"She that wanders nigh,
With scanty skirt that shows the thigh,
A Spartan maiden fair and free,
Hermione."
On this account they are said to have become bolder than they should be, and to have first shown this spirit towards their husbands, ruling uncontrolled over their households, and afterwards in public matters, where they freely expressed their opinions upon the most important subjects. On the other hand, Numa preserved that respect and honour due from men to matrons which they had met with under Romulus, who paid them these honours to atone for having carried them off by force, but he implanted in them habits of modesty, sobriety, and silence, forbidding them even to touch wine, or to speak even when necessary except in their husbands' presence. It is stated that once, because a woman pleaded her own cause in the Forum, the Senate sent to ask the oracle what this strange event might portend for the state.
A great proof of the obedience and modesty of the most part of them is the way in which the names of those who did any wrong is remembered. For, just as in Greece, historians record the names of those who first made war against their own kindred or murdered their parents, so the Romans tell us that the first man who put away his wife was Spurius Carvilius, nothing of the kind having happened in Rome for two hundred and thirty years from its foundation; and that the wife of Pinarius, Thalaea by name, was the first to quarrel with her mother-in-law Gegania in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus—so well and orderly were marriages arranged by this lawgiver.
IV. The rest of their laws for the training and marriage of maidens agree with one another, although Lykurgus put off the time of marriage till they were full-grown, in order that their intercourse, demanded as it was by nature, might produce love and friendship in the married pair rather than the dislike often experienced by an immature child towards her husband, and also that their bodies might be better able to support the trials of child-bearing, which he regarded as the sole object of marriage; whereas the Romans gave their daughters in marriage at the age of twelve years or even younger, thinking thus to hand over a girl to her husband pure and uncorrupt both in body and mind. It is clear that the former system is best for the mere production of children, and the latter for moulding consorts for life. But by his superintendence of the young, his collecting them into companies, his training and drill, with the table and exercises common to all, Lykurgus showed that he was immensely superior to Numa, who, like any commonplace lawgiver, left the whole training of the young in the hands of their fathers, regulated only by their caprice or needs; so that whoever chose might bring up his son as a shipwright, a coppersmith, or a musician, as though the citizens ought not from the very outset to direct their attention to one object, but were like people who have embarked in the same ship for various causes, who only in time of danger act together for the common advantage of all, and at other times pursue each his own private ends. Allowance must be made for ordinary lawgivers, who fail through want of power or of knowledge in establishing such a system; but no such excuse can be made for Numa, who was a wise man, and who was made king of a newly-created state which would not have opposed any of his designs. What could be of greater importance than to regulate the education of the young and so to train them that they might all become alike in their lives and all bear the same impress of virtue? It was to this that Lykurgus owed the permanence of his laws; for he could not have trusted to the oaths which he made them take, if he had not by education and training so steeped the minds of the young in the spirit of his laws, and by his method of bringing them up implanted in them such a love for the state, that the most important of his enactments remained in force for more than five hundred years; for the lives of all Spartans seem to have been coloured by these laws. That which was the aim and end of Numa's policy, that Rome should be at peace and friendly with her neighbours, ceased immediately upon his death; at once the double-gated temple, which he kept closed as if he really kept war locked up in it, had both its gates thrown open and filled Italy with slaughter. His excellent and righteous policy did not last for a moment, for the people were not educated to support it, and therefore it could not be lasting. But, it may be asked, did not Rome flourish by her wars? It is hard to answer such a question, in an age which values wealth, luxury, and dominion more than a gentle peaceful life that wrongs no one and suffices for itself. Yet this fact seems to tell for Lykurgus, that the Romans gained such an enormous increase of power by departing from Numa's policy, while the Lacedaemonians, as soon as they fell away from the discipline of Lykurgus, having been the haughtiest became the most contemptible of Greeks, and not only lost their supremacy, but had even to struggle for their bare existence. On the other hand, it was truly glorious for Numa that he was a stranger and sent for by the Romans to be their king; that he effected all his reforms without violence, and ruled a city composed of discordant elements without any armed force such as Lykurgus had to assist him, winning over all men and reducing them to order by his wisdom and justice.
[LIFE OF SOLON.]
I. Didymus the grammarian, in the book about Solon's laws which he wrote in answer to Asklepiades, quotes a saying of one Philokles, that Solon was the son of Euphorion, which is quite at variance with the testimony of all other writers who have mentioned Solon: for they all say that he was the son of Exekestides, a man whose fortune and power were only moderate, but whose family was of the noblest in Athens; for he was descended from Kodrus the last Athenian king. Herakleides of Pontus relates that the mother of Solon was first cousin to the mother of Peisistratus. The two boys, we are told, were friends when young, and when in after years they differed in politics they still never entertained harsh or angry feelings towards one another, but kept alive the sacred flame of their former intimate friendship. Peisistratus is even said to have dedicated the statue of Love in the Academy where those who are going to run in the sacred torch-race light their torches.
II. According to Hermippus, Solon, finding that his father had by his generosity diminished his fortune, and feeling ashamed to be dependent upon others, when he himself was come of a house more accustomed to give than to receive, embarked in trade, although his friends were eager to supply him with all that he could wish for. Some, however, say that Solon travelled more with a view to gaining experience and learning than to making money. He was indeed eager to learn, as he wrote when an old man,
"Old to grow, but ever learning,"
but disregarded wealth, for he wrote that he regarded as equally rich the man who owned