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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: fully set forth, but where, too, each against other and in separate
camps, the rival parties train for victory. One day the superiority
shall be theirs; or, in the day of need, one and all to the last man,
they will be ready to aid the fatherland with all their strength.
Necessity, moreover, is laid upon them to study a good habit of the
body, coming as they do to blows with their fists for very strife's
sake whenever they meet. Albeit, any one present has a right to
separate the combatants, and, if obedience is not shown to the
peacemaker, the Pastor of youth[4] hales the delinquent before the
ephors, and the ephors inflict heavy damages, since they will have it
plainly understood that rage must never override obedience to law.
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