It was one of the best organized and most powerful armies in classical Greece. From a very
young age Spartiates were given a strict training that prepared them to face war and the privations of military life without fear. At the age of twenty they were recruited into the army, composed mainly of units of foot soldiers known as <<hoplites,>> a
nd were only discharged after forty years of service. The army was led by one of the city's two kings and the heavy foot was split into regiments, each commanded by a polemarchos. Subordinate officers included the lochagoi (battalion commanders), penteco