arning
justice and righteousness: they will tell you they come for that
purpose, and the phrase is as natural with them as it is for us to speak
of lads learning their letters. The masters spend the chief part of the
day in deciding cases for their pupils: for in this boy-world, as in the
grown-up world without, occasions of indictment are never far to seek.
There will be charges, we know, of picking and stealing, of violence, of
fraud, of calumny, and so forth. The case is heard and the offender, if
shown to be guilty, is punished. [7] Nor does he escape who is found to
have accused one of his fellows unfairly. And there is one charge the
judges do not hesitate to deal with, a charge which is the source of
much hatred among grown men, but which they seldom press in the courts,
the charge of ingratitude. The culprit convicted of refusing to repay
a debt of kindness when it was fully in his power meets with severe
chastisement. They reason that the ungrateful man is the most likely to
forget his duty to the gods, to his parents, to his fatherland, and
his friends. Shamelessness, they hold, treads close on the heels of
ingratitude, and thus ingratitude is the ringleader and chief instigator
to every kind of baseness. [8] Further, the boys are instructed in
temperance and self-restraint, and they find the utmost help towards
the attainment of this virtue in the self-respecting behaviour of
their elders, shown them day by day. Then they are taught to obey their
rulers, and here again nothing is of greater value than the studied
obedience to authority manifested by their elders everywhere. Continence
in meat and drink is another branch of instruction, and they have no
better aid in this than, first, the example of their elders, who never
withdraw to satisfy their carnal cravings until those in authority
dismiss them, and next, the rule that the boys must take their food, not
with their mother but with their master, and not till the governor gives
the sign. They bring from home the staple of their meal, dry bread
with nasturtium for a relish, and to slake their thirst they bring a
drinking-cup, to dip in the running stream. In addition, they are taught
to shoot with the bow and to fling the javelin.

The lads follow their studies till the age of sixteen or seventeen, and
then they take their places as young men.

[9] After that they spend their time as follows. For ten years they are
bound to sleep at night round the public