one day every year, when Xenocrates went to Athens to grace the festival of Dionysus, so they said, and to see the new plays exhibited. And Theocritus of Chios twitted Aristotle with loving to live at the courts of Philip and Alexander, and preferring to dwell at the mouth of the Borborus to dwelling in the Academy. For there is a river near Pella that the Macedonians call Borborus. As to islands Homer seems to sing their praise, and recommend them to us as if on purpose, as
and,
and,
and,
and of the illustrious men that dwelt in islands he mentions Æolus the favourite of the gods, and Odysseus most wise, and Ajax most brave, and Alcinous most kind to strangers.
§ xi. When Zeno learned that the only ship he had left was with all its freight lost at sea, he said, "Fortune, you deal kindly with me, confining me to my threadbare cloak and the life of a philosopher." And a man not altogether silly, or madly in love with crowds, might, I think, not blame fortune for confining him in an island, but might even praise her for relieving him from weariness and anxiety, and wanderings in foreign countries, and perils by sea, and the uproar of the forum, and for giving him truly a secure, quiet, undistracted and private life, putting him as it were inside a circle in which everything necessary for him was contained. For what island has not a house, a promenade, a bath, and fish and hares for those who love fishing and field-sports? And the greatest blessing, quiet, which others frequently pant for, you can freely enjoy.12 And whereas in the world,12 when men are playing at dice or otherwise enjoying the privacy of their homes, informers and busybodies hunt them up and pursue them from their houses and gardens in the suburbs, and drag them by force to the forum and court, in an island no one comes to