Noctes Atticae

How Socrates used to train himself in physical endurance; and of the temperate habits of that philosopher.

Among voluntary tasks and exercises for strengthening his body for any chance demands upon its endurance we are told that Socrates habitually practised this one: he would stand, so the story goes, in one fixed position, all day and all night, from early dawn until the next sunrise, open-eyed, motionless, in his very tracks and with face and eyes riveted to the same spot in deep meditation, as if his mind and soul had been, as it were, withdrawn from his body. When Favorinus in his discussion of the man's fortitude and his many other virtues had reached this point, he said:

He often stood from sun to sun, more rigid than the tree trunks.

His temperance also is said to have been so great, that he lived almost the whole period of his life with health unimpaired. Even amid the havoc of that plague which, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, devastated Athens with a deadly species of disease, by temperate and abstemious habits he is said to have avoided the ill-effects of indulgence and retained his physical vigour so completely, that he was not at all affected by the calamity common to all.

What rules of courtesy should be observed by fathers and sons in taking their places at able, keeping their seats, and similar matters at home and elsewhere, when the sons are magistrates and the fathers private citizens; and a discourse of the philosopher Taurus on this subject, with an illustration taken from Roman history.

THE governor of the province of Crete, a man of senatorial rank, had come to Athens for the purpose of visiting and becoming acquainted with the philosopher Taurus, and in company with this same governor was his father. Taurus, having just dismissed his pupils, was sitting before the door of his room, and we stood by his side conversing with him. In came the governor of the province and with him his father. Taurus arose quietly, and after salutations had been exchanged, sat down again. Presently the single chair that was at hand was brought and placed near them, while others were being fetched. Taurus invited the governor's father to be seated; to which he replied:

Rather let this man take the seat, since he is a magistrate of the Roman people.

Without prejudicing the case,

do you meanwhile sit down, while we look into the matter and inquire whether it is more proper for you, who are the father, to sit, or your son, who is a magistrate.

The substance of the discussions was this: In public places, functions and acts the rights of fathers,

Now, your visit to me,

our present conversation, and this discussion of duties are private actions. Therefore enjoy the same priority of honours at my house which it is proper for you to enjoy in your own home as the older man.

These remarks and others to the same purport were made by Taurus at once seriously and pleasantly. Moreover, it has seemed not out of place to add what I have read in Claudius about the etiquette of father and son under such circumstances. I therefore quote Quadrigarius' actual words, transcribed from the sixth book of his Annals [*](Fr. 57. Peter.) "The consuls then elected were Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus for the second time and Quintus Fabius Maximus, son of the Maximus who had been consul the year before. The father, at the time proconsul, mounted upon a horse met his son the consul, and because lie was his father, would not dismount, nor did the lictors, who knew that the two men lived in the most perfect harmony, presume to order him to do so. As the father drew near, the consul said:

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