Hortensius, the orator, received as a fee a silver sphinx from Verres. When Cicero used innuendo in something that he said, Hortensius declared that he had no skill in solving riddles. Cicero retorted, ‘And yet you have the sphinx at your house !’ 1
1 Life of Cicero, chap. vii. (864 D), where the sphinx is of ivory. Cf. also Pliny, Natural History, xxxiv. 18 (48), and Quintillian, Inst. Or. vi. 3. 98. Intimacy with the sphinx, the author of riddles, should have helped Hortensius!
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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