To the Uneducated Cynics

1. "Upstream flow the rivers" — that, indeed, is the proverb. A Cynic calls Diogenes vainglorious, and refuses to bathe in cold water, though he is exceedingly robust in body and full of vigor and in the prime of his age, for fear he should catch some harm — and that too when the god is already drawing near to the summer solstice. He even makes a comedy of the eating of the octopus, and says that Diogenes paid sufficient penalties for his folly and vainglory, having been destroyed by his food as though by hemlock. So far has he advanced in wisdom that he knows clearly that death is an evil. But this the wise Socrates supposed himself to be ignorant of, and so too, after him, did Diogenes. At any rate, when Antisthenes was suffering from a long and incurable illness, Diogenes, they say, handed him a little dagger with the words, "If you need the service of a friend." So little did that man think death anything terrible or painful. But we, who have inherited the scepter from those men, through a greater wisdom know that death is grievous, and we declare that to be sick is more terrible than death itself, and to shiver with cold more grievous than to be sick. For the man who is sick is sometimes tended luxuriously, so that his illness becomes downright self-indulgence, especially if he be rich. I myself, by Zeus, have seen certain men living more luxuriously in their illnesses than these very same men do in health — and even then they lived in splendid luxury. Whence it occurred to me to say to some of my companions that it were better for these men to become servants rather than masters, and to be poor, being barer than a lily, than to be rich as they now are. For so they would have ceased at once from being both sick and luxurious. Now this making a fashion of illness and being nursed luxuriously some men set down as a fine thing; but the man who endures the cold and bears up under the heat — does he not fare worse than the sick? At any rate he suffers without consolation.

2. Come, then, let us set down in common, for the consideration of those entering upon this life, all that we have heard from teachers concerning the Cynics; and if they are persuaded by these things, I know well that those who now attempt the Cynic life will be no worse for it. But if, disobeying, they should follow some splendid and august pursuit, surpassing our discourse — not in words but in deeds — our discourse will be no hindrance. But if, through gluttony or softness, or, to put the chief point in a word, being enslaved to bodily pleasure, they should make light of these arguments and laugh them to scorn besides — as sometimes the dogs make water against the porches of the schools and law-courts — "Hippocleides does not care"; for we are not concerned about such little curs misbehaving in this way. Come, then, let us go through the discourse in order from the beginning, under headings, that, rendering to each point what is fitting, we ourselves may more easily accomplish what we purposed, and may make it easy for you to follow. Since, then, Cynicism happens to be a kind of philosophy — not the meanest nor the least honored, but the rival of the best — we must first say a little about philosophy itself.

3. The gift of the gods to men, sent down through Prometheus together with the most radiant fire from the sun, along with the portion of Hermes, is nothing other than the distribution of reason and mind. For Prometheus — that providence which oversees all mortal things — casting into nature a warm breath as it were an instrument, imparted to all things a share of incorporeal reason; and each thing partook of what it was able: inanimate bodies of state alone, plants now of life as well, animals of soul, and man of a rational soul also. There are, then, some who think that a single nature comes through all these things, and there are others who think that these differ even in kind. But let not this — or rather let not even this — be examined in the present discourse, except for this reason: that whether one suppose philosophy, as some understand it, to be the art of arts and the science of sciences, or to be a likening to god so far as is possible, or, as the Pythian said, the "Know thyself," it will make no difference to the argument; for all these appear to stand toward one another in a most kindred relation.

4. Let us begin first from the "Know thyself," since this command is also divine. Now he who knows himself will know about the soul, and will know also about the body. And it will not suffice for him to learn only this, that man is a soul using a body, but he will go over the very essence of the soul, and then will track out its powers. And not even this alone will suffice him, but also, if there is anything in us better and more divine than the soul — which indeed all of us, persuaded without teaching, believe to be something divine, and which all of us commonly suppose to be enthroned in heaven — this too he will examine. And going over again the principles of the body, he will consider whether it is composite or simple; then, advancing by method, he will consider its harmony and its affections and its powers and, in a word, all that it needs for its continuance. He will look also, after this, at the principles of certain arts, by which the body is helped toward its continuance — such as medicine, agriculture, and other such things. Nor indeed will he be altogether ignorant even of the useless and superfluous arts, since these too have been devised for the flattery of the affective part of our soul. For he will shrink from clinging to these, thinking such a thing shameful, fleeing the seeming laboriousness in them; but on the whole he will not be ignorant of what sort of things they seem to be and to what parts of the soul they are suited. Consider, then, whether the knowledge of oneself is not at once the leader of all science and all art, and has comprehended the universal principles. For he said that, knowing divine things through the divine portion within us, and mortal things through the mortal-formed portion, one must besides know the animal that is midway between these, namely man — mortal in the individual, but immortal in the whole — and that indeed the individual man, the single man, is compounded of a mortal and an immortal portion.

5. That, moreover, to be likened to god so far as is possible is nothing other than to acquire such knowledge of beings as is attainable by men, is plain from this. For it is not for wealth of money that we count the divine blessed, nor for any other of the so-called goods, but, as Homer says, "and the gods know all things," and indeed, concerning Zeus, "But Zeus had come into being first, and knew more things"; for it is in knowledge that the gods are superior to us. For perhaps the knowledge of themselves is to them also the chief of fine things; and the more they surpass us in essence, the more, by knowing themselves, do they possess knowledge of better things. Let no one, then, divide philosophy for us into many parts, nor cut it into many, or rather make many out of one. For just as truth is one, so too is philosophy one; and it is no wonder if by different roads we journey toward it. For even if some stranger, or, by Zeus, some former citizen, should wish to return to Athens, he could either sail or go on foot; and if he travels by land, he can use either the broad highways or the footpaths and short cuts; and to sail too is possible, either along the shores, or indeed, like the old man of Pylos, cutting through the midst of the sea. And let no one bring this against us — that some of those who go along these very roads have strayed and, finding themselves somewhere else, as though lured by Circe or the Lotus-eaters, by pleasure or opinion or some other bait, were left behind from going forward and reaching the end; but let him consider those who took the first place in each of the sects, and he will find all in agreement.

So the god at Delphi proclaims the "Know thyself," and Heraclitus says, "I searched out myself"; and Pythagoras too, and those from him down to Theophrastus, speak of being likened to god so far as is possible — Aristotle as well. For what we are sometimes, that god is always. It would be absurd, then, for god not to know himself; for he would know absolutely nothing of other things, if he were ignorant of himself; for he is all things, since he has in himself and beside himself the causes of all things that in any way exist — of immortals immortal causes, and of perishable things causes not mortal nor perishable, but eternal and ever-abiding, which are to these the causes of their everlasting generation. But this discourse is too great.

6. That truth is one and philosophy is one, and that all are lovers of it — both those whom I mentioned a little before and those whose name I would now in justice mention, I mean the associates of the man of Citium, who, seeing the cities fleeing from the over-pure and unmixed freedom of the Cynic, screened him, as it were, with curtains of household management and money-getting and union with a wife and rearing of children, that, I think, they might set him up as a guardian over the cities at close hand. And that they set down the "Know thyself" as the chief point of philosophy, you might be persuaded not only from the writings they laid down on this very subject, if you wish, but much more from the end of philosophy. For they made the goal to be living in agreement with nature, which it is not possible for the man to attain who is ignorant who and of what sort he is by nature; for he who is ignorant who he is will surely not know what it is fitting for him to do — just as he who is ignorant of iron will not know whether it is fitting for him to cut with it or not, and what the iron needs in order to be able to do its own work. But that philosophy is one, and that all, so to speak, aiming at some one thing, came to it by different roads, it suffices for the present to say thus much.

7. But concerning Cynicism we must still inquire.

If, then, the writings had been composed by those men with some seriousness, and not in play, it would have been necessary, following these, to attempt to examine each of the things we purpose concerning the matter in the opponent, and, if it appeared to agree with the ancients, by no means to charge us with false witness; but if not, then to banish them from our hearing, as the Athenians banished the false documents of the Metroön. But since there is nothing of the kind, as I said — for the much-talked-of tragedies of Diogenes are said to be by a certain Philiscus of Aegina, and even if they were Diogenes', there is nothing absurd in the wise man playing, since many of the philosophers appear to have done this too; Democritus, they say, used to laugh when he saw men in earnest — let us not, then, look to their play, like those who least of all desire to learn anything serious. When one comes to a happy city, full of many temples and many secret rites, and with countless holy priests dwelling within in holy places, but on this very account often — I mean, for the sake of keeping all within pure — has driven out from the city the superfluous and abominable and base things, the public baths and the brothels and the taverns and absolutely all such things; and then, having come only this far, does not pass within. For the man who falls in with such things and then thinks this to be the city is wretched if he flees, and more wretched if he stays below, when he might, by stepping a little over, see Socrates. For I will use those words which Alcibiades used in praising Socrates. For I say that Cynic philosophy is most like to those Silenuses that sit in the workshops of the image-carvers, which the craftsmen make holding pipes or flutes; and these, when opened in two, are seen to have within them images of gods. That we may not, then, suffer any such thing — supposing the things he played at to have been his serious work; for there is indeed something in those also not useless, but Cynicism is another thing, as I will at once try to show — come, let us look at it in order from his deeds, as the tracking hounds run after the wild beasts.

8. A founder, then, is not easy to find, to whom one must first refer it, even if some suppose that this belongs to Antisthenes and Diogenes. Oenomaus at least seems to say, not absurdly, that "Cynicism is neither Antisthenism nor Diogenism." For the nobler of the Cynics say that great Heracles too, just as he became to us the cause of the other goods, so also left to men the greatest example of this life. But I, wishing to speak well of the gods and of those who have passed to a divine portion, am persuaded that even before him certain men, not among the Greeks only but among the barbarians also, thus philosophized; for this philosophy seems to be somehow common and most natural, and to need not any business whatever; but it suffices only to choose the noble things from a desire of virtue and a flight from vice, and one need neither unroll countless books — for "much learning," they say, "does not teach mind" — nor suffer any other of such things as those undergo who go through the other sects, but it suffices only to hear these two commands of the Pythian, the "Know thyself" and "Deface the currency." So there has appeared to us as founder of this philosophy he who, I think, became to the Greeks the cause of all noble things, the common leader and lawgiver and king of Greece, the god at Delphi — to whom, since it was not lawful that anything should escape his notice, neither did the fitness of Diogenes escape. And he urged him on, not, as he did the others, by giving the exhortation in verse, but teaching by deed what he wished, symbolically, by means of two words, saying "Deface the currency." For the "Know thyself" he said and says not to that man only, but to the others as well; for it is set up, I think, before the precinct. So we have found the founder of this philosophy, as indeed the divine Iamblichus too says, and also the chief men in it, Antisthenes and Diogenes and Crates, whose aim and end of life was, I think, to know themselves, and to despise empty opinions, but to lay hold with the whole mind, as they say, of truth, which leads all good things, both for the gods and for men — for the sake of which Plato too, I think, and Pythagoras and Socrates, and those of the Peripatos, and Zeno endured every toil, wishing both to know themselves and not to follow empty opinions, but to track out the truth in the things that are.

9. Come then, since it has appeared that Plato did not practice one thing and Diogenes another, but one and the same: at any rate, if someone should ask the wise Plato, "How much do you reckon the 'Know thyself' worth?" — I know well that he would say, worth everything, and he does say so in the Alcibiades. Come, then, after this tell us, O divine Plato and offspring of the gods, "In what manner one ought to be disposed toward the opinions of the many." He will say the same things, and besides this will expressly bid us read through the whole Crito dialogue, in which Socrates appears to advise us to care nothing for such things; at any rate he says, "But why, my dear Crito, do we so care for the opinion of the many?" Then shall we, despising these things, wish simply, just like this, to wall off and tear apart from one another men whom the love of truth brought together, and the contempt of opinion, and the common aspiration toward the emulation of virtue? But if it seemed good to Plato to accomplish these things through arguments also, while for Diogenes the deeds sufficed, is he on this account worthy to be ill spoken of by you? Consider whether this very thing is not in every way better, since Plato too appears to disown his writings. For "there is no writing of Plato," he says, "nor will there be; and the things now in circulation are Socrates', a man fair and young." Why, then, do we not look at Cynicism itself, what it is, from the deeds of Diogenes?

10. Since, then, there are parts of the body — such as eyes, feet, hands — and other things that supervene — hairs, nails, dirt, that kind of excrescence, without which a human body cannot exist — is he not laughable who reckons as parts the nails or hairs or dirt and the foul-smelling excrescences, but not the most precious and excellent things, first the organs of sense, and of these themselves those which are more the causes of understanding to us, such as the eyes and the hearing? For these minister to wisdom, whether for the soul that is buried within, that, when sooner purified, it may be able to use the pure and immovable power of thought; or, as some think, since the soul brings them in as it were through such channels. For, gathering, they say, the particular sensations and holding them together by memory, it generates the sciences. But I, were there not something divine or perfect, though impeded by many other and varied things, which makes the apprehension of external things, do not think it would even be possible for there to be apprehension of the things of sense. But this discourse does not belong to the present matter.

Wherefore we must lead the discourse back to the parts of Cynic philosophy.

11. These men too, then, appear to have considered philosophy twofold, as Aristotle and Plato did — theoretical and practical — having clearly understood and perceived this very thing, that man is by nature suited to action and to knowledge. And if they declined the theory of natural science, this is nothing to the argument. For Socrates too, and many others, appear to have made much use of theory, yet of this for the sake of nothing else but action; for they thought that the knowledge of oneself was just this, to learn accurately what must be assigned to the soul and what to the body; and they reasonably assigned the leadership to the soul and the service to the body. They appear, then, to have practiced virtue, self-control, freedom from vanity, freedom — being outside all envy, cowardice, superstition. But we do not think these things about them, but suppose that they play and gamble with the dearest things, so despising the body, as Socrates rightly said in saying that philosophy is a practicing of death. This those men practiced each day, and yet seem to us not so much to be emulated as to be wretched and altogether senseless. But for what did they endure these toils? Not, as you yourself said, for the sake of vainglory. For how could they be praised by others for eating raw bits of flesh? And yet you yourself are no praiser of it. Imitating, then, the cloak and the long hair of such a man, as in the paintings of those men, do you then think that this — which not even you yourself suppose to be admirable — wins good repute among the multitude? One or two, perhaps, praised it then, but more than a hundred thousand had their stomachs turned by the nausea and disgust and became unable to eat, until the servants restored them with scents and perfumes and pastries. Thus the famous hero overwhelmed by a deed ridiculous to such men, "such as mortals now are," but not ignoble, by the gods, if one should interpret it according to the understanding of Diogenes. For what Socrates says of himself — that, thinking he was performing a service to the god in examining and testing in every particular the oracle given concerning him, he embraced the life of cross-examination — this too Diogenes, I think, being conscious to himself that philosophy was given by the Pythian, thought he ought to test everything by deeds and not to be affected by the opinions of others, perhaps true, perhaps false. So not even if Pythagoras said anything, nor if anyone else like Pythagoras, did it seem to Diogenes worthy of trust. For he made the god, and no man, the founder of his philosophy. "What, then," you will say, "has this to do with the eating of the octopus?" I will tell you.

12. Some suppose flesh-eating to be according to nature for men, while others think it least of all fitting for a man to do this, and much discourse has been spent on this. If, then, you are willing not to be lazy, swarms of books on the subject will appear to you. These Diogenes thought he ought to refute. At any rate he reasoned thus: if a man, eating flesh without trouble — just as, I think, each of the other beasts does, to which nature has allotted this — should do it harmlessly and without distress, or rather even with profit to the body, he supposed flesh-eating to be in every way according to nature; but if some harm should arise from it, then perhaps he thought this not the work of a man, but that one must abstain from it with all one's might. This, then, would perhaps be one argument about the matter, somewhat more forced; but there is another more proper to Cynicism, if I should first go through its end yet more clearly.

For they make freedom from passion the end; and this is equivalent to becoming a god. Diogenes, then, perceiving perhaps that in all other things he was free from passion, but by this kind of food alone was disturbed and made nauseous and enslaved by empty opinion rather than by reason — for they are flesh none the less, even if one boil them ten thousand times, even if one season them with countless relishes — thought he ought to take himself away from this and set himself altogether free from this cowardice. For it is cowardice, be well assured, such a thing as this. Since — by Demeter the Lawgiver — if we touch boiled flesh, why do we not also eat it simply raw? Tell us. For you cannot say anything except that it is so customary and we are so habituated. For surely it is not that before being boiled it is abominable, and after being boiled has become purer than itself. What, then, ought he to have done who was stationed by the god as by a general to wipe out all the currency, and to judge things by reason and truth? To overlook himself being troubled by this opinion, so as to think that flesh boiled is pure and edible, but, when not worked upon by fire, is somehow polluted and abominable? Are you so mindful? Are you so serious? — you who, reproaching with so much that vainglorious Diogenes, as you call him, but as I call him the most serious servant and minister of the Pythian, have devoured in place of the octopus countless salted fish, "fish and birds and whatever should come to your dear hands," being an Egyptian besides — not of the priests, but of the all-devourers, to whom it is lawful to eat all things as the green herbs of the field. You recognize, I think, the words of the Galilaeans. It almost escaped me to say that all men too who dwell near the sea, and now even some of those far from it, gulp down sea-urchins, oysters, and absolutely all such things, without even heating them; and then you suppose those men to be enviable, but consider Diogenes wretched and abominable, and do not perceive that these things are flesh no more than those — except perhaps that these differ from those in being soft, and those harder. For the octopus is bloodless, like those things; but the shellfish too are animate, like it; for it feels pleasure and pain, which is the chief mark of animate things. And let not the Platonic opinion now trouble us, which supposes even plants to be animate. But that the noble Diogenes did nothing irrational or unlawful or unaccustomed to you, except perhaps in the harder and the softer, if one should examine such things by pleasure of the gullet and distaste, is, I think, plain to those who are able in any way to follow an argument. You do not then loathe the eating of raw flesh, you who do the like — not on bloodless animals only, but also on those that have blood. And perhaps you differ from him in this too, that he thought one ought to take these things simply and according to nature, while you, having seasoned them with salt and many other things for the sake of pleasure, do violence to nature. And let this much suffice on this subject.

13. The aim and end of Cynic philosophy, as indeed of all philosophy, is happiness; and happiness consists in living according to nature, and not according to the opinions of the many. For it falls to plants too to fare well, and indeed to all animals, whenever each unhindered attains its natural end; and among the gods too this is the boundary of happiness, that they have themselves as they are by nature and belong to themselves. So for men too it is not fitting to busy themselves about happiness as though it were hidden away somewhere else. Neither eagle nor plane-tree nor any other of the existing animals or plants takes pains to have golden wings and leaves, nor to have silver shoots, nor talons and spurs of iron — or rather of adamant — but supposing that those things with which nature adorned them from the beginning, if they should prove robust and serviceable to them for speed or for strength, were added, it would most of all think itself to fare well and to flourish. How, then, is it not ridiculous, if some man, having been born, should busy himself about happiness somewhere outside, reckoning wealth and lineage and the power of friends and absolutely all such things to be worth everything? If, then, nature had given to us, as to the animals, only this — to have bodies and souls like theirs, so as to busy ourselves about nothing more — it would suffice thereafter, like the rest of the animals, to be content with bodily advantages, and to busy ourselves about happiness somewhere there. But since there is sown in us a soul in no way like that of the other animals, but either differing in essence, or, though indifferent in essence, superior in activity alone — just as, I think, pure gold is already superior to that mixed with sand; for this account too is told about the soul as true by some — we, then, since we are conscious that we are more intelligent than the animals; for, according to the myth of Protagoras, to them nature, like a mother, bore herself very generously and with great gifts, but to us, in place of all things, mind was given from Zeus — must place happiness here, in the best and most excellent of the things within us.

14. Consider, then, whether Diogenes was not most of all of this purpose, who gave his body up freely to toils, that he might render it more robust than nature made it, and thought he ought to do only as much as should appear to reason needful to be done; but the tumults falling upon us from the body, such as this thing that surrounds us often compels us to busy ourselves about for its own sake, he did not admit even in part. And by this discipline the man got himself so brave a body as no one, I think, of those who have contended for crowns, and was so disposed in soul as to be happy, as to be a king no less, if not even more — as the Greeks of that time were wont to say — than the Great King, meaning the Persian. Does he seem to you a small thing, a man without city, without home, deprived of his country, having neither obol nor drachma, nor even a servant, nay, not even a barley-cake — of which Epicurus, when he had plenty, says he was no worse off than the gods in respect of happiness — not contending with the gods, but living more happily than the man who seems to men most happy, and saying that he lived more happily? But if you disbelieve, having tested that life by deed and not by argument, you will perceive it.

Come, then, let us first refute him by arguments.

15. Does freedom seem to you to be the chief of all goods for men — of those much-talked-of goods? How could you not say so? Since money and wealth and lineage and bodily strength and beauty and absolutely all such things, apart from freedom, are the goods not of the man who seems to have the good fortune, but of the man who possesses him. Whom, then, do we suppose to be the slave? Is it perhaps that man whom we have bought for so many silver drachmas, or two minae, or ten gold staters? You will doubtless say that this man is truly a slave. Is it for this very reason, that we have paid down the silver for him to the seller? On that reckoning, those captives too whom we ransom would be servants. And yet the laws too have given back to these their freedom, when they are saved home again, and we ransom them not that they may be slaves, but that they may be free. You see, then, that it is not enough to pay down silver to make the ransomed man a slave, but that man is truly a slave over whom another is master, to compel him to do whatever he commands, and to punish him when unwilling, and, as the poet says, "to bring him near to evil pains." Consider, then, after this, whether all are not masters of us whom we must of necessity serve, that we may suffer no pain nor be grieved by being punished by them. Or do you think this alone a punishment, if someone raising his staff should strike the servant? And yet not even the harshest of masters do such a thing to all their servants, but a word often suffices, and a threat. Never, then, my friend, think yourself free, so long as your belly rules you, and the parts below the belly, and those who are masters of providing the means of pleasure, and likewise of preventing them; and even if you should become superior to these, so long as you are a slave to the opinions of the many, you have not yet touched freedom nor tasted of the nectar — "No, by him who gave the tetractys to my breast." And I do not say this, that one ought to be shameless toward all and to do the things that ought not to be done; but the things from which we abstain, and all that we do, let us not do and abstain on account of their seeming somehow excellent or base to the many, but because they are forbidden by reason and by the god within us, that is, by the mind. The many, then, nothing prevents from following the common opinions — for this is better than being utterly shameless; for men have by nature a kinship toward truth — but a man who already lives according to mind, and is able both to find and to judge right reasons, ought to follow in no way at all the things reckoned by the many to be done well or ill.

So, since one part of our soul is more divine, which indeed we call mind and intelligence and the silent reason, of which the herald is this reason that goes forth through the voice from nouns and verbs, but another thing is yoked to this, varied and manifold, a beast mingled of anger and desire and many-headed — one ought not to look fixedly and undauntedly toward the opinions of the many before we have tamed this beast and persuaded it to obey the god within us, or rather the divine thing. For this many emulators of Diogenes, neglecting, have become greedy of everything and polluted and superior to not even one of the beasts. And that the argument is not mine, I will first tell you a deed of Diogenes, at which the many will laugh, but to me it seems most august. For when one of the young men in a crowd, Diogenes being present, broke wind, he struck him with his staff, saying, "Then, you scum, having done nothing worthy to be so bold in public, do you begin here to despise opinion before us?" So he thought one ought first to become superior to pleasure and anger, before coming to the most perfect of the wrestling-bouts, the stripping for the contest against the opinions of the many, which become to the many the causes of countless evils.

16. Do you not know how they lead the young men away from philosophy, babbling one thing about one philosopher and another about another? The genuine choristers of Pythagoras and Plato and Aristotle are said to be cheats and sophists and puffed up and sorcerers. And if anyone of the Cynics has been serious, he seems pitiable. I remember, at any rate, that once a tutor said to me, when he saw my companion Iphicles with squalid hair and torn-open breast and an utterly mean cloak in a terrible winter, "What divinity has turned this man into this misfortune, by which he himself is pitiable, but his parents more pitiable, who reared him with care and educated him as seriously as they could, but he now goes about thus, having abandoned everything, no better than the beggars?" At that time I somehow answered him ironically; but be well assured that the many think these things also about the true Cynics. And this is not the terrible thing; but you see that they persuade men both to love wealth and to hate poverty and to serve the belly and to endure every toil for the body's sake and to fatten the bond of the soul and to set out a costly table and never to sleep alone at night, but to do all such things in the dark, escaping notice? Is this not worse than Tartarus? Is it not better to sink beneath Charybdis and Cocytus and countless fathoms beneath the earth, than to fall into such a life, a slave to the genitals and the belly — and not even to these simply, like the beasts, but to have trouble, that we may escape notice doing these things in the dark? And yet how much better to abstain from them altogether! But if this is not easy, the laws of Diogenes and Crates concerning these things are not to be dishonored: "Hunger dissolves love; but if you are unable to use this, then the noose." Do you not know that those men did these things, giving to life a road of frugality? "For not from the barley-cake eaters," says Diogenes, "come the tyrants, but from those who dine sumptuously." And Crates indeed composed a hymn to Frugality: "Hail, goddess and queen, the delight of wise men, Frugality, offspring of glorious Temperance."