The most famous feature of Spartan life was the state system of education and training for boys, known as the agoge. Its purpose was to turn every male citizen into a disciplined soldier, loyal to the community above family and self.

Birth

Spartan control began at birth. According to Plutarch, a newborn boy was brought before elders of his tribe, who examined him. If he seemed healthy and strong, he was raised; if he seemed weak or deformed, he was taken to a place called the Apothetae, a chasm at the foot of Mount Taygetus, and left to die. This story is one of the most famous facts about Sparta.

It may not be true, at least not in the form Plutarch tells it. Plutarch wrote centuries later, and no earlier source describes the practice in detail. In 2007, Greek researchers examined human remains from a pit near Sparta long identified with the Apothetae. They found bones of young adult men, likely prisoners or criminals, but no remains of infants. Infanticide was practiced in many ancient societies, including in other Greek cities, often by individual families. Whether Sparta had a formal state system of selection remains uncertain.

Leaving home at seven

At about the age of seven, Spartan boys left their families to begin the agoge. They lived in groups called herds, under the supervision of older youths and an official called the paidonomos, or “boy herder.” They learned to read and write, but only enough for practical purposes. Most of their training was physical: running, wrestling, enduring pain and hardship. They also learned songs, dances and the poems of Tyrtaeus.

Boys were deliberately kept short of food and clothing. They went barefoot, wore a single cloak year round and slept on beds of reeds they gathered themselves. They were encouraged to steal food, but punished severely if caught, not for stealing but for being caught. The aim was to teach cunning, self-reliance and endurance.

The fox

Plutarch tells a famous story of a Spartan boy who stole a fox cub and hid it under his cloak. Rather than be caught, he let the fox bite and claw his stomach and died without crying out. Whether true or not, the story captures the Spartan ideal: endurance and silence in the face of pain, even at the cost of life.

Mentors and the mess

Older youths and young men served as mentors to boys, a relationship that, like similar ones elsewhere in Greece, could include an erotic element. The mentor was responsible for the boy's conduct and was blamed for his failures.

At about twenty, a young man sought election to a syssition, a communal mess of around fifteen men who ate together every evening. Each member had to contribute a fixed amount of barley, wine, cheese and figs from his own land. Meals were plain; outsiders mocked the famous Spartan black broth, made with pork and blood. One story says a visitor who tasted it remarked that he now understood why Spartans were so willing to die. Membership in a mess was essential: a man who could not pay his share lost his status as a full citizen. Men lived in their barracks until thirty and remained liable for military service until sixty.

Laconic speech

Spartans were trained to speak briefly and wittily, a style named after Laconia: laconic. Many short sayings were attributed to them. When King Philip II of Macedon allegedly threatened that if he invaded Laconia he would destroy Sparta, the Spartans are said to have replied with a single word: “If.” Like many such stories, its origin is uncertain, but it shows how famous Spartan brevity became.

The krypteia

The darkest part of Spartan training was the krypteia, or “secret service.” According to Plutarch, drawing on Aristotle, selected young men were sent out into the countryside with only daggers and basic supplies. They hid by day, and by night they killed helots they found on the roads, especially the strongest. Historians debate how often and how systematically this happened, but most accept that the krypteia existed and served to terrorize the helots and train young Spartans in killing.

Worked example: what did the agoge produce?

Weigh the results of Spartan training as a historian would.

• Strengths. Sparta produced the most disciplined and feared infantry in Greece. Its soldiers could maneuver in formation under pressure and rarely broke ranks. For centuries, Greeks believed Spartans were nearly unbeatable in pitched battle.
• Costs. The system demanded total conformity and suppressed individuality. It depended on helot labor and violence. Spartans produced few philosophers, playwrights or scientists compared with Athens.
• Fragility. Because citizenship required wealth to pay mess dues and completion of the agoge, the number of full citizens shrank over time, a problem we will return to.
• Who benefited? A small citizen elite gained security and prestige; the helots and the excluded paid the price.

Modern militaries, sports programs and schools sometimes invoke Spartan training as a model of toughness. The full picture suggests caution. Discipline and endurance are real virtues, but a system that shapes children to obey without question, and trains them to terrorize others, treats human beings as instruments of the state rather than as ends in themselves.