13
ANACHARSIS No doubt, Solon; and laughing and gibing, into the bargain; for I see that all these things which you have enumerated—the perfection, the condition, the beauty, the daring—are being wasted for you without any great object in view, since your country is not in peril nor your farm-lands being ravaged, nor your friends and kinsmen insolently carried off. So the competitors are all the more ridiculous if they are the flower of the country, as you say, and yet endure so much for nothing, making themselves miserable and defiling their beautiful, great bodies with sand and black eyes to get possession of an apple and an olive-branch when they have won! You see, I like to keep mentioning the prizes, which are so fine! But tell me, do all the contestants get them?
13
SOLON Not by any means; only one among them all, the victor. ANACHARSIS Then do so many undergo hardships upon the uncertain and precarious chance of winning, Solon, knowing too that there will surely be but one winner and very many losers, who, poor fellows, will have received blows and in some cases even wounds for nothing?
14
SOLON It seems, Anacharsis, that you have never yet done any thinking about the proper way to direct a state; otherwise you would not disparage the best of institutions. If ever you make it your object to find out how a state is to be organized in the best way possible, and how its citizens are to reach the highest degree of excellence, you will then praise these exercises and the rivalry which we display in regard to them, and you will know that they have . much that is useful intermingled with the hardships, even if you now think our energy is spent on them for nothing.
