If the boy was healthy, he would be taken to a school for battle at an early age, if not he was killed when he was born, so pre mature children are dead, and so from age 7 onward they were...
There life's was indeed very different. A boy from Athens use to live it life in a more "city" environment people from Athen was more the kind of a socialist oppose to Sparta which used to be like a...
Well, Sparta valued warfare more then smarts as for Athens encouraged the education for the young boys. This is were the saying 'Brains vs Brawn' comes in. I hope this answers your question.