16
Lycinus Give me figures; how many more of them than of Epicureans, Platonists, Peripatetics? Of course you took a sort of show of hands.
16
Hermotimus Well, no; I didn’t count; I just guessed.
16
Lycinus Now, now! you are not teaching, but hoaxing me; judge by guesswork and impression, indeed, on a thing of this importance! You are hiding the truth.
16
Hermotimus Well, that was not my only way; every one told me the Epicureans were sensual and self-indulgent, the Peripatetics avaricious and contentious, the Platonists conceited and vain; about the Stoics, on the contrary, many said they had fortitude and an open mind; he who goes their way, I heard, was the true king and millionaire and wise man, alone and all in one.
17
Lycinus And, of course, it was other people who so described them; you would not have taken their own word for their excellences.
17
Hermotimus Certainly not; it was others who said it.
17
Lycinus Not their rivals, I suppose?
17
Hermotimus Oh, no.
17
Lycinus Laymen, then?
17
Hermotimus Just so.
17
Lycinus There you are again, cheating me with your irony; you take me for a blockhead, who will believe that an intelligent person like Hermotimus, at the age of forty, would accept the word of laymen about philosophy and philosophers, and make his own selection on the strength of what they said.
18
Hermotimus But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgement entirely, but on my own too. I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently dressed and groomed, ever with a thoughtful air and a manly countenance, as far from effeminacy as from the utter repulsive negligence of the Cynics, bearing themselves, in fact, like moderate men; and every one admits that moderation is right.
