grace and magnanimity and courage and endurance and love of toil and desire
of glory and ambition of the Lacedaemonians--in all these respects you will
see that you are but a child in comparison of them. Even in the matter of
wealth, if you value yourself upon that, I must reveal to you how you
stand; for if you form an estimate of the wealth of the Lacedaemonians, you
will see that our possessions fall far short of theirs. For no one here
can compete with them either in the extent and fertility of their own and
the Messenian territory, or in the number of their slaves, and especially
of the Helots, or of their horses, or of the animals which feed on the
Messenian pastures. But I have said enough of this: and as to gold and
silver, there is more of them in Lacedaemon than in all the rest of Hellas,
for during many generations gold has been always flowing in to them from
the whole Hellenic world, and often from the barbarian also, and never
going out, as in the fable of Aesop the fox said to the lion, 'The prints
of the feet of those going in are distinct enough;' but who ever saw the
trace of money going out of Lacedaemon? And therefore you may safely infer
that the inhabitants are the richest of the Hellenes in gold and silver,
and that their kings are the richest of them, for they have a larger share
of these things, and they have also a tribute paid to them which is very
considerable. Yet the Spartan wealth, though great in comparison of the
wealth of the other Hellenes, is as nothing in comparison of that of the
Persians and their kings. Why, I have been informed by a credible person
who went up to the king (at Susa), that he passed through a large tract of
excellent land, extending for nearly a day's journey, which the people of
the country called the queen's girdle, and another, which they called her
veil; and several other fair and fertile districts, which were reserved for
the adornment of the queen, and are named after her several habiliments.
Now, I cannot help thinking to myself, What if some one were to go to
Amestris, the wife of Xerxes and mother of Artaxerxes, and say to her,
There is a certain Dinomache, whose whole wardrobe is not worth fifty