Spartan Education System (agoge)

Timeline

1. c. -700–-600Sparta · LaconiaTradition attributes Sparta's militarized social reforms to the lawgiver Lycurgus, establishing citizen obligations centered on the hoplite phalanx and laying the institutional groundwork for the strict graded training of the later agoge.
2. c. -600–-371Sparta · LaconiaBoys left home at age seven to enter communal barracks training, undergoing physical conditioning, hunting, tolerance of punishment for theft, and military drill; in youth they entered stages such as the secret band (krypteia), ultimately joining the citizen hoplites through the syssitia.
3. c. -371–1Sparta · LaconiaAfter defeats at Leuctra and Mantinea, the citizen body shrank sharply and wealth flowed in, reducing the agoge's rigor and combat effectiveness; by the Hellenistic and Roman periods Sparta retained some training items but could no longer match Classical heights.