The classical period in Western civilization produced numerous military societies, but perhaps no other culture is more closely associated with martial excellence than the Spartans.  This excellence was by design; a product of a comprehensive and often brutal primary education beginning at the age of seven and continuing until young adulthood. Known as the Agoge (literally “to raise” in Greek), Spartan military education produce the finest hoplites in the Greek world for generations, capable of fighting in rank and file in the phalanx in a manner that both awed and struck fear in their contemporaries.  However, the Agoge was not just a military education, it was a cultural indoctrination which informed the Spartan citizen male’s position in society and his identity as a man and as a warrior.  It was also a way to create a professional military cast to enforce a form of classical apartheid over Sparta’s subject people, the Helots (“captives”) through intimidation, torture, and select assassination. The Agoge was a necessity in the minds of the Spartans to maintain their rule and their austere way of life, a necessity whose origins are associated with the mysterious founder of Sparta’s government and military system, Lycurgus “the Lawgiver.”

The precise dates of Lycurgus’s rule in Sparta are unknown, and they range widely depending on the contemporary source.  The Athenian general and historian Thucydides (460-395 BCE) placed the date of his rule to 400 years before his own time, which would be the second half of the ninth century BCE, however, modern scholars believe the date may be later. Lycurgus is credited with establishing the Great Rheta, apocryphally presented to him by Apollo at the Oracle Adelphi. Much of our understanding of Lycurgus’ constitution comes from another Athenian general and historian, Xenophon (c.430-354 BCE), who credits Lycurgus with establishing a rigid oligarchical society co-ruled by dual kings made up from members of two ruling families, the Agiads and the Eurypontids. He also founded a popular assembly (Apella) made up of veterans and a ruling council or Gerousia of twenty-eight men who held the position for life. Five magistrates or Ephors (“overseers”) were appointed annually, who held enormous power over domestic and foreign policy, including an important role in choosing the military instructors (Paidonomoi or “guardians of boys”) at the Agoge. According to Xenophon, Lycurgus also established element of the Spartan hoplites panoply, including the characteristic red cloak, because it least resembled a women’s clothing (and not because it hid a warrior’s blood on the battlefield), a bronze hoplon shield, because when polished properly it tarnish slowly. He also gave permission for older men to wear their hair long, so as to make them look taller, more dignified, and more terrifying (longhair rolled into a bun also served as a natural arming cap for the helmet). Lycurgus’ reign established the governmental system of Sparta, which gradually emerged as the largest and most powerful polis or city state during the Aegean Archaic Period (c.800-c.500 BCE).  The Spartan polis was located in the southern Peloponnesus in the regions of Laconia and Messenia, encompassing over 3,000 square miles of territory. As Sparta gradually dominated its neighbors, it forced them into different classes, a free class called Perioikoi, who provided soldiers in times of war and specialized labor to the city-state as merchants (including blacksmiths and armorers), and a large class of serfs, known as the Helots, who allowed the warriors in the red cloaks the opportunity to focus on their military skills while others conducted commerce and toiled the land. So secure was the strategic location of Sparta that the city was never fortified during this era. However, this subjugation of the Helots also placed Sparta in a precarious position; in order maintain dominance over their numerically superior subjects, the Spartans needed a strong military class dedicated to protecting and maintaining the state from threats within and without. From this necessity the Agoge was born.

The Agoge’s mission was simple and direct: provide a comprehensive, centrally organized military education and socialization for Spartan men. To accomplish this goal, everyone in Spartan society had a role, beginning with the future warrior’s parents. Both mother and father were of full Spartan lineage, dating back to one of the original four villages that consolidated into the Spartan polis. The veteran father would have already participated in the Agoge education as a youth and would spend time with his young son during the day, sometimes bringing him to his member Syssition or “dining hall” to be around his comrades in an act to inculcate Spartan ideas in his son at an impressionable age. Additionally, the mother had a special role in her children’s education, the sons until the age of seven, and her daughters until they were married off, usually between the ages of eighteen and twenty, much later than in other Greek poleis. Spartan women had more rights and privileges than Greek women as they were provided a formal education and were allowed to own property through inheritance and enterprise and manage the family’s finances while the men trained or went off to war. She was also trained in athletics, as Lycurgus believed that fit parents created fit warriors. These sports included wrestling, boxing, sprinting and long-distance running, horseback riding, and javelin throwing. She was taught to be an accomplished dancer and singer to participate in civic and religious duties at home and during Panhellenic festivals. Once married, her primary responsibility to the state was to bear healthy children, preferably boys, to send off to be trained as warriors. At birth, the child was inspected by the male elders of the family, and if deformed, immediately killed or given away to the Perioikoi or Helot servants to be raised. The notion that this infanticide took place by hurling the child into a pit at the base of nearby Mount Taygetus was probably fabricated by the Greek historian Plutarch (c.45-120 CE), as no other classical historian makes mention of it and there have been no skeletal remains of babies found (although the skeletons of adults have been found at the Kaiadas Cavern dating to this era, presumably thrown into the cavern as a punishment for their crimes). Healthy sons were educated at home by the mother and older sisters until the age of seven, at which time he was to begin the first stage of his formal military education, the Paides.

Top photo: Oil painting entitled, “Lycurgus of Sparta” (1791) by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825). Musee des Beaux-Arts de Blois, France. Source: Wikipedia; Public Domain, click to enlarge.

Middle photo: A map of the Spartan state in the southern Peloponnesus. Source: Wikipedia; Public Domain, click to enlarge.

Middle photo 2: Pankration Wrestling was an important martial art taught to Spartan youth during their education in the Agoge, and Spartan wrestlers frequently did well during the classical Olympics. Detail from an Attic red-figure kylix c.490–480 BCE, British Museum. Source: Wikipedia; Public Domain, click to enlarge.

Bottom photo: Modern depiction of a Spartan hoplite. Source: Wikipedia; Public Domain, click to enlarge.

From Boys to Men: Paides and Paidiskoi (ages 7–19)

Once enrolled in the Agoge, the boy was now handed over to his chief instructor, the Paidonomos, a prestigious position appointed by the Ephors.  The seven-year-olds were organized into cohorts of about sixty each called Ilae roughly corresponding to a modern grade.  Sometimes referred to as “herds” or “packs” in the primary sources, this cohort would eat together, sleep together and compete against one another for the remainder of their education. The Ilae was under the supervision of an Eiren (sometimes Iren), a young man around twenty years of age who was both in-house tutor and disciplinarian. The first decade of the boys education was divided into two stages, the Paides and the Paidskoi. During the first five years, between the ages of seven and twelve, boys were instructed in the basics of reading and writing, as well as in the history and customs of Sparta. However, the real emphasis was on physical education, specifically skills that would showcase the skills of the youth and that were transferable to the military arts and performing well on the march and in the phalanx. These skills included stalking, sprinting and running, swimming, wrestling, boxing, horseback riding, and war dancing. Once again, Plutarch writes in his Life of Lycurgus:

“Of reading and writing, they learned only enough to serve their turn; all the rest of their training was calculated to make them obey commands well, endure hardships, and conquer in battle. Therefore, as they grew in age, their bodily exercise was increased; their heads were close-clipped, and they were accustomed to going barefoot, and to playing for the most part without clothes.”

All of this physical training informed their performance in mock battles between different age cohorts, training designed to instill toughness and perseverance against physically larger and more skilled opponents. They were also taught husbandry skills, as Spartan boys mended their own clothing and slept on a reed sleeping mat of their own construction. The boys instruction also included the importance of stealing and stealth as a survival skill.  During this exercise, the stealing was encouraged, while being discovered in the act was punishable by flogging, only to be flogged again if emotion was shown.

 At the age of twelve or thirteen the adolescent male continued his formal education in his cohort as a Paidiskoi or “bigger boy,” but additionally entered into a more personal stage of his education, a mentorship with a young adult male. Classical views outside of Sparta had different views of phase of learning. Plutarch describes older and younger boys entering a mentoring and sexual relationship referred to as pederasty. Outside of Sparta, the relationship existed between an older adult male (erastes or “lover”) and the younger adolescent male (eromenos or “beloved”), whereas within Sparta the older man was known as an “Inspirer” while the younger teenager was known as the “Hearer.”  Xenophon, however, maintains this relationship was not sexual in nature, but rather a pure mentorship. Indeed, the Athenian general sent his two sons to be educated in the Agoge as trophimoi, a type of resident alien. Concerning this special mentorship, Xenophon writes, “The relationship of lover and beloved is like that of parent and child or brother and brother where carnal appetite is in abeyance.”  However, most modern scholars side with Plutarch on this account. Whether sexual or not, it was a valuable public relationship at a crucial stage in the soon-to-be soldier’s development. The elder partner took on many of the responsibilities of a tutor and introduced the teenager into his own social circles. It is also likely that during this stage in the young man’s education, he was being evaluated for possible involvement in the secretive Krypteia and a later admittance into his permanent military mess hall or Syssition, the most important event in a young Spartan man’s life.

At the age of eighteen the young adult Spartan entered the next stage of his education, the Hebontes, the most competitive aspect of the young Spartan’s education. Supervised military drill continued during these two years, with these young men serving as instructors for trainees in the Agoge and reserve units for the home garrison. Students who shined during this evaluation were on a trajectory for the highest positions in Spartan society, membership in the 300-strong elite royal bodyguard (Hippeis), holding important military officers, and perhaps later election into the Gerousia. Membership in these higher offices after adulthood often hinged on participation in the Krypteia, a secretive unit of promising teenage boys whose principal aim was to murder troublemaking Helots and spread terror among the rest. This Helot-hunting detachment was sent into the city-state armed only with a dagger and no rations other than what they could collect or steal for themselves to locate and assassinate known instigators among the subject population. This act of premeditated murder was officially sanctioned by the state and was celebrated as a means of military and ultimately, political advancement after acceptance into the final stage of a Spartan soldier’s education, the Hebontes.

Active duty Spartan: (ages 20-29)

The Spartan youths primary education ended at the age of twenty when he officially transitioned from his Ilae into his Syssition.  Admittance into this mess hall was by a strange selection method, with the best prospects being allowed into the best units. The primary sources are little vague on the process, but it seems a hopeful Spartan could either be presented to the Syssition for consideration by his “Inspirer” or attempt to gain entrance through a unique ritual involving bread and a container. Our most detailed insight into this rite of passage comes from Plutarch, who tells us:

“Each man in the company took a little ball of soft bread, which they were to throw into a deep basin, which a waiter carried round upon his head; those that liked the person to be chosen dropped their ball into the basin without altering its figure, and those who disliked him pressed it between their fingers and made it flat; and this signified as much as a negative voice. And if there were but one of these pieces in the basin, the suitor was rejected.

If accepted, the young Spartan hoplite becomes a member of the Homoioi or “Peers,” and served as a full-time member until the age of thirty, while providing material and monetary support for the remainder of his life. Life in the barracks was simple by design, with the soldiers having few personal possessions and dining on the most common meal of black soup (pork, salt, vinegar, and blood), bread, and mixed wine (wine cut with water at a 1 to 3 ratio) to stave off drunkenness. Marriage was allowed after the age of twenty-five, with the extended family involved in the arrangement, and the prospective wife marrying after the age of majority, usually in her late teens. The wedding ritual itself was a simulated rape, with a woman dressed as a man, and her hair shorn to imitate a man’s likeness. She was required to wear her hair short for the remainder of her marriage. If the marriage took place while he was on active duty, the groom had to sneak out of the barracks to lay with his wife and sneak back to avoid corporal punishment from his bunkmates. Spartan attitudes towards sex and parentage were also unconventional, even by classical Greek standards. Adultery laws simply did not exist in Sparta.  Spartan wives could have sex with men other than their husbands.  In fact, there were instances of a husband loaning his wife to another man in order to maintain the lineage of that man’s family and to provide future sons to stand shield-to-shield to protect the future of Sparta.

It was during this decade of active service that the young hoplite turned into a veteran Spartan soldier.  Beginning in the Archaic period, the Spartan hoplite was the best heavy infantryman in the Greek world because of the training he received in the Agoge and as a Hebontes. By the time of the Hellenic Period (c.500-338 BCE) and the Persian Wars (499-449 BCE) in the early fifth century BCE, the young recruit would join a phalanx whose chief tactical unit was a battalion (lochos) of 100 men divided into two companies (pentekostyes) a fifty men each. Each company was divided into two platoons (enomotiai) of twenty-five men altogether. Each enomotiai or platoon was three ranks across and eight files deep, with the platoon leader (enomotarch) located in the first rank, and a rear rank officer (ouragos) located in the back to maintain order and discipline within the files and to discourage the act of casting away the shield and running away during battle (rhipsaspia).  This was considered the ultimate act of cowardice, so much so, it was condemned by everyone in Spartan society, with Plutarch recounting one Spartan mother famously stating, “You will either come home with your shield, or on it.”  After completing this decade of active duty service, the Spartan veteran could enter society as a full citizen, where he was expected to participate as a member of the Apella, financially support his mess hall, father more sons and daughters, and provide military service as militia in times of need until the age of fifty-nine. Others continued as professional soldiers, rising through the ranks to become officers, military instructors for the Agoge, or even a commanding general (polemarch). 

Conclusion

Beginning at the age of seven, the Agoge shaped an austere and obedient soldier, merciless, self-reliant and trained to overcome hardship from the age of seven onward.  Obedient to the state, the Spartan soldier was not allowed to leave his polis without permission from his government, believing that exposure to foreign ideas would corrupt his soul. The Agoge produced a professional soldier at a time in the Greek world when most armies were made up of citizen soldiers levied during times of war.  The difference in the quality of the soldiers was evident to both Spartans allies and enemies.  During the first Persian expedition against Greece in 490 BCE, the Athenians called for Spartan assistance, knowing full well the value of the Spartan hoplite on the battlefield. However, Spartan assistance was delayed, and the Athenians fought and defeated the Persians on the plains of Marathon, much to the surprise of the late arriving relief force. Ten years later, the Spartan king Leonidas (r.489-480 BCE) would lead a small Panhellenic army against the Persian invasion of Greece at the pass of Thermopylae, famously discharging the bulk of his army when he learned his position was to be surrounded. His fateful stand with the remaining 300 Spartans became a thing of legend, a testimony to the martial skill and willingness to sacrifice instilled by his military training. A year later in 479 BCE, the Spartans would again take the lead in a Panhellenic army and take the revenge against the Persians on the Plain of Plataea, reinforcing an already remarkable military reputation.

This brand of military education has been emulated throughout the ages.  The island of Crete had its own Agoge, contemporary to that of Sparta, which produced superior light infantry archers.  A preoccupation with all things classical in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resurrected this type of military training, with both Prussia and later Nazi Germany instituting a Spartan styled military education in their military academies. The German chancellor and dictator Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) went so far as to encourage selective breeding with own German population and a state-centric indoctrination with his Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) in a manner very reminiscent of classical Sparta. Modern military basic trainings throughout the world reflect elements of the Agoge, with programs designed to tear down and rebuild a recruit to match a specific military ideal. Even the present day international sports competition, the Spartan Race, evokes the Agoge in the endurance, tough mindedness, and cooperation necessary to complete the event.  In fact, one of its annual immersive training programs takes its name directly from the Spartan military school. Too often, though, the Spartan warrior ethos is lauded without a full examination of the explicit cruelty, loss of individual identity, and personal and physical sacrifices associated with molding a Spartan hoplite. This perception is reinforced in our modern world with overly romantic representations of Spartans like Frank Miller’s graphic novel “300” and equally entertaining and fantastical Hollywood and videogame portrayals. Still, the true history of the Agoge helps the modern world understand why the Spartans were special as both a society and as a warrior culture among their Greek brethren, and an inspiration and warning to warriors and warrior cultures ever since.

Suggested Readings:

Primary sources

Plutarch.  Greek Lives.  Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Xenophon.  The Complete Works of Xenophon. Translated by Henry Dakyns.  E-artnow, 2019.

Secondary sources

Cartledge, Paul. The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-heroes of Ancient Greece. Vintage Books, 2004.

Ferrill, Arther. The Origins of War from the Stone Age to Alexander the Great. Revised Edition. Westview Press, 1997.