Consequently virtue, honour nobility, and glory fall at the onset within the field of competition, which is that of play. The life of the young warrior of noble birth is a continual exercise in virtue and a continual struggle for the sake of the honour of his rank.
Training for aristocratic living leads to training for life in the State and for the State. Here too areteh is not as yet entirely ethical. It still means above all the fitness of the citizen for one’s tasks in the polis, and the idea it originally contained of exercise by means of contests still retains much of its old weight.
That nobility is based on virtue is implicit from the very beginning of both concepts and right through their evolution, only the meaning of virtue changes as civilization (urbanisation –H.L.) unfolds. Gradually the idea of virtue acquires another content, it rises to the ethical and religious plane. The nobility, who once lived up to their ideal of virtue merely by being brave and vindicating their honour, must now, if they are to remain true to their tasks and to themselves, either enrich the ideal of chivalry by assimilating into it those higher standards of ethics an religion (an attempt which usually turned out lamentably enough in practice!) or else content themselves with cultivating an outward semblance of high living and spotless honour by means of pomp, magnificence, and courtly manners. The ever-present play-element, originally a real factor in the shaping of their culture, has now become mere show and parade.