History of Sparta

This article covers the history of Sparta from its founding to the present, concentrating primarily on the Spartan state during its period as an independent state. Sparta rose to dominance in the 6th century BCE. At the time of Persian Wars, it was the obvious leader of the Greeks. However, with the defeat of the Persians, Sparta allowed Athens to lead the counter attack, and as a result, Athens grew to be Sparta's equal. When Sparta defeated Athens, it secured an unrivaled hegemony over Greece. Her supremacy was, however, to last strikingly briefly to be broken as a result of the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE. Sparta was never able to regain its supremacy and was finally absorbed by the Achaean League in the 2nd century BCE.

The Dorians

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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

Sparta

It is 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. There are reasons to doubt whether he ever existed as his name derives from the word for "wolf" which was associated with Apollo - hence Lycurgus could be simply a personification of the god.

Lazenby suggests that the dual monarchy may date from this period as a result of a fusion of the four villages of Sparta which had up till then formed two factions of the villages of Pitana-Mesoa against the villages of Limnai-Konoura. According to this view, the Kings who tradition says ruled before this time were either totally mythical or at best factional chieftains. Lazenby hypothesizes that a Lycurgus may have played a role in this unification but that other reforms such as the introduction of the Ephors were later innovations that were attributed to Lycurgus

Expansion of Sparta

Sparta shared the plain with Amyklai which lay to the south and was one of the few places to survive from Mycaenean times and was likely to be its most formidable neighbor. Hence the tradition that Sparta, under its 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 the inhabitants of Geronthrae were driven out while those of Amyclae were simply subjugated to Sparta. Pausanias portrays this as a Dorian versus Achaean conflict. However, while the archaeological record throws doubt on this, at the very least such a cultural distinction is invisible in the archeology.

Tyrtaeus tells that the war to conquer the Messenians, their neighbors on the west, led by Theopompus, lasted 19 years and was fought in the time of "the fathers of our fathers". If this phrase is to be taken literally, it would mean that the war occurred around the end of the 8th century BCE or the beginning of the 7th. The historicity of the Second Messenian War was for long doubted as neither Herodotus or Thucydides mentions a second war. However, in the opinion of Kennell, a fragment of Tyrtaeus published in 1990 gives us some confidence that it really occurred (probably in the later 7th century). It was as a result of this second war, according to fairly late sources, that the Messenians were reduced to the semi slave status of helots.

Territory of Sparta

According to Herodotus the Argives' territory once included the whole of Cynuria, the east coast of the Peloponnese, and the island of Cythera This Kennell finds a little extreme but the low population of Cynuria that is apparent from archeology does suggest that it was a contested zone.

6th century BCE

Early in the 6th century the Spartan kings Leon and Agasicles made a vigorous attack on Tegea, the most powerful of the Arcadian cities. For some time Sparta had no success against Tegea and suffer a notable defeat at Battle of the Fetters - the name reflected Spartan intentions to reduce the Tegeans to helots. However, by the time Sparta defeated Tegea, about the middle of the century, Sparta had lowered its sights and was content that Tegea recognize it as hegemon. For Forrest this marked a change in Spartan policy from enslavement to a policy of building an alliance that led to the creation of the Peloponesian League. Forrest, hesitantly attributes this change to Ephor Chilon. In building its alliance, Sparta gained two ends, protection of its conquest of Mesene and a free hand against Argos.. The Battle of the Champions won about 546 BCE (that is at the time that the Lydian Empire fell before Cyrus of Persia) made the Spartans masters of the Cynuria, the borderland between Laconia and Argolis..

In 494 BCE King Cleomenes I, launched what was intended to be a final settling of accounts with the city of Argos - an invasion with the capture of the city itself as the aim. Argos did not fall but her losses in the battle of Sepiea would cripple Argos militarily and lead to deep civil strife for some time to come., Sparta had come to be acknowledged as the leading state of Hellas and the champion of Hellenism. Croesus of Lydia had formed an alliance with it. Scythian envoys sought its aid to stem the invasion of Darius; to Sparta, the Greeks of Asia Minor appealed to withstand the Persian advance and to aid the Ionian Revolt; Plataea asked for Sparta's protection; Megara acknowledged their supremacy; and at the time of the Persian invasion under Xerxes no state questioned Sparta's right to lead the Greek forces on land and sea. In the opinion of the 1911 Britannica, Sparta soon showed itself "wholly unworthy" of such a role. In support the 1911 Britannica article cited its narrow Peloponnesian outlook - it was not a colonizing state, though the inhabitants of Tarentum (Greek Taras; modern Taranto in southern Italy), and of Lyttus, in Crete, claimed it as their mother-city. Further though it had the reputation of hating tyrants and putting them down where possible, it was only to put in place oligarchies rather than democracies.

At the end of the century Sparta made its first intervention north of the Isthmus when it got involved in Athenian politics by overthrowing Hippias in 510 BCE. Dissension in Athens followed with conflict between Kleisthenes and Isagoras. King Cleomenes turned up in Attica with a small body of troops to back the more conservative Isagoras. Initially he succeeded but then the Athenians got fed up with this treatment and Cleomenes found himself holed up on the Acropolis. But that was not the end for an expedition of the whole Peloponesian League. The expedition was to be led Kleomenes along with his co-King Demaratos. The specific aims of the expedition were kept secret. The secrecy proved disastrous and dissension broke out the more the real aims became clearer. First the Corinthians departed. Then a row broke out between Cleomenes and Demaratos with Demaratos too deciding to go home. As a result of this fiasco the Spartans decided that in future not to send out an army with both Kings at its head. It also seems to have changed the nature of the Peloponesian League. From that time major decisions were discussed. Sparta was still clearly in charge, but it now had to carry its allies when it wanted something to happen.

5th century BCE

Persian War and beginning of animosity with Athens

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Leonidas I monument at Thermopylae

Sparta's role in the Persian Wars was mixed. After hearing 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.

Sparta with the Taygetos mountains in the background

In the second campaign, conducted ten years later by Xerxes, Sparta faced the same dilemma. The Persians inconveniently chose to attack during the Olympic truce which the Spartans felt they must honor. Other Greek states which lacked such foibles were making a major effort to assemble a fleet - how could Sparta not contribute on land when others were doing so much on sea? The solution was to provide a 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 defense of Thermopylae was hopeless and wished to make a stand at the Isthmus but had to go through the motions or Athens might ally itself with 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 defensible 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, they would wish to fight at the Isthmus where they would avoid the risk of their 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, and this 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 one 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 their Greek supremacy.

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Spartan hoplite

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, costing many their lives. In the immediate aftermath, the helots saw an opportunity to rebel. This was followed by the siege of Ithome which the rebel helots had fortified. The pro Spartan Cimion was successful in getting Athens to send help to put down the rebellion, but this would eventually backfire for the pro-Sparta movement in Athens. The Athenian hoplites that made up the bulk of the force were from the well-to-do section of Athenian society, but were neverthelss openly shocked to discover that the rebels were Greeks like themselves. Sparta began to fear that the Athenian troops might make common cause with the rebels. The Spartans subsequently sent the Athenians home, providing the official justification that since the initial assault on Ithone had failed, what was now required was a blockade, a task the Spartans did not need Athenian help with. Back in Athens, this snub resulted in Athens breaking off its alliance with Sparta and allying with its enemy Argos. Further friction was caused by the consummation of the Attic democracy under Ephialtes and Pericles.

Paul Cartledge hazards that the revolt of helots 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 did not change. He doubts that the Spartans ever subscribed to the citizen only hoplite force ideal so beloved by writers such as Aristotle.

Peloponnesian Wars

Sparta and its allies during the Peloponnesian War.

When the First Peloponnesian War broke out, Sparta was still preoccupied suppressing the helot revolt, hence its 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 returned home giving the Athenians an opportunity to defeat the Boeotians at the battle of Oenophyta and so overthowing Boeotia. When the helot revolt was finally ended, Sparta needed a respite, seeking and gaining a five year truce with Athens. By contrast , however, she sought a thirty year peace with Argos to ensure that she could strike Athens unencumbered. Thus Sparta was fully able to exploit the situation when Megara, Boeotia and Euboea revolted, sending an army into Attica. The war ended with Athens deprived of its mainland possessions but having been permitted to regain Euboea. Both of Sparta's Kings were exiled for permitting Athens to regain Euboea and Sparta agreed to a Thirty Year Peace.

Within six years, however, Sparta was proposing to its allies to go to war with Athens in support of the rebellion in Samos. On that occasion Corinth successfully opposed Sparta and the Sparta was voted down.. When the Peloponnesian War, finally broke out in 431 BCE the chief public complaints against Athens was its alliance with Corinth's enemy Korkyra and Athenenian treatment of Potidea. However according to Thucydides the real cause of the war was Sparta's fear of the growing power of Athens.

Sparta entered with the proclaimed goal of the "liberation of the Greeks" - an aim that required a total defeat of Athens. Their method was to invade Attica in the hope of provoking Athens to give battle. Unfortunately Athens refused to be provoked. In 425 BCE a body of Spartans surrendered to the Athenians at Pylos, casting doubt onto their ability to win the war. This was ameliorated by the expedition of Brasidas to Thrace, the one area where Athens possessions were accessible by land, along with the disastrous attempt of Athens to regain its lost land empire, which made possible the compromise known as the Peace of Nicias. The success of Sparta and the eventual capture of Athens in 405 BCE were aided 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 could 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 not only inexperienced at naval warfare but in the assessment of Forrest they were often incompetent or brutal or both. . One commander who stood out was Lysander, who though a mediocre tactictian was an exceptional diplomat and organiser. Additionally he had the influential confidence of Prince Cyrus. When Cyrus requested Lysander be sent out for a second term both Spartan political norms and the Spartan constitution should have prevented his second term, but in the wake of their defeat at the Battle of Arginusae a circumvention was found. Cyrus had such complete confidence in Lysander that Lysander was entrusted with all the resources needed to rebuild the Spartan fleet. This trust was justified in 404 BCE when Lysander virtually destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami. Lysander then proceeded from city to city, conquering and imposing 10 man oligarchies. This led to the killing of many supporters of democratic rule .

When Athens was finally starved into surrender she might have expected obliteration, and indeed Corinth and Thebes did indeed call for the destruction of Athens. Sparta refused, however, alluding to Athens' contribution to the defeat of the Persians. Some modern historians have proposed a less altruistic reason for the Spartan's mercy - the need for a counterweight to Thebes - though Anton Powell sees this as an excess of hindsight. It is doubtful that the Spartans could have predicted that it would be Thebes that would someday pose a serious threat, later defeating them at the Battle of Leuctra. Instead it's possible that Sparta was more disunited than she appeared in public. It is probable that Lysander would have desired Athens destruction, while his political opponents feared the power of a general enriched by the plundering of Athens, defending Athens from destruction not out of gratitude but out of fear of Lysander.

In any case the terms Sparta offered were not particularly generous, involving the destruction of Athens' long walls and those of Piraeus. Lysander also soon found a pretext in the spring of 404 BCE to impose a clique of 30 oligarchs that would come to be known as the Thirty Tyrants.

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, the Spartan hegemony was exercised selfishly with little regard for the sensibilities either of their allies or their new subjects. The disquiet of their 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 successfully 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 grabbed Oropus from Athens), Pausanias was brought to trial, presumably for being soft on Athens, and narrowly escaped conviction.

Sparta's close relationship with Cyrus the Younger 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 Spartan 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. 7 At the end of 397 BCE, Persia had sent a Rhodian agent with gifts to opponents of Sparta on the mailand of Greece. However, these inducemnts served mainly as encouragement to those 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 Locris against Sparta's ally Phocis. An army under Lysander and Pausanias was despatched. As Pausanias was somewhat lukewarm to the whole enterprise, Lysander went on ahead. Having detached Orchemonos from the Boeotian League he 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 prosecuted, this time successfully and went into exile.

Gytheum, Sparta's port

Though at the Battle of Coronea, Agesilaus I, the new king of Sparta, 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 interpretation 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 a Spartan army north against Olynthus made a detour to Thebes and seized the 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 flagrant breach of the Peace of Antalcidas. It was the seizure of the Kadmeia that led to Theban rebellion and hence to the outbreak of the Boeotian War. Sparta started this 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 Empire.

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 with 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 hegemony

Sparta's sphere of influence in 362 BCE is shown in yellow.

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 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 allies swore a common peace. Only Sparta refused because she would not accept the independence of Messenia.

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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 Chaeronea, however, Philip entered the Peloponese. Sparta alone refused to join Philip's "Corinthian League" but Philip engineered 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 attacked Macedon with some revolting Greek states, but the rising was crushed by Antipater, the regent of Macedon, at the Battle of Megalopolis, where Agis died fighting. 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.

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 280 BCE a Spartan army, led by King Areus, again marched north, this time under the pretext of saving some sacred land near Delphi from the Aetolians. They somewhat undercut the morale high ground from under themselves by looting the area and it was at this point that the Aetolians caught them and defeated them.

In 272 BCE Cleonymus of Sparta (who had been displaced as King by Areus), persuaded Pyrrhus to invade 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. Cleomenes was faced with obstruction from the Ephors which probably reflected a general lack of enthusiasm for the farm amongst citizens. Nonetheless he succeeded in defeating Aratus.. 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 until 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

At the beginning of the Social War envoys from Achaea unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Sparta to take the field against Aetolia. Aetolian envoys were at first equally unsuccessful but their presence was used as a pretext by Spartan royalists who staged a coup that restored the dual kingship. Sparta then immediately entered the war on the side of Aetolia.

Nabis and Roman intervention

The sources on 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 undertaken only to serve Nabis' 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.

It was this point that Achaea switched from her alliance with Macedon to support for Rome. As Achaea was Sparta's main rival, Nabis leaned towards Macedonia. It was getting increasingly difficult for Macedonia to hold Argos so Philip decided to hand Argos to Sparta so increasing tension with the Achean League. Nonetheless, he was careful not to violate the letter of his alliance with Rome. After the conclusion of thee war with Philip V, however, Sparta's control of Argos contradicted the official Roman policy of freedom to the Greeks T. Quinctius Flamininus organized a large army which invaded Laconia and laid siege to Sparta. 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, while freed slaves were returned to their former masters. In 192 BCE he succeeded in recovering Gythium but was then defeated by the Achaeans under Philopoemen who then ravaged Laconia for thirty days.

"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. "

After 146, our sources for Spartan history are somewhat fragmentary. The city claimed to continue the regime of Lycurgus. Pliny describes its freedom as being empty though Chrimes argues that, while this may be true in the area of external relations, Sparta retained a high level of autonomy in internal matters. The one internal matter which the imperial authorities did intervene in was the matter of the exposure of children. This practice existed throughout the Greek world but the tradition was especially ingrained in Sparta.

"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:" The Romans did on a number of occasions field Spartan troops against the Parthians under the emperors Lucius Verus, Septimius Severus and Caracalla. It is likely that the Romans wished thus to use the legend of Spartan prowess.

Medieval Sparta

In CE 396 Alaric sacked the city and, though it was rebuilt, the revived city was much smaller than before. Sparta was finally abandoned during the period when Laconia was invaded and settled by Slavonic tribes.

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 August Giacomo Jochmus, and Mistra decayed until by the beginning of the 20th century it was 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)