Book 11

Oricadmus became a lawgiver of wrestling, having devised by himself the style of wrestling called the Sicel manner.

There were the verses of Oroebantius of Troezen before Homer, as the Troezenian accounts say. And Dares the Phrygian, whose Phrygian Iliad is still preserved even now, as I know, they say lived before Homer too. Melesander of Miletus wrote of the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.

Iccus of Tarentum was the first to take up wrestling, having lived the period of his training most temperately, passing his life on a strict diet, and remaining ignorant of love throughout.

They say that Agathocles the tyrant of Sicily had a most ludicrous disfigurement of the head. For as it grew bald, his hair gradually falling out, he, ashamed of it, made a covering for his hair, a crown of myrtle; and it was a screen for his baldness. The Syracusans, however, knew of the baldness, and were not ignorant of the plot of the hair against him, but kept silent because of the madness of his audacities and impieties.

Some men were sacrificing at Delphi. The Delphians, plotting against them, secretly put some of the sacred treasures into their baskets, where they had their frankincense and cakes. So, having seized them as temple-robbers, they led them off to the rock and hurled them down according to the Delphic law.

It happened that an adulterer was caught in Thespiae; and then he was led through the marketplace in bonds. His companions, however, rescued him. So a faction-fight broke out, and it came about that many murders were committed.

Eteocles the Laconian used to say that Sparta could not endure two Lysanders. And Archestratus the Athenian used to say that the city of the Athenians could not endure two Alcibiadeses. So intolerable, then, was each of them.

Hipparchus was killed by Harmodius and Aristogiton, because at the Panathenaea he did not allow the sister of Harmodius to carry the basket for the goddess according to the local custom, though she was perhaps worthy of it.

The best of the Greeks lived in poverty all their lives long. Let some, then, praise wealth still, after the best of the Greeks, to whom poverty was allotted throughout their lives. These are they: for instance, Aristides son of Lysimachus, a man who achieved many things in war, and who fixed the tribute for the Greeks. Yet this man, such as he was, did not even leave behind enough for his own burial. And Phocion too was poor. When Alexander sent him a hundred talents, he asked: "For what reason does he give it to me?" When they said that Alexander considered him alone among the Athenians a man of nobility and worth, he said: "Then let him allow me to remain such." And Epaminondas son of Polymnis was poor. When Jason sent him fifty gold pieces, he said: "You are beginning an unjust act." And borrowing fifty drachmas from one of his fellow-citizens for travelling-money, he invaded the Peloponnese. Learning that his shield-bearer had taken money from one of the captives, he said: "Give me back my shield, and buy yourself a tavern, where you will live out your days; for you will no longer be willing to risk yourself, now that you have become rich." When his friends reproached Pelopidas for neglecting money, a thing useful for life, he said: "By Zeus, useful — but to this Nicomedes," pointing to a certain lame and crippled man. Scipio, who lived fifty-four years, neither bought nor sold anything: so few were his needs. When someone showed him a finely adorned shield, he said: "But it befits a Roman man to have his hopes in his right hand, not in his left." Ephialtes son of Sophonides was very poor. When his companions offered him ten talents, he did not accept them, saying: "These will compel me, out of respect for you, to grant away something of justice; and if I do not respect you and grant you the favour, I shall seem ungrateful."

Zoilus of Amphipolis, who wrote against Homer and against Plato and against others, was a pupil of Polycrates; and this Polycrates also wrote the accusation against Socrates. This Zoilus was called "the rhetorical Dog." He was of this sort. His beard hung down, his head was shaved to the skin, and his cloak was above the knee. He loved to speak ill of people, and had leisure to make himself hateful to many, and the wretch was full of blame. So one of the learned men asked him why he spoke ill of all; and he said: "Because, wishing to do harm, I cannot."

Dionysius the Sicilian was himself devoted to the art of medicine, and would heal and cut and cauterize and the rest.

Alcibiades sent Socrates a large and most finely prepared cake. Xanthippe, then, taking it as a gift sent by a beloved to a lover, and inflamed with jealousy after her own fashion, threw the cake out of the basket and trampled it underfoot. Socrates laughed and said: "Then you too will have no share of it." And if anyone thinks that I am speaking of small matters in saying these things, he does not know that even by such things the man of worth is tested, in despising the very things that the many call the ornament of the table and the adornments of the feast.

They say that a certain Sicilian became so keen of sight in Sicily that, fixing his eye from Lilybaeum to Carthage, his vision was in no way deceived. And they say that he could report the number of ships putting out from Carthage, and was not wrong about a single one."