20.4
And Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias, when an Athenian orator declared that the Lacedaemonians had no learning, said: True, we are indeed the only Hellenes who have learned no evil from you. And Archidamus, when some one asked him how many Spartans there were, replied: Enough, good Sir, to keep evil men away.
20.5
And even from their jests it is possible to judge of their character. For it was their wont never to talk at random, and to Jet slip no speech which did not have some thought or other worth serious attention. For instance, when one of them was invited to hear a man imitate the nightingale, he said: I have heard the bird herself. And another, on reading the epitaph:— Tyranny’s fires they were trying to quench when panoplied Ares Slew them; Selinus looked down from her gates on their death, said: The men deserved to die; they should have let the fires burn out entirely.
20.6
And a youth, when some one promised to give him game-cocks that would die fighting, said, Don’t do that, but give me some of the kind that kill fighting. Another, seeing men seated on stools in a privy, said: May I never sit where I cannot give place to an elder. The character of their apophthegms, then, was such as to justify the remark that love of wisdom rather than love of bodily exercise was the special characteristic of a Spartan.
21.1
Nor was their training in music and poetry any less serious a concern than the emulous purity of their speech, nay, their very songs had a stimulus that roused the spirit and awoke enthusiastic and effectual effort; the style of them was simple and unaffected, and their themes were serious and edifying. They were for the most part praises of men who had died for Sparta, calling them blessed and happy; censure of men who had played the coward, picturing their grievous and ill-starred life; and such promises and boasts of valour as befitted the different ages.
