The Peloponnesian Dorians having, through contact with the more civilized peoples whom they conquered, lost much of that rigorous discipline and unquestioning loyalty which made them formidable, were, in the ninth century B.C., becoming disorganized, so that in two of the Dorian states they were assimilated by the native population, the Argives and the Messenians. The same process was rapidly going on in the third state, Lacedæmon, when Lycurgus, fired with patriotic zeal, resolved to put an end to it, by restoring among his people the old Dorian military discipline. To prepare himself for this task, he visited Crete and studied its institutions. On his return he persuaded his countrymen to submit to a "Constitution," which ever afterwards went by his name. This constitution included a scheme of education, whose aim was a thorough training of the whole of the free citizens, both male and female, (1) in physical endurance, and (2) in complete subordination to the State. The former was sought to be imparted by means of a rigorous and often cruel, system of gymnastics; the latter, through choric music and dancing, including military drill. Spartan education, therefore, was confined to two branches, Gymnastics and Music. Instruction in letters was confined to the merest elements. Sparta accordingly never produced a poet, an historian, an artist, or a philosopher of any note. Even the arrangers of her choruses were foreigners--Tyrtæus, Terpander, Arion, Alcman, Thaletas, Stesichorus. As Spartan education was nothing more or less than a training for Spartan citizenship, we must preface our account of it by a few words on the Spartan State. The government of Sparta was in the hands of a closed aristocracy, whose sole aim was the maintenance of its own supremacy, as against (1) foreign enemies, (2) _Perioikoi_, or disfranchised native citizens, (3) Helots, or native serfs. To secure this, it formed itself into a standing army, with a strict military organization. Sparta, its one abode, was a camp; all free inhabitants were soldiers. Though they were compelled to marry, the city contained no homes. The men and, from the close of their seventh year, the boys, lived in barracks and ate at public tables (_Phiditia_). The women had but one recognized function, that of furnishing the State with citizens, and were educated solely with a view to this. No other virtue was expected of them. Aristotle tells us that "they lived in every kind of profligacy and in luxury." Polyandry was common, and, when a woman lost all her husbands, she was often compelled to enter into relations with slaves, in order that she might not fail in her political duty.