Note 1525 — Chapter III

In spite of the improbability of these anecdotes, there must have been something real in the dulness of the Cymæans; for Cymæan was employed by the Greeks as a word synonymous with stupid. Cæsar, among the Romans, (Plutarch, Cæsar,) adopted this name in the same sense. This stupidity gave occasion to a proverb, ὄνος εἰς κυμαίους, an ass among the Cymæans, which was founded on the following story. The first time an ass appeared among the Cymæans, the inhabitants, who were unacquainted with the beast, deserted the town with such precipitation that one would have said they were escaping from an earthquake.