Note 29 — Chapter III · THE SPARTAN WOMEN.

Plato shows his approbation by adopting the questionable features into his own ideal commonwealth. “Then,” he says, “let the wives of our guardians strip, having virtue for their robe.... And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising in gymnastics for the sake of the highest good, his laughter is ‘A fruit of unripe wisdom,’ which he gathers, and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about; for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings—that the useful is the noble, and the hurtful the base.”—‘Rep.’ v. p. 457 (Professor Jowett’s translation). Plato discusses the objections to the Spartan method in ‘Legg.’ i. p. 637 C.; vi. p. 781 A.; vii. p. 806 C.; p. 814 A.; and tacitly in ‘Rep.’ viii. p. 548.