_Crates. Diogenes_
_Cra_. Did you know Moerichus of Corinth, Diogenes? A shipowner,
rolling in money, with a cousin called Aristeas, nearly as rich. He had
a Homeric quotation:—Wilt thou heave me? shall I heave thee?
[Footnote: Homer, Il. xxiii. 724. When Ajax and Odysseus have wrestled
for some time without either's producing any impression, and the
spectators are getting tired of it, the former proposes a change in
tactics. "Let us hoist—try you with me or I with you." The idea
evidently is that each in turn is to offer only a passive resistance,
and let his adversary try to fling him thus.' _Leaf_.]
_Diog_. What was the point of it?
_Cra_. Why, the cousins were of equal age, expected to succeed to each
other's wealth, and behaved accordingly. They published their wills,
each naming the other sole heir in case of his own prior decease. So it
stood in black and white, and they vied with each other in showing that
deference which the relation demands. All the prophets, astrologers,
and Chaldean dream-interpreters alike, and Apollo himself for that
matter, held different views at different times about the winner; the
thousands seemed to incline now to Aristeas's side, now to Moerichus's.
_Diog_. And how did it end? I am quite curious.
_Cra_. They both died on the same day, and the properties passed to
Eunomius and Thrasycles, two relations who had never had a presentiment
of it. They had been crossing from Sicyon to Cirrha, when they were
taken aback by a squall from the north-west, and capsized in
mid-channel.
_Diog_. Cleverly done. Now, when we were alive, we never had such
designs on one another. I never prayed for Antisthenes's death, with a
view to inheriting his staff—though it was an extremely serviceable
one, which he had cut himself from a wild olive; and I do not credit
you, Crates, with ever having had an eye to my succession; it included
the tub, and a wallet with two pints of lupines in it.
_Cra_. Why, no; these things were superfluities to me—and to yourself,
indeed. The real necessities you inherited from Antisthenes, and I from
you; and in those necessities was more grandeur and majesty than in the
Persian Empire.
_Diog_. You allude to—-
_Cra_. Wisdom, independence, truth, frankness, freedom.
_Diog_. To be sure; now I think of it, I did inherit all this from
Antisthenes, and left it to you with some addition.
_Cra_. Others, however, were not interested in such property; no one
paid us the attentions of an expectant heir; they all had their eyes on
gold, instead.
_Diog_. Of course; they had no receptacle for such things as we could
give; luxury had made them so leaky—as full of holes as a worn-out
purse. Put wisdom, frankness, or truth into them, and it would have
dropped out; the bottom of the bag would have let them through, like
the perforated cask into which those poor Danaids are always pouring.
Gold, on the other hand, they could grip with tooth or nail or somehow.
_Cra_. Result: our wealth will still be ours down here; while they will
arrive with no more than one penny, and even that must be left with the
ferryman.