ERASISTRATUS: What would you wish to hear first? he said. What the
Sicilians are doing, or how they are disposed towards our city? To my
mind, they are very like wasps: so long as you only cause them a little
annoyance they are quite unmanageable; you must destroy their nests if you
wish to get the better of them. And in a similar way, the Syracusans,
unless we set to work in earnest, and go against them with a great
expedition, will never submit to our rule. The petty injuries which we at
present inflict merely irritate them enough to make them utterly
intractable. And now they have sent ambassadors to Athens, and intend, I
suspect, to play us some trick.--While we were talking, the Syracusan
envoys chanced to go by, and Erasistratus, pointing to one of them, said to
me, That, Socrates, is the richest man in all Italy and Sicily. For who
has larger estates or more land at his disposal to cultivate if he please?
And they are of a quality, too, finer than any other land in Hellas.
Moreover, he has all the things which go to make up wealth, slaves and
horses innumerable, gold and silver without end.

I saw that he was inclined to expatiate on the riches of the man; so I
asked him, Well, Erasistratus, and what sort of character does he bear in
Sicily?

ERASISTRATUS: He is esteemed to be, and really is, the wickedest of all
the Sicilians and Italians, and even more wicked than he is rich; indeed,
if you were to ask any Sicilian whom he thought to be the worst and the
richest of mankind, you would never hear any one else named.

I reflected that we were speaking, not of trivial matters, but about wealth
and virtue, which are deemed to be of the greatest moment, and I asked
Erasistratus whom he considered the wealthier,--he who was the possessor of
a talent of silver or he who had a field worth two talents?