Thucydides is widely seen as the most dispassionate and reliable
contemporary source for the history of classical Sparta. But, compared
with partisan authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch, his information on
the subject is more scattered and implicit. Scholars in recent decades
have made progress in teasing out the sense of Thucydides' often
lapidary remarks on Sparta. This book takes the process further. Its
eight new studies by international specialists aim to reveal coherent
structures both in Thucydidean thought and in Spartan reality.This
volume is the second of a series in which the Classical Press of Wales
applies to Spartan history the approach it is already using for the
history of Rome's revolutionary era: focusing in turn on each of the
main sources on which historians depend, and analysing with a
combination of historical and literary methods.