Charondas, or as some say, Phædon, asked him once, “Who are the people who use perfumes?” “I do,” said he, “wretched man that I am, and the king of the Persians is still more wretched than I; but, recollect, that as no animal is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a man; but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful unguents.” On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates died; and he made answer, “As I should wish to die myself.” When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to his house and beheld his women, and the costly preparation that was made for dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus after a while said, “Can you stay with me to day?” and when Polyxenus consented, “Why then,” said he, “did you blame me? it seems that you blame not the luxury, but the expense of it.” When his servant was once carrying some money along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bion relates in his Dissertations), he said to him, “Drop what is beyond your strength, and only carry what you can.” Once he was at sea, and seeing a pirate vessel at a distance, he began to count his money; and then he let it drop into the sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his loss; but others say that he said besides, that it was better for the money to be lost for the sake of Aristippus, than Aristippus for the sake of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius asked him why he had come, he said, to give others a share of what he had, and to receive a share of what he had not; but some report that his answer was, “When I wanted wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I want money, I have come to you.” He found fault with men, because when they are at sales, they examine the articles offered very carefully, but yet they approve of men’s lives without any examination. Though some attribute this speech to Diogenes. They say that once at a banquet, Dionysius desired all the guests to dance in purple garments; but Plato refused, saying:—
“I could not wear a woman’s robe, when I
Was born a man, and of a manly race.”
But Aristippus took the garment, and when he was about to dance, he said very wittily:—
“She who is chaste, will not corrupted be
By Bacchanalian revels.”
He was once asking a favour of Dionysius for a friend, and when he could not prevail, he fell at his feet; and when some one reproached him for such conduct, he said, “It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet.” When he was staying in Asia, and was taken prisoner by Artaphernes the Satrap, some one said to him, “Are you still cheerful and sanguine?” “When, you silly fellow,” he replied, “can I have more reason to be cheerful than now when I am on the point of conversing with Artaphernes?” It used to be a saying of his, that those who had enjoyed the encyclic course of education, but who had omitted philosophy, were like the suitors of Penelope; for that they gained over Melantho and Polydora and the other maid-servants, and found it easier to do that than to marry the mistress. And Ariston said in like manner, that Ulysses when he had gone to the shades below, saw and conversed with nearly all the dead in those regions, but could not get a sight of the Queen herself.
On another occasion, Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, “Those things which they will put in practice when they become men.” And when some one reproached him for having come from Socrates to Dionysius, his reply was, “I went to Socrates because I wanted instruction (παιδεῖας), and I have come to Dionysius because I want diversion (παιδιᾶς).” As he had made money by having pupils, Socrates once said to him, “Where did you get so much?” and he answered, “Where you got a little.” When his mistress said to him, “I am in the family way by you,” he said, “You can no more tell that, than you could tell, after you had gone through a thicket, which thorn had scratched you.” And when some one blamed him for repudiating his son, as if he were not really his, he said, “I know that phlegm, and I know that lice, proceed from us, but still we cast them away as useless.” One day, when he had received some money from Dionysius, and Plato had received a book, he said to a man who jeered him, “The fact is, money is what I want, and books what Plato wants.” When he was asked what it was for which he was reproached by Dionysius, “The same thing,” said he, “for which others reproach me.” One day he asked Dionysius for some money, who said, “But you told me that a wise man would never be in want;” “Give me some,” Aristippus rejoined, “and then we will discuss that point;” Dionysius gave him some, “Now then,” said he, “you see that I do not want money.” When Dionysius said to him;—
“For he who does frequent a tyrant’s court,[25]
Becomes his slave, though free when first he came:”