Book 12
15
And Timæus relates concerning them, that a citizen of Sybaris once going into the country, seeing the husbandmen digging, said that he himself felt as if he had broker his bones by the sight; and some one who heard him replied, I, when I heard you say this, felt as if I had a pain in my side. And once, at Crotona, some Sybarites were standing by some one of the athletes who was digging up dust for the palæstra, and said they marvelled that men who had such a city had no slaves to dig the palæstra for them. But another Sybarite, coming to Lacedæmon, and being invited to the phiditium, sitting down on a wooden seat and eating with them, said that originally he had been surprised at hearing of the valour of the Lacedæmonians; but that now that he had seen it, he thought that they in no respect surpassed other men: for that the greatest coward on earth would rather die a thousand times than live and endure such a life as theirs.
