Greek history Author:Plutarch Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LYSANDER. Persian Daric. The treasure-chamber of the Acanthians at Delphi has 1 this inscription: " The spoils which Brasidas and the Acanthians took ... more »from the Athenians." And accordingly many take the marble statue, which stands within the building by the door, to be Brasidas's; but indeed it is Lysander's, an actual likeness, representing him with his hair at full length, after the old fashion, and with an ample flowing beard. For neither is it true, as some have said, that because the Argives after their great defeatf shaved themselves for sorrow, the Spartans, on the other hand, triumphing in their achievements, allowed their hair to grow ; nor did they take a passion for wearing long hair, because the Bacchiadse, who Literally an iconic statue; this, from eikon or icon, a likeness, is the technical term used in Latin as well as Greek for real portraits from the life, as distinguished from ideal representations. t This was the account given by Herodotus, who is not a favourite with Plutarch. The battle was a famous one, -fought some little time before the Persian wars. Argos before her defeats had been the first state in Peloponnesus, and had claimed a sort of pre-eminence in Greece, to which the Spartans after their victory succeeded. fled from Corinth to Lacedaemon, looked mean and unsightly, having their heads all close cut. But this, also, is in fact one of the ordinances of Lycurgus, who, we are told, used to say, that long hair made good- looking men more beautiful, and ill-looking men more terrible. 2 Lysander's father is said to have been Aristocritus, who was not indeed of the royal family, but of the stock of the Heraclidse. He was brought up in poverty, and showed himself obedient and conformable, as ever any one did, to the customs of his cou...« less