Sparta

Steven presents a chronological history of the ancient Spartan peoples, from the epics of Homer to the collapse of Spartan dominance in the 4th century BCE; 38 of 39 episodes are here, 4 eras, 33 hours.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

With Felicia Day

Author Felicia Day discusses her graphic novel imagining the untold story of a little-known daughter of Sparta.

Part of TROJAN WAR: THE PODCAST

Thirty-seven minutes of story carry Helen from Sparta to Troy, then twenty-six minutes of commentary weigh five competing explanations for her choice, from femme fatale to pawn of the gods.

Part of Ascend - The Great Books Podcast

With Father Bonaventure

Adam Minihan and Father Bonaventure, OP discuss Book 4 of the Odyssey, where Telemachus reaches Sparta during a double wedding feast as Menelaus' daughter marries the son of Achilles.

Part of TROJAN WAR: THE PODCAST

Thirty minutes of story cover Paris settling into Troy and his road trip to Sparta, then fourteen minutes of commentary trace the cliff-throwing stories about Spartan infanticide back to Plutarch, writing five centuries after the events he describes.

Part of WINNOW: A Couple’s Close Reading of the Iliad and Odyssey

Book 4 of the Odyssey finds Telemachus in Sparta with Menelaus and Helen, who slips something into the wine as Menelaus recounts his own homecoming.

Part of The Greek Myth Files

David Wilson's script covers Helen, daughter of Leda and Zeus, whose infidelity the episode frames as the cause of the Trojan War.

Part of Greek Mythology Retold

An exploration of how Helen of Sparta and Troy became the symbolic spark of the Trojan War, and how, as a favorite of Aphrodite, she endured the goddess' blessings and curses.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Helen of Sparta, later of Troy, shifts depending on where you're looking; examining the Helen of Homer, and of Sparta itself.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Helen of Sparta: the most well known mortal of Greek myth is also a complete and utter enigma; an examination of the choices that led to the Trojan War.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

Part one of a three part biography traces Helen from her conception on the banks of the Eurotas river through her marriage to Menelaus, framing her as the classical Spartans' most famous ancestor.

Part of Greek Mythology Retold · Janell Rhiannon on the Trojan War myths, from Helen to Odysseus

Part of Triumvir Clio's School of Classical Civilization

Book 4 of the Odyssey continues the Telemachy, with Telemakhos still travelling in search of news about his missing father.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

With Paul Bardunias

Professor Paul Bardunias, co-author of Hoplites at War, traces hoplite warfare from its 8th century advent to the eve of the Persian wars through his three fundamentals: the men, the tools and the group.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean · Liv Albert on Greek myths and the wider ancient Mediterranean, told casually and with sarcasm; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Julia Perroni

Part of Spartan History Podcast

With Paul Cartledge

Professor Paul Cartledge closes the Lycurgan Sparta arc with a summary of the archaic period's societal, political and religious reforms, in a conversation that at certain points got extremely academic and specific.

Part of Introduction to Ancient Greek History (Open Yale Courses)

Kagan weighs the tyrannies of the Greek polis, crediting them with economic, commercial and artistic advances even as they ruled absolutely, and argues they broke the aristocracy's grip and raised the hoplite farmer.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

With Paul Rahe

Professor Paul Rahe, whose book The Spartan Regime focuses on the archaic formation of Spartan institutions, goes briefly back to the Bronze Age, then through the Dark Age and into the early Dorian migration into Laconia.

Part of Introduction to Ancient Greek History (Open Yale Courses)

Kagan traces Sparta's distinct military culture to the subjugation of Messenia, whose people farmed while Spartans trained for war, then examines the education of the Spartan citizen and the Spartan constitution.

Part of The History of Ancient Greece

How Sparta worked: the diarchy, gerousia, apella and ephors, the so-called Lykourgan land reform, helots, perioikoi and Spartan women, the stages of the agoge, and why the system ultimately failed.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

By the middle of the 6th century Sparta, through her alliances the most powerful military force in Hellas, faces Argos, is asked for aid by King Croesus of Lydia, and invades Samos in 525 BCE to oust the tyrant Polycrates.

Part of Epic Greek History · From Mycenaean kings through the Persian invasions, one full and one short episode a month

Part of Spartan History Podcast

Cleomenes the First held the Agiad throne of Sparta from around 520 to 490 BCE, ruling with an iron fist against co-king Demaratus while the Achaemenid Persian empire loomed before the Greco-Persian wars began.

Part of The History of Ancient Greece

Early Lakedaimon: the 1st and 2nd Messenian Wars that brought about the helot system, reform supposedly by Lykourgos yet more likely gradual, losses to Argos and Tegea before defeating them, Chilon, and Sparta's rise to hegemony.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

Within a century Sparta's four villages on the Eurotas grow into a Peloponnesian powerhouse through aggressive expansion, unlike the colonisation other Greek cities chose, culminating in the 20 year first Messenian war.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

Sparta's 6th and 7th century government blended Monarchic, Aristocratic and Democratic rule: kings descended from Heracles, a council of elders, a citizen assembly for ratification, and five annually elected Ephors drawn from the Demos.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

Sparta consolidates her 7th century hold on Messenia, building two temples from war wealth before a crushing defeat by the Argives sparks the second Messenian war, a conflict the poet Tyrtaeus is largely believed to have helped turn.

Part of Epic Greek History

The episode traces Sparta extending influence in the Peloponnese from an attempted conquest of Arcadian Tegea into a policy of alliances, while Athens transformed under Solon and Pisistratus.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

The institutions that made Sparta stand out, shaped partly by dealings with its neighbours, leading to one of the most militarised cities in Greece, one the ancients were fascinated by and some even admired.

Part of Epic Greek History

Cleomenes I of Sparta, whom others have called the most powerful Greek of the sixth century BCE: the victory over Argos, the repeated attempts to meddle in Athenian politics, the feud with his co-king Demaratus. Herodotus heads the suggested reading.

Rudolph Maté directed this 1962 CinemaScope film depicting the Battle of Thermopylae, made with the cooperation of the Greek government and filmed in the village of Perachora in the Peloponnese, starring Richard Egan and Ralph Richardson.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

An unscripted end-of-year chat with Steve of the Spartan History Podcast, focusing a great deal on the Greco-Persian Wars and touching on the periods before and after, with a few connection issues left in.

Part of Our Fake History

Legend credits three hundred Spartans with holding off over two million Persians for four days at Thermopylae, but thousands of other Greeks who fought there have been edited out of the story.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

An unscripted conversation with Steve of the Spartan History Podcast on the founding of democracy in Athens, whether Lycurgus was historical, and whether Athens or Sparta did most to defeat Persia; part 1 of 2.

Part of The Ancients

With Andrew Bayliss

In 480 BC a vastly outnumbered Greek force under Leonidas, king of Sparta, prepared to face Xerxes at Thermopylae; Tristan Hughes and Dr Andrew Bayliss trace Leonidas's rise through Sparta's Agiad dynasty to his final stand at the hot gates.

Part of HistoryExtra podcast

With Paul Cartledge

Ancient historian Paul Cartledge tells Spencer Mizen about the Spartans' resistance against the Persians at Thermopylae, whether their military training was as tough as historians suggest, and the culture and politics of their ancient Greek city-state.

Part of History Unplugged Podcast

With Michael Livingston

Thousands have lost their lives fighting over the pass at Thermopylae from the Greek Classical Era to World War II; the 300 Spartans of 480 BC were one battle among twenty-six others fought there, with guest Michael Livingston.

Part of HistoryExtra podcast

With Andrew Bayliss

Ancient historian Andrew Bayliss discusses the Greek city-state of Sparta, ranging from Spartan military prowess and the battle of Thermopylae to the structure of Spartan society and its darker history.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit

With Andrew Bayliss

Andrew Bayliss, an expert on Sparta and Ancient Greece, marks the 2,500th anniversary of the battle in which 300 Spartans battled the Persian army, and asks whether the Spartans deserved their reputations.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast · Panel discussions from Ancient Warfare Magazine; only the Greek episodes are indexed

Part of Not another Greek History podcast! · Greek history told from Athens with pop-culture comparisons and irony

With Bettany Hughes

Bettany Hughes presents this three-part documentary series on the Spartans, first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2002 before airing on ABC Australia and PBS in the United States.

Part of The History of Ancient Greece

Spartan imperial policy from 404-396 BC: Lysandros' overreach and downfall, Agesilaos II taking the throne, Kinadon's foiled revolution, and an ultimately ineffective invasion of Persian-controlled Asia Minor, a consequence of which was a Persian-bankrolled fleet under Konon.

Part of The History of Ancient Greece

The final two years of the war, 405 and 404 BC: Aristophanes' Frogs, Lysandros rebuilding the Peloponnesian fleet and crushing the Athenians at Aigospotamoi, the blockade of Athens and the Peiraieus, and the surrender and peace terms.

Part of The Ancients

With Roel Konijnendijk, Owen Rees

Fresh from its victory over Athens in 404, Sparta stood unrivalled, yet within decades its power was shattered; Tristan Hughes, Dr Roel Konijnendijk and Dr Owen Rees chronicle Sparta's catastrophic collapse in the fourth century BC against Thebes and Corinth.

Part of Ancient Greece Declassified

With Eric W. Robinson

Historian Eric W. Robinson, author of the forthcoming Spartan Legend, questions how a small agrarian city-state rose to become the supreme power in ancient Greece.

Part of The Ancients · History Hit's interview show; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Owen Rees

Part of Ancient Greece Declassified

Military historian Bret Devereaux of North Carolina State University explains why he thinks the traditional image of Sparta as an egalitarian society of warriors is a lie, following his viral article on bad history.

Part of Echoes of History

With Tristan Hughes, Roel Konijnendijk

Assassin's Creed Odyssey puts players at the heart of the Peloponnesian War, the expansive conflict between Athens and Sparta; guest host Tristan Hughes and Dr Roel Konijnendijk recount its causes, events and legacy in the ancient Greek world.

Part of New Books in Ancient History · Scholars on their new books, interviewed by a peer; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Jennifer T. Roberts

Part of New Books in Ancient History

With Paul Rahe

Paul Rahe's Sparta's Sicilian Proxy War (Encounter Books, 2023) traces Athens' invasions of Spartan-backed Sicily as one of the earliest proxy wars in the West, comparing ancient Sparta's structure with Athens and modern America.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast · Panel discussions from Ancient Warfare Magazine; only the Greek episodes are indexed

Part of Ithaca Bound

With Adrien Delahaye

Dr Adrien Delahaye of the French School at Athens discusses how pottery in ancient Sparta served storage, shipping, moral lessons and more, tracing its use through the Archaic and Classical periods.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece · The same centuries again, at a slower pace and with the sources named

Part of Ithaca Bound

With Philip Davies

Dr Philip Davies of the University of Nottingham explains how Classical Sparta was governed by a diarchy, two kings who ruled together alongside a citizen body that passed its laws.

Part of History of Persia

The story of the 10,000 mercenaries continues straight into the Spartan invasion of the Persian Empire, proof the Greeks kept caring about Persia even after Cyrus died.

Part of The Ancients

With Stephen Hodkinson

Sparta is ingrained in popular imagination as home to unmatched Greek super soldiers; Tristan and Professor Stephen Hodkinson ask what is actually known about Spartan society, especially during the city's 'golden age' in the 5th and early 4th centuries BC.

Part of Kings and Generals

Sparta, a land power with little naval experience, defeats Athens and its Delian League through alliances, economics and Persian gold, after the destruction of Melos and the disastrous Sicilian Expedition drained Athenian resources.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

James asks whether Spartan society recognised the decline of its soldier numbers from 10,000 to under 2,000, following defeat by Thebes and growing economic concentration, as a problem, and why efforts to reverse it failed.

Part of The Ancients

Focussing on 323 to 320 BC, Tristan's book tells the story of Thibron, a Spartan mercenary captain who set out from Crete with around 6,000 battle-hardened mercenaries to forge his own Greco-Libyan empire in North Africa after Alexander's death.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit

With Tristan Hughes

Tristan reads an abridged chapter from his book on the Perdiccas Years, telling of Spartan mercenary captain Thibron, who left Crete with thousands of mercenaries to forge a Greco-Libyan empire.

Part of The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Cleomenes III restores Sparta enough to bring the Achaean League to its knees in the Cleomenean War of 228 to 222, and Aratus of Sicyon turns to Macedon under the regent Antigonus III Doson.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

With Maria Pretzler

Conversations: Maria Pretzler, a professor specializing in Pausanias, joins Liv to discuss the culture of the Peloponnese, what the late travel writer Pausanias reveals, and the mythology of ancient Sparta.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

Prof. Paul Cartledge on the Spartan mirage: education, political structure and military, the unique status of Spartan women, and later uses of Sparta, from the movie 300 to the French Revolution and North America.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean · Liv Albert on Greek myths and the wider ancient Mediterranean, told casually and with sarcasm; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Stephen Hodkinson

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

With Roel Konijnendijk

Conversations: Roel Konijnendijk, who teaches at Oxford and specializes in ancient Greek warfare, joins Liv to cover Spartan warfare and how it differed, and did not differ, from other Greek city-states.

Part of Our Fake History

Remembered as unbeatable super-soldiers whose whole society was geared towards war, the Peloponnesian city-state has inspired groups across the political spectrum, though from the 1930s historians started to question the received wisdom, some arguing for a so-called Spartan Mirage.

Part of Our Fake History

Some ancient sources claim the Spartans were incorruptible, never took bribes and equally divided land among the elite Spartiates, while the city's most famous poet may not even have been from Sparta.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast · Panel discussions from Ancient Warfare Magazine; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Marc de Santis, Philip Lindsay Powell, Myke Cole

Part of Spartan History Podcast

With Jeremy Swist

Dr Jeremy Swist, a Brandeis University classicist studying classical reception, traces Laconophilia, or affection for Sparta, through Heavy Metal Music, linking duty, defiance and dedication to a genre born out of governmental tyrannies, real and perceived, of the early 1970s.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

With Kira Jones

Liv and Dr. Kira Jones discuss Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Kassandra, covering the game's historical intricacies and its diversity, plus an anecdote about the real Alcibiades and Herms.

Part of The Rest Is History

Tom and Dominic delve into the Ancient Greek world, asking how much of the Spartan image is real and how much rests on the projections and prejudices of others, and assess what the film 300 got right and wrong.

Part of The Ancients

With Roel Konijnendijk

Characterised as super soldiers who would rather perish than surrender, the Spartan warrior's reputation preceded it; Tristan and Dr Roel Konijnendijk ask how accurate that image is against their education, training and familial expectations.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

Sparta's compulsory, state sponsored education raised children of both sexes as future warriors and mothers, set against Athenian rivals, and the episode addresses pederasty, misogyny and child abuse within that system directly.

Part of The Ancients

With Paul Cartledge

From the Spartan king Menelaus and his wife Helen of Troy to adolescent same-sex relationships, Tristan and Professor Paul Cartledge look at sex and courtship in Sparta, and tackling infertility in the ancient world.

Part of Gresham College Lectures

This lecture assesses how odd, different and exceptional ancient Sparta really was, after centuries in which its history was handed down through radically conflicting political and social traditions.

Part of The Ancients

With Andrew Bayliss

Considered one of Athens' biggest rivals, Sparta has longstanding mythological origins, from rumoured descendants of Heracles to the mythical lawmaker Lycurgus; Tristan and Dr Andrew Bayliss ask what archaeological evidence exists for how, and by whom, Sparta was founded.

Part of Spirits: Mythology, Legends, & Folklore

With Felicia Day

Felicia Day joins the hosts to talk about her newest graphic novel, Lost Daughter of Sparta, along with Greek mythology, mythological retellings, and how these stories help readers look at how modern society treats women.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean · Liv Albert on Greek myths and the wider ancient Mediterranean, told casually and with sarcasm; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Owen Rees

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

They Really Just Loved to Sing & Dance: more of Sparta's history and culture, including a brief overview of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars and Sparta during the Roman period.

With Jo Furniss, Andrew Bayliss

Jo Furniss asks whether Sparta, where 300 soldiers died at Thermopylae in 480BC and weak babies were culled, was really a utopia, or whether Aristotle was right that it turned men into machines.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

With Myke Cole

Murray and Mark discuss Myke Cole's book The Bronze Lie with the author, examining Spartan arms, armour, tactics, commanders and common soldiers, with particular focus on under-publicized Spartan defeats left largely unexamined.

Part of The Delicious Legacy

Ancient Spartan society, how it functioned and the role of slavery and the Helots, the origin myths of Sparta, and the infamous black broth soup that supposedly only Spartans loved, how it was made and whether it was tasty.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Very Extravagant Rich People: an exploration of Spartan culture, everything that made ancient Spartans Spartan and set them apart from the rest of the Greek world.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Mythology vs. Myth Making: from the Heracleidae to Thermopylae, covering the Children of Heracles, the famous Spartans of the Homeric world, and the myth-making behind 300.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Why Is Sparta So Weird?: an introduction to the new series on ancient Sparta and the Spartan Mirage, covering the history of Archaic and Classical Sparta, its truths and misconceptions.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit

With Andrew Bayliss

Dr Andrew Bayliss, professor of Greek History at the University of Birmingham, traces the rise and fall of Sparta, separating fact from fiction in its brutal education system and eventual downfall.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

This Q&A answers questions on Helen of Sparta's tangled mythic biography, the trouble with translations, and pesky personification deities.

Part of Ithaca Bound

With Stephen Hodkinson

Emeritus Professor Stephen Hodkinson of the University of Nottingham examines the revered reputation of ancient Sparta's military, its practices, and to what degree the evidence matches that reputation.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

Spartan society's castes are surveyed: the Spartiate ruler class, the Helot slave class forming a massive share of the population, and the Perioikoi, dwellers around who worked as blacksmiths and fought as Hoplites.

Part of Instant Classics

Mary and Charlotte share stories of Ancient Greek espionage born from rivalry with the Persian empire, including secret messages hidden in women's earrings and tattooed onto an enslaved person's head.

Part of The Ancients · History Hit's interview show; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Helen Roche

Part of In Our Time

Sparta was a ferocious opposite to cosmopolitan Athens, instilling military discipline in its young men through communal living while subjugating the Helots, yet it also produced poets, as Tyrteaus wrote marching songs and Alcman wrote choral lyrics.

Part of History Unplugged Podcast

With Myke Cole

Their last stand at Thermopylae made the Spartans legends, but guest Myke Cole's book 'The Bronze Lie' argues their militarism aimed mainly at controlling the helot population, and their hegemony over Greece was brief.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

Spartan women had interesting and unique lives, from worshipping and dancing with Helen to having their brother-in-law's babies, marginally better than elsewhere.

Part of Ancient History Hound

The first of three episodes on Sparta examines the agoge, the syssitia and the Krypteia, asking what the sources say and how these differ from the ways they are sometimes depicted.

Part of Ancient History Hound

The helots of Sparta were indispensable to the Spartan state, and this episode asks what they did, how Sparta had acquired them and how their population was controlled.

Part of Ancient History Hound · Ancient Blogger on Greece, Rome and antiquity for every level; only the Greek episodes are indexed

Part of Ancient History Hound

This episode asks what advantages the agoge and syssitia gave Spartan soldiers, what hoplite battle was like, and whether Plutarch's sayings about the Spartans in war were just a later invention.

Part of Ancient History Hound

The first of two episodes on the experiences of a Spartan woman throughout her life opens with a general overview of Sparta before recounting what it might have been like as she grew up.

Part of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! | Greek Mythology & the Ancient Mediterranean

BONUS: in a brief finale to the Spartan Mirage series, Liv answers lingering listener questions about the ancient city-state and its mythology.

Part of Ancient History Hound

The final part of this Spartan miniseries covers marriage, money and mothers, closing out the Sparta episodes with reading drawn from Pomeroy's Spartan Women and other modern sources.

Part of The Ancients

With Stephen Hodkinson

A legendary city-state associated with fierce warriors in battle, Sparta also had an everyday life; this second episode with Professor Stephen Hodkinson discusses the eating habits, training and even kingship of Sparta.

Part of The Classics Podcast

With Rosie Wyles

Rosie Wyles and James Renshaw discuss how Aristophanes' comedies serve as a source for ancient Greek history, with this second part focused on the Sparta Depth Study.

Part of The Classics Podcast

With Rosie Wyles

Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata anchors this revision episode, with Rosie Wyles taking James through the play for the Sparta Depth Study on the Ancient History A Level syllabus.

Part of Garner's Greek Mythology

The mighty Spartans dominated the Greek world in war, their society founded by a man named Lycurgus, or perhaps by Apollo, or from a bloodline running from the sons of Heracles, across a mere 300 years of glory.

Part of The Classics Podcast

With Judith Mossman

Judith Mossman revises Plutarch on the life of Lycurgus and others for the Ancient History A Level Sparta Depth Study, in a bitesize episode aimed at exam preparation.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

In this episode, Murray ponders the question of why Sparta adopted the Macedonian Phalanx.