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March 5, 2013
8 Reasons It Wasnt Easy Being Spartan
By Evan Andrews
The Spartans may have built one of the finest militaries of the ancient world, but their
culture was so harsh that the word spartan has become synonymous with an austere
way of life. Spartan society was carefully constructed around a strict moral code and
sense of duty, and its people underwent extreme hardships and deprivation on their way
to becoming accepted as full citizens. From adolescent military training to state-
sponsored hazing, explore eight reasons why these ancient Greek warriors had a rough
go of it.
De Agostini/Getty Images
1. Spartans had to prove their fitness even as infants.
Infanticide was a disturbingly common act in the ancient world, but in Sparta this practice was organized and
managed by the state. All Spartan infants were brought before a council of inspectors and examined for physical
defects, and those who werent up to standards were left to die. The ancient historian Plutarch claimed these ill-
born Spartan babies were tossed into a chasm at the foot of Mount Taygetus, but most historians now dismiss
this as a myth. If a Spartan baby was judged to be unfit for its future duty as a soldier, it was most likely
abandoned on a nearby hillside. Left alone, the child would either die of exposure or be rescued and adopted by
strangers.
Babies who passed inspection still didnt have it easy. To test their constitutions, Spartan infants were often
bathed in wine instead of water. They were also frequently ignored when they cried and commanded never to
fear darkness or solitude. According to Plutarch, these tough love parenting techniques were so admired by
foreigners that Spartan women were widely sought after for their skill as nurses and nannies.
2. Spartan children were placed in a military-style education program.
At the age of 7, Spartan boys were removed from their parents homes and began the agoge, a state-
sponsored training regimen designed to mold them into skilled warriors and moral citizens. Separated from their
families and housed in communal barracks, the young soldiers-in-waiting were instructed in scholastics, warfare,
stealth, hunting and athletics. At age 12, initiates were deprived of all clothing save for a red cloak and forced to
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sleep outside and make their own beds from reeds. To ready them for a life in the field, the boy soldiers were
also encouraged to scavenge and even steal their food, though if detected they were punished with floggings.
Just as all Spartan men were expected to be fighters, all women were expected to bear children. Spartan girls
were allowed to remain with their parents, but they were also subjected to a rigorous education and training
program. While boys were readied for a life on campaign, girls practiced dance, gymnastics and javelin and
discus throwing, which were thought to make them physically strong for motherhood.
3. Hazing and fighting were encouraged among Spartan children.
Much of the Spartan agoge involved typical school subjects like reading, writing, rhetoric and poetry, but the
training regimen also had a vicious side. To toughen the young warriors and encourage their development as
soldiers, instructors and older men would often instigate fights and arguments between trainees. The agoge was
partially designed to help make the youths resistant to hardships like cold, hunger and pain, and boys who
showed signs of cowardice or timidity were subject to teasing and violence by peers and superiors alike.
Even Spartan girls were known to participate in this ritualized hazing. During certain religious and state
ceremonies, girls would stand before Spartan dignitaries and sing choral songs about the young men of the
agoge, often singling out specific trainees for ridicule in order to shame them into stepping up their performance.
4. All Spartan men were expected to be lifelong soldiers.
As grueling as Spartas martial education system could be, the soldiers life was the only option for young men
who wished to become equal citizens, or Homoioi. According to the edicts of the Spartan lawmaker and
reformer Lycurgus, male citizens were legally prevented from choosing any occupation other than the military.
This commitment could last for decades, as warriors were required to remain on reserve duty until the age of 60.
Because of their preoccupation with the study of warfare, Spartas manufacturing and agriculture were left
entirely to the lower classes. Skilled laborers, traders and craftsmen were part of the Perioeci, a class of free
non-citizens who lived in the surrounding region of Laconia. Meanwhile, agriculture and food production fell to
the enslaved Helots, a servile class that made up the majority of Spartas population. Ironically, constant fear of
Helot revolts and uprisings was a major reason why the Spartan elite became so devoted to building a strong
military in the first place.
5. Spartan youths were ritualistically beaten and flogged.
One of Spartas most brutal practices involved a so-called contest of endurance in which adolescents were
floggedsometimes to the deathin front of an altar at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia. Known as the
diamastigosis, this annual practice was originally used as both a religious ritual and a test of the boys bravery
and resistance to pain. It later devolved into an outright blood sport after Sparta went into decline and fell under
control of the Roman Empire. By the third century A.D. there was even an amphitheater constructed so that
scores of tourists could cheer on the grisly ordeal.
6. Food was intentionally kept scarce, and poor fitness was cause for ridicule.
When a Spartan man completed the main phase of the agoge at around age 21, he was elected to a
syssitiaa military-style mess where citizens gathered for public meals. To prepare soldiers for the strain of
war and discourage poor fitness, the rations doled out at these communal dining halls were always bland and
slightly insufficient. Spartans were renowned for their devotion to physical fitness and proper diet, and they
reserved a special loathing for overweight citizens, who were publicly ridiculed and risked being banished from
the city-state.
Wine was a staple of the Spartan diet, but they rarely drank to excess and often cautioned their children against
drunkenness. In some cases, they would even force Helot slaves to get wildly inebriated as a way of showing
young Spartans the negative effects of alcohol.
7. Spartan men were not allowed to live with their wives until age 30.
Spartan society didnt discourage romantic love, but marriage and childrearing were both subject to some
peculiar cultural and governmental constraints. The state counseled that men should marry at age 30 and
women at 20. Since all men were required to live in a military barracks until 30, couples who married earlier were
forced to live separately until the husband completed his active duty military service.
The Spartans saw marriage primarily as a means for conceiving new soldiers, and citizens were encouraged to
consider the health and fitness of their mate before tying the knot. In fact, husbands who were unable to have
children were expected to seek out virile substitutes to impregnate their wives. Likewise, bachelors were seen as
neglecting their duty and were often publically mocked and humiliated at religious festivals.
8. Surrender in battle was the ultimate disgrace.
Spartan soldiers were expected to fight without fear and to the last man. Surrender was viewed as the epitome
of cowardice, and warriors who voluntarily laid down their arms were so shamed that they often resorted to
suicide. According to the ancient historian Herodotus, two Spartan soldiers who missed out on the famous Battle
of Thermopylae returned to their homeland disgraced. One later hanged himself, and the other was only
redeemed after he died fighting in a later engagement.
Even Spartan mothers were known for their do-or-die approach to military campaigns. Spartan women are said
to have sent their sons off to war with a chilling reminder: Return with your shield or on it. If a Spartan trooper
died in battle, he was viewed as having completed his duty as a citizen. In fact, the law mandated that only two
classes of people could have their names inscribed on their tombstones: women who died in childbirth and men
who fell in combat.
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Did You Know?
Spartan kings were subject to many of the same laws
and social conventions as their subjects. Monarchs
could be punished for their military leadership during
times of war, but they were also sometimes censured
for seemingly trivial misdeeds. According to the
ancient historian Theophrastus, King Archidamus
was fined for marrying a petite woman because the
Spartans believed she would give birth to kinglets
instead of kings.
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