for excellence in which he is known from
boyhood to be most suitable. Wherefore among them neither robbery nor
clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes of
which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves of
ingratitude and malignity when anyone denies a lawful satisfaction to
another of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, of slander,
and of lying, which curseful thing they thoroughly hate. Accused persons
undergoing punishment are deprived of the common table, and other
honors, until the judge thinks that they agree with their correction.

G.M. Tell me the manner in which the magistrates are chosen.

Capt. You would not rightly understand this, unless you first learned
their manner of living. That you may know, then, men and women wear the
same kind of garment, suited for war. The women wear the toga below the
knee, but the men above; and both sexes are instructed in all the arts
together. When this has been done as a start, and before their third
year, the boys learn the language and the alphabet on the walls by
walking round them. They have four leaders, and four elders, the first
to direct them, the second to teach them, and these are men approved
beyond all others. After some time they exercise themselves with
gymnastics, running, quoits, and other games, by means of which all
their muscles are strengthened alike. Their feet are always bare, and so
are their heads as far as the seventh ring. Afterward they lead them to
the offices of the trades, such as shoemaking, cooking, metal-working,
carpentry, painting, etc. In order to find out the bent of the genius of
each one, after their seventh year, when they have already gone through
the mathematics on the walls, they take them to the readings of all the
sciences; there are four lectures at each reading, and in the course of
four hours the four in their order explain everything.

For some take physical exercise or busy themselves with public services
or functions, others apply themselves to reading. Leaving these studies
all are devoted to the more abstruse subjects, to mathematics, to
medicine, and to other sciences. There are continual debate and studied
argument among them, and after a time they become magistrates of those
sciences or mechanical arts in which they are the most proficient; for
everyone follows the opinion of his leader and judge, and goes out to
the plains to the works of the field, and for th