Comparison of Agis and Cleomenes and the Gracchi (1.1-1.2)

Now that I have brought this story of the Gracchi also to an end, it remains for me to take a survey of all four lives in parallel. As for the Gracchi, then, not even those who utterly revile and hate them on other grounds have ventured to deny that of all Romans they were best equipped by nature for the practice of virtue, and enjoyed a rearing and training which were preeminent;

but Agis and Cleomenes would appear to have had even sturdier natural gifts than theirs, in so far as, though they did not receive a correct training, and were reared in those customs and ways of living by which their elders had long ago been corrupted, they nevertheless made themselves leaders in simplicity and self-restraint.