3. Study questions Copy

1. Read what both Plutarch and Xenophon have to say about the agoge, krypteia and the syssitia. How convincing do you find their accounts? Do you think they are largely true?

They largely support each other but it is possible that Plutarch is drawing upon Xenophon (so is not really an independent source).Xenophon will probably have seen the agoge and certainly his sons went through it. Plutarch is writing centuries after the system he describes (and is no longer in place). Both are largely uncritical of the Spartan system.

2. Do you see any disadvantages to the agoge system?

It trains only for military purposes and allows for no other education. It leaves out women.

3. Do you think the krypteia would have been a good way of controlling the helots?

It seems to be a way of stirring up helot resentment rather than being an effective means of policing the helots. Random helot killings would have invited helot pushback: what would they have had to lose?

4. Is the system of communal eating a way of supporting the Spartan ideals of austerity or an acknowledgement that the training system designed to imprint these ideals needed rules to police it?

Communal eating seems to have been in place because Spartans could not be trusted to obey the rules. This seems to point to a failure in the system.

3. Study questions Copy

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