speed, spears became cumbersome in the melee. Spears are typically thought of as defensive weapons, but the hoplites used them offensively.

Non-hoplites had javelins and short swords. The javelins could be used for melee fighting, but were usually thrown. The javelins were weighted in such a way that if they stuck in a shield the shield would become unweildly and useless. If it stuck in your guts it'd drag you down.

After throwing their javelins, the warriors would move in upon eachother, swords drawn. The Iliad is a great source for how heros fought in epic battles.
Let me first make the comment that as a historian, I have found that Wikipedia is not always the best source for such research. Wikipedia tends to attract pedants and fanboys who are more than willing to fill in the blanks on the areas where they actually don't know what they're talking about.

Having studied Spartans for a historical research project, one thing that needs to be noted is that the Spartan hoplite's spear had a bronze spike butted on to the other end, which was used if the shaft broke for the traditional business end. A Spartan would charge with the normal spear head forward, and if that broke, flip the weapon about in their hands and then proceed to jab viciously with their shortened (after having the shaft been broken or cut) bronze spikes. Only if their spike was disarmed or destroyed, then the Spartan warrior switched to the iron sword as the last resort.

The Illiad is definitely not an accurate piece to use as a reference for historical tactics and strategies, it actually being written a goodly amount of time after the Trojan War. Homer's identity is still currently being debated by historians and many military historians believe that his descriptions of the Illiad's battles use details and descriptions that are anachronistic to the time period the Trojan War supposedly took place.

ON SPARTAN SNEAKINESS: Whoever said that Spartans were not good at stealth, has never read up on Spartan training. Spartan boys who are being trained to become soldiers are first organized into squad like groups, and then fed inadequate amounts of food until the point they were malnourished. But the trick was that the adult Spartans would daily leave out food in semi-accessible places for the training boys to spot, and the resourceful boys would attempt to steal it. The adults often guarded the food cautiously once they let the boys know of its presence. Punishment for getting caught was harsh: confinement, beatings or more starvation. However, those who succeeded often were boys who learned to work as a small group, with properly executed coordination: having look outs, decoys and setting up a passing system once the food was nabbed. This is exactly what the Spartan elders wanted. Eventually those who succeeded without being caught would be noted for their growing health, and often went on to advanced training where the others would simply languish and be consigned to less glorious duties. In the twisted Spartan mentality, this encouraged the strong-willed and the clever, while weeding out the weak and unversatile. A second method of survival as a young soldier-in-training would be to find one of the sneaky boys who had food, and hope that you could beat him up or intimidate him so that you got the food. This was also viewed as another viable way to produce small group leaders; think of the foul-mouthed, brutish sergeants you've heard about in our modern armed forces. Either approach was encouraged and approved of by the Spartan trainers.

By the time most Spartan soldiers were adults, they are either extremely well-versed in the arts of thievery and sneaking, or supremely versed in the art of thuggery.

END WORD: Spartans are either pure fighters or multiclassed rogue/fighters, the idea that Spartans should have their own class is kinda silly. A Spartan was first and foremost are team player, a tougher than normal trooper, not some super soldier. Their battle tactics weren't vastly different from the other Greek polis' warriors of the period, it was just their iron discipline and "to the death" mentality that made them truly unique and frightening opponents. Just design custom feats that fit the Spartan warrior mold better and keep the fighter base class. If you really want, make Spartans a racial choice or background choice instead of a class, and make those special Spartan feats you designed accessible only to those characters who have Spartan as their race or background. That sounds alot better.