orders, they employed themselves in inspecting the boys, and teaching
them something useful, or in learning of those that were older than
themselves. One of the greatest privileges that Lycurgus procured his
countrymen, was the enjoyment of leisure, the consequence of his
forbidding them to exercise any mechanic trade. It was not worth their
while to take great pains to raise a fortune, since riches there were of
no account: and the Helotes, who tilled the ground, were answerable for
the produce above-mentioned. To this purpose we have a story of a
Lacedæmonian, who, happening to be at Athens while the court sat, was
informed of a man who was fined for idleness; and when the poor fellow
was returning home in great dejection, attended by his condoling
friends, he desired the company to show him the person that was
condemned for keeping up his dignity. So much beneath them they reckoned
all attention to mechanics arts, and all desire of riches!

Lawsuits were banished from Lacedæmon with money. The Spartans knew
neither riches nor poverty, but possessed an equal competency, and had a
cheap and easy way of supplying their few wants. Hence, when they were
not engaged in war, their time was taken up with dancing, feasting,
hunting, or meeting to exercise, or converse. They went not to market
under thirty years of age, all their necessary concerns being managed by
their relations and adopters. Nor was it reckoned a credit to the old to
be seen sauntering in the market-place; it was deemed more suitable for
them to pass great part of the day in the schools of exercise, or places
of conversation. Their discourse seldom turned upon money, or business,
or trade, but upon the praise of the excellent, or the contempt of the
worthless; and the last was expressed with that pleasantry and humour,
which conveyed instruction and correction without seeming to intend it.
Nor was Lycurgus himself immoderately severe in his manner; but, as
Sosibius tells us, he dedicated a little statue to the god of laughter