Nigrinus (25-29)

Do they not stuff themselves more vulgarly, get drunk more conspicuously, leave the table last of all, and expect to carry away more delicacies than anyone else? Some, more subtle than the rest, have often gone so far as to sing.” All this, he thought, was ridiculous: and he made special mention of people who cultivate philosophy for hire and put virtue on sale over a counter, as it were: indeed, he called the lecture-rooms of these men factories and bazaars. For he maintained that one who intends to teach contempt for wealth should first of all show that he is himself above gain.

Certainly he used to put these principles into practice consistently, not only giving instruction without recompense to all who desired it, but helping the needy and holding all manner of super-

He always advised his disciples not to postpone being good, as most people do, by setting themselves a limit in the form of a holiday or a festival, with the intention of beginning from that date to shun lies and do as they should; for he deemed that an inclination towards the higher life brooked no delay. He made no secret of his condemnation of the sort of philosophers who think it a course in virtue if. they train the young to enduré “full many pains and toils," [*] the majority recommending cold baths, though some whip them, and still others, the more refined. of their sort, scrape ” the surface of their skin with a knife-blade.

It was his

At length leaving the philosophers, he recurred to the rest of mankind, and told about the uproar of the city, the crowding, the theatres, the races, the statues. of the drivers, the names of the horses, and the conversations in the streets about these matters. The craze for horses is really great, you know, and men with a name for earnestness have caught it in great numbers.