Sparta Trivia
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49 free Sparta trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Sparta trivia quiz covers the ancient city-state most people know only from Thermopylae: how it was really governed (two kings, five ephors and a council of 28 old men), the Lycurgan reforms, the agoge that took boys at seven, the messes, the iron money, and the helots who outnumbered their masters and were ritually declared war on every year. It also asks about the wars that made and broke Sparta: Thermopylae and Plataea, the great earthquake of 464 BC, the Peloponnesian War and Aegospotami, the Corinthian War, Leuctra in 371 BC and the loss of Messenia, the one-word reply to Philip II, and King Agis III dying on his knees at Megalopolis. Spartan women, Queen Gorgo, the Olympic champion Cynisca, the 'Spartan mirage', the sack by Alaric, and the movie 300 round it out. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on Sparta, Thermopylae and the film, and each explanation adds one further detail. Good for classics students, history buffs and anyone who has ever shouted 'This is Sparta' at a quiz night.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which region of the Peloponnese was Sparta located?
Laconia
Laconia: the region gave English the word 'laconic', because its Spartans were famous for saying a great deal in very few words.
Q 02On the banks of which river was ancient Sparta built?
Eurotas
Eurotas: Spartan boys in training slept on beds of rushes they had to break from its banks with their bare hands, because knives were not allowed.
Q 03How many kings ruled Sparta at the same time?
Two
Two: one king came from the Agiad family and one from the Eurypontid, both claiming descent from Heracles and equal in authority, so neither could overrule the other.
Q 04Which semi-mythical lawgiver is credited with Sparta's constitution?
Lycurgus
Lycurgus: in Plutarch's telling he made the Spartans swear to keep his laws until he returned from Delphi, then starved himself to death there so the oath could never lapse.
Q 05What was the state-owned enslaved population that made up most of Sparta's inhabitants called?
Helots
Helots: every year Sparta formally declared war on them, so that killing one counted as an act of war and brought no religious guilt.
Q 06What were the free non-citizen inhabitants of Spartan territory called?
Perioikoi
Perioikoi: full citizens were forbidden to touch trade or manufacture, so these free outsiders made the army's weapons and armour and ran Sparta's commerce.
Q 07What was the Spartan military education system called?
The agoge
The agoge: a boy had to come through it to become a full citizen, and the only ones the law excused were the heirs to the throne.
Q 08In legend, a Spartan boy let which stolen animal claw him to death?
Fox
Fox: Plutarch says the boy hid it under his cloak and kept silent rather than be caught, since boys in training from the age of seven were kept hungry, expected to steal food and beaten if found out.
Q 09Which Spartan council of elders, elected for life, sat alongside the kings?
The Gerousia
The Gerousia: its members were chosen by shouting, with judges shut in a nearby room deciding which candidate drew the loudest cheer, a method one ancient critic called childish.
Q 10What were the annually elected Spartan officials called who eventually eclipsed the kings in power?
Ephors
Ephors: every month the kings swore to obey the laws, and only on that condition did these officials swear in return to keep the kings in power.
Q 11According to legend, what did Spartan currency consist of, to discourage hoarding?
Iron bars
Iron bars: ancient writers say the money was so bulky that even a modest sum filled a storeroom and needed a wagon to move, so a bribe or a theft could never be hidden.
Q 12Which Spartan king led the last stand at Thermopylae in 480 BC?
Leonidas
Leonidas: Herodotus believed he sent most of the Greek army away and stayed with his 300 because an oracle had warned that either Sparta would be destroyed or a king must die.
Q 13Which Persian king led the invasion that the Spartans faced at Thermopylae?
Xerxes
Xerxes: he found it laughable when a scout reported the Spartans exercising and combing their hair, and would not believe the exiled Spartan king who said this was how they prepared to risk their lives.
Q 21Which Spartan king, lame from birth, campaigned against Persia in Anatolia after Sparta's victory over Athens?
Agesilaus II
Agesilaus II: an oracle had warned Sparta against a 'lame reign', but his ally Lysander argued it meant a king of doubtful birth, not one with a limp, and won him the throne.
Q 22At which battle in 371 BC did Thebes end Spartan military supremacy?
Leuctra
Leuctra: the Thebans massed their left wing fifty shields deep against the Spartan king's position, and some 400 of the 700 full Spartan citizens on the field were killed.
Q 23Which Theban general commanded the army that defeated Sparta in 371 BC?
Epaminondas
Epaminondas: he followed the victory by marching into Sparta's own territory and freeing Messenia, ending the enslaved labour that had fed the Spartan army for centuries.
Q 14What did the Spartan king reply at Thermopylae when the Persians demanded the Greeks surrender their weapons?
Molon labe
Molon labe: the phrase means 'come and take them', and in Plutarch's telling the words were no battlefield shout but a written answer to the Persian king's written demand.
Q 15Who revealed the mountain path that let the Persians outflank the Greeks at Thermopylae?
Ephialtes
Ephialtes: he hoped the Persian king would reward him, but he had to flee with a price on his head and was later killed, and Sparta honoured the man who did it.
Q 16At Thermopylae, a Spartan joked about fighting in the shade when told what would blot out the sun?
Arrows
Arrows: Herodotus credits the joke to a soldier named Dienekes, who called the warning good news, while Plutarch gives the same reply to the Spartan king instead.
Q 17At which battle in 479 BC did Sparta lead the Greek alliance to the decisive land victory over Persia?
Plataea
Plataea: Sparta's commander that day, Pausanias, was only a regent, leading the army because the rightful king was still a boy.
Q 18What natural disaster struck Sparta in 464 BC, triggering a great slave revolt?
An earthquake
An earthquake: Sparta asked Athens for help against the rebels, then sent the Athenian troops home out of suspicion, an insult that ended the alliance between the cities.
Q 19Which alliance, founded by Sparta in the 6th century BC, gave it leadership over most of its neighbours?
The Peloponnesian League
The Peloponnesian League: the name is a modern one, since ancient Greeks spoke only of the Spartans 'and their allies', each member sworn to follow wherever Sparta led.
Q 20Which naval battle in 405 BC, won by the Spartan Lysander, effectively ended the long war against Athens?
Aegospotami
Aegospotami: Lysander caught most of the Athenian fleet unready on the beach and captured it, leaving Athens with no navy to protect the grain it lived on.
Q 24What one-word reply is Sparta said to have sent when Philip II of Macedon threatened to turn them out should he invade?
If
If: Sparta then refused to join the league Philip imposed on Greece, so his son Alexander dedicated his first Persian spoils from 'all the Greeks except' the Spartans.
Q 25Which dish was the prized staple of the Spartan common mess?
Black broth
Black broth: Plutarch says a foreign king bought a Spartan cook just to taste it and disliked it, and was told that only those raised the Spartan way could enjoy it.
Q 26Which famous general failed to take Sparta by siege in 272 BC?
Pyrrhus of Epirus
Pyrrhus of Epirus: with most of Sparta's army away in Crete, the city's women and old men dug a trench overnight to stop his elephants, and the defenders held out until help came.
Q 27Sparta lost its independence in 192 BC when forced into which federation after Nabis fell?
Achaean
Achaean: four years later the league's general Philopoemen tore down Sparta's walls and abolished its ancient training, forcing Spartan boys into the Achaean system instead.
Q 28Which battle against Persia did the Spartans miss because a religious rule kept them home until the full moon?
Marathon
Marathon: an Athenian runner reached Sparta the day after he set out to beg for help, but the 2,000 Spartans who marched after the full moon arrived only in time to view the Persian dead.
Q 29Which Visigothic king sacked Sparta in AD 396?
Alaric
Alaric: fourteen years later the same king took Rome itself, a city no foreign enemy had captured for nearly 800 years.
Q 30Which Bavarian prince, the first king of modern Greece, re-founded the town of Sparta in 1834?
Otto
Otto: Sparta's people had long since drifted to nearby Mystras, so the teenage king's decree laid out a planned new town on the ancient site.