Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the … See more

Sparta is located in the region of Laconia, in the south-eastern Peloponnese. Ancient Sparta was built on the banks of the Eurotas, … See more

Lacedaemon (Greek: Λακεδαίμων) was a mythical king of Laconia. The son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete, he married Sparta, the daughter of See more

Prehistory, "dark age" and archaic period
The prehistory of Sparta is difficult to reconstruct because the literary evidence was written far later than the events it describes and is … See more

Constitution
Sparta was an oligarchy. The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid families, both supposedly descendants of Heracles and equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and … See more

The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the Spartan city-state and its location. First, "Sparta" refers primarily to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River. The second word, "Lacedaemon" (Λακεδαίμων), was often used as an … See more

Thucydides wrote:
Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame. Their city is … See more