Question

What did Plutarch write about Spartan education?

Answer 1

See below on Sparta, Plutarch, and what he wrote.

Explanation:

A bit about Plutarch and Sparta before we get into what he said about Spartan educational practices.

Even in this day and age, the word "spartan" conjures up a feeling of minimalism, of lack of luxury leading to discipline and success, and of a fierce fighting culture. That fascination that we feel for Sparta existed in spades in the ancient world - so much so that often historians would write about Sparta not as it was but as they thought it should be. So much of written Spartan history is written from an idealized point of view.

Another thing to keep in mind is that historians often didn't write their own material but instead drew off the works of earlier historians - who had their viewpoints and biases.

Which brings us to Plutarch. He was writing about a civilization that hadn't existed for hundreds of years and for some events he wrote about, a thousand years separate him from those events. Plutarch was also, given the slant of his writings, someone who idolized the Spartans and their way of being.

So whether or not what Plutarch is actually what happened or in line with Spartan thinking can sometimes be in doubt. Given that, there is no doubt that Sparta had a unique militarized culture that promoted pride, fitness, and bravery, and took equality of the sexes to a further degree than any other culture had before.

Here's some of what Plutarch wrote about Spartan education:

"They learned to read and write for purely practical reasons; but all other forms of education they banned from the country, books and treatises being included in this quite as much as men. All their education was directed toward prompt obedience to authority, stout endurance of hardship, and victory or death in battle."

"It was not allowed them to go abroad, so that they should have nothing to do with foreign ways and undisciplined modes of living."

"They used to make the Helots drunk and exhibit them to the young as a deterrent from excessive drinking."

"Cephisophon, who asserted that he could speak the whole day long on any topic whatsoever, they expelled from the country, saying that the good orator must keep his discourse equal to the subject in hand."

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Instituta_Laconica*.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta