It was another peculiarity of Spartan training that to take advantage of people in the matter of property was regarded as a merit, if the dishonesty was not detected, and if it was not a breach of some special law or custom. In Xenophon’s _Anabasis_ (iv. 6) there is a curious allusion to this trait of the Spartan character. The Greek army had come to a pass occupied by a hostile force. Instead of trying to carry it by direct assault Xenophon suggested that soldiers should be sent up the shoulder of the hill to turn the position. “But,” he said, addressing his Spartan colleague Cheirisophus, “stealing a march upon the enemy is more in your line than mine. For I understand that you, the full citizens and peers of Sparta, practise stealing from your boyhood upwards, and that it is held no way base, but even honourable, to steal such things as the law does not distinctly forbid. And in order that you may steal with the greatest effect and take pains to do it in secret, the custom is to flog you if you are found out. Here, then, you have an excellent opportunity of displaying your skill. Take good care that we be not found out in stealing possession of the mountain now before us, for if we are found out we shall be well beaten.” To this pleasantry Cheirisophus rejoined: “Why, as for that, you Athenians also, as I learn, are capital hands at stealing the public money, and that, too, in spite of prodigious peril to the thief. Nay, your most powerful men steal most of all--at least if it be the most powerful men among you that are raised to official command. So that this is a time for you to exhibit your training as well as for me to exhibit mine.”