13
But why do I talk to you of Orpheus and Neanthus, when even in our own time there was and still is, I think, a man who paid three thousand drachmas for the earthenware lamp of Epictetus the Stoic: He thought, I suppose, that if he should read by — that lamp at night, he would forthwith acquire the wisdom of Epictetus in his dreams and would be just like that marvellous old man.
14
And only a day or two ago another man paid a talent for the staff which Proteus the Cynic laid aside before leaping into the fire;Peregrinus; nicknamed Proteus because he changed his faith so readily. The story of his life and his voluntary death at Olympia is related in Lucian’s Peregrinus. and he keeps this treasure and displays it just as the Tegeans do the skin of the Calydonian boar, the Thebans the bones of Geryon, and the Memphites the tresses of Isis. Yet the original owner of this marvellous possession surpassed even you yourself in ignorance and indecency. You see what a wretched state the collector is in: in all conscience he needs a staff—on his pate.
