Sparta

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

Introduction

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.

Thermopylae

A famous battle was fought at Thermopylae where a small band of Spartans, and other Greeks (who were a bunch of pussies), held off the entire Persian army, led by Xerxes lord of hosts, who looks surpisingly like Paulo from Lost, crossed with an androgynous pincushion, for a surprising amount of time. Led by The Phantom of the Opera and Faramir, they managed to kill thousands of ethically dubious invaders, mainly in slow motion, all while keeping their imacculately coiffured hair intact. Historical commentators Luke Watson and Tim Leary however, have disputed the veracity of the accounts provided, saying that in decapitations, "there should be a lot more blood". After surviving many horrors, including the evil of Xerxes's tent of depravity, they were finally betrayed by Ephialtes, a Spartan exile with a name that means "Guy who looks a lot like an orange version of Gollum with a big tumour on his back and funny teeth". 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