justice as to be able to supply her neighbours; and I cannot understand
those who say that the Lacedaemonians "knew how to obey, but not how to
rule;" nor that story of some one who said to king Theopompus that the
safety of Sparta lay in her kings knowing how to rule. "Rather," he
answered, "in her citizens knowing how to obey."

They would not brook an incapable commander: their very obedience is a
lesson in the art of command; for a good leader makes good followers,
and just as it is the object of the horse-breaker to turn out a gentle
and tractable horse, so it is the object of rulers to implant in men the
spirit of obedience. But the Lacedaemonians produced a desire in other
states to be ruled by them and to obey them; for they used to send
embassies and ask not for ships or money or troops, but for one Spartan
for a leader; and when they obtained him, they respected him and feared
him, as, for instance, the Sicilians had Gylippus as a general, the
people of Chalkidike had Brasidas, while Lysander and Kallikratidas and
Agesilaus were made use of by all the Greeks in Asia Minor. These men
were called Regulators and Pacificators in each several state, and the
whole city of Sparta was regarded as a school and example of orderly
public life and of settled political institutions. This was alluded to
by Stratonikus when he said in jest that the Athenians ought to conduct
mysteries and shows, the Eleans to be stewards at the games, and the
Lacedaemonians to be beaten if the others did not do right. This was not
spoken seriously; but Antisthenes, the Sokratic philosopher, was serious
when he said of the Thebans, who were in high spirits after their
victory at Leuktra, that they were as pleased as schoolboys who had
beaten their master.

XXXI. Not that this was Lykurgus's main object, that his country should
dominate over as many other states as possible; but seeing that, in
states as in individuals, happiness is derived from virtue and
single-mindedness, he directed all his efforts to implant in his
countrymen feelings of honour, self-reliance, and self-control. These
were also taken as the basis of their constitution by Plato, Diogenes,
Zeno, and all who have written with any success upon this subject. But
they have left mere dissertations; Lykurgus produced an inimitable
constitution, confuted those who complained of the unreality of the
'Essay on the True Philosopher,' by showing them the spectacle of an
entire city ac