see all that passed. As for
the virgins appearing naked, there was nothing disgraceful in it,
because everything was conducted with modesty, and without one indecent
word or action. Nay, it caused a simplicity of manners and an emulation
for the best habit of body; their ideas too were naturally enlarged,
while they were not excluded from their share of bravery and honour.
Hence they were furnished with sentiments and language, such as Gorgo
the wife of Leonidas is said to have made use of. When a woman of
another country said to her, "You of Lacedaemon are the only women in the
world that rule the men;" she answered, "We are the only women that
bring forth men."

These public dances and other exercises of the young maidens naked, in
sight of the young men, were, moreover, incentives to marriage: and, to
use Plato's expression, drew them almost as necessarily by the
attractions of love, as a geometrical conclusion follows from the
premises. To encourage it still more, some marks of infamy were set upon
those that continued bachelors. For they were not permitted to see these
exercises of the naked virgins; and the magistrates commanded them to
march naked round the market-place in the winter, and to sing a song
composed against themselves, which expressed how justly they were
punished for their disobedience to the laws. They were also deprived of
that honour and respect which the younger people paid to the old; so
that nobody found fault with what was said to Dercyllidas, though an
eminent commander. It seems, when he came one day into company, a young
man, instead of rising up and giving place, told him, "You have no child
to give place to me, when I am old."

In their marriages, the bridegroom carried off the bride by violence;
and she was never chosen in a tender age, but when she had arrived at
full maturity. Then the woman that had the direction of the wedding, cut
the bride's hair close to the skin, dressed her in man's clothes, laid
her upon a mattrass, and left her in the dark. The bridegroom, neither
oppressed with wine nor enervated with luxury, but perfectly sober, as
having always supped at the common table, went in privately, untied her
girdle, and carried her to another bed. Having stayed there a short
time, he modestly retired to his usual apartment, to sleep with the
other young men; and observed the same conduct afterwards, spending the
day with his companions, and reposing himself with them in the nig