Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

The Younger Agis, referring to the assertion of Demades that jugglers use the Spartan swords for

swallowing because of their small size, said, But it is a fact that the Spartans, above all men, reach their enemies with their swords. [*](Cf. Moralia, 216 C, infra, and Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xix. (51 E).)

When the Ephors ordered him to turn over soldiers to a traitor to lead, he said that he did not entrust another’s men to the man that betrayed his own. [*](Attributed to Agis II. in Moralia, 215 C.)