A look at the commemoration of the Persian Wars, especially the Battle of Thermopylae, through commemorative epigrams. A comparison of Spartan commemoration with that of other Greeks, concluding that initially the Spartans did not frame Thermopylae or the Persian Wars as a struggle for Greece or freedom, but as an arena for demonstrating excellence and winning glory.

A meditation on how militaristic commemoration continues to influence attitudes towards war and increase the liklihood of more wars being fought in the future. Since the Spartans did not initially commemorate their wars as acts of liberation or altrusim, leading in the beginning to fewer rather than more wars, we should reconsider framing our wars as virtuous and selfless campaigns to help others, at least if we want wars to stop occurring.

A study of Archaic Spartan commemoration, starting with Homeric ideas and the poetry of Tyrtaeus. A look at some key commemorative events in Archaic Sparta, including Sparta’s relationship with Samos and the Messenian Wars. A consideration of the role of commemoration in Spartan religion and cult.

The reception of Sparta, especially the Three Hundred, through 18th-century France, 19th- 20th-century Germany, 19th-century America, the Second World War, the Cold War, and today. A considering of how Sparta’s own distortion of Thermopylae in antiquity has been amplified throughout the centuries to leave us with the legacy of Thermopylae as a war for freedom when at the time it was not framed in any such way.

A study of Agesilaus and his Penhellenism and mission to "free the Greeks" of Asia. Agesilaus wanted to be commemorated as a liberator well outside of Sparta, which was a major contributor to Sparta’s decline as increased wars weakened Sparta irreparably.

Introduction to Spartan society and commemoration. A discussion of terms, methods, and themes. An introduction to memory studies. A look at the topography of ancient Sparta.

The author first addresses the contents and the nature of the proems of the Histories, secondly the arrangement of Ephorus’ work and, thirdly, the main contents of each of the thirty books that formed it.

In light of the conclusions reached in the previous chapters and the knowledge gained through the fragments, the author addresses the issue of Ephorus’ universality. He tries to understand which reasons led Polybius to mention Ephorus as his only predecessor; and he sets Ephorus’ universality in the context of the historiographical thought of the fourth century BC, to better appreciate its novelty.

The author detects which principles Ephorus stated in his Histories for research, and how he practised his inquiry. This enables the author to see whether Ephorus’ practice of inquiry was in line with the principles he stated or not, and also to draw an overall balanced evaluation of Ephorus’ historiographical method and the nature of his historical discourse.

Perhaps no ancient writer has experienced so great a reversal in modern reception as the fourth-century bc historian Ephorus of Cyme. In his preface to the first edition of Ephorus’ fragments by Meier Marx (1815), the German scholar Friedrich Creuzer depicted Ephorus as a philosophos who might be well compared to Herodotus’ Solon, who travels and observes to learn,1 or – one could add – to Polybius’ Odysseus, who ‘saw the cities and knew the minds of many men’.