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Thursday, November 07, 2024

Time for Lunch

Diogenes Laertius 6.40 (tr. R.D. Hicks; on Diogenes the Cynic):
To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, "If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man, when you can."

πρὸς τὸν πυθόμενον ποίᾳ ὥρᾳ δεῖ ἀριστᾶν, "εἰ μὲν πλούσιος," εἶπεν, "ὅταν θέλῃ· εἰ δὲ πένης, ὅταν ἔχῃ."
This is fragment 183 of Diogenes the Cynic in Gabriele Giannantoni, ed., Socraticorum Reliquiae, Vol. II (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1983), p. 493.

Also attributed to Bion, in slightly different form — see Jan Fredrik Kindstrand, Bion of Borysthenes: A Collection of the Fragments with Introduction and Commentary (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1976 = Studia Graeca Upsaliensia, 11), pp. 130, 296-297 (F80).