_Corpulence a Crime._--Mr. Bruce has written, in his _Classic and Historic
Portraits_, that the ancient Spartan paid as much attention to the rearing
of men as the cattle dealers in modern England do to the breeding of
cattle. They took charge of firmness and looseness of men's flesh; and
regulated the degree of fatness to which it was lawful, in a free state,
for any citizen to extend his body. Those who dared to grow too fat, or too
soft for military exercise and the service of Sparta, were soundly whipped.
In one particular instance, that of Nauclis, the son of Polytus, the
offender was brought before the Ephori, and a meeting of the whole people
of Sparta, at which his unlawful fatness was publicly exposed; and he was
threatened with perpetual banishment if he did not bring his body within
the regular Spartan compass, and give up his culpable mode of living; which
was declared to be more worthy of an Ionian than a son of Lacedæmon.