QUESTION VI. WHAT IS SIGNIFIED BY THE FABLE ABOUT THE DEFEAT OF NEPTUNE? AND ALSO, WHY DO THE ATHENIANS OMIT THE SECOND DAY OF THE MONTH BOEDROMION? MENEPHYLUS, HYLAS, LAMPRIAS.

While all were making a disturbance, Menephylus, a Peripatetic philosopher, addressing Hylas: You see, he said, how this investigation is no foolery nor insolence. But leave now, my dear fellow, that obstinate Ajax, whose name is ill-omened, as Sophocles says, and side with Poseidon, whom you yourself are wont to tell has often been overcome, once by Athene here, in Delphi by Apollo, in Argos by Here, in Aegina by Zeus, in Naxos by Bacchus, yet in his misfortunes has always been mild and amiable. Here at least he shares a temple in common with Athene, in which there is an altar dedicated to Lethe. And Hylas, as if he had become better tempered: One thing has escaped you, Menephylus, that we have given up the second day of September, not on account of the moon, but because on that day the gods seemed to have contended for the country. By all means, said Lamprias, by as much as Poseidon was more civilized than Thrasybulus, since not like him a winner but a loser....

(The rest of this book to Question XIII is lost; with the exception of the titles that follow, and the fragment of Question XII.)

QUESTION VII. WHY THE ACCORDS IN MUSIC ARE SEPARATED INTO THREE. QUESTION VIII. WHEREIN THE INTERVALS MELODIOUS DIFFER FROM THOSE THAT ARE HARMONIC. QUESTION IX. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF ACCORD? AND ALSO, WHY, WHEN TWO ACCORDANT STRINGS ARE TOUCHED TOGETHER, IS THE MELODY ASCRIBED TO THE BASE? QUESTION X. WHY, WHEN THE ECLIPTIC PERIODS OF THE SUN AND THE MOON ARE EQUAL IN NUMBER, THE MOON APPEARS OFTENER ECLIPSED THAN THE SUN. QUESTION XI. THAT WE CONTINUE NOT ALWAYS THE SAME, IN REGARD OF THE DEFLUX OF OUR SUBSTANCE. QUESTION XII. IS IT MORE PROBABLE THAT THE NUMBER OF THE STARS IS EVEN OR ODD?

Men must be cheated by oaths. And Glaucias said: I have heard this saying used against Polycrates the tyrant; probably too it was said against others: but why do you ask these questions? Because, by Zeus, said Sospis, I see the children playing odd and even with jackstones and the Academics with words. For such tempers as these differ in no way from those who ask whether they hold clutched in their hands odd or even. Then Protogenes stood up and called me by name: What is the matter with us that we allow these rhetoricians to be so conceited, and to laugh down others while they are asked nothing, and contribute nothing in the way of argument,—unless they swear that they have no part in the wine as admirers and disciples of Demosthenes, a man who in his whole life never drank wine. That is not the cause of this, said I; but we have never asked them anything. But unless you have something more useful, I think I can put before them from Homer's poetry a case of antinomy in rhetorical theses.

QUESTION XIII. A MOOT-POINT OUT OF THE THIRD BOOK OF HOMER'S ILIADS. PLUTARCH, PROTOGENES, GLAUCIAS, SOSPIS.

What question will you put them, said Protogenes? I will tell you, continued I, and let them carefully attend. Paris makes his challenge in these express words:—

Let me and valiant Menelaus fight
For Helen, and for all the goods she brought;
And he that shall o'ercome, let him enjoy
The goods and woman; let them be his own.

And Hector afterwards publicly proclaiming this challenge in these plain words:—

He bids the Trojans and the valiant Greeks
To fix their arms upon the fruitful ground;
Let Menelaus and stout Paris fight
For all the goods; and he that beats have all.