ABSTRACT
The misrepresentation of the primitive hero as a wise and virtuous member of a civilised society reaches its height in the failure to understand the three chief words which sum up the constitution of the state: king, people and freedom. The heroes treated their own families no less harshly than the plebs. The education of children was stern, rough and cruel. The Spartans, in order that their sons might not fear pain and death, beat them within an inch of their lives in the temple of Diana, so that they often fell dead in agonies of pain beneath their father's blows. It was, in fine, a society immediately proceeding out of that of the gods, which as we know was the climax of the state of nature. The private law of this society corresponded closely with its economic constitution.
