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Furthermore, there are three kinds of answers
to questions : the barely necessary, the polite, and
the superfluous. For example, if someone asks, ‘Is
Socrates at home?’ one person may reply, as it
were unwillingly and grudgingly, ‘Not at home.’
And if he wishes to adopt the Laconic style, he may
omit the ‘At home’ and only utter the bare negative. So the Spartans, when Philip wrote to ask if
they would receive him into their city, wrote a large
‘No’ on the paper and sent it back. Another will
answer more politely, ‘He is not at home, but at the
bank,’ and if he wants to give fuller measure may
[p. 457]
add, ‘waiting there for some guests.’ But your
over-officious and garrulous man, particularly if he
happens to have read Antimachus1 of Colophon, will
say, ‘He is not at home, but at the bank, waiting for
some Ionian guests on whose behalf he has had a
letter from Alcibiades who is near Miletus staying
with Tissaphernes,2 the satrap of the Great King,
who formerly used to help the Spartans, but now is
attaching himself to the Athenians because of Alcibiades. For Alcibiades desires to be restored to his
native country and therefore is causing Tissaphernes
to change sides.’ And he will run on, reciting at full
stretch the whole eighth book of Thucydides, and
deluge the questioner until, before he has done,
Miletus is at war again and Alcibiades exiled for the
second time.
Regarding this tendency especially, one must keep
talkativeness within bounds by following the question
step by step and circumscribing the answer within a
circle to which the questioner's need gives the centre
and the radius.3 So when Carneades,4 who had not
yet acquired a great reputation, was disputing in a
gymnasium, the director sent and bade him lower his
voice, which was a very loud one. And when Carneades said, ‘Give me something to regulate my
voice,’ the director aptly rejoined, ‘I am giving you
the person conversing with you.’ So, in making an
answer, let the wishes of the questioner provide the
regulation.
[p. 459]