advantage of all, and at other times pursue each his own private ends. Allowance must be made for ordinary lawgivers, who fail through want of power or of knowledge in establishing such a system; but no such excuse can be made for Numa, who was a wise man, and who was made king of a newly-created state which would not have opposed any of his designs. What could be of greater importance than to regulate the education of the young and so to train them that they might all become alike in their lives and all bear the same impress of virtue? It was to this that Lykurgus owed the permanence of his laws; for he could not have trusted to the oaths which he made them take, if he had not by education and training so steeped the minds of the young in the spirit of his laws, and by his method of bringing them up implanted in them such a love for the state, that the most important of his enactments remained in force for more than five hundred years; for the lives of all Spartans seem to have been coloured by these laws. That which was the aim and end of Numa's policy, that Rome should be at peace and friendly with her neighbours, ceased immediately upon his death; at once the double-gated temple, which he kept closed as if he really kept war locked up in it, had both its gates thrown open and filled Italy with slaughter. His excellent and righteous policy did not last for a moment, for the people were not educated to support it, and therefore it could not be lasting. But, it may be asked, did not Rome flourish by her wars? It is hard to answer such a question, in an age which values wealth, luxury, and dominion more than a gentle peaceful life that wrongs no one and suffices for itself. Yet this fact seems to tell for Lykurgus, that the Romans gained such an enormous increase of power by departing from Numa's policy, while the Lacedaemonians, as soon as they fell away from the discipline of Lykurgus, having been the haughtiest became the most contemptible of Greeks, and not only lost their supremacy, but had even to struggle for their bare existence. On the other hand, it was truly glorious for Numa that he was a stranger and sent for by the Romans to be their king; that he effected all his reforms without violence, and ruled a city composed of discordant elements without any armed force such as Lykurgus had to assist him, winning over all men and reducing them to order by his wisdom and justice. LIFE OF SOLON.