southern
extremity of the peninsula, called the Peloponnesus; and the city of
Sparta was the head of their State. There were other States, too, in
Greece, and each had its king and separate government. But although
jealous of each other and almost always at war, they worshipped the same
deities, consulted the same Oracles, and all alike gloried in being
descended from the same gods and in being Greeks.

The two most powerful States (or cities, which meant the same thing) were
Athens and Sparta. But they were as widely separated in character and
habits as if they did not belong to the same family. Athens was the brain,
and Sparta the rough, strong arm of Greece.

Athens delighted in poetry, music, art, and eloquence. The Spartans
despised all these things. They scorned to use three words where two would
do, and aimed only to make their youth fearless and terrible defenders of
Greece.

When a child was born, if it did not give promise of being physically
strong and perfect, it was cast into a ravine and then left to perish.
When the boys who were permitted to live were seven years old, they were
taken from their mothers and made to endure cold, hunger, and inhuman
severities. They were beaten until the blood flowed, simply to teach them
endurance, and a Spartan boy would die under the lash rather than endure
the disgrace of uttering a cry of pain. There was never any family life,
nor pleasure.

Every boy was trained to be a soldier; and until he was sixty years old
the man belonged to the State absolutely. And all those years he ate his
black broth at a public mess, seasoned only with fatigue and hunger. A
witty Athenian said he did not wonder the Spartans were brave in battle,
for death was preferable to their life.

The severe code of laws by which they were governed was established by
Lycurgus, about 770 B.C. (before Christ).

Athens had her days of severity and cruelty, too, under Draco, who
established her first laws. But the people rebelled, and in 594
B.C. Solon, a man of great sagacity, prepared a constitution,
which was a model of wisdom, justice, and even of gentleness. The
government established by Solon was an aristocratic Republic, in which the
common people had no part. The Chief, or Archon, as he was called, was
chosen by the nobles, and served for a stated time, like our Presidents.

But the supreme authority lay in the "Court of Areopagus," whose members
had already served as Archons. The Areopag