Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

Teleclus the king answered his brother, who complained against the citizens because they conducted themselves with less consideration towards him than towards the king, by saying, The reason is that you do not know how to submit to injustice. [*](Repeated in Moralia, 232 B, infra; cf. also the similar remark of Chilon reported in Diogenes Laertius, i. 68, and the general statement in Menander’s Farmer, Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 29, Menander no. 95; or Allinson’s Menander in L.C.L., p. 338.)

When Theopompus was in a certain city, a man pointed out the wall to him and inquired if it seemed to him to be beautiful and high, and he replied, It isn’t a dwelling-place for women, is it ? [*](Cf. Moralia, 221 F. The remark in varied form is attributed to Agesilaus in Moralia, 212 E; to Agis in Moralia, 215 D; and to Panthoidas in Moralia, 230 C; and to an unnamed Spartan by Valerius Maximus, iii. 7, ext. 8.)

When the allies said in the Peloponnesian war it was only right that Archidamus set a limit to their contributions, he said, War does not feed on fixed rations. [*](Repeated in Moralia, 219 A, and in Plutarch’s Life of Crassus, chap. ii. (544 B); and Life of Cleomenes, chap. xxvii. (817 E). In his Life of Demosthenes, chap. xvii. (853 E), the saying is put in the mouth of Crobylus (i.e. Hegisippus the Athenian orator). See the note on Moralia, 187 E, supra. )

Brasidas caught a mouse among some dry figs, and, getting bitten, let it go. Then, turning to those who were present, he said, There is nothing so small that it cannot save its life, if it has the courage to defend itself against those who would lay hand on it. [*](Repeated in Moralia, 79 E and 219 C, and with some variation, 208 F.)

In a battle he was wounded by a spear which pierced his shield, and, pulling the weapon out of the wound, with this very spear he slew his foe. Asked how he got his wound, he said, ’twas when my shield turned traitor. [*](Cf. Moralia, 219 C, infra, and 548 B.)

When it came to pass that he fell while trying

to win independence for the Greeks who were living within the borders of Thrace, and the envoys sent to Sparta approached his mother,[*](Argileonis (Moralia, 219 D, 270 C, infra). ) her first question was whether Brasidas had died honourably. And when the Thracians spoke of him in the highest terms, and said that there would never be another like him, she said, Ye ken naught aboot it, being from abraid; for Brasidas was e’en a guid mon, but Sparta has mony a better mon than him. [*](Repeated in Moralia, 219 D and 240 C, and in Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxv. (55 D).)