Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/398

 382 HISTORY OF GREECE. were often matched against each other to contend (without amis) in the little insular circumscription called the Platanistuis, and these contests were earned on, under the eye of the authorities, with the utmost extremity of fury. Nor was the competition among them less obstinate, to bear without murmuring the cruel scourgings inflicted before the altar of Artemis Orthia, supposed to be highly acceptable to the goddess, though they sometimes terminated even in the death of the uncomplaining sufferer. 1 Besides the various descriptions of gymnastic contests, the youths were instructed in the choric dances employed in festivals of the 633 ; Xenophon, DC Laced. Repub. ii. 9, with the references in Schneider's note, likewise Cragius, De Republica Laced, iii. 8, p. 325. 1 It is remarkable that these violent contentions of the youth, wherein kicking, biting, gouging out each other's eyes, was resorted to, as well as the dia/iaaTiyuaif, or scourging-match, before the altar of Artemis, lasted down to the closing days of Sparta, and were actually seen by Cicero, Plutarch, and even Pausanias. Plutarch had seen several persons die under the suffering (Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 16, 18-30; and Instituta Laconica, p. 239; Pausan. iii. 14, 9, 16, 7 ; Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. ii. 15). The voluntary tortures, undergone by the young men among the Mandan tribe of Indians, at their annual religious festival, in the presence of the elders of the tribe, afford a striking illustration of the same principles and ten- dencies as this Spartan diapaari-yuaic. They are endured partly under the influence of religious feelings, as an acceptable offering to the Great Spirit, partly as a point of emulation and glory on the part of the young men, to show themselves worthy and unconquerable in the eyes of their seniors. The intensity of these tortures is, indeed, frightful to read, and far surpasses in that respect anything ever witnessed at Sparta. It would be incredible, were it not attested by a trustworthy eye-witness. See Mr. Catlin's Letters on the North American Indians, Letter 22, vol. i. p. 157, seq. " These religious ceremonies are held, in part, for the purpose of conduct- ing all the young men of the tribe, as they annually arrive at manhood, through an ordeal of privation and torture ; which, while it is supposed to harden their muscles and prepare them for extreme endurance, enables the chiefs who are spectators of the scene, to decide upon their comparative bodily strength and ability, to endure the extreme privations and sufferings that often fall to the lot of Indian warriors ; and that they may decide who is the most hardy and best able to lead a war-party in case of emergency." Again, p. 173, etc. The Kaprepia or power of endurance ( Aristot. Pol. ii. 6,5-16) which formed one of the prominent objects of the Lycurgcan training, dwindles into nothing compared to that of the Mandan Indians.