Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

When he was hit in the leg by an arrow, and many of those who were oftentimes wont to hail him as a god hurried up to him, he, relaxing his countenance, said, This is blood, as you see, and not

Ichor, like that which flows from the wounds of the blessed Immortals.

[*](The story is often repeated: cf. for example, Moralia, 341 B; Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, champ. xxviii. (681 B); Diogenes Laertius, ix. 60; Dio Chrysostom, Oration xliv. (p. 498); Seneca, Epistulae Moral. vi. 7. 12.)

When some commended the frugality of Antipater, who, they said, lived a plain and simple life, he remarked, Outwardly Antipater is plain white, but within he is all purple. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Phocion, chap. xxix. (754 E).)