In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades. Finally, during 227 BC, Cleomenes' reforms introduced updated equipment to Sparta, including the Macedonian sarissa (pike). Sparta also features prominently in modern popular culture, most famously the Battle of Thermopylae (see Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture). The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a significantly different position in Spartan society. In some of these sayings, mothers revile their sons in insulting language merely for surviving a battle.

She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark. The “well-built and sturdy” children were allowed to live, while those who were deemed unhealthy or deformed were left at the foot of a mountain to die. There is a characteristic story, told by Plutarch: "The boys make such a serious matter of their stealing, that one of them, as the story goes, who was carrying concealed under his cloak a young fox which he had stolen, suffered the animal to tear out his bowels with its teeth and claws, and died rather than have his theft detected. Initial Argive successes, such as the victory at the Battle of Hysiae in 669 BC, led to the Messenians' uprising. At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a number of helots.

The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved. In the course of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta, a traditional land power, acquired a navy which managed to overpower the previously dominant flotilla of Athens, ending the Athenian Empire.

The third term, "Laconice" ( Λακωνική), referred to the immediate area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains, [16] and sometimes to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia.The son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete, he married Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas, by whom he became the father of Amyclas, Eurydice, and Asine. Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that. These values applied to every full Spartan citizen, immigrant, merchant, and even to the helots, but not the dishonored. This epithet utilized the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius (Greek: Λακεδαιμόνιοι; Latin: Lacedaemonii, but also Lacedaemones). Later traditions ascribed the reforms to the possibly mythical figure of Lycurgus, who created new institutions and established the Spartan state's military nature.

In response, almost all the allies rose up, but not a man of the Lacedaemonians; for they were forbidden to learn or practice a manual art. Spartan women, better fed from childhood and fit from exercise, stood a far better chance of reaching old age than their sisters in other Greek cities, where the median age for death was 34. However, from the 6th century onwards, the military character of the state became more pronounced, and education was totally subordinated to the needs of the military. First, "Sparta" refers primarily to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River.while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. According to Thucydides, the Athenian citizens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (5th century BC) numbered 40,000, making a total of 140,000 people when including their families. Spartans trained in pankration, a famous martial art in Ancient Greece that consisted of boxing and grappling. The Spartiates were the Spartan army's core: they participated in the Assembly ( Apella) and provided the hoplites in the army. In later Classical times, Sparta along with Athens, Thebes, and Persia were the main powers fighting for supremacy in the northeastern Mediterranean.

According to Plutarch, as the young Spartans grew, they were required to exercise more and more to build their bodies.The Tsakonian language still spoken in Tsakonia is the only surviving descendant of the ancient Doric language. They became inured to hardship, being provided with scant food and clothing; this also encouraged them to steal, and if they were caught, they were punished – not for stealing, but for being caught.