Moreover, the young men were required not only to respect their own fathers and to be obedient to them, but to have regard for all the older men, to make room for them on the streets, to give up their seats to them, and to keep quiet in their presence. As the result of this custom each man had authority, not as in other states over his own children, slaves, and property, but also over his neighbour’s in like manner as over his own, to the end that the people should, as much as possible, have all things in common, and should take thought for them as for their own. Cf. the note on Moralia , 232 b (3), supra . When a boy was punished by anybody, if he told his father, it was a disgrace for his father, upon hearing this, not to give him another beating; for they had confidence one in another, as the result of their ancestral discipline, that no one had ordered their children to do anything disgraceful. Cf. Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta , 6. 2. The boys steal whatever they can of their food, learning to make their raids adroitly upon people who are asleep or are careless in watching. The penalty for getting caught is a beating and no food. For the dinner allowed them is meagre, so that, through coping with want by their own initiative, they may be compelled to be daring and unscrupulous. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus , chap. xvii. (50 e); Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta , ii. 6-9; Isocrates, The Panathenaicus , 211-214; Heracleides Ponticus, Frag. ii. 8, in Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. p. 211. This was the object of the starvation diet. It was meagre both for the reasons given and purposely that the youth should never become accustomed to being sated, but to being able to go without food; for in this way, the Spartans thought, the youth would be more serviceable in war if they were able to carry on without food, and they would be more self-controlled and more frugal if they lived a very considerable time at small expense. And to put up with the plainest diet, so as to be able to consume anything that came to hand, they thought made the youths’ bodies more healthy owing to the scanty food, repressed in any impulse towards thickness and breadth, to grow tall, and also to make them handsome; for a spare and lean condition they felt served to produce suppleness, while an overfed condition, because of too much weight, was against it. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus , chap. xvii. (51 a) and Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta , 2. 5-6. Unfortunately the text of both passages is none too good. They were no less seriously concerned over their music and their songs. These contained a stimulus to awaken a spirit of pride and to afford an inspiring and effective impulse. Their language was simple and plain, consisting merely of praise of those who had lived noble lives, and had died for Sparta, and are now counted among the blessed, and also censure of those who had played the coward, and now, presumably, are living a tormenting and ill-fated existence; and therewith profession and boasting in regard to valour, such as was fitting for the different periods of life.