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Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon, while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in the Eurotas valley of Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.
Epaminondas was a Greek general and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a pre-eminent position in Greek politics called the Theban Hegemony. In the process, he broke Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberated the Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved under Spartan rule for some 230 years following their defeat in the Third Messenian War ending in 600 BC. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was also militarily influential and invented and implemented several important battlefield tactics.
Tyrtaeus was a Greek elegiac poet from Sparta whose works were speculated to fill five books. His works survive from quotations and papyri, and include 250 lines or parts of lines. He wrote at a time of two crises affecting the city: a civic unrest threatening the authority of kings and elders, later recalled in a poem named Eunomia, where he reminded citizens to respect the divine and constitutional roles of kings, council, and demos; and the Second Messenian War, during which he served as a sort of "state poet", exhorting Spartans to fight to the death for their city. In the 4th century BC, when Tyrtaeus was an established classic, Spartan armies on campaign were made to listen to his poetry. The Suda states that he wrote martial songs; these were important in Spartan festivals and were done through anapaestic and iambic chants that accompanied armed dances and processions.
The helots were a subjugated population that constituted a majority of the population of Laconia and Messenia – the territories ruled by Sparta. There has been controversy since antiquity as to their exact characteristics, such as whether they constituted an Ancient Greek tribe, a social class, or both. For example, Critias described helots as "slaves to the utmost", whereas according to Pollux, they occupied a status "between free men and slaves". Tied to the land, they primarily worked in agriculture as a majority and economically supported the Spartan citizens.
The naval Battle of Pylos took place in 425 BC during the Peloponnesian War at the peninsula of Pylos, on the present-day Bay of Navarino in Messenia, and was an Athenian victory over Sparta. An Athenian fleet had been driven ashore at Pylos by a storm, and, at the instigation of Demosthenes, the Athenian soldiers fortified the peninsula, and a small force was left there when the fleet departed again. The establishment of an Athenian garrison in Spartan territory frightened the Spartan leadership, and the Spartan army, which had been ravaging Attica under the command of Agis, ended their expedition and marched home, while the Spartan fleet at Corcyra sailed to Pylos.
The Battle of Sphacteria was a land battle of the Peloponnesian War, fought in 425 BC between Athens and Sparta. Following the Battle of Pylos and subsequent peace negotiations, which failed, a number of Spartans were stranded on the island of Sphacteria. An Athenian force under Cleon and Demosthenes attacked and forced them to surrender.
Paeonius of Mende, Chalkidiki was a Greek sculptor of the late 5th century BC. He most likely received his early training in Northern Greece and is thought to have later adapted Athenian stylistic elements into his own work, based upon his probable interaction with the Olympia workshop of Phidias. In any case, he was "attic-trained."
Aristomenes was a king of Messenia, celebrated for his struggle with the Spartans in the Second Messenian War, and his resistance to them on Mount Eira for 11 years. At length the mountain fell to the enemy, while he escaped and, according to legend, was snatched up by the gods; in fact he died at Rhodes.
Cape Matapan, also called Cape Tainaron or Taenarum, or Cape Tenaro, is situated at the end of the Mani Peninsula, Greece. Cape Matapan is the southernmost point of mainland Greece, and the second southernmost point in mainland Europe. It separates the Messenian Gulf in the west from the Laconian Gulf in the east.
A laconic phrase or laconism is a concise or terse statement, especially a blunt and elliptical rejoinder. It is named after Laconia, the region of Greece including the city of Sparta, whose ancient inhabitants had a reputation for verbal austerity and were famous for their often pithy remarks.
A Spartiate or Homoios was an elite full-citizen male of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta. Spartiate-class males were a small minority: estimates are that they made up between 1/10 and 1/32 of the population, with the proportion decreasing over time; the vast majority of the people of Sparta were helots (slaves).
In Ancient Greece, the Partheniae or Parthenians were a lower ranking Spartiate population which, according to tradition, left Laconia to go to Magna Graecia and founded Taras, modern Taranto, in the current region of Apulia, in southern Italy.
The Spartan army was the principle ground force of Sparta. It stood at the center of the Spartan state, consisting of citizens trained in the disciplines and honor of a warrior society. Subjected to military drills since early manhood, the Spartans became one of the most feared and formidable military forces in the Greek world, attaining legendary status in their wars against Persia. At the height of Sparta's power – between the 6th and 4th centuries BC – other Greeks commonly accepted that "one Spartan was worth several men of any other state."
The Battle of the Great Foss occurred in 682 BC during the Second Messenian War. The word "foss" derives from the Latin fossa, meaning "ditch" or "trench." According to Pausanias the outcome of the battle was determined by trickery. The Spartans bribed Aristocrates of Orchomenus, the king of the Arcadians, to withdraw his men just as the battle was beginning. This resulted in the slaughter of the Messenians. Aristocrates was later stoned to death by the Arcadians for this treachery.
The Second Messenian War was a war which occurred ca. 660–650 BC between the Ancient Greek states of Messenia and Sparta, with localized resistance possibly lasting until the end of the century. It started around 40 years after the end of the First Messenian War with the uprising of a slave rebellion. Other scholars, however, assign earlier dates, claiming, for example, that 668 BC is the date of the war's start, pointing at Sparta's defeat at the First Battle of Hysiae as a possible catalyst for the uprising. Current events concerning this war are stated, too.
The First Messenian War was a war between Messenia and Sparta. It began in 743 BC and ended in 724 BC, according to the dates given by Pausanias.
The history of Sparta describes the history of the ancient Doric Greek city-state known as Sparta from its beginning in the legendary period to its incorporation into the Achaean League under the late Roman Republic, as Allied State, in 146 BC, a period of roughly 1000 years. Since the Dorians were not the first to settle the valley of the Eurotas River in the Peloponnesus of Greece, the preceding Mycenaean and Stone Age periods are described as well. Sparta went on to become a district of modern Greece. Brief mention is made of events in the post-classical periods.
Messenia was an ancient district of the southwestern Peloponnese, more or less overlapping the modern Messenia region of Greece. To the north it had a border with Elis along the Neda river. From there the border with Arcadia ran along the tops of Mount Elaeum and Mount Nomia and then through foothills of Taygetus. The eastern border with Laconia went along the Taygetus ridge up to the Koskaraka river, and then along that river to the sea, near the city of Abia.
F. L. Lucas's Messene Redeemed (1940) is a verse drama or long poem, based on Pausanias, about the struggle for independence of ancient Messene against Sparta. As well as narrating Messenian history from earliest times to the defeat of Sparta at Leuctra and the return of the exiles, it dramatizes two episodes in play-form: one from the First Messenian War – the "honour killing" of his daughter Laodice by Aristodemus at Ithome, and one from the end of the Second – the last hours of Eira.
Aristodemus was a man of ancient Messenia, who was one of the chief Messenian heroes in the First Messenian War.
References
Ancient Sources
- Pausanias (geographer) 4.15.4
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