This...is...a show about Sparta!

Imagine building an entire society around the idea of fighting people. That, in a nutshell, was Sparta. For over three millenia, the Spartans have been source of fascination for their military prowess, their massive slave population, and their seeming willingness to fight anyone over anything. This week's show explores the history behind their enduring legend.

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Transcript

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In the mainland part of Greece, there is a small, quiet town that has a population of about 17,000 people, according to the most recent census. It's the local provincial capital and it does have some interesting ruins, but overall there's not a lot going on there. But this town has a really famous name. Sparta. It is one of the most legendary places in history. Its name has lived on in sports teams like the Michigan State University Spartans, video games like Assassin's Creed and God of War, and of course, the movie 300. But what is Sparta? This is Sparta! Oh okay, that's not very helpful. On today's show, we're gonna talk about this very real place and its legend. We choose to go to the moon! The Rum Tum Tucker is a curious cat. Hundred billion other galaxies. When we think of Greece today, we might think of ancient sites like the Acropolis, beautiful islands like Santorini, or maybe the mythology that gave us Percy Jackson and the gods of Olympus. Did I miss anything? Uh oh okay, that's Greece the musical? Not Greece the country. Maybe we'll cover that on a future episode? Anyway, ancient Greece was very different from the place we know today. For one thing, it wasn't one single country. It was a geographical area between the Aegean and the Ionian seas. Within this territory were hundreds of independent city-states. Athens and Sparta were two of the most famous, but there were lots of others. Sparta was located in an area called Laconia. A laconic person is someone who's blunt and curt and right to the point. That word comes from this region, specifically the people who live there. Spartans were known for being people of few words because they would rather fight you than talk to you. Sparta was one of the most militarized societies in the history of the world. By constitution, it was rigidly divided into citizens with full rights, free non citizens, and slaves called helots. Most of the people who lived in Sparta were enslaved helots. There were about seven of them for every citizen. But citizens of Sparta didn't exactly have it easy. Every male citizen entered military training at the age of seven. It was famously brutal. They didn't see their families, they slept out in the open, they were deprived of food, they had scheduled beatings. As you might expect from a society of warriors, the Spartans got into their fair share of fights. They fought the nearby city states and spent a lot of time putting down slave revolts. But Sparta really made its name when the mighty Persian Empire tried to conquer Greece. Persia was the largest empire of its time, and during the second Persian invasion, the Emperor Xerxes sent hundreds of thousands of troops to take the Greek city-states. Athens asked Sparta to block off the entire Persian army at a narrow pass called Thermopylae, which was the only land route into Greece from Persia. The Spartan force would be completely outnumbered. They would likely die there. They would at best just delay the massive Persian onslaught. And to this the Spartans said, This is Sparta! King Leonidas of Sparta led a mixed force that included just 300 Spartans to Thermopylae. After holding them off for three days, the Persians outflanked the Greek forces. Many of the Greeks took off at that point, but all three hundred Spartans stayed behind with their king and met the Persians head on. They all died. But their bravery in the face of certain death is considered one of history's greatest last stands. More importantly, the Greeks regrouped and a combined army, led by Sparta, ultimately turned back the Persian invasion for good. Now, having beaten the mighty Persians, Sparta needed someone else to fight. And who better than their former allies in Athens? I mean, they're right there. But Athens was no slouch in the war department either. The Athenian navy was legendary. No, Sparta would need help. And who better to help them than the people they just beat? That's right, just eighteen years after dying at Thermopylae, losing their legendary king, and defeating the Persians, Sparta accepted help from Persia to fight Athens. This conflict was called the Peloponnesian War. They fought for twenty five years until the Athenian forces were defeated. Their defeat marked the end of Athens as a power and the start of the Spartan Empire. That lasted for another seventy five years until Alexander the Great came along and just took it all. Neither Athens nor Sparta ever recovered their past glory, and they also never really officially settled their war until march twelfth, nineteen ninety six, when the mayors of modern Athens and Sparta finally got around to signing a peace treaty. Almost twenty seven hundred years after its founding, Sparta was finally at peace. That's this week's show. Join us next time, and thanks for listening.