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PLUTARCHI'S LIVES.

rst of the company had to be present. This custom of consequence of a sacrifice or a hunting expedition, but the the Athenians, and wished to dine at home with his wife, King Agis returned from his victorious campaign against sent for his share of the public dinner, and the polemarchs refused to let him have it. As next day, through anger, he did not offer the customary sacrifice, they fired him. Boys were taken to the public tables, as they listened to discourses on politics, and saw models of though they were schools of good manners; and there gentlemanly behaviour, and learned how to jest with ono subjects of jokes without losing their temper. Indeed, it

in common lasted for very many years. When

was

considered peculiarly Laconian to be able to take a

ask that it should go no farther. As they came in, the

however, if the victim could not, he was entitled to

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present said to each man, pointing to the door, ugh this no tale passes."

said that they voted for a new member of a mess Each man took a piece of bread crumb rew it in silence into a vessel, which a servant

manner.

carried on his hand. Those who voted for the new

t

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er threw in their bread as it was, those who voted st, crushed it flat in their hands. If even one of crushed pieces be found, they rejected the candidate,

as thy wished all members of the society to be friendly.

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which

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andidate was said to be rejected by the kaddichus, is their name for the bowl into which the bread is

"black broth" was the most esteemed of their ies, insomuch that the elder men did not care for

n.

any neat, but always handed it over to the young, and

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ed themselves on this broth. It is related that, in quence of the celebrity of this broth, one of the kings ontus obtained a Laconian cook, but when he it he did not like it. His cook thereupon said, "O those who cat this broth must first bathe in the tas." After drinking wine in moderation the guests ate, without any torches; for it is not permitted to with a light on this or any other occasion, in order

that they may accustom themselves to walk fearlessly and safely in the dark. This then is the way in which the common dining-tables are managed.

XII. Lykurgus did not establish any written laws; indeed, this is distinctly forbidden by one of the so-called Rhetras.

He thought that the principles of most importance for the prosperity and honour of the state would remain most Recurely fixed if implanted in the citizens by habit and training, as they would then be followed from choico rather than necessity; for his method of education mado each of them into a lawgiver like himself. The trifling conventions of everyday life wero best left undefined by hard-and-fast laws, so that they might from time to time receive corrections or additions from men educated in tho spirit of the Lacedæmonian system. On this education the whole scheme of Lykurgus's laws depended. Ono rhetra, as we have seen, forbade the use of written laws. Another was directed against expenditure, and ordered that the roof of every house should consist of beams worked with the axe, and that the doors should be worked with the saw alone, and with no other tools. Lykurgus was the first to perceive the truth which Epameinondas is said in later times to have uttered about his own table, when he said that "such a dinner has no room for treachery." He saw that such a house as that has no place for luxury and expense, and that there is no man so silly and tasteless as to bring couches with silver feet, purple hangings, or golden goblets into a simple peasant's house, but that he would be forced to make his furniture match the house, and his clothes match his furniture, and so on. consequence of this it is said that the elder Leotychides when dining in Corinth, after looking at a costly panelled ceiling, asked his host whether the trees grew square in that country. A third rhetra of Lykurgus is mentioned, which forbids the Spartans to make war frequently with the same people, lest by constant practice they too should become warlike. And this especial accugation was subsequently brought against King Agesilaus in later times, that, by his frequent and long-continued invasions of Boeotia, he made the Thebans a match for the

In

PLUTARCII'S LIVES.

saw him wounded, said, "The Thebans pay you well for Lacedaemonians; for which cause Antalkidas, when he willing nor able to do before." having taught them to fight, which they were neither to have a divine origin and sanction. Maxims of this sort they call rhetras, which are supposed

Considering education to be the most important

and the noblest work of a lawgiver, he began at the very beginning, and regulated marriages and the birth of deavoured to regulate the lives of the women, and failed, they had acquired by the long absences of their husbands on military expeditions, during which they were necessarily

It is not true that, as Aristotle says, he en

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jooked

Bole charge at home, wherefore their husbands to them more than was fitting, calling them

Mistresses; but he made what regulations were necessary for then also. Ile strengthened the bodies of the girls by

exercise

in running, wrestling, and hurling quoits or In order that their children might spring from a Source and so grow up strong, and that they es might have strength, so as casily to endure the childbirth. He did away with all affectation of and retirement among the women, and ordained girls, no less than the boys, should go naked in ns, and dance and sing at festivals in the presenco Young men. Tho jokes which they made upon n were sometimes of great value as reproofs for

javelins, healthy themselv pains of Beclusion that the processio of the each

ill-conduct; while, on the other hand, by reciting verses

ma

written Wonder young for his while,

sport

a

because 28 We11 maiden

mode

in praise of the deserving, they kindled a ul emulation and thirst for distinction in the men: for he who had been praised by the maidens valour went away congratulated by his friends; n the other hand, the raillery which they used in ad jest had as keen an edge as a serious reproof; the kings and elders were present at these festivals as all the other citizens. This nakedness of the had in it nothing disgraceful, as it was dono y, not licentiously, producing simplicity, and g the women to value good health, and to love and courage no less than the men. This it was

teachin st) hono

that made them speak and think us we are told, Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, did. Somo foreign lady, it seems, said to her, "You Laconian women are the only ones that rule men." She answered, "Yes; for we alone bring forth men."

XIV. These were also incentives to marriage, I mean these processions, and strippings, and exercises of the maidens in the sight of the young men, who, as l'lato says, are more swayed by amorous than by mathematical considerations; moreover, he imposed certain penalties on the unmarried men. They were excluded from the festival of the Gymnopædia, in honour of Athene; and the magis trates ordered them during winter to walk naked round the market-place, and while doing so to sing a song written against themselves, which said that they were rightly served for their disobedience to the laws; and also they were deprived of the respect and observance paid by the young to the elders.

Thus it happened that no one blamed the young man for not rising before Derkyllidas, famous general as he was. This youth kept his seat, saying, "You have not begotten a son to rise before me."

Their marriage custom was for the husband to carry off his bride by force. They did not carry off little immature girls, but grown up women, who were ripe for marriage. After the brido had been carried off the bridesmaid received her, cut her hair close to her head, dressed her in a man's cloak and shoes, and placed her upon a couch in a dark chamber alone. The bridegroom, without any feasting and revelry, but as sober as usual, after dining at his mess, comes into the room, looses her virgin zone, and, after passing a short time with her, retires to pass the night where he was wont, with the other young men. And thus he continued, passing his days with his companions, and visiting his wife by stealth, feeling ashamed and afraid that any one in the house should hear him, she on her part plotting and contriving occasions for meeting unobservod. This went on for a long time, so that some even had children born to them before they ever saw their wives by daylight. These connections not only exercised their powers of self-restraint, but also brought

G

PLUTARCII'S LIVES.

them together with their bodies in full vigour and their passions unblunted by unchecked intercourse with each Society remained unextinguished.

other,

so that their passion and love for each other's

while carefully avoiding any disorder or licentiousness, ho he destroyed the vain womanish passion of jealousy, for, Having thus honoured and dignified the married state, with them in the task of begetting children, and taught nevertheless permitted men to associate worthy persons

to ridiculo thoso who insisted on the exclusivo

possession of their wives, and who were ready to fight and

them

kill

an

People to maintain their right. It was permitted to elderly husband, with a young wife, to associate with

himself any well-born youth whom ho might fancy, and to adopt the offspring as his own.

An

again, it was allowable for a respectable man, if ho any admiration for a virtuous mother of children,

married to some one else, to induce her husband to permit

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to have access to her, that he might as it were sow seed Fertile feld, and obtain a fine son from a healthy

stock. Lykurgus did not view children as belonging therfore he wished his citizens to be born of the best Possible parents; besides the inconsistency and folly which ho noticed in the customs of the rest of mankind,

their parents, but above all to the state; and

to

who

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if th

enti

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aro willing to pay money, or use their influence with owners of well-bred stock, to obtain a good breed of s or dogs, while they lock up their women in seclusion permit them to have children by none but themselves, though they bo mad, decrepit, or diseased; just as e good or bad qualities of children did not depend ely upon their parents, and did not affect their ents more than any one else.

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ut although men lent their wives in order to produce thy and useful citizens, yet this was so far from the nce which was said to prevail in later times with Dect to women, that adultery was regarded amongst m as an impossible crime. A story is told of one adas, a very old Spartan, who, when asked by a ager what was done to adulterers among them, werel, "Stranger, there are no adulterers with us."

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