Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

He asked for money from the citizens, and, when they began to murmur, he said that he was asking for it with the intent to repay, and he did repay it when the war was over.

At a party a lyre was passed around, and the

others, one after the other, tuned it and sang, but the king ordered his horse to be led in, and nimbly and easily leapt upon its back.[*](Cf. Themistocles’ boast, to which he resorted in self-defence under similarly embarrassing circumstances, in Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. ii. (112 C).)

Hiero, who succeeded Gelo as despot, used to say that not one of the persons who spoke frankly to him chose the wrong time.

He felt that those who divulged a secret committed a serious offence also against those to whom they divulged it; for we hate, not only those who divulge such things, but also those who hear what we do not wish them to hear.

On being reviled by someone for his offensive breath, he blamed his wife for never having told him about this; but she said, I supposed that all men smelled so. [*](Cf. Moralia 90 B, and Lucian, Hermotimus, 34. Aristotle tells the same story of Gelon according to Stobaeus, Florilegium, v. 83.)