"And if there were one?" asked the stranger. "Then," said Geradas, "he would have to pay as compensation a bull big enough to stand on Mount Täygetus and drink from the river Eurotas." The stranger, astonished, asked "Where can you find so big a bull?" Where can you find an adulterer in Sparta?" answered Geradas. This is what is said about their marriage ceremonies.

66

XV. A father had not the right of bringing up his offspring, but had to carry it to a certain place called Lesché, where the elders of the tribe sat in judgment upon the child. If they thought it well-built and strong, they ordered the father to bring it up, and assigned one of the ine thousand plots of land to it; but if it was meanlooking or misshapen, they sent it away to the place called the Exposure, a glen upon the side of Mount Taygetus; for they considered that if a child did not start in possession of health and strength, it was better both for itself and for the state that he should not live at all. Wherefore the women used to wash their newborn infants with wine, not with water, to make trial of their constitution. It was thought that epileptic or diseased children shrank from the wine and fell into convulsions, while healthy ones were hardened and strengthened by it. A certain supervision was exercised over the nurses, making them bring up the children without swaddling clothes, so as to make their movements free and unconfined, and also to mako them easily satisfied, not nice as to food, not afraid in tho dark, not frightened at being alone, not peevish and fretful. For this reason, many foreigners used to obtain Lacedæmonian nurses for their children, and it is said that Amykla, the nurse of Alkibiades, was a Lacedæmonian. But Plato tells us that Perikles put him under the care of one Zopyrus, who was no better than the other slaves; whereas Lykurgus would not intrust the Spartan boys to any bought or hired servants, nor was cach man allowed to bring up and educate his son as he chose, but as soon as they were seven years of age he himself received them from their parents, and enrolled them in companies. Here they lived and messed in common, and were associated for play and for work. However, a superintendent of tho boys was appointed, one of the best born and bravest mon

PLUTARCII S LIVES.

of the tato, and they themselves in their troops chose as leader aim who was wisest, and fiercest in fight. They

looked

dured

learned

to him for orders, obeyed his commands, and enis punishments, so that even in childhood they to obey. The elder mon watched them at their

fully learned which was the bravest and most enduring. play, and by instituting fights and trials of strength, careThey learned their letters, because they are necessary, but

all the

rest of their education was meant to teach them to With cheerfulness, to endure labours, and to win As they grew older their training became more they were closely shorn, and taught to walk un

obey battles. severe ;

shod and to play naked. They wore no tunic after their

twelfth round.

to use

year, but received one garment for all the year They were necessarily dirty, as they had no warm

baths and ointments, except on certain days, as a luxury. They slept all together in troops and companies, on beds of the Eurotas with their hands, for they were not allowed of rushes which they themselves had picked on the banks lycophon with the rushes, as it is thought to possess somo interest in them, frequenting the gymnasia where they XVI. At this age the elder men took even greater were, and listening to their repartees with cach other, and that not in a languid careless manner, but just as if cach thought himself the father, instructor, and captain of them

knife. In winter they mixed the herb called

warinth.

all.

Thu

left thout some ono to give good advice and punish

no time was left unemployed, and no place was

wron £ boy8 they h of the begun the el Eiren in the

doing; although a regular superintendent of tho as appointed from the leading men of the city, and ad their own chiefs, who were the wisest and bravest Eirenes. This is a name given to those who havo their second year after ceasing to be children, and lest of the children aro called Melleirenes. This who is twenty years old, commands his company battles, and in the house uses them as his servants Io orders the bigger boys to carry wood, and the littlo ones to gather pot herbs. lso bring him what they steal, which they do, some

tu paro dinner.

logs Tho

01

f om the gardens, and some from the men's dining-tables, where they rush in very cleverly and cautiously; for if one be taken, he is severely scourged for stealing carelessly and clumsily. They also steal what victuals they can, learning to take them from those who are asleep or off their guard. Whoever is caught is punished by stripes and starvation. Their meals are purposely made scanty, in order that they may exercise their ingenuity and daring in obtaining additions to them. This is the main object of their short commons, but an incidental advantage is the growth of their bodies, for they shoot up in height when not weighed down and made wide and broad by excess of nutriment. This also is thought to produce beauty of figure; for lean and slender frames develop vigour in the limbs, whereas those which are bloated and over-fed cannot attain this, from their weight. This we sce in the case of women who take purgatives during pregnancy, whose children are thin, but well-shaped and slender, because from their slight build they receive more distinctly the impress of their mother's form. However, it may be that the cause of this phenomenon is yet to bo discovered.

XVII. The boys steal with such carnestness that thero is a story of one who had taken a fox's cub and hidden it under his cloak, and, though his entrails were being torn out by the claws and teeth of the beast, persevered in concealing it until he died. This may be believed from what the young men in Lacedæmon do now, for at the present day I have seen many of them perish under the Scourge at the altar of Diana Örthias.

After dinner the Eiren would recline, and bid one of the boys sing, and ask another some questions which demand a thoughtful answer, such as "Who is the best among men?" or "How is such a thing done?" By this teaching they began even in infancy to be able to judge what is right, and to be interested in politics; for not to be abl to answer the questions, "Who is a good citizen?" or "Who is a man of bad repute?" was thought to be the sign of a stupid and unaspiring mind. The boy's answer was required to be well reasoned, and put into a small compass; ho who answered wrongly was punished by having

PLUTARCHI'S LIVES.

his thumb bitten by the Eiren. Often when elders and if only he showed that it was done deservedly and with magistrates were present the Eiren would punish the boys;

had done 80 either too cruelly or too remissly.

the boys were gone, he was called to account if he

lovers of the boys also shared their honour or it is said that once when a boy in a fight let fall

The disgrace;

an

trates.

Thus was love understood among them; for even

unmanly word, his lover was fined by the magisfair and honourable matrons loved young maidens, but none who loved the same person make it a reason for friendship expected their feelings to be returned. Rather did those improve in every way the object of their love. graceful style of speaking, and to compress much thought XVIII. The boys were taught to use a sarcastic yet

with

into

each other, and vic with one another in trying to

few words; for Lykurgus made the iron money have value for its great size, but on the other hand he

made their speech short and compact, but full of meaning,

littlo

teachi

Бреак allow thing Snail could with

encn

ems

has

what that in ti hous

the

in

too

are

by

=

g the young, by long periods of silent listening, to sententiously and to the point. For those who themselves much licence in speech seldom say anymemorable. When some Athenian jeered at the Laconian swords, and said that jugglers on the stage easily swallow them, King Agis answered, " And yet these little daggers we can generally reach our es." I think that the Laconian speech, though it so short, yet shows a great grasp of the subject and reat power over the listeners. Lykurgus himself to have been short and sententious, to judge from has been preserved of his sayings; as, for instance, emark to one who proposed to establish a democracy state, "First establish a democracy in your own hold." And when he was asked why ho ordained crifices to be so small and cheap, he answered, "It is der that we may never be forced to omit them." gymnastic exercises, he discouraged all those which ot performed with the hand closed.

So

e same class of answers are said to have been made Am to his fellow-countrymen in his letters. When they

asked how they should keep off their enemies, ho answered, By remaining poor, and not each trying to be a greater man than the other." Again, about walls, he said, "that cannot be called an open town which has courage, instead of brick walls to defend it." As to the authenticity of these letters, it is hard to give an opinion.

XIX. The following anecdotes show their dislike of long speeches. When some one was discoursing about matters useful in themselves at an unfitting time, King Leonidas said, "Stranger, you speak of what is wanted when it is not wanted." Charilaus the cousin of Lykurgus, when asked why they had so few laws answered, that men of few words required few laws. And Archidamidas, when some blamed Hekatæus the Sophist for having said nothing during dinner, answered, "He who knows how to speak knows when to speak also." The following are some of those sarcastic sayings which I before said are not ungrateful. Demaratus, when some worthless fellow pestered him with unreasonable queries, and several times inquired, "Who is the best man in Sparta?" answered, "He who is least like you." When some were praising the magnificence and justico with which the Eleans conducted the Olympian games, Agis said, "What is there so very remarkable in the people of Elis acting justly on one day in every five years?"

66

A stranger was vaunting his admiration of them, and was saying that in his own city he was called a lover of Sparta. Theopompus observed, "It would be more to your credit to be called a lover of your own city." Pleistoanax the son of Pausanias, when an Athenian orater reproached the Lacedaemonians for ignorance, observed, "What you say is quite true, for we are the only Greeks who have not learned some mischief from you."

When a stranger asked Archidamidas how many Spartans thero were, he answered, "Enough to keep off bad men."

One may also discover their peculiarities in their jokes ; for they are taught never to talk at random, nor to utter a syllable that does not contain some thought. As, when one of them was invited to hear a man imitate the night