Sparta, ancient and modern in Laconia Prefecture

Sparta is where you spend the night if you didn't make it to Mystras during open hours, before that visit the museum and then hi-tail-it outta there. The food was good in the little platea and the people were nice! The water is mountain spring so drink up! The problem with ancient Sparta is that modern Sparti is on top of most of it and what is visible is dissapointing. Even the museum is spartan.

The ancient Spartans, as you are probably aware, thought protective city walls were for sissies and didn't build any. There are a few ruins left over however and a monument to Leonidas the Spartan King who died defending the pass of Thermopyle during the Persian War. For more on how to actually visit Sparta.

The town of modern Sparta is a sleepy place and low key. You'll find the food fresh and atmosphere clean. The best thing about Sparta is nearby Mystras. Sparta is known in Greece as Sparti, and was settled as early as the Neolithic period or "new stone age" about 3,000 BC.

Sparti originally had 4 or 5 settlements which gradually merged. Historians agree that Sparti was a purely Doric city and a result of the new order of things that the Dorians had brought with them as invaders. Homeric myths are about the only thing that help us to understand the links that may have existed between the Mycenaean's and the Spartans. Lykurgos is traditionally given credit for the organization of the aristocratic and militaristic regime for which Sparta was so famous. Some historians doubt such a person as Lykurgos ever really existed but even so, his name is as good as any and you will see a statue of him below and in modern Sparti..

The Spartans divvied up the land they stole from the original inhabitants and they enslaved the ones they could catch. Life in ancient Sparta was like being in the army 24/7/365 only worse.

Both public and private life was highly regulated and militaristic with barracks life for the unmarried, communal food, whippings for the youth (to toughen them), institutional homosexuality and large numbers of slaves called Helots.

The original Messinian inhabitants were totally conquered, as a result of Sparta's expansionist policy, between the period of 740 to 630 BC. After the 7th C Sparta was openly attempting to conquer the whole of the Peloponnese and chose Arcadia and Argos as two plump juicy fruits. Sparta grew, and in about 556 BC came into conflict with the Athenians.

Sparta

Called Sparti in Greek, its ancient remains and modern city can be approached from the north (from Tripoli), and from the west (from Kalamata). From the north, the view from the top of the pass in the Parnon range is magnificent, with the lush Evrotas valley spread out below, flanked by the Tagetos mountains to the west. Approaching, alternatively, from Kalamata, the road descends through wooded gorges, the best known of which is Megali Langadha (see the Mani). Trypi is at 600meters/1968feet, with many streams and beautiful views. The Kaiadas ravine into which the ancient Spartans cast weak or sick children (deemed unfit for the rigors of this austere militaristic culture) is near here. The road then forks southwest to Mystras and north to Aghia Irini and Longaniko, (straight ahead to Sparti), at the crossroads known as the Magoulas.

Sparti dates back to Neolithic times (3000 BC). There are various theories for the derivation of its name: the mythical daughter of Evrotas, a king with the name Sparton, the fertility of the lush plain (the Greek verb 'sperno' meaning 'to sow'; 'sparmeno' meaning 'sown'). The ancient town was comprised of five scattered settlements separated by cultivated land, which were later joined and called Lakedaimon. During Mycenaean times, Sparta was part of the kingdom of Menelaos, (who was the husband of Helen, for whom the Trojan War was fought). Remains from this period were found at Amykles to the south of Sparti, where there was a sanctuary to Apollo, and nearby, beehive tombs were found with the golden horn shaped vessels known as rhytons (Athens museum).

The city occupied six low hills in a vast triangular area on the banks of the Evrotas, and was never walled during the period of its greatest power (9th to 4th centuries BC) both because of its naturally protected location and the fierceness of its soldiers, who were deemed sufficient protection. The remains of the ancient city are sparse, and it never had the grand public buildings that characterize other famous ancient Greek cities . The modern town was laid out in 1834, just after the establishment of the Greek nation after the War of Independence. Though not a beautiful town, the buildings are low enough to not spoil the beautiful views of surrounding mountains, and the plains are planted with orange and olive orchards.

Around 900BC, Lycurgos drew up the oligarchic constitution of Lakedaimon, with two kings as heads of state who were also military leaders, with a council of 28 elders and five 'ephors' who had executive power. The population was divided into three classes: the Spartiates, who numbered between 5000-10,000 and were warriors and land owers who also held government posts; the Perioikoi, who were tax-paying traders, farmers or artisans; and the Helots, or serfs, who were most numerous of the three castes and without legal status.

The warrior class of Spartiates were taken from their mothers at the age of seven, to begin their education in the art of endurance, sleeping on the ground, forced to do drill exercises and play brutal competitive games. Sometimes they were forced to steal something without being caught. At the age of 20 they faced initiation tests which included floggings, sometimes to the point of death, being abandoned in the countryside with no food or other supplies, and proved themselves by killing any Helots unlucky enough to be discovered wandering around after dark. They were forbidden to do any work other than their combat training in the barracks, and practiced a war dance known as the 'Phyrric', ate communally, their diet consisting of wild roots, herbs and (on special occasions) 'black broth' , which was pork stewed in the blood of the pig.

They were expected to marry but continued living in barracks and eating there (and only the prescribed diet, with food supplied from the estates that they were given, becoming full soldiers at thirty, perhaps after serving a stint in the secret police, called 'krypteia'. The estates given them were cultivated by slaves, leaving the warriors free to devote their lives to military and public service.

Girls were also required to do strenuous exercise and wore clothing with low necklines that shocked Greeks from elsewhere, nor were they expected to be faithful to their husbands, their task being to choose lovers with whom to produce strong children. It was the married women, though, who presented the soldiers with their traditional shields and plumed helmets when they achieved their full status.

The Perioikoi (which means something like 'those who dwell around the area') lived in various villages in Kakonia and in neighboring Messenia. Though they were free, they lacked the rights of citizens . They were expected to serve the state as soldiers when 'asked'. The Helots were descendants of former inhabitants of Lakonia and of surviving Messenian slaves. As stated above, it was they who cultivated the estates of the Spartiates and were expected to deliver certain produce.

This militaristic state only developed in its extreme form after the 6th century BC, however, before which the arts flourished (pottery, bronze sculpture, architecture of an essential type, and well as poetry, music and dancing (with festivals that achieved some fame). The increase in austerity is attributed to the inadequate numbers of the ruling caste, the earthquake of 464 BC, and political discontent in Messenia where the Spartans had begun expanding territory during the late 8th century BC, due to its fertility, followed by a 17year Messenian revolt (685-668). Sparta prevailed in the end and began increasing its power in the Peloponnese, subduing Tegea and Thyreatis and the Peloponnesian League was established with Sparta dominating it. Argos which had been the only defiant region, was also subdued in 494BC. Sparta gained prestige with the defeat of the Persians at Thermopylae in 480-479, and with the vicotyr of Plataia under Pausanias.

The Peloponnesian war ended with Sparta's defeat of Athens, leaving Sparta in control of not only the mainland, but of the Aegean as well. In 395 BC she was attacked by a coalition led by Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos and the Spartan fleet was defeated at Knidos in 394. Ultimately, it was the Achaian League and the Macedonians ushered in the end of Spartan hegemony and Sparta became a dependent of Macedon. Though the Lycugian laws had been repealed after Sparta's fall to the Achaian League, were reinstated for a time during Roman rule, but the city was destroyed in 396BC by Alaric and when the Slavs invaded in the 9th Century AD the population migrated to the Mani. The Byzantines refounded a town with the name Lakedaimonia, but by 1248 Mystra superceded it totally in importance. Until the British carried out excavations in 1906-10 and during the 1920s, the town vanished from history.

The ruins of Ancient Sparta are to the north and northeast of the modern town. At the top of Odhos Stadiou(Stadium Street) is a modern memorial to Leonidas, who was the Spartan king and leader of three hundred soldiers who made a last stand against Xerxes 30,000 Persians at the Pass of Thermopylae in 480BC, an event described by Herodotus. Leonidas was standing guard over the pass with a mixed army of 7,000 Greeks, believing that this was the only place from which the Persian army would attack, but Xerxes decided to attack the Greek army from the rear instead. Leonidas ordered the main army to retreat while he and his Spartan guard (consisting of Spartans, Thespians, and Thebans) remained in the pass to delay the Persians' progress. He and all but two of his guard died in this courageous effort. There is a grave mound halfway through the pass where Leonidas' soldiers are buried, though the tomb of Leonidas himself, lies near the ancient theater in the ruins of Sparta, where a broken statue of him was found. The Acropolis is on a hill only 20 metres high , reachable from a track that leads through olive groves from the left of the stadium. Its walls were built between 267AD and 386AD, with the east side completed after the Slav invasion in the 8th century. This was the center of Byzantine Lakedaimonia.

Inside the gate is a Roman portico from the first century AD. There are two ruined 11th century churches farther on and the Theater, built into the side of the hill around 2nd-1st centuries AD. It is the second largest theater in Greece (after Megalopolis) though much of its masonry was used in fortifications or was quarried for Mystra. It was used for public meetings as well as for plays, and had a movable stage building on wheels the tracks of which can still be discerned. Above the theater a fragment of the Temple of Athina Haliakou is marked by a sign, and there are very low ruins at the top of the hill of the 10th Byzantine church and monastery of Osios Nikon.

The results of emergency excavations underneath the modern town attest to the prosperity of this city durng Roman times, with mosaics and fine houses. The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia is below a path that descends from Odhos Tripoleos. This is the place where the floggings of boys in endurance tests was carried out sometimes to the point of death, according to Roman geographer and travel writer Pausanius, who added that the earlier temple altar had to be stained with blood for the goddess to be satisfied, perhaps inspiring the Romans later. The sanctuary exisited in the 10th century BC , and a temple during the Archaic period occupied the same spot, as well as a later Roman theater even later, the main ruins here being the seats from the latter.

The Menelaion or shrine of Menelaos and Helen (his daughter), which was identified later from the writings of Pausanius, is 5km from Sparta, after the road crosses the Evrotas river and on a road to the right on the Yeraki road. At the 4.5km marker a path leads off to the left. Bearing right at the chapel of Aghios Ilias you'll see a hill of reddish earth with three platforms where the shrine stood. The walk takes about twenty minutes. The identification was confirmed by the discovery of inscriptions with dedications to both father and daughter. Both the masonry and the view from this hill are worth the trip there. Mycenaean remains discovered in 1910 and 1973 are on the northeast side of the summit, consisting of a 'Mansion' built in three phases on two terraces, with the arrangement of rooms typical of Mycenaean palaces. The earlier mansion destroyed by fire in 1200BC. dates to the 15th century BC, one of the earliest of such complexes known. Judgingfrom other Mycenaean remains in the same area , it appears that the site was extensive.

The Githio road from Sparta leads to the Amyklaion which was excavated by the German school in 1925, where a sanctuary surrounds the Tomb of Hyakinthos, topped by an archaic statue of Apollo sitting on a throne overlaid with gold and ivory, a tecnnique known in Greek sculpture as 'chryselephantine'. This was the location of the great July festival of Hyakinthia which celebrated the reconciliation of the Dorians and Achaians. Hyakinthos was a pre-Greek deity. The site was occupied continuously from Mycenaean times. The church of Aghia Paraskevi may occupy the site of the Sanctuary of Zeus-Agamemnon and Alexandhra-Kassandhra. A huge votive find with hero-reliefs was unearthed in 1956 near here, dating to the Archaic period. Amyklai was the ancient capital of the Mycenaeans in Lakonia, and was most likely located at nearly Palaiopiryi which is the largest Late Helladic settlement yet found in Lakonia.

The Archaeological Museum in Sparta on Aghios Nikonos, is open Mon-Sat 8:30am-3pm, Sun 9:30am -2:30pm; 2euros admission. Votive offerings found at the Sanctuary of Apollo Amyklaios are among its more interesting exhibits, including sickles set in stone which were prizes given to Spartan youths and rededicated to the goddess, and a marble bust of a running Spartan warrior, found on the Acropolis and believed to be of Leonidas. There are also fragments of Hellenistic and Roman mosaics and small lead figurines from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia. Another worthwhile stop while in Sparta is the Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil (open Wed-Mon, in summer 10am-2pm & 5-7pm; in winter 10am-4pm; 2 euros admission) at Othonos and Amalias 129. This museum, which opened in 2002, details the history, uses and technology related to olives and olive oil.