16
So you are not prepared to teach me. You are cheating when you tell me you decide such a matter by guesswork and weight of numbers. You’re hiding the truth from me.
16
It wasn’t just that, Lycinus. I also heard everybody saying that the Epicureans were sensual and lovers of pleasure, that the Peripatetics loved riches and wrangling, and that the Platonists were puffed up and loved glory. But a lot of people said that the Stoics were manly and understood everything and that the man who went this way was the only king, the only rich man, the only wise man, and everything rolled into one.
17
These were obviously other people’s opinions on the schools. You wouldn’t have simply believed the respective adherents when they praised their own schools.
17
Certainly not; these were other people’s opinions.
17
Not their rivals’ opinions, I suppose?
17
No.
17
Laymen’s opinions?
17
Yes.
17
You see how once again you are cheating me and not telling the truth. You think you are talking with some Margites A proverbial fool, the hero of a comic epic attributed to Homer. who is ready to believe that Hermotimus, an intelligent man forty years of age, on philosophy and philosophers believed the opinions of laymen and made his choice of the better creed accordingly. I refuse to believe you when you say things like that.
18
But you know, Lycinus, I did rely on myself as well as others. I used to see the Stoics walking with dignity, decently dressed, always thoughtful, manly in looks, most of them close-cropped; there was nothing effeminate, none of that exaggerated indifference which stamps the genuine crazy Cynic. They seemed in a state of moderation and everyone says that is best.
