2 Thucydides and the History of the Peloponnesian War. Lazenby writes in his book The Spartan Army. “It was probably their training in tactical maneuvers which really gave Spartan soldiers their edge on the battlefield,” J.F. Spartan troops drilled relentlessly, until they could execute tactics with perfection. The Spartans’ real secret wasn’t physical fitness or indifference to pain and suffering, but rather superior organization. “It made them tougher/stronger, more able to sustain the weight of a heavy basically wooden shield in the summer sun, better at pushing and shoving, better at stamina,” Cartledge says. “Part of the reason for this was that the boys’ upbringing had instilled behaviors that encouraged harmony and cooperation.”īut Spartan schooling’s emphasis on fitness did help Spartan soldiers on the battlefield. Unlike other Greek city-states, Sparta “was exceptional in its socio-political stability,” Hodkinson says. Its real focus was to prepare Spartan males to be compliant members of society, who were ready to sacrifice their all for Sparta. Strictly speaking, the Agoge didn’t include military training, which didn’t start in earnest until they became adult soldiers. WATCH: Spartan Vengeance on HISTORY Vault Were Spartans Better Fighters? But it was a vital step toward being selected for one of the messes, the communal dining groups, and becoming a full-fledged Spartan citizen and soldier. The Agoge was a “trial by ordeal,” as Paul Cartledge, a professor emeritus of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge, wrote in his 2003 book Spartan Reflections. The Spartans even turned it into an annual ritual, in which boys tried to steal cheeses from a temple altar, which required them to evade guards armed with whips. Such harsh punishment was a prominent part of the Spartan training system. But to make sure they learned cunning, boys who were caught stealing were whipped. But the boys’ hunger was also intended to embolden them to steal food from gardens and other places “in order to make the boys more resourceful in getting supplies, and better fighting men,” Xenophon wrote. Xenophon, a philosopher and historian who lived from the late 400s to mid-300s B.C., noted that one purpose was to keep them slim, which Lycurgus, the founder of the Spartan system, believed would make them grow taller. To make life even tougher, Spartan boys were fed a meager diet. 
In addition to foot races and wrestling, their sports included a particularly brutal contest in which two teams would try to drive each other off an island by pushing, kicking, biting and gouging their opponents, according to Kyle’s book.
Kyle notes in his book Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, Spartan youth had to present themselves for regular inspections in the nude, and boys who didn’t look sufficiently fit were flogged. For clothing, they were given just one cloak to wear year-round, to make them learn to endure heat and cold, and made their own beds from plants that they had to rip out of the ground with their bare hands from river banks.Īccording to Plutarch, as the young Spartans grew, they were required to exercise more and more to build their bodies.
#VIKI ANCIENT WARS SPARTA SKIN#
To toughen them up even more, Spartan boys were compelled to go barefoot and seldom bathed or used ointments, so that their skin became hard and dry, Plutarch wrote.
But Stephen Hodkinson, an professor emeritus of ancient history at the University of Nottingham, UK, says there are hints in other sources that they received “the standard Greek elementary education in reading, writing, numbers, song and dance.” Plutarch portrayed Spartan boys as receiving little schooling. “The rest all kept their eyes on him, obeying his orders and submitting to his punishments, so their boyish training was a practice of obedience.” “The boy who excelled in judgement and was most courageous in fighting was made captain of the company,” Plutarch wrote. At age seven, Spartan boys were turned over by their parents to the state, where they were organized into companies that lived, studied and trained together.
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