Spartans

Sparta was one of several Greek city states in the 1st millennium BCE and among the most powerful in that region. It was notable for stratification (With Spartiate upper class, Perioeci artisans and merchants and Helots, agricultural slaves) and of the extreme level of militarization it had among its ruling class. The Entire male Spartiate was subjected to a brutal training regimen from childhood and then required to serve as kill squads against their Helot Farmers and then soldiers in the spartan army before being able to mary (entertaining themselves with by buttfucking their spartiate comrades in arms to improve unit cohesion until that day came, and doing so when away campaign afterwards).

This system did produce the best Hoplites in Greece (for a time at the least) as they held formation for longer and breaking formation in Hoplite warfare was just another way of saying "lost", but would ultimately prove to be their downfall. Since they were constantly killing their kids there was never more than about 8,000 of them at one time and the only way to get new ones was by reproduction. The Helots, which outnumbered the Spartiates considerably and did not like being constantly under their heel or having to put up with armed teenage wankers trying to kill them and other such bullshit were constantly rebelling and needed constant attention to be kept in line. They soon pushed themselves to their limit and afterwards their numbers dwindled away and were eventually defeated. Famously by Theban general Epaminondas at Battle of Leuctra and finally by the Romans, which could mobilize their various conquered peoples to provide vast numbers of soldiers.

Legacy in Fiction

Despite its Horrible inefficiency at producing soldiers when compare to other means such as that of a professional standing army that emerged during the renaissance and the age of enlightenment, some writers today that are prone to fanboyism and get the idea that the best way to produce an army is the Spartan way, to create a particularly brutal training regimen to weed the strong from the weak, getting several washouts or casualties for every person who passes. One thing that they tend to leave out being man sex for reasons of building team moral.

Vikings are better than them.

Examples of such training programs include...

• Sardaukar from Dune
• Spess Merhens in Warhammer 40,000
• Spartans (not even trying to be suble) from Halo

This does not mean that you won't end up with several hundred extremely capable warriors. You'll get your fighters, most certainly, but you'll also have the corpses of many more who have taken up valuable resources that could have been more normal warriors. In short, the method works better for creating elite teams in addition to normal troops.

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