[24] Anubis.
[25] Apis.
[26] Amphiaraus, the father of Amphilochus, neither slew his own mother, Hypermnestra, nor procured her death. He did, however, procure the death of his wife, Eriphyle, at the hand of her son Alcmaeon; and in this remote sense was a matricide. It must be confessed that a great deal of the peculiar guilt of matricide evaporates in the process of explanation. The reader may prefer to suppose simply that Lucian has made a slip.
THE CYNIC
Lycinus. A Cynic
Ly. Give an account of yourself, my man. You wear a beard and let your hair grow; you eschew shirts; you exhibit your skin; your feet are bare; you choose a wandering, outcast, beastly life; unlike other people, you make your own body the object of your severities; you go from place to place sleeping on the hard ground where chance finds you, with the result that your old cloak, neither light nor soft nor gay to begin with, has a plentiful load of filth to carry about with it. Why is it all?
Cy. It meets my needs. It was easy to come by, and it gives its owner no trouble. It is the cloak for me.
Pray tell me, do you not call extravagance a vice?
Ly. Oh, yes.