The Ship: Or, the Wishes (28)

Samippus

Well, I am a landsman; I come from Mantinea, you know, in Arcadia; so I shall not ask for a ship; I could make no show with that in my country. Nor will I insult the generosity of the Gods by asking for so much gold down. I understand there is no boon so great, but their power and Timolaus’s law

can compass it; we are to wish away without ceremony, he says,—they will refuse us nothing. Well then, I wish to be a king. But I will not succeed to a hereditary throne, like Alexander of Macedon, Ptolemy, Mithridates and the rest of them. No, I will begin as a brigand, in a troop of thirty or so, brisk companions ready at need. Then little by little we shall grow to be 300; then 1,000, and presently 10,000; and at last. we shall total 50,000 heavy-armed, and 5,000 horse.