Apophthegmata Laconica

Plutarch

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

In answer to some of the citizens who desired to know, How can we keep off any invasion by enemies, he said, If you remain poor, and no one of you desires to be more important than another. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xix. (52 B).)

And at another time, when they raised a question about fortifications, he said that a city is not unfortified whose crowning glory is men and not bricks and stones. [*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 210 E (29), supra. )