This story appears in the November/December 2016 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Sparta’s enemies, when facing the intimidating Spartan forces, would see a wall of shields ...

King Agesilaus II—who led the Spartan Army at the peak of its power in the fourth century B.C.—proclaimed that one of Sparta’s greatest strengths was its citizens’ “contempt of pleasure.” ...

Myke Cole - Co-author, The Killing Ground: A Biography of Thermopylae Ancient Sparta has been held up for the last two and a half millennia as the unmatched warrior city-state, where every male ...

Inward-looking and self-sufficient, the Spartans were the most feared hoplites (infantrymen) in all Greece. They lived an austere life, despising any sort of luxury, in a city that contained ...

The graves of 10 Revolutionary War veterans in the historic Sparta Cemetery are undergoing significant restoration led by the Sparta Cemetery Association. The work will be completed in time for a ...