Molon Labe my friends ( Leonidas monument at Thermopylae in #Attica Greece). #Greece #greek #Hellas #Instagreece #Sparta #300 #Leonidas #Thermopylae #War #Ελλαδα #Ελλας #MolonLabe #TheRealMolonLabe #Λεονιδας Λεωνίδας #Σπαρτη

coolchicksfromhistory:

Cynisca (born circa 440 BCE)

Art by Nina Holm (tumblr,deviantart,website)

Although Spartan women were famed for their athleticism, they were not allowed to participate in the original Olympic Games.  The competitions were reserved for male athletes, but there was a loophole.  The winners of the chariot racing competitions were the owners and trainers of the victorious horses, not the drivers.

In 396 BCE, Cynisca entered her horses in the four horse chariot race and won.  She is considered the first female Olympic champion.  Cynisca repeated her victory in 392 BCE.  Several other women followed her lead and won horse racing events at the ancient Olympic Games.

Cynisca was the daughter of the Spartan king Archidamus II and the sister of Agesilaus II.  After her victory, Cynisca commissioned two statues of herself, one at the Temple of Zeus in Olympia and one at the Planistai (plane-tree grove) in Sparta.  The Planistai was generally reserved for kings of Sparta and  Cynisca is believed to be the first woman honored there.  Although neither statue survives, the inscription from the Olympia statue was recorded as:

My fathers and brothers were kings of Sparta

I, Cynisca, having won with a team of swift-footed horses,

dedicated this statue. I assert that I am the only woman

in all of Greece to have taken this crown.

peashooter85:

What was Sparta up to during Alexander the Great’s Conquests?

During Alexander the Great’s conquest of what was then the known world, the Spartan’s contributed nothing to the conquest. Rather, when Alexander the Great marched off to war, the Spartan’s refused to participate unless they were leaders of the army. So what was Sparta up to all the while Alexander was conquering the world?

According to legend Alexander’s father, King Philip II sent the following message to Sparta, “You are advised to submit without delay, for if I bring my army on your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people and raze your city.”
The Spartan’s responded with a single word, “If”.

Most likely this exchange didn’t happen, if it did then the Spartan’s were extremely naïve and stupid.  Sparta during the times of Alexander was not the same Sparta as was during the Persian Wars or the Peloponnesian Wars.  Spartan weapons and tactics had become outdated and quaint. A number of military defeats followed by a few slave revolts had sapped Sparta of it’s power, leaving Sparta a secondary power at best whose glory days were far behind.  The Macedonians could have easily conquered Sparta, however, there were many members of the Corinthian League who hated Sparta, thus it was decided it was best to leave Sparta out of the league because of politics.

In 338 BC Agis III became King of the Spartans, and his number one goal was to make Sparta great again.  In 333, with Persian military and financial support, Agis was able to raise a 20,000 man army and defeat a small Macedonian army in Greece.  Agis and his men then sailed to Crete with the intention of capturing the island and adding it to Spartan territory. With Alexander the Great’s attention focused on conquering the Persian Empire, Agis and his army was easily able to overrun the island and lay siege to it’s largest city, Megalopolis, in 331.  Finally the Spartan’s had become enough of a thorn in Alexander’s side that something needed to be done about them.  Alexander sent his trusted general Antipater with a force of 40,000 men to deal with the Spartans.  The two armies met outside of Megalopolis for a brief battle.  The Macedonian’s outnumbered the Spartans 2 to 1, and in the subsequent battle they were easily able to break Spartan lines and send the Spartan army into full retreat, killing around 5,300 Spartans in the process.  Agis III died in battle, supposedly staying behind to fight to the death in order to buy his army time to escape. 

After the disastrous Battle of Megalopolis, the Spartans were forced to surrender to Macedonia and join the Corinthian League, lest the Macedonians send an army to destroy Sparta.  The conquest of Crete was Sparta’s last hurrah, and from here Sparta would continue to decline until conquered by the Romans in 146 BC.

Lakonian Black-figure kylix, attributed to the Boreads Painter, ca. 570–565 BCE, currently in Malibu, Getty 85.AE.121.

Bellerophon slaying the Chimaera with Pegasus.

I’ve noticed how rarely Lakonian vase painting is mentioned when discussing Greek pottery, though I find it to be some of the most visually striking and distinctive pottery from Greece! Unlike the Athenians who limit their interior kylix decorations to a smaller tondo within the cup, the Lakonians use up almost all of the interior space of a kylix. This results in these huge images that would come within inches from someones face while they drank from their cups. This is an aspect of Greek pottery that I find to be commonly overlooked–that these objects were meant to be used and and interacted with, not just admired from a distance. 

Menelaus holds the body of Patroclus in this first-century CE Roman copy of a 3rd century BCE Greek original. In the Iliad, the Trojans’ abduction of Menelaus’ wife Helen began the Trojan War. Patroclus was Achilles’ beloved companion, whose death caused Achilles to begin a rage-fueled campaign of revenge.

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Tom Iveson

Colby Turner