Professor Selene Psoma (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Revising the Spartan Krypteia

The Spartan krypteia has been a long subject of debate. From the 18th c. and the abbé Barthélémy to 2018, scholarly approaches differ and can be summarised as follows: a military one that considers the krypteia as part of territorial defence and training for endurance, and an anthropological one that considers the krypteia as – grosso modo – an initiation rite with the aim to terrorize the helots. Both approaches can be detected in the more recent bibliography. Professpr Psoma's approach takes the military one.