Again, on seeing a soothsayer make public forecasts
for money, he said: “1 don’t see on what ground you
claim the fee: if you think you can change destiny
in any way, you ask too little, however much you
ask; but if everything is to turn out as Heaven has
ordained, what good is your soothsaying?”
 
When a Roman ofticer, well-developed physically, gave him an exhibition of sword-practice on a
post, and asked: “What did you think of my
swordsmanship, Demonax?”’ he said: “Fine, if you
have a wooden adversary!”

 

‘Moreover, when questions were unanswerable he
always had an apt retort ready. When a man asked
him’ banteringly: “1f I should burn a thousand
pounds of wood, Demonax, how many pounds of
smoke would it make?” he replied: “Weigh the
ashes: all the rest will be smoke.”

 
A man named Polybius, quite uneducated and
ungrammatical, said: “The emperor has honoured
‘me with the Roman citizenslfip.” “Oh, why
didn’t he make you a Greek instead of a Roman?”
said he.

 
On seeing an aristocrat who set great store on
the breadth of his purple band, Demonax, taking
hold of the garment and calling his attention to it,


 

said in his ear: “A sheep wore this before you, and
he was but a sheep for all that!”