 Yeah, so there wasn't a lot of safe spaces or microaggressions or any of that nonsense in a sparta. If you listen, you did what you're told and if you didn't, you got that beating. Hell yeah, what's up guys? This is Chris Pike. My friends, call me Big C. I'm back in action today. I'm back using heartbeat and I want to show you some awesome moments from this very cool Spartan video that I was watching the other day. It's awesome. I got 21 moments. So if you're following along with me, just go to H.ki or H key as George pronounces it. And then on the left side here, I'm going to click on my heartbeat and then I'm going to click on moments. And under moments, under, you'll see here, I've got my page open up here. I've got a whole bunch of moments that I really like, but this is the one I want to show you. It's the Spartan training system. Great video. I think it's about a year old now, but holy smokes that I learned a lot in it. So I've selected some of the best moments from it. Join me. Let's do this. All right. So here we are inside heartbeat and we're going to start off talking about the Spartan training system. But the one thing, an interesting moment that caught my eye was the Spartans, while they're known for being strong and militaristic and all these other things, they weren't always like that. There was one particular person who wrote up a code of laws and a code of, I guess, conduct. And that's when it started. So let's check that out here in my first moment for the Spartan training system. Herodotus even says Spartans were the worst governed people in all of Greece. That is, of course, until Sparta came under the influence of the legendary law giver, Lycurgus. It was he who supposedly came up with the Spartan constitution, among which was the Agoghe, a system of education and training to be completed by every Spartan citizen. So there you have it. So prior to Lycurgus, it was a little bit to each their own. But once he came into, once he created his system, it applied to all people in Sparta. And that include men and women, although to a little bit of a lesser degree, they didn't have to necessarily fight in the battles, but they went through the same physical training as the men did. So let's skip forward here. We're going to talk a little bit next about, it's going to talk, the next moment part of me is about Sparta becoming dominant. And boy, did they ever get that right. Let's click on that one. It was Lycurgus' that was so revolutionary for its time that it allowed the Spartans to dominate everyone who dared meet them in the field. And in their prime, allowed them to stand undefeated for over 150 years. Yeah, so basically undefeated for 150 years is a hell of a boast. Like, it's one thing to win a battle. It's one thing to win a war. It's one thing to go 150 years without losing that. That's pretty wild. So they seem to have gotten something right, at least at the time. We're going to skip forward now a couple of minutes here, and we're going to talk about a need or a new need for a different style of upbringing. What made Spartans different than other Greeks? Let's check that out. Lycurgus gazed upon the lazy mediocre citizens of Sparta. He decided that his people were in need of a different concept of upbringing. At the center of this idea was his belief that healthy, disciplined, able-bodied individuals are integral to a successful and functioning society. So there you have it. He broke it down into health, discipline, and well fitness. So the system was to be extended to every young Spartan citizen, male and female. And though the girls were excluded from the more rigorous and extreme system of the agage, they were still expected to perform the same exercises as the boys, like fighting and running. So there you have it. They had to perform the same exercises as the boys. So the boys and the girls and the men and the women, they were the strongest, fittest, most like just absolutely amazing warriors. And in some degree, women warriors, even though they didn't fight, they still had all that strength and everything going on here. So let's skip forward a little bit more, and we're going to talk a little bit now. They're going to talk about how boys, younger boys, how they were initially trained. For the boys, the system was divided into three categories, children, adolescents, and young adults. The first category was very similar in idea to a modern boarding school. Young Spartans would leave their families to learn letters, music, poetry, singing, and sport. Other Greek city-states had a similar system, but relied on private pedagogues to teach their children. The Spartan system, on the other hand, was more communal, in which one man was chosen to be in charge of the boys as their paedonimos or supervisor. So that's a big difference there. In Athens and other cities, in other city, or Greek city-states, they would have one on one for the richer and for the more nobles. But for the younger, for, you know, the people didn't have money, they couldn't afford to hire, you know, maybe a tutor or a paedonimos, I guess in this case. But in Sparta, it was communal. This was for everybody. So everybody learned the same things from the same teacher, and it turned out quite well. Let's skip forward a little more now until they talk about the obedience side of things, what made them so disciplined. Ryder Plutart nicely puts it, the agogue was a school of obedience. The supervisor was given power to punish the boys as he saw fit, and always commanded a group of older boys with whips to enforce his punishments. And to make sure the boys were never left without a supervisor, he allowed every citizen to take on his role when he wasn't around. Yeah, so there wasn't a lot of safe spaces or microaggressions or any of that nonsense in a Sparta. If you, you listen, you did what you're told, and if you didn't, you got that beating. There wasn't even rulers. This was, this was a crackdown on the whip. So there you go. And if the teacher wasn't around, another person could go ahead and do that as long as they were a citizen. They could crack the whip. So yeah, they were very obedient and they were very disciplined, maybe in contrast to today's youth, myself included when I was in school. So here we go. So that is the first thing I wanted to talk to you about. Now we're going to switch forward to the Spartans as teenagers, the second stage. Let's see what set them apart. Spartan teenagers, however, only entered into their second stage of the Agoge. Lakergus recognized that it was in this age category, when going through puberty, that boys are the most adventurous and troublesome. So in keeping with his system, he enforced even more hardships and labor on the boys. They were to have only one cloak to stay warm all year and had to walk barefoot in order to strengthen their feet. For Lakergus believed that if their feet were properly accustomed, they could run faster and jump higher than anyone in footwear. Yeah, so you got one set of clothes and you had to walk around bare feet. That is just nuts. But hey, that's how they made you tough back then. Let's get forward a little bit more and let's get into the weapons and silent marching. To fight with weapons and march collectively in full silence under the rhythm of music, these silent marches would be used as a psychological weapon in battle. As most armies did not have the discipline to pull this off and it would be offsetting for anyone to witness a seemingly emotionless and confident army face off against them. Yeah, so if you can discipline and marching silently following orders, you just, you know, if you're an old school Greek warrior that's, you know, goes out there with your hop light and you engage in one to one battle like in the Homeric hymns and the Homeric poems, this was a totally different type of style, different type of group. And when they can march all the way up to you to attack you without saying a word, yeah, it's on. Apparently Alexander the Great did this. He had his army do this in front of, I can't remember, but I thought it was the Thebans or the Illyrians, one of the two, and they did all of these routines and they were swishing the grain with their weapons and the army, the other army just said, oh my god, these guys are just too much and they laid down their weapons without even going into battle. So it's, it's a real thing. So let's get forward a little bit more and now get into the juicy stuff. Let's talk about their training. Now Spartan training was not focused on extensive muscle growth of any kind. Yeah. Instead it was aimed at improving speed, agility and muscle memory. So we could expect the average Spartan body to not be overly muscular, but instead nimble and lean, carrying just enough weight and muscle for optimal physical performance. So there you have it, 300, notwithstanding the movie of course, yeah, Spartans were, they were built to task. Like think about a gymnast, their muscles are big enough to do the things they need to do and that's kind of how the Spartan training seemed to be set up as well. No unnecessary muscle that's just, you know, gets in the way. No bodybuilders in there so to speak, but very fit. So there you go. Now watch this. This is another part I want to talk to you about. How were the Spartan youth and the Spartan teenagers fed? This is going to catch you by surprise. Spartan youths were never fully sated and were always hungry to some degree. Xenophon explains it was to encourage them to steal, but if any were caught stealing, they received a beating. Not so much for the act of stealing, but for being caught doing it. Yeah, so they were encouraged to steal and take things even though they would be punished if they got caught. So it wasn't the doing the act, it was getting caught was the problem and they were underfed, which is kind of weird and dark, but hey, they made these boys tough. So that's kind of what they were going for. All right, so now let's get forward now to the young adults. So they've got through their teenage years. Now they're young adults. Let's see how that went for them. So there you have it. The he competitiveness. That was the biggest thing like he looked as young men, young adult males as the biggest asset. And maybe back a couple thousand years ago, that was the case because of all the war and hostility that existed in the world back then. And war was fought with hand-to-hand weapons primarily as opposed to modern war, which is missiles and such. So anyways, there you go. Let's go ahead and skip forward a little bit more and we're going to talk about how this compares to the Roman legions. This is another moment I really liked. Unlike with the recruitment of the Roman legions, where men were selected based on stature and strength, it can be said that each Spartan male or female would be in great shape as they enter adulthood. And anyone slightly shorter or slimmer than the rest would know how to compensate and speed and vigor. We can safely say the Kirkus system made sure that every citizen was a worthy recruit for when the need arose. So there you have it. That kind of goes against what I was expecting was the weaker, the smaller were cast out kind of the myth. But it's not entirely true, it appears, at least according to this video. So definitely something to keep in mind. And finally, let's talk the last moment or two here, talk about war and particularly cowardice and fleeing battles and how that was frowned upon. Let's skip forward to how that worked. Cowards had to endure the most dishonorable lives, which motivated many to rather die in battle than take their place. So there you have it. So it wasn't so much as if they lost in battle, they would be killed or or anything like that. When they got home, most of them just didn't want to live that life of shame. So they would come home or they would either die in battle or they'd come home on their on their shields as they called it. And well, there you go. This was because of the way they were shamed in society. So that is my, you know, really enjoyed this video. I believe most of it's true. It kind of, you know, keeps up with some of the things I've read. But there you go, guys, those are my heartbeat moments for Spartan training system. Let me know what you think about this in the comments below. Thanks for watching.