(Now if we were pure soul alone, and our bodies did not hinder us in any respect, it would be well to prescribe one sort of life for priests. But since what he should practise when on duty concerns the individual priest alone, not priests absolutely, what should we concede to a man who has received the office of priest, on occasions when he is not actually engaged in service in the temples? I think that a priest ought to keep himself pure from all contamination, for a night and a day, and then after purifying himself for another night following on the first, with such rites of purification as the sacred laws prescribe, he should under these conditions enter the temple and remain there for as many days as the law commands. (Thirty is the number with us at Rome, but in other places the number varies.) It is proper then, I think, that he should remain throughout all these days in the sacred precincts, devoting himself to philosophy, and that he should not enter a house or a market‐place, or see even a magistrate, except in the precincts, but should concern himself with his service to the god, overseeing and arranging everything in person; and then, when he has completed the term of days, he should retire from his office in favour of another. And when he turns again to the ordinary life of mankind, he may be allowed to visit a friend’s house, and, when invited, to attend a feast, but not on the invitation of all but only of persons of the highest character. And at this time there would be nothing out of the way in his going occasionally to the market‐place and conversing with the governor or the chief magistrate of his tribe, and giving aid, as far as lies in his power, to those who have a good reason for needing it.)