The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [262]
3. When their army was drawn up for battle, and the enemy near, the soldiers set their garlands on their heads, the pipers began to play and the king began the paean of advance.
4. It was both a magnificent and a terrible sight to see them march to their flutes, without any disorder in their ranks,
5. Without any discomposure in their minds, or change in their countenances; but calmly moving with the music towards the deadly fight.
6. Men, in this temper, were not likely to be afraid or furious, but deliberate in valour and assurance.
7. After they had routed an enemy, they pursued till they were assured of victory,
8. And then sounded a retreat, thinking it unworthy of Grecians to kill men who had yielded.
9. This manner of dealing with enemies not only showed magnanimity, but policy;
10. For, knowing that they killed only those who resisted, and gave quarter to the rest,
11. Opponents generally thought their best safety was surrender.
Chapter 13
1. The discipline of the Spartans continued after they were full-grown men.
2. No one was allowed to live after his own fancy; the city was a camp, in which every man had his share of provisions and business,
3. And looked upon himself as born to serve not himself but his country.
4. Therefore if they had no other duties, they went to see the boys exercising, to teach them something useful or to learn it better themselves.
5. Indeed, one of the highest blessings Lycurgus procured his people was the abundance of leisure which proceeded from his forbidding them to follow any mean or mechanical trade.
6. Of the money-making that depends on troublesome going about and doing business, they had no need in a state where wealth had no honour.
7. The Helots tilled their ground for them, and paid them yearly the appointed quantity, without any trouble of theirs.
8. Upon the prohibition of gold and silver, all lawsuits immediately ceased,
9. For there was now neither avarice nor poverty among them, but equality, where everyone’s wants were supplied,
10. And independence, because those wants were so small.
11. All their time, except when at war, was taken up by the choral dances and festivals,
12. In hunting, and in attendance on the exercise-grounds and places of public conversation.
13. Those who were under thirty years were not allowed in the marketplace,
14. But had the necessaries of their family supplied by their relations and lovers;
15. Nor was it to the credit of older men to be seen too often in the marketplace;
16. It was esteemed more suitable for them to frequent the exercise-grounds and places of conversation, not money-making and watching market prices.
17. Thus Lycurgus bred up his citizens in such a way that they neither would nor could live by themselves;
18. They were to make themselves one with the public good.
19. To inure the young to the sight of death, Lycurgus allowed the citizens to bury their dead within the city,
20. So that their youth might be accustomed to such spectacles, and not be afraid to see a dead body,
21. Or fear to touch a corpse or to tread on a grave. The time appointed for mourning was eleven days and no more.
22. Thus Lycurgus cut off all superfluity, so in things necessary there was nothing so trivial which did not express a homage to virtue or scorn of vice.
23. He filled Lacedaemon with examples of good conduct; with the constant sight of which, from their youth upwards, the people could hardly fail to be formed and advanced in virtue.
24. And this was the reason why he forbade them to travel abroad and go about acquainting themselves with foreign rules of morality, the habits of ill-educated people and different views of government.
25. And he banished from Lacedaemon all strangers who would not give good reason for coming there;
26. Not because he was afraid that they should learn anything to their good, but rather lest they should introduce something bad in example or teaching.
27. With strange people, strange words must be admitted; these novelties produce novelties in thought;
28.