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cover of episode The Rise & Fall of Sparta

The Rise & Fall of Sparta

2025/7/3
logo of podcast Dan Snow's History Hit

Dan Snow's History Hit
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Andrew Bayliss
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Dan Snow
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Dan Snow: 我想揭示斯巴达的真实历史，打破人们对他们的神话和刻板印象。我们喜欢揭示传说，审视人们从小说、电影和流行文化中获得的刻板印象，并向您呈现真实的、冷酷的事实，因为我们相信这些事实实际上更引人入胜、更令人惊讶和有趣。 Andrew Bayliss: 我们对斯巴达的了解主要来自外部人士的记载，他们常常是斯巴达的仰慕者，试图将斯巴达描绘成一个与众不同的强大存在，这解释了为什么他们如此令人惊叹，以及为什么雅典或底比斯应该更像斯巴达。

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Ancient Greece wasn't a single nation, but comprised numerous city-states with diverse systems. Sparta, among the largest, was considered an outlier due to its unique social structure and focus, even sparking fascination among other city-states like Athens. The Spartans' wealth from slavery allowed for a unique lifestyle focused on aristocratic activities and military training.
  • Ancient Greece consisted of around 1200 independent city-states.
  • Sparta was one of the largest city-states, renowned for its military strength and unique social structure.
  • Spartan citizens' wealth from slavery allowed them leisure time for aristocratic pursuits and military training.

Shownotes Transcript

Today, we trace the rise and fall of ancient Greece’s most formidable warrior society - Sparta. This society's militaristic culture and battlefield feats are the stuff of legend - but how much of its story is based on cold, hard fact?

Joining us is Dr Andrew Bayliss, a professor of Greek History at the University of Birmingham. He separates the fact from the fiction, explaining how a brutal education system and unyielding discipline forged an elite military state, and eventually led to its downfall.

**Join Dan and the team for the first-ever LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday 12th September 2025! **

To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask! Get tickets here, before they sell out: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/dan-snows-history-hit/)

You can now find Dan Snow's History Hit on YouTube! Watch episodes every Friday (including this one) here).

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe).

We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on).

You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected]).