That in this concise manner of speaking there was a kind of wit and epigrammatic point, may be easily seen from various examples; but it cannot be traced to the principles which we have just laid down. Sometimes it arises from the simplicity of the Doric manners, as contrasted with the more polished customs of other nations; of which kind is the answer of the Spartan, who, taking a fish to be cooked, and being asked where the cheese, oil, and vinegar were, replied, “If I had all these things, I should not have bought a fish.”(1768) Or it is a moral elevation, viewed from which, things appear in a different light; thus the saying of Dieneces, that “if the Persians darkened the air with their arrows, they should fight in the shade.” Sometimes it is an ironical expression of bitterness and censure, which gains force by being concealed under a semblance of praise; as in the judgment of the Laconian on Athens, where every kind of trade and industry was tolerated, “Everything is beautiful there.”(1769) Or it is the combination of various ridiculous ideas into one expression, as in the witty saying of a husband who found his wife, whom he detested, in the arms of an adulterer; “Unhappy man, who forced you to do this?”(1770) At Sparta, however, an energetic, striking, and figurative mode of speaking must have been generally in use; which may be perceived in the style of all the Spartans who are mentioned by Herodotus.(1771) And this, I have no doubt, was one of the most ancient customs of the Doric race. In Crete it had been retained, according to the testimony of Sosicrates, a Cretan author, in the town of Phæstus, in which place the boys were early practised in joking; and the apophthegms of Phæstus were celebrated over the whole island.(1772) In Sparta too this peculiar mode of expression was implanted in boys; the youths (ἔφηβοι) proposing them questions, to which they were to give ready and pointed answers;(1773) and they were taught to impart a peculiar sharpness and also brilliancy to their sayings.(1774) Later in life this tendency was fostered and confirmed by the many occasions on which the public manners prescribed ridicule as a means of improvement:(1775) at the festival of the Gymnopædia in particular, full vent seems to have been allowed to wit and merriment.(1776) In common life, laughter and ridicule were not unfrequent at the public tables;(1777) to be able to endure ridicule was considered the mark of a Lacedæmonian spirit; yet any person who took it ill might ask his antagonist to desist, who was then forced to comply.(1778) In early times, similar customs existed in other places besides Sparta; thus the suitors of Agariste, in the house of Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon, contended after the meal in musical skill and conversation,(1779) with which we might perhaps compare the passage in the Hymn to Mercury, where it is said that _youths at table attack one another in mutual jests_,(1780) and the