, is a miserable man, if he cannot often say and sing to
himself those lines of Pindar, "To love the slender cypress, and to
leave the Cretan pastures lying near Ida. I have but little land, where
I grow strong, and have nothing to do with sorrow or faction,"[920] or
the ordinances of princes, or public duties in political emergencies, or
state functions hard to get off.

Sec. X. For if that seems a good saying of Callimachus, "Do not measure
wisdom by a Persian rope," much less should we measure happiness by
ropes and parasangs, and if we inhabit an island containing 200 furlongs
only, and not (like Sicily) four days' sail round, ought we to wail and
lament as if we were very unfortunate? For how does plenty of room bring
about an easy life? Have you not heard Tantalus saying in the play,[921]

"I sow a field that takes twelve days to travel round,
The Berecyntian region,"

but shortly after he says,

"My fortunes, that were once as high as heaven,
Now to the ground are fallen, and do say to me,
'Learn not to make too much of earthly things.'"

And Nausithous leaving the spacious Hyperia because of the proximity of
the Cyclopes, and migrating to an island "far from all enterprising
men,"[922] and living an unsocial life,

"Apart from men beside the stormy sea,"[923]

yet contrived to make the life of his citizens very pleasant. And the
Cyclades were first inhabited by the sons of Minos, and afterwards by
the sons of Codrus and Neleus, though foolish people now think they are
punished if they are exiled to them. And yet what island used as a place
of exile is not of larger extent than Scillus, where Xenophon after his
military service saw a comfortable old age?[924] And the Academy, a
small place bought for only 3,000 drachmae,[925] was the domicile of
Plato and Xenocrates and Polemo, who taught and lived there all their
lives, except one day every year, when Xenocrates went to Athens to
grace the festival of Dionysus, so they said, and to see the new plays
exhibited. And Theocritus of Chios twitted Aristotle with loving to live
at the courts of Philip and Alexander, and preferring to dwell at the
mouth of the Borborus to dwelling in the Academy. For there is a river
near Pella that the Macedonians call Borborus. As to islands Homer seems
to sing their praise, and recommend them to us as if on purpose, as

"She came to Lemnos, town of sacred Thoas;"[926]

and,

"What Lesbos has, the seat of