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Now of the other affections and maladies some are dangerous, some detestable, some ridiculous; but garrulousness has all these qualities at once; for babblers are derided for telling what everyone knows, they are hated for bearing bad news, they run into danger since they cannot refrain from revealing secrets. So it is that Anacharsis,A Scythian of high rank, who travelled widely in the pursuit of knowledge, and visited Athens in the time of Solon, circa 597 b.c. when he had been entertained and feasted at Solons house and lay down to sleep, was seen to have his left hand placed upon his private parts, but his right hand upon his mouth; for he believed, quite rightly, that the tongue needs the stronger restraint. It would not be easy, for example, to enumerate as many men who have been ruined by incontinent lust as is the number of cities and empires which a secret revealed has brought to destruction. When SullaCf.Life of Sulla, xiv. (460 c ff.). Athens was captured in 86 b.c. was besieging Athens, he had very little time to waste in the operations Since other labour was pressing,Homer, Od., xi. 54. Mithridates having ravaged Asia, and the party of Marius being again masters in Rome. But spies heard some old men in a barber’s shop remarking to each other that the HeptachalconThe position of the Heptachalcon is thought to be near the Peiraeic Gate, near which was also the heroön of Chalcodon; see Judeich, Topographie von Athen 2, p. 368, note 8. was unguarded and that the city was in danger of being captured at that point; and the spies brought word of this to Sulla, who at once brought up his forces at midnight, led in his army, and almost razed the city to the ground, filling it with carnage and corpses so that the Cerameicus ran with blood. And Sulla’s anger with the Athenians was due more to their words than to their deeds; for they used to revile himCf.Life of Sulla, xiii. (459 f - 460 a). and Metella,Sulla’s wife. leaping upon the walls and jesting, Sulla is a mulberry sprinkled with mealReferring to his complexion: blotches of red interspersed with white; Cf. Life of Sulla, ii. (451 f).; and with much similar idle banter they drew upon themselves, as PlatoLaws, 935 a and 717 d; Cf. the note on 456 d, supra. says, a very heavy penalty for the lightest of things, words.
