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In building its alliance, Sparta gained two ends, protection of its conquest of Mesene and a free hand against Argos. [29] The Battle of the Champions won about 546 BC (that is at the time that the Lydian Empire fell before Cyrus of Persia) made the Spartans masters of the Cynuria, the borderland between Laconia and Argolis. [29]
Sparta entered its long-term decline after a severe military defeat to Epaminondas of Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra. This was the first time that a full strength Spartan army lost a land battle. As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens.
Map of Sparta. The Spartans had conquered the southern Peloponnese and incorporated the territory into the enlarged Sparta state. Spartan society functioned within three classes: homoioi or spartiates, perioeci, and the helots. The helots were captives of war and were state-owned slaves of Sparta. [1]
Classical Spartan society was rigidly divided into several castes, each with assigned duties and privileges. The smallest of them, with the most power and freedom, was the Spartiate class. Spartiates (Spartiate-class males over 30) held some extremely limited power in the government and would own kleroi (plots of land with associated Helots).
Certainly conquest comprised one aspect of helotism; thus Messenians, who were conquered in the Messenian Wars of the 8th century BC, become synonymous in Herodotus with helots. The situation seems less clear in the case of the earliest helots, who, according to Theopompus, were descended from the initial Achaeans , whom the Dorians had conquered.
Spartans fighting against Persian forces at the Battle of Plataea. 19th century illustration. Over the winter, there was some tension among the Allies. In particular, the Athenians, who were not protected by the Isthmus, but whose fleet was the key to the security of the Peloponnesus, felt that they had been treated unfairly, and so they ...
Seeking the counsel of Demaratus, an exiled Spartan king in his retinue, Xerxes was told the Spartans were preparing for battle, and it was their custom to adorn their hair when they were about to risk their lives. Demaratus called them "the bravest men in Greece" and warned the Great King they intended to dispute the pass.
Spartan kings received a recurring posthumous hero cult like that of the similarly Doric kings of Cyrene. [4] The kings' firstborn sons, as heirs-apparent, were the only Spartan boys expressly exempt from the Agoge; however, they were allowed to take part if they so wished, and this endowed them with increased prestige when they ascended the ...