In the management of which, perhaps it may be expedient to take our rise from their very procreation. I
would therefore, in the first place, advise those who desire
to become the parents of famous and eminent children, that
they keep not company with all women that they light on;
I mean such as harlots, or concubines. For such children
as are blemished in their birth, either by the father's or
the mother's side, are liable to be pursued, as long as they
live, with the indelible infamy of their base extraction, as
that which offers a ready occasion to all that desire to take
hold of it of reproaching and disgracing them therewith.
So that it was a wise speech of the poet who said,—
Misfortune on that family's entailed,
Whose reputation in its founder failed.1
Wherefore, since to be well born gives men a good stock
of confidence, the consideration hereof ought to be of no
small value to such as desire to leave behind them a lawful issue. For the spirits of men who are alloyed and
[p. 4]
counterfeit in their birth are naturally enfeebled and debased; as rightly said the poet again,—
A bold and daring spirit is often daunted,
When with the guilt of parents' crimes 'tis haunted.2
So, on the contrary, a certain loftiness and natural gallantry of spirit is wont to fill the breasts of those who are
born of illustrious parents. Of which Diophantus, the
young son of Themistocles, is a notable instance; for he is
reported to have made his boast often and in many companies, that whatsoever pleased him pleased also all Athens:
for whatever he liked, his mother liked; and whatever his
mother liked, Themistocles liked; and whatever Themistocles liked, all the Athenians liked. Wherefore it was
gallantly done of the Lacedaemonian States, when they
laid a round fine on their king Archidamus for marrying
a little woman, giving this reason for their so doing: that
he meant to beget for them not kings, but kinglings.
