QUESTION XII.

Is It More Probable that the Number of the Stars is Even or Odd?

Men must be cheated by oaths. And Glaucias said: I have heard this saying used against Polycrates the tyrant; probably too it was said against others: but why do you ask these questions? Because, by Zeus, said Sospis, I see the children playing odd and even with jackstones and the Academics with words. For such tempers as these differ in no way from those who ask whether they hold clutched in their hands odd or even. Then Protogenes stood up and called me by name: What is the matter with us that we allow these rhetoricians to he so conceited, and to laugh down others while they are asked nothing, and contribute nothing in the way of argument - unless they swear that they have no part in the wine as admirers and disciples of Demosthenes, a man who in his whole life never drank wine. That is not the cause of this, said I; but we have never asked them anything. But unless you have something more useful, I think I can put before them from Homer's poetry a case of antinomy in rhetorical theses.