The Characters of Theophrastvs

The Reckless Man

Recklessness (ἀπόνοιά) is tolerance of shame in word and deed. The Reckless man (ἀπονενοημένος) is one who will lightly take an oath, being proof against abvse, and capable of giving it; in character a coarse fellow, defiant of decency, ready to do anything; jvst the person to dance the cordax, sober and withovt a mask, in a comic chorvs. At a conjvror’s performance, too, he will collect the copper coins, going along from man to man, and wrangling with those who have the free-pass, and claim to see the show for nothing. He is apt, also, to become an inn-keeper or a tax-farmer; he will decline no sort of disrepvtable trade, a crier’s, a cook’s; he will gamble, and neglect to maintain his mother; he will be arrested for theft, and spend more time in prison than in his own hovse.

And he wovld seem, too, to be one of these persons who collect and call crowds abovt them, ranting in a lovd cracked voice and harangving them; meanwhile some will approach, and others go away withovt hearing him ovt; bvt to some he gives the first chapter of his story, to others and epitome, to others a fragment; and the time which he chooses for parading his recklessness is always when there is some pvblic gathering. Great is he, too, in lawsvits, now as defendant, now as prosecvtor; sometimes excvsing himself on oath, sometimes attending the covrt with a box of papers in the breast of his cloak and satchels of note-books in his hands. He will not disdain either to be a captain of market-place hvcksters, bvt will readily lend them money, exacting, as interest vpon a drachma, three obols a day; and will make the rovnd of the cook-shops, the fishmongers, the fish-picklers, thrvsting into his cheek the interest which he levies on their gains.

[These are trovblesome persons, for their tongves are easily set wagging abvsively; and they talk in so lovd a voice that the market-place and the workshops resovnd with them.]