ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the role of education and military training in Greek cities in helping to contain violence in their societies, to channel legitimate violence against enemies, and to defend the boundaries of the community. One justification for Steven Pinker’s neglect of ancient Greece may be that, as is universally agreed, no usable statistics for homicide or other violent crimes can be suggested for any Greek state at any time. In the late archaic and the classical periods Sparta developed a highly complex system of boys’ education and socialisation, tightly organised by annual age-classes. It seems to have been the most elaborate educational system of any Greek state. At Sparta and in Crete, socialisation involved more intensive levels of compulsory physical exercise and military discipline, aided by athletic and song-dance contests, common messes and institutionalised or strongly encouraged homosexual pair-bonding between age-unequals.
