And a good thing too! We never had such thoughts about each other, when we were alive. I never prayed for the death of Antisthenes, so that I could inherit his staff—though he had a very strong one that he had made for himself from the wild olive—nor did you, Crates, I imagine, wish that I should die and leave you my property, the tub and the bag with its two measures of lupines.

No, I didn’t need any of these things; but neither did you, Diogenes. All that was needful you inherited from Antisthenes and I from you—things far more important and august than the Persian empire.

But no one else cared for wealth of this sort, or paid us attentions in the hope of inheriting it from us; it was gold on which they all had their eyes.

Only to be expected; they had nowhere to put such a legacy from us. They were falling apart from rich living, and were like rotten purses; and so no sooner did one put wisdom or plain speech or truth into them, than it would fall out through a hole, for the bottom couldn’t hold it. It was just like what happens to those daughters of Danaus here, as they pour water into that jar full of holes. But their gold they would keep safe with teeth or nails or any means in their power.

In consequence we shall retain our wealth even down here, but they will bring with them no more than an obol, and even that won’t go beyond the ferryman.