E-text prepared by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/charactersoftheo00theorich THE CHARACTERS OF THEOPHRASTUS A Translation, with Introduction by CHARLES E. BENNETT and WILLIAM A. HAMMOND Professors in Cornell University Longmans, Green, and Co. 91 and 93 Fifth Avenue, New York London and Bombay 1902 Copyright, 1902, by Longmans, Green, and Co. All rights reserved [October, 1902] The University Press Cambridge, U. S. A. _To THOMAS DAY SEYMOUR In Profound Esteem_ _Preface_ This translation of _The Characters_ of Theophrastus is intended not for the narrow circle of classical philologists, but for the larger body of cultivated persons who have an interest in the past. Within the last century only three English translations of _The Characters_ have appeared; one by Howell (London, 1824), another by Isaac Taylor (London, 1836), the third by Professor Jebb (London, 1870). All of these have long been out of print, a fact that seemed to justify the preparation of the present work. The text followed has been, in the main, that of the edition published in 1897 by the _Leipziger Philologische Gesellschaft_. A few coarse passages have been omitted, and occasionally a phrase necessary to the understanding of the context has been inserted. Apart from this the translators have aimed to render the original with as much precision and fidelity as is consistent with English idiom. CHARLES E. BENNETT. WILLIAM A. HAMMOND. ITHACA, N.Y., _August, 1902_. _Contents_ PAGE INTRODUCTION xi EPISTLE DEDICATORY 1 THE DISSEMBLER (I.)[1] 4 THE FLATTERER (II.) 7 THE COWARD (XXV.) 11 THE OVER-ZEALOUS MAN (IV.) 14 THE TACTLESS MAN (XII.) 16 THE SHAMELESS MAN (IX.) 18 THE NEWSMONGER (VIII.) 21 THE MEAN MAN (X.) 24 THE STUPID MAN (XIV.) 27 THE SURLY MAN (XV.) 29 THE SUPERSTITIOUS MAN (XVI.) 31 THE THANKLESS MAN (XVII.) 35 THE SUSPICIOUS MAN (XVIII.) 37 THE DISAGREEABLE MAN (XX.) 39 THE EXQUISITE (XXI.) 41 THE GARRULOUS MAN (III.) 46 THE BORE (VII.) 48 THE ROUGH (VI.) 51 THE AFFABLE MAN (V.) 54 THE IMPUDENT MAN (XI.) 56 THE GROSS MAN (XIX.) 58 THE BOOR (IV.) 60 THE PENURIOUS MAN (XXII.) 63