A frequent occupation of all ages at Sparta was hunting. This, too, they recognised to be an excellent training for soldiers, since it involved courage in meeting wild beasts, skill and ingenuity in tracking them, and hardships of all sorts in the forests and on the mountains. Laconia was full of game, and Laconian hounds were famous. The successful huntsman gave what he had killed to enrich the meals of his dining-club, and so won much popularity. Spartan boys must also have learnt to ride, for they had to go in procession on horseback at the festival of Huakinthos.[43] They were taught to swim, too, by their daily plunge in the Eurotas. A great part of their time was spent in gymnastics, under the close inspection of their elders. Boxing and the pankration were forbidden to the young Spartan, probably because they developed a few particular muscles at the expense of the others.[44] For wrestling no scientific trainers were allowed; the Spartan type depended solely on strength and activity, not on technical skill; so a Spartan, when beaten by a wrestler from another country, said his opponent was not a better man, but only a cleverer wrestler.[45] Gladiators, such as those mentioned in Plato’s _Laches_ as teaching the use of arms, were not permitted at Sparta; these, however, seem to have been unpractical theorists, quite useless in battle, as General Laches shows by a funny anecdote about one of them.[46] No lounging spectators were permitted in Spartan gymnasia; the rule was “strip or withdraw.”[47] The eldest man in each gymnasium had to see that every one took sufficient exercise to work off his food and prevent him from becoming puffy.[48] The physical condition of the boys was inspected every ten days by the Ephors,[49] while the competitions of the epheboi seem to have been controlled by a special board, the Bidiaioi, who figure in inscriptions.[50] Aristotle says of the whole Spartan discipline that it made the boys “beast-like,”[51] but admits that it did not produce the one-sided athlete, so common in Hellas, who looked solely to athletics, and was too much specialised to be good for anything else. Xenophon[52] says that it would be hard to find anywhere men with more healthy or more serviceable bodies than the Spartiatai. The most beautiful man in the Hellenic army at Plataea was a Spartan.[53] The Spartan boys’ manners were in some ways surprisingly maidenlike. When they went along the highway, they kept their hands under their coat, and walked in silence, keeping their eyes fixed on the ground before their feet. They spoke as rarely as a statue and looked about them less than a bronze figure: they were as modest as a girl. When they came into the mess-room, you could rarely hear them even answer a question.[54]