Since the close of her disastrous struggle with Thebes, which deprived her of the fairest portion of her territory, and left her insulated and beset with hostile neighbours, Sparta has taken little share in the affairs of Greece. It is but seldom, and on extraordinary occasions that we have seen her name mentioned. The part however which we find her acting on these occasions is an honourable one, and worthy of her ancient renown; a struggle for the national independence, such as that in which Agis III. fell, or a gallant resistance in her own defence, such as she opposed to the superior forces of Demetrius and Pyrrhus. She appears indeed to have discarded all ambitious views, to have buried all thoughts of her old supremacy, and to have adopted a merely defensive policy; but her patriotism, her sense of honour, and her love of liberty, seem to have survived.

During the period on which we are now about to enter, she again for a time fills the most prominent place among the Greek states, and is engaged in a contest for the mastery of Peloponnesus, and we are in consequence enabled to learn something of the course of her internal history, which was intimately connected with this change in her political attitude.