Apophthegmata Laconica

When the ambassadors of the Samians spoke at great length, the Spartans said to them, We hae forgot the first part, and the later part we did na ken because we hae forgot the first.[*](Cf.Moralia, 216 A (15) supra. )

When a speaker extended his remarks to a great length, and then asked for answers to report to his citizens, they said, Report that you found it hard to stop speaking and we to listen. [*](Cf.Moralia, 216 A (15), supra. )

In answer to the Thebans who were disputing with them over some matters, they said, You should have less pride or more power. [*](Cf.Moralia, 218 E (8), supra. )

A Spartan, being asked why he wore his beard so very long, said, So that I may see my grey hairs and do nothing unworthy of them.

Another, in answer to the inquiry, Why do you use short swords? said, So that we may get close to the enemy.

When someone was praising the Argive warriors, a Spartan said, Yes, at Troy! [*](A thousand years before.)

Another, being told that some people after dining are forced to drink, [*](Perhaps because the reference is to the expression πρὸς βίαν πίνειν found in Alcaeus (No. 20 in Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 156), Sophocles (Frag. 669 Nauck) and Aristophanes (Acharnians, 73). Cf. also Menander, The Arbitrants, lines 4-5 (in L.C.L. p. 18) where the same words are used.) said, What, and are they forced to eat also?

When Pindar wrote, [*](Frag. No. 76 (ed. Christ).)

Athens the mainstay of Greece,

Someone on seeing a painting in which Spartans were depicted being slain by Athenians, kept repeating, Brave, brave Athenians. A Spartan cut in with, Yes, in the picture!

To a man who was listening avidly to some spitefully slanderous remarks a Spartan said, Stop being so generous with your ears against me! [*](Cf. the similar remark of Simonides quoted in Stobaeus, Florilegium, ii. 42.)

To a man who was being punished, and kept saying, I did wrong unwillingly, someone retorted, Then take your punishment unwillingly.

Someone, seeing men seated on stools [*](Not in Sparta, of course.) in a privy, said, God forbid that I should ever sit where it is not possible to rise and yield my place to an older man. [*](As in Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xx. (52 F).)

When some Chians, on a visit to Sparta, vomited after dinner in the hall of the Ephors, and befouled with ordure the very chairs in which the Ephors were wont to sit, the Spartans, first of all, instituted a vigorous investigation, lest possibly these might be citizens; but when they learned that they were, in fact, Chians, they caused public proclamation to be made that The Spartans grant permission to the Chians to be filthy. [*](A similar story is told of Clazomenians by Aelian, Varia Historia, ii. 15.)

When someone saw almonds of the hard sort [*](Cf., for example, Athenaeus, 53 A.) selling at double the price of others, he said, Are stones so scarce?

A man plucked a nightingale and finding almost no meat, said, It’s all voice ye are, and nought else. [*](Vox et praeterea nihil.)

One of the Spartans saw Diogenes the Cynic holding his arms around a bronze statue in very cold weather, [*](A part ofh is self-imposed training to inure himself to cold, as in the summer he used to roll in the hot sand to inure himself to heat, according to Diogenes Laertius, vi. 23.) and asked Diogenes if he were cold; and when Diogenes said No, the other said,What great thing are you doing then?

One of the people of Metapontum, being reproached for cowardice by a Spartan, [*](Possibly Cleonymus (Diodorus, xx. 104).) said,But as a matter of fact we have not a little of the country of other states; whereupon the Spartan replied, Then you are not only cowardly, but also unjust.

A man who was visiting Sparta stood for a long time upon one foot, and said to a Spartan, I do

When a man boasted greatly of his art in speaking, a Spartan said, By Heaven, there is no art nor can there be an art without a firm hold on truth. [*](In almost the same words in Plato, Phaedrus, 260 E.)

When an Argive said once upon a time, There are many tombs of Spartans in our country, a Spartan said, But there is not a single tomb of an Argive in our country, indicating by this that the Spartans had often set foot in Argos, but the Argives had never set foot in Sparta. [*](Cf. Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus, chap. xxxi. (613 D).)