Plutarch's Laconic Apophthegms

Plutarch, William Watson Goodwin (E) · Hellenic and Hellenistic Papers Series · 39 pages

Plutarch's collection of Laconic apophthegms in the Goodwin edition, presented under the title “Merits of the Rude Lacedaemonian Wit,” with a table of contents listing all sixty-nine figures and their pages. It is the Spartan counterpart to the general collection of kings and commanders held beside it in this section.

The word laconic takes its meaning from Laconia, and the collection is the evidence for it: sixty-nine sets of sayings whose whole merit is compression. The sequence runs alphabetically through the Spartan kings and notables — Agasicles first, then Agesilaus the Great, who occupies the largest share and is given a separate section of his letters addressed to the Ephors; then Agesipolis the son of Cleombrotus and Agesipolis the son of Pausanias; Agis the son of Archidamus, Agis the Younger and Agis the Last; Acrotatus, Alcamenes the son of Teleclus, Alexandridas, Anaxander the son of Eurycrates, Anaxilas, Androclidas, Antalcidas, Antiochus, Aregeus, Ariston, Archidamidas and Archidamus the son of Zeuxidamus, and onwards through the alphabet. As with its companion volume, the arrangement invites consultation at a particular name rather than continuous reading, and the running head states the compiler's own view of the material — that the rudeness of the wit is a merit rather than a defect.

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