17
Why, where did he get his information, Micyllus? When all that was going on, he was a camel in Bactria. Tl tell you thus much, though: nothing was out of the common then, and Ajax was not as tall and Helen herself not as fair as people think. As I saw her, she had a white complexion and a long neck, to be sure, so that you might know she was the daughter of a swan; but as for the rest of it, she was decidedly old, about the saine age as Hecuba; for Theseus eloped with her in the first place and kept her at Aphidnae, and Theseus lived in the time of Heracles, who took Troy the first time it was taken, in the time of our fathers,—our then fathers, Imean. Panthous told me all this, and said that when he was quite small he had seen Heracles.
17
But how about Achilles? Was he as Homer describes him, supreme in everything, or is this only a fable too?
17
I did not come into contact with him at all, Micyllus, and I can’t tell you as accurately about the Greek side. How could I, being one of the enemy? His comrade Patroclus, however, I killed without difficulty, running him through with my spear.The cock is drawing the long-bow; Euphorbus only wounded Patroclus, Iliad 16, 806 ff.
17
And then Menelaus killed you with much greater ease! But enough of this, and now tell me the story of Pythagoras.
18
In brief, Micyllus, I was a sophist, for I must tell the truth, I suppose. However, I was not uneducated or unacquainted with the noblest sciences. I even went to: Egypt to study with the prophets, penetrated into their sanctuaries and learned the books of Horus and Isis by heart, and then I sailed away to Italy and worked upon the Greeks in that quarter of the world to such an extent that they thought me a god.
18
So I have heard, and I have also heard that you were thought to have come to life again after dying, and that you once showed them that your thigh was of gold. But, look here, tell me how it occurred to you to make a law against eating either meat or beans?
