These then are the two circumstances which Plato works out: The Education of the Rulers and Guardians: Their position and circumstances in regard to each other and to the remaining multitude. He does not himself prescribe, or at least he prescribes but rarely, what is to be enacted or ordered. He creates the generals and the soldiers; he relies upon the former for ordering, upon the latter for enforcing, aright. [Side-note: Comparison of Plato with Xenophon--Cyropædia--OEconomicus.] On this point we may usefully compare him with his contemporary Xenophon. He, like Plato, presents himself to mankind as a preceptor or schoolmaster, rather than as a lawgiver. Most Grecian cities (he remarks) left the education of youth in the hands of parents, and permitted adults to choose their own mode of life, subject only to the necessity of obeying the laws: that is, of abstaining from certain defined offences, and of performing certain defined obligations--under penalties if such obedience were not rendered. From this mode of proceeding Xenophon dissents, and commends the Spartan Lawgiver Lykurgus for departing from it.[19] To regulate public matters, without regulating the private life of the citizens, appeared to him impossible.[20] At Sparta, the citizen was subject to authoritative regulation, from childhood to old age. In the public education, or in the public drill, he was constantly under supervision, going through prescribed exercises. This produced, according to Xenophon, "a city of pre-eminent happiness". He proclaims and follows out the same peculiar principle, in his ideal scheme of society called the Persian laws. He embodies in the Cyropædia the biography of a model chief, trained up from his youth in (what Xenophon calls) the Persian system, and applying the virtues acquired therein to military exploits and to the government of mankind. The Persian polity, in which the hero Cyrus receives his training, is described. Instead of leaving individuals to their own free will, except as to certain acts or abstinences specifically enjoined, this polity placed every one under a regimental training: which both shaped his character beforehand, so as to make sure that he should have no disposition to commit offences[21]--and subjected him to perpetual supervision afterwards, commencing with boyhood and continued to old age, through the four successive stages of boys, youths, mature men, and elders. [Footnote 19: Xenophon, Rep. Lacedæm. i. 2. [Greek: Lukou=rgos, ou) mimêsa/menos ta\s a)/llas po/leis, a)lla\ kai\ e)nanti/a gnou\s tai=s plei/stais, proe/chousan eu)daimoni/a| tê\n patri/da a)pe/deixen.]] [Footnote 20: Compare Plato, Legg. vi. p. 780 A.]