Analysis Of The Spartan Education System
Every male Spartan had to pass through the Spartan education system - the agoge. This began at the age of seven and was completed at by the age of thirty when the Spartan would become a full Spartiate and receive the right to vote. The fact that a Spartan spent so much of his life in the agoge meant that there was a long time for the state imposed system to force him to have the same views. Plutarch tells us that the particularly intelligent young men in the agoge were chosen to be part of the Krypteia, a group of young Spartans who acted as a sort of secret police. He says that they were sent into the countryside and “murdered any helot whom they caught.” This may have been to desensitize the boys from violence and killing, implying that