conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Sparta about Sparta, Greek, Spartan with the genre: History, Ancient Civilizations.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: " In Sparta, the author...presents a carefully delineated political and military history of this powerful Greek city-state....The history of Sparta is largely a military history. It was mostly through diplomacy, negotiation, and, ultimately, war that Spartan fortunes rose and fell."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Sparta
  After that the long-delayed reforms of Agis were imposed in full. Admittedly they were imposed at sword-point, but Cleomenes had no intention of becoming a dictator. He had effectively staged a coup against his own government, but he rejected accusations that in his attempt to reinstate the laws of Lycurgus he had perversely violated the most basic of those same laws. It was true that a long-standing tradition of civic harmony had been broken, but Cleomenes pointed out that the Ephors and their backers had started it. He claimed that he was more in the position of a doctor who has to cause some discomfort in order to purge a patient of dangerous toxins. Once the Laws of Lycurgus were restored to their rightful place in the constitution and vice, luxury and corruption were purged from the state, civic peace would be restored.
  Even those whom Cleomenes had exiled were allocated lands, just as were the other Spartiates both old and freshly created. Once things had settled down, Cleomenes intended both to re-establish the Ephorate and to restore the exiles to their newly allocated lands. Likewise, Cleomenes wanted to restore the traditional joint kingship. Circumstances had recently been difficult for the Agaid line, so there were no suitable candidates to be had. In the end, enjoyed the innovation of a joint Eurypontid kingship as Cleomenes made a king of his brother Eucleidas.
  This was not his only innovation. Cleomenes had seen the effectiveness of the pikemen employed by the Macedonians, and now he equipped some of his own men with the long two-handed sarissa and trained them in the formation which the Macedonians had used to subdue the rest of Greece. Then he promptly led that reformed army out on a test run against Megalopolis and devastated that city's lands. Wisely, the Megalopolitans did not oppose the ns who, for the first time in decades, were able to make a military incursion into Messenia. Then Cleomenes marched north to Elis and again defeated the Achaean League, forcing Aratus to temporarily step aside from the leadership.
  Indeed, the undoing of Cleomenes turned out to be his very success, combined with 's previous record of misuse of power when in control of Greek affairs. as a minor power in the southern Peloponnese was one thing, a threatening to regain its earlier pre-eminence was something else again. The people of Greece knew what it was like to be under the repressive n thumb and had no wish to be back there again. Also, now that Cleomenes looked as though he might become a real power in the Hellenistic world, the established powers began to give their serious and very unfriendly attention.
  One of the basic reasons why the Achaean League had come into being was as a Greek bulwark against Macedonian dominance. Yet Aratus (back in power) now opened negotiations with the Macedonians with the intention of allying with them against. It says much about the legacy of earlier periods of n primacy that even the prospect of 's restoration meant that the Achaeans and their Greek allies were prepared to accept as an alternative collaboration with what most still considered a Macedonian army of occupation. (Not that there was not severe dissatisfaction with the alliance with Macedon. Some historians believe that Aratus had opened these negotiations earlier, and it was partly this that caused the defection of Argos and Corinth to the n side.)
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Nabis had also renewed the long-standing association between and the Cretans. He converted the harbour of Gythium (the port of Laconia) into a full-scale naval base and allowed the Cretans use of this base to raid Achaean and Roman merchantmen. Doubtless many poorer Laconians took service as rowers in this rather ad hoc naval assemblage. In theory this raiding – decried by Nabis' detractors as piracy – should have stopped when Nabis realized the war was going against Philip V and adroitly switched sides. His price for betraying Philip for Rome was that he kept Argos and other minor territorial gains. Regrettably, the Cretans were slow to stop their very profitable depredations on Roman and Achaean shipping, and this attracted hostile Roman attention.
  Consequently once the Romans had defeated Philip, they held an assembly of their Greek allies at Corinth. At this assembly the Roman commander Flamininus ordered the ns to relinquish Argos. The ns refused, arguing that a bit of piracy was insufficient to justify such demands. That the demand to return Argos was little more than a pretext for crushing became clear when the Romans left Argos in n hands and advanced on the Peloponnese itself with 40,000 men. This was far more than a mere punitive force. It was evidently intended to be an army of conquest, especially when some 10,000 Achaeans were added to that number.
  In the conflict that followed, the ns proved again that even if the composition of its army had changed radically, Laconia still produced some of the best and most stubborn warriors in Greece. was attacked, but held out – and holding out against a veteran Roman army was a feat that several of the greatest cities in the ancient world had recently failed to achieve. Even at the port of Gythium the vastly outnumbered ns fought Rome to a losing draw. They eventually surrendered the port but were allowed to march with their arms to join Nabis at.
  At this point Flamininus was becoming somewhat disillusioned with the naked imperialism of his Achaean allies, and began to appreciate the value of as a counterweight to Achaean ambition. He offered terms which Nabis was prepared to accept, but which the n assembly refused until a further round of siege assaults changed their minds. (Why the supposedly tyrannical Nabis put proposals to the n assembly and deferred to their decision is something that Polybius does not explain.)
  Argos revolted against the ns as soon as they heard that was under attack. It turned out that their rebellion was unnecessary, as the terms of the peace the ns eventually made with Rome was that Argos should be freed (whereupon it was promptly absorbed into the Achaean League). Also made independent were several other cities along the Laconian coastline that had been under n domination for centuries. Peace broke out, and in accordance with his announcement that the cities of Greece were now 'free', Flamininus and his legions returned to Rome.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.. End with the sentence ' (Tomas Jokl)'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: King Nabis, portrait taken from a contemporary coin. It was typical of the ns that they adopted coinage much later than the rest of Greece, and – as with other 'modern' concepts – they rather bungled the implementation.
  Head of Philip II of Macedon. The rise of nation-states such as Rome and Macedon meant that the traditional Greek polis was outmatched in manpower and resources. was not the only polis which failed to compete.
  The remains of the theatre, as seen from the n acropolis. Despite their puritannical image, the ns valued highly both song and dance. (Jackie Whalen)
  The remains of the walls of. For generations it was the proud boast of the ns that their walls were the shields of their warriors. However, the declining Spartiate population eventually rendered that boast unfeasible. (M. Bretherton)
  This single olive tree of tough wood shows the difficulty involved in destroying even the few acres of olive trees shown on the right. (Tomas Jokl)