Book 4
148
But when I understood that it was many recent messengers, and many letters, not of introduction but of credit, that had had so much influence over him, at the suggestion of the Syracusans themselves I make a seizure of those documents in which the resolutions of the senate were recorded. And now behold a fresh confusion and strife. That, however, you may not suppose that he was without any friends or connections at Syracuse, that he was entirely desolate and forsaken, a man of the name of Theomnastus, a man ridiculously crazy, whom the Syracusans call Theoractus. Theoractus seems a sort of nickname, to indicate his insanity, being derived from *qeo/s, God, and r(h/gnumi, to break; while Theomnastas derived from *qeo/sand me/mnhmai, to remember.attempted to detain those documents; a man in such a condition, that the boys follow him, and that every one laughs at him every time he opens his mouth. But his craziness, which is ridiculous to others, was then in truth very troublesome to me. For while he was foaming at the mouth, his eyes glaring, and he crying out as loud as he could that I was attacking him with violence, we came together before the tribunal.
