Memorabilia

When someone punished his footman severely, he asked why he was angry with his man.Because he’s a glutton and he’s a fool, said the other: he’s rapacious and he’s lazy.Have you ever considered, then, which deserves the more stripes, the master or the man?

When someone was afraid of the journey to Olympia, he said:Why do you fear the distance? When you are at home, don’t you spend most of the day in walking about? on your way there you will take a walk before lunch, and another before dinner, and then take a rest. Don’t you know that if you put together the walks you take in five or six days, you can easily cover the distance from Athens to Olympia? It is more comfortable, too, to start a day early rather than a day late, since to be forced to make the stages of the journey unduly long is unpleasant; but to take a day extra on the way makes easy going. So it is better to hurry over the start than on the road.

When another said that he was worn out after a long journey, he asked him whether he had carried a load.Oh no, said the man; only my cloak.Were you alone, or had you a footman with you?I had.Empty-handed or carrying anything?He carried the rugs and the rest of the baggage, of course.And how has he come out of the journey?Better than I, so far as I can tell.Well then, if you had been forced to carry his load, how would you have felt, do you suppose?Bad, of course; or rather, I couldn’t have done it.Indeed! do you think a trained man ought to be so much less capable of work than his slave?

Whenever some of the members of a dining-club brought more meat[*](ὄψον, literally a tit-bit eaten with bread; Lat. pulmentum.) than others, Socrates would tell the waiter either to put the small contribution into the common stock or to portion it out equally among the diners. So the high batteners felt obliged not only to take their share of the pool, but to pool their own supplies in return; and so they put their own supplies also into the common stock. And since they thus got no more than those who brought little with them, they gave up spending much on meat.

He observed on one occasion that one of the company at dinner had ceased to take bread, and ate the meat by itself. Now the talk was of names and the actions to which they are properly applied. Can we say, my friends, said Socrates, what is the nature of the action for which a man is called greedy? For all, I presume, eat meat with their bread when they get the chance: but I don’t think there is so far any reason for calling them greedy?No, certainly not, said one of the company.