n
preserved of his sayings; as, for instance, that remark to one who
proposed to establish a democracy in the state, "First establish a
democracy in your own household." And when he was asked why he ordained
the sacrifices to be so small and cheap, he answered, "It is in order
that we may never be forced to omit them." So too in gymnastic
exercises, he discouraged all those which are not performed with the
hand closed.

The same class of answers are said to have been made by him to his
fellow-countrymen in his letters. When they asked how they should keep
off their enemies, he answered, "By remaining poor, and not each trying
to be a greater man than the other." Again, about walls, he said, "that
cannot be called an open town which has courage, instead of brick walls
to defend it." As to the authenticity of these letters, it is hard to
give an opinion.

XIX.--The following anecdotes show their dislike of long speeches. When
some one was discoursing about matters useful in themselves at an
unfitting time, King Leonidas said, "Stranger, you speak of what is
wanted when it is not wanted." Charilaus the cousin of Lykurgus, when
asked why they had so few laws answered, that men of few words required
few laws. And Archidamidas, when some blamed Hekataeus the Sophist for
having said nothing during dinner, answered, "He who knows how to speak
knows when to speak also." The following are some of those sarcastic
sayings which I before said are not ungrateful. Demaratus, when some
worthless fellow pestered him with unreasonable queries, and several
times inquired, "Who is the best man in Sparta?" answered, "He who is
least like you." When some were praising the magnificence and justice
with which the Eleans conducted the Olympian games, Agis said, "What is
there so very remarkable in the people of Elis acting justly on one day
in every five years?"

A stranger was vaunting his admiration of them, and was saying that in
his own city he was called a lover of Sparta. Theopompus observed, "It
would be more to your credit to be called a lover of your own city."
Pleistoanax the son of Pausanias, when an Athenian orator reproached the
Lacedaemonians for ignorance, observed, "What you say is quite true, for
we are the only Greeks who have not learned some mischief from you."

When a stranger asked Archidamidas how many Spartans there were, he
answered, "Enough to keep off bad men."

One may also discover their peculiarities in their