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