Toxaris vel amicitia

What could you tell to match this, Mnesippos, if I should let you count up ten more in addition to your five, and not on oath, either, so that you might add plenty of inventions? And yet I gave you the bare facts. If you had told a story like this I know very well how much cleverness you would have mixed in your tale, what prayers Dandamis offered, and the manner of blinding him, and what he said and how he went off again, and how the Scythians received him with blessings, and the other devices you are wont to employ on your audience.

But now hear of another man, equally admirable: Belittas, a cousin of this Amizokes. When he saw his friend Basthes dragged from his horse by a lion-they happened to be hunting together —and that the lion had already clutched him and clung to his throat tearing him with his claws, he leaped down from his own horse, fell upon the beast from behind, and dragged him over, diverting his rage to himself. He passed his fingers between the animal's teeth, and tried his best to drag Basthes out of his jaws until the lion let