SPARTA (Gr. ER-6.prn or AaKESaimcov), an ancient city in Greece, the capital of Laconia and the most powerful state of the Peloponnese. The city lay at the N. end of the central Laconian plain, on the right bank of the Eurotas, S. of its junction with the Oenus (mod. Kelefina), commanding the only land-routes into Laconia, the Oenus and Eurotas valleys from Arcadia, and the Langada Pass over Mt. Taygetus from Messenia. At the same time its distance (27 m. from its port, Gythium) made it invul nerable from the sea.
Until 1905 the visible ancient buildings at Sparta were the the atre, the "Tomb of Leonidas," a quadrangular building of immense blocks containing two chambers; the foundation of a bridge over the Eurotas ; a curved structure since found to be a Hellenic retaining wall restored in Roman times, and some late Roman fortifications, buildings and mosaic pavements. Inscriptions, sculp tures and other objects were collected in the museum, or built into houses or churches. Excavations were carried on near Sparta, on the site of the Amyclaeum (1890 Tsountas, 1904 Furtwangler) at the shrine of Menelaus in Therapne (1833, 1841, Ross; 1889, 1900, Kastriotis) and at the "round building" (1892 and 1893 American School at Athens). But no organized work was tried in Sparta itself.
Systematic exploration, however, began with the excavations of the British School at Athens, at Thalamae, Geronthrae, and Angelona near Monemvasia, in 1904, and at Sparta itself in 1906. A "small circus" described by Leake, was found to be a theatre like building constructed soon after A.D. 200 round the altar and in front of the temple of Artemis Orthia. Here musical and gym nastic contests took place as well as the famous flogging-ordeal (diamastigosis). The temple, of the 2nd century B.C. overlies an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the loth century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead found in profusion within the precinct range from the 9th to the 4th century B.C. ; they prove that Sparta reached her artistic zenith in the 7th century and declined in the 6th. In 1907 the sanctuary of Athena "of the Brazen House" (XaXiciotKos) was found on the Acropolis immediately above the theatre, and though the temple is destroyed, fragments of capitals in Doric style re mained ; also the longest extant archaic inscription of Laconia, and numerous bronze nails, plates and votive offerings of great interest. The Greek city-wall, built in stages from the 4th to the
2nd century, has a circuit of nearly 6 m. (Polyb. ix. 21). The late Roman wall enclosing the Acropolis, probably dates from the years following the Gothic raid of A.D. 262. A number of points of Spartan topography, have been fixed in accord with the description of Pausanias. In 1910 the town of the "Mycenean" period on the left bank of the Eurotas a little to the S.E. was found to be roughly triangular, with an area approximately equal to that of Sparta, but nothing is left but foundations and pots herds. More recently, excavation of the theatre has yielded, be sides inscriptions and small objects, a remarkable fifth century statue of a warrior.