He also writes of Spartan women freeing their husbands from the Lakedaimonians by bravely entering their prison and switching clothes with them, allowing the men to escape and return to the fighting while they remained behind. Herodotus testifies to their mettle by telling of the strength of Gorgo, the wife of the great Spartan king Leonidas. Nonetheless, these quotes suffer from an obvious defect: They all come from Plutarch and can’t be corroborated, since few others wrote in detail on the attitude of Spartan women towards their men. Another woman, as she was sending her lame son up the battlefield, said: Son, with each step you take bear courage in mind. Away! This son unworthy of Sparta was not mine at all. Useless pup, worthless portion, away to Hell. Away to the darkness, cowardly offspring, where out of hatred / Eurotas does not flow even for timorous deer. Once her grandson Acrotatus was brought home from some boys’ combat badly battered and seemingly dead, and both her family and friends were sobbing, Gyrtias said: Won’t you keep quiet? He’s shown what kind of blood he has in him, and she added that brave men should not be howled over but should be under medical care. As they heaped praise on him and declared that in his exploits he was the best of all the Spartans, she said: Strangers, my son was indeed noble and brave, but Sparta has many better men than he. ![]() She asked if her son had died nobly, in a manner worthy of Sparta. Some Amphipolitans came to Sparta and visited Archileonis, the mother of Brasidas, after her son’s death. As a modern commentator observes, he could have been taking poetic license: He isn’t a contemporary source of the saying, as the days of Spartan military glory had ended more than three centuries earlier. Plutarch was a Greek, born approximately 46 AD in the town of Chaeronea in the region of Boeotia. He writes, “Another woman handed her son his shield, and exhorted him: ‘Son, either with this or on this.'” This quote is found in Plutarch’s Moralia, a collection of morals, tales, and short stories, in a section called Sayings of Spartan Women. First let’s look at the source of the shield story, which isn’t Herodotus but the Roman writer Plutarch. Your question is more complex than it might seem. ![]() After you hear about the mothers of Sparta, you don’t think your own mom is so bad because she makes you drink your milk. It’s consistent with modern conceptions of Sparta, but is it real? Is it just an old wives’ tale concocted to make us believe our own mothers aren’t so bad? HCPIII I’ve heard this quote attributed to Herodotus, but I’ve never seen any specific reference. With it = victorious hero on it = fallen hero without it = coward. Dear Straight Dope: “With it or on it.” We’ve all heard that Spartan mothers said it while giving their sons shields before their first battle.
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