be his son's tutor, he set over the young Spartans a public guardian, the Paidonomos[4] or 'pastor,' to give them his proper title,[5] with complete authority over them. This guardian was selected from those who filled the highest magistracies. He had authority to hold musters of the boys,[6] and as their overseer, in case of any misbehaviour, to chastise severely. The legislator further provided his pastor with a body of youths in the prime of life, and bearing whips,[7] to inflict punishment when necessary, with this happy result that in Sparta modesty and obedience ever go hand in hand, nor is there lack of either.
[4] = 'boyherd.'
[5] Cf. Plut. 'Lycurg.' 17 (Clough, i. 107); Aristot. 'Pol.' iv. 15,
13; vii. 17, 5.
[6] Or, 'assemble the boys in flocks.'
[7] {mastigophoroi} = 'flagellants.'
Instead of softening their feet with shoe or sandal, his rule was to make them hardy through going barefoot.[8] This habit, if practised, would, as he believed, enable them to scale heights more easily and clamber down precipices with less danger. In fact, with his feet so trained the young Spartan would leap and spring and run faster unshod than another shod in the ordinary way.
[8] Cf. Plut. 'Lycurg.' 16 (Clough, i. 106).
Instead of making them effeminate with a variety of clothes, his rule was to habituate them to a single garment the whole year through, thinking that so they would be better prepared to withstand the variations of heat and cold.
Again, as regards food, according to his regulation the Eiren,[9] or head of the flock, must see that his messmates gathered to the club meal,[10] with such moderate food as to avoid that heaviness[11] which is engendered by repletion, and yet not to remain altogether unacquainted with the pains of penurious living. His belief was that by such training in boyood they would be better able when occasion demanded to continue toiling on an empty stomach. They would be all the fitter, if the word of command were given, to remain on the stretch for a long time without extra dieting. The craving for luxuries[12] would be less, the readiness to take any victual set before them greater, and, in general, the regime would be found more healthy.[13] Under it he thought the lads would increase in stature and shape into finer men, since, as he maintained, a dietary which gave suppleness to the limbs must be more conducive to both ends than one which added thickness to the bodily parts by feeding.[14]
[9] For the Eiren, see Plut. 'Lycurg.' (Clough, i. 107).
[10] Reading {sumboleuein} (for the vulg. {sumbouleuein}). The
emendation is now commonly adopted. For the word itself, see L.
Dindorf, n. ad loc., and Schneider. {sumbolon} = {eranos} or club
meal. Perhaps we ought to read {ekhontas} instead of {ekhonta}.
[11] See Plut. 'Lycurg.' 17 (Clough, i. 108).
[12] Lit. 'condiments,' such as 'meat,' 'fish,' etc. See 'Cyrop.' I.
ii. 8.
[13] Or, 'and in general they would live more healthily and increase
in stature.'
[14] See L. Dindorf's emendation of this corrupt passage, n. ad loc.
(based upon Plut. 'Lycurg.' 17 and Ps. Plut. 'Moral.' 237), {kai
eis mekos d' an auxanesthai oeto kai eueidesterous} vel {kallious
gignesthai, pros amphotera ton radina ta somata poiousan trophen
mallon sullambanein egesamenos e ten diaplatunousan}. Otherwise I
would suggest to read {kai eis mekos an auxanesthai ten [gar]
radina . . . egesato k.t.l.}, which is closer to the vulgate, and
gives nearly the same sense.
On the other hand, in order to guard against a too great pinch of starvation, though he did not actually allow the boys to help themselves without further trouble to what they needed more, he did give them permission to steal[15] this thing or that in the effort to alleviate their hunger. It was not of course from any real difficulty how else to supply them with nutriment that he left it to them to provide themselves by this crafty method. Nor can I conceieve that any one will so misinterpret the custom. Clearly its explanation lies in the fact that he who would live the life of a robber must forgo sleep by night, and in the daytime he must employ shifts and lie in ambuscade; he must prepare and make ready his scouts, and so forth, if he is to succeed in capturing the quarry.[16]
[15] See 'Anab.' IV. vi. 14.
[16] For the institution named the {krupteia}, see Plut. 'Lycurg.' 28
(Clough, i. 120); Plato, 'Laws,' i. 633 B; for the {klopeia}, ib.
vii. 823 E; Isocr. 'Panathen.' 277 B.
It is obvious, I say, that the whole of this education tended, and was intended, to make the boys craftier and more inventive in getting in supplies, whilst at the same time it cultivated their warlike instincts. An objector may retort: 'But if he thought it so fine a feat to steal, why did he inflict all those blows on the unfortunate who was caught?' My answer is: for the self-same reason which induces people, in other matters which are taught, to punish the mal- performance of a service. So they, the Lacedaemonians, visit penalties on the boy who is detected thieving as being but a sorry bungler in the art. So to steal as many cheeses as possible [off the shrine of Orthia[17]] was a feat to be encouraged; but, at the same moment, others were enjoined to scourge the thief, which would point a moral not obscurely, that by pain endured for a brief season a man may earn the joyous reward of lasting glory.[18] Herein, too, it is plainly shown that where speed is requisite the sluggard will win for himself much trouble and scant good.
[17] I.e. 'Artemis of the Steep'-a title connecting the goddess with
Mount Orthion or Orthosion. See Pausan. VIII. xxiii. 1; and for
the custom, see Themistius, 'Or.' 21, p. 250 A. The words have
perhaps got out of their right place. See Schneider's Index, s.v.
[18] See Plut. 'Lycurg.' 18; 'Morals,' 239 C; 'Aristid.' 17; Cic.
'Tusc.' ii. 14.
Furthermore, and in order that the boys should not want a ruler, even in case the pastor[19] himself were absent, he gave to any citizen who chanced to be present authority to lay upon them injunctions for their good, and to chastise them for any trespass committed. By so doing he created in the boys of Sparta a most rare modesty and reverence. And indeed there is nothing which, whether as boys or men, they respect more highly than the ruler. Lastly, and with the same intention, that the boys must never be reft of a ruler, even if by chance there were no grown man present, he laid down the rule that in such a case the most active of the Leaders or Prefects[20] was to become ruler for the nonce, each of his own division. The conclusion being that under no circumstances whatever are the boys of Sparta destitute of one to rule them.
[19] Lit. 'Paidonomos.'
[20] Lit. 'Eirens.'
I ought, as it seems to me, not to omit some remark on the subject of boy attachments,[21] it being a topic in close connection with that of boyhood and the training of boys.
[21] See Plut. 'Lycurg.' 17 (Clough, i. 109).
We know that the rest of the Hellenes deal with this relationship in different ways, either after the manner of the Boeotians,[22] where man and boy are intimately united by a bond like that of wedlock, or after the manner of the Eleians, where the fruition of beauty is an act of grace; whilst there are others who would absolutely debar the lover from all conversation[23] and discourse with the beloved.
[22] See Xen. 'Symp.' viii. 34; Plato, 'Symp.' 182 B (Jowett, II. p.
33).
[23] {dialegesthai} came to mean philosophic discussion and debate. Is
the author thinking of Socrates? See 'Mem.' I. ii. 35; IV. v. 12.
Lycurgus adopted a system opposed to all of these alike. Given that some one, himself being all that a man ought to be, should in admiration of a boy's soul[24] endeavour to discover in him a true friend without reproach, and to consort with him-this was a relationship which Lycurgus commended, and indeed regarded as the noblest type of bringing up. But if, as was evident, it was not an attachment to the soul, but a yearning merely towards the body, he stamped this thing as foul and horrible; and with this result, to the credit of Lycurgus be it said, that in
