Prompt #2: This is Spartaaaaaa! ! !

My understanding of Spartan society is that they existed as a powerful and formidable warring state that living a relatively simple minded and efficient life. The women held much more power than those in most other societies due to the fact that the Spartan men were often too busy training, or off fighting in wars. As a society there was not much romance to be had and that is evident in the phrase "Come home wearing your shield, or on it" because the mans only job was to be a soldier and his shield meant the ability to live to fight again. It was tradition that when Spartan men fell in battle they were brought home strapped on top of it. The ruling class, the Spartiates, gave themselves wholly to war. At birth a boy was inspected by the elders, and if he appeared too weakly for future military service, he was taken into the mountains and abandoned. If he was fit, he was taken from his mother at the age of seven to begin rigorous military training. He became a soldier at 20, a citizen at 30, and continued as a soldier until 60. Thus his entire life was spent under rigorous discipline. Spartiate women, under less severe discipline, were part of the soldierly society and were not secluded. The Spartiates were the only citizens and the only sharers in the allotment of lands and of the helots (serfs who were bound to the land). The helots farmed the land and paid part of the produce to their masters, the Spartiates. They could not be sold, but they had no legal or civil rights and were constantly watched by a sort of Spartiate secret police for fear of insurrection. In somewhat less stringent subjection were the perioeci, freemen who were permitted to carry on commerce and handicrafts, by which some of them prospered. Nevertheless, the perioeci were entirely subordinate to the Spartiates.

Spartan government was an odd affair, but its overwhelming characteristic was stability . The Spartans, in fact, had the most stable government in the history of ancient Greece (some historians call this stability, "political stagnation"). At the top of government was the monarchy; the monarchy, however, was a dual monarchy. Below the monarchy was a council which was composed of the two kings plus twenty-eight nobles, all of whom were over sixty, that is, retired from the military. The council debated and set legislative and foreign policy, and was the supreme criminal court. Below the council (or above it), was an assembly of all the Spartiate males (a democracy, in other words) that selected the council and approved or vetoed council proposals. Above them all, however, was a small group of five men known as the ephorate . For all practical purposes, Spartan government was the ephorate, for these five men led the council, ran the military, ran the educational system, ran the infant selection system, and had veto power over everything coming out of the council or the assembly. They even had power to depose the king; however, they needed powerful divine proof (in the form of omens or oracles) to exercise this power. So what kind of government was Spartan government? It was a democratic timocratic monarchical oligarchy. Chew on that a few times. :)