Part 3

He counts up the price a friend pays for a cheap purchase, exclaiming that it takes his last penny. If a servant breaks a pot or plate he deducts its value from his rations. If his wife has lost a three-farthing piece, he turns the furniture, beds, and cupboards round and round, and hunts between the boards of the floor. When he has anything to sell he puts the price so high that the buyer gets no bargain. He permits no one to take a fig from his garden or to cross his field, or even pick up an olive or a date that has fallen to the ground. He examines his boundary marks every day to see that they have not been touched.

And he is always ready in case of default to use the right of seizure and to collect compound interest. When he gives a banquet to his townsmen he cuts the meat in small pieces and sets a portion before each guest. He goes to market, but buys nothing. He forbids his wife to lend salt or a lamp-wick or a pinch of cummin, marjoram, or meal, a fillet or a sacrificial wafer, observing that these trifles make a large sum in the course of a year.

In a word, one may see that the mean man’s money chest is mouldy from being unopened, the key rusty, his cloak too scant to reach his thigh; that he uses a mean little oil jar, has his hair cropped to the scalp; he does not wear his boots until midday, and charges the fuller to use plenty of earth on his coat to keep it from soon getting soiled again.

IX _The Stupid Man_

(Ἀναισθησία)

Stupidity one may define as sluggishness in what a man says or does. The stupid man computes a sum, sets down the total, and then asks his neighbor: “How much does it all make?” When he is defendant in a suit and should go to court, he forgets all about it and puts off to his farm. When he goes to a play at the theatre he is the only spectator that is left behind on the benches asleep. He gets up in the night to go out, after he has gorged himself, and is bitten by the neighbor’s dog. He takes a thing and puts it away, but when he comes to look for it he cannot find it. If the death of a friend is announced to him that he may go to the funeral, with a sorrowful air and tears in his eyes he says: “Thank God!” When he goes to receive payment of a debt, he takes witnesses with him. In the winter season he quarrels with his slave because cucumbers have not been provided. He forces his children to wrestle and to run until they fall into a fever. When he is roughing it in the country and himself cooks the vegetables, he puts salt in the pot twice and so makes the dish impossible. When it rains and others declare that the sky is darker than pitch, he exclaims: “How sweet it is to consider the stars!” And if he is asked, what is the mortality of the city,—how many bodies have passed through the Sacred Gates,—he replies: “Would that you and I had as many.”

X _The Surly Man_

(Αὐθάδεια)

Surliness is sullen rudeness of speech. The surly man is one who, when you ask him, “Who is that gentleman?” retorts “Don’t bother me!” and when you greet him on the street refuses to return your salutation. When he has anything for sale, he will not tell the purchaser what he charges, but instead inquires, “How much do I get for it?” When one would show him some attention and sends him a gift for the holidays, he says he is not in need of presents.

He accepts no excuse when by accident you smutch his clothes, or push against him in a crowd, or chance to tread upon his foot. If you ask for his contribution to some object, he refuses to make one, though afterwards he may bring it around, declaring, however, that he’s throwing the money away. Sometimes he stumbles in the street, and then he curses the stone that tripped him up.

And he’s not a man to tarry many minutes for a friend who has an appointment with him. Singing, declamation, and dancing are amusements for which he has no taste; and it’s exactly like him to refuse to join even in prayer to the gods.

XI _The Superstitious Man_

(Δεισιδαιμονία)

Superstition is a crouching fear of unseen powers. The superstitious man is the sort of person who begins the day only after he has sprinkled himself, washed his hands with holy water, and taken a sprig of laurel in his mouth. If a weasel cross his path, he will not go a step further until some one else has crossed, or until he has thrown three stones over the way. If he sees a snake in his house, he prays to Sabazius[12] (provided it is a copperhead) or, if it be a sacred serpent, he straightway builds a shrine upon the spot.

As he passes by the consecrated stones at the cross-roads, he pours oil on them from his flask, falls on his knees, and prays before he goes further. If a mouse should gnaw through a leather flour-bag, he goes to the seer and asks what he shall do. If the seer bids him give the bag to the cobbler to be sewn up, he pays no heed to him, but goes his way and offers up the bag as a holy sacrifice.

He is given to purifying his house often by religious rites and insists it is haunted by Hecate. When he takes a walk and hears an owl hoot, he is terrified and cries out: “Athena! thine is the power!” and so walks on. He will not step on a grave, nor go up to a corpse, nor to a woman in confinement, but says it is not well to risk pollution. He orders his domestics to mull the wine on the fourth and seventh of the month, while he goes out and buys myrtle, incense, and holy cakes; on his return he spends the livelong day in crowning the images of Hermaphroditus.

When he has had a vision, he goes to the soothsayer, the seer, or the augur, to ask to what god or goddess he must pray. He goes to the Orphic mysteries to be initiated into them. You will be sure to find him amongst the people who frequent the beach to besprinkle themselves. Every month he goes there with his wife, or if his wife is busy, then with the nurse and children.

If he observes any one at the cross-roads crowned with garlic, on his return he washes himself from head to foot, summons a priestess, and gives orders to celebrate rites of purification either with an onion or a small dog. Whenever he sees a madman or an epileptic, he shakes with terror and spits in his bosom.

[12] A Thracian and Phrygian deity, whose worship was introduced at Athens in the fifth century. Sabazius represented the active powers of nature, and hence was often identified with Dionysus.

XII _The Thankless Man_

(Μεμψιμοιρία)

Thanklessness is an improper criticism of what one receives. The thankless man, when a friend has sent him something from his table, says to the servant who brings it, “He grudged me a dish of soup and a cup of wine, I suppose, and so wouldn’t invite me to dinner.” When his sweetheart kisses him, he says, “I wonder if you really do love me so in your heart.”

He blames Zeus, not for raining, but for not raining before. When he picks up a purse in the street, he says, “But I never found a treasure!” If he secures a slave at a bargain after long dickering with the owner, he says, “I imagine I haven’t got much at this price.” To the person who brings the glad tidings that a son is born to him, he retorts, “If you only add, ‘And half your fortune’s gone,’ you’ll hit it.”

When he wins his case in court and secures a unanimous verdict, he abuses his attorney for having omitted many points in his brief. When his friends make him up a purse, and wish him joy, “Why so?” he exclaims. “Is it because I shall have to pay you all back and be grateful into the bargain, as though you had done me a favor?”

XIII _The Suspicious Man_

(Ἀπιστία)

Suspicion is a kind of belief that everybody is fraudulent. The suspicious man is the sort of person who sends a servant to market and then sends another to watch him and find out the price he pays. When he carries the money himself, he sits down every hundred yards and counts it over. After he is in bed he asks his wife whether she locked the chest and shut the cupboard, and whether the hall-door bolt was pushed well in. If she answers “Yes!” he gets up, nevertheless, and lights a lamp; naked and barefoot he goes around and examines everything. Even then he finds it hard to go to sleep. When he goes to collect interest, he takes witnesses along, lest his debtors deny the claims. He has his cloak dyed, not by the best workman, but by the fuller who can furnish good security. If any one asks the loan of a wine-set, he prefers not to lend it; but if a member of his family or a near relative wants it, he makes the loan; yet he scarcely does so until he has had it assayed and weighed and has received a guarantee for its safe return. He orders his footman not to fall behind him, but to go in front so that by watching him he may prevent his running away. If a purchaser has bought goods of him and says: “Charge the amount to me; I have no time now to send the money,” he replies: “Do not trouble yourself about it; when you have finished your business, I will go with you and get my pay.”

XIV _The Disagreeable Man_

(Ἀηδία)

Disagreeableness we may define as a kind of conduct which is annoying, although it may not be injurious. The disagreeable man will go to a friend and wake him out of a sound sleep to have a talk with him. He detains passengers who are on the point of embarking; others who have come to see him he bids wait until he has taken his walk. He takes the baby from its nurse, chews its food for it and feeds it, dandles it on his knee while he cooes to it and calls it “Papa’s little rascal!”

At table he tells the company how he once took hellebore and was physicked through and through, and how his bile was blacker than the soup on the table. And he asks before the family: “I say, mammy, what day was it when you were confined and I was born?” He says he has cool cistern water at his house and a garden full of tender vegetables; that his cook is a perfect _chef_, and that his house is a regular hotel, for it is always full of company, and his guests are like leaky sieves,—do the best he can, it is impossible to fill them.

When he gives a dinner he exhibits his jester and shows him off before the company. To enliven his guests over their cups, he says that further pleasures have been arranged for them.

XV _The Exquisite_

(Μικροφιλοτιμία)

Exquisiteness is a striving for honor in small things. The exquisite when invited to dinner, is eager to sit by his host. When he cuts off his son’s hair for an offering to the gods, no place but Delphi will answer for the ceremony. His attendant must be an Ethiopian.[13] When he pays a mina[14] of money he makes a point of offering a freshly minted piece. If he has a pet daw in the house, he must needs buy it a ladder and a brazen shield, that the daw may learn to climb the ladder carrying the shield.

When he has sacrificed an ox, he winds the head and horns with fillets, and nails them up opposite the entrance, in order that those who come in may see what he has been doing. When he parades with the cavalry, he gives all his accoutrements to his squire to carry home, and throwing back his mantle stalks proudly about the market-place in his spurs. When his pet dog dies, he raises a monument to the creature, and has a pillar erected with the inscription: “Fido, Pure Maltese.”[15] In the Asclepieion[16] he dedicates a brazen finger,[17] polishes it, crowns it with flowers, and anoints it every day with oil.

And he has his hair cut frequently. His teeth are always pearly white. While his old suit is still good, he gets himself a new one; and he anoints himself with the choicest perfumes.

In the agora he frequents the banker’s counters. If he visits the gymnasia, he selects those in which the ephebi[18] practise; and, when there’s a play, the place he chooses in the theatre is close beside the generals.

He makes few purchases for himself, but sends presents to his friends at Byzantium, and Spartan dogs to Cyzicus, and Hymettian honey to Rhodes; and when he does these things, he tells it about the town. Naturally, his taste runs to pet monkeys, parrots, Sicilian doves, gazelles’ knuckle-bones, Thurian jars, crooked canes from Sparta, hangings inwrought with Persian figures, a wrestling-ring sprinkled with sand, and a tennis-court. He goes around and offers this arena to philosophers, sophists, fighters, and musicians, for their exhibitions; and at the performances he himself comes in last of all, that the spectators may say to one another, “That’s the gentleman to whom the place belongs.”

And, of course, when he is a prytanis[19] he demands of his colleagues the privilege of announcing to the people the result of the sacrifice; then putting on a fine garment and a garland of flowers, he advances and says: “O men of Athens, we prytanes have made sacrifice to the mother of the gods;[20] the sacrifice is fair and good. Receive ye each your portion.” When he has made this announcement, he returns home and tells his wife all about it in an ecstasy of joy.[21]

[13] Among the Athenians, Ethiopian slaves were evidently highly prized.

[14] About $18 of our money.

[15] This breed of dogs is still known to dog-fanciers.

[16] The temple of Asclepios (Aesculapius).

[17] Fingers or hands of marble or metal were common among the Athenians as votive offerings.

[18] Young men between eighteen and twenty years of age, who were in training for the duties of citizenship.

[19] One of the committee of fifty which, in rotation, were charged with the administration of affairs at Athens.

[20] Cybele.

[21] A portion of Character XIX has been incorporated here, as belonging more fitly in this connection.

XVI _The Garrulous Man_

(Ἀδολεσχία)

Garrulity is incessant heedless talk. Your garrulous man is one, for instance, who sits down beside a stranger, and after recounting the virtues of his wife tells the dream he had last night, and everything he ate for supper. Then, if his efforts seem to meet with favor, he goes on to declare that the present age is sadly degenerate, says wheat is selling very low, that hosts of strangers are in town, and that since the Dionysia[22] the weather is good again for shipping; and that, if Zeus would only send more rain, the crops would be much heavier, and that he’s proposing to have a farm himself next year; and that life’s a constant struggle, and that at the Mysteries[23] Damippus set up an enormous torch;[24] and tells how many columns the Odeon has, and “Yesterday,” says he, “I had an awful turn with my stomach,” and “What day’s to-day?” and “In Boëdromion[25] come the Mysteries, and in Pyanopsion[25] the Apaturia, and in Poseideon[25] the country Dionysia,” and so on; for, unless you refuse to listen, he never stops.

[22] The festival of Dionysus.

[23] The religious celebration held in honor of Demeter (Ceres).

[24] Ancient works of art often exhibit representations of votive torches. They are usually depicted as wound with serpents.

[25] Various months of the Attic year.

XVII _The Bore_

(Δαλία)

We may define a bore as a man who cannot refrain from talking. A bore is the sort of fellow who, the moment you open your mouth, tells you that your remarks are idle, that he knows all about it, and if you’ll only listen, you’ll soon find it out. As you attempt to make answer, he suddenly breaks in with such interruptions as: “Don’t forget what you were about to say”—“That reminds me”—“What an admirable thing talk is!”—“But, as I omitted to mention”—“You grasp the idea at once”—“I was watching this long time to see whether you would come to the same conclusion as myself.” In phrases like this he’s so fertile that the person who happens to meet him cannot even open his mouth to speak.

When he has vanquished a few stray victims here and there, his next move is to advance upon whole companies and put them to flight in the midst of their occupations. He goes upon the wrestling ground or into the schools, and prevents the boys from making progress with their lessons, so incessant is his talk with the teachers and the wrestling-masters.

If you say you are going home, he’s pretty sure to come along and escort you to your house.

Whenever he learns the day set for the session of the Assembly he noises it diligently abroad, and recalls Demosthenes’s famous bout with Aeschines in the archonship of Aristophon. He mentions, too, his own humble effort on a certain occasion, and the approval which it won among the people. As he rattles on he launches invectives against the masses, in such fashion that his audience either becomes oblivious or begins to doze, or else melts away in the midst of his harangue.

When he’s on a jury he’s an obstacle to reaching a verdict, when he’s in the theatre he prevents attention to the play; at a feast he hinders eating, remarking that silence is too much of an effort, that his tongue is hung in the middle, and that he couldn’t keep still, even though he should seem a worse chatterer than a magpie; and when he’s made a butt by his own children, he submits,—when in their desire to go to sleep they say, “Papa, tell us something, in order that sleep may come.”

XVIII _The Rough_

(Ἀπόνοια)

Roughness is coarse conduct, whether in word or act. The rough takes an oath lightly and is insensible to insult and ready to give it. In character he is a sort of town bully, obscene in manner, ready for anything and everything. He is willing, sober and without a mask, to dance the vulgar cordax[26] in comic chorus. At a show he goes around from man to man and collects the pennies, quarrelling with the spectators who present a pass and therefore insist on seeing the performance free.

He is the sort of man to keep a hostelry,[27] or brothel, or to farm the taxes. There is no business he considers beneath him, but he is ready to follow the trade of crier, cook, or gambler. He does not support his mother, is caught at theft and spends more time in jail than in his home. He is the type of man who collects a crowd of bystanders and harangues them in a loud brawling voice; while he is talking, some are going and others coming, without listening to him; to one part of the moving crowd he tells the beginning of his story, to another part a sketch of it, and to another part a mere fragment. He regards a holiday as the fittest time for the full exhibition of his roughness.

He is a great figure in the courts as plaintiff or defendant. Sometimes he excuses himself on oath from trial but later he appears with a bundle of papers in the breast of his cloak, and a file of documents in his hands. He enjoys the rôle of generalissimo in a band of rowdy loafers; he lends his followers money and on every shilling collects a penny interest per day. He visits the bake-shops, the markets for fresh and pickled fish, collects his tribute from them, and stuffs it in his cheek.

[26] A lewd dance.

[27] Inn-keepers were in ill-repute in antiquity.

XIX _The Affable Man_

(Ἀρέσκεια)

Affability is a sort of demeanor that gives pleasure at the sacrifice of what is best. The affable man is the kind of person who hails a friend at a distance, and after he has told him what a fine fellow he is, and has lavished brimming admiration on him, seizes both his hands, and is unwilling to let him go. He escorts the friend a step on his way, and as he asks “When shall we meet again?” tears himself away with praises still falling from his lips.

When summoned to court he wishes to please not merely the man in whose interest he appears, but his adversary too, that he may seem to be non-partisan; and of strangers he says that they pronounce juster judgment than his townsmen. If he’s invited out to dinner he asks his host to call in the children, and when they come, he declares they’re as like their father as one fig is like another, and he draws them toward him, kisses them, and sets them by his side. Sometimes he joins in their sports, shouting “Strike!” and “Foul!”; and sometimes he lets them go to sleep in his lap in spite of the burden.[28]

[28] The remainder of the Greek text of this character has been thought to belong more properly with “The Exquisite,” No. XV.

XX _The Impudent Man_

(Βδελυρία)

Impudence is easy to define; it is conduct that is obtrusively offensive. The impudent man is one who, on meeting respectable women in the street, insults them as he passes. At a play, he claps his hands after all the rest have stopped, and hisses the players when others wish to watch in silence. When the theatre is still, he suddenly stands up and disgorges, to make the audience look around. When the market-place is crowded, he steps up to the stalls where nuts, myrtle-berries, or fruits are for sale, and begins to pick at them as he talks to the merchant; he calls by name people whom he doesn’t know, and stops those intent upon some errand. When a man has just lost an important case and is now leaving the court, he runs up and tenders his congratulations.

He buys his own provisions,[29] too, and hires his own musicians, showing his purchases to every man he meets and inviting him to come and share the feast. Again, he takes his stand before a barber’s booth or a perfumer’s stall, and proclaims unblushingly his intention of getting drunk.

[29] To do one’s own marketing was considered a sign of niggardliness; hence such business was ordinarily delegated to slaves.

XXI _The Gross Man_

(Δυσχέρεια)

Grossness is such neglect of one’s person as gives offence to others. The gross man is one who goes about with an eczema, or white eruption, or diseased nails, and says that these are congenital ailments; for his father had them, and his grandfather, too, and it would be hard to foist an outsider upon their family. He’s very apt to have sores on his shins and bruises on his toes, and to neglect these things so that they grow worse.

His armpits are hairy like an animal’s for a long distance down his sides; his teeth are black and decayed. As he eats, he blows his nose with his fingers. As he talks, he drools, and has no sooner drunk wine than up it comes. After bathing he uses rancid oil to anoint himself; and when he goes to the market-place, he wears a thick tunic and a thin outer garment disfigured with spots of dirt.

When his mother goes to consult the soothsayer, he utters words of evil omen; and when people pray and offer sacrifices to the gods he lets the goblet fall, laughing as though he had done something amusing. When there’s playing on the flute, he alone of the company claps his hands, singing an accompaniment and upbraiding the musician for stopping so soon.

Often he tries to spit across the table,—only to miss the mark and hit the butler.

XXII _The Boor_

(Ἀγροικία)

Boorishness is ignorance of good form. The boor is the sort of man who takes a strong drink and then goes to the Assembly. He insists that myrrh has not a whit sweeter smell than onions. His boots are too big for his feet and he talks in a loud voice.

He distrusts even friends and kinsmen, while his most important secrets are shared with his domestics, and he tells all the news of the Assembly to his farm hands. Nothing awakens his admiration or startles him on the streets so much as the sight of an ox, an ass, or a goat, and then he stands agape in contemplation.[30] He is the sort of man who snatches a bite from the pantry and drinks his liquor straight.

He has clandestine talks with the cook and helps her grind the meal for his household. At breakfast he throws bits to the animals about the table. He answers the knock at the door himself and then whistles for his dog, takes him by the nose, and says: “Here’s the keeper of my house and grounds!” When a man offers him a coin he declines it, saying it is too worn, and takes another piece in its stead.