“Indeed (if it is right to speak in praise of what is
bad), don’t suppose that there is any better school for
virtue or any truer test of the soul than this city and
the life here; it is no small matter to make a stand
against so many desires, so many sights and sounds
that lay rival hands on a man and pull him in every
direction. One must simply imitate Odysseus and
sail past them; not, however, with his hands bound
(for that would be cowardly) nor with his ears
stopped with wax, but with ears open and body
free, and in a spirit of genuine contempt.

 

Furthermore, one has cause to admire philosophy when he
beholds so much folly, and to despise the gifts of
fortune when he sees on the stage of life a play of
many réles, in which one man enters first as servant,
then as master; another first as rich, then as poor;
another now as beggar, now as nabob or king;
another as So-and-so’s friend, another as his enemy;
another as an exile. And the strangest part of it all
is that although Fortune attests that she makes light



 

of human affairs and admits that there is no stability
in them, and in spite of the fact that men see this
demonstrated every day, they still yearn for wealth
and power, and go about every one of them full of
unrealised hopes.
 

“But I have said that there is food for laughter
and amusement in what goes on; let me now explain
it. To begin with, are not the rich ridiculous? They
display their purple gowns and show their rings and
betray an unbounded lack of taste. Would you
believe it?—they make use of another man’s
 The nomenclator: his proper office was merely to present
the guests to his master, but in reality he often received
them in his master’s stead. 
voice
in greeting people they meet, expecting them to be
thankful for a glance and nothing more, while some,
lordlier than the rest, even require obeisance to be
made to them: not at long range, though, or in the
Persian style. No, you must go up, bow your head,
humbling your soul and showing its feelings by
carrying yourself to match them, and kiss the man’s
breast or his hand, while those who are denied even
this privilege envy and admire you! And the man
stands for hours and lets himself be duped! At any
rate there is one point in their inhumanity that I
commend them for—they forbid us their lips!

 

“Far more ridiculous, however, than the rich are
those who visit them and pay them court. They get
up at midnight, run all about the city, let servants
bolt the doors in their faces and suffer themselves
to be called dogs, toadies and similar names. By
way of reward for this galling round of visits they
get the much-talked-of dinner, a vulgar thing, the
source of many evils. How much they eat there,


 

how much they drink that they do not want, and
how much they say that should not have been said!
At last they go away either finding fault or nursing
a grievance, either abusing the dinner or accusing
‘the host of insolence and neglectfulness. They fill
the side-streets, puking and fighting at the doors of
brothels, and most of them go to bed by daylight
and give the doctors a reason for making their
rounds. Not all, though; for some—would you
believe it?—haven’t even time to be ill!