Book 1

Octopuses have voracious appetites and will fight to eat anything whatever. Often they do not even spare one another, but the smaller, caught by the larger and falling into the more powerful creature's hunting-snares — what are called the fish's tentacles — then becomes its dinner. The octopuses lie in wait for fish in this way as well. They settle beneath the rocks and transform their own colour to match them, so that they seem to be the very thing the rocks naturally are. The fish then swim up to the octopuses as if to the rock, and the octopuses, finding them off their guard, throw their own arms about them like nets.

Weaving and the loom, gifts of the goddess Ergane, the spiders neither know nor wish to know. For what use would such a creature have for a garment of that kind? Their web is rather a trap, a kind of fish-basket for whatever falls into it. The spider keeps her watch over the snare entirely motionless, and seems lifeless; and once something — whatever it may be — has fallen in, she has her feast. Only so much falls in as the web can hold, and that is enough to make her a meal.

The Egyptian frogs are a clever sort of creature, and far surpass the rest of their kind. For if a frog meets with a water-snake, a creature bred of the Nile, it bites crosswise on a piece of reed and carries it, holding fast and not letting go by main force. The snake then is unable to swallow the frog along with the reed, for it cannot open its mouth wide enough to take in what the reed holds apart. And so by their cleverness the frogs prevail over the strength of the water-snakes.

Here too is a clever thing about the Egyptian dog. They do not drink from the river all at once, nor without restraint, nor freely, stooping down and lapping up as much as their thirst demands; for they are wary of the beasts in the water. Instead they run along the bank, and stealthily drink as much as they can snatch, again and again. So, drinking at intervals, they satisfy themselves; yet they do not perish, and they cure their thirst all the same.

The fox: not only is the land creature cunning, but the sea-fox too is full of craft. It is not wary of the bait, nor on its guard against it, because of its greed; yet it utterly despises the hook. For before the angler can draw up his rod, the fish leaps up, bites through the line, and swims off again. Often it has swallowed two or three hooks, and the fisherman has not dined upon it as it makes its way off through the sea.

The sea-turtles lay their eggs on land, and having laid them they at once bury the eggs in the earth; then they turn back and swim away to their own haunts. They are so far given to reckoning that they count up on their own the forty days in which their offspring, the eggs being formed, become living creatures. Then they turn back again to the place where they laid and hid their young, dig up the earth they had heaped over them, and lead away the hatchlings, who are already stirring and able to follow them.

Wild boars, then, are not untrained in medicine and self-treatment. Whenever they have eaten henbane unawares, they drag their hindquarters behind them, their bodies grown slack; then, though convulsed, they nevertheless make their way to water, and there gather up crabs and eat them with the greatest eagerness. These become for them a remedy for their affliction, and restore them to health again.

The venomous spider is as great an evil to deer as it is to men, and they are in danger of perishing quickly. If, however, they taste ivy, the bite does them no harm. But the ivy must be of the wild kind.

When a lion is sick, nothing else does it any good, but its remedy for the illness is to eat an ape.

The Cretans are good archers, and indeed they shoot the wild goats grazing on the mountain peaks. But the goats, once struck, at once chew the herb dittany, and the moment they have tasted it all the arrows drop out of them.

Mice too, it seems, are the most prophetic of animals. For when a house is already growing old and about to collapse, they are the first to perceive it, and abandoning their holes and their former dwellings, they flee as fast as their feet will carry them and change their lodging.

Ants too, as I hear, have a kind of prophetic sense. For when a famine is to come, they are remarkably industrious in laying up stores and hoarding for themselves wheat and the other seeds that make an ant's dinner.

Gelon of Syracuse dreamed that he was struck by a thunderbolt, and because of this he cried out, not faintly or weakly as one does in a dream, but like a man, in his great terror at the fright. His dog, which was sleeping beside him, was thrown into confusion by the cry, and standing over him barked very fiercely, threateningly and intently. By this Gelon both woke from sleep and was released from his fear.

Aristotle says that the swan has fine and numerous offspring, but also has spirit. Often, indeed, swans have come to anger and to battle and killed one another. The same writer says that swans fight with eagles; yet they defend themselves and do not begin unjust attacks. That they are fond of song has already been told and retold. For my part I have never heard a swan sing, and perhaps no one else has either; yet it is believed that it does sing. And they say that it is most musical and tuneful precisely at that time when it is near the end of its life. They cross the open sea as well, and fly low over the water, and their wing does not grow weary.

They say that doves brood on their eggs by turns. Then, when the young are hatched, the male spits upon them, that they may not be bewitched. The female lays two eggs, of which the first is always made male, the second female. Doves lay throughout every season of the year; and so they breed ten times in the year. There is a story current among the Egyptians that those in Egypt lay twelve times. Aristotle says too that the rock-dove differs from the pigeon: the pigeon is the larger, the rock-dove the smaller, and the pigeon becomes tame, but the other does not. The same writer says that the male does not mount the female before he has kissed her; for the females will not endure the company of the males without a kiss. And he adds this too, that the females mount one another when they fail of union with a male; and they emit nothing into one another, but lay eggs from which no young come to them. If one should give any heed to Callimachus, he says that the ring-dove, the turtle-dove, the pigeon, and the wood-pigeon resemble one another in nothing. Indian reports say that in India there are doves the colour of quinces. Charon of Lampsacus says that white doves appeared about Athos at the time when the Persian triremes were destroyed there as they were rounding Athos. At Eryx in Sicily, where there is the august and holy temple of Aphrodite, the people of Eryx at a certain season celebrate the festival of the Departure, and they say that Aphrodite is then carried over from Sicily to Libya. At that time the doves vanish from the place, as though travelling abroad together with the goddess. But for the rest of the time a very great multitude of these birds is agreed to throng about the goddess's temple. Achaean stories, on the other hand, say that Zeus himself changed his shape into a dove out of love for a maiden named Phthia. This Phthia lived at Aegium.

When the ship had come from Delos, and Socrates had to die, Apollodorus, the companion of Socrates, came to the prison bringing him a costly, finely-woven tunic of wool and a cloak to match. He begged him to put on the tunic and wrap himself in the cloak, and so drink the poison. For he said that Socrates would not lack for a fine shroud if he died in such garments; and indeed his body would lie in state, with its adornment, not without some dignity. So Apollodorus pressed Socrates; but Socrates would not consent, and said to Crito and Simmias and Phaedo and the rest: "And how well does this Apollodorus think of us, if he has come to believe that after the parting from the Athenians he will still see Socrates? For if he supposes that I, who a little while hence will be flung down at his feet and lie there, am to be myself, plainly he does not know me."

These, then, are the admired little works of Myrmecides of Miletus and Callicrates of Lacedaemon. They made four-horse chariots that could be covered by a fly, and on a grain of sesame they inscribed an elegiac couplet in letters of gold. Of these, to my mind, the serious man will praise neither; for what are they but a squandering of time?

How could the women of old fail to be ruined by their luxury? For upon their heads they set a tall crown, they shod their feet in sandals, from their ears hung long earrings, and the parts of their tunics about the shoulders down to the hands they did not sew together, but caught up with golden and silver brooches set close together. So much for the very ancient women; as for the luxury of the Attic women, let Aristophanes tell of it.

The common account, which has gone out to all, says that for the Sybarites and for Sybaris itself the cause of their ruin was their great luxury. But what is not known to most, this I will relate. They say that the Colophonians too perished through their excessive luxury; for they too gave themselves up to costly clothing, and indulged riotously and beyond all need in the wantonness of the table. And the rule of the Bacchiadae at Corinth, which had advanced to great power, was nevertheless dissolved through luxury exceeding all measure.

Dionysius plundered the treasures from all the temples in Syracuse. From the statue of Zeus he stripped the robe and the ornament, which they say was of gold worth eighty-five talents. When the workmen shrank from laying hands on it, he himself was the first to strike the statue. He also plundered the statue of Apollo, which likewise had golden locks, ordering someone to shear them off. Sailing to the Tyrrhenians, he plundered all the treasures of Apollo and of Leucothea, ordering the silver table that stood beside Apollo to be taken away, saying that he was giving the god a toast to the Good Spirit.

I would not conceal the clever and truly Greek deed of Ismenias the Theban. While serving as ambassador on behalf of his country to the king of the Persians, he arrived, and wished himself to obtain audience of the Persian concerning the matters for which he had come. The chiliarch, who carried in messages to the king and brought in those who sought audience, said to him: "Theban stranger" — he spoke thus in Persian through an interpreter, and the chiliarch's name was Tithraustes — "there is a native custom among the Persians, that whoever comes into the king's sight must not partake of speech until he has done him obeisance. If, then, you wish to meet with him in person, it is time for you to do what the custom requires; but if not, this same end will be accomplished for you through us, even though you do not perform the obeisance." So Ismenias said, "Lead me in." And going forward and coming into the king's sight, he slipped off his ring and let it fall, unseen, beside his feet, and quickly stooping down, as if doing obeisance, he picked it up again. Thus he gave the Persian the appearance of obeisance, yet did nothing that brings shame among the Greeks. So he accomplished everything he wished, and met with no failure at the Persian's hands.

The gifts given by the king to the ambassadors who came to him, whether they arrived from the Greeks or from elsewhere, were these. To each a Babylonian talent of coined silver, and two silver bowls of a talent's weight. The Babylonian talent is worth seventy-two Attic minae. He also gave bracelets and a dagger and a collar, worth a thousand darics, and besides these a Median robe; the name of the robe was the "gift-bearing" robe.

Among the Greeks of old, Gorgias of Leontini, son of Philolaus, and Protagoras, son of Democritus, stood out for their great reputation, yet in wisdom they fell as far short as children fall short of men. For reputation, it seems, neither sees nor hears quite accurately; and so it is mistaken in many things, granting some by favour and falsifying others.

Of Caucon, son of Poseidon, and Astydameia, daughter of Phorbas, was born a son Lepreus, who advised Augeas to bind Heracles when Heracles demanded from him the wages for the labour. So Lepreus was, as one would expect, an enemy of Heracles because of this counsel. But in time the son of Zeus came to Caucon's house, and at the entreaty of Astydameia Heracles dissolved his enmity toward Lepreus. Yet a youthful rivalry fell upon them, and they contended with each other over the discus, and the drawing of water, and which of them would devour a bull first; and in all these Lepreus was beaten. They had a contest over hard drinking as well, and there again Heracles prevailed. Stung by this, Lepreus took up arms and challenged Heracles to single combat. And so he paid the penalty for his dealings with Augeas; for he died in the fight.

Alexander, son of Philip — or, if anyone prefers, of Zeus, for it makes no difference to me — to Phocion alone, the general of the Athenians, is said to have added the greeting "rejoice" when he wrote to him: so completely had Phocion won over the Macedonian. He even sent him a hundred talents of silver, and named four cities, of which he asked Phocion to choose whichever one he wished, that he might enjoy the revenues from it. The cities were these: Cius, Elaea, Mylasa, Patara. Now Alexander did this magnanimously and magnificently; but Phocion acted still more magnanimously, accepting neither the silver nor the city. Yet, that he might not seem to scorn Alexander altogether, he honoured him in this way. He asked Alexander to set free for him the men bound in the citadel at Sardis: Echecratides the sophist, Athenodorus of Imbros, Demaratus and Sparton. These last were two brothers, Rhodians.

I hear of a woman who played the trumpet and made of this both her work and her art, named Aglaïs, the daughter of Megacles. She wore false hair and a plume upon her head. Posidippus too agrees with this. Her dinner, it seems, was twelve minae of meat and four choenices of bread; and she drank a chous of wine.

They say that great eaters were Lityerses the Phrygian and Cambles the Lydian and Thys the Paphlagonian and Charilas and Cleonymus and Pisander and Charippus and Mithridates the Pontic and Calamodrys the Cyzicene and Timocreon the Rhodian, the athlete and poet both, and Cantibaris the Persian and Erysichthon son of Myrmidon — whence indeed he was called Aethon. It is said that in Sicily there is a temple of Gluttony and an image of Demeter Sito (of the Corn). Alcman the poet too admits that he was a very great eater. And Anaxilas, the comic poet, says that a certain Ctesias ate much.

But I am willing to tell you a Rhodian opinion. In Rhodes they say that the man who gazes at fish and admires them and is, beyond all others, a lover of fine seafood — this man is praised by the people as a man of liberal taste; but the one who inclines toward meats they slander, the Rhodians do, as vulgar and a glutton. Whether they judge rightly or foolishly, I disdain to inquire.

The people of Cos say that in Cos a ewe in one of the flocks of Nicias the tyrant gave birth — and gave birth not to a lamb but to a lion. And this sign foretold to Nicias the tyranny that was to come to him, while he was still a private man.

King Ptolemy had a favourite named Galestes, most beautiful to look upon. But this youth's mind was even better than his form. Often, indeed, Ptolemy bore witness to this, and would say, "Good soul, you have never been the cause of harm to anyone, but to many you have procured many good things." Once the youth was riding with the king; and seeing from afar some men being led off to their death, he did not look on idly, but said to Ptolemy: "O king, since by some good fortune of those being led off we happen to be mounted on horses, come, if it please you, let us press on the pace and ride hard in pursuit, and become Dioscuri to the poor wretches — 'good saviours and noble helpers,' as the saying goes of those gods." The king, overjoyed at his kindness and loving exceedingly his compassion, both saved those men and added still more to the charm of his love for him.

This is a Persian custom, observed by them above all others. When the king rides into the land of the Persians, all the Persians bring him gifts, each according to his means. And since they are engaged in farming and labour upon the land, and are by nature workers of their own soil, they offer nothing extravagant or excessively costly, but either an ox or a sheep; some bring grain, and others wine. As he passes by and rides along, these things are set before him by each man, and they are called gifts, and are so regarded by him. Those still poorer than these in their living offer him milk and dates and cheese, and ripe fruits for eating, and the other first-fruits of their region.

Here too is a Persian story. They say that a Persian man, whose name was Sinaetes, met Artaxerxes, called Mnemon, far from his own farmstead. Caught off guard, he was thrown into confusion by fear of the custom and awe of the king. Not knowing what to do in his predicament, and unable to bear being outdone by the other Persians, nor to seem dishonoured by not bringing the king a gift — this man went to the river flowing nearby, whose name is Cyrus, in haste and as fast as his feet could carry him, and stooping down, he drew up water with both his hands and said: "King Artaxerxes, may you reign through all the ages. For now I honour you in whatever way and by whatever means I can, that you may not pass by, so far as in me lies, without a gift. I honour you with water of the river Cyrus. But when you arrive at your halting-place, I will honour you from my own home with the best and most costly things I have, and so I shall be no less than any of the others who have already greeted you with gifts." At this Artaxerxes was pleased, and said: "I gladly accept the gift, my man, and I value it among the most costly, and reckon it equal to those: first, because water is the best of all things, and second, because it bears the name of Cyrus in itself. And do you by all means appear before me when I halt at my station." Saying this, he ordered the eunuchs to take the gift from him; and they ran up with all speed and received the water from his hands into a golden bowl. And when the king had come to where he was lodging, he sent the Persian man a Persian robe and a golden bowl and a thousand darics, and ordered the one who carried these to say to the recipient: "The king bids you gladden your own soul with this gold, since you too gladdened his, leaving him neither unrewarded nor unhonoured, but honouring him in this way according to your present means. And he wishes you to draw with this bowl and drink of that water."

Omises brought to King Artaxerxes, as he was riding through Persia, a very great pomegranate upon a winnowing-fan. Astonished at its size, the king said: "From what garden did you take this gift that you bring me?" And when the man said that it was from his own home and his own farming, the king was overjoyed, and sent him royal gifts, and added: "By Mithra, this man, from such diligence, will in my judgement be able to make even a city great out of a small one." And this account seems to confirm that all things, through diligence and unceasing care and unflagging zeal, working with nature, may become better than they are.

A man of the Mardian race, named Racoces, had seven sons. The youngest of these was called Cartomes, and he did much wrong to the others. At first his father tried to instruct and discipline him with words; but when he would not obey, the judges of the region having come to where the young man's father lived, the father seized the child, bound his two hands behind him, and led him before the judges, and accused him precisely of all that he had dared to do, and asked the judges to put the young man to death. They were astonished, and would not themselves take it upon them to cast the condemning vote, but led them both before Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians. When the Mardian said the same things, the king broke in and said: "Then will you dare with your own eyes to endure your son's dying?" And he said: "Above all things; for when in my garden I break off and remove the bitter shoots that grow upon the lettuces, their mother plant is in no way grieved, but rather flourishes and grows larger and sweeter. So I too, O king, seeing the one who harms my house and the life of his brothers destroyed, and his wrongdoing against them ended, shall myself increase, and shall live together with the rest of my kin, who will fare as well as I." When Artaxerxes heard this, he praised Racoces and made him one of the royal judges, saying to those present that one who passed so just a judgement upon his own children would certainly be an exact and incorruptible judge in the affairs of others; and he released the young man from his present punishment, threatening him with a most grievous kind of death if he should be caught wronging others after what had gone before.