Apophthegmata Laconica

To the ambassadors from Samos who urged him to make war upon the despot Poly crates, and for this reason spoke at great length, he said, What you said at the beginning I do not remember; for that reason I do not comprehend the middle part; and the conclusion I do not approve. [*](Cf. Herodotus, iii. 46, and the note on 216 A (15), supra. The traditional date of the mission from Samos (525 B.C.) seems to early to fall within Cleomenes’s reign, but the chronology is uncertain.)

A certain pirate overran the country, and, when he was captured, said, I had not the means to provide subsistence for my soldiers; therefore, to

When a certain low fellow spoke ill of him, he said, So it is for this reason, is it, that you speak ill of everyone, that we, busied in defending ourselves, may not have time to speak of your baseness?

When one of the citizens said that the good king ought to be mild at all times and in every way, he remarked, Yes, but not to the extent of being despised.

When he was afflicted with a lingering illness, and began to give attention to mind-healers and seers, to whom formerly he had given no attention, someone expressed surprise. Why are you surprised? said he; for I am not now the same man that I was, and, not being the same man, I do not approve the same things. [*](For a similar change in the attitude of Pericles and of Bion Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Pericles, chap. xxxviii. (173 A) and Diogenes Laertius, iv. 54.)

When a public lecturer spoke at considerable length about bravery, he burst out laughing; and when the man said, Why do you laugh, Cleomenes, at hearing a man speak about bravery, and that, too, when you are a king? Because, my friend, he said, if it had been a swallow speaking about it, T should have done the same thing, but if it had been an eagle, I should have kept very quiet.