From several of these weaknesses the Spartans were free. They cared little for news, still less for dress, and less still for cleanliness; so that their beautiful long hair and waving beards swarmed with those autochthonal beasts, for the expulsion of which there was no law in Sparta. Though neither a knowing nor cleanly race, however, their wit was bright and piercing. No people uttered pithier or finer sayings, and their taste both in music and poetry was cultivated and refined. Probably, therefore, the dining halls and gymnasia and public walks of Sparta were enlivened by as much mirth as those of any other Grecian city, where usually cheerfulness was so prevalent, that “to be as merry as a Greek,” has become a proverb in all countries. On the third period of the Greek character it is unnecessary to speak at any length. Most of their good qualities having departed with their freedom they degenerated into a dissembling, hypocritical, fawning and double-dealing race, with little or no respect for truth, without patriotism, and without genuine valour. The literature, painting, and sculpture, to which in their period of degradation they gave birth, bore evident marks of their degeneracy, and tended by the corruption they diffused to avenge them on their conquerors the Romans; whose minds and morals they vitiated, and whose career of freedom and glory they cut short. Through their vices, however, the fame of their more noble and virtuous ancestors has greatly suffered, for the Romans contemplating the Greeks they saw before them, and implanting their opinion throughout the whole civilised world, their false and unjust views have been bequeathed to posterity; for it is still in a great measure through the Romans that people study the Greeks. CHAPTER III. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE.