acedaemonians; and therefore Antalcidas, seeing him wounded
one day, said to him that he was very well paid for taking such pains
to make the Thebans good soldiers, whether they would or no. These laws
were called the Rhetras, to intimate that they were divine sanctions and
revelations.

In order to the good education of their youth (which, as I said before,
he thought the most important and noblest work of a lawgiver), he took
in their case all the care that was possible; he ordered the maidens
to exercise themselves with wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and
casting the dart, to the end that they might have strong and healthy
bodies.

It was not in the power of the father to dispose of his child as he
thought fit; he was obliged to carry it before certain "triers" at a
place called Lesche; these were some of the elders of the tribe to which
the child belonged; their business it was carefully to view the infant,
and, if they found it stout and well made, they gave order for its
rearing, and allotted to it one of the nine thousand shares of land
above mentioned for its maintenance; but if they found it puny and
ill-shaped, ordered it to be taken to what was called the Apothetae, a
sort of chasm under Taygetus; as thinking it neither for the good of the
child itself, nor for the public interest, that it should be brought
up, if it did not, from the very outset, appear made to be healthy and
vigorous. Upon the same account, the women did not bathe the new-born
children with water, as is the custom in all other countries, but with
wine, to prove the temper and complexion of their bodies; from a notion
they had that epileptic and weakly children faint and waste away upon
their being thus bathed, while, on the contrary, those of a strong and
vigorous habit acquire firmness and get a temper by it like steel. There
was much care and art, too, used by the nurses; they had no swaddling
bands; the children grew up free and unconstrained in limb and form, and
not dainty and fanciful about their food; nor afraid in the dark, or of
being left alone; without any peevishness or ill humor or crying. Upon
this account, Spartan nurses were often bought up, or hired by people of
other countries.

Lycurgus was of another mind; he would not have masters bought out of
the market for his young Spartans, nor such as should sell their pains;
nor was it lawful, indeed, for the father himself to raise his children
after his own fancy; bu