Book 6
5.89
Favorinus, in the second book of his Memorabilia, tells a pleasant story of Crates. For he relates how, when making some request of the master of the gymnasium, he laid hold on his hips; and when he demurred, said, What, are not these hip-joints yours as much as your knees? It was, he used to say, impossible to find anybody wholly free from flaws; but, just as in a pomegranate, one of the seeds is always going bad. Having exasperated the musician Nicodromus, he was struck by him on the face. So he stuck a plaster on his forehead with these words on it, Nicodromus’s handiwork.
5.90
He carried on a regular campaign of invective against the courtesans, habituating himself to meet their abuse.
5.90
When Demetrius of Phalerum sent him loaves of bread and some wine, he reproached him, saying, Oh that the springs yielded bread as well as water! It is clear, then, that he was a water-drinker. When the police-inspectors found fault with him for wearing muslin, his answer was, I’ll show you that Theophrastus also wears muslin. This they would not believe: so he led them to a barber’s shop and showed them Theophrastus being shaved. At Thebes he was flogged by the master of the gymnasium—another version being that it was by Euthycrates and at Corinth; and being dragged by the heels, he called out, as if it did not affect himHom. Il. i. 591.: Seized by the foot and dragged o’er heaven’s high threshold:
5.91
Diocles, however, says that it was by Menedemus of Eretria that he was thus dragged. For he being handsome and being thought to be intimate with Asclepiades the Phliasian, Crates slapped him on the side with a brutal taunt; whereupon Menedemus, full of indignation, dragged him along, and he declaimed as above.
