Laconian Sentence Examples
The most important towns, besides Sparta and Gythium, were Bryseae, Amyclae and Pharis in the Eurotas plain, Pellana and Belbina on the upper Eurotas, Sellasia on the Oenus, Caryae on the Arcadian frontier, Prasiae, Zarax and Epidaurus Limera on the east coast, Geronthrae on the slopes of Parnon, Boeae, Asopus, Helos, Las and Teuthrone on the Laconian Gulf, and Hippola, Messa and Oetylus on the Messenian Gulf.
Phoenician traders, too, visited the shores of the Laconian Gulf, and there are indications of trade at a very early period between Laconia and Crete, e.g.
Tarentum (whether or no founded by pre-Dorian Greeks - its founders bore the unexplained name of Partheniae) became a Laconian colony at some unknown date, whence a legend grew up connecting the Partheniae with Sparta, and 707 B.C. was assigned as its traditional date.
Certainly the Spartans adopted, together with the political traditions of the Heracleids, many old Laconian cults and observances such as those connected with the Tyndaridae.
SuIdas speaks of him as "Laconian or Milesian"; possibly he visited Miletus in his youth, where he became familiar with the Ionic elegy.
Of the gates only two can be located, the eastern or Laconian, situated on the eastern side of the saddle uniting Ithome and Eua, and the northern or Arcadian gate.
One of their objects was the collection of murex, of which an enormous supply was needed for the dyeing industry; specially famous was the purple of the Laconian waters, the isles of Elishah of Ezek.
Moreover, Sparta's attention was at this time fully occupied by troubles nearer home - the plots of Pausanias not only with the Persian king but with the Laconian helots; the revolt of Tegea (c. 473-71), rendered all the more formidable by the participation of Argos; the earthquake which in 464 devastated Sparta; and the rising of the Messenian helots, which immediately followed.
Thus for nearly six centuries it was Mistra and not Sparta which formed the centre and focus of Laconian history.