Accordingly he was regarded with reverence at Athens, both by the collective assembly and by the officials; he always continued to be a person of great consequence in their eves. And this though most of them had been at first offended with him, and hated him as heartily as their ancestors had Socrates. Besides his candour and independence, there had been found Anytuses and Meletuses to repeat the historic charges: he bad never been known to sacrifice, and be made himself singular by - avoiding initiation at Eleusis. On this occasion he showed his courage by appearing in a garland and festal attire, and then pleading his cause before the people with a dash of unwonted asperity infused into his ordinary moderate tone. On the count of never having sacrificed to Athene, ‘Men of Athens,’ he said, ‘there is nothing wonderful in this; it was only that I gave the Goddess credit for being able to do very well without sacrifices from me.’ And in the matter of the Mysteries, his reason for not following the usual practice was this: if the Mysteries turned out to be bad, he would never be able to keep quiet about it to the uninitiated, but must dissuade them from the ceremony; while, if they were good, humanity would tempt him to divulge them. The Athenians, stone in hand already, were at once disarmed, and from that time onwards paid him honour and respect, which ultimately rose to reverence. Yet he had opened his case with a bitter enough reproof: ‘Men of Athens, you see me ready garlanded; proceed to sacrifice me, then; your former offeringi.e, Socrates. was deficient in this formality.’

I will now give some specimens of his pointed and witty sayings, which may begin with his answers to Favorinus. The latter had heard that he made fun of his lectures, and in particular of the sentimental verses with which they were garnished, and which Demonax thought contemptible, womanish, and quite. unsuited to philosophy. So he came and asked him: ‘Who, pray, are you, that you should pour scorn upon me?’ ‘I am the possessor of a critical pair of ears,’ was the answer. The sophist had not had enough; ‘You are no infant,’ he went on,. ‘but a philosopher, it seems; may one ask what marks the transformation?’ ‘The marks of manhood,’ said Demonax.

Another time the same person came up and asked him what school of philosophy he belonged to. ‘Who told you I was a philosopher?’ was all he said. But as he left him, he had a good laugh to himself, which Favorinus observing, demanded what he was laughing at; ‘I was only amused by your taking a man for a philosopher because he wears a beard, when you have none yourself.’

When Sidonius, who had a great reputation at Athens as a teacher, was boasting that he was conversant with all the philosophic systems—but I had better quote his words. ‘Let Aristotle call, and I follow to the Lyceum; Plato, and I hurry to the Academy; Zeno, and I make my home in the Porch; Pythagoras, and I keep the rule of silence.’ Then rose Demonax from among the audience: ‘Sidonius, Pythagoras calls.’

A pretty girlish young man called Python, son of some Macedonian grandee, once by way of quizzing him asked a riddling question and invited him to show his acumen over it. ‘I only see one thing, dear child,’ he said, ‘and that is, that you are a fair logician.’ The other lost his temper at this equivoque, and threatened him: ‘You shall see in a minute what a man can do.’ ‘Oh, you keep a man, do you?’ was Demonax’s smiling retort.