Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

To Simonides, who petitioned for a legal decision which was not just, he said that Simonides would not be a good poet if he sang out of tune, nor should he himself be a useful official if he gave a decision out of tune with the law. [*](Cf. Moralia, 534 E and 807 B.)

Of his son, who was pert towards his mother, he said that the boy wielded more power than anybody else in Greece; for the Athenians ruled the Greeks, he himself ruled the Athenians, the boy’s mother ruled himself, and the boy ruled the mother. [*](Cf. Moralia, 1 C; Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 B); and Life of Cato Major, chap. viii. (340 B).)

Of the suitors for his daughter’s hand he esteemed the man of promise higher than the man of wealth, saying that he was looking for a man that was in need of money rather than for money that was in need of a man.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 c); Cicero, De officiis, ii. 20 (71); Valerius Maximus, vii. 2, ext. 9. A somewhat similar remark is attributed to Pericles by Stobaeus, Florilegium, lxx. 17, and to a Spartan (on the authority of Serenus), lxxii. 15.)

When he offered a plot of land for sale, he ordered the announcement to be made that it also had a good neighbour. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 C).)

When the Athenians treated him with contumely, he said, Why do you grow tired of being well served many times by the same men ? He also likened himself to the plane-trees, beneath which men hasten when overtaken by a storm, but, when fair weather comes, they pluck the leaves as they pass by and break off the branches. [*](Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 A), and chap. xxii. (123 A); Cf. also Aelian, Varia Historia, ix. 18.)