superfluous luxury, have made some species of virtue hold its head up. And they have written laws about contracts and other matters of the same kind, and whatever appeared to be necessary for political communion, and also with respect to dress, and to all the other circumstances of life, that they should be similar among all the citizens. And so, as all the lawgivers made war upon every kind of covetousness, then first the praises of justice began to be more thought of: and one of the poets spoke of—
The golden face of justice;
and in another passage some one speaks of—
The golden eye of justice.
And the very name of justice came to be accounted divine, so that in some countries there were altars erected and sacrifices instituted to Justice. And next to this they inculcated a respect for modesty and temperance, and called an excess in enjoyment covetousness; so that a man who obeyed the laws and was influenced by the common conversation of men in general, was necessarily moderate with respect to sensual pleasures."
66. And Duris says, in the twenty-third volume of his History, that in ancient times the nobles had a positive fondness for getting drunk. On which account Homer represents Achilles as reproaching Agamemnon, and saying—
O thou whose senses are all dimm'd with wine,[1]
Thou dog in forehead.
And when he is describing the death of the king, he makes Agamemnon say—
E'en in my mirth, and at the friendly feast,
O'er the full bowl the traitor stabb'd his guest;[2]
pointing out that his death was partly caused by his fondness for drunkenness.
Speusippus also, the relation of Plato, and his successor in his school, was a man very fond of pleasure. At all events Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, in his letter to him blaming him for his fondness for pleasure, reproaches him also for his covetousness, and for his love of Lasthenea the Arcadian, who had been a pupil of Plato.
67. But not only did Aristippus and his followers embrace
