Apophthegmata Laconica

In answer to the man who was insistent that he establish a democracy in the State Lycurgus said, Do you first create a democracy in your own house. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 189 E (2), supra. )

When someone inquired why he ordained such small and inexpensive sacrifices to the gods, he said, So that we may honour the Divine powers without ceasing. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 172 B, supra. )

As he permitted the citizens to engage only in that kind of athletic contests in which the arm is not held up, [*](As a sign of defeat; Cf. E. Norman Gardiner, Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals, (London, 1910), p. 415.) somebody inquired what was the reason.

When someone asked why he ordered a frequent change of camping-place, he said,So that we may inflict greater injury upon our enemies. [*](Cf. Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 12. 5.)

When someone sought to know why he forbade assaults on walled places, he said, So that valiant men may not suffer death at the hands of a woman or a child or some such person. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, 477 D. As a matter of fact, the Spartans were quite without ability to attack a walled town, as is clear from Herodotus, ix. 70, and Thucydides, i. 102.)

When some of the Thebans advised with him in regard to the sacrifice and the lamentation which they perform in honour of Leucothea, he advised them that if they regarded her as a goddess they should not bewail her, but if they looked upon her as a woman they should not offer sacrifice to her as to a goddess. [*](This saying of Xenophanes seems to have been attributed by someone to Lycurgus. Cf. Moralia, 171 E, 379 B, and 763 C; also Aristotle, Rhetoric, ii. 23. 27.)

In answer to some of the citizens who desired to know, How can we keep off any invasion by enemies, he said, If you remain poor, and no one of you desires to be more important than another. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xix. (52 B).)

And at another time, when they raised a question about fortifications, he said that a city is not unfortified whose crowning glory is men and not bricks and stones. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 210 E (29), supra. )

The Spartans gave particular attention to their hair, recalling a saying of Lycurgus in reference to it,

He gave instructions that in war, when they had put the enemy to flight and had gained a victory, they should continue the pursuit only far enough to make their success assured, and then return immediately; for he said that it was neither a noble trait nor a Greek trait to slay those who had yielded, and this policy was not only honourable and magnanimous, but useful as well; for the opposing army, knowing that they customarily spared those who surrendered, but made away with those who resisted, would regard it as more profitable to flee than to stay. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxii. (54 A); Thucydides, v. 73; Polyaenus, Strategemata, i. 16. 3.)

When somebody inquired why he forbade spoiling the enemy’s dead, he said, So that the soldiers may not, by looking about covertly for spoil, neglect their fighting, but also that they may keep to their poverty as well as to their post. [*](Cf.Moralia, 224 B (16), supra. )

When Dionysius, the despot of Sicily, sent costly garments for Lysander’s daughters, he would not accept them, saying that he was afraid that because of them his daughters would appear ugly rather than beautiful. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 190 E (1), supra. ) But a little later, when he was sent as ambassador to the same despot from the same State, Dionysius sent to him two robes and bade him choose whichever one of them he would, and take it to his daughter; but Lysander said that

Lysander, who was a clever quibbler, and given to employing cunning deceptions to further most of his designs, counted justice as mere expediency, and honour as that which is advantageous. He said that the truth is better than falsehood, but that the worth and value of either is determined by the use to which it is put. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lysander, chap. vii. (437 A).)

In answer to those who blamed him because of his carrying out most of his designs through deception, which they said was unworthy of Heracles [*](The legendary ancestor of both lines of Spartan kings; Cf. Herodotus, vii. 204 and viii. 131.) and gaining his successes by wile in no straightforward way, he said laughing that where he could not get on with the lion’s skin it must be pieced out with the skin of the fox. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 190 E (2), supra. )

When others censured him for his violation of his oaths which he had made in Miletus he said that one must trick children with knuckle-bones, but men with oaths, [*](Repeated in Moralia, 330 F, where it is attributed to Dionysius; Moralia, 741 C; Diodorus, x. 9. 1; Dio Chysostom, Oration, lxxiv. (399 R., 640 M.); Polyaenus, Strategemata, i. 45. 3; and Aelian, Varia Historia, vii. 12, who says that some attribute it to Lysander, and others to Philip of Macedon.)

He conquered the Athenians by a ruse at Aegospotami, and by pressing them hard through famine he forced them to surrender their city, whereupon he wrote to the Ephors, Athens is taken. [*](According to Plutarch, Life of Lysander, chap. xiv. (441 B), the Ephors objected to the verbosity of the dispatch!)

In answer to the Argives, who were disputing with the Spartans in regard to the boundaries of their land and said that they had the better of the case,

Seeing that the Boeotians were wavering at the time when he was about to pass through their country he sent to them to inquire whether he should march through their land with spears at rest or ready for action. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lysander, chap. xxii. (445 D).)

When a Megarian in the common council used plain words to him, he said, My friend, your words need a city to back them. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 190 F (5), supra. )

When the Corinthians had revolted and he was going through their country along by the walls and saw that the Spartans were reluctant to attack, a hare was seen leaping across the ditch, whereupon he said, Are you not ashamed, men of Sparta, to be afraid of such enemies as these, who are so slack that hares sleep in the walls of their city? [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 190 E (4), supra. )