Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/46

 Spartans (Dorians). The former were sometimes divided by jealousy from the latter, and in the Theban war several towns withdrew their troops from the Spartans, and joined Epaminondas. The distinguishing traits of the Spartans were severity, resolution and perseverance. Defeat and reverse never discouraged them. But they were faithless and crafty, as appears from their conduct in the Messenian wars, in which they not only bribed the Arcadian king, Aristocrates, to the basest treachery towards the Messenians, but also corrupted the Delphic oracle, of which they made use to the prejudice of the Messenians. The age at which marriage might be contracted was fixed by Lycurgus at thirty for men and twenty for women. When a Spartan woman was pregnant, it was required that pictures of the handsomest young men should be hung up in her chamber, for the purpose of producing a favorable effect on the fruit of her womb. The other Greeks washed the new-born infants with water, and afterwards rubbed them over with oil; but the Spartans bathed them in wine, to try the strength of their constitution. They had a notion that a wine bath produced convulsions or even death in weakly children, but confirmed the health of the strong. If the infant proved vigorous and sound/the state received it into the number of citizens; otherwise it was thrown into a cave on mount Taygetus. In the other Grecian states, the exposition of children was a matter of custom; in Sparta it was forbidden by law. The Spartan children were early inured to hardship and accustomed to freedom. Stays, which were in use among the other Grecians, were unknown to the Spartans. To accustom the children to endure hunger, they gave them but little food; and, if they stood in need of more, they were obliged to steal it; and, if discovered, they were severely punished, not for the theft, but for their awkwardness. Every ten days, they were required to present themselves before the ephori, and whoever was found to be too fat, received a flogging. Wine was not generally given to girls in Greece, but was commonly allowed to boys from earliest childhood. In Sparta, the boys were obliged to wear the hair short, until they attained the age of manhood, when it was suffered to grow. They usually ran naked, and were generally dirty, as they did not bathe and anoint themselves, like the other Greeks. They took pride in having the body covered with marks of bruises and wounds. They wore no outer garment, except in bad weather, and no shoes at any time. They were obliged to make their beds of rushes from the Eurotas. Till the seventh year, the child was kept in the gynæceum, under the care of the women; from that age to the eighteenth year, they were called boys, and thence to the age of thirty, youths. In the thirtieth year the Spartan entered the period of manhood, and enjoyed the full rights of a citizen. At the age of seven, the boy was withdrawn from the paternal care, and educated under the public eye, in company with others of the same age, without distinction of rank or fortune. If any person withheld his son from the care of the state, he forfeited his civil rights. The principal object of attention, during the periods of boyhood and youth, was the physical education, which consisted in the practice of various