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Indiana University Studies 



in being entertained by philosophy which supplies them so richly and 

 abundantly with her doctrines that they can abstain from food for 

 (M. 477) even twice that length of time, and after six days will 

 scarcely taste even of necessary food, being accustomed, as they say 

 the cicadas are,^^ to feed on the air, since their singing, I suppose, 

 assuages their feeling of hunger. 



They consider the seventh day to be a day most holy and to be 

 kept as a festival, and so they have thought it worthy of special 

 honor. On that day, after the care of the soul, they also anoint the 

 body,^*^ giving it complete rest, just as one might to one's cattle, 

 from continuous labor. They eat no costly food, but simple bread, 

 and, as a seasoning, salt, which the most dainty also further season 

 by adding hyssop. Their drink is water from a spring.^^ The mistresses 

 which nature has set over the human race, like hunger and thirst, 

 they appease, offering, however, nothing to them by way of flattery, 

 but only those useful things without which one cannot live. Therefore 

 they eat simply that they may not be hungry, and drink so as not 

 to be thirsty, shunning satiety like an enemy and a conspirator 

 against both soul and body. 



Since there are two sorts of covering, clothing and dwelling, and 

 since we have already spoken of their dwellings, telling how they 

 are unadorned and home-made affairs, built only with a view to use, 

 so we shall speak now of their clothing. It is likewise most in- 

 expensive, serving as a protection against cold and heat, — in winter 

 a thick cloak in place of a shaggy hide, and in summer a sleeveless 



-5 On the cicadas see Plato's Phaedrus 259 C: ''And now they live again 

 in the cicadas, and this is the return which the Muses make to them, — they 

 hunger no more, neither thirst any more, but are always singing from the 

 moment that they are born until they die." Read also the deUghtful Anac- 

 reontic, To the Cicada (H. 32), or the same translated by Thomas Moore, 

 p. 27, No. xxxiv. 



-®The Essenes did not anoint themselves; the Stoics used ointments with 

 moderation. The Jews were careful to avoid oils made by the Greeks. 

 " The region about Alexandria abounded in springs. 



28 Diogenes Laertius says of Socrates (2, 34) : eXeye, rovg fih qAaovc avOpunovg 

 Iv' tad'toiev aijTov eaOtsiv, Iva <^cjV/. 



-^Conybeare sums up the meaning of the passage thus: The Therapeutae 

 scrupled to wear fur or skin as being a dead and hence unclean refuse of animals. 

 Hence like the Essenes, the modern Hindoos, and the ancient Isiaci, they 

 wore linen only. The modern Hindoo loses caste if he wears leather shoes. 

 The new Benares water-works were boycotted by the natives because it was 

 rumored that washers of leather were used in the taps. 



Plutarch De Ehriet. 1, 369 insists on linen as the proper material of a 

 priest's dress. The Therapeutae and the Pythagoreans were scrupulous about 

 the purity of their linen garments. 



