was a Thracian, he replied, “ Nay, did you expect a man so noble to have been born of two Athenian parents? ’’ He made Crito ransom Phaedo who, having been taken prisoner in the war, was kept in degrading slavery, and so won him for philosophy. Moreover, in his old age he learnt to play the lyre, declaring that he saw no absurdity in learning a new accomplishment. As Xenophon relates in the Sympostum, it was his regular habit to dance, thinking that such exercise helped to keep the body in good condition. He used to say that his supernatural sign warned him beforehand of the future ; that to make a good start was no trifling advantage, but a trifle turned the scale; and that he knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance. He said that, when people paid a high price for fruit which had ripened early, they must despair of seeing the fruit ripen at the proper season. And, being once asked in what consisted the virtue of a young man, he said, ‘‘ In doing nothing to excess.” He held that geometry should be studied to the point at which a man is able to measure the land which he acquires or parts with. On hearing the line of Euripides’ play Auge where the poet says of virtue: *Tis best to let her roam at will, he got up and left the theatre. For he said it was absurd to make a hue and cry about a slave who could not be found, and to allow virtue to perish in this way. Some one asked him whether he should marry or not, and received the reply, “‘ Whichever you do you will repent it.” He used to express his astonishment that the sculptors of marble statues