Greek Texts & Translations

old; but Athenodorus, accepting it as a jest, gave orders to inscribe by the side of it, Thunder for the old. Some one, however, in contempt for his good manners, having a lax state of body, bespattered the gate and wall of his house as he passed by it at night. Athenodorus, in an assembly of the people, accusing persons of being factiously disposed, said, We may perceive the sickly condition of the city, and its bad habit of body, from many circumstances, but particularly from its discharges.

These men were Stoics, but Nestor, of our time, the tutor of Marcellus, son of Octavia, the sister of Caesar, was of the Academic sect. He was also at the head of the government, having succeeded Athenodorus, and continued to be honoured both by the Roman governors and by the citizens. 15

Among the other philosophers, Those whom I know, and could in order name, ^note were Plutiades and Diogenes, who went about from city to city, instituting schools of philosophy as the opportunity occurred. Diogenes, as if inspired by Apollo, composed and rehearsed poems, chiefly of the tragic kind, upon any subject that was proposed. The grammarians of Tarsus, whose writings we have, were Artemidorus and Diodorus. But the best writer of tragedy, among those enumerated in The Pleiad, was Dionysides. Rome is best able to inform us what number of learned men this city has produced, for it is filled with persons from Tarsus and Alexandreia.

Such then is Tarsus. 16

After the Cydnus follows the Pyramus, ^note which flows from Cataonia. We have spoken of it before. Artemidorus says, that from thence to Soli is a voyage in a straight line of 500 stadia. Near the Pyramus is Mallus, ^note situated upon a height; it was founded by Amphilochus, and Mopsus, the son of Apollo, and Mantus, about whom many fables are related. I have mentioned them in speaking of Calchas, and of the contest between Calchas and Mopsus respecting their skill in divination. Some persons, as Sophocles, transfer the scene of this contest to Sicily, which, after the custom of tragic poets, they call Pamphylia, as they call Lycia, Caria, and