Sparta

Sparta was a Greek City state best known for military strength.

An ancient city-state, its early history is clouded but it goes back to at least 1200 BC. They are known to claim that they are descended from the pagan god Hercules, although Greece has since been Christianized. Sparta was one of the two major regional powers through much of ancient Greek history, along with its chief rival Athens. Politically & culturally it was a military state in which its citizens enjoyed few amenities of life, hence the term spartan we use today connotates a lack of things, not poverty as such, simply a lack of desire for things without a practical purpose. Everything in ancient Sparta was centered around two things, the military and childbith. Although often in conflict or competition with Athens and some of the other city-states, their military strength was ulimately vital in protecting Greece from long term domination by outside threats and helping forge a single Greek nation. Even though Sparta itself had little use for art, music, philosophy and other non-military aspects of life, their strength helped preserve such things in Athens from destruction by outside powers (particulary the mighty Persian Empire). Democracy itself had its first birth pangs in Athens, had Persia destroyed the Athenian civilization it is hard to see where else in those ancient times democracy could have been born. Indeed, without the survival of the Athenians, it is conceivable that democracy may well have been snuffed out at birth. It may be one of the facts of history that democray owes it existence today not to philosophers & political thinkers but to the warrior culture of Sparta. Athenian thinkers may have come up with, and tried to live, the idea of democracy, but it was Sparta and its military allies (including the Athenian navy and army of course) that ulitmately preserved Athens by force of arms and thereby preserved democracy. A famous battle was fought at Thermopylae where a small band or Spartans, and other Greeks, held off the entire Persian army led by Xerxes for a surprising amount of time. However, it became one of the most historically famous last stands after the massacre of the Greeks by the Persian invaders. The Athenian navy fought the Persian fleet to try keep the Persians from getting behind the Greek land force, led by the Spartans. http://www.sikyon.com/sparta/sparta_eg.html