Lucian Toxaris vel amicitia 4

[4]

MNESIPPUS

Please go on and say what else they did that is imposing and godlike; since as far as concerns their voyage and their foreign travel I could point you many who are more godlike than they—the merchant traders, and particularly the Phoenicians among them, who not only sail into the Pontus or as far as Lake Maeotis and the Cimmerian Bosporus, ¹ but cruise everywhere in Greek and foreign waters; for these fellows comb every single shore and every strand, you may say, each year before returning late in the autumn to their own country. On the same principle, you should account them gods, even though most of them are pedlars and, it may be, fishmongers!

[4]

Mnesippos

Do go on and tell of something else they did, really divine and godlike. As far as their voyage and their journey into foreign lands are concerned, I could show you a great many more godlike among the merchants, particularly the Phoenicians, who not only sailed into the Pontos and as far as the Maiotis and the Bosporos, but to every point in Greek or barbarian wa- These people make an annual round of ters. every cape and every peninsula, so to speak, and late in the autumn they sail back to their own country. To be consistent, you hold these, too, as gods-peddlers, and perhaps fish-mongers, though most of them be.