Sparta

About

Sparta was a prominent ancient Greek polis in Laconia. In classical antiquity, the state was known as Lacedaemon, while Sparta referred to its capital, a group of villages in the valley of the Evrotas River in Laconia, in the southeastern Peloponnese. During the 7th century BC, it rose to become the most prominent land military power in the Greek world, a status it retained until its defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC. In the 6th century BC Sparta founded the Peloponnesian League, establishing its hegemony over most of Peloponnese. During the second Persian invasion of Greece, Sparta was recognised as the leading land force of the Hellenic alliance that also included the rising maritime power of Athens. The Spartan army was crucial in the battles of Thermopylae and Plataea under the leadership of Leonidas and Pausanias respectively. Sparta led the Peloponnesian League against the Athenian Empire during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after Lysander's victory at the naval Battle of Aegospotami. A short period of Spartan hegemony followed, when Spartan armies under Agesilaus II led a series of campaigns in western Anatolian satrapies of the Achaemenid empire to protect the Ionian cities. However, Epaminondas' victory over Sparta at Leuctra in 371 BC started the Theban hegemony while Messenia was freed from Spartan rule; the loss of the slave labour this region provided sent the city into terminal decline as a military power. Nonetheless, Sparta tried to reclaim its hegemony in Peloponnese several times until it was annexed by the Achaean League in early 2nd century BC. The city recovered some autonomy after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC and became a tourist destination during the Roman era, restoring some measure of prosperity. However, Sparta was sacked in 396 AD by the Visigothic king Alaric, and underwent a long period of decline into the medieval period, when much of its population relocated to the nearby Mystras. Modern Sparta is a provincial town and the seat of the Laconia regional administration. Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which were supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical lawgiver Lycurgus. Spartan society was exceptionally militarised, focusing the entire attention of the Spartiate class on military training and physical development to the point of legally barring them from productive economic activity. The inhabitants of Sparta were rigidly stratified into Spartiates (citizens with full rights), mothakes and perioikoi (free non-citizens), and helots (state-owned enslaved non-Spartan locals), with helots making up the vast majority of the population; social mobility was nearly nonexistent. Spartiate men underwent the harsh agoge training regimen, and Spartan phalanx units were widely considered to be among the best in battle, though this was as much a matter of propaganda as battlefield prowess. Free Spartiate women enjoyed somewhat greater legal rights than elsewhere in classical antiquity, though helots suffered exceptionally harsh treatment at the hands of the Spartiates (particularly the Crypteia), causing repeated revolts. Sparta was a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in later Western culture following the revival of classical learning. The admiration of Sparta is known as Laconophilia.

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