What
beautiful breasts you have! Why, you could throttle an ox!" To this
greeting comes the reply:

"Yes, I think I could, by Castor and Pollux! for I practise gymnastics
and leap high."

Ideals of beauty differ in different ages and countries, and there is no
doubt that Lampito was a magnificent specimen of woman; yet it may be
doubted whether such masculine vigor is consonant with the highest moral
and spiritual development, which, after all, is the chief factor in
womanly charm. Spartan women were in demand everywhere as nurses, and
were universally respected for their vigor and prowess; yet it was the
equally healthy, but more graceful, Ionian woman who was chosen as the
model of the statues of the goddess of love and beauty.

Spartan discipline produced beautiful animals, but any system which
dulled the sensibilities could hardly inculcate that grace and sweetness
and warmth of temperament which are essential to beauty.

As to the moral nature of the Spartan woman, there is no doubt that the
unselfish devotion to the State, and the subordination of individual
inclination to the good of the whole, would tend to promote a rigid
morality. Yet the free intercourse between the sexes shocked the
Athenians; and Euripides, in the _Andromache_, has put into the mouth of
Peleus a severe indictment of the Spartan woman:

"Though one should essay,
Virtuous could daughter of Sparta never be.
They gad abroad with young men from their homes,
And--with bare thighs and loose, disgirdled vesture-Race,
wrestle with them--things intolerable
To me! And is it wonder-worthy then
That ye train not your women to be chaste?"

The Spartan laws, it is true, permitted and encouraged certain practices
regarded as morally wrong in this day, yet that which was lawful could
not well be considered immoral. Xenophon and Plutarch were ardent
admirers of the Spartan system, and strongly affirm the uprightness and
nobility of the Spartans. Plutarch tells an incident to illustrate
Spartan virtue in the old days. Geradas, a very ancient Spartan, being
asked by a stranger what punishment their law had appointed for
adulterers, answered: "There are no adulterers in our country." "But,"
replied the stranger, "suppose there were." "Then," answered he, "the
offender would have to give the plaintiff a bull with a neck so long
that he might drink from the top of Taygetus of the Eurotas River below