It would be wrong to imagine Sparta as a Spartan city. Its broad avenues lined with orange and palm trees, the pedestrianised shopping streets, and the squares with parks and fountains, give this city in the heart of the Peloponnese a feeling of space and proportion found in few Greek cities or towns.
There are few reminders of ancient Sparta apart from the excavated theatre, some stones at the Acropolis, slight remains of the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, where Spartan boys endured flogging, the site of the Menelaion, and a modern statue to Leonidas outside the football stadium.
Thucydides predicted that if the city of Sparta were deserted, "distant ages would be very unwilling to believe its power all equal to its fame." Indeed, ancient Sparta lay deserted for centuries, and the grid-like layout of parallel streets and avenues betrays the fact that modern Sparta was founded in 1834 by Otto I, the Bavarian prince who became King of Greece.
Ancient Sparta was finally abandoned in the 13th century when its dwindling population sought refuge on the slopes of the mountains six km to the west, beneath the citadel on top of Mystras, a steep flank of Mount Taiyettos.
After the pillaging of the fourth crusade and the plunder of Constantinople, the Frankish barons led by the Champlitte and Villehardouin clans swept through the Peloponnese in the 13th century and divided the peninsula into feudal baronies under the Prince of Morea. In 1249, William de Villehardouin tried to secure his territory with a new citadel in the Taiyettos range, but it fell into Greek hands after his defeat in 1262. Two years later, the people of Sparta abandoned their patrimony and moved onto the steep slopes beneath the fortress, building a new city.
For almost two centuries, Mystras was the last outpost of the empire and its virtual capital was ruled by despots who were usually brothers or sons of the emperors. The last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, was crowned here in the Mitropolis (or cathedral) on January 6th, 1449, four years before Constantinople fell to the Turks.
Today, Mystras is probably the most exciting and dramatic site in the Peloponnese, though it is a ghost town. Medieval palaces and houses, mansions and stables, winding streets and monumental gates, stables and fountains, arches and domes, all stand uninhabited, muted and petrified on the steep slopes beneath the citadel.
While Constantinople was in terminal decay, the hillside city became the focus of a defiant rebirth of Byzantine power, culture and glory. Under the Palaiologi emperors and despots, the last Byzantine dynasty, Mystras was the cultural and intellectual centre of the Byzantine world throughout the 14th century and for much of the 15th century, with a cultural renaissance which attracted the finest of Byzantine scholars, theologians, philosophers, artists and architects.
With the building of the Despots' Palace and dozens of churches with their domes and frescoes, Mystras saw the last great flourish of Byzantine cultural life. Every church in Mystras had its own individual form, subjected with grace to the canons of classical simplicity, proportion and balance. Inside, the walls, arches and apses are decorated with Byzantine frescoes executed with pious attention to detail, form, colour and rhythmic movement. In Western Europe, only Assisi can rival Mystras for its churches and frescoes.
The Mitropolis of St Demetrios, a three-aisled basilica on the ground floor with a narthex and a bell tower, and a cross-in-square church on the upper floor, was built in the last decades of the 13th century. The interior is decorated with wall paintings from three different schools painted between the period 1270-1280 and the first quarter of the 14th century; the dome was painted in the 15th century. Overlooking the courtyard outside, a small museum exhibits recent finds from the hillside city and its churches.
The diminutive Perivleptos, a single-domed church partially carved out of the cliff rocks of the south-east slope, contains the most complete cycle of frescoes in Mystras, many dating from the 14th century.
on monastery was the burial place of despots and abbots, and the centre of cultural and intellectual life in the 15th century city. It consists of two of the earliest churches in Mystras, Saints plural correct Theodore and the Hodeggetria (or Aphendiko), both founded at the end of the 13th century by the Abbot Pachomios.
Remarkable wall paintings are preserved in the sanctuary and the chapels of the Church of Aghia Sophia, dating from the 14th century. The highest church on the slopes and the one closest to the citadel, it was founded by the first despot of Mystras, Manuel Kantakouzenos.
The convent church of Pan tanassa, built in 1428 by Ioannis Frangopoulos, is the finest surviving church in Mystras. Perfectly proportioned in its blend of Byzantine and Gothic architecture, it is impressive in its elegance and refinement. Its frescoes are filled with bright colour and movement, and David Talbot Rice wrote: "Only El Greco in the west, and later Gauguin, would have used their colours in just this way."
Today, apart from six nuns living at the Pantanassa Convent, Mystras is deserted. This city, which once had a population of 40,000, was fought for as a prize by Franks, Crusaders, Byzantines, Turks, Albanians and Greeks. It inspired Goethe as he portrayed Helen in his second Faust in 1824. But it has remained deserted since the new city of Sparta was built over 160 years ago.
Many of the stones from ancient Sparta were used to build the houses of Mystras in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the last century, the stones of Mystras were used to build the new Sparta. The last 30 or so remaining families were removed from the lower town in 1952 when excavation and restoration began in earnest.
Today, with its history and myths, Mystras rises through the mists of the Morea. The visitor is free to walk through its streets, often alone, and wander through the glory of a preserved and restored Byzantine gem, a unique museum and art gallery preserved intact and on site.
