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From The Spectator, out now.

Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Book Club podcast.

I'm Sam Leith, the literary end for The Spectator.

And this week something I've always wanted to say,

this is Sparta. My guest is Andrew Bayliss, who is an associate professor at the University of Birmingham and the author of A Gripping New History, Sparta, the rise and fall of an ancient

superpower. Now, Spartans, as witness, my always, having wanted to say that, are, you know, in a vulgar term, legendary.

And yet they were also real people and a real city state.

And Andrew's here to help us separate the fact from the fiction.

Andrew, welcome.

Can you start by giving me a sense,

you know, obviously all over the Hellenic world, there were these city-states, these policies or

...