The object of the peculiar training of Spartan citizens, ascribed to
Lycurgus, was the maintenance of Spartan supremacy over the subject
population. It was necessary for safety that the small body of men,
surrounded by enemies in their own land, should be ready at all points,
against every attempt at opposition or rebellion, and against the
outside world as well.
As every man had to be a soldier, and the citizen existed only for the
state, the state took the Spartan citizen in hand at his birth, and
regulated him almost from the cradle to the grave. From the age of seven
the body was cultivated, and every means was used to give the instrument
the finest temper, in a physical sense, and to bring it to the sharpest
edge. Such training lasted till the sixtieth year of life, when the
Spartan became qualified by age, if not by wisdom, for election to the
Senate, or “assembly of old men,” above described.
The girls were trained in athletic exercises like those of the youths,
and everything was done to produce vigorous and stern women, prepared to
gladly see their sons die on the battle-field for Sparta.
The result of all was that the Spartans became a race of well-drilled
and intrepid warriors, but a state distinguished in the history of
Greece for the display of a domineering arrogance, a rapacity, and a
corruption, which contributed not a little to its downfall. However, the
Spartan institutions were very successful in giving the state security
at home and success in war abroad. Sparta was free from domestic
revolutions, and the spectacle it presented of constancy to fixed maxims
of policy gave it a great ascendancy over the Hellenic mind.