Key to Reading Unit 9

1. Each man [is] his own friend (lit. himself a friend to himself).

2. There is no difference between (lit. it is the same thing to) treating a corpse and rebuking an old man.

3. Travel (lit. going abroad) is the best education.

4. God is intelligence; so to have this [is] a fine thing.

5. Inopportune goodwill differs in no way from enmity.

6. [It is] disgraceful to stumble against the same stone twice.

7. Then did you not at that time say this forthwith and instruct us?

8. The business of life itself teaches you.

9. What was being done (i.e. trying to be done) did not eventuate.

10. To nurture a snake and to do good is the same thing.

11. This is life [viz] not living for yourself alone.

12. But towards the west of Lake Tritonis the Libyans are no longer nomads nor employ the same customs, nor with respect to their children act as (lit. do what) the nomads are accustomed to act. For the nomads among the Libyans do the following ( I cannot say exactly if all of them (sc. do so) but many of them do): in their children's fifth year (i.e. when they are four) they burn with the grease of sheep's wool the veins on the tops of their heads, and a few of them [burn] the [veins] on their temples; for in this way the phlegm which flows down from the head never afflicts them (lit. does not never afflict). They say that, for this reason (lit. on account of this), they (i.e. their children) are very healthy. For the Libyans are the most healthy of men, whether for this reason I cannot accurately say, but they are [certainly] most healthy. They have a remedy against convulsions, which frequently afflict children: they pour a goat's urine over them and heal them in this way. I am recounting what the Libyans themselves say. (Adapted from Herodotus 4. 187.)