was not their maxim.[211] They loved to trample on the fallen. Even in boyhood and among themselves, they practised _gouging_ as an accomplishment, and as an Athenian did music—as a necessary consequence, even the writers most favourable to their state, confess them to have been brutal, inhuman, perfidious.[212] Nor among a people so ignorant, so prejudiced, so narrow-minded, whose understandings were possibly incapable of comprehending the idea of justice or liberality, can we altogether wonder at such an outbreak of barbarism. Men have been known in modern times to shoot slaves for their amusement; a king of France has been known from the same motive to shoot his subjects, and a learned professor,[213] not very remarkable for cruelty, has pronounced the panegyric of that king. There is nothing, therefore, at all incredible in the Spartan Crypteia, which exactly harmonizes with all we know of the nation. ----- Footnote 211: Ælian. vi. i. Footnote 212: In justification of this harsh view of the Spartan character, numerous ancient authorities of the greatest weight may be cited. On their extreme licentiousness see the testimony of Agnon. Athen. xiii. 79. Plato de Legg. viii. t. viii. p. 90. On their tolerance of adultery, Plut. Paral. Num. § 3. On their inhospitality and sordid avarice, Aristoph. Pac. 623. Οἱ δ᾽ ἅτ᾽ αἰσχροκερδεῖς καὶ διειρωνόξενοι, κ. τ. λ. On the avarice of Gylippos, see Max. Tyr. Dissert. p. 133. In the Acharnes (v. 306, seq.) Aristophanes, again, briefly but energetically describes the character which the Spartans enjoyed in Greece: Πῶς δὲ γ᾽ ἂν καλῶς λέγοις ἂν, εἴπερ ἐσπείσω γ᾽ ἅπαξ, Οἷσιν οὔτε βωμὸς, οὔτε πίστις, οὔθ᾽ ὅρκος μένει. On which the scholiast remarks: ἐπὶ ἀπιστίᾳ γὰρ διεβάλλοντο οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι· καὶ Εὐριπίδης ἐν Ἀνδρομάχῃ· Σπάρτης ἔνοικοι, δόλια βουλευτήρια. Τρία δὲ ἐγκλήματα παραβασίας προσέθηκεν αὐτοῖς· αἱ γὰρ συνθῆκαι διὰ τριῶν τελοῦνται, λόγων, ἔργων, χειρῶν, λόγων μὲν, οἱον δι’ ὅρκων, ἔργων δὲ, διὰ τῶν ἐν βωμοῖς θυσιῶν, χειρῶν δὲ, ἐπειδὴ αἱ πίστεις διὰ τῶν δεξιῶν γίνονται. καὶ Ὅμηρος· Δεξιαὶ, ᾖς ἐπέπιθμεν. The passage in the Andromachè referred to by the scholiast occurs at v. 445, sqq. Cf. Thucyd. i. 101. v. 35. See above, Book i. chapter ii. Book ii. chapter viii. Footnote 213: M. Ant. Muret. Orat. xvii. p. 153. The achievement of the king is thus related by honest Mezeray: Numbers of Huguenots having collected together on the banks of the Seine his most Christian Majesty, from an apartment of the Louvre “taschoit de les canarder avec sa grande arquebuse à giboyer.” Abrégé Chronologique, iii. 1083. -----