The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children Read Online Free Page A

more than cucumbers and wild honey, while for dinner he considers sea-onions to be the greatest delicacy. But though rather mad in matters of diet, he still suffers significantly from the heat of brilliance, having made great progress in advancing the science of music and constructing marvellous theories regarding the fate of the soul. In any case, he is very eager to learn a thing or two from you Egyptians, so if you could have one of your scribes show him around, it would be most appreciated. I commend him to you my much-missed friend. By the bye: do you have a copy of Athothes’ Workings of the Eye ? I am most eager to get my hands on it.
    Epistle:
     
    Democedes 8 to Polycrates, greetings
 
    I have just received your letter and, though I have many pressing duties, am now taking a moment to reply to one so prestigious as yourself. That you are prone to take chills I am sorry to hear. My best professional advice is to avoid wandering about your apartments with bare feet.
    So, you want me for your personal physician? Well, there is nothing I would like better, provided that we can arrive at a financial arrangement that seems suitable to my position in life. Before arriving at Athens the Aeginetians paid me, at the public’s expense, one talent per annum. Now that I am here, the Athenians pay me a hundred minae. So you might ponder what sort of offer you are willing to make to seduce me from this beautiful and noble city, where I am by no means discontent.
    Epistle:
     
    Polycrates to Democedes, greetings
 
    I will not make you yawn with a long prologue. Come at once, I have aching toes on my left foot. Two talents await you, best of Crotonian physicians.
    Epistle:
     
    Polycrates to Anacreon
 
    Hail, my master
    Are you yet familiar with the works of Hipponax? He, with his limping iambics, is all the rage in Ephesus right now: I have heard that he is quite deformed and his verses speak much about his obviously malicious disposition. Do you know of the Chian sculptors, those sons of Archermus 9 , Athenis and Bupalos? The latter did some wonderful Graces for the Sanctuary of the Vengeance at Smyrna and some others which are at Pergamon in the bridal chamber of Adonis. He is also known for a few temples he has built, many wonderful sculptures of animals and a heavily-draped statue of Fortune with a sphere on her head and one hand holding Amaltheia’s horn. Well, in any case, these two seem to have taken it into their heads to caricature Hipponax, who promptly revenged himself by issuing a series of satires so acrasscent that the brothers have reportedly hung themselves, as Lycambes and his daughters did when assailed by the sharp pen of Archilocus. I have sent Maeandrius out to try and procure me a copy of these verses against Bupalos and Athenis, as I am eager to read them. I cannot deny that his poems have a certain coarseness of thought and feeling, and that his vocabulary is somewhat rude, but I do believe that his originality of expression and metre, his sheer genius, override these faults and that he is not a poet who one needs to make excuses for.
    Epistle:
     
    Heracles, buffoon, to Maeandrius, secretary
 
    Health to you, honoured one, and twice that much health to your master!
    While at the agora at Colophon, and while eating figs, I read your tablet, your advertisement in search of a comedian, and so emboldened, it is to you now I do apply regarding employment under Polycrates, full ready to offer all the secrets of my person for his personal pleasure and ready to demonstrate, both bodily and verbally, my ability at any time convenient for yourself those skills which are in a small part listed below:
    a ) Of humour I have countless succinct and jolly witticisms, most precious, and am often able to live for months on the power of a single joke. I am in possession of twenty more than twelve-hundred Attic jokes and never need have recourse to those from Rhodes. Impromptu, I can make jokes about bald men and then men