Q&A
When did the Spartans start military training?
• SHORT ANSWER
When Sparta expected their men to give everything to the army, they meant their sons too
• LONG ANSWER
The Spartans wouldn’t have got where they did if they hadn’t started training and preparing their warriors at a young age. At just seven years old, all Spartan boys were taken from their parents and thrown into the unforgiving, state-sponsored education system called agoge. Its goals were to instil in every future soldier the principles that Sparta held absolute: loyalty, discipline, strength and endurance – and it used brutal methods to achieve them.
The boys would be barefoot with only one cloak all year round; they made their own beds out of reeds from the river; and they were encouraged to steal food and fight each other to survive. Inspections were frequent, with those not deemed strong enough being flogged.
Agoge lasted until a Spartan man turned 30, at which time he could start his own family, but never forget that his devotion was always, and above all things, to the state.
7
The number of thumbs belonging to a bride and groom at a wedding on 14 February 1784 in Derby. The groom had four and the bride had three.