[16]
After these things had happened, the messenger who was sent to carry the news of the calamity to1 Lacedaemon arrived there on the last day of the festival of the Gymnopaediae,2 when the chorus of men was in the theatre. And when the ephors heard of the disaster, they were indeed distressed, as, I conceive, was inevitable; yet they did not withdraw the chorus, but suffered it to finish its performance. Further, although they duly gave the names of the dead to their several kinsmen, they gave orders to the women not to make any outcry, but to bear the calamity in silence. And on the following day one could see those whose relatives had been killed going about in public with bright and cheerful faces, while of those whose relatives had been reported as living you would have seen but few, and these few walking about gloomy and downcast.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 1 and 2. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. vol. 1:1918; vol. 2: 1921.
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