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And among the men of old also sententious speakers are admired, and upon the temple of the Pythian Apollo the Amphictyons inscribed, not the Iliad and the Odyssey or the paeans of Pindar, but Know thyselfCf.Moralia, 408 e, 385 d, 164 b; Pausanias, x. 24. 1; Tryphon, l.c.; Plato, Charmides, 165 a. and Avoid extremes and Give a pledge and mischief is at hand,Cf.Moralia, 164 b. admiring, as they did, the compactness and simplicity of the expression which contains within a small compass a well-forged sentiment. And is not the god himself fond of conciseness and brevity in his oracles, and is he not called LoxiasAs though derived from λοξός, slanting, ambiguous; and see Roscher, s.v. because he avoids prolixity rather than obscurity? And are not those who indicate by signs, without a word, what must be done,Cf. Diogenes Laertius, vii. 66. praised and admired exceedingly? So Heracleitus,Diels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker 5, i. p. 144, A 3 b. when his fellowcitizens asked him to propose some opinion about concord, mounted the platform, took a cup of cold water, sprinkled it with barley-meal, stirred it with penny-royal, drank it up, and departed, thus demonstrating to them that to be satisfied with whatever they happen upon and not to want expensive things is to keep cities in peace and concord. And Scilurus,Cf.Moralia, 174 f and Nachstädt’s note ad loc. king of the Scythians, left behind him eighty sons; when he was dying, he asked for a bundle of spearshafts and bade his sons take it and break it in pieces, tied closely together as the shafts were. When they gave up the task, he himself drew all the spears out one by one and easily broke them in two, thus revealing that the harmony and concord of his sons was a strong and invincible thing, but that their disunion would be weak and unstable.
