the same things over and over again on palimpsests.[557]

Sec. VI. Let us remind them then first of this, that just as in the case of
wine, which was intended for pleasure and mirth, those who compel people
to drink it neat and in large quantities bring some into a disgusting
condition of drunkenness, so with speech, which is the pleasantest
social tie amongst mankind, those who make a bad and ill-advised use of
it render it unpleasing and unfit for company, paining those whom they
think to gratify, and become a laughing-stock to those who they think
admire them, and objectionable to those who they think love them. As
then he cannot be a favourite of the goddess who with Aphrodite's
charmed girdle[558] repels and drives away those who associate with him,
so he who with his speech bores and disgusts one is without either taste
or refinement.

Sec. VII. Of all other passions and disorders some are dangerous, some
hateful, some ridiculous, but in talkativeness all these elements are
combined. For praters are jeered at for their commonplaces, and hated
when they bring bad news, and run into danger when they reveal secrets.
And so Anacharsis, when he was feasted by Solon and lay down to sleep,
and was observed with his left hand on his private parts, and his right
hand on his mouth, for he thought his tongue needed the stronger
restraint, was right in his opinion. For it would be difficult to find
as many men who have been ruined by venereal excesses as cities and
leading states that have been undone by the utterance of a secret. When
Sulla was besieging Athens, and had no time to waste there, "for he had
other fish to fry,"[559] as Mithridates was ravaging Asia, and the party
of Marius was again in power at Rome, some old men in a barber's shop
happened to observe to one another that the Heptachalcon was not well
guarded, and that their city ran a great risk of being captured at that
point, and some spies who overheard this conversation reported it to
Sulla. And he at once marched up his forces, and about midnight entered
the city with his army, and all but rased it to the ground, and filled
it with slaughter and dead bodies, insomuch that the Ceramicus ran with
blood: and he was thus savage against the Athenians for their words
rather than their deeds, for they had spoken ill of him and his wife
Metella, jumping on to the walls and calling out in a jeering way,

"Sulla is a mulberry bestrewn with barley meal,"

and m