4. There was a certain piper named [Antigenidas], whose every note made honeyed harmony. He had skill, too, to make music in every mode, choose which you would, the simple Aeolian or the complex Ionian, the mournful Lydian, the solemn Phrygian, or the warlike Dorian. Being therefore the most famous of all that played upon the pipe, he said that nothing so tormented him, nothing so vexed his heart and soul, as the fact that the musicians who played the trumpet at funerals were dignified by the name of pipers. But he would have endured this identity of names with equanimity, had he ever seen the performance of mimes; for he would have noted that the magistrates, who preside in the theatre, and the characters on the stage, who come in for a good cudgelling, are clad in practically the same purple garments. So too, had he ever watched our games! For he would have seen one presiding, another fighting, yet both of them sharing the same common humanity. He would have noted that the Roman toga is worn alike by him who performs a vow to heaven and by him that lies dead upon the bier, that the Grecian pallium serves to shroud the dead no less than to clothe the philosopher.

Fragment from the opening of a discourse delivered
in a theatre.

5. You have, I feel assured, come to this theatre with the best will in the world. For you know that the importance of an oration does not depend on the place in which it is delivered, but that the first thing that has to be considered is, 'What form of entertainment is the theatre going to provide?' If it is a mime, you will laugh; if a rope-walker, you will tremble lest he fall; if a comedian, you will applaud him, while, if it be a philosopher, you will learn from him.

India and the Gymnosophists.

6. India is a populous country of enormous extent. It lies far to the east of us, close to the point where ocean turns back upon himself and the sun rises, on that verge where meet the last of lands and the first stars of heaven. Far away it lies, beyond the learned Egyptians, beyond the superstitious Jews and the merchants of [Nabataea], beyond the children of [Arsaces] in their long flowing robes, the [Ityreans], to whom earth gives but scanty harvest, and the Arabs, whose perfumes are their wealth. Wherefore I marvel not so much at the great stores of ivory possessed by these Indians, their harvests of pepper, their exports of cinnamon, their finely-tempered steel, their mines of silver and their rivers of gold. I marvel not so much that in the [Ganges] they have the greatest of all rivers which

Lord of all the waters of the East
Is cloven and parted in a hundred streams.
A hundred vales are his, a hundred mouths,
And hundred-fold the flood that meets the main;

nor wonder I that the Indians that dwell at the very portals of day are yet of the hue of night, nor that in their land vast serpents engage in combat with huge elephants, to the equal danger and the common destruction of either; for they envelop and bind their prey in slippery coils so that they cannot disengage their feet nor in any wise break the scaly fetters of these clinging snakes, but must needs find vengeance by hurling their vast bulk to the ground and crushing the foe that grips them by the weight of their whole bodies. But it is of the marvels of men rather than of nature that I would speak.[38] For the dwellers in this land are divided into many castes. There is one whose sole skill lies in tending herds of oxen, whence they are known as the oxherds. There are others who are cunning in the barter of merchandise, others who are sturdy warriors in battle and have skill to fight at long range with arrows or hand to hand with swords. There is, further, one caste that is especially remarkable. They are called gymnosophists. At these I marvel most of all. For they are skilled—not in growing the vine, or grafting fruit-trees, or ploughing the soil. They know not how to till the fields, or [wash gold], or break horses, or tame bulls, or to clip or feed sheep or goats. What, then, is their claim to distinction? This: one thing they know outweighing all they know not. They honour wisdom one and all, the old that teach and the young that learn. Nor is there aught I more commend in them than that they hate that their minds should be sluggish and idle. And so, when the table is set in its place, before the viands are served, all the youths leave their homes and professions to flock to the banquet. The masters ask each one of them what good deed he has performed between the rising of the sun and the present hour. Thereupon one tells how he has been chosen as arbiter between two of his fellows, has healed their quarrel, reconciled their strife, dispelled their suspicions and made them friends instead of foes. Another tells how he has obeyed some command of his parents, another relates some discovery that his meditations have brought him or some new knowledge won from another's exposition. And so with the rest of them,[39] they tell their story. He who can give no good reason for joining in the feast is thrust fasting from the doors to go to his work.

On Alexander and false philosophers.

7. The famous [Alexander], by far the noblest of all kings, won the title of the Great from the deeds that he had done and the empire he had built, and thus it was secured that the man who had won glory without peer should never be so much as named without a word of praise. For he alone since time began, alone of all whereof man's memory bears record, after he had conquered a world-wide empire such as none may ever surpass, proved himself greater than his fortune. By his energy he challenged the most glorious successes that fortune could bestow, equalled them by his worth, surpassed them by his virtues, and stood alone in peerless glory, so that none might dare even hope for such virtue or pray for such fortune. The life of this Alexander is marked by so many lofty deeds and glorious acts, be it of prowess in the battle or statecraft in the council chamber, that you may marvel at them till you are weary. It is the story of all these great achievements that my friend Clemens, most learned and sweetest of poets, has attempted to glorify in the exquisite strains of his verse.

Now among the most remarkable acts recorded of Alexander is this. Desiring that his likeness should be handed down to posterity with as little variation as possible, he refused to permit it to be profaned by a multitude of artists, and issued a proclamation to all the world over which he ruled that no one should rashly counterfeit the king's likeness in bronze or with the painter's colours, or with the sculptor's chisel. Only Polycletus might portray him in bronze, only [Apelles] depict him in colour, only [Pyrgoteles] carve his form with the engraver's chisel. If any other than these three, each supreme in his peculiar art, should be discovered to have set his hand to reproduce the sacred image of the king, he should be punished as severely as though he had committed sacrilege. This order struck such fear into all men that Alexander alone of mankind was always like his portraits, and that every statue, painting, or bronze revealed the same fierce martial vigour, the same great and glorious genius, the same fresh and youthful beauty, the same fair forehead with its back-streaming hair. And would that philosophy could issue a like proclamation that should have equal weight, forbidding unauthorized persons to reproduce her likeness; then the study and contemplation of wisdom in all her aspects would be in the hands of a few good craftsmen who had been carefully trained, and unlettered fellows of base life and little learning would ape the philosopher no longer (though their imitation does not go beyond [the professor's gown]), and the queen of all studies, whose aim is no less excellence of speech than excellence of life, would no longer be profaned by evil speech and evil living: and, mark you, profanation of either kind is far from hard. What is more readily come by than madness of speech and worthlessness of character? The former springs from contempt of others, the latter from contempt of self. For to show little care for one's own character is self-contempt, while to attack others with uncouth and savage speech is an insult to those that hear you. For is it not the height of insolence, think you, that a man should deem you to rejoice in hearing abuse of the best of men, and should believe that you do not understand evil and wicked words, or, if you do understand them, hold them to be good? What boor, what porter, what taverner is so poor of speech that could not curse more eloquently than these folk, if he would consent to assume the professor's gown?