The Spartans Men and Women

1. The SpartansMen and Women By A WGMS Student

2. A New Beginning When Spartan babies were born, they were picked. They had to be fit to the standards, if not they were thrown over the side of a mountain. No one could pick the children up or it was a disgrace so they just left the children there to die.

3. Boys at a Young Age Boys had already commenced training at birth. There were other trainings throughout there life time. Some didn’t even make it past there first.

4. Training for Boys At age seven At age seven, they would enter the Agoge system. At the age of twelve, the Agoge obliged Spartan boys to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man. The older man was expected to function as a kind of substitute father and role model to his junior partner. At the age of eighteen, Spartan boys became reserve members of the Spartan army. On leaving the Agoge they would be sorted into groups, whereupon some were sent into the countryside with only a knife and forced to survive on their skills and cunning.

5. Girls at a Young Age Less information is available about the education of Spartan girls, but they seem to have gone through a fairly extensive formal educational cycle, broadly similar to that of the boys but with less emphasis on military training. In no other city-state did women receive any kind of formal education.

6. Training for girls Girls would have daily exercise. They eventually got called thigh kickers because of an exercise practiced by women only. In the exercise they would try to bring the bottom portion of their legs to their thighs.Girls as well as boys exercised nude

7. Sparta's Military Spartan men remained in the active reserve until age sixty. Thucydides reports that when Spartan men went to war, their wives (or another women of some significance) would customarily present them with their shield and say: "With this, or upon this" (Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς, Èi tàn èi èpì tàs), meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it).

8. Sparta's Military If a Spartan hoplite were to return to Sparta alive and without his shield, it was assumed that he threw his shield at the enemy in an effort to flee; an act punishable by death or banishment. A soldier losing his helmet, breastplate or greaves (leg armour) was not similarly punished, as these items were personal pieces of armour designed to protect one man, whereas the shield not only protected the individual soldier but in the tightly packed Spartan phalanx was also instrumental in protecting the soldier to his left from harm. Thus the shield was symbolic of the individual soldier's subordination to his unit, his integral part in its success, and his solemn responsibility to his comrades in arms — messmates and friends, often close blood relations. Even mothers enforced the militaristic lifestyle that Spartan men endured.

9. Sparta's Men At age twenty, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member. Here each group learned how to bond and rely on one another. The Spartan exercised the full rights and duties of a citizen at the age of thirty. Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia.

10. Sparta's Women Spartan women enjoyed a status, power, and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. They controlled their own properties, as well as the properties of male relatives who were away with the army. It is estimated that women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta. Spartan women rarely married before the age of 20, and unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore short dresses and went where they pleased.

11. Sparta‘s Marriage Ritual The custom was to capture women for marriage(...)The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl. She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark. The bridegroom—who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always—first had dinner in the messes. The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage. These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new life.

12. Women's Clothing in Sparta In Sparta women wore short dresses unlike other city- states where they wore thick and long dresses.

13. Men's Clothing in Sparta Men wore the clothes they wore underneath the shield. That would be a tunic or a chiton.

14. Ancient Spartans Were Unique From the Other City-States.