Lycurgus (15.9-15.10)

as though children of bad stock did not show their badness to those first who possessed and reared them, and children of good stock, contrariwise, their goodness. The freedom which thus prevailed at that time in marriage relations was aimed at physical and political well-being, and was far removed from the licentiousness which was afterwards attributed to their women, so much so that adultery was wholly unknown among them.

And a saying is reported of one Geradas,[*] a Spartan of very ancient type, who, on being asked by a stranger what the punishment for adulterers was among them, answered: Stranger, there is no adulterer among us. Suppose, then, replied the stranger, there should be one. A bull, said Geradas, would be his forfeit, a bull so large that it could stretch over Mount Taÿgetus and drink from the river Eurotas. Then the stranger was astonished and said: But how could there be a bull so large? To which Geradas replied, with a smile: But how could there be an adulterer in Sparta? Such, then, are the accounts we find of their marriages.