37
Observing a soothsayer one day officiating for pay, he said: ‘I cannot see how you can ask pay. If it is because you can change the course of Fate, you cannot possibly put the figure high enough: if everything is settled by Heaven, and not by you, what is the good of your soothsaying?”
38
A hale old Roman once gave him a little exhibition of his skill in fence, taking a clothes-peg for his mark. ‘What do you think of my play, Demonax?’ he said. ‘Excellent, so long as you have a wooden man to play with.’
39
Even for questions meant to be insoluble he generally had a shrewd answer at command, Some one tried to make a fool of him by asking, If I burn a hundred pounds of wood, how many pounds of smoke shall I get? ‘Weigh the ashes; the difference is all smoke.’
40
One Polybius, an uneducated man whose grammar was very defective, once informed him that he had received Roman citizenship from the Emperor. ‘Why did he not make you a Greek instead?’ asked Demonax.
41
Seeing a decorated person very proud of his broad stripe, he whispered in his ear, while he took hold of and drew attention to the cloth, ‘This attire did not make its original wearer anything but a sheep.’
42
Once at the bath the water was at boiling point, and some one called him a coward for hesitating to get in. ‘What,’ said he, ‘is my country expecting me to do my duty?’
43
Some one asked him what he took the next world to be like. ‘Wait a bit, and I will send you the information.’
44
A minor poet called Admetus told him he had inserted a clause in his will for the inscribing on his tomb of a monostich, which I will give: Admetus’ husk earth holds, and Heaven himself. ‘What a beautiful epitaph, Admetus!’ said Demonax, ‘and what a pity it is not up yet!’
45
The shrunk shanks of old age are a commonplace; but when his reached this state, some one asked him what was the matter with them. ‘Ah,’ he said with a smile, ‘Charon has been having a bite at them.’
