I could not endure this spectacle, but set about exposing them and distinguishing them from you ; and you, who ought to reward me for it, bring me into court! Then if I observed one of the initiates disclosing the mysteries of the Goddesses Twain and rehearsing them in public, and became indignant and showed him up, would you consider me the impious one: It would not be just. Certainly the officials of the games always flog an actor if he takes the part of Athena or Poseidon or Zeus and does not play it well and in accordance with the dignity of the gods ; and the gods themselves are surely not angry at them for letting the scourgers whip a man. wearing their masks and dressed in their clothing. On the contrary, they would be gratified, I take it, if he were flogged more soundly. Not to act a servant’s or a messenger’s part cleverly is a trivial fault, but not to present Zeus or Heracles to the spectators worthily—Heaven forfend! how shameful !

It is most extraordinary, too, that most of them are thoroughly up in your writings, but live as if they read and studied them simply to practise the reverse. Their book tells them they must despise wealth and reputation, think that only what is beautiful is good, be free from anger, despise these people of eminence, and talk with them as man to man; and its advice is beautiful, as Heaven is my witness, and wise and wonderful, in all truth. But they teach these very doctrines for pay, and worship the rich, and are agog after money; they are more quick-tempered than curs, more cowardly than hares, more servile than apes, more lustful than jackasses, more thievish than cats, more quarrelsome than game-cocks. Consequently, they let themselves in for ridicule when they hustle after it all and elbow one another at the portals of the rich and take part in great banquets, where they pay vulgar compliments, stuff themselves beyond decency, grumble openly at their portions, vent their philosophy disagreeably and discordantly over their cups, and fail to carry their drink well. All those present who are not of the profession laugh at them, naturally, and spit philosophy to scorn for breeding up such beasts.

Most shameless of all, though each one of them says he needs nothing and bawls it abroad that only the wise man is rich, after a little he presents himself and asks for something, and is angry if he does not get it. It is just as if someone in royal robes, with a high turban and a diadem and all the other marks of kingly dignity, should play the mendicant, begging of men worse off than himself.

When they must needs receive a present, there is a great deal of talk to the effect that a man should be ready to share what he has, and that money does not matter: “What, pray, does gold or silver amount to, since it’ is not in any way better than pebbles on the sea-shore!”” But when someone in want of help, an old-time comrade and friend, goes and asks for a little of their plenty, he encounters silence, hesitancy, forgetfulness, and complete recantation of doctrines. Their numerous speeches about friendship, their “virtue’”’ and their “honour” have all gone flying off, I know not whither, winged words for certain, idly bandied about by them daily in their class-rooms.

Each of them is your friend as long as silver and gold are not in sight on the table; but if you merely give them a glimpse of an obol, the peace is broken, it is war without truce or parley everywhere, the pages of their books have become blank, and Virtue has taken to her heels. So it is with dogs, when you toss a bone among them; they spring to their feet and begin biting each other and barking at the one that was first to snatch the bone.

It is said, too, that a king of Egypt once taught apes to dance, and that the animals, as they are very apt at imitating human ways, learned quickly and gave an exhibition, with purple mantles about them and masks on their faces. For a long time the show, they say, went well, until a facetions spectator, having nuts in his pocket, tossed them into the midst. On catching sight of them, the monkeys forgot their dance, changed from artists of the ballet to the simians that they really were, smashed their masks, tore their costumes, and fought with each other for the nuts; whereby the carefully planned ballet was entirely broken up, and was laughed at by the spectators.