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THE SOPHISTS : POLEMON AND HERODES ATTICUS

collection of boys from Thrace and Northern Asia and other foreign countries, and do more to corrupt the purity of their own speech than to improve that of their visitors. But the interior of Attica, which has no contact with foreigners, keeps its language untainted, and its speech has the perfect Attic ring.' ` Were you ever at a festival ?' asked Herodes. ` I was at the Delphic festival,' replied Goodfellow, ` but instead of mixing with the crowd I listened from the summit of Parnassus to the musical competitions, when Pammenes gave his wonderful tragic performance, and I thought that the wise Greeks were wrong in listening with delight to the crimes of the houses of Pelops and Labdacus : for fables taken seriously are prompters of horrid acts.' Herodes seeing him in a philosophic mood went on to ask his opinion about the athletic competitions. ` I find men ', said Agathion, ` even more ridiculous, when they are fighting each other in the pancratium, or boxing or running or wrestling, and being crowned for it. Crown a runner who can beat a deer or a horse, or the more serious athlete who wrestles with a bull or a bear, as I do every day, now that fortune has deprived me of my great opponent, since lions are extinct in Acarnania.'
Herodes was impressed and asked him to dinner. ` I will meet you,' he replied,' at the temple of Canopus ; and see that you have the biggest bowl in the temple filled with milk, which a woman has not drawn.' The next day Goodfellow came at the agreed time and putting his nose to the bowl said: ` The milk's not clean : I feel a woman's hand.' With these words he went away without taking a draught at the milk. Herodes noted the remark about the woman and sent to the byre to inquire : finding that it was so, he realized that there was something supernatural about the man.
A charge of murder was brought against Herodes, and this