Lacaenarum Apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

Being asked by a woman from Attica, Why is it that you Spartan women are the only women that lord it over your men, she said, Because we are the only women that are mothers of men.[*](Cf.Moralia, 227 e, supra, and the note.)

As she was encouraging her husband Leonidas, when he was about to set out for Thermopylae, to show himself worthy of Sparta, she asked what she should do; and he said, Marry a good man, and bear good children.[*](Cf.Moralia, 225 a (2), supra.)