The stupid man computes a sum, sets down the total, and then asks his
neighbor: “How much does it all make?” When he is defendant in a suit
and should go to court, he forgets all about it and puts off to his
farm. When he goes to a play at the theatre he is the only spectator
that is left behind on the benches asleep. He gets up in the night to
go out, after he has gorged himself, and is bitten by the neighbor’s
dog. He takes a thing and puts it away, but when he comes to look for
it he cannot find it. If the death of a friend is announced to him
that he may go to the funeral, with a sorrowful air and tears in his
eyes he says: “Thank God!” When he goes to receive payment of a debt,
he takes witnesses with him. In the winter season he quarrels with his
slave because cucumbers have not been provided. He forces his children
to wrestle and to run until they fall into a fever. When he is roughing
it in the country and himself cooks the vegetables, he puts salt in the
pot twice and so makes the dish impossible. When it rains and others
declare that the sky is darker than pitch, he exclaims: “How sweet it is
to consider the stars!” And if he is asked, what is the mortality of the
city,—how many bodies have passed through the Sacred Gates,—he replies:
“Would that you and I had as many.”
X _The Surly Man_
(Αὐθάδεια)
Surliness is sullen rudeness of speech. The surly man is one who, when
you ask him, “Who is that gentleman?” retorts “Don’t bother me!” and when
you greet him on the street refuses to return your salutation. When he
has anything for sale, he will not tell the purchaser what he charges,
but instead inquires, “How much do I get for it?” When one would show him
some attention and sends him a gift for the holidays, he says he is not
in need of presents.
He accepts no excuse when by accident you smutch his clothes, or push
against him in a crowd, or chance to tread upon his foot. If you ask
for his contribution to some object, he refuses to make one, though
afterwards he may bring it around, declaring, however, that he’s throwing
the money away. Sometimes he stumbles in the street, and then he curses
the stone that tripped him up.
And he’s not a man to tarry many minutes for a friend who has an
appointment with him. Singing, declamation, and dancing are amusements
for which he has no taste; and it’s exactly like him to refuse to join
even in prayer to the gods.
XI _The Superstitious Man_
(Δεισιδαιμονία)
Superstition is a crouching fear of unseen powers. The superstitious man
is the sort of person who begins the day only after he has sprinkled
himself, washed his hands with holy water, and taken a sprig of laurel
in his mouth. If a weasel cross his path, he will not go a step further
until some one else has crossed, or until he has thrown three stones
over the way. If he sees a snake in his house, he prays to Sabazius[12]
(provided it is a copperhead) or, if it be a sacred serpent, he
straightway builds a shrine upon the spot.
As he passes by the consecrated stones at the cross-roads, he pours oil
on them from his flask, falls on his knees, and prays before he goes
further. If a mouse should gnaw through a leather flour-bag, he goes to
the seer and asks what he shall do. If the seer bids him give the bag to
the cobbler to be sewn up, he pays no heed to him, but goes his way and
offers up the bag as a holy sacrifice.
He is given to purifying his house often by religious rites and insists
it is haunted by Hecate. When he takes a walk and hears an owl hoot, he
is terrified and cries out: “Athena! thine is the power!” and so walks
on. He will not step on a grave, nor go up to a corpse, nor to a woman
in confinement, but says it is not well to risk pollution. He orders his
domestics to mull the wine on the fourth and seventh of the month, while
he goes out and buys myrtle, incense, and holy cakes; on his return he
spends the livelong day in crowning the images of Hermaphroditus.
When he has had a vision, he goes to the soothsayer, the seer, or the
augur, to ask to what god or goddess he must pray. He goes to the Orphic
mysteries to be initiated into them. You will be sure to find him amongst
the people who frequent the beach to besprinkle themselves. Every month
he goes there with his wife, or if his wife is busy, then with the nurse
and children.
If he observes any one at the cross-roads crowned with garlic, on his
return he washes himself from head to foot, summons a priestess, and
gives orders to celebrate rites of purification either with an onion or
a small dog. Whenever he sees a madman or an epileptic, he shakes with
terror and spits in his bosom.
[12] A Thracian and Phrygian deity, whose worship was introduced at
Athens in the fifth century. Sabazius represented the active powers of
nature, and hence was often identified with Dionysus.
XII _The Thankless Man_
(Μεμψιμοιρία)
Thanklessness is an improper criticism of what one receives. The
thankless man, when a friend has sent him something from his table,
says to the servant who brings it, “He grudged me a dish of soup and a
cup of wine, I suppose, and so wouldn’t invite me to dinner.” When his
sweetheart kisses him, he says, “I wonder if you really do love me so in
your heart.”
He blames Zeus, not for raining, but for not raining before. When he
picks up a purse in the street, he says, “But I never found a treasure!”
If he secures a slave at a bargain after long dickering with the owner,
he says, “I imagine I haven’t got much at this price.” To the person who
brings the glad tidings that a son is born to him, he retorts, “If you
only add, ‘And half your fortune’s gone,’ you’ll hit it.”
When he wins his case in court and secures a unanimous verdict, he abuses
his attorney for having omitted many points in his brief. When his
friends make him up a purse, and wish him joy, “Why so?” he exclaims.
“Is it because I shall have to pay you all back and be grateful into the
bargain, as though you had done me a favor?”
XIII _The Suspicious Man_
(Ἀπιστία)
Suspicion is a kind of belief that everybody is fraudulent. The
suspicious man is the sort of person who sends a servant to market and
then sends another to watch him and find out the price he pays. When he
carries the money himself, he sits down every hundred yards and counts it
over. After he is in bed he asks his wife whether she locked the chest
and shut the cupboard, and whether the hall-door bolt was pushed well
in. If she answers “Yes!” he gets up, nevertheless, and lights a lamp;
naked and barefoot he goes around and examines everything. Even then he
finds it hard to go to sleep. When he goes to collect interest, he takes
witnesses along, lest his debtors deny the claims. He has his cloak
dyed, not by the best workman, but by the fuller who can furnish good
security. If any one asks the loan of a wine-set, he prefers not to lend
it; but if a member of his family or a near relative wants it, he makes
the loan; yet he scarcely does so until he has had it assayed and weighed
and has received a guarantee for its safe return. He orders his footman
not to fall behind him, but to go in front so that by watching him he
may prevent his running away. If a purchaser has bought goods of him and
says: “Charge the amount to me; I have no time now to send the money,” he
replies: “Do not trouble yourself about it; when you have finished your
business, I will go with you and get my pay.”
XIV _The Disagreeable Man_
(Ἀηδία)
Disagreeableness we may define as a kind of conduct which is annoying,
although it may not be injurious. The disagreeable man will go to a
friend and wake him out of a sound sleep to have a talk with him. He
detains passengers who are on the point of embarking; others who have
come to see him he bids wait until he has taken his walk. He takes the
baby from its nurse, chews its food for it and feeds it, dandles it on
his knee while he cooes to it and calls it “Papa’s little rascal!”
At table he tells the company how he once took hellebore and was
physicked through and through, and how his bile was blacker than the soup
on the table. And he asks before the family: “I say, mammy, what day was
it when you were confined and I was born?” He says he has cool cistern
water at his house and a garden full of tender vegetables; that his cook
is a perfect _chef_, and that his house is a regular hotel, for it is
always full of company, and his guests are like leaky sieves,—do the best
he can, it is impossible to fill them.
When he gives a dinner he exhibits his jester and shows him off before
the company. To enliven his guests over their cups, he says that further
pleasures have been arranged for them.
XV _The Exquisite_
(Μικροφιλοτιμία)
Exquisiteness is a striving for honor in small things. The exquisite when
invited to dinner, is eager to sit by his host. When he cuts off his
son’s hair for an offering to the gods, no place but Delphi will answer
for the ceremony. His attendant must be an Ethiopian.[13] When he pays a
mina[14] of money he makes a point of offering a freshly minted piece. If
he has a pet daw in the house, he must needs buy it a ladder and a brazen
shield, that the daw may learn to climb the ladder carrying the shield.
When he has sacrificed an ox, he winds the head and horns with fillets,
and nails them up opposite the entrance, in order that those who come
in may see what he has been doing. When he parades with the cavalry, he
gives all his accoutrements to his squire to carry home, and throwing
back his mantle stalks proudly about the market-place in his spurs.
When his pet dog dies, he raises a monument to the creature, and has a
pillar erected with the inscription: “Fido, Pure Maltese.”[15] In the
Asclepieion[16] he dedicates a brazen finger,[17] polishes it, crowns it
with flowers, and anoints it every day with oil.
And he has his hair cut frequently. His teeth are always pearly white.
While his old suit is still good, he gets himself a new one; and he
anoints himself with the choicest perfumes.
In the agora he frequents the banker’s counters. If he visits the
gymnasia, he selects those in which the ephebi[18] practise; and, when
there’s a play, the place he chooses in the theatre is close beside the
generals.
He makes few purchases for himself, but sends presents to his friends at
Byzantium, and Spartan dogs to Cyzicus, and Hymettian honey to Rhodes;
and when he does these things, he tells it about the town. Naturally,
his taste runs to pet monkeys, parrots, Sicilian doves, gazelles’
knuckle-bones, Thurian jars, crooked canes from Sparta, hangings
inwrought with Persian figures, a wrestling-ring sprinkled with sand, and
a tennis-court. He goes around and offers this arena to philosophers,
sophists, fighters, and musicians, for their exhibitions; and at the
performances he himself comes in last of all, that the spectators may say
to one another, “That’s the gentleman to whom the place belongs.”
And, of course, when he is a prytanis[19] he demands of his colleagues
the privilege of announcing to the people the result of the sacrifice;
then putting on a fine garment and a garland of flowers, he advances and
says: “O men of Athens, we prytanes have made sacrifice to the mother
of the gods;[20] the sacrifice is fair and good. Receive ye each your
portion.” When he has made this announcement, he returns home and tells
his wife all about it in an ecstasy of joy.[21]
[13] Among the Athenians, Ethiopian slaves were evidently highly prized.
[14] About $18 of our money.
[15] This breed of dogs is still known to dog-fanciers.
[16] The temple of Asclepios (Aesculapius).
[17] Fingers or hands of marble or metal were common among the Athenians
as votive offerings.
[18] Young men between eighteen and twenty years of age, who were in
training for the duties of citizenship.
[19] One of the committee of fifty which, in rotation, were charged with
the administration of affairs at Athens.
[20] Cybele.
[21] A portion of Character XIX has been incorporated here, as belonging
more fitly in this connection.
XVI _The Garrulous Man_
(Ἀδολεσχία)
Garrulity is incessant heedless talk. Your garrulous man is one, for
instance, who sits down beside a stranger, and after recounting the
virtues of his wife tells the dream he had last night, and everything he
ate for supper. Then, if his efforts seem to meet with favor, he goes
on to declare that the present age is sadly degenerate, says wheat is
selling very low, that hosts of strangers are in town, and that since the
Dionysia[22] the weather is good again for shipping; and that, if Zeus
would only send more rain, the crops would be much heavier, and that he’s
proposing to have a farm himself next year; and that life’s a constant
struggle, and that at the Mysteries[23] Damippus set up an enormous
torch;[24] and tells how many columns the Odeon has, and “Yesterday,”
says he, “I had an awful turn with my stomach,” and “What day’s to-day?”
and “In Boëdromion[25] come the Mysteries, and in Pyanopsion[25] the
Apaturia, and in Poseideon[25] the country Dionysia,” and so on; for,
unless you refuse to listen, he never stops.
[22] The festival of Dionysus.
[23] The religious celebration held in honor of Demeter (Ceres).
[24] Ancient works of art often exhibit representations of votive
torches. They are usually depicted as wound with serpents.
[25] Various months of the Attic year.
XVII _The Bore_
(Δαλία)
We may define a bore as a man who cannot refrain from talking. A bore
is the sort of fellow who, the moment you open your mouth, tells you
that your remarks are idle, that he knows all about it, and if you’ll
only listen, you’ll soon find it out. As you attempt to make answer,
he suddenly breaks in with such interruptions as: “Don’t forget what
you were about to say”—“That reminds me”—“What an admirable thing talk
is!”—“But, as I omitted to mention”—“You grasp the idea at once”—“I
was watching this long time to see whether you would come to the same
conclusion as myself.” In phrases like this he’s so fertile that the
person who happens to meet him cannot even open his mouth to speak.
When he has vanquished a few stray victims here and there, his next move
is to advance upon whole companies and put them to flight in the midst
of their occupations. He goes upon the wrestling ground or into the
schools, and prevents the boys from making progress with their lessons,
so incessant is his talk with the teachers and the wrestling-masters.
If you say you are going home, he’s pretty sure to come along and escort
you to your house.
Whenever he learns the day set for the session of the Assembly he
noises it diligently abroad, and recalls Demosthenes’s famous bout with
Aeschines in the archonship of Aristophon. He mentions, too, his own
humble effort on a certain occasion, and the approval which it won among
the people. As he rattles on he launches invectives against the masses,
in such fashion that his audience either becomes oblivious or begins to
doze, or else melts away in the midst of his harangue.
When he’s on a jury he’s an obstacle to reaching a verdict, when he’s
in the theatre he prevents attention to the play; at a feast he hinders
eating, remarking that silence is too much of an effort, that his tongue
is hung in the middle, and that he couldn’t keep still, even though he
should seem a worse chatterer than a magpie; and when he’s made a butt by
his own children, he submits,—when in their desire to go to sleep they
say, “Papa, tell us something, in order that sleep may come.”
XVIII _The Rough_
(Ἀπόνοια)
Roughness is coarse conduct, whether in word or act. The rough takes
an oath lightly and is insensible to insult and ready to give it. In
character he is a sort of town bully, obscene in manner, ready for
anything and everything. He is willing, sober and without a mask, to
dance the vulgar cordax[26] in comic chorus. At a show he goes around
from man to man and collects the pennies, quarrelling with the spectators
who present a pass and therefore insist on seeing the performance free.
He is the sort of man to keep a hostelry,[27] or brothel, or to farm the
taxes. There is no business he considers beneath him, but he is ready
to follow the trade of crier, cook, or gambler. He does not support his
mother, is caught at theft and spends more time in jail than in his home.
He is the type of man who collects a crowd of bystanders and harangues
them in a loud brawling voice; while he is talking, some are going and
others coming, without listening to him; to one part of the moving crowd
he tells the beginning of his story, to another part a sketch of it, and
to another part a mere fragment. He regards a holiday as the fittest time
for the full exhibition of his roughness.
He is a great figure in the courts as plaintiff or defendant. Sometimes
he excuses himself on oath from trial but later he appears with a bundle
of papers in the breast of his cloak, and a file of documents in his
hands. He enjoys the rôle of generalissimo in a band of rowdy loafers; he
lends his followers money and on every shilling collects a penny interest
per day. He visits the bake-shops, the markets for fresh and pickled
fish, collects his tribute from them, and stuffs it in his cheek.
[26] A lewd dance.
[27] Inn-keepers were in ill-repute in antiquity.
XIX _The Affable Man_
(Ἀρέσκεια)
Affability is a sort of demeanor that gives pleasure at the sacrifice of
what is best. The affable man is the kind of person who hails a friend
at a distance, and after he has told him what a fine fellow he is, and
has lavished brimming admiration on him, seizes both his hands, and is
unwilling to let him go. He escorts the friend a step on his way, and as
he asks “When shall we meet again?” tears himself away with praises still
falling from his lips.
When summoned to court he wishes to please not merely the man in whose
interest he appears, but his adversary too, that he may seem to be
non-partisan; and of strangers he says that they pronounce juster
judgment than his townsmen. If he’s invited out to dinner he asks his
host to call in the children, and when they come, he declares they’re as
like their father as one fig is like another, and he draws them toward
him, kisses them, and sets them by his side. Sometimes he joins in their
sports, shouting “Strike!” and “Foul!”; and sometimes he lets them go to
sleep in his lap in spite of the burden.[28]
[28] The remainder of the Greek text of this character has been thought
to belong more properly with “The Exquisite,” No. XV.
XX _The Impudent Man_
(Βδελυρία)
Impudence is easy to define; it is conduct that is obtrusively offensive.
The impudent man is one who, on meeting respectable women in the street,
insults them as he passes. At a play, he claps his hands after all the
rest have stopped, and hisses the players when others wish to watch in
silence. When the theatre is still, he suddenly stands up and disgorges,
to make the audience look around. When the market-place is crowded, he
steps up to the stalls where nuts, myrtle-berries, or fruits are for
sale, and begins to pick at them as he talks to the merchant; he calls
by name people whom he doesn’t know, and stops those intent upon some
errand. When a man has just lost an important case and is now leaving
the court, he runs up and tenders his congratulations.
He buys his own provisions,[29] too, and hires his own musicians,
showing his purchases to every man he meets and inviting him to come and
share the feast. Again, he takes his stand before a barber’s booth or a
perfumer’s stall, and proclaims unblushingly his intention of getting
drunk.
[29] To do one’s own marketing was considered a sign of niggardliness;
hence such business was ordinarily delegated to slaves.
XXI _The Gross Man_
(Δυσχέρεια)
Grossness is such neglect of one’s person as gives offence to others.
The gross man is one who goes about with an eczema, or white eruption,
or diseased nails, and says that these are congenital ailments; for his
father had them, and his grandfather, too, and it would be hard to foist
an outsider upon their family. He’s very apt to have sores on his shins
and bruises on his toes, and to neglect these things so that they grow
worse.
His armpits are hairy like an animal’s for a long distance down his
sides; his teeth are black and decayed. As he eats, he blows his nose
with his fingers. As he talks, he drools, and has no sooner drunk wine
than up it comes. After bathing he uses rancid oil to anoint himself; and
when he goes to the market-place, he wears a thick tunic and a thin outer
garment disfigured with spots of dirt.
When his mother goes to consult the soothsayer, he utters words of evil
omen; and when people pray and offer sacrifices to the gods he lets the
goblet fall, laughing as though he had done something amusing. When
there’s playing on the flute, he alone of the company claps his hands,
singing an accompaniment and upbraiding the musician for stopping so soon.
Often he tries to spit across the table,—only to miss the mark and hit
the butler.
XXII _The Boor_
(Ἀγροικία)
Boorishness is ignorance of good form. The boor is the sort of man who
takes a strong drink and then goes to the Assembly. He insists that myrrh
has not a whit sweeter smell than onions. His boots are too big for his
feet and he talks in a loud voice.
He distrusts even friends and kinsmen, while his most important secrets
are shared with his domestics, and he tells all the news of the Assembly
to his farm hands. Nothing awakens his admiration or startles him on the
streets so much as the sight of an ox, an ass, or a goat, and then he
stands agape in contemplation.[30] He is the sort of man who snatches a
bite from the pantry and drinks his liquor straight.
He has clandestine talks with the cook and helps her grind the meal for
his household. At breakfast he throws bits to the animals about the
table. He answers the knock at the door himself and then whistles for his
dog, takes him by the nose, and says: “Here’s the keeper of my house and
grounds!” When a man offers him a coin he declines it, saying it is too
worn, and takes another piece in its stead.
After loaning a plough, basket, sickle, or sack, he goes after it, unable
to sleep for thinking of it. When he goes to town he inquires of any
chance passer-by: “What are hides selling for? What’s the price of bacon?
Does the celebration of New Moon come to-day?” Then he remarks he must go
down street and have his hair cut, and while in town must also run into
the shop of Archias and buy the bacon. He sings in the public baths and
wears hob-nailed boots.
[30] “Hee is sensible of no calamitie but the burning of a stacke of
corne or the overflowing of a medow, and thinks Noah’s flood the greatest
plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoyl’d the
grasse.” Earle’s _Micro-cosmographie_, “A Plaine Country Fellow.”
XXIII _The Penurious Man_
(Ἀνελευθερία)
Penuriousness is the grudging of expense and is due to great love of
money and little love of honor. The penurious man, after a victory on
the tragic stage, sets up a wooden chaplet to Dionysus, on which he
inscribes his own name. If contributions from the public are asked for,
he is silent or rises and quits the company. When he gives his daughter
in marriage, he sells the sacrificial offerings, excepting the parts that
belong by law to the priests. At the wedding, he employs only servants
who will eat at home.
As trierarch[31] he takes the pilot’s blankets and spreads them on deck
for himself, while he puts his own away. He is the sort of man who keeps
his children from school when a festival comes, and makes excuses for
them on the plea of ill-health, that he may avoid the fee for tuition.
When he goes to market, he brings the meat home with him, carrying the
vegetables in the folds of his cloak. He stays indoors when he sends his
tunic to the cleaner. If he catches sight of a friend coming towards
him and soliciting contributions, he sneaks off through a by-street and
goes home by a roundabout way. He employs no maid for his wife, although
she brought him a dowry, but hires a child from the woman’s market to
accompany her on her errands.
He keeps his patched shoes until they are twice worn out, saying they
are still good, and tough as horn. When he gets up, he dusts the house
and makes the beds, and when he sits down he lays aside the coat he is
wearing in order to spare it.
[31] Commander of a galley.
XXIV _The Pompous Man_
(Ὑπερηφανία)