126 GREAT MEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 



in the days of Pericles and Caesar, is not more sharply marked 

 than is the difference between the ages of reproduction now and 

 then. 



For several hundred years Sparta was governed by the laws of 

 Lycurgus. These laws took children from their parents and reared 

 them in a gymnasium. At the age of thirty the men were per- 

 mitted to marry. The Spartan training related only to the phys- 

 ical, and as a consequence they developed the physique. The 

 mental development being neglected, the only great men produced 

 under the Lycurgan system were great generals. 



History tells us that in Athens the men usually married at the 

 age of thirty-five. In contradistinction to the practice in Sparta, 

 the Athenian youths were educated for generations, and the result 

 was that during the latter part of several hundred years of such 

 education we find the majority of the men who made Greece 

 famous. 



In examining the ancestry of famous Greeks I have been much 

 hampered by the lack of data. For Socrates I can find only that 

 he was the son of an artist and a mid-wife. In many other cases 

 I have the names of a long line of ancestors, but no dates that will 

 give the information I seek. I have, however, been able to find 

 enough to give a pretty clear idea of what occurred. 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



Alexander the Great is perhaps the most famous of Grecians, 

 but that is quite a different thing from being the man of greatest 

 mental ability. That in some respects he was mentally great there 

 can be no doubt, but the history of his excesses, his vanity, and 

 the circumstances under which his life ended show that he lacked 

 that stability which characterizes true mental greatness. He was 



