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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: duly performed the injunctions of the law, the city belonged to them,
each and all, in absolute possession and on an equal footing. Weakness
of limb or want of wealth[5] was no drawback in his eyes. But as for
him who, out of the cowardice of his heart, shrank from the painful
performance of the law's injunction, the finger of the legistlator
pointed him out as there and then disqualified to be regarded longer
as a member of the brotherhood of peers.[6]
[5] But see Aristot. "Pol." ii. 9, 32.
[6] Grote, "H. G." viii. 81; "Hell." III. iii. 5.
It may be added, that there was no doubt as to the great antiquity of
this code of laws. The point is clear so far, that Lycurgus himself is
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