The Ancient Spartans were terribly brave of course, but they had some rather nasty habits. As well as throwing defective babies off Tayetos, the adolescents had to kill a random non-Spartan or two from the neighbouring tribes in order to pass into manhood. The women were pretty cool though. While the Athenian women were virtually locked up in their little houses with their spinning wheels and gossip, the Spartan women had somehow persuaded the men that they had to live their lives in army camps (with limited conjugal rights) or away at war (Η ταν η έπι τας) and so ruled the roost unhindered down on the farm.