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Book Review - Sparta and Laconia: A Regional History 1300-362 B.C.

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Column: Archaeology, by Nikolaos Markoulakis published in Volume 1 no. 1 | GetCITED | CiteULike |

Sparta and Laconia: A Regional History 1300-362 B.C., (November 22, 2001) (Routledge,an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd), ISBN: 0415263565., By Paul Cartledge.

Professor Paul Cartledge of the University of Cambridge can be arguably the one of the leading authorities in ancient Sparta. His sophistications of ancient Sparta’s culture are unequalled and the references, bibliography of this book are an extreme good study by themselves for any student and individual who wish to be enlightened in ancient Sparta.

His ‘Sparta and Laconia’ has as purpose to articulate the history of the ‘Lacedemon’ from the c 1300 till c 362. Thus the story begins from the Trojan War (c 1283) and throughout the great history of Laconia’s nation finished at the decisive Sparta defeat, the battle of Mantinea at c 362.

Professor Cartledge underlines the pure historical truth behind a wall of many mythological uncertainties. In addition, his main point is to make a cultural distinction of the freeborn Spartans and the perioikoi (politically disenfranchised) and the helots (non-gratis people). His opinion of the defeat of Sparta’s ‘empire’ was the ‘Mycenaean culture’! That ‘culture’ which produced and used a system of land-tenure by the exploitation of helots was by the ‘seeds of Spartan grandeur, and of Spartan decadence.’ Conclusively, the book is actually two different subject works. The one is a socio-political with elements of cultural studies and the other an archaeological one. In many ways and in scholarly terms is a very good academic work, which is preferable for a more extensive study of ancient Sparta.

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