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60 Paedaretus, when one told him the enemies were numerous, said, Therefore we shall get the greater reputation, for we shall kill the more. Seeing a man soft by nature and a coward commended by the citizens for his lenity and good disposition, he said, We should not praise men that are like women, nor women that are like men, unless some extremity forceth a woman to stand upon her guard. When he was not chosen into the three hundred (the chief order in the city), he went away laughing and very jocund; and the Ephors calling him back and asking why he laughed, Why, said he, I congratulate the happiness of the city, that enjoys three hundred citizens better than myself.

Of Plistarchus.

61 Plistarchus the son of Leonidas, to one asking him why they did not take their names from the first kings replied, Because the former were rather captains than kings, but the later otherwise. A certain advocate using a thousand little jests in his pleading; Sir, said he, you do not consider that, as those that often wrestle are wrestlers at last, so you by often exciting laughter will become ridiculous yourself. When one told him that an notorious railer spoke well of him; I’ll lay my life, said he, somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living.

Of Plistoanax.

62 Plistoanax the son of Pausanias, when an Athenian orator called the Lacedaemonians unlearned fellows, said, ’Tis true, for we alone of all the Greeks have not learned any ill from you.