_Tox_. Oh no; number counts for nothing, that must be understood.
We have the same number, and it is simply a question whether
yours are better and more pointed than mine; if they are, of
course, the wounds you inflict will be the more deadly, and I
shall be the first to succumb.

_Mne_. Very well. Let us fix the number: I say five each.

_Tox_. Five be it, and you begin. But you must be sworn first:
because the subject naturally lends itself to fictitious treatment;
there is no checking anything. When you have sworn, it would be
impious to doubt your word.

_Mne_. Very well, if you think it necessary. Have you any
preference among our Gods? How would the God of Friendship meet the
case?

_Tox_. Excellently; and when my turn comes, I will employ the
national oath of the Scythians.

_Mne_. Zeus the God of Friendship be my witness, that all I
shall now relate is derived either from my own experience, or from
such careful inquiry as I was able to make of others; and is free
from all imaginative additions of my own. I will begin with, the
friendship of Agathocles and Dinias. The story is well known in
Ionia. This Agathocles was a native of Samos, and lived not many
years ago. Though his conduct showed him to be the best of friends,
he was of no better family and in no better circumstances than the
generality of the Samians. From boyhood he had been the friend of
Dinias, the son of Lyson, an Ephesian. Dinias, it seems, was