I also find it ironic that Athens, one of the greatest contributors to western civilization, headed an alliance called the Delian league that almost seemed similar to the Warsaw Pact, which was the Soviet Union's response to NATO. While supposedly an alliance, all participating Greek poleis had to pay a tribute to Athens for military defence, and was more or less subservient to the Athenians' will. To me, it sounds like a similar situation Eastern Europe had when it was drawn into the alliance by the Soviet Union.

And by the way, the article about Lycurgus was superb! Most books and references about Greece don't put much emphasis on him, even though I believe he deserves more credit than he presently gets.

Was the government of Sparta a model that was in consideration by the founding fathers of the U.S. Contitution? I believe I read that somewhere, I'll need to find where it came from and post it on here.