As to the moral nature of the Spartan woman, there is no doubt that the unselfish devotion to the State, and the subordination of individual inclination to the good of the whole, would tend to promote a rigid morality. Yet the free intercourse between the sexes shocked the Athenians; and Euripides, in the _Andromache_, has put into the mouth of Peleus a severe indictment of the Spartan woman: "Though one should essay, Virtuous could daughter of Sparta never be. They gad abroad with young men from their homes, And--with bare thighs and loose, disgirdled vesture-Race, wrestle with them--things intolerable To me! And is it wonder-worthy then That ye train not your women to be chaste?" The Spartan laws, it is true, permitted and encouraged certain practices regarded as morally wrong in this day, yet that which was lawful could not well be considered immoral. Xenophon and Plutarch were ardent admirers of the Spartan system, and strongly affirm the uprightness and nobility of the Spartans. Plutarch tells an incident to illustrate Spartan virtue in the old days. Geradas, a very ancient Spartan, being asked by a stranger what punishment their law had appointed for adulterers, answered: "There are no adulterers in our country." "But," replied the stranger, "suppose there were." "Then," answered he, "the offender would have to give the plaintiff a bull with a neck so long that he might drink from the top of Taygetus of the Eurotas River below it." The man, surprised at this, said: "Why, 'tis impossible to find such a bull." Geradas smilingly replied: "It is as impossible to find an adulterer in Sparta." Though we have to recognize much in the Spartan polity which is repugnant to our ideas of the sacredness of family ties, yet we must feel the utmost respect for the Spartan matron in the best days of Lacedaemon. This rigid system provided for four or five centuries "a succession of the strongest men that possibly ever existed on the face of the earth," and the strength of character of the mothers made the sons what they were. Only the Roman matron can be fitly compared to the Spartan mother. It is not surprising that such mothers possessed an influence envied throughout Greece. "You Spartan women are the only ones who rule over men," said a stranger to Gorgo, wife of Leonidas. "True," she rejoined; "for we are the only ones who are the mothers of men."