But the chances of lots thrown at a venture introduce fortune into
the several conditions of life in which we are brought up, and which
pre-occupates and perverts our own choice. Now consider whether it is
not irrational to inquire after a cause of those things that are done by
chance. For if the lot seems to be disposed of by design, it ceaseth to
be chance and fortune, and becomes fate and providence.

Whilst Lamprias was speaking, Marcus the grammarian seemed to be
counting to himself, and when he had done, he began thus: Amongst the
souls which Homer mentions in his [Greek omitted], Elpenor's is not to
be reckoned as mixed with those in hell, but, his body being not buried,
as wandering about the banks of the river Styx. Nor is it fit that we
should reckon Tiresias's soul amongst the rest,--

On whom alone, when deep in hell beneath,
Wisdom Proserpina conferred,

to discourse and converse with the living even before he drank the
sacrifice's blood. Therefore, Lamprias, if you subtract these two,
you will find that Ajax was the twentieth that Ulysses saw, and Plato
merrily alludes to that place in Homer's [Greek omitted].

QUESTION VI. WHAT IS SIGNIFIED BY THE FABLE ABOUT THE DEFEAT OF
NEPTUNE? AND ALSO, WHY DO THE ATHENIANS OMIT THE SECOND DAY OF THE MONTH
BOEDROMION?

MENEPHYLUS, HYLAS, LAMPRIAS.

While all were making a disturbance, Menephylus, a Peripatetic
philosopher, addressing Hylas: You see, he said, how this investigation
is no foolery nor insolence. But leave now, my dear fellow, that
obstinate Ajax, whose name is ill-omened, as Sophocles says, and
side with Poseidon, whom you yourself are wont to tell has often been
overcome, once by Athene here, in Delphi by Apollo, in Argos by Here, in
Aegina by Zeus, in Naxos by Bacchus, yet in his misfortunes has always
been mild and amiable. Here at least he shares a temple in common with
Athene, in which there is an altar dedicated to Lethe. And Hylas, as if
he had become better tempered: One thing has escaped you, Menephylus,
that we have given up the second day of September, not on account of the
moon, but because on that day the gods seemed to have contended for the
country. By all means, said Lamprias, by as much as Poseidon was more
civilized than Thrasybulus, since not like him a winner but a loser....

(The rest of this book to Question XIII is lost; with the exception of
the titles that follow, and the fragment of Question XII.)

Q