5.15
An ambassador who had come from Perinthus to Sparta made a long harangue; and when he had stopped speaking and asked Agis what report he should make to the people of Perinthus, Agis said, What else except that it was hard for you to stop speaking, and that I said nothing? Cf. Moralia, 232 E (2), infra.
5.16
He came alone on an embassy to Philip, and when Philip exclaimed, What is this? Have you come all alone?, he said, Yes, for I came to only one man. This remark also must be assigned to the younger Agis, Cf. Moralia, 233 (29), infra, and 511 A, where an unnamed Spartan makes this retort to Demetrius.
5.17
When one of the elderly men said to him in his old age, inasmuch as he saw the good old customs falling into desuetude, and other mischievous prae tices creeping in, that for this reason everything was getting to be topsy-turvy in Sparta, Agis said humorously, Things are then but following a logical course if that is what is happening; for when I was a boy, I used to hear from my father that everything was topsy-turvy among them; and my father said that, when he was a boy, his father had said this to him; so nobody ought to be surprised if conditions later are worse than those earlier, but rather to wonder if they grow better or remain approximately the same. The latter part of this has been suspected on account of the length. For the sentiment Cf. Homer, Od. 276-277; Horace, Odes, iii. 6. 46; Aratus, Phaenomena, 123-127.
5.18
Being asked how one could be a free man all his life, he said, By feeling contempt for death. Cf. Moralia, 210 F (35), supra.
THE YOUNGER AGIS Agis III., king of Sparta, 338-331 B.C.
6.1
The younger Agis, when Demades said that the jugglers who swallow swords use the Spartan swords because of their shortness, retorted, But all the same the Spartans reach their enemies with their swords. Cf. the note on 191 E (1).
6.2
In answer to a base man who asked repeatedly who was the best Spartan, he said, The one most unlike you. Cf. the note on 190 D (4).
