LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA. 389 manner not compatible with the recluse life of Grecian women generally, to the exaltation of the brave as well as to the abase- ment of the recreant ; and that the dignified bearing of the Spar- tan matrons under private family loss seriously assisted the state in the task of bearing up against public reverses. " Return either with your shield or upon it," was their exhortation to their sons when departing for foreign service : and after the fatal day of Leuktra, those mothers who had to welcome home their sur- viving sons in dishonor and defeat, were the bitter sufferers ; while those whose sons had perished, maintained a bearing com- paratively cheerful. 1 Such were the leading points of- the memorable Spartan disci- pline, strengthened in its effect on the mind by the absence of communication with strangers. For no Spartan could go abroad without leave, nor were strangers permitted to stay at Sparta ; they came thither, it seems, by a sort of sufferance, but the un courteous process called xenelasy 2 was always available to re move them, nor could there arise in Sparta that class of resident metics or aliens who constituted a large part of the population of Athens, and seem to have been found in most other Grecian towns. It is in this universal schooling, training, and drilling, imposed alike upon boys and men, youths and virgins, rich and poor, that the distinctive attribute of Sparta is to be sought, not in her laws or political constitution. Lykurgus (or the individual to whom this system is owing, whoever he was) is the founder of a warlike brotherhood rather than the lawgiver of a political community ; his brethren live together like bees in a hive (to borrow a simile from Plutarch), 1 See the remarkable account in Xenophon, Hcllen. iv. 16; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 29 ; one of the most striking incidents in Grecian history. Compare, also, the string of sayings ascribed to Lacedaemonian women, in Plutarch, Lac. Apophth. p. 241, seq.
- How offensive the Lacedaemonian xenelasy or expulsion of strangers
appeared in Greece, we may see from the speeches of Perikles in Thucydi- dcs (i. 144 ; ii. 39). Compare Xenophon, Rep. Lac. xiv. 4 ; Plutarch, Agis, C. 10 ; Lykurgus, c. 27; Plato, Protagoras, p. 348. No Spartan left the country without permission : Isokrates, Orat. xi (Busiris), p. 225 ; Xenoph. vt sup. Both these regulations became much relaxed after the close of the Pelo ponnesian war.
