53. There is also another imitator of the same wisdom, Pompeianus the Philadelphian; a man not destitute of shrewdness, but still a terrible wordcatcher: and he, conversing with his servant, calling him by name with a loud voice, said--"Strombichides, bring me to the gymnasium those intolerable slippers (he used the word ἀφορήτους, intending it to mean _what he had never worn_) and my useless (he used the word ἄχρηστος, by which he meant _which he had never used_) cloak. For I, as soon as I have bound up my beard, shall address my friends. For I have got some roast fish. And bring me a cruet of oil. For first of all we will be crushed (he used the word συντριβησόμεθον, meaning to say _we will rub ourselves well_), and then we will be utterly destroyed (his word was ἀπολούμεθον, and he meant to say _we will have a bath_)." And this same sophist, in the month of February, as the Romans call it, (and Juba the Mauritanian says that this month has its name[163:1] from the terrors caused by the spirits under the earth, and from the means used to get rid of those fears, at which season the greatest severity of winter occurs, and it is the custom of them to offer libations for many days to those who are dead:) in the month of February, I say, he said to one of his friends--"It is a long time since you have seen me, because of the heat." And when the festival of the Panathenæa was being celebrated, during which the courts of justice do not assemble, he said--"This is the birthday of the virgin goddess Minerva," (but he pronounced the word ἀλέκτορος, as if he had meant _of the cock of Minerva_,) "and this day is unjust," (for he called it ἄδικος, though he meant the word to have the sense of being _a holiday for the courts of law_). And once he called a companion of ours who came back from Delphi without having received an answer from the god, ἄχρηστον, (which never means anything but _useless_, but he used the word for _unanswered_). And once when he was making a public display of his eloquence, and going through a long panegyric on the Queen of cities, he said, Most admirable is the Roman dominion, and ἀνυπόστατος (he meant _irresistible_).[164:1]