About this episode
Today, we trace the rise and fall of ancient Greece’s most formidable warrior society - Sparta. This society's militaristic culture and battlefield feats are the stuff of legend - but how much of its story is based on cold, hard fact? Joining us is Dr Andrew Bayliss, a professor of Greek History at the University of Birmingham. He separates the fact from the fiction, explaining how a brutal education system and unyielding discipline forged an elite military state, and eventually led to its downfall. Join Dan and the team for the first-ever LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday 12th September 2025! To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask! Get tickets here, before they sell out: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/dan-snows-history-hit/ You can now find Dan Snow's History Hit on YouTube! Watch episodes every Friday (including this one) here . Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe . We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on . You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.