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{{Short description|Covert armed youth group in ancient Sparta}}
[[File:Ithome2.jpg|thumb|[[Messenia (ancient region)|Messenia]], homeland of Sparta's helot population, from [[Mount Ithome]].]]
The '''Crypteia''', also referred to as '''Krypteia''' or '''Krupteia''' ([[Ancient Greek|Greek]]: κρυπτεία ''krupteía'' from κρυπτός ''kruptós'', "hidden, secret"; members were κρύπται ''kryptai''), was an ancient [[Sparta|Spartan]] state institution. The ''kryptai'' either principally sought out and killed [[helots]] across [[Laconia]] and [[Messenia]] as part of a policy of terrorising and intimidating the enslaved population, or they principally did a form of military training, or they principally endured hardships as an initiation ordeal, or the Crypteia served a combination of all these purposes, possibly varying over time.{{sfn|Cartledge|2001|p=88}} The Krypteia was an element of the Spartan state's child-rearing system for upper-class males.<ref name="Massimo2018"/> 

Modern historians often translate "Krypteia" as "[[secret police]]"{{cn|date=June 2024}} or "[[secret service]]",{{sfn|Cartledge|2001|p=4}} but its precise structure is debated.<ref name="Massimo2018">{{Cite book|last=Nafissi|first=Massimo|title=A Companion to Sparta|publisher=Wiley Blackwell|year=2018|isbn=|editor-last=Powell|editor-first=Anton|pages=109}}</ref>

== Overview ==
[[File:Spartan hoplite-1 from Vinkhuijzen.jpg|thumb|Artist's rendering of a [[Spartan hoplite]].]]
Much of the debate surrounding the Crypteia comes from the differing accounts provided by the few surviving Classical texts that mention the Crypteia, and the fact that [[Xenophon]]'s [[Constitution of the Lacedaemonians]] makes no mention of it.

{{update section|date=June 2024}}
[[Plutarch]] and [[Heraclides Lembus]] (both of whom may be using a lost work by Aristotle as a source),{{cn|date=June 2024}} and some scholars, (such as [[Henri-Alexandre Wallon]] (1812–1904)), saw the Crypteia as a kind of [[secret police]] – a state security force organised by the [[Spartiate |ruling class]] of [[Sparta]] to patrol the Laconian countryside and terrorise the [[helots]], by carrying out secret killings.<ref name=Wallon1850>{{Cite book|last= Wallon |first= Henri|title= Explication d'un passage de Plutarque sur une loi de Lycurgue nommée la Cryptie (fragment d'une Histoire des Institutions politiques de la Grèce)|publisher= Dupont |year= 1850|location=Paris | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xqI-AAAAcAAJ | quote = Grote [...] se refusant, comme Müller et Thirlwall, à voir dans cette institution un massacre périodique et officiel, le reduit de même à n'être tout au plus qu'un système d'espionnage étendu pas les éphores sur les bourgs des périèques comme sur les villages des hilotes : système marqué parfois par des assassinats qui demeuraient inconnus. ["Grote refuses, like Müller et Thirlwall, to see a periodic and official massacre in this institution, and even reduces it to a spy system deployed by the [[ephor]]s against the towns of the [[perioikoi]] and the villages of the helots alike : a system occasionally remarkable for assassinations which remain secret]}}</ref> Others, including [[Hermann Köchly]] (1815–1876) and [[Wilhelm Wachsmuth]] (1784–1866), saw it as a form of military training similar to the Athenian ''[[ephebia]].''<ref name="Köchly1835">{{Cite book|last= Köchly |first= Hermann|title= Commentatio de Lacedaemoniorum cryptia |year= 1835 |location= Leipzig}}</ref><ref name=Wachsmuth1844-1846>{{Cite book|last= Wachsmuth|first= Wilhelm|title= Hellenische Altertumskunde aus dem Geschichtpunkt des Staates (Teil 1 & 2)|year= 1844–46}}
</ref>

The ranks of the Crypteia comprised young upper-class Spartan men, probably between the ages of 21 and 30,<ref name="Massimo2018"/> possibly selected as "those judged to have the most intelligence."<ref name="Massimo2018"/>{{qn|date=March 2024}} The men were known as ''hêbôntes'', one of the many social categories that preceded full [[Spartiate]] citizenship, and had completed their rearing at the [[agoge]] with such success that Spartan officials marked them out as potential future [[leader]]s.<ref name="Richer2018_p530">{{Cite book|last= Richer|first= Nicolas|title= A Companion to Sparta|publisher= Wiley-Blackwell|year= 2018|editor-last= Powell|editor-first= Anton|page= 530}}</ref>

According to Plato, the ''kryptai'' did not use footwear during the winter and slept without shelter. Plato describes them as being unsupervised and as depending on themselves alone for survival. Plato's description might seem to imply that the ''kryptai'' were forced to be independent, but some scholars think that they may have had attendants at certain times to watch over them.<ref name="Kennel2010_p268"/>{{qn|date=March 2024}}

The duration of service in the Crypteia is also largely unknown, but it has been suggested that one year of service may have been all that was required of the men,<ref name=Figuera_2018_p569>{{Cite book |last= Figueira|first= Thomas|title= A Companion to Sparta|publisher= Wiley-Blackwell|year= 2018 |editor-last= Powell|editor-first= Anton|pages= 569}}</ref>{{qn|date=March 2024}}<ref name=Ducat2006_p297>{{Cite book|last= Ducat |first= Jean|title= Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period |publisher= The Classical Press of Wales|year= 2006|page= 297}}</ref> based on a [[scholion]] of Plato's ''Laws'' (see below).

==History and function==
According to [[Aristotle]], the Crypteia were established by the legendary Spartan lawgiver [[Lycurgus of Sparta|Lycurgus]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|page=284|translator-last=Stafford|translator-first=Emma|translator-last2=Shaw|translator-first2=P.J.|translator-last3=Powell|translator-first3=Anton}}</ref> There is no known date associated with its establishment, however.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|page=307}}</ref> Every autumn, Spartan [[ephor|ephors]] would declare war on the [[helot]] population which would allow them to [[headhunting|headhunt]] helots without fear of punishment.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Plutarch • Life of Lycurgus|url=http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lycurgus*.html|access-date=2021-02-05|website=penelope.uchicago.edu}}</ref> The chosen ''kryptai'' were then sent out into the countryside armed with daggers with the instructions to kill any helot they encountered travelling the roads and tending to fields they deemed too plentiful. They were specifically told to kill the strongest and to take any food they needed.<ref name="Kennel2010_p268"/>

The reason for adopting that practice may have been to reduce the repressed aggression of the hêbôntes.{{clarify|date=June 2024}}<ref name="Kennel2010_p268">{{Cite book|last=Kennell|first=Nigel|title=Spartans: A New History|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2010|pages=268}}</ref> However, it is most commonly thought to have been adopted to prevent the threat of a helot rebellion and to keep their population in check. According to some sources, ''kryptai'' would stalk the helot villages and surrounding countryside, spying on the servile population.<ref name="Cartledge2">Paul Cartledge, ''Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300–362 BC'', 2nd ed., Routledge, 2001</ref> Their mission was to prevent and to suppress unrest and rebellion. 

Another point of contestation is the time of day at which the Crypteia operated. Plato described their movement as travelling in both day and night.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Plato, Laws, Book 1, section 633c |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hoppe/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0166:book=1:section=633c| access-date=2021-03-30| website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> On the contrary, Plutarch states that they would hide during the day and would travel by night, then aiming to kill any helots who they came across.<ref name="Plutach_Lycurgus" /> That suggests that helots may have had to comply with curfew laws put into place by the Spartans.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), Crypteia |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:entry=crypteia-cn|access-date=2021-03-09|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> 

Troublesome helots could be summarily executed. Such brutal repression of the helots permitted the Spartan elite to successfully control the servile agrarian population. It may also have contributed to the Spartans' reputation for stealth since a ''kryptēs'' (κρύπτης) who got caught was punished by whipping.<ref name="Cartledge2" /> 

Aristotle's lost account was partly disbelieved by Plutarch, several centuries later. Plutarch, who provides much of what is known of Aristotle's account, was not convinced that Lykourgos would have included such harsh customs within the Spartan constitution and instead thought that the Crypteia had been introduced, if at all, only after the helot revolt, brought on by an earthquake in Sparta in the mid-460s BC.<ref name="Massimo2018"/><ref name="Plutach_Lycurgus">{{Cite web|title=Plutarch, Lycurgus, chapter 28|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0047:chapter=28|access-date=2021-03-09|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref> In events preceding the ten-year conflict between the Spartans and the Messenians that resulted from the helot revolt, the Spartan leadership covertly killed two thousand helots who had participated in the war. It is thought that the Crypteia were the primary perpetrators of the massacre or were at least somehow involved in carrying it out.<ref name=":2" />

=== Military affiliation ===
In ''Cleomenes'', Plutarch describes the Crypteia as being a unit of the Spartan army.<ref name=Ducat2006p293-294>{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|pages=293–294}}</ref> The Crypteia did not act in a similar fashion to [[hoplite]] soldiers, however. Hoplite soldiers were armored and acted as a part of a phalanx while members of the Crypteia acted on their own, often rested during the day, and were most likely unarmored and armed with only a dagger.<ref name="Massimo2018"/> During the [[Battle of Sellasia]], the Spartan king [[Cleomenes III]] "called Damoteles, the commander of the Crypteia, and ordered him to observe and find out how matters stood in the rear and on the flanks of his army."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|pages=293}}</ref><ref name=Perrin_1921>{{Cite web|title=Plutarch, Cleomenes, chapter 28|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plut.%20Cleom.%2028&lang=original|access-date=2021-03-14|website=www.perseus.tufts.ed|publisher=Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.; William Heinemann Ltd., London|date=1921|translator=Bernadotte Perrin}}</ref><ref name="Ross2">[http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=gvjh Brandon D. Ross Krypteia: A Form of Ancient Guerrilla Warfare]</ref> 

Various scholars have speculated on the function of the Crypteia as a part of the army because Plutarch's account provides a completely different understanding of their role when compared to the accounts provided by Aristotle and Plato.<ref name="Ducat2006p294">{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|pages=294}}</ref> Plutarch's account has led to the Cryptiea being described as a reconnaissance, [[special operations]] or even [[military police]] force.<ref name="Ross2" /><ref name="Ducat2006p294" /> However, Jean Ducat argues that source should no longer be associated with the understanding of the Crypteia as known from Aristotle and Plato. He proposes that the understanding of the Crypteia as part of the army is just that, a separate understanding that defines the Crypteia as a corps in the Spartan army.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|pages=295}}</ref> 

Plutarch's account of the Crypteia describes the organisation as a military unit that has a commander, which differs from Aristotle and Plato's interpretation since the Crypteia is described as being independent and without overseers. Ducat also takes up query with the task of observation that the Crypteia are given in Plutarch's account.<ref name="Ducat2006p294" /> Again, that differs from Aristotle and Plato's interpretation in the fact that the Crypteia's mandate was not to observe or provide intelligence but to seek out purposely and kill helots. Unlike its unknown origins, the Battle of Sellasia is considered to provide a potential date for the disbandment of the Crypteia.<ref name="Ducat2006p307">{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|pages=307}}</ref> With the Spartan revolution in jeopardy, Cleomenes III began to emancipate helots in exchange for money and then military service.<ref name=Africa1968>{{Cite journal|last=Africa|first=Thomas W.|date=1968|title=Cleomenes III and the Helots|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25010562|journal=California Studies in Classical Antiquity|volume=1|pages=1–11| doi=10.2307/25010562 | jstor=25010562 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> With the emancipation of many helots and Spartan's subsequent defeat at Sellasia, helotage ceased to exist, and without a helot population, by mandate, the Crypteia should have ceased to exist as well. The Crypteia's disbanding after that battle, however, is only speculation.<ref name=":52">{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|pages=307}}</ref>

=== Ritualistic activity ===
The French historian Henri Jeanmaire points out that the unstructured and covert activities of the Crypteia are unlike the disciplined and well-ordered communal life of the Spartan [[hoplite]]s (see [[Homonoia]]). Jeanmaire suggests that the Crypteia was a [[rite of passage]], possibly predating the classical military organization, and may have been preserved through Sparta's legendary religious conservatism. He draws comparison with the [[initiation]] rituals of some African secret societies (wolf-men and [[Leopard Society|leopard men]]).<ref name="Jeanmarie2">Henri Jeanmaire, ''La cryptie lacédémonienne'', Revue des études grecques, 26, 1913</ref> Members of the Crypteia may have not shared the commonality with Spartan hoplites that Jeanmaire describes during their service as a part of the institution, but they eventually returned to their communities and were integrated back into the complex Spartan social system.<ref name="Richer2018_p530"/>

==Classical sources==
Several surviving classical sources, from several different centuries, describe, or mention, or at least are thought by some Classicists to reference the Crypteia.

===5th century BC===
[[Herodotus]] is thought by some to have been referring to the Crypteia when he writes "Now the Lacedemonians put to death by night all those whom they put to death, but no man by day."<ref name=Herodotus>[[Histories (Herodotus)]], Book 4, section 146, sentence 2: [[:Wikisource:The History of Herodotus (Macaulay)/Book IV]]</ref>

[[Thucydides]] is also thought by some to be referring to the Crypteia when he writes, in his account of the eighth year of the [[Peloponnesian War]], 
{{blockquote|The Lacedaemonians were also glad to have an excuse for sending some of the Helots out of the country, for fear that the present aspect of affairs and the occupation of Pylos might encourage them to move. Indeed fear of their numbers and obstinacy even persuaded the Lacedaemonians to the action which I shall now relate, their policy at all times having been governed by the necessity of taking precautions against them. The Helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high-spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.|Thuc 4.80, [[History of the Peloponnesian War]], by [[Thucydides]], book four, section 80. Translated by [[Richard Crawley]]}}

Centuries later, Plutarch mentions Thucydides's account, immediately after speaking explicitly of the Crypteia (see below).

===4th century BC===
There is a single-sentence passing reference to the Crypteia, made by an imaginary Spartan in a fictional dialogue, in [[Plato's Laws|Plato's ''Laws'']]<ref name=Plato>[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=plat.+laws+1.633b ''Laws''], Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968. {{br}}'''Quote''':'moreover, the "Crypteia", [1] as it is called, affords a wonderfully severe training in hardihood, as the men go bare-foot in winter and sleep without coverlets and have no attendants, but wait on themselves and rove through the whole countryside both by night and by day.' [citation in translation reads '[1] Or “Secret Service.” Young Spartans policed the country to suppress risings among the Helots.']"</ref><ref name="Massimo2018" />

{{blockquote|moreover, the "Crypteia",<sup>1</sup> as it is called, affords a wonderfully severe training in hardihood, as the men go bare-foot in winter and sleep without coverlets and have no attendants, but wait on themselves and rove through the whole countryside both by night and by day.{{br}}<small>[citation in translation reads:] 1 Or “Secret Service.” Young Spartans policed the country to suppress risings among the Helots.</small>|source=[[Plato's Laws|Plato's ''Laws'']] 633b, translation from [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=plat.+laws+1.633b Plato's ''Laws'', Plato in Twelve Volumes], Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.}}

There is also a [[scholion]] on this text.<!--A [[scholion]] glossing this text explains:
{{blockquote|A young man would be sent out of the city, with orders to avoid detection for a certain length of time. He was therefore forced to live wandering the mountains, sleeping with one eye open so as not to be caught, and without being able to use slaves or carry provisions. This was also a form of training for war, since each young man was sent out naked, having been ordered to spend an entire year wandering outside the city, up in the mountains, and to keep himself alive by stealing and other shifts of that kind, and to do it in such a way as to avoid being seen by anybody. This is why it was called the [k]ypteia: because those who had been seen, wherever that might occur, would be punished.|source=Translation Ducat 2006, p289<ref name=Ducat2006_p289>{{Cite book|last= Ducat |first= Jean|title= Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period |publisher= The Classical Press of Wales|year= 2006|pages= 289}}</ref>}}
****Date this scholion and try to find a public-domain or open-license translation-->

===2nd century BC===
A fragment by the Alexandrian [[Heraclides Lembus]] (Heraclides fr. 10 Dilts) mentions the Krypteia, probably describing it as instituted by [[Lycurgus]]:

{{Blockquote|It is said that he … also set up the [k]rypteia, whereby, even to this day, men go out of the city to hide by day, and by night in arms [...] and slaughter helots as they think necessary.|Heraclides fr. 10 Dilts. Translation Ducat 2006, p. 284<ref name=Ducat2006_p284>{{Cite book|last= Ducat |first= Jean|title= Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period |publisher= The Classical Press of Wales|year= 2006|pages= 284}}</ref> }} 

Heraclides may, like Plutarch, below, be using a lost work of [[Aristotle]] as a source.

===1st century AD===
Plutarch, in his [[Parallel Lives|''Life of Lycurgus'']], gives a long description of the Crypteia.<ref name=Plutarch>Plut. Lyc. 28.2 [[:Wikisource:Plutarch's Lives (Clough)/Life of Lycurgus]], 1859 translation</ref> 

{{blockquote|The Cryptia, perhaps (if it were one of [[Lycurgus]]'s ordinances, as [[Aristotle]] says it was), gave both him and Plato, too, this [negative] opinion alike of the lawgiver and his government. By this ordinance, the magistrates despatched privately some of the ablest of the young men [ [[:wiktionary:νέων|νέων]], néon ] into the country, from time to time, armed only with their daggers, and taking a little necessary provision with them; in the daytime, they hid themselves in out-of-the-way places, and there lay close, but, in the night, issued out into the highways, and killed all the Helots they could light upon; sometimes they set upon them by day, as they were at work in the fields, and murdered them. As, also, Thucydides, in his history of the Peloponnesian war, tells us, that a good number of them, after being singled out for their bravery by the Spartans, garlanded, as enfranchised persons, and led about to all the temple in token of honors, shortly after disappeared all of a sudden, being about the number of two thousand; and no man either then or since could give an account how they came by their deaths. And Aristotle, in particular, adds, that the ephori, so soon as they were entered into their office, used to declare war against them, that they might be massacred without a breach of religion. It is confessed, on all hands, that the Spartans dealt with them very hardly|source=Plut. Lyc. 28.2, [[:Wikisource:Plutarch's Lives (Clough)/Life of Lycurgus|Plutarch's ''Life of Lycurgus'']], 1859 translation}}

There is another possible reference to the Crypteia, or at least to a man who was commander of it at the time of the [[Battle of Sellasia]], in Plutarch's ''Lives'':<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ducat|first=Jean|title=Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period|publisher=The Classical Press of Wales|year=2006|pages=293}}</ref><ref name=Perrin_1921>{{Cite web|title=Plutarch, Cleomenes, chapter 28|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plut.%20Cleom.%2028&lang=original|access-date=2021-03-14|website=www.perseus.tufts.ed|publisher=Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.; William Heinemann Ltd., London|date=1921|translator=Bernadotte Perrin}}</ref><ref name="Ross2">[http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=gvjh Brandon D. Ross Krypteia: A Form of Ancient Guerrilla Warfare]</ref>

{{blockquote|He [the Spartan king [[Cleomenes III]]] therefore called Damoteles, the commander of the secret service contingent,<sup>1</sup>[καλέσας δὲ Δαμοτέλη τὸνἐπὶ τῆς '''κρυπτείας''' τεταγμένον] and ordered him to observe and find out how matters stood in the rear and on the flanks of his array. But Damoteles (who had previously been bribed, as we are told, by Antigonus) told him to have no concern about flanks and rear, for all was well there, but to give his attention to those who assailed him in front, and repulse them.{{br}}
[footnote in translation:] 1 A rural police with the special duty of watching the Helots, or slave population.|Plut. Cleo. 28.3, Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. Translation by Bernadotte Perrin, 1921.<ref name=Perrin_1921/> [[:Wikisource:Plutarch's Lives (Clough)/Life of Cleomenes|1859 translation]])}}

<!--{{blockquote|<!--For Antigonus gave orders, that the Illyrians and Acarnanians should march round by a secret way, and encompass the other wing, which Euclidas, Cleomenes's brother, commanded; and then drew out the rest of his forces to the battle. And Cleomenes, [...] <!-- from a convenient rising, viewing his order, and not seeing any of the Illyrians and Acarnanians, began to suspect that Antigonus had sent them upon some such design, and'''calling for Damoteles, who was at the head of those specially appointed to such ambush duty,''' [καλέσας δὲ Δαμοτέλη τὸνἐπὶ τῆς '''κρυπτείας''' τεταγμένον] he bade him carefully to look after and discover the enemy's designs upon his rear. But Damoteles, for some say [[Antigonus III Doson|Antigonus]] had bribed him, telling him that he should not be solicitous about that matter[...]<!--, for all was well enough, but mind and fight those that met him in the front, he was satisfied, and advanced against Antigonus; and by the vigorous charge of his Spartans, made the Macedonian phalanx give ground, and pressed upon them with great advantage about half a mile; but then making a stand, and seeing the danger which the surrounded wing, commanded by his brother Euclidas, was in, he cried out, "Thou art lost, dear brother, thou art lost, thou brave example to our Spartan youth, and theme of our matrons' songs." And Euclidas's wing being cut in pieces, and the conquerors from that part falling upon him, he perceived his soldiers to be disordered, and unable to maintain the fight, and therefore provided for his own safety.|Plut. Cleo. 28.3, [[:Wikisource:Plutarch's Lives (Clough)/Life of Cleomenes|Plutarch's ''Life of Cleomenes'']], 1859 translation}}-->
== Modern reception ==
[[File:300 animatronic wolf puppet Closeup.jpg|thumb|The film [[300 (film)|''300'']] has the protagonist, as a rite of passage, hunt and kill this [[animatronic]] wolf, instead of an unarmed slave.]]

=== In popular culture ===
The Crypteia (as The Krypteia) are key to the indie horror film ''[[Pledge (2018 film)|Pledge]]'', which brings the [[Greek-letter organization|Greek secret society]] to the modern world fronting as a fraternity preying on new freshman pledges.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2019-01-09 |title='Pledge': Film Review |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/pledge-1175021/ |access-date=2024-08-01 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |language=en-US}}</ref> 

The Crypteia are briefly mentioned in the comic book series ''[[Three (comics)|Three]]'' by Kieron Gillen. They make their first appearance in issue one of ''Three'' and are depicted naked, armed with only daggers, attacking a group of unsuspecting helots as they tend to their crops. Gillien used the Crypteia to highlight the harshness of the Spartan system and describes their function  as "a rite of passage to life where all vocations are barred, bar one. Once a year, the masters declare war on the helots. If they bloody their hands, they are not polluted. So they are free to do whatever is required to keep the helots on their knees. And so they do."<ref name="Gillian2013">{{Cite book|last=Gillan|first=Kieron|title=Three|publisher=Image Comics, Inc.|year=2013|pages=26, & pp. 5–6 of issue #1}}</ref> One of Sparta's leading historians, Stephen Hodkinson, is noted as being the historical consultant employed by Gillen throughout the series. Hodkinson describes Gillien's depiction of the Crypteia as a "perfect amalgam" of the information available in the two source traditions; those being Plato's ''Laws'' and Plutarch's ''Life of Lycurgus.''<ref name="Gillian2013" /> The reason for this, according to Hokinson, is that these two sources portray the Crypteia in different, almost contradictory, ways. Aristotle's account, which is taken from Plutarch, depicts ''kryptai'' hunting helots, while Plato's account does not mention the killing of helots and views the Crypteia as a mode of endurance training. Hodkinson claims that the differing accounts have led modern scholars to adopt a "composite" understanding of the Crypteia.<ref name="Gillian2013" /> 

The Krypteia are also mentioned in the book ''Gates of Fire''. They are described as being a "secret society among the peers (full citizens)."{{citation needed|date=November 2022}} They also are described as being assassins and being "pitiless as iron." The author also mentions that they are the youngest and the strongest of the Spartan military.

=== Spartan Race ===
[[Spartan Race]], the obstacle course racing series, calls their event leaders the "Krypteia".<ref>{{Cite web|title=What is a Hurricane Heat?|url=https://spartanrace.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201859926-What-is-a-Hurricane-Heat-|access-date=2021-04-03|website=Spartan US FAQ|language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Golden Dawn ===
[[Maniot]] leaders of the [[Far-right politics|far-right]] Greek political party, [[Golden Dawn (Greece)|Golden Dawn]], reinstituted the Crypteia as a part of their adoption of Spartan ideologies.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gardner|first=Chelsea A. M.|date=2019|title=The Origins and Evolution of Ancient Spartan Identity in the Mani Peninsula, Greece|journal=Thersites| volume=10 |pages=199| doi=10.34679/thersites.vol10.148 |url=https://www.thersites-journal.de/index.php/thr/article/view/148}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[United States Military Academy]]
* [[FBI Academy]]
* [[Camp Peary|The Farm]]
* [[Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers]]
* [[Royal Military Academy Sandhurst]]
* [[Royal Military Academy, Woolwich]]
* [[Frunze Military Academy]]
* [[Sparrow School]]
* [[Agoge]]
* [[Kóryos]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{citation |last=Cartledge |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Cartledge |title= Spartan Reflections |publisher=Duckworth |year=2001 |location=London |isbn=0-7156-2966-2}}

==External links==
* Wallon (1850) in [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nnc1.cu01991353 scanned] as well as [http://www.henriwallon.com/Ecrits_de_Henri_Wallon/BD/DW%20B03%20D07plus.htm HTML version]

[[Category:Spartan military training]]
[[Category:Secret police]]