After talk of this nature on the way we arrived at the house. As we had anointed ourselves, Thales decided not to take a bath, but proceeded to visit and inspect the race-tracks, the wrestling-grounds, and the handsomely decorated park along the shore. Not that he was greatly taken with anything of that kind, but he would not appear to despise or slight Periander’s display [Sidenote: C] of public spirit. The other guests, as soon as each had anointed himself or bathed, were being led by the servants through the cloister into the dining-room. Anacharsis, however, was seated in the cloister, and in front of him stood a girl, who was parting his hair with her hands. Upon her running to meet Thales in the frankest possible manner, he kissed her and said with a laugh, ‘That’s right: make our foreign visitor beautiful, so that he may not frighten us by looking like a savage, when he is really a most civilized person.’ Upon my asking him who the child was, he replied, ‘Don’t you know the wise and far-famed [Sidenote: D] Eumetis? That, by the way, is her father’s name for her, though most people call her Cleobuline, after him.’ ‘I presume,’ said Niloxenus, ‘your compliment refers to the girl’s cleverness in constructing riddles. Some of her puzzles have found their way as far as Egypt.’ ‘Not at all,’ rejoined Thales. ‘Those are merely the dice with which, on occasion, she plays a match for fun in conversation. There is more in her than that: an admirable spirit, a practical intellect, and an amiable character, by which she renders her father’s rule over his fellow country-men more gentle and popular.’ ‘Yes,’ remarked Niloxenus, ‘one [Sidenote: E] can see it by looking at her simplicity and unpretentiousness. But how is it she is attending to Anacharsis so affectionately?’ ‘Because,’ was the answer, ‘he is a man of virtue and learning, and has given her zealous and ungrudging instruction in the Scythian manner of dieting and purging the sick. I should say that at the present moment, while looking after the gentleman so amiably, she is getting some lesson and talking it over.’
As we were just approaching the dining-room, we were met by Alexidemus of Miletus, the natural son of the despot Thrasybulus. [Sidenote: F] He was coming out in a state of excitement and angrily muttering something which conveyed no meaning to us. When he saw Thales he collected himself a little, stopped, and said: ‘Look how we have been insulted by Periander! He would not allow me to take ship home when I was anxious to do so, but begged me to stay for the dinner; and, when I come to it, he assigns me a degrading place at table, and lets Aeolians, islanders, and goodness knows whom, take precedence of Thrasybulus. For since I was commissioned by Thrasybulus, it is evident that, in my person, he means to insult and humiliate [Sidenote: 149] him, by treating him as if he were nobody.’ ‘I see,’ said Thales, ‘what you are afraid of. In Egypt they say of the stars, according to their increase or decrease of altitude in the regions they traverse, that they become ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than themselves. You are afraid that in your own case your place at table may mean a similar loss of brightness and eminence, and you propose to show less spirit than the Lacedaemonian, who, upon being put by the director in the last place in a chorus, remarked, “A capital way of making even this place one of honour.” When we take our places,’ continued Thales, ‘we should not ask who have seats above us, but how we are to make ourselves agreeable to our immediate neighbours. As a means of immediately securing a beginning of friendly feeling on their part, we should cultivate, [Sidenote: B] or rather bring with us, instead of irritation, a tone of satisfaction at being placed in such good company. The man who is annoyed with his place at table is more annoyed with his next neighbour than with his host, and he earns the dislike of both.’ ‘That,’ retorted Alexidemus, ‘is mere talk. In practice I notice that even you sages are greedy for precedence’—and therewith he passed us and went off. Upon our expressing surprise at the man’s peculiar behaviour, Thales said, ‘A crazy person, constitutionally wrong-headed. When he was still a mere lad and a quantity of valuable perfume had been presented to Thrasybulus, he emptied it into a big wine-cooler, poured in some neat wine, and drank it off, thereby bringing ill-odour upon [Sidenote: C] Thrasybulus instead of the contrary.’