XXX SIMON THE OCULIST NICARCHUS If you have an enemy, Dionysius, call not down upon him Isis nor Harpocrates, nor whatever god strikes men blind, but Simon; and you will know what God and what Simon can do. XXXI SCIENTIFIC SURGERY NICARCHUS Agclaus killed Acestorides while operating; for, "Poor man," he said, "he would have been lame for life." XXXII THE WISE PROPHET LUCILIUS All the astrologers as from one mouth prophesied to my father that his brother would reach a great old age; Hermocleides alone said he was fated to die early; and he said so, when we were mourning over his corpse in-doors. XXXIII SOOTHSAYING NICARCHUS Some one came inquiring of the prophet Olympicus whether he should sail to Rhodes, and how he should have a safe voyage; and the prophet replied, "First have a new ship, and set sail not in winter but in summer; for if you do this you will travel there and back safely, unless a pirate captures you at sea." XXXIV THE ASTROLOGER'S FORECAST AGATHIAS Calligenes the farmer, when he had cast his seed into the land, came to the house of Aristophenes the astrologer, and asked him to tell whether he would have a prosperous summer and abundant plenty of corn. And he, taking the counters and ranging them closely on the board, and crooking his fingers, uttered his reply to Calligenes: "If the cornfield gets sufficient rain, and does not breed a crop of flowering weeds, and frost does not crack the furrows, nor hail flay the heads of the springing blades, and the pricket does not devour the crop, and it sees no other injury of weather or soil, I prophesy you a capital summer, and you will cut the ears successfully: only fear the locusts." XXXV A SCHOOL OF RHETORIC AUTHOR UNKNOWN All hail, seven pupils of Aristides the rhetorician, four walls and three benches. XXXVI CROSS PURPOSES NICARCHUS A deaf man went to law with a deaf man, and the judge was a long way deafer than both. The one claimed that the other owed him five months' rent; and he replied that he had ground his corn by night; then the judge, looking down on them, said, "Why quarrel? she is your mother; keep her between you." XXXVII THE PATENT STOVE NICARCHUS