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Penuriousness is the grudging of expense and is due to great love of money and little love of honor. The penurious man, after a victory on the tragic stage, sets up a wooden chaplet to Dionysus, on which he inscribes his own name. If contributions from the public are asked for, he is silent or rises and quits the company. When he gives his daughter in marriage, he sells the sacrificial offerings, excepting the parts that belong by law to the priests. At the wedding, he employs only servants who will eat at home.

As trierarch[31] he takes the pilot’s blankets and spreads them on deck for himself, while he puts his own away. He is the sort of man who keeps his children from school when a festival comes, and makes excuses for them on the plea of ill-health, that he may avoid the fee for tuition.

When he goes to market, he brings the meat home with him, carrying the vegetables in the folds of his cloak. He stays indoors when he sends his tunic to the cleaner. If he catches sight of a friend coming towards him and soliciting contributions, he sneaks off through a by-street and goes home by a roundabout way. He employs no maid for his wife, although she brought him a dowry, but hires a child from the woman’s market to accompany her on her errands.

He keeps his patched shoes until they are twice worn out, saying they are still good, and tough as horn. When he gets up, he dusts the house and makes the beds, and when he sits down he lays aside the coat he is wearing in order to spare it.