When Midias struck him with his fist and said, “There are three thousand drachmas for you;” the next day Diogenes took the cestus of a boxer and beat him soundly, and said, “There are three thousand drachmas for you.”[59] When Lysias, the drug-seller, asked him whether he thought that there were any Gods: “How,” said he, “can I help thinking so, when I consider you to be hated by them?” but some attribute this reply to Theodorus. Once he saw a man purifying himself by washing, and said to him, “Oh, wretched man, do not you know that as you cannot wash away blunders in grammar by purification, so, too, you can no more efface the errors of a life in that same manner?” He used to say that men were wrong for complaining of fortune; for that they ask of the Gods what appear to be good things, not what are really so. And to those who were alarmed at dreams he said, that they did not regard what they do while they are awake, but make a great fuss about what they fancy they see while they are asleep. Once, at the Olympic games, when the herald proclaimed, “Dioxippus is the conqueror of men;” he said, “He is the conqueror of slaves, I am the conqueror of men.” He was greatly beloved by the Athenians; accordingly, when a youth had broken his cask they beat him, and gave Diogenes another. And Dionysius, the Stoic, says that after the battle of Chæronea he was taken prisoner and brought to Philip; and being asked who he was, replied, “A spy, to spy upon your insatiability.” And Philip marvelled at him and let him go. Once, when Alexander had sent a letter to Athens to Antipater, by the hands of a man named Athlias, he, being present, said, “Athlias from Athlius, by means of Athlias to Athlius.”[60] When Perdiccas threatened that he would put him to death if he did not come to him, he replied, “That is nothing strange, for a scorpion or a tarantula could do as much: you had better threaten me that, if I kept away, you should be very happy.” He used constantly to repeat with emphasis that an easy life had been given to man by the Gods, but that it had been overlaid by their seeking for honey, cheese-cakes, and unguents, and things of that sort. On which account he said to a man, who had his shoes put on by his servant, “You are not thoroughly happy, unless he also wipes your nose for you; and he will do this, if you are crippled in your hands.” On one occasion, when he had seen the hieromnemones[61] leading off one of the stewards who had stolen a goblet, he said, “The great thieves are carrying off the little thief.” At another time, seeing a young man throwing stones at a cross, he said, “Well done, you will be sure to reach the mark.” Once, too, some boys got round him and said, “We are taking care that you do not bite us;” but he said, “Be of good cheer, my boys, a dog does not eat beef.” He saw a man giving himself airs because he was clad in a lion’s skin, and said to him, “Do not go