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[4arg] That devotion to play-actors, and love of them, was shameful and disgraceful, with a quotation of the words of the philosopher Aristotle on that subject.


A WEALTHY young man, a pupil of the philosopher Taurus, was devoted to, and delighted in, the society of comic and tragic actors and musicians, as if they were freemen. Now in Greek they call artists of that kind οἱ περὶ διόνυσον τεχνῖται or “craftsmen of Dionysus.” Taurus, wishing to wean that youth from the intimacy and companionship of men connected with the stage, sent him these words extracted from the work of Aristotle entitled Universal Questions, and bade him read it over every day: 1 “Why are the craftsmen of Dionysus for the most part worthless fellows? Is it because they are least of all familiar with reading and philosophy, since the greater part of their life is given to their essential pursuits and much of their time is spent in intemperance and sometimes in poverty too? For both of these things are incentives to wickedness.”

1 Prob. xxx. 10; frag. 209, Rose.

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