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Argonaute proteins (Agos) represent a highly conserved family of proteins prevalent in all domains of life and have been implicated in various biological processes. Based on the domain architecture, Agos can be divided into long Agos and short Agos. While long Agos have been extensively studied over the past two decades, short Agos, found exclusively in prokaryotes, have recently gained attention for their roles in prokaryotic immune defence against mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids and phages. Notable functional and structural studies provide invaluable insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms of representative short Ago systems. Despite the diverse domain arrangements, short Agos generally form heterodimeric complexes with their associated effector proteins, activating the effector’s enzymatic activities upon target detection. The activation of effector proteins in the short Ago systems leads to bacterial cell death, a mechanism of sacrificing individuals to protect the community.

The article examines the Delphic prophecy, which, as ancient authors believed, concerned the Spartan king Leonidas and was associated with the events at Thermopylae in 480 BC2. Herodotus quotes this oracle both in prose and in poetic retelling (VII. 220. 3-4). Researchers have considerable doubts about the authenticity of both versions. We sought to prove that the two versions of the prophecy arose at different times: one, prosaic, and most likely authentic, appeared before Thermopylae, and the second, fabricated in Delphi, probably by order of the royal family of the Agiads, appeared after Thermopylae. It is important to emphasize that the Delphic prophecy, in which the death of the king was declared a condition for the salvation of Sparta, became an integral part of the myth of Leonidas. With the help of this heroic myth, Sparta skillfully transformed the defeat at Thermopylae into a victory for the Spartan spirit. The myth of Leonidas became a central part of the patriotic education of Spartan citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines several narratives about the posthumous veneration of King Leonidas in Sparta. The details of the funeral ceremony held for him are analyzed. Leonidas was the only ruler to be commemorated with three tombstones and three funerals, all in different locations. These unprecedented honors emphasized the exceptional importance attributed to Leonidas by the Spartan authorities. They affirmed his commanding role in strengthening Sparta’s reputation as the leader of the Greek resistance. Leonidas’ recognition and the annual holiday in his honor were fundamental in shaping the mentality of the Spartan citizens. He and the three hundred Spartans who perished with him at Thermopylae embodied the ideal of a noble death in defense of the homeland and showed the Spartans that they were expected to either triumph over the enemy or meet their fate. This concept became ingrained in the ideology of the Spartiates. The intrigue surrounding the transfer of Leonidas’ remains from Thermopylae to Sparta is discussed. Due to a gap in Pausanias’ text, the identity of those responsible for this action and its timing are still unknown. The speculation is fueled by the discrepancy between the name and date provided in the manuscript. Here, several different options to fill the gap are considered. Out of all the options, the one that involves the least amount of intervention, i.e., simply replacing one digit in the manuscript, stands out.

Sparta stands out as a prominent city-state of ancient Greece, renowned for its significant historical impact. Its legacy is marked not only by its involvement in major historical events but also by the 'peculiarities' attributed to the constitution and societal life of the Classical city. Ancient written sources often portrayed Sparta as a militaristic and patriotic model of severity, discipline and austerity, crafting narratives that emphasised these traits. Over time, these narratives have fascinated various audiences and frequently been used for ideological and political purposes. Locally, these historical narratives have affected aspects of the contemporary Spartan society and the expectations of visitors and scholars. Projects for the enhancement of Spartan archaeological sites were systematically implemented rather late, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This article discusses this development and explores the ways in which organised and accessible archaeological sites and their narratives can engage diverse audiences. It also considers how such efforts can challenge and revise established narratives, impacting local identity and regional development.

Artykuł dotyczy książki Sebastiana Rajewicza Schole. Czas wolny w Sparcie epoki klasycznej (Warszawa 2022). Podjęto w niej próbę weryfikacji szeroko rozpowszechnionej opinii, że życie obywateli Sparty było skoncentrowane na przygotowaniach do wojny i wypełnianiu innych obowiązków nałożonych przez państwo. Analiza materiału źródłowego odnoszącego się do epoki klasycznej wykazała, że na codzienne obowiązkowe zajęcia Spartanie, którzy ukończyli trzydziesty roku życia, poświęcali tylko kilka godzin dziennie. Większość dnia mogli poświęcić na prywatne aktywności, które w istotny sposób nie różniły się od zajęć czasu wolnego zamożnych obywateli innych greckich poleis. W artykule przedstawiono główne tezy monografii wskazując na ich podstawę źródłową oraz konfrontując je z opiniami wyrażonymi w literaturze przedmiotu.

This article argues for a more diverse approach to the appearance of enslaved persons in Greek historiography through an analysis of the Persian navy's battlefield tour of Thermopylae in Book 8 of Herodotus' Histories. Previous approaches to slavery in Greek historiography have rightly commented on the cultural awkwardness to Greek authors of slaves' extensive involvement in ancient warfare. However, this is only one aspect of how slaves featured in historiographical narrative. Herodotus continually problematizes the methods of enquiry and many characters within his work engage in enquiry-like activities. Book 8 itself is no different, with much of the action involving errors in human perception. The appearance of helots amongst the heroic dead at Thermopylae is intended both as a narrative reveal, since their presence has not previously been known to the reader, and as a comment on the contestation of Greek identity, which is framed at the start of Book 8 with a series of direct addresses to different groups of Greeks, all of whom take a different approach to their participation in the Persian Wars. Hence what appears to be an incidental detail can in fact be understood in the wider, thematic context of the Histories and especially that of the books concerning the Persian Wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As against the abiding popular image of the ever-dauntless Spartans, serious commentators have long recognized what a central part fear played in Lacedaemonian life: fear of the helots, fear of the laws, fear of defeat and dishonour and disgrace, without hope of respite this side of the grave. Yet the full implications of such a life, forever suspended most precariously 'between shame and glory' as Jean-Pierre Vernant put it, have not been drawn out, especially with respect to its supposed beneficiaries, the Spartiates, who were sacrificed to its merciless logic no less than those they were keeping under such brutal subjugation. This essay proposes to close the gap by fitting together the dispersed pieces and presenting a more comprehensive picture of the silent anxieties and hidden miseries of the vaunted masters of Sparta who purchased their dominion at so frightful a price, not only to others, but also to themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The factors that determined the peculiarities of the social status of women in Ancient Sparta have been identified and analysed. It has been demonstrated that the establishment of community control over private life, namely: strict regulation of marriage and family relations, the compulsory nature of specific general education, which started for girls at the age of eight and lasted until marriage, determined that the national interests of women became a priority and dominated family values. It has been found that in Sparta, as in other polities of ancient Greece, childbearing was considered the most important function of women, as the offspring were to continue family traditions and take care of their elderly parents, conduct religious rites, etc. Only male children were seen as future citizens and defenders of the polis. In Lacedaemon, motherhood acquired a more accentuated meaning and was understood as service to the state. It became the basis of marriage and family relations, where polyandry was perceived as the norm. The Spartan woman was socially active. She was a direct participant in religious festivals and rituals, sports competitions. She publicly ridiculed the bachelors and cowards. If her own son turned out to be a coward, she could kill him herself. A mother did not bear any legal responsibility for the murder of a cowardly son. The economic rights of Spartans, which other women in ancient Greece did not have, have been investigated. Due to her husband’s military service, a Lacedaemonian woman managed not only his oikos, but also his cleris. Polyandry allowed a woman to unite two or more “houses” under her control and thus increase her influence in society. It has been noted that a strong economic foundation allowed wealthy women to have more freedom in society and even influence those in power in making responsible political decisions. With the loss of Messenia, women lose their economic freedom. The social status of women also changes, as they become more subordinate to men. It has been argued that in Sparta, the state minimised the private life of spouses. Under such conditions, a woman was socially active, knew the inner life of the polis well, and understood the foreign policy priorities of the state. She acted as a motivator and guide of Spartan ideology for the men of her family. And in this way, the Lacedaemonian woman was significantly different from other women in ancient Greece.

Copyright of Thiasos Monografie is the property of Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon s.r.l. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the impact on Spartan historiography of Chapter IV of de Ste. Croix's Origins of the Peloponnesian War , focusing on his discussions of Spartan politics and society in Sections v–vi. These sections fit oddly within the overall chapter, but they blew a breath of fresh air into Spartan studies through their revisionist approach, intimations of the socio-economic bases of policy-making, and extended accounts of 'real-life' political episodes across the classical period. Along with Moses Finley's near-contemporary article on Sparta, OPW significantly influenced the following generation of British historians (including the author), although they often adopted different interpretations or developed new perspectives on Spartan society only hinted at by de Ste. Croix. OPW also had an important impact on Western European historiography on Spartan politics. Its combination of constitutional and societal approaches gives it an enduring currency in the context of developing Historical Institutionalist approaches to political studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses G.E.M. de Ste. Croix's contentions about the effect of Helotage on Spartan foreign policy articulated in chapter IV of Origins of the Peloponnesian War , namely that Sparta's Helot population was uniquely dangerous, constraining Sparta's ability to send large numbers of citizen hoplites abroad lest it be exposed to the threat within. It shows that while certain arguments advanced by Ste. Croix are no longer tenable in light of subsequent research, others still stand up to critical scrutiny fifty years on; furthermore, other points neglected by Ste. Croix reinforce his overall claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short preface is meant to explain the purpose of the present volume and point to the diverse approaches and lines of argument pursued by the contributors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argonaute proteins (Agos) represent a highly conserved family of proteins prevalent in all domains of life and have been implicated in various biological processes. Based on the domain architecture, Agos can be divided into long Agos and short Agos. While long Agos have been extensively studied over the past two decades, short Agos, found exclusively in prokaryotes, have recently gained attention for their roles in prokaryotic immune defence against mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids and phages. Notable functional and structural studies provide invaluable insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms of representative short Ago systems. Despite the diverse domain arrangements, short Agos generally form heterodimeric complexes with their associated effector proteins, activating the effector's enzymatic activities upon target detection. The activation of effector proteins in the short Ago systems leads to bacterial cell death, a mechanism of sacrificing individuals to protect the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note examines the significance of Gylippus at Aen. 12.271–83 and argues that Virgil's narrative is an epitaphic gesture alluding to Nicander of Colophon, Anth. Pal. 7.435 and other epigrams from Anth. Pal. 7. Virgil's bilingual reader would participate in the Hellenistic Ergänzungsspiel and supplement further meaning to this otherwise generic scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents contextual evidence for the interpretation of lead isotope analysis (LIA) of artefacts from the Archaic Greek Mediterranean. In particular, I make a response to Wood's suggestion in Archaeometry (2022, first view, 'Other ways to examine the finances behind the birth of Classical Greece') that the end of the production of lead votive figurines in Sparta might have been caused by Athenian restrictions to Laurion lead exports, drawing on new LIA of the Spartan lead votives and wider considerations concerning the trade, cost and volume of lead in the 7th to 5th century bce Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the circumstances that led to the revival of sports events in the territory of the Republic of Srpska Krajina in the second half of 1992, temporarily interrupted due to the war. First competitions started in football, by far the most popular sport. After the first part of the competition had ended according to the regional principle, the winners of the five regional competitions met at the final tournament in Glina at the beginning of August 1993. The title of the first champion of RSK was taken by the host team, Banija from Glina, ahead of Šparta from Beli Manastir. The paper was written on the basis of press and publications from Krajina and sports press from Serbia, relevant literature, material from Croatian archives and published memories.

The article deals with some topics connected with imperialist tendencies in Greece of the last half of the 5th and the first half of the 4th century BC and with treatment of these developments in the work of the authors mentioned in the title. The author argues against a recent hypothesis, according to which Herodotus was still alive and writing in the period when the Peloponnesian War came to its end. Observations are made concerning foreign-policy sympathies of Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon. A point is made that, if in the last half of the 5th century BC Athens sought to add the ἡγεμονία to its ἀρχή, later in the first half of the 4th century BC Sparta started transforming its ἡγεμονία to ἀρχή.

Hegemonya herhangi bir tehdit durumunda ortak düşmana karşı kurulan bir güç birliği anlamına gelmektedir. Herhangi bir zorlama ya da baskı olmaksızın ortaya çıkan bu birlikteliklerin en önemli koşulu ise kurulan ittifaklara üye devletlerin kendi rızasıyla dâhil olmasıdır. Yunan Klasik Çağı’ndan itibaren görülen hegemonik blokların ortaya çıkışının en önemli nedeni söz konusu dönemi karakterize eden Pers istilalarıdır. Perslerin Yunanistan’ı işgali şehir-devletlerinin ortak tehdide karşı bir araya gelmelerini sağlamış fakat zamanla bu birlikteliğin kendi içinde başlayan güç yarışı yeni bir savaşa neden olmuştur. Peloponnessos Savaşları olarak adlandırılan ve Antik Çağ’ın en büyük mücadelesi olarak nitelendirilen bu savaşlar başlangıçta müttefik olan fakat kendi müttefiklerinin rızası dışında bir hegemonya kurmaya başlayan Atina İmparatorluğuna karşı yapılmıştır. Tam olarak yirmi yedi yıl süren ve hegemon olma yolunda yapılan mücadelelerin en önemli örneği olarak bilinen Peloponnessos Savaşları, Antik Yunan’ın en büyük iki şehir-devleti olan Atina ve Sparta arasında meydana gelmiştir. Başta Atina ve Sparta olmak üzere diğer şehir-devletlerinin bağımsızlık mücadelesinden doğan Peloponnessos Savaşları’nın yıkıcı etkisi Yunan şehir-devletlerinin bağımsızlıklarını kaybetmelerine ve yabancı bir devlet olan Makedonya hegemonyası altına girmelerine neden olmuştur.

This article considers and analyzes the ancient sources mentioning the role played by the helots in the upbringing of sons of Spartan citizens. The focus is on the ways and forms through which the helots were exploited to educate the young generation there. The status of the helots poses a significant challenge to researchers because there are few sources on this issue, mostly dated back to a later period. Thus, all observations and reasoning can be only hypothetical at present. The system of public education in Sparta assumed complete separation of the civilian youth from other groups of residents, especially from the helots, in order to cultivate a sense of being chosen among them: they were forced to believe that a deep abyss existed between them and the helots. To widen and aggravate this impairment, a number of rules were introduced, such as obligatory helotic clothes making those wearing them stand out in the crowd. The analysis of the sources shows that the helots were cast in a poor light as an important part of the ideological education of the Spartans. They were exposed as living examples of the worst behaviors that were allegedly inherent in them and unacceptable to other citizens. It was a common practice to portray the helots as drunkards or freaks to inspire contempt and disgust for them in the young people of Sparta. By absorbing this ideology, the latter were prepared for the crypteia, when they had to attack the helots or, possibly, even carry out their mass executions. The strict segregation imposed in Sparta became the basis of the relations between the Spartans and the helots, impeded social mobility, and consolidated the social hierarchy.

A majority of scholars view the Hasmonean-Spartan correspondence, reported in 1 Maccabees, as inauthentic, since it contains many improbabilities, including the assertion that the Jews and the Spartans are fraternal nations. However, its patent implausibility also renders it unimaginable that the correspondence was intended to be understood literally. Hence, the binary choice offered in research, whereby it is either a bizarre fabrication or an authentic correspondence, despite all its peculiarities, is problematic. The Hasmonean-Spartan correspondence thus remains a conspicuous, unresolved enigma in the research of 1 Maccabees and the early Hasmonean period. Based on a textual clue, this article proposes a solution, namely, that the correspondence is, in fact, an ingenious derision of the Jews' authentic ethnic "brothers"—the Samaritans. This suggestion provides new insights into the history of the early Hasmoneans and the literary creativity of the author of 1 Maccabees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the quotations from Friedrich Schiller's essay 'Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und Solon' (1789), from the first leaflet of the Weiße Rose, and the unattributed quotation from a poem by Theodor Körner in the sixth and last. The political issues raised in the leaflets are brought into focus by a comparison with the avowed Spartophilia of the Nazi regime and its academic camp-followers. Arising from the discussion of the quotations, the article also considers the problematic status of the 'Abendland' in the discourse of the Weiße Rose, and reflects more broadly on the way the leaflets are to be read. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The setting for the greater part of the Protagoras is the notorious home of Callias. But that space is continuously re-imagined and refocalized by the various characters, Socrates included. The narrative thus passes from the comic stage and the Underworld to council-chamber, epideictic auditorium, panhellenic assembly, panhellenic prytaneum of the wise, symposium (devoted to literary culture and the testing of one's fellow-symposiast), an occult Sparta, the Delphic seat of the Seven Sages, and the agora. With this last the contest of narrative spaces comes full circle, clearing the way for a better use of Callias's home and hospitality (361d). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the Spartan harmost Thibron, who led two expeditions to Asia in the first decade of the 4th century. It aims both to reconstruct the historical events, which are set in a context in which Sparta’s political action is characterised by both panhellenic and imperialistic traits, and the different representations of the harmost provided by the sources, in particular Xenophon and Diodorus.

The article discusses the system of punishments used in Sparta for two offenses: for refusing to marry and for cowardice shown in battle. Ancient authors, especially Xenophon and Plutarch, give a list of punishments for these offenses. In court, the perpetrators were deprived of many of the rights directly related to the status of full citizens. Extrajudicial punishments were mostly spectacular and took place in public places. Spartan youth played a special role in the persecution of bachelors and so-called tremblers as the two main categories to be punished. However, the few testimonies that have come down to us do not make it possible to determine how often punishments for refusing to marry and for cowardice in battle were applied and how exactly they were formalised in practice. The almost complete absence in the tradition of specific examples of their application leads to the conclusion that the picture drawn by ancient authors does not fully correspond to reality. This is what Spartan propaganda wanted to present to the outside world. The writers-laconophiles, like Critias or Xenophon, in turn, used this material to create an ideal image of Sparta.

In this work we propose a new algorithm to train and optimize an ensemble of classifiers. We call this algorithm the Krypteia ensemble, based on an ancient Spartan tradition designed to convert their most promising individuals into future leaders of their society. We show how to adapt this ancient custom to optimize classifiers by generating different variations of the same task, each one offering different hardships according to distinct stochastic variables. This is thus applied to induce diversity in the set of individual weak learners. Then, we use a set of agents designed to select those subjects who excel in their assignments, and whose interaction minimizes excessive redundancies in the resulting population. We also study how different Krypteia ensembles can be stacked together, so that more complex classifiers can be built using the same procedure. Besides, we consider a wide range of different aggregation functions in the decision making phase to find the optimal performance for the different Krypteia ensemble variations tested. Finally, we study how different Krypteia ensembles perform for a wide range of classification datasets and we compare them with other state-of-the-art design techniques of classifier ensembles, obtaining favourable results to our proposal. • We propose a way to train classifier ensembles based on an ancient Spartan costume. • We obtain better results than those achieved using state-of-the-art ensembles. • We study the effects of different parameters of the algorithm using a CART model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a historical commentary on Herodotus' account of the funerals of the Spartan kings. It is an attempt on the author's part to explain why for centuries the royal funerary ritual continued unchanged despite its being too lavish for ascetic Sparta. The study focuses on the socio-economic composition of the funeral attendees. In the author's opinion, the participation of representatives of the lower classes - the helots and perioikoi - in the ceremony facilitated the evolvement of elites from both categories of the Spartan subordinate population. The funeral ceremony performed an important ideological and propaganda function serving as a unifying factor for all the social classes and indoctrinating the masses with the belief in the eternal and immutable nature of the royal authority and, by extension, of the Spartan state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article draws a comparison between the Peloponnesian War between ancient Sparta and Athens, on the one hand, and Russia and the West, on the other. Rather than economic and utilitarian ethics, the author proposes that aggression on the part of oppressive as opposed to democratic regimes is driven by the fear of future insignificance. Democracies represent a threat to autocracies not so much by their military power and expansionist politics, but by their very existence, openness, and the freedoms they grant their citizens. This framework is used to explain Russia's imperialist aggression and oppression of its neighbors and its fear of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Lampito, the Spartan character who takes part in the pacifist plot of Aristophanes' Lysistrata (411 BC), has been inspired by both parents of Agis II, the king of Sparta who led the war against Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian War and fortified Deceleia in 413 BC. Agis' mother bore the quite rare name of Lampito as well; his father, the 'pacifist' King Archidamos II, voted against the war at the Spartan Assembly in 432. Aristophanes knew of Archidamos' speech from oral tradition, possibly from the report of the Athenian ambassadors at Sparta or, alternatively and more probably, from public readings of Thucydides' account of the pre-war debate that took place in the Spartan Assembly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is inspired by the notions of "financial risk" and "financial uncertainties" and transfers their basic reasoning to social science analysis; that is, it develops a theoretical analysis in order to explain social and political change. We know that the degree of social and political change depends on the set of established institutions in a society. Societies can face two extremes: volatility, e.g., rapid changes that lead to instability, which increases the risk of a system or regime collapsing, or rigidity, which does not permit necessary adaptation and change and thus may again increase the risk of the regime collapsing. Thus, an optimal (or ideal) point of change is between the two extremes, permitting change that is neither too sudden and fast nor too slow and inflexible. To illustrate this, we analyze two cases from ancient Greece: Sparta, as a society and state with too many institutional checks and balances that led to rigidity and collapse, and Athens, which in the 5th century BCE had an institutional setting with very limited checks and balances, which again led to near collapse until the late 5th century BCE, when new institutions that were related to some efficient checks and balances were introduced that enabled the state to survive in a world of changing circumstances and balances of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nell'ottavo libro delle Storie, gli Ateniesi danno una celebre definizione di Hellenikón che fornisce molti spunti di riflessione. Di fronte al timore degli Spartani di un loro possibile tradimento a favore dei Persiani, essi rispondono che non farebbero mai una cosa simile perché i Greci hanno lo stesso sangue, parlano la stessa lingua e venerano gli stessi dèi. Siamo di fronte ad una delle più antiche ed efficaci definizioni di comunità dal punto di vista identitario che presenta però al contempo alcune tracce di ambiguità. Erodoto fornisce, infatti, un quadro molto problematico del mondo greco del V secolo in cui spesso le città appaiono interessate maggiormente alla difesa dei loro interessi, piuttosto che al sostegno degli alleati. Lo scopo di questo contributo è comprendere fino a che punto per Erodoto, che visse almeno in parte la violenza fratricida della Guerra del Peloponneso, esistesse la 'Grecità' e quanto questa idea fosse rilevante in un periodo di così grave divisione per il mondo ellenico. Summary: In the eighth book of the "Histories" the Athenians give a famous definition of the Hellenikón which is for sure cause for reflection. They answer to the Spartans that are worried about their possible betrayal in favor of the Persians that Athens would never do such a thing because the Greeks have all the same blood, they speak the same language and they worship the same goods. Their speech is very powerful but also a bit ambiguous. What does it mean actually to be Greek? As everybody knows the polis system was very heterogeneous and it's not so easy to identify the elements that united people which lived in a world which was almost always struggled by civil wars. Herodotus presents a very problematic reality in which the Greek cities appear often more interested in protecting their own interests than in helping the others. The aim of this article is to understand if for Herodotus, which experienced at least a part of the bloody Peloponessian war, actually existed a 'Greekness' and which was for him the weight of this idea in a so conflicting reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the monuments and spatial confrontation between Athens and Sparta during the 5th century BC, a period marked by rising tensions between these two preeminent city states culminating in the Peloponnesian War and defeat of Athens. Often it is the rhetoric of orators or speeches in Thucydides that have been closely studied, while the monuments, though more accessible to the world beyond Athens and Sparta, have played a supporting role. In this paper I attempt to demonstrate that the Spartans, often maligned for their disinterest in monumental display, were able to adapt their monuments according to the space which they occupied in order to compete with Athens. The paper is concerned with two particular spaces: the Pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Delphi and the city of Athens, specifically the space either side of the entrance to the city through the Dipylon Gate. Both of these locations received major Athenian monuments in the mid-late fifth century, the Marathon victory monument and the Stoa Poikile respectively, which sought to not only project the idea of Athenian superiority but also undermine the prominence of Sparta in the eyes of the rest of the Greeks. Following the defeat of Athens at the end of the fifth century, both these monuments were countered with Spartan ones, the Aigospotami monument in Delphi and the Tomb of the Lakedaimonians in the Athenian Kerameikos. Both of these monuments seek to undermine the message of the earlier Athenian dedications, yet do so in very different ways according to the spaces in which the monuments are constructed. Through this confrontation and manipulation both of space and artistic form, the Spartans demonstrate a deeper appreciation for the power of visual monuments than they are often credited and show an ability to adapt their monumental style to suit different spaces and contexts.

Razumijevanje rodoslovlja i društvene uvjetovanosti promjena obrazovnih sustava može se tražiti u antičkim izvorima: Sparti i Ateni. Interpretacijom su uspoređeni obrazovni sustavi antičkih polisa, a neka njihova obilježja su na razini jukstapozicije uspoređena s obrazovnim politikama Europske unije. Usporedbom je potvrđena hipoteza o postojanju zajedničkih prioritetnih odgojno-obrazovnih tema u društvima istog rodoslovlja na različitom stupnju povijesnog i tehnološkog razvoja. Stereotipna interpretacija vidi Spartu kao zajednicu hrabrih patriota vojnika u kojoj je obrazovanje bilo apsolutno politički institucionalizirano, dok se Atena percipira kao demokratska zajednica humanistički obrazovanih slobodnih građana bez izravne stroge političke kontrole obrazovanja. Na razini jukstapozicije, antički obrazovni sustavi uspoređeni su sa suvremenom europskom obrazovnom politikom s obzirom na: (1) svrhu obrazovanja; (2) dostupnost obrazovanja; (3) strukturiranost kurikuluma i vrijednosne pokazatelje; (4) prepoznavanje talenta i (5) praćenje kvalitete obrazovanja. U zaključku rada navode se ograničenja studije te se naglašava temeljna srodnost tema koje su se istakle analizom.