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Exquisiteness is a striving for honor in small things. The exquisite when invited to dinner, is eager to sit by his host. When he cuts off his son’s hair for an offering to the gods, no place but Delphi will answer for the ceremony. His attendant must be an Ethiopian.[13] When he pays a mina[14] of money he makes a point of offering a freshly minted piece. If he has a pet daw in the house, he must needs buy it a ladder and a brazen shield, that the daw may learn to climb the ladder carrying the shield.
When he has sacrificed an ox, he winds the head and horns with fillets, and nails them up opposite the entrance, in order that those who come in may see what he has been doing. When he parades with the cavalry, he gives all his accoutrements to his squire to carry home, and throwing back his mantle stalks proudly about the market-place in his spurs. When his pet dog dies, he raises a monument to the creature, and has a pillar erected with the inscription: “Fido, Pure Maltese.”[15] In the Asclepieion[16] he dedicates a brazen finger,[17] polishes it, crowns it with flowers, and anoints it every day with oil.
And he has his hair cut frequently. His teeth are always pearly white. While his old suit is still good, he gets himself a new one; and he anoints himself with the choicest perfumes.
In the agora he frequents the banker’s counters. If he visits the gymnasia, he selects those in which the ephebi[18] practise; and, when there’s a play, the place he chooses in the theatre is close beside the generals.
He makes few purchases for himself, but sends presents to his friends at Byzantium, and Spartan dogs to Cyzicus, and Hymettian honey to Rhodes; and when he does these things, he tells it about the town. Naturally, his taste runs to pet monkeys, parrots, Sicilian doves, gazelles’ knuckle-bones, Thurian jars, crooked canes from Sparta, hangings inwrought with Persian figures, a wrestling-ring sprinkled with sand, and a tennis-court. He goes around and offers this arena to philosophers, sophists, fighters, and musicians, for their exhibitions; and at the performances he himself comes in last of all, that the spectators may say to one another, “That’s the gentleman to whom the place belongs.”
And, of course, when he is a prytanis[19] he demands of his colleagues the privilege of announcing to the people the result of the sacrifice; then putting on a fine garment and a garland of flowers, he advances and says: “O men of Athens, we prytanes have made sacrifice to the mother of the gods;[20] the sacrifice is fair and good. Receive ye each your portion.” When he has made this announcement, he returns home and tells his wife all about it in an ecstasy of joy.[21]
