Apophthegmata Laconica

When the Spartans had taken by storm a certain city, the Ephors said, Gone is the wrestlingschool of our young men; they no longer will have competitors. [*](The last clause looks like an explanatory comment. Pantazides would omit it.)

When their king promised to wipe out completely another city which, as it happened, had given much trouble to the Spartans, they would not allow it, saying, You must not abolish nor remove the whetstone of our youth.

They appointed no trainers to instruct in wrestling so that the rivalry might be not in skill, but in courage. [*](Cf.Moralia, 639 F, and Plutarch’s Life of Pelopidas, chap. vii. (281 B).) This is the reason why Lysanoridas, when he was asked how Charon had conquered him, said, By his great resourcefulness.

Philip wrote at the time when he entered their country, asking whether they wished that he should come as a friend or as a foe; and they made answer, Neither.

They sent an ambassador to Antigonus, son of Demetrius, and, upon learning that the ambassador had addressed Antigonus as King, they fined him, although he had brought for each one of them a bushel and a half of wheat at a time when there was great scarcity of food.

When Demetrius complained that they had

When a bad man brought in a very good idea, they accepted it; but they took it away from him and bestowed the right of proposing it upon another man who had lived a virtuous life. [*](Cf.Moralia, 41 B, and 801 B; Aeschines, Against Timarchus, 180-181; Philo Judaeus, The Worse Plotting against the Better, 195 B; Aulus Gellius, xviii. 3.)