Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

by Edith Hall

birth by the elders. Weaklings were immediately exposed. Xenophon’s Constitution of Sparta supplies further details: At seven years old, a Spartiate boy joined the public education system and lived with other boys. He was subjected to an austere lifestyle and arduous training, aimed at creating excellent soldiers with a developed sense of shame and obedience. They were in the control of a paidonomos, a Spartiate who could call on selected young men. They carried whips and administered the punishments he ordained. But any Spartiate could punish other men’s sons if he saw fit. The boys were also encouraged to steal food, since it was felt to make them resourceful and aggressive, but if they were caught they were punished. Between the ages of twenty and thirty the Spartiates were in an intermediate position. They could grow their hair long but still slept in a state dormitory, were not yet allowed to hold office and probably not to attend meetings of the Assembly. The three hundred best soldiers in each year at the end of this period were selected as the crack troops for the army. Spartiates over thirty were expected to fight until they were sixty and continue to exercise appropriately; gymnastics were compulsory. The penalty for refusing to go to war or for desertion was death. Some rules are so odd that they are likely to be true—for example, that Spartiates were not allowed to carry a light around in the dark, to ensure that they remained on high alert permanently.