When the Spartans threatened an invasion, and oracles were reported to the Thebans, of which some told of defeat and others of victory, he ordered that these be placed at the right of the speakers' platform, and those at the left. When they had all been so placed, he arose and said, ‘If you are willing to obey your officers, and come to close quarters with the enemy, these are the oracles for you,’ and he pointed to those of good omen; ‘but if you are going to play the cowards in the face of danger, then those,’ and he glanced at those of ill omen. 1 [p. 143]
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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