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It is not strange that barbers are a talkative clan, for the greatest chatterboxes stream in and sit in their chairs, so that they are themselves infected with the habit. It was a witty answer, for instance, that King Archelaü;sCf.Moralia, 177 a. gave to a loquacious barber, who, as he wrapped his towel around him, asked, How shall I cut your hair, Sire? In silence, said Archelaüs. And it was a barberCf.Life of Nicias, xxx. (542 d-e). also who first announced the great disaster of the Athenians in Sicily, having learned it in the Peiraeus from a slave, one of those who had escaped from the island. Then the barber left his shop and hurried at full speed to the city, Lest another might win the glory of imparting the news to the city, and he come second.Homer, Il., xxii. 207. A panic naturally arose and the people gathered in assembly and tried to come at the origin of the rumour. So the barber was brought forward and questioned; yet he did not even know the name of his informant, but referred the origin to a nameless and unknown person. The assembly was enraged and cried out, Torture the cursed fellow! Put him on the rack! He has fabricated and concocted this tale! Who else heard it? Who believed it? The wheel was brought and the man was stretched upon it. Meanwhile there arrived bearers of the disastrous news, men who had escaped from the slaughter itself. All, therefore, dispersed, each to his private mourning, leaving the wretched fellow bound on the wheel. But when he was set free late in the day when it was already nearly evening, he asked the executioner if they had also heard how the general, Nicias, had died. Such an unconquerable and incorrigible evil does habit make garrulity.
