#History of Ancient Sparta Sparta is a city in Laconia on the Peloponnese in Greece. In antiquity it was a powerful city-state with a famous martial tradition. Ancient writers sometimes referred to it as Lacedaemon and its people as Lacedaemonians. Sparta reached the height of its power in 404 B c. after its victory against Athens in the second Peloponnesian war. When it was in its prime Sparta had no city walls; its inhabitants it seems preferred to defend it with men rather than mortar. However within a few decades after a defeat against the Thebans at the Battle of leuctra the city found itself reduced to a oesecond-rate power a status from which it never recovered. The prowess and fearlessness of Sparta's warriors has inspired the Western world for millennia and even in the 21st century has been incorporated into Hollywood films like 300 and the futuristic video game series Halo (where a group of super-soldiers are called oespartans). Yet the real-life story of the city is complicated more than popular mythology makes it out to be. The task of sorting out what is real about the Spartans from what is myth has been made more difficult because many of the ancient accounts were written by non-Spartans. As such they need to be taken with the appropriate grain of salt. Although there is evidence of Bronze age habitation not far from Sparta it seems that the city itself was founded not until the early Iron age in the time after 1000 B c. Four villages Limnae Pitana Mesoa and Cynosoura which are located near what would be the Spartan acropolis came together to form the early city. Historian Nigel Kennell writes in his book Spartans: A New History (John Wiley & Sons 2010) that the city s location in the fertile Eurotas valley gave its inhabitants access to an abundance of food something its local rivals did not enjoy. Even the name Sparta is from a verb meaning oei sow or oeto sow. Although Sparta made efforts to consolidate its territory in Laconia we also know that at this early stage the people of the city appear to have taken pride in their artistic skills. Sparta was known for its poetry and it pottery its wares being found in places as far flung as Cyrene (in Libya) and the island of Samos not far from the coast of modern-day Turkey. Researcher Konstantinos Kopanias notes in a 2009 journal article that up until the sixth century B c. Sparta appears to have had an ivory workshop. Surviving ivories from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta depict birds male and female figures and even a oetree of life or oesacred tree. Poetry was another key early Spartan achievement. oein reality we have more testimony to poetic activity at Sparta in the seventh century than for any other Greek state including Athens writes historian Chester Starr in a chapter of the book Sparta (Edinburgh University Press 2002. While much of this poetry survives in fragmentary form and some of it such as from Tyrtaeus reflects the development of the martial values that Sparta would become famous for there is also work that appears to reflect a society concerned with art rather than just war. This fragment from the poet Alcman which he composed for a Spartan festival stands out. It refers to a choir girl named oeagido. There is such a thing as retribution from the gods. Happy is he who sound of mind weaves through the day unwept. I sing the light of Agido. I see it like the sun whom Agido summons to appear and witness for us. But the glorious chorus mistress forbids me to either praise or blame her. For she appears to be outstanding as if one placed among a grazing herd a perfect horse a prize-winner with resounding hooves one of the dreams that dwell below the rock...Translation by Gloria Ferrari from Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta University of Chicago Press 2008) A key event on Sparta s road to becoming a more militaristic society was its conquest of the land of Messenia located to the west of Sparta and its conversion of its subjects to helots (slaves. Kennell points out that this conquest appears to have begun in the eighth century B c. with archaeological evidence from the city of Messene showing that the last evidence of habitation was during the eighth/seventh centuries B c. before a period of desertion began. The incorporation of the people of Messenia into Sparta s slave population was important as it provided Sparta with oethe means to maintain the nearest thing to a standing army in Greece Kennell writes oeby freeing all its adult male citizens from the need for manual labor. Keeping this population of slaves in check was a problem the Spartans would have for centuries with some deeply cruel methods employed. The writer Plutarch (who lived A d. 46-120) claimed that the Spartans used what we might consider death squads. Â Â oethe magistrates from time to time sent out into the country at large the most discreet of the young warriors equipped only with daggers and such supplies as were necessary. In the day time they scattered into obscure and out-of-the-way places where they hid themselves and lay quiet; but in the night they came down into the highways and killed every Helot whom they caught. Translation by Bernadotte Perrin via Perseus Digital Library) Spartan poetry written in the seventh century B c. also hints at a move to a more martial society. Tyrtaeus writes: Here is courage mankind s finest possession here is the noblest prize that a young man can endeavor to win and it is a good thing his city and all the people share with him when a man plants his feet and stands in the foremost spears relentlessly all thought of foul flight completely forgotten and has trained well his heart to be steadfast and to endure and with words encourages the man who is stationed beside him. Here is a man who proves himself to be valiant in war...Translation by Richmond Lattimore from the book Greek Lyrics University of Chicago Press 1960) The presence of large numbers of slaves relieved Spartan men from manual labor and allowed Sparta to build a citizen training system that prepared the city s children for the harshness of war. oeat seven a Spartan boy was taken from his mother and raised in barracks beneath the eyes of older boys writes University of Virginia professor J. E. Lendon in his book Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (Yale university Press 2005. oeboys were whipped to inculcate respect (aidos) and obedience; they went ill clad to make them tough; and they were starved to make them resistant to hunger...If they got too hungry the boys were encouraged to try stealing (as a way of improving their stealth) but were punished if they got caught. Spartans progressed through this training system until the age of 20 when they were allowed to join a communal mess and hence become a full citizen of the community. Each member of the mess was expected to provide a certain amount of foodstuffs. Girls while not trained militarily were expected to train physically. oephysical fitness was considered to be as important for females as it was for males and girls took part in races and trials of strength writes Sue Blundell in her book Women in Ancient Greece (Harvard university Press 1995). This included running wrestling discus and javelin throwing. oethey also learned how to manage horses; they drove carriages in processions and at the Hyacinthia a festival of Apollo and Hyacinthus they raced in two-horse chariots. Sparta in time developed a system of dual kingship (two kings ruling at once. Their power was counterbalanced by the elected board of ephors (who may only serve a single one-year term. There was also a Council of Elders (Gerousia) each member of which was over the age of 60 and could serve for life. The general assembly which consisted of each citizen also had the chance to vote on legislation. The legendary lawmaker Lycurgus is credited often in ancient sources with providing the groundwork for Spartan law. Kennell notes however that he probably never existed and was in fact a mythical character. Initially Sparta was hesitant to engage with Persia. When the Persians threatened Greek cities in Ionia on the west coast of what is now Turkey the Greeks who lived in those areas sent an emissary to Sparta to ask for help. The Spartans refused but did threaten King Cyrus telling him to leave Greek cities alone. Â oehe was to harm no city on Greek territory or else the Lacedaemonians would punish him wrote Herodotus in the fifth century B c. The Persians did not listen. The first invasion by Darius I took place in 492 B c . and was repulsed by a mainly Athenian force at the Battle of marathon in 490 B c. The second invasion was launched by Xerxes in 480 B c. the Persians crossing the Hellespont (the narrow strait between the Aegean and Black seas) and moved south gaining allies along the way. Sparta and one of their kings Leonidas became head of an anti-Persian coalition that ultimately made an ill-fated stand at Thermopylae. Located beside the coast Thermopylae contained a narrow passage which the Greeks blocked and used to halt Xerxes'advance. Ancient sources indicate that Leonidas started the battle with a few thousand troops (including 300 Spartans at its core. He faced a Persian force many times its size. After spying on the Spartan-led force and waiting to see if they would surrender Xerxes ordered an attack. The oemedes rushed forward and charged the Greeks but fell in vast numbers: others however took the places of the slain and would not be beaten off though they suffered terrible losses. In this way it became clear to all and especially to the king that though he had plenty of combatants he had but very few warriors. The struggle however continued during the whole day wrote Herodotus. Translation by George Rawlinson) After this beaten force withdrew Xerxes sent an elite unit called the oeimmortals after the Spartan-led force but they too failed. Herodotus noted the battle tactics the Spartans employed. oethe Lacedaemonians fought in a way worthy of note and showed themselves far more skillful in fight than their adversaries often turning their backs and making as though they were all flying away on which the barbarians would rush after them with much noise and shouting when the Spartans at their approach would wheel round and face their pursuers in this way destroying vast numbers of the enemy. Eventually a Greek man showed Xerxes a pass that allowed part of the Persian force to outmaneuver the Greeks and attack them on both flanks. Leonidas was doomed. Many of the troops who were with Leonidas withdrew (possibly because the Spartan king ordered them to). According to Herodotus the Thespians decided to stay with the 300 Spartans by their own free will. Leonidas then made his fateful stand and oefell fighting bravely together with many other famous Spartans Herodotus writes. Ultimately the Persians killed almost every Spartan. The helots the Spartans brought with them were killed also. The Persian army proceeded south sacking Athens and threatening to break into the Peloponnese. A Greek naval victory at the Battle of Salamis halted this approach the Persian king Xerxes going home and leaving an army behind that would later be destroyed. The Greeks led by the now dead Leonidas had prevailed. Â When the threat from the Persians receded the Greeks resumed their inter-city rivalries. Two of the most powerful city states were Athens and Sparta and tensions between the two escalated in the decades after their victory over Persia. In 465/464 B c. powerful earthquakes hit Sparta and the helots took advantage of the situation to revolt. The situation was serious enough that Sparta called on allied cities for aid in putting it down. When the Athenians arrived however the Spartans refused their help. This was taken as an insult in Athens and bolstered anti-Spartan views. The Battle of Tanagra fought in 457 B c. heralded a period of conflict between the two cities that continued off and on for more than 50 years. At times Athens appeared to have the advantage such as the battle of Sphacteria in 425 B c . when shockingly 120 Spartans surrendered. oenothing that happened in the war surprised the Hellenes so much as this. It was the opinion that no force or famine could make the Lacedaemonians give up their arms but that they would fight on as they could and die with them in their hands wrote Thucydides (460-395 B c.).Translation by J. M. Dent via Perseus Digital Library) There were also periods when Athens was in trouble such as in 430 B c . when the Athenians who were packed behind their city walls during a Spartan attack suffered a plague that killed many people including their leader Pericles. Ultimately the conflict between Sparta and Athens resolved itself on the sea. While the Athenians had the naval advantage throughout much of the war the situation changed when a man named Lysander was named commander of Sparta s navy. He sought out Persian financial support to help the Spartans build up their fleet. He convinced a Persian prince named Cyrus to provide him with money. The prince oehad brought with him he said five hundred talents; if this amount should prove insufficient he would use his own money which his father had given him; and if this too should prove inadequate he would go so far as to break up the throne whereon he sat which was of silver and gold wrote Xenophon (430-355 B c.).Translation by Carleton Brownson via Perseus Digital Library) With Persian financial support Lysander built up his navy and trained his sailors. In 405 B c. he engaged the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami on the Hellespont. He managed to catch them by surprise winning a decisive victory and cutting off Athens'supply of grain from the Crimea. Athens was forced now to make peace on Sparta s terms. They had to tear down their walls confine their activities to Attica and (as Lysander latter ordered) submit to rule by a 30-man body later called the oethirty tyrants. The oepeloponnesians with great enthusiasm began to tear down the walls of Athens to the music of flute-girls thinking that that day was the beginning of freedom for Greece wrote Xenophon. Sparta was now at the peak of its power. A series of events and missteps led Sparta from being the preeminent force in the Aegean to becoming a second rate power. Shortly after their victory the Spartans turned against their Persian backers and launched an inconclusive campaign into Turkey. Then in the following decades the Spartans were forced to campaign on several fronts. In 385 B c. the Spartans faced the Mantineans and used floods to rip apart their city. The oelower bricks became soaked and failed to support those above them the wall began first to crack and then to give way wrote Xenophon. The city was forced to surrender against this unorthodox onslaught. More challenges affected Spartan hegemony. In 378 B c. Athens formed the second naval confederacy a group that challenged Spartan control of the seas. Ultimately however Sparta s downfall came not from Athens but from a city named Thebes. Spurred on by Spartan king Agesilaus II relations between the two cities had become increasingly hostile and in 371 B c. a pivotal battle took place at Leuctra. oethe power of Lacedaemon was shattered by Thebes upon the field of Leuctra. Although an ally of Sparta during the long Peloponnesian war Thebes had become the lodestar of resistance when victorious Sparta became an angry tyrant in her turn writes Lendon. He notes that after a peace was agreed to with Athens in 371 B c. Sparta turned its attention to Thebes. At Leuctra oefor reasons unclear the Spartans posted their cavalry in front of their phalanx. The Lacedaemonian cavalry was poor because good Spartan warriors still insisted on serving as hoplites infantrymen...he writes. oethe Thebans by contrast had an old cavalry tradition and their excellent horses much exercised in recent wars quickly routed the Spartan cavalry and drove them back into the phalanx confusing its order. With confusion in the Spartan lines the slaughter was on. oecleombrotus fighting in the phalanx as Spartan kings did was struck down and was carried dying out of the battle...Other leading Spartans were killed soon fighting as well writes Lendon. The Theban general Epaminondas is said to have called out oegrant me one step and we will have the victory! And that is apparently what happened. Lendon writes that oethe Thebans pushed the Spartans back one fateful step and then the leaderless Spartans were in flight and their allies with them. Of the seven hundred full Spartan citizens at the battle four hundred died...The Thebans pressed south gaining support from communities as they marched and liberating Messinia depriving the Spartans of much of their helot labor. Sparta never recovered from the losses in both Spartan lives and slave labor. As Kennell writes the city was now a oesecond-rate power and never again would regain its former strength. In the following centuries Sparta in its reduced state found itself under the sway of different powers including Macedonia (eventually led by Alexander the great) the Achaean League (a confederation of Greek cities) and later on Rome. In this period of decline the Spartans was forced to build a city wall for the first time. Â There were efforts to restore Sparta to its former military might. The Spartan kings Agis IV (244-241 B c.)and later Cleomenes III (235-221 B c.)brought in reforms that canceled debt redistributed land allowed foreigners and noncitizens to become Spartans and ultimately expanded the citizen body to around 4000 people. While the reforms brought some level of renewal Cleomenes III was forced to yield the city to Achaean control. The Achaean League in turn along with all of Greece eventually fell to Rome. Â But while Rome was in control of the region the people of Sparta never forgot their history. In the second century A d. the Greek writer Pausanias visited Sparta and noted the presence of a great marketplace. oethe most striking feature in the marketplace is the portico which they call Persian because it was made from spoils taken in the Persian wars. In course of time they have altered it until it is as large and as splendid as it is now. On the pillars are white-marble figures of Persians...he wrote. Translation by W. H. S Jones and H. A. Omerod via Perseus Digital Library) He also describes a tomb dedicated to Leonidas who by this point had died 600 years earlier at Thermopylae. oeopposite the theater are two tombs; the first is that of Pausanias the general at Plataea the second is that of Leonidas. Every year they deliver speeches over them and hold a contest in which none may compete except Spartans he wrote. oethere is set up a slab with the names and their fathers'names of those who endured the fight at Thermopylae against the Persians. Sparta continued on into the Middle ages and indeed was never be lost truly. Today the modern day city of Sparta stands near the ancient ruins having a population of more than 35000 people. On the ruins of ancient Sparta the historian Kennell writes that only three sites can be identified today with certainty: the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia beside the Eurotas the river the temple of Athena Chalcioecus (oeof the Bronze House) on the acropolis and the early Roman theater just below it. Indeed even the ancient writer Thucydides predicted that Sparta s ruins would not stand out. oesuppose for example that the city of Sparta were to become deserted and that only the temples and foundations of the buildings remained I think that future generations would as time passed find it very difficult to believe that the place had really been as powerful as it was represented to be. From Nigel Kennell s book Spartans: A New History) But Thucydides was only half-correct. While the ruins of Sparta may not be as impressive as Athens Olympia or a number of other Greek sites the stories and legend of the Spartans lives on. And modern-day people whether watching a movie playing a video game or studying ancient history know something of what this legend means. Owen Jarus Livescience Contributo a
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