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Of course, very fashionable people kept nurses, and it was the highest tone at Athens to have a Spartan nurse for the infant, just as an English nurse is sought out among foreign noblesse. We are told that these women made the child hardier, that they used less swathing and bandaging, and allowed free play for the limbs; and this, like all the Spartan physical training, was approved of and admired by the rest of the Greek public, though its imitation was never suggested save in the unpractical speculations of Plato.

Whether they also approved of a diet of marrow and mutton suet, which Homer, in the passage just cited, considers the luxury of princes, does not appear. As Homer was the Greek Bible—an inspired book containing perfect wisdom on all things, human and divine—there must have been many orthodox parents who followed his prescription. But we hear no approval or censure of such diet. Possibly marrow may have represented our cod-liver oil in strengthening delicate infants. But as the Homeric men fed far more exclusively on meat than their historical successors, some vegetable substitute, such as olive oil, must have been in use later on. Even within our memory mutton suet boiled in milk was commonly recommended by physicians for the delicacy now treated by cod-liver oil. The supposed strengthening of children by air and exposure, or by early neglect of their comforts, was as fashionable at Sparta as it is with many modern theorists, and it probably led in both cases to the same result—the extinction of the weak and delicate. These theorists parade the cases of survival of stout children—that is, their exceptional soundness—as the effect of this harsh treatment, and so satisfy themselves that experience confirms their views. Now with the Spartans this was logical enough, for as they professed and desired nothing but physical results, as they despised intellectual qualities, and esteemed obedience to be the highest of moral ones, they were perhaps justified in their proceeding. So thoroughly did they advocate the production of healthy citizens for military purposes that they were quite content that the sickly should die. In fact, in the case of obviously weak and deformed infants, they did not hesitate to expose them in the most brutal sense, not to cold and draughts, but to the wild beasts in the mountains.