The Spartan army and military training (the agoge), including its organisation, the hoplite phalanx, the syssitia, the role of the army in Spartan society, and the relationship to the Helot system

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to describe the Spartan military system: the agoge as state education, the syssitia as the unit of adult citizenship, the hoplite phalanx as the battlefield organisation, the Krypteia as an institution of Helot control, and the army's relationship to the wider social system. Strong answers cite Xenophon, Plutarch, and Thucydides, and engage with Kennell's challenge to the Plutarchan picture.

The answer

The agoge: Spartan state education

The agoge ("the upbringing" or "the system") was the compulsory state education for Spartiate boys from age 7 to 29.

Infancy. Newborn boys were inspected by the elders of the tribe. Plutarch (Lycurgus 16) records that weak or deformed infants were exposed at the apothetai near Mt Taygetus, though the historicity of this practice has been questioned by modern bioarchaeology (no infant skeletons have been identified in the chasm).

Boyhood (age 7 to 13). At age 7 boys left the home and entered communal living. They were organised in agelai ("herds") under the supervision of the paidonomos (boy-magistrate) and the eirenes (older youths, age 20). Curriculum included reading, music (the lyre and the war-songs of Tyrtaeus), and rigorous physical training.

Adolescence (age 14 to 19). Training intensified. Boys learned hoplite drill, formation, and endurance. They were assigned to age-graded subdivisions (the names varied: melleirenes, mikkichizomenoi, etc.).

Famous practices. Boys were given one cloak only and slept on rushes they had to cut themselves. The "stealing" custom required boys to take food without being caught; if caught they were beaten "not for stealing but for being caught" (Plutarch, Lycurgus 17). The annual whipping contest at the altar of Artemis Orthia (the diamastigosis) tested endurance.

Krypteia (around age 18 to 20). A selected group of young Spartiates near the end of the agoge entered the Krypteia ("secret service"). They lived alone in the countryside, hunting and killing Helots judged dangerous. The institution combined a rite of passage with Helot control.

Adult service (age 20 to 30). Young men lived in the barracks rather than at home. They were eligible for election to a syssition from age 20, marking the entry to political citizenship.

Marriage and service (age 30 onwards). Spartiates could marry from around age 20 but were expected to live in the barracks at night and visit their wives in secret until age 30. From 30 they could live at home. Military duty continued until age 60; from age 60 a Spartiate became eligible for the gerousia.

The syssitia

The syssitia (also called the phiditia) were military messes of around 15 men, the basic unit of military and political life. From age 20 every Spartiate had to be elected to a syssition by the existing members. Election was by secret ballot; a single black bean blackballed the candidate.

Each member contributed a fixed monthly allowance from his kleros: barley, wine, cheese, figs, and a small amount of money. Failure to maintain the contribution meant loss of citizenship.

The famous Spartan "black broth" (a soup of pork blood, vinegar, and salt) was eaten at the syssition. Plutarch (Lycurgus 12) gives the standard description.

The syssitia were the heart of Spartan adult life. Adult Spartiates ate together every evening; their tent-mates were also their battlefield comrades.

The hoplite phalanx

The Spartan army was organised in morai (regiments). Each mora contained subdivisions: lochoi, pentekostyes, and enomotiai (the smallest tactical unit, roughly 32 men). The structure allowed precise battlefield manoeuvres.

The phalanx was eight ranks deep, with overlapping shields and spears. The Spartan distinctive items were the red cloak (phoinikis), the long hair (signalling free citizen status), the bronze helmet with crest, and the dorudrep dory (spear).

Thucydides (5.66 to 70) describes the Spartan order at the Battle of Mantinea (418 BC) as the largest set-piece hoplite engagement of the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans won by superior order and discipline against an Argive-Athenian-Mantinean coalition.

The army included not only Spartiates but Perioikoi hoplites and (from the late 5th century BC) increasing numbers of Neodamodeis (freed Helots).

The army in Spartan society

The army was not separable from the rest of Spartan life. Citizenship was conditional on completing the agoge and maintaining the syssition contribution. Loss of military function meant loss of citizenship.

The Helot threat shaped the army's primary function. The ephors declared annual war on the Helots (Plutarch, Lycurgus 28). The Krypteia made internal policing a stage in every Spartiate's career. Aristotle (Politics 1269a) treats the militarisation as a direct response to the demographic ratio.

Spartan land power dominated the Peloponnese through the Peloponnesian League. Major military events of the period:

• Thermopylae (480 BC): Leonidas and 300 Spartans killed
• Plataea (479 BC): Pausanias defeats Persia, ending the invasion
• The Helot revolt at Ithome (mid 460s BC): years of warfare to suppress
• The Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BC): final Spartan victory
• The campaign in Asia Minor and the King's Peace (387 BC)
• The Battle of Leuctra (371 BC): Epaminondas's Theban army destroys the Spartan myth of invincibility

The agoge in modern scholarship

Paul Cartledge (The Spartans, 2002) treats the agoge as the central institution that linked the Helot system, the hoplite army, and the citizen body. The whole society was organised around military training.

Nigel Kennell (The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta, 1995) revisits the source base. Plutarch's account reflects Hellenistic and Roman-era reorganisation of Spartan institutions; the classical agoge was less rigidly systematised than later sources suggest.

Stephen Hodkinson (Property and Wealth, 2000) argues the system was less egalitarian in practice than the Homoioi ideology suggests. Wealthy Spartiates had more access to election to the better syssitia and to political office.

The army at a glance

How to read a source on this topic

Section II sources on the Spartan army typically include extracts from Xenophon's Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, Thucydides 5.66-70 (Mantinea), Tyrtaeus, or modern reconstructions of the phalanx. Three reading habits.

First, date the source. Xenophon writes around 380 to 360 BC, closer to the events; Plutarch around AD 100, after the Hellenistic reorganisation of Spartan customs. Kennell's revision turns on this dating.

Second, separate the agoge from the syssitia. Plutarch and Xenophon describe both, but they are different institutions. The agoge is education; the syssitia is the adult mess. They are linked but distinct.

Third, watch for the moralising frame. Plutarch presents the agoge as a Lycurgan triumph of discipline. Aristotle is more critical. The same institution looks very different depending on the source's stance.

Common exam traps

Confusing the agoge and the syssitia. The agoge is the education (age 7 to 29); the syssitia is the adult mess (age 20 onwards).

Skipping the Krypteia. It is the canonical institution linking the army and the Helot system.

Missing Kennell. His 1995 revision is standard scholarship now.

Treating Plutarch as a contemporary source. He is around 500 years later. State this.

In one sentence

The Spartan army and the agoge formed an integrated system in which Spartiate boys entered state education at age 7, progressed through agelai under the paidonomos to the Krypteia and adult syssition election at 20, served as hoplites in the morai of the phalanx until age 60, and policed the Helot majority through institutionalised violence, a system that Xenophon and Plutarch describe and Cartledge reads as the central fact of Spartan society, though Kennell warns that Plutarch's neat picture reflects later Hellenistic reorganisation.