[26] Amphiaraus, the father of Amphilochus, neither slew his own mother, Hypermnestra, nor procured her death. He did, however, procure the death of his wife, Eriphyle, at the hand of her son Alcmaeon; and in this remote sense was a matricide. It must be confessed that a great deal of the peculiar guilt of matricide evaporates in the process of explanation. The reader may prefer to suppose simply that Lucian has made a slip. THE CYNIC _Lycinus. A Cynic_ _Ly._ Give an account of yourself, my man. You wear a beard and let your hair grow; you eschew shirts; you exhibit your skin; your feet are bare; you choose a wandering, outcast, beastly life; unlike other people, you make your own body the object of your severities; you go from place to place sleeping on the hard ground where chance finds you, with the result that your old cloak, neither light nor soft nor gay to begin with, has a plentiful load of filth to carry about with it. Why _is_ it all? _Cy._ It meets my needs. It was easy to come by, and it gives its owner no trouble. It is the cloak for me. Pray tell me, do you not call extravagance a vice? _Ly._ Oh, yes. _Cy._ And economy a virtue? _Ly._ Yes, again. _Cy._ Then, if you find me living economically, and others extravagantly, why blame me instead of them? _Ly._ I do not call your life more economical than other people's; I call it more destitute--destitution and want, that is what it is; you are no better than the poor who beg their daily bread. _Cy._ That brings us to the questions, What is want, and what is sufficiency? Shall we try to find the answers? _Ly._ If you like, yes. _Cy._ A man's sufficiency is that which meets his necessities; will that do? _Ly._ I pass that. _Cy._ And want occurs when the supply falls short of necessity--does not meet the need? _Ly._ Yes. _Cy._ Very well, then, I am not in want; nothing of mine fails to satisfy my need. _Ly._ How do you make that out? _Cy._ Well, consider the purpose of anything we require; the purpose of a house is protection? _Ly._ Yes. _Cy._ Clothing--what is that for? protection too, I think. _Ly._ Yes. _Cy._ But now, pray, what is the purpose of the protection, in turn? the better condition of the protected, I presume. _Ly._ I agree. _Cy._ Then do you think my feet are in worse condition than yours? _Ly._ I cannot say. _Cy._ Oh, yes; look at it this way; what have feet to do? _Ly._ Walk. _Cy._ And do you think my feet walk worse than yours, or than the average man's? _Ly._ Oh, not that, I dare say. _Cy._ Then they are not in worse condition, if they do their work as well. _Ly._ That may be so. _Cy._ So it appears that, as far as feet go, I am in no worse condition than other people. _Ly._ No, I do not think you are. _Cy._ Well, the rest of my body, then? If it is in worse condition, it must be weaker, strength being the virtue of the body. Is mine weaker? _Ly._ Not that I see.