THE CITY PLAN
Reconstructing Sparta
Ancient Sparta was not a walled, planned city but a group of villages. Pausanias names four of them together, the people of Limnai, Kynosoura, Mesoa and Pitane, quarrelling at the altar of Artemis Orthia (Paus. 3.16.9). Amyklai, about 5 km to the south, is counted by modern historians as the fifth. Pausanias walks the city in Book 3, chapters 11 to 20.
ANCIENT TESTIMONYWhat ancient authors say. Pausanias wrote in the 2nd century AD and saw the Roman-period city.
EXCAVATED EVIDENCEWhat digging has found, with the excavators and their publications.
CONJECTUREPlacement, shape and look where the evidence runs out. Always labelled.
Points mark rough relative positions taken from Pausanias’ routes. Click a point to open its page.
Buildings
- The Acropolis and the Bronze House of Athena · Paus. 3.17.1–3.18.1
- The Agora and the Persian Stoa · Paus. 3.11.2–3.11.11
- The Skias (Canopy) · Paus. 3.12.10–3.12.11
- The Theatre · Paus. 3.14.1
- The Dromos (Running Course) · Paus. 3.14.6–3.14.7
- The Platanistas (Plane-tree Grove) · Paus. 3.14.8–3.15.1
- The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia (Limnaion) · Paus. 3.16.7–3.16.11
- The Amyklaion and the Throne of Apollo · Paus. 3.18.6–3.19.6
- The Menelaion at Therapne · Paus. 3.19.9
Translations: Pausanias, Description of Greece, tr. W. H. S. Jones (Loeb), online at theoi.com. Scholarship to be added: P. Cartledge’s histories of Sparta and the Annual of the British School at Athens excavation reports.