Characters

Often before now I have applied my mind and wondered, and perhaps I shall never cease to wonder, why it is that, though Greece lies under one and the same sky and all Greeks are educated alike, we have not come to share the same ordering of our characters.

For I, Polycles, having studied human nature over a long stretch of time, having lived ninety-nine years, and having besides associated with many and various dispositions and observed with great care both the good and the worthless among men, judged that I ought to write down the things that each of the two sorts pursue in life.

I shall set out for you, kind by kind, all the classes of character that attach to these men and the way in which they manage their conduct; for I suppose, Polycles, that our sons will be the better for it, if such memoranda are left to them, by which, using them as examples, they will choose to keep company and associate with the most decent of men, that they may not fall short of them.

But I shall now turn to my account; it is your part to follow rightly and to judge whether I speak rightly. First, then, I shall make my account begin with those who have cultivated dissembling, setting aside any preamble and much talk about the matter;

and I shall begin first with dissembling and define it, and then go through the dissembler, what sort of man he is and into what manner of behaviour he has sunk; and the other dispositions too, as I proposed, I shall try to make plain, kind by kind.

Dissembling, then, to take it in outline, would seem to be a pretence for the worse in actions and words; and the dissembler is the sort of man

who goes up to his enemies and is willing to chat with them rather than show his hatred; who praises to their faces those whom he has secretly attacked, and commiserates with them when they have lost their case; who shows forgiveness to those who speak ill of him and to the things said against him.

He talks gently with those who have been wronged and are indignant; and to those who wish to meet him on urgent business he gives orders to come back later.

He admits to nothing of what he is doing, but says he is still deliberating; he pretends he has only just arrived, or that he came late, or that he has been unwell.

To those who wish to borrow from him or to raise a subscription he says . . . that he is not selling, and, when he is selling, he says he is not; having heard something, he pretends not to have; having seen it, he says he has not seen it; having agreed to something, he says he does not remember it. Some things he says he will consider, others he does not know, others he wonders at, and others again he has just now thought out in the same way himself. And in general he is clever at using this turn of phrase:

"I do not believe it," "I cannot suppose so," "I am astonished," and "You tell me he has become a different man"; "Indeed, that is not what he was telling me," "The thing is incredible to me," "Tell that to someone else," "I am at a loss whether to disbelieve you or to condemn him," "But take care you are not too quick to believe."

Such are the phrases and twists and repetitions one may find in dissemblers. Characters that are not straightforward but designing one should guard against more than against vipers.

Flattery one might take to be a base kind of intercourse, but profitable to the flatterer; and the flatterer is the sort of man who, as he walks along with someone, says:

"Do you notice how people look at you? This happens to no one in the city except you. Yesterday you were the talk of the colonnade; for when more than thirty men were sitting there and the question arose who was the best, everyone, starting from him, came round in the end to your name."

While he says such things he picks a piece of fluff off the man's cloak, and if a bit of chaff has been blown by the wind onto his hair, he picks it out, and laughing he says: "Do you see? Because I have not met you for two days, your beard has come to be full of grey hairs—though you, if anyone, have hair black for your years."

When the man says anything, he bids the others be silent, and praises him while he is listening, and when he pauses he marks his approval with "Quite right"; and when the man makes a feeble joke, he laughs and stuffs his cloak into his mouth as though unable to restrain his laughter.

He bids those they meet stand still until the man himself has passed by.

He buys apples and pears and brings them in and gives them to the children while the father is watching, and kissing them he says: "Chicks of a worthy father."

When he helps the man buy walking-shoes, he says that the foot is shapelier than the shoe.

When the man is going to call on one of his friends, he runs ahead and says, "He is coming to you," and then turns back and says, "I have announced you."

He is also, you may be sure, able to run the errands from the women's market without drawing breath.

Of the dinner-guests he is the first to praise the wine, and staying close by he says, "How daintily you eat"; and lifting something from the table he says, "Now this, how good it is"; and he asks whether the man is cold, and whether he would like a wrap put over him, and whether he should arrange his clothes about him; and while saying this he leans toward his ear and whispers; and even while he talks to the others he keeps his eyes on him.

In the theatre he takes the cushions from the slave and spreads them himself for the man to sit on.

He says the man's house has been well designed, his farm well planted, and his portrait a good likeness.

In short, one may see the flatterer saying and doing everything by which he supposes he will gratify another.

Garrulity is the relating of long and ill-considered speeches.

The garrulous man is the sort who sits down close beside someone he does not know and first delivers a eulogy of his own wife; then relates the dream he had in the night; then goes through, dish by dish, all that he had at dinner.

Then, as the thing goes on, he says that men today are far worse than the ancients, and that wheat is going cheap in the market, and that there are many foreigners in town, and that the sea has been navigable since the Dionysia;

and that, if Zeus would send more rain, the crops would be better; and what field he will farm next year; and how hard life is; and that Damippos set up the largest torch at the Mysteries; and how many columns there are in the Odeum; and "Yesterday I was sick"; and "What day is it today?"

And if one puts up with him, he will not let go. He goes on: the Mysteries are in Boedromion, the Apatouria in Pyanopsion, the rural Dionysia in Posideon.

If you wish to keep clear of fever, you must shake off such men and break away and escape; for it is hard work to bear with those who cannot tell leisure from business.

Boorishness would seem to be an unseemly ignorance. The boor is the sort of man who drinks a posset before going to the assembly, and declares that perfume smells no sweeter than thyme, and wears shoes too big for his feet, and talks at the top of his voice.

He distrusts his friends and relatives, but consults his own household slaves about the most important matters;

and he relates the whole of the assembly's proceedings to the hired men working for him in the field.

He sits with his cloak hitched up above the knee, so that his nakedness is exposed.

At nothing else in the streets does he wonder or marvel, but when he sees an ox or an ass or a goat he stands still and gazes at it.

He is good at eating something as he takes it out of the storeroom, and at drinking his wine too strong.

He makes a secret pass at the woman who bakes the bread, and then grinds the rations along with her for all the household and for himself.

While he is eating his breakfast, he throws fodder to the beasts of burden.

He answers the door himself.

He calls his dog to him and grabs it by the snout and says, "This fellow guards the place and the house."

When he receives money from someone, he rejects it, saying it is too tarnished, and exchanges it for other; and if he has lent anyone a plough or a basket or a sickle or a bag, he lies awake at night remembering it and asking for it back.

As he goes down to town he asks whomever he meets the price of hides and salt fish, and whether the festival keeps the new moon today, and he says straightway that he wants to have his hair cut once he is down.

He sings in the bathhouse; and he hammers nails into his shoes.

And passing along the same road he fetches the salt fish from Archias.

Obsequiousness, to define it, is intercourse aimed at giving pleasure, but not for the best end; and the obsequious man, you may be sure, is the sort

who greets a person from a long way off and calls him "the noblest of men" and, having admired him sufficiently, takes hold of him with both hands and will not let go, and, after escorting him a little way and asking when he shall see him again, departs heaping praises on him.

When he is summoned to arbitrate, he wishes to please not only the man whose side he is on but also his opponent, that he may seem impartial to both.

He tells foreigners that they have justice more on their side than the citizens.

When invited to dinner, he asks his host to call in the children, and as they come in he says they are as like their father as one fig to another; and drawing them to him he kisses them and sets them beside himself; with some he plays, himself crying "Wineskin! Hatchet!" and others he lets sleep on his belly, though they squeeze him.

He has his hair cut very often, keeps his teeth white, changes his cloak while it is still good, and anoints himself with perfume.

In the market he haunts the bankers' tables; in the gymnasia he lingers wherever the young men exercise; and in the theatre, when there is a show, he sits near the generals.

For himself he buys nothing, but for foreigners he sends purchases to Byzantium, Laconian hounds to Cyzicus, and Hymettian honey to Rhodes; and as he does so he tells everyone in the city about it.

He is also, you may be sure, the kind to keep a monkey, and to get a satyr-ape and Sicilian doves and gazelle-bone dice and round Thurian oil-flasks and twisted walking-sticks from Sparta and a tapestry with Persians woven into it, and a little wrestling-court with sand and a ball-court.

And he goes round lending this out, displaying it to the philosophers, the sophists, the fencing-masters, the music-teachers; and he himself comes in at the displays after they have begun, that one of the spectators may say to another, "This is the man who owns the wrestling-court."

Recklessness is the endurance of shameful deeds and words.

The reckless man is the sort who is quick to swear an oath, who can bear to be ill spoken of and abused; in character a low fellow of the marketplace, coarse, and ready for anything.

He is able, you may be sure, to dance the cordax sober and without a mask in a comic chorus.

At a show of conjuring he goes round collecting the coppers from each spectator and quarrels with those who have the token and think they are entitled to watch for nothing.

He is the kind to keep an inn, to run a brothel, to farm the taxes, and to refuse no shameful trade, but to be a town-crier, a cook, a dicer;

not to support his mother, to be arrested for theft, to live longer in the lock-up than in his own house.

He would seem to be one of those who gather crowds about them and harangue them, abusing and arguing with them in a loud, cracked voice; and meanwhile some come up and others go off before hearing him out; to some he tells the beginning, to others a syllable, to others a part of the matter, thinking it fit that his recklessness should be seen only when there is a public gathering.

He is capable too of being defendant in some suits, prosecutor in others, swearing off some by oath, and attending others with a document-box in the fold of his cloak and strings of little memoranda in his hands.

He does not disdain to be a captain over a crowd of market-loungers all at once, lending them money on the spot and exacting interest of three half-obols a day on the drachma; and he goes the rounds of the cook-shops, the fish-stalls, the salt-fish-stalls, gathering the interest out of his takings into his cheek.

Troublesome are these men whose mouths run easily to abuse and who shout in a loud voice, so that the marketplace and the workshops ring with them.

Loquacity, if one wishes to define it, would seem to be an incontinence of speech; and the loquacious man is the sort

who tells whoever he meets, if the man utters any word to him, that he is talking nonsense and that he himself knows everything, and that if the man will listen to him, he will learn;

and while the other is answering he breaks in: "Did you say so? Don't forget what you mean to say." "Well done, you have reminded me!" "How useful talking is, somehow!" "And there's something I left out." "Quickly now, you have grasped the point." "I was watching you all along, to see whether you would come round to my view." And he supplies other openings of the same sort, so that the man he is with cannot even draw breath.

And when he has worn out the people one by one, he is quite capable of advancing on whole crowds gathered together and putting them to flight in the midst of their business.

Going into the schools and the wrestling-grounds he hinders the boys from getting on with their lessons—so much does he chatter to the trainers and teachers.

Those who say they are leaving he is good at escorting and restoring to their houses.

When he has learned the news from the assembly he reports it, and adds besides the account of the battle in the time of Aristophon the orator, and of the one the Lacedaemonians fought under Lysander, and the speeches he once delivered himself to general applause in the assembly.

And as he tells it all he throws in an attack on the multitude, so that his hearers either lose the thread, or doze off, or leave him in the middle and slip away.

When he serves as a juror he keeps the others from reaching a verdict, when he is a fellow-spectator from watching, when he is a fellow-diner from eating, saying that it is hard for a talkative man to keep silent, and that his tongue is "well-oiled," and that he could not stop talking, not even if he should seem more chattering than the swallows.

He puts up with being mocked even by his own children, when, just as they want to go to sleep, they tell him: "Talk to us a little, so that sleep may take us."

Rumour-mongering is the framing of false words and deeds, which the rumour-monger wishes to be believed; and the rumour-monger is the sort of man

who, on meeting his friend, at once relaxes his expression, and with a smile asks: "Where have you come from? What is your news, and how is everything? Have you anything fresh to tell of this affair?" And pressing on he asks: "Is no fresh news being told? Indeed, what is being said is good news."

And without letting the man answer he says: "What do you say? You have heard nothing? I think I shall give you a feast of fresh news."

And he has either a soldier, or a slave of Asteios the flute-player, or Lykon the contractor, just arrived from the very battle, from whom he says he heard it.

Now the sources of his stories are such that no one could lay hold of them.

He relates, saying that these men report, that Polyperchon and the king have won a battle, and that Cassander has been taken alive;

and if someone says to him, "But do you believe this?", he will say that the matter is being shouted abroad in the city, and that the report is gaining strength, and that everyone agrees—for they all say the same about the battle—and that there has been a great bloodbath.

He says that he has a sign of it too in the faces of those in power, for he sees that they have all changed; and he says that he has overheard among them that someone is being hidden in a house, who has now come from Macedonia five days ago, and who knows all this.

And going through it all he thinks somehow that he laments persuasively, saying: "Unlucky Cassander! O wretched man! Do you mark the work of fortune? Yet he was once a powerful man."

"And you must be the only one to know this"—though he has run up to everyone in the city and told them.

I have wondered at such men, what on earth they want by mongering rumours; for they not only lie, but also come off the worse for it.

For often some of them, gathering a circle round them in the bathhouses, have had their cloaks stolen, and others, winning land-battles and sea-battles in the colonnade, have lost suits by default;

and there are those who, while taking cities by storm in their talk, have missed their dinner.

Their pursuit is altogether a wretched one; for in what colonnade, what workshop, what part of the marketplace do they not pass the day wearing out their hearers?

So utterly do they exhaust them with their false tales.

Shamelessness, to define it, is a contempt of reputation for the sake of base gain; and the shameless man is the sort

who first goes off to the very man he is cheating and borrows from him; then, having sacrificed to the gods, dines elsewhere himself and stores away the meat in salt;

and, calling his attendant, gives him meat and bread taken from the table, and says in the hearing of all: "Feast yourself, Tibeios."

When marketing he reminds the butcher of any service he has done him, and standing by the scale he throws in—meat if he can, but if not, a bone—into the broth; and if he gets it, well and good; but if not, he snatches a tripe from the counter and goes off laughing.

Having bought theatre-seats for his guests, he watches without paying his share, and the next day he brings his sons too and their tutor.

Whatever good bargains anyone is carrying home, he bids the man give him a share too.

He goes to a neighbour's house to borrow barley, and sometimes chaff, and compels those who have lent it to bring it round to his house themselves.

He is also quite capable of going up to the coppers heating water in the bathhouse and, dipping the ladle, of dousing himself, while the bath-keeper shouts at him, and of saying as he goes off, "I have had my bath—and no thanks to you for it."

Stinginess is a sparing of expense beyond what is fitting; and the stingy man is the sort

who, within the month, demands the half-obol back by going round to the house.

When dining at a common table he counts up the cups, how many each has drunk, and offers the smallest first-fruits to Artemis of all the company.

Whatever anyone buys cheap, he reckons it all to be dear.

When a servant breaks a pot or a dish, he deducts the cost from his rations.

If his wife drops a three-copper piece, he is the kind to shift the furniture and the couches and the chests and rummage through the floor-coverings.

If he is selling anything, he sells it at such a price that it is no profit to the buyer.

He would let no one eat figs from his garden, or pass through his field, or pick up an olive or a date of those that have fallen on the ground.

He inspects the boundary-stones every day to see whether they remain the same.

He is good at exacting payment for overdue rent and interest upon interest.

When he feasts his fellow-demesmen he sets before them meat cut up small.

When marketing he comes home having bought nothing.

He forbids his wife to lend salt, or a lamp-wick, or cumin, or marjoram, or barley-groats, or garlands, or sacrificial cakes, but says that these little things come to a great deal in the year.

And in general one may see the money-boxes of the stingy growing mouldy and their keys rusting, and the men themselves wearing cloaks that do not reach the thigh, anointing themselves from very tiny flasks, having their hair cropped to the skin, going barefoot till the middle of the day, and pressing the fullers to put plenty of earth into their cloak, so that it will not be soiled quickly.

It is not hard to define repulsiveness: it is conspicuous and disgraceful buffoonery; and the repulsive man is the sort

who, on meeting free women, pulls up his clothes and shows his private parts.

In the theatre he claps when the others have stopped, and hisses those whom the rest are glad to watch; and when the theatre falls silent, he leans back and belches, to make the seated spectators turn round.

When the marketplace is full he goes up to the stalls of nuts or myrtle-berries or fruits and stands there nibbling, chatting all the while with the seller; and he calls by name some bystander with whom he is not acquainted.

When he sees people hurrying somewhere he bids them wait.

He goes up to a man leaving the lawcourt who has lost a great suit and congratulates him.

He does his own marketing and hires flute-girls, and shows what he has bought to those he meets and invites them to share it.

He stops at a barber's shop or a perfumer's and announces that he intends to get drunk.

Tactlessness is a hitting upon the wrong moment, which annoys those one meets; and the tactless man is the sort

who comes up to a busy man and asks his advice.

He serenades his beloved when she has a fever.

He goes up to a man who has just lost a suit for failing to provide surety and asks him to stand as his own bondsman.

He arrives to give evidence when the case has already been decided.

Invited to a wedding, he inveighs against womankind.

He invites a man who has just come back from a long journey to go for a walk.

He is good at bringing along a buyer who offers more to a man who has already sold.

When the company has heard

and learned a thing, he gets up and explains it from the beginning.

He is eager to take charge of what one does not wish done, yet is ashamed to refuse.

When people are sacrificing and spending freely, he comes to demand his interest. And when a slave is being flogged, he stands by and relates

how a boy of his own once hanged himself after such a beating.

Present at an arbitration, he sets the two at odds when both wish to be reconciled.

And when he means to dance, he lays hold of another man who is not yet drunk.

Officiousness, you may be sure, will seem to be a well-meaning pretension in words and deeds; and the officious man is the sort

who stands up and promises what he will not be able to perform.

When a matter is agreed to be just, he stands up against it and is refuted.

He forces the slave to mix more wine than the company can drink.

He separates men who are fighting, even those he does not know.

He undertakes to lead the way along a path, and then cannot find where he is going.

He goes up to the general and asks when he means to draw up his line, and what orders he will give the day after tomorrow.

He goes up to his father and says that his mother is already asleep in her room.

When the doctor forbids him to give wine to the invalid, he says he wishes to make a trial, and dishes up wine for the sick man freely.

When a woman dies, he inscribes upon the monument the name of her husband, her father, her mother, and the woman herself, and where she is from, and adds besides that all these were worthy people.

When he is about to take an oath he says to the bystanders, "I have often sworn before now."

Stupidity, to define it, is a slowness of soul in word and deed;

and the stupid man is the sort who, having reckoned with counters and made up the total, asks the man beside him, "What does it come to?"

When he is defendant in a suit and is about to enter the court, he forgets and goes off to the country.

Watching a play in the theatre, he is left behind alone, asleep. And after eating heartily,

he gets up in the night to relieve himself and is bitten by his neighbour's dog.

He takes something, puts it away himself, then looks for it and cannot find it.

When word is brought to him that one of his friends has died, that he may attend the funeral, he scowls and weeps and says, "Good luck to it!"

He is the kind to take witnesses with him when he receives money owed to him.

In winter he quarrels with his slave because he did not buy cucumbers.

He makes his children wrestle and run until he wears them out with exhaustion.

In the country, cooking lentil-soup himself, he throws salt twice into the pot and makes it uneatable.

When Zeus sends rain he says, "How sweet the smell of the stars is"—when others say "of pitch."

And when someone says, "How many corpses do you think have been carried out through the Sacred Gate?", he answers, "As many as I and you could wish for ourselves."

Surliness is a harshness in social dealings of speech; and the surly man is the sort

who, when asked, "Where is so-and-so?", answers, "Don't trouble me";

and when greeted, gives no greeting in return.

When he is selling something, he does not tell the buyers at what price he would sell it, but asks, "What will it fetch?"

To those who do him honour and send him gifts at the festivals he says that the things might as well not have been given;

and he has no forgiveness for a man who has jostled him unintentionally, or pushed against him, or trodden on him.

When a friend asks him to contribute to a subscription, he first says he will not give, then comes later bringing it and says he is throwing this money away too.

When he stumbles in the road, he is the kind to curse the stone.

He will not wait long for anyone.

He will not consent to sing, or recite a passage, or dance.

He is even the kind not to pray to the gods.

Superstition, you may be sure, would seem to be cowardice with regard to the divine; and the superstitious man is the sort

who, having washed his hands at a fountain and sprinkled himself with holy water from a temple and taken a sprig of laurel into his mouth, walks about all day so.

If a weasel crosses his path, he will not go on until someone else has passed by or he has thrown three stones across the road.

If he sees a snake in the house—a brown one—he calls on Sabazios; if a sacred one, he straightway sets up a shrine of a hero on the spot.

As he passes the smooth stones at the crossroads he pours oil on them from his flask, and falling on his knees and worshipping he goes off.

If a mouse gnaws through a bag of barley-meal, he goes to the interpreter and asks what he should do; and if the answer is to give it to the cobbler to stitch up, he pays no heed to that, but turns away and offers sacrifice to avert the omen.

He is good at frequently purifying his house, saying that an apparition of Hecate has been brought upon it.

And if, as he walks, owls hoot, he is alarmed and says "Athena is mightier" before he passes on.

He will not step on a tomb, or go near a corpse or a woman in childbed, but says it is to his advantage not to be defiled.

On the fourth and seventh days of the month he orders the household to heat wine, and goes out and buys myrtle, frankincense, and cakes, and coming in he crowns the Hermaphrodites the whole day long.

Whenever he sees a dream, he goes to the dream-interpreters, the seers, and the augurs, to ask to which god or goddess he should pray.

Every month he goes to be initiated by the priests of Orpheus, taking his wife with him (and if his wife has no leisure, the nurse) and his children.

He would seem to be one of those who scrupulously sprinkle themselves at the seaside.

And if ever he catches sight of one of the figures at the crossroads crowned with garlic, he goes off and washes himself from head to foot, and summons priestesses and bids them purify him all round with a squill or a puppy.

If he sees a madman or an epileptic, he shudders and spits into his bosom.

Grumbling is an undue censure of what one has been given;

and the grumbler is the sort who, when a friend has sent him a portion, says to the bearer: "He grudged me his broth and his cheap wine, by not inviting me to dinner."

When his mistress is kissing him he says, "I wonder whether you really love me from the heart."

He is angry with Zeus, not because it rains, but because it rains too late.

Finding a purse in the road, he says, "But I have never found a treasure."

Having bought a slave cheap, after much pleading with the seller, he says, "I wonder what soundness I can have got for so little."

To the man who brings him the good news, "A son has been born to you," he says, "If you add 'and half my estate is gone,' you will be telling the truth."

Having won a suit and carried every vote, he blames the man who wrote his speech for having left out many of the just arguments.

And when a subscription has been raised for him by his friends and someone says, "Be cheerful," he says, "How can I be, when I must pay the money back to each man, and on top of that owe thanks as though I had been done a favour?"

Distrustfulness, you may be sure, is a presumption of dishonesty against everyone; and the distrustful man is the sort

who, having sent his slave to do the marketing, sends a second slave to find out how much he paid.

He carries his money himself, and sitting down every furlong counts how much it is.

As he lies in bed he asks his wife whether she has locked the chest, and whether the cupboard has been sealed, and whether the bolt has been thrust into the courtyard door; and even if she says yes, he gets up all the same, naked and barefoot from the bedclothes, lights the lamp, and runs round inspecting all this, and so scarcely gets to sleep.

He demands the interest from those who owe him money before witnesses, so that they cannot deny it.

He is the kind to give out his cloak to be cleaned, not to the man who will do it best, but wherever there is a good surety for the fuller.

When someone comes to ask for cups, he prefers not to give them at all; but if it should be a relative or close connection, he lends them only after all but assaying them in the fire, weighing them, and almost taking surety for them.

He bids the slave who attends him walk in front, not behind, so that he may keep watch lest the man run off on the road.

To those who have bought something from him and say, "Reckon it up; charge it; I have no leisure to send yet," he says, "Don't trouble yourself; I will go along with you until you are at leisure."

Offensiveness is a neglect of the body productive of disgust;

and the offensive man is the sort who goes about with the scurf and the white tetter and with his nails grown long, and says that these are hereditary afflictions in him; for his father had them, and his grandfather, and it is not easy for a stranger to be foisted into his family.

He is, you may be sure, the kind to have sores on his shins and bruises on his toes and not treat them but let them grow malignant; and to have his armpits beast-like and shaggy far down his sides, and his teeth black and decayed, so that he is unpleasant to meet and disagreeable.

And things like these: he blows his nose while eating; he scratches himself while sacrificing; he sputters from his mouth while talking; he belches at one while drinking.

He lies down to sleep beside his wife with unwashed hands.

Using rancid oil at the bath, he comes out covered in pimples.

He puts on a thick tunic and a very thin cloak full of stains and goes out so to the marketplace.

When his mother has gone out to the augur's, he utters words of ill omen.

While people are praying and pouring libations, he lets fall the cup and laughs as though he had done something marvellous.

When the flute is played, he alone of the company claps with his hands and hums the tune and reproaches the flute-girl for not stopping sooner.

And wishing to spit across the table, he spits on the wine-pourer.

Unpleasantness, to define it, is an encounter that produces annoyance without doing harm; and the unpleasant man is the sort

who comes in and wakes a man who has just fallen asleep, in order to talk to him.

He detains people who are just about to set sail.

He comes up and begs a man to wait until he has finished his stroll.

He takes the baby from the nurse, and chewing the food himself feeds it, and dandles it, clucking, and calls it "Grandpapa's little rogue."

While eating he relates how, having drunk hellebore, he was purged up and down, and how the bile in his stools was blacker than the broth set before them.

He is the kind to ask, in front of the household, "Tell me, mother, when you were in labour and bearing me, what day was it?"

And to say on her behalf that it was a sweet thing, and that it is not easy to find a man who has neither of these.

And how he has cold cistern-water at home; and a garden with many tender vegetables; and a cook who dresses the dishes well; and how his house is an inn—for it is always full; and how his friends are a leaky jar—for though he treats them well he cannot fill them up.

When he entertains, he points out to his fellow-diner what sort of fellow his parasite is; and inviting him over the cup, he says that what will delight the company has been provided, and that, if they bid him, the slave shall go at once to fetch her from the brothel-keeper, so that we may all be piped to by her and make merry.

Petty ambition will seem to be an ungentlemanly craving for distinction; and the petty-ambitious man is the sort

who, when invited to dinner, is anxious to dine reclining next to the very man who invited him.

He takes his son to Delphi to have his hair cut.

He takes care that his attendant shall be an Ethiopian.

When he repays a mina of silver, he has it repaid in new coin.

For a jackdaw he keeps indoors he is the kind to buy a little ladder and to have a little bronze shield made, which the jackdaw, wearing it, may hop about on the ladder.

Having sacrificed an ox, he nails up the skin of its forehead opposite the entrance, bound round with great garlands, so that those who come in may see that he has sacrificed an ox.

After parading in procession with the cavalry, he gives everything else to his slave to carry home, but, throwing his cloak about him, walks about the marketplace in his spurs.

When his little Maltese dog dies, he makes a monument for it, and setting up a little pillar inscribes on it, "A Maltese branch."

Having dedicated a bronze ring in the Asclepieum, he wears it smooth with polishing, crowning and anointing it every day.

He is, you may be sure, the kind to arrange with the presidents that he may announce the sacrifices to the people, and, having got ready a brilliant cloak and put on a crown, comes forward and says: "Men of Athens, we presidents have sacrificed to the Mother of the Gods the rites of the Galaxia, and the offerings are favourable; do you receive the good things." And having made this announcement, he goes home and tells his wife how exceedingly well his day has gone.

Meanness is a falling short of distinction where there is expense involved; and the mean man is the sort

who, having won a victory with a tragic chorus, dedicates a wooden fillet to Dionysus, with only his own name inscribed on it.

When voluntary contributions are being called for from the people, he gets up and slips away in silence from the assembly.

When he is giving his daughter in marriage, he sells the meat of the sacrificial victim, except the priests' portion, and hires servants for the wedding who bring their own food.

When he is captain of a trireme, he spreads the helmsman's bedding on the deck for himself and puts his own away.

He is the kind not to send his children to school when the Muses' festival is held, but to say they are unwell, so as not to have to contribute.

Returning from the market with his purchases, he carries the vegetables himself in the fold of his cloak.

He stays indoors when he has given out his cloak to be washed.

When a friend is raising a subscription and has spoken with him about it, he sees him coming, turns aside out of the road, and goes home by the long way round.

For his wife, though she brought a dowry, he buys no maidservant, but hires from the women's market a little girl to accompany her when she goes out.

He wears shoes patched with new soles and says they are no different from horn.

Getting up early, he sweeps the house and rids the couches of bugs himself.

And when he sits down he turns aside the worn cloak that he himself is wearing.

Boastfulness, you may be sure, will seem to be a pretension to good things one does not possess; and the boaster is the sort

who, standing in the gangway, tells strangers that he has much money at sea, and discourses on the scale of his money-lending business, how great it is, and how much he himself has gained and lost; and, while exaggerating all this, he sends his page to the bank, though he has but a single drachma deposited there.

He is clever at sponging on a fellow-traveller on the road, saying that he served on campaign with Alexander, and on what terms he was with him, and how many jewelled cups he brought home; and he disputes about the craftsmen of Asia, that they are better than those of Europe—and he says all this though he has never been away from the city.

He says that a letter has come to him from Antipater—a third one, saying that he is to come to Macedonia; and that, though duty-free export of timber has been offered him, he has declined it, so as not to be denounced by anyone—the Macedonians should have philosophized further than that.

He says that in the time of scarcity his expenditures came to more than five talents, given to the needy among the citizens—for he cannot say no.

And when strangers are sitting beside him, he bids one of them set out the counters, and reckoning up by six hundreds and by single units, and plausibly attaching names to each sum, he makes it ten talents; and this, he says, he has contributed to subscriptions—and he does not even reckon in the trierarchies or the public services he has performed.

Going up to the good horses, he pretends to the dealers that he wishes to buy.

Going to the clothes-stalls, he looks for a wardrobe worth two talents, and quarrels with his slave for following him without bringing the gold.

Living in a hired house, he tells someone who does not know better that it is his ancestral home, and that he means to sell it because it is too small for him to entertain his guests.

Arrogance is a kind of contempt for everyone but oneself; and the arrogant man is the sort

who tells a man hurrying to meet him that he will meet him after dinner, while he is taking his walk.

When he has done a good turn, he says he will remember it.

Walking in the streets, he settles arbitrations on the spot for those who have referred their cases to him.

When elected to office, he swears off the magistracies, saying he has no leisure.

He will not consent to be the first to approach anyone.

He is the kind to order those selling something to him, or those who have leased property from him, to come to him at daybreak.

As he walks in the streets he does not speak to those he meets, but keeps his head down, and then, when it suits him, holds it high again.

When he entertains his friends, he does not dine with them himself, but assigns one of his underlings to look after them.

When he goes out, he sends someone ahead to announce that he is coming.

He will not let anyone in while he is anointing himself, or bathing, or eating.

You may be sure that, when he is settling accounts with someone, he orders his slave to push aside the counters, make up the total, and enter it to his account.

When he writes a letter he does not say, "You would be doing me a favour," but "I wish this to be done, and I have sent to you to receive it," and "See that it is done in no other way and with all speed."

Cowardice, you may be sure, would seem to be a kind of fearful shrinking of the soul; and the coward is the sort of man

who, when sailing, declares that the headlands are pirate galleys; and when a swell rises, asks whether anyone aboard has not been initiated; and looking up to the helmsman, inquires whether he is halfway across, and what he thinks of the heavens, and tells the man sitting beside him that he is afraid because of some dream; and stripping off his tunic he gives it to his slave; and he begs to be put ashore.

On campaign, when the infantry are going out to the rescue, he calls his fellow-demesmen to him, bidding them stand by him and first look around, and says it is hard work to tell which are the enemy.

Hearing the shouting and seeing men falling, he tells the bystanders that in his haste he forgot to take his sword, and runs to his tent; and having sent out his slave with orders to spy where the enemy are, he hides the sword under the pillow, and then spends a long time as though searching for it.

And seeing in the tent one of his friends being brought in wounded, he runs up and bids him be of good cheer, and supporting him helps to carry him; and he tends him and sponges him, and sitting beside him brushes the flies off the wound—anything rather than fight the enemy. And when the trumpeter sounds the charge, he sits in the tent and says, "Go and be hanged! He won't let the man get any sleep, sounding it so often."

And, covered with blood from another man's wound, he meets those returning from the battle and tells them how he risked his life: "I have saved one of my friends." And he brings in his fellow-tribesmen, and his fellow-demesmen, to look at the wounded man, and to each of them he relates how he himself carried him to the tent with his own hands.

The oligarchic temper would seem to be a love of office that grasps eagerly after power and gain; and the oligarchic man is the sort who, when the people are deliberating

whom they shall choose to assist the archon in managing the procession, comes forward and declares that these men should have full powers; and if others propose ten, he says, "One is enough, but he must be a real man." Of the lines of Homer he holds fast to this one only, that "the rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler"—and of the rest he knows nothing.

He is, you may be sure, clever at using talk of this kind: "We ourselves must come together and deliberate about these matters, and get clear of the rabble and the marketplace, and stop dancing attendance on the offices and being insulted or honoured by them; and either these men must run the city, or we must."

And going out at midday, with his cloak well draped, his hair cut to a middling length, and his nails carefully pared, he struts along declaiming such speeches as these:

"Because of the informers there is no living in this city"; and "How outrageously we are treated in the courts by the bribe-takers"; and "I wonder what these men who go in for public affairs really want"; and "How thankless the multitude is, always the slave of whoever doles out and gives"; and how ashamed he is in the assembly whenever some lean and unwashed fellow sits down beside him.

And he says: "When shall we stop being ruined by these public services and trierarchies?"; and how hateful the breed of demagogues is—saying that Theseus was the first to bring evils on the city, for it was he who, gathering the people down from twelve cities into one, increased their power, and so, when the monarchy was dissolved, the many came to rule over all; and he says Theseus got his deserts, for he was the first to be destroyed by them.

And other such things he says to strangers, and to those citizens who share his disposition and the same political aims.

Late learning would seem to be an industry beyond one's years; and the late-learner is the sort of man

who, at sixty years old, learns passages by heart, and then forgets them as he recites them over his cups.

From his son he learns the commands "right turn," "left turn," and "about face."

At the hero-festivals he contributes to the funds and runs the torch-race with the youths.

And if he is invited anywhere to a feast of Heracles, he throws off his cloak and lifts the ox to throw it by the neck.

He goes into the wrestling-schools and joins in the bouts.

At the conjuring-shows he sits through three or four performances, learning the songs by heart.

When he is being initiated into the rites of Sabazios, he is eager to win the priest's prize for beauty.

Being in love with a courtesan, and battering her doors with rams, he gets a beating from a rival lover and goes to law about it.

Riding into the country on a borrowed horse, he practises horsemanship at the same time, and falling off breaks his head.

He gathers his "Tenth-day" club to celebrate with him.

He plays at "long-statue" with his own attendant.

He shoots arrows and throws javelins in competition with his children's tutor, and bids the man learn from him at the same time, as though he himself did not know.

Wrestling at the bathhouse, he frequently twists his seat about, to seem well-trained.

And when there are choruses of women, he practises dancing by himself, humming his own tune.

Slander is a bent of the soul toward the worse in speech; and the slanderer is the sort of man

who, when asked "Who is so-and-so?", answers grandly, like the genealogists: "I will begin first with his lineage. His father was originally called Sosias, and among the soldiers became Sosistratos, and when he was enrolled among the demesmen, Sosidemos. His mother, indeed, is a high-born Thracian—at any rate the dear soul is called Krinokoraka; and such women, they say, are well-born in their country. And the man himself, sprung from such stock, is a worthless rascal who deserves the whip."

And he speaks ill of someone, saying: "Of course I know all about such matters, on which you are going astray with me," and going on: "These women snatch up passers-by from the street; and that house there has its legs in the air. Indeed there is no nonsense in the saying—like bitches the women couple together in the streets; in short, they are a man-loving lot, and they answer the courtyard door themselves."

And when others are speaking ill of someone, he is quick to join in: "I, for my part, have hated this man more than anyone; for he is repulsive even in his face, and his villainy is matched by nothing. Here is the proof: to his wife, who brought him a dowry of talents and bore him a child, he gives three coppers for the relish, and forces her to wash in cold water on Poseidon's day."

When he is in company, he is clever at talking about a man who has just got up and left; and once he has begun, he cannot keep from abusing the man's relatives as well.

He speaks ill, most of all, of his friends and relatives, and of the dead, calling this slander "free speech" and "democracy" and "liberty," and doing it as the greatest pleasure of his life.

So the goading of a man's own malice makes people frenzied and unhinged in their characters.

Love of villainy is a craving for what is base; and the lover of villainy is the sort of man

who keeps company with men who have lost their cases and been convicted in public trials, and supposes that, if he associates with them, he will become more experienced and more formidable.

Of honest men he says, "He seems so," and declares that no one is honest, and that all men are alike, and he sneers at a man for being honest.

He says that the rascal is a "free spirit," if one cares to make trial of him; and he admits that the other things said about the man by people are true, but some he professes not to know—for he says the fellow is gifted and a good comrade and capable; and he insists on his behalf that he has never met a more competent man.

He is well-disposed toward the man speaking in the assembly or being tried in court; and he is clever at telling the jury that they should judge the case, not the man. He says the fellow is "a watchdog of the people," for he keeps guard against wrongdoers; and he says, "We shall have no one left to share our concern for the common good, if we abandon men like these."

He is good at championing worthless men, and at sitting on juries in support of bad causes, and, when judging a case, at taking what is said by the opposing parties in the worse sense.

In short, love of villainy is the sister of villainy; and the proverb is true, that like goes to like.

Shabby profiteering is a craving for base gain; and the shabby profiteer is the sort

who, when he gives a feast, does not set out enough bread.

He borrows from a stranger lodging in his house.

When he distributes portions he says it is just that a double share be given to the carver, and at once helps himself.

Selling wine, he sells it watered even to a friend.

He takes his sons to the show only at the hour when the managers admit the audience free.

When travelling abroad on public business, he leaves at home the travelling-allowance from the city and borrows from his fellow-envoys; he loads his attendant with a heavier pack than he can carry and provides him with the scantiest rations of all; and demanding his own share of the guest-gifts, he sells it.

Anointing himself at the bathhouse, he says, "The oil you bought is rancid, my boy," and anoints himself with someone else's.

Of the coppers found in the road by his slaves he is the kind to demand his share, saying that "Hermes is common to all."

He gives out his cloak to be washed, and, having borrowed one from an acquaintance, drags out the return for several days, until it is asked back.

And things like these: he measures out his household's rations himself, using a Pheidonian measure with its bottom knocked in, and scrapes it level very sharply.

He buys up on the sly something a friend seems to want to purchase at a fair price, and then takes it and sells it to him.

You may be sure that when he pays a debt of thirty minas he pays it four drachmas short.

When his sons do not go to school for the whole month on account of illness, he deducts a proportionate part of the fee; and in the month Anthesterion he does not send them to their lessons, because there are many shows, so as not to pay the fee.

When he collects a slave's wages in copper, he demands the exchange-fee besides; and he takes a reckoning from his steward too.

When he feasts his clansmen, he asks for relish for his own children out of the common fund; and the half-radishes left over from the table he enters in the accounts, so that the slaves who wait at table may not get them.

When he travels abroad with acquaintances, he uses their slaves, and hires out his own elsewhere, and does not bring the wages into the common stock.

You may be sure that when there is a club-dinner at his house, he charges up the firewood, lentils, vinegar, salt, and lamp-oil that he himself supplies.

When one of his friends is marrying or giving a daughter in marriage, he goes abroad for a time beforehand, so as not to have to send a present.

And he borrows from his acquaintances such things as no one would either ask back or quickly get back if offered.