The Precepts of Chiron

Fragment #1—Scholiast on Pindar, Pyth. vi. 19: ‘And now, pray, mark all these things well in a wise heart. First, whenever you come to your house, offer good sacrifices to the eternal gods.’

Fragment #2—Plutarch Mor. 1034 E: ‘Decide no suit until you have heard both sides speak.’

Fragment #3—Plutarch de Orac. defectu ii. 415 C: ‘A chattering crow lives out nine generations of aged men, but a stag’s life is four times a crow’s, and a raven’s life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs, daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes.’

Fragment #4—Quintilian, i. 15: Some consider that children under the age of seven should not receive a literary education… That Hesiod was of this opinion very many writers affirm who were earlier than the critic Aristophanes; for he was the first to reject the Precepts, in which book this maxim occurs, as a work of that poet.