Did you know that the city-state, Sparta, has a special education system? Sparta’s education system made all children starting from age 7 to get trained for wars. There were strengths and benefits of making kids train hard, but there were also many weaknesses. Now, you may wonder,”Did the strengths exceed the weaknesses? Or did the weaknesses overridden the strengths?” My claim is that the strengths did not exceed or outweigh the weaknesses. I will support my claim with evidence and references from the documents. I am going to explain that the Sparta education system was too harsh, and that is my main reason why the strengths didn’t outweigh the weaknesses. To begin with, I will first describe the strengths of the Sparta education system. One of the main strengths of the Sparta education system is toughness of the children. If the boys are tough, then they have a strong mindset because they were trained to be strong no matter what. On Document A, it says,”Only the rudiments [basics] of reading and writing were taught; instructions consisted for the most part in … obedience, bodily fitness, and courage to conquer in battle.” Another strength is that the Spartan girls were given hard physical training so that they would give birth …show more content…
Sure, there are benefits of making physically strong boys ready for war, but hurting and making harsh punishments are unacceptable. I would get that Sparta would want to develop powerful men but training children from a young age are horrible. I don’t know how the boys in an age of 7 would handle the cruel punishments and the hard training. Though it is an impression to the other city-states seeing powerful men, it would also be an impression if Sparta developed talented artists or poets. The punishments that the boys had to experience is terrible, even though those punishments would lead to powerful
“reach them to endure pain and conquer in battle.” (Document 11). Sparta was especially known for their strong army force. From age seven, all boys were trained not to express their pain and become great soldiers on the battlefield. Unlike Sparta, Athens’ main focus was not on the military. “For we are lovers of beauty, yet with no extravagance and lovers of wisdom, yet without weakness.” (Document 9). Athens was essentially based upon the arts and intelligence. Instead of boys going through years and years of military training, Athenians learned subjects like literature, art, and arithmetic.
“No man ever proves himself a good man in war unless he can endure to face the blood and the slaughter, go against the enemy and fight with his hands.” The preceding was quoted from “The Spartan creed” by the poet Tyrtaeus. There are two authors in this primary resource reading which include Tyrtaeus as well as Xenophon, whom authored “The laws and customs of the Spartans”. These two works give great detail to the Spartan society. As history has presented it, Sparta was a smaller polis and yet was one of the most, if not most, influential societies in history. What we know of this culture comes to us from excavation of its heritage as well as literary works such as these. But are these “eyes” into history factual and creditable enough to base our own interpretations of such a masterful race? These writings are great resources for Spartan’s war enhanced values and societal customs, but lack in evidence of governmental affairs and religion. This lacking may have been due to both writer’s motives for their work.
The women in Sparta were strong. They birthed warriors. They were warriors themselves. “They also underwent an intensive physical training program, which included discus and javelin throwing, and wrestling. The purpose of this training program was to ensure that they became fit breeders of Spartan babies.” (Garland, Robert. "The People." Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998.
As with most historical re-enactments, 300 places significant exaggeration on each civilizations central city-state ideologies and this is reflected in each scene by the actions of the individuals throughout Zack Snyder’s film. The representation of the Spartan warrior mentality through scenes depicting young Spartan children throughout their childhood participating in multiple life threatening challenges; are seemingly accurate as the primary purpose of Spartan schooling was to produce perfect soldiers, through strictly disciplined military training that began for all boys at the age of 7 as they left home to join the agoge. The agoge was set up in order to weaken family ties and create personal identity. These children were usually allotted no shoes, little clothing and educated through a vigorous training schedule of boxing, wrestling, javelin and discus throwing. They suffered through harsh conditions and were taught to take satisfaction in enduring pain and hardship, as well as to value strengt...
Sparta was a key city state which was located on the Peloponnesian Peninsula in southern Greek, which today is referred to as Laconia. Sparta is historically known for their strong military training, warfare tactics, and numerous victories. This city state included full citizens known as the Spartans, the helots, and the Perioeci. The men of Sparta had a main obligation to become strong warriors, fight with their brothers, and protect against any invasions or attacks. The helots where owned by city state of Sparta. They came from Messenia and were forced into slavery after being invaded by the Spartans in c.735. The helot’s responsibilities included farming, being of help if needed during battles, used as nurses, and for any other task that need to be accomplished. Unlike many traditional slaves, the Messenia’s were given certain leeway. They had
Sparta was a strict military city-state. The people were Dorians who conquered Laconia. This region lies in the Peloponnesus, which lied in southern Greece. The invaders turned the conquered people into state owned slaves, called helots. Since the helots greatly outnumbered their rulers, Spartans established a strict and brutal system of control. The Spartan government had two kings and a council of elders who advised the monarchs. An assembly made up of all citizens approved all major decisions. From child-hood, a Spartan prepared to be part of the military. All newborn were examined and the healthy lived and the sickly were left to die. Spartans wanted future soldiers or mothers of soldiers to be healthy. At the age of seven, boys trained for a lifetime in the Spartan military. They moved to the barracks and endured brutal and extensive training.
Sparta was known for being strong, but was it really? In case you don’t know, Sparta was a Greek city-state. Sparta only focused on war. Spartans were only taught the basics of other topics. Spartans were trained for 13 years just to fight. Reading and writing were only taught in Sparta for practical reasons. The strengths didn’t outweigh the weaknesses. There were more weaknesses to Sparta than there were strengths. The strengths of Sparta didn’t outweigh the weaknesses for three reasons. The first reason is that the babies were killed just if they looked weak. The second reason is that the Spartans barely new anything about other topics (math, reading, writing, etc). The third and final reason is that the helots outnumbered the Spartans 50 to 1.
...litary end even the women in Sparta would have been affected by the military ways of life almost as much as the young men. From childhood they were being primed to raise a family, they were taught in the ways of mid wifery, learning the correct manner in teaching the future young men of Sparta and keeping themselves fit to produce fit children.
One writer stated, “Disciplined by their education, the boys were also supervised by an older man. They could also be disciplined by any Spartan adult. Male children were removed from their mothers at 7 and brought up roughly, made to go barefoot, wear only a single cloak, kept hungry, encouraged to steal food but whipped if they got caught, older boys could whip younger ones for delinquency. ”(Cartledge, 2001) I think this way of life played a huge role in how Spartans men were brought up and the mentality they acquired. The children did not get a chance to see the emotional part of life but rather the struggle and how to be
and then they left him from the top of the mountain and he died.” Sparta were military trained since age 7. But they do not show their power to the outside world and they like to stay alone and they do not interact with the other Greeks, on the other hand the Athenians conquer more and more land.
The key component Sparta has that made them superior to Athens was their astounding military. The military was not the only element that made Sparta superior to Athens as their government and economy was unusual but effective. A military can be used to raid another country, fight in wars, or to protect a village from an oncoming invasion. Sparta’s military was superior to Athens in every aspect, as Sparta’s whole culture was devoted to the military.
Only during the Classical period, Sparta began to look strange, not because they had these systems, but because it had held on to them for so long when every other state eventually abandoned them. Once all of that is known it is clear that Sparta was not necessarily special just backward. Instead of moving on from old ideas, the Spartans doubled down on them, gradually developing more and
In Classical Sparta, the agoge, was a successful education method as it bred discipline and fear into the future homoioi. Fear benefited the Spartan polis due to the fact that it created unquestionable obedience to authority. Plutarch expressed how that, ‘Where there is fear, there is also a sense of respect’ (Plutarch, Cleomenes). At the age of seven, the young Spartans started their agoge training, a paidonomos was placed in consistent supervision of the boy and was able to punish them when they felt necessary (Webb, 2012). Furthermore, the paidonomos was assisted by a young man, aged around 18-20, called an eirenes. The eirenes carried a whip around with them, able to chastise students for any misbehaviour (Amos and Lang, 1979), this was effective as it further created more fear, which lead to a higher respect for those older than them.
Living in Athens or Sparta were provided two very different experiences for their citizens and it has been a highly contested topic as to which place was the best to live in. However, it is undeniable that Athens was most certainly the better place to reside in. This is because Athens had a superior form of government, a strong focus on education and, finally, a wide range of careers that one could pursue. Athens was a better place to live in than Sparta because it had a superior form of government. Athens’ system of
Because of the tranquil times, the civilization’s society had more time to focus on writing, math, astronomy, and artistic fields, as well as trade and metallurgy. Out of all the city-states of Greece, two excelled over all the rest, Sparta and Athens. Even though they were the most advanced and strong civilizations, they were bitter enemies. While Athens focused mainly on the people’s democracy and citizen rights, Sparta were ferocious and enslaved its original inhabitants, making them unable to leave and kept under a close eye to prevent insurgence (History of Greece:The Golden Age of Greece). Additionally, Sparta had strict and trained soldiers that underwent intense physical exercising and instruction.