Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

294 STANDISH O GRADY
her own Taygetus. Then the hour arrived, and the
moment, and the word of command from the Ephoralty,
and Sparta went^—like a thunderboU.
The issue of the war for Mardonius and his 300,000
Persians was at that moment as sure as the fate of a heron
held in chase by an eagle. The fate of Mardonius was
sealed.
" You speak of the Spartan Empire,
"
The phrase is
new to me. What was its extent ?
About the size of our County Mayo.
" But it must have had vast wealth derived from com-
merce and manufacturing industries to support such a
power."
No. Not a seaport. No exports or imports at all.
" You speak of their Laws as if known and familiar to
all. I suppose they were writtten out and the MSS.
studied in the schools."
No. They were not written at all. They were alive,
in men's hearts. No one in the Empire was able to read
or write. The Ephors may have had a slave as their
foreign secretary ; I don't think they had.
" The Spartans were uneducated ? "
Yes ; all illiterates. They would have been excluded
from our polling booths, and from Australia. There
was not a Primary School amongst them or an Inter-
mediate, or a University. And the mothers of the
60,000 had been, as girls, brought up in a similar state of
ignorance.
" I think you cannot be quite serious."
I am.