age classes
age classesA method of social and political organization in Sparta and Crete in the Classical period. Traces of analogous institutions in other Greek states permit the hypothesis that age-class systems played an important role in the development of the polis throughout the Greek world in earlier periods. In the Spartan agōgē (educational system) boys were removed from their parents at the age of 7 and allocated in annual age classes (bouai, ‘herds’) to tutors who were responsible for their upbringing. At 12 the boys entered paederastic relationships with young adults (e.g. King Agesilaus II and Lysander, the future general). The krypteia, a head-hunting ritual with a police function, occurred at initiation into adulthood, after which all members of each age class married simultaneously. Age-class control of marriage, along with segregation of the sexes until...
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