This story appears in the November/December 2016 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Sparta’s enemies, when facing the intimidating Spartan forces, would see a wall of shields ...

Epaminondas was not only the tactical genius who bested the Spartan army; he was also one of history’s greatest liberators.

These states were always squabbling and often went to war. Sparta and Athens fought a long war, called the Peloponnesian War, from 431 to 404BC. Only the threat of invasion by a foreign enemy made ...