Could You Survive Every Age in Sparta?

What was life in ancient Sparta really like at every age? Inspected at birth, taken from home at 7, starved and told to steal at 12, voted into a mess at 20, sent to Thermopylae at 30. Steve fails some of these tests. One of them so badly that the whole city stops speaking to him. Along the way: the Spartan agoge, laconic answers (and a bitten thumb), stealing cheese at the altar of Artemis Orthia, black broth, iron money, bread-ball voting, Spartan weddings, why Spartans combed their hair before battle, Aristodemus "the Trembler", the Battle of Plataea, and Sparta's strangest election, decided by who the crowd shouts for loudest. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 Every age is a test 0:31 Age 0 — Inspected 1:16 Age 7 — Taken 2:32 Age 12 — Starved 3:58 Side quest — Black broth 4:41 Age 20 — The vote 6:13 Age 30 — Thermopylae 7:42 Age 31 — The Trembler 9:19 Age 60 — The last test Leon and his son are invented for Steve's story; Steve's path after Thermopylae follows the real Aristodemus until the video says where it bends. 📚 Sources • Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus (9, 12, 15–18, 25–26): wine bath and inspection, the agoge, the thumb bite, stealing, the fox story, iron money, black broth, mess votes, Spartan marriage, the Gerousia election and the double portion • Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus 30: the "tremblers" (patched cloaks, half-shaved beards) • Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians (2, 4, 9): bare feet, rations, cheese-stealing at Orthia, selection of the 300, treatment of cowards • Herodotus, Histories 7.205–231 and 9.10, 9.28, 9.71: Leonidas's men with sons, combing hair, Dienekes, the eye disease, Aristodemus, Plataea • Aristotle, Politics 1270b: privileges for fathers of three and four sons • Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 4.138: the Sybarite on Spartan food • Th. Pitsios (University of Athens), anthropological study of the Keadas cavern (reported 2007): remains of adolescents and adults, no infants • British School at Athens excavations of the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia (1906–1910): the Roman-era theatre around the altar #Sparta #AncientGreece #History