Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, that once when a young man said, “If a man who beats his stomach γαστρίζει then a man who slaps his thigh μηρίζει,” he replied, “Do you stick to your διαμηρίζει.” But analogous words do not always indicate analogous facts. Once when he was conversing with a youth, he asked him if he felt; and as he said that he did, “Why is it then,” said Cleanthes, “that I do not feel that you feel?” When Sositheus, the poet, said in the theatre where he was present:— Men whom the folly of Cleanthes urges; He continued in the same attitude; at which the hearers were surprised, and applauded him, but drove Sositheus away. And when he expressed his sorrow for having abused him in this manner, he answered him gently, saying, “That it would be a preposterous thing for Bacchus and Hercules to bear being ridiculed by the poets without any expression of anger, and for him to be indignant at any chance attack.” He used also to say, “That the Peripatetics were in the same condition as lyres, which though they utter sweet notes, do not hear themselves.” And it is said, that when he asserted that, on the principles of Zeno, one could judge of a man’s character by his looks, some witty young men brought him a profligate fellow, having a hardy look from continual exercise in the fields, and requested him to tell them his moral character; and he, having hesitated a little, bade the man depart; and, as he departed, he sneezed, “I have the fellow now,” said Cleanthes, “he is a debauchee.” He said once to a man who was conversing with him by himself, “You are not talking to a bad man.” And when some one reproached him with his old age, he rejoined, “I too wish to depart, but when I perceive myself to be in good health in every respect, and to be able to recite and read, I am content to remain.” They say too, that he used to write down all that he heard from Zeno on oyster shells, and on the shoulder-blades of oxen, from want of money to buy paper with. V. And though he was of this character, and in such circumstances, he became so eminent, that, though Zeno had many other disciples of high reputation, he succeeded him as the president of his School.