When a boy child was born to Spartan parents the mother would encourage it to cry loudly in an effort to prove that it had strong lungs. She would also wash it with wine, in order to give it a strong colour & complexion.
The father would then take the child to a council of elders. These veterans would look at the naked infant carefully for any birth defects or the slightest sign of weakness or sickness. If such weakness or sickness was found, they judged the baby to be unworthy of carrying a Spartan shield. In such cases the baby was taken away immediately and thrown into Kaida, the so called Apothetae, a chasm on mount Taygetos.
If the child passed this first of his many tests then the young Spartan boy would be allowed to return to his parent’s home where he lived for six years.
For these first six years the child was reared by his mother, who was forbidden to use the cloths worn by other children (phaskia), dressing the child in only simple robes, nor was she allowed to smother the boy with affection for fear of making him weak.
Spartan women were so famous for the rearing of children that they were hired by rich families, as for example the Spartan woman Amelia, who nursed the Athenian Alkibiades when he was a boy.
On his seventh birthday the boy would be taken from his mother and given to the state. He was placed under the authority of the paidonomos, a magistrate charged with the supervision of education.
A rigorous discipline and mainly military type education, the so-called Agoge, then commenced and lasted for thirteen years.
All Spartan males with the exception of the eldest son of each of the Spartan royal households (Agiad and Eurypontid) were required to go through this process (they were permitted not to attend as it was believed they were part god).
The term agoge literally translates as 'raising'. According to lore, this system was introduced by the semi-mythical Spartan law-giver Lycurgus.
The aim of the system was to produce physically and morally perfect males to serve in the Spartan army; men who would be the "walls of Sparta." - Since Sparta was the only Greek city with no defensive walls – they had been taken down at the order of Lycurgus.
When first taken from his mother at age seven the boy was placed in a communal barracks with others his age in a troop or Ageles, supervised by an older boy referred to as a Eirena. For the next five years these Spartan boys were conditioned physically and mentally. They were educated enough to count soldiers in a formation, read war sagas and sing and recite war poetry.
They were given rigorous strength and endurance training and physical conditioning through endless field and track events. They were taught wrestling, were drilled in gymnastics, running, jumping, throwing of spear and discus, taught to endure pain and hardship, hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue and lack of sleep. They were also taught the art of combat and formation “phalanx” fighting to make them lethal in battle through their ability to hold, maintain and change formation as required.
They went without shoes, bathed at the cold waters of the river Eurotas and were dressed winter and summer, with the same piece of cloth, which the state gave them once a year. They were not allowed the use of blankets and slept on beds of straws and reeds, which they had to cut themselves, without knives, from the banks of the river Eurotas.
Discipline was strict, with terrific punishments meted out if caught performing the most minor infraction, and the boys were encouraged to fight amongst themselves in order to determine who was the strongest in the group.
They were fed a weak broth, the famous melanas zomos (black broth) just once a day and in quantities only enough to survive. It was expected that the young starving boys would go out at night to steal or otherwise find food to compensate for the meagre rations they were given. Regular patrols of boys in their final year of training tried to prevent the younger boys from stealing or finding food at night. If they were caught by the patrols, they were punished - not for stealing, but for stealing with poor skill and being caught. The lesson learned from this was how to forage for food when none was available, a skill that would be needed in the future when campaigning far from home.
Once a year, the boys were tested for their endurance in front of the altar of Orthia Artemis, in the game of stealing cheeses. In order to reach the cheese the boys had to run a gauntlet of elders who whipped them severely as they passed. The ones who withstood this event, in which many died, without moans and cries, were crowned with wreathes.
Little is actually known of the way training was conducted during each year of the boys agoge regime although it is believed the first year, from age 7 to his 8th birthday, was a period of conditioning to his military & barracks surroundings. From then on his education was more formalised and carried out in yearly stages, each “age-class” given it’s own term as follows:
|
Age 7-8
|
- robidas (meaning unknown) |
|---|---|
| Age 8-9 |
- promikkizomenos (pre young boys) |
|
Age 9 -10
|
- mikkizomenos (young boy) |
| Age 10-11 |
- propais (pre-boy) |
| Age 11-12 | - pratopampais (1st year boy) |
| Age 12-13 | - atropampais (2nd year boy) |
| Age 13-14 |
- melleiren (meaning unknown , |
| Age 14-15 | - atromelleiren (2nd year “melleiren”) |
| Age 15-16 | - (1st year “iren”) |
| Age 16-17 | - atroiren (2nd year “iren”) |
| Age 17-18 | - ……iren (3rd year “iren”) |
| Age 18-19 | - ……iren (4th year “iren”) |
| Age 19-20 |
- proteiras (chief “iren”) |
At age twelve the “atropampais” were taken from the barracks and made to eat, live and sleep in the mountains with only one garment and without shoes for one year, exposed to the wild beasts and the weather. This yearlong exercise taught survival and field craft skills that he would need when deployed fighting abroad.
From age thirteen, until they reached that was considered manhood at twenty, the Spartan boys were educated in more serious war games. These games often left the contestants dead or injured and would include armed invasions on Messenian agricultural slaves called helots and other non Spartans living nearby. These war games taught small unit tactics, raids, reconnaissance and surveillance, and the art of the ambush.
In their final year the most promising young Spartans were taken into the Crypteia, an organization that tested their skills and enforced the obedience of the helot slave population by encouraging the Spartans to seek and murder Messenian slaves who were about at night time or those that were known or suspected trouble-makers.
When they reached the age twenty and the Agoge ended, the Spartan boys were seen as a soldier and had thirteen years of the hardest military training yet devised under their belt. It is then that they would be presented with their war-cloak and shield.
For the next ten years they would still live in barracks as part of the standing army. They would join one of the dining messes or clubs (pheiditia, syssitia), which were composed of about fifteen members. Selection into one of these messes was considered highly important and competition was fierce to join those messes with the greater reputation. Candidates were voted on by all members of the mess, with a unanimous vote of acceptance required. At age thirty, they were allowed to marry and as a full fledged citizen, with full rights and duties, they would be able to take part in the assembly of the people (the Apella) and hold public office.
It was only then that they were granted the privilege to live in their own house and not in barracks. These superbly trained Spartan soldiers would still remain in the army no matter where they lived until the age sixty when they were allowed to retire.
Any male who did not successfully pass through the Agoge would be denied Spartan citizenship. Eventually the selection process became detrimental to Spartan society and the population declined to just a few hundred adult male citizens by 4 AD.
Author: Steve Senior