Sparta
A Greek state reorganises its entire society around producing infantry.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 200 years
- Known to
- ± 100 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
Sparta subjugates neighbouring Messenia and turns its population into helots — state-owned agricultural labour — which frees Spartan citizens for full-time military life. Boys enter the agoge at seven; men eat in common messes; land is worked by others. Spartan women hold property and receive physical education, which astonished other Greeks. The system produces the best infantry in Greece and a permanently paranoid state, since the helots vastly outnumber the citizens.