Background on Sparta

Sparta was once a "normal" Greek city. They had art, theater, etc. People did all kinds of regular Greek things for jobs. However, Sparta had a problem: they didn't have access to good grain crops. Sparta had a neighbor down the way (Messinia) that had great grain fields (one of the few good grain growing areas in Greece). Sparta decided to attack and conquer Messinia. They did so and barely won (due to some luck and more luck really). Now they had access to the best grain fields in Greece, but they had a new problem. The population on Messinia outnumbered Sparta 10 to oneish. Spartas's leaders (oligarchy) knew they would not be able to hold on to their conquest unless things changed, and so they did, dramatically. Sparta forced everyone to quit whatever jobs they had and into military service. No time for art, culture, and theater when you need to train for the military, and so the whole culture went into extreme military mode to keep the people of Messinia (now called Helots, vocab word) from rising up. Two interesting facts about this: 1. To graduate from the agoge (military school) the Spartan had to sneak in the Messinia and kill a Helot to remind them and the Helots who was in charge. 2. Though solely focused on military, Sparta rarely used their army. They mostly just drilled and drilled.