36
Again, on seeing a soothsayer make public forecasts for money, he said: “1 don’t see on what ground you claim the fee: if you think you can change destiny in any way, you ask too little, however much you ask; but if everything is to turn out as Heaven has ordained, what good is your soothsaying?”
37
When a Roman ofticer, well-developed physically, gave him an exhibition of sword-practice on a post, and asked: “What did you think of my swordsmanship, Demonax?”’ he said: “Fine, if you have a wooden adversary!”
38
‘Moreover, when questions were unanswerable he always had an apt retort ready. When a man asked him’ banteringly: “1f I should burn a thousand pounds of wood, Demonax, how many pounds of smoke would it make?” he replied: “Weigh the ashes: all the rest will be smoke.”
39
A man named Polybius, quite uneducated and ungrammatical, said: “The emperor has honoured ‘me with the Roman citizenslfip.” “Oh, why didn’t he make you a Greek instead of a Roman?” said he.
40
On seeing an aristocrat who set great store on the breadth of his purple band, Demonax, taking hold of the garment and calling his attention to it, said in his ear: “A sheep wore this before you, and he was but a sheep for all that!”
41
When he was taking a bath and hesitated to enter the steaming water, a man reproached him with cowardice. “Tell me,’ said he, “was my country at stake in the matter?”
42
When someone asked him: “What do you think it is like in Hades?” he replied: “Wait a bit, and I'll send you word from there!”
