Violence was the basis of the culture of the polis and helped unify Hellas. In all aspects of the polis some form of violence is involved, whether it is sporting or intellectual, violence exists everywhere. According to Homer, violence means courage, strength, power, power of domination, human death and psychological violence. Hesiod, for his part, defines two different types of violence: one which is hateful and manifests itself in war and the other which is peaceful and which is expressed in society. For the Greeks, violence was a positive thing, it was an integral part of their society. In this essay, I define violence as a way of expressing oneself aggressively while causing unhappiness to an individual. I will discuss the role of violence in athletics, politics, literature, art, religion, and refer to Spartan standards to prove my thesis. By far the greatest and most serious legitimate violence was found in ancient Sparta. Lacedaemon had institutionalized violence where training and education according to Spartan laws was based on violence and war. “The emphasis of education was on the practice of enduring difficulties and fending for oneself” (Pomeroy 107). Schools taught boys to fight rather than read or write. One of the most severe forms of training was flogging. This was an annual religious exhibition of endurance in honor of Artemis, where young people had their naked bodies whipped by an ephor. Plutarch said: “The youth tolerated being whipped all day long on the altar of Orthia Artemis, without fear of death, aiming for victory” (Plutarch, 31). This activity taught young boys to resist pain and to demonstrate patience and courage in the face of death. Sparta was a society that created a middle of paper ... London: Penguin Classics, 1999). Pomeroy, SB et al. A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society and Culture. Second ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Raaflaub, KA “Soldiers, Citizens, and the Evolution of the Early Greek Polis,” in LG Mitchell and PJ Rhodes (eds.), The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge, 1997, p. 49-59.Soleria, Yiannaki. “Athletics and violence in ancient Greece”, in the Cafyd Journal. (Athens: Cafyd Journal, 2004), 54. Sommerstein, A.H. “Violence in Greek drama”, in the newspaper Ordia Prima. (New York: Ordia Prima, 2004), 41. Sophocles, Sophocles 1: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, trans. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). Wees, Han van. War and violence in ancient Greece. London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 2000.