There is a story about a Spartan boy who, in order to conceal a fox which he had stolen, hid it beneath his cloak and allowed the fox to gnaw him rather than let the theft be revealed. He died of the wounds. If he had been discovered, the disgrace would not have been in the stealing, but in allowing it to be detected. The boy's actin illustrates the main purpose of the Spartan educational system, which was to produce men capable of showing such bravery as soldiers. Military strength was felt to be essential to Sparta for the very survival;

Sparta was the ruling city of the area of Laconia in the southern Peloponnese. It lay in the valley of the river Eurotas. Of the people in the towns and villages which she controlled, some were free, known as perioikoi or neighbors, although they were inferior in status to the Spartans themselves. Others, because they were felt to be a greater threat, were kept in a state of slavery as publicly owned agricultural laborers. These were called helots. Furthermore, around the end of the eighth century B.C when other Greek states were obtaining the extra land which they needed by sending out colonies , Sparta took over the adjacent area of Messenia and made the Messenians helots as well. Not long afterwards the Messenians revolved , and it is clear the Spartans only just managed to retain their control.

At the battle of Plataia in 479 B.C, five thousand Spartiates as the genuine Spartans were called, fought against the Persians, according to the historian Herodotus.With them were five thousand perioikoi and 35,000 helots. The Spartiates were determined to remain a select group, not inter-marrying with the rest of the population, nor sharing privileges with them. With their subjects vastly outnumbering them, as the figures for Plataia indicate,it can be seen why Sparta felt it essential to have enough military strength to ensure internal security. Every year the Spartans made a formal declaration of war on the helots, so that it did not count as murder to kill any.

Sparta had deliberately chosen, during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C, to develop into a city-state very unlike others , because of the underlying fear of a helot uprising.