against the same enemy,” the non-observance of which was a charge brought against Agesilaus. With what unwillingness the Lacedæmonians engaged in great wars is generally known. And yet in every action in the open field, up to the battle of Leuctra, Sparta had nearly a certainty of success,(1206) since the consciousness of skill in the use of arms was added to the national feeling of the Doric race, that victory over the Ionians was not a matter of doubt.(1207) With what timidity did the Athenians attack the hard-pressed and exhausted Spartans in Sphacteria! Their feeling towards the captives was nearly the same as that of the Achæans in Homer to the corpse of Hector. These opinions necessarily experienced innumerable modifications when Sparta engaged in foreign warfare, and moved out of her own orbit into an unknown region; this was particularly the case in maritime war, which, although followed in early times by Corinth, Ægina, and Corcyra, never agreed with the nature of the Doric tribe. For this reason Sparta, although after many unsuccessful attempts she gave birth to men who had considerable talents for this service, as Callicratidas and Lysander, and for a time her fleet was very numerous, and the commander of it a second king,(1208) never showed any particular inclination for it. A disinclination equally strong, and formed upon the same grounds, was shown by the Spartans to the storming of walled places (πυργομαχεῖν(1209)) for which reason they never in early times constructed any defences of this kind; and despised the use of machines, by which Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, thought that “man’s strength was annihilated.” 10. We conclude with the assertion with which we prefaced this chapter, though in a different point of view, that no nation ever considered war as an art in the same sense and to the same degree as the Doric Spartans. Indeed every nation, of a military disposition, and addicted to warlike pursuits, considers war not merely as a means of repelling the attacks of enemies, or of gaining plunder or territory by being itself the invader. The mere act of fighting, the common and disciplined movement of thousands directed to the same end, the “pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war,” arouse the feelings, and inspire the mind with the noblest and most elevated thoughts; and there is a certain affinity between the art of war and the more regular and peaceful arts; thus a military body resembled, in its movements and array, a large choral dance. These feelings and views were among all nations most natural to the Greeks, and, of the Greek races, familiar to the Dorians in particular.