A generation after Diogenes, a pupil of his named Crates wrote of an imaginary island called Pera (named after the leather wallet that Cynics counted among their few possessions) that is “surrounded but not affected” by this storm of confusion: Pera, so name we an island, girt around by the sea of Illusion, Glorious, fertile, and fair land unpolluted by evil. Here no trafficking knave makes fast his ships in the harbor, Here no tempter ensures the unwary with venal allurements. Onions and leeks and figs and crusts of bread are its produce. Never in turmoil of battle do warriors strive to
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