Demonax

Lucian of Samosata

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

Observing a soothsayer one day officiating for pay, he said ‘I cannot see how you can ask pay. If it is because you can change the course of Fate, you cannot possibly put the figure high enough: if everything is settled by Heaven, and not by you, what is the good of your soothsaying?”

A hale old Roman once gave him a little exhibition of his skill in fence, taking a clothes-peg for his mark. ‘What do

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you think of my play, Demonax?’ he said. ‘Excellent, so long as you have a wooden man to play with.’

Even for questions meant to be insoluble he generally had a shrewd answer at command, Some one tried to make a fool of him by asking, If I burn a hundred pounds of wood, how many pounds of smoke shall I get? ‘Weigh the ashes; the difference is all smoke.’

One Polybius, an uneducated man whose grammar was very defective, once informed him that he had received Roman citizenship from the Emperor. ‘Why did he not make you a Greek instead?’ asked Demonax.