“Victorious,” said he. “Willingly, then,” said she, “do I hear of the death of my sons.” Another, when burying her son, was commiserated by an old woman, who cried out, “Oh, your fate!” “Yes, by the gods,” said she, “a glorious fate, for did not I bear him that he might die for Sparta?” And their courage was not merely of a daring and physical character. It was a moral courage. A Spartan had been wounded in battle and compelled to crawl on all fours; he seemed to feel ashamed of the awkwardness of his position. “How much better it is,” said his mother, “to rejoice on account of bravery, than be ashamed on account of ignorant laughter!” It might be supposed that the peculiar training to which the women were subjected might make them licentious and forward, but the testimony is strong that no such results followed from free intercourse with the young men. Adultery was almost entirely unknown. Plutarch[27] tells the story that a stranger asked Geradas, one of the very old Spartans, what punishment their law appointed for adulterers. He answered, “O stranger, there is no adulterer in our country.” The stranger said, “What if there should be one?” “He pays a fine,” says Geradas, “of a bull so large that stooping over Taygetus it will drink out of the Eurotas.” When the stranger expressed his surprise, and said, “But how could there ever be so large a bull?” Geradas replied, with a smile, “And how could there ever be an adulterer in Sparta?” This language is perhaps too strong, and there were certain practices allowable which would not be allowed in our communities. The one object of marriage was to produce strong children, and any deviation from the ordinary arrangement by which one woman was married to one man was not only deemed legitimate, but praiseworthy if it secured strong children. In this way a weak man might lend his wife to a stronger, and some women had two husbands. There is only one case on record of a Spartan having two wives, and the case was singular. A greater latitude must have been allowed to women. But all these cases must have been quite exceptional. The wives were true to their husbands, the husbands fond and proud of their wives. A poor maiden was asked what dowry she could give to her lover. “Ancestral purity,” she said. A person was sent to try to persuade a Lacedæmonian woman to aid in some evil practice. “When I was a girl,” she said, “I was taught to obey my father, and I obeyed him; and when I became a wife I obeyed my husband; if, therefore, you have anything just to urge, make it known to him first.”