Book 7

7.1. Of Semiramis the Assyrian, different men sing different tales, but she was the fairest of women, though she used her beauty rather plainly. Coming to the king of the Assyrians, summoned for the renown of her beauty, he, when he met the woman, fell in love with her. She asked of the king that she might take the royal robe and rule Asia for five days, and that whatever she commanded should be done. Nor did she fail of her request. When the king had seated her upon the throne, and she knew that she held all things in her hand and at her will, she ordered the guards to kill the king himself; and so she took possession of the Assyrian empire. This is what Dinon relates.

7.2. Strato of Sidon is said to have been eager to surpass all men in luxury and extravagance. Theopompus of Chios compares his life to the manner of living of the Phaeacians, which Homer too, in keeping with his greatness of mind, dramatized as was his wont. With Strato, indeed, there was not one singer alone, charming his dinner and bewitching him, but many women were present, musicians and flute-girls and courtesans surpassing in beauty, and dancing-girls. He vied vigorously, moreover, with Nicocles the Cyprian, since that man too vied with him. And the contest was over nothing serious, but over the things just mentioned. Learning from those who came to them what passed in each other's houses, each then strove in rivalry to outdo the other. They did not, however, continue to the end in these pursuits; for both became the work of a violent death.

7.3. When some of his companions were grieving most heavily, Aristippus said many other things to console their sorrow, and this in particular by way of preface: "But I have come to you not to share your grief, but to put a stop to your grieving."

7.4. Pittacus very greatly praised the hand-mill, adding this praise of it, that in a small space one may exercise in a variety of ways. There was a song, too, called the Mill-song.

7.5. Laertes too is found working with his own hands by his son, scraping a plant, though he was very deep in age. And Odysseus himself admits that he knows many crafts and is skilled in them: "In handiwork no other mortal could rival me — to lay a fire well, and to split dry wood." And the raft, too, he made for himself in the quickest time, without needing shipwrights. And Achilles also, third in descent from Zeus, himself carves the meat, hastening to prepare a meal for the envoys who had come from the Achaeans.

7.6. Once, when snow was falling, the king of the Scythians asked one of them who was enduring it naked whether he was cold. And he asked the king in return whether his forehead was cold. When the king said no, "Well then," he said, "neither am I; for I am all forehead."

7.7. Demosthenes the son of Demosthenes, if there was to be an assembly the next day, would lie awake the whole night through, plainly thinking out and learning by heart what he meant to say. And so Pytheas, it seems to me, used to mock him on this account, saying that his arguments smelled of lamp-wicks.

7.8. When Hephaestion died, Alexander cast weapons upon his pyre, and melted down gold and silver with the corpse, and the robe most prized among the Persians. He cut off too his own locks, doing a Homeric deed and imitating his own Achilles. But he did it more violently and more hotly than Achilles, shearing the citadel of Ecbatana of its battlements. So far, then, as concerned his own hair, he seemed to me to be acting in the Greek manner; but when he laid hands on the walls — there Alexander was already mourning in barbarian fashion, and he changed his dress too, giving over everything to passion and love and tears. Hephaestion died at Ecbatana. There is a report current that these things had been prepared for Hephaestion as a corpse, but that Alexander, dying, made use of them himself; for the mourning fulfilled over the youth did not come first, but the death of Alexander overtook it.

7.9. And then, is not great self-restraint a fine thing — so it seems to me — if indeed even the wife of Phocion wore Phocion's cloak, and needed neither saffron robe nor Tarentine gown nor mantle nor flounced dress nor hairnet nor veil nor dyed tunics? She was clothed first in self-restraint, and second in what was at hand.

7.10. To Xanthippe, who did not wish to put on his cloak and so to go to see the procession, Socrates said: "Do you see that you go not to look on, but rather to be looked at?"

7.11. Among the Romans most of the women are accustomed to wear the same shoes as their men.

7.12. "One must deceive children with knucklebones, but men with oaths." Some say the saying is Lysander's, others Philip the Macedonian's. Whichever it may be, it is not rightly said, in my judgment. And perhaps it is no wonder if the same things do not please me and Lysander; for he was a tyrant, while I — how I am minded is plain from the fact that the saying does not please me.

7.13. Agesilaus the Lacedaemonian, when he was already an old man, would often go out unshod and without a tunic, wrapped only in his cloak, and this in the early morning in wintry weather. Someone reproached him for attempting things too youthful for his age; but he said: "Why, the young men of the citizens look to me, just as colts look to the full-grown horse."

7.14. And what then? Were not the philosophers good at war as well? So they seem to me, if indeed the Tarentines chose Archytas general six times, and Melissus commanded a fleet, and Socrates served three campaigns, and Plato himself went to Tanagra and to Corinth. The campaign and generalship of Xenophon many others sing, and he himself admits it in his account of Cyrus. Dion the son of Hipparinus overthrew the tyranny of Dionysius. And Epaminondas, as Boeotarch, conquered the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, and became first among the Thebans and the Greeks. Zeno too did much in public life on behalf of the Athenians against Antigonus. For it makes no difference whether a man benefits others by counsel or by arms.

7.15. When the Mytilenaeans ruled the sea, they hung this punishment over those of their allies who revolted: that their children should not learn letters nor be taught music, judging this the heaviest of all chastisements — to pass their lives in want of culture and in ignorance.

7.16. Rome was founded by Romus and Romulus, the sons of Ares and Silvia. And she was one of the descendants of Aeneas.

7.17. When Eudoxus came to Sicily, Dionysius was very grateful to him for his coming. But he, neither flattering this in any way nor fawning, said: "I have come as if to a good innkeeper, with whom Plato lodged" — confessing that he had come not for Dionysius's sake but for Plato's.

7.18. They say that the Egyptians endure tortures terribly well, and that an Egyptian man will die under the rack sooner than confess the truth. Among the Indians the women, when their husbands die, submit to the same fire. And the women vie over this honour of the husband; and the one who wins by lot is burned together with him.

7.19. Solon was general in the battle for Salamis, and, having captured two Megarian ships, he transferred Attic commanders into them, and clad his own men in the enemy's arms, and shifting his moorings, by this stratagem cut down many of the Megarians as they sailed in. He prevailed over them also in argument — not by cleverness of speech, but by carrying his point chiefly through the proofs themselves. For opening ancient tombs, he showed that all the Athenians were laid facing the west, according to their ancestral custom, but the Megarians were buried at random and as chance had it. And the Lacedaemonians judged the case.

7.20. A man came to Lacedaemon, a Chian, already an old man, in other respects a braggart, but ashamed of his old age, and trying to hide his grey hair by dyeing it. So he came forward and said the things for which he had come. Then Archidamus stood up and said: "What sound thing could this man say, who carries falsehood about not only on his soul, but on his head as well?" And he threw out what the man had said, discrediting the Chian's character by what was plain to see.

7.21. Caesar did not think it beneath him to frequent the doors of Ariston, nor Pompey those of Cratippus. For though they had great power, they did not despise those who could benefit them in the greatest things, but had need of them, great as they were in dignity. For it was not to rule, it seems, but to rule well, that they wished.