Apophthegmata Laconica

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).)

A Spartan having been taken prisoner in war and put up for sale, when the crier said, I offer a Spartan for sale, stopped his mouth, saying, Cry a prisoner of war. [*](Cf.Moralia, 234 C (40), infra. )

One of the men serving in the army of Lysimachus, being asked by him whether he were not one of the Helots, said, Do you suppose that any Spartan would come to get the sixpence which you pay?

At the time when Thebans had conquered the Spartans at Leuctra and advanced to the river Eurotas itself, one of them, boasting, said, Where are the Spartans now? A Spartan who had been captured by them said, They are not here; otherwise you would not have come thus far.

At the time when the Athenians had surrendered their city, [*](At the close of the Peloponnesian war, 404 B.C. Samos had been the naval base for the Athenians during the preceding years.) they declared it was only right that Samos should be left to them, but the Spartans

Who does not own himself would Samos own.