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[Anomalocaris]

In about 600 b.c. Lycurgus, the famous Spartan lawgiver, put into Sparta’s constitution a provision that banned the circulation and possession of gold, silver, or other precious metals as a means of transacting business and replaced these forms of money with an iron currency, variously reported as being in the form of disc or bars. This provision was part of a plan of social reform intended to spare Sparta the evil consequences of wealth concentrated in the hands of a few citizens.

https://encyclopedia-of-money.blogspot.c...y.html?m=1

They replaced it with the evil consequences of turning 4/5 of the population into helots that can be murdered for sport by the remaining 1/5 of the population, which became a notably unwashed (except in times of war) soldier aristocracy called spartiates.

Btw, the said soldier aristocracy nonetheless managed to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few citizens despite the Lycurgian code after Sparta discovered having lots of wealth is essential if Sparta were too do more than seasonal thuggish hoplites brawls, and conduct real long term campaigns against powerful states with deep pockets that can deploy wealth as part of compressive spectrum of state power.

The cult of Spartan pure warriorism only persisted down to the present age because, paradoxically, Spartan soldiers were unexpectedly smashed by an hitherto unheard of second tier Greek city state called Thebes.  As a result Sparta sank into obscurity before the Spartan solder state can be fully transformed by the torrent of gold flowing into Spartiate hands because, to be blunt, Sparta used generous Persian financial subsidy to defeat Athens and rule Greece.

which brings me to the myth of Spartan warriors fighting against any odds and always fighting to the death as perpetrated by the legend of the last stand of the 300 Spartans against 100,000 Persians at Thermopylae (10-20 times more than 300 stood and most of those who stood to the last were not Spartans) does not conform to general reality.   Anciemt sources agree the Spartans were notably casualty averse, and would usually call for truce and negotiate to extricate their men and in the process leave their Allie’s in the lurch if there were serious danger of high casualties to the Spartiates.