SPARTA, situated on the Eurotas, was a royal city from the earliest times; according to tradition, it was the residence of Menelaus, and afterwards of the Heracleid kings. From its beginning down to the Macedonian period, it remained an open place; but, like all other Greek cities, it had an acropolis, whence the expression which is applied to Sparta as well as to other places, that it was inhabited κωμηδόν, does not exclude the existence of an ἀκρόπολις. On the heights of Epirus, too, traces of Cyclopian walls and earthen ramparts have been discovered, although it was inhabited κωμηδόν, which shows that towns thus described were not surrounded by walls, but built round a fortified central point. In this condition Sparta remained until the Macedonian period. For a long time the Spartans, no doubt, lived in their open city, as it were unconsciously, but afterwards the feeling of their own greatness and security told them that it was not worth while to build walls. When however they were visited by the Macedonians, Sparta was surrounded with walls which remained until the city was united with the Achaean confederacy, when they had to be pulled down again. The houses at Sparta were built in an irregular and poor manner, almost all being made of clay; such was indeed the case in other Greek towns also, but at Sparta it was pre-eminently so, and the city appears to have had no regular streets at all. There were, however, a few notable buildings, though they cannot exactly be called magnificent. Under the dominion of the Romans, Sparta was the most important city in Peloponnesus, for during the Achaean war it had joined the Romans, and had thereby afforded them a welcome pretext for destroying Achaia. Ancient Sparta seems to have perished at an early part of the middle ages, when the unfortunate Peloponnesus was ravaged by the Slavonians. The building of the town of _Misitra_ is ascribed to a prince of the family of the Palaeologi, but the probable fact is that he only restored it. There are few places of which so scanty ruins are discoverable as of Sparta. _Limnae_ was a suburb of Sparta. About five miles from it was situated AMYCLAE, which was older than the Doric conquest, and was respected by the Spartans. Little can be said about the other places in Laconia. GYTHEION was the ἐπίνειον of Sparta even during the maritime supremacy of Athens, and remained what it then was as long as Sparta occurs in ancient history; but it is not by any means a particularly good harbour.