It is perhaps better to begin with their parentage first ; and I should
advise those desirous of becoming fathers of notable offspring to abstain
from random cohabitation with women; I mean with such women as courtesans
and concubines. For those who are not well-born, whether on the father's or
the mother's side, have an indelible disgrace in their low birth, which
accompanies them throughout their lives, and offers to anyone desiring to
use it a ready subject of reproach and insult. Wise was the poet who
declares:
The home's foundation being wrongly laid,
The offspring needs must be unfortunate.1
A
goodly treasure, then, is honourable birth, and such a man may speak his
mind freely, a thing which should be held of the highest account by those
who wish to have issue lawfully begotten. In the nature of things, the
spirits of those whose blood is base or counterfeit are constantly being
brought down and humbled, and quite rightly does the poet declare:
[p. 7]
A man, though bold, is made a slave whene'er He
learns his mother's or his sire's disgrace.2
Children of
distinguished parents are, of course, correspondingly full of exultation and
pride. At all events, they say that Cleophantus, the son of Themistocles,
often declared to many persons, that whatever he desired was always agreed
to by the Athenian people; for whatever he wished his mother also wished;
whatever his mother wished Themistocles also wished; and whatever
Themistocles wished all the Athenians wished. It is very proper also to
bestow a word of praise on the Spartans for the noble spirit they showed in
fining their king, Archidamus, because he had permitted himself to take to
wife a woman short of stature, the reason they gave being that he proposed
to supply them not with kings but with kinglets.
