Instituta Laconia

A thing that met with especial approval among them was their so-called black broth, so much so that the older men did not require a bit of meat, but gave up all of it to the young men. It is said that Dionysius, the despot of Sicily,[*](Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus, says one of the kings of Pontus. ) for the sake of this bought a slave who had been a Spartan cook, and ordered him to prepare the broth for him, sparing no expense; but when the king tasted it he spat it out in disgust; whereupon the cook said, Your Majesty, it is necessary to have exercised in the Spartan manner, and to have bathed in the Eurotas, in order to relish this broth.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xii. (46 e), when a slightly different version is given, as also in Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 34 (98), and Stobaeus, Florilegium, xxix. 100.)