The Greek city that raised its sons for one purpose — war — and became the most feared army in the ancient world.
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Here are the key words you'll meet in the story. Work through the four short activities below. Do the thinking first — say or choose your answer out loud — then hit Reveal to check.
Read each sentence aloud. The situation around the word is your clue.
The first letter is given. Say the word before you reveal it.
Decide before you reveal.
First, build the word family. Then infer the last word from its sentence.
Read each part. After it, there's a quick comprehension check (try the questions from memory first), then one thing to discuss.
Sparta sat in a fertile valley in the south of Greece, in a region called Laconia. Unlike Athens, it had no great harbour, no grand temples of marble, and little interest in art, trade or philosophy. Sparta had one purpose, pursued more single-mindedly than any other Greek state: to produce the finest soldiers in the world. Everything else was arranged to serve that goal.
The system rested on a harsh foundation. Far more numerous than the Spartans themselves were the helots — an enslaved people who farmed the land and handed over their harvest. Freed from all manual work, Spartan men could devote their entire lives to training for war. But the Spartans lived in constant fear that the helots, who greatly outnumbered them, might one day rise up. That fear helped make Spartan society one of the most militarised the world has ever seen.
The making of a soldier began at birth, and by our standards it was pitiless. A newborn judged too weak was, according to ancient writers, left exposed on a hillside to die. Those who lived faced a childhood harder than anything their Greek neighbours knew: at the age of seven, every boy was taken from his family and placed in the agoge, the state training system. There he was taught to endure cold, hunger and pain without complaint, to fight, and above all to obey. Sparta was raising not children but future hoplites.
1. What was Sparta's single overriding purpose, and how did it differ from Athens?
2. Who were the helots, and why were they so important to the Spartan way of life?
1. To produce the finest soldiers in the world. Unlike Athens, it cared little for art, trade or philosophy and organised everything around war.
2. An enslaved population who farmed the land and gave their crops to the Spartans; their labour freed Spartan men to train full-time for war — but their numbers were also a constant source of fear.
Inside the agoge, the training grew tougher with every year. Boys were given too little food, so that they learned to steal to survive — but were punished harshly if they were caught, the lesson being not honesty but skill and nerve. They marched barefoot to harden their feet, slept on rough reed beds, and were toughened by cold, hunger and discipline. The aim was to strip away softness and leave only the soldier.
The Spartans spoke little and to the point — the modern word "laconic", meaning brief in speech, comes from their homeland of Laconia. A Spartan mother, the stories say, handed her son his shield with the words "Come back with this, or on it": return victorious, or dead and carried home upon it. To lose one's shield in flight was the deepest disgrace of all.
All of this produced the most feared infantry in Greece. On the battlefield the Spartans formed the phalanx, that wall of overlapping shields and levelled spears, and held it with a steadiness other armies could not match. Man for man they were better drilled, more disciplined and more willing to die than any of their rivals. A Spartan army was almost always smaller than the forces it faced — Sparta's citizen body was never large — yet for generations it was widely regarded as the strongest in the Greek world.
1. Name two things boys had to endure in the agoge, and what those hardships were meant to teach.
2. What was the phalanx, and why were Spartan soldiers so effective in it?
1. Any two of: too little food (so they learned to steal, and to bear hunger), marching barefoot, sleeping on rough beds, harsh punishment. The point was to remove softness and build endurance, nerve and obedience.
2. A tight formation of overlapping shields and long spears. Spartans held it more steadily than other armies because they were better drilled, more disciplined and more willing to stand and die.
In 480 BC the vast army of the Persian king Xerxes swept into Greece, and the Greek cities, so often at each other's throats, briefly united. The Spartan king Leonidas marched north to hold a narrow coastal pass called Thermopylae — the "Hot Gates" — with a small force at its core: three hundred Spartans, alongside several thousand allies from other Greek cities. The pass was so narrow that Persian numbers counted for little, and for two days the Greeks held it against an army many times their size.
Then a local man showed the Persians a mountain path that led around behind the Greek position. Seeing that the pass was lost, Leonidas sent most of the allied troops away and stayed to fight on with his Spartans and a few others, buying time with their lives. They were surrounded and, at last, killed to the last man. It was a defeat — yet the courage of the stand at Thermopylae became one of the most famous acts of valour in all of history, proof to the Greeks that free men would die rather than submit. Within a year, the Greek alliance drove the Persians out for good.
But the alliance did not last. Sparta and Athens — the greatest land power and the greatest sea power in Greece — were natural rivals, and in 431 BC they fell into a long and ruinous war, the Peloponnesian War. After nearly thirty years, Sparta finally won. Yet victory did not save it. Sparta's citizen numbers had always been small, and they kept shrinking; a generation later its army was crushed by the city of Thebes, and Sparta never fully recovered. Its empire faded, but its legend did not. More than two thousand years on, "spartan" still means hard, plain and disciplined, and the three hundred who died at the Hot Gates are remembered yet.
1. What happened at Thermopylae, and why is the battle remembered even though it was a defeat?
2. Who were Sparta's great rivals, and what eventually happened to Spartan power?
1. King Leonidas held the narrow pass with 300 Spartans and allied Greeks against Xerxes' huge Persian army. Betrayed by a mountain path, they were surrounded; Leonidas and his Spartans fought to the death. The stand is remembered as a supreme act of courage and defiance.
2. Athens was the chief rival; the two fought the long Peloponnesian War, which Sparta eventually won. But Sparta's small and shrinking citizen population left it weak, it was later defeated by Thebes, and its power faded — though its legend endured.
You cannot tell the story of Sparta without comparing: Sparta against Athens, one army against another, this soldier against that. English does this with comparatives (to compare two things) and superlatives (to rank one above all the rest). Get the forms right and your whole account of Sparta will sound sharper.
Put the adjective in brackets into the correct form. Add than or the where you need it.
1. The Spartan army was widely regarded as (strong) in all of Greece. (rank it top)
2. Life in the agoge was far (hard) life in any other Greek city. (compare two)
3. Sparta produced (disciplined) soldiers of the ancient world. (rank them top)
1. the strongest (superlative of a short adjective)
2. harder than (comparative + than)
3. the most disciplined (superlative of a longer adjective)
Each sentence has one mistake in the comparative or superlative. Write the corrected form.
1. Athens was more richer than Sparta. →
2. Leonidas made one of the most brave stands in history. →
3. The Persian army was bigger that the Greek force at the pass. →
1. richer (never use "more" with an -er form: "Athens was richer than Sparta")
2. bravest ("brave" is short: "one of the bravest stands")
3. than (comparatives take "than", not "that": "bigger than the Greek force")
Fill each gap with the correct comparative or superlative of the adjective in brackets. Read it aloud once you're done.
Sparta and Athens were the two (powerful) cities in Greece, but they could hardly have been more different. Athens was (wealthy) and more famous for its art, while Sparta trained the (fine) army in the land. At Thermopylae the Persians were far (numerous) than the Greeks, yet the narrow pass made their huge numbers count for less.
the most powerful (superlative) · wealthier (comparative) · finest (superlative) · more numerous (comparative)
Notice the pattern: the most / -est to rank one above all, and -er / more … than to compare two.
Hold on to these forms — you'll need them in the Speak tab, where the whole point is to compare Sparta with Athens and rank what made it extraordinary.
You've read the story and you have the words — so now the real thing is within reach. There's a full podcast episode that tells this story in much greater depth, in natural, real-speed English. It's optional: the lesson stands on its own without it.
From the Noiser podcast network. Hosted by historians, roughly 50 minutes. Open Spotify and search "Short History Of Sparta" to find the episode.
Open the show on Spotify →This is the heart of the lesson — do all of it out loud. The timer is there to keep you going: fill the time with detail rather than escaping it.
Tell the story of Sparta in your own words, as if to someone who knows only the phrase "This is Sparta!". Move through the arc: a city-state built for war, resting on the labour of the helots → the agoge and the making of a hoplite → the phalanx and the army it produced → the last stand at Thermopylae → the rivalry with Athens and Sparta's slow decline.
Keep comparing and ranking as you go: use at least three comparatives and three superlatives (harder, tougher, stronger, more disciplined; the finest, the most feared, the strongest…), and work in at least five key words (city-state, agoge, hoplite, phalanx, helots, discipline, valour, pass, rivals, outnumbered).
Sparta trained the best soldiers; Athens gave the world philosophy, drama and democracy. Which city do you think mattered more to the world in the long run — and which would you rather have lived in? Build an argument, comparing the two directly and using superlatives to make your case.
Sparta shows the power of total discipline — and its terrible price. Talk about the balance between discipline and freedom, using comparatives and superlatives throughout.
Stuck for an idea? Pick one of these and run with it: