In peace, it seems to me,
Parasitic excels philosophy as greatly as peace itself
excels war.
First, if you please, let us consider the strongholds
of peace.
 TYCHIADES 
I do not understand what that means, but let us
consider it all the same.
 SIMON 
Well, I should say that market-places, law-courts,
athletic fields, gymnasia, hunting-parties and dinners
were a city’s strongholds.

 

 TYCHIADES 
To be sure.
 SIMON 
The parasite does not appear in the market-place
or the courts because, I take it, all these points are
more appropriate to swindlers, ‘and because nothing
that is done in them is good form; but he frequents
the athletic fields, the gymnasia, and the dinners,
and ornaments them beyond all others. On the
athletic field what philosopher or rhetorician, once
he has taken his clothes off, is fit to be compared
with a parasite’s physique? What one of them
when seen in the gymnasium is not actually a
disgrace to the place? In the wilds, too, none of
them could withstand the charge of a beast; the
parasite, however, awaits their attack and receives it
easily, having learned to despise them at dinners;
and neither stag nor bristling boar affrights him, but
if the boar whets his tusks for him, the parasite
whets his own for the boar! After a hare he is as
keen as a hound. And at a dinner, who could
compete with a parasite either in making sport or in
eating? Who would make the guests merrier? He
with his songs and jokes, or a fellow who lies there
without a smile, in a short cloak, with his eyes upon
the ground, as if he had come to a funeral and not
to a banquet? In my opinion, a philosopher at a
banquet is much the same thing as a dog in a bathhouse!

 

Come now, let us dismiss these topics and forthwith turn to the parasite’s way of living, considering
at the same time and comparing with it that of
the others. 
In the first place, you can see that the parasite

 

always despises reputation and does not care at
all what people think about him, but you will find
that rhetoricians and philosophers, not merely here
and there but everywhere, are harassed by selfesteem and reputation—yes, not only by reputation,
but what is worse than that, by money! The parasite feels greater contempt for silver than one would
feel even for the pebbles on the beach, and does not
think gold one whit better than fire. The rhetoricians, however, and what is more shocking, those
who claim to be philosophers, are so wretchedly
affected by it that among the philosophers who are .
most famous at present—for why should we speak
of the rhetoricians?—one was convicted of taking
a bribe when he served on a jury, and another
demands pay from the emperor as a private tutor;
he is not ashamed that in his old age he resides
in a foreign land on this account and works for
wages like an Indian or Scythian prisoner of war
—not even ashamed of the name that he gets
by it. The allusion is uncertain. The emperor is probably Marcus Aurelius; if so, the philosopher may be Sextus of Chaeronea, or the Apollonius whom Lucian mentions in Demonax 31. 

 

You will find too that they are subject to other
passions as well as these, such as distress, anger,
jealousy, and all manner of desires. The parasite is
far from all this; he does not become angry because
he is long-suffering, and also because he has nothing
to get angry at; and if he should become indignant
at any time, his temper does not give rise to any
unpleasantness or gloom, but rather to laughter, and
makes the company merry. He is least of all subject


 

to distress, as his art supplies him gratuitously with
the advantage of having nothing to be distressed
about. For he has neither money nor house nor
servant nor wife nor children, over which, if they go
to ruin, it is inevitable that their possessor should —
be distressed. And he has no desires, either for
reputation or money, or even for a_ beautiful
favourite.

 TYCHIADES 
But, Simon, at least he is likely to be distressed by
lack of food.
 SIMON 
You fail to understand, Tychiades, that a priori:
one who lacks food is not a parasite. A brave man
is not brave if he lacks bravery, nor is a sensible man
sensible if he lacks sense. On any other supposition .
the parasite would not exist; and the subject of our
investigation is an existent, not a non-existent
parasite. If the brave man is brave for no other
reason than because he has bravery at his command,
and the sensible man because he has sense at his
command, so, too, the parasite is a parasite because
he has food at his command; consequently, if this
be denied him, we shall be studying some other sort
of man instead of a parasite.
 TYCHIADES 
Then a parasite will never lack food?
 SIMON 
So it appears; therefore he cannot be distressed,
either by that or by anything else whatsoever.


 
 
Moreover, all the philosophers and rhetoricians, to
a man, are particularly timid. At all events you will
find that most of them appear in public with a staff
—of course they would not have armed themselves
if they were not afraid—-and that they lock their
doors very securely for fear that someone might plot
against them at night. The parasite, however,
casually closes the door of his lodgings, just to prevent it from being opened by the wind, and when a
sound comes at night, he is no more disturbed than
as if it had not come, and when he goes through unfrequented country he travels without a sword; for .
he does not fear anything anywhere. But I have
often seen philosophers armed with bows and arrows
when there was nothing to fear; and as for staves,
they carry them even when they go to the bath and
to luncheon.