A small town in the central Peloponnese, Greece, which in the Classical period created the Peloponnesian League and organized the military forces that broke the Athenian empire and subjugated Athens in 404 BC. It was reputedly founded in the 9th century BC, later the capital of the Laconia district and an important sanctuary dating from the Early Iron Age. Much of our evidence comes from the Sanctuary of Artemis Ortheia, where ivory, bone, lead, and ceramic offerings have been found. The sparsity of ruins from antiquity around the modern city reflects the austerity of the military oligarchy that ruled the Spartan city-state from the 6th-2nd centuries BC. The town was finally destroyed by Alaric and the Visigoths in 396 AD.