090048 VO The Spartan Hegemony: from Aigos Potamoi to Mantineia (2013W)

The unwalled City: Sparta until the end of the Peloponnesian War

Even in antiquity, the city-state of Sparta was regarded as exceptional. So, in the classical period, the form of its diffused, unwalled, city centre was seen as unusual. What can we know about Sparta? To what extent was this city unusual? And how has this picture, which we are still dependent on, developed? By alternating thematic approaches and chronological presentations of the spartan history in the archaic and classical periods, the lecture targets to answer these questions. A special aspect of the political history of Sparta in these periods, i.e. the development of the so-called Peloponnesian League, is proposed in the accompanying SE.