Spartan Sentence Examples
The Spartan patriciate could afford to disfranchise some of its own members.
They were seated two tables away from Dean and appeared to be celebrating something unusual in an otherwise Spartan life.
Plato advocated them, and perhaps the later Jews imitated the Spartan community.
In 404 the Thirty Tyrants were established at Athens under the protection of a Spartan garrison.
In 394 B.C. Conon fought off the port the battle which destroyed Spartan hegemony.
Between invasion and home discontent, the tyrant was all but lost; but the Spartan Pharacidas stood his friend; the Carthaginians again suffered from pestilence in the marshes of Lysimelia; and after a masterly combined attack by land and sea by Dionysius Himilco went away utterly defeated, taking with him his Carthaginian troops and forsaking his allies.
But the Spartan masters of the old Messenian land grudged this possible beginning of a new Messenian power.
It met in Sparta and the delegates, having stated their views before the Spartan Apella, withdrew till the Apella had come to a decision.
The Spartan king Archidamus assembled his army, sent a herald to announce his approach, marched into Attica and besieged Oenoe.
The enemies of Pericles, who even with the aid of Spartan intrigue had hitherto, failed to harm his prestige, now succeeded in inducing the desperate citizens to fine him for alleged malversation.
AdvertisementIn the autumn of 430 a Spartan attack on Zacynthus failed and the Ambraciots were repulsed from Amphilochian Argos.
The Athenians failed in an expedition to Chalcidice under Xenophon, while the Spartan Cnemus with Chaonian and Epirot allies was repulsed from Stratus, capital of Acarnania,.
The Spartan fleet arrived too late and departed without attempting to recover the town.
The scheme was crushed by the courage and skill of the Aetolians, who thereupon summoned Spartan and Corinthian aid for a counter attack on Naupactus.
Demosthenes averted this, and immediately afterwards by superior tactics inflicted a complete defeat at Olpae in Acarnania on Eurylochus at the head of a Spartan and Ambracian force.
AdvertisementAn Ambracian reinforcement was annihilated at one of the peaks called Idomene, and a disgraceful truce was accepted by the surviving Spartan leader Menedaeus.
The Athenians had despatched 40 triremes under Eurymedon and Procles to Sicily with orders to call first at Corcyra to prevent an expected Spartan attack.
Meantime Demosthenes had formed the plan of planting the Messenians of Naupactus in Messenia - now Spartan territory - and obtained permission to accompany the expedition.
These disasters at Megara, Amphipolis and Delium left Athens with only one trump card - the possession of the Spartan hoplites captured in Sphacteria.
For a cause not easy to determine Alcibiades was defeated by Nicias in the election to the post of strategus in the next year, and the suspicions of the Peloponnesian coalition were roused by the inadequate assistance sent by Athens, which arrived too late to assist Argos when the Spartan king Agis marched against it.
AdvertisementIn spite of this handicap Alcibiades, who had been seized and imprisoned by Tissaphernes at Sardis but effected his escape, achieved a remarkable victory over the Spartan Mindarus at Cyzicus (about April 410).
His arrival coincided with the appointment of Lysander (c. Dec. 408) as Spartan admiral - the third of the three great commanders (Brasidas and Gylippus being the others) whom Sparta produced during the war.
Callicratidas, an honourable man of pan-Hellenic patriotism, was heavily handicapped in the fact that Cyrus declined to afford him the help which had made Lysander powerful, and had recourse to the Milesians and Chians, with whose aid he fitted out a fleet of 140 triremes (only 10 Spartan).
It was only after that date that democracy was suppressed in the Peloponnesian League, and even then Mantinea remained democratic. In point of fact, it was only when Lysander became the representative of Spartan foreign policy - i.e.
In the sphere of material power the repulse of Xerxes and the extension of Athenian or Spartan supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean were large facts patent to the most obtuse.
AdvertisementNekhtharheb was succeeded by Tachos or Teos, whose short reign was occupied by a war with Persia, in which the king of Egypt secured the services of a body of Greek mercenaries under the Spartan king Agesilaus and a fleet under the Athenian general Chabrias.
Frederick William, whose temper was by no means so ruthlessly Spartan as tradition has painted it,was overjoyed, and commissioned the clergyman to receive from the prince an oath of filial obedience, and in exchange for this proof of "his intention to improve in real earnest" his arrest was to be lightened, pending the earning of a full pardon.
Towards the end of the 5th century the output was diminished, partly owing to the Spartan occupation of Decelea.
They enforced, when necessary, the alien acts (EmIXacrla), negotiated with foreign ambassadors, instructed generals, sent out expeditions and were the guiding spirits of the Spartan confederacy.
During the early Peloponnesian War Argos remained neutral; after the break-up of the Spartan confederacy consequent upon the peace of Nicias the alliance of this state, with its unimpaired resources and flourishing commerce, was courted on all sides.
War broke out - in consequence, it was said, of the murder of the Spartan king Teleclus by the Messenians - which, in spite of the heroism of King Euphaes and his successor Aristodemus ended in the subjection of Messenia to Sparta (c. 720 B.C.).
Certain it is that they were excluded not merely from all Spartan offices of state, but even from the assembly, that they were absolutely subject to Spartan orders, and that, owing to the absence of any legal right of marriage (Eirryayia) the gulf between the two classes was impassable.
Unlike the Spartiates they might, and did, possess gold and silver and the iron and steel wares from the mines on Mt Taygetus, the shoes and woollen stuffs of Amyclae, and the import and export trade of Laconia and Messenia probably enabled some at least of them to live in an ease and comfort unknown to their Spartan lords.
Thus the Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnese was not really a federation except in the broadest sense.
In the Achaean League the name is given to ten elective officers who presided over the assembly, and Corinth sent "Epidemiurgi" every year to Potidaea, officials who apparently answered to the Spartan harmosts.
In 476 he led an army to Thessaly to punish the Aleuadae of Larisa for the aid they had rendered to the Persians and to strengthen Spartan influence in northern Greece.
Zeus gave laws to Minos; Apollo revealed the Spartan constitution to Lycurgus; Zaleucus received the laws for the Locrians from Athena in a dream; Vishnu and Manu condescended to draw up law-books in India.
True, war with Sparta followed immediately, over the division of the spoils, and the campaigns of the Spartan generals in Asia Minor (399395) were all the more dangerous as they gave occasion to numerous rebellions.
Reinforced by Phocian and Orchomenian troops and a Spartan army, he met the confederate forces at Coronea in Boeotia, and in a hotly contested battle was technically victorious, but the success was a barren one and he had to retire by way of Delphi to the Peloponnese.
Shortly before this battle the Spartan navy, of which he had received the supreme command, was totally defeated off Cnidus by a powerful Persian fleet under Conon and Pharnabazus.
Cleombrotus was defeated at Leuctra and the Spartan supremacy overthrown.
In 370 Agesilaus tried to restore Spartan prestige by an invasion of Mantinean territory, and his prudence and heroism saved Sparta when her enemies, led by Epaminondas, penetrated Laconia that same year, and again in 362 when they all but succeeded in seizing the city by a rapid and unexpected march.
Its power was further curtailed in 382, when a Spartan force occupied the citadel by a treacherous coup-de-main.
Three years later the Spartan garrison was expelled, and a democratic constitution definitely set up in place of the traditional oligarchy.
Aristo of Chios and Herillus of Carthage, Zeno's heterodox pupils, Persaeus, his favourite disciple and housemate, the poet Aratus, and Sphaerus, the adviser of the Spartan king Cleomenes, are noteworthy minor names; but the chief interest centres about Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, who in succession built up the wondrous system.
Their surrender made a deep impression on the whole Greek world, which had learned to regard a Spartan surrender as inconceivable, and to Sparta their loss was so serious that the Athenians might have concluded the war on very favourable terms had they so wished.
But Aratus, whose jealousy could not brook to see a Spartan at the head of the Achaean league called in Antigonus Doson of Macedonia, and Cleomenes, after conducting successful expeditions to Megalopolis and Argos, was finally defeated at Sellasia, to the north of Sparta, in 222 or 221 B.C. He took refuge at Alexandria with Ptolemy Euergetes, but was arrested by his successor, Ptolemy Philopator, on a charge of conspiracy.
About 332 he set out against the rebellious tribes of Thrace; but before this insurrection was quelled, the Spartan king Agis had risen against Macedonia.
The institution was under the supervision of the ephors, who, on entering office, annually proclaimed war against the helots (serf-class) and thus absolved from the guilt of murder any Spartan who should slay a helot.
In 510 he marched to Athens with a Spartan force to aid in expelling the Peisistratidae, and subsequently returned to support the oligarchical party, led by Isagoras, against Cleisthenes.
He was the author of a history in 28 books, covering the period from the expedition of Pyrrhus king of Epirus to Peloponnesus (272) to the death of the Spartan king Cleomenes (220) after his defeat by Antigonus Doson.
In 379 his party surprised and killed their chief political opponents, and roused the people against the Spartan garrison, which surrendered to an army gathered by Pelopidas.
In this and subsequent years he was elected boeotarch, and about 375 he routed a much larger Spartan force at Tegyra (near Orchomenus).
Antalcidas continued in favour with Artaxerxes, until the annihilation of Spartan supremacy at Leuctra diminished his influence.
The annihilation of the Apharetidae in the legend indicates the subordinate position held by the Messenians after the loss of their independence and subjugation by Sparta, the Dioscuri being distinctly Spartan, as the Apharetidae were Messenian heroes.
Subsequently appointed by the ephors to settle the political dissensions then rife at Byzantium and to protect the city and the neighbouring Greek colonies from Thracian attacks, he made himself tyrant of Byzantium, and, when declared an outlaw and driven thence by a Spartan force, he fled to Cyrus.
In character he was a typical product of the Spartan educational system.
The ruin of Megalopolis would mean, he argued, the return of Spartan domination in the Peloponnesus.
The whole education of the Spartan was designed to make him an efficient soldier.
An attempt to throw off the yoke resulted in a second war, conducted by the Messenian hero Aristomenes; but Spartan tenacity broke down the resistance of the insurgents, and Messenia was made Spartan territory, just as Laconia had been, its inhabitants being reduced to the status of helots, save those who, as perioeci, inhabited the towns on the sea-coast and a few settlements inland.
Early in the 6th century the Spartan kings Leon and Agasicles made a vigorous attack on Tegea, the most powerful of the Arcadian cities, but it was not until the reign of Anaxandridas and Ariston, about the middle of the century, that the.attack was successful and Tegea was forced to acknowledge Spartan overlordship, though retaining its independence.
This want of information was attributed by most of the Greeks to the stability of the Spartan constitution, which had lasted unchanged from the days of Lycurgus.
They were the chief priests of the state, and had to perform certain sacrifices and to maintain communication with the Delphian sanctuary, which always exercised great authority in Spartan politics.
From the twentieth year began the Spartan's liability to military service and his membership of one of the &vSpeia or 4ul1.7-ta (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, to one of which every citizen must belong.
But after the Persian Wars the Spartan supremacy could no longer remain unchallenged.
Yet, in spite of the heroic defence of Thermopylae by the Spartan king Leonidas, the glory of the decisive victory at Salamis fell in great measure to the Athenians, and their patriotism, self-sacrifice and energy contrasted strongly with the hesitation of the Spartans and the selfish policy which they advocated of defending the Peloponnese only.
That the terms of the Peace of Nicias, which in 421 concluded the first phase of the war, were rather in favour of Sparta than of Athens was due almost entirely to the energy and insight of an individual Spartan, Brasidas, and the disastrous attempt of Athens to regain its lost land-empire.
The lack of funds which would have proved fatal to Spartan naval warfare was remedied by the intervention of Persia, which supplied large subsidies, and Spartan good fortune culminated in the possession at this time of an admiral of boundless vigour and considerable military ability, Lysander, to whom much of Sparta's success is attributable.
Everywhere democracy was replaced by a philo-Laconian oligarchy, usually consisting of ten men under a harmost or governor pledged to Spartan Empire.
In the following year the Spartan navy under Peisander, Agesilaus' brother-in-law, was defeated off Cnidus by the Persian fleet under Conon and Pharnabazus, and for the future Sparta ceased to be a maritime power.
On Epaminondas' fourth expedition Sparta was again within an ace of capture, but once more the danger was averted just in time; and though at Mantinea (362 B.C.) the Thebans, together with the Arcadians, Messenians and Argives, gained a victory over the combined Mantinean, Athenian and Spartan forces, yet the death of Epaminondas in the battle more than counterbalanced the Theban victory and led to the speedy break-up of their supremacy.
The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead found in great profusion within the precinct range from the 9th to the 4th century B.C. and supply invaluable evidence for early Spartan art; they prove that Sparta reached her artistic zenith in the 7th century and that her decline had already begun in the 6th.
Besides the actual buildings discovered, a number of points were fixed which greatly facilitate the study of Spartan topography, based upon the description left us by Pausanias.
On the Spartan side only seven men are said to have fallen, but amongst them was Brasidas.
Brasidas united in himself the personal courage characteristic of Sparta with those virtues in which the typical Spartan was most signally lacking.
In 391 they submitted to the Spartan king Agesilaus; in 371 they passed under Theban control.
After 1802, finding himself attacked with a weakness in the limbs attended with frequent fits of falling, he mitigated the Spartan severity of his life, and consented to receive medical advice.
A combination of exercise and a spartan diet looked like a decent way to reduce atherosclerosis.
Images are often outdated - of spartan surroundings, rules and regulations and a mistaken belief that hostels are only for young people.
Despite his wounds, Trooper Finney succeeded in getting the gunner to the waiting Spartan.
Other forms of dependent labor will be examined, with particular focus on Spartan Helots and on debt-bondage.
In the two seasons after the First World War the club were champions of the Spartan league before joining the Isthmian league in 1921.
The island of Melos found itself an unwilling pawn in a vicious struggle between the Athenian and Spartan alliances.
Mayo Thompson produced 1987's Poem of the River EP, while Guthrie returned to man the spartan mini-album The final resting of the Ark.
Well the wise seer the coming death foreknew, Yet scorned he to forsake his Spartan lords.
He took part in the battle of Cnidus (394), in which the Spartan fleet was defeated, and for this service his statue was placed by the Athenians side by side with that of Conon in the Ceramicus.
In 364, however, he sustained a severe reverse in attempting to relieve a besieged Spartan garrison at Cromnus in south-western Arcadia.
To Ephialtes likewise we must ascribe the renunciation of the Spartan alliance and the new league with Argos and Thessaly (461).
The Athenians were preparing to make reprisals, in spite of the advice of the Delphic oracle that they should desist from attacking Aegina for thirty years, and content themselves meanwhile with dedicating a precinct to Aeacus, when their projects were interrupted by the Spartan intrigues for the restoration of Hippias.
Although the dominant position of Lysander had been broken in 403 by King Pausanias, the Spartan government gave him all the support which was possible without going into open war against the king; it caused a partisan of Lysander, Clearchus, condemned to death on account of atrocious crimes which he had committed as governor of Byzantium, to gather an army of mercenaries on the Thracian Chersonesus, and in Thessaly Menon of Pharsalus, head of a party which was connected with Sparta, collected another army.
In 478 or 477 Aristides was in command of the Athenian squadron off Byzantium, and so far won the confidence of the Ionian allies that, after revolting from the Spartan admiral Pausanias, they offered him the chief command and left him with absolute discretion in fixing the contributions of the newly formed confederacy (see DELIAN LEAGUE).
Alcibiades, after a severe blockade (408 B.C.), gained possession of the city through the treachery of the Athenian party; in 405 B.C. it was retaken by Lysander and placed under a Spartan harmost.
In the year 506, when the Chalcidians joined with the Boeotians and the Spartan king Cleomenes in a league against that state, they were totally defeated by the Athenians, who established 4000 Attic settlers (see Cleruchy) on their lands, and seem to have reduced the whole island to a condition of dependence.
After a naval engagement (see Pylos) a body of Spartan hoplites were cut off on Sphacteria.
The eloquence of Cleon frustrated the peace party's desire to accept these terms, and ultimately to the astonishment of the Greek world the Spartan hoplites to the number of 292 surrendered unconditionally (see Cleon).
In his later years, however, he fell into a mood of settled melancholy; and, though still accessible to all who chose to approach him with complaints or petitions, he withdrew from all but the most essential social functions, and lived a life of strenuous work and of Spartan simplicity.
Thus the Spartan power of offence was crippled; and the upshot of the long-protracted war was that Sparta ruefully returned to the Persian alliance, and by the Peace of Antalcidas, concluded with the king in 387 B.C., not only renounced all claims to the Asiatic possessions, but officially proclaimed the Persian suzerainty over Greece.
Owing to Aratus's irresolute generalship, the indolence of the rich burghers and the inadequate provision for levying troops and paying mercenaries, the league lost several battles and much of its territory; but rather than compromise with the Spartan Gracchus the assembly negotiated with Antigonus Doson, who recovered the lost districts but retained Corinth for himself (223-221).
Still more momentous was the Spartan action in crushing the Olynthiac Confederation (see Olynthus), which might have been able to stay the growth of Macedonian power.
Again the Thebans refused to renounce their Boeotian hegemony, and the Spartan attempt at coercion ended in the defeat of the Spartan army at the battle of Leuctra and the death of its leader, King Cleombrotus.
Mayo Thompson produced 1987's Poem of the River EP, while Guthrie returned to man the spartan mini-album The Final Resting of the Ark.
Most cat litter boxes are spartan models devoid of any modern convenience.
Dog day care facilities are similar to any boarding kennel but much improved over the Spartan conditions offered to dogs in years gone by.
Several websites sell beds for larger dogs that range from Spartan to luxurious.
Kratos, formerly a Spartan general, sold his soul to Ares in exchange for power.
Kratos, the former Spartan General, has sold his soul to the God Ares.
You play Kratos, a powerful Spartan warrior on a mission to destroy Ares, the God of War.
There are different levels of difficulty - Easy, Mortal, Hero, Spartan and God Mode. (which is available only after completion of the game on any of the other levels).
You start controlling this tattooed beef-cake Spartan on the helm of a ship, fighting all kinds of mythological baddies.
The story in God of War is of a Great Spartan named Kratos.
During his life, he was a Spartan General with loyalty from all his men.
With the Spartan Laser, get 10 kills at the ONI Alpha Site.
Spartan Total Warrior is one of the most addicting, action-packed adventure games you can play.
As the story unfolds, the Spartan who wants to help his homeland finds out about his mysterious past, and goes forth to fulfill his destiny.
Spartan Total Warrior has a bit of a learning curve.
Spartan Total Warrior is a fun, challenging game.
The length and depth of Spartan Total Warrior is immense.
Sound effects and music soundtrack in Spartan Total Warrior enhance the game.
Spartan Total Warrior is an addicting, action-packed, time-stealing game.
Play as the Spartan with a mysterious past, who helps Ares the God of War get vengence on an unknown opponent.
Here are some hints and tips to defeat the bosses of Spartan Total Warrior.
The features and specifications are identical to the Premium package, but the Halo edition comes painted in Spartan green and gold.
Another famous antique auto trailer is the Spartan.
In 1930s, the Spartan Aircraft Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma was purchased by the Getty Corporation.
Paul Getty used his company's aircraft technology to manufacture the Spartan trailer much like Wally Byam several years before.
Manor, Sparcraft, Sparlane, Crescendo and Carousel are a few Spartan trailer models.
Spartan Aircraft Trailercoaches - A great deal about Spartan antique trailers can be found at this site including vintage Spartan advertisements and year by year breakdowns of trailer models with production details and photographs.
At Skinzwear, they specialize in the super-exotic, such as a teardrop pouch Spartan thong or even the more daring string Kilt thong.
Everyone knows and loves the Spartan Cheerleaders from Saturday Night Live.
In the mid-90s, the Spartan cheerleaders made their debut as a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live.
While it may be obvious that these two Spartan cheerleaders are not who you want to emulate as a cheerleader, there is always just a little truth in parody, and this is why it's so funny.
While the Spartan cheerleaders made it their goal to show up at events and draw attention to themselves, you can make it your goal to show up at events to show support without drawing attention.
The Spartan cheerleaders were noted for not only showing up where they weren't wanted, but also for offering up inappropriate and strange cheers.
The Perfect Cheer is the way that every Spartan Cheerleader skit ended.
This reenactment of the Spartan cheerleaders cheering at a chess tournament is one of the best loved and most popular Spartan skits.
High school and college talent shows definitely have their fair share of SNL Spartan cheerleader skits.
The Spartan Cheerleaders were recurring characters on SNL and lasted for several years until Will Farrell left the show.
While there are many elements that remain the same in SNL Spartan Cheerleader skits (like "the perfect cheer"), the scenarios became increasingly more ridiculous as the skits went on.
The Spartan cheerleaders began their "career" on November 11, 1995.
After not making the real Spartan cheerleading squad, they show up at a football game as "unofficial cheerleaders", but of course cause enough havoc to be asked to leave by a "real" Spartan cheerleader played by Quentin Tarantino.
On December 16, 1995, the Spartan cheerleaders look as if they are going to be thrown out of school as Craig pleads with the principal claiming that they are just born with Spartan spirit and can't help it.
Not only is cheerleading at a chess tournament deemed ridiculous (even the chess team makes fun of them now), but the Spartan cheers are also ridiculous.
February 24, 1996 marks the return of yet another Spartan skit.
On April 20, 1996, Craig finally gets the opportunity to cheer for the real Spartan cheerleaders, but he realizes that he'd prefer to cheer with Ariana after all.
On May 18, 1996, Jim Carrey joins the Spartan squad as Lochmiel, a super spirited foreign exchange student.
On September 28, 1996, Craig and Ariana are vindicated when they see true and heart felt Spartan spirit.
May 9, 1998; almost disqualified from cheer camp, Paula Abdul saves the day when she agrees to be a member of the Spartan cheerleading squad.
December 4, 1999 is the last time that the audience sees the Spartan cheerleaders.
To this day, the Spartan cheerleaders remain two of the most popular recurring characters on Saturday Night Live.
The Romulans, by contrast, are far more Spartan and utilitarian in their ship design, leaning towards long lines and cool metals.
In 457 the Athenians and their allies ventured to intercept a Spartan force which was returning home from central Greece.
Since 387 the Spartan party was again supreme, and after Leuctra Corinth took the field against the Theban invaders of Peloponnesus (371-366).
Thibron, the Spartan, persuaded the Magnesians to leave their indefensible and mutinous city in 399 B.C. and build afresh at Leucophrys, an hour distant, noted for its temple of Artemis Leucophryne, which, according to Strabo, surpassed that at Ephesus in the beauty of its architecture, though inferior in size and wealth.
The lake was also known in classical times as lacus Amyclanus, from the town of Amyclae or Amunclae, which was founded, according to legend, by Spartan colonists, and probably destroyed by' the Oscans in the 5th century B.C.
The town was built by the combined Theban and Argive armies and the exiled Messenians who had been invited to return and found a state which should be independent of Spartan rule.
In 424 B.C. it surrendered to the Spartan Brasidas without resistance, owing to the gross negligence of the historian Thucydides, who was with the fleet at Thasos.
The mothones or mothakes were usually the sons of Spartiates and helot mothers; they were free men sharing the Spartan training, but were not full citizens, though they might become such in recognition of special merit.
His prowess contributed largely to the Messenian victory over the Spartan and Corinthian forces at "The Boar's Barrow" in the plain of Stenyclarus, but in the following year the treachery of the Arcadian king Aristocrates caused the Messenians to suffer a crushing defeat at "The Great Trench."
After the Spartan defeat of Argos in 494 B.C. Tiryns regained temporary independence, and the Tirynthians fought on the OI Greek side at Plataea, while the Argives held aloof.
Exercises of a Spartan type - testing endurance and strength with an especial view to war - had almost exclusively formed the earlier programme.
Spartan arms could enforce the sanction which the Olympian Zeus gave to the oaths of the amphictyones, whose federal bond was symbolized by common worship at his shrine.
Spartan arms could punish any violation of that " sacred truce " which was indispensable if Hellenes from all cities were to have peaceable access to the Olympian festival.
And in the eyes of all Dorians the assured dignity thus added to Olympia would be enhanced by the fact that the protectors were the Spartan Heraclidae.
In 202-1 Philopoemen drove Nabis, the Spartan tyrant, from Messene and routed him off Tegea.
In 255, Regulus was completely defeated and taken prisoner by the Spartan Xanthippus.
But after the Spartan Gylippus came, almost all the other Greek cities of Sicily were on the side of Syracuse.
The year 425 is remarkable for the Spartan disaster of Pylos.
Though the Roman slaves were not, like the Spartan Helots, kept obedient by systematic terrorism, their large numbers were a constant source of danger.
The legend of a Dorian invasion appears first in Tyrtaeus, a 7thcentury poet, in the service of Sparta, who brings the Spartan Heracleids to Peloponnese from Erineon in the northern Doris; and the lost Epic of Aegimius, of about the same date, seems to have presupposed the same story.
Tarentum alone, partly from Spartan origin, partly through stress of local conditions, shows traces of militant asceticism for a while.
After a short Spartan occupation in 224 it was again surrendered to Macedonia.
For most of the period in question Thucydides is the only source; and despite the inherent merits of a great writer, it can hardly be doubted that the tribute of almost unqualified praise that successive generations of scholars have paid to Thucydides must have been in some measure qualified if, for example, a Spartan account of the Peloponnesian War had been preserved to us.
According to a tradition, possibly more authentic, they were re-established by Iphitus, king of Elis, in concert with the Spartan Lycurgus and Cleosthenes of Pisa.
When in 399 war broke out between Sparta and Persia, the Persian troops in Asia Minor were quite unable to resist the Spartan armies.
The active and energetic Persian general Pharnabazus succeeded in creating a fleet by the help of Evagoras, king of Salamis in Cyprus, and the Athenian commander Conon, and destroyed the Spartan fleet at Cnidus (August 394).
The consequence was that, when in 388 the Spartan admiral Antalcidas came to Susa, the king was induced to conclude a peace with Sparta by which Asia fell to him and European Greece to Sparta.
By 404 he was the most powerful man in the Greek world and set about completing the task of building up a Spartan empire in which he should be supreme in fact if not in name.
Everywhere democracies were replaced by oligarchies directed by bodies of ten men (decarchies, 6EKapXiac) under the control of Spartan governors (harmosts, appoarai).
To this end he shrank from no treachery or cruelty; yet, like Agesilaus, he was totally free from the characteristic Spartan vice of avarice, and died, as he had lived, a poor man.
They are mainly elegiac and in the Ionic dialect, written partly in praise of the Spartan constitution an King Theopompus (Ebvoµia), partly to stimulate the Spartan soldiers to deeds of heroism in the field (`T7roOi icacthe title is, however, later than Tyrtaeus).
In the 6th century it was still insignificant as compared with the neighbouring city of Tegea, and submitted more readily to Spartan overlordship. The political history of Mantineia begins soon after the Persian wars, when its five constituent villages, at the suggestion of Argos, were merged into one city, whose military strength forthwith secured it a leading position in the Peloponnesus.
About 235 B.C. Mantineia entered the Achaean League, from which it had obtained protection against Spartan encroachments, but soon passed in turn to the Aetolians and to Cleomenes III.
But the long-standing jealousy against Tegea, and a recent one against the new foundation of Megalopolis, created dissensions which resulted in Mantineia passing over to the Spartan side.
Furthermore he warned Athens against the treason of the extreme oligarchs, and induced the troops to raze a mole erected to facilitate a Spartan descent on Peiraeus.
After a bloody defeat at the hands of the neighbouring mountaineers (409) the Spartan governor quarrelled with the native settlers, whom he expelled in 399.
Athens at once appealed to Sparta to punish this act of medism, and Cleomenes I., one of the Spartan kings, crossed over to the island, to arrest those who were responsible for it.
During the next twenty years the philo-laconian policy of Cimon secured Aegina, as a member of the Spartan league, from attack.
The mountainous country, ill-suited for agricultural purposes, was well adapted for these hardy warriors,whose training was Spartan in its simplicity and severity.
The supreme governing authority was vested in magistrates called Cosmi, answering in some measure to the Spartan Ephori, but there was nothing corresponding to the two kings at Sparta.
In the Spartan general Lysander he found a man who was willing to help him, as Lysander himself hoped to become absolute ruler of Greece by the aid of the Persian prince.
He succeeded his father, probably in 427 B.C., and from his first invasion of Attica in 425 down to the close of the Peloponnesian war was the chief leader of the Spartan operations on land.
Though too weak and good-natured to cope with the problem which confronted him, Agis was characterized by a sincerity of purpose and a blend of youthful modesty with royal dignity, which render him perhaps the most attractive figure in the whole of Spartan history.
In 457 an attempt to extend their influence to the head waters of the Cephissus in the territory of Doris brought a Spartan army into Phocis in defence of the "metropolis of the Dorians."
Besides securing her Aegean possessions and her commerce by the defeat of Corinth and Aegina, her last rivals on sea, Athens acquired an extensive dominion in central Greece and for a time quite overshadowed the Spartan land-power.
When Procles the tyrant was carried captive by Periander of Corinth, the oligarchy was restored, and the people of Epidaurus continued ever afterwards close allies of the Spartan power.
He was victorious in the pitched battle fought at the foot of Ithome in the fifth year of his reign, a battle in which the Messenians, reinforced by the entire Arcadian levy and picked contingents from Argos and Sicyon, defeated the combined Spartan and Corinthian forces.
The second act of the drama may be said to open with the irretrievable blunder of Nicias in letting the Spartan Gylippus first land in Sicily, and then march at the head of a small army, partly levied on the spot, across the island, and enter Syracuse by way of Epipolae, past Euryelus.
It was said to have been founded by Megarians and Argives under Byzas about 6S7 B.C., but the original settlement having been destroyed in the reign of Darius Hystaspes by the satrap Otanes, it was recolonized by the Spartan Pausanias, who wrested it from the Medes after the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.) - a circumstance which led several ancient chroniclers to ascribe its foundation to him.
The memory of the defeat of the Spartan king Cleonymus by the fleet of Patavium in 302 B.C. was perpetuated by Spartan spoils in the temple of Juno and a yearly sea-fight which took place on the river.
This confederacy, which after many modifications and vicissitudes was finally broken up by the capture of Athens by Sparta in 404, was revived in 378-7 (the "Second Athenian Confederacy") as a protection against Spartan aggression, and lasted, at least formally, until the victory of Philip II.
In any case the inelastic quality of the Spartan system was unable to adapt itself to the spirit of the new age.
The gross selfishness of the Spartans, herein exemplified, was emphasized by their capture of the Theban citadel, and, after their expulsion, by the raid upon Attica in time of peace by the Spartan Sphodrias, and his immunity from punishment at Sparta (summer of 378 B.C.).
At this point Sparta was roused to a sense of the significance of the new confederacy, and the Athenian corn supply was threatened by a Spartan fleet of sixty triremes.
Upon news of this disaster Phocis, Locris and Euboea revolted, and the Megarians massacred their Athenian garrison, while a Spartan army penetrated into Attica as far as Eleusis.
In this crisis Pericles induced the Spartan leaders to retreat, apparently by means of.
By dexterous management and large promises he overcame the scruples of the Greek troops against the length and danger of the war; a Spartan fleet of thirty-five triremes sent to Cilicia opened the passes of the Amanus into Syria and conveyed to him a Spartan detachment of 700 men under Cheirisophus.
Moreover, it chanced that at the time the Spartan leaders were not men of strong character or general ability.