Works, vol 3 | Page 3

made fun of his lectures, and in particular of the sentimental
verses with which they were garnished, and which Demonax thought
contemptible, womanish, and quite unsuited to philosophy. So he came
and asked him: 'Who, pray, are you, that you should pour scorn upon
me?' 'I am the possessor of a critical pair of ears,' was the answer. The
sophist had not had enough; 'You are no infant,' he went on, 'but a
philosopher, it seems; may one ask what marks the transformation?'
'The marks of manhood,' said Demonax.
Another time the same person came up and asked him what school of
philosophy he belonged to. 'Who told you I was a philosopher?' was all
he said. But as he left him, he had a good laugh to himself, which
Favorinus observing, demanded what he was laughing at; 'I was only
amused by your taking a man for a philosopher because he wears a
beard, when you have none yourself.'
When Sidonius, who had a great reputation at Athens as a teacher, was
boasting that he was conversant with all the philosophic systems--but I
had better quote his words. 'Let Aristotle call, and I follow to the
Lyceum; Plato, and I hurry to the Academy; Zeno, and I make my
home in the Porch; Pythagoras, and I keep the rule of silence.' Then
rose Demonax from among the audience: 'Sidonius, Pythagoras calls.'
A pretty girlish young man called Python, son of some Macedonian
grandee, once by way of quizzing him asked a riddling question and
invited him to show his acumen over it. 'I only see one thing, dear
child,' he said, 'and that is, that you are a fair logician.' The other lost
his temper at this equivoque, and threatened him: 'You shall see in a
minute what a man can do.' 'Oh, you keep a man, do you?' was
Demonax's smiling retort.
He once, for daring to laugh at an athlete who displayed himself in gay
clothes because he had won an Olympic victory, received a blow on the
head with a stone, which drew blood. The bystanders were all as angry

as if they had themselves been the victims, and set up a shout--'The
Proconsul! the Proconsul!' 'Thank you, gentlemen,' said Demonax, 'but
I should prefer the doctor.'
He once picked up a little gold charm in the road as he walked, and
posted a notice in the market-place stating that the loser could recover
his property, if he would call upon Demonax and give particulars of the
weight, material, and workmanship. A handsome young exquisite came,
professing to have lost it. The philosopher soon saw that it was a got-up
story; 'Ah, my boy,' he said, 'you will do very well, if you lose your
other charms as little as you have lost this one.'
A Roman senator at Athens once presented his son, who had great
beauty of a soft womanish type. 'My son salutes you, sir,' he said. To
which Demonax answered, 'A pretty lad, worthy of his father, and
extremely like his mother.'
A cynic who emphasized his principles by wearing a bear's skin he
insisted on addressing not by his name of Honoratus, but as Bruin.
Asked for a definition of Happiness, he said that only the free was
happy. 'Well,' said the questioner, 'there is no lack of free men.'--'I
count no man free who is subject to hopes and fears.'-- 'You ask
impossibilities; of these two we are all very much the slaves.' 'Once
grasp the nature of human affairs,' said Demonax, 'and you will find
that they justify neither hope nor fear, since both pain and pleasure are
to have an end.'
Peregrine Proteus was shocked at his taking things so lightly, and
treating mankind as a subject for humour: 'You have no teeth,
Demonax.' 'And you, Peregrine, have no bowels.'
A physical philosopher was discoursing about the antipodes; Demonax
took his hand, and led him to a well, in which he showed him his own
reflection: 'Do you want us to believe that the antipodes are like
_that_?'
A man once boasted that he was a wizard, and possessed of mighty
charms whereby he could get what he chose out of anybody. 'Will it
surprise you to learn that I am a fellow-craftsman?' asked Demonax;
'pray come with me to the baker's, and you shall see a single charm, just
one wave of my magic wand, induce him to bestow several loaves upon
me.' Current coin, he meant, is as good a magician as most.
The great Herodes, mourning the untimely death of Pollux, used to

have the carriage and horses got ready, and the place laid at table, as
though the dead were going to drive and eat. To him came Demonax,
saying that he brought a message from