To gymnastics the Dorians, upon the whole an unintellectual people, were naturally much addicted,—far too much according to ancient writers; but here again their modern historian steps in to their defence. He will have it, that it was in later times that they became philogymnasts, and quotes Dion Chrysostom as if he was the principal witness. Plato, to be sure, is referred to as a parasitical authority, and so is Aristotle;[882] but then the latter only says, that their constant violent exercises rendered them brutal, in which the historian appears to discover no harm. “This want of moderation, however, though it occurred in later times, is never perceivable in the maxims and ideas of the Dorians, who in this, as in several other cases, know how to set bounds to youthful ardour, and check its pernicious effects.”[883] This, it appears to me, is the language of an apologist. If they had such knowledge, how culpable must they have been not to check it in the matter of the Crypteia? Footnote 882: Polit. viii. 3. 3.—To this may be added the testimony of Plato, who evidently, without naming them, means to describe the Spartans, where he speaks of a people wholly given up to the study of bodily exercises, and by that means becoming brutal and ferocious.—De Rep. t. vi. p. 154. Footnote 883: Dorians, ii. 319. seq. It may be observed, however, that though they devoted to gymnastics too much of their leisure, the fault lay in them, not in the system of exercises, which was in itself one of extreme beauty and simplicity. Its object,—which it was excellently calculated to attain,—was not to create athletæ but soldiers, not gigantic strength, but an elastic, agile, beautiful frame, adapted for all the movements of war. Boxing, accordingly, and the pancration[884] were banished from their gymnasia, a regulation evincing at the same time their wisdom and their taste; the former being the most barbarous and useless, the latter the most unseemly portion of gymnastics, often exhibiting the antagonists rolling and struggling, like savages or animals devoid of reason, on the ground. Footnote 884: Ταῦτα μόνα μὴ κωλύσαντος ἀγωνίζεσθαι τοὺς πολίτας, ἐν οἷς χεὶρ οὺκ ἀνατείνεται.—Plut. Lycurg. § 19. The exercises, in which the admission of being vanquished was made by holding up the hand, are elsewhere named:—Πυγμὴν δὲ καὶ παγκράτιον ἀγωνίζεσθαι ἐκώλυσεν, ἵνα μηδὲ παίζοντες ἀπαυδᾷν ἐθίζωνται.—Reg. Apophtheg. Lycurg. 4. Apophtheg. Lacon. Lycurg. 23.