I'm John Batchler. Professor Andrew Bayliss is here. His book is spart of the rise and fall of a superpower.

Classical superpower, surprisingly following a path that other superpowers have followed 2,000

years later. The Education of a Young Warrior. You're seven years old or you're 13 years old.

Your family has raised you to be a powerful figure in your whole life,

but you're a powerful figure in a band of brothers. Andrew, I'm, I've got a 7-year-old here and a 13-year-old

here. Sparta proposes to educate them as all those other grown-ups out there with red cloaks and long hair

have been educated. Where do they send them when they're seven? Where do they send them when

they're 13? And what happens? Well, when they're seven, they're taken away from their families

and they're put under the authority of an officeholder whose title means boy herder.

And they're divided into groups that later sources refer to as herds,

but some of the earlier sources just call them squadrons.

And the boy herder is assisted by a group of young adults who are known as the whip bearers,

and they will punish the boys for infractions that they, whatever they do wrong.

And their training is, they clearly learn some basic literacy, but they also learn music,

which is part of an ancient Greek education, and there's a very

strong emphasis on physical education. And when they reach 1314, it becomes more intensive in terms

of a physical education. Yes, at this point, it's very much the brutal barracks life. And I noted especially

they're half-starved all the time. So what the Spartans appear to be educating is a bully who

could steal. Now, that's a 21st century moralism. I understand that. But there is evidence that their conquered peoples regarded them as bullies who stole.

Certainly there's evidence that they were encouraged to steal because they didn't give them enough food.

Was that the idea they wanted a sneak thief who would bully people?

Well, Xenophon tells us that they stole food or they were encouraged to steal food

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