Pelopidas (1.3-1.4)

On these grounds, too, as it would seem, a man of Sybaris said it was no great thing for the Spartans to seek death in the wars in order to escape so many hardships and such a wretched life as theirs. But to the Sybarites, who were dissolved in effeminate luxury, men whom ambition and an eager quest of honour led to have no fear of death naturally seemed to hate life;

whereas the virtues of the Lacedaemonians gave them happiness alike in living or dying, as the following elegy testifies: These, it says, died,

not deeming either life or death honourable in themselves,

But only the accomplishment of them both with honour.