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Heading the search, I pretended to catch a glimpse of the goatskin ever and anon through the trees, and I stayed not the pursuit till night grew dark, and I judged the victim was far away." "And he escaped?" "He did. The crypteia ended. Three other Helots were slain, but not by me. Nay, it may be that I have loved them better than the Dorian."
When I went forth to my first crypteia, to watch, amidst the wintry dreariness of the mountains, upon the movements of the wretched Helots, to spy upon their sufferings, to take account of their groans, and if one more manly than the rest dared to mingle curses with his groans, to mark him for slaughter, as a wolf that threatened danger to the fold; to lurk, an assassin, about his home, to dog his walks, to fall on him unawares, to strike him from behind, to filch away his life, to bury him in the ravines, so that murder might leave no trace; when upon this initiating campaign, the virgin trials of our youth, I first set forth, my mother drew near, and girding me herself with my grandsire's sword, 'Go forth, she said, 'as the young hound to the chase, to wind, to double, to leap on the prey, and to taste of blood.
Enough of these grave matters: the sun is sinking towards the west, and thy companions await thee at thy feast; mine will be eager to greet me on thy return, and thy little brothers, who go with me to my pheidition, will hear thee so praised that they will long for the crypteia long to be men, and find some future Plataea for themselves. May the gods forbid it! War is a terrible unsettler.
"When a Helot is brave, the Ephors clap the black mark against his name, and at the next crypteia he suddenly disappears." "Pausanias may share the same fate as his Helot, for all I care," quoth Uliades. "Well, Athenians, what say you to the answer we have received?" "That Sparta shall hear of it," answered Aristides. "Ah, but is that all?
The Crypteia was an organized guard of young Spartans, whose business it was to prevent insurrection. LAWS AND CUSTOMS. The Spartan state was thus aristocratic and military. It took into its own hands the education of the young. Weak and deformed children were left to perish in a ravine of Taygetus, or thrust down among the Periceci.
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