Proclus on Love

Oh dear, I got Thomas Taylor'd again. I was following up on a prior question I had when I fell down another four-page-long footnote, once again from Proclus' commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, but this time on Love:

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On Stinginess

As a young man, Lacydes of Cyrene was very poor; but because he was both industrious and frugal, he gradually built up a well-to-do household. Because of how much effort it had taken him to accrue wealth, though, he is said to have become quite a miser. In fact, he used to keep his store-room under lock and key, taking out everything the household needed—food, wine, wool, whatever—himself. But he worried about the key being stolen off his person, so he would take a wax writing-tablet, seal the key within it, and hide the writing-tablet in a hole in the wall of his bedroom.

Now, his slaves were salty about having even the least luxury withheld from them. It didn't take them long to discover their master's trick, and whenever he left the house, they would collect the key, unlock the store-room, and help themselves to an impromptu feast. Lacydes would later open the store-room and find empty plates, jugs, and shelves—but so certain was he that his secret was safe, he became convinced that the bodily senses were deceitful and, hearing that Plato's Academy taught something of the sort, began to audit courses there. Eventually there was a lecture on skepticism, and Lacydes jumped up and said, "I can prove that we ought to suspend judgement on what our senses tell us, since I have first-hand experience of it!" He proceeded to relate his story to the room, and they could scarcely hide their laughter, as what was really going on was obvious to everyone but Lacydes.

After being set straight and punishing his slaves, Lacydes began to take extra precautions, like hiding his writing-tablet in a different location. But his slaves were no fools: they started preying on their master's skepticism by switching the writing-tablet, or using a different color of wax to seal the key, or putting the writing-tablet back with the key in it but without wax, or moving it back to its original hole in Lacydes' bedroom, or other things of the sort. Lacydes began to argue with his slaves, but they would protest their innocence and insist he merely forgot where he put the tablet, or what kind of wax he put on it. Lacydes would learn proofs of his memory and senses from the Academy and test the slaves; but the slaves would sneak off to the competing Stoic school and learn refutations of Lacydes' tests. This went on and on for months until, at length, the store-room lay empty and Lacydes, finally, understood that the whole problem wasn't his senses or his slaves—it was his miserly behavior. Chastened, he slowly got his household back in order.

Still, the whole silly drama had gained him quite a lot of logical and rhetorical experience. Lacydes became a leading student of the Academy, and he eventually became the head of it himself. When he died, he was eulogized as being the most moderate of men—but he never did live down the story of how he came to the Academy in the first place.