"Spartan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... magnitude of States, the division of labor, the suppression of slavery and the requirements of personal comforts and prosperity. Neither the Girondists nor the Montagnards, who aimed to revive Athenian and Spartan ways, comprehended the precisely opposite conditions on which ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... swift-footed Celtic hounds are called in the Celtic tongue [Greek: oueztragoi]; not deriving their name from any particular nation, like the Cretan, Carian, or Spartan dogs, but, as some of the Cretans are named [Greek: diaponoi] from working hard, [Greek: itamai] from their keenness, and mongrels from their being compounded of both, so these Celts are named from their swiftness. In figure, the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the Banner, and the Field,[vi] Glory and Greece, around me see! The Spartan, borne upon his shield,[134] Was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... butter—she ate the latter as if it were a peculiarly distasteful medicine in the solid—the girl tidied the room. It was the only really well-furnished room in the cottage; Nell's little chamber in the roof was as plain as Marguerite's in "Faust," and Dick's was Spartan in its Character; but a Wolfer—Mrs. Lorton was a distant, a very distant connection by a remote marriage of the noble family of that name—cannot live without a certain amount of luxury, and, as there was not enough to go round, Mrs. Lorton got it all. So, though Nell's little bed was devoid of ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... salon was separated from the dining-room by Joseph's apartment—a simple apartment in no way made beautiful by his Spartan articles of dress and toilet. The drawing-room was at the end of the passage, and there was a gas-jet at each corner of the corridor. Netty went to the drawing-room, but stopped short on the threshold. Contrary to custom, the room was dark. The old-fashioned chandelier in the centre of the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... seeing other nations going over the top—the same nations who had been over so many times; they wanted to see their sons and brothers at once given the opportunity to share the wounds and the danger. Their attitude was Spartan and splendid; they demanded a curtailment of their respite that they might find themselves afloat on the crimson tide. The cry of the civilians in America was identical with that of their men in France. "Let them take off our khaki or else ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... good people,—Zeus confound you, brute of a Spartan, your big sandals crush my toes again! Can I never get near enough to place my two minae on ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... stories of the great West where he had lived as a boy, and of the wilderness through which he had tramped as a mere child when he cared for his father's cattle. Russell was entirely too young to grasp the meaning of the earnest discussions that went on about the fireplace of which this Spartan was then the centre. But in later years their meaning came to him with a peculiar significance. A light seemed to be shed on the horrors of slavery as if the voice of his childhood's friend were calling ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... skins of the victims were given as prizes to competitors in running, wrestling, boxing, and other contests. The superintendence of such festival games, so fully accordant with Grecian usage and highly interesting to the army, was committed to a Spartan named Drakontius; a man whose destiny recalls that of Patroklus and other Homeric heroes—for he had been exiled as a boy, having unintentionally killed another boy with a short sword. Various departures from Grecian ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... has the art, as no man but himself ever had, of sustaining the illusion of an awful or solemn narrative through a long poem, to be closed in a catastrophe that is at once unexpected and ludicrous. The mystification is complete; the secret of the issue is never betrayed; suspense is maintained with Spartan reticence; curiosity is excited progressively to its utmost tension; and the surprise at the end is oftentimes electric. "A Storm at Hastings" and "The Demon Ship" are of this class. But sometimes the terrible so prevails as to overpower the ludicrous, or rather, it becomes more terrible by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... than half of the people and Pericles, the great leader, had been killed. The plague was followed by a period of bad and untrustworthy leadership. A brilliant young fellow by the name of Alcibiades had gained the favor of the popular assembly. He suggested a raid upon the Spartan colony of Syracuse in Sicily. An expedition was equipped and everything was ready. But Alcibiades got mixed up in a street brawl and was forced to flee. The general who succeeded him was a bungler. First he lost his ships and then he lost his army, ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... social amenities on the rangeside or in the bush, where women are scarce. Vane had lived in Spartan simplicity, practising the ascetic virtues, as a matter of course. He had had no time for sentiment, his passions had remained unstirred; and now he was seven and twenty, sound and vigorous of body, and, as a rule, level of head. ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... compensation; proprietors of Boarding Schools, or "Academies," as they were generally called, had to modify their terms and to plead for compensation, while the King on his throne found the Civil List insufficient even with that Spartan order adopted by His Majesty, George III., that the bread in his household was to be made of meal and rye mixed, and that the Royal family were to eat the same bread as ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... and her pride sustained her. She was the Spartan wife of the brave soldier. She even took up knitting as an appropriate activity. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... deterioration of the gentleman been confined to England only—polite and ceremonious France has felt her change. The Revolution brought in coarse and uncivilised manners. The awkward and unsuccessful attempt at Spartan and Roman republican manners; the citizen succeeding to Monsieur; the blasphemous, incredulous, atheistical principles instilled into the then growing generation of all classes; the system of equality, subversive of courtliness, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... mountains, and the terror of the plains. He therefore goes forth to distinguish himself in the fight, and bring home trophies of his prowess. If theft is held in esteem by the Circassian, as formerly by the Spartan warrior, it is so mainly for its adroitness, a quality so necessary in circumventing the enemy; and if he exults in stripping the discomfited Muscovite and Cossack of their arms and clothing, these are the tokens of his valor, and chiefly as ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... our duty without gratefully acknowledging the respect we entertain for those who have defended our cause with more than Spartan courage. It is the opinion of your committee, that they are to be respected as our countrymen, our brethren, and our fellow citizens—not to say they are to be applauded as men, whose great acts are based upon the acclamation of their fellow ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... not couched in forms Worn and made smooth by prudent folk long dead. I love Hipparchus for his wave-like brightness; He wastes himself, but till his flash is gone I shall be ever glad to hear him laugh: Nor could one make a Spartan of him even Were one the Spartan with a will to do it. Yet had there been no more than what is told, Thou wouldst not now be lending ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... cold, and a tremor ran through him; but he did not speak a word; and, with Spartan fortitude, suppressed all outward sign of emotion. He laid the paper down patiently, and ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... rights are abused, our women are robbed of their womanhood and their chastity is insulted, our aspirations are banded and proscription is held up to our eyes wherever we go, and enforced against us with Egyptian exactness and Spartan severity, and the most vexatious and grievous fact of all is, that the strong arm of the law of the land loses its power when it comes our turn to receive justice. The law either plays truant, or openly acknowledges that it has no power to defend us. But the ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... a Spartan youth, son of Clio, one of the Muses, and of the mortal with whom she had mated, and from mother, or father, or from the gods themselves, he had received the gift of beauty. It chanced one day that as Apollo drove his chariot on its all-conquering round, he saw the boy. Hyacinthus was ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... LE ON' I DAS, the celebrated Spartan leader who, with three hundred men, perished in the effort to resist the Persian hosts, at the mountain pass ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the children of that sex, hardly yielded to that of the male in laboriousness and fatigue. Be this confessed to be an extreme: but then it was in some measure compensated by its being universally allowed, that the Spartan women owed to it that beauty in which they excelled the rest of the Grecian women, who were themselves held, in that point, preferable to the rest of the world. Hellen was a Spartan. Yet the legislator of that people, did not so much ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... should flap its black pinions, Then gladly "to arms," while we hurl, in our pride, Defiance to tyrants and death to their minions! With our front in the field, swearing never to yield, Or return, like the Spartan, in death on our shield! And the Cross of the South shall triumphantly wave, As the flag of the free or ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... styled the "account-dinner," is partaken of by any of the shareholders who may wish to be present, on which occasion the manager and agents lay before the company the condition and prospects of the mine, and a quarterly dividend (if any) is paid. There is a matter-of-fact and Spartan-like air about this feast which commands respect. The room in which it is held is uncarpeted, and its walls are graced by no higher works of art than the plans and sections of the mine. The food is excellent and substantial, but simple. There is abundance of it, but there are no courses—either preliminary ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... classical education, while Gabrielle could supply the feminine influence which was so essential to real refinement. She was not only tired of tutors—their equivocal social status was so tiresome!—but sufficiently Spartan to feel that her sons would be better away from home for a little while. Away, but not too far away. Gabrielle had thought it would be rather fun to have a couple of boys, even dull boys like the Traceys, in the house. She had told Considine that she would like the arrangement if only the Rectory ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... regular Spartan, as a rule, but they've just finished dividing up my father's estate, so I'm in funds for the moment, and why shouldn't we have a little dinner to celebrate? If you want to change, I can wait outside—but come just as you are, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... Reflect that you, so lately unrivalled, can now see a EUGENE SUE whose brow is umbraged by laurels of a more luxuriant and lovely green. Cease your expectorations of bile upon a great people; admit that mastication of the 'odorous vegeble' is a Spartan virtue; and we will again vote you an Anak in the kingdom of pen and paper. Then again shall we be led to believe that your praises and your vituperations are equally unpurchasable. Then once more shall we think you would swallow no golden pill, nor ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... thy art, 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
... which was carried on between Carrigaholt and the Greek woman to whom the rooms belonged. Carrigaholt objected that the windows commanded no view of the street. Immediately the brow of the majestic matron was clouded, and with all the scorn of a Spartan mother she coolly asked Carrigaholt, and said, “Art thou a tender damsel that thou wouldst sit and gaze from windows?” The man whom she addressed, however, had not gone to Greece with any intention of placing ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... his short Account of the Spartan Commonwealth, [1] speaking of the Behavior of their young Men in the Streets, says, There was so much Modesty in their Looks, that you might as soon have turned the eyes of a Marble Statue upon you as theirs; and that in all their Behaviour they were more modest than a ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... will not weary you with futile minor divisions of time; here are three coins (Plate VII.) roughly, but decisively, characteristic of the three ages. The first is an early coin of Tarentum. The city was founded as you know, by the Spartan Phalanthus, late in the eighth century. I believe the head is meant for that of Apollo Archegetes, it may however be Taras, the son of Poseidon; it is no matter to us at present whom it is meant for, but the fact that we cannot know, is ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... That night, however, an extraordinary event took place, and showed how far from terror-palsy were the motley troops in Plattsburg. A sturdy Vermonter, named Captain McGlassin, got permission of Malcomb to attempt a very Spartan sortie. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... disguised in war-paint and armed with the weapons of warriors and the courage of despair—fought side by side with the Indian braves in the effort to arrest Rutherford's progress and compass his defeat. More than forty frontiersmen fell beneath the deadly shots of this truly Spartan band before the final repulse ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... would permit any one to talk with him about himself, and enthusiastic admirers of his genius commonly met with a rather cold reception. He repelled everything in the shape of a compliment. Dr. Edward Emerson says somewhere that his father was used to eat whatever was set before him with Spartan-like indifference. This mistake may have arisen from the good quality of Mrs. Emerson's housekeeping, and the excellent fare which she provided for her husband and his friends. Emerson wished to bear the hardships of life without ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... out in a widely different manner—my own tastes are of a Spartan turn, and the outer chamber was so planned as to accord with them. An oil-stove by Rippingille of Birmingham furnished me with the means of cooking; while two great bags, the one of flour, and the other of potatoes, made me independent of ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... coolness and subordination was manifested, both by the 21st and 23d regiments. To Major Wood I feel particularly indebted. This officer's merits are so well known, that approbation can scarcely add to his reputation. He has the merit, with the Spartan band, in connection with Captain Towson's artillery, of defeating a vaunting foe of six times his force. Major Brooke did every thing in his power: and it affords me pleasure at all times to call the attention ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... often called for a moment upon his way to market, and Chris, who now greeted her lover, felt puzzled at the unusual gravity of his face. She turned pale when she heard his tremendous news; but the mother was of more Spartan temperament and received intelligence of Will's achievement without changing colour or ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... before she finished; and then she calmly slipped on to the nest, wriggling and twisting about as if she were pawing them over with her feet. There she sat for five or six minutes before darting away for fresh supplies, while I wondered if the two victims of this Spartan method were lying dead, stabbed to death, or smothered, by their own mother. But I did her tenderness and her motherhood injustice. Regularly every half hour she came and repeated this murderous-looking process, unless, as often happened, she was frightened ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... he had continued to live well. Now, with almost nothing left to live upon, he must go shabby, and cease to tickle his too fastidious palate. He must buy nothing new to wear, and must live at the cheapest of the restaurants. He felt a sort of Spartan satisfaction when this resolve had been fairly reached, but no enthusiasm. It required great resolution on his part when, for the first time, he entered a restaurant the sign in front of which bore the more or less alluring ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... inglorious in thy fate; For so Apollo, with unweeting hand Whilome did slay his dearly-loved mate Young Hyacinth born on Eurotas' strand, Young Hyacinth the pride of Spartan land; But then transform'd him to a purple flower Alack that so to change ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... dozen spearmen appeared, all obviously very frightened and only moved by an apparently Spartan discipline. Promptly they saluted, whereupon the Hero—as his title appeared to be—uttered a number of brief commands in some guttural language entirely unintelligible to ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... York magazines, going rather hungrily through their advertisements where such lovely layettes are described. My poor little Dinky-Dink's things are so plain and rough and meager. I envy those city mothers with all those beautiful linens and laces. But my little Spartan man-child has never known a single day's sickness. And ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... are quiet without, unless they should have been already disturbed by conspiracy; and even should affairs outside be disturbed, if he has carried out his preparations and has lived as I have said, as long as he does not despair, he will resist every attack, as I said Nabis the Spartan did. ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... stripped the Athenians of all the advantages which they had acquired on the mainland of Greece. In every city of Greece there were always two parties, the wealthy and noble, called oligarchs, and the demos, or commons; and according as Spartan or Athenian influence was in the ascendant the balance of power in each city wavered between the nobles and the people, the Athenians favouring the Many, the Spartans the Few. Accordingly there was always ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... but it was noticed by others, and especially by Howard. Often he watched Stafford moving moodily about his father's crowded rooms, with the impassive face which men wear when they have some secret trouble or anxiety which they conceal as the Spartan boy concealed the fox which was gnawing at his vitals; or Howard came upon him in the corner of a half-darkened smoking-room, with an expired cigar in his lips, and his eyes fixed on a ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... within the experience of everyone. There ale many people who pride themselves on not requiring any extra clothing during the colder months, and evidently look upon this fact as a proof that they possess Spartan powers of endurance, and that cold is a matter of perfect indifference to them. Now, it may be that a few individuals differ essentially from the rest of humanity, and do not require any change of clothing all the year round. But the majority of people who profess this disregard ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... dearer than the mere victory of party, as truth is more precious than the interest of any sect. You will hear this patriotism scorned as an impracticable theory, as the dream of a cloister, as the whim of a fool. But such was the folly of the Spartan Leonidas, staying with his three hundred the Persian horde, and teaching Greece the self-reliance that saved her. Such was the folly of the Swiss Arnold von Winkelried, gathering into his own breast the points of Austrian spears, making his dead body ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... third day the pass of Thermopyae was forced, thanks to the treachery of a Greek and the contemptible policy of the Spartan government which steadily refused the plea of Leonidas for reenforcements. With Thermopyae taken there was no further reason for the Greek fleet to try to hold the straits north of Euboea, and during the night it retired unobserved. The following day the Persian ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... garcon[53]) the little boy of the family is despatched by his mother to the landlord's neighbouring bog or turf rick, to bring home, in their phraseology, in ours to steal, a few turf; if, upon this expedition, the little Spartan be detected, he is tolerably certain of being whipped by his mother, or some of his friends, upon his return home. "Ah, ye little brat! and what made ye tell the gentleman when he met ye, ye rogue, that ye were going to the rick? ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... constancy of the witnesses. The headmen manage their rogueries with so much ingenuity that charges can very seldom be proved against them. They send out their apprentices, under particular instructions, to commit robberies, and, like the Spartan youths, they consider the most expert thief to be the cleverest fellow: should any of these young men be caught, they are left to get out of the scrape in the best manner they are able, for unless it be to swear falsely to an alibi, or some other evasion of ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... an armed police, headed by Wellington himself, which held her chief fortresses for three years, and saw that her chains were kept bright and strong. Never, since Lysander demolished the Long Walls of Athens to the music of the Spartan flute, had the world seen so bitter a spectacle of national humiliation, so absolute a reversal of fortune,—the long-conquering legions perishing by the sword, and him who had headed so many triumphal processions perishing as it were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... detecting it. Not a lump of sugar, not a slice of bread, went to waste in that house; yet even I had to think twice to realize that we were poor, desperately poor. She did not hide our poverty; she beautified it, she dignified it into Spartan simplicity. I know it is not the glamour over the past that makes me believe there are no women now like those of the race to which she belonged. The world, to-day, yields comfort too easily to the capable; ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... first instalment of wealth and fame. It was, indeed, from the editor of the periodical, and, remembering the avalanche of poetry and prose from beneath which this unfortunate class must daily struggle into life and being, it was unusually kind and full; but to Haldane it was cruel as death—a Spartan short-sword, only long enough to pierce his heart. It was to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... shelves of precipitous rock, she holds it in place with her foot until the warmth of her leg and overhanging body hatches it into life, when she takes it on her back and flies down to the sea. Motherhood under difficulties, it would seem, and the education of the baby guillemot is carried forward on Spartan principles; for the moment he is out of the shell he is swept downward hundreds of feet and plunged into a cold ocean, where he can sink or swim as instinct serves him. In a life so fraught with anxieties, exposures, and dangers, it is not strange that the guillemots ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... horribly afraid, but she had learned in the Spartan household of her ancestors, to be more afraid of fear than of anything else, so she pulled a blanket over her head and shouldered a musket, and, after the elder Letitia had unbarred and unbolted the door, they all stepped out into the night, armed and ready to guard ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fame, Fair Virtue's silent train: supreme of these 170 Here ever shines the godlike Socrates: He whom ungrateful Athens[66] could expel, At all times just, but when he sign'd the shell: Here his abode the martyr'd Phocion claims, With Agis, not the last of Spartan names: Unconquer'd Cato shows the wound he tore, And Brutus his ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... capable of being corrected; but any advance gained by the democratic party, has never been retraced, and that it has been by the preponderance of power being thrown into its hands that nations have fallen. Of all the attempts at republics, that of the Spartan, perhaps, is the most worthy of examination, as Lycurgus went to work radically, and his laws were such as to obtain that equality so much extolled. How far the term republic was applicable to the Spartan form of government I will not pretend to say, but when Lycurgus was called upon ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... custom rends the bond of love. Nations we know have nature's law transgress'd, And snatch'd the infant from the parent's breast; But still for public good the boy was train'd, The mother suffer'd, but the matron gain'd: Here nature's outrage serves no cause to aid; The ill is felt, but not the Spartan made. Then too I own, it grieves me to behold Those ever virtuous, helpless now and old, By all for care and industry approved, For truth respected, and for temper loved; And who, by sickness and misfortune tried, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... Spartan mothers with one voice, while the other sisters danced round them, and Kate patted the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Beyond a doubt her French maid was becoming careless, very careless. Sometimes Miss Arthur was inclined to think that her scant locks of well-dyed hair were pulled quite unnecessarily, while her head was under Celine's hands. But this she endured like a Spartan, only exclaiming when the torture became unbearable. And when she finally ventured a protest, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... about 1820 near the forks of the Platte River. He was one of a family of nine children whose father, an able and respected warrior, reared his son under the old Spartan regime. The young Red Cloud is said to have been a fine horseman, able to swim across the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, of high bearing and unquestionable courage, yet invariably gentle and courteous in everyday life. This last trait, together with ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... to be a Christian, but as a gentleman one accepts a bit of bad luck without gnashing one's teeth. What? That Spartan boy with the fox was a well bred 'un, you can take my word for ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... them to the Colonel's tent, which had a raised floor and the good cheer of cigar-boxes, and of something under his cot that looked like a champagne-basket; and he smiled to think of Chaffee's Spartan-like outfit at Chickamauga. Every now and then a soldier would come up with a complaint, and the Colonel would attend to ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... A young Spartan, braving the risk of a hundred lashes, stole into a kitchen, and carried off a live fox-cub, which concealed under his coat, scratched and bit him till the blood came. To avoid the disgrace of detection, the child allowed the creature to gnaw ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... same boat, or in the same tent, and I never found a fault in him.... Each day's life with him added to my admiration for him. His gentleness never forsakes him: his hopefulness never deserts him. His is the Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring resolution of the Anglo-Saxon. The ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... It is of course highly probable that Shakespeare read some Seneca at school. I may add that in the Hippolytus, beside the passage quoted above, there are others which might have furnished him with suggestions. Cf. for instance Hipp., 30 ff., with the lines about the Spartan hounds in Mids. Night's Dream, IV. i. 117 ff., and Hippolytus' speech, beginning 483, with the Duke's speech in As You Like It, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... a Spartan; a hunk of bread and a jug of water, dashed perhaps with milk, served him as a dinner. His income was spent on the poor, on struggling men of genius, and on necessitous friends. Now as the world goes, this is simply asinine; and Mr. Gosse plays to the Philistine gallery by ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Wing). This plain and unpretentious building, which was largely due to the munificence of Archbishop Laud, was begun in 1635 and finished two years later. It cost, with the buildings above, about L4,200. Its dreary late-Gothic windows and heavy tracery, and the Spartan severity of its unbacked benches, are characteristic of the time of transition, alike architectural and religious, to which it belongs. It has been from that time to this the Parliament House of the University, where all matters are first discussed by the ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... sufferings, Germany has reason enough to cherish with a passionate devotion her late achieved unity. And German brutality, which is not the less brutality because Germans regard it as quite natural and right, has its origin in German history. The Prussian is a Spartan, a natural brute, but brutal to himself as well as to others, capable of extremes of self-denial and self-discipline. From the Prussians the softer and more emotional German peoples of the South received ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... remember that Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the townsman of Alexander the Great, made an expedition to Italy. This was the way it came about. The city of Tarentum was a Spartan colony at the head of the gulf that bears its name. It was as proud as its parent, but had lost all the grave sternness of manners, and was as idle and fickle as the other places in that languid climate. ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... woman about Winkelberg. I became poignant and moving on the subject of Winkelberg's misfortunes, his trials, sufferings and, above all, his Spartan stoicism. It pleased me to do this. I felt that I was making some amends and that the thing ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... quite tired and sleepy before the doctor returned for him, and his bruises ached badly. Once he would have cried and worried every one about him, if in such an uncomfortable state; but now he bore the pain like a Spartan. ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... the men they caught—won't they help?' and I says, 'They paid their tine and skipped.' 'Fine?' asks Mart, 'fine? I thought you said it was jail sentence.' 'Well,' says I, 'it amounts to the same thing; she can't pay her fine, and that damn reform judge, wanting to make a record as a Spartan, has committed her to jail till it is paid!' 'So they go free, and she goes to jail, because she is poor,' says Mart.' That's what your reform means,' says I, 'or I let her and the boy loose and lose my job. And oh, Mart,' ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... conceited in the matter,—but not proud of having excited the admiration of her Irish lover. She was proud of her own subsequent conduct, and gave herself credit for coming out strongly as a noble-minded matron. "I believe she thinks," said Mrs. Mackinnon, "that her virtue is quite Spartan and unique; and if she remains in Rome she'll boast of it through ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... harmony with the rooms and furniture, consisting only of the strict necessities, cooked with a Spartan disregard for such sybarite foibles as seasoning or dressing. I believe there was a substantial meal somewhere in the early morning hours, but I never succeeded in getting down in time to inspect it. By successful bribery, I induced one of ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... day of the most Spartan simplicity, all our needs cut down to the lowest and plainest of possessions, and yet a spirit of hospitality, of contentment, of gaiety, of self-reliance and mutual helpfulness. ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... on my mind by Greece, as well as Rome, was its diminutive size. I almost resented the fact that a place civilized thousands of years ago, and which had loomed up on my imagination as the land of Socrates, of Plato, of Homer, of Achilles, of Spartan warriors, and immortal poets, all seemed so small. The sense of imposition on my youth ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... beholding her eagerness, at length the nurse showed the child, and the woman caressed its face and said, "she shall be the fairest woman in Sparta." And from that day the fashion of its countenance was changed, "and the child became the fairest of all the Spartan women." ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... her. I have talked over these things with her many a time; and where I would fain be, she would fain be also. She sent me out with my virgin honor, as the Spartan mother did her boy with the shield, saying, 'Come back either with this, or upon this;' and one or the other I must do, if I would meet her either in this life or in the next. But in the meanwhile do not mistake me; my life ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... vain to get an offer from him. Said I, 'Carroll, is this another Declaration of Independence? No,' said I, 'Carroll, I won't reduce the last signer, it may be, to obedience on a wife going blind. That would be worse slavery than George the Third's!' He said I was a Spartan widow." ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... breakfast, of a mug of tea and bread. Edgar found, however, that the Spartan breakfasts and teas could be supplemented by additions purchased at the canteen. Here pennyworths of butter, cheese, bacon, an egg, a herring, and many similar luxuries were obtainable, and two pence of his pay was invariably spent on ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... no foreign education and speaks no English. He is distinctively Chinese in his training and outlook. He is a man of force, capable of drastic methods, straightforward intellectually and physically, of unquestioned integrity and of almost Spartan life in a country where official position is largely prized for the luxuries it makes possible. For example, practically alone among Chinese provincial officials of the first rank he has no concubines. Not only this, but he proposed ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... the manlier of the two, for Drury was a delicate boy, too sensitive for the approval of his Spartan fellows. They made fun of his gentleness. He hated to wreathe a fishing-worm on a hook! He loathed to wrench a hook from a fish's gullet! The nearest he had ever come to fighting was in defense of a thousand-legged worm that one of the ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... The female Spartan said nothing however, hoarding her indignation in silence, complaining only to don Andres of the recrudescence of a madness that was upsetting all her plans. Through his numerous henchmen the counselor kept watch upon the young man. His spies followed ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... write something about the rosy but dim and distant date when Dolores would be "through school?" Well, it's come. She's through school. And school, I might mention in passing, is through with her,—five of them, from Miss Trenchard's Spartan smartness to the gentle Spanish convent. She's a demon-baby. She's a cross between Carmen ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... always," Mat replied, and then because she had a Spartan spirit, she added: "But let's don't say any more that way. Let's think of what you are going to see—the plains, the Santa Fe Trail, the mountains, and maybe bad Indians. And even old Santa Fe town itself. You are in for 'the big shift,' as Aunty Boone says, and you've got ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... of female courage of ancient and modern times, and set before the wives, sisters, and daughters of the country, in the hope that it may make them even more renowned for resolution, fortitude, and self-sacrifice than the Spartan females of old. By HENRY C. WATSON. With Illustrations. Cloth. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... perspicacity; and he used to lecture comparative strangers about their duties with incredible insolence. The clergyman's life was made a burden to him, and the doctor's as well. Though he was the most luxurious and comfort-loving old wretch, his great text was the value of Spartan discipline for everyone else. If any dish was not exactly to his mind, he would allow no one to taste it, send it away, and complain bitterly that even his simple wants could not be supplied. Even when he got more infirm and took most of ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... spare me a repetition of your father's platitudes—I've heard them often enough. I don't know much about the war, but all I've heard has set me against it. But never mind! And now, good-bye, my Spartan sweetheart." ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... to check expenditure. Athalie had dismissed their servant as soon as she had lost her position at Wahlbaum and Grossman's. Table expenses were reduced to Spartan limits, much to the disgust of them all. No clothes were bought, no luxuries, no trifles. They did their own marketing, their own cooking, their own housework and laundry. And had it not been that the apartment entailed no outlay for light, heat, ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... Esq., near the grave of his beloved wife, who, a short time before, preceded him to the tomb. Upon this lot was located the Queen's Museum College, receiving, in 1777, the more patriotic name of "Liberty Hall Academy." Within its walls were educated a Spartan band of young men, who afterward performed a noble part in achieving ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... indolent and mean-spirited. He had begun to question the utility of religion, of patriotism, and of justice. Having allowed the organ for the ideal to atrophy in his soul, he could dream of finding some sullen sort of happiness in unreason. He felt that the austere glories of his country, as a Spartan regimen might have preserved them, would not benefit that baser part of him which alone remained. Political virtue seemed a useless tax on his material profit and freedom. The tedium and distrust ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... English bishop recently alleged in an after-dinner speech, "there is embodied so much wholesome discipline that a careful attendance to the practice of them gives the young man or woman an advantage not offered by any other method of training." Spartan, but indigestible! A keener observer than the bishop—the heresiarch Thackeray—wrote in his Philip: "I never saw people on better terms with each other, more frank, affectionate and cordial, than the parents and the grown-up young folks in the United States;" and certain it is that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... popped frequently and furious; or a request for another snipe, or another spoonful of the sauce; while all devoted themselves to the work in hand with a sincere and business-like earnestness of demeanor, that proved either the excellence of Tom Draw's cookery, or the efficacy of the Spartan sauce which the sportsmen had brought to assist them at their meal. The last rich drops of the fourth flask were trickling into Tom's ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... The Spartan simplicity of the proceedings impressed the Master far more than any Oriental ceremony could have done. Here was the Olema, or high priest and chief, of a huge city carved of virgin gold, coming to meet him on horseback and speaking to him face to ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... imagined that Mr. Chamberlain and his noble colleagues had anything but beds of roses whilst pursuing the diplomacy adopted to checkmate the Bond. They had to gain national support without divulging their own proceeding, and were at the same time reduced to a situation which imposed a spartan fortitude in concealing and repressing involuntary perturbation in the presence of an impending national crisis, and also the stoical endurance of bitter recriminations on the part of an opposition comprising a large ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... and one more classic than any black broth ever supped by Spartan; more pregnant of Fate than the hell-broth compounded by Macbeth's witches; broth in which was brewed the destiny of a great nation, broth but for whose brewing I certainly, and you, if you be of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... one: he gives proofs no less convincing that the many are nought. To deceive the world by saying the same thing in entirely different forms, is a strain of art beyond most of us.' 'Yes, Socrates,' said Zeno; 'but though you are as keen as a Spartan hound, you do not quite catch the motive of the piece, which was only intended to protect Parmenides against ridicule by showing that the hypothesis of the existence of the many involved greater absurdities than the hypothesis of the one. The book was a youthful composition of mine, ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... more!" she immediately justified his emotion, by undergoing the same alarm, and, without further hesitation, engaged herself in the search, beginning with a song, which might be compared to the hymn of battle among the Greeks, or rather more aptly to that which the Spartan females sung round the altar of Diana, surnamed Orthian; for it was attended with strange gesticulations, and, in the course of utterance, became so loud and shrill, that the guests, who were by this time partly ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... other metopes testify. The figure of Athena should be compared with that of Sterope in the eastern pediment. There is a substantial resemblance in the drapery, even to the arbitrary little fold in the neck; but the garment here is entirely open on the right side, after the fashion followed by Spartan maidens, whereas there it is sewed together from the waist down; there is here no girdle; and the broad, flat expanse of cloth in front observable there is here narrowed by two folds falling ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... ff.) Philocomasium needs only to change clothing to appear in the role of her own hypothetical twin sister, and in 874 ff. and 1216 ff. the meretrix plays matrona. Sagaristio and the daughter of the leno impersonate Persians (Per. 549 ff.), Collabiscus becomes a Spartan (Poen. 578 ff.), Simia as Harpax gets Ballio's money (Ps. 905 ff.), the sycophant is garbed as messenger (Trin. 843 ff.), Phronesium elaborately pretends to be a mother (Truc. 499 ff.). A swindle is almost ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... Stonewall Jackson would have felt at home, saying his prayers at the double-quick, in such company. As mementos from home, the soldiers wore in their caps and buttonholes withered flowers and sprigs of green which their womenfolk had given in farewell. The women were just as Spartan as the Spartans; perhaps more so. If any soldier lacked innate courage, the spur of public opinion drove him forward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... received fifteen thousand francs with the lady, who, after two years of marriage, became the ugliest and consequently the most peevish woman on earth. Luckily they had no children. The fair complexion (maintained by a Spartan regimen), the fresh, bright color in her face, which spoke of an engaging modesty, became overspread with blotches and pimples; her figure, which had seemed so straight, grew crooked, the angel became a suspicious and shrewish creature who ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Philoctetes, which are also emblems of the all-conquering rays of the sun. The recovery of the stolen treasure is like Menelaus's recovery of Helen, and it apparently brings as little happiness to Sigurd as his recreant wife did to the Spartan king. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... it physically in the prize fighter who "doesn't know when he is beaten," in the race horse that throws an unexpected dash into the last stretch even after his last ounce of force is gone, in the Spartan soldier who exclaimed "If I fall I fight on ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... admiration, and the rigid frown of insulted virtue effaces the smile of complacency, which his eloquent periods are wont to raise, when I read his voluptuous reveries. Is this the man, who, in his ardour for virtue, would banish all the soft arts of peace, and almost carry us back to Spartan discipline? Is this the man who delights to paint the useful struggles of passion, the triumphs of good dispositions, and the heroic flights which carry the glowing soul out of itself? How are these mighty sentiments lowered when he describes the prettyfoot and enticing airs of his ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... living-quarters of the crew, kept spotlessly clean and tidy, yet Spartan-like in their simplicity. Two of the men were sound asleep in their bunks. Three more, who were playing cards at a plain deal table, glanced up from their game as the British lads passed by; but their interest was of brief duration, and stolidly they ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... The case of Sparta is especially interesting because the Spartan mores were generally admired and envied in the fourth century B.C. They were very artificial and arbitrary. They developed into a catastrophe. The population declined to such a point that it was like group suicide. The nation incased itself in fossilized mores and extremest ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... but weep o'er days more blest? Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... were overthrown. National danger and the necessity for national effort being removed, self-devotion failed, egotism broke loose, and began to revel in the pillage and oppression of a conquered world. The Roman character was corrupted, as the Spartan character was corrupted when Sparta, from being a camp in the midst of hostile Helots, became a dominant power and sent out governors to subject states; though the corruption in the case of Sparta was far more rapid, because Spartan excellence ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... therefore took his dinner to him and they ate it together. A blackbird once assailing Benedict's face was repelled by the sign of the cross. Being tempted by a woman, Benedict crawled about among briars and nettles to maintain his Spartan spirit. He now became the abbot of a monastery, but the monks were so worldly that he had to correct them. In retaliation they poisoned his wine, but the saint making the sign of the cross over it, the glass broke in pieces and the wine was innocuously ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Evelyn found the new owner of Vandon, when they rode over together to call, a day or two after the school-feast. Poor Dare was sitting on the low ivy-covered wall of the topmost terrace, a prey to the deepest dejection. If he had lived in Spartan days, when it was possible to conceal gnawing foxes under wearing apparel, he would have made no use of the advantages of Grecian dress for such a purpose. Captivated by Evelyn's gentleness and sympathetic manner (strangers always thought Evelyn sympathetic), and impressed by ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... acceptance to the Home Secretary, who had asked him to luncheon. Doris was not included in the invitation. "But anybody may ask a husband—or a wife—to lunch, separately. That's understood. I shan't do it often, however—that I can tell them!" And justified by this Spartan temper as to the future, he wrote a charming note, accepting the delights of the present, so full of epigram that the Cabinet Minister to whom it was addressed had no sooner read it than he consigned it instanter to his ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Spartan training had a queer effect upon her. Always meagrely fed, always knowing the very minimum of comfort, she became oblivious to food or comfort for herself; she became unconscious, independent of her body save as a means of locomotion, but she cared immensely for other ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... terrible fall was this! that famous one of Icarus himself, tumbling down headlong from the near neighbourhood of the sun, was not a greater. Battered, bruised, sore and aching all over, poor Leander, crestfallen and forlorn, limping painfully, and suppressing his groans with Spartan resolution, crept slowly back to his own room; but so overweening as his self-conceit that he never even suspected that a trick had been played upon him. He said to himself that without doubt Mme. la Marquise had been watched and followed by her jealous husband, who ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... man of the tale who saves himself from cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odious thing a dozen yards. A trail of red, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage[118:1] Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud 235 And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er Measured firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day, When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men 240 Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered tribes That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind— These, hush'd awhile with patient eye serene, Shall watch the mad careering of the storm; Then ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... had never met; the poor man didn't care to have his quiet invaded by strange women, and to do the honours of London is no small task: yet this heroic gentleman obeyed orders without a murmur; and, leaving his artistic seclusion, shouldered his burden with the silent courage of a Spartan. ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... there before them, were also freemen, all but those of one city, called Helos, which revolted, and was therefore broken up, and the people were called Helots, and became slaves to the Spartans. One of the Spartan kings, sons of Hercules, had twin sons, and these two reigned together with equal rights, and so did their sons after them, so that there were always two kings at Sparta. One line was called the Agids, from Agis, its second king; the other Eurypontids, from Eurypon, its third king, instead ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 1846, Jackson received the brevet rank of second lieutenant of artillery. He was fortunate from the very outset of his military career. The officers of the United States army, thanks to the thorough education and Spartan discipline of West Point, were fine soldiers; but their scope was limited. On the western frontier, far beyond the confines of civilisation, stood a long line of forts, often hundreds of miles apart, garrisoned by a few troops of cavalry or companies ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... memorial days and ceremonies "that all the students should observe": the ceremony of reading the Imperial Rescript on education, thrift and morality, and the ceremonies at the end of rice planting, at harvest and at the maturity of the silk-worm. The fitting-up of the school is Spartan but the rooms are high and well lighted and ventilated. The students' hot bath accommodates a dozen lads at a time. The studies are also the dormitories, and in the corner of each there is stored a big mosquito netting. Except for a few square yards near the doors, these rooms consist ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... perish!' Think of the fair, soft lips set to utter that grand surrender, and of all the flowery and silken cords which bound the young heart to life, so bright and desirable as was assured to her. Note the resolute calmness, the Spartan brevity, the clear sight of the possible fatal issue, the absolute submission. No higher strain has ever come from human lips. This womanly soul was of the same stock as a Miriam, a Deborah, Jephthah's daughter; and the same fire burned in her,—utter devotion to Israel because entire consecration ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... not already as much disgusted with Spartan Black Broth as Dionysius was {243} with the first mouthful, I beg leave to submit a few supplementary words to the copious indications of your correspondents "R.O." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... oath is taken is always originally divine. In the Hebrew ordeal of jealousy the sacred water decides whether the accused woman is guilty or not.[573] The sea is treated as a living thing, whose anger may be appeased by gifts; it is a monster, a dragon.[574] The Spartan Cleomenes, about to start on a voyage, sacrifices a bull to the sea.[575] Offerings to the sea are made in ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... condition of a slaughtered beast as the natives, whose practice in that respect we had formerly ridiculed." When they caught an emu, their first and eager care was to pluck the feathers and cut into the flesh, "to see how thick the fat was, and whether it was a rich yellow." The Spartan Doctor himself was not proof against the greasy fascination. Hear his confession of a frailty, and record of its quick-succeeding punishment. 'Tis a propos of kites, which filthy feeders, unaccustomed in the lonely bush to the sight of man, become exceedingly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... spring, and the seedlings bear the following year. The plants should be set eighteen inches apart each way in the fruiting- bed. When they blossom, note and mark all the pistillates as such. Those that grow feebly, and whose foliage scalds or burns in the sun, root out at once. The Spartan law of death to the feeble and deformed should be rigorously enforced in the fruit garden. The first year of fruiting will satisfy you that the majority of seedlings are to be thrown away. Those that give special promise ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... of one of the three more fashionable corps spends far more than these sums, and his habits may be less Spartan. The ridiculous expenditure of some of our mamma-bred undergraduates, who go to college primarily to cultivate social relations, are unknown anywhere in Germany, for a student would make himself unpopularly conspicuous by extravagance. Two to three thousand dollars a year, even ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... changed the paths of earth and sea, who sailed upon the mainland, and walked upon the deep—him did Spartan valour hold back, with just three hundred spears. Shame on ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... resistance. The barbarians advanced from conquering to conquer. Alaric, leader of the Goths, invaded Greece at the head of a numerous army. Degenerate soldiers guarded the pass where three hundred Spartan heroes had once arrested the Persian hosts, and fled as Alaric approached. Even at Thermopylae no resistance was made. The country was laid waste with fire and sword. Athens purchased her preservation at an enormous ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... first Roman emperors. I prevailed on the governor to call up Heliogabalus's cooks to dress us a dinner, but they could not show us much of their skill, for want of materials. A helot of Agesilaus made us a dish of Spartan broth, but I was not able to get down ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... then this best and meekest woman bore With such serenity her husband's woes, Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore, Who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose Never to say a word about them more— Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, And saw his agonies with such sublimity, That all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... far shrewder than his brother gave him credit for. He was already richer than any two of the other children put together, but he chose to keep his counsel and to pretend modesty of fortune. He realized the danger of envy, and preferred a Spartan form of existence, putting all the emphasis on inconspicuous but very ready and very hard cash. While Lester was drifting Robert was working—working ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... forbidding her to mention it to any one, and dashed into the games with a Spartan disregard of her pain. It was the only way to keep from crying, and she played recklessly on at "prisoner's base," not stopping even when a pointed stick snagged one shoe and a ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... not learning enough to copy a Spartan mother, has lost her youngest son.(1067) I saw her this morning —her affectation is on t'other side she affects grief—but not so much for the son she has lost, as for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... 1815,) and France is only now beginning to understand that the defeat of Waterloo was necessary for the liberty of Europe; but she not the less cherishes at the bottom of her heart a poignant grief and rage at having been marked out for a victim. On that plain where so many Spartan-like warriors fell for her sake—where the pyramid of the Prince of Orange, the tomb of Colonel Gordon, and the monument of the Hanoverians, serve as mementoes of the fight—no stone, or cross, or inscription recalls the name of France. But the day shall come when God will bid her (France) recommence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... preparations did not daunt the spirits of Leonidas and his men, and his wife, Gorgo, not a woman to be faint-hearted or hold him back. Long before, when she was a very little girl, a word of hers had saved her father from listening to a traitorous message from the King of Persia; and every Spartan lady was bred up to be able to say to those she best loved that they must come home from battle "with the shield or on it"—either carrying it victoriously or borne upon it as ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... modern Constantinople stands. It was said to have been founded by Megarians and Argives under Byzas about 657 B.C., but the original settlement having been destroyed in the reign of Darius Hystaspes by the satrap Otanes, it was recolonized by the Spartan Pausanias, who wrested it from the Medes after the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.)—a circumstance which led several ancient chroniclers to ascribe its foundation to him. Its situation, said to have been fixed by the Delphic oracle, was remarkable for beauty and security. It had complete ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the Athenians above, esteemed themselves of the serpent race. The Lacedaemonians likewise referred themselves to the same original. Their city is said of old to have swarmed with [509]serpents. The same is said of the city Amyclae in Italy, which was of Spartan original. They came hither in such abundance, that it was abandoned by the [510]inhabitants. Argos was infested in the same manner, till Apis came from Egypt, and settled in that city. He was a prophet, the reputed son of Apollo, and a person of great skill and sagacity. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... indignant; the king groaned over it; Dumouriez laughed at it. "Ah, well then, really, gentlemen," he said to the courtiers, "since there is no more etiquette there is no more monarchy." This jocose mode of treating the thing had at once removed all the anger of the court, and all the effect of the Spartan ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... inkstand, pen, and small handwriting amuse them very much. Miss K., the typical American travelling lady, who is encountered everywhere from the Andes to the Pyramids, tireless, with an indomitable energy, Spartan endurance, and a genius for attaining everything, and myself, a limp, ragged, shoeless wretch, complete the group, and our heaps of saddles, blankets, spurs, and gear tell of real travelling, past and future. It is a most picturesque sight by the light of the flickering ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Spartan combing and curling, that the author is falling to, in the introductory flourishes ('diversions' as he calls them) of this great adventure, that his pen is out for now: he is indeed upon the point of running headlong into the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Belle Poule, as I do Raphael's "Disputa," and even rather more; for when abundant, beautiful possessions of this kind are almost always associated with vulgar luxury, and become then anything but indicative of noble character in their possessors. The ideal of human life is a union of Spartan simplicity of manners with Athenian sensibility and imagination; but in actual results, we are continually mistaking ignorance for ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... French are in my Head; Latin I write, and Greek I— read."] We have also his own authority (in Tom Jones) for supposing that he occasionally, if not frequently, sacrificed "with true Spartan devotion" at the "birchen Altar," of which a representation is to be found in Mr. Maxwell Lyte's history of the College. And it may fairly be inferred that he took part in the different sports and pastimes of the day, such ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... eat from anything better than pewter. It was a high crime even in a count and field-marshal to have a single silver spoon among his baggage. Gay young Englishmen of twenty thousand a year, accustomed to liberty and to luxury, would not easily submit to these Spartan restraints. The King could not venture to keep them in order as he kept his own subjects in order. Situated as he was with respect to England, he could not well imprison or shoot refractory Howards and Cavendishes. On the other hand, the example of a few ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... slightly vexed with me. As kind a master as any dog could wish to have, he yet did not approve of cake being given to dogs. The Fyne dog was supposed to lead a Spartan existence on a diet of repulsive biscuits with an occasional dry, hygienic, bone thrown in. Fyne looked down gloomily at the appeased animal, I too looked at that fool-dog; and (you know how one's memory gets suddenly stimulated) I was reminded visually, with an ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... l. 303. Ne'er may I see thee. The Spartan captives from Pylos had lately been at Athens, and some of them were reputed descendants of Hyllus, the ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... give no quarter &c (pitiless) 914.1. Adj. severe; strict, hard, harsh, dour, rigid, stiff, stern, rigorous, uncompromising, exacting, exigent, exigeant^, inexorable, inflexible, obdurate, austere, hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard-shell [U.S.], relentless, Spartan, Draconian, stringent, strait-laced, searching, unsparing, iron-handed, peremptory, absolute, positive, arbitrary, imperative; coercive &c 744; tyrannical, extortionate, grinding, withering, oppressive, inquisitorial; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... right way as morning and night to confine himself to these; but he who does so shall have his reward in a rare sanity of judgment and lightness of spirit, and a capacity for work unknown to countrymen of less Spartan habit. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... it appeared to me, the only thing to be done. But I had the courage to hold my tongue, to gnaw at my entrails like the Spartan boy. I wished to leave him ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... in the 'Edinburgh Review' (July, 1859) observes that "the Duke's talents seem never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only 'food for powder.' He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College of Angers." It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at this day, might have excluded ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... consolation elsewhere; he sat like a Spartan hero, and calmly watched his heart being consumed ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... which accords with the real interest and policy of men struggling under every difficulty for the attainment of the most inestimable blessing of life, liberty. The chevalier was polite enough to approve my principle, and condescended to appear pleased with our Spartan living. In a word, he made us all exceedingly happy by his affability and good humour, while ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life, The youths, whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, 5 Applauding Freedom loved of old to view? What new Alcaeus,[21] fancy-blest, Shall sing the sword, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... in matters of opinion is not to be obtained in the most select company; and if it were, what would become of society? "The Spartan legislator," says Plutarch, "appears to have sown the seeds of variance and dissention among his countrymen: he meant that good citizens should be led to dispute; he considered emulation as the brand by which their virtues were kindled; and seemed to apprehend, that ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D. |
