to subject or to humiliate its neighbours, to acquire tribute, or to
exact homage from its rivals. Thus the citizen passed his life in
the public square, discussing alliances, treaties, and constitutions,
hearing speeches, or speaking himself, and finally going aboard of his
ship to fight his neighbour Greeks, or to sail against Egypt or Persia.

War (and politics as subsidiary to it) was then the chief pursuit of
life. But as there was no organized industry, so there were no machines
of warfare. All fighting was done hand to hand. Therefore, the great
thing in preparing for war was not to transform the soldiers into
precisely-acting automata, as in a modern army, but to make each
separate soldier as vigorous and active as possible. The leading object
of Greek education was to make men physically perfect. In this respect,
Sparta may be taken as the typical Greek community, for nowhere else was
physical development so entirely made the great end of social life. In
these matters Sparta was always regarded by the other cities as taking
the lead,--as having attained the ideal after which all alike were
striving. Now Sparta, situated in the midst of a numerous conquered
population of Messenians and Helots, was partly a great gymnasium and
partly a perpetual camp. Her citizens were always in training. The
entire social constitution of Sparta was shaped with a view to the
breeding and bringing up of a strong and beautiful race. Feeble or
ill-formed infants were put to death. The age at which citizens might
marry was prescribed by law; and the State paired off men and women as
the modern breeder pairs off horses, with a sole view to the excellence
of the off-spring. A wife was not a helpmate, but a bearer of athletes.
Women boxed, wrestled, and raced; a circumstance referred to in the
following passage of Aristophanes, as rendered by Mr. Felton:--

LYSISTRATA.

Hail! Lampito, dearest of Lakonian women.
How shines thy beauty, O my sweetest friend!
How fair thy colour, full of life thy frame!
Why, thou couldst choke a bull.

LAMPITO.
Yes, by the Twain;
For I do practice the gymnastic art,
And, leaping, strike my backbone with my heels.

LYSISTRATA.
In sooth, thy bust is lovely to behold.

The young men lived together, like soldiers in a camp. They ate
out-of-doors, at a public table. Their