Demonax
Lucian of Samosata
Lucian, Vol. 1. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913.
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,