[8]
Syr. “Well, let that pass. But tell me the distance between us in flea's feet; for people say that your geometry includes such measurements as that.”1At this Antisthenes said to Philip: “You are clever at hitting off a person's likeness; wouldn't you say that our friend here resembles one with a penchant for abuse?”“Yes, indeed,” came the answer; “and I see a resemblance in him to many another kind of person, too.”
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1 In a famous passage in the Clouds (144 ff., cf. also 830 f.), published two years before this banquet was supposed to have been held, Aristophanes had represented Socrates and Chaerephon as measuring a flea's jump in terms of its own feet.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 4. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1979.
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