That lesson the legislator laid to heart, and in Sparta he enforced,
as a matter of public duty, the practice of virtue by every citizen.
And so it is that, just as man differs from man in some excellence,
according as he cultivates or neglects to cultivate it, this city of
Sparta, with good reason, outshines all other states in virtue; since
she, and she alone, as made the attainment of a high standard of noble
living a public duty.

[4] Is this an autobiographical touch?

And was this not a noble enactment, that whereas other states are
content to inflict punishment only in cases where a man does wrong
against his neighbour, Lycurgus imposed penalties no less severe on
him who openly neglected to make himself as good as possible? For
this, it seems, was his principle: in the one case, where a man is
robbed, or defrauded, or kidnapped, and made a slave of, the injury of
the misdeed, whatever it be, is personal to the individual so
maltreated; but in the other case whole communities suffer foul
treason at the hands of the base man and the coward. So that it was
only reasonable, in my opinion, that he should visit the heaviest
penalty upon these latter.

Moreover, he laid upon them, like some irresistible necessity, the
obligation to cultivate the whole virtue of a citizen. Provided they
duly performed the injunctions of the law, the city belonged to them,
each and all, in absolute possession and on an equal footing. Weakness
of limb or want of wealth[5] was no drawback in his eyes. But as for
him who, out of the cowardice of his heart, shrank from the painful
performance of the law's injunction, the finger of the legistlator
pointed him out as there and then disqualified to be regarded longer