Word Finder - spartan

definition

Austere, frugal, characterized by self-denial.

example

I went on the retreat to the monastery, thinking I would be sleeping in a spartan cell, only to discover a simple but comfortable bedroom.

definition

Resolute in the face of danger or adversity.

example

The spartan legionaries vowed to fight to the death.

definition

Lacking in decoration and luxury.

example

After ten years as a fashion designer in the rough-and-tumble Garment District, Eloise left New York for the spartan but serene life of a farmer's wife.

The Spartan patriciate could afford to disfranchise some of its own members.

They were seated two tables away from Dean and appeared to be cele­brating something unusual in an otherwise Spartan life.

Plato advocated them, and perhaps the later Jews imitated the Spartan community.

In 404 the Thirty Tyrants were established at Athens under the protection of a Spartan garrison.

In 394 B.C. Conon fought off the port the battle which destroyed Spartan hegemony.

But the Spartan masters of the old Messenian land grudged this possible beginning of a new Messenian power.

It met in Sparta and the delegates, having stated their views before the Spartan Apella, withdrew till the Apella had come to a decision.

The Spartan king Archidamus assembled his army, sent a herald to announce his approach, marched into Attica and besieged Oenoe.

The enemies of Pericles, who even with the aid of Spartan intrigue had hitherto, failed to harm his prestige, now succeeded in inducing the desperate citizens to fine him for alleged malversation.

In the autumn of 430 a Spartan attack on Zacynthus failed and the Ambraciots were repulsed from Amphilochian Argos.

The Athenians failed in an expedition to Chalcidice under Xenophon, while the Spartan Cnemus with Chaonian and Epirot allies was repulsed from Stratus, capital of Acarnania,.

The Spartan fleet arrived too late and departed without attempting to recover the town.

The scheme was crushed by the courage and skill of the Aetolians, who thereupon summoned Spartan and Corinthian aid for a counter attack on Naupactus.

Demosthenes averted this, and immediately afterwards by superior tactics inflicted a complete defeat at Olpae in Acarnania on Eurylochus at the head of a Spartan and Ambracian force.

An Ambracian reinforcement was annihilated at one of the peaks called Idomene, and a disgraceful truce was accepted by the surviving Spartan leader Menedaeus.

The Athenians had despatched 40 triremes under Eurymedon and Procles to Sicily with orders to call first at Corcyra to prevent an expected Spartan attack.

Meantime Demosthenes had formed the plan of planting the Messenians of Naupactus in Messenia - now Spartan territory - and obtained permission to accompany the expedition.

These disasters at Megara, Amphipolis and Delium left Athens with only one trump card - the possession of the Spartan hoplites captured in Sphacteria.

For a cause not easy to determine Alcibiades was defeated by Nicias in the election to the post of strategus in the next year, and the suspicions of the Peloponnesian coalition were roused by the inadequate assistance sent by Athens, which arrived too late to assist Argos when the Spartan king Agis marched against it.

In spite of this handicap Alcibiades, who had been seized and imprisoned by Tissaphernes at Sardis but effected his escape, achieved a remarkable victory over the Spartan Mindarus at Cyzicus (about April 410).

His arrival coincided with the appointment of Lysander (c. Dec. 408) as Spartan admiral - the third of the three great commanders (Brasidas and Gylippus being the others) whom Sparta produced during the war.

Callicratidas, an honourable man of pan-Hellenic patriotism, was heavily handicapped in the fact that Cyrus declined to afford him the help which had made Lysander powerful, and had recourse to the Milesians and Chians, with whose aid he fitted out a fleet of 140 triremes (only 10 Spartan).

It was only after that date that democracy was suppressed in the Peloponnesian League, and even then Mantinea remained democratic. In point of fact, it was only when Lysander became the representative of Spartan foreign policy - i.e.

In the sphere of material power the repulse of Xerxes and the extension of Athenian or Spartan supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean were large facts patent to the most obtuse.

Nekhtharheb was succeeded by Tachos or Teos, whose short reign was occupied by a war with Persia, in which the king of Egypt secured the services of a body of Greek mercenaries under the Spartan king Agesilaus and a fleet under the Athenian general Chabrias.

Frederick William, whose temper was by no means so ruthlessly Spartan as tradition has painted it,was overjoyed, and commissioned the clergyman to receive from the prince an oath of filial obedience, and in exchange for this proof of "his intention to improve in real earnest" his arrest was to be lightened, pending the earning of a full pardon.

Towards the end of the 5th century the output was diminished, partly owing to the Spartan occupation of Decelea.

They enforced, when necessary, the alien acts (EmIXacrla), negotiated with foreign ambassadors, instructed generals, sent out expeditions and were the guiding spirits of the Spartan confederacy.

During the early Peloponnesian War Argos remained neutral; after the break-up of the Spartan confederacy consequent upon the peace of Nicias the alliance of this state, with its unimpaired resources and flourishing commerce, was courted on all sides.

War broke out - in consequence, it was said, of the murder of the Spartan king Teleclus by the Messenians - which, in spite of the heroism of King Euphaes and his successor Aristodemus ended in the subjection of Messenia to Sparta (c. 720 B.C.).

Certain it is that they were excluded not merely from all Spartan offices of state, but even from the assembly, that they were absolutely subject to Spartan orders, and that, owing to the absence of any legal right of marriage (Eirryayia) the gulf between the two classes was impassable.

Unlike the Spartiates they might, and did, possess gold and silver and the iron and steel wares from the mines on Mt Taygetus, the shoes and woollen stuffs of Amyclae, and the import and export trade of Laconia and Messenia probably enabled some at least of them to live in an ease and comfort unknown to their Spartan lords.

Thus the Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnese was not really a federation except in the broadest sense.

In the Achaean League the name is given to ten elective officers who presided over the assembly, and Corinth sent "Epidemiurgi" every year to Potidaea, officials who apparently answered to the Spartan harmosts.

In 476 he led an army to Thessaly to punish the Aleuadae of Larisa for the aid they had rendered to the Persians and to strengthen Spartan influence in northern Greece.

Zeus gave laws to Minos; Apollo revealed the Spartan constitution to Lycurgus; Zaleucus received the laws for the Locrians from Athena in a dream; Vishnu and Manu condescended to draw up law-books in India.

True, war with Sparta followed immediately, over the division of the spoils, and the campaigns of the Spartan generals in Asia Minor (399395) were all the more dangerous as they gave occasion to numerous rebellions.

Reinforced by Phocian and Orchomenian troops and a Spartan army, he met the confederate forces at Coronea in Boeotia, and in a hotly contested battle was technically victorious, but the success was a barren one and he had to retire by way of Delphi to the Peloponnese.

Shortly before this battle the Spartan navy, of which he had received the supreme command, was totally defeated off Cnidus by a powerful Persian fleet under Conon and Pharnabazus.

Cleombrotus was defeated at Leuctra and the Spartan supremacy overthrown.

In 370 Agesilaus tried to restore Spartan prestige by an invasion of Mantinean territory, and his prudence and heroism saved Sparta when her enemies, led by Epaminondas, penetrated Laconia that same year, and again in 362 when they all but succeeded in seizing the city by a rapid and unexpected march.

Its power was further curtailed in 382, when a Spartan force occupied the citadel by a treacherous coup-de-main.

Three years later the Spartan garrison was expelled, and a democratic constitution definitely set up in place of the traditional oligarchy.

Aristo of Chios and Herillus of Carthage, Zeno's heterodox pupils, Persaeus, his favourite disciple and housemate, the poet Aratus, and Sphaerus, the adviser of the Spartan king Cleomenes, are noteworthy minor names; but the chief interest centres about Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, who in succession built up the wondrous system.

Their surrender made a deep impression on the whole Greek world, which had learned to regard a Spartan surrender as inconceivable, and to Sparta their loss was so serious that the Athenians might have concluded the war on very favourable terms had they so wished.

But Aratus, whose jealousy could not brook to see a Spartan at the head of the Achaean league called in Antigonus Doson of Macedonia, and Cleomenes, after conducting successful expeditions to Megalopolis and Argos, was finally defeated at Sellasia, to the north of Sparta, in 222 or 221 B.C. He took refuge at Alexandria with Ptolemy Euergetes, but was arrested by his successor, Ptolemy Philopator, on a charge of conspiracy.

About 332 he set out against the rebellious tribes of Thrace; but before this insurrection was quelled, the Spartan king Agis had risen against Macedonia.

The institution was under the supervision of the ephors, who, on entering office, annually proclaimed war against the helots (serf-class) and thus absolved from the guilt of murder any Spartan who should slay a helot.

In 510 he marched to Athens with a Spartan force to aid in expelling the Peisistratidae, and subsequently returned to support the oligarchical party, led by Isagoras, against Cleisthenes.

He was the author of a history in 28 books, covering the period from the expedition of Pyrrhus king of Epirus to Peloponnesus (272) to the death of the Spartan king Cleomenes (220) after his defeat by Antigonus Doson.