Toxaris, or Friendship (22-24)

After these friends, who were by no means despicable, I should say, let me tell you now of a third who was not a bit inferior to them.

Eudamidas of Corinth had formed friendships with Aretaeus of Corinth and Charixenus of Sicyon, who were both rich, while he was extremely poor. When he died, he left a will which very likely appeared ridiculous to everyone else, but I hardly think it will seem so to you, since you are a good man, a worshipper of friendship, and a competitor for the first prize in it. It was set down in the will: “I leave to Aretaeus my mother to support and cherish in her old age, and to Charixenus my daughter to bestow in marriage with the largest dowry that he can give her out of his own means” (besides an aged mother he had also a daughter, already marriageable); “and if anything should befall either of these men in the meantime, his interest is to go to the other.” When this will was read, all who knew of the poverty of Eudamidas but were unaware of the friendship which he had with the men considered the thing a joke, and every one of them went away laughing. ‘ What a fine fortune Aretaeus and Charixenus, the lucky fellows, are coming into,” said they, “if they must pay out money to Eudamidas and have the dead man inherit from them while they themselves are still alive!”

The heirs to whom these legacies had been left, on hearing of it, came at once to administer the will. Charixenus, to be sure, outlived his friend only five days; but Aretaeus proved himself the best of legatees. Assuming both his own interest and the

other’s, he supported Eudamidas’ mother and also not long ago portioned his daughter off, giving, out of five talents that he had, dowries of two talents to his own daughter and two to his friend’s; moreover, he thought fit that they should both be married on the same day.

What is your opinion, Toxaris, of this man Aretaeus? Has he set a bad example of friendship in accepting such legacies and not playing false to his his friend’s last will? Or shall we put him down among those definitely elected as one of the five?

TOXARIS Yes, he too is noble; but to me Eudamidas is far more wonderful for the confidence he had in his friends. He made it plain that he himself would have done likewise for them; indeed, he would not have hung back if it had not been set down in a will, but would have presented himself before all the rest as an heir to such bequests by intestate succession.

MNESIPPUS You are quite right.—As the fourth I shall tell you of Zenothemis, son of Charmolaus, of Massilia.

He was pointed out to me in Italy when I was there as an ambassador of my country, a handsome, tall man, and a wealthy one, it seemed. His wife sat beside him as he passed through the street on a chariot; not only was she repulsive in general, but her right side was shrivelled and the eye wanting— a hideously disfigured, unapproachable nightmare. Then, when I expressed my surprise that he, a handsome and attractive man, could endure to have such a woman riding at his side, the person who

had pointed him out told me what had made the marriage obligatory. He was accurately informed about it all, for he too was a Massaliote.

“Menecrates,” he said, “the father of the misshapen woman yonder, had a friend, Zenothemis, who, like himself, was wealthy and distinguished. In course of time Menecrates had his property confiscated by judicial sentence, when he was disfranchised by the Six Hundred for presenting an unconstitutional measure. That,’ said he, “is the punishment we Massaliotes inflict whenever anyone proposes an unconstitutional enactment. Menecrates was distressed, of course, by the condemnation itself, since in a moment he had become poor instead of rich and dishonoured instead of honoured; but most of all he was worried about this daughter, who was then marriageable, and eighteen; but even with all the wealth which her father had possessed before his condemnation, no well-born man, though poor, would readily have agreed to accept her, so unfortunate was she in her appearance. It was said, too, that she had attacks of the falling sickness when the moon was waxing.