Eiren

A youth of about twenty placed in command of a troop of younger boys. Plutarch defines the eiren as one two years out of the boys' class, and gives melleiren, would-be eiren, as the name for the oldest boys still below that line.

The eiren commanded his troop in mock battles, was waited on by them at meals, and sent them out to fetch wood and vegetables, which they were expected to steal. After supper he would order one boy to sing and put to another a question demanding a considered answer: who is the best man in the city, or what do you make of this man's conduct. Plutarch presents this as the point at which judgement was trained rather than merely obedience.

The structure is worth noticing. The immediate authority over a Spartan boy was not an adult but someone a few years older, himself still inside the system and still answerable to it.