5.8
Another was burying her son, when a commonplace old woman came up to her and said, Ah the bad luck of it, you puir woman. No, by Heaven, said she, but good luck; for I bore him that he might die for Sparta, and this is the very thing that has come to pass for me.The story is told also by Teles in Stobaeus, Florilegium, cviii. 83; Cf. also Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 42 (102).
5.9
When a woman from Ionia showed vast pride in a bit of her own weaving, which was very valuable, a Spartan woman pointed to her four sons, who were most well-behaved, and said, Such should be the employments of the good and honourable woman, and it is over these that she should be elated and boastful. Cf. Severus in Stobaeus, Florilegium, v. 47, and the similar story of the Roman Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi.
5.10
Another, hearing about her son that he was conducting himself badly in a foreign land, wrote to him, Ill report is spread about ye; pit this from ye or else stop yer living. Cf. Moralia, 241 a (3), supra.
5.11
Of somewhat similar character is this: Chian exiles came to Sparta, and accused Paedaretus of many misdeeds; whereupon his mother Teleutia sent for them and, after listening to their complaints, feeling that her son was in the wrong, sent him this letter: Mither to Paedaretus. Aither dae better, or stay whare ye are, and gie up hope o’ gaen back safe to Sparta.
