5.4
Another, when her sons had run away from battle and come to her, said, Where have you come now in your cowardly flight, vile varlets ? Do you intend to slink in here whence you came forth? And with these words she pulled up her garment and showed them. Cf. Moralia, 246 a, and Teles as quoted by Stobaeus, Florilegium, cviii. 83.
5.5
One woman, observing her son coming towards her, inquired, How fares our country? And when he said, All have perished, she took up a tile and, hurling it at him, killed him, saying, And so they sent you to bear the bad news to us!
5.6
As a man was narrating to his mother the noble death of his brother, she said, Isn’t it a shame, then, to have missed his company on such a journey ? Cf. Moralia, 242 b (22), infra.
5.7
One woman sent forth her sons, five in number, to war, and, standing in the outskirts of the city, she awaited anxiously the outcome of the battle. And when someone arrived and, in answer to her inquiry, reported that all her sons had met death, she said, I did not inquire about that, you vile varlet, but how fares our country ? And when he declared that it was victorious, Then, she said, I accept gladly also the death of my sons. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus, chap. xxix. (612 c-d).
