Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/486

 478 CLEOMENES. taking a company of actors, as they were travelling from Messene, and building a theatre in the enemy's country, and offering a prize of forty mince in value, he sat specta- tor a whole day ; not that he either desired or needed such amusement, but wishing to show his disregard for his enemies, and by a display of his contempt, to prove the extent of his superiority to them. For his alone, of all the Greek or royal armies, had no stage-players, no jugglers, no dancing or singing women attending it, but was free from all sorts of looseness, wantonness, and fes- tivity ; the young men being for the most part at their exercises, and the old men giving them lessons, or, at lei- sure times, diverting themselves with their native jests, and quick Laconian answers ; the good results of which we have noticed in the life of Lycurgus. He himself instructed all by his example ; he was a liv- ing pattern of temperance before every man's eyes ; and his course of living was neither more stately, nor more expensive, nor in any way more pretentious, than that of any of his people. And this was a considerable advan- tage to him in his designs on Greece. For men when they waited upon other kings, did not so much admire their wealth, costly furniture, and numerous attendance, as they hated their pride and state, their difficulty of access, and imperious answers to their addresses. But when they came to Cleomenes, who was both really a king, and bore that title, and saw no purple, no robes of state upon him, no couches and litters about him for his ease, and that he did not receive requests and return answers after a long delay and difficulty, through a number of messengers and doorkeepers, or by memorials, but that he rose and came forward in any dress he might happen to be wearing, to meet those that came to wait upon him, stayed, talked freely and affably with all that had business, they were extremely taken, and won to his service, and professed