"Sparta" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sacrificing their children to appease the gods. Just as there has been an evolution in tools, in laws and in institutions, so has there been an evolution of the intellectual element in conscience. Thucydides tells us that the time was in Sparta when stealing was right. In that far-off time a boy was praised for exhibiting skill and dexterity in pilfering. Stealing was disgraceful and wrong only when it was found out, and, if the theft was large and skillfully done, ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... of cattle. They took charge of firmness and looseness of men's flesh; and regulated the degree of fatness to which it was lawful, in a free state, for any citizen to extend his body. Those who dared to grow too fat, or too soft for military exercise and the service of Sparta, were soundly whipped. In one particular instance, that of Nauclis, the son of Polytus, the offender was brought before the Ephori, and a meeting of the whole people of Sparta, at which his unlawful fatness was publicly exposed; and he was threatened with perpetual banishment ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... great pleasure in seconding the resolution which has just been read. The eminent historian of the Dutch Republic, who has made the story of its earlier days as interesting as that of Athens and Sparta, and who has infused into the narrative the generous glow of his own genius, has the highest of titles to be heard with respectful attention by the citizens of a community which, in its origin, was an offshoot of that renowned republic. And cheerfully has ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... raised Quarrels among them, and set them at Strife with one another, that by those early Discoveries they might see how their several Talents lay, and without any regard to their Quality, dispose of them accordingly for the Service of the Commonwealth. By this Means Sparta soon became the Mistress of Greece, and famous through the whole World for her ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... sir, that it is a very great misfortune for those who have to associate with you now that you were not raised in Sparta, where it was everybody's privilege to whip their neighbor's vicious, spoiled children. Such a regimen would doubtless have converted you into an amiable, or at least endurable member ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... tyrannical side in the Athenian temper. Not indeed towards her own people, but towards all who were not of her own immediate stock. Because Athens thought herself the fairest city in the world, as indeed she was, because she thought herself menaced by Sparta, and menaced she was, she allowed herself to tyrannize and lightly took up the burden of war between brethren. There are few passages in history more stately than the Funeral Oration of Pericles in which he calls Athens the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... forward at Harris's call. "Lawd, marster, enny news? I specs, sah, I'll hab ter ax you 'bout dat. I ain' heard none but dat dar wuz er skirmish at Rude's Hill, en er skirmish at New Market, en er-nurr skirmish at Sparta, en dat Gineral Jackson hold de foht, sah, at Harrisonburg, en dat de Yankees comin', lickerty-split, up de Valley, en dat de folk at Magaheysville air powerful oneasy in dey minds fer fear dey'll deviate dis way. Howsomever, we's got er home guard ef dey do come, wid ole Mr. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... whole of our intellectual life. These Greeks, however, our histories promptly teach us, did not form a single unified nation. They lived in many "city-states" of more or less importance, and some of the largest of these contributed very little directly to our civilization. Sparta, for example, has left us some noble lessons in simple living and devoted patriotism, but hardly a single great poet, and certainly never a philosopher or sculptor. When we examine closely, we see that ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... account. A desultory contest was maintained for several years between Pyrrhus and Antigonus II., the son of Demetrius, and then King of Macedon. While Pyrrhus was engaged in this war, Cleon'ymus, of the blood royal of Sparta, who had been excluded from the throne by the Spartan people, to give place to A'reus, invited Pyrrhus to his aid. Pyrrhus marched to Sparta, and, supposing that he should not meet with any resistance, ordered his tents to be pitched, and sat quietly down before the city. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... all the evils and calamities to which that memorable struggle gave rise. His father subsequently received him at court, and treated him as his son. After spending some time in his native city among the Trojan princes, Paris set out for the court of Menelaus, king of Sparta, with a view to carry off his wife Helena, the most beautiful woman in the world, as the reward of the judgment which he had pronounced in favour of Venus. The young Trojan met with a most welcome reception at the Spartan court; but he abused the laws of hospitality by prevailing on the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... break and shafted shows the light. "Ten years beguiled!" he said, "but now it seems Thou art——" She shook her head. "Nay, now come dreams; Nay, now I think, remember, now I see." "What callest thou to mind?" "Hermione," She said, "our child, and Sparta my own land, And all the honour that lay to my hand Had I but chosen it, as now I would"— And sudden hid her face up in her hood, Her courage ebbed in grief, all hardness drowned In bitter weeping. Noble pity crowned ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... from the city of Sparta, Icarius placed a statue of MODESTY, for the purpose of perpetuating the following incident:—Icarius having married his daughter to Ulysses, solicited his son-in-law to fix his household in Sparta, and remain there with his wife, to which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... contests for beauty, which in ancient times were established by Cypselus, King of Arcadia, by the river Alpheus; and, at the feast of Apollo of Philae, a prize was offered to the youths for the deftest kiss. This was decided by an umpire; as also at Megara, by the grave of Diocles. At Sparta, and at Lesbos, in the temple of Juno, and among the Parrhasii, there were contests for beauty among women. The general esteem for beauty went so far, that the Spartan women set up in their bedchambers ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... nothing invincible about the troops of Napoleon, when they were faced by British regiments properly trained, as Moore trained them at Shorncliff. Just as the destruction of the Spartan Hoplites in the Island of Sphacteria broke the military spell cast by the armies of Sparta, so Moore's victorious retreat to, and action at, Corunna broke the spell of ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... counterpoise in each scale. Thus the kingdom of Media is represented by Xenophon before the reign of Cyrus; so Polybius tells us, the best government is a mixture of the three forms, regno, optimatium, et populi imperio: the same was that of Sparta in its primitive institution by Lycurgus, made up of reges, seniores, et populus; the like may be asserted of Rome, Carthage, and other states: and the Germans of old fell upon the same model, from whence the Goths ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... a little journey, and already we want to take a longer one. Whither? To Sparta, to Mycene, to Delphi? There are a hundred places at whose names the heart beats with the desire of travel. On horseback we go up the mountain paths, through brake and through brier. A single traveller makes an appearance ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... must go without a pot-herb! Wist thou what conflict thou must soon contend in To proffer speech and full defence for Sparta? Forward, my soul! the barriers are before thee. What, dost loiter? hast not imbibed Euripides? And yet I blame thee not. Courage, sad heart! And forward, though it be to lay thy head Upon the block. Rouse ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... those things which are the objects of contention amongst mankind are better procured by virtue than vice, yet they wrongfully preferred the things themselves to virtue. Nor was the public revenue well managed at Sparta, for the state was worth nothing while they were obliged to carry on the most extensive wars, and the subsidies were very badly raised; for as the Spartans possessed a large extent of country, they were not exact ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... infanticide as an established, legalized custom in Greece, is well summed up by Westermark, who says: "The exposure of deformed or sickly infants was undoubtedly an ancient custom in Greece; in Sparta, at least, it was enjoined by law. It was also approved of by the most enlightened among the Greek philosophers. Plato condemns all those children who are imperfect in limbs as well as those who are ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... hundreds of years ago, two very large and grand cities, which strove to excel each other. The one city was Sparta, the other was Athens. These cities were not like our cities of today. They had beautiful, broad streets, but no street cars. They had magnificent buildings, but no electric lights. They did have schools, but they were unlike our schools. The boys in both Athens and Sparta were taken away ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... common danger. His representations were effectual. The kings of Babylon and Egypt, alive to their own peril, accepted his proposals; and a joint league was formed between the three monarchs and the republic of Sparta for the purpose of resisting the presumed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... night, lest any of those, whose children died under Ilium, when they saw her coming, by day, might go so far as to stone her; but she is within bewailing her sister, and the calamity of her family. She has however some consolation in her woes, for the virgin Hermione, whom Menelaus bringing from Sparta, left at our palace, when he sailed to Troy, and gave as a charge to my mother to bring up, in her she rejoices, and forgets her miseries. But I am looking at each avenue when I shall see Menelaus present, since, for the rest, we ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... plague and the hard labour lessened their numbers and increased their miseries. When this bad news reached Rhodes, the islanders rose in revolt against the supremacy of Athens, and resolved to side with Sparta. Balaustion[96:1] was there, and she passionately protested against this decision, crying to "who would hear, and those ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... advance of our forefathers of the eighteenth century, as regards the knowledge of Greek civilization. In the time of the French revolution, it was thought possible to reestablish in France the conditions of a Greek republic, and to educate children according to the system of Sparta. To-day we are well aware that no mind developed by modern civilization could find happiness under any of those socialistic despotisms which existed in all the cities of the ancient world before the Roman conquest. We could no more mingle with the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... republicanism is freedom. A republic that, like Sparta, permits the enslavement of any portion of its people, is surely not predicated upon the true idea of a republic; and it is worth while to consider that the ancient republics found their bane in slavery, and that the aristocratic ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Psychagogi, or dead-evokers, at Heraclea, to call up the spirit of Cleonice (whose injured apparition haunted him incessantly), in order that he might entreat her forgiveness. She appeared accordingly, and informed him that, on his return to Sparta, he would be delivered from all his sorrows—meaning, by death. This was five hundred years before Christ. The story resembles that of the apparition of Samuel before Saul: "To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me."[34] The appearance of Samuel was regarded as ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... Greeks into one that has a meaning in their language, and also they are convinced that some honour is paid to Dionysus in this ceremony, which God we name Evius and Thriambos. It is curious to observe that the great Laconian lawgiver arranged the sacrifices differently to those of Rome. In Sparta those ex-generals who have accomplished their purpose by persuasion or fraud sacrifice an ox, while those who have done it by battle offer a cock. For, though warlike to excess, they thought that a victory gained by clever ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... not held in high esteem in Greece. To be sure, barbaric Sparta made a bold stand for equality, and almost instituted a gynecocracy, but the usual idea was that a woman's opinion was not worth considering. Hence the caricaturists of the day made sly sport of the love of Pericles ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... the crooked, labyrinthine brook, into the open pond,—the man who acted as pilot,—his talking with B——about politics, the bank, the iron money of "a king who came to reign, in Greece, over a city called Sparta,"—his advice to B—— to come amongst the laborers on the mill-dam, because it stimulated them "to see a man grinning amongst them." The man took hearty tugs at a bottle of good Scotch whiskey, and became pretty merry. The fish caught were the yellow perch, which are not esteemed for eating; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... that they were needless, because no other nation was in a condition to attack us; others that they were disgraceful, because it was un-English and mean to skulk behind stone walls, and because Lycurgus had refused to trust to stone walls for the safety of Sparta; and one member, the chief spokesman of a new and small party, commonly known as the "peace-at-any-price party," boldly denounced the members of the commission as a set of "lunatics" for framing such a report, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... hard enough to resist the action of water. In Greek history we read how Agesipolis, King of Sparta, when besieging Mantinea, directed the stream of the Ophis along the foot of its walls of unburnt brick, and so caused them to crumble away. Cimon, son of Miltiades, attacked the defences of Eion, on the Strymon, in the same fashion. When desiccation was carried far enough, such materials ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... Clogs, so indispensable in the dirt of an unpaved French street, he always abhorred; yet, under cover of night, he could, now and then, condescend to wear them. "Theft," as the biographer observes, "in Sparta was a crime—but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Glaucus Wiggins at th' meetin' iv' th' thrustees in th' Sicond Baptist Church excited so much comment among spoortin' men three or four years ago, Gin'ral Rangefinder iv Thebes, Colonel Chivvy iv Sparta, who whittled Major Lycurgus Gam iv Thermopylae down to th' wishbone at th' anti-polygamist meetin' las' June, ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... his estate. The Athenians, momentarily elated by victory and over-persuaded by the demagogues of the day—Cleon and his henchmen, refuse to hear of such a thing as coming to terms. Accordingly Dicaeopolis dispatches an envoy to Sparta on his own account, who comes back presently with a selection of specimen treaties in his pocket. The old man tastes and tries, special terms are arranged, and the play concludes with a riotous and uproarious rustic feast in honour ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... the Lacedaemonians, put himself and those three hundred men, whom he had led from Sparta, in the way of the enemy of Thermopylae,(40) when the alternative was a base flight, or a glorious death. The deaths of generals are glorious, but philosophers usually die in their beds. But still Epicurus ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... land producing revenue. What it held was held with the drawn sword in the hand ready for use. The kingdom of Thessalonica was gone; and though the dukedoms, marquisates, and countships of Achaia, Athens, Sparta, and other independent petty states were still held by the emperors or their sons, they were like the outlying provinces of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem—Edessa, Tripoli, and the rest—a source of weakness rather than of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... surnamed Scanderbeg, for his acts of valour and feats of strength, is as mythical as the tale of Ninus: Francis Sforza, Duke of Milan, could have stood by the side of Pausanias, having as signally defeated at Mont Olmo the great general Francis Piccinino as the King of Sparta crushed at Plataea the brilliant chief, Mardonius; the Hungarian sovereigns, John Corvinus Hunniades and his son Matthias occupied the ground that was held by the Theban princes, Pelopidas and Epaminondas; for the two Woiwodes of Transylvania kept their country free from the enslavement of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... up her poniard! And Sparta sheathe the sword; Be none too prompt to punish, And cast indignant word! Bear back your spectral Brutus From robber Bonaparte; Time rarely will refute us Who ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... retains the executive power, there is no liberty, for liberty depends upon each of the three powers being kept entirely separate. It is in this way that the balance of the constitution is preserved. As all human things have an end, England will one day lose its liberty, and perish. Rome, Sparta, and Carthage have not been able to last. England will perish when the legislative power grows more corrupt than the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... most noted of the legends is the story of the Trojan war. The deeds of the heroes of this war are the subject of the Iliad. Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilios (Troy), in Asia Minor, carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. To recover her, the Greeks united in an expedition against Troy, which they took after a siege of ten years. Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus (Ulysses), Ajax son of Telamon, and Ajax son of Oileus, Diomedes, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... Rome. That republic, indeed, may be called happy, whose lot has been to have a founder so prudent as to provide for it laws under which it can continue to live securely, without need to amend them; as we find Sparta preserving hers for eight hundred years, without deterioration and without any dangerous disturbance. On the other hand, some measure of unhappiness attaches to the State which, not having yielded itself once for ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Sanazzaro, and the Diana Enamorada of Montemayor, a Portuguese author. It was in prose, but intermixed with songs and sonnets, and Sidney finished only two books and a portion of a third. It describes the adventures of two cousins, Musidorus and Pyrocles, who are wrecked on the coast of Sparta. The plot is very involved and is full of the stock episodes of romance: disguises, surprises, love intrigues, battles, jousts and single combats. Although the insurrection of the Helots against the Spartans forms a part of the story, the Arcadia is not the real Arcadia of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... when there was no greater and more exceptional crime than that of discussing the gods, the laws and the customs of the city? What did such a word as "fatherland" signify to an Athenian or Spartan unless it were the cult of Athens or Sparta, and in no wise that of Greece, composed of rival cities always at war with each other? What meaning had the same word "fatherland" among the ancient Gauls, divided into rival tribes and races, and possessing different languages and religions, and who were easily vanquished ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... have made a part of our nature by education and custom. We would give more to know what Xenophon's soldiers gossiped about round their camp-fires, than for all the particulars of their retreat. Sparta becomes human to us when we think of Agesilaus on his hobby-horse. Finding that those heroic figures romped with their children, we begin for the first time to suspect that they ever really existed as much as Robinson Crusoe. Without these personal traits, antiquity seems ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... admit that even to-day, a girl-baby is often looked upon with disfavor. This has been true in all times, and there are numerous examples to show that this aversion existed in ancient India, in Greece and Sparta, and at Rome. The feudal practices of mediaeval Europe were certainly based upon it, and the Breton peasant of to-day expresses the same idea somewhat bluntly when he says by way of explanation, after the birth of a daughter: Ma femme a fait ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... blockade by quailing before power, the majority were beset by no temptation so strong as that of routing at once the insignificant number of troops who had come to overawe them. But Samuel Adams, while he compared their spirit to that of Sparta or Rome, was ever inculcating patience as the characteristic of a true patriot; and the people having sent forth their cry to the continent, waited self-possessed for voices ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... prefer, In the fool's coat acting th' philosopher. Thus hoary Aesop's beasts did mildly tame Fierce man, and moralize him into shame; Thus brave romances, while they seem to lay Great trains of lust, platonic love display; Thus would old Sparta, if a seldom chance Show'd a drunk slave, teach children temperance; Thus did the later poets nobly bring The scene to height, making the fool the king. And, noble sir, you vigorously have trod In this hard path, unknown, un-understood ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... some Greek Mysteries, such as the daubing of the initiate with clay, the use of the [Greek text] (the Australian Tundun, a small piece of wood whirled noisily by a string), the general suggestion of a new life, the flogging of boys at Sparta, their retreat, each with his instructor (Australian kabbo, Greek [Greek text]) to the forests, are precisely analogous to things found in Australia, America, and Africa. Now savage rites are often associated with what we ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... the Queen have been entertained at Welbeck since their accession to the throne, and in 1906 there was a visit from the Duke and Duchess of Sparta, the Crown Prince ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... within it bears a relation to the Umbro-Samnite somewhat similar to that of the Ionic to the Doric; and the differences of the Oscan and Umbrian and kindred dialects may be compared with the differences between the Dorism of Sicily and the Dorism of Sparta. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... suggestion, and Helenus foretells the future to him, and Aphrodite order Aeneas to sail with him, while Cassandra prophesies as to what will happen afterwards. Alexandrus next lands in Lacedaemon and is entertained by the sons of Tyndareus, and afterwards by Menelaus in Sparta, where in the course of a feast he gives gifts ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Of course this is meant only of the modern citizen or country-gentleman, as compared with a citizen of Sparta or old Florence. I leave it to others to say whether the "neglect of the art of war" may or may not, in a yet more fatal sense, be predicated of the English nation. War, without art, we seem, with God's help, able still to wage ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... enter Athens, Thebes wrack Sparta, each changes as water, salt, rising to wreak terror ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... this weak world. Religious asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake—as supposed—of religion; seen chiefly in the Middle Ages. Military asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of power; seen chiefly in the early days of Sparta and Rome. And monetary asceticism, consisting in the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of money; seen in the present ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... regarded as members of the same great tribe or family. But even in the time of Plato, whom we are accustomed to look upon as one of the great teachers of the world, there was no thought of any moral obligation to anybody who lived in Sparta, lived in any other city of Greece, and less was there any thought of moral obligation as touching or taking in the outside barbarian. So when the city grew into a nation, and we came to a point where the world substantially stands to-day, do you not ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... seaward camp, Where Aias holds the last place in your line, Lingering in quest, and scanning the fresh print Of his late footsteps, to be certified If he keep house or no. Right well thy sense Hath led thee forth, like some keen hound of Sparta! The man is even but now come home, his head And slaughterous hands reeking with ardent toil. Thou, then, no longer strain thy gaze within Yon gateway, but declare what eager chase Thou followest, that a ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... Sparta, was asked, "What should boys be taught?" he answered, "What they ought to do when they become men." Such a declaration was worthy of later times, since the most intelligent now admit that the great end of all education is the formation of solid, useful, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... once in Sparta a great legislator named Lycurgus, who attempted to introduce a kind of human selection into the laws. He wished to make the Spartans a strong nation, because at that time bodily strength was almost the only ideal ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... addition, of which Freytag has made the most effective use—I mean the education of the Prussian people, not alone in the national schools, but also in the science of national defense, which this people of seventeen millions has in common with Sparta and with Rome. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Cox well observes, "It is of the very essence of the narrative that Paris, who has deserted Oinone, the child of the stream Kebren, and before whom Here, Athene, and Aphrodite had appeared as claimants for the golden apple, steals from Sparta the beautiful sister of the Dioskouroi; that the chiefs are summoned together for no other purpose than to avenge her woes and wrongs; that Achilleus, the son of the sea-nymph Thetis, the wielder of invincible weapons and the lord of undying ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... neighbouring lords assemble;—every town Their kings intreat condolence to bestow, And all to Thebes repair. First Argos sends; Sparta; Mycene; Calydon, not yet By stern Diana hated; Corinth, fam'd For beauteous brass; Orchomenus the fierce; Messene fertile; Patrae; Pylos, rul'd By Neleus; Troezen, yet unus'd to own The sway of Pittheus; Cleona the low; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... were permitted to live, to be fruitful, to replenish the earth; but they were doomed to be what the Helots were in Sparta, what the Greeks were under the Ottoman, what the blacks now are at New York. Every man of the subject caste was strictly excluded from any public trust. Take what path he might in life, he was crossed at every step by some vexatious ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... M. Lewis, Sparta, Ga., writes that he will cut his wheat on the 28th (to-morrow), and both for quality and quantity he never saw it equaled. They have new flour in Alabama; and everywhere South the crops ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... alone. The laws of Solon regulated the use of the gymnasia, and for very many years these laws were strictly enforced. It appears that married women did not attend the gymnasia, and unmarried women only in some parts of Greece, such as Sparta, but this custom ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... importance, as I will show by examples. To begin with the last case, some who have put their hands to unjust gains, have lost all the fruits of their former life, as the Lacedaemonian Gylippus,[28] who was exiled from Sparta for embezzling the public money. To be able to govern the temper also argues a wise man. For Socrates, when a very impudent and disgusting young fellow kicked him on one occasion, seeing all the rest of his class vexed and impatient, even to the point of wanting to prosecute ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... how ready we are, how willingly the women of Sparta will die and live with their husbands."—The Pilgrimage of Kings ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... effect." In any event as my title is an effect of the social contract it is precarious like the contract itself; a new stipulation suffices to limit it or to destroy it. "The sovereign[3423] may legitimately appropriate to himself all property, as was done in Sparta in the time of Lycurgus." In our lay convent whatever each monk possesses is only a revocable gift by ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... constitute always, as it now does, a most marked distinction between the master and the slave, so as to increase this stigma and to perpetuate antipathies between them. Nor did the slaves of antiquity, except perhaps once in Sparta, form the whole labouring population of the land; nor did they work incessantly, like the Africans, under the whip; nor were they generally so behind their masters in cultivated intellect. Neither does ancient history give us in the cases of manumission, ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... the Prussian Advanced Guard hurriedly established a defensive position and kept at bay the whole Austrian Army, while the Prussian Army emerged in security from a defile and manoeuvred into battle array. The Pass of Thermopylae was occupied in B.C. 480 by 1,400 Greeks under Leonidas, King of Sparta, to withstand the Persian hosts of Xerxes, and although the Greek force was destroyed by an attack from the rear (through the disclosure of a secret path by a renegade in the Persian service), the resistance offered to the "invincible" Persians emboldened the Greeks in their future encounters, ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... and social feelings in those tribes, they are not drawn coldly from the mind, and sternly imposed by the external law, in the form of axioms and enactments, as was the case chiefly in Sparta, and as is still the case in the Chinese Empire to-day; but they gush forth impetuously from impulsive and loving hearts, and spread like living waters which no artificially-cut stones can bank and confine, but which must expand freely in the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... have done it with that sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue. And, withal, a life of privation, isolation, abnegation, chastity, with never a diversion. It was implacable duty; the police understood, as the Spartans understood Sparta, a pitiless lying in wait, a ferocious honesty, a ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... historical parallel; and it was really curious for those who believe that history is always repeating itself, to remark how frequently John McGloin represented the mind and character of Lycurgus, and how often poor old, dreary, and bog-surrounded Moate recalled the image of Sparta and ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... who find in environment the causes of the rise and fall of nations, ascribe the failure of Greece to the introduction in Athens and Sparta of the malaria-bearing mosquito. As to the facts in question, we have little evidence. But while the prevalence of malaria may have affected the general activity of the people, it could in no way have ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... but must besiege the city, sent persons to bring up all the marine forces from Gythium; and, in the mean time, rode himself, with some military tribunes, round the walls, to take a view of the situation of the place. In former times, Sparta had no wall; of late, the tyrants had built walls in the places where the ground Was open and level; but the higher places, and those more difficult of access, they secured by placing guards of soldiers instead of fortifications. When he had sufficiently examined every ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... different forms; and among these determining circumstances, the individual character of their great speculative thinkers or practical organizers may well have been one. Who can tell how profoundly the whole subsequent history of China may have been influenced by the individuality of Confucius? and of Sparta (and hence of Greece and the world) by that ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... (Attic, Alkmaeon) flourished in Sparta about 650 B. C. His mother was a Lydian slave in Sardes, and he came into the possession of Agesides, who gave him his freedom. His beautiful songs soon procured him the rights of a Lacedaemonian citizen. He was appointed to the head-directorship ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Bacchus was the god of good humor and fellowship, so none of the deities appeared with a more numerous or splendid retinue, in which Sil{e}nus was the principal person; of whose descent, however, we have no accounts to be relied on. Some say he was born at Malea, a city of Sparta; others at Nysa in Arabia; but the most probable conjecture is, that he was a prince of Caria, noted for his equity and wisdom. But whatever be the fate of these different accounts, Sil{e}nus is said to have been preceptor to Bacchus, and was certainly a very suitable one for such ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... 1674, ahe was Amavanga in Settle's The Conquest of China; Salome, Herod's sister, in Pordage's bombastic Herod and Mariamne. 1675, Chlotilda, disguised as Nigrello, in Settle's Love and Revenge; Deidamia, Queen of Sparta, in Otway's first and feeblest tragedy, Alcibiades, of which play she also spoke the epilogue. 1676, Roxolana in Settle's Ibrahim, produced in May; and late the same month or very early in June the Queen of Spain in Otway's magnificent ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... elsewhere so supreme a master of style, meaning to describe certain recording tablets, says, "They shall write, and deposit in the temples memorials of cypress wood";[4] and again, "Then concerning walls, Megillus, I give my vote with Sparta that we should let them lie asleep within the ground, and ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... seemed indifferent to the fortunes of the sisal and rubber planters. True they built the railway; but what use to a planter to build a line and rob him of his profits in the freight? This gentleman of ancient Sparta frankly liked the Germans and found them just; and he was in complete agreement with the native policy that made every black brother do his job of work, the whole year round, at a rate of pay that fully satisfied this Greek employer's ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... Greece and Rome without knowing or understanding them. Her handbook for Greek History was "The Travels of Young Anacharsis." There was no system or connection in what she taught, but the sprightliness of her delivery made up for the defect. "When we came to the history of Sparta, we became so enthusiastic for the Lacedaemonian girls that we tried to imitate their hardened style of life, washing ourselves with cold water, promenading with bare feet, doing gymnastics, drinking no tea, and ceasing to cry. When I look back upon these performances, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... XVI Feeling against Sparta in Peloponnese—League of the Mantineans, Eleans, Argives, and Athenians—Battle of Mantinea and breaking up of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... of truly virtuous men—the Washingtons and Franklins—those who preferred a quiet, retired life; so as better to walk in the paths of justice and goodness, like the ancient heroes of Sparta, one feels that his words come really from the heart. But if I wished to make extracts of all the proofs contained in his works, of respect and enthusiasm for true virtue, a volume of quotations would be requisite. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Person of Sparta, Whose had twenty-five sons and one daughter; He fed them snails, and weighed them on scales, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... sold? Fair matrons, maids, and tender brides, Gird weapons to your lovers' sides; And, though your hearts break at the deed, Give them your blessing and God-speed; Then point them to the field of fame, With words like those of Sparta's dame! And when the ranks are full and strong, And the whole army moves along, A vast result of care and skill, Obedient to the master will, And our young hero draws the sword, And gives the last commanding word That hurls your strength upon the foe— Oh, let them need ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of prosperity, dead. Dead, answer the "Pillars of Hercules" and the rocks on which the Tyrian fishermen spread their nets. Athens—after Phidias, after Demosthenes, after Miltiades, after Marathon—dead. Sparta—after Leonidas, after ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... I was with Hercules and Cadmus once. When in a wood of Creete they bayed the Beare With hounds of Sparta; neuer did I heare Such gallant chiding. For besides the groues, The skies, the fountaines, euery region neere, Seeme all one mutuall cry. I neuer heard So musicall a ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... hadn't noticed during my first visit. They were portraits of great men of history who had spent their lives in perpetual devotion to a great human ideal: Thaddeus Kosciusko, the hero whose dying words had been Finis Poloniae;* Markos Botzaris, for modern Greece the reincarnation of Sparta's King Leonidas; Daniel O'Connell, Ireland's defender; George Washington, founder of the American Union; Daniele Manin, the Italian patriot; Abraham Lincoln, dead from the bullet of a believer in slavery; and finally, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... type has disappeared. Couchant lion type with snake tail has been found at Olympia and Sparta. In general brooches cease to ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... natural to men, in all times, if they live or have lived in a metropolis noted for dignity or prowess. Caesar boasted of his native Rome; Lycurgus of Sparta; Virgil of Andes; Demosthenes of Athens; Archimedes of Syracuse; and Paul of Tarsus. I should suspect a man of base-heartedness who carried about with him no feeling of complacency in regard to the place of his residence; who gloried not in its arts, or arms, or behavior; ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... to be the only new fertilizer generally available in moderate abundance prior to the building of the railroads. In early years the seed lay about the gins as refuse until it became a public nuisance. To abate it the village authorities of Sparta, Georgia, for example, adopted in 1807 an ordinance "that the owner of each and every cotton machine within the limits of said town shall remove before the first day of May in each year all seed and damaged cotton that may be about such machines, or dispose of such seed or cotton so as to prevent ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... confess that the phenomerides of Sparta were in the right, like all women who, though they possess a fine figure, have a repulsive face; in spite of the beauty of the piece, the title drives spectators away. Still an interesting face is an inseparable accident ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... civil government. It prepared some to rule and others to obey, and divided the governing from the governed, an essential characteristic of all forms of government. Military organization frequently accompanied or preceded the formation of the modern state. Sparta and Rome, and in more modern times Prussia, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... greatness ye shall change it; with your justice ye shall purify it; with your clemencies ye should it chasten and amerce. Ye ask me to be a queen. Shall I be a queen and not such a queen? No, I tell you; if a woman may swear a great oath, I swear by Leonidas that saved Sparta and by Christ Jesus that saved this world, so will I come by my queenship and so act in it that, if God give me strength the whole world never shall find speck upon mine honour—or upon thine if ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... country was open only to the savage who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and now it has already drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens crowded within her historic gates, when her sons, under Miltiades, won liberty for man-kind on the field of Marathon; more than Sparta contained when she ruled Greece, and sent forth her devoted children, quickened by a mother's benediction, to return with their shields, or on them; more than Rome gathered on her seven hills, when, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... our schools and our education have stood, to too great an extent, for mere intellectual acquisition and training. In Sparta of old, education was probably nine tenths physical and one tenth mental. In these modern days education seems to be about ninety-nine parts mental. A sound body is the foundation of a sound mind, and time is not lost in devoting much attention to the play and games ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... of Athens and Sparta the world's greatest wars have in the main been conflicts of ideals—democracy being arrayed against oligarchy—men fighting for individual rights as against ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... the wealthy to their true nature—and so forth. Of any generous outlook on the wider possibilities of human life there is scarcely a trace. His essay is the apotheosis of social mediocrity. By Procrustean methods he would have forced mankind back to the dull levels of Sparta: the opalescent glow of Athenian life was beyond his ken. But perhaps the most curious passage is that in which he preaches against the sin and folly of ambition. He pictures Ambition as a figure with pallid cheeks, wild ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... father, Tyndarus, had sent her to be kept by him, for fear of Enarophorus, the son of Hippocoon, who would have carried her away by force when she was yet a child. But the most probable account, and that which has witnesses on its side, is this: Theseus and Pirithous went both together to Sparta, and, having seized the young lady as she was dancing in the temple of Diana Orthia, fled away with her. There were presently men in arms sent to pursue, but they followed no farther than to Tegea; and Theseus and Pirithous being now ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... armor:—"Plato says that it imitated all the attitudes of defence, by avoiding a thrust or a cast, retreating, springing up, and crouching-as also the opposite movements of attack with arrows and lances, and also of every kind of thrust. So strong was the attachment to this dance at Sparta that, long after it had in the other Greek states degenerated into a Bacchanalian revel, it was still danced by the Spartans as a warlike exercise, and boys of fifteen were instructed in it." Of the Hunting-dance I have already given ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... that while we viewed, Of Sparta's sons the lot severe, We caught the Spartan fortitude, And saw their ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... manuscripts had been brought to Italy by Angeli da Scarparia, Guarino, Giovanni Aurispa, and Filelfo. After the fall of Constantinople the Greek immigrants introduced books into Italy much more freely. George Hermonymus of Sparta, a Greek teacher and copyist of Greek manuscripts, visited England on a papal mission in 1475, but whether he had any influence on our intellectual pursuits does not appear.[1] Certainly, however, English scholars soon ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... its simpler, and then in its more complex and luxurious forms. The relation of the individual to the community is represented chiefly as one of education and training; and many strange theories—as of the equal {148} training of men and women, and the community of wives, ideas partially drawn from Sparta—are woven into the ideal structure. Then the dialogue rises to a larger view of education, as a preparation of the soul of man, not for a community on earth, but for that heavenly life which was suggested above (p. 144) in the myth of ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return! See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no specter that speaks! 10 Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, "Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed, Ran and raced; like stubble, some field which a fire runs through, Was the space between city and city. Two days, two nights did 15 I burn Over the hills, under the dales, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the existence of slavery. "No legislator of history," says Voltaire, "attempted to abrogate slavery. Society was so accustomed to this degradation of the species, that Epictetus, who was assuredly worth more than his master, never expresses any surprise at his being a slave." Egypt, Sparta, Athens, Carthage, and Rome had their thousands of slaves. In the Bible, the best and chosen servants of God owned slaves, while in profane history the purest and greatest men did the same. In the very nation over whose devoted head hung the curse of God, slavery, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... from out the temple where the dead Are honour'd by the nations—let it be, And light the laurels on a loftier head, And be the Spartan's epitaph on me: "Sparta had many a worthier son than he"; Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted—they have torn me—and I bleed: I should have known what fruit would ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... M.P., who has apparently a somewhat elementary knowledge of ancient history, and who seems to rely for information on a primer such as "Little Willie's First History Book," recommends Communism because "In Sparta there were not only common lands, but also a common table, whilst dogs and horses were practically common property also. Sparta, which kept its Communism almost to the end, was also the Republic from ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... after the taking of Troy, Helen, who had, of her own free will, belonged successively to Paris, and to Deiphobus, afterwards returned to Menelaus, who never offered her any reproach. That conduct of Menelaus was so natural that Telemachus, who, in his trip to Sparta found Helen again with Menelaus, just as she was before her abduction, did not show the ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Hera is in Homer attached especially to Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, but at a very early time was Pan-Hellenic. The meaning of her name and her origin are uncertain. There is no good ground for regarding her as having been originally a moon-goddess (Selene ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... To-morrow thou shalt summon the suitors to the place of assembly, and charge them that they depart to their homes. And do thou thyself fit out a ship, with twenty rowers, and get thee to Pylos, where the aged Nestor dwells, and inquire of him concerning thy father. From Pylos proceed to Sparta, the kingdom of Menelaus; he was the last of the Greeks to reach home, after the fall of Troy; and perchance thou mayest learn something from him. And if thou hearest sure tidings of thy father's death, then get thee home, and raise a tomb to his memory, and keep his funeral feast. ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... evening Mrs. Maxwell's courage never flagged. She entertained her guests as well as a woman of Sparta could have done. She even had the coolness to prosecute other projects which she had in mind. She kept Mrs. Field and Lois behind the rest, and walked home with the mother, that Francis might have the girl to himself. And she ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... found the battery near a little town called Dunlap, the county seat of Sequatchie County, Tennessee, having been crossing the Cumberland mountains for two days. Thence to Sparta, White County, Tennessee on Sept. 6th on an air line 40 miles from Dunlap, but much more over the Cumberland mountain route. Friday, Sept. 19th, found the battery on a hill overlooking the Federal fort at Munfordville, Kentucky, having marched from Sparta some 120 miles during the 12 preceding ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... state, and the papacy as the chief hindrances to the attainment of these ends, and considers the means by which help may be given to the Fatherland. In normal circumstances a republican constitution, under which Sparta, Rome, and Venice have achieved greatness, would be the best. But amid the corruption of the times, the only hope of deliverance is from the absolute rule of a strong prince, one not to be frightened back from severity and force. Should the ruler endeavor to keep within the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... pleads in vain that they are Kaunians, subjects of Rhodes, and that Rhodes is henceforward on Sparta's side. "Kaunian the ship may be: but Athenians are on board. All Athens echoed in that song from AEschylus which has been ringing across the sea. The voyagers may retire unhurt. But if ten pirate ships were pursuing them, they should not ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... sight of him, and perhaps will slay him as she slew his sire. It is now no world to trust a woman in.—But what says fame? is my son yet alive? lives he in Orchomen, or in Pylus, or is he resident in Sparta, in his uncle's court? as yet, I see, divine Orestes is not ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... eff[ae]minate crysping: crowned and dressed, with garlands and wreathes of diuers flowers, and red Roses, with leauye Myrtle, with purple Amaranth or flower gentle, and Melliot: and with them a great company of yonge maydes, more fayre and delicate then bee to bee founde in Sparta; Both kindes apparelled very richly, in silkes of changable collours, hyding the perfect collour; some in Purple & Murry, and some in white curled Sendall, such as [Ae]gipt neuer affoorded, and of dyuers other collours: some ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... mean time, all was confusion and dismay in the city of Athens. The government, as soon as they heard of the approach of this terrible danger, had sent an express to the city of Sparta, asking for aid. The aid had been promised, but it had not yet arrived. The Athenians gathered together all the forces at their command on the northern side of the city, and were debating the question, with great anxiety and earnestness, whether they should shut themselves ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... can show its face, There Freedom has no dwelling place. And such a blessing Freedom is, That boldly Sparta, as we wis, Unto Hydarmes gave reply: 'Freedom must stand by Bravery Sheltered and guarded evermore.' Amid the bloody ranks of war, Amid the fearful dance of death, Let gleaming swords drawn from the sheath, And sharp-edged spears ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... head of an army of fellows like myself, and out of Germany shall spring a republic compared to which Rome and Sparta will be but as nunneries. (Rises and flings his sword upon ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... host swept down through Greece, passing Thermopylae unopposed, ransoming Athens (where Alaric enjoyed a Greek bath and a public banquet, and tried to behave for a day like a Roman gentleman); sacking Corinth, Argos, Sparta, and all the cities and villages far and wide, and carrying off plunder inestimable, and troops ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... of iron framed, Vain those all-shattering guns, Unless proud England keep untamed The strong heart of her sons; So let his name through Europe ring,— A man of mean estate, Who died, as firm as Sparta's king, Because his ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... ultimately dissolve into thin air; for it is monstrous to suppose, in an age when European men have sacrificed everything to free themselves from the last vestiges of feudalism, that in the Far East the cult of Sparta should remain a hallowed and respected doctrine. Japan's policy in the Far East during the period of the war has been uniformly mischievous and is largely responsible for the fierce hatreds which burst out in 1917 over the war issue; and China will be forced to raise at the earliest possible moment ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... ask, do the Homeric descriptions of shields tally with the representations of shields in works of art, discovered in the graves of Mycenae, Spata in Attica, Vaphio in Sparta, and elsewhere? If the descriptions in Homer vary from these relics, to what extent do they vary? and do the differences arise from the fact that the poet describes consistently what he sees in his own age, or are the variations caused by late rhapsodists in the Iron Age, who ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... years ago the Boeotian city of Plataea was one among the many lesser Greek republics. Her citizens earned immortal fame by taking part with the leading States of Athens and Sparta in the decisive battles, fought on their own territory, which delivered Greece from the fear of Persian conquest and saved the light of Greek freedom and civilization from being extinguished. To this day the name of Plataea is held in honor throughout the world; for many years that honor was ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... not the spirit of commerce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries. Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they as often engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighboring monarchies of the same times. Sparta was little better than a wellregulated camp; ...
— The Federalist Papers
... prison; and such as were most fortunate purchased life by the sacrifice of half their treasures. At this time, however, there suddenly broke forth a formidable insurrection amongst these miserable subjects—the Messenians of the Iberian Sparta. The Jews were so far aroused from their long debasement by omnipotent despair, that a single spark, falling on the ashes of their ancient spirit, rekindled the flame of the descendants of the fierce warriors of Palestine. They were encouraged and assisted by the suspected Christians, who ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of these United States) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began, and I pray God, that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last, were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and christian nation, no more than a cypher—or in other words, those heathen nations ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... course, foresee all this. No great or inspired man can foresee all the consequences of his deeds; but these men were, as I hold inspired to see somewhat at least of the mighty stake for which they played; and to count their lives worthless, if Sparta had sent them thither to help ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the Lacedaemonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... his Republic, followed the divisions of the Zodiac and the planets. So also did Lycurgus at Sparta, and Cecrops in the Athenian Commonwealth. Chun, the Chinese legislator, divided China into twelve Tcheou, and specially designated twelve mountains. The Etruscans divided themselves into twelve Cantons. Romulus appointed twelve Lictors. There were twelve tribes of Ishmael and twelve disciples ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... July 4th. His route lay directly west over the Cumberland Mountains to Sparta, a distance of one hundred and four miles. This, in spite of the rough roads, he made in three days. Many of the mountaineers of East Tennessee clung to the Union, and much of the way he had to ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... that look had fallen might have seen, not Nelly Lebrun in the cheap dance hall, but Helen of Sparta and all Troy's dead. But Donnegan was clever, not wise. And he saw only Nelly Lebrun and the broad shoulders ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... Sparta, having shown little respect for the Gods during his reign, became superstitious in his last days; with the view of interesting Heaven in his favor, he called around him a multitude of sacrificing priests. One of his friends expressing his surprise, Cleomenes said: "What are ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... failure: brute force on the one hand, and a dull intellect on the other, won a complete victory over the aristocratic genius among the nations. To be a Philhellenist now means to be a foe of brute force and stupid intellects. Sparta was the ruin of Athens in so far as she compelled Athens to turn her entire attention to politics and to act as a ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... When to Sparta there came Paris, with eyes blue as the sea, and hair that gleamed like gold on his purple robe, gallant and brave, and more beautiful than any mortal man, glad was the welcome that he ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... When he cometh, I shall shed, From this wellspring in my head, Fountain-drop of spicier worth Than all vintage of the earth. There's fruit upon my barren soil Costlier far than wine or oil. There's a berry blue and gold,— Autumn-ripe, its juices hold Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart, Asia's rancor, Athens' art, Slowsure Britain's secular might, And the German's inward sight. I will give my son to eat Best of Pan's immortal meat, Bread to eat, and juice to drain; So the coinage of his brain Shall not be forms of stars, but stars, Nor pictures ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Cercyon, Sciro, Sinnis slain, The Epidaurian giant's bones dispersed, Crete reeking with the blood of Minotaur. But when you told me of less glorious deeds, Troth plighted here and there and everywhere, Young Helen stolen from her home at Sparta, And Periboea's tears in Salamis, With many another trusting heart deceived Whose very names have 'scaped his memory, Forsaken Ariadne to the rocks Complaining, last this Phaedra, bound to him By better ties,—you know with ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... mentioned by Herodotus five centuries before the Christian era. He alludes to the cotton-trees of India, and describes a cuirass sent from Egypt to the King of Sparta embellished with gold and with fleeces from trees. Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, notices the growth of cotton both in India and Arabia, and observes that the cotton-plants of India have a leaf like the black mulberry, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... reason, and the test of their virtues, in the affairs they transact, upon a foot of equality, and of separate interest. The measures taken for safety, including great part of the national policy, are relative in every state to what is apprehended from abroad. Athens was necessary to Sparta in the exercise of her virtue, as steel is to flint in the production of fire; and if the cities of Greece had been united under one head, we should never have heard of Epaminondas or Thrasybulus, of Lycurgus ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... in Athens against persons of the greatest merit; theft connived at, as it appears, by Lycurgus in Sparta; an equality of goods established in the same city, by the authority of the state, and things of a like nature, may admit of some difficulty. However, I shall pay a more immediate attention to these particulars,(42) when ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... was an intensely powerful sentiment in favour of local self-government. This feeling was scarcely less strong as between states like Connecticut and Rhode Island, or Maryland and Virginia, than it was between Athens and Megara, Argos and Sparta, in the great days of Grecian history. A most wholesome feeling it was, and one which needed not so much to be curbed as to be guided in the right direction. It was a feeling which was shared by some of the foremost Revolutionary leaders, such as Samuel Adams ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... families acquire an importance from their connection with names which appear conspicuous on the page of history, and have been praised by the united voices of successive generations. We cannot hear, without an instinctive glow, of the cities of Rome, Athens, Sparta, Syracuse, and others which respectively produced a Cæsar, a Demosthenes, a Lycurgus, and an Archimedes; of the islands of Samos and Ægina, whence emanated the resplendent genius of a Pythagoras and a Plato; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... there could not be a greater mistake than for the idealistic mind to contemn the scientific. Rather, he thought, the idealists should use the scientific toilers as patient, humble, and serviceable people, much as the Dorian conquerors of Sparta used the Helots, and encourage them to perform the necessary and faithful work of investigation for which the idealists were unfitted. The mistake which men of scientific temper made, Hugh thought, was to concern themselves only or mainly, with material phenomena. The idealistic and imaginative ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... scene below!(112) Each hardy Greek, and valiant Trojan knight, So dreadful late, and furious for the fight, Now rest their spears, or lean upon their shields; Ceased is the war, and silent all the fields. Paris alone and Sparta's king advance, In single fight to toss the beamy lance; Each met in arms, the fate of combat tries, Thy love the motive, and thy charms ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... a very popular god, yet his tricksy ways caused him to be looked upon with suspicion. Every one was anxious to stand well with him. In some of the cities of ancient Greece, as Sparta and Athens, he was worshipped with great solemnity, and every five years festivals ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... From Nashville to Sparta, Tenn., and then a rough, tough ride up the mountain side, "rattling the bones over the stones" until at length we have climbed the Cumberland Plateau. We arrive at no-where in particular, which is named Pleasant ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... are the two kings of Sparta among English critics of to-day. They stand preeminent among those of our contemporaries who have served literature in the capacity of law-givers during the past fifty years. I do not suggest that they are better critics than Mr. Birrell or Sir Sidney Colvin or the late Sir E.T. Cook. But none of ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... is laid before the palace of Menelaus at Sparta. Helen, accompanied by a band of captive Trojan maidens, has been disembarked at the mouth of the river Eurotas by Menelaus, on his return from Troy, and has been sent forward to Sparta to make preparation for the arrival of her husband and his warriors. ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... warning, but as usual her words were not heeded, and so Paris set sail. He reached the shores of Greece in safety; but instead of proceeding to Salamis to demand Hesione from King Ajax, he steered his vessels to the coast of Sparta. This he did under the guidance and direction of Venus, who was now about to fulfill the promise by which she had won the golden prize on ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... in the Idaean glen unveiled In ancient days before the Phrygian swain, By how much heavenly Venus had prevailed I know not, though her rivals strove in vain. Nor haply had the youth for Sparta sailed, To violate the hospitable reign; But said: "With Menelaus let Helen rest! No other prize I seek, of ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... without prejudice unto his health; sometimes exceeding the sumptuousnesse and pompe of the Persians, and now and then surpassing. the austeritie and frugalitie of the Lacedemonians; as reformed in Sparta, as voluptuous ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... first-born, and to him was given a double share of the inheritance. With the ancient Hindus but a slight favouring—of the eldest son seems to have been in vogue, the principle of co-proprietorship of parent and children being recognized in the laws of Manu. In Sparta, the constitution was inimical to a reserve for all the children; in Athens, the code of Solon forbade a man to benefit a stranger at the expense of his legitimate male children; he had, however, the right ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... Constantino, Duke of Sparta, is leaving Athens, to take command of the Greek forces in Thessaly, and be ready to lead ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Club," that all men should be held eligible who were under seventy. But in all governments, the councils of power were held by the old; and patricians or patres, senate or senes, seigneurs or seniors, gerousia, the senate of Sparta, the presbytery of the Church, and the like, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... time. I can hardly conceive of the enemy breaking through at Kingston and pushing for Kentucky. If they should, however, a new problem would be left for solution. Thomas has ordered a division of cavalry to the vicinity of Sparta. I will ascertain if they have started, and inform you. It will be entirely out of the question to send you ten thousand men, not because they cannot be spared, but how would they be fed after they got even one day ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... set out for Greece on a tour of inspection: and when you get to Sparta, Helen will see you; and for the rest—her falling in love, and going back with you—that ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... namely, nine years. I threw, therefore, a domestic coloring over the whole subject and presented an imaginary conversation between Paris and Helen, in which Paris tried to persuade Helen that she was strong-minded woman thrown away on a limited society in Sparta, and that she should come away and visit some of the institutions of the world with him, which would doubtless prove a mutually instructive journey.[1] I then gave the children the view taken by Herodotus that Helen never ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... have,—I who was passing more than two years from the hands of one guide to those of another? Hast thou been in Rhodes to examine the site of the Colossus? Hast thou seen in Panopeus, in Phocis, the clay from which Prometheus shaped man; or in Sparta the eggs laid by Leda; or in Athens the famous Sarmatian armor made of horse-hoofs; or in Euboea the ship of Agamemnon; or the cup for whose pattern the left breast of Helen served? Hast thou seen Alexandria, Memphis, the Pyramids, the hair which Isis tore from ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Life of Mr. Stephens, was a very large and fine white poodle, named Rio, a dog of unusual intelligence and affection, to which Mr. Stephens became very strongly attached. While Mr. Stephens was in Washington, Rio staid with Linton Stephens, at Sparta, Georgia, until his master returned. Mr. Stephens would usually come on during the session of Greene County court, where Linton would meet him, having Rio with him in his buggy, and the dog would then return with his master. ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that spread upon the Romans; and that was the sure way of greatness. I have marvelled, sometimes, at Spain, how they clasp and contain so large dominions, with so few natural Spaniards; but sure the whole compass of Spain, is a very great body of a tree; far above Rome and Sparta at the first. And besides, though they have not had that usage, to naturalize liberally, yet they have that which is next to it; that is, to employ, almost indifferently, all nations in their militia of ordinary soldiers; yea, and sometimes ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon |
