c. 319 BC 2026
This is an AI modernization of Characters into contemporary English. The original is available from Project Gutenberg. Also available as an epub.
Theophrastus came from Eresus, on the island of Lesbos, studied under Aristotle, and took over the Lyceum when Aristotle left Athens in 322 BC. He ran it for the rest of his life. Most of his work is scientific — the two surviving books on plants are the foundation of botany, and he also wrote on stones, on fire, on winds, on smells, and on why people sweat. The Characters, usually dated around 319 BC, is the one book of his that anybody reads for pleasure.
It is thirty short comic sketches of types of annoying men. Each one opens with a mock-solemn definition and then piles up specific behaviour until the man is completely visible: the flatterer, the coward, the bore, the man who is proud of being cheap, the man who has heard some news, the superstitious man whose day is governed by omens, the man who says the wrong thing at every possible moment. The engine is accumulation. Nothing is explained, nothing is moralized, and each sketch simply stops when it has done enough damage.
The details are Athenian and have been kept that way — the marketplace, the baths, the sacrifices, the lawsuits, the theatre, the dinner parties, the slaves. The people are not. The coward who discovers he has forgotten his sword, smears himself with somebody else's blood and comes back announcing that he saved a comrade is a man anyone would recognize. So is the flatterer picking lint off his patron's cloak. That gap, between an ancient world and a wholly familiar person inside it, is most of the comedy, which is why the examples were not transplanted to an office.
Everything after it in this line descends from it. La Bruyère translated the book into French in 1688, published his own imitations alongside, and made his reputation on them, and the character sketch has been standard equipment for satirists ever since.
It is the shortest and the easiest book of the three that run together here: Plato's Dialogues, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and this. Read a few sketches and put it down; it does not build to anything. The short dedication at the front, in which the author says he is ninety-nine years old, was very likely written by somebody else and added later, but it has been printed with the book for a long time and it is printed here.
I have stopped to wonder about this many times, and I expect I'll never stop: why is it that we Greeks don't all turn out the same? We share one climate from end to end of the country, and our people get the same education — and yet our characters could hardly be more different. I've been studying human nature a long time, my dear Polycles. I have lived ninety-nine years, I've talked with people of every possible temperament, and I've taken great pains to observe the good ones and the bad ones side by side. So it seemed to me I ought to set down in writing how people actually live and behave. I'm going to describe their characters, type by type, and show you the weakness that runs each man. I'd like to think, Polycles, that our children will be better for it. If we leave them portraits like these to study — patterns of good and bad laid out plainly — they'll choose, I believe, to spend their lives in the company of the best sort of people, and try to live up to that standard themselves. So, to work. Your job is to follow along and judge whether I've got it right. I'll begin the book with the Phony, skipping any preface and any fuss about the word itself. First I'll lay down a definition of phoniness, and then, with that in view, I'll draw the phony himself — how he acts, how he lives, trait by trait, as clearly as I can manage.
Phoniness is, in essence, an act — in word or deed — put on to make things look other than they are. The phony is the sort of man who walks right up to his enemies and chats away pleasantly, just to show there are no hard feelings. He praises people to their faces and trashes them behind their backs — and when they lose a lawsuit, he tells them how terribly sorry he is. When people bad-mouth him, or the criticism gets loud, he's all forgiveness.
When someone has been treated badly enough to have every right to be furious, the phony's comments on the outrage are carefully, studiously neutral. And when a man is anxious for a word with him, he tells him to come back another time — he's only just gotten home, or the hour is late, or honestly, his health won't stand the strain today.
He never admits he's doing anything. At most, he's "considering it." When a friend wants a loan, or asks him to chip in for something, he sighs, "Business is dreadfully slow" — though when business really is slow, he reports it booming. Has he heard the news? He hasn't heard a thing. Did he see what happened? He didn't see it — or fine, he saw it, but he can't for the life of him recall it. One matter he says he'll look into; another he knows nothing about; a third leaves him amazed; a fourth — well, he'd already thought of that himself, actually. In short, he is a master of phrases like these: "I can't believe it." "I don't follow you." "I'm stunned." "To hear you tell it, the fellow has become a different man." "That is certainly not what he told me." "The whole thing sounds unlikely." "Go tell that one to somebody gullible." "I honestly don't know whether to doubt your story or condemn my friend." "Just be careful you're not too quick to believe things."
Sucking up is, in essence, degrading behavior that happens to pay off for the man doing it. The suck-up is the sort of man who, strolling along with his patron, cries: "Look at how people stare at you! There isn't a man in the city who gets the attention you do. Yesterday you were the talk of the Porch — the colonnade where the men of leisure gather. More than thirty of them were sitting there when the question came up, 'Who is our finest citizen?' They started with your name and they ended with it." While he's carrying on in this vein, he picks a speck of lint from the great man's cloak; if the wind has lodged a bit of straw in his hair, he plucks it out with a laugh and says, "See that? Two days away from me and your beard is going gray — though if any man has a beard that's black for his years, it's you."
When the patron speaks, the suck-up shushes everyone else. He praises him where he's sure to overhear, and when the great man finishes a speech, he cues the applause with a "Bravo!" If the patron makes a stale joke, the suck-up howls with laughter and stuffs his sleeve in his mouth, as if he simply cannot contain himself.
If they meet people in the street, he asks them to kindly wait until the master has passed. He buys apples and pears, carries them to the great man's house, and hands them out to the children — and with the father watching, he kisses them and exclaims, "Chips off a magnificent block!" When the patron buys a pair of shoes, he observes, "The foot is finer than the boot." When the patron calls on a friend, the suck-up trots on ahead announcing, "You are about to have the honor of his visit," then doubles back with, "I have announced you." And of course he can run the errands at the market in the blink of an eye.
At a banquet he's the first to praise the wine, and after doing it ample justice he declares, "What a table you keep!" He picks up a morsel from the board and exclaims, "Now this — this is delicious!" Then he asks his friend whether he's chilly — would he like a wrap over his shoulders? Shall he throw one around him? — and with these words he's already bending over, whispering in his ear. While his talk is aimed at the rest of the company, his eye never leaves his patron. At the theatre he takes the cushions from the slave-boy and arranges them for the master's comfort with his own hands. Of the great man's house he says, "It is beautifully built." Of his farm: "It is beautifully kept." Of his portrait: "It's the man himself."
Cowardice is, in essence, a certain shrinking of the heart. The coward is the sort of man who, sailing along, decides the cliffs in the distance are pirate ships. If the waves run high, he asks whether anyone in the ship's company has skipped his initiation into the mysteries — because that's exactly the kind of thing the gods sink a ship over. He leans over to the helmsman and inquires whether he intends to keep to the open sea, and what he makes of the weather; he confides to the man next to him that he's terrified on account of a dream he had; he pulls off his tunic and hands it to his slave; and finally he begs to be set ashore.
On campaign, when the infantry marches out, he calls his comrades to stand by him and keep a sharp lookout first — it's important, he says, to establish whether that thing out there is the enemy or not. When he hears the noise of battle and sees men falling, he tells the men around him that in his hurry he forgot to bring his sword. He runs back to his tent, sends his servant outside with orders to scout where the enemy is, hides the sword under his pillow, and then wastes a long time pretending to hunt for it. While he's in the tent, he sees a wounded comrade being carried in from the field — and now he springs into action. He runs out, cries "Cheer up, man!", lends a hand with the stretcher, and stays to nurse the sufferer: washing his wounds, sitting at his side, shooing the flies away — anything, anything but fight the enemy.
When the trumpeter sounds the signal for a fresh assault, he sits in the tent and grumbles, "Oh, plague take him! The poor fellow can't get a wink of sleep with that eternal bugling." Then, smearing himself with blood from the other man's wound, he goes out to meet the troops returning from battle, and — looking every inch the man just back from the thick of it — announces, "I've saved a comrade!" And then he brings his neighbors and clansmen into the tent for a viewing, and assures each one of them, individually, that he carried the wounded man in with his own two hands.
Overhelping is, in essence, an excess of word and deed — well intended, of course. The overhelper is the sort of man who stands up in public and promises things he cannot possibly deliver. When a point is so clear that nobody doubts it, he raises an objection — and gets refuted.
At a banquet, he makes the servants mix more wine than the guests can possibly drink. He sees two men brawling and rushes in to separate them, though he doesn't know either one. He leads his friends off the main road onto a shortcut, and presently cannot find the way. He marches up to the commander and asks when he plans to draw up the troops for battle, and what his orders will be for the day after tomorrow.
He goes and informs his father that his mother is already asleep in her room. When the doctor orders that a patient get no wine, he administers "just a little" — he only wants to set the poor fellow right. And when a woman dies, he has the tombstone carved with her husband's name, her father's, her mother's, her own name and birthplace — and underneath adds: "Fine people, every one of them." When he takes the oath in court, he turns to the bystanders and remarks, "Not my first time, you know."
Tactlessness is, in essence, a gift for choosing exactly the moment most painful to everyone involved. The tactless man is the sort of man who picks a man's busiest hour to come confer with him. He serenades his sweetheart when she's down with a fever. When an acquaintance has just forfeited bail-money on a friend, he hunts him up and asks him to stand surety. He shows up at the trial to give his evidence — after the verdict has been delivered. As a guest at a wedding, he holds forth against the whole female sex.
When a friend has just come home from a long journey, he invites him out for a walk. He has a talent for producing a higher bidder after the item has already been sold. In a circle of companions he stands up and explains, from the very beginning, a story everyone has just heard and perfectly understood. He is eager — positively eager — to take on the chore that nobody wants done and nobody can politely refuse.
When men are in the middle of a religious offering, money flowing out of their purses, he arrives to collect his interest. Standing by while a slave is being flogged, he tells the story of how he once flogged a slave of his own — who went off and hanged himself. When he serves as arbitrator, he sets the two sides at each other's throats again just as they're ready to settle. And when he wants to dance, he grabs a partner who isn't drunk enough yet.
Mooching is, in essence, contempt for decency in pursuit of something grubby. The moocher is the sort of man who robs a man and then comes back to borrow money from him. He sacrifices a victim to the gods — then, instead of making his supper from it, he salts the meat away for later and goes and dines at a friend's house. There he calls a servant over, helps himself to bread and meat straight off the table, and says, in a voice all can hear: "Try that, Tibios!"
When he goes to market, he reminds the butcher of all the business he's brought him over the years, and as he stands by the scales he slips an extra cut onto the pile if he can — or, failing that, a soup-bone. If he gets away with it, he's satisfied. If not, he snatches a piece of tripe off the bench and makes off with it, laughing. He buys theatre seats for friends visiting town, goes along to the show, and never pays his own share — and the next day you'll find him back with his children, and their tutor too.
Whenever anyone lands a bargain of any kind, he demands a cut. He goes around to the neighbors borrowing barley — sometimes even bran — and then actually makes the lenders deliver it to his house. And his favorite trick: he marches up to the tubs in a private bath-house, draws himself a bucket of warm water, and dumps it over his own head while the attendant shouts in protest — and on his way out he calls back, "That's a good bath. No thanks to you!"
Rumormongering is, in essence, the manufacture of false reports of what people are saying and doing, exactly as the gossip pleases. The rumormonger is the sort of man who spots a friend, strikes a pose, breaks into a knowing smile, and fires off: "Where have you been? What's the news? How do things stand? Any fresh word about it?" — and, pressing right on, "No later report? Well! The current rumors are certainly good."
And without giving his friend a chance to answer, he keeps rolling: "What! You haven't heard a word? Then I have a feast of news for you." He always has a source ready: some soldier nobody's ever heard of, or a slave of Asteus the piper, or Lycon the contractor — an obscure fellow, just back from the battlefield. The authorities behind his reports are always precisely the kind you can never track down. But these are the men he quotes when he tells you how Polyperchon and the king carried the day, and Cassander — the strongman of the hour — has been taken prisoner.
If anybody asks, "Do you actually believe this?" he answers: "Believe it! The story is all over the city. It's gaining ground by the hour. Everyone is of one mind — every single person agrees about the battle. It must have been an absolute slaughterhouse." He finds proof, too, in the faces of the men in power: haven't they all got a changed look about them? He says he's overheard that a man arrived from Macedonia who knows the whole history of the battle — the authorities have had him hidden away in a house for five days now. And the pathos in his voice as he tells it — you can just imagine: "Luckless Cassander! Ill-starred hero! There's the fickleness of fortune for you. All that power, and for what? But — this stays strictly between ourselves." Then he trots off and repeats the whole thing to every man in town.
Penny-pinching is, in essence, an unhealthy sparing of expense. The penny-pincher is the sort of man who shows up at a man's door to demand his half-penny of interest before the month is even out. At dinner he counts how many cups each guest drinks, and of the whole company he pours the smallest offering to Artemis.
When a friend picks up something cheap, he totals the price aloud and declares it beggars a man. If a servant breaks a pot or a plate, he deducts the cost from the man's rations. If his wife drops a three-farthing coin — the smallest there is — he moves the furniture, the beds, the cupboards, and hunts between the floorboards. When he has something to sell, he sets the price so high that the buyer gets no bargain at all. He lets no one eat a fig from his garden, or cross his field, or pick up so much as a fallen olive or date. He inspects his boundary-stones every single day to make sure nobody has moved them.
He is always ready, the instant a debt goes unpaid, to seize the collateral and pile on compound interest. When he hosts a banquet for his fellow townsmen, he carves the meat into tiny pieces and sets one small portion before each guest. He goes to market — and buys nothing. He forbids his wife to lend out salt, or a lamp-wick, or a pinch of cumin, or marjoram, or meal, or a ribbon, or a sacrificial wafer — because, he observes, these trifles add up to real money over the course of a year.
In a word: the penny-pincher's money chest is moldy from staying shut and the key is rusty. His cloak is cut too skimpy to reach his thigh. He oils himself from a stingy little jar, wears his hair cropped to the scalp, and goes barefoot until midday to save the boots. And he stands over the fuller and insists on plenty of earth in the wash, so the coat won't get dirty again too soon.
Dimwittedness is, in essence, a sluggishness of the soul in everything a man says and does. The dimwit is the sort of man who works out a sum, writes down the total, and then turns to his neighbor and asks: "So how much does it all come to?" When he's the defendant in a lawsuit and due in court, he forgets all about it and heads out to his farm. At the theatre he's the one spectator left behind on the benches, asleep. After stuffing himself at dinner, he gets up in the night to go out — and gets bitten by the neighbor's dog. He takes a thing and puts it away carefully, then can't find it when he looks. When a friend's death is announced to him so that he can attend the funeral, his face falls, tears come to his eyes, and he says: "Well, thank goodness for that!" When he goes to collect money owed him, he brings witnesses along. In the middle of winter he scolds his slave for not buying cucumbers. He drills his children at wrestling and running until they collapse with fever. Roughing it in the country and cooking the vegetables himself, he salts the pot twice and makes the dish inedible. When it's pouring rain and everyone else remarks that the sky is blacker than pitch, he sighs: "How sweet it is to gaze at the stars!" And when someone asks him how many dead have been carried out through the Sacred Gates — the gate to the burying-ground — he answers: "May you and I have as many."
Grouchiness is, in essence, sullen rudeness of speech. The grouch is the sort of man who, when you ask him "Who is that gentleman?", snaps back, "Don't bother me." When you greet him in the street, he doesn't return it. When he has something to sell, he won't tell the buyer what he's charging — he demands, "What am I offered?" When people show him a kindness and send him a gift for the holidays, he announces that he has no need of presents.
He accepts no excuse if you accidentally smudge his cloak, or bump him in a crowd, or happen to tread on his foot. Ask him to contribute to some cause and he refuses — though later he may come around with the money after all, declaring, as he hands it over, that he's throwing it away. When he stumbles in the street, he curses the stone that tripped him.
He is not a man to wait around long for a friend, appointment or no appointment. Singing, recitation, dancing — he has no taste for any of it. And it is exactly like him to refuse to join even in a prayer to the gods.
Superstition is, in essence, a crouching fear of unseen powers. The superstitious man is the sort of man who won't start his day until he has sprinkled himself, washed his hands in holy water, and put a sprig of laurel in his mouth. If a weasel crosses his path, he stops dead — he will not take another step until someone else has gone across first, or until he has thrown three stones over the spot. If he finds a snake in his house, he prays to Sabazius (if it's a copperhead); if it's one of the sacred serpents, he builds a shrine on the spot, right then and there.
When he passes the consecrated stones at the crossroads, he pours oil on them from his flask, drops to his knees, and prays before he'll go on. If a mouse gnaws a hole in a flour sack, he goes to the seer to ask what he should do — and if the seer says "give it to the cobbler and have it stitched," he ignores him, goes home, and offers the sack up as a sacrifice instead.
He is forever purifying his house, insisting that Hecate has been haunting it. If an owl hoots while he's out walking, he freezes, cries "Athena! Great is your power!" — and only then walks on. He won't step on a grave, or go near a corpse, or visit a new mother; better, he says, not to risk the pollution. On the fourth and seventh of every month he has his household mull wine while he goes out to buy myrtle, incense, and holy cakes; then he comes home and spends the entire day crowning the statues of Hermaphroditus.
Whenever he has a dream, off he goes to the dream-reader, the seer, or the bird-diviner, to ask which god or goddess he ought to be praying to. He gets himself initiated into the Orphic mysteries. You will always find him among the crowd at the beach, sprinkling himself with seawater — every month, with his wife, or if his wife is busy, with the nurse and the children.
If he spots someone at the crossroads wearing a crown of garlic, he goes home and washes from head to foot, then summons a priestess and orders a full purification — with an onion, or a small dog. And if he sees a madman or an epileptic, he shudders, and spits into the fold of his robe.
Ingratitude is, in essence, complaining about what you're given. The Ingrate is the sort of man who, when a friend sends him something from his own table, says to the servant who delivers it, "Couldn't spare me a bowl of soup and a cup of wine, I suppose — that's why I wasn't invited to dinner." When his sweetheart kisses him, he says, "I wonder whether you actually love me, deep down."
He blames Zeus — not for the rain, but for not sending it sooner. If he finds a purse in the street: "Well, it's no treasure." If he haggles a slave down to a bargain price after wearing the seller out: "I can't have gotten much of anything, at that price." To the man who runs up with the glad news that his son has been born, he answers, "Add 'and half your fortune is gone' and you'll have it exactly right."
When he wins his lawsuit — with a unanimous verdict — he chews out his attorney for leaving arguments out of the brief. And when his friends take up a collection for him and wish him joy of it, he says, "Joy? Why? Because I'll have to pay every one of you back — and be grateful on top of it, as if you'd done me a favor?"
Paranoia is, in essence, the belief that everyone is cheating you. The Paranoid is the sort of man who sends a servant to market — and then sends a second servant to follow the first and find out what he really paid. He carries his own money and sits down every hundred yards to count it again. After he is in bed, he asks his wife whether she locked the chest, whether the cupboard is shut, whether the bolt on the front door is pushed all the way in — and when she says "Yes," he gets up anyway, lights a lamp, and pads around naked and barefoot inspecting everything. Even then he barely sleeps.
When he goes to collect interest, he brings witnesses, in case his debtors decide to deny the whole thing. He takes his cloak to be dyed not by the best workman but by the fuller who can post good security. When a neighbor asks to borrow drinking cups, he'd rather not lend at all; if it's family, or a close relative, he'll do it — but only after the set has been assayed and weighed, and someone has guaranteed its safe return. He orders his footman to walk in front of him, not behind, so he can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't bolt. And when a buyer says, "Charge it to my account — I haven't time to send the money now," he answers, "Oh, don't trouble yourself. When you've finished your business, I'll come along with you and pick it up."
Being a nuisance is, in essence, behavior that annoys without actually doing harm. The Nuisance is the sort of man who wakes a friend out of a sound sleep — to chat. He detains travelers who are just about to board their ship. When visitors call, he asks them to wait until he's finished his walk. He takes the baby from its nurse, chews its food for it, feeds it himself, dandles it on his knee, and coos, "Who's Papa's little rascal?"
At the table he tells the company about the time he took hellebore and got purged from both ends — "and my bile," he says, "was blacker than this soup here." He'll ask, in front of the whole family, "Say, Mama — what day was it, when you were in labor and I was born?" He mentions that the water in his cistern is beautifully cool, that his garden is full of tender vegetables, that his cook is a genuine artist, and that his house is a regular hotel — always full of guests, and the guests are like leaky sieves: fill them as he may, he simply cannot fill them up.
And when he gives a dinner, he trots out his jester and shows him off. Then, to warm up his guests over the wine, he announces that further entertainments have been arranged.
Status-seeking is, in essence, hunger for honor in small things. The Status-Seeker is the sort of man who, invited to dinner, maneuvers to sit right next to the host. When he cuts his son's hair for the offering to the gods, nowhere but Delphi will do for the ceremony. His attendant must be an Ethiopian. When he pays out a mina, he makes sure it's in freshly minted coin. If he keeps a pet jackdaw, he buys it a little ladder and a little bronze shield, so the jackdaw can learn to climb the ladder carrying the shield.
When he has sacrificed an ox, he winds the skull and horns with ribbons and nails them up opposite his front door, so that everyone who comes in can see what he has been up to. When he rides in the cavalry parade, he hands all his gear to his squire to carry home — and then, cloak thrown back, stalks around the marketplace in his spurs. When his lapdog dies, he puts up a monument, with a little pillar inscribed: "Fido. Pure Maltese." In the temple of Asclepius he dedicates a bronze finger — and polishes it, crowns it with flowers, and anoints it with oil, every single day.
Naturally he keeps his hair freshly cut, his teeth gleaming white; he replaces his suit while the old one is still perfectly good, and he oils himself with the choicest perfumes.
In the market square he hangs around the bankers' tables. At the gymnasia, he picks the ones where the young men train. At the theater, he sits next to the generals.
He buys little for himself — but he sends presents to friends in Byzantium, Spartan hounds to Cyzicus, Hymettus honey to Rhodes; and he makes sure the whole town hears about it. His tastes run to pet monkeys, parrots, Sicilian doves, gazelle knucklebones, jars from Thurii, crooked walking-sticks from Sparta, tapestries woven with Persian figures, a private wrestling-ring with fresh sand — and a ball court. This arena he goes around offering to philosophers, sophists, fencers, and musicians for their exhibitions; and at the performances he himself arrives last of all, so the spectators will murmur to one another, "That's him — the owner."
And of course, when he serves his turn on the city's presiding board, he demands from his colleagues the privilege of announcing the sacrifice — then steps forward in a fine robe and a garland and declaims: "Men of Athens! We, your officers, have sacrificed to the Mother of the Gods; the omens are fair and good; receive now, each of you, your portion." Announcement made, he goes home and tells his wife the whole story — in a transport of joy.
Chatter is, in essence, an unstoppable flow of unconsidered talk. The Chatterbox is the sort of man who sits down next to a total stranger and opens with a tribute to the virtues of his own wife; continues with the dream he had last night; then works through everything he ate for supper. If the campaign seems to be going well, he presses on: the present age is sadly degenerate; wheat is selling cheap; the town is full of foreigners; since the Dionysia the shipping weather has turned fine; if Zeus would just send a little more rain, the crops would come in heavier; he's thinking of taking up farming himself next year; life is a constant struggle; Damippus set up an enormous torch at the Mysteries; the Odeon has — how many columns is it?; "Yesterday my stomach gave me an awful turn"; "What day is it today?"; and the Mysteries come in Boëdromion, the Apaturia in Pyanopsion, the country Dionysia in Poseideon — and so on, and on, and on. Unless you simply walk away, he never stops.
Windbaggery is, in essence, the inability to stop talking. The Windbag is the sort of man who, the moment you open your mouth, informs you that your remarks are pointless, that he knows all about the matter, and that if you'll just listen, you'll soon understand it too. As you try to answer, he breaks in: "Don't forget what you were about to say" — "That reminds me" — "What a fine thing conversation is!" — "But as I neglected to mention" — "You grasp the point at once" — "I was watching all this time to see whether you'd arrive at my conclusion." He has so many phrases like this in stock that the man who runs into him can't even get his mouth open.
When he has crushed a few stray victims one at a time, he advances on whole companies and scatters them in the middle of whatever they're doing. He marches into the wrestling grounds and the schools and stops the boys' lessons cold — that's how relentlessly he talks at the teachers and the trainers.
Say you're heading home, and he'll walk you to your door.
When he finds out when the Assembly meets, he broadcasts it everywhere, and commemorates Demosthenes' famous debate with Aeschines in the archonship of Aristophon — and mentions, too, a modest speech of his own from years back, and how well the people received it. As he rattles on he works in denunciations of the masses, until his listeners lose the thread, or start to doze, or simply drift away mid-harangue.
On a jury, he obstructs the verdict; at the theater, he blocks out the play; at dinner, he prevents eating. He remarks that keeping quiet is real work for him, that his tongue is hung in the middle and swings at both ends, and that he couldn't be silent if it made him look more talkative than a magpie. And when his own children make fun of him, he takes it — even when, wanting to fall asleep, they say: "Papa, talk to us a little, so the sleep will come."
Loutishness is, in essence, coarseness in word and deed. The Lout swears casually, can't be insulted, and insults freely. In character he's the town bully: obscene, up for anything and everything, willing — sober, and without a mask — to dance the filthy cordax in the comic chorus. At a show, he's the man who goes around collecting the pennies, quarreling with the spectators who have a pass and insist on watching for free.
He is exactly the sort of man to run a flophouse, or a brothel, or to farm the taxes. No trade is beneath him: crier, cook, gambler. He doesn't support his mother. He gets caught stealing, and spends more time in jail than at home. He is the type who collects a crowd around him and harangues it in a loud, brawling voice — while he talks, some are leaving and others arriving, nobody actually listening: one part of the moving crowd gets the beginning of his story, another part an outline, another part a fragment. A public holiday, he feels, is the perfect stage for his loutishness at full display.
He is a great figure in the courts — as plaintiff and as defendant. Sometimes he swears himself out of a trial on oath; later he shows up anyway, a bundle of papers stuffed in the breast of his cloak and a file of documents in his hands. He loves being general-in-chief of a gang of loafers; he lends them money, and collects interest of a penny per shilling per day. And he makes the rounds of the bakeshops and the fresh-fish and pickled-fish stalls, collecting his tribute — and stuffing it in his cheek.
People-pleasing is, in essence, a manner that aims to delight everyone at the cost of what is right. The People-Pleaser is the sort of man who hails a friend from far down the street, tells him what a fine fellow he is, showers him with admiration, grabs both his hands and won't let go. He walks him a little way along, asks "When will I see you again?" — and finally tears himself away, still trailing compliments.
When he's called into a lawsuit, he wants to please not just his own side but the opponent too, so he'll look impartial. He tells foreigners that they judge cases more fairly than his fellow citizens do. Invited to dinner, he asks the host to call in the children — and when they come, he declares they're as like their father as one fig to another, pulls them close, kisses them, and sits them at his side. He joins their games, shouting "Strike!" and "Foul!" — and lets them fall asleep in his lap, whatever the ache in his legs.
Loudmouthery is easy to define: it is conduct that is offensive, out loud, on purpose. The Loudmouth is the sort of man who insults respectable women as he passes them in the street. At a play, he keeps clapping after everyone else has stopped, and hisses the actors the rest of the audience wants to hear. When the theater falls silent, he stands up and belches, to make the whole house turn around. When the market is at its busiest, he strolls up to the stalls of nuts and myrtle-berries and fruit and stands there grazing on the merchandise while chatting with the seller. He greets people he doesn't know by name. He stops people who are plainly hurrying somewhere. And when a man has just lost a major lawsuit and is leaving the courtroom, he runs up and offers his congratulations.
He does his own shopping for a feast, hires his own flute-girls, shows his purchases to everyone he meets, and invites them all over to share it. And he'll plant himself outside the barber's or the perfumer's stall and announce, to no one in particular, that he intends to get good and drunk.
Slobbishness is, in essence, a neglect of your own person that other people have to live with. The Slob is the sort of man who walks around with eczema, or a white rash, or diseased nails, and announces that these run in the family — his father had them, and his grandfather too, so it would be no easy trick to smuggle an outsider into that bloodline. He's sure to have sores on his shins and bruises on his toes, and to leave them untreated until they've gotten good and worse.
His armpits are shaggy as an animal's, half-way down his sides; his teeth are black and rotten. He blows his nose with his fingers while he eats. He drools while he talks. He no sooner drinks wine than it comes back up. He anoints himself after his bath with rancid oil, and goes to the marketplace in a thick tunic and a thin cloak decorated with stains.
When his mother goes out to consult the soothsayer, he says something of terrible omen. When people are praying and pouring offerings to the gods, he drops the goblet — and laughs, as if he'd done something delightful. When there's flute-playing, he's the only one in the company who claps along, humming the tune and demanding to know why the musician stopped so soon.
And often he tries to spit across the table — and hits the butler.
Bumpkinry is, in essence, an ignorance of good form. The Bumpkin is the sort of man who has a strong drink and then goes to the Assembly. He insists that myrrh smells no sweeter than onions. His boots are too big for his feet. He talks at the top of his voice.
He distrusts his friends and family, but confides his most important secrets to his servants — and gives his farmhands the full report of what happened in the Assembly. Nothing on the street stops him in his tracks like the sight of an ox, a donkey, or a goat — he plants himself and gazes in open contemplation. He's the sort of man who grabs a snack straight out of the pantry, and drinks his wine unmixed.
He has private conferences with the cook, and helps her grind the household's meal. At breakfast he tosses scraps to the animals around the table. He answers the door himself, then whistles for his dog, grabs it by the muzzle, and announces: "This fellow guards my house and grounds!" When someone hands him a coin, he rejects it — "too worn" — and takes a different one instead.
If he has lent out a plow, a basket, a sickle, or a sack, he lies awake thinking about it, then gets up and goes to fetch it back. When he walks to town, he asks the first person he passes: "What are hides going for? What's the price of bacon? Is the New Moon festival today?" — then announces that he must get down the street for a haircut, and while he's in town, stop in at Archias' shop for that bacon. He sings in the public baths. He drives hobnails into his boots.
Cheapness is, in essence, a grudging of expense — too much love of money and too little love of honor. The Cheapskate is the sort of man who, when his chorus wins the prize in the tragic competition, dedicates to Dionysus a strip of wood — with his own name on it. When voluntary contributions are called for in the Assembly, he goes quiet, or gets up and slips out. When he marries off his daughter, he sells the meat from the sacrifice — all except the priests' legal portion — and staffs the wedding feast with hired servants who have to eat at home first.
Commanding a warship at his own expense, he spreads the pilot's blankets on deck for himself and stows his own away. He's the sort of man who keeps his children home from school through the whole festival month, inventing illnesses for them, to save the tuition.
When he buys meat at the market, he carries it home himself, with the vegetables in the fold of his cloak. When his tunic is at the cleaner's, he stays indoors. When he spots a friend coming down the street — a friend collecting contributions — he swerves into a side alley and takes the long way home. For his wife — the wife who brought him a dowry — he hires no maid; he rents a little girl from the women's market to walk with her on errands.
He wears his patched shoes until they've worn out twice over, insisting they're still good — tough as horn. And when he gets up in the morning, he dusts the house and makes the beds himself; and when he sits down, he takes off the coat he's wearing, to spare it.
Snobbery is, in essence, contempt for everyone but yourself. The Snob is the sort of man who tells you — you, with your urgent business — that he'll see you after dinner, on his walk. If he's done you a favor, he reminds you of it. Elected to office, he declines, swearing on oath that he hasn't the time. He does not make the first call on anybody. Tradesmen and hired men are ordered to present themselves at daybreak.
Passing along the street, he greets no one — he keeps his eyes lowered, and raises them when it suits him. When he entertains friends, he doesn't dine with them; he instructs one of his people to see to their entertainment. When he pays a call, he sends a messenger ahead to announce that he approaches. No one may come in while he's at his oil-rub, his bath, or his dinner. When he settles accounts, a slave does the arithmetic — sets down the items, foots the total, arranges the statement for his review. And he never writes, in a letter, "You would be doing me a favor." He writes: "I want this done." "I have sent for this and expect to receive it." "See that my instructions are followed exactly." "Immediately."
Bragging is, in essence, claiming excellences you don't possess. The Braggart is the sort of man who stands on the wharf telling bystanders how much capital he has riding on ships at sea, and how extensive his money-lending business is, and how much he has made and lost on this venture and that — and while he's talking in these magnificent figures, he sends his slave to the bank, where his balance is exactly one shilling. On a journey, he regales his traveling companion with how he served under Alexander — they were close, you understand — and how many jeweled cups he brought home from the campaigns.
The artists of Asia, he finds, are superior to anything in Europe — this from a man who has never once set foot outside his native city. He claims, furthermore, to have three letters from Antipater summoning him to Macedonia; and although he's been guaranteed duty-free export of timber, he has declined to go — purely so that no one can accuse him of foreign sympathies. "The Macedonians," he says, "really should have thought of that."
During the famine, he says, his gifts to the poor came to more than five talents — he simply hadn't the heart to say no. Sitting among strangers, he calls for the counting-board, and working it in six-hundreds and in minae, gliding through the names of his supposed debtors, he arrives at a total of twenty-four talents — all of it, he explains, voluntary contributions; and that's not even counting his subscriptions for the navy and the other public funds.
Sometimes he strolls into the horse market where the bloodstock is sold and pretends to be buying; at the sales block he searches his clothes for two talents, and berates his slave for coming out without any money. And though he lives in a rented house, he tells anyone who doesn't know better that it's the old family home — adding that he's thinking of selling it; it's simply too small for entertaining properly.
Oligarchy, in a man, is a love of power that holds hands with a love of gain. The Oligarch is the sort of man who rises in the Assembly, when assistants are being elected to help the archon manage a festival, and declares: "These men must have absolute control." When others propose ten, he insists: "One is enough — but he must be a man." Of all Homer's poetry he retains a single line: "Rule by the many is bad; let there be one ruler." He knows no other verse. But he has a whole stock of phrases in this style: "We must caucus and settle our plans among ourselves." "We must cut loose from the mob and the marketplace." "We must stop competing for petty offices and being honored or insulted at the whim of the masses." "Either we rule this city, or they do."
At midday he goes out, his mantle arranged just so, his hair barbered in the mode, his nails trimmed to fashion, and promenades down Odeon Way declaiming: "The informers have made this city unlivable." "The abuse we suffer in the courts from our persecutors!" "Why anyone goes into public life these days is beyond me." "The mob is ungrateful — always taking, always taking."
If some ragged, hungry nobody sits down next to him at the Assembly, he protests the outrage. "When," he asks, "will they stop bleeding us dry with these taxes for festivals and warships? How loathsome this pack of demagogues is! Theseus" — he says — "started the whole rot. It was Theseus who collected the masses out of twelve cities into one and threw down the monarchies. And he got exactly what he deserved: they destroyed him first." That is how he talks to foreigners — and to citizens of his own temper and party.
Trash-talking is, in essence, a settled urge to speak ill of everyone. The Trash-Talker, asked "Who is so-and-so?", begins like a genealogist — with the ancestry. "His father was originally called Sosias. In the army he became Sosistratus, and by the time he was enrolled in the deme, Sosidemus. His mother, I should mention, was a Thracian — noble stock, you understand; at any rate, the jewel's name was Krinokoraka, and women of that name are the aristocracy of Thrace, or so they say. The man himself, with a pedigree like that? A wretch fit for the whipping-post."
In company where the others are running a man down, he naturally takes the lead: "There's no one I hate more. He has a criminal's face — you can see it — and his stinginess has no equal anywhere. Proof: his wife brought him a dowry of talents, and from the day their first child was born he's allowed her three pence a day for the household — and made her bathe in cold water on Poseidon's festival, in the dead of winter."
When someone gets up and leaves the group, he loves to start in on him — and once started, he doesn't spare the man's relatives either. He says the vilest things about his own family and friends; he maligns the dead. Trash-talking he calls "plain speaking," "democracy," "freedom of expression." Nothing in life gives him more pleasure.
Money-grubbing is, in essence, greed for gain from any source. The Money-Grubber is the sort of man who, hosting a dinner, puts out just barely enough bread. He borrows money from a house guest. Serving portions at his own table, he announces that the working man deserves a double share — and heaps his own plate. He deals in wine, and sells it watered — to his friend. He takes his children to the show only on the free-admission days. Traveling as the city's delegate, he leaves the city's travel allowance at home and borrows from his fellow commissioners; on the road he piles more baggage on his porter than the man can carry, and feeds him the smallest rations in the party. When the foreign court gives the delegates their presents, he demands his share on the spot — and sells it.
At the baths: "Boy! This oil is rancid!" — and he uses somebody else's. If his servants find coins in the road, he demands a cut: "Luck's gifts are common property." When his cloak goes to the cleaner, he borrows one from an acquaintance and keeps it until it's demanded back. And there's this trick: he measures out his household's rations personally, with a measure whose bottom is dented inward — and then levels off the top. He sells short weight — to a friend who thinks he's getting the market standard.
Paying back thirty pounds, he pays it four shillings light. When his children miss school for sickness, he deducts the missed days from the teacher's fee — and in the month of Anthesterion, with all its shows, he doesn't send them at all, and saves the whole month's tuition. If a slave who's been hired out pays him his earnings in copper, he demands the premium for silver on top. When the deme's administrator gives him his statement, he demands rations for his slaves at public expense.
He keeps inventory of the half-radishes left over from dinner, so the servants can't take them. Traveling with friends, he uses their servants and hires out his own — without contributing the proceeds to the common fund. When a banquet is given at his house on shared expenses, he sneaks into the account the wood, the figs, the vinegar, the salt, the lamp oil — his trifling contributions. When a wedding is coming up in a friend's family, he leaves town a little in advance, to dodge the present. And he borrows from friends exactly the sort of things no one asks for back — or wouldn't take back if you offered.
Late learning is, in essence, an appetite for lessons that arrives after sixty. The Late Learner is the sort of man who memorizes whole passages of poetry at that age — and, attempting them at a banquet, blanks. He has his son teach him "Forward, march!" "Shoulder arms!" "About, face!" At the heroes' festival he enters the torch race against the boys. Invited to a feast of Hercules, off comes the mantle — naturally — so he can lift the steer and bend back its neck. He drops in at the wrestling grounds and joins the bouts.
At the shows, he sits through performance after performance until he has the songs by heart. Dedicated to Sabazius, he's determined to be judged the handsomest. Falling for some girl, he storms her door — and gets a beating from a rival, and then a court date. He rides out to the country on a mare he's never sat before, tries fancy horsemanship along the way, falls off, and cracks his head.
He joins a boys' club and hosts the meetings. He plays skip-the-stone with his own servant. He challenges his children's tutor to archery and javelin — and expects the tutor, as though new to these sports, to take instruction from him. He wrestles at the baths, whirling a bench around to show he's had proper training; and when women are standing near, he breaks into a little dance, whistling his own accompaniment.
Sleaziness is, in essence, a fondness for what is bad. The Sleaze is the sort of man who seeks out the company of men convicted in the public courts, calculating that if he makes friends of them, he'll gain in worldliness — and be more feared.
Of honest men he says that no one is honest by nature, that everyone is exactly alike — and "honorable" is one of his insults. The bad man, he'll tell you, is actually free of prejudice, if you'll only give him a fair trial; and while he concedes that some of what people say about such a fellow is true, some of it, he insists, is not: "Because the man is clever, loyal to his friends, and a gentleman." In fact he'll go to the mat for him: never met a more talented person. He backs him, of course, when he speaks in the Assembly or stands trial in court; he's fond of telling the jurors that they must judge the case, not the man; and he calls his friend the people's watchdog — "he keeps an eye on the evildoers" — adding, "We will have no one left willing to trouble himself for the public good, if we throw away men like this."
It's the Sleaze's way to appoint himself patron of every worthless scoundrel going, to stand by them in court in the most hopeless causes — and, when he sits in judgment himself, to take every argument of the other side by its worst handle.