Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

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).)