the safest kind of vessel? and he said, “That which is brought into dock.” He said, too, that the strangest things that he had seen among the Greeks was, that “They left the smoke14 in the mountains, and carried the wood down to their cities.” Once, when he was asked, which were the more numerous, the living or the dead? he said, “Under which head do you class those who are at sea.” Being reproached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, he said, “Well, my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your country.” When he was asked what there was among men which was both good and bad, he replied, “The tongue.” He used to say “That it was better to have one friend of great value, than many friends who were good for nothing.” Another saying of his was, that “The forum was an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously.” Being once insulted by a young man at a drinking party, he said, “O, young man, if now that you are young you cannot bear wine, when you are old you will have to bear water.”
VI. Of things which are of use in life, he is said to have been the inventor of the anchor, and of the potter’s wheel.
VII. The following letter of his is extant:—
ANACHARSIS TO CRŒSUS
O king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and institutions; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite contented if I return to Scythia a better man than I left it. However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to become a friend of yours.
LIFE OF MYSON.
I. Myson, the son of Strymon, as Sosicrates states, quoting Hermippus as his authority, a Chenean by birth, of some Œtæan or Laconian village, is reckoned