Sparta: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Superpower

"For thousands of years, the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta has been famed as the ultimate warrior society, an enduring symbol of masculine bravery, austerity, discipline, and toughness. Depicted again and again in art, literature, and film, the heroic sacrifice of King Leonidas' 300 soldiers at Thermopylae especially-battling down to the last man to delay a Persian force invading the Greek mainland-has emblazoned the Spartans as iconic freedom fighters on the popular consciousness. Yet for all that Sparta elicited the fascination of its ancient contemporaries (almost) as much as that of our modern imagination, the city-state left few written records of its own. So who were the Spartans, really-and how did they rise from a humble village to dominate all of Greece? In this major new history-the first in decades-renowned Sparta expert Andrew Bayliss delves past the layers of mythmaking to deliver a complex portrait of one of antiquity's most renowned civilizations. Sifting masterfully through historical records and modern archaeological evidence, Bayliss traces Sparta's evolution from a hamlet in the Peloponnese to the foremost military power of ancient Greece. Through the Persian Wars and Peloponnesian War, inside the harsh upbringing that fashioned Sparta's famed fighting force, Bayliss shows how the Sparta we think we know came to be. But he also lays bare lesser-known aspects of Spartan society that complicate its egalitarian reputation, including complex gender dynamics, stark wealth inequality, and its brutal exploitation of slave labor. From its meteoric rise to its surprising downfall, Sparta provides a definitive new history of the great city-state, bringing to life the shifting alliances and volatile conflicts of ancient Greece"--