Every Spartan soldier carried his own weapons, while a Helot slave took charge of his other belongings. At night the soldiers had no more than capes to protect them from the cold.

In actuality, it was layered, complicated, and steeped in Spartan laws and traditions. When the call to war came, Sparta was right in the middle of celebrating the Carneia festival.

Many self-professed champions of freedom throughout the centuries have looked to ancient Sparta as an inspiration. The doomed stand of 300 Spartan warriors against the Persian Empire at ...

In the battle, the Persian Army crushed more than 7,000 Greeks—including 300 Spartans, who are widely and falsely believed to have been the only Greeks fighting in that battle—and went on to ...

The Spartans are famous today because of their reputation as fearsome soldiers, to which films like 300 and athletic events like the “Spartan Race” attest. Athens, on the other hand, is famous ...

The Battle of Tegyra in 375 B.C. proved that the legendary Spartan army could be defeated. A thousand Spartan soldiers, trained for combat from the age of 7, were returning from an expedition when ...