The importance of the army in Spartan society:
The entire Spartan society revolved around the army, essentially making it the key aspect of Spartan life and culture. The army influenced areas such as education and social structure as well as being the most important defence of Sparta in both combat and reputation.
After an embarrassing defeat at the battle of Hysiai Sparta went through great military change, these changes dramatically changed all other areas of Spartan life, turning Sparta into a military focused state. This militaristic influence impacted greatly on Spartan education, essentially aiming to mass produce the perfect solider. The education and training of Spartan boys aged as young as 7 in the agoge became the crucial
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The army acted as a second family for the men, the closest bond of friendship imaginable, not only did they fight together, but ate together every night in their ssystia, or mess group. Men were required to eat in these groups every night, even after married and fought with these groups in battle, showing the importance of the army in the lifelong friendship. These ssystia shared barracks together whilst before the age of 30 men had to live in the barracks despite marriage, this implies the great importance of the army over ruling the importance of family ties whilst the boy is young and then over relationships when the man grows older.
The army was responsible for maintaining the reputation of Sparta, arguably the most important role it played. Knows as the best warriors of the Peloponnese the Spartans used their strong military tactics in order to conquer neighbouring lands in order to further expand Sparta and gain larger areas of fertile land. Sparta lead the untied Peloponnese army and was greatly feared throughout the Mediterranean due to their title as the greatest army throughout Greece. This title in itself made the thought and task of attacking or declaring war on the spartiates a feared happening, further defending them from attacks dismissed as useless and never carried out by neighbouring states. The army was the main defence of Sparta keeping the citizens safe and
In Athens, armies were constituted of citizen-soldiers. Citizens had to supply their own equipment. The army is known to be strong, but not as much as the one from Sparta. However, the truth power of the Greek army is demonstrated during the Persian invasion. Despite of their differences and previous conflicts, Sparta and Athens combined to repel the invasion. It was in their interests to join with the other Greek city-states in a coalition to defend their mutual interests and cities. This decision proves that for Greek the protection of the state is important and that they are willing to do anything for the protection of their territory. With the incredible technique used to fight against Persian chariots, the Greeks ensured their victory and protected their territory from a Persian invasion. In Macedonia, when making a decision of going to war Alexander the Great never asked soldiers to do want he could not do by himself. In fact, due to his solidarity and respect to the army he became the ruler of the largest empire. During the war, Alexander ensured that everyone saw him by leading his troops and went right after the
Spartans have no heart to the outsiders and apparently, never got the education they needed to understand that. Sparta was a small city-state in southern Greece on a peninsula called Peloponnese. Sparta was never smart nor even as remotely educated as we are today. They spent all of their time training for battles that would never come and training for things that just aren’t “good”. Spartans would “make and kill” and would never pay a bill and never payed any attention to their citizens. The weaknesses in Sparta did outweigh the strengths because they lacked in advanced education, abused their children, and killed innocent people.
In military training both boys and girls were allowed to attend the training. They learned to wrestling, boxing, and footracing. As stated in History Alive, “the boys did military training in barracks a building where Spartan soldiers would live and train”. In addition, the training was important to the Spartan’s because they needed to teach the boys to be prepared for upcoming wars and to win those wars. The boys were taught how to read and write but, the Spartan’s didn’t find that important. To be a brave soldier was very important to the Spartan’s. Therefore, being a brave soldier was important because the soldiers had to fight in wars to protect Sparta from invaders who want to destroy Sparta.
The Spartan State was a militaristic force to be reckoned with, and is famous for the values that were expected of their people. These Spartan values and militaristic system of government is described in a document by Plutarch (45-125 CE) regarding Sparta after the Lycurgian reforms, specifically after
There are many aspects of Spartan culture that I feel were the most successful for the city-state. The most important aspect I feel the Spartans city-state had was their education. As shown in our History Alive books, Sparta didn’t focus on math, reading, or writing. Discipline and strength were what boys and girls were educated by. From age 7 all Spartan children were trained to fight. Some skills they learned were: wrestling, boxing, gymnastics and foot racing. All these sports helped the girls and boys get stronger and become more advanced for when fighting or in war. There were some differences on how boys were trained and educated. Until age 6 or 7, boys were taught by their mothers. When they were finally ready to learn how to
Spartan's were a dominating army that were more strong then all of the of the other armies from different city-states. now we need to know what they did at home while the men were at war. It's like when the U.S. Army goes out for war, what do the rest of the military soldiers go when the rest are at war. This is something that we need to discover from the Spartans and we also need to know if the strengths outweighed the weaknesses or did not.
Sparta was a warrior society centered on the loyalty of the state and military service, at Sparta the children used to begin their training to become a warrior at the age of 7, leaving their houses to join the barracks, where they also learned to write and read. The Spartan army was considered the best in the world, due to their commitment to the training and their battle strategy, they could overcome any opponent, to increase their power in the battlefield, the warriors were taught to fight until the death, because giving up was a dishonorable act towards Sparta (“300”, 02/27). The society was divided into 3 different groups; Equals, Half-citizen who were considered full citizens, and the Helots who were slaves. The Spartan government, different from the Persian Empire, had a decentralized government, splitting the power between the council, which consisted in 2 kings and 28 nobles (man over the age of 60).(Dr. Kaz, lecture, 02/24) Sparta had an strong and stable government, being considered the best in Greece. The woman in Sparta had much more freedom than in other place at that time, as the men were always training for the army, the woman had an important role in organizing and controlling the city, they were also treated very well, because they regarded them as the producer of the Spartan soldier. (Dr. Kaz, lecture,
First off, Sparta lacked very much in education. Document A mentions, “Only the rudiments [basics] of reading and writing were taught.” Every child deserves the proper education, nevertheless Sparta took that away. Spartans weren’t allowed to read books or perform plays. Sparta was so wound up with having a strong army that they didn’t “waste their time” on an actual
Throughout history there were many armies that were strong and courageous when it came to battle, but none as strong as the army of Sparta and their strong education system. The city-state in Greece that was located in the peninsula of Peloponnesus was considered a “tiny powerhouse” in the eastern Mediterranean, whose greatest rival was Athens. They had a very strong army and battle strategy, called the phalanx, that allowed them to compete in many battles in history. Some of the battles included the Peloponnesus War, the battle of Thermopylae, and the invasion of the Persians. One of the main factors in the Spartans ability to compete in those battles against Athens and the outside world was because of the education system that they had in
A Spartan soldier was expected to serve Sparta until the age of sixty, but that was easier said than done. Spartan infants were inspected by an elder counsel called the Gerousia, ensuring physical ability and readiness to enter into Spartan societal training. The rigorous training period, called agoge, began at age seven for male children. Trainees were taught combat skills, survival skills, and stealth. Students were often pitted against each other, and failure or weakness were met with severe physical punishment, public shame, and even death. Agoge was not purely training for survival and combat. Spartiates were taught reading, writing, dancing, music, and social skills. All Spatiates, including women, had a strong code of honor, and devotion
They have the strongest warriors ever created, the absolute best strategies for attack, one of the “greatest armies in recent knowledge”(Cartledge To Die For?), and they were trained from age seven until eighteen. The Spartans had a strict code of training and loyalty to the army that was taken too full extremity even if it meant their death. The code was that no Spartan should ever back down from a fight. This was so serious that if a son broke the code and came home with wounds in his back his own hoher would try to kill him. The mothers would eventually say “Come home carrying your shield or on it”(Fox 67) meaning fight until there is nothing left to be done. The Spartans took this seriously, the famous story of the three hundred spartans shows their loyalty. They were loyal Spartans who fought about seven thousand men to their death at the Battle of Thermopylae and set a statement for all of Greece to fight back against Persia. The military was the center of the Spartan state and it was once said that one Spartan was worth several men trained elsewhere. This shows proof of them deserving the name of Spartans, which means “fearlessness, harsh, cruel life, endurance and
Another area where Sparta and Athens differed greatly was in their military. Spartan men were raised to be warriors. Beginning on their seventh birthday when they were removed from their homes and enrolled in the Agoge, an education system to train them to be soldiers. (Brand, n.d., p. 6). At the age of 20, they were considered soldiers. And they were considered a soldier until they turned 60 or died.
Sparta a city filled with uncultured discipline, a city that was filled with the most relentless warriors of all time, the Spartans. The Spartans dedicated their lives to combat and training. Spartan children were removed from the homes of their parents at the age of 7 to begin their training called 'agoge ', which was a military style training regimen to craft and mold them into the warriors the once were. They were trained to endure the worst of elements and trained to overcome cold, hunger and pain. They were accustomed to the to the Spartan code which was to follow orders, fight hard, and without question, die in the line of battle and not withdraw or surrender to the enemy. To achieve success in their military tactics and training Sparta sacrificed all the pleasures many other regions were accustomed to such as, the arts, culture, religion and other various things that made life worthwhile. To the Spartans, their true purpose in this world was war and their entire life was to be focused around it. "From the vigorous iron-hearted warriors of this city-state has come the adjective Spartan. Sparta prided itself not on art, learning, or splendid buildings, but on its valiant men who served their city in the place of walls of bricks." (History of Ancient Greece: Sparta)
Children were also encouraged to fight one another to strengthen each other up. It wasn’t just the Spartan boys that would engage in the hazing, but young girls as well. Sparta considered their military to be so strong that the ultimate disgrace would be to surrender during battle. This is because they had spent their entire lives, shaping their soldiers to be brave and never give up. Proving that their military was one of their proudest accomplishments.
Spartans were very fierce fighters, and they won every battle they took on. Sparta had a very powerful military, and the Spartans were the most feared fighters on land. Men and boys from age seven to 30 went to train in the military. There there was no comfort and most even went without shoes. In the military they were taught to fight and battle. Men went to the military for 23 years, which is why Sparta had such a good military. Even though the men went to war, women were also trained to be strong, and