 In this video you will learn how Alexander the Great conquered Sparta. Sparta was a fiercely independent city-state in what is today known as Greece. However, initially neither Alexander the Great nor his father Philip II had any interest in conquering the city-state of Sparta. Instead, Alexander the Great focused his efforts on other regions of the known world. He conquered and expanded his empire in different directions that included parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. He mostly left the Spartans alone and they had many good reasons to do so. Sparta didn't have significant natural resources and was hardly attractive from an economic perspective. It also did not have a major trading port. Sparta is geographically isolated from the rest of Greece and at the end of trade routes. There is little strategic value in conquering the region. Sparta has geographical features that make it easy to defend to the point that Sparta never even felt the need to build city walls. To invade Sparta you had to overcome Selassia, which was a very narrow passage between the mountains. Sparta wasn't a great metropolis and it had little to offer if it was conquered except the warriors it could provide. In the previous century the Spartans were the tyrants of Greece. They projected their strength across the peninsula and beyond. They were more or less universally hated by all the other Greek city-states. Philip II, seeking to unify the Greeks, needed something to unify all the other Greeks. He was able to unify all the Greek states by alienating Sparta from the rest of Greece. Simply put, he didn't invade them because they were more valuable to him as outsiders. He continuously pointed out that the Spartans stood apart from the now unified League. The rest of the Greeks, buying into the idea of Macedonians as liberators of Spartan tyranny, unified under Alexander in a Corinthian League. So when Philip II created the League of Corinth under Macedonian leadership to conquer the Persian Empire and bullied almost every Greek city into joining and when the Spartans refused to join, he didn't bother pressing the matter and simply ignored them. However, a few years later the Spartans forced Alexander the Great's hand. Under King AGI's III, they launched an expedition to secure the island of Crete. They tried to secure financial and military help from the Persians and allied themselves with other rebelling cities. They then started a war against Macedonia. Alexander the Great was forced to respond and utterly crushed the Spartans in 331 BC at the Battle of Megalopolis, killing King AGI's III and 5,300 Spartans in a single day. For the Spartans that meant a death toll of over 25% of their fighting force. He then forced Sparta to join the League of Corinth. Please hit the subscribe button and since you made it this far, smash the like button.