This is Sparta – No Baby-Throwing Allowed (ca. 5th C BC)

So it turns out the Spartans didn’t throw deformed babies off of a cliff after all…

So… it turns out that the Classicists were wrong. Or at least, their sources were wrong. The belief that ancient Spartans ‘purged’ their population of weakness was a bit of an exaggeration, to say the least – apparently Spartans didn’t throw their babies off cliffs after all.

Archaeological digs in the area of ancient Sparta turned up plenty of human remains from a spot called ‘the pit’ – also called an ‘apothetes’ – that belonged to teenagers and adults ranging between the ages of 18 and 35, which would have been the prime fighting age range for men in ancient times.

The bones at the bottom of the pit were distinctly lacking in one feature – the inclusion of bones from newborn babies. It seems that even though the ancient Spartans didn’t throw their sickly or deformed babies off of cliffs, other ancient Greek writers made the decision to start the myth in order to demonstrate the intensity of Sparta’s military focus.

Instead, the bones in the pit came from approximately 46 different men who lived during the 6th and 5th centuries BC – confirming a different rumor that Spartans tended to throw criminals, prisoners, or traitors into the pit. It is known that during a war between Sparta and Messene – a city-state near Sparta – the Spartans defeated Messene’s hero Aristomenes and 50 of his warriors, and threw all of them into the pit.

Though it turns out the Spartans didn’t throw their babies off of cliffs, they still chucked their enemies into a pit!

As brutal as the Spartans may have been to their enemies, the discovery sets the record straight about how they treated the more sickly members of their own society – likely just as well as anyone else, probably setting them in service positions if they were too weak to serve in the military. Although for a Spartan that would have been shameful enough, but at least they were allowed to live. The unfounded rumor about baby-chucking was first begun by the historian Plutarch in the 1st century AD.

Originally published at The Ancient Standard.

December 30, 2008 | The Ancient Standard | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “This is Sparta – No Baby-Throwing Allowed (ca. 5th C BC)”

  1. James says:
    July 10, 2009 at 8:18 am

    I think all the new Archeological evidence for the Spartans is great. It is really brings a true human face to them. Its refreshing and beautiful to see the Spartans as People and no beasts.

    Also I like to say this about the movie
    "Tonight! we dine in a place that does not exist in our Cultural religion!"

    Reply
  2. kiov says:
    February 25, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    Plutarch said the babies were washed in wine, not thrown over a cliff.

    Reply
    • Timothy Alexander says:
      February 25, 2010 at 9:11 pm

      I believe what Plutarch wrote in was:

      Nor was it in the power of the father to dispose of the child as he thought fit; he was obliged to carry it before certain triers at a place called Lesche; these were some of the elders of the tribe to which the child belonged; their business it was carefully to view the infant, and, if they found it stout and well made, they gave order for its rearing, and allotted to it one of the nine thousand shares of land above mentioned for its maintenance, but, if they found it puny and ill-shaped, ordered it to be taken to what was called the Apothetae, a sort of chasm under Taygetus; as thinking it neither for the good of the child itself, nor for the public interest, that it should be brought up, if it did not, from the very outset, appear made to be healthy and vigorous. Upon the same account, the women did not bathe the new-born children with water, as is the custom in all other countries, but with wine, to prove the temper and complexion of their bodies; from a notion they had that epileptic and weakly children faint and waste away upon their being thus bathed while, on the contrary, those of a strong and vigorous habit acquire firmness and get a temper by it, like steel. There was much care and art, too, used by the nurses; they had no swaddling bands; the children grew up free and unconstrained in limb and form, and not dainty and fanciful about their food; not afraid in the dark, or of being left alone; and without peevishness, or ill-humour, or crying. Upon this account Spartan nurses were often bought up, or hired by people of other countries; and it is recorded that she who suckled Alcibiades was a Spartan; who, however, if fortunate in his nurse, was not so in his preceptor; his guardian, Pericles, as Plato tells us, chose a servant for that office called Zopyrus, no better than any common slave. ~ Lycurgus

      Reply

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