y be supposed),--had
yet this conveniency and use, to incite the spectators not to luxury and
drunkenness but to mutual love and friendship, persuading them not to
protract a life in itself short and uncertain by a tedious course of
wickedness.

In discourses of this kind we spent our time by the way, and were now
come to the house. Here Thales would not be washed, for he had but a
while before anointed himself; wherefore he took a round to view the
horse-race and the wrestling-place, and the grove upon the water-side,
which was neatly trimmed and beautified by Periander; this he did, not
so much to satisfy his own curiosity (for he seldom or never admired
anything he saw), but that he might not disoblige Periander or seem to
overlook or despise the glory and magnificence of our host. Of the
rest every one, after he had anointed and washed himself, the servants
introduced into a particular room, purposely fitted and prepared for the
men; they were guided thither through a porch, in which Anacharsis sat,
and there was a certain young lady with him combing his hair. This lady
stepping forward to welcome Thales, he kissed her most courteously, and
smiling said: Madam, make our host fair and pleasant, so that, being (as
he is) the mildest man in the world, he may not be fearful and terrible
for us to look on. When I was curious to inquire who this lady was, he
said, Do you not yet know the wise and famous Eumetis? for so her father
calls her, though others call her after her father's name Cleobulina.
Doubtless, saith Niloxenus, they call her by this name to commend her
judgment and wit, and her reach into the more abstruse and recondite
part of learning; for I have myself in Egypt seen and read some problems
first started and discussed by her. Not so, saith Thales, for she plays
with these as with cockal-bones, and deals boldly with all she meets;
she is a person of an admirable understanding, of a shrewd capacious
mind, of a very obliging conversation, and one that prevails upon her
father to govern his subjects with the greatest mildness. How democratic
she is appears, saith Niloxenus, plainly to any that observes her simple
innocent garb. But pray, continues he, wherefore is it that she shows
such affection to Anacharsis? Because, replied Thales, he is a
temperate and learned man, who fully and freely makes known to her those
mysterious ways of dieting and physicing the sick which are now in use
among the Scythians; and