The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians [17]
[7] Cf. Plat. "Phaedr." 240 C; {elix eklika terpei}, "Equals delight in equals."
[8] Or, "these gatherings for the most part consist of equals in age (young fellows), in whose society the virtue of modesty is least likely to display itself."
[9] See Plut. "Lycurg." 12 (Clough, i. 98).
[10] Or, "that they are not going to stay all night where they have supped."
[11] See Plut. "Lycurg." 12 (Clough, i. 99).
In connection with this matter, Lycurgus had not failed to observe the effect of equal amounts of food on different persons. The hardworking man has a good complexion, his muscles are well fed, he is robust and strong. The man who abstains from work, on the other hand, may be detected by his miserable appearance; he is blotched and puffy, and devoid of strength. This observation, I say, was not wasted on him. On the contrary, turning it over in his mind that any one who chooses, as a matter of private judgment, to devote himself to toil may hope to present a very creditable appearance physically, he enjoined upon the eldest for the time being in every gymnasium to see to it that the labours of the class were proportional to the meats.[12] And to my mind he was not out of his reckoning in this matter more than elsehwere. At any rate, it would be hard to discover a healthier or more completely developed human being, physically speaking, than the Spartan. Their gymnastic training, in fact, makes demands alike on the legs and arms and neck,[13] etc., simultaneously.
[12] I.e. "not inferior in excellence to the diet which they enjoyed." The reading here adopted I owe to Dr. Arnold Hug, {os me ponous auton elattous ton sition gignesthai}.
[13] See Plat. "Laws," vii. 796 A; Jowett, "Plato," v. p. 365; Xen. "Symp." ii. 7; Plut. "Lycurg." 19.
VI
There are other points in which this legislator's views run counter to those commonly accepted. Thus: in other states the individual citizen is master over his own children, domestics,[1] goods and chattels, and belongings generally; but Lycurgus, whose aim was to secure to all the citizens a considerable share in one another's goods without mutual injury, enacted that each one should have an equal power of his neighbour's children as over his own.[2] The principle is this. When a man knows that this, that, and the other person are fathers of children subject to his authority, he must perforce deal by them even as he desires his own child to be dealt by. And, if a boy chance to have received a whipping, not from his own father but some other, and goes and complains to his own father, it would be thought wrong on the part of that father if he did not inflict a second whipping on his son. A striking proof, in its way, how completely they trust each other not to impose dishonourable commands upon their children.[3]
[1] Or rather, "members of his household."
[2] See Plut. "Lycurg." 15 (Clough, i. 104).
[3] See Plut. "Moral." 237 D.
In the same way he empowered them to use their neighbour's[4] domestics in case of need. This communism he applied also to dogs used for the chase; in so far that a party in need of dogs will invite the owner to the chase, and if he is not at leisure to attend himself, at any rate he is happy to let his dogs go. The same applies to the use of horses. Some one has fallen sick perhaps, or is in want of a carriage,[5] or is anxious to reach some point or other quickly--in any case he has a right, if he sees a horse anywhere, to take and use it, and restores it safe and sound when he has done with it.
[4] See Aristot. "Pol." ii. 5 (Jowett, i. pp. xxxi. and 34; ii. p. 53); Plat. "Laws," viii. 845 A; Newman, "Pol. Aristot." ii. 249 foll.
[5] "Has not a carriage of his own."
And here is another institution attributed to Lycurgus which scarcely coincides with the customs elsewhere in vogue. A hunting party returns from the chase, belated. They want provisions--they have nothing prepared themselves. To meet this contingency he made it a rule that owners[6] are to leave behind the food