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Sparta (Doric Greek: ; Attic Greek: ) or Lacedaemon (; ) was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece. Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars. Between 431 and 404 BC, Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, from which it emerged victorious, though at great cost of lives lost. Sparta's defeat by Thebes in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Sparta's prominent role in Greece. However, it maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. It then underwent a long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many Spartans moved to live in Mystras. Modern Sparta is the capital of the Greek regional unit of Laconia and a center for the processing of goods such as citrus and olives. Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which completely focused on military training and excellence. Its inhabitants were classified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens, who enjoyed full rights), mothakes (non-Spartan free men raised as Spartans), perioikoi (freedmen), and helots (state-owned serfs, enslaved non-Spartan local population). Spartiates underwent the rigorous ''agoge'' training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanges were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women enjoyed considerably more rights and equality to men than elsewhere in the classical world. Sparta was the subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in the West following the revival of classical learning. This love or admiration of Sparta is known as Laconism or Laconophilia. At its peak around 500 BC the size of the city would have been some 20,000 – 35,000 free residents, plus numerous helots and perioikoi (“dwellers around”). At 40,000 – 50,000 it was one of the largest Greek cities;〔http://books.google.dk/books?id=oafCBYBbMRgC&pg=PA22&dq=ancient+sparta+population+of+50,000&hl=da&sa=X&ei=CiiCU_j0L8avOd2HgcgL&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ancient%20sparta%20population%20of%2050%2C000&f=false〕 however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens in 431 BC was 360,000 – 610,000, making it unlikely that Athens was smaller than Sparta in 5th century BC. The French classicist François Ollier in his 1933 book ''Le mirage spartiate'' ("''The Spartan Mirage''") warned that a major scholarly problem regarding Sparta is that all the surviving accounts of Sparta were written by non-Spartans who often presented an excessively idealized image of Sparta.〔Hodkinson, Stephen "The Imaginary Spartan ''Politeria''" pages 222-281 from ''The Imaginary Polis: Symposium, January 7-10, 2004'' edited by Mogens Herman Hansen, Copenhagen: Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005 page 222.〕 Ollier's theory of the "Spartan mirage" has been widely accepted by scholars.〔Hodkinson, Stephen "The Imaginary Spartan ''Politeria''" pages 222-281 from ''The Imaginary Polis: Symposium, January 7-10, 2004'' edited by Mogens Herman Hansen, Copenhagen: Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005 page 222.〕 ==Names== The earliest attested term referring to Lacedaemon is the Mycenaean Greek , ''ra-ke-da-mi-ni-jo'', "Lacedaimonian", written in Linear B syllabic script,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.palaeolexicon.com/ShowWord.aspx?Id=16881 )〕 being the equivalent of the written in the Greek alphabet, latter Greek, , ''Lakedaimonios'' (Latin: ''Lacedaemonius'').〔.〕 The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the home location of the Spartans. The first refers primarily to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River: Sparta.〔.〕 The second word was Lacedaemon ();〔.〕 this was also used sometimes as an adjective and is the name commonly used in the works of Homer and the Athenian historians Herodotus and Thucydides. Herodotus seems to denote by it the Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne, in contrast to the lower town of Sparta. It could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it was not. It denoted the terrain on which Sparta was situated.〔.〕 In Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside: wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken (full of ravines).〔.〕 The hollow suggests the Eurotas Valley. Sparta on the other hand is the country of lovely women, a people epithet. The name of the population was often used for the state of Lacedaemon: the Lacedaemonians. This epithet utilized the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius (Greek: ; Latin: ''Lacedaemonii'', but also ''Lacedaemones''). If the ancients wished to refer to the country more directly, instead of Lacedaemon, they could use a back-formation from the adjective: ''Lacedaemonian country''. As most words for "country" were feminine, the adjective was in the feminine: ''Lacedaemonia'' (, ''Lakedaimonia''). Eventually, the adjective came to be used alone. Lacedaemonia was not in general use during the classical period and before. It does occur in Greek as an equivalent of Laconia and Messenia during the Roman and early Byzantine periods, mostly in ethnographers and lexica glossing place names. For example, Hesychius of Alexandria's ''Lexicon'' (5th century AD) defines Agiadae as a "place in Lacedaemonia" named after Agis.〔. At the Internet Archive〕 The actual transition may be captured by Isidore of Seville's ''Etymologiae'' (7th century AD), an etymological dictionary. He relied heavily on Orosius' ''Historiarum Adversum Paganos'' (5th century AD) and Eusebius of Caesarea's ''Chronicon'' (early 5th century AD) as did Orosius. The latter defines Sparta to be ''Lacedaemonia Civitas'' but Isidore defines Lacedaemonia as founded by Lacedaemon, son of Semele, relying on Eusebius. There is a rare use, perhaps the earliest of Lacedaemonia, in Diodorus Siculus,〔Diodorus Siculus, ''Library'', (19.70.2 ).〕 but probably with ("country") suppressed. The immediate area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains, was generally referred as Laconice (). This term was sometimes used to refer to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia. Lacedaemon is now the name of a province in the modern Greek prefecture of Laconia. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sparta」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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