Icaromenippus

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 2. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1915.

and all others shall be enemies and conspirators. To talk to any of them shall be pollution, and if I simply see one of them, that day shall be under a curse. In short, they shall be no more than statues of stone or bronze in my sight. I shall receive no ambassadors from

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them and make no treaties with them, and the desert shall sunder me from them. Tribe, clan, deme and native land itself shall be inane and useless names, and objects of the zeal of fools. Timon shall keep his wealth to himself, scorn everyone and live in luxury all by himself, remote from flattery and tiresome praise. He shall sacrifice to the gods and celebrate his feast-days by himsclf, his own sole neighbour and crony, shaking free of all others. Be it once for all resolved that he shall give himself the farewell hand-clasp when he comes to die, and shall set the funeral wreath upon his own brow.

His favourite name shall be ‘the Misanthrope,’ and his characteristic traits shall be testiness, acerbity, rudeness, wrathfulness and inhumanity. If I see anyone perishing in a fire and begging to have it put out, I am to put it out with pitch and oil; and if anyone is being swept off his feet by the river in winter and stretches out his hands, begging me to take hold, I am to push him in head-foremost, plunging him down so deep that he cannot come up again. In that way they will get what they deserve. Moved by Timon, son of Echecratides, of Collytus ; motion submitted to the assembly by the aforesaid Timon.”

Good! Let us pass this resolution and abide by it stoutly.