Athens was still the great resort for professors of all sciences, from all countries, and of all characters. The genius of the people insured such visitors a welcome reception. Talk was the Athenian's privilege and his delight. "To tell or to hear some new thing," is St Paul's brief epitome of the life of the Athenian multitude of his day—and contemporary history does but amplify the apostle's report. Nor is it to be supposed that the wisest or the most honest teacher was always the most popular; rather, the boldest and least scrupulous pretenders were perhaps the most sure of an audience. As in your own days, the medicine which is put forward as a cure for all diseases is secure of a wide sale among the vulgar; so the lecturer who professed universal knowledge—and there were plenty of such——did not fail of commending himself to the greedy ears of the Athenian populace. There were men who announced themselves as prepared—for a consideration—to dispute on any imaginable subject of human knowledge, or to reply to any question which curiosity might propose. Especially were those sought after who professed to teach the great secret of beating an opponent in argument, right or wrong; an enviable accomplishment, unfortunately, in the eyes of most intellectual people, but especially of men who took so much part in public life as did the Athenian commons.
To such an extent had this passion for talk in all its forms—whether in propounding the most startling
222. The whole passage, as an illustration of Lucian, well deserves attention.
