They were, moreover, with all their plainness of manners and of life, of a very proud and lofty spirit. All agricultural toil, and every other species of manual labor in their state, were performed by a servile peasantry, while the free citizens, whose profession was exclusively that of arms, were as aristocratic and exalted in soul as any nobles on earth. People are sometimes, in our day, when money is so much valued, proud, notwithstanding their poverty. The Spartans were proud of their poverty itself. They could be rich if they chose, but they despised riches. They looked down on all the refinements and delicacies of dress and of living from an elevation far above them. They looked down on labor, too, with the same contempt. They were yet very nice and particular about their dress and military appearance, though every thing pertaining to both was coarse and simple, and they had slaves to wait upon them even in their campaigns. The Athenians were a totally different people. The leading classes in their commonwealth were cultivated, intellectual, and refined. The city of Athens was renowned for the splendor of its architecture, its temples, its citadels, its statues, and its various public institutions, which in subsequent times made it the great intellectual center of Europe. It was populous and wealthy. It had a great commerce and a powerful fleet. The Spartan character, in a word, was stern, gloomy, indomitable, and wholly unadorned. The Athenians were rich, intellectual, and refined. The two nations were nearly equal in power, and were engaged in a perpetual and incessant rivalry. [Illustration: FATE OF THE PERSIAN EMBASSADORS AT SPARTA.]