Calumniae non temere credundum

A very effective form of slander is the one that is based on opposition to the hearer’s tastes. For instance, in the court of the Ptolemy who was called Dionysus[*](Probably Ptolemy Auletes, father of Cleopatra, who styled himself "the new Dionysus.”) there was once a man who accused Demetrius, the Platonic philosopher, of drinking nothing but water and of being the only person who did not wear women’s clothes during the feast of Dionysus. If Demetrius, on being sent for early the next morning, had ‘not drunk wine in view of everybody and had not put on a thin gown and played the cymbals and danced, he would have been put to death for not liking the king’ s mode of life, and being a critic and an opponent of Ptolemy’s luxury.