Demonax

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Vol. 3. Fowler, H. W. and Fowler, F.G., translators. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.

He once picked up a little gold charm in the road as he walked, and posted a notice in the market-place stating that the loser

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could recover his property, if he would call upon Demonax and give particulars of the weight, material, and workmanship. A handsome young exquisite came, professing to have lost it. The philosopher soon saw that it was a got-up story; ‘Ah, my boy,’ he said, ‘you will do very well, if you lose your other charms as little as you have lost this one.’

A Roman senator at Athens once presented his son, who had great beauty of a soft womanish type. ‘My son salutes you, sir,’ he said. To which Demonax answered, ‘A pretty lad, worthy of his father, and extremely like his mother.’

A cynic who emphasized his principles by wearing a bear’s skin he insisted on addressing not by his name of Honoratus, but as Bruin.

Asked for a definition of Happiness, he said that only the free was happy. ‘Well,’ said the questioner, ‘there is no lack of free men.’ — ‘I count no man free who is subject to hopes and fears.’—' You ask impossibilities; of these two we are all very much the slaves.’ ‘Once grasp the nature of human affairs,’ said Demonax, ‘and you will find that they justify neither hope nor fear, since both pain and pleasure are to have an end.’

Peregrine Proteus was shocked at his taking things so lightly, and treating mankind as a subject for humour: