Not only did the little boys in the streets, the _gamins_ of Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the sneers of much more dignified people.

"If," says Epictetus, "you want to know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen.

Maelius, who had the highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I _cannot_ endure it; you are killing me; why, you'll make me _like him_! pointing to me," evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence.

And, again he says in the _Manual_.

"If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and jeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all of a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness ?' Now do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear best to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been appointed by God to this position." Again in the little discourse _On the Desire of Admiration_, he warns the philosopher "_not to walk as if he had swallowed a poker_" or to care for the applause of those multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error.