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I, too, am a former Army officer from the Vietnam Era, and an ABD (all but dissertation) in history, and I disagree with you that a draft army would be adequately professional.

To equate militia service, which was very limited in duration (typicaly 90 days) and location (usually within the state), and under discipline far different from a professional military (e.g. elected officers) with a draft which obliges citizens to spend years in uniform wherever the military chooses and under the same discipline as professional soldiers is simply absurd. Conscription, then, has really been used only in the later part of the Civil War (where there were draft riots), WWI (when it was intended to keep the burden spread rather than have only the 'best and brightest' sign up), WWII (when it passed by 1 vote) and thereafter until it was abolished in the early 1970's. I served with both draftees and volunteers, and I'll take the volunteers any day.

Roman service was indeed limited to property-owning citizens, but [per Wikipedia and consistent with my memories of reading Mommsen's History of Rome some 30 years ago] the early Republic had no standing army. When war threatened the consuls of the day would be charged with the duty of recruiting an army from the eligible citizenry of the Republic. As a rule one of the consuls would lead this mainly volunteer army into battle. Much closer to our militia type system.

We could argue all day about why Sparta fell. Not worth it.

By the time of Marius, the Roman Army went professional because:[a] it was now in the field for years at a time [by years I mean military campaigning seasons], [b] the disruption to the economic and political life were getting more and more disjointed, and [c] the manpower requirements of Roman policy required expanding the pool of potential recruits to citizens who did not have the economic means of support to sustain prolonged service in the legions.

I also served with RAs and draftees [not the all volunteer Army]. Found that individual soldiers of both were either outstanding, or not. I do recall that the all volunteer force pre-Reagan wasn't all that great from what I've read.

The only point I was trying to make about Sparta was that, like Prussia, it was an army wrapped in a country. It used the same phalanx as other Greek states, but it was a full time, professional army, no a hoplite militia.