Then,
on being checked and shown up by my comrades,
they were indignant and combined against them, at
length bringing them before courts and handing
them over to drink the hemlock. I ought perhaps
at that time to have fled incontinently, no longer
putting up with their company; but Antisthenes
and Diogenes, and presently Crates and Menippus,
ou know, “This” Menippus, not because Lucian thinks of him as attendin Fhilpeop. y in her return to Heaven, or still less because he is carelessly adapting something by Menippus in which that was the case (Helm), but simply because when Lucian wrote these words Menippus enjoyed among the reading public a high degree of popularity, to which by this time Lucian himself had contributed significantly: persuaded me to mete them out an
additional modicum of delay. O that I had not done
so! for I should not have undergone such sufferings
later.
 ZEUS 
You have not yet told me what wrongs have been
done you, Philosophy; you merely vent your
indignation.


 

 PHILOSOPHY 
But do listen, Zeus, and hear how great they
are. There is an abominable class of men, for the
most part slaves and hirelings, who had nothing to do
with me in childhood for lack of leisure, since they
were performing the work of slaves or hirelings or
learning such trades as you would expect their like
to learn—cobbling, building, busying themselves with
fuller’s tubs, or carding wool to make it easy for the
women to work, easy to wind, and easy to draw off
when they twist a yarn or spin a thread. Well, while
they were following such occupations in youth, they
did not even know my name. But when they began
to be reckoned as adults and noticed how much respect
my companions have from the multitude and how men
tolerate their plain-speaking, delight in their ministrations, hearken to their advice, and cower under
their censure, they considered all this to be a
suzerainty of no mean order.
 

Now to learn all that is requisite for such a calling
would have been a long task, say rather an impossible
one. Their trades, however, were petty, laborious,
and barely able to supply them with just enough.
To some, moreover, servitude seemed grievous and
(as indeed it is) intolerable. It seemed best to them,
therefore, as they reflected upon the matter, to let
go their last anchor, which men that sail the seas call
the “sacred” one; Nowadays known as the “sheet’ anchor. so, resorting to good old Desperation, inviting the support, too, of Hardihood,
Stupidity, and Shamelessness, who are their principal
partisans, and committing to memory novel terms of
abuse, in order to have them at hand and at their


 

tongue’s end, with these as their only countersigns
(you perceive what a rare equipment it is for philosophy), they very plausibly transform themselves in
looks and apparel to counterfeit my very self, doing,
I vow, the same sort of thing that Aesop says the
jackass in Cyme did, who put on a lion skin and began
to bray harshly, claiming to be a lion himself; and
no doubt there were actually some who believed
him!
 
What characterises us is very easily attainable, as
you know, and open to imitation—I mean what
meets the eye. It does not require much ceremony
to don a short cloak, sling on a wallet, carry a staff in
one’s hand, and shout—say rather, bray, or howl,
and slang everyone. Assurance of not suffering for
it was bound to be afforded them by the usual respect
for the cloth. Freedom is in prospect, against the
will of their master, who, even if he should care to
assert possession by force, would get beaten with the
staff. Bread, too, is no longer scanty or, as before,
limited to bannocks of barley; and what goes with it
is not salt fish or thyme but meat of all sorts and wine
of the sweetest, and money from whomsoever they
will; for they collect tribute, going from house to
house, or, as they themselves express it, they “shear
the sheep”; and they expect many to give, either
out of respect for their cloth or for fear of their
abusive language.
 
Moreover, they discerned, I assume, the further
advantage that they would be on an equal footing
with true philosophers, and that there would be
nobody who could pass judgment and draw distinctions in such matters, if only the externals were
similar. For, to begin with, they do not even

 

tolerate investigation if you question them ever so
temperately and concisely; at once they begin
shouting and take refuge in their peculiar citadel,
abusiveness and a ready staff. Also, if you ask about
their works, their words are copious, and if you wish
to judge them by their words, they want you to
consider their lives.