Once, on hearing the proclamation which precedes the mysteries, he made bold to ask the Athenians publicly why they exclude foreigners, particularly as the founder of the rite, Eumolpus, was a foreigner and a Thracian to boot!

Again, when he was intending to make a voyage in winter, one of his friends remarked: “Aren’t you afraid the boat will capsize and the fishes will eat you?” “I should be an ingrate,” said he, “if I made any bones about letting the fishes eat me, when I have eaten so many of them!”

An. orator whose delivery was wretched was advised by him to practise and exercise; on his replying: “I am always reciting to myself,” Demonax answered: “Then no wonder you recite that way, with a fool for a hearer!”

Again, on seeing a soothsayer make public forecasts for money, he said: “1 don’t see on what ground you claim the fee: if you think you can change destiny in any way, you ask too little, however much you ask; but if everything is to turn out as Heaven has ordained, what good is your soothsaying ?”

When a Roman ofticer, well-developed physically, gave him an exhibition of sword-practice on a post, and asked: “What did you think of my swordsmanship, Demonax ?”’ he said: “Fine, if you have a wooden adversary !”

‘Moreover, when questions were unanswerable he always had an apt retort ready. When a man asked him’ banteringly: “1f I should burn a thousand pounds of wood, Demonax, how many pounds of smoke would it make?” he replied: “Weigh the ashes: all the rest will be smoke.”

A man named Polybius, quite uneducated and ungrammatical, said: “The emperor has honoured ‘me with the Roman citizenslfip.” “Oh, why didn’t he make you a Greek instead of a Roman?” said he.