[48]
For in the first place I am informed that in those
days the Lacedaemonians, like everyone else, would spend the four or five months
of the summer “season” in invading and laying waste the
enemy's territory with heavy infantry and levies of citizens, and would then
retire home again; and they were so old-fashioned, or rather such good
citizens,1
that they never used money to buy an advantage from anyone, but their fighting
was of the fair and open kind.
1 The Greek means true to the spirit of a free, constitutional state. Aristotle describes theπολιτικὸν πλῆθοςas one which is “naturally warlike and qualified to rule or be ruled according to laws which distribute offices by merit” （Aristot. Pol. 3.17.4）.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
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