Modern
Greek Sparti, historically Lacedemon, ancient capital of the Laconia
district of the southeastern Peloponnese, Greece, and capital
of Lakonia on the right bank of the Evrotas Potamos (river). The
sparsity of ruins from antiquity around the modern city reflects
the austerity of the military oligarchy that ruled the Spartan
city-state from the 6th to the 2nd century BC. A brief treatment
of ancient Sparta follows. For full treatment, see Greek and Roman
Civilizations, Ancient. Reputedly founded in the 9th century BC
with a rigid oligarchic constitution, the state of Sparta for
centuries retained as lifetime corulers two kings who arbitrated
in time of war.  In
time of peace, power was concentrated in a Senate of 30 members.
Between the 8th and 5th century BC, Sparta subdued Messenia, reducing
the inhabitants to serflike status. From the 5th century the ruling
class of Sparta devoted itself to war and diplomacy, deliberately
neglecting the arts, philosophy, and literature, and forged the
most powerful army standing in Greece.
Sparta's single-minded dedication to rule by a militarized oligarchy
precluded any hope of a political unification of classical Greece,
but it performed a great service in 480 BC by its heroic stand
at Thermopylae and its subsequent leadership in the Greco-Persian
wars. The Battle of Salamis (480) revealed the magnitude of Athenian
naval power and set in motion the deadly struggle between the
two powers that ended in Athenian defeat at the close of the Peloponnesian
War in 404 and the emergence of Sparta as the most powerful state
in Greece. In the Corinthian War (395-387) Sparta had two land
victories over Athenian allied states and a severe naval defeat
at Cnidus by a combined Athenian and Persian fleet. Sparta's involvement
in Persian civil wars in Asia Minor under Agesilaus II (ruled
399-360) and the subsequent Spartan occupation (382) of the Theban
citadel, Cadmea, overextended Spartan power and exposed the state
to defeat at Leuctra (371) by the Theban Epaminondas, who went
on to liberate Messenia.
A century-long decline followed. Sparta's continued agitation
spurred Rome's war on the Achaeans (146) and the Roman conquest
of the Peloponnese. In AD 396 the modest city was destroyed by
the Visigoths. The Byzantines repopulated the site and gave it
the ancient Homeric name Lacedaemon. After 1204 the Franks built
a new fortress city, Mistra, on a spur of the Taygetus range southwest
of Sparta; after 1259 Mistra was capital of the Despotate of Morea
(i.e., the Peloponnese) and flourished for about two centuries.
From 1460 until the War of Greek Independence (1821-29), except
for a Venetian interlude, the region was under Turkish rule. The
present-day town was built in 1834 on the ancient site; it is
called Nea (New) Sparti locally to distinguish it from the ruins
that were excavated in 1906-10 and 1924-29. A small commercial
and industrial centre of the Eurotean plain, the city trades in
citrus fruits and olive oil. As in antiquity, it is served by
the small port of Githion, modern Greek .
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