The Warrior State

Sparta was the most militaristic city-state in ancient Greece — a society built entirely around the production of perfect warriors. Located in the Laconia region of the Peloponnese, Sparta dominated southern Greece through the sheer terror its army inspired. While Athens pursued philosophy, art, and democracy, Sparta pursued a single goal: military supremacy. Every male citizen was a professional soldier from the age of seven until sixty, trained in a brutal system called the agoge that produced the most feared fighters in the ancient world.

In mythology, Sparta was the kingdom of Menelaus and his wife Helen — the most beautiful woman in the world. When the Trojan prince Paris abducted Helen, it was Menelaus's rage that launched the Trojan War. Sparta contributed a formidable contingent to the Greek army at Troy, and Menelaus was one of the warriors inside the Trojan Horse. After the war, he brought Helen back to Sparta, where they ruled together for many years.

Helen of Sparta

Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, born from an egg after Zeus visited Leda in the form of a swan. She was so beautiful that every king in Greece sought her hand in marriage. Her stepfather Tyndareus, fearing conflict, made all the suitors swear an oath to defend whichever man she chose. She chose Menelaus — and when Paris later stole her away, that oath bound every Greek king to join the war to retrieve her. Helen's beauty was thus literally the cause of the greatest conflict in mythology.

The 300 Spartans

The most famous episode in Spartan history — which blends myth and history — is the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, where King Leonidas and 300 Spartan warriors made their legendary last stand against the massive Persian army of Xerxes. Though all 300 Spartans died, their sacrifice bought time for the Greek alliance to regroup and eventually defeat the Persians. The epitaph on their monument — telling passers-by that they lie here in obedience to Spartan law — became one of the most quoted inscriptions in history.

Classical & Archaeological Sources

Historical and mythological accounts of Sparta:

Cross-referenced with classical sources and modern archaeological research for accuracy.

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Sparta's mythical kings

Spartan legend traced the city back long before Menelaus. Pausanias records that the first king of the land was Lelex, an earth-born figure whose people were called Leleges. Lelex's grandson Eurotas, who drained the plain and gave his name to the river, had no son. His daughter Sparta married Lacedaemon, a son of Zeus by the Pleiad Taygete, who named the land after himself and the city after his wife. That is why ancient writers use "Lacedaemon" and "Sparta" almost interchangeably. Mount Taygetus, the range that towers over the Eurotas valley, carries the name of Lacedaemon's mother.

Later in the line came Tyndareus and his wife Leda. Their household was the most crowded in Greek myth. It included Helen and her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, the Dioscuri, as well as Clytemnestra, who married Agamemnon of Mycenae. The Dioscuri were major Spartan heroes. In the best-known story they fought their cousins Idas and Lynceus over cattle or brides, and the mortal Castor was killed. Pindar tells how Polydeuces, the son of Zeus, refused immortality unless he could share it with his brother. Zeus agreed, and the twins spend alternate days among the gods and beneath the earth. Spartan armies took images of the Dioscuri on campaign. Herodotus notes that after the two kings were barred from campaigning together, only one of the pair of images went out with the army.

Another young Spartan was Hyacinthus of Amyclae, a few kilometres south of the city. He was beloved by Apollo and killed by a stray discus. His death and return were marked every summer at the three-day Hyakinthia, one of the most important Spartan festivals. See Apollo and Hyacinthus.

Helen and Menelaus after Troy

The Odyssey shows the royal couple back at home. When Telemachus arrives in Book 4, Menelaus is holding a double wedding feast for his son and his daughter Hermione. Helen comes into the hall and slips a drug from Egypt, nepenthes, into the wine so that no one present can weep. Menelaus then tells of his long return through Egypt and his capture of the shape-changing sea-god Proteus. Proteus tells him that he will not die at all, but will be sent to the Elysian plain, because he is Helen's husband and so the son-in-law of Zeus.

The Spartans worshipped Helen as a goddess. At Therapne, on a ridge above the Eurotas, stood the Menelaion, a shrine to Helen and Menelaus built over the remains of a Mycenaean mansion. Herodotus tells of a plain baby girl whose nurse carried her daily to Helen's shrine. A mysterious woman stroked the child's head, and she grew up to be the most beautiful woman in Sparta. In the late 2000s archaeologists found a Mycenaean palace with Linear B tablets at Agios Vasileios, south of Sparta. It is the strongest candidate so far for a real Bronze Age seat of power in Laconia.

Heracles' descendants and the two kings

Historical Spartans claimed their right to the land through the myth of the Return of the Heracleidae. The descendants of Heracles, it was said, came back to the Peloponnese with the Dorians and divided it by lot. Laconia went to Aristodemus, whose twin sons Eurysthenes and Procles became the ancestors of Sparta's two royal houses, the Agiads and Eurypontids. Herodotus tells how their mother, asked which twin was older, claimed she could not tell, and the Spartans settled it by watching which baby she washed and fed first. Sparta kept two kings at once for centuries afterwards. Herodotus gives Leonidas's full genealogy, twenty generations back to Heracles.

Cult and initiation reinforced these ideas. At the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, boys tried to snatch cheeses from the altar while others beat them back with whips, according to Xenophon. Under Roman rule this became an endurance flogging performed for tourists in a purpose-built theatre. Spartan girls, unusually for Greece, trained in running and wrestling. Aristotle complained that women owned a large share of Spartan land.

A few popular ideas need correcting. The Greek force at Thermopylae was several thousand strong at the start. On the final day the 300 Spartans fought alongside some 700 Thespians and around 400 Thebans, together with the Spartans' helots. The sayings "come and take them" and "with your shield or on it" come from Plutarch's collections of Spartan sayings, written over five centuries after the events they describe.

Ancient sources

  • Homer, Odyssey 4 — Telemachus visits Menelaus and Helen at Sparta, along with Helen's Egyptian drug and Proteus's prophecy of Elysium.
  • Homer, Iliad 3.236–244 — Helen looks for her brothers among the Greeks, unaware they already lie buried in Lacedaemon.
  • Pindar, Nemean 10 — the death of Castor and Polydeuces' choice to share his immortality.
  • Herodotus, Histories 6.52, 6.61 and 7.204 — the twin founders of the dual kingship, Helen's shrine at Therapne and Leonidas's descent from Heracles.
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece Book 3 — the early kings of Laconia, Lacedaemon and Sparta, Amyclae and the Hyakinthia, and the shrines of Laconia.
  • Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians — the agoge, the whipping at the altar of Orthia and Spartan customs.

Frequently asked questions

Is Sparta the same as Lacedaemon?

Mostly, yes. Lacedaemon was the name of the state and its territory, while Sparta was the city. The "Λ" (lambda) on Spartan shields stood for Lacedaemon.

Was Helen worshipped in Sparta?

Yes. She had a cult as a goddess at Therapne, where she was honoured together with Menelaus at the Menelaion, and her worship continued well into historical times.

Why did Sparta have two kings?

According to myth, because the Heracleid Aristodemus had twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles. Each founded a royal house, and the two lines ruled side by side.

Did only 300 Spartans fight at Thermopylae?

No. About 300 Spartan citizens were there, but they fought within an allied Greek army. On the last day Thespians, Thebans and helots also stayed and died with Leonidas.

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