furies informers. And the Emperor Tiberius lived the last seven years of his life in the island of Capreæ, and the sacred governing power of the world enclosed in his breast during all that time never changed its abode. But the incessant and constant cares of empire, coming from all sides, made not that island repose of his pure and complete. But he who can disembark on a small island, and get rid of great troubles, is a miserable man, if he cannot often say and sing to himself those lines of Pindar, "To love the slender cypress, and to leave the Cretan pastures lying near Ida. I have but little land, where I grow strong, and have nothing to do with sorrow or faction,"7 or the ordinances of princes, or public duties in political emergencies, or state functions hard to get off.
§ x. For if that seems a good saying of Callimachus, "Do not measure wisdom by a Persian rope," much less should we measure happiness by ropes and parasangs, and if we inhabit an island containing 200 furlongs only, and not (like Sicily) four days' sail round, ought we to wail and lament as if we were very unfortunate? For how does plenty of room bring about an easy life? Have you not heard Tantalus saying in the play,8
but shortly after he says,
And Nausithous leaving the spacious Hyperia because of the proximity of the Cyclopes, and migrating to an island "far from all enterprising men,"9 and living an unsocial life,
yet contrived to make the life of his citizens very pleasant. And the Cyclades were first inhabited by the sons of Minos, and afterwards by the sons of Codrus and Neleus, though foolish people now think they are punished if they are exiled to them. And yet what island used as a place of exile is not of larger extent than Scillus, where Xenophon after his military service saw a comfortable old age?10 And the Academy, a small place bought for only 3,000 drachmæ,11 was the domicile of Plato and Xenocrates and Polemo, who taught and lived there all their lives, except