ings and
governors of earth begging in Hades, selling salt fish for a living,
it might be, or giving elementary lessons, insulted by any one who met
them, and cuffed like the most worthless of slaves. When I saw Philip
of Macedon,[120] I could not contain myself; some one showed him to me
cobbling old shoes for money in a corner. Many others were to be seen
begging--people like Xerxes, Darius, or Polycrates.

_Philip._ These royal downfalls are extraordinary--almost incredible.
But what of Socrates, Diogenes, and such wise men?

_Menippus._ Socrates still goes about proving everybody wrong, the
same as ever; Palamedes, Odysseus, Nestor, and a few other
conversational shades, keep him company. His legs, by the way, were
still puffy and swollen from the poison. Good Diogenes pitches close
to Sardanapalus, Midas, and other specimens of magnificence. The sound
of their lamentations and better-day memories keeps him in laughter
and spirits; he is generally stretched on his back roaring out a noisy
song which drowns lamentations; it annoys them, and they are looking
out for a new pitch where he may not molest them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 114: Lucian lived under four Roman emperors and possibly
five,--Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, Commodus and
Pertinax. The Fowlers, whose translation is used in these specimens,
regard Lucian as "a linguistic miracle," stating the case as follows:
"A Syrian writes in Greek, and not in the Greek of his own time, but
in that of five or six centuries before, and he does it, if not with
absolute correctness, yet with the easy mastery that we expect from
one in a million of those who write in their mother tongue and takes
place as an immortal classic. The miracle may be repeated; an
English-educated Hindu may produce masterpieces of Elizabethan English
that will rank him with Bacon and Ben Jonson; but it will surprize us
when it does happen."]

[Footnote 115: From "Menippus: A Necromantic Experiment." Translated
by H. W. and F. G. Fowler. Menippus was a Cynic philosopher,
originally a slave, born in Syria. He lived about 60 B.C., and wrote
much, but all his works have been lost.]

[Footnote 116: Ixion, of whom the familiar legend is that he was
punished in the lower world by being chained to an ever-revolving
wheel, was King of the Lapithae. Sisyphus, whose punishment was to roll
a stone up a hill and then see it roll back again, being condemned
perpetually to attempt rollin