Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/469

B. vii. c. in. 4. GET^E. 455 In fact, as injustice is ordinarily committed in matters relative to bonds for money and the acquisition of wealth, it would be natural that the people living so frugally on such small property should be called [by Homer] thejust- est of mankind : and the more so as the philosophers who place justice next to moderation, aim at independence of others and frugality as amongst the most desirable objects of attainment ; from which however some, having passed the bounds of moderation, have wandered into a cynical mode of life. 1 But [the words of the poet] sanction no such assertion of the Thracians, and the Getas in particular, that they live without wives. But see what Menander says of these people, not out of his own imagination, as it, should seem, but de- riving it from history. " All the Thracians truly, and especially above all others we Getae, (for I myself glory in being descended from this race,) are not very chaste." And a little after he gives examples of their rage for women. " For there is no one among us who marries fewer than ten or eleven wives, and some have twelve, or even more. 2 If any one loses his life who has only married four or five wives, he is lamented by us as unfor- tunate, and one deprived of the pleasures of Hymen." Such a one would be accounted as unmarried amongst them. These things are likewise confirmed by the evidence of other historians. And it is not likely that the same people should regard as an unhappy life that which is passed without the enjoyment of many women, and at the same time regard as a dignified and holy life that which is passed in celibacy with- out any women. But that those living without wives should be considered holy, and termed Capnobata?, is entirely op- posed to our received opinions ; for all agree in regarding women as the authors of devotion to the gods, and it is they 1 Strabo does not intend by the word Kwiafibq, which he here uses, the profession of a Cynic philosopher, which some of the Stoics affected in consequence of their not thoroughly understanding the dogmas of Zeno, the founder of their sect. It was to these ultra-Stoics that the name of Stoaces [2r6acfcJ was given by way of ridicule. Athenasus, book xiii. chap. 2, remarks that a like propensity to overdo the precept of the teacher led the disciples of Aristippus, who recommended rational plea- sures, to become mere libertines. 2 Heraclides of Pontus, page 215, gives them even as many as thirty wives.