Ancient Sparta was one of the most powerful empires that came to existence, this was because of its fierce armies and strategy in war. Sparta's goal was to as to conquer most all of Greece. The spartan army learned very complicated maneuvers, involving moves like those in football now a days. The purpose of these maneuvers was to  deceive and surprise enemies on the battle field. Outsiders were forbidden form seeing the exercises for these maneuvers, but they were allowed to see the fierce exercise that made young Spartans strong and brave. Since the Spartan soldiers were fierce, they grew hair their hair out long to make them look bigger and fiercer. at night the Spartans learned to navigate without torches, they knew the importance of attacking when the enemy was weakest and often caught their opponents sleepy and very confused.

In Sparta when a boy was born to spartan parents, the father would take the child to the council of elders. thee old scared veterans would look at the naked infant carefully for any kind of birth defects or the slightest signs of weakness of sickness. If the veterans judged the crying baby to be unworthy of carrying a spartan shield, he would be immediately taken to a nearby cliff off mount Taygetos and thrown over the edge. If the baby passed many of the many life tests then the spartan boy would be allowed  to return to his parents home where he lived for six years, then the real training would begin. When a spartan boy reached the age of 7, he was considered to be too old to be cuddled by his parents, and was taken from them to live a military life for the rest of their life. He was placed in a communal barracks with others his age, supervised by an older boy referred to as a Eirena who had respectively been the strongest in his class (and was himself undergoing something like officer training), for the next five years the spartan boys were conditioned physically and mentally. At the age of 12 the lean and hungry boy was taken from the barracks and made to eat, live, and sleep alone in one garment with no shoes under the sky for one year, exposed to animals, beasts, and the weather. Spartan boys were forced to become tough. They had to walk barefoot, even in very cold weather they could wear only one cloak. The trained soldiers would still remain in the army no matter where they lived until the age of 60 when they were allowed to retire, that is, if they were still alive. Spartan women were expected to be strong and brave and to give up everything in war times.

military training

There were many horsemen, as they patrolled their large territory on horseback, they would have appeared powerful and terrifying to the helots, who went on foot.