ABSTRACT
In his apologetic work The Cure of Hellenic Maladies, composed early in the century, the Christian bishop Theodoret triumphantly referred to the complete demise of the Lycurgan regime at Sparta. In the period after 400 the evidence for Christianity at Sparta also becomes more marked. The city’s first attested bishop, one Hosius, appears in 457. Although local epigraphy has so far produced only a meagre crop of Christian epitaphs, the Christianization of Sparta can now be documented in archaeology far more clearly as a result of Greek excavations over the last half-century. An Early Christian cemetery and two buildings identified with varying degrees of confidence as Early Christian basilicas have been discovered in the area to the south and south-east of the acropolis. In addition, the large and well-built basilica on the acropolis itself is now assigned a date no later than the seventh century.
