Sparta Attractions

Sparta, chief town of Laconia, lies in the fertile Evrótas plain, which is enclosed between the Taygetos range (2,404m/7,888ft) and Mt Párnon (1,937m/6,355ft) and bounded on the south by the sea. The street was re-founded on the ancient site in 1834 by King Otto, with streets laid out at right angles around a large central square.

The subjugation of the original pre-Greek population of this area by Mycenaean Greeks is reflected in the myth of Hyakinthos, who was killed by Apollo during a discus-throwing contest. The story of the Mycenaean period (second millennium B.C.) also finds expression in the myths of Leda, the Dioskouroi (Kastor and Polydeukes/Pollux), and Menelaos and Helen. King Menelaos, who like his brother Agamemnon belonged to the Trojan War generation, was later revered in the Menelaion. The last Mycenaean king was Tisamenos, son of Orestes.

A new epoch began when the Dorians arrived, established the four villages of Pitane, Limnai, Mesoa and Kynosoura about 950 B.C. and divided up the conquered territory among the Spartiates. When Amyklai, which had remained a Mycenaean stronghold, also fell to Sparta about 800 B.C. the characteristic Spartan dual monarchy came into being, with one king continuing the line of Dorian tribal leaders, the other that of the kings of Amyklai. In addition to the two kings Sparta had a Council of Elders (Gerousia) and five ephors, who were elected annually. It developed into a military state, in which art was not entirely disregarded (as the finds made at Olympia and Dodóna show) but played a less important role than in Athens. Thus Thucydides could write: "If Sparta became desolate and only the temples and the foundations of its public buildings were left, posterity would be unable to accept its fame as the true measure of its power." The Spartan ideal was incorporated in the lawgiver Lykourgos (eighth century B.C.) and in Leonidas and his 300 Spartans who fell at Thermopylai in 480 B.C.

In a succession of wars (740-720, 660, 464-459 B.C.) Sparta subjugated Messenia, to the west of Taygetos. Its decline began with a severe earthquake in 464 B.C. which killed all its young men, and it received a further blow in the defeat of a Spartan army by the Thebans under Epameinondas at Leuktra in 371 B.C. The first defensive walls were built round the town about 200 B.C. Under the Roman Empire Sparta enjoyed a revival of prosperity, but it was devastated by the Herulians in A.D. 267 and by Alaric's Visigoths in 395. In the seventh century Slavs established themselves in the region. In the 10th century it was evangelised by St Nikon Metanoeite, who was buried on the acropolis hill at Sparta.

In the 13th century Sparta was replaced by the newly founded town of Mistra.