156 Notes to Pages 23–24
Suevi wore their hair long for similar reasons and their chiefs prepared for battle in a similar fash-
ion. Wine imbibed before battle: Xen. Hell. 6.4.8 with Plut. Dion 30.5. Hereditary flute players and
march: Hdt. 6.60 with Thuc. 5.70, Plut. Mor. 238b, with note 29, above. Paean: Aesch. Sept. 270;
Thuc. 5.70; Diod. 5.34.5; Plut. Lyc. 21.4, 22.5–7, Mor. 238b with Pritchett, GSW, I 105–8. Role of
intoxicants in war: John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking Press, 1976), 113–14, 181–82,
241, 326. Royal sacrifice to Muses on eve of battle: Plut. Lyc. 21.7, Mor. 238b. In this connection,
see also Dio Chrys. O r. 2.31M, 92R; Val. Max. 2.6.2.
- Overpopulation: Chapter 4 and Appendix 1, below. The decline in population that took
place in and after 465 may well have altered the rigor of the selection process, as Henk W. Singor,
“Admission to the Syssitia in Fifth-Century Sparta,” in SNS, 67–89, suggests. - Martin Nilsson’s reconstruction in 1912 (“Die Grundlagen des spartanischen Lebens,”
826–69 [esp. 826–49]) of the stages of the agōgē ́ needs adjustment in light of the arguments and
evidence presented by Aubrey Diller, “A New Source on the Spartan Ephebeia,” AJPh 62 (1941):
499–501; Chrimes, Ancient Sparta, 84–117; C. M. Tazelaar, “paides kai epheboi: Some Notes on
the Spartan Stages of Youth,” Mnemosyne, 4th ser., 20:2 (1967): 127–53; Hodkinson,“Social Order
and the Conflict of Values in Classical Sparta,” 249–50; MacDowell, SL, 159–67; Dirk-Achim Ku-
kofka, “Die Paidískoi im System der spartanischen Altersklassen,” Philologus 137:3 (1993): 197–
205; Kennell, G V, 28–142; Lupi, L’Ordine delle generazioni, 27–64; and Ducat, SE, 69–222. Cf.
Albert Billheimer, “Tà déka aph hē ́bēs,” TAPhA 77 (1946): 214–20, and H. I. Marrou, “Les Classes
d’âge de la jeunesse spartiate,” REA 48 (1946): 216–330. For a useful survey of the range of opinion
in the past, see Birgalias, OES, 59–70. For comparative material, see Heinrich Schurtz, Altersklas
sen und Männerbünde: Eine Darstellung der Grundformen der Gesellschaft (Berlin: G. Reimer,
1902); Bernardo Bernardi, Age Class Systems: Social Institutions and Polities Based on Age, trans.
David I. Kertzer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and Robert Sallares, The Ecology
of the Ancient Greek World (London: Duckworth, 1991), 160–92. - For the stages through which Spartan boys advanced and the ages in which they com-
pleted each stage, cf. Xen. Lac. Pol. 2–4 with Hell. 5.4.32; see Plut. Lyc. 16.1–2, 7, 12, 17.3–4, 22.1–6;
and consider the evidence contained in the so-called Herodotus and Strabo glosses (which are
conveniently reprinted by MacDowell, SL, 161) in light of the literature cited in note 52, above. I
have followed Ducat, SE, 69–117, except in two particulars—first, where his argument seems
to me to depart from the evidence suggesting that the class of eırénes was constituted by tà déka
aph hē ́bēs (those between hē ́bē and thirty), evidence, let me add, which he fully cites; and, second,
where his argument is at odds with the evidence strongly suggesting that, at Lacedaemon, the
terms néoı and hēbōˆntes were used to refer to men in the age group stretching from twenty to
forty-five (evidence I cite in Appendix 2, below). The existence of a formal dokımasía by the mag-
istrates stands to reason and can be inferred from occasional allusions in the ancient texts. We are
told of the scrutiny that took place shortly after a child’s birth (Plut. Lyc. 16.1–2); there is evidence
(Ael. VH 6.3, which should be read with Plut. Ages. 34.8–11) suggesting that, at one or more stages
in the course of his education, each paîs could expect to be given a formal looking over. That he
would again be subjected to scrutiny when he became a paıdískos also stands to reason and can
be inferred from Xenophon’s reference (Hell. 5.4.25) to someone who had just graduated ek paídōn
as eudokımō ́tatos; and Plutarch’s reference (Lyc. 17.1) to hoı eudokímoı néoı suggests that those
who entered adulthood and came to be called hoı hēbōˆntes or hoı néoı were once again put through
a dokımasía. Consider Xenophon’s use of the words adókımoı and eudokímos at Lac. Pol. 3.3, 13.8
with this possibility in mind, and see Willem den Boer, Laconian Studies (Amsterdam: North
Holland Publishing, 1954), 284–88, in light of Appendix 2 and note 60, below. Note also Xen. Hell.
5.4.32, which suggests what we would in any case assume: that formal judgments were reached at
each major interval.
54.Vigorous training, tests of strength and courage: Plut. Lyc. 16.7–19.13 with Xen. Lac. Pol.
2.1, Hell. 5.4.32. Krupteía: Pl. Leg. 1.633b–c (with the scholia); Arist. F538, 611.10 (Rose) = F543,
Tit. 143.1.2.10 (Gigon) ap. Heraclid. Lemb. 373.10 (Dilts); Plut. Lyc. 28.2–4, Cleom. 28.4. See Just.
Epit. 3.3.6–7. Jeanmaire, “La Cryptie lacédémonienne,” 121–50, elucidates the nature of this in-
stitution by drawing attention to African parallels. Consider Jeanmaire, Couroi et courètes, 510,
550–69; and Chrimes, Ancient Sparta, 374–76, in light of Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage,
trans. Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961),