Sparta, a leading city-state in ancient Greece. Resources on the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta (Lacdaemonia) whose citizens were known for their harsh lifestyle and terse (laconic) speech.
About the names given the ancient Spartans.
Spartan is an adjective used to describe ancient Greeks from the polis of Sparta and people who behave in ways thought to have been typical of these Spartans.
The Peloponnesian League was formed in the 6th century with Sparta in charge.
When we think of Sparta and the Lacedaemonians, we usually envision a regimented, fearless, obedient, upper-class fighter or Spartiate, obviously superior militarily to the sensual, democracy-loving, philosophy-pursuing Athenians. But there weren't many of these Spartans. Even in Sparta, they were in the minority.
Xenophon describes the reforms of Lycurgus and the government of the Lacedaemonians (Spartans).
Cynisca was a Spartan woman who gained fame as the first woman to be a victor in the Olympic games.
The Hoplites were the heavily armed foot soldiers of the Greeks who fought in close formation.
Leonidas was a fifth century Spartan military (Agiad) king who bravely led a small force of Greeks, mostly Spartan (300), but also Thespian and Thebans, against the much larger Persian army of Xerxes, at the pass of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. during the Persian Wars.
Gorgo was the only daughter of and heir to King Cleomenes I of Sparta (520-490). When Cleomenes died, his successor was his half-brother Leonidas, to whom Gorgo had been married in the late 490s, when she was in her late teens.
After a noteworthy reign, including advising the Plataeans to ally with Athens against Boeotia, and leading a coup against Argos in which Cartledge says 6000 Argive warriors were killed, Cleomenes fell out of favor for such things as corrupting the priestess at Delphi or for excessive drinking of neat wine (which was considered a barbarian custom by the temperate Spartans).
Relations between Samos and Sparta were at times close despite the fact that Samos was not properly a colony of Sparta.
Timeline of events in the Persian Wars. Links to information on the Persian War Battles of Salamis, Marathon, Thermopylae, and Plataea.
What Herodotus has to say about the Battle at Thermopylae where the Spartans under Leonidas made a last stand against the Persians under Xerxes.
Diodorus Siculus and others, including Plutarch and Justin, based on Pompeius Trogus, tell the story of the Battle of Thermopylae differently from Herodotus.
Education was state-sponsored in ancient Sparta, at least for the sons of the Spartan elite. Considered a very rigorous education, children learned to sing and dance, played ball and ate at the home of their 20-year old teacher. Learn more about this ancient education system that was considered so good that Xenophon sent his own sons to be fostered in Sparta so they could enjoy its benefits.
Spartiate was the term used for Spartan citizens who had gone through their military training. A Spartiate was a full citizen of Sparta.
Unlike Athens, ancient Sparta was run and organized primarily as a military state.
Tyrtaeus was an important archaic era elegiac poet for the Spartans.
Chapter from William Smith's history of Greece on the legendary founding of the Peloponnese, the social structure and political organization of the Spartans.
When Athens surrendered at the end of the Peloponnesian War, democracy was replaced by the oligarchic rule of the Thirty Tyrants. From 404-403 B.C., during the start of the period known as the Spartan hegemony (404-371 B.C.), hundreds of Athenians were killed, thousands exiled, and the numbers of the citizens were severely reduced.
Sparta had a downwardly mobile society with fewer elites than helots, but Sparta still defeated Athens, largely as a result of luck -- the Athenian plague -- and the development of a superior navy.
By virtue of her naval power, as exhibited in the war against Xerxes, Athens was the head of this Ionian group of independent city-states that opposed the Persians and then the Spartans.
Passage from Pausanias on the legendary history of the founding of Sparta. Lacedaemon was the son of Zeus who married Sparta, a daughter of Eurotas, the grandson of the aboriginal Lelex, the original ruler of the land. Very complicated genealogy.
Passages from antiquity revealing Spartan character and attitudes towards wealth, character, law, and sexuality. Anecdotes about Archidamus, Lycurgus, and Agesilaus.
Review of editors Stephen Hodkinson and Anton Powell's
Sparta: New Perspectives. Scholars argue about the Great Rhetra and Tyrtaios, Spartan education, subdivsions of the Spartan army, the importance of
aidos (reserve), the ethnic identity of the Messenians, sophrosyne, democratic admiration for Sparta, and more.
Nine passages from Xenophon about the famous Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus.
