GetPassage urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg082.perseus-eng3:38.6-42.2 urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg082.perseus-eng3:38.6-42.2

When someone pointed out to him a wall, and inquired if it was strong and high, he said, Is it not a place where women live? Cf. the note on 190 A, supra. This paragraph is not found in some MSS.

THORYCION

Thorycion, arriving from Delphi and seeing in the Isthmus the forces of Philip, who had already gained possession of the narrow entrance, said, The Peloponnesus has poor gate-keepers in you, men of Corinth!

THECTAMENES

Thectamenes, when the Ephors condemned him to death, went away smiling. Someone among the bystanders asked him if he felt such contempt for the laws of Sparta. No, said he, but I rejoice to think that I must pay this penalty myself without begging or borrowing anything from anybody. Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 42 (100).

HIPPODAMUS The attempt has been made to identify Hippodamus with the Hippodamus mentioned in Athenaeus, 452 A and in Polyaenus, Strategemata, ii. 15, and, by emendation, to reconcile this passage with the time of Agis IV.; but both Agis II. and Agis III. had fathers named Archidamus, and it is quite possible that the incident of sending away from danger the old man and the young heir to the throne took place as here narrated.

Hippodamus, when Agis was taking his place on the field of battle beside Archidamus, was sent with Agis to Sparta to render his services there. But look you, said he, I shall meet no more honourable death than in playing the part of a brave man for Sparta’s sake. (He was over eighty years old.) And thereupon, seizing his arms and taking his stand at the king’s right hand, he fell fighting.

HIPPOCRATIDAS The name occurs in Herodotus, viii. 131, as one of the earlier kings of Sparta.

This is the answer of Hippocratidas to the governor of Caria who wrote a letter to him because a man from Sparta had been privy to the plot of certain conspirators, and had said nothing about it; and the governor added a line, asking how he should deal with him. Hippocratidas wrote in reply: If you have done him any great favour, put him to death; but if not, expel him from your country, for he is a poltroon so far as any virtue is concerned.

When a youth with a lover in attendance met him one day, and turned colour, he said, You ought to walk with persons such that when you are seen with them you shall keep the same complexion.