Artemis Orthia

A sanctuary on the bank of the Eurotas, and the site of the most notorious Spartan ritual. Xenophon describes a contest in which boys tried to snatch cheeses from the altar while others whipped them, drawing the moral that brief pain buys lasting honour. By the time Plutarch saw it, centuries later, the rite had hardened into an endurance contest at the altar, and he records watching youths die under it.

Pausanias, visiting in the second century of our era, gives the ritual explanation: the wooden image of the goddess demanded blood, and the flogging of the boys replaced an older human sacrifice. He also reports that a priestess held the image throughout, and that it grew heavy in her hands if the whipping was being spared.

The sanctuary was excavated in the early twentieth century and produced large quantities of votive lead figurines and carved bone and ivory, which is among the strongest archaeological evidence for Spartan religious practice.