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By Root 3193 0

years, as if it were a clandestine affair, 'continued in both parties a still burning love, and a new desire of the one to the other'—such, at least, is the opinion of Plutarch. He goes on to explain that a man was not thought ill of if, being old and having a young wife, he allowed a younger man to have children by her. 'It was lawful also for an honest man that loved another man's wife … to intreat her husband to suffer him to lie with her, and that he might also plough in that lusty ground, and cast abroad the seed of well-favoured children'. There was to be no foolish jealousy, for 'Lycurgus did not like that children should be private to any men, but that they should be common to the common weal: by which reason he would also, that such as should become citizens should not be begotten of every man, but of the most honest men only.' He goes on to explain that this is the principle that farmers apply to their live-stock.

When a child was born, the father brought him before the elders of his family to be examined: if he was healthy, he was given back to the father to be reared; if not, he was thrown into a deep pit of water. Children, from the first, were subjected to a severe hardening process, in some respects good—for example, they were not put in swaddling clothes. At the age of seven, boys were taken away from home and put in a boarding school, where they were divided into companies, each under the orders of one of their number, chosen for sense and courage. 'Touching learning they had as much as served their turn: for the rest of their time they spent in learning how to obey, to away with pain, to endure labour, to overcome still in fight.' They played naked together most of the time; after twelve years old, they wore no coats; they were always 'nasty and sluttish', and they never bathed except on certain days in the year. They slept on beds of straw, which in winter they mixed with thistle. They were taught to steal, and were punished if caught—not for stealing, but for stupidity.

Homosexual love, male if not female, was a recognized custom in Sparta, and had an acknowledged part in the education of adolescent boys. A boy's lover suffered credit or discredit by the boy's actions; Plutarch states that once, when a boy cried out because he was hurt in fighting, his lover was fined for the boy's cowardice.

There was little liberty at any stage in the life of a Spartan.

Their discipline and order of life continued still, after they were full grown men. For it was not lawful for any man to live as he listed, but they were within their city, as if they had been in a camp, where every man knoweth what allowance he hath to live withal, and what business he hath else to do in his calling. To be short, they were all of this mind, that they were not born to serve themselves, but to serve their country…. One of the best and happiest things which Lycurgus ever brought into his city, was the great rest and leisure which he made his citizens to have, only forbidding them that they should not profess any vile or base occupation: and they needed not also to be careful to get great riches, in a place where goods were nothing profitable nor esteemed. For the Helots, which were bond men made by the wars, did till their grounds, and yielded them a certain revenue every year.

Plutarch goes on to tell a story of an Athenian condemned for idleness, upon hearing of which a Spartan exclaimed: 'show me the man condemned for living nobly and like a gentleman.'

Lycurgus (Plutarch continues) 'did accustom his citizens so, that they neither would nor could live alone, but were in manner as men incorporated one with another, and were always in company together, as the bees be about their master bee'.

Spartans were not allowed to travel, nor were foreigners admitted to Sparta, except on business; for it was feared that alien customs would corrupt Lacedaemonian virtue.

Plutarch relates the law that allowed Spartans to kill helots whenever they felt so disposed, but refuses to believe that anything so abominable can have been due to Lycurgus.