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Updated: September 17, 2024
These others do the same, who insist upon stoutly defending the forms of speaking, dances and games to a people totally abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices it is for the Spartans only to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they are just upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of their lives. 'For my part, I have yet a worse custom.
Thence he returned to his own country, where his way and habits of life quickly excited the affection and admiration of the Spartans; for, unlike other generals, he came home from foreign lands the same man that he went out, having not so learned the fashions of other countries, as to forget his own, much less to dislike or despise them.
The Spartans could not resist the concentrated and impetuous assault made on their right, led by the Sacred Band, with fifty shields propelling behind. Cleombrotus, the Spartan king, was killed, with the most distinguished of his staff, and the Spartans were driven back to their camp. The allies, who fought without spirit or heart, could not be rallied.
The origin of this extraordinary system was said to be this: at a very early period of the Spartan history, a king died suddenly, leaving two children twins, as his heirs, but without designating either one of them as his successor. The Spartans then applied to the mother of the two children to know which of them was the first-born. She pretended that she could not tell.
According to Gerarde, the Spartans were in the habit of eating cress with their bread, from a popular notion very generally held among the ancients, that those who ate it became noted for their wit and decision of character. Hence the old proverb: "Eat cress to learn more wit." Of fruit proverbs we are told that, "If you would enjoy the fruit, pluck not the flower." And again:
The enthusiasm arising from victory, the ardor of Pelopidas, and the military genius of Epaminondas had made a wonderful change in the hoplites of Thebes in a year's time. And now a new event in the history of the Spartan commonwealth was seen. For centuries the Spartans had done their fighting abroad, marching at will through all parts of Greece.
Upon their consent to these proposals, proceeding at once to put them into execution, he divided the country of Laconia in general into thirty thousand equal shares, and the part attached to the city of Sparta into nine thousand; these he distributed among the Spartans, as he did the others to the country citizens.
He showed that the Spartans, though all-powerful on the Peloponnesus, had no means of carrying on an aggressive war at a distance, neither leaders nor money, nor habits of concert with allies; while Athens was mistress of the sea, and was impregnable in defense; that great calamities would indeed happen in Attica, but even if overrun by Spartan armies, there were other territories and islands from which a support could be derived. “Mourn not for the loss of land,” said the orator, “but reserve your mourning for the men that acquire land.” His eloquence and patriotism prevailed with a majority of the assembly, and answer was made to Sparta that the Athenians were prepared to discuss all grounds of complaint pursuant to the truce, by arbitration, but that they would yield nothing to authoritative command.
With the same feeling, the Sybarite seems to have said of the Spartans, that it was no commendable thing in them to be so ready to die in the wars, since by that they were freed from such hard labor, and miserable living.
Here the changeable youth adopted the Spartan dress, lived with the utmost simplicity and frugality, and even used the laconic mode of speech. As he was tall and strong, and a very good athlete, he soon won the admiration of the Spartans, and made many friends. During his stay here, he heard that he had been tried at Athens, although absent, found guilty of sacrilege, and even sentenced to death.
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