33
Simon Well, he was living there too at the same time and on the same terms, Dionysius reckoned him the best of all spongers; he had indeed a special gift that way; the prince used to send his cooks to him daily for instruction. He, I think, was really an ornament to the profession.
34
Well then, Plato, the noblest of you all, came to Sicily with the same view; he did a few days’ sponging, but found himself incompetent and had to leave. He went back to Athens, took considerable pains with himself, and then had another try, with exactly the same result, however. Plato’s Sicilian disaster seems to me to bear comparison with that of Nicias.
34
Tychiades Your authority for all this, pray?
35
Simon Oh, there are plenty of authorities; but I will specify Aristoxenus the musician, a weighty one enough, and himself attached as a sponger to Neleus. Then you of course know that Euripides held this relation to Archelaus till the day of his death, and Anaxarchus to Alexander.
36
As for Aristotle, that tiro in all arts was a tiro here too.
37
I have shown you, then, and without exaggeration, the philosophic passion for sponging. On the other hand, no one can point to a sponger who ever cared to philosophize.
38
But of course, if never to be hungry, thirsty, or cold, is to be happy, the sponger is the man who is in that position. Cold hungry philosophers you may see any day, but never a cold hungry sponger; the man would not be a sponger, that is all, but a wretched pauper, no better than a philosopher.
39
Tychiades Well, let that pass. And now what about those many points in which your art is superior to Rhetoric and Philosophy?
39
Simon Human life, my dear sir, has its times and seasons; there is peace time and there is war time. These provide unfailing tests for the character of arts and their professors. Shall we take war time first, and see who will do-best for himself and for his city under those conditions?
