Apophthegmata Laconica
Plutarch
Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).
In answer to those who said that some members of the other royal house [*](The Spartans had wo kings and consequently two royal families.) were jealous of him he said, So then, their own ill fortune will make them miserable and, besides that, the good fortune of myself and of my friends.
When someone proffered the advice that they ought to give a passage-way to those of the enemy who were fleeing, [*](This was a part of the tactics of Agesilaus according to Polyaenus, Strategemata, ii. 1. 4. Cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, iv. 2. 22 and iv. 3. 19.) he said, And how, if we do not
fight those who because of cowardice are fleeing, shall we fight those who because of bravery stand their ground?When someone brought forward a plan, for the freedom of the Greeks, which, while not lacking idealism, was difficult to put into practice, he said, Your words, my friend, need the backing of power and money. [*](The same idea which is expressed in Moralia, 212 E (56), supra. )
When someone said that Philip would make Greece forbidden ground to them, he said, It is quite enough, my friend, for us to go and come within the confines of our own land. [*](This remark must have been made by the younger Agis (Agis III.))
An ambassador who had come from Perinthus to Sparta made a long harangue; and when he had stopped speaking and asked Agis what report he should make to the people of Perinthus, Agis said, What else except that it was hard for you to stop speaking, and that I said nothing? [*](Cf.Moralia, 232 E (2), infra. )
He came alone on an embassy to Philip, and when Philip exclaimed, What is this? Have you come all alone?, he said, Yes, for I came to only one man. [*](This remark also must be assigned to the younger Agis, Cf. Moralia, 233 (29), infra, and 511 A, where an unnamed Spartan makes this retort to Demetrius.)
When one of the elderly men said to him in his old age, inasmuch as he saw the good old customs falling into desuetude, and other mischievous prae tices creeping in, that for this reason everything was getting to be topsy-turvy in Sparta, Agis said humorously, Things are then but following a logical course if that is what is happening; for when I was a boy, I used to hear from my father that everything was topsy-turvy among them; and my father said that,
when he was a boy, his father had said this to him; so nobody ought to be surprised if conditions later are worse than those earlier, but rather to wonder if they grow better or remain approximately the same. [*](The latter part of this has been suspected on account of the length. For the sentiment Cf. Homer, Od. 276-277; Horace, Odes, iii. 6. 46; Aratus, Phaenomena, 123-127.)Being asked how one could be a free man all his life, he said, By feeling contempt for death. [*](Cf.Moralia, 210 F (35), supra. )