“Oh!  I nearly swallowed a fish-bone, as long and much sharper than a style.  Luckily, I was able to get it out of my throat in time!  The gods love me!”

“Did you say, Drosea, that the gods loved you?” asked Nicias, smiling.  “Then they must share the same infirmities as men.  Love presupposes unhappiness on the part of whoever suffers from it, and is a proof of weakness.  The affection they feel for Drosea is a great proof of the imperfection of the gods.”

At these words Drosea flew into a great rage.

“Nicias, your remarks are foolish and not to the point.  But that is your character—­you never understand what is said, and reply in words devoid of sense.”

Nicias smiled again.

“Talk away, talk away, Drosea.  Whatever you say, we are glad every time you open your mouth.  Your teeth are so pretty!”

At that moment, a grave-looking old man, negligently dressed, walking slowly, with his head high, entered the room, and gazed at the guests quietly.  Cotta made a sign to him to take a place by his side, on the same couch.

“Eucrites,” he said, “you are welcome.  Have you composed a new treatise on philosophy this month?  That would make, if I calculate correctly, the ninety-second that has proceeded from the Nile reed you direct with an Attic hand.”

Eucrites replied, stroking his silver beard—­

“The nightingale was created to sing, and I was created to praise the immortal gods.”

Dorion.  Let us respectfully salute, in Eucrites, the last of the stoics.  Grave and white, he stands in the midst of us like the image of an ancestor.  He is solitary amidst a crowd of men, and the words he utters are not heard.

Eucrites.  You deceive yourself, Dorion.  The philosophy of virtue is not dead.  I have numerous disciples in Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople.  Many of the slaves, and some of the nephews of Caesar, now know how to govern themselves, to live independently, and being unconcerned with all affairs, they enjoy boundless happiness.  Many of them have revived, in their own person, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.  But if it were true that virtue were for ever extinguished upon the earth, in what way would the loss of it affect my happiness, since it did not depend on me whether it existed or perished?  Only fools, Dorion, place their happiness out of their own power.  I desire nothing that the gods do not wish, and I desire all that they do wish.  By that means I render myself like unto them, and share their infallible content.  If virtue perishes, I consent that it should perish, and that consent fills me with joy, as the supreme effort of my reason or my courage.  In all things my wisdom will copy the divine wisdom, and the copy will be more valuable than the model; it will have cost greater care and more work.

Nicias.  I understand.  You put yourself on the same level as divine providence.  But if virtue consists only in effort, Eucrites, and in that intense application by which the disciples of Zeno pretend to render themselves equal to the gods, the frog, which swelled itself out to try and become as big as the ox, accomplished a masterpiece of stoicism.