“Among all these, among those who laughed, was
the writer of these words. And why should not he
laugh at a piece of cheek so manifest and unconvincing and shameless? So, somehow or other, being one
who cannot control his laughter, when the speaker had
attuned his voice to song, as he thought, and was
intoning a regular dirge over Pythagoras, our
author, seeing an ass trying to play the lyre, as the
saying goes, burst into a very melodious cachinnation,
and the other turned and saw him. That created a
state of war between them, and the recent affair
sprang from it.
 
It was the beginning of the year, or
rather, the second day after the New Year, New Year’s Day is called in the Greek “the great New- Moon-Day.” The day of the festival on which the incident occurred was January third (a.d. III non. Ian.) For the vow of the consuls on that day, two gilded bulls for the health of the Imperial family, see Henzen, Acta Fratrum Arvalium, pp. 100-102. the day
on which the Romans, by an ancient custom, make
prayers in person for the entire yearand holdsacrifices,
following ceremonies which King Numaestablished for
them; they are convinced that on that day beyond
all others the gods give ear to those who pray. Well,
on that festival and high holiday, the man who burst
out laughing then in Olympia at the suppositious
Pythagoras saw this contemptible cheat approaching,
this presenter of the speeches of others. It happened
that he knew his character, too, and all his wantonness and unclean living, both what he was said to do,
and what he had been caught doing. So he said to


 

one of his friends: ‘We must give a wide berth to
this ill-met sight, whose appearance is likely to make
the most delightful of all days nefandous for us.’ “Exposure,” however devoted to Truth and Frankness, here indulges in prevarication so obvious that its purpose is clearly to exasperate Lucian’s victim rather than to impose upon his public. To say that a man’s appearance would make the day apophras is not saying that he was “like that kind of day,” let alone calling him apophras. See the note on § 1, above, and that on § 16, below. 
“On hearing that, the sophist at once laughed at
the word nefandous as if it were strange and alien to
the Greeks, and paid the man back, in his own
estimation, at least, for the laughter of that former
time, saying to all: ‘Nefandous! What, pray, is
that? A fruit, or a herb, or a utensil? Can it be
something to eat ordrink? For my part I have never
heard the word, and should never be able to guess
what it means.’