That too was a happy enactment, in my opinion, by which Lycurgus
provided for the continual cultivation of virtue, even to old age. By
fixing[1] the election to the council of elders[2] as a last ordeal at
the goal of life, he made it impossible for a high standard of
virtuous living to be disregarded even in old age. (So, too, it is
worthy of admiration in him that he lent his helping hand to virtuous
old age.[3] Thus, by making the elders sole arbiters in the trial for
life, he contrived to charge old age with a greater weight of honour
than that which is accorded to the strength of mature manhood.) And
assuredly such a contest as this must appeal to the zeal of mortal man
beyond all others in a supreme degree. Fair, doubtless, are contests
of gymnastic skill, yet are they but trials of bodily excellence, but
this contest for the seniority is of a higher sort--it is an ordeal of
the soul itself. In proportion, therefore, as the soul is worthier
than the body, so must these contests of the soul appeal to a stronger
enthusiasm than their bodily antitypes.

[1] Reading {protheis}. See Plut. "Lycurg." 26 (Clough. i. 118);
Aristot. "Pol." ii. 9, 25.

[2] Or, "seniory," or "senate," or "board of elders"; lit. "the
Gerontia."

[3] Or, "the old age of the good. Yet this he did when he made . . .
since he contrived," etc.

And yet another point may well excite our admiration for Lycurgus
largely. It had not escaped his observation that communities exist
where those who are willing to make virtue their study and delight
fail somehow in ability to add to the glory of their fatherland.[4]