The spartan style: simple and effective, like Spartan people

The Spartans (fl. 600s-200s BC), ancient Greeks
See the full list of Eponymous Adjectives of Famous Figures:
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15036.90246
Sample quote.
"Le Corbusier illustrated the Farman Goliath no less than eight times in his book Towards a New Architecture. The interiors of the Goliath fleet ranged from crude and spartan to elegant and refined."
Quote source: Transport Design: A Travel History. By Gregory Votolato (2007, Reaktion Books; p. 171)
Text.
Sparta was one of the best known and most powerful city-states of ancient Greece. The king of Sparta was a major character in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, The Spartans beat the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae, and Sparta beat Athens in the Peloponnesian War. With such a powerful people, you might expect to find in Sparta great architecture, luxurious art, and fashionable clothing, just as you can find in Athens. Instead, the Spartans have left us very little to see, touch, or read. The ancient historian Thucydides, who was Athenian, wrote during the height of Spartan power:
[paraphrased] Imagine all the Spartan people fled or died, leaving only the temples and other buildings. After many years, those who came back to view the city would not believe the power of the Spartans was equal to their fame. The city is not built continuously, and has no great temples or buildings; it looks like a group of poor villages.
The Spartans had a reputation for being simple yet effective. So now, when we write the word with a lower-case ‘s’, this is what we mean. Spartan conditions are not great, but they are good enough. A person living a spartan existence may have some practical troubles: perhaps they don’t get much dessert, or they don’t own a car, or many shoes; but the implication is that they are gaining some psychological benefit because they are free from worrying about material goods. A traditional Japanese washitsu is a spartan room. There is comfort in the simplicity, there’s room for your spirit to wander without worrying about objects around you.
So, when you hear someone talk about a Spartan king, Spartan women, or the Spartan army, they are talking about the situation in ancient Greece. But when you hear someone talk about a spartan lifestyle or spartan decoration, they probably mean these things are not luxurious yet may deliver benefits to people who appreciate the simple things in life.
sources: Google Ngram Viewer
Wikipedia
“Sparta” on In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg, BBC Radio 4 www.bbc.co.uk/p...
Homer’s Iliad www.theoi.com/T...
Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War www.perseus.tuf...
music: “Prelude in D” by Scott Sprankle / spranklemusic
Created and presented by Michael Henshaw