Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

He was sent as an ally to the king of the Egyptians, and was shut up in camp, together with the king, besieged by hostile forces which many times outnumbered their own. As the enemy were digging a ditch around the encampment, the king urged a sally and a decisive battle, but Agesilaus refused to hinder the enemy in their desire to put themselves on an equal footing with the defending force. When the ends of the ditch almost met, he drew up his men at this gap, and contending with equal numbers against equal numbers won a victory. [*](Cf. Moralia, 214 F, infra; Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus, chap. xxxix. (618 A); Polyaenus, Strategemata, ii. 1. 22; Diodorus, xv. 93.)

When he was dying he gave orders that his friends have no plaster or paint used, for this was the way he spoke of statues and portraits. For, said he, if I have done any noble deed, that is my memorial; but if none, then not all the statues in the world avail. [*](Cf. Moralia, 215 A, infra; Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus, chap. ii. (59 F); Xenophon, Agesilaus, ii. 7; Dio Chrysostom, Oration, xxxv. (466 M., 127 R.); Cicero, Letters, v. 12. 7.)

Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, on seeing the missile shot by a catapult, which had been brought then for the first time from Sicily, cried out, Great Heavens ! Man’s valour is no more ! [*](Cf. Moralia, 219 A, infra.)

The Younger Agis, referring to the assertion of Demades that jugglers use the Spartan swords for

When the Ephors ordered him to turn over soldiers to a traitor to lead, he said that he did not entrust another’s men to the man that betrayed his own. [*](Attributed to Agis II. in Moralia, 215 C.)

Somebody promised to give to Cleomenes cocks that would die fighting, but he retorted, No, don’t, but give me those that kill fighting. [*](Cf. Moralia, 224 B, infra, and Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xx. (52 E).)