 To the Spartans, long hair retained its older Archaic meaning as the symbol of a free man; to the other Greeks, by the 5th century, its peculiar association with the Spartans had come to signify pro-Spartan sympathies.The letter "lambda" (Λ), standing for Laconia or Lacedaemon, which was painted on the Spartans' shields, was first adopted in the 420s BC, and quickly became a widely known Spartan symbol.Military families passed on their shields to each generation as family heirlooms.