The poet Tyrtaeus (you know his poems in Crete, and my Lacedaemonian friend is only too familiar with them)--he was an Athenian by birth, and a Spartan citizen:--'Well,' he says, 'I sing not, I care not about any man, however rich or happy, unless he is brave in war.' Now I should like, in the name of us all, to ask the poet a question.

Oh Tyrtaeus, I would say to him, we agree with you in praising those who excel in war, but which kind of war do you mean ?--that dreadful war which is termed civil, or the milder sort which is waged against foreign enemies?
You say that you abominate 'those who are not eager to taste their enemies' blood,' and you seem to mean chiefly their foreign enemies.

'Certainly he does.' But we contend that there are men better far than your heroes, Tyrtaeus, concerning whom another poet, Theognis the Sicilian, says that 'in a civil broil they are worth their weight in gold and silver.' For in a civil war, not only courage, but justice and temperance and wisdom are required, and all virtue is better than a part.

The mercenary soldier is ready to die at his post; yet he is commonly a violent, senseless creature.

And the legislator, whether inspired or uninspired, will make laws with a view to the highest virtue; and this is not brute courage, but loyalty in the hour of danger.