Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Spartan shields' technical evolution and design evolved from bashing and shield wall tactics. They were of such great importance in the Spartan army that while losing a sword and a spear was an exception, to lose a shield was a sign of disgrace. Not only did a shield protect the user, but it also protected the whole phalanx formation.
Classical Spartan society was rigidly divided into several castes, each with assigned duties and privileges. The smallest of them, with the most power and freedom, was the Spartiate class. Spartiates (Spartiate-class males over 30) held some extremely limited power in the government and would own kleroi (plots of land with associated Helots).
At around age 12, a boy would often enter into an institutionalized relationship with a young adult male Spartan, which continued as he became a paidiskos. [ 11 ] [ 18 ] Plutarch described this form of Spartan pederasty (erotic relationship) as one where older warriors (as the erastes ) would engage promising youths (the eromenos ) in a long ...
Spartan kings received a recurring posthumous hero cult like that of the similarly Doric kings of Cyrene. [4] The kings' firstborn sons, as heirs-apparent, were the only Spartan boys expressly exempt from the Agoge; however, they were allowed to take part if they so wished, and this endowed them with increased prestige when they ascended the ...
Spartan boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man. According to some sources, the older man was expected to function as a kind of substitute father and role model to his junior partner; however, others believe it was reasonably certain that they had sexual relations (the exact nature of Spartan pederasty is ...
Pausanias was from the royal house of the Agiads.Every male Spartan citizen earned their citizenship by dedicating their lives to their polis and its laws. [1] Pausanias would have gone through intense military training from the age of seven and was required to be a regular soldier until the age of thirty.
Agis II died while returning from Delphi between 400 and 398. [ii] After his funeral, Agesilaus contested the claim of Leotychidas, the son of Agis II, using the widespread belief in Sparta that Leotychidas was an illegitimate son of Alcibiades—a famous Athenian statesman and nephew of Pericles, who had gone into exile in Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, and then seduced the queen.
Little is known of Lysander's early life. His year of birth is estimated at 454 BC. [1] Some ancient authors record that his mother was a helot or slave. [3] Lysander's father was Aristocritus, [4] who was a member of the Spartan Heracleidae; that is, he claimed descent from Heracles but was not a member of a royal family.