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“I am shut in by the dark roaring sea
That foams all round,”

but he will rather be of the mind of Philip, who when he was thrown in wrestling, and turned round, and noticed the mark his body made in the dust, said, “O Hercules, what a little part of the earth I have by nature, though I desire all the world!”

Sec. IX. I think also you have seen Naxos, or at any rate Hyria, which is close here. But the former was the home of Ephialtes and Otus, and the latter was the dwelling-place of Orion. And Alcmaeon, when fleeing from the Furies, so the poets tell us, dwelt in a place recently formed by the silting of the Achelous;[919] but I think he chose that little spot to dwell in ease and quiet, merely to avoid political disturbances and factions, and those furies informers. And the Emperor Tiberius lived the last seven years of his life in the island of Capreae, and the sacred governing power of the world enclosed in his breast during all that time never changed its abode. But the incessant and constant cares of empire, coming from all sides, made not that island repose of his pure and complete. But he who can disembark on a small island, and get rid of great troubles, is a miserable man, if he cannot often say and sing to himself those lines of Pindar, “To love the slender cypress, and to leave the Cretan pastures lying near Ida. I have but little land, where I grow strong, and have nothing to do with sorrow or faction,”[920] or the ordinances of princes, or public duties in political emergencies, or state functions hard to get off.

Sec. X. For if that seems a good saying of Callimachus, “Do not measure wisdom by a Persian rope,” much less should we measure happiness by ropes and parasangs, and if we inhabit an island containing 200 furlongs only, and not (like Sicily) four days’ sail round, ought we to wail and lament as if we were very unfortunate? For how does plenty of room bring about an easy life? Have you not heard Tantalus saying in the play,[921]

“I sow a field that takes twelve days to travel round,
The Berecyntian region,”

but shortly after he says,

“My fortunes, that were once as high as heaven,
Now to the ground are fallen, and do say to me,
‘Learn not to make too much of earthly things.'”

And Nausithous leaving the spacious Hyperia because of the proximity of the Cyclopes, and migrating to an island “far from all enterprising men,”[922] and living an unsocial life,

“Apart from men beside the stormy sea,”[923]

yet contrived to make the life of his citizens very pleasant. And the Cyclades were first inhabited by the sons of Minos, and afterwards by the sons of Codrus and Neleus, though foolish people now think they are punished if they are exiled to them. And yet what island used as a place of exile is not of larger extent than Scillus, where Xenophon after his military service saw a comfortable old age?[924] And the Academy, a small place bought for only 3,000 drachmae,[925] was the domicile of Plato and Xenocrates and Polemo, who taught and lived there all their lives, except one day every year, when Xenocrates went to Athens to grace the festival of Dionysus, so they said, and to see the new plays exhibited. And Theocritus of Chios twitted Aristotle with loving to live at the courts of Philip and Alexander, and preferring to dwell at the mouth of the Borborus to dwelling in the Academy. For there is a river near Pella that the Macedonians call Borborus. As to islands Homer seems to sing their praise, and recommend them to us as if on purpose, as

“She came to Lemnos, town of sacred Thoas;”[926]

and,

“What Lesbos has, the seat of the immortals;”[927]