people of Asia. These, and such as these, wherever they came, were
called moderators and reformers, both of the magistrates and people, and
Sparta itself was considered as a school of discipline, where the beauty
of life and political order were taught in the utmost perfection. Hence
Stratonicus seems facetiously enough to have said, that he would order
"the Athenians to have the conduct of mysteries and processions; the
Eleans to preside in games, as their particular province; and the
Lacedæmonians to be beaten, if the other did amiss." This was spoken in
jest: but Antisthenes, one of the scholars of Socrates, said (more
seriously) of the Thebans, when he saw them pluming themselves upon
their success at Leuctra, "They were just like so many school-boys
rejoicing that they had beaten their master."

It was not, however, the principal design of Lycurgus that his city
should govern many others, but he considered its happiness like that of
a private man, as flowing from virtue and self-consistency: he therefore
so ordered and disposed it, that by the freedom and sobriety of its
inhabitants, and their having a sufficiency within themselves, its
continuance might be the more secure. Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and other
writers upon government, have taken Lycurgus for their model: and these
have attained great praise, though they left only an idea of something
excellent. Yet he who, not in idea and in words, but in fact produced a
most inimitable form of government, and by showing a whole city of
philosophers, confounded those who imagine that the so much talked of
strictness of a philosophic life is impracticable; he, I say, stands in
the rank of glory far beyond the founders of all the other Grecian
states. Therefore Aristotle is of opinion, that the honours paid him in
Lacedæmon were far beneath his merit. Yet those honours were very great;
for he has a temple there, and they offer him a yearly sacrifice, as a
god. It is also said, that when his remains were brought home, his tomb