Ancient Writers on Sparta

Tyrtaeus wrote poetry that encouraged the Spartans to fight bravely during the Second Messenian War.

Considered to be the first real historian of the ancient world.

The History of the Peloponnesian War was written by Thucydides during his long exile from his native Athens following his failure, as an Athenian general, to prevent the Spartans from capturing the Athenian colony of Amphipolis in 424BC.

His family were wealthy Athenian horse people. He wrote a number of works including: Anabis, Cyropaedia, the Constituionof the Lacedaemonians, Aegisilaus and Hellencia.

The great Greek philosopher Plato was born in Athens and died there, although he left the city for twelve years between 399 and 387 BC. In his works Republic and Laws Plato outlined his ideas on the perfect state and he found much to admire in the institutions and customs of Sparta.

Aristotle wrote an estimated 200 works most in the form of notes and manuscripts, drafts touching on reasoning the rhetoric, politics, ethics, science and psychology.

He wrote Sayings of Sparta and Sayings of Spartan Women. Plutarch lived centuries after the Sparta he writes about and even though he visited Sparta many of the ancient customs he reports had been long abandoned so he never actual;y saw what he wrote about.

Description of Greece was written by Pausanias, a Greek traveler and geographer. Much of it takes the form of a tour of the Peloponnese, including Laconia. Pausanias gives a detailed description of Roman Sparta and the accuracy of his observations is confirmed by modern geographical studies and by archaeology. However, a problem with his description is that it often fails to distinguish between Roman remains and earlier Sparta remains.