Facts about Sparta
At the age of 18, Spartan boys became reserve members of the Spartan army.
The Dorians seem to have set about expanding the frontiers of Spartan territory almost before they had established their own state.
The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead found in great profusion within the precinct range, dating from the 9th to the fourth centuries B.C.E., supply invaluable evidence for early Spartan art.
Between 431 and 404 B.C.E., Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War; however, by 362 B.C.E., Sparta's role as the dominant military power in Greece was over.
An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I enter Laconia, I will level Sparta to the ground," the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: "If.
Laconophilia is the admiration of Sparta, which continues to fascinate Western culture.
Sparta owed its military efficiency to its social structure, unique in ancient Greece.
Sparta was also used as a model of social purity by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
I285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii.
Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs.
Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia.
The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.
After a few more years of fighting, the "King's peace" was established, according to which all Greek cities of Ionia would remain independent, and Persia would be free of the Spartan threat.
The effects of the war were to establish Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's hegemonic position in the Greek political system.
Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol.
Between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E., the Spartans experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later testified by both Herodotus and Thucydides.
Sparta achieved a series of land victories, but many of her ships were destroyed at the battle of Cnidus by a Greek-Phoenician mercenary fleet that Persia had provided to Athens.
Excavations showed that the town of the Mycenaean Period was situated on the left bank of the Eurotas, a little to the south-east of Sparta.
By the end of the fifth century B.C.E., it stood out as a state which had defeated at war the Athenian Empire and had invaded Persia, a period which marks the Spartan Hegemony.
Relations between the helots and their Spartan masters were hostile.
The Doric state of Sparta, copying the Doric Cretans, developed a mixed governmental state.
Herodotus uses only the former and in some passages seems to denote by it the ancient Greek citadel at Therapne, in contrast to the lower town of Sparta.
Laconophilia is love or admiration of Sparta and of the Spartan culture or constitution.
Not all inhabitants of the Spartan state were considered to be citizens.
Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth.
Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots.
The alliance was initially backed by Persia, whose lands in Anatolia had been invaded by Sparta and which feared further Spartan expansion into Asia.
Helots were the majority inhabitants of Sparta (over 80 percent of the population according to Herodotus (8, 28-29)).
At the age of 12, the Agoge obliged Spartan boys to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man.
During the Corinthian War Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos.
During the Roman conquest, Spartans continued their way of life, and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs.
According to Herodotus, the Macedonians were a people of Dorian stock, akin to the Spartans, but that did not make any difference.
Spartan currency consisted of iron bars, thus making thievery and foreign commerce very difficult and discouraging the accumulation of riches.
Sparta was generally referred to by the ancient Greeks as Lakedaimon (??????????) or Lakedaimonia (????????????); these are the names commonly used in the works of Homer and the Athenian historians Herodotus and Thucydides.
Spartan men were required to marry at age 30, after completing the Krypteia.
When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the Agoge system.
When Spartans died, marked headstones would only be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth.
Spartan women enjoyed a status, power and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world.
The Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau contrasted Sparta favorably with ancient Athens in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, arguing that its austere constitution was preferable to the more cultured nature of Athenian life.
The immediate area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains, was generally referred as Lakonia.
During the Crypteia (annual declaration of war against the helots), they could be legally killed by Spartan citizens.
The Agoge was designed to encourage discipline and physical toughness and to emphasise the importance of the Spartan state.
The Elizabethan English constitutionalist John Aylmer compared the mixed government of Tudor England with the Spartan republic, stating that "Lacedemonia , the noblest and best city governed that ever was."
In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realized in practice.
Sparta never fully recovered from the losses that the adult male Spartans suffered at Leuctra in 371 B.C.E.
The prehistory of Sparta is difficult to reconstruct, because the literary evidence is far removed in time from the events it describes and is also distorted by oral tradition.
Only those who had undertaken the Spartan education process known as the agoge were eligible.
Again in Christianity, feminist theologians such as Rosemary Radford Reuther have incorporated androgynous features to God in order to balance traditionally "male" and "female" virtues in the divine.
At the peak of its power, Sparta subdued many of the key Greek states and even managed to overpower the elite Athenian navy.
The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved.
The Spartan exercised the full rights and duties of a citizen at the age of 30.
Spartan citizens were debarred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi, and were forbidden (in theory) to possess either gold or silver.
Spartan political independence was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the Achaean League.
The Spartans, for their part, had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition if it was not under Spartan leadership.
The effects of the war were to establish Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's hegemonic position in the Greek political system.
Each year when the Ephors took office they routinely declared war on the helots, thereby allowing Spartans to kill them without the risk of ritual pollution.
The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a somewhat different position in Spartan society.
Wealth was, in theory at least, derived entirely from landed property and consisted in the annual return made by the helots, who cultivated the plots of ground allotted to the Spartan citizens.
At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a large number of helots.
The evidence suggests that Sparta, relatively inaccessible because of the topography of the Taygetan plain, was secure from early on: it was never fortified.
Insofar as hoplite warfare could be perfected, the Spartans did so.
High state policy decisions were discussed by this council who could then propose action alternatives to the Damos, the collective body of Spartan citizenry, who would select one of the alternatives by voting.
The origins of the powers exercised by the assembly of the citizens are virtually unknown because of the lack of historical documentation and Spartan state secrecy.
Helots were the majority inhabitants of Sparta (over 80 percent of the population according to Herodotus (8, 28-29)).
During the following centuries, Sparta's reputation as a land-fighting force was unequaled.
Around 424 B.C.E., the Spartans murdered two thousand helots in a carefully staged event.
At age 20, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia (dining messes or clubs), comprised of about 15 members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member.
According to Aristotle, the Spartan military culture was actually short-sighted and ineffective.
Suppose we have an object with inertial and gravitational masses m and M respectively.
Sparta is far superior to Athens because their army was fierce and protective, girls received some education and women had more freedom than in other poleis. ... The Spartans believed this made them strong and better mothers. Lastly, Sparta is the best polis of ancient Greece because women had freedom.
Sparta definition. An ancient Greek city-state and rival of Athens. Sparta was known for its militaristic government and for its educational system designed to train children to be devoted citizens and brave soldiers. Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War.
During the 5th century BC Sparta was very powerful. This was due to her army, which was feared by other Greeks. Sparta focused on producing good soldiers and all Spartan male citizens were part of the army. The Spartan army played an important role in the Greek victory over the Persians, in 480-479 BC.
Sparta worshipped Artemis as their patron goddess, under the epithet "Athena Poliachos" (Athena Protector of the City). ... Elis and Olympia had Zeus as their city god. The statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.