362 PHILOPCEMEX.

not unalloyed with feelings of personal rivalry and re- sentment. He made Epaminondas his great example, and came not far behind him in acti-aty, sagacity, and incorruptible integrity; but his hot contentious temper continually carried him out of the bounds of that gentle- ness, composure, and humanity which had marked Epam- inondas, and this made him thought a pattern rather of military than of civil virtue. He was strongly inclined to the Kfe of a soldier even from his childhood, and he stud- ied and practised all that belonged to it, taking great delight in managing of horses, and handhng of weapons. Because he was naturally fitted to excel in wrestling, some of his friends and tutors recommended his attention to athletic exercises. But he would first be satisfied whether it would not interfere with his becoming a good soldier. They told him, as was the truth, that the one life was directl}^ opposite to the other ; the requisite state of body, the ways of living, and the exercises all different : the professed athlete sleeping much, and feeding plentifully, punctually regular in his set times of exercise and rest, and apt to spoil all by every little excess, or breach of his usual method ; whereas the soldier ought to train himself in every variety of change and irregularity, and, above all, to bring himself to endure hunger and loss of sleep without difficulty. Philopcemen, hearing this, not only laid by all thoughts of wrestling and con- temned it then, but when he came to be general, dis- couraged it b}' all marks of reproach and dishonor he could imagine, as a thing which made men, otherwise ex- cellently fit for war, to be utterly useless and imable to fight on necessary occasions. When he left off his masters and teachers, and began to bear anus in the inciu'sions which his citizens used to make upon the Lacedfemonians for pillage and plunder, he would always march out the first, and return the last.