r ambition. This is the spirit, Stranger, in which
I was and am desirous that you should pursue the subject. And I want to
know the nature of all these things, and how they are arranged in the
laws of Zeus, as they are termed, and in those of the Pythian Apollo,
which Minos and Lycurgus gave; and how the order of them is discovered
to his eyes, who has experience in laws gained either by study or habit,
although they are far from being self-evident to the rest of mankind
like ourselves.

CLEINIAS: How shall we proceed, Stranger?

ATHENIAN: I think that we must begin again as before, and first consider
the habit of courage; and then we will go on and discuss another and
then another form of virtue, if you please. In this way we shall have
a model of the whole; and with these and similar discourses we will
beguile the way. And when we have gone through all the virtues, we will
show, by the grace of God, that the institutions of which I was speaking
look to virtue.

MEGILLUS: Very good; and suppose that you first criticize this praiser
of Zeus and the laws of Crete.

ATHENIAN: I will try to criticize you and myself, as well as him, for
the argument is a common concern. Tell me,--were not first the syssitia,
and secondly the gymnasia, invented by your legislator with a view to
war?

MEGILLUS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And what comes third, and what fourth? For that, I think, is
the sort of enumeration which ought to be made of the remaining parts
of virtue, no matter whether you call them parts or what their name is,
provided the meaning is clear.

MEGILLUS: Then I, or any other Lacedaemonian, would reply that hunting
is third in order.

ATHENIAN: Let us see if we can discover what comes fourth and fifth.

MEGILLUS: I think that I can get as far as the fourth head, which is
the frequent endurance of pain, exhibited among us Spartans in certain
hand-to-hand fights; also in stealing with the prospect of getting a
good beating; there is, too, the so-called Crypteia, or secret service,
in which wonderful endurance is shown,--our people wander over the whole
country by day and by night, and even in winter have not a shoe to
their foot, and are without beds to lie upon, and have to attend upon
themselves. Marvellous, too, is the endurance which our citizens show in
their naked exercises, contending against the violent summer heat; and
there are many similar practices, to speak of which in detail would be
endless.

ATHENIAN: E