Apophthegmata Laconica

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

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,

a Spartan said that Greece was like to fall if it rested on any such mainstay as that!

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.)