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Title: Plutarch's Essays and Miscellanies (Vol. 5 of 5)
Author: Plutarch
Editor: William W. Goodwin
Release date: February 21, 2026 [eBook #78000]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1898
Credits: Wouter Franssen, Stephen Rowland, Brian Wilcox, The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES (VOL. 5 OF 5) ***
Transcriber’s notes:
Italic text is denoted _thus_.
The spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and accentuation are as the
original, except for apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
[Illustration: _Circe._
_From the painting by E. Burne-Jones._]
PLUTARCH’S ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES
Comprising all his Works Collected
under the Title of “Morals” · Translated
from the Greek by Several Hands
Corrected and Revised by WILLIAM
W. GOODWIN, Ph.D., Professor of
Greek Literature in Harvard University
In Five Volumes · Volume Five
[Illustration: HONOS ET VIRTUS]
BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN
AND COMPANY · MCMXI
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Copyright, 1898, 1905,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIFTH.
WITH THE TRANSLATORS’ NAMES.
OF EATING OF FLESH.
BY WILLIAM BAXTER, GENT.
The very idea of eating the carcasses of slain animals is repulsive,
8. Who could have begun the practice, but from the direst necessity?
4. Men must have been driven to the deed of slaying animals for food,
because the supply of food from the vegetable world had utterly
failed, 4, 5. We have no such necessity, 5. Man is not by nature
a carnivorous animal, 7. Our conduct in slaying animals and then
preparing them for food is wholly against nature, 8. Animal food is
injurious: it clogs and confuses the mind and renders it stupid, 9.
It operates unfavorably on character, 9, 10. If we must eat flesh,
let it be with sorrow and pity; not tormenting and abusing the poor
animal before taking its life, 11. Passing the bounds of nature in
our feeding, intemperate appetites and shameful lusts are gratified,
12. Cruelty to mankind is induced, 12. Animals have senses; they
have faculties for seeing, hearing, understanding: is it right to
extinguish these faculties? 13. Who knows but the bodies of animals
may contain the souls of deceased men; of a father, brother, son, or
other friend? 14, 15.
LIVES OF THE TEN ORATORS.
BY CHARLES BARCROFT, LECTURER OF ST. MILDRED’S, BREAD STREET.
1. Antiphon, 17-21. 2. Andocides, 21-23. 3. Lysias, 24-26. 4.
Isocrates, 27-33. 5. Isaeus, 33. 6. Aeschines, 34-36. 7. Lycurgus,
36-42. 8. Demosthenes, 43-53. 9. Hyperides, 53-57. 10. Dinarchus, 57,
58. Decrees proposed to the Athenians for statues to be set up to
Demosthenes, 58-63.
WHETHER AN AGED MAN OUGHT TO MEDDLE IN STATE AFFAIRS.
BY F. FETHERSTON, D.D.
It is maintained by some, that after a certain time men should not
employ themselves in public affairs, 64. The love of honor and zeal
for the public good never grows old, 65. It is not well for a man
who has never been accustomed to public business to commence such
employment late in life, 66. An aged man may usefully conduct public
affairs, as we see in the instances of Augustus Caesar, Pericles, and
Agesilaus, 67, 68. Simonides and Sophocles, in old age, were good
poets, 68. It is unworthy of a man who has served the public many
years, to descend, in the decline of life, to mean employments, 69,
70. Political life has pleasures very great and honorable, 71. A man
should not suffer his glory to wither in old age, 72. Reputation once
acquired is easily maintained, and the people readily trust their
old and faithful servants, 73. Envy and jealousy do not assail old
age, 73, 74. It is not easy to terminate a long and faithful public
service, 74. An old man staying at home, and spending his time in
small matters is not honored, 75. Old men, full of experience and
of wisdom, are often compelled by their fellow-citizens to conduct
difficult negotiations, 76. Old age of itself is not a good reason
for quitting the public service, 77, 78. Young men for war, but
old men for counsel, 78. The Roman council of state is called the
Senate, 79. The regal dignity has cares and toils, but who would
advise the king to abdicate? 80. Old men in office may instruct and
guide younger statesmen, 81, 82. Old men are often hale and vigorous,
and so not disabled for the service of the state, 83. Examples of
Phocion, Masinissa, and Cato, 83. Idleness enervates even great men,
as Lucullus, while constant employment invigorates, 84. Our country
has claims on our services, 85. Yet old age should have becoming
employment, 86. An aged man should abstain from small and frivolous
matters, 87. Offices of honor and dignity befit old men, 88. They
should not eagerly seek office, 88. Old men should not be forward to
speak in public, they should speak on grave occasions, 89. On other
occasions, let them yield to younger men, 89, 90. Let them comfort
and encourage deserving young men in their failures, 91. To be a
statesman is not only to hold office and conduct negotiations, but
also to guide, instruct, and assist those who conduct public affairs,
when occasion requires, 93, 94. Even men in private stations may do
this, and thus serve their country till death, 95, 96.
POLITICAL PRECEPTS.
BY SAMUEL WHITE, M.D.
Counsels to a politician, 97. In the administration of public
affairs, be guided by reason and judgment, 98. Act not from
vain-glory, emulation, or want of other employment, 98, 99.
Accommodate yourself to the temper and disposition of the citizens,
99, 100. Having obtained power among the people, endeavor to reform
their disposition, 101. Do not give them an opportunity of finding
fault with your own life or manners, 102. Beware of little faults,
102, 103. Cultivate the graces of speech, 104, 105. Orators sway the
multitude, as in the case of Pericles, 106, 107. What the speech of
a statesman should be, 107. How to use satire and invective, 108,
109. Think before you speak, and speak right on, 110. Speak in full,
round tones, 110, 111. Two ways of entering on public life, 111.
First, with a bold, vigorous hand, like Aratus, Alcibiades, Scipio,
Pompey, &c., 112. Secondly, by procuring the assistance of some man
of influence and authority, 114. Be careful in the choice of your
man, lest your success inspire him with jealousy, 115. Pompey owed
his success to Sylla, 115. Avoid flatterers and favorites, 116. Do
not gratify friends in derogation of law and right, 117. Grant favors
to friends when consistent with duty and public advantage, 120. Be
generous and just towards your enemies, 121, 123. Let patriotism
overshadow all private griefs, 122. How to meet invective, 124. Allow
others to assist in public affairs, 128. Undertake nothing for which
you lack qualification, 128, 129. Keep the helm in your own hand,
but carry yourself with moderation; do not forget the limits of your
power, 130, 131. As Greece is under the Roman sway, it is well to
remember that fact, and to cultivate the favor of some powerful man
at Rome, 132. Yet you should avoid, as much as possible, foreign
interference, 133. Let the affairs of every city be settled by its
own citizens, 133. When commotions arise, try to compose them, 134.
One man’s virtue has often saved a state, 135. Treat colleagues in
office with honor and respect, 136. Plutarch relates an incident in
his own life, 137. Honor the magistrates, even if you are personally
their superior, 138. If a magistrate should be remiss in duty, do
what you can to supply the defect, 139. Yield to the multitude in
small things, that you may hinder their misdoings in greater, 140.
When the people desire something which would be injurious to the
state, use evasion and delay, 141. When about to undertake some
difficult affair, secure the assistance of well-qualified persons,
rather than of persons like yourself, 142. Divest yourself of the
desire for riches, and of a mean, ignoble ambition, 143, 144. Decline
not the honors which the people are disposed to bestow, 145, 146. The
good-will of the people towards a public servant helps him greatly
in the discharge of his duty, 147. If you are rich, and can give
largesses to the people, bestow them, but with due care, 148. If
you are poor, hesitate not to confess it, and incur no expense you
cannot afford, 149, 150. In case of a sedition, try to compose it,
152. Especially try to prevent seditions and commotions, 153. In the
present state of Greece, subject to the will of a Roman proconsul, no
good can arise from public commotions, 154.
WHICH ARE THE MOST CRAFTY, WATER-ANIMALS OR THOSE CREATURES THAT
BREED UPON THE LAND?
BY JOHN PHILIPS, GENT.
Field sports, the slaughter of wild and at length of tame animals,
prepared the way for men to kill one another, 158. Have brutes a
soul? they certainly have sense and imagination, 160. They learn to
desire some things and to avoid others, 161. They have expectation,
memory, design, hope, fear, desire, and grief, 161. If they have
sense, they have understanding, 161. They have what in men is
called understanding, 162. Men punish dogs and horses for their
faults, as if for the purpose of producing repentance, 162. Beasts
are susceptible of pleasure, joy, anger, fear, 163. But are they
capable of virtue? 163. They love their offspring, 164. They may have
reason, and yet not have it perfectly, or in a high degree, 164. As
sight and swiftness exist in different degrees, so may reason and
mental force, 165. Animals differ widely in their faculties, as in
their habits, 165. Many brute animals excel men in the faculties
of sight and hearing, as well as in swiftness and strength; but we
may not therefore say that men are blind, &c., 166. There are mad
dogs and horses; what is this but a disturbance of the reason? 167.
Mankind are chargeable with great injustice in dealing with beasts
as they do, 169. There is a necessary and convenient use of the
brute creation, 169, 170. Beyond this, we ought not to go, 170. In
the exercise of what so nearly resembles reason, do land animals
excel those that live in the water? 172. There is sufficient reason
to believe that they do, 173. Observe the habits of bulls, lions,
and elephants, 173. Of the ichneumon, of swallows, and spiders,
174. Of bees, crows, geese, and cranes, 175. The contrivances and
labors of emmets, 176, 177. The sagacity of the elephant and the fox,
178, 179. The affection of the dog for his master; some striking
instances related, 180, 181. Story of a mule at Athens, 182. Another
dog story, 182, 183. The elephant that carried King Porus, 183. The
horse Bucephalus, 183. Where there is one virtue in a brute, there
are commonly others, 183, 184. Instances of subtlety and cunning,
184-186. Elephants and lions have a taste for society, 187. Amorous
propensities of some brutes towards mankind; singular instances
given, 188. Starlings, magpies, and parrots learn to talk, 188, 189.
Swans and nightingales sing, 189. Story of a magpie at Rome imitating
the music of trumpets exactly, 190. Wonderful docility of a dog, 191.
Men have learned of the spider to weave; of the swallow to build;
and have acquired from other animals skill in medicine, 191, 192.
Some oxen have learned to count, 193. Soothsaying and divination is
by means of birds, 194. What now can be said of the sagacity and
intelligence of fishes and other water-animals? living in the sea,
and remote from our observation, they are but little known to us,
195. Crocodiles come when called, 196. Fish are not easily caught,
a proof of great cunning and wariness, 197, 198. Fish stand by and
defend each other in danger, 199. Sagacity of the dolphin and the
cuttle-fish, 200. Subtlety of the fish in taking their own prey,
the torpedo, polypus, and others, 201, 202. Sagacity of the tunny,
203, 204. Mutual affection of the crocodile and the trochilus, 206.
Sagacity of fish in depositing their spawn, 207, 208. Care of the
tortoise and crocodile for their young, 209, 210. Intelligence and
conjugal affection of the halcyon, 211, 212. Story of a dolphin
which served as a guide to messengers of Ptolemy Soter, king of
Egypt, 213, 214. The dolphin, a solitary instance among the brutes of
disinterested love for man, 214. Stories of affectionate dolphins,
215, 216.
THAT BRUTE BEASTS MAKE USE OF REASON.
BY SIR A. J.
A satire on the boasted wisdom, fortitude, magnanimity, and
temperance of man, in the form of a dialogue between Ulysses in the
island of Circe, and Gryllus, whom she had changed into a swine, and
who now prefers his swinish condition to a return to the human form;
Ulysses asks Circe for permission to restore his companions to the
human shape, 218. Circe will grant the request if the men themselves
desire it, 219. Gryllus, one of them, is brought forward to answer in
behalf of the entire company, 219. He refuses, and gives his reasons,
220, et seq. He says that by making him and his companions beasts,
Circe has done them a great favor, 220. Beasts have more fortitude
than men; they fight in fair, open combat, without trick or artifice;
they are no cowards, they never cry for mercy, 222. Beasts are
courageous and daring, even the females; while the courage of men is
artificial, and women are timid, 223, 224. Beasts are more temperate
and chaste than men; they indulge their appetites only in a natural
way, and at the proper season, 225, 226, 228. Beasts do not value
silver or gold, 227. They have no adventitious desires, 227. Their
senses are more accurate, 227. Men are incontinent: they indulge
unnatural and excessive appetites; are never satisfied, 229, 230.
Beasts are satisfied with one kind of food, and this procured without
difficulty; they have nature for their teacher, and could teach men
many useful lessons, 231, 232.
OF THE FACE APPEARING WITHIN THE ORB OF THE MOON.
BY A. G., GENT.
In abstruse speculations, if we fail of satisfaction in one
direction, we must inquire in another, 234. A face or form is seen
in the moon; how is this to be explained? 234. The appearance of a
form in the moon is not the result of any acuteness or dulness of
our vision, 234, 235. The appearance in question some think may be
a reflection of the ocean from the moon’s disc, 236. This opinion
refuted, 236, 237. Some think the moon to be a compound of air and
fire, a disturbance of which causes the appearance in question, 238.
This notion disproved, 238, 239, 242. That the earth is a larger body
than the moon, is shown by eclipses of the moon, 241. The moon must
be a solid body, though much lighter than the earth, 241, 242. The
spherical form of the earth, the antipodes, and all motion tending
towards the earth’s centre, are pronounced absurdities, 243, 244.
The moon is not far from the earth, and feels its influence, though
not of the same substance, 245, 246. Computation of the respective
distances of the sun and moon from the earth, 246. The spherical form
of the earth again denied, 247. If the earth is in the middle, of
what is it the middle? not of the universe, surely, 247. Relations
of bodies _above_ and _beneath_, 248. We are not, in our philosophy,
to reduce every thing to the place to which it naturally belongs,
249, 250. All things do not follow their natural course, 250. In the
human body the heaviest parts are not placed lowermost, 251. So it
may be in the structure of the world, 252. The moon, though placed in
high heaven, may be a heavy body, 253. It is not therefore composed
of fire and air, 253. But has the moon the nature of earth? 254.
Does the moon reflect the light of the sun? 255. Reasons why this is
probable, 256. When the moon appears only half-enlightened, ought not
the light reflected to come at right angles? and is it so? 256-258.
Aspect of the moon when gibbous or crescent, 258. Only solid bodies
reflect light; the moon therefore must be a solid body, 259, 260.
That the moon is a solid body is farther proved by eclipses of the
sun, 260-262. Size of the moon; as large as Peloponnesus, 261. Its
proportionate size in relation to the earth, 261. Further arguments
from eclipses, 263-265. Objections answered, 266-268. The moon is
not a star, or a burning body, 266. Its nature is like that of the
earth, 268. This need not impugn her divinity, 268. There may be
cavities and other inequalities on the surface of the moon, and these
may be immensely large, so as to be seen by us, 269. The shadow of
Mount Athos falls on Lemnos, the shadow being immensely larger than
the mountain, 270. An objection from this answered, 270-273. Is the
moon inhabited? is it fit for the abode of animated beings? 274,
275. Answer, (1.) If it be not, it does not prove that the moon was
made in vain, 276. (2.) The moon may be inhabited: we can see no
reasons to the contrary, 277-279. Objections considered, 277, 278.
That the moon is inhabited is not more incredible than that the ocean
should be inhabited, 280. A description of the isle Ogygia, in the
Western Ocean, the abode of Saturn; its inhabitants; the phenomena
and customs of the place, 281-283. Man is compounded of three parts:
the body, the soul, and the understanding, 286. The understanding is
from the sun, the soul from the moon, that is from Proserpine, 286.
Every soul, dismissed from the body, wanders for a time between the
earth and the moon, 286. When they reach the moon, they behold its
greatness and beauty, 288. The moon described as it appears to them,
289. The Elysian fields are there, 289. If any of the dwellers there
commit a fault, they are thrust down to earth again, 289. After a
long time, they come back to the moon, 291. This about the moon may
be taken for what one pleases, 292.
OF FATE.
BY THE SAME HAND.
Fate is either (1) an energy, a law, an act, 293; or (2) a substance,
the soul of the world, 294. Though comprehending infinite, it is
itself finite, for law is in its nature finite, 294, 295. Every
thing moves in a circle; all beings and all actions that now exist
will come around again: we shall again do what we are now doing, and
in the same manner, 295. Fate, the Divine Law, the Law of Nature,
determines all things, 296. It determines both conditionally and
universally, 297. What relation has Fate to Divine Providence?
what to fortune? what to human ability? what to contingent events?
298. As the civil law comprehends and relates to many things which
are not lawful, so it is with Fate, 298. The words _possible_ and
_contingent_ defined; also _power_, _necessity_, &c., 299, 300. Of
causes: some are causes _per se_, others are causes by accident, 301.
Fortune is a cause by accident, 302. Fortune is not the same thing
as Chance, though Chance comprehends Fortune, 303. Fortune relates
to men only; Chance includes things animate and inanimate, 303. Of
Divine Providence: (1) the will of the Supreme Deity; (2) the will
of the subordinate deities; (3) the will of the Daemons, 304. Of the
Providence of the Supreme God, 305. Of the Providence of the inferior
gods, 306. Of the Providence of the Daemons, 307, 308.
CONCERNING THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF COLD.
BY F. FETHERSTON, D.D.
Is cold the mere privation of heat? 309. This is denied, for cold
seems to act on fluids and on solids: like heat or other actual
substances, it has a productive power, 310. Further, a mere privation
is not capable of degrees; but cold exists in different degrees,
310. A privation is nothing; cold is something, 311. A privation
is not the object of any of our senses; but cold can be felt,
311. Privation is something single and simple; substances have
differences, continually varying; and thus it is with cold, therefore
cold must be a substance, 312. Cold acts as a substance; it resists
heat, and overcomes it or is vanquished by it, 312. As there are four
elements, of which all things are composed, so there should be four
qualities, heat and cold, drought and moisture, 313. What sort of
substance is cold? 314. The air, when it becomes dark, becomes also
cold, 315. The freezing of water is caused by cold air, 316. Great
rivers and lakes are not frozen to the bottom, because the air does
not reach so far; the power of cold is therefore as many think, from
the air, 317; but this is doubtful, 318. Water makes things black;
air makes them white, 318. Oil is transparent because so much air is
in it, 318. It does not easily freeze, 319. Cold things are always
heavy, 319. Fire and water are opposites, 320. In winter, heat is
driven inward by cold, 321. It is driven downward from the surfaces
of great rivers, 321. Several considerations show that water, and
not air, is the cause of cold, 322. Water is cold of itself, being
the opposite of fire, 323. Opinion of Chrysippus combated, 324. The
earth, because it is dark, might be considered the cause of cold,
324, 325. But many hot things are dark, 326. Cold makes things hard,
heavy, rigid, and capable of resistance: the earth is therefore the
source of cold, 326, 327. Several considerations which seem to prove
that heat exists in every thing except the earth, and that cold
proceeds as a substance from the earth; which, and the whole subject,
in conclusion, is left in doubt, to be decided as the reader pleases.
327-330.
WHETHER WATER OR FIRE BE MOST USEFUL.
BY THE SAME HAND.
1. Arguments of the superior usefulness of Water: We need it at all
times and in all places; it is not so with fire. Water was given to
man at his first creation; fire was introduced by Prometheus. Some
men and all brute animals can live without fire, but not without
water. Fire is often pernicious; water never. Fire cannot be kept up
without expense; water requires no expense. Water, or the sea, is the
great civilizer of man, 331-334. 2. Arguments in behalf of Fire: Heat
is the exciting cause of vegetation; water becomes putrid when fire
leaves it; animals perish without heat; death is only the absence
of heat; water is made more useful by fire; the arts cannot exist
without fire, 334-337.
AGAINST COLOTES, THE DISCIPLE AND FAVORITE OF EPICURUS.
BY A. G., GENT.
Occasion of this tract; a book written by Colotes, 338. Plutarch
undertakes to answer it, and why, 339, 340. Colotes wrongly
represents Democritus, 341. Our senses give us true information, but
it does not follow that the different qualities which are perceived
in the same object by different persons prove that nothing is of one
nature more than another, 341-343. This argument further applied,
344. Does color exist in the dark? 344, 345. Doctrine of Democritus
concerning atoms, 346. Are atoms immutable and impassible? 347,
348. How then can any thing be generated? 348. Is generation the
mere union of atoms? 348. According to Colotes life cannot exist,
349. His doctrines virtually abolish nature, 349. Is nature nothing
distinct from bodies and their place? 350. Is death nothing but that
which dies? 350. Empedocles defended from the misrepresentations
of Colotes, 350, 351. Parmenides also defended, 352-354. A thing
positively existing distinguished from its sensible qualities, 354.
Aristotle and the Peripatetics differed from Plato, 355. Colotes
misrepresents Plato, 355, 356. Difference between that which exists
by itself, and that which participates of something else; or between
essence and form, 356-359. Colotes falls at the feet of Epicurus,
360. Epicurus accepts the homage, 360. Disparagement of Socrates by
Colotes, 361. Though our senses are not perfect, they may in general
be safely relied on, 362. If self-knowledge is valuable, Colotes is
blamable for scoffing at those who seek it, 363. Stilpo defended
against Colotes, 365-367. That one thing cannot be predicated of
another may not endanger life, 365. It is bad to withhold reverence
and worship from the gods, as Colotes and the Epicureans do, 366.
Colotes assaults the philosophers of his own time, 367. He condemns
even the opinions of Epicurus, when he finds them held by others,
368, 369. The Cyrenaic philosophers ridiculed, 369. Arcesilaus
unfairly treated by Colotes, 371. Three sorts of motions in the soul:
what they are; their influence, 371, 372. Absurdity of Epicureanism,
373. The opinions of Epicurus tend to universal scepticism, 374. It
is well and safe in some cases to withhold our assent, and to doubt
in matters which do not appear credible, as did Arcesilaus and his
followers, 371-376. Safety of believing and following the doctrines
of Socrates, Plato, and the Academy, 377. Degradation and danger
resulting from the doctrines of Epicurus, 377, 378. Those doctrines
fatal to the state, 379. No people, no city, is found without some
religion, but Epicureanism subverts all religion, 380. Great public
spirit of Democritus, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, and others, who
are reviled by Colotes and other Epicureans, 381, 382. Men of the
school of Epicurus do not contribute to the public welfare, 383-385.
PLUTARCH’S CONSOLATORY LETTER TO HIS WIFE.
BY ROBERT MIDGLEY, M.D., AND COLL. MED. LOND. CAND.
He counsels patience, 386. The child was affectionate and
interesting; her memory should be cherished, 387. The mother is
commended for controlling her grief; excessive grief is unreasonable,
388. The mother’s admirable conduct on the previous death of her
eldest son, 389. Women are frantic with joy at the birth of their
children, and mourn excessively at their death, 389, 390. The body
should not suffer through grief, 390. Women nourish and increase the
grief of bereaved wives and mothers, by their tears and lamentations
when visiting them; Plutarch does not fear this in the present case,
390. We should remember the pleasure our deceased child has afforded
us, 391. True happiness arises from the mind itself, and not from
external circumstances, 392. You have much left to comfort you, 392.
State of the soul after death; the soul will return to earth in a new
body; an early death is desirable, 393, 394.
OF THE THREE SORTS OF GOVERNMENT,—MONARCHY, DEMOCRACY, AND OLIGARCHY.
BY R. SMITH, M.A.
Which of these three sorts is best? 395. The word _policy_ or
government defined, 396. The Persians had monarchy; Sparta had
an oligarchy; Athens was a democracy: and all were powerful and
prosperous, 397. The author prefers monarchy, 398.
WHETHER THE ATHENIANS WERE MORE RENOWNED FOR THEIR WARLIKE
ACHIEVEMENTS OR THEIR LEARNING.
BY THE SAME HAND.
Historians, even the most admired and popular, only relate the
actions of other men, 399. Athens was the nurse of History, of
Painting, and of Poetry; and has derived great reputation thereby,
400, 401. But what are historians, painters, and poets, compared
with the generals, admirals, and statesmen, whom they commemorate?
402, 403. Athens not renowned for epic or lyric verse, 404. Tragedy
flourished there, but what benefit did tragedy procure for the
Athenians? 405. They lavished money on scenes and shows, to the
neglect of more important interests, 406. True renown belongs to
those commanders who have upheld the honor of their country, and
they merit a lasting remembrance, 407, 408. But not so poets,
rhetoricians, and orators, 408-411. Miltiades and other commanders,
compared with Demosthenes and other orators, to the disadvantage of
the latter 408-411.
AGAINST RUNNING IN DEBT, OR TAKING UP MONEY UPON USURY.
BY THE SAME HAND.
Running in debt should not be resorted to but in the last necessity,
412. To avoid it, practise the closest economy, 413. The borrower
is slave to the lender, 414, 415. Usurers are chargeable with
oppression, fraud, and falsehood, 416, 417. They take a man’s money
without an equivalent, 417. It is shameful to be in the power of
another, 418. We incur debt, not to procure necessaries, but to
purchase ornaments and superfluities, 420. We must avoid the usurer
or be ruined, 421-424.
PLATONIC QUESTIONS.
BY R. BROWN, M.L.
1. Why did Socrates act the midwife’s part, rather than the parent’s?
in other words, why did he prefer to develop in the minds of others
the germs of knowledge, rather than communicate knowledge to them?
425-427. 2. Why does Plato call the supreme God the Father and Maker
of all things? 428, 429. 3. What does Plato, in his Republic, mean
by dividing the universe into unequal parts? and of the sections,
thus made, which is the greater, the Intelligible or the Sensible?
429-432. 4. Plato always says that the Soul is elder than the Body,
and the cause and principle of its rise. Yet he also says that
neither could the Soul exist without the Body, nor the Reason without
the Soul, but the Soul in the Body, and the Reason in the soul. How
can this be explained? 432. 5. Since geometrical figures and solids
are contained, partly by Rectilinears and partly by Circles, why does
Plato make Isosceles Triangles and Triangles of unequal sides the
Principles of Rectilinears, &c.? 433-435. 6. Why does Plato say that
the nature of a Wing participates most of the Body of God? 435. 7.
In what sense does Plato say that the Antiperistasis, or Reaction,
of Motion, is the cause of the effect, in using cupping-glasses, in
swallowing, in throwing of weights, in the use of the loadstone, &c.?
435-438. 8. What does he mean in the Timaeus when he says that Souls
are dispersed into the Earth, the Moon, and into other instruments
of time? Is the Earth, is the Sun, an instrument of time? 438-441.
9. Did Plato, in his Republic, place the Rational or the Irascible
Faculty in the middle chord of the human faculties? 441-444. 10.
Why did he say that Speech is composed of Nouns and Verbs? 444-449.
Because they are the principal elements, _ib._
PARALLELS, OR A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE GREEK AND ROMAN HISTORIES.
BY JOHN OSWALD, M.A.
1. Invasion of Attica by Datis; the story of Cynaegirus, matched with
the story of a Roman, 450, 451. 2. Invasion of Greece by Xerxes; war
of Porsena against Rome; a story under each, 451, 452. 3. Combat
of the Argives with the Lacedaemonians in Thyreatis; defeat of the
Romans at the Caudine Forks, 452, 453 4. Leonidas at Thermopylae;
Fabius Maximus in the Punic War, 453. 5. Chasms in the earth closed
by men leaping into them, 454. 6. Amphiaraus, and Valerius Conatus,
swallowed up alive by the earth, 455. 7. A king of Euboea, and a king
of Alba, drawn in pieces by horses, 455. 8. Philip of Macedon and
Aster the archer, Porsena of Clusium and Horatius Cocles, 456. 9.
Saturn and his four children, 456, 457. 10. Pausanias, the Spartan
traitor, and Cassius, a Roman traitor, both starved to death, 457.
11. Filial treachery in Persian and in Roman history, and its
punishment, 458. 12. A son of Epaminondas, the Theban general, and a
son of Manlius, the Roman consul, beheaded for disobeying the orders
of their fathers, 458, 459. 13. Iole, the beloved of Hercules, threw
herself from a wall without hurt; this story matched from Roman
history, 459. 14. The sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis, matched among
the Romans, 459, 460. 15. The story of Tarpeia, promising to betray
the Roman capitol, matched at Ephesus, 460. 16. The combat of the
Horatii and Curiatii in Roman history has a parallel in Tegea, 460,
461. 17. The Palladium in Ilium and in Rome, 461. 18. Codrus of
Athens, and Decius of Rome, 462. 19. A Syracusan and a Roman, each
having refused worship to Bacchus, are intoxicated to commit incest,
and are slain, 462, 463. 20. A daughter of Erechtheus, and a daughter
of Marius, sacrificed by their fathers to procure victory, 463. 21.
A Thessalian wife, and a Sybarite wife, torn in pieces by dogs of
their husbands, 463, 464. 22. Two maidens, a Greek and a Roman, who
had carnal knowledge of their fathers; their punishment, 464, 465.
23. Diomedes and Calpurnius Crassus liberated from captivity by women
who loved them, 465. 24. Priam commits his son to the care of one
who murdered him; the story matched in Roman history, 465, 466. 25.
Aeacus and his two sons; Caius Maximus and his two sons, 466. 26.
Mars, and his lascivious misdoings in Greece and Italy, 466, 467.
27. Telamon deflowers a virgin, whose father orders her to be thrown
into the sea; a parallel at Rome, 467. 28. Six sons and six daughters
in two different families; incest of a brother with a sister, 467,
468. 29. Two cases of men having carnal knowledge of brutes, and
what followed, 468. 30. As the price of peace women are given up to
the embraces of the enemy, 468, 469. 31. The allowance of soldiers
shortened in war, and the fatal result to him who did it, 469. 32.
Romulus murdered in the senate, and his body carried away in pieces;
a parallel in the Peloponnesian war, 470. 33. Pelops and his two
sons, Atreus and Thyestes, their story; a parallel in Italy, 470,
471. 34. Theseus and his son Hippolytus; the latter is killed by
his horses running away: a parallel in Italy, 471, 472. 35. A noble
virgin to be sacrificed to obtain relief from pestilence: an instance
in Lacedaemon, another in Falerii, 472, 473. 36. The story of Romulus
and Remus suckled by a she-wolf: a parallel in Arcadia, 473. 37.
Orestes slays his mother, in revenge of his father’s death: a similar
story from Rome, 474. 38. Strangers murdered by Busiris in Egypt,
and by Faunus in Italy, 474. 39. A brazen cow made for Phalaris of
Agrigentum, a brazen horse for a tyrant of Egesta, 474, 475. 40.
Evenus cannot keep his daughter a virgin: neither can Anius, king of
the Tuscans, 475.
OF THE NAMES OF RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS, AND OF SUCH THINGS AS ARE TO BE
FOUND THEREIN.
BY R. WHITE, M.A.
1. Hydaspes, a river in India, why it received the name, &c., 477,
478. 2. Ismenus, a river of Boeotia, Cadmus, mount Cithaeron,
Tisiphone, &c., 478-480. 3. Hebrus, a river of Thrace; mount
Pangaeus, 480, 481. 4. Ganges, the mountain Anatole, 481, 482. 5.
Phasis, a river of Thrace; mount Caucasus, 482-484. 6. Arar, a river
of Gaul; mount Lugdunum, 484, 485. 7. Pactolus, in Lydia; mount
Tmolus, 485-487. 8. Lycormas, in Aetolia, 487. 9. Maeander, in Asia;
mount Sipylus, 488, 489. 10. Marsyas, in Phrygia, 490. 11. Strymon,
in Thrace; the mountains Rhodope and Haemus, 491, 492. 12. Sagaris,
in Phrygia, 492. 18. Scamander, in Troas; mount Ida, 493. 14. Tanais,
in Scythia; mount Brixaba, 494. 15. Thermodon, in Scythia, 495. 16.
Nile, formerly Melas and Aegyptus, 495-497. 17. Eurotas, in Laconia;
mount Taygetus, 497, 498. 18. Inachus, in Argolis; mount Mycenae,
&c., 498-501. 19. Alpheus, in Arcadia; mount Cronium, 501, 502. 20.
Euphrates, 502. 21. Caicus, in Mysia; mount Teuthras, 503, 504.
22. Achelous, in Aetolia; mount Calydon, 504, 505. 23. Araxes, in
Armenia; mount Diorphus, 506, 507. 24. Tigris; mount Gauran, 507,
508. 25. Indus; mount Lilaeus, 508, 509.
INDEX. 511
PLUTARCH’S MORALS.
VOL. V.
PLUTARCH’S MORALS.
OF EATING OF FLESH.
TRACT I.
1. You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras abstained
from eating of flesh. I for my part do much admire in what humor, with
what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter,
and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set
before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give
those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before
lowed, cried, moved, and saw; how his sight could endure the blood of
slaughtered, flayed, and mangled bodies; how his smell could bear their
scent; and how the very nastiness happened not to offend the taste,
while it chewed the sores of others, and participated of the saps and
juices of deadly wounds.
Crept the raw hides, and with a bellowing sound
Roared the dead limbs; the burning entrails groaned.[1]
This indeed is but a fiction and fancy; but the fare itself is truly
monstrous and prodigious,—that a man should have a stomach to creatures
while they yet bellow, and that he should be giving directions which of
things yet alive and speaking is fittest to make food of, and ordering
the several manners of the seasoning and dressing them and serving them
up to tables. You ought rather, in my opinion, to have enquired who
first began this practice, than who of late times left it off.
2. And truly, as for those people who first ventured upon eating of
flesh, it is very probable that the whole reason of their so doing was
scarcity and want of other food; for it is not likely that their living
together in lawless and extravagant lusts, or their growing wanton and
capricious through the excessive variety of provisions then among them,
brought them to such unsociable pleasures as these, against Nature.
Yea, had they at this instant but their sense and voice restored to
them, I am persuaded they would express themselves to this purpose.
“Oh! happy you, and highly favored of the Gods, who now live! Into what
an age of the world are you fallen, who share and enjoy among you a
plentiful portion of good things! What abundance of things spring up
for your use! What fruitful vineyards you enjoy! What wealth you gather
from the fields! What delicacies from trees and plants, which you may
gather! You may glut and fill yourselves without being polluted. As
for us, we fell upon the most dismal and affrighting part of time,
in which we were exposed by our first production to manifold and
inextricable wants and necessities. As yet the thickened air concealed
the heaven from our view, and the stars were as yet confused with a
disorderly huddle of fire and moisture and violent fluxions of winds.
As yet the sun was not fixed to an unwandering and certain course,
so as to distinguish morning and evening, nor did he bring back the
seasons in order crowned with wreaths from the fruitful harvest. The
land was also spoiled by the inundations of disorderly rivers; and a
great part of it was deformed with sloughs, and utterly wild by reason
of deep quagmires, unfertile forests, and woods. There was then no
production of tame fruits, nor any instruments of art or invention
of wit. And hunger gave no time, nor did seed-time then stay for the
yearly season. What wonder is it if we made use of the flesh of beasts
contrary to Nature, when mud was eaten and the bark of wood, and when
it was thought a happy thing to find either a sprouting grass or a
root of any plant! But when they had by chance tasted of or eaten an
acorn, they danced for very joy about some oak or esculus, calling it
by the names of life-giver, mother, and nourisher. And this was the
only festival that those times were acquainted with; upon all other
occasions, all things were full of anguish and dismal sadness. But
whence is it that a certain ravenousness and frenzy drives you in these
happy days to pollute yourselves with blood, since you have such an
abundance of things necessary for your subsistence? Why do you belie
the earth as unable to maintain you? Why do you profane the lawgiver
Ceres, and shame the mild and gentle Bacchus, as not furnishing you
with sufficiency? Are you not ashamed to mix tame fruits with blood
and slaughter? You are indeed wont to call serpents, leopards, and
lions savage creatures; but yet yourselves are defiled with blood, and
come nothing behind them in cruelty. What they kill is their ordinary
nourishment, but what you kill is your better fare.”
3. For we eat not lions and wolves by way of revenge; but we let those
go, and catch the harmless and tame sort, and such as have neither
stings nor teeth to bite with, and slay them; which, so may Jove help
us, Nature seems to us to have produced for their beauty and comeliness
only. [2][Just as if one seeing the river Nilus overflowing its banks,
and thereby filling the whole country with genial and fertile moisture,
should not at all admire that secret power in it that produces plants
and plenteousness of most sweet and useful fruits, but beholding
somewhere a crocodile swimming in it, or an asp crawling along, or
mice (savage and filthy creatures), should presently affirm these to
be the occasion of all that is amiss, or of any want or defect that
may happen. Or as if indeed one contemplating this land or ground, how
full it is of tame fruits, and how heavy with ears of corn, should
afterwards espy somewhere in these same cornfields an ear of darnel or
a wild vetch, and thereupon neglect to reap and gather in the corn,
and fall a complaining of these. Such another thing it would be, if
one—hearing the harangue of some advocate at some bar or pleading,
swelling and enlarging and hastening towards the relief of some
impending danger, or else, by Jupiter, in the impeaching and charging
of certain audacious villanies or indictments, flowing and rolling
along, and that not in a simple and poor strain, but with many sorts
of passions all at once, or rather indeed with all sorts, in one and
the same manner, into the many and various and differing minds of
either hearers or judges that he is either to turn and change, or else,
by Jupiter, to soften, appease, and quiet—should overlook all this
business, and never consider or reckon upon the labor or struggle he
had undergone, but pick up certain loose expressions, which the rapid
motion of the discourse had carried along with it, as by the current of
its stream, and so had slipped and escaped the rest of the oration, and
hereupon undervalue the orator.]
4. But we are nothing put out of countenance, either by the beauteous
gayety of the colors, or by the charmingness of the musical voices,
or by the rare sagacity of the intellects, or by the cleanliness and
neatness of diet, or by the rare discretion and prudence of these
poor unfortunate animals; but for the sake of some little mouthful of
flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion
of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. And then we
fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing
else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several
deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them, as it were
saying thus to us: “I deprecate not thy necessity (if such there be),
but thy wantonness. Kill me for thy feeding, but do not take me off
for thy better feeding.” O horrible cruelty! It is truly an affecting
sight to see the very table of rich people laid before them, who keep
them cooks and caterers to furnish them with dead corpses for their
daily fare; but it is yet more affecting to see it taken away, for the
mammocks left are more than that which was eaten. These therefore were
slain to no purpose. Others there are, who are so sparing of what is
set before them that they will not suffer it to be cut or sliced; thus
abstaining from them when dead, while they would not spare them when
alive.
5. Well then, we understand that that sort of men are used to say, that
in eating of flesh they follow the conduct and direction of Nature. But
that it is not natural to mankind to feed on flesh, we first of all
demonstrate from the very shape and figure of the body. For a human
body no ways resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath
no hawk’s bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength
of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or
alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But even from hence, that is, from
the smoothness of the tongue, and the slowness of the stomach to
digest, Nature seems to disclaim all pretence to fleshy victuals. But
if you will contend that yourself was born to an inclination to such
food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you
would eat. But do it yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife,
mallet, or axe,—as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at
once. Rend an ox with thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a
lamb or a hare in pieces, and fall on and eat it alive as they do.
But if thou hadst rather stay until what thou eatest is become dead,
and if thou art loath to force a soul out of its body, why then dost
thou against Nature eat an animate thing? Nay, there is nobody that
is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing as it is; but they
boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were,
changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet
sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such
uncouth fare. It was indeed a witty expression of a Lacedaemonian, who,
having purchased a small fish in a certain inn, delivered it to his
landlord to be dressed; and as he demanded cheese, and vinegar, and oil
to make sauce, he replied, if I had had those, I would not have bought
the fish. But we are grown so wanton in our bloody luxury, that we have
bestowed upon flesh the name of meat (ὄψον), and then require another
seasoning (ὄψον), to this same flesh, mixing oil, wine, honey, pickle,
and vinegar, with Syrian and Arabian spices, as though we really meant
to embalm it after its disease. Indeed when things are dissolved and
made thus tender and soft, and are as it were turned into a sort
of a carrionly corruption, it must needs be a great difficulty for
concoction to master them, and when it hath mastered them, they must
needs cause grievous oppressions and qualmy indigestions.
6. Diogenes ventured once to eat a raw pourcontrel, that he might
disuse himself from meat dressed by fire; and as several priests and
other people stood round him, he wrapped his head in his cassock, and
so putting the fish to his mouth, he thus said unto them: It is for
your sake, sirs, that I undergo this danger, and run this risk. A noble
and gallant risk, by Jupiter! For far otherwise than as Pelopidas
ventured his life for the liberty of the Thebans, and Harmodius and
Aristogiton for that of the Athenians, did this philosopher encounter
with a raw pourcontrel, to the end he might make human life more
brutish. Moreover, these same flesh-eatings not only are preternatural
to men’s bodies, but also by clogging and cloying them, they render
their very minds and intellects gross. For it is well known to most,
that wine and much flesh-eating make the body indeed strong and lusty,
but the mind weak and feeble. And that I may not offend the wrestlers,
I will make use of examples out of my own country. The Athenians are
wont to call us Boeotians gross, senseless, and stupid fellows, for
no other reason but our over-much eating; and Pindar calls us also
hogs, for the same reason. Menander the comedian calls us “fellows
with long jaws.” It is observed also that, according to the saying of
Heraclitus, “the wisest soul is like a dry light.”[3] Earthen jars, if
you strike them, will sound; but if they be full, they perceive not
the strokes that are given them. Copper vessels also that are thin
communicate the sound round about them, unless some one stop and dull
the ambient stroke with his fingers. Moreover, the eye, when seized
with an over-great plenitude of humors, grows dim and feeble for its
ordinary work. When we behold the sun through a humid air and a great
quantity of gross and indigested vapors, we see it not clear and
bright, but obscure and cloudy, and with glimmering beams. Just so in a
muddy and clogged body, that is swagged down with heavy and unnatural
nourishments; it must needs happen that the gayety and splendor of the
mind be confused and dulled, and that it ramble and roll after little
and scarce discernible objects, since it wants clearness and vigor for
higher things.
7. But to pass by these considerations, is not accustoming one’s self
to mildness and a human temper of mind an admirable thing? For who
could wrong or injure a man that is so sweetly and humanly disposed
with respect to the ills of strangers that are not of his kind? I
remember that three days ago, as I was discoursing, I made mention
of a saying of Xenocrates, and how the Athenians gave judgment upon a
certain person who had flayed a living ram. For my part I cannot think
him a worse criminal that torments a poor creature while living, than
a man that shall take away its life and murder it. But (as it seems)
we are more sensible of what is done against custom than against
Nature. There, however, I discoursed on these matters in a more popular
style. But as for that grand and mysterious principle which (as Plato
speaks) is incredible to base minds and to such as affect only mortal
things, I as little care to move it in this discourse as a pilot doth
a ship in a storm, or a comedian his machine while the scenes are
moving; but perhaps it would not be amiss, by way of introduction and
preface, to proclaim certain verses of Empedocles.... For in these,
by way of allegory, he hints at men’s souls, as that they are tied to
mortal bodies, to be punished for murders, eating of flesh and of one
another, although this doctrine seems much ancienter than his time.
For the fables that are storied and related about the discerption of
Bacchus, and the attempts of the Titans upon him, and of their tasting
of his slain body, and of their several punishments and fulminations
afterwards, are but a representation of the regeneration. For what
in us is unreasonable, disorderly, and boisterous, being not divine
but demoniac, the ancients termed Titans, that is _tormented_ and
_punished_ (from τίνω)....
TRACT II
1. Reason persuades us now to return with fresh cogitations and
dispositions to what we left cold yesterday of our discourse about
flesh-eating. It is indeed a hard and a difficult task to undertake
(as Cato once said) to dispute with men’s bellies, that have no ears;
since most have already drunk that draught of custom, which is like
that of Circe,
Of groans and frauds and sorcery replete.[4]
And it is no easy task to pull out the hook of flesh-eating from the
jaws of such as have gorged themselves with luxury and are (as it
were) nailed down with it. It would indeed be a good action, if as
the Egyptians draw out the stomach of a dead body, and cut it open
and expose it to the sun, as the only cause of all its evil actions,
so we could, by cutting out our gluttony and blood-shedding, purify
and cleanse the remainder of our lives. For the stomach itself is not
guilty of bloodshed, but is involuntarily polluted by our intemperance.
But if this may not be, and we are ashamed by reason of custom to live
unblamably, let us at least sin with discretion. Let us eat flesh; but
let it be for hunger and not for wantonness. Let us kill an animal; but
let us do it with sorrow and pity, and not abusing and tormenting it,
as many nowadays are used to do, while some run red-hot spits through
the bodies of swine, that by the tincture of the quenched iron the
blood may be to that degree mortified, that it may sweeten and soften
the flesh in its circulation; others jump and stamp upon the udders of
sows that are ready to pig, that so they may trample into one mass,
(O Piacular Jupiter!) in the very pangs of delivery, blood, milk, and
the corruption of the crushed and mangled young ones, and so eat the
most inflamed part of the animal; others sew up the eyes of cranes and
swans, and so shut them up in darkness to be fattened, and then souse
up their flesh with certain monstrous mixtures and pickles.
2. By all which it is most manifest, that it is not for nourishment,
or want, or any necessity, but for mere gluttony, wantonness, and
expensiveness, that they make a pleasure of villany. Just as it happens
in persons who cannot satiate their intemperance upon women, and having
made trial of every thing else and falling into vagaries, at last
attempt things not to be mentioned; even so inordinateness in feeding,
when it hath once passed the bounds of nature and necessity, studies at
last to diversify the lusts of its intemperate appetite by cruelty and
villany. For the senses, when they once quit their natural measures,
sympathize with each other in their distempers, and are enticed by each
other to the same consent and intemperance. Thus a distempered ear
first debauched music, the soft and effeminate notes of which provoke
immodest touches and lascivious tickling. These things first taught
the eye not to delight in Pyrrhic dances, gesticulations of hands, or
elegant pantomimes, nor in statues and fine paintings; but to reckon
the slaughtering and death of mankind and wounds and duels the most
sumptuous of shows and spectacles. Thus unlawful tables are accompanied
with intemperate copulations, with unmusician-like balls, and theatres
become monstrous through shameful songs and rehearsals; and barbarous
and brutish shows are again accompanied with an unrelenting temper and
savage cruelty towards mankind. Hence it was that the divine Lycurgus
in his Three Books of Laws gave orders that the doors and ridges of
men’s houses should be made with a saw and an axe, and that no other
instrument should so much as be brought to any house. Not that he
did hereby intend to declare war against augers and planes and other
instruments of finer work; but because he very well knew that with such
tools as these you will never bring into your house a gilded couch,
and that you will never attempt to bring into a slender cottage either
silver tables, purple carpets, or costly stones; but that a plain
supper and a homely dinner must accompany such a house, couch, table,
and cup. The beginning of a vicious diet is presently followed by all
sorts of luxury and expensiveness,
Ev’n as a mare is by her thirsty colt.
3. And what meal is not expensive? That for which no animal is put
to death. Shall we reckon a soul to be a small expense. I will not
say perhaps of a mother, or a father, or of some friend, or child,
as Empedocles did; but one participating of feeling, of seeing, of
hearing, of imagination, and of intellection; which each animal hath
received from Nature for the acquiring of what is agreeable to it, and
the avoiding what is disagreeable. Do but consider this with yourself
now, which sort of philosophers render us most tame and civil, they
who bid people to feed on their children, friends, fathers, and wives,
when they are dead; or Pythagoras and Empedocles, that accustom men to
be just towards even the other members of the creation. You laugh at a
man that will not eat a sheep: but we (they will say again)—when we see
you cutting off the parts of your dead father or mother, and sending
it to your absent friends, and calling upon and inviting your present
friends to eat the rest freely and heartily—shall we not smile? Nay,
peradventure we offend at this instant time while we touch these books,
without having first cleansed our hands, eyes, feet, and ears; if it
be not (by Jupiter) a sufficient purgation of them to have discoursed
of these matters in potable and fresh language (as Plato speaketh),
thereby washing off the brackishness of hearing. Now if a man should
set these books and discourses in opposition to each other, he will
find that the philosophy of the one sort suits with the Scythians,
Sogdians, and Melanchlaenians, of whom Herodotus’s relation is scarce
believed; but the sentiments of Pythagoras and Empedocles were the laws
and customs of the ancient Grecians.
4. Who then were the first authors of this opinion, that we owe no
justice to dumb animals?
Who first beat out accursed steel,
And made the lab’ring ox a knife to feel.
In the very same manner oppressors and tyrants begin first to shed
blood. For example, the first man that the Athenians ever put to death
was one of the basest of all knaves, whom all thought deserving of
death; after him they put to death a second and a third. After this,
being now accustomed to blood, they patiently saw Niceratus the son
of Nicias, and their own general Theramenes, and Polemarchus the
philosopher suffer death. Even so, in the beginning, some wild and
mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or
fish was entrapped. And the love of slaughter, being first experimented
and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the
sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until
by little and little, unsatiableness being strengthened by use, men
came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars. Now even if one
cannot demonstrate and make out, that souls in their regenerations make
a promiscuous use of all bodies, and that that which is now rational
will at another time be irrational, and that again tame which is now
wild,—for that Nature changes and transmutes every thing.
With different fleshy coats new clothing all,—
this thing should be sufficient to change and reclaim men, that it is
a savage and intemperate habit, that it brings sickness and heaviness
upon the body, and that it inclines the mind the more brutishly to
bloodshed and destruction, when we have once accustomed ourselves
neither to entertain a guest nor keep a wedding nor to treat our
friends without blood and slaughter.
5. And if what is argued about the return of souls into bodies is
not of force enough to beget faith, yet methinks the very uncertainty
of the thing should fill us with apprehension and fear. Suppose, for
instance, one should in some night-engagement run on with his drawn
sword upon one that had fallen down and covered his body with his arms,
and should in the mean time hear one say, that he was not very sure,
but that he fancied and believed, that the party lying there was his
own son, brother, father, or tent-companion; which were more advisable,
think you,—to hearken to a false suggestion, and so to let go an enemy
under the notion of a friend, or to slight an authority not sufficient
to beget faith, and to slay a friend instead of a foe? This you will
all say would be insupportable. Do but consider the famous Merope in
the tragedy, who taking up a hatchet, and lifting it at her son’s head,
whom she took for her son’s murderer, speaks thus as she was ready to
give the fatal blow,
Villain, this pious blow shall cleave thy head;[5]
what a bustle she raises in the whole theatre while she raises herself
to give the blow, and what a fear they are all in, lest she should
prevent the old man that comes to stop her hand, and should wound the
youth. Now if another old man should stand by her and say, “Strike, it
is thy enemy,” and this, “Hold, it is thy son;” which, think you, would
be the greater injustice, to omit the punishing of an enemy for the
sake of one’s child, or to suffer one’s self to be so transported with
anger at an enemy as to kill one’s child? Since then neither hatred
nor wrath nor any revenge nor fear for ourselves carries us to the
slaughter of a beast, but the poor sacrifice stands with an inclined
neck, only to satisfy thy lust and pleasure, and then one philosopher
stands by and tells thee, “Cut him down, it is but an unreasonable
animal,” and another cries, “Hold, what if there should be the soul of
some kinsman or God inclosed in him”?—good Gods! is there the like
danger if I refuse to eat flesh, as if I for want of faith murder my
child or some other friend?
6. The Stoics’ way of reasoning upon this subject of flesh-eating is
no way equal nor consonant with themselves. Who is this that hath so
many mouths for his belly and the kitchen? Whence comes it to pass,
that they so very much womanize and reproach pleasure, as a thing
that they will not allow to be either good or preferable, or so much
as agreeable, and yet all on a sudden become so zealous advocates
for pleasures? It were indeed but a reasonable consequence of their
doctrine, that, since they banish perfumes and cakes from their
banquets, they should be much more averse to blood and to flesh. But
now, just as if they would reduce their philosophy to their day-books,
they lessen the expenses of their suppers in certain unnecessary and
needless matters, but the untamed and murderous part of their expense
they nothing boggle at. “Well! What then?” say they. “We have nothing
to do with brute beasts.” Nor have you any with perfumes, nor with
foreign sauces, may some one answer; therefore expel these from your
banquets, if you are driving out every thing that is both useless and
needless.
7. Let us therefore in the next place consider, whether we owe any
justice to the brute beasts. Neither shall we handle this point
artificially, or like subtle sophisters, but by casting our eye into
our own breasts, and conversing with ourselves as men, we will weigh
and examine the whole matter....
LIVES OF THE TEN ORATORS.
I. ANTIPHON.
ANTIPHON, the son of Sophilus, by descent a Rhamnusian, was his
father’s scholar; for Sophilus kept a rhetoric school, to which it is
reported that Alcibiades himself had recourse in his youth. Having
attained to competent measure of knowledge and eloquence,—and that, as
some believe, from his own natural ingenuity,—he dedicated his study
chiefly to affairs of state. And yet he was for some time conversant
in the schools, and had a controversy with Socrates the philosopher
about the art of disputing,—not so much for the sake of contention as
for the profit of arguing, as Xenophon tells us in his Commentaries of
Socrates. At the request of some citizens, he wrote orations by which
they defended their suits at law. Some say that he was the first that
ever did any thing of this nature. For it is certain there is not one
juridical oration extant written by any orator that lived before him,
nor by his contemporaries either, as Themistocles, Aristides, and
Pericles; though the times gave them opportunity, and there was need
enough of their labor in such business. Not that we are to impute it
to their want of parts that they did nothing in this way, for we may
inform ourselves of the contrary from what historians relate of each
of them. Besides, if we inspect the most ancient of those known in
history who had the same form and method in their pleadings, such as
Alcibiades, Critias, Lysias, and Archinous, we shall find that they
all followed Antiphon when he was old. For being a man of incomparable
sagacity, he was the first that published institutions of oratory;
and by reason of his profound learning, he was surnamed Nestor.
Caecilius, in a tract which he wrote of him, supposes him to have
been Thucydides’s pupil, from what Antiphon delivered in praise of
him. He is most accurate in his orations, in invention subtle; and he
would frequently baffle his adversary at unawares, by a covert sort of
pleading; in troublesome and intricate matters he was very judicious
and sharp; and as he was a great admirer of ornamental speaking, he
would always adapt his orations to both law and reason.
He lived about the time of the Persian war and of Gorgias the
rhetorician, being somewhat younger than he. And he lived to see the
subversion of the popular government in the commonwealth which was
wrought by the four hundred conspirators, in which he himself is
thought to have had the chiefest hand, being sometimes commander of
two galleys, and sometimes general, and having by the many and great
victories he obtained gained them many allies, he armed the young men,
manned out sixty galleys, and on all their occasions went ambassador
to Lacedaemon at the time when Eetionia was fortified. But when those
Four Hundred were overcome and taken down, he with Archeptolemus, who
was likewise one of the same number, was accused of the conspiracy,
condemned, and sentenced to the punishment due to traitors, his body
cast out unburied, and all his posterity infamous on record. But there
are some who tell us, that he was put to death by the Thirty Tyrants;
and among the rest, Lysias, in his oration for Antiphon’s daughter,
says the same; for he left a little daughter, whom Callaeschrus claimed
for his wife by the law of propinquity. And Theopompus likewise, in
his Fifteenth Book of Philippics, tells us the same thing. But this
must have been another Antiphon, son of Lysidonides, whom Cratinus
mentions in his Pytine as a rascal. But how could he be executed in the
time of the Four Hundred, and afterward live to be put to death by the
Thirty Tyrants? There is likewise another story of the manner of his
death: that when he was old, he sailed to Syracuse, when the tyranny
of Dionysius the First was most famous; and being at table, a question
was put, what sort of brass was best. When others had answered as they
thought most proper, he replied, That is the best brass, of which the
statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton were made. The tyrant hearing
this, and taking it as a tacit exhortation to his subjects to contrive
his ruin, he commanded Antiphon to be put to death; and some say that
he put him to death for deriding his tragedies.
This orator is reported to have written sixty orations; but Caecilius
supposes twenty-five of them to be spurious and none of his. Plato,
in his comedy called Pisander, traduces him as a covetous man. He is
reported to have composed some of his tragedies alone, and others with
Dionysius the tyrant. While he was poetically inclined, he invented
an art of curing the distemper of the mind, as physicians are wont
to provide cure of bodily diseases. And having at Corinth built him
a little house, in or near the market, he set a postscript over the
gate, to this effect: that he had a way to cure the distemper of men’s
minds by words; and let him but know the cause of their malady, he
would immediately prescribe the remedy, to their comfort. But after
some time, thinking that art not worth his while, he betook himself to
the study and teaching of oratory. There are some who ascribe the book
of Glaucus of Rhegium concerning Poets to him as author. His orations
concerning Herodes, against Erasistratus concerning Peacocks,[6]
are very much commended, and also that which, when he was accused,
he penned for himself against a public indictment, and that against
Demosthenes the general for moving an illegal measure. He likewise had
another against Hippocrates the general; who did not appear on the day
appointed for his trial, and was condemned in his absence.
Caecilius has recorded the decree of the senate for the judicial
trial of Antiphon, passed in the year[7] in which Theopompus was
chief magistrate of Athens, the same in which the Four Hundred were
overthrown,—in these words:
“Enacted by the senate on the twenty-first day of the prytany.
Demonicus of Alopece was clerk; Philostratus of Pallene was president.
“Andron moved in regard to those men,—viz. Archeptolemus, Onomacles,
and Antiphon, whom the generals had declared against, for that they
went in an embassage to Lacedaemon, to the great damage of the city
of Athens, and departed from the camp in an enemies’ ship, and went
through Decelea by land,—that they should be apprehended and brought
before the court for a legal trial.
“Therefore let the generals, with others of the senate, to the number
of ten, whom it shall please the generals to name and choose, look
after these men to present them before the court, that they may be
present during the proceedings. Then let the Thesmothetes summon the
defendants to appear on the morrow, and let them open the proceedings
in court at the time at which the summonses shall be returnable. Then
let the chosen advocates, with the generals and any others who may have
any thing to say, accuse the defendants of treason; and if any one
of them shall be found guilty, let sentence be passed upon him as a
traitor, according to the law in such case made and provided.”
At the bottom of this decree was subscribed the sentence.—
“Archeptolemus son of Hippodamus, the Agrylian, and Antiphon son of
Sophilus, the Ramnusian, being both present in court, are condemned
of treason. And this was to be their punishment: that they should be
delivered to the eleven executioners, their goods confiscated, the
tenth part of them being first consecrated to Minerva; their houses to
be levelled with the ground, and in the places where they stood this
subscription to be engraven on brass, '[The houses] of Archeptolemus
and Antiphon, traitors.’...[8] That Archeptolemus and Antiphon should
neither of them be buried in Athens, nor anywhere else under that
government. And besides all this, that their posterity should be
accounted infamous, bastards as well as their lawful progeny; and he
too should be held infamous who should adopt any one of their progeny
for his son. And that all this should be engrossed and engraven on a
brass column, and that column should be placed where that stands on
which is engraven the decree concerning Phrynichus.”
II. ANDOCIDES.
ANDOCIDES, the son of Leogoras, [and grandson of that Andocides] who
once made a peace between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, by
descent a Cydathenian or Thorian, of a noble family, and, as Hellanicus
tells us, the offspring of Mercury himself, for the race of Heralds
belongs to him. On this account he was chosen by the people to go with
Glaucon, with twenty sail of ships, to aid the Corcyraeans against the
Corinthians. But in process of time he was accused of some notorious
acts of impiety, as that he was of the number of those who defaced the
statues of Mercury and divulged the sacred mysteries of Ceres. And
withal, he had been before this time wild and intemperate, and had
once been seen in the night in masquerade to break one of the statues
of Mercury; and when on his trial he refused to bring his servant
to examination whom his accusers named, he not only remained under
this reproach, but was also on this account very much suspected to
be guilty of the second crime too. This later action was laid to his
charge soon after the expedition of the navy sent by the Athenians into
Sicily. For, as Cratippus informs us, when the Corinthians sent the
Leontines and Egestians to the Athenians, who hesitated to lend them
assistance, they in the night defaced and brake all the statues of
Mercury which were erected in the market. To which offence Andocides
added another, that of divulging the mysteries of Ceres. He was brought
to his trial, but was acquitted on condition he would discover who were
companions with him in the crime. In which affair being very diligent,
he found out who they were that had been guilty, and among the rest he
discovered his own father. He proved all guilty, and caused them all
to be put to death except his father, whom he saved, though in prison,
by a promise of some eminent service he would do to the commonwealth.
Nor did he fail of what he promised; for Leogoras accused many who had
acted in several matters against the interest of the commonwealth, and
for this was acquitted of his own crime.
Now, though Andocides was very much esteemed of for his skill in the
management of the affairs of the commonwealth, yet his inclinations
led him rather to traffic by sea; and by this means he contracted
friendship with the kings of Cyprus and other great princes. At which
time he privily stole a damsel of the city, the daughter of Aristides,
and his own niece, and sent her as a present to the king of Cyprus. But
suspecting he should be called in question for it, he again stole her
from Cyprus, for which the king of Cyprus took him and clapped him up
in prison; whence he brake loose, and returned to Athens, just at that
time when the four hundred conspirators had usurped the government. By
whom being confined, he again escaped when the oligarchical government
was broken up.... But when the Thirty Tyrants were uppermost, he
withdrew to Elis, and there lived till Thrasybulus and his faction
returned into the city, and then he also repaired thither. And after
some time, being sent to Lacedaemon to conciliate a peace, he was again
suspected to be faulty, and on that suspicion banished.
He himself has given an account of all these transactions, in his
orations, which he has left behind him. For some of them contain his
defence of himself in regard to the mysteries; others his petition
for restoration from exile; there is one extant on _Endeixis_ (or
information laid against a criminal); also a defence against Phaeax,
and one on the peace. He flourished at the same time with Socrates
the philosopher. He was born in the seventy-eighth Olympiad, when
Theogenides was chief magistrate of Athens, so that he should seem to
be about ten years before Lysias. There is an image of Mercury, called
from his name, being given by the tribe Aegeis; and it stood near the
house where Andocides dwelt, and was therefore called by his name.
This Andocides himself was at the charge of a cyclic chorus for the
tribe Aegeis, at the performance of a dithyrambus. And having gained a
victory, he erected a tripod on an ascent opposite to the tuffstone
statue of Silenus. His style in his orations is plain and easy, without
the least affectation or any thing of a figurative ornament.
III. LYSIAS.
LYSIAS was the son of Cephalus, grandson of Lysanias, and
great-grandson of Cephalus. His father was by birth a Syracusan; but
partly for the love he had to the city, and partly in condescension
to the persuasions of Pericles the son of Xanthippus, who entertained
him as his friend and guest, he went to live at Athens, being a man of
great wealth. Some say that he was banished Syracuse when the city was
under the tyranny of Gelo. Lysias was born at Athens when Philocles,
the successor of Phrasicles, was chief magistrate, in the second year
of the eightieth Olympiad.[9] At his first coming, he was educated
among the most noble of the Athenians. But when the city sent a colony
to Sybaris, which was afterwards called Thurii, he went thither with
his other brother Polemarchus, his father being now dead (for he had
two other brothers, Euthydemus and Brachyllus), that he might receive
his portion of his father’s estate. This was done in the fifteenth year
of his age, when Praxiteles was chief magistrate.[10] There then he
stayed, and was brought up under Nicias and Tisias, both Syracusans.
And having purchased a house and received his estate, he lived as a
citizen for thirty-three years, till the year of Cleocritus.[11] In
the year following, in the time of Callias, viz. in the ninety-second
Olympiad, when the Athenians had met with their disasters in Sicily,
and when other of their allies revolted, and especially the Italians,
he, being accused of favoring the Athenians, was banished with three
other of his association; when coming to Athens, in the year wherein
Callias succeeded Cleocritus, the city then laboring under the tyranny
of the four hundred conspirators, he there sat down. But after
the fight at Aegospotami, when the Thirty Tyrants had usurped the
government, he was banished thence, after he had remained in Athens
seven years. His goods were confiscated; and having likewise lost his
brother Polemarchus, he himself escaped by a back door of the house
in which he was kept for execution, fled to Megara and there lived.
But when the citizens endeavored to return from Phyle, he also behaved
himself very well, and appeared very active in the affair, having,
to forward this great enterprise, deposited two thousand drachms of
silver and two hundred targets, and being commissioned with Hermas, he
maintained three hundred men in arms, and prevailed with Thrasylaeus
the Elean, his old friend and host, to contribute two talents. Upon
entering the city, Thrasybulus proposed that, for a consideration
of his good service to the public, he should receive the rights of
citizenship: this was during the so-called time of anarchy before
Euclides. Which proposal being ratified by the people, Archinus
objected that it was against the laws, and a decree without authority
of the senate. The decree was thereupon declared void, and Lysias lost
his citizenship. He led the remainder of his life in the rank of an
_Isoteles_ (or citizen who had no right to vote or hold office), and
died at last at Athens, being fourscore and three years old, or as some
would have it, seventy-six; and others again say, that he lived above
fourscore years, till after the birth of Demosthenes. It is supposed he
was born in the year of Philocles.
There are four hundred and twenty-five orations which bear his name,
of which Dionysius and Caecilius affirm only two hundred and thirty
to be genuine, and he is said to have been overcome but twice in all.
There is extant also the oration which he made in defence of the
fore-mentioned decree against Archinus, who indicted it and thereby
prevented Lysias from receiving the citizenship, as also another
against the Thirty Tyrants. He was very cogent in his persuasions, and
was always very brief in what he delivered. He would commonly give
orations to private persons. There are likewise his institutions of
oratory, his public harangues, his epistles, his eulogies, funeral
orations, discourses of love, and his defence of Socrates, accommodated
to the minds of the judges. His style seems plain and easy, though
hardly imitable. Demosthenes, in his oration against Neaera, says that
he was in love with one Metanira, Neaera’s serving-maid, but afterwards
married his brother Brachyllus’s daughter. Plato in his Phaedrus makes
mention of him, as a most eloquent orator and ancienter than Isocrates.
Philiscus, his companion, and Isocrates’s votary, composed an epigram
concerning him, whence the same that we have urged from Plato is
deducible; and it sings to this effect:
Calliope’s witty daughter, Phrontis, show
If aught of wit or eloquence thou hast;
For ’tis decreed that thou shalt bear a son,
Lysias by name, to spread the name of him
Whose great and generous acts do fill the world,
And are received for glorious above.
Let him who sings those praises of the dead,
Let him, my friend, too, praise our amity.
He likewise wrote two orations for Iphicrates,—one against Harmodius,
and another accusing Timotheus of treason,—in both which he overcame.
But when Iphicrates made himself responsible for Timotheus’s actions,
and would purge himself of the allegation of treason made also against
him, Lysias wrote an oration for him to deliver in his defence; upon
which he was acquitted, but Timotheus was fined in a considerable sum
of money. He likewise delivered an oration at the Olympic games, in
which he endeavored to convince the Greeks of how great advantage it
would be to them, if they could but unanimously join to pull down the
tyrant Dionysius.
IV. ISOCRATES.
ISOCRATES was the son of Theodorus, of Erchia, reckoned among the
middle class of citizens, and a man who kept servants under him to
make flutes, by which he got so much money as enabled him not only to
bring up his children after the most genteel manner, but likewise to
maintain a choir. For besides Isocrates, he had other sons, Telesippus
and Diomnestus, and one daughter. And hence, we may suppose, those
two comical poets, Aristophanes and Stratis, took occasion to bring
him on the stage. He was born in the eighty-sixth Olympiad,[12]
Lysimachus being archon, about two and twenty years after Lysias, and
seven before Plato. When he was a boy, he was as well educated as any
of the Athenian children, being under the tuition of Prodicus the
Cean, Gorgias the Leontine, Tisias the Syracusan, and Theramenes the
rhetorician. And when Theramenes was to be apprehended by the order of
the Thirty Tyrants, and flying for succor to the altar of the senate,
only Isocrates stood his friend, when all others were struck with
terror. For a long time he stood silent; but after some time Theramenes
advised him to desist, because, he told him, it would be an aggravation
of his grief, if any of his friends should come into trouble through
him. And it is said that he made use of certain institutions of
rhetoric composed by Theramenes, when he was slandered in court; which
institutions have since borne Boton’s name.
When Isocrates was come to man’s estate, he meddled with nothing of
state affairs, both because he had a very weak voice and because he
was something timorous; and besides these two impediments, his estate
was much impaired by the loss of a great part of his patrimony in the
war with the Lacedaemonians. It is evident that he composed orations
for others to use, but delivered only one, that concerning Exchange of
Property. Having set up a school, he gave himself much to writing and
the study of philosophy, and then he wrote his Panegyrical oration, and
others which were used for advice, some of which he delivered himself,
and others he gave to others to pronounce for him; aiming thereby to
persuade the Greeks to the study and practice of such things as were of
most immediate concern to them. But his endeavors in that way proving
to no purpose, he gave those things over, and opened a school in Chios
first, as some will have it, having for a beginning nine scholars;
and when they came to him to pay him for their schooling, he weeping
said, “Now I see plainly that I am sold to my scholars.” He admitted
all into his acquaintance who desired it. He was the first that made a
separation between wrangling pleas and political arguments, to which
latter he rather addicted himself. He instituted a form of magistracy
in Chios, much the same with that at Athens. No schoolmaster ever got
so much; so that he maintained a galley at his own charge. He had more
than a hundred scholars, and among others Timotheus the son of Conon
was one, with whom he visited many cities, and composed the epistles
which Timotheus sent to the Athenians; who for his pains gave him a
talent out of that which he got at Samos. Theopompus likewise the
Chian, Ephorus the Cumaean, Asclepiades who composed arguments for
tragedies, and Theodectes of Phaselis, who afterwards wrote tragedies,
were all Isocrates’s scholars. The last of these had a monument in the
way to the shrine of Cyamites, as we go to Eleusis by the Sacred Way,
of which now remains only rubbish. There also he set up with his own
the statues of other famous poets, of all which only Homer’s is to be
seen. Leodamas also the Athenian, and Lacritus who gave laws to the
Athenians, were both his scholars; and some say, Hyperides and Isaeus
too. They add likewise, that Demosthenes also was very desirous to
learn of him, and because he could not give the full rate, which was
a thousand drachms, he offered him two hundred, the fifth part, if he
would teach him but the fifth part of his art proportionable: to whom
Isocrates answered, We do not use, Demosthenes, to impart our skill by
halves, but as men sell good fish whole, or altogether, so if thou hast
a desire to learn, we will teach thee our full art, and not a piece of
it. He died in the year when Charondas was chief magistrate,[13] when,
being at Hippocrates’s public exercise, he received the news of the
slaughter at Chaeronea; for he was the cause of his own death by a four
days’ fast, which he then made, pronouncing just at his departure the
three verses which begin three tragedies of Euripides:
Danaus, father of the fifty sisters,—
Pelops, son of Tantalus, in quest of Pisa,—
Cadmus, in time past, going from Sidon.
He lived ninety-eight years, or, as some say, a hundred, not being
able to behold Greece the fourth time brought into slavery. The year
(or, as some say, four years) before he died, he wrote his Panathenaic
oration. He labored upon his Panegyric oration ten years, or, as some
tell us, fifteen, which he is supposed to have borrowed out of Gorgias
the Leontine and Lysias. His oration concerning Exchange of Property he
wrote when he was eighty-two years old, and those to Philip a little
before his death. When he was old, he adopted Aphareus, the youngest
of the three sons of Plathane, the daughter of Hippias the orator. He
was very rich, both in respect of the great sums of money he exacted
of his scholars, and besides that, having at one time twenty talents of
Nicocles, king of Cyprus, for an oration which he dedicated to him. By
reason of his riches he became obnoxious to the envy of others, and was
three times named to maintain a galley; which he evaded twice by the
assistance of his son and a counterfeit sickness, but the third time
he undertook it, though the charge proved very great. A father telling
him that he had allowed his son no other companion than one slave,
Isocrates replied, Go thy way then, for one slave thou shalt have two.
He strove for the prize which Aretemisia dedicated to the honor and
memory of her husband Mausolus; but that oration is lost. He wrote also
another oration in praise of Helen, and one called Areopagiticus. Some
say that he died when he had fasted nine days,—some again, at four
days’ end,—and his death took its date from the funeral solemnities of
those that lost their lives at Chaeronea. His son Aphareus likewise
wrote several orations.
He lies buried with all his family near Cynosarges, on the left hand of
the hill. There are interred Isocrates and his father Theodorus, his
mother and her sister Anaco, his adoptive son Aphareus, Socrates the
son of Anaco, Theodorus his brother, bearing his father’s name, his
grandsons, the sons of his adopted Aphareus, and his wife Plathane,
the mother of Aphareus. On these tombs were erected six tables, which
are now demolished. And upon the tomb of Isocrates himself was placed
a column thirty cubits high, and on that a mermaid of seven cubits,
which was an emblem of his eloquence; there is nothing now extant.
There was also near it a table, having poets and his schoolmasters
on it; and among the rest, Gorgias inspecting a celestial globe, and
Isocrates standing by him. There is likewise a statue of his of bronze
in Eleusis, dedicated by Timothy the son of Conon, before the entry of
the porch, with this inscription:
To the fame and honor of Isocrates,
This statue’s sacred to the Goddesses;
The gift of Timothy.
This statue was made by Leochares. There are threescore orations which
bear his name; of which, if we credit Dionysius, only five and twenty
are genuine; but according to Caecilius, twenty-eight; and the rest are
accounted spurious. He was an utter stranger to ostentation, insomuch
that, when there came at one time three persons to hear him declaim,
he admitted but two of them, desiring the third to come the next day,
for that two at once were to him as a full theatre. He used to tell
his scholars that he taught his art for ten minas; but he would give
any man ten thousand, that could teach him to be bold and give him a
good utterance. And being once asked how he, who was not very eloquent
himself, could make others so, he answered, Just as a whetstone cannot
cut, yet it will sharpen knives for that purpose. Some say that he
wrote institutions to the art of oratory; others are of opinion that
he had no method of teaching, but only exercise. He would never ask
any thing of a free-born citizen. He used to enjoin his scholars
being present at public assemblies to repeat to him what was there
delivered. He conceived no little sorrow for the death of Socrates,
insomuch that the next day he put himself in mourning. Being asked
what was the use and force of rhetoric, he answered, To make great
matters small, and small great. At a feast with Nicoceon, the tyrant
of Cyprus, being desired by some of the company to declaim upon some
theme, he made answer, that that was not a season for him to speak what
he knew, and he knew nothing that was then seasonable. Happening once
to see Sophocles the tragedian amorously eying a comely boy, he said to
him, It will become thee, Sophocles, to restrain not only thy hands,
but thine eyes. When Ephorus of Cumae left his school before he had
arrived at any good proficiency, his father Demophilus sent him again
with a second sum of money in his hand; at which Isocrates jocosely
called him Diphorus, that is, _twice bringing_ his fee. However, he
took a great deal of pains and care with him, and went so far as to put
him in the way of writing history.
He was wantonly given; and used to lie upon a ... mat for his bed, and
his bolster was commonly made moist with saffron. He never married
while he was young; but in his old age he kept a miss, whose name was
Lagisce, and by her he had a daughter, who died in the twelfth year of
her age, before she was married. He afterwards married Plathane, the
wife of Hippias the rhetorician, who had three sons, the youngest of
which, Aphareus by name, he adopted for his own, as we said before.
This Aphareus erected a bronze statue to him near the temple of
Jupiter, as may be seen from the inscription:
In veneration of the mighty Jove,
His noble parents, and the Gods above,
Aphareus this statue here has set,
The statue of Isocrates his father.
He is said to have run a race on a swift horse, when he was but a
boy; for he is to be seen in this posture in the Citadel, in the
tennis court of the priestesses of Minerva, in a statue. There were
but two suits commenced against him in his whole life. One whereof
was with Megaclides, who provoked him to exchange of property; at
the trial of which he could not be personally present, by reason of
sickness; but sending Aphareus, he nevertheless overcame. The other
suit was commenced against him by Lysimachus, who would have him come
to an exchange or be at the charge of maintaining a galley for the
commonwealth. In this case he was overthrown, and forced to perform the
service. There was likewise a painting of him in the Pompeum.
Aphareus also wrote a few orations, both judicial and deliberative;
as also tragedies to the number of thirty-seven, of which two
are contested. He began to make his works public in the year of
Lysistratus, and continued it to the year of Sosigenes, that is, eight
and twenty years.[14] In these years he exhibited dramas six times
at the city Dionysiac festivals, and twice went away with the prize
through the actor Dionysius; he also gained two other victories at the
Lenaean festival through other actors.
There were to be seen in the Citadel the statues of the mother of
Isocrates, of Theodorus, and of Anaco his mother’s sister. That of
the mother is placed just by the image of Health, the inscription
being changed; that of Anaco is no longer there. [Anaco] had two sons,
Alexander by Coenes, and Lysicles by Lysias.
V. ISAEUS.
ISAEUS was born in Chalcis. When he came to Athens, he read Lysias’s
works, whom he imitated so well, both in his style and in his skill in
managing causes, that he who was not very well acquainted with their
manner of writing could not tell which of the two was author of many
of their orations. He flourished after the Peloponnesian war, as we
may conjecture from his orations, and was in repute till the reign of
Philip. He taught Demosthenes—not at his school, but privately—who gave
him ten thousand drachms, by which business he became very famous. Some
say that he composed orations for Demosthenes, which he pronounced in
opposition to his guardians. He left behind him sixty-four orations,
of which fifty are his own; as likewise some peculiar institutions of
rhetoric. He was the first that used to speak or write figuratively,
and that addicted himself to civil matters; which Demosthenes chiefly
followed. Theopompus the comedian makes mention of him in his Theseus.
VI. AESCHINES.
HE was the son of Atrometus—who, being banished by the Thirty Tyrants,
was thereby a means of reducing the commonwealth to the government
of the people—and of his wife Glaucothea; by birth a Cothocidian. He
was neither nobly born nor rich; but in his youth, being strong and
well set, he addicted himself to all sorts of bodily exercises; and
afterwards, having a very clear voice, he took to playing of tragedies,
and if we may credit Demosthenes, he was a petty clerk, and also served
Aristodemus as a player of third parts at the Bacchanalian festivals,
in his times of leisure rehearsing the ancient tragedies. When he was
but a boy, he was assisting to his father in teaching little children
their letters, and when he was grown up, he listed himself a private
soldier. Some think he was brought up under Socrates and Plato; but
Caecilius will have it that Leodamas was his master. Being concerned
in the affairs of the commonwealth, he openly acted in opposition to
Demosthenes and his faction; and was employed in several embassies,
and especially in one to Philip, to treat about articles of peace. For
which Demosthenes accused him for being the cause of the overthrow and
ruin of the Phocians, and the inflamer of war; which part he would
have him thought to have acted when the Amphictyons chose him one of
their deputies to the Amphissians who were building up the harbor
[of Crissa]. On which the Amphictyons put themselves under Philip’s
protection, who, being assisted by Aeschines, took the affair in hand
and soon conquered all Phocis.[15] But Aeschines, notwithstanding
all that Demosthenes could do, being favored by Eubulus the son of
Spintharus, a Probalisian, who pleaded in his behalf, carried his cause
by thirty voices, and so was cleared. Though some tell us, that there
were orations prepared by the orators, but the news of the conquest of
Chaeronea put a stop to the present proceedings, and so the suit fell.
Some time after this, Philip being dead, and his son Alexander marching
into Asia, Aeschines impeached Ctesiphon for acting against the laws,
in passing a decree in favor of Demosthenes. But he having not the
fifth part of the voices of the judges on his side, was forced to go
in exile to Rhodes, because he would not pay his mulct of a thousand
drachms. Others say, that he incurred disfranchisement also, because he
would not depart the city, and that he went to Alexander at Ephesus.
But upon the death of Alexander, when a tumult had been excited, he
went to Rhodes, and there opened a school and taught. And on a time
pronouncing the oration which he had formerly made against Ctesiphon,
to pleasure the Rhodians, he did it with that grace, that they wondered
how he could fail of carrying his cause if he pleaded so well for
himself. But ye would not wonder, said he, that I was overthrown, if
ye had heard Demosthenes pleading against me. He left a school behind
him at Rhodes, which was afterwards called the Rhodian school. Thence
he sailed to Samos, and there in a short time died. He had a very good
voice, as both Demosthenes and Demochares testified of him.
Four orations bear his name, one of which was against Timarchus,
another concerning false embassage, and a third against Ctesiphon,
which three are really his own; but the fourth, called Deliaca, is
none of his; for though he was named to plead the cause of the temple
at Delos, yet Demosthenes tells us that Hyperides was chosen in his
stead.[16] He says himself, that he had two brothers, Aphobetus and
Philochares. He was the first that brought the Athenians the news of
the victory obtained at Tamynae, for which he was crowned for the
second time. Some report that Aeschines was never any man’s scholar,
but having passed his time chiefly in courts of justice, he raised
himself from the office of clerk to that of orator. His first public
appearance was in a speech against Philip; with which the people being
pleased, he was immediately chosen to go ambassador to the Arcadians;
and being come thither, he excited the Ten Thousand against Philip. He
indicted Timarchus for profligacy; who, fearing the issue, deserted his
cause and hanged himself, as Demosthenes somewhere informs us. Being
employed with Ctesiphon and Demosthenes in an embassage to Philip to
treat of peace, he appeared the most accomplished of the three. Another
time also he was one of ten men sent in embassage to conclude a peace;
and being afterwards called to answer for it, he was acquitted, as we
said.
VII. LYCURGUS.
LYCURGUS was the son of Lycophron, and grandson of that Lycurgus whom
the Thirty Tyrants put to death, by the procurement of Aristodemus
the Batesian, who, also being treasurer of the Greeks, was banished
in the time of the popular government. He was a Butadian by birth,
and of the line or family of the Eteobutades. He received his first
institutions of philosophy from Plato the philosopher. But afterward
entering himself a scholar to Isocrates the orator, he employed his
study about affairs of the commonwealth. And to his care was committed
the disposal and management of the city stock, and so he executed the
office of treasurer-general for the space of twelve years; in which
time there went through his hands fourteen thousand talents, or (as
some will have it) eighteen thousand six hundred and fifty. It was the
orator Stratocles that procured him this preferment. At first he was
chosen in his own name; but afterwards he nominated one of his friends
to the office, while he himself performed the duties; for there was
a law just passed, that no man should be chosen treasurer for above
the term of four years. But Lycurgus plied his business closely,
both summer and winter, in the administration of public affairs. And
being entrusted to make provision of all necessaries for the wars, he
reformed many abuses that were crept into the commonwealth. He built
four hundred galleys for the use of the public, and prepared and fitted
a place for public exercises in Lyceum, and planted trees before it;
he likewise built a wrestling-court, and being made surveyor of the
theatre of Bacchus, he finished this building. He was likewise of so
great repute among all sorts, that he was entrusted with two hundred
and fifty talents of private citizens. He adorned and beautified the
city with gold and silver vessels of state, and golden images of
victory. He likewise finished many things that were as yet imperfect,
as the dock-yards and the arsenal. He built a wall also about the
spacious Panathenaic race-course, and made level a piece of uneven
ground, given by one Dinias to Lycurgus for the use of the city. The
keeping of the city was committed wholly to his care, and power to
apprehend malefactors, of whom he cleared the city utterly; so that
some sophisters were wont to say, that Lycurgus did not dip his pen in
ink, but in blood. And therefore it was, that when Alexander demanded
him of the people, they would not deliver him up. When Philip made
the second war upon the Athenians, he was employed with Demosthenes
and Polyeuctus in an embassy to Peloponnesus and other cities. He
was always in great repute and esteem with the Athenians, and looked
upon as a man of that justice and integrity, that in the courts of
judicature his good word was at all times prevalent on the behalf of
those persons for whom he undertook to speak. He was the author of
several laws; one of which was, that there should be certain comedies
played at the Chytrian solemnities, and whoever of the poets or players
should come off victor, he should thereby be invested with the freedom
of the city, which before was not lawful; and so he revived a solemnity
which for want of encouragement had for some time before been out of
request. Another of his laws was, that the city should erect statues
to the memory of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and that their
tragedies, being fairly engrossed, should be preserved in the public
consistory, and that the public clerks should read these copies as
the plays were acted, that nothing might be changed by the players;
and that otherwise it should be unlawful to act them. A third law
proposed by him was, that no Athenian, nor any person inhabiting in
Athens, should be permitted to buy a captive, who was once free, to be
a slave, without the consent of his former master. Further, that in
the Piraeus there should be at least three circular dances played to
Neptune; and that to the victor in the first should be given not less
than ten minas; in the second, eight; in the third, six. Also, that no
woman should go to Eleusis in a coach, lest the poor should appear more
despicable than the rich, and so be dejected and cast down; and that
whoever should ride in a coach contrary to this law should be fined six
thousand drachms. And when even his own wife was taken in the violation
of it, he paid to the discoverers of it a whole talent; for which being
afterwards called in question by the people: See therefore, said he, I
am called to answer for giving, and not for receiving money.
As he was walking one day in the streets, he saw an officer lay hand
on Xenocrates the philosopher; and when nothing would serve his turn
but the philosopher must to prison, because he had not deposited the
tribute due from strangers, he with his staff struck the officer on the
head for his unmannerly roughness toward a person of that character,
and freeing Xenocrates, cast the other into prison in his stead. And
not many days after, Xenocrates meeting with the children of Lycurgus
said: I have returned thanks unto your father right speedily, my good
children, for his friendship towards me, for I hear his kindness
commended by all people where I go. He made likewise several decrees,
in which he made use of the help of an Olynthian named Euclides, one
very expert in such matters. Though he was rich enough, yet he was
used to wear the same coat every day, both summer and winter; but he
wore shoes only when he was compelled to do it. Because he was not
ready to speak extempore, he used to practise and study day and night.
And to the end he might not at any time oversleep himself and so lose
time from his study, he used to cover himself on his bed only with a
sheepskin with the wool on, and to lay a hard bolster under his head.
When one reproached him for being in fee with rhetoricians when he
studied his orations, he answered, that, if a man would promise to
restore his sons better, he would give him not only a thousand drachms,
but half what he was worth. He took the liberty of speaking boldly upon
all occasions, by reason of his greatness; as when once the Athenians
interrupted him in his speaking, he cried out, O thou Corcyraean whip,
how many talents art thou worth? And another time, when some would rank
Alexander among the Gods, What manner of God, said he, must he be, when
all that go out of his temple had need to be dipped in water to purify
themselves?
After his death Menesaechmus accusing and indicting them by virtue
of an instrument drawn by Thracycles, his sons were delivered to the
eleven executioners of Justice. But Demosthenes, being in exile,
wrote to the Athenians, to let them know that they were wrongfully
accused, and that therefore they did not well to hear their accusers;
upon which they recanted what they had done, and set them at liberty
again,—Democles, who was Theophrastus’s scholar, likewise pleading in
their defence. Lycurgus and some of his posterity were buried publicly,
at or near the temple of Minerva Paeonia, where their monuments stand
in the garden of Melanthius the philosopher, on which are inscriptions
to Lycurgus and his children, which are yet extant. The greatest thing
he did while he lived was his raising the revenue of the commons
totally from sixty talents, as he found it, to twelve hundred. When
he found he must die, he was by his own appointment carried into the
temple of the Mother of the Gods, and into the senate-house, being
willing before his death to give an account of his administration. And
no man daring to accuse him of any thing except Menesaechmus, having
purged himself from those calumnies which he cast upon him, he was
carried home again, where in a short time he ended his life. He was
always accounted honest; his orations were commended for the eloquence
they carried in them; and though he was often accused, yet he never was
overthrown in any suit.
He had three children by Callisto, the daughter of Abron, and sister
of Callias, Abron’s son, by descent a Batesian,—I mean, of him who,
when Chaerondas was magistrate, was paymaster to the army. Of this
affinity Dinarchus speaks in his oration against Pastius. He left
behind him three sons, Abron, Lycurgus, and Lycophron; of which,
Abron and Lycurgus died without issue, though the first, Abron, did
for some time act very acceptably and worthily in affairs of the
commonwealth. Lycophron, marrying Callistomacha, the daughter of
Philip of Aexone, begat Callisto, who married Cleombrotus the son
of Dinocrates the Acharnian, to whom she bare Lycophron, who, being
adopted by his grandfather, died without issue. He being dead, Socrates
married Callisto, of whom he had his son Symmachus. To him was born
Aristonymus; to Aristonymus, Charmides, who was the father of Philippe.
Of her and Lysander came Medeius, who also was an interpreter, one
of the Eumolpids. He begat two children of Timothea, the daughter
of Glaucus, viz. Laodamia and Medius, who were priests of Neptune
Erechtheus; also Philippe a daughter, who was afterward priestess of
Minerva; for before, she was married to Diocles of Melite, to whom
she bare a son named Diocles, who was a colonel of a regiment of
foot. He married Hediste, the daughter of Abron, and of her begat
Philippides and Nicostrata, whom Themistocles the torch-bearer, son of
Theophrastus, married, and by her had Theophrastus and Diocles; and he
likewise constituted the priesthood of Neptune Erechtheus.
It is said that he penned fifteen orations. He was often crowned by the
people, and had statues dedicated to him. His image in brass was set
up in Ceramicus by order of the public, in the year of Anaxicrates; in
whose time also it was ordered that he and his eldest son should be
provided for with diet in the Prytaneum; but he being dead, Lycophron
his eldest son was forced to sue for that donation. This Lycurgus also
was used frequently to plead on the account of sacred things; and
accused Autolycus the Areopagite, Lysicles the general, Demades the
son of Demeas, Menesaechmus, and many others, all whom he caused to be
condemned as guilty. Diphilus also was called in question by him, for
impairing and diminishing the props of the metal mines, and unjustly
making himself rich therefrom; and he caused him to be condemned to
die, according to the provision made by the laws in that case. He gave
out of his own stock fifty drachms to every citizen, the sum total of
which donation amounted to one hundred and sixty talents;[17] but some
say he gave a mina of silver to each. He likewise accused Aristogiton,
Leocrates, and Autolycus for cowardice. He was called the Ibis:...
The ibis to Lycurgus, to Chaerephon the bat.[18]
His ancestors derived their pedigree from Erechtheus, the son of the
Earth and of Vulcan; but he was nearest to Lycomedes and Lycurgus,
whom the people honored with public solemnities. There is a succession
of those of the race who were priests of Neptune, in a complete table
placed in the Erechtheum, painted by Ismenias the Chalcidian; in the
same place stood wooden images of Lycurgus, and of his sons, Abron,
Lycurgus, and Lycophron; made by Timarchus and Cephisodotus, the
sons of Praxiteles. His son Abron dedicated the table; and coming to
the priesthood by right of succession, he resigned to his brother
Lycophron, and hence he is painted as giving a trident. But Lycurgus
had made a draught of all his actions, and hung it on a column before
the wrestling-court built by himself, that all might read that would;
and no man could accuse him of any peculation. He likewise proposed to
the people to crown Neoptolemus, the son of Anticles, and to dedicate
statues to him, because he had promised and undertaken to cover the
altar of Apollo in the market with gold, according to the order of the
oracle. He decreed honors likewise to Diotimus, the son of Diopithes
of Euonymus, in the year when Ctesicles was magistrate.
VIII. DEMOSTHENES.
DEMOSTHENES, the son of Demosthenes by Cleobule, the daughter of
Gylon, was a Paeanian by descent. He was left an orphan by his father,
when he was but seven years old, together with a sister of the age of
five. Being kept by his mother during his nonage, he went to school
to Isocrates, say some; but the generality are of opinion that he was
pupil to Isaeus the Chalcidian, who lived in Athens and was Isocrates’s
scholar. He imitated Thucydides and Plato, and some affirm that he more
especially attended the school of Plato. Hegesias the Magnesian writes,
that he entreated his master’s leave to go to hear Callistratus the son
of Empaedus, an Amphidnean, a noble orator, and sometime commander of
a troop of horse, who had dedicated an altar to Mercury Agoraeos, and
was to make an oration to the people. And when he heard him, he became
a lover of oratory, and so long as he continued at Athens, remained his
disciple.
But Callistratus being soon banished to Thrace, and Demosthenes arrived
at some years of maturity, he joined with Isocrates and Plato. After
this, he took Isaeus into his house, and for the space of four years
labored very hard in imitation of his orations. Though Ctesibius in his
book of philosophy affirms that, by the help of Callias the Syracusan,
he got the orations of Zoilus the Amphipolite, and by the assistance
of Charicles the Carystian those also of Alcidamas, and devoted
himself to the imitation of them. When he came to age, in the year of
Timocrates[19] he called his tutors and guardians to account for their
maladministration, in not allowing him what was fitting and requisite
out of his estate. And these tutors or guardians were three, Aphobus,
Therippides, and Demophon (or Demeas), the last of whom, being his
uncle, he charged more severely than the other two. He arrested each of
them in an action of ten talents, and cast them, but did not exact of
them what the law had given him, releasing some for money and others
for favor.
When Aristophon, by reason of his age, could not hold the office any
longer, he was chosen choregus, or overseer of the dances. During the
execution of which office, Midias the Anagyrasian striking him as he
was ordering the dances in the theatre, he sued him upon it, but let
fall his suit upon Midias’s paying him three thousand drachms.
It is reported of him that, while he was a youth, he confined himself
to a den or cave, and there studied his orations, and shaved half of
his head that he might not be allured to divert himself from it; and
that he lay upon a very narrow bed, that he might awake and rise the
sooner. And for that he could not very well pronounce the letter R,
he accustomed himself very much to that, that he might master it if
possible; and using likewise an unseemly motion of his shoulder when
he spake at any time, he remedied that by a spit (or, as some say, a
sword) stuck in the ceiling just over his shoulder, that the fear of
being pricked with it might break him of that indecent gesture. They
report of him further that, when he could declaim pretty well, he had a
sort of mirror made as big as himself, and used always in declaiming to
look in that, to the end that he might see and correct what was amiss.
He used likewise at some certain times to go down to the Phalerian
shore, to the end that, being accustomed to the surges and noise of the
waves, he might not be daunted by the clamors of the people, when he
should at any time declaim in public. And being naturally short-winded,
he gave Neoptolemus a player ten thousand drachms to teach him to
pronounce long sentences in one breath.
Afterwards, betaking himself to the affairs of the commonwealth, and
finding the people divided into two different factions, one in favor
of Philip, and the other standing for the liberty and properties of
the people, he took part with them that opposed Philip, and always
persuaded the citizens to help those who were in danger and trouble by
Philip’s oppression; taking for his companions in council Hyperides,
Nausicles, Polyeuctus, and Diotimus; and then he drew the Thebans,
Euboeans, Corcyraeans, Corinthians, Boeotians, and many more into
a league with the Athenians. Being in the assembly one day and his
memory failing him, his oration was hissed; which made him return home
very heavy and melancholy; and being met by Eunomus the Thriasian, an
old man, by him he was comforted and encouraged. But he was chiefly
animated by Andronicus the player, who told him that his orations were
excellent, but that he wanted something of action, thereupon rehearsing
certain places out of his oration which he had delivered in that same
assembly. Unto which Demosthenes gave good ear and credit, and he then
betook himself to Andronicus. And therefore, when he was afterwards
asked what was the first part of oratory, he answered, “Action;” and
which was the second, he replied, “Action;” and which was the third,
he still answered, “Action.” Another time, declaiming publicly, and
using expressions too youthful for one of his years and gravity, he was
laughed at, and ridiculed by the comedians, Antiphanes and Timocles,
who in derision used to repeat such phrases as these, as uttered by him:
By the earth, by the fountains, by the rivers, by the floods!
For having sworn thus in presence of the people, he raised a tumult
about him. He likewise used to swear by Asclepius, and accented
the second syllable (Ἀσκλήπιος)[20] through some mistake, and yet
afterwards defended it; for this Asclepius, he said, was called ἤπιος,
that is a _mild_ God. This also often caused him to be interrupted.
But all these things he reformed in time, being sometime conversant
with Eubulides, the Milesian philosopher. Being on a time present at
the Olympic games, and hearing Lamachus the Myrrhinaean sound the
praises of Philip and of Alexander the Great, his son, and decry the
cowardice of the Thebans and Olynthians, he stood up in their defence
against him, and from the ancient poets he proclaimed the great and
noble achievements of the Thebans and Olynthians; and so elegantly he
behaved himself in this affair, that he at once silenced Lamachus,
and made him convey himself immediately out of the assembly. And even
Philip himself, when he had heard what harangues he made against him,
replied, that if he had heard him, he should have chosen him general
in the war against himself. He was used to compare Demosthenes’s
orations to soldiers, for the force they carried along with them; but
the orations of Isocrates to fencers, because of the theatrical delight
that accompanied them.
Being about the age of seven and thirty, reckoning from Dexitheus
to Callimachus,[21]—in whose time the Olynthians sent to beg aid
of the Athenians against Philip, who then made war upon them,—he
persuaded them to answer the Olynthians’ request; but in the following
year, in which Plato died,[22] Philip overthrew and destroyed the
Olynthians. Xenophon also, the scholar of Socrates, had some knowledge
of Demosthenes, either at his first rise, or at least when he was
most famous and flourishing; for he wrote the Acts of the Greeks,
as touching what passed at the battle of Mantinea, in the year of
Chariclides;[23] our Demosthenes having sometime before overthrown
his guardians in a suit he had commenced against them, in the year
of Timocrates. When Aeschines, being condemned, fled from Athens,
Demosthenes hearing of it took horse and rode after him; which
Aeschines understanding, and fearing to be apprehended again, he came
out to meet Demosthenes, and fell at his feet, covered his face, and
begged his mercy; upon which Demosthenes bid him stand up, be assured
of his favor, and as a pledge of it, gave him a talent of silver. He
advised the people to maintain a company of mercenary soldiers in
Thasos, and thither sailed himself as captain of the galleys. Another
time, being entrusted to buy corn, he was accused of defrauding the
city, but cleared himself of the accusation and was acquitted. When
Philip had seized upon Elatea, Demosthenes with others went to the war
of Chaeronea, where he is said to have deserted his colors; and flying
away, a bramble caught hold of his vest behind, when turning about in
haste, thinking an enemy had overtaken him, he cried out, Save my life,
and say what shall be my ransom. On his buckler he had engraven for
his motto, To Good Fortune. And it was he that made the oration at the
funerals of such as died in that battle.
After these things, he bent his whole care and study for the reparation
of the city and wall; and being chosen commissary for repairing the
walls, besides what money he expended out the city stock, he laid out
of his own at least a hundred minas. And besides this, he gave ten
thousand drachms to the festival fund; and taking ship, he sailed
from coast to coast to collect money of the allies; for which he was
often by Demotelus, Aristonicus, and Hyperides crowned with golden
crowns, and afterwards by Ctesiphon. Which last decree had like to have
been retracted, Diodotus and Aeschines endeavoring to prove it to be
contrary to the laws; but he defended himself so well against their
allegations, that he overcame all difficulties, his enemies not having
the fifth part of the votes of the judges.
After this, when Alexander the Great made his expedition into Asia,
and Harpalus fled to Athens with a great sum of money, at first he
would not let him be entertained, but afterwards, Harpalus being landed
and having given him a thousand darics he was of another mind; and
when the Athenians determined to deliver Harpalus up to Antipater,
he opposed it, proposing to deposit the money in the Citadel, still
without declaring the amount to the people. Thereupon Harpalus declared
that he had brought with him from Asia seven hundred talents, and that
this sum had been deposited in the Citadel; but only three hundred and
fifty or a little more could be found, as Philochorus relates. But
when Harpalus broke out of the prison wherein he was kept till some
person should come from Alexander, and was escaped into Crete,—or, as
some will have it, into Taenarum in Laconia,—Demosthenes was accused
that he had received from him a sum of money, and that therefore he
had not given a true account of the sum delivered to him, nor had
impeached the negligence of the keepers. So he was judicially cited
by Hyperides, Pytheus, Menesaechmus, Himeraeus, and Patrocles, who
prosecuted him so severely as to cause him to be condemned in the
court of Areopagus; and being condemned, he went into exile, not being
able to pay fivefold; for he was accused of receiving thirty talents.
Others say, that he would not run the risk of a trial, but went into
banishment before the day came. After this tempest was over, when the
Athenians sent Polyeuctus to the republic of Arcadia to draw them off
from the alliance with the Macedonians, he not succeeding, Demosthenes
appeared to second him, where he reasoned so effectually that he easily
prevailed. Which procured him so much credit and esteem, that after
some time a galley was dispatched to call him home again. And the
Athenians decreed that, whereas he owed the state thirty talents, as a
fine laid on him for the misdemeanor he was accused of, he should be
excused for only building an altar to Jupiter Servator in the Piraeus;
which decree was first proposed by Demon his near kinsman. This
being agreed on, he returned to the administration of affairs in the
commonwealth again.
But when Antipater was blocked up in Lamia, and the Athenians offered
sacrifices for the happy news, he happened, being talking with
Agesistratus, one of his intimate friends, to say, that his judgment
concerning the state of affairs did not jump with other men’s, for that
he knew the Greeks were brisk and ready enough to run a short course
but not to hold on a long race. When Antipater had taken Pharsalus, and
threatened to besiege Athens itself if they refused to deliver up such
orators as had declaimed against him, Demosthenes, suspecting himself
to be one of the number, left the city, and fled first into Aegina,
that he might take sanctuary in the temple of Aeacus; but being afraid
to trust himself long there, he went over to Calauria; and when the
Athenians had decreed to deliver up those orators, and him especially
as one of them, he continued a suppliant in the temple of Neptune. When
Archias came thither,—who, from his office of pursuing fugitives, was
called Phygadotheres and was the scholar of Anaximines the orator,—when
he, I say, came to him, and persuaded him to go with him, telling
him that no doubt he should be received by Antipater as a friend, he
replied: When you played a part in a tragedy, you could not persuade
me to believe you the person you represented; no more shall you now
persuade me by your counsel. And when Archias endeavored to force him
thence, the townsmen would not suffer it. And Demosthenes told them,
that he did not flee to Calauria to save his life, but that he might
convince the Macedonians of their violence committed even against the
Gods themselves. And with that he called for a writing-table; and if we
may credit Demetrius the Magnesian, on that he wrote a distich, which
afterwards the Athenians caused to be affixed to his statue; and it was
to this purpose:—
Hadst thou, Demosthenes, an outward force
Great as thy inward magnanimity.
Greece should not wear the Macedonian yoke.
This statue, made by Polyeuctus, is placed near the cloister where the
altar of the twelve Gods is erected. Some say this writing was found:
“Demosthenes to Antipater, Greeting.” Philochorus tells us that he died
by drinking of poison; and Satyrus the historiographer will have it,
that the pen was poisoned with which he wrote his epistle, and putting
it into his mouth, soon after he tasted it he died. Eratosthenes is of
another opinion, that being in continual fear of the Macedonians, he
wore a poisoned bracelet on his arms. Others say again, that he died
with holding his breath; and others, lastly, say that he carried strong
poison in his signet. He lived to the age of seventy, according to
those who give the highest number,—of sixty-seven, according to other
statements. And he was in public life two and twenty years.
When King Philip was dead, he appeared publicly in a glorious robe or
mantle, as rejoicing for his death, though he but just before mourned
for his daughter. He assisted the Thebans likewise against Alexander,
and animated all the other Greeks. So that when Alexander had conquered
Thebes, he demanded Demosthenes of the Athenians, threatening them if
they refused to deliver him. When he went against Persia, demanding
ships of the Athenians, Demosthenes opposed it, saying, who can
assure us that he will not use those ships we should send him against
ourselves?
He left behind him two sons by one wife, the daughter of one
Heliodorus, a principal citizen. He had but one daughter, who died
unmarried, being but a child. A sister too he had, who married with
Laches of Leuconoe, his kinsman, and to him bore Demochares, who proved
inferior to none in his time for eloquence, conduct, and courage. His
statue is still standing in the Prytaneum, the first on the right as
you approach the altar, clothed with a mantle and girt with a sword,
because in this habit he delivered an oration to the people, when
Antipater demanded of them their orators.
Afterwards, in process of time, the Athenians decreed nourishment to
be given to the kindred of Demosthenes in the Prytaneum, and likewise
set up a statue to his memory, when he was dead, in the market, in
the year of Gorgias,[24] which honors were paid him at the request of
Demochares his sister’s son. And ten years after, Laches, the son of
Demochares of Leuconoe, in the year of Pytharatus, required the same
honor for himself, that his statue should be set up in the market, and
that both he and the eldest of his line for the future should have
their allowance in the Prytaneum, and the highest room at all public
shows. These decrees concerning both of them are engrossed, and to be
found among the statute laws. The statue of Demochares, of which we
have spoken before, was afterwards removed out of the market into the
Prytaneum.
There are extant sixty-five orations which are truly his. Some report
of him, that he lived a very dissolute and vicious life, appearing
often in women’s apparel, and being frequently conversant at masks
and revellings, whence he was surnamed Batalus; though others say,
that this was a pet name given him by his nurse, and that from this
he was called Batalus in derision. Diogenes the Cynic espying him one
day in a victualling-house, he was very much ashamed, and to shun
him, went to withdraw; but Diogenes called after him, and told him,
The more you shrink inward, the more you will be in the tavern. The
same Diogenes once upon the banter said of him, that in his orations
he was a Scythian, but in war a delicate nice citizen. He was one of
them who received gold of Ephialtes, one of the popular orators, who,
being sent in an embassy to the king of Persia, took money privily, and
distributed it among the orators of Athens, that they might use their
utmost endeavors to kindle and inflame the war against Philip; and it
is said of Demosthenes, that he for his part had at once three thousand
darics of the king. He apprehended one Anaxilas of Oreus, who had been
his friend, and caused him to be tortured for a spy; and when he would
confess nothing, he procured a decree that he should be delivered to
the eleven executioners.
When once at a meeting of the Athenians they would not suffer him to
speak, he told them he had but a short story to tell them. Upon which
all being silent, thus he began: A certain youth, said he, hired an
ass in summer time, to go from hence to Megara. About noon, when the
sun was very hot, and both he that hired the ass and the owner were
desirous of sitting in the shade of the ass, they each thrust the
other away,—the owner arguing that he let him only his ass and not the
shadow, and the other replying that, since he had hired the ass, all
that belonged to him was at his dispose. Having said thus, he seemed to
go his way. But the Athenians willing now to hear his story out, called
him back, and desired him to proceed. To whom he replied: How comes it
to pass that ye are so desirous of hearing a story of the shadow of an
ass, and refuse to give ear to matters of greater moment? Polus the
player boasting to him that he had gotten a whole talent by playing but
two days, he answered, and I have gotten five talents by being silent
but one day. One day his voice failing him when he was declaiming
publicly, being hissed, he cried out to the people, saying, Ye are to
judge of players, indeed, by their voice, but of orators by the gravity
of their sentences.
Epicles upbraiding him for his premeditating what he was to say, he
replied, I should be ashamed to speak what comes uppermost to so great
an assembly. They say of him that he never put out his lamp—that is,
never ceased polishing his orations—until he was fifty years old. He
says of himself, that he drank always fair water. Lysias the orator
was acquainted with him; and Isocrates knew him concerned in the
management of public affairs till the battle of Chaeronea; as also some
of the Socratical sect. [He delivered most of his orations extempore,
Nature having well qualified him for it.][25] The first that proposed
the crowning him with a coronet of gold was Aristonicus, the son
of Nicophanes, the Anagyrasian; though Diondas interposed with an
indictment.
IX. HYPERIDES.
HYPERIDES was son of Glaucippus, and grandson of Dionysius, of the
borough of Colyttus. He had a son, who bare the same name with his
father Glaucippus, an orator, who wrote many orations, and begat a son
named Alphinous. At the same time with Lycurgus, he had been a scholar
of the philosopher Plato and of the orator Isocrates. In Athens his
concern in the commonwealth was at that time when Alexander accosted
Greece, whom he vigorously opposed in his demands made of the Athenians
for the generals as well as for galleys. He advised the people not to
discharge the garrison of Taenarum, and this he did for the sake of a
friend of his, Chares, who was commander of it. At first he used to
plead causes for a fee. He was suspected to have received part of
the money which Ephialtes brought out of Persia, and was chosen to
maintain a galley, and was sent to assist the Byzantines, when Philip
was besieging their city. Nevertheless, in the same year he took the
charge of defraying the expense of the solemn dances, whereas the rest
of the captains were exempt from all such public burdens for that year.
He obtained a decree for some honors to be paid to Demosthenes; and
when that decree was indicted at the instance of Diondas, as being
contrary to the laws, he, being called in question upon it, cleared
himself. He did not continue his friendship with Demosthenes, Lysicles,
and Lycurgus to the last; for, Lysicles and Lycurgus being dead, and
Demosthenes being accused of having received money of Harpalus, he,
among all the rest, was pitched upon, as the only person who was not
corrupted with bribery, to draw up his indictment, which he accordingly
did. Being once accused at the instance of Aristogiton of publishing
acts contrary to the laws after the battle of Chaeronea,—that all
foreign inhabitants of Athens should be accounted citizens, that
slaves should be made free, that all sacred things, children, and
women should be confined to the Piraeus,—he cleared himself of all and
was acquitted. And being blamed by some, who wondered how he could
be ignorant of the many laws that were directly repugnant to those
decrees, he answered, that the arms of the Macedonians darkened his
sight, and it was not he but the battle of Chaeronea that made that
decree. But Philip, being affrighted at somewhat, gave leave to carry
away their dead out of the field, which before he had denied to the
heralds from Lebadea.
After this, at the overthrow at Crannon, being demanded by Antipater,
and the people being resolved to deliver him up, he fled out of the
city with others who were under the same condemnation to Aegina;
where meeting with Demosthenes, he excused himself for the breach
of friendship between them. Going from thence, he was apprehended by
Archias, surnamed Phygadotheres, by country a Thurian, formerly a
player, but at that time in the service of Antipater; by this man, I
say, he was apprehended, even in the very temple of Neptune, though
he grasped the image of that God in his arms. He was brought before
Antipater, who was then at Corinth; where being put upon the rack, he
bit out his tongue, because he would not divulge the secrets of his
country, and so died, on the ninth day of October. Hermippus tells us
that, as he went into Macedonia, his tongue was cut out and his body
cast forth unburied; but Alphinous his cousin-german (or, according to
the opinion of others, his grandson, by his son Glaucippus) obtained
leave, by means of one Philopithes a physician, to take up his body,
which he burnt, and carried the ashes to Athens to his kinsfolk there,
contrary to the edicts both of the Athenians and Macedonians, which not
only banished them, but likewise forbade the burial of them anywhere
in their own country. Others say, that he was carried to Cleonae with
others, and there died, having his tongue cut out, as above; however,
his relations and friends took his bones, when his body was burned, and
buried them among his ancestors before the gate Hippades, as Heliodorus
gives us the relation in his Third Book of Monuments. His monument is
now altogether unknown and lost, being thrown down with age and long
standing.
He is said to have excelled all others in his way of delivering himself
in his orations to the people. And there are some who prefer him even
to Demosthenes himself. There are seventy-seven orations which bear his
name, of which only two and fifty are genuine and truly his. He was
much given to venery, insomuch that he turned his son out of doors, to
entertain that famous courtesan Myrrhina. In Piraeus he had another,
whose name was Aristagora; and at Eleusis, where part of his estate
lay, he kept another, one Philte a Theban, whom he ransomed for twenty
minas. His usual walk was in the fish-market. It is thought that he
was accused of impiety with one Phryne, a courtesan likewise, and so
was sought after to be apprehended, as he himself seems to intimate in
the beginning of an oration; and it is said, that when sentence was
just ready to be passed upon her, he produced her in court, opened
her clothes before, and discovered her naked breasts, which were so
very white, that for her beauty’s sake the judges acquitted her. He
at leisure times drew up several declamations against Demosthenes,
which were thus discovered: Hyperides being sick, Demosthenes came
one day to visit him, and caught him with a book in his hand written
against him; at which seeming somewhat displeased, Hyperides told him:
This book shall hurt no man that is my friend; but as a curb, it may
serve to restrain my enemy from offering me any injury. He obtained a
decree of some honors to be paid to Iolas, who gave the poisoned cup
to Alexander. He joined with Leosthenes in the Lamian war, and made an
admirable oration at the funerals of those who lost their lives therein.
When Philip was prepared to embark for Euboea, and the Athenians heard
the news of it with no little consternation, Hyperides in a very short
time, by the voluntary contributions of the citizens, fitted out
forty sail, and was the first that set an example, by sending out two
galleys, one for himself and another for his son, at his own charge.
When there was a controversy between the Delians and the Athenians,
who should have the pre-eminence in the temple at Delos; Aeschines
being chosen on the behalf of the Athenians for their advocate, the
Areopagites refused to ratify the choice and elected Hyperides; and his
oration is yet extant, and bears the name of the Deliac oration.[26]
He likewise went ambassador to Rhodes; where meeting other ambassadors
from Antipater, who commended their master very highly for his goodness
and virtue. We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we have no
need of a good master at present.
It is said of him, that he never affected much action in his orations
to the people, his chief aim being to lay down the matter plainly, and
make the case as obvious to the judges as he could.
He was sent likewise to the Eleans, to plead the cause of Callippus
the fencer, who was accused of carrying away the prize at the public
games unfairly; in which cause he got the better. But when he opposed
the sentence of paying honors to Phocion, obtained by Midias the son of
Midias the Anagyrasian, he was in that cause overthrown. This cause was
pleaded on the twenty-fourth day of May, in the year when Xenius was
magistrate.
X. DINARCHUS.
DINARCHUS, the son of Socrates or Sostratus,—born, as some think, at
Athens, but according to others, at Corinth,—came to Athens very young,
and there took up his dwelling, at that time when Alexander made his
expedition into Asia. He used to hear Theophrastus, who succeeded
Aristotle in his school. He was frequently conversant with Demetrius
the Phalerian too. He betook himself more especially to the affairs of
the commonwealth after the death of Antipater, when some of the orators
were killed and others banished. Having contracted friendship with
Cassander, he became in a short time vastly rich, by exacting great
rates for his orations of those for whom he wrote them. He opposed
himself to the greatest and most noble orators of his time, not by
being overforward to declaim publicly,—for his faculty did not lie that
way,—but by composing orations for their adversaries. And when Harpalus
had broken out of prison, he wrote several orations, which he gave to
their accusers to pronounce against those that were suspected to have
taken bribes of him.
Some time after, being accused of a conspiracy with Antipater and
Cassander about the matter of Munychia, when it was surprised by
Antigonus and Demetrius, who put a garrison into it, in the year of
Anaxicrates,[27] he turned the greatest part of his estate into money,
and fled to Chalcis, where he lived in exile about fifteen years, and
increased his stock; but afterwards, by the mediation of Theophrastus,
he and some other banished persons returned to Athens. Then he took up
his abode in the house of one Proxenus, his intimate friend; where,
being very aged and withal dim-sighted, he lost his gold. And because
Proxenus refused to make inquiry after the thief, he apprehended him;
and this was the first time that ever he appeared in court. That
oration against Proxenus is extant; and there are sixty-four that bear
his name, whereof some are believed to be Aristogiton’s. He imitated
Hyperides; or, as some incline to judge, rather Demosthenes, because
of that vigor and force to move the affections, and the rhetorical
ornaments that are evident in his style.
DECREES PROPOSED TO THE ATHENIANS.
I.
DEMOCHARES, the son of Laches of Leuconoe, requires that a statue
of brass be set up for Demosthenes, the son of Demosthenes the
Paeanian, in the market-place, as likewise that provision of diet
be made in the Prytaneum for himself and the eldest of his progeny
successively, and the chief seat in all public shows; for that he had
done many good offices for the Athenians, had on most occasions been
a good counsellor, and had spent his patrimony in the commonwealth;
had expended eight talents for the fitting out and maintenance of
one galley, when they delivered Euboea, another, when Cephisodorus
sailed into the Hellespont, and a third, when Chares and Phocion were
commissioned by the people to go captains to Byzantium; that he at his
own charge had redeemed many who had been taken prisoners by Philip at
Pydna, Methone, and Olynthus; that himself had maintained a choir of
men, when no provision had been made therefor through the neglect of
the tribe Pandionis; that he had furnished many indigent citizens with
arms; that being chosen by the people to oversee the city works, he
had laid out three talents of his own stock towards the repairing of
the walls, besides all that he gave for making two trenches about the
Piraeus; that after the battle of Chaeronea he deposited one talent
for the use of the public, and after that, another to buy corn in time
of scarcity and want; that by his beneficence, wholesome counsels and
effectual persuasions, he allured the Thebans, Euboeans, Corinthians,
Megarians, Achaeans, Locrians, Byzantines, and Messenians to a league
with the Athenians; that he raised an army of ten thousand foot and a
thousand horse, and contracted plenty to the people and their allies;
that being ambassador, he had persuaded the allies to the contribution
of above five hundred talents; that in the same quality, by his
influence and the free gift of money, he obtained of the Peloponnesians
that they should not send aid to Alexander against the Thebans; and
in consideration of many other good offices performed by him, either
as to his counsels, or his personal administration of affairs in the
commonwealth, in which, and in defending the rights and liberties of
the people, no man in his time had done more or deserved better; and
in regard of his sufferings when the commonwealth was ruined, being
banished by the insolence of the oligarchy, and at last dying at
Calauria for his good-will to the public, there being soldiers sent
from Antipater to apprehend him; and that notwithstanding his being in
the hands of his enemies, in so great and imminent danger, his hearty
affection to his countrymen was still the same, insomuch that he never
to the last offered any unworthy thing to the injury of his people.
II.
IN the magistracy of Pytharatus,[28] Laches, the son of Demochares of
Leuconoe requires of the Athenian senate that a statue of brass be set
up for Demochares, the son of Laches of Leuconoe, in the market-place,
and table and diet in the Prytaneum for himself and the eldest of his
progeny successively, and the first seat at all public shows; for that
he had always been a benefactor and good counsellor to the people, and
had done these and the like good offices to the public: he had gone in
embassies in his own person; had proposed and carried in bills relating
to his embassage; had been chief manager of public matters; had
repaired the walls, prepared arms and machines; had fortified the city
in the time of the four years’ war, and composed a peace, truce, and
alliance with the Boeotians; for which things he was banished by those
who overturned and usurped the government;—and being called home again
by a decree of the people, in the year of Diocles, he had contracted
the administration, sparing the public funds; and going in embassage
to Lysimachus, he had at one time gained thirty, and at another time a
hundred talents of silver, for the use of the public; he had moved the
people to send an embassage to Ptolemy, by which means the people got
fifty talents; he went ambassador to Antipater, and by that got twenty
talents, and brought it to Eleusis to the people,—all which measures
he persuaded the people to adopt while he himself carried them out;
furthermore, he was banished for his love for the commonwealth, and
would never take part with usurpers against the popular government;
neither did he, after the overthrow of that government, bear any public
office in the state; he was the only man, of all that had to do in
the public administration of affairs in his time, who never promoted
or consented to any other form of government but the popular; by his
prudence and conduct, all the judgments and decrees, the laws, courts,
and all things else belonging to the Athenians, were preserved safe
and inviolate; and, in a word, he never said or did any thing to the
prejudice of the popular government.
III.
LYCOPHRON, the son of Lycurgus of Butadae, requires that he may have
diet in the Prytaneum, according to a donation of the people to
Lycurgus. In the year of Anaxicrates,[29] in the sixth prytany,—which
was that of the tribe Antiochis,—Stratocles, the son of Euthydemus
of Diomea, proposed; that,—since Lycurgus, the son of Lycophron of
Butadae, had (as it were) an ingenerated good-will in him towards the
people of Athens; and since his ancestors Diomedes and Lycurgus lived
in honor and esteem of all people, and when they died were honored
for their virtue so far as to be buried at the public charge in the
Ceramicus; and since Lycurgus himself, while he had the management of
public affairs, was the author of many good and wholesome laws, and
was the city treasurer for twelve years together, during which time
there passed through his own hands eighteen thousand and nine hundred
talents, besides other great sums of money that he was entrusted with
by private citizens for the public good, to the sum of six hundred and
fifty talents; in all which concerns he behaved himself so justly,
that he was often crowned by the city for his fidelity; besides, being
chosen by the people to that purpose, he brought much money into the
Citadel, and provided ornaments, golden images of victory, and vessels
of gold and silver for the Goddess Minerva, and gold ornaments for a
hundred Canephoroe;[30] since, being commissary-general, he brought
into the stores a great number of arms and at least fifty thousand shot
of darts, and set out four hundred galleys, some new built, and others
only repaired; since, finding many buildings half finished, as the
dock-yards, the arsenal, and the theatre of Bacchus, he completed them;
and finished the Panathenaic race, and the court for public exercises
at the Lyceum, and adorned the city with many fair new buildings;
since, when Alexander, having conquered Asia, and assuming the empire
of all Greece, demanded Lycurgus as the principal man that confronted
and opposed him in his affairs, the people refused to deliver him up,
notwithstanding the terror inspired by Alexander; and since, being
often called to account for his management of affairs in so free a
city, which was wholly governed by the people, he never was found
faulty or corrupt in any particular;—that all people, therefore, may
know, not only that the people do highly esteem all such as act in
defence of their lïberties and rights while they live, but likewise
that they pay them honors after death, in the name of Good Fortune it
is decreed by the people, that such honors be paid to Lycurgus, the son
of Lycophron of Butadae, for his justice and magnanimity, as that a
statue of brass be erected in memory of him in any part of the market
which the laws do not prohibit; as likewise that there be provision for
diet in the Prytaneum for every eldest son of his progeny, successively
for ever. Also, that all his decrees be ratified, and engrossed by the
public notary, and engraven on pillars of stone, and set up in the
Citadel just by the gifts consecrated to Minerva; and that the city
treasurer shall deposit fifty drachms for the engraving of them, out of
the money set apart for such uses.
WHETHER AN AGED MAN OUGHT TO MEDDLE IN STATE AFFAIRS.
1. WE are not ignorant, O Euphanes, that you, being an extoller of
Pindar, have often in your mouth this saying of his, as a thing well
and to the purpose spoken by him:
When as the combat’s once agreed,
Who by pretence seeks to be freed
Obscures his virtue quite.
But since sloth and effeminacy towards civil affairs, having many
pretences, do for the last, as if it were drawn from the sacred
line, tender to us old age, and thinking by this chiefly to abate
and cool our honorable desire, allege that there is a certain decent
dissolution, not only of the athletical, but also of the political
period, or that there is in the revolution of our years a certain set
and limited time, after which it is no more proper for us to employ
ourselves in the conduct of the state than in the corporeal and robust
exercises of youth; I esteem myself obliged to communicate also to
you those sentiments of mine concerning old men’s intermeddling with
public matters, which I am ever and anon ruminating on by myself; so
that neither of us may desert that long course we have to this day
held together, nor rejecting the political life, which has been (as it
were) an intimate friend of our own years, change it for another to
which we are absolute strangers, and with which we have not time to
become acquainted and familiar, but that we may persist in what we had
chosen and have been inured to from the beginning, putting the same
conclusion to our life and our living honorably; unless we would, by
the short space of life we have remaining, disgrace that longer time
we have already lived, as having been spent idly and in nothing that
is commendable. For tyranny is not an honorable sepulchre, as one told
Dionysius, whose monarchy, obtained by and administered with injustice,
did by its long continuance bring on him but a more perfect calamity;
as Diogenes afterwards let his son know, when, seeing him at Corinth,
of a tyrant become a private person, he said to him: “How unworthy of
thyself, Dionysius, thou actest! For thou oughtest not to live here
at liberty and fearless with us, but to spend thy life, as thy father
did, even to old age, immured within a tyrannical fortress.” But the
popular and legal government of a man accustomed to show himself no
less profitable in obeying than in commanding is an honorable monument,
which really adds to death the glory accruing from life. For this
thing, as Simonides says, “goes last under the ground;” unless it be
in those in whom humanity and the love of honor die first, and whose
zeal for goodness sooner decays than their covetousness after temporal
necessaries; as if the soul had its active and divine parts weaker than
those that are passive and corporeal; which it were neither honest to
say, nor yet to admit from those who affirm that only of gaining we are
never weary. But we ought to turn to a better purpose the saying of
Thucydides, and believe that it is not the desire of honor only that
never grows old,[31] but much more also the inclinations to society
and affection to the state, which continue even in ants and bees to
the very last. For never did any one know a bee to become by age a
drone, as some think it requisite of statesmen, of whom they expect
that, when the vigor of their youth is past, they should retire and
sit mouldy at home, suffering their active virtue to be consumed by
idleness, as iron is by rust. For Cato excellently well said, that we
ought not willingly to add the shame proceeding from vice to those
many afflictions which old age has of its own. For of the many vices
everywhere abounding, there is none which more disgraces an old man
than sloth, delicacy, and effeminateness, when, retiring from the court
and council, he mews himself up at home like a woman, or getting into
the country oversees his reapers and gleaners; for of such a one we may
say,
Where’s Oedipus, and all his famous riddles?
But as for him who should in his old age, and not before, begin to
meddle with public matters,—as they say of Epimenides, that having
fallen asleep while he was a young man, he awakened fifty years
after,—and shaking off so long and so close-sticking a repose, should
thrust himself, being unaccustomed and unexercised, into difficult and
laborious employs, without having been experienced in civil affairs,
or inured to the conversations of men, such a man may perhaps give
occasion to one that would reprehend him, to say with the prophetess
Pythia
Thou com’st too late,
seeking to govern in the state and rule the people, and at an unfit
hour knocking at the palace gate, like an ill-bred guest coming late to
a banquet, or a stranger, thou wouldst change, not thy place or region,
but thy life for one of which thou hast made no trial. For that saying
of Simonides,
The state instructs a man,
is true in those who apply themselves to the business of the commonweal
whilst they have yet time to be taught, and to learn a science which
is scarce attained with much labor through many strugglings and
negotiations, even when it timely meets with a nature that can easily
undergo toil and difficulty. These things seem not to be impertinently
spoken against him who in his old age begins to act in the management
of the state.
2. And yet, on the contrary, we see how young men and those of unripe
years are by persons of judgment diverted from meddling in public
matters; and the laws also testify the same, when by the crier in the
assemblies they summon not first the men like Alcibiades and Pytheas to
come to the desk, but those who have passed the age of fifty years, to
make speeches and consult together for the good of the people. For the
being unused to boldness and the want of experience are not so much to
every soldier....
[Here is a defect in the original.]
But Cato, when above eighty years of age he was to plead his own cause,
said, that it was a difficult thing for a man to make his apology and
justify his life before others than those with whom he had lived and
been conversant.
All men indeed confess, that the actions of Augustus Caesar, when
he had defeated Antony, were no less royal and useful to the public
towards the end of his life, than any he had done before. And himself
severely reprehending the dissoluteness of young men by establishing
good customs and laws, when they raised an uproar, he only said to
them: Young men, refuse not to hear an old man, to whom old men not
unwillingly gave ear when he was young. The government also of Pericles
exerted itself with most vigor in his old age, when he both persuaded
the Athenians to make war, and at another time, when they were eagerly
bent unseasonably to go forth and fight sixty thousand armed men
withstood and hindered them, sealing up in a manner the arms of the
people and the keys of the gates. Now as for what Xenophon has written
of Agesilaus, it is fit it should be set down in his own words. “What
youth,” says he, “was ever so gallant but that his old age surpassed
it? Who was ever so terrible to his enemies in the very flower of his
virility, as Agesilaus in the declension of his days? At whose death
were adversaries ever seen more joyful than at that of Agesilaus,
though he departed not this life till he was stooping under the burden
of his years? Who more emboldened his confederates than Agesilaus,
though being at the utmost period of his life? What young man was ever
missed more by his friends than Agesilaus, who died not till he was
very old?”
3. Age then hindered not these men from performing such gallant
actions; and yet we, forsooth, being at our ease in states which have
neither tyranny, war, nor siege to molest them, are afraid of such
bloodless debates and emulations, as are for the most part terminated
with justice only by law and words; confessing ourselves by this not
only worse than those ancient generals and statesmen, but even than
poets, sophisters, and players. Since Simonides in his old age gained
the victory by his choral songs, as the epigram testifies in these
concluding verses:
Fourscore years old was Leoprepes’ son,
Simonides, when he this glory won.
And it is said of Sophocles, that, to avoid being condemned of dotage
at the instance of his children, he repeated the entrance song of the
Chorus in his tragedy of Oedipus in Colonus, which begins thus:
Welcome, stranger, come in time
To the best place of this clime,
White Colonus, which abounds
With brave horses. In these grounds,
Spread with Nature’s choicest green,
Philomel is often seen.
Here she her hearers charms with sweetest lays,
Whilst with shrill throat
And warbling note
She moans the sad misfortunes of her former days:[32]
and that, this song appearing admirable, he was dismissed from the
court, as from the theatre, with the applause and acclamations of all
that were present. And this short verse is acknowledged to be written
of him:
When Sophocles framed for Herodotus
This ode, his years were fifty-five.
Philemon also the comedian and Alexis were snatched away by death,
whilst they were acting on the stage and crowned with garlands. And as
for Polus the tragedian, Eratosthenes and Philochorus related of him
that, being seventy years of age, he a little before his death acted in
four days eight tragedies.
4. Is it not then a shame, that those who have grown old in councils
and courts of judicature should appear less generous than such as have
spent their years on the stage, and forsaking those exercises which are
really sacred, cast off the person of the statesman, to put on instead
of it I know not what other? For to descend from the state of a prince
to that of a ploughman is all over base and mean. For since Demosthenes
says that the Paralus, being a sacred galley, was unworthily used in
being employed to carry timber, pales, and cattle to Midias; would not
a man who should, after his having quitted the office of superintendent
at the public solemnities, governor of Boeotia, or president in the
council of the Amphictyons, be seen measuring of corn, weighing of
raisins, and bargaining about fleeces and wool-fells,—would not such
a one, I say, wholly seem to have brought on himself, as the proverb
has it, the old age of a horse, without any one’s necessitating him to
it? For to set one’s self to mechanical employments and trafficking,
after one has borne office in the state, is the same as if one
should strip a well-bred virtuous gentlewoman out of her matron-like
attire, and thrust her with an apron tied about her into a public
victualling-house. For the dignity and greatness of political virtue
is overthrown, when it is debased to such mean administrations and
traffics for gain. But if (which is the only thing remaining) they
shall, by giving effeminacies and voluptuousness the name of living at
quiet and enjoying one’s self, exhort a statesman leisurely to waste
away and grow old in them, I know not to which of the two shameful
pictures his life will seem to have the greater resemblance,—whether to
the mariners who, leaving their ship for the future not in the harbor
but under sail, spend all their time in celebrating the feasts of
Venus; or to Hercules, whom some painters merrily but yet ridiculously
represent wearing in Omphale’s palace a yellow petticoat, and giving
himself up to be boxed and combed by the Lydian damsels. So shall
we, stripping a statesman of his lion’s-skin, and seating him at a
luxurious table, there be always cloying his palate with delicacies,
and filling his ears with effeminate songs and music; being not a whit
put to the blush by the saying of Pompey the Great to Lucullus, who
after his public services both in camp and council, addicted himself
to bathing, feasting, conversing with women in the day, and much other
dissoluteness, even to the raising and extravagantly furnishing of
sumptuous buildings, and who, once upbraiding Pompey with an ambition
and desire of rule unsuitable to his age, was by him answered, that it
was more misbecoming an old man to live voluptuously than to govern?
The same Pompey, when in his sickness his physician had prescribed him
the eating of a thrush, which was then hard to be got, as being out of
season, being told that Lucullus bred great store of such birds, would
not send to him for one, but said: What! Cannot Pompey live, unless
Lucullus be luxurious?
5. For though Nature seeks by all means to delight and rejoice
herself, yet the bodies of old men are incapacitated for all pleasures,
except a few that are absolutely necessary. For not only
Venus to old men is averse,[33]
as Euripides has it; but their appetite also to their meat and drink is
for the most part dull, and as one would say, toothless; so that they
have but little gust and relish in them.
They ought therefore to furnish themselves with pleasures of the mind,
not ungenerous or illiberal, like those of Simonides, who said to those
who reproached him with covetousness, that being by his years deprived
of other pleasures, he recreated his old age with the only delight
which remained, that of heaping up riches. But political life has in
it pleasures exceeding great, and no less honorable, being such as it
is probable the very Gods do only or at least chiefly enjoy themselves
in; and these are the delights which proceed from doing good and
performing what is honest and laudable. For if Nicias the painter took
such pleasure in the work of his hands, that he often was fain to ask
his servants whether he had washed or dined; and if Archimedes was so
intent upon the table in which he drew his geometrical figures, that
his attendants were obliged by force to pluck him from it and strip him
of his clothes that they might anoint him, whilst he in the mean time
drew new schemes on his anointed body; and if Canus the piper, whom you
also know, was wont to say that men knew not how much more he delighted
himself with his playing than he did others, for that then his hearers
would rather demand of him than give him a reward; do we not thence
conceive how great pleasures the virtues afford to those who practise
them, from their honest actions and public-spirited works tending to
the benefit of human society? They do not tickle or weaken, as do
such sweet and gentle motions as are made on the flesh; for these
indeed have a furious and unconstant itching, mixed with a feverish
inflammation; whereas those which accompany the state is worker of, not
like the golden plumes of Euripides, but like those celestial wings of
Plato, elevate the soul which has received a greatness of courage and
wisdom accompanied with joy.
6. Call to mind a little, I entreat you, those things you have so often
heard. For Epaminondas indeed, being asked what was the most pleasant
thing that ever befell him, answered, his having gained the victory at
Leuctra whilst his father and mother were yet living. And Sylla, when,
having freed Italy from civil wars, he came to Rome, could not the
first night fetch the least wink of sleep, having his soul transported
with excessive joy and content, as with a strong and mighty wind; and
this he himself has written in his Commentaries. For be it indeed so,
as Xenophon says, that there is no sound more pleasing than one’s own
praises; yet there is no sight, remembrance, or consideration which
gives a man so much satisfaction as the contemplation of his own
actions, performed by him in offices of magistracy, and management of
the state, in eminent and public places.
It is moreover true, that the courteous thanks attending as a witness
on such virtuous acts, and the emulous praise conferred on them, which
is as a guide conducting us in the way of just benevolence, add a
certain lustre and shining gloss to the joy of virtue. Neither ought a
man negligently to suffer his glory to wither in his old age, like a
wrestler’s garland; but, by adding always something new and fresh, he
should awaken, meliorate, and confirm the grace of his former actions.
For as those workmen on whom was incumbent the charge of keeping in
repair the Delian ship, by supplying and putting into the place of
the decayed planks and timber others that were new and sound, seem
to have preserved it from ancient times, as if it were eternal and
incorruptible; so the preserving and upholding of one’s glory is as
the keeping in of a fire, a work of no difficulty, as requiring only
to be supplied with a little fuel, but when either of them is wholly
extinct and suppressed, one cannot without great labor rekindle it
again. Lampis, the sea commander, being asked how he got his wealth,
answered: “My greatest estate I gained easily enough, but the smaller
slowly and with much labor.” In like manner, it is not easy at the
beginning to acquire reputation and power in the state; but to augment
and conserve it, when it is grown great, is not at all hard for those
who have obtained it. For neither does a friend, when he is once had,
require many and great services that he may so continue, but assiduity
does by small signs preserve his good-will; nor do the friendship
and confidence of the people expect to have a man always bestowing
largesses, defending their causes, or executing of magistracy, but
they are maintained by a readiness, and by not failing or being
weary of carefulness and solicitude for the public. For even wars
themselves have not always conflicts, fights, and sieges; but there
sometimes intervene sacrifices and parleys, and abundance of leisure
for sports and pastimes. Whence then comes it, that the administration
of the commonwealth should be feared as inconsolable, laborious, and
unsupportable, where theatres, processions, largesses, music, joy, and
at every turn the service and festival of some God or other, unbending
the brows of every council and senate, yield a manifold pleasure and
delight?
7. As for envy, which is the greatest evil attending the management
of public affairs, it least attacks old age. For dogs indeed, as
Heraclitus has it, bark at a stranger whom they do not know; and
envy opposes him who is a beginner on the very steps of the tribune,
hindering his access, but she meekly bears an accustomed and familiar
glory, and not churlishly or difficultly. Wherefore some resemble envy
to smoke; for it arises thick at first, when the fire begins to burn;
but when the flame grows clear, it vanishes away. Now men usually
quarrel and contend about other excellences, as virtue, nobility,
and honor, as if they were of opinion that they took from themselves
as much as they give to others; but the precedency of time, which is
properly called by the Greeks Πρεσβεῖον (or the honor of old age), is
free from jealousy, and willingly granted by men to their companions.
For to no honor is it so incident to grace the honorer more than the
honored, as to that which is given to persons in years. Moreover, all
men do not expect to gain themselves authority from wealth, eloquence,
or wisdom; but as for the reverence and glory to which old age brings
men, there is not any one of those who act in the management of the
state but hopes to attain it.
He therefore who, having a long time contended against envy, shall when
it ceases and is appeased withdraw himself from the state, and together
with public actions desert communities and societies, differs nothing
from that pilot who, having kept his ship out at sea when in danger
of being overwhelmed by contrary and tempestuous waves and winds,
seeks to put into harbor as soon as ever the weather is grown calm and
favorable. For the longer time there has been, the more friends and
companions he has made; all which he cannot carry out with him, as a
singing-master does his choir, nor is it just to leave them. But as
it is not easy to root up old trees, so neither is it to extirpate a
long-continued practice in the management of the state, which having
many roots is involved in a tangled mass of affairs, which create more
troubles and vexations to those who retire from them than to those who
continue in them. And if there is any remainder of envy and emulation
against old men from former contentions about civil affairs, they
should rather extinguish it by authority, than turn their backs on it
and go away naked and disarmed. For envious persons do not so much
assail those who contend against them, as they do by contempt insult
over such as retire.
8. And to this bears witness that saying of the great Epaminondas to
the Thebans, when in the winter the Arcadians requested them to come
into their city and dwell in their houses,—which he would not permit,
but said to them: Now the Arcadians admire you, seeing you exercise
yourselves, and wrestle in your armor; but if they shall behold you
sitting by the fire and pounding of beans, they will think you to
differ nothing from themselves. So an old man speaking to the people,
acting in the state, and honored, is a venerable spectacle; but he who
wastes away his days in his bed, or sits discoursing of trivial matters
and wiping his nose in the corner of a gallery, easily renders himself
an object of contempt. And this indeed Homer himself teaches those
who hear him aright. For Nestor, who fought before Troy, was highly
venerated and esteemed; whilst Peleus and Laertes, who stayed at home,
were slighted and despised. For the habit of prudence does not continue
the same in those who give themselves to their ease; but by little and
little diminishes and is dissolved by sloth, as always requiring some
exercise of the thought to rouse up and purify the rational, active
faculty of the soul. For,
Like glittering brass, by being used it shines.[34]
For the infirmity of the body does not so much incommode the
administrations of those who, almost spent with age, go to the tribune
or to the council of war, as they are advantageous by the caution
and prudence which attend their years, and keep them from thrusting
themselves precipitately into affairs, abused partly by want of
experience and partly by vain-glory, and hurrying the people along with
them by violence, like a sea agitated by the winds; causing them mildly
and moderately to manage those with whom they have to do.
Whence cities, when they are in adversity and fear, desire the
government of grave and ancient personages; and often having drawn out
of his field some old man who had not so much as the least thought of
it, have compelled him, though unwilling, to put his hand to the helm,
and conduct the ship of the state into the haven of security, rejecting
generals and orators, who not only knew how to speak loud and make long
harangues without drawing their breath, but were able also valiantly
to march forth and fight their enemies. So when the orators one day
at Athens, before Timotheus and Iphicrates uncovering Chares the son
of Theochares, a vigorous and stout-bodied young man, said they were
of opinion that the general of the Athenians ought to be such a one;
Not so, by all the Gods, answered Timotheus, but such a one he should
be that is to carry the general’s bedding; but the general himself
ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forwards and
backwards, and will suffer not his reasonings about things convenient
to be disturbed by any passion.
Sophocles indeed said, he was glad that he was got free from the
tyranny of wanton love, as being a furious and raging master; but in
the administrations of state, we are not to avoid this one only master,
the love of women or boys, but many who are madder than he, such as
obstinacy in contending ambition, and a desire of being always the
first and greatest, which is a disease most fruitful in bringing forth
envy, jealousy, and conspiracies; some of which vices old age abates
and dulls, while it wholly extinguishes and cools the others, not so
much detracting from the practical impulse of the mind, as repressing
its impetuous and over-hot passions, that it may apply a sober and
settled reasoning to its considerations about the management of affairs.
9. Nevertheless let this speech of the poet,
Lie still at ease, poor wretch, in thy own bed,[35]
both be and seem to be spoken for the dissuading of him who shall, when
he is now grown gray with age, begin to play the youth; and for the
restraining an old man who, rising from a long administration of his
domestic affairs, as from a lingering disease, shall set himself to
lead an army to the field, or perform the office of secretary of state.
But altogether senseless, and nothing like to this, is he who will not
suffer one that has spent his whole time in political administrations,
and been thoroughly beaten to them, to go on to his funeral torch and
the conclusion of his life, but shall call him back, and command him
(as it were) to turn out of the long road he has been travelling in. He
who, to draw off from his design an old fellow who is crowned and is
perfuming himself to go a wooing, should say to him, as was heretofore
said to Philoctetes,
What virgin will her blooming maidenhead
Bestow on such a wretch? Why would’st thou wed?
would not be at all absurd, since even old men break many such jests
upon themselves, and say,
I, old fool, know, I for my neighbors wed;
but he who should think, that a man which has long co-habited and
lived irreprehensibly with his wife ought, because he is grown old,
to dismiss her and live alone, or take a concubine in her place,
would have attained the utmost excess of perverseness. So he would
not act altogether unreasonably, that should admonish an old man
who is making his first approaches to the people, whether he be
such a one as Chlidon the farmer, or Lampon the mariner, or some old
dreaming philosopher of the garden, and advise him to continue in
his accustomed unconcernedness for the public; but he who, taking
hold of Phocion, Cato, or Pericles, should say to him, My Athenian or
Roman friend, who art come to thy withered old age, make a divorce,
and henceforth quit the state; and dismissing all conversations and
cares about either council or camp, retire into the country, there
with an old maid-servant looking after thy husbandry, or spending the
remainder of thy time in managing thy domestic affairs and taking thy
accounts,—would persuade a statesman to do things misbeseeming him and
unacceptable.
10. What then! may some one say; do we not hear the soldier in the
comedy affirming,
Henceforth my gray hairs exempt me from wars?
Yes indeed, my friend, it is altogether so; for it becomes the servants
of Mars to be young and vigorous, as managing
War, and war’s toilsome works;[36]
in which, though an helmet may also hide the old man’s gray hairs,
Yet inwardly his limbs are all decayed,[37]
and his strength falls short of his good-will. But from the ministers
of Jupiter, the counsellor, orator, and patron of cities, we expect
not the works of feet and hands, but those of counsel, providence, and
reason,—not such as raises a noise and shouting amongst the people, but
such as has it in understanding, prudent solicitousness, and safety;
by which the derided hoariness and wrinkles appear as witnesses of his
experience, and add to him the help of persuasion, and the glory of
ingenuity. For youth is made to follow and be persuaded, age to guide
and direct; and that city is most secure, where the counsels of the old
and the prowess of the young bear sway. And this of Homer,[38]
A council first of valiant old men
He called in Nestor’s ship,
is wonderfully commended. Wherefore the Pythian Apollo called the
aristocracy or council of noblemen in Lacedaemon, joined as assistants
to their kings, Πρεσβυγενεῖς (or the _ancients_), and Lycurgus named
it plainly Γέροντες (or the _council of old men_); and even to this
day the council of the Romans is called the senate (from _senium_,
signifying _old age_). And as the law places the diadem and crown, so
does Nature the hoariness of the head, as an honorable sign of princely
dignity. And I am of opinion, that γέρας (signifying _an honorable
reward_) and γεραίρειν (signifying _to honor_) continue still in use
amongst the Greeks, being made venerable from the respect paid to old
men, not because they wash in warm water and sleep on softer beds than
others, but because they have as it were a king-like esteem in states
for their prudence, from which, as from a late-bearing tree, Nature
scarcely in old age brings forth its proper and perfect good. Therefore
none of those martial and magnanimous Achaeans blamed that king of
kings, Agamemnon, for praying thus to the Gods,
O that among the Greeks I had but ten
Such counsellors as Nestor;[39]
but they all granted, that not in policy only, but in war also, old age
has great influence;
For one discreet advice is much more worth
Than many hands,[40]
and one rational and persuasive sentence effects the bravest and
greatest of public exploits.
11. Moreover, the regal dignity, which is the perfectest and greatest
of all political governments, has exceeding many cares, labors, and
difficulties; insomuch that Seleucus is reported ever and anon to
have said: If men knew how laborious are only the writing and reading
of so many epistles, they would not so much as stoop to take up a
diadem thrown on the ground. And Philip, when, being about to pitch
his camp in a fair and commodious place, he was told that there was
not there forage for his regiments, cried out: O Hercules, what a life
is ours, if we must live for the conveniency of asses! It is then time
to persuade a king, when he is now grown into years, to lay aside his
diadem and purple, and putting on a coarse coat, with a crook in his
hand, to betake himself to a country life, lest he should seem to act
superfluously and unseasonably by reigning in his old age. But if the
very mentioning such a thing to an Agesilaus, a Numa, or a Darius would
be an indignity; let us not, because they are in years, either drive
away Solon from the council of the Areopagus, or remove Cato out of the
senate; nor yet let us advise Pericles to abandon the democracy. For it
is besides altogether unreasonable and absurd, that he who has in his
youth leaped into the tribunal should, after he has discharged all his
furious ambitions and impetuous passions on the public, when he is come
to that maturity of years which by experience brings prudence, desert
and abandon the commonwealth, having abused it as if it were a woman.
12. Aesop’s fox indeed would not permit the hedge-hog, who offered it,
to take from him the ticks that fed upon his body. For, said he, if
thou remov’st those that are full, other hungry ones will succeed them.
So it is of necessity, that a commonwealth which is always casting
off those who grow old must be replenished with young men, thirsting
after glory and power, and void of understanding in state affairs. For
whence, I pray, should they have it, if they shall have been neither
disciples nor spectators of any ancient statesman? For if treatises of
navigation cannot make those skilful pilots who have not often in the
stern been spectators of the conflicts against the waves, winds, and
pitchy darkness of the night,
When the poor trembling seaman longs to see
The safety-boding twins, Tyndaridae;
how should a raw young man take in hand the government of a city, and
rightly advise both the senate and the people, having only read a book
or written an exercise in the Lyceum concerning policy, though he
has seldom or never stood by the reins or helm, when grave statesmen
and old commanders have in debating alleged both their experiences
and fortunes, whilst he was wavering on both sides, that so he might
with dangers and transacting of affairs gain instruction? This is not
to be said. But if it were for nothing else, yet ought an old man to
manage in public affairs, that he may instruct and teach those who
are young. For as those who teach children reading and music do, by
pronouncing and by singing notes and tunes before them, lead and bring
on their scholars; so an old statesman, not by speaking and dictating
exteriorly, but by acting and administering public affairs, directs
and breeds up a young one, who is by his deeds joined with his words
interiorly formed and fashioned. For he who is exercised after this
manner, not amongst the disputes of nimble tongued sophisters, as in
the wrestling-schools and anointings, where there is not the least
appearance of any danger, but really, and as it were in the Olympian
and Pythian games, will tread in his teacher’s steps,
Like a young colt, which runs by th’ horse’s side,—
as Simonides has it. Thus Aristides followed Clisthenes, Cimon
Aristides, Phocion Chabrias, Cato Fabius Maximus, Pompey Sylla,
and Polybius Philopoemen; for these, when they were young, joining
themselves with their elders, and afterwards as it were flourishing and
growing up by their administrations and actions, gained experience, and
were inured to the management of public affairs with reputation and
power.
13. Aeschines therefore the Academic, being charged by certain
sophisters that he pretended himself a disciple of Carneades when he
was not so, said: I was then a hearer of Carneades, when his discourse,
having dismissed contention and noise by reason of his old age,
contracted itself to what was useful and fit to be communicated. Now an
aged man’s government being not only in words but in deeds far remote
from all ostentation and vain-glory,—as they say of the bird ibis, that
when she is grown old, having exhaled all her venomous and stinking
savor, she sends forth a most sweet and aromatical one,—so in men grown
into years, there is no opinion or counsel disturbed, but all grave and
settled. Wherefore, even for the young men’s sake, as has been said,
ought an old man to act in the government of the state; that, (as Plato
said of wine allayed with water, that the furious God was made wise,
being chastised by another who was sober) so the caution of old age,
mixed among the people with the fervency of youth, transported by glory
and ambition, may take off that which is furious and over-violent.
14. But besides all this, they are under a mistake who think that, as
sailing and going to the wars, so also acting in the state is done for
a certain end, and ceases when that is obtained. For the managing of
state affairs is not a ministry which has profit for its end; but the
life of gentle, civil, and sociable animals, framed by nature to live
civilly, honestly, and for the benefit of mankind. Wherefore it is fit
he should be such a one as that it may be said of him, he is employed
in state affairs, and not he has been so employed; as also, that he is
true, and not he has been true; he acts justly, and not he has acted
justly; and that he loves his country and fellow-citizens, and not
he has loved them. For to these things does Nature direct, and these
voices does she sound to those who are not totally corrupted with sloth
and effeminacy:
Thy father has engendered thee a man,
Worthy of much esteem with men:
and again,
Let us not cease to benefit mankind.
15. Now as for those who pretend weakness and impotency, they accuse
rather sickness and infirmity of body than old age; for there are many
young men sickly, and many old ones lusty; so that we are not to remove
from the administration of the state aged, but impotent persons; nor
call to it such as are young, but such as are able. For Aridaeus was
young, and Antigonus old; and yet the latter conquered in a manner
all Asia, whereas the former, as if he had only been to make a dumb
show with his guards upon a stage, was but the bare name of a king, a
puppet always mocked by those who were in power. As therefore he would
be a very fool that should think Prodicus the sophister and Philetas
the poet—men indeed young, but withal weak, sickly, and almost always
confined by their infirmity to their beds—fit to be concerned in the
management of the state; so he would be no less absurd that should
hinder such vigorous old men as were Phocion, Masinissa the Libyan, and
Cato the Roman, from governing or leading forth of armies. For Phocion,
when the Athenians were at an unseasonable time hurrying to war, made
proclamation that all who were not above sixty years of age should take
up arms and follow him; and when they were offended at it, he said,
There is no hardship put upon you, for I, who am above fourscore years
old, will be your general. And Polybius relates, that Masinissa, dying
at the age of ninety years, left behind him a young son of his own
begetting, not above four years old; and that, having a little before
been in a great fight, he was the next day seen at the door of his tent
eating a dirty piece of bread, and that he said to those who wondered
at it, that he did this....
For brass by use and wear its gleam displays,
But every house untenanted decays;[41]
as Sophocles has it; we all say the same of that light and lustre of
the soul, by which we reason, remember, and think.
16. Wherefore also they say, that kings become better in wars and
military expeditions than when they live at ease. Attalus therefore,
the brother of Eumenes, being enervated with long idleness and peace,
was with little skill managed by Philopoemen, one of his favorites,
who fattened him like a hog in the sty; so that the Romans were wont
in derision to ask those who came out of Asia, whether the king had
any power with Philopoemen. Now one cannot find amongst the Romans
many stouter generals than Lucullus, as long as he applied his mind
to action; but when he gave himself up to an unactive life, to a
continuing lazily at home, and an unconcernedness for the public,
being dulled and mortified, like sponges in calm weather, and then
delivering his old age to be dieted and ordered by Callisthenes one
of his freedmen, he seemed bewitched by him with philters and other
incantations; till such time as his brother Marcus, having driven away
this fellow, did himself govern and conduct the remainder of his life,
which was not very long. But Darius, father of Xerxes, said, that
by difficulties he grew wiser than himself. And the Scythian Ateas
affirmed, that he thought there was no difference between himself and
his horse-keepers, when he was idle. And Dionysius the Elder, when
one asked him whether he was at leisure, answered, May that never
befall me. For a bow, they say, will break, if over-bent; and a soul,
if too much slackened. For even musicians, if they over-long omit to
hear accords, geometricians, if they leave off demonstrating their
propositions, and arithmeticians, if they discontinue their casting up
of accounts, do, together with the actions, impair by their progress
in age the habits, though they are not practical but speculative arts;
but the habit of statesmen—being wise counsel, discretion, and justice,
and besides these, experience which seizes upon the right opportunities
and words, the very faculty which works persuasion—is maintained by
frequent speaking, acting, reasoning, and judging. And a hard thing it
would be, if by avoiding to do these things it should suffer such and
so great virtues to run out of the soul. For it is probable also that
humanity, friendly society, and beneficence will then also decay, of
which there ought to be no end or limit.
17. If then you had Tithonus to your father, who was indeed immortal,
but yet by reason of his old age stood perpetually in need of much
attendance, I do think you would shun or be weary of looking to him,
discoursing with him, and helping him, as having a long time done
him service. Now our fatherland (or, as the Cretans call it, our
_motherland_), being older and having greater rights than our parents,
is indeed long lasting, yet neither free from the inconveniences of
old age nor self-sufficient; but standing always in need of a serious
regard, succor, and vigilance, she pulls to her and takes hold of a
statesman,
And with strong hand restrains him, who would go.[42]
And you indeed know that I have these many Pythiads served the Pythian
Apollo; but yet you would not say to me: Thou hast sufficiently, O
Plutarch, sacrificed, gone in procession, and led dances in honor of
the Gods; it is now time that, being in years, thou shouldst in favor
of thy old age lay aside the garland and leave the oracle. Therefore
neither do you think that you, who are the chief priest and interpreter
of religious ceremonies in the state, may leave the service of Jupiter,
the protector of cities and governor of assemblies, for the performance
of which you were long since consecrated.
18. But leaving, if you please, this discourse about withdrawing old
men from performing their duties to the state, let us make it a little
the subject of our consideration and philosophy, how we may enjoin them
no exercise unfitting or grievous to their years, the administration
of a commonwealth having many parts beseeming and suitable for such
persons. For as, if we were obliged to persevere in the practice of
singing to the end of our days, it would behoove us, being now grown
old, of the many tones and tensions there are of the voice, which the
musicians call harmonies, not to aim at the highest and shrillest,
but to make choice of that in which there is an easiness joined with
a decent suitableness; so, since it is more natural for men to act
and speak even to the end of their lives, than for swans to sing, we
must not reject action, like a harp that is set too high, but rather
let it a little down, accommodating it to such employs in the state as
are easy, moderate, and fitting for men in years. For neither do we
suffer our bodies to be altogether motionless and unexercised because
we cannot any longer make use of spades and plummets, nor yet throw
quoits or skirmish in armor, as we have formerly done; but some of
us do by swinging and walking, others by playing gently at ball, and
some again by discoursing, stir up our spirits and revive our natural
heat. Therefore neither let us permit ourselves to be wholly chilled
and frozen by idleness, nor yet on the contrary let us, by burthening
ourselves with every office or intermeddling with every public
business, force on old age, convinced of its disability, to break forth
into these exclamations:
The spear to brandish, thou, right hand, art bent;
But weak old age opposes thy intent.
Since even that man is not commended who, in the vigor and strength
of his years, imposing all public affairs in general on himself,
and unwilling to leave any thing for another (as the Stoics say of
Jupiter), thrusts himself into all employs, and intermeddles in every
business, through an insatiable desire of glory, or through envy
against those who are in some measure partakers of honor and authority
in the state. But to an old man, though you should free him from the
infamy, yet painful and miserable would be an ambition always laying
wait at every election of magistrates, a curiosity attending for every
opportunity of judicature or assembling in counsel, and a humor of
vain-glory catching at every embassy and patronage. For the doing of
these things, even with the favor and good liking of every one, is too
heavy for that age. And yet the contrary to this happens; for they are
hated by the young men, as leaving them no occasions of action, nor
suffering them to put themselves forth; and their ambitious desire of
primacy and rule is no less odious to others than the covetousness and
voluptuousness of other old men.
19. Therefore, as Alexander, unwilling to tire his Bucephalus when he
now began to grow old, did before the fight ride on other horses, to
view his army and draw it up for battle, and then, after the signal
was given, mounting this, marched forth and charged the enemy; so
a statesman, if he is wise, moderating himself when he finds years
coming on, will abstain from intermeddling in unnecessary affairs, and
suffering the state to make use of younger persons in smaller matters,
will readily exercise himself in such as are of great importance.
For champions indeed keep their bodies untouched and unemployed in
necessary matters, that they may be in a readiness for unprofitable
engagements; but let us on the contrary, letting pass what is little
and frivolous, carefully preserve ourselves for worthy and gallant
actions. For all things perhaps, as Homer says, equally become a young
man;[43] all men now esteem and love him; so that for undertaking
frequently little and many businesses, they say he is laborious and
a good commonwealths-man; and for enterprising none but splendid and
noble actions, they style him generous and magnanimous; nay, there
are also some occurrences when even contention and rashness have a
certain seasonableness and grace, becoming such men. But an old man’s
undertaking in a state such servile employs as the farming out of the
customs, and the looking after the havens and market-place, or else
his running on embassies and journeys to princes and potentates when
there are no necessary or honorable affairs to be treated of, but only
compliments and a maintaining of correspondence,—such management, dear
friend, seems to me a thing miserable and not to be imitated, but to
others, perhaps, odious and intolerable.
20. For it is not even seasonable for such men to be employed in
magistracies, unless it be such as bear somewhat of grandeur and
dignity; such is the presidency in the council of Areopagus, which
you now exercise, and such also, by Jove, is the excellency of the
Amphictyonic office, which your country has conferred on you for your
life, having an easy labor and pleasant pains. And yet old men ought
not ambitiously to affect even these honors, but accept them with
refusal, not seeking but being sought; nor as taking government on
themselves, but bestowing themselves on government. For it is not,
as Tiberius Caesar said, a shame for those that are above threescore
years old to reach forth their hands to the physician; but it far more
misbeseems them to hold up their hands to the people, to beg their
votes or suffrages for the obtaining offices; for this is ungenerous
and mean, whereas the contrary has a certain majesty and comeliness,
when, his country choosing, inviting, and expecting him, he comes down
with honor and courtesy to welcome and receive the present, truly
befitting his old age and acceptance.
21. After the same manner also ought he that is grown old to use his
speech in assemblies, not ever and anon climbing up to the desk to
make harangues, nor always, like a cock, crowing against those that
speak, nor letting go the reins of the young men’s respect to him by
contending against them and provoking them, nor breeding in them a
desire and custom of disobedience and unwillingness to hear him; but he
should sometimes pass them by, and let them strut and brave it against
his opinion, neither being present nor concerning himself much at
it, as long as there is no great danger to the public safety nor any
offence against what is honest and decent. But in such cases, on the
contrary, he ought, though nobody call him, to run beyond his strength,
or to deliver himself to be led or carried in a chair, as historians
report of Appius Claudius in Rome. For he having understood that the
senate, after their army had been in a great fight worsted by Pyrrhus,
were debating about receiving proposals of peace and alliance, could
not bear it, but, although he had lost both his eyes, caused himself to
be carried through the common place straight to the senate house, where
entering among them and standing in the midst, he said, that he had
formerly indeed been troubled at his being deprived of his sight, but
that he now wished he had also lost his ears, rather than to have heard
that the Roman senators were consulting and acting things so ungenerous
and dishonorable. And then partly reprehending, and partly teaching
and exalting them, he persuaded them to betake themselves presently
to their arms, and fight with Pyrrhus for the dominion of Italy. And
Solon, when the popularity of Pisistratus was discovered to be only a
plot for the obtaining of a tyranny, none daring to oppose or impeach
it, did himself bring forth his arms, and setting them before the
doors of his house, called out to the people to assist him; and when
Pisistratus sent to ask him what gave him the confidence to act in that
manner, “My old age,” answered he.
22. For matters that are so necessary as these inflame and rouse up
old men who are in a manner extinct, so that they have but any breath
yet left them; but in other occurrences, an old man, as has been said,
should be careful to avoid mean and servile offices, and such in which
the trouble to those who manage them exceeds the advantage and profit
for which they are done. Sometimes by expecting also till the citizens
call and desire and fetch him out of house, he is thought more worthy
of credit by those who request him. And even when he is present, let
him for the most part silently permit the younger men to speak, as if
he were an arbitrator, judging to whom the reward and honor of this
their debate about public matters ought to be given; but if any thing
should exceed a due mediocrity, let him mildly reprehend it, and with
sweetness cut off all obstinate contentions, all injurious and choleric
expressions, directing and teaching without reproof him that errs in
his opinions, boldly praising him that is in the right, and often
willingly suffering himself to be overcome, persuaded, and brought to
their side, that he may hearten and encourage them; and sometimes with
commendations supplying what has been omitted, not unlike to Nestor,
whom Homer makes to speak in this manner:
There is no Greek can contradict or mend
What you have said; yet to no perfect end
Is your speech brought. No wonder, for’t appears.
You’re young, and may my son be for your years.[44]
23. And it were yet more civil and politic, not only in reprehending
them openly and in the face of the people, to forbear that sharpness
of speech which exceedingly dashes a young man and puts him out of
countenance, but rather, wholly abstaining from all such public
reproofs, privately to instruct such as have a good genius for
the managing of state affairs, drawing them on by setting gently
before them useful counsels and political precepts, inciting them to
commendable actions, enlightening their understanding, and showing
them, as those do who teach to ride, how at their beginning to render
the people tractable and mild, and if any young man chances to fall,
not to suffer him to lie gasping and panting on the ground, but to help
him up and comfort him, as Aristides dealt by Cimon, and Mnesiphilus by
Themistocles; whom they raised up and encouraged, though at first they
were harshly received and ill spoken of in the city, as audacious and
intemperate. It is said also, that Demosthenes being rejected by the
people and taking it to heart, there came to him a certain old man, who
had in former years been an hearer of Pericles, and told him, that he
naturally resembled that great man, and did unjustly cast down himself.
In like manner Euripides exhorted Timotheus, when he was hissed at for
introducing of novelty, and thought to transgress against the law of
music, to be of good courage, for that he should in a short time have
all the theatres subject to him.
24. In brief, as in Rome the Vestal virgins have their time divided
into three parts, in one of which they are to learn what belong to the
ceremonies of their religion, in the second to execute what they have
learned, and in the third to teach the younger; and as in like manner
they call every one of those who are consecrated to the service of
Diana in Ephesus, first Mell-hiere (one that is to be a priestess),
then Hiere (priestess), and thirdly Par-hiere (or one that has been
a priestess), so he that is a perfect statesman is at first a learner
in the management of public affairs, then a practitioner, and at last
a teacher and instructor in the mysteries of government. For indeed he
who is to oversee others that are performing their exercise or fighting
for prizes cannot judge at the same exercise and fight himself. Thus
he who instructs a young man in public affairs and negotiations of the
state, and prepares him
Both to speak well and act heroicly[45]
for the service of his country, is in no small or mean degree useful to
the commonwealth, but in that at which Lycurgus chiefly and principally
aimed himself, when he accustomed young men to persist in obedience to
every one that was elder, as if he were a lawgiver. For to what, think
you, had Lysander respect, when he said that in Lacedaemon men most
honorably grew old? Was it because old men could most honorably grow
old there enjoying idleness, putting out money to use, sitting together
at tables, and after their game taking a cheerful cup? You will not,
I believe, say any such thing. But it was because all such men, being
after some sort in the place of magistrates, fatherly governors, or
tutors of youth, inspected not only the public affairs, but also made
inquiry—and that not slightly—into every action of the younger men,
both as concerning their exercises, recreations, and diet, being
terrible indeed to offenders, but venerable and desirable to the good.
For young men indeed always venerate and follow those who increase and
cherish the neatness and generosity of their disposition without any
envy.
25. For this vice, though beseeming no age, is nevertheless in young
men veiled with specious names, being styled emulation, zeal, and
desire of honor; but in old men, it is altogether unseasonable, savage,
and unmanly. Therefore a statesman that is in years must be very
far from being envious, and not act like those old trees and stocks
which, as with a certain charm, manifestly withdraw the nutritive juice
from such young plants as grow near them or spring up under them, and
hinder their growth; but he should kindly admit and even offer himself
to those that apply themselves to him and seek to converse with him,
directing, leading, and educating them, not only by good instructions
and counsels, but also by affording them the means of administering
such public affairs as may bring them honor and repute, and executing
such unprejudicial commissions as will be pleasing and acceptable to
the multitude. But for such things as, being untoward and difficult,
do like medicines at first gripe and molest, but afterwards yield
honor and profit,—upon these things he ought not to put young men, nor
expose those who are inexperienced to the mutinous clamors of the rude
and ill-natured multitude, but he should rather take the odium upon
himself for such things as (though harsh and unpleasing) may yet prove
beneficial to the commonwealth; for this will render the young men both
more affectionate to him, and more cheerful in the undertaking other
services.
26. But besides all this, we are to keep in mind, that to be a
statesman is not only to bear offices, go on embassies, talk loud in
public meetings, and thunder on the tribune, speaking and writing such
things in which the vulgar think the art of government to consist; as
they also think that those only philosophize who dispute from a chair
and spend their leisure time in books, while the policy and philosophy
which is continually exercised in works and conspicuous in actions is
nowise known to them. For they say, as Dicaearchus affirmed, that they
who fetch turns to and fro in galleries walk, but not they who go into
the country or to visit a friend. But the being a statesman is like
the being a philosopher. Wherefore Socrates did philosophize, not only
when he neither placed benches nor seated himself in his chair, nor
kept the hour of conference and walking appointed for his disciples,
but also when, as it happened, he played, drank, went to war with some,
bargained, finally, even when he was imprisoned and drank the poison;
having first shown that man’s life does at all times, in every part,
and universally in all passions and actions, admit of philosophy. The
same also we are to understand of civil government, to wit, that fools
do not administer the state, even when they lead forth armies, write
dispatches and edicts, or make speeches to the people; but that they
either endeavor to insinuate themselves into the favor of the vulgar
and become popular, seek applause by their harangues, raise seditions
and disturbances, or at the best perform some service, as compelled by
necessity. But he that seeks the public good, loves his country and
fellow-citizens, has a serious regard to the welfare of the state, and
is a true commonwealths-man, such a one, though he never puts on the
military garment or senatorial robe, is yet always employed in the
administration of the state, by inciting to action those who are able,
guiding and instructing those that want it, assisting and advising
those that ask counsel, deterring and reclaiming those that are
ill-given, and confirming and encouraging those that are well-minded;
so that it is manifest, he does not for fashion’s sake apply himself to
the public affairs, nor go then to the theatre or council when there is
any haste or when he is sent for by name, that he may have the first
place there, being otherwise present only for his recreation, as when
he goes to some show or a concert of music; but on the contrary, though
absent in body, yet is he present in mind, and being informed of what
is done, approves some things and disapproves others.
27. For neither did Aristides amongst the Athenians, nor Cato amongst
the Romans often execute the office of magistrate; and yet both the one
and the other employed their whole lives perpetually in the service of
their country. And Epaminondas indeed, being general, performed many
and great actions; but yet there is related an exploit of his, not
inferior to any of them, performed about Thessaly when he had neither
command in the army nor office in the state. For, when the commanders,
having through inadvertency drawn a squadron into a difficult and
disadvantageous ground, were in amaze, for that the enemies pressed
hard upon them, galling them with their arrows, he, being called up
from amongst the heavy-armed foot, first by his encouraging them
dissipated the trouble and fright of the army, and then, having ranged
and brought into order that squadron whose ranks had been broken, he
easily disengaged them out of those straits, and placed them in front
against their enemies, who, thereupon changing their resolutions,
marched off. Also when Agis, king of Sparta, was leading on his army,
already put in good order for fight, against the enemies, a certain old
Spartan called out aloud to him, and said, that he thought to cure one
evil by another; meaning that he was desirous the present unseasonable
promptness to fight should salve the disgrace of their over-hasty
departure from before Argos, as Thucydides says. Now Agis, hearing
him, took his advice, and at that present retreated; but afterwards
got the victory. And there was every day a chair set for him before
the doors of the government house, and the Ephori, often rising from
their consistory and going to him, asked his advice and consulted him
about the greatest and most important affairs; for he was esteemed
very prudent, and is recorded to have been a man of great sense. And
therefore, having now wholly exhausted the strength of his body, and
being for the most part tied to his bed, when the Ephori sent for him
to the common hall of the city, he strove to get up and go to them;
but walking heavily and with great difficulty, and meeting by the way
certain boys, he asked them whether they knew any thing stronger than
the necessity of obeying their master; and they answering him that
inability was of greater force, he, supposing that this ought to be
the limit of his service, turned back again homewards. For a readiness
and good will to serve the public ought not to fail, whilst ability
lasts; but when that is once gone, it is no longer to be forced. And
indeed Scipio, both in war and peace, always used Caius Laelius for
a counsellor; insomuch that some said, Scipio was the actor of those
noble exploits, and Caius the poet or author. And Cicero himself
confessed, that the honorablest and greatest of his counsels, by the
right performance of which he in his consulship preserved his country,
were concerted with Publius Nigidius the philosopher.
28. Thus is there nothing that in any manner of government hinders
old men from helping the public by the best things, to wit, by their
reason, sentences, freedom of speech, and solicitous care, as the poets
term it. For not only our hands, feet, and corporeal strength are the
possession and share of the commonwealth; but chiefly our soul, and
the beauties of our soul, justice, temperance, and prudence; which
receiving their perfection late and slowly, it were absurd that men
should remain in charge of house and land and other wealth, and yet not
be beneficial to their common country and fellow-citizens by reason
of their age, which does not so much detract from their ministerial
abilities as it adds to their directive and political. And this is the
reason why they portrayed the Mercuries of old without hands and feet,
but having their natural parts stiff, enigmatically representing that
there is no great need of old men’s corporeal services, if they have
but their reason (as is convenient) active and fruitful.
POLITICAL PRECEPTS.
1. If ever, O Menemachus, that saying of Nestor’s in Homer,
There is no Greek can contradict or mend
What you have said, yet to no perfect end
Is your speech brought,[46]
might pertinently be made use of and applied, it is against those
exhorting, but nothing teaching nor any way instructing, philosophers.
For they do (in this respect) resemble those who are indeed careful in
snuffing the lamps, but negligent in supplying them with oil. Seeing
therefore that you, being by reason moved to engage yourself in the
affairs of the state, desire, as becomes the nobility of your family,
Both to speak and act heroicly[47]
in the service of your country, and that, not having attained to
such maturity of age as to have observed the life of a wise and
philosophical man openly spent in the transactions of the state and
public debates, and to have been a spectator of worthy examples
represented not in word but in deed, you request me to lay you down
some political precepts and instructions; I think it no ways becoming
me to give you a denial, but heartily wish that the work may be worthy
both of your zeal and my forwardness. Now I have, according to your
request, made use in this my discourse of sundry and various examples.
2. First then for the administration of state affairs, let there
be laid, as a firm and solid foundation, an intention and purpose,
having for its principles judgment and reason, and not any impulse
from vain-glory, emulation, or want of other employment. For as those
who have nothing grateful to them at home frequently spend their
time in the forum, though they have no occasion that requires it; so
some men, because they have no business of their own worth employing
themselves in, thrust themselves into public affairs, using policy
as a divertisement. Many also, having been by chance engaged in the
negotiations of the commonweal, and being cloyed with them, cannot yet
easily quit them; in which they suffer the same with those who, going
on board a ship that they may be there a little tossed, and being after
carried away into the deep, send forth many a long look towards the
shore, being sea-sick and giddy-headed, and yet necessitated to stay
and accommodate themselves to their present fortune.
Past is the lovely pleasure
They took, when th’ sea was calm and weather bright,
In walking at their leisure
On the ship’s deck,
Whilst her sharp beak
With merry gale,
And full blown sail,
Did through the surging billows cut its course aright
And these do most of all discredit the matter by their repenting
and being discontented, when either hoping for glory they fall into
disgrace, or expecting to become formidable to others by their power
they are engaged in affairs full of dangers and troubles. But he who on
a well grounded principle of reason undertakes to act in the public,
as an employ very honorable and most beseeming him, is dismayed by
none of these things; nor does he therefore change his opinion. For
we must not come to the management of the commonweal on a design of
gaining and growing rich by it, as Stratocles and Dromoclides exhorted
one another to the golden harvest,—so in mirth terming the tribunal,
or place of making harangues to the people,—nor yet as seized with
some sudden fit of passion, as did heretofore Caius Gracchus, who
having, whilst his brothers’ misfortunes were hot, withdrawn himself
to a retired life most remote from public affairs, did afterwards,
inflamed by indignation at the injuries and affronts put on him by some
persons, thrust himself into the state, where being soon filled with
affairs and glory, when he sought to desist and desired change and
repose, he could not (so great was it grown) find how to lay down his
authority, but perished with it. And as for those who through emulation
frame themselves for the public as actors for the stage, they must
needs repent of their design, finding themselves under a necessity of
either serving those whom they think themselves worthy to govern, or
disobliging those whom they desire to please. Now I am of opinion, that
those who by chance and without foresight stumble upon policy, falling
as it were into a pit, cannot but be troubled and repent; whereas they
that go leisurely into it, with preparation and a good resolution,
comfort themselves moderately in all occurrences, as having no other
end of their actions but the discharging of their duty with honor.
3. Now they that have thus grounded their choice within themselves, and
rendered it immovable and difficult to be changed, must set themselves
to contemplate that disposition of the citizens which, being compounded
(as it were) of all their natures, appears most prevalent among them.
For the endeavoring presently to form the manners and change the nature
of a people is neither easy nor safe, but a work requiring much time
and great authority. But as wine in the beginning is overcome by the
nature of the drinker, but afterwards, gently warming him and mixing
itself in his veins, assimilates and changes him who drinks it into its
own likeness, so must a statesman, till he has by his reputation and
credit obtained a leading power amongst the people, accommodate himself
to the dispositions of the subjects, knowing how to consider and
conjecture those things with which the people are naturally delighted
and by which they are usually drawn. The Athenians, to wit, are easily
moved to anger, and not difficultly changed to mercy, more willing to
suspect quickly than to be informed by leisure; and as they are readier
to help mean and inconsiderable persons, so do they embrace and esteem
facetious and merry speeches; they are exceedingly delighted with those
that praise them, and very little offended with such as jeer them; they
are terrible even to their governors, and yet courteous to their very
enemies. Far other is the disposition of the Carthaginians, severe,
rigid, obsequious to their rulers, harsh to their subjects, most abject
in their fear, most cruel in their anger, firm in their resolutions,
untractable, and hard to be moved by sportive and pleasant discourse.
Should Cleon have requested them to defer their assembly, because he
had sacrificed to the Gods and was to feast certain strangers, they
would not have risen up, laughing and clapping their hands for joy;
nor, if Alcibiades, as he was making an harangue to them, had let
slip a quail from under his cloak, would they have striven who should
catch her and restore her to him again, but would rather have killed
them both on the place, as contemning and deriding them; since they
banished Hanno for making use of a lion to carry his baggage to the
army, accusing him of affecting tyranny. Neither do I think, that the
Thebans, if they had been made masters of their enemies’ letters, would
have foreborne looking into them, as did the Athenians, when, having
taken the messengers of Philip who were carrying a letter superscribed
to Olympias, they would not so much as open it, or discover the
conjugal secrets of an absent husband, written to his wife. Nor yet do
I believe that the Athenians on the other side would have patiently
suffered the haughtiness and disdain of Epaminondas, when, refusing to
answer an accusation brought against him, he rose up from the theatre,
and went away through the midst of the assembly to the place of public
exercises. And much less am I of opinion that the Spartans would have
endured the contumely and scurrility of Stratocles, who persuaded the
people to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to the Gods, as having
obtained the victory, and afterwards, when, being truly informed of
the loss they had received, they were angry with him, asked them what
injury they had sustained in having through his means spent three days
merrily.
Courtly flatterers indeed, like to quail-catchers, by imitating the
voices and assimilating themselves to the manners of kings, chiefly
insinuate into their favors and entrap them by deceit; but it is not
convenient for a statesman to imitate the people’s manners, but to know
them, and make use of those things toward every person by which he is
most likely to be taken. For the ignorance of men’s humors brings no
less disorders and obstacles in commonweals than in the friendships of
kings.
4. When therefore you shall have already gotten power and authority
amongst the people, then must you endeavor to reform their disposition,
treating them gently, and by little and little drawing them to what is
better. For the changing of a multitude is a difficult and laborious
work. But as for your own manners and behavior, so compose and adorn
them, as knowing that you are henceforth to lead your life on an open
stage; and if it is no easy task for you wholly to extirpate vice out
of your soul, at least take away and retrench those offences which
are most notorious and apparent. For you cannot but have heard how
Themistocles, when he designed to enter upon the management of public
affairs, withdrew himself from drinking and revelling, and fell to
watching, fasting, and studying, saying to his intimate friends, that
Miltiades’s trophy suffered him not to sleep. And Pericles also so
changed himself, both as to the comportment of his body and his manner
of living, that he walked gravely, discoursed affably, always showed
a staid and settled countenance, continually kept his hand under his
robe, and went only that way which led to the assembly and the senate.
For a multitude is not so tractable as that it should be easy for every
one to take it with safety, but it is a service much to be valued, if,
being like a suspicious and skittish beast, it can be so managed that,
without being frighted either by sight or voice, it will submit to
receive instruction.
These things therefore are not slightly to be observed; nor are we to
neglect taking such care of our own life and manners that they may
be clear from all stain and reprehension. For statesmen are not only
liable to give an account of what they say or do in public; but there
is a busy enquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and
every either sportive or serious action. For what need we speak of
Alcibiades, who, being of all men the most active in public affairs,
and withal an invincible commander, perished by his irregularity in
living and his audaciousness, and who by his luxury and prodigality
rendered the state unbenefited by all his other good qualities?—since
the Athenians blamed Cimon’s wine; the Romans, having nothing else to
cavil at, found fault with Scipio’s sleeping; and the enemies of Pompey
the Great, having observed that he scratched his head with one finger,
upbraided him with it. For as a freckle or wart in the face is more
prejudicial than stains, maims, and scars in the rest of the body; so
little faults, discerned in the lives of princes and statesmen, appear
great, through an opinion most men have conceived of government and
policy, which they look on as a great and excellent thing, and such
as ought to be pure from all absurdity and imperfection. Therefore
not unjustly is Livius Drusus commended, who, when several parts of
his house lay open to the view of his neighbors, being told by a
certain workman that he would for the expense only of five talents
alter and remedy that fault, said: I will give thee indeed ten, to
make my whole house so transparent that all the city may see how I
live. For he was a temperate and modest man. And yet perhaps he had
no need of this perspicuity; for many persons pry into those manners,
counsels, actions, and lives of statesmen which seem to be most deeply
concealed, no less loving and admiring one, and hating and despising
another, for their private than for their public transactions. What
then! perhaps you may say: Do not cities make use also of such men
as live dissolutely and effeminately? True; for as women with child
frequently long for stones and chalk, as those that are stomach-sick
do for salt-fish and such other meats, which a little after they spit
out again and reject; so also the people sometimes through wantonness
and petulancy, and sometimes for want of better guides, make use of
those that come first to hand, though at the same time detesting and
contemning them, and after rejoice at such things spoken against them
as the comedian Plato makes the people themselves to say,
Quick, take me by the hand, and hold me fast,
Or I’ll Agyrrius captain choose in haste.
And again he brings them in, calling for a basin and feather that they
may vomit, and saying,
A chamber-pot by my tribunal stands.
And a little after,
It feeds a stinking pest, foul Cephalus.
And the Roman people, when Carbo promised them something, and (to
confirm it) added an oath and execration, unanimously swore on the
contrary that they would not believe him. And in Lacedaemon, when a
certain dissolute man named Demosthenes had delivered a very convenient
opinion, the people rejected it; but the Ephori, who approved of his
advice, having chosen by lot one of the ancient senators, commanded him
to repeat the same discourse, pouring it (as it were) out of a filthy
vessel into a clean one, that it might be acceptable to the multitude.
Of so great moment either way in political affairs is the belief
conceived of a person’s disposition and manners.
5. Yet are we not therefore so to lay the whole stress on virtue,
as utterly to neglect all gracefulness and efficacy of speech; but
esteeming rhetoric, though not the worker, yet a coadjutor and
forwarder of persuasion, we should correct that saying of Menander,
The speaker’s manners, not his speech, persuade.
For both manners and language ought to concur, unless any one forsooth
shall say that—as it is the pilot who steers the ship, and not the
rudder, and the rider that turns the horse, and not the bridle—so
political virtue, using not eloquence but manners as an helm and
bridle, persuades and guides a city, which is (to speak with Plato)
an animal most easy to be turned, managing and directing it (as
it were) from the poop. For since those great and (as Homer calls
them) Jove-begotten kings, setting themselves out with their purple,
sceptres, guards, and the very oracles of the Gods, and subjecting to
them by their majesty the multitude, as if they were of a better nature
and more excellent mould than other men, desired also to be eloquent
orators, and neglected neither the gracefulness of speech,
Nor public meeting, that more perfect they
Might be for feats of war,[48]
not only venerating Jupiter the counsellor, Mars the slaughterer, and
Pallas the warrior, but invocating also Calliope,
Who still attends on regal Majesty,[49]
by her persuasive oratory appeasing and moderating the fierceness
and violence of the people; how is it possible that a private man
in a plebeian garb and with a vulgar mien, undertaking to conduct a
city, should ever be able to prevail over and govern the multitude,
if he is not endowed with alluring and all-persuading eloquence? The
captains indeed and pilots of ships make use of others to deliver their
commands; but a statesman ought to have in himself not only a spirit
of government, but also a commanding faculty of speech, that he may
not stand in need of another’s voice, nor be constrained to say, as
did Iphicrates when he was run down by the eloquence of Aristophon,
“My adversaries have the better actors, but mine is the more excellent
play,” nor yet be often obliged to make use of these words of Euripides,
O that the race of miserable men
Were speechless!
and again,
Alas! Why have not men’s affairs a tongue,
That those fine pleaders who of right make wrong
Might be no longer in request?[50]
For to these evasions perhaps might an Alcamenes, a Nesiotes, an
Ictinus, and any such mechanical persons as get their bread by their
hands, be permitted on their oath to have recourse. As it sometime
happened in Athens, where, when two architects were examined about
the erecting a certain public work, one of them, who was of a free
and voluble speech and had his tongue (as we say) well hung, making
a long and premeditated harangue concerning the method and order of
raising such a fabric, greatly moved the people; but the other, who was
indeed the better workman though the worse speaker, coming forth into
the midst, only said, “Ye men of Athens, what this man has spoken, I
will do.” For those men venerate only Minerva surnamed Ergane (or the
Artisan), who, as Sophocles says of them,
Do on the massy anvil lay
A lifeless iron bar, where they
With blows of heavy hammer make
It pliant to the work they undertake.
But the prophet or minister of Minerva Polias (that is, the protectress
of cities) and of Themis (or Justice) the counsellor,
Who both convenes assemblies, and again
Dissolves them,[51]
making use of no other instrument but speech, does, by forming and
fashioning some things and smoothing and polishing others that, like
certain knots in timber or flaws in iron, are averse to his work,
embellish and adorn a city. By this means the government of Pericles
was in name (as Thucydides[52] says) a democracy, but in effect
the rule of one principal man through the power of his eloquence.
For there were living at the same time Cimon, and also Ephialtes
and Thucydides,[53] all good men; now Thucydides, being asked by
Archidamus, king of the Spartans, whether himself or Pericles were the
better wrestler, thus answered: “That is not easily known; for when I
in wrestling overthrow him, he, by his words persuading the spectators
that he did not fall, gains the victory.” And this did not only bring
glory to himself, but safety also to the city; for being persuaded
by him, it preserved the happiness it had gotten, and abstained from
intermeddling with foreign affairs. But Nicias, though having the
same design, yet falling short in the art of persuasion, when he
endeavored by his speech, as by a gentle curb, to restrain and turn
the people, could not compass it or prevail with them, but was fain to
depart, being violently hurried and dragged (as it were) by the neck
and shoulders into Sicily. They say, that a wolf is not to be held by
the ears; but a people and city are chiefly to be drawn by the ears,
and not as some do who, being unpractised in eloquence, seek other
absurd and unartificial ways of taking them, and either draw them by
the belly, making them feasts and banquets, or by the purse, bestowing
on them gifts and largesses, or by the eye, exhibiting to them masks
and prizes or public shows of dancers and fencers,—by which they do
not so much lead as cunningly catch the people. For to lead a people
is to persuade them by reason and eloquence; but such allurements of
the multitude nothing differ from the baits laid for the taking of
irrational animals.
6. Let not yet the speech of a statesman be youthful and theatrical,
as if he were making an harangue composed, like a garland, of curious
and florid words; nor again—as Pytheas said of an oration made by
Demosthenes, that it smelt of the lamp and sophistical curiosity—let
it consist of over-subtle arguments and periods, exactly framed by
rule and compass. But as musicians require that the strings of their
instruments should be sweetly and gently touched, and not rudely
thrummed or beaten; so in the speech of a statesman, both when he
counsels and when he commands, there should not appear either violence
or cunning, nor should he think himself worthy of commendation for
having spoken formally, artificially, and with an exact observation of
punctualities; but his whole discourse ought to be full of ingenuous
simplicity, true magnanimity, fatherly freedom, and careful providence
and understanding, joined with goodness and honesty, gracefulness
and attraction, proceeding from grave expressions and proper and
persuasive sentences. Now a political oration does much more properly
than a juridical one admit of sententious speeches, histories, fables,
and metaphors, by which those who moderately and seasonably use them
exceedingly move their hearers; as he did who said, Make not Greece
one-eyed; and Demades, when he affirmed of himself, that he was to
manage the wreck of the state; and Archilochus, when he said
Nor let the stone of Tantalus
Over this isle hang always thus;
and Pericles, when he commanded the eyesore[54] of the Piraeus to be
taken away; and Phocion, when he pronounced of Leosthenes’s victory,
that the beginning or the short course of the war was good, but that he
feared the long race that was to follow. But in general, majesty and
greatness more benefit a political discourse, a pattern of which may be
the Philippics, and (amongst the orations set down by Thucydides) that
of Sthenelaidas the Ephor, that of Archidamus at Plataea, and that of
Pericles after the plague. But as for those rhetorical flourishes and
harangues of Ephorus, Theopompus, and Anaximenes, which they made after
they had armed and set in order the battalions, it may be said of them,
None talks thus foolishly so near the sword.[55]
7. Nevertheless, both taunts and raillery may sometimes be part of
political discourse, so they proceed not to injury or scurrility, but
are usefully spoken by him who either reprehends or scoffs. But these
things seem most to be allowed in answers and replies. For in that
manner to begin a discourse as if one had purposely prepared himself
for it, is the part of a common jester, and carries with it an opinion
of maliciousness; as was incident to the biting jests of Cicero, Cato
the Elder, and Euxitheus, an intimate acquaintance of Aristotle,—all of
whom frequently began first to jeer; but in him, who does it only in
revenge, the seasonableness of it renders it not only pardonable but
also graceful. Such was the answer of Demosthenes, when one that was
suspected of thievery derided him for writing by night: I know that
the keeping my candle burning all night is offensive to you. So when
Demades bawled out, Demosthenes forsooth would correct me: thus would
the sow (as the proverb has it) teach Minerva;—That Minerva, replied
Demosthenes, was not long since taken in adultery. Not ungraceful also
was that of Xenaenetus to those citizens who upbraided him with flying
when he was general, ’Twas with you, my dear hearts. But in raillery
great care is to be taken for the avoiding of excess, and of any thing
that may either by its unseasonableness offend the hearers or show the
speaker to be of an ungenerous and sordid disposition;—such as were
the sayings of Democrates. For he, going up into the assembly, said
that, like the city, he had little force but much wind; and after the
overthrow at Chaeronea, going forth to the people, he said: I would
not have had the state to be in so ill a condition that you should
be contented to hear me also giving you counsel. For this showed a
mean-spirited person, as the other did a madman; but neither of them
was becoming a statesman. Now the succinctness of Phocion’s speech was
admired; whence Polyeuctus affirmed, that Demosthenes was the greatest
orator, but that Phocion spake most forcibly, for that his discourse
did in very few words contain abundance of matter. And Demosthenes, who
contemned others, was wont, when Phocion stood up, to say, The hatchet
(or pruning-knife) of my orations arises.
8. Let your chief endeavor therefore be, to use to the multitude a
premeditated and not empty speech, and that with safety, knowing that
Pericles himself, before he made any discourse to the people, was
wont to pray that there might not a word pass from him foreign to
the business he was to treat of. It is requisite also, that you have
a voluble tongue, and be exercised in speaking on all occurrences;
for occasions are quick, and bring many sudden things in political
affairs. Wherefore also Demosthenes was, as they say, inferior to many,
withdrawing and absconding himself when sudden occasion offered. And
Theophrastus relates that Alcibiades, desirous to speak not only what
he ought but as he ought, often hesitated and stood still in the midst
of his speech, seeking and composing expressions fit for his purpose.
But he who, as matters and occasions present themselves, rises up to
speak, most of all moves, leads, and disposes of the multitude. Thus
Leo Byzantius came to make an harangue to the Athenians, being then at
dissension amongst themselves; by whom when he perceived himself to
be laughed at for the littleness of his stature, What would you do,
said he, if you saw my wife, who scarce reaches up to my knees? And
the laughter thereupon increasing, Yet, went he on, as little as we
are, when we fall out with one another, the city of Byzantium is not
big enough to hold us. So Pytheas the orator, who declaimed against
the honors decreed to Alexander, when one said to him, Dare you, being
so young, discourse of so great matters? made this answer, And yet
Alexander, whom you decree to be a God, is younger than I am.
9. It is requisite also for the champion of the commonweal to bring to
this not slight but all-concerning contest a firm and solid speech,
attended with a strong habit of voice and a long lasting breath, lest,
being tired and spent with speaking, he chance to be overcome by
Some ravening crier, with a roaring voice,
Loud as Cycloborus.[56]
Cato, when he had no hopes of persuading the people or senate, whom
he found prepossessed by the courtships and endeavors of the contrary
party, was wont to rise up and hold them a whole day with an oration,
by that means depriving his adversaries of their opportunity. And thus
much concerning the preparation and use of speech may be sufficient for
him who can of himself find out and add what necessarily follows from
it.
10. There are, moreover, two avenues or ways of entering into the
government of the state; the one short and expeditious to the lustre
of glory, but not without danger; the other more obscure and slow, but
having also greater security. For some there are who, beginning with
some great and illustrious action which requires a courageous boldness,
do, like to those that from a far extended promontory launch forth
into the deep, steer directly into the very midst of public affairs,
thinking Pindar to have been in the right when he said,
If you a stately fabric do design,
Be sure that your work’s front with lustre shine.[57]
For the multitude do, through a certain satiety and loathing of those
to whom they have been accustomed, more readily receive a beginner;
as the beholders do a fresh combatant, and as those dignities and
authorities which have a splendid and speedy increase dazzle and
astonish envy. For neither does that fire, as Ariston says, make a
smoke, nor that glory breed envy, which suddenly and quickly shines
forth; but of those who grow up slowly and by degrees, some are
attacked on this side, others on that; whence many have withered away
about the tribunal, before ever they came to flourish. But when, as
they say of Ladas,
The sound o’ th’ rope[58] yet rattled in his ear,
When Ladas having finished his career
Was crowned,
any one suddenly and gloriously performs an embassy, triumphs, or leads
forth an army, neither the envious nor the disdainful have like power
over him as over others. Thus did Aratus ascend to glory, making the
overthrow of the tyrant Nicocles his first step to the management of
the commonweal. Thus did Alcibiades, settling the alliance with the
Mantineans against the Lacedaemonians. Pompey also required a triumph,
being not yet admitted into the senate; and when Sylla opposed it, he
said to him, More adore the rising than the setting sun; which when
Sylla heard, he yielded to him. And the people of Rome on a sudden,
contrary to the ordinary course of the law, declared Cornelius Scipio
consul, when he stood candidate for the aedileship, not from any vulgar
reason, but admiring the victory he had got, whilst he was but a youth,
in a single combat fought in Spain, and his conquests a little after,
performed at Carthage, when he was a tribune of foot; in respect of
which Cato the Elder cried out with a loud voice,
He only’s wise, the rest like shadows fly.[59]
Now then, since the affairs of the cities have neither wars to be
managed, tyrannies to be overthrown, nor leagues and alliances to be
treated, what can any one undertake for the beginning of an illustrious
and splendid government? There are yet left public causes and embassies
to the emperor, which require the courage and prudence of an acute and
cautious person. There are also in the cities many good and laudable
usages neglected, which may be restored, and many ill practices
brought in by custom, to the disgrace or damage of the city, which
may be redressed, to gain him the esteem of the people. Moreover, a
great suit rightly determined, fidelity in defending a poor man’s
cause against a powerful adversary, and freedom of speech in behalf of
justice to some unjust nobleman, have afforded some a glorious entrance
into the administration of the state. Not a few also have been advanced
by enmity and quarrels, having set themselves to attack such men whose
dignity was either envied or terrible. For the power of him that is
overthrown does with greater glory accrue to his overthrower. Indeed,
through envy to contend against a good man, and one that has by virtue
been advanced to the chiefest honor,—as Simmias did against Pericles,
Alcmaeon against Themistocles, Clodius against Pompey, and Meneclides
the orator against Epaminondas,—is neither good for one’s reputation
nor otherwise advantageous. For when the multitude, having outraged
some good man, soon after (as it frequently happens) repent of their
indignation, they think that way of excusing this offence the easiest
which is indeed the justest, to wit, the destroying of him who was the
persuader and author of it. But the rising up to humble and pull down
a wicked person, who has by his audaciousness and cunning subjected
the city to himself (such as heretofore Cleon and Clitophon were in
Athens), makes a glorious entrance to the management of public affairs,
as it were to a play. I am not ignorant also that some, by opposing—as
Ephialtes did at Athens, and Phormio amongst the Eleans—an imperious
and oligarchical senate, have at the same time obtained both authority
and honor; but in this there is great danger to him who is but entering
upon the administration of state. Wherefore Solon took a better
beginning; for the city of Athens being divided into three parts, the
Diacrians (or inhabitants of the hill), the Pedieans (or dwellers on
the plain), and the Paralians (or those whose abode was by the water
side), he, joining himself with none of them, but acting for the common
good of them all, and saying and doing all things for to bring them to
concord, was chosen the lawgiver to take away their differences, and by
that means settled the state.
Such then and so many beginnings has the more splendid way of entering
upon state affairs.
11. But many gallant men have chosen the safe and slow method, as
Aristides, Phocion, Pammenes the Theban, Lucullus in Rome, Cato, and
Agesilaus the Lacedaemonian. For as ivy, twining about the strongest
trees, rises up together with them; so every one of these, applying
himself, whilst he was yet young and inglorious, to some elder and
illustrious personage, and growing up and increasing by little and
little under his authority, grounded and rooted himself in the
commonweal. For Clisthenes advanced Aristides, Chabrias preferred
Phocion, Sylla promoted Lucullus, Maximus raised Cato, Pammenes
forwarded Epaminondas, and Lysander assisted Agesilaus. But this
last, injuring his own reputation through an unseasonable ambition
and jealousy, soon threw off the director of his actions; but the
rest honestly, politically, and to the end, venerated and magnified
the authors of their advancement,—like bodies which are opposed to
the sun,—by reflecting back the light that shone upon them, augmented
and rendered more illustrious. Certainly those who looked asquint
upon Scipio called him the player, and his companion Laelius the
poet or author of his actions; yet was not Laelius puffed up by any
of these things, but continued to promote the virtue and glory of
Scipio. And Afranius, the friend of Pompey, though he was very meanly
descended, yet being at the very point to be chosen consul, when he
understood that Pompey favored others, gave over his suit, saying that
his obtaining the consulship would not be so honorable as grievous
and troublesome to him, if it were against the good-will and without
the assistance of Pompey. Having therefore delayed but one year, he
enjoyed the dignity and preserved his friendship. Now those who are
thus by others led, as it were, by the hand to glory do, in gratifying
one, at the same time also gratify the multitude, and incur less odium,
if any inconvenience befalls them. Wherefore also Philip (king of
Macedon) exhorted his son Alexander, whilst he had leisure during the
reign of another, to get himself friends, winning their love by kind
and affable behavior.
12. Now he that begins to enter upon the administration of state
affairs should choose himself a guide, who is not only a man of credit
and authority but is also such for his virtue. For as it is not every
tree that will admit and bear the twining of a vine, there being some
which utterly choke and spoil its growth; so in states, those who are
no lovers of virtue and goodness, but only of honor and sovereignty,
afford not young beginners any opportunities of performing worthy
actions, but do through envy keep them down and let them languish
whom they regard as depriving them of their glory, which is (as it
were) their food. Thus Marius, having first in Afric and afterwards in
Galatia done many gallant exploits by the assistance of Sylla, forbare
any farther to employ him, and utterly cast him off, being really vexed
at his growing into repute, but making his pretence the device engraven
on his seal. For Sylla, being paymaster under Marius when he was
general in Afric, and sent by him to Bocchus, brought with him Jugurtha
prisoner; but as he was an ambitious young man, who had but just
tasted the sweetness of glory, he received not his good fortune with
moderation; but having caused the representation of the action to be
engraven on his seal, wore about him Jugurtha delivered into his hands;
and this did Marius lay to his charge, when he turned him off. But
Sylla, passing over to Catulus and Metellus, who were good men and at
difference with Marius, soon after in a civil war drove away and ruined
Marius, who wanted but little of overthrowing Rome. Sylla indeed, on
the contrary, advanced Pompey from a very youth, rising up to him and
uncovering his head as he passed by, and not only giving other young
men occasions of doing captain-like actions, but even instigating some
that were backward and unwilling. He filled the armies with emulation
and desire of honor; and thus he had the superiority over them all,
desiring not to be alone, but the first and greatest amongst many great
ones. These therefore are the men to whom young statesmen ought to
adhere, and with these they should be (as it were) incorporated, not
stealing from them their glory,—like Aesop’s wren, which, being carried
up on the eagle’s wings, suddenly flew away and got before her,—but
receiving it of them with friendship and good-will, since they can
never, as Plato says, be able to govern aright, if they have not been
first well practised in obedience.
13. After this follows the judgment that is to be had in the choice
of friends, in which neither the opinion of Themistocles nor that of
Cleon is to be approved. For Cleon, when he first knew that he was to
take on him the government, assembling his friends together, brake
off friendship with them, as that which often disables the mind, and
withdraws it from its just and upright intention in managing the
affairs of the state. But he would have done better, if he had cast
out of his soul avarice and contention, and cleansed himself from
envy and malice. For cities want not men that are friendless and
unaccompanied, but such as are good and temperate. Now he indeed drove
away his friends; but a hundred heads of fawning flatterers were, as
the comedian speaks, licking about him;[60] and being harsh and severe
to those that were civil, he again debased himself to court the favor
of the multitude, doing all things to humor them in their dotage, and
taking rewards at every man’s hand,[61] and joining himself with
the worst and most distempered of the people against the best. But
Themistocles, on the contrary, said to one who told him that he would
govern well if he exhibited himself alike to all: May I never sit on
that throne on which my friends shall not have more power with me than
those who are not my friends. Neither did he well in pinning the state
to his friendship, and submitting the common and public affairs to his
private favors and affections. And farther, he said to Simonides, when
he requested somewhat that was not just: Neither is he a good poet or
musician, who sings against measure; nor he an upright magistrate, who
gratifies any one against the laws. And it would really be a shameful
and miserable thing, that the pilot should choose his mariners, and the
master of a ship the pilot,
Who well can rule the helm, and in good guise
Hoist up the sails, when winds begin to rise,
and that an architect should make choice of such servants and workmen
as will not prejudice his work, but take pains in the best manner to
forward it; but that a statesman—who, as Pindar has it,
The best of artists and chief workman is
Of equity and justice—
should not presently choose himself like-affected friends and
ministers, and such as might co-inspire into him a love of honesty;
but that one or other should be always unjustly and violently bending
him to other uses. For then he would seem to differ in nothing from a
carpenter or mason who, through ignorance or want of experience, uses
such squares, rules, and levels as will certainly make his work to
be awry. Since friends are the living and intelligent instruments of
statesmen, who ought to be so far from bearing them company in their
slips and transgressions, that they must be careful they do not, even
unknown to them, commit a fault.
And this it was, that disgraced Solon and brought him into disrepute
amongst his citizens; for he, having an intention to ease men’s debts
and to bring in that which was called at Athens the Seisachtheia (for
that was the name given by way of extenuation to the cancelling of
debts), communicated this design to some of his friends, who thereupon
did a most unjust act; for having got this inkling, they borrowed
abundance of money, and the law being a little after brought to light,
they appeared to have purchased stately houses, and great store of land
with the wealth they had borrowed; and Solon, who was himself injured,
was accused to have been a partaker of their injustice. Agesilaus also
was most feeble and mean-spirited in what concerned the suits of his
friends, being like the horse Pegasus in Euripides,
Who, frighted, bowed his back, more than his rider would,[62]
so that, being more ready to help them in their misfortunes than was
requisite, he seemed to be privy to their injustices. For he saved
Phoebidas, who was accused for having without commission surprised
the castle of Thebes, called Cadmea, saying that such enterprises
were to be attempted without expecting any orders. And when Sphodrias
was brought to trial for an unlawful and heinous act, having made
an incursion into Attica at such time as the Athenians were allies
and confederates of the Spartans, he procured him to be acquitted,
being softened by the amorous entreaties of his son. There is also
recorded a short epistle of his to a certain prince, written in
these words: If Nicias is innocent, discharge him; if he is guilty,
discharge him for my sake; but however it is, discharge him. But
Phocion (on the contrary) would not so much as appear in behalf of
his son-in-law Charicles, when he was accused for having taken money
of Harpalus; but having said, Only for acts of justice have I made
you my son-in-law,—went his way. And Timoleon the Corinthian, when he
could not by admonitions or requests dissuade his brother from being a
tyrant, confederated with his destroyers. For a magistrate ought not to
be a friend even to the altar (or till he comes to the point of being
forsworn), as Pericles sometime said, but no farther than is agreeable
to all law, justice, and the utility of the state; any of which being
neglected brings a great and public damage, as did the not executing of
justice on Sphodrias and Phoebidas, who did not a little contribute to
the engaging of Sparta in the Leuctrian war.
Otherwise, reason of state is so far from necessitating one to show
himself severe on every peccadillo of his friends, that it even permits
him, when he has secured the principal affairs of the public, to assist
them, stand by them, and labor for them. There are, moreover, certain
favors that may be done without envy, as is the helping a friend to
obtain an office, or rather the putting into his hands some honorable
commission or some laudable embassy, such as for the congratulating or
honoring some prince or the making a league of amity and alliance with
some state. But if there be some difficult but withal illustrious and
great action to be performed, having first taken it upon himself, he
may afterwards assume a friend to his assistance, as did Diomedes, whom
Homer makes to speak in this manner:
Since a companion you will have me take,
How can I think a better choice to make,
Than the divine Ulysses?[63]
And Ulysses again as kindly attributes to him the praise of the
achievement, saying:
These stately steeds, whose country you demand,
Nestor, were hither brought from Thracian land,
Whose king, with twelve of his best friends, lies dead,
All slain by th’ hand of warlike Diomed.[64]
For this sort of concession no less adorns the praiser than the
praised; but self-conceitedness, as Plato says, dwells with solitude.
He ought moreover to associate his friends in those good and kind
offices which are done by him, bidding those whom he has benefited
to love them and give them thanks, as having been the procurers and
counsellors of his favors to them. But he must reject the dishonest and
unreasonable request of his friends, yet not churlishly but mildly,
teaching and showing them that they are not beseeming their virtue
and honor. Never was any man better at this than Epaminondas, who,
having denied to deliver out of prison a certain victualler, when
requested by Pelopidas, and yet a little after dismissing him at the
desire of his miss, said to his friend, These, O Pelopidas, are favors
fit for wenches to receive, and not for generals. Cato on the other
side acted morosely and insolently, when Catulus the censor, his most
intimate and familiar friend, interceded with him for one of those
against whom he, being quaestor, had entered process, saying: It would
be a shame if you, who ought to reform young men for us, should be
thrust out by our servants. For he might, though in effect refusing
the requested favor, have yet forborne that severity and bitterness
of speech; so that his doing what was displeasing to his friend might
have seemed not to have proceeded from his own inclination, but to
have been a necessity imposed upon him by law and justice. There are
also in the administration of the state methods, not dishonorable, of
assisting our poorer friends in the making of their fortune. Thus did
Themistocles, who, seeing after a battle one of those which lay dead
in the field adorned with chains of gold and jewels, did himself pass
by him; but turning back to a friend of his, said, Do you take these
spoils, for you are not yet come to be Themistocles. For even the
affairs themselves do frequently afford a statesman such opportunities
of benefiting his friends; for every man is not a Menemachus. To one
therefore give the patronage of a cause, both just and beneficial; to
another recommend some rich man, who stands in need of management and
protection; and help a third to be employed in some public work, or
to some gainful and profitable farm. Epaminondas bade a friend of his
go to a certain rich man, and ask him for a talent by the command of
Epaminondas, and when he to whom the message was sent came to enquire
the reason of it; Because, said Epaminondas, he is a very honest man
and poor; but you, by converting much of the city’s wealth to your own
use, are become rich. And Xenophon reports, that Agesilaus delighted in
enriching his friends, himself making no account of money.
14. Now since, as Simonides says, all larks must have a crest, and
every eminent office in a commonweal brings enmities and dissensions,
it is not a little convenient for a statesman to be forewarned also
of his comportment in these rencounters. Many therefore commend
Themistocles and Aristides, who, when they were to go forth on an
embassy or to command together the army, laid down their enmity at
the confines of the city, taking it up again after their return. Some
again are highly pleased with the action of Cretinas the Magnesian. He,
having for his rival in the government one Hermias, a man not powerful
and rich, but ambitious and high-spirited, when the Mithridatic war
came on, seeing the city in danger, desired Hermias either to take the
government upon himself and manage the affairs whilst he retired, or,
if he would have him take the command of the army, to depart himself
immediately, lest they should through their ambitious contention
destroy the city. The proposal pleased Hermias, who, saying that
Cretinas was a better soldier than himself, did with his wife and
children quit the city. Cretinas then escorted him as he went forth,
furnishing him out of his own estate with all such things as are more
useful to those that fly from home than to those that are besieged; and
excellently defending the city, unexpectedly preserved it, being at
the point to be destroyed. For if it is generous and proceeding from a
magnanimous spirit to cry out,
I love my children, but my country more,
why should it not be readier for every one of them to say, I hate this
man, and desire to do him a diskindness, but the love of my country
has greater power over me? For not to condescend to be reconciled to
an enemy for those very causes for which we ought to abandon even a
friend, is even to extremity savage and brutish. But far better did
Phocion and Cato, who grounded not any enmity at all on their political
differences, but being fierce and obstinate only in their public
contests not to recede from any thing they judged convenient for the
state, did in their private affairs use those very persons friendly and
courteously from whom they differed in the other. For one ought not to
esteem any citizen an enemy, unless it be one like Aristion, Nabis, or
Catiline, the disease and plague of the city: but as for those that
are otherwise at discord, a good magistrate should, like a skilful
musician, by gently setting them up or letting them down, bring them to
concord; not falling angrily and reproachfully upon those that err, but
mildly reprehending them in such like terms as these of Homer’s,
Good friend, I thought you wiser than the rest;[65]
and again,
You could have told a better tale than this;[66]
nor yet repining at their honors, or sparing to speak freely in
commendation of their good actions, if they say or do any thing
advantageous to the public. For thus will our reprehension, when it
is requisite, be credited, and we shall render them averse to vice,
increasing their virtue, and showing, by comparing them, how much the
one is more worthy and beseeming them than the other.
But I indeed am also of opinion, that a statesman should in just causes
give testimony to his enemies, stand by them when they are accused by
sycophants, and discredit imputations brought against them if they are
repugnant to their characters; as Nero himself, a little before he put
to death Thraseas, whom of all men he both most hated and feared, when
one accused him for giving a wrong and unjust sentence, said: I wish
Thraseas was but as great a lover of me, as he is a most upright judge.
Neither is it amiss for the daunting of others who are by Nature more
inclined to vice, when they offend, to make mention of some enemy of
theirs who is better behaved, and say, Such a one would not have spoken
or acted thus. And some again, when they transgress, are to be put in
mind of their virtuous progenitors. Thus Homer says,
Tydeus has left a son unlike himself.[67]
And Appius, contending in the Comitia with Scipio Africanus, said, How
deeply, O Paulus, wouldst thou sigh amongst the infernal shades, wert
thou but sensible that Philonicus the publican guards thy son, who is
going to stand for the office of censor. For such manner of speeches do
both admonish the offender, and become their admonishers. Nestor also
in Sophocles, being reproached by Ajax, thus politicly answers him:
I blame you not, for you act well, although
You speak but ill.
And Cato, who had opposed Pompey in his joining with Caesar to force
the city, when they fell to open wars, gave his opinion that the
conduct of the state should be committed to Pompey, saying, that those
who are capable to do the greatest mischiefs are fittest to put a
stop to them. For reprehension mixed with praise, and accompanied not
with opprobriousness but liberty of speech, working not animosity but
remorse and repentance, appears both kind and salutary; but railing
expressions do not at all beseem statesmen. Do but look into the
speeches of Demosthenes against Aeschines, and of Aeschines against
him; and again into what Hyperides has written against Demades,
and consider whether Solon, Pericles, Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian,
or Pittacus the Lesbian would have spoken in that manner. And yet
Demosthenes used this reproachful manner of speaking only in his
juridical orations or pleadings; for his Philippics are clean and free
from all scoffing and scurrility. For such discourses do not only more
disgrace the speakers than the hearers, but do moreover breed confusion
in affairs, and disturb counsels and assemblies. Wherefore Phocion did
excellently well, who, having broken off his speech to give way to one
that railed against him, when the other with much ado held his peace,
going on again where he had left off, said: You have already heard what
has been spoken of horsemen and heavy armed foot; I am now to treat of
such as are light armed and targeteers.
But since many persons can hardly contain themselves on such occasions,
and since railers have often their mouths not impertinently stopped
by replies; let the answer be short and pithy, not showing any
indignation or bitterness of anger, but mildness joined with raillery
and gracefulness, yet somewhat tart and biting. Now such especially are
the retortings of what has been spoken before. For as darts returning
against their caster seem to have been repulsed and beaten back by a
certain strength and solidity in that against which they were thrown;
so what was spoken seems by the strength and understanding of the
reproached to have been turned back upon the reproacher. Such was that
reply of Epaminondas to Callistratus, who upbraided the Thebans with
Oedipus, and the Argives with Orestes,—one of which had killed his
father and the other his mother,—Yet they who did these things, being
rejected by us, were received by you. Such also was the repartee of
Antalcidas the Spartan to an Athenian, who said to him, We have often
driven you back and pursued you from the Cephissus; But we (replied
Antalcidas) never yet pursued you from the Eurotas. Phocion also, when
Demades cried out, The Athenians if they grow mad, will kill thee;
elegantly replied, And thee, if they come again to their wits. So, when
Domitius said to Crassus the orator, Did not you weep for the death of
the lamprey you kept in your fish-pond?—Did not you, said Crassus to
him again, bury three wives without ever shedding a tear? These things
therefore have indeed their use also in other parts of a man’s life.
15. Moreover, some, like Cato, thrust themselves into every part of
polity, thinking a good citizen should not omit any care or industry
for the obtaining authority. And these men greatly commend Epaminondas;
for that being by the Thebans through envy and in contempt appointed
telearch, he did not reject it, but said, that the office does not show
the man, but the man also the office. He brought the telearchate into
great and venerable repute, which was before nothing but a certain
charge of the carrying the dung out of the narrow streets and lanes
of the city, and turning of watercourses. Nor do I doubt but that I
myself afford matter of laughter to many who come into this our city,
being frequently seen in public employed about such matters. But
that comes into my assistance which is related of Antisthenes; for,
when one wondered to see him carry a piece of stock-fish through the
market, ’Tis for myself, said he. But I, on the contrary, say to
those who upbraid me for being present at and overseeing the measuring
of tiles, or the bringing in and unloading of clay and stones: It is
not for myself, but for my country, that I perform this service. For
though he who in his own person manages and does many such things for
himself may be judged mean-spirited and mechanical, yet if he does them
for the public and for his country, he is not to be deemed sordid;
but on the contrary, his diligence and readiness, extending even to
these small matters, is to be esteemed greater and more highly to be
valued. But others there are, that hold Pericles’s manner of acting
to have been more magnanimous and august; amongst which Critolaus the
Peripatetic, who is of opinion that, as at Athens the Salaminian ship
and the Paralus were not launched forth for every service, but only on
necessary and great occasions, so a statesman ought to employ himself
in the chiefest and greatest affairs, like the King of the universe,
who, as Euripides says,
Reserves great things for his own government,
But small things leaves to Fortune’s management.
For neither do we approve the excessively ambitious and contentious
spirit of Theagenes, who, having obtained the victory not only through
the whole course of public games, but also in many other contests, and
not only in wrestling but in buffeting and running of long races, at
last, being at the anniversary festival supper of a certain hero, after
every one was served, according to the custom, he started up, and fell
to wrestling, as if it were necessary that no other should conquer when
he was present; whence he got together twelve hundred coronets, most of
which one would have taken for rubbish.
Now nothing do they differ from him, who strip themselves for every
public affair, and render themselves reprehensible by many, becoming
troublesome, and being, when they do well, the subject of envy, and
when they do ill, of rejoicing. And that industry which was at the
beginning admired turns afterwards to contempt and laughter. In this
manner it was said; Metiochus leads forth the army, Metiochus oversees
the highways, Metiochus bakes the bread, Metiochus bolts the meal,
Metiochus does all things, Metiochus shall suffer for it at last. This
Metiochus was a follower of Pericles, and made use, it seems, of the
power he had with him invidiously and disdainfully. For a statesman
ought to find the people when he comes to them (as they say) in love
with him, and leave in them a longing after him when he is absent;
which course Scipio Africanus also took, dwelling a long time in the
country, at the same time both removing from himself the burthen of
envy, and giving those leisure to breathe, who seemed to be oppressed
by his glory. But Timesias the Clazomenian, who was otherwise a good
commonwealths-man, was ignorant of his being envied and hated for
doing all things by himself, till the following accident befell him.
It happened that, as he passed by where certain boys were striking
a cockal-bone out of an hole, some of them said, that the bone was
still left within; but he who had stricken it cried out, I wish I had
as certainly beaten out Timesias’s brains, as this bone is out of the
hole. Timesias, hearing this, and thereby understanding the envy and
spite borne him by every one, returned home, where he imparted the
matter to his wife, and having commanded her to pack up all and follow
him, immediately left both his house and the city. And Themistocles
seems to have been in some such condition amongst the Athenians, when
he said: How is it, O ye blessed ones, that you are tired with the
frequent receiving of benefits?
Now some of those things have indeed been rightly spoken, others not
so well. For a statesman ought not to withdraw his affection and
providential care from any public affair whatever, nor reserve himself
sacred, like the anchor in a ship, for the last necessities and hazards
of the state. But as the masters of ships do some things with their
own hands, and perform others, sitting afar off, by other instruments,
turning and winding them by the hands of others, and making use of
mariners; boatswains, and mates, some of which they often call to the
stern, putting the helm into their hands; so it is convenient for a
statesman sometimes to yield the command to his companions, and to
invite them kindly and civilly to the tribunal, not managing all the
affairs of the commonweal by his own speeches, decrees, and actions,
but having good and faithful men, to employ every one of them in that
proper and peculiar station which he finds to be most suitable for
him. Thus Pericles used Menippus for the conduct of the armies, by
Ephialtes he humbled the council of the Areopagus, by Charinus he
passed the law against the Megarians, and sent Lampon to people the
city of Thurii. For not only is the greatness of authority less liable
to be envied by the people, when it seems to be divided amongst many;
but the business also is more exactly done. For as the division of the
hand into fingers has not weakened it, but rendered it more commodious
and instrumental for the uses to which it serves; so he who in the
administration of a state gives part of the affairs to others renders
the action more efficacious by communicating it. But he who, through
an unsatiable desire of glory or power, lays the whole burthen of the
state upon his own shoulders, and applies himself to that for which he
is neither fitted by nature nor exercise,—as Cleon did to the leading
forth of armies, Philopoemen to the commanding of navies, and Hannibal
to haranguing the people,—has no excuse for his errors; but hears that
of Euripides objected against him,
Thou, but a carpenter, concernd’st thyself
With works not wrought in wood;—
being no good orator, you went on an embassage; being of a lazy temper,
you thrust yourself into the stewardship; being ignorant in keeping
accounts, you would be treasurer; or, being old and infirm, you took
on you the command of the army. But Pericles divided his authority
with Cimon, reserving to himself the governing within the city, and
committing to him the manning of the navy and making war upon the
barbarians; for the other was naturally fitted for war, and himself for
civil affairs. Eubulus also the Anaphlystian is much commended, that,
having credit and authority in matters of the greatest importance,
he managed none of the Grecian affairs, nor betook himself to the
conducting of the army; but employing himself about the treasure, he
augmented the public revenues, and greatly benefited the city by them.
But Iphicrates, practising to make declamations at his own house in
the presence of many, rendered himself ridiculous; for though he had
been no bad orator but an excellently good one, yet ought he to have
contented himself with the glory got by arms, and abstaining from the
school, to have left it to the sophisters.
16. But since it is incident to every populacy to be malicious and
desirous to find fault with their governors, and since they are apt
to suspect that many, even useful things, if they pass without being
opposed or contradicted, are done by conspiracy, and since this
principally brings societies and friendships into obloquy; they must
not indeed leave any real enmity or dissension against themselves,
as did Onomademus, a demagogue of the Chians, who, having mastered a
sedition, suffered not all his adversaries to be expelled the city;
lest, said he, we should begin to differ with our friends, when we
are wholly freed from our enemies; for this would be indeed a folly.
But when the multitude shall have conceived a suspicion against
any important beneficial project, they must not, as if it were by
confederacy, all deliver the same opinion; but two or three of them
must dissent, and mildly oppose their friend, and afterwards, as if
they were convinced by reason, change their sentiments; for by this
means they draw along with them the people, who think them moved by
the beneficialness of the thing. But in small matters, and such as are
of no great consequence, it is not amiss to suffer his friends really
to differ, every one following his own private reason; that so in the
principal and greatest concerns, they may not seem to act upon design,
when they shall unanimously agree to what is best.
17. The politician therefore is by nature always the prince of the
city, as the king among the bees; and in consideration of this, he
ought always to have the helm of public affairs in his hand. But as
for those dignities and offices to which persons are nominated and
chosen by the suffrages of the people, he should neither too eagerly
nor too often pursue them,—the seeking after offices being neither
venerable nor popular,—nor yet should he reject them, when the people
legally confer them on him and invite him to them, but even though they
are below his reputation, he should accept them and willingly employ
himself in them; for it is but just that they who have been honored by
offices of greater dignity should in return grace those of inferior
rank. And in those more weighty and superior employs, such as are the
commanding of the armies in Athens, the Prytania in Rhodes, and the
Boeotarchy amongst us, he should carry himself with such moderation
as to remit and abate something of their grandeur, adding somewhat of
dignity and venerableness to those that are meaner and less esteemed,
that he may be neither despised for these nor envied for those.
Now it behooves him that enters upon any office, not only to have at
hand those arguments of which Pericles put himself in mind when he
first received the robe of state: Bethink thyself, Pericles, thou
govern’st freemen, thou govern’st Grecians, yea, citizens of Athens;
but farther also, he ought to say thus with himself: Thou, being a
subject, govern’st a city which is under the obedience of Caesar’s
proconsul or lieutenant. Here is no fight in a fair field, this is not
the ancient Sardis, nor is this the puissance of the Lydians. Thou must
make thy robe scantier, look from the pavilion to the tribunal, and not
place too great confidence in thy crown, since thou see’st the Roman’s
shoes over thy head. But in this the stage-players are to be imitated,
who add indeed to the play their own passionate transports, behavior,
and countenance, suitable to the person they represent, but yet give
ear to the prompter, and transgress not the rhyme and measures of the
faculty granted them by their masters. For an error in government
brings not, as in the acting of a tragedy, only hissing and derision;
but many have by this means subjected themselves to that
Severe chastiser, the neck-cutting axe.
As it befell your countryman Pardalas, when he forgot the limits of
his power. Another, being banished from home and confined to a little
island, as Solon has it,
Became at last from an Athenian
A Pholegandrian or Sicinitan.
For we laugh indeed, when we see little children endeavoring to fasten
their father’s shoes on their own feet, or setting their crowns on
their own heads in sport. But the governors of cities, foolishly
exhorting the people to imitate those works, achievements, and actions
of their ancestors which are not suitable to the present times and
affairs, elevate the multitude, and although they do things that are
ridiculous, they yet meet with a fate which is not fit to be laughed
at, unless they are men altogether despised. For there are many other
facts of the ancient Greeks, the recital of which to those who are
now living may serve to form and moderate their manners; as would be
the relating at Athens, not the warlike exploits of their progenitors,
but (for example) the decree of amnesty after the expulsion of the
Thirty Tyrants; the fining of Phrynicus, who represented in a tragedy
the taking of Miletus; how they wore garlands on their heads when
Cassander rebuilt Thebes; how, having intelligence of the Scytalism (or
slaughter) at Argos in which the Argives put to death fifteen hundred
of their own citizens, they commanded a lustration (or expiatory
sacrifice) to be carried about in a full assembly; and how, when
they were searching of houses for those that were confederated with
Harpalus, they passed by only one, which was inhabited by a man newly
married. For by the imitating of such things as these, they may even
now resemble their ancestors; but the fights at Marathon, Eurymedon,
and Plataea, and whatever examples vainly puff up and heighten the
multitude, should be left to the schools of the sophisters.
18. Now a statesman ought not only to exhibit himself and his country
blameless to the prince, but also to have always for his friend some
one of those that are most powerful above, as a firm support of polity;
for the Romans are of such a disposition, that they are most ready to
assist their friends in their political endeavors. It is good also,
when we have received benefit from friendship with princes, to apply
it to the advancement of our country; as did Polybius and Panaetius,
who through the favor of Scipio to them greatly advantaged their
countries for the obtaining felicity. So Caesar Augustus, when he had
taken Alexandria, made his entry into it, holding Arius by the hand,
and discoursing with him alone of all his familiars; after which he
said to the Alexandrians, who expecting the utmost severity supplicated
his favor, that he pardoned them first for the greatness of their
city, secondly for its builder, Alexander, and thirdly, added he, to
gratify this my friend. Is it then fit to compare to this benefit those
exceeding gainful commissions and administrations of provinces, in
the pursuit of which many even grow old at other men’s doors, leaving
their own domestic affairs in the mean time unregarded? Or should we
rather correct Euripides, singing and saying that, if one must watch
and sue at another’s court and subject one’s self to some great man’s
familiarity, it is most commendable so to do for the sake of one’s
country; but otherwise, we should embrace and pursue friendships on
equal and just conditions.
19. Yet ought not he who renders and exhibits his country obsequious
to potent princes to contribute to the oppressing of it, nor having
tied its legs to subject also its neck, as some do who, referring all
things both great and little to these potentates, upbraid it with
servitude, or rather wholly take away the commonwealth, rendering it
astonished, timorous, and without command of any thing. For as those
who are accustomed neither to sup nor bathe without the physician do
not make so much use of their health as Nature affords them; so they
who introduce the prince’s judgment into every decree, council, favor,
and administration, necessitate the princes to be more masters of them
than they desire. Now the cause of this is principally the avarice
and ambition of the chief citizens. For either, by injuring their
inferiors, they compel them to fly out of the city; or in such things
wherein they differ from one another, disdaining to be worsted by their
fellow-citizens, they bring in such as are more powerful, whence both
the council, people, courts of judicature, and whole magistracy lose
their authority. But he ought to appease private citizens by equality,
and mightier men by mutual submissions, so as to keep peace within the
commonweal, and coolly to determine their affairs; making for these
things, as it were for secret diseases, a certain political medicine,
both being himself rather willing to be vanquished amongst his
fellow-citizens, than to get the better by the injury and dissolution
of his country’s rights, and requesting the same of every one else,
and teaching them how great a mischief this obstinacy in contending
is. But now, rather than they will with honor and benignity mutually
yield to their fellow-citizens, kinsmen, neighbors, and colleagues in
office, they do, with no less prejudice than shame, carry forth their
dissensions to the doors of the pleaders, and put them into the hands
of pragmatical lawyers.
Physicians indeed turn and drive forth into the superficies of the
body such diseases as they are not able utterly to extirpate; but a
statesman, though he cannot keep a city altogether free from internal
troubles, yet should, by concealing its disturbance and sedition,
endeavor to cure and compose it, so that it may least stand in need of
physicians and medicines from abroad. For the intention of a statesman
should be fixed upon the public safety, and should shun, as has been
said, the tumultuous and furious motion of vain-glory; and yet in his
disposition there should be magnanimity,
And undaunted courage,—as becomes
The men, who are for their dear country’s right
Prepared till death ’gainst stoutest foes to fight,[68]
and who are bravely resolved, not only to hazard their lives against
the assaults of invading enemies, but also to struggle with the most
difficult affairs, and stem the torrent of the most dangerous and
impetuous times. For as he must not himself be a creator of storms and
tempests, so neither must he abandon the ship of the state when they
come upon it; and as he ought not to raise commotions and drive it into
danger, so is he obliged, when it is tossed and is in peril, to give
it his utmost assistance, putting forth all his boldness of speech, as
he would throw out a sacred anchor when affairs are at the greatest
extremity.
Such were the difficulties that befell the Pergamenians under Nero, and
the Rhodians lately under Domitian, and the Thessalians heretofore in
the time of Augustus, when they burned Petraeus alive.
You shall not in this case demurring see,[69]
or starting back for fear, any one who is truly a statesman; neither
shall you find him accusing others and withdrawing himself out of
harm’s way; but you shall have him rather going on embassies, sailing
to foreign parts, and not only saying first,
We’re here, Apollo, who the murther wrought,
No longer plague our country for our fault,
but also ready to undergo perils and dangers for the multitude, even
though he has not been at all partaker of their crime. For this indeed
is a gallant action; and besides its honesty, one only man’s virtue and
magnanimity has often wonderfully mitigated the anger conceived against
a whole multitude, and dissipated the terror and bitterness with which
they were threatened. Such an influence with a king of Persia had the
deportment of Sperchis and Bulis, two noble Spartans; and equally
prevalent was the speech of Stheno with Pompey, when, being about to
punish the Mamertines for their defection, he was told by Stheno, that
he would not act justly if he should for one guilty person destroy
abundance of innocents; for that he himself had caused the revolt of
the city, by persuading his friends and forcing his enemies to that
attempt. This speech did so dispose Pompey, that he both pardoned the
city and courteously treated Stheno. But Sylla’s host, having used the
like virtue towards an unlike person, generously ended his days. For
when Sylla, having taken the city of Praeneste, determined to put all
the rest of the inhabitants to the sword, and to spare only him for the
hospitality that had been between them, he, saying that he would not be
indebted for his preservation to the destroyer of his country, thrust
himself in amongst his fellow-citizens, and was massacred with them. We
ought therefore indeed to deprecate such times as these, and hope for
better things.
20. Moreover, we should honor, as a great and sacred thing, every
magistracy and magistrate. Now the mutual concord and friendship of
magistrates with one another is a far greater honor of magistracy
than their diadems and purple-garded robes. Now those who lay for a
foundation of friendship their having been fellow-soldiers or having
spent their youth together, and take their being joint commanders or
co-magistrates for a cause of enmity, cannot avoid being guilty of
one of these three evils. For either, regarding their colleagues in
government as their equals, they brangle with them; or looking on them
as their superiors, they envy them; or esteeming them their inferiors,
they despise them; whereas, indeed, one ought to court his superior,
advance his inferior, honor his equal, and love and embrace all, as
having been made friends, not by eating at the same table, drinking in
the same cup, or meeting at the same solemn feast, but by a common and
public bond, and having in some sort an hereditary benevolence derived
from their country. Scipio therefore was ill spoken of in Rome, for
that, making a feast for his friends at the dedication of a temple
to Hercules, he invited not to it his colleague Mummius; for, though
in other things they took not one another for friends, yet in such
occurrences as these they should have mutually honored and caressed
each other, for the sake of their common magistracy. If then the
omission of so small a civility brought Scipio, who was otherwise an
admirable man, under a suspicion of arrogancy; how can he who seeks
to impair the dignity of his colleague, or to obfuscate the lustre of
his actions, or through insolency to draw and attribute all things to
himself, taking them wholly from his companion, be esteemed reasonable
and moderate? I remember that, when I was yet but a young man, being
jointly with another sent on an embassy to the proconsul, and my
companion—I know not on what occasion—stopping by the way, I went on
alone and performed the affair. Now when at my return I was to render
an account of my charge, my father, taking me aside, admonished me not
to say _I went_ but _We went_, not _I spoke_ but _We spoke_, and so
through all the rest to make my report by associating my companion, and
rendering him a sharer in my actions. For this is not only decent and
courteous, but also takes from glory what is offensive, that is, envy.
Whence it is that great men generally co-ascribe their most glorious
actions to their Daemon or Fortune; as did Timoleon, who having
destroyed the tyrannies in Sicily, consecrated a temple to Chance;
and Python, when, being admired and honored by the Athenians for
having slain Cotys, he said, God did this, making use of my hand. But
Theopompus, king of the Lacedaemonians, when one said that Sparta was
preserved because its kings were well skilled in governing, replied:
’Tis rather because the people are well versed in obeying.
21. These two things then are affected by each other; yet most men both
say and think that the business of political instruction is to render
the people pliable to be governed. For there are in every city more
governed than governors, and every one who lives in a democracy rules
only a short time, but is subject all his life, so that it is the most
excellent and useful lesson we can learn, to obey those who are set
over us, though they are less furnished with authority and reputation.
For it is absurd that a Theodorus or a Polus, the principal actor in
a tragedy, should often obey a hireling who plays the third part, and
speak humbly to him because he wears a diadem and a sceptre; and that
in real actions and in the government of the state, a rich and mighty
man should undervalue and contemn a magistrate because he is simple
and poor, thus injuring and degrading the dignity of the commonweal by
his own; whereas he should rather by his own reputation and authority
have increased and advanced that of the magistrate. As in Sparta the
kings rose up out of their thrones to the ephors, and whoever else
was sent for by them did not slowly obey, but running hastily and
with speed through the forum, gave a pattern of obedience to his
fellow-citizens, whilst he gloried in honoring the magistrates; not
like to some ill-bred and barbarous persons, who, priding themselves in
the abundance of their power, affront the judges of the public combats,
revile the directors of the dances in the Bacchanals, and deride
military commanders and these that preside over the exercises of youth,
neither knowing nor understanding that to honor is sometimes more
glorious than to be honored. For to a man of great authority in a city,
his accompanying and attending on the magistrate is a greater grace
than if he were himself accompanied and attended on by him; or rather
this indeed would bring trouble and envy, but that brings real glory,
and such as proceeds from kindness and good-will. And such a man, being
seen sometimes at the magistrate’s door, and saluting him first, and
giving him the middle place in walking, does, without taking any thing
from himself, add ornament to the city.
22. It is also a popular thing and wins greatly on the multitude, to
bear patiently the reproaches and indignation of a magistrate, saying
either with Diomedes,
Great glory soon will follow this,[70]
or this, which was sometime said by Demosthenes,—that he is not now
Demosthenes only, but a magistrate, or a director of public dances,
or a wearer of a diadem. Let us therefore lay aside our revenge for a
time; for either we shall come upon him when he is dismissed from his
office, or shall by delaying gain a cessation of anger.
23. Indeed one should in diligence, providence, and care for the
public always strive with every magistrate, advising them,—if they are
gracious and well behaved,—of such things as are requisite, warning
them, and giving them opportunities to make use of such things as
have been rightly counselled, and helping them to advance the common
good; but if there is in them any sloth, delay, or ill-disposedness
to action, then ought one to go himself and speak to the people, and
not to neglect or omit the public on pretence that it becomes not one
magistrate to be curious and play the busybody in another’s province.
For the law always gives the first rank in government to him who
does what is just and knows what is convenient. “There was,” says
Xenophon,[71] “one in the army named Xenophon, who was neither general
nor inferior commander;” but yet this man, by his skill in what was fit
and boldness in attempting, raising himself to command, preserved the
Grecians. Now of all Philopoemen’s deeds this is the most illustrious,
that Agis[72] having surprised Messene, and the general of the Achaeans
being unwilling and fearful to go and rescue it, he with some of the
forwardest spirits did without a commission make an assault and recover
it. Yet are we not to attempt innovations on every light or trivial
occasion; but only in cases of necessity, as did Philopoemen, or for
the performance of some honorable actions, as did Epaminondas when he
continued in the Boeotarchy four months longer than was allowed by
the law, during which he brake into Laconia and re-edified Messene.
Whence, if any complaint or accusation shall on this occasion happen,
we may in our defence against such accusation plead necessity, or have
the greatness and gallantry of the action as a comfort for the danger.
24. There is recorded a saying of Jason, monarch of the Thessalians,
which he always had in his mouth when he outraged or molested any, that
there is a necessity for those to be unjust in small matters who will
act justly in great ones. Now that speech one may presently discern
to have been made by a despot. But more political is this precept, to
gratify the populacy with the passing over small things, that we may
oppose and hinder them when they are like to offend in greater. For
he that will be exact and earnest in all things, never yielding or
conniving, but always severe and inexorable, accustoms the people to
strive obstinately, and behave themselves perversely towards him.
But when the waves beat high, the sheet should be
A little slackened,—
sometimes by unbending himself and sporting graciously with them,
as in the celebrating of festival sacrifices, assisting at public
games, and being a spectator at the theatres, and sometimes by seeming
neither to see nor hear, as we pass by the faults of such children in
our houses; that the faculty of freely chastising and reprehending,
being—like a medicine—not antiquated or debilitated by use, but having
its full vigor and authority, may more forcibly move and operate on the
multitude in matters of greater importance.
Alexander, being informed that his sister was too familiarly acquainted
with a certain handsome young man, was not displeased at it, but said,
that she also must be permitted to have some enjoyment of the royalty;
acting in this concession neither rightly nor as beseemed himself; for
the dissolution and dishonoring of the state ought not to be esteemed
an enjoyment. But a statesman will not to his power permit the people
to injure any private citizens, to confiscate other men’s estates,
or to share the public stock amongst them; but will by persuading,
instructing, and threatening oppugn such irregular desires, by the
feeding and increasing of which Cleon caused many a stinging drone, as
Plato says, to breed in the city. But if the multitude, taking occasion
from some solemn feast of the country or the veneration of some God,
shall be inclined either to exhibit some show, to make some small
distribution, to bestow some courteous gratification, or to perform
some other magnificence, let them in such matters have an enjoyment
both of their liberality and abundance. For there are many examples of
such things in the governments of Pericles and Demetrius; and Cimon
adorned the market-place by planting rows of plane-trees and making
of walks. Cato also, seeing the populacy in the time of Catiline’s
conspiracy put in a commotion by Caesar, and dangerously inclined to
make a change in the government, persuaded the senate to decree some
distributions of money amongst the poor, and this being done appeased
the tumult and quieted the sedition. For, as a physician, having taken
from his patient great store of corrupt blood, gives him a little
innocent nourishment; so a statesman, having taken from the people some
great thing which was either inglorious or prejudicial, does again by
some small and courteous gratuity still their morose and complaining
humor.
25. It is not amiss also dexterously to turn aside the eager desires
of the people to other useful things, as Demades did when he had the
revenues of the city under his management. For they being bent to
send galleys to the assistance of those who were in rebellion against
Alexander, and commanding him to furnish out money for that purpose,
he said to them: You have money ready, for I have made provision
against the Bacchanals, that every one of you may receive half a mina;
but if you had rather have it employed this way, make use as you
please of your own. And by this means taking them off from sending
the fleet, lest they should be deprived of the dividend, he kept the
people from offending Alexander. For there are many prejudicial things
to which we cannot directly put a stop, but we must for that end make
use of turning and winding; as did Phocion, when he was required at an
unseasonable time to make an incursion into Boeotia. For he immediately
caused proclamation to be made, that all from sixteen years of age to
sixty should prepare to follow him; and when there arose upon it a
mutiny amongst the old men, he said: There is no hardship put upon you,
for I, who am above fourscore years old, shall be your general. In this
manner also is the sending of embassies to be put off, by joining in
the commission such as are unprepared; and the raising of unprofitable
buildings, by bidding them contribute to it; and the following of
indecent suits, by ordering the prosecutors to appear together and go
together from the court. Now the proposers and inciters of the people
to such things are first to be drawn and associated for the doing them;
for so they will either by their shifting it off seem to break the
matter, or by their accepting of it have their share in the trouble.
26. But when some great and useful matter, yet such as requires much
struggling and industry, is to be taken in hand, endeavor to choose
the most powerful of your friends, or rather the mildest of the most
powerful; for they will least thwart you and most co-operate with you,
having wisdom without a contentious humor. Nevertheless, thoroughly
understanding your own nature, you ought, in that for which you are
naturally less fit, rather to make choice of such as are of suitable
abilities, than of such as are like yourself; as Diomedes, when he
went forth to spy, passing by the valiant, took for his companion
one that was prudent and cautious. For thus are actions better
counterpoised, and there is no contention bred betwixt them, when they
desire honor from different virtues and qualities. If therefore you are
yourself no good speaker, choose for your assistant in a suit or your
companion in an embassy an eloquent man, as Pelopidas did Epaminondas;
if you are unfit to persuade and converse with the multitude, being too
high-minded for it, as was Callicratidas, take one that is gracious
and courtly; if you are infirm of body and unable to undergo fatigues,
make choice of one who is robust and a lover of labor, as Nicias did
of Lamachus. For thus Geryon would have become admirable, having many
legs, hands, and eyes, if only they had been all governed by one soul.
But it is in the power of statesmen—by conferring together, if they are
unanimous, not only their bodies and wealth, but also their fortunes,
authorities, and virtues, to one common use—to perform the same action
with greater glory than any one person; not as did the Argonauts, who,
having left Hercules, were necessitated to have recourse to female
subtleties and be subject to enchantments and sorceries, that they
might save themselves and steal away the fleece.
Men indeed entering into some temples leave their gold without; but
iron, that I may speak my mind in a word, they never carry into any.
Since then the tribunal is a temple common to Jupiter the counsellor
and protector of cities, to Themis, and to Justice, from the very
beginning, before thou enterest into it, stripping thy soul of avarice
and the love of wealth, cast them into the shops of bankers and usurers,
And from them turn thyself,[73]
esteeming him who heaps up treasures by the management of public
affairs to rob the temples, plunder graves, and steal from his friends,
and enriching himself by treachery and bearing of false witness, to be
an unfaithful counsellor, a perjured judge, a bribe-taking magistrate,
and in brief, free from no injustice. Whence it is not necessary to say
much concerning this matter.
27. Now ambition, though it is more specious than covetousness, brings
yet no less plagues into a state. For it is usually more accompanied
with boldness, as being bred, not in slothful and abject spirits,
but chiefly in such as are vigorous and active; and the vogue of the
people, frequently extolling it and driving it by their praises,
renders it thereby headstrong and hard to be managed. As therefore
Plato advised, that we should even from our infancy inculcate into
young people, that it is not fit for them to wear gold about them
abroad nor yet to be possessors of it, as having a peculiar treasure
of their own, immixed with their souls,—enigmatically, as I conceive,
insinuating the virtue propagated in their natures from the race
or stock of which they are descended,—so let us also moderate our
ambition by saying, that we have in ourselves uncorrupted gold, that
is, honor unmixed, and free from envy and reprehension, which is still
augmented by the consideration and contemplation of our acts and jests
in the service of the commonweal. Wherefore we stand not in need of
honors painted, cast, or engraven in brass, in which what is most
admired frequently belongs to another. For the statue of a trumpeter
or halberdier is not commended or esteemed for the sake of the person
whom it is made to represent, but for that of the workman by whom it is
made. And Cato, when Rome was in a manner filled with statues, would
not suffer his to be erected, saying, I had rather men should ask why
my statue is not set up, than why it is. For such things are subject
to envy, and the people think themselves obliged to those who have
not received them; whereas those who have received them are esteemed
burthensome, as seeking public employs for a reward. For as he does
no great or glorious act who, having without danger sailed along the
Syrtis, is afterwards cast away in the harbor; so he who, having kept
himself safe in passing through the treasury and the management of
the public revenues, is caught with a presidency or a place in the
Prytaneum, not only dashes against an high promontory, but is likewise
drowned.
He then is best, who desires none of these things, but shuns and
refuses them all. But if perhaps it is not easy wholly to decline a
favor or testimonial of the people’s amity, when they are fully bent to
bestow it, yet for those who have in the service of the state contended
not for silver or presents, but have fought a fight truly sacred and
deserving a crown, let an inscription, a tablet, a decree, or a branch
of laurel or olive suffice, such as Epimenides received out of the
castle of Athens for having purified the city. So Anaxagoras, putting
back the other honors that were given him, desired that on the day of
his death the children might have leave to play and intermit their
studies. And to the seven Persians who killed the Magi it was granted
that they and their posterity should wear their turban on the fore part
of the head; for this, it seems, they had made the signal, when they
went about that attempt. The honor also which Pittacus received had
something political; for being bid to take what portion he would of the
land he had gotten for his citizens, he accepted as much as he could
reach with the cast of his dart. So Cocles the Roman took as much as he
himself, being lame, could plough in a day. For the honor should not be
a recompense of the action, but an acknowledgment of gratitude, that
it may continue also long, as those did which we have mentioned. But
of the three hundred statues erected to Demetrius Phalereus, not one
was eaten into by rust or covered with filth, they being all pulled
down whilst himself was yet alive; and those of Demades were melted
into chamber-pots. Many other honors also have undergone the like fate,
being regarded with an ill eye, not only for the wickedness of the
receiver, but also for the greatness of the gift. A moderation in the
expense is therefore the best and surest preservative of honors; for
such as are great, immense, and ponderous are like to unproportioned
statues, soon overthrown.
28. Now I here call those honors which the people,
Whose right it is, so name; with them I speak:
as Empedocles has it; since a wise statesman will not despise true
honor and favor, consisting in the good-will and friendly disposition
of those who gratefully remember his services; nor will he contemn
glory by shunning to please his neighbors, as Democritus would have
him. For neither the fawning of dogs nor the affection of horses is to
be rejected by huntsmen and jockeys; nay, it is both profitable and
pleasant to breed in those animals which are brought up in our houses
and live with us, such a disposition towards one’s self as Lysimachus’s
dog showed to his master, and as the poet relates Achilles’s horses to
have had towards Patroclus.[74] And I am of opinion that bees would
fare better if they would make much of those who breed them and look
after them, and would admit them to come near them, than they do by
stinging them and driving them away; for now their keepers punish
them by smothering them with smoke; so they tame unruly horses with
short bits; and dogs that are apt to run away, by collaring them and
fastening them to clogs. But there is nothing which renders one man
so obsequious and submissive to another, as the confidence of his
good-will, and the opinion of his integrity and justice. Wherefore
Demosthenes rightly affirmed, that the greatest preservative of
states against tyrants is distrust. For the part of the soul by which
we believe is most apt to be caught. As therefore Cassandra’s gift of
prophecy was of no advantage to the citizens of Troy, who would not
believe her:
The God (says she) would have me to foretell
Things unbelieved; for when the people well
Have smarted, groaning under pressures sad,
They style me wise, till then they think me mad;
so the confidence the citizens had in Archytas, and their good-will
towards Battus, were highly advantageous to those who would make use of
them through the good opinion they had of them.
Now the first greatest benefit which is in the reputation of statesmen
is the confidence that is had in them, giving them an entrance into
affairs; and the second is, that the good-will of the multitude is an
armor to the good against those that are envious and wicked; for,
As when the careful mother drives the flies
From her dear babe, which sweetly sleeping lies,[75]
it chases away envy, and renders the plebeian equal in authority
to the nobleman, the poor man to the rich, and the private man to
the magistrates; and in a word, when truth and virtue are joined
with it, it is a strange and favorable wind, directly carrying men
into government. And on the other side behold and learn by examples
the mischievous effects of the contrary disposition. For those of
Italy slew the wife and children of Dionysius, having first violated
and polluted them with their lusts; and afterwards burning their
bodies, scattered the ashes out of the ship into the sea. But when
one Menander, who had reigned graciously over the Bactrians, died
afterwards in the camp, the cities indeed by common consent celebrated
his funeral; but coming to a contest about his relics, they were
difficultly at last brought to this agreement, that his ashes being
distributed, every one of them should carry away an equal share, and
they should all erect monuments to him. Again, the Agrigentines,
being got rid of Phalaris, made a decree, that none should wear a
blue garment; for the tyrant’s attendants had blue liveries. But the
Persians, because Cyrus was hawk-nosed, do to this day love such men
and esteem them handsomest.
29. That is of all loves the strongest and divinest, which is by cities
and states borne to any man for his virtue. But those false-named
honors and false testimonials of amity, which have their rise from
stage-plays, largesses, and fencings, are not unlike the flatteries
of whores; the people always with smiles bestowing an unconstant and
short-lived glory on him that presents them and gratifies them.
He therefore who said, the people were first overthrown by him which
first bestowed largesses on them, very well understood that the
multitude lose their strength, being rendered weaker by receiving. But
these bestowers must also know that they destroy themselves, when,
purchasing glory at great expenses, they make the multitude haughty and
arrogant, as having it in their power to give and take away some very
great matter.
30. Yet are we not therefore to act sordidly in the distribution of
honorary presents, when there is plenty enough. For the people more
hate a rich man who gives nothing of his own, than they do a poor man
that robs the public treasury; attributing the former to pride and a
contempt of them, but the latter to necessity. First, therefore, let
these largesses be made gratis, for so they more oblige the receivers,
and strike them with admiration; then, on some occasion that has a
handsome and laudable pretence, with the honor of some God wholly
drawing the people to devotion; for so there is at the same time bred
in them a strong apprehension and opinion that the Deity is great
and venerable, when they see those whom they honor and highly esteem
so bountifully and readily expending their wealth upon his honor. As
therefore Plato forbade young men who were to be liberally educated
to learn the Lydian and Phrygian harmony,—one of which excites the
mournful and melancholy part of our soul, whilst the other increases
its inclination to pleasure and sensual delight,—so do you, as much
as possibly you can, drive out of the city all such largesses as
either foster and cherish brutality and savageness, or scurrility and
lasciviousness; and if that cannot be, at least shun them, and oppose
the many when they desire such spectacles; always making the subjects
of our expenses useful and modest, having for their end what is good
and necessary, or at least what is pleasant and acceptable, without any
prejudice or injury.
31. But if your estate be but indifferent, and by its centre and
circumference confined to your necessary use, it is neither ungenerous
nor base to confess your poverty and give place to such as are provided
for those honorary expenses, and not, by taking up money on usury,
to render yourself at the same time both miserable and ridiculous by
such services. For they whose abilities fall short cannot well conceal
themselves, being compelled either to be troublesome to their friends,
or to court and flatter usurers, so that they get not any honor or
power, but rather shame and contempt by such expenses. It is therefore
always useful on such occasions to call to mind Lamachus and Phocion.
For Phocion, when the Athenians at a solemn sacrifice called upon him,
and often importuned him to give them something, said to them, I should
be ashamed to give to you, and not pay this Callicles,—pointing to an
usurer who was standing by. And as for Lamachus, he always put down in
his bill of charges, when he was general, the money laid out for his
shoes and coat. And to Hermon, when he refused the undertaking of an
office because of his poverty, the Thessalians ordained a puncheon of
wine a month, and a bushel and a half of meal every four days. It is
therefore no shame to confess one’s poverty; nor are the poor in cities
of less authority than those who feast and exhibit public shows, if
they have but gotten freedom of speech and reputation by their virtue.
A statesman ought therefore chiefly to moderate himself on such
occasions, and neither, being himself on foot, go into the field
against well-mounted cavaliers, nor, being himself poor, vie with those
that are rich about race matches, theatrical pomps, and magnificent
tables and banquets; but he should rather strive to be like those who
endeavor to manage the city by virtue and prudence, always joined with
eloquence; in which there is not only honesty and venerableness, but
also a gracefulness and attractiveness,
Far more to be desired than Croesus’ wealth.
For a good man is neither insolent nor odious; nor is a discreet person
self-conceited,
Nor with a look severe walks he amongst
His fellow-citizens;
but he is, on the contrary, courteous, affable, and of easy access
to all, having his house always open, as a port of refuge to those
that will make use of him, and showing his care and kindness, not
only by being assistant in the necessities and affairs of those that
have recourse to him, but also by condoling with those that are in
adversity, and congratulating and rejoicing with such as have been
successful; neither is he troublesome or offensive by the multitude and
train of domestics attending him at bath, or by taking up of places
in the theatres, nor remarkable by things invidious for luxury and
sumptuousness; but he is equal and like to others in his clothes, diet,
education of his children, and the garb and attendance of his wife, as
desiring in his comportment and manner of living to be like the rest
of the people. Then he exhibits himself an intelligent counsellor, an
unfeed advocate and courteous arbitrator between men and their wives,
and friends at variance amongst themselves; not spending a small part
of the day for the service of the commonweal at the tribunal or in the
hall of audience, and employing all the rest, and the whole remainder
of his life, in drawing to himself every sort of negotiations and
affairs, as the north-east wind does the clouds; but always employing
his cares on the public, and reputing polity (or the administration
of the state) as a busy and active life, and not, as it is commonly
thought, an easy and idle service; he does by all these and such
like things turn and draw the many, who see that all the flatteries
and enticements of others are but spurious and deceitful baits, when
compared to his care and providence. The flatterers indeed of Demetrius
vouchsafed not to give the other potentates of his time, amongst
whom Alexander’s empire was divided, the title of kings, but styled
Seleucus master of the elephants, Lysimachus treasurer, Ptolemaeus
admiral, and Agathocles governor of the isles. But the multitude,
though they may at the beginning reject a good and prudent man, yet
coming afterwards to understand his veracity and the sincerity of his
disposition, esteem him a public-spirited person and a magistrate; and
of the others, they think and call one a maintainer of choruses, a
second a feaster, and a third a master of the exercises. Moreover, as
at the banquets made by Callias or Alcibiades, Socrates only is heard,
and to Socrates all men’s eyes are directed; so in sound and healthy
states Ismenias bestows largesses, Lichas makes suppers, and Niceratus
provides choruses; but it is Epaminondas, Aristides, and Lysander
that govern, manage the state, and lead forth the armies. Which if
any one considers, he ought not to be dejected or amazed at the glory
gotten amongst the people from theatres, banqueting-halls, and public
buildings; since it lasts but a short time, being at an end as soon as
the prizes and plays are over, and having in them nothing honorable or
worthy of esteem.
32. Those that are versed in the keeping and breeding of bees look
on that hive to be healthiest and in best condition, where there is
most humming, and which is fullest of bustle and noise; but he to
whom God has committed the care of the rational and political hive,
reputing the felicity of the people to consist chiefly in quietness
and tranquillity, will receive and to his power imitate the rest of
Solon’s ordinances, but will doubt and wonder what it was that induced
him to decree, that he who, when there arises a sedition in the city,
adheres to neither party should be reputed infamous. For in the body,
the beginning of its change from sickness to health is not wrought by
the parts that are infected with the disease, but when the temperature
of such parts as are sound, growing powerful, drives away what is
contrary to nature; and in a state, where the people are disturbed by
a sedition not dangerous and mortal, but which will after a while be
composed and allayed, it is of necessity that there be a mixture of
much that is uninfected and sound, and that it continue and cohabit in
it. For thither flows from the wise what is fit and natural, and passes
into the part that is diseased. But when cities are in an universal
commotion, they are in danger of being utterly destroyed, unless, being
constrained by some necessity and chastisement from abroad, they are by
the force of their miseries reduced to wisdom. Yet does it not become
you in the time of a sedition to sit as if you were neither sensible
nor sorry, praising your own unconcernedness as a quiet and happy
life, and taking delight in the error of others. But on such occasions
chiefly should you put on the buskin of Theramenes, and conferring
with both parties, join yourself to neither. For you will not seem a
stranger by not being a partaker in injustice, but a common friend
to them all by your assistance; nor will you be envied for your not
sharing in the calamity, when you appear equally to condole with every
one of them. But the best is, by your providential care to prevent
the raising of any sedition; and in this consists the greatest and
most excellent point, as it were, of the political art. For you are
to consider that, the greatest benefits a city can enjoy being peace,
liberty, plenty, abundance of men, and concord, the people have at this
time no need of statesmen for the procuring of peace; since all war,
whether with Greeks or barbarians, is wholly taken away and banished
from us. As for liberty, the people have as much as the emperors think
fit to grant them, and more perhaps would not be expedient. The prudent
man therefore will beg the Gods to grant to his fellow-citizens the
unenvied plenty of the earth, and the kind temper of the seasons, and
that wives may bear “children like to their parents,”[76] and also
safety for all that is born and produced.
There remains therefore to a statesman, of all those things that are
subject to his charge, this alone, which is inferior to none of the
other benefits, the keeping of those who are co-inhabitants of the
same city in perpetual concord and friendship, and the taking away of
all contentions, animosities, and heart-burnings. In which he shall,
as in the differences between friends, so converse with the party
appearing to be most injured, as if he himself seemed also a sharer
in the injury and equally offended at it, endeavoring afterwards so
to appease him, by showing him how much those who pass by injuries
excel such as strive to contend and conquer, not only in good-nature
and sweetness of disposition, but also in prudence and magnanimity,
and how, by remitting a little of their right in small matters, they
get the better in the greatest and most important. He shall afterwards
admonish them both in general and apart, instructing them in the
weakness of the Grecian affairs, which it is better for intelligent men
to make the best of, and to live in peace and concord, than to engage
in a contest for which fortune has left no reward. For what authority,
what glory is there remaining for the conquerors? What power is there,
which the least decree of a proconsul cannot abolish or transfer
elsewhere, and which, though it should continue, would yet have any
thing worth our pains? But since, as a conflagration in a town does not
frequently begin in sacred and public places, but a lamp negligently
left in a house, or the burning of a little trash or rubbish, raises a
great fire and works a common mischief; so sedition in a state is not
always kindled by contentions about public affairs, but oftentimes the
differences arising from private concerns and jangles, being propagated
into the public, have disturbed a whole city. It is no less becoming
a statesman to remedy and prevent all these, so that some of them may
never have any being, others may quickly be extinguished, and others
hindered from increasing or taking hold of the public, and confined
amongst the adversaries themselves. And as himself ought to take care
for this, so should he advertise others, that private disturbances are
the occasion of public ones, and little of great ones, if they are
neglected and suffered to proceed without taking care to apply fit
remedies to them in the beginning.
In this manner is the greatest and most dangerous disturbance that
ever happened in Delphi said to have been occasioned by Crates, whose
daughter Orgilaus, the son of Phalis, being about to marry, it happened
that the cup they were using in the espousals brake asunder of itself;
which he taking for an ill omen, left his bride, and went away with
his father. Crates a little after, charging them with taking away a
certain golden vessel, used in the sacrifices, caused Orgilaus and his
brother, unheard, to be precipitated from the top of a rock to the
bottom, and afterwards slew several of their most intimate friends,
as they were at their devotions in the temple of Providence. After
many such things were perpetrated, the Delphians, putting to death
Crates and his companions in the sedition, out of their estates which
they called excommunicated, built the temples in the lower part of
the town. In Syracuse also there were two young men, betwixt whom
there was an extraordinary intimacy, one of which, having taken into
his custody his friend’s catamite, vitiated him in his absence. The
other at his return, by way of retaliation, debauched his companion’s
wife. Then one of the ancient senators, coming into the council,
proposed the banishing of them both before the city was ruined by
their filling it with enmity. Yet did not he prevail; but a sedition
arising on this occasion by very great calamities overturned a most
excellently constituted commonweal. You have also a domestical example
in the enmity between Pardalus and Tyrrhenus, which wanted little of
destroying Sardis by embroiling it in revolt and war on little and
private differences. A statesman therefore is not to slight the little
offences and heart-burnings which, as diseases in a body, pass speedily
from one to another, but to take them in hand, suppress, and cure them.
For, as Cato says, by attention and carefulness great matters are made
little, and little ones reduced to nothing. Now there is no better
artifice of inuring men to this, than the showing one’s self easily
pacified in his own private differences, persisting without rancor in
matters of the first importance, and managing none with obstinacy,
contending wrath, or any other passion, which may work sharpness or
bitterness in necessary disputes. For as they bind certain round
muffles about the hands of those who combat at buffets, that in their
contests there may not arrive any fatal accident, the blows being soft
and such as can do no great harm; so in such suits and processes with
one’s fellow-citizens, it is best to manage the dispute by making use
of pure and simple pretences, and not by sharpening and empoisoning
matters, as if they were weapons, with calumnies, malice, and threats,
to render them pernicious, great, and public. For he who in this
manner carries himself with those with whom he has affairs will have
others also subject to him. But contentions about public matters,
where private grudges are taken away, are soon appeased, and bring no
difficult or fatal mischiefs.
WHICH ARE THE MOST CRAFTY, WATER-ANIMALS OR THOSE CREATURES THAT
BREED UPON THE LAND?
AUTOBULUS, SOCLARUS, OPTATUS, PHAEDIMUS, ARISTOTIMUS, HERACLEO.
1. AUTOBULUS. Leonidas, being asked the question what he thought
of Tyrtaeus, made answer, that he was a good poet to whet minds of
young men; as a person who, by the vigor and spirit of his poetical
raptures, kindled that wrathful indignation and ambition of honor,
which emboldened them in combat to the contempt of death and danger.
Which makes me afraid, my dearest friends, lest the encomium of hunting
yesterday recited may have inflamed our young gentlemen beyond the
bounds of moderation, so as to deem all other things fruitless and of
little worth, while they rendezvous from all parts to this exercise.
So much the rather, because I myself, when I was but very young,
even beyond the strength of my age, seemed to be more than became
me addicted to this sport, and to be over desirous with Phaedra in
Euripides,
With hounds and horn and merry hollow,
The spotted hart and hind to follow
So did that discourse affect me, fortified with many and probable
arguments.
SOCLARUS. You say very truly, Autobulus. For that same poet seems to
me to have awakened the force of rhetoric, for a long time lulled
asleep, to gratify the inclinations of the youthful gentry, and to
make himself their spring companion. But I am most pleased with him
for introducing the example of single combatants, from whence he takes
occasion to praise the sport of hunting, as being that which for the
most part draws to itself whatever is natural in us, or what we have by
use acquired, of that delight which men take in fighting with single
weapons one against another, thus affording an evident prospect of
artifice and daring courage, endued with understanding, encountering
brutish force and strength, and applauding that of Euripides:
Small is the nerveless strength of feeble man,
Yet through the cunning of his reaching brain,
By various slights and sundry stratagems,
Whatever land or th’ Ocean breeds he tames.[77]
2. AUTOBULUS. And hence it was, as they say, my dearest Soclarus, that
men at first became insensible and inhuman, having once tasted of
murder, and being all accustomed, by hunting and following the chase,
not only to behold without remorse the wounds and blood of wild beasts,
but to rejoice at their being killed and slaughtered. Afterwards, as at
Athens, some sycophant was by the Thirty Tyrants set apart for death,
as a proper object of capital punishment, then a second, and a third;
till, proceeding by degrees, they seized upon good men, and at length
spared not the best and most worthy citizens. In like manner the first
that slew a bear or a wolf obtained applause, then the ox and hog were
appointed to be killed, under pretence of having tasted the sacred
things that lay before them. Next to them deer, hares, and goats were
made use of for food, and in some places the flesh of sheep, dogs, and
horses grew familiar to human taste. The tame goose also and pigeon,
man’s familiar domestic, according to Sophocles,—not for nourishment or
to assuage hunger, as cats and weasels do, but to indulge voluptuous
appetites,—they dressed and mangled to pieces. This gave strength and
vigor to whatever was in nature bloodthirsty and savage, and rendering
the disposition of man inflexible to pity, had almost erased out of
his breast whatever was inclinable to humanity and mildness. Whereas,
on the other side, the Pythagoreans, that they might accustom men to
the love of humanity and compassion, still inculcated into their minds
a particular care of being mild and gentle towards beasts. For there
is nothing more powerful than custom to win upon all the affections
of man, and to draw them from moderation to extremity. But I know not
how it comes to pass, that being entered into this discourse, we have
forgot not only the subject we were yesterday upon, but what we had
also this day agreed to make the theme of our colloquy. For yesterday,
as you well know, having thrown out a proposition, that all creatures
were in some manner partakers of understanding and reason, we gave an
occasion to you, young huntsmen, for a fair dispute, which of the two
excelled in craft and cunning, the land animals, or the creatures that
breed in the sea? Which, if you please, we will determine this day, if
Aristotimus and Phaedimus will stand to their agreement; of which two
gentlemen, the one has offered himself to his friends to be the patron
of the land animals, the other reserves the honor of being more crafty
to those of the sea.
SOCLARUS. They will be as good as their words, I assure you, Autobulus,
and will be here presently; for I saw them both early this morning
preparing for the combat. In the mean time, if you please, before they
begin, let us resume something of what was yesterday not so fully
discoursed of for want of time, or not so carefully argued in our
wine, as it ought to have been. For there seemed a dispute to resound
in my ears from the Stoics’ portico, that, as immortal is opposite to
mortal, incorruptible to corruptible, incorporeal to corporeal, in like
manner things void of reason ought to be opposed to those beings that
are endued with reason, lest among so many pairs of contraries this
alone should be found maimed and imperfect.
3. AUTOBULUS. Good now, friend Soclarus, who was he that maintained
that, because there are certain beings endued with reason, therefore
there is nothing void of reason? For we abound with examples in
all things that are destitute of a soul; nor do we want any other
antithesis to irrational, but only to oppose whatever is deprived of
a soul—as being void of reason and understanding—to that which is
endued with reason and understanding together with a soul. But if any
one will assert, that Nature is not defective, and that therefore
animated Nature is partly rational, partly without reason; another
may at the same time allege, that animated Nature is partly endued
with imagination, partly deprived of it; partly sensible, partly
insensible; to the end that Nature may not want these opposite habits
and privations, as it were, equally balanced in the same kind. For, as
it would be absurd to expect to find some living creatures sensible
and others without sense, and equally ridiculous to grant imagination
to some living creatures and not allow it to others,—since there is
no living creature that comes into the world but what is presently
endued with sense and imagination,—thus would he be as much out of the
way, who should require one living creature to be rational and another
void of reason, and that too when he is disputing with men who hold
that nothing whatever can partake of sense which does not also partake
of understanding, and that there is no animal not endued by Nature
with opinion and ratiocination, as well as with sense and instinct.
For Nature, which, as they truly say, made all things for the sake
of something and to some end, did not make a sensible creature to be
merely sensible of barely suffering something; but since there are
many things familiar and agreeable, and other things as baneful and
pernicious, no one of them could survive for a moment, did they not
learn to avoid some things and covet the use and benefit of others.
Sense it is, therefore, that affords to every creature the knowledge
both of useful and hurtful; but the discretion which accompanies the
said sense, choosing and seizing upon things profitable, and discerning
and avoiding things pernicious or troublesome, can never be thought to
reside in any creature not capable to reason, to judge, remember, and
consider. Therefore, if you will deprive the creatures of expectation,
memory, design, preparation, hope, fear, desire, and grief, you must at
the same time deny them the use either of eyes or ears, and indeed of
all sense and imagination; which it is better for them to be without,
since they cannot make use of them, than to labor under grief and pain,
with no means present of averting them.
There is an oration of Strato the philosopher, demonstrating that
without sense there can be no understanding. For many times letters
cursorily glanced upon by the eye, and speeches little regarded by the
ear, escape our knowledge, our minds being intent on other matters.
Afterwards by recollection the same things return into our mind, for us
to run through and pursue them in our thoughts as we please. Whence we
say proverbially, “The mind sees, the mind hears; all other things are
deaf and blind,” in regard there can be no sense in the eyes and ears,
if understanding be wanting. Therefore King Cleomenes, after great
commendations given to a copy of verses recited at a banquet where he
was present, being asked whether it were not an admirable piece, bid
them that heard it give their judgment, for that his mind was in the
Peloponnesus. Therefore of necessity, whatever creatures are capable of
sense must also be capable of understanding, if we can no otherwise be
sensible than by the force of understanding.
But suppose we should grant that sense has no need of the understanding
for the performance of the duty incumbent upon it; nevertheless, when
that same sense which has shown an animal the difference between what
is grateful and what is averse to Nature has departed, where is that
faculty which retains this difference in the memory,—dreading things
that are abominable, and longing after things that are useful, and if
they are wanting, seeking means to compass them,—which provides animals
receptacles and places of refuge, that they may look out after their
prey, and avoid the snares and gins of the hunters? And yet those very
authors inculcate these things in their introductions, even to the
teasing our ears: defining purpose to be an indication that something
is to be brought to completion; design to be an impulse before an
impulse; preparation to be an action before an action; memory to be
the comprehension of some certain past impression, which at first was
apprehended by sense. In all which things there is nothing which may
not rightly be said to partake of reason, and yet all these things
are common to all creatures; as indeed are certainly all cogitations;
which, while they lie concealed in the brain, we call thoughts, but
when they come to be in motion, we name conceptions. In the mean time
they acknowledge all passions and perturbations of the mind to be
false judgments and erroneous opinions; so that it is a wonder to me,
that the same men should oversee so many operations and motions, some
of desire, others of fear, nay, by Jupiter, many times of envy and
emulation itself. And many times they themselves punish their dogs
and horses when they commit a fault, and this not to no purpose, but
to chastise them by causing in them through pain that trouble of mind
which we call repentance. Now the tickling the ear by pleasing sounds
is called enchantment, but the bewitching the eye is called bewitching;
both which we make use of in the domesticating of wild beasts. Harts
and horses are allured by the sounds of pipes and flutes. And there
are a sort of crabs which are charmed out of their holes by fifes; and
it is reported that the shadfish are drawn to show themselves above
water by singing and clapping of hands. The otus also, which is a bird
not much unlike a night-raven, is taken by allurement of the sight;
for that while he stands staring upon the fowlers dancing before him
in measure and figure, and out of affection will be striving to act
his part by aping their motions with his wings and shoulders, he is
frequently surprised and taken.
But as for those that more foolishly affirm that beasts are not
affected with joy or anger or fear, that the swallow does not build,
that the bee does not remember, that the lion is not angry, that the
hart is not timorous, but that they do all these things only as it were
and apparently; I would fain know what answer they will make to those
who say, that beasts neither see nor hear, but as it were see and as it
were hear; that they neither neigh nor bleat, but as it were send forth
a certain sound; lastly, that they do not absolutely live, but live
as it were? For, in my opinion, to aver this is as contrary to plain
demonstration as the rest.
4. SOCLARUS. Well then, Autobulus, suppose me to be one of those that
affirm these things. For it is great folly for men to compare the
actions of beasts with the customs, actions, and manner of living men,
and above all, to deny that beasts have the least inclination or aim at
any progress towards virtue, to which we bent our discourse. Indeed, I
doubt whether Nature gave them a beginning or no, since they are so
incapable to attain the end.
AUTOBULUS. Why truly, Soclarus, this is not a thing that seems so
absurd to those men. For that while they assert the extreme love of
parents towards their children to be the principle of society and
justice, and find at the same time this virtue apparent and surpassing
in brute animals, yet they will not allow them in the least to partake
of justice; like mules, which, though they are furnished with genital
parts, as wanting neither privities nor wombs, and mixing with delight
and pleasure, yet cannot attain the end of generation. But then again
I would have you consider, whether they be not ridiculous, that affirm
Socrates or Plato to be no less vicious than the meanest of slaves,—nay
more, that they were fools, intemperate, and unjust,—and then find
fault with the nature of beasts, as being impure and no way accurately
framed for the reception of virtue; as if this were proof of utter
want of reason, and not of depravedness and imbecility of reason.
And all the while, they acknowledge that there are vices of reason,
of which all brute beasts are guilty; many of which we plainly find
to be intemperate, fearful, malicious, and unjust. Therefore he that
denies that reason exists by Nature in a creature, because it is not
framed by Nature to attain to the perfection of reason, little differs
from one that should deny a monkey to partake of deformity by Nature,
or a tortoise of slowness, as being neither susceptible of beauty or
swiftness. Nor do they observe the distinction that lies before their
eyes. For reason is in the creature by Nature, but right and perfect
reason is attained by industry and education; so that naturally all
creatures may be said to be rational. But if they look for perfection
of reason and true wisdom, they will hardly find those perfections
in any man whatever. For as there is a difference between sight and
sight, and between flight and flight,—for hawks and grasshoppers
do not see alike, neither do eagles and partridges fly with equal
swiftness,—so neither in all rational creatures is there to be found
the same perfection of cunning and acuteness. For as there are many
examples to be produced of several brute creatures, excelling in the
observance of society, fortitude, and foresight as to their particular
economy and making provision for themselves; so on the other side,
there may be found among them as many of injustice, cowardice, and
folly. Which is evident from the present contest wherein these young
gentlemen have engaged themselves, while the one has undertaken to
maintain that land-animals, the other that creatures bred in the
sea, are most inclined to virtue. Which is plainly demonstrated by
comparing river-horses with storks. For the one support and cherish
their fathers, the others kill them that they may enjoy their dams. So
likewise, if you compare doves with partridges. For the cock partridge
will not suffer the hen to sit, but breaks her eggs and throws them
out of the nest if she refuses to be trod. But the cock pigeon takes
upon him part of the female’s duty, in brooding over the eggs and
feeding the young ones; and if the hen happens to be too long absent,
he corrects her with his bill, till he forces her to return to her
nest. So that, while Antipater found fault with sheep and asses for
their nastiness, I wonder how he came to pass by lynxes and swallows,
of which the one are so cleanly that they always remove and hide their
excrements, the others teach their young ones to turn their tails out
of their nest, before they let fall their defilement. And indeed, why
may we not say that one tree is more docible than another, as dogs are
more docible than sheep; or one pot-herb more timorous than another,
as harts are more fearful than lions? Or otherwise, as among things
immovable, there is not one thing slower in motion than another; nor
among things that are mute, one thing more vocal than another; so
neither, among things to which Nature has not afforded a faculty of
understanding, is there one thing more timorous, more slothful, or more
intemperate than another. But as to those creatures where that faculty
is present, the difference is manifest in the degrees of more or less.
5. SOCLARUS. However, it is a wonderful thing to observe, how much man
differs from all other creatures in probity of manners, in industry,
and in all those things that relate to justice and common society.
AUTOBULUS. Nevertheless, my dear friend, this cannot be denied,
that there are many brute beasts that surpass men both in bulk and
swiftness, others that far surpass him in strength of sight and
exactness of hearing; and yet for all this we are not to say that man
is blind, without strength, or wants ears. For Nature has not deprived
us either of hands or eyes or strength or bulk, though we must not
compare with camels or elephants. In like manner we must not say that
brute beasts are altogether deprived of reason and understanding,
because they are more dull of understanding, and not so quick at
ratiocination as we are, as only enjoying a weak and muddy sort of
reason, like a dim and clouded eye. And did I not presently expect
these young gentlemen, being persons both studious and learned, to
bring together an infinite number of examples in reference to both land
and sea-animals, I could produce a thousand examples of docility and a
thousand more of good nature in beasts, which the famous city of Rome
has given us an opportunity to fetch from her imperial theatres; but we
will leave these things fresh and untouched, for them to embellish with
their eloquent discourse.
In the mean time I have something to offer by the by, which is this,
that I am of opinion that there is a mutilation, disease, and defect
peculiar to every part and faculty,—as blindness of the eye, lameness
of the leg, and stuttering of the tongue,—which defects cannot be
appropriated to any other members. For that blindness can never be
attributed to that which was never created to see, nor lameness to that
which never could go, nor can any thing be said to stammer that wants
a tongue, or to lisp or stutter that has not a vocal utterance. And
nothing can be said to be a changeling or beside his wits or mad, to
which Nature never gave the use of thought, reason, and understanding;
for it is impossible to be so without some faculty that can suffer
either privation or mutilation or some other defect. But you have seen
dogs that were mad, and I have seen horses under the same predicament;
and some there are who say that bulls and foxes will be mad. But the
example of dogs is sufficient, which is unquestionable. This makes it
evident, that those creatures have a sort of reason and understanding
not to be despised, which being once confused and troubled, the
affection arises which is called madness. For we do not find either
their sight or their hearing diminished. Now, as when a man is affected
with hypochondriac melancholy, or in a delirium, it would be absurd
to say that he was not beside himself, or that his sense, reason, and
memory were not disturbed,—for custom tells that they who are in a
raving condition are not in their right senses, but are fallen from
their reason,—so whoever believes that there is any other cause why
dogs run mad, but only that their natural senses, reason, and memories
are disturbed, while they cease to know faces the most familiar to them
before, and abandon their most usual food, and overlook what is just
before their eyes, such a man, I say, seems to me either to overlook
what is just before his eyes, or else, seeing the conclusions that
follow, to fight against the truth itself.
6. SOCLARUS. You seem to me to be very much in the right, for the
Stoics and Peripatetics are led to affirm the contrary upon this
supposition, that justice could have no certain original, but would
be altogether incomprehensible and inexistent if all brute creatures
should partake of reason. For either of necessity we must do a very
great piece of injustice when we devour and feed upon them; or if we
forbear the use of them, it will be impossible for us to live, or
rather we shall in some measure live the lives of beasts, rejecting the
use of brute creatures. I pass by those innumerable myriads of nomades
and Troglodytes that know no other food but flesh. But as for us that
seem to live lovingly and in friendship together, what necessity would
there be of laboring on the earth, toiling upon the sea, or mining in
the mountains, what ornament would there be in our life, if it were so
that we must be bound to live, as it would then become us, not only
without injury but rather with all civility and humanity toward all
the sorts of beasts, as being our fellow rational creatures? We have
no cure, no remedy for an unquestionable necessity that deprives us
either of life or justice, unless we observe that ancient bound and
dispensation which, according to Hesiod, distinguishing natures and
separating every kind by themselves, commands
The fish, wild beasts, and all the winged fowl,
To prey upon their kinds without control,
For among them no law nor justice reigns;
Only by justice man from man abstains.[78]
And therefore, as brutes can extend no act of justice to us, so neither
can we commit any act of injustice against them. Which argument they
who reject have left us no benefit of life, nor any the smallest
entrance for justice into the world.
7. AUTOBULUS. These things, dear friend, you utter as the opinion
of those people. But we are not to allow philosophers a remedy to
procure easy delivery, as they do to women that are subject to hard
labors, merely that they may bring us forth justice without any pain
or trouble. For the same persons, even in the greatest matters, will
not allow to Epicurus so small and pitiful a thing as the slightest
inclination of one only atom, for to make way for the stars and
living creatures and Fortune to come into the world, and that thereby
our free will might be saved. For we ought either to prove what is
doubtful or to assume what of itself is manifest; so we ought not to
take for granted this doctrine touching beasts as regards justice,
unless it is either confessed or otherwise proved by demonstration. For
justice has another way to establish itself, neither so steep nor so
slippery, nor leading to the subversion of evident truths; but which,
according to Plato’s instruction, my son and thy friend, Soclarus,
has showed to such as are not captiously contentious but willing to
learn. For certain it is, that both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it
for a truth, that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice
in dealing with beasts as he now does; often bewailing and exclaiming
against Nature, as if she were nothing else but necessity and war,
having neither any thing unmixed nor any thing truly pure, but still
arriving at her end by many, and those unjust and unlawful passions.
Whence they affirm that generation itself originally proceeded from
injustice by the conjunction of immortal with mortal, and that the
thing engendered is still contrary to Nature delighted with the parts
of that which engenders, dismembered from the whole. But this seems to
be too luxuriant and severe an accusation of Nature. For there is yet a
more moderate excuse, which does not altogether deprive the beasts of
reason, yet justifies the necessary and convenient use of them; which
when the ancients introduced, they detested and utterly discountenanced
voracious and voluptuous gluttony. Pythagoras also resumed the
argument, teaching how we might reap the benefit of the creatures
without doing injustice. For they do no injustice, that chastise and
kill such savage beasts that are both hurtful to man and never will be
tame. But taming such as are gentle and loving to men, they thereby
make them assistant in the several uses to which they were ordained,—
The horse and ass, that backs to load resign,
And race of bulls,
which, as Prometheus in Aeschylus[79] observes,
Kind Heaven vouchsafed to men by toil distrest,
With servile limbs his labors to assist.
Thus we make use of dogs to guard our goats and sheep, while they are
milked and shorn. For life does not presently forsake a man unless
he have his platters of fish or livers of geese, or unless he may
kill whole oxen or kids to supply his banquets, or unless—that he may
disport himself in the theatre or take his pleasure in hunting—he may
compel some beasts to be daring and to fight against their wills, and
kill others whom Nature has not armed to defend themselves. For, in my
opinion, he that is for sport and pastime ought to seek out for such
as will sport and be merry with him. And as it was the saying of Bion,
that, though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not
die in sport but in earnest; so in hunting and fishing, the fault is
in the men delighting in the torments and cruel deaths of beasts, and
tearing them without compassion from their whelps and their young ones.
For it is not in the making use of beasts that men do them wrong, but
in the wastefully and cruelly destroying them.
8. SOCLARUS. Contain yourself, my dearest Autobulus, and forbear these
accusations; for here are several gentlemen coming, all great huntsmen,
whom it will be very difficult to bring over to your opinion; neither
is it convenient to offend them.
AUTOBULUS. You give me good advice. However, I know Eubiotus very
well, and my kinsman Ariston; nor am I less acquainted with Aeacides
and Aristotimus, the sons of Dionysius the Delphian, as also with
Nicander the son of Euthydamus, all expert in the chase by land, as
Homer expresses it; and therefore likely to take part with Aristotimus.
On the other side, yonder comes Phaedimus too, bringing along with
him the islanders and neighbors to the sea, Heracleon of Megara, and
Philostratus of Euboea,
Whose whole delight is all the day
The toilsome pastime of the sea.[80]
But as for Optatus, our equal in years (like Tydides),—
Which of the sides to range him well,
So versed in both, we cannot tell.[81]
For he is one that offers as well the first-fruits of his fishery to
Dictynna, as of his forest spoils to Diana; so that it is apparent
he comes among us as one that intends not to be partial to one side
more than the other; or else our conjecture is amiss, dear Optatus,
that your design is only to be an impartial umpire between these young
gentlemen.
OPTATUS. You conjecture very truly, Autobulus. For the ancient law of
Solon is out of date, that punished those who stood neuters and refused
to adhere to either side.
AUTOBULUS. Seat yourself then here by us, that if there should be any
occasion for a testimony, we may not be troubled to run to Aristotle’s
writings, but acquiescing in your experience, may give our suffrages
according to what you aver for truth.
OPTATUS. Go to then, young gentlemen: are ye agreed upon the method and
order of the dispute?
PHAEDIMUS. Truly, worthy Soclarus, that very thing occasioned a great
debate among us; but at length, according to that of Euripides,
The child of Fortune, Chance, the point agreed,
And fixed the method how we should proceed,
by giving the precedence to the land animals to plead their cause
before marine creatures.
SOCLARUS. Then, Aristotimus, it is high time for you to speak and for
us to hear.
9. ARISTOTIMUS. The court is open to all concerned in the
controversy.... Others there are that kill their young ones by leaping
the females at the very instant of their bringing forth. There are a
sort of mullets, called pardiae, that feed upon their own slime. But
the polypus sits all the winter feeding upon itself,
In fireless house, and domicils forlorn;[82]
so slothful, or so stupid, or so given to his gut he is, or else so
abandoned to all those vices together. And therefore Plato again and
again forbids, or rather makes it his wish, in his laws, that young
men might not be permitted to addict themselves to marine fishery,
wherein there is no exercise of strength, no cogitation of wisdom,
nor any thing that contributes to fortitude, swiftness, or agility,
in combating against pikes, congers, or scates; whereas, in the chase
of wild beasts, the fiercer sort accustom the huntsman to contempt
of danger, the more subtle sort exercise and sharpen his wit and
cunning, the swifter sort exercise his strength, and render him more
apt to endure labor. These are the advantages that accrue to a man by
hunting; but in fishing, there is nothing worth his while. For never
any of the Gods got honor by the surname of a conger-killer; as Apollo
was surnamed the wolf-slayer; never any of the Deities gloried in
being a darter of mullets, as Diana is honored with the addition of
hart-darting.
And what wonder is it, when it is accounted more noble for a man to
kill than to buy a wild boar, a hart, a goat, or a hare, but more
honorable to buy a tunny, a lobster, or an amy, than to kill one?
And therefore, because there is nothing in fishing that is noble, no
using of gins and slight of cunning, it is accounted a sorry, pitiful
exercise, not worth a man’s labor.
10. In general then, since the usual arguments by which philosophers
demonstrate that beasts partake of reason are these following,—purpose,
contrivance, memory, passions, care of their young ones, gratefulness
to those from whom they receive kindnesses, and the remembrance of
shrewd turns, to which we may add the search after and choice of what
is needful and beneficial for them, together with apparent shows of
virtue, as of fortitude, society, continence, and magnanimity,—if we
consider the marine creatures, we shall not find that our strictest
observation can perceive in them any of these excellences, or at
best they are such obscure and imperfect glimmerings as are scarce
discernible. But in terrestrial and land animals, there is not any man
but may behold the most luculent, the most evident and uncontrollable
demonstrations in the world of all that has been said. In the first
place, observe the designs and preparations of bulls provoked to
combat, and of wild boars whetting their teeth. Again, elephants—since,
by digging up or tearing down the trees which they intend to feed
upon, they blunt and wear out their tushes—make use of only one for
those purposes, but reserve the other strong and sharp for their own
defence. The lion also always walks with his feet inverted, hiding his
claws withinside his paw, to prevent the hunter from tracing him easily
by his footing. For the track of a lion’s claw is not easily to be
found, so that the hunters are frequently at a loss, and wander after
the obscure and scarce discernible footsteps of those beasts. You have
heard also, I suppose, of the ichneumon, how that he arms himself as
completely as a soldier with his breastplate and cuirass prepared for
battle; in such a manner does that creature surround and wrap himself
about with a coat of mail, when he attacks the crocodile.
Admirable are the preparations of swallows before they go to lay their
eggs, how they place the more solid stubble for foundations, and upon
that build up the slighter straws; and if they perceive that the
nest wants mud to serve as glue, you may observe how they fly to the
next lake or sea, and after they have skimmed the superficies of the
water with their wings,—so as to make them moist, yet not heavy with
wet,—they lick up the dust, and so daub and bind together the loose and
ill-cohering parts of the nest. As for the form of their architecture,
it is composed neither of angles nor of many sides, but smooth and,
as much as may be, spherical; for that such a figure is lasting and
capacious, and not easily affording entrance to creatures that lie in
wait for their destruction from without.
Who is there that does not admire, for more reasons than one, the labor
of the spiders, which seems as pattern for the threads that women spin
and the nets that are used in hunting? For the extraordinary fineness
of the spinning, and the evenness of the thread, not discontinued or
snapped off like the yarn upon a quill, but having the smooth and
subtle texture of a thin membrane, and knit and spun together with a
certain clammy moisture imperceptibly mixed; besides the tincture of
it, causing a kind of airy and misty color, the better to deceive; but
above all, the conduct and governing of this little engine, in which
when any thing happens to be entangled, you see how presently, like
an expert huntsman, the subtle artist contracts her net and binds her
prey within it;—all this being every day obvious to our sight and
contemplation gives credit to my discourse, which otherwise might be
accounted no less fabulous than what is reported of certain Libyan
crows, that, when they are a-thirsty, throw stones into the water, by
that means to raise it to such a height that they may be able to reach
it with their bills. Then again, when I saw a ship dog, in the absence
of the seamen, putting in stones in a half-empty jar of oil, it was to
me a wonder how that dog should understand that the pressure of the
heavier weight would make the lighter rise.
And the same artifices are reported of Cretan bees and Cilician geese.
For the first of these, being to take their flight about some windy
promontory, ballast themselves with little stones, to prevent their
being carried away by the stronger blasts. And as for the geese, they
being afraid of the eagles, every time they cross the mountain Taurus,
carry great stones in their mouths, to the end that by that means (as
it were) bridling their gaggling tongues, they may cross the mountain
in silence, without alarming their enemies.
Extraordinary also is the caution which the cranes observe in their
flight. For they fly, when the wind is very high and the air very
tempestuous, not as in fair weather, all afront or in manner of the
half-moon; but forming a triangular body, with the sharp angle of that
figure they penetrate the wind that ruffles round about them, and by
that means preserve their order unbroken. On the other side, when they
fall upon the ground, those that are upon the night-watch stand with
the whole weight of their bodies upon one leg, holding a stone in the
claw of the other foot. For the holding of the stone keeps them awake
for a long time together, and wakes them again with the noise of the
fall if they happen to drop asleep. So that it was no wonder that
Hercules laid his quiver under his arm-pit, and with his strenuous arm
embracing his bow,
Slept all the night, where’er he laid his load,
With his right-handed weight upon the wood.
Nor do I so much admire at him who was the first that hit upon the way
to open an oyster, when I meet with and consider the artifices of the
herons. For a heron, when he has swallowed a closed oyster, endures
the trouble and vexation of it for so long time, till he perceives it
soften and relaxed by the heat of his stomach; then casting it up again
gaping and divided, he takes out that which is fit for food.
11. But as it is a task of great labor accurately to relate the
economy and contrivances of the emmets, so it would argue too much of
negligence to pass them over in silence. For there is not in Nature a
smaller creature; and yet it is a most absolute mirror of the greatest
and most noble performances, and (as it were) in a transparent drop
the appearance of all virtue. There is friendship to be discerned in
their mutual society. There is the image of fortitude in the patient
undergoing of labor. In them are to be seen many seeds of continence,
many of wisdom and justice. Insomuch that Cleanthes, who denied that
beasts were endued with reason, could not forbear reporting how he met
with the following accident of a crowd of emmets, that came to another
ant-hill, bringing along with them a dead emmet. Presently other emmets
ascending out of their ant-hill seemed (as it were) to meet them, and
then disappeared again; and this was done twice or thrice. Till at
length the one side brought up from under ground a worm, as the price
of the dead emmet’s redemption, which the other party of pismires
receiving, delivered the dead emmet, and so departed. But that which
is apparent to all is their equity to each other when they meet one
another, while they that carry nothing always give way to those that
are burdened; nor are their divisions and partitions of things too
weighty for single carriage less remarkable, to the end the burdens may
be divided among many. But when they bring forth their little eggs and
expose them to the cold, Aratus makes it a sign of rainy weather.
When from her hollow cells th’ industrious ant
Her hidden store of eggs brings forth
For in that sense many read ἤια (_provision_) for ὤεα (_eggs_),
referring it to the providence of those little creatures, who, when
they find their provision in their magazines to begin to taint and
grow rotten, bring it forth and expose it to the open air, to prevent
the progress of the putrefaction. But that which above all things
demonstrates the surpassing excellency of their understanding is their
pre-apprehension of the germinating of wheat. For the wheat does not
remain dry and void of putrefaction, but grows moist and turns into
a kind of milky substance, when it changes from seed to become an
herb. For fear therefore that preserving the quality it should become
useless for food, they eat out the very principal part of the grain,
from whence the wheat sends forth its blossom. I must confess, I do
not approve of those who dig up ant-hills on purpose to improve their
learning (as it were) by anatomy. However, they tell us by virtue of
that cruel information, that the passage or descent from the top of the
hill to the nest is not directly straight nor easily penetrated by any
other creature, but intercepted with several turnings and windings,
leading through several underminings and perforations into three
cavities; of which the one is the common place of feeding and converse
for the whole community, the next is the general magazine of their
provision, and the third is the apartment where they dispose of their
dead.
12. I am afraid you may deem me too impertinent in joining elephants
with pismires, and yet I cannot but think it seasonable to show the
nature and force of understanding, as well in the smallest as in the
greatest bodies, neither obscured in the one nor deficient in the other.
Some there are that admire in an elephant his aptness to learn and to
be taught, and the many various postures and alterations of movement
which he shows upon the theatres, not easily to be equalled by human
assiduity, as subtle and abounding in memory and retention as man is.
But for my part, I rather choose to prove his evident understanding
from the passions and inclinations of the creature, that were never
taught him, but only infused by Nature, as being altogether unmixed and
pure without the help of art.
At Rome, not very long ago, there were many elephants that were taught
many dangerous postures, many windings and turnings and circular
screwings of their bulky bodies, hard to be expressed; among which
there was one, which, being duller than the rest, and therefore often
rated and chastised for his stupidity, was seen in the night-time, by
moonlight, without being forced to it, to practise over his lessons
with all the industry imaginable.
Agno tells a story of an elephant in Syria, that was bred up in a
certain house, who observed that his keeper took away and defrauded him
every day of half the measure of his barley; only that once, the master
being present and looking on, the keeper poured out the whole measure;
which was no sooner done, but the elephant, extending his proboscis,
separated the barley and divided it into two equal parts, thereby
ingeniously discovering, as much as in him lay, the injustice of his
keeper.
Another in revenge that his keeper mixed stones and dirt with his
barley, as the keeper’s meat was boiling upon the fire, took up the
ashes and flung them into the pot.
Another being provoked by the boys in Rome, that pricked his proboscis
with the sharp ends of their writing steels, caught one of them in his
proboscis, and mounted him up into the air, as if he intended to have
squashed out his guts; but upon the loud outcries of the spectators,
set him gently down again upon his feet, and so went on, believing he
had sufficiently punished the boy in scaring him. Many other things are
reported of the wild elephants that feed without control, but nothing
more to be admired than their passing of great rivers. For first of
all the youngest and the least flounces into the stream; whom the rest
beholding from the shore, if they see that the less bulky leader keeps
steady footing with his back above water, they are then assured and
confident that they may boldly adventure without any danger.
13. Having thus far proceeded in our discourse, I cannot think it well
done to pass by the cunning of the fox, by reason of the similitude
it has with the former. The mythologists tell us that the dove which
Deucalion sent out of his ark, returning back again, was to him a
certain sign of the storm not ceased; but of serene and fair weather,
when she flew quite away. But the Thracians to this day, when they
design to pass a river that is frozen over, make use of a fox to try
whether the ice will bear or no. For the fox, treading gently, lays
his ear to the ice, and if he perceive by the noise of the water that
the stream runs very close underneath, conjecturing from thence that
the congelation is not deep but thin, and no way steadfastly solid,
he makes a stop, and if he be suffered, returns back again; but if he
perceive no noise, he goes on boldly. Nor can we say that this is only
an exquisiteness of sense without reason; but it is a syllogistical
deduction from sense, concluding that whatever makes a noise is moved;
whatever is moved, cannot be frozen; what is not frozen, is moist; what
is moist, gives way. The logicians say that a dog, making use of the
argument drawn from many disjunctive propositions, thus reasons with
himself, in places where several highways meet: Either the wild beast
is gone this way, or that, or that way; but not that way, nor that way,
therefore this way: the force of sense affording nothing but the minor
premise, but the force of reason affording the major proposition, and
inferring the conclusion of the assumption. But a dog stands in no need
of any such testimonial; in regard it is both false and adulterate.
For sense itself shows which way the beast is fled, by his tracks and
footsteps, bidding farewell to disjunctive and copulative propositions.
The nature of dogs is palpably to be discerned by many other actions,
affections, and dutiful service, neither the effects of hearing or
seeing, but practicable only by reason and understanding. It would
be ridiculous for me to discourse of the continence, obedience, and
industry of dogs in hunting, to you that are so well confirmed in the
knowledge of those things by daily experience and practice.
There was a Roman named Calvus, slain in the civil wars, whose head
nobody durst cut off before they killed the dog that guarded his body
and fought in defence of his master. It happened that King Pyrrhus,
travelling one day, lit upon a dog watching over the carcass of a
person slain; and hearing that the dog had been there three days
without meat or drink, yet would not forsake his dead master, ordered
that the man should be buried, but that the dog should be preserved and
brought to him. A few days after, there was a muster of the soldiers,
so that they were forced to march all in order by the king, with
the dog quietly lying by him for a good while. But when he saw the
murderers of his master pass by him, he flew upon them with a more than
ordinary fury, barking and baying and tearing his throat, and ever and
anon turning about to the king; which did not only rouse the king’s
suspicion, but the jealousy of all that stood about him. Upon which the
men were presently apprehended; and though the circumstances were very
slight which otherwise appeared against them, yet they confessed the
fact and were executed.
The same thing is reported to have been done by a dog that belonged to
Hesiod, surnamed the wise, which discovered the sons of Ganyctor the
Naupactian, by whom Hesiod was murdered. But that which came to the
knowledge of our parents, when they were students at Athens, is yet
more evident than any thing we have said. For a certain person getting
into the temple of Aesculapius, after he had stolen all the massy
offerings of gold and silver, made his escape, not believing he was
discovered. But the dog which belonged to the temple, who was called
Capparus, when he found that none of the sacristans took any notice
of his barking, pursued himself the sacrilegious thief; and though at
first the fellow pelted him with stones, he could not beat him off.
So soon as it was day, the dog still followed him, though at such a
distance that he always kept him in his eyes. When the fellow threw
him meat he refused it; when the thief went to bed, the dog watched at
his door; and when he rose in the morning, the dog still followed him,
fawning upon the passengers on the road, but still barking and baying
at the heels of the thief. These things when they who were in pursuit
of the sacrilegious person heard, and were told withal by those they
met the color and bigness of the dog, they were the more vigorous in
the pursuit; and by that means overtaking the thief, brought him back
from Crommyon, while the dog ran before, leaping and capering and
full of joy, as it were challenging to himself the praise and reward
of apprehending the temple-robber. And indeed the Athenians were so
grateful to him, that they decreed him such a quantity of meat to
be publicly measured to him, and ordered the priests to take care to
see it done; in imitation of the kindness of the ancient Athenians in
rewarding the mule.
For when Pericles built the temple Hecatompedon (or Parthenon) in the
tower of Athens, it so fell out that the stones were to be fetched
every day many furlongs off, and a world of carriages were made use
of for that purpose. Among the rest of the mules that labored hard in
this employment, there was one that, though dismissed by reason of
age, would still go down to the Ceramicus, and meeting the carts that
brought the stones, would be always in their company running by their
sides, as it were by the way of encouragement and to excite them to
work cheerfully. So that the people, admiring the zeal of the mule,
ordered him to be fed at the public charge, as they were wont to decree
public alms to the superannuated wrestlers.
14. And therefore they who deny that there is any thing of justice
due from us towards dumb animals may be said to speak true, so far
as concerns them that live in the sea and haunt the abysses of the
deep. For those kind of creatures are altogether unsociable, without
affection for their young ones, void of all softness of disposition;
and therefore it was well said of Homer, speaking to a person whom he
looked upon as a mere savage,
But as for thee, so little worth,
The gleaming sea did bring thee forth;[83]
in regard the sea brings forth nothing friendly, nothing mansuete or
gentle. But he that uses the same discourse and arguments against
land animals is himself a brute and savage creature; unless any man
will affirm that there was nothing of justice due from Lysimachus to
the Hyrcanian dog, that would not stir from the body of his deceased
master, and when he saw his master’s carcass burning, ran and threw
himself into the flames. The same is reported to have been done by the
dog Astus, that was kept by one Pyrrhus, not the king, but a private
person of that name. For upon the death of his master, he would not
stir from the body, but when it was carried forth, leaped upon the
bier, and at length threw himself into the funeral pile, and was burnt
alive with his master’s body.
The elephant also which carried King Porus, when the king was wounded
in the battle against Alexander, pulled out several darts out of his
wounds with his proboscis, with no less tenderness and care than the
chirurgeon could have done; and though the elephant himself was but in
a very bad condition, yet would he not give over till he perceived the
king was ready to reel and sink down by reason of the blood which he
had lost; and then fearing lest the king should fall, he stooped down
gently, to ease the king in sliding to the ground.
Such was the humor of Bucephalus, who, before he was accoutred, would
suffer his groom to back him, but when he had all his royal trappings
and housings about him, would permit nobody but Alexander to bestride
him. But if any other persons approached him in curiosity to try what
they could do, he encountered them open-mouthed, and neighing out his
fury, leaped upon their shoulders, bore them down, and trampled them
under his feet, unless prevented by keeping at a distance or by speedy
flight.
15. Nor am I ignorant but that there is something of variety in every
one of these examples, which you must acknowledge. And indeed it is not
easy to find out the natural dexterity of any one ingenious and docible
animal, which is not accompanied with more than one single virtue.
Thus, where there is affection toward their young ones, there is desire
of praise. Where there is generosity, there is also moderation of
anger. Cunning likewise and understanding are rarely parted from daring
boldness and fortitude. But as for those that rather choose to divide
and distinguish every one of these virtues particularly by themselves,
they shall find in dogs a fair demonstration of a gentle and yet lofty
mind at the same time, in turning away from such as sit quietly upon
the ground; according to that of Homer,
With hideous noise the dogs upon him flew;
But sly Ulysses, who the danger knew,
Sate husht and still, and from his royal hand
His sceptre dropt, as useless in command.[84]
For dogs never bite or worry those that prostrate themselves at their
mercy and put on a face of humility. Thus they say the bravest of those
Indian dogs that fought against Alexander never stirred or so much
as looked about them upon the letting loose of a hart, a boar, and a
bear; but when they saw a lion, then they began to rouse, to shake,
and prepare themselves for the combat. By which it was plain that
they thought only the lion an antagonist worthy of their courage, but
despised all the rest as below their anger.
Your hounds that usually hunt hares, if they kill the hares themselves,
take great delight in tearing them to pieces and lapping up the blood.
But if the hare despairing of her life, as many times it happens, runs
herself to death, the hounds finding her dead will never touch her, but
stand wagging their tails, as if they did hunt not so much for the love
of the food as for victory and triumph’s sake.
16. There are many examples of cunning and subtlety abounding in
land creatures; but to omit slights and artifices of foxes, cranes,
and jackdaws, of which I shall say nothing, because they are things
already so well known, I shall make use of the testimony of Thales, the
ancientest of our philosophers, who is reported to have chiefly admired
the most excellent in any art or cunning.
A certain mule that was wont to carry salt, in fording a river, by
accident happened to stumble, by which means the water melting away the
salt, when the mule rose again he felt himself much lighter; the cause
of which the mule was very sensible of, and laid it up in his memory,
insomuch that every time he forded the same river, he would always
stoop when he came into the deepest part, and fill his vessels with
water, crouching down, and leaning sometimes to one side, sometimes to
the other. Thales hearing this, ordered the vessels to be well filled
with wool and sponges, and to drive the mule laden after that manner.
But then the mule, as he was wont, filling his burthens with water,
reasoned with himself that he had ill consulted his own benefit, and
ever afterwards, when he forded the same river, was so careful and
cautious, that he would never suffer his burthens so much as to touch
the water by accident.
Another piece of cunning, joined with an extraordinary affection to
their young ones, is to be observed in partridges, which instruct
their young ones, ere they are able to fly, when they are pursued by
the fowlers, to lay themselves upon their backs, their breasts covered
with some clod of earth or little heap of dirt, under which they may
lie concealed. On the other side, the old partridges do deceive the
fowlers, and draw them quite a contrary way, make short flights from
one place to another, thereby enticing the fowlers to follow them; till
thus allured from their young ones, the fowlers give over all hopes of
being masters of their game.
In like manner, hares returning to their forms dispose their leverets
one to one place, another to another, at the distance many times of
an acre of ground; so that, upon the tracing either of men or hounds,
they are sure not to be all in danger at one time,—themselves in the
mean time not easy to be tracked, by reason of the various windings and
turnings which they make, until at length, by giving a large leap, they
discontinue the print of their feet, and so betake themselves to their
rest.
A bear, when she perceives her winter sleep coming upon her, before
she grows stiff and unwieldy, cleanses the place where she intends
to conceal herself, and in her passage thither lifts up her paws as
high as she can, and treads upon the ground with the top of her toes,
and at length turning herself upon her back, throws herself into her
receptacle.
Your hinds generally calve at a distance from all places frequented by
flesh-devouring beasts; and stags, when they find themselves unwieldy
through surplusage of flesh and fat, get out of the way and hide
themselves, hoping to secure themselves by lurking, when they dare not
trust to their heels.
The means by which the land hedge-hogs defend and guard themselves
occasioned the proverb,
Many sly tricks the subtle Reynard knows,
But one the hedge-hog greater than all those
For the hedge-hog, as Ion the poet says,[85] when he spies the fox
coming,
Round as a pine-nut, or more sphere-like ball,
Lies with his body palisaded all
With pointed thorns, which all the fox’s slight
Can find no way to touch, much less to bite.
But the provision which the hedge-hogs make for their young ones is
much more ingenious. For when autumn comes, they creep under vines, and
shake off the grapes with their feet; which done they roll themselves
up and down, and take them up with their prickles, so that when they
creep away again, you would think it a walking cluster (and this we
have looked on and seen them do); after which returning to their holes,
they lay themselves down for their young ones to feed. Their holes have
two openings, one to the south, the other to the north. So that when
they perceive the alteration of the air, like pilots shifting their
sails, they stop up that which lies to the wind and open the other.
Which a certain person that lived at Cyzicus observing, took upon him
from thence at any time to tell in what corner the wind would sit.
17. As for love and observance of society joined with understanding
and prudence, Juba produces many examples of it in elephants. For it
is the usual practice of the elephant-hunters to dig large pits in the
elephants’ walks, and cover them slightly over with dry twigs or other
materials; into which if any elephant happens to fall, the rest fetch
wood and stones to fill up the cavity of the pit, that the other may
the more easily get out again. And some report of the elephants, that
they make prayers to the Gods by natural instinct, that they perform
divine ceremonies to the sea, and worship the rising sun, lifting up
the proboscis to heaven instead of hands. For which reason they are
creatures the most beloved of any by the Gods, as Ptolemy Philopator
testified. For having vanquished Antiochus, and being desirous to pay
a more than ordinary honor to the Deity, among many other oblations
of thanksgivings for his victory, he sacrificed four elephants. After
which being terrified with a dream, which threatened him with the wrath
of the Deity for that prodigious sacrifice, he sought out several ways
to expiate his offence, and among the rest by way of propitiation, he
erected four elephants of brass to atone for the four elephants he had
slaughtered.
Examples not inferior of the observance of society are to be found
among lions. For the younger carry forth the slow and aged, when they
hunt abroad for their prey. When the old ones are weary and tired, they
rest and stay for the younger that hunt on; who, when they have seized
upon any thing, call to the old ones, making a noise like the bleating
of a calf. They presently hear, and so meeting all together, they feed
in common upon the prey.
18. In the amours of many animals there is much variety. Some are
furious and mad; others observe a kind of human decency, and tricking
of themselves to set off their beauty, not without a courtly kind
of conversation. Such was the amour of the elephant at Alexandria,
that rivalled Aristophanes the grammarian. For they were both in love
with a girl that sold garlands; nor was the elephant’s courtship
less conspicuous than the other’s. For as he passed through the
fruit-market, he always brought her apples, and stayed with her for
some time, and thrusting his proboscis within her waistcoat, instead of
a hand, took great delight in gently feeling her breasts.
No less remarkable was the serpent in love with the Aetolian woman.
He came to her in the night, and getting under her garments to her
very skin, embraced her naked body; and never either willingly or
unwillingly did he do her any harm, but always about break of day
departed; which the kindred of the woman observing to be the common
custom of the animal, removed her a great way off. After that, the
serpent came not again for three or four days together, being all the
while, as it seemed, wandering about in search of her. But at length,
having with much ado found her out, he did not approach her with that
mildness as he was wont to do, but after a rougher manner; with his
folds having first bound her hands to her body, with the end of his
tail he lashed the calves of her legs; expressing thereby a gentle and
loving anger, which had more in it of indulgent expostulation than
punishment.
I say nothing of a goose in Egypt in love with a boy, nor of the ram
in love with Glauce who played on the harp; for the stories are in all
people’s mouths. And besides, I am apt to think you are satiated with
examples of this nature.
19. But as for starlings, magpies, and parrots, that learn to talk,
and afford their teachers such a spirit of voice, so well tempered and
so adapted for imitation, they seem to me to be patrons and advocates
in behalf of other creatures, by their talent of learning what they
are taught; and in some measure to teach us that those creatures also,
as well as we, partake of vocal expression and articulate sound. From
whence I conclude it a most ridiculous thing in them that would compare
these creatures with a sort of mute animals, I mean the fish, that
have not voice enough to howl or make a mournful noise. Whereas, in
the natural and untaught notes of these creatures, what music, what a
charming grace do we observe! To which the famous poets and choicest
singers among men bear testimony, while they compare their sweetest
odes and poems to the singing of swans and melody of nightingales. Now
in regard there is more of reason in teaching than in learning, we
are to believe Aristotle,[86] who assures us that terrestrial animals
do that likewise, in regard that nightingales have been observed
instructing their young ones to sing. Of which this may be a sufficient
proof, that such nightingales are known to sing worse that are taken
very young from the nest and deprived of the education of the old one.
For they both learn and are taught from the old one, not for hire
or to get reputation, but merely out of a delight in mixing their
notes together, and because they have a greater love for that which
is excellent and curious in the voice than for what is profitable.
Concerning which I have a story to tell you, which I heard from several
Greeks and Romans, who were eye-witnesses of the thing.
A certain barber in Rome, who had a shop right against the temple which
is called the Greeks’ Market, bred in his house a kind of a prodigy of
a magpie, whose tongue would be always going with the greatest variety
imaginable, sometimes imitating human speech, sometimes chattering her
wild notes, and sometimes humoring the sounds of wind instruments;
neither was this by any constraint, but as she accustomed herself, with
a more than ordinary ambition, to leave nothing unspoken, nothing that
her imitation should not master.
It happened a certain person of the wealthier sort, newly dead in the
neighborhood, was carried forth to be buried with a great number of
trumpets before him. Now in regard it was the custom of the bearers
to rest themselves before the barber’s shop, the trumpeters being
excellent in their art, and withal commanded so to do, made a long
stop, sounding all the while.
After that day the magpie was altogether mute, not so much as uttering
her usual notes by which she called for what she wanted, insomuch that
they who before admired as they passed to and fro at the chattering and
prating of the bird now much more wondered at her sudden silence; and
many suspected her to have been poisoned by some that affected peculiar
skill in teaching this kind of birds. But the greatest number were of
opinion, that the noise of the trumpets had stupefied her hearing,
and that by the loss of her hearing the use of her voice was likewise
extinguished. But her unusual silence proceeded from neither of these
causes, but from her retiring to privacy, by herself to exercise the
imitation of what she had heard, and to fit and prepare her voice as
the instrument to express what she had learned. For soon after she came
of a sudden to sight again, but had quitted all her former customary
imitations, and sounded only the music of the trumpets, observing all
the changes and cadences of the harmony, with such exactness of time as
was not to be imagined; an argument, as I have said before, that the
aptness in those creatures to learn of themselves is more rational
than readiness to be taught by others. Nor do I think it proper to pass
by in silence one wonderful example of the docility of a dog, of which
I myself was a spectator at Rome. This dog belonged to a certain mimic,
who at that time had the management of a farce wherein there was great
variety of parts, which he undertook to instruct the actors to perform,
with several imitations proper for the matters and passions therein
represented. Among the rest there was one who was to drink a sleepy
potion, and after he had drunk it, to fall into a deadly drowsiness and
counterfeit the actions of a dying person. The dog, who had studied
several of the other gestures and postures, more diligently observing
this, took a piece of bread that was sopped in the potion, and after
he had ate it, in a short time counterfeited a trembling, then a
staggering, and afterwards a drowsiness in his head. Then stretching
out himself, he lay as if he had been dead, and seemed to proffer
himself to be dragged out of the place and carried to burial, as the
plot of the play required. Afterwards understanding the time from what
was said and acted, in the first place he began gently to stir, as
it were waking out of a profound sleep, and lifting up his head, he
gazed about him. Afterwards to the amazement of the beholders, he rose
up, and went to his master to whom he belonged, with all the signs
of gladness and fawning kindness, insomuch that all the spectators,
and even Caesar himself (for old Vespasian was present in Marcellus’s
theatre) were taken with the sight.
20. But perhaps we may seem ridiculous for signalizing beasts in this
manner because they learn, since we find that Democritus affirms us
to have been their scholars in the greatest matters;—of the spider,
in weaving and repairing what we tear or wear out; of the swallow, in
building houses; and of the mournful swan and nightingale, in singing
and imitation. Moreover in others we observe a threefold practice of
physic, both natural and inbred. For tortoises make use of marjoram
and weasels eat rue, when they have devoured a serpent; and dogs purge
themselves from abounding gall with a certain sort of grass. The dragon
quickens the dimness of his sight with fennel; and the bear, coming
forth of her cave after long emaciation, feeds upon the wild arum,
for the acrimony of that herb opens and separates her guts when clung
together. At other times, being overcloyed with food, she repairs to
the emmet-hills, and thrusting forth her tongue all soft and unctuous,
by reason of the sweet kind of slime that all besmears it, till it be
crowded with emmets, at length swallows them down her throat, and so
recovers. And it is reported that the Egyptians observe and imitate the
bird called ibis, in purging and cleansing her bowels with the briny
sea-water. For which reason the priests, when they hallow themselves,
make use of the water of which the ibis has drunk; for that those birds
will not drink the water, if it be medicinal or otherwise infected.
Some beasts there are that cure themselves by abstinence; as wolves and
lions, who, when they are gorged with flesh, lie still and digest their
crudities by the warmth of one another’s bodies. It is reported also
of the tiger, that if a kid be thrown to her, she will not eat in two
days; but growing almost famished the third day, if she be not supplied
with another, she will tear down the cage that holds her, if she have
strength enough; yet all this while she will not meddle with the first
kid, as being her companion and fellow-housekeeper.
More than this, the elephants are said to make use of chirurgery; for
that being brought to persons wounded, they will draw forth the heads
of spears and arrows out of their bodies with little pain, and without
dilacerating and mangling the flesh.
The Cretan goats, which by eating dittany expel the arrows shot into
their bodies, taught women with child to understand the virtue of that
herb, so prevalent to expel the birth. For those goats being wounded
seek no other cure, but presently seek out and hunt for dittany.
21. But these things, though wonderful, are not so much to be admired
as are those beasts that understand the use of numbers and have the
power of reckoning, like the oxen about Susa. For there are oxen in
that place that water the king’s gardens with portable buckets, of
which the number is fixed. For every ox carries a hundred buckets every
day, and more you cannot force them to take or carry, would you never
so fain; insomuch that, when constraint has been used for experiment’s
sake, nothing could make them stir after they had carried their full
number. Such an accurate account do they take, and preserve the same in
their memory, as Ctesias the Cnidian relates it.
The Libyans deride the Egyptians for the fables which they report of
the oryx, which, as they say, makes a great noise upon the same day,
at the very hour, when the Dog-star, which they call Sothes, rises.
However, this is certain, that all their goats, when that star rises
truly with the sun, turn themselves and stand gazing toward the east;
which is a most unquestionable argument of that star’s having finished
its course, and agrees exactly with the astronomer’s observations.
22. But that my discourse may draw to a conclusion, let us (as the
saying is) move the stone over the sacred line, and add something
concerning the divinity and prophetic nature with which our terrestrial
creatures are endued. Which when we consider, we shall find that that
part of soothsaying which is founded upon the observation of birds is
not the meanest or most ignoble, but very ancient and in great esteem.
For the smartness and intelligible faculty of birds, together with
their capability to receive all impressions of fancy, afford the Deity
a convenience to make use of those faculties as instruments, that he
may turn them into motion, sounds, chirpings, and forms, now to stop
and stay, anon to drive forward like the winds; by means of some of
these stopping short, by the means of others directing to their end,
the actions and impetuous impulses of men. Therefore Euripides in
general calls birds the criers of the Gods; and particularly Socrates
styles himself a fellow-servant with the swans. As among princes,
Pyrrhus was pleased with the surname of Eagle; and Antiochus loved to
be called Antiochus the Falcon. But they who deride men as insipid
and void of ingenuity call them by the names of fish. And whereas we
can produce millions of things and accidents which are foretold us by
land and flying creatures, there is not any one such example that the
patrons of water-animals can produce in their behalf; but being all
void of hearing, perfectly sottish, and without any sight, discerning,
or providence, they are all thrown apart into that same place, unblest
and hideous, called the sea, as it were into the region of the ungodly,
where the rational and intellectual part of the soul is extinguished;
being animated with only some diminutive portion, the lowest that may
be imagined, of a confused and overwhelmed sense, so that they rather
seem to palpitate than breathe.
23. HERACLEO. Pluck up your brows then, friend Phaedimus; after all
this, it is time to rouse thyself in the defence of the islanders,
and others that live by the seaside. For this has been no frivolous
discourse, but a hard fought contest, and a continued piece of rhetoric
that wanted only lattices and a pulpit to give it the honor it deserved.
PHAEDIMUS. Therefore, you see, it is plain here has been foul play and
treachery in the case, for a person sober and upon premeditation to
set upon us when we were stomach-sick and dozed with our last night’s
compotation. But there is no way to avoid the combat; for that, being
an imitator of Pindar, it shall never be said of me.
Combats refused, when nobly set upon,
Have virtue into deepest darkness thrown.
For we have leisure enough, as having not only allowed ourselves a
vacation from jollity and balls, but our hounds and horses a relaxation
from their labors, and withal having hung up our drag-nets and spears,
as having also this day granted, for disputation’s sake, a general
truce to all creatures, as well upon the land as in the sea. However,
fear not; for I will use it moderately, without producing either
the opinions of philosophers or the fables of the Egyptians, or the
relations either of the Indians or Libyans, wanting testimony; but
such as shall be verified by good witnesses, who have made it their
business to toil upon the ocean, and such as are evident to the eye.
For to say truth, there is not any one of those examples produced from
the land which is not apparent and openly manifested to our sense.
Whereas the sea affords few but such as are difficult to be discerned,
as concealing the generation and nourishment of most of her creatures,
their antipathies, and ways of preserving themselves; in reference to
which many acts of understanding, memory, and community are unknown
to us, so that we cannot be so copious in our discourse. Then again,
land animals, by reason of their familiarity and cohabitation, being
in some measure accustomed to the conditions of men, become capable of
their nutriture, education, and imitation; which sweetens and allays
all their acerbity and moroseness, like the mixture of fresh water
with sea brine, and awakening that which is slow and disordered in
them, inflames it with human motions. Whereas the living of sea animals
being by many degrees remote from the converse of men, and having
nothing adventitious or that may be said to be acquired by custom and
familiarity, is altogether peculiar, genuine, and unmixed with manners
strange and foreign to them; which proceeds not from Nature, but
from the place itself. For Nature, receiving and cherishing whatever
knowledge comes to herself, affords it also to fish, and makes many
eels tame and familiar to men, which for that reason are called sacred,
like those in the fountain Arethusa; so that in many places there are
fish that will hear and obey when called by their names, as the story
goes of Crassus’s mullet, upon the death of which he wept. For which
when Domitius twitted him in these words, Did not you weep when your
mullet died?—he retorted upon him again, Did you not bury three wives
and never weep at all? The crocodiles belonging to the priests not only
know the voices of those that call them, and suffer themselves to be
stroked and handled, but gaping hold out their teeth to be cleansed and
wiped by the hands of the priests.
Lately Philinus, after he had been long travelling in Egypt, returning
to us, told us how he saw, in the city which derives its name from
Anteus, an old woman sleeping by the side of a crocodile, upon a low
soft bed well and decently dressed up.
In ancient histories we find that when King Ptolemy called the sacred
crocodile, and when the crocodile neither vouchsafed to appear at his
call nor would answer to the earnest expostulations of the priests, it
was looked upon as a prognostication of the death of the king, which
happened soon after. Which shows that the race of water-animals is
neither without a share of that inestimable thing called prophetic
signification, nor undeserving those honors ascribed to land creatures.
For that about Sura, which is a village in Lycia between Phellus and
Myra, I have heard it credibly reported, that there are certain persons
who make it their business to watch the turns, flights, and pursuits
of the fish, whence, by a certain art which they have, they gather
predictions, as others from the observation of birds.
24. But let these examples suffice to show, that fish are not
altogether strangers to mankind, nor altogether void of human
affection. But for a great and common demonstration of their unmixed
and natural understanding, we find that there is not any fish that
swims, unless they be such as stick and cling to the rocks, which is so
easily taken by men, as asses are seized by wolves, bees by bee-eaters,
grasshoppers by swallows, serpents by harts. And these last are
therefore called ἔλαφοι, not from their swiftness (ἐλαφρότης), but from
a faculty which they have of drawing serpents to them (ἕλκειν ὄφεις).
So sheep call the wolf by the sound of their feet, and the panther
allures to her paws both apes and other creatures by the fragrant smell
of her body. But so suspicious is the sense of all water animals, and
so watchful are they to avoid all baits and treacheries against them,
by reason of their extraordinary cunning, that fishing thereby becomes
no easy or single labor, but a toil that requires various instruments
and many tricks of human cunning and deceit. This is apparent from
examples near at hand. For no man desires an angling-rod too thick,
though strong enough to hold against the twitches of the fish when
taken; but rather they require it slender, lest by casting too great a
shadow upon the water, it should frighten the suspicious creature. In
the next place, they never knit too many knots in the line, but make it
as smooth as may be, for that would too much discover the deceit; and
then for the hairs which are next the hook, they endeavor to get the
whitest they can meet with; for so, by reason of the likeness of color,
they lie the more easily concealed in the water. Therefore some there
are who, wrongly expounding the following verses of Homer,[87]
She to the bottom quickly sinks, like lead,
Which fixt to horn[88] of rustic ox descends,
And brings destruction to the greedy fish,
believe that the ancients made use of ox-hair for their lines with
which they angled, alleging that κέρας then signified hair,—from whence
κείρασθαι, _to be shaved_, and κουρά, _shaving_,—and that κεροπλάστης
in Archilochus signified one who takes delight in trimming and decking
the hair. But this is an error. For they made use of horse-hair, more
especially that of male horses. For mares, by moistening their tails
with their urine, render the hair weak and brittle. Though Aristotle
will not allow any thing to be said in all this that requires such
extraordinary subtlety. Only he says, that the lower piece of the line
was fortified with a little hollow piece of horn, lest the fish should
come at the line itself and bite it off; moreover, that they made use
of round hooks to catch mullets and tunnies, in regard they had but
small mouths, for that they were afraid of a straight hook. He also
further says, that the mullet many times suspecting the round hook,
will swim round about it, flapping the bait with his tail, and then
turning round, secures to himself so much as he has broken off. Or if
he cannot do that, he shuts his mouth close; and with the extremities
of his lips nibbles off some part of the bait.
The fish called labrax behaves himself more stoutly than the elephant;
for when he perceives himself struck with the hook, without assistance
he sets himself at liberty, widening the wound by flinging his head to
and fro, and enduring the painful twingings of the hook, till he have
freed himself from it with the loss of his flesh. The sea fox (or the
fish called alopex) seldom bites, but avoids the deceit; but if he
chance to be taken, he presently turns the inside of his body outward.
For by reason of the strength and moisture of his body, he has a
peculiar faculty to turn it so that, the inside coming to be outermost,
the hook falls off. These things demonstrate understanding, and a
subtle and extraordinary use of it in the nick and juncture of time.
25. Other examples there are which show not only this same
understanding and knowledge, but the community and mutual affection of
fish. Thus, if one scate happen to swallow the hook, all the rest of
the scates that are in the same shoal presently crowd together and bite
the line in pieces. The same scates, if any of their companions fall
into the net, give the prisoners their tails to take hold of with their
teeth, and so draw them forth by main force.
But the fish called anthiae with far more courage assist their fellows
in distress. For getting under the line with their backs, and setting
up their fins, with these, as with sharp saws, they endeavor to cut it
in two.
Now we know no land animal that will assist and defend his kind in
danger; neither the bear, nor the wild boar, nor the lion, nor the
panther. True it is that, when they are in herds together, they will
gather into a circle and defend each other in common; but no single
land animal either knows or cares to assist a single companion, but
flies and shifts for himself as far off as he can from the beast that
is wounded and lies a dying. For as for that old story of elephants
filling up the ditches with heaps of adjoining materials, whether wood
or earth, for the unfortunate elephant the more easily to get up again,
this, my good friend, is extremely uncouth and foreign to us, as if we
were bound to believe Juba’s books by virtue of a royal edict. However,
if it is true, it does but serve to show that many of the marine
creatures are nothing inferior in understanding and community to the
most intelligent of the land animals. But as for their mutual society,
we shall discourse apart of that by itself.
26. Now the fishermen, observing how that most fish avoided the casts
of their hooks by cunning or by striving with the tackling, betook
themselves to force,—as the Persians use to serve their enemies in
their wars,[89]—making use of nets, that there might be no escape for
those that were caught either by the help of reason or subtlety. Thus
mullets and the fish called julides are taken with sweep-nets and
drag-nets, as are also several other sorts of fish called mormuri,
sargi, gobii, and labraces; those that are called casting-nets catch
the mullet, the gilthead, and the scorpion fish; and therefore Homer
calls this sort of net πανάγρα, or the _all-sweeper_.[90] And yet there
are some fish that are too cunning for these nets. Thus the labrax,
perceiving the drawing of the sweep-net, with the force of his body
beats a hollow place in the mud, where he lays himself close till the
net be gone over him. But as for the dolphin, when he finds himself
taken and in the midst of the net, he remains there without being in
the least perplexed, but falls to with a great deal of joy, and feasts
upon the numerous fry within the meshes; but so soon as he comes near
the shore, he bites his way through the net with his teeth and swims
away. Or if he chance to be taken, the fishermen do him no other harm
the first time, but only sew a sort of large bulrush to the finny crown
upon his head, and so let him go. If they take him a second time, they
punish him with stripes, well knowing him again by the prints of the
needle. But that rarely happens. For having got pardon the first time,
for the most part of them, they acknowledge the favor, and abstain from
spoil for the future.
Moreover, among the many examples that make evident the wariness of
fish in avoiding the deceits and craft of the fishermen, it would
not be convenient to pass by that of the cuttle-fish. For this fish,
carrying near his neck a certain black and inky sort of liquor, so
soon as he perceives himself discovered, throws that liquor forth,
and darkens all the water round about him in such a manner that, the
fisherman losing sight of him, by that means he makes his escape;
imitating therein Homer’s Deities, who, when they had a mind to save
any of their heroes, hid them in an azure cloud. But of this enough.
27. Now for the extraordinary subtlety of fish in hunting and catching
their own prey, we shall meet with several examples of it in several
fish. Particularly the star-fish, understanding his own nature to be
such that whatever he touches dissolves and liquefies, readily offers
his body, and permits himself to be touched by all that come near him.
You know yourself the property of the torpedo or crampfish, which not
only benumbs all those that touch it, but also strikes a numbness
through the very net into the hands of them that go about to take him.
And some that have had greater experience of this fish report that,
if it happen to fall alive upon the land, they that pour water upon
it shall presently perceive a numbness seizing upon their hands and
stupefying their feeling, through the water affected with the quality
of the fish. And therefore, having an innate sense of this faculty, it
never makes any resistance against any thing, nor ever is it in danger.
Only swimming circularly about his prey, he shoots forth the effluviums
of his nature like so many darts, and first infects the water, then the
fish through the water, which is neither able to defend itself nor to
escape, being (as it were) held in chains and frozen up.
The fish called the fisherman is well known to many, who has his name
given him from his manner of catching fish; whose art, as Aristotle
writes, the cuttle-fish makes use of, for he lets down, like a line, a
certain curl which Nature has given him, so ordered as to let it run
out at length or draw it to him again, as he sees occasion. This, when
he sees any of the lesser fish approach, he offers them to bite, and
then by degrees pulls the curl nearer and nearer by virtue of the bait,
till he has drawn his prey within the reach of his mouth. And as for
the polypus’s changing his color, Pindar has made it famous in these
words:
In any city may that man expose
His safety, who well knows
Like sea-bred polypus to range,
And vary color upon every change.
In like manner Theognis:
Change manners with thy friends, observing thus
The many-colored, cunning polypus;
Who let him stick to whatsoever rock,
Of the same color does his body look.[91]
It is true the chameleon changes color, not out of any design or
to conceal himself, but out of fear, being naturally timorous and
trembling at every noise he hears. And this is occasioned by the
extraordinary abundance of breath which he enjoys, as Theophrastus
affirms. For the whole body of this creature wants but little of being
nothing else but lungs; which demonstrates him to be full of spirits,
and consequently apt to change. But this same change of the polypus
is no product of any affection of the mind, but a kind of action.
For he changes on purpose, making use of this artifice to escape
what he fears, and to get the food which he lives by. For by fraud,
those things that he will take never avoid him, and those things he
will escape pass him by without taking any notice of him. For that
he devours his own claws is an untruth, but that he is afraid of
the lamprey and conger is certain; for by these he is ill treated,
not being able to return them any injury, by reason of their being
so slippery. Though on the other side the crawfish, having once got
them within his claws, holds them with ease. For slenderness affords
no help against roughness; but when the polypus comes to thrust his
horns into the body of the crawfish, then also the crawfish dies.
And this same vicissitude of avoiding and pursuing one another has
Nature infused into them on purpose to exercise their subtlety and
understanding.
28. Then again we have heard Aristotimus relating how the land
hedge-hog had a perception of the rising of the wind, and praising the
trigonal flight of cranes. But for my part, I produce no particular
hedge-hog of Cyzicus or Byzantium, but all the sea hedge-hogs in
general; who, when they perceive a storm coming, ballast themselves
with little stones, lest they should be overturned by reason of their
lightness or carried away by the rolling of the waves, which they
prevent by the weight of their little stones.
On the other side, the cranes’ order in their flight against the wind
is not of one sort. But this is a general notion among all fish, that
they always swim against the waves and the tide, and always take care
lest the wind being in their tails should force their fins from their
backs, and leave their naked bodies exposed to the cold and other
inconveniences; and therefore they still oppose the prows of their
bodies against the waves. For that while they thus cleave the waves at
the top, the sea keeps their fins close, and lightly flowing over the
superficies of their bodies, becomes less burdensome, besides that it
suffers not their scales to rise.
This, I say, is common to all fish, except that fish which is called
ellops; which, as they report, always swims with the wind and tide, not
minding the erection or opening of the scales, which do not lie towards
the tail, as in other fish.
29. Moreover, the tunny is so sensible of the equinoxes and solstices,
that he teaches even men themselves without the help of any
astrological table. For where the winter solstice overtakes him, there
he remains till the vernal equinox.
As for that same artifice of the cranes, that keep themselves waking
by clutching a stone in their claws, how much more cunningly done is
that of the dolphin, for whom it is not lawful to stand still or to
be out of motion. For it is the nature of the dolphins to be always
in motion; so that, when they cease to move, they also cease to live.
And therefore when sleep seizes them, they raise their bodies to the
superficies of the sea, and so sinking down again with their bellies
upward, are carried along with the tide till they touch again the
shore. Wakened in that manner, with an impetuous noise they mount
upward again, designing thus a kind of rest still intermixed with
motion. And the same thing is reported of the tunnies for the same
reason.
Having thus concluded their mathematical foreknowledge of the mutations
of the sun, of which Aristotle gives testimony, let me now relate their
skill in arithmetic; but first of all, their knowledge in optics, of
which Aeschylus seems not to have been altogether ignorant. For these
are his words:
Casting a squint-eye like the tunny.
For tunnies seem to be dim-sighted of one eye. And therefore, when they
enter the Euxine Sea, they coast along the land on the right side, and
contrariwise when they come forth; prudently committing the care of
their bodies to the best eye.
But wanting arithmetic in order to the preservation of mutual love
and society one with another, they arrive in such a manner to the
perfection of that science, that, in regard they are extremely desirous
to enjoy the society of each other, they always make up their whole
fry into the form of a cube, and make a solid of the whole number
consisting of six equal planes; and then they swim in such order as to
present an equal front in each direction. So then, if the observer of
the tunnies does but exactly take the number of the side that he sees,
he knows the whole number of the shoal; well knowing that the depth is
equal to the breadth and length.
30. The fish amiae, which are another sort of tunnies, are so called,
because they swim in shoals, as also the pelamydes or summer whitings.
As for the rest that are seen to swim in shoals and to observe a mutual
society, their number is not to be expressed. And therefore let us
proceed to those that observe a kind of private and particular society
one with another. Among which is the pinoteras of Chrysippus, upon
which he has expended so much ink, that he gives it the precedency in
all his books, both physical and ethical. For Chrysippus never knew the
spongotera, for he would not have passed it over out of negligence.
The pinoteras is so called, from watching the fish called pina or the
nacre, and in shape resembles a crab; and cohabiting with the nacre,
he sits like a porter at his shell-side, which he lets continually to
stand wide open until he spies some small fishes gotten within it,
such as they are wont to take for their food. Then entering the shell,
he nips the flesh of the nacre, to give him notice to shut his shell;
which being done, they feed together within the fortification upon the
common prey.
The sponge is governed by a certain little creature more like a spider
than a crab. For the sponge wants neither soul nor sense nor blood;
but growing to the stones, as many other things do, it has a peculiar
motion from itself and to itself, which nevertheless stands in need as
it were of a monitor or instructor. For being otherwise of a substance
loose and open, and full of holes and hollowness, by reason of the
sloth and stupidity of it the sponge-watcher assists to give notice
when any thing of food enters the cavities of it, at which time the
sponge contracts itself and falls to feeding.
But if a man approach and touch it, being nipped and admonished by the
sponge-watcher, it seems to shudder and shut up the body of it, closing
and condensing it in such a manner as makes it no easy thing to cut it
from the place where it grows.
The purple shell-fish also, called porphyrae, clustering together in
a kind of mutual society, build up little combs for themselves like
bees, wherein they are said to generate; and culling out the choicest
substance of the moss and seaweed that stick to their shells, they seem
to be in a circular commons among themselves, feeding the one upon the
other’s nourishment.
31. But why should we admire society in these creatures, when the most
savage and most unsociable of all creatures which either lakes, rivers,
or the ocean nourishes, the crocodile, shows himself the most sociable
and grateful of water monsters in the banquets which he bestows upon
the trochilus? For the trochilus is a bird that haunts marshes and
rivers, and he guards and watches over the crocodile, not as one
that feeds at his table, but as one that lives upon his scraps and
leavings only. For when this bird observes the crocodile asleep, and
the ichneumon ready to assail him, smeared with mud for the conflict
like a wrestler covered with dust, he never leaves crying and pecking
him with his beak, till he rouse the drowsy monster. In return of which
the crocodile is so tame and gentle towards this bird, that he permits
him to enter his yawning chaps, and is pleased with his pecking out and
cleansing away with his beak the remainders of the devoured flesh that
sticks between his teeth. And when the monster has an inclination to
shut his mouth, he gives the bird notice by a gentle lowering of his
jaw, nor will he close his chaps till he finds that the bird is flown
away. The fish which the Greeks call hegemon (or the captain or leader)
is a small fish, in bigness and shape not much unlike a gudgeon, but
by reason of the roughness of his scales is said to resemble a bird
when she shakes her feathers. This fish always keeps company with one
of the huge whales, and swims before him to direct his course, lest he
should bruise himself upon the shallows, or fall into any marshy place
or narrow haven whence he could not easily get out again. Therefore the
whale follows him, as the ship follows the helm, directing his course
with confidence. All other things whatever, whether skiff, whether
beast or stone, that chance to light into the gaping gulf of the
whale’s mouth, immediately perish, being swallowed by the monster; but
acknowledging his conductor, he receives him and lodges him, like an
anchor, safely in his jaws. There he sleeps; and all the while he takes
his rest, the whale lies still, as if he were at anchor; and when his
guide comes forth again, the whale proceeds, never forsaking him night
or day; or if he wander without his leader, the monster shipwrecks,
like a vessel cast upon a rock without a helm. And this we saw not long
ago near Anticyra, where they report that in former times a whale being
cast and putrefying caused a pestilence.
Is it worth while then to compare these observations of community and
association with those sympathies which, as Aristotle relates, exist
between foxes and serpents because the eagle is an enemy to both?
Or with those of the horn-owls with horses, whose dung they love to
scrape about the field? For my part I observe no such care of one
another in bees and emmets, which, by reason of their multitude, carry
on and perfect their work in common, but have no particular care or
consideration one of another.
32. We shall observe this difference more evidently, if we direct our
discourses upon the most ancient and greatest works of common society,
which are the works of generation and procreation of offspring. For in
the first place, those fish that frequent the shores next adjoining
to vast lakes or great rivers, when they are near their time of
bringing forth, retire up into those places, seeking the fresh waters
which are more gentle and void of brine. For tranquillity is most
convenient for such as bring forth, and there is most safety in rivers
and lakes for their young ones, as being freest from the devouring
monsters of the sea. Which is the reason that there is the greatest
plenty of fish about the Euxine Sea, where there are no whales, but
only small sea-calves or little dolphins. Besides, the mixture of
rivers, many in number, and those very large, that fall into the
Pontus, make the temperature more kindly and proper for breeding and
bringing forth. And that is most wonderful which is reported of the
anthias, which Homer[92] calls the sacred fish, though some interpret
sacred to signify great in that place, as we call a certain great bone
_os sacrum_, and the epilepsy, being a great disease, the _sacred
disease_, though others interpret that to be sacred which ought not
to be touched, as being dedicated to holy use. And Eratosthenes seems
to take the gilthead, so called from the golden hair about his eyes,
for the sacred fish; though many believe it to be the ellops,—a fish
seldom seen and difficult to be caught, yet many times it appears in
the rivers of Pamphylia. So they that catch them are crowned, and their
boats are also adorned with garlands, and as they pass along they are
received and honored with loud shouts and clapping of hands. However
it be, most people take the anthias to be a sacred fish, because
that where the anthias appears, there are no sea-monsters, but the
sponge-cutters dive boldly, and the fish as fearlessly spawn, as having
a pledge for their security. And the reason is twofold, either because
the sea-monsters dread the anthias, as elephants dread a hog, and lions
a cock; or else it is a sign that there are no sea-monsters in those
places, which the anthias knows and observes, as being an intelligent
fish, endued with sense and a good memory.
33. Then again, the care of their young is common to both sexes. For
the males never devour their offspring, but remain and abide constantly
by the spawn, protecting it with a diligent watchfulness, as Aristotle
relates; and those that accompany the females moisten the spawn with
a small quantity of milky seed; for that otherwise the spawn will not
grow, but remains imperfect and never arrives at the due proportion.
Particularly the fish called phycides make themselves nests in the
seaweed to preserve their spawn from the waves.
But the love of the galeus toward her young ones is beyond the
affection and clemency of any the tamest of creatures; for they lay
an egg, which being hatched, they nourish and carry the young about
not outwardly, but within their own bowels, as if they could not breed
their young without a second birth.
When the young ones are somewhat grown, they put them forth again, and
teach them to swim close by themselves, then resume them again through
their mouths into their bellies, and afford them nourishment and safe
retirement in their bodies, till they are able to shift for themselves.
No less admirable is the care of the tortoise, as to the bringing
forth and preserving her young. For she retires out of the sea to lay;
but not being able to stay long upon the land, she hides her eggs in
the sand, covering them over gently with the lightest of the gravel;
and when she has thus sufficiently and assuredly concealed them, some
report that she marks and streaks the place with her feet, that she may
be able to know it again; others affirm that the female, being turned
upon her back upon the sand by the male, leaves her particular marks
and signatures behind her. However it be, this is most wonderful,
that after waiting forty days (for in so many the eggs come to break)
she returns, and knowing where the treasure lies, as well as any man
understands where he hides his gold, she opens them with great joy and
alacrity.
34. Many observations like to these are made of the crocodile. But such
is its skill in choosing a place for breeding, that no man can explain
it by reason or conjecture. Whence it comes that the foreknowledge of
this creature is imputed more to divinity than reason. For neither
farther nor nearer, but just so far as the Nile that year will increase
and cover the land, thither she goes forth and lays her eggs; which the
countrymen finding, are able to tell one another how far the river will
overflow that year. So truly does that animal measure for herself, that
though she live in the water, she may lay her eggs dry. But the young
ones being hatched, whichsoever of them, so soon as they are come to
life, does not seize whatever comes next—either upon a fly, or a worm,
or a straw, or a tuft of grass—with his mouth, the dam presently tears
him to pieces with her teeth. But those that are fierce and active
she loves and cherishes, according to the judgment of the wisest men,
imparting her affection by the rules of judgment, not by the sway of
passion.
The sea-calves also bring forth upon the dry lands; but then fetching
out their young ones by degrees, they give them a taste of the
sea-water, and presently lead them out again; and this they often do,
till custom has made them bold, and brought them to love a sea life.
Frogs when they couple use a certain croaking invitation, which is
commonly called ololygon; and when the male has thus enticed the
female, they abide together all night. For in the water they cannot,
and in the daytime they are afraid to engender upon the land, which in
the night-time they do without control. At other times they croak more
shrill and loud; and this is a sign of rain, and holds among the most
assured prognostics of wet weather.
35. But what absurdity, dearest Neptune, would this passion of mine
lead me into! How ridiculous should I appear, if trifling among
sea-calves and frogs, I should omit one of the marine animals, the
wisest and most beloved by the Gods! For what nightingales are to be
compared with the halcyon for music? or who will presume to prefer the
swallow’s love of offspring, the dove’s love of her mate, or the art
and curiosity of the bees, to those virtues ascribed to the halcyon?
One only island, as history tells us, received and entertained Latona
when she gave birth; which island, floating before, was then made firm
land. But when the halcyon brings forth, about the winter solstice, the
whole ocean remains calm and undisturbed without the wrinkle of a wave.
So that there is not any other creature for which man has so great an
affection, seeing that for her sake for seven days and seven nights
together, in the depth of winter, they sail without fear of shipwreck,
and make their voyages upon the sea with greater safety than they
travel upon the land.
But if it be required that we should make a brief recital of her
particular virtues, she is so great an example of conjugal affection,
that she does not keep company with her mate for a single season, but
for the whole year together, and that not for wantonness (for she never
couples but with her own), but out of affection and friendship, like
a truly virtuous married wife. And when her mate through age becomes
infirm and not able to bear her company, she takes care of him, and
feeds and carries him about in his old age, never forsaking nor leaving
him alone, but taking him upon her shoulders, carries him from place to
place, never abandoning him till death.
As to her affection towards her young ones and care of their
preservation, so soon as she perceives herself near the time of her
bringing forth, she presently betakes herself to the making of her
nest. For the building of which, she neither makes use of mud and
dirt nor props it up with walls and rafters, like the swallows; nor
does she use several members of her body to work with, like the bees,
that employ their whole body to enter the wax and open their cells,
with their six feet fashioning their six-sided apartments. For the
halcyon having but one single instrument, one single tool, which is
her bill, nor any other help to assist her in labor and her care of
her young ones, what a wonderful master-piece of workmanship does
she erect? Insomuch that it is a difficult thing for them that have
not well considered it to believe their eyesight; her workmanship
seeming rather the art of a shipwright than of a common builder; of
all inventions being the only form not to be overwhelmed and washed
by the waves. To this purpose she gathers together the thorns of the
sea-needle—some straight, others oblique, like the woof in the loom—and
twists and binds them where the thread and yarn are interwoven one
within another, till she has framed a nest round and oblong, resembling
the usual fisher-boats. This when she has finished she launches into
the sea, where the waves beating gently upon it direct to reform what
is amiss, by consolidating the loose and ill compacted parts, where the
water has forced any entrance; insomuch that at length she fastens and
strengthens what she has put together in such a manner, that it is not
to be broken or pierced either by stones or steel. Nor is the symmetry
and form of the inside and cavity of the nest less to be admired. For
it is so contrived as only to receive herself; the entrance into it not
being to be found by any other creature, nor can the sea itself find a
way into it. I am apt to believe that there is none of you who never
saw this nest. But for my own part, that have often seen and handled
one of them, I may safely say, that I
In Delos’ temple near Apollo’s shrine,
Something like this, a fabric most divine,
have seen. That is to say, the horned altar, celebrated for one of the
seven wonders of the world, which without the help of parget, glue,
soder, paste, or any other binding, is framed only of horns that grew
on the right side of the head of the beast.
Now may the Deity that is somewhat musical and an islander be
propitious to me, ... while I deride the questions which those scoffers
put,—wherefore Apollo may not be called mullet-shooter, when we find
that Venus is called the mullet-protectrix; for which reason she is
honored with temples adjoining to the sea, and sacred rights; and
certain it is, that she is displeased when any mullet is killed.
Therefore at Leptis the priests of Neptune never eat any thing that
breeds in the sea; and you know the mullet is in great veneration
among the professors of the Eleusinian mysteries; moreover, that
the priestess of Juno at Argos abstains from the same fish; and the
reason is because the mullets kill and destroy the sea-hare, which is
pernicious to man, and therefore they spare those creatures that are
kind and beneficial to him.
36. Then again, we find among many of the Greeks temples and altars
frequently dedicated to Diana Dictynna (so called from δίκτυον, _a
net_) and Delphinian Apollo. And that same place which Apollo has
peculiarly chosen for himself was first of all inhabited by Cretans,
having a dolphin for their leader. For the Deity did not swim before
his army in another shape (as the mythologists dream), but sending a
dolphin to direct them in their course, the dolphin brought them to
Cirrha. Story also tells us that Soteles and Dionysius, who were sent
to Sinope by Ptolemy Soter to fetch from thence Serapis, were driven by
contrary winds beyond Cape Malea, having the Peloponnesus upon their
right hands; while they were thus wandering and out of their course,
a dolphin appeared before the prow of the headmost vessel, and (as
it were) kindly inviting them, conducted them into safe harbors and
roads, till by his good guidance and leading them he at length brought
the whole fleet to Cirrha. There, when they came to offer the usual
sacrifices for their safe landing, they came to understand that, of
two statues which were in the place, they were to take that of Pluto
and carry it along with them; but as for that of Proserpina, they were
only to take the mould and leave the statue itself behind. Probable it
is that the Deity had a kindness for the dolphin, considering how much
he delights in music. For which reason Pindar likens himself to the
dolphin, and confesses himself to be moved in the same manner as that
noble creature,
Which flutes’ beloved sound
Excites to play,
Upon the calm and placid sea.
Though it is very probable that his affection to men is more pleasing
to the Deity, he being the only creature that bears an affection to man
as man. For as for the land animals, some kinds there are that fly him
altogether, and the tamest and most gentle follow him and are familiar
with him, only for the benefit and nourishment which they receive from
him; as the dog, the horse, and elephant. The swallows, by necessity
constrained, build in houses, seeking shade and security, but are no
less afraid of men than of the wild beasts. Only to the dolphin has
Nature bequeathed that excellent quality, so much sought for by the
best of philosophers, to love for no advantage; for that having no
need at all of man, he is a kind friend to all men, and has lent his
assistance to many. There is no man that is ignorant of the famous
story of Arion. And you, my dear friend, have seasonably put us in mind
of Hesiod; but
Thou didst not by a legal course
Rightly conclude thy long discourse.[93]
For when you had spoken so much in praise of the dog, you should not
have passed by the dolphin. For it would have been a blind story of the
dog that barked and flew with violence upon the murderers, had it not
been for the dolphins, that took the carcass of Hesiod, floating in the
sea near Nemeum, and readily receiving it from one another, landed it
at Rhium, whereby the murder came to be known.
Myrtilus the Lesbian writes, that Enalus the Aeolian, being in love
with the daughter of Phineus, who, by the command of the oracle of
Amphitrite was cast into the sea by the Penthilidae, when he understood
it, threw himself also into the sea, but was saved by a dolphin, and
carried to Lesbos.
But the gentleness and kindness of the dolphin towards the lad of Jasus
was so extraordinary that it might be said to amount even to amorous
love. For he played and swam with him in the daytime, and suffered
himself to be handled and bestrid by him; nor did he swim away with
him, but joyfully carried him which way soever the lad by the motion
of his body turned him, while the Iasians flocked from all parts to
the shore to behold the sight. At length the lad, being thrown from
the dolphin’s back by a terrible shower of rain and hail, was drowned.
Which the dolphin perceiving took up the dead youth, and threw himself
upon the land together with the body, from which he never stirred till
he died out of his own element; deeming it but just to partake of that
end of which he seemed to have been the occasion to his friend and
playfellow. Nor can the Iasians forget the accident, but keep it still
in remembrance by the stamp upon their coin, which is a lad upon a
dolphin’s back.
And from hence it was that the fabulous stories of Coeranus gained
credit. He was a Parian by birth, who residing at Byzantium, when a
draught of dolphins caught in a net were exposed to sale and in danger
of slaughter, bought them up all, and put them into the sea again. It
happened not long after that Coeranus took a voyage in a vessel of
fifty oars, carrying, as the story goes, several pirates. But between
Naxos and the Bay of Paros he suffered shipwreck; and when all the rest
were drowned, he alone was taken up by a dolphin that hastened to his
succor, and carried to Sicynthus, and set ashore near the cave which to
this day bears the name of Coeraneum. Upon which Archilochus is said to
have made these lines:
Of fifty men, great Neptune gentle grown
Left courteous Coeranus alive alone.
Some years after Coeranus dying, his relations burnt his body near the
seaside; at what time several dolphins appeared near the shore, as if
they had come to his funeral; nor would they stir till the funeral was
over. Moreover Stesichorus writes that Ulysses bore a dolphin painted
upon his shield; and for what reason the Zacynthian records tell us,
as Critheus testifies. For they say that Telemachus, when he was but
a boy, falling into the sea, was saved by the dolphins that took him
up and set him ashore. And therefore he made use of a dolphin for the
impression of his seal and the ornament of his shield. But having
promised before that I would produce no fabulous stories, and yet being
carried, I know not how, to discourse beyond probability of dolphins
by this repetition of the stories of Coeranus and Ulysses, I will do
justice upon myself by concluding here.
37. ARISTOTIMUS. Now, gentlemen, it lies on your part that are judges,
to pronounce sentence.
SOCLARUS. Assuredly then, for our parts, we shall give the same
judgment in this, as Sophocles did in another case:
Discourse upon discording arguments
Is then determined best, when what was said
Is duly weighed and stated on both sides.
For thus comparing what you have both discoursed one against another,
it will be found that you have acquitted yourselves on both sides like
true champions against those that would deprive brute animals of sense
and understanding.
THAT BRUTE BEASTS MAKE USE OF REASON
ULYSSES, CIRCE, GRYLLUS.
1. ULYSSES. All these things, Circe, I believe that I have learned and
well remember. But I would willingly ask thee, whether thou hast any
Grecians here, which being men thou hast transformed into wolves and
lions.
CIRCE. Very many, dearest Ulysses, but wherefore do you ask the
question?
ULYSSES. Because in good truth I am of opinion I should gain a high
reputation among the Greeks, if by thy favor I could restore these men
to human shape again, and not suffer them through any negligence of
mine to wax old in the bodies of beasts, where they lead a miserable
and ignominious life.
CIRCE. Surely, this man, fool as he is, believes it requisite that his
ambition should be unfortunate not only to himself and his friends, but
to those that nothing belong to him.
ULYSSES. Thou art now jumbling and mixing another villanous potion of
twittle twattle, and wouldst plainly turn me into a beast too, if thou
couldst make me believe that it were a misfortune to be transformed
from a beast to a man.
CIRCE. What hast thou made thyself better than a beast, who, forsaking
an immortal life, free from the miseries of old age, with me, art
making such haste through a thousand threatening calamities to a mortal
and (as I may say) old wife, pursuing an empty good and a shadow
instead of real truth, and all this, thinking to be more conspicuous
and famous than thou art.
ULYSSES. Well, Circe, let it be as thou sayest; for why should we be
always contending about the same thing? However, do me the favor to
restore these men, and give them into my custody.
CIRCE. By Hecate, not so fast neither; these are no ordinary fellows.
But ask them first whether they are willing. If they refuse, do you,
being such an eloquent gentleman, discourse them and persuade them; if
you cannot persuade them, being too hard for ye at your own weapon,
then let it suffice ye that you have ill consulted your own and the
good of your friends.
ULYSSES. Blessed woman, wherefore dost thou mock me thus? For how can
they either talk or hear reason, so long as they are asses, hogs, and
lions?
CIRCE. Be of good comfort, most ambitious of men; I will so order the
business, that they shall both understand and discourse; or rather, let
one suffice to hear and return answers instead of all the rest. Look
ye, here is one at hand; pray talk to him.
ULYSSES. Prithee, Circe, by what name shall we call him? Who is this
fellow of all the men in the world?
CIRCE. What’s this to the purpose? Call him Gryllus, if you please; and
for my part, I’ll leave ye together, that ye may not suspect him for
speaking contrary to his mind to please me.
2. GRYLLUS. Save ye, Mr. Ulysses.
ULYSSES. And you too, by Jove, Mr. Gryllus.
GRYLLUS. What is’t your worship would have with me?
ULYSSES. Knowing you were all born men, I pity the condition ye are now
in; and I pity ye the more, for that being Greeks ye are fallen under
this misfortune; and therefore I made it my request to Circe that she
would restore ye again to your former shape, as many of you as were
desirous, to the end ye might return home again with us.
GRYLLUS. Hold, Mr. Ulysses, not a word more of this, I beseech your
worship. For we all contemn thee, as one that none but fools call
cunning, and as vainly vauntest thyself to be wiser than other men, and
yet art afraid of being changed from worse to better; like children
that are frightened at physician’s doses and hate going to school,
although the medicines and the precepts make them healthy and learned
of diseased and fools; just so thou refusest to be transformed out of
one thing into another. And now thy bones rattle in thy skin for dread
of living with Circe, lest she should transform thee into a hog or a
wolf; and thou wouldst persuade us living in plenty of all enjoyments
not only to forsake these blessings, but to abandon her that has so
well provided for us, to sail along with thee, and to become men again,
the most miserable of all creatures.
ULYSSES. In my opinion, Gryllus, this same wicked cup has not only
deprived thee of thy shape, but of thy sense and reason too; or else
thou art got drunk with those opinions which are everywhere exploded
as nasty and villanous, unless some voluptuous pleasure of custom and
habit has bewitched thee to this body.
GRYLLUS. Neither of these, O king of the Cephallenians. But if thou
art come hither to dispute, and not to rail and swagger, we shall soon
convince thee, having experience of both manners of living, that our
way is to be preferred before that which thou so much applaudest.
ULYSSES. Nay, then go on; I’ll listen with both ears to hear this
paradox discussed.
3. GRYLLUS. Have at ye then, sir. But it behooves us to begin first
with those virtues which you so presumptuously assume to yourselves,
and for which you so highly advance yourselves before the beasts, such
as justice, prudence, fortitude, &c. Now answer me, thou the wisest
among mortals; for I have heard thee telling a story to Circe of the
territory of the Cyclops, that being neither ploughed nor planted by
any person, it is so fertile and generously productive, that it bears
all sorts of fruits and herbs spontaneously. Now which do you prefer,
this country, or your own goat-feeding stony Ithaca, which being
cultivated with great labor and hardship, yet answers the expectations
of the husbandmen with only a mean and scanty return? Now take it not
amiss that I forewarn ye lest your love to your country sway ye to give
an answer contrary to truth.
ULYSSES. No, no, I will not lie for the matter; I must confess I love
and honor my own country more; but I applaud and admire theirs far
beyond it.
GRYLLUS. Hence we must conclude that it is so as the wisest of men has
affirmed; that there are some things to be praised and approved, others
to be preferred by choice and affection. And I suppose you believe the
same concerning the soul. For the same reasons hold in reference to
the soul as to the ground; that such a soul should be the best, that
produces virtue like spontaneous fruit, without labor and toil.
ULYSSES. Grant all this.
GRYLLUS. Then you confess that the souls of beasts are the more
perfect, and more fertilely endued for the production of virtue; seeing
that without any command or instruction—as it were without sowing or
ploughing—it produces and increases that virtue which is requisite for
every one.
ULYSSES. Prithee, Gryllus, don’t rave, but tell me what those virtues
are that beasts partake of?
4. GRYLLUS. Rather what virtues do they not partake of in a higher
degree than the wisest of men? Look upon fortitude in the first
place, of which you vaunt and brag to have such a terrible share,
being not ashamed of the magnificent titles of Ulysses the bold and
city-stormer, when indeed, like a pitiful knave as thou art, thou dost
only circumvent by tricks and artifices men that understand only the
simple and generous way of making war, ignorant altogether of fraud and
faith-breaking, and by that means coverest thy deceit with the name
of virtue, which never admits of any such coney-catching devices. But
do you observe the combats and warfare of beasts, as well one against
another as against yourselves, how free from craft and deceit they
are, and how with an open and naked courage they defend themselves by
mere strength of body; and how, neither afraid of the law that calls
them forth to battle nor the severe edicts against deserters, but only
out of scorn to be overcome, they fight with obstinacy to the last for
conquest and victory. For they are not vanquished when their bodies are
worsted, neither does despair cowardize them, but they die upon the
spot. And you shall see many times that the strength of many, while
they are expiring, being retired and crowded together in some part of
the body, still makes resistance against the victor, and pants and
fumes till at length it fails like extinguished fire that goes out for
want of fuel. But there is no crying for quarter, no begging of mercy,
no acknowledgment of being beaten; nor will the lion be a slave to the
lion, nor the horse to the horse, as one man is a slave to another,
willingly and patiently embracing servitude, which derives its name
(δουλεία) from that of cowardice (δειλία). On the other side, such
beasts as men by nets and treacherous snares get into their power,
if fully grown, rather choose to die than serve, refusing nourishment
and suffering extremity of drought. But as for their young ones,—being
tractable and supple by reason of their age, and fed with the deceitful
mixtures and food that men provide for them, their inbred fierceness
languishing through the taste of preternatural delights,—they suffer
that which is called domestication, which is only an effeminating of
their natural fury.
Whence it is apparent that beasts are naturally inclined to be
courageous and daring, but that the martial confidence of men is
preternatural. Which, most noble Ulysses, you may chiefly observe from
hence; for that in beasts Nature keeps an equal balance of strength;
so that the female, being but little inferior to the male, undergoes
all necessary toils, and fights in defence of her young ones. And thus
you hear of a certain Cromyonian sow, which, though a female, held
Theseus tack, and found him work sufficient. Neither had the wisdom of
that same female Sphinx that sat on Phicium, with all her riddles and
enigmas, availed her, had she not far excelled the Cadmeans in strength
and fortitude. Not far from whence the Telmesian fox had his den, a
great propounder of questions also; not to omit the female serpent that
fought with Apollo for his oracle at Delphi. Your king also took the
mare Aetha from the Sicyonian, as a bribe to discharge him from going
to the wars; and he did well, thereby showing how much he esteemed a
valiant and generous mare above a timorous coward. You yourself have
also seen female panthers and lionesses little inferior to the males
in strength and courage; when your own wife, though a Lacedaemonian,
when you were hectoring and blustering abroad, sat at home in the
chimney-corner, not daring to do so much as the very swallows in
encountering those who plagued both her and her family. Why need I
still speak of the Carian and Maeonian women? Whence it is apparent
that fortitude is not natural to men, for then the women would partake
of the same strength with men. So that the fortitude which you exercise
is only constrained by law, not natural and voluntary, but subservient
to the manners of the place and enslaved to reproach, a thing made up
only of glorious words and adventitious opinion. And you undergo labor
and throw yourself into danger, not out of real valor and boldness, but
because ye are more afraid of other things. Therefore, as among thy own
companions he that first makes haste to snatch up the light oar does
it not because he contemns it, but because he is loath to be troubled
with the more heavy; so he that endures a blow to avoid a wound, and
defends himself against an enemy to preserve himself from wounds and
death, does it not out of daring courage against the one, but out of
fear of the other. Thus your fortitude is only a prudent fear; and your
courage a knowing timidity, which understandingly does one thing to
avoid another.
In short, if you believe yourselves superior to the beasts in
fortitude, why do your poets call those that behave themselves most
valiantly against their enemies wolf-breasted, lion-hearted, and
compare them to wild boars; but never call the courage of lions
man-like, or resemble the strength of a wild boar to that of a man? But
as they call the swift wind-footed, and the beautiful Godlike-formed,
hyperbolizing in their similes; so when they extol the gallantry of
the stout in battle, they derive their comparisons from the superior
in bravery. The reason is, because courage is as it were the tincture
and edge of fortitude; which the beasts make use of unmixed in their
combats, but in you being mixed with reason, like wine diluted with
water, it gives way to danger and loses the opportunity. And some
of you there are who deny that courage is requisite in battle, and
therefore laying it aside make use of sober reason; which they do well
for their preservation, but are shamefully beside the cushion, in point
of strength and revenge. How absurd is it therefore for you to complain
of Nature, because she did not furnish your bodies with goads and teeth
and crooked claws to defend yourselves, when at the same time you would
disarm the soul of her natural weapons?
5. ULYSSES. In good truth, Gryllus, you are grown, in my conceit, a
notable sophister, to discourse at this rate out of a hog’s snout, and
yet to handle your argument so strenuously. But why have you not all
this while spoke a word of temperance?
GRYLLUS. Because I thought you would have contradicted first what I
have already said. But you are in haste to hear what I have to say
concerning temperance, because that, being the husband of a most
temperate and chaste wife, you believe you have set us an example of
temperance by abstaining from Circe’s embraces. And yet in this you
differ nothing from all the beasts; for neither do they desire to
approach their superiors, but they pursue their pleasures and amours
among those of their own tribe. No wonder is it then, if—like the
Mendesian goat in Egypt, which is reported to have been shut up with
several most beautiful women, yet never to have offered copulation with
them, but when he was at liberty, with a lustful fury flew upon the
she-goats—so thou, though a man addicted greatly to venereal pleasures,
yet being a man, hast no desire to sleep with a goddess. And for the
chastity of thy Penelope, the ten thousand rooks and daws that chatter
it abroad do but make it ridiculous and expose it to contempt, their
being not one of those birds but, if she looses her mate, continues a
widow, not for a small time, but for nine ages of men; so that there
is not one of those female rooks that does not surpass in chastity thy
fair Penelope above nine times.
6. But because thou believest me to be a sophister, I shall observe
a certain order in my discourse, first giving thee the definition of
temperance, and then dividing desire according to the several kinds of
it. Temperance then is the contracting and well governing our desires,
pruning off those that are superfluous and encroaching upon our wills,
and ruling those that are necessary by the standards of reason and
moderation. Now in desires you observe a vast number of distinctions.
For it is both natural and necessary to drink; but as for venereal
desires, which derive their originals from Nature, there is a time when
they may be restrained without any inconvenience; these are therefore
called natural but not necessary. But there is another sort, which are
neither natural nor necessary, but infused from without by vain opinion
through the mistake of right and true; and it is these that want but
very little of ruining all your natural desires with their number, like
a multitude of foreigners outnumbering the natives and expelling them
from their habitations. But the beasts, having their souls unmixed and
not to be overcome by these adventitious passions, and living lives
as distant from vain opinion as from the sea, are inferior to you in
living elegantly and superfluously, but they are extremely wary in
preserving temperance and the right government of their desires, as
being neither troubled with many, nor those foreign to their natures.
And therefore formerly I was no less smitten with the glister of gold
than thou art now, as believing nothing else that a man could possess
to be comparable to it. Silver also and ivory inveigled me with the
same desires; and he that enjoyed these things in the greatest measure
seemed to be a man most happy and beloved of God, whether a Phrygian or
a Carian, whether more meanly descended than Dolon or more miserable
than Priam. From thenceforward being altogether swayed by my desires,
I reaped no other pleasure nor delight in any other blessings of my
life, with which I abounded, believing that I wanted still and missed
my share of those that were the chiefest and the greatest. Therefore,
I remember, when I beheld thee in Crete, at some solemnity, most
pompously attired, I neither envied thy wisdom nor thy virtue; but
the extraordinary fineness and exquisite workmanship of thy tunic,
and the glistering of thy purple upper garment, and the beauty of the
ornaments struck me with admiration. And the golden clasp, methought,
was a pretty toy that had something of extraordinary graving in it; and
bewitched with these baubles, I followed thee as the women did. But
now being altogether estranged from those vain opinions, and having
my understanding purified, I tread both gold and silver under my feet
as I do the common stones; nor did I ever sleep more soundly upon thy
carpets and tapestries, than now I do, rolled over head and ears in
the deep and soft mud. None of those adventitious desires reside in
our souls, but for the most part our manner of living is accustomed
to necessary pleasures and desires; and as for those pleasures which
are not necessary but only natural, we make such a use of them as is
neither without order nor moderation.
7. And therefore let us consider these in the first place. The pleasure
then that affects the sense of smelling with sweet odors and fragrant
exhalations, besides that it has something in it which is pure in
itself, and as it were bestowed upon us gratis, contributes also in
some measure to the distinction of nourishment. For the tongue is said
to be the judge of sweet, sour, and tart, only when the juices have
come to be mingled and concorporate with the tasting faculty, and not
before. But our smell, before the taste, becoming sensible of the
virtue and qualities of every thing, and being more accurate than the
tasters attending upon princes, admits what is familiar to Nature, and
expels whatever is disagreeable to it; neither will it suffer it to
touch or molest the taste, but accuses and declares the offensiveness
of the thing smelt, before it do any harm. As to other things, it
troubles us not at all as it does you whom it constrains for the sake
of the sweet scents of cinnamon nard, malobathrum, and Arabian reed,
to seek out for things dissimilar, and to jumble them together with a
kind of apothecary’s or perfumer’s art, and at vast expense to purchase
an unmanly and effeminate delight, for nothing profitable or useful.
Now being such, this sense of smelling has not only corrupted all the
female sex but the greatest part of men, insomuch that they care not to
converse with their own wives, unless perfumed with precious ointments
and odoriferous compositions. Whereas sows, she-goats, and other
females attract the boars, he-goats, and the males of their own kind,
by their own proper scents; and smelling of the pure dew, the meadows,
and the fresh grass, they are incited to copulation out of common
affection; the females without the coynesses of women, or the practice
of little frauds and fascinations, to inflame the lust of their
mates; and the males, not with amorous rage and frenzy stimulated,
and enforced to purchase the act of generation with expensive hire
or servile assiduity, but enjoying their seasonable amours without
deceit or purchase of the satisfaction of their venery. For Nature in
the spring-time, even as she puts forth the buds of plants, likewise
awakens the desires of animals, but presently quenches them again,
neither the female admitting the male nor the male attempting the
female after conception. And thus pleasure has but a small and slender
esteem among us; but Nature is all in all. So that even to this very
day, we beasts were never yet tainted with coupling male with male, and
female with female. Of which nevertheless there are many examples to be
produced among the greatest and most celebrated persons; for I pass by
those not worth remembrance.
Agamemnon hunted all Boeotia in pursuit of Argynnus, who fled his
embraces; and after he had falsely accused the sea and winds, bravely
flung himself into the lake Copais, to quench his love and free himself
from the ardor of his lust.
Hercules in like manner pursuing his beardless friend, forsook his
choicest associates and abandoned the fleet.
In the vaulted room belonging to Apollo surnamed Ptous, one of
you men secretly wrote this inscription, Achilles the fair; when
Achilles at that time had a son. [And I hear the inscription is still
remaining.][94] Yet if a cock tread a cock in the absence of the
hen, he is burned alive, upon the signification of the soothsayer
that it portends some fatal calamity. This is a plain confession in
men themselves, that the beasts excel them in chastity, and that
force is not to be put upon Nature for the sake of pleasure. But
your incontinence is such, that Nature, though she have the law to
assist her, is not able to keep it within bounds; insomuch that, like
a rapid inundation, those inordinate desires overwhelm Nature with
continual violence, trouble, and confusion. For men have copulated with
she-goats, sows, and mares; and women have run mad after male beasts.
And from such copulations sprang the Minotaurs and Silvans, and, as
I am apt to believe, the Sphinxes and Centaurs. It is true, that
sometimes, constrained by hunger, a dog or a bird has fed upon human
flesh; but never yet did any beast attempt to couple with human kind.
But men constrain and force the beasts to these and many other unlawful
pleasures.
8. Now being thus wicked and incontinent in reference to the aforesaid
lustful desires, it is no less easy to be proved that men are more
intemperate than beasts, even in those things which are necessary, that
is to say, in eating and drinking, the pleasure of which we always
enjoy with some benefit to ourselves. But you pursuing the pleasures
of eating and drinking beyond the satisfaction of nature, are punished
with many and tedious diseases, which, arising from the single fountain
of superfluous gormandizing, fill your bodies with all manner of wind
and vapors not easy for purgation to expel. In the first place, all
sorts of beasts, according to their kind, feed upon one sort of food,
which is proper to their natures; some upon grass, some upon roots, and
others upon fruits. They that feed upon flesh never mind any other sort
of food. Neither do they rob the weaker animals of their nourishment.
But the lion suffers the hart, and the wolf the sheep, to feed upon
what Nature has provided for them. But man, such is his voracity, falls
upon all, to satisfy the pleasures of his appetite; tries all things,
tastes all things; and, as if he were yet to seek what was the most
proper diet and most agreeable to his nature, among all the creatures
is the only all-devourer. And first he makes use of flesh, not for
want, as having the liberty to take his choice of herbs and fruits,
the plenty of which is inexhaustible; but out of luxury and being
cloyed with necessaries, he seeks after inconvenient and impure diet,
purchased by the slaughter of living creatures; by that means showing
himself more cruel than the most savage of wild beasts. For blood,
murder, and flesh are proper to nourish the kite, the wolf, and dragon;
but to men they are delicious viands. Then making use of all, he does
not do like the beasts, which abstain from most creatures and are at
enmity only with a few, and that only compelled by the necessities of
hunger; but neither fowl nor fish nor any thing that lives upon the
land escapes your tables, though they bear the epithets of human and
hospitable.
9. Let it be so, that nothing will serve ye but to devour whatever
comes near ye, to pamper and indulge your voracious appetites. Yet
where is the benefit and pleasure of all this? But such is the prudence
of the beasts, as not to admit of any vain and unprofitable arts. And
as for those that are necessary, they do not acquire them, as being
introduced by others or taught for reward; neither do they make it
their study to soder and fasten one contemplation to another, but they
are supplied by their own prudence with such as are true-born and
genuine. It is true, we hear the Egyptians are generally physicians.
But the beasts are not only every one of them notionally endued with
knowledge and art which way to cure themselves, but also to procure
their food and repair their strength, to catch their prey by slight
and cunning, to guard themselves from danger; neither are some of them
ignorant how to teach the science of music so far as is convenient
for them. For from whom did we hogs learn to run to the rivers, when
we are sick, to search for crawfish? Who taught the tortoises, when
they have eaten vipers, to physic themselves with origanum? Who taught
the Cretan goats, when shot with arrows that stick in their bodies,
to betake themselves to dittany, which they have no sooner eaten, but
the heads of the darts fall out of the wound? Now if you say that
Nature is the schoolmistress that teaches them these things, you
acknowledge the prudence of beasts to be derived from the chiefest and
wisest original of understanding; which if you think not proper to
call reason and wisdom, it is time for ye to find out a more glorious
and honorable name for it. Indeed by its effects it shows itself to
be greater and more wonderful in power; not illiterate or without
education, but instructed by itself and wanting nothing from without;
not weak and imperfect, but, through the vigor and perfection of its
natural virtue, supporting and cherishing that natural contribution of
understanding which others attain to by instruction and education. So
that, whatever men acquire and contemplate in the midst of their luxury
and wantonness, those things our understanding attains to through the
excellency of our apprehensions, even contrary to the nature of the
body. For not to speak of whelps that learn to draw dry foot, and colts
that will practise figure-dances; there are crows that will speak, and
dogs that will leap through hoops as they turn around. You shall also
see horses and bulls upon the theatres lie down, dance, stop, and move
their bodies after such a manner as would puzzle even men to perform
the same things; which, though they are of little use, yet being
learned and remembered by beasts, are great arguments of their docility.
If you doubt whether we learn arts, be convinced that we teach them.
For partridges teach their young ones to hide themselves by lying upon
their backs just before a clod of earth, to escape the pursuit of the
fowlers. And you shall observe the old storks, when their young ones
first begin to take wing, what care they take to instruct them upon
the tops of houses. Nightingales also teach their young ones to sing;
insomuch that nightingales taken young out of the nest, and bred up
by hand in cages, sing worse, as being deprived of their instructors
before their time. So that after I had been a while transformed into
this shape, I admired at myself, that I was so easily persuaded by idle
arguments of the sophisters to believe that all other creatures were
void of sense and reason except man.
10. ULYSSES. What then, Gryllus? Does your transmutation inform ye also
that sheep and asses are rational creatures?
GRYLLUS. From these very creatures, most worthy and best of men,
Ulysses, the nature of beasts is chiefly to be discerned to be as
it is, neither void of reason nor understanding. For as one tree is
neither more or less than another without a soul, but all are together
in the same condition of insensibility (for there is no tree that is
endued with a soul); so neither would one animal seem to be more slow
to understand or more indocible than another, if all did not partake
of reason and understanding, though some in a less, some in a greater
measure. For you must consider that the stupidity and slothfulness of
some is an argument of the quickness and subtlety of others, which
easily appears when you compare a fox, a wolf, or a bee with a sheep
or ass; as if thou shouldest compare thyself to Polyphemus, or thy
grandfather Autolycus with the Corinthian [mentioned in] Homer. For I
do not believe there is such difference between beast and beast, in
point of reason and understanding and memory, as between man and man.
ULYSSES. Have a care, Gryllus; it is a dangerous thing to allow them
reason that have no knowledge of a Deity.
GRYLLUS. Must we then deny that thou, most noble Ulysses, being so wise
and full of stratagems as thou art, wast begotten by Sisyphus?...
OF THE FACE APPEARING WITHIN THE ORB OF THE MOON.
LAMPRIAS, APOLLONIDES, LUCIUS, PHARNACES, SYLLA, ARISTOTELES, THEON,
MENELAUS
[_The beginning of this discourse is lost._]
1. These things then, said Sylla, agree with my story, and are taken
thence. But I should first willingly ask, what need there is of making
such a preamble against these opinions, which are at hand and in every
man’s mouth, concerning the face that is seen within the orb of the
moon. Why should we not, said I, being, by the difficulty there is
in these discourses, forced upon those? For, as they who have long
lain lingering under chronical diseases, after they have been worn
out and tired with experimenting all ordinary remedies and the usual
rules of living and diet, have at last recourse to lustrations and
purifications, to charms and amulets fastened about the neck, and to
the interpretation of dreams; so in such obscure and abstruse questions
and speculations, when the common, apparent, and ordinary reasons are
not satisfactory, there is a necessity of trying such as are more
extravagant, and of not contemning but enchanting ourselves (as one may
say) with the discourses of the ancients, and endeavoring always to
find out the truth.
2. For you see at the very first blush, how impertinent his opinion
is who said, that the form appearing in the moon is an accident of our
sight, by its weakness giving way to her brightness, which we call the
dazzling of our eyes; for he perceives not that this should rather
befall our looking against the sun, whose lustre is more resplendent,
and whose rays are more quick and piercing; as Empedocles also in a
certain passage of his has not unpleasantly noted the difference of
these two planets, saying,
The sharp-rayed sun, and gently shining moon.
For thus does he call her alluring, favorable, and harmless light. No
less absurd appears the reason he afterwards gives why dull and weak
eyes discern no difference of form in the moon, her orb appearing to
them plain and smooth, whereas those whose sight is more acute and
penetrating better descry the lineaments and more perfectly observe the
impressions of a face, and more evidently distinguish its different
parts. For it should, in my opinion, be quite contrary, if this were
a fancy caused by the weakness of the vanquished sight; so that where
the patient’s eye is weaker, the appearance would be more express and
evident. Moreover, the inequality every way confutes this reason; for
this face is not seen in a continuance and confused shadow, but the
poet Agesianax not unelegantly describes it, saying,
With shining fire it circled does appear,
And in the midst is seen the visage clear
Of a young maid, whose eyes more gray than blue,
Her brow and cheeks a blushing red do show.
For indeed dark and shady things, encompassed with others that are
bright and shining, sink underneath and reciprocally rise again,
being repelled by them; and in a word, they are so interlaced one
within another, that they represent the figure of a face painted to
the life; and there seems to have been great probability in that
which was spoken against your Clearchus, my dear Aristotle. For he
appears not inconveniently to be called yours, for he was intimately
acquainted with the ancient Aristotle, although he perverted many of
the Peripatetic doctrines.
3. Then Apollonides taking up the discourse, and asking what that
opinion of Clearchus was; It would more, said I, beseem any man than
you to be ignorant of this discourse, as being grounded on the very
fundamental principles of geometry. For he affirms, that what we call
a face, is the image and figure of the great ocean, represented in
the moon as in a mirror. For the circumference of a circle, when it
is reflected back,[95] is wont in many places to touch objects which
are not seen in a direct line. And the full moon is for evenness and
lustre the most beautiful and purest of all mirrors. As then you hold,
that the heavenly bow appears, when the ray of light is reflected back
towards the sun, in a cloud which has got a little liquid smoothness
and consistence; so, said he, there is seen in the moon the surface of
the sea, not in the place where it is situated, but from whence the
reflection gives a sight of it by its reverberated and reflexed light,
as Agesianax again says in another passage,
This flaming mirror offers to your eyes
The vast sea’s figure, as beneath it lies
Foaming with raging billows.
4. Apollonides therefore, being delighted with this, said: A singular
opinion indeed is this of his, and (to speak in a word) strangely and
newly invented by a man sufficiently presumptuous, but not void of
learning and wit. But how, I pray, was it refuted?
First, said I, the superficies of the sea is all of a nature, the
current of it being uniform and continuous; but the appearance of those
black and dark spots which are seen in the face of the moon is not
continued, but has certain isthmuses or partitions clear and bright,
which divide and separate what is dark and shady. Whence every place
being distinguished and having its own limits apart, the conjunctions
of the clear with the obscure, taking a resemblance of high and low,
express and represent the similitude of a figure seeming to have eyes
and lips; so that we must of necessity suppose, either that there are
main oceans and main seas, distinguished by isthmuses and continents
of firm land, which is evidently absurd and false; or that if there
is but one, it is not credible its image should appear so distracted
and dissipated into pieces. And as for this, there is less danger in
asking than in affirming in your presence, whether, since the habitable
earth has both length and breadth, it is possible that the sight of all
men, when it is reflected by the moon, should equally touch the ocean,
even of those that sail and dwell in it, as do the Britons; especially
since the earth, as you have maintained, has but the proportion of a
point, if compared to the sphere of the moon. This therefore, said I,
it is your business to observe, but the reflection of the sight against
the moon belongs neither to you nor Hipparchus. And yet, my friend
Lamprias, there are many naturalists, who approve not this doctrine
of his touching the driving back of the sight, but affirm it to be
more probable that it has a certain obedient and agreeing temperature
and compactness of structure, than such beatings and repercussions as
Epicurus feigned for his atoms.[96] Nor am I of opinion that Clearchus
would have us suppose the moon to be a massy and weighty body, but a
celestial and light-giving star, as you say it is, which must have the
property of breaking and turning aside the sight; so that all this
reflection would come to nothing. But if we are desired to receive
and admit it, we shall ask why this face or image of the sea is to be
seen only in the body of the moon; and not in any of the other stars?
For the laws of probability require that the sight should suffer this
equally in all, or else in none.
But pray, sir, said I, casting mine eyes upon Lucius, call a little to
mind what was said at first by those of our party.
5. Nay rather, answered he,—lest we should seem too injurious to
Pharnaces, in thus passing by the opinion of the Stoics, without
opposing any thing against it,—let us make some reply to this man, who
supposes the moon to be wholly a mixture of air and mild fire, and then
says that, as in a calm there sometimes arises on a sudden a breeze of
wind which curls and ruffles the superficies of the sea, so, the air
being darkened and rendered black, there is an appearance and form of a
face.
You do courteously, Lucius, said I, thus to veil and cover with
specious expressions so absurd and false an opinion. But so did not
our friend; but he said, as the truth is, that the Stoics disfigured
and mortified the moon’s face, filling it with stains and black spots,
one while invocating her by the name of Diana and Minerva, and another
while making her a lump and mixture of dark air and charcoal-fire, not
kindling of itself or having any light of its own, but a body hard to
be judged and known, always smoking and ever burning, like to those
thunders which by the poets are styled lightless and sooty. Now that a
fire of coals, such as they would have that of the moon to be, cannot
have any continuance nor yet so much as the least subsistence, unless
it meets with some solid matter fit to maintain it, keep it in, and
feed it, has, I think, far better than it is by these philosophers,
been understood by those poets who in merriment affirm that Vulcan was
therefore said to be lame because fire can no more go forward without
wood or fuel than a cripple without a crutch. If then the moon is
fire, whence has it so much air? For that region above, which is with
a continual motion carried round, consists not of air, but some more
excellent substance, whose nature it is to subtilize and set on fire
all other things. And if it has been since engendered there, how comes
it that it does not perish, being changed and transmuted by the fire
into an ethereal and heavenly substance? And how can it maintain and
preserve itself, cohabiting so long with the fire, as a nail always
fixed and fastened in one and the same place? For being rare and
diffused, as by Nature it is, it is not fitted for permanency and
continuance, but for change and dissipation. Neither is it possible
that it should condense and grow compact, being mixed with fire, and
utterly void of water and earth, the only two elements by which the
nature of the air suffers itself to be brought to a consistency and
thickness. And since the swiftness and violence of motion is wont to
inflame the air which is in stones, and even in lead itself, as cold as
it is; much more will it that which, being in fire, is with so great
an impetuosity whirled about. For they are displeased with Empedocles
for making the moon a mass of air congealed after the manner of hail,
included within a sphere of fire. And yet they themselves say, that
the moon, being a globe of fire, contains in it much air dispersed
here and there,—and this, though it has neither ruptures, concavities,
nor depths (which they who affirm it to be earthly admit), but the
air lies superficially on its convexity. Now this is both against the
nature of permanency, and impossible to be accorded with what we see
in full moons; for it should not appear separately black and dark, but
either be wholly obscured and concealed or else co-illuminated, when
the moon is overspread by the sun. For with us the air which is in
the pits and hollows of the earth, whither the rays of the sun cannot
penetrate, remains dark and lightless; but that which is spread over
its exterior parts has clearness and a lightsome color. For it is by
reason of its rarity easily transformed into every quality and faculty,
but principally that of light and brightness, by which, being never
so little touched, it incontinently changes and is illuminated. This
reason therefore, as it seems greatly to help and maintain the opinion
of those who thrust the air into certain deep valleys and caves in the
moon, so confutes you, who mix and compose her sphere, I know not how,
of air and fire. For it is not possible that there should remain any
shadow or darkness in the superficies of the moon, when the sun with
his brightness clears and enlightens whatsoever we can discern of her
and ken with our sight.
6. Whilst I was yet speaking, Pharnaces interrupting my discourse
said: See here again the usual stratagem of the Academy brought into
play against us, which is to busy themselves at every turn in speaking
against others, but never to afford an opportunity for reproving what
they say themselves; so that those with whom they confer and dispute
must always be respondents and defendants, and never plaintiffs or
opponents. You shall not therefore bring me this day to give you an
account of those things you charge upon the Stoics, till you have first
rendered me a reason for your turning the world upside down.
Then Lucius smiling said: This, good sir, I am well contented to do,
provided only that you will not accuse us of impiety, as Cleanthes
thought that the Greeks ought to have called Aristarchus the Samian
into question and condemned him of blasphemy against the Gods,
as shaking the very foundations of the world, because this man,
endeavoring to save the appearances, supposed that the heavens remained
immovable, and that the earth moved through an oblique circle, at the
same time turning about its own axis. As for us therefore, we say
nothing that we take from them. But how do they, my good friend, who
suppose the moon to be earth, turn the world upside down more than you,
who say that the earth remains here hanging in the air, being much
greater than the moon, as the mathematicians measure their magnitude by
the accidents of eclipses, and by the passages of the moon through the
shadow of the earth, gathering thence how great a space it takes up?
For the shadow of the earth is less than itself, by reason it is cast
by a greater light. And that the end of this shadow upwards is slender
and pointed, they say that Homer himself was not ignorant, but plainly
expressed it when he called the night θοή (that is, _acute_) from
the sharp-pointedness of the earth’s shadow. And yet the moon in her
eclipses, being caught within this point of the shadow; can scarce get
out of it by going forward thrice her own bigness in length. Consider
then, how many times the earth must needs be greater than the moon,
if it casts a shadow, the narrowest point of which is thrice as broad
as the moon. But you are perhaps afraid lest the moon should fall, if
it were acknowledged to be earth; but as for the earth, Aeschylus has
secured you, when he says that Atlas
Stands shouldering the pillar of the heaven and earth,
A burden onerous.[97]
If then there runs under the moon only a light air, not firm enough
to bear a solid burthen, whereas under the earth there are, as Pindar
says, columns and pillars of adamant for its support, therefore
Pharnaces himself is out of all dread of the earth’s falling, but he
pities the Ethiopians and those of Taprobane, who lie directly under
the course of the moon, fearing lest so ponderous a mass should tumble
upon their heads. And yet the moon has, for an help to preserve her
from falling, her motion and the impetuosity of her revolution; as
stones, pebbles, and other weights, put into slings, are kept from
dropping out whilst they are swung round, by the swiftness of their
motion. For every body is carried according to its natural motion,
unless it be diverted by some other intervening cause. Wherefore
the moon does not move according to the motion of her weight, her
inclination being stopped and hindered by the violence of a circular
revolution. And perhaps there would be more reason to wonder, if
the moon continued always immovable in the same place, as does the
earth. But now the moon has a great cause to keep herself from tending
hither downwards; but for the earth, which has no other motion, it is
probable that it has also no other cause of its settlement but its
own weight. For the earth is heavier than the moon, not only because
it is greater, but also because the moon is rendered lighter by the
heat and inflammation that is in it. In brief, it appears by what you
say, if it is true that the moon is fire, that it stands in need of
earth or some other matter, which it may rest on and cleave to, for
the maintaining and nourishing of its power. For it is not possible to
imagine how a fire can be preserved without some combustible matter.
And you yourselves say that the earth continues firm without any basis
or pedestal to support it.
Yes surely, said Pharnaces, being in its proper and natural place, the
very middle and centre of the universe. For this it is to which all
heavy and ponderous things do from every side naturally tend, incline,
and aspire, and about which they cling and are counterpoised. But every
superior region, though it may perhaps receive some earthly and weighty
thing sent by violence up into it, immediately repels and casts it down
again by force, or (to speak better) lets it follow its own proper
inclination, by which it naturally tends downwards.
7. For the refutation of which, being willing to give Lucius time for
the calling to mind his arguments, I addressed myself to Theon, and
asked him which of the tragic poets it was who said that physicians
With bitter med’cines bitter choler purge.
And Theon having answered me that it was Sophocles; This, said I to
him, we must of necessity permit them to do; but we are not to give
ear to those philosophers who would overthrow paradoxes by assertions
no less strange and paradoxical, and for the oppugning strange and
extravagant opinions, devise others yet more wonderful and absurd;
as these men do, who broach and introduce this doctrine of a motion
tending towards the middle, in which what sort of absurdity is
there not to be found? Does it not thence follow, that the earth is
spherical, though we nevertheless see it to have so many lofty hills,
so many deep valleys, and so great a number of inequalities? Does it
not follow that there are antipodes dwelling opposite to another,
sticking on every side to the earth, with their heads downwards and
their heels upwards, as if they were woodworms or lizards? That we
ourselves go not on the earth straight upright, but obliquely and
bending aside like drunken men? That if bars and weights of a thousand
talents apiece should be let fall into the hollow of the earth, they
would, when they were come to the centre, stop and rest there, though
nothing came against them or sustained them; and that, if peradventure
they should by force pass the middle, they would of themselves return
and rebound back thither again? That if one should saw off the two
trunks or ends of a beam on either side of the earth, they would not
be always carried downwards, but falling both from without into the
earth, they would equally meet, and hide themselves together in the
middle? That if a violent stream of water should run downwards into
the ground, it would, when it came to the centre of the earth, which
they hold to be an incorporeal point, there gather together, and turn
round like a whirlpool, with a perpetual and endless suspension?
Some of which positions are so absurd, that none can so much as force
his imagination, though falsely, to conceive them possible. For this
is indeed to make that which is above to be below; and to turn all
things upside down, by making all that is as far as the middle to be
_downwards_, and all that is beyond the middle to be _upwards_; so that
if a man should, by the sufferance and consent of the earth, stand with
his navel just against her centre, he would by this means have his feet
and head both upwards; and if one, having digged through that place
which is beyond the middle, should come to pull him out from thence,
that part which is below would at one and the same time be drawn
upwards, and that which is above, downwards. And if another should be
imagined to stand the contrary way, their feet, though the one’s were
opposite to the other’s, would both be and be said to be upwards.
8. Bearing then upon their shoulders, and drawing after them, I do
not say a little bag or box, but a whole pack of juggler’s boxes,
full of so many absurdities, with which they play the hocus-pocus in
philosophy, they nevertheless accuse others of error for placing the
moon, which they hold to be earth, on high, and not in the middle or
centre of the world. And yet, if every heavy body inclines towards
the same place, and does from all sides and with every one of its
parts tend to its own centre, the earth certainly will appropriate and
challenge to itself these ponderous masses—which are its parts—not
because it is the centre of the universe, but rather because it is the
whole; and this gathering together of heavy bodies round about it will
not be a sign showing it to be the middle of the world, but an argument
to prove and testify that these bodies which had been plucked from it
and again return to it have a communication and conformity of nature
with the earth. For as the sun draws into himself the parts of which
he is composed, so the earth receives a stone as a part belonging to
it, in such manner that every one of such things is in time united and
incorporated with it. And if peradventure there is some other body
which was not from the beginning allotted to the earth nor has been
separated from it, but had its own proper and peculiar consistence
and nature apart, as these men may say of the moon, what hinders but
it may continue separated by itself, being kept close, compacted, and
bound together by its own parts? For they do not demonstrate that the
earth is the middle of the universe; and this conglomeration of heavy
bodies which are here, and their coalition with the earth, show us
the manner how it is probable that the parts which are assembled in
the body of the moon continue also there. But as for him who drives
and ranges together in one place all earthly and ponderous things,
making them parts of one and the same body, I wonder that he does not
attribute also the same necessity and constraint to light substances,
but leaves so many conglomerations of fire separated one from another;
nor can I see why he should not amass together all the stars, and think
that there ought to be but one body of all those substances which fly
upwards.
9. But you mathematicians, friend Apollonides, say that the sun is
distant from our upper sphere infinite thousands of miles, and after
him the day-star or Venus, Mercury, and other planets, which being
situated under the fixed stars, and separated from one another by great
intervals, make their revolutions; and in the mean time you think that
the world affords not to heavy and terrestrial bodies any great and
large place or distance one from another. You plainly see, it would
be ridiculous, if we should deny the moon to be earth because it is
not seated in the lowest region of the world, and yet affirm it to
be a star, though so many thousands of miles remote from the upper
firmament, as if it were plunged into some deep gulf. For she is so
low before all other stars, that the measure of the distances cannot be
expressed, and you mathematicians want numbers to compute and reckon
it; but she in a manner touches the earth, making her revolution so
near the tops of the mountains, that she seems, as Empedocles has it,
to leave even the very tracks of her chariot-wheels behind her. For
oftentimes she surpasses not the shadow of the earth, which is very
short through the excessive greatness of the sun that shines upon it,
but seems to turn so near the superficies, and (as one may say) between
the arms and in the bosom of the earth, that it withholds from her the
light of the sun, because she mounts that shady, earthly, and nocturnal
region which is the lot and inheritance of the earth. And therefore I
am of opinion, we may boldly say that the moon is within the limits and
confines of the earth, seeing she is even darkened by the summits of
its mountains.
10. But leaving the stars, as well erring as fixed, see what
Aristarchus proves and demonstrates in his treatise of magnitudes and
distances; that the distance of the sun is above eighteen times and
under twenty times greater than that of the moon from us. And yet they
who place the moon lowest say that her distance from us contains six
and fifty of the earth’s semidiameters, that is, that she is six and
fifty times as far from us as we are from the centre of the earth;
which is forty thousand stadia, according to those that make their
computation moderately. Therefore the sun is above forty millions and
three hundred thousand stadia distant from the moon; so far is she from
the sun by reason of her gravity, and so near does she approach to the
earth. So that if substances are to be distinguished by places, the
portion and region of the earth challenges to itself the moon, which,
by reason of neighborhood and proximity, has a right to be reputed and
reckoned amongst the terrestrial natures and bodies. Nor shall we, in
my opinion, do amiss if, having given so vast an interval and distance
to these bodies which are said to be above, we leave also to those
which are below some space and room to turn them in, such as is that
between the earth and the moon. For neither is he who calls only the
utmost superficies of the heaven _above_ and all the rest _beneath_
moderate or tolerable; nor is he to be endured who confines _beneath_
only to the earth, or rather to its centre; seeing the vast greatness
of the world may afford means for the assigning farther to this lower
part some such space as is necessary for motion. Now against him who
holds that whatever is above the earth is immediately high and sublime,
there is presently another opposition to encounter and contradict it,
that whatever is beneath the sphere of the fixed stars ought to be
called low and inferior.
11. In a word, how is the earth said to be the middle, and of what
is it the middle? For the universe is infinite; and infiniteness
having neither beginning nor end, it is convenient also that it should
not have any middle; for the middle is a certain end or limit, but
infiniteness is a privation of all sorts of limits. Now he that affirms
the earth to be the middle, not of the universe but of the world, is
certainly a pleasant man, if he does not think that the world itself
is subject to the same doubts and difficulties. For the universe has
not left a middle even to the very world, but this being without any
certain seat or foundation, it is carried in an infinite voidness to no
proper end; or if perhaps it has stopped, it has met with some other
cause or stay, not according to the nature of the place. As much may be
conjectured of the moon, that by the means of another soul and another
Nature, or (to say better) of another difference, the earth continues
firm here below, and the moon moves. Besides this, see whether they are
not ignorant of a great inconvenience and error. For if it is true
that all which is without the centre of the earth, however it be, is
above, there will then be no part of the world below; but the earth and
all that is upon it will be above; and in brief, every body that shall
be placed about the centre will be above, and there will be nothing
below or underneath, but one only point which has no body, which will
of necessity make head against and oppose all the rest of the world’s
nature, if _above_ and _beneath_ are naturally opposite to one another.
Nor is this the only absurdity that will follow; but all heavy and
ponderous bodies will also lose the cause for which they move and
tend downwards hither, for there will be no body below to which they
should move; and as for that which is incorporeal, it is not probable,
neither will they themselves allow, that it should be so forcible as
to draw and retain all things about itself. But if it is unreasonable
and contrary to Nature that the whole world should be above, and that
there should be nothing below but an incorporeal and indivisible term
or limit, then is this, as we say, yet more reasonable, that the
region above and that below being divided the one from the other, have
nevertheless each of them a large and spacious room.
12. Nevertheless, supposing, if you please, that it is against Nature
for earthly bodies to have any motions in heaven, let us consider
leisurely and mildly—and not violently, as is done in tragedies—that
this is no proof of the moon’s not being earth, but only that earth
is in a place where by nature it should not be; for the fire of Mount
Aetna is indeed against nature under ground, nevertheless it ceases not
to be fire. And the wind contained within bottles is indeed of its own
nature light and inclined to ascend, but is yet by force constrained to
be there where naturally it should not be. And is not our very soul, I
beseech you in the name of Jupiter, which, as yourselves say, is light,
of a fiery substance, and imperceptible to sense, included within
the body, which is heavy, cold, and palpable? Yet do we therefore say
that the soul does not belong to the body; or that it is not a divine
substance under a gross and heavy mass, or that it does not in a moment
pass through heaven, earth, and sea, pierce into the flesh, nerves,
and marrow, and into the humors which are the cause of a thousand
passions? And even your Jupiter, such as you imagine him and depaint
him to be, is he not of his own nature a great and perpetual fire?
Yet now he submits, is pliable, and transformed into all things by
several mutations. Take heed therefore, good sir, lest, by transferring
and reducing every thing to the place assigned it by Nature, you so
philosophize as to bring in a dissolution of the whole world, and put
all things again into that state of enmity mentioned by Empedocles, or
(to speak more properly) lest you raise up again those ancient Titans
and Giants to put on arms against Nature, and endeavor to introduce
again that fabulous disorder and confusion, where all that is heavy
goes one way apart, and all that is light another;
Where neither sun’s bright face is seen,
Nor earth beheld, spread o’er with green,
Nor the salt sea,
as Empedocles has it. Then the earth felt no heat, nor the sea any
wind; no heavy thing moved upwards, nor any light thing downwards;
but the principles of all things were solitary, without any mutual
love or dilection one to another, not admitting any society or
mixture together; but shunning and avoiding all communication, moving
separately by particular motions, as being disdainful, proud, and
altogether carrying themselves in such manner as every thing does from
which (as Plato says) God is absent; that is, as those bodies do in
which there is neither soul nor understanding; till such time as, by
Divine Providence, desire coming into Nature engendered mutual amity,
Venus, and Love,—as Empedocles, Parmenides, and Hesiod have it,—to the
end that changing their natural places, and reciprocally communicating
their faculties, some being by necessity bound to motion, others to
quiet and rest, and all tending to the better, every thing remitting
a little of its power and yielding a little from its place, ... they
might make at length a harmony, accord, and society together.
13. For if there had not been any other part of the world against
Nature, but every thing had been in the same place and quality it
naturally ought to be, without standing in need of any change or
transposition or having had any occasion for it from the beginning, I
know not what the work of Divine Providence is or in what it consists,
or of what Jupiter has been the father, creator, or worker. For there
would not in a camp be any need of the art of ranging and ordering of
battles, if every soldier of himself knew and understood his rank,
place, and station, and the opportunity he ought to take and keep; nor
would there be any want of gardeners or builders, if water were of
itself framed to flow where it is necessary, and irrigate such plants
as stand in need of watering, or if bricks, timber, and stones would of
their own inclinations and natural motion range and settle themselves
in due and fitting places and orders. Now if this discourse manifestly
takes away Providence, and if the ordering and distinction of things
that are in the world belongs to God, why should we wonder at Nature’s
having been so disposed and ordained by him, that the fire should be
here, and the stars there, and again the earth should be situated here
below, and the moon above, lodged in a prison found out by reason,
more sure and straight than that which was first ordained by Nature?
For if it were of absolute necessity that all things should follow
their natural instinct and move according to the motion given them by
Nature, neither the Sun, Venus, nor any other planet would any more
run a circular course; for light and fiery substances have by Nature
their motion directly upwards. And if perhaps Nature itself receives
this permutation and change by reason of the place, so that fire should
here in a direct line tend upwards, but being once arrived at heaven,
should turn round with the revolution of the heavens; what wonder would
it be, if heavy and terrestrial bodies, being in like manner out of
their natural place, were vanquished by the ambient air, and forced
to take another sort of motion? For it cannot with any reason be said
that heaven has by Nature the power to take away from light things the
property of mounting directly upwards, and cannot likewise have the
force to overcome heavy things and such as tend downwards; but that
sometimes making use of this power, and sometimes of the proper nature
of the things, it still orders every thing for the best.
14. But if, laying aside those servile habits and opinions to which
we have enslaved ourselves, we must frankly and fearlessly deliver
our judgment, it seems clear to me, that there is not any part of the
universe which has a peculiar and separate rank, situation, or motion,
that can simply be said to be natural to it. But when every thing
exhibits and yields up itself to be moved, as is most profitable and
fit for that for whose sake it was made and to which it is by Nature
appointed,—suffering, doing, or being disposed, as is most expedient
and meet for the safety, beauty, and power of the same,—then it appears
to have its place, motion, and disposition according to Nature. As
a proof of this, we may observe that man, who, if any thing in the
world be so, is made and disposed according to Nature, has upwards,
especially about his head, heavy and terrestrial things, and about
the middle of his body such as are hot and participate of fire; of
his teeth also some grow upwards and some downwards, and yet neither
the one nor the other are contrary to Nature; neither is the fire
which shines in his eyes according to Nature, and that which is in his
heart and stomach against it; but it is in each place properly and
beneficially seated. Moreover, consider the nature of all shell-fishes;
and, that I may use the words of Empedocles,
Look on the crabs, the oysters of the sea,
And shell-fish all, which heavy coats enfold,
The tortoise too with arched back, whom we
Covered with crust, as hard as stone, behold.
View them but well, and plain it will appear,
They hardened earth above their bodies bear.
And yet this crust, stone-like, hard, and heavy, as it is thus placed
over their bodies, does not press and crush their natural habit, nor on
the contrary does their heat fly upwards by reason of its lightness,
and vanish away, but they are mingled and composed one with another,
according to the nature of each one.
15. Wherefore it is also probable that the world, if it is an animal,
has in many parts of its body earth, and in as many fire and water and
air, not thrust and driven into it by force, but ordered and disposed
by reason. For neither was the eye by its lightness forced into that
part of the body where it is, nor the heart by its gravity pressed
down into the breast; but both the one and the other were thus placed
because it was better and more expedient. In like manner we ought not
to think of the parts of the world, either that the earth settled where
it is, being beaten down thither by its ponderosity; or that the sun
was carried upwards by its levity, like a bottle or bladder full of
wind (which, being plunged into the bottom of the water, immediately
rises up again), as Metrodorus of Chios was persuaded; or that the
other stars, as if they had been put into a balance, were swayed this
way or that way, according to their weight or lightness, and so mounted
higher or lower to the places they now possess. But reason having
prevailed in the constitution of the world, the stars have like to
glittering eyes, been fixed in the firmament, as it were in the face
of the universe, there to turn continually about; and the sun, having
the force and vigor of the heart, sends and distributes its heat and
light, like blood and spirits, throughout all; the earth and sea are in
the world, as the paunch and bladder in the body of a living creature;
and the moon placed between the sun and the earth, as the liver, or
some other soft entrail between the heart and the belly, transmits down
thither the heat of the superior bodies, and draws round about her the
vapors which arise from hence, subtilizing them by way of concoction
and purification. And whether its solid and terrestrial quality has
any other property serving for some profitable use, is indeed unknown
to us; but everywhere that which is better prevails over what is by
necessity. For what probability can we draw from that which they
affirm? They say, that the most subtile and luminous part of the air,
by reason of its rarity, became heaven; but what was thickened and
closely driven together was made into stars, of which the moon being
the heaviest is compacted of the grossest and muddiest matter. And yet
it is plainly to be seen, that the moon is not separated or divided
from the air, but moves and makes her revolution through that which
is about her, to wit, the region of the winds, and where the comets
are engendered and keep their course. These bodies then were not by a
natural inclination thus placed and situated as they are, but have by
some other reason been so ordered and disposed.
16. These things being said, as I was giving Lucius his turn to follow
and continue the discourse,—there being nothing left to be added but
the demonstrations of this doctrine,—Aristotle smiling said: I am a
witness, that you have directed all your contradictions and all your
refutations against those who, supposing the moon to be half fire,
affirm in general that all bodies do of their own accord tend either
upwards or downwards; but if there is any one who holds that the stars
have of their own nature a circular motion, and that they are of a
substance wholly different from the four elements, you have not thought
of saying any thing, so much as accidentally or by the way, against
him; and therefore I am wholly unconcerned in your discourse.
Indeed, good sir, said Lucius, if you should suppose the other stars,
and the whole heaven apart, to be of a pure and sincere nature, free
from all change and alteration of passion, and should bring in also
a circle, in which they make their motion by a perpetual revolution,
you would not perhaps find any one now to contradict you, though there
are in this infinite doubts and difficulties. But when the discourse
descends so far as to touch the moon, it cannot maintain in her that
perfection of being exempt from all passion and alteration, nor that
heavenly beauty of her body. But to let pass all other inequalities
and differences, the very face which appears in the body of the
moon necessarily proceeds from some passion of her own substance or
the mixture of another; for what is mixed suffers, because it loses
its first purity, being filled by force with that which is worse.
Besides, as for the slowness and dulness of her course, her feeble and
inefficacious heat, by which, as Ion says,
The black grape comes not to maturity,
to what shall we attribute them but to her weakness and passion, if an
eternal and celestial body can be subject to passion?
In brief, my friend Aristotle, if the moon is earth, she is a most fair
and admirable thing, and excellently well adorned; but if you regard
her as a star or light or a certain divine and heavenly body, I am
afraid she will prove deformed and foul, and disgrace that beautiful
appellation, if of all bodies, which are in heaven so numerous, she
alone stands in need of light borrowed of another, and, as Parmenides
has it,
Looks always backwards on the sun’s bright rays.
Our friend therefore indeed, having in a lecture of his demonstrated
this proposition of Anaxagoras, that the sun communicates to the moon
what brightness she has, was well esteemed for it. As for me, I will
not say what I have learned of you or with you, but having taken it
for granted, will pass on to the rest. It is then probable that the
moon is illuminated, not like a glass or crystal, by the brightness
of the sun’s rays shining through her, nor yet again, by a certain
collustration and conjunction of light and brightness, as when many
torches set together augment the light of one another. For so she
would be no less full in her conjunction or first quarter than in her
opposition, if she did not obstruct or repel the rays of the sun, but
let them pass through her by reason of her rarity, or if he did by a
contemperature shine upon her and kindle the light within her. For we
cannot allege her declinations and aversions in the conjunction or new
moon, as when it is half-moon or when she appears crescent or in the
wane; but being then perpendicularly (as Democritus says) under him
that illuminates her, she receives and admits the sun; so that then it
is probable she should appear, and he shine through her. But this she
is so far from doing, that she is not only then unseen, but also often
hides the sun, as Empedocles has it:
The sun’s bright beams from us she turns aside,
And of the earth itself as much doth hide,
As her orb’s breadth can cover;
as if the light of the sun fell not upon another star, but upon night
and darkness. And as for what Posidonius says, that the depth of the
moon’s body is the cause why the light of the sun cannot pierce through
her to us, this is evidently refuted; for the air, which is infinite
and of a far greater depth than the body of the moon, is nevertheless
all over illustrated and enlightened by the rays of the sun.
It remains then that, according to the opinion of Empedocles, the
light of the moon which appears to us comes from the repercussion
and reflection of the sun’s beams. And for this reason it comes not
to us hot and bright, as in all probability it would, if her shining
proceeded either from inflammation or the commixtion of two lights. But
as voices reverberated cause an echo more obscure and less express than
the speech that was pronounced, and as the blows of darts and arrows,
rebounding from some wall against which they are shot, are more mild
and gentle;
So Titan’s lustre, smiting the moon’s orb,
yields but a faint and feeble reflection and repercussion of brightness
upon us, its force being abated and weakened by the refraction.
17. Sylla then, taking up the discourse, said: There is indeed a
great deal of probability in all that you have spoken. But as to the
strongest objection that is brought against it, has it, think you, been
any way weakened by this discourse? Or has our friend quite passed it
over in silence?
What opposition do you mean, said Lucius? Is it the difficulty about
the moon, when one half of her appears enlightened?
The very same, answered Sylla. For there is some reason, seeing that
all reflection is made by equal angles, that when the half-moon is
in the midst of heaven, the light proceeding from her should not be
carried upon the earth, but glance and fall beyond and on one side of
it. For the sun, being placed in the horizon, touches the moon with
its beams; which, being equally reflected, will therefore necessarily
fall on the other bound of the horizon, and not send their light down
hither; or else there will be a great distortion and difference of the
angle, which is impossible.
And yet, by Jupiter, replied Lucius, this has not been forgotten or
overpassed, but already spoken to. And casting his eye, as he was
discoursing, upon the mathematician Menelaus; I am ashamed, said
he, in your presence, dear Menelaus, to attempt the subverting and
overthrowing of a mathematical position, which is supposed as a basis
and foundation to the doctrine of the catoptrics concerning the causes
and reasons of mirrors. And yet of necessity I must. For it neither
appears of itself nor is confessed as true, that all reflections are at
equal angles; but this position is first checked and contradicted in
concave mirrors, when they represent the images of things, appearing
at one point of sight, greater than the things themselves. And it is
also disproved by double mirrors, which being inclined or turned one
towards the other, so that an angle is made within, each of the glasses
or plain superficies yields a double resemblance; so that there are
four images from the same face, two answerable to the object without
on the left side, and two others obscure and not so evident on the
right side in the bottom of the mirror. Of which Plato renders the
efficient cause; for he says, that a mirror being raised on the one
and the other side, the sight varies the reflection, falling from one
side to the other. And therefore, since of the views or visions some
immediately have recourse to us, and others, sliding to opposite parts
of the mirror, do again return upon us from thence, it is not possible
that all reflections should be made at equal angles. Though those who
closely impugn our opinion contend that, by these reflections of light
from the moon upon the earth, the equality of angles is taken away,
thinking this to be much more probable than the other.
Nevertheless, if we must of necessity yield and grant thus much to our
dearly beloved geometry, first, this should in all likelihood befall
those mirrors which are perfectly smooth and exquisitely polished;
whereas the moon has many inequalities and roughnesses, so that the
rays proceeding from a vast body, and carried to mighty altitudes,
receive one from another and intercommunicate their lights, which,
being sent to and fro and reciprocally distributed, are refracted and
interlaced all manner of ways, and the counter-lights meet one another,
as if they came to us from several mirrors. And then, though we should
suppose these reflections on the superficies of the moon to be made
at equal angles, yet it is not impossible that the rays, coming down
unto us by so long an interval, may have their flexions, fractions, and
delapsions, that the light being compounded may shine the more. Some
also there are who prove by lineary demonstration, that many lights
send a ray down by a line drawn below the line of reflection; but to
make the description and delineation of it publicly, especially where
there were many auditors, would not be very easy.
18. But in brief, said he, I wonder how they come thus to allege
against us the half-moon, there being the same reason when she is
gibbous and crescent. For if the sun enlightened the moon, as a mass of
ethereal or fiery matter, he would never surely leave one hemisphere,
or half of her globe always appearing dark and shadowy to sense, as it
is seen to be; but how little soever he touched her superficies, it
would be agreeable to reason that it should be wholly replenished and
totally changed by that light of his, which by reason of its agility
and swiftness so easily spreads and passes through all. For, since wine
touching water only in one point, or one drop of blood falling into
any liquor, dyes and colors it all with a red or purple color; and
since they say, that the very air is altered and changed with light,
not by any defluxions or beams intermingled, but by a sudden conversion
and change made in one only point; how can they imagine that one star
touching another star, and one light another light, should not be
immediately mingled, nor make any thorough confusion or change, but
only exteriorly illuminate that whose superficies it touches? For that
circle which the sun makes by fetching a compass and turning towards
the moon,—sometimes falling upon the very line that distinguishes her
visible part from her invisible, and sometimes rising up directly, so
that it cuts her in two and is reciprocally cut by her, causing in her,
by several inclinations and habitudes of the luminous to the dark,
those various forms by which she appears gibbous and crescent,—that
more than any thing else demonstrates, that all this illumination
of the moon is not a mixture, but only a touching; nor a conflux or
gathering together of sundry lights, but only an illustration round
about.
But forasmuch as she is not only enlightened herself, but also sends
back hither the image of her illumination, this confirms us yet
further in what we say touching her substance. For reflections and
reverberations are not made upon any thing which is rare, and of thin
and subtile parts; nor is it easily to be imagined how light can
rebound from light, or one fire from another. But that which is to make
the reverberation or reflection must be solid and firm, that a blow
may be given against it and a rebounding made from it. As a proof of
this, we see that the air transmits the sun, and gives him a way to
pierce quite through it, not obstructing or driving back his rays; but
on the contrary from wood, stones, or clothes put in the sun, there are
made many reflections of light and many illuminations round about. So
we see that the earth is illuminated by him, not to the very bottom,
as the water, nor thoroughly and all over, as the air, through which
the beams of the sun have a clear passage; but just such a circle as
surrounds the moon surrounds also the earth; and as much of the earth
as this circle includes, so much does the sun enlighten, the rest being
left without light; for what is illuminated both in the one and in the
other is little more than an hemisphere. Permit me therefore now to
conclude after the manner of geometricians by proportions. If there are
three things which the light of the sun approaches, the air, the moon,
and the earth, and if we see that the moon is enlightened by him, not
as the air, but as the earth, it is of necessity that those two things
must have one and the same nature, which of one and the same cause
suffer the same effects.
19. Now when all the company began highly to commend Lucius’s harangue;
This is excellently well done of you, Lucius (said I to him), that you
have to so fine a discourse added as fine a proportion, for you must
not be defrauded of that which is your due.
Then Lucius, smiling, thus went on: I have yet a second proportion to
be added to the former, by which we will clearly demonstrate that the
moon altogether resembles the earth, not only because they suffer and
receive the same accidents from the same cause, but because they work
the same effect on the same object. For you will without difficulty,
I suppose, grant me that, of all the accidents which befall the sun,
there is none so like to his setting as his eclipse, especially if you
but call to mind that recent conjunction which, beginning at noonday,
showed us many stars in many places of the heavens, and wrought a
temperature in the air like that of the twilight. But if you will not
grant me this, our friend Theon here will bring us a Mimnermus, a
Cydias, an Archilochus, and besides these, a Stesichorus and a Pindar,
lamenting that in eclipses the world is robbed of its brightest light,
and saying that night comes on in the midst of the day, and that the
rays of the sun wander in the path of darkness; but above all he will
produce Homer, saying that the faces of men are in eclipses seized upon
by night and darkness, and the sun is quite lost out of heaven by the
conjunction of the moon. And ... it is natural that this should happen,
When one moon’s going, and another comes.
For the rest of the demonstration is, in my opinion, as certain and
exactly concluding, as are the acute arguments of the mathematics. As
night is the shadow of the earth, so the eclipse of the sun is the
shadow of the moon, when it stands in the way of our sight. For the
sun is at his setting kept from our sight by the interposition of the
earth, and at his eclipse by that of the moon. Now both of these are
obscurations; but that of his setting is from the earth, and that of
his being eclipsed from the moon, their shadows intercepting our sight.
Now the consequences of these things are easily understood. For if the
effect is alike, the efficient causes are also alike; because it is
of necessity that the same effects, happening in the same subjects,
proceed from the same efficients. Now if the darkness in eclipses is
not so profound, nor does so forcibly and entirely seize the air, as
does the night, we are not to wonder at it; for the substance of the
body which makes the night, and of that which causes the eclipse,
is indeed the same, though their greatness is not equal. For the
Egyptians, if I am not mistaken, hold that the moon is in bigness the
two and seventieth part of the earth; and Anaxagoras says, she is as
big as Peloponnesus. And Aristarchus shows the overthwart line or
diameter of the moon to have a proportion to that of the earth which
is less than if sixty were compared to nineteen, and somewhat greater
than an hundred and eight compared to forty and three. Whence it
happens that the earth, by reason of its greatness, wholly withdraws
the sun from our sight, for it is a great obstacle and opposition, and
lasts all the night. But although the moon sometimes hides all the
sun, yet that eclipse continues not so long nor is so far extended,
but there always appears about the circumference a certain brightness,
which permits not the darkness to be black, deep, and perfectly obscure.
And Aristotle (I mean the ancient philosopher of that name) rendering
the reason why there are oftener seen to happen eclipses of the moon
than of the sun, among other causes alleges this, that the sun is
eclipsed by the interposition of the moon, and the moon by that of the
earth, which is much greater and consequently oftener opposes itself.
And Posidonius thus defines this accident: The eclipse of the sun is
the conjunction of the sun and moon, the shadow of which darkens our
sight.[98] For there is no eclipse except to those whose sight the
shadow of the moon intercepting hinders them from seeing the sun. Now
in confessing that the shadow of the moon descends down to us, I know
not what he has left himself to say. It is certainly impossible for a
star to cast a shadow; for that which is not enlightened is called a
shadow, and light makes no shadow, but on the contrary drives it away.
20. But what arguments, said he, were alleged after this?
The moon, answered I then, suffered the same eclipse.
You have done well, replied he, to put me in mind of it. But would
you have me go on and prosecute the rest of the discourse, as if you
had already supposed and granted that the moon is eclipsed, being
intercepted within the shadow of the earth? Or shall I take for
the subject of a declamation the making a demonstration of it, by
rehearsing to you all the arguments, one after another?
Nay, by Jove, said Theon, let this be the argument of your discourse.
For I indeed stand in need of some persuasion, having only heard that
when these three bodies, the earth, the moon, and the sun, are in a
direct line, then eclipses happen; for that either the earth takes the
sun from the moon, or the moon takes him from the earth. For the sun
suffers an eclipse when the moon, and the moon when the earth, is in
the midst of the three; of which the one happens in the conjunction or
new moon, and the other in the opposition or when the moon is full.
Then said Lucius: These are the principal points, and the summary of
what is said. But in the first place, if you please, take the argument
drawn from the form and figure of the shadow. For this is a cone, as it
must be when a great fire or light that is spherical encompasses a mass
that is also globular but less; whence it comes that, in the eclipses
of the moon, the circumscriptions of the black and dark from the clear
and luminous have their sections always round. For the sections given
or received by one round body applied to another, which way soever they
go, do by reason of the similitude always keep a circular form. Now as
for the second argument, I suppose you understand that the first part
which is eclipsed in the moon is always that which looks towards the
east, and in the sun that which regards the west. Now the shadow of the
earth moves from the east to the west, but the sun and moon from the
west eastward. The experience of the appearances gives us a visible
knowledge of this, nor is there need of many words to make us fully
understand it; and from these suppositions the cause of the eclipse is
confirmed. For, inasmuch as the sun is eclipsed by being overtaken, and
the moon by meeting that which makes the eclipse, it probably or rather
necessarily follows that the one is surprised behind, and the other
before. For the obstruction begins on that side whence that which
causes it first approaches. Now the moon comes upon the sun from the
west, as striving in course with him and hastening after him; but the
shadow of the earth comes from the east, as that which has a contrary
motion.
The third argument is taken from the time and greatness of the
eclipses. For the moon, if she is eclipsed when she is on high in her
apogee (or at her farthest distance from the earth), continues but a
little while in her defect or want of light; but when she suffers the
same accident being low and in her perigee (or near the earth), she
is very much oppressed, and slowly gets out of the shadow; and yet,
when she is low, she moves swifter, and when high, slower. But the
cause of the difference is in the shadow, which is, like pyramids,
broadest at the bottom or basis; and, growing still narrower by little
and little, terminates in a sharp point at the top. Whence it comes,
that when she is low, she is embarrassed within greater circles,
traversing the bottom of the shadow and what is most obscure and dark;
but when she is high, being through the narrowness of the shadow
(as it were) but in a shallow puddle, by which she is sullied, she
immediately gets out again. I omit what was said particularly about
the bases and disposition of parts, for these admit of a rational
explanation, so far as this is possible; but I return to the subject
properly before us, which has its foundation in our senses. For we
see that fire shines forth and appears brighter out of a dark and
shady place, through the thickness of the caliginous air, which admits
no effluxions or diffusions of the fire’s virtue, but keeps in and
contains its substance within itself. Or rather,—if this is a passion
of the senses,—as hot things, when near to cold ones, are felt to be
hotter, and pleasures immediately after pains are found more vehement,
so things that are bright appear better when they are near to such as
are obscure, the imagination being more strained and extended by means
of different passions. But there seems to be a greater appearance of
probability in the first reason. For in the sun, all the nature of fire
not only loses its faculty of illuminating, but is also rendered duller
and more unapt to burn, because the heat of the sun dissipates and
scatters all its force.
If it were then true that the moon, being, as the Stoics say, a muddy
and troubled star, has a weak and duskish fire, it would be meet that
she should suffer none of these accidents which she is now seen to
suffer, but altogether the contrary; to wit, that she should be seen
when she is hidden, and absconded when she appears; that is, she should
be concealed all the rest of the time, being obscured by the environing
air, and again shine forth and become apparent and manifest for six
months together, and afterwards disappear again five months, entering
into the shadow of the earth. For of four hundred and sixty-five
revolutions of ecliptic full moons, four hundred and four are of six
months’ duration, and the rest of five. The moon then should all this
time appear shining in the shadow; but on the contrary we see, that in
the shadow she is eclipsed and loses her light, and recovers it again
after she is escaped and got forth of the shadow. Nay, she appears
often in the daytime, so that she is rather any thing else than a fiery
and starry body.
21. As soon as Lucius had said these things, Pharnaces and Apollonides
ran both together upon him, to oppugn and refute his discourse; and
then Apollonides giving him way, Pharnaces said: This it is that
principally shows the moon to be a star and of a fiery nature, that in
her eclipses she is not wholly obscured and disappearing, but shows
herself with a certain coal-resembling color, terrible to the sight,
yet such as is proper to her.
As for Apollonides, he insisted much in opposition to the word shadow,
saying, that the mathematicians always give that name to the place
which is not enlightened, and that heaven admits no shadow.
To this I thus answered: This instance is rather alleged obstinately
against the name, than naturally or mathematically against the thing.
For if one will not call the place obfuscated by the opposition of
the earth a shadow, but a place deprived of light, yet be it what
it will, you must of necessity confess that the moon being there
becomes obscure; and every way, said I, it is a folly to deny that
the shadow of the earth reaches thither from whence the shadow of the
moon, falling upon our sight here on earth, causes the eclipse of the
sun. And therefore I now address myself to you, Pharnaces; for this
coal-like and burnt color of the moon, which you affirm to be proper
to her, belongs to a body that has thickness and depth. For there is
not wont to remain any relic, mark, or print of flame in a body that
is rare, nor can a coal be made where there is not a solid body which
may receive into it the heat of the fire; as Homer himself shows in a
certain passage, where he says,
Then, when the languid flames at length subside,
He strows a bed of glowing embers wide.[99]
For the coal seems not properly a fire, but a body enkindled and
altered by the fire, which stays and remains in a solid firmly rooted
mass; and whereas flames are the setting on fire and fluxions of a
nutriment and matter, which is of a rare substance, and by reason of
its weakness quickly dissolved and consumed; so that there could not
be any more evident and plain argument to demonstrate that the moon is
solid and earthly, than if her proper color were that of a coal. But
it is not so, my friend Pharnaces; but in her eclipses she diversely
changes her colors, which the mathematicians, determining with respect
to the time and hour, thus distinguish. If she is eclipsed in the
evening, she appears horribly black until the middle of the fourth
hour of the night; if about midnight, she sends forth this reddish and
fire-resembling color, and after the middle of the eighth hour, the
redness disappears; and finally, if about the dawning of the morning,
she takes a blue or grayish color; which is the cause why she is by the
poets, and particularly by Empedocles, called Glaucopis.
Since then they clearly see that the moon changes into so many colors
in the shadow, they do ill to attribute to her only that of a burning
coal, which may be said to be less proper to her than any other, being
only a small remnant and semblance of light, appearing and shining
through a shadow, her own proper color being black and earthy. And
since that here below, red and purple garments, and rivers and lakes,
which receive the rays of the sun, cause neighboring shady places to
take the same appearances of colors and to be illuminated by them,
casting and sending back by reason of reflections several rebated
splendors; what wonder is it if a copious flux of shadow, falling as it
were into an immense celestial sea of light, not steady and quiet, but
agitated by innumerable stars, and besides admitting several mixtures
and mutations in itself, takes from the moon the impression sometimes
of one color, sometimes of another, and sends them hither to us? For it
is not to be denied but that a star of fire cannot appear in a shadow
black, gray, or violet; but there are seen upon hills, plains, and
seas, several various resemblances of colors, caused by the reflection
of the sun, which are the very tinctures that brightness mixed with
shadows and mists, as if it were with painters’ colors, brings upon
them. And as for the tincture or colors of the sea, Homer has indeed
in some sort endeavored to name and express them, when he sometimes
terms the sea violet-colored or red as wine, at other times the
waves purple, and again the sea blue, and the calm white. As for the
diversities of tinctures and colors appearing upon the earth, he has, I
suppose, omitted them, because they are in number infinite. Now it is
not probable that the moon has but one superficies all plain and even,
as the sea; but rather that of its nature it principally resembles the
earth, of which old Socrates in Plato seemed to mythologize at his
pleasure; whether it were, that under covert and enigmatical speeches
he meant it of the moon, or whether he spake it of some other. For it
is neither incredible nor wonderful, if the moon, having in herself
nothing corrupt or muddy, but enjoying a pure and clear light from
heaven, and being full of heat, not of a burning and furious fire, but
of such as is mild and harmless, has in her places admirably fair and
pleasant, resplendent mountains, purple-colored cinctures or zones,
and store of gold and silver, not dispersed here and there within her
bowels, but flourishing in great abundance on the superficies of her
plains, or spread all over her smooth hills and mountains.
And if the sight of all these things comes to us through a shadow,
sometimes in one manner and sometimes in another, by reason of the
diversity and different change of the ambient air, the moon does
not therefore lose the venerable persuasion that is had of her, or
the reputation of divinity; being esteemed by men a heavenly earth,
or rather (as the Stoics say) a troubled, thick, and dreggish fire.
For even the fire itself is honored with barbarian honors among the
Assyrians and Medes, who through fear serve and adore such things as
are hurtful, hallowing them even above such things as are of themselves
indeed holy and honorable. But the very name of the earth is truly dear
and venerable to every Greek, and there is through all Greece a custom
received of adoring and revering it, as much as any of the Gods. And
we are very far from thinking that the moon, which we hold to be a
heavenly earth, is a body without soul and spirit, exempt and deprived
of all that is to be offered to the Gods. For both by law we yield her
recompenses and thanksgivings, for that we receive of her and by nature
we adore what we acknowledge to be of a more excellent virtue and a
more honorable power; and therefore we do not think that we offend in
supposing the moon to be earth.
Now as to the face which appears in her, as this earth on which we
are has in it many great sinuosities and valleys, so it is probable
that the moon also lies open, and is cleft with many deep caves and
ruptures, in which there is water or very obscure air, to the bottom of
which the sun cannot reach or penetrate, but failing there, sends back
a dissipated reflection to us here below.
22. Here Apollonides, taking up the discourse, said: Tell me then,
I beseech you, good sir, even by the moon herself, do you think it
possible that there should be there shadows of caves and chinks, and
that the sight of them should come even to our eyes? Or do you not
regard what will come of it? And must I tell you what it is? But
hearken to me, although you are not ignorant of it. The diameter of the
moon, according to that bigness which appears to us when she is in her
mean and ordinary distances, is twelve digits, and every one of these
black and shady spots is above half a digit, that is above the four and
twentieth part of the diameter. Now if we suppose the circumference of
the moon to be only thirty thousand stadia; and the diameter according
to that supposition to be ten thousand, every one of these shadowy
marks within her will not be less than five hundred stadia. Consider
then, first, whether there can possibly be in the moon such great gaps
and such inequalities as may make such a shadow? And then how is it
possible that, being so great, they are not seen by us?
At this I, smiling upon him, said: You have done me a pleasure, dear
Apollonides, in having found out such a demonstration by which you
will prove that you and I shall be bigger than those giant sons of
Aloeus,[100]—not indeed every hour of the day, but principally morning
and evening,—if indeed you think that, when the sun makes our shadows
so long, he suggests to our minds this goodly argument; if that which
is shadowed is great, that which shadows must of necessity be yet
excessively greater. I know well that neither you nor I have ever been
in Lemnos; yet we have often heard that Iambic verse, so frequent in
every one’s mouth:
Mount Athos’ shade shall hide the Lemnian cow.
For the shadow of that mountain falls, as it seems, on the image of a
brazen heifer which is in Lemnos, extending itself in length over the
sea not less than seven hundred stadia.... The mountain which makes the
shadow causes it, because the distance of the light renders the shadow
of bodies manifoldly greater than the bodies themselves. Consider then
here, that when the moon is in the full, and shows us the form of a
visage most expressly, by reason of the profundity of the shadow, it is
then that she is most remote from the sun; for it is the distance of
the light that makes the shadow bigger, and not the greatness of the
inequalities which are on the superficies of the moon. And you moreover
see, that the brightness of the sun’s beams suffers not the tops of the
mountains to be discerned in open day; but on the contrary, the deep
hollow and shadowy parts appear from afar. It is not therefore any way
absurd or strange, if we cannot so exactly see how the illumination of
the moon and her reception of the sunbeams take place, while yet the
conjunction of things that are obscure and dark to such as are clear
and shining is by reason of this diversity apparent to our sight.
23. But this, said I, seems rather to refute and check the reflection
and reverberation which is said to rebound from the moon; because
those who are within retorted rays do not only see that which is
enlightened, but also that which enlightens. For when, at the resulting
of light from water upon a wall, the sight falls upon the place which
is thus illuminated by the reflection, the eye there beholds three
things, to wit, the ray or light that is driven back, the water which
makes the reflection, and the sun himself, whose light, falling on
the superficies of the water, is repulsed and sent back. This being
confessed, as what is evidently seen, it is required of those who say
that the earth is enlightened from the moon by the reflections of the
sun’s rays upon it, that they show us by night the sun appearing upon
the superficies of the moon, in the same manner as he may be seen by
day appearing in the water on which he shines when there is the said
reflection of his beams. But since the sun does not so appear, they
thence infer that the moon receives her illumination by some other
means, and not by reflection; and if there is no reflection, the moon
then is not earth.
What answer then is to be made them, said Apollonides? For the argument
of this objection against reflection is common also to us.
It is indeed, answered I, in some sort common, and in some sort not.
But first consider the comparison, how perversely and against the
stream they take it. For the water is here below on the earth, and the
moon there above in heaven. So that the reflected and reverberated rays
make the form of their angles quite opposite one to the other, the one
having their point upwards towards the superficies of the moon, and the
other downwards toward the earth. Let them not then require that from
every form of mirror, nor that from every distance and remoteness,
there should be a like and semblable reflection; for so doing they
would repugn notorious and apparent evidence. And as for those who
hold the moon to be a body not smooth, even, and subtile as the water,
but solid, massy, and terrestrial, I cannot conceive why they should
require to see the image of the sun in her as in a glass. For neither
does milk itself render such peculiar images, nor cause reflection of
the sight, by reason of the inequality and ruggedness of its parts.
How then is it possible that the moon should send back the sight from
her superficies, as mirrors do that are more polished? And if in these
also there is any scratch, filth, or dulness on their superficies
whence the reflected sight is wont to receive a form, they are dimmed,
and although the mirrors may be seen, they yield no counterlight. He
then who requires that either the sun should appear in the moon, or
else the moon should not reflect the sun’s light to us, might as well
require that the eye be the sun, the sight light, and man heaven. For
it is probable, that the reflection of the sun’s beams which is made
upon the moon does, by reason of their vehemence and great brightness,
rebound with a stroke upon us. But our sight being weak and slender,
what wonder is it, if it neither give such a stroke as may rebound, or
if it rebounds, that it does not maintain its continuity, but is broken
and fails, as not having such abundance of light that it should not
disgregate and be dissipated within those inequalities and asperities?
For it is not impossible, that the reflection upon water or other sorts
of mirrors, being yet strong, powerful, and near its origin, should
from thence return upon the eye; but though there may perhaps from the
moon be some glimmerings, yet they still will be weak and obscure, and
will fail in the way, by reason of so long a distance. For otherwise
hollow and concave mirrors send back the reverberated and reflected
rays stronger than they came, so that they frequently burn and set on
fire; and those that are convex and embossed like a bowl, because they
beat them not back on all sides, render them dark and feeble. You see
for certain, when two rainbows appear together in the heaven, one cloud
comprehending another, that the rainbow which outwardly environs the
other yields dim colors, and such as are not sufficiently distinguished
and expressed, because the exterior cloud, being more remote, makes not
a strong and forcible reflection. And what needs there any more to be
said, seeing that the very light of the sun, reverberated and sent back
by the moon, loses all its heat; and of his brightness, there comes to
us with much ado but a small remainder, and that very languishing and
weak? Is it then possible, that our sight, turning the same course,
should bring back any part of the solar image from the moon? I for my
part think it is not. But consider, I said, yourselves, that if our
sight were in one and the same manner affected and disposed towards the
water and towards the moon, the full moon would of necessity represent
to us the images of the earth, plants, men, and stars, as is done by
the water and all other sorts of mirrors. And if there is no such
reflection of our sight as to bring us back these images, either by
reason of our said sight’s weakness, or through the rugged inequality
of the moon’s superficies, let us no longer require that it should
rebound against the sun.
24. We have then, said I, related, as far as our memory would carry
it away, whatever was there said. It is now time to desire Sylla, or
rather to exact of him, that he would make us his narration, as being
on such condition admitted to hear all this discourse. If you think
good therefore, let us give over walking, and sitting down on these
seats, make him a quiet and settled audience.
Every one approved this motion. And therefore, when we had seated
ourselves, Theon thus began: I am indeed, O Lamprias, as desirous as
any of you can be to hear what shall be said; but I would gladly first
understand something concerning those who are said to dwell in the
moon; not whether there are any persons inhabiting it, but whether
it is impossible there should be any; for if it is not possible for
the moon to be inhabited, it is also unreasonable to say that she is
earth; otherwise she would have been created in vain and to no end, not
bearing any fruits, not affording a place for the birth or education
of any men, for which causes and ends this earth wherein we live was
made and created, being (as Plato says) our nurse and true guardian,
producing and distinguishing the day from the night. Now you know, that
of this matter many things have been said, as well merrily and in jest
as seriously and in earnest. For of those who dwell under the moon,
it is said that she hangs over their heads, as if they were so many
Tantaluses; and on the contrary, of those who inhabit her, that being
tied and bound to her, like a sort of Ixions, they are with violence
turned and whirled about. Nor is the moon indeed moved by one only
motion, but is, as they were wont to call her, Trivia, or Three-wayed;
performing her course together according to length, breadth, and depth
in the Zodiac; the first of which motions mathematicians call a direct
revolution, the second volutation, or an oblique winding and wheeling
in and out; and the third (I know not why) an inequality; although they
see that she has no motion uniform, settled, and certain, in all her
circuits and reversions. Wherefore it is not greatly to be admired, if
through violence of her motion there sometime fell a lion from her into
Peloponnesus, but it is rather to be wondered, that we do not daily
see ten thousand falls of men and women and shocks of other animals
tumbling down thence with their heels upwards on our heads; for it
would be a mockery to dispute about their habitation there, if they
can have there neither birth nor existence. For seeing the Egyptians
and the Troglodytes, over whose heads the sun directly stands only one
moment of one day in the solstice, and then presently retires, can
hardly escape being burnt, by reason of the air’s excessive dryness;
is it credible that those who are in the moon can bear every year
twelve solstices, the sun being once a month just in their zenith,
when the moon is full? As for winds, clouds, and showers, without
which the plants can neither come up nor, when they are come up, be
preserved, it cannot be so much as imagined there should be any, where
the ambient air is so hot, dry, and subtile; since even here below,
the tops of mountains never feel those hard and bitter winters, but
the air, being there pure and clear, without any agitation, by reason
of its lightness, avoids all that thickness and concretion which is
amongst us; unless, by Jupiter, we will say that, as Minerva instilled
nectar and ambrosia into the mouth of Achilles, when he received no
other food, so the moon, which both is called and indeed is Minerva,
nourishes men, producing for them and sending them every day ambrosia,
with which, as old Pherecydes was wont to say, the Gods themselves are
fed. For as touching that Indian root, which, as Megasthenes says, some
people in those parts, who neither eat nor drink, but have pure mouths,
burn and smoke, living on the smell of its perfume; whence should they
have any of it there, the moon not being watered or refreshed with rain?
25. When Theon had spoken these things; You have very dexterously
and gently, said I to him, by this facetiousness of yours smoothed
as it were the brow, and taken off the chagrin and sourness of this
discourse; which encourages and emboldens us to return an answer,
since, however we may chance to fail, we expect not any severe or
rigorous chastisement. For, to speak the truth, they who are extremely
offended with these things and wholly discredit them, not being willing
mildly to consider what probability and possibility there may be in
them, are not much less in fault than those that are too excessively
persuaded of them. First then, I say, it is not necessary that the moon
must have been made in vain and to no end or purpose, if there are not
men who dwell in it; for we see that this very earth here is not all
cultivated or inhabited, but that only a small part of it, like so many
promontories or demi-islands arising out of the deep, engenders, brings
forth, and breeds plants and animals; the rest being through excessive
cold or heat wholly desert and barren, or (which is indeed the greatest
share of it) covered and plunged under the vast ocean. But you, who
are always so great a lover and admirer of Aristarchus, give no ear to
Crates when he reads in Homer,
The sea, which gave to Gods and men their birth,
Covers with waves the most part of the earth.[101]
And yet those parts are far from having been made in vain. For the sea
exhales and breathes out mild vapors; and the snow, leisurely melting
from the cold and uninhabited regions, sends forth and spreads over all
our countries those gentle breezes which qualify the scorching heat
of summer; and in the midst, as Plato says, is placed the faithful
guardian and operator of night and day. There is then nothing to
hinder but that the moon may be without living creatures, and yet
give reflections to the light that is diffused about her, and afford
a receptacle to the rays of the stars, which have their confluence
and temperature in her, for to digest the evaporation rising from the
earth and moderate the over-violent and fiery heat of the sun. And
attributing much to ancient fame, we will say that she is styled Diana,
as being a virgin and fruitless, but otherwise greatly salutary,
helpful, and profitable to the world. Moreover, of all that has been
said, my friend Theon, there is nothing which shows it impossible for
the moon to be inhabited. For her turning about, being gentle, mild,
and calm, dulcifies and polishes the ambient air, and distributes it in
so good order about her, that there is no occasion to fear the falling
or slipping out of those who live in her. And as to the diversity and
multiplicity of her motion, it proceeds not from any inequality, error,
or uncertainty, but the astrologers show in this an admirable order
and course, enclosing her within circles, which are turned by other
circles; some supposing that she herself stirs not, others making her
always move equally, smoothly, and with the same swiftness. For it is
these ascensions of divers circles, with their turnings and habitudes,
one towards another and with respect to us, which most exactly make
those heights, depths, and depressions, that appear to us in her
motion, and her digressions in latitude, all joined with the ordinary
revolution she makes in longitude. As to the great heat and continual
inflammation of the sun, you will cease to fear it, if first to the
eleven estival conjunctions you oppose the full moons, and then to
the excesses the continuity of change which permits them not to last
long, reducing them to a proper and peculiar temperature, and taking
from them both what is over much; for the middle, or what is between
them, it is probable, has a season most like to the spring. And,
moreover, the sun sends his beams to us through a gross and troubled
air, and casts on us an heat fed by exhalation; whereas the air, being
there subtile and transparent, dissipates and disperses his lustre,
which has no nourishment nor body on which it may settle. Trees and
fruits are here nourished by showers; but elsewhere, as in the higher
countries with you about Thebes and Syene, the earth drinking in
not aerial but earth-bred water, and being assisted with refreshing
winds and dew, will not (such is the virtue and temperature of the
soil) yield the first place for fertility to the best watered land in
the world. And the same sorts of trees which in our country, having
suffered a long and sharp winter, bring forth abundance of good fruit,
are in Africa and with you in Egypt soon offended with cold and very
fearful of the winter. And the provinces of Gedrosia and Troglodytis,
which lie near the ocean sea, being by reason of drought barren and
without any trees, there grow nevertheless in the adjacent sea trees
of a wonderful height and bigness, and green even to the very bottom;
some of which they call olive-trees, others laurels, and others the
hair of Isis. And those plants which are named anacampserotes, being
hanged up after they are plucked out of the ground, not only live,
but—which is more—bud and put forth green leaves. Some seeds are sown
in winter; and others in the heat of summer, like sesame and millet.
And thyme or centaury, if it is sown in a rich and fat earth, and
there well drenched and watered, degenerates from its natural quality
and all its virtue, because it loves dryness and thrives in its own
proper natural soil. Others cannot bear so much as the least dew, of
which kind are the most part of the Arabian plants, and if they are
but once wet, they wither, fade, and die. What wonder is it then, if
there grow in the moon roots, seeds, and plants which have no need
of rains or winter colds, and are appropriated to a dry and subtile
air, such as is that of summer? And why may it not be probable that
the moon sends forth warm winds, and that her shaking and agitation,
as she moves, is accompanied by comfortable breezes, fine dews, and
gentle moistures, which are everywhere dispersed to furnish nutriment
for the verdant plants?—seeing she is not of her temperature ardent
or parched with drought, but rather soft, moist, and engendering all
humidity. For there come not from her to us any effects of dryness,
but many of a feminine moisture and softness, such as are the growing
of plants, the putrefaction of flesh, the changing and flatness of
wines, the tenderness and rotting of wood, and the easy deliveries of
child-bearing women. But because I am afraid of irritating again and
provoking Pharnaces—who all this while speaks not a word—if I should
allege the flowing and ebbing of the great ocean (as they themselves
say), and the increasings of the friths and straits, which swell and
rise by the moon augmenting the moisture; therefore I will rather turn
myself to you, my friend Theon. For you, interpreting this verse of the
poet Alcman,
Such things as dew, Jove’s daughter and the moon’s,
Does nourish,
tell us, that in this place he calls the air Jupiter, which, being
moistened by the moon, is by Nature changed into dew. For she seems,
my good friend, to be of a nature almost wholly contrary to the sun,
not only in that she is wonted to moisten, dissolve, and soften what
he thickens, dries, and hardens; but moreover, in that she allays and
cools his heat, when it lights upon her and is mingled with her.
Those then who think the moon to be a fiery and burning body are in
an error; and in like manner those who would have all such things to
be necessary for the generation, life, food, and entertainment of the
animals dwelling there as are requisite to those that are here below,
consider not the vast diversity and inequality there is in Nature; in
which there are found greater varieties and differences between animals
and animals, than there are between animals and other subjects that are
not animated. There are surely not in the world any men of such pure
mouths that they feed only on smells.... But that power of Nature which
Ammonius himself has shown us, and which Hesiod has obscurely signified
in these words,
Nor how great virtue is in asphodels and mallows,[102]
Epimenides has made plain to us in effect, teaching us that Nature
sustains a living creature with very little food, and that, provided
it has but the quantity of an olive, it stands in need of no other
nourishment. Now, if any, those surely who dwell within the moon should
be active, light, and easy to be nourished with any thing whatsoever;
since they affirm that the moon herself, as also the sun, which is a
fiery animal, and manifoldly greater than the earth, is nourished and
maintained by the moistures that come from the earth, as are also all
the other stars, whose number is in a manner infinite; such light and
slender animals do they assign to the upper region, and with so small
necessaries do they think them contented and satisfied. But we neither
see these things, nor consider that a quite different region, nature,
and temperature is accommodated to those lunar men.
As therefore, if we were unable to come near and touch the sea, but
could only see it at a distance, and had heard that its water is
brackish, salt, and undrinkable, any one who should tell us that there
are in its depths many and great animals of various forms and shapes,
and that it is full of great and monstrous beasts who make the same
use of the water as we do of the air, would be thought only to relate
a parcel of strange and uncreditable stories, newly found out and
invented for delight and amusement; in the same manner we seem to be
affected and disposed towards the moon, not believing that there are
any who inhabit it. And I am of opinion, that they themselves do much
more wonder, when they behold the earth,—which is, as it were, the
dregs and mud of the universe, appearing to them through moist and
foggy clouds and mists, a little place, a low, abject, and immovable
thing without any brightness or light whatever,—how this pitiful
inconsiderable thing should be able to produce, nourish, and maintain
animals that have motion, respiration, and heat. And if peradventure
they had ever heard these verses of Homer,
A filthy squalid place, abhorred even by
The Gods themselves;[103]
and again,
Hell is as far beneath, as heaven above
The earth;[104]
they would certainly think them to have been written of this place
where we live, and that here is hell and Tartarus, and that the earth
which is equally distant from heaven and hell is only the moon.
26. I had not well ended my discourse, when Sylla interrupting me said:
Forbear Lamprias, and put a stop to your discourse, lest running (as
they say) the vessel of your story on ground, you confound and spoil
all the play, which has at present another scene and disposition. I
myself therefore shall be the actor, but shall, before I enter upon
my part, make known to you the poet or author; beginning, if there is
nothing to hinder, with that of Homer,
An isle Ogygia lies in Ocean’s arms,[105]
distant about five days’ sail westward from Britain; and before it
there are three others, of an equal distance from one another and also
from that, bearing north-west, where the sun sets in summer. In one of
these the barbarians feign that Saturn is detained prisoner by Jupiter,
who, as his son, having the guard or keeping of those islands and the
adjacent sea, named the Saturnian, has his seat a little below; and
that the continent, by which the great sea is circularly environed, is
distant from Ogygia about five thousand stadia, but from the others
not so far, men using to row thither in galleys, the sea being there
low and ebb, and difficult to be passed by great vessels because of
the mud brought thither by a multitude of rivers, which, coming from
the mainland, discharge themselves into it, and raise there great bars
and shelves that choke up the river and render it hardly navigable;
whence anciently there arose an opinion of its being frozen. Moreover,
the coasts of this continent lying on the sea are inhabited by the
Greeks about a bay not much smaller than the Maeotic, the mouth of
which lies in a direct line over against that of the Caspian Sea. These
name and esteem themselves the inhabitants of the firm land, calling
all us others islanders, as dwelling in a land encompassed round about
and washed by the sea. And they think that those who heretofore came
thither with Hercules and were left there by him, mixing themselves
with the people of Saturn, raised up again the Greek nation, which was
well near extinguished, brought under and supplanted by the language,
laws, and manners of the barbarians, and made it again flourish and
recover its pristine vigor. And therefore in that place they give the
first honor to Hercules, and the second to Saturn. Now when the star of
Saturn, by us called Phaenon and by them Nycturus, comes to the sign
of Taurus, as it does once in the time of thirty years, they, having
been a long time preparing what is necessary for a solemn sacrifice and
a long voyage or navigation, send forth those on whom the lots fall
to row in that vast sea, and make their abode for a great while in
foreign countries. These men then, being embarked and departed, meet
with different adventures, some in one manner, others in another. Now
such as have in safety passed the danger of the sea go first ashore in
those opposite, islands, which are inhabited by the Greeks, where they
see that the sun is scarce hidden one full hour during the space of
thirty days, and that this is their night, of which the darkness is but
small, as having a twilight from the going down of the sun not unlike
the dawning of the day; that having continued there ninety days,
during which they are highly caressed and honored, as being reputed
and termed holy men, they are afterwards conducted by the winds,
and transported into the isle of Saturn, where there are no other
inhabitants but themselves and such as have been sent thither before
them. For though it is lawful for them, after they have served Saturn
thirty years, to return home to their own countries and houses, yet
most of them choose rather to remain quietly there; some, because they
are already accustomed to the place; others, because without any labor
and trouble they have abundance of all things, as well for the offering
of sacrifices and holding festival solemnities, as to support the
ordinary expenses of those who are perpetually conversant in the study
of learning and philosophy. For they affirm the nature of the island
and the mildness of the air which environs it to be admirable; and that
there have been some persons who, intending to depart thence, have been
hindered by the Divinity or Genius of the place showing himself to
them, as to his familiar friends and acquaintance, not only in dreams
and exterior signs, but also visibly appearing to them by the means of
familiar spirits discoursing and conversing with them. For they say,
that Saturn himself is personally there, lying asleep in the deep cave
of an hollow rock, shining like fine gold, Jupiter having prepared
sleep instead of fetters and shackles to keep him from stirring;
but that there are on the top of this rock certain birds, which fly
down and carry him ambrosia; that the whole island is filled with an
admirable fragrancy and perfume, which is spread all over it, arising
from this cave, as from an odoriferous fountain; that these Daemons
serve and minister to Saturn, having been his courtiers and nearest
attendants when he held the empire and exercised regal authority
over men and Gods; and that having the science of divining future
occurrences, they of themselves foretell many things; but the greatest
and of the highest importance, when they return from assisting Saturn,
and reveal his dreams; for whatever Jupiter premeditates, Saturn
dreams; but his awakenings are Titanical passions or perturbations of
the soul in him, which sleep altogether controls, in order that the
royal and divine nature may be pure and incontaminate in itself.
This stranger then, having been brought thither, and there serving the
God in repose and at his ease, attained to as great skill in astrology
as it is possible for any one to do that has made the greatest progress
in geometry; as for the rest of philosophy, having given himself to
that which is called natural, he was seized with an extraordinary
desire and longing to visit and see the great island; for so they
call the continent inhabited by us. After therefore his thirty years
were passed and his successors arrived, having taken leave of all his
relations and friends, he put to sea, in other respects soberly and
moderately equipped, but having good store of voyage-provision in
vessels of gold. Now one day would not suffice to relate unto you in
particular what adventures befell him, how many nations he visited,
through how many countries he passed, how he searched into sacred
writings, and was initiated in all holy confraternities and religious
societies, as he himself recounted it to us, exactly particularizing
every thing. But give ear, I pray you, to what concerns the present
dispute. For he continued no small time at Carthage, a city not a
little also esteemed by us, where he found certain sacred skins of
parchment, which had been secretly conveyed thither when the old town
was sacked, and had there long lain hidden under ground. Now he told me
that, of all the Gods which appear to us in heaven, we ought chiefly to
honor the Moon, and earnestly exhorted me to be diligent in venerating
of her, as having the principal influence and dominion over our life.
27. At these things when I was amazed, and entreated him to declare and
explain them a little more fully to me, he said: The Greeks, O Sylla,
deliver many things concerning the Gods, but they are not always in
the right. For first, when they tell us that there is a Ceres and a
Proserpine, they say well; but not so well, when they put them both in
one and the same place. For one, to wit Ceres, is on the earth, and the
lady and mistress of all earthly things. The other, to wit Proserpine,
is in the moon, and the mistress of all lunar things; and she is called
both Cora and Persephone; Persephone, as being a bringer of light and
brightness, and Cora, because the apple of the eye, in which the image
of him who looks into it is represented, as the brightness of the sun
appears in the moon, is by the Greeks called κόρη. And as to what they
say concerning the wandering about of Ceres and Proserpine, and their
mutual seeking of one another, there is in it somewhat of truth, for
they long after each other, being separated, and often embrace in
shadow. And that Cora is sometimes in heaven and light, and sometimes
in darkness and night, is not untrue; only there is some error in the
computation of the time. For we see her not six whole months, but every
sixth month, caught in the shadow by the earth, as by her mother; and
this rarely happens within five months, because it is impossible she
should forsake Pluto (Hades), being herself the bound or limit of
Hades; which Homer also covertly but not unelegantly signified, when he
said,
Into th’ Elysian fields, earth’s utmost bounds,
The Gods will bring thee;[106]
for he has there placed the end and boundary of the earth, where the
shadow ceases and goes no farther. Now into that place no wicked or
impure person can have access. But good folks, being after their
decease carried thither, lead there indeed an easy and quiet, but yet
not a blessed and divine life, till the second death.
28. But what is that, O Sylla? said I. Ask me not, he replied, for I
am of myself going to declare it to you. The common opinion, which
most persons hold, is that man is a compound subject, and this they
have reason to believe. But they are mistaken in thinking him to be
compounded of two parts only. For they imagine that the understanding
is a part of the soul, but they err in this no less than those who
make the soul to be a part of the body; for the understanding as far
exceeds the soul, as the soul is better and diviner than the body. Now
this composition of the soul with the understanding makes reason; and
with the body, passion; of which the one is the beginning or principle
of pleasure and pain, and the other of virtue and vice. Of those three
parts conjoined and compacted together, the earth has given the body,
the moon the soul, and the sun the understanding to the generation of
man, ... as therefore brightness to the moon. Now of the deaths we
die, the one makes man two of three, and the other one of two. And the
former indeed is in the region and jurisdiction of Ceres, whence the
name given to her mysteries (τελεῖν) resembles that given to death
(τελευτᾶν). The Athenians also heretofore called the deceased sacred
to Ceres. As for the other death, it is in the moon, or region of
Proserpine. And as with the one the terrestrial, so with the other
the celestial Mercury doth dwell. This suddenly and with force and
violence plucks the soul from the body; but Proserpine mildly and in
a long time disjoins the understanding from the soul. And for this
reason is she called Μονογενής, that is, _only begotten_, or rather,
_begetting one alone_; for the better part of man becomes alone when
it is separated by her. Now both the one and the other happens thus
according to Nature. It is ordained by Fate that every soul, whether
with or without understanding, when gone out of the body, should
wander for a time, though not all for the same, in the region lying
between the earth and the moon. For those that have been unjust and
dissolute suffer there the punishments due to their offences; but the
good and virtuous are there detained till they are purified, and have
by expiation purged out of them all the infections they might have
contracted from the contagion of the body, as if from foul breath,
living in the mildest part of the air, called the meadows of Pluto,
where they must remain for a certain perfixed and appointed time.
And then, as if they were returning from a wandering pilgrimage or
long exile into their country, they have a taste of joy, such as they
principally receive who are initiated in sacred mysteries, mixed with
trouble, admiration, and each one’s proper and peculiar hope. For the
moon drives and chases out many souls which already long after it. And
some who are already come thither, and yet take pleasure in things
below, are seen descending down as it were into an abyss. But those
that are got on high, and are there securely seated, first go about as
victors, crowned with garlands called the wings of constancy, because
in their lives they restrained the unreasonable and passible part of
their soul, rendering it subject and obedient to the curb of reason.
Secondly, they are like to the rays of the sun in appearance, and like
to fire in their soul, which is borne aloft by the clear air which is
about the moon,—like fire here on the earth,—from which they gather
strength and solidity, as iron and steel do by their being tempered
and plunged in water. For that which was hitherto rare and loose is
compacted and made firm, and becomes bright and transparent; so that it
is nourished with the least exhalation in the world. And this is what
Heraclitus meant, when he said that the souls in Pluto’s region have
their smell exceeding quick.
29. Now they first see the moon’s greatness, beauty, and nature, which
is not simple nor unmixed, but a composition as it were of earth and
star. For as the earth mixed with wind and moisture becomes soft, and
as the blood tempered with the flesh gives it sense; so they say that
the moon, being mingled with an ethereal quintessence even to the very
bottom, is animated, becomes fruitful, and generative, and is equally
counterpoised with ponderosity and lightness. For even the world
itself, being composed of some things naturally moving upwards and
others by nature tending downwards, is exempt from all local motion or
change of place. These things also Xenocrates seems by a certain divine
reasoning to have understood, having taken his first light from Plato.
For Plato it was who first affirmed that every star is compounded of
fire and earth, by the means of certain intermediate natures given in
proportion; forasmuch as nothing can be an object of human sense which
has not in some proportion a mixture of earth and light. Now Xenocrates
says that the stars and the sun are composed of fire and the first or
primitive solid; the moon of the second solid and its own peculiar
air; and the earth, of water, fire, and the third solid. For neither
is the solid alone by itself, nor the rare alone by itself, capable or
susceptible of a soul. And let thus much suffice for the substance of
the moon.
Now as to her breadth and magnitude, it is not such as the
geometricians deliver, but manifoldly greater. And she seldom measures
the shadow of the earth by her greatness, not because she is small, but
because she adds to her motion by heat, that she may quickly pass the
shady place, carrying with her the souls of the blessed, which make
haste and cry. For when they are in the shadow, they can no longer hear
the harmony of the heavenly bodies. And withal, the souls of the damned
are from below presented to them, lamenting and wailing through this
shadow. Wherefore also in eclipses, many are wont to ring vessels of
brass, and to make a noise and clattering to be heard by these souls.
Moreover, that which is called the face of the moon affrights them
when they draw near it, seeming to them a dreadful and terrible sight;
whereas indeed it is not so. But as our earth has deep and great bays,
one here running between Hercules’s pillars into the land to us, and
others without, as the Caspian, and those about the Red Sea; so in
the moon also there are hollows and great depths. Now of these, the
greatest they call the gulf of Hecate, where the souls punish or are
punished according to the evils they suffered or did whilst they were
Daemons. The two others are long passages, through which the soul must
go sometimes to that part of the moon which is towards heaven, and
sometimes to that which is towards earth. Now that part of the moon
which is towards heaven is called the Elysian fields; and that which
is towards the earth, the fields of Proserpine that is opposite to the
earth.
30. The Daemons do not always stay in the moon, but sometimes descend
down here below, to have the care and superintendency of oracles. They
are assistant also, and join in celebrating the sublimest ceremonies,
having their eye upon misdeeds, which they punish, and preserving the
good as well in perils of war as of the sea. And if in the performance
of this charge they commit any fault, either through anger, envy, or
any unjust grace or favor, they smart for it; for they are again thrust
down to the earth, and tied to human bodies. Now those who were about
Saturn said, that themselves were some of the better of these Daemons;
as were formerly those that were heretofore in Crete called Dactyli
Idaei, the Corybantes in Phrygia, and the Trophoniades in Lebadea, a
city of Boeotia, and infinite others in several places of the habitable
earth, whose names, temples, and honors continue to this day. But the
powers of some fail, being by a most happy change translated to another
place; which translations some obtain sooner, others later, when the
understanding comes to be separated from the soul; which separation is
made by the love and desire to enjoy the image of the sun, in which and
by which shines that divine, desirable, and happy beauty, which every
other nature differently longs after and seeks, one after one manner,
another after another. For the moon herself continually turns, through
the desire she has to be joined with him. But the nature of the soul
remains in the moon, retaining only some prints and dreams of life. And
of this I think it to have been well and truly said,
The soul, like to a dream, flies quick away;[107]
which it does not immediately, as soon as it is separated from
the body, but afterwards, when it is alone and divided from the
understanding. And of all that Homer ever writ, there is not any
passage more divine than that in which, speaking of those who are
departed this life, he says,
Next these, I saw Alcides’ image move;
Himself is with th’ immortal Gods above.[108]
For every one of us is neither courage, nor fear, nor desire,—no more
than flesh or humors,—but the part by which we think and understand.
And the soul being moulded and formed by the understanding, and itself
moulding and forming the body, by embracing it on every side, receives
from it an impression and form; so that although it be separated both
from the understanding and the body, it nevertheless so retains still
its figure and semblance for a long time, that it may with good right
be called its image.
And of these souls (as I have already said) the moon is the element,
because souls resolve into her, as the bodies of the deceased do into
earth. Those indeed who have been virtuous and honest, living a quiet
and philosophical life without embroiling themselves in troublesome
affairs, are quickly resolved; because being left by the understanding,
and no longer using corporeal passions, they incontinently vanish
away. But the souls of the ambitious and such as have been busied
in negotiations, of the amorous and such as have been addicted to
corporeal pleasures, as also of the angry and revengeful, calling to
mind the things they did in their lives, as dreams in their sleep, walk
wandering about here and there, like that of Endymion; because their
inconstancy and their being over-subject to passions transports them,
and draws them out of the moon to another generation, not letting them
rest, but alluring them and calling them away. For there is nothing
small, staid, constant, and accordant, after that being forsaken by
the understanding, they come to be seized by corporeal passions. And
of such souls, destitute of reason and suffering themselves to be
carried away by the proud violence of passion, were bred the Tityi and
Typhons; and particularly that Typhon who, having by force and violence
seized the city of Delphi, overturned the sanctuary of the oracle
there. Nevertheless, after a long tract of time the moon receives those
souls and recomposes them; and the sun inspiring again and sowing
understanding in them, the moon receives them by its vital power, and
makes them new souls; and the earth in the third place gives them a
body. For she gives nothing ... after death of all that she takes to
generation. And the sun takes nothing, but reassembles and receives
again the understanding which he gave. But the moon gives and receives,
joins and disjoins, unites and separates, according to divers faculties
and powers; of which the one is named Ilithyia or Lucina (to wit,
that which joins), and the other Artemis or Diana (to wit, that which
separates and divides). And of the three fatal Goddesses or Parcae, she
which is called Atropos is placed in the sun, and gives the principle
of generation; and Clotho, being lodged in the moon, is she who joins,
mingles, and unites; and the last, named Lachesis, is on the earth,
where she adds her helping hand, and with her does Fortune very much
participate. For that which is without a soul is weak in itself and
liable to be affected by others. The understanding is sovereign over
all the rest, and cannot be made to suffer by any. Now the soul is a
certain middle thing mixed of them both; as the moon was by God made
and created a composition and mixture of things high and low, having
the same proportion to the sun as the earth has to her.
This (said Sylla) is what I understood from this guest of mine, who
was a stranger and a traveller; and this he said he learned from the
Daemons who served and ministered to Saturn. And you, O Lamprias, may
take my relation in such part as you please.
OF FATE.[109]
I WILL endeavor, my dearest Piso, to send you my opinion concerning
Fate, written with all the clearness and compendiousness I am capable
of; since you, who are not ignorant how cautious I am of writing, have
thought fit to make it the subject of your request.
1. You are first then to know that this word Fate is spoken and
understood two manner of ways; the one as it is an energy, the other
as it is a substance. First therefore, as it is an action, Plato[110]
has under a type described it, saying thus in his dialogue entitled
Phaedrus: “And this is a sanction of Adrastea (or an inevitable
ordinance), that whatever soul being an attendant on God,” &c. And
in his treatise called Timaeus: “The laws which God in the nature of
the universe has established for immortal souls.” And in his book of
a Commonweal he calls Fate “the speech of the virgin Lachesis, who is
the daughter of Necessity.” By which sentences he not tragically but
theologically shows us what his sentiments are in this matter. Now if
any one, translating the fore-cited passages, would have them expressed
in more familiar terms, the description in Phaedrus may be thus
explained: That Fate is a divine sentence, intransgressible because
its cause cannot be divested or hindered. And according to what he has
said in his Timaeus, it is a law ensuing on the nature of the universe,
according to which all things that are done are transacted. For this
does Lachesis effect, who is indeed the daughter of Necessity,—as we
have both already related, and shall yet better understand by that
which will be said in the progress of our discourse. Thus you see what
Fate is, when it is taken for an action.
2. But as it is a substance, it seems to be the universal soul of
the world, and admits of a threefold distribution; the first destiny
being that which errs not; the second, that which is thought to err;
and the third that which, being under the heaven, is conversant about
the earth. Of these, the highest is called Clotho, the next Atropos,
and the lowest, Lachesis; who, receiving the celestial influences
and efficacies of her sisters, transmits and fastens them to the
terrestrial things which are under her government. Thus have we
declared briefly what is to be said of Fate, taken as a substance;
what it is, what are its parts, after what manner it is, how it is
ordained, and how it stands, both in respect to itself and to us. But
as to the particularities of these things, there is another fable in
his Commonweal, by which they are in some measure covertly insinuated,
and we ourselves have, in the best manner we can, endeavored to explain
them to you.
3. But we now once again turn our discourse to Fate, as it is an
energy. For concerning this it is that there are so many natural,
moral, and logical questions. Having therefore already in some sort
sufficiently defined what it is, we are now in the next place to say
something of its quality, although it may to many seem absurd. I
say then that Fate, though comprehending as it were in a circle the
infinity of all those things which are and have been from infinite
times and shall be to infinite ages, is not in itself infinite, but
determinate and finite; for neither law, reason, nor any other divine
thing can be infinite. And this you will the better understand, if
you consider the total revolution and the whole time in which the
revolutions of the eight circles (that is, of the eight spheres of the
fixed stars, sun, moon, and five planets), having (as Timaeus[111]
says) finished their course, return to one and the same point, being
measured by the circle of the Same, which goes always after one manner.
For in this order, which is finite and determinate, shall all things
(which, as well in heaven as in earth, consist by necessity from above)
be reduced to the same situation, and restored again to their first
beginning. Wherefore the habitude of heaven alone, being thus ordained
in all things, as well in regard of itself as of the earth and all
terrestrial matters, shall again (after long revolutions) one day
return; and those things that in order follow after, and being linked
together in a continuity are maintained in their course, shall be
present, every one of them by necessity bringing what is its own. But
for the better clearing of this matter, let us understand that whatever
is in us or about us is not wrought by the course of the heavens and
heavenly influences, as being entirely the efficient cause both of my
writing what I now write, and of your doing also what you at present
do, and in the same manner as you do it. Hereafter then, when the same
cause shall return, we shall do the same things we now do, and in the
same manner, and shall again become the same men; and so it will be
with all others. And that which follows after shall also happen by
the following cause; and in brief, all things that shall happen in
the whole and in every one of these universal revolutions shall again
become the same. By this it appears (as we have said before) that
Fate, being in some sort infinite, is nevertheless determinate and
finite; and it may be also in some sort seen and comprehended, as we
have farther said, that it is as it were a circle. For as a motion of a
circle is a circle, and the time that measures it is also a circle; so
the order of things which are done and happen in a circle may be justly
esteemed and called a circle.
4. This therefore, though there should be nothing else, almost shows
us what sort of thing Fate is; but not particularly or in every
respect. What kind of thing then is it in its own form? It is, as far
as one can compare it, like to the civil or politic law. For first it
commands the most part of things at least, if not all, conditionally;
and then it comprises (as far as is possible for it) all things that
belong to the public in general; and the better to make you understand
both the one and the other, we must specify them by an example. The
civil law speaks and ordains in general of a valiant man, and also of
a deserter and a coward; and in the same manner of others. Now this
is not to make the law speak of this or that man in particular, but
principally to propose such things as are universal or general, and
consequently such as fall under them. For we may very well say, that
it is legal to reward this man for having demeaned himself valiantly,
and to punish that man for flying from his colors; because the law has
virtually—though not in express terms and particularly yet in such
general ones as they are comprehended under,—so determined of them.
As the law (if I may so speak) of physicians and masters of corporal
exercises potentially comprehends particular and special things within
the general; so the law of Nature, determining first and principally
general matters, secondarily and consequently determines such as are
particular. Thus, general things being decreed by Fate, particular and
individual things may also in some sort be said to be so, because
they are so by consequence with the general. But perhaps some one of
those who more accurately examine and more subtly search into these
things may say, on the contrary, that particular and individual things
precede the composition of general things, and that the general exist
only for the particular, since that for which another thing is always
goes before that which is for it. Nevertheless, this is not the proper
place to treat of this difficulty, but it is to be remitted to another.
However, that Fate comprehends not all things clearly and expressly,
but only such as are universal and general, let it pass for resolved
on at present, as well for what we have already said a little before,
as for what we shall say hereafter. For that which is finite and
determinate, agreeing properly with divine Providence, is seen more in
universal and general things than in particular; such therefore is the
divine law, and also the civil; but infinity consists in particulars
and individuals.
After this we are to declare what this term “conditionally” means; for
it is to be thought that Fate is also some such thing. That then is
said to be conditionally, which is supposed to exist not of itself or
absolutely, but as really dependent upon and joined to another; which
signifies a suit and consequence. “And this is the sanction of Adrastea
(or an inevitable ordinance), that whatever soul, being an attendant
on God, shall see any thing of truth, shall till another revolution be
exempt from punishment; and if it is always able to do the same, it
shall never suffer any damage.”[112] This is said both conditionally
and also universally. Now that Fate is some such thing is clearly
manifest, as well from its substance as from its name. For it is called
εἱμαρμένη as being εἰρομένη, that is, dependent and linked; and it is
a sanction or law, because things are therein ordained and disposed
consequentially, as is usual in civil government.
5. We ought in the next place to consider and treat of
mutual relation and affection; that is, what reference and respect Fate
has to divine Providence, what to Fortune, what also to “that which
is in our power,” what to contingent and other such like things; and
furthermore we are to determine, how far and in what it is true or
false that all things happen and are done by and according to Fate.
For if the meaning is, that all things are comprehended and contained
in Fate, it must be granted that this proposition is true; and if any
would farther have it so understood, that all things which are done
amongst men, on earth, and in heaven are placed in Fate, let this also
pass as granted for the present. But if (as the expression seems rather
to imply) the “being done according to Fate” signifies not all things,
but only that which is an immediate consequent of Fate, then it must
not be said that all things happen and are done by and according to
Fate, though all things are so according to Fate as to be comprised in
it. For all things that the law comprehends and of which it speaks are
not legal or according to law; for it comprehends treason, it treats
of the cowardly running away from one’s colors in time of battle,
of adultery, and many other such like things, of which it cannot be
said that any one of them is lawful. Neither indeed can I affirm of
the performing a valorous act in war, the killing of a tyrant, or the
doing any other virtuous deed, that it is legal; because that only is
proper to be called legal, which is commanded by the law. Now if the
law commands these things, how can they avoid being rebels against
the law and transgressors of it, who neither perform valiant feats of
arms, kill tyrants, nor do any other such remarkable acts of virtue?
And if they are transgressors of the law, why is it not just they
should be punished? But if this is not reasonable, it must then be
also confessed that these things are not legal or according to law;
but that legal and according to law is only that which is particularly
prescribed and expressly commanded by the law, in any action
whatsoever. In like manner, those things only are fatal and according
to Fate, which are the consequences of causes preceding in the divine
disposition. So that Fate indeed comprehends all things which are done;
yet many of those things that are comprehended in it, and almost all
that precede, should not (to speak properly) be pronounced to be fatal
or according to Fate.
6. These things being so, we are next in order to show, how “that
which is in our power” (or free will), Fortune, possible, contingent,
and other like things which are placed among the antecedent causes,
can consist with Fate, and Fate with them; for Fate, as it seems,
comprehends all things, and yet all these things will not happen by
necessity, but every one of them according to the principle of its
nature. Now the nature of the possible is to presubsist, as the genus,
and to go before the contingent; and the contingent, as the matter and
subject, is to be presupposed to free will; and our free will ought as
a master to make use of the contingent; and Fortune comes in by the
side of free will, through the property of the contingent of inclining
to either part. Now you will more easily apprehend what has been said,
if you shall consider that every thing which is generated, and the
generation itself, is not done without a generative faculty or power,
and the power is not without a substance. As for example, neither the
generation of man, nor that which is generated, is without a power;
but this power is about man, and man himself is the substance. Now
the power or faculty is between the substance, which is the powerful,
and the generation and the thing generated, which are both possibles.
There being then these three things, the power, the powerful, and the
possible; before the power can exist, the powerful must of necessity
be presupposed as its subject, and the power must also necessarily
subsist before the possible. By this deduction then may in some measure
be understood what is meant by possible; which may be grossly defined
as “that which power is able to produce;” or yet more exactly, if to
this same there be added, “provided there be nothing from without to
hinder or obstruct it.” Now of possible things there are some which
can never be hindered, as are those in heaven, to wit, the rising and
setting of the stars, and the like to these; but others may indeed be
hindered, as are the most part of human things, and many also of those
which are done in the air. The first, as being done by necessity, are
called necessary; the others, which may fall one way or other, are
called contingent; and they may both thus be described. The necessary
possible is that whose contrary is impossible; and the contingent
possible is that whose contrary is also possible. For that the sun
should set is a thing both necessary and possible, forasmuch as it is
contrary to this that the sun should not set, which is impossible;
but that, when the sun is set, there should be rain or not rain, both
the one and the other is possible and contingent. And then again of
things contingent, some happen oftener, others rarely and not so often,
others fall out equally or indifferently, as well the one way as the
other, even as it happens. Now it is manifest that those are contrary
to one another,—to wit, those which fall out oftener and those which
happen but seldom,—and they both for the most part depend on Nature;
but that which happens equally, as much one way as another, depends on
ourselves. For that under the Dog it should be either hot or cold, the
one oftener, the other seldomer, are both things subject to Nature; but
to walk and not to walk, and all such things of which both the one and
the other are submitted to the free will of man, are said to be in us
and our election; but rather more generally to be in us. For there are
two sorts of this “being in our power;” the one of which proceeds from
some sudden passion and motion of the mind, as from anger or pleasure;
the other from the discourse and judgment of reason, which may properly
be said to be in our election. And some reason there is to believe that
this possible and contingent is the same thing with that which is said
to be in us and according to our free will, although differently named.
For in respect to the future, it is styled possible and contingent; and
in respect of the present, it is named “in our power” and “in our free
will.” So that these things may thus be defined: The contingent is that
which is itself—as well as its contrary—possible; and “that which is in
our power” is one part of the contingent, to wit, that which now takes
place according to our will. Thus have we in a manner declared, that
the possible in the order of Nature precedes the contingent, and that
the contingent subsists before free will; as also what each of them
is, whence they are so named, and what are the qualities adjoined or
appertaining to them.
7. It now remains, that we treat of Fortune and casual adventure, and
whatever else is to be considered with them. It is therefore certain
that Fortune is a cause. Now of causes, some are causes by themselves,
and others by accident. Thus for example, the proper cause by itself
of an house or a ship is the art of the mason, the carpenter, or the
shipwright; but causes by accident are music, geometry, and whatever
else may happen to be joined with the art of building houses or ships,
in respect either of the body, the soul, or any exterior thing. Whence
it appears, that the cause by itself must needs be determinate and one;
but the causes by accident are never one and the same, but infinite and
undetermined. For many—nay, infinite—accidents, wholly different one
from the other, may be in one and the same subject. Now the cause by
accident, when it is found in a thing which not merely is done for some
end but has in it free will and election, is then called Fortune; as is
the finding a treasure while one is digging a hole to plant a tree, or
the doing or suffering some extraordinary thing whilst one is flying,
following, or otherwise walking, or only turning about, provided it be
not for the sake of that which happens, but for some other intention.
Hence it is, that some of the ancients have declared Fortune to be
a cause unknown, that cannot be foreseen by the human reason. But
according to the Platonics, who have approached yet nearer to the true
reason of it, it is thus defined: Fortune is a cause by accident,
in those things which are done for some end, and which are of our
election. And afterwards they add, that it is unforeseen and unknown
to the human reason; although that which is rare and strange appears
also by the same means to be in this kind of cause by accident. But
what this is, if it is not sufficiently evidenced by the oppositions
and disputations made against it, will at least most clearly be seen by
what is written in Plato’s Phaedo, where you will find these words:
PHAED. Have you not heard how and in what manner the judgment passed?
ECH. Yes indeed; for there came one and told us of it. At which we
wondered very much that, the judgment having been given long before, it
seems that he died a great while after. And what, Phaedo, might be the
cause of it? PHAED. It was a fortune which happened to him, Echecrates.
For it chanced that, the day before the judgment, the stern of the
galley which the Athenians send every year to the isle of Delos was
crowned.[113]
In which discourse it is to be observed, that the expression _happened
to him_ is not simply to be understood by _was done_ or _came to pass_,
but it much rather regards what befell him through the concurrence of
many causes together, one being done with regard to another. For the
priest crowned the ship and adorned it with garlands for another end
and intention, and not for the sake of Socrates; and the judges also
had for some other cause condemned him. But the event was strange,
and of such a nature that it might seem to have been effected by the
providence of some human creature, or rather of some superior powers.
And so much may suffice to show with what Fortune must of necessity
subsist, and that there must be first some subject of such things as
are in our free will: its effect is, moreover, like itself called
Fortune.
But chance or casual adventure is of a larger extent than Fortune;
which it comprehends, and also several other things which may of their
own nature happen sometimes one way, sometimes another. And this, as
it appears by the derivation of its name, which is in Greek αὐτόματον,
_chance_, is that which happens of itself, when that which is ordinary
happens not, but another thing in its place; such as cold in the
dog-days seems to be; for it is sometimes then cold.... Once for all,
as “that which is in our power” is a part of the contingent, so Fortune
is a part of chance or casual adventure; and both the two events are
conjoined and dependent on the one and the other, to wit, chance on
contingent, and Fortune on “that which is in our power,”—and yet not on
all, but on what is in our election, as we have already said. Wherefore
chance is common to things inanimate, as well as to those which are
animated; whereas Fortune is proper to man only, who has his actions
voluntary. And an argument of this is, that to be fortunate and to be
happy are thought to be one and the same thing. Now happiness is a
certain well-doing, and well-doing is proper only to man, and to him
perfect.
8. These then are the things which are comprised in Fate, to wit,
contingent, possible, election, “that which is in our power,” Fortune,
chance, and their adjuncts, as are the things signified by the words
_perhaps_ and _peradventure_; all which indeed are contained in Fate,
yet none of them is fatal. It now remains, that we discourse of divine
Providence, and show how it comprehends even Fate itself.
9. The supreme therefore and first Providence is the understanding
or (if you had rather) the will of the first and sovereign God,
doing good to every thing that is in the world, by which all divine
things have universally and throughout been most excellently and most
wisely ordained and disposed. The second Providence is that of the
second Gods, who go through the heaven, by which temporal and mortal
things are orderly and regularly generated, and which pertains to the
continuation and preservation of every kind. The third may probably
be called the Providence and procuration of the Daemons, which, being
placed on the earth, are the guardians and overseers of human actions.
This threefold Providence therefore being seen, of which the first and
supreme is chiefly and principally so named, we shall not be afraid to
say, although we may in this seem to contradict the sentiments of some
philosophers, that all things are done by Fate and by Providence, but
not also by Nature. But some are done according to Providence,—these
according to one, those according to another,—and some according to
Fate; and Fate is altogether according to Providence, while Providence
is in no wise according to Fate. But let this discourse be understood
of the first and supreme Providence. Now that which is done according
to another, whatever it is, is always posterior to that according to
which it is done; as that which is according to the law is after the
law, and that which is according to Nature is after Nature, so that
which is according to Fate is after Fate, and must consequently be more
new and modern. Wherefore supreme Providence is the most ancient of
all things, except him whose will or understanding it is, to wit, the
sovereign author, maker, and father of all things. “Let us therefore,”
says Timaeus, “discourse for what cause the Creator made and framed
this machine of the universe. He was good, and in him that is good
there can never be imprinted or engendered any envy against any thing.
Being therefore wholly free from this, he desired that all things
should, as far as it is possible, resemble himself. He therefore,
who admits this to have been chiefly the principal original of the
generation and creation of the world, as it has been delivered to us by
wise men, receives that which is most right. For God, who desired that
all things should be good, and nothing, as far as possibly might be,
evil, taking thus all that was visible,—restless as it was, and moving
rashly and confusedly,—reduced it from disorder to order, esteeming
the one to be altogether better than the other. For it neither was
nor is convenient for him who is in all perfection good, to make any
thing that should not be very excellent and beautiful.”[114] This,
therefore, and all that follows, even to his disputation concerning
human souls, is to be understood of the first Providence, which in the
beginning constituted all things. Afterwards he speaks thus: “Having
framed the universe, he ordained souls equal in number to the stars,
and distributed to each of them one; and having set them, as it were,
in a chariot, showed the nature of the universe, and appointed them the
laws of Fate.”[115] Who then will not believe, that by these words he
expressly and manifestly declares Fate to be, as it were, a foundation
and political constitution of laws, fitted for the souls of men? Of
which he afterwards renders the cause.
As for the second Providence, he thus in a manner explains it, saying:
“Having prescribed them all these laws to the end that, if there should
afterwards happen any fault, he might be exempt from being the cause of
any of their evil, he dispersed some of them upon the earth, some into
the moon, and some into the other instruments of time. And after this
dispersion, he gave in charge to the young Gods the making of human
bodies, and the making up and adding whatever was wanting and deficient
in human souls; and after they had perfected whatever is adherent and
consequent to this, they should rule and govern, in the best manner
they possibly could, this mortal creature, so far as it should not be
the cause of its own evils.”[116] For by these words, “that he might
be exempt from being the cause of any of their evil,” he most clearly
signifies the cause of Fate; and the order and office of the young
Gods manifests the second Providence; and it seems also in some sort
to have touched a little upon the third, if he therefore established
laws and ordinances that he might be exempt from being the cause of any
of their evil. For God, who is free from all evil, has no need of laws
or Fate; but every one of these petty Gods, drawn on by the providence
of him who has engendered them, performs what belongs to his office.
Now that this is true and agreeable to the opinion of Plato, these
words of the lawgiver, spoken by him in his Book of Laws, seems to me
to give sufficient testimony: “If there were any man so sufficient by
Nature, being by divine Fortune happily engendered and born, that he
could comprehend this, he would have no need of laws to command him.
For there is not any law or ordinance more worthy and powerful than
knowledge; nor is it fitting that Mind, provided it be truly and really
free by Nature, should be a subject or slave to any one, but it ought
to command all.”[117]
10. I therefore do for mine own part thus understand and interpret
this sentence of Plato. There being a threefold Providence, the first,
as having engendered Fate, does in some sort comprehend it; the second,
having been engendered with Fate, is with it totally comprehended and
embraced by the first; the third, as having been engendered after Fate,
is comprehended by it in the same manner as are free will and Fortune,
as we have already said. “For they whom the assistance of a Daemon’s
power does aid in their intercourse with me” says Socrates, declaring
to Theages what is the almost inevitable ordinance of Adrastea
“are those whom you also mean; for they grow and come forward with
speed.”[118] In which words, what he says of a Daemon’s aiding some
is to be ascribed to the third Providence, and the growing and coming
forward with speed, to Fate. In brief, it is not obscure or doubtful
but that this also is a kind of Fate. And perhaps it may be found much
more probable that the second Providence is also comprehended under
Fate, and indeed all things that are done; since Fate, as a substance,
has been rightly divided by us into three parts, and the fable of the
chain comprehends the revolutions of the heavens in the number and
rank of those things which happen conditionally. But concerning these
things I will not much contend, to wit, whether they should be called
conditional, or rather conjoined with Fate, the precedent cause and
commander of Fate being also fatal.
11. Our opinion then, to speak compendiously, is such. But the contrary
sentiment does not only include all things in Fate, but affirms them
all to be done by and according to Fate. It accords indeed in all
things to the other (the Stoic) doctrine; and that which accords to
it, ’tis clear, is the same thing with it. In this discourse therefore
we have first spoken of the contingent; secondly, of “that which is
in our power;” thirdly, of Fortune and chance, and whatever depends on
them; fourthly, of praise, blame, and whatever depends on them; the
fifth and last of all may be said to be prayers to the Gods, with their
services and ceremonies.
For the rest, as to those which are called idle and reaping arguments,
and that which is named the argument against destiny, they are indeed
but vain subtleties and captious sophisms, according to this discourse.
But according to the contrary opinion, the first and principal
conclusion seems to be, that there is nothing done without a cause, but
that all things depend upon antecedent causes; the second, that the
world is governed by Nature, and that it conspires, consents, and is
compatible with itself; the third seems rather to be testimonies,—of
which the first is divination, approved by all sorts of people, as
being truly in God; the second is the equanimity and patience of wise
men, who take mildly and bear patiently whatever befalls, as happening
by divine ordinance and as it ought; the third is the speech so common
and usual in every one’s mouth, to wit, that every proposition is true
or false. Thus have we contracted this discourse into a small number of
short articles, that we might in few words comprehend the whole matter
of Fate; into which a scrutiny ought to be made, and the reasons of
both opinions to be weighed with a most exact balance. But we shall
hereafter come to discuss particulars.
CONCERNING THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF COLD.
1. Is there then, Favorinus, any first or principal power or existence
of cold, as fire is the principle of heat, by the presence and
imparting of which all other things of the same nature become cold? Or
rather is not cold the privation of heat, as they say darkness is the
privation of light, and rest the privation of motion? In regard that
cold seems to be firm and stable, and heat always in motion; and for
that the refrigeration of hot things is not caused by the presence of
any active power, but by the departure of the heat. For we find the
heat go off in great quantity, and then that which remains grows cold.
Thus the vapor which boiling water sends forth ceases also when the
heat is gone. Therefore refrigeration, expelling the heat, diminishes
the quantity, while nothing supplies the place of it.
2. First, we might question this way of arguing, as being that which
would abolish several manifest faculties, as being neither qualities
nor habits, but the privations of habits and qualities; so as to
make ponderosity the privation of levity, hardness the privation of
softness, black of white, bitter of sweet, and so with other things
which are naturally opposed to each other in their power and not as a
privation to a habit. Or else for this reason, because all privation
is a thing altogether sluggish and without action, as blindness,
deafness, silence, and death; for they are the departure of forms, and
the utter defacings of substances, not being natures nor substances of
themselves; but cold, wherever it resides, causes no less affections
and alterations in bodies than heat. For many things are congealed by
cold, many things thereby condensed. So that whatever is solid in it
and difficult to be moved cannot be said to be sluggish and void of
action, but firm and ponderous, as being supported by its own strength,
which is endued with a power to preserve it in its proper station.
Wherefore privation is the deficiency and departure of the opposite
power, but many things are subject to be cold, though abounding with
heat within themselves. And there are some things which cold the more
condenses and consolidates the hotter they are, as iron quenched in
water. The Stoics also affirm, that the spirit which is in the bodies
of infants is quickened by refrigeration, and changing its Nature,
turns to a soul. But this is a thing much to be disputed. Neither is it
rational to believe that cold, which is the productive agent in many
other things, can be a privation.
3. Besides, no privation is capable of more and less. Neither can
any man say, that one among those that cannot see is more blind than
another, or that one among those that cannot speak is more silent than
another, or that any thing is more dead than another among those things
that never had life. But in cold things there is more and less, and
excess and diminution to several degrees; in a word, there is both
intensity and remission as well as in hot things; because the matter
suffers in some things more violently, in others more languidly, and
therefore some things are hotter, some things colder than others,
according to the nature of the matter. For there is no mixture of habit
with privation. Neither does any power admit of privation opposite to
it, nor associate with it in the same subject, but it withstands it
altogether. Hot things allow themselves to be mixed with cold things
to a certain degree, as black with white, heavy with light, and sour
with sweet,—this community and harmony of colors, sounds, medicaments,
and sauces generating several tastes and pleasures grateful to the
senses. But the opposition of privation and habit is an antipathy never
to be reconciled; the being of the one enforcing the destruction of
the other. Which destruction, if it fall out seasonably, according to
the opposition of contrary powers, the arts make great use of, but
chiefly Nature, not only in her other creations, but especially in the
alterations of the air, and in all other things of which the Deity
being the adorner and dispenser obtains the attribute of harmonical and
musical. Not that those attributes are given him for the disposal of
deep and shrill, black and white, so as to make them agree together;
but for his governing in the world the sympathies and antipathies of
cold and heat in such a manner that they may unite and separate again,
and for reducing both to a decent order, by taking that which we called
“the over-much” from both.
4. Then again, we find that there is the same sense and feeling of
cold as of heat; but privation is neither to be seen, heard, or felt,
neither is it known to any of the other senses. For the object of sense
is substance; but where no substance appears, there we understand
privation to be,—which is a negation of substance, as blindness of
sight, silence of voice, and vacuity of corporeal substance. For
there is no sense or perception of vacuity by feeling; but where
there is no body to be felt, there a vacuity is implied. Neither do
we hear silence; but where we do not hear any thing at all, there we
imply silence. In like manner we have no perception of blindness,
nakedness, or being unarmed; but we know them from the negation of our
sense. Therefore if cold were a privation of heat, there would be no
being sensible of cold; but only where heat ceased to be, there cold
would be implied. But if, as heat is perceptible by the warmth and
laxative softness of the flesh, so cold is no less perceptible by the
contraction and condensation of it, it is from thence apparent, that
there is some peculiar original and fountain of cold as well as heat.
5. Further then, privation of every kind is something single and
simply particular; but in substances there are several differences and
efficacies. For silence is a thing but of one sort; but of sounds there
are great variety, sometimes molesting, sometimes delightful to the
sense. There are also the same differences in colors and figures, which
vary as they occur to the senses. But that which is not to be felt,
which is without color and void of quality, can never be distinguished,
but is always like itself.
6. Is cold therefore to be numbered among those privations that are
not distinguished in their action? Rather the contrary, in regard that
pleasures very great and beneficial to our bodies arise from cold
things; as no less terrible mischiefs, pains, and stupefaction on the
other side; which the heat does not always avoid and give way to, but
many times enclosed within the body, withstands and opposes. Which
contention of theirs is called quivering and shaking, at what time, if
the cold overcome the heat, thence proceed numbness and stiffness of
the limbs; but if the cold be vanquished by the heat, there follow a
pleasing warmth and opening of the skin, which Homer expresses by the
word ἰαίνεσθαι. These things are past dispute; and chiefly by these
passive qualities it is, that we find cold to be opposite to heat, as
substance to substance, or passive quality to passive quality, not as
negation or privation; neither is it the destruction or abolishing
of hot, but a kind of nature and power tending to its destruction.
Otherwise we should exempt the winter out of the seasons, and the north
winds out of the number of the winds, as being privations of the warmer
seasons and the southern gales, and not having any proper original.
7. Now in regard there are four first bodies in the universe, which, by
reason of their number, their being uncompounded, and their efficacy,
are allowed for the most part to be the principles and beginnings of
all other,—that is to say, fire and water, air and earth,—is there not
the same necessity that there should be as many first and uncompounded
qualities? And what are they but heat and cold, drought and moisture,
by virtue of which it comes to pass that all the principles act and
suffer? Thus, as there are in grammar lengthenings and shortenings
of sounds, in music, deep and acute sounds, though not one of them
is the privation of the other; we must leave the dry opposed to the
moist principles, and the hot to the cold, if we intend to have the
effects answerable to reason and what is visible in Nature. Unless,
as it was the opinion of the ancient Anaximenes, we will not allow
either cold or hot to be in substance, but only to be common passive
qualities accompanying the alterations of the matter. For he affirms
the contraction and condensation of the matter to be cold; but the
rarefication and laxation of it (for by that word he calls it) to be
hot. Whence it may not be improperly said, that a man breathes hot and
cold at once. For the breath grows cold being compressed and thickened
by the lips, but coming out of the open mouth it is hot, as being
rarefied by that emission. But for this, Aristotle convinces the same
person of ignorance; for that when we blow with the mouth open, we blow
hot from our own bodies; but when we blow with compressed lips, we do
not breathe forth the air from ourselves, but the air that is before
our mouths, being cold, is thrust forward, and lights upon what is next
it.
8. But if we must grant that both heat and cold are substances, let us
proceed a little farther in our discourse, and enquire what sort of
substance is cold, and what is its first principle and nature.
They then who affirm that there are certain irregular triangular
figures in our body, and tell us also that shuddering, trembling, and
quivering, and whatever else we suffer of the same nature, proceed
from the roughness of those figures, if they mistake in the parts,
nevertheless derive the beginning from whence they ought. For we ought
to begin the question—as it were from Vesta—from the substance of all
things. By which it chiefly appears wherein a philosopher differs from
a physician, a husbandman, or a piper. For it is sufficient for these
to contemplate the last causes. For if the consideration of the nearest
causes of the affection go no farther than to find that the cause of a
fever is intenseness of heat, or the lighting of some humor where it
ought not to be, that the cause of blasting is the scorching heat of
the sun after rain, and that the cause why pipes give a bass sound is
the inclination of the pipes or the bringing them near one to another;
this is enough for the artist to know in reference to his business. But
when a philosopher for contemplation’s sake scrutinizes into the truth,
the knowledge of remote causes is not the end but the beginning of his
proceeding in search of the first and ultimate causes. Wherefore Plato
and Democritus, enquiring after the cause of heat and gravity, did
not stop at the consideration of earth and fire, but bringing things
perceptible to sense to beginnings intelligible only by the mind, they
went on even to the smallest, as it were the seeds of what they sought
for.
9. But it is much the better way for us in the first place to move
forward upon those things which are perceptible to sense, wherein
Empedocles, Strato, and the Stoics placed the substances of active
qualities; the Stoics ascribing primitive cold to the air, Empedocles
and Strato to the water; and perhaps there might be somebody else who
might affirm the earth to be the substance of cold. But first let us
consider the opinions of those already named.
Seeing then that fire is both hot and bright, therefore there must
be something opposite to fire which is cold and dark. For as dark is
opposite to light, so is cold to hot. Besides, as dark confounds the
sight, so cold confounds the feeling. But heat diffuses the sense of
feeling, as light diffuses the sense of seeing. Therefore that which is
first dark in nature is first cold. Now that the air is first dark, was
not unknown to the poets; for that they call the air darkness:
The thickened air the fleet with darkness covered,
Nor could the moonlight be from heaven discovered.[119]
And again:
Then darkness scattered and the fog dispelled,
The sun brake forth, and all the fight beheld.[120]
They also call the air, when it is without light κνέφας, as being as
it were κενὸν φάους (_void of light_.) The air collected and condensed
into a cloud is called νέφος, from its negation of light (νή-φάος). The
words also ἀχλύς and ὁμίχλη (_mist_), and whatever else restrains the
perception of light from the sense, are but distinctions of the air;
insomuch that the same part of it which is invisible and without color
(ἀειδές and ἄχρωστον) is called Hades and Acheron. So that, as the air
grows dark when the splendor of it fails, in like manner when heat
fails, that which is left is no more than cold air, which by reason of
its coldness is called Tartarus. And this Hesiod makes manifest, when
he calls it Τάρταρον ἠερόεντα (or _cloudy Tartarus_); and when a man
quakes and shivers for cold, he is said to tartarize. And so much for
this.
10. But in regard corruption is the alteration of those things that
are corrupted into that which is contrary to every one of them, let
us consider whether it be a true saying, “The death of fire is the
generation of air.” For fire dies like a living creature, being
quenched by force or going out of its own accord. Now quenching makes
the alteration of it into air more conspicuous. For smoke is a sort
of air, or, according to Pindar, a fuliginous vapor and exhalation,
“lashing the air with steaming smoke.”[121] On the other side, when
fire goes out for want of fuel, as in candles, you shall observe a
thick and cloudy air ascending from the top of them. Moreover, the
vapor steaming from our bodies upon the pouring of cold water after
hot bathing or sweating sufficiently declares the alteration of
extinguished heat into air, as being naturally opposite to air; whence
it follows that the air was at first dark and cold.
11. Then again, congelation, which is the most forcible and violent of
all things that befall our bodies by reason of cold, is the affection
of water, but the action of air. For water of itself is easily
diffused, loose in its parts, and not readily congealed together; but
it is thickened and compressed by the air, by reason of the coldness of
it. Which is the reason of the proverb:
But if the southern wind provoke the north,
Snow straight will cover all the earth.
For the southern wind preparing the moisture as matter, presently the
north wind receives and congeals it. And this is manifest from the
consideration of snow; for ere it falls, you shall observe a thin and
sharp cold air breathing before it. Aristotle also tells us, that
whetstones of lead [?] will melt and run in the winter through excess
of freezing cold, merely upon the setting of the water near them. For
it is probable that the air compresses and gripes the bodies so close
together, that at length it breaks and crumbles them in pieces.
12. And therefore water drawn from a fountain soonest congeals; for
the more of cold in the air overcomes the less of cold in the water.
Thus if a man takes cold water out of a well and puts it into a vessel,
and then lets the vessel down again into the well, so that it may not
touch the water but hang for some time in the air, the water will be
much colder. Whence it is apparent, that the coldness of the water is
not the first cause of coldness, but the coldness of the air. For you
do not find that any of your great rivers are ever thoroughly frozen,
by reason of their depth. For the air doth not pierce through the
whole; only so much as it can seize and embrace with its cold quality
generally freezes, and no more. Therefore the barbarians never cross
over frozen rivers till they have sent a fox before to try the depth
of the ice. For if the ice be not very thick, but only superficial,
the fox, perceiving it by the noise of the water floating underneath,
returns. And some there are that melt the ice with hot water to make
way for their lines, when they go to catch fish in winter. So that
nothing suffers from cold in the depth of the water. Nevertheless,
so great has been the alteration of the upper parts of the water by
congelation, that several vessels riding in the stream have been
bruised and broken by the forcible compressure and griping of the
congelation; as we have heard from them who lately had their winter
quarters with Caesar upon the Danube. And indeed, what happens to
ourselves is sufficient to demonstrate the truth of this. For after hot
bathings and sweatings, we are most sensible of cold, at what time,
our bodies being open and the skin relaxed, we give a freer entrance
to the cold together with the ambient air. And after the very same
manner the water itself suffers. For it sooner freezes if it be first
heated, as being thereby rendered more easy for the air to work upon.
And therefore they who lade out scalding water, and let it fall again
from a good height in the air, do it to no other purpose than to mix it
with a great deal of air. And therefore, Favorinus, the arguments that
attribute the first power of cold to the air are grounded upon these
probabilities.
13. Those that allow it to water lean upon principles of the same
nature. And this was intimated by Empedocles, where he says:
Behold the sun, how warm he is,
And shining everywhere;
But rain and tempests cold and dark
With horror fill the air.
And thus opposing cold to heat, and dark to bright, he gives us to
understand that black and cold are both of the same substance, as also
are bright and hot. Now that black is proper to the water and not to
the air, sense itself bears witness, nothing being darkened by the
air, all things being clouded and blackened by water. So that if you
throw the whitest wool that is, or a white garment into the water, it
comes out black, and so remains, till the moisture be dried up again
by the heat, or squeezed forth by presses or weights. Also when the
ground is watered, the places that receive the drops grow black, the
rest retaining their former color. And therefore the deepest waters,
by reason of their quantity, always appear blackest, but the parts
which are next the air afford a lovely and smiling brightness. But
of all liquids, oil is the most transparent, because of the great
quantity of air that is in it. And of this, the lightness of it is an
unquestionable proof; the reason why it swims above all things, as
carried upward by the air. Being poured forth upon the waves, it will
cause calmness upon the sea, not because it is so slippery that the
winds can have no power over it, as Aristotle thought, but because the
waves will fall and sink when smitten by any moist body. And this is
also peculiar to oil, that it shines and causes a transparency at the
bottom of the water, while the watery humors are dispersed by the air.
For being spurted out of the mouth into the sea, not only by those
that sail in the night, but also by those that dive for sponges to the
bottom of the sea, it will cast a light in the water. Water therefore
has more of blackness than the air, but less of cold. Oil therefore,
partaking more of air than most liquid things, is least cold, nor will
it easily or suddenly freeze; for the air which is mixed with it will
not suffer the congelation to grow hard. And therefore, as for needles,
steel buckles, and such sort of small iron and steel wares, they never
quench them in water but in oil, fearing lest the over-coldness of the
water should make them too brittle. And indeed the truth is more truly
enquired into from the consideration of these experiments, than those
of colors. For hail, snow, and ice, as they are most transparent, so
are most cold; and pitch, as it is hotter, so it is blacker and darker
than honey.
14. This makes me admire at those who affirm the air to be cold because
it is dark and obscure, unless it be because they find others affirming
it to be hot because it is light. For dark is not so proper and
familiar to cold, as heavy and stable; for many things that are void
of heat partake of splendor and light, but there is nothing cold that
is light, nimble, or apt to ascend upward. Even the clouds themselves,
while they preserve the nature of air tower aloft in the sky; but
changing into moisture, they presently fall down, and having admitted
coldness, they lose their lightness as well as their heat. And so
on the other side, having regained their heat, they again return to
motion, their substance being carried upward as soon as it is changed
into air.
Neither is the argument produced from corruption true. For nothing
that perishes is corrupted _into_ what is opposite, but _by_ what
is opposite to it; as fire extinguished by water changes into air.
And therefore Aeschylus spake not merely like a tragedian but like a
philosopher, when he said,
The water curb, that punishment of fire.
In like manner Homer opposed in battle Vulcan to the river, and Apollo
to Neptune, more like a philosopher than a poet or mythologist. And
Archilochus spoke not amiss of a woman whose thoughts were contrary to
her words, when he said,
She, weaving subtle trains and sly vagaries,
Fire in one hand, in th’ other water carries.
Among the Persians there were several customs of supplication, of
which the chiefest, and that which would admit of no refusal, was when
the suppliant, taking fire in his hand and entering into a river,
threatened, if his supplications were denied, to throw the fire into
the water. But though his suit were granted him, yet he was punished
for threatening, as being against the law and contrary to Nature. And
this is a vulgar proverb in everybody’s mouth, to mix fire with water,
spoken of those that would attempt impossibilities; to show that water
is an enemy to fire, and being extinguished thereby, is destroyed and
punished by it,—not by the air, which, upon the change and destruction
of it, receives and entertains the substance of it. For if that into
which the thing destroyed is changed be contrary to it, why does fire
seem contrary to air more than water? For air changes into water by
condensation, but into fire by dissipation; as, on the other side,
water is turned into air by separation, into earth by condensation.
Which, in my opinion, happens by reason of the propriety and near
affinity between both, not from any thing of contrariety and hostility
one to another. Others there are, that, which way soever they maintain
it, spoil the argument. For it is most irrational to say that water is
congealed by the air, when they never saw the air congealed in their
lives. For clouds, fogs, and mists are no congelations, but thickenings
and condensations of the air moist and full of vapors; but a dry air
void of moisture never undergoes refrigeration to such a degree. For
there are some mountains that never admit of a cloud, nor dew, nor
mist, their tops being so high as to reach into an air that is pure and
void of moisture. Whence it is manifest that it is the condensation and
consistency below, which contributes that cold and moisture to the air
which is mixed with it.
15. Now that great rivers never freeze downwards is but consentaneous
to reason. For those parts which are frozen above transmit no
exhalation outward; for this, being penned up within and forced
downward, affords heat to the moisture at the bottom. A clear
demonstration of which is this, that when the ice is dissolved, you
may observe a steam arising out of the water upwards in a very great
quantity. And therefore the bodies of living creatures are warmest
within in the winter, for that the heat is driven inward by the ambient
cold. Now those upward exhalations and ascensions of the vapors deprive
the waters not only of their heat but of their coolness. And therefore
they that vehemently desire their drink to be cold never move the snow
nor the moisture that is pressed out of it; for motion would deprive
them both of the virtue which is required from them.
Now that this virtue is not the virtue of air, but of water, a man
may collect by reasoning thus from the beginning. First, it is not
probable that the air, which is next the sky, and touching the fiery
substance is also touched by it, should be endued with a contrary
virtue; for otherwise it is not possible that the extremities of the
one should touch and be contiguous to the extremities of the other.
Nor is it agreeable to reason that Nature should constitute that which
is corrupted next in order to that which corrupts, as if she were not
the author of community and harmony but of combat and contention.
For she makes use of contrary things in sustaining the universe; but
she does not use them pure and unmixed, nor so that they will be in
hostility; but she uses such as have alternately a certain position and
order which is not destructive, but which inclines them to communicate
and co-operate one with another, and to effect a harmony between
the opposing qualities. And this is the nature of the air, being
expanded under the fire above the water, contingent and adhering to
both, neither hot in itself nor cold, but containing an intermixture
and communion of hot and cold, harmlessly intermixed in herself; and
lightly cherishing the contrary extremities.
16. Therefore the air is of an equal temper in all places, but winter
is not in all places alike nor equally cold; but some parts of the
habitable world are cold and moist, others hot and dry, not by chance,
but because there is but one substance of heat and dryness. For the
greatest part of Africa is hot and without water. But they that have
travelled Scythia, Thrace, and the Pontic regions report them to
be full of vast lakes, and large and deep rivers. And as for those
regions lying between, those parts that join upon lakes and marshes
are most cold by reason of the exhalations from the water. Posidonius
therefore, affirming the freshness and moistness of the air of marshes
to be the cause of its cold, has no way disturbed the probability of
our argument, but rather added to the strength of it; for the air
would not always be the colder the fresher it is, unless cold has its
original from moisture. And therefore Homer much more truly shows us
the fountain of cold, when he says,
Chill from the river blows the wind
Before the coming morn.[122]
Then again it many times happens that our sense deceives us. So that
when we feel cold garments or cold wool, we believe we feel them to
be moist, by reason of the substance which is common to both, and of
their natures which are coherent and familiar one with another. But in
climates where the cold is extreme, it oftentimes breaks and cracks
both pots and vessels, whether made of earth or brass,—none empty, but
all full, the cold giving force and might to the liquor within,—which
made Theophrastus say, that the air breaks those vessels, making use of
the cold as of a hammer; whether more eloquently or more truly spoken,
I leave you to judge. For then vessels full of pitch or milk should be
more subject to be broken by the air.
But water seems to be cold of itself, and that primitively too; for
in respect of the coldness of it, it is opposite to the heat of the
fire; as to drought in respect of its moisture, and to ponderosity in
regard of its lightness. Lastly, fire is altogether of a dissipating
and dividing nature; water, of a nature to fasten and contain, holding
and joining together by virtue of its moisture. Which was the reason
why Empedocles called fire “a pernicious contention,” but water a
“tenacious friendship.” For the nourishment of fire is that which
changes into fire, and it changes that which is as it were of kin and
familiar to it. What is contrary to it, as water, cannot be changed by
it, or at least only with great difficulty. True it is, that as for
itself, as I may so say, it cannot be burned; but as for green wood
and wet straw, it overcomes them with much struggling, while the heat
and cold contending together, by reason of their moisture and their
natural antipathy, produce only a dull flame, clouded with smoke, that
makes little progress upon the materials.
17. Compare these arguments with theirs, and consider them well. But
Chrysippus, believing the air to be the primitive cold, because it is
dark, makes mention only of those that say the water lies at farther
distance from the sky than the air. And being desirous to give some
answer to them, “If so,” says he, “we may as well affirm the earth to
be primitively cold, because it is the farthest distant from the sky;”
rejecting that, as altogether improbable and absurd. But for my part, I
am of opinion that there might be many probable and rational arguments
brought for the earth; beginning with that which Chrysippus chiefly
makes use of for the air. What is this? First, that it is dark. For
if he, assuming these two contrarieties of faculties, believes that
the one follows the other of necessity, then there might be produced
a thousand oppositions and repugnances of the earth in respect of the
sky, which would of necessity follow upon this which we have mentioned.
For it is not to be opposed only as heavy to light, or as that which
tends downward to that which moves upward, or as slow and stable to
swift and full of motion; but as that which is heaviest to that which
is most thin, or lastly, as that which is immovable of itself to that
which moves spontaneously, and as possessing the middle space to that
which is in a perpetual circular motion. Would it not be absurd to
aver that the opposition of heat to cold is accompanied with so many
and such remarkable contrarieties? But fire is bright, the earth is
dark, nay, the very darkest and most void of light of all things. The
air first of all participates of light, is soonest altered, and being
replenished with radiancy, diffuses the splendor of it far and near,
and shows itself a vast body of light. For the sun rising, as one of
the dithyrambic authors writes,
Presently doth fill
The spacious house of the air-prancing winds.
From thence the descending air disposes a part of her brightness to
the sea and lakes, and the hidden depths of profound rivers laugh and
smile so far as the air penetrates into them. Only the earth of all
bodies remains without light, and impenetrable to the beams of the sun
and moon. But it is cherished and comforted by them, and suffers a
small part of it to be warmed and softened by entrance of the heat. But
the solidness of it will not admit the brightness of light, only the
surface of it is enlightened; but the innermost parts of it are called
by the names of Darkness, Chaos, and Hades; and Erebus is nothing else
but that same perpetual darkness and horror in the body of the earth.
Besides, the mythologists tell us that Night was the daughter of the
Earth; and the mathematicians show that it is the shadow of the earth
eclipsing the body of the sun. For the air is filled with darkness by
the earth, as with light by the sun; and that part of the air which is
void of all light is that same length of the night which is caused by
the shadow of the earth. And therefore both men and many beasts make
use of the exterior air, and ramble in the dark, guided only by some
footsteps of light and certain effluxes of a dim twinkling that are
scattered through it; but he that keeps house and shuts himself up in
his chamber, as being encompassed by the earth, remains altogether
blind and without light. Also the hides and horns of beasts will not
admit of light by reason of their solidness; but being burnished and
shaved, they become transparent, the air being intermixed with them.
Moreover, I am of opinion that the earth is everywhere by the poets
said to be black, by reason of the darkness of it and want of light.
So that the antithesis of light and darkness is much more remarkable in
reference to the earth, than in respect of the air.
18. But this is nothing to the question. For we have shown that there
are many cold things which are bright and transparent, and many hot
things which are obscure and dark. But ponderosity, stability, density,
and immutability are qualities more properly belonging to cold, of
none of which the air partakes, but of all of which the earth has a
far greater share than the water. And yet in all these things cold, by
the judgment of sense itself, appears to be hard, to cause hardness,
and to make resistance. For Theophrastus tells us of fish that have
been frozen by extremity of cold, when they have chanced to bounce
ashore, that their bodies have been broken and crumbled to pieces like
a vessel of glass or potter’s clay. You yourself have heard at Delphi,
how that certain persons ascending to the top of Parnassus to succor
the Thyades that were overtaken with a violent storm of wind and hail,
their coats were frozen so hard and into a substance so like wood, that
being spread upon the ground they broke and crumbled to pieces. It also
stiffens the nerves and deprives the tongue of motion, congealing the
moist and softer parts of the body.
19. This being obvious to sight, let us consider the effect. Every
faculty, wherever it prevails, changes into itself whatever it
overcomes. Thus whatever is overcome by heat is set on fire; that
which is vanquished by wind is changed into air. That which falls into
water becomes well moistened, unless quickly saved. Of necessity,
therefore, those things which are violently affected by cold must
be changed into the primitive cold. For freezing is an excess of
refrigeration; which congelation ends in alteration and petrifaction,
when the cold, prevailing every way, congeals the liquid substance
and presses forth the heat; so that the bottom of the earth is, as
it were, a kind of congelation, and altogether ice. For there the
cold inhabits simple and unmixed, and removed hard and rigid at the
greatest distance from the sky. But as for those things which are
conspicuous, as rocks and precipices, Empedocles believes them to be
thrust forth and supported by the fire that burns in the bottom of
the earth. Which appears the more, in regard that, wherever the heat
is pressed forth and vanishes away, all those things are congealed or
stiffened by the cold; and therefore congelations are called πάγοι
(_stiffened_). And the extremities of many things where heat fails,
growing black, make them look like brands when the fire is out. For
cold congeals some things more, some things less; more especially such
things wherein it is primitively existent. For as, if it be the nature
of hot to render light, that which is hottest is lightest; if of moist
to soften, that which is moistest is softest; so if it be the nature
of cold to congeal, of necessity that which is coldest must be most
congealed,—that is to say the earth,—and that which is most cold must
be that which is by nature and primitively cold, which is no more than
what is apparent to sense. For mud is colder than water, and earth
being thrown upon fire puts it out. Your smiths also, when their iron
is melted and red hot, strew upon it the dust of marble to cool it and
stop the running of it too fluidly. Dust also cools the bodies of the
wrestlers, and dries up their sweat.
20. To go no farther, what means our own yearly practice to alter our
lodgings and habitations, while we remove in the winter so far as we
can into the upper parts of our buildings, but in the summer descend
again and seek convenient refuge in the lower edifices, sometimes
enjoying ourselves under ground in the very arms of the earth? Do we
not do it, as being guided by our senses for coolness’s sake to the
earth, and thereby acknowledging that to be the seat of primitive
cold? And certainly our coveting to live near the sea in winter may be
thought to be a kind of flight from the earth, since we seem to forsake
it, as far as we can, by reason of the nipping frosts, and run to
encircle themselves with the air of the sea for warmth’s sake; and then
again in the summer, by reason of the scorching heat, we desire the
earth-born upland air, not because it is cold of itself, but because it
had its original and blossomed from the primitive natural cold, and is
imbued with that power which is in the earth, as iron is imbued with
the virtue of the water wherein it is quenched. Then again, of river
waters we find those are the coldest that flow upon gravel and stones
and fall down from mountains; and of well-waters, those which are in
the deepest wells. For with these the exterior air is no longer mixed,
by reason of the depth of the wells, and the other arise out of the
pure and unmixed earth; like the river that falls from the mountain
Taenarum, which they call the water of Styx, rising out of a rock with
a parsimonious spring, but so cold that no other vessel except the hoof
of an ass will hold it; for all other sorts of vessels it breaks and
cracks to pieces.
21. The physicians also tell us that the nature of all sorts of earth
is binding and restrictive; and they number up several sorts of metals
which are made use of in physic by reason of their styptic and binding
qualities. For the element of earth is fit neither to cut nor to move,
neither has it any points, neither is it subject to be softened or
melted, but is firm and stable like a cube; and therefore it has both
ponderosity and coldness, and the faculty to thicken and condense moist
things; and it causes tremblings and quiverings in bodies by reason
of its inequality; and if it get the better by the utter expulsion
and extinguishing of the heat, it occasions a frozen and deadly habit
of body. Therefore earth either does not consume by burning, or else
burns with a very slow and difficult progress. But the air many times
darts forth flame from itself; and being once set on fire, it grows
fluid and flashes out in lightning. Heat also feeds upon moisture; for
it is not the solid part of the wood, but the moist and oily part, that
is combustible; which being consumed, the solid and dry is left behind
in the ashes. Neither do they arrive at their mark, who, pretending
to burn the ashes also, sprinkle them with oil and grease; for when
the liquid is consumed, the earthy part remains, do what they can.
Therefore, because the earth is not only of a nature not to be moved
from its station, but also unalterable in its substance and always
abiding in the habitation of the Gods, the ancients well called it
Hestia or Vesta (from _standing_), by reason of its immobility and
concretion; of which cold is the bond or ligament, as Archelaus the
philosopher termed it, which nothing is able to unloosen or soften, as
not being capable of heat and warmth.
As for those who say they have been sensible of the cold of air and
water, but never felt the earth so cold, they consider only the surface
of the earth, which is a mixture of air, water, sun, and heat. They
are no better than people who deny the aether to be naturally and
primitively hot, but believe it to be either scalding water or red hot
iron, because they feel and handle the one, but are not sensible of the
pure and celestial fire. In like manner, neither do they see the earth
which lies concealed at the bottom, though that be what is chiefly to
be taken for the earth, separated from all other things. We may see
some token of this lower earth in these rocks here about us, which from
their depths send forth a cold vapor so sharp and vehement that it is
hard to be endured. They also that desire cool drink throw small flint
stones into water. For it becomes denser and quicker to the taste,
through the cold which is carried upward fresh and unmixed from the
stones.
22. Therefore it was the opinion of the ancient philosophers and
learned men, that terrestrial and celestial things were not to be mixed
together, not so much out of a local consideration of uppermost and
lowermost, in respect of place, but with a respect to the difference
of faculties attributing hot and splendent, swift and light to the
immortal and sempiternal Nature, but believing dark and cold and slow
to be the unhappy portion of the dead under the shackles of corruption.
Since the body of a living creature, while it breathes and flourishes
(as the poets say), enjoys both heat and life; but being deprived of
these, and only the terrestrial parts remaining, presently cold and
stiffness take place, as if heat were naturally existent in every thing
else but only the earth.
23. These things, dear Favorinus, compare with what has been said by
others; and if they neither come too short of probability nor too much
exceed it, bid all their opinions farewell, as believing it much more
becoming a philosopher to pause in dubious matters, rather than over
hastily to side with any one particular party.
WHETHER WATER OR FIRE BE MOST USEFUL.
1. “Water is the best of things, but gold is like burning fire,” says
Pindar[123]. Therefore he positively assigns the second place to fire;
with whom Hesiod agrees, where he says,
First of all Chaos being had.[124]
For most believe that by the word chaos he meant water, from χύσις,
signifying _diffusion_. But the balance of argument as to this point
seems to be equal. For there are some who will have it that fire is the
principle of all things, and that like sperm it begets all things out
of itself, and resolves all things again by conflagration. Therefore,
not to mention the persons, let us consider the arguments on both
sides, which are to us the most convincing.
2. Now then, is not that the most useful to us, which in all places
and always and most of all we stand in need of,—like a piece of
household-stuff or a tool, nay, like a friend that is ready at all
hours and seasons? But fire is not always useful; for sometimes it is a
prejudice to us and we avoid it if we can. But water is useful, winter
and summer, to the healthy and sick, night and day; neither indeed is
there any time but that a man has need of it. Therefore it is that
the dead are called _alibantes_, as being without moisture (λιβάς)
and by that means deprived of life; and man may be without fire, but
never was any man without water. Besides, that which was existent from
the beginning and with the first creation of man must be thought more
useful than what was afterwards invented. From whence it is apparent,
that Nature bestowed the one upon us as a thing absolutely necessary,
the other fortune and art found out for superfluity of uses. Nor
was the time ever known when man lived without water, nor was it an
invention of any of the Gods or heroes; for it was present almost at
their generation, and it made their creation possible. But the use of
fire was a late invention of Prometheus, at what time life was without
fire, but not without water. And that this is no poetical fiction is
demonstrable from this, that there are many sorts of people that live
without fire, without houses, and without hearths, in the open air. And
Diogenes the Cynic made no use of fire; so that after he had swallowed
a raw fish, “This hazard,” said he, “do I run for your sakes.” But
without water no man ever thought it convenient or possible to live.
3. But why do I so meanly confine my discourse to the nature of men,
seeing there are many, nay, infinite sorts of creatures? The race of
man is almost the only one that knows the use of fire; the others live
and feed without fire. Indeed, beasts, birds, and creeping things live
upon roots, fruits, and raw flesh, without fire; but without water
neither fish nor fowl nor land animals can subsist. For all beasts that
feed upon flesh, of which there are some (as Aristotle reports) that
never drink, nevertheless support life and being merely by moisture. So
that of necessity that must be most profitable without which no sort of
life can subsist or endure.
4. Let us therefore make a step from animals that eat to things that
we ourselves make use of, such are plants and fruits; of which some are
altogether void of heat, others enjoy it but imperfectly and obscurely.
But moisture causes all things to germinate, increase, and bring
forth. Why should I stand to reckon up wine and oil, milk and honey,
and whatever else we reap and bring forth and see before our eyes,
when wheat itself, which is looked upon as a dry nourishment, grows by
alteration, putrefaction, and corruption of the moist matter?
5. Then again, that is most useful which is no way detrimental. Now
fire easily becomes most pernicious, but the nature of water is never
prejudicial. In the next place, that is most useful which affords
the benefit which it brings with least expense, and without any
preparation. But the benefit of fire requires cost and materials, and
therefore the rich make more use of it than the poor, and princes
than private persons; but water has that kindness for mankind, that
it freely offers itself to all alike, a benefit perfect in itself,
indigent of nothing, and wanting neither tools nor implements.
6. Moreover, that which by augmentation loses its benefit is of least
use. Such is fire, which like a devouring beast ravages all before it,
useful rather by art and skilful moderation, than of its own nature.
But from water there is nothing to be feared. Furthermore, that is
most useful which may be joined with another. But fire will not admit
of water, neither is it any way profitable by conjunction with it. But
water becomes profitable by joining with fire; and therefore hot waters
are wholesome, and sensibly cure several diseases. Neither shall you
ever find moist fire; but water both cold and hot is profitable for the
body of man.
7. Then again, there being four elements, water produces a fifth out
of itself, which is the sea, no less beneficial than the rest, as well
for commerce as for many other things. So that it may be said, this
element united and perfected our manner of living, which before was
wild and unsociable, correcting it by mutual assistance, and creating
community of friendship by reciprocal exchanges of one good turn for
another. And as Heraclitus said, If there were no sun, it would be
perpetual night; so may we say, If there were no sea, man would be the
most savage and shameless of all creature. But the sea brought the vine
from India into Greece, and out of Greece transmitted the use of corn
to foreign parts; from Phoenicia translated the knowledge of letters,
the memorials that prevent oblivion; furnished the world with wine and
fruit, and prevented the greatest part of mankind from being illiterate
and void of education. How is it possible then but that water should be
the most useful, when it thus furnishes us with an entirely new element?
8. Or can any man speak as follows in defence of the contrary? We say
then that God, as a master workman, had before him the four elements,
to complete the fabric of the universe; and these again were different
one from another. But earth and water were placed at the foundation,
like matter, to be formed and fashioned, participating of form and
order and of power to procreate and bring forth, so far as they are
assisted by air and fire,—the great artificers that mould them into
various shapes,—and lying dead till roused by them to act and generate.
Of these two latter, fire is the ruling agent. This is manifest by
induction. For earth without warmth and heat is altogether barren and
unfruitful; but fire, by virtue of its rousing and inflaming quality,
renders it diffusive, and swells it into generation. Nor can any man
find out any other cause why rocks and the dry tops of mountains are
not productive, but because they participate either nothing at all or
very little of fire.
9. Then generally for water, it is so far from being sufficient of
itself for the generation and preservation of other things, that it is
itself destroyed for want of fire. But fire is that which upholds every
thing in its proper being, and preserves it in its proper substance,
as well water itself as all other things; so that when fire leaves
it, water will stink, and it may be said that the want of fire is the
death and destruction of water. And thus we find in regard to pools
and all manner of standing waters, and such as are settled in pits
and holes without issue, what an offensive and dead stench they send
forth, and all for want of motion; for this kindles and preserves
heat in all things, and more especially in running waters and swift
streams, which being thus agitated and enlivened by heat, we commonly
say such waters “live.” Why then should not that be accounted the most
useful of the two, that affords to the other the cause of its being,
as fire does to water? Moreover, that is the most useful, of which if
an animal be wholly deprived, it must perish; for it is evident, that
anything without which an animal cannot live affords the reason and
cause why it exists. There is moisture also in things after they are
dead, nor are they altogether dried up; for otherwise moist bodies
would never putrefy; since putrefaction is the alteration of dry into
moist, or rather the corruption of moisture in flesh. Neither is death
any other than an absolute defect and want of heat, and therefore dead
carcasses are the coldest of all; so that if you do but touch them with
a razor, they will blunt the edge of it through excess of coldness.
Also in living creatures, those parts that least partake of heat are
most insensible, as the bones and hair, and those parts which are most
distant from the heart. Nay, to some of the most important things the
absence of fire and the presence of water are destructive. For plants
and fruits are not produced by moisture, but by the warmth of the
moisture; and cold waters are most certainly either less productive,
or altogether barren. For if water were fruitful in itself, it would
always, and that spontaneously too, bear fruit. But the contrary is
apparent, and it is rather baneful to generation.
10. Let us begin anew. As to the use of fire, considered as fire, we
have no need of water. Rather the contrary is to be made out; for water
extinguishes fire. And as for water, there is no use to be made of it
in most things without fire. For water heated becomes more useful,
whereas otherwise it is prejudicial. So that, of the two, that is to
be accounted best which is profitable of itself without the assistance
of another. Besides, water is beneficial only to the feeling, when
you either wash with it or touch it; but fire is profitable to all
the senses, being not only felt, but also seen at a distance; so that
you may add this to the rest of the virtues of it, that its uses are
manifold.
11. Then to say that man did once subsist without fire is a mistake, it
being impossible that man should be without it. But we must acknowledge
there are differences in this kind, as well as in other things. Thus
heat has rendered the sea more beneficial, as having a greater portion
of heat in it than other waters, from which it otherwise differs not at
all. And as for those that have no need of outward fire, they do not
avoid it because they do not want it, but because they abound in heat
within themselves. So that the use of fire seems to be more excellent
in this, that water is never in such a condition as not to want
external aids, but fire, endued with manifold virtues, contents itself
with its own sufficiency. Therefore, as he is the best commander who
so manages the affairs of his city as not to have any need of foreign
assistance, so that element excels that supplies us in such a manner as
to want the least of other helps from without. And this is to be said
of other creatures that have no need of external heat.
Now, to argue on the other side, a man may say thus, that whatever we
singly and alone make use of is more profitable, since we are by our
reason best fitted to choose what is best. For what is more useful and
beneficial to us than reason?... And yet brute animals want fire. What
then? Is it the less profitable, because found out by foresight of a
higher power?
12. And since our discourse has brought us to it, what is more
beneficial to life than art? Yet fire invented and preserves all
manner of arts. And therefore Vulcan is feigned to be the prince of
all artificers. Man has allowed him but a little time to live; and
as Aristo said, sleep, like a toll-gatherer, deprives him of the
one-half of that too. I would rather say that the darkness does this;
for a man may watch all night. But he would have no benefit of his
watchfulness unless fire afforded him all the benefit of the light of
day, and removed the difference between night and day. Since then there
is nothing more beneficial to man than life, and this is prolonged
by fire, why should not fire be accounted the most beneficial of all
things?
13. Lastly, that is to be thought most profitable, of which the
temperament of the senses participates most. Now do you find that there
is any of the senses, which of itself makes use of moisture without
an intermixture of air and fire? But every sense partakes of fire, as
being that which quickens the vital faculty; more especially the sight,
which is the most acute of all the senses in the body, being a certain
fiery efflux, that gave us our first light into the belief of a Deity,
and by virtue of which we are able, as Plato says, to conform our souls
to the motions of the celestial bodies.
AGAINST COLOTES, THE DISCIPLE AND FAVORITE OF EPICURUS.
1. Colotes, whom Epicurus was wont diminutively and by way of
familiarity or fondness, to call Colotaras and Colotarion, composed,
O Saturninus, and published a little book which he entitled, “That
according to the opinions of the other philosophers one cannot so much
as live.” This he dedicated to King Ptolemy. Now I suppose that it will
not be unpleasant for you to read, when set down in writing, what came
into my mind to speak against this Colotes, since I know you to be a
lover of all elegant and honest treatises, and particularly of such as
regard the science of antiquity, and to esteem the bearing in memory
and having (as much as possible may be) in hand the discourses of the
ancient sages to be the most royal of all studies and exercises.
2. Not long since therefore, as this book was reading, Aristodemus of
Aegium, a familiar friend of ours (whom you well know to be one of the
Academy, and not a mere thyrsus-bearer, but one of the most frantic
celebrators of Plato’s orgies),[125] did, I know not how, keep himself
contrary to his custom very still all the while, and patiently gave
ear to it even to the end. But the reading was scarce well over, when
he said: Well then, whom shall we cause to rise up and fight against
this man, in defence of the philosophers? For I am not of Nestor’s
opinion, who, when the most valiant of those nine warriors that
presented themselves to enter into combat was to be chosen, committed
the election to the fortune of a lot.
Yet, answered I, you see he so disposed himself in reference to the
lot, that the choice might pass according to the arbitrament of the
wisest man;
And th’ lot drawn from the helmet, as they wished,
On Ajax fell.
But yet since you command me to make the election,
How can I think a better choice to make
Than the divine Ulysses?[126]
Consider therefore, and be well advised, in what manner you will
chastise this man.
But you know, replied Aristodemus, that Plato, when highly offended
with his boy that waited on him, would not himself beat him, but
requested Speusippus to do it for him, saying that he himself was
angry. As much therefore may I say to you; Take this fellow to you, and
treat him as you please; for I am in a fit of choler.
When therefore all the rest of the company desired me to undertake
this office; I must then, said I, speak, since it is your pleasure.
But I am afraid that I also shall seem more vehemently transported
than is fitting against this book, in the defending and maintaining
Socrates against the rudeness, scurrility, and insolence of this man;
who, because Socrates affirmed himself to know nothing certainly,
instead of bread (as one would say) presents him hay, as if he were a
beast, and asks him why he puts meat into his mouth and not into his
ear. And yet perhaps some would make but a laughing matter of this,
considering the mildness and gentleness of Socrates; “but for the whole
host of the Greeks,” that is, of the other philosophers, amongst which
are Democritus, Plato, Stilpo, Empedocles, Parmenides, and Melissus,
who have been basely traduced and reviled by him, it were not only a
shame to be silent, but even a sacrilege in the least point to forbear
or recede from freedom of speech in their behalf, who have advanced
philosophy to that honor and reputation it has gotten.
And our parents indeed have, with the assistance of the Gods, given
us our life; but to live well comes to us from reason, which we have
learned from the philosophers, which favors law and justice, and
restrains our concupiscence. Now to live well is to live sociably,
friendly, temperately, and justly; of all which conditions they leave
us not one, who cry out that man’s sovereign good lies in his belly,
and that they would not purchase all the virtues together at the
expense of a cracked farthing, if pleasure were totally and on every
side removed from them. And in their discourses concerning the soul and
the Gods, they hold that the soul perishes when it is separated from
the body, and that the Gods concern not themselves in our affairs. Thus
the Epicureans reproach the other philosophers, that by their wisdom
they bereave man of his life; whilst the others on the contrary accuse
them of teaching men to live degenerately and like beasts.
3. Now these things are scattered here and there in the writings
of Epicurus, and dispersed through all his philosophy. But this
Colotes, by having extracted from them certain pieces and fragments
of discourses, destitute of any arguments whatever to render them
credible and intelligible, has composed his book, being like a shop or
cabinet of monsters and prodigies; as you better know than any one
else, because you have always in your hands the works of the ancients.
But he seems to me, like the Lydian, to open not only one gate against
himself, but to involve Epicurus also in many and those the greatest
doubts and difficulties. For he begins with Democritus, who receives
of him an excellent and worthy reward for his instruction; it being
certain that Epicurus for a long time called himself a Democritean,
which as well others affirm, as Leonteus, a principal disciple of
Epicurus, who in a letter which he writ to Lycophron says, that
Epicurus honored Democritus, because he first attained, though a
little at a distance, the right and sound understanding of the truth,
and that in general all the treatise concerning natural things was
called Democritean, because Democritus was the first who happened
upon the principles and met with the primitive foundations of Nature.
And Metrodorus says openly of philosophy, If Democritus had not gone
before and taught the way, Epicurus had never attained to wisdom. Now
if it be true, as Colotes holds, that to live according to the opinions
of Democritus is not to live, Epicurus was then a fool in following
Democritus, who led him to a doctrine which taught him not to live.
4. Now the first thing he lays to his charge is, that, by supposing
every thing to be no more of one nature than another, he wholly
confounds human life. But Democritus was so far from having been of
this opinion, that he opposed Protagoras the philosopher who asserted
it, and writ many excellent arguments concluding against him, which
this fine fellow Colotes never saw nor read, nor yet so much as dreamed
of; but deceived himself by misunderstanding a passage which is in his
works, where he determines that τὸ δέν is no more than τὸ μηδέν, naming
in that place the body by δέν, and the void by μηδέν, and meaning that
the void has its own proper nature and subsistence, as well as the
body.
But he who is of opinion that nothing is more of one nature than
another makes use of a sentence of Epicurus, in which he says that all
the apprehensions and imaginations given us by the senses are true.
For if of two saying, the one, that the wine is sour, and the other,
that it is sweet, neither of them shall be deceived by his sense, how
shall the wine be more sour than sweet? And we may often see that some
men using one and the same bath find it to be hot, and others find it
to be cold; because those order cold water to be put into it, as these
do hot. It is said that, a certain lady going to visit Berenice, wife
to King Deiotarus, as soon as ever they approached each other, they
both immediately turned their backs, the one, as it seemed, not being
able to bear the smell of perfume, nor the other of butter. If then
the sense of one is no truer than the sense of another, it is also
probable, that water is no more cold than hot, nor sweet ointment or
butter better or worse scented one than the other. For if any one shall
say that it seems the one to one, and the other to another, he will,
before he is aware, affirm that they are both the one and the other.
5. And as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little
passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much,
and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed
through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different
persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive
them to this, that things are no more of one quality than another? For
to pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they
see contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and
to solve this objection, they teach,—that all things being mixed and
confounded together, and yet one nevertheless being more suitable and
fitting to one, and another to another, it is not possible that there
should in all cases be a contact and comprehension of one and the same
quality, nor does the object equally affect all with all its parts,
every one meeting only those to which it has its sense commensurate
and proportioned; so that they are to blame so obstinately to insist
that a thing is either good or bad, white or not white, thinking to
establish their own senses by destroying those of others; whereas
they ought neither to combat the senses,—because they all touch some
quality, each one drawing from this confused mixture, as from a living
and large fountain, what is suitable and convenient,—nor to pronounce
of the whole, by touching only the parts, nor to think that all ought
to be affected after one and the same manner by the same thing, seeing
that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by
another. Let us then seek who those men are which bring in this opinion
that things are not more of one quality than another, if they are not
those who hold that every sensible thing is a mixture, composed of all
sorts of qualities, like a mixture of new wine fermenting, and who
confess that all their rules are lost and their faculty of judging
quite gone, if they admit any sensible object that is pure and simple,
and do not make each one thing to be many?
6. See now to this purpose, what discourse and debate Epicurus makes
Polyaenus to have with him in his Banquet concerning the heat of wine.
For when he asked, “Do you, Epicurus, say, that wine does not heat?”
some one answered, “It is not universally to be affirmed that wine
heats.” And a little after: “For wine seems not to be universally a
heater; but such a quantity may be said to heat such a person.” And
again subjoining the cause, to wit, the compressions and disseminations
of the atoms, and having alleged their commixtures and conjunctions
with others when the wine comes to be mingled in the body, he adds this
conclusion: “It is not universally to be said that wine is endued with
a faculty of heating; but that such a quantity may heat such a nature
and one so disposed, while such a quantity to such a nature is cooling.
For in such a mass there are such natures and complexions of which cold
might be composed, and which, joined with others in proper measure,
would yield a refrigerative virtue. Wherefore some are deceived, who
say that wine is universally a heater; and others, who say that it is
universally a cooler.” He then who says that most men are deceived
and err, in holding that which is hot to be heating and that which is
cold to be cooling, is himself in an error, unless he should believe
that his assertion leads to the doctrine that one thing is not more of
one nature than another. He farther adds afterwards, that oftentimes
wine entering into a body brings with it thither neither a calefying
nor refrigerating virtue, but, the mass of the body being agitated and
disturbed, and a transposition made of the parts, the heat-effecting
atoms being assembled together do by their multitude cause a heat and
inflammation in the body, and sometimes on the contrary disassembling
themselves cause a refrigeration.
7. But it is moreover wholly evident, that we may apply this argument
to all those things which are called and esteemed bitter, sweet,
purging, dormitive, and luminous, not any one of them having an entire
and perfect quality to produce such effects, nor to do rather than
to suffer when they are in the bodies, but being there susceptible
of various temperatures and differences. For Epicurus himself, in
his Second Book against Theophrastus, affirming that colors are not
connatural to bodies, but are engendered there according to certain
situations and positions with respect to the sight of man, says: “For
this reason a body is no more colored than destitute of color.” And
a little above he writes thus, word for word: “But apart from this,
I know not how a man may say that those bodies which are in the dark
have color; although very often, an air equally dark being spread
about them, some distinguish diversities of colors, others perceive
them not through the weakness of their sight. And moreover, going into
a dark house or room, we at our first entrance see no color, but after
we have stayed there awhile, we do. Wherefore we are to say that every
body is not more colored than not colored. Now, if color is relative
and has its being in regard to something else, so also then is white,
and so likewise blue; and if colors are so, so also are sweet and
bitter. So that it may truly be affirmed of every quality, that it
cannot more properly be said to be than not to be. For to those who
are in a certain manner disposed, they will be; but to those who are
not so disposed, they will not be.” Colotes therefore has bedashed and
bespattered himself and his master with that dirt, in which he says
those lie who maintain that things are not more of one quality than
another.
8. But is it in this alone, that this excellent man shows himself
To others a physician, whilst himself
Is full of ulcers?[127]
No indeed; but yet much farther in his second reprehension, without
any way minding it, he drives Epicurus and Democritus out of this
life. For he affirms that the saying of Democritus—that the atoms are
to the senses color by a certain law or ordinance, that they are by
the same law sweetness, and by the same law concretion[128]—is at war
with our senses, and that he who uses this reason and persists in this
opinion cannot himself imagine whether he is living or dead. I know not
how to contradict this discourse; but this I can boldly affirm, that
this is as inseparable from the sentences and doctrines of Epicurus
as they say figure and weight are from atoms. For what is it that
Democritus says? “There are substances, in number infinite, called
atoms (because they cannot be divided), without difference, without
quality, and impassible, which move, being dispersed here and there,
in the infinite voidness; and that when they approach one another,
or meet and are conjoined, of such masses thus heaped together, one
appears water, another fire, another a plant, another a man; and that
all things are thus really atoms (as he called them), and that there
is nothing else; for there can be no generation from what is not; and
of those things which are nothing can be generated, because these
atoms are so firm, that they can neither change, alter, nor suffer;
wherefore there cannot be made color of those things which are without
color, nor nature or soul of those things which are without quality and
impassible.” Democritus then is to be blamed, not for confessing those
things that happen upon his principles, but for supposing principles
upon which such things happen. For he should not have supposed
immutable principles; or having supposed them, he ought to have seen
that the generation of all quality is taken away; but having seen the
absurdity, to deny it is most impudent. But Epicurus says, that he
supposes the same principles with Democritus, but that he says not that
color, sweet, white, and other qualities, are by law and ordinance. If
therefore _not to say_ is merely _not to confess_, he does merely what
he is wont to do. For it is as when, taking away divine Providence,
he nevertheless says that he leaves piety and devotion towards the
Gods; and when, choosing friendship for the sake of pleasure, that he
suffers most grievous pains for his friends; and supposing the universe
to be infinite, that he nevertheless takes not away high and low....
Indeed having taken the cup, one may drink what he pleases, and return
the rest. But in reasoning one ought chiefly to remember this wise
apophthegm, that where the principles are not necessary, the ends and
consequences are necessary. It was not then necessary for him to
suppose or (to say better) to steal from Democritus, that atoms are
the principles of the universe; but having supposed this doctrine, and
having pleased and glorified himself in the first probable and specious
appearances of it, he must afterwards also swallow that which is
troublesome in it, or must show how bodies which have not any quality
can bring all sorts of qualities to others only by their meetings and
joining together. As—to take that which comes next to hand—whence does
that which we call heat proceed, and how is it engendered, in the
atoms, if they neither had heat when they came, nor are become hot
after their being joined together? For the one presupposes that they
had some quality, and the other that they were fit to receive it. And
you affirm, that neither the one nor the other must be said to belong
to atoms, because they are incorruptible.
9. How then? Do not Plato, Aristotle, and Xenocrates produce gold
from that which is not gold, and stone from that which is not stone,
and many other things from the four simple first bodies? Yes indeed;
but with those bodies immediately concur also the principles for the
generation of every thing, bringing with them great contributions, that
is, the first qualities which are in them; then, when they come to
assemble and join in one the dry with the moist, the cold with the hot,
and the solid with the soft,—that is active bodies with such as are fit
to suffer and receive every alteration and change,—then is generation
wrought by passing from one temperature to another. Whereas the atom,
being alone, is deprived and destitute of all quality and generative
faculty, and when it comes to meet with the others, it can make only a
noise and sound because of its hardness and firmness, but nothing else.
For they always strike and are stricken, not being able by this means
to compose or make an animal, a soul, or a nature, nay, not so much as
a mass or heap of themselves; for that as they beat upon one another,
so they fly back again asunder.
10. But Colotes, as if he were speaking to some ignorant and unlettered
king, again attacks Empedocles for breathing forth the same thought:
I’ve one thing more to say. 'Mongst mortals there
No Nature is; nor that grim thing men fear
So much, called death. There only happens first
A mixture, and mixt things asunder burst
Again, when them disunion does befall.
And this is that which men do Nature call.
For my part, I do not see how this is repugnant and contrary to life or
living, especially amongst those who hold that there is no generation
of that which is not, nor corruption of that which is, but that the
assembling and union of the things which are is called generation, and
their dissolution and disunion named corruption and death. For that
he took Nature for generation, and that this is his meaning, he has
himself declared, when he opposed Nature to death. And if they neither
live nor can live who place generation in union and death in disunion,
what else do these Epicureans? Yet Empedocles, gluing, (as it were) and
conjoining the elements together by heats, softnesses, and humidities,
gives them in some sort a mixtion and unitive composition; but these
men who hunt and drive together the atoms, which they affirm to be
immutable and impassible, compose nothing proceeding from them, but
indeed make many and continual percussions of them.
For the interlacement, hindering the dissolution, more and more
augments the collision and concussion; so that there is neither mixtion
nor adhesion and conglutination, but only a confusion and combat, which
according to them is called generation. And if the atoms do now recoil
for a moment by reason of the shock they have given, and then return
again after the blow is past, they are above double the time absent
from one another, without either touching or approaching, so as nothing
can be made of them, not even so much as a body without a soul. But as
for sense, soul, understanding, and prudence, there is not any man who
can in the least conceive or imagine how it is possible they should
be made in a voidness, and of atoms which neither when separate and
apart have any quality, nor any passion or alteration when they are
assembled and joined together, especially seeing this their meeting
together is not an incorporation or congress, making a mixture or
coalition, but rather percussions and repercussions. So that, according
to the doctrine of these people, life is taken away, and the being
of an animal denied, since they suppose principles void, impassible,
godless, and soulless, and such as cannot admit or receive any mixture
or incorporation whatever.
11. How then is it, that they admit and allow Nature, soul, and living
creature? Even in the same manner as they do an oath, prayer, and
sacrifice, and the adoration of the Gods. Thus they adore by word
and mouth, only naming and feigning that which by their principles
they totally take away and abolish. If now they call that which is
born Nature, and that which is engendered generation,—as those who
ordinarily call the wood itself wood-work and the voices that accord
and sound together symphony,—whence came it into his mind to object
these words against Empedocles? “Why,” says he, “do we tire ourselves
in taking such care of ourselves, in desiring and longing after certain
things, and shunning and avoiding others? For we neither are ourselves,
nor do we live by making use of others.” But be of good cheer, my
dear little Colotes, may one perhaps say to him: there is none who
hinders you from taking care of yourself by teaching that the nature
of Colotes is nothing else but Colotes himself, or who forbids you to
make use of things (now things with you are pleasures) by showing
that there is no nature of tarts and marchpanes, of sweet odors, or of
venereal delights, but that there are tarts, marchpanes, perfumes, and
women. For neither does the grammarian who says that “the strength of
Hercules” is Hercules himself deny the being of Hercules; nor do those
who say that symphonies and roofings are but bare derivations affirm
that there are neither sounds nor timbers; since also there are some
who, taking away the soul and prudence, do not yet seem to take away
either living or being prudent.
And when Epicurus says that the nature of things consists in bodies
and their place, do we so comprehend him as if he meant that Nature
were something else than the things which are, or as if he insinuated
that it is simply the things which are, and nothing else?—as, to wit,
he is wont to call voidness itself the nature of voidness, and the
universe, by Jupiter, the nature of the universe. And if any one should
thus question him; What sayst thou, Epicurus, that this is voidness,
and that the nature of voidness? No, by Jupiter, would he answer; but
this community of names is in use by law and custom. I grant it is. Now
what has Empedocles done else, but taught that Nature is nothing else
save that which is born, and death no other thing but that which dies?
But as the poets very often, forming as it were an image, say thus in
figurative language,
Strife, tumult, noise, placed by some angry God,
Mischief, and malice there had their abode;[129]
so do most men attribute generation and corruption to things that
are contracted together and dissolved. But so far has he been from
stirring and taking away that which is, or contradicting that which
evidently appears, that he casts not so much as one single word out of
the accustomed use; but taking away all figurative fraud that might
hurt or endamage things, he again restored the ordinary and useful
signification to words in these verses:
When from mixed elements we sometimes see
A man produced, sometimes a beast, a tree,
Or bird, this birth and geniture we name;
But death, when this so well compacted frame
And juncture is dissolved. This use I do approve.
And yet I myself say that Colotes, though he alleged these verses, did
not understand that Empedocles took not away men, beasts, trees, or
birds, which he affirmed to be composed of the elements mixed together;
and that, by teaching how much they are deceived who call this
composition Nature and life, and this dissolution unhappy destruction
and miserable death, he did not abrogate the using of the customary
expressions in this respect.
12. And it seems to me, indeed, that Empedocles did not aim in this
place at the disturbing the common form of expression, but that he
really, as it has been said, had a controversy about generation from
things that have no being, which some call Nature. Which he manifestly
shows by these verses:
Fools, and of little thought, we well may deem
Those, who so silly are as to esteem
That what ne’er was may now engendered be,
And that what is may perish utterly.
For these are the words of one who cries loud enough to those which
have ears, that he takes not away generation, but procreation from
nothing; nor corruption, but total destruction, that is, reduction to
nothing. For to him who would not so savagely and foolishly but more
gently calumniate, the following verses might give a colorable occasion
of charging Empedocles with the contrary, when he says:
No prudent man can e’er into his mind
Admit that, whilst men living here on earth
(Which only life they call) both fortunes find,
They being have, but that before the birth
They nothing were, nor shall be when once dead.
For these are not the expressions of a man who denies those that are
born to be, but rather of him who holds those to be that are not yet
born or that are already dead. And Colotes also does not altogether
accuse him of this, but says that according to his opinion we shall
never be sick, never wounded. But how is it possible, that he who
affirms men to have being both before their life and after their death,
and during their life to find both fortunes (or to be accompanied both
by good and evil), should not leave them the power to suffer? Who then
are they, O Colotes, that are endued with this privilege never to be
wounded, never to be sick? Even you yourselves, who are composed of
atoms and voidness, neither of which, you say, has any sense. Now there
is no great hurt in this; but the worst is, you have nothing left that
can cause you pleasure, seeing an atom is not capable to receive those
things which are to effect it, and voidness cannot be affected by them.
13. But because Colotes would, immediately after Democritus, seem
to inter and bury Parmenides, and I have passed over and a little
postponed his defence, to bring in between them that of Empedocles, as
seeming to be more coherent and consequent to the first reprehensions,
let us now return to Parmenides. Him then does Colotes accuse of having
broached and set abroad certain shameful and villanous sophistries;
and yet by these his sophisms he has neither rendered friendship
less honorable, nor voluptuousness or the desire of pleasures more
audacious and unbridled. He has not taken from honesty its attractive
property or its being venerable or recommendable of itself, nor has
he disturbed the opinions we ought to have of the Gods. And I do not
see how, by saying that the All (or the universe) is one, he hinders
or obstructs our living. For when Epicurus himself says that the All
is infinite, that it is neither engendered nor perishable, that it can
neither increase nor be diminished, he speaks of the universe as of
one only thing. And having in the beginning of his treatise concerning
this matter said, that the nature of those things which have being
consists of bodies and of voidness, he makes a division (as it were) of
one thing into two parts, one of which has in reality no subsistence,
being, as you yourselves term it, impalpable, void, and incorporeal;
so that by this means, even with you also, all comes to be one; unless
you desire, in speaking of voidness, to use words void of sense, and to
combat the ancients, as if you were fighting against a shadow.
But these atomical bodies, you will say, are, according to the opinion
of Epicurus, infinite in number, and every thing which appears to us
is composed of them. See now, therefore, what principles of generation
you suppose, infinity and voidness; one of which, to wit, voidness, is
inactive, impassible, and incorporeal; the other, to wit, infinity,
is disorderly, unreasonable, and incomprehensible, dissolving and
confounding itself, because it cannot for its multitude be contained,
circumscribed, or limited. But Parmenides has neither taken away fire,
nor water, nor rocks and precipices, nor yet cities (as Colotes says)
which are built and inhabited as well in Europe as in Asia; since
he has both made an order of the world, and mixing the elements, to
wit, light and dark, does of them and by them compose and finish all
things that are to be seen in the world. For he has written very
largely of the earth, heaven, sun, moon, and stars, and has spoken
of the generation of man; and being, as he was, an ancient author in
physiology, and one who in writing sought to deliver his own and not to
destroy another’s doctrine, he has passed over none of the principal
things in Nature. Moreover, Plato, and before him Socrates himself,
understood that in Nature there is one part subject to opinion, and
another subject to intelligence. As for that which is subject to
opinion, it is always unconstant, wandering, and carried away with
several passions and changes, liable to diminution and increase, and to
be variously disposed to various men, and not always appearing after
one manner even to the same person. But as to the intelligible part, it
is quite of another kind,
Constant, entire, and still engenerable,
as himself says, always like to itself, and perdurable in its being.
Here Colotes, sycophant-like, catching at his expressions and drawing
the discourse from things to words, flatly affirms that Parmenides in
one word takes away the existence of all things by supposing _ens_ (or
that which is) to be one. But, on the contrary, he takes away neither
the one nor the other part of Nature; but rendering to each of them
what belongs to it and is convenient for it, he places the intelligible
in the idea of one and of “that which is,” calling it _ens_ because it
is eternal and incorruptible, and one because it is always like itself
and admits no diversity. And as for that part which is sensible, he
places it in the rank of uncertain, disorderly, and always moving. Of
which two parts, we may see the distinct judgment:
One certain truth and sincere knowledge is,
as regarding that which is intelligible, and always alike and of the
same sort;
The other does on men’s opinions rest,
Which breed no true belief within our breast,
because it is conversant in things which receive all sorts of changes,
passions, and inequalities. Now how he could have left sense and
opinion, if he had not also left any thing sensible and opinable, it
is impossible for any man to say. But because to that which truly _is_
it appertains to continue in its being, and because sensible things
sometimes are, sometimes are not, continually passing from one being
to another and perpetually changing their state, he thought they
required some other name than that of _entia_, or things which always
are. This speech therefore concerning _ens_ (or that which is), that
it should be but one, is not to take away the plurality of sensible
things, but to show how they differ from that which is intelligible.
Which difference Plato in his discourse of Ideas more fully declaring,
has thereby afforded Colotes an opportunity of cavilling.
14. Therefore it seems not unreasonable to me to take next into our
consideration, as it were all in a train, what he has also said against
him. But first let us contemplate a little the diligence—together with
the manifold and profound knowledge—of this our philosopher, who says,
that Aristotle, Xenocrates, Theophrastus, and all the Peripatetics
have followed these doctrines of Plato. For in what corner of the
uninhabitable world have you, O Colotes, written your book, that,
composing all these accusations against such personages, you never have
lighted upon their works, nor have taken into your hands the books of
Aristotle concerning Heaven and the Soul, nor those of Theophrastus
against the Naturalists, nor the Zoroaster of Heraclides, nor his books
of Hell, nor that of Natural Doubts and Difficulties, nor the book of
Dicaearchus concerning the Soul; in all which books they are in the
highest degree contradictory and repugnant to Plato about the principal
and greatest points of natural philosophy? Nay, Strato himself, the
very head and prince of the other Peripatetics, agrees not in many
things with Aristotle, and holds opinions altogether contrary to
Plato, concerning motion, the understanding, the soul, and generation.
In fine, he says that the world is not an animal, and that what is
according to Nature follows what is according to Fortune; for that
Chance gave the beginning, and so every one of the natural effects was
afterwards finished.
Now as to the ideas,—for which he quarrels with Plato,—Aristotle, by
moving this matter at every turn, and alleging all manner of doubts
concerning them, in his Ethics, in his Physics, and in his Exoterical
Dialogues seems to some rather obstinately than philosophically to
have disputed against these doctrines, as having proposed to himself
the debasing and undervaluing of Plato’s philosophy; so far he was
from following it. What an impudent rashness then is this, that having
neither seen nor understood what these persons have written and what
were their opinions, he should go and devise such things as they
never imagined; and persuading himself that he reprehends and refutes
others, he should produce a proof, written with his own hand, arguing
and convincing himself of ignorance, licentiousness, and shameful
impudence, in saying that those who contradict Plato agree with him,
and that those who oppose him follow him?
15. Plato, says he, writes that horses are in vain by us esteemed
horses, and men men. And in which of Plato’s commentaries has he found
this hidden? For as to us, we read in all his books, that horses are
horses, that men are men, and that fire is by him esteemed fire,
because he holds that every one of these things is sensible and subject
to opinion. But this fine fellow Colotes, as if he were not a hair’s
breadth removed from perfect wisdom, apprehends it to be one and the
same thing to say, “Man is not” and “Man is a _non ens_.”
Now to Plato there seems to be a wonderful great difference between
not being at all and being a _non ens_; because the first imports an
annihilation and abolishment of all substance, and the other shows the
diversity there is between that which is participated and that which
participates. Which diversity those who came after distinguished only
into the difference of genus and species, and certain common and
proper qualities or accidents, as they are called, but ascended no
higher, falling into more logical doubts and difficulties. Now there
is the same proportion between that which is participated and that
which participates, as there is between the cause and the matter, the
original and the image, the faculty and the effect. Wherein that which
is by itself and always the same principally differs from that which
is by another and never abides in one and the same manner; because
the one never was nor ever shall be non-existent, and is therefore
totally and essentially an _ens_; but to the other that very being,
which it has not of itself but happens to take by participation from
another, does not remain firm and constant, but it goes out of it by
its imbecility,—the matter always gliding and sliding about the form,
and receiving several affections and changes in the image of the
substance, so that it is continually moving and shaking. As therefore
he who says that the image of Plato is not Plato takes not away the
sense and substance of the image, but shows the difference of that
which exists of itself from that which exists only in regard to some
other; so neither do they take away the nature, use, or sense of men,
who affirm that every one of us, by participating in a certain common
substance, that is, by the idea, is become the image of that which
afforded the likeness for our generation. For neither does he who says
that a red-hot iron is not fire, or that the moon is not the sun, but,
as Parmenides has it,
A torch which round the earth by night
Does bear about a borrowed light,
take away therefore the use of iron, or the nature of the moon. But if
he should deny it to be a body, or affirm that it is not illuminated,
he would then contradict the senses, as one who admitted neither body,
animal, generation, nor sense. But he who by his opinion imagines
that these things subsist only by participation, and considers how
far remote and distant they are from that which always is and which
communicates to them their being, does not reject the sensible, but
affirms that the intelligible is; nor does he take away and abolish the
effects which are wrought and appear in us; but he shows to those who
follow him that there are other things, firmer and more stable than
these in respect of their essence, because they are neither engendered,
nor perish, nor suffer any thing; and he teaches them, more purely
touching the difference, to express it by names, calling these ὄντα or
_entia_ (_things that have being_), and those γιγνόμενα or _fientia_
(_things engendered_). And the same also usually befalls the moderns;
for they deprive many—and those great things—of the appellation of
_ens_ or _being_; such as are voidness, time, place, and simply the
entire genus of things spoken, in which are comprised all things true.
For these things, they say, are not _entia_ but _some things_; and they
perpetually make use of them in their lives and in their philosophy, as
of things having subsistence and existence.
16. But I would willingly ask this our fault-finder, whether themselves
do not in their affairs perceive this difference, by which some things
are permanent and immutable in their substances,—as they say of their
atoms, that they are at all times and continually after one and the
same manner, because of their impassibility and hardness,—but that all
compounded things are fluxible, changeable, generated, and perishing;
forasmuch as infinite images are always departing and going from them,
and infinite others, as it is probable, repair to them from the ambient
air, filling up what was diminished from the mass, which is much
diversified and transvasated, as it were, by this change, since those
atoms which are in the very bottom of the said mass can never cease
stirring and reciprocally beating upon one another; as they themselves
affirm. There is then in things such a diversity of substance.
But Epicurus is in this wiser and more learned than Plato, that he
calls them all equally _entia_,—to wit, the impalpable voidness, the
solid and resisting body, the principles, and the things composed of
them,—and thinks that the eternal participates of the common substance
with that which is generated, the immortal with the corruptible, and
the natures that are impassible, perdurable, unchangeable, and that
can never fall from their being, with those which have their essence
in suffering and changing, and can never continue in one and the same
state. But though Plato had with all the justness imaginable deserved
to be condemned for having offended in this, yet should he have been
sentenced by these gentlemen, who speak Greek more elegantly and
discourse more correctly than he, only as having confounded the terms,
and not as having taken away the things and driven life from us,
because he named them _fientia_ (or things engendered), and not _entia_
(things that have being), as these men do.
17. But because we have passed over Socrates, who should have come
next after Parmenides, we must now turn back our discourse to him.
Him therefore has Colotes begun at the very first to remove, as the
common proverb has it, from the sacred line; and having mentioned
how Chaerephon brought from Delphi an oracle, well known to us all,
concerning Socrates, he says thus: “Now as to this narration of
Chaerephon’s, because it is odious and absolutely sophistical, we
will overpass it.” Plato then, that we may say nothing of others, is
also odious, who has committed it to writing; and the Lacedaemonians
are yet more odious, who reserve the oracle of Lycurgus amongst their
most ancient and most authentic inscriptions. The oracle also of
Themistocles, by which he persuaded the Athenians to quit their town,
and in a naval fight defeated the barbarous Xerxes, was a sophistical
fiction. Odious also were all the ancient legislators and founders of
Greece, who established the most part of their temples, sacrifices,
and solemn festivals by the answer of the Pythian Oracle. But if
the oracle brought from Delphi concerning Socrates, a man ravished
with a divine zeal to virtue, by which he is styled and declared
wise, is odious, fictitious, and sophistical, by what name shall we
call your cries, noises, and shouts, your applauses, adorations and
canonizations, with which you extol and celebrate him who incites
and exhorts you to frequent and continual pleasures? For thus has
he written in his epistle to Anaxarchus: “I for my part incite and
call you to continual pleasures, and not to vain and empty virtues,
which have nothing but turbulent hopes of uncertain fruits.” And yet
Metrodorus, writing to Timarchus, says: “Let us do some extraordinarily
excellent thing, not suffering ourselves to be plunged in reciprocal
affections, but retiring from this low and terrestrial life, and
elevating ourselves to the truly holy and divinely revealed ceremonies
and mysteries of Epicurus.” And even Colotes himself, hearing one day
Epicurus discoursing of natural things, fell suddenly at his feet and
embraced his knees, as Epicurus himself, glorying in it, thus writes:
“For as if you had adored what we were then saying, you were suddenly
taken with a desire, proceeding not from any natural cause, to come to
us, prostrate yourself on the ground, embrace our knees, and use all
those gestures to us which are ordinarily practised by those who adore
and pray to the Gods. So that you made us also,” says he, “reciprocally
sanctify and adore you.” Those, by Jupiter, well deserve to be
pardoned, who say, they would willingly give any money for a picture
in which should be presented to the life this fine story of one lying
prostrate at the knees and embracing the legs of another, who mutually
again adores him and makes his devout prayers to him. Nevertheless this
devout service, how well soever it was ordered and composed by Colotes,
received not the condign fruit he expected; for he was not declared
wise; but it was only said to him: Go thy ways, and walk immortal; and
understand that we also are in like manner immortal.
18. These men, knowing well in their consciences that they have used
such foolish speeches, have had such motions, and such passions, dare
nevertheless call others odious. And Colotes, having shown us these
fine first-fruits and wise positions touching the natural senses,—that
we eat meat, and not hay or forage; and that when rivers are deep and
great, we pass them in boats, but when shallow and easily fordable, on
foot,—cries out, “You use vain and arrogant speeches, O Socrates; you
say one thing to those who come to discourse with you, and practise
another.” Now I would fain know what these vain and arrogant speeches
of Socrates were, since he ordinarily said that he knew nothing, that
he was always learning, and that he went enquiring and searching after
the truth. But if, O Colotes, you had happened on such expressions
of Socrates as are those which Epicurus writ to Idomeneus, “Send me
then the first-fruits for the entertainment of our sacred body, for
ourself and for our children: for so it comes upon me to speak;” what
more arrogant and insolent words could you have used? And yet that
Socrates spake otherwise than he lived, you have wonderful proofs in
his gests at Delium, at Potidaea, in his behavior during the time of
the Thirty Tyrants, towards Archelaus, towards the people of Athens, in
his poverty, and in his death. For are not these things beseeming and
answerable to the doctrine of Socrates? They would indeed, good sir,
have been indubitable testimonies to show that he acted otherwise than
he taught, if, having proposed pleasure for the end of life, he had led
such a life as this.
19. Thus much for the calumnies he has uttered against Socrates.
Colotes besides perceives not that he is himself found guilty of the
same offences in regard to proofs which he objects against Socrates.
For this is one of the sentences and propositions of Epicurus, that
none but the wise man ought irrevocably and unchangeably to be
persuaded of any thing. Since then Colotes, even after those adorations
he performed to Epicurus, became not one of the sages, let him first
make these questions and interrogatories his own: How is it that being
hungry he eats meat and not hay, and that he puts a robe about his
body and not about a pillar, since he is not indubitably persuaded
either that a robe is a robe or that meat is meat? But if he not only
does these things, but also passes not over rivers, when they are
great and high, on foot, and flies from wolves and serpents, not being
irrevocably persuaded that any of these things is such as it appears,
but yet doing every thing according to what appears to him; so likewise
the opinion of Socrates concerning the senses was no obstacle to him,
but that he might in like manner make use of things as they appeared
to him. For it is not likely that bread appeared bread and hay hay to
Colotes, because he had read those holy rules of Epicurus which came
down from heaven, while Socrates through his vanity took a fancy that
hay was bread and bread hay. For these wise men use better opinions
and reasons than we; but to have sense, and to receive an impression
from things as they appear, is common as well to the ignorant as to the
wise, as proceeding from causes where there needs not the discourse of
reason. And the proposition which affirms that the natural senses are
not perfect, nor certain enough to cause an entire belief, hinders not
that every thing may appear to us; but leaving us to make use of our
senses in our actions according to that which appears, it permits us
not so to give credit to them as if they were exactly true and without
error. For it is sufficient that in what is necessary and commodious
for use there is nothing better. But as for the science and knowledge
which the soul of a philosopher desires to have concerning every thing,
the senses have it not.
20. But as to this, Colotes will farther give us occasion to speak of
it hereafter, for he brings this objection against several others.
Furthermore, whereas he profusely derides and despises Socrates
for asking what man is, and in a youthful bravery (as he terms
it) affirming that he was ignorant of it, it is manifest that he
himself, who scoffs at it, never so much as thought of this matter;
but Heraclitus on the contrary, as having done some great and worthy
thing, said, I have been seeking myself. And of the sentences that
were written in Apollo’s temple at Delphi, the most excellent and most
divine seems to have been this, Know thyself. And this it was which
gave Socrates an occasion and beginning of doubting and enquiring
into it, as Aristotle says in his Platonics. And yet this appears to
Colotes ridiculous and fit to be scoffed at. And I wonder that he
derides not also his master himself, who does as much whenever he
writes concerning the substance of the soul and the origin of man. For
if that which is compounded of both, as they themselves hold,—of the
body, to wit, and the soul,—is man, he who searches into the nature of
the soul consequently also searches into the nature of man, beginning
from his chiefest principle. Now that the soul is very difficult to be
comprehended by reason, and altogether incomprehensible by the exterior
senses, let us not learn from Socrates, who is a vainglorious and
sophistical disputer, but let us take it from these wise men, who,
having forged and framed the substance of the soul of somewhat hot,
spiritual, and aerial, as far as to her faculties about the flesh, by
which she gives heat, softness and strength to the body, proceed not
to that which is the principal, but give over faint and tired by the
way. For that by which she judges, remembers, loves, hates,—in a word,
that which is prudent and rational, is,—say they, made afterwards of
I know not what nameless quality. Now we well know, that this nameless
thing is a confession of their shameful ignorance, whilst they pretend
they can not name what they are not able to understand or comprehend.
But let this, as they say, be pardoned them. For it seems not to be a
light and easy matter, which every one can at the first attempt find
out and attain to, but has retired itself to the bottom of some very
remote place, and there lies obscurely concealed. So that there is not,
amongst so many words and terms as are in use, any one that can explain
or show it. Socrates therefore was not a fool or blockhead for seeking
and searching what himself was; but they are rather to be thought
shallow coxcombs, who enquire after any other thing before this, the
knowledge of which is so necessary and so hard to find. For how could
he hope to gain the knowledge of other things, who has not been able to
comprehend the principal part even of himself?
21. But granting a little to Colotes, that there is nothing so vain,
useless, and odious as the seeking into one’s self, let us ask
him, what confusion of human life is in this, and how it is that a
man cannot continue to live, when he comes once thus to reason and
discourse in himself: “Go to now, what am I? Am I a composition, made
up of soul and body; or rather a soul, serving itself and making
use of the body, as an horseman using his horse is not a subject
composed of horse and man? Or is every one of us the principal part
of the soul, by which we understand, reason, and act; and are all the
other parts, both of soul and body, only organs and utensils of this
power? Or, to conclude, is there no proper substance of the soul at
all apart, but is only the temperature and complexion of the body so
disposed, that it has force and power to understand and live?” But
Socrates does not by these questions overthrow human life, since all
natural philosophers treat of the same matter. But those perhaps are
the monstrous questions and enquiries that turn every thing upside
down, which are in Phaedrus,[130] where he says, that every one ought
to examine and consider himself, whether he is a savage beast, more
cautelous, outrageous, and furious than ever was the monster Typhon; or
on the contrary, an animal more mild and gentle, partaking by Nature of
a certain divine portion, and such as is free from pride. Now by these
discourses and reasonings he overturns not the life of man, but drives
from it presumption and arrogance, and those haughty and extravagant
opinions and conceits he has of himself. For this is that monster
Typhon, which your teacher and master has made to be so great in you by
his warring against the Gods and divine men.
22. Having done with Socrates and Plato, he next attacks Stilpo. Now as
for those his true doctrines and good discourses, by which he managed
and governed himself, his country, his friends, and such kings and
princes as loved him and esteemed him, he has not written a word; nor
yet what prudence and magnanimity was in his heart, accompanied with
meekness, moderation, and modesty. But having made mention of one of
those little sentences he was wont in mirth and raillery to object
against the sophisters, he does, without alleging any reason against it
or solving the subtlety of the objection, stir up a terrible tragedy
against Stilpo, saying that the life of man is subverted by him,
inasmuch as he affirms that one thing cannot be predicated of another.
“For how,” says he, “shall we live, if we cannot style a man good, nor
a man a captain, but must separately name a man a man, good good, and
a captain a captain; nor can say ten thousand horsemen, or a fortified
town, but only call horsemen horsemen, and ten thousand ten thousand,
and so of the rest?” Now what man ever was there that lived the worse
for this? Or who is there that, hearing this discourse, does not
immediately perceive and understand it to be the speech of a man who
rallies gallantly, and proposes to others this logical question for the
exercise of their wits? It is not, O Colotes, a great and dangerous
scandal not to call man good, or not to say ten thousand horsemen;
but not to call God God, and not to believe him to be God,—as you and
the rest do, who will not confess that there is a Jupiter presiding
over generation, or a Ceres giving laws, or a Neptune fostering the
plants,—it is this separation of names that is pernicious, and fills
our life with audaciousness and an atheistical contempt of the Gods.
When you pluck from the Gods the names and appellations that are tied
to them, you abolish also the sacrifices, mysteries, processions,
and feasts. For to whom shall we offer the sacrifices preceding the
tilling of the ground? To whom those for the obtaining of preservation?
How shall we celebrate the Phosphoria, or torch-festivals, the
Bacchanals, and the ceremonies that go before marriage, if we admit
neither Bacchantes, Gods of light, Gods who protect the sown field,
nor preservers of the state? For this it is that touches the principal
and greatest points, being an error in things,—not in words, in the
structure of propositions, or use of terms.
Now if these are the things that disturb and subvert human life, who
are there that more offend and fail in language than you? For you take
utterly away the whole class of namable things, which constitute the
essence of language; and leave only words and their accidental objects,
while you take away in the mean time the things particularly signified
by them, by which are wrought disciplines, doctrines, preconceptions,
intelligences, inclination, and assent, which you hold to be nothing at
all.
23. But as for Stilpo, thus his argument stands. “If of a man we
predicate good, and of an horse running, the predicate or thing
predicated is not the same with the subject or that of which it is
predicated, but the essential definition of man is one, and of good
another. And again, to be a horse differs from to be running. For being
asked the definition of the one and of the other, we do not give the
same for them both; and therefore those err who predicate the one of
the other. For if good is the same with man, and to run the same with
a horse, how is good affirmed also of food and medicine, and again (by
Jupiter) to run of a lion and a dog? But if the predicate is different,
then we do not rightly say that a man is good, and a horse runs.” Now
if Stilpo is in this exorbitant and grossly mistaken, not admitting any
copulation of such things as are in the subject, or affirmed of the
subject, with the subject itself; but holding that every one of them,
if it is not absolutely one and the same thing with that to which it
happens or of which it is spoken, ought not to be spoken or affirmed of
it,—no, not even as an accident; it is nevertheless manifest, that he
was only offended with some words, and opposed the usual and accustomed
manner of speaking, and not that he overthrew man’s life, and turned
his affairs upside down.
24, Colotes then, having got rid of the old philosophers, turns to
those of his own time, but without naming any of them; though he would
have done better either to have reproved by name these moderns, as he
did the ancients, or else to have named neither of them. But he who
has so often employed his pen against Socrates, Plato, and Parmenides,
evidently demonstrates that it is through cowardice he dares not attack
the living, and not for any modesty or reverence, of which he showed
not the least sign to those who were far more excellent than these.
But his meaning is, as I suspect, to assault the Cyrenaics first, and
afterwards the Academics, who are followers of Arcesilaus. For it was
these who doubted of all things; but those, placing the passions and
imaginations in themselves, were of opinion that the belief proceeding
from them is not sufficient for the assuring and affirming of things;
but, as if it were in the siege of a town, abandoning what is without,
they have shut themselves up in the passions, using only _it seems_,
and not asserting _it is_, of things without. And therefore they
cannot, as Colotes says of them, live or have the use of things. And
then speaking comically of them, he adds: “These deny that there is
a man, a horse, a wall; but say that they themselves (as it were)
become walls, horses, men,” or “are impressed with the images of walls,
horses, or men.” In which he first maliciously abuses the terms, as
calumniators are usually wont to do. For though these things follow
from the sayings of the Cyrenaics, yet he ought to have declared the
fact as they themselves teach it. For they affirm that things then
become sweet, bitter, lightsome, or dark, when each thing has in itself
the natural unhindered efficacy of one of these impressions. But if
honey is said to be sweet, an olive-branch bitter, hail cold, wine hot,
and the nocturnal air dark, there are many beasts, things, and men that
testify the contrary. For some have an aversion for honey, others feed
on the branches of the olive-tree; some are scorched by hail, others
cooled with wine; and there are some whose sight is dim in the sun but
who see well by night. Wherefore opinion, containing itself within
these impressions, remains safe and free from error; but when it goes
forth and attempts to be curious in judging and pronouncing concerning
exterior things, it often deceives itself, and opposes others, who
from the same objects receive contrary impressions and different
imaginations.
25. And Colotes seems properly to resemble those young children who are
but beginning to learn their letters. For, being accustomed to learn
them where they see them in their own horn-books and primers, when
they see them written anywhere else, they doubt and are troubled; so
those very discourses, which he praises and approves in the writings
of Epicurus, he neither understands nor knows again, when they are
spoken by others. For those who say that the sense is truly informed
and moulded when there is presented one image round and another broken,
but nevertheless permit us not to pronounce that the tower is round
and the oar broken, confirm their own passions and imaginations, but
they will not acknowledge and confess that the things without are so
affected. But as the Cyrenaics must say that they are imprinted with
the figure of a horse or of a wall, but do not speak of the horse or
the wall; so also it is necessary to say that the sight is imprinted
with a figure round or with three unequal sides, and not that the tower
is in that manner triangular or round. For the image by which the sight
is affected is broken; but the oar whence that image proceeds is not
broken. Since then there is a difference between the impression and
the external subject, the belief must either remain in the impression,
or else—if it maintains the being in addition to the appearing—be
reproved and convinced of untruth. And whereas they cry out and are
offended in behalf of the sense, because the Cyrenaics say not that
the thing without is hot, but that the impression made on the sense is
such; is it not the same with what is said touching the taste, when
they say that the thing without is not sweet, but that some impression
and motion about the sense is such? And for him who says that he has
received the apprehension of an human form, but perceives not whether
it is a man, whence has he taken occasion so to say? Is it not from
those who affirm that they receive an apprehension of a bowed figure
and form, but that the sight pronounces not that the thing which was
seen is bowed or round, but that a certain effigies of it is such?
Yes, by Jupiter, will some one say; but I, going near the tower or
touching the oar, will pronounce and affirm that the one is straight
and the other has many angles and faces; but he, when he comes near
it, will confess that it seems and appears so to him, and no more. Yes
certainly, good sir, and more than this, when he sees and observes the
consequence, that every imagination is equally worthy of belief for
itself, and none for another; but that they are all in like condition.
But this your opinion is quite lost, that all the imaginations are true
and none false or to be disbelieved, if you think that these ought to
pronounce positively of that which is without, but those you credit
no farther than that they are so affected. For if they are in equal
condition as to their being believed, when they are near or when they
are far off, it is just that either upon all of them, or else not upon
these, should follow the judgment pronouncing that a thing is: But if
there is a difference in the being affected between those that are
near and those that are far off, it is then false that one sense and
imagination is not more express and evident than another. Therefore
those which they call testimonies and counter-testimonies are nothing
to the sense, but are concerned only with opinion. So, if they would
have us following these to pronounce concerning exterior things, making
being a judgment of opinion, and what appears an affection of sense,
they transfer the judicature from that which is totally true to that
which often fails.
26. But how full of trouble and contradiction in respect of one
another these things are, what need is there to say at present? But
the reputation of Arcesilaus, who was the best beloved and most
esteemed of all the philosophers in his time, seems to have been no
small eyesore to Epicurus; who says of him that, delivering nothing
peculiar to himself or of his own invention, he imprinted in illiterate
men an opinion and esteem of his being very knowing and learned. Now
Arcesilaus was so far from desiring any glory by being a bringer-in of
new opinions, and from arrogating to himself those of the ancients,
that the sophisters of that time blamed him for attributing to
Socrates, Plato, Parmenides, and Heraclitus the doctrines concerning
the retention of assent, and the incomprehensibility of things; having
no need so to do, but only that he might strengthen them and render
them recommendable by ascribing them to such illustrious personages.
For this therefore thanks to Colotes, and to every one who declares
that the Academic doctrine was from higher times derived to Arcesilaus.
Now as for the retention of assent and the doubting of all things,
not even those who have much labored in the matter, and strained
themselves to compose great books and large treatises concerning it,
were ever able to stir it; but bringing at last out of the Stoa itself
the cessation from all actions, as the Gorgon to frighten away the
objections that came against them, they were at last quite tired and
gave over. For they could not, what attempts and stirs soever they
made, obtain so much from the instinct by which the appetite is moved
to act, as to suffer itself to be called an assent, or to acknowledge
sense for the origin and principle of its propension, but it appeared
of its own accord to present itself to act, as having no need to be
joined with any thing else. For against such adversaries the combat and
dispute is lawful and just. And
Such words as you have spoke, the like you may
Expect to hear.[131]
For to speak to Colotes of instinct and consent is, I suppose, all one
as to play on the harp before an ass. But to those who can give ear
and conceive, it is said that there are in the soul three sorts of
motions,—the imaginative, the appetitive, and the consenting. As to
the imaginative or the apprehension, it cannot be taken away, though
one would. For one cannot, when things approach, avoid being informed
and (as it were) moulded by them, and receiving an impression from
them. The appetite, being stirred up by the imaginative, effectually
moves man to that which is proper and agreeable to his nature, just as
when there is made a propension and inclination in the principal and
reasonable part. Now those who withhold their assent and doubt of all
things take not away this, but make use of the appetition or instinct
naturally conducting every man to that which seems convenient for him.
What then is the only thing that they shun? That in which is bred
falsehood and deceit,—that is, opining, and precipitation in giving
consent,—which is a yielding through weakness to that which appears,
and has not any true utility. For action stands in need of two things,
to wit, the apprehension or imagination of what is agreeable to Nature,
and the instinct or appetition driving to that which is so imagined; of
which, neither the one nor the other is repugnant to the retention of
assent. For reason withdraws us from opinion, and not from appetition
or imagination. When therefore that which is delectable seems to us to
be proper for us, there is no need of opinion to move and carry us to
it, but appetition immediately exerts itself, which is nothing else but
the motion and inclination of the soul.
27. It is their own saying, that a man must only have sense and be
flesh and blood, and pleasure will appear to be good. Wherefore
also it will seem good to him who withholds his assent. For he also
participates of sense, and is made of flesh and blood, and as soon as
he has conceived an imagination of good, desires it and does all things
that it may not escape from him; but as much as possibly he can, he
will keep himself with that which is agreeable to his nature, being
drawn by natural and not by geometrical constraints. For these goodly,
gentle, and tickling motions of the flesh are, without any teacher,
attractive enough of themselves—even as these men forget not to say—to
draw even him who will not in the least acknowledge and confess that he
is softened and rendered pliable by them. “But how comes it to pass,”
perhaps you will say, “that he who is thus doubtful and withholds his
assent hastens not away to the mountain, instead of going to the bath?
Or that, rising up to go forth into the market-place, he runs not
his head against the wall, but takes his way directly to the door?”
Do you ask this, who hold all the senses to be infallible, and the
apprehensions of the imagination certain and true? It is because the
bath appears to him not a mountain, but a bath; and the door seems
not a wall, but a door; and the same is to be said of every other
thing. For the doctrine of retention does not pervert the sense, nor
by absurd passions and motions work in it an alteration disturbing the
imaginative faculty; but it only takes away opinions, and for the rest,
makes use of other things according to their nature.
But it is impossible, you will say, not to consent to things that are
evident; for to deny such things as are believed is more absurd than
neither to deny nor affirm. Who then are they that call in question
things believed, and contend against things that are evident? They
who overthrow and take away divination, who say that there is not any
government of Divine Providence, who deny the sun and the moon—to whom
all men offer sacrifices and whom they honor and adore—to be animated.
And do not you take away that which is apparent to all the world,
that the young are contained in the nature of their parents? Do you
not, contrary to the sense of all men, affirm that there is no medium
between pleasure and pain, saying that not to be in pain is to be in
the fruition of pleasure, that not to do is to suffer, and that not to
rejoice is to be grieved?
28. But to let pass all the rest, what is more evident and more
generally believed by all men, than that those who are seized with
melancholy distempers, and whose brain is troubled and whose wits are
distracted, do, when the fit is on them and their understanding altered
and transported, imagine that they see and hear things which they
neither see nor hear? Whence they frequently cry out:
Women in black arrayed bear in their hands,
To burn mine eyes, torches and fiery brands.
And again:
See, in her arms she holds my mother dear.[132]
These, and many other illusions more strange and tragical than
these,—resembling those mormos and bugbears which they themselves
laugh at and deride, as they are described by Empedocles to be, “with
winding feet and undivided hands, bodied like ox and faced like
man,”—with certain other prodigious and unnatural phantoms, these men
have gathered together out of dreams and the alienations of distracted
minds, and affirm that none of them is a deception of the sight, a
falsity, or inconsistence; but that all these imaginations are true,
being bodies and figures that come from the ambient air. What thing
then is there so impossible in Nature as to be doubted of, if it is
possible to believe such reveries as these? For these men, supposing
that such things as never any mask-maker, potter, carver of wonderful
images, or skilful and all-daring painter durst join together, to
deceive or make sport for the beholders, are seriously and in good
earnest existent,—nay, which is more, affirming that, if they are not
really so, all firmness of belief, all certainty of judgment and truth,
is for ever gone,—do by these their suppositions and affirmations
cast all things into obscurity, and bring fears into our judgments,
and suspicions into our actions,—if the things which we apprehend, do,
are familiarly acquainted with, and have at hand are grounded on the
same imagination and belief with these furious, absurd, and extravagant
fancies. For the equality which they suppose to be in all apprehensions
rather derogates from the credit of such as are usual and rational,
than adds any belief to those that are unusual and repugnant to reason.
Wherefore we know many philosophers who would rather and more willingly
grant that no imagination is true than that all are so, and that would
rather simply disbelieve all the men they never had conversed with,
all the things they had not experimented, and all the speeches they
had not heard with their own ears, than persuade themselves that any
one of these imaginations, conceived by these frantic, fanatical, and
dreaming persons, is true. Since then there are some imaginations
which may, and others which may not be rejected, it is lawful for us
to retain our assent concerning them, though there were no other cause
but this discordance, which is sufficient to work in us a suspicion of
things, as having nothing certain and assured, but being altogether
full of obscurity and perturbation. For in the dissensions about the
infinity of worlds and the nature of atoms and individuums and their
inclinations, although they trouble and disturb very many, there is
yet this comfort, that none of all these things that are in question
is near us, but rather every one of them is far remote from sense. But
as to this diffidence, perplexity, and ignorance concerning sensible
things and imaginations (whether these be true or false), found even
in our eyes, our ears, and our hands, what opinion does it not shock?
What consent does it not turn upside down? For if men neither drunk,
intoxicated, nor otherwise disturbed in their senses, but sober, sound
in mind, and professedly writing of the truth and of the canons and
rules by which to judge it, do in the most evident passions and motions
of the senses set down either that which has no existence for true,
or that which is existent for false, it is not to be wondered that a
man should be silent about all things, but rather that he should give
his assent to any thing; nor is it incredible that he should have no
judgment about things which appear, but rather that he should have
contrary judgments. For it is less to be wondered, that a man should
neither affirm the one nor the other but keep himself in a mean between
two opposite things, than that he should set down things repugnant and
contrary to one another. For he that neither affirms nor denies, but
keeps himself quiet, is less repugnant to him who affirms an opinion
than he who denies it, and to him who denies an opinion than he who
affirms it. Now if it is possible to withhold one’s assent concerning
these things, it is not impossible also concerning others, at least
according to your opinion, who say that one sense does not exceed
another, nor one imagination another.
29. The doctrine then of retaining the assent is not, as Colotes
thinks, a fable or an invention of rash and light-headed young men who
please themselves in babbling and prating; but a certain habit and
disposition of men who desire to keep themselves from falling into
error, not leaving the judgment at a venture to such suspected and
inconstant senses, nor suffering themselves to be deceived by those
who hold that in uncertain matters things which do not appear are
credible and ought to be believed, when they see so great obscurity
and uncertainty in things which appear. But the infinity you assert
is a fable, and so indeed are the images you dream of; and he breeds
in young men rashness and self-conceitedness, who writ of Pythocles,
not yet eighteen years of age, that there was not in all Greece a
better or more excellent nature, that he admirably well expressed his
conceptions, and that he was in other respects like a woman,—praying
that all these extraordinary endowments of the young man might not work
him hatred and envy. But these are sophisters and arrogant, who write
so impudently and proudly against great and excellent personages. I
confess indeed, that Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Democritus
contradicted those who went before them; but never durst any man
besides Colotes set forth with such an insolent title as this against
all at once.
30. Whence it comes to pass that, like to such as have offended some
Divinity, confessing his fault, he says thus towards the end of his
book: “Those who have established laws and ordinances and instituted
monarchies and other governments in towns and cities, have placed human
life in great repose and security and delivered it from many troubles;
and if any one should go about to take this away, we should lead the
life of savage beasts, and should be every one ready to eat up one
another as we meet.” For these are the very words of Colotes, though
neither justly nor truly spoken. For if any one, taking away the laws,
should leave us nevertheless the doctrines of Parmenides, Socrates,
Plato, and Heraclitus, we should be far from mutually devouring one
another and leading the life of beasts. For we should fear dishonest
things, and should for honesty alone venerate justice, the Gods, our
superiors, and magistrates, believing that we have spirits and Daemons
who are the guardians and superintendents of human life, esteeming all
the gold that is upon and within the earth not to be equivalent to
virtue; and doing that willingly by reason, as Xenocrates says, which
we now do by force and through fear of the law. When then will our life
become savage, unsocial, and bestial? When, the laws being taken away,
there shall be left doctrines inciting men to pleasure; when the world
shall be thought not to be ruled and governed by Divine Providence;
when those men shall be esteemed wise who spit at honesty if it is not
joined with pleasure; and when such discourses and sentences as these
shall be scoffed at and derided:
For Justice has an eye which all things sees;
and again:
God near us stands, and views whate’er we do;
and once more: “God, as antiquity has delivered to us, holding the
beginning, middle, and end of the universe, makes a direct line,
walking according to Nature. After him follows Justice, a punisher of
those who have been deficient in their duties by transgressing the
divine law.”
For they who contemn these things as if they were fables, and think
that the sovereign good of man consists about the belly, and in those
other avenues by which pleasure is admitted, are such as stand in
need of the law, and fear, and stripes, and some king, prince, or
magistrate, having in his hand the sword of justice; to the end that
they may not devour their neighbors through their gluttony, rendered
confident by their atheistical impiety. For this is the life of
brutes, because brute beasts know nothing better nor more honest than
pleasure, understand not the justice of the Gods, nor revere the beauty
of virtue; but if Nature has bestowed on them any point of courage,
subtlety, or activity, they make use of it for the satisfaction of
their fleshly pleasure and the accomplishment of their lusts. And
the wise Metrodorus believes that this should be so, for he says:
“All the fine, subtle, and ingenious inventions of the soul have
been found out for the pleasure and delight of the flesh, or for the
hopes of attaining to it and enjoying it, and every act which tends
not to this end is vain and unprofitable.” The laws being by such
discourses and philosophical reasons as these taken away, there wants
nothing to a beast-like life but lions’ paws, wolves’ teeth, oxen’s
paunches, and camels’ necks; and these passions and doctrines do the
beasts themselves, for want of speech and letters, express by their
bellowings, neighings, and brayings, all their voice being for their
belly and the pleasure of their flesh, which they embrace and rejoice
in either present or future; unless it be perhaps some animal which
naturally takes delight in chattering and garrulity.
31. No sufficient praise therefore or equivalent to their deserts can
be given those who, for the restraining of such bestial passions, have
set down laws, established policy and government of state, instituted
magistrates and ordained good and wholesome laws. But who are they that
utterly confound and abolish this? Are they not those who withdraw
themselves and their followers from all part in the government? Are
they not those who say that the garland of tranquillity and a reposed
life are far more valuable than all the kingdoms and principalities
in the world? Are they not those who declare that reigning and being
a king is a mistaking the path and straying from the right way of
felicity? And they write in express terms: “We are to treat how a man
may best keep and preserve the end of Nature, and how he may from the
very beginning avoid entering of his own free will and voluntarily
upon offices of magistracy, and government over the people.” And yet
again, these other words are theirs: “There is no need at all that
a man should tire out his mind and body to preserve the Greeks, and
to obtain from them a crown of wisdom; but to eat and drink well,
O Timocrates, without prejudicing, but rather pleasing the flesh.”
And yet in the constitution of laws and policy, which Colotes so
much praises, the first and most important article is the belief and
persuasion of the Gods. Wherefore also Lycurgus heretofore sanctified
the Lacedaemonians, Numa the Romans, the ancient Ion the Athenians,
and Deucalion universally all the Greeks, through prayers, oaths,
oracles, and omens, rendering them devout and affectionate to the Gods
by means of hopes and fears at once. And if you will take the pains to
travel through the world, you may find towns and cities without walls,
without letters, without kings, without houses, without wealth, without
money, without theatres and places of exercise; but there was never
seen nor shall be seen by man any city without temples and Gods, or
without making use of prayers, oaths, divinations, and sacrifices for
the obtaining of blessings and benefits, and the averting of curses and
calamities. Nay, I am of opinion, that a city might sooner be built
without any ground to fix it on, than a commonweal be constituted
altogether void of any religion and opinion of the Gods,—or being
constituted, be preserved. But this, which is the foundation and
ground of all laws, do these men, not going circularly about, nor
secretly and by enigmatical speeches, but attacking it with the first
of their most principal opinions, directly subvert and overthrow; and
then afterwards, as if they were haunted by the Furies, they come and
confess that they have grievously offended in thus taking away the
laws, and confounding the ordinances of justice and policy, that they
may not be capable of pardon. For to err in opinion, though it be not
the part of wise men, is at least human; but to impute to others the
errors and offences they commit themselves, how can any one declare
what it is, if he forbears to give it the name it deserves?
32. For if, in writing against Antidorus or Bion the sophister, he had
made mention of laws, policy, order, and justice, might not either of
them have said to him, as Electra did to her mad brother Orestes:
Lie still at ease, poor wretch; keep in thy bed,[133]
and there cherish thy bit of flesh, leaving those to expostulate and
find fault with me who have themselves lived a civil and domestic life?
Now such are all those whom Colotes has reviled and railed at in his
book. Amongst whom, Democritus in his writings advises and exhorts to
the learning of political science, as being the greatest of all, and
to the accustoming one’s self to bear fatigues, by which men attain
to great wealth and honor. And as for Parmenides, he beautified and
adorned his native country with most excellent laws which he there
established, so that even to this day the officers every year, when
they enter first on the exercise of their charges, are obliged to
swear that they will observe the laws and ordinances of Parmenides.
Empedocles brought to justice some of the principal of his city, and
caused them to be condemned for their insolent behavior and embezzling
of the public treasure, and also delivered his country from sterility
and the plague—to which calamities it was before subject—by immuring
and stopping up the holes of certain mountains, whence there issued
an hot south wind, which overspread all the plain country and blasted
it. And Socrates, after he was condemned, when his friends offered
him, if he pleased, an opportunity of making his escape, absolutely
refused to make use of it, that he might maintain the authority of
the laws, choosing rather to die unjustly than to save himself by
disobeying the laws of his country. Melissus, being captain general of
his country, vanquished the Athenians in a battle at sea. Plato left
in his writings excellent discourses concerning the laws, government,
and policy of a commonweal; and yet he imprinted much better in the
hearts and minds of his disciples and familiars, which caused Sicily
to be delivered by Dion, and Thrace to be set at liberty by Pytho and
Heraclides, who slew Cotys. Chabrias also and Phocion, those two great
generals of the Athenians, came out of the Academy. As for Epicurus,
he indeed sent certain persons into Asia to chide Timocrates, and
had him removed out of the king’s palace, because he had offended his
brother Metrodorus; and this is written in their own books. But Plato
sent of his disciples and friends, Aristonymus to the Arcadians, to set
in order their commonweal, Phormio to the Eleans, and Menedemus to the
Pyrrhaeans. Eudoxus gave laws to the Cnidians, and Aristotle to the
Stagirites, who were both of them the intimates of Plato. And Alexander
the Great demanded of Xenocrates rules and precepts for reigning well.
And he who was sent to the same Alexander by the Grecians dwelling in
Asia, and who most of all inflamed and stimulated him to embrace and
undertake the war against the barbarian king of Persia, was Delius the
Ephesian, one of Plato’s familiars. Zeno, the disciple of Parmenides,
having attempted to kill the tyrant Demylus, and failing in his design,
maintained the doctrine of Parmenides, like pure and fine gold tried
in the fire, that there is nothing which a magnanimous man ought to
dread but dishonor, and that there are none but children and women, or
effeminate and women-hearted men, who fear pain. For, having with his
own teeth bitten off his tongue, he spit it in the tyrant’s face.
33. But out of the school of Epicurus, and from among those who follow
his doctrine, I will not ask what tyrant-killer has proceeded, nor yet
what man valiant and victorious in feats of arms, what lawgiver, what
prince, what counsellor, or what governor of the people; neither will
I demand, who of them has been tormented or has died for supporting
right and justice. But which of all these sages has for the benefit and
service of his country undertaken so much as one voyage at sea, gone of
an embassy, or expended a sum of money? What record is there extant of
one civil action in matter of government, performed by any of you? And
yet, because Metrodorus went down one day from the city as far as the
haven of Piraeus, taking a journey of forty stadia to assist Mithres
a Syrian, one of the king of Persia’s court who had been arrested and
taken prisoner, he writ of it to every one and in all his letters,
Epicurus also highly magnifying and extolling this wonderful voyage.
What value then, think you, would they have put upon it, if they had
done such an act as Aristotle did, who procured the restoration and
rebuilding of Stagira, the town of his nativity, after it had been
destroyed by King Philip? Or as Theophrastus, who twice delivered his
city, when possessed and held by tyrants? Would not the river Nile
sooner have given over to bear the paper-reed, than they have been
weary of writing their brave exploits?
And it is not the greatest indignity, that, of so many sects of
philosophers as have been extant, they alone should enjoy the benefits
that are in cities, without having ever contributed to them any thing
of their own; but far worse is it that, while there are not even any
tragical or comical poets who do not always endeavor to do or say some
good thing or other in defence of the laws and policy, these men, if
peradventure they write, write of policy, that we may not concern
ourselves in the government of the commonweal,—of rhetoric, that we may
not perform an act of eloquence,—and of royalty, that we may shun the
living and conversing with kings. Nor do they ever name any of those
great personages who have intermeddled in civil affairs, but only to
scoff at them and abolish their glory. Thus they say that Epaminondas
had something of good, but that very little, or μικκόν, for that is the
very word they use. They moreover call him iron-hearted, and ask what
ailed him that he went marching his army through all Peloponnesus, and
why he did not rather keep himself quiet at home with a night-cap on
his head, employed only in cherishing and making much of his belly.
But methinks I ought not in this place to omit what Metrodorus writ
in his book of Philosophy, when, utterly abjuring all meddling in the
management of the state, he said thus: “Some, through an abundance of
vanity and arrogance, have so deep an insight into the business of
it, that in treating about the precepts of good life and virtue, they
suffer themselves to be carried away with the very same desires as were
Lycurgus and Solon.” What is this? Was it then vanity and abundance of
vanity, to set free the city of Athens, to render Sparta well-policied
and governed by wholesome laws, that young men might do nothing
licentiously, nor get children upon common courtesans and whores, and
that riches, delights, intemperance, and dissolution might no longer
bear sway and have command in cities, but law and justice? For these
were the desires of Solon. To this Metrodorus, by way of scorn and
contumely, adds this conclusion: “It is then very well beseeming a
free-born gentleman to laugh heartily, as at other men, so especially
at these Solons and Lycurguses.” But such a one, O Metrodorus, is
not a gentleman, but a servile and dissolute person, and deserves to
be scourged, not with that whip which is for free-born persons, but
with that scourge strung with ankle-bones; with which those gelded
sacrificers called Galli were wont to be chastised, when they failed of
performing their duty in the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Goddess
Cybele, the great Mother of the Gods.
34. But that they made war not against the lawgivers but against the
laws themselves, one may hear and understand from Epicurus. For in his
questions, he asks himself, whether a wise man, being assured that it
will not be known, will do any thing that the laws forbid. To which he
answers: “That is not so easy to determine simply,”—that is, “I will do
it indeed, but I am not willing to confess it.” And again, I suppose,
writing to Idomeneus, he exhorts him not to make his life a slave to
the laws or to the opinions of men, unless it be to avoid the trouble
they prepare, by the scourge and chastisement, so near at hand. If then
those who abolish the laws, governments, and policies of men subvert
and destroy human life, and if Metrodorus and Epicurus do this, by
dehorting and withdrawing their friends from concerning themselves in
public affairs, by hating those who intermeddle in them, by reviling
the first most wise lawgivers, and by advising contempt of the laws
provided there is no fear and danger of the whip and punishment, I do
not see that Colotes has brought so many false accusations against the
other philosophers as he has alleged and advanced true ones against the
writings and doctrines of Epicurus.
PLUTARCH’S CONSOLATORY LETTER TO HIS WIFE.
PLUTARCH TO HIS WIFE: ALL HEALTH
1. As for the messenger you despatched to tell me of the death of my
little daughter, it seems he missed his way as he was going to Athens.
But when I came to Tanagra, I heard of it by my niece. I suppose by
this time the funeral is over. I wish that whatever has been done
may create you no dissatisfaction, as well now as hereafter. But if
you have designedly let any thing alone, depending upon my judgment,
thinking better to determine the point if I were with you, I pray let
it be without ceremony and timorous superstition, which I know are far
from you.
2. Only, dear wife, let you and me bear our affliction with patience.
I know very well and do comprehend what loss we have had; but if I
should find you grieve beyond measure, this would trouble me more
than the thing itself. For I had my birth neither from a stock nor a
stone;[134] and you know it full well, I having been assistant to you
in the education of so many children, which we brought up at home under
our own care. This daughter was born after four sons, when you were
longing to bear a daughter; which made me call her by your own name.
Therefore I know she was particularly dear to you. And grief must
have a peculiar pungency in a mind tenderly affectionate to children,
when you call to mind how naturally witty and innocent she was, void
of anger, and not querulous. She was naturally mild, and compassionate
to a miracle. And her gratitude and kindness not only gave us delight,
but also manifested her generous nature; for she would pray her nurse
to give suck, not only to other children, but to her very playthings,
as it were courteously inviting them to her table, and making the best
cheer for them she could.
3. Now, my dear wife, I see no reason why these and the like things,
which delighted us so much when she was alive, should upon remembrance
of them afflict us when she is dead. But I also fear lest, while we
cease from sorrowing, we should forget her; as Clymene said,
I hate the handy horned bow,
And banish youthful pastimes now;
because she would not be put in mind of her son by the exercises he had
been used to. For Nature always shuns such things as are troublesome.
But since our little daughter afforded all our senses the sweetest and
most charming pleasure; so ought we to cherish her memory, which will
conduce many ways—or rather many fold—more to our joy than our grief.
And it is but just, that the same arguments which we have oft-times
used to others should prevail upon ourselves at this so seasonable a
time, and that we should not supinely sit down and overwhelm the joys
which we have tasted with a multiplicity of new griefs.
4. Moreover, they who were present at the funeral report this with
admiration, that you neither put on mourning, nor disfigured yourself
or any of your maids; neither were there any costly preparations
nor magnificent pomp; but all things were managed with silence and
moderation in the presence of our relatives alone. And it seemed not
strange to me that you, who never used richly to dress yourself for the
theatre or other public solemnities, esteeming such magnificence vain
and useless even in matters of delight, have now practised frugality
on this sad occasion. For a virtuous woman ought not only to preserve
her purity in riotous feasts, but also to think thus with herself, that
the tempest of the mind in violent grief must be calmed by patience,
which does not intrench on the natural love of parents towards their
children, as many think, but only struggles against the disorderly and
irregular passions of the mind. For we allow this love of children
to discover itself in lamenting, wishing for, and longing after them
when they are dead. But the excessive inclination to grief, which
carries people on to unseemly exclamations and furious behavior, is no
less culpable than luxurious intemperance. Yet reason seems to plead
in its excuse; because, instead of pleasure, grief and sorrow are
ingredients of the crime. What can be more irrational, I pray, than
to check excessive laughter and joy, and yet to give a free course
to rivers of tears and sighs, which flow from the same fountain? Or,
as some do, quarrel with their wives for using artificial helps to
beauty, and in the mean time suffer them to shave their heads, wear the
mournful black, sit disconsolate, and lie in pain? And, which is worst
of all, if their wives at any time chastise their servants or maids
immoderately, they will interpose and hinder them, but at the same time
suffering them to torment and punish themselves most cruelly, in a case
which peculiarly requires their greatest tenderness and humanity?
5. But between us, dear wife, there never was any occasion for such
contests, nor, I think, will there ever be. For there is no philosopher
of our acquaintance who is not in love with your frugality, both in
apparel and diet; nor a citizen, to whom the simplicity and plainness
of your dress is not conspicuous, both at religious sacrifices and
public shows in the theatre. Formerly also you discovered on the like
occasion a great constancy of mind, when you lost your eldest son; and
again, when the lovely Chaeron left us. For I remember, when the news
was brought me of my son’s death, as I was returning home with some
friends and guests who accompanied me to my house, when they beheld
all things in order, and observed a profound silence everywhere,—as
they afterwards declared to others,—they thought no such calamity had
happened, but that the report was false. So discreetly had you settled
the affairs of the house at that time, when no small confusion and
disorder might have been expected. And yet you gave this son suck
yourself, and endured the lancing of your breast, to prevent the ill
effects of a contusion. These are things worthy of a generous woman,
and one that loves her children.
6. Whereas, we see most other women receive their children in their
hands as playthings with a feminine mirth and jollity; and afterwards,
if they chance to die, they will drench themselves in the most vain and
excessive sorrow. Not that this is any effect of their love, for that
gentle passion acts regularly and discreetly; but it rather proceeds
from a desire of vain-glory, mixed with a little natural affection,
which renders their mourning barbarous, brutish, and extravagant. Which
thing Aesop knew very well, when he told the story of Jupiter’s giving
honors to the Gods; for, it seems, Grief also made her demands, and
it was granted that she should be honored, but only by those who were
willing of their own accord to do it. And indeed, this is the beginning
of sorrow. Everybody first gives her free access; and after she is
once rooted and settled and become familiar, she will not be forced
thence with their best endeavors. Therefore she must be resisted at her
first approach; nor must we surrender the fort to her by any exterior
signs, whether of apparel, or shaving the hair, or any other such like
symptoms of mournful weakness; which happening daily, and wounding
us by degrees with a kind of foolish bashfulness, at length do so
enervate the mind, and reduce her to such straits, that quite dejected
and besieged with grief, the poor timorous wretch dare not be merry,
or see the light, or eat and drink in company. This inconvenience is
accompanied by a neglect of the body, carelessness of anointing and
bathing, with whatsoever else relates to the elegancy of human life.
Whereas, on the contrary, the soul, when it is disordered, ought to
receive aid from the vigor of a healthful body. For the sharpest
edge of the soul’s grief is rebated and slacked, when the body is in
tranquillity and ease, like the sea in a calm. But where, from an ill
course of diet, the body becomes dry and hot, so that it cannot supply
the soul with commodious and serene spirits, but only breathes forth
melancholy vapors and exhalations, which perpetually annoy her with
grief and sadness; there it is difficult for a man (though never so
willing and desirous) to recover the tranquillity of his mind, after it
has been disturbed with so many evil affections.
7. But that which is most to be dreaded in this case does not at
all affrighten me, to wit, the visits of foolish women, and their
accompanying you in your tears and lamentations; by which they sharpen
your grief, not suffering it either of itself or by the help of others
to fade and vanish away. For I am not ignorant how great a combat you
lately entered, when you assisted the sister of Theon, and opposed
the women who came running in with horrid cries and lamentations,
bringing fuel as it were to her passion. Assuredly, when men see their
neighbor’s house on fire, every one contributes his utmost to quench
it; but when they see the mind inflamed with furious passion, they
bring fuel to nourish and increase the flame. When a man’s eye is in
pain, he is not suffered to touch it, though the inflammation provoke
him to it, nor will they that are near him meddle with it. But he who
is galled with grief sits and exposes his distemper to every one, like
waters that all may poach in; and so that which at first seemed a light
itching or trivial smart, by much fretting and provoking, becomes a
great and almost incurable disease. But I know very well that you will
arm yourself against these inconveniences.
8. Moreover, I would have you endeavor to call often to mind that
time when our daughter was not as yet born to us, and when we had
no cause to complain of Fortune. Then, joining that time with this,
argue thus with yourself, that we are now in the same condition as
then. Otherwise, dear wife, we shall seem discontented at the birth
of our little daughter, if we own that our circumstances were better
before her birth. But the two years of her life are by no means to be
forgotten by us, but to be numbered amongst our blessings, in that they
afforded us an agreeable pleasure. Nor must we esteem a small good for
a great evil; nor ungratefully complain against Fortune for what she
has actually given us, because she has not added what we wished for.
Certainly, to speak reverently of the Gods, and to bear our lot with
an even mind without accusing Fortune, always brings with it a fair
reward. But he who in such a case calls prosperous things to mind, and
turning his thoughts from dark and melancholy objects, fixes them on
bright and cheerful ones, will either quite extinguish his grief, or by
allaying it with contrary sentiments, will render it weak and feeble.
For, as perfumes bring delight to the nose, and arm it against ill
scents, so the remembrance of happiness gives necessary assistance
in adversity to those who avoid not the recollection of their past
prosperity nor complain at all against Fortune. For certainly it would
little become us to accuse our life, if like a book it hath but one
little blot in it, though all the rest be fair and clean.
9. For you have oftentimes heard, that true happiness consists in
the right discourses and counsels of the mind, tending to its own
constant establishment, and that the changes of Fortune are of no great
importance to the felicity of our life. But even if we must also be
governed by exterior things, and with the common sort of people have a
regard to casualties, and suffer any kind of men to be judges of our
happiness, however, do not you take notice of the tears and moans of
such as visit you at present, condoling your misfortunes; for their
tears and sighs are but of course. But rather, do you consider how
happy every one of them esteems you for the children you have, the
house you keep, and the life you lead. For it would be an ill thing,
while others covet your fortune, though sullied with this affliction,
that you should exclaim against what you enjoy, and not be sensible,
from the taste of affliction, how grateful you ought to be for the
happiness which remains untouched. Or, like some who, collecting all
the defective verses of Homer, pass over at the same time so many
excellent parts of his poems, so shall we peevishly complain of and
reckon up the inconveniences of our life, neglecting at the same time
promiscuously the benefits thereof? Or, shall we imitate covetous and
sordid misers, who, having heaped together much riches, never enjoy
what they have in possession, but bewail it if it chance to be lost?
But if you lament the poor girl because she died unmarried and without
offspring, you have wherewithal to comfort yourself, in that you are
defective in none of these things, having had your share. And these
are not to be esteemed at once great evils where they are wanted, and
small benefits where they are enjoyed. But so long as she is gone to
a place where she feels no pain, what need is there of our grief? For
what harm can befall us from her, when she is free from all hurt? And
surely the loss of even great things abates the grief, when it is come
to this, that we have no need or use of them. But thy Timoxena was
deprived but of small matter; for she had no knowledge but of such,
neither took she delight but in such small things. But for that which
she never was sensible of, and which did not so much as once enter into
her thoughts, how can you say it is taken from her?
10. As for what you hear others say, who persuade the vulgar that
the soul, when once freed from the body, suffers no inconvenience or
evil nor is sensible at all, I know that you are better grounded in
the doctrines delivered down to us from our ancestors, as also in the
sacred mysteries of Bacchus, than to believe such stories; for the
religious symbols are well known to us who are of the fraternity.
Therefore be assured, that the soul, being incapable of death, is
affected in the same manner as birds that are kept in a cage. For if
she has been a long time educated and cherished in the body, and by
long custom has been made familiar with most things of this life, she
will (though separable) return again, and at length enter the body; nor
ceaseth it by new births now and then to be entangled in the chances
and events of this life. For do not think that old age is therefore
evil spoken of and blamed, because it is accompanied with wrinkles,
gray hairs, and weakness of body. But this is the most troublesome
thing in old age, that it maketh the soul weak in its remembrance of
divine things, and too earnest for things relating to the body; thus
it bendeth and boweth, retaining that form which it took of the body.
But that which is taken away in youth, being more soft and tractable,
soon returns to its native vigor and beauty. Just as fire that is
quenched, if it be forthwith kindled again, sparkles and burns out
immediately.... So most speedily
’Twere good to pass the gates of death,[135]
before too great a love of bodily and earthly things be engendered in
the soul, and it become soft and tender by being used to the body, and
(as it were) by charms and potions incorporated with it.
11. But the truth of this will appear in the laws and traditions
received from our ancestors. For when children die, no libations nor
sacrifices are made for them, nor any other of those ceremonies which
are wont to be performed for the dead. For infants have no part of
earth or earthly affections. Nor do we hover or tarry about their
sepulchres or monuments, or sit by when their dead bodies are exposed.
The laws of our country forbid this, and teach us that it is an impious
thing to lament for those whose souls pass immediately into a better
and more divine state. Wherefore, since it is safer to give credit to
our traditions than to call them in question, let us comply with the
custom in outward and public behavior, and let our interior be more
unpolluted, pure, and holy....
OF THE THREE SORTS OF GOVERNMENT, MONARCHY, DEMOCRACY, AND OLIGARCHY.
1. AS I was considering with myself to bring forth and propose to the
judgment of this worthy company the discourse I held yesterday in your
presence, methought I heard political virtue—not in the illusion of a
dream, but in a true and real vision—say thus to me.
A golden ground is laid for sacred songs.
We have already laid the foundation of the discourse by persuading
and exhorting persons to concern themselves in managing the affairs
of the commonweal, and now we proceed to build upon it the doctrine
which is due after such an exhortation. For after a man has received
an admonition and exhortation to deal in the affairs of the state,
there ought consequently to be given him the precepts of government,
following and observing which, he may, as much as it is possible for a
man to do, profit the public, and in the mean time honestly prosecute
his own affairs with such safety and honor as shall be meet for him.
There is first then one point to be discoursed, which, as it is
precedent to what we have hereafter to say, so depends on what we have
said before. Now this is, what sort of policy and government is best?
For as there are many sorts of lives in particular men, so also are
there in people and states; and the life of a people or state is its
policy and government. It is therefore necessary to declare which is
the best, that a statesman may choose it from among the rest, or, if
that is not possible for him to do, he may at least take that which has
the nearest resemblance to the best.
2. Now there is one signification of this word policy (πολιτεία) which
imports as much as _burgess-ship_, that is, a participation in the
rights and privileges belonging to a town, city, or borough; as when we
say that the Megarians, by an edict of their city, presented Alexander
the Great with their _policy_, that is, their _burgess-ship_, and that,
Alexander laughing at the offer they made him of it, they answered him,
that they had never decreed that honor to any but Hercules and now to
himself. This he wondering to hear accepted their present, thinking it
honorable inasmuch as it was rare. The life also of a political person,
who is concerned in the government of the commonweal, is called policy,
as when we praise the policy of Pericles or Bias, that is, the manner
of their government, and on the contrary, blame that of Hyperbolus and
Cleon. Some moreover there are, who call a great and memorable action
performed in the administration of a commonweal a policy, such as is
the distribution of money, the suppressing of a war, the introduction
of some notable decree worthy to be kept in perpetual memory. In which
signification it is a common manner of speaking to say, This man to-day
has done a policy, if he has peradventure effected some remarkable
matter in the government of the state.
3. Besides all these significations there is yet another, that is, the
order and state by which a commonweal is governed, and by which affairs
are managed and administered. According to which we say that there are
three sorts of policy or public government,—to wit, Monarchy, which
is regality or kingship, Oligarchy, which is the government by peers
and nobles, and Democracy, which is a popular or (as we term it) a free
state. Now all these are mentioned by Herodotus in his Third Book,[136]
where he compares them one with another. And these seem to be the most
general of all; for all other sorts are, as it were, the depravation
and corruption of these, either by defect or excess; as it is in the
first consonances of music, when the strings are either too straight or
too slack.
Now these three sorts of government have been distributed amongst the
nations that have had the mightiest and the greatest empire. Thus the
Persians enjoyed regality or kingship, because their king had full
absolute power in all things, without being liable to render an account
to any one. The Spartans had a council consisting of a small number,
and those the best and most considerable persons in the city, who
despatched all affairs. The Athenians maintained popular government
free and exempt from any other mixture. In which administration when
there are any faults, their transgressions and exorbitances are styled
tyrannies, oppressions of the stronger, unbridled licentiousness of the
multitude. That is, when the prince who has the royalty permits himself
to outrage whomever he pleases, and will not suffer any remonstrance
to be made him concerning it, he becomes a tyrant; when a few lords or
senators in whose hands the government is arrive at that arrogance as
to contemn all others, they turn oppressors; and when a popular state
breaks forth into disobedience and levelling, it runs into anarchy
and unmeasurable liberty: and in a word, all of them together will be
rashness and folly.
4. Even then as a skilful musician will make use of all sorts of
instruments, and play on every one of them, accommodating himself in
such manner as its quality can bear and as shall be fit to make it
yield the sweetest sound, but yet, if he will follow Plato’s counsel,
will lay aside fiddles, many-stringed virginals, psalteries, and harps,
preferring before all other the lute and bandore; in like manner,
an able statesman will dexterously manage the Laconic and Lycurgian
seignory or oligarchy, fitting and accommodating his companions who
are of equal authority with him, and by little and little drawing and
reducing them to be managed by himself. He will also carry himself
discreetly in a popular state, as if he had to deal with an instrument
of many and differently sounding strings, one while letting down and
remitting some things, and again extending others, as he shall see his
opportunity and find it most convenient for the government, to which he
will vigorously apply himself, well knowing when and how he ought to
resist and contradict; but yet, if he might be permitted to make his
choice from amongst all sorts of government, as from so many musical
instruments, he would not, if Plato’s advice might be taken, choose any
other but monarchy or regal authority, as being that which is indeed
alone able to support that most perfect and most lofty note of virtue,
without suffering him either by force or by grace and favor, to frame
himself for advantage and gain. For all other sorts of governments do
in a manner as much rule a statesman as he does them, no less carrying
him than they are carried by him; forasmuch as he has no certain
power over those from whom he has his authority, but is very often
constrained to cry out in these words of the poet Aeschylus, which King
Demetrius, surnamed the Town-taker, often alleged against Fortune,
after he had lost his kingdom
Thou mad’st me first, and now undoest me quite.
WHETHER THE ATHENIANS WERE MORE RENOWNED FOR THEIR WARLIKE
ACHIEVEMENTS OR FOR THEIR LEARNING.
1.... THESE things he rightly spoke to the commanders that accompanied
him, to whom he opened the way for future performances, while he
expelled the barbarians and restored Greece to her ancient liberty. And
the same thing may be said to those that magnify themselves for their
writings. For if there were none to act, there would be none to write.
Take away the political government of Pericles, and the naval trophies
of Phormio at Rhium, and the brave achievements of Nicias at Cythera,
Megara, and Corinth, Demosthenes’s Pylos, and the four hundred captives
taken by Cleon, Tolmides sailing round the Peloponnesus, and Myronidas
vanquishing the Boeotians at Oenophyta: and you murder Thucydides.
Take away the daring braveries of Alcibiades in the Hellespont, and of
Thrasyllus near Lesbos; the dissolution of the oligarchy by Theramenes;
Thrasybulus, Archippus, and the seventy that from Phylae ventured to
attack the Lacedaemonian tyranny; and Conon again enforcing Athens
to take the sea: and then there is an end of Cratippus. For as for
Xenophon, he was his own historian, relating the exploits of the army
under his command, but saying that Themistogenes the Syracusan had
written the history of them; dedicating the honor of his writing to
another, that writing of himself as of another, he might gain the
more credit. But all the other historians, as the Clinodemi, Diyli,
Philochorus, Philarchus, were but the actors of other men’s deeds,
as of so many plays, while they compiled the acts of kings and great
generals, and thrusting themselves into the memory of their fame,
partake of a kind of lustre and light from them. For there is a certain
shadow of glory which reflects from those that act to those that write,
while the actions of another appear in the discourse as in a mirror.
2. But this city was the mother and charitable nurse of many other arts
and sciences; some of which she first invented and illustrated, to
others she gave both efficacy, honor, and increase. More especially to
her is painting beholden for its first invention, and the perfection to
which it has attained. For Apollodorus the painter, who first invented
the mixing of colors and the softening of shadows, was an Athenian.
Over whose works there is this inscription:
’Tis no hard thing to reprehend me;
But let the men that blame me mend me.
Then for Euphranor, Nicias, Asclepiodorus, and Plistaenetus the brother
of Phidias, some of them painted the victories, others the battles of
great generals, and some of them heroes themselves. Thus Euphranor,
comparing his own Theseus with another drawn by Parrhasius, said, that
Parrhasius’s Theseus ate roses, but his fed upon beef. For Parrhasius’s
piece was daintily painted, and perhaps it might be something like the
original. But he that beheld Euphranor’s Theseus might well exclaim,
Race of Erechtheus bold and stout,
Whom Pallas bred.[137]
Euphranor also painted with great spirit the battle of Mantinea,
fought by the cavalry between the Athenians and Epaminondas. The
story was thus. The Theban Epaminondas, puffed up with his victory at
Leuctra, and designing to insult and trample over fallen Sparta and
the glory of that city, with an army of seventy thousand men invaded
and laid waste the Lacedaemonian territory, stirred up the subject
people to revolt, and not far from Mantinea provoked the Spartans to
battle; but they neither being willing nor indeed daring to encounter
him, being in expectation of a reinforcement from Athens, Epaminondas
dislodged in the night-time, and with all the secrecy imaginable fell
into the Lacedaemonian territory; and missed but little of taking
Sparta itself, being destitute of men to defend it. But the allies of
the Lacedaemonians made haste to its relief; whereupon Epaminondas
made a show as if he would again return to spoiling and laying waste
the country; and by this means deceiving and amusing his enemies, he
retreats out of Laconia by night, and with swift marches coming upon
the Mantineans unexpectedly, at what time they were deliberating to
send relief to Sparta, presently commanded the Thebans to prepare to
storm the town. Immediately the Thebans, who had a great conceit of
their warlike courage, took their several posts, and began to surround
the city. This put the Mantineans into a dismal consternation, and
filled the whole city with dreadful outcries and hurly-burly, as being
neither able to withstand such a torrent of armed men ready to rush in
upon them, nor having any hopes of succor.
But at the same time, and by good fortune, the Athenians came down from
the hills into the plains of Mantinea, not knowing any thing of the
critical moment that required more speedy haste, but marching leisurely
along. However, so soon as they were informed of the danger of their
allies, by one that scouted out from the rest, though but few in
respect of the number of their enemies, single of themselves, and tired
with their march, yet they presently drew up into order of battle; and
the cavalry charging up to the very gates of Mantinea, there happened a
terrible battle between the horse on both sides; wherein the Athenians
got the better, and so saved Mantinea out of Epaminondas’s hands. This
conflict was painted by Euphranor, and you see in the picture with what
strength, what fury and vigor they fought. And yet I do not believe
that any one will compare the skill of the painter with that of the
general; or would endure that any one should prefer the picture before
the trophy, or the imitation before the truth itself.
3. Though indeed Simonides calls painting silent poetry, and poetry
speaking painting. For those actions which painters set forth as they
were doing, those history relates when they were done. And what the
one sets forth in colors and figures, the other relates in words and
sentences; only they differ in the materials and manner of imitation.
However, both aim at the same end, and he is accounted the best
historian, who can make the most lively descriptions both of persons
and passions. Therefore Thucydides always drives at this perspicuity,
to make the hearer (as it were) a spectator, and to inculcate the same
passions and perturbations of mind into his readers as they were in
who beheld the causes of those effects. For Demosthenes embattling the
Athenians near the rocky shore of Pylos; Brasidas hastening the pilot
to run the ship aground, then going to the rowers’ seats, then wounded
and fainting, sinking down in that part of the vessel where the oars
could not trouble him; the land fight of the Spartans from the sea, and
the sea engagement of the Athenians from the land; then again in the
Sicilian war, both a land fight and sea engagement, so fought that
neither had the better,[138]... So that if we may not compare painters
with generals, neither must we equal historians to them.
Thersippus of Eroeadae brought the first news of the victory at
Marathon, as Heraclides of Pontus relates. But most report that Eucles,
running armed with his wounds reeking from the fight, and falling
through the door into the first house he met, expired with only these
words in his mouth, “God save ye, we are well.” Now this man brought
the news himself of the success of a fight wherein he was present in
person. But suppose that any of the goat-keepers or herd-men had beheld
the combat from some high hill at a distance, and seeing the success of
that great achievement, greater than by words can be expressed, should
have come to the city without any wound or blood about him, and should
have claimed the honors done to Cynaegirus, Callimachus, and Polyzelus,
for giving an account of their wounds, their bravery and deaths,
wouldst thou not have thought him impudent above impudence itself;
seeing that the Lacedaemonians gave the messenger that brought the
news of the victory at Mantinea[139] no other reward than a quantity
of victuals from the public mess? But historians are (as it were)
well-voiced relators of the actions of great men, who add grace and
beauty and dint of wit to their relations, and to whom they that first
light upon them and read them are indebted for their pleasing tidings.
And being read, they are applauded for transmitting to posterity the
actions of those that do bravely. For words do not make actions, though
we give them the hearing.
4. But there is a certain grace and glory of the poetic art, when it
resembles the grandeur of the actions themselves; according to that of
Homer,
And many falsities he did unfold,
That looked like truth, so smoothly were they told.[140]
It is reported also, that when one of his familiar friends said to
Menander, The feasts of Bacchus are at hand, and thou hast made ne’er a
comedy; he made him this answer: By all the Gods, I have made a comedy,
for I have laid my plot; and there remains only to make the verses and
measures to it. So that the poets themselves believe the actions to be
more necessary than the words, and the first things to be considered.
Corinna likewise, when Pindar was but a young man and made too daring
a use of his eloquence, gave him this admonition, that he was no poet,
for that he never composed any fables, which was the chiefest office of
poetry; in regard that strange words, figures, metaphors, songs, and
measures were invented to give a sweetness to things. Which admonition
Pindar laying up in his mind, wrote a certain ode which thus begins:
Shall I Ismenus sing,
Or Melia, that from spindles all of gold
Her twisted yarn unwinds,
Or Cadmus, that most ancient king,
Or else the sacred race of Sparti bold,
Or Hercules, that far in strength transcends.
Which when he showed to Corinna, she with a smile replied: When you
sow, you must scatter the seed with your hand, not empty the whole
sack at once. And indeed we find that Pindar intermixes in his poetic
numbers a collection of all sorts of fables. Now that poetry employs
itself in mythology is agreed by Plato likewise. For a fable is the
relation of a false story resembling truth, and therefore very remote
from real actions; for relation is the image of action, as fable is the
image of relation. And therefore they that feign actions fall as far
behind historians as they that speak differ from those that act.
5. Athens therefore never bred up any true artist in epic or lyric
verse. For Cinesias was a troublesome writer of dithyrambics, a person
of mean parentage and of no repute; and being jeered and derided by the
comedians, proved very unfortunate in the pursuit of fame.
Now for the dramatic poets, the Athenians looked upon comedy to be so
ignoble and troublesome, that they published a law that no Areopagite
should make any comedies. But tragedy flourished and was cried up, and
with wonder and admiration heard and beheld by all people in those
days, deceiving them with fables and the display of various passions;
whereby, as Gorgias says, he that deceived was more just than he that
deceived not, and he that was deceived was wiser than he who was not
deceived. He that deceived was more just, because it was no more than
what he pretended to do; and he that was deceived was wiser, for that
he must be a man of no sense that is not taken with the sweetness
of words. And yet what benefit did those fine tragedies procure the
Athenians? But the shrewdness and cunning of Themistocles walled
the city, the industry of Pericles adorned their citadel, and Cimon
advanced them to command their neighbors. But as for the wisdom of
Euripides, the eloquence of Sophocles, the lofty style of Aeschylus,
what calamity did they avert from the city; or what renown or fame did
they bring to the Athenians? Is it fitting then that dramatic poems
should be compared with trophies, the stage with the generals’ office,
or lists of dramas with noble achievements?
6. Would ye that we should introduce the men themselves carrying before
them the marks and signals of their own actions, permitting them to
enter in order, like the actors upon the stage? But then poets must go
before them, with flutes and lyres, saying and singing:
Far from our choirs who in this lore’s unskilled,
Or does not cherish pure and holy thoughts,
Nor views nor joins the Muses’ generous rites,
Nor is perfected in the Bacchic tongue,
With which Cratinus bull-devourer sang.[141]
And then there must be scenes, and vizards, and altars, and versatile
machines. There must be also the tragedy actors, the Nicostrati,
Callippidae, Menisci, Theodori, Poli, the dressers, and sedan-men of
tragedy,—like those of some sumptuously apparelled lady, or rather like
the painters, gilders, and colorers of statues,—together with a costly
preparation of vessels, vizards, purple coats, and machines, attended
by an unruly rabble of dancers and guards; and let all the preparation
be exceeding costly and magnificent. A Lacedaemonian once, beholding
all this, not improperly said: How strangely are the Athenians
mistaken, consuming so much cost and labor upon ridiculous trifles;
that is to say, wasting the expenses of navies and of victualling whole
armies upon the stage. For if you compute the cost of those dramatic
preparations, you will find that the Athenians spent more upon their
Bacchae, Oedipuses, and Antigone, and the woes of Medea and Electra,
than in their wars against the barbarians for liberty and extending
their empire. For their general oft-times led forth the soldiers to
battle, commanding them to make provisions only of such food as needed
not the tedious preparation of fire. And indeed their admirals and
captains of their ships went aboard without any other provision than
meal, onions, and cheese. Whereas the masters of the choruses, feeding
their dancers with eels, lettuce, the kernels of garlic, and marrow,
feasted them for a long time, exercising their voices and pleasing
their palates by turns. And as for these captains, if they were
overcome, it was their misfortune to be contemned and hissed at; and if
they were victors, there was neither tripod, nor consecrated ornament
of victory, as Demetrius says, but a life prolonged among cables, and
an empty house for a tomb. For this is the tribute of poetry, and there
is nothing more splendid to be expected from it.
7. Now then let us consider the great generals as they approach, to
whom, as they pass by, all those must rise up and pay their salutations
who have never been famous for any great action, military or civil, and
were never furnished with daring boldness nor purity of wisdom for such
enterprises, nor initiated by the hand of Miltiades that overthrew the
Medes, or of Themistocles that vanquished the Persians. This is the
martial gang, at once combating with phalanxes by land, and engaging
with navies by sea, and laden with the spoils of both. Give ear, Alala,
daughter of War, to this same prologue of swords and spears.
Hasten to death, when for your country vowed,
as Epaminondas said,—for your country, your sepulchres, and your
altars, throwing yourselves into most noble and illustrious combats.
Their victories methinks I see approaching toward me, not dragging
after them a goat or ox for a reward, nor crowned with ivy and smelling
of the dregs of wine. But whole cities, islands, continents, and
colonies well peopled are their rewards, being surrounded with trophies
and spoils of all sorts. Whose statues and symbols of honor are
Parthenons, a hundred feet in length, South-walls, houses for ships,
the Propylaea, the Chersonesus, and Amphipolis. Marathon displays the
victory of Miltiades, and Salamis the glory of Themistocles, triumphing
over the ruins of a thousand vessels. The victory of Cimon brings
away a hundred Phoenician galleys from the Eurymedon. And the victory
of Cleon and Demosthenes brings away the shield of Brasidas, and the
captive soldiers in chains from Sphacteria. The victory of Conon and
Thrasybulus walls the city, and brings the people back at liberty from
Phylae. The victory of Alcibiades near Sicily restores the languishing
condition of the city; and Greece beheld Ionia raised again by the
victories of Neleus and Androclus in Lydia and Caria.
If you ask what benefit every one of the rest procured to the city; one
will answer Lesbos, another Samos, another Cyprus, another the Pontus
Euxinus, another five hundred galleys with three banks of oars, and
another ten thousand talents, the rewards of fame and trophies won.
For these victories the city observes public anniversary festivals,
for these victories she sacrifices to the Gods; not for the victories
of Aeschylus and Sophocles, not because Carcinus was victorious[142]
with his Aerope, or Astydamas with his Hector. But upon the sixth
of September, even to this day, the Athenians celebrate a festival
in memory of the fight at Marathon. Upon the sixteenth of the same
month libations are poured in remembrance of the naval victory won
by Chabrias near Naxos. Upon the twelfth they offer thanksgiving
sacrifices for the recovery of their liberty. For upon that day they
returned back from Phylae. The third of the same month they won the
battle of Plataea. The sixteenth of April was consecrated to Diana,
when the moon appeared in the full to the Greeks victorious at Salamis.
The twelfth of June was made sacred by the battle of Mantinea, wherein
the Athenians, when their confederates were routed and fled, alone
by themselves obtained the victory and triumph over their victorious
enemies. Such actions as these procured honor and veneration and
grandeur to the city; for these acts it was that Pindar called Athens
the support of Greece; not because she had set the fortune of the
Greeks upright by the tragedies of Phrynichus and Thespis, but because
(as he says) “near Artemisium the Athenian youth laid the first
glorious foundation of freedom;” and afterwards fixing it upon the
adamantine pillars of Salamis, Mycale, and Plataea, they multiplied
their felicity to others.
8. But as for the writings of the poets, they are mere bubbles. But
rhetoricians and orators indeed have something in them that renders
them in some measure fit to be compared with great captains. For
which reason, Aeschines in derision reports of Demosthenes, that he
said he was bringing a suit in behalf of the orator’s stand against
the generals’ office.[143] But for all that, do you think it proper
to prefer the Plataic oration of Hyperides to the Plataic victory
of Aristides? Or the oration of Lysias against the Thirty Tyrants,
to the acts of Thrasybulus and Archias that put them to death? Or
that of Aeschines against Timarchus for unchastity, to the relieving
of Byzantium by Phocion, by which he prevented the sons of the
confederates from being the scorn and derision of the Macedonians?
Or shall we set before the public crowns which Demosthenes received
for setting Greece at liberty, his oration on the Crown, wherein the
rhetorician has behaved himself most splendidly and learnedly, swearing
by their progenitors that ventured their lives at Marathon for the
liberty of Greece,[144] rather than by those that instructed youth in
the schools? And therefore the city buried these heroes at the expense
of the public, honoring the sacred relics of their bodies, not men
like Isocrates, Antiphon, and Isaeus, and the orator has translated
them into the number of the Gods; and by these it was that he chose
to swear, though he did not follow their example. Isocrates also was
wont to say, that they who ventured their lives at Marathon fought
as if they had been inspired with other souls than their own; and
extolling their daring boldness and contempt of life, to one that asked
him (being at that time very aged) how he did,—As well, said he, as
one who, being now above fourscore and ten years old, esteems death
to be the worst of evils. For neither did he spend his years to old
age in whetting his sword, in grinding and sharpening his spear, in
scouring and polishing his helmet, in commanding navies and armies,
but in knitting and joining together antithetical and equally balanced
clauses, and words of similar endings, all but smoothing and adapting
his periods and sentences with files, planes, or chisels. How would
that man have been affrighted at the clattering of weapons or the
routing of a phalanx, who was so afraid of suffering one vowel to clash
with another, or to pronounce a sentence where but one syllable was
wanting!
Miltiades, the very next day after the battle of Marathon, returned
a victor to the city with his army. And Pericles, having subdued the
Samians in nine months, derided Agamemnon that was ten years taking
of Troy. But Isocrates was nearly three Olympiads (or twelve years)
in writing his Panegyric; in all which time he had neither been a
general nor an ambassador, neither built a city, nor been an admiral,
notwithstanding the many wars that harassed Greece within that
time. But while Timotheus freed Euboea from slavery, while Chabrias
vanquished the enemy near Naxos, while Iphicrates defeated and cut to
pieces a whole battalion of the Lacedaemonians near Lechaeum, while the
Athenians, having shaken off the Spartan yoke, set the rest of Greece
at liberty, with as ample privileges as they had themselves; he sits
poring at home in his study, seeking out proper phrases and choice
words for his oration, as long a time as Pericles spent in erecting
the Propylaea and the Parthenon. Though the comic poet Cratinus seems
to deride even Pericles himself as one that was none of the quickest,
where he says of the middle wall:
In words the mighty Pericles
Has rais’d us up a wall;
But ’tis a wall in only words,
For we see none at all.
Consider now the poor spirit of this great orator, who spent the ninth
part of his life in compiling one single oration. But to say no more of
him, is it rational to compare the harangues of Demosthenes the orator
with the martial exploits of Demosthenes the great leader? For example,
the oration against Conon for an assault, with the trophies which the
other erected before Pylos? Or the declamation against Amathusius
concerning slaves, with the noble service which the other performed
in bringing home the Spartan captives? Neither can it be said, that
Demosthenes for his oration in regard to foreigners ... deserved as
much honor as Alcibiades, who joined the Mantineans and Eleans as
confederates with the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians. And yet we
must acknowledge that the public orations of Demosthenes deserve this
praise, that in his Philippics he bravely encourages the Athenians to
take arms, and he extols the enterprise of Leptines....
AGAINST RUNNING IN DEBT, OR TAKING UP MONEY UPON USURY.
1. PLATO in his Laws[145] permits not any one to go and draw water from
his neighbor’s well, who has not first digged and sunk a pit in his
own ground till he is come to a vein of clay, and has by his sounding
experimented that the place will not yield a spring. For the clay or
potter’s earth, being of its own nature fatty, solid, and strong,
retains the moisture it receives, and will not let it soak or pierce
through. But it must be lawful for them to take water from another’s
ground, when there is no way or means for them to find any in their
own; for the law ought to provide for men’s necessity, but not favor
their laziness. Should there not be the like ordinance also concerning
money; that none should be allowed to borrow upon usury, nor to go
and dive into other men’s purses,—as it were into their wells and
fountains,—before they have first searched at home and sounded every
means for the obtaining it; having collected (as it were) and gathered
together all the gutters and springs, to try if they can draw from
them what may suffice to supply their most necessary occasions? But on
the contrary, many there are who, to defray their idle expenses and
to satisfy their extravagant and superfluous delights, make not use
of their own, but have recourse to others, running themselves deeply
into debt without any necessity. Now this may easily be judged, if
one does but consider that usurers do not ordinarily lend to those
which are in distress, but only to such as desire to obtain somewhat
that is superfluous and of which they stand not in need. So that the
credit given by the lender is a testimony sufficiently proving that the
borrower has of his own; whereas on the contrary, since he has of his
own, he ought to keep himself from borrowing.
2. Why shouldst thou go and make thy court to a banker or a merchant?
Borrow from thine own table. Thou hast tankards, dishes, and basins of
silver. Make use of them for thy necessity, and when they are gone to
supply thy wants, the pleasant town of Aulis or isle of Tenedos will
again refurnish thy board with fair vessels of earth, far more cleanly
and neat than those of silver. For they are not scented with the strong
and unpleasant smell of usury, which, like rust, daily more and more
sullies and tarnishes the lustre of thy sumptuous magnificence. They
will not be every day putting thee in mind of the Kalends and new
moons, which, being of themselves the most holy and sacred days of the
months, are by reason of usuries rendered the most odious and accursed.
For as to those who choose rather to carry their goods to the brokers
and there lay them in pawn for money taken upon usury than to sell them
outright, I do not believe that Jupiter Ctesius himself can preserve
them from beggary. They are ashamed forsooth to receive the full price
and value of their goods; but they are not ashamed to pay use for the
money they have borrowed on them. And yet the great and wise Pericles
caused that costly ornament of fine gold, weighing about forty talents,
with which Minerva’s statue was adorned, to be made in such a manner
that he could take it off and on at his pleasure; to the end (said
he) that when we shall stand in need of money to support the charges
of war, we may take it and make use of it, putting afterwards in its
place another of no less value. Thus we ought in our affairs, as in
a besieged town, never to admit or receive the hostile garrison of a
usurer, nor to endure before our eyes the delivering up of our goods
into perpetual servitude; but rather to cut off from our table what is
neither necessary nor profitable, and in like manner from our beds, our
couches, and our ordinary expenses, and so to keep ourselves free and
at liberty, in hopes to restore again what we shall have retrenched, if
Fortune shall hereafter smile upon us.
3. The Roman ladies heretofore willingly parted with their jewels and
ornaments of gold, for the making a cup to be sent as an offering
to the temple of Apollo Pythius in the city of Delphi. And the
Carthaginian matrons did with their own hands cut the hair from their
heads, to make cords for the managing of their warlike engines and
instruments, in defence of their besieged city. But we, as if we were
ashamed of being able to stand on our own legs without being supported
by the assistance of others, go and enslave ourselves by engagements
and obligations; whereas it were much better that, restraining our
ambition and confining it to what is profitable for us, we should of
our useless and superfluous plate, which we should either melt or sell,
build a temple of Liberty for ourselves, our wives, and our children.
The Goddess Diana in the city of Ephesus gives to such debtors as can
fly into her temple freedom and protection against their creditors; but
the sanctuary of parsimony and moderation in expenses, into which no
usurer can enter to pluck thence and carry away any debtor prisoner, is
always open for the prudent, and affords them a long and large space of
joyful and honorable repose. For as the prophetess which gave oracles
in the temple of the Pythian Apollo, about the time of the Persian
wars, answered the Athenians, that God had for their safety given them
a wall of wood, upon which, forsaking their lands, their city, their
houses, and all their goods, they had recourse to their ships for the
preservation of their liberty; so God gives us a table of wood, vessels
of earth, and garments of coarse cloth, if we desire to live and
continue in freedom.
Aim not at gilded coaches, steeds of price,
And harness, richly wrought with quaint device;
for how swiftly soever they may run, yet will usuries overtake them and
outrun them.
Take rather the first ass thou shalt meet or the first pack-horse that
shall come in thy way, and fly from that cruel and tyrannical enemy
the usurer, who asks thee not earth and water, as heretofore did the
barbarous king of Persia, but—which is worse—touches thy liberty, and
wounds thy honor by proscriptions. If thou payest him not, he troubles
thee; if thou hast wherewithal to satisfy him, he will not receive it,
unless it be his pleasure. If thou sellest, he will have thy goods
for nothing, or at a very under rate; and if thou wilt not sell, he
will force thee to it; if thou suest him, he speaks to thee of an
accommodation; if thou swearest to give him content, he will domineer
over thee; if thou goest to his house to discourse with him, he shuts
his door against thee; if thou stayest at home, he is always knocking
at thy door and will never stir from thee.
4. Of what use to the Athenians was the decree of Solon, by which he
ordained that the body should not be obliged for any public debt? For
they who owe are in bondage to all bankers, and not to them alone (for
then there would be no great hurt), but to their very slaves, who are
proud, insolent, barbarous, and outrageous, and in a word exactly
such as Plato describes the devils and fiery executioners to be, who
in hell torment the souls of the wicked. For thus do these wretched
usurers make the court where justice is administered a hell to the poor
debtors, preying on some and gnawing them, vulture-like, to the very
bones, and
Piercing into their entrails with sharp beaks;[146]
and standing over others, who are, like so many Tantaluses, prohibited
by them from tasting the corn and fruits of their own ground and
drinking the wine of their own vintage. And as King Darius sent to
the city of Athens his lieutenants Datis and Artaphernes with chains
and cords, to bind the prisoners they should take; so these usurers,
bringing into Greece boxes full of schedules, bills, and obligatory
contracts, as so many irons and fetters for the shackling of poor
criminals, go through the cities, sowing in them, as they pass, not
good and profitable seed,—as did heretofore Triptolemus, when he went
through all places teaching the people to sow corn,—but roots and
grains of debts, that produce infinite labors and intolerable usuries,
of which the end can never be found, and which, eating their way and
spreading their sprouts round about, do in fine make cities bend under
the burden, till they come to be suffocated. They say that hares at
the same time suckle one young leveret, are ready to kindle and bring
forth another, and conceive a third; but the usuries of these barbarous
and wicked usurers bring forth before they conceive. For at the very
delivery of their money, they immediately ask it back, taking it up
at the same moment they lay it down; and they let out that again to
interest which they take for the use of what they have before lent.
5. It is a saying among the Messenians,
Pylos before Pylos, and Pylos still you’ll find;
but it may much better be said against the usurers,
Use before use, and use still more you’ll find.
So that they laugh at those natural philosophers who hold that
nothing can be made of nothing and of that which has no existence;
but with them usury is made and engendered of that which neither is
nor ever was. They think the taking to farm the customs and other
public tributes, which the laws nevertheless permit, to be a shame and
reproach; and yet themselves on the contrary, in opposition to all
the laws in the world, make men pay tribute for what they lend upon
interest; or rather, if truth may be spoken, do in the very letting out
their money to use, basely deceive their debtor. For the poor debtor,
who receives less than he acknowledges in his obligation, is falsely
and dishonestly cheated. And the Persians indeed repute lying to be a
sin only in a second degree, but to be in debt they repute to be in the
first; forasmuch as lying frequently attends those that owe. Now there
are not in the whole world any people who are oftener guilty of lying
than usurers, nor that practise more unfaithfulness in their day-books,
in which they set down that they have delivered such a sum of money
to such a person, to whom they have not given nigh so much. And the
moving cause of their lying is pure avarice, not want or poverty, but
an insatiable desire of always having more, the end of which is neither
pleasurable nor profitable to themselves, but ruinous and destructive
to those whom they injure. For they neither cultivate the lands of
which they deprive their debtors, nor inhabit the houses out of which
they eject them, nor eat at the tables which they take away from
them, nor wear the clothes of which they strip them. But first one is
destroyed, and then a second soon follows, being drawn on and allured
by the former. For the mischief spreads like wildfire, still consuming,
and yet still increasing by the destruction and ruin of those that
fall into it, whom it devours one after another. And the usurer who
maintains this fire, blowing and kindling it to the undoing of so many
people, reaps no other advantage from it but only that he now and then
takes his book of accounts, and reads in it how many poor debtors he
has caused to sell what they had, how many he has dispossessed of their
lands and livings, whence his money came which he is always turning,
winding, and increasing.
6. Think not that I speak this for any ill-will or enmity that I have
borne against usurers;
For never did they drive away
My horses or my kine.[147]
But my only aim is to show those who are so ready to take up money upon
use, how much shame and slavery there is in it, and how it proceeds
only from extreme folly, sloth, and effeminacy of heart. For if thou
hast of thy own, borrow not, since thou hast no need of it; and if thou
hast nothing, borrow not, because thou wilt not have any means to pay.
But let us consider the one and the other apart. The elder Cato said
to a certain old man, who behaved himself ill: My friend, seeing old
age has of itself so many evils, why dost thou go about to add to them
the reproach and shame of wickedness? In like manner may we say to a
man oppressed with poverty: Since poverty has of itself so many and so
great miseries, do not heap upon them the anguishes of borrowing and
being in debt. Take not from poverty the only good thing in which it is
superior to riches, to wit, freedom from pensive care. Otherwise thou
wilt subject thyself to the derision of the common proverb, which says,
A goat I cannot bear away,
Therefore an ox upon me lay.
Thou canst not bear poverty, and yet thou art going to load on thyself
a usurer, which is a burden even to a rich man insupportable.
But you will say perhaps, how then would you have me to live? Is this
a question fit for thee to ask, who hast hands, feet, and a voice, who
in brief art a man, whose property it is to love and be beloved, to do
and receive a courtesy? Canst thou not teach, bring up young children,
be a porter or doorkeeper, travel by sea, serve in a ship? There is in
all these nothing more shameful or odious, than to be dunned with the
importunate clamors of such as are always saying, Pay me, give me my
money.
7. Rutilius that rich Roman, coming one day to Musonius the
philosopher, whispered him thus in his ear: Musonius, Jupiter the
Savior, whom you philosophers profess to imitate and follow, takes not
up money at interest. Musonius smiling presently answered him: Nor yet
does he lend for use. For this Rutilius, who was himself an usurer,
upbraided the other with borrowing upon use. Now what a foolish stoical
arrogance was this. For what need was there of bringing here Jupiter
the Savior, when he might have given him the same admonition by things
that were familiar and before his eyes? Swallows run not themselves
into debt, ants borrow not upon interest; and yet Nature has given
them neither reason, hands, nor art. But she has endued men with such
abundance of understanding, that they maintain not only themselves,
but also horses, dogs, partridges, hares, and jays. Why then dost thou
condemn thyself, as if thou wert less able to persuade than a jay, more
dumb than a partridge, and more ungenerous than a dog, in that thou
couldst not oblige any man to be assistant to thee, either by serving
him, charming him, guarding him, or fighting in his defence? Dost thou
not see how many occasions the land, and how many the sea affords thee
for thy maintenance? Hear also what Crates says:
Here I saw Miccylus the wool to card,
Whilst his wife spun, that they by labor hard
In these hard times might 'scape the hungry jaws
Of famine.
King Antigonus, when he had not for a long time seen Cleanthes the
philosopher, said to him, Dost thou yet, O Cleanthes, continue to
grind? Yes, sir, replied Cleanthes, I still grind, and that I do
to gain my living and not to depart from philosophy. How great and
generous was the courage of this man, who, coming from the mill and
the kneading-trough, did with the same hand which had been employed in
turning the stone and moulding the dough, write of the nature of the
Gods, moon, stars, and sun! And yet we think these to be servile works.
Therefore, forsooth, that we may be free, we take up money at interest,
and to this purpose flatter base and servile persons, wait on them,
treat them, make them presents, and pay them pensions; and this we do,
not being compelled by poverty (for no usurer will lend a poor man
money) but to gratify our prodigality. For if we would be content with
such things as are necessary for human life, usurers would be no less
rare in the world than Centaurs and Gorgons. But luxury and excess, as
it produced goldsmiths, silversmiths, perfumers, and dyers of curious
colors, so has it also brought forth usurers. For we run not into debt
for bread and wine, but for the purchasing of stately seats, numerous
slaves, fine mules, costly banqueting halls, rich tables, and for all
those foolish and superfluous expenses to which we frequently put
ourselves for the exhibiting of plays to the people, or some such vain
ambition, from which we frequently reap no other fruit but ingratitude.
Now he that is once entangled in usury remains a debtor all his life,
not unlike in this to the horse, who, having once taken the bridle
into his mouth and the saddle on his back, receives one rider after
another. Nor is there any means for these debtors to make their escape
into those fair pastures and meadows which once they enjoyed, but they
wander about, like those Daemons mentioned by Empedocles to have been
driven out of heaven by the offended Gods.
By the sky’s force they’re thrust into the main,
Which to the earth soon spews them back again.
Thence to bright Titan’s orb they’re forced to fly,
And Titan soon remits them to the sky.
In like manner do such men fall from the hand of one usurer or banker
to another, sometimes of a Corinthian, sometimes of a Patrian,
sometimes of an Athenian, till, having been deceived and cheated by
all, they finally find themselves dissipated and torn in pieces by
usury. For as he who is fallen into the dirt must either rise up and
get out of it, or else lie still in the place into which he first fell,
for that by tumbling, turning, and rolling about, he does but still
more and more bemire himself; so also those who do but change their
creditor, and cause their names to be transcribed from one usurer’s
book to another’s, do by loading and embroiling themselves with new
usuries become more and more oppressed. Now in this they properly
resemble persons distempered with cholera, who cannot receive any
medicine sufficient to work a perfect cure, but continually vomit
up all that is given them, and so make way for the choleric humor
to gather more and more. For in the same manner these men are not
willing to be cleansed at once, but do with grievous anguish and sorrow
pay their use at every season of the year, and no sooner have they
discharged one, but another drops and stills immediately after, which
causes them both aching hearts and heads; whereas they should have
taken care to get wholly clear, that they might remain free and at
liberty.
8. For I now turn my speech to those who are more wealthy, and withal
more nice and effeminate, and whose discourse is commonly in this
manner: How shall I remain then without servants, without fire, and
without a house or place to which I may repair? Now this is the same
thing as if one who is sick of a dropsy and puffed up as a barrel
should say to a physician: How? Would you have me become slender, lean,
and empty? And why not, provided you thereby get your health? Thus it
is better you should be without servants, than that you should yourself
become a slave; and that you should remain without possessions, than
that you should be made the possession of another. Give ear a little
to the discourse of the two vultures, as it is reported in the fable.
One of them was taken with so strong a fit of vomiting, that he said:
I believe I shall cast up my very bowels. Now to this his companion
answered: What hurt will there be in it? For thou wilt not indeed throw
up thine own entrails, but those of the dead man which we devoured the
other day. So he who is indebted sells not his own inheritance nor his
own house, but that of the usurer who lent him the money, to whom by
the law he has given the right and possession of them. Nay, by Jupiter
(will he say to me); but my father left me this estate. I believe it
well, but he left thee also liberty and a good repute, of which thou
oughtest to make more account and be more careful. He who begat thee
made thy foot and thy hand, and nevertheless, if they happen to be
mortified, thou wilt give money to the chirurgeon to cut them off.
Calypso presented Ulysses with a robe breathing forth the sweet-scented
odor of an immortal body, which she put on him, as a token and memorial
of the love she had borne him. But when his ship was cast away and
himself ready to sink to the bottom, not being able to keep above the
water by reason of his wet robe, which weighed him downwards, he put it
off and threw it away, and having girt his naked breast with a broad
swaddling band,
Swam, gazing on the distant shore.[148]
And afterwards, when the danger was over and he seen to be landed, he
wanted neither food nor raiment. And is it not a true tempest, when the
usurer after some time comes to assault the miserable debtors with this
word Pay?
This having said, the clouds grow thick, the sea
Is troubled, and its raging waves beat high,
Whilst east, south, west winds through the welkin fly.[149]
These winds are use, and use upon use, which roll one after another;
and he that is overwhelmed by them and kept down by their weight cannot
serve himself nor make his escape by swimming, but at last sinks down
to the bottom, where he perishes, carrying with him his friends who
were pledges and sureties for him.
Crates, the Theban philosopher, acted far otherwise; for owing
nothing, and consequently not being pressed for payment by any
creditor, but only tired with the cares and troubles of housekeeping
and the solicitude requisite to the management of his estate, he left
a patrimony of eight talents’ value, and taking only his cloak and
wallet, retired to philosophy and poverty. Anaxagoras also forsook his
plentiful and well-stocked pastures. But what need is there of alleging
these examples, seeing that the lyric poet Philoxenus, being one of
those who were sent to people a new city and new land in Sicily, where
there fell to his share a good house and great wealth with which he
might have lived well at his ease, yet seeing that delights, pleasure,
and idleness, without any exercise of good letters, reigned in those
quarters, said: These goods, by all the Gods, shall not destroy me, but
I will rather lose them. And immediately leaving to others the portion
that was allotted to himself, he again took shipping, and returned to
Athens. Whereas those who are in debt bear and suffer themselves to be
sued, taxed, made slaves of, and cheated with false money, feeding like
King Phineus certain winged harpies. For these usurers fly to them,
and ravish out of their hands their very food. Neither yet have they
patience to stay and expect the season; for they buy their debtors’
corn before it is ready for harvest, bargain for the oil before the
olives are ripe, and in like manner for their wines. I will have it,
says the usurer, at such a price; and immediately he gets the writing
signed; and yet the grapes are still hanging on the vine, expecting the
rising of Arcturus.
PLUTARCH’S PLATONIC QUESTIONS.
_QUESTION I._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT GOD BADE SOCRATES TO ACT THE MIDWIFE’S
PART TO OTHERS, BUT CHARGED HIMSELF NOT TO GENERATE; AS HE SAYS IN
THEAETETUS?[150]
1. For he would never have used the name of God in such a merry,
jesting manner, though Plato in that book makes Socrates several times
to talk with great boasting and arrogance, as he does now. “There are
many, dear friend, so affected towards me, that they are ready even
to bite me, when I offer to cure them of the least madness. For they
will not be persuaded that I do it out of good-will, because they are
ignorant that no God bears ill-will to man, and that therefore I wish
ill to no man; but I cannot allow myself either to stand in a lie or to
stifle the truth.”[151] Whether therefore did he style his own nature,
which was of a very strong and pregnant wit, by the name of God,—as
Menander says, “For our mind is God,” and as Heraclitus, “Man’s genius
is a Deity”? Or did some divine cause or some Daemon or other impart
this way of philosophizing to Socrates, whereby always interrogating
others, he cleared them of pride, error, and ignorance, and of being
troublesome both to themselves and to others? For about that time there
happened to be in Greece several sophisters; to these some young men
paid great sums of money, for which they purchased a strong opinion of
learning and wisdom, and of being stout disputants; but this sort of
disputation spent much time in trifling squabblings, which were of no
credit or profit. Now Socrates, using an argumentative discourse by way
of a purgative remedy, procured belief and authority to what he said,
because in refuting others he himself affirmed nothing; and he the
sooner gained upon people, because he seemed rather to be inquisitive
after the truth as well as they, than to maintain his own opinion.
2. Now, however useful a thing judgment is, it is mightily impeached
by the begetting of a man’s own fancies. For the lover is blinded
with the thing loved; and nothing of a man’s own is so beloved as is
the opinion and discourse which he has begotten. And the distribution
of children, said to be the justest, in respect of discourses is the
unjustest; for there a man must take his own, but here a man must
choose the best, though it be another man’s. Therefore he that has
children of his own, is a worse judge of other men’s; it being true, as
the sophister said well, “The Eleans would be the most proper judges of
the Olympic games, were no Eleans gamesters.” So he that would judge of
disputations cannot be just, if he either seeks the bays for himself,
or is himself antagonist to either of the antagonists. For as the
Grecian captains, when they were to decide by their suffrages who had
behaved himself the best, every man of them voted for himself; so there
is not a philosopher of them all but would do the like, besides those
that acknowledge, like Socrates, that they can say nothing that is
their own; and these only are the pure uncorrupt judges of the truth.
For as the air in the ears, unless it be still and void of noise in
itself, without any sound or buzzing, does not exactly take sounds;
so the philosophical judgment in disputations, if it be disturbed and
obstreperous within, is hardly comprehensive of what is said without.
For our familiar and inbred opinion will not admit that which is at
variance with itself, as the number of sects and parties proves, of
which philosophy—if she deals with them in the best manner—must hold
one to be right, and all the others to be at war with the truth in
their opinions.
3. Furthermore, if men can comprehend and know nothing, God did justly
interdict Socrates the procreation of false and unstable discourses,
which are like wind-eggs, and bid him convince others who were of any
other opinion. And reasoning, which rids us of the greatest of evils,
error and vanity of mind, is none of the least benefit to us; “For God
has not granted this to the Esculapians.”[152] Nor did Socrates give
physic to the body; indeed he purged the mind of secret corruption.
But if there be any knowledge of the truth, and if the truth be one,
he has as much that learns it of him that invented it, as the inventor
himself. Now he the most easily attains the truth, that is persuaded
he has it not; and he chooses best, just as he that has no children
of his own adopts the best. Mark this well, that poetry, mathematics,
oratory, and sophistry, which are the things the Deity forbade Socrates
to generate, are of no value; and that of the sole wisdom about what
is divine and intelligible (which Socrates called amiable and eligible
for itself), there is neither generation nor invention by man, but
reminiscence. Wherefore Socrates taught nothing, but suggesting
principles of doubt, as birth-pains, to young men, he excited and at
the same time confirmed the innate notions. This he called his Art of
Midwifery, which did not (as others professed) extrinsically confer
intelligence upon his auditors; but demonstrated it to be innate, yet
imperfect and confused, and in want of a nurse to feed and strengthen
it.
_QUESTION II._
WHY DOES HE CALL THE SUPREME GOD FATHER AND MAKER OF ALL THINGS?[153]
1. Is it because he is (as Homer calls him) of created Gods and men
the Father, and of brutes and things that have no soul the maker? If
Chrysippus may be credited, he is not properly styled the father of
the afterbirth who supplied the seed, although it springs from the
seed. Or has he figuratively called the maker of the world the father
of it? In his Convivium he calls Phaedrus the father of the amatorious
discourse which he had introduced; and so in his Phaedrus[154] he
calls him “father of noble children,” when he had been the occasion of
many excellent discourses about philosophical matters. Or is there any
difference between a father and a maker? Or between procreation and
making? For as what is procreated is also made, but not the contrary;
so he that procreated did also make, for the procreation of an animal
is the making of it. Now the work of a maker—as of a builder, a weaver,
a musical-instrument maker, or a statuary—is altogether distinct and
separate from its author; but the principle and power of the procreator
is implanted in the progeny, and contains his nature, the progeny being
a piece pulled off the procreator. Since therefore the world is neither
like a piece of potter’s work nor joiner’s work, but there is a great
share of life and divinity in it, which God from himself communicated
to and mixed with matter, God may properly be called Father of the
world—since it has life in it—and also the maker of it.
2. And since these things come very near to Plato’s opinion, consider,
I pray, whether there may not be some probability in them. Whereas the
world consists of two parts, body and soul, God indeed made not the
body; but matter being provided, he formed and fitted it, binding up
and confining what was infinite within proper limits and figures. But
the soul, partaking of mind, reason, and harmony, was not only the work
of God, but, part of him; not only made by him, but begot by him.
_QUESTION III._
In the Republic,[155] he supposes the universe, as one line, to be cut
into two unequal sections; again he cuts each of these sections in two
after the same proportion, and supposes the two sections first made to
constitute the two genera of things sensible and things intelligible
in the universe. The first represents the genus of intelligibles,
comprehending in the first subdivision the primitive forms or ideas,
in the second the mathematics. Of sensibles, the first subdivision
comprehends solid bodies, the second comprehends the images and
representations of them. Moreover, to every one of these four he has
assigned its proper judicatory faculty;—to the first, reason; to the
mathematics, the understanding; to sensibles, belief; to images and
likenesses, conjecture.
BUT WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY DIVIDING THE UNIVERSE INTO UNEQUAL PARTS?
AND WHICH OF THE SECTIONS, THE INTELLIGIBLE OR THE SENSIBLE, IS THE
GREATER? FOR IN THIS HE HAS NOT EXPLAINED HIMSELF.
1. At first sight it will appear that the sensible is the greater
portion. For the essence of intelligibles being indivisible, and in
the same respect ever the same, is contracted into a little, and pure;
but an essence divisible and pervading bodies constitutes the sensible
part. Now what is immaterial is limited; but body in respect of matter
is infinite and unlimited, and it becomes sensible only when it is
defined by partaking of the intelligible. Besides, as every sensible
has many images, shadows, and representations, and from one and the
same original several copies may be taken both by nature and art;
so the latter must needs exceed the former in number, according to
Plato, who makes things intelligible to be patterns or ideas of things
sensible, like the originals of images and reflections. Further, Plato
derives the knowledge of ideas from body by abstraction and cutting
away, leading us by various steps in mathematical discipline from
arithmetic to geometry, thence to astronomy, and setting harmony above
them all. For things become geometrical by the accession of magnitude
to quantity; solid, by the accession of profundity to magnitude;
astronomical, by the accession of motion to solidity; harmonical, by
the accession of sound to motion. Abstract then sound from moving
bodies, motion from solids, profundity from superficies, magnitude from
quantity, we are then come to pure intelligible ideas, which have no
distinction among themselves in respect of the one single intelligible
essence. For unity makes no number, unless joined by the infinite
binary; then it makes a number. And thence we proceed to points, thence
to lines, from them to superficies, and profundities, and bodies, and
to the qualities of the bodies so and so qualified. Now the reason is
the only judicatory faculty of intelligibles; and the understanding
is the reason in the mathematics, where intelligibles appear as by
reflection in mirrors. But as to the knowledge of bodies, because of
their multitude, Nature has given us five powers or distinctions of
senses; nor are all bodies discerned by them, many escaping sense by
reason of their smallness. And though every one of us consists of a
body and soul, yet the hegemonic and intellectual faculty is small,
being hid in the huge mass of flesh. And the case is the same in the
universe, as to sensible and intelligible. For intelligibles are the
principles of bodily things, but every thing is greater than the
principle whence it came.
2. Yet, on the contrary, some will say that, by comparing sensibles
with intelligibles, we match things mortal with divine, in some
measure; for God is in intelligibles. Besides, the thing contained is
ever less than the containing, and the nature of the universe contains
the sensible in the intelligible. For God, having placed the soul in
the middle, hath extended it through all, and hath covered it all round
with bodies. The soul is invisible, and cannot be perceived by any of
the senses, as Plato says in his Book of Laws; therefore every man
must die, but the world shall never die. For mortality and dissolution
surround every one of our vital faculties. The case is quite otherwise
in the world; for the corporeal part, contained in the middle by the
more noble and unalterable principle, is ever preserved. And a body is
said to be without parts and indivisible for its minuteness; but what
is incorporeal and intelligible is so, as being simple and sincere, and
void of all firmness and difference. Besides, it were folly to think
to judge of incorporeal things by corporeal. The present, or _now_, is
said to be without parts and indivisible, since it is everywhere and no
part of the world is void of it. But all affections and actions, and
all corruptions and generations in the world, are contained by this
_now_. But the mind is judge only of what is intelligible, as the sight
is of light, by reason of its simplicity and similitude. But bodies,
having several differences and diversities, are comprehended, some
by one judicatory faculty, others by another, as by several organs.
Yet they do not well who despise the intelligible and intelligent
faculty in us; for being great, it comprehends all sensibles, and
attains to things divine. The most important thing he himself teaches
in his Banquet, where he shows us how we should use amatorious matters,
turning our minds from sensible goods to things discernible only by the
reason, that we ought not to be enslaved by the beauty of any body,
study, or learning, but laying aside such pusillanimity, should turn to
the vast ocean of beauty.[156]
_QUESTION IV._
WHAT IS THE REASON THAT, THOUGH PLATO ALWAYS SAYS THAT THE SOUL IS
ANCIENTER THAN THE BODY, AND THAT IT IS THE CAUSE AND PRINCIPLE OF
ITS RISE, YET HE LIKEWISE SAYS, THAT NEITHER COULD THE SOUL EXIST
WITHOUT THE BODY, NOR THE REASON WITHOUT THE SOUL, BUT THE SOUL IN
THE BODY, AND THE REASON IN THE SOUL? FOR SO THE BODY WILL SEEM TO BE
AND NOT TO BE, BECAUSE IT BOTH EXISTS WITH THE SOUL, AND IS BEGOT BY
THE SOUL.
Perhaps what we have often said is true; viz., that the soul without
reason and the body without form did mutually ever coexist, and neither
of them had generation or beginning. But after the soul did partake of
reason and harmony, and being through consent made wise, it wrought
a change in matter, and being stronger than the other’s motions, it
drew and converted these motions to itself. So the body of the world
drew its original from the soul, and became conformable and like to
it. For the soul did not make the Nature of the body out of itself, or
out of nothing; but it wrought an orderly and pliable body out of one
disorderly and formless. Just as if a man should say that the virtue
of the seed is with the body, and yet that the body of the fig-tree
or olive-tree was made of the seed, he would not be much out; for the
body, its innate motion and mutation proceeding from the seed, grew
up and became what it is. So, when formless and indefinite matter
was once formed by the inbeing soul, it received such a form and
disposition.
_QUESTION V._
WHY, SINCE BODIES AND FIGURES ARE CONTAINED PARTLY BY RECTILINEARS
AND PARTLY BY CIRCLES, DOES HE MAKE ISOSCELES TRIANGLES AND TRIANGLES
OF UNEQUAL SIDES THE PRINCIPLES OF RECTILINEARS; OF WHICH THE
ISOSCELES TRIANGLE FORMS THE CUBE, THE ELEMENT OF THE EARTH; AND A
SCALENE TRIANGLE FORMS THE PYRAMID WHICH IS THE SEED OF FIRE, THE
OCTAHEDRON WHICH IS THE SEED OF AIR, AND THE ICOSAHEDRON WHICH IS THE
SEED OF WATER;—WHILE HE DOES NOT MEDDLE WITH CIRCULARS, THOUGH HE
DOES MENTION THE GLOBE, WHERE HE SAYS THAT EACH OF THE AFORE-RECKONED
FIGURES DIVIDES A ROUND BODY THAT ENCLOSES IT INTO EQUAL PARTS.[157]
1. Is their opinion true who think that he ascribed a dodecahedron
to the globe, when he says that God made use of it in delineating
the universe? For upon account of the multitude of its bases and the
obtuseness of its angles, avoiding all rectitude, it is flexible,
and by circumtension, like globes made of twelve skins, it becomes
circular and comprehensive. For it has twenty solid angles, each of
which is contained by three obtuse planes, and each of these contains
one and the fifth part of a right angle. Now it is made up of twelve
equilateral and equangular quinquangles (or pentagons), each of which
consists of thirty of the first scalene triangles. Therefore it seems
to resemble both the Zodiac and the year, it being divided into the
same number of parts as these.
2. Or is a right line in Nature prior to circumference; or is
circumference but an accident of rectilinear? For a right line is said
to bend; and a circle is described by a centre and distance, which is
the place of a right line by which a circumference is measured, this
being everywhere equally distant from the middle. And a cone and a
cylinder are made by rectilinears; a cone by keeping one side of a
triangle fixed and carrying another round with the base,—a cylinder,
by doing the like with a parallelogram. Further, that is nearest to
principle which is less; but a right is the least of all lines, as
it is simple; whereas in a circumference one part is convex without,
another concave within. Besides, numbers are before figures, as unity
is before a point, which is unity in position. But indeed unity is
triangular; for every triangular number[158] taken eight times, by
adding unity, becomes quadrate; and this happens to unity. Therefore
a triangle is before a circle, whence a right line is before a
circumference. Besides, no element is divided into things compounded
of itself; indeed there is a dissolution of all other things into the
elements. Now a triangle is divided into no circumference, but two
diameters cut a circle into four triangles; therefore a rectilinear
figure is before a circular, and has more of the nature of an element.
And Plato himself shows that a rectilinear is in the first place, and
a circular is only consequential and accidental. For when he says the
earth consists of cubes, each of which is contained with rectilinear
superficies, he says the earth is spherical and round. Therefore there
was no need of making a peculiar element for round things, since
rectilinears, fitted after a certain manner among themselves, do make
up this figure.
3. Besides, a right line, whether great or little, preserves the same
rectitude; but as to the circumference of a circle, the less it is,
the crookeder it is; the larger, the straighter. Therefore if a convex
superficies stands on a plane, it sometimes touches the subject plane
in a point, sometimes in a line. So that a man may imagine that a
circumference is made up of little right lines.
4. But observe whether this be not true, that no circle or sphere in
this world is exact; but since by the tension and circumtension of
the right lines, or by the minuteness of the parts, the difference
disappears, the figure seems circular and round. Therefore no
corruptible body moves circularly, but altogether in a right line. To
be truly spherical is not in a sensible body, but is the element of
the soul and mind, to which he has given circular motion, as being
agreeable to their nature.
_QUESTION VI._
HOW COMES IT TO PASS THAT IN PHAEDRUS IT IS SAID, THAT THE NATURE
OF A WING, BY WHICH ANY THING THAT IS HEAVY IS CARRIED UPWARDS,
PARTICIPATES MOST OF THE BODY OF GOD?[159]
Is it because the discourse is of love, and love is of beauty inherent
in a body? Now beauty, by similitude to things divine, moves and
reminds the soul. Or it may be (without too much curiosity) he may
be understood in plain meaning, to wit, that the several faculties
of the soul being employed about bodies, the power of reasoning and
understanding partakes most about divine and heavenly things; which he
did not impertinently call a wing, it raising the soul from mean and
mortal things to things above.
_QUESTION VII._
IN WHAT SENSE DOES PLATO SAY, THAT THE ANTIPERISTASIS (OR REACTION)
OF MOTION—BY REASON THERE IS NO VACUUM—IS THE CAUSE OF THE EFFECTS IN
PHYSICIANS’ CUPPING-GLASSES, IN SWALLOWING, IN THROWING OF WEIGHTS,
IN THE RUNNING OF WATER, IN THUNDER, IN THE ATTRACTION OF THE
LOADSTONE, AND IN THE HARMONY OF SOUNDS?[160]
1. For it seems unreasonable to ascribe the reason of such different
effects to the selfsame cause.
2. How respiration is made by the reaction of the air he has
sufficiently shown. But the rest, he says, seem to be done
miraculously, but really the bodies thrust each other aside and change
places with one another; while he has left for us to determine how each
is particularly done.
3. As to cupping-glasses, the case is thus: the air next to the flesh
being comprehended and inflamed by the heat, and being made more rare
than the pores of the brass, does not go into a vacuum (for there is no
such thing), but into the air that is without the cupping-glass, and
has an impulse upon it. This air drives that before it; and each, as it
gives way, strives to succeed into the place which was vacuated by the
cession of the first. And so the air approaching the flesh comprehended
by the cupping-glass, and exciting it, draws the humors into the
cupping-glass.
4. Swallowing takes place in the same way. For the cavities about the
mouth and stomach are full of air; when therefore the meat is squeezed
down by the tongue and tonsils, the elided air follows what gives way,
and also forces down the meat.
5. Weights also thrown cleave the air and dissipate it, as they fall
with force; the air recoiling back, according to its natural tendency
to rush in and fill the vacuity, follows the impulse, and accelerates
the motion.
6. The fall also of thunderbolts is like to darting any thing. For by
the blow in the cloud, the fiery matter exploded breaks into the air;
and it being broken gives way, and again being contracted above, by
main force it presses the thunderbolt downwards contrary to Nature.
7. And neither amber nor the loadstone draws any thing to it which is
near, nor does any thing spontaneously approach them. But this stone
emits strong exhalations, by which the adjoining air being impelled
forceth that which is before it; and this being carried round in the
circle, and returning into the vacuated place, forcibly draws the iron
in the same direction. In amber there is a flammeous and spirituous
nature, and this by rubbing on the surface is emitted by recluse
passages, and does the same that the loadstone does. It also draws the
lightest and driest of adjacent bodies, by reason of their tenuity
and weakness; for it is not so strong nor so endued with weight and
strength as to force much air and to act with violence and to have
power over great bodies, as the magnet has. But what is the reason the
air never draws a stone, nor wood, but iron only, to the loadstone?
This is a common question both by them who think the coition of these
bodies is made by the attraction of the loadstone, and by such as think
it done by the incitement of the iron. Iron is neither so rare as wood,
nor altogether so solid as gold or a stone; but has certain pores and
asperities, which in regard of the inequality are proportionable to
the air; and the air being received in certain seats, and having (as
it were) certain stays to cling to, does not slip away; but when it is
carried up to the stone and strikes against it, it draws the iron by
force along with it to the stone. Such then may be the reason of this.
8. But the manner of the waters running over the earth is not so
evident. But it is observable that the waters of lakes and ponds stand
immovable, because the air about them stagnates immovable and admits of
no vacuity. For the water on the surface of lakes and seas is troubled
and fluctuates as the air is moved, it following the motion of the
air, and moving as it is moved. For the force from below causes the
hollowness of the wave, and from above the swelling thereof; until
the air ambient and containing the water is still. Therefore the flux
of such waters as follow the motion of the retreating air, and are
impelled by that which presses behind, is continued without end. And
this is the reason that the stream increases with the waters, and is
slow where the water is weak, the air not giving way, and therefore
suffering less reaction. So the water of fountains must needs flow
upwards, the extrinsic air succeeding into the vacuity and throwing the
water out. In a close house, that keeps in the air and wind, the floor
sprinkled with water causes an air or wind, because, as the sprinkled
water falls, the air gives way. For it is so provided by Nature that
air and water force one another and give way to one another; because
there is no vacuity in which one can be settled without feeling the
change and alteration in the other.
9. Concerning symphony, he shows how sounds harmonize. A quick sound
is acute, a slow is grave. Therefore acute sounds move the senses the
quicker; and these dying and grave sounds supervening, what arises
from the contemperation of one with the other causes pleasure to the
ear, which we call harmony. And by what has been said, it may easily
be understood that air is the instrument of these things. For sound is
the stroke upon the sense of the hearer, caused by the air; and the air
strikes as it is struck by the thing moving,—if violent, acutely,—if
languid, softly. The violent stroke comes quick to the ear; then the
circumambient air receiving a slower, it affects and carries the sense
along with it.
_QUESTION VIII._
WHAT MEANS TIMAEUS,[161] WHEN HE SAYS THAT SOULS ARE DISPERSED INTO
THE EARTH, THE MOON, AND INTO OTHER INSTRUMENTS OF TIME?
1. Does the earth move like the sun, moon, and five planets, which
for their motions he calls organs or instruments of time? Or is the
earth fixed to the axis of the universe; yet not so built as to remain
immovable, but to turn and wheel about, as Aristarchus and Seleucus
have shown since; Aristarchus only supposing it, Seleucus positively
asserting it? Theophrastus writes how that Plato, when he grew old,
repented him that he had placed the earth in the middle of the
universe, which was not its place.
2. Or is this contradictory to Plato’s opinion elsewhere, and in the
Greek instead of χρόνου should it be written χρόνῳ, taking the dative
case instead of the genitive, so that the stars will not be said to
be instruments, but the bodies of animals? So Aristotle has defined
the soul to be “the actual being of a natural organic body, having
the power of life.”[162] The sense then must be this, that souls are
dispersed into meet organical bodies in time. But this is far besides
his opinion. For it is not once, but several times, that he calls the
stars instruments of time; as when he says, the sun was made, as well
as other planets, for the distinction and conservation of the numbers
of time.
3. It is therefore most proper to understand the earth to be here an
instrument of time; not that the earth is moved, as the stars are;
but that, they being carried about it, it standing still makes sunset
and sunrising, by which the first measures of time, nights and days,
are circumscribed. Wherefore he called it the infallible guard and
artificer of night and day. For the gnomons of dials are instruments
and measures of time, not in being moved with the shadows, but in
standing still; they being like the earth in intercepting the light of
the sun when it is down,—as Empedocles says that the earth makes night
by intercepting light. This therefore may be Plato’s meaning.
4. And so much the rather might we consider whether the sun is not
absurdly and without probability said to be made for the distinction
of time, with the moon and the rest of the planets. For as in
other respects the dignity of the sun is great; so by Plato in his
Republic[163] the sun is called the king and lord of the whole sensible
nature, as the Chief Good is of the intelligible. For it is said to
be the offspring of Good, it giving both generation and appearance to
things visible; as it is from Good that things intelligible both are
and are understood. But that this God, having such a nature and so
great power, should be only an instrument of time, and a sure measure
of the difference that happens among the eight orbs, as they are slow
or swift in motion, seems neither decent nor highly rational. It must
therefore be said to such as are startled at these things, that it is
their ignorance to think that time is the measure of motion in respect
of sooner or later, as Aristotle calls it; or quantity in motion, as
Speusippus; or an interval of motion and nothing more, as some of the
Stoics define it, by an accident, not comprehending its essence and
power, which Pindar has not ineptly expressed in these words: Time,
who surpasses all in the seats of the blest. Pythagoras also, when he
was asked what time was, answered, it was the soul of this world. For
time is no affection or accident of motion, but the cause, power, and
principle of that symmetry and order that confines all created beings,
by which the animated nature of the universe is moved. Or rather, this
order and symmetry itself—so far as it is motion—is called time. For
this,
Walking by still and silent ways,
Mortal affairs with justice guides.[164]
According to the ancients, the essence of the soul is a number moving
itself. Therefore Plato says that time and heaven were coexistent,
but that motion was before heaven had being. But time was not. For
then there neither was order, nor measure, nor determination; but
indefinite motion, as it were, the formless and rude matter of time.
... But when matter was informed with figures, and motion with
circuitions, from that came the world, from this time. Both are
representations of God; the world, of his essence; time, of his
eternity in the form of motion, as the world is God in creation.
Therefore they say heaven and motion, being bred together, will perish
together, if ever they do perish. For nothing is generated without
time, nor is any thing intelligible without eternity; if this is to
endure for ever, and that never to die when once bred. Time therefore,
having a necessary connection and affinity with heaven, cannot be
called simple motion, but (as it were) motion in order having terms and
periods; whereof since the sun is prefect and overseer, to determine,
moderate, produce, and observe changes and seasons, which (according
to Heraclitus) produce all things, he is coadjutor to the governing
and chief God, not in trivial things, but in the greatest and most
momentous affairs.
_QUESTION IX._
Since Plato in his Commonwealth, discoursing of the faculties of
the soul, has very well compared the symphony of reason and of the
irascible and the concupiscent faculties to the harmony of the middle,
lowest, and highest chord,[165] some men may properly ask this
question:—
DID PLATO PLACE THE RATIONAL OR THE IRASCIBLE FACULTY IN THE MIDDLE?
FOR HE IS NOT CLEAR IN THE POINT.
1. Indeed, according to the natural order of the parts, the place of
the irascible faculty must be in the middle, and of the rational in
the highest, which the Greeks call hypate. For they of old called
the chief and supreme ὕπατος. So Xenocrates calls Jove, in respect of
immutable things, ὕπατος (or _highest_), in respect of sublunary things
νέατος (or _lowest_). And long before him, Homer calls the chief God
ὕπατος κρειόντων, _Highest of Rulers_. And Nature has of due given
the highest place to what is most excellent, having placed reason as
a steersman in the head, and the concupiscent faculty at a distance,
last of all and lowest. And the lowest place they call νεάτη, as the
names of the dead, νέρτεροι and ἔνεροι, do show. And some say, that
the south wind, inasmuch as it blows from a low and obscure place, is
called νότος. Now since the concupiscent faculty stands in the same
opposition to reason in which the lowest stands to the highest and the
last to the first, it is not possible for the reason to be uppermost
and first, and yet for any other part to be the one called ὕπατος (or
_highest_). For they that ascribe the power of the middle to it, as
the ruling power, are ignorant how they deprive it of a higher power,
namely, of the highest, which is competible neither to the irascible
nor to the concupiscent faculty; since it is the nature of them both
to be governed by and obsequious to reason, and the nature of neither
of them to govern and lead it. And the most natural place of the
irascible faculty seems to be in the middle of the other two. For it is
the nature of reason to govern, and of the irascible faculty both to
govern and be governed, since it is obsequious to reason, and commands
the concupiscent faculty when this is disobedient to reason. And as
in letters the semi-vowels are middling between mutes and vowels,
having something more than those and less than these; so in the soul
of man, the irascible faculty is not purely passive, but hath often
an imagination of good mixed with the irrational appetite of revenge.
Plato himself, after he had compared the soul to a pair of horses and
a charioteer, likened (as every one knows) the rational faculty to
the charioteer, and the concupiscent to one of the horses, which was
resty and unmanageable altogether, bristly about the ears, deaf and
disobedient both to whip and spur; and the irascible he makes for the
most part very obsequious to the bridle of reason, and assistant to
it. As therefore in a chariot, the middling one in virtue and power
is not the charioteer, but that one of the horses which is worse than
his guider and yet better than his fellow; so in the soul, Plato gives
the middle place not to the principal part, but to that faculty which
has less of reason than the principal part and more than the third.
This order also observes the analogy of the symphonies, i.e. the
relation of the irascible to the rational (which is placed as hypate)
forming the diatessaron (or fourth), that of the irascible to the
concupiscent (or nete) forming the diapente (or fifth), and that of the
rational to the concupiscent (as hypate to nete) forming an octave or
diapason. But should you place the rational in the middle, you would
make the irascible farther from the concupiscent; though some of the
philosophers have taken the irascible and the concupiscent faculty for
the selfsame, by reason of their likeness.
2. But it may be ridiculous to describe the first, middle, and last by
their place; since we see hypate highest in the harp, lowest in the
pipe; and wheresoever you place the mese in the harp, provided it is
tunable, it sounds more acute than hypate, and more grave than nete.
Nor does the eye possess the same place in all animals; but wherever
it is placed, it is natural for it to see. So a pedagogue, though he
goes not foremost but follows behind, is said to lead (ἄγειν), as the
general of the Trojan army,
Now in the front, now in the rear was seen,
And kept command;[166]
but wherever he was, he was first and chief in power. So the faculties
of the soul are not to be ranged by mere force in order of place or
name, but according to their power and analogy. For that in the body
of man reason is in the highest place, is accidental. But it holds
the chief and highest power, as mese to hypate, in respect of the
concupiscent; as mese to nete, in respect of the irascible; insomuch
as it depresses and heightens,—and in fine makes a harmony,—by abating
what is too much and by not suffering them to flatten and grow dull.
For what is moderate and symmetrous is defined by mediocrity. Still
more is it the object of the rational faculty to reduce the passions
to moderation, which is called sacred, as effecting a harmony of the
extremes with reason, and through reason with each other. For in
chariots the best of the beasts is not in the middle; nor is the skill
of driving to be placed as an extreme, but it is a mediocrity between
the inequality of the swiftness and the slowness of the horses. So the
force of reason takes up the passions irrationally moved, and reducing
them to measure, constitutes a mediocrity betwixt too much and too
little.
_QUESTION X._
WHY SAID PLATO, THAT SPEECH WAS COMPOSED OF NOUNS AND VERBS?[167]
1. For he seems to make no other parts of speech but them. But Homer in
a sportive humor has comprehended them all in one verse:
Αὐτὸς ἰὼν κλισίηνδε τὸ σὸν γέρας, ὄφρ’ εὖ εἰδῇς.[168]
For in it there is pronoun, participle, noun, preposition, article,
conjunction, adverb, and verb, the particle -δε being put instead of
the preposition εἰς; for κλισίηνδε, _to the tent_, is said in the same
sense as Ἀθήναζε, _to Athens_. What then shall we say for Plato?
Is it that at first the ancients called that λόγος, or speech, which
once was called protasis and now is called axiom or proposition,—which
as soon as a man speaks, he speaks either true or false? This consists
of a noun and verb, which logicians call the subject and predicate.
For when we hear this said, “Socrates philosophizeth” or “Socrates
is changed,” requiring nothing more, we say the one is true, the
other false. For very likely in the beginning men wanted speech and
articulate voice, to enable them to express clearly at once the
passions and the patients, the actions and the agents. Now, since
actions and affections are sufficiently expressed by verbs, and they
that act and are affected by nouns, as he says, these seem to signify.
And one may say, the rest signify not. For instance, the groans and
shrieks of stage-players, and even their smiles and reticence, make
their discourse more emphatic. But they have no necessary power to
signify any thing, as a noun and verb have, but only an ascititious
power to vary speech; just as they vary letters who mark spirits and
quantities upon letters, these being the accidents and differences of
letters. This the ancients have made manifest, whom sixteen letters
sufficed to speak and write any thing.
2. Besides, we must not neglect to observe, that Plato says that speech
is composed _of_ these, not _by_ these; nor must we blame Plato for
leaving out conjunctions, prepositions, and the like, any more than
we should cavil at a man who should say such a medicine is composed
of wax and galbanum, because fire and utensils are omitted, without
which it cannot be made. For speech is not composed of these; yet by
their means, and not without them, speech must be composed. As, if a
man pronounce _beats_ or _is beaten_, and put Socrates and Pythagoras
to the same, he offers us something to conceive and understand. But
if a man pronounce _indeed_ or _for_ or _about_, and no more, none
can conceive any notion of a body or matter; and unless such words
as these be uttered with verbs and nouns, they are but empty noise
and chattering. For neither alone nor joined one with another do
they signify any thing. And join and confound together conjunctions,
articles, and prepositions, supposing you would make something of them;
yet you will be taken to babble, and not to speak sense. But when there
is a verb in construction with a noun, the result is speech and sense.
Therefore some do with good reason make only these two parts of speech;
and perhaps Homer is willing to declare himself of this mind, when he
says so often,
Ἔπος τ’ ἔφατ’ ἔκ τ’ ὀνόμαζεν.
For by ἔπος he usually means a verb, as in these verses:
Ὦ γύναι, ἢ μάλα τοῦτο ἔπος θυμαλγὲς ἔειπες,
and,
Χαῖρε, πάτερ, ὦ ξεῖνε, ἔπος δ’ εἴπερ τι λέλεκται
Δεινὸν, ἄφαρ τὸ φέροιεν ἀναρπάξασαι ἄελλαι.[169]
For neither conjunction, article, nor preposition could be called
δεινόν (_terrible_) or θυμαλγές (_soul-grieving_), but only a verb
expressing a base action or a foolish passion of the mind. Therefore,
when we would praise or dispraise poets or writers, we are wont to say,
such a man uses Attic nouns and good verbs, or else common nouns and
verbs; but none can say that Thucydides or Euripides used Attic or good
or common articles.
3. What then? may some say, do the rest of the parts conduce nothing to
speech? I answer, They conduce, as salt does to victuals, or water to
barley cakes. And Euenus calls fire the best sauce. Though sometimes
there is neither occasion for fire to boil, nor for salt to season our
food, which we have always occasion for. Nor has speech always occasion
for articles. I think I may say this of the Latin tongue, which is
now the universal language; for it has taken away all prepositions,
saving a few, nor does it use any articles, but leaves its nouns (as it
were) without skirts and borders. Nor is it any wonder, since Homer,
who in fineness of epic surpasses all men, has put articles only to a
few nouns, like handles to cans, or crests to helmets. Therefore these
verses are remarkable wherein the articles are expressed:
Αἴαντι δὲ μάλιστα δαΐφρονι θυμὸν ὄρινε
Τῷ Τελαμωνιάδῃ·[170]
and,
Ποίεον ὄφρα τὸ κῆτος ὑπεκπροφυγὼν ἀλέαιτο·[171]
and some few besides. But in a thousand others, the omission of the
articles hinders neither perspicuity nor elegance of phrase.
4. Now neither an animal nor an instrument nor arms nor any thing else
is more fine, efficacious, or graceful, for the loss of a part. Yet
speech, by taking away conjunctions, often becomes more persuasive, as
here:
One rear’d a dagger at a captive’s breast;
One held a living foe, that freshly bled
With new-made wounds; another dragg’d a dead.[172]
And this of Demosthenes:
“A bully in an assault may do much which his victim cannot even
describe to another person,—by his mien, his look, his voice,—when he
stings by insult, when he attacks as an avowed enemy, when he smites
with his fist, when he gives a blow on the face. These rouse a man;
these make a man beside himself who is unused to such foul abuse.”
And again:
“Not so with Midias; but from the very day, he talks, he abuses, he
shouts. Is there an election of magistrates?
Midias the Anagyrrasian is nominated. He is the advocate of Plutarchus;
he knows state secrets; the city cannot contain him.”[173]
Therefore the figure asyndeton, whereby conjunctions are omitted, is
highly commended by writers of rhetoric. But such as keep overstrict to
the law, and (according to custom) omit not a conjunction, rhetoricians
blame for using a dull, flat, tedious style, without any variety in it.
And inasmuch as logicians mightily want conjunctions for the joining
together their axioms, as much as charioteers want yokes, and Ulysses
wanted withs to tie Cyclop’s sheep; this shows they are not parts of
speech, but a conjunctive instrument thereof, as the word conjunction
imports. Nor do conjunctions join all, but only such as are not spoken
simply; unless you will make a cord part of the burthen, glue a part of
a book, or distribution of money part of the government. For Demades
says, that money which is given to the people out of the exchequer for
public shows is the glue of a democracy. Now what conjunction does
so of several propositions make one, by knitting and joining them
together, as marble joins iron that is melted with it in the fire? Yet
the marble neither is nor is said to be part of the iron; although
in this case the substances enter into the mixture and are melted
together, so as to form a common substance from many and to be mutually
affected. But there be some who think that conjunctions do not make any
thing one, but that this kind of discourse is merely an enumeration, as
when magistrates or days are reckoned in order.
5. Moreover, as to the other parts of speech, a pronoun is manifestly a
sort of noun; not only because it has cases like the noun, but because
some pronouns, when they are applied to objects heretofore defined, by
their mere utterance give the most distinct and proper designation of
them.
Nor do I know whether he that says _Socrates_ or he that says _this
one_ does more by name declare the person.
6. The thing we call a participle, being a mixture of a verb and noun,
is nothing of itself, as are not the common names of male and female
qualities (i.e. adjectives), but in construction it is put with others,
in regard of tenses belonging to verbs, in regard of cases to nouns.
Logicians call them ἀνάκλαστοι, (i.e. _reflected_),—as φρονῶν comes
from φρόνιμος, and σωφρονῶν from σώφρονος,—having the force both of
nouns and appellatives.
7. And prepositions are like to the crests of a helmet, or footstools
and pedestals, which (one may rather say) do belong to words than are
words themselves. See whether they rather be not pieces and scraps
of words, as they that are in haste write but dashes and pricks for
letters. For it is plain that ἐμβῆναι and ἐκβῆναι are abbreviations of
the whole words ἐντὸς βῆναι and ἐκτὸς βῆναι, προγενέσθαι for πρότερον
γενέσθαι, and καθίζειν for κάτω ἵζειν. As undoubtedly for haste and
brevity’s sake, instead of λίθους βάλλειν and τοίχους ὀρύττειν men
first said λιθοβολεῖν and τοιχωρυχεῖν.
8. Therefore every one of these is of some use in speech; but nothing
is a part or element of speech (as has been said) except a noun and a
verb, which make the first juncture admitting of truth or falsehood,
which some call a proposition or protasis, others an axiom, and which
Plato called speech.
PARALLELS, OR A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE GREEK AND ROMAN HISTORIES.[174]
MOST people are apt to take the histories of former times for mere
forgeries and fables, because of many passages in those relations that
seem to be very extravagant. But yet, according to my observation, we
have had as strange occurrences of a later date in the Roman times as
any we have received from antiquity; for proof whereof, I have here
matched several stories of the ancients with modern instances, and
cited my authorities.
1. Datis, an eminent Persian commander, drew out three hundred thousand
men to Marathon, a plain of Attica, where he encamped and declared war
against the inhabitants. The Athenians made no reckoning at all of so
barbarous a rabble, but sent out nine thousand men against him, under
the command of Cynaegirus, Polyzelus, Callimachus, and Miltiades.
Upon the joining of battle, Polyzelus was struck blind at the sight
of a wonderful apparition; Callimachus’s body was struck through with
a great many lances, continuing in an upright posture even when he
was dead; Cynaegirus had both his hands cut off upon laying hold of a
Persian ship that was endeavoring to get away.
King Asdrubal, having possessed himself of Sicily, proclaimed war
against the Romans. Metellus, who was appointed by the Senate to
command in chief, overcame him. L. Glauco, a patrician, laid hold
of the vessel that Asdrubal was in, and lost both his hands upon
it.—_Aristides Milesius gives this account in his First Book of the
Affairs of Sicily, and Dionysius Siculus had it from him._
2. Xerxes came with an army of five millions of men to Artemisium,
and declared war against the country. The Athenians, in a very great
surprise, sent Agesilaus, the brother of Themistocles, to discover the
motions of the enemy, notwithstanding a dream of his father Neocles,
that his son had lost both his hands. This Agesilaus put himself into
a Persian habit, and entered the barbarians’ camp; where, taking
Mardonius (an officer of the king’s guards) for Xerxes himself, he
killed him. Whereupon he was immediately seized, bound, and carried to
Xerxes, who was just then about to sacrifice an ox to the Sun. The fire
was kindled upon the altar, and Agesilaus put his right hand into it,
without so much as shrinking at the pain. He was ordered upon this to
be untied; and told the king that the Athenians were all of the same
resolution, and that, if he pleased, he should see him burn his left
hand too. This gave Xerxes an apprehension of him, so that he caused
him to be still kept in custody.—_This I find in Agatharchides the
Samian, in the Second Book of his Persian History._
Porsena, a king of Tuscany, encamped himself beyond the Tiber, and made
war upon the Romans, cutting off the supplies, till they were brought
to great want of provisions. The Senate were at their wits’ end what
to do, till Mucius, a nobleman, got leave of the consuls to take four
hundred of his own quality to advise with upon the matter. Mucius, upon
this, put himself into the habit of a private man, and crossed the
river; where finding one of the king’s officers giving orders for the
distribution of necessaries to the soldiers, and taking him for the
king himself, he slew him. He was taken immediately and carried to the
king, where he put his right hand into a fire that was in the room, and
with a smile in the middle of his torments,—Barbarian, says he, I can
set myself at liberty without asking you leave; and be it known to you,
that I have left four hundred men in the camp as daring as myself, that
have sworn your death. This struck Porsena with such a terror, that he
made peace with the Romans upon it.—_Aristides Milesius is my author
for this, in the Third Book of his History._
3. There happened a dispute betwixt the Argives and Lacedaemonians
about a claim to the possession of Thyreatis. The Amphictyons gave
their opinion for a trial of it by battle, so many and so many of
a side, and the possession to go to the victor. The Lacedaemonians
made choice of Othryades for their captain, and the Argives of
Thersander. The battle was fought, and the only two survivors that
appeared were Agenor and Chromius, both Argives, who carried their
city the news of the victory. In this interim, Othryades, who was
not as yet quite dead, made a shift to raise himself by the help of
broken lances, gathered the shields of the dead together, and erected
a trophy with this inscription upon it in his own blood. “To Jupiter
the Guardian of Trophies.” The controversy still depended, till the
Amphictyons, upon an ocular examination of the matter, gave it for the
Lacedaemonians.—_This is according to Chrysermus, in his Third Book of
the Peloponnesian History._
In a war that the Romans had with the Samnites, they made Posthumius
Albinus their general. He was surprised in the difficult pass called
the Caudine Forks, where he was hemmed in and lost three legions, he
himself likewise falling upon the place grievously wounded. In the
dead of the night, finding himself near his end, he gathered together
the targets of his dead enemies, and raised a trophy with them, which
he inscribed with his hand dipped in blood, “Erected by the Romans to
Jupiter, Guardian of the Trophies, for a victory over the Samnites.”
But Fabius Gurges, that was despatched away with troops under his
command, so soon as he came to the place and saw the trophy, took up
an auspicious omen upon it, fought the enemy, and overcame them, took
their king prisoner, and sent him to Rome.—_This is in the Third Book
of Aristides Milesius’s Italian History._
4. Upon the Persians falling into Greece with a body of five millions
of men, the Spartans sent out Leonidas with a party of three hundred
soldiers to secure the Pass of Thermopylae. As they were at dinner, the
barbarians fell in upon them; upon which, Leonidas bade them eat as if
they were to sup in another world. Leonidas charged at the head of his
men into the body of the barbarians; and after many wounds received,
got up to Xerxes himself, and took his crown from his head. He lost his
life in the attempt, and Xerxes causing him to be cut up when he was
dead, found his heart all hairy.—_Aristides, in the First Book of his
Persian History._
In the Punic war the Romans sent out three hundred men under the
command of Fabius Maximus, where they were all lost; and he himself,
after he had received a mortal wound, assaulting Hannibal, took his
diadem from his head, and died in the action. _According to Aristides
Milesius._
5. There was a terrible earthquake, with a wonderful eruption of water,
at Celaenae, a city of Phrygia, that swallowed up a great many houses,
people and all. Midas upon this consults the oracle, which gave him
for answer, that if he would cast into that gulf the most precious
thing that he had in the world, the earth should close again. Whereupon
he threw in a mass of gold and silver; but never the better. This
put it in the head of Anchurus, the son of Midas, to consider, that
the most precious thing in Nature is the life and soul of a man; so
that he went presently and embraced his father and his wife Timothea,
mounted his horse, and leaped into the abyss. The earth closed upon
it, and Midas raised a golden altar in the place, laid his hand upon
it, and dedicated it TO JUPITER IDAEUS. This altar becomes stone at
that time of the year when it was usual to have these eruptions; and
after that season was over, it is turned to gold again.—_My author is
Callisthenes, in his Second Book of Transformations._
The River Tiber, in its course over the Forum, opened a huge cavity in
the ground, so that a great many houses were buried in it. This was
looked upon as a judgment upon the place, from Jupiter Tarsius; who,
as the oracle told them, was not to be appeased without throwing into
it what they held most valuable. So they threw a quantity of gold and
silver into it. But Curtius, one of the bravest young men they had,
gave a better guess at the mind of the oracle; and reflecting upon
it, that the life of a man was much more excellent than treasure,
took his horse and plunged himself into the gulf, and so redeemed his
country.—_Aristides, in the Fortieth Book of his Italian History._
6. As several great captains were making merry with Polynices, an
eagle passing by made a stoop, and carried up into the air the lance
of Amphiaraus, who was one of the company; and then falling down, it
stuck in the ground, and was turned into a laurel. The next day, when
the armies were in action, the earth opened and swallowed up Amphiaraus
with his chariot, in that very place where at present the city Harma
stands, so called from that chariot.—_This is in Trisimachus’s Third
Book of the Foundations of Cities._
When the Romans made war upon Pyrrhus, the king of the Epirots, the
oracle promised Aemilius Paulus the victory in case he should erect
an altar in that place where he should see an eminent man with his
chariot swallowed up into the ground. Some three days after, Valerius
Conatus, a man skilled in divining, was commanded in a dream to take
the pontifical habit upon him. He did so, and led his men into the
battle, where, after a prodigious slaughter of the enemy, the earth
opened and swallowed him up. Aemilius built an altar here, obtained a
great victory, and sent a hundred and sixty castle-bearing elephants
to Rome. This altar delivers oracles about that season of the year in
which Pyrrhus was overcome.—_Critolaus has this in his Third Book of
the History of the Epirots._
7. Pyraechmes, king of the Euboeans, made war upon the Boeotians.
Hercules, when he was yet a youth, overcame this king, had him drawn
to pieces with horses, and threw away the carcass unburied. The place
where this was done is called Pyraechmes’s horses. It lies upon the
River Heraclius, and there is heard a neighing whensoever any horse
drinks of that river.—_This is in the Third Book of Rivers._
Tullus Hostilius, a king of the Romans, waged war against the Albans,
whose king’s name was Metius Fufetius; and he many times kept off from
fighting. He had the ill luck to be once worsted, upon which the Albans
gave themselves up to drinking and making good cheer, till Tullus
fell in upon them when they were in their cups, and tore their king
to pieces betwixt two horses.—_Alexarchus, in the Fourth Book of his
Italian History._
8. Philip had a design to sack Olynthus and Methone, and in trying
to pass the River Sandanus, was shot in the eye with an arrow by one
Aster, an Olynthian, with these words: It is Aster that sends Philip
this mortal shaft. Philip upon this swam back again to his own people,
and with the loss of an eye saved his life.—_Callisthenes, in his Third
Book of the Macedonics._
Porsena made war upon the Romans, and pitched his camp on the further
side of the Tiber, where he intercepted all relief, till they were
pinched with famine. Horatius Cocles, being chosen general, took
possession of the wooden bridge, where he opposed himself to the enemy
that were pressing to come over; but finding himself overpowered with
numbers, he commanded his people to cut down the bridge behind him, by
which means he hindered them from coming over. But in the mean time
receiving a wound in his eye, he threw himself into the river, and swam
over to his own party.—_So Theotimus in the Second Book of his Italian
History._
9. Eratosthenes in Erigone tells a story of Icarius, that entertained
Bacchus under his roof; and it runs thus. Saturn, having taken up his
lodging with an husbandman who had a very beautiful daughter named
Entoria, took her to his bed, and had several sons by her, Janus,
Hymnus, Faustus, and Felix. He taught his host Icarius the use of
wine and the way of dressing his vines, with a charge that he should
likewise instruct his neighbors in the mystery. His acquaintance,
hereupon finding that this strange drink had cast them into a deeper
sleep than ordinary, took a fancy that they were poisoned, and stoned
Icarius in revenge; whereupon his grandchildren hanged themselves for
grief.
Upon a time, when the plague was very hot in Rome, the Pythian oracle
being consulted gave this answer, that upon the appeasing the wrath
of Saturn, and the Manes of those that were unjustly killed, the
pestilence would cease. Lutatius Catulus, a man of the first quality,
caused a temple upon this occasion to be erected near the Tarpeian
Mount, which he dedicated to Saturn, placing an altar in it with four
faces; possibly with a respect to Saturn’s four children, or to the
four seasons of the year. He also instituted the month of January. But
Saturn translated them all to heaven among the stars, some of which are
called Protrygeteres, as forerunners of the vintage; only Janus rises
first, and has his place at the feet of the Virgin.—_Critolaus, in his
Fourth Book of Celestial Appearances._
10. In the time of the devastation of Greece by the Persians,
Pausanias, the Lacedaemonian commander, took a bribe of 500 talents
of Xerxes, to betray Sparta. The treason being discovered, his father
Agesilaus pressed him so hard, that he was fain to take sanctuary
in the temple of Minerva, called Chalcioecos, where he caused the
doors to be bricked up, and his son to be immured till he died of
hunger; and his mother after this would not suffer the body to be
buried.—_Chrysermus, in his Second Book of Histories._
The Romans, being in war with the Latins, made choice of P. Decius
for their general. Now there was a certain patrician, a young man and
poor (Cassius Brutus by name), who proposed for a certain reward to
open the gates to the enemy; but being detected, he fled to the temple
of Minerva Auxiliaria. But his father Cassius, an ensign-bearer, shut
him up there till he died of famine, and his dead body was not allowed
burial.—_Clitonymus, in his Italian History._
11. Darius, the Persian, had a battle with Alexander near the River
Granicus, where he lost seven satraps, and five hundred and two
chariots armed with scythes. And yet he would have tried the fortune of
another battle the day following; but his son Ariobarzanes, in favor of
Alexander, undertook to betray his father into his hands. The father
was so transported with passion at the indignity of the thing, that he
cut off his son’s head for it.—_Aretades Cnidius, in the Third of his
Macedonian History._
Brutus, that was created consul by the unanimous vote of the citizens,
forced away Tarquinius Superbus into banishment for his abominable
tyranny. He fled to the Tuscans, and by their assistance made war upon
the Romans. The sons were treating to betray the father; the business
was discovered, and they lost their heads for it.—_Aristides Milesius,
in his Italian History._
12. Epaminondas, a Theban general, managed a war against the Spartans.
He went from the army to Thebes, to be present there at a public
election of magistrates; but first enjoined his son Stesimbrotus
that he should not fight the enemy in his absence upon any terms.
The Spartans being informed that Epaminondas was not with the army,
reproached the young man with want of courage, and so far provoked him,
that without any regard to his father’s command he gave the Spartans
battle, and overcame them. His father was so incensed against him for
this action, that though he crowned him for the victory, he cut off
his head for his disobedience.—_Ctesiphon, in his Third Book of the
Boeotian History._
In a war that the Romans had against the Samnites, they gave the
command to Manlius, surnamed Imperiosus. He had occasion to go to
Rome, to be present there at the choice of consuls, and gave his son
in charge not to engage the enemy in the mean time. The Samnites,
understanding this, irritated the young man with opprobrious words,
as if he declined fighting out of cowardice, and in the end provoked
him to a battle; upon which action he carried the day; but his father
caused his head to be struck off for breaking his order.—_This is in
Aristides Milesius._
13. Hercules made love to Iole, but she gave him the repulse, and so he
went and assaulted Oechalia. Iole threw herself headlong down from the
wall, but the whiffling of the wind under her garments broke the fall,
and she had no hurt.—_This story is in Nicias Maleotes._
Valerius Torquatus was the Romans’ general in the war they had with
the Tuscans; who, upon the sight of Clusia, the daughter of the Tuscan
king, fell in love with her, and when he found he could do no good
on’t, laid siege to the city. Clusia, upon this, threw herself headlong
from a tower; but Venus was so careful of her, that by the playing
of the wind in the folds of her garments, she was wafted safe to the
ground. Torquatus, however, offered her violence, and for so doing he
was banished by a public decree into the isle of Corsica.—_Theophilus,
in the Third Book of his Italian History._
14. While the Carthaginians were treating an alliance with the
Sicilians against the Romans, the Roman general Metellus was observed
to omit sacrificing only to Vesta, who revenged herself upon him by
sending a cross wind to the navy. But Caius Julius, a soothsayer,
being consulted in the matter, gave answer, that this obstacle would
be removed upon the general’s sacrificing his daughter; so that he was
forced to produce his daughter Metella for a sacrifice. But Vesta had
compassion for her, and so sent her away to Lamusium, substituting a
heifer in her stead, and made a priestess of her to the dragon that
is worshipped in that place.—_So Pythocles, in the Third Book of his
Italian History._
Something like this happened to Iphigenia in Aulis, a city of
Boeotia.—_See Meryllus, in the First Book of his Boeotic History._
15. Brennus, a king of the Gauls, after the wasting of Asia, came to
Ephesus, and there fell in love with a country girl, who promised him
that for such a certain reward in bracelets and other curiosities of
value he should have the use of her body, and that she would further
undertake to deliver up Ephesus into his hands. Brennus ordered his
soldiers to throw all the gold they had into the lap of this avaricious
wretch, which they did, till she perished under the weight of
it.—_Clitophon in the First Book of his Gallican History._
Tarpeia, a virgin that was well born, and had the keeping of the
Capitol in the war betwixt the Sabines and the Romans, passed a
promise unto Tatius, that she would open him a passage into the
Tarpeian Mount, provided that he would give her all the jewels that the
Sabines wore, for a reward. The Sabines hearing this crushed her to
death.—_Aristides’s Milesius, in his Italic History._
16. After a long war betwixt two cities, Tegea and Phenea, they came to
an agreement to refer the decision of the controversy, by combat, to
three twin-brothers on each side, the sons of Reximachus for Tegea,
and the sons of Damostratus for Phenea. Upon the encounter, two of the
sons of Reximachus were slain; but Critolaus, the third, had a fetch
beyond his two brothers; for, under a pretence of running away, he
divided his enemies that pursued him, and so taking them one by one,
he killed them all. The Tegeans upon his return went all overjoyed to
gratulate the victor. Only his sister Demodice was not so well pleased;
for she was betrothed, it seems, to Demodicus, one of the brothers,
that was now slain. Which Critolaus took so ill that he killed his
sister, and being afterwards indicted for murder at the instigation of
his mother, he was acquitted.—_Demaratus, in his Second Book of the
Arcadian History._
In the heat of the war betwixt the Romans and Albans, they came to
this agreement, that the cause should be determined by a trial at
arms betwixt three and three twins on each side, the Curiatii for
the Albans, and the Horatii for the Romans. Upon the encounter, the
Curiatii killed two of the others; the third survivor, under the color
of flying, destroyed his enemies one by one, as they followed him.
All his friends came to joy him of his victory, save only his sister
Horatia; for one of the Curiatii, that her brother killed, was her
sweetheart. Horatius for this killed his sister.—_Aristides Milesius,
in his Italian Commentaries._
17. The temple of Minerva in Ilium happened to be on fire. Ilus ran
presently to save the Palladium (an image dropped from heaven); but
upon the taking of it up, he was struck blind, it being a thing
unlawful for any man to look upon. But upon appeasing the Deity, he
was afterwards restored to his sight.—_Dercyllus, in his First Book of
Foundations._
Metellus, an eminent man, as he was walking out of the city, was
interrupted by ravens, that laid hold of him and kept a flapping of
him with their wings. This omen surprised him, and back he went into
the city again, where he found the temple of Vesta all in a flame.
He went and took away the Palladium, and fell blind upon’t. But some
time after, the Goddess being pacified gave him the use of his eyes
again.—_Aristides Milesius, in his Italian History._
18. Upon a time when the Thracians were engaged in a war against the
Athenians, the oracle promised them victory if they would but save the
life of Codrus. Codrus upon this puts himself in a coarse disguise, and
away he goes into the enemies’ camp with a scythe in his hand, where
he killed one, and another killed him, so that the Athenians got the
better on’t.—_Socrates, in his Second Book of his Thracian History._
Publius Decius, a Roman, at a time when they were in war with the
Albans, had a dream that his death would bring a great advantage to
the Romans; upon which consideration he charged into the middle of his
enemies, where he killed many, and was slain himself: his son Decius
did the like in the Gallic war, for the conservation of the Roman
State.—_Aristides Milesius is my author._
19. There was one Cyanippus a Syracusan, that sacrificed to all the
Gods but Bacchus; who took the contempt so heinously that he made him
drunk, in which fit he got his daughter Cyane into a corner and lay
with her. She in the mean time slipped his ring off his finger, and
gave it to her nurse to keep, as a circumstance that some time or other
might come to be brought in evidence. There brake out a pestilence, and
the Pythian oracle advised the sacrificing of an incestuous person to
the Gods that are the averters of such calamities, as the only remedy.
Cyane, that understood the meaning of the oracle better than other
people, took her father by the hair of the head and dragged him forth,
first stabbing him and then herself.—_Dositheus, in the Third Book of
his Sicilian History._
In the time of celebrating the Bacchanalia at Rome, Aruntius, that had
never drunk any wine since he was born, did not show such reverence
for the power of the God as he ought to have done, so that Bacchus
intoxicated him; and in that freak, Aruntius ravished his daughter
Medullina. She came to know the ravisher by his ring, and an exploit
came into her head, above what from her age could have been expected.
She made her father drunk and set a garland upon his head, carrying him
to the altar of Thunder, where with tears she killed him for robbing
her so treacherously of her virginity.—_Aristides, in the Third Book of
his Italian History._
20. Erechtheus was told in a war he had with Eumolpus, that he should
have the better of his enemy if he would but sacrifice his daughter.
He advised upon the matter with his wife Praxithea, and delivered up
his daughter after the manner of a common sacrifice.—_Euripides, in his
Erechtheus._
Marius, finding himself hard put to it in the Cimbrian war, had it
revealed to him in a dream, that he should overcome his enemies if
he would but sacrifice his daughter Calpurnia. He did it, preferring
the common safety before any private bond of Nature, and he got the
victory. There are two altars in Germany, where about that time of the
year may be heard the sound of trumpets.—_Dorotheus, in the Fourth Book
of his Italian History._
21. There was one Cyanippus, a Thessalian, who was a great lover of
the chase and was often abroad a hunting. This same Cyanippus was
newly married, and his staying out so long and so often in the woods
gave his wife a jealousy of an intrigue there with some other woman;
insomuch that she followed him one time, and got into a thicket to
watch him. The rustling of the boughs in the place where she lay
brought the dogs thither in expectation of some game, where they tore
this tender-hearted woman to pieces, as if she had been a brute beast.
Cyanippus was so surprised with so dismal and unthought-of a spectacle,
that he killed himself.—_Parthenias the Poet._
Sybaris is a city of Italy, where there was one Aemilius, a very
handsome young man, and a lover of hunting. His wife (whom he had
lately married) took up a suspicion that, under color of the chase,
he carried on an assignation with some other woman. She traced him to
the wood, and upon the noise of the boughs in her passage, the dogs
ran presently to her and tore her to pieces; and her husband stabbed
himself immediately upon this miserable accident.—_Clitonymus, in the
Second Book of his Sybaritics._
22. One Smyrna (to whom Venus owed a shame, it seems) fell passionately
in love with her father Cinyras, and made the nurse her confidant. She
goes craftily to work with her master, and tells him of a maid there
in the neighborhood that loved him above all things in the world, but
she could not in modesty appear publicly to him. So the father lay
ignorantly with his own daughter. But some time after, having a great
mind to see his mistress, he called for a light, and when he saw who it
was, he pursued the incestuous wretch with his drawn sword; but by the
providence of Venus, she was rescued from that danger, and turned into
a myrrh-tree.—_Theodorus, in his Transformations._
One Valeria Tusculanaria (for whom Venus had no kindness) fell
downright in love with her father Valerius. She told the nurse the
secret, who ordered it so that she brought the father and the daughter
together, telling him, that a maid there hard by was fallen desperately
in love with him, but that she durst not lie with him for fear of being
known. The father was got into his cups, and as he was in bed with his
daughter, called for a candle. The nurse waked Valeria, and away she
goes wandering up and down the country with her great belly. She had
at last a fall from a precipice, but escaped without so much as any
miscarriage; for she was delivered at her time, and the child’s name
was Sylvanus (or goat-footed Pan). Valerius, in the anxiety of his
mind, threw himself from the same precipice.—_Aristides Milesius, in
the Third Book of his Italian History._
23. Diomedes, after the destruction of Troy, was cast by stress of
weather upon the coast of Libya, where Lycus the son of Mars was king,
whose custom it was to sacrifice all strangers to his father; but
his daughter Callirrhoe falling in love with Diomede, betrayed her
father and set Diomede at liberty; who presently went his way without
any regard to his benefactress, and Callirrhoe hanged herself upon
it.—_Juba, Book the Third of his Libyan History._
Calpurnius Crassus, a famous man bearing arms with Regulus, was sent to
the Massyllians to attack the castle of Garaetius, being a very strong
place. He was taken in the enterprise, and designed for a sacrifice to
Saturn; but Bisaltia, the king’s daughter, out of a passionate kindness
to Calpurnius, betrayed her father. Calpurnius left her, and after
his departure Bisaltia cut her own throat.—_Hesianax’s Third Book of
African History._
24. When Priam found that Troy was given for lost, he sent his young
son Polydore into Thrace with a vast sum of gold, and put all into the
hands of Polymestor his kinsman. So soon as Troy was taken, Polymestor
killed the child, and took the gold to himself. Hecuba, being driven
upon that quarter, overreached Polymestor by craft, under pretence of
giving him a great treasure, at which time she, with the assistance of
her fellow-prisoners, tore out his eyes with her nails.—_Euripides the
Tragedian._
When Hannibal was ravaging the country of Campania, Lucius Thymbris
deposited his son Rustius, with a vast sum of money, in the hands of
Valerius Gestius his kinsman; who upon intelligence that the enemy
carried all before him, out of pure avarice and without any regard to
humanity or justice, killed the child. It so fell out that Thymbris,
as he was walking about the fields, found the dead body of his son;
whereupon he called his kinsman under pretence of a treasure that
he would show him. He took his opportunity, put out his eyes, and
crucified him.—_Aristides’s Third Book of his Italic History._
25. Aeacus had two sons by Psamathe, Phocus and Telamon, the former
better beloved than the other. Telamon one day took out his brother a
hunting; and a boar presenting himself, he threw his lance in pretence
at the boar, but in truth at his brother, whom he hated, and so killed
him; for which his father banished him.—_Dorotheus’s First Book of
Transformations._
Caius Maximus had two sons, Rhesus the one, by Ameria, ... and the
other Similius. The brothers were a hunting together, and Rhesus having
killed the other, put it off—when he came home—that it was by chance,
and far from any design of doing it. But his father, when he came in
time to know the truth of it, banished the son.—_Aristocles, in the
Third Book of his Italian History._
26. Mars is said to have begotten Meleager upon Althaea.—_Euripides, in
his Meleager._
Septimius Marcellus took to wife one Sylvia, and a great lover of
hunting he was. Mars put himself in the habit of a shepherd, whored the
new wife and got her with child; which being done, he told her who he
was, and gave her a spear, telling her that the fate of the child she
went withal was wrapped up in the fate of that spear....
Septimius slew Tuscinus; but Mamercus, in his sacrificing to the Gods
for a fruitful season, omitted only Ceres, who in revenge sent a wild
boar into his grounds. Whereupon getting a knot of huntsmen together,
he killed him, and delivered the head and skin to his sweetheart; but
Scymbrates and Muthias, the maid’s uncles, took them away from her.
Mamercus in a rage killed them upon it, and the mother burned the
spear.—_Menyllus, in the Third Book of his Italian History._
27. When Telamon, the son of Aeacus and Endeis, came to Euboea, he
debauched Periboea the daughter of Alcathous, and fled away by night.
The father understanding this, and suspecting the villany to be done by
some of the citizens, he delivered his daughter to one of the guards
to be thrown into the sea. But the soldier, in compassion to the
woman, rather sold her, and she was carried away by sea to the island
of Salamis, where Telamon bought her, and had by her Ajax.—_Aretades
Cnidius, in his Second Book of Islands._
Lucius Troscius had by Patris a daughter called Florentia, who, being
corrupted by Calpurnius a Roman, was delivered by her father to a
soldier, with a charge to throw her in the sea and drown her. The man
had compassion of her, and rather sold her. And when good fortune
brought the ship to Italy, Calpurnius bought her, and had Contruscus by
her....
28. Aeolus, a great king of Etruria, had by Amphithea six daughters,
and as many sons. Macareus, the youngest of them, had the carnal
knowledge of one of his sisters, who was delivered of a boy. Her father
sent her a sword to kill the child with; but that was so impious, that
she chose rather to kill herself. And Macareus laid violent hands upon
himself too.—_Sostratus, in his Second Book of Tuscan History._
Papirius Tolucer married Julia Pulchra, by whom he had six sons and six
daughters. Papirius Romanus, the eldest of the six, got Canulia his
sister with child. When the father came to the knowledge of it, he sent
his daughter a sword, with which she killed herself; and Romanus did
the same.—_Chrysippus, in his First Book of Italian History._
29. Aristonymus, an Ephesian and the son of Demostratus, was a
woman-hater; but he had to do with an ass, which brought him forth in
the ordinary course of time a most beautiful daughter, which he called
Onoscelis.—_Aristotle’s Second Book of Paradoxes._
Fulvius Stellus had an aversion to women too; but entertained himself
to his satisfaction with a mare, by which he had a very handsome
daughter, that he called Hippona; and this is the goddess that has the
care of the breed of horses.—_According to Agesilaus, in the Third Book
of his Italian History._
30. The Sardians, being engaged in war with the Smyrnaeans, besieged
Smyrna, and sent them word by their ambassadors, that they would never
raise the siege till the Smyrnaeans should deliver up their wives to
their embraces. The men of Smyrna would have been hard put to it upon
this pinching necessity, if it had not been for the advice of a pretty
wench that was a maid-servant to Phylarchus. Her counsel to her master
was this; that instead of sending free women, they should rather dress
up the servants and send them. The Smyrnaeans followed their advice;
and when the Sardians had wearied themselves with their mistresses, the
Smyrnaeans easily overcame them. From whence there is a festival day
observed under the name of Eleutheria, which is celebrated among the
Smyrnaeans with great solemnity; the servants being dressed up with all
the ornaments of the free women.—_Dositheus, in the Third Book of his
Lydian History._
Atepomarus, a king of the Gauls, being in war with the Romans, made
a public declaration, that he would never agree to a peace till the
Romans should prostitute their wives to them. The Romans advised with
the maid-servants, and sent them in the place of the free women; the
barbarians plied the work so hard, that they were soon tired and
fell asleep. Retana (who was the authoress of the counsel) climbed a
fig-tree, and so got on the wall; and finding how it was, gave notice
of it to the consuls. The Romans upon this made a sally and routed the
enemy; in memory whereof was instituted the Servants’ Holiday, and
this was the rise of it.—_Aristides Milesius, in the First Book of his
Italian History._
31. In the war betwixt the Athenians and Eumolpus, provisions falling
short, the commissary Pyrandrus, upon a point of prudence and good
husbandry, made some small abatement in the soldiers’ proportions.
The citizens suspected treachery in the case, and stoned him to
death.—_Callisthenes, Third Book of his History of Thrace._
The Romans being in war with the Gauls, and provisions for the belly
being very scarce, Cinna contracted the soldiers’ allowance to a less
proportion than they had formerly. The citizens interpreted this
abatement to an ambitious design he had upon the government, and so
stoned him for it.—_Aristides, Book Third of his Italian History._
32. In the time of the Peloponnesian war, Pisistratus an Orchomenian
had a spite at the nobility, and to make himself popular, favored the
common people. The Senate conspired against him, and treacherously
killed him, cutting him into small gobbets which they carried away with
them in their bosoms, and paring off the surface of the ground that
no signs of the murder might appear. The common people, however, upon
a jealousy of the matter, went tumultuously to the senate house; but
the king’s younger son Telesimachus that was dipped in the conspiracy,
diverted them with a sham story, telling them that he himself had
seen his father in a form more than human, walking as lively as
was possible up the Pisaean mountain. And so he imposed upon the
people.—_Theophilus’s Second Book of Peloponnesian Histories._
The Senate of Rome, being hard put to it for the maintaining of a war
with so many of their neighbors, thought it good husbandry to shorten
the people’s allowance of corn, which Romulus the king took very ill;
and not only did he restore it to the people, but several great men
were punished for it. Upon this he was murdered in the Senate by a
conspiracy of the nobles, who cut him all to pieces, and carried them
severally away in the lappets of their garments. The Romans came to
the senate house in a hurry, and brought fire with them to set all in
a flame; but Julius Proculus, one that was in the plot, told them that
he saw Romulus upon a mountain, of a size larger than any man, and that
he was translated into the number of the Gods. The Romans believed him,
and quietly withdrew.—_Aristobulus, in the Third Book of his History of
Italy._
33. Pelops the son of Tantalus and Euryanassa, had two children, Atreus
and Thyestes, by his wife Hippodamia; and by the Nymph Danais he had
Chrysippus, whom he loved better than his lawful children. But Laius
the Theban in the heat of his lust forcibly abused his body; and being
taken by Atreus and Thyestes, obtained his pardon from Pelops, in
regard that love had provoked him to it. Hippodamia’s advice to Atreus
and Thyestes was, that they should kill Chrysippus, as one that would
interpose between them and the crown. Upon their refusal to do so base
a thing, she herself put her own hands to the work, and in the dead of
the night took Laius’s sword when he was asleep, wounded Chrysippus
with it, and left the weapon in his body. This circumstance of Laius’s
sword brought him into suspicion of the murder, till he was cleared
by Chrysippus himself, who, being as yet but half dead, gave his
testimony to the truth. Pelops buried his son, and then banished his
wife.—_Dositheus, in his Pelopidae._
Ebius Toliex had two sons by his wife Nuceria, and a third called
Firmus by an enfranchised woman, who was very handsome and better
beloved by the father than those that were legitimate. Nuceria that
hated this by-blow, advised her sons to despatch Firmus; but upon their
refusal, she did it herself; and in the dead of the night got the sword
of him that guarded the body of Firmus, gave him a mortal wound, and
left the weapon sticking in his body. The boy cleared his keeper by a
particular account of the matter of fact; the father buried his son,
and sent away his wife into banishment.—_Dositheus, Book Third of his
Italian History._
34. Theseus, the true son of Neptune, had Hippolytus by the Amazon
Hippolyta, and afterward married Phaedra the daughter of Minos, who
fell deep in love with Hippolytus, and made use of the nurse’s
mediation to help forward the incest. But Hippolytus upon this left
Athens and went away to Troezen, where he diverted himself with
hunting. Now this lascivious woman, finding her design disappointed,
forged several scandalous letters to the prejudice of the chaste young
man, and ended her days with a halter. Theseus gave credit to the
slander, and Neptune having promised him a grant of any three things
he would ask, he made it his request that he would destroy Hippolytus.
So Neptune sent a bull to the coast where Hippolytus was driving his
chariot, which put his horses into such a fright, that they ran away
with them, and overturning the chariot killed the master.
Comminius Super, a Laurentine, had a son by the nymph Egeria, whom
he called Comminius; after which he married one Gidica, who fell
passionately in love with her son-in-law. And receiving a repulse, she
framed slanderous letters against him, which she left behind her, and
so hanged herself. Comminius, reflecting upon the crime and believing
the calumny, applied himself to Neptune, who with a terrible bull
frighted the horses so, while the youth was in the chariot, that they
overturned all, and killed him with the fall.—_Dositheus, Book Third of
Italian Histories._
35. In the time of a great plague in Lacedaemon, they were told by
the oracle, that the pestilence would cease upon the sacrificing of
a noble virgin every year. It fell one time by lot to Helena, who
was brought out and dressed up ready for the sacrifice. An eagle
at that time flying by took away the sword, and carrying it into a
herd of cattle laid it down upon a heifer; whereupon they spared the
virgin.—_Aristodemus, in his Third Collection of Fables._
There was a dreadful plague in Falerii, which the oracle said would be
removed upon the sacrificing of a virgin to Juno every year. While this
superstition was in course, it fell to Valeria Luperca’s lot to be the
sacrifice. An eagle flew away with the drawn sword, but laid a stick
upon the fuel prepared for the fire, with a little mallet fixed to it.
The sword he threw upon a heifer feeding near the temple. The virgin
perceiving this sacrificed the heifer; and taking up the mallet, went
about from house to house, and with a gentle knock called to those that
were sick, bidding them be of good health. And this was the rise of the
ceremony which continues to this day.—_Aristides, in his Nineteenth
Book of Italian Histories._
36. Philonome, the daughter of Nyctimus and Arcadia, went many times
to the chase with Diana. Mars lay with her in the shape of a shepherd,
and fetched up her belly. She was delivered in time of twins, which for
fear of her father she threw into the river Erymanthus. By a strange
fatality of providence they were driven safe into a hollow oak, which
happening to be the kennel of a wolf, this wolf threw her whelps into
the river, and suckled the children. Tyliphus a shepherd, that had
seen this with his own, eyes, took these children and brought them up
as his own, calling one of them Lycastus, and the other Parrasius,
which reigned successively in Arcadia.—_This is reported by Zopyrus
Byzantius, in the Third Book of his Histories._
Amulius dealing very tyrannically with his brother Numitor, killed his
son Aenitus as they were a hunting, and made his daughter Sylvia ...
a priestess of Juno. Mars got her with child, and when she had laid
her belly of twins, she confessed the truth to the tyrant; which put
him in such an apprehension, that he exposed them both on the side
of the river Tiber, where they were carried by the stream to a place
where a she-wolf had her whelps. The wolf cast away her own, and gave
suck to these children. Faustus a shepherd, observing this, took the
children to himself, and called them by the names of Romus and Romulus,
which came afterwards to be the founders of Rome.—_Aristides’s Italian
Histories._
37. After the destruction of Troy, Agamemnon and Cassandra were killed;
but Orestes, that was brought up with Strophius, revenged the death of
his father.—_Pyrander’s Fourth Book of Peloponnesian Histories._
Fabius Fabricianus, a kinsman of Fabius Maximus, having taken Tuxium,
the chief city of the Samnites, sent to Rome the image of Venus
Victrix, which among them was held in great veneration. His wife
Fabia was debauched by Petronius Valentinus, a handsome young man,
and afterwards she treacherously murdered her husband; but for her
son Fabricianus who was yet in his infancy, she shifted him away to
be privately brought up, and so provided for his security. When he
was grown up, he destroyed both his mother and the adulterer, and was
formally acquitted for it by a decree of the Senate.—_Dositheus’s Third
Book of Italian History._
38. Busiris, the son of Neptune and Anippe the daughter of Nilus, was
used to invite strangers in to him under a pretence of hospitality, and
then to murder them; but divine vengeance met with him at last, for
Hercules found out the villany, and killed him with his club.—_Agatho
the Samian._
Hercules, as he was driving Geryon’s oxen through Italy, took up his
lodging with King Faunus there, the son of Mercury, whose custom it was
to sacrifice strangers to his father. He set upon Hercules, and had his
brains beaten out for his pains.—_Dercyllus’s Third Book of Italian
History._
39. Phalaris of Agrigentum, a cruel tyrant, was wont to put
strangers and travellers to the most exquisite torment, Perillus, a
brass-founder, made a cow of brass, and presented it to the king for
a new invention, that he might burn strangers alive in it. Phalaris
for this once was just, in making the first proof of it upon Perillus
himself; and the invention was so artificial, that upon putting it
in execution, the engine itself seemed to bellow.—_Second Book of
Questions or Causes._
In Egesta, a city of Sicily, there was a certain tyrant called
Aemilius Censorinus, who was so inhuman that he proposed rewards to
the inventors of new tortures. There was one Aruntius Paterculus that
had framed a brazen horse, and made a present of it to the tyrant
to practise with it upon whom he pleased. It was the first piece of
justice that ever the tyrant did, to make trial of the torment upon
the author of it, that he might first feel himself the torments he had
provided for others. He was afterwards thrown down from the Tarpeian
Rock. It may be thought that unmerciful rulers are from this tyrant
called Aemilii.—_Aristides’s Fourth Book of Italian History._
40. Evenus, the son of Mars and Sterope, had a daughter Marpessa by
his wife Alcippe, the daughter of Oenomaus; and this girl he had
a mind to keep a virgin. But Idas, the son of Aphareus, ran away
with her from a choir. Evenus pursued him, and finding he could not
overtake him, he threw himself into the river Lycormas, and became
immortal.—_Dositheus’s First Book of Italian History._
Anius, a king of the Tuscans, had a delicate, handsome daughter,
whose name was Salia, and he took great care to keep her a virgin.
But Cathetus, a man of quality, seeing her sporting herself, fell
passionately in love with her, and carried her away to Rome. The father
made after her, and when he saw there was no catching of her, he threw
himself into a river that from him took the name of Anio. Cathetus
begot Latinus and Salius upon the body of Salia, the root of a noble
race.—_Aristides Milesius, and Alexander Polyhistor’s Third Book of
Italian History._
41. Hegesistratus an Ephesian committed a murder in his family, and
fled to Delphi; on consulting the oracle what place to settle in, the
answer was, that when he should come to a place where he should see
the country people dancing with garlands of olive-leaves, he should
settle there. He travelled into a certain country of Asia, where he
found as the oracle told him, and there built a city which he called
Elaeus.—_Pythocles the Samian, in the Third Book of his Georgics._
Telegonus, the son of Ulysses by Circe, was sent to find out his
father, and commanded by an oracle to erect a city where he should
see the country people dancing with garlands. He came into a certain
place of Italy, where he found the countrymen dancing with wreaths of
ilex about their heads; so that there he built a city, and called it
Prinistum, for an ilex in Greek is πρῖνος. The Romans corruptly call
this city Praeneste.—_Aristocles, in the Third Book of his Italian
History._
OF THE NAMES OF RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS, AND OF SUCH THINGS AS ARE TO BE
FOUND THEREIN.[175]
I. HYDASPES.
This is a river of India, which falls with an extraordinary swift
stream into the Saronitic Syrtis: Chrysippe, by the impulse of Venus,
whom she had offended, fell in love with her father Hydaspes, and
not being able to curb her preternatural desires, by the help of
her nurse, in the dead of the night got to his bed and received his
caresses; after which, the king proving unfortunate in his affairs,
he buried alive the old bawd that had betrayed him, and crucified his
daughter. Nevertheless such was the excess of his grief for the loss
of Chrysippe, that he threw himself into the river Indus, which was
afterwards called by his name Hydaspes.
Moreover in this river there grows a stone, which is called Lychnis,
which resembles the color of oil, and is very bright in appearance.
And when they are searching after it, which they do when the moon
increases, the pipers play all the while. Nor is it to be worn by any
but the richer sort. Also near that part of the river which is called
Pylae, there grows an herb which is very like a heliotrope, with the
juice of which the people anoint their skins to prevent sunburning, and
to secure them against the scorching of the excessive heat.
The natives whenever they take their virgins tardy, nail them to a
wooden cross, and fling them into this river, singing at the same
time in their own language a hymn to Venus. Every year also they bury
a condemned old woman near the top of the hill called Therogonos;
at which time an infinite multitude of creeping creatures come down
from the top of the hill, and devour the insects that hover about the
buried carcass. This Chrysermus relates in his History of India, though
Archelaus gives a more exact account of these things in his Treatise of
Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Elephas, so called upon this
occasion. When Alexander the Macedonian advanced with his army into
India, and the natives were resolved to withstand him with all their
force, the elephant upon which Porus, king of that region, was wont
to ride, being of a sudden stung with a gad-bee, ran up to the top of
the mountain of the sun, and there uttered these words distinctly in
human speech: “O king, my lord, descended from the race of Gegasius,
forbear to attempt any thing against Alexander, for he is descended
from Jupiter.” And having so said, he presently died. Which when Porus
understood, afraid of Alexander, he fell at his feet and sued for
peace. Which when he had obtained, he called the mountain Elephas;—as
Dercyllus testifies in his Third Book of Mountains.
II. ISMENUS.
Ismenus is a river of Boeotia, that washes the walls of Thebes. It was
formerly called the foot of Cadmus, upon this occasion. When Cadmus
had slain the dragon which kept the fountain of Mars, he was afraid
to taste of the water, believing it was poisoned; which forced him to
wander about in search of another fountain to allay his thirst. At
length, by the help of Minerva, he came to the Corycian den, where his
right leg stuck deep in the mire. And from that hole it was that, after
he had pulled his leg out again, sprung a fair river, which the hero,
after the solemnity of his sacrifices performed, called by the name of
Cadmus’s foot.
Some time after, Ismenus, the son of Amphion and Niobe, being wounded
by Apollo and in great pain, threw himself into the said river, which
was then from his name called Ismenus;—as Sostratus relates in his
Second Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Cithaeron, formerly called
Asterion for this reason. Boeotus the son of Neptune was desirous,
of two noble ladies, to marry her that should be most beneficial to
him; and while he tarried for both in the night-time upon the top of
a certain nameless mountain, of a sudden a star fell from heaven upon
the shoulders of Eurythemiste, and immediately vanished. Upon which
Boeotus, understanding the meaning of the prodigy, married the virgin,
and called the mountain Asterion from the accident that befell him.
Afterwards it was called Cithaeron upon this occasion. Tisiphone,
one of the Furies, falling in love with a most beautiful youth whose
name was Cithaeron, and not being able to curb the impatience of her
desires, declared her affection to him in a letter, to which he would
not return any answer. Whereupon the Fury, missing her design, pulled
one of the serpents from her locks, and flung it upon the young lad as
he was keeping his sheep on the top of the mountain Asterion; where
the serpent twining about his neck choked him to death. And thereupon
by the will of the Gods the mountain was called Cithaeron;—as Leo of
Byzantium writes in his History of Boeotia.
But Hermesianax of Cyprus tells the story quite otherwise. For he says,
that Helicon and Cithaeron were two brothers, quite different in their
dispositions. For Helicon was affable and mild, and cherished his
aged parents. But Cithaeron, being covetous and greedily gaping after
the estate, first killed his father, and then treacherously threw his
brother down from a steep precipice, but in striving together, fell
himself along with him. Whence, by the providence of the Gods, the
names of both the mountains were changed. Cithaeron, by reason of his
impiety, became the haunt of the Furies. Helicon, for the young man’s
love to his parents, became the habitation of the Muses.
III. HEBRUS.
Hebrus is a river of Thrace, deriving its former name of Rhombus from
the many gulfs and whirlpools in the water.
Cassander, king of that region, having married Crotonice, had by her a
son whom he named Hebrus. But then being divorced from his first wife,
he married Damasippe, the daughter of Atrax, and brought her home over
his son’s head; with whom the mother-in-law falling in love, invited
him by letters to her embraces. But he, avoiding his mother-in-law as
a Fury, gave himself over to the sport of hunting. On the other side
the impious woman, missing her purpose, belied the chaste youth, and
accused him of attempting to ravish her. Upon this Cassander, raging
with jealousy, flew to the wood in a wild fury, and with his sword
drawn pursued his son, as one that treacherously sought to defile
his father’s bed. Upon which the son, finding he could no way escape
his father’s wrath, threw himself into the river Rhombus, which was
afterwards called Hebrus from the name of the young man;—as Timotheus
testifies in his Eleventh Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Pangaeus, so called upon this
occasion. Pangaeus, the son of Mars and Critobule, by a mistake lay
with his own daughter; which perplexed him to that degree that he fled
to the Carmanian mountain, where, overwhelmed with a sorrow that he
could not master, he drew his sword and slew himself. Whence, by the
providence of the Gods, the place was called Pangaeus.
In the river before mentioned, grows an herb not much unlike to
origanum; the tops of which the Thracians cropping off burn upon a
fire, and after they are filled with the fruits of Ceres, they hold
their heads over the smoke, and snuff it up into their nostrils,
letting it go down their throats; till at last they fall into a
profound sleep.
Also upon the mountain Pangaeus grows an herb, which is called the
harp upon this occasion. The women that tore Orpheus in pieces cast
his limbs into the river Hebrus; and his head being changed, the whole
body was turned into the shape of a dragon. But as for his harp, such
was the will of Apollo, it remained in the same form. And from the
streaming blood grew up the herb which was called the harp; which,
during the solemnity of the sacrifices to Bacchus, sends forth a sound
like that of an harp when played upon. At which time the natives, being
covered with the skins of young hinds and waving their thyrsuses in
their hands, sing a hymn, of which these are part of the words,
When wisdom all in vain must be,
Then be not wise at all;—
as Clitonymus reports, in his Third Book of Thracian Relations.
IV. GANGES.
Ganges is a river in India, so called for this reason. A certain
Calaurian nymph had by Indus a son called Ganges, conspicuous for his
beauty. Who growing up to manhood, being once desperately overcome with
wine, in the heat of his intoxication lay with his mother. The next
day he was informed by the nurse of what he had done; and such was
the excess of his sorrow, that he threw himself into a river called
Chliarus, afterwards called Ganges from his own name.
In this river grows an herb resembling bugloss, which the natives
bruise, and keep the juice very charily. With this juice in the dead of
the night they go and besprinkle the tigers’ dens; the virtue of which
is such, that the tigers, not being able to stir forth by reason of
the strong scent of the juice, are starved to death;—as Callisthenes
reports in his Third Book of Hunting.
Upon the banks of this river lies the mountain called the Anatole for
this reason. The Sun, beholding the nymph Anaxibia innocently spending
her time in dancing, fell passionately in love with her, and not able
to curb his loose amours, pursued her with a purpose to ravish her.
She therefore, finding no other way to escape him, fled to the temple
of Orthian Diana, which was seated upon the mountain called Coryphe,
and there immediately vanished away. Upon which the Sun, that followed
her close at the heels, not knowing what was become of his beloved,
overwhelmed with grief, rose in that very place. And from this accident
it was that the natives called the top of that mountain Anatole, or the
rising of the Sun;—as Caemaron reports in his Tenth Book of the Affairs
of India.
V. PHASIS.
Phasis is a river of Scythia, running by a city of the same name. It
was formerly called Arcturus, deriving its name from the situation of
the cold regions through which it runs. But the name of it was altered
upon this occasion.
Phasis, the child of the Sun and Ocyrrhoe daughter of Oceanus, slew
his mother, whom he took in the very act of adultery. For which being
tormented by the Furies appearing to him, he threw himself into the
river Arcturus, which was afterwards called by his own name Phasis.
In this river grows a reed, which is called leucophyllus, or the reed
with the white leaf. This reed is found at the dawning of the morning
light, at what time the sacrifices are offered to Hecate, at the time
when the divinely inspired paean is chanted, at the beginning of the
spring; when they who are troubled with jealous heads gather this reed,
and strew it in their wives’ chambers to keep them chaste. And the
nature of the reed is such, that if any wild extravagant person happens
to come rashly in drink into the room where it lies, he presently
becomes deprived of his rational thoughts, and immediately confesses
whatever he has wickedly done and intended to do. At what time they
that are present to hear him lay hold of him, sew him up in a sack, and
throw him into a hole called the Mouth of the Wicked, which is round
like the mouth of a well. This after thirty days empties the body into
the Lake Maeotis, that is full of worms; where of a sudden the body is
seized and torn to pieces by several vultures unseen before, nor is it
known from whence they come;—as Ctesippus relates in his Second Book of
Scythian Relations.
Near to this river lies the mountain Caucasus, which was before called
Boreas’s Bed, upon this occasion. Boreas in the heat of his amorous
passion ravished away by force Chione, the daughter of Arcturus, and
carried her to a certain hill which was called Niphantes, and upon her
begot a son whom he called Hyrpax, who succeeded Heniochus in his
kingdom. For which reason the mountain was first called Boreas’s Bed;
but afterwards Caucasus upon this occasion. After the fight of the
Giants, Saturn, to avoid the menaces of Jupiter, fled to the top of
Boreas’s Bed, and there being turned into a crocodile [lay concealed.
But Prometheus] slew Caucasus, one of the shepherds inhabiting that
place; and cutting him up and observing the disposition of his
entrails, he foresaw that his enemies were not far off. Presently
Jupiter appearing, and binding his father with a woollen list, threw
him down to hell. Then changing the name of the mountain in honor of
the shepherd Caucasus, he chained Prometheus to it, and caused him to
be tormented by an eagle that fed upon his entrails, because he was the
first that found out the inspection of bowels, which Jupiter deemed a
great cruelty;—as Cleanthes relates in his Third Book of the Wars of
the Gods.
Upon this mountain grows an herb which is called Prometheus, which
Medea gathering and bruising made use of to protect Jason against her
father’s obstinacy.
VI. ARAR.
Arar is a river in Gallia Celtica, deriving the name from its being
mixed with the river Rhone. For it falls into the Rhone within the
country of the Allobroges. It was formerly called Brigulus, but
afterwards changed its name upon this occasion. Arar, as he was a
hunting, entering into the wood, and there finding his brother Celtiber
torn in pieces by the wild beasts, mortally wounded himself for
grief, and fell into the river Brigulus; which from that accident was
afterwards called by his own name Arar.
In this river there breeds a certain large fish, which by the natives
is called Clupaea. This fish during the increase of the moon is white;
but all the while the moon is in the wane, it is altogether black;
and when it grows over bulky, it is (as it were) stabbed by its own
fins. In the head of it is found a stone like a corn of salt, which,
being applied to the left parts of the body when the moon is in the
wane, cures quartan agues;—as Callisthenes the Sybarite tells us in the
Thirteenth Book of Gallic Relations, from whom Timagenes the Syrian
borrowed his argument.
Near to this river stands a mountain called Lugdunum, which changed its
name upon this occasion. When Momorus and Atepomarus were dethroned
by Seseroneus, in pursuance of the oracle’s command they designed to
build a city upon the top of the hill. But when they had laid the
foundations, great numbers of crows with their wings expanded covered
all the neighboring trees. Upon which Momorus, being a person well
skilled in augury, called the city Lugdunum. For _lugdon_ in their
language signifies a crow, and _dunum_[176] any spacious hill.—This
Clitophon reports, in his Thirteenth Book of the Building of Cities.
VII. PACTOLUS.
Pactolus is a river of Lydia, that washes the walls of Sardis,
formerly called, Chrysorrhoas. For Chrysorrhoas, the son of Apollo
and Agathippe, being a mechanic artist, and one that only lived from
hand to mouth upon his trade, one time in the middle of the night made
bold to break open the treasury of Croesus; and conveying thence a
good quantity of gold, he made a distribution of it to his family. But
being pursued by the king’s officers, when he saw he must be taken, he
threw himself into the river which was afterwards from his name called
Chrysorrhoas, and afterwards changed into that of Pactolus upon this
occasion.
Pactolus, the son of ... and Leucothea, during the performance of
the mysteries sacred to Venus, ravished Demodice his own sister, not
knowing who she was; for which being overwhelmed with grief, he threw
himself into the river Chrysorrhoas, which from that time forward was
called Pactolus, from his own name. In this river is found a most pure
gold sand, which the force of the stream carries into the bosom of the
Happy Gulf.
Also in this river is to be found a stone which is called the preserver
of the fields, resembling the color of silver, very hard to be found,
in regard of its being mixed with the gold sand. The virtue of which is
such, that the more wealthy Lydians buy it and lay it at the doors of
their treasuries, by which means they preserve their treasure, whatever
it be, safe from the seizure of pilfering hands. For upon the approach
of thieves or robbers, the stone sends forth a sound like that of a
trumpet. Upon which the thieves surprised, and believing themselves
apprehended by officers, throw themselves headlong and break their
necks; insomuch that the place where the thieves thus frighted come by
their violent deaths is called Pactolus’s prison.
In this river also there grows an herb that bears a purple flower, and
is called chrysopolis; by which the inhabitants of the neighboring
cities try their purest gold. For just before they put their gold
into the melting-pot, they touch it with this herb; at what time,
if it be pure and unmixed, the leaves of the herb will be tinctured
with the gold and preserve the substance of the matter; but if it
be adulterated, they will not admit the discoloring moisture;—as
Chrysermus relates in his Third Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Tmolus, full of all manner of wild
beasts, formerly called Carmanorion, from Carmanor the son of Bacchus
and Alexirrhoea, who was killed by a wild boar as he was hunting; but
afterward Tmolus upon this occasion.
Tmolus, the son of Mars and Theogone, king of Lydia, while he was a
hunting upon Carmanorion, chanced to see the fair virgin Arrhippe that
attended upon Diana, and fell passionately in love with her. And such
was the heat of his love, that not being able to gain her by fair
means, he resolved to vitiate her by force. She, seeing she could by
no means escape his fury otherwise, fled to the temple of Diana, where
the tyrant, contemning all religion, ravished her,—an infamy which the
nymph not being able to survive immediately hanged herself. But Diana
would not pass by so great a crime; and therefore, to be revenged upon
the king for his irreligious insolence, she set a mad bull upon him, by
which the king being tossed up in the air, and falling down upon stakes
and stones, ended his days in torment. But Theoclymenus his son, so
soon as he had buried his father, altered the name of the mountain, and
called it Tmolus after his father’s name.
Upon this mountain grows a stone not unlike a pumice-stone, which is
very rare to be found. This stone changes its color four times a day;
and is to be seen only by virgins that are not arrived at the years of
understanding. But if marriageable virgins happen to see it, they can
never receive any injury from those that attempt their chastity;—as
Clitophon reports.
VIII. LYCORMAS.
Lycormas is a river of Aetolia, formerly called Evenus for this reason.
Idas the son of Aphareus, after he had ravished away by violence
Marpessa, with whom he was passionately in love, carried her away to
Pleuron, a city of Aetolia. This rape of his daughter Evenus could by
no means endure, and therefore pursued after the treacherous ravisher,
till he came to the river Lycormas But then despairing to overtake the
fugitive, he threw himself for madness into the river, which from his
own name was called Evenus.
In this river grows an herb which is called sarissa, because it
resembles a spear, of excellent use for those that are troubled with
dim sight;—as Archelaus relates in his First Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies Myenus, from Myenus the son of Telestor and
Alphesiboea; who, being beloved by his mother-in-law and unwilling to
defile his father’s bed, retired himself to the mountain Alphius. But
Telestor, being made jealous of his wife, pursued his son into the
wilderness; and followed him so close, that Myenus, not being able to
escape, flung himself headlong from the top of the mountain, which for
that reason was afterwards called Myenus.
Upon this mountain grows a flower called the white violet, which, if
you do but name the word step-dame, presently dies away;—as Dercyllus
reports in his Third Book of Mountains.
IX. MAEANDER.
Maeander is a river of Asia, formerly called the Returner. For of all
rivers in the world it is the only stream which, taking its rise from
its own fountain, seems to run back to its own head.
It is called Maeander from Maeander, the son of Cercaphus and Anaxibia,
who, waging war with the Pessinuntines, made a vow to the Mother of the
Gods, that if he obtained the victory, he would sacrifice the first
that came to congratulate him for his good success. Now it happened
that the first that met him were his son Archelaus, his mother, and
his sister. All which, though so nearly related to him, he offered in
sacrifice to the satisfaction of his vow. But then no less grieved for
what he had done, he cast himself into the river, which from this
accident was afterwards called by his own name Maeander;—as Timolaus
tells us in his First Book of Phrygian Relations. Agathocles the Samian
also makes mention of this story, in his Commonwealth of Pessinus.
But Demostratus of Apamea relates the story thus: Maeander being a
second time elected general against the Pessinuntines, and obtaining
the victory quite contrary to his expectation, gave to his soldiers the
offerings due to the Mother of the Gods. At which the Goddess being
offended, she deprived him of his reason to that degree, that in the
height of his madness he slew both his wife and his son. But coming
somewhat to himself and repenting of what he had done, he threw himself
into the river, which by his name was called Maeander.
In this river there is a certain stone, which by Antiphrasis is called
sophron, or the sober-stone; which if you drop into the bosom of
any man, it presently makes him mad to that degree as to murder his
nearest relations, but having once atoned the Mother of the Gods, he
is presently restored to his wits;—as Damaratus testifies in his Third
Book of Rivers. And Archelaus makes mention of the same in his First
Book of Stones.
Near to this river lies the mountain Sipylus, so called from Sipylus
the son of Agenor and Dioxippe. For he having killed his mother by
mistake, and being haunted by the Furies, retired to the Ceraunian
mountain, and there hanged himself for grief. After which, by the
providence of the Gods, the mountain was called Sipylus.
In this mountain grows a stone that resembles a cylinder, which when
children that are obedient to their parents find, they lay it up in
the temple of the Mother of the Gods. Nor do they ever transgress out
of impiety; but reverence their parents, and are obedient to their
superior relations;—as Agatharchides the Samian relates in his Fourth
Book of Stones, and Demaratus in his Fourth Book of Phrygia.
X. MARSYAS.
Marsyas is a river of Phrygia, flowing by the city Celaenae, and
formerly called the fountain of Midas for this reason. Midas, king of
Phrygia, travelling in the remoter parts of the country, and wanting
water, stamped upon the ground; and there presently appeared a golden
fountain. But the water proving gold, and both he and his soldiers
being ready to perish for thirst, he invoked the compassion of Bacchus,
who listening to his prayers supplied him with water. The Phrygians
having by this means quenched their thirst, Midas named the river that
issued from the spring the Fountain of Midas. Afterwards it was called
Marsyas, upon this occasion.
Marsyas being overcome and flayed by Apollo, certain Satyrs are said to
have sprung from the stream of his blood; as also a river bearing the
name of Marsyas;—as Alexander Cornelius recites in his Third Book of
Phrygian Relations.
But Euemeridas the Cnidian tells the story after this manner. It
happened that the wine-bag which was made of Marsyas’s skin, being
corroded by time and carried away negligently by the wind, fell at last
from the land into Midas’s well; and driving along with the stream, was
taken up by a fisherman. At what time Pisistratus the Lacedaemonian,
being commanded by the oracle to build near the place where the relics
of the Satyr were found, reflected upon the accident, and in obedience
to the oracle having built a fair city, called it Noricum, which in the
Phrygian language signifies a wine-bag.
In this river grows an herb called the pipe, which being moved in the
wind yields a melodious sound;—as Dercyllus reports in his First Book
of Satyrics.
Near to this river also lies the mountain Berecyntus, deriving its
name from Berecyntus, the first priest to the Mother of the Gods. Upon
this mountain is found a stone which is called machaera, very much
resembling iron; which if any one happens to light upon while the
solemnities of the Mother of the Gods are performing, he presently runs
mad;—as Agatharchides reports in his Phrygian Relations.
XI. STRYMON.
Strymon is a river of Thrace, that flows along by the city Edonis. It
was formerly called Palaestinus, from Palaestinus the son of Neptune.
For he being at war with his neighbors, and seized with a violent
sickness, sent his son Haliacmon to be general of his army; who, rashly
giving battle to his enemies, was slain in the fight. The tidings of
which misfortune being brought to Palaestinus, he privately withdrew
himself from his guards, and in the desperation of his grief flung
himself into the River Conozus, which from that accident was afterwards
called Palaestinus. But as for Strymon, he was the son of Mars and
Helice; and hearing that his son Rhesus was slain, he flung himself
into the river Palaestinus, which was after that called Strymon, by his
own name.
In this river grows a stone which is called pausilypus, or the
grief-easing stone. This stone if any one find who is oppressed with
grief, he shall presently be eased of his sorrow;—as Jason of Byzantium
relates in his Thracian Histories.
Near to this river lie the mountains Rhodope and Haemus. These being
brother and sister, and both falling in love with each other, the one
was so presumptuous as to call his sister his Juno, the other to call
her brother her Jupiter; which so offended the Deities, that they
changed them into mountains bearing their own names.
In these two mountains grow certain stones, which are called
philadelphi, or the loving brethren. These stones are of a crow-color,
and resembling human shape, and if they chance to be named when they
are separated one from another, they presently and separately, as they
lie, dissolve and waste away; as Thrasyllus the Mendesian testifies in
his Third Book of Stones, but more accurately in his Thracian Histories.
XII. SAGARIS.
Sagaris is a river of Phrygia, formerly called Xerobates because in
the summer time it was generally dry. But it was called Sagaris for
this reason: Sagaris, the son of Myndon and Alexirrhoe, contemning and
slighting the mysteries of the Mother of the Gods, frequently affronted
and derided her priests the Galli. At which the Goddess heinously
offended, struck him with madness to that degree, that in one of his
raging fits he flung himself into the river Xerobates, which from that
time forward was called Sagaris.
In this river grows a stone, which is called autoglyphus, that is,
naturally engraved; for it is found with the Mother of the Gods by
nature engraved upon it. This stone, which is rarely to be found, if
any of the Galli or gelded priests happen to light upon, he makes no
wonder at it, but undauntedly brooks the sight of a preternatural
action;—as Aretazes reports in his Phrygian Relations.
Near to this river lies the mountain Ballenaeus, which in the Phrygian
language signifies _royal_; so called from Ballenaeus, the son of
Ganymede and Medesigiste, who perceiving his father almost wasted with
a consumption, instituted the Ballenaean festival, observed among the
natives to this day.
In this river is to be found a stone called aster, which from the
latter end of autumn shines at midnight like fire. It is called in the
language of the natives _ballen_, which being interpreted signifies
a king;—as Hermesianax the Cyprian affirms in his Second Book of his
Phrygian Relations.
XIII. SCAMANDER.
Scamander is a river of Troas, which was formerly called Xanthus, but
changed its name upon this occasion. Scamander, the son of Corybas and
Demodice, having suddenly beheld the ceremonies while the mysteries of
Rhea were solemnizing, immediately ran mad, and being hurried away by
his own fury to the River Xanthus, flung himself into the stream, which
from thence was called Scamander.
In this river grows an herb like a vetch, that bears a cod with berries
rattling in it when they are ripe; whence it derived the name of
_sistrum_, or the _rattle_; whoever has this herb in possession fears
no apparition nor the sight of any God;—as Demostratus writes in his
Second Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Ida, formerly Gargarus; on the top
of which stand the altars of Jupiter and of the Mother of the Gods.
But it was called Ida upon this occasion. Aegesthius, who descended
from Jupiter, falling passionately in love with the nymph Ida, obtained
her good-will, and begat the Idaean Dactyli, or priests of the Mother
of the Gods. After which, Ida running mad in the temple of Rhea,
Aegesthius, in remembrance of the love which he bare her, called the
mountain by her name.
In this mountain grows a stone called cryphius, as being never to be
found but when the mysteries of the Gods are solemnizing;—as Heraclitus
the Sicyonian writes in his Second Book of Stones.
XIV. TANAIS.
Tanais is a river of Scythia, formerly called the Amazonian river,
because the Amazons bathed themselves therein; but it altered its name
upon this occasion. Tanais, the son of Berossus and Lysippe, one of
the Amazons, became a vehement hater of the female sex, and looking
upon marriage as ignominious and dishonorable, applied himself wholly
to martial affairs. This so offended Venus, that she caused him to
fall passionately in love with his own mother. True it is, at first he
withstood the force of his passion; but finding he could not vanquish
the fatal necessity of yielding to divine impulse, and yet desirous to
preserve his respect and piety towards his mother, he flung himself
into the Amazonian river, which was afterwards called Tanais, from the
name of the young man.
In this river grows a plant which is called halinda, resembling a
colewort; which the inhabitants bruising, and anointing their bodies
with the juice of it, find themselves in a condition better able to
endure the extremity of the cold; and for that reason, in their own
language they call it Berossus’s oil.
In this river grows a stone not unlike to crystal, resembling the shape
of a man with a crown upon his head. Whoever finds the stone when the
king dies, and has it ready against the time that the people meet upon
the banks of the river to choose a new sovereign, is presently elected
king, and receives the sceptre of the deceased prince;—as Ctesiphon
relates in his Third Book of Plants; and Aristobulus gives us the same
account in his First Book of Stones.
Near to this river also lies a mountain, in the language of the
natives called Brixaba, which signifies the _forehead of a ram_. And
it was so called upon this occasion. Phryxus having lost his sister
Helle near the Euxine Sea, and, as Nature in justice required, being
extremely troubled for his loss, retired to the top of a certain hill
to disburden himself of his sorrow. At which time certain barbarians
espying him, and mounting up the hill with their arms in their hands,
a gold-fleeced ram leaping out of a thicket, and seeing the multitude
coming, with articulate language and the voice of a man, awakened
Phryxus, who was fast asleep, and taking him upon his back, carried him
to Colchis. From this accident it was that the mountainous promontory
was called the ram’s forehead.
In this mountain grows an herb, by the barbarians called phryxa (which
being interpreted signifies _hating the wicked_), not unlike our common
rue. If the son of a former mother have it in his possession, he can
never be injured by his step-dame. It chiefly grows near the place
which is called Boreas’s Den, and being gathered, is colder than snow.
But if any step-dame be forming a design against her son-in-law, it
sets itself on fire and sends forth a bright flame. By which means they
who are thus warned avoid the danger they are in;—as Agatho the Samian
testifies in his Second Book of Scythian Relations.
XV. THERMODON.
Thermodon is a river of Scythia, deriving its name from this accident.
It was formerly called Crystallus, as being often frozen in the summer,
the situation of the place producing this effect. But that name was
altered upon this occasion....
XVI. NILE.
The Nile is a river in Egypt, that runs by the city of Alexandria.
It was formerly called Melas, from Melas the son of Neptune; but
afterwards it was called Aegyptus upon this occasion. Aegyptus, the son
of Vulcan and Leucippe, was formerly king of the country, between whom
and his own subjects happened a civil war; on which account the river
Nile not increasing, the Egyptians were oppressed with famine. Upon
which the oracle made answer, that the land should be again blessed
with plenty, if the king would sacrifice his daughter to atone the
anger of the Gods. Upon which the king, though greatly afflicted in his
mind, gave way to the public good, and suffered his daughter to be led
to the altar. But so soon as she was sacrificed, the king, not able to
support the burden of his grief, threw himself into the river Melas,
which after that was called Aegyptus. But then it was called Nilus upon
this occasion.
Garmathone, queen of Egypt, having lost her son Chrysochoas while he
was yet very young, with all her servants and friends most bitterly
bemoaned her loss. At what time Isis appearing to her, she surceased
her sorrow for a while, and putting on the countenance of a feigned
gratitude, kindly entertained the goddess. She, willing to make a
suitable return to the queen for the piety which she expressed in her
reception, persuaded Osiris to bring back her son from the subterranean
regions. When Osiris undertook to do this, at the importunity of his
wife, Cerberus—whom some call the Terrible—barked so loud, that Nilus,
Garmathone’s husband, struck with a sudden frenzy, threw himself into
the river Aegyptus, which from thence was afterwards called Nilus.
In this river grows a stone, not unlike to a bean, which so soon as any
dog happens to see, he ceases to bark. It also expels the evil spirit
out of those that are possessed, if held to the nostrils of the party
afflicted.
There are other stones which are found in this river, called kollotes,
which the swallows picking up against the time that Nilus overflows,
build up the wall which is called the Chelidonian wall, which restrains
the inundation of the water and will not suffer the country to be
injured by the fury of the flood;—as Thrasyllus tells us in his
Relation of Egypt.
Upon this river lies the mountain Argyllus, so called for this reason.
Jupiter in the heat of his amorous desires ravished away the Nymph Arge
from Lyctus, a city of Crete, and then carried her to a mountain of
Egypt called Argillus, and there begat a son, whom he named Dionysus
(or Bacchus); who, growing up to years of manhood, in honor of his
mother called the hill Argillus; and then mustering together an army
of Pans and Satyrs, first conquered the Indians, and then subduing
Spain, left Pan behind him there, the chief commander and governor of
those places. Pan by his own name called that country Pania, which was
afterward by his posterity called Spania;—as Sosthenes relates in the
Thirteenth Book of Iberian Relations.
XVII. EUROTAS.
Himerus, the son of the Nymph Taygete and Lacedaemon, through the anger
of offended Venus, at a revelling that lasted all night, deflowered
his sister Cleodice, not knowing what he did. But the next day being
informed of the truth of the matter, he laid it so to heart, that
through excess of grief he flung himself into the river Marathon, which
from thence was called Himeros; but after that Eurotas, upon this
occasion.
The Lacedaemonians being at war with the Athenians, and staying for
the full moon, Eurotas their captain-general, despising all religion,
would needs fight his enemies, though at the same time he was warned by
thunder and lightning. However, having lost his army, the ignominy of
his loss so incessantly perplexed him, that he flung himself into the
river Himerus, which from that accident was afterwards called Eurotas.
In this river grows a stone which is shaped like a helmet, called
thrasydeilos, or _rash and timorous_. For if it hears a trumpet sound,
it leaps toward the bank of the river; but if you do but name the
Athenians, it presently sinks to the bottom of the water. Of these
stones there are not a few which are consecrated and laid up in the
temple of Minerva of the Brazen House;—as Nicanor the Samian relates in
his Second Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Taygetus, deriving its name
from the nymph Taygete, who, after Jupiter had deflowered her, being
overcome by grief, ended her days by hanging at the summit of the
mountain Amyclaeus, which from thence was called Taygetus.
Upon this mountain grows a plant called Charisia, which the women at
the beginning of the spring tied about their necks, to make themselves
more passionately beloved by men;—as Cleanthes reports in his First
Book of Mountains. But Sosthenes the Cnidian is more accurate in the
relation of these things, from whom Hermogenes borrowed the subject of
his writing.
XVIII. INACHUS.
Inachus is a river in the territories of Argos, formerly called
Carmanor. Afterwards Haliacmon, for this reason.
Haliacmon, a Tirynthian by birth, while he kept sheep upon the mountain
Coccygium, happened against his will to see Jupiter and Rhea sporting
together; for which being struck mad, and hurried by the violence of
the frenzy, he flung himself into the river Carmanor, which after
that was called Haliacmon. Afterwards it was called Inachus upon this
occasion.
Inachus, the son of Oceanus, after that Jupiter had deflowered his
daughter Io, pursued the Deity close at the heels, abusing and cursing
him all the way as he went. Which so offended Jupiter, that he sent
Tisiphone, one of the Furies, who haunted and plagued him to that
degree, that he flung himself into the river Haliacmon, afterwards
called by his own name Inachus.
In this river grows an herb called cynura, not unlike our common rue,
which the women that desire to miscarry without any danger lay upon
their navels, being first steeped in wine.
There is also found in this river a certain stone, not unlike a beryl,
which in the hands of those who intend to bear false witness will grow
black. Of these stones there are many laid up in the temple of Juno
Prosymnaea;—as Timotheus relates in his Argolica, and Agatho the Samian
in his Second Book of Rivers.
Agathocles the Milesian, in his History of Rivers, also adds, that
Inachus for his impiety was thunderstruck by Jupiter, and so the river
dried up.
Near to this river lie the mountains Mycenae, Apesantus, Coccygium,
and Athenaeum; so called for these reasons. Apesantus was first called
Selenaeus. For Juno, resolving to be revenged upon Hercules, called the
moon (Selene) to her assistance, who by the help of her magical charms
filled a large chest full of foam and froth, out of which sprang an
immense lion; which Iris binding with her own girdle carried to the
mountain Opheltium, where the lion killed and tore in pieces Apesantus,
one of the shepherds belonging to that place. And from that accident,
by the will of the Gods, the hill was called Apesantus;—as Demodocus
writes in his First Book of the History of Hercules.
In this river grows an herb called selene, with the froth of which,
being gathered in the spring, the shepherds anoint their feet, and keep
them from being bit or stung by any creeping vermin.
Mycenae was formerly called Argion, from the many-eyed Argos; but
afterwards the name was changed upon this occasion.
When Perseus had slain Medusa, Stheno and Euryale sisters to her
that was killed, pursued him as a murderer. But coming to this hill
and despairing to overtake him, out of that extreme love which they
had for their sister they made such a bellowing (μυκηθμός), that the
natives from thence called the top of the mountain Mycenae;—as Ctesias
the Ephesian relates in his First Book of the Acts of Perseus. But
Chrysermus the Corinthian relates the story thus in the First Book
of his Peloponnesiacs. For he says that, when Perseus was carried
aloft in the air and lit upon this mountain, he lost the chape of his
scabbard. At what time this same Gorgophonos (or Gorgon-slayer), king
of the Epidaurians, being expelled his kingdom, received this answer
upon his consulting the oracle, that he should visit all the cities of
the Argolic territory, and that where he found the chape of a scabbard
(called in Greek μυκής), he should build a city. Thereupon coming to
the mountain Argium, and finding there an ivory scabbard, he built a
city, and from the accident called it Mycenae.
In this mountain there is found a stone, which is called corybas, of
a crow-color, which he that finds and wears about him shall never be
afraid of any monstrous apparitions. As for the mountain Apesantus,
this may be added, that Apesantus, the son of Acrisius, as he was a
hunting in that place, chanced to tread upon a venomous serpent, which
occasioned his death. Whom when his father had buried, in memory of his
son he named the hill Apesantus, which before was called Selinuntius.
The mountain Coccygium derived its name from this accident. Jupiter
falling desperately in love with his sister Juno, and having
vanquished her by his importunity, begat a male child. From whence the
mountain, before called Lyrceum, was named Coccygium;—as Agathonymus
relates in his Persis.
In this mountain grows a tree, which is called paliurus; upon the
boughs of which whatever fowl happens to perch, it is presently
entangled as it were with bird-lime, and cannot stir; only the cuckoo
it lets go free, without any harm;—as Ctesiphon testifies in his First
Book of Trees.
As for the mountain Athenaeum, it derives its name from Minerva. For
after the destruction of Troy, Diomede returning to Argos, ascended the
mountain Ceraunius, and there erecting a temple to Minerva, called the
mountain Athenaeum from her name Athena.
Upon the top of this mountain grows a root like to that of rue, which
if any woman unwarily taste of, she presently runs mad. This root
is called Adrastea;—as Plesimachus writes in his Second Book of the
Returns of the Heroes.
XIX. ALPHEUS.
Alpheus is a river of Arcadia, running by the walls of Pisa, a city of
Olympia. It was formerly called Stymphelus, from Stymphelus the son
of Mars and Dormothea; who, having lost his brother Alcmaeon, threw
himself for grief into the river Nyctimus, for that reason called
Stymphelus. Afterwards it was called Alpheus upon this occasion.
Alpheus, one of those that derive their descent from the Sun,
contending with his brother Cercaphus about the kingdom, slew him. For
which being chased away and pursued by the Furies, he flung himself
into the river Nyctimus, which after that was called Alpheus.
In this river grows a plant which is called cenchritis, resembling a
honey-comb, the decoction of which, being given by the physicians to
those that are mad, cures them of their frenzy;—as Ctesias relates in
his First Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Cronium, so called upon this
occasion. After the Giants’ war, Saturn, to avoid the threats of
Jupiter, fled to the mountain Cturus, and called it Cronium from his
own name. Where after he had absconded for some time, he took his
opportunity, and retired to Caucasus in Scythia.
In this mountain is found a stone, which is called the cylinder, upon
this occasion. For as oft as Jupiter either thunders or lightens,
so often this stone through fear rolls down from the top of the
mountain;—as Dercyllus writes in his First Book of Stones.
XX. EUPHRATES.
Euphrates is a river of Parthia, washing the walls of Babylon, formerly
called Medus from Medus the son of Artaxerxes. He, in the heat of his
lust, having ravished away and deflowered Roxane, and finding he was
sought after by the king, in order to be brought to punishment, threw
himself into the river Xaranda, which from thenceforward was called by
his name Medus. Afterwards it was called Euphrates upon this occasion.
Euphrates the son of Arandacus, finding his son Axurta abed with his
mother, and thinking him to be some one of the citizens, provoked by
his jealousy, drew his sword and nailed him to the bed. But perceiving
himself the author of what could not be recalled, he flung himself for
grief into the river Medus, which from that time forward was called by
his name Euphrates.
In this river grows a stone called aetites, which midwives applying to
the navels of women that are in hard labor, it causes them to bring
forth with little pain.
In the same river also there grows an herb which is called axalla,
which signifies heat. This herb they that are troubled with
quartan-agues apply to their breasts, and are presently delivered from
the fit;—as Chrysermus writes in his Thirteenth Book of Rivers.
Near this river lies the mountain Drimylus, where grows a stone not
unlike a sardonyx; worn by kings and princes upon their diadems, and
greatly available against dimness of sight;—as Nicias Mallotes writes
in his Book of Stones.
XXI. CAICUS.
Caicus is a river of Mysia, formerly called Astraeus, from Astraeus
the son of Neptune. For he, in the height of Minerva’s nocturnal
solemnities having deflowered his sister by a mistake, took a ring
at the same time from her finger; by which when he understood the
next day the error which he had committed, for grief he threw himself
headlong into the river Adurus, which from thence was called Astraeus.
Afterwards it came to be called Caicus upon this occasion.
Caicus, the son of Hermes and Ocyrrhoe the Nymph, having slain Timander
one of the noblemen of the country, and fearing the revenge of his
relations, flung himself into the river Astraeus, which from that
accident was called Caicus.
In this river grows a sort of poppy, which instead of fruit bears
stones. Of these there are some which are black and shaped like harps,
which the Mysians throw upon their ploughed lands; and if the stones
lie still in the place where they are thrown, it is a sign of a barren
year; but if they fly away like so many locusts, they prognosticate a
plentiful harvest.
In the same river also grows an herb which is called elipharmacus,
which the physicians apply to such as are troubled with immoderate
fluxes of blood, as having a peculiar virtue to stop the orifices of
the veins;—according to the relation of Timagoras in his First Book of
Rivers.
Adjoining to the banks of this river lies the mountain Teuthras, so
called from Teuthras king of the Mysians; who in pursuance of his
sport, as he was a hunting, ascending the hill Thrasyllus and seeing
a monstrous wild boar, followed him close with the rest of his train.
On the other side, the boar, to prevent the hunters, like a suppliant
fled to the temple of Orthosian Diana, into which when the hunters
were about to force their entrance, the boar in articulate words cried
out, Spare, O king, the nursling of the Goddess. However, Teuthras,
exalted with his good success, killed the poor boar. At which Diana
was so highly offended, that she restored the boar to life, but struck
the offender with scurf and madness. Which affliction the king not
enduring betook himself to the tops of the mountains. But his mother
Leucippe, understanding what had befallen her son, ran to the forest,
taking along with her the soothsayer Polyidus, the son of Coeranus; by
whom being informed of all the several circumstances of the matter, by
many sacrifices she at last atoned the anger of the Goddess, and having
quite recovered and cured her son, erected an altar to Orthosian Diana,
and caused a golden boar to be made with a man’s face. Which to this
day, if pursued by the hunters, enters the temple, and speaks with the
voice of a man the word “spare.” Thus Teuthras, being restored to his
former health, called the mountain by his own name Teuthras.
In this mountain grows a stone called antipathes (or the resister),
which is of excellent virtue to cure scabs and leprosies, being
powdered and mixed with wine;—as Ctesias the Cnidian tells us in his
Second Book of Mountains.
XXII. ACHELOUS.
Achelous is a river of Aetolia; formerly called Thestius. This Thestius
was the son of Mars and Pisidice, who upon some domestic discontent
travelled as far as Sicyon, where after he had resided for some time,
he returned to his native home. But finding there his son Calydon
and his mother both upon the bed together, believing him to be an
adulterer, he slew his own child by a mistake. But when he beheld the
unfortunate and unexpected fact he had committed, he threw himself into
the river Axenos, which from thence was afterwards called Thestius. And
after that, it was called Achelous upon this occasion.
Achelous, the son of Oceanus and the Nymph Nais, having deflowered his
daughter Cletoria by mistake, flung himself for grief into the river
Thestius, which then by his own name was called Achelous.
In this river grows an herb, which they call zaclon, very much
resembling wool; this if you bruise and cast into wine, it becomes
water, and preserves the smell but not the virtues of the wine.
In the same river also is found a certain stone of a mixed black and
lead color, called linurgus from the effect; for if you throw it upon a
linen cloth, by a certain affectionate union it assumes the form of the
linen, and turns white;—as Antisthenes relates in the Third Book of his
Meleagris, though Diocles the Rhodian more accurately tells us the same
thing in his Aetolics.
Near to this river lies the mountain Calydon, so called from Calydon,
the son of Mars and Astynome; for that he, by an accident having seen
Diana bathing herself, was transformed into a rock; and the mountain
which before was named Gyrus was afterwards by the providence of the
Gods called Calydon.
Upon this mountain grows an herb called myops. This if any one steep
in water and wash his face with it, he shall lose his sight, but upon
his atoning Diana, he shall recover it again;—as Dercyllus writes in
his Third Book of Aetolics.
XXIII. ARAXES.
Araxes is a river in Armenia, so called from Araxus the son of Pylus.
For he, contending with his grandfather Arbelus for the empire, shot
him with an arrow. For which being haunted by the Furies, he threw
himself into the river Bactros, for that reason called Araxes;—as
Ctesiphon testifies in his First Book of the Persian Affairs. Araxes,
king of the Armenians, being at war with his neighbors the Persians,
before they came to a battle, was told by the oracle that he should win
the victory if he sacrificed to the Gods two of the most noble virgins
in his kingdom. Now he, out of his paternal affection to his children,
spared his own daughters, and caused two lovely virgins, the daughters
of one of his nobility, to be laid upon the altar. Which Mnesalces,
the father of the victims, laying to heart, for a time concealed his
indignation; but afterwards, observing his opportunity, he killed
both the king’s daughters, and then leaving his native soil fled into
Scythia. Which when Araxes understood, for grief he threw himself into
the river Halmus, which then was altered and called Araxes.
In this river grows a plant which is called araxa, which in the
language of the natives signifies a virgin-hater. For that if it happen
to be found by any virgin, it falls a bleeding and dies away.
In the same river there is also found a stone of a black color,
called sicyonus. This stone, when the oracle advises the sacrificing
of a human victim, is laid upon the altar of the mischief-diverting
Gods. And then, no sooner does the priest touch it with his knife,
but it sends forth a stream of blood; at what time the superstitious
sacrificers retire, and with howlings and loud ohoning carry the stone
to the temple;—as Dorotheus the Chaldaean relates in his Second Book of
Stones.
Near to this river lies the mountain Diorphus, so called from Diorphus
the son of the Earth, of whom this story is reported. Mithras desirous
to have a son, yet hating woman-kind, lay with a stone, till he had
heated it to that degree that the stone grew big, and at the prefixed
time was delivered of a son, called Diorphus; who, growing up and
contending with Mars for courage and stoutness, was by him slain, and
by the providence of the Gods was transformed into the mountain which
was called Diorphus by his name.
In this mountain grows a tree, not unlike a pomegranate-tree, which
yields plenty of apples, in taste like grapes. Now if any one gather
the ripest of this fruit, and do but name Mars while he holds it in his
hand, it will presently grow green again;—as Ctesiphon witnesses in his
Thirteenth Book of Trees.
XXIV. TIGRIS.
Tigris is a river of Armenia flowing into Araxes and the lake of
Arsacis, formerly called Sollax, which signifies running and carried
downward. It was called Tigris upon this occasion.
Bacchus, through the design of Juno running mad, wandered over sea
and land, desirous to be quit of his distemper. At length coming
into Armenia, and not being able to pass the river before-mentioned,
he called upon Jupiter; who, listening to his prayers, sent him a
tiger that carried him safely over the water. In remembrance of which
accident, he called the river Tigris;—as Theophilus relates in his
First Book of Stones. But Hermesianax the Cyprian tells the story
thus:—
Bacchus falling in love with the Nymph Alphesiboea, and being able to
vanquish her neither with presents nor entreaties, turned himself into
the shape of the river Tigris, and overcoming his beloved by fear, took
her away and carrying her over the river, begat a son whom he called
Medus; who growing up in years, in remembrance of the accident he
called the river by the name of Tigris;—as Aristonymus relates in his
Third Book....
In this river a stone is to be found, called myndan, very white;
which whoever possesses shall never be hurt by wild beasts;—as Leo of
Byzantium relates in his Third Book of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Gauran; so called from Gauran the
son of the satrap Roxanes; who, being extremely religious and devout
towards the Gods, received this reward of his piety, that of all the
Persians he only lived three hundred years; and dying at last without
being ever afflicted with any disease, was buried upon the top of the
mountain Gauran, where he had a sumptuous monument erected to his
memory. Afterwards, by the providence of the Gods, the name of the
mountain was changed to that of Mausorus.
In this mountain grows an herb, which is like to wild barley. This herb
the natives heat over the fire, and anointing themselves with the oil
of it, are never sick, till the necessity of dying overtakes them;—as
Sostratus writes in his First Collection of Fabulous History.
XXV. INDUS.
Indus is a river in India, flowing with a rapid violence into the
country of the fish-devourers. It was first called Mausolus, from
Mausolus the son of the Sun, but changed its name for this reason.
At the time when the mysteries of Bacchus were solemnized and the
people were earnest at their devotion, Indus, one of the chief of
the young nobility, by force deflowered Damasalcidas, the daughter
of Oxyalcus the king of the country, as she was carrying the sacred
basket; for which being sought for by the tyrant, in order to bring
him to condign punishment, for fear he threw himself into the river
Mausolus, which from that accident was afterwards called Indus.
In this river grows a certain stone called ... which if a virgin carry
about her, she need never be afraid of being deflowered.
In the same river also grows an herb, not unlike to bugloss. Which is
an excellent remedy against the king’s-evil, being administered to the
patient in warm water;—as Clitophon the Rhodian reports in his First
Book of Indian Relations.
Near to this mountain lies the mountain Lilaeus, so called from Lilaeus
a shepherd; who, being very superstitious and a worshipper of the Moon
alone, always performed her mysteries in the dead time of the night.
Which the rest of the Gods taking for a great dishonor, sent two
monstrous lions that tore him in pieces. Upon which the Moon turned her
adorer into a mountain of the same name.
In this mountain a stone is found which is called clitoris, of a
very black color, which the natives wear for ornament’s sake in their
ears;—as Aristotle witnesses in his Fourth Book of Rivers.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Odyss. XII. 395.
[2] “I see not how this that is included within these marks [ ] agreeth
with this place, or matter in hand: I suppose therefore it is inserted
heere without judgement, and taken out of some other booke.”—HOLLAND.
[3] See Mullach, Fragm. Philos. p. 325 (No. 73).
[4] Odyss. X. 284.
[5] Eurip. Cresphontes, Frag. 457.
[6] Concerning Ideas, according to the MSS. (G.)
[7] Theopompus was Archon in B.C. 411. (G.)
[8] The corrupt clause indicated by ... probably means, that the
Demarchs were to make inventories (ἀποφῆναι) of the traitors’ estates.
(G.)
[9] B.C. 459.
[10] B.C. 444.
[11] B.C. 413.
[12] B.C. 486
[13] B.C. 338.
[14] B.C. 369-342.
[15] The Greek text is corrupt; but it is evident that the author
confounds the Phocian war, which ended in 346 B.C., with the Amphissian
war of 339 B.C. The next sentence shows the same mistake. (G.)
[16] See Demosthenes on the Crown, p. 271, 27.
[17] This is one of the statements which seem to fix the number of
Athenian citizens in the age of the Orators at about 20,000. See
Boeckh’s Public Economy of the Athenians, I. Book 1, chap. 7. (G.)
[18] Aristoph. Birds, 1296.
[19] B.C. 364.
[20] This name was properly pronounced with the accent on the last
syllable, Ἀσκληπιός. (G.)
[21] B.C. 385-384 to 349-348.
[22] B.C. 348-347.
[23] B.C. 368-362.
[24] B.C. 280
[25] This is supposed to have been added by some other hand, because a
contrary sentence is given of him before.
[26] See Demosthenes on the Crown, p. 221, 27.
[27] B.C. 307.
[28] B.C. 269.
[29] B.C. 307.
[30] Persons who carried baskets, or panniers, on their heads, of
sacred things.
[31] Thuc. II. 44.
[32] Soph. Oed. Colon. 668.
[33] Eurip. Aeolus, Frag. 28.
[34] Sophocles, Frag. 779.
[35] Eurip. Orestes, 258.
[36] Il. VIII. 453.
[37] Il. XIX. 165.
[38] Il. II. 53.
[39] Il. II. 372.
[40] Eurip Antiope, Frag. 220.
[41] Sophocles, Frag. 779.
[42] Il. XVI. 9.
[43] Il. XXII. 71.
[44] Il. IX. 55.
[45] Il. IX. 443.
[46] Il. IX. 55.
[47] Il. IX. 443.
[48] Il. IX. 441.
[49] See Od. VII. 165.
[50] Eurip. Frag. 977 and 442.
[51] Od. II. 69.
[52] Thuc. II. 65.
[53] The son of Melesias, not the historian. (G.)
[54] So he called the little island Aegina.
[55] Eurip. Autolycus, Frag. 284, vs. 22.
[56] A brook near Athens, the waters of which fell with an
extraordinary noise. Aristoph. Eq. 137.
[57] Pind. Olymp. VI. 4.
[58] From whence they set forth to run.
[59] See Odyss. X. 495.
[60] Aristoph. Pac. 756.
[61] See Aristoph. Eq. 1099.
[62] Eurip. Bellerophon, Frag. 311.
[63] Il. X. 242.
[64] Il. X. 558.
[65] Il. XVII. 171.
[66] Il. VII. 358.
[67] Il. V. 800.
[68] See Il. XVII. 156.
[69] See Il. IV. 223.
[70] Il. IV. 415.
[71] Xen. Anab. III. 1, 4.
[72] Probably a mistake for _Nabis_. See Plutarch’s Life of
Philopoemen, § 12. (G.)
[73] Odyss. V. 350.
[74] See Il. XIX. 404.
[75] Il. IV. 130.
[76] Hesiod, Works and Days, 235.
[77] Eurip. Hippol. 218.
[78] Hesiod, Works and Days, 275.
[79] In the lost tragedy, Prometheus Unbound, Frag. 188 (Nauck). (G.)
[80] See Odyss. XII. 116.
[81] Il. V. 85.
[82] Hesiod, Works and Days, 525.
[83] Il. XVI. 34.
[84] Odyss. XIV. 30.
[85] Fragment 38.
[86] History of Animals, IV. 9, 19.
[87] Il XXIV. 80.
[88] κέρας.
[89] That is, by joining hands and sweeping across an island. See the
description in Herod. VI. 31, and σαγηνεύω in Liddell and Scott. (G.)
[90] See Il. V. 487.
[91] Theognis, vs. 215.
[92] Il. XVI. 407.
[93] Il. IX. 56. See above, chap. 13.
[94] It seems incredible that Plutarch could have put this into the
mouth of Gryllus, even by carelessness. (G.)
[95] See the account of various ancient doctrines of vision and the
reflection of light in the treatise on the Opinions of Philosophers,
Book IV. Chapters 13 and 14. The idea that vision was caused by
something proceeding from the eye to the object is especially to be
noticed. (G.)
[96] The text in this passage is defective, and the sense chiefly
conjectural. (G.)
[97] Aesch. Prom. 349.
[98] Here again the text is defective, and the sense conjectural. (G.)
[99] Il. IX. 212.
[100] Otus and Ephialtes.
[101] See Il. XIV. 246. The second of these verses is not found in the
present text of the Iliad, but was probably defended by Crates against
Aristarchus. (G.)
[102] Hesiod, Works and Days, 41.
[103] Il. XX. 65.
[104] Il. VIII. 16.
[105] Odyss. VII. 244.
[106] Odyss. IV. 563.
[107] Odyss. XI. 221.
[108] Odyss. XI. 601.
[109] “This little Treatise is so pitiously torne, maimed, and
dismembred thorowout, that a man may sooner divine and guess thereat
(as I have done) than translate it. I beseech the readers therefore, to
hold me excused, in case I neither please my selfe, nor content them,
in that which I have written.”—HOLLAND.
[110] See Plato, Phaedrus, p. 248 C; Timaeus, p. 41 E; Republic, X. p.
617 D.
[111] Plato, Tim. p. 39 D.
[112] This is the whole passage from Plato’s Phaedrus, p. 248 C, of
which part is quoted in § 1. (G.)
[113] Plato, Phaedo, p. 58 A.
[114] Plato, Timaeus, p. 29 D.
[115] Plato, Timaeus, p. 41 D.
[116] Plato, Timaeus, p. 42 D.
[117] Plato, Laws, IX. p. 875 C.
[118] Plato, Theages, p. 129 E.
[119] Odyss. IX. 44.
[120] Il. XVI. 649.
[121] Pind. Isthm. IV. 112.
[122] Odyss. V. 469.
[123] Pindar, Olymp. I. 1.
[124] Hesiod, Theog. 116.
[125] See Plato, Phaed. p. 69 C, and Stallbaum’s note. Here the
proverb occurs,—Ναρθηκοφόροι μὲν πολλοὶ, Βάκχοι δέ τε παῦροι, _the
thyrsus-bearers are many, but the true priests of Bacchus are few_. (G.)
[126] Il. VII. 182; X. 243.
[127] Euripides Frag. 1071.
[128] The text is corrupt here. (G.)
[129] Il. XVIII. 585.
[130] Plato, Phaedrus, p. 230 A.
[131] Il. XX. 250.
[132] Eurip. Iph. Taur. 289.
[133] Eurip. Orest. 258.
[134] See Il. XXII. 126.
[135] See Il. V. 646; XXIII. 71.
[136] Herod. III. 82.
[137] Il. II. 547.
[138] The text of several lines which follow here is hopelessly
corrupt, but it is evident that Plutarch refers to the description in
Thucyd. VII. 71. (G.)
[139] Thucyd. V. 73.
[140] Odyss. XIX. 208.
[141] Aristophanes, Frogs, 354.
[142] I follow Baehr’s emendation (or rather substitution) ἐνίκα for
συνῆν, which is demanded by the obvious sense of the whole passage. (G.)
[143] See Aeschines against Ctesiphon, § 146.
[144] Demosthenes on the Crown, p. 297, 11.
[145] Plato, Laws, VIII. p. 844 B.
[146] Odyss. XI. 578.
[147] Il. I. 154.
[148] Odyss. V. 439.
[149] Odyss. V. 291, 295.
[150] See Plato, Theaet. p. 149 B.
[151] Theaet. p. 151 C.
[152] Theognis, vs. 432.
[153] Plato, Timaeus, p. 28 C.
[154] Phaedrus, p. 261 A.
[155] Republic, VI. pp. 509 D-511 E.
[156] See Plato’s Symposium, p. 210 D.
[157] See Timaeus, pp. 53-56.
[158] Triangular numbers are those of which equilateral triangles can
be formed in this way:—
[Illustration]
Such are 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, &c.; that is, numbers formed by
adding the digits in regular order. (G.)
[159] See Phaedrus, p. 246 D.
[160] See Timaeus, pp. 79-81.
[161] See Timaeus, p. 42 D.
[162] See Aristotle on the Soul, II. 1, with Trendelenburg’s note. (G.)
[163] Plato, Republic, VI. pp. 508, 509.
[164] Euripides, Troad. 887.
[165] See Republic, IV. p. 448 D.
[166] Il. XI. 64.
[167] Plato’s Sophist, p. 262 A.
[168] Il. I. 185.
[169] Odyss. XXIII. 183; VIII. 408.
[170] Il. XIV. 459.
[171] Il. XX. 147.
[172] Il. XVIII. 536.
[173] Demosthenes against Midias, p. 537, 25, and p. 578, 29.
[174] It seems impossible to believe this treatise to be the work
of Plutarch, and equally impossible to believe it to be the work of
any full-grown man of sound mind. In this case, and in that of the
next treatise, no satisfaction is gained by merely supposing the work
spurious. One of these Parallel Histories is usually a well-known
story, and the other is an absurd imitation of it. An instance may be
seen in section 12, where the common story of Manlius Torquatus and his
son is matched by an absurd one of Epaminondas and his son; on which
Wyttenbach remarks: “Romanum constat: Graecum non modo ementitum, sed
stulte ementitum.” We might almost suspect that many of them are some
school-boy’s compositions, half historical, and half imitations of
well-known stories fortified by imaginary authorities. Is it possible
that this school-boy can have been Plutarch himself? (G.)
[175] A very slight inspection of this strange treatise will convince
the reader that it is justly placed among the Pseudoplutarchea. It
is reprinted here merely because it was included in the original
translation. (G.)
[176] Whence probably our English word _down_.
INDEX.
A.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” a proverb among the
Greeks, iv. 229.
“Abstain from beans,” meaning of the aphorism, i. 29.
Achelous, a river in Aetolia, v. 504.
Acrotatus, apothegm of, i. 400.
Actaeon, a beautiful youth of Corinth, murdered, iv. 313-315.
Ada, queen of Caria, sends delicacies to Alexander, i. 199.
Adimantus, admiral of the Corinthian fleet at the battle of Salamis,
iv. 362;
his courage vindicated, 364.
Adrastus, anecdote of, i. 288.
Advice to a new-married couple, ii. 486-507.
Aeacus, his two sons, v. 466.
Aemilius Censorinus, v. 475.
Aemilius of Sybaris, v. 464.
Aemilius Paulus, sayings of, i. 232; iv. 202.
Aeolus, king of Etruria, v. 467.
Aeschines, quoted, Prom., i. 40;
anecdote of, 55;
Eumen., 59;
Frag., 163;
Prom., 299;
Ctesiphon, 334;
his early life, and concern in public affairs, v. 34;
incurs the hostility of Demosthenes, _ib._;
accused by Demosthenes and acquitted, 34, 35;
impeaches Ctesiphon, is fined and exiled, 35;
his school at Rhodes, _ib._;
his death, _ib._;
his orations, _ib._;
his public employments, 36.
Aeschylus, quoted, Septem, i. 210, 286, 315, 329, 493;
quoted, ii. 47;
anecdote of, 77, 160;
Frag., 48, 83, 127, 165, 374, 431, 458, 463, 474, 477;
quoted, iii. Frag., 24, 222;
quoted, iv. 20, 54, 385;
Frag., 276, 279;
quoted, v. Frag., 170;
Prom., 241, 320, 398.
Aesop, murdered by the citizens of Delphi, iv. 160;
their punishment, 161.
_See Esop._
Agamedes and Trophonius built the temple at Delphi, i. 313.
Agasicles, apothegms of, i. 385.
Agatharchides the Samian, his Persian History, v. 451.
Agatho the Samian, v. 474.
Agathocles, anecdote of, i. 46; ii. 317.
Aged Men, Shall they meddle in State Affairs?, v. 64-96.
Agesianax quoted, v. 235, 236.
Agesilaus, reply of, i. 73, 219, 220;
his sayings and great actions, 385-397;
his upright character, ii. 109, 115, 319, 455;
his punishment, iii. 46, 79;
anecdote of, v. 67;
his faults, 118; 457;
his Italian History, 468.
Agesipolis, two of the name, apothegms of, i. 397, 398.
Agis, king of Sparta, his sayings, i. 218, 221;
anecdote of, v. 95.
Agis, son of Archidamus, apothegm of, i. 398.
Agis the Argive, ii. 125.
Agis the Last, apothegm of, i. 400.
Agis the Younger, apothegms of, i. 400.
Ajax’s soul, her place in Hell, iii. 442.
Alba, king of, torn in pieces by horses, v. 455.
Albinus, a Roman general, v. 453.
Alcaeus quoted, ii. 298; iii, 264.
Alcamenes, apothegm of, i. 400.
Alcibiades, i. 143;
his sayings, 211;
his lustful conduct, 489;
the prince of flatterers, ii. 108, 471;
failure of, 460;
spoke with hesitation, v. 110, 112.
Alcippus, a Lacedaemonian, banished for his virtue; his wife slays
herself and her daughters, iv. 320-322.
Alcmaeon, saying of, i. 288;
philosophical opinions;
of the planets, iii. 140;
of hearing, 170;
of smelling, 170;
of taste, 170;
of the barrenness of mules, 182;
of embryos, 184;
of the formation of the body, 184;
of the cause of sleep, 188;
of health, sickness, and old age, 192.
Alcmaeonidae, unfairly represented by Herodotus, iv. 338, 347.
Alcman, quoted; Frag., i. 494; iii. 16; v. 279.
Aleuas the Thessalian, iii. 67.
Alexander of Macedon, and Porus, i. 45;
lament of, 140;
and Criso the runner, 152;
his sayings, 198-202;
the Fortune or Virtue of, 475-516;
anecdotes of, ii. 125, 138, 473;
his moderation, 475; iii. 29;
was he a great drinker, 219;
his purpose to attack the Romans, iv. 219; v. 140.
Alexander, tyrant of Pherae, his cruel temper softened by a play, i.
492.
Alexandridas, apothegm of, i. 401.
Alexarchus, his Italian History, v. 456.
Alexidemas, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Alexinus the sophist, i. 76.
Alexis quoted, ii. 58.
Alpha, why placed first in the Alphabet, iii. 438.
Alpheus, a river in Arcadia, v. 501.
Amasis, king of Egypt, required to drink the ocean dry, ii. 13;
questions of, 16.
Ammonius, teacher of Plutarch, anecdote of, ii. 147.
Amphiaraus, quoted, i. 317;
his lance turned into a laurel, v. 455.
Amphidamas, poets meet at his grave in Chalcis, ii. 19.
Amphion, first invented playing on the harp and lyric poesy, i. 105.
Anarcharsis, and Eumetis, ii. 8;
his utterances at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 12, 15, 20,
21, 27, 39.
Anatole, a mountain, v. 482.
Anaxagoras, saying of, i. 159;
said the sun was red-hot metal, 179;
anecdote of, 332; ii. 357; iii. 35, 37;
philosophical opinions;
Homoeomeries, 108;
of the origin of bodies, 119;
how bodies are mixed, 126;
of fortune, 131;
of the world’s inclination, 136;
of the stars, 138, 140;
of the sun, 142, 143;
of the moon, 145, 147;
of the milky way, 149;
of shooting stars, 150;
of thunder, lightning and hurricanes, 151;
of the rainbow, 153;
of earthquakes, 157;
of the sea, 158;
of the overflow of the Nile, 160;
of the voice, 172;
of generation, 178;
of the generation of animals, 186;
of reason in animals, 187;
of sleep, 190; v. 145, 255.
Anaxander, apothegm of, i. 401.
Anaxilas, apothegm of, i. 402.
Anaximander, philosophical opinions;
of principles, iii. 107;
the stars were heavenly deities, 121;
of the stars, 140;
of the essence and magnitude of the sun, 141, 142;
of eclipses of the sun, 144;
of the moon, 145;
of fire from clouds, 150;
of winds, 154;
of the earth, 155;
of the sea, 158;
of the generation of animals, 186.
Anaximenes, philosophical opinions;
air is the principle of all beings, iii. 107;
of heaven, 137;
of the stars, 139, 140;
cause of summer and winter, 141;
of the shape of the sun and summer and winter solstice, 143;
of the moon, 146;
of clouds, 151;
of the rainbow, 153;
of the earth, 155;
of earthquakes, 157; v. 313.
Ancients, suppers of the, iii. 255-259.
Andocides, one of the ten Attic orators, v. 21-23;
of a noble family, 21;
accused of impious acts, 22;
his adventures in Cyprus, 22, 23;
his exile, 23;
his orations, _ib._
Androclidas, apothegm of, i. 402.
Anecdotes of
Aeschylus, ii. 458.
Agathocles, i. 46.
Agesilaus, i. 73, 219, 220; v. 67, 118.
Agis, king of Sparta, v. 95.
Alcibiades, ii. 108, 109.
Alexander the Great, i. 45; ii. 473.
Ammonius, ii. 147.
Anaxagoras, i. 332.
Antigonus, i. 44, 47, 67, 202, 205, 334; iv. 231.
Antimachus, i. 307.
Antiochus Hierax, iii. 60.
Antipater, i. 64, 197, 205, 215.
Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 127.
Apelles the painter, i. 16, 153; ii. 122, 133.
Appius Claudius, v. 89.
Arcesilaus and Apelles, ii. 133.
Archelaus of Macedon, i. 67, 193.
Archidamus, i. 74.
Archimedes, ii. 174; v. 71.
Archytas of Tarentum, i. 18, 24.
Aristippus, i. 11, 55, 147, 459; ii. 55.
Athenian barber, iv. 238.
Attalus and Eumenes, iii. 61.
Augustus Caesar and Fulvius, iv. 235, 236.
Bocchoris, i. 63.
Brasidas, ii. 458.
Caesar, i. 293; iv. 204, 205; v. 67.
Cato, i. 295; ii. 490.
Cato and Catulus, i. 73.
Cleon, v. 100, 116.
Corinna, v. 404.
Crassus, i. 288, 290.
Croesus and Solon, ii. 122.
Demades and Phocion, ii. 298.
Demaratus and Philip, ii. 146.
Demetrius Phalereus, ii. 145; iii. 21.
Demosthenes, i. 15, 65, 334; ii. 460; v. 43-53.
Diogenes, i. 51, 67, 141, 142, 166, 283, 285, 311, 487; ii. 455,
458; iii, 21, 29.
Diogenes and Philip, ii. 147.
Diogenes and the mouse, ii. 453.
Dion, i. 64, 333.
Dionysius of Syracuse, i. 83, 152, 493; ii. 108, 140; iv. 238.
Epaminondas, v. 72, 95, 101, 120, 121, 125, 401.
Euclid, i. 55.
Eudoxus, ii. 174.
Eumenes, iii. 61; iv. 232.
Fulvius and Augustus, iv. 235, 236.
Hiero, i. 291.
Hyperides, v. 55, 56.
Isocrates, v. 31.
Leaena, iv. 229, 230.
Lucretia, i. 355.
Lycurgus, the lawgiver, i. 7.
Lycurgus, the orator, v. 39.
Lysander, i. 72; ii. 495.
Lysias, iv. 226.
Magas, i. 45.
Menander, v. 403.
Nasica, i. 285.
Nero, v. 123.
Nicias, the Athenian general, i. 177.
Nicias, the painter, ii. 173; v. 71.
Nicostratus and Archidamus, i. 74.
Olympias, ii. 494, 495.
Pericles, i. 15, 18, 66, 211, 332; ii. 309, 315; v. 67, 106.
Philip of Macedon, i. 305; ii. 146, 147, 494.
Phocion, ii. 298; v. 118.
Pindar, v. 404.
Pisistratus, iii. 41.
Plato, i. 71.
Plato and Socrates, ii. 148.
Polemon, i. 55.
Pompey, v. 70.
Postumia, i. 290.
Priest of Hercules, iii. 90.
Prometheus, i. 289.
Ptolemy Lagus, i. 45.
Pythagoras, ii. 174.
Roman Senator and his wife, iv. 233-235.
Scaurus, i. 295.
Scilurus, a Scythian king, iv. 244.
Seleucus Callinicus, iv. 237.
Seneca, i. 53.
Simonides, v. 68.
Socrates, i. 11, 13, 23, 26, 38, 53, 141, 150.
Socrates and Plato, ii. 148.
Solon, v. 89.
Solon and Croesus, ii. 122.
Sophocles, v. 68.
Stasicrates, i. 495.
Stilpo the philosopher, ii. 468.
Stratonicus, iii. 21.
Sylla, v. 72.
Terpander, i. 91, 92.
Themistocles, i. 73, 290, 296; iii. 21; v. 120.
Theramenes, i. 306.
Timotheus the musician, i. 92.
Valeria, i. 356.
Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, i. 53, 292.
Xenocrates, i. 71.
Xenophon, i. 333.
Xerxes and Ariamenes, iii. 59, 60.
Zeno, i. 72, 142, 283; ii. 455; iii. 25; iv. 225.
Anger, concerning the cure of, i. 33-59.
Animal Food, shall it be eaten? Of Eating of Flesh, v. 3-16.
Animals, generation of, iii. 186;
how many species of, 187;
appetites and pleasures of, 191;
ails and cures of, 510;
their intelligence, v. 157-217.
Anius, king of the Tuscans, v. 475.
Antalcidas, his sayings, i. 222, 402;
his reply to a railing Athenian, v. 125.
Anthes, the first author of hymns, i. 105.
Anthias, the sacred fish, v. 208.
Anthipphus, Lydian harmony first used by, i. 114.
Antichthon, the, iii. 155.
Antigonus, anecdote of, i. 25;
saying of, 44, 47, 67, 202, 205, 334, 484; iv. 231.
Antigonus the Second, his sayings, i. 205; ii. 319.
Antimachus, anecdote of, i. 308.
Antiochus and Charicles, iii. 49.
Antiochus and Seleucus, iii. 60.
Antiochus, apothegm of, i. 403.
Antiochus Hierax, anecdotes of, i. 206; iii. 60.
Antiochus Sidetes, anecdotes of, i. 207.
Antiochus the Spartan, his saying, i. 221.
Antiochus the Third, anecdotes of, i. 206.
Antipater, anecdotes of, i. 64, 197, 205, 215; ii. 135, 298; iii.
517; v. 49.
Antiperistasis of motion, v. 435.
Antiphanes, witty saying of his, ii. 456.
Antiphon, one of the ten Attic orators,
ii. 142; v. 17-21;
his birth, education, &c., 17;
wrote speeches for others, _ib._;
a man of great talent and learning, 18;
concerned in the revolution which subverted the popular government,
_ib._;
on the overthrow of the oligarchical party he was involved in
their ruin, _ib._;
number of his orations, 19;
decree of the senate against him, 20;
his condemnation and punishment, 21;
opinion concerning the moon, iii. 146;
of the sea, 158.
Antisthenes quoted, i. 77, 289, 496; v. 125.
Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 127.
Apelles, the painter, anecdotes of, i. 16, 153;
his picture of Alexander, 494;
and Megabyzus, ii. 122;
and Arcesilaus, 133.
Aphareus, adopted son of Isocrates, wrote orations and tragedies, v.
32.
Apis, the sacred bull of the Egyptians, iv. 68;
slain by Ochus, king of Persia, 74, 92.
Apollo and the dragon Python, iv. 20.
Apollo, inventor of the flute and harp, i. 113.
Apollo, temple of, iv. 478-498;
the inscription ει over its gate, 479.
Apollodorus, first invented the mixing of colors and the softening of
shadows, v. 400.
Apollonides, of shadow, v. 265;
of spots in the moon, 269.
Apollonis of Cyzicum, iii. 41.
Apollonius, consolation to, i. 299-339.
Apollonius, the Peripatetic, iii. 57.
Apothegms of Kings and Great Commanders, i. 185-250.
Agathocles, sayings of, i. 193.
Agesilaus, 219.
Agis, 218-221.
Alcibiades, 211.
Alexander the Great, 198-202.
Antalcidas, 222.
Antigonus, 202.
Antigonus the Second, 205.
Antiochus Sidetes, 207.
Antiochus the Spartan, 221.
Antiochus the Third, 206.
Antipater, 205.
Archelaus, 193.
Archidamus, 218.
Aristides, 210.
Artaxerxes Longimanus, 187.
Artaxerxes Mnemon, 188.
Ateas, 189.
Augustus Caesar, 248-250.
Brasidas, 218.
Caecilius Metellus, 239.
Caius Fabricius, 227.
Caius Marius, 239.
Caius Popilius, 240.
Cato the Elder, 233-235.
Chabrias, 213.
Charillus, 217.
Cicero, 244.
Cneus Domitius, 231.
Cneus Pompeius, 241-244.
Cotys, 189.
Cyrus the Elder, 186.
Cyrus the Younger, 188.
Darius, 186.
Demetrius, 204.
Demetrius Phalereus, 217.
Dion, 193.
Dionysius the Elder, 191.
Dionysius the Younger, 192.
Epaminondas, 222-226.
Eudaemonidas, 221.
Eumenes of Pergamus, 206.
Fabius Maximus, 227-228.
Gelo, 190.
Hegesippus, 213.
Hiero, 190.
Idathyrsus, 189.
Iphicrates, 212.
Lucullus, 241.
Lycurgus, 217.
Lysander, 219.
Lysimachus, 205.
Manius Curius, 226.
Memnon, 189.
Nicostratus, 221.
Orontes, 188.
Parysatis, 188.
Paulus Aemilius, 232.
Pelopidas, 225.
Pericles, 211.
Philip of Macedon, 194-198.
Phocion, 213, 216.
Pisistratus, 216.
Poltys, 189.
Ptolemy Lagus, 202.
Pyrrhus the Epirot, 207.
Pytheas, 213.
Scilurus, 190.
Scipio Junior, 235-239.
Scipio the Elder, 229.
Semiramis, 187.
Teres, 189.
Themistocles, 208.
Theopompus, 217.
Timotheus, 212.
Titus Quinctius, 230.
Xerxes, 187.
Appius Claudius, anecdote of, v. 89.
Apple tree, of the, iii. 333.
Arar, a river in Gaul, v. 484.
Aratus, quoted, iii. 116;
of the stars, 141;
quoted, 334, 497; iv. 98; v. 112;
quoted, 177.
Araxes, a river in Armenia, v. 506.
Arcadian prophet in Herodotus, iii. 38.
Arcadio the Archaean, saying of, i. 44.
Arcesilaus, i. 53, 148;
quoted, 258, 315;
and Battus, ii. 115;
his kindness to Apelles, 133; v. 371.
Archelaus, king of Macedon, anecdote of, i. 67, 193.
Archelaus, his opinions concerning principles, iii. 109.
Archias, ii. 379 _et seq._; iv. 314, 315.
Archidamidas, apothegms of, i. 404.
Archidamus, i. 4, 74, 218, 404; ii. 379 _et seq._
Archilochus the poet, banished from Sparta, i. 96;
quoted, 97;
his improvements in music, 122, 123, 177;
phrase of, ii. 17, 61, 84; iii. 26; v. 108, 216, 320.
Archimedes, of the sun’s diameter, v. 71;
anecdote of, ii. 173, 174.
Archytas of Tarentum, anecdotes of, i. 18, 24.
Ardalus, a minstrel at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 11, 12.
Aregeus, apothegm of, i. 403.
Aretades Cnidus, his Macedonian History, v. 458;
his Second Book of Islands, 467.
Aretaphila, her fortitude and virtue, i. 367.
Argive women, their repulse of the Spartan army, i. 346.
Argives, wrestling matches of, i. 121;
imposed a fine for playing with more than seven strings, 130;
combat of the, with the Lacedaemonians, v. 452.
Ariamenes yields the throne of Persia to his younger brother Xerxes,
iii. 59.
Arion and the dolphins, ii. 33-36.
Aristarchus, iii. 36;
concerning the eclipse of the sun, 144; v. 246.
Aristides, his Persian History, v. 453.
Aristides, his sayings, i. 210.
Aristides Milesius, his Italian History, v. 451, 452, 453, 458, 459,
460, 462, 463, 465, 466, 469, 473, 474, 475, 476;
Italian Commentaries, 461;
quoted, 462.
Aristippus, anecdotes of, i. 11, 55, 79, 147; ii. 295, 459.
Aristo of Chios, ii. 369.
Aristobolus, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 470.
Aristocles, Third Book of his Italian History, v. 466, 476.
Aristoclia, a beautiful maiden, iv. 312, 313.
Aristodemus, his Third Collection of Fables, v. 472.
Aristodemus, king of Messenia, i. 177.
Aristodemus the Epicurean, ii. 158, 159, 180.
Aristomenes, preceptor of Ptolemy, ii. 149.
Ariston, apothegm of, i. 403; iii. 18;
his opinion of moral virtue, 462; v. 111.
Aristonicus the musician, i. 494.
Aristonymus, a woman hater, v. 468.
Aristophanes, his comedy of “The Clouds,” i. 23;
quoted, 79, 125, 500;
quoted, ii. 78, 149, 429;
his coarseness and buffoonery, iii. 11;
compared with Menander, 11-14;
quoted, iv. 196, 273;
quoted, v. 42, 405.
Aristotinus, tyranny of, i. 357-363; v. 172.
Aristotle, quoted, i. 37; 50;
on harmony, 119; 155, 272, 326;
the teacher of Alexander, 478, ii. 302, 319;
letter of, 455;
his philosophical opinions; of nature, 105;
of principles and elements, 106;
of God, 121;
of matter, 123;
of ideas, 123;
of causes, 124;
of a vacuum, 127;
of motion, 128;
of fortune, 131;
of the world, 133, 134, 135;
of vacuum, 137;
of the world, 137;
of heaven, 137;
of the stars, 140;
of the sun, 142;
of the summer and winter solstices, 143;
of the moon, 146;
of the milky way, 148, 149;
of comets, 149;
of thunder and lightning, 151;
of earthquakes, 157;
of tides, 159;
of the motion of the soul, 164;
of the senses, 166;
of the voice, 172;
of generative seed, 177;
of the sperm, 177;
of emission of women, 177;
of conception, 178;
of generation, 179;
of the first form in the womb, 184;
of seven months’ children, 185;
of the species of animals, 187;
of sleep, 189;
of plants, 190;
quoted, 225, 226;
opinions concerning the soul, 465;
opinion concerning a plurality of worlds, iv. 33;
concerning prophetic inspiration, 54; v. 189, 253, 262, 313, 316,
355;
quoted, 439;
the Second Book of Paradoxes, 468.
Aristoxenus, of music, i. 114, 115, 125, 134.
Arsinoe, Queen, i. 319.
Artaxerxes Longimanus, his sayings, i. 187.
Artaxerxes Mnemon, his sayings, i. 188.
Aruntius and Medullina, v. 463.
Asclepiades, opinions: of the soul, iii. 161;
of respiration, 174;
of two or three children at one birth, 180;
animals in the womb, 188;
of health, sickness, and old age, 193.
Aster the archer, v. 456.
Astycratidas, apothegm of, i. 405.
Ateas, saying of, i. 189; ii. 177.
Atepomarus, king of the Gauls, v. 469.
Atheism and superstition compared, i. 168 _et seq._
Athenian citizens, their number, v. 42;
their temper and disposition, 100.
Athenians, whether they were more renowned for their warlike
achievements, or for their learning, v. 399-411.
Athenodorus, memorable action of, iii. 50.
Athens, was a democracy, v. 397;
the nurse of history, of painting, and poetry, 400, 401;
not renowned for epic or lyric verse, 404.
Atoms, doctrine of, v. 345-348.
Atreus and Thyestes, v. 470, 471.
Attalus and Eumenes, their kindness and fidelity to each other, iii.
61, 62.
Attica, invasion of, by Datis, v. 450, 451.
Augustus Caesar, his sayings, i. 248-250;
the favored son of Fortune, iv. 205; v. 67.
Augustus Caesar and Fulvius, anecdote of, iv. 235, 236.
Autobulus, v. 156 _et seq._
Autumn, dreams in, iii. 432.
B.
Baccho, iv. 256, 264, 269.
Bacchus, ii. 12, 29.
Ballenaeus, mount, v. 492.
Banishment, or flying one’s country, iii. 15-35.
Banquet of the Seven Wise Men; Solon, Bias, Thales, Anacharsis,
Cleobulus, Pittacus, Chilo, ii. 3-41.
Barley, sow, in dust, iii. 505.
Barrenness in women, iii. 181.
Barrenness of mules, iii. 182.
Bashfulness, i. 60-77.
Basilocles, iii. 69, 70.
Baths, hot and cold, iii. 512.
Battus, ii. 115.
Bear, cunning of the, v. 185.
Bears, flesh of, iii. 509.
Beasts, flesh of sacrificial, iii. 361.
Bees, cannot abide smoke, iii. 515;
stinging of, 516.
Bellerophon, fable of, i. 351.
Berecyntus, mount, v. 490.
Berosus concerning the eclipse of the moon, iii. 146.
Bewitching, power of, iii. 327.
Bias, quoted, i. 17, 406;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 4, 14, 128.
Bion, saying of, i. 76;
his opinion concerning the punishment of children for the sins of
their fathers, iv. 171;
saying of, v. 170.
Bird or the egg, which was first, iii. 242-246.
Birds, prophetic nature of, v. 193.
Birth, two or three at one, iii. 180.
Birthdays of famous men, iii. 400.
Biton and Cleobis, their filial piety, i. 313.
Boar and the toil, iii. 512.
Bocchoris, anecdote of, i. 63.
Bodies, of, iii. 124;
division of, 126;
how mixed with one another, 126.
Body, passions of the, iii. 175;
what part is first formed, 184;
diseases of the, iv. 504-508.
Boedromion, month of, iii. 444.
Boethus, his opinion concerning comets, iii. 150.
Book of Rivers, v. 455.
Brasidas, apothegm of, i. 218; ii. 458.
Brennus, king of the Gauls, v. 460.
Britain, longevity in, iii. 193.
Brixaba, mount, v. 494.
Brotherly love, iii. 36-68.
Brute animals, ails and cures of, iii. 510;
their intelligence; which are the more crafty, water or land
animals? v. 157-217.
Brute beasts make use of reason, v. 218-233.
Bucephalus, the horse, v. 183.
Bulimy, or the greedy disease, iii. 355.
Busiris, king of Egypt, strangers murdered by, v. 474.
C.
Caecilius Metellus, apothegm of, i. 239.
Caesar, Augustus, his sayings, i. 248-250;
anecdote of, iv. 205;
and Fulvius, 235, 236; v. 67, 132.
Caesar, C. Julius, his sayings, i. 246-248;
his magnanimity, 293;
his reliance on fortune, iv. 205.
Caesar, Tiberius, sayings of, i. 277; ii. 126; iii. 23.
Caicus, a river, v. 503.
Caius Fabricius, apothegm of, i. 227.
Caius Gracchus, i. 40; v. 99.
Caius Marius, apothegm of, i. 239.
Caius Maximus, and his two sons, v. 466.
Caius Popilius, apothegm of, i. 240.
Callicratidas, apothegms of, i. 412;
saying of, ii. 187.
Callimachus, saying of, i. 323; iii. 23, 118, 321.
Callisthenes, saying of, i. 37;
his Book of Transformations, v. 454;
Third Book of the Macedonics, 456;
Third Book of History of Thrace, v. 469.
Calpurnius Crassus, liberated from captivity, v. 465.
Calpurnius and Florentia, v. 467.
Calydon, mount, v. 505.
Camillus, anecdote of, iv. 204.
Camma, the Galatian, her revenge, i. 372.
Canus the piper, v. 71.
Caphene and Nymphaeus, i. 348.
Caphisias, ii. 379 _et seq._
Carneades, i. 160;
a striking observation of his, ii. 123.
Cassius, a Roman traitor, v. 457.
Castor and Pollux, iii. 48.
Cato and Catulus, anecdotes of, i. 73.
Cato, saying of, i. 61;
and Catulus, 73; 261;
his integrity, 295;
his sayings, ii. 42, 72, 76, 318; v. 10, 66, 67;
anecdotes of, 83, 112, 120, 123, 144, 155.
Cato the Elder, apothegms of, i. 233-235;
anecdote of, ii. 490.
Catoptrics, doctrine of the, v. 257.
Cattle, salt given to, iii. 497.
Catulus, v. 457.
Caucasus, mount, v. 483.
Caudine Forks, defeat of the Romans at the, v. 452, 453.
Causes, of, iii. 123.
Causes of sleep and death, iii. 188.
Celtic women, virtue of the, i. 347.
Cephisocrates, ii. 133.
Cephisophan, a rhetorician, i. 98.
Ceres, mistress of earthly things, v. 285, 286.
Chabrias, his sayings, i. 213.
Chaeremon quoted, Frag., ii. 475.
Chameleon, the, v. 202.
Chaplet of flowers at table, iii. 260-265.
Charicles and Antiochus, iii. 49.
Charillus, his sayings, i. 217, 432; ii. 97, 116.
Charon, the Theban, ii. 381.
Chasms in the earth closed by men leaping into them, v. 454.
Chersias at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Chian women, virtue of the, i. 344.
Children, training of, i. 3-32;
similitude to their parents, iii. 180;
similitude to strangers, 181.
Chilo, i. 280;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Chilon, saying of, i. 471.
Chiomara of Galatia, i. 374.
Chorus of the Aeantis, iii. 226-228.
Chorus of the Leontis, iii. 226.
Chromatic scale, in music, i. 117.
Chrysermus, his Peloponnesian History, v. 452;
Second Book of Histories, 457.
Chrysippus, ii. 87;
his opinion concerning fate, iii. 130;
of moral virtue, 462;
his doctrines refuted, 488; iv. 372 _et seq._, 428-477; v. 205;
his opinion concerning the cause of cold combated, 324;
First Book of Italian History, 468.
Cicero, apothegm of, i. 244; ii. 310; v. 96.
Cilician geese, v. 175.
Cinesias, the lyric poet, i. 180.
Cinna stoned to death, v. 469.
Cios, maids of, i. 354.
Circe, her supposed conversation with Ulysses, v. 218-219.
Cithaeron, mount, v. 479.
Cleanthes, his opinion concerning the stars, iii. 139, 140; v. 176,
420.
Cleobis and Biton, i. 313.
Cleobulus at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Cleodemus, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
first brought the cupping-glass into request, 20.
Cleodorus, the physician, ii. 16.
Cleombrotus, i. 413; iv. 3, 4, 26.
Cleomenes, v. 161.
Cleomenes, apothegms of, i. 346, 413, 416.
Cleon, anecdotes of, v. 100, 116.
Clisthenes, vindicated from the aspersions of Herodotus, iv. 343.
Clitonymus, his Italian History, v. 458;
Second Book of his Sybaritics, v. 464.
Clitophon, his First Book of Gallican History, v. 460.
Cloelia and Valeria, i. 356.
Clonas, a musical composer, i. 107, 109.
Clouds, eruption of fire out of the, iii. 150;
rain, hail, and snow, 151.
Cneus Domitius, apothegm of, i. 231.
Cneus Pompeius, apothegms of, i. 241-244.
Cocles, the Roman, v. 145.
Codrus, king of Athens, v. 462.
Coeranus and the dolphins, v. 215.
Cold, First Principle of, v. 309-330.
Color, does it exist in the dark, v. 344, 345.
Colors, of, iii. 125.
Colotes, the Epicurean, ii. 187;
book written by, v. 338;
misrepresents Democritus, 341;
his doctrines, 349;
misrepresents Plato, 355, 356;
falls at the feet of Epicurus, 360;
disparagement of Socrates, 361;
against Stilpo, 367;
assaults the Philosophers, 367;
condemns the opinion of Epicurus, 368;
Cyrenaic philosophers ridiculed, 369;
treats Arcesilaus unfairly, 371;
absurdity of Epicureanism, 373;
opinions of Epicurus, 374;
danger of his doctrines, 377, 378, 338-385.
Comets and shooting fires, iii. 149.
Comminius Super, a Laurentine, v. 472.
Common conceptions against the Stoics, iv. 372-427.
Comparison between the actions of the Greeks and Romans, v. 450-476.
Comparison betwixt Aristophanes and Menander, iii. 11-14.
Conception, how it is made, iii. 178.
Concerning Music, i. 102-135.
Concerning such whom God is slow to punish, iv. 140-188.
Concerning the fortune of the Romans, iv. 198-219.
Concerning the virtues of women, i. 340-384.
Conciseness of speech, recommended, iv. 243;
examples given, 243, 244.
Conjugal Precepts; Advice to a New-married Couple, ii. 486-507.
Consolation to Apollonius, i. 299-339.
Consolatory Letter from Plutarch to his Wife, Timoxena, on Occasion
of the Death of their Daughter, two years old, v. 386-394.
Contingent and possible defined, v. 299.
Contradictions of the Stoics, iv. 428-477.
Cora and Proserpine, v. 285.
Corinna, anecdote of, v. 404.
Corinthian Hall at Delphi, iii. 80-82.
Cornelius Scipio, consul, v. 96, 112, 114, 136.
Cotys, his sayings, i. 189.
Crabs charmed by fifes, v. 163.
Cranes, flight of, v. 175, 203.
Crantor, quoted, i. 300, 304, 324, 326;
his opinion of the soul, ii. 327, 328, 345, 349, 360.
Crassus, anecdotes of, i. 288, 290; v. 125.
Crassus Calpurnius, v. 465.
Crassus’s mullet, v. 196.
Crates, i. 141;
saying of, 495; ii. 145, 321;
opinion of the stars, iii. 140; v. 419, 423.
Cratinus the comic poet, v. 410.
Crato, iii. 198.
Creon’s daughter, i. 472.
Cretinus, the Magnesian, v. 121.
Criticism on passages in Homer, ii. 69-72, 74-84, 89, 90, 91.
Criticism on Sophocles, ii. 72.
Critolaus, his History of the Epirots, v. 455;
Fourth Book of Celestial Appearances, 457.
Crocodile, story of a, v. 196, 206, 210.
Croesus, ii. 122; iii. 85; iv. 339.
Cronium, mount, v. 501.
Ctesiphon, his Third Book of the Boeotian History, v. 458.
Ctesiphon the Pancratiast, i. 42.
Curatii and Horatii, v. 461.
Cure of anger, i. 33-59.
Curiosity, of, ii. 424-445;
mischiefs of vain, iv. 236.
Cuttle-fish, sign of a storm, iii. 505;
wariness of the, v. 200.
Cyanippus, a Syracusan, v. 462.
Cyanippus, a Thessalian, v. 463.
Cyclades islands, iii. 24.
Cycloborus, a brook near Athens, v. 110.
Cynaegirus, an Athenian commander, story of, v. 450.
Cyprus, female parasites of, called Steps, ii. 103.
Cyrus the Elder, his sayings, i. 186; ii. 319;
enlarges the Persian empire, iv. 85.
Cyrus the Younger, his sayings, i. 188.
D.
Daemon of Socrates, Discourse concerning the, ii. 378-423.
Daemons, their nature, attributes, and actions, iv. 14 _et seq._;
some of them are malignant and cruel, 19;
they are mortal, 15, 23, 24;
vainglorious, 28;
have the care of oracles, 21, 27;
sometimes have quarrels and combats with one another, 27;
our souls are by nature endued with similar powers, 50 _et
seq._;
in the Moon, v. 289;
will of the, 304;
providence of the, 307, 308.
Damindas, apothegm of, i. 407.
Damis, apothegm of, i. 406.
Damonidas, apothegm of, i. 406.
Darius, his sayings, i. 186, 502; v. 458.
Darkness, whether visible, iii. 169.
Datis, a Persian commander, his invasion of Attica, v. 450.
Daughters who had carnal knowledge of their fathers, v. 464.
Death appertains to soul or body, iii. 189.
Death a reward for distinguished piety; illustrated by the cases of
Biton and Cleobis, of Agamedes and Trophonius, of Pindar and
Euthynous, i. 313, 314.
Death of fire is the generation of air, v. 316.
Death the brother of sleep, i. 311.
Debates at entertainments, iii. 394.
Debt, Evils of. Against running in Debt, or Taking up Money upon
Usury, v. 412-424.
Debt of nature, i. 309.
Decius of Rome, v. 462.
Decrees proposed to the Athenians, v. 58.
Deity, knowledge of a, whence derived, iii. 115.
Delay of Providence in Punishing the Wicked. De sera Numinis
Vindicta, iv. 140-188.
Delight in hearing the passions of men represented, iii. 314.
Delphi, a walk in, iii. 69;
the statues there, 70;
atmosphere of, 72;
ancient oracles of, 73;
Corinthian Hall at, 80-82;
statue of Phryne, 83.
Delphic Oracle, inscription on the, Know thyself, and Nothing too
much, i. 328.
Demades and Phocion, anecdotes of, ii. 298; v. 108, 141.
Demaratus and Philip, anecdote of, ii. 146.
Demaratus, apothegm of, i. 407, 482;
his Second Book of Arcadian History, v. 461.
Demetrius Phalereus, his saying, i. 217;
anecdotes of, ii. 145; iii. 21; v. 145.
Demetrius, his sayings, i. 204.
Demetrius of Tarsus, comes to Delphi, iv. 3.
Demochares, a nephew of Demosthenes, procures a statue to be set up
for his uncle, v. 58-60;
a decree for a statue for himself, 60, 61.
Democracy and Oligarchy, v. 395-398.
Democrates, saying of, v. 109.
Democritus, saying of, i. 22, 263, 275; ii. 440; iii. 7;
his philosophical opinions, 121, 123, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133,
135, 139, 140, 142, 145, 149, 155, 156, 157, 160, 162, 163,
164, 166, 168, 169, 171, 176, 177, 179, 183, 187, 227;
his opinions misrepresented, v. 341;
his doctrine concerning atoms, 345, 346, 381.
Demodocus, i. 105.
Demonides, the cripple, ii. 51.
Demosthenes, the orator, anecdotes of, i. 15, 65;
quoted, 67, 286, 325;
anecdote of, 334, 481;
quoted, ii. 145, 300, 312, 313;
anecdote of, 460;
quoted, iv. 212;
quoted, v. 34, 35;
sketch of his life, 43-53;
his birth, education, and early years, 43;
calls his guardians to account, _ib._;
is chosen choregus, 44;
his methods to obtain excellence in speaking, _ib._;
opposes the designs of Philip, 45;
describes “action” as of supreme importance in oratory, _ib._;
his early failures as an orator, _ib._;
defends the Olynthians, 46;
is admired by Philip, though an enemy, _ib._;
his magnanimity, 47;
his conduct at Chaeronea, _ib._;
his patriotism, _ib._;
the oration for the Crown, _ib._;
accused of receiving a bribe, 48;
his exile, _ib._;
recalled, _ib._;
returns to the administration of public affairs, 49;
leaves Athens to avoid being delivered up to Antipater, _ib._;
his death, 50;
his family, _ib._;
honors paid to his memory, 51;
anecdotes of him, 49, 50-53;
his great temperance, 53;
his public services recounted in a decree, 58-60;
quoted, 69, 109, 110, 124, 138, 146, 409, 411, 447, 448.
Dercyllidas, apothegm of, i. 407.
Dercyllus, his First Book of Foundations, v. 461;
Third Book of Italian History, 474.
Destiny, or fate, iii. 130.
Deucalion [like Noah] sent forth a dove from the ark, and with like
purpose, v. 179.
Diagoras the Melian, iii. 118.
Diana Orthia, rites of, i. 98.
Dicaearchus, opinion concerning the soul, iii. 161;
of divination, 176; v. 93.
Dignity of places at table, iii. 210, 212.
Dinarchus, an Athenian orator, v. 57, 58;
becomes rich, 57;
his exile in Chalcis, 58;
restored, _ib._;
his orations, _ib._
Diocles, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 179, 182, 185, 192.
Diogenes Laertius quoted, i. 77.
Diogenes, quoted, i. 4, 12;
anecdotes of, 51, 67, 141, 142, 166, 283, 285, 311, 487;
quoted, ii. 58, 155, 193; 455, 458, 465, 466;
story of the mouse, 453; iii. 21, 27, 29, 31;
his philosophical opinions, 132, 136, 138, 143, 148, 163, 183, 187,
189, 494; iv. 311; v. 8, 65.
Diogenes and Philip, ii. 147.
Diogenianus, iii. 71, 73, _et seq._
Diomedes, ii. 41;
liberated from captivity, v. 465.
Dion, example of, i. 64, 193, 333.
Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, does not relish the Lacedaemonian broth,
i. 83;
his unreasonable anger, 152;
his sayings, 449, 484, 491;
his ungenerous behavior, 493;
parasites of, ii. 166; 314;
anecdote of, iv. 238.
Dionysius and Plato, ii. 108, 140.
Dionysius the Elder, his sayings, i. 191; v. 84.
Dionysius the Younger, his sayings, i. 192, 501.
Diophantus, saying of, i. 4.
Diorphus, mount, v. 507.
Discourse to an Unlearned Prince, iv. 323-330.
Diseases of the body, iv. 504-508.
Divination, of, iii. 176; iv. 59.
Dog, habit of biting of stones, iii. 516;
affection for his master, v. 180, 182, 184;
docility of the, 191.
Dolphin, sagacity of the, v. 200;
nature of the, 204;
story of a, 213;
its love of music, 214;
stories of affection of, 215, 216.
Dolphin and Arion, ii. 33-36;
and the lad of Jasus, v. 215.
Domitian is mentioned [which fixes the era of Plutarch], ii. 443.
Domitius, anecdote of, i. 288, 295; v. 125.
Dorian Mood of music, i. 109, 115.
Dorians pray for bad making of their hay, iii. 504.
Dorotheus, his First Book of Transformations, v. 466;
his Fourth Book of Italian History, v. 463.
Dositheus, his Third Book of Sicilian History, v. 463, 471, 472, 474;
Third Book of Lydian History, 469;
his Pelopidae, 471;
First Book of Italian History, 475.
Dream, a romantic, ii. 407-411.
Dreams and Omens, ii. 401, 402.
Dreams in Autumn, iii. 432.
Dreams, whence do they arise, iii. 176.
Drink either five or three, iii. 282-284.
Drink passeth through the lungs, iii. 363.
E.
Earth, its nature and magnitude, iii. 154;
figure of the, 155;
site and position of the, 155;
inclination of the, 155;
motion of the, 156;
zones of the, 156;
exhalations from the, iv. 53;
its form and its place, v. 247;
an instrument of time, 439.
Earthquakes, of, iii. 157.
Echo, what gives the, iii. 172.
Eclipse of the moon, iii. 146.
Eclipses of the sun, iii. 144.
Ecphantus, his opinion concerning the motion of the earth, iii. 156.
Egg or the bird, which was first, iii. 242-246.
Egypt, its Religion and Philosophy; of Isis and Osiris, or of the
Ancient Religion and Philosophy of Egypt, iv. 65-139.
Egyptian skeleton at feasts, ii. 7.
Egyptians in Ethiopia, iii. 20.
Ει at Apollo’s temple at Delphi, iv. 479-498.
Eleans, the, v. 426.
Elements, mixture of the, iii. 126.
Elephant, understanding of the, v. 178;
stories of, 178;
of King Porus, 183;
most beloved by the Gods, 187;
amour of the, 188;
chirurgery of the, 192.
Elephas, mount, v. 478.
Elysian fields in the moon, v. 289.
Elysius the Terinean, vision of, i. 314.
Embryo, how nourished, iii. 183;
is an animal, _ib._
Empedocles, i. 59;
saying of, 158, 469;
quoted, ii. 49, 195; 357;
quoted, iii. 34, 81;
his philosophical opinions, 112, 114, 125-129, 131, 132, 136-138,
143, 145, 147, 154, 158, 163, 165, 168-170, 173, 178-184,
188-191;
quoted, 209, 262, 293, 333, 497, 509, 518;
quoted, iv. 21, 52, 85, 87, 108, 273;
quoted, v. 169, 239, 246, 249, 252, 255, 318, 348, 350, 351;
misunderstood by Colotes, 351;
quoted, 381, 420, 421, 439.
Emprepes, apothegm of, i. 408.
Enemies, how a man may profit by his, i. 280-298.
Entertainment, late to an, iii. 417.
Envy and Hatred, ii. 95-99.
Epaminondas, his sayings, i. 222-226, 277;
his great actions, 225;
his consistency of character, ii. 109; 182, 185, 309, 313, 319,
381, 396, 399, 414; iii. 6; v. 72, 75, 95, 101, 121, 125;
his invasion of Laconia, 401, 407, 458.
Epaminondas, son of, beheaded, v. 458.
Ephorus, his opinion concerning the overflowing of the Nile, iii. 161.
Epicharmus, quoted, i. 315, 496; ii. 141; iv. 242.
Epicureans, misrepresentations of the, v. 352-354.
Epicurus, quoted, i. 138, 139, 159;
famous sentence of, ii. 92;
his doctrine; refutation of it; pleasure is not attainable, 157-203;
reverence of his brothers, iii. 57;
his philosophical opinions, 111, 122, 124, 127, 128, 131, 134, 135,
139, 142, 143, 151, 163, 164, 165, 169, 177, 183;
opinions of, v. 350, 374;
danger of his doctrines, 377, 378;
disciples of, 383, 385.
Epigenes, opinion concerning comets, iii. 150.
Epimenides, long sleep of, v. 66; 279.
Erasistratus, his opinion of the soul, iii. 163;
of superfetation, 180;
his definition of a fever, 192.
Eratosthenes, his philosophical opinions: of time, iii. 128;
of the sun, 147; v. 456.
Erectheus, sacrifice of his daughter, v. 463.
Eryxo of Cyrene, i. 378.
Esop, fable of, ii. 11, 12, 16, 19-22, 23;
dog of, 25;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 3-41; iii. 63, 202.
Eteocles the Theban, i. 257.
Euboea, king of, drawn in pieces by horses, v. 455.
Euboidas, apothegm of, i. 408.
Euclid, anecdote of, i. 55; ii. 173.
Euclides, his brotherly love, iii. 61.
Euctus and Eulaeus, ii. 146.
Eudaemonidas, his sayings, i. 221.
Eudamidas, apothegm of, i. 408.
Eudemus, of matter, ii. 334.
Eudorus, system of numbers, ii. 343, 345.
Eudoxus, anecdotes of, ii. 174;
his opinion of the cause of winter and summer, iii. 141;
of the overflow of the Nile, 161.
Euemerus, his opinion of God, iii. 118.
Eumenes of Pergamus, his sayings, i. 206;
anecdotes of, iii. 61, iv. 232.
Eumetis at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
her riddle, 20.
Euphorion quoted, iii. 321.
Euphranor, the painter, v. 400.
Euphrates, the river, v. 502.
Eupolis, saying of, ii. 112.
Euripides, quoted, i. 3, 158, 291, 300, 301, 302, 308, 320, 329, 330,
335, 458;
Hippol., 4, 14, 471;
Protesilaus, 23;
Dictys, 26, 58;
Bellerophon, 63, 141;
Frag., 287, 472;
Pirithous, 70;
Orestes, 37, 137, 140, 165, 170, 286;
Medea, 64, 71, 255;
Iph. Aul., 152, 302;
Bacchae, 163;
Troad, 170;
Phoeniss, 257, 303, 327;
Danae, 307;
Adrastus, 288;
Stheneboea, 301;
Ino, 303, 304;
Alcestis, 310;
Suppliants, 316;
Cresphontes, 316;
Erectheus, 500;
Hypsipyle, 317, 465; ii. 54, 56, 62, 87, 92, 121, 148, 150, 251,
300, 306, 357, 363, 391, 472;
Cresphontes, 93;
Hippol., 73, 108, 173, 198, 373, 374;
Frag., 86, 181, 318, 437, 501;
Orestes, 143, 443;
Medea, 66;
Iph. Aul., 49, 85;
Phoeniss, 51, 61, 66, 130, 151;
Ion, 102, 144;
Ino, 131;
Erectheus, 132;
Electra, 85;
Aeolus, 66, 85, 88, 175;
Herc. Furens, 151;
Hecuba, 197;
Iph. Taur., 447; iii. 27, 99, 116, 194;
Frag., 3, 19, 33, 41, 42, 94, 230, 458, 475, 512;
Hippol., 483;
Orestes, 168, 437;
Phoeniss, 16, 32, 43, 49, 257;
Stheneboea, 217;
Iph. Taur., 21;
Androm., 232;
Hipsipyle, 291, iv. 17, 128, 142, 270, 308, 450, 478, 497;
Frag., 47, 220, 233, 251, 272, 273, 292, 301, 325, 392, 461, 475;
Bacchae, 223, 272, 422, 506;
Hippol., 294, 298;
Cyclops, 56;
Aeolus, 105;
Troad, 132;
Orestes, 141, 507;
Ino, 158, 231;
Alcestis, 197;
Danae, 274, 283;
Stheneboea, 288;
Androm., 401;
Herc. Furens, 459, 467; v. 126, 128, 157, 172;
Frag., 15, 79, 105, 108, 118, 345;
Aeolus, 71;
Hippol., 158;
Iph. Taur., 374;
Orestes, 77, 380;
Troad, 440;
Erectheus, 463;
Meleager, 466.
Eurotas, a river in Laconia, v. 497.
Eurycratidas, apothegm of, i. 410.
Eurydice of Hierapolis, her epigram, i. 32.
Euthrymenes, his opinion of the overflow of the Nile, iii. 160.
Euthynous and Pindar, i. 313.
Eutropion, anecdote of, i. 25.
Evenus quoted, ii. 102, 192.
Evenus, son of Mars, v. 475.
Exercises, different kinds of, iii. 248-250.
Exile, consolations of, iii. 15-35.
Eyes, images of the, iii. 169.
F.
Fabius Maximus, his sayings, i. 227, 228;
in the Punic war, v. 453.
Fable of Minerva, i. 41.
Fable of the defeat of Neptune, iii. 444.
Fable of the Fox and Leopard, ii. 21.
Fable of the Lydian Mule, ii. 11.
Fabricianus, v. 474.
Fabricius, iv. 201.
Face appearing in the moon, v. 234-292.
Fasting creates more thirst than hunger, iii. 339.
Fate, or destiny, iii. 130;
nature of, 130; v. 293-308.
Faunus, king of Italy, strangers murdered by, v. 474.
Fever, cause of a, iii. 192.
Fig-trees, of, iii. 250, 335.
Figures, of, iii. 125.
Filial treachery in Persian and Roman history, v. 458.
Fire or water, which is more useful, v. 331-337.
Firmus and Nuceria, v. 471.
Fish called the fisherman, v. 201.
Fish, eating of, iii. 422.
Fisherman’s nets, rotting of, iii. 503.
Fishes, of; the labrax, mullet, scate, anthias, dolphin, cuttle-fish,
star-fish, torpedo, the fisherman, tunny, amiae, pionetras,
sponge, porphyrae, hegemon, whale, pinoterus, gilthead,
phycides, galeus, tortoise, v. 195, 209.
Fittest time for a man to know his wife, iii. 274-279.
Fives, we reckon by, iv. 43-47.
Five tragical histories of Love, iv. 312-322.
Flattery: How to know a Flatterer from a Friend, ii. 100-156.
Flattery fatal to whole kingdoms, ii. 118.
Flesh exposed to the moon, iii. 284-287.
Flute girls, whether they are to be admitted to a feast, iii. 387.
Folly of Seeking Many Friends, i. 464-474.
Food, digesting of, iii. 289-295.
Fortune, of, ii. 475-481; iii. 131;
is a cause by accident, v. 302;
not the same as chance, 303;
relates to men only, 303.
Fortune of the Romans, iv. 198-219.
Fox, cunning of the, v. 179.
Fresh water washes clothes better than salt, iii. 224-226.
Friends, folly of seeking many, i. 464-474.
Frogs, croaking of, v. 210.
Frost makes hunting difficult, iii. 510.
Fruit, salt not found in, iii. 498.
Fulvius and Augustus, anecdotes of, iv. 235, 236.
Fulvius Stellus, v. 468.
Fundanus, i. 34, 35.
G.
Galaxy, or milky way, iii. 148.
Galeus, affection of, for their young, v. 209.
Ganges, the river, v. 481.
Garlands at sacred games, iii. 411.
Garrulity, or Talkativeness, iv. 220-253.
Gauran, mount, v. 508.
Gelo, his saying, i. 190.
Generation and corruption, iii. 128.
Generation of males and females, iii. 178;
of animals, 186;
of the Gods, 400.
Generative seed, iii. 177.
Geniuses and heroes, opinions concerning, iii. 122.
Germanicus, ii. 96.
Gnatho the Sicilian, iii. 3.
Gobryas, a Persian noble, ii. 104.
God always plays the Geometer, saying attributed to Plato, iii. 402.
God bade Socrates act the midwife’s part, v. 425.
God, Father and Maker of all things, v. 428.
God, what is, iii. 118.
Gods, generation of the, iii. 400.
Gorgias, i. 340;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41; 44, 134; ii. 502;
v. 405.
Government. Of the Three Sorts of Government, Monarchy, Democracy,
and Oligarchy, v. 395-398.
Gracchus, Caius, example of, i. 40.
Greek music, principles of, i. 102, 103.
Greek Questions, ii. 265-293.
Groom, saying of the king’s, i. 21.
Gryllus, v. 218 _et seq._
Guests, should the entertainer seat the, iii. 203-210;
to a wedding supper, 300;
that are called shadows, iii. 381.
Gylippus, his dishonesty, i. 23.
H.
Habits of animals, v. 173-177.
Halcyon, of the, v. 211.
Halo, of the, iii. 160.
Hannibal and Fabius, i. 228.
Hares, cunning of the, v. 185.
Harp, an invention of Apollo, i. 113.
Hart, tears of the, iii. 507.
Health, preservation of, i. 251-279.
Health, sickness, and old age, iii. 192.
Hearing, of, i. 441-463; iii. 170.
Heaven, its nature and essence, iii. 137;
division of, 137.
Hebrus, a river of Thrace, v. 480.
Hedgehog, ingenuity of the, v. 186.
Hedgehog of the sea, v. 203.
Hegemon, of the fish, v. 206.
Hegesippus, sayings of, &c., i. 213.
Hegesistratus, an Ephesian, v. 476.
Helicon the mathematician, i. 57.
Hephaestion, the friend of Alexander, i. 489, 505.
Heracleo, v. 194.
Heraclides, his compendium of music, i. 105; ii. 158;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 139, 149, 156, 159, 165.
Heraclides the wrestler, iii. 220.
Heraclitus, i. 44, 79, 276, 308, 448, 453; ii. 74, 165, 330, 358,
477; iii. 26, 74;
his philosophical opinions, 111, 125, 128, 130, 131, 143, 144, 145,
146, 162;
apothegm, v. 9;
quoted, 73, 169, 425.
Hercules and Iole, v. 459.
Hercules in Antisthenes, precept of, i. 77.
Hercules, ridiculous representation of, v. 70;
and King Faunus, 474.
Hercules the woman-hater, his temple in Phocis, iii. 90;
singular anecdote, _ib._
Hermes, iv. 74.
Hermias, v. 121.
Hermogenes, ii. 194.
Herodotus, quoted, i. 80, 441;
saying of, ii. 202, 489;
Arcadian prophet, iii. 38;
quoted, iv. 248, 335 _et seq._;
malice of, iv. 331-371; v. 397.
Herondas, apothegm of, i. 410.
Herons, artifices of the, v. 176.
Herophilus, opinion of, iii. 128, 163.
Hesianax, his Third Book of African History, v. 465.
Hesiod, quoted, Works and Days, i. 22, 65, 70, 138, 156, 178, 261,
296, 307, 325;
Works and Days, ii. 24;
spare diet recommended by, 27;
and the dolphin, 36, 37;
Works and Days, 63, 64, 65, 73, 87, 92, 302, 303, 449, 452, 480,
483;
Theogony, 102;
Works and Days, iii. 64, 210, 382, 416, 436, 438;
Theogony, 118, 324, 458; iv. 15;
Works and Days, 48, 49, 68, 87, 154, 173, 264, 385, 442, 457;
Theogony, 53;
Works and Days, v. 153, 168, 172, 279.
Hicetes, his opinion of the earth, iii. 154.
Hiero, his sayings, i. 190;
anecdote of, 291.
Hiero the Spartan, statue of, iii. 76.
Hiero the Tyrant, statue of, iii. 75.
Hieronymus, saying of, i. 38, 50, 462.
Himerius, an Athenian parasite, ii. 126.
Hippasus, opinions of, iii. 111.
Hippocrates, saying of, i. 40;
quoted, 261, 292; ii. 165, 185;
his magnanimity, ii. 466.
Hippocratidas, apothegm of, i. 412.
Hippodamus, apothegm of, i. 411.
Hippolytus, son of Theseus, v. 471, 472.
Hippomachus, ii. 294.
Hipponax, i. 108.
History of music, i. 104 _et seq._
History of wind instruments, i. 108.
Homer, passages in, criticised, ii. 69-72, 74-84, 89, 90.
Homer quoted: Iliad, i. 34, 38, 39, 51, 52, 55, 62, 104, 132, 133,
134, 138, 141, 151, 153, 154, 156, 161, 165, 178, 180, 181,
200, 236, 251, 292, 303, 305, 306, 310, 324, 325, 329, 330,
331, 385, 466, 469, 475, 486, 490, 507, 508, 510, 511; ii. 25,
32, 41, 44, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68,
74, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 108, 114, 115, 120,
123, 131, 140, 142, 145, 150, 151, 152, 154, 185, 197, 198, 200,
237, 295, 305, 310, 311, 314, 317, 319, 413, 501, 505; iii. 25,
26, 47, 53, 54, 107, 120, 152, 206, 207, 221, 231, 248, 255, 285,
301, 313, 317, 321, 323, 325, 336, 354, 364, 381, 394, 401, 413,
418, 437, 442, 447, 448, 449, 450, 480, 486, 492, 493, 515; iv.
16, 65, 108, 111, 152, 191, 194, 195, 216, 237, 238, 280, 285,
291, 327, 329, 383, 386, 401, 405, 434, 462, 483, 490, 499,
504; v. 78, 79, 85, 88, 90, 92, 96, 104, 119, 122, 123, 134,
135, 138, 146, 147, 171, 182, 200, 208, 214, 266, 276, 281,
315, 339, 350, 371, 386, 394, 400, 418, 443, 444, 447;
Odyss. i. 52, 134, 138, 154, 236, 252, 305, 310, 318, 325, 452,
469; ii. 41, 43, 47, 48, 52, 53, 54, 56, 59, 63, 65, 67, 70,
71, 82, 83, 108, 110, 114, 115, 127, 149, 158, 159, 162, 184,
195, 304, 316, 317, 320, 371, 427, 463, 467, 478; iii. 10, 42,
45, 72, 81, 101, 196, 201, 207, 226, 232, 233, 249, 259, 280,
333, 359, 365, 395, 419, 425, 437, 438, 451, 466, 477, 499; iv.
5, 30, 86, 97, 191, 200, 219, 224, 226, 230, 231, 289, 307,
325, 401, 405; v. 3, 11, 105, 106, 143, 171, 184, 281, 285,
290, 315, 323, 403, 416, 422, 423, 446.
Horatii and Curatii, v. 460, 461.
Horatius Cocles, v. 456.
Horsehair for fishing lines, iii. 505.
Horses, called λυχοσπάδες, iii. 253.
Horus, son of Osiris, iv. 80, 114 _et seq._
Hounds that hunt hares, v. 184.
How a man may praise himself without being envied, ii. 306.
How a man may receive advantage and profit from his enemies, i.
280-298.
How animals are begotten, iii. 186.
How a young man ought to hear poems, ii. 42.
How plants grow, and whether they are animals, iii. 190.
How to know a flatterer, ii. 100-156.
Hunger, cause of, iii. 341;
allayed by drinking, 345.
Hurricanes, of, iii. 150.
Hyagnis, first that sung to the pipe, i. 107.
Hydaspes, a river in India, v. 477.
Hyperides, the Athenian orator, ii. 140; v. 53-57;
his part in public affairs, 53;
his friendship for Demosthenes, 54;
this friendship broken, _ib._;
demanded by Antipater, he escapes to Aegina, _ib._;
is apprehended, tortured, and put to death, 55;
an excellent orator, _ib._;
his amorous propensities, 55, 56;
his patriotism, 56;
sent as ambassador, 56, 57.
Hypsipyle, foster-child of, i, 465.
I.
Ibis, habits of, imitated by the Egyptians, v. 192.
Ibycus, the poet, iv. 240.
Ichneumon, of the, v. 174.
Ida, mount, v. 493.
Idathyrsus, his sayings, i. 189.
Ideas, of, iii. 123.
Images presented to our eyes in mirrors, iii. 169.
Imagination, imaginable and phantom, difference between, iii. 167.
Immortality of the soul, argument for it, iv. 169, 170.
Impotency in men, iii. 181.
Improbabilities of the Stoics, iii. 194-196.
Inachus, a river in Argolis, v. 498.
Incest, case of, v. 467.
Indus, the river, v. 508.
Infants, seven months’, iii. 184.
Inquisitiveness, or vain curiosity; of curiosity, or an over-busy
inquisitiveness into things impertinent, ii. 424-445.
Iole, the beloved of Hercules, v. 459.
Ion the tragedian, i. 322, 328; v. 186, 254.
Iphicrates, his saying, i. 80, 212; v. 105.
Iphigenia at Aulis, v. 459, 460.
Irascible faculty, v. 441.
Isaeus, an Athenian orator, v. 33;
considered by some equal to Lysias, _ib._;
the teacher of Demosthenes, _ib._;
number of his orations, _ib._
Isis and Osiris, iv. 66-139.
Ismenodora, iv. 256, 264, 269, 311.
Ismenus, a river of Boeotia, v. 478.
Isocrates, an Athenian orator, iii. 198; v. 27-33;
his parentage, birth, and education, 27;
composed orations for others, 28;
his school at Chios, _ib._;
his great success as a teacher of rhetoric, _ib._;
lived to a great age, 29;
his death and burial, 30;
number of his orations, 31;
his timidity, 27, 31;
his description of the use of rhetoric, 31;
the two suits against him, 32, 409;
his Panegyric, 410.
Isthmian games, iii. 318.
Ivy, nature of, iii. 265-268.
J.
Jason, saying of, v. 140.
Jewish religion, statements and conjectures respecting it, iii.
307-312.
Jews, their fatal inaction in war because it was their Sabbath day,
i. 178.
Juba, his third Book of Lybian History, v. 465.
L.
Lacedaemonians, their laws and customs, i. 82-101;
their currency, 99;
influx of gold and silver, 100;
refuse to assist Philip and Alexander in their designs against
Persia, 101;
lose all their ancient glory, 101;
combat with the Argives, v. 452.
Lachares, tyranny of, ii. 166.
Laconic answers, iv. 243.
Laconic Apothegms, of, i. 385-440.
Acrotatus, 400.
Agasicles, 385.
Agesilaus, 385-397.
Agesipolis, 397, 398.
Agis, son of Archidamus, 398.
Agis the Last, 400.
Agis the Younger, 400.
Alcamenes, the son of Teleclus, 400.
Alexandridas, 401.
Anaxander, 401.
Anaxilas, 402.
Androclidas, 402.
Antalcidas, 402.
Antiochus, 403.
Archidamidas, 403.
Archidamus, son of Agesilaus, 404.
Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, 404.
Aregeus, 403.
Ariston, 403.
Astycratidas, 405.
Bias, 406.
Callicratidas, 412.
Charillus, 432.
Cleombrotus, 413.
Cleomenes, son of Cleombrotus, 413, 416.
Damindas, 407.
Damis, 406.
Damonidas, 406.
Demaratus, 407.
Dercyllidas, 407.
Emprepes, 408.
Euboidas, 408.
Eudamidas, son of Archidamas, 408.
Eurycratidas, 410.
Herondas, 410.
Hippocratidas, 412.
Hippodamus, 411.
Leonidas, the son of Anaxandrias, 417.
Leo, the son of Eucratidas, 417.
Leotychides, 416.
Lycurgus the Lawgiver, 419-425.
Lysander, 425.
Namertes, 427.
Nicander, 427.
Paedaretus, 429.
Panthoidas, 427.
Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, 428.
Pausanias, son of Plistoanax, 428.
Phoebidas, 431.
Plistoanax, 430.
Polycratidas, 431.
Polydorus, 430.
Soos, 431.
Telecrus, 431.
Thectamenes, 411.
Themisteas, 410.
Theopompus, 410.
Thorycion, 411.
Zeuxidamus, 410.
Lacydes, King of the Argives, i. 290.
Lais, murder of, iv. 302.
Lampis, a sea commander, v. 73.
Lampsace, anecdote of, i. 366.
Lamps and tables of the ancients, iii. 372.
Land, food of the, iii. 302-306.
Lasus, his innovation upon ancient music, i. 123.
Leaena, anecdote of, iv. 229, 230.
Least things in nature, iii. 125.
Leo, apothegm of, i. 417.
Leo Byzantinus, saying of, i. 288;
and his wife, v. 110.
Leonidas, apothegm of, i. 417;
vindicated from the statements of Herodotus, iv. 354; v. 157;
at Thermopylae, 453.
Leotychides, apothegm of, i. 422.
Leprosy caused by dewy trees, iii. 500.
Leptis, custom in, ii. 499.
Leucippus, his opinions of the world, iii. 135;
of the earth, 155;
of the senses, 165.
Light and darkness, of, v. 325.
Lightning, of, iii. 150.
Light, of reflected, iii. 168, 169; v. 236 _et seq._
Lilaeus, mount, v. 508, 509.
Linus, elegies of, i. 105.
Lions, of, v. 187.
Liquids, of, iii. 359.
Live concealed, whether’t were rightly said, iii. 3-10.
Lives of the ten Attic orators, v. 17-63.
Love: Five tragical histories of, iv. 312-322.
Love, of, iv. 254-311;
makes a man a poet, iii. 217-219.
Love of wealth, ii. 294-305.
Lucretia, the Roman matron, i. 355.
Lucullus, apothegm of, i. 241;
quoted, iii. 51; v. 84.
Lugdunum, mount, v. 485.
Lyaeus and choraeus, i. 54.
Lybian crows, v. 175.
Lycastus and Parasius, v. 473.
Lycian women, virtue of the, i. 351.
Lycormas, a river in Aetolia, v. 487.
Lycurgus, an Athenian orator, v. 36-42;
treasurer of the commonwealth, 36;
his great public services, 37;
his fidelity in office and great reputation, 37;
his justice and integrity, 37, 38;
useful laws procured by his influence, 38;
his diligence in the study and practice of oratory, 39;
his incorruptible honesty, 40;
his death, _ib._;
honors paid to his memory, _ib._;
his family, 40, 41;
his orations and success as an orator, 41;
his benevolence, 42;
a decree for honors to be paid to his memory, 61-63.
Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, anecdote of, i. 7;
his institutions, 82 _et seq._;
their final overthrow, 101, 217, 419-425;
his sayings, ii. 22; v. 12, 92.
Lydian mood of music, i. 109, 114.
Lyric nomes, i. 106.
Lysander, i. 72;
his great victory over the Athenians, 99;
introduces gold and silver into Lacedaemon, 100;
the results, _ib._;
his sayings, 219, 425;
saying of, ii. 149;
anecdote of, 495; iii. 100; v. 92.
Lysias, the Athenian orator, his remarks on music, i. 104;
anecdote of, iv. 226; v. 24-26;
his birth, early residence in Athens, residence in Thurii, and
return to Athens, 24;
banished by the Thirty Tyrants, 25;
return after their overthrow, _ib._;
death, _ib._;
number of his orations, _ib._;
his other works, 26;
his eloquence, _ib._; v. 33.
Lysimache, the priestess, i. 73.
Lysimachus, his sayings, i. 205, 259.
Lysippus, his statue of Alexander, i. 494.
M.
Madness of animals, v. 167.
Maeander, a river in Asia, v. 488.
Magas, anecdote of, i. 45.
Magpie, story of a, v. 189.
Maimactes, king of the gods, i. 45.
Man, perfection of a, iii. 189;
most unhappy of all creatures, iv. 504;
compounded of three parts, v. 286.
Maneros, the foster-son of Isis, iv. 79.
Manius Curius, apothegm of, i. 226.
Manlius, son of, beheaded, v. 458.
Man’s progress in virtue, ii. 446-474.
Mantinea, battle of, v. 401.
Marius, sacrifice of his daughter, v. 463.
Mars, some bad actions of his, v. 466, 467.
Marsyas, a river in Phrygia, v. 490.
Marsyas, the musician, i. 41, 108.
Massinissa, his vigorous old age, v. 83.
Mathematics, applied to Music, i. 118-121;
affords unspeakable delight, ii. 172, 174.
Matter, of, iii. 122.
Medius, the parasite, ii. 137.
Megasthenes, saying of, v. 275.
Megisto and Micca, and other women of Elis, i. 357-363.
Meilichius, king of the gods, i. 45.
Melanippides, quoted, iv. 278.
Melanthius, quoted, i. 35, 449; ii. 103; iv. 147.
Melian women, virtue of the, i. 348.
Melisponda and Nephalia, i. 59.
Melissus, his opinion of generation, iii, 128.
Memnon, his saying, i. 189.
Menalippides, i. 114, 123.
Menander, quoted, i. 70, 139, 158, 161, 164, 335, 470;
quoted, ii. 52, 57, 65, 86, 87, 124, 192, 297;
his superiority to Aristophanes, iii. 11-14;
quoted, 38, 65, 196, 488; iv. 290;
anecdote of, v. 403;
saying of, 425.
Mendesian goat, v. 225.
Menedemus, i. 77; ii. 115, 464;
his opinion of the nature of moral virtue, iii. 461.
Menelaus, the mathematician, v. 257.
Men, impotency in, iii. 181;
elements of, 188;
have better stomachs in autumn, 240;
temper of, 270-272;
when asleep are never thunderstruck, 295-300;
having carnal knowledge of brutes, 468.
Menon, his definition of virtue, i. 464.
Menyllus, his First Book of Boeotic History, v. 460;
Third Book of Italian History, 467.
Messenians, saying among the, v. 416.
Metellus, quoted, iii. 53; iv. 202; v. 459, 461.
Meteors, of, which resemble rods, iii. 153.
Metiochus, his misuse of power, v. 127.
Metius Fufetius, king of Alba, torn in pieces, v. 455.
Metrocles, i. 144.
Metrodorus, ii. 158, 160, 161, 167, 169, 175, 180, 183, 496;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 115, 127, 132, 149, 150, 151, 153,
154, 155, 157, 158; v. 378, 383, 384.
Micca and Megisto, and other women of Elis, i. 357-363.
Midas, i. 326; v. 454.
Miletus, maidens of, i. 354.
Mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind fine, iv. 143.
Miltiades, v. 407-411.
Mimnermus, quoted, iii. 475.
Mind, tranquillity of the, i. 136-167.
Minerva, admonished by a satyr, i. 41; iii. 195;
temple of, v. 461.
Mirrors, causes and reasons of, iii. 169; v. 236 _et seq._
Mithridates, i. 204; ii. 121;
story of, iii. 219.
Mixture of the elements, iii. 126.
Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, i. 22.
Mnesarete, statue of, iii. 83.
Mnesiphilus, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Mnesitheus, the physician, iii. 511.
Monarchy, Democracy, and Oligarchy, v. 395-398.
Money upon usury, v. 412-424.
Monstrous births, of, iii. 179.
Moon: essence of the, iii. 145;
magnitude of the, 145;
figure of the, 145;
whence her light, 145;
eclipses of the, 146;
phases of the, 147;
distance from the sun, 147;
of the face appearing within the orb of the moon, v. 234-292;
its distance from the earth, 246;
its nature, 253-260;
its size, 261;
why called Glaucopis, 267;
is it inhabited, 274, 275.
Moot point in Homer’s Iliad, iii. 446.
Moral virtue, essay on, iii. 461-494.
Moschio, dialogue on health, i. 251, 252.
Motherland a Cretan expression, v. 85.
Motion, of, iii. 128.
Mount Athos’ shade, v. 270.
Mule and the salt, v. 184.
Mule, superannuated, v. 182.
Mules, barrenness of, iii. 182.
Mullet, of the, v. 213.
Muses, number of the, iii. 450.
Mushrooms produced by thunder, iii. 295-300.
Music, treatise concerning, i. 102-135;
pleasures from bad, iii. 376;
for entertainments, 389.
Musonius, his rule of health, i. 35.
Must, sweet, iii. 511.
Mycenae, mount, v. 501.
N.
Namertes, apothegm of, i. 427.
Names of rivers and mountains, and of such things as are to be found
therein, and the fables connected therewith, v. 477-509.
Nasica, his saying, i. 285.
Natural affection towards one’s offspring, iv. 189-197.
Natural philosophy, iii. 105.
Natural Questions, Plutarch’s, iii. 495-518.
Nature, of, iii. 131;
what is, 105;
things that are least in, 125;
animated, v. 160.
Necessity, of, iii. 129;
nature of, 129;
defined, v. 299.
Nephalia and Melisponda, i. 59.
Neptune, ii. 38, 39, 41.
Nero, i. 53; iv. 228, 229;
anecdote of, v. 123.
New diseases and how caused, iii. 426.
New-married couple, advice to, ii. 486-507.
New wine, of, iii. 279.
Nicander, apothegm of, i. 427, 441.
Nicias Maleotes, quoted, v. 459.
Nicias, the Athenian general, superstition of, i. 177; v. 107.
Nicias, the painter, anecdote of, ii. 173; v. 71.
Nicostratus and Archidamus, i. 74;
apothegm of, 221.
Niger, anecdote of, i. 267.
Nightingale, of the, v. 189.
Nile, the river, v. 495;
overflow of the, iii. 160;
water of the, 415.
Niloxenus, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41.
Niobe, i. 328.
Noises in the night and day, iii. 406.
Numa, of the reign of, iv. 208-210.
O.
Oenopides, his discovery of the obliquity of the Zodiac, iii. 138.
Ogygia, an island west from Britain and its neighbor islands,
described, v. 281-283.
Oil, top of the, iii. 370;
on the sea, 503;
is transparent, v. 318;
does not easily freeze, 319.
Old age, health, and sickness, iii. 192.
Old men, love pure wine, iii. 221;
read best at a distance, 222-224;
easily foxed, 268-270;
in state affairs, v. 64-96.
Oligarchy, Monarchy, and Democracy, v. 395-398.
Olympias, anecdotes of, ii. 494, 495.
Olympus, a Phrygian player, i. 107, 108, 110, 112, 115, 116, 123.
Omens and dreams, ii. 401, 402.
Onesicrates, banquet of, i. 103, 133.
Onomademus, wisdom of, i. 295; v. 129.
Opinions of philosophers, iii. 104-193.
Optatus, v. 171.
Oracle in Cilicia, iv. 55.
Oracles of Delphi, iii. 73.
Oracles, why they cease to give answers, iv. 3-64.
Orestes slays his mother, v. 474.
Origin of things, opinions concerning the, iii. 107-113.
Orontes, his saying, i. 188.
Orpheus never imitated any one, i. 107.
Orphic Fragments, iv. 59, 404.
Oryx, fables of the, v. 193.
Osiris, iv. 75-135;
story about his birth, 74;
great actions of, 75;
his death, 76;
his body torn in pieces by Typhon, 80;
is identical with Serapis and Bacchus, 89;
with the bull Apis, 90;
sacred vestments of, 135.
Othryadas, iv. 338.
Otus, the bird, v. 163.
Oxen, teaching of, v. 193.
P.
Paeans, makers of, i. 110.
Paedaretus, apothegm of, i. 429.
Painter, neat saying of a, ii. 378.
Painting is silent poetry, v. 402.
Palladium in Ilium and in Rome, v. 461.
Palm tree, of the, iii. 514.
Panaetius, sayings of, i. 57.
Pancrates, i. 117.
Pandora’s box, i. 306.
Pangaeus, mount, v. 480.
Panthoidas, apothegm of, i. 427.
Papirius Tolucer, v. 468.
Parallels, or a comparison between the actions of Greeks and Romans,
v. 450-476.
Parmenides, v. 357;
his philosophical opinions: of generation and corruption, iii. 128;
of necessity, 129;
of the world, 135;
of the moon, 145;
of the galaxy, 149;
of the earth, 155;
of earthquakes, 157;
of the soul, 163;
defended from the misrepresentations of the Epicureans, v. 352-354;
quoted, 357, 359, 381.
Partridge, cunning of the, v. 185.
Parysatis, her saying, i. 188.
Passions of the body, iii. 175.
Passions of the soul, or diseases of the body: which are worse, iv.
504, 508.
Paulus Aemilius, apothegm of, i. 232.
Pausanias, the Spartan traitor, v. 457.
Pausanius, i. 305;
apothegm of, 428.
Pauson the painter, iii. 73.
Pederasty, or the love of boys, iv. 259;
defended, 259, 260;
instances of its power, 284-286;
severely condemned, 304;
the connection is uncertain and short-lived, 307;
it ceases on the sprouting of the beard, 307.
Pelopidas, his saying, i. 225.
Pelops and his two sons, v. 470, 471.
Pemptides, iv. 272, 275, 279.
Pergamus, woman of, i. 374.
Periander, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
tyrant of Corinth sends three hundred boys to be castrated, iv. 341;
the crime prevented, 342.
Pericles, anecdotes of, i. 15, 18, 66, 211, 332; ii. 309, 315; v. 67,
102;
his absolute sway over the Athenians, 106;
his soliloquy when about to address the people, 130, 131, 410, 413.
Periclitus, a Lesbian harper, i. 108.
Persaeus, anecdote of, i. 70.
Perseus, king of Macedonia, his sorrow on losing his kingdom, i. 160.
Persian Magi, killers of mice, ii. 96.
Persian women, virtue of the, i. 347.
Persians had a monarchy, v. 397.
Pestilence, relief from, a virgin sacrificed for, v. 472.
Petron, doctrine of, iv. 30.
Phaedimus, v. 171, 194.
Phaeton, i. 141.
Phalaris, brazen cow of, v. 474.
Pharnaces, of the moon, v. 265.
Phasis, a river of Thrace, v. 482.
Phayllus, iv. 282.
Phemius, the poet, i. 105.
Pherecrates, fragment of, i. 124.
Phidias, statue of Venus, ii. 498; iv. 133.
Philammon, verses in honor of Latona, Diana, and Apollo, i. 105.
Philemon and Magas, i. 45.
Philinus, iii. 69, 70.
Philip of Macedonia, examples from, i. 44, 45;
sayings of, 194-198, 305;
anecdotes of, ii. 141, 146, 147, 494; iii. 22; v. 115.
Philippides the comedian, ii. 430.
Philippus, his demonstration of the figure of the moon, ii. 173.
Philolaus, his philosophical opinions: of the nutriment of the world,
iii. 134;
of the essence of the sun, 142;
of the position of the earth, 155;
of the motion of the earth, 156.
Philosophers ought chiefly to converse with great men, ii. 368-377.
Philosophers, their various opinions. Of those sentiments concerning
nature with which philosophers were delighted, iii. 104-193.
Philosophical discourses at merry meetings, iii. 198-203.
Philosophy, threefold division of, iii. 104.
Philotas and Antigona, i. 504.
Philotas, son of Parmenio, i. 504.
Philotimus, the physician, i. 452; ii. 153.
Philoxenus, i. 125;
sayings of, ii. 42; iii. 3; iv. 289; v. 423.
Phocian women, virtue of the, i. 343, 355.
Phocion, his saying on the death of Alexander, i. 49;
his sayings, 70;
wife of, 102, 216; ii. 135, 298, 311, 321, 328; v. 83, 109, 118;
his magnanimity, 122;
his reply to Demades, 125, 142, 149.
Phocus, a story of love respecting him, iv. 319.
Phocylides the poet, quoted, i. 9, 462.
Phoebidas, apothegm of, i. 431.
Phoenix, tutor to Achilles, i. 9; ii. 150.
Phrygian mood of music, i. 109.
Phryne, the statue of, iii. 83.
Phrynis, the musician, ii. 470.
Pieria and other women of Myus, i. 363, 364.
Pierus, the first that wrote in praise of the Muses, i. 105.
Pindar and Euthynous, i. 314.
Pindar, his sayings, i. 77, 114;
quoted, 143, 173, 174, 286, 293, 303, 304, 310, 313, 328;
his description of the state of the blessed, 336;
quoted, ii. 57, 143, 177, 193, 306;
quoted, iii. 9, 23, 74, 93, 95, 96, 194, 207, 218, 377, 455, 458,
491, 516;
quoted, iv. 10, 15, 96, 138, 145, 150, 163, 260, 289, 405;
quoted, v. 64, 111, 117, 148, 194, 197, 202, 214, 316, 331, 404;
anecdote of, 404, 440.
Pine, sacred to Neptune and Bacchus, iii. 318.
Pine trees, of, iii. 250.
Pinoteras, the fish, v. 205.
Pisias, of love, iv. 270 _et seq._
Pisistratus, i. 216;
anecdote of, iii. 41, 200.
Pittacus, sayings of, i. 31, 151;
his reply to Myrsilus, ii. 5;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 3-41; iii. 50; iv. 231; v.
145.
Pitwater, of, iii. 514.
Place at table called Consular, iii. 210-212.
Place, of, iii. 127.
Plague in Falerie and in Lacedaemon, v. 472.
Plain of truth, iv. 29.
Planetiades, iv. 9, 11.
Plants, grow how, iii. 190;
nourishment and growth of, 191.
Plato, quoted, i. 9, 19, 24, 26;
saying of, 27;
quoted, 41, 57, 71, 74, 79;
on harmony, 115, 118;
quoted, 141, 173, 256, 264, 279, 287;
laws, 292;
quoted, 297, 311, 314, 321, 337, 339, 456;
quoted, ii. 49, 92, 100, 104, 106;
at the court of Dionysius, 108, 109, 141, 146;
and Socrates, 148, 150, 168, 174, 326;
concerning the soul, 328 _et seq._, 334;
quoted, 344, 352, 353, 355, 356, 359, 364, 455, 456, 457, 492, 496,
504;
quoted, iii. 19, 81;
his philosophical opinions: of the universe, 112, 114, 115;
of the understanding, 116;
what is God, 119;
of God, 121;
of matter and ideas, 123;
of causes and of bodies, 124;
of colors, 125;
of bodies, 126;
of place and time, 127, 128;
of motion, 128;
of necessity, 129;
of fate, 130;
of fortune, 131;
of the world, 134, 135, 137;
of the stars, 137-141;
of the sun, 142, 143;
of the moon, 145, 146;
of the rainbow, 152;
of earthquakes, 158;
of the sea, 159;
of the soul, 161-165;
of sight, 168;
of hearing, 170;
of the voice, 171;
of the echo, 172;
of divination, 176;
of generative seed, 177;
of the embryo, 183;
of reason in animals, 187;
of sleep, 189;
that plants are animals, 190;
quoted, 200, 201, 213, 221, 223, 243, 365, 368-370, 401, 462, 464,
499; iv. 18, 28, 30, 41, 45;
his opinion about daemons, 86, 87, 109, 115-117, 119, 146, 254,
261, 292, 305;
quoted, v. 10, 82, 103, 116, 120, 172, 257, 276, 288, 293, 295,
297, 302, 305, 306, 338, 355, 364, 377, 381, 412, 425-433, 435,
440, 441, 444.
Pleasure not attainable according to Epicurus, ii. 157-203.
Pleasures from bad music, iii. 376.
Plistoanax, apothegm of, i. 430.
Plurality of worlds, iv. 29-39.
Plutarch, his rules for the preservation of health, i. 251-279;
his Symposiacs, iii. 197-460;
his natural questions, 495-518;
on the immortality of the soul, iii. 164, iv. 169; v. 393;
consolatory letter to his wife, 386-394;
his Platonic questions, 425-449;
his spurious remains, 450-509.
Poet, love makes a man a, iii. 217-219.
Poetry, essay on. How a young man ought to hear poems, ii. 42-94.
Polemon, his kind reply, i. 55.
Policy or government defined, v. 396.
Political precepts, v. 97-156.
Poltys, saying of, i. 189.
Polus the tragedian, v. 69.
Polybus, of seven-months’ infants, iii. 185.
Polycephalus, the nome, i. 108.
Polycratidas, apothegm of, i. 431.
Polycrita, a woman of Naxos, i. 364, 366.
Polydorus, apothegm of, i. 430.
Polyhistor, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 476.
Polymnestus, his improvements in music, i. 107, 110, 112, 123.
Polypus, why it changes color, iii. 506;
many-colored, v. 202.
Polysperchon’s treachery, i. 64, 71.
Pompey, his great actions and sayings, i. 241 _et seq._, 290;
statues of, 293, v. 70, 102, 112, 114;
owed his success to Sylla, 115.
Porsena of Clusium, war with the Romans, v. 451, 456.
Porus, an Indian king, i. 202.
Posidonius, his opinion of fate, iii. 130;
of a vacuum, 137;
of eclipses, v. 262.
Possible and contingent defined, v. 299.
Postumia, chastity of, i. 290.
Power, necessity, &c., defined, v. 300.
Praise, inordinate, a sign of a flatterer, ii, 116, 117, 120;
young people are often spoiled by it, 123.
Preservation of health, rules for, i. 251-279.
Priam and Polydore, v. 465.
Price of peace, women given as the, v. 468.
Priest of Hercules, iii. 90.
Principle and element, difference between, iii. 106.
Principle of cold, v. 309-330.
Principles, what they are, iii. 106.
Prize for poets at the games, iii. 316.
Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus, puts Timarchus to death, iii. 89;
his own unhappy end, _ib._
Procreation of the soul as discussed in the Timaeus of Plato, ii.
326-367.
Progress in virtue, how it may be ascertained, ii. 446-474.
Prometheus, anecdote of, i. 289.
Proserpine, the same as Isis, iv. 88;
and Cora, v. 285, 286.
Prosodia, songs called, i. 106.
Protagoras quoted, i. 332.
Protogenes, iv. 257, 258, 260-265.
Providence, of God, iv. 140-188; v. 305;
of the inferior gods, 306;
of the daemons, 307, 308.
Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, i. 25.
Ptolemaeus Soter, iv. 88.
Ptolemy Lagus, anecdote of, i. 45;
his saying, 202; ii. 177.
Publius Decius, his dream, v. 462.
Publius Nigidius, v. 96.
Punishment of the wicked, why so long delayed, iv. 140-188.
Pupius Piso, the rhetorician, iv. 245.
Purple shell fish, v. 205.
Pylades and Orestes, their friendship, i. 465.
Pyraechmes’s horses, v. 455.
Pyrander, his Fourth Book of Peloponnesian Histories, v. 474.
Pyrandrus, the commissary, v. 469.
Pyrrhon, the Stoic philosopher, anecdote of, ii. 467.
Pyrrhus the Epirot, his saying, i. 207.
Pythagoras, his aphorisms, i. 28, 29;
of music, 130;
quoted, 175;
aphorism, 179, 294;
symbols of, 454, 471;
his unseasonable reproof, ii. 148;
his joy on discovering the relation to each other of the three
sides of a right-angled triangle, 174;
his philosophical opinions: of the principles of things, iii. 109;
of the unity of God, 121;
of geniuses and heroes, 122;
of matter, 123;
of causes, 124;
of bodies, 126;
of time, 127;
of motion, 128;
of generation and corruption, 129;
of the world, 132-137;
of the zodiac, 138;
of the summer and winter solstice, 143;
of the moon, 145;
of the zones, 156;
of the soul, 161-164;
of the voice, 172;
of divination, 176;
of generative seed, 177;
of reason in animals, 187;
precepts of, derived his philosophy from Egyptian priests, iv. 72.
Pythagorean philosophy of dreams, daemons, ii. 412, 413.
Pythagoreans, precept of, iii. 22;
why they do not eat fish, 422-426.
Pytheas, his saying, i. 213; iii. 159;
apothegm of, v. 107, 110.
Pythes, the Lydian, i. 382.
Pythian games, iii. 316.
Pythian priestess, iv. 8, 9, 62, 63;
why she now ceases to deliver her oracles in verse, iii. 69-103.
Pythocles, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 460;
Third Book of the Georgics, 476.
Pythoclides the flute player, i. 114.
Python of Aenos, ii. 314.
Q.
Quarry of Carystus, iv. 54.
Questions or Causes, Second Book of, v. 475.
R.
Raillery, of, iii. 229-240.
Rainbow, of the, iii. 151.
Rain, snow, and hail, of, iii. 151.
Rational faculty, of the, v. 441.
Reason, beasts make use of, v. 218-233.
Reason, habit of our, iii. 166.
Remarkable speeches of some obscure
men amongst the Spartans, i. 432-440.
Remora or Echeneis, iii. 252.
Reproof, how to be administered, ii. 138-156.
Respiration or breathing, iii, 173.
Rhesus and Similius, v. 466.
Rhodope and Haemus, mountains, v. 491.
Riddles and their solutions, ii. 19, 20.
Roman questions, ii. 204-264.
Roman senator and his wife, iv. 233-235.
Romans, fortune of the, iv. 198-219.
Rome, saved by the cackling of geese, iv. 217;
favored by fortune, 219.
Romulus, his birth and education, iv. 206-208;
murdered in the senate, v. 470;
and Remus, suckled by a she-wolf, 473.
Rules for the preservation of health, i. 251-279.
Rutilius the usurer, v. 419.
S.
Sabinus of Galatia, iv. 308.
Sacadas, a flute player, i. 109, 110, 112.
Sacred games, garlands of, iii. 411.
Sacrificed beasts, iii. 361.
Sagaris, a river in Phrygia, v. 492.
Salmantica, women of, i. 352.
Salt and cummin, why does Homer call it divine, iii. 336.
Salt given to cattle, iii. 497;
not found in fruit, 498.
Sappho, i. 42, 114; ii. 506;
quoted, iii. 95, 263;
quoted, iv. 260.
Sappho’s measures, grace in, iii. 74.
Sardanapalus, his luxury and lust, i. 497.
Sardians and Smyrnaeans, v. 468.
Saturn and his four children, v. 456, 457.
Satyrus the orator, i. 47.
Scamander, a river in Troas, v. 493.
Scaurus, his magnanimity, i. 295.
Scilurus, anecdote of, iv. 244.
Scipio the Elder, apothegm of, i. 229; ii. 475; iv. 201; v. 96, 112,
114, 136.
Scipio the Younger, his sayings and great actions, i. 235-239.
Scopas, saying of, ii. 303.
Scythinus, verses of, iii. 86.
Sea calves, of, v. 210.
Sea, of the, iii. 158;
ebbing and flowing of the, 159;
food of the, 302-306;
made hot by wind, 501.
Sea-sickness, iii. 502.
Sea water nourishes not trees, iii. 495;
upon wine, 502;
oil on the, 503.
Seed, nature of generative, iii. 177;
that fall on the oxen’s horns, 368;
watering of, 496;
watered by thunder showers, 498.
Seleucus the mathematician, iii. 159.
Seleucus Callinicus, anecdote of, iv. 237.
Self-praise. How a man may inoffensively praise himself without being
liable to envy, ii. 306-325.
Semiramis, her saying, i. 187, 497; iv. 85.
Seneca, anecdote of, i. 53.
Senses, of the, iii. 164;
represent what is true, 165;
number of the, 165;
actions of the, 166.
Sentiments concerning Nature with which Philosophers were delighted,
iii. 104-193.
Serapio, iii. 74, 79, 81, 82.
Serapis is Pluto, iv. 88, 89.
Serpent and the Aetolian woman, v. 188.
Seven months’ infants, of, iii. 184.
Seven Wise Men, Banquet of the, ii. 3-41.
Servius Tullius, his birth, elevation, and prosperous reign, iv. 212,
213.
Shadows, guests called, iii. 381.
Sheep bitten by wolves, iii. 254.
She-wolves, of, iii. 517.
Ships in winter, sailing of, iii. 500.
Shoe pinches, where the, ii. 494.
Sibyl with her frantic grimaces, iii. 74.
Sight, of our, iii. 168.
Silence commended, iv. 230, 243.
Simonides, quoted, i. 149, 257, 295, 305, 309, 318;
quoted, ii. 44, 101, 136, 436, 457, 471;
quoted, iii. 22, 87, 259, 409, 451, 459, 473;
quoted, iv. 158;
saying of, v. 66, 68, 71, 121.
Sipylus, mount, v. 489.
Siramnes, saying of, i. 185.
Sleep or death, causes of, iii. 188;
whether it appertains to the soul or body, 189.
Smelling, of, iii. 170.
Smyrna and Cinyras, v. 464.
Snow, preservation of, iii. 350.
Soclarus, iv. 292; v. 156, 158, 160, 166, 169, 170, 171, 216.
Socrates, anecdotes of, i. 11, 13, 23, 26, 38, 53, 141, 150, 162;
rules of health, 255;
quoted, 307, 310, 312, 337; ii. 46, 148, 150, 338, 441;
his Daemon, 378-423, 441, 495; iii. 4, 19, 35, 112, 121, 123; iv.
249; v. 93, 359, 361, 362-364, 377, 381.
Socrates, his Second Book of Thracian History, v. 462.
Soil, deep, for wheat, iii. 504;
lean soil for barley, 504.
Solon and Croesus, anecdote of, ii. 122.
Solon, quoted, i. 155, 297;
at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
quoted, 297, 454, 487;
quoted,
iii. 50; iv. 72;
quoted, 260;
anecdote of, 304; v. 89, 113, 117, 118, 131.
Sophocles, quoted, i. 46, 57, 244, 288;
Thamyras, 39;
Frag., 58, 63;
Tyre, 206, 467;
Antig., 51, 462;
Oed. Tyr., 179, 470;
quoted, ii. 45, 57, 61, 72;
criticisms on, 72;
Frag., 173, 241, 244, 298, 431, 452, 456, 470, 495;
Oed. Tyr., 60, 172, 442, 476, 495;
Antig., 110;
Trachin., 311;
Electra, 440;
quoted, iii. 97, 210, 222;
Frag., 7;
Antig. 45;
Oed. Tyr., 235, 474;
Oed. Col., 232;
Electra, 437;
quoted, iv. 87, 246, 287, 304;
Oed. Tyr., 197, 202;
Trachin., 281;
Antig., 239, 283, 404;
Frag., 221, 226, 274, 284, 301;
quoted, v. 69, 76, 158, 216;
Oed. Col., 68;
Frag., 75, 84;
anecdote of, 68.
Sostratus, his Second Book of Tuscan History, v. 468.
Sotades, jest of, i. 25.
Soterichus, the musician, i. 103, 112.
Soul of Ajax, her place in hell, iii. 442.
Soul or body, death appertains to, iii. 189.
Soul, procreation of the, ii. 326-367;
its nature and essence, iii. 161, 163;
parts of the, 162;
in what part of the body it resides, 163;
motion of the, 163;
immortality of the, 164;
principal part of the, 173;
three sorts of motion in the, v. 371;
state of, after death, 393, 394;
ancienter than the body, 432.
Souls dispersed into the earth, moon, &c., v. 438.
Sounds in the night and day, iii. 406.
Sows, tame and wild, iii. 508.
Space, of, iii. 127.
Sparta had an oligarchy, v. 397.
Speech composed of nouns and verbs, v. 444.
Speech of a statesman, what it should be, v. 107.
Sperm, whether it be a body, iii. 177.
Spermatic emission of women, iii. 177.
Sphodrias, v. 118.
Spiders, labor of the, v. 174.
Sponge, of the, v. 205.
Spurious remains of Plutarch, v. 450-509.
Star-fish, subtlety of the, v. 201.
Stark drunk, those that are, iii. 281.
Stars, essence of the, iii. 138;
what figure they are, 139;
order and place of, 139;
motion and circulation of, 140;
whence do they receive their light, 140;
which are called the Dioscuri, the twins, or Castor and Pollux,
141;
how they prognosticate, 141;
number of the, whether odd or even, 446.
Stasicrates proposes to turn Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander,
i. 495.
Stesichorus, i. 109, 112; iv. 497.
Steward of a feast, iii. 212-216.
Stilpo, the philosopher, i. 13, 76, 144, 161;
anecdote of, ii. 468;
defended, v. 365-367.
Stoics speak greater improbabilities than the poets, iii. 194-196;
their opinions concerning daemons, iv. 24;
common conceptions against the, 372-427;
contradictions of the, 428-477.
Strabo, quoted, i. 27.
Strato, i. 155; iii. 163; v. 161.
Stratonica of Galatia, i. 373.
Stratonicus, anecdote of, ii. 298; iii. 21.
Strymon, a river in Thrace, v. 491.
Summer and winter, cause of, iii. 141.
Summer and winter solstice, iii. 143.
Sun, essence of the, iii. 141;
magnitude of the, 142;
figure or shape of the, 143;
turning and returning of the, 143;
eclipses of the, 144.
Superstition of the Gauls, Scythians, and Carthaginians, i. 182, 183.
Superstition, or indiscreet devotion, i. 168-184;
folly of, ii. 387.
Supper, many guests at, iii. 323.
Supper-room, why too narrow at first for guests, iii. 326.
Suppers of the ancients, iii. 255-259.
Swallows in the house, iii. 419;
intelligence of the, v. 174.
Sylla, i. 32-35;
anecdote of, v. 72, 115, 135.
Symposiacs, or table discourses, iii. 197-460.
Synorix and Camma, iv. 302.
T.
Table, dignity of places at, iii. 210-212.
Tables and lamps of the ancients, iii. 372.
Talkativeness, or garrulity, iv. 220-253.
Talk, deliberate or tumultuous, iii. 395.
Tanais, a river in Scythia, v. 494.
Tarpeia, a virgin, the story of, v. 460.
Taste, of, iii. 170.
Taxiles of India, i. 201.
Taygetus, mount, v. 498.
Tears of the hart, iii. 507.
Tears of wild boars, iii. 507.
Telamon and Periboea, v. 467.
Telamon and Phocus, v. 466.
Telecrus, apothegm of, i. 431.
Telegonus, son of Ulysses, v. 476.
Telephanes of Megara, i. 117.
Telephus, i. 289.
Telesias the Theban, an eminent flute-player, i. 125.
Telesphorus, in an iron cage, iii. 31.
Temple of Apollo, iv. 478-498.
Teres, his saying, i. 189.
Teribazus, anecdote of, i. 176.
Terpander, the musician, fined by the Ephori, and why? i. 91, 92;
an inventor of ancient music, 102, 105, 109;
an excellent composer to the harp, 106, 112;
added the octave to the heptachord, 102, 122.
Teuthras, mount, v. 504.
Thales, at the Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, ii. 3-41;
first of philosophers; the Ionic sect took its denomination from
him, iii. 107;
his philosophical opinions; difference between a principle and an
element, 106;
that the intelligence of the world was God, 121;
of geniuses and heroes, 122;
of division of bodies, 126;
of necessity, 129;
of the division of heaven, 137;
of the eclipses of the sun, 144;
that the moon borrows her light from the sun, 146;
that the earth is globular, and the centre of the universe, 155;
of earthquakes, 157;
of the overflow of the Nile, 160;
of the soul, 161; iv. 337, 480.
Thaletas, a composer, i. 110, 112;
power of his music, 133.
Thamyras, the singer, i. 105.
Theanor, ii. 395, 396.
Thebes, liberation of, ii. 414-423.
Thectamenes, apothegm of, i. 411.
Themisteas, apothegm of, i. 410.
Themistocles, quoted, i. 73;
his saying, 208;
suspected of treason, 290, 296, 480;
quoted, ii. 97, 311, 471;
his kind reception by the Persian king, iii. 21, 30; iv. 208, 361,
365; v. 101, 116, 120, 121, 127.
Theo, iii. 70, 71, 74, 88.
Theocritus, his remark and death, i. 25, 73; ii. 380; iii. 516.
Theodorus, saying of, i. 142; ii. 321, 349; iii. 31;
his Book of Transformations, v. 464.
Theognis, i. 473; ii. 59; iii. 506.
Theon, ii. 157 _et seq._; v. 273-275.
Theophilus, his Third Book of Italian History, v. 459;
Second Book of Peloponnesian Histories, 470.
Theophrastus, sayings of, i. 276, 304, 442; ii. 303; iii. 45, 64,
218, 219, 334; v. 202, 427.
Theopompus, his sayings, i. 217, 410; v. 137.
Theotimus, his Italian History, v. 456.
Theramenes, anecdote of, i. 306.
Thermodon, a river in Scythia, v. 495.
Thero, anecdote of, iv. 286.
Theseus and his son Hippolytus, v. 471.
Thespesius, iv. 177, 182 _et seq._, 188.
Thirst, cause of, iii. 341.
Thorycion, apothegm of, i. 411.
Thrasonides quoted, ii. 297.
Thucydides, quoted, i. 70, 76, 472, 490;
quoted, ii. 98, 117, 149, 152, 458;
quoted, iii. 88;
quoted, iv. 141;
quoted, v. 65, 106, 403.
Thunder, of, iii. 150.
Thymbris, and his son Rustius, v. 466.
Tides, of, iii. 159.
Tigris, the river, v. 507.
Timaeus, his opinion of tides, iii. 159.
Timesias, the oracle and, i. 471;
anecdote of, v. 127.
Time, essence and nature of, iii. 127, 128.
Timoclea, at the taking of Thebes, i. 376.
Timoleon, ii. 314.
Timotheus, the musician, anecdote of, i. 92, 106, 112; ii. 83, 306;
v. 76.
Titus Quinctius, apothegm of, i. 230.
Tmolus, mount, v. 486.
Torpedo, or crampfish, v. 201.
Torquatus and Clusia, v. 459.
Tortoise, their care for their young, v. 209.
Training of children, i. 3-32.
Tranquillity of the mind, the, i. 136-167.
Transmutation of bodies, v. 14.
Trees and seeds, watering of, iii. 496.
Trees not nourished by sea-water, iii. 495.
Triangles, of, v. 433.
Trisimachus, his book of Foundations of Cities, v. 455.
Trochilus and crocodile, v. 206.
Troilus wept less than Priam, i. 323.
Trojan women, virtue of the, i. 342.
Trophonius and Agamedes, i. 313.
True friendship, of, i. 464-474; ii. 100-134.
True happiness, of, v. 392.
Tullus Hostilius, v. 455.
Tunnies, dim sight of the, v. 204.
Typhon, in Egyptian mythology, iv. 80, 81, 86, 88, 91, 92, 99, 101,
105, 110, 114, 118, 122.
Tyrrhene women, virtue of the, i. 349.
U.
Ulysses, i. 160;
in the island of Circe, v. 218 _et seq._
Unity of God. Of the word εἰ engraven over the gate of the temple of
Apollo at Delphi, iv. 478-498.
Universe, whether it is one, iii. 114;
division of the, v. 429.
Unlearned Prince, Discourse to an, iv. 323-330.
Usurers, what sort of men they are, 417.
Usury, evils of, v. 412-424.
V.
Vacuum, of a, iii. 126;
there can be none in nature, iv. 33;
suppose there were, it would have no beginning, middle, or end, 34.
Valeria and Cloelia, i. 356.
Valeria Tusculanaria, v. 464.
Valerius Conatus swallowed up alive, v. 455.
Venus’s hands wounded by Diomedes, iii. 441.
Verses seasonably and unseasonably applied, iii. 436.
Vice and virtue, ii. 482-485.
Vice, whether it is sufficient to render a man unhappy, iv. 499-503.
Vines irrigated with wine, iii. 513;
rank of leaves, iii. 513.
Virtue and vice, ii. 482-485.
Virtue may be taught, i. 78-81.
Virtue or fortune, to which of these was due the greatness and glory
of Rome? iv. 198-219.
Virtue, progress in, ii. 446-474.
Virtues of women, i. 340-384.
Vision, doctrine of, iii. 168; v. 236 _et seq._
Voice is incorporeal, iii. 172.
Voice, of the, iii. 171.
Vowels and semi-vowels, iii. 438.
W.
Water made colder by stones and lead, iii. 348.
Water or fire, which is more useful? v. 331-337.
Water, white and black, iii. 518.
Wealth, the love of, ii. 294-305.
Well water, change of the temperature in, iii. 347.
West wind the swiftest, iii, 515.
Whale, of the, v. 207.
Wheat, sow, in clay, iii. 505.
Whether an aged man ought to meddle in state affairs, v. 64-96.
Whether the passions of the soul, or diseases of the body, are
worse, iv. 504-508.
Whether ’twere rightly said, “Live concealed,” iii. 3-10.
Whether vice is sufficient to render a man unhappy, iv. 499-503.
Whirlwinds, of, iii. 150.
Why the oracles cease to give answers, iv. 3-64.
Wicked, delay of Providence in punishing the, iv. 140-188.
Widows in India, iv. 502.
Wild beasts, steps of, iii. 509;
their tracks, 509.
Wild boars, tears of the, iii. 507.
Winds, of, iii. 154.
Wine, whether it is potentially cold, iii. 272-274;
straining of, 351;
middle of, 370;
sea water upon, 502;
irrigation with, 513.
Winter and summer, cause of, iii. 141, 154.
Winter, ships in, iii. 500;
sea least hot in, 501.
Wise Men, the Seven, Banquet of, ii. 3-41;
their names, iv. 480.
Woman, of Pergamus, i. 374.
Woman of Thessaly torn in pieces by dogs, v. 463.
Women, the virtues of, i. 340-384;
barrenness in, iii. 181;
are hardly foxed, 268-270;
temper of, 270-272;
given as the price of peace, v. 468.
Word ει at Apollo’s temple at Delphi. iv. 478-498.
World, how it was brought into its present order, iii. 113.
World, of the, iii. 132;
figure of the, 133;
whether it be an animal, 133;
whether it is eternal and incorruptible, 133;
its nutriment, 134;
from what element was it raised, 134;
in what form and order was it composed, 135;
cause of its inclination, 136;
thing which is beyond the, 136;
what parts on the right and left hand, 137.
Worlds, plurality of, iv. 29-38.
Wrestling, of, iii. 246.
X.
Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, anecdotes of, i. 53, 292.
Xenaenetus, v. 109.
Xenocrates, anecdote of; i. 71, 442;
his opinions concerning the soul, ii. 327, 439;
of triangles, iii. 24, 139, 494;
his opinion about daemons, iv. 17, 87;
saying of, v. 10, 494.
Xenocritus, a composer, i. 110, 380.
Xenodamus, a composer, i. 110.
Xenophanes, his reply, i. 65, 183;
his philosophical opinions, iii. 134, 138, 141, 144, 145, 150, 155;
quoted, ii. 49; iv. 291.
Xenophon, quoted, i. 137;
maxim of, 281, 333, 447; ii. 115, 144, 178, 307;
the scene of his old age, iii. 24; v. 67, 72, 121, 139.
Xerxes, his saying, i. 39, 187;
and Arimanes, iii. 59, 60;
invasion of Greece, v. 451, 452.
Y.
Year, length of, in different planets, iii. 147.
Z.
Zaleucus, laws of, ii. 315.
Zaratas, ii. 327.
Zeno, saying of, i. 56;
anecdotes of, 72, 142, 283; ii. 321, 365, 455;
quoted, 467, 481; iii. 25, 113, 125, 128;
his definition of virtue, 462;
anecdote of, iv. 225; v. 382.
Zenocrates, v. 288, 377, 441.
Zeuxidamus, apothegm of, i. 410.
Zeuxippus, dialogue on health, i. 251-279; ii. 157 _et seq._;
iv. 270, 278, 288.
Zeuxis, reply of, i. 468.
Zopyrus Byzantius, his Third Book of Histories, v. 473.
Zoroaster, ii. 357; iv. 106.
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