After the war, the Spartans erected a memorial on the battlefield of Thermopylae, saying only:
"Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, in obedience to their orders."
For a long time, the Spartans proved themselves invincible on land. They retained their
supremacy until the year 371 B.C., when they were defeated by the Thebans at the battle of
Leuctra. This was the end of their military greatness.
Apart from war, the reality of Sparta was never quite the same as the theory. Herodotus, who
lived at its great period, remarks, surprisingly, that no Spartan could resist a bribe. This was in
spite of the fact that contempt for riches and love of the simple life was one of the main things
inculcated in Spartan education. We are told that the Spartan women were chaste, yet it
happened several times that a reputed heir to the kingship was set aside on the ground of not
being the son of his mother's husband. We are told that the Spartans were inflexibly patriotic,
yet the king Pausanias, the victor of Plataea, ended as a traitor in the pay of Xerxes. Apart from
such flagrant matters, the policy of Sparta was always petty and provincial. When Athens
liberated the Greeks of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands from the Persians, Sparta held
aloof; so long as the Peloponnesus was deemed safe, the fate of other Greeks was a matter of
indifference. Every attempt at a confederation of the Hellenic world was defeated by Spartan
particularism.
Aristotle, who lived after the downfall of Sparta, gives a very hostile account of its constitution.
- What he says is so different from what other people say that it is difficult to believe he is
speaking of the same place, e.g. "The legislator wanted to make the whole state hardy and
temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the case of men, but he has neglected the
women, who live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in such a
state wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizens fall under the dominion of their
wives, after the manner of most warlike races.... Even in regard to courage, which is of no use
in daily life, and is needed only in war, the influence of the Lacedaemonian women has been
most mischievous.... This license of the Lacedaemonian women existed from the earliest
times, and was only what might be
* Politics, Vol. II, 9 ( 1269b-70a).