“Sparta beyond Lakonia: A Mediterranean Perspective(800-500 BCE)”

by Dr. Daphne D. Martin, University of Cambridge

Thursday 29 May 2025
7:00pm

The presentation will be held at the Institute Hostel (Fourth Floor, Promachou 2, 11742, Makriyianni. (buzzer reads AAIA)

This is a free event!

To register for participation, please contact us at aaia@otenet.gr or call us on 210 924 3256 before Monday 26 May.


Recent scholarly attention to globalisation, migration, mobility and local identity in the ancient Mediterranean has made possible much more subtle and sensitive interpretations of how Greeks interacted with each other and with non-Greek communities in the first half of the 1st millenium BCE. Yet, curiously little work has been devoted to Sparta’s relationship to this wider world, and in particular where Sparta fits in connecting distant local horizons, whether through trade-networks, political alliances, Spartan settlements abroad, or Dorian cultural influence. In this talk, I will explore two case studies, Taranto and Cyrene, in order to consider how
and why they articulate and maintain a material relationship to Sparta over time. By examining the extant archaeological evidence for Spartan influence at each locale, as well as how such influence was perceived by local communities and changed over time, a novel understanding of how Sparta cultivated and maintained its relationship with ‘diaspora’ populations beyond its territory emerges.

Download the Lecture’s programme.