Expert: Maria - 5/10/2010

Question
Hello Maria,

Since "Aut cum scuto, aut in scuto" is originally Spartan, do you happen to know how to write it in Greek? Both Greek spelling and Latin transliteration is highly appreciated.

Thank you very much,
Serge.

Answer
Hello,

the original phrase we read in Plutarch’s Sayings of Spartan Women 241,16 reads as follows:

-" ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς "
(Latin transliteration, ”he tàn he epì tãs”)

This sentence means exactly ”Either this or upon this”, i.e. “Either with the shield or on it” (Latin, ’Aut cum scuto aut in scuto’) in the sense of “Either bring the shield back or be brought home dead upon the shield“.

The full text where we read the words spoken by a Spartan woman is just the following:

" Ἄλλη προσαναδιδοῦσα τῷ παιδὶ τὴν ἀσπίδα καὶ παρακελευομένη, "τέκνον," ἔφη, "ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς".  (Another woman, as she handed her son his shield and  exhorted him, said: "Either this or upon this")

In short,  this Spartan mother wished her son to return from war either with their shield or on it, since, if a soldier  returned home alive without his shield, it meant that he had lost it while running for his life and then he had been a coward.


So, as you can see, the Latin  translation ’Aut cum scuto aut in scuto’ (With your shield or on it) does not correspond exactly to the Greek phrase “ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς” where the word  “scuto” (ablative of “scutum”, shield ) does not appear at all, but it appears in the context I have written above (τὴν ἀσπίδα /ten aspida, accusative of ἀσπίς /"aspìs", meaning "shield")

Best regards,
Maria
___________________________________________________________________
Note that:

-He / ἢ = either /Latin ‘aut’

-tan / τὰν (Doric accusative instead of τὴν / ten) = this /Latin ‘cum scuto’

-he / ἢ = or /aut

-epi  / ἐπὶ (preposition which can takes the genitive case or the accusative) = upon/ on /Latin, ‘ in’

-tas / τᾶς (Doric genitive instead of τῆς /tes) = it /Latin ‘ scuto’.

Doric dialect spoken by the Spartans had only little differences from the other two Greek dialects (Ionic-Attic and Aeolic) from which Ancient /Classical Greek has derived.
So, the main difference between Doric Greek (spoken in Sparta and Peloponnese)  and Attic/Koiné /Classical Greek (spoken originally in Attica and Athens and then all over Greece),  was the preservation of the long  vowel A, while Attic/Koiné/Classical Greek  had  changed it to long open E ("eta" in Greek alphabet, i.e. 'η' . See τῆς). In Doric in fact and all other dialects except Attic and Ionic the feminine forms preserved the old α (alpha)instead of changing it to η (eta), hence Doric ἁ, τάν, τᾶς. Such a difference however disappeared  at a very early date.



Finally I have to tell you that ”The  Sayings of the Spartan Women” are included in Plutarch’s Άποφθέγματα Λακωνικά - Apophthegmata Laconica-meaning “The sayings of the Spartans”which is a part of the Moralia (ancient Greek Ἠθικὰ —Matters relating to customs and mores), a collection of 78 essays and transcribed speeches of the first-century Greek scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea, whose best-known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices.