53.29
The Spartans gave particular attention to their hair, recalling a saying of Lycurgus in reference to it, that it made the handsome more comely and the ugly more frightful. Cf. the note on Moralia, 189 E (1), supra.
53.30
He gave instructions that in war, when they had put the enemy to flight and had gained a victory, they should continue the pursuit only far enough to make their success assured, and then return immediately; for he said that it was neither a noble trait nor a Greek trait to slay those who had yielded, and this policy was not only honourable and magnanimous, but useful as well; for the opposing army, knowing that they customarily spared those who surrendered, but made away with those who resisted, would regard it as more profitable to flee than to stay. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxii. (54 A); Thucydides, v. 73; Polyaenus, Strategemata, i. 16. 3.
53.31
When somebody inquired why he forbade spoiling the enemy’s dead, he said, So that the soldiers may not, by looking about covertly for spoil, neglect their fighting, but also that they may keep to their poverty as well as to their post. Cf. Moralia, 224 B (16), supra.
LYSANDER
54.1
When Dionysius, the despot of Sicily, sent costly garments for Lysander’s daughters, he would not accept them, saying that he was afraid that because of them his daughters would appear ugly rather than beautiful. Cf. the note on Moralia, 190 E (1), supra. But a little later, when he was sent as ambassador to the same despot from the same State, Dionysius sent to him two robes and bade him choose whichever one of them he would, and take it to his daughter; but Lysander said that she herself would make a better choice, and, taking them both, he departed.
