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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: detected by his miserable appearance; he is blotched and puffy, and
devoid of strength. This observation, I say, was not wasted on him. On
the contrary, turning it over in his mind that any one who chooses, as
a matter of private judgment, to devote himself to toil may hope to
present a very creditable appearance physically, he enjoined upon the
eldest for the time being in every gymnasium to see to it that the
labours of the class were proportional to the meats.[12] And to my
mind he was not out of his reckoning in this matter more than
elsehwere. At any rate, it would be hard to discover a healthier or
more completely developed human being, physically speaking, than the
Spartan. Their gymnastic training, in fact, makes demands alike on the
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