ight of their whole bodies. But it is
of the marvels of men rather than of nature that I would speak.[38]
For the dwellers in this land are divided into many castes. There is
one whose sole skill lies in tending herds of oxen, whence they are
known as the oxherds. There are others who are cunning in the barter
of merchandise, others who are sturdy warriors in battle and have
skill to fight at long range with arrows or hand to hand with swords.
There is, further, one caste that is especially remarkable. They are
called gymnosophists. At these I marvel most of all. For they are
skilled--not in growing the vine, or grafting fruit-trees, or
ploughing the soil. They know not how to till the fields, or wash
gold, or break horses, or tame bulls, or to clip or feed sheep or
goats. What, then, is their claim to distinction? This: one thing they
know outweighing all they know not. They honour wisdom one and all,
the old that teach and the young that learn. Nor is there aught I more
commend in them than that they hate that their minds should be
sluggish and idle. And so, when the table is set in its place, before
the viands are served, all the youths leave their homes and
professions to flock to the banquet. The masters ask each one of them
what good deed he has performed between the rising of the sun and the
present hour. Thereupon one tells how he has been chosen as arbiter
between two of his fellows, has healed their quarrel, reconciled their
strife, dispelled their suspicions and made them friends instead of
foes. Another tells how he has obeyed some command of his parents,
another relates some discovery that his meditations have brought him
or some new knowledge won from another's exposition. And so with the
rest of them,[39] they tell their story. He who can give no good
reason for joining in the feast is thrust fasting from the doors to go
to his work.

[Footnote 38: _libentius ego_ (MSS.).]

[Footnote 39: _denique ceteri commemorant_ (MSS.).]

_On Alexander and false philosophers._

7. The famous Alexander, by far the noblest of all kings, won the
title of the Great from the deeds that he had done and the empire he
had built, and thus it was secured that the man who had won glory
without peer should never be so much as named without a word of
praise. For he alone since time began, alone of all whereof man's
memory bears record, after he had conquered a world-wide empire such
as none may ever surpass, proved himself