hen somebody
kicked him, the patience with which he took the insult surprised
one of his friends. _Do you think_, said Socrates, _that if an ass
happened to kick me, I should resent it_?[3] On another occasion, when
he was asked, _Has not that fellow abused and insulted you? No_, was
his answer, _what he says is not addressed to me_[4] Stobaeus has
preserved a long passage from Musonius, from which we can see how the
ancients treated insults. They knew no other form of satisfaction than
that which the law provided, and wise people despised even this. If a
Greek received a box on the ear, he could get satisfaction by the aid
of the law; as is evident from Plato's _Gorgias_, where Socrates'
opinion may be found. The same thing may be seen in the account given
by Gellius of one Lucius Veratius, who had the audacity to give some
Roman citizens whom he met on the road a box on the ear, without any
provocation whatever; but to avoid any ulterior consequences, he
told a slave to bring a bag of small money, and on the spot paid
the trivial legal penalty to the men whom he had astonished by his
conduct.

[Footnote 1:_litteraires_: par C. Durand. Rouen, 1828.]

[Footnote 2: Bk. IX.].

[Footnote 3: Diogenes Laertius, ii., 21.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_ 36.]

Crates, the celebrated Cynic philosopher, got such a box on the ear
from Nicodromus, the musician, that his face swelled up and became
black and blue; whereupon he put a label on his forehead, with the
inscription, _Nicodromus fecit_, which brought much disgrace to the
fluteplayer who had committed such a piece of brutality upon the man
whom all Athens honored as a household god.[1] And in a letter to
Melesippus, Diogenes of Sinope tells us that he got a beating from the
drunken sons of the Athenians; but he adds that it was a matter of no
importance.[2] And Seneca devotes the last few chapters of his _De
Constantia_ to a lengthy discussion on insult--_contumelia_; in order
to show that a wise man will take no notice of it. In Chapter XIV, he
says, _What shall a wise man do, if he is given a blow? What Cato did,
when some one struck him on the mouth;--not fire up or avenge the
insult, or even return the blow, but simply ignore it_.

[Footnote 1: Diogenes Laertius, vi. 87, and Apul: Flor: p. 126.]

[Footnote 2: Cf. Casaubon's Note, Diog. Laert., vi. 33.]

_Yes_, you say, _but these men were philosophers_.--And you are fools,
eh? Precisely.

It is clear that the whole cod