A Boy of the Agoge

by Helena P. Schrader

  “Probably. Go talk to the magistrates.”

  And so Leonidas acquired his squire just in time before he was officially granted his citizenship.

  The festival surrounding the graduation of the age-cohorts was an internal affair. In contrast to the high feasts of the Hyacintha and Gymnopaedia, which drew large crowds of visitors from around the world, this festival was more a family affair. For the great feasts, Sparta not only invited foreign poets and musicians to compete for the privilege of writing the songs and choreographing the performances, the performing choruses and competitors were selected for their superiority. But at this winter festival everyone had a part to play, even the weakest, slowest, and youngest.

  For the eirenes, the festivities actually started the night before. They were all required to sacrifice a puppy to Artemis—a custom Leonidas found both incomprehensible and hard to perform. He found himself wondering if his own bitch (whom he had christened Beggar because she never seemed to stop begging) had been an intended victim from the year before who had somehow escaped. What a loss it would have been for such a loyal and intelligent young animal to have had its life extinguished before it could be of use to anyone! What could be the point of this slaughter? Hunting was completely different. It was natural—an eternal contest between predator and prey in which both had a chance. And the usual sacrifices—cattle, sheep, goats, and even fowl—provided meat and entrails that could be read for prophecy. But the slaughter of puppies, whimpering and helpless, provided nothing of value at all. It was symbolic only, he had been told, of the slaughter of innocence itself, just as the transition to manhood was considered an end of innocence—as if any of them were innocent any more....

  Leonidas had no stomach for the ritual, but he was surrounded by his age-cohort and the stony, heartless priestesses of Artemis. Was he supposed to believe that Artemis, so often portrayed with hounds at her heels, really wanted whole litters of puppies slaughtered in her honour? In the age of the Iliad, the Gods had required human sacrifice, Leonidas reminded himself. He gritted his teeth and got it over with.

  But that had been last night.

  On the day of the solstice each age-cohort, male and female, had their own special event, attended religiously by relatives and friends of those taking part. The first events of the day were for the youngest children, and the day progressed towards the climax of the graduation of the eirenes. By late afternoon, when the best two teams of ball players from the class of eirenes competed brutally for the last honours they could gain as “youths”, the sun was well below the Taygetos. In fact, on this particular day, the cloud cover had descended on to the valley and blanketed it in mist. The gloom closed in early, and the moisture made the ball field a morass of mud long before a soggy and battered team of youths was declared the annual winners. Leonidas, never good at the game, was just as glad he hadn’t needed to compete. Alkander and he had been able to stay on the sidelines, cheering their favourites of the “Lycurgan” team, without the bruises, cuts, dislocated joints, and bone fractures that the competitors endured for the sake of honour.

  After this event there was a pause for the players to clean themselves up, during which people could get refreshments in the agora. The perioikoi catered to the event by selling a variety of specially baked goods, and some of the surrounding kleros made it a point of honour to offer cheese and other produce, including wine. Jugglers, acrobats, chained bears, and cockfighting provided light entertainment, while the eirenes prepared themselves for the most important moment of their lives so far.

  The torches were lit in the barracks, and around him Leonidas’ comrades, fresh from the baths like himself, nervously joked and teased one another as they put on fine-spun, soft chitons for the first time in 14 years. Mothers and sisters had sent these garments, often adorned with family emblems or personal names and symbols. The youths pretended to find them silly or “girlish”—but none of them scorned them. Even Alkander had a chiton with a lovely border of horses woven and sewn for him by Hilaira. Leonidas felt like the orphan he was to have nothing but a plain, if well-woven, chiton bought at a stand in the agora.

  With even greater excitement, the youths started to don their armour. For the first time in their lives they did not help each other, because their attendants were allowed into the agoge barracks for the first and only time to help the youths who had retained them. They brought with them the breastplates, greaves, swords, and helmets provided to the youths by proud fathers and grandfathers. Some of these were so ancient they were no longer practical for war, but they represented one’s ancestors and the great deeds performed in the past. Others were the very latest in fashion—expensive, embossed breastplates and helmets fashioned by the best armourers in the world and imported to Lacedaemon at great expense—such as Dorieus had worn.

  But again, Leonidas had only what he had been able to buy locally. He had bought that simple but perfectly crafted sword in the agora, but he had indulged his vanity to the extent of buying an imported breastplate with a lion etched upon it. He had feared it might be too “ostentatious” until he saw what his classmates were donning. As for his helmet and greaves, they were hardly better than “standard issue”. (The army did maintain stores of equipment for youths whose families could not outfit them, and to replace lost and damaged equipment during manoeuvres and campaigns.)

  The pipes were already calling, and the eirenes jostled one another as they formed up in the courtyard. Notably, none of them wore himations. The black ones denoting their status as eirenes had been flung into a large basket by the wall. These would be collected, inspected, and those still serviceable cleaned and given to another eirene tomorrow. It was dark outside, and in the cover of darkness they risked whispering and jostling one another as they had not done since they were much younger. It was chilly, too, without any himation, and some of the youths stamped their feet and blew on their hands to draw attention to the fact.

  The Paidonomos, his assistants, and the instructors were already gathered. It took longer than usual for them to get the ranks to settle down and for silence to descend. “Tonight,” the Paidonomos announced, “my authority over you ends. Tomorrow you are citizens, subject only to the laws of Lacedaemon and the orders of your officers and kings. I have done my best to make each of you worthy of that honour. I can do no more. Good luck.”

  He stepped down from the raised platform he had been standing on, and after a stunned moment the eirenes realised he really was done with them, and they let out a triumphant cheer that echoed off the buildings all around them. The cheer was silenced by a short order to “March out!”

  The pipes started playing and they automatically took up the tune, singing in the harmony they had been taught and had practised for as long as they could remember. They made their way down the relatively narrow alley leading out of the back of the agoge barracks, and up the street running beside the main administrative building of the agoge that faced the dancing floor spread out between the Council House and the Ephorate. They marched in a narrow column of four abreast until they reached the open area of the dancing floor and then, as one rank after another stepped into the wide agora, the rank stretched out the length of the open area, and only when it was filled did the first rank step forward while a second rank was formed behind it. Neatly and without hesitation, just like water pouring from a channel into a basin, the agora filled with the over 200 young men about to receive the symbols of citizenship.

  Torches not only surrounded the dancing floor itself, they also burned along the front of the Ephorate and Council House, and the temples were lit as well. The torchlight glinted off the armour of the young men filling the square, and revealed the packed crowds flowing off the steps of the buildings and choking the streets that ended on the square. Some bolder or more agile boys had climbed on to rooftops to call out and wave to their relatives or eirenes.

  Leonidas’ eyes were drawn to the chairs set up on the Council House steps for the two kings. Both kings were a
ccompanied by their wives. Percalus looked stunningly beautiful in a diadem, and Leonidas found himself remembering the way she’d looked on the beach at Kardamyle—so simple and unspoilt—and liking her better that way. Cleomenes’ wife was still attractive, but her sour expression was like tarnish upon silver.

  Immediately behind the kings sat the rest of the Council of Elders in two rows, fourteen persons wide. Below the kings were the five ephors. They too sat, and were dressed in chitons rather than armour. Then, two steps below them, the five lochagoi in parade panoply stood well spaced out. At the foot of the steps, two ranks deep, stood the oldest age-cohort of young men, the age-cohort that would go off active service tomorrow. They each held one of the heavy, standard-issue hoplons with the lambda of Lacedaemon on its face.

  They were now all in place, drawn up by clan. The pipes ceased. A hush fell over the entire agora. A scroll was passed to the first ephor, who read off a name and patronymic. The youth took a step forward, walked between the rows, and presented himself at the foot of the Council House steps, facing the kings. The ephor announced the military unit to which the young man had been assigned, and the hoplite opposite him stepped forward and deftly spun the hoplon around to present the concave inner side to the ex-eirene. Inside the hoplon, looped through the arm-brace, was a scarlet himation.

  The eirene took another step forward, withdrew the himation, and slung it over his back before slipping his arm into the braces on the inside of the shield. Then he raised it once in salute to the kings and ephors, before going to stand at the back of the formation while the next name was called.

  They had all been given very precise instructions, and formed up in accordance with the order of the names on the list. As there were well over 200 of them graduating this year, the ceremony would take hours if they didn’t keep up the pace. In fact, the next youth was always into position to go forward even before the youth before him had received his shield.

  As was only to be expected, Cleombrotus was called just ahead of Leonidas, and Leonidas moved into the waiting position, where he could clearly see his brother’s spectacular, embossed breastplate and his modish helmet with hinged cheek-pieces. The latter were also elaborately embossed, although Leonidas could not see exactly what was depicted.

  At his name, Cleombrotus strode forward confidently, and Leonidas thought he had his eye set straight on Cleomenes, rather than down at the hoplites in front of him. His demeanor was defiant, and his salute with the hoplon more a gesture of threat. Leonidas sighed, hoping he wasn’t going to start acting like Dorieus now that he was a citizen.

  “Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas.”

  Leonidas stepped on to the well-worn stone, facing the kings, Council, ephors, and lochagoi. Leonidas felt as if all eyes were upon him. He was acutely aware of his simple armour after Cleombrotus’ panoply. The himation and hoplon were offered to him. He stepped forward and took both gratefully. The himation seemed no different in the dark from the one he had just discarded, but the hoplon was welcome because it covered his body from shoulder to knee—offering protection not just against the weapons of his enemies, but the preying eyes of the crowds.

  Leonidas was torn between a pride in his city’s ethos of equality and dismay at the weight of tradition that the shield symbolised. In other Greek cities, indeed in Sparta itself until only a handful of Olympiads ago, each man carried a shield with his individual device upon it. But in Sparta nowadays they were turned from individuals into anonymous, interchangeable pawns. Peers. Equals in rights and duties, in dress and diet.

  But we are still individuals, Leonidas insisted to himself as he followed Cleombrotus to stand at the back, while others took their place in the front and center of the agora. They remained individuals even if they wore the same himations and carried the same shields. They were no less individuals than they were equals.

  From this day forward, Leonidas reminded himself, he would be one of the body of Peers that raised the boys of the agoge and defended the city, that voted on public policy and elected the city officials. He was one of “them”. The responsibility seemed as heavy as the hoplon on his left arm. Everything up to now had been preparation for this—a long, slow, agonising process of making himself worthy of this privilege.

  He could hear Prokles mocking him in his head. Privilege? What privilege? Being confined to barracks and drilled half to death? Eating simple food and weak wine every night of his life? Being forced to steal a bride in the dark of night...

  The last of the names had been called, the last shield presented. The pipes started up and they all sang together, new citizens and city officials and spectators, a paean to Zeus.

  No sooner had the last note died out in the fog, than the crowd broke in from around the edges. Mothers, fathers, friends, and siblings rushed amidst the disintegrating ranks to congratulate the new citizens. Sweethearts embraced openly, defying their parents to separate them. Leonidas turned to find Alkander and saw Hilaira throw herself into his arms. He turned away to let them be together and came face to face with Cleombrotus.

  “Couldn’t you play the part of the prince just for once?” Cleombrotus sneered. “You look worse than that mothake of yours!” He gestured contemptuously toward Alkander. Now that he could see it up close, Leonidas noted that Cleombrotus’ armour was little less than a claim to the Agiad throne—covered with images of Herakles in his various trials.

  “We hardly need yet another Agiad prince, do we?” Leonidas answered his brother. “Between you, Dorieus, and Agis, there are more than enough Agiad princes to damage Sparta with disgraceful behaviour or ill-judged adventures! I, for one, will be content if I can be no more—and no less—than a Spartan Peer.”

  Cleombrotus just snorted contemptuously and turned away, but Leonidas comforted himself in the mist by vowing he would indeed become a peerless Peer. Because, he told himself, being a good Peer—one who always put Sparta’s interests first—was surely a worthy goal. Wasn’t it?

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  THE SPARTAN AGOGE WAS THE OBJECT of great admiration in the ancient world and the subject of endless debate, speculation, and misinformation ever since. In his meticulously researched study, Gymnasium of Virtue, Nigel Kennel demonstrates that the overwhelming bulk of information we have today describes the agoge in the Roman period. This agoge was a “reinvention” of the Hellenistic agoge almost 40 years after the latter had been disbanded. Furthermore, the Hellenistic agoge was itself a new institution founded in the reign of Cleomenes III (235-222 BC). Cleomenes III styled his reforms as a “restoration of the ancient customs”, but there is very little evidence that they were, in fact, a return to old customs. Indeed, others of his reforms, such as the abolition of the ephorate, were clearly in contradiction to Spartan law as it had been exercised in the archaic and classical periods. Furthermore, as Kennel demonstrates convincingly, Cleomenes’ agoge was consciously designed and structured by the stoic philosopher Sphaerus of Borysthenes.

  Sphaerus had his own theories on education that he set about implementing when given the opportunity by Cleomenes. For example, the emphasis on endurance at the expense of aggressiveness and initiative is clearly evidenced by the transformation in this period of the Feast of Artemis Orthia from a lively battle between youths of different age-cohorts into a pure “whipping contest”, in which youth passively allowed themselves to be flogged until they collapsed.

  Thus, as is so often the case, the only authentic source for the agoge in the fifth century BC is Xenophon and, to a lesser degree, Plutarch, because he is known to have relied on lost classical works on Sparta. But even these sources describe the agoge roughly 100 to 130 years after the period described in this novel. There is no source whatsoever that describes the Spartan agoge of the archaic period. Yet it must be assumed that, like any institution, the agoge changed over time and had distinctly different characteristics at different periods— or even simply under different influential headmasters.

  Nevertheless, there are so
me features of the agoge that can be inferred from Herodotus, Xenophon, and archaeological evidence, and that appear to have been consistent over time. First and foremost, it is clear that even in the archaic period, Sparta alone of all the Greek city-states had public education for its youth, both male and female. It appears that parents paid fees (in kind) to support the public schools. This public education apparently started at age 7 and ended at age 21, when a youth became a “young man”, or Hebontes. Thus Spartan education differed from the education of youth in other cities not only by being public, but also by its unusual length. Second, Spartan education, apparently alone in the ancient world, stressed austerity and discipline over intellectual content. It appears most likely that the youths were given uniforms and fed rather too little rather than too much. The ancient sources do not, however, support the claim put forward by so many modern commentators that the youth of the agoge were fed so little that they had to steal to survive, that they had only one garment in all weathers, or that they had no kind of education beyond physical sports and drill.

  Kennel’s study demonstrates convincingly that Spartan youth at one stage in their training were expected to live outside society, and during this period had to live by their wits and skills—these meant primarily hunting and trapping, but theft was tolerated if they could get away with it. This period was known as the “fox time”, or Phouxir. There is no source that tells how long or at what age this “survival training” occurred. I have placed it at the critical transition from “little boy” to “youth”, because anthropology suggests that a period of exclusion from society is often an important rite of passage to adulthood, and in primitive societies this often occurs at 13 or 14—that is, the onset of puberty.