Sparta

Sparta was a prominent ancient Greek city-state in Laconia, in the southeastern Peloponnese, where the surrounding state was called Lacedaemon and Sparta itself denoted a cluster of settlements in the Evrotas River valley. During the 7th century BC it rose to become the most prominent land military power in the Greek world, led Greek forces against Persia with King Leonidas at Thermopylae in 480 BC and Pausanias at Plataea in 479 BC, and went into terminal decline as a military power after its defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC, eventually being annexed by the Achaean League in 188 BC.