The Training of Spartan Citizens

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The Training of Spartan Citizens
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Plutarch, The Ancient Customs of the Spartans 33
239B "They did not attend either comedy or
tragedy, so that they might not hear anyone speak
either in earnest or in jest against the laws."
Acropolis of Sparta
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Plutarch, The Ancient Customs of the Spartans 4
237A "They learned to read and write for
purely practical reasons but all other forms of
education and books they banned from the country.
All their education was directed toward prompt
obedience to authority, stout endurance of
hardship, and victory or death in battle."
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Plutarch, The Ancient Customs of the Spartans 6
237B "The young men slept together, in
barracks, upon pallets which they themselves
brought by breaking off by hand, without any
tool, the tops of the reeds which grew on the
banks of the River Eurotas. In the winter they
put beneath their pallets the plant called
lykophron, since the plant is said to possess
some warming qualities."
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Plutarch, The Ancient Customs of the Spartans 12
237E "The boys steal whatever they can of
their food, learning to make their raids secretly
upon people who are asleep. The penalty for
getting caught is a beating and no food. For the
dinner allowed them is little, so that through
coping with hunger, they may be compelled to be
daring and cunning."
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Plutarch, The Ancient Customs of the Spartans 13
237E-F "This was the object of the starvation
diet. It was small so that the youth should never
become used to being satisfied, but to be able to
go without food for in this way, the Spartans
thought the youth would be stronger in war if
they were able to carry on without food. The
youth were able to consume anything that came to
hand.
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Plutarch, The Ancient Customs of the Spartans 2
Moralia 236F "A thing that was popular among
them was their black broth zomos, so much that
the older men did not require a bit of meat, but
gave up all of it to the young men. It is said
that the ruler of Sicily, for the sake of this
broth, bought a slave who had been a Spartan cook
to prepare the broth for him. But when the king
tasted it, he spat it out in disgust, whereupon
the cook said, 'O King, it is necessary to have
exercised in the Spartan manner, and to have
bathed in the River Eurotas, in order to relish
this broth."
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Plutarch, The Ancient Customs of the Spartans 41
239D-E " ... it was not permitted them to
take up any work or trade at all and there was
no need whatever of making money, because wealth
was unenvied and unhonored.
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Plutarch, Sayings of Kings and Commanders
Moralia191F "When Paedaretus (a Spartan
soldier) was not chosen to be one of the Three
Hundred, an honor which ranked highest in the
State, he departed cheerful and smiling, with the
remark that he was glad if the State possessed
three hundred citizens who were better than
himself."