Thus no time was left unemployed, and no place was left without some one to give good advice and punish wrong-doing; although a regular superintendent of the boys was appointed from the leading men of the city, and they had their own chiefs, who were the wisest and bravest of the Eirenes.  This is a name given to those who have begun their second year after ceasing to be children, and the eldest of the children are called Melleirenes.  This Eiren, who is twenty years old, commands his company in their battles, and in the house uses them as his servants to prepare dinner.  He orders the bigger boys to carry logs of wood, and the little ones to gather pot herbs.  They also bring him what they steal, which they do, some from the gardens, and some from the men’s dining-tables, where they rush in very cleverly and cautiously; for if one be taken, he is severely scourged for stealing carelessly and clumsily.  They also steal what victuals they can, learning to take them from those who are asleep or off their guard.  Whoever is caught is punished by stripes and starvation.  Their meals are purposely made scanty, in order that they may exercise their ingenuity and daring in obtaining additions to them.  This is the main object of their short commons, but an incidental advantage is the growth of their bodies, for they shoot up in height when not weighed down and made wide and broad by excess of nutriment.  This also is thought to produce beauty of figure; for lean and slender frames develop vigour in the limbs, whereas those which are bloated and over-fed cannot attain this, from their weight.  This we see in the case of women who take purgatives during pregnancy, whose children are thin, but well-shaped and slender, because from their slight build they receive more distinctly the impress of their mother’s form.  However, it may be that the cause of this phenomenon is yet to be discovered.

XVII.  The boys steal with such earnestness that there is a story of one who had taken a fox’s cub and hidden it under his cloak, and, though his entrails were being torn out by the claws and teeth of the beast, persevered in concealing it until he died.  This may be believed from what the young men in Lacedaemon do now, for at the present day I have seen many of them perish under the scourge at the altar of Diana Orthias.

After dinner the Eiren would recline, and bid one of the boys sing, and ask another some questions which demand a thoughtful answer, such as “Who is the best among men?” or “How is such a thing done?” By this teaching they began even in infancy to be able to judge what is right, and to be interested in politics; for not to be able to answer the questions, “Who is a good citizen?” or “Who is a man of bad repute?” was thought to be the sign of a stupid and unaspiring mind.  The boy’s answer was required to be well reasoned, and put into a small compass; he who answered wrongly was punished by having his thumb bitten by the Eiren.  Often when elders and magistrates were present the Eiren would punish the boys; if only he showed that it was done deservedly and with method, he never was checked while punishing, but when the boys were gone, he was called to account if he had done so either too cruelly or too remissly.