Moreover, they discerned, I assume, the further advantage that they would be on an equal footing with true philosophers, and that there would be nobody who could pass judgment and draw distinctions in such matters, if only the externals were similar. For, to begin with, they do not even tolerate investigation if you question them ever so temperately and concisely; at once they begin shouting and take refuge in their peculiar citadel, abusiveness and a ready staff. Also, if you ask about their works, their words are copious, and if you wish to judge them by their words, they want you to consider their lives.

Consequently, every city is filled with such upstarts, particularly with those who enter the names of Diogenes, Antisthenes, and Crates as their patrons and enlist in the army ofthe dog. Those fellows have not in any way imitated the good that there is in the nature of dogs, as, for instance, guarding property, keeping at home, loving their masters, or remembering kindnesses, but their barking, gluttony, thievishness, excessive interest in females, truckling, fawning upon people who give them things, and hanging about tables—all this they have copied with painful accuracy.

You shall see what will happen presently. All the men in the workshops will spring to their feet and leave their trades deserted when they see that by toiling and moiling from morning till night, doubled over their tasks, they merely eke out a bare existence from such wage-earning, while idle frauds live in unlimited plenty, asking for things in a lordly way, getting them without effort, acting indignant if they do not, and bestowing no praise even if they do. It seems to them that this is ‘life in the age of Cronus,’ and really that sheer honey is distilling into their mouths from the sky!

The thing would not be so dreadful if they offended against us only by being what they are. But although outwardly and in public they appear very reverend and stern, if they get a handsome boy or a pretty woman in their clutches or hope to, it is best to veil their conduct in silence. Some even carry off the wives of their hosts,

There is here an allusion to “Scarabee’’; see below, § 30.

to seduce them after the pattern of that young Trojan,

Paris.

pretending that the women are going to become philosophers; then they tender them, as common property, to all their associates and think they are carrying out a tenet of Plato’s,

Plato, Republ., V, 459E.

when they do not know on what terms that holy man thought it right for women to be so regarded.

What they do at drinking-parties, how intoxicated they become, would make a long story. And while they do all this, you cannot imagine how they berate drunkenness and adultery and lewdness and covetousness. Indeed you could not find any two things so opposed to each other as their words and their deeds. For instance, they claim to hate toadying, when as far as that goes they are able to outdo Gnathonides or Struthias;

Gluttonous parasites of the New Comedy. Struthias, whose name is evidently connected with the greediness of the sparrow, figures in the Toady (Colaz) of Menander. The play in which Gnathonides appeared is unknown, but Gnatho (“Fowl?) is mentioned by Plutarch to exemplify a typical rasite (Symp., VII, 6, 2), and in utilising part of the Toady for his Hunuchus Terence changed the name of the chief role from Struthias to Gnatho.

and although they exhort everyone else to tell the truth, they themselves cannot so much as move their tongues except ina lie. To all of them pleasure is nominally an odious thing and Epicurus a foeman; but in practice they do everything for the sake of it. In irascibility, pettishness, and proneness to anger they are beyond young children ; indeed, they give no little amusement to onlookers when their blood boils up in them for some trivial reason, so that they look livid in colour, with a reckless, insane stare, and foam (or rather, venom) fills their mouths.

And “may you never chance to be there”

The words are those of Circe to Odysseus, alluding to Charybdis (Odyssey, XII, 106).

when that vile filth of theirs is exuded! “As to gold or silver, Heracles! I do not want even to ownit. An obol is enough, so that I can buy lupines, for a spring or a stream will supply me with drink.” Then after a little they demand, not obols nor a few drachmas, but whole fortunes. What shipman could make as much from his cargoes as philosophy contributes to these fellows in the way of gain? And then, when they have levied tribute and stocked themselves up to their heart’s content, throwing off that ill-conditioned philosopher’s cloak, they buy farms every now and then, and luxurious clothing, and long-haired pages, and whole apartmenthouses, bidding a long farewell to the wallet of Crates, the mantle of Antisthenes, and the jar of Diogenes.

The unschooled, seeing all this, now spit scornfully at philosophy, thinking that all of us are like this and blaming me for my teachings, so that for a long time now it has been impossible for me to win over a single one of them. I am in the same fix as Penelope,

The story of Penelope’s web is told several times in the Odyssey ; II, 93-110; XIX, 138-156; XXIV, 129-146.

for truly all that I weave is instantly unravelled again; and Stupidity and Wrongdoing laugh in my face to see that I cannot bring my work to completion and my toil to an end.