[Colorado Mike]

Amazing. For all the critisms you make, without Sparta, Greece as we know it would never have come into being, and all those other little details (democracy, etc.) wouldn't either. So easy even a caveman could get it. :)

[Sols]

That's a hell of an assertation to make and then not support. Sure, they contributed troops to efforts to stop foreign invasions of Greece but they promptly turned around and dominated the other city-states, instituting hegemony over European and Asian Greece. Then they surrendered Asian Greece to Persia to gain their favor.