Plato, Laws,

Book 1, section 633b (original) (raw)

[633b]

Megillus
The third thing he devised was hunting: so I and every Lacedaemonian would say.

Athenian
Let us attempt also to state what comes fourth,—and fifth too, if possible.

Megillus
The fourth also I may attempt to state: it is the training, widely prevalent amongst us, in hardy endurance of pain, by means both of manual contests and of robberies carried out every time at the risk of a sound drubbing; moreover, the “Crypteia,”1 as it is called, affords a wonderfully severe training

1 Or “Secret Service.” Young Spartans policed the country to suppress risings among the Helots.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.

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