Suppose, for example, that the city of Sparta were to become deserted and that only the

temples and foundations of buildings remained.

I think that future generations would, as time passed, find it very difficult to believe

that the place had really been as powerful as it was represented to be.

At the Spartans occupy two-fifths of the Peloponnese, and stand at the head not only of the

whole Peloponnese itself, but also of numerous allies beyond its frontiers.

Since, however, the city is not regularly planned and contains no temples or monuments of great

magnificence, but is simply a collection of villages in the ancient Hellenic way, its

appearance would not come up to expectation.

If, on the other hand, the same thing were to happen to Athens, one would conjecture from

what met the eye that the city had been twice as powerful as, in fact, it is.

Hi, hello, and welcome to yet another episode of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!

Sparta edition.

Or rather, just the episodes where I tell you as many things about Sparta as I can physically

fit into a script.

I am live, your host, and I almost forgot to say that.

We've talked about Sparta broadly, we've talked about Spartan cultural practices, all

those things that made them very different, very weird, and we've talked about Spartan

mythology, that is myths that often span most of the Greek world, but featured Sparta,

or better yet, explained how the Spartan people got to Sparta in the first place.

Those darned children of Heracles.

So with all that talk of Sparta as a place and a people, it's now time to talk about

...