And of course they remember also the effrontery that
you displayed in the theatre, when you acted secondary parts for the dancers and thought you were leader
of the company. This man played parts like that of the Odysseus who, as we are told in The Dance, § 83, had his head broken by the pantomimic dancer who was enacting Ajax gone mad. Such parts did not involve dancing (cf. daoxplywy, above), but were not silent—a point made perfectly clear by another allusion to them in § 25 of this piece. Three of the réles in which Lucian’s butt appeared are named there; Ninus, Metiochus, and Achilles. See the note on that passage. Nobody might enter the theatre
before you, or indicate the name of the play; you were
sent in first, very properly arrayed, wearing golden
sandals and the robe of a tyrant, to beg for favour
from the audience, winning wreaths and making your
exit amid applause, for already you were held in
esteem by them. But now you are a public speaker
and a lecturer! So those people, if ever they hear
such a thing as that about you, believe they see two
suns, as in the tragedy, Euripides, Bacchae, 913. and twin cities of Thebes,
and everyone is quick to say, “That man who
then—, and after that—?” Therefore you do well
in not going there at all or living in their neighbourhood, but of your own accord remaining in exile from
your native city, thoughit is neither “bad in winter”
not “oppressive in summer,” It was therefore unlike Ascra, the home of Hesiod, which was both. Works and Days, 640. but the fairest and





 

largest of all the cities in Phoenicia. To be put to
the proof, to associate with those who know and
remember your doings of old, is truly as bad as a
halter in your sight. And yet, why do I make that
silly statement? What would you consider shameful, of all that goes beyond the limit? I am told
that you have a great estate there—that ill-conditioned tower, to which the jar of the man of Sinope More familiar to us as the tub of Diogenes. 
would be the great hall of Zeus! 
In view of all this, you can never by any means
persuade your fellow-citizens not to think you the
most odious man in the world, a common disgrace to
the whole city.
 

Could you, though, perhaps win over
the other inhabitants of Syria to vote for you if you
said that you had done nothing bad or culpable in
your life? Heracles! Antioch was an eye-witness
of your misconduct with that youth from Tarsus whom
you took aside—but to unveil these matters is no
doubt shameful for me. However, it is known about
and remembered by those who surprised the pair of
you then and saw him doing—you know what, unless
you are absolutely destitute of memory.