The Agoge

1. The Agoge

2. Boys: Early Childhood • Children who passed the inspection at birth became eligible for Spartan citizenship • At the age of 7 they were removed from home • Their lifestyle was austere, with many restrictions and labors • They were allowed no shoes, only one cloak, and barely enough food • Stealing food was encouraged, but those caught were punished • This encouraged inventiveness

3. Discipline • Discipline was ferocious • A magistrate in charge of the children was appointed by the state, with extensive powers to maintain discipline and harshly punish disobedience • Any adult male Spartan could also punish any child for a misdemeanor • In the absence of an adult, an older boy (eiren) could take his role and make sure that young children were never unsupervised • The boys spent their days in physical and emotional training that would create the perfect warrior

4. The Agoge

5. Young Men (Eiren) • Men between 20 and 30 were in transition, not boys, but not yet men either. • They were divided into camps and encouraged to fight, but obliged to stop if ordered • They led the children • They manned the most active units of the Spartan army • They married at that point, but could not live at home until they reached adulthood • The most active of them could join the Krypteia • They were obliged to behave with modesty and say little.

6. Spartan men • Lived at home, but never far away from Sparta • Ate at messes, where modest amounts of food were offered, so that they don’t become unfit or overweight. • Obedience to the authorities and the laws of Sparta was totally expected • Physical training was obligatory until old age, and activities like hunting increased their readiness for war

7. An overall assessment • The Spartan way of life was often contradictory, and one could be fooled by appearances. • However, ultimately everything was designed with one intent: to create the perfect warrior • In order to do that, the city oversaw every aspect of a citizen’s life. • The citizen ought to eat where and what the state wanted him to eat. • He could not choose to live in the country, or whether to marry or not • Even when he took a male lover he had to pretend that he only desired his lover’s soul and not his body • He could not accumulate wealth • These traits made the Spartans susceptible to bribery, corruption, abuse of power and gave them poor social skills, which did not serve them well in the days of their hegemony.