Violence was the basis of the culture of the polis and contributed to unifying Hellas. In every aspect of the polis there is some sort of violence involved, be it athletic or intellectual, violence exists everywhere. According to Homer, violence means courage, strength, power, power of domination, the taking of human lives and psychological violence. Hesiod, however, defines two different types of violence: one which is hateful and manifests itself in war and the other peaceful which is expressed in society. For the Greeks, violence was a positive thing, it was an intrinsic part of their society. In this essay I define violence as a way of expressing oneself aggressively and causing misfortune to an individual. I will discuss the role of violence in athletics, politics, literature, art, religion and refer to Spartan norms to prove my point. By far the greatest and most serious legitimate violence was found in ancient Sparta. Sparta had institutionalized violence where training and education under Spartan laws was based on violence and warfare. “The emphasis of education was on the practice of enduring hardship and looking after oneself” (Pomeroy 107). Schools taught boys to fight rather than to read or write. One of the most severe forms of training was flagellation. This was an annual, religious display of resistance in honor of Artemis, during which young men were whipped with their naked bodies by an Ephor. Plutarch states: “the young men tolerated being whipped all day on the altar of Orthia Artemis without fear of death, aiming for victory” (Plutarch, 31). This activity trained the children to resist pain and show their patience and courage in the face of death. Sparta was a society that created a... medium 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, K. A. 'Soldiers, citizens and the evolution of the early Greek polis', in L. G. Mitchell and P. J. 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 Ordia Prima Journal. (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.