Now what Diogenes was in the house of Xeniades numerous pædagogues were doubtless found to be in other parts of Greece. But the majority it is thought were open to blame; and so they are everywhere, and so they would be, though taken from the best classes of mankind. That is, they were men with many failings, far from what could be wished; but that their character upon the whole was respectable seems to me demonstrated by the powers delegated to them by the parents. For not only could they use upon occasion, as we have said, menace and harsh language,—they were even permitted to have recourse to blows, in order to preserve their pupils from vices which none would have sooner taught than they, had their characters been such as is commonly believed. For example, would they have made a drunkard the guardian of a boy’s sobriety? a thief the guardian of his honesty? a libertine of his chastity? a coarse and ribald jester the inculcator of modesty and purity of language?[562] Footnote 562: Cf. Dion. Chrysost. ii. p. 261; i. 299. At home, of course, the influence and example of the parents surpassed all other influences, of the mother more especially, who up to their manhood retained over her sons the greatest authority. Of this a playful illustration occurs in the Lysis of Plato.[563] Socrates, interrogating the youth respecting the course of his studies, inquires archly whether when in the harem he was not as a matter of course permitted to play with his mother’s wool basket, and loom, and spathe, and shuttle? Footnote 563: Opp. t. i. p. 118. The influence of imitation over the gesture, voice, and thoughts of youth is forcibly pointed out in the Republic.—t. vi. p. 124. “If I touched them,” replied Lysis, laughing, “I should soon feel the weight of the shuttle upon my fingers.” “But,” proceeds the philosopher, “if your mother or father require anything to be read or written for them, they, probably, prefer your services to those of any other person?” “No doubt.” “And in this case, as you have been instructed in reading and spelling, they allow you to proceed according to your own knowledge. So likewise, when you play to them on the lyre, they suffer you, as you please, to relax or tighten the chords, to touch them with the fingers, or strike them with the plectron,—do they not?” “Certainly.”