Note 814 — Chapter VIII · CONQUESTS OF SPARTA TOWARDS ARCADIA AND ARGOLIS.
Reading edition
Xenoph. Repub. Lac. 10, 8. ἐπαινοῦσι μὲν πάντες τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐπιτηδεύματα, μιμεῖσθαι δὲ αὐτὰ οὐδεμία πόλις ἐθέλει.
The magnificent funeral discourse, pronounced by Periklês in the early part of the Peloponnesian war over the deceased Athenian warriors, includes a remarkable contrast of the unconstrained patriotism and bravery of the Athenians, with the austere, repulsive, and ostentatious drilling to which the Spartans were subject from their earliest youth; at the same time, it attests the powerful effect which that drilling produced upon the mind of Greece (Thucyd. ii. 37-39). πιστεύοντες οὐ ταῖς παρασκευαῖς τὸ πλέον καὶ ἀπάταις, ἢ τῷ ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἐς τὰ ἔργα εὐψύχῳ· καὶ ἐν ταῖς παιδείαις οἱ μὲν (the Spartans) ἐπιπόνῳ ἀσκήσει εὐθὺς νέοι ὄντες τὸ ἀνδρεῖον μετέρχονται, etc.
The impression of the light troops, when they first began to attack the Lacedæmonian hoplites in the island of Sphakteria, is strongly expressed by Thucydidês (iv. 34),—τῇ γνώμῃ δεδουλωμένοι ὡς ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, etc.