Arsinoe, Sotades said, "You are contracting an unholy marriage."28 For this speech he long lingered in prison, and paid the righteous penalty for his unseasonable babbling, and had to weep a long time for making others laugh. Theocritus the Sophist similarly cracked his jokes, and had to pay even a greater penalty. For when Alexander ordered the Greeks to furnish him with purple robes to wear at the sacrifices on his triumphal return from war against the barbarians, and his subjects contributed so much per head, Theocritus said, "Before I doubted, but now I am sure, that this is the purple death Homer speaks of."29 By this speech he made Alexander his enemy. The same Theocritus put Antigonus, the King of the Macedonians, a one-eyed man, into a thundering rage by alluding to his misfortune. For the King sent his chief cook, Eutropio, an important person at his court, to go and fetch Theocritus before him to confer with him, and when he had frequently requested him to come without avail, Theocritus at last said, "I know well you wish to serve me up raw to the Cyclops;" flouting the King as one-eyed and the cook with his profession. Eutropio replied, "You shall lose your head, and pay the penalty for this babbling and mad insolence;" and reported his words to the King, who sent and had his head taken off. Our boys must also be taught to speak the truth as a most sacred duty; for to lie is servile, and most hateful in all men, hardly to be pardoned even in poor slaves.
§ xv. Thus much have I said about the good conduct and self-control of boys without any doubt or hesitation: but as to what I am now going to say I am doubtful and undecided, and like a person weighed in the scales against exactly his weight, and feel great hesitation as to whether I should recommend or dissuade the practice. But I must speak out. The question