Such, however, as they were, the reputation of the sophists spread far and wide. Even among the barbarians of Asia a desire was felt to have the ear tickled by their eloquence, as we may gather from the letter of Amytocrates, an Indian king, to Antiochos, requesting him to ship off for India as soon as possible, some boiled wine, dried figs, and a sophist, observing that he would very willingly pay the price of him. But Antiochos, either loth to part with so useful a servant of the monarchy, or out of pity for the Indians, whom he suspected to be already sufficiently tormented, replied, that as for boiled wine and figs he might be supplied to his heart’s content, but that with respect to sophists the law prohibited their exportation.[851] He had all the while, however, without knowing it, abundant specimens of the race in his own realms, where the Brahmins have, time out of mind, cultivated and thriven by the same arts, and maintained the same opinions, as conferred celebrity on the followers of Gorgias and Protagoras. Their practices, indeed, as well as those of the Yoghis, are in India modified by the state of society and public opinion. The wonder which among the Greeks was excited by the advocacy of monstrous doctrines, on the banks of the Ganges, arises out of physical pranks. The Greek sophist tortured his mind, the Indian tortures his body for the edification of the public, but the result is the same; the practitioners thus contrive to subsist in idleness on the earnings of the industrious and credulous. Footnote 851: Athen. xiv. 67. CHAPTER VIII. EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS, CRETANS, ARCADIANS, ETC. A different picture is presented to us by the education of the Spartans,[852] which, almost perfect in its kind, aimed chiefly at unfolding the powers of the body. Mental acquirements in the states of Doric origin were few, and the object even of these seems to have been rather connected with the developement of the animal than the spiritual nature of man, though they were not utterly destitute of all those arts and accomplishments which embellish a life of peace. Little stress, however, can be laid on the elaborate divisions of youth into numerous classes, the intention of which is not stated. There can, nevertheless, be no doubt that much art, reflection and wisdom was exhibited in the forming of the system whose object was the creation of a military character, and through this the enjoyment of the hegemonia or lead in the public affairs of Greece, an honour which Sparta attained to and held during many years.[853] Footnote 852: See Müll. Dor. ii. 313, sqq. Cf. Pfeiff. Ant. ii. 57. p. 370. Footnote 853: