Laconic Apophthegms; or Remarkable Sayings of the Spartans. (54-57)

Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would to carry to his daughter, said, She can choose best; and so took both away with him. This Lysander being a very crafty fellow, frequently using subtle tricks and notable deceits, placing all justice and honesty in profit and advantage, would confess that truth indeed was better than a lie, but the worth and dignity of either was to be defined by their usefulness to our affairs. And to some that were bitter upon him for these deceitful practices, as unworthy of Hercules’s family, and owing his success to little mean tricks and not plain force and open dealing, he answered with a smile, When the lion’s skin cannot prevail, a little of the fox’s must be used. And to others that upbraided him for breaking his oaths made at Miletus he said, Boys must be cheated with cockal-bones, and men with oaths. Having surprised the Athenians by an ambush near the Goat Rivers and routed them, and afterwards by famine forced the city to surrender, he wrote to the Ephors, Athens is taken. When the Argives were in a debate with the Lacedaemonians about their confines and seemed to have the better reasons on their side, drawing his sword, he said, He that hath this is the best pleader about confines. Leading his army through Boeotia, and finding that state wavering and not fixed on either party, he sent to know whether he should march through their country with his spears up or down. At an assembly of the states of

Greece, when a Megarian talked saucily to him, he said, Sir, your words want a city. The Corinthians revolting, and he approaching to the walls that he saw the Spartans not eager to storm, while at the same time hares were skipping over the trenches of the town; Are not you ashamed (said he) to be afraid of those enemies whose slothfulness suffers even hares to sleep upon their walls? At Samothrace, as he was consulting the oracle, the priests ordered him to confess the greatest crime he had been guilty of in his whole life. What, said he, is this your own, or the God’s command? And the priests replying, The God’s; said he, Do you withdraw, and I will tell them, if they make any such demand. A Persian asking him what polity he liked, That, he replied, which assigns stout men and cowards suitable rewards. To one that said, Sir, I always commend you and speak in your behalf, — Well, said he, I have two oxen in the field, and though neither says one word, I know very well which is the laborious and which the lazy. To one that railed at him he said, Speak, sir, let us have it all fast, if thou canst empty thy soul of those wicked thoughts which thou seemest full of. Some time after his death, there happening a difference between the Spartans and their allies, Agesilaus went to Lysander’s house to inspect some papers that lay in his custody relating to that matter; and there found an oration composed for Lysander concerning the government, setting forth that it was expedient to set aside the families of the Europrotidae and Agidae, to admit all to an equal claim, and choose their king out of the worthiest men, that the crown might be the reward not of those that shared in the blood of Hercules, but of those who were like him for virtue and courage, that virtue that exalted him into a God. This oration Agesilaus was resolved to publish, to show the Spartans how much they were mistaken in Lysander and to discredit his friends; but they say, Cratidas the president of the Ephors fearing this oration, if published, would prevail upon the people, advised Agesilaus to be quiet, telling him that he should not dig up Lysander, but rather bury that oration with him, being so cunningly contrived, so powerful to persuade. Those that courted his daughters, and when at his death he appeared to be poor forsook them, the Ephors fined, because whilst they thought him rich they caressed him, but scorned him when by his poverty they knew him to be just and honest.

Namertes being on an embassy, when one of that country told him he was a happy man in having so many friends, asked him if he knew any certain way to try whether a man had many friends or not; and the other being earnest to be told, Namertes replied, Adversity.

Nicander, when one told him that the Argives spake very ill of him, said, Well, they suffer for speaking ill of good men. And to one that enquired why they wore long hair and long beards, he answered, Because man’s natural ornaments are the handsomest and the cheapest. An Athenian saying, Nicander, you Spartans are extremely idle; You say true, he answered, but we do not busy ourselves like you in every trifle.

When Panthoidas was ambassador in Asia and some showed him a strong fortification, Faith, said he, it is a fine cloister for women. In the Academy, when the philosophers had made a great many and excellent discourses, and asked Panthoidas how he liked them; Indeed, said he, I think them very good, but of no profit at all, since you yourselves do not use them.