Apophthegmata Laconica

Plutarch

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

At another time when some sought to know why he had ordained that the people should use only an axe in putting a roof on their houses, and make a

door with a saw only and none of the other tools, he said, So that the citizens may be moderate in regard to all the things which they bring into the house, and may possess none of the things which are the cause of rivalry among other peoples. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xiii. (47 C), and Moralia, 189 E (3), supra. )

It was because of this custom also that their first king Leotychidas, dining at somebody’s house [*](In Corinth, according to Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xiii. (47 C); Cf. also Moralia, 189 E, supra, and the note.) and observing the construction of the ceiling, which was expensive and embellished with panels, asked his host if timbers grew square in their country!