History of Sparta

This article covers the history of Sparta from its founding to the present, concentrating primarily on the Spartan state during the height of its power from the 6th to the 4th century BCE.

The Legend

Tradition relates that Sparta was founded by its first king Lacedaemon, son of Zeus and Taygete, who named the city after his wife, the daughter of Eurotas. However, the nearby archaeological sites of Amyclae and Therapne (Therapnae) before circa 1000 BCE appear to be more important than Sparta; the former is a Minoan ruin a few miles to the south of Sparta, the latter likely the Achaean capital of Laconia and the seat of Menelaus, called the king of Sparta in the annals of the Trojan War, who was Agamemnon's younger brother according to Greek mythology and literature.

Lycurgus

Some eighty years after the Trojan War, according to the traditional chronology, the Dorian migration from the north took place and eventually led to the rise of classical Sparta - famous as a martial power, foe of the Persian Empire, and eventual conqueror of Athens. A band of Dorians united with a body of Aetolians to cross the Corinthian Gulf and invade the Peloponnese from the northwest.

The Aetolians settled in Elis, and the Dorians pushed up to the headwaters of the Alpheus where they divided into two forces, one of which under Cresphontes invaded and later subdued Messenia, while the other, led by Aristodemus or, according to another version, by his twin sons Eurysthenes and Procles, made its way down the Eurotas valley and gained Sparta, which became the Dorian capital of Laconia.

Prehistoric period

Archeology is however difficult to reconcile with the legend. Sparta itself only begins to show signs of settlement around 1000 BCE, some 200 years after the collapse of Mycenaean civilization . Of the four villages that made up the Spartan Polis, Forrest suggests that the two closest to the Acropolis were the originals and the two more far flung of later foundation. The dual kingship may originate in the fusion of the first two villages. One of the effects of the of Mycenaean collapse had been a sharp drop in population. Following that however there was a significant recovery and this growth in population is likely to have been more marked in Sparta, situated as it was in the most fertile part of the plain.

The Reforms of Lycurgus

It is it at this point in the history of Sparta, to be precise the reign of King Charillos, that most ancient sources place the life of Lycurgus. Indeed, the Spartans ascribed their subsequent success to Lycurgus who instituted his reforms at a time when Sparta was weakened by internal dissent and lacked the stability of a united and well-organized community. His legislation established the Gerousia, the Spartan Senate, and he is also credited with establishing the Spartan system of training, the agoge. There are reasons to doubt whether he ever really existed as his name derives from the word for wolf which was associated with Apollo - hence Lycurgus could be simply the personification of the god

Sparta - the Great Rhetra, c. early 7th c. BCE

The expansion of Sparta

Sparta shared the plain with Amyklai which lay to South and was one of the few places to survive from Mycean times and hence was likely to be her most formidable neighbor. Hence the tradition that Sparta, under her kings Archelaos and Charillos moved instead north to secure the upper Eurotas valley is plausible. Pharis and Geronthrae were then taken and, though the traditions are a little contradictory, also Amyclae which probably fell around 750 BCE. It is probable that inhabitants of Geronthrae were driven out while the inhabitants of Amyclae were simply subjugated to Sparta. This gave Sparta control of the central Laconian plain and the eastern plateau which lies between the Eurotas and Mount Parnon. Alcmenes, by the subjugation of Helos, brought the lower Eurotas plain under Spartan rule. About this time, probably the Argives, whose territory included the whole east coast of the Peloponnese and the island of Cythera (Herodotus 1.82), were driven back, and the whole of Laconia was thus incorporated in the Spartan state.

It was not long before a further extension took place. Under Alcmenes and Theopompus a war broke out between the Spartans and the Messenians, their neighbors on the west, which, after a struggle lasting for twenty years, ended in the subjection of the Messenians, who were forced to pay half the produce of the soil as tribute to their Spartan overlords. The Second Messenian War resulted from the attempt to throw off the Spartan yoke by the Messenian hero Aristomenes; but Spartan tenacity broke down the resistance of the insurgents, and Messenia was made Spartan territory, just as Laconia had been, its inhabitants being reduced to the status of helots, apart from those who, as perioeci, inhabited the towns on the seacoast and a few settlements inland.

Territory of Sparta

This extension of Sparta's territory was viewed with apprehension by her neighbors in the Peloponnese. Arcadia and Argos had vigorously aided the Messenians in their two struggles, and help was also sent by the Sicyonians, Pisatans and Triphyhans: only the Corinthians appear to have supported the Spartans, doubtless on account of their jealousy of their powerful neighbors, the Argives. At the close of the second Messenian War (no later than 631 BCE), no power could hope to cope with that of Sparta save Arcadia and Argos.

very nice body on the statue

The 5th century BCE

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Leonidas I monument at Thermopylae

Spartas's role in the Persian Wars was mixed. After hearing Pheidippides' plea to help Athens face the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE, Sparta decided to honor its laws and wait until the moon was full to send an army. As a result, Sparta's army arrived at Marathon after the battle had been won by the Athenians.

In the second campaign, conducted ten years later by Xerxes in person, Sparta again faced the same dilemma . The Persians inconveniently chose to attack during the Olympic truce with the Spartans felt they must honour. Other Greek states lacked such foibles making a major effort to assemble a fleet - how could not Sparta contribute on land when others were doing so much on sea? The solution was to provide the small force under Leonidas to defend Thermopylae. However there are indications that Sparta's religious scruples were merely a cover. From this interpretation, Sparta believed that the defence of Thermopylae was hopeless and wished to make a stand at the Isthmus but she had to go thru the motions for otherwise Athens might go over to Persia. The loss of Athens's fleet would simply be too great a loss to the Greek resistance to be risked. The alternative view is that, on the evidence of the actual fighting, the pass was supremely defensable and that the Spartans might reasonably have expected that the forces sent would be adequate. From then on Sparta took a more active share and assumed the command of the combined Greek forces by sea and land. The decisive victory of Salamis did not change Sparta's essential dilemma. Ideally she would wish to fight at the Isthmus where she would avoid the risk of her infantry being caught in the open by the Persian cavalry. However, when in 479 BCE, the remaining Persian forces under Mardonius devastated Attica, Athenian pressure forced Sparta to lead an advance. The outcome was a standoff where both the Persians and the Greeks attempted to fight on favorable terrain which was resolved when the Persians attacked during a botched Greek withdrawal. In the resulting Battle of Plataea the Greeks under the generalship of the Spartan Pausanias routed the lightly-armed Persian infantry, killing Mardonius. In the same year a united Greek fleet under the Spartan King, Leotychidas, won the victory of Mycale However, when this victory led to a revolt of the Ionian Greeks it was Sparta that rejected their admission to the Hellenic alliance. Sparta proposed that they should abandon their homes in Anatolia and settle in the cities that had supported the Persians. It was Athens who by offering these cities alliance sowed the seeds of her maritime league. In 478 BCE the Greek fleet led by Pausanias, the victor of Plataea, mounted moves on Cyprus and Byzantium. However his arrogant behavior forced his recall. Pausanias had so alienated the Ionians that they refused to accept the successor, Dorcis, that Sparta sent to replace him. Instead those newly liberated from Persia turned to Athens. The sources give quite divergent impressions about Spartan reactions to Athens' growing power and this may reflect the divergence of opinion within Sparta. According to this view on Spartan faction was quite content to allow Athens to carry the risk of continuing the war with Persia while an opposing faction deeply resented Athens' challenge to her Greek supremacy.

Sparta's attention was at this time fully occupied by troubles nearer home — such as the revolt of Tegea (circa 473-471 BCE), rendered all the more formidable by the participation of Argos. The most serious, however was the crisis caused by the earthquake which in 464 BCE devastated Sparta in which many lost their lives. In immediate aftermath the helots saw an opportunity to rebel. There then followed the siege of Ithome which the rebels had fortified. The pro Spartan Cimion was successful in getting Athens to send help but this backfired. The Athenian hoplites that made up the bulk of the force were from the well to do section of Athenian society. Nonetheless, they were shocked to discover that the rebels were Greeks like themselves and Sparta began to fear that Athens might make common cause with the rebels. The Spartans sent the Athenians home, giving as the official reason that as the initial assault on Ithone had failed and what was now requited was a blockade they told the Athenians that for this task they were no longer needed. Back in Athens, this snub resulted in Athens breaking off her alliance with Sparta and allying with here enemy Argos. Further friction was caused by the consummation of the Attic democracy under Ephialtes and Pericles.

Paul Cartledge hazards that the revolt of hellots and perioeci led the Spartans to reorganize their army and integrate the perioeci into the citizen hoplite regiments. Certainly a system where citizens and non citizens fought together in the same regiments was unusual for Greece. Hans van Wees is however unconvinced by the "manpower shortage" explanation of the Spartans' use of non citizen hoplites. He agrees that the integration of perioeci and citizens occurred sometime between the Persian and the Peloponesian Wars but doesn't regard that as a significant stage. The Spartans had been using non-citizens as hoplites well before that and the proportion didn't change. He doubts that the Spartans ever subscribed to the citizen only hoplite force ideal so beloved by writers such as Aristotle.

Sparta with the Taygetos mountains in the background

When the First Peloponnesian War broke out, Sparta was still pinned down suppressing the hellot revolt. Hence Sparta's involvement was somewhat desultory. It amounted to little more than isolated expeditions the most notable of which involved helping to inflict a defeat on the Athenians at the Battle of Tanagra in 457 BCE in Boeotia. However they then went home gaving the Athenians an opportunity to defeat the Boeotians at the battle of Oenophyta and so overuning Boeotia. When the hellot revolt was finally ended, Sparta needed a breather and sought and gained a five years' truce, with Athens - with Argos, however she sought a thirty year peace to ensure that she could strike Athens unencumbered. Hence, Sparta was fully able to explit the situation when Megara, Boeotia and Euboea revolted, sending an army into Attica. The war ended with Athens deprived of her mainland possessions but having been permitted to regain Euboea. Tho both of Sparta's Kings were exiled for permitting Athens to regain Euboea, Sparta agreed to a Thirty Year Peace.

Within six years, however, Sparta was proposing to her allies to go to war with Athens in support of Samos that had rebelled. On that occasion Corinth successfully opposed opposed Sparta and it was voted down.. When the Peloponnesian War, finally broke out in 431 BCE the chief public complaints against Athens was that she had allied with Korkyra (which was at war with Corinth) and Athens treatment of Potidea. However according to Thucydides the real cause of the war was Sparta's fear of Athens growing power.

Sparta entered the with the proclaimed aim of the "liberation the Greeks" - an aim that required a total defeat of Athens. Her method was invade Attica in the hope of provoking Athens to give battle. Unfortunately Athens refused to be provoked. When in 425 BCE a body of Spartans was captured by the Athenians at Pylos she was ready, and even anxious, to terminate the war on any reasonable conditions. That the terms of the Peace of Nicias, which in 421 BCE concluded the first phase of the war, were rather in favour of Sparta than of Athens was due almost entirely to the energy and insight of an individual Spartan, Brasidas, and the disastrous attempt of Athens to regain its lost land empire. The final success of Sparta and the capture of Athens in 405 BCE were brought about partly by the treachery of Alcibiades, who induced the state to send Gylippus to conduct the defence of Syracuse, to fortify Decelea in northern Attica, and to adopt a vigorous policy of aiding Athenian allies to revolt. The lack of funds which would have proved fatal to Spartan naval warfare was remedied by the intervention of Persia, which supplied large subsidies. However Spartan generals showed themselves to be inexperienced at naval warfare (to be expected) but also incompetent and/or brutal . The one commander who stood out was Lysander. Though as a general he was merely average he was an exceptional diplomat and organiser. Crucially he had the confidence of Prince Cyrus. When Cyrus requested Lysander be sent out for a second term both Spartan politics and the Spartan constitution should have ruled this out but in the wake of their defeat at the Battle of Arginusae a way round this was found. Cyrus had such complete confidence in Lysander that Lysander was provided with all the resources he needed to rebuild the Spartan fleet. Then in 404 BCE Lysander virtually destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami. Lysander now proceeded from city to city imposing 10 men oligarchies and a massacre of democrats ensued.

With Athens starved into surrender she might have expected the same fate as Plataea and indeed Corinth and Thebes did indeed call for the destruction of Athens. Sparta refused alluding to Athens' contribution to the defeat of the Persians. Some modern historians have, however seen a less disinterested reason - the need for a counterweight to Thebes - but Anton Powell sees here an excess of hindsight. The Spartans could not of known, as we do, that it would be Thebes that would break her at the Battle of Leuctra. Powell suspects that Sparta was more disunited than she appeared in public. He argues that it is highly likely that Lysander would also have desired Athens destruction. Lysander's opponents would on the other hand have feared the power of a Lysander enriched by the plundering of Athens and defended Athens from destruction not for love of the city but out of fear of Lysander.

The terms Sparta offered Athens were not however oversoft, involving, as they did, the destruction of the long walls and that of Piraeus. On top of that Lysander soon found a pretext, in the spring of 404 BCE, to impose the clique of 30 oligarchs that have come to be known, with reason, as the Thirty Tyrants.

The 4th century BCE

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4th Century Hoplite

Spartan Supremacy

The fall of Athens left Sparta once again supreme in the Greek world. Though the details of how Sparta ruled Athens former subjects is uncertain, it was certainly as dictatorial and exploitative as had been the rule of Athens and probably more so. In general Spartan hegemony was exercised selfishly with little regard for the sensibilities either of her allies or her new subjects. The disquiet of her allies can be seen in the defiance of Boeotia, Elis and Corinth in offering refuge to those who opposed to the rule of the thirty in Athens. When these exiles successfuly defeated the thirty, Sparta's first response was to send Lysander with a band of mercenaries who clearly intended simply to place the thirty back in power. Very quickly, however, Sparta sent King Pausanias with a levy of the Peloponesian League who on the one hand accepted the restoration of democracy but on the other hand split off Eleusis, whence the oligachs had fled, from the Athenian Polis. Though this deal served Sparta's interests in ending the alliance of Boeotia and Corinth with the democrats of Athens (Boeotia soon grabed Oropus from Athens), Pausanias was brought to trial, presumably for being soft on Athens, and escaped conviction by the skin of his teeth.

Sparta's close relationship with Prince Cyrus continued when she gave covert support to his attempt on the Persian throne. After Cyrus was killed at the Battle of Cunaxa, Sparta briefly attempted to be conciliatory towards Artaxerxes, the Persian King. In late 401 BCE, however, Sparta decided to answer an appeal of several Ionian cities and sent an expedition to Anatolia. Though the war was fought under the banner of Greek liberty, the Spatan defeat at the Battle of Cnidus in 394 BCE was widely welcomed by the Greek cities of the region. Though the Persian rule meant to the cities of the mainland of Asia the payment of tribute this seems to be considered the lesser evil to Spartan rule.

At the end of 396 BCE Persia had sent a Rhodian agent with gifts to opponents of Sparta on the mailand of Greace. However, these inducemnts served mainly as encouragement to those who who were already resentful of Sparta. In the event, it was Sparta who made the first aggressive move using, as a pretext, Boeotia's support for her ally Lokris against Sparta's ally Phokis. An army under Lysander an Pausanias was despatched. As Pausanias was somewhat lukewarm to the whole enterprise, Lysander went on ahead. Having detached Orchemonos from the Boeotian League and then got himself killed at the Battle of Haliartus. When Pausanias arrived rather than avenge the defeat he simply sought a truce to bury the bodies. For this Pausanias was procecuted, this time successfully and went into exile.

Gytheum, Sparta's port

Though at Coronea Agesilaus had slightly the better of the Boeotians and at Corinth the Spartans maintained their position, yet they felt it necessary to rid themselves of Persian hostility and if possible use the Persian power to strengthen their own position at home: they therefore concluded with Artaxerxes II the humiliating Peace of Antalcidas (387 BCE), by which they surrendered to the Great King the Greek cities of the Asia Minor coast and of Cyprus, and stipulated for the autonomy of all other Greek cities. Finally, Sparta and Persia were given the right to make war on those who did not respect the terms of the treaty. It was to be a very one sided inpretation of autonomy that Sparta enforced. The Boetian League was broken up on the one hand while the Spartan dominated Peloponesian League was somehow excepted. Further, Sparta did not consider autonomy included the right of a city to choose democracy over Sparta's preferred form of government oligachy. In the 383 BCE an appeal from two cities of the Chalkidice and of the King of Macedon gave Sparta a pretext to break up the Chalkidian League headed by Olynthus). After several years of fighting Olynthus was defeated and the cities of the Chalkidice were enrolled into the Peloponesian League. The real beneficiary of this conflict was Macedon, though Paul Cartledge considers it to be indulging in hindsight to blame Sparta for thus enabling the rise of Philip II.

In 382 BCE Phoebidas, while leading an Spartan army north against Olynthus made a detour to Thebes and seized the he Kadmeia, the citadel of Thebes. The leader of the anti-Spartan faction was executed after a show trial, and a narrow clique of pro Spartan partisans was placed in power in Thebes and other Boeotian cities. It was a flagerent breach of the Peace of Antalcidas. It was the seizure of the Kadmeia that led to Theban rebellion and the resulting war. Sparta started the war with the strategic initiative, however Sparta failed to achieve its aims. Early on, a botched attack on Piraeus by the Spartan commander Sphodrias undermined Sparta's position by driving Athens into the arms of Thebes.. Sparta then met defeat at sea (the Battle of Naxos) and on land (the Battle of Tegyra) and failed to prevent the reestablishment of the Boeotian League and creation of the second Athenian League.

In 371 BCE a fresh peace congress was summoned at Sparta to ratify the Peace of Callias. Again the Thebans refused to renounce their Boeotian hegemony, and the Spartan's sent a force under King Cleombrotus in an attempt to enforce Theban acceptance. When the Thebans gave battle at Leuctra it was more out of brave despair than hope. However it was Sparta that was defeated and this, along the death of King Cleombrotus dealt a crushing blow to Spartan military prestige. The result of the battle was to transfer supremacy from Sparta to Thebes.

Facing the Theban Assendency

By the winter of late 370 BCE, King Agesilaus took the field not against Thebes but in an attempt to preserve at least a toehold of influence for Sparta in Arkadia. This backfired when, in response, the Arkadians sent an appeal for help to Boeotia. Boeotia responded by sending a large army, led by Epaminondas, which first marched on Sparta itself and then moved to Messenia where the Helots had already rebelled. Epaminondas made that rebellion permanent by fortifying the city of Messene

The final showdown was in 362 BCE, when Sparta by which time several of Boetia's former allies had joined Sparta such as Mantinea and and Elis. Athens also fought with Sparta. The resulting Battle of Mantinea was won by Boetia and her allies but in the moment of victory Epaminondas was killed. In the aftermath of the battle both Sparta's enemies and her till then allies swore a common peace. Only Sparta refused because she would not accept the independence of Messenia.

Eurotas River

But Sparta had neither the men nor the money to recover her lost position, and the continued existence on her borders of an independent Messenia and Arcadia kept her in constant fear for her own safety. She did, indeed, join with Athens and Achaea in 353 BCE to prevent Philip II of Macedon passing Thermopylae and entering Phocis, but beyond this she took no part in the struggle of Greece with the new power which had sprung up on her northern borders. The final showdown saw Philip fighting Athens and Thebes Chaeronea. Sparta, was pinned down at home by Macedonian allies such as Messene and Argos and took no part.

After the battle, however, Sparta refused to submit voluntarily to Philip, and was forced to do so by the devastation of Laconia and the transfer of certain border districts to the neighboring states of Argos, Arcadia and Messenia. During the absence of Alexander the Great in the East Agis III revolted, but the rising was crushed by Antipater. The memory of this defeat was still fresh in Spartan minds when the general revolt against Macedonian rule known as the Lamian War broke out - hence Sparta stayed neutral.

The 3rd century BCE

During Demetrius Poliorcetes campaign to conquer the Peloponese in 294 BCE, the Spartans led by Archidamus IV attempted to resist but were defeated in two battles. Had not Demetrius decided to turn his attention to Macedonia the city would have fallen. In 293 BCE a Spartan force, under Cleonymus, inspired Boeotia to defy Demetrius but Cleonymus soon departed leaving Thebes in the lurch.

In 272 BCE, at the instigation of Cleonymus of Sparta, Pyrrhus invaded the Peloponnese. Pyrrhus was confident he could take the city of Sparta with ease, however, the Spartans, with even the women taking part in the defense, succeeded in beating off Pyrrhus' attacks. At this point Pyrrhus received an appeal from an opposition Argive faction for backing against the pro Gonatas ruler of Argos and he withdrew from Sparta. In 264 BCE Sparta formed an alliance with Athens and Ptolomeic Egypt (along with a number smaller Greek cities) in attempt to break free of Macedon.. During the resulting Chremonidean War the Spartan King Areus led two expeditions to the Isthmus where Corinth was garrisoned by Macedonia and in the second he was killed. When the Achaean League was expecting an attack from Aetolia, Sparta sent an army under Agis to help defend the Isthmus but the Spartans were sent home when it seemed that no attack would materialize. Shortly afterwards About 244 BCE an Aetolian army raided Laconia, carrying off, it is said, 50,000 captives, though that is likely to be an exaggeration. Grainger has suggested that this raid was part of Aetolia's project to build a coalition of Peloponesian cities. Though Aetolia was primarily concerned with confining Achaea, because the cities concerned were hostile to Sparta, Aetolia needed to demonstrate her anti Spartan credentials.

Trial of Agis

In the middle of the century a slowly building social crisis came to a head. Wealth had become concentrated into the hands of about 100 wealthy families. By contrast, the number of equals, who had always formed the backbone of the Spartan army had fallen to 700 - less than a tenth of its 9000 strong highpoint in the 7th century. Agis IV was the first to attempt reform. His program combined debt cancellation and land reform. Opposition from king Leonidas was removed when he was deposed on somewhat dubious grounds. However his opponents exploited a period when he was absent from Sparta and on his return he was subjected to a travesty of a trial.

The next attempt at reform came from the son of Agis's enemy Leonidas - Cleomenes III. In 229 BCE Cleomenes led an attack on Megalopolis - hence provoking war with Achaea. Aratus who led the Achaean League forces, despite having 20,000 to Cleomenes 5000 men adopted a very cautious strategy. Nonetheless Cleomenes succeeded in defeating him.. With this success behind him he left the citizen troops in the field and with the mercenaries marched on Sparta to stage a coup. The ephorate was abolished - indeed four out of five of them had been killed during Cleomenes' seizure of power. Land was redistributed enabling a widening of the citizen body . Debts were cancelled. The task of restoring the old severe training and simple life Cleomenes gave to Sphaerus, his stoic advisor. For Green, that a non Spartan should be given such a responsibility is a telling indication of the extent that Sparta had lost her Lycurgian traditions. These reforms excited hostility amongst the wealthy of the Peloponese who feared social revolution. For others, especially among the poor, Cleomenes inspired hope - a hope that was to be quickly dashed when Cleomenes started taking cities and it became obvious that social reform outside Sparta was the last thing on his mind.

Cleomenes reforms had as their aim the restoration of Spartan power. Initially Cleomenes was successful, taking cities that had till then been part of the Achaean League and winning the financial backing of Egypt. However Aratus the leader of the Achaean League decided to ally with Achea's till then enemy Macedonia. With Egypt deciding to cut financial aid Cleomenes decided to hazard all on one battle. In the resulting Battle of Sellasia (222 BCE), Cleomenes was defeated by the Achaeans and Macedonia. Antigonus III Doson, the king of Macedon ceremonially entered Sparta with his army - something Sparta had never endured before. Antigonus. The ephors were restored while the kingship was suspended

It was not long afterwards that the dual kingship ceased and Sparta fell under the sway of a series of cruel and rapacious tyrants—Lycurgus, Machanidas, who was killed by Philopoemen.

Nabis and the Intervention of Rome

The sources for Nabis, who took power in 207 BCE, are so uniformly hostile that it is impossible today to judge the truth of the accusation against him - that his reforms were undertake only to serve Nabis's interests. Certainly his reforms went far deeper than those of Cleomenes who had liberated 6000 helots merely as an emergency measure. Were we to trust the accounts given by Polybius and Livy, we would dismiss him little better than a bandit chieftain, holding Sparta by means of extreme cruelty and oppression and using mercenary troops to a large extent in his wars. Forest is willing to take these accusations at face value including that that he murdered his ward and that of state sponsored piracy and brigandage - but not the self interested motives ascribed to him. He sees him as a ruthless version of Cleomenes sincerely attempting to solve Sparta's social crisis. He initiated the building of Sparta's first walls which extended to some 6 miles.

Nonetheless, a vigorous struggle was maintained with the Achaean League and with Macedon until the Romans, after the conclusion of their war with Philip V, sent an army into Laconia under T. Quinctius Flamininus. Nabis was forced to capitulate, evacuating all his possessions outside Laconia, surrendering the Laconian seaports and his navy, and paying an indemnity of 500 talents (Livy xxxiv. 33–43). On the departure of the Romans he succeeded in recovering Gythium, in spite of an attempt to relieve it made by the Achaeans under Philopoemen, but in an encounter he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of that general, who for thirty days ravaged Laconia unopposed.

Nabis was assassinated in 192 BCE, and Sparta was forced by Philopoenien to enroll itself as a member of the Achaean League under a phil-Achaean aristocracy. This gave rise to chronic disorders and disputes, which led to armed intervention by the Achaeans, who compelled the Spartans to submit to the overthrow of their city walls, the dismissal of their mercenary troops, the recall of all exiles, the abandonment of the old Lycurgan constitution and the adoption of the Achaean laws and institutions (188 BCE). Again and again the relations between the Spartans and the Achaean League formed the occasion of discussions in the Roman senate or of the despatch of Roman embassies to Greece, but no decisive intervention took place until a fresh dispute about the position of Sparta in the league led to a decision by the Romans that Sparta, Corinth, Argos, Arcadian Orchomenus and Heraclea on Oeta should be severed from it. This resulted in an open breach between the league and Rome, and eventually, in 146 BCE, after the sack of Corinth, in the dissolution of the league and the annexation of Greece to the Roman province of Macedonia.

For Sparta the long era of war and internal struggle had ceased and one of peace and a revived prosperity took its place, as is witnessed by the numerous extant inscriptions belonging to this period. As an allied city it was exempt from direct taxation, though compelled on occasions to make “voluntary “ presents to Roman generals. Political ambition was restricted to the tenure of the municipal magistracies, culminating in the offices of nomophylax, ephor and patronomus. Augustus showed marked favour to the city, Hadrian twice visited it during his journeys in the East and accepted the title of eponymous patronomus.

The old warlike spirit found an outlet chiefly in the vigorous but peaceful contests held in the gymnasium, the ball-place, and the arena before the temple of Artemis Orthia: sometimes too it found a vent in actual campaigning as when Spartans were enrolled for service against the Parthians by the emperors Lucius Verus, Septimius Severus and Caracalla.

Medieval Sparta

In CE 396 Alaric destroyed the city, and at a later period Laconia was invaded and settled by Slavonic tribes, especially the Melings and Ezerits, who in turn had to give way before the advance of the Byzantine power, though preserving a partial independence in the mountainous regions. It has been theorized that speakers of the now-moribund Doric derived language of Tsakonian are the descendants of Spartans who were isolated as a result of barbarian invasions.

The Franks on their arrival in the Morea found a fortified city named Lacedaemonia (Sparta) occupying part of the site of ancient Sparta, and this continued to exist, though greatly depopulated, even after William II Villehardouin had in 1249 founded the fortress and city of Mistra, on a spur of Taygetus some 3 miles northwest of Sparta.

This passed shortly afterwards into the hands of the Byzantine Greeks, who retained it until the Turks under Mehmed II captured it in 1460. In 1687 it came into the possession of the Venetians, from whom it was wrested in 1715 by the Turks. Thus for nearly six centuries it was Mistra and not Sparta which formed the center and focus of Laconian history. The Mani Peninsula region of Laconia retained some measure of autonomy during the Ottoman period, and played a significant role in the Greek War of Independence.

Modern Sparta

In 1834, after the War of Independence had resulted in the liberation of Greece, the town of Sparta was rebuilt as a modern city on part of the ancient site from the designs of Baron Jochmus, and Mistra decayed until now it is in ruins and almost deserted. Sparta is the capital of the prefecture (nomos) of Laconia.

Notable Spartans

• Chelidonis
• Cleomenes I
• Helen
• Leonidas I
• Gorgo, Queen of Sparta
• Lycurgus
• Menelaus
• Nabis
• Arachidamia
• Chelidonis
• Hydna
• Cynisca

See also

• List of Kings of Sparta
• Spartan army
• Spartan pederasty

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)