And Hermippus says, that Theophrastus used to come to the walks at a regular hour, carefully and beautifully dressed; and that then he would sit down and enter upon an argument, indulging in every sort of motion and gesture imaginable; so that once while imitating an epicure he even put out his tongue and licked his lips. Those men were very careful to put on their clothes neatly; and they ridiculed those who did not do so. Plato, in the Theætetus, speaks of “a man who has capacity to manage everything cleverly and perfectly, but who has no idea how to put on even proper clothes like a gentleman, and who has no notion of the propriety of language, so as to be able to celebrate the life of gods and men in a becoming manner.” And Sappho jests upon Andromeda:—
Sure by some milkmaid you've been taughtAnd Philetærus says—
To dress, whose gown is all too short
To reach her sturdy ancles.
Don't let your gown fall down too low,And Hermippus says, that Theocritus of Chios used to blame the way in which Anaximenes used to wrap his cloak round him as a boorish style of dressing. And Callistratus the pupil of Aristophanes, in one of his writings, attacked Aristarchus severely for not being neatly dressed, on the ground, that attention to those minute is no trifling indication of a man's abilities and good sense. On which account Alexis says—
Nor pull it up too high to show
Your legs in clownish fashion.
'Tis a sure sign of a degraded nature,
To walk along the street in sloven's guise;
Having the means of neatness: which costs nothing;
[p. 35] Is subject to no tax; requires no change;
And creditable is to him who uses it,
And pleasant to all those who witness it.
Who then would ever disregard this rule,
That wishes to be thought a man of sense?
