2
A thing that met with especial approval among them was their so-called black broth, so much so that the older men did not require a bit of meat, but gave up all of it to the young men. It is said that Dionysius, the despot of Sicily,Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus, says one of the kings of Pontus. for the sake of this bought a slave who had been a Spartan cook, and ordered him to prepare the broth for him, sparing no expense; but when the king tasted it he spat it out in disgust; whereupon the cook said, Your Majesty, it is necessary to have exercised in the Spartan manner, and to have bathed in the Eurotas, in order to relish this broth. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xii. (46 e), when a slightly different version is given, as also in Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 34 (98), and Stobaeus, Florilegium, xxix. 100.
3
The Spartans, after drinking in moderation at their public meals, go away without a torch. In fact, they are not permitted to walk with a light either on this route or on any other, so that they may become accustomed to travelling in darkness at night confidently and fearlessly. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xii. (46 f); Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 5. 7; Plato, Minos, 320 a.
4
They learned to read and write for purely practical reasons; but all other forms of education they banned from the country, books and treatises being included in this quite as much as men. All their education was directed toward prompt obedience to authority, stout endurance of hardship, and victory or death in battle. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xvi. (50 b); Isocrates, Panathenaicus, 209.
5
They always went without a shirt, receiving one garment for the entire year, and with unwashed bodies, refraining almost completely from bathing and rubbing down. Life of Lycurgus, 50 c; Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 2. 4; Justinus, Historiae Philippicae, iii. 3. 5.
