This account is mostly the same with Xenophon's: adding, that they ate moderately, and in common: the aged mixed with the youth, to awe them, and give them good example.--When they were fifteen years of age, instead of leaving them to their own conduct, as in other places, they had most care of their conversation, that they might preserve them from the mischiefs _that_ age is incident to. And those that would not comply with these rules, were not counted always honest people.--And in this, their government was excellent; that they thought there was no greater punishment for a bad man, than to be known and used as such, at all times, and in all places; for they were not to come into the company of persons of reputation.--They were to give place to all others; to stand when they sat; to be accountable to every honest man that met them of their conversation.--That they must keep their poor kindred.--That they used not the same freedoms that honest people might use: by which means they kept virtue in credit, and vice in contempt.--They used all things necessary for life, without superfluity or want; despising riches, and sumptuous apparel, and living: judging, that the best ornament of the body is health, and of the mind, virtue. "And since," saith Xenophon, "it is virtue and temperance that render us commendable, and that it is only the Lacedæmonians that reverence them publicly, and have made it the foundation of their state; their government, of right, merits preference to any other in the world. But that," saith he, "which is strange, is, that all admire it, but none imitate it." Nor is this account and judgment fantastical.