’You may be right, but I still incline to think that the Lacedaemonian lawgiver did well in forbidding pleasure, if I may judge from the result.  For there is no drunken revelry in Sparta, and any one found in a state of intoxication is severely punished; he is not excused as an Athenian would be at Athens on account of a festival.  I myself have seen the Athenians drunk at the Dionysia—­and at our colony, Tarentum, on a similar occasion, I have beheld the whole city in a state of intoxication.’  I admit that these festivals should be properly regulated.  Yet I might reply, ’Yes, Spartans, that is not your vice; but look at home and remember the licentiousness of your women.’  And to all such accusations every one of us may reply in turn:—­’Wonder not, Stranger; there are different customs in different countries.’  Now this may be a sufficient answer; but we are speaking about the wisdom of lawgivers and not about the customs of men.  To return to the question of drinking:  shall we have total abstinence, as you have, or hard drinking, like the Scythians and Thracians, or moderate potations like the Persians?  ‘Give us arms, and we send all these nations flying before us.’  My good friend, be modest; victories and defeats often arise from unknown causes, and afford no proof of the goodness or badness of institutions.  The stronger overcomes the weaker, as the Athenians have overcome the Ceans, or the Syracusans the Locrians, who are, perhaps, the best governed state in that part of the world.  People are apt to praise or censure practices without enquiring into the nature of them.  This is the way with drink:  one person brings many witnesses, who sing the praises of wine; another declares that sober men defeat drunkards in battle; and he again is refuted in turn.  I should like to conduct the argument on some other method; for if you regard numbers, there are two cities on one side, and ten thousand on the other.  ’I am ready to pursue any method which is likely to lead us to the truth.’  Let me put the matter thus:  Somebody praises the useful qualities of a goat; another has seen goats running about wild in a garden, and blames a goat or any other animal which happens to be without a keeper.  ‘How absurd!’ Would a pilot who is sea-sick be a good pilot?  ‘No.’  Or a general who is sick and drunk with fear and ignorant of war a good general?  ’A general of old women he ought to be.’  But can any one form an estimate of any society, which is intended to have a ruler, and which he only sees in an unruly and lawless state?  ‘No.’  There is a convivial form of society—­is there not?  ‘Yes.’  And has this convivial society ever been rightly ordered?  Of course you Spartans and Cretans have never seen anything of the kind, but I have had wide experience, and made many enquiries about such societies, and have hardly ever found anything right or good in them.  ’We acknowledge our want of experience, and desire to learn of you.’  Will you admit that in all societies there must be a leader?