3
When Ammonius had said this, Lamprias, my brother, said, As a matter of fact, the account that we have heard is simple and quite brief. For they say that those wise men who by some are called the Sophists were actually five in number: Chilon, Thales, Solon, Bias, and Pittacus. But when Cleobulus, the despot of the Lindians, and later Periander of Corinth, who had no part or portion in virtue or wisdom, but forcibly acquired their repute through power and friends and favours, invaded this name of the Wise Men, and sent out and circulated throughout Greece certain sentiments and sayings very similar to those famous utterances of the Wise Men, these, naturally, did not like this at all, but were loath to expose the imposture or to arouse open hatred over a question of repute, or to carry through a contest against such powerful men; they met here by themselves and, after conferring together, dedicated that one of the letters which is fifth in alphabetical order and which stands for the number five, thus testifying for themselves before the god that they were five, and renouncing and rejecting the seventh and the sixth as having no connexion with themselves. That this account is not beside the mark anyone may realize who has heard those connected with the shrine naming the golden E the E of Livia, Caesar’s wife, and the bronze E the E of the Athenians, while the first and oldest one, made of wood, they still call to this day the E of the Wise Men, as though it were an offering, not of one man, but of all the Wise Men in common.
