Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

Eudamidas, seeing Xenocrates, already well on in years, discussing philosophy with his pupils in the Academy, and being informed that he was seeking after virtue, said, And when will he make use of it? [*](Cf. Moralia, 220 D.)

At another time, after he had listened to a philosopher who argued that the wise man is the only good general, he said,The speech is admirable, but the speaker has never been amid the blare of trumpets. [*](Ibid., 220 D infra.)

Antiochus, when he was an ephor, heard that Philip had given to the Messenians their land, whereupon he asked whether Philip had also given them the power to prevail in fighting to keep it. [*](Repeated Ibid., 217 F.)

Antalcidas, retorting to the Athenian who called the Spartans unlearned, said, At any rate,

we alone have learned no evil from you Athenians. [*](Cf. Moralia, 217 D. The saying is attributed to Pleistoanax in Moralia, 231 D, and in Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xx. (52 D).)

When another Athenian said to him, You cannot deny that we have many a time put you to rout from the Cephisus, he said, But we have never put you to rout from the Eurotas ! [*](Cf. Moralia, 217 D and 810 F, Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus, chap. xxxi. (613 D). The Cephisus was a river near Athens, and the Eurotas a river near Sparta.)

When a lecturer was about to read a laudatory essay on Heracles, he said, Why, who says anything against him ? [*](Cf. Moralia, 217 D.)