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TOXARIS Whether we are in general not only more just than the Greeks towards our parents but more reverential is a question which I would rather not debate with you at present. But that Scythian friends are far more faithful than Greek friends and that friendship matters more with us than with you is easily demonstrated; and in the name of your Gods of Greece, do not listen to me with displeasure if I mention one of the observations which I have made after having lived with your people for a long time now. It seems to me that you Greeks can indeed say all that is to be said about friendship better than others, but not only fail to practise its works in a manner that befits your words,—no, you are content to have praised it and shown what a very good thing it is, but in its times of need you play traitor to your words about it and beat a hasty retreat, somehow or other, out of the press of deeds. And whenever your tragedians put friendships of this kind on the stage and exhibit them to you, you bestow praise and applause, yes, even tears upon them, most of you, when they face danger for each other’s sake; yet you yourselves dare not come out with any praiseworthy deed for the sake of your friends. On the contrary, if a friend happens to stand in need of anything, those many tragic histories take wing and vanish from your path on the instant, like dreams, and leave you looking like those empty, silent masks which, for all their open mouths, widely agape, do not utter even the slightest sound. We are your opposites; for we have as much the better of you in practising friendship as we fall short of you in talking about it.
