Syracuse can grow quickly because of the wheat resource that is proximate to it on Sicily. I don't play quite so aggressively with the Greeks as I might with other factions. I took the Greeks just recently and started producing Spartans out of Syracuse after about 13 provinces. You might want to turtle your campaign more. I'm about 23 territories into a greek campaign and they haven't come up yet. Syracuse usually grows so fast that it's the first city to reach the 'huge' city level in population.ДЄnyway, that's the story. Because I do a lot of heavy recruiting in Sparta, I usually have to pump up the population in Sparta artificially by recruiting peasants in Corinth and Athens and then disbanding them in Sparta. Yes, you have to hang on to Syracuse and Sparta, because those are the only two cities you can recruit Spartan hoplites. Those doggone Spartans with the multiple experience chevrons are well nigh invincible. I've had Greek armies take on the Egyptians in Memphis and Alexandria with 5-6 Spartans and 3-4 Armoured hoplites.

In Sparta you can kick out spartans with three experience chevrons or more depending on how large your Nike temple is. It takes two turns to produce one Spartan unit.ДЄh, but the beauty of the unit is something to behold in combat, especially if you have an armourer in those cities and a temple of Nike in Sparta. You will not be able to produce them in either city until you build the largest city administration building and then the largest army barracks in those cities. Only two cities can produce Spartan hoplites for the Greeks - Syracuse and Sparta. I did capture Rome with a huge population and an army barracks but still no spartans.

Rome total war spartan