Ancient Spartans were famous with their fierce warriors, harsh military and state ethos, epic victories and courage. But there is yet another trait which makes them unique in whole Ancient Greece: their laconic, bitterly witty way of speaking. Today I shall share some samples compiled from some ancient sources. This is really going to be the Sparta.
A messenger returned to Sparta from a battle. The women clustered around. To one, the messenger said, “Mother, I bring sad news: your son was killed facing the enemy.” The mother said, “He is my son.” “Your other son is alive
and unhurt,” said the messenger. “He fled from the enemy.” The mother said, “He is not my son.”
A different messenger returned from a battle and was hailed by a Spartan mother: “How fares our country, herald?” The messenger burst into tears. “Mother, I pity you,” he said. “All five of your sons have been killed facing
the enemy.” “You fool!” said the woman. “I did not ask of my sons. I asked whether Sparta was victorious!” “Indeed, Mother, our warriors have prevailed.” “Then I am happy,” said the mother, and she turned and walked home.
Two warriors, brothers, were fleeing from the enemy back toward the city. Their mother happened to be on the road and saw them running toward her. She lifted her skirts above her waist. “Where do you two think you’re
running? Back here from whence you came?”
A Spartan colonel, a man in his fifties, was accused of accepting bribes in an overseas command. When his mother back home learned of this, she wrote him the following letter: “Either quit your thieving or quit breathing.”
Once, a Spartan was visiting Athens. His Athenian host threw a banquet in his honor. Wishing to show off for his guest, the Athenian indicated several illustrious personages around the table. “That man there is the greatest
sculptor in Greece,” he declared, “and that gentleman yonder is its finest architect.” The Spartan indicated a servant from his own entourage. “Yes,” he said, “and that man there makes a very tasty bowl of soup.”
Spartans liked to keep things short. Once, one of their generals captured a city. His dispatch home said, “City taken.” The magistrates fined him for being verbose. “Taken,” they said, would have sufficed.
The river of Athens is the Kephisos; the river in Sparta is the Eurotas. One time, an Athenian and a Spartan were trading insults. “We have buried many Spartans,” said the Athenian, “beside the Kephisos.” “Yes,” replied the Spartan, “but we have buried no Athenians beside the Eurotas.” ( It was to mean that Athenians have never stepped in Sparta as invaders. )
When Gorgo ( Leonidas' wife ) saw servants tying Aristagoras’s shoes, she said, “Look Pa! The stranger has no hands.”
Gorgo asked by a woman from Attica, “Why is it you Spartan women are the only ones who govern men?” she replied, “We’re the only ones who give birth to real men.”
Demetria hearing her son was a coward and unworthy of her, she killed him. This is her epigram:
"Demetrius the transgressor was slain by his mother.
He was a Spartan, and she was another."
Another, seeing her son approaching from battle, asked, “How fares Sparta?” He replied, “All are dead!” Picking up a roof tile, she brained him, saying, “And I suppose they sent you to give us the bad news?”
Another gave her son a shield as he set out for war, saying, “Your father always saved this for you. Keep it safe, not yourself.”
Another, when her son complained his sword was too short, said, “Step forward: add a foot to it.”
As Philip II of Macedon was conquering Greek city-states left and right, Sparta was left alone. Philip had achieved a crushing victory, and Sparta was relatively weak and without walls. Philip sent a message to the Spartans saying “If I invade Lakonia you will be destroyed, never to rise again.” The Spartans replied with one word, “If.”
When someone asked why they visited disgrace upon those among them who lost their shields, but did not do the same thing to those who lost their helmets or their breastplates, the Spartan king, Demaratos is said to have replied: “Because the latter they put on for their own protection, but the shield for the common good of the whole line.”
An old man wandering around the Olympic Games looking for a seat was jeered at by the crowd until he reached the seats of the Spartans, whereupon every Spartan younger than him, and some that were older, stood up and offered him their seat. The crowd applauded and the old man turned to them with a sigh, saying “All Greeks know what is right, but only the Spartans do it.”
In answer to the man who sought to know why the Spartans use short daggers in war, Antalcidas said, “Because we fight close to the enemy.”
When someone viewed a painting showing Athenians overcoming Spartans and commented, “Courageous Athenians!” a Spartan standing nearby chimed in with “In the picture.”
When King Philip, upon entering Laconia, wrote to the Spartans to inquire whether they preferred him to approach as friend or enemy, they replied, “Neither.”
A Spartan in a battle had his sword lifted up to kill his enemy, but the retreat being sounded, he did not let the blow fall, and when one asked him why, when his enemy was at his mercy, he did not use the advantage, “Because,” he said, “it is better to obey my leader than kill an enemy.”
As Agis was going about among the walls of the Corinthians and observed that they were high and towering and vast in extent, Ehe said, "What women live in that place?"
When a lecturer said, "Speech is the most important thing of all," Agis retorted, "Then if you are silent, you are of no worth at all!"
In answer to a base man who asked repeatedly who was the best Spartan, Agis said, "The one most unlike you.
Androcleidas the Spartan, who had a crippled leg, enrolled himself among the fighting-men. And when some persons were insistent that he be not accepted because he was crippled, he said, "But I do not have to run away, but to stay where I am when I fight the opposing foe."
In answer to the Athenian who called the Spartans unlearned, Antalcidas said, "At any rate we are the only people who have learned no evil from you."
Antiochus, when he was Ephor, hearing that Philip had given Messenians their land, asked if he had also provided them with the power to prevail in fighting to keep it.
When Archidamus saw the missile shot by a catapult, which had been brought then for the first time from Sicily, he exclaimed, "Great Heavens! man's valour is no more!
When someone said to Astycratidas, after the defeat of Agis their king in the battle against Antipater in the vicinity of Megalopolis, "What will you do, men of Sparta? Will you be subject to the Macedonians? he said, "What! Is there any way in which Antipater can forbid us to die fighting for Sparta?"
When a man from Argos said that the Spartans became more unscrupulous on going abroad and being out of the control of their long-established laws, Eudamidas said, "But you, when you come to Sparta, do not become worse, but better."
At the time when Thebans had conquered the Spartans at Leuctra and advanced to the river Eurotas itself, one of them, boasting, said, "Where are the Spartans now?" A Spartan who had been captured by them said, "They are not here; Dotherwise you would not have come thus far."
In a clinch one wrestler, who had the other by the neck, Eoverpowered him with little effort, and pulled him to the ground. Since the one who was down was at a disadvantage in using his body, he bit the arm that held him. His opponent said, "Spartan, you bite like a woman." "No, indeed," said he, "but like a lion."
When the ambassadors of the Samians spoke at great length, the Spartans said to them, "We hae forgot the first part, and the later part we did na ken because we hae forgot the first."
For not being dreadfully long to read, I tried to make my selection at finest. For those interested in more, I recommend to have a look in the work "Apophthegmata Laconica" by Plutarch.
