Spartans bathed their newborn babies in wine instead of water to test their constitution, believing that sickly infants would go into convulsions and die from the alcohol exposure.

A closer look

Spartans bathed their newborn babies in wine instead of water to test their constitution, believing that sickly infants would go into convulsions and die from the alcohol exposure. If a baby survived being marinated in cheap vintage, they were deemed strong enough to join the most brutal military society in ancient Greece. Modern parenting involves obsessively boiling pacifiers and buying organic cotton, but ancient Spartans basically tossed their kids into a frat party punch bowl on day one to see if they had good vibes. This wild historical tidbit really highlights how ancient eugenics was not only morally bankrupt but also heavily reliant on terrible mixology!