ploy shifts and lie in ambuscade; he must
prepare and make ready his scouts, and so forth, if he is to succeed in
capturing the quarry. (16)

(15) See "Anab." IV. vi. 14.

(16) For the institution named the {krupteia}, see Plut. "Lycurg." 28
(Clough, i. 120); Plato, "Laws," i. 633 B; for the {klopeia}, ib.
vii. 823 E; Isocr. "Panathen." 277 B.

It is obvious, I say, that the whole of this education tended, and was
intended, to make the boys craftier and more inventive in getting in
supplies, whilst at the same time it cultivated their warlike instincts.
An objector may retort: "But if he thought it so fine a feat to steal,
why did he inflict all those blows on the unfortunate who was caught?"
My answer is: for the self-same reason which induces people, in other
matters which are taught, to punish the mal-performance of a service.
So they, the Lacedaemonians, visit penalties on the boy who is detected
thieving as being but a sorry bungler in the art. So to steal as many
cheeses as possible (off the shrine of Orthia (17)) was a feat to be
encouraged; but, at the same moment, others were enjoined to scourge the
thief, which would point a moral not obscurely, that by pain endured for
a brief season a man may earn the joyous reward of lasting glory. (18)
Herein, too, it is plainly shown that where speed is requisite the
sluggard will win for himself much trouble and scant good.

(17) I.e. "Artemis of the Steep"--a title connecting the goddess with
Mount Orthion or Orthosion. See Pausan. VIII. xxiii. 1; and for
the custom, see Themistius, "Or." 21, p. 250 A. The words have
perhaps got out of their right place. See Schneider's Index, s.v.

(18) See Plut. "Lycurg." 18; "Morals," 239 C; "Aristid." 17; Cic.
"Tusc." ii. 14.

Furthermore, and in order that the boys should not want a ruler, even
in case the pastor (19) himself were absent, he gave to any citizen who
chanced to be present authority to lay upon them injunctions for their
good, and to chastise them for any trespass committed. By so doing he
created in the boys of Sparta a most rare modesty and reverence. And
indeed there is nothing which, whether as boys or men, they respect more
highly than the ruler. Lastly, and with the same intention, that the
boys must never be reft of a ruler, even if by chance there were no
grown man present, he laid down the rule that in such a case the most
active of the Leaders or Prefects (20) was to become