SPARTA, anciently LACEDXMON, the capital of Laconia, and the most famous city of Pelopoutiesus, occupied partly a range of low hills on the right bank of the Eurotas, and partly the intervening plain. Its appearance, even in its 'mintiest days, was by no means equal to its renown, for though nut destitute of handsome public buildings, the severe law ascribed to Lycurgus, that "the doors of every (private) house should be fashioned only with the saw, pod the ceiling with the axe," exercised a cramping influ ence on the development Of architecture and of the fine arts generally. The natural defeuses of the place, or at least of the long valley of Lacedtemon in which Sparta stood, were so great that it continued unfortified down to the Macedonian period— nearly a century after its mighty struggle with Athens for the hegemony of Greece;, and, indeed, it was not regularly fortified till the time of the tyrant iNabis (195 13.c.). Previous to the Darien conquest the primitive Achirans of Sparta seem to have dwelt in four or five scattered hamlets.—These hamlets were welded into one city, so to speak, by the conquerors, and became known as town-districts. Tire acropolis of Sparta occupied a hill in the northern part of the city, and was adorned with it templet° Athena (the tutelary goddess of Sparta), plated with bronze• whence it was called the brazen house, and the goddess herself Chaleivecta (the dweller in the brazen house). On the bronze plates were beautifully sculptured various Greek myths. At the eastern base of the acropolis stood the agora, or market-place, whence streets proceeded to the different quarters of the city. Here stood the public buildings of the magistrates. The agora contained many statues. The prineipal street in Sparta, called the AphetaYs, ran s. from the agora to the southern wall, through the most level part of the city, and was lined with a long succession of monumental edifices, chiefly heron. and sanctuaries. Along the banks of the Eurouls stretched the dream/ (race-course), in which were several gyninneia, with temples of the Dioscuri, of the Graces, etc., and numerous statues; and still further s. lay an brOader level, Platanistas• so called from the plane trees that grew there. This was the scene of those muck contests iu which the Spartan youth learned to face without fear the realities of war.
The history of Sparta is really the history of Laconia. When tire four hamlets, the Pre-Dorian Sparta, originated, we have no knowledge; but it cannot be doubted that their inhabitants were Aelmans. It is during the rule of the Achrean princes that the events of the famous, but unhistorical, expedition against Troy, forming the subject of Homer's Iliad, are described as taking place. Menelaus, husband of Helen, whose flight with Paris occasioned the Trojan war, was king at Sparta, and it was during the reign of his grandson, Tisamenus (according to the 'legend), that the Dorians (q. v.) invaded
Peloponnesus. The fact of a Dorian invasion is universally admitted, but of the details, scanty even as they are, we may safely be skeptical. We cannot even be certain of the date of the event, or even of the century in which it occurred. All that is clear is that the native Adman population were deprived of political privileges, and appear hence forth as perked (q.v.) and Helots (q.v.)—the Dorian conquerors alone forming the his torical Spartans. Toward the middle of the 8th c. B. C. the Dorians or Sparta had not only thoroughly established themselves in their new settlement, but had subjugated the whole of the fertile and beautiful vale of Lacedwmon, commonly known as Laconia, and had begun to cherish ambitious views of extending their supremacy over the other Dorian settlements in Peloponnesns, those of Messenia and Argos. Hence origin ated the 3lessenian wars (see MESSENIA), which terminated (668 n.c.) in the complete overthrow of the Dorians of Messenia, who were reduced by the victorious Spartans to the condition of perked. Similar struggles occurred both with the older Ashman inhab itants in the center of Peloponnesns and with the Dorians of Argos, etc., in which the Spartans were generally successful. The development of their warlike and ambitious character is usually ascribed to the institutions of Lycurgns (q.v.); nd whatever think of that more than semi-mythical personage, the institutions that go under his name were well fitted to make the Spartans exactly what they figure in history—a race of stern, cruel, resolute, rude, and narrow-minded warriors, capable of a momentary self-sacrificing patriotism (as in the story of the 300 heroes who fell at Thermopylae), but utterly destitute of the capacity for adop;ing or appreciating a permanently noble and wise policy. The outbreak of the Peloponnesian war (431 "Lc.) brought the rivalry between Sparta and Athens to a head, and in the mighty struggle that ensued, victory declared on the side of the combatant least capable of mainiaining the greatness of Greece. Sparta now attained the hegemony of Greece; but her insolent tyranny in the hour of her triumph excited the indignation of those whom she held in virtual subjuga tion, and the glorious retaliatidn of the Thehans under Epaminondas (q.v.) stripped her of all her splendid acquisitions, and reduced the Laconian state to its primitive boundaries. Later, the rise of the Macedonian power limited still more the Spartan territory nor did it ever after attain its earlier dimensions. Finally, after a series of vicissitudes, Sparta passed into the hands of the Romans, became an portion of the Roman province of Achaia, and shared the fortunes of the great republic.