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Published 8 Feb 2026Greece: A Brief History, c.700 BC – 500 AD
This segment goes straight to the ancient evidence. Using Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus (with the passages shown on-screen), I explain how Sparta understood itself: infant inspection and exposure, the collective upbringing of boys in the agōgē, deliberate hunger and deprivation, enforced endurance, and the suppression of private loyalties in favour of loyalty to the state.
This is not presented as scandal. Plutarch often writes admiringly, which is precisely why the text is so revealing. The system is coherent. It is also terrifying. Sparta did not merely train soldiers. It manufactured them, beginning at birth.
June 26, 2026
Sparta vs Athens 2(c): Spartan Childhood – The Agōgē, Infant Inspection, and State Brutality
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