and are
indignant if they do not get them. And yet even among the gods different
functions are assigned to different personages; thus one is called the
god of war, another the god of oracles, another the god of gain, and
Aphrodite, as she has nothing to do with warlike affairs, is despatched
by Zeus to marriages and bridals.

Sec. XIII. And indeed there are some pursuits which cannot exist together,
but are by their very nature opposed. For example oratory and the study
of the mathematics require ease and leisure; whereas political ability
and the friendship of kings cannot be attained without mixing in affairs
and in public life. Moreover wine and indulgence in meat make the body
indeed strong and vigorous, but blunt the intellect; and though
unremitting attention to making and saving money will heap up wealth,
yet despising and contemning riches is a great help to philosophy. So
that all things are not within any one's power, and we must obey that
saying inscribed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, _Know thyself_,[743]
and adapt ourselves to our natural bent, and not drag and force nature
to some other kind of life or pursuit. "The horse to the chariot, and
the ox to the plough, and swiftly alongside the ship scuds the dolphin,
while he that meditates destruction for the boar must find a staunch
hound."[744] But he that chafes and is grieved that he is not at one and
the same time "a lion reared on the mountains, exulting in his
strength,"[745] and a little Maltese lap-dog[746] reared in the lap of a
rich widow, is out of his senses. And not a whit wiser is he who wishes
to be an Empedocles, or Plato, or Democritus, and write about the world
and the real nature of things, and at the same time to be married like
Euphorion to a rich wife, or to revel and drink with Alexander like
Medius; and is grieved and vexed if he is not also admired for his
wealth like Ismenias, and for his virtue like Epaminondas. But runners
are not discontented because they do not carry off the crowns of
wrestlers, but rejoice and delight in their own crowns. "You are a
citizen of Sparta: see you make the most of her." So too said Solon:

"We will not change our virtue for their wealth,
For virtue never dies, but wealth has wings,
And flies about from one man to another."

And Strato the natural philosopher, when he heard that Menedemus had
many more pupils than he had, said, "Is it wonderful at all that more
wish to wash than to be a