A Companion to Sparta – A Review
By Owain Williams
Ancient Sparta has been and continues to be a subject that inspires popular interest – arguably more so than any other topic from Greek antiquity. Despite Sparta’s popularity, the information you can find online about it is, at best, outdated, or, at its worst, completely wrong, and is even propagated by people who should, ultimately, know better. This is most prominent when it comes to discussions of Sparta’s military reputation, as evidenced by a recent video released by World History Encyclopedia – and succinctly dismissed by Owen Rees.
Of course, there are plenty of books out there that you can consult for well-researched, up-to-date discussions of ancient Spartan history and society. For example, I reviewed Stephen Hodkinson’s Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, a foundation text for modern studies of ancient Sparta, on the blog; and more recently, I reviewed Andrew Bayliss’ Sparta: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Superpower in AH 58. Yet these books are not for everyone. Hodkinson’s book is academic to the point of being inaccessible to a general audience, while readers more familiar with ancient Sparta may find Bayliss’ book overly introductory.
For readers who want to learn more about Sparta beyond a general introduction, but who are not interested in academic publications, it can seem like there is no obvious place to start. However, in December 2025, Wiley published the paperback version of A Companion to Sparta, an 800-page tome meant to offer readers an overview of the modern academic understanding of ancient Sparta.
Composed of almost 30 chapters, A Companion to Sparta offers readers a thorough, comprehensive overview of Spartan history and society. It is not an exaggeration to say that everything you could want is covered in this volume. The late Anton Powell, editor of the volume, and Stephen Hodkinson discuss the issues facing the study of ancient Sparta, namely the problems with the source material and our understanding of the societal control in ancient Sparta. There are also chapters detailing various periods of Spartan history, including the Hellenistic and Roman periods, which tend to be overlooked in more popular histories of Sparta. The volume also includes plenty of chapters exploring different elements of Spartan society, from Spartan education to the nature of the Spartan dyarchy and even Spartan historical memory in the Roman period – all written by leading experts in Spartan history, many of whom readers will recognise. Some readers may note the absence of a chapter devoted to Sparta’s military, but this topic is so intertwined with other developments in Spartan society that it is discussed throughout the book. For example, Anton Powell discusses Sparta’s military reputation in the chapter ‘Sparta’s Foreign – and Internal – History, 478–403’.
The hardback version, published as a two-volume edition in 2017, costs over £260 – hardly a price the average reader should be expected to pay! Now, though, the single-volume paperback edition costs £48. This is still relatively pricey when compared to more generalist publications, but the sheer wealth of information the book includes makes it worthwhile for readers who want to more seriously study ancient Sparta.
