24 Paıdeía
only to emerge at night to secure provisions by theft and to kill any helots
found roaming about after curfew. The krupteía helped terrorize the helots
and head off servile rebellion, and it functioned as a rite of passage marking
the boy’s completion of the journey from childhood to manhood.^54
In the late archaic and early classical periods, when Lacedaemon was pop-
ulous and the city could afford to be discriminating, his performance in this
last ordeal may well have determined his fate: he could become a full citizen
and join the hómoıoı if and only if he submitted to the Spartan regimen, suc-
cessfully completed the agōgē ́, and was accepted into a men’s mess [sussıtíon].
It was, it appears, only under these circumstances that he could actually take
up possession of the allotment of land reserved for him shortly after his birth
and begin to collect the rent intended for his support. Those judged to have
fallen short in the agōgē ́ were not just denied entrance into a sussıtíon and ex-
cluded thereby from the august ranks of “the equals, the similars, the peers.”
They were deprived of what was called “the ancient portion [archaîa moîra],”
and they were pointedly singled out and referred to, ever after, as hupomeíones
or “inferiors.”^55
Composed of about fifteen men of all ages, the sussıtíon was not just an
arrangement for meals. It was an elite men’s club, a cult organization, and, at
the same time, the basic unit in the Spartan army. If a single member found a
candidate objectionable and blackballed him, the young man would be denied
entrance. If admitted, he would dine for the rest of his life in what Persaeus
called “a small polity [políteuma] of sorts,” eating what his companions ate and
drinking only a moderate portion of wine, discreetly discussing public affairs
and more private concerns, gently teasing his comrades, and otherwise com-
porting himself always in the dignified, respectful fashion which the old de-
mand of the young and the young nearly always expect from the old.^56 Until
he was forty-five, he was classed as a néos or young man. Every ten days, he
and the others within this age-category were expected to demonstrate that
they were in good shape by presenting themselves naked for inspection by the
magistrates; and, except when he was on active service abroad or doing gar-
rison duty and conducting patrols elsewhere in Laconia or Messenia, each of
these men would spend his nights in the men’s house of his sussıtíon or camped
under the stars “with the other néoı.”^57
The rationale behind these arrangements was perfectly evident to the
shrewdest of the ancient observers. “In time of peace,” Dionysius of Halicar-
nassus remarked, the sussıtía “greatly aided the city by leading men towards