Unlike Athens to the north, Sparta was famed for its austerity—its “spartan” character—was, and is, proverbial. A state run by an inflexible military regime, whose people existed almost ...

The Peloponnesian War is the name given to the long series of conflicts between Athens and Sparta that lasted from 431 until 404 BC. The reasons for this war are sometimes traced back as far as ...

The dead included Pericles, the populist leader who had turned Athens into an imperial power. The Peloponnesian War, launched by Sparta and its allies in 431, would dominate the first two decades ...