SPARTA

SPARTA

Lets Go!

Group 1by Sara Uparela, Maria Lucia Ordosgoitia, Carlos Rodriguez and Martin Macea.

Geographical location

Sparta was located on the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. It came to occupy its two-fifths, which translates into about 8500 km² (Its extension tripled that of Athens). Its main regions were two, being separated by mountains: Lakonia and Messenia.

As in all Greece, religion in Sparta was polyteism. The main gods of Sparta were, respectively, Ares and Athena. Ares was the Greek god of war. Sparta was a city whose power was based on the military.

Religion

LIVING THROUGH WAR

Ever since the most primitive Sparta began its journey in history in the ninth century B.C., its warriors have always been associated with ferocity and rudeness. To such an extent they considered the defeat a dishonor that, according to Plutarch, their women used to say goodbye to them always with the same phrase: "Come back with your shield or on it."

HATRED OF THE COWARD

All this dedication to the military world led to hatred of the dishonor of cowardice. Xenophon considered "something worthy of admiration" that the Spartans had managed to "make a glorious death preferable to a dishonorable life in their city." After the combat, in fact, the cowards were removed from society.

The city of Sparta was founded in the ninth century B.C. by the Dorian people who penetrated the penisula of the Peloponnese in search of fertile lands.Four villages in the Laconian region would unite to form the city of Sparta.

rise

When sparta was able to continue its expansion this at first came in the form outright conquest but soon transitioned to foreign policy involving a series of unequal alliances we call the peloponnesian league. With the time the league was so significant that it elevated sparta as the primary leader of the greek world.

rise

Sparta didn’t really fall, it decayed The original cause of decay was economy, the accumulation of lands to a few of the ruling families, and the dwindling number of Spartiates. They never got the citizens’ rights, and it proved the Spartans were lousy administrators and hegemons. They were unable to reform their military, sticking to the obsolete hoplite means of warfare. Finally it proved Sparta was too insignificant to be conquered. It became a meaningless jerkwater in Lakonia and an enclave inside the Macedonian Empire.

Fall

During the Punic Wars, Sparta was an ally of the Roman empire. Spartan political independence was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the Achaean League after its defeat in the decisive Laconian War by a coalition of other Greek city-states and Rome, and the resultant overthrow of its final king Nabis, in 192 BC. Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BC. Subsequently, Sparta became a client under the Roman rule, and the city became a tourist trap for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs. The decline of Sparta comes with one big event, all at once, and as an unintended consequence of defeating Athens. With Athens out of the way, Thebes, the traditional enemy of Athens to the north, became much more powerful and started conquering and raiding their neighbors. In 371 BCE, the Thebans broke Spartan power at the Battle of Leuctra. In 362 BCE, the Thebans attacked Sparta at the Battle of Mantinea, which was essentially a battle to decide whether Thebes or Sparta would be the main city-state. The thebans free’d the helots so the spartan army became weaker because now they had to do all the farming works

A few years later, though, this whole question became moot as Thebes, Athens, Sparta, and the rest of Greece were all conquered by Philip of Macedon in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE.Basically, they were a military state that failed to adapt to the changing landscape of war. New field tactics were being introduced which ultimately defeated the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in 371BC. After this defeat they would never recover their prestige. Without their military superiority, they faded from power and were absorbed by the Achaean League the following century.So, a lot of events caused Sparta to fall.