Greece - this is Sparta!

This is Sparta! The phrase uttered by King Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae or so the Hollywood producers would have us believe in the film 300. Although the Spartan sayings as relayed by the Greek philosopher Plutarch are probably more accurate, even if taken from poems and stories many years after the golden age of this warrior city-state. No written references from the time have survived to the modern-day.

The statue of King Leonidas outside the sports centre of Sparti

The reputation of Sparta was not lost on King Otto who ordered the new town of Sparti to be built over the location in 1834. The town’s museum with its local finds gives a glimpse of life over the Greek/Roman period, but what was life really like in Sparta’s golden age?

Local museum at Sparti

If you were born a Spartan male, there was only ever going to one profession available to you, being a professional soldier. Separated from their families at the age of seven, the boys joined the “Agoge”, a tough training regime designed to prepare you for the elite army life. By twenty, you would become a fully-fledged soldier and would be expected to be available to fight until sixty years of age.

Statue of a hoplite known as Leonidas (470-480 BCE) found at the Sanctuary of the Athena Chalkiokos in the Sparta acropolis

To support this way of military life, helots (slaves) were used to complete the day to day chores. As these were often conquered members of neighbouring city-states, one can only imagine the uneasiness across the Peloponnese? Although some were integrated into society and given more responsibility, there was always a great divide between the two.

However the Spartan ascendency was relatively short-lived, constant wars with their neighbours, a devastating earthquake in 464BCE, and despite their military prowess, a devastating defeat in 371BCE, the first for the land army. Helot revolts just added to the erosion of the system. Sparta hung onto its identity during Roman times before fading with the founding of the byzantine empire and as a settlement, the shifting of the cultural center of Laconia to Mystras in the 13th Century CE.

Walking to the Acropolis area, there is little to see from the Spartan heyday, although the “Agora” dates back from the 3rd or 4th century BCE while the Sanctuary of the Athena Chalkiokos has origins going back to the 8th century BCE. A gathering place for Spartan soldiers and a place for the erection of monuments commemorating military triumphs and athletic successes.

Remains of the Agora at the acropolis

Sanctuary of the Athena Chalkiokos - the most important and oldest in the acropolis

Looking down at the theatre with the imposing Taygetos Mountains as a back drop, it’s hard not to be impressed although much of what you see today dates from 20 – 30 BCE.

Sparta acropolis theatre once seated 17,000

Marble skene added to the theatre in the 1st-century CE

The remains of the old Roman walls which originally encircled the acropolis

As ever with ancient sites, its effectively a large jigsaw puzzle

The modern town of Sparti is now home to over seventeen thousand people and oddly, the home to Greece's premier Olive museum where you can learn about everything there is to know about the humble olive and its usage. Did you know olive oil has been in use since at least the 14th century BCE with fossiled olive leaves found on Santorini from 50 thousand years ago...

Nowadays, few tourists venture to Sparta with bigger more impressive classical sites on offer. But for me, standing by the temple looking down at the theatre, I came to the conclusion I really must be standing in the footsteps of King Leonidas and is in truth, the only thing I really wanted.

To think to myself, this is Sparta…