Their food is bread and water, with very little meat, and they are never allowed to taste wine or vegetables.

Indeed at times they are deprived of food and drink for some days, simply to accustom them to privations.

When the court is at Ecbatana or Pasargadae, and the weather is bitterly cold, they are sure to be taken out to bathe, and here in Susa, the hotter the sun, the longer and more difficult the marches they are compelled to take." [The summer residences of the kings cf Persia, where it is sometimes very cold.

Ecbatana lies at the foot of the high Elburs (Orontes) range of mountains in the neighborhood of the modern Hamadan; Pasargadae not far from Rachmet in the highlands of Iran] "And these boys, so simply and severely brought up, become in after life such luxurious men ?" "Yes, that is always the case.

A meal that has been waited for is all the more relished when it comes.