'SPARTAN' SAYINGS


Agesilaos (Eurypontid King, 400-360)

• When he was still a boy, at a celebration of the Gymnopaidai, the Choral director put him in an inconspicuous position. Even though he was already in line to become king, he complied, and remarked: 'That's fine, for I shall show that it isn't positions which lend men distinction, but men who enhance positions.'

Damatria

• After hearing her son was a coward and unworthy of her, Damatria kiled him when he made his appearance. This is the epigram about her:
  Damatrius who broked the laws was killed by his mother--
  She a Spartan lady, he a Spartan youth.

Gorgo (daughter of Cleomenes I, born ~506. Married Leonidas I)

• When asked by a woman from Attica: 'Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?', she said: 'Because we are also the only ones who give birth to men.'

Leonidas (Agiad King, 491-480, Killed at Battle of Thermopylae)

• When Xerxes wrote again: 'Deliver up your arms,' he wrote back: 'Come and take them.'

• He passed the word to his soldiers to eat breakfast in the expectation that they would be having dinner in Hades.