and love-making—­charges which could not be brought against himself.  He esteems dancers and players “no more than the frogs of the lakes,” and tells a story, that when Cato came into the city of Antioch, seeing all the young men under arms, and the magistrates in their robes, he thought the parade was in his honour.  He blamed his friends for having told them he was coming, and advanced with some hesitation, when the master of the ceremonies came up and asked, “Stranger, how far off is Demetrius?” a man who had been a slave of Pompey, but had become immensely rich.  Cato made no reply, but exclaimed, “O, miserable city!” and departed.

The Misopogon is unique as a mock disparagement of self.  Although written in condemnation of the Antiochians, a vein of pleasantry runs through it, which shows that Julian was not vindictive, and had a considerable gift of humour.  Had he lived to mature age, he would probably have left some brilliant literary work.  But shortly after his visit to Antioch, he led an expedition into Persia, and with his usual disregard of danger, entered the battle without his armour, and was mortally wounded.

We read that the Roman girls were very fond of amusing themselves in their leisure hours by making “scirpi” or riddles.  They do not seem to have indulged much in puns, or to have attempted anything very intricate, but rather to have aimed at testing knowledge and memory.  We have few specimens remaining of their art, but such as we have are of that early kind, which demand some special information for their solutions.  Aulus Gellius has preserved one “old by Hercules,” which turns on the legend that when Tarquinius Superbus was installing Jupiter at the Capitol, all the other gods were ready to leave except Terminus, who being by his character immovable, and having no legs, refused to depart.[31] Two other specimens are found in Virgil’s bucolics:—­

  “Say in what lands grow flowers inscribed with names
   Of kings—­and Phyllis shall be yours alone,”

referring to the hyacinth, on whose petals the word Ajax was supposed to be found.  The responding couplet runs:—­

  “Say, and my great Apollo thou shalt be,
   Where heaven’s span extends but three ells wide;”

the answer to which is not known.

Probably some riddles of an earlier date may be incorporated in the book of Symposius.  Nothing is known of the life of this author, and it has been suggested that the word should be Symposium or the “Banquet”—­these enigmas being supposed to be delivered after dinner.  But most authorities consider Symposius to have lived in the fourth century, although an examination of his prosody might lead us to place him not earlier than the fifth.  Very few of the riddles are really ingenious; among the best we may reckon:—­

  “Letters sustain me—­yet I know them not,
   I live on books, and yet I never read,
   The Muses I’ve devoured and gained no knowledge.”