ble to most
dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from
their customary regimen?

Yes, I do.

Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior
athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the
utmost keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food, of
summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a
campaign, they must not be liable to break down in health.

That is my view.

The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which
we were just now describing.

How so?

Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which, like our music, is
simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic.

What do you mean?

My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes at
their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare; they have
no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they
are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most
convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire,
and not involving the trouble of carrying about pots and pans.

True.

And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere
mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular;
all professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good
condition should take nothing of the kind.

Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them.

Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of
Sicilian cookery?

I think not.

Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a
Corinthian girl as his fair friend?

Certainly not.

Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of
Athenian confectionary?

Certainly not.

All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and
song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms.

Exactly.

There complexity engendered licence, and here disease; whereas
simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and
simplicity in gymnastic of health in the body.

Most true, he said.

But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice
and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the
lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not
only the slaves but the freemen of a city take