Avarice seems to have been hereditary in the family, for Gylippus himself, after brilliant exploits in war, was convicted of taking bribes, and banished from Sparta in disgrace.

you could walk from Sparta to the Danube.

DEMARA`TUS, king of Sparta from 510 to 491 B.C.; dispossessed of his crown, fled to Persia and accompanied Xerxes into Greece.

Sometimes they stated, and not without some truth, that the unjust hatred of Sparta against themselves forced them to be unjust to others in self-defence.

DIOSCURI, twin sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux, a stalwart pair of youths, of the Doric stock, great the former as a horse-breaker and the latter as a boxer; were worshipped at Sparta as guardians of the State, and pre-eminently as patrons of gymnastics; protected the hearth, led the army in war, and were the convoy of the traveller by land and the voyager by sea, which as constellations they are still held to be.

It was men of this stamp that the Grecian States used to ask of Sparta for generals.

With the old and deep hostility subsisting between the Spartans and Achaeans, the incorporation of Sparta into the Achaean league would have been equivalent to subjecting Sparta to the Achaeans, a course no less contrary to equity than to prudence.

The Corinthians, enraged at this, complained in the congress of Sparta of the conduct of the Athenians, as did also the Megarians, who said that they were excluded from every market and every harbor which was in Athenian hands, contrary to the ancient rights and common privileges of the Hellenic race.

His most celebrated exploits had been the occupation of Pylos on the Messenian coast, the successful defence of that place against the fleet and armies of Lacedaemon, and the subsequent capture of the Spartan forces on the isle of Sphacteria, which was the severest blow dealt to Sparta throughout the war, and which had mainly caused her to humble herself to make the truce with Athens.

On one occasion he entered Sparta by night to suspend a shield from the temple of Pallas.

For they it is who being guardians of the wide plains of Sparta with Hermes and Herakles mete out fair hap in games, and to righteous men they have great regard.