Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

ARISTIDES. Aristides the Just always managed his offices himself, and avoided all political clubs, because power gotten by the assistance of friends was an encouragement to the unjust. When the Athenians were fully bent to banish him by an ostracism, an illiterate country fellow came to him with his shell, and asked him to write in it the name of Aristides. Friend, said he, do you know Aristides Not I, said the fellow, but I do not like his surname of Just. He said no more, but wrote his name in the shell and gave it him. He was at variance with Themistocles, who was sent on an embassy with him. Are you content, said he, Themistocles, to leave our enmity at the borders? and if you please we will take it up again at our return. When he levied an assessment upon the Greeks, he returned poorer by so much as he spent in the journey.

Aeschylus wrote these verses on Amphiaraus—

1. His shield no emblem bears; his generous soul
2. Wishes to be, not to appear, the best;
3. While the deep furrows of his noble mind
4. Harvests of wise and prudent counsel bear.[*](Σῆμα δ᾽οὐκ ἐπῆν κύκλωΟὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν ἄριστος ἀλλ᾽εἶναι θέλει,Βαθεῖαν ἄλοκα διὰ φρενὸς καρπούμενος,Ἐξ ἦς τὰ κεδνὰ βλαστάνει βοθλεύματα.Aesch. Sept. 591.Thus the passage stands in all MSS, of Aeschylus; but it is quoted by Plutarch in his Life of Aristides, § 3, with δίκαιος in the second verse in the place of ἄριστος. It has been plausibly conjectured, that the actor who spoke the part intentionally substituted the word δίκαιος as a compliment to Aristides, on seeing him in a conspicuous place among the spectators. See Hermann’s note on the passage in his edition of Aeschylus. (G.))

PERICLES. Whenever he entered on his command as general, while he was putting on his war-cloak, he used thus to bespeak himself: Remember, Pericles, you govern freemen, Grecians, Athenians. He advised the Athenians to demolish Aegina, as a dangerous eyesore to the haven of Piraeus. To a friend that wanted him to bear false witness and to bind the same with an oath, he said: I am a friend only as far as the altar. When he lay on his deathbed, he blessed himself that no Athenian ever went into mourning upon his account.

ALCIBIADES. Alcibiades while he was a boy, wrestling in a ring, seeing he could not break his adversary’s hold, bit him by the hand; who cried out, You bite like a woman. Not so, said he, but like a lion. He had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, that, said he, the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no farther with me. Coming into a school, he called for Homer’s Iliads; and when the master told him he had none of Homer’s works, he gave him a box on the ear, and went his way. He came to Pericles’s gate, and being told he was busy a preparing his accounts to be given to the people of Athens, Had he not better, said he, contrive how he might give no account at all? Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, he absconded, saying, that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it. But, said one, will you not trust your country with your cause? No, said he, nor my mother either, lest she mistake and cast a black pebble

LAMACHUS. Lamachus chid a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, Sir, said he, in war there is no room for a second miscarriage.

IPHICRATES. Iphicrates was despised because he was thought to be a shoemaker’s son. The exploit that first brought him into repute was this: when he was wounded himself, he caught up one of the enemies and carried him alive and in his armor to his own ship. He once pitched his camp in a country belonging to his allies and confederates, and yet he fortified it exactly with a trench and bulwark. Said one to him, What are ye afraid of? Of all speeches, said he, none is so dishonorable for a general, as I should not have thought it. As he marshalled his army to fight with barbarians, I am afraid, said he, they do not know Iphicrates, for his very name used to strike terror into other enemies. Being accused of a capital crime, he said to the informer: O fellow! what art thou doing, who, when war is at hand, dost advise the city to consult concerning me, and not with me? To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled him for his mean birth, My nobility, said he, begins in me, but yours ends in you. A rhetorician asked him in an assembly, who he was that he took so much upon him,—horseman, or footman, or archer, or shield-bearer. Neither of them, said he, but one that understands how to command all those.

TIMOTHEUS. Timotheus was reputed a successful general, and some that envied him painted cities falling under his net of their own accord, while he was asleep. Said Timotheus, If I take such cities when I am asleep, what do you think I shall do when I am awake? A confident

CHABRTAS. Chabrias said, they were the best commanders who best understood the affairs of their enemies. He was once indicted for treason with Iphicrates, who blamed him for exposing himself to danger, by going to the place of exercise, and dining at his usual hour. If the Athenians, said he, deal severely with us, you will die all foul and gut-foundered; I’ll die clean and anointed, with my dinner in my belly. He was wont to say, that an army of stags, with a lion for their commander, was more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag.

HEGESIPPUS. When Hegesippus, surnamed Crobylus (i.e. Top-knot), instigated the Athenians against Philip, one of the assembly cried out, You would not persuade us to a war? Yes, indeed, would I, said he, and to mourning clothes and to public funerals and to funeral speeches, if we intend to live free and not submit to the pleasure of the Macedonians.