4. They never applied their minds to any kind of learning, further than what was necessary for use and service; nature indeed having made them more fit for the purposes of war than for the improvements of knowledge. And therefore for speculative sciences and philosophic studies, they looked upon them as foreign to their business and unserviceable to their ends of living, and for this reason they would not tolerate them amongst them, nor suffer the professors of them to live within their government. They banished them their cities, as they did all sorts of strangers, esteeming them as things that did debase the true worth and excellency of virtue, which they made to consist only in manly actions and generous exercises, and not in vain disputations and empty notions. So that the whole of what their youth was instructed in was to learn obedience to the laws and injunctions of their governors, to endure with patience the greatest labors, and where they could not conquer, to die valiantly in the field. For this reason likewise it was, that all mechanic arts and trades, all vain and insignificant employments, such as regarded only curiosity or pleasure, were strictly prohibited them, as things that would make them degenerate into idleness and covetousness, would render them vain and effeminate, useless to themselves, and unserviceable to the state; and on this account it was that they would never suffer any scenes or interludes, whether of comedy or tragedy, to be set up among them, lest there should be any encouragement given to speak or act any thing that might savor of contempt or contumely against their laws and government, it being customary for the stage to assume an indecent liberty of taxing the one with faults and the other with imperfections. 5. As to their apparel, they were as thinly clad as they were dieted, never exceeding one garment, which they wore for the space of a whole year. And this they did, the better to inure them to hardship and to bear up against all the injuries of the weather, that so the extremities of heat and cold should have no influence at all upon their constitution. They were as regardless of their selves as they were negligent of their clothes, denying themselves (unless it were at some stated time of the year) the use of ointments and bathings to keep them clean and sweet, as too expensive and signs of a too soft and delicate temper of body. 6. Their youth, as they were instructed and ate in public together, so at night slept in distinct companies in one common chamber, and on no other beds than what were made of reeds, which they had gathered out of the river Eurotas, near the banks of which they grew. This was the only accommodation they had in the summer, but in winter they mingled with the reeds a certain soft and downy thistle, having much more of heat and warmth in it than the other.