Laconia, a place with deep imprints of history, can truly be characterised as a historical/archaeological theme park. Ancient Lacedaemon was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period and there were many cities and places during the Mycenaean period verifying the power of the local Achaean civilisation. Homer's descriptions, as well as exceptional findings, such as the Vaulted Tomb of Vaphio, provide proof of the power, wealth and grandeur of that era, as witnessed by Laconia.
The arrival and settlement, however, of the Dorian Greeks around 1100 BC radically changed the fate and destiny of the land through the creation of a civilisation, which - having Sparta, the Leading City, as its "frontispiece" - was bound to write important chapters of Greek history. Its military and social organisation, its philosophy, pedagogical system and anything entailed in what is called the "Spartan Model" in general form a huge chapter worthy of thorough examination on the part of any scholar. The Spartans' victory at Thermopylae and Sparta's defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War are the most known elements of a tumultuous historic period that was ultimately - and almost definitively - concluded in the 4th century AD.
Laconia played a key role in the centuries that followed, whereas many corners of the prefecture witnessed intense growth rates, the Byzantine castle of Mystras being the focal point. After the Fall of Constantinople and the subsequent surrender of Mystras to the Turks, Laconia was slowly but gradually subdued, Mani being the sole exception. It was occupied by the Venetians for some time and constituted the core of intense conflicts for a long period of time up to the 1821 Greek Revolution, when it served as a catalyst for the War of Independence.
