What may at first consideration be an enticing course of action, may take on a much more negative hue after further scrutiny.  This was the point of an anecdote related by the Roman writer Aulus Gellius in his Attic Nights (I.8).  Although the story is essentially a humorous one, the idea it conveys is one that carries the utmost seriousness with regard to the fates of men and nations.

The following story can be traced to the Peripatetic philosopher Sotion.  He is credited with a work entitled The Horn of Amaltheia, which has not survived.  Within this work is a tale about the famed orator Demosthenes and a courtesan named Lais.  Sotion tells us that Lais, who lived in Corinth, was renowned for her beauty and her charms; she drew in wealthy and influential men from many different cities in Greece.  She was a seductress in every way, and knew what kind of power she wielded in influential circles.  She demanded, however, a high price for her favors.  Not every man who visited Corinth could afford her. 

Sotion relates that Demosthenes once made covert overtures to Lais.  Sensing an opportunity, Lais informed him that her price was ten thousand drachmas.  This was a colossal sum, for we note that one drachma was roughly equivalent to a day’s pay for a laborer in ancient Greece.  When he heard this price quote, he was first shocked, then amused.  Doubtlessly realizing that the value of transitory pleasures rarely measures up to their costs, Demosthenes declined Lais’s offer.  As he shrugged his shoulders and walked away, he said,

I will not buy for such a price, only to regret it.

[Ego paenitere tanti non emo] 

Sotion’s point with this instructive anecdote is that one must learn not to “take the bait,” so to speak. It often happens that individuals and nations are solicited by seducers who appear in various guises.  What may be in the seducer’s interest, is almost never in the interest of the seducer’s target.  He who remains unaware of this fundamental divergence of interests–or, even worse, he who does not care about the divergence–leads himself and others into terrible calamities.  In such a situation, the individual or nation must have the capacity, and the maturity of mind, to decline the offer, and go on his way.  The high price demanded is simply not worth it.              

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Read more essays on various moral and historical subjects in the collections Digest and Centuries.