After invading Greece and receiving the submission of other key city-states, Philip II of Macedon sent a message to Sparta: "If I invade Laconia you will be destroyed, never to rise again." The Spartan ephors replied with a single word: "If." Subsequently neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to capture the city.
But the Romans did.
That spelled the end of Sparta as an independent culture.
Just saying.
The Spartans took the hint and never attacked the Macedonians. Sparta by then was much diminished. Thebes pretty much beat them and Phillip learned the art of war when he lived in Thebes as a royal hostage.