{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/luc/wl1/wl154.htm","path":"cla/luc/wl1/wl154.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl1/wl154.htm","text":"Simylus. Polystratus\nSi. So here you are at last, Polystratus; you must be something very like a centenarian.\nPol. Ninety-eight.\nSi. And what sort of a life have you had of it, these thirty years? you were about seventy when I died.\nPol. Delightful, though you may find it hard to believe.\nSi. It is surprising that you could have any joy of your life--old, weak, and childless, moreover.\nPol. In the first place, I could do just what I liked; there were still plenty of handsome boys and dainty women; perfumes were sweet, wine kept its bouquet, Sicilian feasts were nothing to mine.\nSi. This is a change, to be sure; you were very economical in my day.\nPol. Ah, but, my simple friend, these good things were presents--came in streams. From dawn my doors were thronged with visitors, and in the day it was a procession of the fairest gifts of earth.\nSi. Why, you must have seized the crown after my death.\nPol. Oh no, it was only that I inspired a number of tender passions.\nSi. Tender passions, indeed! what, you, an old man with hardly a tooth left in your head!\nPol. Certainly; the first of our townsmen were in love with me. Such as you see me, old, bald, blear-eyed, rheumy, they\ndelighted to do me honour; happy was the man on whom my glance rested a moment.\nSi. Well, then, you had some adventure like Phaon's, when he rowed Aphrodite across from Chios; your God granted your prayer and made you young and fair and lovely again.\nPol. No, no; I was as you see me, and I was the object of all desire.\nSi. Oh, I give it up.\nPol. Why, I should have thought you knew the violent passion for old men who have plenty of money and no children.\nSi. Ah, now I comprehend your beauty, old fellow; it was the Golden Aphrodite bestowed it.\nPol. I assure you, Simylus, I had a good deal of satisfaction out of my lovers; they idolized me, almost. Often I would be coy and shut some of them out. Such rivalries! such jealous emulations!\nSi. And how did you dispose of your fortune in the end?\nPol. I gave each an express promise to make him my heir; he believed, and treated me to more attentions than ever; meanwhile I had another genuine will, which was the one I left, with a message to them all to go hang.\nSi. Who was the heir by this one? one of your relations, I suppose.\nPol. Not likely; it was a handsome young Phrygian I had lately bought.\nSi. Age?\nPol. About twenty.\nSi. Ah, I can guess his office.\nPol. Well, you know, he deserved the inheritance much better than they did; he was a barbarian and a rascal; but by this time he has the best of society at his beck. So he inherited; and now he is one of the aristocracy; his smooth chin and his\nforeign accent are no bars to his being called nobler than Codrus, handsomer than Nireus, wiser than Odysseus.\nSi. Well, I don't mind; let him be Emperor of Greece, if he likes, so long as he keeps the property away from that other crew.\nH.","title":"Works of Lucian, Vol. I: Dialogues of the Dead: IX","type":"page"}