Toxaris; Or, Friendship (10)

Come, now, let us do something of this sort, if it takes your fancy. Let us leave the friends of old whom you or I could count out of the question; for under that head you would be rich in them, summoning many credible poets to testify to the friendship of Achilles and Patroklos, and the camaraderie of Theseus and Peirithoos and the others, singing them in metre with the most beautiful language. But let us select a few from our contemporaries and tell their exploits-I for Scythia, you for Greece-and he who is victorious and able to produce the best friends will be openly the better man, and will proclaim his the better country, because he has won in a very noble

and beautiful contest. For my part, I should vastly prefer losing my right hand for having been worsted in single combat-that is the Scythian forfeit to being judged inferior to another man in respect of friendship, and that, too, though I am a Greek Scythian myself.