Sparta's great warrior city-state fame during Classical Antiquity can be seen as a consequence of strict training. military dedicated to male Spartan children and adolescents, who during the period between seven and twenty years of age dedicated themselves à agoge, the educational process of the city-state.
The first selection criterion still occurred at the child's birth, when the council of the elders of the city-state decided on the continuity or not of the baby's life, in case it was considered unfit for life military. In these cases, children were killed (drowning, thrown off cliffs, etc.), characterizing a systematic practice of infanticide by the State. Infanticide was a measure common to some extent in the Greek region, but only in Sparta was it not a decision of the parents but of the state.
If he survived, the Spartan citizen, the homoloi, grew up among his family only until he was seven years old. After completing this age, parents delivered them to training centers, where they were educated full time in teachings based on militarism, discipline and blind obedience to orders given by hierarchical superiors. This rigid educational process was called
agoge, and was divided into three phases.The first occurred when the child was between seven and eleven years old and was focused on basic military training, with the first knowledge on weapons management and body development through exercise, in addition to initial measures of subservience and obedience to superiors. The knowledge of letters was not an objective of education, with children being literate only in cases of need. The supervision of education was carried out by a magistrate, but public punishments and scourges inflicted on children were the responsibility of older students, through physical punishment and often in public.
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Between the ages of twelve and fifteen, the teenagers began the second phase of the agoge, under the supervision of an adult teacher, who taught them to use weapons skillfully, as well as activities with horses and chariots, in addition to continuing the basic military tasks of the period. previous. They were also subjected to a meager diet, which forced them to hunt or steal food, being punished only when discovered. They also received a meager garment, forcing them to develop physical conditions to withstand very adverse weather conditions.
The third and last phase took place between the ages of 16 and 20, with training centered on collective actions, with group military actions, transforming them into hoplites, warriors armed with large round shields, who with a strong sense of collective cooperation organized themselves into phalanges. The phalanxes were the main attack and defense formations of the Spartans, needing protection on the battlefield among all participants.
This military education was involved in the need to maintain the power of the Spartan elite, which was much smaller in number in relation to other social groups, which lived subjugated by force. Spartan citizens dedicated their lives to the causes defended by the State, with the collective interests of the class Spartan dominance overriding the individual interests of these children separated from their families since the childhood.
By Tales Pinto
Graduated in History
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PINTO, Tales dos Santos. "The children of Sparta and militarism"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/as-criancas-esparta-militarismo.htm. Accessed on June 28, 2021.
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