very severe in his reproofs, and very free spoken. Accordingly, when a young man behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a word, but took a bit of stick and drew on the floor an insulting picture; until the young man, perceiving the insult that was meant in the presence of numbers of people, went away. And when Hierocles, the governor of the Piræus, attacked him in the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about the taking of Eretria, he made no other reply beyond asking him what Antigonus’s object was in treating him as he did.
On another occasion, he said to a profligate man who was giving himself airs, “Do not you know that the cabbage is not the only plant that has a pleasant juice, but that radishes have it also?” And once, hearing a young man talk very loudly, he said, “See whom you have behind you.” When Antigonus consulted him whether he should go to a certain revel, he made no answer beyond desiring those who brought him the message, to tell him that he was the son of a king. When a stupid fellow once said something at random to him, he asked him whether he had a farm; and when he said that he had, and a large stock of cattle, he said, “Go then and look after them; lest, if you neglect them, you lose them, and that elegant rusticity of yours with them.” He was once asked whether a good man should marry, and his reply was, “Do I seem to you to be a good man, or not?” and when the other said he did; “Well,” said he, “and I am married.” On one occasion a person said that there were a great many good things, so he asked him how many; and whether he thought that there were more than a hundred. And as he could not