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Such now, my friends, are Ulpian's companions, the sophists; men who call even the thing which the Romans call miliarium, that is to say, a vessel designed to prepare boiling water in, ἰπνολέβης, an oven-kettle; being manufac- turers of many names, and far outrunning by many para-sangs the Sicilian Dionysius: who called a virgin μένανδρος (from μένω and ἀνὴρ), because she is waiting for a husband; and a pillar μενεκράτης (from μένω and κράτος), because it remains and is strong. And a javelin he called βαλλάντιον, because (ἄντιον βάλλεται) it is thrown against something; and mouse-holes he called μυστήρια, mysteries, (from τηρεῖν τοὺς μῦς because they keep the mice. And Athanis, in the first book of his History of the Affairs of Sicily, says that the same Dionysius gave an ox the name of γαρότας; and a pig he called ἴακχος. And Alexarchus was a man of the same sort, the brother of Cassander, who was king of Macedonia, who built the city called Uranopolis. And Heraclides Lembus speaks concerning him in the seventh book of his Histories, and says, “Alexarchus, who founded the city Uranopolis, imported many peculiar words and forms of speaking into the language: calling a cock ὀρθροβόας, or he that crows in the morn; and a barber βροτοκέρτης, or one who cuts men; and a drachm he called ἀργυρὶς, a piece of silver; and a chœnix he called, ἡμεροτροφὶς, what feeds a man for a day; and a herald he called ἀπύτης, a bawler. And once he wrote a letter to the magistrates of the Cassandrians in this form:1᾿αλέξαρχος μάρμων πρόμοις [p. 165] γαθεῖν. τοὺς ἡλιοκρεῖς οἰῶν οἶδα λιποῦσα θεωτῶν ἔργων κρατήτορας μορσίμῳ τύχᾳ κεκυρωμένας θεοῦ πόγαις χυτλώσαντες αὐτοὺς, καὶ φύλακας ὀριγένεις.” But what that letter means think that even the Pythian Apollo himself could hardly tell. For, as Antiphanes says, in his Cleophanes,—
What is it then to be a tyrant, (or
What would you call pursuing serious things,)
In the Lyceum with the sophists; by Jove,
They are but thin and hungry joyless men.
And say the thing does not exist if now
It is produced; for that is not as yet,
Nor can already be produced, which now
Is caused afresh. Nor if it did exist
Before, can it be now made to exist.
For there is nothing which has no existence.
And that which never yet has taken place,
Is not as if it had, since it has not.
For it exists from its existence; but
If there is no existence, what is there
From which it can exist? The thing's impossible;
And if it's self-existent, it will not
Exist again. And one perhaps may say,
Let be; whence now can that which has no being
Exist, what can become of it? What all this means
I say that e'en Apollo's self can't tell.

1 I have followed Casaubon's advice in not attempting to translate this letter, who “marvels that interpreters have endeavoured to translate it, for what can wasting time be, if this is not?”And Schweighaeuser says that he will not attempt to explain it further, lest he should seem to be endeavoring to appear wiser than Apollo.

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