Did the ancient Spartans become extinct, or are there descendants?

Answer by Lina Hall, studied at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

leonidas thermo sparta mik.jpg

Spartans are still there. Sparta was just the capital of Lacedaemonia, hence the L on their shields, not an S but an L… Calling them Spartans isn’t exactly wrong but is not exactly correct either…Is like calling all the English people Londoners. When Sparta was destroyed, they went to Mani and the rest of the their rural areas….Those areas were already filled with villages and small towns, inhabited by people who were also Lacedaemonians….or Spartans, as they are mostly known.

When Sparta was rebuild the people who inhabited it were their descendants, Laceadaemoneans who came from all over Lacedaemonia to fill the city.

So yes, the Spartans or else the Lacedeamoneans are still there and they were into isolation for the most part of their history and opened up to the world just the last 50 years.

People have the wrong idea when they talk about Sparta and the Spartans. they imagine a big city that when it got destroyed all was over. Wrong. Sparta was the gate of Lacedaemonia, Evan today its the first thing you see when you enter the area. It was build as a wall, in order to defend the area of Lacedaemonia, to protect its many towns and villages from attackers. What you call Sparta isnt Sparta, is Lacedaemonia an area filled with towns and villages protected by their capital. So the fall of Sparta meant nothing to the existence of “Spartans” but rather a painful blow to their ego.