Seeing a decorated person very proud of his broad stripe, he whispered in his ear, while he took hold of and drew attention to the cloth, ‘This attire did not make its original wearer anything but a sheep.’
Once at the bath the water was at boiling point, and some one called him a coward for hesitating to get in. ‘What,’ said he, ‘is my country expecting me to do my duty?’
Some one asked him what he took the next world to be like. ‘Wait a bit, and I will send you the information.’
A minor poet called Admetus told him he had inserted a clause in his will for the inscribing on his tomb of a monostich, which I will give:
Admetus’ husk earth holds, and Heaven himself.
‘What a beautiful epitaph, Admetus!’ said Demonax, ‘and what a pity it is not up yet!’
The shrunk shanks of old age are a commonplace; but when his reached this state, some one asked him what was the matter with them. ‘Ah,’ he said with a smile, ‘Charon has been having a bite at them.’
He interrupted a Spartan who was scourging his servant with, ‘Why confer on your slave the privilege of Spartans [Footnote: See Spartans in Notes.] like yourself?’ He observed to one Danae, who was bringing a suit against her brother, ‘Have the law of him by all means; it was another Danae whose father was called the Lawless. [Footnote: See Danae in Notes.]
He waged constant warfare against all whose philosophy was not practical, but for show. So when he saw a cynic, with threadbare cloak and wallet, but a braying-pestle instead of a staff, proclaiming himself loudly as a follower of Antisthenes, Crates, and Diogenes, he said: ‘Tell us no lies; your master is the professor of braying.’
Noticing how foul play was growing among the athletes, who often supplemented the resources of boxing and wrestling with their teeth, he said it was no wonder that the champions’ partisans had taken to describing them as lions.