GOF books 3 and 4

pg. 141 ch. 12
Demaratos replied that of all the Hellenes the Spartans were acknowlaged the most pious and help the gods most in awe. He declared it his own observation that in this regared among the Lakedaemonians, the lesser rankers and thosein service, particularly the outlanders ofthe captive Xeones' station, were almost without exception, in the Demaratos' phrase, "more Spartan than the spartans."

pg. 143 ch. 12
My loyalty to the Spartans was rebuked with scorn and ridicule by Dekton. I had been placed in this boy's power shortly after fate had brought me to lakedaemon, two years earlier, when both he and I were twelve. his family worked the estate of Olympieus, Alexandros' father, who was related to Dienekes via his wife, Arete. Deton himself was a halfbreed helot, illegitimately sired, so rumor had it, by a peer whose gravestone, ldotychides in war at mantinea lay along the Amyklaian Way, opposite the line of syssitia, the coomon messes.

pg. 166 ch. 13
The wife of Menelaus, she whom Paris had carried off to troy, the cause of endless suffering among Trojans and Greeks, and for whose perrless beauty's sake so many brave Achaeans lost their lives in troy far from their native country. spartan women surpass for beauty all others in Hellas, and not the least of their charms is that they make so little play oponit. Aphrodite is not their goddess, but artemis hunteress. look at the loveliness of our hair, their bearing seems to say, which reflects the lamplight not by the artifice of the cosmetician art, but by the the sheen of health and the luster of virtue.

pg. 186 ch. 15
then you, your Magisty, acceded to the throne. the army of the foe did notdisband. her fleet did not disperese. Insteadthe empire's mobilization redoubled. The zeal of a prince freashly crowned burned within his Majesty's breast. Xerxes son of Darius would not be judged by history inferior to his father, nor to his illustrious forebears Cambyses and Cyrus the great. Thses, who had vanquished and enslaved all Asia, would be joined in the pantheonof glory by Xerxes, their scion, who would now add Greece and Europe to the roll of provinces of the rmpire.

pg. 189 ch. 15
Dread omens and Prodigies abounded. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi had counseled the Athenians, "Fly to the ends of the earth," while thye Spartan Concil of Elders, notoriously slow to action, yet dithered and dawdled. A stand must be made somewhere. But where? In the end it was their women who galvanized the spartans into action. It came about like this. Refugees, many brides with babes, were flooding into the last free cities. young mothers took flight to Lakedaemon, islanders and relations fleeting the Persian advace across the Aegean.

pg. 230 ch. 20
Three hundered. The mearger tally seemed to rattle about the plain like peas in a jar. Just three dosen pack animals stood in the fore along roadway. There were only eight wagons; the sacrifical herd was marshaled by two scacred-looking goat boys. Supply trains had laredy been disbatched and dumps set up along the six day route. in addition, it was anticipated, the allied cities would provied provisions along the ways, as the Spartan forerunners picked up the various contingents which would complete the force and bring it to its full complement of four thousand.