Demonax (6-10)

He did not cultivate the irony of Socrates; his conversations were full of Attic charm, so that his visitors, on going away, did not feel contempt for him because he was ill-bred or aversion to his criticisms because they were gloomy, but were beside themselves for joy and were far better, happier and more hopeful of the future than when they came.

He never was known to make an uproar or excite himself or get angry, even if he had to rebuke someone; though he assailed sins, he forgave sinners, thinking that one should pattern after doctors, who heal sicknesses but feel no anger at the sick. He considered that it is human to err, divine or all but divine to set right what has gone amiss.

Leading such“a life, he wanted nothing for himself, but helped his friends in a reasonable way. Some of them, who were seemingly favoured by fortune, he reminded that they were elated over imaginary blessings of brief span. Others, who were bewailing poverty, fretting at exile or finding fault with old age or sickness, he laughingly consoled, saying that they failed to see that after a little they would have surcease of worries and would all soon find

He made it his business also to reconcile brothers at variance and to miake terms of peace between wives and husbands. On occasion, he has talked reason to excited mobs, and has usually persuaded them to serve their country in a temperate spirit.

Such was the character of his philosophy—kind, gentle and cheerful. The only thing which distressed him was the illness or death of a friend, for he considered friendship the greatest of human blessings. For this reason he was everyone’s friend, and there was no human being whom he did not include in his affections, though he liked the society of some better than that of others. He held aloof only from those who seemed to him to be involved in sin beyond hope of cure. And in all this, his every word and deed was smiled on by the Graces and by Aphrodite, even; so that, to quote the comedian, “persuasion perched upon his lips.”1