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