A Cynic is next displayed, dirty, morose, ready to bark at everyone. He declares that Hercules is his model and that like Hercules he is a militant reformer, working to clear the world of filth. He declares that he will teach his purchaser to discard luxury, to endure hardship, to drink only water, to throw his money into the sea, to reject all family ties, to live in a tomb or a jar. So he will feel no pain even when flogged and will be happier than the Great King. He will be bold, abusive, savage, shameless. For such a life no education is necessary. The Cynic is sold for two obols. The third called is the Cyrenaic, who appears clad in purple and crowned with a wreath. Hermes announces that his philosophy is the sweetest, indeed thrice blessed. As the Cyrenaic is too drunk to answer questions, Hermes describes his virtues: he is pleasant to live with, congenial to drink with, a companion for amours, and an excellent chef! There was no bid for him! Next two are put up together, the one who laughs and the one who cries. The first explains his laughter on the ground that all men and all their affairs are ridiculous; all things are folly, a mere drift of atoms. The weeper pities men because their lives are foreordained and in them nothing is stable; men themselves are mere pawns in the game of eternity and the gods are only immortal men. No one bids for the pair. An Academic next advertises his wares as a teacher of the art of love, but claims that this love is of the soul, not of the body. He affirms that he lives in a city fashioned by himself, where wives are held in common, fair boys are prizes for valor, and realities are ideas, visible only to the wise. He was bought for two talents. A pupil of the laugher and the drunkard is now offered for sale, namely Epicurus. The mere description of him as more irreverent than his teachers, charming, fond of good eating, sells him for two minas. The sad philosopher of the Porch is now announced by Hermes who proclaims that he is selling virtue itself and that the Stoic is “the only wise man, the only handsome man, the only just man, brave man, king, orator, rich man, lawgiver, and everything else that there is.”[301] His talk about himself is full of hair-splitting dialectics and subtle explanations of why man must devote himself “to the chief natural goods ... wealth, health, and the like”[301] and go through much toil for much learning. In spite of all this he is bought for twenty minas. The Peripatetic is also sold for twenty minas because he knows everything but the Sceptic brings in only one mina because he knows nothing! The auction ends with the announcement by Hermes of another sale the next day of plain men, workmen, tradesmen.