When a child was born, if it did not give promise of being physically strong and perfect, it was cast into a ravine and then left to perish.  When the boys who were permitted to live were seven years old, they were taken from their mothers and made to endure cold, hunger, and inhuman severities.  They were beaten until the blood flowed, simply to teach them endurance, and a Spartan boy would die under the lash rather than endure the disgrace of uttering a cry of pain.  There was never any family life, nor pleasure.

Every boy was trained to be a soldier; and until he was sixty years old the man belonged to the State absolutely.  And all those years he ate his black broth at a public mess, seasoned only with fatigue and hunger.  A witty Athenian said he did not wonder the Spartans were brave in battle, for death was preferable to their life.

The severe code of laws by which they were governed was established by Lycurgus, about 770 B.C. (before Christ).

Athens had her days of severity and cruelty, too, under Draco, who established her first laws.  But the people rebelled, and in 594 B.C.  Solon, a man of great sagacity, prepared a constitution, which was a model of wisdom, justice, and even of gentleness.  The government established by Solon was an aristocratic Republic, in which the common people had no part.  The Chief, or Archon, as he was called, was chosen by the nobles, and served for a stated time, like our Presidents.

But the supreme authority lay in the “Court of Areopagus,” whose members had already served as Archons.  The Areopagus really ruled the State, a Senate of four hundred members preparing the cases which were to be brought before it for decision.

Athens prospered under this rule.  But an ambitious noble stirred the people to believe they were unjustly excluded from office and from power, and produced a new government, which, under the cloak of a democracy, was really a despotism, with the scheming Pisistratus at its head, or, as it was called, its “Tyrant” (meaning simply ruler).

But Lycurgus did something else besides placing an austere and merciless system upon Sparta.  He helped to re-establish the famous and ancient Olympic Games (776 B.C.).

You know how we feel about our great baseball and football games; how excited we are, and how glad or how sorry if one team or the other is defeated.  Well, suppose, instead of these, there was one great game every four years, in which all the country could compete.  And suppose the victor in this great game was crowned and treated like a king forever afterward.  That would be what the Olympic Games were in Greece.

Every four years the young Greeks from all parts of the country met at Olympia and contended for prizes in athletic games.  There was running, jumping, wrestling, boxing, the throwing of javelins and quoits (the “discus"), and races of horses and chariots.  For one month, during this great festival, wars were suspended throughout Greece.