The urban plan of Sparta in a detailed diagram in German. Actually, there was no urban plan of Sparta before the Late Hellenistic Age, as the ‘conservative’ Spartans were not interested in changing their traditional way of life, since the Archaic Age. They believed that their city did not even need defensive walls because in their own words “the chests of Sparta’s warriors are her walls”.

And indeed, the latter statement was not excessive. The Spartans were by far the best warriors of Greece for almost four centuries, causing dread to their enemies, Greeks, Persians and any other.

It was just in the early 2nd century BC that a city wall was built for Sparta, and a real urban plan was made. Till then and since circa 1.000 BC, Sparta was actually a sum of four small towns (ωβαί) that is Pitane, Limnai, Kynosoura and Mesoa, which are noted on the plan and also on its upper corner on the right. A fifth town, Amyklai, about 4 kilometers in the south, was added in the early 8th century BC, when the Spartan citizenship was given to its inhabitants. In the early 2nd century BC Amyklai was obviously outside the city walls but it always remained a town of Spartan citizens till the end of Antiquity.

Note the river Eurotas adjacent to the town of Limnai, and the Archaic temple of Athena Chalkioikos, the earlier building of the city (6th century BC). Note also the Agora on the center, established between the four Spartan towns