PRAISE OF MODESTY. even to this day this contest is continued; and the women who contend in it are called Goldbearing. And Theophrastus says that there is also a contest of beauty which takes place among the Eleans, and that the decision is come to with great care and deliberation; and that those who gain the victory receive arms as their prize, which Dionysius of Leuctra says are offered up to Minerva. And he says, too, that the victor is adorned with fillets by his friends, and goes in procession to the temple; and that a crown of myrtle is given to him (at least this is the statement of Myrsilus, in his Historical Paradoxes). "But in some places," says the same Theophrastus, "there are contests between the women in respect of modesty and good management, as there are among the barbarians; and at other places also there are contests about beauty, on the ground that this also is entitled to honour, as for instance, there are in Tenedos and Lesbos. But they say that this is the gift of chance, or of nature; but that the honour paid to modesty ought to be one of a greater degree. For that it is in consequence of modesty that beauty is beautiful; for without modesty it is apt to be subdued by intemperance."
91. Now, when Myrtilus had said all this in a connected statement; and when all were marvelling at his memory, Cynulcus said—
Your multifarious learning I do wonder at—
Though there is not a thing more vain and useless,
says Hippon the Atheist. But the divine Heraclitus also says—"A great variety of information does not usually give wisdom." And Timon said—
There is great ostentation and parade
Of multifarious learning, than which nothing
Can be more vain or useless.
For what is the use of so many names, my good grammarian, which are more calculated to overwhelm the hearers than to do them any good? And if any one were to inquire of you, who they were who were shut up in the wooden horse, you would perhaps be able to tell the names of one or two; and even this you would not do out of the verses of Stesichorus, (for that could hardly be,) but out of the Storming of Troy, by Sacadas the Argive; for he has given a catalogue of a great number of names. Nor indeed could you properly
