ACOUP had a very good bit on Sparta and it's 'mirage' here: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blo

ACOUP had a very good bit on Sparta and it's 'mirage' here: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p... As Devereaux puts it on Spartan child-rearing: "To sum up: far from being some ideal system of child-rearing, as Xenophon might have it, the Spartan agoge appears functionally identical to modern systems which use trauma to condition child soldiers." The whole series is a great and very deep dive into Sparta and the summation is clear: If Sparta still existed, we'd all invade to stop the horror.