Instituta Laconia

Plutarch

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

They worship Aphrodite in her full armour, and the statues of all the gods, both female and male, they make with spear in hand to indicate that all the gods have the valour which war demands.[*](Cf. the note on 232 d, supra.)

Those fond of proverbs are wont to quote this on occasion:

Yer ain hand use when Fortune ye would call,

thus indicating that calling on the gods for aid ought to be accompanied by effort and action on one’s own part, or else they should not be invoked.[*](Cf. Leutsch and Schneidewin, Paroemiographie Graeci, ii. p. 653, for the ancient versions of God helps those who help themselves; also Babrius, Fabulae, no. 20.)

They used to make the Helots drunk and exhibit them to the young as a deterrent from excessive drinking.[*](Cf.Moralia, 455 e; Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxviii. (57 a); Life of Demetrius, chap. i. (889 a); Plato, Laws, 816 e; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, iii. chap. viii. ad init. (41. 5); Diogenes Laertius, i. 103.)