Thucydides predicted that if the ancient city of Sparta were deserted, "distant ages would be very unwilling to believe its power at all equal to its fame". The city had no great temples or public buildings and throughout its period of greatness it remained unfortified: Lycurgus, architect of the Spartan constitution, declared that "it is men not walls that make a city". Consequently, modern SPÁRTI , laid out grid-style in 1834, has few ancient ruins, and is today the pleasant organizational centre of a huge agricultural plain. Spárti's appeal is its ordinariness - its pedestrianized side streets, café-lined squares, orange trees and evening vólta. The reason for coming here is basically to see Mystra , the Byzantine town, 5km to the west, which once controlled great swaths of the medieval world.