Sparta; Her Strength and Her Limitations.
Sparta, unlike Attica, was essentially a military State. Her chief town needed no walls because it was always an armed camp. Botsford well points out that in earlier times the Spartans were probably the superiors of the Athenians in culture and refinement; but their self-imposed discipline made them a race of soldiers. We know that the Periœci were successful artisans and traders; but the controlling passion of the little nation was military efficiency. Everything seems to have been sacrificed to that. When the classes come to the glories of the Athenian golden age, it will be well to point out that while she has her scores of names which are luminous in art, literature, science and philosophy, from the annals of Sparta the world knows mainly Lycurgus, the lawgiver, and Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylæ. If a teacher is inclined to cultivate in his pupils the idea that military glory is not to be the main concern, he may well use the Spartan record. Yet Sparta with these limitations played a mighty part in the story of the Greek struggle. Her armed efficiency more than once saved Greece as a whole when the less practical Athenian system had broken down.