Agoge

Uncommon card · No. 117686

In ancient Sparta, the agoge (Ancient Greek: ἀγωγή, romanized: agōgḗ in Attic Greek, or ἀγωγά, agōgá in Doric Greek) was the training program prerequisite for Spartiate (citizen) status. Spartiate-class boys entered it at age seven, and would stop being a student of the agoge at age 21. It was considered violent by the standards of the day, and was sometimes fatal. Those who survived to the final stage (and around the age of 18 to 19) would have the chance to be selected into the Crypteia. The agōgē was divided into three age groups, paides, paidiskoi, and hēbōntes, roughly corresponding to young boys (7–12), adolescents (12–20), and young men (20–30). The agōgē deliberately deprived boys of food, sleep, and shelter. It involved cultivating loyalty to Sparta through military training (e.g., pain tolerance), hunting, dancing, singing, and rhetoric. There seems to have been ritual beating. It was intensely competitive, and the boys were encouraged to use violence against each other; by Plutarch...

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