Herodotus records that when heralds of the Persian king Darius the Great demanded " earth and water " ( i. e., symbols of submission ) of various Greek cities, the Athenians threw them into a pit and the Spartans threw them down a well for the purpose of suggesting they would find both earth and water at the bottom, these often being mentioned by the messenger as a threat of siege.

According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots ; the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta.

The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a massive war to determine the fate of the empire, called a congress of their allies to discuss the possibility of war with Athens.

Thucydides reports that the Corinthians condemned Sparta's inactivity up to that point, warning the Spartans that if they continued to remain passive while the Athenians were energetically active, they would soon find themselves outflanked and without allies.

The Spartans claimed the command of land forces, and since the Greek ( hereafter referred to as " Allied ") fleet would be dominated by Athens, Themistocles tried to claim command of the naval forces.

However, after the Tempe debacle, it was uncertain whether the Spartans would be willing to march out from the Peloponnesus again.

The Spartans sent ambassadors to Admetus, threatening that the whole of Greece would go to war with the Molossians unless they surrendered Themistocles.

This he kept saying until Themistocles replied, ' This is the truth of the matter: if I had been a man of Belbina I would not have been honored in this way by the Spartans, nor would you, sir, for all you are a man of Athens.

" On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BC to take a force of 35, 000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away.

When Spartans died, marked headstones would only be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth.

When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the Agoge system.

Thucydides reports that when a Spartan man went to war, his wife ( or another woman of some significance ) would customarily present him with his shield and say: " With this, or upon this " ( Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς, Èi tàn èi èpì tàs ), meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious ( with their shield in hand ) or dead ( carried upon it ).

He provides one account that some of the Greek detachments began to depart for their home towns, while others pledged, despite this development, to stand by the Spartan King Leonidas ; he also reports that Leonidas ordered the rest to return home, while the Spartans ( who numbered slightly under 300 ) would stay as a rear guard.

Seeking to crush the Thebans, the Spartans would invade Boeotia three times over the next few years ( 378, 377,?

When, after the battle, the Spartans asked if they and the Peloponnesians could collect the dead, Epaminondas suspected that the Spartans would try to cover-up the scale of their losses.

A Delphic oracle had foretold that he would win five great battles, and so the Spartans wished to hire him.

These subsidies helped to engage the Spartans in what would become known as the Corinthian War.

According to Herodotus " The Spartans sent the men with Leonidas on ahead so that the rest of the allies would see them and march with no fear of defeat, instead of medizing like the others if they learned that the Spartans were delaying.

The King would have thought it wise to preserve those Greek troops for future battles against the Persians, but he knew that the Spartans could never abandon their post on the battlefield.

Piraeus would follow the fate of Athens and was to bear the brunt of the Spartans ' rage, as the city's walls and the Long Walls were torn down, the Athenian fleet surrendered to the winners and some of the triremes burnt, while the neosoikoi were also pulled down.

According to Pausanias, the Athenians sent the lame, mentally defective teacher / poet to Sparta as a compromise, wishing to obey the oracle, which had demanded an Athenian, but not wishing to help the Spartans in their war, which would have required a more capable individual.

The Pas is also home to the Huskies minor hockey league and the MBCI Spartans who compete in Zone 11 of the MHSAA.

SJSU sports teams are known as the Spartans, and compete in the Western Athletic Conference ( WAC ) in NCAA Division I.

SJSU sports teams are known as the Spartans, and compete in the Western Athletic Conference ( WAC ) in NCAA Division I.

Organizers hoped from the outset the host school would send its own San Jose State Spartans to compete in the bowl, thus drawing attendance numbers up.

The Castleton State Spartans compete in 20 NCAA Division III Varsity sports in the North Atlantic Conference and the Eastern College Athletic Conference ( ECAC ).

The Brookfield East Spartans compete in the Greater Metro Conference, which includes most athletics and other competitive extra-curricular activities, including forensics, debate, and the " mathletes " organization.

The Blizzard will compete in the United Conference Central North Division with the La Crosse Spartans, Chicago Slaughter, and Bloomington Extreme.

He served under Bob Bronzan as a graduate assistant coach on the Spartans football coaching staff and graduated with a master's degree in physical education from San Jose State in 1959.

However, this depends on when exactly the Spartans held their festival and it is possible that the Spartan calendar was one month ahead of that of Athens.

The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuariesincluding statues of athletesand on funerary monuments, for example " Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby ...".

The stories about the killer of Eurystheus and the fate of his corpse vary, but the Athenians believed the burial site of Eurystheus remained on their soil and served to protect the country against the descendants of Heracles, who traditionally included the Spartans and Argives.

Demosthenes, however, outmanoeuvred the Spartans in the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC and trapped a group of Spartan soldiers on Sphacteria as he waited for them to surrender.

They wished to restore the fortifications of Athens, but the Spartans objected, on the grounds that no place north of the Isthmus should be left which the Persians might be able to use as a fortress.

In 480 BC a small force of Spartans, Thespians, and Thebans led by King Leonidas ( approximately 300 were full Spartiates, 700 were Thespians, and 400 were Thebans although these numbers do not reflect casualties incurred prior to the final battle ), made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae against the massive Persian army, inflicting very high casualties on the Persian forces before finally being encircled.

When Philip created the league of the Greeks on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose not to join — they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition if it was not under Spartan leadership.

I285a ), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as " subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign " ( iii.

Each year when the Ephors took office they ritually declared war on the helots, thereby allowing Spartans to kill them without the risk of ritual pollution.

Spartiates, on the other hand, were forbidden ( in theory ) from engaging in menial labor or trade, although there is evidence of Spartan sculptors, and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.

Spartans buried their battle dead on or near the battle field ; corpses were not brought back on their hoplons.

Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that.

The ruins of a crude stone fortress on nearby Sphacteria Island, apparently of Mycenaean origin, were used by the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War.

The Spartans had been called on by the Ionians to assist them against the Persian King Artaxerxes II.

The dispute was referred to the Spartans, who eventually awarded possession of the island to Athens on the strength of the case that Solon put to them.

Facing too great an army, the Spartans decide to surrender the city on the condition that the garrison can leave unharmed.

* Thrasybulus leads the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government, known as the Thirty Tyrants, that the victorious Spartans have imposed on Athens.

After Athens ' defeat in the Peloponnesian War, Thrasybulus led the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government, known as the Thirty Tyrants, which the victorious Spartans imposed on Athens.

The Spartans, however, with the assistance of a Persian army, began to drive this Athenian force into the sea ; seeing this, Thrasybulus landed his own force to temporarily relieve pressure on Alcibiades, and meanwhile ordered Theramenes to join up with Athenian land forces nearby and bring them to reinforce the sailors and marines on the beach.

When the Spartan garrison of Athens, supported by Athenian cavalry, was sent out to oppose him, Thrasybulus led his force, now 700 strong, in a surprise daybreak raid on their camp, killing 120 Spartans and putting the rest to flight.