Chapter II: Part 2

As he passes by the consecrated stones at the cross-roads, he pours oil on them from his flask, falls on his knees, and prays before he goes further. If a mouse should gnaw through a leather flour-bag, he goes to the seer and asks what he shall do. If the seer bids him give the bag to the cobbler to be sewn up, he pays no heed to him, but goes his way and offers up the bag as a holy sacrifice.

He is given to purifying his house often by religious rites and insists it is haunted by Hecate. When he takes a walk and hears an owl hoot, he is terrified and cries out: “Athena! thine is the power!” and so walks on. He will not step on a grave, nor go up to a corpse, nor to a woman in confinement, but says it is not well to risk pollution. He orders his domestics to mull the wine on the fourth and seventh of the month, while he goes out and buys myrtle, incense, and holy cakes; on his return he spends the livelong day in crowning the images of Hermaphroditus.

When he has had a vision, he goes to the soothsayer, the seer, or the augur, to ask to what god or goddess he must pray. He goes to the Orphic mysteries to be initiated into them. You will be sure to find him amongst the people who frequent the beach to besprinkle themselves. Every month he goes there with his wife, or if his wife is busy, then with the nurse and children.

If he observes any one at the cross-roads crowned with garlic, on his return he washes himself from head to foot, summons a priestess, and gives orders to celebrate rites of purification either with an onion or a small dog. Whenever he sees a madman or an epileptic, he shakes with terror and spits in his bosom.

[12] A Thracian and Phrygian deity, whose worship was introduced at Athens in the fifth century. Sabazius represented the active powers of nature, and hence was often identified with Dionysus.

XII _The Thankless Man_

(Μεμψιμοιρία)

Thanklessness is an improper criticism of what one receives. The thankless man, when a friend has sent him something from his table, says to the servant who brings it, “He grudged me a dish of soup and a cup of wine, I suppose, and so wouldn’t invite me to dinner.” When his sweetheart kisses him, he says, “I wonder if you really do love me so in your heart.”

He blames Zeus, not for raining, but for not raining before. When he picks up a purse in the street, he says, “But I never found a treasure!” If he secures a slave at a bargain after long dickering with the owner, he says, “I imagine I haven’t got much at this price.” To the person who brings the glad tidings that a son is born to him, he retorts, “If you only add, ‘And half your fortune’s gone,’ you’ll hit it.”

When he wins his case in court and secures a unanimous verdict, he abuses his attorney for having omitted many points in his brief. When his friends make him up a purse, and wish him joy, “Why so?” he exclaims. “Is it because I shall have to pay you all back and be grateful into the bargain, as though you had done me a favor?”

XIII _The Suspicious Man_

(Ἀπιστία)

Suspicion is a kind of belief that everybody is fraudulent. The suspicious man is the sort of person who sends a servant to market and then sends another to watch him and find out the price he pays. When he carries the money himself, he sits down every hundred yards and counts it over. After he is in bed he asks his wife whether she locked the chest and shut the cupboard, and whether the hall-door bolt was pushed well in. If she answers “Yes!” he gets up, nevertheless, and lights a lamp; naked and barefoot he goes around and examines everything. Even then he finds it hard to go to sleep. When he goes to collect interest, he takes witnesses along, lest his debtors deny the claims. He has his cloak dyed, not by the best workman, but by the fuller who can furnish good security. If any one asks the loan of a wine-set, he prefers not to lend it; but if a member of his family or a near relative wants it, he makes the loan; yet he scarcely does so until he has had it assayed and weighed and has received a guarantee for its safe return. He orders his footman not to fall behind him, but to go in front so that by watching him he may prevent his running away. If a purchaser has bought goods of him and says: “Charge the amount to me; I have no time now to send the money,” he replies: “Do not trouble yourself about it; when you have finished your business, I will go with you and get my pay.”

XIV _The Disagreeable Man_

(Ἀηδία)

Disagreeableness we may define as a kind of conduct which is annoying, although it may not be injurious. The disagreeable man will go to a friend and wake him out of a sound sleep to have a talk with him. He detains passengers who are on the point of embarking; others who have come to see him he bids wait until he has taken his walk. He takes the baby from its nurse, chews its food for it and feeds it, dandles it on his knee while he cooes to it and calls it “Papa’s little rascal!”

At table he tells the company how he once took hellebore and was physicked through and through, and how his bile was blacker than the soup on the table. And he asks before the family: “I say, mammy, what day was it when you were confined and I was born?” He says he has cool cistern water at his house and a garden full of tender vegetables; that his cook is a perfect _chef_, and that his house is a regular hotel, for it is always full of company, and his guests are like leaky sieves,—do the best he can, it is impossible to fill them.

When he gives a dinner he exhibits his jester and shows him off before the company. To enliven his guests over their cups, he says that further pleasures have been arranged for them.

XV _The Exquisite_

(Μικροφιλοτιμία)

Exquisiteness is a striving for honor in small things. The exquisite when invited to dinner, is eager to sit by his host. When he cuts off his son’s hair for an offering to the gods, no place but Delphi will answer for the ceremony. His attendant must be an Ethiopian.[13] When he pays a mina[14] of money he makes a point of offering a freshly minted piece. If he has a pet daw in the house, he must needs buy it a ladder and a brazen shield, that the daw may learn to climb the ladder carrying the shield.

When he has sacrificed an ox, he winds the head and horns with fillets, and nails them up opposite the entrance, in order that those who come in may see what he has been doing. When he parades with the cavalry, he gives all his accoutrements to his squire to carry home, and throwing back his mantle stalks proudly about the market-place in his spurs. When his pet dog dies, he raises a monument to the creature, and has a pillar erected with the inscription: “Fido, Pure Maltese.”[15] In the Asclepieion[16] he dedicates a brazen finger,[17] polishes it, crowns it with flowers, and anoints it every day with oil.

And he has his hair cut frequently. His teeth are always pearly white. While his old suit is still good, he gets himself a new one; and he anoints himself with the choicest perfumes.

In the agora he frequents the banker’s counters. If he visits the gymnasia, he selects those in which the ephebi[18] practise; and, when there’s a play, the place he chooses in the theatre is close beside the generals.

He makes few purchases for himself, but sends presents to his friends at Byzantium, and Spartan dogs to Cyzicus, and Hymettian honey to Rhodes; and when he does these things, he tells it about the town. Naturally, his taste runs to pet monkeys, parrots, Sicilian doves, gazelles’ knuckle-bones, Thurian jars, crooked canes from Sparta, hangings inwrought with Persian figures, a wrestling-ring sprinkled with sand, and a tennis-court. He goes around and offers this arena to philosophers, sophists, fighters, and musicians, for their exhibitions; and at the performances he himself comes in last of all, that the spectators may say to one another, “That’s the gentleman to whom the place belongs.”

And, of course, when he is a prytanis[19] he demands of his colleagues the privilege of announcing to the people the result of the sacrifice; then putting on a fine garment and a garland of flowers, he advances and says: “O men of Athens, we prytanes have made sacrifice to the mother of the gods;[20] the sacrifice is fair and good. Receive ye each your portion.” When he has made this announcement, he returns home and tells his wife all about it in an ecstasy of joy.[21]

[13] Among the Athenians, Ethiopian slaves were evidently highly prized.

[14] About $18 of our money.

[15] This breed of dogs is still known to dog-fanciers.

[16] The temple of Asclepios (Aesculapius).

[17] Fingers or hands of marble or metal were common among the Athenians as votive offerings.

[18] Young men between eighteen and twenty years of age, who were in training for the duties of citizenship.

[19] One of the committee of fifty which, in rotation, were charged with the administration of affairs at Athens.

[20] Cybele.

[21] A portion of Character XIX has been incorporated here, as belonging more fitly in this connection.

XVI _The Garrulous Man_

(Ἀδολεσχία)

Garrulity is incessant heedless talk. Your garrulous man is one, for instance, who sits down beside a stranger, and after recounting the virtues of his wife tells the dream he had last night, and everything he ate for supper. Then, if his efforts seem to meet with favor, he goes on to declare that the present age is sadly degenerate, says wheat is selling very low, that hosts of strangers are in town, and that since the Dionysia[22] the weather is good again for shipping; and that, if Zeus would only send more rain, the crops would be much heavier, and that he’s proposing to have a farm himself next year; and that life’s a constant struggle, and that at the Mysteries[23] Damippus set up an enormous torch;[24] and tells how many columns the Odeon has, and “Yesterday,” says he, “I had an awful turn with my stomach,” and “What day’s to-day?” and “In Boëdromion[25] come the Mysteries, and in Pyanopsion[25] the Apaturia, and in Poseideon[25] the country Dionysia,” and so on; for, unless you refuse to listen, he never stops.

[22] The festival of Dionysus.

[23] The religious celebration held in honor of Demeter (Ceres).

[24] Ancient works of art often exhibit representations of votive torches. They are usually depicted as wound with serpents.

[25] Various months of the Attic year.

XVII _The Bore_

(Δαλία)

We may define a bore as a man who cannot refrain from talking. A bore is the sort of fellow who, the moment you open your mouth, tells you that your remarks are idle, that he knows all about it, and if you’ll only listen, you’ll soon find it out. As you attempt to make answer, he suddenly breaks in with such interruptions as: “Don’t forget what you were about to say”—“That reminds me”—“What an admirable thing talk is!”—“But, as I omitted to mention”—“You grasp the idea at once”—“I was watching this long time to see whether you would come to the same conclusion as myself.” In phrases like this he’s so fertile that the person who happens to meet him cannot even open his mouth to speak.

When he has vanquished a few stray victims here and there, his next move is to advance upon whole companies and put them to flight in the midst of their occupations. He goes upon the wrestling ground or into the schools, and prevents the boys from making progress with their lessons, so incessant is his talk with the teachers and the wrestling-masters.

If you say you are going home, he’s pretty sure to come along and escort you to your house.

Whenever he learns the day set for the session of the Assembly he noises it diligently abroad, and recalls Demosthenes’s famous bout with Aeschines in the archonship of Aristophon. He mentions, too, his own humble effort on a certain occasion, and the approval which it won among the people. As he rattles on he launches invectives against the masses, in such fashion that his audience either becomes oblivious or begins to doze, or else melts away in the midst of his harangue.

When he’s on a jury he’s an obstacle to reaching a verdict, when he’s in the theatre he prevents attention to the play; at a feast he hinders eating, remarking that silence is too much of an effort, that his tongue is hung in the middle, and that he couldn’t keep still, even though he should seem a worse chatterer than a magpie; and when he’s made a butt by his own children, he submits,—when in their desire to go to sleep they say, “Papa, tell us something, in order that sleep may come.”

XVIII _The Rough_

(Ἀπόνοια)

Roughness is coarse conduct, whether in word or act. The rough takes an oath lightly and is insensible to insult and ready to give it. In character he is a sort of town bully, obscene in manner, ready for anything and everything. He is willing, sober and without a mask, to dance the vulgar cordax[26] in comic chorus. At a show he goes around from man to man and collects the pennies, quarrelling with the spectators who present a pass and therefore insist on seeing the performance free.

He is the sort of man to keep a hostelry,[27] or brothel, or to farm the taxes. There is no business he considers beneath him, but he is ready to follow the trade of crier, cook, or gambler. He does not support his mother, is caught at theft and spends more time in jail than in his home. He is the type of man who collects a crowd of bystanders and harangues them in a loud brawling voice; while he is talking, some are going and others coming, without listening to him; to one part of the moving crowd he tells the beginning of his story, to another part a sketch of it, and to another part a mere fragment. He regards a holiday as the fittest time for the full exhibition of his roughness.

He is a great figure in the courts as plaintiff or defendant. Sometimes he excuses himself on oath from trial but later he appears with a bundle of papers in the breast of his cloak, and a file of documents in his hands. He enjoys the rôle of generalissimo in a band of rowdy loafers; he lends his followers money and on every shilling collects a penny interest per day. He visits the bake-shops, the markets for fresh and pickled fish, collects his tribute from them, and stuffs it in his cheek.

[26] A lewd dance.

[27] Inn-keepers were in ill-repute in antiquity.

XIX _The Affable Man_

(Ἀρέσκεια)

Affability is a sort of demeanor that gives pleasure at the sacrifice of what is best. The affable man is the kind of person who hails a friend at a distance, and after he has told him what a fine fellow he is, and has lavished brimming admiration on him, seizes both his hands, and is unwilling to let him go. He escorts the friend a step on his way, and as he asks “When shall we meet again?” tears himself away with praises still falling from his lips.

When summoned to court he wishes to please not merely the man in whose interest he appears, but his adversary too, that he may seem to be non-partisan; and of strangers he says that they pronounce juster judgment than his townsmen. If he’s invited out to dinner he asks his host to call in the children, and when they come, he declares they’re as like their father as one fig is like another, and he draws them toward him, kisses them, and sets them by his side. Sometimes he joins in their sports, shouting “Strike!” and “Foul!”; and sometimes he lets them go to sleep in his lap in spite of the burden.[28]

[28] The remainder of the Greek text of this character has been thought to belong more properly with “The Exquisite,” No. XV.

XX _The Impudent Man_

(Βδελυρία)

Impudence is easy to define; it is conduct that is obtrusively offensive. The impudent man is one who, on meeting respectable women in the street, insults them as he passes. At a play, he claps his hands after all the rest have stopped, and hisses the players when others wish to watch in silence. When the theatre is still, he suddenly stands up and disgorges, to make the audience look around. When the market-place is crowded, he steps up to the stalls where nuts, myrtle-berries, or fruits are for sale, and begins to pick at them as he talks to the merchant; he calls by name people whom he doesn’t know, and stops those intent upon some errand. When a man has just lost an important case and is now leaving the court, he runs up and tenders his congratulations.

He buys his own provisions,[29] too, and hires his own musicians, showing his purchases to every man he meets and inviting him to come and share the feast. Again, he takes his stand before a barber’s booth or a perfumer’s stall, and proclaims unblushingly his intention of getting drunk.

[29] To do one’s own marketing was considered a sign of niggardliness; hence such business was ordinarily delegated to slaves.

XXI _The Gross Man_

(Δυσχέρεια)

Grossness is such neglect of one’s person as gives offence to others. The gross man is one who goes about with an eczema, or white eruption, or diseased nails, and says that these are congenital ailments; for his father had them, and his grandfather, too, and it would be hard to foist an outsider upon their family. He’s very apt to have sores on his shins and bruises on his toes, and to neglect these things so that they grow worse.

His armpits are hairy like an animal’s for a long distance down his sides; his teeth are black and decayed. As he eats, he blows his nose with his fingers. As he talks, he drools, and has no sooner drunk wine than up it comes. After bathing he uses rancid oil to anoint himself; and when he goes to the market-place, he wears a thick tunic and a thin outer garment disfigured with spots of dirt.

When his mother goes to consult the soothsayer, he utters words of evil omen; and when people pray and offer sacrifices to the gods he lets the goblet fall, laughing as though he had done something amusing. When there’s playing on the flute, he alone of the company claps his hands, singing an accompaniment and upbraiding the musician for stopping so soon.

Often he tries to spit across the table,—only to miss the mark and hit the butler.

XXII _The Boor_

(Ἀγροικία)

Boorishness is ignorance of good form. The boor is the sort of man who takes a strong drink and then goes to the Assembly. He insists that myrrh has not a whit sweeter smell than onions. His boots are too big for his feet and he talks in a loud voice.

He distrusts even friends and kinsmen, while his most important secrets are shared with his domestics, and he tells all the news of the Assembly to his farm hands. Nothing awakens his admiration or startles him on the streets so much as the sight of an ox, an ass, or a goat, and then he stands agape in contemplation.[30] He is the sort of man who snatches a bite from the pantry and drinks his liquor straight.

He has clandestine talks with the cook and helps her grind the meal for his household. At breakfast he throws bits to the animals about the table. He answers the knock at the door himself and then whistles for his dog, takes him by the nose, and says: “Here’s the keeper of my house and grounds!” When a man offers him a coin he declines it, saying it is too worn, and takes another piece in its stead.

After loaning a plough, basket, sickle, or sack, he goes after it, unable to sleep for thinking of it. When he goes to town he inquires of any chance passer-by: “What are hides selling for? What’s the price of bacon? Does the celebration of New Moon come to-day?” Then he remarks he must go down street and have his hair cut, and while in town must also run into the shop of Archias and buy the bacon. He sings in the public baths and wears hob-nailed boots.

[30] “Hee is sensible of no calamitie but the burning of a stacke of corne or the overflowing of a medow, and thinks Noah’s flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoyl’d the grasse.” Earle’s _Micro-cosmographie_, “A Plaine Country Fellow.”

XXIII _The Penurious Man_

(Ἀνελευθερία)

Penuriousness is the grudging of expense and is due to great love of money and little love of honor. The penurious man, after a victory on the tragic stage, sets up a wooden chaplet to Dionysus, on which he inscribes his own name. If contributions from the public are asked for, he is silent or rises and quits the company. When he gives his daughter in marriage, he sells the sacrificial offerings, excepting the parts that belong by law to the priests. At the wedding, he employs only servants who will eat at home.

As trierarch[31] he takes the pilot’s blankets and spreads them on deck for himself, while he puts his own away. He is the sort of man who keeps his children from school when a festival comes, and makes excuses for them on the plea of ill-health, that he may avoid the fee for tuition.

When he goes to market, he brings the meat home with him, carrying the vegetables in the folds of his cloak. He stays indoors when he sends his tunic to the cleaner. If he catches sight of a friend coming towards him and soliciting contributions, he sneaks off through a by-street and goes home by a roundabout way. He employs no maid for his wife, although she brought him a dowry, but hires a child from the woman’s market to accompany her on her errands.

He keeps his patched shoes until they are twice worn out, saying they are still good, and tough as horn. When he gets up, he dusts the house and makes the beds, and when he sits down he lays aside the coat he is wearing in order to spare it.

[31] Commander of a galley.

XXIV _The Pompous Man_

(Ὑπερηφανία)

Pompousness is contempt for everybody save one’s self. If you have urgent business, the pompous man will tell you that he will meet you after dinner on his walk. If he has done you a favor, he reminds you of it. When elected to office he declines, saying under oath he has no leisure. He is not disposed to make the first call on anybody. Tradesmen and hired men he orders to come to him by daybreak.

As he passes along the street, he does not greet the men he meets; he lowers his eyes and when it suits him raises them again. If he entertains friends he does not dine with them, but instructs some of his underlings to attend to the duties of entertainment.

He sends a messenger ahead when he makes a call, to say that he approaches. He allows no one to enter while he is at his oil-rub, his bath, or his dinner. When he is casting an account, he instructs a slave to set down the items, foot up the total, and arrange it in a statement for him. He does not write in a letter: “You would do me a favor,” but “I want this done,” and “I have sent for this and wish to have it,” and “See to it that my orders are followed precisely,” and “Have this done immediately.”

XXV _The Braggart_

(Ἀλαζονεία)

Bragging is pretending to have excellences that one does not really possess. The braggart is the man who stands on the wharf and tells the bystanders how much capital he has invested in ships at sea, and tells how extensive is his business of loaning money, and how much he has made and lost by different ventures. As he talks thus magnificently, he sends his slave to his banker, where he has—exactly one shilling to his credit. On a journey he imposes on his travelling companion by telling him that he once served with Alexander, and how intimate were their relations, and how many jewelled cups he brought back from his campaigns.

As regards the Asiatic artists, he counts them better than those in Europe. And all this he tells you without having once set foot outside his native city. He claims further to have three letters from Antipater[32] bidding him come to Macedonia; but he declares that, though he has been guaranteed the privilege of exporting wood free of duty, he has refused to go, simply to avoid being suspected by his fellow-citizens of foreign leanings. The Macedonians, he says, in urging him so to come, ought to have considered this point.

In time of famine, he says, his expenditures for the poor amounted to over five talents; for he hadn’t the heart to refuse. When he’s with strangers, he often bids some one place the reckoning counters on the table, and computing by six hundreds and by minae, glibly mentioning the names of his pretended debtors, he makes a total of twenty-four talents, saying that the whole sum had gone for voluntary contributions, and that, too, without including subscriptions for the navy or for other public objects.

At times he goes to the horse-market where blooded stock is for sale, and makes pretence of wanting to buy; and stepping up to the block, he hunts his clothes for two talents, upbraiding his servant for coming along without any money. Though he lives in a rented house, he represents it to those who do not know as the family homestead; yet adds that he thinks of selling it as being too small for the proper entertainment of his friends.

[32] A general of Alexander. Upon Alexander’s death he became king of Macedonia.

XXVI _The Oligarch_

(Ὀλιγαρχία)

Oligarchy is a love of power that clings tightly to personal advantage. The oligarch rises in the people’s councils, when assistants to the archon are elected for the management of a fête, and says: “These men must have absolute control.” And although others have suggested ten, he insists that _one_ is enough, but he must be a _man_. The only line of Homer that stays in his memory is: “A crowd’s rule is bad; let there be one ruler.” He knows no other verse. He is, however, an adept at such phrases as this: “We must hold a caucus and make our plans; we must cut loose from mob and market; we must throw aside the annoyance of petty office and of insult or honor at the masses’ whim; we or they must rule the state.”

At midday he goes out with his mantle thrown about him, his hair dressed in the mode and his nails fashionably trimmed; he promenades down Odeon Way ejaculating: “Sycophants have made the city no longer habitable. What outrages we endure in court from our persecutors! Why men nowadays go into office, is a marvel to me. How ungrateful the mob is! although one is always giving, giving.”

If, at the Assembly, a naked, hungry vagabond sits next to him, he complains of the outrage. “When,” he asks, “is a stop to be put to this ruin of our property by taxation for fêtes and navy? How odious is this crew of demagogues! Theseus,” he says, “was the forefront of all this offending, for out of twelve cities, he brought the masses into one, to overthrow the monarchies. He met his just reward,—he was the first to fall a victim at their hands.” This is the way he talks to foreigners and to citizens of his own temper and party.

XXVII _The Backbiter_

(Κακολογία)

Backbiting is a disposition[33] to vilify others. When the backbiter is asked “Who is so and so?” he begins, like the genealogists, with the man’s ancestry. “His father’s name was originally Sosias,[34] but amongst the soldiers it became Sosistratus, and upon registration in the deme, it was again changed to Sosidemus. His mother was a Thracian,—gentle blood! you see. At any rate this jewel’s name was Krinokoraka. Women of that name _are_ of gentle blood in Thrace, so people say! The man himself, with an ancestry like that, is a foul fellow fit for the whipping-post.” In a company where his companions are maligning a man, he of course takes up the attack and says: “For my part I hate him of all men. He is a bad character, as one may see from his face, and as for his meanness, it has no parallel and here is a proof: His wife brought him a dowry of talents of money and yet after the birth of their first child, he gave her but three pence a day for household expenses and forced her to bathe in cold water on the festival of Poseidon in midwinter.” When he is seated with a group, he loves to talk about an acquaintance who has just risen and gone, and his biting tongue does not spare even the man’s kinsfolk. Of his own relatives and friends, he says the vilest things and even maligns the dead. Backbiting is what he calls frankness of speech, democracy, and freedom; and there is nothing he enjoys so much.

[33] “Scandal, like other virtues, is in part its own reward, as it gives us the satisfaction of making ourselves appear better than others, or others no better than ourselves.” Benj. Franklin, _Works_, ed. Sparks, II., p. 540.

[34] Apparently a slave’s name.

XXVIII _The Avaricious Man_

(Αἰσχροκέρδεια)

Avarice is greedy love of gain. When the avaricious man gives a dinner, he puts scant allowance of bread on the table. He borrows money of a stranger who is lodging with him. When he distributes the portions at table, he says it is fair for the laborer to receive double and straightway loads his own plate. He engages in wine traffic, and sells adulterated liquors even to his friend. He goes to the show and takes his children with him, on the days when spectators are admitted to the galleries free. When he is the people’s delegate, he leaves at home the money provided by the city, and borrows from his fellow commissioners.

He loads more luggage on his porter than the man can carry, and provides him with the smallest rations of any man in the party. When presents are given the delegates by foreign courts, he demands his share at once, and sells it. At the bath he says the oil brought him is bad, and shouts: “Boy, the oil is rancid;” and in its stead takes what belongs to another. If his servants find money on the highway, he demands a share of it, saying: “Luck’s gifts are common property.” When he sends his cloak to be cleaned, he borrows another from an acquaintance and keeps it until it is asked for. He also does this sort of thing: he uses King Frugal’s measure with the bottom dented in, for doling out supplies to his household and then secretly brushes off the top. He sells underweight even to his friend, who thinks he is buying according to market standard.

When he pays a debt of thirty pounds, he does so with a discount of four shillings. When, owing to sickness, his children are not at school the entire month, he deducts a proportionate amount from the teacher’s pay; and during the month of Anthesterion he does not send them to their studies at all, on account of the frequent shows, and so he avoids tuition fees. If he receives coppers from a slave who has been serving out, he demands in addition the exchange value of silver. When he gets a statement from the deme’s[35] administrator, he demands provision for his slaves at public cost.

He makes note of the half-radishes left on the table, to keep the servants from taking them. If he goes abroad with friends, he uses their servants and hires his own out; yet he does not contribute to the common fund the money thus received. When others combine with him to give a banquet at his house, he secretly includes in his account the wood, figs, vinegar, salt, and lamp-oil,—trifles furnished from his supplies. If a marriage is announced in a friend’s family, he goes away a little beforehand, to avoid sending a wedding present. He borrows of friends such articles as they would not ask to have returned, or such as, if returned, they would not readily accept.

[35] The deme was a local division.

XXIX _The Late Learner_

(Ὀψιμαθία)

The late learner has a fondness for study late in life. He commits whole passages of poetry to memory when sixty years of age; but when he essays to quote them at a banquet his memory trips. From his son, he learns “Forward march!” “Shoulder arms!” “’Bout face!” At the feast of heroes he pits himself against the boys in the torch-race; and of course when he is invited to the temple of Hercules, he throws aside his mantle, and makes ready to lift the steer, that he may bend back its neck. He goes to the wrestling-grounds and joins in the matches.

At the shows he stays one performance after another until he has learned the songs by heart. If he is dedicated to Sabazius, he is eager to be declared the fairest; if he falls in love with some damsel, he makes an onset on her door, only to be assaulted by a rival and hauled before the court. He makes a trip to the country on a mare he has never before ridden, and, essaying feats of horsemanship on the road, he falls and breaks his head.

He joins a boys’ club too, and entertains the members at his house; he plays “ducks and drakes” with his servant, and competes at archery and javelin-throwing with his children’s tutor, and he expects the tutor, as though ignorant of these sports, to learn them from him. He wrestles at the baths, turning a bench nimbly about to create the impression that he has been well trained in the art; and if women happen to be standing near, he trips a dance, whistling his own music.

XXX _The Vicious Man_

(Φιλοπονηρία)

Viciousness is love of what is bad. The vicious man is one who associates with men convicted in public suits, and who assumes that, if he makes friends of these fellows, he will gain in knowledge of the world, and so will be more feared.

Of upright men, he declares that no one is by nature upright, but that all men are alike, and he even reproaches the man who is honorable. The bad man, he asserts, is free from prejudice, if one will but make the trial, and, while in some respects he admits that men speak truly of such a man, in others he refuses to allow it. “For,” says he, “the fellow is clever, companionable, and a gentleman;” in fact, he maintains that he never met so talented a person. He supports him, therefore, when he speaks in the assembly or is defendant in court, and to those sitting in judgment he’s apt to say that one must judge not the man, but the facts; and he declares that his friend is the very watch-dog of the people, “for he watches out for evil-doers”; and he adds: “We shall no longer have men to burden themselves with a care for the common weal, if we abandon men like him.”

It’s the vicious man’s way to constitute himself the patron of all worthless scamps and to support them before the court in desperate cases; and, when he passes judgment, he puts the worst construction on the arguments of the opposing counsel.