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Plutarch's Lives Containing Brief and Accurate Accounts of the Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans
Plutarch's Lives Containing Brief and Accurate Accounts of the Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans Author:Plutarch General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1900 Original Publisher: Penn Pub. Co. Subjects: Biography Greece Rome History / Ancient / General History / Ancient / Greece History / Ancient / Rome History / Europe / Greece Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustration... more »s and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: PHILOPCEMEN. Note. -- Philopcemen (Greek). Philopoemen, called the last of the Greeks, was born in Arcadia, B. c. 252. His death by poison, when a prisoner of the Messenians, took place B. c. 183. Philopcemen, from a child, was fond of everything military, and readily entered into the exercises which tended to that purpose; those of riding, for instance, and handling of weapons. As he seemed well formed for wrestling, too, his friends and governors advised him to improve himself in that art; which gave him occasion to ask whether that might be consistent with his proficiency as a soldier ? They told him the truth; that the habit of body and manner of life, the diet and exercise, of a soldier and a wrestler, were entirely different; that the wrestler must have much sleep and full meals, stated times of exercise and rest, every little departure from his rules being very prejudicial to him; whereas the soldier should be prepared for the most irregular changes of living, and should chiefly endeavor to bring himself to bear the want of food and sleep without difficulty. Philoposmen, hearing this, not only avoided and derided the exercise of wrestling himself, but afterward, when he came to be general, to the utmost of his power exploded the whole art, by every mark of disgrace and expression of contempt, -- satisfied that it rendered persons who were the most fit for war quite useless and unable to fight o1l necessary occasions. ...« less