Sparta or Lacedemon, the capital of ancient Laconia, in the Peloponnesus, on the right bank of the Eurotas, 20 m. from the sea; was 6 m. in circumference, consisted of several distinct quarters, originally separate villages, never united into a regular town; was never surrounded by walls, its walls being the bravery of its citizens; its mythical founder was Lacedemon, who called the city Sparta from the name of his wife; one of its early kings was Menelaus, the husband of Helen; Lycurgus (q. v.) was its law-giver; its policy was aggressive, and its sway gradually extended over the whole Peloponnesus, to the extinction at the end of the Peloponnesian War of the rival power of Athens, which for a time rose to the ascendency, and its unquestioned supremacy thereafter for 30 years, when all Greece was overborne by the Macedonian power.