[Footnote 3: Diogenes Laertius, ii., 21.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid_ 36.] Crates, the celebrated Cynic philosopher, got such a box on the ear from Nicodromus, the musician, that his face swelled up and became black and blue; whereupon he put a label on his forehead, with the inscription, _Nicodromus fecit_, which brought much disgrace to the fluteplayer who had committed such a piece of brutality upon the man whom all Athens honored as a household god.[1] And in a letter to Melesippus, Diogenes of Sinope tells us that he got a beating from the drunken sons of the Athenians; but he adds that it was a matter of no importance.[2] And Seneca devotes the last few chapters of his _De Constantia_ to a lengthy discussion on insult--_contumelia_; in order to show that a wise man will take no notice of it. In Chapter XIV, he says, _What shall a wise man do, if he is given a blow? What Cato did, when some one struck him on the mouth;--not fire up or avenge the insult, or even return the blow, but simply ignore it_. [Footnote 1: Diogenes Laertius, vi. 87, and Apul: Flor: p. 126.] [Footnote 2: Cf. Casaubon's Note, Diog. Laert., vi. 33.] _Yes_, you say, _but these men were philosophers_.--And you are fools, eh? Precisely. It is clear that the whole code of knightly honor was utterly unknown to the ancients; for the simple reason that they always took a natural and unprejudiced view of human affairs, and did not allow themselves to be influenced by any such vicious and abominable folly. A blow in the face was to them a blow and nothing more, a trivial physical injury; whereas the moderns make a catastrophe out of it, a theme for a tragedy; as, for instance, in the _Cid_ of Corneille, or in a recent German comedy of middle-class life, called _The Power of Circumstance_, which should have been entitled _The Power of Prejudice_. If a member of the National Assembly at Paris got a blow on the ear, it would resound from one end of Europe to the other. The examples which I have given of the way in which such an occurrence would have been treated in classic times may not suit the ideas of _honorable people_; so let me recommend to their notice, as a kind of antidote, the story of Monsieur Desglands in Diderot's masterpiece, _Jacques le fataliste_. It is an excellent specimen of modern knightly honor, which, no doubt, they will find enjoyable and edifying.[1]