Quote:
Originally Posted by Noclevername
Yeah, but the Spartans took things to extremes. No other recorded civilization went to the lengths of institutionalized child abuse, deliberate mistreatment of slaves and social militarism as the Spartans.
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Actually, the tales of child abuse might be slightly exaggerated. Apparently, archeologists have recently discovered the site where "undesirable" infants were said to be abandoned, and in excavating the area, there's a distinct
lack of children's skeletons. It looks to be mostly a place where captured enemies and slaves were killed. Not that this eliminates
all instances of child abuse in Spartan culture, but it certainly looks like some of it was hype. (No doubt spread to make potential invaders think twice about attacking Sparta.)