esy may bear
some resemblance to the colors in painting, while dancing is like the
lines which mark out the features. And therefore he who was the
most famous writer of Hyporchemes, who here even surpassed himself,
sufficiently proveth that these two arts stand in need of one another he
shows what tendency poetry hath to dancing; whilst the sound excites the
hands and feet, or rather as it were by some cords distends and raiseth
every member of the whole body; so that, whilst such songs are recited
or sung, they cannot be quiet. But nowadays no sort of exercise hath
such bad depraved music applied to it as dancing; and so it suffers that
which Ibyeus as to his own concerns was fearful of, as appears by these
lines,

I fear lest, losing fame amongst the gods,
I shall receive respect from men alone.

For having associated to itself a mean paltry sort of music, and falling
from that divine sort of poetry with which it was formerly acquainted,
it rules now and domineers amongst foolish and inconsiderate spectators,
like a tyrant, it hath subjected nearly all music, but hath lost all its
honor with excellent and wise men.

These, my Sossius Senecio, were almost the last discourses which we had
at Ammonius's house during the festival of the Muses.

END OF FIVE------------

COMMON CONCEPTIONS AGAINST THE STOICS.

LAMPRIAS, DIADUMENUS

LAMPRIAS. You, O Diadumenus, seem not much to care, if any one thinks
that you philosophize against the common notions; since you confess that
you contemn also the senses, from whence the most part of these notions
in a manner proceed, having for their seat and foundation the belief of
such things as appear to us. But I beseech you, with what speed you can,
either by reasons, incantations, or some other manner of discourse, to
cure me, who come to you full, as I seem to myself, of great and strange
perturbations; so much have I been shaken, and into such a perplexity of
mind have I been brought, by certain Stoics, in other things indeed very
good men and my familiar friends, but most bitterly and hostility bent
against the Academy. These, for some few words modestly spoken by me,
have (for I will tell you no lie) rudely and unkindly reprehended me;
angrily censuring and branding the ancient philosophers as Sophists
and corrupters of philosophy, and subverters of regular doctrines; and
saying things yet more absurd than these, they fell at last upon the
conceptions, into