How then are we to reconcile these seeming contradictions? Probably by supposing, that the Mothaces consisted, first of the sons of such Spartans as were too poor to defray the expenses of their maintenance and education,[236] which seems to have been the case with Aristocritos, the father of Lysander, whose early indigence is celebrated; secondly of bastard Spartans, who it is well known shared the education of their legitimate brethren; and thirdly, of the sons of persons of rank and distinction among the Periœci. To these perhaps, in very late times, the sons of favourite slaves born in the house may have been added, though there is no ground for believing that this was habitually the case in the earlier ages. Be this, however, as it may, it seems to be quite evident, that Lycurgus laid much less stress on “birth and blood” than on that steadiness and patience of toil which are the first qualities of a soldier. Whoever from childhood upward gave proof of these, by submitting unmurmuringly to the rigorous trial he enjoined the youth of Sparta, was elevated in the end to the rank of a citizen, while they who shrunk from the severity of his discipline, according to some even though they had descended from the blood royal, sunk into a state of degradation or were even confounded with the Helots.[237] Foreigners who enjoyed the privileges of this system of instruction received among the Lacedæmonians the name of Trophimoi. ----- Footnote 236: Cf. Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 2. 15, where the regulations of the Persian system are evidently mere copies of those which prevailed, at least in earlier ages, at Sparta. Plut. Institut. Lac. § 21, seq. Müller, Dor. ii. 314, seq. Footnote 237: Teles, ap. Stob. Florileg. Tit. 40. 8. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ οὐδὲν τῶν τοιούτων ὄνειδος ἡγοῦνται· ἀλλὰ τὸν μὲν μετασχόντα τῆς ἀγωγῆς καὶ ἐμμείναντα, κἂν ξένος, κἂν ἐξ εἵλωτας, ὁμοίως τοῖς ἀριστοῖς τιμῶσι· τὸν δὲ μὴ ἐμμείναντα, κἂν ἐξ αὐτοῦ τοῦ βασιλέως εἰς τοὺς εἵλωτας ἀποστέλλουσι, καὶ τῆς πολιτείας ὁ τοιοῦτος οὐ μετέχει. The testimony of Dion Chrysostom (Orat. xxxvi. t. ii. p. 92), as we have seen above, is in direct contradiction with this of Teles; but if we suppose them to speak of different periods of Spartan history, they may both be right. ----- Of the Epeunactæ, a peculiar class of freedmen, we have the following curious account: Having in the Messenian war lost a number of Spartans, the government began to apprehend that the enemy might discover its weakness; to conceal which a Helot was substituted in the place of every fallen warrior. Shortly afterwards these men were raised to the rank of citizens and denominated Epeunactæ, because they occupied the beds (εὐναι) of other men.[238] ----- Footnote 238: Athen. vi. 101. -----