Lycinus
And therewith, his cup being in his hand, about half full of wine, he emptied it over the pair; and Ion, whose worst guilt was being their neighbour, came in for a good deal of it. Hermon bent forward, dried his head, and entered a protest. Cleodemus, having no wine to reply with, leant over and spat at Zenothemis; at the same time he clutched the old man’s beard with his left hand, and was aiming a blow which would have killed him, when Aristaenetus arrested it, stepped over Zenothemis, and lay down between the two, making himself a buffer in the interests of peace.
All this time, Philo, my thoughts were busy enough with the old commonplace, that after all it is no use having all theory at your finger’s ends, if you do not conform your conduct to the right. Here were these masters of precept making themselves perfectly ridiculous in practice. Then it was borne in upon me that possibly the vulgar notion is right, and culture only misleads the people who are too much wrapt up in books and bookish ideas, Of all that philosophic company there was not a man—not so much as an accidental exception—who could pass muster; if his conduct did not condemn him, his words did yet more fatally. I could not make the wine responsible, either; the author of that letter was fasting and sober.
