300 is, by and large, a fantasy and this is one of the fantasy elements, but when I watched it, it bothered me because Paul Cartledge's The Spartans was fresh in my mind and he had said that Cleomenes I (Leonidas' predecessor) probably did not experience the agoge because he was the heir apparent to one of the two Spartan hereditary thrones. Cartledge also said that the marital arrangement between his daughter Gorgo and Leonidas was probably arranged because Leonidas had a reasonable claim to the throne. That is, Leonidas did not become king at age 10 and did not win his right to the throne by besting a beast, but by marrying the king's daughter. (Sparta wasn't Egypt, men didn't marry until mature.)
Is it true that Cleomenes I probably would not have gone through the agoge? A forum poster was having trouble finding source material that backed up this bit of "common knowledge." Paul Cartledge came to the rescue. Read: Who Said the Spartan Heirs Apparent Did Not Undergo the Rigorous Agoge Training?
Comments
ALL spartan boys regardless of line of heritage experienced the agoge as that was Spartan law. Ancient writers acknowlede this as well as Leonidas being heir to the thrown not by marriage but by blood line.
The article “Who Said the Spartan Heirs Apparent Did Not Undergo the Rigorous Agoge Training?” cites Cartledge and Plutarch. I know neither Cartledge nor Plutarch is infallible, but who are your authorities?
Reality dictates that the children of royalty would receive preferential treatment. The very concept OF kingship is one of preferential treatment. The king, by definition, would have the prerogative to decide for himself whether any of his sons would be subjected to the agoge. The underlying point of the agoge, after all, was to mold men into fanatical killing (and dying) machines for their rulers. So why would a ruler himself want that sort of training?
This is to reply to the last comment made.
I believe all spartans went through Agoge, because remember.. No one, not even King nor spartan citizen is above the law which means all boys must go threw agoge
Did Leonidas have a sister?
S.B.: Not that I know of.
I ll agree with Kevin. In ancient Sparta law was above all. Lykourgos, the main author of Spartan Law created a very strict system. Sparta was ruled by 2 kings, not only 1. Of equal, if not greater power, was the Gerousia, something like a modern parliament where all (considered-to-be) wise elder people attended to make important decisions. Therefore it was not a simple king’s decision whether his children attended agoge or not.
Plain and Simple you were put through training by law. Sparta favors everything to their State. Law is before them.
Aloha
would not all spartan children have to attend the agoge even royalty as a spartan king would be expected to lead his armies into battle if he did not have agoge training he would not have the fighting or tactical training abilities to enter battle with his spartan peers
No. It’s not a question of logic. From Kennell’s Spartans A New History, p. 135:
“Agesilaus was about forty years old when he succeeded Agis (Xen. Hell. 5.4.13) and, because he was not the heir apparent, had gone through the state-run citizen training (Plut. Ages. 1.2-4).”
I have to disagree with Alkibiades. This was a warrior culture where the women were self-sufficient during times of war, a culture of women who handed their sons their arms and told them, “Come back WITH your shield, or ON it.”
My own son is in the Army, so that’s very intense sentiment to me. This kind of patriotic resignation to duty tells me that the Spartans wouldn’t have been so pansy to not allow their noble youths to be part of the Agoge. The nobles were the leaders of Sparta, so they had the same patriotic duty to keep Sparta free and safe from Outlanders. Ancienthistory’s quote from Kennell’s Spartans speaks of “state-run citizen training”, but that was for the common folk of Sparta, with the same difference as being that between West Point training and that of the common militia.
In addition, they prided themselves on not being as “soft” as the rest of the Greeks. So in essence I guess I’m disagreeing with the majority of you.
In my understanding, Spartan Children were examined at birth for defects. A child with a defect was left to die, and only healthy children were allowed to grow. Children were tested and trained as warriors and independent women from their early years. Males trained to be the best Greek warriors of the time.
Although we would all like to think that even the badass Spartans made their royalty undergo Agoge, the first born son of the king was not required to undergo this training. Leonidas was not the first born son of his father, nor heir to the thrown, so he was one of the few Spartan kings who had to undergo this training. He became king by marrying Gorgo, which was his half brother’s daughter, and heiress to the thrown. He is also one of the few spartan kings whom led his army into battle. One of his most famous quotes was someone said to him, “other than being king, you are not superior to any of us.” And he replied by saying, “if I were not superior, then how would I be king?” And he was referring to, not only his royal line (since his father WAS king, but Leonidas’ half brother was heir.) But the fact that he was one of the few kings to undergo agoge.
You can’t get your facts from movies
Years later… I ran into a passage from a translation of Justin
that mentions a sister of Leonidas was the one to realize a coded message had been sent from the Persian court by Spartan king Demaratus.
A sister?? I thought that was Gorgo?
Gorgo was Leonidas’ wife.
First born sons of the ruling houses did not have to undergo agoge. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoge.
What does modern Agiad mean?I don’t know what to believe, the person citing quotes from no bibliographical content or the person that spelled throne as thrown.
Braveheart – As we get older, homonym-type errors become increasingly difficult to avoid and in a non-editable medium such as this blog, almost unavoidable. You are, however, needlessly restricting your choices. I make reference to Paul Cartledge in the original blog post. You can verify that he is a reputable Spartan scholar and then do your own research on what he has to say on the subject.