Aristippos, however, and Epicuros held the
greatest honors there, because they were charming and agreeable and most convivial. Aesop
the Phrygian was there, too, and held the office
of court-jester. Diogenes of Sinope had so altered his ways as to marry Lais, the courtesan,


 



and was given to getting up and dancing when
he was drunk, and playing other drunken tricks.
Not one of the Stoics was there, for they were
said to be still climbing the steep hill of "the
higher life." And I heard this of Chrysippos
himself, that it was not permitted to him to come
to the island until he had completed his fourth
course of hellebore-treatment. They said that
the Academics wished to come, but were still suspending their judgment and considering the matter, for they had not yet an apprehension even
of this, whether there be any such island or no.
I imagine they particularly dreaded the judgment
of Rhadamanthos, for by their principles they
deny any standard for forming judgments. They
asserted that many of their number set out to
follow these who actually arrived, but were so
deliberate that they were left behind, and turned
back when they had come half-way.