The Gymnasium of Virtue is the first book devoted exclusively to the study of education in ancient Sparta, covering the period from the sixth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D. Nigel Kennell refutes the popular notion that classical Spartan education was a conservative amalgam of "primitive" customs not found elsewhere in Greece. He argues instead that later political and cultural movements made the system appear to be more distinctive than it actually had been, as a means of asserting Sparta's claim to be a unique society. Using epigraphical, literary, and archaeological evidence, Kennell describes the development of all aspects of Spartan education, including the age-grade system and physical contests that were integral to the system. He shows that Spartan education reached its apogee in the early Roman Empire, when Spartans sought to distinguish themselves from other Greeks. He attributes many of the changes instituted later in the period to one person--the philosopher Sphaerus the Borysthenite, who was an adviser to the revolutionary king Cleomenes III in the third century B.C.

Spartans: A New History chronicles the complete history of ancient Sparta from its origins to the end of antiquity. Helps bridge the gap between the common conceptions of Sparta and what specialists believe and dispute about Spartan history Applies new techniques, perspectives, and archaeological evidence to the question of what it was to be a Spartan Takes into account new specialist scholarship and research published in Greek, which is not readily available elsewhere Places Spartan society into its wider Greek context

Images of ancient Sparta have had a major impact on Western thought. From the Renaissance to the French Revolution she was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of a republican political and social order. Since the 19th century she has typically been viewed as the opposite of advanced liberal and industrial democracies: a forerunner of 20th-century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Yet positive images of Sparta remain embedded in contemporary popular media and culture. This is the first book in over 40 years to examine this important subject. Eleven ancient historians and experts in the history of ideas discuss Sparta's changing role in Western thought from medieval Europe to the 21st century, with a special focus on Enlightenment France, Nazi Germany and the USA. Images of ancient Sparta have had a major impact on Western thought. From the Renaissance to the French Revolution she was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of a republican political and social order. Since the 19th century she has typically been viewed as the opposite of advanced liberal and industrial democracies: a forerunner of 20th-century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Yet positive images of Sparta remain embedded in contemporary popular media and culture. This is the first book in over 40 years to examine this important subject. Eleven ancient historians and experts in the history of ideas discuss Sparta's changing role in Western thought from medieval Europe to the 21st century, with a special focus on Enlightenment France, Nazi Germany and the USA.

The image of Sparta, and the Spartans, is one dyed indelibly into the public consciousness: musclebound soldiers with long hair and red cloaks, bearing shiny bronze shields emblazoned with the Greek letter lambda. 'This is Sparta!', bellows Leonidas on the silver screen, as he decides to lead his 300 warriors to their deaths at Thermopylae. But what was Sparta? The myths surrounding Sparta are as old as the city itself. Even in antiquity, Sparta was a unique society, considered an enigma. The Spartans who fought for freedom against the Persians called themselves 'equals' or peers, but their equality was reliant on the ruthless exploitation of the indigenous population known as helots. The Spartans' often bizarre rules and practices have the capacity to horrify as much they do to fascinate us today. Athenian writers were intrigued and appalled in equal measure by a society where weak or disabled babies were said to have been examined carefully by state officials before being dumped off the edge of a cliff. Even today their lurid stories have shaped our image of Sparta; a society in which cowards were forced to shave off half their beards, to dress differently from their peers, and who were ultimately shunned to the extent that suicide seemed preferable. Equally appalling to us today is the brutal krypteia, a Spartan rite of passage where teenagers were sent into the countryside armed with a knife and ordered to eliminate the biggest and most dangerous helots. But the truth behind these stories of the exotic other can be hard to discover, lost amongst the legend of Sparta which was even perpetuated by later Spartans, who ran a thriving tourist industry that exaggerated the famed brutality of their ancestors. As Andrew Bayliss explores in this book, there was also much to admire in ancient Sparta, such as the Spartans' state-run education system which catered even to girls, or the fact that Sparta was almost unparalleled in the pre-modern world in allowing women a clear voice, with no fewer than forty sayings by Spartan women preserved in our sources. This book reveals the best and the worst of the Spartans, separating myth from reality.

Athens and Sparta is an essential textbook for the study of Greek history. Providing a comprehensive account of the two key Greek powers in the years after 478 BC, it charts the rise of Athens from city-state to empire after the devastation of the Persian Wars, and the increasing tensions with their rivals, Sparta, culminating in the Peloponnesian Wars. As well as the political history of the period, it also offers an insight into the radically different political systems of these two superpowers, and explores aspects of social history such as Athenian democracy, life in Sparta, and the lives of Athenian women. More than this though, it encourages students to develop their critical skills, guiding them in how to think about history, demonstrating in a lucid way the techniques used in interpreting the ancient sources. In this new third edition, Anton Powell includes discussion of the latest scholarship on this crucial period in Greek history. Its bibliography has been renewed, and for the first time it includes numerous photographs of Greek sites and archaeological objects discussed in the text. Written in an accessible style and covering the key events of the period – the rise to power of Athens, the unusual Spartan state, and their rivalry and eventual clash in all out war – this is an invaluable tool for students of the history of Greece in the fifth century BC.