Sparta was originally made up of four small villages in Laconia, an area in the southwestern Peloponnesus, until 730 B.C., which is when Sparta began to take over Messenia. Laconians either became periokoi, a name for free people who were not citizens and who were required to pay taxes and perform military service for Sparta, or helots, who were forced to work on farms and as servants of the Spartans. The Messenians became helots by the 7th century, when Sparta took full control of Messenia.
The Spartans turned Sparta into a military state by 6th century B.C. to make sure they would not loose control of what they had succeeded in conquering. Training for the military began at birth when state officials decided whether a baby was fit to live and he would be left to die if they felt that he was not fit for Spartan military life. Between the ages of eight and ten, boys were taken from their mothers to live in barracks for military training. They were taught to be obedient to......
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