Paıdeía 25
frugality and moderation [sophrosúnē] in their daily lives.” This advantage he
thought important, but not decisive. The Spartan institution accomplished
something of at least equal, if not greater importance. “In time of war,” Diony-
sius explained, “it instilled in every man a sense of reverential shame [aıdō ́s]
and a prudential concern that he not desert the man posted beside him in the
city’s battle line—for this man was a comrade with whom he had made liba-
tions, conducted sacrifices, and shared in common rites.”^58 At Lacedaemon,
the pressure to perform never let up.
In fact, acceptance into a sussıtíon marked not the end of competition, but
its intensification. From among the hēbōˆntes at their acme—Spartiates who
had survived the krupteía, joined a men’s mess, and distinguished themselves
in service to the city in peace and war—every year the magistrates chose as
hıppagrétaı the three whom they judged the ablest. Each of the three then had
the privilege of electing from among their fellow hēbōˆntes a battalion of pre-
cisely one hundred men. In every case, he had to specify why a particular in-
dividual was chosen and another excluded. The three hundred select men
were called the hıppeîs, and it was their duty and privilege to accompany the
king into battle and to fight by his side. After the initial choice was made, each
of those within this royal bodyguard had to defend—sometimes with their
fists—not just the exalted status of his elite unit, but also his own particular
right to membership in it. There was, in short, an unending competition with
all among the hēbōˆntes who had been denied the honor of admission.^59
A further rivalry existed within the ranks of the royal bodyguard itself.
When a man reached the age of forty-five, he graduated from the class of néoı
and was therefore no longer eligible to serve among the hıppeîs. The five mem-
bers of the graduating class who had most distinguished themselves during
their years of service as hıppeîs were then singled out, given the honorific title
“doers of good deeds [agathoergoí],” and made available to the pólıs and the
magistrates for a full year as special agents prepared to take on any mission
that might be deemed appropriate.^60 Thereafter, they would permanently re-
join the sussıtíon to which they had been elected so many years before. Only at
this stage in life, when a Spartan had joined the ranks of the older men [hoı
presbúteroı], did he become eligible to take charge of the agōgē ́ as paıdonómos
and to hold what Xenophon called “the greatest offices” of the city. Only at this
point could he hope to be given permission to journey abroad.^61
In general, when a boy became a man, his sussıtíon supplanted the herd as
his true home. His ties to his parents, his wife, and his children were intended