“We know a lot about what fifth-century Greece looked like to an Athenian citizen,” observed EH Carr in his classic What is History?, “but hardly anything about what it looked like to a Spartan, a Corinthian, or a Theban – not to mention a Persian, or a slave or other non-citizen resident in Athens.” Sixty-five years later and our daily news remains wall-to-wall Athens, with scarcely a Spartan vox pop.