usage. Lycurgus, having thanked them for their care of his person,
dismissed them all, excepting only Alcander; and, taking him with
him into his house, neither did nor said anything severe to him,
but dismissing those whose place it was, bade Alcander to wait
upon him at table. The young man, who was of an ingenuous temper,
did without murmuring as he was commanded; and, being thus
admitted to live with Lycurgus, he had an opportunity to observe
in him, beside his gentleness and calmness of temper, an
extraordinary sobriety and an indefatigable industry, and so, from
an enemy, became one of his most zealous admirers, and told his
friends and relations that Lycurgus was not that morose and ill-
natured man they had formerly taken him for, but the one mild and
gentle character of the world. And thus did Lycurgus, for
chastisement of his fault, make of a wild and passionate young man
one of the discreetest citizens of Sparta.

In memory of this accident, Lycurgus built a temple to Minerva.
Some authors, however, say that he was wounded, indeed, but did
not lose his eye from the blow; and that he built the temple in
gratitude for the cure. Be this as it will, certain it is, that,
after this misadventure, the Lacedaemonians made it a rule never
to carry so much as a staff into their public assemblies.

But to return to their public repasts. They met by companies of
fifteen, more or less, and each of them stood bound to bring in
monthly a bushel of meal, eight gallons of wine, five pounds of
cheese, two pounds and a half of figs, and some very small sum of
money to buy flesh or fish with. Besides this, when any of them
made sacrifice to the gods, they always sent a dole to the common
hall; and, likewise, when any of them had been a-hunting, he sent