2 thoughts on “Kids Today”

    1. The Krypteia was an institution in Sparta that is believed to have recruited especially talented students of the agoge and tasked them with heading into the countryside with a knife to kill slaves:

      Every autumn, according to Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus, 28, 3–7), the Spartan ephors would pro forma declare war on the helot population so that any Spartan citizen could kill a helot without fear of punishment. At night, the chosen kryptes (κρύπτες, members of the Krypteia) were sent out into the Laconian countryside armed with knives with the instructions to kill any helot they encountered and to take any food they needed. They were specifically told to kill the strongest and best of the helots. This practice was instigated to prevent the threat of a rebellion by the helots and to keep their population in check.

      The joke, of course, is in the difference between the brutal nature of Spartan childhood and the much kinder (and, I would argue, saner) childhood experienced by children in developed nations today.

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