The Spartan Empire: the Women and the Fall of Sparta

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Within the ancient world it took brains, brawn, and ingenuity; Sparta showed traits of all three. In the ancient world where wars raged, Sparta was an empire of world class fighters. Every Spartan was individually trained, this includes women. There are historians, like Plato, that argue that women caused the fall of Sparta. Although the fall of Sparta was not caused by women because: women were trained in the art of war beside men, women were educated like men, and women were in control of Sparta whenever the men were away.

Many experts believe when Sparta was first founded by the Dorians in 650 B.C.E., there were four quarters called; Limnai, Pitane, Cynosura, and Mesoa (Adkins 144) .Within the four quarters of Dorian came Sparta the citizens of Sparta called themselves Spartiatai (Spartiates); the Spartiates controlled the helots (slaves) and the neodamdeis (free slaves) (Adkins 27). The Spartan Civilization lasted about a thousand years, and although short lived; history will always remember the last stand of the three hundred.

In the Spartan army, the Spartans invented the phalanx, a formation where solders are in ‘close, deep, formations’; in the phalanx no man is stronger or weaker than each other (History Channel). Every Spartan warrior wore roughly thirty to fifty pounds into every battle. On average, a Spartan army was the maximum unit of ten thousand solders. Within every battle a Spartan warrior carried a spear, sword, helmet, armor, shield, and greaves (shin guards).

The Battle of Leuctra happened the year of 371 B.C.E., between the Spartans and the Thebes. The Spartan king in charge was Cleombrotos (who in the end was defeated) and the Theban king named Epimodondas (Martijn). At the beginning of the warm, when the...

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...s to battle. Spartans had ingenuity they were they first to think of women rights in the ancient world. Women were not the cause of Sparta because the women of Sparta were too strong, independent, educated, attributes of the Spartan Empire.

Works Cited

C.M. Bowra. Classical Greece, Time Incorporated, New York, Classical Greece, 1965,

Print.

"Deconstructing History: Spartans." HistoryChannel.com.Video, 2014, Web.

History Channel. "Battle of Thermopylae- Last Stand of the 300 Sparta."

HistoryChannel.com. N.p., n.d. Web.

G.L. Cawkwell, The Decline of Sparta, The Classical Quarterly (New Series) Volume 33, December 1983, The Classical Association, Article.

Lesley Adkins, Handbook to Life in Ancient in Ancient Greece, 1997, Print

“Sparta,” HistoryChannel.com. Topic, 2014. Web.

"Spartans," HistoryChannel.com. Video. n.d. Web.

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