Reader

DIOGENES Seeing that we’ve nothing to do, Antisthenes and Crates, why don’t we make straight for the entrance, to have a walk around, and see what the newcomers are like, and how each of them acts? ANTISTHENES Let’s do that, Diogenes. It will be a pleasant sight to see some of them weeping, others begging to be let go, and some most reluctant to come down, resisting, though Hermes pushes them along head foremost, lying on their backs, and bracing their bodies against him. Quite unnecessary behaviour! CRATES Then I’ll tell you what I saw on my way down. DIOGENES Do tell us, Crates. It looks as though what you saw was really amusing.

CRATES

We had quite a crowd with us on our way down, but the most distinguished were our rich countryman

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Ismenodorus, Arsaces, governor of Media, and Oroetes the Armenian. Well, Ismenodorus, who’d been killed by bandits on his way past Cithaeron to

Eleusis, I believe, was groaning, holding his wound with both hands, and calling upon the young children he had left behind, reproaching himself for his rashness in only bringing two servants when crossing Cithaeron and passing the district round Eleutherae, when it had been desolated by the wars, although he was taking five golden bowls and four cups with him.

CRATES

Arsaces, an old man, and, in all truth, not undignified to look at, showed his annoyance in true barbarian fashion at having to walk, and kept calling for his horse; for his horse had been killed with him, both pierced by the same blow from a Thracian targeteer in the fight with the Cappadocians by the Araxes. Arsaces was riding, he told us, a long way ahead of the rest, when the Thracian, standing his ground and crouching beneath his shield, parried his lance, and, planting his pike beneath him, pierced both man and horse with it.

ANTISTHENES How, Crates, could that be done by one blow? CRATES Very easily, Antisthenes. He rode to the attack with his twenty cubit lance levelled, but the Thracian parried his thrust with his target, and, when the point had passed him, bent down on one knee, and, meeting the charge with his pike, wounded the chest of the horse, which impaled itself by its own fire and force, while Arsaces too was run right through from groin to buttock. You see what happened; it was done, not by the Thracian, but rather by the horse. However, Arsaces was annoyed at having no more honour than the rest, and wanted to come down on horseback.

CRATES

Oroetes had very tender feet, and couldn’t even stand on the ground, much less walk. All Medes are just like that, once they’re off their horses; like men walking on thistles, they go on tiptoe and can hardly move. So he threw himself down and lay there and defied all efforts to put him on his feet. But Hermes, excellent fellow, picked him up and carried him all the way to the ferry. How I laughed!

ANTISTHENES

So did I, when I came down. I didn’t mix with the rest, but left them to their groans, and ran on ahead to the ferry, and made sure of a comfortable place for the voyage. During the crossing, they cried and were seasick, but I found it all most enjoyable.

DIOGENES

So such, my friends, were your companions on the journey; for my part, I came down with Blepsias, the money-lender from the Piraeus, Lampis, the free-lance officer from Acarnania, and Damis, the rich man from Corinth. Damis had been poisoned by his son, Lampis had committed suicide out of love for Myrtium, the courtesan, while Blepsias, poor fellow, was said to have starved to death, and you could see quite clearly that he was pale in the extreme and completely wasted away. I knew how they died, but I asked just the same. Then, when Damis railed at his son, I said to him, “But your treatment at his hands was quite just, if you, who had a thousand talents in all, and lived a life of pleasure at ninety, wouldn’t allow your eighteen-year-old son any more than fourpence. And you, the gentleman from Acarnania” (for he was groaning too, and cursing Myrtium) “why do you blame Love instead of yourself as you should? Though you never showed fear in the face of the enemy, but would always court danger and fight in front of the others, yet, for all your courage, you admitted defeat to a quite ordinary wench with her artificial tears and lamentations.” As for Blepsias, he was the first to accuse himself of great folly in hoarding his money for heirs who were unrelated, thinking in his folly that he would live for ever. But they afforded me uncommon pleasure by their lamentations on that occasion.

DIOGENES

But here we are at the entrance. We must look out and watch the distance for the first appearance of the newcomers. Hullo! What a crowd! What an assortment! And all crying except for those children and infants! Yes, even the oldest among them are in tears. Why such behaviour? Does Life hold them in her spell through a love-potion?

DIOGENES I’d like to put a question to this hoary old fellow. Why do you weep at having died at your age? Why, good sir, are you so annoyed, though you’ve come here only in old age? Were you a king? BEGGAR By no means. DIOGENES A satrap? BEGGAR Not that either. DIOGENES Were you rich, then, and grieve at having left great luxury by your death? BEGGAR Nothing of the kind. I was about ninety years old, I got a poor living by rod and line, I was utterly penniless, had no children, and besides all that, was lame and half blind. DIOGENES And in spite of your condition you still wanted to live? BEGGAR Yes, for the light was sweet to me, and death was a frightening thing and to be avoided. DIOGENES You’re out of your mind, old fellow, and acting just like a boy, with such timidity in the face of the inevitable, though you’re as old as our ferryman. Why should we talk any more about the young, when men as old as you are such lovers of life, men who ought to be eager for death as a cure for the evils of old age? But let’s be off now, or we may be suspected of plotting our escape, if we’re seen crowding round the entrance.