Upon the conclusion of this second discussion I begged that they would also tell us the proper way to deal with a household; ‘for while there are few who are at the helm of a kingdom or a commonwealth, we all play our parts in the hearth and home.’ [Sidenote: 155] At this Aesop said with a laugh: ‘No! not if in “all” you include Anacharsis. He has no home, but actually prides himself on being homeless, and on using a wagon—in the same way as they tell us the sun roams about in a chariot, occupying first one and then another region of the sky.’ ‘Yes,’ retorted Anacharsis, ‘and that is why, unlike any other—or more than any other—god, he is free and independent, ruling all and ruled by none, but always playing the king and holding the reins. You, however, fail to realize the surpassing beauty and marvellous [Sidenote: B] size of his car, otherwise you would not have tried to raise a laugh by jocosely comparing it with ours. It seems to me, Aesop, that to you a home means those coverings of yours made by clay and wood and tiles. You might as well regard a “snail” as meaning the shell instead of the animal. It is therefore natural that you should find cause to laugh at Solon, when he beheld all the costly splendour in the house of Croesus and yet refused to declare off-hand that its possessor was happy and blessed in his home; “for”—he argued—“I am more desirous of looking at the fine things in the man than at those in his house.” It appears, moreover, that you have forgotten your own fox. That animal, when she and the leopard were engaged in a dispute as to which was the more “cunningly marked”, begged the judge to examine her on the inside, inasmuch as she would be found to possess more “marks of cunning” from that point of view. But you go inspecting the productions of carpenters [Sidenote: C] and stone-masons, and regarding those as the “home”, instead of the inward and domestic constituents in the case—the children, wife, friends, and servants. If these have good sense and good morals, a man who shares his best means with them possesses a good and happy home, even if it be but an ant-hill or a bird’s-nest.’ ‘That,’ he continued, ‘is my answer to Aesop and my contribution to Diocles. But it is only fair that each of the others should express his own views.’