Here’s a post from Philostratus on the impoliteness of Polemon the Sophist. Today, his death (Lives of the Sophists, 543-4)
“When the doctors administered to him often because his joints were hardening, he used to advise them to “dig and cut Polemon’s quarries”. When he wrote a letter to Herodes about his sickness, he described it thus: “I must eat, but I haven’t hands. I must walk, but I am missing feet. I must feel pain, and then I find my hands and feet.”
He died around his fifty-sixth year. This time of life which is the beginning of old age for other professions, is still youth for a sophist—this discipline increases in wisdom as it ages.”
᾿Ιατροῖς δὲ θαμὰ ὑποκείμενος λιθιώντων αὐτῷ τῶν ἄρθρων παρεκελεύετο αὐτοῖς ὀρύττειν καὶ τέμνειν τὰς Πολέμωνος λιθοτομίας. ῾Ηρώδῃ δὲ ἐπιστέλλων ὑπὲρ τῆς νόσου ταύτης ὧδε ἐπέστειλεν· „δεῖ ἐσθίειν, χεῖρας οὐκ ἔχω· δεῖ βαδίζειν, πόδες οὐκ εἰσί μοι· δεῖ ἀλγεῖν, τότε καὶ πόδες εἰσί μοι καὶ χεῖρες.”
᾿Ετελεύτα μὲν περὶ τὰ ἓξ καὶ πεντήκοντα ἔτη, τὸ δὲ μέτρον τῆς ἡλικίας τοῦτο ταῖς μὲν ἄλλαις ἐπιστήμαις γήρως ἀρχή, σοφιστῇ δὲ νεότης ἔτι, γηράσκουσα γὰρ ἥδε ἡ ἐπιστήμη σοφίαν ἀρτύνει.
