The “Story of Leucippe and Cli’tophon,” by Achilles Ta’tius, an Alexandrian rhetorician who flourished about 500, stands next to the “Æthiopica” among the Greek novels.
Hierocles.—The “Facetiæ” of Hierocles (5th century) must not be forgotten in this connection. Though a Neo-Platonist, grave and learned enough to discuss “Providence and Fate” and make a volume of profound commentaries on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, he evidently enjoyed a good joke. He has left us twenty-eight brief stories of Scholastici, or bookworms so unsophisticated and unused to the ways of the world that we may call them simpletons. A few of these are given as samples of his humor; from which it may be seen that some of the wit that passes for modern is as old as Hierocles.
STORIES OF SIMPLETONS.
A simpleton, wishing to swim, was nearly drowned; whereupon he swore that he would never touch the water until he had learned how to swim.
A simpleton, visiting a sick person, inquired about his health. He, however, was not able to reply. Thereupon the simpleton, being angry and scolding the man, said: “I hope that I shall be sick some of these days, and then when you come to ask how I am, I will not answer.”
A simpleton, wishing to teach his horse to be a small eater, gave him no food at all. At length the horse having starved to death, he exclaimed: “I have suffered a great loss, for now that he had just learned not to eat he has died.”
A simpleton, looking out of the window of a house which he had bought, asked the passers-by whether the house was becoming to him.
A simpleton, having dreamed that he had trodden on a nail and that the wound pained him, on waking bound up his foot. Another simpleton, having learned the cause, remarked: “It served you right, for why do you sleep without sandals?”
A simpleton, meeting a doctor, hid himself behind a wall. Some one asking the cause, he answered: “I have not been sick for a long time, and therefore I am ashamed to come into the sight of a physician.”
A simpleton had sealed up a vessel of Aminæan wine which he had. His servant, having made a hole in the vessel beneath and drawn off some of the wine, he was astonished to see the contents diminished while the seals remained unbroken. A neighbor having told him to look whether it had not been taken out from below, he replied: “Why, you fool, it’s the upper part, not the lower, that is missing.”