Ancient Sparta
Discover Ancient Sparta — the militaristic Greek city-state known for its warrior culture, the Battle of Thermopylae, and rivalry with Athens.
Sparta was the anti-Athens. Where Athens prized individual expression, open debate, and cultural achievement, Sparta subordinated everything — art, commerce, personal freedom — to the needs of the state and its military machine. The result was a society unlike anything else in the ancient world: austere, disciplined, and terrifyingly effective on the battlefield.
The Spartan system revolved around the agoge, a brutal training program that took boys from their families at age seven and turned them into soldiers. Citizens — the Spartiates — were forbidden from engaging in trade or agriculture; their sole occupation was war. The economy rested on the labor of the helots, a subjugated population that vastly outnumbered the Spartans themselves. Fear of helot rebellion shaped every aspect of Spartan society.
Spartan women had more freedom than women in any other Greek city-state. They exercised publicly, could own property, and were expected to be as tough-minded as the men. "Come back with your shield or on it," Spartan mothers reportedly told their sons as they left for war — a stark summary of Spartan values. The city's military dominance peaked with its victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War, but Sparta's rigid social system ultimately proved its undoing, unable to adapt to the changing world of the 4th century BCE.