Apophthegmata Laconica

Plutarch

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

Once upon a time, when he was passing through Selinus in Sicily, he saw inscribed upon a monument this elegiac couplet: Here at Selinus these men, who tyrc.nny strove to extinguish, Brazen-clad Ares laid low; nigh to our gates were they slain. Whereupon he said, You certainly deserved to die for trying to extinguish tyranny when it was ablaze; rather you ought to have let it burn itself out completely. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xx. (52 E).)