Hello. I study museology and in one of my texts I ran across the phrase "Aut cum scutum, aut in scutum". In the description it was said that was a phrase used in Ancient Sparta by the mothers of the soldiers going to war. I found it really cool, but I wonder how accurate it is. It was really used, and if so, is there any ancient text mentioning it?
Also, I'm terribly sorry if this is the wrong place to make this question. Thanks in advance.
I don't know why you're getting this in Latin, it was written in Greek. A version of it is mentioned in at least one Latin text I know of, Valerius Maximus' collection of anecdotes, but that's not the form it's given. Valerius says:
ut aut vivi cum armis in conspectum earum venirent aut mortui in armis referrentur
which has nothing in it about scuta--indeed, that wouldn't make much sense, as scutum is almost never applied to Greek shields, or even circular ones. The most common version of the saying, although not the earliest, is from Plutarch's Moralia:
ἄλλη προσαναδιδοῦσα τῷ παιδὶ τὴν ἀσπίδα καὶ παρακελευομένη, ‘τέκνον,’ ἔφη, ‘ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς.’
Another woman, giving her son his shield, and advising him said, "Child, either this or upon it."
This section of the Moralia (Moralia 241) is a collection of sayings of the Lacedaemonian women, most of which are spurious at best, and more usually pretty clearly totally made up or misattributed. This is one of the few ones which might be genuine--Aristotle attributes a similar saying to Gorgo. There's also some disagreement within ancient texts as to what on earth it means. The τὰν obviously refers to the shield, that's not in question, but what exactly ἐπὶ τᾶς is supposed to mean is a matter of some controversy among the texts where it's mentioned. Valerius thinks it means that the boy is supposed to be carried back home on his shield, dead. This is the traditional interpretation, though it's not the one that I think it makes the most sense--the alternate interpretation is that he's supposed to fall in battle on his shield. The fact that the saying mentions no actual verb makes it difficult to figure out what you're supposed to supply to complete it--I don't know of any Greek soldiers being carried home dead on their shields, though, which seems like a decidedly Gallic thing to do
The phrase comes to us from Plutarch's Lacaenarum Apophthegmata, "Sayings of Spartan Women." It was originally written as such:
ἄλλη προσαναδιδοῦσα τῷ παιδὶ τὴν ἀσπίδα καὶ παρακελευομένη ‘τέκνον’ ἔφη ‘ἢ ταύταν ἢ ἐπὶ ταύτας.’
"Another, giving her child a shield, advised 'Either with this or upon this.'"
(Greek Context and English, though it's fragmentary so it doesn't do much.)
The Latin phrase, which with better grammar would be Aut cum scuto aut in scuto "Either with the shield or on it," is thus not a direct translation. It keeps the gist though, so if we can trust Plutarch, it is authentic.