'To be sure,' chimed in Hermon, his left-hand neighbour; 'he had no doubt heard that Aristaenetus had bespoken a wild boar, and thought the introduction of the one at Calydon appropriate. Aristaenetus, I adjure you by the domestic altar, let him taste the victim, or we shall have the old man starving, and withering away like his Meleager. Though indeed it would not be so very hard on him; such a fate is one of Chrysippus's things indifferent.'
Here Zenothemis woke up and thundered out: 'Chrysippus? you name that name? because a pretender like Hetoemocles comes short of his profession, you argue from him to the real sages, to Cleanthes and Zeno? And who are the men, pray, who hold such language? Why, Hermon, who shore the curls, the solid golden curls, of the Dioscuri, and who will yet receive his barber's fee from the executioner. And Cleodemus, who was caught in adultery with his pupil Sostratus's wife, and paid the shameful penalty. Silence would better become the owners of such consciences.' 'Who trades in his own wife's favours?' retorted Cleodemus; 'I do not do that, and I do not undertake to keep my foreign pupil's purse and then swear by Polias the deposit was never made; I do not lend money at fifty per cent, and I do not hale my pupils into court if fees are not paid to the day.' 'You will hardly deny, though,' said Zenothemis, 'that you supplied Crito with the poison for his father.'
And therewith, his cup being in his hand, about half full of wine, he emptied it over the pair; and Ion, whose worst guilt was being their neighbour, came in for a good deal of it. Hermon bent forward, dried his head, and entered a protest. Cleodemus, having no wine to reply with, leant over and spat at Zenothemis; at the same time he clutched the old man's beard with his left hand, and was aiming a blow which would have killed him, when Aristaenetus arrested it, stepped over Zenothemis, and lay down between the two, making himself a buffer in the interests of peace.
All this time, Philo, my thoughts were busy enough with the old commonplace, that after all it is no use having all theory at your finger's ends, if you do not conform your conduct to the right. Here were these masters of precept making themselves perfectly ridiculous in practice. Then it was borne in upon me that possibly the vulgar notion is right, and culture only misleads the people who are too much wrapt up in books and bookish ideas. Of all that philosophic company there was not a man—not so much as an accidental exception—who could pass muster; if his conduct did not condemn him, his words did yet more fatally. I could not make the wine responsible, either; the author of that letter was fasting and sober.
Things seemed to go by contraries; you might see the ordinary people behaving quite properly at table; no rioting and disorder there; the most they did was to laugh at and, no doubt, censure the others, whom they had been accustomed to respect and to credit with the qualities their appearance suggested. It was the wise men who made beasts of themselves, abused each other, over-fed, shouted and came to blows. I thought one could find no better illustration for our dinner than the poets' story of Eris. When she was not invited to Peleus's nuptials, she threw that apple on the table which brought about the great Trojan war. Hetoemocles's letter was just such an apple, woeful Iliad and all.
For buffer-Aristaenetus had proved ineffectual, and the quarrel between Zenothemis and Cleodemus was proceeding. 'For the present,' said the latter, 'I am satisfied with exposing your ignorance; to-morrow I will give you your deserts more adequately. Pray explain, Zenothemis, or the reputable Diphilus for you, how it is that you Stoics class the acquisition of wealth among the things indifferent, and then concentrate your whole efforts upon it, hang perpetually about the rich to that end, lend money, screw out your usury, and take pay for your teaching. Or again, if you hate pleasure and condemn the Epicureans, how comes it that you will do and endure the meanest things for it? you resent it if you are not asked out; and when you are, you eat so much, and convey so much more to your servant's keeping'—and he interrupted himself to make a grab at the napkin that Zenothemis's boy was holding, full of all sorts of provender; he meant to get it away and empty the contents on the floor; but the boy held on too tight.
'Quite right, Cleodemus,' said Hermon; 'let them tell us why they condemn pleasure, and yet expect more of it than any one else.' 'No, no,' says Zenothemis; 'you give us your grounds, Cleodemus, for saying wealth is not a thing indifferent.' 'No, I tell you; let us have your case.' So the see-saw went on, till Ion came out of his retirement and called a truce: 'I will give you,' he said, 'a theme worthy of the occasion; and you shall speak and listen without trying for personal triumphs; take a leaf from our Plato this time.' 'Hear, hear,' from the company, especially from Aristaenetus and Eucritus, who hailed this escape from unpleasantness. The former now went back to his own place, confident of peace.
The 'repast,' as they call it, had just made its appearance; each guest was served with a bird, a slice of wild boar, a portion of hare, a fried fish, some sesame cakes and sweet-meats—all these to be taken home if the guest chose. Every man had not a separate dish, however; Aristaenetus and Eucritus shared one little table, from which each was to take what belonged to him; so Zenothemis the Stoic and Hermon the Epicurean; Cleodemus and Ion had the third table, the bridegroom and I the next; Diphilus had a double portion, by the absence of Zeno. Remember these details, Philo; you will find they bear on the story.
Phi. Trust me.