These regulations about poetry, and about military expeditions, apply equally to men and to women.
The legislator may be conceived to make the following address to himself:--With what object am I training my citizens?
Are they not strivers for mastery in the greatest of combats?
Certainly, will be the reply.

And if they were boxers or wrestlers, would they think of entering the lists without many days' practice?
Would they not as far as possible imitate all the circumstances of the contest; and if they had no one to box with, would they not practise on a lifeless image, heedless of the laughter of the spectators?
And shall our soldiers go out to fight for life and kindred and property unprepared, because sham fights are thought to be ridiculous?
Will not the legislator require that his citizens shall practise war daily, performing lesser exercises without arms, while the combatants on a greater scale will carry arms, and take up positions, and lie in ambuscade?
And let their combats be not without danger, that opportunity may be given for distinction, and the brave man and the coward may receive their meed of honour or disgrace.

If occasionally a man is killed, there is no great harm done--there are others as good as he is who will replace him; and the state can better afford to lose a few of her citizens than to lose the only means of testing them.
'We agree, Stranger, that such warlike exercises are necessary.' But why are they so rarely practised?
Or rather, do we not all know the reasons?
One of them (1) is the inordinate love of wealth.

This absorbs the soul of a man, and leaves him no time for any other pursuit.

Knowledge is valued by him only as it tends to the attainment of wealth.