Demonax

When Peregrinus Proteus rebuked him for laughing a great deal and making sport of mankind saying: “Demonax, you're not at all doggish!” he answered, “Peregrinus, you are not at all human!” [*](Peregrinus Proteus, of whose death and translation to a higher sphere Lucian has written in "The Passing of Peregrinus,” carried his ‘doggishness’ (Cynicism) to extremes.)

When a scientist was talking of the Topsy-turvy people (Antipodes), he made him get up, took him to a well, showed him their own reflection in the water and asked: “Is that the sort of topsy-turvy people you mean?”

When a fellow claimed to be a sorcerer and to have spells so potent that by their agency he could prevail on everybody to give him whatever he wanted, Demonax said: “Nothing strange in that! I am in the same business: follow me to the breadwoman’s, if you like, and you shall see me persuade her to give me bread with a single spell and a tiny charm”’—implying that a coin is as good as a spell. When Herodes,[*](Herodes Atticus. “Bolydeuces was a favourite slave.) the superlative, was mourning the premature death of Polydeuces and wanted a chariot regularly made ready and horses put to it just. as if the boy were going for a drive, and dinner regularly served for him, Demonax went to him and said: “Iam bringing you a message from Polydeuces.”

He went to a man who was mourning the death of a son and had shut himself up in the dark, and told him that he was a sorcerer and could raise the boy’s shade for him if only he would name three men who had never mourned for anyone. When the man hesitated long arfd was perplexed—I suppose he could not name a single one—Demonax said: “You ridiculous fellow, do you think, then, that you alone suffer beyond endurance, when you see that nobody is unacquainted with mourning?”

He also liked to poke fun at those who use obsolete and unusual. words in conversation. For instance, to a man who had been asked a certain question by him and had answered in far-fetched book-language, he said: “I asked you now, but you answer me as if I had asked in Agamemnon’s day.”

When one of his friends said: “Demonax, let’s go to the Aesculapium and pray for my son,” he replied: “You must think Aesculapius very deaf, that he can’t hear our prayers from where we are!”

On seeing two philosophers very ignorantly debating a given subject, one asking silly questions and the other giving answers that were not at all to the point, he said: ‘“Doesn’t it seem to you, friends, that one of these fellows is milking a he-goat and the other is holding a sieve for him!”

When Agathocles the Peripatetic was boasting

Cethegus the ex-consul, going by way of Greece to Asia to be his father’s lieutenant, did and said many ridiculous things. One of the friends of Demonax, looking on, said that he was a great goodfor-nothing. ‘No, he isn’t, either,” said he—“nota great one!”

When he saw Apollonius the philosopher leaving the city with a multitude of disciples (he was called away to be tutor to the emperor), Demonax remarked: “There goes Apollonius and his Argonauts !”[*](Alluding to Apollonius of Rhodes and his poem on the Argonauts, and implying that this was another quest of the Golden Fleece.)

When a man asked him if lie thought that the soul was immortal, he said: “Yes, but no more so than everything else.”

Touching Herodes he remarked that Plato was right in saying that we have more than one soul, for a man with only one could not feast Regilla [*](Wife of Herodes.) and Polydeuces as if they were still alive and say what he did in his lectures.

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

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.

On seeing an aristocrat who set great store on the breadth of his purple band, Demonax, taking hold of the garment and calling his attention to it,