Apophthegmata Laconica

Cleombrotus, the son of Pausanias, when a man from abroad was disputing with Cleombrotus’s father about excellence, said, My father is a better man than you — until you too have become a father. [*](Cf.Moralia, 227 F (14), infra, and Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xv. (48 C).)

Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, said that Homer was the poet of the Spartans, and Hesiod of the Helots; for Homer had given the necessary directions for fighting, and Hesiod for farming. [*](Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, xiii. 19.)

Having made an armistice of seven days with the Argives, he kept a watch on them, and on the third night, when they were sleeping because of their reliance on the truce, he attacked them, and slew some and took the others prisoners. [*](Cf. Cicero, De officiis, i. 10 (33). Herodotus, vi. 78-79 (followed by other writers), relates that Cleomenes defeated the Argives by a different.)

When he was reproached for his violation of his oath, he said that he had not included the nights as well as the days in his plighted word; and anyway, whatever ill one can do to one’s enemies is regarded, among both gods and men, as something vastly higher than justice. [*](For the phrase Cf. Euripides, Electra, 584; and Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, no. 758.)

It was his fortune to be repulsed from Argos, to gain which he had violated the truce, owing to the women’s taking down the weapons in the shrines and defending themselves against him with these. [*](Cf. Moralia, 245 D, infra; Pausanias, ii. 20. 8; Polyaenus, viii. 33.) Later he went out of his mind, and, getting hold of a small dagger, he slashed himself, beginning with his ankles until he reached the vital parts, and thus departed this life laughing and grinning. [*](Cf. Herodotus, vi. 75 and 84; Athenaeus, 427 C; Aelian, Varia Historia, ii. 41. His madness was traditionally ascribed to over-indulgence in strong drink.)

The seer tried to dissuade him from leading his army against the city of the Argives, for the return, he said, would be made in disgrace. But when Cleomenes had advanced near the city, and saw the gates closed and the women upon the walls, he said, Does it seem to you that the return from here can be made in disgrace, where, since the men are dead, the women have barred the gates?