(ornamented cars peculiar to the country, which were also used in the procession to the temple of Helen at Therapne), and racing in chariots in the midst of assembled multitudes.(1349) Accordingly, the beauty of her women, the most beautiful in all Greece,(1350) was at Sparta more than any other town, an object of general admiration, in a nation where beauty of form was particularly felt and esteemed.(1351) 2. Two things were, however, requisite as an introduction and preparation to marriage at Sparta, first, betrothing on the part of the father;(1352) secondly, the seizure of the bride. The latter was clearly an ancient national custom, founded on the idea that the young woman could not surrender her freedom and virgin purity unless compelled by the violence of the stronger sex. They married, says Plutarch, by ravishing. The bridegroom brought the young virgin, having carried her off from the chorus of maidens or elsewhere, to the bride’s maid, who cut short her hair, and left her lying in a man’s dress and shoes, without a light, on a bed of rushes, until the bridegroom returned from the public banquet, carried the bride to the nuptial couch, and loosened her girdle.(1353) And this intercourse was for some time carried on clandestinely, till the man brought his wife, and frequently her mother, into his house. That this usage was retained to the last days of Sparta may be inferred from the fact, that the young wife of Panteus was still in the house of her parents, and remained there, when he went with Cleomenes to Egypt.(1354) A similar custom must have prevailed in Crete, where we find, that the young persons who were dismissed at the same time from the agele, were immediately married, but did not till some time after introduce their wives into their own house.(1355) The children born before this took place were probably called παρθενίαι;(1356) they were in general considered in all respects equal to those born at home; but in the first Messenian war particular circumstances seem to have made it impossible to provide them with lots of land;(1357) and hence they became the founders of Tarentum.(1358)