Sparta

Also called Lacedæmon, the capital of Laconia and the chief city of Peloponnesus, was situated on the right bank of the Eurotas (now Iri ), about 20 miles from the sea. Sparta was never surrounded by walls, since the bravery of its citizens and the difficulty of acce to it were supposed to render such defense needle . In the mythical period, Argos was the chief city in Peloponnesus, and Sparta is represented as subject to it. The Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, which, according to tradition, took place eighty years after the Trojan war, made Sparta the capital of the country. The oldest inhabitants of the country maintained themselves at Amyclæ, which was not conquered for a long time. From various causes the Spartans became distracted by intestine quarrels, till at length Lycurgus gave a new constitution to the state. This constitution laid the foundation of Sparta’s greatne . She soon became aggre ive, and gradually extended her sway over the greater part of Peloponnesus. In 743 B.C. the Spartans attacked Me enia, and after a war of twenty years subdued this country. In 685 the Me enians again took up arms, but at the end of seventeen years were again completely subdued, and their country from this time forward became an integral part of Laconia. After the close of the second Me enian war, the Spartans continued their conquests in Peloponnesus. They defeated the Tegeans, and wrested the district of Thyreæ from the Argives. At the time of the Persian invasion they were confe edly the first people in Greece; and to them was granted by unanimous consent the chief command in war. But after the final defeat of the Persians, the haughtine of Pausanias, king of Sparta, disgusted most of the Greek states, and led them to transfer the supremacy to Athens (477). From this time the power of Athens steadily increased, and Sparta po e ed little influence outside of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans made several attempts to check the rising greatne of Athens, and their jealousy of the latter led at length to the Peloponnesian war (431). This war ended in the overthrow of Athens, and the restoration of the supremacy of Sparta over the rest of Greece (404). But the Spartans did not retain this supremacy more than thirty years. Their decisive defeat by the The bans, under Epa min on das, at the battle of Leuctra (371), gave the Spartan power a shock from which it never recovered; and the restoration of the Me enians to their country two years afterward completed the humiliation of Sparta. Thrice was the Spartan territory invaded by the The bans, and the Spartan women saw for the first time the watch-fires of an enemy’s camp. The Spartans now finally lost their supremacy over Greece; and about thirty years afterward the greater part of Greece was obliged to yield to Philip of Macedon. The Spartans, however, kept haughtily aloof from the Maced on i an conqueror, and refused to take part in the Asiatic expedition of his son, Alexander the Great. The power of Sparta continued to decline until the beginning of the reign of Cleomenes III. (236), whose reforms for a time infused new blood into the state, and for a short time he carried on war with succe against the Achæans. But Aratus, the general of the Achæans, called in the a istance of An tigon us Doson, king of Macedonia, who defeated Cleomenes at the decisive battle of Sell asia (221), and followed up his succe by the capture of Sparta. Sparta now sank into insignificance, and was ruled by a succe ion of native tyrants, till at length it was compelled to abolish its peculiar institutions, and to join the Achæan League. Shortly afterward it fell, with the rest of Greece, under the Roman power. The Spartans were a race of stern, cruel, resolute, rude, and narrow-minded warriors, capable of a momentary self-sacrificing patriotism, but utterly destitute of the capacity for adopting or appreciating a permanently noble and wise policy.