Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

Antalcidas, retorting to the Athenian who called the Spartans unlearned, said, At any rate,

we alone have learned no evil from you Athenians. [*](Cf. Moralia, 217 D. The saying is attributed to Pleistoanax in Moralia, 231 D, and in Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xx. (52 D).)

When another Athenian said to him, You cannot deny that we have many a time put you to rout from the Cephisus, he said, But we have never put you to rout from the Eurotas ! [*](Cf. Moralia, 217 D and 810 F, Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus, chap. xxxi. (613 D). The Cephisus was a river near Athens, and the Eurotas a river near Sparta.)

When a lecturer was about to read a laudatory essay on Heracles, he said, Why, who says anything against him ? [*](Cf. Moralia, 217 D.)

While Epameinondas the Theban was general, panic never fell upon his troops.

He used to say that the most beautiful death was death in war.

He used to declare that the heavy-armed soldier ought to have his body trained not only by athletic exercises but by military drill as well. [*](Cf. Cornelius Nepos, Epaminondas, xv. 2. 4 and 5.) For this reason he always showed a repugnance towards fat men, and one such man he expelled from the army, saying that three or four shields would scarce serve to protect his belly, because of which he could not see a thing below it. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of M. Cato, chap. ix. (341 C).)