Constitution of the Lacedaimonians

The penalty for shirking the duties was exclusion from all future honours. He thus caused not only the public authorities, but their relations also to take pains that the lads did not incur the contempt of their fellow citizens by flinching from their tasks.

Moreover, wishing modesty to be firmly rooted in them, he required them to keep their hands under their cloaks, to walk in silence, not to look about them, but to fix their eyes on the ground. The effect of this rule has been to prove that even in the matter of decorum the male is stronger than the female sex.

At any rate you would expect a stone image to utter a sound sooner than those lads; you would sooner attract the attention of a bronze figure; you might think them more modest even than a young bride in the bridal chamber.[*](Longinus and Stobaeus quote this with ὀφθαλμοῖς, eyes, in place of θαλάμοις, bridal chambers; and the former censures the use of παρθένων for κορῶν, meaning pupils of the eye.) When they have taken their place at a public meal, you must be content if you can get an answer to a question.

Such was the care that he bestowed on the growing lads.

For those who had reached the prime of life he showed by far the deepest solicitude. For he believed that if these were of the right stamp they must exercise a powerful influence for good on the state.

He saw that where the spirit of rivalry[*](Cyropaedia, 2.1.22.) is strongest among the people, there the choruses are most worth hearing and the athletic contests afford the finest spectacle. He believed, therefore, that if he could match the young men together in a strife of valour, they too would reach a high level of manly excellence.[*](Cyropaedia, 7.2.26.) I will proceed to explain, therefore, how he instituted matches between the young men.

The Ephors, then, pick out three of the very best among them. These three are called Commanders of the Guard. Each of them enrols a hundred others, stating his reasons for preferring one and rejecting another.