Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

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.)