And Hegesander relates that Hiero the tyrant was [p. 394] also rather weak in his eyes; and that his friends who supped with him made mistakes in the dishes on purpose, in order to let him set them right, and to give him an opportunity of appearing clearer-sighted than the rest. And Hegesander says that Euclides, who was surnamed Seutlus, (and he too was a parasite,) once when a great quantity of sow-thistles (σόγκος） was set before him at a banquet, said, "Capaneus, who is introduced by Euripides in his Suppliant Women, was a very witty man—
Detesting tables where there was too much pride (ὄγκος).But those who were the leaders of the people at Athens, says he, in the Chrernonidean war, flattered the Athenians, and said, “that everything else was common to all the Greeks; but that the Athenians were the only men who knew the road which leads to heaven.” And Satyrus, in his Lives, says that Anaxarchus, the Eudæmonical philosopher, was one of the flatterers of Alexander; and that he once, when on a journey in company with the king, when a violent and terrible thunderstorm took place, so as to frighten everybody, said—“Was it you, O Alexander, son of Jupiter, who caused this?” And that he laughed and said—“Not I; for I do not wish to be formidable, as you make me out; you also desire me to have brought to me at supper the heads of satraps and kings.” And Aristobulus of Cassandria says that Dioxippus the Athenian, a pancratiast, once when Alexander was wounded and when the blood flowed, said—
'Tis ichor, such as flows from the blessed gods.
