obeyed, even as bees collect and rank themselves in order when their queen appears.  Sparta then had so much order and justice as to be able to supply her neighbours; and I cannot understand those who say that the Lacedaemonians “knew how to obey, but not how to rule;” nor that story of some one who said to king Theopompus that the safety of Sparta lay in her kings knowing how to rule.  “Rather,” he answered, “in her citizens knowing how to obey.”

They would not brook an incapable commander:  their very obedience is a lesson in the art of command; for a good leader makes good followers, and just as it is the object of the horse-breaker to turn out a gentle and tractable horse, so it is the object of rulers to implant in men the spirit of obedience.  But the Lacedaemonians produced a desire in other states to be ruled by them and to obey them; for they used to send embassies and ask not for ships or money or troops, but for one Spartan for a leader; and when they obtained him, they respected him and feared him, as, for instance, the Sicilians had Gylippus as a general, the people of Chalkidike had Brasidas, while Lysander and Kallikratidas and Agesilaus were made use of by all the Greeks in Asia Minor.  These men were called Regulators and Pacificators in each several state, and the whole city of Sparta was regarded as a school and example of orderly public life and of settled political institutions.  This was alluded to by Stratonikus when he said in jest that the Athenians ought to conduct mysteries and shows, the Eleans to be stewards at the games, and the Lacedaemonians to be beaten if the others did not do right.  This was not spoken seriously; but Antisthenes, the Sokratic philosopher, was serious when he said of the Thebans, who were in high spirits after their victory at Leuktra, that they were as pleased as schoolboys who had beaten their master.

XXXI.  Not that this was Lykurgus’s main object, that his country should dominate over as many other states as possible; but seeing that, in states as in individuals, happiness is derived from virtue and single-mindedness, he directed all his efforts to implant in his countrymen feelings of honour, self-reliance, and self-control.  These were also taken as the basis of their constitution by Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and all who have written with any success upon this subject.  But they have left mere dissertations; Lykurgus produced an inimitable constitution, confuted those who complained of the unreality of the ‘Essay on the True Philosopher,’ by showing them the spectacle of an entire city acting like philosophers, and thereby obtained for himself a greater reputation than that of any other Greek legislator at any period.  For this reason Aristotle says that he has less honour in Lacedaemon than he deserves, although his memory is greatly respected; for he has a temple, and they sacrifice to him every year as if he was a god.  It is also said that after his remains were carried