TEXT: DUNCAN B CAMPBELL
  ILLUSTRATED BY STEVE NOON
  SPARTAN WARRIOR
  735–331 BC
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  WARRIOR • 163
  SPARTAN WARRIOR
  735–331 BC
  DUNCAN B CAMPBELL 
  ILLUSTRATED BY STEVE NOON
  Series editor Marcus Cowper
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  CONTENTS
  INTRODUCTION
  4
  CHRONOLOGY
  8
  TRAINING AND EDUCATION
  11
  DRESS AND APPEARANCE
  16
  EQUIPMENT
  21
  MILITARY SERVICE
  38
  BELIEF AND BELONGING
  48
  THE WARRIOR IN BATTLE
  56
  FURTHER READING
  58
  GLOSSARY
  60
  ABBREVIATIONS
  62
  INDEX
  64
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  INTRODUCTION
  The largest city-state in ancient Greece was centred, not on a grand
  metropolis, but on a group of villages along the fertile banks of the river
  Eurotas. This was Sparta. Her territory, the low-lying ‘hollow land’ of
  Lakedaimon, was hedged on either side by mountains, Taygetos to the west
  and Parnon to the east, but, through conquest, soon stretched from coast to
  coast across the whole of the southern Peloponnese.
  This expansion was achieved, in particular, by the annexation of
  Messenia, the rich agricultural land that lay across the high Taygetos range.
  The Messenians, very much second-class citizens in their own land, never
  4
  SPARTAN WARRIOR
  735–331 BC
  View of the modern town
  of Sparti and the Taygetos
  Mountains from the east. In
  the foreground lie the ruins of
  the later Roman theatre. Little
  survives of Classical Sparta.
  (Wikimedia Commons/
  Ulrich Still)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  forgot their stolen freedom and are often
  represented as Sparta’s enemy within. It is
  entirely fitting that the poetry of the famous
  bard Tyrtaios, which represents almost the
  sum total of Spartan literature, was inspired
  by a Messenian War. 
  The ‘town’ of Sparta consisted, not of a
  gradually built-up city, but of a collection of
  villages (more correctly known by the
  Spartan term obai, or ‘obes’): Pitana, home
  of the Agiad kings; Limnai, home of the
  Eurypontid kings; Mesoa and Kynosoura;
  and nearby Amyklai. Outlying communities
  were inhabited by so-called perioikoi
  (literally ‘those who live round about’,
  memorably named the ‘circum-residents’ by
  the great 19th-century historian George
  Grote). All of these owed allegiance to
  Sparta and could be called up for military
  service in support of her citizen hoplites. 
  Far more numerous were the helots,
  rent-paying country folk forced to labour in
  the fields so that the landowners, the pure-
  bred men of Sparta (the so-called Spartiates),
  could concentrate on their military lifestyle.
  Spartan relations with this rural population
  remain enigmatic, but have often been seen as troubled. The Oxford historian
  G. B. Grundy memorably conjured an image of the Spartans ‘holding, as it
  were, a wolf by the throat’. But the helots were little different from the servile
  rural populations of other city-states who employed similar unfree labour.
  Lykourgos the law-giver
  At some point in the 8th century, traditionally 776 BC, a lawgiver named
  Lykourgos laid down the constitution, the so-called Great Rhetra, obtained
  from the Delphic oracle of Apollo, by which the Spartans would live. Or so
  the story goes. Herodotos certainly believed that ‘Lykourgos established
  Sparta’s military institutions: the enomotiai and the triekades and the syssitia;
  and, in addition to these, the ephors and gerontes’ (Hdt. 1.65.5). (All technical
  terms are explained in the Glossary.)
  Later writers and thinkers (such as Polybius, Plutarch and Pausanias, all
  writing during the Roman period) believed that the god-given customs of the
  Spartan people had remained unchanged since that time. The Spartans, in
  Cicero’s words, were ‘the only men in the whole world who have lived now
  for more than 700 years with one and the same set of customs and
  unchanging laws’ (Cic., Flacc. 63).
  We now know that Cicero was mistaken. The 3rd-century reforming
  kings, Agis IV and Kleomenes III, instituted changes to Spartan society, but
  opinion is divided about their precise nature. Nevertheless, most are agreed
  that further change came after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. For
  this reason, we should use the testimony of later writers sparingly, since it is
  arguable that they were describing a post-reformation Sparta, a Sparta that
  had reinvented itself to please Roman tourists.
  5
  Map of the Peloponnese,
  showing the sites of major
  battles mentioned in the text.
  (Author’s collection)
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  6
  On the other hand, the views of Herodotos, Thukydides, Plato, Xenophon
  and Aristotle should be privileged, because they wrote their respective works
  before any major change occurred, and Plutarch may be used with care,
  because he seems to have conducted personal research ‘in the Lakedaimonian
  public records’ (Plut., Ages. 19.6). 
  Spartan government 
  Sparta was ruled by the curious phenomenon of a dyarchy, whereby two royal
  houses – the Agiad and the Eurypontid, both descended from Zeus via
  Herakles – each supplied a king. Xenophon explains that Lykourgos ordained
  that the kings, ‘being of divine descent, should perform all public sacrifices
  on behalf of the city-state, and should lead the army wherever the city-state
  sends it’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 15.2). However, their powers were circumscribed by
  the 28 gerontes (‘elders’) who sat alongside them in the gerousia to make the
  decisions of state, while Spartiates over the age of 30 had the right of regular
  assembly in the ekklesia. 
  As a counterbalance to the gerousia, a committee of five ephors was
  elected annually from the ekklesia using an oral voting system which Aristotle
  found ‘childish’ (Arist., Pol. 2.9 = 1270B). Any Spartan warrior who had not
  already served as ephor might find himself co-opted for a year, so it was
  important that his education had prepared him for the various domestic,
  foreign, and judicial responsibilities of the post, which included mustering
  the army. 
  ABOVE
  Idealized map of ancient
  Sparta prepared by the French
  cartographer Barbié du Bocage
  in 1783, capturing the essence
  of Sparta as a collection of
  villages. (Author’s collection)
  ABOVE RIGHT
  No ancient depictions of the
  legendary Spartan lawgiver
  Lykourgos are known. This
  modern statue stands in
  the Law Courts in Brussels.
  (Wikimedia Commons/
  Michel Wal)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Spartan society
  Plutarch claims that there were originally 9,000 kleroi, the allotments of land
  parcelled out, one per Spartiate, to support each man’s household. However,
  no Spartiate required his own allotment until he joined one of the
  mess-groups known as syssitia at the age of 20, and perhaps not even then,
  if the mess contributions were waived for those under the age of 30.
  The precise nature of these kleroi has proved an intractable problem for
  generations of scholars. Plutarch implies that all Spartan land was equally
  divided into allotments which, once assigned to their owners, could not be
  divided, disposed of, or added to. This is almost certainly wrong, for it seems
  that ‘their lawgiver (Lykourgos) quite rightly made it dishonourable to buy
  and sell land in someone’s possession, but allowed anyone to transfer it to
  others by gift or bequest’ (Arist., Pol. 2.9 = 1270A). This system naturally
  produced great inequality amongst the so-called homoioi (‘equals’). Aristotle
  observed that, ‘if many are born and the land is divided accordingly, many
  must inevitably become poor’ (Arist., Pol. 2.9 = 1270B); in other words, if a
  man had several heirs, his kleros would need to be broken up, giving each son
  a smaller allotment. 
  This was a particular problem in a society where the begetting of sons
  was positively encouraged, for the father of three sons was apparently
  excused military service and the father of four sons paid no taxes. Daughters’
  dowries could redress the situation somewhat, as each bride appears likely
  to have inherited part of her father’s kleros, which was thus transferred to
  her new husband. But many men might find that their kleros was a fraction
  of the size of their father’s. As we shall see, this could pose a problem for the
  Spartan warrior. 
  The Spartan population 
  Despite the Lykourgan encouragement to procreate, it is
  generally agreed that the number of Spartiates gradually
  declined, from the 6th-century heyday, when they numbered
  almost 10,000, to the oliganthropia (‘shortage of men’)
  which Aristotle observed as the cause of Sparta’s
  catastrophic decline in the 4th century BC. Unfortunately,
  demographic studies of ancient Sparta are hampered, not
  only by the scarcity of evidence, but also by the inveterate
  Spartan tendency towards secrecy. Even its kings were not
  above manipulating the truth; on one occasion, Agesilaos
  reported a Spartan defeat to his men as a victory, on the grounds
  that ‘there was no need to share bad tidings with them’
  (Xen., Hell. 4.3.13). Both Thukydides and Pausanias ran into
  trouble trying to estimate battle casualties, the latter noting
  that ‘the Spartans were always inclined to conceal their
  mishaps’ (Paus. 9.13.11; cf. Plut., Ap. Bas., Epam. 12 = Mor. 193B,
  on Leuktra; cf. Thuk. 5.68.2, on Mantineia).
  At Plataia in 479 BC, 5,000 Spartiates took the field,
  accompanied by an equal number of perioikoi, and an
  astonishing 35,000 helots. The historian G. B. Grundy
  assumed that these 5,000 Spartiates represented the total
  able-bodied male population aged between 20 and 50, but
  Herodotos indicates that the 5,000 were neotes (‘young
  men’), a term that seems inappropriate for men as old as 50.
  7
  Marble bust of the Athenian
  writer Xenophon, who knew
  King Agesilaos personally. On
  his exile from Athens (c.394 BC),
  he settled in the Peloponnese
  and sent his two sons to be
  educated at Sparta. (Now in
  the Bibliotheca Alexandrina
  Antiquities Museum, Egypt.
  Photo © Daniel P. Diffendale)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  In any case, he also claimed that ‘Sparta is a town of around 8,000 men’
  (Hdt. 7.234.2).
  This total was naturally eroded by constant warfare and the Spartan
  tradition of demoting any citizen who had shown cowardice in the face of
  danger, or whose landholdings were insufficient to support him in the
  lifestyle of a full-time hoplite warrior. The great earthquake of 464 BC also
  took its toll. Plutarch records that ‘the land of Lakedaimon was ripped into
  many chasms by quite the greatest earthquake in living memory and many
  of Taygetos’ peaks were shaken down, so that the very town was obliterated
  except for five houses, as the earthquake demolished all the others’
  (Plut., Kim. 16.4). 
  The fate of any land left ownerless by the disaster is unknown, but the
  shadowy section of the Spartan population known as the neodamodeis
  (‘new men of the people’) was perhaps created at this time to take over any
  vacant kleroi. These are thought to have been freed helots, because the
  historian Myron of Priene records that ‘the Spartans often freed their slaves’
  and, after listing the various names for them, claims that ‘others are called
  neodamodeis, being different from helots’ (Athen., Deipn. 6.102 = 271F).
  These pseudo-perioikoi were, like them, liable for military service, although
  the first recorded instance of this is not until 421 BC. 
  By then, matters must have become very serious, for Thukydides suggests
  that there were only about 2,800 Spartiates at Mantineia in 418 BC, a
  surprisingly small total given that a full mobilization had been ordered. Two
  generations later, there were only 700 Spartiates available for service at
  Leuktra and only 300 of them survived the battle (Xen., Hell. 6.4.15). By
  then, the heyday of the Spartan warrior had passed. 
  CHRONOLOGY
  The reigns of Spartan kings are indicated in italics; (A) indicates an Agiad king; 
  (E) indicates a Eurypontid king 
  776 BC
  Lykourgos lays down Spartan law 
  c.760 BC
  Reign of Archelaos (A) and Charillos (E) 
  735–715 BC
  First Messenian War 
  c.720 BC
  Reign of Polydoros (A) and Theopompos (E) 
  706 BC
  Foundation of Spartan colony at Taras (Tarentum) 
  669 BC
  Battle of Hysiai, Sparta defeated by Argos 
  650–630 BC
  Second Messenian War 
  c.640 BC
  Tyrtaios writes his poetry 
  c.575 BC
  Reign of Leon (A) and Agasikles (E) 
  c.545 BC
  ‘Battle of the Champions’ (Sparta defeats Argos at Thyrea) 
  8
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  c.530 BC
  Reign of Anaxandridas II (A) and Ariston (E) 
  525 BC
  Spartan siege of Samos fails 
  c.510 BC
  Reign of Kleomenes I (A) and Demaratos (E) 
  506 BC
  Spartan invasion of Attica 
  494 BC
  Battle of Sepeia, Sparta defeats Argos 
  491–469 BC
  Reign of Leotychidas II (E) 
  490–480 BC
  Reign of Leonidas I (A) 
  490 BC
  Third Messenian War (disputed by some scholars) 
  Sparta misses battle of Marathon 
  480 BC
  Battle of Thermopylai (Spartan defeat delays Persian invasion) 
  480–458 BC
  Reign of Pleistarchos (A) 
  480–469 BC
  Regency of Pausanias (A)
  479 BC
  Battle of Plataia (Spartan-led confederation defeats Persian army) 
  469–427 BC
  Reign of Archidamos II (E) 
  c.469 BC
  Battle of Tegea (Spartans defeat Tegeans and Argives) 
  465 BC
  Great earthquake at Sparta 
  c.464 BC
  Fourth (or Third) Messenian War
  Battle of Stenykleros (Spartans defeated by Messenians) 
  c.464 BC
  Battle of Dipaia (Spartans defeat Arkadians) 
  458–408 BC
  Reign of Pleistoanax (A) (in exile, 446/5–427/6)
  457 BC
  Battle of Tanagra (Spartan army narrowly defeats the Athenians) 
  445 BC
  Thirty Years Peace with Athens 
  431–421 BC
  Archidamian War (first stage of Peloponnesian War with
  Athens), Sparta invades Attika in 431, 430, 428, 427 and 425 
  429–427 BC
  Siege of Plataia (Spartans capture town) 
  427–400 BC
  Reign of Agis II (E)
  425 BC
  Incident on Sphakteria (Spartan force surrenders to Athenians) 
  422 BC
  Battle of Amphipolis (Spartans defeat Athenians) 
  9
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  10
  418 BC
  Battle of Mantineia (Spartans defeat Athenian-led coalition) 
  413 BC
  Spartans occupy Dekeleia in Attika 
  412 BC
  Spartan alliance with Persia 
  408–395 BC
  Reign of Pausanias (A)
  405 BC
  Battle of Aigospotamoi (Spartan fleet defeats Athenians) 
  404 BC
  Fall of Athens signals end of Peloponnesian War 
  401 BC
  Xenophon leads the ‘Ten Thousand’ mercenaries from Persia 
  to the Black Sea 
  400–360 BC
  Reign of Agesilaos II (E)
  395–380 BC
  Reign of Agesipolis I (A)
  395 BC
  Corinthian War (conflict between Sparta and a Corinthian-led
  coalition) 
  395 BC
  Battle of Haliartos (Spartans defeated by Theban-led 
  coalition) 
  394 BC
  Battle of Nemea (Spartans defeat Corinthian-led coalition) 
  Battle of Koroneia (Spartans defeat Theban-led coalition) 
  Battle of Knidos (Spartan fleet defeated by Athenian–Persian
  coalition) 
  392 BC
  Battle of the Long Walls of Corinth (Spartans defeat 
  Corinthian and Theban forces) 
  390 BC
  Battle of Lechaion (Spartans defeated by Athenians) 
  386 BC
  The King’s Peace ends the Corinthian War 
  385 BC
  Siege and capture of Mantineia by the Spartans 
  380–371 BC
  Reign of Kleombrotos I (A)
  375 BC
  Battle of Tegyra (Sparta defeated by Thebes) 
  371–370 BC
  Reign of Agesipolis II (A)
  371 BC
  Battle of Leuktra (Sparta defeated by Thebes) 
  370 BC
  Liberation of Messenia from Sparta 
  370–309 BC
  Reign of Kleomenes (A)
  368 BC
  Tearless Battle (Spartans defeat Arkadian-led coalition) 
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  364 BC
  Battle of Kromnos (Spartans defeated by Arkadian-led
  coalition) 
  362 BC
  Agesilaos successfully defends Sparta against Theban invasion 
  Second battle of Mantineia (Athenian–Spartan coalition
  defeated by Thebans) 
  360–338 BC
  Reign of Archidamos III (E) 
  355–346 BC
  Third Sacred War 
  338–331 BC
  Reign of Agis III (E)
  331 BC
  Battle of Megalopolis (Sparta defeated by Macedon) 
  TRAINING AND EDUCATION
  Sparta differed from other Greek city-states in many ways, the most radical
  of which was the institution of the unique education system known as the
  agoge. By taking over all Spartan boys’ lives for 23 years, it ‘prepared them
  to follow commands willingly, to persevere with toil, and to conquer in battle’
  (Plut., Lyk. 16.6). Above all, it instilled conformity in every Spartiate, and
  taught (in the words of King Agesilaos) ‘the finest lesson, which is to rule
  and to be ruled’ (Plut., Ap. Lak., Ages. 50–51 = Mor. 212B –C; Ages. 20.2).
  Only in this way were the Spartiates truly homoioi (‘equals’), having endured
  the same initiation course. 
  The importance of the agoge was paramount. In 331 BC, after
  the Spartan defeat at Megalopolis, the ephor Eteokles refused
  to comply with the Macedonian demand for 50 children as
  hostages, ‘in case the boys turned out to be uneducated
  through missing the traditional agoge’ (Plut., Ap. Lak.,
  Anon. 54 = Mor. 235B).
  The training of boys
  Xenophon drew a distinction between Sparta and the
  rest of Greece on three counts: first, Greek children were
  normally handed into the care of an educated slave as
  their tutor (paidagogos); second, Greek children were
  normally provided with sandals and changes of clothing;
  and third, Greek children were normally given a
  sufficiency of food. The Spartans did none of
  these things. 
  Between the ages of seven and (probably)
  12, Spartan boys (‘paides’) underwent a
  specific training regime, under the overall
  supervision 
  of 
  a 
  warden 
  called 
  the
  paidonomos (literally ‘herder of boys’). This
  was a highly respected Spartan, drawn from
  the highest social class, in stark contrast to
  the employment of servile paidagogoi in other
  city-states. His authority allowed him to
  11
  Marble bust of the philosopher
  Aristotle, pupil of Plato and
  tutor of Alexander the Great.
  His vast and eclectic writings
  included works on political
  theory, including a lost work
  on The Spartan Constitution.
  (Now in the Museo Nazionale
  Romano, Rome. Wikimedia
  Commons/Marie-Lan Nguyen)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  punish any who misbehaved, and to this end he was accompanied by a whip-
  wielding squad of youths to mete out his punishments. The net result,
  according to Xenophon, was that ‘great respect and great obedience are
  found’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 2.2) at Sparta. 
  As befits a system that was ultimately designed to produce effective
  warriors, great emphasis was placed on a rough-and-tumble lifestyle. The
  boys were divided into bands (agelai, literally ‘herds’) and they chose as their
  leader the boy who was ‘the most resolute at fighting’ (Plut., Lyk. 16.5). All
  the time, in addition to the paidonomos, the older Spartan men kept an eye
  on their antics, punishing disobedience and encouraging competition. 
  Boys were not permitted to wear shoes. The reasoning behind this, as
  Xenophon explains, was that ‘leaping, jumping and running were
  accomplished more swiftly barefoot, if a boy trained his feet that way, than
  wearing shoes’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 2.3). Not only was the Spartan warrior
  guaranteed to be sure-footed, but his feet were hardened from an early age.
  Likewise, the boys were permitted only one cloak throughout the year, rather
  than switching between summer and winter garments, so that they would
  grow accustomed to heat and cold, and would be used to making do.
  Food was rationed for two reasons. Lykourgos apparently thought that ‘a
  diet that produces slim bodies would do more to increase height than one
  that fattened them with food’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 2.5). However, more
  importantly, a restricted diet enhanced certain key skills: the ability to
  perform effectively on an empty stomach, for example, or simply to subsist
  on rations for longer. Plutarch develops the point of the starvation diet in his
  Customs of the Spartans: ‘for they thought that they would be more useful
  in war’, he writes, ‘if they were able to persevere without food’ (Plut., Inst.
  Lac. 13 = Mor. 237F). Equally, being inured to a plain diet meant that the
  Spartan could subsist on anything that came to hand. 
  The rationing of food was accompanied by the condoning of theft,
  provided the object was to gather foodstuffs. Again, there was good military
  logic behind the practice, for ‘it is clear that anyone wishing to steal must
  stay awake at night, and must be wily and remain on the lookout during the
  day, and anyone wishing to seize anything must post lookouts’ – all sound
  military principles (Xen., Lak. pol. 2.7). A fragment of Aristotle’s lost
  Spartan Constitution explains that the goal was to produce warriors who
  were ‘better able to endure fatigue and lack of sleep in the face of the enemy’
  (Frg. 611). Moreover, by stealing foodstuffs, the boys were honing the
  foraging skills of the warrior on campaign. And there were other lessons to
  be learned from stealing: 
  When the time came for the boys to steal whatever they could, and it
  was shameful to be found out, some boys stole a young fox alive and
  gave it to a particular boy to keep. When those who had lost the fox
  came along in search of it, it so happened that, as the boy had slipped
  it under his cloak, the beast was enraged and savaged his side through
  to the vital organs, but the boy remained motionless, so as not to be
  found out. Later, when they had gone away, the boys saw what had
  happened and scolded him, saying that it would have been better to
  reveal the fox than to hide it with fatal results; but the boy said, ‘Not
  at all: better to die without giving in to the pain than to preserve your
  life dishonourably, having been detected through weakness’. (Plut.,
  Ap. Lak., Anon. 35 = Mor. 234A–B) 
  12
  Marble life-size statue of a
  warrior excavated at Sparta in
  1925. Although the arms are
  missing, archaeologists found
  the right foot and the left leg
  (not illustrated), which wears 
  a decorated greave. From its
  estimated date of 470 BC, it has
  been suggested that the statue
  posthumously portrayed King
  Leonidas. (Now in Sparta
  Museum. Photo © Stefanos
  Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Stealing was character-forming. Clearly, it was shameful to be caught in the
  act, because that implied a lack of skill. Xenophon explains that, ‘when
  people are teaching, they punish those who do not follow instruction
  properly; so the Spartans punish those who are caught on account of being
  inept at stealing’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 2.8). The penalty, according to Plutarch,
  was a beating.
  Of course, the basics of education were not neglected. Plutarch writes
  that, ‘by placing them under the same discipline and mealtimes, Lykourgos
  accustomed them to play together and study together’ (Plut., Lyk. 16.4). To
  be sure, he explains elsewhere that ‘education trained them in happily
  following commands, patiently enduring toil, and either prevailing in battle
  or dying’ (Plut., Inst. Lac. 4 = Mor. 237A). But they also learned to read and
  write, and, although Plutarch claims that this was purely utilitarian, the
  Spartans were known for their love of music, poetry and dance. Indeed, later
  writers believed that the war dance known as the pyrrhiche, which ‘includes
  the motions executed to avoid blows and shots of all kinds’ (Pl., Leg. 815A),
  had been invented at Sparta. 
  The training of older boys 
  Spartan boys were divided according to year groups, and Plutarch
  emphasizes the age of 12 as a watershed in every Spartan’s education. Each
  band of paidiskoi (or ‘little boys’, surely an ironic title) now lived and trained
  together under the supervision of a selected eiren (‘prefect’) drawn from the
  ranks of the youths. Xenophon says that responsibility for each band (he
  calls them ilai, literally ‘crowds’) was given to the smartest of the eirenes, but
  Plutarch claims that it was ‘the most cunning and battle-ready eiren’
  (Plut., Lyk. 17.2; cf. Xen., Lak. pol. 2.11). The boys were obliged to give him
  their blind obedience, respect his decisions, and endure his punishments.
  Moreover, they had to act as his servants at mealtimes, collecting
  firewood and fetching vegetables using their thieving skills. After dinner, the
  boys were expected to entertain him, but everything had a didactic purpose,
  as Plutarch explains:
  13
  Scene from a red-figure kylix
  (wine cup), depicting ephebes
  (the equivalent of the Spartan
  hebontes) equipping
  themselves for war. The
  bearded youth in the centre
  carries a folded fabric corslet.
  (From E. Gerhard, Auserlesene
  griechische Vasenbilder, Vol. 4,
  Berlin, 1858, Tafel 29)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  14
  As he reclined after dinner, the eiren would order one of the boys to
  sing, while to another he posed a question requiring a considered
  answer; for instance, ‘Who is the best amongst the men?’ or ‘What do
  you think about this man’s success?’ In this way, they were accustomed
  to judging excellence and appraising the other citizens right from the
  start; for, when asked which citizen was good, or which one was
  dishonourable, any who had no answer were considered slothful, and
  their soul showed no ambition for excellence. (Plut., Lyk. 18.2) 
  Clearly, the training of the paidiskoi became full-time, as Xenophon reckoned
  that the laws of Lykourgos ‘imposed the maximum labours and contrived the
  longest tasks’ for these boys (Xen., Lak. pol. 3.2). They learned to conduct
  themselves with modesty, and to speak only when spoken to. 
  Whether or not the younger paides returned to their homes at night, the
  paidiskoi certainly did not, for they began sleeping in barracks on makeshift
  mattresses (stibades) that they manufactured from reeds and straw. It was
  probably for cutting and gathering this bedding material that the boys carried
  a small sickle called a xyele. Whatever the reason for this tradition, its
  military application is obvious. Less obvious is the reasoning behind their
  nudity, for Plutarch records that, not only did they exercise naked, but ‘from
  the age of 12 they never wore a tunic and were given only one cloak a year’
  (Plut., Lyk. 16.6), further emphasizing that all were homoioi (‘equals’). 
  Also at the age of 12, the paidiskos was taken under the wing of an erastes
  (‘admirer’) as his eromenos (‘beloved’), to receive a form of mentoring. In
  other Greek city-states, it was quite normal for an older man to take a
  youngster as his companion, but the relationship was normally a sexual one.
  Not so in Sparta. Desire for the eromenos’ body rather than concern for his
  ‘soul’, or moral upbringing, was thought to be shameful. 
  Once he reached the age of 18 or 19, when other Greek boys left their
  education behind, the Spartan paidiskos progressed to the next landmark in
  the agoge, becoming a melleiren, a title which means ‘nearly an eiren’. He
  was now on the threshold of youth. 
  The training of youths
  A Spartan reached his youth (hebe) at the age of 20, when he became liable
  for military service. However, as a hebon, he was not yet a full citizen; in
  many Greek city-states, 30 was the age of full responsibility, and it seems to
  have been no different in Sparta, for the hebontes were still answerable to
  the paidonomos, whose supervision ceased only on the hebon’s 30th birthday. 
  Xenophon explains that, in general, the Lykourgan system was designed
  to make the hebontes ‘achieve manly virtue’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 4.2).
  Nevertheless, as neoi (‘youths’) who were not yet adults, they were also
  obliged to submit to periodic inspections; the writer Agatharchides records
  that ‘every ten days the youths had to stand naked before the ephors’ (Athen.,
  Deipn. 12.550C) as a check on obesity, because the hebontes were responsible
  for their own exercising. The ephors also inspected their clothing and bedding
  every day in their barracks. Furthermore, it was the right of any Spartan
  citizen to challenge any hebon’s movements ‘and to strike any who did not
  answer or who contrived an excuse’ (Plut., Inst. Lak. 8 = Mor. 237C).
  One duty specifically laid upon the new hebontes was the provision of
  eirenes (‘prefects’) to look after the agelai of boys, but this seems to have
  lasted for only one year; otherwise, the constant supervision of boys would
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  15
  have prevented the youths from spending any
  time at all with the adult Spartans. Naturally,
  the eiren was, himself, under scrutiny, in
  particular for the appropriateness of his
  punishments, perfectly illustrating
  King Agesilaos’ aphorism that the
  first lesson is to rule and be ruled.
  Other hebontes were required as the
  paidonomos’ assistants. 
  Another duty fulfilled by some
  hebontes was service in the royal
  bodyguard, known as the hippeis.
  Every year, the ephors named three
  adult Spartiates as hippagretai
  (‘hippeis choosers’), each of whom
  judged the hebontes publicly before
  making his selection of 100 individuals.
  The 300 thus chosen served for a year.
  Each hebon had only ten opportunities to be
  chosen, once per year, so competition for
  enrolment was fierce and it often came to blows
  between those who were picked and those who were not. 
  As far as the duties of the hippeis were concerned, one of the privileges
  enjoyed by the Spartan kings was that ‘100 picked men guard them on
  campaign’ (Hdt. 6.56). Two kings would thus monopolize 200 hippeis; the
  remainder were perhaps deployed for internal security at Sparta.
  It seems that, by and large, hebontes were too young to take a wife, for
  Lykourgos insisted that Spartans should marry ‘in the prime of manhood’
  (Xen., Lak. pol. 1.6), a phrase which implies 30 or so years of age. This, of
  course, tallies with our general impression of the treatment of hebontes as
  not quite adult. It also accounts for the rule, that ‘the youths under 30 never
  went to the marketplace, but procured their household necessities through
  their kinsfolk or erastai’ (Plut., Lyk. 25.1), because otherwise their wives
  could have fulfilled this function. 
  Nevertheless, there are few aspects of the Spartan lifestyle which allow
  certainty, and many would argue that Spartans could, indeed, marry before
  the age of 30, albeit furtively. Plutarch paints a picture of the new husband,
  ‘spending the day with his peers and sleeping with them’, while slipping
  stealthily into his bride’s bed between times (Plut., Lyk. 15.4; cf. Ap. Lak.,
  Lyk. 17 = Mor. 228A); this is clearly the lifestyle of the hebon, though perhaps
  one of the older ones. 
  It is also worth noting from Plutarch’s marketplace comment, that the
  hebon must have continued to maintain the special relationship with the
  ‘admirer’ whom he met as a paidiskos. Kleonymos, the eromenos of the
  future king Archidamos, was probably a hebon of around 22 years of age
  when ‘at Leuktra, fighting in front of the King alongside Deinon the
  polemarchos, he thrice fell’ (Xen., Hell. 5.4.33), and yet his noble death still
  brought honour upon his one-time erastes. 
  Xenophon occasionally uses the expression ‘the ten from youth’
  (Xen., Hell. 2.4.32; 3.4.23; 4.5.14; 5.4.40; Ages. 1.31) to indicate a proportion
  of the Spartan army. Some have suggested that this cryptic phrase refers to
  the number of years that have elapsed since the men reached youth (hebe);
  Scene from a black-figure kylix
  by the so-called ‘Hunt Painter’
  (c.550–530 BC), depicting
  Spartans hunting a boar. (Now
  in the Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia
  Commons/Marie-Lan Nguyen) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  by this logic, it would indicate ‘men who are 30 years old’. However, it seems
  more likely that the phrase is simply a circumlocution for hebontes, and means
  ‘the ten (year groups) from youth’, namely those aged 20 to 29, comprising the
  younger men whose time in military service was ten years or less. 
  The Spartan warrior 
  Once a Spartan had completed the agoge and passed from the supervision of
  the paidonomos, he was a fully-fledged Spartiate, as long as he could
  maintain a place in a syssition, or ‘mess-group’ (see below, p. 38). His role as
  a Spartan warrior was expected to continue until he became a geron at the
  age of 60 (though some have suggested that he continued to be liable for a
  further five years’ military service)
  No ancient writer mentions any specific training regime followed by
  adult Spartiates. However, the fact that ‘it is required by law for all
  Lakedaimonians to practise gymnastic exercises, even while on campaign’
  (Xen., Lak. pol. 12.5), suggests that the adults trained at other times, as
  well. The younger adults, at least, were expected to maintain a certain level
  of fitness, judging from the occasions on which the 30–34-year-olds were
  ordered into action alongside the hebontes as ‘the 15 from youth’
  (Xen., Hell. 4.5.16, 6.10). 
  Moreover, the Spartans’ enthusiasm for hunting, to the extent that any
  Spartiate who lacked his own hunting dogs could expect to borrow those of
  a neighbour (Xen., Lak. pol. 6.2), is not entirely irrelevant to maintaining a
  high level of military capability. Xenophon claims that Lykourgos encouraged
  hunting ‘so that the men might be able to stand the toil of soldiering as well
  as the hebontes do’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 4.7).
  DRESS AND APPEARANCE
  Spartan hair 
  The iconic image of the Spartan warrior is of a long-haired, bearded
  individual. These are precisely the aspects emphasized by Plutarch, in his
  description of a statue of the Spartan Lysander (Plut., Lys. 1.1: ‘long-haired
  in the ancient manner and sporting an excellent beard’); and when
  Alkibiades adopted a Spartan lifestyle, he is described as ‘needing a haircut’
  (Plut., Alk. 23.3). 
  A
  SPARTAN WARRIOR, c.546 BC
  This Spartan warrior from the time of the ‘Battle of the Champions’ is shown wearing the
  equipment depicted on an archaic Lakonian ﬁgurine from Kosmas, in the vicinity of Thyrea
  (now in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens). Similar archaic ﬁgurines, along with the
  evidence of several vase paintings, conﬁrm that warriors went into battle naked, except for the
  helmet, ‘bell’ cuirass (1) and greaves (2). They are often depicted with high crests on their
  helmets. 
  The two styles of helmet shown here are the open-faced ‘Illyrian’ (3) and an early variety of
  ‘Corinthian’ (4), which introduced the nose guard and covered more of the wearer’s face. Both
  styles could be ﬁtted with crests, either made from horsehair (5) or fashioned from bronze (6). 
  The Spartan warrior was a spearman, ﬁrst and foremost, and is shown with the large hoplite shield
  (aspis) and spear (dory). The spearheads and butt-spikes are based on examples in the National
  Archaeological Museum, Athens. The shield emblem is the Gorgoneion (or Medusa mask) (7), a
  motif that was popular at Sparta, where it recurs on bronzework and on bone and ivory carvings.
  16
  A Hellenic re-enactor recreates
  the Spartiate immortalized in
  the famous ‘Draped Warrior’
  figurine, now in the Wadsworth
  Atheneum (USA). The
  significance of the transverse
  crest is not known, but it
  perhaps indicates high status.
  (Photo © Stefanos Skarmintzos.
  Courtesy of the Hellenic living
  history club ‘Koryvantes’:
  www.koryvantes.org)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  18
  However, under the regulations of the agoge, Spartan boys wore their
  hair short. It was only when they reached adulthood and were ‘beyond the
  age of youth’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 11.3) that they might allow their hair to grow.
  Plutarch took this to mean that a hebon aged 20 could wear his hair long; he
  specifically wrote that the Spartans were ‘long-haired since the age of
  ephebeia’ (Plut., Lyk. 22.1), the ‘ephebes’ of other city-states being broadly
  equivalent to the 18- or 19-year-old Spartan melleirenes. However, Xenophon
  probably means that a Spartan had to wait until he had progressed
  ‘beyond the age of being a hebon’; in other words, the age of 30, as Spartans
  aged 20–29 were still considered youths.
  Long hair was deemed to be both noble and fearsome. But, as with many
  Spartan traditions, the roots of this one were lost in obscurity. Herodotos
  dates the custom only as far back as the ‘Battle of the Champions’ at Thyrea,
  but Plutarch thought that it was an ancestral tradition. ‘The Spartiates took
  care of their hair because they bore in mind one of Lykourgos’ sayings about
  it’, he wrote, ‘namely, that it renders handsome men better looking, and ugly
  ones more frightening’ (Plut., Ap. Lak., Lyk. 29 = Mor. 228F). 
  The adult Spartan hairstyle sent other subliminal messages. Firstly,
  frugality; when one of the early Spartan kings, Kharillos, was asked why he
  wore long hair, he is said to have replied, ‘because, out of all the decorations,
  this one is natural and costs nothing’ (Plut., Ap. Lak., Khar. 6 = Mor. 232D).
  The second message was freedom from drudgery: Aristotle wrote that
  ‘wearing long hair is honourable in Lakedaimon, for it is the mark of
  freedom, because it is difficult to do menial labour with long hair’
  (Arist., Rhet. 8.26-27 = 1367A).
  RIGHT
  Bronze Spartan warrior
  figurine from the ancient
  shrine at Dodona. Besides the
  characteristic long, braided
  hair, he sports a full moustache
  and beard. (Now in the
  Archaeological Museum
  of Ioannina. Photo ©
  Archaeological Museum of
  Ioannina, Ministry of Culture
  and Tourism – TAP)
  FAR RIGHT
  Bronze figurine of a Spartan
  warrior. Although bearded, the
  man does not appear to have a
  moustache, in compliance with
  the ephors’ annual instruction
  to ‘cut off the mustax’. 
  (Now in Olympia Museum.
  Photo © Daniel P. Diffendale)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  19
  It is often imagined that Spartans wore facial hair in a distinctive manner
  that combined a beard (geneias) with a shaven upper lip. Certainly, Plutarch
  records that ‘the ephors, immediately on entering office, as Aristotle says,
  order the citizens to cut off their mustax (moustache) and to obey the laws,
  so that these may not be harsh’ (Plut., Kleom. 9.2, with a similar version at
  Mor. 550B). Since no other author refers to this custom, it is difficult to be
  sure, but it seems that, at least in Aristotle’s day, the moustache-shaving was
  an annual ritual, symbolizing obedience to the laws. 
  A statue discovered at Sparta in 1925 appears to have a short beard and
  shaven upper lip (see illustration on page 12), though it has been suggested
  that, since statuary was invariably painted, the artist had perhaps added a
  moustache at that stage. Certainly, other evidence suggests that, by and large,
  the Spartans were proud to wear moustaches. For example, one well-known
  bronze figurine of a Spartan from the shrine at Dodona sports a full
  moustache and beard, and the Spartan depicted on the Davis Museum krater
  (illustrated on p. 20) is similarly endowed.
  In his comedies, the Athenian writer Aristophanes characterizes Spartans
  by their hypene, a word which modern translators often render as ‘beard’
  (in order to conform to the stereotype of the bearded Spartan), but Aristotle
  clearly uses hypene as a synonym for mustax, indicating the moustache (as a
  counterbalance to the geneias, or beard). Furthermore, the playwright
  Antiphanes, quoted by the Roman writer Athenaeus, sums up the customs
  of the Spartans (albeit satirically) like this: ‘go to the syssition for your
  dinner; enjoy their broth; wear a moustache (mustax); do not despise nor
  wish for other refinements in their customs, but be old-fashioned’
  (Athen., Deipn. 4.21 = 143A). 
  In fact, the peculiar punishment reserved for those who had shown
  cowardice in the face of danger included the obligation to ‘shave part of their
  moustache (hypene) and allow part of it to grow’ (Plut., Ages. 30.3). Clearly,
  a man must already have a moustache in order to shave part of it off; in fact,
  if the Spartans ritually shaved their moustache once every year to symbolize
  obedience to the law, it is perhaps fitting that anyone who failed to obey the
  law (in this case, the prohibition against cowardice) should draw attention to
  himself by shaving only partially.
  Spartan dress 
  As we have seen, the ban on paides wearing shoes was in order to toughen
  the Spartan warriors’ feet, so it is likely that they rarely wore sandals or boots.
  The Spartan depicted on the Davis Museum krater, for example, is barefoot.
  The Athenian orator Demosthenes scorned his countrymen who ‘played the
  Spartan’ by feigning a sullen mood and wearing the tribon, a distinctively
  Ivory combs from the
  Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia
  at Sparta. The Gorgoneion
  (or mask of Medusa) was a
  popular motif at Sparta. Now
  in the National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. (Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Spartan cloak. When the Spartan
  Gylippos arrived in Syracuse in
  414
  BC
  to organize the city’s
  defence, the Athenian attackers
  characterized him as ‘a tribon carrying a
  staff’, and completed the stereotype by
  claiming to have dealt with Spartans
  ‘far sturdier than Gylippos and longer-
  haired’ (Plut., Nik. 19.3).
  The Spartans had a reputation for
  dressing simply. Aristotle wrote that
  ‘the rich wear clothes which any poor
  man would be able to procure’ (Arist.,
  Pol. 4.9 = 1294B), as proof of their
  egalitarian society of homoioi (‘equals’). For
  Xenophon, it wasn’t so much about the
  equality, as about Spartan pride: ‘There is no need
  to make money for spending on fine cloaks,
  because Spartans are admired not for the
  extravagance of their clothing, but for the healthy state
  of their bodies’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 7.3). The net result
  was the same: Spartan clothing created a unifying bond
  that cut across any differences in wealth or status. In
  360 BC, when King Agesilaos, by then in his eighties,
  arrived in Egypt with 30 Spartiates to support the Pharaoh
  against Persia, the Egyptians were surprised to see ‘an old man, his
  body small and lean, wrapped in a coarse, shabby cloak’ (Plut., Ages. 36.5).
  Of course, there was no particular military uniform in an age when men
  went to war in their working clothes. The Spartan warrior probably wore
  the standard tunic (chiton) of the Greeks, often arranged to leave one
  shoulder bare, as when Kleomenes is described ‘putting on his chiton and
  loosening the seam from his right shoulder’ (Plut., Kleom. 37.2). Otherwise,
  there was a specifically one-armed tunic called an exomis, which the
  Byzantine lexicon known as the Suda defines as ‘a chiton with only one
  arm-hole’ (Suda E, 3290). 
  Although there was no uniform, the Spartans seem to have preferred one
  colour above all others. Xenophon records that, ‘amongst the equipment for
  battle, Lykourgos arranged that they should have a red garment, believing it
  to be most fit for war while least resembling women’s clothing’ (Xen., Lak.
  pol. 11.3). Plutarch explains that, ‘in warfare, they wear red garments, partly
  because it seems to be a manly colour, and partly because the bloody hue
  causes more terror amongst inexperienced foes; also, if a man has been
  wounded, it is not easily detected by the enemy but goes unnoticed because
  of the fortuitous similarity in colour’ (Plut., Inst. Lac. 24 = Mor. 238F). 
  The last of these reasons is often the first to be emphasized by modern
  commentators, perhaps unduly influenced by the Roman writer Valerius
  Maximus, who believed that ‘they used to wear scarlet tunics in battle to
  disguise and conceal the blood from their wounds, not because the sight of
  the wounds alarmed them, but in order not to build the enemy’s confidence’
  (Val. Max. 2.6.2). 
  Plutarch represented ‘the staff and the cloak’ of Gylippos as the symbols
  of the Spartan warrior, specifically the Spartan officer. In 411 BC, the Spartan
  20
  Greek red-figure krater, c.440–
  420 BC, depicting the combat
  between a Spartan hoplite and
  a cavalryman. The Spartans
  trapped on Sphakteria in 425 BC
  were armed in this lightweight
  fashion. (Now in Davis Museum
  and Cultural Center, USA. Photo
  © Davis Museum and Cultural
  Center, Wellesley College,
  Wellesley, MA) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  admiral (nauarchos) Astyochos was involved in a
  dispute with his sailors over pay which should
  have come from their new Persian paymasters;
  the admiral’s surly attitude did nothing to calm
  the situation, but matters came to a head only
  when ‘he brandished his staff (bakteria)’ (Thuk.
  8.84.2), whereupon the mob of sailors turned
  on him, forcing him to take refuge at an altar.
  Possibly, Astyochos considered it within his
  rights to beat a non Spartan as if he were a helot.
  If so, not every Spartan shared his opinion. 
  Around 404 BC, Lysander, as admiral of the
  fleet, is said to have rebuked the commander of
  the Spartan garrison in Athens, a certain
  Kallibios, for lifting his staff to strike the famous
  Athenian athlete Autolykos; Lysander accused
  him of ‘not knowing how to govern free men’
  (Plut., Lys. 15.5), reinforcing the suggestion that
  beating with the bakteria was how Spartans
  governed helots. 
  Other Spartans are found using the bakteria
  to assert their authority; while in charge of a
  bridge-building detail of Greek mercenaries, for
  example, Klearchos ‘carried a spear in his left hand
  and, in his right, his staff, and if he thought that any
  of those assigned to the task were shirking, he would
  pick out the right man and strike him’ (Xen., Anab. 2.3.11).
  The two implements, spear and staff, are also found in the hands of
  Mnasippos, another Spartan admiral forced to deal with insubordination;
  when his men grumbled that they had not received their provisions, ‘he beat
  one with his staff, and another with the spike-end of his spear’ (Xen., Hell.
  6.2.19). 
  EQUIPMENT 
  While on campaign, each Spartan warrior carried a spear (dory) and the
  distinctive circular shield (aspis) that was characteristic of hoplites. In addition,
  most wore a helmet of some kind, for head wounds were particularly
  debilitating, and a pair of greaves; and some may have worn a cuirass of some
  description, although Spartans often appear to have gone without. 
  The shield 
  The writer Diodorus Siculus refers to ‘the men who were called hoplites
  because of their shields (aspides)’ (Diod. 15.44.3), highlighting the fact that,
  without the aspis, the man was not a hoplite. More correctly, the hoplite was
  named after his hopla, a catch-all term for military gear, which naturally
  centred on the all-important shield, but could include helmet, greaves and
  weapons as well. 
  The remains of an Etruscan hoplite shield (the ‘Bomarzo shield’) in the
  Vatican’s Museo Gregoriano Etrusco have enabled scholars to interpret its
  ingenious design. The core of the shield was a shallow wooden bowl whose
  21
  Tombstone of ‘Lisas the
  Tegean’, discovered at Dekeleia
  in 1873. As Spartan allies,
  Tegeans may have been
  garrisoned there from 413 BC.
  Lisas has adopted the Spartan
  warrior’s pilos and exomis.
  (From Bulletin de
  Correspondance Hellénique,
  Vol. 4, 1880, pl. 7)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  thickness varied between 10 and 11mm in the centre and 12 and 18mm at the
  edge. The exterior was faced with a sheet of bronze, only 0.5mm thick, which
  smoothly followed the shape of the shield and wrapped over the rim at the edge.
  Inside the shield was the central armband (porpax), which took the form
  of a bronze sleeve designed to fit the hoplite’s forearm snugly. To either side,
  a pair of staples were fastened to the shield’s wooden core for attaching a
  braided cord handgrip (antilabe). Since the hoplite required only one
  handgrip, the provision of two pairs of staples was presumably to allow for
  a substitute; if the first one snapped, the shield could continue in use simply
  by rotating it through 180 degrees. Xenophon talks about a shield being
  eurhythmos or ‘well-fitted’ (Xen., Mem. 3.10.12), which presumably
  occurred when a man could grasp the antilabe in his fist, while up to his
  elbow in the porpax. 
  B
  THE SPARTAN SHIELD 
  The fortuitous survival of the so-called ‘Bomarzo shield’, now in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco
  (Vatican), allows us to see how a hoplite shield (aspis) might have been assembled. The core of
  the shield was a shallow wooden bowl with a ﬂat, projecting rim, constructed from several planks
  of poplar wood, arranged so that the grain ran horizontally when the shield was in use (1). The
  thickness seems to have varied between 10 and 11mm in the centre and 12 and 18mm at the
  edge. 
  A thin layer of leather was glued to the interior, while on the exterior, and perhaps stuck to it with
  a layer of pitch, was a bronze facing, 0.5mm thick. Around the rim, the bronze was often
  decorated with a repoussé pattern, such as the guilloche shown here (2). The classic Spartan
  shield of the late 5th century BC was probably blank and polished to a high sheen. However, vase
  paintings depict various shield emblems, including the snake shown here (3), and the pattern
  of radiating black and white crescents on a red background is thought to have had particular
  signiﬁcance at Sparta (4). Some of the motifs carved on ivory votive disks from the Temple of
  Artemis Orthia are also found as shield emblems, such as the scorpion shown here (5). Equally, it
  has been suggested that bronze ‘Medusa’ plaques were intended to be attached to shields (6). 
  Inside the shield was the central armband (porpax) and, to either side, a pair of staples for
  attaching a braided cord handgrip (antilabe) (7). Vase paintings show how four additional anchor
  points allowed spare cord to be threaded around the perimeter, perhaps to assist in carrying the
  shield over the shoulder.
  22
  Scene from a red-figure
  amphora, depicting the
  departure of three bearded
  warriors. Inside the shield of
  the leftmost warrior, the spare
  antilabe can be seen. His
  companion holds his spear
  with both hands, suggesting
  that his shield has been slung
  on his back. (From E. Gerhard,
  Auserlesene griechische
  Vasenbilder, Vol. 4, Berlin, 1858,
  Tafel 26) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  The weight of the Bomarzo shield, when new, has been estimated at a
  surprisingly manageable 6.5kg. The thin bronze facing contributed little to
  the shield’s defensive value and, particularly when polished to a high sheen,
  probably had more of an aesthetic purpose. Certainly, Xenophon believed
  that the Spartans faced their shields with bronze ‘because it was quickly
  polished and tarnished very slowly’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 11.3). 
  The timber core ensured that the shield was effective against sword cuts,
  but it seems to have been vulnerable to determined spear thrusts. The Spartan
  general Brasidas, for example, was wounded by a spear through his shield;
  when asked how this had happened, he gave the laconic reply, ‘my shield
  betrayed me’ (Plut., Ap. Lak., Bras. 2 = Mor. 219C). Earlier, during the
  Spartan amphibious attack on the Athenian position at Pylos in 425 BC, it
  was the shape and relative lightness of Brasidas’ shield that carried it ashore
  when it was accidentally dropped in the water.
  A genuine Spartan shield-facing was discovered during the 1936
  excavations in the Athenian agora; it is slightly oval, measuring 95 x 83cm,
  with a smooth face and an elaborate guilloche ornamentation around the rim.
  Allowing for damage and distortion, this bronze facing must originally have
  belonged to a wooden shield slightly larger than the Bomarzo example. When
  originally displayed as booty on the walls of the Stoa Poikile, the shield would
  have been complete, for Aristophanes claimed that each still had its porpax
  (Ar., Hipp. 843–59), which was, of course, attached to the wooden core. 
  The characters in Aristophanes’ play Hippeis are understandably alarmed
  at the prospect of battle-ready shields on public display in Athens, where they
  could easily be used by insurgents, for the spoils of war were normally
  24
  Bronze shield-facing,
  reconstructed from fragments
  discovered during excavations
  in the Athenian agora in 1936.
  The shield has an elaborately
  ornamented rim and carries a
  dedicatory inscription punched
  into the face, identifying it as
  one of those captured from
  the Spartans on Sphakteria
  in 425 BC. (Now in the Agora
  Museum, Athens. Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  ‘neutralized’. Indeed, one ancient author tells us that, even in Sparta, ‘the
  Spartiate removes the porpax from his aspis when he is at home, because of
  his mistrust of the helots’ (Critias Frg. 37). 
  Enemies put to flight often discarded their shields in order to run away
  faster. But at Sparta, a warrior could commit few crimes worse than this, ‘for
  the shield is intended for the common good of the battle-line’ (Plut., Ap. Lak.,
  Dem. 2 = Mor. 220A). Clearly, if a hoplite discarded his shield, he jeopardized
  the safety of his comrades, for the aspides formed the shield-wall of the
  phalanx. On Sphakteria in 425 BC, the Spartans were at a disadvantage in
  their skirmish with the lightly armed Athenians, owing to the fact that they
  ‘could not pursue them as they were carrying hopla’ (Thuk. 4.33.2, where the
  hopla are clearly the hoplite shields). 
  Plato was keen to draw a distinction between a genuine rhipsaspis (‘shield
  discarder’) and a man who has simply lost his equipment by accident:
  How many have lost weapons (hopla) because of being thrown down from
  the cliffs, or at sea, or struggling in a storm when a sudden rush of water takes
  them by surprise… But if a man is surprised by the enemy and, instead of
  turning round and defending himself with the weapons (hopla) he has, he
  intentionally lets them drop or throws them away, preferring the coward’s life
  of shame to the brave man’s glorious and fortunate death, then there should
  certainly be a penalty for throwing weapons away like this. But if it was in the
  way that I described earlier, the judge must not fail to take the facts into
  consideration. (Pl., Leg. 944B–D) 
  The Spartans did not consider ‘shield discarding’ to be a laughing matter. The
  poet Archilochos was allegedly denied hospitality at Sparta for having written
  these flippant lines: ‘some Thracian now struts around with my shield,
  blameless equipment which I was forced to toss into a thicket, but I myself
  escaped Death’s clutches. Begone, shield! I shall get another one’ (Plut., Inst.
  Lac. 34 = Mor. 239B). According to the Suda: ‘Because of Lykourgos’ laws,
  when mothers sent forth their sons to the wars, they used to say, referring to
  their shields, “Either this or on this”, which means “Either bring this when
  you return, and don’t be a shield-discarder (rhipsaspis), or be brought upon
  this as a corpse”.’ (Suda L, 824)
  The same laconic phrase, ‘Either this or on this’, is repeated by several
  authors, one of whom claims that Aristotle had attributed the remark to
  Gorgo, wife of King Leonidas; but it is rather puzzling, as Spartan warriors
  were traditionally buried where they fell. Plutarch preserves the story as an
  anonymous one, along with a variation in which ‘another woman, as her son
  went off to war, handed over his shield and said, “Your father always kept
  this safe for you; so should you also keep it safe, or stop living”’ (Plut., Lak.
  Ap., Anon. 17 = Mor. 241F). Clearly, for a Spartan warrior, it was deeply
  shameful to lose a shield.
  When in storage, the shield could be protected by a kind of dust cover
  called a sagma. The late Roman lexicographer Hesychius defines this item as
  ‘the covering for an aspis’. Again, the Suda attempts a lengthier explanation: 
  Aristophanes, in his play Acharnians, writes: ‘Who woke the Gorgon from
  her covering?’ For the Gorgon was portrayed on the shield (aspis); so he is
  saying, ‘Who took the shield (hoplon, this time) out of its cover (sagma)?’
  (Suda S, 23; quoting Ar., Acharn. 574) 
  25
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  26
  It is unlikely that the cover was taken on campaign, because the shield had
  to be ever-ready. Ancient depictions demonstrate that it could be slung onto
  the back while on the march. A passage from Xenophon’s Anabasis seems
  to describe this, when, in order to
  persuade his men to traverse
  a deep ravine, he offers
  them two courses
  Scene from a red-figure kylix,
  depicting ephebes equipping
  themselves for war. The youth
  on the left is taking his shield
  from its dust cover (sagma).
  (From E. Gerhard, Auserlesene
  griechische Vasenbilder, Vol. 4,
  Berlin, 1858, Tafel 29)
  Terracotta relief from Apollonia
  Pontica, Thrace. The hoplite on
  the left carries his shield slung
  on his back while he blows a
  horn. (Now in the Louvre, Paris.
  Wikimedia Commons/
  Marie-Lan Nguyen)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  27
  of action: ‘Go forward with weapons (hopla) held out in front, or, with them
  slung behind, risk the enemy coming up behind us’ (Xen., Anab. 6.5.16).
  Some have suggested that it was for this purpose that a cord was often
  pinned around the inside perimeter of the shield; others have seen this cord
  as spare material from which an emergency handgrip could be fashioned. 
  Shield emblems (episema)
  It is well known that hoplite shields often carried painted designs or bronze
  appliqué blazons; one example is the Gorgoneion (or Medusa mask) in
  Aristophanes’ Acharnians (quoted above). The philo-Spartan Alkibiades
  allegedly depicted Eros with a thunderbolt on his shield, which was thought
  to be far too frivolous (Plut., Alk. 16.2), whereas the Thebans depicted
  Herakles’ club on theirs (Xen., Hell. 7.5.20). Plutarch even records the case
  of a Spartan who painted a life-sized fly on his shield, explaining that ‘I move
  in so close to the enemy that the emblem is seen by them as big as it really is’
  (Plut., Ap. Lak., Anon. 41 = Mor. 234C–D). 
  At one point, Xenophon describes how an Argive force identified its
  enemy as Sikyonians, ‘seeing the sigma on their shields’ (Xen., Hell. 4.4.10);
  clearly, on this occasion, the men of Sikyon had painted Σ on their shields,
  being the initial letter of their town. Similarly, modern writers often state as
  a fact that Spartan shields carried the , indicating ‘Lakedaimon’. However,
  the evidence is problematic. 
  V
  Selection of lead figurines
  excavated at the Menelaion
  (Temple of Menelaos) at Sparta
  in 1909. The warriors’ shields
  show a marked preference for
  the ‘spoked wheel’ pattern,
  prompting the excavators to
  comment on the absence of
  the expected Λ (lambda)
  symbol, thought to signify
  Lakedaimon. (Now in Sparta
  Museum. From Annual of the
  British School at Athens, Vol. 15,
  1908–09)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  No contemporary source ever mentions this Spartan shield blazon, nor is
  it illustrated on any vase paintings, which provide the greatest source of
  evidence for these emblems. In fact, it is only the word of a Byzantine
  lexicographer named Photius, who wrote in his Lexicon, in the section on
  words beginning with L, under the heading ‘Lambda’: ‘the Lakedaimonians
  inscribed this on their shields, just like the Messenians and Mu. Eupolis
  writes: “I was terror-struck seeing the gleaming lambda”; thus also
  Theopompos’. So it seems that Photius had gleaned this snippet of
  information from the 4th-century BC historian Theopompos (whose work is
  now lost, but who appears to link the elusive Spartan 
  with a similarly
  unknown Messenian M). He, in turn, seems to have quoted a line from the
  Athenian comic poet Eupolis (whose work is also largely lost). 
  It is true that the Roman writer Pausanias, referring to a situation in the
  late 4th or early 3rd century BC (beyond the period covered here), claims that
  some Messenians treacherously infiltrated Elis ‘with Lakonian emblems on
  their shields’ (Paus. 4.28.5), but that is not the same as saying either that the
  Spartan shields carried a lambda emblem, or that the Messenians usually used
  a Mu emblem.
  However, if we can trust that Theopompos really quoted a line from
  Eupolis, his testimony would relate squarely to the period of the
  Peloponnesian War, when that particular comic poet flourished. Indeed, one
  modern commentator has gone so far as to link the quotation with Kleon’s
  defeat and death at Amphipolis, but this is pure speculation. Another
  commentator has suggested that the phrase should not be taken literally; on
  the contrary, it might conceal a vulgar joke of the kind beloved in Athenian
  V
  28
  Bronze plate (restored)
  representing a Gorgoneion,
  or face of Medusa, discovered
  in 1924 at the Temple of
  Athena Chalkioikos in Sparta.
  It is thought to be a shield
  emblem, dating from around
  520 BC. (Now in the National
  Archaeological Museum,
  Athens. Photo © Stefanos
  Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  comedy, playing on the obscene verb laikazein, best translated by the
  Anglo-Saxon to ‘f— off’. We could then imagine the unknown speaker in
  Eupolis’ play interpreting the blank bronze shields of the Spartans as a
  dismissive message of this kind. 
  The spear 
  Every Greek hoplite’s main weapon was the spear (dory). The cardinal
  importance of this weapon is highlighted by the fact that, according to the
  Suda, exemption from military service was known as adoratia, meaning
  literally ‘spearlessness’ (Suda A, 506). It was, quite naturally, the spear that
  first occurred to the poet Tyrtaios, when he encouraged every Spartan to fight
  well, with the words ‘in his right hand let him brandish his mighty spear, let
  him shake the fearsome crest upon his head’ (Tyrt. Frg. 11, lines 25–26).
  Judging by their depiction in vase paintings, hoplite spears were at least
  one-and-a-third times the height of a man, or approximately 2.4m. Cornel
  wood and ash are thought to have been the preferred materials for the shaft
  (kamax). The head, known as the akoke or the epidoratis (literally, ‘on top
  of the spear’), was usually made of iron, socketed and riveted to the shaft.
  The butt end, or ouriachos (from oura, meaning a ‘tail’), was routinely fitted
  with a bronze spike known as a styrax, or more graphically as a sauroter
  29
  Scene from a black-figure
  hydria (water jar), c.575–525 BC,
  depicting hoplites fighting over
  a corpse. The men wear only
  helmets and greaves, and the
  visible shield-facings carry no
  emblems. The bronze-faced
  Spartan shields may have
  resembled these. (Now in the
  Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia
  Commons/Photo: Marie-Lan
  Nguyen)
  Iron spearhead from Athens.
  Although the butt-spike was
  normally made of bronze,
  iron was preferred for the
  spearhead, because it could
  maintain a sharper edge. (Now
  in the National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  (‘lizard-sticker’). Insubordinate soldiers struck by the styrax of their officer’s
  spear would not soon forget it.
  The butt-spike enabled the hoplite to ground his spear when it wasn’t
  immediately required. Diodorus Siculus describes the mercenary hoplites
  of Chabrias, awaiting a Spartan attack by Agesilaos’ troops in 378 BC,
  ‘with their shields leaning against their knee and their spears upright’
  30
  Selection of arrowheads,
  spearheads and a butt-spike
  collected during excavation
  work at Thermopylai in 1939.
  The arrowheads are likely to
  be Persian, but the spearheads
  and butt-spike probably
  belonged to King Leonidas’
  300 Spartans. (Now in the
  National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. Photo ©
  Livius.org)
  Two bronze inscribed
  spear-butts from Olympia.
  The inscription, Methanioi apo
  Lakedaimonion, indicates that
  the Messenians (in their local
  spelling) dedicated a spear
  taken ‘from the Spartans’,
  perhaps at Stenykleros. The
  inscription covers three sides
  with the message ‘Theodoros
  dedicates this to the King’.
  (From Journal of Hellenic
  Studies, Vol. 2, 1881, pl. 11)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  (Diod. 15.32.5). This was the hoplite’s stance when ‘at ease’; the Greek word
  for a lull in the fighting, anakokes, was supposed to derive from this habit
  of holding the spear point (akoke) upright (ana) (Suda A, 1914).
  On campaign, the Spartan warrior kept his spear with him at all times.
  Xenophon claims that the reason for this was the same as for keeping
  the helots away from where the arms were stored in the camp (Xen., Lak.
  pol. 12.4), namely that the helot servants were not to be trusted. (As we
  have seen, Spartan shields, when at home, were allegedly disabled for the
  same reason.) 
  The sword 
  Hoplites often carried a sword as a sidearm, but rather than the curved sabre
  (machaira) depicted in many vase paintings, the Spartans favoured the
  straight or leaf-shaped blade (xiphos). In addition, the swords of the Spartans
  were famously shorter than the thigh-length blades used by other Greeks.
  The Athenian Demades sneered at this, saying that ‘conjurors swallow
  Spartan swords because they are so short’, but the Spartan King Agis III
  31
  BELOW LEFT
  Bronze figurine depicting the
  mythical hero Orestes, who was
  particularly revered at Sparta.
  He wields the short sword of a
  Spartan warrior. (Now in Getty
  Villa Museum, Malibu. Photo:
  Wikimedia Commons/Davide
  Ferro) 
  BELOW
  Sherd of a red-figure krater
  from the school of the ‘Black
  Fury Painter’ (c.350 BC),
  depicting the Spartan hero
  Telephos, son of Herakles,
  wielding a short sword,
  perhaps representing the
  Spartan encheiridion. (Now in
  Tampa Museum of Art, Florida.
  © Ross H. Cowan)
  Selection of assorted spear-
  butts (styrakes or sauroteres)
  dedicated to Athena on the
  Akropolis at Athens. No. 6844
  (second down) has Athenaias
  (‘of Athena’) punched along
  the side. (Now in the National
  Archaeological Museum,
  Athens. Photo © Stefanos
  Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  replied (with characteristic brevity), ‘quite so, but the Spartans can still reach
  their enemies with them’ (Plut., Ap. Lak., Agis 1 = Mor. 216C). 
  The Spartan sword was technically known as an encheiridion, meaning
  ‘little hand weapon’. This is the word used by the Spartan admiral
  Antalkidas, when he explained why the Spartan short sword was so effective:
  ‘the reason is that we fight close up to the enemy’ (Plut., Ap. Lak., Ant. 8 =
  Mor. 217E). Indeed, when one Spartan lad complained about the size of his
  sword, his mother simply replied, ‘then add a stride’ (Plut., Lak. Ap., Anon.
  18 = Mor. 241F).
  The short sword should not be confused with the curved Spartan knife
  (xyele), useful for whittling. Xenophon knew a Spartan named Drakontios,
  who had been exiled since boyhood for accidentally killing another boy with
  a blow from his xyele (Xen., Anab. 4.8.25). Plutarch even records an instance
  of such a knife fight, after which the wounded boy begged his friends not to
  avenge him, ‘because I would have done the same, if only I had been skilful
  and had acted first’ (Plut., Ap. Lak., Anon. 34 = Mor. 233F). 
  The helmet 
  The iconic Spartan helmet (kranos) was the so-called ‘Corinthian’, which
  concealed the entire face apart from the eyes and mouth. This is the style of
  helmet most commonly depicted on the early Spartan bronze statuettes, and
  can also be seen amongst the locally manufactured lead figurines deposited
  in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia and in the Menelaion.
  The helmet was skilfully beaten out of bronze, and early examples dating
  broadly to the 7th century BC have stitch-holes punched around the edge
  for attaching a fabric lining. By the 6th century BC, a more elegant version
  had appeared, whose streamlined shape brought its weight down to around
  32
  Scene from a red-figure kylix
  signed by the painter Douris
  (c.490–460 BC), depicting the
  legendary Spartan King
  Menelaos pursuing the Trojan
  prince Paris. Menelaos carries
  the short, straight sword
  favoured by the Spartans. (Now
  in the Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia
  Commons/Marie-Lan Nguyen)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  1kg. The absence of stitch-holes may indicate that a fabric
  lining was glued in place, but a padded felt cap could
  simply have been worn underneath. Such padding was
  required, not only to make the helmet more
  comfortable, but also (perhaps more importantly) to
  cushion blows to the head.
  The famous marble sculpture of a warrior from
  Sparta demonstrates that a crest could be worn,
  though the method of fixing it to the helmet is
  unknown. The crests illustrated on vase paintings
  were probably of dyed horsehair, but an exchange
  between the characters in Aristophanes’ Acharnians,
  one of whom says ‘Now give me the plumage from
  your helmet’ (Ar., Acharn. 584), shows that feathers
  were often used.
  The Corinthian style of helmet must have been
  very stuffy and claustrophobic in the heat of a
  Peloponnesian summer; many hoplites seem to have
  worn a headband, probably to prevent perspiration
  from running into their eyes. When at ease, the wearer
  could certainly push the helmet back from his face, but
  this was not practicable in battle. Even if the wearer was
  willing to forego the helmet’s facial protection, when pushed
  back, it could easily be knocked from his head. 
  33
  Bronze Corinthian helmet,
  probably dating from the later
  7th century BC. The rivet-holes
  neatly punched around the
  edges could be for attaching
  a fabric lining. (From the J. L.
  Scott collection, Glasgow. ©
  Ross H. Cowan)
  Well-known scene from an
  Attic red-figure kylix by the
  Sosias Painter, c.500 BC,
  depicting Achilles binding
  Patroklos’ wound. Patroklos
  wears a cap of the sort which
  hoplites may have worn
  beneath their helmets. (Now
  in the Altes Museum, Berlin.
  Wikimedia Commons/Bibi
  Saint-Pol) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Consequently, a new style of helmet appeared, based on the conical
  brimless cap known as a pilos. In fact, the Roman philosopher Pollux equated
  the ‘pilos and encheiridion’ with Sparta (Poll. 1.149). In its original form, the
  pilos was a felt cap worn by workmen and travellers, and was particularly
  associated with the Peloponnese; the word literally refers to the method of
  ‘compressing’ wool to make felt.
  34
  Spartan black-figure kylix,
  c.550 BC, depicting the hero
  Kadmos fighting the Theban
  dragon. The Gorgoneion
  emblem appears on his shield.
  (Now in the Louvre, Paris.
  Wikimedia Commons/Bibi
  Saint-Pol) 
  RIGHT
  Bronze plaque, thought to be
  the cheek-piece of a helmet,
  discovered at the ancient
  shrine of Dodona. The main
  figure wears a pilos helmet and
  carries the hoplite shield. (Now
  in the National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos) 
  FAR RIGHT
  Bronze pilos helmet with
  assorted arrowheads. (Now
  in the War Museum, Athens.
  Photo © Stefanos Skarmintzos) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  35
  Some scholars have suggested that this felt hat was simply worn as a
  liner underneath a Corinthian-style helmet, but its conical shape would be
  a poor fit. Others have suggested that Spartan hoplites had exchanged their
  bronze helmets for felt caps, but many bronze helmets shaped like piloi
  have been found. 
  A reading of Thukydides’ History suggests that, by 425 BC, the pilos had
  become the standard headgear of the Spartan warrior; in that year, the men
  trapped on Sphakteria found that ‘their piloi would not fend off the arrows’
  of the Athenian archers, ‘and javelins broke on striking’ (Thuk. 4.34.3). Some
  scholars have taken this to mean that the Spartans were wearing the conical
  felt cap, which would not have been proof against arrows, but Thukydides
  is probably drawing attention to the fact that the pilos, when compared with
  the Corinthian, leaves a larger area of the head exposed. Furthermore, only
  a bronze helmet would break javelins, so it seems that the Spartans were, by
  now, wearing the bronze pilos. 
  The cuirass 
  At the beginning of our period, many Spartan warriors will have worn the
  bronze ‘bell cuirass’ (thorax), in which a front plate and a back plate, both
  covering from neck to waist, were fastened together. This is the style worn by
  archaic Spartan bronze figurines, such as the well-known example from
  Dodona. The design resembles a bell by gently flaring inwards at the waist
  before jutting out in a flange, which was no doubt intended to catch or deflect
  any downward spear thrusts. 
  It is possible that the Spartan warrior, following the example set by the
  hoplites of other city-states, graduated, along with them, from the
  cumbersome bronze bell cuirass to the more comfortable fabric corslet.
  Xenophon describes this thorax lineos (‘linen corslet’), which covered a man
  down to his abdomen and incorporated a skirt of fabric strips called pteryges
  (Xen., Anab. 4.7.15). This design of corslet, with its telltale shoulder flaps,
  is frequently depicted on vase paintings, but is nowhere explicitly linked
  with Spartans. 
  Scene from a black-figure
  krater, c.575–550 BC, depicting
  hoplites fighting over the
  corpse of Hippolytos. The men
  wear the archaic panoply and
  carry the large hoplite shield,
  one of which displays the
  popular Gorgoneion motif.
  (Now in the Louvre, Paris.
  Wikimedia Commons/
  Marie-Lan Nguyen) 
  The bronze ‘bell’ cuirass and
  associated helmet discovered
  in 1953 in a late 8th-century
  grave. The cuirass appeared to
  have been lined with cloth. The
  helmet, of ‘Kegelhelm’ type, is a
  forerunner of the Illyrian style,
  which lacks the characteristic
  nasal guard of the Corinthian
  style. (Now in Argos Museum.
  Photo © Sarah C. Murray) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  The death of the Spartan mercenary Kleonymos in 401 BC demonstrates
  that there was an alternative to the fabric corslet, for Xenophon records how
  he was ‘shot in the side by an arrow that penetrated his shield and spolas’
  (Xen., Anab. 4.1.18). The late Roman lexicographer Hesychius gives a
  straightforward definition of this garment as ‘a short, thick chiton made of
  leather, being the leather corslet’. Unfortunately, it is unclear how we would
  recognize such a garment, if it were depicted in a vase painting.
  Besides the obvious practicality of wearing some form of body protection,
  Plutarch tells the story of the hebon named Isidas who was fined for fighting
  ‘bare without hopla or himation’ (Plut., Ages. 34.7), while heroically
  defending Sparta in 362 BC. However, in this instance, the hopla need not
  include a corslet; Plutarch’s story may simply indicate that Isidas lacked a
  helmet and, especially, a shield, for he is described ‘holding a javelin in one
  hand and a sword in the other’. 
  Equally, when Xenophon says that Agesilaos ‘armed his men so that it
  seemed as if they were all bronze and all crimson’ (Xen., Ages. 2.7), he is
  probably drawing attention to the bronze helmets and shields. Nor is there
  any mention of corslets amongst Xenophon’s troops in mercenary service in
  Persia: ‘all had bronze helmets, crimson tunics, and greaves, and had
  uncovered shields’ (Xen., Anab. 1.2.16). In fact, it seems to have been quite
  permissible to discard helmet and corslet, on the grounds that these items
  C
  SPARTAN WARRIOR, c.346 BC
  By the time of the Third Sacred War, Sparta had passed her heyday; her army was overwhelmingly
  Lakedaimonian, rather than Spartiate. Consequently, the Spartan Warrior played a far smaller role
  on the battleﬁeld. Nor is it clear, in the absence of archaeological ﬁnds and literary descriptions,
  what type of armour he wore. 
  During the period of the Peloponnesian War, there seems to have been a deliberate lightening of
  equipment. The claustrophobic ‘Corinthian’ helmet was replaced by the pilos (1), which left the
  face, ears and neck exposed. Although this was a far simpler helmet, several examples are known
  to have been decorated with repoussé or appliqué work, and a bronze statuette (now in Sparta
  Museum) shows how a crest could be applied. At the same time, the bronze cuirass and greaves,
  which had been worn during the time of the Persian Wars, were given up entirely. The Spartiates
  on Sphakteria, for example, relied only on the protection of their shields (2). Much the same state
  of aﬀairs probably continued into the 4th century BC, as long as the dwindling population of
  Spartiates clung to their heroic traditions. 
  By contrast, the hoplites of other city-states had given up the bronze cuirass in favour of the
  lightweight fabric corslet, still designated as a thorax (3); this incorporated a tubular body section
  (as opposed to the front- and back-plates of the cuirass) and a collar or ‘yoke’ section, to which
  the body ‘tube’ was attached (hence, the common neologism, ‘tube-and-yoke corslet’). Although
  the fabric seems often to have been quilted or even reinforced with metal scales, it did not oﬀer
  complete protection. At the Second battle of Mantineia, when Epameinondas, the victor of
  Leuktra, ‘took a blow to the thorax, he fell on the spot, for the spear had broken leaving the iron
  point in his body’ (Diod. 15.87.1). 
  Hoplites wishing more protection than the pilos could oﬀer, but unwilling to suﬀer the discomfort
  of the ‘Corinthian’ helmet, often elected to wear the more open-faced helmet known to scholars
  as the ‘Chalcidian’. Variations included the removal of the nose guard and the attachment of
  hinged cheek-pieces, often shown folded up on vase paintings (4). 
  The same paintings show that greaves might still be worn, at the individual’s discretion. But,
  as before, the warrior’s main protection came from the large hoplite shield (aspis), here shown
  depicting the cockerel, a belligerent bird that was sacred to Herakles and, no doubt for that
  reason, a popular Spartan motif (5). It is possible that the perioikoi who increasingly ﬁlled out
  the ranks of the Lakedaimonian army wore equipment like this.
  36
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  38
  were worn by personal preference, and it was probably Isidas’
  lack of a shield – normally a serious offence at Sparta – that led
  to his fine.
  Greaves 
  The evidence for Spartan greaves (knemides) is as
  equivocal as the evidence for corslets; both items appear
  on the archaic bronze figurines, but there is little
  evidence thereafter. However, where the hoplite shield
  might mitigate the absence of body armour, it seldom
  covered a man’s lower legs, where greaves would provide
  the only protection. 
  If the Spartan elected to wear greaves, each bronze
  knemis must have been modelled, albeit roughly, to fit his
  leg, because it wrapped around the shin leaving only a
  narrow gap at the back, along the wearer’s calf. The
  springiness of the bronze kept the greaves in place and, as
  with the helmet, padding provided comfort while cushioning
  any blows. 
  We can assume that such padding was normally made of fabric,
  but Aristotle claims that marine sponges could be used, and
  particularly the species nicknamed ‘the sponge of Achilles’: ‘this one
  they place under the helmet and greaves, to deaden the sound of the
  blow’ (Arist., Hist. An. 5.14 = 548B). Of course, in deadening the sound,
  it also absorbed the impact, which was surely its primary purpose. 
  MILITARY SERVICE
  Every Spartiate between the ages of 20 and 59 was liable for military service.
  No ancient author tells us this directly, but we have seen that the hebontes
  always formed part of the army, and it seems that, once a man became a
  geron (elder), he was excused from the call-up. 
  Xenophon states that one of the responsibilities of the ephors was to
  ‘announce the “years” which are required to take the field’ (Xen., Lak. pol.
  11.2); in practice, it seems that the Spartans were classified by age-group,
  spanning ten years. In 371 BC, for example, when the ephors mobilized the
  army, they went ‘as far as the 40 from youth’ (Xen., Hell. 6.4.17). Just as the
  hebontes were the ‘ten from youth’, men aged 50–59 were the ‘40 from
  youth’, so on this occasion the ephors had effectively called up every man
  between the ages of 20 and 59. 
  In 378 BC, King Agesilaos refused the field command against Thebes, on
  the grounds that ‘others of his age were no longer obliged to serve outside
  their homeland’ (Xen., Hell. 5.4.13). However, it is not Agesilaos’ age that is
  the issue here, for, by then, he was probably 66 years old; rather, it is the fact
  that he specifically includes himself amongst those who were ‘over 40 from
  youth’. So we can be sure that those aged 60 and over (the gerontes, in fact)
  were usually excused military service. 
  Mess-groups (syssitia) 
  The basic grouping of Spartan warriors was the syssition (‘mess-group’) of
  around 15 homoioi; the precise number, if there was one, is not known,
  Scene from a black-figure
  amphora, c.560–540 BC,
  depicting a warrior arming for
  battle. He wears his Corinthian
  helmet pushed back from his
  face, while putting on a pair of
  greaves. (Now in the Louvre,
  Paris. Wikimedia Commons/
  Bibi Saint-Pol)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  39
  but Plutarch claims that ‘they met in fifteens, some fewer or more’ (Plut.,
  Lyk. 12.2). The hebontes, although not yet adults in many respects, appear
  to have qualified for membership. However, as with the hippeis, there was
  an element of selection. 
  Firstly, there was the self-selection, by which membership was limited to
  those Spartans who could contribute the required amount of food each
  month from their kleros, or plot of land. Plutarch claims that this comprised
  ‘one medimnos of barley, eight choes of wine, five minai of cheese, and five
  half-minai of figs’ (Plut., Lyk. 12.2; see glossary for these measures). Aristotle
  was critical of this contributory system, on the grounds that ‘it is not at all
  democratic when it is regulated in this manner, for it is not easy for the very
  poor to participate’ (Arist., Pol. 2.9 = 1271A). 
  Although Plato maintained that the syssitia had been invented for warfare
  (Pl., Leg. 633A) – and this certainly rings true, as it appears as a synonym for
  syskenia, or ‘tent groups’ (e.g. Xen., Lak. pol. 5.2) – there was also a tradition
  that Lykourgos had introduced the mess-groups as a levelling measure, ‘so
  that the rich man may have no advantage over the poor man’ (Plut., Ap. Lak.,
  Lyk. 4 = Mor. 226E; and cf. Xen., Lak. pol. 7.3). Nevertheless, as Aristotle
  realized, there were inevitably those whose kleros could not support the
  required level of contributions. 
  There was a second level of selection, as each Spartan who qualified for
  entry still had to find a mess-group willing to have him. Each hebon seems
  to have made an application to a particular syssition of his choice; Plutarch
  describes how the current members voted on his acceptance by casting
  morsels of bread into an urn, with a single negative vote meaning that he
  was rejected. 
  The syssition, being a ‘mess-group’, was, of course, all about dining. Even
  beyond the age of 60, gerontes seem still to have taken their main meal in the
  syssition. The philosopher Dikaiarchos, one of Aristotle’s pupils and the
  author of a lost Spartan Constitution, gave a full description of ‘the meal
  Greek panoply comprising late
  Corinthian helmet, greaves
  and sauroter. The greaves are
  marked with the owner’s name,
  ‘Denda’. (Now in the Staatliche
  Antikensammlungen, Munich.
  Wikimedia Commons/Daderot)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  eaten by the syssitia’ in another lost work, entitled Tripolitikon; fortunately,
  the relevant passage was preserved by the Roman writer Athenaeus: 
  The dinner is at first served separately to each man, and there is no sharing with
  one another. Afterwards there is a barley-cake, as large as each man desires, and
  a cup is set beside him, for drinking whenever he wishes. The same food, namely
  a piece of boiled pork, is always given to everyone; sometimes, however, they
  have nothing but a small bit of meat weighing as little as a quarter portion.
  Besides this, there is nothing else except, of course, the broth made from it,
  sufficient to go round all of them throughout the whole dinner; there may
  possibly be an olive or cheese or a fig, or they may even get something
  contributed specially, like a fish, a hare, or a pigeon, or some such thing.
  Afterwards, having hastily finished their dinner, these so-called epaikla
  (‘additions’) are passed around. Each man contributes to the mess-group (per
  month) about three Attic half-medimnoi of barley and eleven or twelve choes of
  wine, and besides this, a certain weight of cheese and figs, and furthermore, for
  purchasing food, about ten Aiginetan obols. (Athen., Deipn. 4.19 = 141B–C) 
  The reference to ‘ten Aiginetan obols’ (the obol was the coin traditionally
  placed in the mouth of the deceased to pay the ferryman) jars with the
  notorious Spartan avoidance of coinage (at least until a later period), but the
  rest of Dikaiarchos’ description rings true. His ‘three Attic half-medimnoi of
  barley’ are the equivalent of Plutarch’s single Spartan medimnos (see
  glossary), and his ‘11 or 12 choes of wine’ probably represent an attempt to
  translate Plutarch’s eight Spartan choes into Attic measure. These amounts
  tally, in part, with the daily rations of ‘two Attic choinikes of barley and two
  kotylai of wine and some meat’ (Thuk. 4.16.1) sent to the Spartans trapped
  on Sphakteria in 425 BC; over the course of a 30-day month, these would
  have amounted to 5⁄6 medimnos of barley, but only 31⁄3 choes of wine. 
  It has been observed that the monthly mess contributions far exceeded
  the amount that one man was likely to consume, and it may be that the
  hebontes, not being full adult Spartans, were excused their contribution. If so,
  this would have implications for the ownership of a kleros, which was
  perhaps only really required once a Spartan had turned 30 or had married.
  Nevertheless, even removing, say, five contributions from the total (for there
  40
  Ivory relief of a warship,
  discovered in 1907 in the
  Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at
  Sparta. On the right, a warrior
  crouches on the prow; above
  him, a man is fishing. On the
  left, the personification of
  Artemis waves farewell. Ivory
  was a rare and expensive
  commodity in Greece. Now in
  the National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. (Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  can only have been four or five hebontes per syssition at any particular time)
  still leaves a surplus of food, and it is possible that each man’s helot servant
  was expected to be fed also.
  The main Spartan staple was the so-called black broth (melas zomos,
  elsewhere called haimatia, or ‘blood-broth’), which the older men so enjoyed
  that they would even forego their piece of meat provided they had this soup.
  Although the ingredients are unknown, Plutarch elsewhere records that, in
  general, ‘Spartans give the cook only vinegar and salt, and tell him to find the
  rest in the animal carcass’ (Plut., De san. 12 = Mor. 128C). Even the
  Spartanized Alkibiades is represented ‘nuzzling a barley-cake and devouring
  black broth’ (Plut., Alk. 23.3). By contrast, and clearly for comedic effect,
  the Athenian comic poet Eupolis represents Alkibiades wishing for a frying
  pan (Athen., Deipn. 1.30 = 17D), the very antithesis of Spartan cooking!
  Although the Spartans loved their black broth, they also appreciated
  occasional epaikla (‘additions’); Xenophon notes that ‘many extras were
  produced from hunting expeditions, and there were times when wealthy
  individuals contributed wheaten bread’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 5.3). Other writers
  mention a snack called kammatides, consisting of barley soaked in oil and
  wrapped in laurel leaves. 
  The Spartan kings had their own syssitia, in which they were each joined
  by two Pythioi, the men whose job it was to consult the Delphic oracle. When
  on campaign, a Spartan king dined with the polemarchoi and ‘three other
  men of the homoioi’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 13.1), who looked after the provisions,
  while the others concentrated on the affairs of war. It is not clear whether a
  king resident at Sparta had the same dining companions, although Plutarch
  implies that King Agis, on his return from Mantineia in 418 BC, was supposed
  to dine with at least some of the polemarchoi, for it was they who refused to
  send his portion to his house, when he decided to dine with his wife (Plut.,
  Ap. Lak., Lyk. 6 = Mor. 226F–227A; Lyk. 12.3). At home, he would have
  been entitled to ‘two choinikes of barley and a kotyle of wine’ (Hdt. 6.57.3),
  but received a double portion in the syssitia, in case he wished to honour
  anyone by sharing his food. 
  The mess-groups were a forum for frank and informal political and
  philosophical discussion, helped along by free-flowing wine (perhaps as much
  as a litre per man every day), so it is not surprising that their maxim was
  ‘Not a word goes out through these doors’ (Plut., Lyk. 12.5; Inst. Lac. 1 =
  Mor. 236F). The membership comprised Spartiates of widely differing ages,
  from hebontes to gerontes, so it was true that, in this way, ‘the younger might
  learn from the experience of those older’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 5.5). Equally, the
  group was self-selecting, inasmuch as every member had been unanimously
  approved. So it seems unlikely (and entirely unworkable) for the membership
  of each syssition to be arranged – as some scholars have suggested – so that,
  when several (perhaps three) syssitia came together as an enomotia, every
  year from 20 up to 60 was represented. 
  Spartiate status was closely allied to the membership of a syssition, so
  those who were forced to withdraw also forfeited their status, becoming
  inferior to the homoioi. Such individuals were probably the hypomeiones,
  literally ‘inferiors’, whom Xenophon mentions (Xen., Hell. 3.3.6). 
  Army organization: the ‘obal’ army
  The Spartan army of the Persian Wars (c.480 BC) is sometimes called the
  ‘obal’ army, because it was thought to have been based on units raised
  41
  Bronze warrior figurine from
  the sanctuary of Apollo
  Korythos near Koroni on
  the south-eastern coast of
  Messenia. His panoply has been
  supplemented by wrist- and
  thigh-guards. Now in the
  National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. (Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  amongst the five obai or Spartan villages. Some scholars have tried to link
  these five villages with the five lochoi (regiments) listed by Aristotle in his
  lost Spartan Constitution (Frg. 541). These, according to a later ‘scholiast’,
  or ancient commentator, on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, were named Edolos,
  Sinis, Arimas, Ploas, and Messoages. (Hesychius explains that ‘Aristophanes
  declares that there are four lochoi of the Lakedaimonians, yet there are
  five, as Aristotle says’.) However, only the last one, Messoages, bears even
  a passing resemblance to the name of a Spartan village, so the Oxford
  classicist Theodore Wade-Gery suggested that these were actually the
  regiments’ nicknames
  Indeed, Hans Van Wees has gone so far as to suggest that, at some early
  stage of development, the five lochoi of the ‘obal’ army were given warlike
  epithets evoking the Homeric world of epic poetry: Edolos, the ‘Devourer’;
  Sinis, the ‘Ravager’; Arimas, ‘Hell-Bent’ (from an adjective meaning ‘furiously
  eager’); Ploas, the ‘Thundercloud’; and Messoages, the ‘Leader of the Centre’
  (which was the traditional position of the Spartan king in battle). 
  However, Herodotos has thrown this logical scheme into disorder with
  his mention of a lochos Pitanates, or ‘Pitanate regiment’, which was under
  the command of a certain Amompharetos at the battle of Plataia in 479 BC.
  It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this must have been a regiment
  raised by the village of Pitana. However, Thukydides denied that there had
  ever been a Pitanate lochos, ‘for it did not ever exist’ (Thuk. 1.20.3). Many
  ingenious theories have been hatched attempting to absolve Herodotos from
  blame, none more elegant than Van Wees’ suggestion that Herodotos’
  source had used ‘Pitana’ to mean Sparta, a poetic metaphor used by
  Euripides amongst others. So, it seems likely that Thukydides was correct.
  (Had Herodotos’ source simply told him that Amompharetos was
  ‘commanding one of the Spartan lochoi’?) 
  Herodotos mentions the syssitia and the enomotiai, which remained the
  basic building blocks of the Spartan army, but the only officers he names are
  the polemarchoi and taxiarchoi. The first of these were the senior officers of
  the Spartan army, who could be assigned various responsibilities; in 480 BC,
  a polemarchos named Euainetos was entrusted with the advance guard
  D
  SPARTAN TACTICS 
  The writer Xenophon, a keen observer of Spartan aﬀairs in the early 4th century BC, described
  how an army on the march formed up for battle. ‘When they march in column’, he writes, ‘each
  enomotia naturally follows the tail of another enomotia; if, in such a situation, an enemy phalanx
  suddenly appears in front, the order is passed to each enomotarches to form up in line to the left,
  and so on down the entire column, until the phalanx is in position against the enemy’ (Xen., Lak.
  pol. 11.8, using the phrase ‘to the shield side’ to mean ‘to the left’). 
  Xenophon explains that this is one of the easier manoeuvres, although he admits that the
  non-Spartan tacticians consider it to be tricky. In fact, the army of King Agis found itself in just
  such a situation at Mantineia in 418 BC, and ‘they immediately and speedily formed up in line,
  Agis the King directing everything, according to the laws’ (Thuk. 5.66.2). 
  At Mantineia, Thukydides explains that each lochos (the picture depicts a single lochos) consisted
  of four pentekostyes (shown bracketed in black), and each pentekostys consisted of four enomotiai
  (shown as a red square); furthermore, each enomotia drew up four men abreast and generally
  eight men deep. The individual oﬃcers were numbered amongst the men, meaning that the
  lochagos himself was also the enomotarches of the leading enomotia and the pentekonter of the
  leading four enomotiai. Our illustration depicts such a lochos, roughly 500 strong, forming up into
  a phalanx from its line of march, in the way that King Agis’ army must have done. Each
  enomotarches is tagged with a red circle. 
  42
  Bronze sword acquired from
  the collection of T. B. Sandwith,
  British consul in Crete from
  1870 until 1885. Although its
  provenance is unknown, it is
  often represented as Spartan,
  but this attribution seems
  unlikely. (Now in the British
  Museum, London. Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Lochagos
  Entomarches
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  against the invading Persians, and the Arimnestos who fell at Stenykleros in
  464 BC may have been a polemarchos, too. 
  The taxiarchos, on the other hand, was Herodotos’ version of the
  Spartan lochagos, a battlefield commander in charge of one of the five
  1,000-strong lochoi into which the ‘obal’ army was divided. At Plataia in
  479 BC, when the regent Pausanias ordered the retreat, all of the ‘taxiarchoi’
  (properly lochagoi) obeyed, except one: the dissenter was Amompharetos,
  whom (as we have seen) Herodotos believed to be the commander of the
  ‘Pitanate regiment’; his four colleagues are not named. However, Herodotos’
  use of the Athenian term taxiarchos indicates that his source was not a
  Spartan one, and bolsters the case for his misunderstanding of the name of
  Amompharetos’ regiment.
  The army that Thukydides describes 50 or so years later was essentially the
  same, except for the fact that an additional tier of command had appeared.
  For Thukydides describes how ‘the King gives orders to the polemarchoi, who
  convey them to the lochagoi, and they in turn to the pentekonteres, and they
  again to the enomotarchoi, and they to the enomotia’ (Thuk. 5.66.3). Here
  are Herodotos’ polemarchoi and lochagoi (masquerading as ‘taxiarchoi’)
  along with the enomotia as the fundamental unit; but a pentekonter (a name
  that ought to mean ‘commander of 50’) has been added, leading Thukydides
  to observe (in an extravagant and obvious exaggeration) that ‘almost all of
  the Lakedaimonian army are officers commanding other officers, except for
  a few, and the responsibility for action devolves upon many’ (Thuk. 5.66.4).
  Unfortunately, the selection process for Spartan officers remains a mystery,
  but the constant competition from the age of seven perhaps created a
  natural hierarchy. 
  King Agis’ deployment for the battle of Mantineia in 418 BC was based
  on the same five lochoi known to Aristotle, with the obvious addition, on
  the left wing, of a 600-strong lochos of Skiritai, specialist troops from
  Skiritis on the northern marches of Lakedaimon, and two lochoi of former
  helots (neodamodeis), including the Brasideioi (or ‘men of Brasidas’ who
  had fought under that general in Thrace in 424 BC). However, where
  5,000 Spartiates had manned the five lochoi at Plataia, each lochos at
  Mantineia now consisted of only 500 men, a shocking confirmation of their
  declining population. 
  A band of brothers: the enomotia
  The enomotiai were literally ‘bound by oath’. An inscribed stele, found at
  Acharnai near Athens and dating from the time of the Persian Wars, seems to
  preserve the oath that the Spartiates swore: 
  I shall fight while I live, and I shall not put life before being free, and I shall
  not desert my taxiarchos nor my enomotarches, whether he is alive or dead,
  and I shall not depart unless the leaders lead us away, and I shall do whatever
  the generals command, and I shall bury on the spot the dead among my
  fellow-fighters, and I shall leave no-one unburied. (Rhodes & Osborne, Greek
  Historical Inscriptions, §88, lines 23–31, modified) 
  The tenor of the oath, placing honour above life itself, is quite in tune with
  everything we know about the Spartan warrior. For example, the death of a
  Spartan king in battle brought horrific casualties amongst the Spartiates as
  they struggled to retrieve his body, ‘for amongst the Lakedaimonians it was
  44
  Bronze warrior figurine,
  wearing an early form of
  Corinthian helmet (it lacks
  a nose-guard and sports a
  spectacular crest fitting),
  along with a ‘bell’ cuirass and
  greaves. (Now in the National
  Archaeological Museum,
  Athens. Photo © Stefanos
  Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  considered most shameful to allow the body of a king to come into the hands
  of the enemy’ (Paus. 9.13.10). When he wrote these words, Pausanias was
  thinking about the death of Kleombrotos at Leuktra in 371 BC, but a similar
  scene had been enacted a century before, when King Leonidas fell at
  Thermopylai and his Spartiate comrades ‘courageously dragged his corpse
  away, repulsing the enemy four times’ (Hdt. 7.225.1). 
  Along with the enomotiai, Herodotos listed the syssitia as ‘military
  institutions’, so membership of a mess-group clearly bore some relationship
  to the mustering of the Spartan army. Equally, as Xenophon’s word for the
  mess-group, syskenia, literally means a ‘tent party’, it is likely that each
  enomotia comprised men from a fixed number of syssitia. We have seen that
  each syssition numbered around 15 Spartiates; but, as the ephors announced
  which ten-year age-groups were required to take the field, it is unlikely that
  an entire syssition was ever mobilized (particularly as most included
  gerontes, and some of the hebontes may have been selected to serve
  seperately with the hippeis). 
  Thukydides’ analysis of King Agis’ army shows that ‘in each lochos there
  were four pentekostyes, and in each pentekostys four enomotiai’ (Thuk.
  5.68.3), but the size of the enomotia continues to exercise scholars. The Suda
  claims that it was ‘a military unit of 25 men used by the Lakedaimonians;
  derived from the oath-taking not to desert the unit’ (Suda E , 1408); the
  derivation is certainly correct, but the size is far too small, at least for the
  period of Sparta’s heyday. The fact that the detachment of Spartans occupying
  Sphakteria in 425 BC numbered 420 has suggested to some that it comprised
  12 enomotiai of 35 men. On the other hand, ‘there were 30-odd hoplites’
  (Thuk. 4.31.2) in the outpost subsequently surprised by the Athenian
  attackers, which might imply that there were actually 14 enomotiai of 30 men
  on the island. 
  At Mantineia in 418 BC, the enomotiai were drawn up in ranks of four
  and ‘generally eight deep’ (Thuk. 5.68.3), which ought to indicate an
  average of 32 men. Equally, a maximum of 36 men is implied at Leuktra in
  371 BC, where each enomotia was drawn up in three files of ‘no more than
  12 men’ (Xen., Hell. 6.4.12). The fluctuating sizes probably reflect the
  variable number of Spartiates who were liable for the call-up in any
  particular syssition. One thing seems certain: the scholars who presume that
  each enomotia contained one man from each year of every ‘age-group’ (say,
  from the ages of 20 up to 54, or even from 18 to 60!) have gone far beyond
  the evidence. 
  Finally, Herodotos’ puzzling triekas (‘30’) continues to vex scholars, but
  the fact that it never appears in the pages of Thukydides or Xenophon may
  give us a clue to its original significance. If, in the days of a burgeoning
  population at Sparta, the enomotia was a larger unit of, perhaps, 45 men,
  then a smaller ‘30’ might have proved useful on occasion; but by the time of
  the Peloponnesian War, when the enomotia was averaging 32 men, there
  would be no point in a separate unit of ‘30’, and the triekades could be
  allowed to disappear. 
  Army organization: the army of the morai
  It seems that the Spartan army underwent a change in organization at some
  point after the events of Thukydides’ History, for we suddenly meet a unit
  called a mora in 403 BC (Xen., Hell. 2.4.31). In fact, Xenophon describes an
  army establishment of six morai (‘divisions’): ‘each of the hoplite morai has
  45
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  one polemarchos, four lochagoi, eight pentekonteres, and 16 enomotarchoi’
  (Xen., Lak. pol. 11.4), preserving the same chain of command, if not the
  same unit ratios, as in the previous ‘obal’ army.
  The number of morai is certain, for Aristotle provides confirmation in
  another fragment of his lost Spartan Constitution (Frg. 540), preserved in the
  Suda: ‘Aristotle says that there are six named morai and all Lakedaimonians
  are divided amongst the morai’ (Suda, 1259). But some scholars have
  suggested that the text of Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution should be altered
  to give two lochoi per mora, rather than four, based on later events. When the
  Thebans invaded Sparta in 362 BC, for example, Agesilaos was short-handed
  because ‘three of the 12 lochoi were absent in Arkadia’ (Xen., Hell. 7.5.10).
  On Xenophon’s own reckoning, there ought to have been, not 12, but
  24 lochoi in total, but there had perhaps been further changes in the wake of
  the disaster at Leuktra. 
  The mora appears to have been roughly the size of the ‘obal’ army’s
  lochos, and suffered the same decline in numbers: the mora defeated at
  Lechaion in 390 BC numbered ‘around 600’ (Xen., Hell. 4.5.12), for example,
  while Agesilaos’ five morai which invaded Boiotia in 378 BC ‘each contained
  500 men’ (Diod. 15.32.1). This diminution need not imply a similar shrinking
  of the enomotia, but it is possible that its manpower now approached the
  Suda’s estimate of 25 men, making Xenophon’s pentekostys roughly 50 or
  60 men, which is half the size of the pentekostyes at Mantineia. 
  What was the reason for this change in army establishment? It may be
  linked with the manpower shortage at Sparta, which had probably, by now,
  obliged the Spartiates to admit perioikoi into their ranks, whereas they had
  previously served in separate regiments. They probably already fought
  side-by-side at Leuktra, but clearer evidence comes a few years later in 365 BC,
  when the Spartan garrison of Kromnos was captured by the Arkadians;
  although some men managed to escape, ‘the total number of captured
  Spartiates and perioikoi came to more than 100’ (Xen., Hell. 7.4.27). 
  On campaign
  According to Spartan tradition, ‘when the army took the field, the Kings go
  out first and return last’ (Hdt. 6.56), but, from an early date, only one king at
  46
  Detail of the north frieze from
  the Siphnian Treasury at
  Delphi depicting the so-called
  ‘Gigantomachy’, or battle
  between the gods (advancing
  from left) and the giants,
  depicted as hoplites. The figure
  of Ares, god of war (centre),
  sports the beard and long hair
  of the Spartans. (Now in Delphi
  Museum. Wikimedia
  Commons/ Fingalo)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  a time. Before embarking, the king ‘first made an offering to Zeus Agetor (‘the
  leader’) and to the associated gods (i.e. the heavenly twins, Kastor and
  Polydeukes)’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 13.2). If the omens were good, an official known
  as the pyrphoros (‘fire-bearer’) carried a lit torch to the Lakedaimonian border,
  where the king sacrificed once more. This was the so-called diabateria, or
  ‘sacrifice at the frontier’. Only if the omens were favourable could the army
  leave the ‘hollow land’ on campaign; if they were bad, there was no option but
  to return home.
  When the army finally set off, it was invariably accompanied by sheep
  and goats ‘to serve as sacrifices to the gods and to give good omens before
  battle’ (Paus. 9.13.4). Before the battle of Nemea in 394 BC, for example,
  ‘when the armies were no more than a stade (around 200m) apart, the
  Lakedaimonians sacrificed a she-goat to Artemis Agrotera (‘the huntress’),
  according to their laws, and led the charge against their adversaries’ (Xen.,
  Hell. 4.2.20). On this occasion, Artemis smiled upon the Spartans, who lost
  only eight men in the battle.
  On campaign, each Spartan warrior was probably accompanied by one
  helot servant as a baggage carrier. Herodotos records that Eurytos, one of
  the two Spartiates whom Leonidas had excused from the battle line at
  Thermopylai on account of an eye complaint, was accompanied by a helot;
  likewise, Kleomenes’ men at the battle of Sepeia in 494 BC, and the men on
  Sphakteria in 425 BC. Oddly, at Plataia, each Spartiate seems to have had
  seven helots, but even the former admiral Anaxibios was accompanied on
  campaign by a single helot (Xen., Hell. 4.8.39, referring to him as a hypaspist,
  47
  Greek red-figure kylix, c.500 BC,
  depicting the sacrifice of a
  young boar at an altar. (Now in
  the Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia
  Commons/Marie-Lan Nguyen)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  or ‘shield-bearer’). It may be no coincidence that, in 362 BC, King Agesilaos
  went to parley with the invading Thebans ‘wearing his himation and
  accompanied by a single servant’ (Plut., Ages. 32.4). 
  In battle, the enomotiai could be drawn up with various frontages, so that
  each must have had several men willing and able to serve as file-leaders. In
  fact, we get a flavour of Thukydides’ ‘officers commanding other officers’ in
  the Sphakteria episode, where a certain Stryphon had been obliged to take
  command ‘since, of the initial commanders, Epitadas, who was the first, had
  been killed, and Hippagretas, who had been chosen to succeed him, lay
  amongst the dead, although he was still alive’ (Thuk. 4.38.1).
  As Xenophon explains in his Spartan Constitution, ‘in the Spartan
  battle-array, those standing in the front are officers, and every file has
  everything required to operate independently’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 11.5). He
  denied that Spartan manoeuvres were complex, pointing out that, since
  every man ought to know his place, the moves were quite straightforward.
  ‘However’, he continues, ‘the arrangement whereby, even if they are in
  disorder, they fight equally well with whomever happens to be next to them,
  is no longer easy to learn, except for those trained under the laws of
  Lykourgos’ (11.7). This is surely a damning indictment of the ‘army of the
  morai’, where a Spartiate (being one of ‘those trained under the laws of
  Lykourgos’) could no longer guarantee that his neighbours in the battle-line
  were also staunch Spartiates. 
  BELIEF AND BELONGING
  Spartan law 
  The exiled King Demaratos summarized the Spartan ethos for the benefit of
  the Persian King Xerxes: ‘fighting singly, Spartans are no worse than other
  men, but together they are the most excellent of all warriors; for they are
  free, but not entirely free, because the Law is their master, whom they fear
  much more than your men fear you’ (Hdt. 7.104.4). The Spartan warrior
  E
  THE BATTLEFIELD SACRIFICE AT PLATAIA, 479 BC
  The critical battle of the Persian Wars was fought some way to the north-east of the town of
  Plataia. In the manoeuvring before the day of the battle, the Spartan Army led by the regent
  Pausanias (standing in for Leonidas’ under-age son Pleistarchos) became separated from the
  other Greek contingents. The Persians then focused their attack on the Spartans, and subjected
  them to an archery barrage from behind a protective wall of wicker shields. 
  Having drawn up in line of battle, the Spartans could not engage until they had received a
  favourable omen from the sphagia. This was a special, pre-battle sacriﬁce that did not involve
  altars or ﬁres, but seems simply to have relied upon the priests observing the ﬂow of blood from
  the animal’s throat (sphage). Herodotos records that ‘the sphagia was producing no favourable
  result, and all the time many of the Spartans were dying and far more were being wounded, for
  the Persians were freely shooting showers of arrows from behind their wicker shields’ (Hdt. 9.61.3). 
  It was customary for the rites to be performed by seers called manteis (sing. mantis), whose
  speciality was interpreting signs. However, at such a critical moment, their divination was surely
  a mere formality, and it has been suggested that Pausanias (shown standing with helmet pushed
  back to observe the proceedings) deliberately prolonged the sphagia, either to build false
  conﬁdence in the Persians or to await the arrival of his Athenian allies. In his Life of Aristeides (the
  commander of the Athenian forces in the battle), Plutarch describes the Spartan priests’ staves
  and scourges, imagining that they were used to beat back the enemy, but there is no mention
  of this in Herodotos’ account.
  48
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  50
  was governed by one overriding principle: ‘The Spartans do whatever the
  Law commands, and it always commands the same thing: not to flee from
  battle, even against overwhelming numbers, but to remain in the ranks and
  either prevail or perish.’ (Hdt. 7.104.5) 
  Anyone who did not abide by this principle brought disgrace upon himself
  and suffered the dishonour of being labelled a tresas (‘runaway’). This was a
  serious offence at Sparta; such a coward was no longer welcome in the
  communal syssition; he was doomed to wear a shabby tribon and shave half
  of his hypene. Worse still, he lost his citizen status as a Spartiate and was
  obliged to defer to his juniors in all matters. ‘I am not surprised’, writes
  Xenophon, ‘that they prefer death to a life so filled with dishonour and
  disgrace’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 9.6). 
  Although a man who fled the field of battle might be accused of atimia
  (literally, ‘lack of honour’), his offence was compounded if he had failed to
  protect the king. A king had fallen at Thermopylai in 480 BC, another at
  Leuktra in 371 BC, and another at Megalopolis in 331 BC. There, the dying
  King Agis instructed his men ‘to withdraw as quickly as possible and save
  themselves for the needs of the fatherland’ (Diod. 17.63.4). Equally, after
  Leuktra, Agesilaos famously waived the penalty for the 300 or so Spartiates
  who had survived the battle, ‘declaring that the laws must be allowed to sleep
  for the day’ (Plut., Ages. 30.2–4; also Ap. Bas., Ages. 10 = Mor. 191C). But
  his decision, like Agis’, had been forced on him by the needs of Sparta and her
  desperate decline in population.
  Ivory plaques from Sparta. At
  bottom left, the goddess
  Artemis appears as Agrotera,
  ‘the huntress’; at bottom right,
  she appears as the winged
  Orthia, ‘the healer’. (Now in
  the National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. Photo ©
  Stefanos Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  51
  The disgrace of the Spartans who surrendered on Sphakteria in 425 BC
  was not as great, no king having been lost. Yet, on their return to Sparta in
  421 BC, they suffered atimia, ‘such that they should neither hold a command
  nor have the authority to buy or sell’ (Thuk. 5.34.2). However, their
  punishment was soon lifted. 
  Aristodemos ‘the runaway’ was not so fortunate; when he missed
  the battle of Thermopylai owing to an eye disease, and returned home as
  the sole survivor, ‘he was deprived of honour in this way: none of the
  Spartiates would give him fire or speak to him’ (Hdt. 7.231). Nevertheless,
  his punishment must also have been lifted, for he fought at Plataia in the
  following year, where he demonstrated in no uncertain terms that his
  condemnation as a tresas had been unjust; he was killed, ‘raging and running
  out from the battle-line to achieve great deeds’ (Hdt. 9.71). By contrast, the
  two polemarchoi, Aristokles and Hipponoidas, who failed to manoeuvre
  their troops as they had been ordered at Mantineia, ‘on account of this
  offence were banished from Sparta because they were held guilty of
  cowardice’ (Thuk. 5.72.1). 
  Spartan loyalty 
  The Spartan warrior’s first loyalty was to Sparta. When the army was on
  campaign, the womenfolk invariably asked for news, not of their husbands
  or sons, but of how the country was faring (e.g. Plut., Lak. Ap., Anon. 5, 7
  = Mor. 241B, C). It was a well-known Spartan maxim that men were born
  to die for Sparta. The epitaph to the fallen at Thermopylai makes this clear:
  ‘Tell the Lakedaimonians, stranger, that here we lie, obeying their customs’
  (Hdt. 7.228.2). 
  We have seen that fighting to the death was part of the Spartan ethos.
  The surviving fragments of Tyrtaios’ poetry glorify battle: ‘to fall and die
  amongst those fighting in the front is a beautiful thing for a brave man who
  is doing battle on behalf of his country’ (Tyrt. Frg. 10). A later fragment sums
  up the Spartans’ martial fraternity: ‘Those who dare to remain in their place
  at one another’s side and advance together towards hand-to-hand combat
  and those fighting in the front, they die in lesser numbers, and they save the
  army behind them; but when men flee in terror, all soldierly excellence is
  lost.’ (Tyrt. Frg. 11, lines 11–14) 
  Xenophon believed that this attitude – ‘that an honourable death was
  preferable to a life of disgrace’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 9.1) – was inculcated in the
  Spartiates. Furthermore, their obedience to authority was generally second
  nature. ‘We all know’, writes Xenophon, ‘that, most of all in Sparta, they
  obey their magistrates and the laws’ (Xen., Lak. pol. 8.1). Of course, their
  laws were considered sacrosanct because they had come from the divine
  oracle of Apollo at Delphi; disobedience was doubly damning, as it incurred
  impiety and dishonour. 
  Spartan religion
  The Spartans were deeply religious, as we have seen from the various rituals
  of the army on campaign. Herodotos, for one, believed that ‘the things of the
  god they deem more important than the things of man’ (Hdt. 5.63.2). It seems
  that their Argive neighbours were wise to all of the Spartans’ religious foibles.
  In 419 BC, when an Argive quarrel with pro-Spartan Epidauros was brewing,
  King Agis marched out on the eve of the Karneia festival, but received bad
  omens and had to stand down. The Argives knew that, once the religious
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  festival had begun, the Spartans could not stir forth, so they promptly invaded
  and plundered Epidauros with impunity. 
  The Argives were particularly skilful at manipulating Spartan religious
  scruple. In 417 BC, for example, they waited until the Spartans were
  celebrating the religious festival of Gymnopaidiai before ousting the
  pro-Spartan party at Argos. However, the Argives’ strategy did not always
  succeed. In 388 BC, they attempted to forestall a Spartan invasion by
  bringing forward their sacred month, hoping that King Agesipolis would
  hesitate to break a sacred truce. However, Agesipolis sought and received
  permission from the oracles at Olympia and Delphi, and freely proceeded to
  ravage Argolis, until subsequent omens taken after a thunderstorm reversed
  his decision. 
  Burial of the dead 
  The influence of religion continued after the battle. Some city-states
  scrupulously repatriated their war-dead, but the Spartan oath called for
  Spartiates to be buried where they had fallen. Or, in practice, in the nearest
  allied territory to the battlefield. For example, after the battle of Mantineia
  in 418 BC, the Spartans ‘took up their dead and carried them off to Tegea
  where they buried them’ (Thuk. 5.74.2). Similarly, after Lysander and his
  men fell at the battle of Haliartos in 395 BC, the regent Pausanias, arriving too
  late for the battle, concluded a truce so that the bodies could be gathered up;
  then, ‘as soon as they were beyond the boundary of Boiotia carrying
  Lysander’s body, they buried him in the country of the Panopeans, their
  friends and allies’ (Plut., Lys. 29.3).
  52
  Ivory votive plaques of the
  goddess Artemis from the
  Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia
  at Sparta. In her guise as the
  huntress, she was worshipped
  as a warlike deity. (Now in
  the National Archaeological
  Museum, Athens. Wikimedia
  Commons/Marsyas) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  In fact, Spartan war graves became permanent markers of Spartan
  involvement on foreign soil; they had contrived to leave a little piece of Sparta
  in the territories of their allies, as a reminder of their good faith. In 427 BC,
  when the long-besieged Plataians finally surrendered their town to the
  Spartans, they begged for clemency on the grounds that they had tended the
  53
  Greek black-figure kylix by
  the so-called ‘Hunt Painter’
  (c.550–530 BC), depicting
  Spartan warriors carrying their
  dead comrades from the
  battlefield. Now in the Altes
  Museum, Berlin. 
  (© Karwansaray Publishers,
  courtesy of Jasper Oorthuys)
  The Tomb of the
  Lakedaimonians in the
  Kerameikos cemetery at
  Athens, viewed from the north-
  west, looking in the direction of
  the Akropolis. (Author’s
  collection)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  Spartan war grave from the battle of 479 BC ‘with
  garments and other customary offerings, and as much
  of the harvest as our land produced’ (Thuk. 3.58.4). 
  Most intriguing of all is the ‘Tomb of the
  Lakedaimonians’ at Athens, which contains the
  casualties from the Spartan army sent to support the
  Athenian oligarchy during the civil strife which followed
  Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Excavation of
  the mass grave by the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
  in the 1930s revealed 23 battle-scarred skeletons interred
  in separate compartments, some in groups and some
  individually; the latter presumably included the two
  polemarchoi and other high status individuals whom
  Xenophon names (Xen., Hell. 2.4.33). The skeletons
  were found to have been wrapped, probably in their red
  cloaks as prescribed by Lykourgos (Plut., Lyk. 27.1–2;
  Inst. Lac. 18 = Mor. 238D), and laid out with each man’s
  head resting on a stone.
  Lykourgos was believed to have ‘abolished the
  inscriptions on memorials, except for those who had
  fallen in war’ (Plut., Inst. Lac. 18 = Mor. 238D). In fact,
  some two dozen of these mnemeia (‘memorials’) are
  known from the vicinity of Sparta, commemorating men who died ‘in war’.
  Given the Spartan tradition of burial near the battlefield, they surely do not
  mark the men’s graves. On the contrary, the stele of a certain Eualkes
  discovered at Geraki, to the south-east of Sparta, unusually carries the extra
  information ‘at Mantineia’ after the standard formula ‘in war’. If Eualkes
  fell in the battle of 418 BC, his body will have been buried with his comrades
  at Tegea.
  F
  THE BATTLE OF KORONEIA, 394 BC
  A Theban-led coalition of troops, including Athenians, Argives and Corinthians, met Agesilaos’
  Spartans and their Phokian allies (reinforced by a body of neodamodeis and the remnants of
  Xenophon’s ‘Ten Thousand’ mercenaries) at Koroneia in Boiotia. In the ensuing clash, the Argives,
  who were positioned opposite the Spartans, turned and ﬂed, but the Thebans, who were
  positioned on the other ﬂank, broke through the Phokians and began plundering Agesilaos’
  baggage park. 
  At this, Agesilaos, ‘immediately countermarching his phalanx, led it against them’ (Xen., Hell.
  4.3.18). Xenophon’s brief statement conceals the fact that the Spartans had executed the
  complicated manoeuvre known as anastrophe, or ‘turning backwards’, in which each ﬁle of men
  snaked back through the phalanx to create its mirror image facing in the opposite direction.
  Crucially, the original ﬁle-leaders remained in the front rank, and the original ﬁle-closers
  remained at the rear. 
  Xenophon comments that the Spartans could easily have allowed the Thebans to pass by, which
  would have left them vulnerable to a ﬂank or rear attack, but a head-on meeting of phalanxes was
  more honourable. ‘Crashing their shields together’, writes Xenophon, who was probably present
  at the battle, ‘they shoved, they struggled, they slew, and they died’ (Xen., Hell. 4.3.19). 
  The Spartans are shown in the act of countermarching, with each enomotia at a diﬀerent stage
  of the manoeuvre, to illustrate the process. The Thebans are shown heading for the Spartan
  baggage park. They are depicted with the ‘club of Herakles’ motif on their shields; the same
  symbol appears on vase paintings and on Boiotian coins, and Xenophon implies that it was
  their state symbol (Xen., Hell. 7.5.20). By contrast, the evidence for a Spartan state symbol is
  problematic, and it seems likely that their shields were left plain. 
  54
  Grave stele from Pellana, on the
  road from Sparta to Arkadia,
  with typically laconic
  inscription. It reads simply
  Olbiadas en polemoi, meaning
  ‘Olbiadas, (who died) in war’.
  (Now in Sparta Museum. Photo
  © Stefanos Skarmintzos)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  THE WARRIOR IN BATTLE
  The Spartan warriors were famously disciplined on the battlefield. They
  regularly marched into battle slowly, to the sound of many pipes, ‘so that,
  walking evenly and regularly, their ranks would not become disjointed’
  (Thuk. 5.70); the overall effect was to broadcast an eerie calm. Agesilaos
  had even managed to withdraw his phalanx from battle in good order,
  utilizing the manoeuvre known as anastrophe, or ‘turning backwards’ (Xen.,
  Hell. 6.5.18–19), whereby the men faced about where they stood and
  marched through the ranks to the rear, so that the same file leaders were still
  at the front. 
  However, the declining numbers of Spartiates led to the gradual
  adulteration of the ranks, with hoplites drawn from the perioikoi and
  neodamodeis; the army became truly Lakedaimonian, rather than purely
  Spartan. These men did not share the total immersion in military training
  experienced by the Spartan warrior, and it is telling that Xenophon wrote
  about how the unflinching obedience of the Spartiates should prevail even
  when the army is in disorder. 
  Of course, battles are won by good generalship, but morale plays a
  considerable part. The events of the battle of Tegyra in 375 BC
  illustrate how much the Spartan army had changed, no doubt owing
  to the decline of the purely Spartiate, oath-bound enomotiai: when
  two 500-strong Lakedaimonian morai stumbled upon 300 Theban
  hoplites under the command of Pelopidas, we might imagine that
  the roles had been reversed, for it was the Thebans who acted like the
  Spartans of old, and the Lakedaimonians who broke and fled as soon as their
  polemarchoi were killed (Plut., Pel. 17.1–4).
  It is ironic that, as the ranks of the pure-bred Spartan warriors thinned
  and their influence on the Spartan army was diluted, their proverbial
  excellence was finally eclipsed by an enemy (the Thebans at Leuktra) who
  adopted the key principles of obedience and orderliness in battle. The days
  had passed, when ‘if you watch carefully, you might consider all others
  improvisers in soldiering, and only the Spartans craftsmen in warfare’
  (Xen., Lak. pol. 13.5). 
  G
  AFTER THE BATTLE OF MANTINEIA, 418 BC
  After a battle, it was customary to collect the dead for burial. However, the victor had the right to
  strip the vanquished corpses and erect a victory trophy symbolizing possession of the battleﬁeld.
  The defeated side acknowledged their defeat by formally requesting permission to retrieve their
  fallen for decent burial. 
  At Mantineia, Thukydides records that the Spartans ‘grounded their arms’ in front of the enemy
  dead, thus compelling the Argives and their allies to seek formal permission for their repatriation.
  ‘The Lakedaimonians immediately set up a trophy and stripped the dead’ (Thuk. 5.74.2). The trophy
  was intended as an oﬀering of thanks to the gods. It consisted of captured arms and armour
  draped on a pole or a convenient tree trunk as a makeshift mannequin, ‘so that the memorials
  of hostility would last only for a brief time and quickly disappear’ (Diod. 13.24.6). 
  Shortly afterwards, the Spartans took up their own dead and, as was their custom, buried them
  close to the battleﬁeld in the nearest allied territory; on this occasion, burial took place some way
  to the south, in the land of their Tegean allies. The Spartans took a very businesslike attitude to
  battle, so there were no elaborate victory celebrations. Indeed, Plutarch records that the man who
  brought news of the victory at Mantineia to Sparta received nothing for his trouble, except ‘a piece
  of meat sent by the ephors from their syssition’ (Plut., Ages. 33.4). 
  56
  Modern statue of King
  Leonidas, erected in 1968 at
  Sparta. According to Plutarch,
  at Thermopylai in 480 BC, when
  the Persian King Xerxes
  demanded that the Spartans
  surrender their weapons,
  Leonidas replied: molon labe –
  ‘Come and get them’.
  (Wikimedia Commons/Gonzalo
  Serrano Espada)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  58
  FURTHER READING
  Original source material is available in translation in the Loeb, Penguin Classics
  and Oxford World Classics series. In addition, Herodotos, Thukydides and
  Xenophon’s Hellenika are all available in Robert Strassler’s highly recommended
  ‘Landmark’ series. 
  J. F. Lazenby’s The Spartan Army is fundamental, and should be read alongside
  the reviews of Manfred Clauss (Gnomon, Vol. 58.4, 1986, pp. 309–13), Thomas J.
  Figueira (Classical World, Vol. 80.3, 1987, pp. 214–15), W. G. Forrest (Journal of
  Hellenic Studies, Vol. 107, 1987, p. 231), and Stephen Hodkinson (Classical
  Review, Vol. 36.2, 1986, pp. 327–28). 
  Readers may also find much of interest in the occasional proceedings of
  the International Sparta Seminar, most of which have been edited by Stephen
  Hodkinson and Anton Powell and published by the Classical Press of Wales.
  The Sparta & War volume (see Hodkinson & Powell 2006 below) is
  particularly relevant. 
  The world of the Spartan warrior 
  Billheimer, A., ‘Ta deka aph’hebes’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American
  Philological Association, Vol. 77 (Baltimore, 1946), pp. 214–20 
  ——, ‘Age-classes in Spartan education’, Transactions and Proceedings of the
  American Philological Association, Vol. 78 (Baltimore, 1947), pp. 99–104 
  David, E., ‘Sparta’s social hair’, Eranos, Vol. 90 (Uppsala, 1992), pp. 11–21 
  ——, ‘Sparta and the politics of nudity’, in Powell & Hodkinson (2010), 
  pp. 137–63 
  Ducat, J., ‘The Spartan “tremblers”’, in Hodkinson & Powell (2006), pp. 1–55 
  ——, Spartan education: youth and society in the classical period (Swansea, 2006) 
  Figueira, T. J., ‘Mess contributions and subsistence at Sparta’, Transactions of the
  American Philological Association, Vol. 114 (Baltimore, 1984), pp. 87–109 
  ——, ‘Population patterns in Late Archaic and Classical Sparta’, Transactions of
  the American Philological Association, Vol. 116 (Baltimore, 1986), pp. 165–213 
  ——, (ed.), Spartan Society (Swansea, 2004) 
  ——, ‘The nature of the Spartan kleros’, in Figueira (2004), pp. 47–76 
  ——, ‘The Spartan hippeis’, in Hodkinson & Powell (2006), pp. 57–84 
  Flower, M. A., ‘Spartan “religion” and Greek “religion”’, in Hodkinson (2009),
  pp. 193–229 
  Grundy, G. B., ‘The population and policy of Sparta in the fifth century’, Journal 
  of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 28 (London, 1908), pp. 77–96 
  Hammond, M., ‘A famous exemplum of Spartan toughness’, Classical Journal, 
  Vol. 75.2 (Minneapolis, 1980), pp. 97–109 
  Hodkinson, S., ‘Land tenure and inheritance in Classical Sparta’, Classical
  Quarterly, Vol. 36.2 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 378–406 
  ——, ‘Social order and the conflict of values in Classical Sparta’, Chiron, Vol. 13
  (Munich, 1983), pp. 241–65 
  ——, (ed.), Sparta: Comparative Approaches (Swansea, 2009) 
  ——, & Powell A., (eds.), Sparta: New Perspectives (London, 1999) 
  ——, & Powell A., (eds.), Sparta and War (Swansea, 2006) 
  Hornblower, S., ‘Sticks, stones, and Spartans: the sociology of Spartan violence’, 
  in H. van Wees (ed.), War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London, 2000),
  pp. 57–82 
  Link, S., ‘Education and pederasty in Spartan and Cretan society’, in Hodkinson
  (2009), pp. 89–111 
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  59
  Low, P., ‘Commemorating the Spartan war-dead’, in Hodkinson & Powell (2006),
  pp. 85–109 
  Luraghi, N., ‘Helotic slavery reconsidered’, in Powell & Hodkinson (2002),
  pp. 227-266 
  Millender, E., ‘The Spartan dyarchy: a comparative perspective’, in Hodkinson
  (2009), pp. 1–67 
  Powell, A. & Hodkinson S. (eds.), Sparta: Beyond the Mirage (London, 2002) 
  ——, (eds.), Sparta: The Body Politic (Swansea, 2010) 
  Singor, H. W., ‘Admission to the syssitia in fifth-century Sparta’, in Hodkinson &
  Powell (1999), pp. 67–89 
  Tazelaar, C. M., ‘Paides kai epheboi: Some notes on the Spartan stages of youth’,
  Mnemosyne, Vol. 20.2 (Leiden, 1967), pp. 127–53 
  Thomas, C. G., ‘On the role of the Spartan kings’, Historia, Vol. 23.3 
  (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 257–70 
  Toynbee, A. J., ‘The Growth of Sparta’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 33
  (London, 1913), pp. 246–75 
  Wade-Gery, H. T., ‘The Spartan Rhetra in Plutarch, Lycurgus VI: C. What is the
  Rhetra?’, Classical Quarterly, Vol. 38.3/4 (Cambridge, 1944), pp. 115–26 
  Willetts, R. F., ‘The Neodamodeis’, Classical Philology, Vol. 49 (Chicago, 1954),
  pp. 27–32 
  Hoplite equipment and Spartan warfare 
  Anderson, J. K., Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon
  (Berkeley, 1970) 
  ——, ‘Sickle and Xyele’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 94 (London, 1974),
  p. 166 
  Blyth, P. H., ‘The structure of a hoplite shield in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco’,
  Bollettino Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie Pontificie, Vol. 3 (Vatican City, 1982),
  pp. 5–21 
  Cartledge, P., ‘Hoplites and heroes: Sparta’s contribution to the technique of ancient
  warfare’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 97 (London, 1977), pp. 11–27 
  Humble, N., ‘Why the Spartans fight so well, even if they are in disorder –
  Xenophon’s view’, in Hodkinson & Powell (2006), pp. 219–33 
  Kelly, D. H., ‘Thucydides and Herodotus on the Pitanate Lochos’, Greek, Roman
  and Byzantine Studies, Vol. 22.1 (Durham, 1981), pp. 31–38 
  Lazenby, J. F., The Spartan Army (Warminster, 1985) 
  ——, & D. Whitehead, ‘The myth of the hoplite’s hoplon’, Classical Quarterly, 
  Vol. 46.1 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 27–33 
  Lorimer, T. J., ‘The hoplite phalanx with special reference to the poems of
  Archilochus and Tyrtaeus’, Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 42
  (London, 1947), pp. 76–138 
  Lupi, M., ‘Amomphoretos, the lochos of Pitane and the Spartan system of villages’,
  in Hodkinson & Powell (2006), pp. 185–218 
  Schwartz, A., Reinstating the Hoplite: Arms, armour and phalanx fighting in
  Archaic and Classical Greece (Stuttgart, 2009) 
  Singor, H. W., ‘The Spartan army at Mantinea and its organisation in the fifth
  century BC’, in W. Jongman & M. Kleijwegt (eds.), After the Past. Essays in
  ancient history in honour of H.W. Pleket (Leiden, 2002), pp. 235–84 
  Van Wees, H., ‘“The Oath of the Sworn Bands”: The Acharnae stela, the Oath 
  of Plataea and archaic Spartan warfare’, in A. Luther & M. Meer (eds.), 
  Das Frühe Sparta (Stuttgart, 2006), pp. 125–64 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  GLOSSARY
  agele 
  (pl. agelai) band (literally ‘herd’) of Spartan boys during their
  training period, similar to the ile (q.v.); the members of each agele
  are thought to have been drawn from the same age group 
  agoge 
  training regime (literally ‘guidance’) followed by all male Spartans
  between the ages of seven and 30, sometimes translated as ‘the
  upbringing’ 
  choinix
  (pl. choinikes) unit of dry measure, equating to one man’s daily
  allowance of barley meal; 1⁄48 of a medimnos (q.v.) 
  chous
  (pl. choes) unit of liquid measure, sometimes translated as ‘pitcher’;
  at Sparta, on analogy with the medimnos (q.v.), it probably equated
  to roughly one-and-a-half times the 3-litre Attic chous
  diabateria 
  the official sacrifice at the Lakedaimonian frontier (literally
  ‘crossing the border’), made before every campaign 
  eiren
  (pl. eirenes) young Spartan aged 20, in his first year as a hebon
  (q.v.) 
  ekklesia 
  the assembly of all Spartiates (q.v.), which met monthly on the feast
  day of Apollo 
  enomotia
  (pl. enomotiai) military unit commanded by an enomotarches
  (q.v.); smallest subdivision of the Spartan army, derived from the
  adjective enomotos, ‘bound by oath’ 
  enomotarches
  (pl. enomotarchai) commander of an enomotia (q.v.) 
  ephor
  one of five annually-appointed magistrates; the Greek word
  ephoros (pl. ephoroi) means ‘supervisor’ 
  erastes
  (pl. erastai) the Spartan boy’s ‘admirer’, perhaps roughly ten years
  older than him 
  Gerousia 
  council of 28 elders, elected for life 
  geron
  (pl. gerontes) elder Spartan, aged 60 or over, eligible for election to
  the Gerousia (q.v.) 
  hebon
  (pl. hebontes) Spartan youth, aged between 20 and 29 
  helot
  Spartan serf; the Greek word heilotes (pl. heilotai) perhaps derives
  from the verb heilon, ‘to capture’ 
  hippagretas
  (pl. hippagretai) one of three Spartiates selected each year as
  (literally) ‘choosers of the hippeis’, each responsible for picking 
  100 hippeis (q.v.) 
  60
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  hippeis
  (sing. hippeus) royal bodyguard of 300 Spartans, annually selected
  from the hebontes (q.v.) 
  homoios
  (pl. homoioi) full Spartan citizen (literally ‘equal’), synonymous
  with Spartiate (q.v.) 
  hypomeion
  (pl. hypomeiones) Spartan citizens of inferior status, mentioned
  only by Xenophon 
  ile
  (pl. ilai) band (literally ‘crowd’) of Spartan boys, similar to the
  agele (q.v.) 
  kleros
  (pl. kleroi) allotment of land owned by a Spartan citizen 
  kotyle
  (pl. kotylai) liquid measure, sometimes translated as ‘cupful’; 1⁄12 of
  a chous (q.v.) 
  lochagos
  (pl. lochagoi) commander (literally ‘company leader’) of a lochos (q.v.) 
  lochos
  (pl. lochoi) regiment of the Spartan army, commanded by a
  lochagos (q.v.) 
  medimnos
  (pl. medimnoi) unit of dry measure, sometimes translated as
  ‘bushel’; at Sparta, it seems to have equated to roughly one-and-a-
  half times the standard 52-litre Attic medimnos
  melleiren
  (pl. melleirenes) Spartan paidiskos (q.v.), aged 18 or 19 (literally
  ‘nearly an eiren’); the equivalent of the ephebos (‘ephebe’) of other
  Greek city-states 
  mina
  (pl. minai) unit of weight, sometimes translated as ‘pound’; roughly
  equivalent to 0.44kg 
  mora
  (pl. morai) division of the Spartan army commanded by a
  polemarchos (q.v.) 
  neodamodes
  (pl. neodamodeis) enfranchised helot, able to serve as a hoplite
  (literally ‘new man of the people’) 
  oba
  (pl. obai) one of the five villages of Sparta 
  paidiskos
  (pl. paidiskoi) Spartan boy, aged between (probably) 12 and 19 
  (see also melleiren) 
  paidonomos
  (pl. paidonomoi) warden (literally ‘herder of boys’) in charge of
  Spartans during their training period, i.e. between the ages of seven
  and 30 
  pais
  (pl. paides) Spartan boy, aged between seven and (probably) 12 
  pentekonter
  (pl. pentekonteres) commander of a pentekostys (q.v.); the name
  seems to imply command over 50 men 
  61
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  62
  pentekostys
  (pl. pentekostyes) military unit commanded by a pentekonter (q.v.)
  and comprising four (later, two) enomotiai (q.v.) 
  perioikoi (pl.)
  non-Spartan inhabitants of Lakedaimon (literally ‘those who live
  round about’) 
  polemarchos
  (pl. polemarchoi) senior officer (literally ‘war leader’); later,
  commander of a mora (q.v.) 
  Spartiate 
  Spartan citizen; the Greek word Spartiates (pl. Spartiatai) properly
  refers to the pure-bred Spartan who has completed the agoge (q.v.)
  and has achieved election to a syssition (q.v.); see also homoios
  syssition
  (pl. syssitia) ‘mess-group’, to which every Spartiate had to be
  elected and to which his household had to contribute 
  taxiarchos
  (pl. taxiarchoi) Spartan officer (literally ‘unit leader’), mentioned
  only by Herodotos 
  tresas
  (pl. tresantes) Spartan disgraced for cowardice (literally ‘runaway’),
  sometimes translated as ‘trembler’ 
  triekas
  (pl. triekades) unit of Spartan army (literally ‘30’), mentioned only
  by Herodotos 
  ABBREVIATIONS
  Ar., Acharn.
  Aristophanes, Acharneis (Acharnians) 
  Ar., Hipp.
  Aristophanes, Hippeis (Knights) 
  Arist., Hist. An.
  Aristotle, Peri ta Zoia Historion (commonly rendered Historia
  Animalium, or History of Animals) 
  Arist., Pol.
  Aristotle, Politika (The Politics) 
  Arist., Rhet.
  Aristotle, Techne Rhetorike (The Art of Rhetoric) 
  Athen., Deipn. 
  Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai (The Learned Banqueters) 
  Cic., Flacc.
  Cicero, Pro Flacco (In Defence of Lucius Flaccus) 
  Diod.
  Diodorus Siculus (The Library of History) 
  Hdt.
  Herodotos (The Histories) 
  Paus. 
  Pausanias (Description of Greece) 
  Pl., Leg.
  Plato, Nomoi (commonly rendered as Leges, or The Laws) 
  Plut., Ages.
  Plutarch, Agesilaos (Life of Agesilaus) 
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  63
  Plut., Alk.
  Plutarch, Alkibiades (Life of Alcibiades) 
  Plut., Ap. Bas.
  Plutarch, Apophthegmata Basileon kai Strategon (Sayings of
  Kings and Commanders), catalogued chronologically, kings first,
  then commanders (Epam. = Epameinondas) 
  Plut., Ap. Lak.
  Plutarch, Apophthegmata Lakonika (Sayings of Spartans),
  catalogued by their supposed source (Ages. = Agesilaos, Agis =
  Agis the Younger, Ant. = Antalkidas, Bras. = Brasidas, Dem. =
  Demaratos, Lyk. = Lykourgos, Khar. = Kharillos, Anon. =
  unknown) 
  Plut., De san.
  Plutarch, Hygieina Parangelmata (Advice About Keeping Well,
  sometimes rendered as De tuenda sanitate praecepta) 
  Plut., Inst. Lac.
  Plutarch, Palaia Epitedeumata ton Lakedaimonion (Ancient
  Customs of the Spartans, sometimes rendered as Instituta
  Laconica) 
  Plut., Kim.
  Plutarch, Kimon (Life of Cimon) 
  Plut., Kleom.
  Plutarch, Kleomenes (Life of Cleomenes) 
  Plut., Lak. Ap.
  Plutarch, Lakainon Apophthegmata (Sayings of Spartan Women),
  catalogued by their supposed source (Anon. = unknown) 
  Plut., Lyk.
  Plutarch, Lykourgos (Life of Lycurgus) 
  Plut., Lys.
  Plutarch, Lysandros (Life of Lysander) 
  Plut., Mor.
  Plutarch, Moralia (a selection of short philosophical works) 
  Plut., Pel.
  Plutarch, Pelopidas (Life of Pelopidas) 
  Poll. 
  Pollux (Onomasticon) 
  Thuk.
  Thukydides (A History of the Peloponnesian War) 
  Tyrt.
  Tyrtaios 
  Val. Max.
  Valerius Maximus (Memorable Deeds and Sayings) 
  Xen., Ages.
  Xenophon, Agesilaos (Life of Agesilaus) 
  Xen., Hell.
  Xenophon, Hellenika (History of Greek Affairs, sometimes
  translated as A History of my Times) 
  Xen., Lak. pol.
  Xenophon, Lakedaimonion politeia (Spartan Constitution; the
  authorship is sometimes disputed, though not the general date) 
  Xen., Mem.
  Xenophon, Apomnemoneumata (commonly rendered as
  Memorabilia, or more rarely as Conversations with Socrates)
  © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
  
  64
  References to illustrations are shown in bold
  Achilles  33
  Agesilaos II, King  7, 11, 20, 36, 38, 46, 48, 50,
  55, 56
  Agesipolis I, King  52
  Agis II, King  41, 43, 44, 45, 51–52
  Agis III, King  31–32, 50
  agoge 11–16, 18
  Alkibiades  16, 27, 41
  Amompharetos  42, 44
  Antalkidas  32
  Antiphanes  19
  Archilochos  25
  Argives  51–52, 55
  Aristodemos  51
  Aristophanes  19, 24–25, 33, 42
  Aristotle 6, 7, 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 38, 39, 42, 46
  army officers  41, 42, 43, 44, 45–46, 48
  army organization  38–48, 43, 55
  Artemis  40, 47, 50, 52
  Astyochos  21
  Athenaeus  40
  barracks  14
  battle manoeuvres  43, 48, 55, 56
  bodyguards (hippeis)  15
  Bomarzo shield  21–22, 23, 24
  boys, training of  11–16
  Brasidas  24, 44
  burial of the dead  52–54, 53, 57
  on campaign  46–48
  chronology  8–11
  clothing  12, 16, 19–21, 49
  armour  35–36, 35, 37, 44, 49
  nudity  14, 17, 29
  constitution, Spartan 5–6
  cowardice  8, 19, 25, 50–51, 56
  Demaratos, King  48
  Dikaiarchos  39–40
  Diodorus Siculus  21, 30–31
  earthquake (464 BC)  8
  education system  11–16
  eirenes (prefects)  13–15
  elders (gerontes)  6, 16, 38, 39, 41, 45
  enomotarchoi 43, 44, 46
  enomotiai 42, 43, 44–45, 46, 48, 55
  ephors  5, 6, 14, 15, 19, 38
  Epidauros  51–52
  equipment  13
  armour  35–36, 35, 37, 44, 49
  caps  33, 34–35
  cuirass  17, 35–36, 35, 44
  greaves  17, 29, 37, 38, 38, 39, 44
  helmets  17, 29, 32–35, 33–35, 36, 37, 39,
  44, 49
  shields  17, 21–29, 22–24, 26–29, 34, 35, 37,
  49, 55
  see also weapons
  erastes 14, 15
  eromenos 14, 15
  Eupolis  28–29, 41
  feet  12, 19
  food  12, 39–41
  gerontes (elders)  6, 16, 38, 39, 41, 45
  government, Spartan 6
  graves  52–54, 54
  Grundy, G. B.  5, 7
  Gylippos  20
  hair  16, 17–18, 18–19
  hebontes 14–16, 38, 39, 40–41, 45
  helots  5, 7, 8, 21, 25, 31, 44, 47–48
  Herodotos  5, 6, 7–8, 18, 42, 44–45, 47, 
  49, 51
  Hesychius  25, 36, 42
  homoioi 7, 11, 14, 20, 38, 41
  honour  12, 14, 44, 50–51
  hunting  15, 16
  kings
  in battle  44–45, 46–47, 50
  bodyguards  15
  chronology  8–11
  dyarchy  6
  mess-groups  41
  see also individual kings
  Kleonymos  15, 36
  kleroi (allotments)  7, 8, 39, 40
  Koroneia, Battle of (394 BC)  55
  Lakedaimon  8, 27, 28, 37, 44–45, 47, 53, 
  54, 56
  laws  5–6, 48, 50–51
  Leonidas, King  12, 45, 56
  Leuktra, battle of (371 BC)  8, 15, 45, 46, 50
  `Lisas the Tegean’  21
  lochoi (regiments)  42, 43, 44, 45, 46
  loyalty  51, 56
  Lykourgos
  burial of the dead  54
  clothing  20
  hairstyles  18
  hunting  16
  land ownership  7
  lays down constitution  5–6
  marriage  15
  mess-groups  39
  training of boys  12, 13, 14
  Lysander  16, 21, 52
  Mantineia, Battle of (418 BC)  8, 43, 44, 45, 
  52, 57
  marriage  15
  Medusa mask  17, 27, 28, 34, 35
  melleiren 14–16
  Menelaos, King  32
  mentoring  14, 15
  mess-groups  7, 16, 38–41, 45, 50
  Messenians  4–5, 28
  military service  7, 8, 16, 29, 41–48
  morai, army of  45–46, 48, 56
  Myron of Priene  8
  Nemea, Battle of (394 BC)  47
  neodamodeis 8, 44, 56
  nudity  14, 17, 29
  oath  44
  `obal’ army  41–44
  omens  47, 49, 51, 52
  oracles  5, 41, 51, 52
  Orestes  31
  paides 11–16
  paidiskos 13–14, 15
  paidonomoi 11–12, 14
  Patroklos  33
  Pausanias (regent)  44
  Pausanias (writer)  5, 7, 28, 45, 49, 52
  pentekostyes 43, 45, 46
  perioikoi 5, 7, 46, 56
  Persian wars  41–44, 49
  Photius  28
  Pitana  5, 42
  Plataia (town)  53–54
  Plataia, Battle of (479 BC)  7, 42, 44, 
  47, 49
  Plato  6, 25, 39
  Plutarch  6
  armour  36
  clothing  20
  earthquake  8
  food  12, 39, 41
  hair  16, 18, 19
  knife fight  32
  land ownership  7
  marriage  15
  mess-groups  39
  shields  25, 27
  training of boys  13–14
  population  7–8, 44, 46, 50, 56
  prefects (eirenes)  13–15
  punishments  12, 13, 19, 21, 50–51
  religion  51–54
  rhipsaspis 25
  sacrifices  47, 47, 49
  servants  13, 31, 47–48
  society, Spartan 7
  Sparta, background  4–8, 6
  Spartan Constitution 12, 39, 42, 46, 48
  Sphakteria  25, 35, 45, 48, 51
  stealing, condoning of  12–13
  Suda 20, 25, 29, 31, 45, 46
  syssitia 7, 16, 38–41, 45, 50
  tactics, army  43, 48, 55, 56
  Tegyra, Battle of (375 BC)  56
  Telephos 31
  Thebans  27, 46, 48, 55, 56
  Theopompos  28
  Thermopylai, battle of (480 BC)  45, 51
  Thukydides  6, 7, 8, 35
  army organization  42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 
  56, 57
  burial of the dead  52, 54
  Tomb of the Lakedaimonians  53, 54
  training of boys  11–16
  Tyrtaios  5, 29, 51
  Valerius Maximus  20
  Van Wees, Hans  42
  victory celebrations  57
  weapons
  knives  32
  spears  17, 21, 29–31, 29–30, 37
  staff  21
  swords  31–32, 31–32
  Xenophon  6, 7
  armour  35, 36
  army organization  38, 43, 45–46, 47–48
  clothing  20
  government  6
  hairstyles  18
  honour  50, 51
  Koroneia, Battle of (394 BC)  55
  mess groups  41
  obedience  56
  shields  22, 24, 26–27
  stealing  13
  training of boys  11–16
  weapons  21, 31
  youths  14–16, 38, 39, 40–41, 45
  INDEX
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  OSPREY
  P U B L I S H I N G
  
  First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Osprey Publishing
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  Print ISBN: 978-1-84908-700-1
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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  It is a pleasure to acknowledge the kindness and generosity of friends and
  colleagues, old and new, who sent offprints of difficult-to-obtain articles or
  provided illustrations. In particular, I should like to mention Sandra Petrie
  Hachey, who facilitated the reproduction of the fine calyx-krater in the
  collection of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center; Dr Paraskevi Yiouni,
  who sent the image of the splendid Dodona statuette in the Archaeological
  Museum of Ioannina; and Stefanos Skarmintzos, who kindly scoured the
  museums of Greece for appropriate photographs.
  DEDICATION
  To my friend Dr Peter Wiggins, an expert in most things… except the
  Spartans.
  A NOTE ON GREEK SPELLING
  The transliteration of Greek names and technical terms into English always
  presents difficulties. Here, I have attempted to respect the original
  language of the Greeks without being unduly pedantic. I do not like the
  system of Latin transcription that converts perioikoi, for instance, into
  perioeci. Equally, the likes of Kleomenes and Archidamos should not, in
  my opinion, be renamed Cleomenes and Archidamus. Nevertheless, the
  vigilant reader will find that I have applied the rule inconsistently (e.g.
  Herodotos, rather than Herodotus, but Aristotle, instead of Aristoteles).
  The list of abbreviations and the glossary at the end of this book should
  clarify any ambiguities of terminology.
  ARTIST’S NOTE
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Osprey System/Warrior Series (WAR)/Osprey - WAR 163 - Spartan Warrior 735-331BC.pdf