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Title: The Works of Lucian of Samosata, v. 4
Author: Lucian of Samosata
Translator: H W Fowler
F G Fowler
Release Date: October 30, 2014 [EBook #47242]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LUCIAN ***
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THE WORKS OF
LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
Complete with exceptions specified in the preface
TRANSLATED BY
H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER
IN FOUR VOLUMES
What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren
domestic soil? except indeed planting thought of your own, which the
fewest are privileged to do.--_Sartor Resartus._
At each flaw, be this your first thought: the author doubtless said
something quite different, and much more to the point. And then you may
hiss _me_ off, if you will.--LUCIAN, _Nigrinus_, 9.
(LUCIAN) The last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit.--_Lord
Macaulay._
VOLUME IV
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1905
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO
CONTENTS OF VOL. IV
PAGE
SLANDER, A WARNING 1
#Peri tou mê rhadiôs pisteuein diabolê.#
THE HALL 12
#Peri tou oikou.#
PATRIOTISM 23
#Patridos enkômion.#
DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE 26
#Peri tôn dipsadôn.#
A WORD WITH HESIOD 30
#Dialexis pros Hêsiodon.#
THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES 33
#Ploion ê euchai.#
DIALOGUES OF THE HETAERAE 52-78
#Hetairikoi dialogoi.#
I, 52; II, 53; III, 55; IV, 57; VII, 60; VIII, 62;
IX, 64; XI, 67; XII, 69; XIII, 72; XIV, 75; XV, 77.
THE DEATH OF PEREGRINE 79
#Peri tês Peregrinou teleutês.#
THE RUNAWAYS 95
#Drapetai.#
SATURNALIA 108
#Ta pros Kronon.#
CRONOSOLON 113
#Kronosolôn.#
SATURNALIAN LETTERS, I 117
#Epistolai Kronikai, a.#
SATURNALIAN LETTERS, II 120
#Epistolai Kronikai, b.#
SATURNALIAN LETTERS, III 123
#Epistolai Kronikai, g.#
SATURNALIAN LETTERS, IV 126
#Epistolai Kronikai, d.#
A FEAST OF LAPITHAE 127
#Symposion ê Lapithai.#
DEMOSTHENES, AN ENCOMIUM 145
#Dêmosthenous enkômion.#
THE GODS IN COUNCIL 165
#Theôn ekklêsia.#
THE CYNIC 172
#Kynikos.#
THE PURIST PURIZED 181
#Pseudosophistês ê soloikistês.#
NOTES EXPLANATORY OF ALLUSIONS TO PERSONS, &C 191
ALPHABETICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 245
SLANDER, A WARNING
A terrible thing is ignorance, the source of endless human woes,
spreading a mist over facts, obscuring truth, and casting a gloom
upon the individual life. We are all walkers in darkness--or say, our
experience is that of blind men, knocking helplessly against the real,
and stepping high to clear the imaginary, failing to see what is close
at their feet, and in terror of being hurt by something that is leagues
away. Whatever we do, we are perpetually slipping about. This it is
that has found the tragic poets a thousand themes, Labdacids, Pelopids,
and all their kind. Inquiry would show that most of the calamities
put upon the boards are arranged by ignorance as by some supernatural
stage-manager. This is true enough as a generality; but I refer more
particularly to the false reports about intimates and friends that have
ruined families, razed cities, driven fathers into frenzy against their
offspring, embroiled brother with brother, children with parents, and
lover with beloved. Many are the friendships that have been cut short,
many the households set by the ears, because slander has found ready
credence.
By way of precaution against it, then, it is my design to sketch the
nature, the origin, and effects of slander, though indeed the picture
is already in existence, by the hand of Apelles. He had been traduced
in the ears of Ptolemy as an accomplice of Theodotas in the Tyrian
conspiracy. As a matter of fact he had never seen Tyre, and knew
nothing of Theodotas beyond the information that he was an officer of
Ptolemy's in charge of Phoenicia. However, that did not prevent another
painter called Antiphilus, who was jealous of his court influence and
professional skill, from reporting his supposed complicity to Ptolemy:
he had seen him at Theodotas's table in Phoenicia, whispering in his
ear all through dinner; he finally got as far as making Apelles out
prime instigator of the Tyrian revolt and the capture of Pelusium.
Ptolemy was not distinguished for sagacity; he had been brought up on
the royal diet of adulation; and the incredible tale so inflamed and
carried him away that the probabilities of the case never struck him:
the traducer was a professional rival; a painter's insignificance was
hardly equal to the part; and this particular painter had had nothing
but good at his hands, having been exalted by him above his fellows.
But no, he did not even find out whether Apelles had ever made a voyage
to Tyre; it pleased him to fall into a passion and make the palace
ring with denunciations of the ingrate, the plotter, the conspirator.
Luckily one of the prisoners, between disgust at Antiphilus's
effrontery and compassion for Apelles, stated that the poor man had
never been told a word of their designs; but for this, he would have
paid with his head for his non-complicity in the Tyrian troubles.
Ptolemy was sufficiently ashamed of himself, we learn, to make Apelles
a present of £25,000, besides handing Antiphilus over to him as a
slave. The painter was impressed by his experience, and took his
revenge upon Slander in a picture.
On the right sits a man with long ears almost of the Midas pattern,
stretching out a hand to Slander, who is still some way off, but
coming. About him are two females whom I take for Ignorance and
Assumption. Slander, approaching from the left, is an extraordinarily
beautiful woman, but with a heated, excitable air that suggests
delusion and impulsiveness; in her left hand is a lighted torch, and
with her right she is haling a youth by the hair; he holds up hands to
heaven and calls the Gods to witness his innocence. Showing Slander
the way is a man with piercing eyes, but pale, deformed, and shrunken
as from long illness; one may easily guess him to be Envy. Two female
attendants encourage Slander, acting as tire-women, and adding touches
to her beauty; according to the _cicerone_, one of these is Malice,
and the other Deceit. Following behind in mourning guise, black-robed
and with torn hair, comes (I think he named her) Repentance. She looks
tearfully behind her, awaiting shame-faced the approach of Truth. That
was how Apelles translated his peril into paint.
I propose that we too execute in his spirit a portrait of Slander and
her surroundings; and to avoid vagueness let us start with a definition
or outline. Slander, we will say, is an undefended indictment,
concealed from its object, and owing its success to one-sided
half-informed procedure. Now we have something to go upon. Further, our
actors, as in comedy[1], are three--the slanderer, the slandered, and
the recipient of the slander; let us take each in turn and see how his
case works out.
And first for our chief character, the manufacturer of the slander.
That he is not a good man needs no proof; no good man will injure his
neighbour; good men's reputation, and their credit for kindness, is
based on the benefits they confer upon their friends, not on unfounded
disparagement of others and the ousting of them from their friends'
affections.
Secondly, it is easy to realize that such a person offends against
justice, law, and piety, and is a pest to all who associate with
him. Equality in everything, and contentment with your proper share,
are the essentials of justice; inequality and over-reaching, of
injustice; _that_ every one will admit. It is not less clear that the
man who secretly slanders the absent is guilty of over-reaching; he
is insisting on entire possession of his hearer, appropriating and
enclosing his ears, guarding them against impartiality by blocking
them with prejudice. Such procedure is unjust to the last degree; we
have the testimony of the best lawgivers for that; Solon and Draco
made every juror swear that he would hear indifferently, and view both
parties with equal benevolence, till the defence should have been
compared with the prosecution and proved better or worse than it.
Before such balancing of the speeches, they considered that the forming
of a conclusion must be impious and unholy. We may indeed literally
suppose Heaven to be offended, if we license the accuser to say what he
will, and then, closing our own ears or the defendant's mouth, allow
our judgement to be dictated by the first speech. No one can say, then,
that the uttering of slander is reconcilable with the requirements of
justice, of law, or of the juror's oath. If it is objected that the
lawgivers are no sufficient authority for such extreme justice and
impartiality, I fall back on the prince of poets, who has expressed a
sound opinion, or let me say, laid down a sound law on the subject:
Nor give thy judgement, till both sides are heard.
He too was doubtless very well aware that, of all the ills that flesh
is heir to, none is more grievous or more iniquitous than that a man
should be condemned unjudged and unheard. That is precisely what the
slanderer tries to effect by exposing the slandered without trial
to his hearer's wrath, and precluding defence by the secrecy of his
denunciation.
Every such person is a skulker and a coward; he will not come into the
open; he is an ambuscader shooting from a lurking-place, whose opponent
cannot meet him nor have it out with him, but must be shot down
helplessly before he knows that war is afoot; there could be no clearer
proof that his allegations are baseless. Of course a man who knows
he is bringing true charges does the exposure in public, challenges
inquiry, and faces examination; just so no one who can win a pitched
battle will resort to ambush and deceit.
It is in kings' courts that these creatures are mostly found; they
thrive in the atmosphere of dominion and power, where envy is rife,
suspicions innumerable, and the opportunities for flattery and
back-biting endless. Where hopes are higher, there envy is more
intense, hatred more reckless, and jealousy more unscrupulous. They
all keep close watch upon one another, spying like duellists for a
weak spot. Every one would be first, and to that end shoves and elbows
his neighbour aside, and does his best to pull back or trip the man in
front of him. One whose equipment is limited to goodness is very soon
thrown down, dragged about, and finally thrust forth with ignominy;
while he who is prepared to flatter, and can make servility plausible,
is high in credit, gets first to his end, and triumphs. These people
bear out the words of Homer:
Th' impartial War-God slayeth him that slew.
Convinced that the prize is great, they elaborate their mutual
stratagems, among which slander is at once the speediest and the most
uncertain; high are the hopes with which this child of envy or hatred
is born; pitiful, gloomy and disastrous the end to which it comes.
Success is by no means the easy simple matter it may be supposed; it
demands much skill and tact, with the most concentrated attention.
Slander would never do the harm it does, if it were not made plausible;
it would never prevail against truth, that strongest of all things, if
it were not dressed up into really attractive bait.
The chief mark for it is the man who is in favour, and therefore
enviable in the eyes of his distanced competitors; they all regard
him as standing in their light, and let fly at him; every one thinks
he will be first if he can only dispose of this conspicuous person and
spoil him of his favour. You may see the same thing among runners at
the games. The good runner, from the moment the barrier falls, simply
makes the best of his way; his thoughts are on the winning-post,
his hopes of victory in his feet; he leaves his neighbour alone and
does not concern himself at all with his competitors. It is the ill
qualified, with no prospect of winning by his speed, who resorts to
foul play; his one pre-occupation is how he may stop, impede, curb
the real runner, because failing that his own victory is out of the
question. The persons we are concerned with race in like manner for the
favour of the great. The one who forges ahead is at once the object of
plots, is taken at a disadvantage by his enemies when his thoughts are
elsewhere, and got rid of, while they get credit for devotion by the
harm they do to others.
The credibility of the slander is by no means left to take care of
itself; it is the chief object of their solicitude; they are extremely
cautious against inconsistencies or contradictions. The usual method is
to seize upon real characteristics of a victim, and only paint these in
darker colours, which allows verisimilitude. A man is a doctor; they
make him out a poisoner; wealth figures as tyranny; the tyrant's ready
tool is a ready traitor too.
Sometimes, however, the hint is taken from the hearer's own nature;
the villains succeed by using a bait that will tempt _him_. They
know he is jealous, and they tell him: 'He beckoned to your wife at
dinner, and sighed as he gazed at her; and Stratonice--well, did not
seem offended.' Or he writes poetry, and piques himself upon it; then,
'Philoxenus had great sport pulling your poem to pieces--said the metre
was faulty and the composition vile.' A devout religious person is told
that his friend is an atheist and a blasphemer, rejects belief and
denies Providence. That is quite enough; the venom has entered at the
ear and inflamed the brain; the man does not wait for confirmation, but
abandons his friend.
In a word, they invent and say the kind of thing that they know will
be most irritating to their hearer, and having a full knowledge of his
vulnerable point, concentrate their fire upon it; he is to be too much
flustered by rage to have time for investigation; the very surprise of
what he is told is to be so convincing to him that he will not hear,
even if his friend is willing to plead.
That slander, indeed, is especially effective which is unwelcome;
Demetrius the Platonic was reported to Ptolemy Dionysus for a water
drinker, and for the only man who had declined to put on female attire
at the Dionysia. He was summoned next morning, and had to drink in
public, dress up in gauze, clash and dance to the cymbals, or he would
have been put to death for disapproving the King's life, and setting up
for a critic of his luxurious ways.
At Alexander's court there was no more fatal imputation than that of
refusing worship and adoration to Hephaestion. Alexander had been
so fond of him that to appoint him a God after his death was, for
such a worker of marvels, nothing out of the way. The various cities
at once built temples to him, holy ground was consecrated, altars,
offerings and festivals instituted to this new divinity; if a man
would be believed, he must swear by Hephaestion. For smiling at these
proceedings, or showing the slightest lack of reverence, the penalty
was death. The flatterers cherished, fanned, and put the bellows to
this childish fancy of Alexander's; they had visions and manifestations
of Hephaestion to relate; they invented cures and attributed oracles
to him; they did not stop short of doing sacrifice to this God of Help
and Protection. Alexander was delighted, and ended by believing in it
all; it gratified his vanity to think that he was now not only a God's
son, but a God-maker. It would be interesting to know how many of his
friends in those days found that what the new divinity did for them was
to supply a charge of irreverence on which they might be dismissed and
deprived of the King's favour.
Agathocles of Samos was a valued officer of his, who very narrowly
escaped being thrown into a lion's cage; the offence reported against
him was shedding tears as he passed Hephaestion's tomb. The tale
goes that he was saved by Perdiccas, who swore, by all the Gods and
Hephaestion, that the God had appeared plainly to him as he was
hunting, and charged him to bid Alexander spare Agathocles: his tears
had meant neither scepticism nor mourning, but been merely a tribute to
the friendship that was gone.
Flattery and slander had just then their opportunity in Alexander's
emotional condition. In a siege, the assailants do not attempt a part
of the defences that is high, precipitous, or solid; they direct all
their force at some rotten, low, or neglected point, expecting to get
in and effect the capture most easily so. Similarly the slanderer finds
out where the soul is weak or corrupt or accessible, there makes his
assault, there applies his engines, or effects an entry at a point
where there are no defenders to mark his approach. Once in, he soon has
all in flames; fire and sword and devastation clear out the previous
occupants; how else should it be when a soul is captured and enslaved?
His siege-train includes deceit, falsehood, perjury, insinuation,
effrontery, and a thousand other moral laxities. But the chief of them
all is Flattery, the blood relation, the sister indeed, of Slander. No
heart so high, so fenced with adamant, but Flattery will master it,
with the aid of Slander undermining and sapping its foundations.
That is what goes on outside. But within there are traitorous parties
working to the same end, stretching hands of help to the attack,
opening the gates, and doing their utmost to bring the capture about.
There are those ever-present human frailties, fickleness and satiety;
there is the appetite for the surprising. We all delight, I cannot tell
why, in whisperings and insinuations. I know people whose ears are as
agreeably titillated with slander as their skin with a feather.
Supported by all these allies, the attack prevails; victory is hardly
in doubt for a moment; there is no defence or resistance to the
assault; the hearer surrenders without reluctance, and the slandered
knows nothing of what is going on; as when a town is stormed by night,
he has his throat cut in his sleep.
The most pitiful thing is when, all unconscious of how matters stand,
he comes to his friend with a cheerful countenance, having nothing to
be ashamed of, and talks and behaves as usual, just as if the toils
were not all round him. Then if the other has any nobility or generous
spirit of fair play in him, he gives vent to his anger and pours out
his soul; after which he allows him to answer, and so finds out how he
has been abused.
But if he is mean and ignoble, he receives him with a lip smile,
while he is gnashing his teeth in covert rage, wrathfully brooding in
the soul's dark depth, as the poet describes it. I know nothing so
characteristic of a warped slavish nature as to bite the lip while
you nurse your spite and cultivate your secret hatred, one thing in
your heart and another on your tongue, playing with the gay looks of
comedy a lamentable sinister tragedy. This is especially apt to occur,
when the slander comes from one who is known for an old friend of the
slandered. When that is the case, a man pays no attention to anything
the victim or his apologists may say; that old friendship affords a
sufficient presumption of truth; he forgets that estrangements, unknown
to outsiders, constantly part the greatest friends; and sometimes a man
will try to escape the consequences of his own faults by attributing
similar ones to his neighbour and getting his denunciation in first.
It may be taken, indeed, that no one will venture to slander an enemy;
that is too unconvincing; the motive is so obvious. It is the supposed
friend that is the most promising object, the idea being to give your
hearer absolute proof of your devotion to him by sacrificing your
dearest to his interests.
It must be added that there are persons who, if they subsequently learn
that they have condemned a friend in error, are too much ashamed of
that error to receive or look him in the face again; you might suppose
the discovery of his innocence was a personal injury to them.
It is not, then, too much to say that life is made miserable by these
lightly and incuriously credited slanders. Antea said to Proetus, after
she had solicited and been scorned by Bellerophon:
Die thou the death, if thou slay not the man
That so would have enforc'd my chastity!
By the machinations of this lascivious woman, the young man came near
perishing in his combat with the Chimera, as the penalty for continence
and loyalty to his host. And Phaedra, who made a similar charge against
her stepson, succeeded in bringing down upon Hippolytus a father's
curse, though God knows how innocent he was.
'Ah, yes,' I fancy some one objecting; 'but the traducer sometimes
deserves credit, being known for a just and a wise man; then he ought
to be listened to, as one incapable of villany.' What? was there ever
a juster man than Aristides? yet he led the opposition to Themistocles
and incited the people against him, pricked by the same political
ambition as he. Aristides was a just man in all other relations; but he
was human, he had a gall, he was open to likes and dislikes.
And if the story of Palamedes is true, the wisest of the Greeks, a
great man in other respects too, stands convicted of hatching that
insidious plot[2]; the ties that bind kinsmen, friends, and comrades in
danger, had to yield to jealousy. To be a man is to be subject to this
temptation.
It is superfluous to refer to Socrates, misrepresented to the Athenians
as an impious plotter, to Themistocles or Miltiades, suspected after
all their victories of betraying Greece; such examples are innumerable,
and most of them familiar.
What, then, should a man of sense do, when he finds one friend's virtue
pitted against another's truth? Why, surely, learn from Homer's parable
of the Sirens; he advises sailing past these ear-charmers; we should
stuff up our ears; we should not open them freely to the prejudiced,
but station there a competent hall-porter in the shape of Judgement,
who shall inspect every vocal visitor, and take it on himself to
admit the worthy, but shut the door in the face of others. How absurd
to have such an official at our house door, and leave our ears and
understandings open to intrusion!
So, when any one comes to you with a tale, examine it on its merits,
regardless of the informant's age, general conduct, or skill in speech.
The more plausible he is, the greater need of care. Never trust
another's judgement--it may be in reality only his dislike--but reserve
the inquiry to yourself; let envy, if such it was, recoil upon the
backbiter, your trial of the two men's characters be an open one, and
your award of contempt and approval deliberate. To award them earlier,
carried away by the first word of slander--why, God bless me, how
puerile and mean and iniquitous it all is!
And the cause of it, as we started with saying, is ignorance, and the
mystery that conceals men's characters. Would some God unveil all lives
to us, Slander would retire discomfited to the bottomless pit; for the
illumination of truth would be over all.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 'Cratinus was the first to limit the number of actors to three....
There were no further innovations, and the number of the actors in
comedy was permanently fixed at three.' Haigh's _Attic Theatre_.
[2] Odysseus.
THE HALL
As Alexander stood gazing at the transparent loveliness of the Cydnus,
the thought of a plunge into those generous depths, of the delicious
shock of ice-cold waters amid summer heat, was too much for him; and
could he have foreseen the illness that was to result from it, I
believe he would have had his bath just the same. With such an example
before him, can any one whose pursuits are literary miss a chance of
airing his eloquence amid the glories of this spacious hall, wherein
gold sheds all its lustre, whose walls are decked with the flowers of
art, whose light is as the light of the sun? Shall he who might cause
this roof to ring with applause, and contribute his humble share to
the splendours of the place,--shall such a one content himself with
examining and admiring its beauties without a word, and so depart, like
one that is dumb, or silent from envy? No man of taste or artistic
sensibility, none but a dull ignorant boor, would consent thus to
cut himself off from the highest of enjoyments, or could need to be
reminded of the difference between the ordinary spectator and the
educated man. The former, when he has carried his eyes around and
upwards in silent admiration, and clasped ecstatic hands, has done
all that can be expected of him; he ventures not on words, lest they
should prove inadequate to his subject. With the cultured observer,
it is otherwise: he, surely, will not rest content with feasting
his eyes on beauty; he will not stand speechless amid his splendid
surroundings, but will set his mind to work, and as far as in him lies
pay verbal tribute. Nor will his tribute consist in mere praise of the
building. It was well enough, no doubt, for the islander Telemachus to
express his boyish amazement in the palace of Menelaus, and to liken
that prince's gold and ivory to the glories of Heaven;--his limited
experience afforded him no earthly parallel: but here, the very use to
which the hall is put, and the distinguished quality of the audience,
are an essential part of the praise bestowed upon it.
Nothing, surely, could be more delightful than to find this noble
building thrown open for the reception of eloquent praise, its
atmosphere laden with panegyric, its very walls reechoing, cavern-like,
to every syllable, prolonging each cadence, dwelling on each
period;--nay, they are themselves an audience, most appreciative
of audiences, that stores up the speaker's words in memory, and
recompenses his efforts with a meed of most harmonious flattery. Even
so do the rocks resound to the shepherd's flute; the notes come ringing
back again, and simple rustics think it is the voice of some maid, who
dwells among the crags, and from the depths of her rocky haunt makes
answer to their songs and their cries.
I feel as if a certain mental exaltation resulted from this
magnificence: it is suggestive; the imagination is stimulated. It
would scarcely be too much to say that through the medium of the eyes
Beauty is borne in upon the mind, and suffers no thought to find
utterance before it has received her impress. We hold it for true that
Achilles' wrath was whetted against the Phrygians by the sight of his
new armour, and that as he donned it for the first time his lust of
battle was uplifted on wings: and why should not a beautiful building
similarly be a whet to the zeal of the orator? Luxuriant grass, a
fine plane-tree and a clear spring, hard by Ilissus, were inspiration
enough for Socrates: in such a spot he could sit bantering Phaedrus,
refuting Lysias, and invoking the Muses; never doubting--indelicate old
person--but that those virgin Goddesses would grace his retirement with
their presence, and take part in his amorous discourse. But to such a
place as this we may surely hope that they will come uninvited. We can
offer them something better than the shade of a plane-tree, though
for that upon Ilissus' bank we should substitute the golden one of the
Persian King. His tree had one claim to admiration--it was expensive:
but for symmetry and proportion and beautiful workmanship, nothing of
that kind was thrown in; the gold was gold, an uncouth manifestation of
solid wealth, calculated to excite envy in the beholder, and to procure
congratulations for the possessor, but far from creditable to the
artist. The line of the Arsacidae cared nothing for beauty; they did
not appeal to men's taste; not _How may I win approval?_ but _How may
I dazzle?_ was the question they asked themselves. The barbarian has a
keen appreciation of gold: to the treasures of art he is blind.
But I see about me in this Hall beauties that were never designed to
please barbarians, nor to gratify the vulgar ostentation of Persian
monarchs. Poverty is not here the sole requirement of the critic:
taste is also necessary; nor will the eyes deliver judgement without
the assistance of Reason. The eastern aspect, procuring us, as in the
temples of old, that first welcome peep of the sun in his new-born
glory, and suffering his rays to pour in without stint through the
open doors, the adaptation of length to breadth and breadth to height,
the free admission of light at every stage of the Sun's course,--all
is charmingly contrived, and redounds to the credit of the architect.
What admirable judgement has been shown, too, in the structure and
decoration of the roof! nothing wanting, yet nothing superfluous; the
gilding is exactly what was required to achieve elegance without empty
display; it is precisely that little touch of adornment with which a
beautiful and modest woman sets off her loveliness; it is the slender
necklace about her neck, the light ring upon her finger, the earrings,
the brooch, the fillet that imprisons her luxuriant hair, and, like the
purple stripe upon a robe, enhances its beauty. Contrast with this
the artifices of courtesans, and particularly of the most unlovely
among them, whose robes are _all_ of purple, and their necks loaded
with golden chains, who hope to render themselves attractive by their
extravagance, and by external adornments to supply the deficiencies of
Nature; their arms, they think, will look more dazzlingly white if gold
glitters upon them, a clumsy foot pass unobserved if hidden in a golden
sandal, and the face be irresistible that appears beneath a halo of
gold. The modest house, far from resorting to such meretricious charms,
uses as little gold as may be; I think she knows that she would have no
cause to blush, though she should display her beauty stripped of all
adornment.
And so it is with this Hall. The roof--the head, as I may say,--comely
in itself, is not without its golden embellishments: yet they are but
as the stars, whose fires gleam here and there, pranked in the darkness
of the sky. Were that sky all fire, it would be beautiful to us no
longer, only terrible. Observe, too, that the gold is not otiose, not
merely an ornament among ornaments, put there to flatter the eye: it
diffuses soft radiance from end to end of the building, and the walls
are tinged with its warm glow. Striking upon the gilded beams, and
mingling its brightness with theirs, the daylight glances down upon us
with a clearness and a richness not all its own. Such are the glories
overhead, whose praises might best be sung by him who told of Helen's
high-vaulted chamber, and Olympus' dazzling peak.
And for the rest, the frescoed walls, with their exquisite colouring,
so clear, so highly finished, so true to nature, to what can I compare
them but to a flowery meadow in spring? Even so the comparison halts.
Those flowers wither and decay and shed their beauty: but here is one
eternal spring; this meadow fades not, its flowers are everlasting; for
no hand is put forth to pluck away their sweetness, only the eye feeds
thereon. And what eye would not delight to feed on joys so varied?
What orator would not feel that his credit was at stake, and be fired
with ambition to surpass himself, rather than be found wanting to his
theme?
The contemplation of beautiful objects is of all things the most
inspiring, and not to men only. I think even a horse must feel some
increase of pleasure in galloping over smooth, soft fields, that give
an easy footing, and ring back no defiance to his hoofs: it is then
that he goes his best; the beauty of his surroundings puts him on his
mettle; he will not be beaten, if pace counts for anything. And look
at the peacock. Spring has just begun; never are flowers a gladder
sight than now; it is as if they were really brighter, their hues more
fresh, than at other times. Watch the bird, as he struts forth into
some meadow: he spreads his feathers, and displays them to the Sun; up
goes his tail, a towered circle of flowery plumage; for with him too
it is spring, and the meadow challenges him to do his utmost. See how
he turns about, and shows forth his gorgeous beauty. As the sun's rays
strike upon him, the wonder grows: there is a subtle transmutation of
colours, one glory vanishing and giving place to another. The change is
nowhere more apparent than in those rainbow rings at the ends of his
feathers: here a slight movement turns bronze to gold, and (such is
the potency of light) purple becomes green, because sun is exchanged
for shadow. As for the sea, I need not remind you how inviting, how
attractive, is its appearance on a calm day: the veriest landlubber
must long to be upon it, and sail far away from the shore, as he marks
how the light breeze fills the sails and speeds the vessel on its
gentle gliding course over the crests of the waves.
The beauty of this Hall has a similar power over the orator,
encouraging him, stimulating him to fresh effort, enlarging his
ambition. The spell was irresistible: I have yielded to it, and come
hither to address you, as though drawn by wryneck's or by Siren's
charm; nor am I without hope that my words, bald though they be in
themselves, may yet borrow something from that atmosphere of beauty in
which they are here clothed as in a garment.
Scarcely have I pronounced these last words, when a certain Theory (and
a very sound one, too, if we can take its own word for it), which has
been interrupting me all along, and doing its best to break my speech
off, informs me that there is no truth in my statements, and expresses
its surprise at my assertion that gilding and mural decoration are
favourable to the display of rhetorical skill. The very contrary,
it maintains, is the case. On second thoughts, it may as well come
forward and plead its own cause; you, gentlemen, will kindly serve as
jury, and hear what it has to say in favour of the cheap and nasty in
architecture, considered as rhetorical conditions. My own sentiments
on this subject you have already heard, nor is there any occasion for
me to repeat them. The Theory is therefore at liberty to speak; I will
withdraw for a while, and hold my tongue.
'Gentlemen of the jury,' it begins, 'a splendid tribute has been paid
to this Hall by the last speaker; and I for my part am so far from
having any fault to find with the building, that I propose to supply
the deficiencies of his encomium; for by magnifying its glories, I am
so much the nearer to proving my point, which is, its unsuitableness
to the purposes of the orator. And first I shall ask your permission
to avail myself of his simile of feminine adornments. In my opinion,
it is not enough to say that lavish ornament adds nothing to feminine
beauty: it actually takes away from it. Dazzled by gold and costly
gems, how should the beholder do justice to the charms of a clear
complexion, to neck, and eye, and arm, and finger? Sards and emeralds,
bracelets and necklaces, claim all his attention, and the lady has the
mortification of finding herself eclipsed by her own jewels, whose
engrossed admirers can spare no words, and barely a casual glance for
herself. The same fate, it seems to me, awaits the orator who exhibits
his skill amid these wondrous works of art: his praises are obscured,
quite swallowed up, in the splendour of the things he praises. It is as
if a man should bring a wax light to feed a mighty conflagration, or
set up an ant for exhibition on a camel's or an elephant's back. That
is one pitfall for the orator. And there is another: the distracting
influence of that resonant music that echoes through the Hall, making
voluminous answer to his words, nay, drowning them in the utterance;
surely as trumpet quells flute, or the sea-roar the boatswain's pipe,
if he presume to contend with the crash of waves, so surely shall the
orator's puny voice be overmastered by this mighty music, and seem like
silence.
'Then again, my opponent spoke of the stimulating, the encouraging
effect produced on the speaker by architectural beauty. I should
have said that the effect was rather dispiriting than otherwise: the
speaker's thoughts are scattered, and his confidence shaken, as he
reflects on the disgrace that must attach to mean words uttered beneath
a noble roof. There could be no more crushing ignominy; he is precisely
in the position of a warrior in brilliant armour who sets the example
of flight, and whose cowardice is only emphasized by his splendid
equipment. To this principle I should refer the conduct of Homer's
model orator, who, so far from attaching any importance to externals,
affected the bearing of a man that was altogether witless; his design
was to bring his eloquence into stronger relief by the studied
ungracefulness of his attitude.
'The orator's mind, too, is so engrossed with what he sees, that it is
absolutely impossible for him to preserve the thread of his discourse;
he cannot think of what he is saying, so imperatively do the sights
around him claim his attention. It is not to be expected that he will
do himself justice: he is too full of his subject. And I might add that
his supposed hearers, when they come into such a building as this, are
no longer hearers of _his_ eloquence, but spectators of _its_ beauties;
he must be a Thamyris, an Amphion, an Orpheus among orators who could
gain their attention in such circumstances. Once let a man cross this
threshold, and a blaze of beauty envelops his senses; he is all eyes,
and to the orator is "as one that marketh not";--unless, indeed, he be
altogether blind, or take a hint from the court of Areopagus, and give
audience in the dark. Compare the story of the Sirens with that of the
Gorgons, if you would know how insignificant is the power of words in
comparison with that of visible objects. The enchantments of the former
were at the best a matter of time; they did but flatter the ear with
pleasing songs; if the mariner landed, he remained long on their hands,
and it has even happened to them to be disregarded altogether. But the
beauty of the Gorgons, irresistible in might, won its way to the inmost
soul, and wrought amazement and dumbness in the beholder; admiration
(so the legend goes) turned him to stone. All that my opponent has just
said about the peacock illustrates my point: that bird charms not the
ear, but the eye. Take a swan, take a nightingale, and set her singing:
now put a silent peacock at her side, and I will tell you which bird
has the attention of the company. The songstress may go hang now; so
invincible a thing is the pleasure of the eyes. Shall I call evidence?
A sage, then, shall be my witness, how far mightier are the things of
the eye than those of the ear. Usher, call me Herodotus, son of Lyxes,
of Halicarnassus.--Ah, since he has been so obliging as to hear the
summons, let him step into the box. You will excuse the Ionic dialect;
it is his way.'
_Gentlemen of the jury, the Theory hath spoken sooth. Give good heed
to that he saith, how sight is a better thing than hearing; for a man
shall sooner trust his eyes than his ears._
'You hear him, gentlemen? He gives the preference to sight, and
rightly. For words have wings; they are no sooner out of the mouth than
they take flight and are lost: but the delight of the eyes is ever
present, ever draws the beholder to itself. Judge, then, the difficulty
the orator must experience in contending with such a rival as this
Hall, whose beauty attracts every eye.
'But my weightiest argument I have kept till now: you, gentlemen,
throughout the hearing of this case, have been gazing with admiration
on roof and wall, scanning each picture in its turn. I do not reproach
you: you have done what every man must do, when he beholds workmanship
so exquisite, subjects so varied. Here are works whose perfect
technique, applied as it is to the illustration of all that is useful
in history and mythology, holds out an irresistible challenge to the
judgement of the connoisseur. Now I would not have your eyes altogether
glued to those walls; I would fain have some share of your attention:
let me try, therefore, to give you word-pictures of these originals; I
think it may not be uninteresting to you to hear a description of those
very objects which your eyes view with such admiration. And you will
perhaps count it a point in my favour, that I, and not my antagonist,
have hit upon this means of doubling your pleasure. It is a hazardous
enterprise, I need not say,--without materials or models to put
together picture upon picture; this word-painting is but sketchy work.
'On our right as we enter, we have a story half Argive, half Ethiopian.
Perseus slays the sea-monster, and sets Andromeda free; it will not
be long ere he leads her away as his bride; an episode, this, in his
Gorgon expedition. The artist has given us much in a small space:
maiden modesty, girlish terror, are here portrayed in the countenance
of Andromeda, who from her high rock gazes down upon the strife, and
marks the devoted courage of her lover, the grim aspect of his bestial
antagonist. As that bristling horror approaches, with awful gaping
jaws, Perseus in his left hand displays the Gorgon's head, while his
right grasps the drawn sword. All of the monster that falls beneath
Medusa's eyes is stone already; and all of him that yet lives the
scimetar hews to pieces.
'In the next picture, a tale of retributive justice is dramatically
set forth. The painter seems to have taken his hint from Euripides or
Sophocles; each of them has portrayed this incident. The two young men
are friends: Pylades of Phocis, and Orestes, who is thought to be dead.
They have stolen into the palace unobserved, and together they slay
Aegisthus. Clytemnestra has already been dispatched: her body lies,
half-naked, upon a bed; all the household stand aghast at the deed;
some cry out, others look about for means of escape. A fine thought
of the painter's: the matricide is but slightly indicated, as a thing
achieved: with the slaying of the paramour, it is otherwise; there is
something deliberate in the manner in which the lads go about their
work.
'Next comes a more tender scene. We behold a comely God, and a
beautiful boy. The boy is Branchus: sitting on a rock, he holds out
a hare to tease his dog, who is shown in the act of jumping for it.
Apollo looks on, well pleased: half of his smile is for the dog's
eagerness, and half for the mischievous boy.
'Once more Perseus; an earlier adventure, this time. He is cutting off
Medusa's head, while Athene screens him from her sight. Although the
blow is struck, he has never seen his handiwork, only the reflection of
the head upon the shield; he knows the price of a single glance at the
reality.
'High upon the middle wall, facing the door, a shrine of Athene is
modelled. The statue of the Goddess is in white marble. She is not
shown in martial guise; it is the Goddess of War in time of peace.
'We have seen Athene in marble: next we see her in painting. She flies
from the pursuit of amorous Hephaestus; it was to this moment that
Erichthonius owed his origin.
'The next picture deals with the ancient story of Orion. He is blind,
and on his shoulder carries Cedalion, who directs the sightless eyes
towards the East. The rising Sun heals his infirmity; and there stands
Hephaestus on Lemnos, watching the cure.
'Then we have Odysseus, seeking by feigned madness to avoid joining the
expedition of the Atridae, whose messengers have already appeared to
summon him. Nothing could be more convincing than his plough-chariot,
his ill-assorted team, and his apparent unconsciousness of all that
is going forward. But his paternal feeling betrays him. Palamedes,
penetrating his secret, seizes upon Telemachus, and threatens him
with drawn sword. If the other can act madness, _he_ can act anger.
The father in Odysseus is revealed: he is frightened into sanity, and
throws aside the mask.
'Last of all is Medea, burning with jealousy, glaring askance upon her
children, and thinking dreadful thoughts. See, the sword even now is in
her hand: and there sit the victims, smiling; they see the sword, yet
have no thought of what is to come.
'Need I say, gentlemen, how the sight of all these pictures draws away
the attention of the audience upon them, and leaves the orator without
a single hearer? If I have described them at length, it was not in
order to impress you with the headstrong audacity of my opponent, in
voluntarily thrusting himself upon an audience so ill-disposed. I seek
not to call down your condemnation nor your resentment upon him, nor
do I ask you to refuse him a hearing: rather I would have you assist
his endeavours, listen to him, if you can, with closed eyes, and
remember the difficulty of his undertaking; when you, his judges, have
become his fellow workers, he will still have much ado to escape the
imputation of bringing discredit upon this magnificent Hall. And if it
seem strange to you that I should plead thus on my antagonist's behalf,
you must attribute it to my fondness for this same Hall, which makes me
anxious that every man who speaks in it should come off creditably, be
he who he may.'
F.
PATRIOTISM
It is a truism with no pretensions to novelty that there is nothing
sweeter than one's country. Does that imply that, though there is
nothing pleasanter, there may be something grander or more divine? Why,
of all that men reckon grand and divine their country is the source and
teacher, originating, developing, inculcating. For great and brilliant
and splendidly equipped cities many men have admiration, but for their
own all men have love. No man--not the most enthusiastic sightseer that
ever was--is so dazzled by foreign wonders as to forget his own land.
He who boasts that he is a citizen of no mean city misses, it seems to
me, the true patriotism; he suggests that it would be a mortification
to him to belong to a State less distinguished. It is country in the
abstract that I delight rather to honour. It is well enough when you
are comparing States to investigate the questions of size or beauty
or markets; but when it is a matter of choosing a country, no one
would exchange his own for one more glorious; he may wish that his own
resembled those more highly blest, but he will choose it, defects and
all.
It is the same with loyal sons, or good fathers. A young man who has
the right stuff in him will honour no man above his father; nor will
a father set his affections on some other young man to the neglect
of his son. On the contrary, fathers are so convinced of their
children's being better than they really are, that they reckon them the
handsomest, the tallest, the most accomplished of their generation. Any
one who does not judge his offspring thus I cannot allow to have the
father's eye.
The fatherland! it is the first and the nearest of all names. It is
true there is nothing nearer than a father; but a man who duly honours
his father, according to the dictates of law and nature, will yet be
right to honour his fatherland in still higher degree; for that father
himself belongs to the fatherland; so does his father's father, and all
his house back and back, till the line ends with the Gods our fathers.
The Gods too love the lands of their nativity; though they may be
supposed to concern themselves with human affairs in general, claiming
the whole of earth and sea as theirs, yet each of them honours
above all other lands the one that gave him birth. That State is
more majestic which a God calls his country, that isle has an added
sanctity in which poesy affirms that one was born. Those are acceptable
offerings, which a man has come to their respective homes to make. And
if Gods are patriotic, shall not men be more so?
For it was from his own country that every man looked his first upon
the Sun; that God, though he be common to all men, yet each reckons
among his country Gods, because in that country he was revealed to
him. There speech came to him, the speech that belonged to that soil,
and there he got knowledge of the Gods. If his country be such that to
attain true culture he must seek another, yet even for that culture let
him thank his country; the word State he could never have known, had
not his country shown him that States existed.
And surely men gather culture and learning, that they may thereby
render themselves more serviceable to their country; they amass wealth
that they may outdo their neighbours in devoting it to their country's
good. And 'tis no more than reason; it is not for those who have
received the greatest of all benefits to prove thankless; if we are
grateful, as we doubtless should be, to the individual benefactor, much
more ought we to give our country her due; against neglect of parents
the various States have laws; we should account our country the common
mother of us all, and recompense her who bred us, and taught us that
there were laws.
The man was never known who so forgot his country as to be indifferent
to it when established in another State. All who fare ill abroad are
perpetually thinking how country is the best of all good things; and
those who fare well, whatever their general prosperity, are ever
conscious of the one thing lacking: they do not live at home, but
are exiles; and exile is a reproach. Those again whose sojourn has
brought them distinction by way of garnered wealth or honourable fame,
acknowledged culture or approved courage, all of them, you will find,
yearn for their native land, where are the spectators of their triumphs
that they would most desire. A man's longing for home is indeed in
direct proportion to his credit abroad.
Even the young have the patriotic sentiment; but in the old it is as
much more keen as their sense is greater. Every old man directs his
efforts and his prayers to ending his life in his own land; where he
began to live, there would he lay his bones, in the soil that formed
him, and join his fathers in the grave. It is a dread fate to be
condemned to exile even in death, and lie in alien earth.
But if you would know the true man's feeling for his country, it is in
the born citizen that you must study it. The merely naturalized are
a sort of bastards ever ready for another change; they know not nor
love the name of country, but think they may find what they need in one
place as well as another; their standard of happiness is the pleasures
of the belly. Those whose country is their true mother love the land
whereon they were born and bred, though it be narrow and rough and poor
of soil. If they cannot vaunt the goodness of the land, they are still
at no loss for praises of their country; if they see others making much
of bounteous plains and meadows variegated with all plants that grow,
they too can call up their country's praise; another may breed good
horses; what matter? theirs breeds good men.
A man is fain to be at home, though the home be but an islet; though he
might have fortune among strangers, he will not take immortality there;
to be buried in his own land is better. Brighter to him the smoke of
home than the fire of other lands.
In such honour everywhere is the name of country that you will find
legislators all the world over punishing the worst offences with exile,
as the heaviest penalty at their command. And it is just the same with
generals on service. When the men are taking their places for battle,
no such encouragement as to tell them they are fighting for their
country. No one will disgrace himself after that if he can help it; the
name of country turns even a coward into a brave man.
H.
DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE
The southern parts of Libya are all deep sand and parched soil, a
desert of wide extent that produces nothing, one vast plain destitute
of grass, herb, vegetation, and water; or if a remnant of the scanty
rain stands here and there in a hollow place, it is turbid and
evil-smelling, undrinkable even in the extremity of thirst. The land
is consequently uninhabited; savage, dried up, barren, droughty, how
should it support life? The mere temperature, an atmosphere that is
rather fire than air, and a haze of burning sand, make the district
quite inaccessible.
On its borders dwell the Garamantians, a lightly clad, agile tribe of
tent-dwellers subsisting mainly by the chase. These are the only people
who occasionally penetrate the desert, in pursuit of game. They wait
till rain falls, about the winter solstice, mitigating the excessive
heat, moistening the sand, and making it just passable. Their quarry
consists chiefly of wild asses, the giant ostrich that runs instead of
flying, and monkeys, to which the elephant is sometimes added; these
are the only creatures sufficiently proof against thirst and capable of
bearing that incessant fiery sunshine. But the Garamantians, as soon
as they have consumed the provisions they brought with them, instantly
hurry back, in fear of the sand's recovering its heat and becoming
difficult or impassable, in which case they would be trapped, and lose
their lives as well as their game. For if the sun draws up the vapour,
dries the ground rapidly, and has an access of heat, throwing into its
rays the fresh vigour derived from that moisture which is its aliment,
there is then no escape.
But all that I have yet mentioned, heat, thirst, desolation,
barrenness, you will count less formidable than what I now come to,
a sufficient reason in itself for avoiding that land. It is beset by
all sorts of reptiles, of huge size, in enormous numbers, hideous and
venomous beyond belief or cure. Some of them have burrows in the sand,
others live on the surface--toads, asps, vipers, horned snakes and
stinging beetles, lance-snakes, reversible snakes[3], dragons, and two
kinds of scorpion, one of great size and many joints that runs on the
ground, the other aerial, with gauzy wings like those of the locust,
grasshopper, or bat. With the multitude of flying things like these,
that part of Libya has no attraction for the traveller.
But the direst of all the reptiles bred in the sand is the dipsas or
thirst-snake; it is of no great size, and resembles the viper; its bite
is sharp, and the venom acts at once, inducing agonies to which there
is no relief. The flesh is burnt up and mortified, the victims feel as
if on fire, and yell like men at the stake. But the most overpowering
of their torments is that indicated by the creature's name. They have
an intolerable thirst; and the remarkable thing is, the more they
drink, the more they want to drink, the appetite growing with what it
feeds on. You will never quench their thirst, though you give them all
the water in Nile or Danube; water will be fuel, as much as if you
tried to put out a fire with oil.
Doctors explain this by saying that the venom is originally thick, and
gains in activity when diluted with the drink, becoming naturally more
fluid and circulating more widely.
I have not seen a man in this condition, and I pray Heaven I never may
behold such human sufferings; I am happy to say I have not set foot
upon Libyan soil. But I have had an epitaph repeated to me, which a
friend assured me he had read on the grave of a victim. My friend,
going from Libya to Egypt, had taken the only practicable land route by
the Great Syrtis. He there found a tomb on the beach at the sea's very
edge, with a pillar setting forth the manner of death. On it a man was
carved in the attitude familiar in pictures of Tantalus, standing by a
lake's side scooping up water to drink; the dipsas was wound about his
foot, in which its fangs were fastened, while a number of women with
jars were pouring water over him. Hard by were lying eggs like those
of the ostrich hunted, as I mentioned, by the Garamantians. And then
there was the epitaph, which it may be worth while to give you:
See the envenom'd cravings Tantalus
Could find no thirst-assuaging charm to still,
The cask that daughter-brood of Danaus,
For ever filling, might not ever fill.
There are four more lines about the eggs, and how he was bitten while
taking them; but I forget how they go.
The neighbouring tribes, however, do collect and value these eggs, and
not only for food; they use the empty shells for vessels and make cups
of them; for, as there is nothing but sand for material, they have no
pottery. A particularly large egg is a find; bisected, it furnishes two
hats big enough for the human head.
Accordingly the dipsas conceals himself near the eggs, and when a man
comes, crawls out and bites the unfortunate, who then goes through the
experiences just described, drinking and increasing his thirst and
getting no relief.
Now, gentlemen, I have not told you all this to show you I could do as
well as the poet Nicander, nor yet by way of proof that I have taken
some trouble with the natural history of Libyan reptiles; that would
be more in the doctor's line, who must know about such things with a
view to treatment. No, it is only that I am conscious (and now pray do
not be offended by my going to the reptiles for my illustration)--I
am conscious of the same feelings towards you as a dipsas victim has
towards drink; the more I have of your company, the more of it I want;
my thirst for it rages uncontrollably; I shall never have enough
of this drink. And no wonder; where else could one find such clear
sparkling water? You must pardon me, then, if, bitten to the soul (most
agreeably and wholesomely bitten), I put my head under the fountain and
gulp the liquor down. My only prayer is that the stream that flows from
you may never fail; never may your willingness to listen run dry and
leave me thirstily gaping! On my side there is no reason why drinking
should not go on for ever; the wise Plato says that you cannot have too
much of a good thing.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The amphisbaena, supposed to have a head at each end and move
either way.
A WORD WITH HESIOD
_Lycinus. Hesiod_
_Ly._ As to your being a first-rate poet, Hesiod, we do not doubt that,
any more than we doubt your having received the gift from the Muses,
together with that laurel-branch; it is sufficiently proved by the
noble inspiration that breathes in every line of your works. But there
is one point on which we may be excused for feeling some perplexity.
You begin by telling us that your divine gifts were bestowed upon you
by Heaven in order that you might sing of the glories that have been,
and tell of that which is to come. Well, now, one half of your duties
you have admirably performed. You have traced back the genealogy of
the Gods to Chaos and Ge and Uranus and Eros; you have specified the
feminine virtues; and you have given advice to the farmer, adding
complete information with reference to the Pleiads, the seasons
suitable for ploughing, reaping, and sailing,--and I know not what
besides. But that far diviner gift, which would have been of so much
more practical utility to your readers, you do not exercise at all: the
soothsaying department is entirely overlooked. We find no parallel in
your poems to those prophetic utterances which Calchas, and Telemus,
and Polyidus, and Phineus--persons less favoured by the Muses than
yourself--were wont to dispense freely to all applicants. Now in
these circumstances, you must plead guilty to one of three charges.
Either the alleged promise of the Muses to disclose the future to you
_was_ never given, and you are--excuse the expression--a liar: or it
was given, and fulfilled, but you, niggard, have quietly pocketed
the information, and refuse to impart it to them that have need: or,
thirdly, you _have_ composed a number of prophetic works, but have not
yet given them to the world; they are reserved for some more suitable
occasion. I do not presume to suggest, as a fourth possibility, that
the Muses have only fulfilled half of their promise, and revoked
the other,--which, observe, is recorded first in your poem. Now, if
_you_ will not enlighten me on this subject, who can? As the Gods are
'givers of good,' so you, their friends and pupils, should impart your
knowledge frankly, and set our doubts at rest.
_Hes._ My poor friend, there is one very simple answer to all your
questions: I might tell you that not one of my poems is my own work;
all is the Muses', and to them I might refer you for all that has
been said and left unsaid. For what came of my own knowledge, of
pasturage, of milking, of driving afield, and all that belongs to
the herdsman's art, I may fairly be held responsible: but for the
Goddesses,--they give whatso they will to whom they will.--Apart from
this, however, I have the usual poet's apology. The poet, I conceive,
is not to be called to account in this minute fashion, syllable by
syllable. If in the fervour of composition a word slip in unawares,
search not too narrowly; remember that with us metre and euphony have
much to answer for; and then there are certain amplifications--certain
elegances--that insinuate themselves into a verse, one scarce knows
how. Sir, you would rob us of our highest prerogative, our freedom,
our unfettered movement. Blind to the flowers of poetry, you are
intent upon its thorns, upon those little flaws that give a handle to
malicious criticism. But there! you are not the only offender, nor I
the only victim: in the trivial defects of Homer, my fellow craftsman,
many a carping spirit has found material for similar hair-splitting
disquisitions.--Come, now, I will meet my accuser on fair ground,
face to face. Read, fellow, in my _Works and Days_: mark the inspired
prophecies there set forth: the doom foretold to the negligent, the
success promised to him that labours aright and in due season.
One basket shall suffice to store thy grain,
And men shall not regard thee.
Could there be a more timely warning, balanced as it is by the
prospect of abundance held out to him that follows the true method of
agriculture?
_Ly._ Admirable; and spoken like a true herdsman. There is no doubting
the divine afflatus after that: left to yourself, you cannot so much
as defend your own poems. At the same time, this is not quite the
sort of thing we expect of Hesiod and the Muses combined. You see, in
this particular branch of prophecy, you are quite outclassed by the
farmers: they are perfectly qualified to inform us that if the rain
comes there will be a heavy crop, and that a drought, on the other
hand, will inevitably be followed by scarcity; that midsummer is not a
good time to begin ploughing if you wish your seed to do anything, and
that you will find no grain in the ear if you reap it when it is green.
Nor do we want a prophet to tell us that the sower must be followed
by a labourer armed with a spade, to cover up the seed; otherwise,
the birds will come and consume his prospective harvest. Call these
useful suggestions, if you like: but they are very far from my idea of
prophecy. I expect a prophet to penetrate into secrets wholly hidden
from our eyes: the prophet informs Minos that he will find his son
drowned in a jar of honey; he explains to the Achaeans the cause of
Apollo's resentment; he specifies the precise year in which Troy will
be captured. That _is_ prophecy. But if the term is to be so extended,
then I shall be glad to have my own claims recognized without loss
of time. I undertake, without the assistance of Castalian waters,
laurel-branches, or Delphian tripods, to foretell and prognosticate:
_That if a man walk out on a cold morning with nothing on, he will
take a severe chill; and particularly if it happens to be raining or
hailing at the time_. And I further prophesy: _That his chill will be
accompanied by the usual fever_; together with other circumstances
which it would be superfluous to mention.
No, Hesiod: your defence will not do; nor will your prophecies. But I
dare say there is something in what you said at first--that you knew
not what you wrote, by reason of the divine afflatus versifying within
you. And that afflatus was no such great matter, either: afflatuses
should not promise more than they mean to perform.
F.
THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES
_Lycinus. Timolaus. Samippus. Adimantus_
_Ly._ Said I not well? More easily shall a corpse lie mouldering in
the sun, and the vulture mark it not, than any strange sight escape
Timolaus, no matter though he must run all the way to Corinth at a
stretch for it.--Indefatigable sightseer!
_Ti._ Well, Lycinus, what do you expect? One has nothing to do, and
just then one hears that a great monster of an Egyptian corn-ship has
put in to Piraeus. What is more, I believe you and Samippus came down
on precisely the same errand.
_Ly._ So we did, so we did, and Adimantus with us; only he has got lost
somewhere in the crowd of spectators. We came all together to the ship;
and going on board you were in front, Samippus, if I remember, and
Adimantus next, and I was behind, hanging on to him for dear life; he
gave me a hand all up the gangway, because I had never taken my shoes
off, and he had; but I saw no more of him after that, either on board
or when we came ashore.
_Sa._ You see when it was we lost him, Lycinus? It must have been
when that nice-looking boy came up from the hold, you know, with the
beautiful clean linen, and his hair parted in the middle and done up in
a knot behind. If I know anything of Adimantus, he no sooner saw that
charming sight, than he said good-bye to the Egyptian ship-wright who
was showing us round; and now stands urging his tearful suit. You know
his way; tears come natural to him in these affairs of the heart.
_Ly._ Well, but, Samippus, this boy was nothing great, that he should
make such a conquest; Adimantus has the beauties of Athens at his
beck; nice gentlemanly boys, with good Greek on their tongues, and
the mark of the gymnasium on every muscle; a man may languish under
_their_ rigours with some credit. As for this fellow, to say nothing
of his dark skin, and protruding lips, and spindle shanks, his words
came tumbling out in a heap, one on the top of another; it was Greek,
of course, but the voice, the accent were Egyptian born. And then his
hair: no freeman ever had his hair tied up in a knot behind like that.
_Ti._ Oh, but that is a sign of noble birth in Egypt, Lycinus. All
gentlemen's sons wear their hair done up till they reach manhood. It
was the other way with our ancestors: the topknot, and the golden
grasshopper to keep it together, were the proper thing for old men in
their time.
_Sa._ Very much to the point, Timolaus; you allude to the remarks in
Thucydides's preface, about our old luxurious habits, as preserved in
the Asiatic colonies.
_Ly._ Of course! I remember now where it was we lost Adimantus. It was
when we were standing all that time looking up at the mast, counting
the layers of hides, and watching that marvellous fellow going up the
shrouds, and running along the yards, perfectly comfortable, with just
a hand on the yard-tackling.
_Sa._ So it was. Well, now what are we to do? Shall we wait for him
here, or do you think I had better go back on board?
_Ti._ No, no, let us walk on; he has probably gone tearing off home,
not being able to find us. Anyhow, he knows the way; he will never get
lost for want of us to take care of him.
_Ly._ It is rather a shame, perhaps, to go off and leave one's friend
to shift for himself. However, I agree, if Samippus does.
_Sa._ Certainly I do. We may find the gymnasium open still.--I say,
though, what a size that ship was! 180 feet long, the man said, and
something over a quarter of that in width; and from deck to keel, the
maximum depth, through the hold, 44 feet. And then the height of the
mast, with its huge yard; and what a forestay it takes to hold it! And
the lofty stern with its gradual curve, and its gilded beak, balanced
at the other end by the long rising sweep of the prow, and the figures
of her name-goddess, Isis, on either side. As to the other ornamental
details, the paintings and the scarlet topsail, I was more struck by
the anchors, and the capstans and windlasses, and the stern cabins. The
crew was like a small army. And they were saying she carried as much
corn as would feed every soul in Attica for a year. And all depends for
its safety on one little old atomy of a man, who controls that great
rudder with a mere broomstick of a tiller! He was pointed out to me;
Heron was his name, I think; a woolly-pated fellow, half-bald.
_Ti._ He is a wonderful hand at it, so the crew say; a very Proteus in
sea-cunning. Did they tell you how he brought them here, and all their
adventures? how they were saved by a star?
_Ly._ No; you can tell us about that now.
_Ti._ I had it from the master, a nice intelligent fellow to talk to.
They set sail with a moderate wind from Pharus, and sighted Acamas on
the seventh day. Then a west wind got up, and they were carried as
far east as Sidon. On their way thence they came in for a heavy gale,
and the tenth day brought them through the Straits to the Chelidon
Isles; and there they very nearly went to the bottom. I have sailed
past the Chelidons myself, and I know the sort of seas you get there,
especially if the wind is SW. by S.; it is just there, of course, that
the division takes place between the Lycian and Pamphylian waters; and
the surge caused by the numerous currents gets broken at the headland,
whose rocks have been sharpened by the action of the water till they
are like razors; the result is a stupendous crash of waters, the waves
often rising to the very top of the crags. This was the kind of thing
they found themselves in for, according to the master,--and on a pitch
dark night! However, the Gods were moved by their distress, and showed
them a fire that enabled them to identify the Lycian coast; and a
bright star--either Castor or Pollux--appeared at the masthead, and
guided the ship into the open sea on their left; just in time, for
she was making straight for the cliff. Having once lost their proper
course, they sailed on through the Aegean, bearing up against the
Etesian winds, until they came to anchor in Piraeus yesterday, being
the seventieth day of the voyage; you see how far they had been carried
out of their way; whereas if they had taken Crete on their right, they
would have doubled Malea, and been at Rome by this time.
_Ly._ A pretty pilot this Heron, and no mistake, to get so far out in
his reckoning; a man after Nereus's heart!--But look! that is surely
Adimantus?
_Ti._ Adimantus it is. Let us hail him. Adimantus!... Son of
Strombichus!... of the deme of Myrrhinus! He must be offended with us,
or else he is deaf; it is certainly he.
_Ly._ I can make him out quite clearly now; his cloak, his walk, his
cropped head. Let us mend our pace, and catch him up.--We shall have
to pull you by the cloak, and compel you to turn round, Adimantus;
you will take no notice of our shouts. You seem like one rapt in
contemplation; you are pondering on matters of no light import?
_Ad._ Oh, it is nothing serious. An idle fancy, that came to me as I
walked, and engrossed my attention, so that I never heard you.
_Ly._ And the fancy? Tell us without reserve, unless it is a very
delicate matter. And even if it is, you know, we have all been through
the Mysteries; we can keep a secret.
_Ad._ No, I had rather not tell you; you would think it so childish.
_Ly._ Can it be a love affair? Speak on; _those_ mysteries too are not
unknown to us; we have been initiated in full torchlight.
_Ad._ Oh dear, no; nothing of that kind.--No; I was making myself an
imaginary present of a fortune--that 'vain, deluding joy,' as it has
been called; I had just reached the pinnacle of luxury and affluence
when you arrived.
_Ly._ Then all I have to say is, 'Halves!' Come, out with your wealth!
We are Adimantus's friends: let us share his superfluities.
_Ad._ Well, I lost sight of you at once on the ship--the moment I
had got you safely up, Lycinus. I was measuring the thickness of the
anchor, and you disappeared somewhere. However, I went on and saw
everything, and then I asked one of the sailors how much the vessel
brought in to her owner in an average year. Three thousand pounds, he
said, was the lowest reckoning. So afterwards, on the way back, I was
thinking: Suppose some God took it into his head to make _me_ a present
of that ship; what a glorious life I should have of it, and my friends
too! Sometimes I could make the trip myself, at other times I could
send my men. On the strength of that three thousand, I had already
built myself a house, nicely situated just above the Poecile--I would
have nothing more to say to my ancestral abode on the banks of the
Ilissus,--and was in treaty for my wardrobe and slaves and chariots and
stable. And now behold me on board, the envy of every passenger, and
the terror of my crew, who regarded me as next thing to a king; I was
getting matters shipshape, and taking a last look at the port in the
distance, when up comes Lycinus, capsizes the vessel, just as she is
scudding before a wishing wind, and sends all my wealth to the bottom.
_Ly._ Well, you are a man of spirit: lay hands on me, and away with
me to the governor, for the buccaneer that I am. A flagrant case of
piracy; on the high roads, too, between Athens and Piraeus. Stay,
though; perhaps we can compound the matter. What do you say to _five_
ships, larger and finer ones than your Egyptian; above all, warranted
not to sink?--each to bring you, shall we say, five cargoes of corn
per annum? Though I foresee that you will be the most unbearable of
shipowners when you have got them. The possession of this one made you
deaf to our salutations; give you five more--three-masters all of them,
and imperishable--and the result is obvious: you will not know your
friends when you see them. And so, good voyage to your worship; we will
establish ourselves at Piraeus, and question all who land from Egypt or
Italy, as to whether they came across Adimantus's great ship, the Isis,
anywhere.
_Ad._ There now; that was why I refused to tell you about it at first;
I knew you would make a jest and a laughing-stock of my Wish. So now I
shall stop here till you have got on ahead, and then I shall go another
voyage on my ship. I like talking to my sailors much better than being
jeered at by you.
_Ly._ That will never do. We shall hang about, and go on board too.
_Ad._ I shall go on first, and haul up the gangway.
_Ly._ Then we shall swim across and board you. You seem to think there
will be no difficulty about your acquiring these great ships without
building them or paying for them; why should not _we_ obtain from the
Gods the privilege of swimming for an indefinite distance without
getting tired? You made no objection to our company the other day, you
know, when we all went across together to Aegina, to see the rites of
Hecate, in that tiny little boat, at sixpence a head; and now you are
furious at the idea of our going on board with you; you go on ahead,
and haul up the gangway. You forget yourself, my Shipowner; you wax fat
and kick; you withhold from Nemesis her due. See what comes of houses
in fashionable quarters, and great retinues. Well, please remember to
bring us back some of those exquisite smoked fish from the Nile, or
some myrrh from Canopus, or an ibis from Memphis;--I suppose you would
scarcely have room for a pyramid?
_Ti._ That is enough, Lycinus. Spare his blushes. You have quite
swamped his ship; she is laughter-logged, and can weather it no longer.
Now, we have still some distance before us; let us break it up into
four parts, and each have so many furlongs, in which he may demand of
the Gods what he will. This will lighten our journey, and amuse us into
the bargain; we shall revel in a delightful waking dream of unlimited
prosperity; for each of us will have full control of his own Wish, and
it will be understood that the Gods must grant everything, however
impracticable. Above all, it will give us an idea who would make the
best use of the supposed wealth; we shall see what kind of a man it
would have made of him.
_Sa._ A good idea. I am your man; I undertake to wish when my turn
comes. We need not ask Adimantus whether he agrees; he has one foot on
board already. We must have Lycinus's sanction, however.
_Ly._ Why, let us to our wealth, if so it must be. Where all is
prosperity, I would not be thought to cast an evil eye.
_Ad._ Who begins?
_Ly._ You; and then Samippus, and then Timolaus. I shall only want the
last hundred yards or so before the Gate for mine, and a quick hundred,
too.
_Ad._ Well, I stick to my ship still; only I shall wish some more
things, as it is allowed. May the God of Luck say Yes to all! I will
have the ship, and everything in her; the cargo, the merchants, the
women, the sailors, and anything else that is particularly nice to have.
_Sa._ You forget one thing you have on board--
_Ad._ Oh, the boy with the hair; yes, him too. And instead of the
present cargo of wheat, I will have the same bulk of coined gold, all
sovereigns.
_Ly._ Hullo! The ship will sink. Wheat and gold to the same bulk are
not of the same weight.
_Ad._ Now, don't make envious remarks. When your turn comes, you can
have the whole of Parnes turned into a mass of gold if you like, and I
shall say nothing.
_Ly._ Oh, I was only thinking of your safety. I don't want all hands to
go down with the golden cargo. It would not matter so much about us,
but the poor boy would be drowned; he can't swim.
_Ti._ Oh, that will be all right. The dolphins will pick him up and get
him to shore. Shall a paltry musician be rescued by them for a song's
sake, a lifeless Melicertes be carried on their backs to the Isthmus,
and Adimantus's latest purchase find never an amorous dolphin at his
need?
_Ad._ Timolaus, you are just as bad as Lycinus, with your superfluous
sneers. You ought to know better; it was all your idea.
_Ti._ You should make it more plausible. Find a treasure under your
bed; that would save unloading the gold, and getting it up to town.
_Ad._ Oh yes! It shall be dug up from under the Hermes in our court; a
thousand bushels of coined gold. Well; my first thought has been for
a handsome house,--'the homestead first and chiefest,' says Hesiod;
and my purchases in the neighbourhood are now complete; there remains
my property at Delphi, and the sea-front at Eleusis; and a little
something at the Isthmus (I might want to stop there for the games);
and the plain of Sicyon; and in short every scrap of land in the
country where there is nice shade, or a good stream, or fine fruit; I
reserve them all. We will eat off gold plate; and our cups shall weigh
100 lb. apiece; I will have none of the flimsy ware that appears on
Echecrates's table.
_Ly._ I dare say! And how is your cupbearer going to hand you a thing
of that weight, when he has filled it? And how will you like taking
it from him? It would tax the muscles of a Sisyphus, let alone a
cupbearer's.
_Ad._ Oh, don't keep on picking holes in my Wish. I shall have tables
and couches of solid gold, if I like; and servants too, if you say
another word.
_Ly._ Well, take care, or you will be like Midas, with nothing but
gold to eat and drink; and die of a right royal hunger, a martyr to
superabundance.
_Ad._ Your turn will come presently, Lycinus, and then you can be as
realistic as you like. To proceed: I must have purple raiment, and
every luxury, and sleep as late as I like; with friends to come and
pay court to me, and every one bowing down to the ground; and they
will all have to wait about at my doors from early morning--the great
Cleaenetus and Democritus among them; oh yes, and when they come and
try to get in before every one else, seven great foreign giants of
porters shall slam the door in their faces, just as theirs do now.
And as soon as I feel inclined, I shall peep out like the rising sun,
and some of that set I shall simply ignore; but if there is some poor
man there, like me before I got the treasure, I shall have a kind word
for him: 'You must come and have dinner with me, after your bath; you
know my hour.' The great men will all choke with envy when they see my
chariots and horses, and my handsome slaves--two thousand choice ones,
of all ages. Well, so the dinner service is to be of gold,--no silver
for me, it is much too cheap--and I shall have smoked fish from Spain;
wine from Italy; oil from Spain again; our own honey, but it must be
clarified without heat; delicacies from all quarters; wild boars;
hares; all sorts of birds, pheasants, Indian peacocks, Numidian capons;
and special cooks for everything, artists in sauce and seasoning. And
when I call for a beaker or goblet to pledge any one, he shall take it
home with him. As to the people who now pass for rich, they, I need
not say, will be paupers to me. Dionicus will give up displaying his
silver plate and cup in processions, when he sees that my slaves eat
off nothing but silver. I should set apart something for the public
service, too; a monthly distribution of £4 a head to citizens, and half
that to foreigners; and the most beautiful theatres and baths you can
imagine; and the sea should be brought along a great canal up to the
Double Gates, and there would be a harbour close by, so that my ship
could be seen lying at anchor from the Ceramicus. And of you who are my
friends, Samippus should have twenty bushels of coined gold paid out to
him by my steward; Timolaus, five quarts; and Lycinus one quart, strict
measure, because he talks too much, and sneers at my Wish. That is how
I would live; revelling in every luxury without stint, superlatively
rich. I have done. Hermes bring it all to pass!
_Ly._ Have you realized on what a slender thread all this wealth
depends? Once let that break, and all is gone; your treasure is but
dust and ashes.
_Ad._ How so?
_Ly._ Why, it is not clear how long this life of affluence is to last.
Who knows? You may be sitting one day at your solid gold table, just
putting out your hand for a slice of that peacock or capon, when, at
that very moment, off flies _animula vagula_, and Adimantus after
her, leaving his all a prey to crows and vultures. Need I enumerate
instances? There have been rich men who have died before they knew what
it was to be rich; others have lived to be robbed of their possessions
by some malign spirit who waits upon wealth. The cases of Croesus and
Polycrates are familiar to you. Their riches were greater far than
yours; yet at one stroke they lost all. But leaving them out of the
case, do you consider that you have good security for the continuance
of your health? Look at the number of rich men whose lives are made
miserable by their infirmities: some are crippled, others are blind,
others have internal diseases. Say what you will, I am sure that for
double your wealth you would not consent to be a weakling like rich
Phanomachus; not to mention the artful designs, the robberies, the
envy, and the unpopularity that are inseparable from wealth. See what
troubles your treasure will land you in!
_Ad._ You are always against me, Lycinus. I shall cancel your quart
now, for this last piece of spite.
_Ly._ That is so like a rich man, to draw back and break his promise; a
good beginning! Now, Samippus, it is your turn to wish.
_Sa._ Well, I am a landsman; I come from Mantinea, you know, in
Arcadia; so I shall not ask for a ship; I could make no show with
that in my country. Nor will I insult the generosity of the Gods by
asking for so much gold down. I understand there is no boon so great,
but their power and Timolaus's law can compass it; we are to wish
away without ceremony, he says,--they will refuse us nothing. Well
then, I wish to be a king. But I will not succeed to a hereditary
throne, like Alexander of Macedon, Ptolemy, Mithridates and the rest
of them. No, I will begin as a brigand, in a troop of thirty or so,
brisk companions ready at need. Then little by little we shall grow to
be 300; then 1,000, and presently 10,000; and at last we shall total
50,000 heavy-armed, and 5,000 horse. I shall be elected their chieftain
by general consent, having shown myself to be the best qualified for
the command and conduct of their affairs. Already, you see, I have
the advantage of ordinary kings: I am elected to the command on my
own merits; I am no hereditary monarch, reaping the fruits of my
predecessor's labours. That would be like Adimantus, with his treasure;
but there is much more satisfaction in knowing that your power is the
work of your own hands.
_Ly._ Now really, this _is_ a Wish, and no mistake; the very acme of
blessedness; to be commander of that vast company, chosen on your own
merits by 50,000 men! A genius, a master of strategy and king-craft has
been quietly growing up in Mantinea, and we not a whit the wiser! But
I interrupt. Proceed, O King, at the head of your troops; dispose your
forces, infantry and cavalry. Whither, I wonder, goes this mighty host,
issuing from Arcadia? Who are to be the first victims?
_Sa._ I'll tell you; or you can come with us, if you like. I will put
you in command of the cavalry.
_Ly._ Why, as to that, your Majesty, I am much beholden to you for
the honour; accept my most oriental prostrations; and manuflexions.
But, with all respect to your diadem, and the perpendicularity of your
tiara, you would do well to take one of these stout fellows instead. I
am sadly deficient in horsemanship; indeed, I was never on a horse in
my life. I am afraid that when the trumpet sounded to advance, I might
fall off, and be trampled, in the general confusion, under some of
those numerous hoofs. Or again, my spirited charger might get the bit
between his teeth, and carry me right into the midst of the enemy. If
I am to remain in possession of saddle and bridle, I shall have to be
tied on.
_Ad._ All right, Samippus, I will command the cavalry; Lycinus can have
the right wing. I have the first claim on you, after all those bushels
of sovereigns.
_Sa._ Let us see what my troopers think of you for a leader. All in
favour of Adimantus, hold up their hands.
_Ad._ All hands go up, look.
_Sa._ You command the cavalry, then, and Lycinus the right wing.
Timolaus will have the left wing. I am in the centre, like the Persian
monarchs when they take the field in person. Well; after due observance
paid to Zeus, king of kings, we advance along the hill-road to Corinth.
Greece being now subjugated (for no resistance will be offered to our
enormous host, we shall merely walk over), we get our troops on to the
galleys, and the horses on to the transports (arrangements having been
made at Cenchreae for the requisite number of vessels, with adequate
provision and so on), cross the Aegean, and land in Ionia. Here we
sacrifice to Artemis, and finding the various cities unfortified,
take easy possession of them, put in governors, and march on in the
direction of Syria. On the way we pass through Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia,
Pisidia, the mountains and sea-board of Cilicia, and so at last reach
the Euphrates.
_Ly._ If your Majesty has no objection, I will stay behind and be Pacha
of Greece. I am a poor-spirited fellow; to go all that way from home
is not to my liking at all. You evidently meditate an attack upon the
Parthians and Armenians, warlike folk, and unerring shots. Let some
one else have the right wing, and let me play Antipater here at home.
Some arrow, from the walls of Susa or Bactra, might find a chink in my
armour, and let daylight through me; and there would be a melancholy
end of my strategic career.
_Sa._ Oh coward, to desert your post! The penalty for that is
decapitation.--We are now at the Euphrates, and have thrown our
bridge across. All is secured in our rear by the subordinates whom I
have placed in charge of the various districts; officers have also
been dispatched for the reduction of Phoenicia and Palestine, and,
subsequently, of Egypt. Now, Lycinus, you cross first, with the right
wing; I next, and Timolaus after me. Last comes Adimantus with the
cavalry. We have now crossed Mesopotamia, and no enemy has yet shown
himself; town after town has voluntarily given itself up; we reach
Babylon; we enter its gates without warning, and the city is ours. The
Persian king meanwhile is at Ctesiphon. He hears of our approach and
withdraws to Seleucia, where he proceeds to muster his full strength of
cavalry, bowmen, and slingers. Our scouts report that the force already
collected numbers something like a million, including two hundred
thousand mounted bowmen; and the Armenian, Caspian, and Bactrian
contingents are still to come; only the neighbouring districts, the
suburbs, as it were, of the empire, have contributed as yet. With such
ease does the Persian monarch raise a million of men! It is now time
for us to think what we are to do next.
_Ad._ Well, I say that you should all march for Ctesiphon, leaving me
to secure Babylon with the cavalry.
_Sa._ Are you going to show the white feather too, Adimantus, now that
the danger is near?--Timolaus, what is your advice?
_Ti._ We must march upon the enemy in full force, before they have had
time to strengthen their hands with the reinforcements that are pouring
in from all quarters; let us engage them whilst they are still making
their several ways to Seleucia.
_Sa._ There is something in that. What do you recommend, Lycinus?
_Ly._ Well, we have all been on our legs till we are tired out; there
was the early walk down, and we must be a good three miles now on the
way home; and the sun is extremely powerful--it is just about noon: how
would it be to sit down for a bit on that ruined column under the olive
trees, till we are sufficiently restored to complete the journey?
_Sa._ _O sancta simplicitas!_ Did you think that you were at Athens
all this time? You are in the plain before Babylon, in a great
camp,--engaged in a council of war.
_Ly._ Why, so I am. I forgot; we are drunk, of course; it is against
rules to talk sense.
_Sa._ Well, now, please, to the attack. Bear yourselves gallantly
in this hour of danger: be not less than Greeks. See, the enemy are
upon us. Our watchword is 'Lord of Battles.' The moment the trumpet
sounds, raise the war-cry, clash spear upon shield, and lose no time
in coming to close quarters, out of danger of their arrows; otherwise
the bowmen will give us a warm reception. No sooner do we get to work
than Timolaus with his left wing routs their right; in the centre the
conflict is even; for I have the native Persian troops against me,
and the king is in their midst. The whole strength of their cavalry
bears down upon our right wing; play the man, therefore, Lycinus; and
encourage your troops to receive the charge.
_Ly._ Just my luck! Every single trooper of them is making straight
for me, as if I were the only foeman worthy of their steel. If they
go on like this, I think I shall have to turn tail and make for the
gymnasium, and leave you to fight it out.
_Sa._ Nonsense; you have almost beaten them already. Now, observe, the
king challenges me to single combat; honour forbids that I should draw
back; I accordingly engage him.
_Ly._ To be sure; and are promptly wounded. No king should omit to
receive a wound, when empire is at stake.
_Sa._ Well, yes; I do get just a scratch; it is well out of sight,
however, so the scar will be no disfigurement. On the other hand,
observe the fury of my charge: I send my spear through horse and rider
at one stroke; cut off the royal head; remove the diadem therefrom,
and am saluted as king with universal prostrations. That applies
only to the barbarians; from you who are Greeks I shall have merely
the usual title of commander-in-chief. You may imagine the rest: the
Samippopolises I shall found, the cities I shall storm and destroy for
slighting my supremacy. The wealthy Cydias will come in for the largest
share of my attention; I have not forgotten his gradual encroachments
on my property, in the days when we were neighbours.
_Ly._ Stop there, Samippus; after such a victory, it is high time you
retired to Babylon, to keep festival. Three-quarters of a mile is your
allowance of dominion, as I reckon it. Timolaus now selects his wish.
_Sa._ Well, tell me what you think of mine?
_Ly._ It seems to me, most sapient monarch, to involve considerably
more trouble and annoyance than that of Adimantus. While he lives
luxuriously, and hands about gold cups--hundred-pounders--to his
guests, you are sustaining wounds in single combat. From morning till
night, all is worry and anxiety with you. You have not only the public
enemies to fear: there are the numberless conspiracies, the envy and
hatred of your courtiers; you have flatterers enough, but not one
friend; their seeming goodwill is the work of fear or ambition. As to
enjoyment, you can never dream of such a thing. You have to content
yourself with glory and gold embroidery and purple; with the victor's
garland, and the king's bodyguard; beyond these there is nothing but
intolerable toil and continual discomfort. You are either negotiating
with ambassadors, or judging cases, or issuing mandates to your
subjects. Here a tribe revolts: there an enemy invades. All is fear
and suspicion. The world may think you happy; but you know better. And
surely it is a very humiliating circumstance that you should be apt
to fall ill, just like ordinary people? Fevers seem not to understand
that you are a king; nor does Death stand in any awe of your bodyguard;
when the fancy takes him, he comes, and carries you off lamenting; what
cares he for the diadem? Fallen from your high estate, dragged from
your kingly throne, you go the same road as the rest of us; there is no
'benefit of royalty' among the timid flock of shades. You leave behind
you upon earth some massive tomb, some stately column, some pyramid
of noble outline; but it will be too late then for vanity to enjoy
these things; and the statues and temples, the offerings of obsequious
cities, nay, your great name itself, all will presently decay, and
vanish, and be of no further account. Take it at the best; let all
endure for ages: what will it profit your senseless clay? And it is
for this that you are to live uneasy days, ever scheming, fearing,
toiling!--Timolaus, the wish is with you. We shall expect better things
from your judgement and experience.
_Ti._ See if you can find anything questionable or reprehensible in
what I propose. As to treasure-heaps and bushels of coin, I will have
none of them; nor monarchy, with the wars and terrors it involves.
You rightly censured such things, precarious as they are, exposed
to endless machinations, and bringing with them more vexation than
pleasure. No; my wish is that Hermes should appear and present me with
certain rings, possessed of certain powers. One should ensure its
wearer continual health and strength, invulnerability, insensibility
to pain. Another, like that of Gyges, should make me invisible. A
third should give me the strength to pick up with ease a weight that
ten thousand men could barely move. Then I must be able to fly to any
height above the earth; a ring for that. Again, I shall want to be able
to put people to sleep upon occasion; and at my approach all doors must
immediately fly open, all bolts yield, all bars withdraw. One ring may
secure these points. There remains yet one, the most precious of them
all; for with it on my finger I am the desire of every woman and boy,
ay, of whole nations; not one escapes me; I am in all hearts, on all
tongues. Women will hang themselves for the vehemence of their passion,
boys will go mad. Happy will those few be reckoned on whom I cast a
glance; and those whom I scorn will pine away for grief. Hyacinth,
Hylas, Phaon, will sink into insignificance beside me. And all this I
hold on no brief tenure; the limitations of human life are not for me.
I shall live a thousand years, ever renewing my youth, and casting off
the slough of old age every time I get to seventeen.--With these rings
I shall lack nothing. All that is another's is mine: for can I not open
his doors, put his guards to sleep, and walk in unperceived? Instead of
sending to India or to the Hyperboreans for their curiosities, their
treasures, their wines or their delicacies, I can fly thither myself,
and take my fill of all. The phoenix of India, the griffin, that winged
monster, are sights unknown to others: I shall see them. I alone shall
know the sources of the Nile, the lands that are uninhabited, the
Antipodes, if such there be, dwelling on the other side of the earth.
Nay, I may learn the nature of the stars, the moon, the sun itself; for
fire cannot harm me. And think of the joy of announcing the Olympian
victor's name in Babylon, on the day of the contest! or of having one's
breakfast in Syria, and one's dinner in Italy! Had I an enemy, I could
be even with him, thanks to my invisibility, by cracking his skull with
a rock; my friends, on the other hand, I might subsidize with showers
of gold as they lay asleep. Have we some overweening tyrant, who
insults us with his wealth? I carry him off a couple of miles or so,
and drop him over the nearest precipice. I could enjoy the company of
my beloved without let or hindrance, going secretly in after I had put
every one else in the house to sleep. What a thing it would be to hover
overhead, out of range, and watch contending armies! If I liked, I
could take the part of the vanquished, send their conquerors to sleep,
rally the fugitives and give them the victory. In short, the affairs
of humanity would be my diversion; all things would be in my power;
mankind would account me a God. Here is the perfection of happiness,
secure and indestructible, backed as it is by health and longevity.
What faults have you to find, Lycinus?
_Ly._ None; it is not safe to thwart a man who has wings, and the
strength of ten thousand. I have only one question to ask. Did you
ever, among all the nations you passed in your flight, meet with
a similar case of mental aberration? a man of mature years riding
about on a finger-ring, moving whole mountains with a touch; bald and
snub-nosed, yet the desire of all eyes? Ah, there was another point.
What is to prevent one single ring from doing all the work? Why go
about with your left hand loaded,--a ring to every finger? nay, they
overflow; the right hand must be forced into the service. And you
have left out the most important ring of all, the one to stop your
drivelling at this absurd rate. Perhaps you consider that a stiffish
dose of hellebore would serve the turn?
_Ti._ Now, positively, Lycinus, you must have a try yourself. You find
fault with everybody else; this time we should like to hear _your_
version of a really unexceptionable wish.
_Ly._ What do I want with a wish? Here we are at the gates. What with
the valiant Samippus's single combat at Babylon, and your breakfasts in
Syria and dinners in Italy, you have used up my ground between you; and
you are heartily welcome. I have no fancy for a short-lived visionary
wealth, with the humiliating sequel of barley-bread and no butter.
That will be your fate presently. Your bliss and your wealth will take
wings; you will wake from your charming dreams of treasure and diadems,
to find that your domestic arrangements are of quite another kind, like
the actors who take the king's part in tragedies;--their late majesties
King Agamemnon and King Creon usually return to very short commons on
leaving the theatre. Some depression, some discontent at your existing
arrangements, is to be expected on the occasion. You will be the worst
off, Timolaus. Your flying-machine will come to grief, like that of
Icarus; you will descend from the skies, and foot it on the ground; and
all those rings will slip off and be lost. As for me, I am content with
the exquisite amusement afforded me by your various wishes; I would not
exchange it for all the treasure in the world, Babylon included. And
you call yourselves philosophers!
F.
DIALOGUES OF THE HETAERAE
I
_Glycera. Thais_
_Gly._ Thais, that Acarnanian soldier, who used to be so fond of
Abrotonum, and then fell in love with me--he was decorated, and wore
a military cloak--do you know the man I mean? I suppose you have
forgotten him?
_Th._ Oh no, dear, I know; why, he shared our table last harvest
festival. Well? you look as if you had something to tell me about him.
_Gly._ That wicked Gorgona (such a _friend_ of mine, to be sure!)--she
has stolen him away from me.
_Th._ What! he has given you up, and taken her in your place?
_Gly._ Yes, dear; isn't it _horrid_ of her?
_Th._ Well, Glycera darling, it _is_ wicked, of course; but it is not
very surprising; it is what all we poor girls do. You mustn't be too
much vexed; I shouldn't blame her, if I were you; Abrotonum never
blamed you about him, you know; and you were friends, too. But _I_
cannot think what he _finds_ in her; where are his eyes? has he never
found out how thin her hair is? what a lot of forehead she shows! and
her lips! all livid; they might be a dead woman's; and that scraggy
neck, veined all over; and what an amount of nose! I grant you she is
tall and straight; and she has quite a nice smile.
_Gly._ Oh, Thais, you don't think it was her _looks_ caught him. Don't
you know? her mother Chrysarium is a witch; she knows Thessalian
charms, and can draw down the moon; they do say she flies o' nights. It
was she bewitched him with drugs in his drink, and now they are making
their harvest out of him.
_Th._ Ah well, dear, you will get a harvest out of some one else; never
mind him.
H.
II
_Myrtium. Pamphilus. Doris_
_Myr._ Well, Pamphilus? So I hear you are to marry Phido the
shipmaster's daughter,--if you have not done so already! And this is
the end of your vows and tears! All is over and forgotten! And I so
near my time! Yes, that is all I have to thank my lover for; that,
and the prospect of having a child to bring up; and you know what
that means to us poor girls. I mean to keep the child, especially if
it is a boy: it will be some comfort to me to call him after you; and
perhaps some day you will be sorry, when he comes to reproach you for
betraying his poor mother. I can't say much for the lady's looks.
I saw her only the other day, with her mother, at the Thesmophoria;
little did I know then that she was to rob me of my Pamphilus! Hadn't
you better see what she is like first? Take a good look at her eyes;
and try not to mind the colour, and the cast (she has such a squint!).
Or no: there is no need for you to see her: you have seen Phido; you
know what a face _he_ has.
_Pa._ How much more nonsense are you going to talk about shipowners and
marriages? What do I know about brides, ugly or pretty? If you mean
Phido of Alopece, I never knew he had a grown-up daughter at all. Why,
now I think of it, he is not even on speaking terms with my father.
They were at law not long ago--something about a shipping contract.
He owed my father a talent, I think it was, and refused to pay; so he
was had up before the Admiralty Court, and my father never got paid
in full, after all, so he said. Do you suppose if I wanted to marry I
should pass over Demeas's daughter in favour of Phido's? Demeas was
general last year, and she is my cousin on the mother's side. Who has
been telling you all this? Is it just a cobweb spun in that jealous
little brain of yours?
_Myr._ Pamphilus! You mean to say you are _not_ going to be married?
_Pa._ Are you mad, or what is the matter with you? We did not have much
to drink yesterday.
_Myr._ Ask Doris; it is all her fault. I sent her out to buy some wool,
and to offer up prayer to Artemis for me. And she said that she met
Lesbia, and Lesbia ---- Doris, tell him what Lesbia said, unless you
invented it all yourself.
_Dor._ May I die, miss, if I said a word more than the truth! Just by
the town-hall Lesbia met me, and 'Doris,' says she, smiling, 'your
young gentleman is to marry Phido's daughter. And if you don't believe
me,' says she, 'look up their street, and you will see everything
crowned with garlands, and a fine bustle going on; flutes playing, and
people singing the wedding-song.'
_Pa._ Well; and you did?
_Dor._ That I did, sir; and it was all as Lesbia had said.
_Pa._ Ah, now I see! You have told your mistress nothing but the truth;
and there was some ground for what Lesbia told you. However, it is a
false alarm. The wedding is not at our house. I remember now. When
I went back home yesterday, after leaving you, 'Pamphilus,' said my
mother, 'here is neighbour Aristaenetus's son, Charmides, who is no
older than you, just going to marry and settle down: when are _you_
going to turn over a new leaf?' And then I dropped off to sleep. I went
out early this morning, so that I saw nothing of all that Doris has
seen. If you doubt my word, Doris can go again; and look more carefully
this time, Doris; mark the house, not the street only, and you will
find that the garlands are next door.
_Myr._ I breathe again! Pamphilus, if it had been true, I should have
killed myself!
_Pa._ _True_, indeed! Am I mad, that I should forget Myrtium, so soon
to become the mother of my child?
F.
III
_Philinna. Her Mother_
_Mother._ You must be mad, Philinna; what _was_ the matter with you at
the dinner last night? Diphilus was in tears this morning when he came
and told me how he had been treated. You were tipsy, he said, and made
an exhibition of yourself, dancing when he asked you not to; then you
kissed his friend Lamprias, and when Diphilus did not like that, you
left him and went and put your arms round Lamprias; and he choking
with rage all the time. And afterwards you would not go near him, but
let him cry by himself, and kept singing and teasing him.
_Phi._ Ah, mother, he never told you how _he_ behaved; if you knew how
rude he was, you would not take his part. He neglected me and made up
to Thais, Lamprias's girl, before Lamprias came. I was angry, and let
him see what I thought of him, and then he took hold of Thais's ear,
bent her neck back and gave her--oh, such a kiss! I thought it would
never end. So I began to cry; but he only laughed, and kept whispering
to her--about me, of course; Thais was looking at me and smiling.
However, when they heard Lamprias coming, and had had enough of each
other at last, I did take my place by him all the same, not to give
him an excuse for a fuss afterwards. It was Thais got up and danced
first, showing her ankles ever so much, as if no one else had pretty
ones. And when she stopped, Lamprias never said a word, but Diphilus
praised her to the skies--such perfect time! such varied steps! foot
and music always right; and what a lovely ankle! and so on, and so on;
it might have been the _Sosandra_ of Calamis he was complimenting, and
not Thais; what she is really like, _you_ know well enough. And how she
insulted me, too! 'If some one is not ashamed of her spindle-shanks,'
she said, 'she will get up and dance now.' Well, that is all, mammy; of
course I did get up and dance. What was I to do? take it quietly and
make her words seem true and let her be queen?
_Mother._ You are too touchy, my lass; you should have taken no notice.
But go on.
_Phi._ Well, the others applauded, but Diphilus lay on his back and
looked up at the ceiling, till I was tired and gave up.
_Mother._ But what about kissing Lamprias? is that true? and going
across and embracing him? Well, why don't you speak? Those are things I
cannot forgive.
_Phi._ I wanted to pay him out.
_Mother._ And then not sitting near him! singing while he was in tears!
Think how poor we are, girl; you forget how much we have had from him,
and what last winter would have been if Aphrodite had not sent him to
us.
_Phi._ I dare say! and I am to let him outrage my feelings just for
that?
_Mother._ Oh, be as angry as you like, but no tit for tat. You ought
to know that if a lover's feelings are outraged his love ends, and he
finds out his folly. You have always been too hard on the lad; pull too
tight, and the rope breaks, you know.
H.
IV
_Melitta. Bacchis_
_Me._ Bacchis, don't you know any of those old women--there are
any number of them about, 'Thessalians,' they call them--they have
incantations, you know, and they can make a man in love with you, no
matter how much he hated you before? Do go and bring me one, there's
a dear! I'd give the clothes off my back, jewellery and all, to see
Charinus here again, and to have him hate Simiche as he hates me at
this moment.
_Ba._ Melitta! You mean to tell me that Charinus has gone off after
Simiche, and that after making his people so angry because he wouldn't
marry the heiress, all for your sake? She was to have brought him five
talents, so they said. I have not forgotten what you told me about that.
_Me._ Oh, that is all over now; I have not had a glimpse of him for
the last five days. No; he and Simiche are with his friend Pammenes
enjoying themselves.
_Ba._ Poor darling! But it can't have been a trifle that drove him
away: what was it all about?
_Me._ I don't know exactly. All I can say is, that he came back the
other day from Piraeus (his father had sent him there to collect some
money), and wouldn't even look at me! I ran to meet him, expecting him
to take me in his arms, instead of which he pushed me away! 'Go to
Hermotimus the ship-owner,' he said; 'go and read what is written on
the column in the Ceramicus; you will find your name there, and his.'
'Hermotimus? column? what do you mean?' said I. But he would tell me
nothing more; he went to bed without any dinner, and never gave me so
much as a look. I tried everything: I lavished all my endearments on
him, and did all I could to make him look at me. Nothing would soften
him: all he said was, 'If you keep on bothering, I shall go away this
minute, I don't care what time it is.'
_Ba._ But you _did_ know Hermotimus, I suppose?
_Me._ My dear, if I ever so much as heard of a Hermotimus who was a
ship-owner, may I be more wretched than I am now!--Next morning, at
cock-crow, Charinus got up, and went off. I remembered his saying
something about my name being written up in the Ceramicus, so I sent
Acis to have a look; and all she found was just this, chalked up
close by the Dipylus, on the right as you come in: _Melitta loves
Hermotimus_; and again a little lower down: _Hermotimus the ship-owner
loves Melitta_.
_Ba._ Ah, mischievous boys! I see what it is! Some one must have
written it up to tease Charinus, knowing how jealous he is. And he took
it all in at once! I must speak to him if I see him anywhere. He is a
mere child, quite unsophisticated.
_Me._ If you see him, yes: but you are not likely to. He has shut
himself up with Simiche; his people have been asking for him, they
think he is here still. No, Bacchis, I want one of those old women; she
would put all to rights.
_Ba._ Well, love, I know a capital witch; she comes from Syria, such a
brisk, vigorous old thing! Once when Phanias had quarrelled with me in
the same way, all about nothing, she brought us together again, after
four whole months; I had quite given him up, but her spells drew him
back.
_Me._ What was her fee? do you remember?
_Ba._ Oh, she was most reasonable: one drachma, and a loaf of bread.
Then you have to provide salt, of course, and sulphur, and a torch,
and seven pennies. And besides this, you must mix her a bowl of wine,
which she has to drink all by herself; and then there must be something
belonging to the man, his coat, or his shoes, or a lock of hair, or
something.
_Me._ I have got his shoes.
_Ba._ She hangs them up on a peg, and fumigates them with the sulphur,
throwing a little salt into the fire, and muttering both your names.
Then she brings out her magic wheel, and spins it, and rattles off an
incantation,--such horrid, outlandish words! Well, she had scarcely
finished, when, sure enough, in came Phanias; Phoebis (that was the
girl he was with) had begged and implored him not to go, and his
friends declared it was a shame; but the spell was too strong for them.
Oh yes, and she taught me a splendid charm against Phoebis. I was to
mark her footsteps, and rub out the last of them, putting my right foot
into her left footprint, and my left into her right; and then I was to
say: _My foot on thy foot; I trample thee down_! I did it exactly as
she told me.
_Me._ Oh, Bacchis, dear, do be quick and fetch the witch. Acis, you see
to the bread and sulphur and things.
F.
VII
MUSARIUM. HER MOTHER
_Mother._ Well, child, if we get another gallant like Chaereas, we must
make some offerings; the earthly Aphrodite shall have a white kid,
the heavenly one in the Gardens a heifer, and our lady of windfalls
a garland. How well off we shall be, positively rolling in wealth!
You see how much this boy brings in; not an obol, not a dress, not a
pair of shoes, not a box of ointment, has he ever given you; it is all
professions and promises and distant prospects; always, _if_ my father
_should_----, and I _should_ inherit, everything _would_ be yours. And
according to you, he swears you shall be his wife.
_Mu._ Oh yes, mother, he swore it, by the two Goddesses[4] and Polias.
_Mother._ And you believe it, no doubt. So much so that the other day,
when he had a subscription to pay and nothing to pay with, you gave him
your ring without asking me, and the price of it went in drink. Another
time it was the pair of Ionian necklaces that Praxias the Chian captain
got made in Ephesus and brought you; two darics apiece they weighed; a
club-dinner with the men of his year it was that time. As for shirts
and linen, those are trifles not worth mention. A mighty catch he has
been, to be sure!
_Mu._ He is so handsome with his smooth chin; and he loves me, and
cries as he tells me so; and he is the son of Laches the Areopagite and
Dinomache; and we shall be his _real_ wife and mother-in-law, you know;
we have great expectations, if only the old man would go to bye-bye.
_Mother._ So when we want shoes, and the shoemaker expects to be paid,
we are to tell him we have no money, 'but take a few expectations.'
And the baker the same. And on rent-day we shall ask the man to wait
till Laches of Collytus is dead; he shall have it after the wedding.
Well, I should be ashamed to be the only pretty girl that could not
show an earring or a chain or a bit of lace.
_Mu._ Oh well, mother, are the rest of them happier or better-looking
than I am?
_Mother._ No; but they have more sense; they know their business better
than to pin their faith to the idle words of a boy with a mouthful of
lover's oaths. But you go in for constancy and true love, and will have
nothing to say to anybody but your Chaereas. There was that farmer from
Acharnae the other day; his chin was smooth too; and he brought the two
mina he had just got for his father's wine; but oh dear me no! you send
him away with a sneer; none but your Adonis for you.
_Mu._ Mother, you could not expect me to desert Chaereas and let that
nasty working-man (faugh!) come near me. Poor Chaereas! he is a pet and
a duck.
_Mother._ Well, the Acharnian did smell rather of the farm. But there
was Antiphon--son to Menecrates--and a whole mina; why not him? he is
handsome, and a gentleman, and no older than Chaereas.
_Mu._ Ah, but Chaereas vowed he would cut both our throats if he caught
me with him.
_Mother._ The first time such a thing was ever threatened, I suppose.
So you will go without your lovers for this, and be as good a girl as
if you were a priestess of Demeter instead of what you are. And if that
were all!--but to-day is harvest festival; and where is his present?
_Mu._ Mammy dear, he has none to give.
_Mother._ They don't all find it so hard to get round their fathers;
why can't he get a slave to wheedle him? why not tell his mother he
will go off for a soldier if she doesn't let him have some money?
instead of which he haunts and tyrannizes over us, neither giving
himself nor letting us take from those who would. Do you expect to be
eighteen all your life, Musarium? or that Chaereas will be of the same
mind when he has his fortune, and his mother finds a marriage that will
bring him another? You don't suppose he will remember tears and kisses
and vows, with five talents of dowry to distract him?
_Mu._ Oh yes, he will. They have done everything to make him marry now;
and he wouldn't! that shows.
_Mother._ I only hope it shows true. I shall remind you of all this
when the time comes.
H.
VIII
_Ampelis. Chrysis_
_Am._ Well, but, Chrysis, I don't call a man in love at all, if he
doesn't get jealous, and storm, and slap one, and clip one's hair, and
tear one's clothes to pieces.
_Ch._ Is that the only way to tell?
_Am._ To tell a serious passion, yes. The kisses and tears and vows,
the constant attendance,--all that only shows that he's _beginning_ to
be in love; it's still coming on. But the real flame is jealousy, pure
and simple. So if Gorgias is jealous, and slaps you, as you say, you
may hope for the best; pray that he may always go on as he has begun!
_Ch._ Go on slapping me?
_Am._ No, no; but getting angry if you ever look at any one else. If he
were not in love with you, why should he mind your having another lover?
_Ch._ Oh, but I _haven't_! It's all a mistake! He took it into his
head that old Moneybags had been paying me attentions, because I just
happened to mention his name once.
_Am._ Well, that's very nice, too. You want him to think that there are
rich men after you. It will make him all the more angry, and all the
more liberal; he'll be afraid of being cut out by his rivals.
_Ch._ But Gorgias never gives me anything. He only storms and slaps.
_Am._ Oh, you wait. Nothing tames them like jealousy.
_Ch._ Ampelis, I believe you _want_ me to be slapped!
_Am._ Nonsense! All I mean is this: if you want to make a man wildly
in love with you, let him see that you can do without him. When he
thinks that he has you all to himself, he is apt to cool down. You see
I've had twenty years' experience: whereas you, I suppose, are about
eighteen, perhaps not that. Come now; I'll tell you what happened to
me, not so many years ago. Demophantus was my admirer in those days;
the usurer, you know, at the back of the Poecile. He had never given
me more than five drachmae at a time, and he wanted to have everything
his own way. The fact was, my dear, his love was only skin-deep. There
were no sighs or tears with him; no knocking me up at unearthly hours;
he would spend an evening with me now and then--very occasionally--and
that was all. But one day when he called, I was 'not at home'; I had
Callides the painter with me (he had given me ten drachmae). Well,
at the time Demophantus said some very rude things, and walked off.
However, the days went by, and I never sent to him; and at last
(finding that Callides had been with me again) even Demophantus began
to catch fire, and to get into a passion about it; so one day he stood
outside, and waited till he found the door open: my dear, I don't know
what he didn't do! cried, beat me, vowed he would murder me, tore my
clothes dreadfully! And it all ended with his giving me a talent;
after which I saw no one else for eight months on end. His wife told
everybody that I had bewitched him with some drug. 'Twas easy to see
what the drug had been: jealousy. Now you should try the same drug upon
Gorgias. The boy will have money, if anything happens to his father.
F.
IX
_Dorcas. Pannychis. Philostratus. Polemon_
_Dor._ Oh, miss, we are lost, lost! Here is Polemon back from the wars
a rich man, they say. I saw him myself in a mantle with a purple border
and a clasp, and a whole train of men at his back. His friends when
they caught sight of him crowded round to get their greetings in. I
made out in the train his man who went abroad with him. So I said How
d'ye do, and then asked, 'Do tell me, Parmenon, how you got on; have
you made anything to repay you for all your fighting?'
_Pa._ Ah, you should not have begun with that. Thanks to all the Gods
you were not killed (you ought to have said), and most of all to Zeus
who guards the stranger and Athene who rules the battle! My mistress
was always trying to find out how you were doing and where you were.
And if you had added that she was always weeping and talking of
Polemon, that would have been still better.
_Dor._ Oh, I said all that right at the beginning; but I never thought
of telling you that; I wanted to get on to the news. This was how I
began to Parmenon: 'Did you and your master's ears burn, Parmenon?' I
said; 'mistress was always talking of him and crying; and when any one
came back from the last battle and reported that many had been killed,
she would tear her hair and beat her breast, and grieve so every time!'
_Pa._ Ah, that was right, Dorcas.
_Dor._ And then after a little while I went on to the other questions.
And he said, 'Oh, yes, we have come back great men.'
_Pa._ What, straight off like that? never a word of how Polemon had
talked or thought of me, or prayed he might find me alive?
_Dor._ Yes, he said a good deal of that. But his real news was enormous
riches--gold, raiment, slaves, ivory. As for the money, they didn't
count it, but measured it by the bushel, and it took some time that
way. On Parmenon's own finger was a huge queer-shaped ring with one of
those three-coloured stones, the outer part red. I left him when he
wanted to give me the history of how they crossed the Halys and killed
somebody called Tiridates, and how Polemon distinguished himself in the
battle with the Pisidians. I ran off to tell you, and give you time to
think. Suppose Polemon were to come--and you may be sure he will, as
soon as he has got rid of his company--and find when he asked after you
that Philostratus was here; what _would_ he do?
_Pa._ Oh, Dorcas, we _must_ find some way out of it. It would be
shabby to send Philostratus about his business so soon after having
that talent from him; and he is a merchant, and if he keeps all his
promises----. And on the other hand, it is a pity not to be at home
to Polemon now he is come back such a great man; besides, he is so
jealous; when he was poor, there was no getting on with him for it; and
what _will_ he be like now?
_Dor._ Here he comes.
_Pa._ Oh, Dorcas, what _am_ I to do? I shall faint; how I tremble!
_Dor._ Why, here is Philostratus too.
_Pa._ Oh, what will become of me? oh that the earth would swallow me
up!
_Phi._ Well, my dear, where is that wine?
_Pa._ (Now he has gone and done it!) Ah, Polemon, so you are back at
last; are you well?
_Po._ Who is this person coming to you? What, no answer? Oh, mighty
fine, Pannychis! Here have I come on the wings of love--the whole way
from Thermopylae in five days; and all for a woman like this! But I
deserve it; I ought to be grateful; I shall not be plundered any more,
that is something.
_Phi._ And who may you be, good sir?
_Po._ Polemon, deme Stiria, tribe Pandionis; will that do for you? late
colonel, now general of division, and Pannychis's lover, so long as he
supposed a mere man was good enough for her.
_Phi._ At present, however, sir free-lance, Pannychis is mine. She
has had one talent, and will have another as soon as my cargoes
are disposed of. Come along, Pannychis; the colonel can keep his
colonelling for the Odrysians.
_Dor._ She is a free woman; it is for her to say whether she will come
along or not.
_Pa._ What shall I do, Dorcas?
_Dor._ Better go in; Polemon is too angry to talk to now, and a little
jealousy will only whet his appetite.
_Pa._ Well, if you think so, let us go in.
_Po._ I give you both fair warning that you drink your last drink
to-day; I ought to know by this time how to part soul from body.
Parmenon, the Thracians. Full armour, battle array, this alley blocked.
Pikemen in the centre, slingers and archers on the flanks, and the
remainder in the rear.
_Phi._ You take us for babies, Mr. Mercenary, to judge from your appeal
to our imaginations. Now I wonder whether you ever shed as much blood
as runs in a cock's veins, or ever looked on war; to stretch a point in
your favour, I dare say you may have been corporal in charge of a bit
of wall somewhere.
_Po._ You will know ere long, when you look upon our serried ranks of
glittering steel.
_Phi._ Oh, pack up your traps and come, by all means. I and my
Tibius--I have only one man, you see--will scatter you so wide with a
few stones and bricks that you shall never find one another again.
H.
XI
_Tryphaena. Charmides_
_Try._ Well, to be sure! Get a girl to keep company with you, and then
turn your back on her! Nothing but tears and groans! The wine was not
good enough, I suppose, and you didn't want a _tête-à-tête_ dinner. Oh
yes, I saw you were crying at dinner too. And now it is one continued
wail like a baby's. What _is_ it all about, Charmides? _Do_ tell me;
let me get that much out of my evening with you.
_Ch._ Love is killing me, Tryphaena; I can stand it no longer.
_Try._ It is not love for me, that is clear. You would not be so cold
to me, and push me away when I want to put my arms round you. It really
is not fair to keep me off like this! Never mind, tell me who it is;
perhaps I may help you to her; I know one ought to make oneself useful.
_Ch._ Oh, you two know each other quite well; she is quite a celebrity.
_Try._ Name, name, Charmides!
_Ch._ Well then--Philematium.
_Try._ Which? there are two of them; one in Piraeus, who has only just
come there; Damyllus the governor's son is in love with her; is it that
one? or the other, the one they call The Trap?
_Ch._ Yes, that is she; she has caught me and got me tight, poor mouse.
_Try._ And the tears were all for her?
_Ch._ Even so.
_Try._ Is this recent? or how long has it been going on?
_Ch._ Oh, it is nothing new. I saw her first at the Dionysia; that
makes seven months.
_Try._ Had you a full view of her, or did you just see her face and as
much as a woman of forty-five likes to show?
_Ch._ Oh, come! I have her word for it she will be two-and-twenty next
birthday.
_Try._ Well, which are you going to trust--her word, or your own eyes?
Just take a careful look at her temples some day; that is the only
place where her own hair shows; all the rest is a thick wig; but at the
temples, when the dye fades a little, you can easily detect the grey.
But that is nothing; insist on seeing more than her face.
_Ch._ Oh, but I am not favoured so far as that.
_Try._ No, I should think not. She knows what the effect would be; why,
she is all over--oh, talk of leopard-skins! And it was she made you cry
like that, was it? I dare say, now, she was very cruel and scornful?
_Ch._ Yes, she was, dear; and such a lot of money as she has from me!
Just now she wants a thousand drachmas; well, I am dependent on my
father, and he is very close, and I could not very well get it; so she
is at home to Moschion, and will not see me. That is why you are here;
I thought it might vex her.
_Try._ Well, I'm sure I never never would have come if I had been told
what it was for--just to vex somebody else, and that somebody old
coffin-ripe Philematium! I shall go away; for that matter the third
cock-crow is past.
_Ch._ No, no, not so fast, Tryphaena. If it is all true--the wig, the
dye, and the leopard-skin--I shall hate the sight of her.
_Try._ If your mother has ever seen her at the bath, ask her. As to the
age, you had better ask your grandfather about that, if he is alive.
_Ch._ Well, as that is what she is like, come up close to me. Give me
your arms--and your lips--and let us be friends. Philematium be hanged!
H.
XII
_Joessa. Pythias. Lysias_
_Jo._ Cross boy! But I deserve it all! I ought to have treated you as
any other girl would do,--bothered you for money, and been engaged
when you called, and made you cheat your father or rob your mother
to get presents for me; instead of which, I have always let you in
from the very first time, and it has never cost you a penny, Lysias.
Think of all the lovers I have sent away: Ethocles, now a Chairman of
Committees, and Pasion the ship-owner, and young Melissus, who had just
come into all his father's money. I would not have a word to say to
one of them; I kept myself for you, hard-hearted Phaon that you are!
I was fool enough to believe all your vows, and have been living like
a Penelope for your sake; mother is furious about it, and is always
talking at me to her friends. And now that you feel sure of me, and
know how I dote on you, what is the consequence? You flirt with Lycaena
under my very eyes, just to vex me; you sit next to _me_ at dinner, and
pay compliments to Magidium, a mere music-girl, and hurt my feelings,
and make me cry. And that wine-party the other day, with Thraso and
Diphilus, when Cymbalium the flute-girl was there, and Pyrallis: you
know how I hate that girl: as for Cymbalium, whom you kissed no less
than five times, I didn't mind so much about that,--it must have been
sufficient punishment in itself:--but the way in which you were always
making signs to Pyrallis to notice your cup, and whispering to the
boy, when you gave it back to him, that he was not to fill it for any
one but Pyrallis! and that piece of apple that you bit off and shot
across right into her lap, when you saw that Diphilus was occupied with
Thraso,--you never even tried to conceal it from me! and she kissed
it, and hid it away beneath her girdle. What is the meaning of it all?
What have I ever done to you? Did I ever displease you? ever look at
any other man? Do I not live for you alone? A brave thing, is it not,
Lysias, to vex a poor weak woman who loves you to distraction! There is
a Nemesis who watches such deeds. You will be sorry some day, perhaps,
when you hear of my hanging myself, or jumping head first into a well;
for die I will, one way or another, rather than live to be an eyesore
to you. There will be an achievement for you to boast of! You need not
look at me like that, nor gnash your teeth: if you have anything to
say against me, here is Pythias; let her judge between us. Oh, you are
going away without a word?--You see what I have to put up with, Pythias!
_Py._ Monster! He cares nothing for her tears. He must be made of stone
instead of flesh and blood. But the truth is, my dear, you have spoilt
him, by letting him see how fond you are of him. It is a great mistake
to make so much of them; they get uppish. Don't cry, dear: take my
advice, and shut him out once or twice; it will be his turn to dote on
_you_ then.
_Jo._ Shut him out? Don't breathe a word of such a thing! I only wish
he would wait till I turned him out!
_Py._ Why, here he is back again.
_Jo._ Pythias! What _have_ you done? If he should have overheard that
about shutting him out!
_Ly._ I am coming back on your account, Pythias, not on hers; I will
never look at her again, after what she has done: but I don't want
_you_ to think badly of me; it shall not be said that Lysias was
hard-hearted.
_Py._ Exactly what I _was_ saying.
_Ly._ But what would you have me do? This girl, who is so tearful now,
has been disloyal to me, and received another lover; I actually found
them together!
_Py._ Well, after all----. But when did you make this discovery?
_Ly._ It must have been something like five days ago; yes, it was,
because it was on the second, and to-day is the seventh. My father had
found out about this precious Joessa, and how long it had been going
on, and he locked me in, and gave the porter orders not to open to me.
Well, I wasn't going to be kept away from her, so I told Dromo to slip
along the courtyard to the lowest part of the wall, and then let me
mount on his back; I knew I could easily get over that way. To make
a long story short, I got out, and came here. It was midnight, and I
found the door carefully barred. Instead of knocking, I quietly lifted
the door off its hinges (it was not the first time I had done so) and
passed noiselessly in. Every one was asleep. I groped my way along the
wall, and stopped at the bedside.
_Jo._ Good Heavens! What is coming? I am in torment!
_Ly._ I perceived from the breathing that there was more than one
person there, and thought at first that Lyde must be sleeping with
her. Pythias, I was mistaken! My hands passed over a smooth, beardless
_man's_ face; the fellow was close-cropped, and reeked of scent like
any woman. I had not brought my sword with me, or you may be sure I
should have known what to do with it.--What are you both laughing at?
Is it so amusing, Pythias?
_Jo._ Oh, Lysias! is that all? Why, it was Pythias who was sleeping
with me!
_Py._ Joessa, don't tell him!
_Jo._ Why not? Lysias, dear, it _was_ Pythias; I had asked her to come
and sleep with me; I was so lonely without you.
_Ly._ Pythias? Then her hair has grown pretty fast in five days.
_Jo._ She has been ill, and her hair was falling off, and she had to
have it cropped. And now she has got false hair. Pythias, show him that
it is so. Behold your rival, Lysias! this is the young gentleman of
whom you were jealous.
_Ly._ And what lover would not have been jealous? I had the evidence of
my hands, remember.
_Jo._ Well, you know better now. Suppose I were to return you evil for
evil? What should you say to that? It is my turn to be angry with you
now.
_Ly._ No, you mustn't be angry. We will have some wine, and Pythias
must join us; the truce cannot be ratified without her.
_Jo._ Of course not. A pretty scrape you have led me into, Pythias, you
nice young man!
_Py._ The nice young man has led you out of it again too, so you must
forgive him. I say, Lysias, you need not tell any one--about my hair,
you know.
F.
XIII
_Leontichus. Chenidas. Hymnis_
_Le._ And then that battle with the Galatians; tell her about that,
Chenidas--how I rode out in front on the grey, and the Galatians (brave
fellows, those Galatians, too)--but they ran away directly they saw me;
not a man stood his ground. That time, you know, I used my lance for a
javelin, and sent it through their captain and his horse as well; and
then, as some of them were left--the phalanx was broken up, you see,
but a certain number had rallied--well, I pulled out my trusty blade,
rode at them as hard as I could go, knocked over half a dozen of the
front rank with the mere rush of my horse, brought down my sword on
one of the officers, and clove his head in two halves, helmet and all.
The rest of you came up shortly, you remember, when they were already
running.
_Che._ Oh, but that duel of yours with the satrap in Paphlagonia! that
was a fine display, too.
_Le._ Well remembered; yes, that was not so bad, either. A great big
fellow that satrap was, supposed to be a champion fighter too--thought
nothing of Greek science. Out he came, and challenged all comers
to single combat. There was consternation among our officers, from
the lowest to the general himself--though he was a pretty good man.
Aristaechmus the Aetolian he was--very strong on the javelin; I was
only a colonel then. However, I was not afraid. I shook off the friends
who clung to me--they were anxious about me when they saw the barbarian
resplendent in his gilded armour, towering high with his terrible plume
and brandishing his lance--
_Che._ Yes, _I_ was afraid that time; you remember how I clung to you
and besought you not to sacrifice yourself; life would not have been
worth living, if you had fallen.
_Le._ I ventured it, though. Out I went, as well armed as the
Paphlagonian, all gold like him. What a shout there was on both sides!
the barbarians recognized me too; they knew my buckler and medals and
plume. Who was it they all compared me to, Chenidas?
_Che._ Why, who should it be? Achilles, of course; the son of Peleus
and Thetis, of course. Your helmet was so magnificent, your purple so
rich, your buckler so dazzling.
_Le._ We met. The barbarian drew first blood--just a scratch with his
lance a little above the knee; but my great spear drove through his
shield and right into the breast-bone Then I ran up, just sliced his
head off with my sword, and came back carrying his arms, the head
spiked on my spear dripping gore upon me.
_Hym._ How horrid, Leontichus! what disgusting frightful tales you
tell about yourself! What girl would look at a man who likes such
nastiness--let alone drink or sleep with him? I am going away.
_Le._ Pooh! I double your pay.
_Hym._ No, nothing shall induce me to sleep with a murderer.
_Le._ Don't be afraid, my dear. All that was in Paphlagonia. I am a man
of peace now.
_Hym._ No, you are unclean; the blood of the barbarian's head on the
spear has dripped over you! I embrace and kiss a man like that? the
Graces forbid! he is no better than the executioner.
_Le._ I am certain you would be in love with me if you had seen me in
my armour.
_Hym._ I tell you it makes me sick and frightened even to hear of such
things; I see the shades and ghosts of the slain; that poor officer
with his head cloven! what would it be if I saw the thing done, and the
blood, and the bodies lying there? I am sure I should die; I never saw
a chicken killed, even.
_Le._ Such a coward, girl? so poor of heart? I thought you would like
to hear it.
_Hym._ Well, try the Lemnian women, or the daughters of Danaus, if you
want to please with that sort of tale. I shall run home to my mother,
while there is some daylight left. Come along, Grammis. Good-bye,
mightiest of colonels, and murderer of however many it is!
_Le._ Stay, girl, stay.--Why, she is gone!
_Che._ Well, Leontichus, you frightened the simple little thing with
your nodding plumes and your incredible exploits. I saw her getting
pale as far back as the officer story; her face was all puckered up and
quivering when you split his head.
_Le._ I thought it would make me more attractive. Well, but it was your
fault too; you started the duel.
_Che._ Well, I had to chime in when I saw what you were bragging
for. But you laid it on so thick. Pass the cutting off the wretched
Paphlagonian's head, what did you want to spike it on a spear for, and
let the blood run down on you?
_Le._ That was a bit too strong, I admit; the rest was rather well put
together. Well, go and persuade her to come back.
_Che._ Shall I tell her you lied to make her think you a fine fellow?
_Le._ Oh, plague upon it!
_Che._ It's the only way. Choose--a mighty champion, and loathed, or a
confessed liar, and--Hymnis?
_Le._ Bad is the best; but I say Hymnis. Go to her, then, Chenidas, and
say I lied--in parts.
H.
XIV
_Dorion. Myrtale_
_Do._ So, Myrtale! You ruin me first, and then close your doors on me!
It was another tale when I brought you all those presents: I was your
love, then; your lord, your life. But you have squeezed me dry now, and
have got hold of that Bithynian merchant; so I am left to whimper on
the wrong side of the door, while he, the favoured lover, enjoys your
embraces, and is to become a father soon, so you tell him.
_Myr._ Come, Dorion, that is too much! Ruined you, indeed! A lot you
ever gave me! Let us go through the list of your presents, from the
very beginning.
_Do._ Very well; let us. First, a pair of shoes from Sicyon, two
drachmae. Remember two drachmae.
_Myr._ Ah, but you were here for two nights.
_Do._ A box of Phoenician ointment, when I came back from Syria; the
box of alabaster. The same price, as I'm a seaman!
_Myr._ Well, and when you sailed again, didn't I give you that
waistcoat, that you might have something to wear when you were rowing?
It was Epiurus the boatswain's, that waistcoat; he left it here one
night by mistake.
_Do._ Epiurus recognized it, and took it away from me in Samos, only
the other day; and a rare tussle we had before he got it. Then there
were those onions I brought you from Cyprus, and five haddocks and
four perch, the time we came back from the Bosphorus. Oh, and a whole
basket of ship's bread--eight loaves of it; and a jar of figs from
Caria. Another time it was a pair of slippers from Patara, gilded ones,
you ungrateful girl! Ah, and I was forgetting that great cheese from
Gythium.
_Myr._ Say five drachmae the lot.
_Do._ It was all that my pay would run to, Myrtale; I was but a common
seaman in those days. I have risen to be mate now, my haughty miss. And
didn't I put down a solid drachma for you at the feet of Aphrodite's
statue, when it was her feast the other day? Then I gave your mother
two drachmae to buy shoes with; and Lyde there,--many is the copper I
have slipped into her hand, by twos and threes. Put all that together,
and it makes a seaman's fortune.
_Myr._ Onions and haddocks.
_Do._ Yes; 'twas all I had; if I were rich, I should not be a sailor. I
have never brought my own mother so much as a head of garlic. I should
like to know what sort of presents the Bithynian makes you?
_Myr._ Look at this dress: he bought it me; and this necklace, the
thick one.
_Do._ Pooh, you have had that for years.
_Myr._ No, the one you knew was much lighter, and it had no emeralds.
My earrings were a present of his too, and so was that rug; and he gave
me two minae the other day, besides paying our rent. Rather different
from Patara slippers, and Gythium cheeses and stuff!
_Do._ And how do you like him for a lover? you say nothing about that.
He is fifty years old if he is a day; his hair is all gone in front,
and he has the complexion of a lobster. Did you ever notice his teeth?
And so accomplished too! it is a treat to hear him when he sings and
tries to make himself agreeable; what is it they tell me about an ass
that would learn the lyre? Well, I wish you joy of him; you deserve
no better luck; and may the child be like his father! As for me, I'll
find some Delphis or Cymbalium that's more in my line; your neighbour,
perhaps, the flute-girl; anyhow, I shall get some one. We can't all
afford necklaces and rugs and two minae presents.
_Myr._ How I envy the lucky girl who gets you, Dorion! What onions she
will have from Cyprus! what cheeses next time you come from Gythium!
F.
XV
_Cochlis. Parthenis_
_Co._ Crying, Parthenis! what is it? how do your pipes come to be
broken?
_Par._ Oh! oh! I have been beaten by Crocale's lover--that tall
Aetolian soldier; he found me playing at Crocale's, hired by his rival
Gorgus. He broke in while they were at dinner, smashed my pipes, upset
the table, and emptied out the wine-bowl. Gorgus (the country fellow,
you know) he pulled out of the dining-room by the hair of his head,
and the two of them, Dinomachus (I think they call him) and a fellow
soldier, stood over thumping him. Oh, Cochlis, I doubt whether he will
live; there was a great rush of blood from his nostrils, and his face
is all swollen and livid.
_Co._ Is the man mad? or was it just a drunken freak?
_Par._ All jealousy, my dear--love run wild. Crocale had asked two
talents, I believe, if Dinomachus wanted her all to himself. He
refused; so she shut the door in his face, I was told, and would
not let him in at all. Instead of him she took Gorgus of Oenoë, a
well-to-do farmer and a nice man; they were drinking together, and
she had got me in to play the pipes. Well, the wine was going, I was
striking up one of those Lydian tunes, the farmer standing up to dance,
Crocale clapping, and all as merry as could be. Suddenly there was
a noise and a shout, crash went the front door, and a moment after
in burst eight great strong men, that brute among them. Everything
was upside down directly, Gorgus on the ground, as I told you, being
thumped and kicked. Crocale got away somehow and took refuge with
Thespias next door. Dinomachus boxed my ears, and 'Go to blazes!' he
said, throwing me the broken pipes. I am running to tell master about
it now. And the farmer is going to find some of his friends in town and
get the brute summonsed in the police-court.
_Co._ Yes, bruises and the courts--that is all we get out of the
military. They tell you they are generals and colonels, and then when
it comes to paying, 'Oh, wait for settling day,' they say; 'then I
shall get my pay, and put everything right.' I wish they were all
dead, they and their bragging. But I never have anything to do with
them; it is the best way. Give me a fisherman or a sailor or farmer no
better than myself, with few compliments and plenty of money. These
plume-tossing word-warriors! they are nothing but noise, Parthenis.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Demeter and Persephone.
THE DEATH OF PEREGRINE
LUCIAN to CRONIUS. Greeting.
Poor dear Peregrine--or Proteus, as he loved to call himself,--has
quite come up to his namesake in Homer. We have seen him under many
shapes: countless have been his transformations for glory's sake;
and now--'tis his last appearance--we see him in the shape of fire.
So vast was his ambition. Yes, Cronius; all that is left of the best
of men is a handful of ashes. It's just like Empedocles; only with a
difference. That philosopher would fain have sneaked into his crater
unobserved: not so our high-souled friend. He bides his time till all
Greece is mustered in full force--constructs a pyre of the largest
dimensions--and jumps on top in the eyes of all the world, having
briefly addressed the nation a few days before on the subject of his
daring enterprise! I fancy I see you chuckling away at the old dotard;
or rather I hear you blurting out the inevitable comments--'Mere
imbecility'--'Mere clap-trap'-'Mere ...' everything else that we
are accustomed to attribute to these gentry. But then you are far
enough off to be comparatively safe: now _I_ made my remarks before
a vast audience, in the very moment of cremation (and before it for
that matter), exciting thereby the indignation of all the old fool's
admirers, though there were a few who joined in the laugh against him.
I can tell you, I was within an ace of being torn limb from limb by
the Cynics, like Actaeon among the dogs, or his cousin Pentheus among
the Maenads.--But I must sketch you the whole drama in detail. As to
our author, I say nothing: you know the man, you know the sublime
utterances that marked his earthly course, out-voicing Sophocles and
Aeschylus.
Well, the first thing I did when I got to Elis was to take a turn in
the gymnasium, listening the while to the discordant yells of some
Cynic or other;--the usual platitudes, you know;--ringing commendations
of Virtue--indiscriminate slaughter of characters--finally, a
peroration on the subject of Proteus. I must try and give you the exact
words, as far as I can remember them; you will recognize the true Cynic
yell, I'll be bound; you have heard it before.
'Proteus,' he cried, 'Proteus vain-glorious? Who dares name the word?
Earth! Sun! Seas! Rivers! God of our fathers, Heracles! Was it for this
that he suffered bondage in Syria? that he forgave his country a debt
of a million odd? that he was cast out of Rome,--he whose brilliance
exceeds the Sun, fit rival of the Lord of Olympus? 'Tis his good will
to depart from life by fire, and they call it vain-glory! What other
end had Heracles? 'Twas the thunderbolt, methinks, that slew Asclepius,
Dionysus[5]? 'Twas in the crater that Empedocles sought death?'
Theagenes (our friend with the lungs) had got thus far, when I asked
one of the bystanders what all this meant about 'fire,' and what
Heracles and Empedocles had got to do with Proteus?--'Proteus,' he
replied, 'will shortly cremate himself, at the Olympic games.'--'But
how,' I asked, 'and why?' He did his best to explain, but the Cynic
went on bawling, and it was quite out of the question to attend to
anything else. I waited on to the end. It was one torrent of wild
panegyric on Proteus. The sage of Sinope, Antisthenes his master,--nay,
Socrates himself--none of them were so much as to be compared with him.
Zeus was invited to contend for the pre-eminence. Subsequently however
it seemed advisable to leave the two on some sort of equality. 'The
world,' he cried in conclusion, 'has seen but two works of surpassing
excellence, the Olympian Zeus, and--Proteus. The one we owe to the
creative genius of Phidias; the other is Nature's handiwork. And now,
this godlike statue departs from among mankind; borne upon wings of
fire, he seeks the heavens, and leaves us desolate.' He had worked
himself up into a state of perspiration over all this; and when it was
over he was very absurd, and cried, and tore his hair,--taking care
not to pull too hard; and was finally taken away by some compassionate
Cynics, sobbing violently all the time.
Well, after him, up jumped somebody else, before the crowd had time
to disperse; pouring his libation upon the glowing embers of the
previous sacrifice. He commenced operations with a loud guffaw--there
was no doubting its sincerity--after which he addressed us as follows.
'Theagenes (Heaven forgive him!) concluded his vile rant with the
tears of Heraclitus: I, on the other hand, propose to begin with the
laughs of Democritus.' Another hearty guffaw, in which most of us were
fain to join. 'One simply can't help it,' he remarked, pulling himself
together, 'when one hears such sad stuff talked, and sees old men
practically standing on their heads for the public amusement,--and all
to keep their grubby little reputations alive! Now, if you want to know
all about this "statue" which proposes to cremate itself, I'm your man.
I have marked his career from the first, and followed his intellectual
development; and I learnt a good deal from his fellow citizens, and
others whose authority was unquestionable.
'To begin then, this piece of perfect workmanship, straight from
Nature's mould, this type of true proportion, had barely come of age,
when he was caught in adultery; in Armenia this was; he received a
brisk drubbing for his pains, and finally made a jump of it from the
roof, and so got off. His next exploit was the corruption of a handsome
boy. This would have brought him before the Governor, by rights; but
the parents were poor, and he bought them off to the tune of a hundred
and twenty pounds. But perhaps it is hardly worth while mentioning
trifles of this kind. Our clay, you see, is yet unwrought: the "perfect
workmanship" is still to come. That business about his father makes
rather good hearing: only you know all about that;--how the old fellow
would hang on, though he was past sixty already, till Proteus could
stand it no longer, and put a noose about his neck. Well, this began to
be talked about; so he passed sentence of banishment on himself, and
wandered about from place to place.
'It was now that he came across the priests and scribes of the
Christians, in Palestine, and picked up their queer creed. I can
tell you, he pretty soon convinced them of his superiority; prophet,
elder, ruler of the Synagogue--he was everything at once; expounded
their books, commented on them, wrote books himself. They took him
for a God, accepted his laws, and declared him their president. The
Christians, you know, worship a _man_ to this day,--the distinguished
personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that
account. Well, the end of it was that Proteus was arrested and thrown
into prison. This was the very thing to lend an air to his favourite
arts of clap-trap and wonder-working; he was now a made man. The
Christians took it all very seriously: he was no sooner in prison,
than they began trying every means to get him out again,--but without
success. Everything else that could be done for him they most devoutly
did. They thought of nothing else. Orphans and ancient widows might
be seen hanging about the prison from break of day. Their officials
bribed the gaolers to let them sleep inside with him. Elegant dinners
were conveyed in; their sacred writings were read; and our old friend
Peregrine (as he was still called in those days) became for them "the
modern Socrates." In some of the Asiatic cities, too, the Christian
communities put themselves to the expense of sending deputations, with
offers of sympathy, assistance, and legal advice. The activity of
these people, in dealing with any matter that affects their community,
is something extraordinary; they spare no trouble, no expense.
Peregrine, all this time, was making quite an income on the strength of
his bondage; money came pouring in. You see, these misguided creatures
start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time,
which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which
are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their
original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they
are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified
sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on trust, with
the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them
merely as common property. Now an adroit, unscrupulous fellow, who
has seen the world, has only to get among these simple souls, and his
fortune is pretty soon made; he plays with them.
'To return, however, to Peregrine. The governor of Syria perceived
his mental warp: "he must make a name, though he die for it:" now
philosophy was the governor's hobby; he discharged him--wouldn't
hear of his being punished--and Peregrine returned to Armenia. He
found it too hot to hold him. He was threatened from all quarters
with prosecutions for parricide. Then again, the greater part of his
property had disappeared in his absence: nothing was left but the
land, which might be worth a matter of four thousand pounds. The whole
estate, as the old man left it, would come perhaps to eight thousand.
Theagenes was talking nonsense when he said a million odd. Why, the
whole city, with its five nearest neighbours thrown in, men, cattle,
and goods of every description, would never fetch that sum.--Meanwhile,
indictments and accusations were brewing: an attack might be looked
for at any moment: as for the common people, they were in a state of
furious indignation and grief at the foul butchery of a harmless old
man; for so he was described. In these trying circumstances, observe
the ingenuity and resource of the sagacious Proteus. He makes his
appearance in the assembly: his hair (even in these early days) is
long, his cloak is shabby; at his side is slung the philosopher's
wallet, his hand grasps the philosopher's staff; truly a tragic figure,
every inch of him. Thus equipped, he presents himself before the
public, with the announcement that the property left him by his father
of blessed memory is entirely at their disposal! Being a needy folk,
with a keen eye to charity, they received the information with ready
applause: "Here is true philosophy; true patriotism; the spirit of
Diogenes and Crates is here!" As for his enemies, they were dumb; and
if any one did venture an allusion to parricide, he was promptly stoned.
'Proteus now set out again on his wanderings. The Christians were meat
and drink to him; under their protection he lacked nothing, and this
luxurious state of things went on for some time. At last he got into
trouble even with them; I suppose they caught him partaking of some of
their forbidden meats. They would have nothing more to do with him, and
he thought the best way out of his difficulties would be, to change his
mind about that property, and try and get it back. He accordingly sent
in a petition to the emperor, suing for its restitution. But as the
people of Parium sent up a deputation to remonstrate, nothing came of
it all; he was told that as he had been under no compulsion in making
his dispositions, he must abide by them.
'Pilgrimage number three, to Egypt, to see Agathobulus. Here he went
through a most interesting course of discipline: shaved half his head
bare; anointed his face with mud; grossly exposed himself before a
large concourse of spectators, as a practical illustration of "Stoic
indifference"; received castigation with a birch rod; administered the
same; and mystified the public with a number of still more extravagant
follies. Thus prepared, he took ship to Italy, and was scarcely on dry
land again when he began abusing everybody, especially the Emperor, on
whose indulgence and good nature he knew that he could safely rely.
The Emperor, as you may suppose, was not greatly concerned at his
invectives; and it was his theory that no one in the garb of philosophy
should be called to account for his words, least of all a specialist in
scandal. Proteus's reputation throve upon neglect. The crack-brained
philosopher became the cynosure of unsophisticated eyes; and he grew
at last to be so unbearable that the city prefect judiciously expelled
him: "we do not require philosophers of your school," he explained.
Even this made for his notoriety: he was in every one's mouth as the
philosopher who was banished for being too outspoken, and saying what
he thought. He took rank with Musonius, Dion, Epictetus, and others who
have been in the same predicament.
'Finally, Proteus arrives in Greece; and what does he do there? He
makes himself offensive in Elis; he instigates Greece to revolt against
Rome; he finds a man of enlarged views and established character[6],
a public benefactor in general, and in particular the originator of
the water-supply to Olympia, which saved that great assembly from
perishing of thirst--and he has nothing but hard words for him; "Greece
is demoralized," he cries; "the spectators of the games should have
done without water, ay, and died if need be,"--and so many of them
would have done, from the violence of the epidemics then raging in
consequence of the drought. And all the time Proteus was drinking of
that very water! At this there was a general rush to stone him, which
pretty nearly succeeded; it was all our magnanimous friend could do,
for the time being, to find salvation at the altar of Zeus. He spent
the four following years in composing a speech, which he delivered in
public at the next Olympic games; it consisted of encomiums on the
donor of the water-supply and explanations of his flight on the former
occasion. But by this time people had lost all curiosity about him;
his prestige was quite gone; everything fell flat, and he could devise
no more novelties for the amazement of chance-comers, nor elicit the
admiration and applause for which he had always so passionately longed.
Hence this last bold venture of the funeral-pyre. So long ago as the
last Olympic Games he published his intention of cremating himself at
the next. That is what all this mystification is about, this digging
of pits we hear of, and collecting of firewood; these glowing accounts
of fortitude hereafter to be shown. Now, in the first place, it seems
to me that a man has no business to run away from life: he ought to
wait till his time comes. But if nothing else will serve, if positively
he must away,--still there is no need of pyres and such-like solemn
paraphernalia: there are plenty of ways of dying without this; let him
choose one of them, and have done with it. Or if a fiery end is so
attractively Heraclean, what was to prevent his quietly selecting some
well-wooded mountain top, and doing his cremation all by himself, with
Theagenes or somebody to play Philoctetes to his Heracles? But no; he
must roast in full concourse, at Olympia, as it might be on a stage;
and, so help me Heracles, he is not far out, if justice is to be done
on all parricides and unbelievers. Nay, if we look at it that way, this
is but dilatory work: he might have been packed into Phalaris's bull
years ago, and he would have had no more than his deserts,--a mouthful
of flame and sudden death is too good for him. For by all I can learn
burning is the quickest of deaths; a man has but to open his mouth, and
all is over.
'But I suppose what runs in his mind is the imposing spectacle of a
man being burnt alive in the holy place, in which ordinary mortality
may not so much as be buried. There was another man, once on a time,
who wanted to be famous. I dare say you have heard of him. When he
found there was no other way, he set fire to the temple of Artemis at
Ephesus. Proteus's design reminds me of that. The passion for fame must
wholly possess him, body and soul. He says, of course, that it is all
for the benefit of the human race,--to teach them to scorn death, and
to show fortitude in trying circumstances. Now I should just like to
ask you a question; it is no use asking him. How would you like it, if
the criminal classes were to profit by his lesson in fortitude, and
learn to scorn death, and burning, and so on? You would not like it at
all. Then how is Proteus going to draw the line? How is he going to
improve the honest men, without hardening and encouraging the rogues?
Suppose it even to be practicable that none should be present at the
spectacle but such as will make a good use of it. Again I ask: do you
want your sons to conceive an ambition of this sort? Of course not.
However, I need not have raised that point: not a soul, even among his
own disciples, will be caught by his enthusiasm. That is where I think
Theagenes is so much to blame: in all else he is a zealous adherent:
yet when his master sets out "to be with Heracles,"--he stops behind,
he won't go! though it is but a single header into the flames, and in a
moment endless felicity is his. It is not zeal, to have the same kind
of stick and coat and scrip as another man; any one can do that; it is
both safe and easy. Zeal must appear in the end, in the consummation:
let him get together his pyre of fig-tree faggots, as green as may
be, and gasp out his last amid the smoke! For as to merely being
burnt, Heracles and Asclepius have no monopoly there: temple-robbers
and murderers may be seen experiencing the same fate in the ordinary
course of law. Smoke is the only death, if you want to have it all to
yourselves.
'Besides, if Heracles really ever did anything so stupendous at all,
he was driven to it by frenzy; he was being consumed alive by the
Centaur's blood,--so the play tells us. But what point is there in
Proteus's throwing himself into the fire? Ah, of course: he wants to
set an example of fortitude, like the Brahmins, to whom Theagenes
thought it necessary to compare him. Well, I suppose there may be
fools and empty-headed enthusiasts in India as elsewhere? Anyhow, he
might stick to his models. The Brahmins never jump straight into the
fire: Onesicritus, Alexander's pilot, saw Calanus burn himself, and
according to him, when the pyre has been got ready, they stand quietly
roasting in front of it, and when they do get on top, there they sit,
smouldering away in a dignified manner, never budging an inch. I see
nothing so great in Proteus's just jumping in and being swallowed by
the flames. As likely as not he would jump out when he was half done;
only, as I understand, he is taking care to have the pyre in a good
deep hole.
'Some say that he is beginning to think better of it; that he reports
certain dreams, to the effect that Zeus will not suffer the holy place
to be profaned. Let him be easy on that score. I dare swear that not a
God of them will have any objection to a rogue's dying a rogue's death.
To be sure, he won't easily get out of it now. His Cynic friends egg
him on and thrust him pyre-wards; they keep his ambition aglow; there
shall be no flinching, if _they_ can help it! If Proteus would take a
couple of them with him in the fatal leap, it would be the first good
action he has ever performed.
'Not even "Proteus" will serve now, they were saying: he has changed
his name to Phoenix; that Indian bird being credited with bringing a
prolonged existence to an end upon a pyre. He tells strange tales too,
and quotes oracles--guaranteed old--to the effect that he is to be a
guardian spirit of the night. Evidently he has conceived a fancy for an
altar, and looks to have his statue set up, all of gold. And upon my
word it is as likely as not that among the simple vulgar will be found
some to declare that Proteus has cured them of the ague, and that in
the darkness they have met with the "guardian spirit of the night."
And as the ancient Proteus, the son of Zeus, the great original, had
the gift of prophecy, I suppose these precious disciples of the modern
one will be for getting up an oracle and a shrine upon the scene of
cremation. Mark my words: we shall find we have got Protean priests
of the scourge; priests of the branding-iron; priests of some strange
thing or other; or--who knows?--nocturnal rites in his honour, with a
torchlight procession about the pyre. I heard but now, from a friend,
of Theagenes's producing a prophecy of the Sibyl on this subject: he
quoted the very words:
What time the noblest of the Cynic host
Within the Thunderer's court shall light a fire,
And leap into its midst, and thence ascend
To great Olympus--then shall all mankind,
Who eat the furrow's fruit, give honour due
To the Night-wanderer. His seat shall be
Hard by Hephaestus and lord Heracles.
That's the oracle that Theagenes says he heard from the Sibyl. Now I'll
give him one of Bacis's on the same subject. Bacis speaks very much to
the point as follows:
What time the Cynic many-named shall leap,
Stirred in his heart with mad desire for fame,
Into hot fire--then shall the Fox-dogs all,
His followers, go hence as went the Wolf.
And him that shuns Hephaestus' fiery might
Th' Achaeans all shall straightway slay with stones;
Lest, cool in courage, he essay warm words,
Stuffing with gold of usury his scrip;
For in fair Patrae he hath thrice five talents.
What say you, friends? Can Bacis turn an oracle too, as well as the
Sibyl? Apparently it is time for the esteemed followers of Proteus to
select their spots for "evaporation," as they call burning.'
A universal shout from the audience greeted this conclusion: 'Away with
them to the fire! 'tis all they are good for.' The orator descended,
beaming.
But Nestor marked the uproar--
The shouts no sooner reached Theagenes's ears, than he was back on the
platform, bawling out all manner of scandal against the last speaker
(I don't know what this capital fellow was called). However, I left
Theagenes there, bursting with indignation, and went off to see the
games, as I heard the stewards were already on the course. So much for
Elis.
On our arrival at Olympia, we found the vestibule full of people,
all talking about Proteus. Some were inveighing against him, others
commended his purpose; and most of them had come to blows about it
when, just after the Heralds' contest, in came Proteus himself, with
a multitudinous escort, and gave us a speech, all about himself;--the
life he had lived, the risks he had run, the trials he had undergone
in the cause of philosophy. He had a great deal to say, but I heard
very little of it; there was such a crowd. Presently I began to think
I should be squeezed to death in the crush (I saw this actually happen
to several people), so off I went, having had enough of this sophist
in love with death, and his anticipatory epitaph. Thus much I heard,
however. Upon a golden life he desired to set a golden crown. He had
lived like Heracles: like Heracles he must die, and mingle with the
upper air. ''Tis my aim,' he continued, 'to benefit mankind; to teach
them how contemptible a thing is death. To this end, the world shall
be my Philoctetes.' The simpler souls among his audience wept, crying
'Live, Proteus; live for Greece!' Others were of sterner stuff, and
expressed hearty approval of his determination. This discomposed the
old man considerably. His idea had been that they would never let him
go near the pyre; that they would all cling about him and insist on his
continuing a compulsory existence. He had the complexion of a corpse
before: but this wholly unexpected blow of approbation made him turn
several degrees paler: he trembled--and broke off.
Conceive my amusement! Pity it was impossible to feel for such morbid
vanity: among all who have ever been afflicted with this scourge,
Proteus stands pre-eminent. However, he had a fine following, and
drank his fill of notoriety, as he gazed on the host of his admirers;
poor man! he forgot that criminals on the way to the cross, or in the
executioner's hands, have a greater escort by far.
And now the games were over. They were the best I had ever seen,
though this makes my fourth visit to Olympia. In the general rush
of departure, I got left behind, finding it impossible to procure a
conveyance.
After repeated postponements, Proteus had finally announced a late hour
of the night for his exhibition. Accordingly, at about midnight I got
up (I had found lodgings with a friend), and set out for Harpine; for
here was the pyre, just two miles and a half from Olympia, going East
along the racecourse. We found on arrival that the pyre had been placed
in a hole, about six feet deep. To ensure speedy ignition, it had been
composed chiefly of pine-torches, with brushwood stuffed in between.
As soon as the moon had risen--for her presence too was required at the
glorious spectacle--Proteus advanced, in his usual costume, accompanied
by the chiefs of the Cynics; conspicuous among them came the pride of
Patrae, torch in hand; nobly qualified for the part he was to play.
Proteus too had his torch. They drew near to the pyre, and kindled it
at several points; as it contained nothing but torches and brushwood,
a fine blaze was the result. Then Proteus--are you attending,
Cronius?--Proteus threw aside his scrip, and cloak, and club--his club
of Heracles--and stood before us in scrupulously unclean linen. He
demanded frankincense, to throw upon the fire; being supplied he first
threw it on, then, turning to the South (another tragic touch, this
of the South), he exclaimed: 'Gods of my mother, Gods of my father,
receive me with favour.' And with these words he leapt into the pyre.
There was nothing more to be seen, however; the towering mass of flames
enveloped him completely.
Again, sweet sir, you smile over the conclusion of my tragedy. As for
me, I saw nothing much in his appealing to his mother's Gods, but when
he included his _father's_ in the invocation, I laughed outright; it
reminded me of the parricide story. The Cynics stood dry-eyed about the
pyre, gazing upon the flames in silent manifestation of their grief.
At last, when I was half dead with suppressed laughter, I addressed
them. 'Intelligent sirs,' I said, 'let us go away. No pleasure is to be
derived from seeing an old man roasted, and there is a horrible smell
of burning. Are you waiting for some painter to come along and take a
sketch of you, to match the pictures of Socrates in prison, with his
companions at his side?' They were very angry and abusive at first, and
some took to their sticks: but when I threatened to pick a few of them
up and throw them on to the fire to keep their master company, they
quieted down and peace was restored.
Curious reflections were running in my mind, Cronius, as I made my way
back. 'How strange a thing is this same ambition!' I said to myself;
''tis the one irresistible passion; irresistible to the noblest of
mankind, as we account them,--how much more to such as Proteus, whose
wild, foolish life may well end upon the pyre!' At this point I met
a number of people coming out to assist at the spectacle, thinking
to find Proteus still alive; for among the various rumours of the
preceding day, one had been, that before entering the fire he was
to greet the rising sun, which to be sure is said to be the Brahmin
practice. Most of them turned back when I told them that all was
over; all but those enthusiasts who could not rest without seeing the
identical spot, and snatching some relic from the flames. After this,
you may be sure, my work was cut out for me: I had to tell them all
about it, and to undergo a minute cross-examination from everybody.
If it was some one I liked the look of, I confined myself to plain
prose, as in the present narrative: but for the benefit of the curious
simple, I put in a few dramatic touches on my own account. No sooner
had Proteus thrown himself upon the kindled pyre, than there was a
tremendous earthquake, I informed them; the ground rumbled beneath us;
and a vulture flew out from the midst of the flames, and away into the
sky, exclaiming in human accents
'I rise from Earth, I seek Olympus.'
They listened with amazement and shuddering reverence. 'Did the vulture
fly East or West?' they wanted to know. I answered whichever came
uppermost.
On getting back to Olympia, I stopped to listen to an old man who was
giving an account of these proceedings; a credible witness, if ever
there was one, to judge by his long beard and dignified appearance in
general. He told us, among other things, that only a short time before,
just after the cremation, Proteus had appeared to him in white raiment;
and that he had now left him walking with serene countenance in the
Colonnade of Echoes, crowned with olive; and on the top of all this he
brought in the vulture, solemnly swore that he had seen it himself
flying away from the pyre,--my own vulture, which I had but just let
fly, as a satire on crass stupidity!
Only think what work we shall have with him hereafter! Significant
bees will settle on the spot; grasshoppers beyond calculation will
chirrup; crows will perch there, as over Hesiod's grave,--and all the
rest of it. As for statues, several, I know, are to be put up at once,
by Elis and other places, to which, I understand, he had sent letters.
These letters, they say, were dispatched to almost all cities of any
importance: they contain certain exhortations and schemes of reform, as
it were a legacy. Certain of his followers were specially appointed by
him for this service: _Couriers to the Grave_ and _Grand Deputies of
the Shades_ were to be their titles.
Such was the end of this misguided man; one who, to give his character
in a word, never to his last day suffered his gaze to rest on Truth;
whose words, whose actions had but one aim,--notoriety and vulgar
applause. 'Twas the love of applause that drove him to the pyre, where
applause could no longer reach his ears, nor gratify his vanity.
One anecdote, and I have done; it will keep you in amusement for some
time to come. I told you long ago, on my return from Syria, how I had
come on the same ship with him from Troas, and what airs he put on
during the voyage, and about the handsome youth whom he converted to
Cynicism, by way of having an Alcibiades all of his own, and how he
woke up one night in mid-ocean to find a storm breaking on us, and a
heavy sea rolling, and how the superb philosopher, for whom Death had
no terrors, was found wailing among the women. All that you know. But
a short time before his death, about a week or so, he had a little
too much for dinner, I suppose, and was taken ill in the night, and
had a sharp attack of fever. Alexander was the physician called in
to attend him, and it was from him I got the story. He said he found
Proteus rolling on the ground, unable to endure the fever, and making
passionate demands for water. Alexander said no to this: and he told
him that if he really wanted to die, here was death, unbidden, at his
very door; he had only to attend the summons; there was no need of a
pyre. 'No, no,' says Proteus; 'any one may die that way; there's no
distinction in it.'
So much for Alexander. I myself, not so long ago, saw Proteus with some
irritant rubbed on his eyes to purge them of rheum. Evidently we are
to infer that there is no admission for blear eyes in the kingdom of
Aeacus. 'Twas as if a man on the way to be crucified were to concern
himself about a sprained finger. Think if Democritus had seen all this!
How would he have taken it? The laughing philosopher might have done
justice to Proteus. I doubt, indeed, whether he ever had such a good
excuse for his mirth.
Be that as it may, you, my friend, shall have your laugh; especially
when you hear Proteus's name mentioned with admiration.
F.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] The allusion to Dionysus is unexplained. The Greek requires a fiery
_death_, not the fiery _birth_, for which see _Dionysus_ and _Semele_
in Notes.
[6] See _Herodes Atticus_ in Notes.
THE RUNAWAYS
_Apollo. Zeus. Philosophy. Heracles. Hermes. Three Masters.
An Innkeeper. Orpheus. Innkeeper's Wife. Three Runaway
Slaves._
_Apol._ Father, is this true, about a man's publicly throwing himself
upon a pyre, at the Olympian Games? He was quite an old man, it seems,
and rather a good hand at anything in the sensational line. Selene told
us about it: she says she actually saw him burning.
_Zeus._ Quite true, my boy; only too true!
_Apol._ Oh? the old gentleman deserved a better fate?
_Zeus._ Why, as to that, I dare say he did. But I was alluding to the
smell, which incommoded me extremely; the odour of roast man, I need
hardly tell you, is far from pleasant. I made the best of my way to
Arabia at once, or, upon my word, those awful fumes would have been the
death of me. Even in that fragrant land of frankincense and spices I
could scarcely get the villanous stench out of my nostrils; the mere
recollection of it makes me feel queer.
_Apol._ But what was his object, father? Was there anything to be got
by jumping on to a pyre, and being converted to cinders?
_Zeus._ Ah, if you come to that, you must call Empedocles to account
first: _he_ jumped into a crater, in Sicily.
_Apol._ Poor fellow! he must have been in a sad way. But what was the
inducement in the present case?
_Zeus._ I'll quote you his own words. He made a speech, explaining his
motives to the public. As far as I remember, he said--but who comes
here in such haste? There must be something wrong: she is crying; some
one has been ill-treating her. Why, it is Philosophy, in a sad way,
calling out to me. Why are you crying, child? and what brings you here,
away from the world? More misdeeds of the ignorant herd? a repetition
of the Socrates and Anytus affair? is that it?
_Phi._ No, father, nothing of that kind. The common people
have been most polite and respectful; they are my most devout
admirers,--worshippers, I might almost say; not that they understand
much of what I tell them. No; it was those--I don't know what to call
them--but the people who pretend to be on such friendly terms with me,
and are always using my name;--the wretches!
_Zeus._ Oh, it's the philosophers who have been misbehaving themselves?
_Phi._ No, no, father; they have been just as badly treated as I have.
_Zeus._ Then if it is neither the philosophers nor the common people,
who is it that you complain of?
_Phi._ There are some people who are between the two: they are not
philosophers, and yet they are not like the rest of mankind. They are
got up to look like philosophers; they have the dress, the walk, the
expression; they call me mistress, write philosopher after their names,
and declare themselves my disciples and followers: but they are evil
men, made up of folly and impudence and wickedness; a disgrace to my
name. It was their misconduct that drove me away.
_Zeus._ Poor child! it is too bad of them. And what have they been
doing to you exactly?
_Phi._ Judge for yourself whether the provocation was a slight one.
When formerly you looked down upon the world, and saw that it was
filled with iniquity and transgression, and was become the troubled
abode of sin and folly, you had compassion on the frailty of ignorant
mankind, and sent me down to them: you bade me see to it, that
wickedness and violence and brutality should cease from among them; I
was to lift their eyes upwards to the truth, and cause them to live
together in unity. Remember your words on that occasion: 'Behold, my
daughter, the misdeeds of mankind; behold how ignorance has wrought
upon them. I feel compassion for them, and have chosen you from among
all the Gods to heal their ills; for who else should heal them?'
_Zeus._ I said that, and more. Yes? and how did they receive you at
your first descent? and what is the trouble now?
_Phi._ My first flight was not directed towards Greece. I thought it
best to begin with the hardest part of my task, which I took to be
the instruction of the barbarians. With the Greeks I anticipated no
difficulty; I had supposed that they would accept my yoke without
hesitation. First, then, I went to the Indians, the mightiest nation
upon earth. I had little trouble in persuading them to descend
from their elephants and follow me. The Brahmins, who dwell between
Oxydracae and the country of the Nechrei, are mine to a man: they live
according to my laws, and are respected by all their neighbours; and
the manner of their death is truly wonderful.
_Zeus._ Ah, to be sure: the Gymnosophists. I have heard a great deal of
them. Among other things, they ascend gigantic pyres, and sit quietly
burning to death without moving a muscle. However, that is no such
great matter: I saw it done at Olympia only the other day. You would be
there, no doubt,--when that old man burnt himself?
_Phi._ No, father: I was afraid to go near Olympia, on account of
those hateful men I was telling you of; I saw that numbers of them
were going there, to make their barking clamour heard in the temple,
and to abuse all comers. Accordingly I know nothing of this cremation.
But to continue: after I had left the Brahmins, I went straight to
Ethiopia, and thence to Egypt, where I associated with the priests and
prophets, and taught them of the Gods. Then to Babylon, to instruct
the Chaldaeans and Mages. Next came Scythia, and after Scythia,
Thrace; here Eumolpus and Orpheus were my companions. I sent them on
into Greece before me; Eumolpus, whom I had thoroughly instructed in
theology, was to institute the sacred mysteries, Orpheus to win men by
the power of music. I followed close behind them. On my first arrival,
the Greeks received me without enthusiasm: they did not, however,
wholly reject my advances; by slow degrees I gained over seven men to
be my companions and disciples, and Samos, Ephesus, and Abdera,[7] each
added one to the little company. And then there sprang up--I scarce
know how--the tribe of sophists: men who had but little of my spirit,
yet were not wholly alien to me; a motley Centaur breed, in whom vanity
and wisdom meeting were moulded into one incongruous whole. They
clung not entirely to ignorance, but theirs was not the steady eye
that could meet the gaze of Philosophy; and if at moments my semblance
flashed phantom-like across their dulled vision, they held that in that
dim shadow they had seen all that was to be seen. It was this pride
that nourished the vain, unprofitable science that they mistook for
invincible wisdom; the science of quaint conceits, ingenious paradoxes,
and labyrinthine dilemmas. My followers would have restrained them, and
exposed their errors: but they grew angry, and conspired against them,
and in the end brought them under the power of the law, which condemned
them to drink of hemlock. Doubtless I should have done well to renounce
humanity there and then, and take my flight: but Antisthenes and
Diogenes, and after them Crates, and our friend Menippus, prevailed
upon me to tarry yet a little longer. Would that I had never yielded! I
should have been spared much pain in the sequel.
_Zeus._ But, my dear, you are merely giving way to your feelings,
instead of telling me what your wrongs were.
_Phi._ Then hear them, father. There is a vile race upon the earth,
composed for the most part of serfs and menials, creatures whose
occupations have never suffered them to become acquainted with
philosophy; whose earliest years have been spent in the drudgery
of the fields, in learning those base arts for which they are most
fitted--the fuller's trade, the joiner's, the cobbler's--or in carding
wool, that housewives may have ease in their spinning, and the thread
be fit for warp and woof. Thus employed, they knew not in their youth
so much as the name of Philosophy. But they had no sooner reached
manhood, than they perceived the respect paid to my followers; how
men submitted to their blunt speech, valued their advice, deferred to
their judgement, and cowered beneath their censure; all this they saw,
and held that here was a life for a king. The learning, indeed, that
befits a philosopher would have taken them long to acquire, if it was
not utterly out of their reach. On the other hand, their own miserly
handicrafts barely rewarded their toil with a sufficiency. To some,
too, servitude was in itself an oppression: they knew it, in fact,
for the intolerable thing it is. But they bethought them that there
was still one chance left; their sheet-anchor, as sailors say. They
took refuge with my lady Folly, called in the assistance of Boldness,
Ignorance, and Impudence, ever their untiring coadjutors, and provided
themselves with a stock of bran-new invectives; these they have ever
ready on their tongues; 'tis their sole equipment; noble provision, is
it not, for a philosopher? Nothing could be more plausible than the
philosophic disguise they now assume, reminding one of the fabled ass
of Cyme, in Aesop, who clothed himself in a lion's skin, and, stoutly
braying, sought to play the lion's part; the beast, I doubt not, had
his adherents. The externals of philosophy, as you know, are easily
aped: it is a simple matter to assume the cloak and wallet, walk with
a stick, and bawl, and bark, and bray, against all comers. They know
that they are safe; their cloth protects them. Liberty is thus within
their grasp: no need to ask their master's leave; should he attempt
to reclaim them, their sticks are at his service. No more short
commons for them now, no more of crusts whose dryness is mitigated
only by herbs or salt fish: they have choice of meats, drink the best
of wines, and take money where they will, _shearing the sheep_, as
they call it when they levy contributions, in the certainty that many
will give, from respect to their garb or fear of their tongues. They
foresee, of course, that they will be on the same footing as genuine
philosophers; so long as their exterior is conformable, no one is
likely to make critical distinctions. They take care not to risk
exposure: at the first hint of a rational argument, they shout their
opponent down, withdraw into the stronghold of personal abuse, and
flourish their ever-ready cudgels. Question their practice, and you
will hear much of their principles: offer to examine those principles,
and you are referred to their conduct. The city swarms with these
vermin, particularly with those who profess the tenets of Diogenes,
Antisthenes, and Crates. Followers of the Dog, they care little to
excel in the canine virtues; they are neither trusty guardians nor
affectionate, faithful servants: but for noise and greed and thievery
and wantonness, for cringing, fawning cupboard-love,--there, indeed,
they are perfect. Before long you will see every trade at a standstill,
the workmen all at large: for every man of them knows that, whilst he
is bent over his work from morning to night, toiling and drudging for
a starvation wage, idle impostors are living in the midst of plenty,
commanding charity where they will, with no word of thanks to the
giver, and a curse on him that withholds the gift. Surely (he will say
to himself) the golden age is returned, and the heavens shall rain
honey into my mouth.
And would that that were all! But they have other ways of bringing
discredit upon us, besides the baseness of their origin. When beauty
comes within the reach of these grave and reverend gentlemen, they are
guilty of excesses that I will not pollute my lips with mentioning.
They have been known, like Trojan Paris, to seduce the wives of their
own hosts, and to quote the authority of Plato for leaving these fair
converts at the disposal of all their acquaintance; they little knew
the true meaning of that inspired philosopher's community of women. I
will not tire you with a description of their drunken orgies; observe,
however, that these are the men who preach against drunkenness and
adultery and avarice and lewdness. Could any contrast be greater
than that presented by their words and their deeds? They speak their
detestation of flattery: a Gnathonides and a Struthias are less fulsome
than they. They bid men tell the truth: yet their own tongues cannot
move but to utter lies. To hear them, you would say they were at war
with pleasure, and Epicurus their bitterest foe: yet nothing do they do
but for pleasure's sake. Querulous, irritable, passionate as cradled
babes, they are a derision to the beholder; the veriest trifle serves
to move their ire, to bring the purple to their cheeks, ungoverned fury
to their eyes, foam--call it rather venom--to their lips. Preserve me
from their turbid rantings! _Gold I ask not, nor silver; be one penny
all my wealth, to purchase beans withal. And for my drink, a river, a
spring, shall furnish me._ But presently it turns out that what they
want is not pence, nor shillings, but whole fortunes. He must be a
thriving merchant, whose cargoes will bring him in such profits as
these men suck out of philosophy. They are sufficiently provided at
last, and then off goes the hated uniform: lands and houses are bought,
and soft raiment, and comely pages. Inquire of them now for Crates's
wallet, Antisthenes's cloak, Diogenes's tub: they know nothing of the
matter. When men see these things, they spit in the face of philosophy;
they think that all philosophers are the same, and blame me their
teacher. It is long since I have won over any to my side. I toil like
Penelope at the loom, and one moment undoes all that I have done.
Ignorance and Wickedness watch my unavailing labours, and smile.
_Zeus._ Really, Philosophy has been shamefully treated. We must take
some measures with these rascals. Let us think what is to be done. The
single stroke of the thunderbolt is too quick a death.
_Apol._ Father, I have a suggestion to make. By their neglect of the
Muses, these vile quacks have incurred my own resentment as well as
Philosophy's. They are not worthy to die by your hand. Instead, I would
advise your sending Hermes to them, with full authority to punish them
at his discretion. With his forensic experience, he will be at no
loss to distinguish between the true philosopher and the false. The
former will receive merited praise: on the latter he will inflict such
chastisement as the circumstances demand.
_Zeus._ A sensible proposal. Heracles, you can go too; take Philosophy
with you, and lose no time. Think: this will make your thirteenth
Labour, and a creditable one too, the extermination of these reptiles.
_Hera._ Rather than meddle with them, I would give the Augean stables a
second clean-out. However, let us be starting, Philosophy.
_Phi._ If I must, I must.
_Her._ Yes, come along, and we will polish off a few to-day.--Which
way, Philosophy? You know where they are to be found. Somewhere in
Greece, of course?
_Phi._ Oh no; the few that there are in Greece are genuine
philosophers. Attic poverty is not at all to the liking of the
impostors; we must look for them in places where gold and silver mines
abound.
_Her._ Straight to Thrace, then?
_Hera._ Yes, Thrace, and I will show you the way. I know every inch of
Thrace; I have been there so often. Look here, this is our route.
_Her._ Yes?
_Hera._ You see those two magnificent mountains (the big one is Haemus,
and the other Rhodope), and the fertile plain that spreads between
them, running to the very foot of either? Those three grand, rugged
crests that stand out so proudly yonder form as it were a triple
citadel to the city that lies beneath; you can see it now, look.
_Her._ Superb! A queen among cities; her splendours reach us even here.
And what is the great river that flows so close beneath the walls?
_Hera._ The Hebrus, and the city was built by Philip. Well, we have
left the clouds behind us now; let us try our fortune on _terra firma_.
_Her._ Very good; and what comes next? How do we hunt our vermin down?
_Hera._ Ah, that is where you come in, Mr. Crier: oblige us by crying
them without loss of time.
_Her._ There is only one objection to that: I do not know what they are
called. What names am I to say, Philosophy? and how shall I describe
them?
_Phi._ I am not sure of their names, as I have never come into contact
with them. To judge from their grasping propensities, however, you
can hardly go wrong with Cteso, Ctesippus, Ctesicles, Euctemon,
Polyctetus[8].
_Her._ To be sure. But who are these men? They seem to be looking for
something too. Why, they are coming up to speak to us.
_Innkeeper and Masters._ Excuse us, madam, and gentlemen, but have
you come across a company of three rascals conducting a woman--a very
masculine-looking female, with hair cut short in the Spartan fashion?
_Phi._ Ha! the very people we are looking for!
_Masters._ Indeed, madam? But these are three runaway slaves. The woman
was kidnapped by them, and we want to get her back.
_Her._ _Our_ business with them I will tell you afterwards. For the
present, let us make a joint proclamation.
Disappeared. A Paphlagonian slave, formerly of Sinope. Any person
giving information as to his whereabouts will be rewarded; the amount
of the reward to be fixed by the informant. Description. Name: begins
with CTE. Complexion: sallow. Hair: close-cropped, with long beard.
Dress: a coarse cloak with wallet. Temper: bad. Education: none. Voice:
harsh. Manner: offensive.
_First Master._ Why, what is all this about? His name used to be
Cantharus when he was with me. He had long hair, and no beard, and was
apprenticed to my trade; I am a fuller, and he was in my shop, dressing
cloth.
_Phi._ Yes, it is the same; but he has dressed to some purpose this
time, and has become a philosopher.
_First Master._ Cantharus a philosopher! I like that. And where do I
come in?
_Second and Third Masters._ Oh well, we shall get them all now. This
lady knows all about them, it seems.
_Phi._ Heracles, who is this comely person with a lyre?
_Hera._ It is Orpheus. I was on the Argo with him. He was the best of
boatswains; it was quite a pleasure to row to his singing. Welcome, my
musical friend: you have not forgotten Heracles, I hope?
_Or._ And welcome to all of you, Philosophy, Heracles, Hermes. I should
like my reward, please: I can lay my finger on your man.
_Her._ Then show us the way. It is useless, of course, to offer gold to
the gifted son of Calliope?
_Or._ Oh, quite.--I will show you the house, but not the man. His
tongue might avenge him; scurrility is his strong point.
_Her._ Lead on.
_Or._ It is this house close by. And now I shall leave you; I have no
wish to set eyes on him.
_Her._ Hush! Was that a woman's voice, reciting Homer?
_Phi._ It was. Let us listen.
_Innkeeper's Wife._ More than the gates of Hell I hate that man
Who, loving gold, cloaketh his love with lies.
_Her._ At that rate, madam, you will have to quarrel with Cantharus:
He with his kindly host hath dealt amiss.
_Innkeeper._ That's me. I took him in, and he ran away with my wife.
_Innk. Wife._ Wine-witted knave, deer-hearted and dog-eyed,
Thersites, babbler loose, that nought availest
In council, nought in arms; most valiant daw,
That with thine aimless chatter chidest kings,--
_First Master._ My rascal to a T.
_Innk. Wife._ The dog in thee--for thou art dog and goat
And lion--doth a blasting fury breathe.
_Innkeeper._ Wife, wife! the dogs have been too many for you; ay, and
for your virtue, so men say.
_Her._ Hope for the best; some little Cerberus or Geryon shall call you
father, and Heracles have employment again.--Ah, no need to knock: here
they come.
_First Master._ Ha, Cantharus, have I got you? What, nothing to say for
yourself? Let us see what you have in that wallet; beans, no doubt, or
a crust of bread.
_Her._ Bread, indeed! Gold, a purseful of it!
_Hera._ That need not surprise you. In Greece, you see, he was a
Cynic, but here he is all for golden Chrysippus. Next you will see him
dangling, Cleanthes-like[9], by his beard, and serve the dirty fellow
right.
_Second Master._ Ha, you rascal there, am I mistaken, or are you my
lost Lecythio? Lecythio it is. What a figure! Lecythio a philosopher!
I'll believe anything after this.
_Her._ Does none of you know anything about this other?
_Third Master._ Oh yes, he is mine; but he may go hang for me.
_Her._ And why is that?
_Third Master._ Ah, he's a sadly leaky vessel, is Rosolio, as we used
to call him.
_Her._ Gracious Heracles! did you hear that? Rosolio with wallet and
stick!--Friend, here is your wife again.
_Innkeeper._ Thank you for nothing. I'll have no woman brought to bed
of an old book in my house.
_Her._ How am I to understand that?
_Innkeeper._ Why, the Three-headed Dog is a book, master?
_Her._ Ay, and so was the Man with the Three Hats, for that matter.
_Masters._ We leave the rest to you, sir.
_Her._ This is my judgement. Let the woman return beneath her husband's
roof, or many-headed monsters will come of it. These two truant
sparks I hand over to their owners: let them follow their trades as
heretofore; Lecythio wash clothes, and Rosolio patch them;--not,
however, before his back has felt the mallow-stalk. And for Cantharus,
first let the men of pitch take him, and plaster him without mercy;
and be their pitch the vilest procurable. Then let him be led forth to
stand upon the snowy slopes of Haemus, naked and fettered.
_Can._ Mercy! have mercy on me! Ah me! I am undone!
_First Master._ So tragic? Come, follow me to the plasterers; and off
with that lion's-skin, lest you be taken for other than an ass.
F.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus.
[8] _Ctesis_ is Greek for 'gain.'
[9] See _Cleanthes_ in Notes.
SATURNALIA
_Cronus. His Priest_
_Pr._ Cronus, you are in authority just now, I understand; to you our
sacrifices and ceremonies are directed; now, what can I make surest of
getting if I ask it of you at this holy season?
_Cro._ You had better make up your own mind what to pray for, unless
you expect your ruler to be a _clairvoyant_ and know what you would
like to ask. Then, I will do my best not to disappoint you.
_Pr._ Oh, I have done that long ago. No originality about it; the
usual thing, please,--wealth, plenty of gold, landed proprietorship, a
train of slaves, gay soft raiment, silver, ivory, in fact everything
that is worth anything. Best of Cronuses, give me some of these; your
priest should profit by your rule, and not be the one man who has to go
without all his life.
_Cro._ Of course! _ultra vires_; these are not mine to give. So do not
sulk at being refused; ask Zeus for them; he will be in authority again
soon enough. Mine is a limited monarchy, you see. To begin with, it
only lasts a week; that over, I am a private person, just a man in the
street. Secondly, during my week the serious is barred; no business
allowed. Drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing
of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of tremulous
hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water,--such are
the functions over which I preside. But the great things, wealth and
gold and such, Zeus distributes as he will.
_Pr._ He is not very free with them, though, Cronus. I am tired of
asking for them, as I do at the top of my voice. He never listens; he
shakes his aegis, gets the thunderbolt ready for action, puts on a
stern look, and scares you out of worrying him. He does consent now
and then, and make a man rich; but his selection is most casual; he
will pass over the good and sensible, and set fools and knaves up to
the lips in wealth, gaol-birds or debauchees most of them. But I want
to know what are the things _you_ can do.
_Cro._ Oh, they are not to be sneezed at; it does not come to so very
little, if you make allowance for my general limitations. Perhaps you
think it a trifle always to win at dice, and be able to count on the
sice when the ace is the best the others can throw? Anyhow, there are
plenty who get as much as they can eat just because the die likes them
and does what it can for them. Others you may see naked, swimming for
their lives; and what was the reef that wrecked them, pray? that little
die. Or again, to enjoy your wine, to sing the best song at table, at
the slaves' feast to see the other waiters[1] ducked for incompetence,
while you are acclaimed victor and carry off the sausage prize,--is all
that nothing? Or you find yourself absolute monarch by favour of the
knucklebone, can have no ridiculous commands[10] laid on you, and can
lay them on the rest: one must shout out a libel on himself, another
dance naked, or pick up the flute-girl and carry her thrice round the
house; how is that for a sample of my open-handedness? If you complain
that the sovereignty is not real nor lasting, that is unreasonable of
you; you see that I, the giver of it, have a short-lived tenure myself.
Well, anything that is in my power--draughts, monarchy, song, and the
rest I have mentioned--you can ask, and welcome; _I_ will not scare you
with aegis and thunderbolt.
_Pr._ Most kind Titan, such gifts I require not of you. Give me the
answer that was my first desire, and then count yourself to have repaid
my sacrifice sufficiently; you shall have my receipt in full.
_Cro._ Put your question. An answer you shall have, if my knowledge is
equal to it.
_Pr._ First, then, is the common story true? used you to eat the
children Rhea bore you? and did she steal away Zeus, and give you
a stone to swallow for a baby? did he when he grew to manhood make
victorious war upon you and drive you from your kingdom, bind and cast
you into Tartarus, you and all the powers that ranged themselves with
you?
_Cro._ Fellow, were it any but this festive season, when 'tis lawful to
be drunken, and slaves have licence to revile their lords, the reward
for thy question, for this thy rudeness to a grey-haired aged God, had
been the knowledge that wrath is yet permitted me.
_Pr._ It is not _my_ story, you know, Cronus; it is Homer's and
Hesiod's; I might say, only I don't quite like to, that it is the
belief of the generality.
_Cro._ That conceited shepherd[11]? you do not suppose he knew anything
worth knowing about me? Why, think. Is a man conceivable--let alone a
God--who would devour his own children?--wittingly, I mean; of course
he might be a Thyestes and have a wicked brother; that is different.
However, even granting that, I ask you whether he could help knowing he
had a stone in his mouth instead of a baby; I envy him his teeth, that
is all. The fact is, there was no war, and Zeus did not depose me; I
voluntarily abdicated and retired from the cares of office. That I am
not in fetters or in Tartarus you can see for yourself, or you must be
as blind as Homer.
_Pr._ But what possessed you to abdicate?
_Cro._ Well, the long and short of it is, as I grew old and gouty--that
last, by the way, accounts for the fetters of the story--I found the
men of these latter days getting out of hand; I had to be for ever
running up and down swinging the thunderbolt and blasting perjurers,
temple-robbers, oppressors; I could get no peace; younger blood was
wanted. So I had the happy thought of abdicating in Zeus's favour.
Independently of that, I thought it a good thing to divide up my
authority--I had sons to take it on--and to have a pleasant easy
time, free of all the petition business and the embarrassment of
contradictory prayers, no thundering or lightening to do, no lamentable
necessity for sending discharges of hail. None of that now; I am on the
shelf, and I like it, sipping neat nectar and talking over old times
with Iapetus and the others that were boys with me. And He is king,
and has troubles by the thousand. But it occurred to me to reserve
these few days for the employments I have mentioned; during them I
resume my authority, that men may remember what life was like in my
days, when all things grew without sowing or ploughing of theirs--no
ears of corn, but loaves complete and meat ready cooked--, when wine
flowed in rivers, and there were fountains of milk and honey; all men
were good and all men were gold. Such is the purpose of this my brief
reign; therefore the merry noise on every side, the song and the games;
therefore the slave and the free as one. When I was king, slavery was
not.
_Pr._ Dear me, now! and I accounted for your kindness to slaves and
prisoners from the story again; I thought that, as you were a slave
yourself, you were paying slaves a compliment in memory of your own
fetters.
_Cro._ Cease your ribald jests.
_Pr._ Quite so; I will. But here is another question, please. Used
mortals to play draughts in your time?
_Cro._ Surely; but not for hundreds or thousands of pounds like you;
nuts were their highest stake; a man might lose without a sigh or a
tear, when losing could not mean starvation.
_Pr._ Wise men! though, as they were solid gold themselves, they were
out of temptation. It occurred to me when you mentioned that--suppose
any one were to import one of your solid gold men into our age and
exhibit him, what sort of a reception would the poor thing get? They
would tear him to pieces, not a doubt of it. I see them rushing at him
like the Maenads at Pentheus, the Thracian women at Orpheus, or his
hounds at Actaeon, trying which could get the biggest bit of him; even
in the holidays they do not forget their avarice; most of them regard
the holy season as a sort of harvest. In which persuasion some of them
loot their friends' tables, others complain, quite unreasonably, of
you, or smash their innocent dice in revenge for losses due to their
own folly.
But tell me this, now: as you are such a delicate old deity, why pick
out the most disagreeable time, when all is wrapt in snow, and the
north wind blows, everything is hard frozen, trees dry and bare and
leafless, meadows have lost their flowery beauty, and men are hunched
up cowering over the fire like so many octogenarians,--why this season
of all others for your festival? It is no time for the old or the
luxurious.
_Cro._ Fellow, your questions are many, and no good substitute for the
flowing bowl. You have filched a good portion of my carnival with your
impertinent philosophizings. Let them go, and we will make merry and
clap our hands and take our holiday licence, play draughts for nuts in
the good old way, elect our kings and do them fealty. I am minded to
verify the saw, that old age is second childhood.
_Pr._ Now dry be his cup when he thirsts, to whom such words come
amiss! Cronus, a bowl with you! 'tis enough that you have made answer
to my former questions. By the way, I think of reducing our little
interview to writing, my questions and your so affable answers, for
submission to those friends whose discretion may be trusted.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] See _Saturnalia_ in Notes.
[11] Hesiod.
CRONOSOLON
_The words of Cronosolon, priest and prophet of Cronus, and holiday
lawgiver._
The regulations to be observed by the poor I have sent expressly to
them in another scroll, and am well assured that they will abide by
the same, failing which, they will be obnoxious to the heavy penalties
enacted against the disobedient. And you, ye rich, see to it that ye
transgress not nor disregard the instructions following. Be it known to
him that shall so do, that he scorneth not me the lawgiver, but Cronus'
self, who hath appeared, in no dream, but these two days gone to my
waking senses, and appointed me to give holiday laws. No bondsman was
he, nor foul to look upon, as painters have limned him after poets'
foolish tales. His sickle was indeed full sharp; but he was cheerful
of countenance, strong of limb, and royally arrayed. Such was his
semblance; and his words, wherein too was divinity, it is fitting you
hear.
He beheld me pacing downcast, meditative, and straightway knew--as
how should a God not know?--the cause of my sorrow, and how I was
ill content with poverty and with the unseasonable thinness of my
raiment. For there was frost and north wind and ice and snow, and I
but ill fenced against them. The feast was moreover at hand, and I
might see others making ready for sacrifice and good cheer, but for me
things looked not that way. He came upon me from behind and touched
and thrilled my ear, as is the manner of his approach, and spake: 'O
Cronosolon, wherefore this troubled mien?' 'Is there not a cause,
lord,' I said, 'when I look on pestilent loathly fellows passing rich,
engrossing all luxury, but I and many another skilled in liberal
arts have want and trouble to our bed-fellows? And thou, even thou,
lord, wilt not say it shall not be, nor order things anew and make us
equal.' 'In common life,' then said he, ''tis no light matter to change
the lots that Clotho and her sister Fates have laid upon you; but as
touching the feast, I will set right your poverty; and let the settling
be after this manner. Go, O Cronosolon, indite me certain laws for
observance in the feast days, that the rich feast not by themselves,
but impart of their good things to you.' Then said I, 'I know not how.'
'But I,' quoth he, 'will teach you.' And therewith he began and taught
me. And when I was perfect, 'And certify them,' he said, 'that if they
do not hereafter, this sharp sickle that I bear is no toy; 'twere odd
if I could maim therewith Uranus my father, but not do as much for the
rich that transgress my laws; they shall be fitted to serve the Mother
of the Gods with alms-box and pipe and timbrel.' Thus he threatened;
wherefore ye will do well to observe his decrees.
FIRST TABLE OF THE LAWS
All business, be it public or private, is forbidden during the feast
days, save such as tends to sport and solace and delight. Let none
follow their avocations saving cooks and bakers.
All men shall be equal, slave and free, rich and poor, one with another.
Anger, resentment, threats, are contrary to law.
During the feast days, no man shall be called to account of his
stewardship.
No man shall in these days count his money nor inspect his wardrobe,
nor make an inventory.
Athletic training shall cease.
No discourse shall be either composed or delivered, except it be witty
and lusty, conducing to mirth and jollity.
SECOND TABLE OF THE LAWS
In good time against the feast every rich man shall inscribe in a
table-book the names of his several friends, and shall provide money
to a tithe of his yearly incomings, together with the superfluity of
his raiment, and such ware as is too coarse for his own service, and a
goodly quantity of silver vessels. These shall be all in readiness.
On the eve of the feast the rich shall hold a purification, and drive
forth from their houses parsimony and avarice and covetousness and
all other such leanings that dwell with the most of them. And their
houses being purged they shall make offering to Zeus the Enricher, and
to Hermes the Giver, and to Apollo the Generous. And at afternoon the
table-book of their friends shall be read to them.
Then shall they with their own hands allot to each friend his fitting
share, and send it before set of sun.
And the carriers shall be not more than three or four, the trustiest of
a man's servants, and well on in years. And let him write in a letter
what is the gift, and its amount, that the carriers be not suspect to
giver or receiver. And the said servants shall drink one cup each man,
and depart, and ask no more.
To such as have culture let all be sent in double measure; it is
fitting that they have two portions.
The message that goeth with a gift shall be modest and brief; let no
man humble his friend, nor commend his own gift.
Rich shall not send gifts to rich, nor entertain his peer at the feast.
Of the things made ready for sending, none shall be reserved; let no
man give and un-give.
He that by absence missed his share of yester-year shall now receive
that too.
Let the rich discharge debts for their friends that are poor, and their
rent if they owe and cannot pay it.
Let it be their care above all to know in time the needs of every man.
The receiver for his part should be not over-curious, but account great
whatsoever is sent him. Yet are a flask of wine, a hare, or a fat fowl,
not to be held sufficient gifts; rather they bring the feast into
mockery. For the poor man's return gift, if he have learning, let it be
an ancient book, but of good omen and festive humour, or a writing of
his own after his ability; and the rich man shall receive the same with
a glad countenance, and take and read it forthwith; if he reject or
fling it aside, be it known to him that he hath incurred that penalty
of the sickle, though he himself hath sent all he should. For the
unlearned, let him send a garland or grains of frankincense.
If a poor man send, to one that is rich, raiment or silver or gold
beyond his means, the gift shall be impounded and sold, and the price
thereof cast into the treasury of Cronus; and on the morrow the poor
man shall receive from the rich stripes upon his hands with a rod not
less than twelve score and ten.
LAWS OF THE BOARD
The bath hour shall be noon, and before it nuts and draughts.
Every man shall take place as chance may direct; dignities and birth
and wealth shall give no precedence.
All shall be served with the same wine; the rich host shall not say,
For my colic, or for my megrims, I must drink the better.
Every man's portion of meat shall be alike. The attendants shall favour
none, nor yet in their serving shall they be deaf to any, nor pass any
by before his pleasure be known. They shall not set great portions
before him, and small before him, nor give this one a dainty and that
one refuse, but all shall be equal.
Let the butler have a quick eye and ear for all from his point of
vantage, and heed his master least. And be the cups large or small at
choice.
It shall be any man's right to call a health; and let all drink to all
if they will, when the host has set the wine a-going. But no man shall
be bound to drink, if he be no strong toper.
It shall not be free to any who will to bring an unpractised dancer or
musician to the dinner.
Let the limit to jesting be, that the feelings of none be wounded.
The stake at draughts shall be nuts alone; if any play for money, he
shall fast on the morrow.
When the rich man shall feast his slaves, let his friends serve with
him.
These laws every rich man shall engrave on a brazen pillar and set them
in the centre of his hall and there read them. And be it known that, so
long as that pillar stands, neither famine nor sickness nor fire nor
any mischance shall come upon the house. But if it be removed--which
God avert!--then evil shall be that house's doom.
H.
SATURNALIAN LETTERS
I
_I to Cronus, Greeting._
I have written to you before telling you of my condition, how poverty
was likely to exclude me from the festival you have proclaimed. I
remember observing how unreasonable it was that some of us should be
in the lap of wealth and luxury, and never give a share of their good
things to the poor, while others are dying of hunger with your holy
season just upon them. But as you did not answer, I thought I might as
well refresh your memory. Dear good Cronus, you ought really to remove
this inequality and pool all the good things before telling us to make
merry. The world is peopled with camels and ants now, nothing between
the two. Or, to put it another way, kindly imagine an actor, with one
foot mounted on the tragic stilt and the other bare; if he walks like
that, he must be a giant or a dwarf according to the leg he stands on;
our lives are about as equal as his heights. Those who are taken on by
manager Fortune and supplied with stilts come the hero over us, while
the rest pad it on the ground, though you may take my word for it we
could rant and stalk with the best of them if we were given the same
chance.
Now the poets inform me that in the old days when you were king it
was otherwise with men; earth bestowed her gifts upon them unsown and
unploughed, every man's table was spread automatically, rivers ran wine
and milk and honey. Most wonderful of all, the men themselves were
gold, and poverty never came near them. As for us, we can hardly pass
for lead; some yet meaner material must be found. In the sweat of our
face the most of us eat bread. Poverty, distress, and helplessness,
sighs and lamentations and pinings for what is not, such is the staple
of man's life, the poor man's at least. All which, believe me, would be
much less painful to us, if there were not the felicity of the rich to
emphasize it. They have their chests of gold and silver, their stored
wardrobes, their slaves and carriages and house property and farms,
and, not content with keeping to themselves their superfluity in all
these, they will scarce fling a glance to the generality of us.
Ah, Cronus, there is the sting that rankles beyond endurance--that one
should loll on cloth of finest purple, overload his stomach with all
delicacies, and keep perpetual feast with guests to wish him joy, while
I and my like dream over the problematic acquisition of a sixpence to
provide us a loaf white or brown, and send us to bed with a smack of
cress or thyme or onion in our mouths. Now, good Cronus, either reform
this altogether and feed us alike, or at the least induce the rich
not to enjoy their good things alone; from their bushels of gold let
them scatter a poor pint among us; the raiment that they would never
feel the loss of though the moth were to consume it utterly, seeing
that in any case it must perish by mere lapse of time, let them devote
to covering our nakedness rather than to propagating mildew in their
chests and drawers.
Further let them entertain us by fours and fives, and not as they now
do, but more on principles of equality; let us all share alike. The way
now is for one to gorge himself on some dainty, keeping the servant
waiting about him till he is pleased to have done; but when it reaches
us, as we are in the act of helping ourselves it is whisked off, and
we have but that fleeting glimpse of the entrée or fag-end of a sweet.
Or in comes a sucking-pig; half of it, including the head, falls to
the host; the rest of us share the bones, slightly disguised. And pray
charge the butlers not to make us call unto seven times, but bring us
our wine when we ask for it first; and let it be a full-sized cup and
a bumper, as it is for their masters. And the same wine, please, for
every one at table; where is the legal authority for my host's growing
mellow on the choicest bouquet while my stomach is turned with mere
must?
These things if you correct and reform, you will have made life life,
and your feast a feast. If not, we will leave the feasting to them,
and just kneel down and pray that as they come from the bath the slave
may knock down and spill their wine, the cook smoke their sauce and
absent-mindedly pour the pea-soup over the caviare, the dog steal
in while the scullions are busy and make away with the whole of the
sausage and most of the pastry. Boar and buck and sucking-pigs, may
they rival in their roasting Homer's oxen of the Sun! only let them
not confine themselves to crawling[12], but jump up and make off to
the mountains with their spits sticking in them! and may the fat fowls,
all plucked and trussed, fly far away and rob them of their unsociable
delights!
But we can touch them more closely than that. May Indian gold-ants[13]
come by night, unearth their hoards and convey them to their own
state treasury! May their wardrobe-keepers be negligent, and our good
friends the mice make sieve-work of their raiment, fit for nothing but
tunny-nets! May every pretty curled minion, every Hyacinth and Achilles
and Narcissus they keep, turn bald as he hands the cup! let his hair
fall off and his chin grow bristly, till he is like the peak-bearded
fellows on the comic stage, hairy and prickly on cheek and temple, and
on the top smooth and bare! These are specimens of the petitions we
will send up, if they will not moderate their selfishness, acknowledge
themselves trustees for the public, and let us have our fair share.
H.
II
_Cronus to his well-beloved me, Greeting._
My good man, why this absurdity of writing to me about the state of
the world, and advising redistribution of property? It is none of my
business; the present ruler must see to that. It is an odd thing you
should be the only person unaware that I have long abdicated; my sons
now administer various departments, of which the one that concerns you
is mainly in the hands of Zeus; my own charge is confined to draughts
and merry-making, song and good cheer, and that for one week only.
As for the weightier matters you speak of, removal of inequalities
and reducing of all men to one level of poverty or riches, Zeus must
do your business for you. On the other hand, if any man is wronged
or defrauded of his holiday privileges, that is a matter within my
competence; and I am writing to the rich on the subject of dinners, and
that pint of gold, and the raiment, directing them to send you what the
season requires. The poor are reasonable there; it is right and proper
for the rich to do these things, unless it turns out that they have
good reasons to the contrary.
Speaking generally, however, I must tell you that you are all in error;
it is quite a misconception to imagine the rich in perfect bliss; they
have no monopoly of life's pleasures because they can eat expensive
food, drink too much good wine, revel in beauty, and go in soft
raiment. You have no idea of how it works out. The resulting anxieties
are very considerable. A ceaseless watch must be kept, or stewards
will be lazy and dishonest, wine go sour, and grain be weeviled;
the burglar will be off with the rich man's plate; agitators will
persuade the people that he is meditating a _coup d'état_. And these
are but a minute fraction of their troubles; if you could know their
apprehensions and cares, you would think riches a thing to be avoided
at all costs.
Why, look at me; if wealth and dominion were good things, do you
suppose I should have been fool enough to relinquish them, make room
for others, and sit down like a common man content with a subordinate
position? No, it was because I knew all the conditions the rich and
powerful cannot escape that I had the sense to abdicate.
You made a great fuss in your letter about _their_ gorging on boar's
head and pastry while _your_ festival consists of a mouthful of cress
or thyme or onion. Now, what are the facts? As to the immediate
sensation, on the palate, there is little to choose between the two
diets--not much to complain of in either; but with the after effects
it is quite otherwise. _You_ get up next morning without either
the headache the rich man's wine leaves behind, or the disgusting
queasiness that results from his surfeit of food. To these effects he
adds those of nights given to lust and debauchery, and as likely as not
reaps the fruit of his luxury in consumption, pneumonia, or dropsy. It
is quite a difficult matter to find a rich man who is not deathly pale;
most of them by the time they are old men use eight legs belonging
to other people instead of their own two; they are gold without and
rags within, like the stage hero's robes. No fish dinners for you, I
admit; you hardly know what fish tastes like; but then observe, no
gout or pneumonia either, nor other ailments due to other excesses.
Apart from that, though, the rich themselves do not enjoy their daily
over-indulgence in these things; you may see them as eager, and more,
for a dinner of herbs as ever you are for game.
I say nothing of their other vexations--one has a disreputable son,
another a wife who prefers his slave to himself, another realizes
that his minion yields to necessity what he would not to affection;
there are numberless things, in fact, that you know nothing about; you
only see their gold and purple, or catch sight of them behind their
high-steppers, and open your mouths and abase yourselves before them.
If you left them severely alone, if you did not turn to stare at their
silver-plated carriages, if you did not while they were talking eye
their emerald rings, or finger their clothes and admire the fineness of
the texture, if you let them keep their riches to themselves, in short,
I can assure you they would seek you out and implore the favour of
your company; you see, they _must_ show you their couches and tables
and goblets, the sole good of which is in the being known to possess
them.
You will find that most of their acquisitions are made for you; they
are not for their own use, but for your astonishment. I am one that
knows both lives, and I write this for your consolation. You should
keep the feast with the thought in your minds that both parties will
soon leave this earthly scene, they resigning their wealth, and you
your poverty. However, I will write to them as I promised, and am
confident that they will not disregard what I say.
H.
III
_Cronus to the Rich, Greeting._
I lately received a letter from the poor, complaining that you give
them no share of your prosperity. They petitioned me in general terms
to institute community of goods and let each have his part: it was only
right that equality should be established, instead of one's having
a superfluity while another was cut off from pleasure altogether.
I told them that had better be left to Zeus; but their particular
festival grievances I considered to belong to my own jurisdiction, and
so I undertook to write to you. These demands of theirs are moderate
enough, it seems to me. How can we possibly keep the feast (they ask),
when we are numb with frost and pinched with hunger? if I meant them
to participate, I must compel you to bestow on them any clothes that
you do not require, or find too heavy for your own use, and also to
vouchsafe them just a slight sprinkling of gold. If you do this, they
engage not to dispute your right to your property any further in the
court of Zeus. Otherwise they will demand redistribution the next
time he takes his seat upon the bench. Well, this is no heavy call,
considering the vast property on the possession of which I congratulate
you.
They also requested me to mention the subject of dinners; you were to
ask them to dinner, instead of closing your doors and living daintily
by yourselves. When you do entertain a few of them at long intervals,
they say you make it rather a humiliation than an enjoyment; everything
is done to degrade them--that monstrous piece of snobbishness, for
instance, the giving different people different wines. It is really
a little discreditable to them that they do not get up and walk
out in such a case, leaving you in sole possession. But that is
not all; they tell me there is not _enough_ to drink either; your
butlers' ears are as impervious as those of Odysseus's crew. Other
vulgarities I can hardly bring myself to name. The helpings and the
waiters are complained of; the latter linger about you till you are
full to repletion, but post by your poor guests at a run--with other
meannesses hardly conceivable in the house of a gentleman. For mirth
and good-fellowship it is essential that all the company be on the same
footing; if your carver does not secure equality, better not have one,
but a general scramble.
It rests with you to obviate these complaints and secure honour and
affection; a liberality that costs you nothing appreciable will impress
itself permanently by its timeliness on the memory of recipients.
Why, your cities would not be habitable, if you had not poor fellow
citizens to make their numberless contributions to your well-being;
you would have no admirers of your wealth if you lived alone with it
in the obscurity of isolation. Let there be plenty to see it and to
marvel at your silver and your exquisite tables; let them drink to your
health, and as they drink examine the goblet, feel and guess at its
weight, enjoy its storied workmanship enhanced by and enhancing the
preciousness of the material. So you may not only gain a reputation for
goodness and geniality, but also escape envy; that is a feeling not
directed against people who let others participate in their prosperity
to a reasonable extent; every one prays that they may live long to
enjoy it. Your present practice results in an unsatisfying life, with
none to see your happiness, but plenty to grudge you your wealth.
It is surely not so agreeable to gorge yourself alone, like a lion
or an old wolf that has deserted the pack, as to have the company of
well-bred people who do their best to make things pleasant. In the
first place they banish dull silence from your table, and are ready
with a good story, a harmless jest, or some other contribution to
entertainment; that is the way to please the Gods of wine and love
and beauty. And secondly they win you love by spreading abroad next
morning your hospitable fame. These are things that would be cheap at a
considerable price.
For I put it to you whether, if blindness were a regular concomitant
of poverty (fancy is free), you would be indifferent to the want of
any one to impress with your purple clothes and attendant crowds
and massive rings. I will not dwell on the certainty that plots and
ill-feeling will be excited against you by your exclusiveness; suffice
it to say that the curses they threaten to imprecate upon you are
positively horrible; God forbid they should really be driven to it! You
would never taste sausage or pastry more; if the dog's depredations
stopped short of completeness, you would still find a fishy flavour
in your soup, the boar and the buck would effect an escape to the
mountains from off the very roasting-jack, and your birds (no matter
for their being plucked) would be off with a whiz and a whirr to the
poor men's tables. Worst of all, your pretty cup-bearers would turn
bald in a twinkling--the wine, by the way, having previously all been
spilt. I now leave you to make up your minds on the course that the
festival proprieties and your own safety recommend; these people are
extremely poor; a little relief will gain you friends worth having at a
trifling cost.
H.
IV
_The Rich to Cronus, Greeting._
Do you really suppose, Sire, that these letters of the poor have gone
exclusively to _your_ address? Zeus is quite deaf with their clamour,
their appeals for redistribution, their complaints of Destiny for her
unfairness and of us for refusing them relief. But Zeus is Zeus; _he_
knows where the fault lies, and consequently pays them very little
attention. However, as the authority is at present with you, to you we
will address our defence. Having before our eyes all that you have laid
down on the beauty of assisting out of our abundance those who are in
want, and the delight of associating and making merry with the poor, we
adopted the principle of treating them on such equal terms that a guest
could not possibly have anything to complain of.
On their side, they started with professions of wanting very little
indeed; but that was only the thin edge of the wedge. Now, if their
demands are not instantly and literally satisfied, there is bad temper
and offence and talk; their tales may be as false as they will, every
one believes them: they have been there; they must know! Our only
choice was between a refusal that meant detestation, and a total
surrender that meant speedy ruin and transfer to the begging class for
ourselves.
But the worst is to come. At table that filling of the stomach (of
which we have by no means the monopoly) does not so completely occupy
them but that, when they have drunk a drop too much, they find time
for familiarities with the attendants or saucy compliments to the
ladies. Then, after being ill at our tables, they go home, and next day
reproach us with the hunger and thirst they feelingly describe. If you
doubt the accuracy of this account, we refer you to your own quondam
guest Ixion, who being hospitably received by you and treated as one of
yourselves distinguished himself by his drunken addresses to Hera.
For these among other reasons we determined to protect ourselves
by giving them the entrée no longer. But if they engage under your
guarantee to make only the moderate demands they now profess, and to
abstain from outraging their hosts' feelings, what is ours shall be
theirs; we shall be only too glad of their company. We will comply with
your suggestions about the clothes and, as far as may be, about the
gold, and in fact will do our duty. We ask them on their side to give
up trading on our hospitality, and to be our friends instead of our
toadies and parasites. If only they will behave themselves, you shall
have no reason to complain of us.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Homer, _Od._ xii. 395. Odysseus's crew had killed and begun to
cook the oxen of the Sun. "And soon thereafter the Gods shewed forth
signs and wonders to my company. The skins were creeping, and the flesh
bellowing upon the spits, both the roast and raw, and there was a sound
as of the voice of kine."--_Butcher and Lang._
[13] Herodotus, iii. 102. 'And in this desert and sandy tract' (in
North India) 'are produced ants, which are in size smaller than dogs
but larger than foxes.... These ants there make their dwelling under
ground and carry up the sand just in the same manner as the ants found
in the land of the Hellenes ... and the sand which is brought up
contains gold.'--_Macaulay's translation._
A FEAST OF LAPITHAE
_Philo. Lycinus_
_Phi._ Ah, Lycinus, I hear you had a very varied entertainment dining
with Aristaenetus last night; a philosophic debate followed by a sharp
difference of opinion, I understand; if Charinus's information was
correct, it went as far as blows, and the conference had a bloody end.
_Ly._ Charinus? he was not there; what can he know about it?
_Phi._ Dionicus the doctor had told him, he said; _he_ was one of you,
was he not?
_Ly._ Yes, but only later on; he came when the fray was already a
promising one, though no blows had yet been struck. I doubt whether he
could have any intelligible account to give, as he had not followed the
beginning of the rivalry that was to end in bloodshed.
_Phi._ Just so; Charinus told me to apply to you, if I wanted a true
description of all the details. Dionicus had mentioned that he had
not been there all through, but said you knew the whole of the facts,
and would remember the arguments too, as you are a real student and
take more than an outside interest in that sort of thing. So no more
ceremony, please, but spread me this most tempting of banquets; its
attractions are enhanced by the fact that we shall enjoy it soberly,
quietly, without bloodshed or danger, whatever regrettable words or
deeds the old men's weak heads or the young men's vinous exaltation may
have led them into.
_Ly._ What an indiscreet demand, Philo! What, make the story public?
give a full description of what men do in their cups? A veil should
be drawn over such things; they should be ascribed to Dionysus; I am
not at all sure that he will pardon the man who holds aloof from his
mystic influence. I should like to be sure that it does not betray an
evil nature if you dwell too curiously on what you should forget as you
leave the dining-room. 'Babble wet, But dry forget,' goes the rhyme.
It was not right of Dionicus to blab to Charinus, bespattering great
philosophers with stale wine-rinsings. No, get thee behind me; my lips
are sealed.
_Phi._ Coquette! and you have mistaken your man too; I am quite aware
that you are more eager to tell than I to hear; I believe, if you had
no one to listen, you would find a pillar or statue and out with the
whole tale to it in one torrent. If I try to make off now, you will
never let me go till I have done my listening; you will hold on to me
and pursue me and solicit me. Then it will be my turn to coquet. Oh,
very well; do not trouble to tell me; good-bye; I will get it out of
some one else.
_Ly._ Oh, you needn't be so hasty. I will tell you, if you are so set
upon it; only don't repeat it to everybody.
_Phi._ If I know anything whatever of you, you will take good care of
that; you will not leave me many to repeat it to.
Now begin with telling me what Aristaenetus was giving the banquet for;
was it his boy Zeno's wedding?
_Ly._ No, his girl Cleanthis's--to the son of Eucritus the banker, a
student of philosophy.
_Phi._ I know; a fine lad; only a lad, though; old enough to marry?
_Ly._ Well, he was the most _suitable_ to be had, I suppose. He is a
well-behaved youngster, has taken up philosophy, and is sole heir to a
rich father; so he was the selected bridegroom.
_Phi._ Ah, no doubt Eucritus's money is a consideration. Well, and who
were the guests?
_Ly._ Why, I need not give you the whole list; what you want is the
philosophers and men of letters. There was the old Stoic Zenothemis,
and with him 'Labyrinth' Diphilus; Aristaenetus's son Zeno is his
pupil. The Peripatetics were represented by Cleodemus--the ready,
argumentative person--you know him; 'Sword,' and 'Cleaver,' his
disciples call him. And then there was Hermon the Epicurean; directly
he came in, there were queer looks and edgings away in the Stoic
contingent; he might have been a parricide or an outlaw, by the way
they treated him. These had been asked as Aristaenetus's personal
friends and intimates, under which head come also Histiaeus the
literary man and Dionysodorus the rhetorician.
Then Chaereas (that is the bridegroom's name) was responsible for
his tutor Ion the Platonic--a grave reverend man remarkable for
the composure of his expression. He is generally spoken of as 'The
Standard,' so infallible is his judgement. As he walked up the room,
everybody got out of his way and saluted him like some higher being;
the great Ion's presence is like an angel's visit.
When nearly all the guests had arrived, and we were to take our
places, the ladies occupied the whole of the table to the right of
the entrance; there were a good many of them, surrounding the closely
veiled bride. The table at the far end accommodated the general
company, in due precedence.
At the one opposite the ladies, Eucritus had the first place,
with Aristaenetus next him. Then a doubt arose whether the next
was Zenothemis the Stoic's, in virtue of his years, or Hermon
the Epicurean's, who is priest of the Twin Gods[14], and also of
the noblest blood in the land. Zenothemis found the solution.
'Aristaenetus,' he said, 'if you place me below this Epicurean (I
need not use worse language than _that_), I at once leave the room';
and calling his servant he made as if to depart. 'Have your way,
Zenothemis,' said Hermon, 'though, whatever your contempt for Epicurus,
etiquette would have suggested your giving way to my priesthood, if
I had no other claims.' 'Priest and Epicurean! that is a good joke,'
retorted Zenothemis, and took the place, with Hermon next him, however.
Then came Cleodemus the Peripatetic, Ion with the bridegroom, myself,
Diphilus and his pupil Zeno, then Dionysodorus the rhetorician and
Histiaeus the literary man.
_Phi_. Upon my word, a very temple of the Muses, peopled mainly with
the learned! I congratulate Aristaenetus on choosing for his guests
on so auspicious an occasion these patterns of wisdom; he skimmed the
cream off every sect in a most catholic spirit.
_Ly._ Oh, yes, he is not one's idea of the rich man at all; he cares
for culture, and gives most of his time to those who have it.
Well, we fell to, quietly at first, on the ample and varied fare. But
you do not want a catalogue of soups and pastry and sauces; there
was plenty of everything. At this stage Cleodemus bent down to Ion,
and said: 'Do you see how the old man' (this was Zenothemis; I could
overhear their talk) 'is stuffing down the good things--his dress gets
a good deal of the gravy--and what a lot he hands back to his servant?
he thinks we cannot see him, and does not care whether there will be
enough to go round. Just call Lycinus's attention to him.' This was
quite unnecessary, as I had had an excellent view of it for some time.
Just after Cleodemus had said this, in burst Alcidamas the cynic. He
had not been asked, but put a good face upon it with the usual 'No
summons Menelaus waits.' The general opinion clearly was that he was an
impudent rogue, and various people struck in with what came to hand:
'What, Menelaus, art distraught?' or, 'It liked not Agamemnon, Atreus'
son,' and other neat tags suited to the occasion; but these were all
asides; no one ventured to make them audible to him. Alcidamas is a
man uncommonly 'good at the war-cry'; he will bark you louder than any
dog of them all, literal or metaphorical; my gentlemen all knew he was
their better, and lay low.
Aristaenetus told him he was quite right to come; would he take a chair
and sit behind Histiaeus and Dionysodorus? 'Stuff!' he said; 'a soft
womanish trick, to sit on a chair or a stool! one might as well loll at
one's food half on one's back, like all of you on this soft couch with
purple cushions under you. As for me, I will take my dinner standing
and walking about the room. If I get tired, I will lay my old cloak on
the ground and prop myself on my elbow like Heracles in the pictures.'
'Just as you please,' said Aristaenetus; and after that Alcidamas fed
walking round, shifting his quarters like the Scythians according to
where pasturage was richest, and following the servants up as they
carried the dishes.
However, he did not let feeding interrupt his energetic expositions
of virtue and vice, and his scoffs at gold and silver. What was the
good of this multitude of wonderful cups, he wanted to know, when
earthenware would serve the purpose? Aristaenetus got rid of his
obtrusiveness for the moment by signing to his servant to hand the
cynic a huge goblet of potent liquor. It seemed a happy thought; but he
little knew the woes that were to flow from that goblet. When Alcidamas
got it, he was quiet for a while, throwing himself on the ground in
dishabille as he had threatened, with his elbow planted vertically,
just in the attitude of the painters' _Heracles with Pholus_.
By this time the wine was flowing pretty freely everywhere; healths
were drunk, conversation was general, and the lights had come in. I now
noticed the boy standing near Cleodemus--a good-looking cupbearer--to
have an odd smile on. I suppose I am to give you all the by-play of
the dinner, especially any tender incidents. Well, so I was trying to
get at the reason for the smile. In a little while he came to take
Cleodemus's cup from him; he gave the boy's fingers a pinch, and handed
him up a couple of shillings, I think it was, with the cup. The smile
appeared again in response to the pinch, but I imagine he failed to
notice the coins; he did not get hold of them; they went ringing on
the floor, and there were two blushing faces to be seen. Those round,
however, could not tell whose the money was, the boy saying he had not
dropped it, and Cleodemus, at whose place it had been heard to fall,
not confessing to the loss. So the matter was soon done with; hardly
any one had grasped the situation--only Aristaenetus, as far as I could
gather. He shifted the boy soon after, effecting the transfer without
any fuss, and assigned Cleodemus a strong grown-up fellow who might
be a mule or horse groom. So much for that business; it would have
seriously compromised Cleodemus if it had attracted general attention;
but it was smothered forthwith by Aristaenetus's tactful handling of
the offence.
Alcidamas the cynic, who had now emptied his goblet, after finding out
the bride's name, called for silence; he then faced the ladies, and
cried out in a loud voice: 'Cleanthis, I drink to you in the name of
my patron Heracles.' There was a general laugh; upon which, 'You vile
scum,' says he, 'you laugh, do you, because I invoke our God Heracles
as I toast the bride? Let me tell you that, if she will not pledge me,
she shall never bear a son as brave of spirit, as free of judgement,
as strong of body, as myself.' And he proceeded to show us more of
the said body, till it was scarcely decent. The company irritated him
by laughing again; he stood there with a wandering wrathful eye, and
looked as if he were going to make trouble. He would probably have
brought down his stick on somebody's head, but for the timely arrival
of an enormous cake, the sight of which mollified him; he quieted down,
and accompanied its progress, eating hard.
The rest were mostly flushed with wine by this time, and the room
was full of clamour. Dionysodorus the rhetorician was alternately
delivering speeches of his own composition and receiving the plaudits
of the servants behind. Histiaeus, the literary man below him, was
making an eclectic mixture of Pindar, Hesiod, and Anacreon, whose
collaboration produced a most remarkable ode, some of it really
prophetic of what was soon to come--'Then hide met stubborn hide,' for
instance, and 'Uprose the wailings and the prayers of men.' Zenothemis
too had taken a scroll in small writing from his servant, which he was
reading aloud.
Now came one of the usual slight breaks in the procession of dishes;
and Aristaenetus, to avoid the embarrassment of a blank, told his
jester to come in and talk or perform, by way of putting the company
still more at their ease. So in came an ugly fellow with a shaven
head--just a few hairs standing upright on the crown. He danced with
dislocations and contortions, which made him still more absurd, then
improvised and delivered some anapaests in an Egyptian accent, and
wound up with witticisms on the guests.
Most of them took these in good part; but when it came to Alcidamas's
turn, and he called him a Maltese poodle[15], Alcidamas, who had shown
signs of jealousy for some time and did not at all like the way he was
holding every one's attention, lost his temper. He threw off his cloak
and challenged the fellow to a bout of pancratium; otherwise he would
let him feel his stick. So poor Satyrion, as the jester was called,
had to accept the challenge and stand up. A charming spectacle--the
philosopher sparring and exchanging blows with a buffoon! Some of us
were scandalized and some amused, till Alcidamas found he had his
bellyful, being no match for the tough little fellow. They gave us a
good laugh.
It was now, not long after this match, that Dionicus the doctor came
in. He had been detained, he said, by a brain-fever case; the patient
was Polyprepon the piper, and thereby hung a tale. He had no sooner
entered the room, not knowing how far gone the man was, when he jumped
up, secured the door, drew a dagger, and handed him the pipes, with an
order to play them; and when Dionicus could not, he took a strap and
inflicted chastisement on the palms of his hands. To escape from this
perilous position, Dionicus proposed a match, with a scale of forfeits
to be exacted with the strap. He played first himself, and then handed
over the pipes, receiving in exchange the strap and dagger. These he
lost no time in sending out of window into the open court, after which
it was safe to grapple with him and shout for help; the neighbours
broke open the door and rescued him. He showed us his wealed hands and
some scratches on his face. His story had as distinguished a success as
the jester before; he then squeezed himself in by Histiaeus and dined
on what was left. His coming was providential, and he most useful in
the sequel.
There now appeared a messenger who said he brought a communication
from Hetoemocles the Stoic, which his master had directed him to read
publicly, and then return. With Aristaenetus's permission he took it to
the lamp, and began reading.
_Phi._ The usual thing, I suppose--a panegyric on the bride, or an
epithalamium?
_Ly._ Just what we took it for; however, it was quite another story.
Here are the contents:
_HETOEMOCLES THE PHILOSOPHER TO ARISTAENETUS, GREETING._
_My views on dining are easily deducible from my whole past life;
though daily importuned by far richer men than you to join them, I
invariably refuse; I know too well the tumults and follies that attend
the wine-cup. But if there is one whose neglect I may fairly resent,
it is yourself; the fruit of my long and unremitting attentions to you
is to find myself not on the roll of your friends; I, your next-door
neighbour, am singled out for exclusion. The sting of it is in the
personal ingratitude; happiness for me is not found in a plate of wild
boar or hare or pastry; these I get in abundance at the houses of
people who understand the proprieties; this very day I might have dined
(and well, by all accounts) with my pupil Pammenes; but he pressed me
to no purpose; I was reserving myself, poor fool, for you._
_But you pass me by, and feast others. I ought not to be surprised;
you have not acquired the power of distinguishing merit; you have no
apprehensive imagination. I know whence the blow comes; it is from
your precious philosophers, Zenothemis and The Labyrinth, whose mouths
(though I would not boast) I could stop with a single syllogism. Let
either of them tell me, What is Philosophy? or, not to go beyond the
merest elements, how does_ condition _differ from_ constitution? _for
I will not resort to real puzzles, as the_ Horns[1], _the_ Sorites[1],
_or the_ Reaper[16]. _Well, I wish you joy of their company. As for me,
holding as I do that nothing is good but what is right, I shall get
over a slight like this._
_You will be kind enough not to resort later to the well-worn excuse of
having forgotten in the bustle of your engagements; I have spoken to
you twice to-day, in the morning at your house, and later when you were
sacrificing at the Anaceum. This is to let your guests know the rights
of the case._
_If you think it is the dinner I care about, reflect upon the story of
Oeneus; you will observe that, when he omitted Artemis alone from the
Gods to whom he offered sacrifice, she resented it. Homer's account of
it states that he_
_Forgot or ne'er bethought him--woeful blindness!_
_Euripides's begins_,
_This land of Calydon, across the gulf
From Pelops' land, with all its fertile plains_--;
_and Sophocles's_,
_Upon the tilth of Oeneus Leto's child,
Far-darting Goddess, loosed a monstrous boar_.
_I quote you but these few of the many passages upon the incident,
just to suggest the qualities of him whom you have passed over,
to entertain, and to have your son taught by, Diphilus! natural
enough; of course, the lad fancies him, and finds him an agreeable
master! If tale-telling were not beneath me, I would add a piece of
information that, if you choose, you can get confirmed by the boy's
attendant Zopyrus. But a wedding is not a time for unpleasantness or
denunciations, especially of offences so vile. Diphilus deserves it
richly at my hands, indeed--two pupils he has stolen from me--; but for
the good name of Philosophy I will hold my hand._
_My man has instructions, if you should offer him a portion of wild
boar or venison or sesame cake to bring me in lieu of my dinner, to
refuse it. I would not have you find the motive of my letter in such
desires._
My dear fellow, I went all hot and cold as this was read; I was praying
that the earth might swallow me up when I saw everybody laughing at
the different points; the most amused were those who knew Hetoemocles
and his white hair and reverend looks; it was such a surprise to find
the reality behind that imposing beard and serious countenance. I felt
sure Aristaenetus had passed him over not in neglect, but because he
supposed he would never accept an invitation or have anything to do
with festivities; he had thought it out of the question, and not worth
trying.
As soon as the man stopped reading, all eyes were turned on Zeno and
Diphilus, who were pale with apprehension, and confirmed by their
embarrassment the insinuations of Hetoemocles. Aristaenetus was uneasy
and disturbed, but urged us to drink, and tried to smooth the matter
over with an attempt at a smile; he told the man he would see to it,
and dismissed him. Zeno disappeared shortly after; his attendant had
signed to him, as from his father, to retire.
Cleodemus had been on the look-out for an opportunity; he was spoiling
for a fight with the Stoics, and chafing over the difficulty of
starting the subject; but the letter had struck the right key, and
off he went. 'Now we see the productions of your fine Chrysippus, your
glorious Zeno, your Cleanthes--a few poor catch-words, some fruitless
posers, a philosophic exterior, and a large supply of--Hetoemocleses.
What ripe wisdom does this letter reveal, with its conclusion that
Aristaenetus is an Oeneus, and Hetoemocles an Artemis! How auspicious,
how suitable to the occasion, its tone!'
'To be sure,' chimed in Hermon, his left-hand neighbour; 'he had no
doubt heard that Aristaenetus had bespoken a wild boar, and thought the
introduction of the one at Calydon appropriate. Aristaenetus, I adjure
you by the domestic altar, let him taste the victim, or we shall have
the old man starving, and withering away like his Meleager. Though
indeed it would not be so very hard on him; such a fate is one of
Chrysippus's _things indifferent_.'
Here Zenothemis woke up and thundered out: 'Chrysippus? you name
that name? because a pretender like Hetoemocles comes short of his
profession, you argue from him to the real sages, to Cleanthes and
Zeno? And who are the men, pray, who hold such language? Why, Hermon,
who shore the curls, the solid golden curls, of the Dioscuri, and who
will yet receive his barber's fee from the executioner. And Cleodemus,
who was caught in adultery with his pupil Sostratus's wife, and paid
the shameful penalty. Silence would better become the owners of
such consciences.' 'Who trades in his own wife's favours?' retorted
Cleodemus; 'I do not do that, and I do not undertake to keep my foreign
pupil's purse and then swear by Polias the deposit was never made; I
do not lend money at fifty per cent, and I do not hale my pupils into
court if fees are not paid to the day.' 'You will hardly deny, though,'
said Zenothemis, 'that you supplied Crito with the poison for his
father.'
And therewith, his cup being in his hand, about half full of wine, he
emptied it over the pair; and Ion, whose worst guilt was being their
neighbour, came in for a good deal of it. Hermon bent forward, dried
his head, and entered a protest. Cleodemus, having no wine to reply
with, leant over and spat at Zenothemis; at the same time he clutched
the old man's beard with his left hand, and was aiming a blow which
would have killed him, when Aristaenetus arrested it, stepped over
Zenothemis, and lay down between the two, making himself a buffer in
the interests of peace.
All this time, Philo, my thoughts were busy enough with the old
commonplace, that after all it is no use having all theory at your
finger's ends, if you do not conform your conduct to the right. Here
were these masters of precept making themselves perfectly ridiculous in
practice. Then it was borne in upon me that possibly the vulgar notion
is right, and culture only misleads the people who are too much wrapt
up in books and bookish ideas. Of all that philosophic company there
was not a man--not so much as an accidental exception--who could pass
muster; if his conduct did not condemn him, his words did yet more
fatally. I could not make the wine responsible, either; the author of
that letter was fasting and sober.
Things seemed to go by contraries; you might see the ordinary people
behaving quite properly at table; no rioting and disorder there; the
most they did was to laugh at and, no doubt, censure the others, whom
they had been accustomed to respect and to credit with the qualities
their appearance suggested. It was the wise men who made beasts of
themselves, abused each other, over-fed, shouted and came to blows. I
thought one could find no better illustration for our dinner than the
poets' story of Eris. When she was not invited to Peleus's nuptials,
she threw that apple on the table which brought about the great Trojan
war. Hetoemocles's letter was just such an apple, woeful Iliad and all.
For buffer-Aristaenetus had proved ineffectual, and the quarrel between
Zenothemis and Cleodemus was proceeding. 'For the present,' said the
latter, 'I am satisfied with exposing your ignorance; to-morrow I
will give you your deserts more adequately. Pray explain, Zenothemis,
or the reputable Diphilus for you, how it is that you Stoics class
the acquisition of wealth among the things indifferent, and then
concentrate your whole efforts upon it, hang perpetually about the rich
to that end, lend money, screw out your usury, and take pay for your
teaching. Or again, if you hate pleasure and condemn the Epicureans,
how comes it that you will do and endure the meanest things for it? you
resent it if you are not asked out; and when you are, you eat so much,
and convey so much more to your servant's keeping'--and he interrupted
himself to make a grab at the napkin that Zenothemis's boy was holding,
full of all sorts of provender; he meant to get it away and empty the
contents on the floor; but the boy held on too tight.
'Quite right, Cleodemus,' said Hermon; 'let them tell us why they
condemn pleasure, and yet expect more of it than any one else.' 'No,
no,' says Zenothemis; 'you give us your grounds, Cleodemus, for
saying wealth is _not_ a thing indifferent.' 'No, I tell you; let us
have _your_ case.' So the see-saw went on, till Ion came out of his
retirement and called a truce: 'I will give you,' he said, 'a theme
worthy of the occasion; and you shall speak and listen without trying
for personal triumphs; take a leaf from our Plato this time.' 'Hear,
hear,' from the company, especially from Aristaenetus and Eucritus, who
hailed this escape from unpleasantness. The former now went back to his
own place, confident of peace.
The 'repast,' as they call it, had just made its appearance; each guest
was served with a bird, a slice of wild boar, a portion of hare, a
fried fish, some sesame cakes and sweet-meats--all these to be taken
home if the guest chose. Every man had not a separate dish, however;
Aristaenetus and Eucritus shared one little table, from which each was
to take what belonged to him; so Zenothemis the Stoic and Hermon the
Epicurean; Cleodemus and Ion had the third table, the bridegroom and
I the next; Diphilus had a double portion, by the absence of Zeno.
Remember these details, Philo; you will find they bear on the story.
_Phi._ Trust me.
_Ly._ Ion proceeded: 'I will start, then, if you wish it.' He reflected
a moment, and then: 'With so much talent in the room, no less a subject
might seem indicated than Ideas[17], Incorporeals, and the Immortality
of the Soul. On the other hand our divergent views might make that too
controversial; so I will take the question of marriage, and say what
seems appropriate. The counsel of perfection here would be to dispense
with it, and be satisfied, according to the prescription of Plato and
Socrates, with contemplating male beauty. So, and only so, is absolute
virtue to be attained. But if marriage is admitted as a practical
necessity, then we should adopt the Platonic system of holding our
wives in common, thus obviating rivality.'
The unseasonableness of these remarks raised a laugh. And Dionysodorus
had another criticism: 'Spare us these provincialisms,' he said; 'or
give us your authority for "rivality."' 'Such carpings are beneath
contempt,' was the polite reply. Dionysodorus was about to return the
compliment with interest, when our good man of letters intervened:
'Stop,' said Histiaeus, 'and let me read you an epithalamium.'
He at once went off at score; and I think I can reproduce the effusion:
Or like, in Aristaenetus's hall,
Cleanthis, softly nurtured bright princess,
Surpassing other beauties virginal,
Cythera's Queen, or Helen's loveliness.
Bridegroom, the best of your contemporaries,
Nireus's and Achilles' peer, rejoice!
While we in hymeneal voluntaries
Over the pair keep lifting up our voice.
By the time the laughter that not unnaturally followed had subsided, it
was time to pack up our 'repasts'; Aristaenetus and Eucritus took each
his intended portion; Chaereas and I, Ion and Cleodemus, did likewise.
But as Zeno was not there, Diphilus expected to come in for his share
too. He said everything on that table was his, and disputed possession
with the servants. There was a tug of war between them just like that
over the body of Patroclus; at last he was worsted and had to let go,
to the huge amusement of all, which he heightened by taking the thing
as a most serious wrong.
As I told you, Hermon and Zenothemis were neighbours, the latter
having the upper place. Their portions were equal enough except in one
respect, and the division was peaceful until that was reached. But the
bird on Hermon's side was--by chance, no doubt--the fatter. The moment
came for them to take their respective birds. At this point--now attend
carefully, please, Philo; here is the kernel of the whole affair--at
this point Zenothemis let his own bird lie, and took the fatter one
before Hermon. But Hermon was not going to be put upon; he laid hold of
it too. Then their voices were lifted up, they closed, belaboured each
other's faces with the birds, clutched each other's beards, and called
for assistance, Hermon appealing to Cleodemus, Zenothemis to Alcidamas
and Diphilus. The allies took their sides, Ion alone preserving
neutrality.
The hosts engaged. Zenothemis lifted a goblet from the table where it
stood before Aristaenetus, and hurled it at Hermon;
And him it missed, but found another mark,
laying open the bridegroom's skull with a sound deep gash.
This opened the lips of the ladies; most of them indeed jumped down
into the battle's interspace, led by the young man's mother, as soon as
she saw his blood flowing; the bride too was startled from her place
by terror for him. Meanwhile Alcidamas was in his glory maintaining
the cause of Zenothemis; down came his stick on Cleodemus's skull, he
injured Hermon's jaw, and severely wounded several of the servants
who tried to protect them. The other side were not beaten, however;
Cleodemus with levelled finger was gouging out Zenothemis's eye, not
to mention fastening on his nose and biting a piece off it; and when
Diphilus came to Zenothemis's rescue, Hermon pitched him head first
from the couch.
Histiaeus too was wounded in trying to part the pair; it was a kick
in the teeth, I think, from Cleodemus, who took him for Diphilus.
So the poor man of letters lay 'disgorging blood,' as his own Homer
describes it. It was a scene of tumult and tears. The women were
hanging over Chaereas and wailing, the other men trying to restore
peace. The great centre of destruction was Alcidamas, who after
routing the forces immediately opposed to him was striking at whatever
presented itself. Many a man had fallen there, be sure, had he not
broken his stick. I was standing close up to the wall watching the
proceedings in which I took no part; Histiaeus's fate had taught me
the dangers of intervention. It was a sight to recall the Lapithae and
Centaurs--tables upside down, blood in streams, bowls hurtling in the
air.
At last Alcidamas upset the lamp, there was a great darkness, and
confusion was worse confounded. It was not so easy to procure another
light, and many a horrid deed was done in the dark. When some one came
at last with a lamp, Alcidamas was discovered stripping and applying
compulsion to the flute-girl, and Dionysodorus proved to have been
as incongruously engaged; as he stood up, a goblet rolled out of his
bosom. His account of the matter was that Ion had picked it up in the
confusion, and given it him to save it from damage! for which piece of
carefulness Ion was willing to receive credit.
So the party came to an end, tears being resolved in the laughter at
Alcidamas, Dionysodorus and Ion. The wounded were borne off in sad
case, especially old Zenothemis, holding one hand on his nose and the
other on his eye, and bellowing out that the agony was more than he
could bear. Hermon was in poor condition himself, having lost a couple
of teeth; but he could not let this piece of evidence go; 'Bear in
mind, Zenothemis,' he called out, 'that you do _not_ consider pain a
thing indifferent.' The bridegroom, who had been seen to by Dionicus,
was also taken off with his head in bandages--in the carriage in which
he was to have taken his bride home. It had been a sorry wedding-feast
for him, poor fellow. Dionicus had done what he could for the rest,
they were taken home to bed, and very ill most of them were on the way.
Alcidamas stayed where he was; it was impossible to get rid of him, as
he had thrown himself down anyhow across a couch and fallen asleep.
And now you know all about the banquet, my dear Philo; a tragedy
epilogue seems called for:
Hidden power sways each hour:
Men propose, the Gods dispose:
Fail surmises, come surprises.
It was the unexpected that came to pass here, at any rate. Well, live
and learn; I know now that a quiet man had better keep clear of these
feasts of reason.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Castor and Pollux.
[15] Alcidamas being a cynic, or 'dog.'
[16] See _Puzzles_ in Notes.
[17] See _Plato_ in Notes.
DEMOSTHENES
AN ENCOMIUM
A little before noon on the sixteenth, I was walking in the Porch--it
was on the left-hand side as you go out--, when Thersagoras
appeared; I dare say he is known to some of you--short, hook-nosed,
fair-complexioned, and virile. He drew nearer, and I spoke:
'Thersagoras the poet. Whence, and whither?' 'From home, hither,' he
replied. 'Just a stroll?' I asked. 'Why, I do need a stroll too,' he
said. 'I got up in the small hours, impressed with the duty of making
a poetic offering on Homer's birthday.' 'Very proper,' said I; 'a good
way of paying for the education he has given you.' 'That was how I
began,' he continued, 'and time has glided by till now it is just upon
noon; that was what I meant by saying I wanted a stroll.
'However, I wanted something else much more--an interview with this
gentleman' (and he pointed to the Homer; you know the one on the right
of the Ptolemies' shrine, with the hair hanging loose); 'I came to
greet him, and to pray for a good flow of verse.' 'Ah,' I sighed, 'if
prayers would do it! in that case _I_ should have given Demosthenes a
worrying for assistance against _his_ birthday. If prayers availed, I
would join my wishes to yours; for the boons we desire are the same.'
'Well, I put down to Homer,' he replied, 'my facility of this night and
morning; ardours divine and mystic have possessed me. But you shall
judge. Here are my tablets, which I have brought with designs upon any
idle friend I might light upon; and you, I rejoice to see, are idle.'
'Ah, you lucky man!' I exclaimed; 'you are like the winner of the three
miles, who had washed off the dust, and could amuse himself for the
rest of the day. He was minded to crack a story with the wrestler, when
the wrestling was next on the programme; but the wrestler asked him
whether he had felt like cracking stories when he toed the line just
now. You have won your poetic three miles, and want me to minister to
your amusement just as I am shivering at the thought of my hundred
yards.' He laughed: 'Why, how will it make things worse for you?'
'Ah, you probably consider Demosthenes of much less account than Homer.
_You_ are very proud of your eulogy on Homer; and is Demosthenes a
light matter to _me_?' 'A trumped up charge,' he exclaimed; 'I am not
going to sow dissension between these two mighty ones, though it is
true my own allegiance is rather to Homer.'
'Good,' I said, 'and you must allow me to give mine to Demosthenes.
But, though you do not disqualify my subject, I am sure you think
poetry the only real treatment; you feel about mere rhetoric what the
cavalryman feels as he gallops past the infantry.' 'I hope I am not
so mad as that,' he said, 'though a considerable touch of madness is
required of him who would pass the gates of poetry.' 'If you come to
that, prose cannot do without some divine inspiration either, if it
is not to be flat and common.' He admitted that at once: 'I often
delight myself with comparing passages from Demosthenes and other prose
writers with Homer in point of vehemence, pungency, fire. "Flown with
wine" I pair off against the revellings and dancings and debauchery of
Philip; "One presage that ne'er fails[18]" finds its counterpart in
"It is for brave men, founding themselves upon brave hopes--"; "How
would old Peleus, lord of steeds, repine--" is matched by "What a cry
of lamentation would go up from the men of those days who laid down
their lives for glory and freedom--"; "fluent Python" reminds me of
Odysseus's "snow-flake speech"; "If 'twere our lot neither to age nor
die," I illustrate by "For every man's life must end in death, though
he shut himself up in a narrow chamber for safer keeping." In fact the
instances are numberless in which they attack their meaning by the same
road.
'I love too to study his feelings and moods and transitions, the
variety with which he combats weariness, his resumptions after
digression, the charm of his opportune illustrations, and the
never-failing native purity of his style.
'It has often struck me about Demosthenes--for I will tell the whole
truth out--that that looser of the bonds of speech rebukes Athenian
slackness with a dignity that is lacking in the "Greekesses" used by
Homer of the Greeks; and again he maintains the tragic intensity proper
to the great Hellenic drama more consistently than the poet who inserts
speeches at the very crisis of battle and allows energy to evaporate in
words.
'As often as I read Demosthenes, the balanced clauses, the rhythmic
movement and cadence, make me forget that this is not my beloved
poetry; for Homer too abounds in contrast and parallel, in figures
startling or simple. It is a provision of nature, I suppose, that each
faculty should have its proper equipment attached to it. How should I
scorn your Muse? I know her powers too well.
'None the less, I consider my task of a Homeric encomium twice as
difficult as your praise of Demosthenes; not because it must be in
verse, but from the nature of the material; _I_ cannot lay down a
foundation of fact to build the edifice of praise upon; there is
nothing but the poems themselves. Everything else is uncertain--his
country, his family, his time. If there had been any uncertainty about
them,
Debate and strife had not divided men;
but as it is, they give him for a country Ios or Colophon or Cumae,
Chios, Smyrna, or Egyptian Thebes, or half a hundred other places; his
father may be Maeon the Lydian, or he may be a river; his mother is now
Melanope, and now in default of satisfactory human descent a dryad; his
time is the Heroic Age, or else perhaps it is the Ionic. There is no
knowing for certain whether he was before or after Hesiod, even; and no
wonder, considering that some object to his very name, and will have
him Melesigenes instead. So too with his poverty, and his blindness.
However, all these questions are best left alone. So you see the arena
open to my panegyric is extremely limited; my theme is a poet and not a
man of action; I can infer and collect his wisdom only from his verses.
'_Your_ work, now, can be reeled smoothly off out of hand; you have
your definite known facts; the butcher's meat is there, only needing to
be garnished with the sauce of your words. History supplies you with
the greatness and distinction of Demosthenes; it is all known; his
country was Athens, the splendid, the famous, the bulwark of Hellas.
Now if _I_ could have laid hands on Athens, I might have used the
poet's right to introduce the loves and judgements and sojourns there
of the Gods, the gifts they lavished on it, the tale of Eleusis. As
for its laws and courts and festivals, its Piraeus and its colonies,
the memorials set up in it of victory by land and sea, Demosthenes
himself is the authority for saying that no words could do justice to
them. My material would have been inexhaustible; and I could not have
been accused of hanging up my true theme; the formula of panegyric
includes the arraying of the man in the splendours of his country. So
too Isocrates ekes out his _Helen_ by introducing Theseus. It is true
that poets have their privileges; and perhaps _you_ have to be more
careful about your proportions; there must not be _too_ much sack to
the proverbial halfpennyworth of bread.
'Well then, let Athens go; but your discourse at once finds another
support in his father's wealth--that "golden base" which Pindar
likes--; for to be responsible for providing a war-ship was to be
among the richest Athenians in those days. And though he died while
Demosthenes was quite a child, we are not to count his orphan state a
disaster; it led to the distinction that brought his splendid gifts
into notice.
'Tradition gives us no hint of how Homer was educated or developed his
powers; the panegyrist must plunge straight into his works, and can
find nothing to talk about in his breeding and training and pupilage;
he has not even the resource of that Hesiodic sprig of bay which could
make a facile poet out of a shepherd. But think of _your_ abundance
in this branch of the subject. There is Callistratus and all the
mighty roll of orators, Alcidamas, Isocrates, Isaeus, Eubulides. Then
again, at Athens even those who were subject to paternal control had
countless temptations to indulgence, youth is the susceptible time, a
neglected ward could have lived as irregular a life as he chose, and
yet the objects that Demosthenes set up for himself were philosophy and
patriotism, and the doors they took him to not Phryne's, but those of
Aristotle and Theophrastus, Xenocrates and Plato.
'And so, my dear sir, your way is open to a disquisition upon the two
kinds of human love, the one sprung of a desire that is like the sea,
outrageous, fierce, stormily rocking the soul; it is a true sea wave,
which the earthly Aphrodite sets rolling with the tempestuous passions
of youth; but the other is the steady drawing of a golden cord from
heaven; it does not scorch and pierce and leave festering wounds; it
impels towards the pure and unsullied ideal of absolute beauty, and is
a sane madness in those souls which "yet hold of Zeus and nurse the
spark divine."
'Love will find out the way, though that way involve a shaven head,
a cavern dwelling, a discouraging mirror and punitive sword, a
disciplining of the tongue, a belated apprenticeship to the actor's
art, a straining of the memory, a conquest over clamour, and a
borrowing of night hours to lengthen toilsome days.[19] All this your
Demosthenes endured, and who knows not what an orator it made of
him? his speech packed with thought and terse of language, himself
convincing in his knowledge of human nature, as splendid in the
elevation as mighty in the force of his sentiments, the master and not
the slave of his words and his ideas, ever fresh with the graces of
his art. He is the one orator whose speech has, in the bold phrase of
Leosthenes, at once the breath of life and the strength of wrought iron.
'Callisthenes remarked of Aeschylus that he wrote his tragedies in
wine, which lent vigour and warmth to his work. With Demosthenes it was
otherwise; he composed not on wine but on water; whence the witticism
of Demades, that most men's tongues are regulated by water,[20] but
Demosthenes's pen was subject to the same influence. And Pytheas
detected the smell of the midnight oil in the very perfection of the
speeches. Well, there is much in common between your subject and mine,
so far as this branch of them is concerned; on Homer's _poems_ I was no
worse off than you are.
'But when you come to your hero's acts of humanity, his pecuniary
sacrifices, his grand political achievements' (and he was going on
in full swing to the rest of the catalogue, when I interrupted, with
a laugh: 'Must I be dowsed with the remainder of your canful, good
bath-man?' 'Most certainly,' he retorted, and went straight on),
'the public entertainments he gave, the public burdens he assumed,
the ships, the wall, the trench he contributed to, the prisoners he
ransomed, the girls he portioned, his admirable policy, the embassies
he served on, the laws he got passed, the mighty issues he was
concerned in--why, then I cannot but laugh to see your contracted
brows; as if a recital of the exploits of Demosthenes _could_ lack
matter!'
'I believe you think, my good man,' I protested, 'that I have never had
the deeds of Demosthenes drummed into me; I should be singular among
rhetoricians, then.' 'It was on the assumption,' he said, 'implied by
you, that we want assistance. But perhaps your case is a very different
one; is the light so bright that you cannot manage to fix your eyes on
the dazzling glory of Demosthenes? Well, I was rather like that about
Homer at first. Indeed, I came very near turning mine away, thinking I
could not possibly face my subject. However, I got over it somehow or
other; became gradually inured, as it were, superior to the weakness of
vision that would have condemned me for a bastard eagle and no true son
of Homer.
'But now here is another great advantage that I consider you have over
me. The poetic faculty has a single aim; from which it follows that
Homer's glory must be laid hold of at once and as a whole. You on the
other hand, if you were to attempt dealing with the whole Demosthenes
all at once, would never know what to say; you would waver and not be
able to set your thoughts to work. You would be like the _gourmand_
at a Sicilian banquet, or the aesthete who has a thousand delightful
sights and sounds presented to him at once; they do not know which
way to turn for their conflicting desires. I suspect that you too are
distracted and find concentration impossible; all round you are the
varied attractions--his magnanimity, his fire, his orderly life, his
oratorical force and practical courage, the endless opportunities of
gain that he scorned, his justice, humanity, honour, spirit, sagacity,
and each of all his great services to his country. It may well be that,
when you behold on this side decrees, ambassadors, speeches, laws, on
the other, fleets, Euboea, Boeotia, Chios, Rhodes, the Hellespont,
Byzantium, you are pulled to and fro among these too numerous
invitations, and cannot tell which to accept.
'Pindar once found himself in a similar difficulty with an
over-abundant theme:
Ismenus? Melia's distaff golden-bright?
Cadmus? the race from dragon's teeth that came?
Thebe's dark circlet? the all-daring might
Of Heracles? great Bacchus' merry fame?
White-armed Harmonia's bridal?--Ay, but which?
My Muse, we're poor in that we are too rich.
You, I dare say, are in the same quandary. Logic and life, rhetoric and
philosophy, popularity and death--ay, but which?
'The maze is quite easy to escape from, though; you have only to take
hold of one single clue, no matter which--his oratory, if you will, so
that it is taken by itself--, and stick to that one throughout your
present discourse. You will have ample material; his oratory is not of
the Periclean type. Pericles could lighten and thunder, and he could
hit the right nail on the head; so much tradition tells us; but we
have nothing to judge for ourselves by, no doubt because, beyond the
momentary impression produced, there was in his performances no element
of permanence, nothing that could stand the searching test of time. But
with Demosthenes's work--well, that it will be your province to deal
with, if your choice goes that way.
'Or if you prefer his character, or his policy, it will be well to
isolate some particular detail--if you are greedy you may pick out two
or three--which will give you quite enough to go upon; so great was he
at every point. And for such specializing we have Homer's example; the
compliments he pays his heroes are attached to parts of them, their
feet, their heads, their hair, even their shields or something they
have on; and the Gods seem to have had no objection to poets' basing
their praises merely on a distaff, a bow, or the aegis; a limb or a
quality must pass still more easily; and as for good actions, it is
impossible to give an exhaustive list of them. Demosthenes accordingly
will not blame you for confining your eulogy to _one_ of his merits,
especially as to celebrate the whole of them worthily would be beyond
even _his_ powers.'
When Thersagoras had finished this harangue, I remarked: 'Your
intention is plain; I am to be convinced that you are more than a good
poet; so you have constructed your prose Demosthenes as a pendant to
your verse Homer.' 'No, no,' he said; 'what made me run on so long was
the idea that, if I could ease your mind by showing how light your
task was, I should have secured my listener.' 'Then let me tell you
that _your_ object has not been furthered, and _my_ case has only been
aggravated.' 'A fine doctor I seem to be!' he said. 'Not knowing where
the difficulty lies,' I continued, 'you are a doctor who mistakes his
patient's ailment and treats him for another.' 'How so?'
'You have been prescribing for the troubles that would attend a first
attempt; unfortunately it is years and years since I got through that
stage, and your remedies are quite out of date.' 'Why, then,' he
exclaimed, 'the cure is complete; nobody is nervous about a road of
which he knows every inch.'
'Ah, but then I have set my heart upon reversing the feat that
Anniceris of Cyrene exhibited to Plato and his friends. To show what
a fine driver he was, he drove round the Academy time after time
exactly in his own track, which looked after it as if it had only been
traversed once. Now my endeavour is just the opposite, to _avoid_ my
old tracks; and it is by no means so easy to keep out of the ruts.'
'Pauson's is the trick for you,' he said. 'What is that? I never heard
of it.'
'Pauson the painter was commissioned to do a horse rolling. He painted
one galloping in a cloud of dust. As he was at work upon it, his
patron came in, and complained that this was not what he had ordered.
Pauson just turned the picture upside down and told his man to hold
it so for inspection; there was the horse rolling on its back.' 'You
dear innocent!' I said; 'do you suppose I have kept my picture turned
the same way all these years? It has been shifted and tilted at every
conceivable angle, till I begin to have apprehensions of ending like
Proteus.' 'And how was that?' 'Oh, I mean the issue of his attempts to
evade human observation; when he had exhausted all shapes of animals
and plants and elements, finding no metamorphosis left him, he had to
be Proteus again.'
'You have more shifts than ever Proteus had,' he said, 'to get off
hearing my poem.'
'Oh, do not say that,' said I; 'off goes my burden of care, and I am
at your service. Perhaps when you have got over your own pains of
child-birth you will show more feeling for my delicate state.'
He liked the offer, we settled down on a convenient stone step, and
I listened to some excellent poetry. In the middle of reading he was
seized with an idea, did up his tablets, and said: 'You shall have your
hearer's fee, as well deserved as an Athenian's after a day in court or
assembly. Thank me, please.' 'I do, before I know what for. But what
may it be?' 'It was in the Macedonian royal archives that I came across
the book; I was delighted with it at the time, and took considerable
trouble to secure it; it has just come into my head that I have it
at home. It contains, among details of Antipater's management of the
household, facts about Demosthenes that I think you will find worth
your best attention.' 'You shall have payment on the spot,' I said,
'in the shape of an audience for the rest of your verses; and moreover
I shall not part with you till your promise is fulfilled. You have
given me a luscious Homer birthday dinner; and it seems you are to be
at the charges of the Demosthenes one too.'
He read to the end, we stayed long enough for me to give the poem its
meed of praise, and then adjourned to his house, where after some
search the book was found. I took it away with me, and on further
acquaintance was so much impressed by it that I shall do no editing,
but read it you _totidem verbis_. Asclepius is not less honoured if his
worshippers, in default of original compositions, have the hymns of
Isodemus or Sophocles performed before him; there is a failure nowadays
in the supply of new plays for Dionysus; but those who produce the
works of old masters at the proper season have the credit all the same
of honouring the God.
This book, then (the part of the state records that concerns us is the
conversation I shall give you)--the book informs us that Archias's
name was announced to Antipater. In case any of my younger hearers
should not know the fact already, this Archias had been charged with
the arrest of all exiles. In particular, he was to get Demosthenes from
Calauria into Antipater's presence, but rather by persuasion than by
force. Antipater was excited about it, hoping that Demosthenes might
arrive any day. So, hearing that Archias was come from Calauria, he
gave orders for his instant admittance.
When he entered--but you shall have the conversation as it stands.
_Archias. Antipater_
_Ar._ Is it well with you, Antipater?
_Ant._ It is well, if you have brought Demosthenes.
_Ar._ I have brought him as I might. I have the urn that holds his
remains.
_Ant._ Ha? my hopes are dashed. What avail ashes and urns, if I have
not Demosthenes?
_Ar._ The soul, O King, may not be prisoned in a man's own despite.
_Ant._ Why took you him not alive?
_Ar._ We took him.
_Ant._ And he has died on the way?
_Ar._ He died where he was, in Calauria.
_Ant._ Your neglect is to blame; you took not due care of him.
_Ar._ Nay, it lies not at our door.
_Ant._ What mean you? These are riddles, Archias; you took him alive,
and you have him not?
_Ar._ Was it not your charge that we should use no force at first? Yet
indeed we should have fared no better if we had; we did intend it.
_Ant._ You did not well, even in the intention; it may be your violence
killed him.
_Ar._ No, we killed him not; but if we could not persuade him, there
was nothing for it but force. But, O King, how had you been the better
off, if he had come alive? you could have done no more than kill him.
_Ant._ Peace, Archias! methinks you comprehend neither the nature of
Demosthenes, nor my mind. You think there is no more in the finding of
Demosthenes than in the hunting down such scoundrels as Himeraeus or
Aristonicus or Eucrates; these are like swollen torrents--mean fellows
in themselves, to whom a passing storm gives brief importance; they
make a brave show while the disturbance lasts; but they are as sure to
vanish soon as the wind to fall at evening. The recreant Hyperides is
another--a selfish demagogue, who took no shame to curry favour with
the mob by libelling Demosthenes, and make himself its instrument for
ends that his dupes soon wished they had never attained; for the libels
had not long borne their fruit before the libelled was reinstated
with more honour than Alcibiades himself. But what recked Hyperides?
he scrupled not to use against what had once been dearest to him the
tongue that he deserved, even by that iniquity, to lose.
_Ar._ How? was Demosthenes not our enemy of enemies?
_Ant._ Not in the eyes of one who cares for an honourable nature, and
loves a sincere consistent character. The noble is noble, though it be
in an enemy; and virtue has no country. Am I meaner than Xerxes? he
could admire Bulis and Sperchis the Spartans, and release them when
they were in his power. No man that ever lived do I admire more than
Demosthenes; twice I was in his company at Athens (in hurried times, it
is true), and I have heard much from others, and there is his work to
judge by. And what moves me is not his skill in speech. You might well
suppose so; Python was nothing, matched with him, and the Attic orators
but babes in comparison with his finish and intensity, the music of
his words, the clearness of his thoughts, his chains of proof, his
cumulative blows. We found our mistake when we listened to Python and
his promises; we had gathered the Greeks to Athens to see the Athenians
confuted; it was Demosthenes who confuted _us._ But no words of mine
can describe the power of his eloquence.
Yet to that I give but a secondary place, as a tool the man used. It
was the man himself I marvelled at, his spirit and his wisdom, and
the steadiness of soul that steered a straight course through all the
tempests of fortune with never a craven impulse. And Philip was of
my mind about him; when a speech of his before the Athenian assembly
against Philip was reported, Parmenio was angry, and made some bitter
jest upon him. But Philip said: _Ah, Parmenio, he has a right to say
what he pleases; he is the only popular orator in all Greece whose name
is missing in my secret service accounts, though I would far rather
have put myself in his hands than in those of clerks and third-rate
actors. All the tribe of them are down for gold, timber, rents, cattle,
land, in Boeotia if not in Macedonia[21]; but the walls of Byzantium
are not more proof against the battering-ram than Demosthenes against
gold_.
_This is the way I look at it, Parmenio. An Athenian who speaking in
Athens prefers me to his country shall have of my money, but not of
my friendship; as for one who hates me for his country's sake, I will
assault him as I would a citadel, a wall, a dock, a trench, but I have
only admiration for his virtue, and congratulations for the State that
possesses him. The other kind I should like to crush as soon as they
have served my purpose; but him I would sooner have here with us than
the Illyrian and Triballian horse and all my mercenaries; arguments
that carry conviction, weight of intellect, I do not put below force of
arms._
That was to Parmenio; and he said much the same to me. At the time of
the Athenian expedition under Diopithes, I was very anxious, but Philip
laughed at me heartily, and said: _Are you afraid of these town-bred
generals and their men? Their fleet, their Piraeus, their docks, I snap
my fingers at them. What is to be looked for from people whose worship
is of Dionysus, whose life is in feasting and dancing? If Demosthenes,
and not a man besides, had been subtracted from Athens, we should have
had it with less trouble than Thebes or Thessaly; deceit and force,
energy and corruption, would soon have done the thing. But he is ever
awake; he misses no occasion; he makes move for move and counters every
stroke. Not a trick of ours, not an attempt begun or only thought of,
but he has intelligence of it; in a word he is the obstacle that stands
between us and the swift attainment of our ends. It was little fault of
his that we took Amphipolis, that we won Olynthus, Phocis, Thermopylae,
that we are masters of the Hellespont._
_He rouses his reluctant countrymen out of their opiate sleep, applies
to their indolence the knife and cautery of frank statement, and little
he cares whether they like it or not. He transfers the revenues from
state theatre to state armament, re-creates with his navy bill a fleet
disorganized to the verge of extinction, restores patriotism to the
place from which it had long been ousted by the passion for legal fees,
uplifts the eyes of a degenerate race to the deeds of their fathers and
emulation of Marathon and Salamis, and fits them for Hellenic leagues
and combinations. You cannot escape his vigilance, he is not to be
wheedled, you can no more buy him than the Persian King could buy the
great Aristides._
_This is the direction your fears should take, Antipater; never mind
all the war-ships and all the fleets. What Themistocles and Pericles
were to the Athens of old, that is Demosthenes to Athens to-day, as
shrewd as Themistocles, as high of soul as Pericles. He it was that
gained them the control of Euboea and Megara, the Hellespont and
Boeotia. It is well indeed that they give the command to such as Chares
or Diopithes or Proxenus, and keep Demosthenes to the platform at home.
If they had given into his hands their arms and ships and troops, their
strategy and their money, I doubt he would have put me on my mettle to
keep Macedonia; even now that he has no weapon but his decrees, he is
with us at every turn, his hand is upon us; the ways and means are of
his finding, the force of his gathering; it is he that sends armadas
afar, he that joins power to power, he that meets our every change of
plan._
This was his tone about Demosthenes on many other occasions too; he
put it down as one of his debts to fortune that armies were never led
by the man whose mere words were so many battering-rams and catapults
worked from Athens to the shattering and confounding of his plans. As
to Chaeronea, even the victory made no difference; he continued to
impress upon us how precarious a position this one man had contrived
for us. _Things went unexpectedly well; their generals were cowards
and their troops undisciplined, and the caprice of fortune, which has
so often served us well, brought us out victorious; but he had reduced
me to hazarding my kingdom and my life on that single throw; he had
brought the most powerful cities into line, he had united Greece,
he had forced Athens and Thebes and all Boeotia, Corinth, Euboea,
Megara--the might of Greece, in short--to play the game out to its end,
and had arrested me before I reached Attic soil._
He never ceased to speak thus about Demosthenes. If any one told him
the Athenian democracy was a formidable rival, 'Demosthenes,' he would
say, 'is my only rival; Athens without him is no better than Aenianes
or Thessalians.' Whenever Philip sent embassies to the various states,
if Athens had sent any one else to argue against his men, he always
gained his point with ease; but when it was Demosthenes, he would tell
us the embassy had come to naught: there was not much setting up of
trophies over speeches of Demosthenes.
Such was Philip's opinion. Now I am no Philip at the best, and do you
suppose, Archias, that if I could have got a man like Demosthenes, I
should have found nothing better to do with him than sending him like
an ox to the slaughter? or should I have made him my right-hand man
in the management of Greece and of the empire? I was instinctively
attracted long ago by his public record--an attraction heightened
by the witness of Aristotle. He constantly assured both Alexander
and myself that among all the vast number of his pupils he had found
none comparable to Demosthenes in natural genius and persevering
self-development, none whose intellect was at once so weighty and so
agile, none who spoke his opinions so freely or maintained them so
courageously.
_But you_ (said Aristotle) _confuse him with an Eubulus, a Phrynon_, _a
Philocrates, and think to convert with gifts a man who has actually
lavished his inheritance half on needy Athenians and half on Athens;
you vainly imagine that you can intimidate one who has long ago
resolved to set his life upon his country's doubtful fortunes; if
he arraigns your proceedings, you try denunciation; why, the nearer
terrors of the Assembly find him unmoved. You do not realize that the
mainspring of his policy is patriotism, and that the only personal
advantage he expects from it is the improvement of his own nature._
All this it was, Archias, that made me long to have him with me, to
hear from his own lips what he thought about the state of things, and
be able at any time of need, abandoning the flatterers who infest us,
to hear the plain words of an independent mind and profit by sincere
advice. And I might fairly have drawn _his_ attention to the ungrateful
nature of those Athenians for whom he had risked all when he might have
had firmer and less unconscionable friends.
_Ar._ O King, your other ends you might have gained, but that you would
have told him to no purpose; his love of Athens was a madness beyond
cure.
_Ant._ It was so indeed; 'twere vain to deny it. But how died he?
_Ar._ O King, there is further wonder in store for you. We who have
had the scene before our eyes are as startled and as unbelieving
yet as when we saw it. He must long ago have determined how to die;
his preparation shows it. He was seated within the temple, and our
arguments of the days before had been spent on him in vain.
_Ant._ Ay? and what were they?
_Ar._ Long and kindly I urged him, with promises on your part, not that
I looked to see them kept (for I knew not then, and took you to be
wroth with him), but in hopes they might prevail.
_Ant._ And what hearing did he give them? Keep nothing back; I would I
were there now, hearing him with my own ears; failing which, do you
hide nothing from me. 'Tis worth much to learn the bearing of a true
man in the last moments of his life, whether he gave way and played the
coward, or kept his course unfaltering even to the end.
_Ar._ Ah, in him was no bending to the storm; how far from it! With a
smiling allusion to my former life, he told me I was not actor enough
to make your lies convincing.
_Ant._ Ha? he left life for want of belief in my promises?
_Ar._ Not so; hear to the end, and you will see his distrust was not
all for you. Since you bid me speak, O King, he told me there was no
oath that could bind a Macedonian; it was nothing strange that they
should use against Demosthenes the weapon that had won them Amphipolis,
and Olynthus, and Oropus. And much more of the like; I had writers
there, that his words might be preserved for you. _Archias_ (he said),
_the prospect of death or torture would be enough to keep me out of
Antipater's presence. And if you tell me true, I must be on my guard
against the worse danger of receiving life itself as a present at his
hands, and deserting, to serve Macedonia, that post which I have sworn
to hold for Greece._
_Life were a thing to be desired, Archias, were it purchased for me by
the power of Piraeus (a war-ship, my gift, has floated there), by the
wall and trench of which I bore the cost, by the tribe Pandionis whose
festival charges I took upon me, by the spirit of Solon and Draco, by
unmuzzled statesmen and a free people, by martial levies and naval
organization, by the virtues and the victories of our fathers, by the
affection of fellow citizens who have crowned me many a time, and by
the might of a Greece whose guardian I have never ceased to be. Or
again, if life is to be owed to compassion, though it be mean enough,
yet compassion I might endure among the kindred of the captives I have
ransomed, the fathers whose daughters I have helped to portion, and the
men whose debts I have joined in paying._
_But if the island empire and the sea may not save me, I ask my safety
from the Posidon at whose altar and under whose sanctuary I stand.
And if Posidon's power avails not to keep his temple inviolate, if he
scorns not to surrender Demosthenes to Archias, then welcome death; I
will not transfer my worship to Antipater. I might have had Macedonia
more at my devotion than Athens, might be now a partaker in your
fortunes, if I would have ranged myself with Callimedon, and Pytheas,
and Demades. When things were far gone, I might yet have made a shift,
if I had not had respect to the daughters of Erechtheus and to Codrus.
Fortune might desert, I would not follow her; for death is a haven of
safety, which he who reaches will do no baseness more. Archias, I will
not be at this late day a stain upon the name of Athens; I will not
make choice of slavery; be my winding-sheet the white one of liberty._
_Sir actor, let me recall to you a fine passage from one of your
tragedies_[22]:
_But even at the point of death
She forethought took to fall in seemly wise_.
_She was but a girl; and shall Demosthenes choose an unseemly life
before a seemly death, and forget what Xenocrates and Plato have said
of immortality?_ And then he was stirred to some bitter speech upon men
puffed up by fortune. What remains to tell? At last, as I now besought
and now threatened, mingling the stern and mild, 'Had I been Archias,'
he said, 'I had yielded; but seeing that I am Demosthenes, your pardon,
good sir, if my nature recoils from baseness.'
Then I was minded to hale him off by force. Which when he observed,
I saw him smile and glance at the God. _Archias_ (he said) _believes
that there is no might, no refuge for the human soul, but arms and
war-ships, walls and camps. He scorns that equipment of mine which
is proof against Illyrians and Triballi and Macedonians, surer than
that wooden wall_[23] _of old, which the God averred none should
prevail against. Secure in this I ever took a fearless course; fearless
I braved the might of Macedonia; little I cared for Euctemon or
Aristogiton, for Pytheas and Callimedon, for Philip in the old days,
for Archias to-day._
And then, _Lay no hand upon me. Be it not mine to bring outrage upon
the temple; I will but greet the God, and follow of my free will._ And
for me, I put reliance upon this, and when he lifted his hand to his
mouth, I thought it was but to do obeisance.
_Ant._ And it was indeed--?
_Ar._ We put his servant to the question later, and learned from her
that he had long had poison by him, to give him liberty by parting soul
from body. He had not yet passed the holy threshold, when he fixed his
eye on me and said: 'Take _this_ to Antipater; Demosthenes you shall
not take, no, by ----' And methought he would have added, by the men
that fell at Marathon.
And with that farewell he parted. So ends, O King, the siege of
Demosthenes.
_Ant._ Archias, that was Demosthenes. Hail to that unconquerable soul!
how lofty the spirit, how republican the care, that would never be
parted from their warrant of freedom! Enough; the man has gone his way,
to live the life they tell of in the Isles of the heroic Blest, or to
walk the paths that, if tales be true, the heaven-bound spirits tread;
he shall attend, surely, on none but that Zeus who is named of Freedom.
For his body, we will send it to Athens, a nobler offering to that land
than the men that died at Marathon.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Homer, _Il._ xii. 243. 'One omen is best--to fight for our own
country.'
[19] See _Demosthenes_ in Notes.
[20] Speeches in the law courts had a time limit appointed, which was
measured by the water-clock or clepsydra, generally called simply 'the
water', 'my water,' 'his water,' &c.
[21] To get a meaning, I translate as though the Greek, instead of #ou
Boiôtias oud' entha ti mê# were #ho men Boiôtias, ho d' entha#.
[22] Euripides, _Hecuba_. See _Polyxena_ in Notes.
[23] Oracle in Herodotus vii. 141: 'A bulwark of wood at the last Zeus
grants to the Trito-born goddess | Sole to remain unwasted.' _G. C.
Macaulay._ Variously interpreted of the thorn hedge of the Acropolis,
and of the Athenian fleet.
THE GODS IN COUNCIL
_Zeus. Hermes. Momus_
_Zeus._ Now, gentlemen, enough of that muttering and whispering in
corners. You complain that our banquets are thrown open to a number
of undesirable persons. Very well: the Assembly has been convened
for the purpose of dealing with this very point, and every one is at
liberty to declare his sentiments openly, and bring what allegations he
will.--Hermes, make formal proclamation to that effect.
_Her._ All duly qualified divinities are hereby invited to address the
Assembly on the subject of foreigners and immigrants.
_Mo._ Have I your permission to speak, sir?
_Zeus._ It is not needed; you have heard the proclamation.
_Mo._ I desire, then, to protest against the insufferable vanity of
some among us who, not content with their own promotion to godhead,
would introduce their dependants and underlings here as our equals.
Sir, I shall express myself on this subject with that blunt sincerity
which is inseparable from my character. I am known to the world as one
whose unfettered tongue cannot refrain from speech in the presence of
wrong-doing; as one who probes matters to the bottom, and says what
he thinks, without concealment, without fear, and without scruple. My
frankness is burdensome to the generality of Gods, who mistake it for
censoriousness; I have been termed by such the Accuser General. But I
shall none the less avail myself of the freedom accorded to me by the
proclamation--and by your permission, sir--to speak my mind without
reserve.--There are, I repeat it, many persons who, despite their mixed
origin, have been admitted to our feasts and councils upon terms of
equality; and who, not satisfied with this, have brought hither their
servants and satellites, and enrolled them among the Gods; and these
menials now share in our rations and sacrifices without ever so much as
paying the customary tax.
_Zeus._ These are riddles. Say what you mean in so many words, and let
us have the names. Generalities of this kind can only give ground for
random conjecture; they might apply to any one. You are a friend to
sincerity: speak on, then, without hesitation.
_Mo._ This is really most gratifying. Such encouragement is precisely
what I should have expected of a king of your exalted spirit; I will
mention the name. I refer, in fact, to Dionysus. Although the mother of
this truly estimable demi-god was not only a mortal, but a barbarian,
and his maternal grandfather a tradesman in Phoenicia, one Cadmus, it
was thought necessary to confer immortality upon him. With his own
conduct since that time, I am not concerned; I shall have nothing
to say on the subject of his snood, his inebriety, or his manner of
walking. You may all see him for yourselves: an effeminate, half-witted
creature, reeking of strong liquor from the early hours of the day.
But we are indebted to him for the presence of a whole tribe of his
followers, whom he has introduced into our midst under the title
of Gods. Such are Pan, Silenus, and the Satyrs; coarse persons, of
frisky tendencies and eccentric appearance, drawn chiefly from the
goat-herd class. The first-mentioned of these, besides being horned,
has the hind-quarters of a goat, and his enormous beard is not unlike
that of the same animal. Silenus is an old man with a bald head and
a snub nose, who is generally to be seen riding on a donkey; he is
of Lydian extraction. The Satyrs are Phrygians; they too are bald,
and have pointed ears, and sprouting horns, like those of young kids.
When I add that every one of these persons is provided with a tail,
you will realize the extent of our obligation to Dionysus. And with
these theological curiosities before their eyes, we wonder why it is
that men think lightly of the Gods! I might have added that Dionysus
has also brought us a couple of ladies: Ariadne is one, his mistress,
whose crown is now set among the host of stars; the other is farmer
Icarius's daughter. And the cream of the jest is still to come: the
dog, Erigone's dog, must be translated too; the poor child would never
be happy in Heaven without the sweet little pet! What can we call this
but a drunken freak?
So much for Dionysus. I now proceed--
_Zeus._ Now, Momus, I see what you are coming to: but you will kindly
leave Asclepius and Heracles alone. Asclepius is a physician, and
restores the sick; he is
More worth than many men.
And Heracles is my own son, and purchased his immortality with many
toils. So not one word against either of them.
_Mo._ Very well, sir; as you wish, though I had something to say on
that subject, too. You will excuse my remarking, at any rate, that
they have something of a scorched appearance still. With reference to
yourself, sir, a good deal might be said, if I could feel at liberty----
_Zeus._ Oh, as regards myself, you are,--perfectly at liberty. What,
then, I am an interloper too, am I?
_Mo._ Worse than that, according to what they say in Crete: your
tomb is there on view. Not that _I_ believe them, any more than I
believe that Aegium story, about your being a changeling. But there
is one thing that I think ought to be made clear. You yourself,
sir, have set us the example in loose conduct of this kind; it is
you we have to thank--you and your terrestrial gallantries and your
transformations--for the present mixed state of society. We are quite
uneasy about it. You will be caught, some day, and sacrificed as a
bull; or some goldsmith will try his hand upon our gold-transmuted
sire, and we shall have nothing to show for it but a bracelet, a
necklace or a pair of earrings. The long and short of it is, that
Heaven is simply _swarming_ with these demi-gods of yours; there is
no other word for it. It tickles a man considerably when he suddenly
finds Heracles promoted to deity, and Eurystheus, his taskmaster,
dead and buried, his tomb within easy distance of his slave's temple;
or again when he observes in Thebes that Dionysus is a God, but that
God's cousins, Pentheus, Actaeon, and Learchus, only mortals, and poor
devils at that. You see, sir, ever since you gave the entrée to people
of this sort, and turned your attention to the daughters of Earth, all
the rest have followed suit; and the scandalous part of it is, that
the Goddesses are just as bad as the Gods. Of the cases of Anchises,
Tithonus, Endymion, Iasion, and others, I need say nothing; they are
familiar to every one, and it would be tedious to expatiate further.
_Zeus._ Now I will have no reflections on Ganymede's antecedents; I
shall be very angry with you, if you hurt the boy's feelings.
_Mo._ Ah; and out of consideration for him I suppose I must also
abstain from any reference to the eagle, which is now a God like the
rest of us, perches upon the royal sceptre, and may be expected at
any moment to build his nest upon the head of Majesty?--Well, you
must allow me Attis, Corybas, and Sabazius: by what contrivance, now,
did _they_ get here? and that Mede there, Mithras, with the candys
and tiara? why, the fellow cannot speak Greek; if you pledge him,
he does not know what you mean. The consequence is, that Scythians
and Goths, observing their success, snap their fingers at us, and
distribute divinity and immortality right and left; that was how
the slave Zamolxis's name slipped into our register. However, let
that pass. But I should just like to ask that Egyptian there--the
dog-faced gentleman in the linen suit[24]--who _he_ is, and whether he
proposes to establish his divinity by barking? And will the piebald
bull yonder[25], from Memphis, explain what use _he_ has for a temple,
an oracle, or a priest? As for the ibises and monkeys and goats and
worse absurdities that are bundled in upon us, goodness knows how, from
Egypt, I am ashamed to speak of them; nor do I understand how you,
gentlemen, can endure to see such creatures enjoying a prestige equal
to or greater than your own.--And you yourself, sir, must surely find
ram's horns a great inconvenience?
_Zeus._ Certainly, it is disgraceful the way these Egyptians go on.
At the same time, Momus, there is an occult significance in most of
these things; and it ill becomes you, who are not of the initiated, to
ridicule them.
_Mo._ Oh, come now: a God is one thing, and a person with a dog's head
is another; I need no initiation to tell me that.
_Zeus._ Well, that will do for the Egyptians; time must be taken for
the consideration of their case. Proceed to others.
_Mo._ Trophonius and Amphilochus come next. The thought of the latter,
in particular, causes my blood to boil: the father[26] is a matricide
and an outcast, and the son, if you please, sets up for a prophet in
Cilicia, and retails information--usually incorrect--to a believing
public at the rate of twopence an oracle. That is how Apollo here has
fallen into disrepute: it needs but a quack (and quacks are plentiful),
a sprinkling of oil, and a garland or two, and an oracle may be had in
these days wherever there is an altar or a stone pillar. Fever patients
may now be cured either at Olympia by the statue of Polydamas the
athlete, or in Thasos by that of Theagenes. Hector receives sacrifice
at Troy: Protesilaus just across the water on Chersonese. Ever since
the number of Gods has thus multiplied, perjury and temple-robbery have
been on the increase. In short, men do not care two straws about us;
nor can I blame them.
That is all I have to say on the subject of bastards and new
importations. But I have also observed with considerable amusement
the introduction of various strange names, denoting persons who
neither have nor could conceivably have any existence among us. Show
me this Virtue of whom we hear so much; show me Nature, and Destiny,
and Fortune, if they are anything more than unsubstantial names, the
vain imaginings of some philosopher's empty head. Yet these flimsy
personifications have so far gained upon the weak intelligences of
mankind, that not a man will now sacrifice to us, knowing that though
he should present us with a myriad of hecatombs, Fortune will none
the less work out that destiny which has been appointed for each man
from the beginning. I should take it kindly of you, sir, if you would
tell me whether you _have_ ever seen Virtue or Fortune or Destiny
anywhere? I know that you must have heard of them often enough, from
the philosophers, unless your ears are deaf enough to be proof against
their bawlings.
Much more might be said: but I forbear. I perceive that the public
indignation has already risen to hissing point; especially in those
quarters in which my plain truths have told home.
In conclusion, sir, I have drawn up a bill dealing with this subject;
which, with your permission, I shall now read.
_Zeus._ Very well; some of your points are reasonable enough. We must
put a check on these abuses, or they will get worse.
_Mo._ On the seventh day of the month in the prytany of Zeus and the
presidency of Posidon Apollo in the chair the following Bill introduced
by Sleep was read by Momus son of Night before a true and lawful
meeting of the Assembly whom Fortune direct.
Whereas _numerous persons both Greeks and barbarians being in no way
entitled to the franchise have by means unknown procured their names
to be enrolled on our register filling the Heavens with false Gods
troubling our banquets with a tumultuous rout of miscellaneous polyglot
humanity and causing a deficiency in the supplies of ambrosia and
nectar whereby the price of the latter commodity owing to increased
consumption has risen to four pounds the half-pint_:
And whereas _the said persons have presumptuously forced themselves
into the places of genuine and old-established deities and in
contravention of law and custom have further claimed precedence of the
same deities upon the Earth_:
It has seemed good to the Senate and People _that an Assembly be
convened upon Olympus at or about the time of the winter solstice for
the purpose of electing a Commission of Inquiry the Commissioners to
be duly-qualified Gods seven in number of whom three to be appointed
from the most ancient Senate of Cronus and the remaining four from
the twelve Gods of whom Zeus to be one and the said Commissioners
shall before taking their seats swear by Styx according to the
established form and Hermes shall summon by proclamation all such as
claim admission to the Assembly to appear and bring with them sworn
witnesses together with documentary proofs of their origin and all
such persons shall successively appear before the Commissioners and
the Commissioners after examination of their claims shall either
declare them to be Gods or dismiss them to their own tombs and family
vaults and if the Commissioners subsequently discover in Heaven any
person so disqualified from entering such person shall be thrown into
Tartarus and further each God shall follow his own profession and no
other and it shall not be lawful either for Athene to heal the sick
or for Asclepius to deliver oracles or for Apollo to practise three
professions at once but only one either prophecy or music or medicine
according as he shall select and instructions shall be issued to
philosophers forbidding them either to invent meaningless names or to
talk nonsense about matters of which they know nothing and if a temple
and sacrificial honours have already been accorded to any disqualified
person his statue shall be thrown down and that of Zeus or Hera or
Athene or other God substituted in its place and his city shall provide
him with a tomb and set up a pillar in lieu of his altar and against
any person refusing to appear before the Commissioners in accordance
with the proclamation judgement shall be given by default._
That, gentlemen, is the Bill.
_Zeus._ And a very equitable one it is, Momus. All in favour of
this Bill hold up their hands! Or no: our opponents are sure to
be in a majority. You may all go away now, and when Hermes makes
the proclamation, every one must come, bringing with him complete
particulars and proofs, with his father's and mother's names, his tribe
and clan, and the reason and circumstances of his deification. And any
of you who fail to produce your proofs will find it is no use having
great temples on the Earth, or passing _there_ for Gods; that will not
help you with the Commissioners.
F.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Anubis.
[25] Apis.
[26] Amphiaraus, the father of Amphilochus, neither slew his own
mother, Hypermnestra, nor procured her death. He did, however, procure
the death of his wife, Eriphyle, at the hand of her son Alcmaeon; and
in this remote sense was a matricide. It must be confessed that a great
deal of the peculiar guilt of matricide evaporates in the process of
explanation. The reader may prefer to suppose simply that Lucian has
made a slip.
THE CYNIC
_Lycinus. A Cynic_
_Ly._ Give an account of yourself, my man. You wear a beard and let
your hair grow; you eschew shirts; you exhibit your skin; your feet
are bare; you choose a wandering, outcast, beastly life; unlike other
people, you make your own body the object of your severities; you go
from place to place sleeping on the hard ground where chance finds you,
with the result that your old cloak, neither light nor soft nor gay to
begin with, has a plentiful load of filth to carry about with it. Why
_is_ it all?
_Cy._ It meets my needs. It was easy to come by, and it gives its owner
no trouble. It is the cloak for me.
Pray tell me, do you not call extravagance a vice?
_Ly._ Oh, yes.
_Cy._ And economy a virtue?
_Ly._ Yes, again.
_Cy._ Then, if you find me living economically, and others
extravagantly, why blame me instead of them?
_Ly._ I do not call your life more economical than other people's; I
call it more destitute--destitution and want, that is what it is; you
are no better than the poor who beg their daily bread.
_Cy._ That brings us to the questions, What is want, and what is
sufficiency? Shall we try to find the answers?
_Ly._ If you like, yes.
_Cy._ A man's sufficiency is that which meets his necessities; will
that do?
_Ly._ I pass that.
_Cy._ And want occurs when the supply falls short of necessity--does
not meet the need?
_Ly._ Yes.
_Cy._ Very well, then, I am not in want; nothing of mine fails to
satisfy my need.
_Ly._ How do you make that out?
_Cy._ Well, consider the purpose of anything we require; the purpose of
a house is protection?
_Ly._ Yes.
_Cy._ Clothing--what is that for? protection too, I think.
_Ly._ Yes.
_Cy._ But now, pray, what is the purpose of the protection, in turn?
the better condition of the protected, I presume.
_Ly._ I agree.
_Cy._ Then do you think my feet are in worse condition than yours?
_Ly._ I cannot say.
_Cy._ Oh, yes; look at it this way; what have feet to do?
_Ly._ Walk.
_Cy._ And do you think my feet walk worse than yours, or than the
average man's?
_Ly._ Oh, not that, I dare say.
_Cy._ Then they are not in worse condition, if they do their work as
well.
_Ly._ That may be so.
_Cy._ So it appears that, as far as feet go, I am in no worse condition
than other people.
_Ly._ No, I do not think you are.
_Cy._ Well, the rest of my body, then? If it is in worse condition, it
must be weaker, strength being the virtue of the body. Is mine weaker?
_Ly._ Not that I see.
_Cy._ Consequently, neither my feet nor the rest of my body need
protection, it seems; if they did, they would be in bad condition;
for want is always an evil, and deteriorates the thing concerned. But
again, there is no sign, either, of my body's being nourished the worse
for its nourishment's being of a common sort.
_Ly._ None whatever.
_Cy._ It would not be healthy, if it were badly nourished; for bad food
injures the body.
_Ly._ That is true.
_Cy._ If so, it is for you to explain why you blame me and depreciate
my life and call it miserable.
_Ly._ Easily explained. Nature (which you honour) and the Gods have
given us the earth, and brought all sorts of good things out of it,
providing us with abundance not merely for our necessities, but for
our pleasures; and then you abstain from all or nearly all of it, and
utilize these good things no more than the beasts. Your drink is water,
just like theirs; you eat what you pick up, like a dog, and the dog's
bed is as good as yours; straw is enough for either of you. Then your
clothes are no more presentable than a beggar's. Now, if this sort of
contentment is to pass for wisdom, God must have been all wrong in
making sheep woolly, filling grapes with wine, and providing all our
infinite variety of oil, honey, and the rest, that we might have food
of every sort, pleasant drink, money, soft beds, fine houses, all the
wonderful paraphernalia of civilization, in fact; for the productions
of art are God's gifts to us too. To live without all these would be
miserable enough even if one could not help it, as prisoners cannot,
for instance; it is far more so if the abstention is forced upon a man
by himself; it is then sheer madness.
_Cy._ You may be right. But take this case, now. A rich man, indulging
genial kindly instincts, entertains at a banquet all sorts and
conditions of men; some of them are sick, others sound, and the dishes
provided are as various as the guests. There is one of these to whom
nothing comes amiss; he has his finger in every dish, not only the
ones within easy reach, but those some way off that were intended for
the invalids; this though he is in rude health, has not more than one
stomach, requires little to nourish him, and is likely to be upset by a
surfeit. What is your opinion of this gentleman? is he a man of sense?
_Ly._ Why, no.
_Cy._ Is he temperate?
_Ly._ No, nor that.
_Cy._ Well, then there is another guest at the same table; he seems
unconscious of all that variety, fixes on some dish close by that suits
his need, eats moderately of it and confines himself to it without a
glance at the rest. You surely find him a more temperate and better man
than the other?
_Ly._ Certainly.
_Cy._ Do you see, or must I explain?
_Ly._ What?
_Cy._ That the hospitable entertainer is God, who provides this variety
of all kinds that each may have something to suit him; this is for the
sound, that for the sick; this for the strong and that for the weak; it
is not all for all of us; each is to take what is within reach, and of
that only what he most needs.
Now you others are like the greedy unrestrained person who lays hands
on everything; local productions will not do for you, the world must be
your storehouse; your native land and its seas are quite insufficient;
you purchase your pleasures from the ends of the earth, prefer the
exotic to the home growth, the costly to the cheap, the rare to the
common; in fact you would rather have troubles and complications than
avoid them. Most of the precious instruments of happiness that you
so pride yourselves upon are won only by vexation and worry. Give a
moment's thought, if you will, to the gold you all pray for, to the
silver, the costly houses, the elaborate dresses, and do not forget
their conditions precedent, the trouble and toil and danger they
cost--nay, the blood and mortality and ruin; not only do numbers perish
at sea on their account, or endure miseries in the acquisition or
working of them; besides that, they have very likely to be fought for,
or the desire of them makes friends plot against friends, children
against parents, wives against husbands.
And how purposeless it all is! embroidered clothes have no more warmth
in them than others, gilded houses keep out the rain no better, the
drink is no sweeter out of a silver cup, or a gold one for that matter,
an ivory bed makes sleep no softer; on the contrary, your fortunate man
on his ivory bed between his delicate sheets constantly finds himself
wooing sleep in vain. And as to the elaborate dressing of food, I need
hardly say that instead of aiding nutrition it injures the body and
breeds diseases in it.
As superfluous to mention the abuse of the sexual instinct, so easily
managed if indulgence were not made an object. And if madness and
corruption were limited to that--; but men must take nowadays to
perverting the use of everything they have, turning it to unnatural
purposes, like him who insists on making a carriage of a couch.
_Ly._ Is there such a person?
_Cy._ Why, he is you; you for whom men are beasts of burden, you who
make them shoulder your couch-carriages, and loll up there yourselves
in luxury, driving your men like so many asses and bidding them turn
this way and not that; this is one of the outward and visible signs of
your happiness.
Again, when people use edible things not for food but to get dye out
of--the murex-dyers, for instance--are they not abusing God's gifts?
_Ly._ Certainly not; the flesh of the murex can provide a pigment as
well as food.
_Cy._ Ah, but it was not made for that. So you can _force_ a
mixing-bowl to do the work of a saucepan; but that is not what it
was made for. However, it is impossible to exhaust these people's
wrong-headedness; it is endless. And because I will not join them, you
reproach me. My life is that of the orderly man I described; I make
merry on what comes to hand, use what is cheap, and have no yearning
for the elaborate and exotic.
Moreover, if you think that because I need and use but few things I
live the life of a beast, that argument lands you in the conclusion
that the Gods are yet lower than the beasts; for they have no needs at
all. But to clear your ideas on the comparative merits of great and
small needs, you have only to reflect that children have more needs
than adults, women than men, the sick than the well, and generally the
inferior than the superior. Accordingly, the Gods have no needs, and
those men the fewest who are nearest Gods.
Take Heracles, the best man that ever lived, a divine man, and rightly
reckoned a God; was it wrong-headedness that made him go about in
nothing but a lion's skin, insensible to all the needs you feel? No,
he was not wrong-headed, who righted other people's wrongs; he was not
poor, who was lord of land and sea. Wherever he went, he was master;
he never met his superior or his equal as long as he lived. Do you
suppose he could not get sheets and shoes, and therefore went as he
did? absurd! he had self-control and fortitude; he wanted power, and
not luxury.
And Theseus his disciple--king of all the Athenians, son of 14.
Poseidon, says the legend, and best of his generation,--he too chose to
go naked and unshod; it was _his_ pleasure to let his hair and beard
grow; and not his pleasure only, but all his contemporaries'; they were
better men than you, and would no more have let you shave them than a
lion would; soft smooth flesh was very well for women, they thought;
as for them, they were men, and were content to look it; the beard was
man's ornament, like the lion's, or the horse's mane; God had made
certain beautiful and decorative additions to those creatures; and so
he had to man, in the beard. Well, I admire those ancients and would
fain be like them; I have not the smallest admiration for the present
generation's wonderful felicity--tables! clothes! bodies artificially
polished all over! not a hair to grow on any of the places where
nature plants it!
My prayer would be that my feet might be just hoofs, like Chiron's in
the story, that I might need bedclothes no more than the lion, and
costly food no more than the dog. Let my sufficient bed be the whole
earth, my house this universe, and the food of my choice the easiest
procurable. May I have no need, I nor any that I call friend, of gold
and silver. For all human evils spring from the desire of these,
seditions and wars, conspiracies and murders. The fountain of them all
is the desire of more. Never be that desire mine; let me never wish for
more than my share, but be content with less.
Such are our aspirations--considerably different from other people's.
It is no wonder that our get-up is peculiar, since the peculiarity of
our underlying principle is so marked. I cannot make out why you allow
a harpist his proper robe and get-up--and so the flute-player has his,
and the tragic actor his--, but will not be consistent and recognize
any uniform for a good man; the good man must be like every one else,
of course, regardless of the fact that every one else is all wrong.
Well, if the good are to have a uniform of their own, there can be
none better than that which the average sensual man will consider most
improper, and reject with most decision for himself.
Now my uniform consists of a rough hairy skin, a threadbare cloak,
long hair, and bare feet, whereas yours is for all the world that of
some minister to vice; there is not a pin to choose between you--the
gay colours, the soft texture, the number of garments you are swathed
in, the shoes, the sleeked hair, the very scent of you; for the more
blessed you are, the more do you exhale perfumes like his. What value
can one attach to a man whom one's nose would identify for one of those
minions? The consequence is, you are equal to no more work than they
are, and to quite as much pleasure. You feed like them, you sleep
like them, you walk like them--except so far as you avoid walking by
getting yourselves conveyed like parcels by porters or animals; as
for me, my feet take me anywhere that I want to go. I can put up with
cold and heat and be content with the works of God--such a miserable
wretch am I--, whereas you blessed ones are displeased with everything
that happens and grumble without ceasing; what is is intolerable, what
is not you pine for, in winter for summer, in summer for winter, in
heat for cold, in cold for heat, as fastidious and peevish as so many
invalids; only their reason is to be found in their illness, and yours
in your characters.
And then, because we occasionally make mistakes in practice, you
recommend us to change our plan and correct our principles, the fact
being that you in your own affairs go quite at random, never acting
on deliberation or reason, but always on habit and appetite. You are
no better than people washed about by a flood; they drift with the
current, you with your appetites. There is a story of a man on a
vicious horse that just gives your case. The horse ran away with him,
and at the pace it was going at he could not get off. A man in the way
asked him where he was off to; 'wherever this beast chooses,' was the
reply. So if one asked you where you were bound for, if you cared to
tell the truth you would say either generally, wherever your appetites
chose, or in particular, where pleasure chose to-day, where fancy chose
to-morrow, and where avarice chose another day; or sometimes it is
rage, sometimes fear, sometimes any other such feeling, that takes you
whither it will. You ride not one horse, but many at different times,
all vicious, and all out of control. They are carrying you straight for
pits and cliffs; but you do not realize that you are bound for a fall
till the fall comes.
The old cloak, the shaggy hair, the whole get-up that you ridicule, has
this effect: it enables me to live a quiet life, doing as I will and
keeping the company I want. No ignorant uneducated person will have
anything to say to one dressed like this; and the soft livers turn the
other way as soon as I am in sight. But the refined, the reasonable,
the earnest, seek me out; they are the men who seek me, because they
are the men I wish to see. At the doors of those whom the world counts
happy I do not dance attendance; their gold crowns and their purple I
call ostentation, and them I laugh to scorn.
These externals that you pour contempt upon, you may learn that they
are seemly enough not merely for good men, but for Gods, if you will
look at the Gods' statues; do those resemble you, or me? Do not confine
your attention to Greece; take a tour round the foreign temples too,
and see whether the Gods treat their hair and beards like me, or let
the painters and sculptors shave them. Most of them, you will find,
have no more shirt than I have, either. I hope you will not venture to
describe again as mean an appearance that is accepted as godlike.
H.
THE PURIST PURIZED
_Lycinus. Purist_
_Ly._ Are you the man whose scent is so keen for a blunder, and who is
himself blunder-proof?
_Pur._ I think I may say so.
_Ly._ I suppose one must be blunder-proof, to detect the man who is not
so?
_Pur._ Assuredly.
_Ly._ Do I understand that you are proof?
_Pur._ How could I call myself educated, if I made blunders at my age?
_Ly._ Well, shall you be able to detect a culprit, and convict him if
he denies it?
_Pur._ Of course I shall.
_Ly._ Catch me out, then; I will make one just now.
_Pur._ Say on.
_Ly._ Why, the deed is done, and you have missed it.
_Pur._ You are joking, of course?
_Ly._ No, upon my honour. The blunder is made, and you none the wiser.
Well, try again; but you are not infallible on these sort of things.
_Pur._ Well?
_Ly._ Again, the blunder made, and you unconscious.
_Pur._ How can that be, before you have opened your lips?
_Ly._ Oh yes, I opened them, and to a blunder; but you never see them.
I quite doubt you seeing this one even.
_Pur._ Well, there is something very queer about it if I do not know a
solecism when I hear it.
_Ly._ One begins to doubt, when a man has missed three.
_Pur._ Three? What do you mean?
_Ly._ A complete triolet of them.
_Pur._ You are certainly joking.
_Ly._ And you are as certainly a poor detective.
_Pur._ If you were to say something, one might have a chance.
_Ly._ Four chances you have had, and no result. It would have been a
fine feather in your hat to have got them all.
_Pur._ Nothing fine about it; it is no more than I undertook.
_Ly._ Why, there you are again!
_Pur._ Again?
_Ly._ 'Feather in your hat'!
_Pur._ I don't know what you mean.
_Ly._ Precisely; you do not know. And now suppose you go first; you do
not like following, that is what it is; you understand, if you chose.
_Pur._ Oh, I am willing enough; only you have not made any solecisms in
the usual sense.
_Ly._ How about that last? Now watch me well, as you did not get me
that time.
_Pur._ I cannot say I did.
_Ly._ Now for a rabbit, then; there, that's him! Has he got by? There
he is, that's him, I tell you. Hims enough to fill a warren, if you
don't wake up.
_Pur._ Oh, I am wide awake.
_Ly._ Well, they are gone.
_Pur._ Never!
_Ly._ The fact is, your too much learning renders you unconscious to
solecisms; whatever case I take, it is always the same.
_Pur._ What you mean by that I am sure I don't know; but I have often
caught people out in blunders.
_Ly._ Well, you will catch me about the time that you are a sucking
child again. By the way, a babe laying in his cradle would hardly jar
on your notions of grammar, if you have not yet got me.
_Pur._ Well, I am convinced.
_Ly._ Now, if we cannot detect blunders like these, we are not likely
to know much about our own; you see, you have just missed another. Very
well now, never again call yourself competent either to detect blunders
or to avoid them.
This is my blunt way, you see. Socrates of Mopsus, with whom I was
acquainted in Egypt, used to put his corrections more delicately, so as
not to humiliate the offender. Here are some specimens:
What time do you set out on your travels?--What time? Oh, I see, you
thought I started to-day.
The patrimonial income supplies me well enough.--Patrimonial? But your
father is not dead?
So-and-so is a tribes-man of mine.--Oh, you are a savage, are you?
The fellow is a boozy.--Oh, Boozy was his mother's name, was it?
Worser luck I never knew.--Well, you need not make it worserer.
I always said he had a good 'eart.--Yes, quite an artist.
So glad to see you, old cock!--Come, allow me humanity.
Contemptuous fellow! I would not go near him.--If he were contemptible,
it would not matter, I suppose.
He is the most unique of friends.--Good; one likes degrees in
uniqueness.
How aggravating!--Indeed? what does it aggravate?
So I ascended up.--Ingenious man, doubling your speed like that.
I had to do it; I was in an engagement.--Like Xenophon's hoplites.
I got round him.--Comprehensive person.
They went to law, but were compounded.--You don't say they didn't get
apart again?
He would apply the same delicate treatment to people unsound in their
Attic.
'That's the truth of it,' said some one, 'between you and I.' 'Ah no,
you will have to admit that you and me are wrong there.'
Another person giving a circumstantial account of a local legend said:
'So when she mingled with Heracles--' 'Without Heracles's mingling with
her?'
He asked a man who told him that he must have a close crop, what his
particular felony had been.
'There I quarrel,' said his opponent in an argument. 'It takes two to
make a quarrel.'
When some one described his sick servant as undergoing torture, he
asked, 'What for? what do they suppose they are going to get out of
him?'
Some one was said to be going ahead in his studies. 'Let me see,' he
said; 'it is Plato, I think, who calls that making progress.'
'Will we have a fine day?' 'If God shall.'
'Archaist, curse not thy friend!' he retorted, to a man who called him
curst instead of crusty.
A man once used the phrase, 'I was trying to save his face.' 'But is he
in any danger of losing it?' asked Socrates.
'Chided,' said one man, 'chode,' another. He disclaimed all
acquaintance with either form.
A person who volunteered 'but and if' was commended for his generosity.
Some one tried him with 'y-pleased'; 'no, no,' said he; 'that is too
much of a good thing.'
'I expect him momently,' some one announced. 'A good phrase,' he said;
'so is "minutely"; we have excellent authority for "daily."'
'Look you!' said a man, meaning 'look.' 'Yes, what am I to look you at?'
He took up a man who said, 'Yes, I can grapple with that,' meaning that
he understood, with 'Oh, you are going to throw me, are you? how?'
'How shrill those fives are!' said some one. 'Oh, come now,' said
Socrates; 'seditions and strives, but not drums and fives.'
'That man is heavily weighed,' one man observed. 'You are quite right;
there is no such word as weighted.'
'He has thrived on it,' some one assured him. 'The people among whom he
has thrived cannot be very particular.'
People were very fond of calling it at-one-ment. 'Yes, all right,' he
would say; 'I know what it means.'
Mention being made of a black-hen, he supposed that would be the female
of the grey-cock.
Some one said he had been eating sparrowgrass. 'You'll be trying
groundsel next,' was his comment.
But enough of Socrates. Shall we have another match on the old lines?
I will give you nothing but first-rate ones. Have your eyes open. You
will surely be able to do it now, after hearing such a list of them.
_Pur._ I am by no means so sure of that. Proceed, however.
_Ly._ Not sure? well, but here you have the door broad open.
_Pur._ Say on.
_Ly._ I have said.
_Pur._ Nothing that I observed.
_Ly._ What, not observed 'broad open'?
_Pur._ No.
_Ly._ Well, what is to happen, if you cannot follow now? Every man
can crow on his own hay-cock, and I thought this was yours. Did you
get that hay-cock? You don't seem to attend; look at the mutual help
Socrates and I have just given you.
_Pur._ I am attending; but you are so sly with them.
_Ly._ Monstrous sly, is it not, to say 'mutual' instead of 'joint'?
Well, that is settled up; but for your general ignorance, I defy any
God short of Apollo to cure it. He gives council to all who ask it; but
on you that council is thrown away.
_Pur._ Yes, I declare, so it was!
_Ly._ Perhaps one at a time are too few?
_Pur._ I think that must be it.
_Ly._ How did 'one are' get past you?
_Pur._ Ah, I didn't see it, again.
_Ly._ By the way, do you know of any one who is on the look in for a
wife?
_Pur._ What _are_ you talking about?
_Ly._ Show me the man who is on the look in, and I will show you a
solecist.
_Pur._ But what have I to do with solecists on the look in for wives?
_Ly._ Ah, if you knew that, you would be the man you pretend to be. So
much for that. Now, if a man came to you and said that he had left his
wife's home, would you stand that?
_Pur._ Of course I should, if he had provocation.
_Ly._ And if you caught him committing a solecism, would you stand it?
_Pur._ Certainly not.
_Ly._ Quite right too. We should never permit solecisms in a friend,
but teach him better. Now, what are your feelings when you hear a man
deprecating his own merits, and depreciating his friend's excessive
gratitude?
_Pur._ Feelings? only that he shows a very proper feeling.
_Ly._ Then, as you cannot feel the difference between 'deprecate' and
'depreciate,' shall we conclude that you are an ignoramus?
_Pur._ Outrageous insolence!
_Ly._ Outrageous? I shall be, ere much, if I go on talking to you.--Now
I should have said that 'ere much' was a blunder, but it does not
strike you so.
_Pur._ Oh, stop, for goodness' sake! Look here, try this way; I want to
get _my_ profit out of it too.
_Ly._ Well?
_Pur._ Suppose you were to go through all the blunders you say I have
missed, and tell me what is the right thing for each.
_Ly._ Good gracious, no; it would take us till midnight. No; you can
look those out for yourself. Meanwhile, we had better take fresh ones,
as we have only a quarter of an hour (by the way, never pronounce the
'h' in hour; that sounds dreadful). Then as to that outrage which
you say I have committed upon you; if I were to speak of an outrage
committed _against_ you, that would be another thing.
_Pur._ Would it?
_Ly._ Yes; an outrage _upon_ you must be committed upon you personally,
in the shape of blows, interference with your liberty, or the like.
An outrage _against_ you is upon something that belongs to you; he
who does an outrage upon your wife, child, friend, or slave, does it
against you. This distinction, however, does not apply to inanimate
things. An 'outrage against' is a legitimate phrase with them, as when
Plato talks in the _Symposium_ of an outrage against a proverb.
_Pur._ Ah, I see now.
_Ly._ Do you also see that the exchange of one for the other is a
solecism?
_Pur._ Yes, I shall know that for the future.
_Ly._ And if a person were to use 'interchange' there instead of
'exchange,' what would you take him to mean?
_Pur._ Just the same.
_Ly._ Why, how can they be equivalent? Exchange is merely the
substitution of one expression for another, the improper for the
proper; whereas interchange involves a false statement[27].
_Pur._ I see now; exchange is the use of a loose instead of a precise
expression, while interchange is the use of both expressions, each in
the other's place.
_Ly._ These subtleties are not unpleasing. Similarly, when we are
concerned _with_ a person, it is in our own interest; but when we are
concerned _for_ him, it is in his. It is true the phrases are sometimes
confused, but there are those who observe the distinction; and it is as
well to be on the safe side.
_Pur._ Quite true.
_Ly._ Now, can you tell me the difference between 'setting' and
'sitting,' or between 'be seated' and 'sit'?
_Pur._ No; but I have heard you say that 'sit yourself' is a barbarism.
_Ly._ Yes, quite so; but now I tell you that 'be seated' is not the
same as 'sit.'
_Pur._ Why, what may the difference be?
_Ly._ When a man is on his legs, you can only tell him to be seated;
but if he is seated already, you can tell him to sit still.
Sit where thou art; we find us seats elsewhere. It means 'remain
sitting,' you see. Here again we have to say that it is a mistake to
reverse the expressions. And as to 'set' and 'sit,' surely it is the
whole difference between transitive and intransitive?
_Pur._ That is clear enough; go on; this is the way to teach.
_Ly._ Or the only way you can learn? Well, do you know what a historian
is?
(_The explanation of this point appears to have dropped out of the
MSS.--Translators._)
_Pur._ Oh, yes, I quite see, after your lucid explanation.
_Ly._ Now I daresay you think servility and servitude are the same; but
I am aware of a considerable difference between them.
_Pur._ Namely--?
_Ly._ The first depends on yourself, the other on some one else.
_Pur._ Quite right.
_Ly._ Oh, you will pick up all sorts of information, if you give up
thinking you know more than you do.
_Pur._ I give it up from this moment.
_Ly._ Then we will break off for the present, and take the rest another
time.
H. & F.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] The words here represented by 'exchange' and 'interchange' are
the Greek verbs from which are derived the grammarian's names for the
(not very clearly distinguished) figures of speech, Hypallage and
Enallage. We take it, however, that 'exchange' and 'interchange' give
the distinction fairly in the present context, the former indicating
a single, the latter a mutual substitution between two terms. For if
one of the two differs from the other in being more comprehensive, as
'outrage against' is more comprehensive than 'outrage upon,' it is then
true that the substitution of the more for the less comprehensive has
no worse effect than making the statement lack precision, while the
double substitution produces a false statement.
Let it be supposed that _A_ kicks _B's_ dog. Four descriptions are
conceivable:--
(1) It is an outrage upon the dog.
(2) It is an outrage against _B_.
(3) It is an outrage against the dog.
(4) It is an outrage upon _B_.
The first two can both be stated; each is true, and each is precise.
(3) can also be stated; 'exchange' has taken place; the more
comprehensive term has been substituted; the statement is true, but not
precise. But if (3) and (4) are both stated, 'interchange' has taken
place; the less comprehensive has been substituted for the more, as
well as _vice versa_; and (4) is not only not precise, it is false.
NOTES EXPLANATORY OF ALLUSIONS TO PERSONS, &c.
These notes are collected here instead of being put at the foot
of pages in order to avoid repetition, and also that they may
not be obtruded on those who do not need them. No connected
account of the persons or things commented upon is to be
looked for, the intention being merely to give the particular
facts that will make Lucian's meaning clear. When a name is
not given, it may be taken either that we are unable, or that
we have considered it unnecessary, to add to the information
contained in the text.
References in italics are to pieces in the translation, the
number, if any, indicating the section. References in
capitals are to articles in these Notes.
The Notes are intended to be used by the reader whenever he
wishes for information upon a name. Reference is not made to
them at the foot of pages in the text unless there would be a
difficulty in knowing what name to consult.
ACADEMY. A grove or garden in the suburbs of Athens, in which Plato
taught; afterwards used as a name for the school of philosophy that
acknowledged him as its founder. For Plato's characteristic doctrines,
see under PLATO. Lucian's references to the school are (1) as eristic
or argumentative. The Socratic method of eliciting truth being by
discussion, and the Academy being descended from Socrates through
Plato, it might be regarded as especially argumentative. (2) as
disputing the possibility of judgement, and urging suspension. The
Academy is divided into the Old, Middle, and New, of which the Middle
Academy neglected the positive teachings of Plato, and developed rather
the destructive analytic method of Socrates, approaching nearly to the
position of the Sceptics or followers of Pyrrho.
ACHILLES. Son of Peleus and the Goddess Thetis. When his mother gave
him the choice between a glorious life and a long one, he chose the
former; but, when interviewed by Odysseus on the occasion of the
latter's visit to Hades, regretted his choice. Among the arms given
him by Thetis was a shield on which Hephaestus had represented various
scenes of peace and war.
ACTAEON. A huntsman who, having seen Artemis bathing, was punished by
being torn to pieces by his own hounds.
ADONIS. A beautiful youth beloved by Aphrodite. Died of a wound
received from a boar on Lebanon; but was allowed to spend half each
year with Aphrodite on earth.
AEACUS. A son of Zeus, deified after death, and given authority in
Hades.
AËDON. A woman who, having accidentally killed her own son, was
compassionately changed by Zeus into a nightingale.
AEGIS. Zeus's goat's-skin shield, which he transferred to Athene, who
attached to it the head of Medusa. _See_ GORGONS.
AEGYPTUS. Brother of Danaus, who for fear of him fled with his fifty
daughters from Libya to Argos.
AENIANES. An insignificant Greek tribe south of Thessaly.
AESCHINES (1). Born 389 B.C. The great rival of Demosthenes. Son of
a humble elementary schoolmaster. Accused by Timarchus, retorted by
convicting him of immorality. According to Demosthenes, was in the pay
of Philip of Macedon, and a traitor to Athens.
AESCHINES (2). A philosopher, pupil of Socrates, and author of
dialogues.
AËTION. A painter, probably contemporary with Lucian, and not to be
identified with the Aëtion (flourished 350 B.C.) mentioned by Pliny.
AGAMEMNON. King of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks against Troy. After
his return, was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her paramour
Aegisthus. His son Orestes and daughter Electra, with Pylades, avenged
him.
AGATHOBULUS. Unknown philosopher, teacher of Demonax and Peregrine.
AGATHON. Athenian tragic poet, friend of Euripides and Plato.
AGENOR. King of Phoenicia, son of Posidon, father of Cadmus and Europa.
AGLAÏA. 'The bright one,' one of the Graces, mother of Nireus.
AJAX (1). Son of Telamon, greatest Greek warrior next to Achilles.
Claimed the latter's arms after his death, and when they were adjudged
to Odysseus went mad, slew sheep in mistake for Greeks, and then
committed suicide.
AJAX (2). Son of Oïleus, king of Locris. Slain by Posidon for defying
his power when wrecked.
ALCAEUS. The wrestler mentioned in _The Way to write History_ (9),
probably lived about 40 A.D.
ALCAMENES. Athenian sculptor, 428 B.C.
ALCESTIS. Wife of Admetus. He was allowed by Apollo to find a
substitute to die instead of him; she alone consented, died, and was
brought back from the dead by Heracles.
ALCIBIADES. Son of Clinias, Athenian statesman, and chief instigator of
the disastrous Sicilian expedition. Banished for sacrilege. Afterwards
recalled with great rejoicings.
ALCINOUS. King of Phaeacia. Entertained Odysseus on his way home from
Troy, and heard the story of his adventures.
ALCMENA. Wife of Amphitryon, and mother, by Zeus, of Heracles.
ALEXANDER (1) of Macedon. Son of Philip and Olympias, but represented
by legend as begotten by Ammon, the Libyan Zeus. Taught by Aristotle.
Killed his best friend Clitus in his cups, carried about Callisthenes,
suspected of plotting, in an iron cage. Overthrew the empire of Darius
at Issus and Arbela, 333 and 331 B.C. Married the Bactrian Roxana among
others. In India, defeated King Porus and took the virgin fortress
Aornus. Died at Babylon, handing his ring to Perdiccas.
ALEXANDER (2) of Pherae. Tyrant. Murdered 357 B.C. by his wife Thebe.
ALEXANDER (3) of Abonutichus. 'The narrative of Lucian would appear to
be a mere romance, were it not confirmed by some medals of Antoninus
and M. Aurelius' (_Smith's Dictionary of Biography and Mythology_).
ALPHEÜS. River in Arcadia and Elis, partly subterranean, which gave
rise to the tale.
AMALTHEA. A nymph who fed Zeus with goat's milk. The goat's horn,
broken off by Zeus, became the cornucopia.
AMMON. See ZEUS.
AMPHION. When he played the lyre, the stones moved of their own accord
to make the walls of Thebes.
AMPHITRITE. Wife of Posidon.
AMPHITRYON. Husband of Alcmena and putative father of Heracles.
ANACEUM. Temple of Castor and Pollux.
ANACHARSIS. Scythian prince. Visited Athens about 594 B.C.
ANACREON. Lyric poet of Teos. Sang of love and wine. Died 478 B.C.
ANAXAGORAS. Philosopher accused of impiety at Athens 450 B.C. Saved by
Pericles.
ANAXARCHUS. Philosopher, accompanied Alexander into Asia, 334 B.C.
ANDROMEDA. Her mother Cassiopeia, queen of Ethiopia, 'set her beauty's
praise above the sea-nymphs,' for which Andromeda had to be exposed to
a sea-monster. She was rescued by Perseus.
ANTEA. _See_ BELLEROPHON.
ANTIOCHUS. King of Syria, 280-261 B.C. Called Soter after his victory
over the Galatians. Son of Seleucus; fell in love with his step-mother
Stratonice, whom his father ceded to him.
ANTIOPE. Mother by Zeus of Amphion and Zethus.
ANTIPATER. Macedonian general, left as regent by Alexander in
Macedonia, of which he became king after Alexander's death.
ANTISTHENES. Athenian philosopher, about 400 B.C. Founder of the Cynics.
ANUBIS. Dog-headed Egyptian God, identified by the Greeks with Hermes.
ANYTUS. _See under_ SOCRATES.
AORNUS. The word means unvisited by birds. _See under_ ALEXANDER (1).
APHRODITE. Goddess of love, born of the sea foam, mother by Zeus of
Eros, by Bacchus of Priapus, by Hermes of Hermaphroditus, and by the
mortal Anchises of Aeneas. Her girdle or cestus conferred magic beauty
on the wearer. Often called 'Golden' by Homer. Worshipped under the
titles of Urania (heavenly) and Pandemus (common). Wife of Hephaestus.
APIS. Egyptian bull-God. Some details are given in _Sacrifice_ (15).
APOLLO. Son of Zeus and Leto. Represented as youthful, beautiful,
beardless, long-haired. Brother of Artemis and father of Asclepius by
Coronis. Doctor, harpist, president of the Muses, archer, sender and
averter of pestilence, giver of oracles at Delphi, &c. Lover of Daphne,
who changed to a laurel to escape him, Hyacinth, whom he accidentally
killed with a quoit, and Branchus, to whom he gave oracular power at
Didyma, afterwards called Branchidae. When Zeus slew Asclepius with
the thunderbolt, Apollo killed the Cyclopes who had forged it; he was
punished by being compelled to serve as a mortal on earth, where he
kept the flocks of Admetus, and built the wall of Troy for Laomedon.
Called Lycean as slayer of wolves, and Pythian from Pytho or Delphi.
APOLLONIUS (1) Rhodius. An Alexandrine poet, 200 B.C., author of the
_Argonautica_.
APOLLONIUS (2) of Tyana. Born 4 B.C. A Pythagorean who pretended to
miraculous powers.
APOLLONIUS (3). Stoic philosopher, sent for by Antoninus Pius to
instruct his adopted son M. Aurelius.
ARCHELAUS, king of Macedonia, 413-399 B.C. A great patron of letters.
ARCHIAS. An actor employed by Antipater for political purposes.
ARCHILOCHUS. An iambic poet of Paros, 690 B.C.
AREOPAGUS. An ancient Athenian council and law-court.
ARES. God of war, son of Zeus and Hera. Intrigued with Aphrodite.
ARETE. Wife of Alcinous.
ARETHUSA. A nymph. Pursued by the river-god Alpheus, fled to Sicily,
where she became a fountain.
ARGO. The ship that went on the quest of the Golden Fleece; built
by Athene, who inserted a plank from the Dodonaean oak, which gave
prophecies.
ARGUS. The hundred-eyed guard of Io.
ARIADNE. _See_ THESEUS.
ARION. Famous harper, 625 B.C. For his story, see _Dialogues of
Sea-Gods_, viii.
ARISTARCHUS. _See_ HOMER.
ARISTIDES. Athenian statesman called 'the just.' Great rival of
Themistocles. Died poor. Date of death, 468 B.C.
ARISTIPPUS. Philosopher of Cyrene, founder of the Cyrenaic school.
_See_ CYRENAICS. Disciple of Socrates. Spent some time at the court of
Dionysius. Flourished 370 B.C.
ARISTOGITON (1). With Harmodius, slew Hipparchus, brother of the
Athenian tyrant Hippias, 514 B.C. The tyranny fell shortly after, and
the two friends had the credit of liberating Athens.
ARISTOGITON (2). Athenian orator and adversary of Demosthenes.
ARISTOPHANES. Athenian writer of comedy, 444-380 B.C. Socrates is
ridiculed in his _Clouds_.
ARISTOTLE. Philosopher, 384-322 B.C. Founder of the Peripatetic school,
which see. Taught Alexander of Macedon, and Demosthenes.
ARMENIA. The Parthian war waged by Lucius Verus, 162-165 A.D., was
begun in consequence of a Roman legion's being cut to pieces in Armenia
by Vologesus, king of Parthia.
ARRIAN. A Bithynian philosopher and historian, pupil of Epictetus.
He was made a Roman citizen and attained the consulship. Wrote the
_Anabasis Alexandri_, and the _Discourses_ and _Enchiridion_ of
Epictetus.
ARTEMIS. Daughter of Leto and sister of Apollo. Virgin, huntress. Under
the name Ilithyia, presides over child-birth. Worshipped at Tauri in
Scythia with human sacrifice.
ARTEMISIUM. The scene of Athenian naval victories before Salamis over
the Persians.
ASCLEPIUS. Son of Apollo and Coronis. The God of medicine and health.
For restoring the dead to life was slain by Zeus with the thunderbolt.
Afterwards admitted to Olympus as a God.
ASTYANAX. Infant son of Hector and Andromache. Flung from the walls of
Troy by the Greeks.
ATHAMAS. By Hera's command married Nephele, by whom he had Phrixus and
Helle. His begetting Learchus and Melicertes by the mortal Ino offended
Hera, who drove him mad. Ino threw herself with Melicertes into the
sea, and both became sea-gods, called Leucothea and Palaemon. Phrixus
and Helle, saved by Nephele from Ino's persecution, had fled upon the
Golden Ram, from which Helle falling gave her name to the Hellespont.
ATHENE. Sprang full-armed from the brain of Zeus. Remained a
virgin. Carried Medusa's head on the aegis given to her by Zeus.
Personification of power and wisdom. Gave breath to the men moulded of
clay by Prometheus. Special patroness of Athens, where she was known as
Polias, or city-goddess.
ATHENIANS. The Athenians thought themselves 'autochthones', produced
from the very soil of Attica.
ATHOS. Mountain in Chalcidice, at the foot of which Xerxes cut a canal
for his armada against Greece, to avoid the storms that prevailed there.
ATROPUS. _See_ FATES.
ATTALUS II. King of Pergamum, poisoned by his son or nephew.
ATTHIS. A history of Attica, by Philochorus, about 300 B.C.
ATTIS. Phrygian shepherd, beloved by Rhea, who made him vow celibacy.
Being driven mad by Rhea for violating this vow, he mutilated himself;
and this became the custom among Rhea's priests, the Galli.
AUGEAS. _See_ HERACLES.
AULIS. A port in Boeotia. _See_ IPHIGENIA.
AURELIUS, M. Roman emperor, 161-180 A.D. Engaged in war with the
Marcomanni and Quadi for almost the whole of his reign.
BACCHUS. _See_ DIONYSUS.
BACIS. A prophet (or several prophets) to whom oracles were attributed.
BELLEROPHON. A Corinthian prince. Having slain a man, fled for
purification to Proetus of Argos, whose wife Antea fell in love with
him and, being repulsed, accused him to Proetus. Proetus sent him to
the king of Lycia with a letter requesting his execution. To ensure his
death, the king told him to kill the monster Chimera (goat, serpent,
and lion), which the winged horse Pegasus, however, enabled him to do.
BENDIS. A Thracian Goddess, identified with the Greek Artemis.
BRANCHUS. _See_ APOLLO.
BRASIDAS. The most distinguished Spartan in the first part of the
Peloponnesian War. Trying to dislodge Demosthenes from Pylos, ran his
galley ashore, and fainted from the wounds received.
BRIMO. 'Grim.' A name of Persephone.
BRISEÏS. Daughter of the Trojan Brises. Being captured, fell to
Achilles's share, from whom she was taken by Agamemnon.
BULIS and SPERCHIS. Two Spartans, given up to Xerxes to atone for his
heralds' having been slain; the king refused to retaliate.
BUSIRIS. King of Egypt, who used to sacrifice all strangers to Zeus.
When he attempted to offer Heracles, Heracles offered him.
CADMUS. Came from Tyre, once an island, to Greece, bringing with him
the Phoenician alphabet. Told at Delphi to follow a certain cow, and
build a town where she should lie down; built the Cadmea, citadel of
Thebes. Having slain a dragon that guarded a well, was told to sow its
teeth, from which sprang the Sparti, or sown men, afterwards Thebans.
Married Harmonia, by whom he had Semele and other children.
CALAMIS. Sculptor, 440 B.C. For Sosandra see note on _Portrait-Study_
(4).
CALANUS. Indian gymnosophist. Accompanied Alexander in India. Being ill
at eighty-three, burnt himself.
CALISTO. Beloved by Zeus. Turned by the jealous Hera into a bear, and
by Zeus into the constellation of that name.
CALLIMACHUS. Famous Alexandrine grammarian and poet. Wrote eight
hundred works. 260 B.C.
CALLIMEDON. Athenian orator in the Macedonian interest.
CALLISTHENES. A philosopher, who, accompanying Alexander, offended him
by rude criticism. The king had him carried about in chains, which
caused his death by disease.
CALYPSO. Nymph of Ogygia, where Odysseus was shipwrecked. Promised him
immortality if he would remain; he refused, and the Gods compelled her
to let him go.
CAMBYSES. Son of Cyrus the Great, and king of Persia, 529-522 B.C.
CASSIOPEIA. _See_ ANDROMEDA.
CASTALIA. Fountain on Mount Parnassus, in which Apollo's priestess had
to bathe before giving an oracle.
CASTOR and POLLUX. Also called Dioscuri, and Anaces. Sons of Zeus and
Leda, one mortal, the other immortal; the mortal being killed, the two
were allowed to divide the other's immortality, spending alternate
days in the upper and lower worlds. Pollux a great boxer. Patrons of
sailors, appearing in storms as flames, and guiding the ship to safety.
Worshipped especially at Sparta, where they were born.
CEBES. Theban disciple of Socrates, wrote an allegorical 'Picture' of
human life.
CECROPS. The first king of Athens.
CELSUS. An Epicurean to whom Lucian addresses the _Alexander_. Origen,
in replying to a treatise against Christianity written by a Celsus,
accuses him of being an Epicurean; and Origen's Celsus has accordingly
been identified with Lucian's, but from Origen's own account of
Celsus's position there is reason to doubt whether he could have been
an Epicurean.
CERAMICUS. A quarter in the north-west of Athens, both within and
without the walls, which were here passed by the Dipylon or Double Gate.
CERBERUS. The three-headed dog that guarded Hades. Allowed Orpheus to
pass, being charmed by the sound of his lyre.
CERCOPES. Droll and thievish gnomes, who robbed Heracles in his sleep.
CERCYON. King of Eleusis, wrestled with all strangers, killing those
whom he overcame. Theseus threw and killed him.
CERYCES. 'Heralds.' A priestly family at Athens.
CHAEREPHON. _See_ SOCRATES.
CHAERONEA. Here Philip defeated the Athenians and Boeotians, and ended
the liberty of Greece, 338 B.C.
CHALDEANS. In general, Babylonians; in particular, wizards.
CHARES. Athenian general, one of the commanders at Chaeronea.
CHARMIDES. A favourite pupil of Socrates.
CHARON. The ferryman of Hades, who conducts the souls of the dead
across Styx and Acheron.
CHAROPUS. 'Bright-eyed,' father of the beautiful Nireus.
CHIMERA. _See_ BELLEROPHON.
CHIRON. A wise centaur who taught Achilles.
CHRYSES. Trojan priest of Apollo, whose daughter Chryseis was taken by
the Greeks and given to Agamemnon. When he asked her from Agamemnon and
was refused, he appealed to Apollo.
CHRYSIPPUS. 280-207 B.C. Regarded as the chief of the Stoic school,
which see, though Zeno was the actual founder. Chrys-= gold-. As to
Lucian's thrice-repeated allusion to his hellebore treatment, nothing
seems to be known; it was a recognized cure for madness; perhaps he
took it to cure himself of care for the ordinary human objects of
pursuit.
CINYRAS. Son of Apollo, priest of Aphrodite, and father of Adonis.
CLEANTHES. Stoic philosopher. Lucian's account of his death in _The
Runaways_ seems incorrect. Having been told to abstain from food for
two days to cure an ulcer, he said that as he had advanced so far
towards death, it was a pity to have the trouble over again, and
continued to abstain till he died.
CLEARCHUS. Spartan commander of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries
employed by Cyrus the younger; their retreat under Xenophon is
described in the _Anabasis_.
CLEON. A bellicose Athenian demagogue in the Peloponnesian war; also
employed as a general.
CLINIAS. Father of Alcibiades.
CLITUS. _See_ ALEXANDER (1).
CLOTHO. _See_ FATES.
CLOUD-CUCKOO-LAND. A town built by the Birds, in Aristophanes's play of
that name.
CLYMENE. Wife of Helius.
CLYTEMNESTRA. Wife and murderer of Agamemnon, slain in revenge by her
own son Orestes.
COCYTUS. 'Wailing,' one of the rivers of Hades.
CODRUS. King of Athens. An oracle declared that Dorians invading Attica
should succeed, if the Attic king was spared; Codrus disguising himself
contrived to be slain in their camp.
COLOSSUS. Statue at Rhodes of the Sun-god Helius, 105 feet high.
CORYBANTES. Priests of Cybele or Rhea, sometimes called descendants of
Corybas, the Goddess's son. Danced wildly with drum and cymbal.
COTYTTO. The Goddess of debauchery, whose festivals were celebrated
during the night. Her priests were called Baptae.
CRANEUM. An open place with a cypress-grove outside Corinth.
CRATES. 320 B.C. _See_ CYNICS.
CREON. King of Thebes. A prominent figure in many tragedies.
CREÜSA. A princess of Corinth. Jason was to marry her, having divorced
Medea, who provided a poisoned robe, which Creüsa putting on was burnt
to death.
CRITIUS and NESIOTES. Sculptors slightly earlier than Phidias. Their
group of the tyrannicides, set up 477 B.C., was famous. The passage in
_The Rhetorician's Vade-mecum_ is the chief authority for their style.
CROESUS. King of Lydia, 560-546 B.C. To test Apollo's oracle, he asked
what he would be doing on a certain day. The answer was, 'boiling
tortoise and lamb,' which was correct. Thus convinced, he gave great
gifts to the oracle, including golden bricks, and, acting on another
oracle, which said that he by crossing the Halys should destroy a
mighty empire, attacked Cyrus, king of Persia, who subdued and deposed
him. Thus was verified the warning given to him by Solon, in the famous
conversation reported in the _Charon_. The story of his son Atys is
given in _Zeus Cross-examined_ (12). His other son was born deaf and
dumb, but when his father was in danger from Cyrus's soldiers, was
enabled to say: Do not kill the king. His name is a commonplace for
wealth and vicissitudes.
CRONIDES. 'Son of Cronus,' i.e. Zeus.
CRONOSOLON. Solon being known as a legislator, the name is meant to
suggest 'Cronus legislating' through his mouthpiece the priest.
CRONUS. King of Heaven in the dynasty of the Titans, which preceded
that of the Gods. Deprived his father Uranus of his virility and of his
government. Fearing dethronement from his own sons, he devoured them as
soon as born: his wife Rhea, however, concealed from him Zeus, Posidon,
and Pluto, the first of whom deposed him. The time of his reign was
looked back to as the Golden Age of plenty, equality, and virtue.
The Saturnalia, or feast of the Latin God Saturn, who was commonly
identified with Cronus, was a symbolic revival of that golden age.
CTESIAS. Author of (1) a long history of Persia, probably a really
valuable work, and (2) a treatise on India, the fables mixed up in
which caused him to be looked upon as an author who deserved no credit.
He was a Greek physician at the court of Artaxerxes Mnemon. Flourished
about 401 B.C.
CYBELE. _See_ RHEA.
CYCLOPES. A one-eyed race of shepherds, or, according to another
account, of smiths in the service of Hephaestus, in Etna. Polyphemus,
the chief of them, was son of Posidon.
CYLLARABIS. A gymnasium in or near Argos, which would be unsuitable for
cultivation.
CYNAEGIRUS. Brother of Aeschylus. At Marathon, pursuing the defeated
Persians, laid hold of one of their ships. His hand being cut off,
substituted the other; that cut off, gripped it with his teeth.
CYNICS. A school of philosophers, so called either because Antisthenes
the Athenian, their founder (born 444 B.C.), and a pupil of Socrates,
taught in the gymnasium called the Cynosarges, or else because their
mode of life was regarded as no better than that of a dog (cyn-).
Diogenes, Crates, Menippus, and (in his own time) Demonax, are
mentioned by Lucian as favourable specimens of the school. Their ideal
may be said to have been plain living and high thinking; virtue is
the only good; the essence of virtue is self-control; pleasure is an
evil if sought for itself. The dialogue called _The Cynic_ gives a not
unfair view of their asceticism. The _Peregrine_ and _The Runaways_
illustrate the abuses to which this philosophy was liable, owing to
the small intellectual demand it made, and the pride it generated.
The Cynics were cosmopolitan, individualist, and outspoken; their
repulsive personal negligence, and their free use of their philosophic
staves as offensive weapons, are often alluded to.
CYNURIA. _See_ OTHRYADES.
CYRENAICS. Aristippus, the founder of this school, was a disciple
of Socrates, but developed only the practical side of his master's
philosophy. Since the only things of which we can be absolutely certain
are our sensations of pleasure and pain, all our actions should be
calculated with a view to securing the one and avoiding the other. The
principle is not so debased as it sounds, since there are higher and
lower pleasures, present and future gratifications. Epicureanism and
modern Utilitarianism are developments.
CYRUS. The Great. King of Persia, 559-529 B.C.
DAEDALUS. A famous artificer. He, with his son Icarus, fled from Minos,
king of Crete, by means of wings fastened on with wax. He himself
arrived safely in Italy; but Icarus flying too high, the wax melted,
his wings dropped off, and he fell into the sea that was afterwards
called after him.
DANAE. Daughter of Acrisius (upon whose name there is a jest in the
_Demonax_), king of Argos. Her father, anxious that she should not have
a child, confined her in a brazen tower: but, Zeus visiting her in a
shower of gold, she gave birth to Perseus. Mother and child were thrown
into the sea in a chest, but were saved.
DANAÏDS. When the fifty sons of Aegyptus followed the daughters of
Danaus to Greece, and demanded them in marriage, Danaus consented, but
supplied each of them with a dagger to kill her husband on the bridal
night. Their punishment was to pour water perpetually into a leaky cask.
DAPHNE. _See_ APOLLO.
DAVUS. Stock name for a slave in Greek comedies.
DELPHI. On the Gulf of Corinth, below Mount Parnassus; an oracle of
Apollo, the most famous in Greece.
DEMADES. An Athenian orator, in the Macedonian interest; but put to
death by Antipater, 318 B.C.
DEME. An Athenian citizen was officially described by the addition of
the names of his father, his deme, and his tribe, to his own. The demes
were local divisions of Attica, like our parishes; the tribes were
groupings, independent of locality, of these demes into ten divisions
for administrative purposes.
DEMETER. Sister of Zeus, mother of Persephone, Goddess of the fruits of
the earth (Earth-mother).
DEMETRIUS (1). Poliorcetes. King of Macedonia, 294-287 B.C.
DEMETRIUS (2). A Platonic philosopher about 85 B.C.
DEMETRIUS (3). A distinguished cynic philosopher, of Sunium, teacher of
Demonax, and probably the hero of the story in the _Toxaris_.
DEMOCRITUS. A philosopher of Abdera, 460-361 B.C., famous as the author
of the atomic theory, as the laughing philosopher, and for the wide
extent of his knowledge.
DEMONAX. A cynic and eclectic philosopher, senior contemporary of
Lucian, from whose 'Life' all that is known of him is gathered.
DEMOSTHENES (1). One of the most distinguished Athenian generals in the
Peloponnesian war. _See_ BRASIDAS. Put to death by the Syracusans on
the failure of the Sicilian expedition.
DEMOSTHENES (2). The Athenian orator. His father was a rich
manufacturer of arms. Being defrauded by his guardians, took to oratory
first for the purpose of suing them. His self-training is famous;
the allusions in the _Demosthenes_ are thus explained: he lived in a
cave to study undisturbed, shaving half his head to keep him there,
studied his gestures in a mirror and corrected a shrug by hanging a
naked sword over his shoulders improved his articulation and voice by
holding pebbles in his mouth and shouting at the waves, took lessons
from Satyrus the actor, copied out Thucydides eight times. The great
object of his life was to keep Greece and especially Athens free from
subjection to Macedon.
DEUCALION and PYRRHA. The two who survived, according to the Greek
flood-legend, to repeople the earth.
DIASIA. Festival of Zeus at Athens.
DIOGENES. 412-323 B.C. His father was a banker of Sinope. He went to
Athens and became a philosopher of the Cynic school, which see, as a
disciple of Antisthenes. He is said to have lived in a tub.
DIOMEDE. One of the chief Greek heroes at the siege of Troy.
DION. A citizen of Syracuse under the two Dionysii; when Plato visited
Dionysius I, Dion became his disciple; being afterwards banished by
Dionysius II, he returned and expelled the tyrant.
DIONYSIA. There were four annual festivals in honour of Dionysus at
Athens. The Great Dionysia was the chief occasion for the production of
new tragedies and comedies.
DIONYSIUS I and II. Father and son, tyrants of Syracuse, 405-343 B.C.
The elder was a great patron of literature, and himself wrote verses
and tragedies.
DIONYSUS, or BACCHUS. Son of Zeus and the Theban Semele. For his birth
see SEMELE. Travelled through Egypt, Asia, &c., introducing the vine
and punishing all who slighted his power. His female worshippers were
known as Bacchantes, who roamed the country with dishevelled locks,
carrying the thyrsus and crying _evoe_.
DIOPITHES. An Athenian commander frequently employed against Philip of
Macedon.
DIOSCURI. _See_ CASTOR.
DIOTIMA. A priestess at Mantinea, called by Socrates (in Plato's
_Symposium_) his instructress in the art of love.
DODONA. Ancient oracle of Zeus in Epirus, where responses were given by
the rustling leaves of the sacred trees.
DOSIADAS. Author of two enigmatic poems whose verses are so arranged as
to present the profile of an altar.
DRACHMA. Greek coin worth tenpence.
DRACO. Ancient Athenian lawgiver, 621 B.C.
DROMO. Stock name for a slave.
ELECTRA. _See_ AGAMEMNON.
ELEUSIS. A town a few miles from Athens, where the Mysteries were
celebrated.
ELEVEN, THE. The board at Athens in charge of prisons and executions.
EMPEDOCLES. A Pythagorean philosopher, 444 B.C. His skill in medicine
and natural knowledge caused him to be credited with supernatural
powers. He fell or threw himself into the crater of Etna, as some say
that by his sudden disappearance he might be believed to be a God; but
his brazen sandal was thrown up and betrayed him.
EMPUSA. A monstrous spectre believed to devour human beings, and
capable of assuming different forms.
ENDYMION. A beautiful Carian youth with whom Selene fell in love.
ENIPEUS. A river and river-god in Thessaly.
EPHIALTES and OTUS. The two giants who piled Ossa upon Olympus and
Pelion upon Ossa to scale heaven.
EPICTETUS. A celebrated Stoic philosopher of the first century A.D.
Expelled from Rome with the other philosophers by Domitian. His
_Discourses_ and _Enchiridion_, still much read, are the notes of his
teaching collected by his pupil Arrian.
EPICUREANS. The school of philosophy instituted by Epicurus (342-270
B.C.). He combined the physics of Democritus with the ethics of
Aristippus; adopting the atomic theory of the former, he deduced
from it the indifference or non-existence of Gods; and he qualified
Aristippus's exaltation of pleasure by preferring mental and permanent
to bodily and immediate gratification. Their religious attitude caused
them to be held in abhorrence by other schools.
EPIMENIDES. Poet and prophet of Crete. The _Rip van Winkle_ of
antiquity, but a historical character.
EPIMETHEUS, 'after-thought,' was the brother of Prometheus,
'forethought.'
ERECHTHEUS II. Ancient king of Athens. Posidon, offended by the slaying
of his son Eumolpus, demanded the sacrifice of one of Erechtheus's
daughters; one being drawn by lot, the other three would not survive
her.
ERICHTHONIUS, or ERECHTHEUS I. King of Athens, and son of Hephaestus;
his mother was not Athene, but Ge.
ERIDANUS. Greek name of the Po.
ERIGONE. _See_ Icarus.
ERINYES. Also called Furies, Eumenides, and Dread Goddesses, employed
in punishing the wicked, whether in Hades or on earth, where they
represent the pangs of conscience.
ERIS. The Goddess of discord; for her story, see _Dialogues of
Sea-Gods_, v.
EROS. God of love, the Latin Cupid. Lucian plays with the two accounts
of his birth and age. According to one, he was older than all the
Olympian Gods; according to the other, son of Zeus and Aphrodite.
ETHIOPIANS. The Gods were in the habit of visiting the 'blameless
Ethiopians' and being feasted by them, according to Homer.
EUBULUS. The most influential statesman of the Athenian party opposed
to Demosthenes and in favour of peace with Philip.
EUCTEMON. An Athenian suborned by Demosthenes's enemy Midias to bring
against Demosthenes a charge of deserting while on military service.
EUMOLPUS. A Thracian bard who joined the Eleusinians in an expedition
against Athens, but was defeated and slain. He was regarded as the
founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and his family, the Eumolpidae,
continued to be the priests of Demeter there.
EUPHORBUS. _See_ PYTHAGORAS.
EUPHORION. Epic poet of Chalcis, 276 B.C.
EUPOLIS. Among the most famous poets of the Old Comedy, with
Aristophanes and Cratinus.
EURIPIDES. The most philosophic of the Greek tragedians. Born 480 B.C.,
died 406 B.C. at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, whither he
had retired from Athens about 408 B.C.
EUROPA. Daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor, and sister of Cadmus;
carried away by Zeus, who assumed the form of a white bull.
EURYBATUS. An Ephesian who betrayed Croesus to Cyrus, and became a
byword for treachery.
EURYDICE. _See_ ORPHEUS.
EURYSTHEUS. King of Tiryns. _See_ HERACLES.
EURYTUS. King of Oechalia; challenged Apollo to a match with the bow,
and was killed for his presumption.
EUXINE. 'The hospitable' (#euxenos#); a euphemism for 'the
inhospitable,' #axenos#. The Black Sea.
EXADIUS. One of the Lapithae, who were assisted by Nestor in their
fight against the Centaurs.
FATES. The Three Sisters to whose power even the Gods must submit, and
who regulate every human life. Clotho holds the distaff, Lachesis
spins, and Atropus cuts the thread of life. Lucian also gives them
other functions.
FAVORINUS. A famous sophist, contemporary with Demonax, whose jests
against him depend on the fact that he was supposed to be a eunuch.
GALATEA. The 'milk-white,' a Nereid, loved by Polyphemus.
GALLI. _See_ ATTIS.
GANYMEDE. A beautiful Trojan youth, beloved by Zeus, and carried off by
him to be the Gods' cupbearer.
GE. 'Earth,' wife of Uranus ('Heaven'), mother of Cronus, Rhea, and the
other Titans.
GERYON. A three-bodied Spanish giant. _See_ HERACLES.
GIANTS. The brood that sprang from the blood of Uranus when mutilated.
They made war on Heaven, armed with rocks and trees; but the Gods
destroyed them and buried them under volcanoes.
GLAUCUS. A famous boxer.
GLYCERA. Stock name for a courtesan.
GODS. The XII were Zeus, Posidon, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes,
Hera, Athene, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia, Demeter.
GORGIAS. Orator and sophist, of Leontini in Sicily, fifth century B.C.
He is a character in one of Plato's dialogues.
GORGONS. Three sisters with snaky hair, brazen claws, wings, scales,
&c. Medusa, the only mortal one, was slain by Perseus with Athene's
help, to whom he gave the head (which had the power of petrifying all
who looked upon it) after using it against the sea-monster.
GYGES. A Lydian who found a ring that being turned rendered him
invisible. By its means he usurped the Lydian throne, which he held
716-678 B.C. His wealth was proverbial.
GYLIPPUS. The Spartan chiefly instrumental in defeating the Sicilian
expedition of the Athenians.
HARMONIA. Daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, wife of Cadmus.
HARPIES. Monstrous birds with women's faces, sent by Zeus to torment
Phineus by defiling and carrying off all food placed on his table.
HECATE. A deity attendant on Persephone in Hades. Goddess of
cross-roads and much invoked by witches. For Hecate's supper, and
'dining with Hecate,' see note on _Dialogues of the Dead_, i.
HECUBA. Wife of Priam; a character in many Greek tragedies.
HEGESIAS. Sculptor. _See_ CRITIUS, the description of whom applies to
him also.
HELEN. Most of her history will be found in _Dialogues of the Gods_,
xx. Her abduction by Paris caused the Trojan war, after which she
returned to Menelaus.
HELIUS. God of the sun; one of the Titans.
HELLE. _See_ ATHAMAS.
HELLEBORE. _See_ CHRYSIPPUS.
HELLESPONT. _See_ XERXES.
HEPHAESTION. A Macedonian, the special friend of Alexander, who caused
divine honours to be paid him after his death, 325 B.C.
HEPHAESTUS. Son of Zeus and Hera; god of fire and of metal-working,
having his forge in Etna.
HERA. Daughter of Cronus and Rhea, wife and sister of Zeus, queen of
Heaven.
HERACLES. Son of Alcmena, who bore twins, the divine Heracles son of
Zeus, and the mortal Iphicles son of her husband Amphitryon. Married
Megara, but, driven mad by the jealous Hera, killed their children.
To expiate the crime entered the service of Eurystheus for twelve
years, and performed for him twelve labours, among which were: Slaying
of Hydra (as two heads sprang for each cut off, Iolaus assisted
him by searing the stumps); Shooting of Stymphalian birds; Capture
of Diomede's man-eating horses; Cleansing of the stables of Augeas;
Slaying of Nemean lion (whose skin he always afterwards wore); Driving
away of Geryon's oxen (on which expedition he erected the Pillars of
Hercules at the straits of Gibraltar). Other incidents: He went down to
Hades to rescue Alcestis; founded and presided at the Olympic games;
held up the heavens for Atlas; served with Omphale in woman's dress to
atone for the murder, in a fit of madness, of his friend Iphitus; while
drinking wine with Pholus, was attacked by the other centaurs and slew
them. His last wife, Deianira, being jealous gave him a poisoned shirt;
and in the resulting agony he caused Philoctetes to build a pyre and
burn him on Mount Oeta, leaving his bow and arrows to the boy.
HERACLITUS. A physical philosopher of Ephesus, about 500 B.C. Conceived
fire as the origin of all things, and continual movement as the
necessary condition of existence. Known as the weeping philosopher, in
opposition to Democritus, the laughing.
HERMAGORAS. 'Hermes of the Market'; a statue of Hermes in the Athenian
market-place.
HERMAPHRODITUS. _See_ APHRODITE.
HERMES. Son of Zeus and Maia. Messenger, cupbearer, porter, crier, &c.,
of the Gods. God of windfalls, trade, thievery, music, and speech.
He is represented with wings on his sandals and hat, and with the
caduceus, a staff entwined with serpents. For his slaying of Argus,
see _Dialogues of the Gods_, iii. He is charged with the conducting of
the dead to Hades. Said to have been born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.
Identified with the dog-headed Egyptian God Anubis.
HERMOCRATES. The Syracusan most energetic in resisting the Sicilian
expedition.
HERODES ATTICUS. Born about 104 A.D. The most famous rhetorician of his
time. Used his great wealth in conferring benefits on the Greek towns,
especially Athens; the aqueduct at Olympia is an instance. Mourned his
wife Regilla and his favourite Pollux in the manner described in the
_Demonax_.
HERODOTUS. Of Halicarnassus, born 484 B.C. Wrote in the Ionic dialect a
history of the Graeco-Persian War, in nine books, to which the names of
the Muses were given in recognition of their excellence.
HEROES. Used in two senses: (1) of demi-gods, born of a mortal and an
immortal parent; (2) of the chiefs of the Trojan war period.
HESIOD. Of Ascra in Boeotia, about 850 B.C. According to his own
account he was originally a shepherd, who, tending his flocks on
Helicon, received from the Muses a laurel-branch, and with it the
gift of poetry. His chief poems are the _Works and Days_, a didactic
agricultural poem, and the _Theogony_, a work on the genealogies of
Gods and heroes. The passage on Virtue so often alluded to by Lucian
runs as follows: 'Vice you may have in abundance with ease; smooth is
the road to it, and very near it dwells. But this side of Virtue the
immortal Gods have set much toil; long and steep is the track to it,
and rough at its setting out: but when a man has reached the top, then
is its hardness turned to ease.'
HIMERAEUS. An Athenian orator, who opposed Macedonia after the death
of Alexander, and fled to escape being surrendered to Antipater. Being
caught by Archias, he was put to death.
HIPPIAS. A sophist of Elis, able but vain, contemporary of Socrates; a
character in two of Plato's dialogues.
HIPPOCLIDES. An Athenian of the sixth century B.C.; lost his chance of
marrying the daughter of Clisthenes tyrant of Sicyon by dancing on his
head, and remarked that 'Hippoclides did not care.'
HIPPOCRATES. A famous physician of Cos, 469-357 B.C.
HIPPOCRENE and OLMEUM. Fountains on Mount Helicon sacred to the Muses.
HIPPOLYTA. _See_ THESEUS.
HIPPOLYTUS. Son of Theseus and Hippolyta. His step-mother Phaedra
fell in love with him, and being rejected accused him to his father.
Theseus believed and asked Posidon to destroy him; he was thrown from
his chariot and dragged to death by his horses, frightened at a monster
sent by Posidon.
HIPPONAX. Greek iambic poet, 546-520 B.C.
HOMER. His poems formed the basis of Greek education and religion;
Lucian perpetually quotes him, and refers to the questions of his
birthplace and blindness. Famous ancient Homeric critics were Zoïlus
(called Homeromastix), Zenodotus, and Aristarchus.
HYACINTH. _See_ APOLLO.
HYDRA. _See_ HERACLES.
HYLAS. Beautiful youth, beloved by Heracles, and carried off by the
water-nymphs.
HYMENAEUS. The God of marriage.
HYMETTUS. Mountain of Attica, famous for marble and bees.
HYPERBOLUS. A disreputable Athenian demagogue, murdered 411 B.C.
HYPERBOREANS. A mythical people dwelling beyond the North wind in
perpetual sunshine and happiness. Magical powers were attributed to
them.
HYPERIDES. Athenian orator, generally acting with Demosthenes, though
he accused him on one occasion. His tongue was cut out and he was
executed by Antipater.
IAMBULUS. A Greek writer on India, sufficiently characterized in _The
True History_(3). 'Oceanica' is not an actual title.
IAPETUS. A Titan, brother of Cronus, and father of Prometheus.
ICARIUS. An Athenian who received Dionysus in Attica and learned from
him the cultivation of the vine. Some peasants to whom he gave wine
slew him in drunkenness. His daughter Erigone was led to his grave
by his dog Maera, and hanged herself on the tree under which he lay.
Dionysus placed the three in heaven as Arcturus, The Virgin, and
Procyon (the lesser dog-star).
ICARUS. _See_ DAEDALUS.
IDA. Mountain close to Troy.
ILISSUS. A small river at Athens.
ILITHYIA. Goddess of child-birth, generally identified with Artemis.
INO. _See_ ATHAMAS.
IO. Daughter of Inachus, king of Argos. Zeus in love with her and
changed her to a heifer for concealment; Hera discovering it placed
her under the care of Argus, who however was slain by Hermes at Zeus's
command. Io swam to Egypt, conducted by Hermes, and there bore a son to
Zeus.
IOLAUS. Nephew of Heracles, and helped him against the hydra. Restored
to youthful vigour by Hebe.
IPHIGENIA. Daughter of Agamemnon, was to be sacrificed to Artemis to
secure the passage of the Greek fleet to Troy; but Artemis substituted
a hart, and transported her to Tauri in Scythia, where as priestess she
had to sacrifice all strangers. She saved her brother Orestes, on the
point of being thus immolated, and fled with him to Greece.
IRIS. Goddess of the rainbow, sometimes charged with messages from
heaven to earth.
IRUS. The beggar in the _Odyssey_ who boxes with Odysseus.
ISIS. Egyptian Goddess, sometimes identified with Io.
ISMENUS. The river of Thebes.
ISOCRATES. 436-338 B.C. The greatest of Greek oratorical writers and
teachers, but debarred from speaking by timidity and a weak voice.
IXION. King of the Lapithae, admitted by Zeus to the table of the Gods;
his story will be found in _Dialogues of the Gods_, vi.
LABDACIDS. Laïus, Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, Antigone and Ismene,
the subjects of many Greek tragedies, were descended from Labdacus the
Theban.
LAERTES. Father of Odysseus and king of Ithaca.
LAÏS. A famous courtesan of Corinth.
LAÏUS. King of Thebes and father of Oedipus, who slew him in ignorance
of his identity, and so fulfilled an oracle.
LAOMEDON. _See_ APOLLO.
LAPITHAE. A Thessalian people. When they invited the centaurs to
the marriage feast of Pirithoüs, who was one of them, a quarrel and
bloodshed arose.
LEDA. Wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, loved by Zeus, who took
the form of a swan. She produced two eggs, from one of which came
Pollux and Helen, children of Zeus, and from the other Castor and
Clytemnestra, of Tyndareus.
LEMNIAN WOMEN. Having offended Aphrodite, were abandoned by their
husbands, and in revenge murdered all their male relations.
LEONIDAS. The king of Sparta who held Thermopylae with a small force
against all the host of Xerxes till nearly all his men were slain, 480
B.C.
LEOSTHENES. Commander of the Greeks in the Lamian war, for emancipation
after Alexander's death.
LETHE. One of the rivers of Hades, of which all must drink and forget
their lives on earth. Lucian, however, like other writers, does not
trouble himself about this forgetfulness when it is inconvenient. There
is also a river of the name in Spain, to which perhaps Charon refers
in the _Voyage to the Lower World_.
LETO. A Goddess loved by Zeus, and regarded with jealousy by Hera, who
set the serpent Pytho to watch her, and induced the earth to refuse her
a place in which to be delivered of her children. Posidon solved the
difficulty by bringing up Delos from the depths of the sea and fixing
it. Here Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis. Apollo afterwards slew
Pytho. Leto was insulted by Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, proud of her
seven sons and seven daughters; she was avenged by Apollo and Artemis,
who shot all Niobe's children, and Niobe wept till she turned to stone.
LEUCOTHEA. _See_ ATHAMAS.
LOTUS. The plant of which he who ate lost all wish of returning home.
LYCEUM. _See_ PERIPATETICS.
LYCOPHRON. Poet and grammarian 270 B.C. His poem _Alexandra_ or
_Cassandra_ consists of supposed oracles of Cassandra, 'of no poetic
value, but forms an inexhaustible mine of grammatical, historical, and
mythological erudition.'
LYCURGUS (1). Ancient lawgiver at Sparta, who established the
constitution and training that gave Sparta its military pre-eminence,
884 B.C.
LYCURGUS (2). Attic orator, a warm supporter of Demosthenes.
LYNCEUS. One of the Argonauts; could distinguish small objects at nine
miles.
LYSIMACHUS. One of Alexander's generals, succeeded to Thrace on the
division of the Macedonian empire. His wife Arsinoë made him believe
that his son Agathocles was plotting against him, and he put him to
death.
LYSIPPUS. A great sculptor, of Sicyon, in the time of Alexander.
MAEANDRIUS. Secretary to Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, to whose power he
succeeded in 522 B.C.
MAGI. A priesthood among the Medes and Persians, founded by Zoroaster.
MAIA. Mother of Hermes.
MALTHACE. Stock name for a courtesan.
MANDROBULUS. Of Samos. He found a great treasure, his gratitude for
which was expressed at the time with an offering of a golden sheep, on
the first anniversary of the event with a silver one, on the second
with a copper, and on the third with none at all.
MARATHON. A village in Attica, the scene of a great victory of the
Athenians over the Persians in 490 B.C.
MARGITES. Hero of a comic epic poem, formerly supposed to be Homer's.
His name became proverbial for stupidity.
_Marsyas_. A Phrygian Satyr, who challenged Apollo to a musical
contest, and being defeated by him was flayed alive.
MAUSOLUS. King of Caria, 377-353 B.C. His wife Artemisia raised a
splendid monument to him after his death.
MEDEA. Daughter of Æetes king of Colchis, and famous for her skill in
witchcraft. Falling in love with Jason when he came to Colchis for
the Golden Fleece, she assisted him to obtain it, and followed him to
Greece as his wife. When Jason afterwards deserted her for the daughter
of Creon, she revenged herself by slaying her own children by him, and
his second wife.
MELAMPUS. A seer, whose ears were cleansed by some young snakes that
he had preserved from death, with the result that he was enabled to
understand the language of birds.
MELEAGER. Son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and leader of the heroes who
slew the boar that Artemis, offended at Oeneus's neglect in not asking
her to a certain feast, had sent to ravage his country. Being in love
with Atalanta, he gave her the boar's hide, and subsequently slew
his mother's brothers for taking it from her. To avenge their death,
his mother Althaea threw into the fire that fatal firebrand whose
consumption, as she knew from the Fates, must be followed by his death.
MELETUS. An obscure tragic poet, one of the accusers of Socrates.
MELIA. A Nereid, mother of the river-god Ismenus.
MELICERTES. _See_ ATHAMAS.
MENANDER. A distinguished Athenian poet of the New Comedy, 342-291 B.C.
MENELAUS. Brother of Agamemnon, and Helen's husband. The abduction of
Helen by the Trojan Paris was the cause of the Trojan War.
MENIPPUS. A Cynic philosopher, originally a slave, of Gadara in
Coele-Syria. His date is placed about 60 B.C. It is probable that
Lucian was much indebted to the writings of Menippus, which are now
lost, though an imitation of them is still preserved in the _Menippean
Satires_ of Varro. Among the titles of his works are _A Visit to the
Shades_, _Wills_, and _Letters of the Gods_. He appears frequently as a
character in Lucian's dialogues.
MENTOR. A famous silversmith, before 356 B.C.
METRODORUS. A distinguished Epicurean philosopher, 330-277 B.C.
MIDAS. A king of Phrygia, to whom Dionysus granted the power of
changing all that he touched into gold. Being unable in consequence to
obtain any nourishment, Midas was permitted to cancel this privilege by
bathing in the Pactolus. Chosen as a judge in a musical contest between
Pan and Apollo he decided against the latter, who changed his ears into
those of an ass.
MIDIAS. A wealthy Athenian, and a bitter enemy of Demosthenes, whose
speech against him is extant.
MILO. Of Croton, a famous athlete, of whom various feats of strength
are recorded.
MILTIADES. Son of Cimon. Commanded the Athenians at Marathon. He
afterwards used the power entrusted to him for his private purposes,
and the charges brought against him were better justified than is
implied in _Slander_ (29).
MINA. A sum of money--£4 1_s._ 3_d._
MINOS I. Son of Zeus and Europa, brother of Rhadamanthus. King and
legislator of Crete and, after his death, a judge in Hades.
MINOS II. Grandson of Minos I, and king of Crete. Made war on the
Athenians and compelled them to send to Crete an annual tribute of
seven youths and seven maidens, to be devoured by the Minotaur, the
monstrous offspring of Pasiphae and a bull. _See_ THESEUS.
MINOTAUR. See MINOS II
MITHRAS. God of the sun among the Persians.
MOMUS. Son of Night, and God of criticism.
MORMO. A female spectre, used to frighten children with.
MUSAEUS. The supposed author of various poetical works. His origin is
doubtful; he is sometimes called the son of Orpheus.
MUSES. The Goddesses of poetry, and of the arts and sciences. They were
nine in number, and were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory).
Mount Helicon in Boeotia was their favourite haunt.
MUSONIUS RUFUS. A celebrated Stoic philosopher, banished by Nero in 66
A.D. on the pretext of conspiracy.
MYIA. Of this daughter of Pythagoras we have no certain information.
MYRON. A celebrated sculptor, born about 480 B.C.
MYSTERIES (Eleusinian). Eumolpus, Musaeus, and Demeter, are all
mentioned as the founders of these Mysteries, in which were
commemorated the rape of Persephone by Pluto, and the wanderings of
Demeter in search of her. They were held annually, the Greater at
Eleusis and Athens, the Lesser at Agrae. Persons initiated at the
Lesser could only be admitted to the Greater after a year's interval.
A part of the Greater Mysteries, to which those only were admitted who
had been fully initiated, and had taken the oath of secrecy, consisted
of a torchlight procession from Athens to the temple of Demeter at
Eleusis, after which the initiated were purified, repeated the oath of
secrecy, and were admitted to the inner sanctuary of the temple. Of the
secret doctrines there divulged nothing is known.
NARCISSUS. A youth so beautiful that he fell in love with his image
reflected in a pool.
NAUSICAA. The beautiful daughter of Alcinous and Arete, who received
Odysseus with kindness when cast up by the sea.
NELEUS. Of Scepsis; he is known to have been in possession of the MSS.
of Aristotle, and may therefore have been a patron of literature.
NEMESIS. 'Wrath,' the Goddess who avenges presumption.
NEOPTOLEMUS, also called Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, after whose death
the seer declared that Troy could not be taken without the help of his
son. He distinguished himself in the taking.
NEPHELE. _See_ ATHAMAS. Changed to a cloud after his desertion of her.
NEREÏDS. The sea nymphs, daughters of Nereus, a Sea-God.
NESIOTES. _See_ CRITIUS.
NESTOR. Oldest and wisest of the Greek chiefs at Troy. His cup was one
that 'scarce could another move from the table when it was full, but
old Nestor lifted it with ease.'
NICANDER. Grammarian, poet, and physician of Colophon, about 140 B.C.
Wrote _Theriaca_ and _Alexipharmaca_, works on poisons and antidotes.
NICIAS. The Athenian general in command of the Sicilian expedition, 415
B.C. Put to death by the Syracusans.
NICOSTRATUS. A wrestler and double Olympic victor, about 40 A.D.
NIOBE. _See_ LETO.
NIREUS. A Greek at the siege of Troy, famous for beauty.
NUMA. Second king of Rome; his reign was marked by peace and the
founding of religious institutions.
ODYSSEUS. Son of Laertes, king of Ithaca. To escape joining the Greeks
against Troy, simulated madness by driving a plough for a chariot, with
one ox and one horse. Palamedes exposed him by threatening Odysseus's
son Telemachus with a sword, when he confessed. In revenge, he ruined
Palamedes at Troy, convicting him by forged evidence of treacherous
dealings with the enemy. When Agamemnon lost heart, and was for
returning, Odysseus prevailed on the Greeks not to give up. Took ten
years getting home, detained by Calypso, by Circe, and otherwise. Circe
enabled him to visit Hades and consult Tiresias. Escaped the Sirens by
stopping his crew's ears with wax, and having himself bound to the mast.
OENEUS. _See_ MELEAGER.
OLYMPIA. In Elis; the Olympic games took place every four years, and,
starting from 776 B.C., from which time a record of them was kept,
were used for dating events, under the name of Olympiads. The games
were the occasion of the largest gatherings of Greeks that took place.
OLYMPIAS. Wife of Philip of Macedon and mother of Alexander.
OLYMPIEUM. A temple of Zeus at Athens, begun by the tyrant Pisistratus
(560-527 B.C.), but not finished till the time of Hadrian (117-138
A.D.).
OLYMPUS (1). A mountain separating Macedonia and Thessaly, the summit
of which was the residence of the Gods.
OLYMPUS (2). A celebrated flute-player of Phrygia.
OMPHALE. _See_ HERACLES.
ORESTES. _See_ AGAMEMNON.
ORION. A giant and hunter of Boeotia. Blinded by Oenopion for
ill-treatment of his daughter Merope, he recovered his sight by the
help of Cedalion, who directed his eyes towards the rising sun.
ORITHYIA. Daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens. Carried off by Boreas.
ORPHEUS. A Thracian musician, son of the Muse Calliope. His music
charmed wild beasts, trees, and rocks, and prevailed upon Pluto to
restore his wife Eurydice, on condition that Orpheus should not look
back to see that she was following him; this condition not being
observed, Eurydice remained in Hades. Orpheus was afterwards torn in
pieces by the Thracian women, and his head and lyre thrown into the
Hebrus, and carried to Lesbos.
OSIRIS. An Egyptian king, deified after death, as the husband of Isis.
OSROËS. Son of Vologesus I. A king of Parthia, engaged in war with the
Emperor Trajan.
OTHRYADES. The only survivor of the three hundred Spartans who fought
with three hundred Argives for the possession of Thyrea in Cynuria.
Being left for dead by the two Argive survivors, he raised a trophy on
the field, with an inscription in his own blood, and thus secured the
victory.
OTUS. _See_ EPHIALTES.
PACTOLUS. A Lydian river, whose sands were said to contain gold.
PAEAN, (1) A name of Apollo; (2) a song sung before or after a battle.
PALAMEDES. A Greek hero in the Trojan War. _See under_ ODYSSEUS. Said
to have added certain letters to the Greek alphabet.
PAN. A rustic God, son of Hermes and Penelope. Invented the Pan's pipe,
and attended upon Dionysus. Represented with horns and goat's legs.
PANATHENAEA. Two festivals of this name were celebrated at Athens with
games, sacrifices, &c.; the Lesser annually, the Greater every fourth
year.
PANCRATIUM. A contest in the public games, in which both boxing and
wrestling were employed.
PANGAEUS. A range of mountains in Macedonia, famous for gold and silver
mines.
PANTHEA (1). Wife of Abradatas, king of Susa. Her spirit and loyalty
are commended by Xenophon.
PANTHEA (2). Presumably the mistress of the Emperor Lucius Verus.
PARIS. Son of Priam king of Troy.
PARMENIO. An able lieutenant of Alexander.
PARTHENIUS. A Greek elegiac poet, about 30 B.C.
PARTHIANS. The successors in Asia of the Persian monarchy. The war
between their king Vologesus III and Rome, 162-165 A.D., was conducted
on the Roman side by the Emperor Lucius Verus. He brought it to a
successful conclusion, more by the merits of his lieutenants, Cassius
and Statius Priscus, than his own.
PARTHONICE. 'Conquest of the Parthians,' quoted as an affected
poetical-sounding title.
PATROCLUS. Friend and follower of Achilles, who, when he sulked
himself, lent him his armour, in which Patroclus won great renown; but
Apollo struck him senseless, Euphorbus ran him through, and Hector gave
him the last fatal blow.
PEGASUS. _See_ BELLEROPHON.
PELASGICUM. A space under the Acropolis at Athens, unoccupied till the
Spartan invasions in the Peloponnesian war brought the country Attics
into the town.
PELEUS. Father of Achilles.
PELIAS. King of Iolcus, usurper of his nephew Jason's rights. When
Medea restored Jason's father Aeson to youth by cutting him to pieces
and boiling him, she persuaded the daughters of Pelias to try the same
system with their father, which resulted in his death.
PELOPIDS. The descendants of Pelops, many of them, as Atreus and
Thyestes, Agamemnon and Menelaus, Orestes, Electra and Iphigenia,
famous in tragic story.
PENELOPE. Wife of Odysseus.
PENTHEUS. King of Thebes, resisted the introduction of Dionysus's
rites; the God caused his Bacchantes, among them Pentheus's mother
Agave, to tear him to pieces in their frenzy.
PERDICCAS. One of Alexander's generals, who, on the strength of the
dying king's having handed him his ring, claimed the succession, but
was defeated by the combination of Ptolemy, Antipater, and other
generals, and finally assassinated.
PEREGRINE. Nothing can be added to Lucian's description of him in the
_Death of Peregrine_, but that he is a historical character.
PERIANDER. Son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. A patron of
literature, and one of the Seven Sages.
PERICLES. Greatest of Athenian statesmen. A pupil of Anaxagoras. He was
nicknamed 'Olympian.' Lucian mentions his funeral speech, delivered
in 431 B.C., and his intercourse with the famous Milesian courtesan
Aspasia, by whom he had a son Pericles.
PERIPATETICS. Aristotle of Stagira (385-323 B.C.), the founder of this
school of philosophers, studied for twenty years under Plato. In 335
B.C. he began teaching independently in the Lyceum, a public garden
at Athens. The name Peripatetic refers to his habit of walking about
while lecturing. Forty-six of his works remain, though perhaps only
in the form of notes. They are remarkable for the rigidly systematic
treatment applied to all subjects alike, to Ethics and Poetry, not less
than to Zoology and Mechanics. Most notable of his doctrines is that
which refers all definable things to four Causes, viz., Matter, the
existence of which is Potentiality, and the Moving, Final, and Formal
Causes, whose operation is included under the general term Energy; the
combination of Potentiality and Energy resulting in the perfection of
the completed thing. The _summum bonum_, according to Aristotle, is
Eudaemonia (Happiness); and each virtue is the mean between the excess
and defect of some quality. The virtuous mean between avarice and
profuseness, or between luxury and asceticism, might perhaps involve
that respect for money with which Lucian reproaches the Peripatetics.
The ten Categories, or Predicaments, were an attempt to classify
all existing things; among them were Substance, Quality, Quantity,
Relation, Time, and Place.
PERSEPHONE. Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Pluto, with the permission of
Zeus, carried her down to Hades. Demeter, discovering the truth after a
long search, left Heaven in anger, and took up her abode on earth. Zeus
now ordered Pluto to restore Persephone: as, however, she had partaken
of food in the lower world, she was compelled to return thither for
one-third of each year.
PERSEUS. His story is given under DANAE, GORGONS, and ANDROMEDA.
PHAEACIANS. A fabulous people described in the Odyssey as inhabiting
Scheria. Alcinous was their king.
PHAEDRA. Daughter of Minos of Crete, and wife of Theseus. _See_
HIPPOLYTUS.
PHAEDRUS. A character in two of the dialogues of Plato, whose friend he
was.
PHAETHON. Son of Helius and Clymene. Being allowed on one occasion to
drive the chariot of the sun, he lost control of the horses, and almost
consumed the earth with fire. Zeus slew him with a thunderbolt, and
cast him into the river Eridanus. His sisters, changed into poplars on
its banks, wept tears of amber for his loss.
PHALARIS. Tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily, 570-564 B.C. For the
brazen bull in which he is said to have burnt many victims alive, see
_Phalaris I_.
PHAON. An ugly old boatman at Mytilene, with whom Sappho is said to
have fallen in love, after he had been made young and beautiful by
Aphrodite as a reward for carrying her across the sea without payment.
PHARUS. A small island off the coast of Egypt, on which was a famous
lighthouse, built by Ptolemy II.
PHIDIAS. Famous Athenian sculptor, 490-432 B.C. The chryselephantine
statue of Zeus at Olympia was his work.
PHILIP OF MACEDON. King, 359-336 B.C. Raised Macedon from an
insignificant State to the mistress of Greece, and made possible the
conquests of his son Alexander by his organization. Used diplomacy as
much as arms to effect his ends, and systematically bribed persons in
the states opposed to him, especially in Athens.
PHILIPPIDES. More usually called Phidippides.
PHILO. The person to whom Lucian addresses _The Way to write History_
is unknown.
PHILOCRATES. Prominent Athenian, probably in the pay of Philip, into
whose hands he constantly played.
PHILOCTETES. Armour-bearer of Heracles, inherited his bow. Left at
Lemnos on the way to Troy, because a wound from a snake-bite rendered
him offensive by its stench. Later, an oracle declaring the bow
necessary for the capture of Troy, Odysseus went and induced him to
come.
PHILOSOPHY. Lucian is fond of ridiculing the different schools of
philosophy, some for their paradoxical choice of ends, some for
their hypocrisy in practically disregarding their own precepts. The
regulation philosophic garb and appearance also comes in for satire;
it consisted of threadbare cloak, wallet, and staff, with long beard.
A brief account of the chief schools will be found under ACADEMY,
CYNICS, CYRENAICS, PERIPATETICS, STOICS, EPICUREANS, SCEPTICS, PLATO,
PYTHAGORAS.
PHILOXENUS. A poet, who, for his severe criticism of a poem of
Dionysius I, was imprisoned in the Syracusan quarries. The tyrant,
having pardoned him and invited him to dinner, recited another poem he
had composed. Asked his opinion of it, Philoxenus made no direct reply,
but said, 'Take me back to the quarries.'
PHINEUS. King of Bithynia, blinded by Zeus for unjustly blinding his
own children; and _See_ HARPIES.
PHLEGETHON. 'Burning,' one of the infernal rivers.
PHOCION. Athenian statesman and general, died 318 B.C.; distinguished
for virtue, moderation, and poverty.
PHOEBUS. _See_ APOLLO.
PHOENIX (1). Son of Amyntor king of Argos. Blinded by his father, fled
to Peleus, was cured by Chiron of his blindness, and became tutor to
Achilles.
PHOENIX (2). An Indian bird which lived five hundred years and then
cremated itself, another rising from its ashes.
PHOLUS. _See_ HERACLES.
PHRIXUS. _See_ ATHAMAS.
PHRYGIANS. Troy being in Phrygia, 'Phrygians' is often used for
'Trojans.'
PHRYNE. Famous Athenian courtesan, 328 B.C.
PHRYNON. Athenian politician in the Macedonian interest, associated by
Demosthenes especially with Philocrates.
PIRAEUS. The port of Athens, about five miles off.
PISA. The town in Elis, near which the Olympic games were held.
PITCH-PLASTERS were employed by women and by effeminate men for
removing the hair from the body.
PITYOCAMPTES. 'Pine-bender,' descriptive surname of the robber Sinis,
who killed travellers by fastening them to the top of a pine bent down
and then allowed to spring up. He was killed by Theseus in the same way.
PLATAEA. A town in Boeotia, near which the final battle of the
Graeco-Persian war was fought, 478 B.C. The Persians were defeated.
PLATO. An Athenian philosopher (428-347 B.C.), and pupil of Socrates,
whom in his dialogues he often makes the mouthpiece of his own
doctrines. He studied in Africa, Egypt, Italy, and Sicily, and returned
to Athens in 386 B.C. to lecture in the gymnasium of the Academy. He
paid three visits to the Syracusan court of Dionysius I and II. The
Platonic theory of Ideas is an attempt to secure accuracy of definition
(which is the first step towards knowledge), by contemplation of those
abstract types or Ideas of things, of which external objects are in
every case only an imperfect manifestation, and which are perceptible
to us by reason of our familiarity with them in a previous existence;
for the soul is immortal, and what we call the acquisition of knowledge
is in fact only recollection. In his _Republic_ we have a sketch of a
model state, in which philosophers are to be kings, and community of
women is recommended as a means of securing scientific breeding.
PLUTO. 'Rich' in dead, according to Lucian's derivation; also called
Hades. Drew lots with his brothers Zeus and Posidon, and received the
Lower World for his share. His wife was Persephone.
PLUTUS. Son of Iasion and Demeter, and God of wealth. Blinded by Zeus.
PNYX. The place where the Athenian Assembly was held. It was cut out of
the side of a small hill west of the Acropolis.
PODALIRIUS. Son of Asclepius, and brother of Machaon, with whom he led
the Thessalians of Tricca against Troy. Both brothers inherited their
father's medical skill.
POECILE. The 'Painted' Porch in the Athenian market-place, adorned
with paintings of Polygnotus. Here Zeno, the founder of the Stoic
philosophy, opened his school, which was accordingly often spoken of as
'The Porch.'
POENAE. 'Punishments.' Infernal spirits, akin to the Erinyes.
POLEMON. Athenian philosopher, head of the Academy, 315 B.C. Had
been dissolute in youth, but was converted, as related in _The Double
Indictment_, by Xenocrates.
POLIAS. _See_ ATHENE.
POLLUX (1). _See_ CASTOR.
POLLUX (2). _See_ HERODES.
POLUS (1). A rhetorician of Agrigentum, pupil of Gorgias, with whom he
is introduced by Plato in the _Gorgias_.
POLUS (2). A celebrated tragic actor.
POLYCLITUS. 452-412 B.C. A Sicyonian sculptor, reckoned the equal of
Phidias. His 'canon' was a bronze statue in which he exemplified the
principles that he had laid down in a book to which he gave the same
name. The _Diadumenus_, or youth tying on a fillet, was one of his most
famous works.
POLYCRATES. Powerful tyrant of Samos. Frightened by his excessive
prosperity, tried to propitiate Nemesis by throwing into the sea a ring
that he prized highly; but a fisherman found it in a fish, and returned
it, a sign that his offering was rejected. He was lured to Asia by
Oroetes, satrap of Sardis, and by him crucified, 522 B.C.
POLYDAMAS. Olympic victor, 408 B.C. Marvellous stories are told of his
strength.
POLYGNOTUS. Famous painter, of Thasos, 422 B.C.
POLYNICES. One of the sons of Oedipus, who killed each other.
POLYPHEMUS. _See_ CYCLOPES. His story is given _Dialogues of the
Sea-Gods_, i.
POLYXENA. Daughter of Priam and Hecuba, loved by Achilles, who after
his death demanded that she should be sacrificed to his _manes_. She
submitted willingly, and was slain by Neoptolemus at his father's tomb.
PORCH, THE. _See_ POECILE and STOICS.
PORUS. _See_ ALEXANDER (1).
POSIDON. Son of Cronus, brother of Zeus and Pluto, received the sea
as his province. Assisted Apollo in building the walls of Troy for
Laomedon.
PRAXITELES. Athenian sculptor, 364 B.C. With Scopas, headed the
later Attic school, known less for sublimity than beauty. The Cnidian
_Aphrodite_ was his.
PRIAPUS. Son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, worshipped especially at
Lampsacus.
PRODICUS. Sophist of Ceos, often at Athens, where Socrates is said to
have attended his lectures, about 430 B.C. Spoken of by Plato with
more respect than most sophists, and famous for his apologue of _The
Choice of Heracles_, between Pleasure and Virtue.
PROETUS. _See_ BELLEROPHON.
PROMETHEUS. Son of Iapetus, and therefore first cousin of Zeus, who
nailed him up on the Caucasus, and instructed an eagle to devour his
liver, which grew again each night. The provocation had been threefold:
(1) Prometheus, forming clay figures, had persuaded Athene to breathe
life into them, and thus created man; (2) he had stolen fire from
Heaven for the use of man; (3) by dividing a slain animal into two
portions, one consisting of bones wrapped up in fat, the other of the
lean parts, and persuading Zeus to choose the former as his share, he
had secured the more desirable portion of sacrificial animals for man.
The confusion of the sexes alluded to in the _Literary Prometheus_
(7) is perhaps drawn from Plato's account in the _Symposium_ of the
creation of double beings, who possessed the characteristics of both
sexes, and referred by Lucian to Prometheus on his own responsibility;
though in Phaedrus (Fables, iv. 14) Prometheus is charged with a
confusion of the sexes in a different sense.
PROTESILAUS. A Thessalian, son of Iphiclus, and the first Greek slain
by the Trojans. Permitted to return to life for a few hours to see his
wife Laodamia.
PROTEUS. The prophetic old man of the sea, from whom it was only
possible to obtain information by seizing him; this was difficult, as
he changed into many different shapes. Peregrine (whom see) took the
name of Proteus.
PTOLEMY (1). Son of Lagus, surnamed Soter. A general of Alexander, and
afterwards king of Egypt. Died 283 B.C.
PTOLEMY (2) Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Soter. Married his sister
Arsinoe, 309-247 B.C.
_Ptolemy_ (3) Dionysus. King of Egypt, 80-51 B.C.
PUZZLES. Lucian is never tired of ridiculing the verbal quibbles
in which the philosophers of his time indulged. He attributes them
especially to the Stoics, whose insistence on pure reason, as opposed
to emotion, for the guide of life, resulted in much attention to logic,
including its paradoxical forms. Among these logical puzzles are the
following: (1) Sorites, the heap trick. Suppose a heap of corn. Is it
a heap? Yes. Take a grain away. Is it a heap? Yes. And so on, till
only one grain is left. The drawing of the line is impossible. (2) The
Horns. If you have not lost a thing, you still have it? Certainly.
Have you lost your horns? No. Then you are horned. (3) The Crocodile.
A child is caught by a crocodile; the father asks him to give it back.
I will, says the crocodile, on condition that you tell me correctly
whether I shall do so or not. The dilemma is obvious. (4) The Day and
Night. This appears to be a proof that there is no such thing as night,
through the ambiguity in 'Day being, Night cannot be,' which in Greek,
though not in English, is equally natural in the sense of Since it is
day, it cannot be night, and, if day exists, night cannot. (5) The
Reaper. I will prove to you that you will not reap your corn, thus. If
you reap it, you will not either-reap-or-not-reap, but reap. If you do
not reap it, you will not either-reap-or-not-reap, but not reap. So in
each case you will not either reap or not reap, that is, there will be
no reaping. (6) The Rightful Owner. Unexplained; but _see_ Epictetus,
ii, xix. (7) and (8) The Electra, and The Man in the Hood, sufficiently
explained in _Sale of Creeds_ (22).
PYANEPSION. An Attic month.
PYLADES. Cousin and friend of Orestes.
PYRRHIAS. Stock name for a slave. Used jestingly in _Sale of Creeds_
instead of Pyrrho.
PYRRHO. Of Elis. About 300 B.C. Gave up painting to become a
philosopher, and was the founder of the Sceptics.
PYRRHUS. King of Epirus, 295-272 B.C. The greatest general of his
time, won several victories over the Romans.
PYTHAGORAS. Born at Samos, settled at Croton in Italy. 580-510 B.C.
The early Ionic philosophers, as Thales and Heraclitus, had found
the origin of all things in some one principle, as water, or fire.
Pythagoras found it in number and proportion; hence the name Order
(#kosmos#), which he first gave to the universe; hence also the
mystic importance attached to certain numbers, e.g. the Decad, called
Tetractys (which we have translated 'quaternion') as made by the
addition of the first four integers (1+2+3+4=10), and the Pentagram,
or figure resulting from the production of all the sides of a regular
pentagon till they intersect. Pythagoras had travelled in Egypt, and
perhaps brought thence his most famous doctrines of the immortality
of the soul and transmigration; he is said to have retained the
memory of his own previous existences, especially as Euphorbus the
Trojan, whose shield he recognized; human knowledge, for him as for
Plato, would be accounted for as recollection from earlier lives. He
instituted a brotherhood of his disciples, with elaborate training
and different degrees; and the Pythagorean 'Ipse dixit,' implying
that what the master had said was not open to argument, marks the
strict subordination; a novice had to observe silence for five years.
Pythagoras left no writings, and this, combined with the mystic
character of his speculations on number and his specially authoritative
position, gave occasion to innumerable legends, misrepresentations,
and extensions. The Pythagorean prohibition of beans as food has never
been explained; _see_ Mayor's note on Juv. xv. 174. The usual account
is that he thought the souls of his parents might be in them. The story
of his appearing at the Olympic games with a golden thigh is one of the
later legends illustrative of his supposed assumption of superhuman
qualities, which made him the model of impostors or half-impostors like
Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander of Abonutichus, or Paracelsus.
PYTHEAS. An Athenian orator, of disreputable character; an enemy of
Demosthenes.
PYTHON. An eloquent Byzantine orator in the pay of Philip of Macedon.
RHADAMANTHUS. Son of Zeus and Europa, and brother of Minos. After his
death, a judge in Hades.
RHEA, or CYBELE. Daughter of Uranus and Ge, wife of Cronus, and
mother of Zeus, Hera, Posidon, Pluto, Hestia, and Demeter. Her
worship, celebrated by the Corybantes and the Galli, was of a wild and
enthusiastic character. She is commonly represented as being drawn by
lions. _See also under_ ATTIS.
SABAZIUS. A Phrygian deity, of doubtful origin, commonly described as a
son of Rhea.
SALAMIS. An island off the west coast of Attica, the scene of a great
naval victory of the Athenians over the Persians in 480 B.C. It is to
this victory that the oracle refers, quoted in the _Zeus Tragoedus_.
SALII. The dancing priests of Mars, said to have been instituted by
Numa.
SALMONEUS. Son of Aeolus, and brother of Sisyphus. Zeus slew him with
the thunderbolt, for claiming sacrifice, and imitating the thunder and
lightning.
SAPPHO. A Lesbian poetess of the sixth century B.C. Taken as a type of
elegance in the _Portrait-Study_.
SARDANAPALUS. Last king of the Assyrian empire of Nineveh. Lucian's
favourite type of luxury and effeminacy.
SARPEDON. Son of Zeus and Laodamia, slain in the Trojan war by
Patroclus.
SATURNALIA. The feast of the Latin God Saturn, held in the month of
December. During the feast, all ranks devoted themselves to merriment,
presents were exchanged, and public gambling was officially recognized.
A mock king was also chosen, who could impose forfeits on his subjects.
Lucian does not speak of the Saturnalia by that name, but only of the
feast of Cronus, with whom Saturn was identified; and in some cases it
is possible that he refers to a feast of Cronus himself.
SATYRS. Beings connected with the worship of Dionysus, and represented
with snub noses, horns, and tails.
SCEPTICS. A school of philosophers founded by Pyrrho of Elis, who
flourished 325 B.C. Abstention from definition, and suspension of
judgement, were the guiding principles of the school.
SCHERIA. _See_ PHAEACIANS.
SCIRON. A robber who infested the frontier of Attica and Megara, and
compelled travellers to wash his feet upon the edge of the Scironian
precipice, kicking them over into the sea during the operation. He was
slain by Theseus.
SCOPAS. A famous sculptor of Paros, flourished 400-350 B.C.
SELENE. Goddess of the moon. Fell in love with Endymion.
SELEUCUS. Surnamed Nicator. First king of Syria, 312-280 B.C. For his
wife Stratonice _see_ ANTIOCHUS.
SEMELE. Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Beloved by Zeus. Incited by
the machinations of Hera, she prevailed upon Zeus against his will to
appear to her in all his splendour. His lightnings consumed her; but
the child Dionysus, with whom she was pregnant, was saved by Zeus, and
matured within his thigh.
SEMIRAMIS and her husband Ninus were the founders of the Assyrian
empire of Nineveh. Her date is placed at about 2000 B.C. She built
numerous cities.
SILENUS. A Satyr, son of Hermes or of Pan. Usually represented as
drunk, and riding on an ass, in attendance on Dionysus.
SIMONIDES. Of Ceos; a famous lyric poet, 556-467 B.C. Said to have
added four letters to the alphabet.
SISYPHUS. King of Corinth, fraudulent and avaricious. Punished in the
lower world by having to roll a stone up hill, which as soon as he
reached the top always fell to the bottom again.
SOCRATES. Son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete, 469-399 B.C. He
abandoned sculpture (his father's profession) for the study of
philosophy, in which he was remarkable for the preference that he gave
to ethics over physics, and for the method of dialectic, or logical
conversation carried on by means of question and answer, for the
purpose of eliciting accurate definition. He was frequently ridiculed
on the comic stage by Aristophanes and other poets. In 399 B.C. a
charge of impiety was brought against him by Anytus and Meletus, and
he was condemned to drink hemlock. Socrates served with credit at the
battle of Delium, 424 B.C. An oracle given to his disciple Chaerephon
pronounced Socrates to be the wisest of men: Socrates himself claimed
to know one thing only--that he knew nothing. Lucian alludes to his
favourite oaths, the dog and plane-tree. For the (Platonic) theory of
Ideas, and the community of women, _see_ PLATO.
SOLI. A city on the coast of Cilicia, proverbial for the bad Greek
spoken there.
SOLON. A famous Athenian legislator, 594 B.C. Said to have visited
Croesus of Lydia.
SOPHIST. At Athens this word denoted in particular a paid teacher of
grammar, rhetoric, politics, mathematics, &c. Lucian sometimes uses it
also for 'philosopher,' and perhaps sometimes in the modern sense of a
quibbler.
SOPHRONISCUS. Father of Socrates.
SPARTANS. Among the means adopted to train the youths in fortitude were
competitive scourgings at the altar of Artemis Orthia, which must be
endured without sign of distress.
STESICHORUS. Lyric poet of Himera, 612 B.C. Lost his sight after
lampooning Helen, and only recovered it by composing a retractation,
'palinode.'
STHENEBOEA. Another name for Antea; _see_ BELLEROPHON.
STOICS. School of philosophy, so called from the Stoa Poecile, or
Painted Porch, at Athens, in which Zeno their founder taught. Zeno,
Cleanthes, Chrysippus, were the first three heads, starting 310 B.C.
Stoicism was a great influence among the Romans, as with the emperor
M. Aurelius. Its aim was purely practical, to make man independent of
his surroundings. The 'wise man,' who formed his views on pure reason,
would recognize that virtue or duty was the only end, and that pleasure
and pain, wealth, power, and everything else that did not depend on
his own choice, were 'things indifferent.' He would ultimately attain
to 'apathy,' and be completely unmoved by the ordinary objects of
desire or aversion, being, in whatever external condition, the 'only
king,' the 'only happy.' They paid great attention to logic, much
reasoning being necessary to establish these paradoxes, whence their
reputation for verbal quibbles, and their elaborate technical terms
for the relations between sensation and the mental processes. Later
Stoics relaxed the severity of the 'indifference' doctrine by dividing
_indifferentia_ into _praeposita_ and _rejecta_; e.g. health was to
be preferred to sickness, though virtue was consistent with either.
This would open the door to the preference of wealth, and account for
Lucian's sneer at Stoic usurers. The Stoic physics was a materialistic
pantheism.
STRATONICE. See ANTIOCHUS.
STYX. 'Loathing,' one of the infernal rivers. The oath by it was the
only one that could bind the Immortals.
TAENARUM. Southern point of Greece, supposed way from earth to Hades.
TALENT. Sum of money, about £250.
TALOS (1). Nephew of Daedalus, famous artificer, worshipped as a hero
at Athens.
TALOS (2). A brazen man made by Hephaestus, given to Minos, and
employed as a sentinel to walk round Crete thrice daily.
TANAGRA. Town in Boeotia, famous for a breed of fighting cocks.
TELLUS. See _Charon_ (10).
TEREUS. Son of Ares and king of Thrace, committed bigamy with Procne
and Philomela, daughters of Pandion. The two wives were changed at
their own request to nightingale and swallow, and Tereus became a
hoopoe.
TEUCER. Step-brother of Ajax Telamonius, and best archer among the
Greeks at Troy.
THAIS. A famous Athenian courtesan, accompanied Alexander.
THAMYRIS. Thracian bard, blinded by the Muses for presuming to
challenge them.
THEANO (1). Wife of Antenor and priestess of Athene at Troy.
THEANO (2). Female philosopher of Pythagoras's school, perhaps his wife.
THEBE. A daughter of Prometheus, from whom Thebes had its name.
THEMISTOCLES. Saviour of Greece in the Persian war, 480-478 B.C.; he
convinced the Athenians that the famous oracle meant by 'wooden walls,'
and 'divine Salamis,' to promise a naval victory there if they trusted
to their fleet.
THEOPHRASTUS. Head of the Peripatetic school after Aristotle.
THEOPOMPUS. Of Chios, historian, of the fourth century B.C.
THERICLES. A Corinthian potter, of uncertain date.
THERSITES. A Greek at Troy, deformed, impudent, and a demagogue.
THESEUS. Son of Aegeus, king of Athens. Destroyed Sciron, Pityocamptes,
Cercyon, and other evil-doers. Slew the Minotaur (_see_ MINOS II) in
the Cretan Labyrinth, and escaped thence by means of the clue given to
him by Minos's daughter Ariadne, of whom he was enamoured, but whom
he afterwards deserted in Naxos, where she was found and married by
Dionysus. Made an expedition against the Amazons, and carried off their
queen Antiope, whose sister Hippolyta afterwards invaded Attica, but
was repelled by Theseus. By Antiope he had a son Hippolytus, with whom
his second wife Phaedra fell in love. Assisted by his friend Pirithoüs,
Theseus carried off Helen from Sparta, and kept her at Aphidnae.
THESMOPHORIA. Festival of Demeter at Athens.
THETIS. Mother of Achilles.
THYESTES. Son of Pelops and brother of Atreus. The latter, having been
wronged by him, killed and served up to him his own sons.
THYRSUS. A wand of the narthex plant, carried by the bacchantes, with
its head wreathed in vine or ivy, which concealed a steel point.
TIBIUS. Stock name for a slave.
TIMON. The Misanthrope, lived during the Peloponnesian war.
TIRESIAS. A Theban seer; was changed into a girl as the result of
striking two serpents. Seven years later, he recovered his sex in the
same way. Asked by Zeus and Hera to decide their dispute which sex was
constituted with stronger passions, said, the woman. Hera, offended,
blinded him; Zeus consoled him with the gift of prophecy. _See_
ODYSSEUS also.
TITANS. The dynasty previous to that of the Olympian Gods, till Zeus
deposed Cronus, and imprisoned him and the other children of Uranus and
Ge in Tartarus.
TITHONUS. The husband of Eos (Aurora), who gave him immortality, but
not immortal youth, whence the use of his name for a withered old man.
TITORMUS. An Aetolian shepherd of gigantic strength.
TITYUS. A giant punished by vultures in Hades for violence offered to
Artemis.
TRIBE. _See_ DEME.
TRIPTOLEMUS. Favourite of Demeter, who gave him a winged chariot and
seeds of wheat, which he scattered as he drove over the earth.
TRITON. A Sea-God, son of Posidon and Amphitrite.
TRITONIA. A name for Athene, of doubtful explanation.
TROPHONIUS. A mortal worshipped as a hero after death. His oracle was
consulted in a cave in Boeotia.
TYRO. For her story see _Dialogues of the Sea-Gods_, xiii. Lucian plays
on the name elsewhere (_tyrus_, cheese).
URANUS. _See_ CRONUS and GE.
VOLOGESUS III. _See_ PARTHIANS.
XENOCRATES. Distinguished philosopher of the Academy, friend of Plato
and Aristotle.
XERXES. King of Persia, 485-465 B.C. Invader of Greece, 480 B.C. His
bridge over the Hellespont and canal past Mount Athos were proverbially
foolish exercises of power.
ZAMOLXIS. A Thracian who, having been a slave of Pythagoras in Samos,
learned his doctrines, and communicated them to the Thracians after his
escape. He was deified in Thrace after death.
ZENO. _See_ STOICS.
ZENODOTUS. _See_ HOMER.
ZEUS. Son of Cronus, and of Rhea, who saved him at birth in the manner
described under CRONUS. With the help of the Cyclopes, who gave him
the thunderbolt, and of the Giants, he overthrew Cronus and the other
Titans, imprisoned them in Tartarus, and established himself as king
of the Gods. The Giants afterwards revolted, but were crushed with
the assistance of Hera. Zeus now became the father of Persephone by
Demeter, of the Muses by Mnemosyne, of Apollo and Artemis by Leto,
of Hebe, Ares, and Ilithyia by Hera, and of Athene, who was born
from his head. He was the lover also of the mortals, Danae, Semele,
Europa, Io, and many others, in various disguises. On one occasion
Posidon, Hera, and Athene conspired against him, but were frustrated
by Thetis and Briareus. Zeus in gratitude, at the request of Thetis,
punished the Greeks, for their ill-treatment of Achilles by persuading
Agamemnon, with a lying dream to make a premature attack upon Troy. His
superiority to the other Gods is expressed in the boast alluded to in
_Dialogues of the Gods_, xxi. Lucian also refers to the Cretan story,
according to which Zeus lay buried in that island. His usual attributes
are the sceptre, the eagle, and the thunderbolt. The famous statue of
Zeus at Olympia was by Phidias. In Egypt he was identified with Ammon.
ZEUXIS. Celebrated painter of Heraclea, 424-400 B.C.
ZOÏLUS. _See_ HOMER.
ZOPYRUS. A Persian who mutilated himself horribly to gain entrance to
Babylon and betray it to Darius.
ALPHABETICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
(Roman numerals indicate the volume, and Arabic the page.)
In this table all the titles are given in the English list. The
other lists are added for those to whom the Greek or Latin names are
familiar; but they do not contain the titles that are practically
identical with the English ones.
ENGLISH TITLES
Alexander ii 212
Anacharsis iii 190
Apology ii 27
Book-fancier iii 265
Charon i 167
Cock iii 105
Cynic iv 172
Defence iii 24
Demonax iii 1
Demosthenes iv 145
Dependent Scholar ii 1
Dialogues, Dead i 107
Dialogues, Gods i 62
Dialogues, Hetaerae iv 52
Dialogues, Sea-Gods i 90
Dionysus iii 252
Dipsas iv 26
Disinherited ii 183
Double Indictment iii 144
Fisher i 206
Fly iii 261
Gods in Council iv 165
Hall iv 12
Harmonides ii 99
Heracles iii 256
Hermotimus ii 41
Herodotus ii 90
Hesiod iv 30
Icaromenippus iii 126
Lapithae iv 127
Lexiphanes ii 263
Liar iii 230
Literary Prometheus i 7
Lower World i 230
Menippus i 156
Mourning iii 212
Nigrinus i 11
Pantomime ii 238
Parasite iii 167
Patriotism iv 23
Peregrine iv 79
Phalaris ii 201
Portrait-study iii 13
Prometheus i 53
Purist iv 181
Rhetorician iii 218
Runaways iv 95
Sacrifice i 183
Sale of Creeds i 190
Saturnalia iv 108
Scythian ii 102
Ship iv 33
Slander iv 1
Slip of Tongue ii 34
Swans iii 259
Timon i 31
Toxaris iii 36
True History ii 136
Tyrannicide ii 173
Vision i 1
Vowels i 26
Way to write ii 109
Zeus cross-examined iii 71
Zeus Tragoedus iii 80
Zeuxis ii 94
LATIN TITLES NOT READILY TO BE FOUND IN THE ENGLISH LIST
Abdicatus ii 183
Adversus indoctum iii 265
Bis accusatus iii 144
Calumniae non temere credendum iv 1
Cataplus i 230
De domo iv 12
De electro iii 259
De luctu iii 212
De mercede conductis ii 1
Deorum concilium iv 165
De sacrificiis i 183
De saltatione ii 238
Dialogi deorum i 62
Dialogi marini i 90
Dialogi meretricii iv 52
Dialogi mortuorum i 107
Fugitivi iv 95
Imagines iii 13
Iudicium vocalium i 26
Iupiter confutatus iii 71
Iupiter tragoedus iii 80
Muscae encomium iii 261
Navigium iv 33
Patriae encomium iv 23
Philopseudes iii 230
Piscator i 206
Pro imaginibus iii 24
Pro lapsu inter salutandum ii 34
Prometheus es in verbis i 7
Pseudosophista iv 181
Quomodo historia conscribenda sit ii 109
Rhetorum praeceptor iii 218
Somnium (Gallus) iii 105
Somnium (Vita Luciani) i 1
Symposium iv 127
Vera historia ii 136
Vitarum auctio i 190
GREEK TITLES NOT READILY TO BE FOUND IN THE ENGLISH LIST
#Alêthês historia# ii 136
#Halieus# i 206
#Apokêryttomenos# ii 183
#Biôn prasis# i 190
#Dikê phônêentôn# i 26
#Dis katêgoroumenos# iii 144
#Drapetai# iv 95
#Eikones# iii 13
#Enalioi dialogoi# i 90
#Hetairikoi dialogoi# iv 52
#Zeus elenchomenos# iii 71
#Theôn dialogoi# i 62
#Theôn ekklêsia# iv 165
#Kataplous# i 230
#Muias enkômion# iii 261
#Nekrikoi dialogoi# i 107
#Oneiros# iii 105
#Patridos enkômion# iv 23
#Peri thysiôn# i 183
#Peri orchêseôs# ii 238
#Peri penthous# iii 212
#Peri tou enypniou# i 1
#Peri tou êlektrou# iii 259
#Peri tou mê rhadiôs pisteuein diabolê# iv 1
#Peri tou oikou# iv 12
#Peri tôn epi misthô synontôn# ii 1
#Ploion# iv 33
#Pros ton apaideuton kai polla biblia ônoumenon# iii 265
#Pros ton eiponta Promêtheus ei en logois# i 7
#Pôs dei historian syngraphein# ii 109
#Rhêtorôn didaskalos# iii 218
#Symposion# iv 127
#Ta pros Kronon# iv 108
#Tyrannoktonos# ii 173
#Hyper tôn eikonôn# iii 24
#Philopseudês# iii 230
#Pseudosophistês# iv 181
OXFORD
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BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
_Oxford translation Series_
All volumes sold separately. Price 5s. net each.
¶ Greek **
HESIOD. _The Poems and Fragments._ By A. W. MAIR.
PLATO. _The Four Socratic Dialogues._ By BENJAMIN JOWETT, with Preface
by EDWARD CAIRD. Cheaper edition, 4s. 6d. net.
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on India paper, 10s. 6d. net.
PLATO. _Thirteen Epistles of Plato._ By L. A. POST.
PLATO. _Epinomis._ By J. HARWARD. _Shortly._
DEMOSTHENES. _Public Orations._ By A. W. PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE. Two vols.
8s. 6d. net.
ARISTOTLE. _Politics._ BY BENJAMIN JOWETT, with Introduction by H. W.
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MARCUS AURELIUS. _The Meditations._ By JOHN JACKSON, with Introduction
by CHARLES BIGG.
LUCIAN, By H. W. and F. G. FOWLER. Four vols. 16s. net.
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Two vols. 8s. 6d. net.
LONGINUS. _On the Sublime._ By A. O. PRICKARD.
MARK THE DEACON. _The Life of Porphyry of Gaza._ By G. F. HILL.
¶ Latin
CAESAR. _The Gallic War._ By F. P. LONG.
CAESAR. _The Civil War._ By F. P. LONG.
LUCRETIUS. _On the Nature of Things._ By CYRIL BAILEY.
VIRGIL. By JOHN JACKSON. On India paper, 7s. 6d. n.
HORACE. By E. C. WICKHAM. Out of print.
PROPERTIUS. By J. S. PHILLIMORE.
STATIUS. _The Silvae._ By D. A. SLATER.
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TACITUS. _The Dialogue, Agricola and Germania._ By W. HAMILTON FYFE.
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ALFRED. Version of the Consolations of Boethius. By W. J. SEDGEFIELD.
DANTE. _The Convivio._ By W. W. JACKSON.
DANTE. _The Divina Commedia._ By H. F. TOZER.
MACHIAVELLI. _The Prince._ By N. H. THOMSON.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were
silently corrected.
Punctuation normalized.
Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.
Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_.
Greek text is transliterated and enclosed in #number symbols#.
A double floral heart symbol is denoted by **.
Chapters V and VI of DIALOGUES OF THE HETAERAE were not
included.
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