Kitap 21
1
Diogenes, did you know Moerichus, the rich man, the millionaire from Corinth, who owned a fleet of merchant ships, and had a cousin called Aristeas, another rich man, who used to quote Homer and say, “You try to throw me, or let me try to throw you”? As Ajax said to Odysseus in the wrestling match. (Iliad, XXIII, 724.)
1
Why, Crates?
1
They were of an age and showering attentions each on the other for his property. They made no secret of their wills; Moerichus was leaving Aristeas master of all he had, if he died first, and Aristeas was doing the same for Moerichus. This was all down in black and white, and they tried to outdo each other with obsequious attentions, and not only the prophets, divining the future from stars or from dreams in the best Chaldaean tradition, but even the Delphic god himself would assign the victory first to Aristeas, and then to Moerichus, and the scales would dip in favour now of one, now of the other.
2
Well, what happened in the end? The story’s worth hearing.
2
Both have died on one day, and the properties have passed on to Eunomius and Thrasycles, two relations who have never imagined things turning out thus. Their ship was halfway across from Sicyon to Cirrha, when a squall from the north-west caught her on the beam and capsized her.
3
And a good thing too! We never had such thoughts about each other, when we were alive. I never prayed for the death of Antisthenes, so that I could inherit his staff—though he had a very strong one that he had made for himself from the wild olive—nor did you, Crates, I imagine, wish that I should die and leave you my property, the tub and the bag with its two measures of lupines.
3
No, I didn’t need any of these things; but neither did you, Diogenes. All that was needful you inherited from Antisthenes and I from you—things far more important and august than the Persian empire.
3
What things do you mean?
3
Wisdom, independence, truth, plain speaking, freedom.
