Demonax

He observed to one Danae, who was bringing a suit against her brother, ‘Have the law of him by all means; it was another Danae whose father was called the Lawless[*](See Danae in Notes.).’

He waged constant warfare against all whose philosophy was not practical, but for show. So when he saw a cynic, with threadbare cloak and wallet, but a braying-pestle instead of a staff, proclaiming himself loudly as a follower of Antisthenes, Crates, and Diogenes, he said: ‘Tell us no lies; your master is the professor of braying.’

Noticing how foul play was growing among the athletes, who often supplemented the resources of boxing and wrestling with their teeth, he said it was no wonder that the champions’ partisans had taken to describing them as lions.

There was both wit and sting in what he said to the proconsul. The latter was one of the people who take all the hair off their bodies with pitch-plaster. A cynic mounted a block of stone and cast this practice in his teeth, suggesting that it was for immoral purposes. The proconsul in a rage had the man pulled down, and was on the point of condemning him to be beaten or banished, when Demonax, who was present, pleaded for him on the ground that he was only exercising the traditional cynic licence. ‘Well,’ said the proconsul, ‘I pardon him this time at your request; but if he offends again, what shall I do to him?’ ‘Have him depilated,’ said Demonax.

Another person, entrusted by the Emperor with the command of legions and the charge of a great province, asked him what was the way to govern well. ‘Keep your temper, say little, and hear much.’

Asked whether he ate honey-cakes, ‘Do you suppose,’ he said, ‘that bees only make honey for fools?”

Noticing near the Poecile a statue minus a hand, he said it had taken Athens a long time to get up a bronze to Cynaegirus.