Moralia, Part III (Books VI–IX) — Plutarch
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Translation/edition: W. C. Helmbold, P. H. De Lacy and B. Einarson; the Goodwin edition
Language: English
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## Can virtue be taught?

[An virt. doc. 1] 439 1 1 When we discuss Virtue we debate the question whether Prudence, Justice, and the Good Life can be taught; then we are surprised that the achievements of orators, pilots, musicians, architects, and farmers are past counting, whereas “good men” is only a name and a mere term, like “Centaurs,” “Giants,” or “Cyclopes”! And it is impossible to find any deed that is faultless as regards its virtue, or any character undefiled by passion, or any life untouched by dishonour; but even if Nature does spontaneously produce something that is excellent, this excellence is obscured by much that is foreign to it, like wheat mixed with wild and impure stuff. Men learn to play the harp, to dance and to read, to farm and to ride the horse; they learn to put on shoes and to don garments, they are taught to pour wine and to bake meat. All these things it is impossible to do properly without instruction; but shall that for the attainment of which all these things are done, that is, the Good Life, be unteachable, irrational, requiring no skill, and fortuitous?
[An virt. doc. 2] 2 1 O mortal men! Why do we assert that virtue is unteachable, and thus make it non-existent? For if learning begets virtue, the prevention of learning destroys it. Yet truly, as Plato says, just because a foot of verse is out of measure with the lyre and fails to harmonize with it, brother does not war with brother, nor does friend quarrel with friend, nor do states conceive hatred toward other states and wreak upon each other the most extreme injuries and suffer them as well; nor can anyone say that civil strife has ever broken out in a state over a question of accent, as, for instance, whether we should read Télchines or Telchínes, nor that a quarrel has ever arisen in a household between husband and wife as to which is the warp and which the woof. Yet, for all that, no one, unless he has received instruction, would attempt to handle a loom or a book or a lyre, though he would suffer no great harm if he did so, but he is merely afraid of becoming ridiculous (for, as Heraclitus says, “It is better to conceal ignorance”); but everyone thinks that without instruction he will handle successfully a home, a marriage, a commonwealth, a magistracy — though he has not learned how to get along with wife, or servant, or fellow-citizen, or subject, or ruler!
[An virt. doc. 2b] Diogenes, when he saw a child eating sweet-meats, gave the boys’ tutor a cuff, rightly judging the fault to be, not that of him who had not learned, but of him who had not taught. Then, when it is impossible to eat and drink politely in company if one has not learned from childhood, as Aristophanes says,
[An virt. doc. 2c] Not to laugh like a clown, nor dainties gulp down, nor to cross one leg on the other;
[An virt. doc. 2d] yet can men enter without censure the fellowship of a household, a city, a marriage, a way of life, a magistracy, if they have not learned how they should get along with fellow-beings? When Aristippus was asked by someone, “So you are everywhere, it seems, aren’t you?” “Well then,” he replied with a laugh, “I am wasting my fare, if indeed I am everywhere.” Why, then, would you also not say, “If men do not become better by teaching, the fee given to their tutors is wasted”? For these are the first to receive the child when it has been weaned and, just as nurses mould its body with their hands, so tutors by the habits they inculcate train the child’s character to take a first step, as it were, on the path of virtue. So the Spartan, when he was asked what he effected by his teaching, said, “I make honourable things pleasant to children.” And yet what do tutors teach? To walk in the public streets with lowered head; to touch salt-fish with but one finger, but fresh fish, bread, and meat with two; to sit in such and such a posture; 440 in such and such a way to wear their cloaks.
[An virt. doc. 3] 3 1 What then? He who says that the physician’s art concerns itself with rashes and hang-nails, but not with pleurisy or fever or inflammation of the brain, in what does he differ from one who says that schools and lectures and precepts are for instruction in trifling and childish duties, but that for the great and supreme duties there is only brute knocking about and accident? For just as he is ridiculous who declares that one must be taught before pulling at the oar, but may steer the boat even without having learned; so one who grants that the other arts are acquired by learning, but deprives virtue of this, appears to be acting directly contrary to the practice of the Scythians. For the Scythians, as Herodotus says, blind their slaves that these may hand over the cream to themselves; but such a man as this gives Reason, like an eye, as it were, to the subservient and ancillary arts, while denying it to virtue.
[An virt. doc. 3b] Yet when Callias, son of Charias, asked the general Iphicrates, “Who are you? Bowman, targeteer, horseman, or hoplite?” Iphicrates replied, “None of these, but the one who commands them all.” Ridiculous, therefore, is the man who declares that the art of using the bow, or of fighting in heavy armour, or of manipulating the sling, or of riding a horse may be taught, but that the art of commanding and leading an army comes at it chances and to whom it chances without previous instruction! Surely he is more ridiculous who affirms that prudence alone cannot be taught, for without prudence there can be no gain or profit from the other arts. But if prudence is in command, the principle which orders all the arts, which assigns each person to a place of usefulness, what joy, for instance, can one have at a banquet, though the servants are well-trained and have learned to
[An virt. doc. 3c] Carve the meat and roast it well and pour the wine,
if there be no system nor order in the servitors?

## On moral virtue

[De virt. mor. 1] 440 D 1 It is my purpose to speak of that virtue which is called “moral” and reputed to be so, which differs from contemplative virtue chiefly in that it has as its material the emotions of the soul and as its form reason, and to inquire what its essential nature is and how, by its nature, it subsists; whether, also, that part of the soul which receives it is equipped with its own reason, or does but share in the reason of some other part; and if the latter, whether it does this after the manner of elements that are mingled with what is better than themselves, or rather, whether this portion of the soul is guided and governed by another part and in this sense may be said to share in that governing part’s power. For that it is possible for virtue also to have come into being and to remain entirely independent of matter and free from all admixture with it, I think is quite obvious. It is better, however, to run summarily through the opinions of the philosophers holding opposing views, not so much for the sake of inquiring into them as that my own opinions may become clearer and more firmly established when those of the philosophers in question have been presented.
[De virt. mor. 2] 2 In the first place, Menedemus of Eretria deprived the virtues of both plurality and differences by asserting that virtue is but one, though it goes under many names: the same thing is meant by temperance and courage and justice, as is the case with “mortal” and “man.” And Ariston of Chios himself also made virtue but one in its essential nature and called it health; F but in its relative aspect he made certain distinctions and multiplied virtues, just as though one should wish to call our sight “white-sight” when it is applied to white objects, or “black-sight” when applied to black objects, or anything else of the sort. For instance virtue, when it considers what we must do or avoid, is called prudence; 441 when it controls our desires and lays down for them the limitations of moderation and seasonableness in our pleasures, it is called temperance; when it has to do with men’s relations to one another and their commercial dealings, it is called justice — just as a knife is one and the same knife, though it cuts now one thing, now another, or as a fire retains its single nature though it operates upon different substances. Moreover it appears likely that Zeno of Citium also inclines in some measure to this opinion, for he defines prudence as justice when it is concerned with what must be rendered to others as their due, as temperance when concerned with what must be chosen or avoided, as fortitude when concerned with what must be endured; and those who defend Zeno postulate that in these definitions he uses the word prudence in the sense of knowledge. B Chrysippus, however, by his opinion that corresponding to each several quality a virtue is formed by its own distinctive attribute of quality, unwittingly stirred up a “swarm of virtues,” as Plato has it, which were not familiar nor even known; for as from the adjective “brave” he derived “bravery,” from “mild” “mildness,” and “justice” from “just,” so from “charming” he derived “charmingness,” from “virtuous” “virtuousnesses,” from “great” “greatnesses,” from “honourable” “honourablenesses,” postlating also the other qualities of the same sort, dexterousnesses, approachablenesses, adroitnesses, as virtues, and thus filled philosophy, which needed nothing of the sort, with many uncouth names.
[De virt. mor. 3] 3 Yet all of these men agree in supposing virtue to be a certain disposition of the governing portion of the soul C and a faculty engendered by reason, or rather to be itself reason which is in accord with virtue and is firm and unshaken. They also think that the passionate and irrational part of the soul is not distinguished from the rational by any difference or by its nature, but is the same part, which, indeed, they term intelligence and the governing part; it is, they say, wholly transformed and changes both during its emotional states and in the alterations brought about in accordance with an acquired disposition or condition and thus becomes both vice and virtue; it contains nothing irrational within itself, but is called irrational whenever, by the overmastering power of our impulses, which have become strong and prevail, it is hurried on to something outrageous which contravenes the convictions of reason. D Passion, in fact, according to them, is a vicious and intemperate reason, formed from an evil and perverse judgement which has acquired additional violence and strength.
[De virt. mor. 3b] But it seems to have eluded all these philosophers in what way each of us is truly two fold and composite. For that other two fold nature of ours they have not discerned, but merely the more obvious one, the blend of soul and body. But that there is some element of composition, some two fold nature and dissimilarity of the very soul within itself, since the irrational, as though it were another substance, is mingled and joined with reason by some compulsion of Nature — E this, it is likely, was not unknown even to Pythagoras, if we may judge by the man’s enthusiasm for the study of music, which he introduced to enchant and assuage the soul, perceiving that the soul has not every part of itself in subjection to discipline and study, and that not every part can be changed from vice by reason, but that the several parts have need of some other kind of persuasion to co operate with them, to mould them, and to tame them, if they are not to be utterly intractable and obstinate to the teaching of philosophy.
[De virt. mor. 3c] Plato, however, comprehended clearly, firmly, and without reservation both that the soul of this universe of ours F is not simple nor uncompounded nor uniform, but that, being compounded of the potentialities of sameness and otherness, in one part it is ever governed in uniformity and revolves in but one and the same order, which maintains control, yet in another part it is split into movements and circles which go in contrariety to each other and wander about, thus giving rise to the beginnings of differentiation and change and dissimilarity in those things which come into being and pass away on earth; and also that the soul of man, since it is a portion or a copy of the soul of the Universe and is joined together on principles and in proportions corresponding to those which govern the Universe, 442 is not simple nor subject to similar emotions, but has as one part the intelligent and rational, whose natural duty it is to govern and rule the individual, and as another part the passionate and irrational, the variable and disorderly, which has need of a director. This second part is again subdivided into two parts, one of which, by nature ever willing to consort with the body and to serve the body, is called the appetitive; the other, which sometimes joins forces with this part and sometimes lends strength and vigour to reason, is called the spirited part. And Plato shows this differentiation chiefly by the opposition of the reasoning and intelligent part to the appetitive part and the spirited part, since it is by the very fact that these last are different that they are frequently disobedient and quarrel with B the better part.
[De virt. mor. 3d] Aristotle at first made use of these principles to a very great extent, as is obvious from his writings. But later he assigned the spirited to the appetitive part, on the ground that anger is a sort of appetite and desire to cause pain in requital; to the end, however, he continued to treat the passionate and irrational part as distinct from the rational, not because this part is wholly irrational, as is the perceptive part of the soul, or the nutritive and vegetative part (for these parts are completely unsubmissive and deaf to reason and, so to speak, mere off shoots of our flesh and wholly attached to the body), C but though the passionate part is wanting in reason and has no reason of its own, yet otherwise it is by nature fitted to heed the rational and intelligent part, to turn toward it, to yield to it, to conform itself thereto, if it is not completely corrupted by the foolish pleasure and a life of no restraint.
[De virt. mor. 4] 4 Those who wonder how it is that this part is irrational, yet subservient to reason, do not seem to me to reflect thoroughly upon the power of reason,
[De virt. mor. 4b] How great it is, how far it penetrates,
[De virt. mor. 4c] through its mastery and guidance, not by harsh and inflexible methods, but by flexible ones, which have a quality of yielding and submitting to the rein which is more effective than any possible constraint or violence. For, to be sure, even our breathing, our sinews and bones, D and the other parts of the body, though they are irrational, yet when an impulse comes, with reason shaking the reins, as it were, they all grow taut and are drawn together in ready obedience. So, when a man purposes to run, his feet are keyed for action; if he purposes to throw or to grasp, his hands fall to their business. And most excellently does the Poet portray in the following words the sympathy and conformity of the irrational with reason:
[De virt. mor. 4d] Thus were her fair cheeks wet with tears, as she
Wept for her lord, though he sat by. In heart
Odysseus pitied his lamenting wife,
E But kept his eyes firm-fixed within their lids
Like horn or iron: with guile he hid his tears.
[De virt. mor. 4e] Under such subjection to his judgement did he keep his breathing and his blood and his tears.
[De virt. mor. 4f] An evident proof of this is also the shrinking and withdrawal of the private parts, which hold their peace and remain quiet in the presence of such beautiful maidens and youths as neither reason nor law allows us to touch. This is particularly the case with those who first fall in love and then hear that they have unwittingly become enamoured of a sister or a daughter; for lust cowers as reason asserts itself and, at the same time, the body brings its parts into decent conformity with the judgement. F Indeed, very often with foods and meat, when men have partaken of them with gusto, if they then perceive or come to know that they have eaten something unclean or unlawful, not only is this judgement of theirs attended by displeasure and remorse, but the body itself, revolted and sharing the mind’s disgust, falls a prey to the retchings and vomitings of nausea.
[De virt. mor. 4g] But I fear that I shall be thought to be rounding out my discourse with instances which are altogether seductive and exotic, 443 if I recount in full how harps and lyres, pipes and flutes, and all the other harmonious and consonant instruments which musical art has devised, void of soul though they be, accord in songs of both joy and grief, in stately measures and dissolute tunes, with human experiences, reproducing the judgements, the experiences, and the morals of those who use them. And yet they say that even Zeno on his way to the theatre when Amoebeus was singing to the lyre, remarked to his pupils, “Come, let us observe what harmony and music gut and sinew, wood and bone, send forth when they partake of reason, proportion, and order.”
[De virt. mor. 4h] But, letting these subjects pass, I would gladly learn from my opponents whether, when they see dogs, B horses, and domestic birds, through habituation, breeding, and teaching, uttering intelligible sounds and moving and assuming postures in subordination to reason, and acting in a manner conformable to due proportion and our advantage; and when they hear Homer declaring that Achilles
Urged on both horses and men
to battle — whether, I say, they still wonder and are in doubt that the element in us which is spirited and appetitive and experiences pain and pleasure, does, by its very nature, harken to the intelligence, and is affected and harmoniously disposed by its agency, and does not dwell apart from the intelligence, nor is it separated therefrom, nor moulded from without the body, C nor formed by any extraneous violence or blows, but that by its nature it is dependent upon the intelligence and is always in association with it and nurtured together with it and influenced by familiar intercourse.
[De virt. mor. 4i] Therefore, also, ethical, or moral, virtue (ēthos) is well named, for ethical virtue is, to but sketch the subject, a quality of the irrational, and it is so named because the irrational, being formed by reason, acquires this quality and differentiation by habit (ĕthos), since reason does not wish to eradicate passion completely (for that would be neither possible nor expedient), D but puts upon it some limitation and order and implants the ethical virtues, which are not the absence of passion but a due proportion and measure therein; and reason implants them by using prudence to develop the capacity for passion into a good acquired disposition. For these three things the soul is said to possess: capacity, passion, acquired state. Now capacity is the starting-point, or raw material, of passion, as, for instance, irascibility, bashfulness, temerity. And passion is a kind of stirring or movement of the capacity, as anger, shame, boldness. And finally, the acquired state is a settled force and condition being bred by habit and becoming on the one hand vice, if the passion has been educated badly, but virtue, if educated excellently by reason.
[De virt. mor. 5] 5 But inasmuch as philosophers do not make virtue as a whole a mean nor apply to it the term “moral,” E we must discuss the difference, starting with first principles. Now in this world things are of two sorts, some of them existing absolutely, others in some relation to us. Things that exist absolutely are earth, heavens, stars, sea; things that exist in relation to us are good and evil, things desirable and to be avoided, things pleasant and painful. Now reason contemplates both of these, but when it is concerned merely with things which exist in relation to us, it is called deliberative and practical. The virtue of the latter activity is called prudence, that of the former wisdom; and prudence differs from wisdom in that when the contemplative faculty is occupied in a certain active relationship with the practical and passionate, F prudence comes to subsist in accordance with reason.
[De virt. mor. 5b] Therefore prudence has need of chance, but wisdom has no need of it, nor yet of deliberation, to attain its proper end; for wisdom is concerned with things that remain ever the same and unchanging. And just as the geometer does not deliberate 444 whether the triangle has its internal angles equal to two right angles, but knows it to be true (for deliberation concerns matters that are now one way, now another, not things that are sure and immutable), just so the contemplative mind has its activity concerning first principles, things that are permanent and have ever one nature incapable of mutation, and so has no occasion for deliberation. But prudence must often come down among things that are material and are full of error and confusion; it has to move in the realm of chance; to deliberate where the case is doubtful and then at last to reduce deliberation to practice in activities in which decisions are both accompanied by and influenced by the irrational, B whose impulsion they, as a matter of fact, need.
[De virt. mor. 5c] The impulsion of passion springs from moral virtue; but it needs reason to keep it within moderate bounds and to prevent its exceeding or falling short of its proper season. For it is indeed true that the passionate and irrational moves sometimes too violently and swiftly, at other times more weakly and slothfully than the case demands. Therefore everything that we ever do can succeed but in one way, while it may fail in many ways: for to hit the mark there is but one single, uncomplicated, way, yet it can be missed in several ways, according to whether we exceed the mean, or fall short of it. This, then, is the natural task of practical reason: C to eliminate both the defects and the excesses of the passions. For wherever, through infirmity and weakness, or fear and hesitation, the impulsion yields too soon and prematurely forsakes the good, there practical reason comes on the scene to incite and kindle the impulsion; and where, again, the impulsion is borne beyond proper bounds, flowing powerfully and in disorder, there practical reason removes its violence and checks it.
[De virt. mor. 5d] And thus by limiting the movement of the passions reason implants in the irrational the moral virtues, which are means between deficiency and excess. For we must not declare that every virtue comes into being by the observance of a mean, but, on the one hand, wisdom, being without any need of the irrational and arising in the activity of the mind, pure and uncontaminated by passion, D is, as it were, a self-sufficing perfection and power of reason, by which the most divine and blessed element of knowledge becomes possible for us; on the other hand, that virtue which is necessary to us because of our physical limitations, and needs, by Heaven, for its practical ends the service of the passions as its instrument, so to speak, and is not a destruction nor abolition of the irrational in the soul, but an ordering and regulation thereof, is an extreme as regards its power and quality, but as regards its quantity it is a mean, since it does away with what is excessive and deficient.
[De virt. mor. 6] 6 But since a “mean” is capable of various interpretations (for that which is a compound is a mean between the simple uncompounded substances, as grey is of white and black; and that which contains and is contained is a mean between the contained and the container, E as eight of twelve and four; and that which partakes of neither of the extremes is a mean, as the indifferent is a mean between good and bad), in none of these ways can virtue be called a mean, for it is not a mixture of the vices, nor, encompassing what falls short of due measure, is it encompassed by that which is in excess of it; nor is it entirely exempt from the impulses of the passions, wherein are found excess and deficiency. But it is a mean, and is said to be so, in a sense very like that which obtains in musical sounds and harmonies. For there the mean or mesê, a properly-pitched note like the netê and the hypatê, escapes the sharp highness of one and the heavy deepness of the other; F so virtue, being an activity and faculty concerned with the irrational, does away with the remissions and overstrainings of the impulse and its excesses and defects altogether, 445 and reduces each passion to moderation and faultlessness. So, for instance, they declare courage to be a mean between cowardice and rashness, of which the former is a defect, the latter is an excess, of the spirited part of the soul; so, likewise, liberality is a mean between parsimony and prodigality, and gentleness between insensibility and cruelty; and temperance itself and justice are means, the latter distributing to itself in contracts neither more nor less than what is due, the former ever regulating the desires to a mean between lack of feeling and intemperance.
[De virt. mor. 6b] In this last instance, indeed, the irrational seems, with particular clearness, to allow us to observe the difference B between itself and the rational, and to show that passion is essentially quite a different thing from reason. For self-control would not differ from temperance, nor incontinence from intemperance, as regards the pleasures and desires, if it were the same part of the soul that we naturally use for desiring as for forming judgements. But the fact is that temperance belongs to the sphere where reason guides and manages the passionate element, like a gentle animal obedient to the reins, making it yielding in its desires and willingly receptive of moderation and propriety; but the self-controlled man, while he does indeed direct his desire by the strength and mastery of reason, yet does so not without pain, nor by persuasion, but as its plunges sideways and resists, C as though with blow and curb, he forcibly subdues it and holds it in, being the while himself full of internal struggle and turmoil. Such a conflict Plato portrays in his simile of the horses of the soul, where the worse horse struggles against his better yoke-fellow and at the same time disconcerts the charioteer, who is ever forced to hold out against him and with might and main to rein him in,
[De virt. mor. 6c] Lest he let fall from his hands the crimson thongs,
[De virt. mor. 6d] as Simonides has it. That is the reason why they do not account self-control even a virtue in the absolute sense, but less than virtue. For it is not a mean which has been produced by the harmony of the worse with the better, nor has the excess of passion in it been eliminated, nor has the desiderative part of the soul become obedient and compliant to the intelligent part, D but is vexed and causes vexation and is confined by compulsion and, though living with reason, lives as in a state of rebellion against it, hostile and inimical:
[De virt. mor. 6e] The city reeks with burning incense, rings
Alike with prayers for health and cries of woe
[De virt. mor. 6f] even so is the soul of the self-controlled man because of its lack of consistency and its conflict. And on the same grounds they hold that incontinence also is something less than a vice, but that intemperance is a full-fledged vice. For intemperance possesses both an evil passion and an evil reason; under the influence of the former, it is incited by desire to shameful conduct; under the influence of the latter, which, since its judgement is evil, is enlisted with the desires, intemperance loses even the perception of its errors. E But incontinence, with the aid of reason, preserves its power of judgement intact, yet by its passions, which are stronger than its reason, it is swept along against its judgement. That is why incontinence differs from intemperance, for in it reason is worsted by passion, whereas with intemperance reason does not even fight; in the case of incontinence reason argues against the desires as it follows them, whereas with intemperance reason guides them and is their advocate; it is characteristic of intemperance that its reason shares joyfully in the sins committed, whereas with incontinence the reason shares in them, but with reluctance; with intemperance, reason is willingly swept along into shameful conduct, whereas with incontinence, it betrays honour unwillingly.
[De virt. mor. 6g] So also the difference between them is not less manifest in their words than in their actions. F These are, for instance, the sayings of intemperate persons:
[De virt. mor. 6h] What pleasure can there be, what joy, without
The golden Aphroditê? May I die
When things like these no longer comfort me.
[De virt. mor. 6i] And another says,
To eat, to drink, to have one’s way in love:
All other things I call accessory,
[De virt. mor. 6j] 446 as though with all his soul he were acquiescing in pleasures and were being subverted thereby. Not less than these does he who says
[De virt. mor. 6k] Leave me to die, for that is best for me,
have his judgement suffering with the same ailment as his passions.
[De virt. mor. 6l] But the sayings of incontinence are otherwise and different:
A mind I have, but Nature forces me;
and
Alas! from God this evil comes to men
When, knowing what is good, they do it not;
and
The spirit yields and can resist no more,
Like anchor-hook in sand amid the surge.
[De virt. mor. 6m] Here not inaptly the poet terms “an anchor-hook in sand” that which is not under the control of reason, nor firmly fixed, but surrenders its judgement to the loose and soft part of the soul. Very close to this imagery are also those famous lines:
[De virt. mor. 6n] I, like some ship, am tied by ropes to shore,
And when winds blow, our cables do not hold.
[De virt. mor. 6o] For here the poet calls “cables” the judgements which resist shameful conduct and then are broken by passion, as by a great gust of wind. Truly the intemperate man is swept along to his pleasures by his desires with sails full-spread and delivers himself over to them and steers his course directly thither; whereas the course of the incontinent man zigzags here and there, as he strives to emerge from his passion and to stave it off and is yet swept down and shipwrecked on the reef of shameful conduct. Just as Timon used to lampoon Anaxarchus:
[De virt. mor. 6p] The Cynic might of Anaxarchus seemed
Steadfast and bold, wherever he wished, to spring;
Well did he know the truth, they said, and yet
C Was bad: for Nature smote him with desire
And led him back from truth— ‘twas Nature’s dart,
Before whom trembles many a Sophist heart.
[De virt. mor. 6q] For neither is the wise man continent, though he is temperate, nor is the fool incontinent, though he is intemperate. For the wise man takes pleasure in what is honourable, but the fool is not vexed by shamefulness. Incontinence, therefore, is the mark of a sophistic soul, which has, indeed, reason, but reason which cannot stand firm by its own just decisions.
[De virt. mor. 7] 7 Such, then, are the differences between incontinence and intemperance; and again between continence and temperance, these differences being the counterpart of the former. For continence is not yet free from remorse and pain and indignation; but in the soul of the temperate man there is serenity on all occasions, D freedom from violent changes, and sanity, by which the irrational is harmonized and blended with reason, when this is equipped with great persuasion and a wonderful gentleness. And you would say, as you looked at the man,
[De virt. mor. 7b] Then, indeed, ceased the gale; a windless calm
Arose; some god had laid the waves to rest,
[De virt. mor. 7c] since by reason the violent, raging, and furious movements of the desires had been quenched and those movements which Nature absolutely requires had been made sympathetic, submissive, friendly, and, when the man chose a course of action, willing to co operate, so that they did not outstrip the dictates of reason, E nor fall short of them, nor misbehave, nor disobey, but so that every impulse was easily led
[De virt. mor. 7d] As new weaned foal beside his mother runs,
[De virt. mor. 7e] and confirmed the remark of Xenocrates about true philosophers, that they alone do willingly what all others do unwillingly because of the law, even as dogs by a blow and cats by a noise are turned from their pleasures and regard with suspicion the danger that threatens them.
[De virt. mor. 7f] It is quite obvious, then, that there is in the soul a perception of some such distinction and difference as regards the desires, as though some force were fighting against them and contradicting them. F But some affirm that passion is not essentially different from reason, nor is there quarrelling between the two and factious strife, but only a conversion of one and the same reason to its two aspects; this escapes our notice by reason of the suddenness and swiftness of the change, 447 for we do not perceive that it is the same part of the soul with which we naturally desire and change to aversion, are angry and afraid, are swept along by pleasure to shameful conduct, and then, when the soul itself is being swept away, recover ourselves again. In fact, they say, desire and anger and fear and all such things are but perverse opinions and judgements, which do not arise in one certain part of the soul, but are inclinations and yieldings, assents and impulses of the whole directive faculty and, in a word, certain activities which may in a moment be changed this way or that, just as the sudden assaults of children have an impetuosity and violence that is precarious and inconstant because of children’s weakness.
[De virt. mor. 7g] But this doctrine is, in the first place, contrary to the clear evidence of our perceptions. B For no one ever perceives in himself a change from desiring to judging, nor again a change from judging to desiring; nor does the lover cease loving when he reasons that he must restrain his love and fight against it, and then give up again the process of reasoning and judging when he is softened by desire and yields to love; but both while by reason he still continues to oppose passion, he continues in the passion, and again, when mastered by passion, he plainly sees he error by the light of reason: and neither through passion has he done away with reason, nor through reason is he rid of passion, but being borne back and forth from one or the other he lies between them and participates in both. For those who assume now that desire becomes the controlling faculty, C now that it is reason which arrays itself against desire, are in the same position as those who assume the hunter and the beast to be not two, but one and the same body which, by a change, is now the beast, and now becomes the hunter. For just as those persons overlook something quite plain, so these testify against the evidence of perception, which tells us that we have in these cases, not a changing of some one thing, but two things struggling and fighting against one another.
[De virt. mor. 7h] “What then?” they object. “Is it not true that man’s deliberative faculty also is often divided and distracted toward contrary opinions regarding what is expedient, but that it is yet one and the same?’ D “Quite so,” we shall say, “but the process is not parallel.” For the intellectual part of the soul does not here oppose itself, but, using one and the same faculty, applies itself to different lines of reasoning; or rather, there is but one single reason, which functions on things essentially different, as though on different matters. Therefore neither is pain present in reasoning where passion is absent, nor are men forced, as it were, to choose a course contrary to reason, unless indeed some emotion is furtively attached, as it were, to one pan of the balances. This, in fact, happens often: when it is not reasoning that opposes reasoning, but ambition or contentiousness or the pursuit of favour or jealousy or fear that opposes, E we think it is a difference between two reasons, as in the verse:
[De virt. mor. 7i] To refuse they were ashamed, but feared to accept;
and this:
To die is dreadful, yet it brings fair fame;
Not to die is craven, yet there’s pleasure there.
[De virt. mor. 7j] And in the judgement of suits concerning business affairs the passions rush in unawares and cause the greatest waste of time. So also in the councils of kings those who speak to obtain favour are not advocating one or the other of two decisions, but are submitting to some emotion which is contrary to their calculation of what is expedient. Therefore in aristocratic states the magistrates do not allow political speakers to make passionate harangues, for reason, if not influenced by passion, F inclines to a just balance toward what is right; but if passion intervenes, the part of the soul that feels pleasure and pain fights and opposes the part which forms judgements and deliberates. Otherwise, why is it that in philosophical speculations no feeling of pain is present when, under the influence of those who hold different opinions, we change our views again and again, 448 but that Aristotle himself and Democritus and Chrysippus have recanted without any dismay or pain, and even with pleasure, some of the dogmas they previously held?
[De virt. mor. 7k] It is because passion has set up no opposition to the contemplative and scientific part of the soul and the irrational part remains quiet and does not meddle with these matters. Therefore reason, as soon as the truth appears, dismisses the false and gladly inclines toward the truth; for it is in reason, not in its opposite, that the faculty resides which yields to persuasion and, through persuasion, changes opinion. But with most people, their deliberations, judgements, and decisions which are to be converted into action are in a state of emotion and therefore offer obstructions and difficulties to the path of reason, for reason is checked and confused by the irrational, B which, with some emotion of pleasure or fear, pain or desire, rises up to oppose it. In such cases the senses make the decision, since they have contact with both; and if, in fact, one gains the mastery, it does not destroy the other, but forces it to comply and drags it along resisting.
[De virt. mor. 7l] For the lover who admonishes himself uses reason against his passion, since they both exist at the same time in his soul, as it were pressing with his hand the other member, which is inflamed, and clearly perceiving that there are two distinct forces and that they are at variance. On the other hand, in those deliberations and speculations where passion is absent (and these are the sort in which the contemplative faculty most commonly engages), if they be equally balanced, C no judgement has taken place, but merely a perplexity has arisen, which is a rest or suspension of intellectual activity brought about by opposing probabilities; but if the inclination falls to either side, the winning opinion has cancelled the other, with the result that there is no pain nor any opposition left. In general, when it appears that reason is opposing reason, there is no perception of them as two distinct things, but as a single thing which arises in different impressions upon the senses. Yet when there is a struggle against reason on the part of the irrational, which, by its very nature, can neither conquer nor be conquered without pain, straightway the irrational splits the soul in two by its battling and makes the distinction between the two perfectly obvious.
[De virt. mor. 8] 8 It is not only from their dissension, however, but no less from their agreement, D that one can perceive that the source of passion is essentially different from that of reason. For since it is equally possible to love a noble youth, well-formed by nature for virtue, and to love an evil and profligate one, and since it happens that one both becomes angry irrationally against one’s own children or parents, and angry justly on behalf of parents and children against enemies and despots; just as in the one case there is perception of struggle and dissension of passion against reason, so in the other there is perception of persuasion and agreement on the part of passion, which inclines the scales, as it were, in favour of reason and increases its power. Yet again, when a good man has lawfully married a wife, his intention is E to treat her respectfully and consort with her honourably and soberly; but as time goes on, his intimacy with her has given birth to passion, when he perceives that his love and affection increases by the exercise of his reason. So again, when young men happen upon cultivated teachers, they follow them and admire them at first because of their usefulness; but later they come to feel affection for them also, and in place of familiar companions and pupils they are called lovers and are actually so. The same thing happens also in people’s relations to good magistrates in cities and good neighbours and relatives by marriage; for in the beginning they dutifully associate with one another from some consideration of usefulness, but later they are carried unconsciously into genuine affection, reason drawing along, F and aiding in the persuasion of, the passionate element. Is it not obvious that he who said,
[De virt. mor. 8b] And modesty. Two kinds there are: the one
Not bad, the other burdening our homes,
[De virt. mor. 8c] has perceived in himself that this emotion often follows the lead of reason and is arrayed at reason’s side, but often, contrary to reason, 449 by hesitations and delays ruins opportunities and actions?
[De virt. mor. 9] 9 But my opponents, though forced to concede in a manner these arguments because of their obvious truth, yet persist in calling shame “modesty,” pleasure “joy,” and fears “precautions.” No one would blame them for this euphemism if they would but call these same emotions by these soft names when they attach themselves to reason, and call them by those harsher names when the emotions oppose and offer violence to reason. But when, convicted by their tears and tremblings and changes of colour, in place of grief and fear they call these emotions “compunctions” and “perplexities” and gloss over the desires with the term “eagernesses,” they seem to be devising casuistic, not philosophic, B shifts and escapes from reality through the medium of fancy names.
[De virt. mor. 9b] And yet these very men, to cite another instance, call those “joys,” “volitions,” and “precautions” of theirs “right sensibilities to emotion,” not “insensibilities,” in this case using the terms correctly. For a “right sensibility” arises when reason does not destroy the emotion, but composes and sets it in order in the souls of temperate persons. But what it is that happens in the case of evil and incontinent persons when, though their judgement tells them to love father and mother in place of a favourite or mistress, they cannot do this; yet when their judgement bids them to love courtesan and flatterer, they immediately do that very thing? For if emotion and judgement were one, love and hate would follow upon our judgement C of what we ought to love and hate; but as it is, the contrary happens: with some judgements the emotion joins forces, others it disregards. Therefore even those very men affirm, since the evidence forces them to do so, that not every judgement is an emotion, but only that which sets in motion a violent and excessive impulse, thereby acknowledging that in us the faculty of judging and the faculty of feeling emotion are different, in the sense that the one is that which sets in motion, the other that which is moved. And Chrysippus himself in many places, by defining endurance and continence as states which follow the convictions of reason, is obviously forced by the evidence to acknowledge that that within us which follows is different from that which it follows when persuaded, D or, on the other hand, fights against when it is not persuaded.
[De virt. mor. 10] 10 Now if, by positing that all errors and faults are equal, they are in some other way overlooking the truth, this present discourse is not the proper occasion to confute them; but in the case of the emotions they certainly appear to be in opposition to reason and contrary to plain evidence. For, according to them, every emotion is an error, and every one who grieves or fears or desires is guilty of error. Yet there are seen to be great differences in the emotions according to their greater or lesser intensity. For who would declare that Dolon’s fear was no greater than that of Ajax, who “often faced about” and departed slowly from the midst of his enemies, “scarcely changing knee for knee”? E Or that the grief of Alexander, who attempted to kill himself because of Cleitus, was equal to Plato’s grief for the death of Socrates? For griefs are increased immoderately by unpredictable circumstances, and an unexpected occurrence is more painful than one quite likely to happen; if, for instance, one should expect to see someone in prosperity and honour and then should learn that he had been cruelly tortured, as Parmenion did of Philotas. And who would affirm that the rage of Nicocreon against Anaxarchus was equal to that of Magas against Philemon, though they had both been reviled by their opponents? For Nicocreon with iron pestles ground Anaxarchus to powder, but Magas merely ordered the public executioner to place his naked blade on Philemon’s neck F and then to let him go. That is the reason why Plato also called anger “sinews of the soul” on the ground that it is intensified by harshness and relaxed by gentleness.
[De virt. mor. 10b] So to elude these and similar difficulties my opponents deny that these intensities and violences of the emotions come into existence in accordance with the judgement, 450 in which lies the liability to error; but maintain that the irritations, contractions, and diffusions admit of increase and diminution through the operations of the irrational element. Yet there obviously are differences in judgements also; for some adjudge poverty not to be an evil, others to be a great evil, still others to be the greatest evil, so that they even hurl themselves down from precipices or throw themselves into the sea. Some think death to be an evil merely because it deprives them of the good things of life, others because there are eternal torments and horrible punishments beneath the earth. By some the health of the body is cherished because it is in accordance with Nature and useful, to others it appears the greatest good in the world; for neither do they value
[De virt. mor. 10c] Joy in wealth or children.
[De virt. mor. 10d] nor
In that kingly rule that makes man like to gods
[De virt. mor. 10e] in comparison therewith; and finally they think even virtue to be useless and unprofitable if health be not present. Hence it plainly appears that some make a greater, some a lesser, error in their judgements also.
[De virt. mor. 10f] This doctrine, however, need not be confuted at present, but that other point may be assumed from this discussion: that my opponents themselves all concede that the irrational part is essentially different from judgement, the irrational, in accordance with which they say that emotion becomes greater and more violent; their contention is concerning the name and the expression, but they really surrender the point at issue to those who assert that the passionate and irrational element is different from the reasoning and judging. C In his book On the Failure to Lead a Consistent Life Chrysippus has said “Anger is a blind thing: often it prevents our seeing obvious matters, and often it obscures matters which are already apprehended”; and, proceeding a little further, he says, “For the passions, when once raised, drive out the processes of reasoning and all things that appear otherwise than they would have them be, and push forward with violence to actions contrary to reason.” He then uses as evidence the words of Menander:
[De virt. mor. 10g] Ah woe, alas for me! Where ever were
My wits awandering in my body then
When I made choice to do not this, but that?
[De virt. mor. 10h] D And again, Chrysippus proceeds to say that every rational creature is so disposed by nature as to use reason in all things and to be governed by it; yet often reason is rejected when we are under the impulse of some other more violent force. Thus in this passage he plainly acknowledges what conclusion is to be drawn from the difference which exists between passion and reason.
[De virt. mor. 11] Why, it would be ridiculous, as Plato says, for a man to say that he is now better than himself and again worse than himself, and sometimes master of himself and sometimes not. 11 For how is it possible for the same man to be both better and worse than himself, or to be master of himself and at the same time be mastered, if in some way or other each man were not by nature double and had not both the worse and the better within himself? E This being the case, he who holds the worse in subjection to the better is self-controlled and better than himself, but he who permits the better part to follow and be in subjection to the intemperate and irrational part of his soul is called worse than himself and incontinent and in a state contrary to Nature.
[De virt. mor. 11b] For, in accordance with Nature, it is proper that reason, which is divine, should lead and rule the irrational, which derives its origin directly from the body to which Nature has designed that it should bear a resemblance and share in the body’s passions and be contaminated by it, since it has entered into the body and has become merged with it; that this is so is shown by our impulses, which arise and are set in motion toward corporal objects and become violent or relax in keeping with the changes of the body. F For this reason young men are swift and impetuous and fiery in their appetites, and stung by madness, as it were, through the abundance and heat of their blood; but in old men the source of desire, which is seated about the liver, is in the process of being extinguished and becoming small and weak, whereas reason increases more and more in vigour as the passionate element fades away together with the body. And this, of course, is what determines the natures of wild beasts also as regards the passions. 451 For it is not, I presume, by the rightness or wrongness of their opinions the some of them oppose apparent dangers with valour and impetuousness whereas others have helpless flutterings and fears in their souls; but the faculties which control the blood, the breath, and the body in general cause the difference in their affections, since the emotional part springs up from the flesh as from a root and carries with it its quality and composition. But that in man his body is affected and moved together with the impulses of his passions is proved by his paleness and blushing, his trembling and palpitations of the heart, and again by his cheerful and relaxed expression when in hope and expectation of pleasures. B But whenever the intellect acts, not accompanied by emotion but by itself alone, the body remains in repose and at rest, neither sharing nor partaking in the activity of the mind, so long as the body does not have to deal with the emotional element or include the irrational in such activity. Consequently, this fact also makes it plain that there are two parts within us which differ from each other in their faculties.
[De virt. mor. 12] 12 And in general, both as my opponents themselves admit and as is quite obvious, in this world some things are governed by an acquired disposition, others by a natural one, some by an irrational soul, others by a rational and intellectual one; and in practically all these things man participates and he is subject to all the differences I have mentioned. C For he is controlled by his acquired disposition, nurtured by his natural disposition, and makes use of reason and intellect. He has, therefore, some portion of the spring of the irrational also and has innate within him the mainspring of emotion, not as an adventitious accessory, but as a necessary part of his being, which should never be done away with entirely, but must needs have careful tending and education. Therefore the work of reason is not Thracian, not like that of Lycurgus — to cut down and destroy the helpful elements of emotion together with the harmful — but to do as the god who watches over crops and the god who guards the vine do to lop off the wild growth and to clip away excessive luxuriance, and then to cultivate and to dispose for use the serviceable remainder. For neither do those who fear drunkenness pour out their wine upon the ground, D nor do those who fear passion eradicate the disturbing element, but both temper what they fear. It is, in fact, the rebellious kicking and plunging of oxen and horses that men do away with, not their movements and activities; even so reason makes use of the emotions when they have been subdued and are tame, and does not hamstring nor altogether excise that part of the soul which should be its servant. For
[De virt. mor. 12b] The horse is meet for the chariot,
as Pindar says,
the ox for the plough;
But if you think to slay a boar, you must find a stout-hearted hound.
[De virt. mor. 12c] Yet much more useful than these beasts are the whole brood of passions when they are present in the service of reason and help to intensify the virtues: E anger, if it be moderate, will assist courage, and hatred of evil will aid justice, and righteous indignation will oppose those who are prosperous beyond their deserts when their souls are inflamed with folly and insolence and they need to be checked. For who, even if he so wished, could separate or sever from friendship a natural propensity toward affection, from humaneness pity, and from true benevolence the mutual participation in joy and grief? And if those err who discard love entirely because love may bring madness, neither are they right who blame commerce because it may beget covetousness; on the contrary, what they do is somewhat like the action of those who would abolish running because one may chance to stumble, or shooting because one may overshoot the mark, and dislike any singing at all because some sing off key. F For as in the realm of sound musical art produces consonance, not by doing away with the deep low and the shrill high notes; and in the case of the body, medical art produces health, not by the removal of heat and coldness, but by the proportionately quantitative admixture of the two; so in the soul moral virtue is produced when equity and moderation are engendered by reason in the emotional faculties and activities. 452 For a soul possessed of excessive pain or joy or fear is like a swollen and feverish body; it is not so, however, if the joy or pain or fear be moderate. And Homer in his admirable words,
[De virt. mor. 12d] A valiant man will never change his hue,
Nor will his fear be over-great,
[De virt. mor. 12e] does not abolish fear, but excessive fear, in order that the valiant man may have not foolhardiness but courage, not audacity but daring. In his pleasures, therefore, a man must rid himself of excessive desire, and in punishing wrong, of excessive hatred of evil: for in this way he will be, in the former case, not insensible but temperate, and in the latter case, just, not serving nor cruel. B But if the passions could in reality be entirely done away with, in many persons reason would be too inactive and dulled, like a pilot when the wind dies down. It is surely this truth that the legislators also have perceived when they try to put into their constitutions the emotions of ambition and emulation as regards the citizens’ relations to each other, but in relation to the enemy they try to rouse and increase their spirited and fighting qualities with trumpets and pipes. For it is not in poetry only that, as Plato says, he who is inspired and possessed by the Muses renders ridiculous the man who is an artist equipped with exact knowledge of technique, but in battles also the passionate and inspired is irresistible and invincible. C This quality it is that Homer says the gods instil into men:
[De virt. mor. 12f] So did he speak and he breathed great might
Into the shepherd of the people;
and
Not without some god does he
These deeds of madness;
[De virt. mor. 12g] as though the gods were adding passion as an incitement or a vehicle to reason.
[De virt. mor. 12h] Indeed we may see these very opponents of mine often inciting young men with praise and often chastising them with admonitions; and of these, in the first case pleasure is the consequence, in the second pain (in fact, admonition and rebuke engender repentance and shame, of which the first is a kind of pain, the second a kind of fear); and of these methods they make particular use to improve their charges. As Diogenes also remarked, when Plato was being praised, D “What is there so august about one who has spent so much time talking philosophy, yet has never caused anyone pain?” For surely studies could not so properly be called, to use Xenocrates’ words, the “grips of philosophy,” as could the emotions of young men: shame, desire, repentance, pleasure, pain, ambition. On these if reason and law obtain a suitable and salutary grip, they efficaciously set the young man upon the path that he should take. Therefore the Spartan tutor was not wide of the mark when he said that he intended to make a boy entrusted to him delight in honourable and be vexed at dishonourable things. Than this saying there can be shown no greater nor fairer end of such education as befits a free-born child.

## On the control of anger

[De coh. ira 1] 452 1 1 Sulla. A good plan, as it seems to me, Fundanus, is that which painters follow: they scrutinize their productions from time to time before they finish them. They do this because, by withdrawing their gaze and by inspecting their work often, they are able to form a fresh judgement, and one which is more likely to seize upon any slight discrepancy, such as the familiarity of uninterrupted contemplation will conceal. 453 Since, therefore, it is impossible for a man to contemplate himself from time to time by getting apart from himself and interrupting his consciousness of himself by breaking its continuity (and this is what, more than anything else, makes every man a poorer judge of himself than of others), the next best course would be for him to inspect his friends from time to time and likewise to offer himself to them, not to see if he is grown old suddenly or if his body is better or worse, but for them to examine both his behaviour and his character to learn whether time has added some excellence or taken away some vice. As for me, since I have returned to Rome after a year’s absence and this is now the fifth month that I have been with you constantly, BI do not find it altogether surprising that, of the virtues which were already yours by gift of Nature, there has been so great an increment and increase; but when I see that that violent and fiery tendency of yours toward anger has become so gentle and submissive to reason, it occurs to me to say with reference to your temper
[De coh. ira 1b] O wonder, how much milder has it grown!
[De coh. ira 1c] Yet this mildness has brought about no inactivity or feebleness in you, but, like the earth when it has been subdued by cultivation, it has received a smoothness and depth conducive to fruitful action in place of that impetuousness of yours and quickness of temper. For that reason it is evident that the spirited part of your soul is not withering away through any abatement of vigour caused by age, nor yet spontaneously, but that it is receiving the skilful treatment of some excellent precepts. And yet — for I shall tell you the plain truth — when our friend Eros told me all this, CI suspected that he was bearing witness, by reason of his goodwill, to qualities that were not actually present in you, yet should be so in men of breeding, although, as you know, he is by no means the sort of man to surrender his own opinion as a favour to anyone. But as things are, Eros stands acquitted of the charge of bearing false witness, and do you, since our journey gives us leisure for conversation, tell me, as though you were recounting some medical treatment, what remedy you used that you have made your temper so obedient to the rein and tender-mouthed, so mild and subservient to reason.
[De coh. ira 1d] Fundanus. Well, what about you, my generous friend Sulla? Are you careful not to let your goodwill and friendship for me make you overlook some of my real qualities? For since on many occasions not even Eros himself can keep his temper in its place Din that Homeric obedience, but when it becomes too exasperated through hatred of evil, it is reasonable to suppose that I appear more gentle to him, just as in changes of key certain high notes assume the position of low notes in contrast with other high notes.
[De coh. ira 1e] Sulla. Neither of these suppositions is true, Fundanus. Please do as I ask.
[De coh. ira 2] 2 1 Fundanus. One of those excellent precepts of Musonius which I remember, Sulla, is: “He that wishes to come through life safe and sound must continue throughout his life to be under treatment.” For I do not think that reason should be used in one’s cure as we use hellebore, and be washed out of the body together with the disease, but it must remain in the soul and keep watch and ward over the judgements. For the power of reason is not like drugs, but like wholesome food, engendering an excellent state, together with great vigour, in those who become accustomed to it; but exhortations and admonitions, if applied to the passions when they are at their height and swollen, can scarcely accomplish anything at all, and that with difficulty. They are no better than those aromatic preparations which rouse epileptics when they lie prostrate, and but do not rid them of the disease. Yet the other passions, even at their height, do in some sort yield and admit reason, when it comes from without to the rescue, into the soul; but temper does not, as Melanthius says,
[De coh. ira 2b] Shunt off the mind, and then do dreadful deeds,
[De coh. ira 2c] but on the contrary, it shuts out sense completely and locks it out, and just like those who burn themselves up in their own homes, Fit makes everything within full of confusion and smoke and noise, so that the soul can neither see nor hear anything that might help it. For this reason a ship deserted by her crew in the midst of a storm far out at sea will more easily be able to take on a pilot from the outside, than will a man who is being tossed upon the billows of passion and anger 454 admit the reasoning of another, unless he has his own powers of reason prepared to receive it. But just as those who expect a siege collect and store up all that is useful to them if they despair of relief from without, so it is most important that we should acquire far in advance the reinforcements which philosophy provides against temper and convey them into the soul in the knowledge that, when the occasion for using them comes, it will not be possible to introduce them with ease. For the soul hears nothing from the outside because of its tumult unless it has its own reason within, which, like a boatswain who directs the rowers, will promptly catch and understand every order given. Yet if the soul has heard words of advice which have been quietly and mildly spoken, it despises them; and toward any who insist in a rougher fashion, it grows exasperated. In fact, temper is overbearing and stubborn and altogether difficult for anyone other than itself to move, and, like a well-fortified tyranny, must have its destroyer born and bred in the same household.
[De coh. ira 3] 3 1 To be sure, when anger persists and its outbursts are frequent, there is created in the soul an evil state which is called irascibility, and this usually results in sudden outbursts of rage, moroseness, and peevishness when the temper becomes ulcerated, Ceasily offended, and liable to find fault for even trivial offences, like a weak, thin piece of iron which is always getting scratched. But if judgement at once opposes the fits of anger and represses them, it not only cures them for the present, but for the future also it renders the soul firm and difficult for the passion to attack. In my own case, at any rate, when I had opposed anger two or three times, it came about that I experienced what the Thebans did, who, when they had for the first time repulsed the Spartans, who had the reputation of being invincible, were never thereafter defeated by them in any battle; for I acquired the proud consciousness that it is possible for reason to conquer. Not only did I see that anger ceases when cold water is sprinkled on it, as Aristotle says, but that it is also extinguished when a poultice of fear is applied to it. And, by Heaven, if joy comes on the scene, in the case of many the temper has been quickly “warmed,” as Homer says, or dissipated. Consequently I came to the opinion that this passion is not altogether incurable, for those, at least, who wish to cure it.
[De coh. ira 3b] For anger does not always have great and powerful beginnings; on the contrary, even a jest, a playful word, a burst of laughter or a nod on the part of somebody, and many things of the kind, rouse many persons to anger; just as Helen, by thus addressing her niece,
[De coh. ira 3c] Electra, virgin for so long a time,
provoked her to reply,
Too late you’re wise; but once you left your home
Disgraced.
[De coh. ira 3d] And so was Alexander provoked by Callisthenes, who said, when the great bowl was going its rounds, “I do not care to have a drink of Alexander and then have to call in Asclepius.”
[De coh. ira 4] 4 1 And so, just as it is an easy matter to check a flame which is being kindled in hare’s fur or candle-wicks or rubbish, but if it ever takes hold of solid bodies having depth, it quickly destroys and consumes
[De coh. ira 4b] With youthful vigour lofty craftsmen’s work,
[De coh. ira 4c] as Aeschylus has it; so the man who at the beginning gives heed to his temper and observes it while it is still smoking and catching flame little by little from some gossip or rubbishy scurrility need have no great concern about it; on the contrary, he has often succeeded in extinguishing it merely by keeping silent and ignoring it. For he who gives no fuel to fire puts it out, and likewise he who does not in the beginning nurse his wrath and does not puff himself up with anger takes precautions against it and destroys it. I was therefore not satisfied with what Hieronymus says — although he contributes other useful remarks and advice — in the passage where he declares that we have no perception of anger when it comes into being, but only when it has already come into being and exists, the reason being the swiftness with which it acts. For the truth is that none of the emotions, at the time when they are gathering and beginning to move, has a birth and increase so easy to perceive. 455 Indeed Homer also skilfully teaches us this lesson when he causes Achilles to be suddenly overwhelmed by grief on receiving the report, in the passage where the poet says:
[De coh. ira 4d] He spoke, and a black cloud of grief closed round Achilles;
[De coh. ira 4e] but Homer portrays Achilles as being slow to lose his temper with Agamemnon and as becoming inflamed only when many words had been spoken. Yet if either one of the men had held back their words at the beginning and prevented their utterance, the quarrel would not have had so great a growth or have reached such magnitude. That is the reason why Socrates, as often as he perceived himself being moved to too great harshness against any of his friends, betaking himself to coast
[De coh. ira 4f] Before the storm along some promontory,
[De coh. ira 4g] Bwould lower his voice, cause a smile to spread over his face, and make the expression of his eyes more gentle, preserving himself from fault and defeat by setting up within himself an influence to counteract his passion.
[De coh. ira 5] 5 1 For the first way, my friend, to dethrone temper as you would a tyrant, is not to obey or hearken when it bids us cry aloud and look fierce and beat our breasts, but to keep quiet and not intensify the passion, as we would a disease, by tossing about and making a clamour. It is quite true that lovers’ practices, such as serenading in concert or alone and crowning the beloved’s door with garlands, do in some way or other bring an alleviation that is not without charm or grace:
[De coh. ira 5b] I came, but did not shout your name or race;
I merely kissed the door. If this be sin,
Then I have sinned.
[De coh. ira 5c] So too the surrender of mourners to weeping and wailing carries away much of their grief together with their tears. But temper is the more readily fanned into flame by what people in that state do and say.
[De coh. ira 5d] The best course, therefore, is for us to compose ourselves, or else to run away and conceal ourselves, and anchor ourselves in a calm harbour, as though we perceived a fit of epilepsy coming on, so that we may not fall, or rather may not fall upon others; and we are especially likely to fall most often upon our friends. For we do not love or envy or fear everyone indiscriminately, but there is nothing that temper will not touch and assail: Dwe grow angry with enemies and friends, with children and parents, yes, even with the gods, with wild beasts and soulless implements, as Thamyris did:
[De coh. ira 5e] Breaking the lyre-arms, overlaid with gold,
Breaking his melodious, taut-strung lyre;
[De coh. ira 5f] and Pandarus, who invoked a curse on himself if he did not “break with his hands” his bow and burn it. And Xerxes not only branded and lashed the sea, but also sent a letter to Mount Athos: “Noble Athos, whose summit reaches Heaven, do not put in the way of my deeds great stones difficult to work. Else I shall hew you down and cast you into the sea.” For temper can do many terrible things, and likewise many that are ridiculous; therefore it is both the most hated and the most despised of the passions. It will be useful to consider it in both of these aspects.
[De coh. ira 6] 6 1 As for me — whether rightly I do not know — I made this start in the treatment of my anger: I began to observe the passion in others, just as the Spartans used to observe in the Helots what a thing drunkenness is. And first, as Hippocrates says that the most severe disease is that in which the countenance of the sufferer is most unlike itself, so I observed that those who are transported by anger also change most in countenance, colour, gait, and voice, and thus formed for myself a picture of that passion and was exceedingly uncomfortable to think that I should ever appear so terrible and deranged to my friends and my wife and daughters, not merely savage and unfamiliar to their sight, but also speaking with so harsh and rough a voice as were others of my intimate friends whom I used to meet at times when anger had made them unable to preserve their character or bearing or grace of speech or their winning and affable manners. 456 The case of Gaius Gracchus the orator will serve as an illustration. He was not only severe in his disposition, but spoke too passionately; so he caused a pitch-pipe but made of the sort which musicians use to lead the voice up and down the scales to the proper note; with this in hand his servant used to stand behind him as he spoke and give him a decorous and gentle tone which enabled Gracchus to remit his loud cries and remove from his voice the harsh and passionate element; just as the shepherds’
[De coh. ira 6b] Wax-joined pipe, clear sounding,
Drones a slumberous strain,
[De coh. ira 6c] so did he charm and lay to rest the rage of the orator. But as for me, if I had some attentive and clever companion, I should not be vexed if he held a mirror up to me during my moments of rage, Bas they do for some persons after bathing, though to no useful purpose. For to see oneself in a state which nature did not intend, with one’s features all distorted, contributes in no small degree toward discrediting that passion. In fact, those who delight in pleasant fables tell us that when Athena played on the pipes, she was rebuked by the satyr and would give no heed:
[De coh. ira 6d] That look becomes you not; lay by your pipes
And take your arms and put your cheeks to rights;
[De coh. ira 6e] but when she saw her face in a river, she was vexed and threw her pipes away. Yet art makes melody some consolation for unsightliness. And Marsyas, it seems, by a mouthpiece and cheek-bands repressed the violence of his breath and tricked up and concealed the distortion of his face:
[De coh. ira 6f] He fitted the fringe of his temples with gleaming gold
And his greedy mouth he fitted with thongs bound behind;
[De coh. ira 6g] but anger, which puffs up and distends the face in an unbecoming way, utters a voice still more ugly and unpleasant,
[De coh. ira 6h] Stirring the heart-strings never stirred before.
[De coh. ira 6i] For when the sea is disturbed by the winds and casts up tangle and seaweed, they say that it is being cleansed; but the intemperate, bitter, and vulgar words which temper casts forth when the soul is disturbed defile the speakers of them first of all and fill them with disrepute, the implication being that they have always had these traits inside of them and are full of them, but that their inner nature is now laid bare by their anger. Hence for a mere word, the “lightest of things,” as Plato says, they incur the “heaviest of punishments,” being esteemed as hostile, slanderous, and malicious.
[De coh. ira 7] 7 1 When I, accordingly, observe these things, and store them carefully away, it occurs to me to lay up and quite thoroughly remember for my own use that, just as it is a good thing in a fever, so it is an even better thing in anger, to keep the tongue soft and smooth. For if the tongue of men who are sick of a fever is in an unnatural state, it is a bad symptom, but not the cause of their malady; but when the tongue of angry men becomes rough and foul and breaks out in unseemly speeches, Eit brings forth insolence which creates irremediable enmity and argues a festering malevolence within. For unmixed wine produces nothing so intemperate and odious as anger does: words flown with wine go well with laughter and sport, but those which spring from anger are mixed with gall; and whereas the man who keeps silent at a drinking-bout is disagreeable and irksome to the company, there is nothing more dignified, if one is angry, than holding one’s peace, as Sappho advises:
[De coh. ira 7b] When aggression swells within the breast,
Restrain the idly barking tongue.
[De coh. ira 8] 8 1 But it is not these considerations only that constant watching of those who are in the grip of anger furnishes us, but also an understanding of the general nature of ill temper — that it is not well-bred, nor manly, nor possessing any quality of pride or greatness. Yet most people think its turbulence to be activity, its blustering to be confident boldness, its obstinacy force of character; and some claim that even its cruelty is magnificence in action and its implacability firmness in resolution and its moroseness hatred of evil, but they are wrong in this. For the actions and the motions and the whole demeanour of angry persons declare their utter littleness and weakness, 457 not only when they rend little children and rage bitterly against women and think it proper to punish dogs and horses and mules, as Ctesiphon the pancratiast did, who thought it right to kick back at his mule; but also in the butcheries that tyrants perpetrate, their meanness of soul is apparent in their cruelty and their perverted state in their action, and is like the bites of vipers, which, when thoroughly inflamed with rage and pain, eject their excessive fiery passion upon those who have hurt them. For just as with the flesh a swelling results from a great blow, so with the weakest souls the inclination to inflict a hurt Bproduces a flaring up of temper as great as the soul’s infirmity is great. That is also the reason why women are more prone to anger than men, and sick persons than healthy, and old men than men in their prime, and the unfortunate than the prosperous. Most prone to anger, for instance, are the miser with his steward, the glutton with his cook, the jealous man with his wife, the conceited man when he has been maligned; but worst of all are
[De coh. ira 8b] Men who court too eagerly
Ambition in the towns:
Manifest is the pain they bring.
[De coh. ira 8c] as Pindar has it. In like manner from the pain and suffering of the soul, caused generally by weakness, there arises the outburst of passion which is not, as someone has said, like “sinews of the soul,” but like the strainings and convulsions of the soul when it is stirred too vehemently in its impulse to defend itself.
[De coh. ira 9] 9 1 These base examples, to be sure, were not pleasant to observe, but merely unavoidable; but in discussing those who deal with transports of rage in a mild and gentle way I offer instances which are very beautiful both to hear and to witness, and I begin with a word of scorn for those who say,
[De coh. ira 9b] It was a man you wronged: should a man bear this?
[De coh. ira 9c] and
Trample him underfoot, tread on his neck,
And bring him to the ground!
[De coh. ira 9d] and other provocative expressions, by using which some err in transferring anger from the women’s quarters to the men’s. For although courage gets along well with justice in all other respects, yet, as it seems to me, it fights for the possession of gentleness alone, as belonging rather to itself. But although cases do occur in which even baser men gain the mastery over their betters, yet to erect in the soul a trophy of victory over anger (which Heracleitus says it is difficult to contend against: “for whatever it wishes, it buys at the price of the soul”) is proof of a great and victorious strength which possesses against the passions the weapons of its judgements, as in very truth its nerves and sinews.
[De coh. ira 9e] For this reason I always strive to collect and to peruse, not only these sayings and deeds of the philosophers, who are said by fools to have no bile, but even more those of kings and despots. There is, for instance, the remark of Antigonus to his soldiers who were reviling him near his tent in the belief that he could not hear them: he merely thrust out his staff and cried, “Good heavens! will you not go somewhere farther off to abuse me?” And there is the case of Arcadion the Achaean who was always railing against Philip and advising flight
[De coh. ira 9f] Until one comes to men who know not Philip;
[De coh. ira 9g] when Arcadion later visited Macedonia on some chance or other, Philip’s friends thought that he should not be let off but punished. Yet Philip, when he met him, treated him kindly and sent him friendly presents and gifts; and later bade his friends inquire how Arcadion now spoke of him to the Greeks. When all testified that the fellow had become a wonderful eulogist of the king, Philip said, “Then I am a better physician than you.” So in Olympia when Philip was being defamed, and some persons said that the Greeks should smart for it since they spoke evil of Philip though they were being well treated by him, Philip said, “What will they do, then, if they are badly treated?”
[De coh. ira 9h] Likewise admirable was the behaviour of Peisistratus to Thrasybulus, 458 and of Porsenna to Mucius, and of Magas to Philemon. For when Magas had been publicly ridiculed by Philemon in a comedy at the theatre:
[De coh. ira 9i] A. For you some letters, Magas, from the king.
[De coh. ira 9j] B. Unhappy Magas, who no letters know!
[De coh. ira 9k] Magas later captured Philemon, who had been cast ashore by a storm at Paraetonium, and ordered a soldier merely to touch Philemon on the neck with a naked sword and then depart courteously; and Magas sent dice and a ball to Philemon, as to a senseless child, and sent him on his way. So also Ptolemy, when he was jeering at a pedant for his ignorance, asked him who was Peleus’ father; and the pedant replied, “I shall tell you if you will first tell me who was the father of Lagus.” This was a jest at the dubious birth of the king, and everyone was indignant at its improper and inopportune character; but Ptolemy said, “If it is not the part of a king to take a jest, neither is it to make one.” But Alexander had behaved more harshly than was his custom toward Callisthenes and Cleitus. And so Porus, when he was taken captive, requested Alexander to treat him “like a king.” When Alexander asked, “Is there nothing more?” “In the words ‘like a king,’ “ replied Porus, “there is everything.” For this reason also they call the king of the gods Meilichios, or the Gentle One, while the Athenians, I believe, call him Maimactes, or the Boisterous; but punishment is the work of the Furies and spirits, not of the high gods and Olympian deities.
[De coh. ira 10] 10 1 Just as, then, someone said of Philip when he had razed Olynthus to the ground, “But he could not possibly repeople a city so large,” so one may address Anger and say, “You are able to overturn and destroy and throw down, but to raise up and preserve and spare and forbear is the work of mildness and forgiveness and moderation in passion, the work of a Camillus or a Metellus or an Aristeides or a Socrates; but to attach oneself to the wound and to sting is the part of an ant or a horse-fly.” As I study, however, anger’s method of defending itself, I find it for the most part ineffectual, Dsince it spends itself in biting the lips and gnashing the teeth, in vain attacks and railings coupled with senseless threats, and eventually resembles children running races, who, through lack of self-control, fall down ridiculously before they reach the goal toward would they are human. Therefore there was point in what the Rhodian said to the Roman general’s servant who was shouting and talking insolently: “What you say,” said the Rhodian, “matters nothing to me, but what your master doesn’t say.” And Sophocles, when he has armed Neoptolemus and Eurypylus, says
[De coh. ira 10b] Without a vaunt, without reviling, they
Have rushed within the ring of brazen arms.
[De coh. ira 10c] For although there are barbarians who poison their steel, true bravery has no need of bitter gall, for it has been dipped in reason; but rage and fury are rotten and easily broken. At any rate the Spartans use the playing of pipes to remove from their fighting men the spirit of anger, and they sacrifice to the Muses before battle in order that reason may remain constant within them; and when they have routed the enemy, they do not pursue, but sound the recall to their high spirits, which, like small daggers, are manageable and can be easily withdrawn. Yet wrath has slain thousands before its revenge was accomplished, as, for instance, Cyrus and Pelopidas the Theban. But Agathocles endured with mildness the revilings of those he was besieging, and when one of them cried out, “Potter, how will you get pay for your mercenaries?” Agathocles laughed and said, “If I take this town.” And there is the case of Antigonus, who, when some men on the wall of a town jeered at him because of his deformity, said to them, “Why, I thought my face was handsome!” But when he took the town he sold as slaves those who jeered at him, protesting that he would have speech with their masters if they reviled him again.
[De coh. ira 10d] I observe also that both advocates and orators commit serious mistakes because of anger; and Aristotle relates that the friends of Satyrus the Samian, 459 when he was to plead, stopped up his ears with wax, that he might not spoil his case through temper at the insults of his enemies. And as for ourselves, does it not happen often that the punishment of a delinquent slave eludes our power? For slaves are made afraid by threatening words and run away. The words, therefore, which nurses use with children, “Stop crying and you shall have it!” may, not without benefit, be applied to temper: “Stop hurrying and shouting and making haste, and you shall have what you want better and more easily!” For if a father sees his son trying to cut something in two or to make a notch in it with a knife, he takes the knife himself and does it; so likewise, if reason takes upon itself the punishment which temper would inflict, it chastises the person who deserves it safely and harmlessly and for that person’s good, and does not, as temper often does, punish itself instead.
[De coh. ira 11] 11 But however true it is that all the passions have need of a process of habituation, which tames as it were and subdues by rigorous training the irrational and obstinate element of the soul, there is no passion that we can better learn to control by practising on servants than temper. For no envy or fear or rivalry enters into our relations with them, but frequent fits of anger bring about many conflicts and errors, and because of the absolute power we possess, there being no one to oppose or to prevent us, these cause us to slide and fall, since we are, as it were, on slippery ground. For it is impossible that irresponsible power under the influence of passion should be free from error, unless he who wields this power shall encompass it with a bulwark of gentleness, and shall hold out against many pleas of wife and friends, all charging him with laxity and easy-going ways. By such charges I myself used to be very greatly exasperated against my slaves, in the conviction that they were being ruined by not being punished. At long last, however, though late it was, I came to perceive that, in the first place, it is better to make them worse by forbearance than by harshness and anger to pervert my own self for the correction of the others. In the second place, when I observed that many, just because they were not being punished, were often ashamed to be bad, and made pardon, rather than correction, the starting-point of reformation, and, I swear, performed their duties more zealously for the kind of master who gave orders silently with a nod Dthan for the others who used blows and branding-irons, I began to be convinced that reason is more fit than anger to govern. For it is not as the Poet has said,
[De coh. ira 11b] Where fear is, there is also reverence;
[De coh. ira 11c] but, on the contrary, in those who revere there is engendered the kind of fear that corrects behaviour, whereas continual and unmerciful beating produces, not repentance for wrongdoing, but rather the far-sighted cunning to do wrong without detection. In the third place, I always keep in mind and reflect in privacy that he who taught us the use of the bow did not forbid us to shoot, but only to miss the mark, and that the infliction of punishment will not be hindered by our teaching how to inflict it at the right time, with moderation, and in a useful and suitable manner; and, remembering these things, I try to get rid of my anger, if possible, by not depriving those who are to be punished of the right to speak in their defence, but by listening to their plea. For both the passage of time gives a pause to passion and a delay which dissolves it, and also the judgement discovers a suitable manner of punishment and an adequate amount; furthermore, the man who suffers punishment has no pretext left for opposing the correction if punishment is inflicted, not in anger, but after the accused has been proved guilty; and finally, the most shameful thing is avoided — that the slave should seem to be making a juster plea than his master.
[De coh. ira 11d] And so, just as Phocion after Alexander’s death, trying to keep the Athenians from revolting prematurely or believing the report too quickly, said to them, “If, men of Athens, he is dead to day, he will be dead to morrow also, and the day after”; in like manner, I think, the man who, urged on by anger, is in a hurry for vengeance, should suggest to himself, “If this person is guilty of wronging you to day, he will still be guilty to morrow also, and the day after; no harm will be done if he shall be punished somewhat late, but if he is punished in haste he will always be thought to have suffered without offending; and this has happened many times in the past.” For which of us is so harsh that he scourges and chastises a slave 460 because five or ten days ago he overroasted the meat or upset the table or came too slowly at our bidding? And yet these are the very things which cause us to be excited and in a cruel and implacable mood at the moment they happen and are still fresh in our memory. For as the shapes of persons seen through a fog, so things seen through a mist of rage appear greater than they are.
[De coh. ira 11e] These are the reasons why we should immediately call to mind such instances and precepts; and when we are free from all suspicion of passion, if the offence still appears evil to the clear and settled judgement, we should attend to it then and not dismiss or abandon the punishment, as we leave food when we have lost our appetite. And nothing is so much the cause of our punishing in a rage as that, when our anger is over, we do not punish, but leave things alone. We are very much like lazy oarsmen, who during calm weather lie in port, and later, at the risk of their lives, avail themselves of a wind to go sailing. And so do we condemn reason for remissness and softness in punishment and hasten on to the deed rashly and to our peril when anger, like a gale, is upon us. For while a hungry man indulges in food as nature dictates, yet punishment is indulged in by one who is not hungry or thirsty for it, nor does he need anger as a relish to stimulate him to punish; on the contrary, when he finds himself very far removed from the desire to punish, he brings up reason to reinforce him and punishes under compulsion. Aristotle relates that in Etruria in his day slaves were scourged to the music of pipes. But one should not, in that spirit, through a craving for the punishment as for a kind of enjoyment, gorge oneself with it, and rejoice while inflicting chastisement and after inflicting it repent — of these the first is bestial, the second womanish — but without either sorrow or pleasure one should mete out punishment in reason’s own good time, leaving anger no excuse.
[De coh. ira 12] 12 1 However this, perhaps, will not appear to be a cure for anger, but a temporary reprieve and prophylactic against those errors which some men commit in anger. And yet, though the swelling of the spleen is but a symptom of fever, reducing it assuages the fever, as Hieronymus says. But when I contemplated the origin of anger itself, I observed that different persons are liable to anger from different causes; yet in the case of practically all of them there is present a belief that they are being despised or neglected. For this reason we should assist those who endeavour to avoid anger, by removing as far as possible the act that rouses wrath from any suspicion of contempt or arrogance and by imputing it to ignorance or necessity or emotion or mischance. So Sophocles:
[De coh. ira 12b] O king, not even the reason Nature gives
Stays with the unfortunate, but goes astray;
[De coh. ira 12c] and so likewise Agamemnon ascribes the taking away of Briseïs to divine infatuation:
[De coh. ira 12d] I wish again to make amends, to give
You countless ransom.
[De coh. ira 12e] Supplication, indeed, is the act of one who does not despise; and when he that has done an injury shows himself humble, he removes all notion of contempt. But the man in a rage should not wait for such humility, but should take to himself the reply of Diogenes: when someone said to him, “They are laughing at you, Diogenes,” he answered, “But I am not laughed down.” Just so the angry man should not consider himself despised, but rather despise the man who gave the offence as acting from weakness or rashness, carelessness or illiberality, dotage or childishness. But such a notion must not on any account be entertained toward servants or friends; for our servants presume on our upright character, our friends on our affection, and both disregard us, Fnot as being impotent or ineffectual, but because of our reasonableness or our goodwill. As it is, thinking ourselves despised, we not only treat harshly wife and slaves and friends, but also through rage often fall out with innkeepers and sailors and drunken muleteers; we even rage against dogs that bark at us and asses that jostle us, 461 like the man who wished to beat the ass-driver, but when the driver cried out, “I am an Athenian,” indicated the ass and said, “You at any rate are not an Athenian,” and fell to beating it with many blows.
[De coh. ira 13] 13 1 Furthermore it is especially selfishness and peevishness, together with luxury and softness, which beget in us those continuous or oft-recurring fits of anger that are gathered together in the soul little by little, like a swarm of bees or wasps. And so there is nothing more conducive to gentleness and graciousness and simplicity toward servants and wife and friends if a man is able to get along with what comforts he has and is in no need of many superfluities:
[De coh. ira 13b] But he who liked his meat not overdone
Nor underdone, nor medium, nor boiled
Too much; and liked no food enough to praise;
[De coh. ira 13c] who will drink no wine if there is no snow with it, nor eat bread purchased in the market, nor touch food served on cheap or earthenware dishes, nor sleep upon a bed that does not billow like the sea stirred to its depths; he who with rods and blows makes his servants at table hasten about running and crying out and sweating as though they were bringing poultices for boils, Csuch a man is enslaved to an impotent, querulous, and discontented mode of life. His many shocks of anger are like a chronic cough by which he reduces himself to a condition where anger becomes a running sore. We must, therefore, accustom the body to contentment by plain living and to self-sufficiency, for those who need but little are not disappointed of much.
[De coh. ira 13d] And, to begin with our food, it is no great hardship if we partake in silence of whatever is set before us and do not, by being repeatedly choleric and peevish, thrust upon ourselves and our friends the worst sauce for meat, anger.
[De coh. ira 13e] No more unpleasant supper could there be
[De coh. ira 13f] than that wherein servants are beaten and wife is reviled because something is burned or smoked or not salted enough, or because the bread is too cold.
[De coh. ira 13g] Arcesilaüs was once entertaining his friends and with them some foreign guests, and when dinner was served, there was no bread, since the slaves had neglected to buy any. In such a predicament which one of us would not have rent the walls asunder with outcries? But Arcesilaüs merely smiled and said, How lucky it is that the wise man takes to the flowing bowl!”
[De coh. ira 13h] Once when Socrates took Euthydemus home with him from the palaestra, Xanthippê came up to them in a rage and scolded them roundly, finally upsetting the table. Euthydemus, deeply offended, got up and was about to leave when Socrates said, “At your house the other day did not a hen fly in and do precisely this same thing, yet we were not put out about it?”
[De coh. ira 13i] For we should receive our friends affably and with laughter and cheerful friendliness, not with frowning brows, or striking fear and trembling into our servants. We must, further, accustom ourselves to make cheerful use of any kind of table utensils and not to prefer this service to that, as some men do who select one goblet or horn out of the many they have, and will drink from no other, as they relate of Marius. Some have this same feeling about oil-flasks and strigils, of which they have a liking for but one out of many; and so when one of these preferred objects is broken or lost, they take it hard and punish severely. Therefore anyone who is prone to anger should abstain from rare and curiously wrought things, like drinking-cups and seal-rings and precious stones; Ffor their loss drives their owner out of his senses more than do objects which are easily procured and may be seen everywhere. This is the reason why, when Nero had had an octagonal tent built, a huge structure which was a sight to be seen because of its beauty and costliness, Seneca remarked, “You have proved yourself a poor man, for if you ever lose this you will not have the means to procure another like it.” 462 And indeed it did so happen that the ship which conveyed it was sunk and the tent lost. But Nero remembered Seneca’s saying and bore his loss with greater moderation.
[De coh. ira 13j] A cheerful behaviour toward the affairs of life makes a master cheerful and gentle toward his slaves also; and if to slaves, he will evidently be so to his friends as well as to those who are subject to his rule. And in fact we observe that newly purchased slaves inquire about their new master, not whether he is superstitious or envious, but whether he is ill-tempered; and, speaking generally, we see that if anger is present in a home, husbands cannot endure even their wives’ chastity, nor wives even their husbands’ love, nor friends even familiar intercourse with one another. Thus neither marriage nor friendship is tolerable if anger is there, but without anger even drunkenness is easily borne. For the wand of Dionysus suffices to punish the drunkard, unless hot temper is added and makes the undiluted drink a cause of savagery and madness instead of a dispeller of care and an inspirer or the dance. Madness pure and simple can indeed be cured by Anticyra; but if madness is mixed with anger, it produces tragedies and tales of horror.
[De coh. ira 14] 14 1 Surely we should allow no place to anger even in jest, for that brings enmity in where friendliness was; nor in learned discussions, for that turns love of learning into strife; nor when rendering judgement, for that adds insolence to authority; Cnor in teaching, for that engenders disappointment and hatred of learning; nor in prosperity, for that increases envy; nor in adversity, for that drives away compassion when men become irritable and quarrel with those who sympathize with them, as Priam did:
[De coh. ira 14b] Be gone, you wretched, shameful men! Have you
No cause for grief at home that you have come
To trouble me?
[De coh. ira 14c] But a cheerful disposition in some circumstances is helpful, others it adorns, and still others it helps to sweeten; by its gentleness it overcomes both anger and all moroseness. Thus Eucleides, when his brother said to him after a quarrel, “Damned if I don’t get even with you!” answered, “But as for me, may I be damned if I don’t convince you!” and so at once turned him from his purpose and won him over. And Polemon, when a man who was fond of precious stones and quite mad about expensive seal-rings reviled him, made no answer, but fixed his gaze on one of the seal-rings and eyed it closely. The man, accordingly, was pleased and said to him, “Do not look at it in this light, Polemon, but under the sun’s rays, and it will appear to you far more beautiful.” Aristippus, again, when anger had arisen between him and Aeschines and someone said, “Where now, Aristippus, is the friendship of you two?” replied, “It is asleep, but I shall awaken it”; and, going to Aeschines, he said, “Do I appear to you so utterly unfortunate and incurable as not to receive correction from you?” And Aeschines replied, “No wonder if you, who are naturally superior to me in all things, should in this matter also have discerned before I did the right thing to do.”
[De coh. ira 14d] For not a woman only, even a child,
Tickling the bristly boar with tender hand,
May throw him easier than a wrestler might.
[De coh. ira 14e] But we who tame wild beasts and make them gentle and carry about in our arms young wolves and lions’ cubs, then under the impulse of rage cast off children, friends, and companions and let loose our wrath, like some wild beast, on servants and fellow-citizens — we, I say, do not well to use a cozening word for our anger by calling it “righteous indignation,” but it is with anger, I believe, as with the other passions and diseases of the soul: we can rid ourselves of none of them by calling one “foresight,” another “liberality,” another “piety.”
[De coh. ira 15] 15 1 And yet, as Zeno used to say that the seed was a mixture and compound drawn from all the faculties of the soul, so temper appears to be a mixture of seeds drawn from all the passions. 463 For it is drawn from pain and pleasure, and from insolence; and although it has envy’s malicious joy in the ills of others, it is even worse than envy; for the object of its striving is, not that it may itself avoid suffering evil, but that at the cost of suffering evil, it may utterly ruin its antagonist; and the most unlovely kind of desire is innate in it, inasmuch as it is a craving to pain someone else. And that is why, when we approach the houses of profligates, we hear a flute-girl still playing in the early morning, and we see “muddy dregs of wine,” as someone has said, “and mangled fragments of garlands,” and tipsy servants reeling at the doors; but the tokens of savage and irascible men you will see on the faces of their servants and in the marks branded upon them and their fetters.
[De coh. ira 15b] The only music heard within the house
of an angry man
Is wailing cries,
[De coh. ira 15c] and the stewards are being lashed within and the serving-maids being tortured, so that those who witness the anguish caused by anger in gratifying its desires and ministering to its pleasures must feel pity.
[De coh. ira 16] 16 1 However, those of whom it is true that righteous indignation causes them frequently to be overwhelmed by anger should get rid of its excessive and violent form, together with their extreme confidence in those with whom they live. For such confidence more than any other cause increases the spirit of wrath, when, for example, one who has been accounted honourable proves to be base, or one whom we have supposed a true friend quarrels and finds fault with us. As for my own temperament, you doubtless know how strong are the impulses which incline it to be of goodwill toward my fellow-men and to trust them. Consequently, like men who attempt to walk on empty air, the more I give myself up to loving a person the more I go astray, and when I stumble and fall, the greater my distress; and although I may no longer be able to reduce my too great propensity and eagerness to love, yet I may perhaps be able to use Plato’s caution as a curb against excessive trust. For Plato says that he praises Helicon the mathematician in such terms as he uses because man is by nature an animal readily subject to change; and that he does well to fear those who have been educated in the city Dlest, being men and the seeds of men, they may reveal somewhere the weakness inherent in their nature. But when Sophocles says
[De coh. ira 16b] Search out most human traits; you’ll find them base,
[De coh. ira 16c] he seems to go too far in trampling upon and belittling us. This peevish and censorious judgement does, however, tend to make us more considerate in our outbursts of temper; for it is the sudden and the unexpected that throw men off their bearings. But we should, as Panaetius also has somewhere remarked, make use of the precept of Anaxagoras, and just as he, at the death of his son, said, “I knew that I had begotten a mortal”; so on each occasion we should remark with reference to the faults which exasperate us: “I knew that I had not bought a philosopher for a slave,” “I knew that the friend I had made was not incapable of error,” “I knew that my wife was a woman.” And if we keep repeating to ourselves Plato’s question, “Can it be that I am like that?” and turn our reason inward instead of to external things, and substitute caution for censoriousness, we shall no longer make much use of “righteous indignation” toward others when we observe that we ourselves stand in need of much indulgence. But as it is, everyone of us, when we are angry and inflicting punishment, brings out the injunctions of an Aristeides or a Cato: “Do not steal!” “Do not lie!” “Why are you so lazy?”; and — what is most disgraceful of all — while angry we chide others for being angry and punish by rage faults which have been committed in a rage, Fnot like physicians, who
[De coh. ira 16d] With bitter drugs can purge the bitter bile;
but rather make more intense the malady and aggravate it.
[De coh. ira 16e] Whenever, therefore, I have become engaged in these reflections, at the same time I try to do away with some part of my inquisitiveness. 464 For to search out with great precision and detect and drag into the light every little concern of a slave, every action of a friend, every pastime of a son, every whisper of a wife, produces frequent, or rather continual and daily, fits of anger, of which the sum total is a morose and intractable disposition. It may be, as Euripides says, that God
[De coh. ira 16f] Will intervene in matters grown too great,
But small things he lets pass and leaves to Fate;
[De coh. ira 16g] but I am of the opinion that a man of sense should commit nothing to Fate, nor overlook anything at all, but should trust and use for some things his wife, for others servants, for others friends, Bas a ruler makes use of overseers and accountants and administrators, but himself keeps under his own control the most important and weighty matters by the use of reason. For as small writing strains the eyes, so do trifling matters, by causing a greater strain, prick and stir up anger, which become a bad habit that affects more important matters.
[De coh. ira 16h] Accordingly, in addition to all these considerations, I have been wont to regard as great and divine that saying of Empedocles, “Fast from evil,” and to applaud also those other vows made in prayer as being neither ungracious nor inappropriate to a philosopher: to abstain from love and wine for a year, honouring God by continence; or again to refrain from lying for a stated time, paying close heed to ourselves that we shall be truthful always whether in jest or earnest. Then with these I compared my own vow, thinking it no less sacred and pleasant in the sight of God: first, to pass a few days without anger, sober and wineless days, as it were, as though I were offering a sacrifice of honey unmixed with wine; then I would do so for a month or two, and so, making trial of myself little by little, in time I made some progress in my forbearance, continently observing and keeping myself courteous in speech, placid, and free from anger, and pure of the taint of evil words and offensive actions and of passion which, Dat the price of a little unsatisfying pleasure, brings great perturbations of spirit and the most shameful repentance. By such means, I think — and God also gave me help — experience has shown the truth of that judgement: this placid and gentle and humane spirit is not so agreeable and pleasant and free from sorrow to any of those brought in contact with it as it is to those who themselves possess it.

## On tranquillity of mind

[De tranq. an. 1] 464 From Plutarch to Paccius, health and prosperity.
[De tranq. an. 1b] 1 1 It was only very recently that I received your letter in which you urged me to write you something on tranquillity of mind, and also something on those subjects in the Timaeus which require more careful elucidation. And at the same time it chanced that our friend Eros was obliged to sail at once for Rome, since he had received from the excellent Fundanus a letter, which, in his usual style, urged haste. But since I neither had the time I might have desired to meet your wishes nor could I bring myself to let the friend who came from me be seen arriving at your home with hands quite empty, I gathered together from my note-books those observations on tranquillity of mind which I happened to have made for my own use, believing that you on your part requested this discourse, not for the sake of hearing a work which would aim at elegance of style, 465 but for the practical use in living it might afford; and I congratulate you because, though you have commanders as your friends and a reputation second to none of the forensic speakers of our day, your experience has not been that of Merops in the play, and because it cannot be said openly, as of him, that
[De tranq. an. 1c] The plaudits of the mob have driven you
[De tranq. an. 1d] from those emotions given us by nature; but you continue to remember what you have often heard, that an aristocratic shoe does not rid us of the gout, nor an expensive ring of a hangnail, nor a diadem of a headache. For what power is there in money or fame or influence at court to help us to gain ease of soul or an untroubled life, if it is not true that the use of them is pleasant to us when we have them and that we never miss them when we have them not? And how else can this be achieved except through reason, which has been carefully trained quickly to hold back the passionate and irrational part of the soul when it breaks bounds, as it often does, and not to allow it to flow away and be swept downstream because it does not have what it wants? Therefore, just as Xenophon advised that in prosperity we should be particularly mindful of the gods and should honour them, so that, when some need comes upon us, we may invoke them with the confidence that they are already well-disposed and friendly; so also with such reasonings as give help in controlling the passions: wise men should give heed to them before the passions arise in order that, being prepared far in advance, their help may be more efficacious. For as savage dogs become excited at every strange cry and are soothed by the familiar voice only, so also the passions of the soul, when they are raging wild, are not easily allayed, unless customary and familiar arguments are at hand to curb the excited passions.
[De tranq. an. 2] 2 1 Now he who said: “The man who would be tranquil in his mind must not engage in many affairs, either private or public,” first of all makes our tranquillity very expensive if it is bought at the price of inactivity; it is as though he advised every sick man:
[De tranq. an. 2b] Lie still, poor wretch, and move not from your bed.
[De tranq. an. 2c] And yet it is true that a state of bodily stupor is a bad remedy for insanity; but no whit better as a physician of the soul is he who would relieve it of its disturbances and distress by prescribing idleness and softness and the betrayal of friends and family and country.
[De tranq. an. 2d] In the next place, it is also false that those who are not occupied with many things are tranquil in mind. For if that were true, women ought to be more tranquil than men, since for the most part they keep at home; but as it is, the North Wind
[De tranq. an. 2e] Blows not through the soft-skinned maid,
[De tranq. an. 2f] as Hesiod says, yet more pain and excitement and despondency than one could enumerate, caused by jealousy and superstition and ambition and vain imaginings, seep into the women’s quarters. And though Laërtes lived twenty years by himself in the country
[De tranq. an. 2g] With one old woman, who his food and drink
Would place beside him,
[De tranq. an. 2h] and abandoned his birthplace, his home, and his kingship, yet he had grief as an ever-constant companion of his inactivity and dejection. And for some persons, even inactivity itself often leads to discontent, as in this instance:
[De tranq. an. 2i] The swift Achilles, Peleus’ noble son,
Continued in his wrath beside the ships;
Nor would he ever go to council that
Ennobles men, nor ever go to war,
But wasted away his heart, remaining there,
And always longed for tumult and for war.
[De tranq. an. 2j] And he himself is greatly disturbed and distressed at this and says:
But here I sit beside my ships,
A useless burden to the earth.
[De tranq. an. 2k] For this reason not even Epicurus believes that men who are eager for honour and glory should lead an inactive life, but that they should fulfil their natures by engaging in politics and entering public life, on the ground that, because of their natural dispositions, 466 they are more likely to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they do not obtain what they desire. But he is absurd in urging public life, not on those who are able to undertake it, but on those who are unable to lead an inactive life; tranquillity and discontent should be determined, not by the multitude or the fewness of one’s occupations, but by their excellence or baseness; for the omission of good acts is no less vexatious and disturbing than the commission of evil acts, as has been said.
[De tranq. an. 3] 3 1 To those who believe that one quite special kind of life is free from pain, as some do the life of farmers, others that of bachelors, others that of kings, the words of Menander are a sufficient reminder:
[De tranq. an. 3b] BI used to think the wealthy, Phanias,
Who have no need to borrow, would not groan
Of nights, nor tossing up and down would cry
“Ah, woe is me!” but that they slept a sweet
And tranquil sleep.
[De tranq. an. 3c] He then goes on to relate that he observes that even the wealthy fare the same as the poor:
[De tranq. an. 3d] Is there then kinship between life and grief?
[De tranq. an. 3e] Grief’s in a famous life; with a rich life
It stays; with a mean life it too grows old.
[De tranq. an. 3f] But like people at sea who are cowardly and seasick and think that they would get through this voyage more comfortably if they should transfer from their little boat to a ship, and then again from the ship to a man-of war; but they accomplish nothing by the changes, since they carry their nausea and cowardice along with them; so the exchange of one mode of life for another does not relieve the soul of those things which cause it grief and distress: these are inexperience in affairs, unreasonableness, the want of ability or knowledge to make the right use of present conditions. These are the defects which, like a storm at sea, torment rich and poor alike, that afflict the married as well as the unmarried; because of these men avoid public life, then find their life of quiet unbearable; because of these men seek advancement at court, by which, when they have gained it, they are immediately bored.
[De tranq. an. 3g] Through helplessness the sick are hard to please,
[De tranq. an. 3h] for their wives are troublesome, they grumble at the doctor, they are vexed with the bed,
[De tranq. an. 3i] Each friend that comes annoys, that goes affronts,
[De tranq. an. 3j] as Ion has it. But later, when the disease is over and a sounder disposition supervenes, health returns and makes everything pleasant and agreeable: he that yesterday loathed eggs and delicate cakes and fine bread to day eats eagerly and willingly of a coarse loaf with olives and water-cress.
[De tranq. an. 4] 4 1 Such contentment and change of view toward every kind of life is created by reason when it has been engendered within us. Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus discourse about an infinite number of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, “Is it not worthy of tears,” he said, “that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?” But Crates, though he had but a wallet and a threadbare cloak, passed his whole life jesting and laughing as though at a festival. It was, indeed, burdensome to Agamemnon to be lord of many men:
[De tranq. an. 4b] Agamemnon you shall know, King Atreus’ son,
Whom, beyond all, Zeus cast into a mesh
Of never-ending cares;
[De tranq. an. 4c] but Diogenes, when he was being sold at auction, lay down on the ground and kept mocking the auctioneer; when this official bade him arise, he would not, but joked and ridiculed the man, saying, “Suppose you were selling a fish?” And Socrates, though in prison, discoursed on philosophic themes to his friends; but Phaëthon, when he had mounted up to heaven, wept because no one would deliver to him his father’s horses and chariot.
[De tranq. an. 4d] So, just as the shoe is turned with the foot, and not the contrary, so do men’s dispositions make their lives like themselves. For it is not, as someone has said, habituation which makes the best life sweet to those who have chosen it, but wisdom which makes the same life at once both best and sweetest. 467 Therefore let us cleanse the fountain of tranquillity that is in our selves, in order that external things also, as if our very own and friendly, may agree with us when we make no harsh use of them:
[De tranq. an. 4e] It does no good to rage at circumstance;
Events will take their course with no regard
For us. But he who makes the best of those
Events he lights upon will not fare ill.
[De tranq. an. 5] 5 1 Plato, for instance, compared life to a game of dice in which we must try, not only to throw what suits us best, but also, when we have thrown, to make good use of whatever turns up. But with circumstances, though it is not in our power to throw what we please, yet it is our task, if we are wise, to accept in a suitable manner whatever accrues from Fortune and to assign to each event a place in which both what suits us shall help us most and what is unwanted shall do least harm. For those who are without skill and sense as to how they should live, like sick people whose bodies can endure neither heat nor cold, are elated by good fortune and depressed by adversity; and they are greatly disturbed by both, or rather by themselves in both and as much in what is called good as in the bad. Theodorus, called the Atheist, used to say that he offered his discourses with his right hand, but his audience received them with their left; so uninstructed persons, when Fortune presents herself adroitly on their right, often gauchely substitute their left hands in receiving her and cut a sorry figure. But men of sense, just as bees extract honey from thyme, the most pungent and the driest of plants, often in like manner draw from the most unfavourable circumstances something which suits them and is useful.
[De tranq. an. 6] 6 1 This, then, we should practice and cultivate first of all, like the man who threw a stone at his dog, but missed her and hit his stepmother, whereupon he exclaimed, “Not so bad after all!” For it is possible to change the direction of Fortune when she has given us things we do not wish. Diogenes was driven into exile: “Not so bad after all!” for after his exile he began to lead the life of a philosopher. Zeno of Citium had one merchantman remaining; when he learned that this had been sunk at sea and lost with all its cargo, he cried, “Much obliged, Fortune! You also drive me to the philosopher’s cloak.”
[De tranq. an. 6b] What, then, prevents our imitating such men as these? Have you failed in your canvass for an office? You will be able to live in the country and look after your own affairs. Were you repulsed in wooing the friendship of some great man? Your life will be free from danger and trouble. Have you, again, become occupied with matters which take all your time and fill you with cares?
[De tranq. an. 6c] Nor shall hot water so soften the limbs,
[De tranq. an. 6d] as Pindar has it, since high repute and honour conjoined with a measure of power make
[De tranq. an. 6e] Labour pleasant and toil to be sweet toil.
[De tranq. an. 6f] Have you, by reason of slander or envy, become the butt of jeers and cat-calls? The breeze is favouring that bears you to the Muses and the Academy, as it was Plato when he was buffeted by the storm of Dionysius’s friendship.
[De tranq. an. 6g] For this reason it will also help greatly toward tranquillity of mind to observe that famous men have suffered nothing at all from evils the same as yours. Does childlessness, for example, vex you? Consider the kings of Rome, of whom not one was able to bequeath the kingdom to a son. Are you distressed by your present poverty? Well, what Boeotian rather than Epameinondas, what Roman rather than Fabricius, would you have preferred to be? “But my wife has been seduced.” Have you, then, not read the inscription at Delphi,
[De tranq. an. 6h] The lord of land and sea, King Agis, put me here;
[De tranq. an. 6i] and have you not heard that Alcibiades seduced Agis’s wife, Timaea, and that, whispering to her handmaids, she called her child Alcibiades? But this did not prevent Agis from being the most celebrated and the greatest of Greeks. Just as the licentiousness of his daughter did not prevent Stilpo 468 from leading the most cheerful life of all the philosophers of his time; on the contrary, when Metrocles reproached him, he asked, “Is this my fault or hers?” And when Metrocles replied, “Her fault, but your misfortune,” he said, “What do you mean? Are not faults also slips?” “Certainly,” said Metrocles. “And are not slips also mischances of those who have slipped?” Metrocles agreed. “And are not mischances also misfortunes of those whose mischances they are?” By this gentle and philosophic argument he showed the Cynic’s abuse to be but idle yapping.
[De tranq. an. 7] 7 1 But most people are pained and exasperated by the faults, not only of their friends and relatives, but also of their enemies. For abuse and rage on their part, envy and malevolence and jealousy, coupled with ill-will, are the bane of those who are subject to these faults, but it is fools whom they trouble and exasperate — as, for example, neighbours’ outbursts of temper and friends’ peevishness, and certain acts of dishonesty on the part of state officials charged with administration. By these things you yourself seem to me to be disturbed as much as anybody, and like the physicians to whom Sophocles alludes —
[De tranq. an. 7b] With bitter drugs they purge the bitter bile —
[De tranq. an. 7c] so you become angry and bitter against these men and suffer from their passions and infirmities; but this is irrational. For even in the execution of matters committed to your personal care, most of them are in fact administered, not by simple and excellent natures, men naturally suited to be another’s instruments, as it were, but by jagged and crooked ones. Do not, therefore, consider it your business to straighten them out, and it would not in any case be easy to do so. But if — dealing with them as being what they are by nature, just as a physician uses forceps for teeth and clips for wounds — you show yourself as gentle and self-controlled as you can, you will have greater pleasure in your own state of mind than distress at the unpleasantness and villainy of those others, and you will think that they, like dogs when they bark, are but fulfilling their nature; and no longer will you unwittingly gather into this present captiousness or infirmity of yours many grievances, like offscourings which drain into some hollow and low-lying ground, thus letting yourself be infected with the vices of others. For since some of the philosophers censure even pity that is expended upon unfortunate persons, on the ground that it is good to give help to our neighbours, but not to participate in their sorrows nor give in to them; and, what is more important, since these philosophers do not allow us, when we perceive ourselves to be doing wrong and to be getting into a bad state of mind, to despair or be dejected, but bid us cure our vice painlessly, as we should; just consider, then — how can it be anything but irrational to allow ourselves to become vexed and troubled because not everyone who has dealings with us or approaches us is honourable and cultivated? No, my dear Paccius, you must see to it that we are not unwittingly taking a stand in alarm, not at the general wickedness of those we encounter, but at their particular wickedness to us; so our motive would be a selfish interest, not detestation of villainy. For excessive apprehension about public affairs and unworthy appetites and desires, or, on the other hand, aversions and dislikes, engender suspicions and enmities toward persons who were, we think, the cause of our being deprived of some desirable things and of our encountering others which are unpleasant; it is the man who has become accustomed to adapt himself to public affairs easily and with self-control who becomes the most gracious and gentle in his dealings with his fellows.
[De tranq. an. 8] 8 1 Therefore let us resume our discussion of circumstances. For just as in a fever everything we eat seems bitter and unpleasant to the taste, and yet when we see others taking the same food and finding no displeasure in it, we no longer continue to blame the food and the drink, but accuse ourselves and our malady; 469 so we shall cease blaming and being disgruntled with circumstances if we see others accepting the same events cheerfully and without offence. And so it is conducive to tranquillity of mind, in the midst of happenings which are contrary to our wishes, not to overlook whatever we have that is pleasant and attractive, but, mingling good with bad, cause the better to outshine the worse. But as it is, while we turn away our eyes when they are wounded by too dazzling a light and refresh them with the tints and hues of flowers and grass, yet we strain the mind toward painful things and force it to dwell on the consideration of disagreeable matters, Ball but dragging it by compulsion away from those which are better. And yet one might adapt here not inaptly the remark addressed to the meddlesome man:
[De tranq. an. 8b] Why do you look so sharp on others’ ills,
Malignant man, yet overlook your own?
[De tranq. an. 8c] Why do you scrutinize too keenly your own trouble, my good sir, and continue to make it ever vivid and fresh in your mind, but do not direct your thoughts to those good things which you have? But, just as cupping-glasses draw the most virulent humour from the flesh, so you gather together against yourself the worst of your own conditions, proving yourself not a whit better than the man of Chios who sold excellent old wine to everyone else, but tried to find sour wine for his own luncheon; and when one of his slaves was asked by the other what he had left his master doing, he answered, “Hunting bad when good was at hand.” Most persons, in fact, do pass by the excellent and palatable conditions of their lot and hasten to those that are unpleasant and disagreeable. Aristippus, however, was not one of these, but was wise enough, like one who weighs things in a balance, by weighing the bad against the better, to rise above the conditions in which he found himself and thus to lighten his spirits. At any rate, when he had lost a fine estate, he asked one of those who made a great pretence of condoling with him and sharing in his ill humour at misfortune, “Isn’t it true that you have only one small bit of land, while I have three farms remaining?” When the person agreed that this was so, Aristippus said, “Should I not then rather condole with you?” For it is the act of a madman to be distressed at what is lost and not rejoice at what is saved, but like little children, who, if someone takes away one of their many toys, will throw away all the rest as well and cry and howl; in the same way, if we are troubled by Fortune in one matter, we make everything else also unprofitable by lamenting and taking it hard.
[De tranq. an. 9] 9 1 “And what,” someone may say, “do we really have and what do we not have?” One man has reputation, another a house, another a wife, another a good friend. Antipater of Tarsus, on his deathbed reckoning up the good things that had fallen to his lot, did not omit even the fair voyage he had from Cilicia to Athens; so we should not overlook even common and ordinary things, but take some account of them and be grateful that we are alive and well and look upon the sun; that there is neither war near factious strife among us, but that both the earth grants cultivation and the sea fair sailing to those who wish it; that we may speak or act, be silent or at leisure, as we choose. These things when they are present will afford us greater tranquillity of mind, if we but imagine them to be absent, and remind ourselves often how desirable is health to the sick, and peace to those at war, and, to an unknown stranger in so great a city, the acquisition of reputation and friends; and how painful it is to be deprived of these things when we have once had them. For it will not then be the case that we find each one of these important and valuable only when it has been lost, but worthless while securely held. Our not possessing it does not add value to anything, nor should we acquire these things as though they were of great worth and live in fear and trembling as though for things of great moment, lest we be deprived of them, and yet while we have them overlook and despise them as of no value: 470 we should above all take care to use them for our pleasure and enjoyment, in order that we may bear their loss, if that should happen, with greater moderation. But most people, as Arcesilaüs said, think it right to examine poems and paintings and statues of others with the eyes of both the mind and the body, poring over them minutely and in every detail, whereas they neglect their own life, which has many not unpleasing subjects for contemplation, looking ever to externals and admiring the repute and the fortunes of others, as adulterers do other men’s wives, yet despising themselves and their own possessions.
[De tranq. an. 10] 10 1 And yet it is also highly conducive to tranquillity of mind to examine, if possible, oneself and one’s fortunes, but if that is not possible, to observe persons of inferior fortune, and not, as most people do, compare oneself with those who are superior; as, for example, those in prison account fortunate those who have been set free; and they, men born free; and free men, citizens; and citizens, in their turn, the rich; and the rich, satraps; and satraps, kings; and kings, the gods, scarcely stopping short of desiring the power to produce thunder and lightning. Thus, through being always conscious that they lack things which are beyond them, they are never grateful for what befits their station.
[De tranq. an. 10b] I want no wealth of Gyges rich in gold,
Nor have I ever envied him; I am
Not jealous of gods’ works, nor love a great
Kingdom: such things are far beyond my ken.
[De tranq. an. 10c] “But he was a Thasian,” one may say. Yet there are others, Chians, Galatians, or Bithynians, who are not content with whatever portion of either repute or power among their own fellow-countrymen has fallen to their lot, but weep because they do not wear the patrician shoe; yet if they do wear it, they weep because they are not yet Roman praetors; if they are praetors, because they are not consuls; and if consuls, because they were proclaimed, not first, but later. What is this other than collecting excuses for ingratitude to Fortune Din order to chastise and punish oneself? But he, at least, who has a mind filled with salutary thoughts, knowing that the sun looks down upon countless myriads of men,
[De tranq. an. 10d] As many of us as win the fruit of the spacious earth,
[De tranq. an. 10e] if he be less famous or wealthy than some others, does not sit down in sorrow and dejection, but since he knows that he lives ten thousand times better and more suitably than tens of thousands in so great a number, he will go on his way praising his own guardian spirit and his life.
[De tranq. an. 10f] Now at Olympia you cannot win the victory by selecting competitors, but in this life circumstances permit you to take pride in your superiority to many, and to be an object of envy rather than envious of the others — unless, indeed, you make a Briareus or a Heracles your opponent. Whenever, then, you are lost in admiration of a man borne in his litter as being superior to yourself, lower your eyes and gaze upon the litter-bearers also; and whenever you account happy, as the man of Hellespont did, that famous Xerxes crossing his bridge, look also upon those who are digging through Athos beneath the lash, and those whose ears and noses are mutilated because the bridge was broken by the current. Consider also their state of mind: they account happy your life and your fortunes.
[De tranq. an. 10g] When Socrates heard one of his friends remark how expensive the city was, saying “Chian wine costs a mina, a purple robe three minae, a half-pint of honey five drachmas,” he took him by the hand and led him to the meal-market, “Half a peck for an obol! the city is cheap”; then to the olive-market, “A quart for two coppers!”, then to the clothes-market, “A sleeveless vest for ten drachmas! the city is cheap.” We also, therefore, whenever we hear another say that our affairs are insignificant and in a woeful plight because we are not consuls or governors, may reply, 471”Our affairs are splendid and our life is enviable: we do not beg, or carry burdens, or live by flattery.”
[De tranq. an. 11] 11 Yet since, however, through our folly we have grown accustomed to live with eyes fixed on everyone else rather than on ourselves, and since our nature contains much envy and malice and does not rejoice so much in our own blessings as it is pained by those which other men possess, do not look only at the splendour and notoriety of those you envy and wonder at, but open and, as it were, draw aside the gaudy curtain of their repute and outward appearance, and get inside them, and you will see many disagreeable things and many things to vex them there. Thus, when that renowned Pittacus, whose fame for bravery and for wisdom and justice was great, was entertaining some guests, his wife entered in a rage and upset the table; his guests were dismayed, but Pittacus said, “Every one of us has some trouble. He that has only mine is doing very well indeed.”
[De tranq. an. 11b] This man’s held happy in the market-place,
But when he enters home, thrice-wretched he:
His wife rules all, commands, and always fights.
[De tranq. an. 11c] His woes are more than mine, for mine are none!
[De tranq. an. 11d] Many such evils attend wealth and repute and kingship, evils unknown to the vulgar, for ostentation hinders the vision.
[De tranq. an. 11e] O happy son of Atreus, child of destiny,
Blessed with a kindly guardian spirit!
[De tranq. an. 11f] Such felicitation comes from externals only — for his arms and horses and far-flung host of warriors; but against the emptiness of his glory the voice of his sufferings cries out in protest from the very heart:
[De tranq. an. 11g] The son of Cronus, Zeus, entangled me
In deep infatuation,
and
I envy you, old man;
I envy any man whose life has passed
Free from danger, unknown and unrenowned.
[De tranq. an. 11h] By such reflections also, then, it is possible to reduce the violence of our fault-finding with fate, fault-finding which, through admiration of our neighbours’ lot, both debases and destroys our own.
[De tranq. an. 12] 12 1 Further, another matter which greatly interferes with tranquillity of mind is that we do not manage our impulses, as sailors do their sails, to correspond to our capacity; in our expectations we aim at things too great; then, when we fail, we blame our destiny and our fortune instead of our own folly. For he is not unfortunate who wishes to shoot with his plough and hunt the hare with his ox, nor does a malicious destiny oppose him who cannot capture deer or boar with fishing creels or drag-nets; it is through folly and stupidity that such men attempt the impossible. And self-love is chiefly to blame, which makes men eager to be first and to be victorious in everything and insatiably desirous of engaging in everything. For not only do men demand to be at the same time rich and learned and strong and convivial spirits and good company, and friends of kings and magistrates of cities, but unless they shall also have dogs and horses and quails and cocks that can win prizes, they are disconsolate.
[De tranq. an. 12b] The elder Dionysius was not content with being the greatest tyrant of his age, but because he could not sing verses better than the poet Philoxenus or get the better of Plato in dialectic, enraged and embittered, he cast Philoxenus into the stone-quarries, and, sending Plato to Aegina, sold him into slavery. Alexander was not of this temper, but when Crison, the famous sprinter, ran a race with him and appeared to slacken his pace deliberately, Alexander was very indignant. And when the Homeric Achilles had first said,
[De tranq. an. 12c] Of the bronze-clad Achaeans none is a match for me,
he did well to add,
In war; but in speaking others are better than I.
[De tranq. an. 12d] But when Megabyzus the Persian came up to the studio of Apelles 472 and attempted to chatter about art, Apelles shut his mouth by saying, “As long as you kept still, you seemed to be somebody because of your gold and purple; but now even these lads who grind the pigments are laughing at your nonsense.”
[De tranq. an. 12e] But some think that the Stoics are jesting when they hear that in their sect the wise man is termed not only prudent and just and brave, but also an orator, a poet, a general, a rich man, and a king; and then they count themselves worthy of all these titles, and if they fail to get them, are vexed. Yet even among the gods different gods hold different powers: Bone bears the epithet “War-like,” another “Prophetic,” another “Gain-bringing”; and Zeus dispatches Aphroditê to marriages and nuptial chambers, on the ground that she has no part in deeds of war.
[De tranq. an. 13] 13 1 There are, indeed, some pursuits which cannot by their very nature exist together, but rather are by nature opposed to each other; for example, training in rhetoric and the pursuit of mathematics require a quiet life and leisure, while political functions and the friendship of kings cannot succeed without hard work and the full occupation of one’s time. And “wine and indulgence in meat” do indeed “make the body strong and vigorous, but the soul weak”; and unremitting care to acquire and preserve money increases wealth, yet contempt and disdain for it is greatly conducive to progress in philosophy. Therefore not all pursuits are for everyone, but one must, obeying the Pythian inscription, “know one’s self,” and then use one’s self for that one thing for which Nature has fitted one and not do violence to nature by dragging one’s self towards the emulation of now one sort of life, now another.
[De tranq. an. 13b] The horse is for the chariot;
The ox for the plough; beside the ship most swiftly speeds the dolphin;
And if you think to slay a boar, you must find a stout-hearted hound.
[De tranq. an. 13c] But that man is out of his wits who is annoyed and pained that he is not at the same time both a lion
[De tranq. an. 13d] Bred on the mountains, sure of his strength,
[De tranq. an. 13e] and a little Maltese dog cuddled in the lap of a widow. But not a whit better than he is the man who wishes at the same time to be an Empedocles or a Plato or a Democritus, writing about the universe and the true nature of reality, and, like Euphorion, to be married to a wealthy old woman, or, like Medius, to be one of Alexander’s boon companions and drink with him; and is vexed and grieved if he is not admired for his wealth, like Ismenias, and also for his valour, like Epameinondas. We know that runners are not discouraged because they do not carry off wrestlers’ crowns, but they exult and rejoice in their own.
[De tranq. an. 13f] Your portion is Sparta: let your crowns be for her!
[De tranq. an. 13g] So also Solon:
But we shall not exchange with them our virtue
For their wealth, since virtue is a sure possession,
But money falls now to this man, now that.
[De tranq. an. 13h] And Strato, the natural philosopher, when he heard that Menedemus had many more pupils than he himself had, said, “Why be surprised if there are more who wish to bathe than to be anointed for the contest?” And Aristotle, writing to Antipater, said, “it is not Alexander alone who has the right to be proud because he rules over many men, but no less right to be proud have they who have true notions concerning the gods.” For those who have such lofty opinions of their own possessions will not be offended by their neighbours’ goods. But as it is, we do not expect the vine to bear figs nor the olive grapes, but, for ourselves, if we have not at one and the same time the advantages of both the wealthy and the learned, of both commanders and philosophers, of both flatterers and the outspoken, of both the thrifty and the lavish, we slander ourselves, we are displeased, we despise ourselves as living an incomplete and trivial life.
[De tranq. an. 13i] 473 Furthermore, we see that Nature also admonishes us; for just as she has provided different foods for different beasts and has not made them all carnivorous or seed-pickers or root-diggers, so has she given to men a great variety of means for gaining a livelihood,
[De tranq. an. 13j] To shepherd and ploughman and fowler and to him whom the sea
Provides with sustenance.
[De tranq. an. 13k] We should, therefore, choose the calling appropriate to ourselves, cultivate it diligently, let the rest alone, and not prove that Hesiod spoke inexactly when he said,
[De tranq. an. 13l] Potter is angry with potter, joiner with joiner.
[De tranq. an. 13m] For not only are men jealous of fellow-craftsmen and those who share the same life as themselves, but also the wealthy envy the learned, the famous the rich, advocates the sophists, and, by Heaven, free men and patricians regard with wondering admiration and envy successful comedians in the theatre and dancers and servants in the courts of kings; and by so doing they afford themselves no small vexation and disturbance.
[De tranq. an. 14] 14 1 But that every man has within himself the store-rooms of tranquillity and discontent, and that the jars containing blessings and evils are not stored “on the threshold of Zeus,” but are in the soul, is made plain by the differences in men’s passions. For the foolish overlook and neglect good things even when they are present, because their thoughts are ever intent upon the future, but the wise by remembrance make even those benefits that are no longer at hand to be vividly existent for themselves. For the present good, which allows us to touch it but for the smallest portion of time and then eludes our perception, seems to fools to have no further reference to us or to belong to us at all; but like that painting of a man twisting rope in Hades, who permits a donkey grazing near by to eat it up as he plaits it, so insensible and thankless forgetfulness steals upon the multitude and takes possession of them, consuming every action and success, every pleasant moment of leisure and companionship and enjoyment; it does not allow life to become unified, when past is interwoven with present, but separating yesterday, as though it were different, from to day, and to morrow likewise, as though it were not the same as to day, forgetfulness straightway makes every event to have never happened because it is never recalled. For those who in the Schools do away with growth and increase on the ground that Being is in a continual flux, in theory make each of us a series of persons different from oneself; so those who do not preserve or recall by memory former events, but allow them to flow away, actually make themselves deficient and empty each day and dependent upon the morrow, as though what had happened last year and yesterday and the day before had no relation to them nor had happened to them at all.
[De tranq. an. 15] 15 1 This, then, is a matter disturbing to tranquillity of mind; and another, even more disturbing, arises when, like flies which slip off the smooth surfaces of mirrors, but stick to places which are rough or scratched, men drift away from joyous and agreeable matters and become entangled in the remembrance of unpleasant things; or rather, as they relate that when beetles have fallen into a place at Olynthus which is called “Death-to Beetles,” they are unable to get out, but turn and circle about there until they die in that place, so when men have slipped into brooding upon their misfortunes, they do not wish to recover or revive from that state. But, like colours in a painting, so in the soul it is right that we should place in the foreground bright and cheerful experiences and conceal and suppress the gloomy; for to wipe them out and be rid of them altogether is impossible. “For the harmony of the universe, like that of a lyre or a bow, is by alternatives,” 474 and in mortal affairs there is nothing pure and unmixed. But as in music there are low notes and high notes, and in grammar there are vowels and consonants, yet a musician or a grammarian is not the man who dislikes and avoids the one or the other, but rather the man who knows how to use all and to blend them properly, so also in human affairs, which contain the principles of opposition to each other (since, as Euripides has it,
[De tranq. an. 15b] The good and bad cannot be kept apart,
But there’s some blending, so that all is well),
[De tranq. an. 15c] we should not be disheartened or despondent in adversity, but like musicians who achieve harmony by constantly deadening bad music with better and encompassing the bad with the good, we should make the blending of our life harmonious and conformable to our own nature.
[De tranq. an. 15d] For it is not true, as Menander says, that
By every man at birth a Spirit stands,
A guide of virtue for life’s mysteries;
[De tranq. an. 15e] but rather, as Empedocles affirms, two Fates, as it were, or Spirits, receive in their care each one of us at birth and consecrate us:
[De tranq. an. 15f] Chthonia was there and far-seeing Heliopê,
And bloody Deris, grave-eyed Harmonia,
Callisto, Aeschra, Thoösa, and Denaea,
Lovely Nemertes, dark-eyed Asapheia.
[De tranq. an. 16] 16 1 The result is that since we at our birth received the mingled seeds of each of these affections, and since therefore our nature possesses much unevenness, a man of sense prays for better things, but expects the contrary as well, and, avoiding excess, deals with both conditions. For not only does “he who has least need of the morrow,” as Epicurus says, “most gladly advance to meet the morrow,” but also wealth and reputation and power and public office delight most of all those who least fear their opposites. For the violent desire for each of these implants a most violent fear that they may not remain, and so renders pleasure in them weak and unstable, like a fluttering flame. But the man whom Reason enables to say to Fortune without fear and trembling,
[De tranq. an. 16b] Welcome to me if any good thing you bring;
But if you fail, the pain is very slight,
[De tranq. an. 16c] his confidence and the absence of fear that their loss would be unbearable cause him to make most pleasant use of present advantages. For it is possible not only to admire the disposition of Anaxagoras, which made him say at the death of his son, “I knew that my son was mortal,” but also to imitate it and to apply it to every dispensation of Fortune: “I know that my wealth is temporary and insecure,” “I know that those who bestowed my magistracy can take it away,” “I know that my wife is excellent, but a woman, and that my friend is but a man, by nature an animal readily subject to change, as Plato said.” For men of such preparedness and of such disposition, if anything unwished yet not unexpected happens, disdain sentiments like these: “I never should have thought it,” or “I had hoped for other things,” or “I did not expect this,” and so do away with anything like throbbings and palpitations of the heart, and speedily restore again to quiet the madness and disturbance of their minds. Carneades, indeed, reminded us that in matters of great importance it is the unexpected that is completely and wholly the cause of grief and dejection. For example, the kingdom of Macedonia was infinitely smaller than the Roman dominion, yet when Perseus lost Macedonia, both he himself bewailed his own evil genius and every one thought that he had become the most unfortunate and ill-starred man in the world; 475 but Aemilius, his conqueror, handed over to another his supreme command of practically the whole earth and sea, yet was crowned and offered sacrifice and was esteemed fortunate — and with good reason, for he knew that he had taken a command which would have to be relinquished again, whereas Perseus lost his kingdom when he had not expected to do so. And well has the Poet taught us how strong the effect of an unexpected happening is: Odysseus, for instance, shed a tear when his dog fawned upon him, yet when he sat beside his weeping wife, gave way to no such emotion; for into the latter situation he had come with his emotion under control and fortified by reason, but he had stumbled into the former without having expected it, and suddenly.
[De tranq. an. 17] 17 1 And, to speak generally, although some of the things which happen against our will do by their very nature bring pain and distress, yet since it is through false opinion that we learn and become accustomed to be disgruntled with the greatest part of them, it is not unprofitable to have the verse of Menander ever ready against the latter:
[De tranq. an. 17b] No harm’s been done you, if you none admit
[De tranq. an. 17c] (for what, he means, if they touch neither body nor soul, are such things to you as the low birth of your father, or the adultery of your wife, or the deprivation of a crown or of front seats, since when these misfortunes are present a man is not prevented from having both body and soul in the best of condition?); and against those things which seem to pain us by their very nature, as sicknesses, anxieties, and the death of friends and children, we should have ready that famous verse of Euripides:
[De tranq. an. 17d] Alas! — Yet why alas? Our sufferings
Are but what we mortals must endure.
[De tranq. an. 17e] For no reasoning so effectively engages the emotional part of us, when it is being borne down and is slipping, as that which reminds us of the common and natural necessity to which man is exposed through his composite and corporeal nature: it is the only hold he gives to Fortune, while in his most vital and important parts he stands secure.
[De tranq. an. 17f] When Demetrius took the Megarians’ city, he asked Stilpo if any of his possessions had been plundered. And Stilpo said, “I saw no one carrying off my property.” And therefore when Fortune plunders and strips us of everything else, we have something within ourselves of the sort that
[De tranq. an. 17g] Achaeans could never harry or plunder.
[De tranq. an. 17h] Therefore we should not altogether debase and depreciate Nature in the belief that she has nothing strong, stable, and beyond the reach of Fortune, but, on the contrary, since we know that the corrupt and perishable part of man wherein he lies open to Fortune is small, and that we ourselves are masters of the better part, in which the greatest of our blessings are situated — right opinions and knowledge and the exercise of reason terminating in the acquisition of virtue, all of which have their being inalienable and indestructible — knowing all this, we should face the future undaunted and confident and say to Fortune what Socrates, when he was supposed to be replying to his accusers, was really saying to the jury, “Anytus and Meletus are able to take away my life, but they cannot hurt me.” Fortune, in fact, can encompass us with sickness, take away our possessions, slander us to people or despot; but she cannot make the good and valiant and high-souled man base or cowardly, mean, ignoble, or envious, nor can she deprive us of that disposition, the constant presence of which is of more help in facing life than is a pilot in facing the sea. For a pilot cannot calm a savage wave or a wind, nor can he find a harbour wherever he wishes at need, nor can he await the event confidently and without trembling; as long as he has not despaired, making use of his skill,
[De tranq. an. 17i] With the mainsail dropped to the lower mast
He flees from the murky sea,
[De tranq. an. 17j] 476 whereas when the sea towers over him, he sits there quaking and trembling. But the disposition of the wise man yields the highest degree of calm to his bodily affections, destroying by means of self-control, temperate diet, and moderate exertion the conditions leading to disease; even if the beginning of some evil comes from without, “he rides it out with light and well-furled sail,” as Asclepiades has it, just as one passes through a storm. But if some great unforeseen disaster comes upon him and masters him, the harbour is close at hand and he may swim away from his body, as from a leaky boat.
[De tranq. an. 18] 18 1 For it is the fear of death, not the desire for life, which makes the fool dependent on his body, clinging to it as Odysseus did to the fig-tree through fear of Charybdis below,
[De tranq. an. 18b] Where breezes let him neither stay nor sail,
[De tranq. an. 18c] so that he is displeased at this and fearful of that. But he who understands somehow or other the nature of the soul and reflects that the change it undergoes at death will be for the better, or at least not for the worse, has no small provision to secure tranquillity of mind for facing life — fearlessness towards death. For he who can live pleasantly when the agreeable and congenial part of life is in the ascendant, but when alien and unnatural principles prevail, can depart fearlessly, saying,
[De tranq. an. 18d] The god himself shall free me, when I will,
[De tranq. an. 18e] what can we imagine might befall such a man as this that would vex or trouble or disturb him? For he who said, “I have anticipated you, Fortune, and taken from you every entry whereby you might get at me,” encouraged himself, not with bolts or keys or battlements, but by precepts and reasoning in which everyone who desires may share. And one must not despair or disbelieve any of these arguments, but should admire and emulate them and, being filled with their inspiration, make trial of oneself and observe oneself in smaller matters with a view to the greater, not avoiding or rejecting from the soul the care of these things, nor taking refuge in the remark, “Perhaps nothing will be more difficult than this.” For languor and flabby softness are implanted by that self-indulgence of the soul which ever occupies itself with the easiest way, and retreats from the undesirable to what is most pleasant. But the soul which endeavours, by study and the severe application of its powers of reasoning, to form an idea of what sickness, suffering, and exile really are will find much that is false and empty and corrupt in what appears to be difficult and fearful, as the reason shows in each particular.
[De tranq. an. 19] 19 1 And yet many shudder even at the verse of Menander,
No man alive may say, “I shall not suffer this,”
[De tranq. an. 19b] since they do not know how much it helps in warding off grief to be able by practice and study to look Fortune in the face with eyes open, and not to manufacture in oneself “smooth, soft” fancies, like one reared in the shade of many hopes which ever yield and hold firm against nothing. We can, however, make this reply to Menander: “True,
[De tranq. an. 19c] No man alive may say, ‘I shall not suffer this,’
[De tranq. an. 19d] yet while still alive one can say, ‘I will not do this: I will not lie nor play the villain nor defraud nor scheme.’ “ For this is in our power and is not a small, but a great help toward tranquillity of mind. Even as, on the contrary again,
[De tranq. an. 19e] My conscience, since I know I’ve done a dreadful deed,
[De tranq. an. 19f] like an ulcer in the flesh, leaves behind it in the soul regret which ever continues to wound and prick it. For the other pangs reason does away with, but regret is caused by reason itself, since the soul, together with its feeling of shame, is stung and chastised by itself. 477 For as those who shiver with ague or burn with fevers are more distressed and pained than those who suffer the same discomforts through heat or cold from a source outside the body, so the pangs which fortune brings, coming, as it were, from a source without, are lighter to bear; but that lament,
[De tranq. an. 19g] None is to blame for this but me myself,
[De tranq. an. 19h] which is chanted over one’s errors, coming as it does from within, makes the pain even heavier by reason of the disgrace one feels. And so it is that no costly house nor abundance of gold nor pride of race nor pomp of office, no grace of language, no eloquence, impart so much calm and serenity to life as does a soul free from evil acts and purposes and possessing an imperturbable and undefiled character as the source of its life, a source whence flow fair actions which have both an inspired and joyous activity joined with a lofty pride therein, and a memory sweeter and more stable than that hope of Pindar’s which sustains old age. For do not censers, as Carneades said, even if they have been completely emptied, retain their fragrance for a long time, and in the soul of the wise man do not fair actions leave behind the remembrance of them eternally delightful and fresh, by which joy in them is watered and flourishes, and he comes to despise those who bewail and abuse life as a land of calamities or a place of exile appointed here for our souls?
[De tranq. an. 20] 20 1 And I am delighted with Diogenes, who, when he saw his host in Sparta preparing which much ado for a certain festival, said, “Does not a good man consider every day a festival?” and a very splendid one, to be sure, if we are sound of mind. For the universe is a most holy temple and most worthy of a god; into it man is introduced through birth as a spectator, not of hand-made or immovable images, but of those sensible representations of knowable things that the divine mind, says Plato, has revealed, representations which have innate within themselves the beginnings of life and motion, sun and moon and stars, rivers which ever discharge fresh water, and earth which sends forth nourishment for plants and animals. Since life is a most perfect initiation into these things and a ritual celebration of them, it should be full of tranquillity and joy, and not in the manner of the vulgar, who wait for the festivals of Cronus and of Zeus and the Panathenaea and other days of the kind, at which to enjoy and refresh themselves, paying the wages of hired laughter to mimes and dancers. It is true that we sit there on those occasions decorously in reverent silence, for no one wails while he is being initiated or laments as he watches the Pythian games or as he drinks at the festival of Cronus; but by spending the greater part of life in lamentation and heaviness of heart and carking cares men shame the festivals with which the god supply us and in which he initiates us. And though men delight in sweetly sounding instruments and singing birds, and take pleasure in seeing animals romping and frisking, and, on the contrary, are displeased when they howl and bellow and look fierce; yet though they see that their own life is unsmiling and dejected and ever oppressed and afflicted by the most unpleasant experiences and troubles and unending cares, F]they not only do not provide themselves with some alleviation or ease — from what source could they do so? — but even when others urge them, they do not accept a word of admonition by following which they would acquiesce in the present without fault-finding, remember the past with thankfulness, and meet the future without fear or suspicion, with their hopes cheerful and bright.

## On brotherly love - De fraterno amore

[De frat. am. 1] 478 1 1 The ancient representations of the Dioscuri are called by the Spartans “beam-figures”: they consist of two parallel wooden beams joined by two other transverse beams placed across them; and this common and indivisible character of the offering appears entirely suitable to the brotherly love of these gods. In like manner do I also dedicate this treatise On Brotherly Love to you, Nigrinus and Quietus, a joint gift for you both who well deserve it. For as to the exhortations this essay contains, since you are already putting them into practice, you will seem to be giving your testimony in their favour rather than to be encouraged to perform them; and the pleasure you will take in acts which are right will make the perseverance of your judgement more firm, inasmuch as your acts will win approval before spectators, so to speak, who are honourable and devoted to virtue.
[De frat. am. 1b] Now Aristarchus, the father of Theodectes, by way of jeering at the crowd of sophists, used to say that in the old days there were barely seven Sophists, but that in his own day an equally large number of non-sophists could not easily be found. And according to my observation, brotherly love is as rare in our day as brotherly hatred was among the men of old; when instances of such hatred appeared, they were so amazing that the times made them known to all as warning examples in tragedies and other stage-performances; but all men of to day, when they encounter brothers who are good to each other, wonder at them no less than at those famous sons of Molionê, who, according to common belief, were born with their bodies grown together; and to use in common a father’s wealth and friends and slaves is considered as incredible and portentous Das for one soul to make use of the hands and feet and eyes of two bodies.
[De frat. am. 2] 2 1 And yet the illustration of such common use by brothers Nature has placed at no great distance from us; on the contrary, in the body itself she has contrived to make most of the necessary parts double and brothers and twins: hands, feet, eyes, ears, nostrils; and she has thus taught us that she has divided them in this fashion for mutual preservation and assistance, not for variance and strife. And when she separated the very hands into a number of unequal fingers, she supplied men with the most accurate and skilful of instruments, so that Anaxagoras of old assigned the reason for man’s wisdom and intelligence to his having hands. The contrary of this, however, seems to be true: it is not because man acquired hands that he is wisest of animals; it is because by nature he was endowed with reason and skill that he acquired instruments of a nature adapted to these powers. And this fact is obvious to everyone: Nature from one seed and one source has created two brothers, or three, or more, not for difference and opposition to each other, but that by being separate they might the more readily co-operate with one another. For indeed creatures that had three bodies and an hundred hands, if any such were ever really born, being joined together in all their members, could do nothing independently and apart from one another, as may brothers, who can either remain at home or reside abroad, as well as undertake public office and husbandry through each other’s help if they but preserve that principle of goodwill and concord which Nature has given them. But if they do not, they will differ not at all, I think, from feet which trip up one another and fingers which are unnaturally entwined and twisted by each other. But rather, just as in the same body 479 the combination of moist and dry, cold and hot, sharing one nature and diet, by their consent and agreement engender the best and most pleasant temperament and bodily harmony — without which, they say, there is not any joy or profit either “in wealth” or
[De frat. am. 2b] In that kingly rule which makes men
Like to gods —
[De frat. am. 2c] but if overreaching and factious strife be engendered in them, they corrupt and destroy the animal most shamefully; so through the concord of brothers both family and household are sound and flourish, and friends and intimates, like an harmonious choir, neither do say, nor think, anything discordant;
[De frat. am. 2d] Even the base wins honour in a feud:
[De frat. am. 2e] slandering servant, or a flatterer who slips in from outside, or a malignant citizen. For as diseases in bodies which cannot accept their proper diet engender cravings for many strange and harmful foods, so slander and suspicion entertained against kinsmen ushers in evil and pernicious associations which flow in from outside to fill the vacant room.
[De frat. am. 3] 3 1 It is true that the Arcadian prophet of necessity manufactured for himself, according to Herodotus, a wooden foot, deprived as he was of his own; but the man who quarrels with his brother, and takes as his comrade a stranger from the market-place or the wrestling-floor, appears to be doing nothing but cutting off voluntary a limb of his own flesh and blood, and taking to himself and joining to his body an extraneous member. Indeed it is our very need, which welcomes and seeks friendship and comradeship, that teaches us to honor and cherish and keep our kin, since we are unable and unfitted by Nature to live friendless, unsocial, hermits’ lives. Wherefore Menander rightly says,
[De frat. am. 3b] Not from drink or from daily revelling
Do we seek one to whom we may entrust
Our life, father. Do we not think we’ve found
Great good in but the shadow of a friend?
[De frat. am. 3c] For most friendships are in reality shadows and imitations of that first friendship which Nature implanted in children toward parents and in brothers toward brothers; and as for the man who does not reverence or honour this friendship, can he give any pledge of goodwill to strangers? Or what sort of man is he who addresses his comrade as “brother” in salutations and letters, but does not care even to walk with his own brother when they are going the same way? For as it is the act of a madman to adorn the effigy of a brother and at the same time to beat and mutilate the brother’s body, even so to reverence and honour the name “brother” in others, but to hate and shun the person himself, is the act of one who is not sane and has never yet got it into his head that Nature is the most holy and great of sacred things.
[De frat. am. 4] 4 1 EI remember, for instance, that in Rome I undertook to arbitrate between two brothers, of whom one had the reputation of being a philosopher. But he was, as it appears, not only as a brother but also as a philosopher, masquerading under a false name and appellation; for when I asked him to conduct himself as brother to brother and as philosopher to layman, “What you say,” said he, “as to his being a layman, is correct, but I account it no momentous or important matter to have sprung from the same loins.” “As for you,” said I, “it is obvious that you consider it no important or momentous matter to have sprung from any loins at all.” But certainly all other philosophers, even if they do not think so, at least do affirm with constant iteration that both Nature and the Law, which upholds Nature, have assigned to parents, after gods, first and greatest honour; and there is nothing which men do that is more acceptable to gods than with goodwill and zeal to repay to those who bore them and brought them up the favours “long ago lent to them when they were young.” Nor is there, again, a greater exhibition of an impious nature than neglect of parents or offences against them. 480 Therefore, while we are forbidden to do wrong to all others, yet to our mother and father, if we do not always afford, both in deed and in word, matter for their pleasure, even if offence be not present, men consider it unholy and unlawful. Hence what deed or favour or disposition, which children may show toward their parents, can give more pleasure than steadfast goodwill and friendship toward a brother?
[De frat. am. 5] 5 1 And surely this fact is quite easy to perceive from the contrary. For when we observe that parents are grieved by sons who maltreat a servant honoured by mother and father, and neglect plants or farm-lands in which their parents took delight, and that remissness in caring for some house-dog or horse hurts elderly persons who feel a jealous affection for them; and when, again, we observe that parents are vexed when their children disparage and hiss at concerts and spectacles and athletes all of which they themselves used to admire; when we observe these things, is it reasonable to suppose that parents are indifferent when sons quarrel, hate and malign each other, and array themselves ever against each other’s interests and actives, and are finally ruined by each other? No one can say that the parents are indifferent. Hence when, on the other hand, brothers love and feel affection for each other, and, in so far as Nature has made them separate in their bodies, so far do they become united in their emotions and actions, and share with each other their studies and recreations and games, then they have made their brotherly love a sweet and blessed “sustainer of old age” for their parents. For no father is so fond of oratory or of honour or of riches as he is of his children; therefore fathers do not find such pleasure in seeing their sons gaining a reputation as orators, acquiring wealth, or holding office as in seeing that they love one another. So they report of Apollonis of Cyzicus, mother of King Eumenes and three other sons, Attalus and Philetaerus and Athenaeus, that she always congratulated herself and gave thanks to the gods, not because of wealth or empire, but because she saw her three sons members of the body-guard of the eldest, who passed his days without fear surrounded by brothers with swords and spears in their hands. So again, on the contrary, when Artaxerxes perceived that his son Ochus had plotted against his brothers, he despaired and died.
[De frat. am. 5b] For cruel are the wars of brothers,
[De frat. am. 5c] as Euripides says, and they are cruellest of all to the parents themselves. For he that hates his own brother and is angry with him cannot refrain from blaming the father that begat and the mother that bore such a brother.
[De frat. am. 6] 6 1 So Peisistratus, marrying for a second time when his sons were full grown, said that because he considered them to be honourable and good he wished to become the father of more children like them. Excellent and just sons will not only love each other the more because of their parents, but will also love their parents the more because of each other; so will they always both think and say that, though they owe their parents gratitude for many favours, it is most of all for their brothers that they owe it, since these are truly the most precious and delightful of all the possessions they have received from them. Well indeed has Homer also depicted Telemachus as reckoning his brotherless condition a misfortune:
[De frat. am. 6b] The son of Cronus thus has doomed our race
To have one son alone.
[De frat. am. 6c] But Hesiod does not well in advising “an only son” to inherit his father’s estate — and that too when he was himself a pupil of the Muses, who, in fact, received this name just because they were “always together” (homou ousas) in concord and sisterly affection.
[De frat. am. 6d] Now, as regards parents, brotherly love is of such sort that to love one’s brother is forthwith a proof of love for both mother and father; and again, as regards children, for them there is no lesson and example comparable to brotherly love on their father’s part. And, on the other hand, the contrary is a bad example for children who inherit, as from a father’s testament, his hatred of brothers. 481 For a man who has grown old in law-suits and quarrels and contentions with his brothers, and then exhorts his children to concord,
[De frat. am. 6e] Healer of others, full of sores himself,
[De frat. am. 6f] weakens the force of his words by his own actions. If, at any rate, Eteocles of Thebes had said with reference to his brother,
[De frat. am. 6g] To where the sun and stars rise would I go,
And plunge beneath the earth — if this I could —
To hold Dominion, greatest of the gods,
and then had proceeded to exhort his own children,
Revere Equality, which ever binds
Friend to friend, state to state, allies unto
Allies: Nature made equal rights secure,
[De frat. am. 6h] who would not have despised him? And what sort of man would Atreus have been, if, after serving his brother that dinner, he had then proceeded to preach to his own children:
[De frat. am. 6i] And yet the use of friends, fast joined with ties
Of blood, alone brings help when troubles flow?
[De frat. am. 7] 7 1 Therefore it is fitting to cleanse away completely hatred of brothers, which is both an evil sustainer of parents in their old age and a worse nurturer of children in their youth. And it is also a cause of slander and accusations against such brothers; for their fellow-citizens think that, after having been so closely bound together by their common education, their common life together, and their censorship, brothers could not have become deadly enemies unless each were aware of many wicked deeds committed by the other. There must be, they infer, great reasons for the breaking-up of a great goodwill and affection. For this reason it is not easy to effect a reconciliation of brothers; for just as things which have been joined together, even if the glue becomes loose, may be fastened together again and become united, yet if a body which has grown together is broken or split, it is difficult to find means of welding or joining it; so friendships knitted together through long familiarity, even though the friends part company, can be easily resumed again, but when brothers have once broken the bonds of Nature, they cannot readily come together, and even if they do, their reconciliation bears with it a filthy hidden sore of suspicion. Or rather, every enmity between man and man which steals into the heart in company with the most painful emotions — contentiousness, anger, envy, remembrance of wrongs — causes pain and perturbation of mind; but when that enmity is toward a brother, with whom it is necessary to share sacrifices and the family’s sacred rites, to occupy the same sepulchre, and in life, perhaps, the same or a neighbouring habitation — such an enmity keeps the painful situation ever before our eyes, and reminds us every day of the madness and folly which has made the sweetest countenance of the nearest kinsman become most frowning and angry to look upon, and that voice which has been beloved and familiar from boyhood most dreadful to hear. And though they see many other examples of brothers using the same house and table and undistributed estates and slaves, yet they alone maintain different sets of friends and guests, considering as hostile everything dear to their brothers — and that too though all the world may readily reflect that while friends and relatives by marriage may be “taken as booty,” and relatives by marriage and familiars may be “obtained” when the old ones, like arms or implements, have been lost, yet the acquisition of another brother is impossible, as is that of a new hand when one has been removed or that of a new eye when one has been knocked out; rightly, then, did the Persian woman declare, when she chose to save her brother in place of her children, that she could get other children, but not another brother, since her parents were dead.
[De frat. am. 8] 8 1 “What then,” someone will say, “must one who has a bad brother do?” We must remember this first of all: badness can lay hold on every kind of friendship; and, according to Sophocles,
[De frat. am. 8b] Search out most human traits: you’ll find them base.
[De frat. am. 8c] For it is impossible to discover that our relations with relatives or comrades or lovers are unmixed with baseness, free from passion, or pure from evil. So the Spartan, when he married a little wife, 482 said that of evils one should choose the least; but brothers one would prudently advise to put up with the evils with which they are most familiar rather than to make trial of unfamiliar ones; for the former procedure as being necessary brings no reproach, but the latter is blameworthy because voluntary. No boon-companion or comrade-in arms or guest
[De frat. am. 8d] Is yoked in honour’s bonds not forged by man,
[De frat. am. 8e] but he is who is of the same blood and upbringing, and born of the same father and mother. For such a kinsman it is altogether fitting to concede and allow some faults, saying to him when he errs,
[De frat. am. 8f] “I cannot leave you in your wretchedness
[De frat. am. 8g] and trouble and folly, lest I might, unwittingly, punish harshly and bitterly, because I hate it, some ailment instilled into you from the seed of father or mother.” For, as Theophrastus said, we must not grow to love those not of our blood and then judge them, but judge them first and love them later; but where Nature does not commit the initiative to judgement in conceiving goodwill toward another nor wait for the proverbial bushel of salt, but has begotten with the child at its birth the principle of love, in that case there should be no harsh nor strict censors of his faults. But as it is, what would you say of those who sometimes readily put up with the wrongdoings of strangers and men of no kin to themselves, men picked up at some drinking-bout or play-ground or wrestling-floor, and take pleasure in their company, yet are peevish and inexorable toward their own brothers? Why some even breed and grow fond of savage dogs and horses, and many people do so with lynxes and cats, monkeys and lions, yet cannot endure their brothers’ rages or stupidities or ambitions; still others make over their houses and property to concubines and harlots, yet fight it out in a duel with their brothers over a site for a building or a corner of property; and finally, giving the name of “hatred of evil” to their hatred of their brothers, they stalk about pompously, accusing and reviling the wickedness in their brothers; yet in others they take no offence at this same quality, but frequently resort to them and are often in their company.
[De frat. am. 9] 9 1 Let this, then, serve as a preamble to my whole discourse. But as the starting-point of my admonitions, let us take, not the division of the father’s goods, as other writers do, but the misguided quarrels and jealousy of the children while the parents are yet alive. The ephors, when Agesilaüs used to send an ox as a mark of distinguished service to each member of the gerousia as he was appointed, fined him, alleging as their reason that by such demagogic means of gaining popular favour he was trying to acquire as his own personal followers men who belonged to the state; but one would advise a son to care for his parents, not with the design of acquiring their goodwill for himself alone or turning it away from others to himself. It is in this way that many play the demagogue against their brothers, having a specious but unjust pretext for this rapacity; for they deprive them of the greatest and fairest of inheritances, their parents’ goodwill, by servilely and unscrupulously cutting across their brothers’ path, opportunely making their attacks when their parents are occupied and unsuspecting, and, in particular, showing themselves dutiful and obedient and prudent in those matters in which they perceive their brothers to be in error, or seeming to be so. But the right way, on the contrary, when a son sees that his father is angry with his brother, is to take his share of it and bear the brunt of it together with his brother, by such assistance making the anger lighter, and then by rendering services and favours to help somehow or other to restore his bread to his father’s grace. If there is error of omission, he can allege in the brother’s favour the absence of opportunity, or that he was engaged on some other work, or his very nature, as being more useful and more intelligent in other directions. The saying of Agamemnon also is admirable:
[De frat. am. 9b] “Not to slackness does he yield or foolishness,
But looks to me,
[De frat. am. 9c] and to me he has committed this duty.” And fathers are very willing to accept even the substitution of other terms 483 and to believe their sons when they call their brothers’ carelessness “simplicity,” their stupidity “straightforwardness,” and their contentiousness “inability to endure contempt”; the result is that he who acts as mediator succeeds in lessening the anger against his brother, and at the same time he increases his father’s goodwill toward himself.
[De frat. am. 10] 10 1 Only after the erring brother has been defended in this manner should the other turn to him and rebuke him somewhat sharply, pointing out with all frankness his errors of commission and of omission. For one should neither give free rein to brothers, nor, again, should one trample on them when they are at fault (for the latter is the act of one who gloats over the sinner, the former that of one who aids and abets him), but should apply his admonition as one who cares for his brother and grieves with him. Otherwise he who has been the most zealous advocate before his parents becomes before the brother himself the most vehement of accusers.
[De frat. am. 10b] But if a brother is guiltless when he is accused, though it is right to be subservient to parents in everything else and to endure all their wrath and displeasure, yet pleas and justifications offered to parents on behalf of a brother who is being undeservedly criticized or punished are honourable and not reprehensible; nor must one be afraid that the words of Sophocles will be addressed to him:
[De frat. am. 10c] Most shameless son, who with his father dare
To litigate,
[De frat. am. 10d] when one is speaking with all frankness on behalf of a brother who seems to be receiving unfair treatment. For to the parents themselves, when they are proved wrong, such a “litigation” makes defeat sweeter than victory.
[De frat. am. 11] 11 After the father is dead, however, even more than before it is right for the brother to cling fast to his brother’s goodwill, immediately sharing his affection for the dead in tears and grief, rejecting the insinuations of servants and the calumnies of comrades who range themselves on the other side, believing all the tales about the brotherly love of the Dioscuri and in particular the one which relates that Polydeuces killed with a blow of his fist a man who whispered to him something against his brother.
[De frat. am. 11b] And when they seek to divide their father’s goods, they should not first declare war on each other, as the majority do, and then, shouting
[De frat. am. 11c] Hearken, Alala, daughter of War,
[De frat. am. 11d] go out to meet each other ready armed, but they must by all means be on their guard against that day of the division, knowing that for some brothers it is the beginning of implacable enmity and strife, but for others the beginning of friendship and concord. Let them preferably assemble alone by themselves; otherwise, let there be present some common friend as a witness equally friendly to both, and then “by the lots of Justice,” as Plato says, let them, as they give and take what is suitable to each and preferred by each, be of the opinion that it is the care and administration of the estate that is being distributed, but that its use and ownership is left unassigned and undistributed for them all in common. But those who have outbidden their brothers by their shrewd calculations and then drag away from each other nurses and slave-boys, who have been brought up with their brothers and are their familiar companions, when they go away have got the better of their brothers by the value of a slave, but have lost the greatest and most valuable part of their inheritance, a brother’s friendship and confidence.
[De frat. am. 11e] And some we know who, even with no thought of gain, but merely from the love of contention, deal with their father’s goods with no more decency than they would with spoils taken from an enemy. Of this number were Charicles and Antiochus the Opuntians, who would not part until they had split in two a silver cup and torn apart a cloak, as though driven on by some imprecation from a tragedy to
[De frat. am. 11f] Divide with whetted sword their heritage.
[De frat. am. 11g] Some even relate to outsiders boastfully how by knavery and craftiness and jugglery of accounts they have got the better of their brothers in the apportionment, when they ought rather to rejoice and to pride themselves in having surpassed their brothers in fairness and generosity and compliance. 484 It is worth our while to illustrate this point by citing the case of Athenodorus, and indeed all my countrymen still speak of him. For he had an elder brother named Xenon, who, as administrator of Athenodorus’s estate, squandered a large part of his substance; at last Xenon raped a woman, was condemned in court, and lost the entire estate, made confiscate to the imperial treasury. But Athenodorus, although he was then still a beardless lad, yet when his portion of the money was restored to him, he did not neglect his brother, but put down all the money before them both and apportioned it; and even though he was being treated very unfairly in the division, he did not express indignation or change his mind, but calmly and cheerfully endured his brother’s folly, which had become notorious throughout Greece.
[De frat. am. 12] 12 1 When Solon, speaking of principles of government, said that equality does not create sedition, he was thought to be playing too much to the crowd by introducing an arithmetical proportion, a democratic principle, instead of the sound geometrical proportion. As for a man who gives advice to brothers in the matter of a family estate after the manner of Plato’s advice to the citizens of his state, to abolish, if possible, the notion of “mine” and “not mine,” but if he cannot do this, to cherish equality and cling to it, and thus lays a fair and abiding foundation of concord and peace, let him also make use of eminent precedents, such as that reply of Pittacus to the king of Lydia who inquired if Pittacus had money: “Twice as much,” said he, “as I would wish, now that my brother is dead.” But since it is not only the getting of money and the losing of it that makes “less grow hostile to more,” but in general, as Plato says, in inequality movement is produced and in equality rest and repose; thus all manner of inequality is dangerous as likely to foster brothers’ quarrels, and though it is impossible for them to be equal and on the same footing in all respects (for on the one hand our natures at the very beginning make an unequal apportionment, and then later on our varying fortunes beget envies and jealousies, the most shameful diseases and baneful plagues, ruinous not only for private houses, but for whole states as well); against these inequalities we must be on our guard and must cure them, if they arise. One would therefore advise a brother, in the first place, to make his brothers partners in those respects in which he is considered to be superior, adorning them with a portion of his repute and adopting them into his friendships, and if he is a cleverer speaker than they, to make his eloquence available for their use as though it were no less theirs than his; in the next place, to make manifest to them neither haughtiness nor disdain, but rather, by deferring to them and conforming his character to theirs, to make his superiority secure from envy and to equalize, so far as this is attainable, the disparity of his fortune by his moderation of spirit. Lucullus, for instance, refused to hold office before his brother, older though he was, but forwent his own proper time for candidature and awaited his brother’s. And Polydeuces refused to become even a god by himself, but chose rather to become a demigod with his brother and to share his mortal portion upon the condition of yielding to Castor part of his own immortality.
[De frat. am. 13] “But you, fortunate man,” one might say, “are so situated that, without in the least diminishing your present blessings, you can make another an equal sharer in them and give him a portion of your adornment so that he may enjoy the radiance, as it were, of your reputation or excellence or prosperity.” Just so did Plato make his brothers famous by introducing them into the fairest of his writings, Glaucon and Adeimantus into the Republic, Antiphon the youngest into the Parmenides. 13 1 And further, just as there exist inequalities in the natures and the fortunes of brothers, so it is impossible that the one brother should excel at all points and in all ways. They say that the elements come into being from one substance, yet possess the most opposite faculties; 485 but of two brothers sprung from one mother and father, no one ever saw the one, like the wise man of the Stoics, at once handsome, gracious, liberal, eminent, rich, eloquent, learned, philanthropic, and the other ugly, graceless, illiberal, dishonoured, needy, a poor speaker, unlearned, misanthropic. Yet somehow or other there inheres, in even the more disreputable and humble creatures, some portion of grace or faculty or natural aptitude for some good thing:
[De frat. am. 13b] As among urchin’s foot and rough rest-harrow
There grow the blossoms of soft snow-drops.
[De frat. am. 13c] Therefore he who appears to have the better in other respects, if he does not try to curtail or conceal these points of vantage in his brother or thrust him, as though in athletic competitions, from the first places always, but yields in his turn and reveals that his brother is better and more useful in many respects, by thus continually removing all ground for envy, fuel for fire, as it were, will quench the envy, or rather will not allow it to spring up or begin at all. And he who continually makes his brother a helper and adviser in matters in which he himself is supposed to be superior, as in law-suits, being himself a barrister; in the conduct of office, himself a politician; in practical affairs, himself being fond of such — in brief, he that permits his brother to be left out of no task that is worthy of notice and would bring honour, but makes him a sharer in all honourable enterprises and employs him when present, waits for him when absent, and, in general, by showing that his brother is no less a man of affairs than himself, but merely more inclined to shrink from fame and power — he deprives himself of nothing, but adds a great deal to his brother.
[De frat. am. 14] 14 1 Such is the advice, then, which one would give to the superior brother. The inferior brother, on the other hand, must reflect that his brother is not the only one who is richer or more learned or more famous than himself, but that he is frequently inferior to many others — ten thousand times ten thousand,
[De frat. am. 14b] As many as enjoy the fruit of spacious earth;
[De frat. am. 14c] whether, then, he envies every man as he walks about, or whether, among the vast number of fortunate beings, the only one that distresses him is his nearest and dearest, he has left no room for any other than to surpass him in wretchedness. Just as Metellus, therefore, thought that Romans should be grateful to the gods because so great a man as Scipio was not born in any other city, so each one of us should pray that, if possible, he himself may succeed beyond all other men, yet if this cannot be, that his brother may have that superiority and influence so coveted by himself. But some are by nature so unfortunate in matters of right conduct that they exult in famous friends and are proud if they are on terms of hospitality with commanders and men of wealth, but consider that their brothers’ brilliance obscures their own; and that while they are elated by the narration of their fathers’ successes and their great-grandfathers’ high commands, matters from which they received no benefit and in which they had no share, yet they are depressed and dejected when their brothers inherit fortunes, are elected to office, or contract marriages with famous families. And yet they should by all means envy no one; if this is impossible, they should turn their malignancy outwards and drain it off on those not of their blood, just as men do who divert sedition from the city by means of foreign wars:
[De frat. am. 14d] Many Trojans have I and famous allies,
And many Achaeans have you —
by nature suitable objects for envy and jealousy.
[De frat. am. 15] 15 1 But a brother should not, like the pan of a balance, incline the opposite way and be himself lowered when his brother is raised on high; but just as lesser numbers multiply greater and are multiplied by them, so should he give increase to his brother and at the same time be increased along with him by their common blessings. For it is not true of the fingers, either, that the one which writes and plays musical instruments is superior to the one which cannot, by either nature or attainment, do so, but in some manner or other they all contrive to move together and assist each other, 486 having been made unequal, as though of set purpose, and all deriving their power to grasp from the position of the others opposite the thumb, the largest and strongest of them.
[De frat. am. 15b] In this spirit Craterus, the brother of King Antigonus, and Perilaüs, the brother of Cassander, assigned themselves to the management of their brothers’ military and domestic affairs; but men like Antiochus and Seleucus, and again Grypus and Cyzicenus, who had not learned to play parts secondary to their brothers, but yearned for the purple and the crown, infected themselves and each other with many horrors, and infected all Asia also.
[De frat. am. 15c] But since envy and jealousy of those who surpass them in repute and honour Bare implanted by nature chiefly in men of ambitious character, to guard against these vices it is highly expedient that brothers should not seek to acquire honours or power in the same field, but in quite different fields. Wild beasts, to be sure, which depend for their food upon the same things, war against each other, and athletes who direct their efforts toward one and the same contest are rivals; whereas boxers are friendly to pancratiasts and long-distance runners are well disposed toward wrestlers, and they mutually assist and cheer for each other. This, in fact, is the reason why, of the two sons of Tyndareüs, Polydeuces won his victories in boxing and Castor in running. And Homer did well to represent Teucer as renowned in archery, while his brother was foremost among the heavy-armed:
[De frat. am. 15d] And he covered Teucer with gleaming shield.
[De frat. am. 15e] So, of those engaged in the service of the state, generals do not at all envy popular leaders; nor, among those occupied with the art of speaking, do barristers envy teachers of rhetoric; nor, among physicians, do dieticians envy surgeons; but they even call each other into consultation and commend one another. For brothers to seek eminence and repute from the same art or faculty is precisely the same as for both to fall in love with one woman and each seek to outstrip the other in her esteem. Those, indeed, who travel different roads afford each other no help, but those who follow different modes of life both strive to avoid envy and are of greater service to each other, as were Demosthenes and Chares, and again Aeschines and Eubulus, Hypereides and Leosthenes, of whom the former in each pair harangued the people and drew up laws, the latter commanded armies and translated words into action. Therefore those who cannot, by their very nature, share without envy their brothers’ reputation and influence, should divert as far as possible from those of their brothers their own desires and ambitions, so that by their successes they may give pleasure to each other instead of pain.
[De frat. am. 16] 16 1 But, over and above these considerations, we should be on our guard against the pernicious talk of relatives, of members of our household, and sometimes even of a wife who joins in the rest in challenging our ambition by saying: “Your brother carries all before him and is admired and courted, but you are not visited by anybody and enjoy no distinction at all.” “Not so,” a sensible man would reply, “I have a brother who is highly esteemed, and most of his influence is mine to share.” Socrates, for instance, remarked that he would rather have Darius than a daric as a friend, and for a brother who has good sense it is no less an advantage than the possession of wealth, high office, or eloquence, to have a brother who has attained to fame by virtue of office or wealth or eloquence.
[De frat. am. 16b] But although these means are the best for smoothing away such inequalities, yet there are the other differences which naturally arise among brothers who lack the proper training, differences due to disparity in their ages. For, generally speaking, elder brothers, when they claim the right always to dominate and to have precedence over the younger and to have the advantage in every matter where reputation and influence are involved, are oppressive and disagreeable; and younger brothers, in turn, being restive under the curb and becoming fractious, make it their practice to despise and belittle the elder. The result is that while the younger, feeling that they are being treated despitefully and are discriminated against, resent and try to avoid their elders’ admonitions, 487 the elder, ever clinging fast to their superiority, fear their brothers’ augmentation as though it meant elimination for themselves.
[De frat. am. 16c] Just as, then, we think it right that those who receive a favour should look upon it as of greater, and those who bestow it as of lesser value, so, in regard to a difference in ages, if we advise the elder to regard it as no great matter and the younger to think it no slight thing, we should rid the one of arrogance and neglect, and the other of disdain and contempt. And since it is fitting that the older should be solicitous about the younger and should lead and admonish him, and that the younger should honour and emulate and follow the older, let the solicitude of the former be rather that of a comrade than of a father, and of one who would persuade rather than command, and would rejoice in a brother’s successes and applaud them rather than criticize him if he errs and restrain him — a spirit showing not only a greater desire to help, but also more kindness of heart.
[De frat. am. 16d] And in the emulation of the younger let imitation, not rivalry, be present; for imitation is the act of one who admires, but rivalry of one who envies. It is for this reason that men love those who wish to become like themselves, but repress and crush those who wish to become their equals. And among the many honours which it is fitting that young render to their elders, obedience is most highly esteemed, and, together with respectfulness, brings about a staunch goodwill and favour which will in turn lead to concessions. Thus it was with Cato: he so won over his elder brother Caepio by obedience and gentleness and silence from his earliest childhood that finally, by the time they both were men, he had so subdued him and filled him with so great a respect for himself that Caepio would neither do not say anything without Cato’s knowledge. For example, it is said that on one occasion, when Caepio had affixed his seal to a deposition and Cato came up later and was unwilling to add his own seal, Caepio demanded that the document be returned and removed his seal before asking the reason why his brother had suspected the deposition instead of believing it to be true.
[De frat. am. 16e] In the case of Epicurus also his brothers’ respect for him was clearly great because of the goodwill and solicitude he had for them, inspired as they were with admiration both for his other attainments and especially for his philosophy. For even if they were mistaken in their opinion, yet since they were convinced and constantly declared from their earliest childhood that there was no one wiser than Epicurus, we may well admire both the man who inspired this devotion and also those who felt it. However, of the more recent philosophers, Apollonius the Peripatetic, by making Sotion, his younger brother, more famous than himself, refuted the man who asserted that fame could not be shared with another. And for myself, though I have received from Fortune many favours which call for gratitude, that my brother Timon’s affection for me has always transcended and still transcends all the rest, no one is unaware who has ever had any dealings whatever with me, and least of all you, my familiar friends.
[De frat. am. 17] 17 1 Furthermore, there are other disturbances which brothers of nearly the same age must guard against; they are but small, to be sure, yet continuous and frequent, and create a vicious practice of exasperating one another on all occasions, which at last ends in incurable hatred and malevolence. For having once begun to differ in childish matters, about the care of animals and their fights, as, for instance, those of quails or cocks, they then continue to differ about the contests of boys in the palaestra, of dogs on the hunt, and of horses at the races, until they are no longer able to control or subdue their contentious and ambitious spirit in more important matters. So the most powerful of the Greeks in my time, disagreeing first about rival dancers, then about harp-players, and afterwards by continually holding up to invidious comparison the swimming-baths and porticoes and banquet-halls at Aedepsus, and then manoeuvring for places and positions, and going on to cut off aqueducts and divert their waters, 488 they became so savage and reckless that they were deprived of everything by the despot, and, becoming exiles and paupers and — I had almost said — something other than their former selves, they remained the same only in their hatred for one another. It is therefore of no slight importance to resist the spirit of contentiousness and jealousy among brothers when it first creeps in over trivial matters, practising the art of making mutual concessions, of learning to take defeat, and of taking pleasure in indulging brothers rather than in winning victories over them. For the men of old gave the name of “Cadmean victory” to no other than that of the brothers at Thebes, as being the most shameful and the worst of victories.
[De frat. am. 17b] What then? Do not practical affairs bring many occasions for controversy and dissension even to those who have the reputation of being an equitable and gentle disposition? Yes, certainly. But there also we must see to it that the affairs fight the battle quite by themselves, without our inserting into the contest, like a hook, as it were, any emotion arising from contentiousness or anger; but, keeping our eyes fixed impartially upon the swaying of Justice, as though we were watching a pair of balances, we should with all speed turn over the matter in dispute to the decision of a jury or of arbitrators, and cleanse its filth away before, like a dye or stain, it sinks into the fabric and its colours become fast and hard to wash out. We should next pattern ourselves after the Pythagoreans, who, though related not at all by birth, yet sharing a common discipline, Cif ever they were led by anger into recrimination, never let the sun go down before they joined right hands, embraced each other, and were reconciled. For just as it is nothing alarming if a fever attends a swelling in the groin, but if the fever persists when the swelling is gone, it is thought to be a malady and to have a deeper origin: so when the dissension of brothers ceases after the matter in dispute is settled, the dissension was caused by the matter; but if it remains, the matter was but a pretext and contained some malignant and festering reason.
[De frat. am. 18] 18 1 It is worth our while to inquire into a dispute of brothers who were not Greeks, which arose, not about a little patch of land, nor over slaves or flocks, but about the empire of Persia. For when Darius died, some thought it right that Ariamenes should be kind, being the eldest of his children; but others chose Xerxes, as being the child of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, and born to Darius after he had come to the throne. Now Ariamenes came indeed from the country of the Medes in no hostile manner, but quietly, as though to a court of justice; and Xerxes was present and performing the functions of a king. But when his brother came, putting aside the diadem and pressing down the crest of his tiara, which reigning kings wear erect, he went to meet Ariamenes and embraced him, and, sending gifts, he bade the bearers say, “With these your brother Xerxes honours you now; but if he shall be proclaimed king by judgement and vote of the Persians, he grants to you the right of being second after himself.” And Ariamenes said, “I accept the gifts, yet I believe the kingdom of the Persians to be mine by right. But I shall guard for my brothers their honour after my own, and for Xerxes as the first of my brothers.” And when the day of judgement came, the Persians appointed as judge Artabanus, the brother of Darius; but Xerxes sought to evade their decision that the judgement should be made by Artabanus, since he put his faith in the people. But Atossa, his mother, chided him: “Why, my son, do you try to evade Artabanus, who is your uncle and the best of the Persians? Why do you so fear this contest in which even the second place is honourable — to be adjudged brother to the king of Persia?” Xerxes was therefore persuaded and when the pleas were made, Artabanus declared that the kingdom belonged by right to Xerxes; and Ariamenes at once leapt up and did obeisance to his brother and taking him by the hand set him upon the kingly throne. From that time forth Ariamenes was highest in honour with Xerxes and showed himself of such loyalty toward the king that he fell in the sea-fight at Salamis performing deeds of valour for his brother’s glory. 489 Let this, then, be set forth as a pure and blameless model of goodwill and high-mindedness.
[De frat. am. 18b] But Antiochus might be condemned because of his lust for dominion, yet admired because his love for his brother was not altogether extinguished thereby. For he went to war against Seleucus for the kingdom, though he was the younger brother and had the aid of his mother. But when the war was at its height, Seleucus joined battle with the Galatians and was defeated; he disappeared and was thought to be dead, since practically all his army had been cut to pieces by the barbarians. So when Antiochus learned this, he laid aside his purple and put on a dark robe, Band, shutting the gates of the palace, went into mourning for his brother. But a little later, when he heard that his brother was safe and was again collecting another army, he came forth and sacrificed to the gods, and made proclamation to the cities over which he ruled that they should sacrifice and wear garlands of rejoicing.
[De frat. am. 18c] The Athenians, though they absurdly invented the tale of the strife of the gods, yet inserted in it no slight correction of its absurdity, for they always omit the second day of Boedromion, thinking that on that day occurred Poseidon’s quarrel with Athena. What, then, prevents us also from treating the day on which we have quarrelled with any of our family or relatives as one to be consigned to oblivion, and counting it one of the unlucky days, instead of forgetting because of one day the many good days in which we grew up and lived together? For either it is in vain and to no avail that Nature has given us gentleness and forbearance, the child of restraint, or we should make the utmost use of our virtues in our relations with our family and relatives. And our asking and receiving forgiveness for our own errors reveals goodwill and affection quite as much as granting it to others when they err. For this reason we should neither overlook the anger of others, nor be stubborn with them when they ask forgiveness, but, on the contrary, should try to forestall their anger, when we ourselves are time and again at fault, by begging forgiveness, and again, when we have been wronged, in our turn should forestall their request for forgiveness by granting it before being asked.
[De frat. am. 18d] Eucleides, the Socratic, is famous in the schools because, when he heard an inconsiderate and brutal speech from his brother who said, “May I be damned if I don’t get even with you,” he replied, “And so will I, if I don’t persuade you to stop your anger and love me as you used to do.”
[De frat. am. 18e] But in the case of King Eumenes it was not a mere word, but a deed, which revealed a gentleness that no one could surpass. For Perseus, the king of Macedonia, who was his enemy, procured men to kill him. These men set an ambush near Delphi, Eobserving that he was coming on foot from the sea to the temple of the god. They came behind him and hurled great stones down upon his head and neck; these made him dizzy and he fell down and was thought to be dead. A report of his death spread far and wide, and some of his friends and servants came back to Pergamum, and were thought to bring their report as actual eye-witnesses of the calamity. Attalus, therefore, the eldest of the king’s brothers, an honourable man and more loyal to Eumenes than any of the others, not only took the crown and was proclaimed king, but also married his brother’s wife, Stratonicê, and had intercourse with her. But when the news came that Eumenes was alive, and he himself was approaching, Attalus laid aside the crown, took his spears, as had been his custom before, and went with the other guardsmen to meet the king. And Eumenes not only cordially clasped his hand, but also embraced the queen, showing her honour and friendliness; and living a considerable time after his return, without giving a hint of blame or suspicion, he died, leaving to Attalus both his kingdom and his wife. And what did Attalus? When Eumenes was dead, he was unwilling to acknowledge as his own any of the children his wife had borne him, though they were many, 490 but brought up and educated his brother’s son and in his own life-time placed the crown upon his head and saluted him as king.
[De frat. am. 18f] But Cambyses, frightened by a dream into the belief that his brother would be king of Asia, killed him without waiting for any evidence or proof. For this reason, when Cambyses died, the throne passed from the line of Cyrus and the kingship was gained by the family of Darius, a man who knew how to give, not only to brothers, but also to friends, participation in affairs of state and in power.
[De frat. am. 19] 19 1 Then this further matter must be borne in mind and guarded against when differences arise among brothers: we must be careful especially at such times to associate familiarly with our brothers’ friends, but avoid and shun all intimacy with their enemies, imitating in this point, at least, the practice of Cretans, who, though they often quarreled with and warred against each other, made up their differences and united when outside enemies attacked; and this it was which they called “syncretism.” For some there are, fluid as water, who, seeping through those who relax their hold and disagree, overthrow affinities and friendships, hating indeed both sides, but attacking the one which yields more readily because of its weakness. For while it is true that when a man is in love his young and guileless friends share his love, Cit is also true that the most ill-disposed of enemies make a show of sharing the indignation and wrath of one who is angered and at variance with his brother. As, then, Aesop’s hen said to the cat who inquired, with pretended solicitude, of the sick bird “How are you?” “Very well, if you keep away”; so one would say to the sort of person who brings up the subject of the quarrel and makes inquiries and tries to dig up some secrets, “But I shall have no trouble with my brother if neither I nor he pay attention to slanderers.” But as it is — I do not know the reason — although when we suffer from sore eyes, we think it proper to turn our gaze to colours and objects which do not beat against or offend the sight, Dyet when we are in the midst of fault-finding and bursts of anger and suspicion toward our brothers, we enjoy the company of those who cause the disturbance and we take on from them a false colouring, when it would be wise to run away from our enemies and ill-wishers and avoid their notice, and to associate and spend our days almost entirely with relatives and intimates and friends of our brothers, visiting their wives also and frankly telling them our reasons for complaint. And yet there is a saying that brothers walking together should not let a stone come between them, and some people are troubled if a dog runs between brothers, and are afraid of many such signs, not one of which ever ruptured the concord of brothers; yet they do not perceive what they are doing when they allow snarling and slanderous men to come between them and cause them to stumble.
[De frat. am. 20] 20 1 And so the saying of Theophrastus, — its relevance is suggested by our very subject — is excellent: “If the possessions of friends are common, then by all means the friends of friends should be common”; and one should urge this advice upon brothers with special emphasis. For associations and intimacies which are maintained separately and apart lead brothers away from each other and turn them toward others, since an immediate consequence of affection for others is to take pleasure in others, to emulate others, and to follow the lead of others. For friendships shape character and there is no more important indication of a difference in character than the selection of different friends. For this reason neither eating and drinking together nor playing and spending the day together can so firmly cement concord between brothers as the sharing of friendships and enmities, taking pleasure in the company of the same persons, and loathing and avoiding the same. For friendships held in common do not tolerate either slanders or conflicts, but if any occasion for wrath or blame arises, it is dissipated by the mediation of friends, who take it upon themselves and disperse it, if they are but intimate with both parties and incline in their goodwill to both alike. 491 For as tin joins together broken bronze and solders it by being applied to both ends, since it is of a material sympathetic to both, so should the friend, well-suited as he is to both and being theirs in common, join still closer their mutual goodwill; but those who are uneven and will not blend, like false notes of a scale in music, create discord, not harmony. One may, then, be in doubt as to whether Hesiod was right or not in saying,
[De frat. am. 20b] Nor should one make a friend a brother’s peer.
[De frat. am. 20c] For that man who is a considerate and a common friend to both brothers, as we have described him, compounded as he is of the natures of both, will the more readily be a bond of brotherly love between them. But Hesiod, it is likely, was afraid of the common run of friends who are evil because of their jealous and selfish natures.
[De frat. am. 20d] But even if we feel an equal affection for a friend, we should always be careful to reserve for a brother the first place in public offices and administration, and in invitations and introductions to distinguished men, and, in general, whenever we deal with occasions which in the eyes of the public give distinction and tend to confer honour, rendering thus to Nature the appropriate dignity and prerogative. For undue precedence in such matters is not so grand a thing for the friend, as the slight is shameful and degrading for a brother.
[De frat. am. 20e] But concerning this subject my opinions have been expressed more fully elsewhere. However, that verse of Menander, which is quite true,
[De frat. am. 20f] No one that loves will gladly bear neglect,
[De frat. am. 20g] reminds and teaches us to be considerate of our brothers and not, through trust in Nature’s influence, to slight them. It is true that a horse is by nature fond of man and a dog fond of his master, but if they do not meet with the proper tending or care, they grow estranged and alienated; and though the body is very closely related to the soul, yet if it is neglected and overlooked by the soul, it becomes unwilling to co-operate and even harms and abandons the soul’s activities.
[De frat. am. 21] 21 1 But while care for brothers themselves is an excellent thing, yet even more excellent is it to show oneself always well-disposed and obliging in all matters to brothers’ fathers-in law and brothers-in law, to salute and treat kindly such of their servants as are loyal to their masters, and to be grateful to physicians who have restored brothers to health and to such faithful friends as have rendered zealous and efficient service to them in sharing the hardships of some journey abroad or military expedition. But a brother’s wife should be esteemed and reverenced as the most holy of all sacred things; if her husband honours her, we should applaud him; if he neglects her, we should sympathize with her annoyance; when she grows angry, soothe her; if she commits some trifling fault, take part in urging her husband to a reconciliation; and if some private difference arise between yourself and your brother, bring your complaints to her and so do away with the reasons for complaint. But above all we should be troubled at a brother’s unmarried and childless state, and by exhortation and raillery take part in pressing him on every side into marriage and in getting him well fastened in the bonds of lawful matrimony. And when he gets children, we should make even more manifest our affection for him and the honour we pay to his wife; and to their children let us be as well-disposed as toward our own, but even more gentle and tender, so that when they err, as children will, they may not run away or, through fear of father or mother, enter into association with knaves or sluggards, but may have recourse and refuge which at once admonishes in a kindly way and intercedes for their offence. It was in this way that Plato reclaimed his nephew Speusippus from great self-indulgence and debauchery, not by either saying or doing to him anything that would cause him pain, but when the young man was avoiding his parents, who were always showing him to be in the wrong and upbraiding him, Plato showed himself friendly and free from anger to Speusippus 492 and so brought about in him great respect and admiration for Plato himself and for philosophy. Yet many of Plato’s friends used to rebuke him for not admonishing the youth, but Plato would say that he was indeed admonishing him: by his own, the philosopher’s, manner of life, showing him a way to distinguish the difference between what is shameful and what is honourable.
[De frat. am. 21b] So Aleuas the Thessalian, who was an arrogant and insolent youth, was kept down and treated harshly by his father; but his uncle received him and attached him to himself, and when the Thessalians sent to the god at Delphi lots to determine who should be king, the uncle, without the father’s knowledge, slipped in a lot for Aleuas. When the Pythian priestess drew the lot of Aleuas, his father denied that he had put in one for him, and to everyone it appeared that there had been some error in the recording of names. Set out they sent again and questioned the god a second time; and the prophetic priestess, as though to confirm fully her former declaration, answered:
[De frat. am. 21c] It is the red-haired man I mean,
The child whom Archedicê bore.
[De frat. am. 21d] And in this manner Aleuas was proclaimed king by the god through the help of his father’s brother, and himself surpassed by far his predecessors and advanced his race to great fame and power.
[De frat. am. 21e] And indeed it is an uncle’s duty to rejoice and take pride in the fair deeds and honours and offices of a brother’s sons and to help to give them an incentive to honourable achievement, and, when they succeed, to praise them without stint; for it is, perhaps, offensive to praise one’s own son, yet to praise a brother’s is a noble thing, not inspired by selfishness, but honourable and truly divine; for it seems to me that the very name admirably points the way to goodwill and affection for nephews. And one must also strive to emulate the deeds of those beings who are superior to man. So Heracles, though he begat sixty-eight sons, loved his nephew no less than any of them, and even to this day in many places Iolaüs has an altar in common with Heracles and men pray to them together, calling Iolaüs Heracles’ assistant. And when his brother Iphicles fell at the battle in Lacedaemon, Heracles was filled with great grief and retired from the entire Peloponnesus. And Leucothea, also, when her sister died, brought up her child and helped to have him consecrated together with herself as a god; whence it is that the women of Rome in the festival of Leucothea, whom they call Matuta, take in their arms and honour, not their own, but their sisters’ children.

## On affection for offspring

[De am. prol. 1] 493 1 1 Trials of cases on appeal before special arbitrators and the carrying of cases before foreign courts were first devised by the Greeks by reason of their mutual distrusts, since they had need of the justice supplied by others than themselves, like any other non-indigenous necessity. Is it thus, then, that philosophers also, because of their disagreements with each other, refer some of their questions to the nature of irrational animals, as though to a foreign city, and submit the decision to the emotions and character and habits of these creatures as to a court that cannot be influenced or bribed? Or is this also a common charge against human depravity — that, being in doubt about the most necessary and important things, we seek among horses and dogs and birds how we ourselves should marry and beget and bring up children (as though we had no plain indication of Nature in ourselves); and that we term the traits which brute beasts have “characters” and “emotions,” and accuse our life of a great deviation and departure from Nature, confused and disordered as we are at the very beginning concerning even the first principles? For in dumb animals Nature preserves their special characteristics pure and unmixed and simple, but in men, through reason and habit, they have been modified by many opinions and adventitious judgements so that they have lost their proper form and have acquired a pleasing variety comparable to the variety of perfumes made by the pharmacist on the basis of a single oil. And let us not wonder if irrational animals follow Nature more closely than rational ones; for animals are, in fact, outdone in this by plants, to which Nature has given neither imagination nor impulse, nor desire for something different, which causes men to shake themselves free from what Nature desires; but plants, as though they were fastened in chains, remain in the power of Nature, always traversing the one path along with Nature leads them. Yet in wild beasts versatility of reasoning and uncommon cleverness and excessive love of freedom are not too highly developed; and though they have irrational impulses and desires and often wander about on circuitous paths, they do not go far afield, but ride, as it were, at the anchor provided by Nature, who points out to them the straight way, as to an ass which proceeds under bit and bridle. But in man ungoverned reason is absolute master, and, discovering now one way of deviation and innovation and now another, has left no clear or certain vestige of Nature visible.
[De am. prol. 2] 2 1 Observe to what extent there exists in animals conformity to nature in regard to their marriages. In the first place, they do not wait for laws against celibacy or late wedlock, as did the citizens of Lycurgus and Solon, nor fear loss of civil rights because of childlessness, nor pursue the honours of the ius trium liberorum, as many Romans do when they marry and beget children, not that they may have heirs, but that they may inherit. In the next place, the male does not consort with the female during all seasons, for the end and aim is not pleasure, but procreation and the begetting of offspring; Ftherefore it is in the season of spring, which has procreative breezes and a temperature suitable to intercourse, that the female, rendered submissive and desirable, comes to consort with the male, exulting, as she does, in the pleasing odour of her flesh and the peculiar adornment of her body, and filled with dew and clean grass; 494 but when she perceives that she is pregnant and sated, she modestly retires and takes thought for the birth and safety of her offspring. But it is impossible to recount the procedure in a manner worthy of the subject, except to say that each of the pair is as one in their affection for their offspring, in their forethought, their endurance, and their self-control. Further, though we call the bee wise and believe that it
[De am. prol. 2b] Makes the yellow honey its care,
[De am. prol. 2c] flattering the saccharine quality of its sweetness which tickles our palates, yet we overlook the wisdom and artifice of the other creatures which is manifested in the bearing and the nurture of offspring. As, for example, the king-fisher after conception makes her nest by gathering the thorns of the sea-needle and interweaving and joining them together, and makes it round and oblong in form, like a fisherman’s creel; and, packing the thorns closely together with the most exact jointure and density, submits it to the dashing of the waves so that, being gradually beaten upon and riveted together, the hard-packed surface may become water-proof; and it does become hard to divide with iron or stone. And what is more wonderful, the mouth of the nest is so exactly fitted to the size and measure of the king-fisher that no other creature, either larger or smaller, may enter, and, so they say, that it will not admit even the most minute drops of sea-water.
[De am. prol. 2d] And sea-dogs are a very good example, for they bring forth their young alive within their bodies, but permit their offspring to emerge and forage, and then take them back again and enfold them in their vitals and let them sleep there.
[De am. prol. 2e] And the she-bear, the most savage and sullen of beasts, brings forth her young formless and without visible joints, and with her tongue, as with a tool, she moulds into shape their skin; and thus she is thought, not only to bear, but to fashion her cub.
[De am. prol. 2f] And in Homer the lion —
Whom hunters meet leading his young within
A wood; he glares with valour and draws down
His eye-lids till they hide his eyes —
[De am. prol. 2g] does he look like a beast that has any notion of making terms with the hunters for his children’s lives? For, in general, the love of animals for their children makes the timid bold, the lazy energetic, the voracious sparing; like the bird in Homer which brings to her nestlings
[De am. prol. 2h] Whatever morsels she can catch, though she
Fares ill herself,
[De am. prol. 2i] for she feeds her young at the cost of her own hunger, and, though she has laid hold of food for her belly, she withholds it and presses it tightly with her beak, lest she gulp it down unawares; or
[De am. prol. 2j] As a bitch bestrides her tender pup, and barks
At one she does not know, and longs to fight,
acquiring, as it were, a second courage in her fear for her young.
[De am. prol. 2k] And partridges, when, accompanied by their young, they are being pursued, allow the fledglings to fly ahead and attempt to escape, and contrive to fix the hunter’s attention on themselves by wheeling close and, when they are almost captured, fly off and away, then again remain at rest and place themselves within the reach of the hunter’s hope, until, by so exposing themselves to danger for their nestlings’ safety, they have led on the hunters to a considerable distance.
[De am. prol. 2l] And we have before our eyes every day the manner in which hens care for their brood, drooping their wings for some to creep under, and receiving with joyous and affectionate clucks others that mount upon their backs or run up to them from every direction; and though they flee from dogs and snakes if they are frightened only for themselves, if their fright is for their children, they stand their ground and fight it out beyond their strength.
[De am. prol. 2m] Are we, then, to believe that Nature has implanted these emotions in these creatures because she is solicitous for the offspring of hens and dogs and bears, and not, rather, because she is striving to make us ashamed and to wound us, when we reflect that these instances are examples to those of us who would follow the lead of Nature, 495 but to those who are callous, as rebukes for their insensibility, by citing which they disparage human nature as being the only kind that has no disinterested affection and that does not know how to love without prospect of gain? In our theatres, indeed, people applaud the verse of the poet who said,
[De am. prol. 2n] What man will love his fellow-man for pay?
[De am. prol. 2o] And yet, according to Epicurus, it is for pay that a father loves his son, a mother her child, children their parents; but if beasts come to understand speech and someone should bring together to a common theatre horses and cows and dogs and birds and should revise this speech and say, “Dogs do not love their pups, nor horses their colts, nor birds their nestlings, for pay, but gratuitously and naturally,” it would be recognized by the emotions of them all that this was well and truly spoken. For it is shameful — great Heaven! — that the begetting and the pains and travail and the nurture of beasts should be “Nature” and “a free gift,” but that those of men should be loans and wages and caution-money, all given on condition of a return!
[De am. prol. 3] 3 1 But such a statement is neither true nor worth the hearing. For just as in uncultivated plants, such as wild vines and figs and olives, Nature has implanted the principles, though crude and imperfect, of cultivated fruits, so on irrational animals she has bestowed a love of offspring, though imperfect and insufficient as regards the sense of justice and one which does not advance beyond utility; but in the case of man, a rational and social animal, Nature, by introducing him to a conception of justice and law and to the worship of the gods and to the founding of cities and to human kindness, has furnished noble and beautiful and fruitful seeds of all these in the joy we have in our children and our love of them, emotions which accompany their first beginnings; and these qualities are found in the very constitution of their bodies. For although Nature is everywhere exact and workmanlike with no deficiency or superfluity, “and has,” as Erasistratus said, “no trumpery about her”; yet when it comes to the processes of procreation, it is impossible to describe them in a fitting manner, and perhaps it would not be decent to fix our attention too precisely upon the names and designations of these forbidden topics, but it is proper that we should apprehend the admirable adaptation of those hidden and concealed parts to the functions of procreation and bringing to birth.
[De am. prol. 3b] However, the production and administering of milk is sufficient proof of Nature’s foresight and care. For in women the amount of blood exceeds the use for it because of the sluggishness and paucity of their breath and, coming to the surface, wanders at large and burdens them; at other times it is Nature’s custom and care to discharge the blood at monthly periods by opening canals and channels for it, to lighten and cleanse the rest of the body and in season to render the womb fertile ground for ploughing, as it were, and sowing. But when the womb receives the seed as it encounters it and enfolds it and it has taken root there (“for the umbilical cord grows at first in the womb,” as Democritus says, “as an anchorage against the swell and drift, a cable and vine” for the fruit now conceived that is to be), Nature shuts the monthly canals of purification and, taking the drifting blood, uses it for nourishment and irrigates the embryo, which already is beginning to be formed and shaped, until, having been carried the number of months proper to its growth within the womb, it needs other nourishment and abiding-place.
[De am. prol. 3c] At that time, then, Nature, more carefully than any gardener or irrigator, turns and changes the blood from one use to another and has in readiness subterranean springs, as it were, of a fresh-flowing stream; and the springs receive the blood in no perfunctory or unemotional manner, 496 but are even able, by the gentle heat and soft womanliness of respiration, to digest, mollify, and change it; for such a disposition and temper does the breast have within it. Yet there are no outflowing streams of milk nor spouts which discharge it all at once, but the breast terminates in flesh that is full of springs and can filter the milk gently through minute passage-ways; and it thus gives a store of food that is comfortable for the infant’s mouth and pleasant for it to touch and to grasp.
[De am. prol. 3d] But there would be no benefit in these many kinds of equipment for procreation, or in such ways and means, such zeal and forethought, if Nature had not implanted in mothers affection and care for their offspring.
[De am. prol. 3e] There is nothing more wretched than a man,
Of all that breathes and creeps upon the earth —
[De am. prol. 3f] the poet tells no falsehood if it is about a new-born babe that he speaks. For there is nothing so imperfect, so helpless, so naked, so shapeless, so foul, as man observed at birth, to whom alone, one might almost say, Nature has given not even a clean passage to the light; but, defiled with blood and covered with filth and resembling more one just slain than one just born, he is an object for none to touch or lift up or kiss or embrace except for someone who loves with a natural affection. Therefore, while the other animals have their dugs hanging loose beneath the belly, in women they grow above on the breast where mothers can kiss and embrace and fondle the infant, the inference being that the end and aim of bearing and rearing a child is not utility, but affection.
[De am. prol. 4] 4 1 Carry the discussion back to primitive mankind, to those whose women were the first to bear, and whose men were the first to see a child born; they had neither any law which bade them rear their children, nor any expectation of gratitude or of receiving the wages of maintenance “lent to their children when they were young.” Nay, I should rather be inclined to affirm that these mothers were hostile and malicious toward their children, since great dangers and travail had come to them from child-birth:
[De am. prol. 4b] As when a sharp pang pierces a woman in labour,
A pang which the Eileithyiae of child-bed send,
The daughters of Hera, who bring the bitter pangs —
[De am. prol. 4c] These lines, women tell us, were written, not by Homer, but by an Homerid after child-birth or while she was still in the throes of it and had the pain of travail, alike bitter and sharp, actually present in her entrails. But even then the affection for offspring implanted by Nature would bend and lead the mother: still hot and suffering and shaken with her pangs, she did not neglect or avoid her child, but turned to it and smiled at it and took it up and kissed it, though she reaped nothing sweet or profitable therefrom, but received it with pain and suffering, and “with tatters” of swaddling-clothes
[De am. prol. 4d] Thus warming and caressing it, both night
And day she passes in alternate toil.
[De am. prol. 4e] For what pay or advantage were these services performed by those ancient parents? Nor is there any for those of our day, since their expectations are uncertain and far off. He that plants a vineyard in the vernal equinox gathers the grapes in the autumnal; he that sows wheat when the Pleiades set reaps it when they rise; cattle and horses and birds bring forth young among other things ready for use; but as for man, his rearing is full of trouble, his growth is slow, his attainment of excellence is far distant and most fathers die before it comes. Neocles did not live to see the Salamis of Themistocles nor Miltiades the Eurymedon of Cimon; nor did Xanthippus ever hear Pericles harangue the people, nor did Ariston hear Plato expound philosophy; nor did the fathers of Euripides and Sophocles come to know their sons’s victories; they but heard them lisping and learning to speak and witnessed their revellings and drinking bouts and love-affairs, as they indulged in such follies as young men commit; 497 so that of all Evenus wrote the only line that is praised or remembered is
[De am. prol. 4f] For fathers a child is always fear or pain.
[De am. prol. 4g] Yet none the less fathers do not cease rearing children and, most of all, those who least need them. For it is ridiculous if anyone thinks that the rich sacrifice and rejoice when sons are born to them because they will have someone to support them and bury them — unless, by Heaven, it is for lack of heirs that they bring up children, since it is impossible to find or happen upon anyone willing to accept another’s property!
[De am. prol. 4h] Not sand or dust or feathers of birds of varied note
Could heap up so great a number
as is the number of those seeking inheritances.
[De am. prol. 4i] The sire of fifty daughters, Danaüs;
[De am. prol. 4j] but if he had been childless, he would have had more heirs, and heirs unlike his own. For sons feel no gratitude, nor, for the sake of inheriting, do they pay court or show honour, knowing that they receive the inheritance as their due. But you hear the words of strangers clustering around the childless man, like those famous verses of the Poet,
[De am. prol. 4k] O Demos, judge one case, then to your bath:
Gorge, guzzle, stuff, and take three obols’ pay.
[De am. prol. 4l] And the remark of Euripides,
Money it is that finds out friends for men
And holds the greatest power among mankind,
[De am. prol. 4m] is not a simple and general truth, but applies to the childless: it is these whom rich men feast, whom great men court, for these alone do advocates plead gratis.
[De am. prol. 4n] A rich man with an unknown heir’s a power.
[De am. prol. 4o] Many, at any rate, who had many friends and much honour, the birth of one child has made friendless and powerless. Therefore not even toward the acquisition of power is there any aid to be derived from children, but the whole force of Nature exists no less in man than in beasts.
[De am. prol. 5] 5 1 Now both this and many other excellences are obscured by vice, as a thicket springs up beside seeds planted in a garden. Or are we to say that man has no natural love for himself just because many men cut their throats or hurl themselves from precipices? And Oedipus
[De am. prol. 5b] Smote his eyes with a brooch and at each blow
The bloody eye-balls wet his beard;
[De am. prol. 5c] and Hegesias by the eloquence of his reasoning persuaded many of his hearers to starve themselves to death.
[De am. prol. 5d] In many a guise the gods appear.
[De am. prol. 5e] But these are like those diseases and morbid states of the soul which drive men from their natural condition, as they themselves testify against themselves. For if a sow tears to pieces her suckling pig, or a bitch her puppy, men grow despondent and disturbed and offer to the gods sacrifices to avert the evil, and consider it a portent on the ground that Nature prescribes to all creatures that they should love and rear their offspring, not destroy them. Moreover, as in mines the gold, though mingled and covered with much earth, yet gleams through, so Nature, even in characters and passions which are themselves perverted, reveals their love for their offspring. For when poor men do not rear their children it is because they fear that if they are educated less well than is befitting they will become servile and boorish and destitute of all the virtues; since they consider poverty the worst of evils, they cannot endure to let their children share it with them, as though it were a kind of disease, serious and grievous. . . .

## Whether vice is sufficient to cause unhappiness

[An vit. 1] 498 1 1 . . . . He will not submit to (such a marriage)
His body bartered for the dower’s sake,
[An vit. 1b] as Euripides says; but he has only a slight and precarious reason for being envied. For this man (it were better) to make his journey, not “through heaps of hot cinders,” but “through a royal conflagration,” as it were, and surrounded by flames, panting and full of terror and drenched with sweat, and so to perish, though (his mother) had offered to him such a wealth as Tantalus had, which he was too busy to enjoy. For while that Sicyonian horse-breeder was a wise man, who gave to the king of the Achaeans, Agamemnon, a swift mare as a gift,
[An vit. 1c] That he might not follow him to wind-swept Troy,
But stay at home and take his pleasure,
[An vit. 1d] surrendering himself to the enjoyment of deep riches and to unmolested ease; yet modern courtiers who are looked upon as men of affairs, though no one summons them, of their own accord push their way headlong into courts and official escorts and toilsome bivouacs that they may get a horse or a brooch or some such piece of good fortune.
[An vit. 1e] His wife, rending both cheeks, was left behind
In Phylacê, and his half-finished home,
[An vit. 1f] while he himself is swept about and wanders afar, worn out by one hope after another and constantly insulted; and even if he obtains any of his desires, yet, whirled about and made giddy by Fortune’s rope-dance, he seeks to make his descent and considers happy those who live in obscurity and safety, whereas they so regard him as they look up at him soaring above their heads.
[An vit. 2] 2 1 Vice makes all men completely miserable, since as a creator of unhappiness it is clothed with absolute power, for it has no need of either instruments or ministers. But whereas despots, when they desire to make miserable those whom they punish, maintain executioners and torturers, or devise branding-irons and wedges; vice, without any apparatus, when it has joined itself to the soul, crushes and overthrows it, and fills the man with grief and lamentation, dejection and remorse. And this is the proof: many are silent under mutilation and endure scourging and being tortured by the wedge at the hands of masters or tyrants without uttering a cry, whenever by the application of reason the soul abates the pain and by main force, as it were, checks and represses it; but you cannot order anger to be quiet nor grief to be silent, nor can you persuade a man possessed by fear to stand his ground, nor one suffering from remorse not to cry out or tear his hair or smite his thigh. So much more violent is vice than either fire or sword.
[An vit. 3] 3 1 Cities, as we know, when they give public notice of intent to let contracts for the bidding of temples or colossal statues, listen to the proposals of artists competing for the commission and bringing in their estimates and models, and then choose the man who will do the same work with the least expense and better than the others and more quickly. Come, then, let us suppose that we also give public proclamation of intent to contract for making life wretched, and that Fortune and Vice come to get the commission in a rival spirit. Fortune is provided with all manner of instruments and costly apparatus to render a life miserable and wretched; she brings in her train frightful robberies and wars, the foul bloodthirstiness of tyrants, and storms at sea and thunder from the sky; 499 she compounds hemlock, she carries swords, she levies informers, she kindles fevers, she claps on fetters, and builds prison enclosures (and yet the greater part of these belong to Vice rather than to Fortune, but let us suppose them all Fortune’s). And let Vice stand by quite unarmed, needing no external aid against the man, and let her ask Fortune how she intends to make man wretched and dejected:
[An vit. 3b] “Fortune,
Do you threaten poverty? Metrocles laughs at you,
Metrocles, who in winter slept among the sheep and in summer in the gateways of sacred precincts, yet challenged to vie with him in happiness the king of the Persians who winters in Babylon and summers in Media. Do you bring on slavery and chains and the auction block? Diogenes despises you, for when he was being sold by pirates, he cried out with the voice of an auctioneer, ‘Who wants to buy a master?’ Do you mix a cup of poison? Did you not present this to Socrates also? And cheerfully and calmly, without trembling or changing either colour or posture, he drained it with great cheerfulness; and as he died the living esteemed him happy, believing that ‘not even in Hades would he be without some god-given portion.’ And as for your fire, Decius the Roman general anticipated it, when he built a funeral pyre between the camps and, to fulfil a vow, sacrificed himself to Saturn on behalf of Rome’s supremacy. And among the Indians, loving and chaste wives strive and contend with one another for the fire, and the wife who wins the honour of being consumed together with her dead husband is hymned as happy by the others. And of the wise men in that part of the world, not one is considered enviable or happy, if, while he yet lives and is sane and healthy, he does not separate by fire his soul from his body and emerge pure from the flesh, with the mortal part washed away. Or will you reduce a man from splendid wealth and house and table and lavish living to a threadbare cloak and wallet and begging of his daily bread? These things were the beginning of happiness for Diogenes, of freedom and repute for Crates. But will you nail him to a cross or impale him on a stake? And what does Theodorus care whether he rots above ground or beneath? Among the Scythians such is the manner of happy burial; and among the Hyrcanians dogs, among the Bactrians birds, devour, in accordance with the laws, the bodies of men, when these have met a happy end.”
[An vit. 4] 4 1 Whom, then, do these things make wretched? The unmanly and irrational, the unpracticed and untrained, those who retain from childhood their notions unchanged. Therefore Fortune is not a producer of perfect unhappiness if she does not have Vice to co-operate with her. For as a thread saws through the bone that has been soaked in ashes and vinegar, and as men bend and fashion ivory when it has been made soft and pliable by beer, but cannot do so otherwise, so Fortune, falling upon that which is of itself ill-affected and soft as the result of Vice, gouges it out and injures it. And just as the Parthian poison, though harmful to no one else nor injurious to those who touch it and carry it about, if it is merely brought into the presence of wounded men, it straightway destroys them, since they receive its effluence because of their previous susceptibility; so he who is liable to have his soul crushed by Fortune must have within himself some festering wound of his own in order that it may make whatever befalls him from without pitiful and lamentable.
[An vit. 5] 5 1 Is, then, Vice such a thing that it needs Fortune’s help to produce unhappiness? How can that be? Vice does not raise up a rough and stormy sea, she does not gird the skirts of lonely mountains with ambushes of robbers along the way, she does not make clouds of hail to burst on fruitful plains, she does not bring in a Meletus or an Anytus or a Callixenus as accusers, she does not take away wealth, she does not debar from the praetorship, 500 in order to make men unhappy. Yet she dismays men who are rich, prosperous, and heirs to fortunes; on land and on sea she insinuates herself into them and clings to them, sinking deep into them through evil lusts, firing them with anger, crushing them with superstitious fears, shattering them with the eyes . . .

## Whether affections of the soul are worse than those of the body

[Anim. an corp. 1] 500 1 1 Homer, having contemplated the mortal varieties of animals and having compared them with each other in respect to their lives and habits, cried out that nothing is
[Anim. an corp. 1b] More wretched than man,
Of all that breathes and creeps upon the earth,
[Anim. an corp. 1c] awarding to man an unfortunate primacy in excess of evils. But as for us, as though acknowledging that man has won the victory in wretchedness and has been proclaimed the most miserable of animals, let us compare him with himself, dividing body and soul for competition of their individual miseries, a task not unprofitable but even quite necessary, to the end that we may learn whether it is through Fortune or through ourselves that we live more wretchedly. For while disease grows in the body through Nature, vice and depravity in the soul are first the soul’s own doing, and then its affliction. It will be no slight aid toward tranquillity of mind, if the worse condition be curable, being both lighter to bear and lacking intensity.
[Anim. an corp. 2] 2 1 The fox in Aesop, disputing at law with the leopard concerning their claims to variety, when the leopard had shown her body with its glossy surface bright and spotted, and the fox’s tawny skin was rough and unpleasant to the eye,
[Anim. an corp. 2b] “But look at me within, sir judge,” said she,
“And you will find me fuller far than she
Of fair variety,”
[Anim. an corp. 2c] making manifest the versatility of her character which changes to many forms as necessity arises. Shall we, then, say in our own case, “Many of your diseases and affections, O man, your body naturally produces of itself, and it receives also many that befall it from without; but if you lay yourself open on the inside, you will find a storehouse and treasury, as Democritus says, of all manner of evils and many abnormal states, which do not flow in from outside, but have, as it were, subterranean and earth-born springs, which Vice, being widely diffused and abundantly supplied with those abnormal states, causes to gush forth”? And if the diseases in the flesh are detected by the pulse and biliousness, and temperatures and sudden pains confirm their presence, but the evils in the soul escape the notice of most men, they are for this reason worse evils, since they also deprive the sufferer of any awareness of themselves. For although the reason, if sound, perceives the diseases which affect the body, yet, being itself afflicted with those of the soul, it can form no judgement of its own afflictions, for it is affected in the very part by which it judges; and, of the soul’s diseases, one must account as first and greatest ignorance, which causes Vice beyond hope of cure to abide with most men, to cling to them through life, and to die with them. For the beginning of the riddance of disease is awareness which leads the ailing part to the use of what will relieve it; but the man who through disbelief in his ailment does not know what he needs, refuses the remedy, even if it be at hand. For it is true of the diseases of the body also that those are worse which are attended by inability to perceive the body’s condition: 501 lethargies, migraine, epilepsies, apoplexies, and those very fevers which, raising inflammation to the pitch of delirium and confounding consciousness, as on a musical instrument,
[Anim. an corp. 2d] Will touch the heart-strings never touched before.
[Anim. an corp. 3] 3 1 Therefore professional physicians desire, in the first place that a man should not be ill; and next, if he is ill, that he should not be unaware that he is ill — which is the case with all the maladies which affect the soul. For when men act foolishly or licentiously or unjustly, they do not think that they are doing wrong, but some even think that they are doing right. For although no one has ever called a fever “health,” nor consumption “excellent condition,” nor gout “swiftness of foot,” nor sallowness a “fresh complexion,” yet many call hot temper “manliness,” and love “friendship,” and envy “emulation,” and cowardice “caution.” Again, while men sick in body send for a doctor, since they perceive whom they need to counteract their ailments, yet those that are sick in soul avoid philosophers, for they think that they are doing well in those very matters where they are at fault. The fact is that, if we follow on this line of reasoning, we maintain that defective eyesight is easier to bear than madness, and gout than inflammation of the brain! For a man that is sick in body perceives it and calls loudly for a physician, and when he comes, allows him to anoint the eyes or open the veins; but you hear the maddened Agavê say, not recognizing her dearest by reason of her affliction:
[Anim. an corp. 3b] From the mountain we bring
To the palace a fresh-cut tendril,
A fortunate capture.
[Anim. an corp. 3c] It is true that one who is sick in body gives in at once and goes to bed and remains quiet while he is being cured, and if, perchance, when the fever comes upon him, he tosses a bit and tumbles his body about, one of those who sit by him will say to him gently,
[Anim. an corp. 3d] Lie still, poor wretch, and move not from your bed,
[Anim. an corp. 3e] and so checks and restrains him; but those who suffer from diseases of the soul are then most active, then least at rest. For impulses are the beginning of action, and the soul’s abnormal states are violent impulses. That is the reason why they do not allow the soul to be at rest, but just at the time when man most needs repose and silence and relaxation, then his fits of temper, of contentiousness, of love, or grief, drag him into the open air and strip him bare, and he is forced both to do many lawless things and to give tongue to many things unsuited to the occasion.
[Anim. an corp. 4] 4 1 As, therefore, the storm that prevents a sailor from putting into port is more dangerous than that which does not allow him to sail, so those storms of the soul are more serious which do not allow a man to compose or to calm his disturbed reason; but pilotless and without ballast, in confusion and aimless wandering, rushing headlong in oblique and reeling courses, he suffers a terrible shipwreck, as it were, and ruins his life. Consequently for this reason also it is worse to be sick in soul than in body; for men afflicted in body only suffer, but those afflicted in soul both suffer and do ill.
[Anim. an corp. 4b] But why need I recount the multitude of the soul’s maladies? The present occasion of itself brings them to mind. Do you see this vast and promiscuous crowd which jostles and surges in confusion here about the tribunal and the market-place? These persons have come together, not to sacrifice to their country’s gods, not to share in each other’s family rites, not bringing “to Ascraean Zeus the first-fruits of Lydian harvests,” nor, in honour of Dionysus, to celebrate his mystic festival on sacred nights with common revellings, but, as it were, a mighty pestilence drives them together here with yearly visitations stirring up Asia, which must come for law-suits and litigation at certain stated times; 502 and the overwhelming multitude, like streams flowing together, has inundated this one market-place and boils with fury and dashes together in a tumult “of destroyers and destroyed.” What fevers, what agues, have brought this about? What stoppages, or irruptions of blood, or distemperature of heat, or overflow of humours, have caused this? If you examine every law-suit, as though it were a person, to discover what gave rise to it and whence it came, you will find that obstinate anger begat one, frantic ambition another, unjust desire a third . . .

## On talkativeness

[De garr. 1] 502 1 1 It is a troublesome and difficult task that philosophy has in hand when it undertakes to cure garrulousness. For the remedy, words of reason, requires listeners; but the garrulous listen to nobody, for they are always talking. And this is the first symptom of their ailment: looseness of the tongue become impotence of the ears. For it is a deliberate deafness, that of men who, I take it, blame Nature because they have only one tongue, but two ears. If, then, Euripides was right when he said with reference to the unintelligent hearer,
[De garr. 1b] I could not fill a man who will not hold
My wise words flooding into unwise ears,
[De garr. 1c] it would be more just to say to the garrulous man, or rather about the garrulous man,
[De garr. 1d] I could not fill a man who will not take
My wise words flooding into unwise ears,
[De garr. 1e] or rather submerging, a man who talks to those who will not listen, and will not listen when others talk. For even if he does listen for a moment, when his loquacity is, as it were, at ebb, the rising tide immediately makes up for it many times over.
[De garr. 1f] They give the name Seven-voiced to the portico at Olympia which reverberates many times from a single utterance; and if but the least word sets garrulousness in motion, straightway it echoes round about on all sides,
[De garr. 1g] Touching the heart-strings never touched before.
[De garr. 1h] Indeed one might think that the babbler’s ears have no passage bored through to the soul, but only to the tongue. Consequently, while others retain what is said, in talkative persons it goes right through in a flux; then they go about like empty vessels, void of sense, but full of noise.
[De garr. 2] 2 1 But if, however, we are resolved to leave no means untried, let us say to the babbler,
[De garr. 2b] Hush, child: in silence many virtues lie,
[De garr. 2c] and among them the two first and greatest, the merits of hearing and being heard; neither of these can happen to talkative persons, but even in that which they desire especially they fail miserably. For in other diseases of the soul, such as love of money, love of glory, love of pleasure, there is at least the possibility of attaining their desires, but for babblers this is very difficult: they desire listeners and cannot get them, since every one runs away headlong. If men are sitting in a public lounge or strolling about in a portico, and see a talker coming up, they quickly give each other the counter-sign to break camp. And just as when silence occurs in an assemblage they say that Hermes has joined the company, so when a chatterbox comes into a dinner-party or social gathering, 503 every one grows silent, not wishing to furnish him a hold; and if he begins of his own accord to open his mouth,
[De garr. 2d] As when the North-wind blows along
A sea-beaten headland before the storm,
[De garr. 2e] suspecting that they will be tossed about and sea-sick, they rise up and go out. And so it is a talker’s lot when travelling by land or sea, to find volunteer listeners neither as table-companions nor as tent-mates, but only conscripts; for the talker is at you everywhere, catching your cloak, plucking your beard, digging you in the ribs.
[De garr. 2f] Then are your feet of the greatest value,
[De garr. 2g] as Archilochus says, and on my word the wise Aristotle will agree. For when Aristotle himself was annoyed by a chatterer and bored with some silly stories, and the fellow kept repeating, “Isn’t it wonderful, Aristotle?” “There’s nothing wonderful about that,” said Aristotle, “but that anyone with feet endures you.” To another man of the same sort, who said after a long rigmarole, “Poor philosopher, I’ve wearied you with my talk,” “Heavens, no!” said Aristotle, “I wasn’t listening.” In fact, if chatterers force their talk upon us, the soul surrenders to them the ears to be flooded from outside, but herself within unrolls thoughts of another sort and follows them out by herself. Therefore talkers do not find it easy to secure listeners who either pay attention or believe what they say; for just as they affirm that the seed of persons too prone to lusts of the flesh is barren, so is the speech of babblers ineffectual and fruitless.
[De garr. 3] 3 1 And yet Nature has built about none of our parts so stout a stockade as about the tongue, having placed before it as an outpost the teeth, so that when reason within tightens “the reins of silence,” if the tongue does not obey or restrain itself, we may check its incontinence by biting it till it bleeds. For Euripides says that “disaster is the end,” not of unbolted treasuries or storerooms, but of “unbridled tongues.” And those who believe that storerooms without doors and purses without fastenings are of no use to their owners, yet keep their mouths without lock or door, maintaining as perpetual an outflow as the mouth of the Black Sea, appear to regard speech as the least valuable of all things. They do not, therefore, meet with belief, which is the object of all speech. For this is the proper end and aim of speech, to engender belief in the hearer; but chatterers are disbelieved even if they are telling the truth. For as wheat shut up in a jar is found to have increased in quantity, but to have deteriorated in quality, so when a story finds its way to a chatterer, it generates a large addition of falsehood and thereby destroys its credit.
[De garr. 4] 4 1 Again, every self-respecting and orderly man would, I think, avoid drunkenness. For while, according to some, anger lives next door to madness, drunkenness lives in the same house with it; or rather, drunkenness is madness, shorter in duration, but more culpable, because the will also is involved in it. And there is no fault so generally ascribed to drunkenness as that of intemperate and unlimited speech. “For wine,” says the Poet,
[De garr. 4b] Urges a man to sing, though he be wise,
And stirs to merry laughter and the dance.
[De garr. 4c] And what is here so very dreadful? Singing and laughing and dancing? Nothing so far —
[De garr. 4d] But it lets slip some word better unsaid:
[De garr. 4e] this is where the dreadful and dangerous part now comes in. And perhaps the Poet has here resolved the question debated by the philosophers, the difference between being under the influence of wine and being drunk, when he speaks of the former as relaxation, but drunkenness as sheer folly. For what is in a man’s heart when he is sober is on his tongue when he is drunk, as those who are given to proverbs say. Therefore when Bias kept silent at a drinking-bout and was taunted with stupidity by a chatterer, 504 “What fool,” said he, “in his cups can hold his tongue?” And when a certain man at Athens was entertaining envoys from the king, at their earnest request he made every effort to gather the philosophers to meet them; and while the rest took part in the general conversation and made their contributions to it, but Zeno kept silent, the strangers, pledging him courteously, said, “And what are we to tell the king about you, Zeno?” “Nothing,” said he, “except that there is an old man at Athens who can hold his tongue at a drinking-party.”
[De garr. 4f] Thus silence is something profound and awesome and sober, but drunkenness is a babbler, for it is foolish and witless, and therefore loquacious also. And the philosophers even in their very definition of drunkenness say that it is intoxicated and foolish talking; thus drinking is not blamed if silence attends the drinking, but it is foolish talk which converts the influence of wine into drunkenness. While it is true that the drunken man talks foolishness in his cups, the chatterer talks foolishness on all occasions, in the market-place, in the theatre, out walking, drunk or sober, by day, by night. As your physician, he is worse than the disease; as your ship-mate, more unpleasant than sea-sickness; his praises are more annoying than another’s blame: we certainly have greater pleasure in company with clever rascals than with honest chatterboxes. In Sophocles, when Ajax uses boisterous language, Nestor, in soothing him, says in words which show his knowledge of character,
[De garr. 4g] CI blame you not: ill your words, but good your deeds.
[De garr. 4h] But these are not our feelings toward the chatterer; on the contrary, the untimeliness of his words destroys and annuls all gratitude for any deed.
[De garr. 5] 5 1 Lysias once composed a speech for a litigant and gave it to him. The man read it through a number of times and came to Lysias in despair and said that the first time he read it the speech seemed to him wonderfully good, but on taking it up a second and third time it appeared completely dull and ineffectual. “Well,” said Lysias laughing, “isn’t it only once that you are going to speak it before the jurors?” And consider the persuasiveness and charm of Lysias! For he is one who, for my part,
[De garr. 5b] DI say has a fair portion in the violet-tressed Muses.
[De garr. 5c] And of the things said about the Poet this is the truest — that Homer alone has survived the fastidiousness of men, since he is ever new and his charm is ever at his best; yet none the less, he spoke and proclaimed that famous remark about himself,
[De garr. 5d] I scorn to tell
A tale again that’s once been clearly told:
[De garr. 5e] and he avoids and fears the satiety which lies in ambush for every tale, leading his hearers from one narrative to another and soothing away the ear’s surfeit by constant novelty. But babblers actually wear out our ears by their repetitions, just as though they were smudging palimpsests.
[De garr. 6] 6 1 Let this, then, be the first thing of which we remind them — that just as wine, discovered for the promotion of pleasure and good fellowship, is sometimes misused to produce discomfort and intoxication by those who compel others to drink it undiluted in large quantities, so speech, which is the most pleasant and human of social ties, is made inhuman and unsocial by those who use it badly and wantonly, because they offend those whom they think they please, are ridiculed for their attempts at gaining admiration, and are disliked because of the very means they employ to gain affection. As, then, he can have no share in Aphroditê who uses her girdle to drive away and alienate those who seek his company, so he who arouses annoyance and hostility with his speech is no friend of the Muses and a stranger to art.
[De garr. 7] 7 1 Now of the other affections and maladies some are dangerous, some detestable, some ridiculous; but garrulousness has all these qualities at once; for babblers are derided for telling what everyone knows, they are hated for bearing bad news, they run into danger they since they cannot refrain from revealing secrets. So it is that Anacharsis, 505 when he had been entertained and feasted at Solon’s house and lay down to sleep, was seen to have his left hand placed upon his private parts, but his right hand upon his mouth; for he believed, quite rightly, that the tongue needs the stronger restraint. It would not be easy, for example, to enumerate as many men who have been ruined by incontinent lust as is the number of cities and empires which a secret revealed has brought to destruction. When Sulla was besieging Athens, he had very little time to waste in the operations
[De garr. 7b] Since other labour was pressing,
Mithridates having ravaged Asia, and the party of Marius being again masters in Rome. But spies heard some old men in a barber’s shop remarking to each other that the Heptachalcon was unguarded and that the city was in danger of being captured at that place; and the spies brought word of this to Sulla, who at once brought up his forces at midnight, led in his army, and almost razed the city to the ground, filling it with carnage and corpses so that the Cerameicus ran with blood. And Sulla’s anger with the Athenians was due more to their words than to their deeds; for they used to revile him and Metella, leaping upon the walls and jesting,
[De garr. 7c] Sulla is a mulberry sprinkled with meal;
[De garr. 7d] and with much similar idle banter they drew upon themselves, as Plato says, “a very heavy penalty for the lightest of things, words.”
[De garr. 7e] The loquacity of one man, again, prevented Rome from becoming free by the removal of Nero. For but one night remained, after which the tyrant was to die, and all preparations had been made; but the man who was to kill him saw at the palace gates when on his way to the theatre a prisoner about to be led before Nero and lamenting his evil fortune. He approached the prisoner and whispered to him, “Only pray, my good man, that to day may pass by and to morrow you will be thankful to me.” So the prisoner grasped the intended meaning, and reflecting, I suppose, that
[De garr. 7f] He is a fool who leaves things close at hand
To follow what is out of reach,
[De garr. 7g] chose the surer rather than the more just way of safety. For he revealed to Nero what had been said to him by the man, who was immediately seized, and tortures and fire and the lash were applied to the conspirator as he denied, in the face of constraint, what he had revealed without constraint.
[De garr. 8] 8 1 Zeno the philosopher, in order that even against his will no secret should be betrayed by his body when under torture, bit his tongue through and spat it out at the despot. And Leaena also has a splendid reward for her self-control. She was a courtesan belonging to the group led by Harmodius and Aristogeiton and shared in the conspiracy against the tyrants — with her hopes, all a woman could do; for she also had joined in the revels about that noble mixing-bowl of Eros and through the god had been initiated into the secrets which might not be revealed. When, therefore, the conspirators failed and were put to death, she was questioned and commanded to reveal those who still escaped detection; but she would not do so and continued steadfast, proving that those men had experienced a passion not unworthy of themselves in loving a woman like her. And the Athenians caused a bronze lioness without a tongue to be made and set up in the gates of the Acropolis, representing by the spirited courage of the animal Leaena’s invincible character, and by its tonguelessness her power of silence in keeping a holy secret.
[De garr. 8b] No spoken word, it is true, has ever done such service as have in many instances words unspoken; for it is possible at some later time to tell what you have kept silent, but never to keep silent what once has been spoken — that has been spilled, and has made its way abroad. Hence, I think, in speaking we have men as teachers, but in keeping silent we have gods, and we receive from them this lesson of silence at initiations into the Mysteries. 506 And the Poet has made the most eloquent Odysseus the most reticent, and also his son and his wife and his nurse; for you hear the nurse saying,
[De garr. 8c] I’ll hold it safe like sturdy oak or iron.
[De garr. 8d] And Odysseus himself, as he sat beside Penelopê,
Did pity in his heart his wife in tears,
But kept his eyes firm-fixed within their lids
Like horn or iron.
[De garr. 8e] So full of self-control was his body in every limb, and Reason, with all parts in perfect obedience and submission, ordered his eyes not to weep, his tongue not to utter a sound, his heart not to tremble or bark:
[De garr. 8f] His heart remained enduring in obedience,
[De garr. 8g] since his reason extended even to his irrational or involuntary movements and made amenable and subservient to itself both his breath and his blood. Of such character were also most of his companions; for even when they were dragged about and dashed upon the ground by the Cyclops, they would not denounce Odysseus nor show that fire-sharpened instrument prepared against the monster’s eye, but preferred to be eaten raw rather than to tell a single word of the secret — an example of self-control and loyalty which cannot be surpassed. Therefore Pittacus did not do badly, when the king of Egypt sent him a sacrificial animal and bade him cut out the fairest and foulest meat, when he cut out and sent him the tongue, as being the instrument of both the greatest good and the greatest evil.
[De garr. 9] 9 1 And Ino in Euripides, speaking out boldly concerning herself, says that she knows how to be
[De garr. 9b] Silent in season, to speak where speech is safe.
[De garr. 9c] For those who have received a noble and truly royal education learn first to be silent, and then to speak. For example, that famous king Antigonus, when his son asked him at what hour they were to break camp, said, “What are you afraid of? That you alone may not hear the trumpet?” This was not, surely, because he would not entrust a secret to the man to whom he intended to leave his kingdom? No, he was teaching his son to be self-controlled and guarded about such matters. And the old Metellus, when on a campaign he was asked some such question, said, “If I thought my shirt was privy to that secret, I would have stripped it off and put it in the fire.” And Eumenes, when he heard that Craterus was advancing, told none of his friends, but pretended that it was Neoptolemus. For his soldiers despised Neoptolemus, but both repulsed the reputation of Craterus and admired his valour. No one else knew the truth, and they joined battle, won the victory, killed Craterus without knowing it, and only recognized him when he was dead. So successfully did silence manoeuvre the contest and keep hidden so formidable an opponent that his friends admired Eumenes for not forewarning them rather than blamed him. And even if some do blame you, it is better that men should criticize you when they are already saved through mistrust than that they should accuse you when they are being destroyed because you did trust them.
[De garr. 10] 10 1 Yet, speaking generally, who has left himself the right to speak out boldly against one who has not kept silent? If the story ought not to have been known, it was wrong for it to be told to another; and if you have let the secret slip from yourself and yet seek to confine it to another, you have taken refuge in another’s good faith when you have already abandoned your own. And if he turns out to be no better than yourself, you are deservedly ruined; if better, you are saved beyond all expectation, since you have found another more faithful on your own behalf than you yourself are. “But this man is my friend.” Yet he has another friend, whom he will likewise trust as I trust him; and his friend, again, will trust another friend. Thus, then, the story goes on increasing and multiplying by link after link of incontinent betrayal. For just as the monad does not pass out of its own boundaries, 507 but remains once and for all one (for which reason it is called a monad), and as the dyad is the indeterminate beginning or difference (for by doubling it at once shifts from unity to plurality), so a story confined to its first possessor is truly secret; but if it passes to another, it has acquired the status of rumour. The Poet, in fact, says that “words” are “winged”: neither when you let go from your hands a winged thing is it easy to get it back again, nor when a word is let slip from the mouth is it possible to arrest and control it, but it is borne away
[De garr. 10b] Circling on swift wings,
[De garr. 10c] and is scattered abroad from one to another. So when a ship has been caught by a wind, they try to check it, deadening its speed with cables and anchors, but if a story runs out of harbour, so to speak, there is no roadstead or anchorage for it, but, carried away with a great noise and reverberation, it dashes upon the man who uttered it and submerges him in some great and terrible danger.
[De garr. 10d] With but a little torch one might set fire
To Ida’s rock; and tell one man a tale,
Soon all the town will know.
[De garr. 11] 11 The Roman Senate was once for many days debating in strict privacy a certain secret policy; and since the matter gave rise to much uncertainty and suspicion, a woman prudent in other respects, but yet a woman, kept pestering her husband and persistently begging to learn the secret. She vowed with imprecations upon herself that she would keep silent, and wept and moaned because she was not trusted. And the Roman, wishing to bring home her folly by proof, said, “Wife, you have won; listen to a terrible and portentous matter. We have been informed by the priests that a lark has been seen flying about with a golden helmet and a spear; we are therefore examining the portent whether it be good or bad, and are in constant consultation with the augurs. But do you hold your tongue.” So saying he went off to the Forum. But his wife at once seized the first maid to come into the room and beat her own breast and tore her hair. “Alas,” she cried, “for my husband and my country! What will become of us?” wishing, and in fact instructing, the maid to ask, “Why, what has happened?” So when the maid asked the question, she told the tale and added that refrain common to every babbler, “Keep this quiet and tell it to no one!” The little maid had scarcely left her when she herself tells the tale to that fellow servant who, she saw, had least to do; and this servant, in turn, told it to her lover who was paying a visit. With such speed was the story rolled out into the Forum that it preceded its inventor: he was met by an acquaintance who said, “Have you just now come down to the Forum from home?” “This very moment,” said he. “Then you have heard nothing?” “Why, is there any news?” “A lark has been seen flying about with a gold helmet and a spear and the magistrates are going to convene the senate about the matter.” And the husband laughed and said, “All praise to your speed, my wife! The story has even reached the Forum before me!” So he interviewed the magistrates and relieved them of their anxiety; but, by way of punishing his wife, as soon as he entered home, he said, “Wife, you have ruined me! The secret has been discovered to have been made public from my house; consequently I am to be exiled from my native land because you lack self-control.” When she denied it and said, “What, didn’t you hear it in company with three hundred others?” “Three hundred, nonsense!” said he. “You made such a fuss that I had to invent the whole story to try you out.” Thus this man made trial of his wife cautiously and in complete safety, pouring, as it were into a leaky vessel, 508 not wine or oil, but water.
[De garr. 11b] But Fulvius, the friend of Caesar Augustus, heard the emperor, now an old man, lamenting the desolation of his house: two of his grandsons were dead, and Postumius, the only one surviving, was in exile because of some false accusation, and thus he was forced to import his wife’s son into the imperial succession; yet he pitied his grandson and was planning to recall him from abroad. Fulvius divulged what he had heard to his own wife, and she to Livia; and Livia bitterly rebuked Caesar: if he had formed this design long ago, why did he not send for his grandson, instead of making her an object of enmity and strife to the successor to the empire. Accordingly, when Fulvius came to him in the morning, as was his custom, and said, “Hail, Caesar,” Caesar replied, “Farewell, Fulvius.” And Fulvius took his meaning and went away; going home at once, he sent for his wife, “Caesar has found out,” he said, “that I have not kept his secret, and therefore I intend to kill myself.” “It is right that you should,” said his wife, “since, after living with me for so long a time, you have not learned to guard against my incontinent tongue. But let me die first.” And, taking the sword, she dispatched herself before her husband.
[De garr. 12] 12 1 Philippides, the comic poet, therefore, made the right answer when King Lysimachus courteously asked him, “What is there of mine that I may share with you?” and he replied, “Anything you like, Sire, except your secrets.” And to garrulousness is attached also a vice no less serious than itself, inquisitiveness. For babblers wish to hear many things so that they may have many things to tell. And they go about tracking down and searching out especially those stories that have been kept hidden and are not to be revealed, storing up for their foolish gossip, as it were, a second-hand stock of hucksters’ wares; then, like children with a piece of ice, they are neither able to hold it nor willing to let it go. Or rather, the secrets are like reptiles which they catch and place in their bosoms, yet cannot confine them there, but are devoured by them; for pipefish and vipers, they say, burst in giving birth, and secrets, when they escape, destroy and ruin those who cannot keep them.
[De garr. 12b] Seleucus the Victorious lost his entire army and power in the battle against the Gauls; he tore off his crown with his own hands and fled on horseback with three or four companions. When he had travelled a long journey through winding ways and trackless wilds, at length becoming desperate from lack of food he approached a certain farmhouse. By chance he found the master himself and begged bread and water from him. And the farmer gave him lavishly both these and whatever else there was in a farmstead, and while entertaining him hospitably, recognized the face of the king. In his joy at the fortunate chance of rendering service he could not restrain himself or dissemble as did the king, who wished to remain unknown, but he escorted the king to the highway and, on taking leave, said, “Fare well, King Seleucus.” And Seleucus, stretching out his right hand to him and drawing him towards himself as though to kiss him, gave a sign to one of his companions to cut off the man’s head with a sword:
[De garr. 12c] Still speaking his head was mingled with the dust.
[De garr. 12d] But if the man had remained silent at that time and had mastered himself for a little while, when the king later won success and regained power, he would have earned, I fancy, an even larger reward for his silence than for his hospitality.
[De garr. 13] This man, it is true, had as something of an excuse for his incontinence his hopes and the friendly service he had rendered; 13 1 but most talkers do not even have a reason for destroying themselves. For example, people were once talking in a barber’s shop about how adamantine and unbreakable the despotism of Dionysius was. The barber laughed and said, “Fancy your saying that about Dionysius, when I have my razor at his throat every few days or so!” 509 When Dionysius heard this, he crucified the barber.
[De garr. 13b] It is not strange that barbers are a talkative clan, for the greatest chatterboxes stream in and sit in their chairs, so that they are themselves infected with the habit. It was a witty answer, for instance, that King Archelaüs gave to a loquacious barber, who, as he wrapped his towel around him, asked, “How shall I cut your hair, Sire?” “In silence,” said Archelaüs. And it was a barber also who first announced the great disaster of the Athenians in Sicily, having learned it in the Peiraeus from a slave, one of those who had escaped from the island. Then the barber left his shop and hurried at full speed to the city,
[De garr. 13c] Lest another might win the glory
of imparting the news to the city,
and he come second.
[De garr. 13d] A panic naturally arose and the people gathered in assembly and tried to come at the origin of the rumour. So the barber was brought forward and questioned; yet he did not even know the name of his informant, but referred the origin to a nameless and unknown person. The assembly was enraged and cried out, “Torture the cursèd fellow! Put him on the rack! He has fabricated and concocted this tale! Who else heard it? Who believed it?” The wheel was brought and the man was stretched upon it. Meanwhile there arrived bearers of the disastrous news, men who had escaped from the slaughter itself. All, therefore, dispersed, each to his private mourning, leaving the wretched fellow bound on the wheel. But when he was set free late in the day when it was already nearly evening, he asked the executioner if they had also heard “how the general, Nicias, had died.” Such an unconquerable and incorrigible evil does habit make garrulity.
[De garr. 14] 14 1 And yet, just as those who have drunk bitter and evil-smelling drugs are disgusted with the cups as well, so those who bear ill tidings cause disgust and hatred in those who hear them. Therefore Sophocles has very neatly raised the question:
Gu. Is it in ear or soul that you are stung? —
[De garr. 14b] Cr. But why seek to define where lies my pain? —
Gu. The doer grieves your heart, I but your ears.
Be that as it may, speakers also cause pain, just as doers do, but none the less there is no checking or chastening a loose tongue.
[De garr. 14c] The temple of Athena of the Brazen House at Sparta was discovered to have been plundered, and an empty flask was found lying inside. The large crowd which had quickly formed was quite at a loss, when one of the bystanders said, “If you wish, I shall tell you what occurs to me about that flask. I think that the robbers, before undertaking so dangerous a task, drank hemlock and brought along wine, so that, if they should escape detection, by drinking the unmixed wine they might quench the poison and rid themselves of its evil effects, and so might get away safely; but if they should be caught, that they might die an easy and painless death from the poison before they should be put to the torture.” When he had said this, the explanation appeared so very complicated and subtle that it did not seem to come from fancy, but from knowledge; and the people surrounded him and questioned him one after another, “Who are you?” “Who knows you?” “How did you come to know this?” and at last he was put through so thorough an examination that he confessed to being one of the robbers.
[De garr. 14d] Were not the murderers of Ibycus caught in the same way? They were sitting in a theatre, and when cranes came in sight, they laughed and whispered to each other that the avengers of Ibycus were come. Persons sitting near overheard them, and since Ibycus had disappeared and now for a long time had been sought, they caught at this remark and reported it to the magistrates. And thus the slayers were convicted and led off to prison, not punished by the cranes, 510 but compelled to confess the murder by the infirmity of their own tongues, as it were some Fury or spirit of vengeance. For as in the body the neighbouring parts are borne by attraction toward diseased and suffering parts, so the tongue of babblers, ever inflamed and throbbing, draws and gathers to itself some portion of what has been kept concealed and should not be revealed. Therefore the tongue must be fenced in, and reason must ever lie, like a barrier, in the tongue’s way, checking its flow and keeping it from slipping, in order that we may not be thought to be less sensible than geese, of whom they relate that when from Cilicia they cross Mt. Taurus, which is full of eagles, they take a great stone in their mouths to serve as a bolt or bridle for their scream, and pass over at night unobserved.
[De garr. 15] 15 1 Now if anyone were to ask,
Who is the most wicked and the most abandoned man,
[De garr. 15b] no one would pass the traitor by and name anyone else. So Euthycrates “roofed his house with the timber he got from Macedon,” as Demosthenes says, and Philocrates received much money and “bought strumpets and fish”; and to Euphorbus and Philagrus, who betrayed Eretria, the king gave land. But the babbler is a traitor who volunteers his services without pay: he does not betray horses or city-walls, but divulges secrets connected with lawsuits, party strife, and political manoeuvres. No one thanks him, but he himself, if he can win a hearing, must owe thanks. The result is that the verse directed at the man who recklessly and injudiciously pours forth and squanders his own possessions,
[De garr. 15c] You are not generous: it’s your disease,
You love to give,
[De garr. 15d] fits the foolish talker also: “You are no friend or well-wisher in revealing this: it’s your disease, you love to be babbling and prating.”
[De garr. 16] 16 1 But these remarks are not to be regarded as an accusation against garrulity, but an attempt to cure it; for we get well by the diagnosis and treatment of our ailments, but the diagnosis must come first; since no one can become habituated to shun or to eradicate from his soul what does not distress him, and we only grow distressed with our ailments when we have perceived, by the exercise of reason, the injuries and shame which result from them. Thus, in the present instance, we perceive in the case of babblers that they are hated when they wish to be liked, that they cause annoyance when they wish to please, that they are laughed at when they think they are admired, that they spend their money without any gain, that they wrong their friends, help their enemies, and destroy themselves. Consequently this is the first step in curing the disease — by the application of reason to discover the shameful and painful effects that result from it.
[De garr. 17] 17 1 And the second is that we must apply our reasoning powers to the effects of the opposite behaviour, always hearing and remembering and keeping close at hand the praises bestowed on reticence, and the solemn, holy, and mysterious character of silence, remembering also that terse and pithy speakers and those who can pack much sense into a short speech are more admired and loved, and are considered to be wiser, than these unbridled and headstrong talkers. Plato, in fact, commends such pithy men, declaring that they are like skilful throwers of the javelin, for what they say is crisp, solid, and compact. And Lycurgus, constraining his fellow-citizens from their earliest childhood to acquire this clever habit by means of silence, made them concise and terse in speech. For just as the Celtiberians make steel from iron by burying it in the earth and then cleaning off the large earthy accumulation, so the speech of Spartans has no dross, but being disciplined by the removal of all superfluities, it is tempered to complete efficiency; for this capacity of theirs for aphoristic speech and for quickness 511 and the ability to turn out a neat phrase in repartee is the fruit of much silence.
[De garr. 17b] And we must be careful to offer to chatterers examples of this terseness, so that they may see how charming and how effective they are. For example: “The Spartans to Philip: Dionysius in Corinth.” And again, when Philip wrote to them, “If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out,” they wrote back, “If.” And when King Demetrius was annoyed and shouted, “Have the Spartans sent only one envoy to me?” the envoy replied undismayed, “One to one.”
[De garr. 17c] And among the men of old also sententious speakers are admired, and upon the temple of the Pythian Apollo the Amphictyons inscribed, not the Iliad and the Odyssey or the paeans of Pindar, but “Know thyself” and “Avoid extremes” and “Give a pledge and mischief is at hand,” admiring, as they did, the compactness and simplicity of the expression which contains within a small compass a well-forged sentiment. And is not the god himself fond of conciseness and brevity in his oracles, and is he not called Loxias because he avoids prolixity rather than obscurity? And are not those who indicate by signs, without a word, what must be done, praised and admired exceedingly? So Heracleitus, when his fellow-citizens asked him to propose some opinion about concord, mounted the platform, took a cup of cold water, sprinkled it with barley-meal, stirred it with penny-royal, drank it up, and departed, thus demonstrating to them that to be satisfied with whatever they happen upon and not to want expensive things is to keep cities in peace and concord. And Scilurus, king of the Scythians, left behind him eighty sons; when he was dying, he asked for a bundle of spear shafts and bade his sons take it and break it in pieces, tied closely together as the shafts were. When they gave up the task, he himself drew all the spears out one by one and easily broke them in two, thus revealing that the harmony and concord of his sons was a strong and invincible thing, but that their disunion would be weak and unstable.
[De garr. 18] 18 1 If anyone will but review and recollect constantly these and similar instances, he may conceivably stop taking pleasure in foolish chatter. But as for me, that famous case of the slave puts me utterly to shame when I reflect what immense importance it is to pay attention to what is said and to be master of our purpose. Pupius Piso, the orator, not wishing to be troubled, ordered his slaves to speak only in answer to questions and not a word more. Subsequently, wishing to pay honour to Clodius when he was a magistrate, Piso gave orders that he be invited to dinner and prepared what was, we may suppose, a sumptuous banquet. When the hour came, the other guests were present, but Clodius was still expected, and Piso repeatedly sent the slave who regularly carried invitations to see if Clodius was approaching. And when evening came and he was finally despaired of, Piso said to the slave, “See here, did you give him the invitation?” I did,” said the slave. “Why hasn’t he come then?” “Because he declined.” “Then why didn’t you tell me at once?” “Because you didn’t ask me that.” So a Roman slave, but the Athenian slave while digging will tell his master
[De garr. 18b] On what terms the truce is made,
so great in all things is the force of habit. And of this let us now speak.
[De garr. 19] 19 1 For it is impossible to check the babbler by gripping the reins, as it were; his disease must be mastered by habituation. In the first place, then, when questions are asked of neighbours, let him accustom himself to remaining silent until all have refused a response:
[De garr. 19b] For counsel’s aim is not that of a race,
[De garr. 19c] as Sophocles says, nor, indeed, is this the aim of speaking and answering. For in a race the victory is his who comes in first; but here, if another makes a sufficient answer, it is proper to join in the approval and assent and so acquire the reputation of being a friendly fellow. 512 But if such an answer is not made, the it is not invidious or inopportune both to point out the answer others have not known and thus to fill in the gap. And, in particular, let us be on our guard, when someone else has been asked a question, that we do not forestall him by taking the answer out of his mouth. For perhaps there are other times also when it is not seemly, another having been asked, to shoulder him aside and volunteer ourselves, since we shall seem to be casting a slur both on the man asked, as being unable to furnish what is demanded of him, and on the asker, as being ignorant of the source from which he can get help; and, in particular, such precipitancy and boldness in answering questions smacks of insolence. For one who tries to get in the answer ahead of the man who is questioned suggests, “What do you need him for?” or “What does he know?” or “When I am present, no one else should be asked about these matters.” And yet we often ask people questions, not because we need an answer, but to elicit some friendly word from them, and because we wish to draw them on to friendly converse, as Socrates with Theaetetus and Charmides. So to take the answer out of another’s mouth, to divert another’s hearing and attract his attention and wrest it from some other, is as bad as to run up and kiss someone who wished to be kissed by somebody else, or to turn toward yourself someone who was looking at another; since, even if he who has been asked cannot give the information, it is proper to practise restraint and conform oneself to the wish of the asker and thus to encounter with modesty and decorum the situation, an invitation, as it were, given to another. And it is also true that if persons who are asked questions make mistakes in their answers, they meet with just indulgence; but he who voluntarily undertakes an answer and anticipates another is unpleasant even if he corrects a mistake, and if he makes a mistake himself, he affords a malicious joy to one and all, and becomes an object of ridicule.
[De garr. 20] 20 1 Then the second matter for diligent practice concerns our own answers; to these the chatterer must pay very close attention: Din the first place, that he may not inadvertently give a serious answer to those who provoke him to talk merely that they may insolently ridicule him. For some persons who require no information, but merely to divert and amuse themselves, devise questions and put them to men of this sort to set going their foolish twaddle. Against this talkers should be on their guard and not leap upon a subject quickly, or as though grateful that it is offered to them, but should first consider both the character of the questioner and the necessity for the question. And when it appears that the questioner is really anxious to learn, the babbler must accustom himself to stop and leave between the question and the answer an interval, in which the asker may add anything he wishes and he himself may reflect upon his reply instead of overrunning and obscuring the question by giving a long string of answers in a hurry while the question is still being asked. For although the Pythian priestess is accustomed to deliver some oracles on the instant, even before the question is put — for the god whom she serves
[De garr. 20b] Understands the dumb and hears when no man speaks —
[De garr. 20c] yet the man who wishes to make a careful answer must wait to apprehend exactly the sense and the intent of him who asks the question, lest it befall, as the proverb has it,
[De garr. 20d] They asked for buckets, but tubs were refused.
[De garr. 20e] In any case this ravenous hunger for talking must be checked so that it may not seem as though a stream which has long been pressing hard upon the tongue were being gladly discharged at the instance of the question. Socrates, in fact, used to control his thirst in this manner — he would not allow himself to drink after exercise until he had drawn up and poured out the first bucketful, so that his irrational part might be trained to await the time dictated by reason.
[De garr. 21] 21 1 513 Furthermore, there are three kinds of answers to questions: the barely necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For example, if someone asks, “Is Socrates at home?” one person may reply, as it were unwillingly and grudgingly, “Not at home.” And if he wishes to adopt the Laconic style, he may omit the “At home” and only utter the bare negative. So the Spartans, when Philip wrote to ask if they would receive him into their city, wrote a large “No” on the paper and sent it back. Another will answer more politely, “He is not at home, but at the bank,” and if he wants to give fuller measure may add, “waiting there for some guests.” But your over-officious and garrulous man, particularly if he happens to have read Antimachus of Colophon, will say, “He is not at home, but at the bank, waiting for some Ionian guests on whose behalf he has had a letter from Alcibiades who is near Miletus staying with Tissaphernes, the satrap of the Great King, who formerly used to help the Spartans, but now is attaching himself to the Athenians because of Alcibiades. For Alcibiades desires to be restored to his native country and therefore is causing Tissaphernes to change sides.” And he will run on, reciting at full stretch the whole eighth book of Thucydides, and deluge the questioner until, before he has done, Miletus is at war again and Alcibiades exiled for the second time.
[De garr. 21b] Regarding this tendency especially, one must keep talkativeness within bounds by following the question step by step and circumscribing the answer within a circle to which the questioner’s need gives the center and the radius. So when Carneades, who had not yet acquired a great reputation, was disputing in a gymnasium, the director sent and bade him lower his voice, which was a very loud one. And when Carneades said, “Give me something to regulate my voice,” the director aptly rejoined, “I am giving you the person conversing with you.” So, in making an answer, let the wishes of the questioner provide the regulation.
[De garr. 22] 22 1 Moreover, just as Socrates used to urge men to be on their guard against those foods which induce us to eat when we are not hungry, and against those liquids which induce us to drink when we are not thirsty, so it is with the babbler as regards subjects for talk: those in which he takes most delight and employs ad nauseam he should fear and stoutly resist when they stream in upon him. For example, military men are great tellers of war-stories, and the Poet introduces Nestor in that character, often narrating his own deeds of prowess. Again, as one might expect, those who have scored a victory in the law-courts or have had some unexpected success at the courts of governors or kings are attacked, as it were, by a malady which never leaves them, by the desire to call to mind and tell over and over again how they made their entrance, how they were presented, how they argued, how they held forth, how they confuted some opponents or accusers, how they were applauded. For their delight is far more loquacious than that well-known insomnia in the comedy: it often fans itself into new flame and makes itself ever fresh with each successive telling. They are, therefore, ready to slip into such subjects on any pretext. For not only
[De garr. 22b] Where one feels pain, there will he keep his hand,
[De garr. 22c] but also what causes pleasure draws the voice toward itself and twists the tongue from a desire to dwell perpetually on the joys of remembrance. So also with lovers, who chiefly occupy themselves with conversation that recalls some memory of the objects of their love; and if they cannot talk to human beings, they will speak of their passion to inanimate things:
[De garr. 22d] O dearest bed!
[De garr. 22e] and
O blessèd lamp, Bacchis thought you a god,
And greatest god you are if she thinks so.
[De garr. 22f] There is, however, really not a pin’s difference to the chatterer what subjects may arise; 514 nevertheless he that has a greater weakness for one class of subjects than for the other should be on his guard against these subjects and force himself to hold back and withdraw as far as possible from them, since they are always able, because of the pleasure they give, to lure him on to dilate upon them. And talkers have this same difficulty with those subjects in which they think that they surpass all others because of some experience or acquired habit. For such a person, being self-centred and vain,
[De garr. 22g] Will give the chief part of the day to that
In which he chances to surpass himself;
[De garr. 22h] the great reader will spend it in narrating tales, the literary expert in technical discussions, the wide traveller and wanderer over the face of the earth in stories of foreign parts. We must, therefore, be on our guard against these subjects also, since garrulity is enticed by them, like a beast making for familiar haunts. And Cyrus’s conduct was admirable, because he challenged his mates to match themselves with him, not in those contests in which he was superior, but in those in which he was less skilled than they, so that he might cause no pain by surpassing them and might also have the advantage of learning something. But the chatterer, on the contrary, if some topic comes up from which he can learn and find out something he does not know, thrusts it aside and diverts it, being unable to give even so small a fee as silence, but he works steadily around until he drives the conversation into the stale and well-worn paths of twaddle. Just so, in my native town, there was a man who chanced to have read two or three books of Ephorus, and would always bore everybody to death and put every dinner-party to rout by invariably narrating the battle of Leuctra and its sequel; so he got the nickname of “Epameinondas.”
[De garr. 23] 23 1 Nevertheless, this is the least of the evils, and we should turn garrulity into these channels; for talkativeness will be less unpleasant when its excesses are in some learned subject. Yet such persons must accustom themselves to do some writing and so argue all by themselves. So Antipater the Stoic, since, as it seems, he could not and would not come to close quarters with Carneades and his violent attacks upon the Stoa, used to fill whole books with written disputations against him, and so earned the sobriquet of “Pen-valiant.” But with the talker, such shadow-boxing with the pen and such alarums, by keeping him away from the multitude, may perhaps make him less of a daily burden to his associates, just as dogs that vent their anger on sticks and stones are less savage to men. And it will also be very advantageous for chatterers to frequent invariably the company of their superiors and elders, out of respect for whose opinion they will become accustomed to silence.
[De garr. 23b] And with these exercises in habituation it is proper to intermix and entwine that well-known vigilance and habit of reflection, at the very moment when we are about to speak and the words are hurrying to our lips, “What is this remark that is so pressing and importunate? What object is my tongue panting for? What good will come of its being said or what ill of its being suppressed?” For it is not as though the remark were some oppressive weight which one ought to get rid of, since it stays by you all the same even if it is spoken; when men talk, it is either for their own sake, because they need something, or to benefit their hearers, or they seek to ingratiate themselves with each other by seasoning with the salt of conversation the pastime or business in which they happen to be engaged. But if a remark is neither useful to the speaker nor of serious importance to the hearers, and if pleasure or charm is not in it, why is it made? For the futile and purposeless can exist in speech as well as in deeds.
[De garr. 23c] And over and above all else we must keep at hand and in our minds the saying of Simonides, 515 that he had often repented of speaking, but never of holding his tongue. We must remember also that practice is master of all things and stronger than anything else; since people can even get rid of hiccoughs and coughs by resisting them resolutely and with much pain and trouble. But silence, as Hippocrates says, not only prevents thirst, but also never causes sorrow and suffering.

## On being a busybody

[De cur. 1] 515 1 It is perhaps best to avoid a house which has no ventilation, or is gloomy, or cold in winter, or unhealthy; yet if familiarity has made you fond of the place, it is possible to make it brighter, better ventilated, and healthier by altering the lights, shifting the stairs, and opening some doors and closing others. Even some cities have gained by such changes. So in the case of my own town, which used to face the west and receive the full force of the sun in the late afternoon from Parnassus, they say that it was turned by Chaeron to face the east. And Empedocles, the natural philosopher, by blocking up a certain mountain gorge, which permitted the south wind to blow a dire and pestilential draught down upon the plains, was thought to have shut plague out of his country.
[De cur. 1b] Since, then, there are certain unhealthy and injurious states of mind which allow winter and darkness to enter the soul, it is better to thrust these out and to make a clean sweep to the foundations, thus giving to ourselves a clear sky and light and pure air; but if that is impossible, it is best at least to interchange and readjust them in some way other, turning or shifting them about.
[De cur. 1c] Such a malady of the mind, to take the first instance, is curiosity, which is a desire to learn the troubles of others, a disease which is thought to be free from neither envy nor malice:
[De cur. 1d] Why do you look so sharp on others’ ills,
Malignant man, yet overlook your own?
[De cur. 1e] Shift your curiosity from things without and turn it inwards; if you enjoy dealing with the recital of troubles, you have much occupation at home:
[De cur. 1f] Great as the water flowing down Alizon,
Many as the leaves around the oak,
[De cur. 1g] so great a quantity of transgressions will you find your own life, of afflictions in your own soul, of oversights in the performance of your own obligations.
[De cur. 1h] For as Xenophon says that good householders have a special place for sacrificial utensils, and a special place for dinner-ware, and that farming implements should be stored elsewhere, and apart from them the weapons of war; even so in your own case you have one store of faults arising from envy, another from jealousy, another from cowardice, another from pettiness. Assault these, examine these! Block up the windows and the side-doors of your curiosity that open on your neighbours’ property, and open up others leading to your own — to the men’s quarters, to the women’s quarters, to the living-rooms of your servants! Here this curiosity and meddlesomeness of yours will have an occupation not unhelpful or malicious, but useful and salutary if each one will but say to himself
[De cur. 1i] Where did I err? And what deed have I done?
What duty neglected?
[De cur. 2] 2 But as it is, like the Lamia in the fable, who, they say, when at home sleeps in blindness with her eyes stored away in a jar, 516 but when she goes abroad puts in her eyes and can see, so each one of us, in our dealings with others abroad, puts his meddlesomeness, like an eye, into his maliciousness; but we are often tripped up by our own faults and vices by reason of our ignorance of them, since we provide ourselves with no sight or light by which to inspect them. Therefore the busybody is also more useful to his enemies than to himself, for he rebukes and drags out their faults and demonstrates to them what they should avoid or correct, but he neglects the greater part of his own domestic errors through his passionate interest in those abroad. So Odysseus refused to converse even with his mother until he had learned from the seer the matters by reason of which he had come to the House of Hades; and when he had his answer, he both turned to his mother and also made inquiries of the other women, asking who was Tyro, who the beautiful Chloris, why Epicastê met her death
[De cur. 2b] Tying a noose, sheer-hung, from the high roof.
[De cur. 2c] But we, while treating our own affairs with considerable laxity and ignorance and neglect, pry into the pedigrees of the rest of the world: our neighbour’s grandfather was a Syrian and his grandmother a Thracian; so and so owes three talents and has not paid the interest. We inquire also into such matters as where so and so’s wife was coming back from, and what A and B’s private conversation in the corner was about. Yet Socrates went about seeking to solve the question of what arguments Pythagoras used to carry conviction; and Aristippus, when he met Ischomachus at Olympia, asked him by what manner of conversation Socrates succeeded in so affecting the young men. And when Aristippus had gleaned a few odd seeds and samples of Socrates’ talk, he was so moved that he suffered a physical collapse and became quite pale and thin. Finally he sailed for Athens and slaked his burning thirst with draughts from the fountain-head, and engaged in a study of the man and his words and his philosophy, of which the end and aim was to come to recognize one’s own vices and so rid oneself of them.
[De cur. 3] 3 Yet there are some who cannot bear to face their own lives, regarding these as a most unlovely spectacle, or to reflect and revolve up themselves, like a light, the power of reason, but their souls, being full of all manner of vices, shuddering and frightened at what is within, leap outwards and prowl about other people’s concerns and there batten and make fat their own malice. For as a domestic fowl will often, though its own food lies near at hand, slip into a corner and there scratch
[De cur. 3b] Where one sole barley grain perhaps appears
In the dung-heap,
[De cur. 3c] in the same way busybodies, passing over topics and narratives which are in plain view and matters concerning which no one prevents their inquiring or is vexed if inquiry is made, pick out the hidden and obscure troubles of every household. And yet it was surely a clever answer that the Egyptian gave to the man who asked him what he was carrying wrapped up: “That’s why it is wrapped up.” And why, if you please, are you inquisitive about what is concealed? If it were not something bad, it would not be concealed. Yet it is not customary to walk into the house of someone else without at least first knocking on the door; but nowadays there are doormen and formerly there were knockers to be struck at the door and give warning, so that the stranger might not catch the mistress of the house or the unmarried daughter unawares, or a slave being punished or the maid-servants screaming. But it is for these very things that the busybody slips in. A sober and respectable household he would not willingly enter as a spectator even if he were invited to come; but the matters to conceal which keys and bolts and street-doors are used — these are what he uncovers and communicates to outsiders. And yet “the winds with which we are most vexed,” as Ariston says, “are those which pull up our garments,” but the busybody strips off not only the mantles and tunics of those near him, but also their very walls; he flings the doors wide open and makes his way, like a piercing wind, “through the maiden of tender skin,” and creeps in, 517 searching out with slanderous intent drunken revels and dances and all night festivals.
[De cur. 4] 4 And like Cleon in the comedy,
His hands in Beggar-town, his mind on Thefton,
[De cur. 4b] so the mind of the busybody is at the same time in mansions of the rich, in hovels of the poor, in royal courts, and in bridal chambers of the newly wed. He searches out everybody’s business, that of strangers and that of rulers, nor is this search of his without danger; but just as though a man should taste aconite through curiosity about its properties, he would find that he had killed the taster before he had got his taste, so those who search out the vices of those more powerful than themselves destroy themselves before they acquire their knowledge. For instance those who scarcely glance at these sunbeams which have been poured down so lavishly upon us all, but recklessly dare to gaze upon the orb itself and to rend its radiance apart, striving to force their way within, are blinded. This is the reason why Philippides, the comic poet, made an excellent reply when King Lysimachus once said to him, “Which one of my possessions may I share with you?” “Anything, Sire,” said Philippides, “except your secrets.” For only the most pleasant and most decorous attributes of kings are displayed openly — their banquets and wealth and festivals and favours; but if there is anything secret, do not approach it, but let it be! The joy of a prosperous king is not concealed, nor is his laughter when he is amused, nor his outlay on entertainment and favours; but it is time for alarm when something is hidden, something dark, unsmiling, unapproachable, a storehouse of festering wrath, or the meditation of a punishment indicative of sullen anger, or jealousy of a wife, or some suspicion against a son, or distrust of a friend. Beware of this darkening and gathering cloud! That which is now hidden will be disclosed to you when the cloud bursts forth amid crashes of thunder and bolts of lightning!
[De cur. 5] 5 What escape is there, then, from this vice? By a process of shifting and diverting our inquisitiveness, as has been said, and, if possible, by turning the soul to better and more pleasant objects. Direct your curiosity, to heavenly things and things on earth, in the air, in the sea. Are you by nature fond of small or of great spectacles? If of great ones, apply your curiosity to the sun: where does it set and whence does it rise? Inquire into the changes in the moon, as you would into those of a human being: what becomes of all the light she has spent and from what source did she regain it, how does it happen that
[De cur. 5b] When out of darkness first she comes anew,
She shows her face increasing fair and full;
And when she reaches once her brightest sheen,
Again she wastes away and comes to naught?
[De cur. 5c] And these are secrets of Nature, yet Nature is not vexed with those who find them out. Or suppose you have renounced great things. Then turn your curiosity to smaller ones: how some plants always blooming and green and rejoicing in the display of their wealth at every season, while others are sometimes like these, but at other times, like a human spendthrift, they squander all at once their abundance and are left bare and beggared? Why, again, do some plants produce elongated fruits, others angular, and still others round and globular?
[De cur. 5d] But perhaps you will have no curiosity about these subjects since there is nothing evil in them. Yet if your zest for meddling must by all means be for ever feeding and dwelling on depraved things, like a maggot on dead matter, let us escort it to history and supply it with an unstinted abundance of evils. For there you will find
[De cur. 5e] The deaths of men, the shufflings off of life,
[De cur. 5f] seductions of women, assaults of slaves, slanders of friends, compounding of poisons, envies, jealousies, shipwrecks of households, overthrow of empires. Glut and enjoy yourself and cause no trouble or pain to any of your associates!
[De cur. 6] 6 But curiosity apparently takes no pleasure in stale calamities, but wants them hot and fresh; it enjoys the spectacle of novel tragedies and has not much zest for association 518 with the comic and more cheerful side of life. Consequently when anyone tells the tale of a wedding or a sacrifice or a complimentary escort, the busybody is a careless and inattentive listener, and declares that he has already heard most of the details and urges the narrator to cut them short or skip them. But if someone sitting near at hand narrates the seduction of a maiden or the adultery of a wife or the framing of a law suit or a quarrel of brothers, the busybody neither dozes off to sleep nor pleads an engagement,
[De cur. 6b] But asks more speech and proffers both his ears
and that saying,
Alas!
[De cur. 6c] How much more readily than glad events
Is mischance carried to the ears of men!
[De cur. 6d] is spoken truly when applied to busybodies. For as cupping-glasses draw from the flesh what is worst in it, so the ears of busybodies attract the most evil stories. Or rather, as cities have certain unlucky and dismal gates through which they lead out condemned criminals and cast out the refuse and the scapegoats, while nothing undefiled or sacred either goes in or out through them, so also the ears of busybodies give passage and thoroughfare to nothing good or decent, but only to gruesome tales, serving, as they do, as conveyance for foul and polluted narratives.
[De cur. 6e] The only song that’s heard within my house
Is wailing cries.
[De cur. 6f] This is the one Muse and Siren for busybodies, this is the sweetest of all music to their ears.
[De cur. 6g] For curiosity is really a passion for finding out whatever is hidden and concealed, and no one conceals a good thing when he has it; why, people even pretend to have good things when they have them not. Since, then, it is the searching out of troubles that the busybody desires, he is possessed by the affliction called “malignancy,” brother to envy and spite. For envy is pain at another’s good, while malignancy is joy at another’s evil; and both spring from a savage and bestial affliction, a vicious nature.
[De cur. 7] 7 So painful for all of us is the revelation of our own troubles that many die rather than reveal to physicians some hidden malady. Just imagine Herophilus or Erasistratus or Asclepius himself, when he was a mortal man, carrying about their drugs and instruments, calling at one house after another, and inquiring whether a man had an abscess in the anus or a woman a cancer in the womb! And yet the inquisitiveness of this profession is a salutary thing. Yet everyone, I imagine, would have driven such a man away, because he does not wait to be sent for, but comes unsummoned to investigate others’ infirmities. And busybodies search out these very matters and others still worse, not to cure, but merely to expose them. For this reason they are hated deservedly. For example, we are annoyed and displeased with customs-officials, not when they pick up those articles which we are importing openly, but when in the search for concealed goods they pry into baggage and merchandize which are another’s property. And yet the law allows them to do this and they would lose by not doing so. But busybodies ruin and abandon their own interests in their excessive occupation with those of others. Only rarely do they visit the farm, for they cannot endure the quiet and silence of being alone. But if, after a long absence, they do chance to put in there, they have more of an eye for their neighbours’ vines than for their own, and they ask how many of their neighbours’ cattle have died, or how much of his wine has turned sour. But they are soon sated with such news and run away. Yet the true and genuine farmer does not care to hear even news that makes its own way from the city; he says
[De cur. 7b] 519 Then he will tell me while he digs
On what terms peace was made. The cursèd scamp
Now strolls around and meddles with these things.
[De cur. 8] 8 And the busybody, shunning the country as something stale and uninteresting and undramatic, pushes into the bazaar and the market-place and the harbours: “Is there any news?” “Weren’t you at market early this morning? Well then, do you suppose the city has changed its constitution in three hours?” If, however, someone really does have something of that nature to tell him, he dismounts from his horse, grasps his informant’s hand, kisses him, and stands there listening. But if someone meets him and tells him that there is no news, he exclaims as though he were annoyed, “What do you mean? Haven’t you been at market? Didn’t you pass the War Office? Didn’t you interview the new arrivals from Italy either?” It is for this reason that the legislation of the Locrian magistrates was excellent. For if anyone who had been out of town came up and asked, “Is there any news?” they fined him. Just as cooks pray for a good crop of young animals and fishermen for a good haul of fish, in the same way busybodies pray for a good crop of calamities, a good haul of difficulties, for novelties, and changes, that they, like cooks and fishermen, may always have something to fish out or butcher.
[De cur. 8b] Another good law was that of the legislator of Thurii, for he forbade the lampooning on the comic stage of all citizens except adulterers and busybodies. And indeed adultery does seem to be a sort of curiosity about another’s pleasure and a searching out and examination of matters which are closely guarded and escape general observation, while curiosity is an encroaching, a debauching and denuding of secret things.
[De cur. 9] 9 Since a natural consequence of much learning is to have much to say (and for this reason Pythagoras enjoined upon the young a five years’ silence which he called a “Truce to Speech”), a necessary concomitant of inquisitiveness is to speak evil. For what the curious delight to hear they delight to tell, and what they zealously collect from others they joyously reveal to everyone else. Consequently, in addition to its other evils, their disease actually impedes the fulfilment of their desires. For everyone is on his guard to hide things from them and is reluctant to do anything while a busybody is looking, or to say anything while one is listening, but defers consultation and postpones the consideration of business until such an inquisitive person is out of the way. And if, when either some secret matter is under discussion or some important business is being transacted, a busybody comes on the scene, men drop the matter from the discussion and conceal it, as one does a tidbit when a cat runs by. Consequently these persons are often the only ones to whom those matters are not told or shown which everyone else may hear and see.
[De cur. 9b] For the same reason the busybody is deprived of everybody’s confidence: Ewe should prefer, on any account, to entrust our letters and papers and seals to slaves and strangers rather than to inquisitive friends and relatives. That noble Bellerophon did not break the seal even on a letter accusing himself which he was carrying, but kept his hands from the king’s letter by reason of that same continence which kept him from the king’s wife. Inquisitiveness, in fact, is indicative of incontinence no less than is adultery, and in addition, it is indicative of terrible folly and fatuity. For to pass by so many women who are public property open to all and then to be drawn toward a woman who is kept under lock and key and is expensive, and often, if it so happens, quite ugly, is the very height of madness and insanity. And it is this same thing which busybodies do: they pass by much that is beautiful to see and to hear, many matters excellent for relaxation and amusement, and spend their time digging into other men’s trifling correspondence, gluing their ears to their neighbours’ walls, whispering with slaves and women of the streets, and often incurring danger, and always infamy.
[De cur. 10] 10 For this reason the most useful means possible for turning the busybody from his vice is for him to remember what he has previously learned. 520 For, as Simonides used to say that when he opened his boxes after some time, he always found the fee box full, but the thanks box empty, so if one opens from time to time the deposit box of inquisitiveness and examines it, full as it is of many useless, futile, and unlovely things, perhaps this procedure would give sufficient offence, so completely disagreeable and silly would it appear. Suppose a man should run over the works of the ancients and pick out the worst passages in them and keep a book compiled from such things as “headless lines” in Homer and solecisms in the tragedians and the unbecoming and licentious language applied to women by which Archilochus makes a sorry spectacle of himself, would he not deserve that curse in the tragedy,
[De cur. 10b] Be damned, compiler of men’s miseries?
[De cur. 10c] And even without this curse, such a man’s treasure-house of other people’s faults is unbecoming and useless. It is like the city populated by the vilest and most intractable of men which Philip founded and called Roguesborough.
[De cur. 10d] Busybodies, however, by gleaning and gathering the blunders and errors and solecisms, not of lines or poems, but of lives, carry about with them a most inelegant and unlovely record box of evils, their own memory. Therefore just as at Rome there are some who take no account of paintings or statues or even, by Heaven, of the beauty of the boys and women for sale, but haunt the monster-market, examining those who have no calves, or are weasel-armed, or have three eyes, or ostrich-heads, and searching to learn whether there has been born some
[De cur. 10e] Commingled shape and misformed prodigy,
[De cur. 10f] yet if one continually conduct them to such sights, they will soon experience satiety and nausea; so let those who are curious about life’s failures, the blots on the scutcheon, the delinquencies and errors in other people’s homes, remind themselves that their former discoveries have brought them no favour or profit.
[De cur. 11] 11 The greatest factor, however, in ridding ourselves of this affliction is the habit of beginning early to train and teach ourselves to acquire this self-control. It is, in fact, by habituation that the disease has come to increase, advancing, as it does, little by little. How this habit is acquired, we shall learn when we discuss the proper training. So first let us begin with the most trifling and unimportant matters. What difficulty is there about refraining from reading the inscriptions on tombs as we journey along the roads? Or what is there arduous in just glancing at the writing on walls when we take our walks? We have only to remind ourselves that nothing useful or pleasant has been written there: merely “commemorates” so and so “wishing him well,” and someone else is the “best of friends,” and much twaddle of this sort. It may seem that no harm will come from reading these, but harm you it does by imperceptibly instilling the practice of searching out matters which do not concern you. And as hunters do not allow young hounds to turn aside and follow every scent, but pull them up and check them with the leash, keeping their sense of smell pure and untainted for their proper task in order that it may keep more keenly to the trail,
[De cur. 11b] With nostrils tracking down the paths of beasts,
[De cur. 11c] so one should be careful to do away with or divert to useful ends the sallies and wanderings of the busybody, directed as they are to everything that one may see and hear. For as eagles and lions draw in their claws when they walk so that they may not wear off the sharpness of the tips, so, 521 if we consider that curiosity for learning has also a sharp and keen edge, let us not waste or blunt it upon matters of no value.
[De cur. 12] 12 In the second place, then, let us accustom ourselves not to look inside when we pass another’s door, nor with our curious gaze to clutch, as it were by main force, at what is happening within, but let us ever keep ready for use the saying of Xenocrates, that it makes no difference whether it is the feet or the eyes that we set within another’s house; for what the eyes behold is neither just nor honourable, and not even pleasant.
[De cur. 12b] Unsightly, stranger, are the things within,
[De cur. 12c] since the greater part of what we see inside is of this sort — kitchen utensils lying about and servant-girls sitting in idleness, and nothing important or pleasurable. And this practice of throwing sidelong and furtive glances, distorting the soul as it disease, is shameful, and the habit it implants is depraved. For instance, when Diogenes saw the Olympic victor Dioxippus making his triumphal entry in his chariot and unable to tear his eyes away from a beautiful woman who was among the spectators of the procession, but continually turning around and throwing side-glances in her direction, “Do you see,” said the Cynic, “how a slip of a girl gets a strangle-hold on our athlete?” And you may observe how every kind of spectacle alike gets a strangle-hold on busybodies and twists their necks round when they once acquire a habit and practice of scattering their glances in all directions. But, as I think, the faculty of vision should not be spinning about outside of us, like an ill trained servant girl, but when it is sent on an errand by the soul it should quickly reach its destination and deliver its message, then return again in good order within the governance of the reason and heed its command. But as it is, the words of Sophocles come true:
[De cur. 12d] Then the Aenianian’s hard-mouthed yearlings break
From his control and bolt;
[De cur. 12e] that is, the senses which have not received what we called above right instruction and training run away, dragging the intellect with them, and often plunge it into deep disaster. Consequently, though that story about Democritus is false, that he deliberately destroyed his sight by fixing his eyes on a red hot mirror and allowing its heat to be reflected on his sight, in order that his eyes might not repeatedly summon his intellect outside and disturb it, but might allow his mind to remain inside at home and occupy itself with pure thinking, blocking up as it were windows which open on the street; yet nothing is more true than this, that those who make most use of the intellect make fewest calls upon the senses. We observe, for instance, that men have built their sanctuaries of the Muses far from cities and that they have called night “kindly” from a belief that its quiet and absence of distraction is greatly conducive to the investigation and solution of the problems in hand.
[De cur. 13] 13 Yet truly, neither is this a difficult nor arduous task: when men are reviling and abusing each other in the market-place, not to approach them, or when a crowd is running to see something or other, to remain seated, or, if you are without self-control, to get up and go away. For you will reap no advantage from mixing yourself with busybodies, whereas you will obtain great benefit from forcibly turning aside your curiosity and curtailing it and training it to obey reason.
[De cur. 13b] And after this it is well to make our training more intensive and pass by a theatre where a successful performance is in progress; and, when our friends urge us to see a certain dancer or comedian, to thrust them aside; and, when shouts are heard on the race-course or in the circus, not to turn round. For as Socrates used to advise the avoidance of such foods as tempt us to eat when we are not hungry and such drinks as tempt us to imbibe when we are not thirsty, so we also should avoid and guard against such sights and sounds as master and attract us without fulfilling any need of ours. Thus Cyrus was unwilling to see Pantheia; and when Araspes declared that the woman’s beauty was worth seeing, Cyrus said, 522”Then this is all the more reason for keeping away from her. For if, persuaded by you, I should go to her, perhaps she herself might tempt me, when I couldn’t spare the time, to go to see her again and sit by her, to the neglect of many important matters.” So too Alexander would not go to see Darius’s wife who was said to be very beautiful, but although he visited her mother, an elderly woman, he could not bring himself to see the young and beautiful daughter. Yet we peep into women’s litters and hang about their windows, and think we are doing nothing wrong Bin thus making our curiosity prone to slip and slide into all kinds of vice.
[De cur. 14] 14 Since, therefore, for the attainment of justice you may sometimes forgo an honest gain that you may accustom yourself to keep clear of dishonest profit, so likewise, for the attainment of continence, you may sometimes keep aloof from your own wife in order that you may never be stirred by another’s. Then apply this habit to inquisitiveness and endeavour sometimes not to hear or see some of the things that concern you, and when someone wishes to tell you something that has happened in your house, put him off and refuse to hear words that are supposed to have been spoken about you. It was, in fact, curiosity which involved Oedipus in the greatest calamities. Believing that he was no Corinthian, but a foreigner, and seeking to discover his identity, he encountered Laïus; and when he had killed Laïus and had taken, in addition to the throne, his own mother to wife, though seeming to all to be blessed by fortune, he began again to try to discover his identity. And although his wife attempted to prevent him, all the more vigorously did he cross-examine the old man who knew the truth, bringing every form of compulsion to bear. And at last, when circumstances were already bringing him to suspect the truth and the old man cried out,
[De cur. 14b] Alas! I stand on the dread brink of speech,
[De cur. 14c] Oedipus was none the less so inflamed and maddened by his affliction that he replied,
[De cur. 14d] And I of hearing, and yet hear I must;
[De cur. 14e] so bitter-sweet, so uncontrollable is the itching of curiosity, like the itching of a sore which gets bloody whenever we scratch it. But the man who has got rid of this disease and is gentle by nature will say, if he is ignorant of something unpleasant,
[De cur. 14f] Forgetfulness of evil, sovereign queen,
How wise you are!
[De cur. 15] 15 We must, therefore, also habituate ourselves to things like these: when a letter is brought to us, not to open it quickly or in a hurry, as most people do, who go so far as to bite through the fastenings if their teeth are too slow; when a messenger arrives from somewhere or other, not to rush up, or even to rise to our feet; when a friend says, “I have something new to tell you,” to say, “I should prefer that you had something useful or profitable.”
[De cur. 15b] When I was once lecturing in Rome, that famous Rusticus, whom Domitian later killed through envy at his repute, was among my hearers, and a soldier came through the audience and delivered to him a letter from the emperor. There was a silence and I, too, made a pause, that he might read his letter; but he refused and did not break the seal until I had finished my lecture and the audience had dispersed. Because of this incident everyone admired the dignity of the man.
[De cur. 15c] But when one nourishes his curiosity upon permissible material until he renders it vigorous and violent, he is no longer able to master it easily, since it is borne, by force of habit, toward forbidden things. And such persons pry into their friends’ correspondence, thrust themselves into secret meetings, become spectators of sacred rites which it is an impiety for them to see, tread consecrated ground, investigate the deeds and words of kings.
[De cur. 16] 16 And yet surely in the case of despots, who have to know everything, it is the tribe of so called “Ears” and “Jackals” that makes them most detested. It was Darius Nothus, who had no confidence in himself and regarded everyone with fear and suspicion, who first instituted “Listeners”; and “Jackals” 523 were distributed by the Dionysii among the people of Syracuse. Consequently when the revolution came, these were the first persons whom the Syracusans arrested and crushed to death. And in fact the tribe of informers is from the same clan and family as busybodies. But while informers search to see whether anyone has planned or committed a misdemeanour, busybodies investigate and make public even the involuntary mischances of their neighbours. And it is said that the person called aliterios first acquired his name from being a busybody. For it appears that when there was a severe famine at Athens and those who possessed wheat would not contribute it to the common stock, but ground it in their houses secretly by night, some persons went about listening for the noise of the mills, and so acquired the name aliterioi. It was in the same way, they say, that the sycophant won his name. Since the export of figs was prohibited, men who revealed and gave information against those who did export them were called sycophants. So it is well worth the while of busybodies to consider this fact also, that they may be ashamed of the resemblance and relationship of their own practice to that of persons who are very cordially hated and loathed.

## On love of wealth

[De cup. div. 1] 523 1 When some persons praised a tall fellow with a long reach Das having the makings of a fine boxer, the trainer Hippomachus remarked: “Yes, if the crown were hung up and to be got by reaching.” So too we can say to those who are dazzled by fine estates, great houses, and large sums of money and regard them as the greatest of blessings: “Yes, if happiness were for sale and to be got by purchase.” (Nevertheless many cases could be cited of men who would rather be rich though miserable than become happy by paying money to be so.) But money cannot buy peace of mind, greatness of spirit, serenity, confidence, and self-sufficiency.
[De cup. div. 2] Having wealth is not the same as being superior to it, nor is possessing luxuries the same as feeling no need of them. 2 From what other ills then does wealth deliver us, if it does not even deliver us from the craving for it? Nay, drink allays the desire of drink, and food is a remedy for hunger; and one who says
[De cup. div. 2b] A cloak I beg: Hipponax is cold
[De cup. div. 2c] is annoyed when several are brought and rejects them; but neither silver nor gold allays the craving for money, nor does the greed of gain ever cease from acquiring new gains. No; one can say to wealth as to a pretentious physician:
[De cup. div. 2d] Your physic but increases the disease.
[De cup. div. 2e] Finding us in want of a loaf, a house, a modest protection from the weather, and whatever comes to hand to supplement our loaf, wealth infects us with the desire for gold and silver and ivory and emeralds and hounds and horses, diverting our appetite from the necessities of life to what is difficult, rare, hard to procure, and useless. Indeed in what suffices no one is poor; and no one has ever borrowed money to buy barley meal, a cheese, a loaf, or olives. Rather one man has run into debt for a splendid house, 524 another for an adjoining olive plantation, another for fields and vineyards; and there are still others that Galatian mules or a set of horses
[De cup. div. 2f] Rattling an empty chariot behind
[De cup. div. 2g] have driven into a morass of bonds, usury, and mortgages. And then, as those who drink when no longer thirsty, or eat when no longer hungry, vomit up with the surfeit the rest as well that was taken to satisfy hunting or thirst, so those who seek the useless and superfluous do not even retain the necessary. Such then is the condition of one sort of lover of wealth.
[De cup. div. 3] 3 Those on the other hand who part with nothing, though they have great possessions, but always want greater, would strike one who remembered what Aristippus said as even more absurd. “If a man eats and drinks a great deal,” he used to say, “but is never filled, he sees a physician, inquires what ails him, what is wrong with his system, and how to rid himself of the disorder; but if the owner of five couches goes looking for ten, and the owner of ten tables buys up as many again, and though he has lands and money in plenty is not satisfied but bent on more, losing sleep and never sated by any amount, does he imagine that he does not need someone who will prescribe for him and point out the cause of his distress?” Certainly in the case of sufferers from thirst you would expect the one who had had nothing to drink to find his thirst relieved after drinking, while we assume that the one who drinks on and on without stopping needs to relieve, not stuff, himself, and we tell him to vomit, taking his trouble to be caused not by any shortage in anything but by the presence in him of some unnatural pungency or heat. So too with money-getters: he who is in want and destitute would perhaps call a halt once he got an estate or discovered a hidden treasure or was helped by a friend to pay his debt and get free from his creditor; whereas he who has more than enough and yet hungers for still more will find no remedy in gold or silver or horses and sheep and cattle, but in casting out the source of mischief and being purged. For his ailment is not poverty, but insatiability and avarice, arising from the presence in him of a false and unreflecting judgement; and unless someone removes this, like a tapeworm, from his mind, he will never cease to need superfluities — that is, to want what he does not need.
[De cup. div. 4] 4 When a physician visits a patient lying limp in bed, moaning, and refusing food, and on examining and questioning him finds no fever, he pronounces the disorder mental and departs. We too, then, seeing a man absorbed in money-getting, moaning over his expenditures, and sticking at nothing base or painful that brings him money, though he has houses, land, herds, and slaves together with a supply of clothing, what are we to call his trouble but mental poverty? For poverty in money is a thing from which a single friend, as Menander says, could deliver a man by his bounty. But that other poverty of the mind could never be replenished by all his friends together, whether in life or death. It is to such as these, then, that Solon’s words are well applied:
[De cup. div. 4b] No bourne of wealth is manifest to men,
[De cup. div. 4c] since for men of sense natural wealth does have a limit and a bourne, which is drawn around it by utility as by a compass.
[De cup. div. 4d] Another peculiarity of the love of money is this: it is a desire that opposes its own satisfaction. The rest actually aid their satisfaction: no one refuses good food because he has a weakness for it, or wine because he is fond of the bottle, as men abstain from using money because they love it. Yet how can it be called anything but madness and misery when a man refuses to put on a cloak because he is cold, to eat a loaf because he is hungry, or to use wealth because he loves it, and is instead in Thrasonides’ plight:
[De cup. div. 4e] 525 My love is in my house, no law forbids;
And never lover in the wildest passion
Had better will to do it, but I don’t —
[De cup. div. 4f] I’ve put away everything under lock and seal or laid it out with money-lenders and agents and yet I go on amassing and pursuing new wealth, and I wrangle with my servants, my farmers, my debtors —
[De cup. div. 4g] Merciful Heaven! Have you ever seen
A man more wretched or more crossed in love?
[De cup. div. 5] 5 Asked if he was able to enjoy a woman Sophocles replied: “Hush, fellow, I am now a free man, delivered by old age from a set of mad and cruel masters.” For it is a happy thing that when pleasures fail desires should fail as well, which Alcaeus says . . . nor woman. But it is otherwise with avarice: like an oppressive and vexatious mistress it compels us to make money but forbids the use of it, and arouses the desire but cheats us of the pleasure. Stratonicus indeed rallied the Rhodians for lavish spending, saying that they built as immortals and furnished their tables as if soon to die. But while lovers of money acquire it as lavish spenders, they use it as churls, and endure the pains, but do not get the pleasures. Thus Demades once found Phocion at luncheon, and remarked, observing the austerity and plainness of his table: “I am astonished, Phocion, that when you can stomach such food you engage in politics.” For Demades himself played the demagogue to fill his belly, and regarding Athens as no adequate provision for his prodigality laid in supplies from Macedon as well. (Hence Antipater, seeing him in his old age, said that like a carcass when the butchers had finished, nothing remained but the tongue and the gut.) As for you, unhappy wretch, is one not to be astonished that living as you do — a miser, unsocial, selfish, heedless of friends, indifferent to country — you nevertheless suffer hardships, lose sleep, engage in traffic, chase after legacies, and truckle to others despite this abundant provision for a life of ease, your meanness? We hear that a certain Byzantine said on finding an adulterer with his ill-favoured wife, “Poor fellow! What drives you to it? The dregs are foul!” . . . unhappy man! Let kings and royal stewards and those who would be foremost in their cities and hold office engage in money-getting. These are driven to it, their ambition and pretension and vainglory compel them, engaged as they are in giving banquets, bestowing favours, paying court, sending presents, supporting armies, buying gladiators. But you stir up this vast turmoil of affairs and harass and distract yourself when for meanness you live the life of a snail, and you put up with every discomfort and get no good of it, like a bathhouse keeper’s ass that carries faggots and kindling, always foul with smoke and ashes, but getting no bath or warmth or cleanliness.
[De cup. div. 6] 6 We have been speaking of this avarice of the ass or ant. But there is another, the avarice of the beast of prey; it runs to legal blackmail, to the pursuit of legacies, to cheating and intrigue and scheming, it counts the number of friends still alive, and after all this puts the ill-gotten wealth to no use. Thus as vipers, blister-beetles, and venomous spiders offend and disgust us more than bears and lions, because they kill and destroy men without using what they destroy, so too should men whose rapacity springs from meanness and illiberality disgust us more than those in whom it springs from prodigality, since the miserly take from others what they have no power or capacity to use themselves. 526 Hence prodigals call a truce once they are affluent and well provided for (as Demosthenes said to those who imagined that Demades had ceased to be a scoundrel: “At present you see him like the lions, glutted”); whereas in those who follow no policy of pleasure or utility there is no suspension of greed or distraction from it by more pressing claims, as they are forever empty and still want the whole world.
[De cup. div. 7] 7 Someone will say, “But they preserve and lay up their goods for children and heirs.” When in their lifetime they give them nothing? Nay, as with the mice that eat the gold ore in the mines, the gold cannot be had until they dead and laid open. And why do they desire to leave children and heirs an accumulation of money and a great estate? Plainly that these may preserve it for others, and these for still others, like earthen pipes, taking nothing for themselves but each conveying to another what it receives, until some outsider, an informer or tyrant, cuts off and shatters the keeper of the wealth, thus intercepting and drawing off the flow of riches, or (as the saying goes) the one member of the family who turns out worst consumes the property of all. For not only
[De cup. div. 7b] The sons of slaves are wanton from neglect,
[De cup. div. 7c] as Euripides says, the sons of misers are so as well, as Diogenes doubtless implied in his taunt: “Better to be a Megarian’s ram than his son.” For by the very means whereby they suppose that they are training their children, misers ruin them instead and warp their characters all the more, implanting in them their own avarice and meanness as though constructing in their heirs a fort to guard the inheritance. For their admonition and instruction comes to this: “Get profit and be sparing, and count yourself as worth exactly what you have.” This is not to educate a son, but to compress him and sew him shut, like a money bag, that he may hold tight and keep safe what you have put in. But whereas the bag gets dirty and foul-smelling only after the coin has been stored in it, the children of misers, before touching the money, catch the taint of avarice directly from their fathers. Note, however, that the young pay them for this instruction in the right coin, not loving their fathers because they are to inherit a fortune, but hating them because they have not got it already. For having been taught to look up to nothing but wealth and to live for nothing but great possessions, they consider that their fathers’ lives stand in the way of their own, and conceive that time steals from them whatever it adds to their fathers; years. Hence even when the father is still alive the son behind his back finds one way or another to steal some pleasure from the money and spends it as if he had no interest in it, giving it to friends and lavishing it on his appetites, when still attending lectures and still at his studies. But when at his father’s death the son takes over the keys and seals, his way of life is altered and his countenance becomes unsmiling, stern, and forbidding. Here is an end of . . ., of ball-playing, of wrestling, of the Academy and the Lyceum. There is instead the interrogation of servants, inspection of ledgers, the casting up of accounts with stewards and debtors, and occupation and worry that deny him his luncheon and drive him to the bath at night.
[De cup. div. 7d] The place of exercise where he was schooled
And Dircê’s fount
[De cup. div. 7e] are passed by; and if someone says, “Are you not going to hear the philosopher?” the answer is, “How could I? I have no time now my father is dead.” Poor soul! What has your father left to compare with what he has taken away, your leisure and your freedom? Rather it is not he, it is your wealth, that overwhelming and overpowering you, like the woman in Hesiod
[De cup. div. 7f] 527 Singes without a brand and ages you ere your time,
[De cup. div. 7g] bringing upon the mind like premature wrinkles and grey hairs the cares and distractions that come from avarice, whereby all high-heartedness and keenness and friendliness are blighted.
[De cup. div. 8] 8 “Well,” someone will say, “do you not observe that some people do make lavish use of their money?” To this we shall answer: And have you not heard from Aristotle that some fail to use it, others use it ill, neither course being right? But whereas the first get no good or glory from what they have, the others actually get harm and disgrace from it.
[De cup. div. 8b] Come, first let us consider what is this “use,” for which wealth is highly regarded. Is it the use of what suffices? Then the rich are no better off than men of modest means, and wealth, as Theophrastus says, is “no wealth” and in truth “unenviable,” if Callias, the wealthiest man of Athens, and Hismenias, the richest of Thebes, got the same use of what they had as Socrates and Epameinondas. For as Agathon dismissed the flute-players from the banquet to the women’s quarters, holding the conversation of the company to be sufficient entertainment, so too might you dismiss purple coverlets and expensive tables and all superfluities, when you see that the rich have the same service as the poor, and
[De cup. div. 8c] Soon you’d hang the rudder o’er the hearth
And all for nought would be the patient toil
not
Of ox and mule
[De cup. div. 8d] but of goldsmith, enchaser, perfumer, and cook, once we had been wise and sober enough to expel all that is useless from our state. But if even those who are not rich equally possess enough for their needs, whereas wealth plumes itself on luxuries, and you approve of Scopas the Thessalian, who when begged for some article in his house on the ground that there it was superfluous and not put to any use, exclaimed: “Why it is just these articles of superfluity, and not the indispensables, that give me the name of enviable and fortunate,” you must look to it or you will be like one who gives his approval to a pageant or a festival rather than to the business of living.
[De cup. div. 9] Our traditional festival of the Dionysia was in former times a homely and merry procession. First came a jug of wine and a vine branch, then one celebrant dragged a he goat along, another followed with a basket of dry figs, and the phallos-bearer came last. But all this is nowadays unregarded and vanished, what with vessels of gold carried past, rich apparel, carriages riding by, and masks: so has what is necessary and useful in wealth been buried under what is useless and superfluous. 9 But we are most of us like Telemachus. In his innocence, or rather want of taste, when he saw Nestor’s house with its couches, tables, clothes, coverlets, and pleasant wine, he expressed no admiration for one provided with all that was necessary or useful; but when he visited Menelaüs and beheld ivory, gold, and amber, he was struck with amazement and cried:
[De cup. div. 9b] Olympian Zeus, methinks, has halls like this:
What riches past all telling! I behold
And marvel.
[De cup. div. 9c] Socrates or Diogenes would have said:
What rubbish past all telling
and superfluity and vanity!
[De cup. div. 9d] FI behold
And laugh.
[De cup. div. 9e] Fool! You should strip your wife of her purple and adornments, that she may get over her fine airs and her infatuation with foreign guests, and do you trick out your house instead like a theatre or stage for visitors?
[De cup. div. 10] 10 Such is the felicity of wealth — a felicity of spectators and witnesses or else a thing of naught. How different are self-mastery, the pursuit of wisdom, the knowing what we should about the gods, though known to no man else! 528 These have in the soul a luminousness of their own and a surpassing radiance, and make delight her constant companion, as by her sole power she grasps the Good, whether there is anyone to see, or whether no one, god or man, is witness. Such is the nature of virtue, truth, the beauty of mathematics — geometry and astronomy — ; and with what of these do your trappings of wealth, your necklaces, your girlish baubles, compare? With no one to see or look on, wealth becomes sightless indeed and bereft of radiance. For when the rich man dines alone with his wife or intimates he lets his tables of citrus-wood and golden beakers rest in peace and uses common furnishings, and his wife attends without her gold and purple and dressed in plain attire. But when a banquet — that is, a spectacle and a show — is got up and the drama of wealth brought on, “out of the ships he fetched the urns and tripods,” the repositories of the lamps are given no rest, the cups are changed, the cup-bearers are made to put on new attire, nothing is left undisturbed, gold, silver, or jewelled plate, the owners thus confessing that their wealth is for others. But mastery of self is in order whether the owner dines alone or gives a sumptuous feast.

## On compliancy

[De vit. pud. 1] 528 1 1 Certain plants are in themselves wild and unproductive, and when allowed to grow are harmful to cultivated grain and vines and trees; yet the farmer takes them as signs of a soil not unfertile, but generous and rich. So too with the affections of the mind; some that are bad are nevertheless the outgrowths, as it were, of an excellent nature well able to respond to the cultivation of reason. Among these I count what is called “compliancy,” — no unfavourable sign, though it leads to bad conduct. For men who feel shame often show the same faults as those who feel none, with this difference, however: they are grieved and distressed at their errors, unlike the shameless, who take pleasure in theirs. For the shameless feel no pain in doing what is base, whereas the mere semblance of baseness dismays the compliant. For compliancy is excess of shame. Hence the name (dysōpeomai), the face (prosōpon) being somehow involved in the embarrassment and discomposure of the mind. For as dejection (katēpheia) is defined as pain that makes us look down (katō), so when modesty yields to suitors to the point where one does not even look them in the face, it is termed “compliancy.” And so, as the orator said that the shameless man had harlots, not maidens, in his eyes, so the compliant man in his turn betrays only too clearly in his countenance the effeminacy and flabbiness of his spirit, giving his surrender to the shameless the fair name of “modesty.” Cato indeed said that in the young he preferred the flush of colour to pallor, rightly training and teaching us to dread censure more than labour, and disapproval more than peril. Nevertheless we must also do away with the excess of timidity and apprehension at the prospect of censure, for instances are frequently found of men who, 529 in terror no less of a bad name than of bodily hurt, have played the coward and failed in the good fight, not having the firmness to submit to ill fame.
[De vit. pud. 2] 2 1 Neither then should we be unmindful of these, who suffer from so great an infirmity, nor again should we approve the other unyielding and stern set of character; we should rather contrive an harmonious blend of both qualities, one that removes the ruthlessness of extreme severity and the infirmity of excessive courtesy. Thus the cure is difficult, and the correction of such excesses is not without risk. For as the farmer in weeding out some wild and worthless growth thrusts his spade in roughly with no further ado and turns up the root, or applies fire to the weed and blasts it, but when he comes to a vine in need of pruning or deals with an apple tree or olive, he handles it gently, fearing to strip the buds from some healthy part, so the philosopher, when he removes envy from a young man’s soul, a worthless and incorrigible growth, or cuts off an early appearance of avarice or self-indulgence running riot, draws blood, bears down hard, and makes an incision deep enough to leave a scar; but when he applies the knife of chastening discourse to a soft and delicate part of the soul — a description that applies to the part that suffers from compliancy and shyness — he takes heed lest unawares he amputate with these all feeling of respect. For nurses too, when they scour infants too often, sometimes wound the flesh and do them hurt. It follows that we must not scour too close in removing from the young the fear to disoblige, and thus make them inconsiderate and unyielding to a fault, but as those who pull down houses adjoining a temple let the connected and neighbouring portions stand and shore them up, in the same way we must deal with compliancy, taking care not to remove with it the adjacent portions of respect and courtesy and gentleness where it hides and clings, while it bestows on the man who yields to pressure easily the flattering epithets of “friendly,” “civil,” and “considerate of others,” not “rigid” or “blunt.” Hence the Stoics distinguish from the outset the very words, separating “shame” and compliancy from “respect,” so as to leave the disorder not even the ambiguity of its name as an occasion of doing harm. But by their leave we shall not quibble about the names, but rather follow Homer, who says
[De vit. pud. 2b] Respect, the bane and blessing of mankind.
[De vit. pud. 2c] And he did well to put first its harmfulness. For it becomes helpful only when reason removes the overplus and leaves us with the right amount.
[De vit. pud. 3] 3 1 One who feels a strong compulsion to be facile must first be convinced of this: that he suffers from a harmful disorder, and that nothing harmful is admirable; and he should refuse to be beguiled by plaudits into preferring the epithets “civilized” and “gracious” to the terms “grave” and “great” and “just,” or like Pegasus in Euripides, who
[De vit. pud. 3b] Cringed and yielded as the rider willed
[De vit. pud. 3c] (the rider being Bellerophon), surrender to suitors and descend to their level for fear of the remark “Truly a cold, harsh man.” Now To Bocchoris the Egyptian, a man naturally cruel, Isis (they say) sent the asp, which coiled around his head and shadowed him from above, to make him observe justice in his verdicts; whereas false courtesy, pressing down upon those who are flabby and unmanly, and incapable of denying or refusing anything, turns them aside from justice in their verdicts, silences them in the council, and compels them to say and do many things that go against their will. 530 The most unreasonable person is always master of such a man and controls him, coercing with his effrontery the other’s shyness. And so, like a low-lying and loose terrain, a compliant disposition, being unable to fend off or repulse any appeal, is exposed to the most degrading experiences and deeds. For it is a poor guardian of the years of boyhood (thus Brutus said that he thought one who denied nothing had made no good disposal of his youthful grace), and a poor custodian of the nuptial chamber and the women’s apartments, as she who repels in Sophocles says to the adulterer,
[De vit. pud. 3d] You coaxed and wheedled me to ruin.
[De vit. pud. 3e] Thus complaisance further corrupts the profligate mind and delivers everything up to the attacker: the position has no defences, no bars, and is commanded on all sides. And whereas it is with gifts that the vilest women are taken, argument and a bold address often prevail even over the good. I pass over the losses in money for which compliancy is responsible, when men lend to persons they distrust and go bail against their will, and though they approve the proverb “he that is surety is never sure,” are unable to follow it in practice.
[De vit. pud. 4] 4 1 The lives that this disorder has cost would not be easy to number. Thus when Creon said to Medea,
[De vit. pud. 4b] Better for me to have thy hatred now
Than yield to rue it bitterly thereafter,
[De vit. pud. 4c] he expressed a maxim for others to use, but succumbed to pressure himself, and by granting her request for a day’s respite brought ruin on his house. Even some who suspected assassination and poison have given way to the feeling. Thus Dion was lost, not from ignorance of Callippus’ plot, but because he was ashamed to take precautions against one who was his friend and guest. Thus when Antipater, son of Cassander, after inviting Demetrius to dinner, was invited by him the following day, he was ashamed to distrust one who had trusted him, went, and was murdered after the meal. Polyperchon agreed with Cassander for a hundred talents to do away with Heracles, Alexander’s son by Barsinê, and proceeded to invite him to dinner. When the youth, suspecting and dreading the invitation, alleged an indisposition, Polyperchon called on him and said: “Young man, the first quality of your father you should imitate is his readiness to oblige and attachment to his friends, unless indeed you fear me as a plotter.” The youth was shamed into going; and they gave him his dinner and strangled him. The advice of Hesiod is therefore not absurd or silly, as some assert, but wise:
[De vit. pud. 4d] Your friend invite to dinner, not your foe.
[De vit. pud. 4e] Do not let your enemy embarrass you, nor fawn on him when he appears to trust you. For after you invite him he will invite you, and after he dines with you you will dine with him, once you have let the mistrust that was your preservation lose its keen edge under the influence of shame.
[De vit. pud. 5] 5 1 This malady therefore, as cause of many evils, we must endeavour to expel by a course of training, beginning first (as tiros elsewhere) with what is trivial and not too hard to face. Thus a man drinks to you at dinner when you have had your fill. Do not yield or force yourself to comply, but set the cup down. Another again invites you to play at dice over the wine: do not yield or let his scoffing daunt you, but like Xenophanes, when Lasus of Hermionê called him coward for not wanting to throw the dice with him, confess in your turn that you are a great coward indeed and too faint-hearted to risk disgrace. Again: you meet a bore who lays hold of you and clings. Do not yield but break his hold and make haste to complete what you have to do. 531 For such escapes and rebuffs as these, where we practise firmness at the cost of but slight dissatisfaction, condition us to meet more difficult occasions. In this connexion it is also well to bear Demosthenes’ words in mind. The Athenians were set on joining Harpalus and were girding themselves against Alexander when Alexander’s admiral Philoxenus suddenly sailed in view. To the assembly, which its fear had rendered mute, Demosthenes said: “What will they do on seeing the sun who are dazzled by a lamp?” For what will you do in great affairs, in the presence of a king or when the assembled people put you out of countenance, if you want the strength to reject a cup held out by a friend or to escape the clutches of a bore, but allow a driveller to have his will with you because you lack the firmness to say, “I’ll see you another time; just now I am busy”?
[De vit. pud. 6] 6 1 So too with the bestowal of praise: to practise and train ourselves not to be daunted in trivial and easy things is not without its use. Thus at a friend’s banquet a citharode sings badly or a comic actor got for a great price murders Menander, and the crowd applauds and admires. Here I think it no hard or grievous matter to listen in silence and refrain from insincere and unmanly applause. For if you are not your own master here, what will you do when a friend reads a wretched poem or declaims a silly and preposterous speech? You will of course praise him and join the flatterers in their applause. How then will you correct him when he errs in the affairs of life? How admonish him when he is misguided in the case of some office, marriage, or policy of state? For my part I cannot even approve Pericles’ answer to the friend who asked him to give false testimony under oath, “As far as the altar I am your friend.” For this was getting much too close. Whereas he who keeps his distance by making it a practice never to praise a speech or applaud a song insincerely or laugh at a pointless joke, will call a halt long before there is any question of presuming so far or of saying to one who is independent in these ways “take an oath for me and give false testimony” or “pronounce an unjust verdict.”
[De vit. pud. 7] 7 1 The same method is to be used in opposing requests for money: we must first school ourselves in situations that are of no great moment, and where refusal is not difficult. Thus Archelaüs, king of the Macedonians, when asked at dinner for a golden cup by one whose only notion of propriety was that it is proper to receive, ordered the servant to give it to Euripides, and looking the fellow in the face remarked: “You are just the man to ask and not receive; he to receive even when he does not ask,” wisely letting his judgement, and not any feeling of embarrassment, govern the disposal of his gifts and favours; we, on the other hand, often pass over honest men, kinsmen, and those in need, to confer our gifts on others who are persistent and pressing in their demands, not that we consent to make the gift, but that we are too weak to refuse. Thus, repeatedly pestered by Bion, the aged Antigonus said: “Give Violence and Coercion a talent.” Yet he was the most adroit and plausible of kings Fat brushing such importunities aside. On one occasion, asked by a Cynic for a drachma, he answered: “Kings do not give so little”; and when the other countered, “Then give me a talent,” he replied, “Or Cynics take so much.” Now Diogenes went about the Cerameicus soliciting the statues, and said to the astonished spectators that he was getting in condition to meet refusals; we, however, must first practise on the vulgar and train ourselves in trivial matters to rebuff those who present unfitting requests, 532 that we may have the means to succour those on whom our bounty will be fittingly bestowed. For no one, says Demosthenes, after spending what he has on what he should not, will be able to spend what he has not on what he should. And our disgrace is rendered many times greater when we are short of funds for worthy ends because we were lavish in expenditures that were not called for.
[De vit. pud. 8] 8 1 Since compliancy is not only a wasteful and injudicious manager of an estate, but in graver concerns as well deprives us of the fruits of understanding — when in illness, for example, we do not call in the expert in the disease, fearing to offend our family practitioner; or when to instruct our children we choose not those who are competent but those who beg for the employment; or when in a lawsuit, as we often do, we do not commit our case to one who can help us from his familiarity with the courts, but in order to oblige a friend’s or kinsman’s son allow him to practice declamation at our expense; and when to crown it all we can see many so called philanthropists who are Epicureans or Stoics not from choice or judgement, but because they acceded to importunate relations or friends — let us keep a wide berth and train ourselves for these situations too on ordinary people and in trivial occasions, accustoming ourselves not to patronize a barber or fuller from fear of giving offence or to put up at a bad inn when a better can be had because the innkeeper has often greeted us, but instead, for the habit’s sake, to choose the better, though the odds be small, as the Pythagoreans always took care never to cross the left leg over the right or to take the even number instead of the odd, when otherwise there was no difference. We must also form the habit when celebrating a sacrifice or marriage or giving some other entertainment of not inviting a person who has greeted us or run up to welcome us in preference to a friend and honest man; for one who has this habit and training will in greater matters be no easy victim, or rather will be quite proof against assault.
[De vit. pud. 9] 9 1 So much for training. To pass to useful reflexions: the first is that which teaches and reminds us that all passions and disorders involve us in what we think we are avoiding by their means: ambition leads to disgrace, love of pleasure to pain, indolence to toil, contentiousness to discomfiture and defeat at law; and it turns out that compliancy, in its dread of getting a bad name, escapes the smoke to fall into the fire. For when men are too embarrassed to refuse unreasonable petitioners they later must incur the embarrassment of just reproaches; and from dread of trifling censure they must often put up with out-and out disgrace. Thus having been too shy to refuse a friend’s request for money that they do not have, they presently cut a sorry figure when the truth comes out; and having agreed to support one of the parties to a lawsuit, they then are so put out of countenance by the others that they hide and runaway. And many, reduced by this feeling to consenting to disadvantageous terms for a daughter’s or a sister’s marriage, are then driven by it in turn to break their word by making new arrangements.
[De vit. pud. 10] 10 1 Now he who said that the entire population of Asia were one man’s slaves because they could not say the one syllable “no,” was not serious but jesting. Yet those who are importuned need not say anything: merely by raising the brows or dropping the eyes they can avoid rendering many reluctant and uncalled-for services. For while Euripides asserts that silence is an answer to the wise, we are much more likely to need it in dealing with the inconsiderate, for reasonable men are open to persuasion.
[De vit. pud. 10b] Yes, and we must also have in readiness a stock of sayings of illustrious and virtuous men and quote them to the importunate, as Phocion’s reply to Antipater: 533 “You cannot use me both as a friend and flatterer,” and his answer to the Athenians who applauded him at a festival, clamouring for a special gift to the city: “I should be ashamed to give the money away to you and not back to him,” pointing to Callicles the money lender. For as Thucydides says, “the confession of poverty is no disgrace; what is disgraceful is the failure to avoid the reality.” But he who in his silly spinelessness is too meek to say to a suitor
[De vit. pud. 10c] But sir, no silver shines within my caves
and then proceeds to surrender his promise, as a pledge,
Lies bound in honour’s gyves, unforged by man.
[De vit. pud. 10d] Lending money to one of his followers Persaeus drew up a contract in the market-place with a banker, evidently remembering Hesiod:
[De vit. pud. 10e] Be he your brother, laugh and call a witness.
[De vit. pud. 11] The other was surprised and said: “So legal, Persaeus?” “Yes,” he answered, “that the sum may be repaid in the way of friendship, not reclaimed by way of law.” For many who start out by waiving security for fear of giving offence later go to law and lose their friend. 11 Again, giving Helicon of Cyzicus a letter to Dionysius, Plato commended the bearer as good and estimable, but added at the close: “I write this to you about a mortal man, a creature naturally unstable.” But Xenocrates despite the rigour of his character gave in to pressure and wrote to Polyperchon a letter of introduction for a worthless fellow, as appeared from the event. When the Macedonian welcomed him and inquired if he needed anything, the man asked for a talent. Polyperchon gave it but wrote to Xenocrates advising him in future to scrutinize more carefully the persons he recommended. Now Xenocrates acted in ignorance; we, however, although often well aware that a man is a scoundrel, yet part with letters and money, injuring ourselves without the pleasure got by those who indulge courtesans and flatterers, but loathing and resenting the brazen importunity that overthrows and masters our reason. For to no one more aptly than to those who wring concessions from us by their importunity can we say
[De vit. pud. 11b] I know the evil I set out to do —
[De vit. pud. 11c] in giving false testimony, rendering an unjust verdict, voting for an inexpedient measure, or borrowing for one who will never repay.
[De vit. pud. 12] 12 1 Thus it is facility, more than in any other disorder, that regret is not subsequent to the act, but present from the first: when we give, we chafe; when we testify, we are ashamed; when we act as partners, we are disgraced; — and when we fail to perform, the sorry truth comes out. For being too weak to refuse we promise persistent suitors many things beyond our power, such as presentation at court or introduction to a governor, for want of the will and the firmness to say: “I am unknown to the king; you must apply elsewhere,” as Lysander, who after the break with Agesilaüs was still supposed from his celebrity to stand high in his favour, was not ashamed to turn suitors away, directing them to others, and telling them to resort to those who had more influence with the king. For there is no disgrace in not being omnipotent; whereas to undertake such services and to force matters when we have not the power or the talent required, is not only ignominious but mortifying in the extreme.
[De vit. pud. 13] 13 1 There is another point of view. Reasonable and proper services we must render gladly to those that ask them, not in helpless submission, but because we choose to. 534 But when the service is harmful and unjustified we must always be ready with the saying of Zeno. Meeting a young man of his acquaintance pacing slowly by the city wall, and learning that he was avoiding a friend who expected him to give false testimony in his behalf, Zeno said: “Fool! This man, who is dealing unfairly and unjustly, has no fear or respect for you; and you, to defend the right, dare not stand up to him?” For he who said
[De vit. pud. 13b] A handy arm with knaves is knavery
[De vit. pud. 13c] recommends to us the bad habit of resisting vice by resorting to it; whereas to rid ourselves of brazen and unabashed suitors by being unabashed ourselves, and not, by giving in to shame, to render shameful favours to the shameless, is what is rightly and justly done by men of sense.
[De vit. pud. 14] 14 1 Again when suitors are obscure, of humble station, and of little worth, it is no great trouble to resist them; some indeed put them off with an amusing jest. Thus when two men in a bath-house wanted to borrow Theocritus’ scraper, the one a stranger, the other a thieving acquaintance, he evaded both with a quip, “You I don’t know, you I do.” At Athens Lysimachê, priestess of Athenê Polias, when asked for a drink by the muleteers who had brought the sacred vessels, replied: “I fear it will get into the ritual.” And Antigonus answered when a certain youth whose father was a distinguished captain, but who lacked resolution and courage himself, asked for advancement: “At my court, boy, it is man’s valour and not his father’s that is rewarded.”
[De vit. pud. 15] 15 1 But if the petitioner is a man of prominence and power — and these are the hardest to refuse and shake off when they appeal to us about a verdict or an appointment — the course indeed that was taken by Cato, while still a young man, Din dealing with Catulus, would hardly, I think, commend itself as easy or necessary. Catulus, of all the Romans the most highly regarded, held the office of censor at the time. He had gone up to see Cato, who was in charge of the public treasury, to intercede for one of the persons he had fined, and urged his appeal with great insistence. Cato at last lost patience and said: “It is unseemly, Catulus, that you, the censor, since you won’t take yourself off, should be thrown out by my staff.” Catulus was abashed and left in anger. But consider whether the conduct of Agesilaüs and Themistocles was not more courteous and moderate.
[De vit. pud. 16] Told by his father to render an illegal verdict in a certain case, Agesilaüs said: “But it was you, father, that taught me from childhood to obey the laws; I am therefore obeying you when I do nothing unlawful.” When Simonides asked an unjustified favour Themistocles answered: “You would not be a good poet if in your singing you failed to observe the music, nor I a proper officer if in my judgements I failed to observe the law.” 16 Yet, as Plato said, it is not discord of measure and music that sets city against city and friend against friend and lead them to inflict and undergo the greatest calamities, but jarring errors in law and justice. Nevertheless some, themselves sticklers for propriety in music, words, and metre, expect others who hold office, render verdicts, and are engaged in public affairs to disregard what is proper. This therefore is the very point that we must chiefly use against them.
[De vit. pud. 16b] A pleader appeals to you when you are hearing a case, or a party-leader when you hold a seat in the council: give your consent if he will commit a solecism in his proem or a barbarism in his narration. For this he will not do because it appears unseemly — indeed we see that some cannot even abide the collision of one vowel with another in making a speech. 535 Another shameless petitioner is an eminent and reputable personage: tell him to dance or make a face as he passes through the market-place. If he refuses, it is your cue to speak and inquire which is unseemly — to commit a solecism and make a face, or to break the law, to perjure yourself, and unjustly to favour a scoundrel at the expense of an upright man? Furthermore, as Nicostratus the Argive, when offered by Archidamus a great sum and his choice of the Spartan women in marriage if he would betray Crommyon, called Archidamus no true Heraclid, since Heracles had gone about killing malefactors, while Archidamus was making malefactors of honest men, in the same way we must say to one that claims the name of gentleman, if he forces matters and presses an impudent request, that his conduct is unseemly and unworthy of his birth and character.
[De vit. pud. 17] 17 1 With men who have vices you must consider and reflect whether you could bully the miser into lending a talent without a bond, the proud man into resigning his post of honour, or the ambitious politician into giving up his candidacy when expected to win. For it would appear strange indeed that these in their disorders and passions should remain undaunted, firm, and steadfast, while we, who desire and profess to be partisans of honesty and justice, should so fail in control that we are overthrown and abandon our character for virtue. Indeed, if the suitor’s aim is glory and power, it is absurd to enhance the lustre and greatness of another by cutting a sorry figure ourselves and getting a bad name, just as umpires who cheat at the games or officials who make corrupt appointments, while awarding to others offices, crowns, and glory not theirs to bestow, lose their own reputation and honour; whereas if money is his object, can we fail to observe that it is a strange bargain to squander our own repute and character in order to increase the weight of so and so’s purse?
[De vit. pud. 18] Yet such thoughts do occur to most people, and they know well that they are making a mistake. They are like men compelled to down a large beaker, who barely manage, moaning and with a wry face, to carry out the order. 18 1 But infirmity of the mind resembles a bodily constitution intolerant of either heat or cold. For when praised by the importunate such men go utterly soft and limp; while in face of the complaint and disapproval of rejected suitors they are timorous and fearful. We should make a bold stand on both fronts, yielding neither to intimidation nor to flattery. Thucydides, indeed, holding that power necessarily attracts envy, says “He does wisely who incurs envy for the greatest prize,” but we, who though we consider envy difficult to avoid, yet observe the utter impossibility of escaping reproach or avoiding offence to some of those who will have just cause to complain if we do injustice to oblige the others. Furthermore, the praise that comes from suitors is false coin: we must be thoroughly on our guard against it and not behave like swine, because of our itch to be scratched and tickled allowing the suitor to handle us as he pleases, and sinking to the ground in subservience to him. For he who gives ear to flatterers is no better than he who allows a leghold to one who would throw him; nay, the toss and fall is in his case more disgraceful. 536 Some, to get a name as merciful, humane, and compassionate, release wrongdoers from enmity and punishment; others on the contrary are persuaded to undertake quarrels and prosecutions that are neither compulsory nor free from risk, when they are praised as alone deserving to be called “men” and alone incapable of subservience — yes, and the flatterers even call them “mouths” and “voices.” Consequently Bion compared men of this sort to pitchers easily carried away by the ears. Thus it is reported that Alexinus the sophist was roundly abusing Stilpon of Megara in the Promenade when one of the audience said: “But he was praising you the other day.” “Exactly,” said Alexinus, “he is the most honest and outspoken of men.” Menedemus said on the contrary, on hearing that Alexinus often praised him, “For my part I have never a good word for him. The fellow is therefore a knave, as he either praises a knave or is censured by an honest man.” So steadfast was he and secure against the likes of these, and so firmly did he hold to the advice that Heracles in Antisthenes gave his sons, to thank no man for his praise, which came exactly to this: not to let themselves be prevailed upon by those who praised them and not to flatter them in return. Pindar’s answer is enough, I fancy. To one who said that he praised him everywhere and to everyone he replied: “And I return the courtesy; it is my doing that you tell the truth.”
[De vit. pud. 19] 19 1 Now the same remedy that helps to cure all disorders of the mind is especially indicated for those who yield easily to pressure: when forced by the disorder to err against their judgement and succumb to embarrassment, they must keep it firmly in the memory and store up reminders of their remorse and regret and rehearse them and preserve them for a very long time. For as wayfarers who have stumbled over a stone, or skippers who have capsized off a headland, Dif they retain the circumstances in their memory, henceforth never fail to avoid with a shudder not only the occasion of their misadventure, but everything resembling it, so those who constantly hold up to their repentance and remorse the shame and loss involved in compliancy will in similar circumstances resist the feeling and not easily allow it to carry them away.

## On envy and hate

[De inv. et od. 1] 536 1 1 On the following view it is thought to differ not at all from hate, but to be the same. Thus one may say in general that vice, like a line with many hooks, as it moves to and fro with the passions attached to it, gives them occasion to form many connexions and entanglements one another; and that it is with the passions as with diseases: when one becomes inflamed the other does. Thus it is the fortunate man that is a source of pain to one who feels hate as well as to one who feels envy. Hence we consider goodwill to be contrary to both, as it is the wish for one’s neighbour’s prosperity; and hatred and envy to be the same, since their aim is the contrary to that of friendship. But since similarities do not so surely make for sameness as dissimilarities make for difference, we shall endeavour to settle the question by examining the latter, noting first the origin of the two passions.
[De inv. et od. 2] 2 1 Now hate arises from a notion that the person hated is bad either in general or toward oneself. 7 Thus it is men’s nature to hate when they think they have been wronged themselves; and again men reprobate and view with disgust all who in any other way are given to wrongdoing or wickedness. Whereas to attract envy all that is required is apparent prosperity. Hence it would appear that no bounds are set to envy, which, like sore eyes, is disturbed by everything resplendent; whereas hate has bounds and is in every case directed against particular subjects.
[De inv. et od. 3] 3 1 In the second place, even irrational animals may be objects of hate: some people hate weasels, beetles, toads, or snakes. Germanicus could not abide the sound or sight of a cock; and the Persian magi killed water mice, not only because they personally hated them, but because they felt that God regarded the animal as offensive; thus nearly all Arabs and Ethiopians loathe it. But envy occurs only between man and man.
[De inv. et od. 4] 4 1 In animals it is not likely that envy of one another arises, as they have no notion of another’s good or ill fortune, nor are they affected by glory or disgrace, things by which envy is most exasperated. But there is mutual hatred, hostility, and what might be called truceless war between eagles and snakes, crows and owls, titmice and goldfinches; indeed it is said that the blood of these last will not mingle when the animals are killed, but even if you mix it, separates again and runs off in two distinct streams. It is likely, moreover, that in lions the strong hatred of cocks, and in elephants of swine, has been engendered by fear; for what they fear they naturally hate as well. Here, too, therefore, envy is seen to differ from hate, as animal nature admits the one but not the other.
[De inv. et od. 5] 5 1 Again, no one is ever envied with justice, as no one is unjust in being fortunate, and it is for good fortune that men are envied. On the other hand, many are hated with justice, Das those we call “deserving of hate”; and we censure others when they fail to shun such persons and to feel loathing and disgust for them. Good evidence of this is the circumstance that while some confess that they hate a good many people, there is no one that they will say they envy. Indeed hatred of wickedness is among the things we praise; and when certain persons praised Charillus, Lycurgus’ nephew, who was king of Sparta, but a mild and gentle man, his colleague remarked: “How can you call Charillus a good man, when he is not even severe with scoundrels?” And whereas Homer was very detailed and circumstantial in his description of Thersites’ bodily deformity, he expressed the viciousness of his character very succinctly and in a single statement:
[De inv. et od. 5b] Most hateful he to Achilles and Odysseus.
[De inv. et od. 5c] For it is a kind of extreme of baseness to be hateful to the best men. But men deny that they envy as well; and if you show that they do, they allege any number of excuses and say they are angry with the fellow or hate him, cloaking and concealing their envy with whatever other name occurs to them for their passion, implying that among the disorders of the soul it is alone unmentionable.
[De inv. et od. 6] 6 1 Now these passions, like plants, must also feed and grow with what produces them. They are consequently intensified by different things. Thus while our hatred increases as the hated progress in vice, envy on the other hand increases with the apparent progress of the envied in virtue. This explains why when Themistocles was still a youth he said that he was doing nothing remarkable, as he was not yet envied. For just as beetles appear most of all in grain when it is ripe for harvest and in roses when they are in full bloom, so envy fastens most of all on characters and persons that are good and increasing in virtue and fame. In contrast unredeemed villainies intensify hate. At any rate, those who brought false charges against Socrates, 538 being held to have received the limit of baseness, were so hated and shunned by their countrymen that no one would lend them light for a fire, answer their questions, or bathe in the same water, but made the attendants pour it out as polluted, until the men hanged themselves, finding the hatred unendurable. On the other hand supreme and resplendent good fortune often extinguishes envy. For it is hardly likely that anyone envied Alexander or Cyrus when they had prevailed and become masters of the world. But just as the sun, when it stands directly over a man’s head, pouring down its light, either quite obliterates his shadow or makes it small, so when good fortune attains great elevation and comes to stand high over envy, then envy diminishes and withdraws, being overcome by the blaze of glory. Hate, however, is not made to relent by the preeminence and power of one’s enemies. Alexander certainly had none who envied, but many who hated him, and it was these who plotted against him and killed him in the end. So too with misfortunes: they put a stop to envy but not to hate, for men hate even their humbled enemies, whereas no one envies the unfortunate. Rather it is a true remark of a certain sophist of our day that those who envy take the greatest delight in pitying. Here too, therefore, there is a great difference between the two passions, since it is the nature of hate to depart from neither the fortunate nor the unfortunate, whereas envy is no longer sustained when either fortune is at its height.
[De inv. et od. 7] 7 1 Again — or rather this is what we have just been doing — , let us examine the same principle in its negative aspect. Men forgo hostility and hate either when convinced that no injustice is being done them, or when they adopt the view that those they hated as evil are good, or thirdly when they have received from them some benefit, “for the final service,” as Thucydides says, “though small, if opportunely bestowed, wipes out a greater disservice.” Now the first of these circumstances does not wipe out envy; for men feel it though persuaded from the first that no injustice is being done them. The other two actually exasperate it: for enviers eye more jealously those who enjoy a reputation for goodness, feeling that they possess the greatest blessing, virtue; and even if they receive some benefit from the fortunate, are tormented, envying them for both the intention and the power. For the intention proceeds from their virtue, the power from their good fortune, and both are blessings. It is therefore quite distinct from hate, if what soothes the one torments and embitters the other.
[De inv. et od. 8] 8 1 Let us therefore now take the intention of each of the two passions and examine it by itself. The intention of the hater is to injure, and the meaning of hate is thus defined: it is a certain disposition and intention awaiting the opportunity to injure. In envy this, at any rate, is absent. For there are many of their intimates and connexions that the envious would not be willing to see destroyed or suffer misfortune, although tormented by their good fortune; and while they abridge their fame and glory if they can, they would not, on the other hand, afflict them with irreparable calamities, but as with a house towering above their own, are content to pull down the part that casts them in the shade.

## On praising oneself inoffensively

[De se ipsum laud. 1] 539 1 1 In theory, my dear Herculanus, it is agreed that to speak to others of one’s own importance or power is offensive, but in practice not many even of those who condemn such conduct avoid the odium of it. Thus Euripides says:
[De se ipsum laud. 1b] If speech were got by purchase, there is none
Would care to lay out money on self-praise.
[De se ipsum laud. 1c] But since the bounteous air provides it free
There’s none but dwells with pleasure on his merits
Real or fancied, for it cost him nothing.
[De se ipsum laud. 1d] Yet he brags most intolerably, interweaving with the calamities and concerns of his tragedies the irrelevant theme of his own praise. Pindar does the like. Though he says
[De se ipsum laud. 1e] Untimely vaunting plays the tune for madness
[De se ipsum laud. 1f] he never wearies of extolling his own powers, which indeed deserve all praise — who denies it? — ; but even the winners of the crown at the games are proclaimed victors by others, who thus remove the odium of self-praise. Thus when Timotheüs writes in celebration of his triumph over Phrynis,
[De se ipsum laud. 1g] O blest wert thou, Timotheüs, when the herald
Called forth: “Timotheüs of Miletus wins
The prize from Camon’s son, the modulator
Of soft Ionic cadences,”
[De se ipsum laud. 1h] Dwe are properly disgusted at this jarring and irregular heralding of his own victory. For while praise from others, as Xenophon said, is the most pleasant of recitals, praise of ourselves is for others most distressing. For first we regard self-praisers as shameless, since they should be embarrassed even by praise from others; second as unfair, as they arrogate to themselves what it is for others to bestow; and in the third place if we listen in silence we appear disgruntled and envious, while if we shy at this we are forced to join in the eulogies and confirm them against our better judgement, thus submitting to a thing more in keeping with unmanly flattery than with the showing of esteem — the praise of a man to his face.
[De se ipsum laud. 2] 2 1 Yet in spite of all this there are times when the statesman might venture on self-glorification, as it is called, not for any personal glory or pleasure, but when the occasion and the matter in hand demand that the truth be told about himself, as it might about another — especially when by permitting himself to mention his good accomplishments and character he is enabled to achieve some similar good. For such praise as this yields a handsome return, as a greater harvest of yet nobler praise springs up from it as from a seed. Indeed it is not as a reward or compensation for his merit that the statesman demands recognition and values it when accorded to his acts: he does so rather because the enjoyment of confidence and good repute affords means for further and yet nobler actions. For when men are trusting and friendly it is pleasant and easy to do them good; whereas in the presence of distrust and dislike it is impossible to put one’s merit to use and force benefits on those who shun them. Whether there are also other reasons for a statesman’s self-praise is a question to consider, 540 so that, while avoiding all that is frivolous and offensive in the practice, we may not overlook its possible uses.
[De se ipsum laud. 3] 3 1 Now the praise is frivolous which men are felt to bestow upon themselves merely to receive it; and it is held in the greatest contempt, as it appears to aim at gratifying ambition and an unseasonable appetite for fame. For just as those who can find no other food are compelled to feed unnaturally on their own persons, and this is the extremity of famine, so when those who hunger for praise cannot find others to praise them, they give the appearance of seeking sustenance and succour for their vainglorious appetite from themselves, a graceless spectacle. But when they do not even seek to be praised simply and in themselves, but try to rival the honour that belongs to others and set against it their own accomplishments and acts in the hope of dimming the glory of another, their conduct is not only frivolous, but envious and spiteful as well. For the proverb makes of him who sets foot in another’s chorus a meddler and a fool; and self-praise that is thrust by envy and jealousy among praises of others should be most diligently avoided; indeed we should not even endure such praise from others, but should give place to those on whom honour is conferred when they deserve it. If we hold them undeserving and of little worth, let us not strip them of their praise by presenting our own, but plainly refute their claim and show their reputation to be groundless. Here then is something we clearly must avoid.
[De se ipsum laud. 4] 4 1 In the first place self-praise goes unresented if you are defending your good name or answering a charge, as Pericles when he said:
[De se ipsum laud. 4b] “Yet I, with whom you are angry, yield to none, I believe, in devising needful measures and laying them before you; and I love my country and cannot be bought.”
[De se ipsum laud. 4c] For not only is there nothing puffed up, vainglorious, or proud in taking a high tone about oneself at such a moment, but it displays as well a lofty spirit and greatness of character, which by refusing to be humbled humbles and overpowers envy. For men no longer think it fit even to pass judgement on such as these, but exult and rejoice and catch the inspiration of the swelling speech, when it is well-founded and true. The facts confirm this. Thus when the generals were tried on the charge that they had not returned home at once on the expiration of their term as Boeotarchs, but had invaded Laconia and handled the Messenian affair, the Thebans came near to condemning Pelopidas, who truckled to them and entreated mercy; but when Epameinondas expatiated on the glory of his acts and said in conclusion that he was ready to die if they would admit that he had founded Messenê, ravaged Laconia, and united Arcadia against their will, they did not even wait to take up the vote against him, but with admiration for the man commingled with delight and laughter broke up the meeting. Neither then should we altogether blame Sthenelus in Homer for saying
[De se ipsum laud. 4d] Far better men are we than were our sires,
but remember the words
For shame! Why dost thou, valiant Tydeus’ son,
Hang back? Why peer about the paths of war?
[De se ipsum laud. 4e] For Sthenelus had not even received the insult himself; he was answering the affront to his friend, and the imputation gave a pardonable latitude to his self-praise. The Romans again were annoyed with Cicero for frequently vaunting his success with Catiline; but when Scipio said that it ill befitted them to sit in judgement over Scipio, to whom they owed the power to sit in judgement for all mankind, they put garlands on their heads, escorted him to the Capitol, and joined him in the sacrifice. 541 For Cicero boasted not from necessity but for glory; whereas the peril of the other did away with envy.
[De se ipsum laud. 5] 5 1 This holds not only of those on trial and in peril; the unfortunate as well can boast and extol themselves with better grace than the fortunate. For the fortunate are felt to lay hands on glory, as it were, and take their pleasure of it in gratification of their pride, but the others, far removed from ambition by their plight, are looked upon as breasting ill-fortune, shoring up their courage, and eschewing all appeal to pity and all whining and self-abasement in adversity. And so, just as we regard those who strut on a walk and hold up their chin as fatuous and vain, but when in boxing or fighting men rise to their full height and hold the head erect, we applaud; so the man cast down by fortune, when he stands upright in fighting posture
[De se ipsum laud. 5b] Like a boxer closing in,
[De se ipsum laud. 5c] using self-glorification to pass from a humbled and perilous state to an attitude of triumph and pride, strikes us not as offensive or bold, but as great and indomitable. Thus in Homer Patroclus is moderate and inoffensive in success, but boastful in death, when he said
[De se ipsum laud. 5d] Had twenty faced me such as thou . . .
[De se ipsum laud. 5e] Again Phocion, who was at other times of mild temper, gave after his condemnation many signs of his great spirit, notably when he said to one of those sentenced to die with him, who was lamenting and showing impatience, “What’s the matter, my good man? Are you not content to die with Phocion?”
[De se ipsum laud. 6] Further, it is no less, nay even more, permissible for a statesman when wronged to make some boast to those who deal hardly with him. Thus Achilles at other times yielded the glory to Heaven and showed his modesty by saying:
[De se ipsum laud. 6b] If we by Zeus’ high will
Shall take at last the lofty walls of Troy;
[De se ipsum laud. 6c] but when wrongfully affronted and outraged he let his anger give full course to vaunting:
[De se ipsum laud. 6d] Twelve cities with my fleet have I made empty
and:
For they see not
The glancing light upon my helm draw nigh.
[De se ipsum laud. 6e] For the freedom of speech that is involved in a plea for justice gives scope for self-praise. Thus Themistocles neither said nor did anything invidious at the time of his successes; but when he saw that the Athenians had grown weary of him and indifferent, he did not hesitate to say: “My innocent friends, why so tired of repeated benefits from the same hands?” And again: “In a storm you take shelter with me, as under a tree; but in fair weather you pluck the leaves as you pass me by.”
[De se ipsum laud. 7] 7 1 Now the wrongs of these men did not bear directly on the triumphs that they recalled to their persecutors. But a man reproached for his very triumphs is entirely pardonable and escapes all censure if he extols what he has done. For this, it is felt, is not recrimination but self-defence. It was this, for example, that allowed Demosthenes to speak with full freedom and made palatable the self-praise with which he fills nearly the whole oration On the Crown, as he glories Fin the very charges brought against him: his conduct as ambassador and statesman in the war.
[De se ipsum laud. 8] 8 1 Not far removed from this is the use of contrast. There is a certain graceful effect in showing that the opposite of what one is charged with would have been shameful and base. Thus Lycurgus said at Athens when abused for buying off an informer: “What do you think of my character as a citizen, when after all these years in office I am caught giving money dishonestly, instead of taking it?” 542 And when Metellus told Cicero that his testimony had killed more men than his pleading had saved, he replied: “Who denies that I am more honest than eloquent?” Such too are the words of Demosthenes: “Who would not rightly have condemned me to death if even by word I had tried to sully any of our country’s glories?” And “What do you think these blackguards would have said if the cities had deserted us while I was busy quibbling about that?” And in general the oration On the Crown uses the most felicitous contrasts, as each charge is refuted, to introduce self-praise.
[De se ipsum laud. 9] 9 1 There is in that oration a further point that it is useful to note: by most harmoniously blending the praises of his audience with his own he removed the offensiveness and self-love in his words, praising the Athenians for their conduct towards the Euboeans and toward the Thebans, and for all the good that they had done the people of Byzantium and of the Chersonese, claiming for himself but a share in carrying out instructions. For in this way the hearers, taken off guard, accept with pleasure the praise of the speaker, which insinuates itself along with the praise of themselves; and their delight in the rehearsal of their own successes is followed at once with admiration and approval of him who made them possible. Hence Epameinondas said when Menecleidas derided him as prouder than Agamemnon: “But it is your doing, men of Thebes; with your help alone I overthrew the Spartan empire in a day.”
[De se ipsum laud. 10] 10 1 Since towards one who praises himself the generality of men feel a great hostility and resentment, but do not feel so strongly against one who praises another, but often even listen with pleasure and voice their agreement, some, when the occasion allows, are in the habit of praising others whose aims and acts are the same as their own and whose general character is similar. In this way they conciliate the hearer and draw his attention to themselves; for although they are speaking of another, he at once recognizes in the speaker a merit that from its similarity deserves the same praises. For as one who vilifies another in terms that apply to himself does not deceive the audience, which sees that he vilifies himself rather than the other, so when one good man commends another he reminds hearers conscious of his merit of himself, so that they at once exclaim “And are not you one of these?” Alexander by honouring Heracles, and again Androcottus by honouring Alexander, won esteem for themselves for similar merit; whereas when Dionysius made sport of Gelon and dubbed him the jest of Sicily, he unwittingly in his envy defamed the greatness and majesty of his own power.
[De se ipsum laud. 11] 11 This the statesman must in any case understand and for this he must seize the proper occasions. But those who are forced to speak in their own praise are made more endurable by another procedure as well: not to lay claim to everything, but to disburden themselves, as it were, of honour, letting part of it rest with chance, and part with God. For this reason Achilles did well to say
[De se ipsum laud. 11b] Since I by Heaven’s will have slain this man,
[De se ipsum laud. 11c] and Timoleon did well to erect an altar at Syracuse to the Goddess of Accidents in commemoration of his acts, and to consecrate his house to the Good Daemon. Best of all is what Python of Athens did. After killing Cotys he had come to Athens and the speakers were outdoing one another in extolling him to the assembly. Noticing that some persons were jealous and disaffected he came forward and said: “This, men of Athens, was the doing of some god; I did but lend my arm.” Sulla too got rid of envy by always praising his luck, eventually proclaiming himself the Fortunate. For men would rather be bested by luck than by merit, feeling that in the first event another had had an advantage, in the second, that the failure lies in themselves and is their own doing. 543 Thus the code of Zaleucus found favour with the Locrians not least, it is said, because he asserted that Athena had constantly appeared to him and had in each case guided and instructed him in his legislation, and that nothing he proposed was of his own invention or devising.
[De se ipsum laud. 12] 12 1 But it is perhaps for the altogether intractable and envious that such medicines and palliatives must be invented. With the fair-minded it is not amiss to use another device, that of amending the praise: when praised as eloquent, rich, or powerful, to request the other not to mention such points but rather to consider whether one is of worthy character, commits no injuries, and leads a useful life. He that does this does not introduce the praise, but transfers it; and he leaves the impression not of delighting in the encomiasts but of being displeased with them for praise that is unbecoming and bestowed for the wrong reasons, using his better points to draw attention from the worse, not from a desire for praise, but to show how to praise aright. Indeed the words “Not with stone did I encircle Athens nor with brick; survey the wall I built and you will discover arms, cavalry, and allies” appear to reflect such a procedure. Still more does the saying of Pericles. His friends, we are told, lamented as he lay dying and were disconsolate, recalling his commands and power and the many trophies, victories, and cities he had won and left to Athens. Rallying a moment he rebuked them for extolling what many others had done as well and what was in part the work of fortune rather than of merit, while they passed over the noblest and greatest encomium and his alone, that no Athenian for any act of his had put on mourning. This precedent allows the orator, if meritorious, when praised for eloquence, to transfer the praise to his life and character, and the commander admired for skill or success in war to speak freely of his clemency and justice; and again, when the praise runs on the contrary to extravagance, as with the invidious flattery used by many, it permits one to say:
[De se ipsum laud. 12b] “No god am I; why likenest thou me
To the immortals?
[De se ipsum laud. 12c] If you know me truly, commend my probity, temperance, reasonableness, or humanity.” For to him who declines the greater honours envy is not displeased to grant the more moderate, and does not cheat of true praise those who reject what is false and vain. Hence those kings who were unwilling to be proclaimed a god or son of a god, but rather Philadelphus or Philometor or Euergetes or Theophiles, were ungrudgingly honoured by those who gave them these noble yet human titles. So again, while men resent the writers and speakers who assume the epithet “wise,” they are delighted with those who say that they love wisdom or are advancing in merit, or put forward some other such moderate and inoffensive claim. Whereas the rhetorical sophists who at their displays of eloquence accept from the audience the cries of “how divine” and “spoken like a god” lose even such commendation as “fairly said” and “spoken as becomes a man.”
[De se ipsum laud. 13] 13 1 Again, as those who would spare the susceptibilities of sufferers from sore eyes temper with shade whatever is unduly brilliant, so some do not present their own praise in all its brilliance and undimmed, but throw in certain minor shortcomings, failures, or faults, thus obviating any effect of displeasure or disapproval. Thus Epeius says after his extravagant talk about boxing and his vaunt that a blow from him would rip clean through the skin and smash the bones:
[De se ipsum laud. 13b] Nay is it not enough
That I am slack in war?
[De se ipsum laud. 13c] 544 But he indeed is perhaps ridiculous for mitigating his athlete’s bragging by a confession of cowardice and unmanliness. There is tact, however, and grace in one who tells of some slip of his own or some mistake or feeling of ambition or weakness for some piece of instruction or information, like Odysseus:
[De se ipsum laud. 13d] But my heart
Was fain to hear, and nodding with my brows
I bade my mates unbind me
and again:
BI hearkened not — far better had it been —
For I would see the man himself, and hoped
To have from him some hospitable gift.
[De se ipsum laud. 13e] And in general when faults not altogether degrading or ignoble are set down beside the praise they do away with envy. Many also blunt the edge of envy by occasionally inserting into their own praise a confession even of poverty and indigence or actually of low birth. Thus when Agathocles at a banquet was presenting the young men with cups of enchased gold he ordered earthen cups also to be brought and said: “You see what perseverance, diligence, and courage can do; I once fashioned cups of clay; I now fashion them of gold.” For Agathocles was believed to have been brought up in the potter’s trade because of his low birth and poverty; and from this state he rose to become king of well-nigh the whole of Sicily.
[De se ipsum laud. 14] 14 1 These antidotes for self-praise we can introduce from outside; others are in a way inherent in the very content of the praise. Such Cato used when he said that he was envied for neglecting his own affairs and spending sleepless nights to serve his country. So too with the lines
[De se ipsum laud. 14b] I wise? I could have rested at my ease
Unmarked among the mass of those who served
And shared an equal fortune with the wisest
and
Since I would not my former credit lose
So hardly won, I take upon myself
This present task as well.
[De se ipsum laud. 14c] For it is with reputation and character as with a house or an estate: the multitude envy those thought to have acquired them at no cost or trouble; they do not envy those who have purchased them with much hardship and peril.
[De se ipsum laud. 15] 15 1 It is not enough, however, to praise ourselves without giving offence and arousing envy; there should be some use and advantage in it as well, that we may appear not merely to be intent on praise, but to have some further end in view. Consider first, then, whether a man might praise himself to exhort his hearers and inspire them with emulation and ambition, as Nestor by recounting his own exploits and battles incited Patroclus and roused the nine champions to offer themselves for the single combat. For exhortation that includes action as well as argument and presents the speaker’s own example and challenge is endued with life: it arouses and spurs the hearer, and not only awakens his ardour and fixes his purpose, but also affords him hope that the end can be attained and is not impossible. Therefore in the Spartan choruses the old men sing:
[De se ipsum laud. 15b] Time was when we were valiant youths;
the boys sing:
So we shall be, and braver far;
and the young men:
So we now are: you need but look.
[De se ipsum laud. 15c] Here the legislator acted well and like a statesman in proposing to the young examples close at hand and taken from their own people, employing as spokesmen the very men whose actions were to be their model.
[De se ipsum laud. 16] 16 1 But there are also times when in order to overawe and restrain the hearer and to humble and subdue the headstrong and rash, it is not amiss to make some boast and extol oneself. To quote Nestor once more:
[De se ipsum laud. 16b] Time was I served
With better men than you, and never these
Disdained my counsel.
[De se ipsum laud. 16c] 545 So too Aristotle said to Alexander that not only the rulers of a great empire have a right to be proud but also those with true opinions about the gods. Useful too against public and private enemies are such remarks as these:
[De se ipsum laud. 16d] Unhappy they whose sons oppose my power,
[De se ipsum laud. 16e] and Agesilaüs’ saying about the King of the Persians (who was called “Great”): “Wherein greater than I, if not more just?” And Epameinondas’ reply to the Lacedaemonians when they denounced the Thebans: “We have at any rate put a stop to your Laconic speech.”
[De se ipsum laud. 16f] These however are against enemies public and private; among friends and countrymen we can not only calm and chasten the overbold, but also restore and rouse the spirits of the terrified and timorous by a seasonable recourse to self-praise. Thus in danger and in battle Cyrus “boasted, but at other times was not given to high talk.” And Antigonus the Second was ordinarily sober and moderate, but in the sea-fight off Cos, when one of his friends said, “Do you not see how greatly the enemy’s ships outnumber ours?” he replied, “Yes, but against how many do you, my friends, set me?” This too Homer appears to have understood, for he represents Odysseus, when his men were dismayed at the noise and raging waters of Charybdis, as recalling to them his own skill and stout heart:
[De se ipsum laud. 16g] No greater peril this than when by force
The Cyclops penned us in his hollow cave;
Yet from that cave my manhood and my wit
Availed to save us.
[De se ipsum laud. 16h] This is not the self-praise of a demagogue or would be sophist or of one who courts plaudits and cheers, but of a man who offers his virtue and understanding to his friends as security against despair. For at critical moments a successful outcome may depend largely on the regard and confidence that are placed in some man who possesses the experience and talents of a leader.
[De se ipsum laud. 17] 17 1 That it is most unstatesmanlike to pit oneself against the praise and fame of others was said earlier; yet where mistaken praise injures and corrupts by arousing emulation of evil and inducing the adoption of an unsound policy where important issues are at stake, it is no disservice to counteract it, or rather to divert the hearer’s purpose to a better course by pointing out the difference. One would be well content, I think, to see the multitude, when vice is denounced and censured, willing to abstain from it; but if vice should acquire good standing, and if honour and reputation should be added to its temptations in the way of pleasure or profit, there is no human nature so fortunate or strong as not to succumb. It is not then with the praise of persons, but with that of acts, when they are vicious, that the statesman must wage war. For this sort of praise perverts; it brings with it the imitation and emulation of what is shameful as if it were noble.
[De se ipsum laud. 17b] Such praise is best shown for what it is when true praise is set beside it. For example the tragic actor Theodorus once remarked, it is said, to the comedian Satyrus that there was nothing wonderful in making the audience laugh, but in making them weep and lament. Now I think if a philosopher replies to this same Theodorus: “Sir, it is not making men lament and weep, but putting an end to sorrow and lamentation that is admirable,” this self-praise benefits the hearer and corrects his judgement. Thus Zeno said of the great number of Theophrastus’ pupils: “His is the larger chorus, mine the more harmonious.” 546 And while Leosthenes still prospered in his campaign Phocion replied when the speakers asked what service he had done the state: “Only that when I was general you speakers delivered no funeral oration, as all who died were buried in their family graves.” And the lines
[De se ipsum laud. 17c] This have I: what I ate, what with high hand
I seized, the lover’s soft delight
were very happily answered by Crates when he wrote
This have I: what I learned, what with deep thought
BI grasped, the Muses’ stern delight.
[De se ipsum laud. 17d] Such praise as this is good and helpful, teaching admiration and love of the useful and profitable rather than of the vain and superfluous. So let this point take its place with the others in our discussion of the subject.
[De se ipsum laud. 18] 18 1 As the discussion now requires and invites us to proceed to the next point, it remains to state how we may each avoid unseasonable self-praise. Boasting has in self-love a powerful base of operations, and we can often detect its assaults even against those who are held to take but a modest interest in glory. For as one of the rules of health is either to avoid unwholesome places altogether, or being in them to take the greater care, so with self-love: there are certain treacherous situations and themes that make us blunder into it on the slightest occasion.
[De se ipsum laud. 18b] First, when others are praised, our rivalry erupts, as we said, into praise of self; it is seized with a certain barely controllable yearning and urge for glory that stings and tickles like an itch, especially when the other is praised for something in which he is our equal or inferior. For just as in the hungry the sight of others eating makes the appetite sharper and keener, so the praise of others not far removed inflames with jealousy those who are intemperate in seeking glory.
[De se ipsum laud. 19] 19 1 Second, in telling of exploits that have been lucky and have turned out according to plan, many are so pleased with themselves that before they know it they have drifted into vainglorious boasting. For once they come to talk of some of victory or political success or act or word of theirs that found favour with leading men, they get out of hand and go too far. To this sort of self-glorification one may observe that courtiers and the military most readily succumb. But it may also attack those who have returned from a governor’s banquet or from handling affairs of state. For with the mention of illustrious and royal personages they interweave certain gracious remarks that these personages have addressed to them, and fancy that they are not praising themselves but recounting praise received from others. Some even suppose that the self-praise is quite unobserved by their audience when they report the greetings, salutations, and attentions of kings and generals, feeling that what they recite is not their own praise but proofs of the courtesy and affability of others. We must therefore look warily to ourselves when we recount praise received from others and see that we do not allow any taint or suggestion of self-love and self-praise to appear, lest we be thought to make Patroclus our excuse, while we are really singing our own praise.
[De se ipsum laud. 20] 20 1 But the topic of censure and reproof also has its dangers and offers opportunities of deviation to those who suffer from a morbid craving for glory. Here old men especially go astray: once they have been drawn into admonishing others and rating unworthy habits and unwise acts, they magnify themselves as men who in the like circumstances have been prodigies of wisdom. 547 These indeed, if not merely distinguished by years but by reputation and merit as well, must have licence. What they do is not unprofitable — far from it — : it arouses emulation and a kind of ambition in the persons so rebuked. But the rest of us must carefully avoid and be wary of this deviation. For to point out the faults of our neighbours in any case gives pain, can hardly be borne, and requires great tact; but when a man intermingles praise of himself with censure of another, and uses another’s disgrace to secure glory for himself, he is altogether odious and vulgar, as one who would win applause from the humiliation of another.
[De se ipsum laud. 21] 21 1 Again, as those who are naturally prone and prompt to laugh should take special care to avoid being tickled or so handled that the smoothest particles of the body glide and flow together and thus bring on and precipitate the fit, in the same way those with a too ardent weakness for fame should especially be advised to abstain from praising themselves when they are praised by others. For you should blush when praised, not be unblushing; you should restrain those who mention some great merit of yours, not find fault with them for doing you scant justice, as most do, going on themselves to recall and gorge themselves Con other actions and feats of prowess until by thus commending themselves they undo the commendation of others. Now some tickle these men as it were by flattery and puff them up; others maliciously throw out a little tribute as a kind of bait to elicit self-praise; still others press for details and interrogate them for the fun of it, as with Menander’s soldier:
[De se ipsum laud. 21b] — What made this scar? — A javelin. — O please
Tell us the story. — I was on a ladder
Scaling a wall . . . I in all seriousness
Proceed to demonstrate; and then once more
They sneered at me.
[De se ipsum laud. 22] 22 1 In all these circumstances we cannot be too cautious, not allowing ourselves to be drawn out by the praise nor to be led on by the questions. The surest precaution and safeguard is to attend closely to the self-praise of others and to remember the distaste and vexation that was felt by all: no other kind of talk is so odious or offensive. For although we can point to no further harm than the mere hearing of the self-praise, yet as though instinctively irked by the performance and uncomfortable we are eager to escape and breathe freely again. Why even a flatterer, a hanger on, a man in need, finds it hard in his necessity to stomach and endure a rich man or satrap or king bestowing praises on himself, and calls it the most exorbitant reckoning he ever paid. Witness the character in Menander:
[De se ipsum laud. 22b] He murders me. The feasting makes me thin.
[De se ipsum laud. 22c] Good God! The wit! The military wit!
[De se ipsum laud. 22d] What airs he gives himself, the blasted windbag!
[De se ipsum laud. 22e] These are the flatterers and language to which we are prompted not only by soldiers and the newly rich with their flaunting and ostentatious talk, but also by sophists, philosophers, and commanders who are full of their own importance and hold forth on the theme; and if we remember that praise of oneself always involves dispraise from others, that this vainglory has an inglorious end, the audience being left, as Demosthenes says, with a feeling of vexation, not with any belief in the truth of the self-portrait, we shall avoid talking about ourselves unless we have in prospect some great advantage to our hearers or to ourselves.

## On the delays of divine vengeance

PATROCLEAS, PLUTARCH, TIMON, OLYMPICUS.
[De sera 1] 1.These and such like things, O Quintus! when Epicurus had spoken, before any person could return an answer, while we were busy at the farther end of the portico, he flung away in great haste. However, we could not but in some measure admire at the odd behavior of the man, though without taking any farther notice of it in words; and therefore, after we had gazed a while one upon another, we returned to walk as we were singled out in company before. At this time Patrocleas first breaking silence, How say ye, gentlemen? said he: if you think fitting, why may not we discuss this question of the last proposer as well in his absence as if he were present? To whom Timon replying, Surely, said he, it would but ill become us, if at us he aimed upon his departure, to neglect the arrow sticking in our sides. For Brasidas, as history reports, drawing forth the javelin out of his own body, with the same javelin not only wounded him that threw it, but slew him outright. But as for ourselves, we surely have no need to revenge ourselves on them that pelt us with absurd and fallacious reasonings; but it will be sufficient that we shake them off before our opinion has taken hold of them. Then, said I, which of his sayings is it that has given you the greatest cause to be moved? For the man dragged into his discourse many things confusedly, and nothing in order; but gleaning up and down from this and the other place, as it were in the transports of his wrath and scurrility, he then poured the whole in one torrent of abuse upon the providence of God.
[De sera 2] 2. To which Patrocleas: The slowness of the Supreme Deity and his procrastination in reference to the punishment of the wicked have long perplexed my thoughts; but now, puzzled by these arguments which he produces, I find myself as it were a stranger to the opinion, and newly beginning again to learn. For a long time I could not with patience hear that expression of Euripides,
[De sera 2b] Does he delay and slowly move;
‘Tis but the nature of the Gods above.
[De sera 2c] For indeed it becomes not the Supreme Deity to be remiss in any thing, but more especially in the prosecution of the wicked, since they themselves are no way negligent or dilatory in doing mischief, but are always driven on by the most rapid impetuosities of their passions to acts of injustice. For certainly, according to the saying of Thucydides, that revenge which follows injury closest at the heels presently puts a stop to the progress of such as make advantage of successful wickedness. Therefore there is no debt with so much prejudice put off, as that of justice. For it weakens the hopes of the person wronged and renders him comfortless and pensive, but heightens the boldness and daring insolence of the oppressor; whereas, on the other side, those punishments and chastisements that immediately withstand presuming violence not only restrain the committing of future outrages, but more especially bring along with them a particular comfort and satisfaction to the sufferers. Which makes me no less troubled at the saying of Bias, which frequently comes into my mind. For thus he spake once to a notorious reprobate: It is not that I doubt thou wilt suffer the just reward of thy wickedness, but I fear that I myself shall not live to see it. For what did the punishment of Aristocrates avail the Messenians who were killed before it came to pass? He, having betrayed them at the battle of Taphrus yet remained undetected for above twenty years together, and all that while reigned king of the Arcadians, till at length, discovered and apprehended, he received the merited recompense of his treachery. But alas! they whom he had betrayed were all dead at the same time. Or when the Orchomenians had lost their children, their friends, and familiar acquaintance through the treachery of Lyciscus, what consolation was it to them, that many years after a foul distemper seized the traitor, and fed upon his body till it had consumed his putrefied flesh? — who, as often as he dipped and bathed his feet in the river, with horrid oaths and execrations prayed that his members might rot if he had been guilty of treachery or any other villany. Nor was it possible even for the children’s children of the Athenians who had been murdered long before, to behold the bodies of those sacrilegious caitiffs torn out of their graves and transported beyond the confines of their native soil. Whence, in my opinion, Euripides absurdly makes use of these expressions, to divert a man from wickedness:
[De sera 2d] If thou fear’st heav’n, thou fearest it in vain;
Justice is not so hasty, foolish man,
To pierce thy heart, or with contagious wound
Or thee or weaker mortals to confound;
But with slow pace and silent feet his doom
O’ertakes the sinner, when his time is come.
[De sera 2e] And I am apt to persuade myself that upon these and no other considerations it is, that wicked men encourage and give themselves the liberty to attempt and commit all manner of impieties, seeing that the fruit which injustice yields is soon ripe, and offers itself early to the gatherer’s hand, whereas punishment comes late, and lagging long behind the pleasure of enjoyment.
[De sera 3] 3. After Patrocleas had thus discoursed, Olympicus taking him up, There is this farther, said he, O Patrocleas! which thou shouldst have taken notice of; for how great an inconveniency and absurdity arises besides from these delays and procrastinations of divine justice! For the slowness of its execution takes away the belief of providence; and the wicked, perceiving that calamity does not presently follow at the heels of every enormous crime, but a long time after, look upon their calamity as a misfortune, and calling it chance, not punishment, are nothing at all thereby reformed; troubled indeed they well may be at the dire accident befallen them, but they never repent of the villanies they have committed. For as, in the case of the horse, the lashing and spurring that immediately pursue the transgression correct and reduce him to his duty, but all the tugging at the bit and shouting which are late and out of time seem to be inflicted for some other reason than to teach or instruct, the animal being thereby put to pain without understanding his error; in like manner, were the impieties of enormous transgressors and heinous offenders singly scourged and repressed by immediate severity, it would be most likely to bring them to a sense of their folly, humble them, and strike them with an awe of the Divine Being, whom they find with a watchful eye beholding the actions and passions of men, and feel to be no dilatory but a speedy avenger of iniquity; whereas that remiss and slow-paced justice (as Euripides describes it) that falls upon the wicked by accident, by reason of its uncertainty, ill-timed delay, and disorderly motion, seems rather to resemble chance than providence. So that I cannot conceive what benefit there is in these millstones of the Gods which are said to grind so late, as thereby celestial punishment is obscured, and the awe of evil doing rendered vain and despicable.
[De sera 4] 4. These things thus uttered, while I was in a deep meditation of what he had said, Timon interposed. Is it your pleasure, said he, that I shall give the finishing stroke to the difficulties of this knotty question, or shall I first permit him to argue in opposition to what has been propounded already? Nay then, said I, to what purpose is it to let in a third wave to drown the argument, if one be not able to repel or avoid the objections already made?
[De sera 4b] To begin therefore, as from the Vestal hearth, from that ancient circumspection and reverence which our ancestors, being Academic philosophers also, bare to the Supreme Godhead, we shall utterly decline to speak of that mysterious Being as if we could presume to utter positively any thing concerning it. For though it may be borne withal, for men unskilled in music to talk at random of notes and harmony, or for such as never experienced warfare to discourse of arms and military affairs; yet it would be a bold and daring arrogance in us, that are but mortal men, to dive too far into the incomprehensible mysteries of Deities and Daemons, — just as if persons void of knowledge should undertake to judge of the methods and reason of cunning artists by slight opinions and probable conjectures of their own. And while one that understands nothing of science finds it hard to give a reason why the physician did not let blood before but afterwards, or why he did not bathe his patient yesterday but to-day; it cannot be that it is safe or easy for a mortal to speak otherwise of the Supreme Deity than only this, that he alone it is who knows the most convenient time to apply most proper corrosives for the cure of sin and impiety, and to administer punishments as medicaments to every transgressor, yet being not confined to an equal quality and measure common to all distempers, nor to one and the same time.
[De sera 4c] Now that the medicine of the soul which is called justice is the most transcendent of all sciences, besides ten thousand other witnesses, even Pindar himself testifies, where he gives to God, the ruler and lord of all things, the title of the most perfect artificer, as being the grand author and distributer of Justice, to whom it properly belongs to determine at what time, in what manner, and to what degree to punish every particular offender. And Plato asserts that Minos, being the son of Jupiter, was the disciple of his father to learn this science; intimating thereby that it is impossible for any other than a scholar, bred up in the school of equity, rightly to behave himself in the administration of justice, or to make a true judgment of another whether he does well or no. For the laws which are constituted by men do not always prescribe that which is unquestionable and simply decent, or of which the reason is altogether without exception perspicuous, in regard that some of their ordinances seem to be on purpose ridiculously contrived; particularly those which in Lacedaemon the Ephori ordain at their first entering into the magistracy, that no man suffer the hair of his upper lip to grow, and that they shall be obedient to the laws to the end they may not seem grievous to them.
[De sera 4d] So the Romans, when they asserted the freedom of any one, cast a slender rod upon his body; and when they make their last wills and testaments, some they leave to be their heirs, while to others they sell their estates; which seems to be altogether contrary to reason. But that of Solon is most absurd, who, when a city is up in arms and all in sedition, brands with infamy the person who stands neuter and adheres to neither party. And thus a man that apprehends not the reason of the lawgiver, or the cause why such and such things are so prescribed, might number up several absurdities of many laws. What wonder then, since the actions of men are so difficult to be understood, if it be no less difficult to determine concerning the Gods, wherefore they inflict their punishments upon sinners, sometimes later, sometimes sooner.
[De sera 5] 5. Nor do I allege these things as a pretence to avoid the dispute, but to secure the pardon which I beg, to the end that our discourse, having a regard (as it were) to some port or refuge, may proceed the more boldly in producing probable circumstances to clear the doubt. But first consider this; that God, according to Plato, when he set himself before the eyes of the whole world as the exemplar of all that was good and holy, granted human virtue, by which man is in some measure rendered like himself, unto those that are able to follow the Deity by imitation. For universal Nature, being at first void of order, received its first impulse to change and to be formed into a world, by being made to resemble and (as it were) partake of that idea and virtue which is in God. And the self-same Plato asserts, that Nature first kindled the sense of seeing within us, to the end that the soul, by the sight and admiration of the heavenly bodies, being accustomed to love and embrace decency and order, might be induced to hate the disorderly motions of wild and raving passions, and avoid levity and rashness and dependence upon chance, as the original of all improbity and vice. For there is no greater benefit that men can enjoy from God, than, by the imitation and pursuit of those perfections and that sanctity which is in him, to be excited to the study of virtue. Therefore God, with forbearance and at leisure, inflicts his punishment upon the wicked; not that he is afraid of committing an error or of repenting should he accelerate his indignation; but to eradicate that brutish and eager desire of revenge that reigns in human breasts, and to teach us that we are not in the heat of fury, or when our anger heaving and palpitating boils up above our understanding, to fall upon those who have done us an injury, like those who seek to gratify a vehement thirst or craving appetite, but that we should, in imitation of this mildness and forbearance, wait with due composure of mind before we proceed to chastisement or correction, till such sufficient time for consideration is taken as shall allow the least possible room for repentance. For, as Socrates observed, it is far the lesser mischief for a man distempered with ebriety and gluttony to drink puddle-water, than, when the mind is disturbed and over-charged with anger and fury, before it be settled and become limpid again, for a man to seek the satiating his revenge upon the body of his friend or kinsman. For it is not the revenge which is the nearest to injury, as Thucydides says, but rather that which is the most remote from it, that observes the most convenient opportunity. For as anger, according to that of Melanthius,
[De sera 5b] Quite from the brain transplants the wit,
Vile acts designing to commit;
[De sera 5c] so reason does that which is just and moderate, laying passion and fury aside. Whence it comes to pass that men, giving ear to human examples, become more mansuete and gentle; as when they hear how Plato, holding his cudgel over his page’s shoulders, as himself relates, paused a good while, correcting his own anger; and how in like manner Archytas, observing the sloth and wilful negligence of his servants in the field, and perceiving his passion to rise at a more than usual rate, did nothing at all; but as he went away, It is your good fortune, said he, that ye have angered me. If then the sayings of men when called to mind, and their actions being told, have such a power to mitigate the roughness and vehemency of wrath, much more becomes it us, beholding God, with whom there is neither dread nor repentance of any thing, deferring nevertheless his punishments to future time and admitting delay, to be cautious and circumspect in these matters, and to deem as a divine part of virtue that mildness and long-suffering of which God affords us an example, while by punishing he reforms some few, but by slowly punishing he helpeth and admonisheth many.
[De sera 6] 6. In the second place, therefore, let us consider this, that human punishments of injuries regard no more than that the party suffer in his turn, and are satisfied when the offender has suffered according to his merit; and farther they never proceed. Which is the reason that they run after provocations, like dogs that bark in their fury, and immediately pursue the injury as soon as committed. But probable it is that God, whatever distempered soul it be which he prosecutes with his divine justice, observes the motions and inclinations of it, whether they be such as tend to repentance, and allows time for the reformation of those whose wickedness is neither invincible nor incorrigible. For, since he well knows what a proportion of virtue souls carry along with them from himself when they come into the world, and how strong and vigorous their innate and primitive good yet continues, — while wickedness buds forth only preternaturally upon the corruption of bad diet and evil conversation, and even then some souls recover again to perfect cure or an indifferent habitude, — therefore he doth not make haste to inflict his punishments alike upon all. But those that are incurable he presently lops off and deprives of life, deeming it altogether hurtful to others, but most baneful to themselves, to be always wallowing in wickedness. But as for those who may probably be thought to transgress rather out of ignorance of what is virtuous and good, than through choice of what is foul and vicious, he grants them time to turn; but if they remain obdurate, then likewise he inflicts his punishments upon them; for he has no fear lest they should escape.
[De sera 6b] Now let us consider how oft the characters and lives of men are changed; for which reason, the character is called τϱόπος, as being the changeable part, and also ἦθος, since custom (ἔθος) chiefly prevails in it and rules with the greatest power when it has seized upon it. Therefore I am of opinion, that the ancients reported Cecrops to have had two bodies, not, as some believe, because of a good king he became a merciless and dragon-like tyrant, but rather, on the contrary, for that being at first both cruel and formidable, afterwards he became a most mild and gentle prince. However, if this be uncertain, yet we know both Gelo and Hiero the Sicilians, and Pisistratus the son of Hippocrates, who, having obtained the sovereignty by violence and wickedness, made a virtuous use of their power, and coming unjustly to the throne, became moderate rulers and beneficial to the public. For, by recommending wholesome laws and the exercise of useful tillage to their subjects, they reduced them from idle scoffers and talkative romancers to be modest citizens and industrious good husbands. And as for Gelo, after he had been successful in his war and vanquished the Carthaginians, he refused to grant them the peace which they sued for, unless they would consent to have it inserted in their articles that they would surcease from sacrificing their children to Saturn.
[De sera 6c] Over Megalopolis Lydiadas was tyrant; but then, even in the time of his tyranny, changing his manners and maxims of government and growing into a hatred of injustice, he restored to the citizens their laws, and fighting for his country against his own and his subjects’ enemies, fell an illustrious victim for his country’s welfare. Now if any one, bearing an antipathy to Miltiades or Cimon, had slain the one tyrannizing in the Chersonese or the other committing incest with his own sister, or had expelled Themistocles out of Athens at what time he lay rioting and revelling in the market-place and affronting all that came near him, according to the sentence afterwards pronounced against Alcibiades, had we not lost Marathon, the Eurymedon, and lovely Artemisium,
[De sera 6d] Where the Athenian youth
The famed foundations of their freedom laid?
[De sera 6e] For great and lofty geniuses produce nothing that is mean and little; the innate smartness of their parts will not endure the vigor and activity of their spirits to grow lazy; but they are tossed to and again, as with the waves, by the rolling motions of their own inordinate desire, till at length they arrive to a stable and settled constitution of manners. Therefore, as a person that is unskilful in husbandry would by no means make choice of a piece of ground quite overrun with brakes and weeds, abounding with wild beasts, running streams, and mud; while, to him who hath learnt to understand the nature of the earth, these are certain symptoms of the softness and fertility of the soil; thus great geniuses many times produce many absurd and vile enormities, of which we not enduring the rugged and uneasy vexation, are presently for pruning and lopping off the lawless transgressors. But the more prudent judge, who discerns the abounding goodness and generosity covertly residing in those transcendent geniuses, waits the co-operating age and season for reason and virtue to exert themselves, and gathers the ripe fruit when Nature has matured it. And thus much as to those particulars.
[De sera 7] 7. Now to come to another part of our discourse, do you not believe that some of the Greeks did very prudently to register that law in Egypt among their own, whereby it is enacted that, if a woman with child be sentenced to die, she shall be reprieved till she be delivered? All the reason in the world, you will say. Then, say I, though a man cannot bring forth children, yet if he be able, by the assistance of Time, to reveal any hidden action or conspiracy, or to discover some concealed mischief, or to be author of some wholesome piece of advice, — or suppose that in time he may produce some necessary and useful invention, — is it not better to delay the punishment and expect the benefit, than hastily to rid him out of the world? It seems so to me, said I. And truly you are in the right, replied Patrocleas; for let us consider, had Dionysius at the beginning of his tyranny suffered according to his merits, never would any of the Greeks have re-inhabited Sicily, laid waste by the Carthaginians. Nor would the Greeks have repossessed Apollonia, nor Anactorium, nor the peninsula of the Leucadians, had not Periander’s execution been delayed for a long time. And if I mistake not, it was to the delay of Cassander’s punishment that the city of Thebes was beholden for her recovery from desolation. But the most of those barbarians who assisted at the sacrilegious plunder of this temple, following Timoleon into Sicily, after they had vanquished the Carthaginians and dissolved the tyrannical government of that island, wicked as they were, came all to a wicked end. So the Deity makes use of some wicked persons as common executioners to punish the wickedness of others, and then destroys those instruments of his wrath, — which I believe to be true of most tyrants. For as the gall of a hyena and the rennet of a sea-calf — both filthy monsters — contain something in them for the cure of diseases; so when some people deserve a sharp and biting punishment, God, subjecting them to the implacable severity of some certain tyrant or the cruel oppression of some ruler, does not remove either the torment or the trouble, till he has cured and purified the distempered nation. Such a sort of physic was Phalaris to the Agrigentines, and Marius to the Romans. And God expressly foretold the Sicyonians how much their city stood in need of most severe chastisement, when, after they had violently ravished out of the hands of the Cleonaeans Teletias, a young lad who had been crowned at the Pythian games, they tore him limb from limb, as their own fellow-citizen. Therefore Orthagoras the tyrant, and after him Myro and Clisthenes, put an end to the luxury and lasciviousness of the Sicyonians; but the Cleonaeans, not having the good fortune to meet with the same cure, went all to wreck. To this purpose, hear what Homer says:
[De sera 7b] From parent vile by far the better son
Did spring, whom various virtues did renown
[De sera 7c] And yet we do not find that ever the son of Copreus performed any famous or memorable achievement; but the offspring of Sisyphus, Autolycus, and Phlegyas flourished among the number of the most famous and virtuous princes. Pericles at Athens descended from an accursed family; and Pompey the Great at Rome was the son of Strabo, whose dead body the Roman people, in the height of their hatred conceived against him when alive, cast forth into the street and trampled in the dirt. Where is the absurdity then, — as the husbandman never cuts away the thorn till it injures the asparagus, or as the Libyans never burn the stalks till they have gathered all the ladanum, — if God never extirpates the evil and thorny root of a renowned and royal race before he has gathered from it the mature and proper fruit? For it would have been far better for the Phocians to have lost ten thousand of Iphitus’s horses and oxen, or a far greater sum in gold and silver from the temple of Delphi, than that Ulysses and Aesculapius should not have been born, and those many others who, of wicked and vicious men, became highly virtuous and beneficial to their country.
[De sera 8] 8. And should we not think it better to inflict deserved punishments in due season and by convenient means, than hastily and rashly when a man is in the heat and hurry of passion? Witness the example of Callippus, who, having stabbed Dio under the pretence of being his friend, was himself soon after slain by Dio’s intimates with the same dagger. Thus again, when Mitius of Argos was slain in a city tumult, the brazen statue which stood in the market-place, soon after, at the time of the public shows, fell down upon the murderer’s head and killed him. What befell Bessus the Paeonian, and Aristo the Oetaean, chief commander of the foreign soldiers, I suppose you understood full well, Patrocleas. Not I, by Jove, said he, but I desire to know. Well then, I say, this Aristo, having with permission of the tyrants carried away the jewels and ornaments belonging to Eriphyle, which lay deposited in this temple, made a present of them to his wife. The punishment of this was that the son, being highly incensed against his mother, for what reason it matters not, set fire to his father’s house, and burned it to the ground, with all the family that were in it.
[De sera 8b] As for Bessus, it seems he killed his own father, and the murder lay concealed a long time. At length being invited to supper among strangers, after he had so loosened a swallow’s nest with his spear that it fell down, he killed all the young ones. Upon which, being asked by the guests that were present, what injury the swallows had done him that he should commit such an irregular act; Did you not hear, said he, these cursed swallows, how they clamored and made a noise, false witnesses as they were, that I had long ago killed my father? This answer struck the rest of the guests with so much wonder, that, after a due pondering upon his words, they made known the whole story to the king. Upon which, the matter being dived into, Bessus was brought to condign punishment.
[De sera 9] 9. These things I have alleged, as it was but reason, upon a supposition that there is a forbearance of inflicting punishment upon the wicked. As for what remains, it behooves us to listen to Hesiod, where he asserts, — not like Plato, that punishment is a suffering which accompanies injustice, — but that it is of the same age with it, and arises from the same place and root. For, says he,
[De sera 9b] Bad counsel, so the Gods ordain,
Is most of all the adviser’s bane.
[De sera 9c] And in another place,
He that his neighbor’s harm contrives, his art
Contrives the mischief ‘gainst his own false heart.
[De sera 9d] It is reported that the cantharis fly, by a certain kind of contrariety, carries within itself the cure of the wound which it inflicts. On the other side wickedness, at the same time it is committed, engendering its own vexation and torment, not at last, but at the very instant of the injury offered, suffers the reward of the injustice it has done. And as every malefactor who suffers in his body bears his own cross to the place of his execution, so are all the various torments of various wicked actions prepared by wickedness herself. Such a diligent architectress of a miserable and wretched life is wickedness, wherein shame is still accompanied with a thousand terrors and commotions of the mind, incessant repentance, and never-ceasing tumults of the spirits. However, there are some people that differ little or nothing from children, who, many times beholding malefactors upon the stage, in their gilded vestments and short purple cloaks, dancing with crowns upon their heads, admire and look upon them as the most happy persons in the world, till they see them gored and lashed, and flames of fire curling from underneath their sumptuous and gaudy garments. Thus there are many wicked men, surrounded with numerous families, splendid in the pomp of magistracy, and illustrious for the greatness of their power, whose punishments never display themselves till those glorious persons come to be the public spectacles of the people, either slain and lying weltering in their blood, or else standing on the top of the rock, ready to be tumbled headlong down the precipice; which indeed cannot so well be said to be a punishment, as the consummation and perfection of punishment.
[De sera 9e] Moreover, as Herodicus the Selymbrian, falling into a consumption, the most incurable of all diseases, was the first who intermixed the gymnastic art with the science of physic (as Plato relates), and in so doing did spin out in length a tedious time of dying, as well for himself as for others laboring under the same distemper; in like manner some wicked men who flatter themselves to have escaped the present punishment, not after a longer time, but for a longer time, endure a more lasting, not a slower punishment; not punished with old age, but growing old under the tribulation of tormenting affliction. When I speak of a long time I speak in reference to ourselves. For as to the Gods, every distance and distinction of human life is nothing; and to say “now, and not thirty years ago” is the same thing as to say that such a malefactor should be tormented or hanged in the afternoon and not in the morning; — more especially since a man is but shut up in this life, like a close prisoner in a gaol, from whence it is impossible to make an escape, while yet we feast and banquet, are full of business, receive rewards and honors and sport. Though certainly these are but like the sports of those that play at dice or draughts in the gaol, while the rope all the while hangs over their heads.
[De sera 10] 10. So that what should hinder me from asserting, that they who are condemned to die and shut up in prison are not truly punished till the executioner has chopped off their heads, or that he who has drunk hemlock, and then walks about and stays till a heaviness seizes his limbs, has suffered no punishment before the extinction of his natural heat and the coagulation of his blood deprive him of his senses, — that is to say, if we deem the last moment of the punishment only to be the punishment, and omit the commotions, terrors, apprehensions, and embitterments of repentance, with which every malefactor and all wicked men are teased upon the committing of any heinous crime? But this is to deny the fish to be taken that has swallowed the hook, before we see it boiled and cut into pieces by the cook; for every offender is within the gripes of the law, so soon as he has committed the crime and has swallowed the sweet bait of injustice, while his conscience within, tearing and gnawing upon his vitals, allows him no rest:
[De sera 10b] Like the swift tunny, frighted from his prey,
Rolling and plunging in the angered sea.
[De sera 10c] For the daring rashness and precipitate boldness of iniquity continue violent and active till the fact be perpetrated; but then the passion, like a surceasing tempest, growing slack and weak, surrenders itself to superstitious fears and terrors. So that Stesichorus may seem to have composed the dream of Clytemnestra, to set forth the event and truth of things:
[De sera 10d] Then seemed a dragon to draw near,
With mattery blood all on his head besmeared;
Therefrom the king Plisthenides appeared.
[De sera 10e] For visions in dreams, noon-day apparitions, oracles, descents into hell, and whatever objects else which may be thought to be transmitted from heaven, raise continual tempests and horrors in the very souls of the guilty. Thus it is reported that Apollodorus in a dream beheld himself flayed by the Scythians and then boiled, and that his heart, speaking to him out of the kettle, uttered these words, I am the cause thou sufferest all this. And another time, that he saw his daughters run about him, their bodies burning and all in a flame. Hipparchus also, the son of Pisistratus, had a dream, that the Goddess Venus out of a certain phial flung blood in his face. The favorites of Ptolemy, surnamed the Thunderer, dreamed that they saw their master cited to the judgment-seat by Seleucus, where wolves and vultures were his judges, and then distributing great quantities of flesh among his enemies. Pausanias, in the heat of his lust, sent for Cleonice, a free-born virgin of Byzantium, with an intention to have enjoyed her all night; but when she came, out of a strange sort of jealousy and perturbation for which he could give no reason, he stabbed her. This murder was attended with frightful visions; insomuch that his repose in the night was not only interrupted with the appearance of her shape, but still he thought he heard her uttering these lines:
[De sera 10f] To judgment-seat approach thou near, I say;
Wrong dealing is to men most hurtful aye.
[De sera 10g] After this the apparition still haunting him, he sailed to the oracle of the dead in Heraclea, and by propitiations, charms, and dirges, called up the ghost of the damsel; which, appearing before him, told him in few words, that he should be free from all his affrights and molestations upon his return to Lacedaemon; where he was no sooner arrived, but he died.
[De sera 11] 11. Therefore, if nothing befalls the soul after the expiration of this life, but death is the end of all reward and punishment, I might infer from thence rather that the Deity is remiss and indulgent in swiftly punishing the wicked and depriving them of life. For if a man shall assert that in the space of this life the wicked are no otherwise affected than by the convincement that crime is a fruitless and barren thing, that produces nothing of good, nothing worthy of esteem, from the many great and terrible combats and agonies of the mind, the consideration of these things altogether subverts the soul. As it is related that Lysimachus, being under the violent constraint of a parching thirst, surrendered up his person and his dominions to the Getae for a little drink; but after he had quenched his draught and found himself a captive, Shame of this wickedness of mine, cried he, that for so small a pleasure have lost so great a kingdom. But it is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions. Yet when a man, either out of avarice, or ambition of civil honor and power, or to gratify his venereal desires, commits any enormous and heinous crime, after which, the thirst and rage of his passion being allayed, he comes to set before his eyes the ignominious and horrible passions tending to injustice still remaining, but sees nothing useful, nothing necessary, nothing conducible to make his life happy; may it not be probably conjectured that such a person is frequently solicited by these reflections to consider how rashly, either prompted by vain-glory, or for the sake of a lawless and barren pleasure, he has overthrown the noblest and greatest maxims of justice among men, and overflowed his life with shame and trouble? As Simonides jesting was wont to say, that the chest which he kept for money he found always full, but that which he kept for gratitude he found always empty; thus wicked men, contemplating their own wickedness, find it always void altogether and destitute of hope (since pleasure gives but a short and empty delight), but ever weighed down with fears and sorrows, ungrateful remembrances, suspicions of futurity, and distrusts of present accidents. Thus we hear Ino complaining upon the theatre, after her repentance of what she had done:
[De sera 11b] Dear women, tell me, with what face
Shall I return to dwell with Athamas,
As if it ne’er had been my luckless fate
The worst of foul misdeeds to perpetrate?
[De sera 11c] Thus is it not reason to believe, that the soul of every wicked man revolves and reasons within itself, how by burying in oblivion former transgressions, and casting from itself the consciousness and the guilt of hitherto committed crimes, to fit frail mortality under her conduct for a new course of life? For there is nothing for a man to confide in, nothing but what vanishes like smoke, nothing durable or constant in whatever impiety proposes to itself, — unless, by Jove, we will allow the unjust and vicious to be sage philosophers, — but wherever eager avarice and voluptuousness, inexorable hatred, enmity, and improbity associate together, there you shall also be sure to find superstition nestling and herding with effeminacy and terror of death, a swift change of the most violent passions, and an arrogant ambition after undeserved honor. Such men as these stand in continual dread of their contemners and backbiters, they fear their applauders, believing themselves injured by their flatteries; and more especially, they are at enmity with bad men, because they are so free to extol those that seem good. However, that which hardens men to mischief soon cankers, grows brittle, and shivers in pieces like bad iron. So that in process of time, coming to understand themselves better and to be more sensible of their miscarriages, they disdain, abhor, and utterly disclaim their former course of life. And when we see how a wicked man who restores a trust or becomes security for his friend, or ambitious of honor contributes more largely to the benefits of his country, is immediately in a condition of repentance and sorry for what he has just done, by reason of the natural inclination of his mind to ramble and change; and how some men, being clapped and hummed upon the theatre, presently fall a weeping, their desire of glory relapsing into covetousness; we surely cannot believe that those which sacrificed the lives of men to the success of their tyrannies and conspiracies, as Apollodorus, or plundered their friends of their treasure and deprived them of their estates, as Glaucus the son of Epicydes, did not repent and abhor themselves, or that they were not sorry for the perpetration of such foul enormities. For my part, if it may be lawful for me to deliver my opinion, I believe there is no occasion either for the Gods or men to inflict their punishment upon the most wicked and sacrilegious offenders; seeing that the course of their own lives is sufficient to chastise their crimes, while they remain under the consternations and torments attending their impiety.
[De sera 12] 12. And now consider whether my discourse have not enlarged itself too far. To which Timon: Perhaps (said he) it may seem to have been too long, if we consider what remains behind, and the length of time required for the discussion of our other doubts. For now I am going about to put forward the last question, like a new champion, since we have contended already long enough upon the former. Now, as to what we have further to say, we find that Euripides delivers his mind freely, and censures the Gods for imputing the transgressions of forefathers unto their offspring. And I am apt to believe that even they who are most silent among us do the like. For if the offenders themselves have already received their reward, then there is no reason why the innocent should be punished, since it is not equal to punish even criminals twice for the same fact. But if remiss and careless, the Gods, omitting opportunely to inflict their penalties upon the wicked, send down their tardy rigor on the blameless, they do not well to repair their defective slowness by injustice. As it is reported of Aesop, that he came upon a time to Delphi, having brought along with him a great quantity of gold which Croesus had bestowed upon him, on purpose to offer a most magnificent oblation to the Gods, and with a design moreover to distribute among the priests and the people of Delphi four minas apiece. But there happening some disgust and difference between him and the Delphians, he performed his solemnity, but sent back his money to Sardis, not deeming those ungrateful people worthy of his bounty. Upon which the Delphians, laying their heads together, accused him of sacrilege, and then threw him down headlong from a steep and prodigious precipice, which is there, called Hyampia. Upon which it is reported that the Deity, being highly incensed against them for so horrid a murder, brought a famine upon the land, and infested the people with noisome diseases of all sorts; insomuch that they were constrained to make it their business to travel to all the general assemblies and places of public concourse in Greece, making public proclamation wherever they came, that, whoever they were that would demand justice for the death of Aesop, they were prepared to give him satisfaction and to undergo whatever penalty he should require. Three generations afterwards came one Idmon, a Samian, no way of kin or otherwise related to Aesop, but only descended from those who had purchased Aesop in Samos; to whom the Delphians paid those forfeitures which he demanded, and were delivered from all their pressing calamities. And from hence (by report) it was, that the punishment of sacrilegious persons was transferred from the rock Hyampia to that other cliff which bears the name of Nauplia.
[De sera 12b] Neither is Alexander applauded by those who have the greatest esteem for his memory (of which number are we ourselves), who utterly laid waste the city of Branchidae, putting men, women, and children to the sword, for that their ancestors had long before delivered up the temple of Miletus. In like manner Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, when the Corcyraeans requested to know the reason of him, why he depopulated their island, deriding and scoffing at their demand, replied: For no other reason, by Jove, but because your forefathers entertained Ulysses. And when the islanders of Ithaca expostulated with him, asking why his soldiers carried away their sheep; because, said he, when your king came to our island, he put out the eyes of the shepherd himself. And therefore do you not think Apollo more extravagant than all these, for punishing so severely the Pheneatae by stopping up that profound and spacious receptacle of all those floods that now cover their country, upon a bare report that Hercules a thousand years ago took away the prophetic tripod and carried it to Pheneus? — or when he foretold to the Sybarites, that all their calamities should cease, upon condition they appeased the wrath of Leucadian Juno by enduring three ruinous calamities upon their country? Nor is it so long since, that the Locrians surceased to send their virgins to Troy;
[De sera 12c] Who like the meanest slaves, exposed to scorn,
Barefoot, with limbs unclad, at earliest morn
Minerva’s temple sweep; yet all the while,
No privilege has age from weary toil.
[De sera 12d] Nor, when with years decrepit, can they claim
The thinnest veil to hide their aged shame;
and all this to punish the lasciviousness of Ajax.
[De sera 12e] Now where is the reason or justice of all this? Nor is the custom of the Thracians to be approved, who to this day abuse their wives in revenge of their cruelty to Orpheus. And with as little reason are the Barbarians about the river Po to be extolled, who once a year put themselves into mourning for the misfortune of Phaethon. And still more ridiculous than all this it would certainly be, when all those people that lived at the time took no notice of Phaethon’s mischance, that they, who happened to be born five or ten generations after, should be so idle as to take up the custom of going into black and bewailing his downfall. However, in all these things there is nothing to be observed but mere folly; nothing pernicious, nor any thing dangerous. But as for the anger of the Gods, what reason can be given why their wrath should stop and conceal itself upon a sudden, like some certain rivers, and when all things seem to be forgot, should break forth upon others with so much fury, as not to be atoned but with some remarkable calamities?
[De sera 13] 13. Upon that, so soon as he had done speaking, not a little afraid lest, if he should begin again, he would run himself into many more and greater absurdities, I asked: Do you believe, sir, all that you have said to be true? Then he: Though all that I have alleged may not be true, yet if only some part may be allowed for truth, do not you think there is the same difficulty still remaining in the question? It may be so, said I. And thus it is with those who labor under a vehement burning fever; for, whether covered with one blanket or many, the heat is still the same or very little different; yet for refreshment’s sake it may be convenient sometimes to lighten the weight of the clothes; and if the patient refuse your courtesy, to let him alone. Yet I must tell you, the greatest part of these examples look like fables and fiction. Call to mind therefore the feast called Theoxenia lately celebrated, and that most noble portion which the public criers proclaim to be received as their due by the offspring of Pindar; and recollect with yourself, how majestic and grateful a mark of grandeur you look upon that to be. Truly, said he, I judge there is no man living who would not be sensible of the curiosity and elegancy of such an honor, displaying antiquity void of tincture and false glitter, after the Greek manner, unless he were such a brute that I may use the words of Pindar himself:
[De sera 13b] Whose coal-black heart, from natural dross unpurged,
Had only by cold flames at first been forged.
[De sera 13c] Therefore I forbear, said I, to mention that proclamation not much unlike to this, usually made in Sparta,— “After the Lesbian singer,” — in honor and memory of the ancient Terpander. But you, on the other side, deem yourself worthy to be preferred above all the rest of the Boeotians, as being of the noble race of the Opheltiadae; and among the Phocians you claim undoubted pre-eminence, for the sake of your ancestor Daiphantus. And, for my part, I must acknowledge that you were one of the first who assisted me, as my second, against the Lycormaeans and Satilaeans, claiming the privilege of wearing crowns and the honor due by the laws of Greece to the descendants from Hercules; at what time I affirmed, that those honors and guerdons ought more especially to be preserved inviolable to the immediate progeny of Hercules, in regard that, though he were so great a benefactor to the Greeks, yet in his lifetime he was not thought worthy of any reward or return of gratitude. You recall to my remembrance, said he, a most noble contest, and worthy the debate of philosophy itself. Dismiss therefore, said I, that vehement humor of yours that excites you to accuse the Gods, nor take it ill, if many times celestial punishment discharges itself upon the offspring of the wicked and vicious; or else be not too much overjoyed or too forward to applaud those honors which are due to nobility of birth. For it becomes us, if we believe that the reward of virtue ought to be extended to posterity, by the same reason to take it for granted that punishment for impieties committed ought not to be stayed and cease any sooner, but that it should run forward at equal pace with the reward, which will in turn requite every man with what is his due. And therefore they that with pleasure behold the race of Cimon highly honored in Athens, but on the other side, fret and fume at the exilement of the posterity of Lachares or Ariston, are too remiss and oscitant, or rather too morose and over quarrelsome with the Deity itself, one while accusing the Divinity if the posterity of an unjust and wicked person seem to prosper in the world, another time no less moody and finding fault if it fall out that the race of the wicked come to be utterly destroyed and extirpated from the earth. And thus, whether the children of the wicked or the children of the just fall under affliction, the case is all one to them; the Gods must suffer alike in their bad opinions.
[De sera 14] 14. These, said I, are the preliminaries, which I would have you make use of against those choleric accusers and testy snarlers of whom I have given you warning. But now to take in hand once more, as it were, the first end of the bottom of thread, in this same dark discourse of the Gods, wherein there are so many windings and turnings and gloomy labyrinths, let us by degrees and with caution direct our steps to what is most likely and probable. For, even in those things which fall under our daily practice and management, we are many times at a loss to determine the undoubted and unquestioned truth. For example, what certain reason can be given for that custom amongst us, of ordering the children of parents that die of a consumption or a dropsy to sit with both their feet soaking in the water till the dead body be burnt? For people believe, that thereby the disease is prevented from becoming hereditary, and also that it is a charm to secure those children from it as long as they live. Again, what should be the reason, that if a goat take a piece of sea-holly in her mouth, the whole herd will stand still till the goat-herd come and take it out? Other hidden properties there are, which, by virtue of certain touches and transitions, pass from some bodies into others with incredible swiftness and often to incredible distances. But we are more apt to wonder at distances of time than those of space. And yet there is more reason to wonder, that Athens should be infected with an epidemic contagion taking its rise in Ethiopia, that Pericles should die and Thucydides be smitten with the infection, than that, upon the impiety of the Delphians and Sybarites, delayed vengeance should at length overtake their posterity. For these hidden powers and properties have their sacred connections and correspondences between their utmost endings and their first beginnings; of which although the causes be concealed from us, yet silently they bring to pass their proper effects.
[De sera 15] 15. Not but that there is a reason ready at hand for the public punishments showered down from heaven upon particular cities. For a city is a kind of entire thing and continued body, a certain sort of creature, never subject to the changes and alterations of age, nor varying through process of time from one thing to another, but always sympathizing and in unity with itself, and receiving the punishment or reward of whatever it does or has ever acted in common, so long as the community, which makes it a body and binds it together with the mutual bands of human benefit, preserves its unity. For he that goes about of one city to make many, and perhaps an infinite number, by distinguishing the intervals of time, seems to be like a person who would make several of one single man, because he is now grown elderly who before was a young man, and before that a mere stripling. Or rather, it resembles the method of disputing amongst the Epicharmians, the first authors of that manner of arguing called the increaser. For example: he that formerly ran in debt, although he never paid it, owes nothing now, as being become another man; and he that was invited yesterday to supper comes the next night an unbidden guest, for that he is quite another person. And indeed the distinctions of ages cause greater alterations in every one of us than commonly they do in cities. For he that has seen Athens may know it again thirty years after; the present manners, motions, pastimes, serious studies, their familiarities and marks of their displeasure, little or nothing differing from what formerly they were. But after a long absence there is many a man who, meeting his own familiar friend, hardly knows him again, by reason of the great alteration of his countenance and the change of his manners, which are so easily subject to the alterations of language, labor, and employment, all manner of accidents, and mutation of laws, that even they who are most usually conversant with him admire to see the strangeness and novelty of the change; and yet the man is reputed still to be the same from his birth to his decease. In the same manner does a city still remain the same; and for that reason we think it but justice, that a city should as well be obnoxious to the blame and reproach of its ancient inhabitants, as participate the glory of their former puissance and renown; else we shall throw every thing before we know it into the river of Heraclitus, into which (he says) no one can step twice, since Nature by her changes is ever altering and transforming all things.
[De sera 16] 16. Now then, if a city be one entire and continued body, the same opinion is to be conceived of a race of men, depending upon one and the same beginning, and carrying along with it a certain power and communion of qualities; in regard that what is begotten cannot be thought to be severed from that which begets it, like a piece of workmanship from the artificer; the one being begotten of the person, the other framed by him. So that what is engendered is a part of the original from whence it sprung, whether meriting honor or deserving punishment. So that, were it not that I might be thought to be too sportive in a serious discourse, I would affirm, that the Athenians were more unjust to the statue of Cassander when they caused it to be melted down and defaced, and that the Syracusans were more rigorous to the dead carcass of Dionysius when they cast it forth of their own confines, than if they had punished their posterity; for that the statue did no way partake of the substance of Cassander, and the soul of Dionysius was absolutely departed from the body deceased.
[De sera 16b] Whereas Nisaeus, Apollocrates, Antipater, Philip, and several others descended from wicked parents, still retained the most principal part of those who begot them, not lazily and sluggishly dormant, but that very part by which they live, are nourished, act and move, and become rational and sensible creatures. Neither is there any thing of absurdity, if, being the offspring of such parents, they should retain many of their bad qualities. In short, therefore, I affirm that, as it is in the practice of physic, that whatever is wholesome and profitable is likewise just, and as he would be accounted ridiculous that should aver it to be an act of injustice to cauterize the thumb for the cure of the sciatica, or when the liver is imposthumated, to scarify the belly, or when the hoofs of laboring oxen are over tender, to anoint the tips of their horns; in the same manner is he to be laughed at who seeks for any other justice in the punishment of vice than the cure and reformation of the offender, and who is angry when medicine is applied to some parts for the cure of others, as when a chirurgeon opens a vein to give his patient ease upon an inflammation of the eyes.
[De sera 16c] For such a one seems to look no farther than what he reaches by his senses, forgetting that a schoolmaster, by chastising one, admonishes all the rest of his scholars, and that a general, condemning only one in ten, reduces all the rest to obedience. And thus there is not only a cure and amendment of one part of the body by another; but many times the very soul itself is inclined to vice or reformation, by the lewdness or virtue of another, and indeed much more readily than one body is affected by another. For, in the case of the body, as it seems natural, the same affections and the same changes must always occur; while the soul, being agitated by fancy and imagination, becomes better or worse, as it is either daring and confident or timorous and mistrustful.
[De sera 17] 17. While I was yet speaking, Olympicus interrupting me said: You seem by this discourse of yours to infer as if the soul were immortal, which is a supposition of great consequence. It is very true, said I, nor is it any more than what yourselves have granted already; in regard the whole dispute has tended from the beginning to this, that the supreme Deity overlooks us, and deals to every one of us according to our deserts. To which the other: Do you then believe (said he) it follows of necessity that, because the Deity observes our actions and distributes to every one of us according to our merits, therefore our souls should exist and be altogether incorruptible, or else for a certain time survive the body after death? Not so fast, good sir, said I. But can we think that God so little considers his own actions, or is such a waster of his time in trifles, that, if we had nothing of divine within us, nothing that in the least resembled his perfection, nothing permanent and stable, but were only poor creatures, that (according to Homer’s expression) faded and dropped like withered leaves, and in a short time too, yet he should make so great account of us — like women that bestow their pains in making little gardens, no less delightful to them than the gardens of Adonis, in earthen pans and pots — as to create us souls to blossom and flourish only for a day, in a soft and tender body of flesh, without any firm and solid root of life, and then to be blasted and extinguished in a moment upon every slight occasion? And therefore, if you please, not concerning ourselves with other Deities, let us go no farther than the God Apollo, whom here we call our own; see whether it is likely that he, knowing that the souls of the deceased vanish away like clouds and smoke, exhaling from our bodies like a vapor, requires that so many propitiations and such great honors be paid to the dead, and such veneration be given to the deceased, merely to delude and cozen his believers. And therefore, for my part, I will never deny the immortality of the soul, till somebody or other, as they say Hercules did of old, shall be so daring as to come and take away the prophetical tripod, and so quite ruin and destroy the oracle. For as long as many oracles are uttered even in these our days by the Delphic soothsayer, the same in substance which was formerly given to Corax the Naxian, it is impious to declare that the human soul can die.
[De sera 17b] Then Patrocleas: What oracle was this? Who was that same Corax? For both the answer itself and the person whom you mention are strangers to my remembrance. Certainly, said I, that cannot be; only it was my error which occasioned your ignorance, in making use of the addition to the name instead of the name itself. For it was Calondas, who slew Archilochus in fight, and who was surnamed Corax. He was thereupon ejected by the Pythian priestess, as one who had slain a person devoted to the Muses; but afterwards, humbling himself in prayers and supplications, intermixed with undeniable excuses of the fact, was enjoined by the oracle to repair to the habitation of Tettix, there to expiate his crime by appeasing the ghost of Archilochus. That place was called Taenarus; for there it was, as the report goes, that Tettix the Cretan, coming with a navy, landed, built a city not far from the Psychopompaeum (or place where ghosts are conjured up), and stored it with inhabitants. In like manner, when the Spartans were commanded by the oracle to atone the ghost of Pausanias, they sent for several exorcisers and conjurers out of Italy, who by virtue of their sacrifices chased the apparition out of the temple.
[De sera 18] 18. Therefore, said I, there is one and the same reason to confirm the providence of God and the immortality of the soul; neither is it possible to admit the one, if you deny the other. Now then, the soul surviving after the decease of the body, the inference is the stronger that it partakes of punishment and reward. For during this mortal life the soul is in continual combat like a wrestler; but after all those conflicts are at an end, she then receives according to her merits. But what the punishments and what the rewards of past transgressions or just and laudable actions are to be while the soul is thus alone by itself, is nothing at all to us that are alive; for either they are altogether concealed from our knowledge, or else we give but little credit to them. But those punishments that reach succeeding posterity, being conspicuous to all that are living at the same time, restrain and curb the inclinations of many wicked persons. Now I have a story that I lately heard, which I might relate to show that there is no punishment more grievous or that touches more to the quick, than for a man to behold his children born of his body suffering for his crimes; and that, if the soul of a wicked and lawless criminal were to look back to earth and behold, not his statues overturned and his dignities reversed, but his own children, his friends, or his nearest kindred ruined and overwhelmed with calamity, such a person, were he to return to life again, would rather choose the refusal of all Jupiter’s honors than abandon himself a second time to his wonted injustice and extravagant desires. This story, I say, I could relate, but that I fear lest you should censure it for a fable. And therefore I deem it much the better way to keep close to what is probable and consentaneous to reason. By no means, replied Olympicus; but proceed, and gratify us with your story also, since it was so kindly offered. Thereupon, when the rest of the company likewise made me the same request, Permit me, said I, in the first place, to pursue the rational part of my discourse, and then, according as it shall seem proper and convenient, if it be a fable, you shall have it as cheap as I heard it.
[De sera 19] 19. Bion was of opinion that God, in punishing the children of the wicked for the sins of their fathers, seems more irregular than a physician that should administer physic to a son or a grandchild, to cure the distemper of a father or a grandfather. But this comparison does not run cleverly; since the amplification of the similitude agrees only in some things, but in others is altogether defective. For if one man be cured of a disease by physic, the same medicine will not cure another; nor was it ever known that any person troubled with sore eyes or laboring under a fever was ever restored to perfect health by seeing another in the same condition anointed or plastered. But the punishments or executions of malefactors are done publicly in the face of the world, to the end that, justice appearing to be the effect of prudence and reason, some may be restrained by the correction inflicted upon others.
[De sera 19b] So that Bion never rightly apprehended where the comparison answered to our question. For oftentimes it happens, that a man comes to be haunted with a troublesome though not incurable disease, and through sloth and in temperance increases his distemper, and weakens his body to that degree that he occasions his own death. After this, it is true, the son does not fall sick; only he has received from his father’s seed such a habit of body as makes him liable to the same disease; which a good physician or a tender friend or a skilful apothecary or a careful master observing confines him to a strict and spare diet, restrains him from all manner of superfluity, keeps him from all the temptations of delicious fare, wine, and women, and making use of wholesome and proper physic, together with convenient exercise, dissipates and extirpates the original cause of a distemper at the beginning, before it grows to a head and gets a masterless dominion over the body.
[De sera 19c] And is it not our usual practice thus to admonish those that are born of diseased parents, to take timely care of themselves, and not to neglect the malady, but to expel the original nourishment of the inbred evil, as being then easily movable and apt for expulsion? It is very true, cried they. Therefore, said I, we cannot be said to do an absurd thing, but what is absolutely necessary, — nor that which is ridiculous, but what is altogether useful, — while we prescribe to the children of the epileptic, the hypochondriacal, and those that are subject to the gout, such exercises, diet, and remedies as are proper, not so much because they are at that time troubled with the distemper, as to prevent the malady. For a man begotten by an unsound body does not therefore deserve punishment, but rather the preservation of proper physic and good regimen; which if any one call the punishment of fear or effeminacy, because the person is debarred his pleasures and put to some sort of pain by cupping and blistering, we mind not what he says.
[De sera 19d] If then it be of such importance to preserve, by physic and other proper means, the vitiated offspring of another body, foul and corrupted; ought we to suffer the hereditary resemblances of a wicked nature to sprout up and bud in the youthful character, and to wait till they are diffused into all the affections of the mind, and bring forth and ripen the malignant fruit of a mischievous disposition? For such is the expression of Pindar.
[De sera 20] 20. Or can you believe but that in this particular God is wiser than Hesiod, admonishing and exhorting us in this manner:
[De sera 20b] Nor mind the pleasures of the genial bed,
Returning from th’ interment of the dead;
But propagate the race, when heavenly food
And feasting with the Gods have warmed the blood;
[De sera 20c] intimating thereby, that a man was never to attempt the work of generation but in the height of a jocund and merry humor, and when he found himself as it were dissolved into jollity; as if from procreation proceeded the impressions not only of vice or virtue, but of sorrow and joy, and of all other qualities and affections whatever. However, it is not the work of human wisdom (as Hesiod supposes) but of divine providence, to foresee the sympathies and differences of men’s natures, before the malignant infection of their unruly passions come to exert itself, by hurrying their unadvised youth into a thousand villanous miscarriages. For though the cubs of bears and whelps of wolves and apes immediately discover their several inbred qualities and natural conditions without any disguise or artificial concealment, man is nevertheless a creature more refined, who, many times curbed by the shame of transgressing common customs, universal opinion, or the law, conceals the evil that is within him, and imitates only what is laudable and honest. So that he may be thought to have altogether cleansed and rinsed away the stains and imperfections of his vicious disposition, and so cunningly for a long time to have kept his natural corruption wrapped up under the covering of craft and dissimulation, that we are scarce sensible of the fallacy till we feel the stripes or sting of his injustice; believing men to be only then unjust, when they offer wrong to ourselves; lascivious, when we see them abandoning themselves to their lusts; and cowards, when we see them turning their backs upon the enemy; just as if any man should be so idle as to believe a scorpion had no sting until he felt it, or that a viper had no venom until it bit him, — which is a silly conceit. For there is no man that only then becomes wicked when he appears to be so; but, having the seeds and principles of iniquity within him long before, the thief steals when he meets with a fit opportunity, and the tyrant violates the law when he finds himself surrounded with sufficient power. But neither is the nature and disposition of any man concealed from God, as taking upon him with more exactness to scrutinize the soul than the body; nor does he tarry till actual violence or lewdness be committed, to punish the hands of the wrong-doer, the tongue of the profane, or the transgressing members of the lascivious and obscene. For he does not exercise his vengeance on the unjust for any wrong that he has received by his injustice, nor is he angry with the highway robber for any violence done to himself, nor does he abominate the adulterer for defiling his bed; but many times, by way of cure and reformation, he chastises the adulterer, the covetous miser, and the wronger of his neighbors, as physicians endeavor to subdue an epilepsy by preventing the coming of the fits.
[De sera 21] 21. What shall I say? But even a little before we were offended at the Gods protracting and delaying the punishments of the wicked, and now we are as much displeased that they do not curb and chastise the depravities of an evil disposition before the fact committed; not considering that many times a mischief contrived for future execution may prove more dreadful than a fact already committed, and that dormant villany may be more dangerous than open and apparent iniquity; not being able to apprehend the reason wherefore it is better to bear with the unjust actions of some men, and to prevent the meditating and contrivance of mischief in others. As, in truth, we do not rightly comprehend why some remedies and physical drugs are no way convenient for those that labor under a real disease, yet wholesome and profitable for those that are seemingly in health, but yet perhaps in a worse condition than they who are sick.
[De sera 21b] Whence it comes to pass, that the Gods do not always turn the transgressions of parents upon their children; but if a virtuous son happen to be the offspring of a wicked father, — as often it falls out that a sane child is born of one that is unsound and crazy, — such a one is exempted from the punishment which threatens the whole descent, as having been adopted into a virtuous family. But for a young man that treads in the footsteps of a criminal race, it is but just that he should succeed to the punishment of his ancestor’s iniquity, as one of the debts attached to his inheritance. For neither was Antigonus punished for the crimes of Demetrius; nor (among the ancient heroes) Phyleus for the transgressions of Augeas, nor Nestor for the impiety of Neleus; in regard that, though their parents were wicked, yet they were virtuous themselves.
[De sera 21c] But as for those whose nature has embraced and espoused the vices of their parentage, them holy vengeance prosecutes, pursuing the likeness and resemblance of sin. For as the warts and moles and freckles of parents, not seen upon the children of their own begetting, many times afterwards appear again upon the children of their sons and daughters; and as the Grecian woman that brought forth a blackamore infant, for which she was accused of adultery, proved herself, upon diligent inquiry, to be the offspring of an Ethiopian after four generations; and as among the children of Pytho the Nisibian, — said to be descended from the Sparti, that were the progeny of those men that sprung from the teeth of Cadmus’s dragon, — the youngest of his sons, who lately died, was born with the print of a spear upon his body, the usual mark of that ancient line, which, not having been seen for many revolutions of years before, started up again, as it were, out of the deep, and showed itself the renewed testimonial of the infant’s race; so many times it happens that the first descents and eldest races hide and drown the passions and affections of the mind peculiar to the family, which afterward bud forth again, and display the natural propensity of the succeeding progeny to vice or virtue.
[De sera 22] 22. Having thus concluded, I held my peace; when Olympicus smiling said: We forbear as yet to give you our approbation, that we may not seem to have forgot the fable; not but that we believe your discourse to have been sufficiently made out by demonstration, only we reserve our opinion till we shall have heard the relation of that likewise. Upon which, I began again after this manner: There was one Thespesius of Soli, the friend and familiar acquaintance of that Protogenes who for some time conversed among us. This gentleman, in his youth leading a debauched and intemperate life, in a short time spent his patrimony, and then for some years became very wicked; but afterwards repenting of his former follies and extravagancies, and pursuing the recovery of his lost estate by all manner of tricks and shifts, did as is usual with dissolute and lascivious youth, who when they have wives of their own never mind them at all, but when they have dismissed them, and find them married to others that watch them with a more vigilant affection, endeavor to corrupt and vitiate them by all the unjust and wicked provocations imaginable. In this humor, abstaining from nothing that was lewd and illegal, so it tended to his gain and profit, he got no great matter of wealth, but procured to himself a world of infamy by his unjust and knavish dealing with all sorts of people. Yet nothing made him more the talk of the country, than the answer which was brought him back from the oracle of Amphilochus. For thither it seems he sent, to inquire of the Deity whether he should live any better the remaining part of his life. To which the oracle returned, that it would be better with him after he was dead. And indeed, not long after, in some measure it so fell out; for he happened to fall from a certain precipice upon his neck, and though he received no wound nor broke any limb, yet the force of the fall beat the breath out of his body. Three days after, being carried forth to be buried, as they were just ready to let him down into the grave, of a sudden he came to himself, and recovering his strength, so altered the whole course of his life, that it was almost incredible to all that knew him. For by the report of the Cilicians, there never was in that age a juster person in common dealings between man and man, more devout and religious as to divine worship, more an enemy to the wicked, nor more constant and faithful to his friends; which was the reason that they who were more conversant with him were desirous to hear from himself the cause of so great an alteration, not believing that so great a reformation could proceed from bare chance; though it was true that it did so, as he himself related to Protogenes and others of his choicest friends.
[De sera 23] For when his sense first left his body, it seemed to him as if he had been some pilot flung from the helm by the force of a storm into the midst of the sea. Afterwards, rising up again above water by degrees, so soon as he thought he had fully recovered his breath, he looked about him every way, as if one eye of his soul had been open. But he beheld nothing of those things which he was wont formerly to see, only he saw stars of a vast magnitude, at an immense distance one from the other, and sending forth a light most wonderful for the brightness of its color, which shot itself out in length with an incredible force; on which the soul riding, as it were in a chariot, was most swiftly, yet as gently and smoothly, dandled from one place to another. But omitting the greatest part of the sights which he beheld, he saw, as he said, the souls of such as were newly departed, as they mounted from below, resembling little fiery bubbles, to which the air gave way. Which bubbles afterwards breaking insensibly and by degrees, the soul came forth in the shapes of men and women, light and nimble, as being discharged of all their earthly substance. However, they differed in their motion; for some of them leaped forth with a wonderful swiftness, and mounted up in a direct line; others like so many spindles of spinning-wheels turned round and round, sometimes whisking upwards, sometimes darting downwards, with a confused and mixed agitation, that could hardly be stopped in a very long time.
[De sera 24] Of these souls he knew not who the most part were; only perceiving two or three of his acquaintance, he endeavored to approach and discourse them. But they neither heard him speak, neither indeed did they seem to be in their right mind, fluttering and out of their senses, avoiding either to be seen or felt; they frisked up and down at first, alone and apart by themselves, till meeting at length with others in the same condition, they clung together; but still their motions were with the same giddiness and uncertainty as before, without steerage or purpose; and they sent forth inarticulate sounds, like the cries of soldiers in combat, intermixed with the doleful yells of fear and lamentation. Others there were that towered aloft in the upper region of the air, and these looked gay and pleasant, and frequently accosted each other with kindness and respect; but they shunned those troubled souls, and seemed to show discontent by crowding together, and joy and pleasure by expanding and separating from each other. One of these, said he, being the soul of a certain kinsman, — which, because the person died when he was but very young, he did not very well know, — drew near him, and saluted him by the name of Thespesius; at which being in a kind of amazement, and saying his name was not Thespesius but Aridaeus, the spirit replied, ‘twas true that formerly he was so called, but that from thenceforth he must be Thespesius, that is to say “divine.” For thou art not in the number of the dead as yet, it said, but by a certain destiny and permission of the Gods, thou art come hither only with thy intellectual faculty, having left the rest of thy soul, like an anchor, in thy body. And that thou mayst be assured of this, observe it for a certain rule, both now and hereafter, that the souls of the deceased neither cast any shadow, neither do they open and shut their eyelids. Thespesius having heard this discourse, was so much the more encouraged to make use of his own reason; and therefore looking round about to prove the truth of what had been told him, he could perceive that there followed him a kind of obscure and shadowlike line, whereas those other souls shone like a round body of perfect light, and were transparent within. And yet there was a very great difference between them too; for that some yielded a smooth, even, and contiguous lustre, all of one color, like the full-moon in her brightest splendor; others were marked with long scales or slender streaks; others were all over spotted and very ugly to look upon, as being covered with black speckles like the skins of vipers; and others were marked by faint scratches.
[De sera 25] Moreover, this kinsman of Thespesius (for nothing hinders but that we may call the souls by the names of the persons which they enlivened), proceeding to give a relation of several other things, informed his friend how that Adrastea, the daughter of Jupiter and Necessity, was seated in the highest place of all, to punish all manner of crimes and enormities; and that in the whole number of the wicked and ungodly, there never was any one, whether great or little, high or low, rich or poor, that ever could by force or cunning escape the severe lashes of her rigor. But as there are three sorts of punishments, so there are three several Furies, or female ministers of justice; and to every one of these belongs a peculiar office and degree of punishment. The first of these was called Speedy Punishment, who takes in charge those that are presently to receive bodily punishment in this life, which she manages after a more gentle manner, omitting the correction of many offences which need expiation. But if the cure of impiety require a greater labor, the Deity delivers them after death to Justice. But when Justice has given them over as altogether incurable, then the third and most severe of all Adrastea’s ministers, Erinnys (the Fury), takes them in hand; and after she has chased and coursed them from one place to another, flying, yet not knowing where to fly, for shelter or relief, plagued and tormented with a thousand miseries, she plunges them headlong into an invisible abyss, the hideousness of which no tongue car express.
[De sera 26] Now, of all these three sorts, that which is inflicted by punishment in this life resembles the practice among the barbarians. For, as among the Persians, they take off the garments and turbans of those that are to be punished, and tear and whip them before the offender’s faces, while the criminals, with tears and lamentations, beseech the executioners to give over; so corporal punishments, and penalties by mulcts and fines, have no sharpness or severity, nor do they take hold upon the vice itself, but are inflicted for the most part only with regard to appearance and to the outward sense. But if any one comes hither that has escaped punishment while he lived upon earth and before he was well purged from his crimes, Justice takes him to task, naked as he is, with his soul displayed, as having nothing to conceal or veil his impiety; but on all sides and to all men’s eyes and every way exposed, she shows him first to his honest parents, if he had any such, to let them see how degenerate he was and unworthy of his progenitors. But if they were wicked likewise, then are their sufferings rendered yet more terrible by the mutual sight of each other’s miseries, and those for a long time inflicted, till each individual crime has been quite effaced with pains and torments as far surmounting in sharpness and severity all punishments and tortures of the flesh, as what is real and evident surpasses an idle dream. But the weals and stripes that remain after punishment appear more signal in some, in others are less evident.
[De sera 26b] View there, said he, those various colors of souls. That same black and sordid hue is the tincture of avarice and fraud. That bloody and flame-like dye betokens cruelty, and an imbittered desire of revenge. Where you perceive a bluish color, it is a sign that soul will hardly be cleansed from the impurities of lascivious pleasure and voluptuousness. Lastly, that same dark, violet, and venomous color, resembling the sordid ink which the cuttle fish spews up, proceeds from envy. For as during life the wickedness of the soul, being governed by human passions and itself governing the body, occasions this variety of colors; so here it is the end of expiation and punishment, when these are cleansed away, and the soul recovers her native lustre and becomes clear and spotless. But so long as these remain, there will be some certain returns of the passions, accompanied with little pantings and beatings, as it were of the pulse, in some remiss and languid and quickly extinguished, in others more quick and vehement. Some of these souls, being again and again chastised, recover a due habit and disposition; while others, by the force of ignorance and the enticing show of pleasure, are carried into the bodies of brute beasts. For while some, through the feebleness of their ratiocinating, while their slothfulness will not permit them to contemplate, are impelled by their active principle to seek a new generation; others again, wanting the instrument of intemperance, yet desirous to gratify their desires with the full swing of enjoyment, endeavor to promote their designs by means of the body. But alas! here is nothing but an imperfect shadow and dream of pleasure, that never attains to ability of performance.
[De sera 27] Having thus said, the spirit quickly carried Thespesius to a certain place, as it appeared to him, prodigiously spacious; yet so gently and without the least deviation, that he seemed to be borne upon the rays of the light as upon wings. Thus at length he came to a certain gaping chasm, that was fathomless downward, where he found himself deserted by that extraordinary force which brought him thither, and perceived other souls also to be there in the same condition. For hovering upon the wing in flocks together like birds, they kept flying round and round the yawning rift, but durst not enter into it. Now this same cleft withinside resembled the dens of Bacchus, fringed about with the pleasing verdure of various herbs and plants, that yielded a more delightful prospect still of all sorts of flowers, enamelling the green so with a wonderful diversity of colors, and breathing forth at the same time a soft and gentle breeze, which perfumed all the ambient air with odors most surprising, as grateful to the smell as the sweet flavor of wine to those that love it. Insomuch that the souls banqueting upon these fragrancies were almost all dissolved in raptures of mirth and caresses one among another, there being nothing to be heard for some fair distance round about the place, but jollity and laughter, and all the cheerful sounds of joy and harmony, which are usual among people that pass their time in sport and merriment.
[De sera 27b] The spirit said, moreover, that Bacchus ascended through this overture to heaven, and afterwards returning fetched up Semele the same way; and that it was called the place of oblivion. Wherefore his kinsman would not suffer Thespesius to tarry there any longer, though very unwilling to depart, but took him away by force; informing and instructing him withal, how strangely and how suddenly the mind was subject to be softened and melted by pleasure; that the irrational and corporeal part, being watered and incarnated thereby, revives the memory of the body, and that from this remembrance proceed concupiscence and desire, exciting an appetite for a new generation and entrance into a body — which is named γένεσις as being an inclination towards the earth (ἐπὶ γῆν νεῦσις) — when the soul is weighed down with overmuch moisture.
[De sera 28] At length, after he had been carried as far another way as when he was transported to the yawning overture, he thought he beheld a prodigious standing goblet, into which several rivers discharged themselves; among which there was one whiter than snow or the foam of the sea, another resembled the purple color of the rainbow. The tinctures of the rest were various; besides that, they had their several lustres at a distance. But when he drew nearer, the ambient air became more subtile and rarefied, and the colors vanished, so the goblet retained no more of its flourishing beauty except the white. At the same time he saw three Daemons sitting together in a triangular aspect, and blending and mixing the rivers together with certain measures. Thus far, said the guide of Thespesius’s soul, did Orpheus come, when he sought after the soul of his wife; and not well remembering what he had seen, upon his return he raised a false report in the world, that the oracle at Delphi was in common to Night and Apollo, whereas Apollo never had any thing in common with Night. But, said the spirit, this oracle is in common to Night and to the Moon, no way included within earthly bounds, nor having any fixed or certain seat, but always wandering among men in dreams and visions. For from hence it is that all dreams are dispersed, compounded as they are of truth jumbled with falsehood, and sincerity with the various mixtures of craft and delusion. But as for the oracle of Apollo, said the spirit, you neither do see it, neither can you behold it; for the earthly part of the soul is not capable to release or let itself loose, nor is it permitted to reach sublimity, but it swags downward, as being fastened to the body.
[De sera 28b] And with that, leading Thespesius nearer, the spirit endeavored to show him the light of the Tripod, which, as he said, shooting through the bosom of Themis, fell upon Parnassus; which Thespesius was desirous to see, but could not, in regard the extraordinary brightness of the light dazzled his eyes; only passing by, he heard the shrill voice of a woman speaking in verse and measure, and among other things, as he thought, foretelling the time of his death. This the genius told him was the voice of a Sibyl who, being orbicularly whirled about in the face of the moon, continually sang of future events. Thereupon being desirous to hear more, he was tossed the quite contrary way by the violent motion of the moon, as by the force of rolling waves; so that he could hear but very little, and that very concisely too. Among other things, he heard what was prophesied concerning the mountain Vesuvius, and the future destruction of Dicaearchia by fire; together with a piece of a verse concerning a certain emperor or great famous chieftain of that age,
[De sera 28c] Who, though so just that no man could accuse,
Howe’er his empire should by sickness lose.
[De sera 30] After this, they passed on to behold the torments of those that were punished. And indeed at first they met with none but lamentable and dismal sights. For Thespesius, when he least suspected any such thing, and before he was aware, was got among his kindred, his acquaintance, and companions, who, groaning under the horrid pains of their cruel and ignominious punishments, with mournful cries and lamentations called him by his name. At length he saw his father ascending out of a certain abyss, all full of stripes, gashes, and scars; who stretching forth his hands — not permitted to keep silence, but constrained to confess by his tormentors — acknowledged that he had most impiously poisoned several of his guests for the sake of their gold; of which not being detected while he lived upon earth, but being convicted after his decease, he had endured part of his torments already, and now they were haling him where he should suffer more. However, he durst not either entreat or intercede for his father, such was his fear and consternation; and therefore being desirous to retire and be gone, he looked about for his kind and courteous guide; but he had quite left him, so that he saw him no more.
[De sera 30b] Nevertheless, being pushed forward by other deformed and grim-looked goblins, as if there had been some necessity for him to pass forward, he saw how that the shadows of such as had been notorious malefactors, and had been punished in this world, were not tormented so grievously nor alike to the others, in regard that only the imperfect and irrational part of the soul, which was consequently most subject to passions, was that which made them so industrious in vice. Whereas those who had shrouded a vicious and impious life under the outward profession and a gained opinion of virtue, their tormentors constrained to turn their insides outward with great difficulty and dreadful pain, and to writhe and screw themselves contrary to the course of nature, like the sea scolopenders, which, having swallowed the hook, throw forth their bowels and lick it out again. Others they flayed and scarified, to display their occult hypocrisies and latent impieties, which had possessed and corrupted the principal part of their souls. Other souls, as he said, he also saw, which being twisted two and two, three and three, or more together gnawed and devoured each other, either upon the score of old grudges and former malice they had borne one another, or else in revenge of the injuries and losses they had sustained upon earth.
[De sera 31] Moreover, he said, there were certain lakes that lay parallel and equidistant one from the other, the one of boiling gold, another of lead, exceeding cold, and the third of iron, which was very scaly and rugged. By the sides of these lakes stood certain Daemons, that with their instruments, like smiths or founders, put in or drew out the souls of such as had transgressed either through avarice or an eager desire of other men’s goods. For the flame of the golden furnace having rendered these souls of a fiery and transparent color, they plunged them into that of lead; where after they were congealed and hardened into a substance like hail, they were then thrown into the lake of iron, where they became black and deformed, and being broken and crumbled by the roughness of the iron, changed their form; and being thus transformed, they were again thrown into the lake of gold; in all these transmutations enduring most dreadful and horrid torments. But they that suffered the most dire and dismal torture of all were those who, thinking that divine vengeance had no more to say to them, were again seized and dragged to repeated execution; and these were those for whose transgression their children or posterity had suffered. For when any of the souls of those children come hither and meet with any of their parents or ancestors, they fall into a passion, exclaim against them, and show them the marks of what they have endured. On the other side, the souls of the parents endeavor to sneak out of sight and hide themselves; but the others follow them so close at the heels, and load them in such a manner with bitter taunts and reproaches, that not being able to escape, their tormentors presently lay hold of them, and hale them to new tortures, howling and yelling at the very thought of what they have suffered already. And some of these souls of suffering posterity, he said, there were, that swarmed and clung together like bees or bats, and in that posture murmured forth their angry complaints of the miseries and calamities which they had endured for their sakes.
[De sera 32] The last things that he saw were the souls of such as were designed for a second life. These were bowed, bent, and transformed into all sorts of creatures by the force of tools and anvils and the strength of workmen appointed for that purpose, that laid on without mercy, bruising the whole limbs of some, breaking others, disjointing others, and pounding some to powder and annihilation, on purpose to render them fit for other lives and manners. Among the rest, he saw the soul of Nero many ways most grievously tortured, but more especially transfixed with iron nails. This soul the workmen took in hand; but when they had forged it into the form of one of Pindar’s vipers, which eats its way to life through the bowels of the female, of a sudden a conspicuous light shone out, and a voice was heard out of the light, which gave order for the transfiguring it again into the shape of some more mild and gentle creature; and so they made it to resemble one of those creatures that usually sing and croak about the sides of ponds and marshes. For indeed he had in some measure been punished for the crimes he had committed; besides, there was some compassion due to him from the Gods, for that he had restored the Grecians to their liberty, a nation the most noble and best beloved of the Gods among all his subjects. And now being about to return, such a terrible dread surprised Thespesius as had almost frighted him out of his wits. For a certain woman, admirable for her form and stature, laying hold of his arm, said to him: Come hither, that thou mayst the better be enabled to retain the remembrance of what thou hast seen. With that she was about to strike him with a small fiery wand, not much unlike to those that painters use; but another woman prevented her. After this, as he thought himself, he was whirled or hurried away with a strong and violent wind, forced as it were through a pipe; and so lighting again into his own body, he awoke and found himself on the brink of his own grave.

## On fate

[De fato 0] 568 1 1 I shall endeavour to send you my views on fate in as clear and concise a form as possible, Dear Piso, since you have asked this of me although not unaware of my scruple about writing.
The two senses of fate
[De fato 1] 1 1 You must know, then, to begin with, that the term “fate” is used and understood in two senses: one fate is an activity, the other, a substance.
Active fate: its substance
[De fato 1b] In the first place, Plato has roughly indicated an activity (a) in the Phaedrus with these words: “This is the ordinance of Adrasteia: if a soul have accompanied a god . . .” and (b) in the Timaeus, when he speaks of the “laws,” applying to the nature of the universe, which God proclaimed to the immortal soul; while (c) in the Republic he calls fate the “word of Lachesis, maiden daughter of Necessity,” expressing his view not in high tragic style, but in the language of theology. Should one wish to recast these descriptions and phrase them in more ordinary language, fate as described in the Phaedrus might be called “a divine formula which, owing to a cause from which there is no escape, is not transgressed”; as described in the Timaeus it would be a “law conforming to the nature of the universe, determining the course of everything that comes to pass”; while as described in the Republic it is a “divine law determining the linking of future events to events past and present.” For this is what Lachesis, in very truth the “daughter of Necessity,” performs, as we learned before, and as later, in the lectures in the school, we shall know yet better. This, then, is fate in the sense of activity.
Substantial fate
[De fato 2] 2 1 Fate as a substance appears to be the entire soul of the universe in all three of its subdivisions, the fixed portion, the portion supposed to wander, and third, the portion below the heavens in the region of the earth; of these the highest is called Clotho, the next Atropos, and the lowest Lachesis, who is receptive to the celestial activities of her sisters, and combines and transmits them to the terrestrial regions subject to her authority.
[De fato 2b] What needs to be said, then, about substantial fate has been implicitly stated, as an abridged account has been given of its substance, quantity, quality, order, and relation both to itself and to us; the full account of these matters is well presented in the imagery of the second myth, that of the Republic, and I have done my best to give you an exposition of that account.
Active fate
[De fato 3] 3 1 But let us once more turn our attention to active fate, as the greater number of problems — physical, ethical, and dialectical — are concerned with it. Its substance has been adequately defined; we must next tell its quality, strange though it may appear to many.
Its quality
[De fato 3b] 569 Although events are infinite, extending infinitely into the past and future, fate, which encloses them all in a cycle, is nevertheless not infinite but finite, as neither a law nor a formula nor anything divine can be infinite. Further, you would understand what is meant if you should apprehend the entire revolution and the complete sum of time, “when,” as Timaeus says, “the speeds of the eight revolutions, completing their courses relatively to one another, are measured by the circuit of the Same and Uniformly moving and come to a head.” For in this time, which is definite and knowable, everything in the heavens and everything on earth whose production is necessary and due to celestial influences, will once again be restored to the same state and once more be produced anew in the same way and manner. Then the arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the only one in all respects ordered both in relation to itself and to the earth and all things terrestrial, will eventually return, at intervals composed of long revolutions; and those arrangements that come after it in a series and are contiguous to one another, will occur in contiguous fashion, each bringing with itself of necessity its own set of events. (Be it noted, however, to make our present situation clear, that my writing these words at this moment as I write them, and your doing what you happen to be doing as you happen to be doing it are not events brought about by the agency of the heavenly bodies alone as causes of everything.) And so, when the same cause returns again, we shall, once more becoming the same persons, do the same things and in the same way, and so will all men besides; and what comes next in order will come into existence and be done in accordance with the cause that comes next in order, and everything that is found in a single entire revolution will be repeated in a similar fashion in each of the entire revolutions as well. And so it is now plain what we meant by our statement that fate, although in a way infinite, is not infinite; and our remark that it is a sort of cycle has, I take it, been adequately understood; for just as the movement of a cycle and the time which measures that movement of a cycle and the time which measures that movement are cycles, so too the formula of cyclical events would be considered a cycle.
[De fato 4] 4 1 Even this treatment, then, I venture to say, shows the quality of fate, except that it does not tell of that fate which is particular or individual. What, then, is the quality of this fate, considered in turn as this kind of formula? It is, we may conjecture, of the quality of the law of a state, with in the first place promulgates most, if not all, of its commands as consequents of hypotheses, and secondly, so far as it can, embraces all the concerns of a state in the form of universal statements.
[De fato 4b] Let us go on to examine in turn the meaning of these two points.
The universality of fate
[De fato 4c] The law of a state uses the form of a supposition and its conclusion to speak of a “soldier distinguishing himself in action” and of a “deserter,” and so with the rest; it does not lay down the law for this or that individual, but speaks primarily of the general case, and only secondarily of what comes under it. Thus we should say that it is lawful to honour this particular man who has distinguished himself in action, and to punish this other who has deserted the post, on the ground that the law has potentially provided for them, just as the “law” (if one may use the expression) of medicine and of gymnastics embraces the particular cases potentially in its general provisions; so also the law of nature, while dealing with universals primarily, deals secondarily with particulars. The latter too are all fated after a fashion, since they are co fated with the former. Perhaps a stickler for precision in such matters might insist that on the contrary it is the particulars that have priority, and that the universal exists for their sake — the end being prior to what serves it. But these questions have their place elsewhere, whereas the statement that fate does not contain everything plainly or expressly, but only universals, when made at this point, is properly placed both in respect of the point made shortly before and of the one that is now to be made: 570 the determinate, which is appropriate to divine wisdom, is seen rather in the universal — and the divine law and the political are of this description — while the unlimited is seen in the particular.
The hypothetical character of fate
[De fato 4d] Let us next determine the character of what is “consequent of an hypothesis,” and show that fate is of that character.
[De fato 4e] We meant by “consequent of an hypothesis” that which is not laid down independently, but in some fashion is really “subjoined” to something else, wherever there is an expression implying that if one thing is true, another follows: “this is the ordinance of Adrasteia: if a soul have accompanied a god and beheld aught of reality, it shall suffer nought until the next revolution, and if able to do so ever, it shall ever go unscathed.” What is both consequent upon an hypothesis and universal is, then, of the description given above. That fate is actually of this description is evident from its substance alone and from its name: it is called fate (heimarmenê) as being a thing concatenated (eiromenê); and it is an ordinance and a law because it has laid down the consequences which follow upon occurrences, as in the legislation of a state.
The relations of active fate
[De fato 5] 5 1 We must next examine what comes under the heading of relation — how fate stands in relation to providence on the one hand, and on the other to chance, to what is in our power and the contingent, and to the like; we must moreover distinguish in what way the dictum “everything conforms to fate” is true, and in what way false.
Examination of the dictum “Everything conforms to fate”
[De fato 5b] Now (a) if the statement means that everything is contained in fate, we must grant that it is true (whether it is in all human events, or all terrestrial or all celestial events one wishes to place in fate, let us for the present grant these points too); but (b) if the expression “conforming to fate,” as would rather seem to be its implication, designates not everything, but only the consequences of fate, we must not say that everything conforms to fate, even if “everything conforms to fate.” For neither is everything included in law “lawful” or “in conformity with law”; for law includes treason, desertion, adultery, and a good many other things of the sort, none of which one would term lawful; indeed I should not even call an act of valour, the slaying of a tyrant, or the performance of any other right action lawful. For the lawful is what the law enjoins; but if the law enjoins such conduct, how then can we deny that persons who display no valour, slay no tyrant, and perform no such right action, disobey and violate it? Or how, if such persons are lawbreakers, is it not right to punish them? If, however, all this is unreasonable, we must call “lawful” and “in conformity with law” only what the law determines as applicable to any action performed, whatever its character; and we must call “fated” and “in conformity with fate” only the consequents of antecedents in the divine appointment of things. Fate, then, includes everything that occurs, but much of what is thus included, and I might say all antecedents, could not rightly be said to be in conformity with fate.
[De fato 6] 6 1 Such being the case with these matters, we must next discuss how it is that what is in our power and chance, the possible and the contingent, and what is akin to these, by being classed among antecedents, might find a place themselves and leave a place in turn for fate. For fate contains them all, as indeed it is held to do; yet these things will not occur necessarily, but each will follow its own nature in its manner of occurrence.
The possible
[De fato 6b] It is the nature of the possible, as genus, to be prior in reality to the contingent; of the contingent, as matter, to be prior as substrate to the things which are in our power; of what lies in our power, as sovereign, to make use of the contingent; and chance is incidental to what is in our power because of the variation of the contingent in either direction. You will apprehend my meaning clearly if you reflect that everything that comes to pass, as well as the process itself of coming to pass, is always accompanied with potency, and potency with a substance. 571 For example, what comes about through the agency of man, whether we take the process or the thing which has been brought to pass, is never found without the potency which produces it; this is found in man; and man is a substance. It is owing to the potency, which is intermediate, that the substance is potent, and the process of coming to pass and the thing which comes to pass are both possible. Of these three, then, potency, the potent, and the possible, the potent, in its quality of substance, is prior as substrate to potency, while potency is prior in reality to the possible. It is plain, then, even from this statement, what the possible is; it might, however, be roughly defined in two ways: in a looser fashion as that whose nature it is to occur in conformity with potency, while we might define it more strictly by adding the clause “when there is nothing outside it interfering with its occurrence.”
The contingent
[De fato 6c] Of things possible some can never be prevented, as celestial phenomena — risings and settings and the like — whereas others are preventable, as frieze much of what pertains to man and many meteorological phenomena as well. The former sort, as occurring necessarily, are termed necessary; while those things which in addition allow (epidechetai) their contrary are contingent (endechomena). They might also be defined as follows: the necessary is the possible whose opposite is impossible; whereas the contingent is the possible whose opposite is also possible. Thus, that the sun should set is necessary as well as possible — it has an opposite, its not setting, which is impossible; whereas the falling and not falling of rain after sunset are both of them possible and contingent.
What is in our power
[De fato 6d] Again, in the case of the contingent, one form occurs usually, another is unusual, and another is as usual as its opposite and an “even chance.” This last is evidently opposed to itself, whereas the usual and the unusual are for the most part determined by nature, while the form which is as usual as its opposite is in our power. Thus, that during the dog days there should be hot weather or cold weather, the former of which is usual, the latter, unusual, is in both cases under the control of nature; whereas walking and not walking and the like, either of which is as usual as its opposite, are under the control of human impulse, and what is under its control is said to lie in our power and be a matter of choice. Of these what is in our power is the more general, as it has two species, the one comprising actions proceeding from passion — anger or desire, the other, actions that proceed from calculation or thought, in which last case we may now speak of “a matter of choice.” It is reasonable that the form of the “possible and contingent” which has been said to conform to our impulse and lie in our power should, in a different connexion, be spoken of under a different name; for in connexion with the future it is called “possible and contingent,” in connexion with the present, “in our power” and “in conformity with our impulse.” They might be defined as follows: the contingent is that which is both possible itself and has a possible opposite, whereas what is in our power is one of the two parts of the contingent, namely, the one that is already occurring in conformity with our impulse.
[De fato 6e] Our discussion of the natural priority of the possible to the contingent, of the real priority of the contingent to what is in our power, of their respective characters, of the sources of their names, and of related matters, is now, I trust, complete.
[De fato 7] 7 1 We must now speak of chance and the spontaneous and matters the theory of which depends on these.
Chance
[De fato 7b] Chance is a kind of cause. Of causes some are essential, some accidental; thus skill in housebuilding and skill in shipbuilding are essential causes of a house or of a ship, whereas skill in music or in geometry, and everything accidental, whether in the body, in the soul, or in externals, to the housebuilding or shipbuilding form, is an accidental cause. Hence it is evident that the essential is determinate and one, whereas the accidental is not one and is indeterminate; 572 for a single thing has a multiplicity, indeed an infinity, of attributes that are quite different from one another. The accidental, however, when found not simply in things directed toward an end, but further in those among them in which choice is found, is then called “by chance” as well; examples are: discovering a sum of gold when one is digging for the purpose of planting, or doing or undergoing something unusual when one is pursuing or being pursued or proceeding on foot in some other way, or merely turning around with some other end in view than the actual result. Hence some of the ancients described chance as a cause unforeseen and not evident to human calculation. But according to the Platonists, who formulate it yet more closely, chance is defined as follows: “chance is an accidental cause found in the class of things directed toward an end which take place in conformity with choice,” and only then do they add “unforeseen” and “not evident to human calculation.” (For that matter, “rare” and “unexpected” are also similarly implied in the term “accidental.”) What sort of thing chance is, if not evident from the preceding remarks, is to be seen very clearly in the words of the Phaedo. The passage runs as follows: “ — And did you not hear of the course of the trial either? — Yes; a report came to us about that; and we were astonished that he was evidently put to death long after the trial had taken place. What was the reason, Phaedo? — There was a certain chance coincidence, checrates; the stern of the ship which the Athenians send to Delos chanced to have been garlanded on the day before the trial.” In this passage we are not to take “coincidence” as equivalent to “occurrence”; the meaning is rather that the outcome resulted from a concourse of causes, each of them having a different end. Thus the priest placed a garland on the ship for some other purpose, and not for Socrates’ sake; and the court condemned him with a different end in view; while the actual outcome was unexpected and fell out as if it had occurred as a result of forethought, whether human or that of some still higher power. So much, then, will suffice for our discussion of chance.
The spontaneous
[De fato 7c] We must next speak of the things with which it necessarily co-exists. The contingent, we said, is the pre-existent substrate of what, by an expression derived from “chance,” is said to be “by chance,” and of what is in our power, whereas the spontaneous has a greater extension than chance, since it comprises both the latter and moreover many of the things whose nature it is to fall out differently at different times. What is meant by the term “spontaneous” (automaton), as the very name shows, is that which has a certain natural end when it does not accomplish that natural end. An example is held to be cold weather during the dog days; for at some times cold weather is not purposeless (matên), and does not occur in isolation (auto) from its end. To put the matter generally, as what is in our power is a part of the contingent, so chance is a part of the spontaneous. Taken two by two, the one set is identical to the other, the spontaneous to the contingent, and chance to what is in our power — not to all of the latter, but to that part of it which is also a matter of choice, as has been previously stated. Hence the spontaneous is common both to living things and things without life, whereas chance is peculiar to a man who has reached the stage of being able to act. A sign of this is the belief that enjoying good fortune and enjoying happiness are the same; now happiness is a kind of doing well, and doing well is found in man alone when he has reached his full development.
[De fato 8] 8 1 What is included in fate — the contingent and the possible, choice and what is in our power, chance and the spontaneous, as well as matters associated with these, such as what is designated by the words “perhaps” and “peradventure” — is of the description we have given above; and fate contains them all, although none of them conforms to fate. It remains to speak of providence, as it in turn includes fate.
Primary providence
[De fato 9] 9 1 The highest and primary providence is the intellection or will, beneficent to all things, of the primary God; and in conformity with it all things divine are primordially arranged throughout, each as is best and most excellent. Secondary providence belongs to secondary gods, who move in heaven, 573 and in conformity with it all mortal things come into being in orderly fashion, together with all that is requisite to the survival and preservation of the several genera. The providence and forethought which belongs to the daemons stationed in the terrestrial regions as watchers and overseers of the actions of man would reasonably be called tertiary. As providence, then, is seen to be threefold, and as primary providence is providence in the strictest sense and to the highest degree, I should not hesitate to say, even at the cost of appearing to contradict certain philosophers, that while all that conforms to fate conforms to providence (though not to nature as well), yet some things conform to providence (some to one, some to another), some to fate.
[De fato 9b] And whereas fate most certainly conforms to providence, providence most certainly does not conform to fate (here it is to be understood that we are speaking of the primary and highest providence): for what is said to “conform to” a thing is posterior to that, whatever it may be, to which it is said to conform (for example, “what conforms to law” is posterior to law and “what conforms to nature” to nature); thus “what conforms to fate” is younger than fate, while the highest providence is eldest of all, save the one whose will or intellection or both it is, and it is that, as has been previously stated, of the Father and Artisan of all things. Timaeus says: “Let us state for what reason the realm of events and this universe were framed by him who framed them. He was good; and in the good no grudging ever arises about aught; and being exempt from this, he wished all things to become as similar as might be to himself.
[De fato 9c] To accept from men of wisdom this, rather than any other, as the foremost principle of Coming into being and of Order, is to accept most rightly. For God, wishing that all things should be good, and naught, so far as possible, evil, took over all that was visible, which was in no state of rest, but in discordant and disordered motion, and brought it into order out of its disorder, deeming the former in all ways better than the latter. It neither was nor is right for him who is best to do aught save that which is most excellent. These matters and what is mentioned after them, as far as and including the souls of men, we must take to have been framed in conformity with providence — primary providence; but the words that follow (“and when he had compounded the whole, he divided it into souls equal in number to the stars and assigned to every star a soul, and mounting them thereon as on a vehicle, showed them the nature of the universe and proclaimed to them the laws of fate”), who would not suppose to indicate fate, explicitly and in the plainest of terms, as a sort of foundation and political legislation appropriate to the souls of men, the very legislation for which he next proceeds to state the reason?
Secondary providence
[De fato 9d] He indicates secondary providence in the following words: “Having prescribed all these ordinances to them, to the end that he might not be chargeable for the future wickedness of which they would be severally guilty, he sowed some on the earth, some on the moon, and others on the remaining instruments of time. After the sowing he delegated to the new-made gods the task of modelling mortal bodies, and, when they had completed all the rest of the human soul that it was necessary to add and all that this involved, of ruling and guiding the mortal animal, so far as lay within their powers, Fin the fairest and best fashion possible, except for those evils which it should incur from its own guilt.” In this passage the phrase “to the end that he might not be chargeable for the future wickedness of which they would be severally guilty” indicates in the plainest language the reason for fate, while the government and creation which is in the hands of the new-made gods refers to secondary providence.
Tertiary providence
[De fato 9e] He appears, moreover, to allude to a third providence as well, inasmuch as the enactment of ordinances is “to the end that he might not be chargeable for the future wickedness of which they would be severally guilty”; a god, having no part in evil, can stand in no need of either laws or fate, but each of them fulfils his own office as the providence of his begetter draws him along in its train. 574 The words of the Lawgiver in the Laws are, I think, clear testimony that this is true and the doctrine held by Plato. They are to this effect: “Since if ever any man, gifted by nature, born under a divine dispensation, should be capable of apprehending this, he would need no laws to govern him, for no law or ordinance is mightier than understanding, nor is it permitted that intelligence should be subject or slave to aught; it must rather be ruler in all things, if it be genuine and really free in conformity with its nature.”
The three providences and fate
[De fato 10] 10 1 Now I take Plato’s meaning to be as described or very near it: Bas providence is threefold, the first, since it has begotten fate, includes it in a sense; the second, having been begotten together with fate, is most certainly included together with it; and the third, since it is begotten later than fate, is contained in it in the same way as what is in our power and chance were said to be contained in fate. For, “those persons with whom the daemonic power encourages me to associate,” as Socrates says in recounting to Theages what is all but an ordinance, although not that of Adrasteia, “are the ones you have remarked; for their progress is immediate and rapid.” In this passage we must posit that the encouragement given to association with certain persons by the daemonic power conforms to tertiary providence, while their immediate and rapid progress conforms to fate; and the whole complex is plainly enough none other than a form of fate.
[De fato 10b] On this view, however, it might appear much more credible that secondary providence also, and indeed all things, without any limitation, that come to pass, are contained in fate, if we were right in dividing substantial fate into the three portions and if the argument of the “chain” brings the revolutions in heaven into the class of consequences of an hypothesis. Yet with regard to this question DI for one would not pursue the quarrel further whether these matters are to be termed consequences of an hypothesis, the initiatory cause of fate itself being fated, or, as I rather take to be the case, they exist side by side with fate.
The order of points in the present argument
[De fato 11] 11 Our argument, then, presented under its main heads, would be as described; the contrary argument, on the other hand, posits that everything is not only in fate but also conforms to it. But everything is consistent with the former contention, and what is consistent with the latter is evidently consistent with the former as well.
[De fato 11b] In our argument the contingent is placed first; what is in our power, second; third come chance and the spontaneous and all that conforms to them; fourth, praise and blame and whatever is related to them; while the fifth and final place must be given to prayers to the gods and worship of them. But the “indolent argument,” that of the “reaper,” and that termed “contrary to fate” turn out on this view to be sophisms indeed.
The order of points in the Stoic argument
[De fato 11c] According to the opposing argument the chief and first point would appear to be that nothing occurs without cause, and that instead everything occurs in conformity with antecedent causes; the second, that this universe, at one with itself in spirit and in affections, is governed by nature; and in the third place comes what would rather seem to be evidence added to these points in contention: the good repute in which the art of divination is held by all mankind, in the belief that its existence and that of God are in fact involved in one another; the acquiescence of the wise in whatever befalls, in the belief that everything that occurs is in order, in the second place; and third, that oft repeated dictum, that every proposition is either true or false.
[De fato 11d] I have dealt with these matters thus briefly in order to present the main headings of the topic of fate in a compendious form; these we must investigate when we subject the two arguments to exact scrutiny. The details that come under these headings we shall enter into at some later time.

## On the sign of Socrates

(The Persons who take part in the dialogue are Archedamus, an Athenian, and Caphisias, a Theban.)
[De gen. Socr. 1] 575 B 1 1 I recall, Caphisias, that a painter once gave me, in the form of a comparison, no bad description of those who view pictures. Spectators who are laymen and without instruction in the art resemble, he said, those who greet a large company with a single salutation, whereas cultivated and artistic spectators resemble men who have a private word of welcome for everyone they meet; for the general impression that the first obtain of the performance is inaccurate and as it were a mere sketch; whereas the others use their critical judgement for a separate scrutiny of each detail, and thus allow nothing well or poorly executed to pass without a look or word of recognition. I think the same is true of real events: duller minds are content with history if they learn the mere general drift and upshot of the matter, whereas the spectator fired with emulation and the love of noble conduct, when he views the works which virtue, like a great art, has executed, is more delighted with the particulars, feeling that in the outcome much is due to chance, whereas in the actions themselves and in their causes he observes the details of the struggles of virtue pitted against fortune, and the sober acts of daring in peril that come of reason blended with the stress and passion of the moment. Take us to be spectators of this sort; tell us of your enterprise from the beginning, and impart to us the discussion that we hear was held at the time in your presence; for you may rest assured that to hear the story I should not have shrunk from journeying all way to Thebes, except that the Athenians consider me unduly pro- Boeotian as it is.
[De gen. Socr. 1b] — Indeed, Archedamus, seeing this friendly eagerness of yours to know what happened, I, for my part, should have been obliged to hold it a duty “transcending any business,” as Pindar says, to come here to tell the story; as it is, when I am already here on an embassy and at leisure until the assembly delivers its reply, to refuse and be uncivil with one so sympathetic and friendly, would be enough, I think, to revive the ancient reproach against Boeotians of hostility to discussion, just when that reproach was dying out. . . . Yet consider whether the company is disposed to hear a narrative involving so much history and philosophy combined; it will not be short in the telling, as you would have me include the discussions with the rest.
[De gen. Socr. 1c] — You are unacquainted, Caphisias, with these gentlemen. I assure you that they are well worth knowing: their fathers were excellent men and good friends of your country. This is Lysitheides, nephew of Thrasybulus; this, Timotheüs, son of Conon; these are the sons of Archinus; and the rest, like these, are all men of our society. Your narrative, then, will have a friendly and interested audience.
[De gen. Socr. 1d] — Excellent. But at what point would it suit you for me to begin the tale so as to connect it with the events you already know?
[De gen. Socr. 1e] — We know pretty well, Caphisias, how matters stood at Thebes before the exiles’ return. Thus, the news that after inducing Phoebidas to seize the Cadmeia in time of peace, Archias and Leontiades had expelled some of your countrymen and were holding the rest in terrified submission, 576 exercising authority themselves in defiance of the laws and by the use of force, reached us here, as we had opened our homes to Melon and Pelopidas, as you know, and for the duration of their exile were constantly in their company. Again, we have heard that although the Lacedaemonians fined Phoebidas for seizing the Cadmeia and relieved him of the command against Olynthus, they nevertheless sent in his place Lysanoridas with two others and strengthened the garrison in the citadel; we have also learned that Hismenias, immediately after his trial, met death not in its noblest form; all this Gorgidas reported in letters to the exiles here. So all that remains for you to tell is the story how your friends returned and overthrew the tyrants.
[De gen. Socr. 2] 2 1 — In those days, Archedamus, all who were in the plot used to forgather at the house of Simmias, who was recovering from a wound in the leg. Our real purpose was to see each other as the need arose, but ostensibly we met for philosophical discussion; often, to avoid suspicion, we brought Archias and Leontiades along, who were not entire strangers to such pursuits. Indeed, after a long stay abroad and much travel among strange peoples, Simmias had but recently returned to Thebes with a great store of all manner of foreign legends and information; to this Archias delighted to listen in his leisure moments, mingling affably with the youthful company and preferring that we should spend our time in talk rather than attend to what he and his party were doing.
[De gen. Socr. 2b] On the day when the exiles were to come secretly to the walls after dark, a messenger from Pherenicus, known to none of us except Charon, arrived from here with word that the youngest exiles, twelve in number, had taken hounds and gone out to hunt on Cithaeron, intending to reach Thebes that evening; he had been sent, he said, to give notice of this and to learn who would provide a house for their concealment when they slipped into the city, so that with this information they could proceed to it among other things. In the midst of our hesitation and perplexity, Charon offered to provide his own house. The messenger, then, determined to rejoin the exiles with all speed.
[De gen. Socr. 3] 3 1 Grasping my hand firmly, with his eyes on Charon, who was going on before, Theocritus the soothsayer said: “This man, Caphisias, is no philosopher, nor has he, like your brother Epameinondas, had any schooling of a distinguished and exceptional kind; yet you observe that he is naturally guided to noble conduct by the laws, and willingly assumes the gravest risks for his country’s sake. Whereas Epameinondas, who feels that by reason of his schooling he is superior in virtue to all other Boeotians, is not keen or eager to help the men who are braving danger for their country. Yet what better occasion can he desire than this for putting himself to use, splendidly equipped as he is by nature and training?”
[De gen. Socr. 3b] I replied: “We, my eager friend, are carrying out our own decisions, whereas Epameinondas has been unsuccessful in his endeavour to persuade us to drop them, as he believes would be for the best. It is hardly surprising, then, that he refuses our invitation to proceedings that run counter to his nature and his judgement. Suppose a physician promised to cure a disease without recourse to the knife or cautery: here too it would be unreasonable of you, I think, to compel him to cut or sear the diseased member.” Theocritus admitted this was true, and I pursued: “And is not Epameinondas in the same case? He asserts, does he not? that unless driven to it by extreme necessity, he will put no countryman to death untried, but will gladly join forces with all who endeavour without resorting to civil bloodshed and slaughter to set our city free. But since the majority are against him, and we are already engaged in this course, he would have us allow him to await the favourable moment for intervention, remaining innocent and guiltless of bloodshed. 577 Thus interest as well as justice will be served. For, he contends, no distinction will be drawn in the actual fighting; Pherenicus perhaps and Pelopidas will turn their arms against those most deep in guilt and crime, but Eumolpidas and Samidas, men white-hot in anger and passionate in temper, once they get a free hand in the night, will not lay their swords aside until they have filled the entire city with slaughter and destroyed many of their personal enemies.”
[De gen. Socr. 4] 4 1 As I was thus conversing with Theocritus Galaxidorus interrupted us to announce that Archias and Lysanoridas the Spartan were close at hand, hastening from the Cadmeia as if bent on meeting us. We, then, broke off; and Archias, summoning Theocritus and taking him to Lysanoridas, talked privately for a long time, withdrawing a short distance from the street to the foot of the Amphion, so that we were in an agony of fear that some suspicion or intelligence had reached them and they were interrogating Theocritus about it.
[De gen. Socr. 4b] Meanwhile Phyllidas — you know the man, Archedamus, at that time secretary to Archias and the other polemarchs, who was in the secret of the exiles’ intended return and one of the conspiracy, took my hand and made a show of twitting me in his usual fashion about my fondness for exercise and wrestling; then, when he had drawn me aside from the rest, he asked if the exiles were keeping to the appointed day. When I answered that they were, he said: “I did well, then, to prepare for to day the entertainment in which I am to receive Archias into my house and make him an easy prey for our men at a drunken banquet.”
[De gen. Socr. 4c] “Well done indeed, Phyllidas,” I answered; “and endeavour to bring all or most of our enemies together.”
[De gen. Socr. 4d] “That is no easy matter,” he said; “or rather it is impossible, as Archias, who expects a visit at that very time from a certain lady of rank, does not desire Leontiades to be present. You must therefore split forces and take the houses separately; for with Archias and Leontiades both disposed of I imagine the rest will take to flight and be out of the way, or make no trouble if they remain, only too glad to be offered safety.”
[De gen. Socr. 4e] “That we will do,” I said. “But what business have these men with Theocritus that they are talking about?”
[De gen. Socr. 4f] Phyllidas answered: “I cannot tell you definitely and do not speak from knowledge, but I have heard that disquieting and ominous portents and prophecies bode ill for Sparta.”
[De gen. Socr. 4g] Meantime Theocritus rejoined us and we proceeded to Simmias’ house, where we were met by Pheidolaüs of Haliartus. “Simmias,” he said, “asks you to await him here a moment; he is conferring in private with Leontiades about Amphitheüs, entreating him to wait until he can arrange for a sentence of banishment instead of death.”
[De gen. Socr. 5] 5 1 “You come most opportunely and as if by design,” said Theocritus. “I had been desiring to hear what objects were found and what was the general appearance of Alcmena’s tomb when it was opened up in your country — that is, if you were present when the remains were removed to Sparta on orders received from Agesilaüs.”
[De gen. Socr. 5b] “I was not present,” Pheidolaüs replied; “and although I expressed to my countrymen my strong indignation and exasperation at the outrage, they left me helpless. Be that as it may, in the tomb itself no remains were found, but only a stone, together with a bronze bracelet of no great size and two pottery urns containing earth which had by then, through the passage of time, become a petrified and solid mass. Before the tomb, however, lay a bronze tablet with a long inscription of such amazing antiquity that nothing could be made of it, although it came out clear when the bronze was washed; but the characters had a peculiar and foreign conformation, greatly resembling that of Egyptian writing. Agesilaüs accordingly, it was said, dispatched copies to the king, with the request to submit them to the priests for possible interpretation. But about these matters Simmias might perhaps have something to tell us, 578 as at that time he saw a good deal of the priests in Egypt in the pursuit of his philosophical inquiries. At Haliartus the great failure of crops and encroachment of the lake are held to have been no mere accident, but a judgement on us for having allowed the excavation of the tomb.”
[De gen. Socr. 5c] After a short pause Theocritus replied: “No more do the Lacedaemonians themselves appear to have escaped the wrath of heaven, as is evinced by the portents about which Lysanoridas was consulting me just now; indeed he is now leaving for Haliartus to close up the tomb and pour libations to Alcmena and Aleüs, in obedience to some oracle — though quite in the dark as to who this Aleüs was — ; and on his return he intends to search out the tomb of Dircê, which is unknown to any Theban who has not served as hipparch. For the retiring hipparch takes his successor and shows him the tomb in private and at night; and upon performing certain rites there in which no fire is used, they rub out and destroy all trace of them and return their separate ways in the darkness. Now I commend our opponents’ zeal, Pheidolaüs, for the performance of the rites, but they will not, I think, find it easy to discover the place of the tomb, as most of those who have legally held the office of hipparch are in exile, or rather all of them except Gorgidas and Platon — and from these they would not even attempt to secure the information, so greatly do they fear them — whereas the present magistrates on the Cadmeia take over the spear and the seal in utter ignorance of both the ritual and the tomb.”
[De gen. Socr. 6] 6 1 While Theocritus spoke Leontiades and his friends left. We entered and greeted Simmias, who was sitting up on his couch, very downcast and distressed, doubtless because his petition had failed. Looking up at all of us, he exclaimed “Good God! What cruel and barbarous natures! Was that not a most excellent answer of Thales of old, when asked by his friends on his return from a long absence abroad for the greatest curiosity he had discovered: ‘a tyrant in old age’? For even if a man happens to have endured no personal injury, yet his disgust at the offensive and brutal society of such men is in itself enough to make him an enemy to lawless and irresponsible domination. But these matters Heaven will perhaps attend to. Does your family, Caphisias, know who the stranger is that has come to see them?”
[De gen. Socr. 6b] “I do not know whom you mean,” I replied.
[De gen. Socr. 6c] “Yet Leontiades,” said he, “asserts that a man making an imposing figure Ewith a numerous and splendid retinue has been seen breaking camp before dawn at the tomb of Lysis, where he had lodged on rude beds, couches of chaste tree and tamarisk being found there — and traces of burnt offerings and libations of milk as well — ; and that this morning he had asked passers by whether he should find the sons of Polymnis in town.”
[De gen. Socr. 6d] “Who indeed could the stranger be?” I said. “From your description he seems to be of some consequence and not a private person.”
[De gen. Socr. 7] 7 1 “He does indeed,” said Pheidolaüs; “and we shall make him welcome when he comes. But at present, Simmias, to return to the inscription we were wondering about just now, give us what further information you may have; for it is said that the priests in Egypt were able to read the inscription which was written on the tablet and which Agesilaüs took from us at Haliartus when he dismantled Alcmena’s tomb.”
[De gen. Socr. 7b] Simmias at once recollected: “Of your tablet, Pheidolaüs, I know nothing. But Agetoridas the Spartan came to Memphis with a long document from Agesilaüs for the spokesman of the god, Chonuphis, with whom Plato, Ellopion of Peparethos and I had many philosophical discussions in those days. He brought orders from the king that Chonuphis should translate the writing, if he could make anything of it, and send the translation to him at once. Chonuphis shut himself up for three days, conning scripts of all kinds in the ancient books, 579 and then wrote his answer to the king, of which he also informed us. The document, he said, ordered the celebration of a contest in honour of the Muses; the characters had the forms of the script current in the time of King Proteus, which Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, had learned; and the god was using the inscription to instruct and urge the Greeks to live in the enjoyment of leisure and peace by always taking philosophy as their field of contention, laying their arms aside and settling their disputes about right and wrong by an appeal to the Muses and discussion. As for ourselves, we felt at the time that Chonuphis was right; we felt so yet more when our return from Egypt a party of Delians met us in Caria and requested Plato, as a geometer, to solve a problem set them by the god in a strange oracle. The oracle was to this effect: the present troubles of the Delians and the rest of the Greeks would be at an end when they had doubled the altar at Delos. As they not only were unable to penetrate its meaning, but failed absurdly in constructing the altar (for upon doubling all four sides they discovered to their surprise that in their ignorance of the progression from which the linear double is obtained they had produced by this increase a solid eight times as large), they called on Plato for help in their difficulty. Plato, recalling the Egyptian, replied that the god was rallying the Greeks for their neglect of education, deriding, as it were, our ignorance and bidding us engage in no perfunctory study of geometry; for no ordinary or near-sighted intelligence, but one well versed in the subject, was required to find two mean proportionals, that being the only way in which a body cubical in shape can be doubled with a similar increment in all dimensions. This would be done for them by Eudoxus of Cnidus or Helicon of Cyzicus; they were not, however, to suppose that it was this the god desired, but rather that he was ordering the entire Greek nation to give up war and its miseries and cultivate the Muses, and by calming their passions through the practice of discussion and study of mathematics, so to live with one that their intercourse should be not injurious, but profitable.”
[De gen. Socr. 8] 8 1 While Simmias was speaking my father Polymnis entered. Sitting down beside Simmias he said: “Epameinondas entreats you and the whole company, unless you have some pressing business, to await him here, as he wishes to acquaint you with the stranger, a man of generous spirit who has been sent on a generous and noble errand by the Pythagoreans in Italy. He comes to offer libations at the grave of the aged Lysis, in consequence, he says, of certain vivid dreams and apparitions; and he brings with him a large sum of gold, thinking it proper to repay Epameinondas for the support of Lysis in his old age. This he is very intent on doing, although we neither ask nor desire him to relieve our poverty.”
[De gen. Socr. 8b] Simmias exclaimed, in great delight, “An admirable man, and worthy of philosophy! But why does he not join us directly?”
[De gen. Socr. 8c] As he had, I believe, spent the night at Lysis’ grave,” my father replied, “Epameinondas was first taking him to the Hismerus to wash himself clean; they will then join us here. His motive in encamping at the tomb before meeting us was to take up the remains and remove them to Italy, unless some sign from heaven should appear in the night to forbid it.” With this my father fell silent.
[De gen. Socr. 9] 9 1 “Good God!” exclaimed Galaxidorus. “How hard it is to find a man untainted with humbug and superstition! Some, through no desire of their own, succumb to these disorders from ignorance or weakness, whereas others, to be reputed the favourites of heaven and above the common sort, invest their doings with a character of sanctity, hiding what occurs to their intelligence behind a pretence of dreams and apparitions and the like mummery. 580 For men engaged in public affairs and compelled to live at the caprice of a self-willed and licentious mob this may have its use — to treat the superstition of the populace as a bridle, and thereby pull them back to the profitable course and set them right; but for Philosophy such outward seeming appears not only unseemly but in open conflict with her claims. Professing to teach the whole of the good and the profitable by the sole use of reason, she nevertheless withdraws from the government of conduct to take refuge with the gods, as if holding reason in contempt, and scorning demonstration, where her chief excellence is supposed to lie, resorts to divination and the visions seen in dreams, wherein the least of men is often no less rewarded with success than the greatest. For this reason, Simmias, I think your friend Socrates embraced a manner of teaching and prospecting that had more of the true philosophic stamp, choosing that simplicity and sincerity of his for its manliness and great affinity to truth; as for humbug, the mere vapour as it were of philosophy, he sent it flying to the sophists.”
[De gen. Socr. 9b] “What is this, Galaxidorus?” Theocritus broke in. “Has Meletus convinced you too that Socrates had no use for things divine? That was the charge Meletus brought against him before the Athenians.”
[De gen. Socr. 9c] “Things really divine,” he answered, “he by no means ignored; but he took philosophy, left by Pythagoras and his company a prey to phantoms, fables, and superstition, and by Empedocles in a wild state of exaltation, and trained her to face reality with steadfast understanding, as it were, and to rely on sober reason in the pursuit of truth.”
[De gen. Socr. 10] 10 1 “Very well,” said Theocritus; ‘but what, my dear sir, do we call Socrates’ sign? An imposture? For my part, nothing reported of Pythagoras’ skill in divination has struck me as so great or so divine; for exactly as Homer has represented Athena as ‘standing at’ Odysseus’ ‘side in all his labours,’ so Heaven seems to have attached to Socrates from his earliest years as his guide in life a vision of this kind, which alone
[De gen. Socr. 10b] Showed him the way, illuminating his path
[De gen. Socr. 10c] in matters dark and inscrutable to human wisdom, through the frequent concordance of the sign with his own decisions, to which it lent a divine sanction. For further and greater instances you must ask Simmias and Socrates’ other friends; but I was myself present (I had come to visit Euthyphron the soothsayer) when Socrates — you recall the incident, Simmias — happened to be making the ascent toward the Symbolon and the house of Andocides, putting some question to Euthyphron the while and sounding him out playfully. Suddenly he stopped short and fell silent, lost for a good time in thought; at last he turned back, taking the way through the street of the cabinetmakers, and called out to the friends who had already gone onward to return, saying that the sign had come to him. Most turned back with him, I with the rest, clinging close to Euthyphron; but certain young fellows went straight ahead, imagining that they would discredit Socrates’ sign, and drew along Charillus the flute-player, who had also come to Athens with me to visit Cebes. As they were walking along the street of the statuaries past the law-courts, they were met by a drove of swine, covered with mud and so numerous that they pressed against one another; and as there was nowhere to step aside, the swine ran into some and knocked them down, and befouled the rest. Charillus came home like the others, his legs and clothes covered with mud; so that we always mentioned Socrates’ sign with laughter, at the same time marvelling that Heaven never deserted or neglected him.”
[De gen. Socr. 11] 11 “You suppose, then, Theocritus,” replied Galaxidorus, “that Socrates’ sign had some peculiar and extraordinary power, and that he did not, upon verifying from experience some rule of ordinary divination, let it turn the scale in matters dark and beyond the reach of reason? For just as a single drachm does not by itself tip the beam, but when joined to a weight in equilibrium with another inclines the whole mass in the direction of its own pull, 581 so too a sneeze or chance remark or any such omen cannot, being trivial and light, incline a weighty mind to action; but when it is joined to one of two opposing reasons, it solves the dilemma by destroying the balance, and thus allows a movement and propulsion to arise.”
[De gen. Socr. 11b] “Just so, Galaxidorus,” my father broke in. “I have it from one of the Megarian school, who had it from Terpsion, that Socrates’ sign was a sneeze, his own and others’; thus, when another sneezed at his right, whether behind or in front, he proceeded to act, but if at his left, desisted; while of his own sneezes the one that occurred when he was on the point of acting confirmed him in how he had set out to do, whereas the one occurring after he had already begun checked and prevented his movement. But what astonishes me is that, supposing he relied on sneezes, he did not speak to his friends of being prompted or deterred by these, but by a sign from Heaven; for here again, my dear friend, we have a form of hollow affectation and boasting, and not the sincerity and simplicity that made him to our feeling truly great and superior to the generality of men — to be upset at odd moments by such external matters as a voice or sneeze, and thus be diverted from his actions and abandon his decisions. Nay, Socrates’ movements are observed to have had an indeflectible force and intensity in all he did, which implies that they were launched forth from a correct and powerful judgement and foundation; for of his own free will to have remained poor throughout his life when he could have had money which the donors would have been delighted and thankful to see him accept, and not to have forsaken philosophy despite so many obstacles, and in the end, although his followers had spared no efforts to save his life and had contrived a perfectly feasible means of escape, neither to have yielded to their entreaties nor to have flinched at the approach of death, but to have faced its terrors with reasoning unshaken, are not acts of a man whose views are at the mercy of voices or sneezes, but of one guided by a higher authority and principle to noble conduct.
[De gen. Socr. 11c] “I also hear that he foretold to some of his friends the loss of the Athenian forces in Sicily. And still earlier, when Pyrilampes, the son of Antiphon, who had been wounded with a javelin and was taken prisoner by us in the pursuit at Delion, was told by the commissioners that came from Athens to negotiate a truce that Socrates had reached the coast at Oropus with Alcibiades and Laches and come home safe, Ehe often invoked the name of Socrates, and of those of certain friends and members of his company who had fled with him toward Mount Parnes and been killed by our cavalry, as they had (he said) disregarded Socrates’ sign and taken a different way, not following where Socrates led, in their retreat from the battle. Simmias too has heard of this I think.”
[De gen. Socr. 11d] “Many times,” said Simmias, “and from many persons; for these events led to no little talk at Athens about Socrates’ sign.”
[De gen. Socr. 12] 12 1 “Are we, then, Simmias,” said Pheidolaüs, “to let Galaxidorus in sport reduce so mighty a work of divination to sneezes and chance remarks? Even the ignorant multitude rely on these in trivial matters and in playful moods, but when graver dangers and actions of greater moment confront them, the words of Euripides come true:
[De gen. Socr. 12b] None talks such folly when the fray impends.”
[De gen. Socr. 12c] “I am ready, Pheidolaüs,” rejoined Galaxidorus, “to listen to what Simmias has to say about these matters, if he has himself heard Socrates talk of them, and to share your forbearance; but what you and Polymnis have said is not hard to refute. For as in medicine a rapid pulse or a blister, trifling in itself, is a sign of something by no means trifling, and as for a skipper the cry of a marine bird or the passing of a wisp of yellow cloud 582 betokens wind and a rising sea, so for a mind expert in divination a sneeze or random utterance, in itself no great matter, may yet be a sign of some great event; for in no art is the prediction of great things from small, or of many things from few, neglected. No; if a man ignorant of the significance of writing, on seeing letters few in number and mean in appearance, should doubt that a literate person could gather from them the story of great wars that happened to men in the past, of foundations of cities, and of acts and sufferings of kings, and should then assert that what revealed and recounted all this to that student of history was something divine, you would, my friend, be moved to hearty laughter at the fellow’s simplicity; so here too take heed lest it be simplicity in us, in our ignorance of the significance for the future of the various signs interpreted by the art of divination, to resent the notion that a man of intelligence can draw from them some statement about things hidden from view — and that too when it is the man himself who says that it is no sneeze or utterance that guides his acts, but something divine. For I shall now deal with you, Polymnis, who are astonished that Socrates, a man who by his freedom from humbug and affectation had more than any other made philosophy human, should have termed his token not a ‘sneeze’ or ‘omen’ but in high tragic style ‘the sign from Heaven.’ I, on the contrary, should have been astonished if a master of dialectic and the use of words, like Socrates, had spoken of receiving intimations not from ‘Heaven’ but from the ‘Sneeze’: it is as if a man should say that the arrow wounded him, and not the archer with the arrow, or that the scales, and not the weigher with the scales, measured the weight. For the act does not belong to the instrument, but to the person to whom the instrument itself belongs, who uses it for the act; and the sign used by the power that signals is an instrument like any other. But, as I said, if Simmias should have anything to say, we must listen to him, as he is better informed.”
[De gen. Socr. 13] 13 1 “First,” said Theocritus, “we must see who the persons are that are entering the room — but I see it is Epameinondas, who is apparently bringing the stranger to meet us.”
We looked toward the door and saw Epameinondas in the lead, with Hismenodorus, Bacchyllidas, and Melissus the fluteplayer among our friends in the plot, while the stranger came last, a man of no ignoble presence, but showing gentleness and kindness in his demeanour and in person magnificently attired. When the stranger had taken his place beside Simmias, my brother beside me, and the rest as they happened to find seats, and all had fallen silent, Simmias called out to my brother: “Well, Epameinondas, Ewhat name and title are we to give the stranger, and what is his country? Such inquiries are the usual preliminaries to intercourse and acquaintance.”
[De gen. Socr. 13b] Epameinondas answered: “His name, Simmias, is Theanor; he is a native of Croton, one of philosophers of that region, and reflects no dishonour on the great fame of Pythagoras; indeed, he has come here at present on a long journey from Italy, confirming noble doctrines by noble works.”
[De gen. Socr. 13c] Here the stranger spoke: “Are not you, Epameinondas, preventing the noblest of those works? For if it is a noble act to benefit friends, it is no disgrace to be benefited by them; for the favour, requiring a recipient no less than a giver, needs both to be made perfect in nobility. He who refuses to accept the favour, like the man who refuses to catch a well-directed ball, disgraces it, allowing it to fall to the ground without achieving its end. For what target is so delightful to hit and so painful to miss, as a man deserving kindness at whom we aim a favour? Yet in the case of the target the man who misses has only himself to blame, as the mark is fixed; whereas with favours, the man who declines and moves aside is guilty of an offence against the favour, allowing it to fall short of its goal. To you I have already recounted the motives of my voyage hither; 583 but I desire to recount them to these others as well and let them judge between us.
[De gen. Socr. 13d] “After the Pythagorean societies throughout the different cities had been defeated by the revolutionaries and driven out, and after partisans of Cylon, heaping fuel about the house where the society that still held together at Metapontum was in session, and setting fire to it, had destroyed them all in the conflagration except Philolaüs and Lysis, who were still young and forced a way through the flames by strength and agility, Philolaüs escaped to Lucania and from there reached in safety our remaining adherents, who had once more begun to assemble and prevail over Cylon’s party, but for a long time no one knew what had become of Lysis; Bat last Gorgias of Leontini, on his return from Greece to Sicily, brought definite word, and told Aresas of meeting Lysis, who was living in Thebes. Aresas so felt his absence that he proposed with no more ado to make the voyage himself, but from age and infirmity proving quite unequal to the effort, he charged us to bring Lysis back to Italy alive if possible, or his remains if dead. The intervening wars, seditions and usurpations, however, kept his friends from carrying out the task for him during his lifetime. But when the daemon of Lysis — who had died in the interval — clearly revealed to us his death, and reports from men well acquainted with the circumstances told, Polymnis, Chow he had been cared for by your family and lived with you — that in the poverty of your household he had received rich provision for his age and departed in felicity, enrolled as father of your sons — I was sent, young and uncompanied, by a company numerous and advanced in years, offering money, of which they have provision, to you who have none in return for great favour and friendship. Lysis has had from you a fitting burial, and better in his sight than a fitting burial is favour requited to friends by friends and fellows.”
[De gen. Socr. 14] 14 1 While the stranger spoke my father wept a long time at the memory of Lysis. My brother said, smiling gently at me, as is his wont: “What are you doing, Caphisias? Are we yielding up our poverty to riches without a word?”
[De gen. Socr. 14b] “Let us by no means yield up,” said I, “that dear and ‘goodly nurse of youth’: fly to her defence; it is for you to speak.”
[De gen. Socr. 14c] “Well, my dear father,” he said, “I had feared that in the defences of our household against money there was but this one vulnerable spot: Caphisias’ person, which requires fine dress that he may display himself to advantage to his numerous admirers, and unstinted and abundant food to sustain him in his exercises and his bouts on the wrestling grounds; but now that we see him refusing to surrender his ancestral poverty or let its tempered edge be taken off, but instead, for all his youth, displaying himself in frugality and content with what he has, how could we lay the money out and use it? Are we to gild our arms and like Nicias of Athens decorate our shields with a blend of purple and gold? Are we, father, to buy you a Milesian mantle and our mother a tunic bordered with purple?? For surely we shall not expend the bounty on our belly to treating ourselves to more sumptuous fare, as if we had admitted wealth to our house as a burdensome guest.”
[De gen. Socr. 14d] “Heaven forbid, my son,” said my father; “may I never live to see our way of life so changed!”
[De gen. Socr. 14e] “Nor yet,” Epameinondas pursued, “shall we sit at home to guard a wealth that remains idle; for then the favour would be no favour and our ownership without honour.”
[De gen. Socr. 14f] “Of course we shall not,” said my father.
[De gen. Socr. 14g] “Lately,” Epameinondas went on, “when Jason, the prince of Thessaly, sent me a great sum of gold and begged me to accept it, I was openly rude, was I not? when I replied that he was the assailant in a hand-to hand affair, since to gratify his lust for royal power, he was tempting with money a common citizen of a free and independent state. 584 As for you, sir, I welcome your kind thought and am delighted with it — it was generous and worthy a philosopher — but you come with medicine to friends who are not ill. If you had heard that we were under hostile attack and sailed to our aid with arms and missiles, but found on arrival that all was friendliness and peace, you would not have felt called upon to offer and leave those provisions with men who had no use for them. Just so you have come to help us against Poverty, supposing us molested by her; whereas we find her most companionable and a friendly member of our household; no armament of riches, then, is needed against her who gives us no offence. No; report to your comrades abroad that while they put riches to the best of uses themselves, they here have friends who make good use of poverty; and that Lysis has repaid us himself for the cost of his keeping and burial by teaching us, among other lessons, to feel no disgust at poverty.”
[De gen. Socr. 15] 15 1 Theanor rejoined: “Is it vulgar to feel disgust at poverty, and yet not absurd to dread and shun wealth?”
[De gen. Socr. 15b] “It is absurd,” replied Epameinondas, “if what moves a man to reject it is not reason, but a pose arising from coarseness or a kind of vanity.”
[De gen. Socr. 15c] “Indeed! And what reason, Epameinondas,” he said, “would forbid its acquisition by noble and honest means? Or rather tell me this (for I beg you to show me a milder temper Cthan you did the Thessalian in your answers on this point): do you think it sometimes proper to give money, but never to accept it, or do you think that under all circumstances givers are at fault as well as takers?”
[De gen. Socr. 15d] “Not at all,” said Epameinondas; “but in wealth as in other things I hold that the conferring and acceptance of a favour are sometimes shameful and sometimes honourable.”
[De gen. Socr. 15e] “Does not,” Theanor went on, “the man who pays his debt willingly and cheerfully, do well in giving?”
[De gen. Socr. 15f] Epameinondas agreed.
“And does not he who accepts a gift well given do well in receiving? Or how could money be more honestly accepted than by accepting it from one who gives it honestly?”
[De gen. Socr. 15g] “In no other way,” was the reply.
“Therefore, Epameinondas,” he went on, “if of two friends the one ought to give, the other surely ought to accept; in battles one should elude the enemy who casts well, but in the matter of favours it is not right either to evade or to repulse the friend who gives well; for granting poverty no burden, no more is wealth in its turn so valueless and undesirable as all that.”
[De gen. Socr. 15h] “True,” said Epameinondas; “yet there is a case where the rightly offered gift is more valuable and honourable if not accepted. Consider the point with me in the light of the following considerations.
[De gen. Socr. 15i] “There are, I take it, many desires, and these have many objects. Some desires, called innate, spring up in the body with the necessary pleasures as objects. Others are adventitious, and seek to gratify mere empty fancies. Yet when a man has had a poor upbringing, long habit makes them strong and violent, and often they drag the soul along and humble it more forcibly than do the necessary desires. Habit and practice, however, have been known to enable reason to abate much of even the innate passions; and one must apply the whole might of a strict course of training, my dear friend, to the intrusive and superfluous desires and wear them down and cut them off by letting reason chasten them with repeated repression and restraint. For if thirst and hunger Fare overpowered by the resistance of reason to food and drink, it is surely far easier to check the appetites for wealth and fame and break their power in the end by abstaining from what they desire and holding them back. Do you not agree?”
[De gen. Socr. 15j] The stranger assented.
“Do you observe,” he asked, “a difference between a course of training and the goal such training serves; and as you would say that in athletics the goal is to compete with one’s opponent for the crown, whereas the training is the preparation of the body for that end through exercise, so do you agree that in virtue as well the goal is one thing and the training another?”
[De gen. Socr. 15k] When the stranger had agreed, Epameinondas continued: “First take the case of continence: do you regard abstention from shameful and unlawful pleasures as training 585 or rather as the goal and evidence of training?”
[De gen. Socr. 15l] “The goal and evidence,” he replied.
“And do you not consider it as training and practice in continence to achieve it as you have all achieved it to this day? Exercising till your appetites, like so many animals, have been stirred up, you place yourself for some time before splendid tables and varied meats; then, relinquishing to your slaves enjoyment of the feast, you partake yourself of plain and simple fare with desires which by that time have been chastened. For abstention from pleasure in what is allowed is a training of the soul to resist what is forbidden.”
[De gen. Socr. 15m] “Assuredly,” he said.
“For justice too, my dear friend, a mode of training exists, whereby we resist the appetite for riches and money. It does not lie in abstention from going about at night to steal our neighbour’s goods or strip men of their cloaks; nor yet does the man who refuses to betray country and friends for gold train himself to resist the passion for money (here, actually, it is perhaps the law and fear that keeps his cupidity from crime); it is instead the man who of his own free will repeatedly holds back from profits honourable and conceded by the law, that trains and accustoms himself to keep well aloof from all dishonest and unlawful gain. For neither in the midst of great but unseemly and harmful pleasures can the mind remain unmoved, Cunless it has often, while free to enjoy it, held pleasure in contempt; nor yet is it easy to forgo sordid profits and lucrative but dishonest gains, when they come within our power, if a man’s avarice, instead of being subdued well in advance and chastened, has been bred to profit without stint where profit is legitimate, and so is all agog for fraud and crime, held back just barely and with difficulty from unrightful gain. He, on the other hand, who does not yield himself up to the favours of friends or the bounty of kings, but rejects even the windfalls of fortune, and on discovering hidden treasure, calls off the cupidity that leaps at it, finds that his cupidity does not rise in rebellion against him at the prospect of wrongdoing nor throw his thoughts into turmoil; Dinstead, he readily disposes of himself for all good ends, holding his head high and conscious of the presence in his soul of nothing but the noblest thoughts. In our admiration for such men, dear Simmias, Caphisias and I entreat this grace of the stranger — to allow us practice enough in our poverty to achieve that excellence.”
[De gen. Socr. 16] 16 1 When my brother had done, Simmias nodded some two or three times in assent, and said: “Epameinondas is a great man, great indeed, and his greatness is due to Polymnis here, who from their early years provided his sons with the best upbringing, schooling them in philosophy. But this dispute, sir, you must settle with them yourself. To return to Lysis: if it is lawful for us to be told, are you going to remove him from his grave and take him to Italy, or will you permit him to remain here with us? He will find us good and friendly neighbours when we join him there.”
[De gen. Socr. 16b] Theanor smiled at this and said: “It would appear, Simmias, that Lysis is attached to his present abode, since, thanks to Epameinondas, he lacks no honourable provision. For a certain special rite is performed at the burials of Pythagoreans, and without it we do not feel in full possession of the blessed end that is proper to our sect. And so, when we learned from our dreams of Lysis’ death F(we tell by a certain token appearing in our sleep whether the apparition is of the dead or of the living) it occurred to many that Lysis had been improperly buried in a foreign land and that we must remove him so that over there he might have the benefit of our customary rites. It was with this in mind that I came here; and as soon as the people of the country had led me to the grave (it was evening by then) I poured libations, summoning the soul of Lysis to return and reveal what course I should take. As the night advanced I saw no vision, but seemed to hear a voice that said ‘touch not the inviolable,’ as Lysis’s friends had given his body consecrated burial, while his soul, already judged, had been joined by lot to another daemon and released for another birth. Moreover, on meeting Epameinondas this morning 586 and hearing how he had buried Lysis, I recognized that he had been well instructed by that other, even in the secrets, and that he had the same daemon for his life, if I have any skill to judge of the skipper by the navigation. For while the paths of life are numberless, yet those are few on which men are guided by daemons.” On saying this Theanor looked at Epameinondas as though in renewed study of his character and appearance.
[De gen. Socr. 17] 17 1 Meanwhile the physician approached Simmias and removed the bandage, preparing to dress the wound. But Phyllidas entered with Hippostheneidas, and calling Charon, Theocritus, and myself aside, led us to a corner of the peristyle, in great agitation as his face revealed. When I asked: “Has something unexpected occurred, Phyllidas?” he replied: “nothing I had not expected, Caphisias; I knew and forewarned you that Hippostheneidas was a weakling and begged you not to inform him of our plans or include him in the execution.”
[De gen. Socr. 17b] We were alarmed at these words; and Hippostheneidas said: “In the name of the gods, Phyllidas, do not say that; do not, mistaking rashness for courage, bring ruin on ourselves and our country, but allow the exiles to return C(if such is their fate) in safety.”
[De gen. Socr. 17c] Phyllidas said in exasperation: “Tell me, Hippostheneidas, how many do you think are in the secret of our enterprise?”
[De gen. Socr. 17d] “For my part,” he answered, “I know of not less than thirty.”
[De gen. Socr. 17e] “Then why,” he asked, “when the number is so great, have you, acting alone, ruined and thwarted the plans agreed upon by all? Sending a mounted messenger to the exiles, already on the way, you told them to turn back and not press on to day — to day when mere luck has helped to bring about most of the conditions favourable to their return.”
[De gen. Socr. 17f] At these words of Phyllidas we were all dismayed, and Charon said, with a cold stare at Hippostheneidas, “Wretch! What have you done to us?”
[De gen. Socr. 17g] “Nothing terrible,” said Hippostheneidas, “if you will soften the harshness of your voice and listen to the reasons of a man of your own age with white hairs like yourself. If we are resolved to show our countrymen an example of undaunted courage and of a high spirit that holds life cheap, Phyllidas, much of the day still remains; let us not wait for nightfall, but at once set out against the tyrants, sword in hand; let us slay and be slain and be prodigal of our lives. But slaying or being slain is not difficult, whereas it is no easy task to capture Thebes when hostile arms beset us in such numbers and to repel the Spartan garrison at the cost of but two or three dead; for the store of unmixed wine laid in by Phyllidas for his banquets and entertainments is not enough to make the fifteen hundred men in Archias’ bodyguard drunk, and even if we succeed in killing Archias, we still have Herippidas and Arcesus, sober men, to face in the morning. Why then this haste to bring friends and kinsmen home to certain destruction, and that too when our foes are not entirely unaware of their coming? Why have the Thespians had orders these past two days to stand under arms and hold themselves ready for the summons of the Spartan commanders? They are going to interrogate Amphitheüs to day, I hear, and on Archias’ return put him to death. Is not all this strong evidence that our plot is known? Is it not best to wait a little, just long enough to propitiate Heaven? For when they sacrificed the ox to Demeter the diviners say that the flesh burnt on the altar portended great tumult and danger to the state. And for you, Charon, here is something that requires the greatest caution. Yesterday I came in from the country with Hypatodorus, son of Erianthes, an excellent person and a kinsman of mine, but quite unaware of what is afoot. 587 ‘Charon,’ he said, ‘is a close friend of yours, Hippostheneidas, but not well known to me; you must put him on his guard, then, if you will, against a danger portended by a most ominous and extraordinary dream. Last night I dreamed that his house was in labour, as with child, and that as he and his friends in their anxiety were offering prayers and gathered around it, it groaned and gave utterance to certain inarticulate sounds; at last a great and terrible fire flared up from within, so that most of the city was in flames, though the Cadmeia was only veiled in smoke, as the fire enveloping it did not rise so high.’ Such, Charon, was the vision he recounted. For my part, I was alarmed even at the time, and on hearing to day that it is at your house the exiles intend to stay, I have become much more apprehensive, for fear that we may involve ourselves in disaster and yet do the enemy no serious injury, but merely give them a fright. For I take the city to stand for ourselves, and the Cadmeia to be on their side, as indeed it is.”
[De gen. Socr. 18] 18 1 Theocritus interposed, checking Charon, who desired to say something to Hippostheneidas. “But as for myself, Hippostheneidas,” he said, nothing has ever so encouraged me in our venture as this vision, although my sacrifices have always augured well for exiles — if as you say a great and brilliant light arose in the city from a friendly house, while the habitation of the enemy was darkened with smoke (which never leads to anything better than tears and confusion), and indistinct sounds got abroad from our side, so that even if an attempt is made to denounce us, our enterprise, attended with but indistinct rumours and blind suspicion, will be revealed only by its triumph. As for their sacrifice, it was of course unfavourable. The official and the victim do not represent the state but the faction in power.”
[De gen. Socr. 18b] While Theocritus was still speaking I asked Hippostheneidas: “Whom did you send with the message? If you have given him no great start, we will set out in pursuit.”
[De gen. Socr. 18c] He replied: “I am afraid, Caphisias (I must tell you and others the truth), that you cannot overtake him, as he has the best mount in Thebes. You all know the man: he is overseer of Melon’s charioteers and through Melon has been aware of the plot from the beginning.”
[De gen. Socr. 18d] And I, who had caught sight of the man, remarked: “It must be Chlidon you mean, Hippostheneidas, who won the horse-race at the games of Heracles last year.”
[De gen. Socr. 18e] “The very man,” he replied.
“And who,” I asked, “is this? He has been standing for some time at the outer door looking our way.”
[De gen. Socr. 18f] Hippostheneidas turned and exclaimed: “Good heavens! It is Chlidon. Dear me, has anything serious happened?”
[De gen. Socr. 18g] Seeing our eyes on him, Chlidon slowly advanced from the door. When Hippostheneidas had nodded to him and told him to speak out before all of us, as all were in the plot, he said: “I know the gentlemen well, Hippostheneidas. Not finding you either at home or in the market-place, FI guessed that you had joined them here and came as fast as I could, so that you might all know everything that has happened.
[De gen. Socr. 18h] “On receiving your order to ride at full speed and meet the men on the mountain I went home for my horse. I called for the bridle but my wife didn’t have it, and spent a long time in the storeroom, rummaging through the contents as if looking for it. When she had had enough of making a fool of me she at last admitted lending it the evening before to our neighbour at his wife’s request. In my exasperation I railed at her; she then resorted to ominous and appalling language, cursing me with an unlucky journey and an unlucky return; 588 by Heaven! may the gods send all of it on her own head. Finally I got so furious I beat her. Then neighbours and women came running up and a crowd collected; and it was all I could do to get here to you gentlemen, after the shameful way I had acted and been treated, so that you might send someone else to meet the men, as I am just now in a thoroughly distracted and wretched state.”
[De gen. Socr. 19] 19 1 As for ourselves, our feelings suffered an odd reversal; a little before we had been disappointed at the failure of our plans, while now, with the decision at hand and the need for immediate action upon us (postponement being impossible), we were yielding to anxiety and fear. Nevertheless, I spoke to Hippostheneidas and gave him my hand, encouraging him with the thought that the very gods were calling on us to act.
[De gen. Socr. 19b] Thereupon Phyllidas left to prepare his entertainment and lure Archias at once to his cups, and Charon to make the necessary preparations in his house for receiving the exiles. Theocritus and I returned to Simmias for an opportunity to confer with Epameinondas.
[De gen. Socr. 20] (588 B) 20 1 They were already well along in an inquiry of no trivial scope, the one Galaxidorus and Pheidolaüs had engaged in shortly before, when they raised the problem of the nature and mode of operation of the so called sign of Socrates. Simmias’ reply to Galaxidorus’ argument we did not hear; speaking for himself, however, he said that he had once asked Socrates about the matter without receiving an answer and had therefore never asked again; but he had often heard Socrates express the view that men who laid claim to visual communication with Heaven were impostors, while to such as affirmed that they had heard a voice he paid close attention and earnestly inquired after the particulars. “It thus occurred to us,” Simmias went on to say, “as we examined the question in private among ourselves, to surmise that Socrates’s sign was perhaps no vision, but rather the perception of a voice or else the mental apprehension of language that reached him in some strange way. So in sleep, where no sound is uttered, we fancy, as we receive the impression or notion of certain statements, that we hear people speaking.
[De gen. Socr. 20b] “But whereas some men actually have this sort of apprehension in dreams, hearing better asleep, when the body is quiet and undisturbed, while when they are awake their soul can hear the higher powers but faintly, and moreover, as they are overwhelmed by the tumult of their passions and the distractions of their wants, they cannot listen or attend to the message; Socrates, on the other hand, had an understanding which, being pure and free from passion, and commingling with the body but little, for necessary ends, was so sensitive and delicate as to respond at once to what reached him. What reached him, one would conjecture, was not spoken language, but the unuttered words of a daemon, making voiceless contact with his intelligence by their sense alone. For speech is like a blow — when we converse with one another, the words are forced through our ears and the soul is compelled to take them in — ; whereas the intelligence of the higher power guides the gifted soul, which requires no blows, by the touch of its thought; and the soul on its part yields to the slackening and tightening of its movements by the higher intelligence. No constraint is exerted, as no passion pulls the other way, and the movements of the soul respond easily and gently, like reins that give. This should occasion no surprise, when we observe that large merchantmen are brought round by small tillers, and that potters’ wheels whirl about evenly at the touch of the finger tip; for these, though inanimate, nevertheless, being constructed to revolve easily, move so smoothly that they respond to the mover at the slightest pressure. But the soul of man, which is strung with countless inward movements, as with resilient cords, is, when rationally dealt with, by far the most sensitive of all instruments, moving at a slight impulse toward the goal conceived by the understanding. 589 For here it is in the understanding, to which they are made fast and taut, that the passions and inward movements have their origins; and when that is struck, these are pulled and thereby exercise traction on the man and give him tension. Indeed, it is most of all by this that we are enabled to comprehend the great power of an idea. For insensate bones and thews and flesh saturated with humours, and the inert and prostrate mass they constitute, the instant the soul conceives a purpose in the understanding and sets its movement going for that end, arise as a whole, tense and co-ordinate in all its parts, and fly as if winged to carry the idea to execution.
[De gen. Socr. 20c] “Moreover, it is no hard or hopeless task to understand by what manner of impact, co-ordination, and suggestion the soul receives a thought and thereby with its movements draws after it the corporeal mass. But if the body is moved with so little trouble by a notion that enters the understanding without the help of spoken language, it cannot be hard, I think, to believe that the understanding may be guided by a higher understanding and a diviner soul, that lays hold of it from without by a touch, which is the way in which it is the nature of thought to impinge on thought, just as light produces a reflection. For in very truth our recognition of one another’s thoughts through the medium of the spoken word is like groping in the dark; whereas the thoughts of daemons are luminous and shed their light on the daemonic man. Their thoughts have no need of verbs or nouns, which men use as symbols in their intercourse, and thereby behold mere counterfeits and likenesses of what is present in thought, but are unaware of the originals except for those persons who are illuminated, as I have said, by some special and daemonic radiance. Even so the phenomenon of speech serves in a way to allay the doubts of the incredulous. For on receiving the impression of articulate sounds, the air is fully changed to language and speech and conveys the thought to the soul of the hearer. Need we then feel surprised that the air, with its ready susceptibility, should also be transformed by the mere ideas of higher beings and thereby indicate to divine and exceptional men the meaning of him who conceived the idea? For just as the sound of sappers’ blows is detected by bronze shields, which re-echo it as it rises from the depths of the earth and strikes them, whereas through everything else it slips unnoticed; so the messages of daemons pass through all other men, but find an echo in those only whose character is untroubled and soul unruffled, the very men in fact we call holy and daemonic. In popular belief, on the other hand, it is only in sleep that men receive inspiration from on high; and the notion that they are so influenced when awake and in full possession of their faculties is accounted strange and incredible. This is like supposing that a musician uses his lyre when the strings are slack, but does not touch or play it when it has been adjusted to a scale and attuned. This belief arises from ignorance of the cause of this insensibility: the inner lack of attunement and the confusion in the men themselves. From this my friend Socrates was free, as is shown by the oracle delivered to his father when Socrates was yet a boy. It bade him let the child do whatever came into his mind, and not do violence to his impulses or divert them, but allow them free play, taking no further trouble about him than to pray to Zeus Agoraeus and the Muses, surely implying by this that he had a better guide of life in himself than a thousand teachers and attendants.
[De gen. Socr. 21] 21 1 “Such was the notion, Pheidolaüs, that we for our part held about Socrates’ sign while he was alive and still hold now he is dead; we have scant use for those who account for it by chance remarks overheard or sneezes or the like. The story I had about it from Timarchus of Chaeroneia, as it more resembles a myth or fiction than an argument, I had perhaps better leave untold.”
[De gen. Socr. 21b] “Do no such thing,” said Theocritus, “but let us have it; for myths, too, despite the loose manner in which they do so, have a way of reaching the truth. But first tell us who this Timarchus was, 590 as I do not recognize the name.”
[De gen. Socr. 21c] “And little wonder, Theocritus,” said Simmias, “for he died very young, after asking Socrates’ leave to be buried beside Lamprocles, Socrates’ son, his friend and agefellow, who had died a few days before. Timarchus, then, in his desire to learn the nature of Socrates’ sign, acted like the high-spirited young initiate in philosophy he was: consulting no one but Cebes and me, he descended into the crypt of Trophonius, first performing the rites that are customary at the oracle. He remained underground two nights and a day, and most people had already given up hope, and his family were lamenting him for dead, when he came up in the morning with a radiant countenance. He did obeisance to the god, and as soon as he had escaped the crowd, began to tell us of many wonders seen and heard.
[De gen. Socr. 22] 22 1 “He said that on descending into the oracular crypt his first experience was of profound darkness; next, after a prayer, he lay a long time not clearly aware whether he was awake or dreaming. It did seem to him, however, that at the same moment he heard a crash and was struck on the head, and that the sutures parted and released his soul. As it withdrew and mingled joyfully with air that was translucent and pure, it felt in the first place that now, after long being cramped, Cit had again found relief, and was growing larger than before, spreading out like a sail; and next that it faintly caught the whir of something revolving overhead with a pleasant sound. When he lifted his eyes the earth was nowhere to be seen; but he saw islands illuminated by one another with soft fire, taking on now one colour, now another, like a dye, as the light kept varying with their mutations. They appeared countless in number and huge in size, and though not all equal, yet all alike round; and he fancied that their circular movement made a musical whirling in the aether, for the gentleness of the sound resulting from the harmony of all the separate sounds corresponded to the evenness of their motion. In their midst lay spread a sea or lake, through whose blue transparency the colours passed in their migrations; and of the islands a few sailed out in a channel and crossed the current, while many others were carried along with it, the sea itself drifting around, as it were, smoothly and evenly in a circle. In places it was very deep, mainly toward the south, but elsewhere there were faint shoals and shallows; and in many parts it overflowed and again receded, never extending very far. Some of it was of the pure hue of the high seas, while elsewhere the colour was not unmixed, but turbid and like that of a pool. As they crested the surge the islands came back, without, however, returning to their point of departure or completing a circle; but with each new circuit they advanced slightly beyond the old, describing a single spiral in their revolution. The sea containing these was inclined at an angle of somewhat less than eight parts of the whole toward the midmost and largest portion of the surrounding envelope, as he made out; and it had two openings receiving rivers of fire emptying into it across from one another, so that it was forced far back, boiling, and its blue colour was turned to white. All this he viewed with enjoyment of the spectacle. But looking down he saw a great abyss, round, as though a sphere had been cut away; most terrible and deep it was, and filled with a mass of darkness that did not remain at rest, but was agitated and often welled up. From it could be heard innumerable roars and groans of animals, the wailing of innumerable babes, the mingled lamentations of men and women, and noise and uproar of every kind, coming faintly from far down in the depths, 591 all of which startled him not a little.
[De gen. Socr. 22b] “After an interval someone he did not see addressed him: ‘Timarchus what would you have me explain?’
“ ‘Everything,’ he answered; ‘for what is here that is not marvellous?’
[De gen. Socr. 22c] “ ‘Nay,’ the voice replied, ‘in the higher regions we others have but little part, as they belong to gods; but you may, if you wish, inquire into the portion of Persephonê, administered by ourselves; it is one of the four, and marked off by the course of the Styx.’
[De gen. Socr. 22d] “ ‘What is the Styx?’ he asked. ‘It is the path to Hades,’ came the answer; ‘it passes across from you here, cleaving the light with its vertex; it extends upward, as you see, from Hades below, and where in its revolution it also touches the world of light, it bounds the last region of all. Four principles there are of all things: the first is of life, the second of motion, the third of birth, and the last of decay; the first is linked to the second by Unity at the invisible, the second to the third by Mind at the sun, and the third to the fourth by Nature at the moon. A Fate, daughter of Necessity, holds the keys and presides over each link: over the first Atropos, over the second Clotho, and over the link at the moon Lachesis. The turning point of birth is at the moon. For while the rest of the islands belong to the gods, the moon belongs to terrestrial daemons and avoids the Styx by passing slightly above it; it is caught, however, once in a hundred and seventy-seven secondary measures. As the Styx draws near the souls cry out in terror, for many slip off and are carried away by Hades; others, whose cessation of birth falls out at the proper moment, swim up from below and are rescued by the Moon, the foul and unclean excepted. These the Moon, with lightning and a terrible roar, forbids to approach, and bewailing their lot they fall away and are borne downward again to another birth, as you see.’
[De gen. Socr. 22e] D” ‘But I see nothing,’ said Timarchus; ‘only many stars trembling about the abyss, others sinking into it, and others again shooting up from below.’
[De gen. Socr. 22f] “ ‘Then without knowing it,’ the being replied, ‘you see the daemons themselves. I will explain: every soul partakes of understanding; none is irrational or unintelligent. But the portion of the soul that mingles with flesh and passions suffers alteration and becomes in the pleasures and pains it undergoes irrational. Not every soul mingles to the same extent: some sink entirely into the body, and becoming disordered throughout, are during their life wholly distracted by passions; others mingle in part, but leave outside what is purest in them. This is not dragged in with the rest, but is like a buoy attached to the top, floating on the surface in contact with the man’s head, while he is as it were submerged in the depths; and it supports as much of the soul, which is held upright about it, as is obedient and not overpowered by the passions. Now the part carried submerged in the body is called the soul, whereas the part left free from corruption is called by the multitude the understanding, who take it to be within themselves, as they take reflected objects to be in the mirrors that reflect them; but those who conceive the matter rightly call it a daemon, as being external. Thus, Timarchus,’ the voice pursued, ‘in the stars that are apparently extinguished, you must understand that you see the souls that sink entirely into the body; in the stars that are lighted again, as it were, and reappear from below, you must understand that you see the souls that float back from the body after death, shaking off a sort of dimness and darkness as one might shake off mud; while the stars that move about on high are the daemons of men said to “possess understanding.” See whether you can make out in each the manner of its linkage and union with the soul.’
[De gen. Socr. 22g] “Hearing this, he attended more carefully and saw that the stars bobbed about, some more, some less, 592 like the corks we observe riding on the sea to mark nets; a few described a confused and uneven spiral, like spindles as they twist the thread, and were unable to reduce their movement to a straight and steady course. The voice explained that the daemons whose motion was straight and ordered had souls which good nurture and training had made submissive to the rein, and whose irrational part was not unduly hard-mouthed and restive; whereas those which were constantly deviating in all directions from a straight course in an uneven and confused motion, Bas though jerked about on a tether, were contending with a character refractory and unruly from lack of training, at one moment prevailing over it and wheeling to the right, at another yielding to their passions and dragged along by their errors, only to resist them later and oppose them with force. For, exerting a contrary pull on the tie, which is like a bridle inserted into the irrational part of the soul, the daemon applies what is called remorse to the errors, and shame for all lawless and wilful pleasures — remorse and shame being really the painful blow inflicted from this source upon the soul as it is curbed by its controlling and ruling part — until from such chastening the soul, like a docile animal, becomes obedient and accustomed to the reins, needing no painful blows, but rendered keenly responsive to its daemon by signals and signs. ‘These souls indeed,’ the voice pursued, ‘are brought to their duty and made firm in it late and gradually; but from those other souls, which from their very beginning and birth are docile to the rein and obedient to their daemon, comes the race of diviners and of men inspired. Among such souls you have doubtless heard of that of Hermodorus of Clazomenae — how night and day it used to leave his body entirely and travel far and wide, returning after it had met with and witnessed many things said and done in remote places, until his wife betrayed him and his enemies found his body at home untenanted by his soul and burnt it. The story as thus told is indeed not true: his soul did not leave his body, but gave its daemon free play by always yielding to it and slackening the tie, permitting it to move about and roam at will, so that the daemon could see and hear much that passed in the world outside and return with the report. The men who destroyed his body as he slept are still atoning for the deed in Tartarus. Of these matters,’ the voice said, ‘you will have better knowledge, young man, in the third month from now; for the present, depart.’
[De gen. Socr. 22h] “When the voice ceased Timarchus desired to turn (he said) and see who the speaker was. But once more he felt a sharp pain in his head, as though it had been violently compressed, and he lost all recognition and awareness of what was going on about him; but he presently recovered and saw that he was lying in the crypt of Trophonius near the entrance, at the very spot where he had first laid himself down.
[De gen. Socr. 23] 23 1 “Such then is the myth of Timarchus. When he had come to Athens and died in the third month, as the voice had foretold, we were amazed and told Socrates the story, who censured us for recounting it when Timarchus was no longer alive, as he would have been glad to hear it from Timarchus himself and question him about it more closely.
[De gen. Socr. 23b] “My statement is now complete, Theocritus, and you have the myth along with the argument. But consider whether we should not also invite the stranger to join in the inquiry, for it is one most fitting and appropriate to inspired men.”
[De gen. Socr. 23c] “Why does not Epameinondas make his contribution?” asked the stranger. “He draws upon the same doctrines as I.”
[De gen. Socr. 23d] “That is his way, sir,” said my father with a smile: “to be silent and chary of speech, but insatiable of learning and listening. On this account Spintharus of Tarentum, who was long associated with him here, keeps saying, as you know, that nowhere in his generation has he met 593 a man of greater knowledge and fewer words. You must accordingly present your views about what has been said yourself.”
[De gen. Socr. 24] 24 1 “I say, therefore,” he said, “that the story of Timarchus, as sacred and not to be profaned, should be dedicated to the god. As for Simmias’ own statement, I should be surprised if any should find it hard to accept, and when they call swans, serpents, dogs, and horses sacred, refuse to believe that men are divine and dear to God, and that too holding him no lover of birds, but of men. As, then, a man that loves horses does not devote the same care to all members of the species, but always singles out and sets apart some one horse that is best, training and rearing it by itself and cherishing it above the rest, so too our betters take the best of us, as from a herd, and setting a mark on us, honour us with a peculiar and exceptional schooling, guiding us not by rein or bridle, but by language expressed in symbols quite unknown to the generality and common herd of men. So too it is not the generality of hounds that understand the hunter’s signals, or of horses the horseman’s; it is only such as have been taught that readily take their orders from a mere casual whistle or clucking of the tongue and do what is required. Homer too, it is evident, knew the distinction of which we others speak, as he calls some diviners ‘consulters of birds’ and ‘priests,’ but thinks that others indicate the future from an understanding and awareness of the actual conversation of the gods. These are his words:
[De gen. Socr. 24b] That counsel Helenus in his heart perceived,
The son of Priam, which the gods had reached
In their deliberation
and
Such speech of the immortal gods I heard.
[De gen. Socr. 24c] For as outsiders perceive and recognize the intention of kings and generals from beacons and the proclamations of heralds and the blare of trumpets, whereas to confidants and intimates it is imparted by the kings and generals themselves, so heaven consorts directly with but few, and rarely, but to the great majority gives signs, from which arises the art called divination. The gods, then, order the life of but few among men, such as they wish to make supremely blessed and in very truth divine; whereas souls delivered from birth and henceforth at rest from the body — set quite free, as it were, to range at will — are, as Hesiod says, daemons that watch over man. For as athletes who from old age have given up training do not entirely lose their ardour and their love of bodily prowess, but look on with pleasure as others train, and call out encouragement and run along beside them, so those who are done with the contests of life, and who, from prowess of soul, have become daemons, do not hold what is done and said and striven after in this world in utter contempt, but are propitious to contenders for the same goal, join in their ardour, and encourage and help them to the attainment of virtue than they see them keeping up the struggle and all but reaching their heart’s desire. For daemons do not assist all indifferently, but as when men swim a sea, those standing on the shore merely view in silence the swimmers who are still far out distant from land, whereas they help with hand and voice alike such as have come near, and running along and wading in beside them bring them safely in, such too, my friends, is the way of daemons: as long as we are head over ears in the welter of worldly affairs and are changing body after body, like conveyances, they allow us to fight our way out and persevere unaided, as we endeavour by our own prowess to come through safe and reach a haven; but when in the course of countless births a soul has stoutly and resolutely sustained a long series of struggles, and as her cycle draws to a close, she approaches the upper world, bathed in sweat, 594 in imminent peril and straining every nerve to reach the shore, God holds it no sin for her daemon to go to the rescue, but lets whoever will lend aid. One daemon is eager to deliver by his exhortations one soul, another another, and the soul on her part, having drawn close, can hear, and is thus saved; but if she pays no heed, she is forsaken by her daemon and comes to no happy end.”
[De gen. Socr. 25] 594 25 1 When Theanor had done, Epameinondas looked at me and said: “Caphisias, it is time, I believe, for you to go to the gymnasium and not disappoint your companions; when we decide to break up this gathering, we will look after Theanor ourselves.”
[De gen. Socr. 25b] “That I shall do,” I replied; “but I think Theocritus here would like a few words with you, in the presence of Galaxidorus and myself.”
[De gen. Socr. 25c] “He shall have them; and good luck attend!” he said, rising and leading us to the angle in the colonnade. We gathered about and endeavoured to prevail upon him to join in the attack. He was perfectly well informed, he replied, of the day appointed for the exiles’ return; indeed Gorgidas and he had organized their friends for the occasion. But he would never put a countryman to death without trial unless driven to it by extreme necessity. Apart from this it was to the interest of democratic government at Thebes that there should be some men not chargeable with the guilt of what was done: these would enjoy the greater confidence of the people, as their counsels would be less suspected of bias. With this we agreed; and he returned to Simmias and the company while I went down to the gymnasium and joined my friends. Shifting partners as we wrestled, we exchanged information and made arrangements for the execution of the plot. We also saw Archias and Philippus, freshly anointed, going off to dinner; for when Archias had returned after escorting Lysanoridas, Phyllidas immediately took him into his house, fearing that Amphitheüs might be put to death before we could prevent it; and leading Archias to hope that the married woman he desired would come to the banquet, he prevailed on him to dismiss his cares and relax with the usual companions of his debauches.
[De gen. Socr. 26] 26 1 It was now late and growing colder, as a wind had arisen; and most of the townspeople had on this account withdrawn into their houses earlier than usual, when our group met and picked up Damocleidas, Pelopidas, and Theopompus, and other groups picked up the rest (for they had separated as far back as the crossing of Cithaeron); and the bad weather allowed them to muffle up their faces and pass through the city without fear. Some, as they entered the gates, saw a flash of lightning on the right, not followed by thunder; and the sign was taken to portend safety and glory — our acts would be brilliant and yet unattended with danger.
[De gen. Socr. 27] 27 1 Now when we were all in the house, to the number of forty-eight, and Theocritus was taking sacrificial omens off in a room by himself, there came a loud pounding at the door. It was shortly announced that two officers of Archias, dispatched on urgent business to Charon, were knocking at the outer door and ordering it to be opened, and showed impatience at the delay in answering. Charon, in great alarm, gave orders to open it at once, and going to meet them in person, with a chaplet on his head, as if he was in the midst of drinking after a sacrifice, asked the officers what they wanted.
[De gen. Socr. 27b] The one replied: “Archias and Philippus have sent us with orders for you to report to them at once.”
[De gen. Socr. 27c] When Charon asked to what urgency this summons at such an hour was due and whether anything serious had happened, the messenger answered: “That is all we know. What shall we tell them?”
[De gen. Socr. 27d] “Why, tell them,” said Charon, “that I am laying my chaplet aside this moment and putting on my cloak and following after; for if I accompany you at this hour some people will take alarm, supposing me under arrest.”
[De gen. Socr. 27e] 595 “Do so,” the man answered; “it so happens that we have an order from the authorities to convey to the guards at the foot of the citadel.”
[De gen. Socr. 27f] With that they left. When Charon rejoined us with the news we were all struck with consternation, imagining ourselves betrayed; and most of us suspected that Hippostheneidas, after using Chlidon in his attempt to prevent the exiles’ return, when this failed and the crisis was upon us, had in his fear denounced the plot (being a man who would be credited); for he had not come to the house with the rest and had on all counts, it was felt, shown himself base and treacherous. Still, we all felt that Charon should go Bin obedience to the summons he had received from the magistrates. He gave orders for his son to enter, the most handsome boy in Thebes, Archedamus, and most diligent in athletic exercise; he was, I should say, about fifteen years old, but far stronger and taller than others of his age. “Gentlemen,” he said, “this is my only child, and very dear to me, as you know; I place him in your hands, adjuring all of you in the name of gods and daemons: if it should appear that I have played you false, kill him, show no mercy. For the rest, face what has befallen like the brave men you are; do not surrender your bodies to unmanly and inglorious destruction by your bitterest foes, but fight back, keeping your souls unconquered for your country’s sake.”
[De gen. Socr. 27g] As Charon said this we were filled with admiration for his high heart and noble mind, but indignant at the thought of suspicion, and told him to take the boy away.
[De gen. Socr. 27h] “In any case, Charon, said Pelopidas, “I think you were ill-advised in not removing your son to another house; for why should he be exposed to danger by being shut up with us here? Even now he should be sent away, so that, if anything happens to us, he may grow up in our place to be our noble avenger upon the tyrants.”
[De gen. Socr. 27i] “That may not be,” replied Charon; “here he shall stay and meet the danger with you; for him too it would be no honour to fall into the hands of the enemy. But, my son, be brave in this first trial before your age of the real business of fighting, and encounter peril at the side of many brave countrymen, with freedom and virtue as the prize; much hope yet remains, and doubtless some god is watching over us as we struggle for the right.”
[De gen. Socr. 28] 28 1 Tears came to the eyes of many of us, Archedamus, at his words; but he was dry-eyed himself and unmoved as he put his son into the charge of Pelopidas and passed through the door, taking every one by the hand and speaking words of encouragement. Even more admirable would you have found the boy’s own radiance and fearlessness in face of danger; like Neoptolemus, he neither blenched nor was dismayed, but drew Pelopidas’ sword and studied it with care.
[De gen. Socr. 28b] Meanwhile Cephisodorus, son of Diogeiton, one of our party, arrived, armed with a sword and wearing an iron corslet under his cloak. When he heard that Charon had been summoned by Archias, he blamed our delay and spurred us on to proceed to the houses at once; we should thus be upon them before they could attack, and failing that, it was better to get out into the open and engage with an enemy unorganized and scattered like ourselves than to remain where we were, confining ourselves in a small room for them to collect like a swarm of bees. Theocritus the diviner also urged us to act, as his sacrifice promised deliverance and triumph and assured our safety.
[De gen. Socr. 29] 29 1 We were arming and preparing for combat when Charon returned with a cheerful and smiling face, and looking us straight in the eye told us to be of good courage; there was nothing to fear, and our plans were working smoothly. “When Archias and Philippus,” he said, “heard that I had answered the summons, 596 they were already heavy with drink and their minds, like their bodies, had lost their vigour; it was all they could do to get up and come out to the door. ‘We hear, Charon,’ said Archias, ‘that exiles have slipped into the city and are lying concealed.’ At this I felt no ordinary alarm and asked: ‘Where are they reported to be, and who are they?’ ‘We do not know,’ he replied’; ‘that is why we sent for you, to see if you had heard any more definite news.’
[De gen. Socr. 29b] “Recovering my wits somewhat as from a blow, I reflected that the report was mere hearsay; that our plot had not been denounced by anyone privy to it (for if someone knowing the true state of affairs had betrayed us, they would not be ignorant of the house); and that a mere suspicion or vague report circulating in the city had reached them. And so I replied: ‘When Androcleidas was alive I understand that spates of such idle rumours and false reports often gave us trouble, but at present,’ I said, ‘I have heard nothing of the sort, Archias; I shall however investigate the story, if you so direct, and if I hear of anything alarming it will be brought to your attention.’
[De gen. Socr. 29c] “ ‘By all means do so, Charon,’ said Phyllidas; ‘omit no search or inquiry into this matter; for what is to keep us from making light of nothing, but being everywhere cautious and vigilant? Forethought and circumspection are an excellent thing.’ With this he took Archias in hand and led him back to the dining hall where they are now carousing.
[De gen. Socr. 29d] “Then let us not delay, gentlemen,” he said; “but address our prayers to the gods and go forth.” When Charon had thus spoken we began praying to the gods and cheering one another on.
[De gen. Socr. 30] 30 1 It was the hour when people are mostly at dinner; and the wind, growing stronger, had begun to bring on a fall of snow mixed with a thin drizzle, so that we found very few people abroad as we passed through the streets. The party appointed to attack Leontiades and Hypates, who lived near one another, went out in their mantles, taking none of their weapons but a knife each; among them were Pelopidas, Damocleidas, and Cephisodorus. Charon and Melon and their party, who were to set upon Archias, went out wearing the front plates of their corslets and crowned with bushy chaplets, some of silver fir and some of pine; a few were dressed in women’s clothing. Thus the party represented a band of tipsy revellers in the company of women.
[De gen. Socr. 30b] Our worse fortune, Archedamus, which would have made all the indolence and blindness of the enemy a match for all our daring and preparation, and which had from the outset been enlivening the course of our enterprise, like the action of a play, with perilous incidents, now joined issue with us in the very moment of execution, involving us in a sudden and terrible ordeal that threatened unlooked-for disaster to our hopes. When Charon, on returning home from his encounter with Archias and Philippus, was disposing us for the attack, a letter came from Archias the hierophant here at Athens to the Archias at Thebes, his friend it appears and host, revealing the exiles’ return, their plot, the house they had entered, and their confederates. Archias, now quite overcome with wine and all agog, too, with his expectation of the women, took the letter in his hand, but when the messenger said that it concerned important business, remarked, “If business is important it can wait till tomorrow,” and slipped it under his cushion. Calling for a beaker he ordered it filled and every moment kept sending Phyllidas to the street to see if the women were coming.
[De gen. Socr. 31] 31 1 These were the hopes that had beguiled them over the wine when we came up and, forcing a way at once through the servants to the banqueting hall, stood for a moment at the door, looking over each of the company reclining there. 597 The sight of our chaplets and dress deceived them about our presence in the city and kept them quiet; but when Melon, the first to make a move, set out through their midst, his hand on his sword hilt, Cabirichus, the magistrate appointed by lot, caught his arm as he passed and shouted: “Isn’t this Melon, Phyllidas?” Melon, however, disengaged himself, drawing his sword as he did so, and rushing at Archias, who was having trouble getting to his feet, did not slacken his blows until he had killed him.
[De gen. Socr. 31b] Philippus was wounded by Charon near the neck, and as he defended himself with the goblets set before him, Lysitheüs threw him from his couch to the ground and dispatched him.
[De gen. Socr. 31c] We endeavoured to quiet Cabirichus, adjuring him not to lend aid to the tyrants but help us set his country free, as his person was sacred and consecrated to the gods in that country’s behalf. But as he was not easily to be won over to the wiser course by an appeal to reason, the wine also having its effect, but was getting to his feet, excited and confused, and couching the spear our magistrates are accustomed to keep always with them, I seized it in the middle and raising it above my head shouted to him to let go and save himself, as he would otherwise be cut down; but Theopompus came up at his right and struck him with his sword, saying: “Lie there with these you toadied to: may you never wear the chaplet when Thebes is free and never sacrifice again to the gods before whom you have invoked so many curses on your country in your many prayers for her enemies.” When Cabirichus had fallen, Theocritus (who was standing near) caught up the sacred spear from the blood, while we dispatched the few servants who had ventured to fight back and locked up the rest, who made no resistance, in the banqueting hall, as we did not wish them to slip away and report what had been done until we knew whether the other party had been successful.
[De gen. Socr. 32] 32 1 That action too was carried out as I will describe. Pelopidas’ party quietly went up to Leontiades’ outer door and knocked, telling the slave who answered that they came from Athens with a letter for Leontiades from Callistratus. The slave took the message and was ordered to open. When he had removed the bolt and partly opened the door, they all burst in together, bowled the fellow over, and dashed through the courtyard to the bedchamber. Leontiades guessed the truth at once, and drawing his dagger, prepared to defend himself; he was, it is true, an unjust and tyrannical man, yet firm of soul and stout of arm. He did not, however, determine to dash the lamp to the ground and close with his assailants in the dark, but was visible to them in the lamplight as he struck Cephisodorus in the side the instant the door opened and engaging with Pelopidas, who came next, called loudly for his servants. But these were held back by Samidas and the men with him, and did not risk coming to blows with opponents who were the most illustrious citizens of Thebes and excellent fighters. Pelopidas struggled and fenced with Leontiades in the doorway of the chamber; as the passage was narrow and Cephisodorus had fallen between the folding doors and lay there dying, the rest were kept from coming to his aid. Finally our champion, after receiving a slight wound in the head and dealing out many, struck Leontiades to the ground and killed him over the body of Cephisodorus, still warm with life, who saw his enemy fall, gave Pelopidas his hand, and when he had saluted the rest, serenely breathed his last. This done they turned their attention to Hypates, and gaining admittance by a similar stratagem, killed him as he fled over a roof-top to the neighbouring house.
[De gen. Socr. 33] 33 1 598 From there they made haste to join us and met us outside the Porch of Many Columns. After exchanging greetings and talk we proceeded to the prison. Phyllidas called the gaoler out and said: “Archias and Philippus order you to bring Amphitheüs to them at once.” The man, observing the unusual hour and that Phyllidas was not talking to him coolly, but was flushed with the combat and in a ferment, saw through the trick and asked: “When have the polemarchs ever sent for a prisoner at such an hour? And when through you? What token of authority do you bring?” “This is my authority,” said Phyllidas, and, as he said it, ran him through the body with a cavalry lance he held, striking down a vile fellow, on whom not a few women trod and spat the next day.
[De gen. Socr. 33b] We then split down the gaol door and first called out the name of Amphitheüs and then those of the rest with whom we were severally connected. Recognizing our voices they leapt joyfully from their pallets, dragging their chains; and those whose feet were confined in the stocks stretched out their arms and cried out, begging not to be left behind. While these were released, not a few of the people who lived near by were already joining us, getting wind of what was afoot and elated with it. The women, as one after another heard news of someone close to her, ran out into the streets to meet one another, unmindful of our Boeotian manners, and made inquiries of the passers-by. Those who had found a father or husband followed along, no one stopping them; for all who met them were mightily swayed by their own pity and the tears and entreaties of decent women.
[De gen. Socr. 34] 34 1 This was the situation when I heard that Epameinondas and Gorgidas were already Dassembling with their friends at the temple of Athena and went to find them. Many brave citizens had gathered there and more and more kept arriving. When I had given them a full account of what had passed, urging them to go to the market place and reinforce us, all of them at once set to summoning the citizenry to rally to the cause of liberty. The crowds that then formed found weapons in the colonnades, which were full of trophies of all kinds, and in the workshops of the cutlers who dwelt near by. Hippostheneidas too appeared with his friends and servants, bringing the trumpeters who happened to be in town for the festival of Heracles. They at once set to blowing their trumpets, some in the market place, others elsewhere, from all sides filling our opponents with alarm as if the whole city had risen. The partisans of Sparta fled from the town to the Cadmeia, drawing along with them the so called “Incomparables,” a body of men whose custom it was to bivouac nightly at the foot of the citadel. The garrison on the height, with this disordered and terrified rout pouring in, and with us visible to them down in the market place, no quarter remaining quiet, but noises and the sounds of tumult being borne up to them from all sides, were in no mood to descend into the town, although fifteen hundred strong, but were terror-struck and took refuge in the pretext that they were waiting for Lysanoridas, who had promised to return that day. For this reason he was later sentenced by the Spartan Elders to a large fine; Herippidas and Arcesus were put to death by them the moment they were apprehended in Corinth. They surrendered the Cadmeia to us under a truce and set about withdrawing with their forces.

## On exile

[De exil. 1] 599 1 1 As it is with our friends, so it is with the words we speak: best and most to be depended upon, we are told, are those which appear in adversity to some purpose and give help; for many people visit the unfortunate and talk to them, but their efforts do no good, or rather do harm. These people are like men unable to swim who try to rescue the drowning — they hug them close and help to drag them under. The language addressed to us by friends and real helpers should mitigate, not vindicate, what distresses us; it is not partners in tears and lamentation, like tragic choruses, that we need in unwished-for circumstances, but men who speak frankly and instruct us that grief and self-abasement are everywhere futile, that to indulge in them is unwarranted and unwise, and that where the facts themselves, when reason has groped them out and brought them to light, enable a man to say to himself
[De exil. 1b] You’ve not been hurt, unless you so pretend,
[De exil. 1c] it is utterly absurd not to ask the body what it has suffered, or the soul whether it is the worse for this mischance, but instead to seek instruction in grief from those who come from the outside world to join their vexation and resentment to our own.
[De exil. 2] 2 1 Let us, therefore, withdraw from the world and taking our calamities one by one examine their weight, as if they were so many loads; for while the burden felt by the body is the actual weight of the thing that presses upon it, the soul often adds the heaviness to circumstances from itself. It is by nature that stone is hard, it is by nature that ice is cold; it is not from outside themselves, fortuitously, that they convey the sensation of rigidity and freezing; but banishment, loss of fame, and loss of honours, like their opposites, crowns, public office, and front-seat privileges, whose measure of causing sorrow and joy is not their own nature, but our judgement, every one makes light or heavy for himself, and easy to bear or the reverse. We can listen on the one hand to Polyneices, when, on being asked
What is the loss of country? A great ill?
he replies
[De exil. 2b] The greatest; and no words can do it justice;
on the other hand, we can hear what Alcman has to say, as the author of the little epigram has represented him:
[De exil. 2c] Sardis, of old the sojourn of my sires,
Had I been bred in thee, then had I been
Some priest or temple eunuch, tricked in gold,
Smiting the painted timbrels; now instead
My name is Alcman, and my country Sparta,
City of many tripods; I have been taught
The Hellenic Muses, who have raised me high
Above the despots Dascyles and Gyges.
[De exil. 2d] Thus opinion had made the same event useful for the one, as it makes a coin pass current, but useless and harmful to the other.
[De exil. 3] 3 1 Assume that exile is a calamity, as the multitude declare in speech and song. So too, many foods are bitter and pungent and irritate the taste; but by combining with them certain sweet and pleasant ingredients we get rid of the disagreeable savour. There are colours too, painful to the sight, and when confronted with them our vision is blurred and dazzled by their harshness and unrelieved intensity. 600 Now if we have found that we could remedy this inconvenience by mingling shadow with them or turning our eyes aside and resting them upon something of a greenish and pleasant shade, the same can be done with misfortunes as well: they can be blended with whatever is useful and comforting in your present circumstances: wealth, friends, freedom from politics, and lack of none of the necessities of life. For I fancy that there are not many Sardians who would not prefer your circumstances, even with exile thrown in, and be content to live on such terms in a foreign land, rather than, like snails, which are of a piece with their shells but enjoy no other blessing, maintain a painless connexion with their homes. 4 1 As, then, in the comedy a character who is urging an unfortunate friend to take heart and make a stand against Fortune, when asked, “How?” replies, “like a philosopher,” so let us too make a stand against her by playing the philosopher worthily. But how are we to face
[De exil. 3b] Zeus when he pours down rain? And how the North Wind?
[De exil. 3c] Why, we look for a fire, a bath-house, a cloak, a roof: in a rainstorm we do not sit idle or lament. You too, then, are as able as any man to revive this chilled portion of your life and restore it to warmth: you need no further resources; it is enough to use wisely those you have. For whereas the cupping-glasses of physicians, by drawing out of the body its most worthless elements, relieve and preserve the rest, lovers of gift and fault-finding, by constantly collecting and counting up what is worst in their lot, and by getting absorbed in their troubles, make even the most useful things in it useless for themselves at the moment when these would naturally afford the greatest help. For it is not Zeus, dear friend, that sits by the “two urns” of Homer, which stand in heaven “brimful,” the one of good, the other of evil “dooms,” dispensing them, releasing to some a gentle and well-tempered flow, to others, an undiluted stream of misery; rather, it is ourselves: the wise among us, by drawing from the good and pouring it upon the bad, make their lives more pleasant and potable; whereas in the multitude, as in filters, the worst remains and adheres as the better flows away and vanishes.
[De exil. 5] 5 1 If, therefore, we suffer some real and truly painful calamity, we must summon cheerfulness and peace of spirit by drawing upon the store of good still left us, using our own resources to smooth out the roughness of what comes from outside ourselves but with things which have no evil in their nature, and whose painfulness is wholly and entirely a figment of unfounded opinion, Ewe must act as we do with little children who are frightened by masks: by bringing the masks close and putting them into their hands and turning them about we accustom the child to make light of them; so, by coming to close quarters with these things and applying to them the firm pressure of reason, we must expose their unsoundness, their hollowness, and their theatrical imposture.
[De exil. 5b] Such is your present removal from what you take to be your native land. For by nature there is no such thing as a native land, any more than there is by nature a house or farm or forge or surgery, as Ariston said; but in each case the thing becomes so, or rather is so named and called, with reference to the occupant and user. For man, as Plato says, is “no earthly” or immovable “plant,” but a “celestial” one, — the head, like a root, keeping the body erect — inverted to point to heaven. Thus Heracles spoke well when he said
[De exil. 5c] an Argive I
Or Theban, for I boast no single exist;
There is no fort in Greece but is my country;
[De exil. 5d] whereas the saying of Socrates is still better, that he was no Athenian or Greek, but a “Cosmian” (as one might say “Rhodian” or “Corinthian”), 601 because he did not shut himself up within Sunium and Taenarus and the Ceraunian mountains.
[De exil. 5e] Seest thou yon boundless aether overhead
That holds the earth within its soft embrace?
[De exil. 5f] This is the boundary of our native land, and here no one is either exile or foreigner or alien; here are the same fire, water, and air; the same magistrates and procurators and chancellors — Sun, Moon, and Morning Star; the same laws for all, decreed by one commandment and one sovereignty, the summer solstice, the winter solstice, the equinox, the Pleiades, Arcturus, the seasons of sowing, the seasons of planting; here one king and ruler, “God, holding the beginning, middle, and end of the universe, proceeds directly, as is his nature, in his circuit; upon him follows Justice, who visits with punishment those that fall short of the divine law,” the justice which all of us by nature observe toward all men as our fellow-citizens.
[De exil. 6] 6 1 That you do not live in Sardis is nothing; neither do all Athenians live in Collytus, all Corinthians in Craneion, all Laconians in Pitanê. Are those Athenians foreigners and men without a country who removed from Melitê to the region of Diomeia, where they observe both the month Metageitnion and a festival, “the Metageitnia,” named for their migration, accepting this change of neighbours in a serene and joyful spirit, and remaining content with their condition? You would not say so. What part, then, of the inhabited world, or of the whole earth, is remote from another, when astronomers teach that in comparison to the universe the earth is a mere point, without extension? But we, when like ants or bees we have been driven out of one anthill or beehive, are dismayed and feel strange, possessing neither the knowledge nor the instruction that would teach us to take and consider the whole world to be our own, as indeed it is. Yet we laugh at the stupidity of the man who asserts that at Athens there is a better moon than at Corinth, although we are in a sense in the same case as he, when, on coming to a foreign land, we fail to recognize the earth, the sea, the air, the sky, as though they were distinct and different from those familiar to us. For nature leaves us free and untrammelled; it is we who bind ourselves, confine ourselves, immure ourselves, herd ourselves into cramped and sordid quarters. And then we scoff at the Persian kings, if in truth, by drinking no water but that of the Choaspes, they turn the rest of the inhabited world for themselves into a waterless waste; but when we move to other lands, in our attachment to the Cephisus and our longing for the Eurotas or Taÿgetus or Parnassus, we make the inhabited world empty of cities for ourselves and unfit for habitation.
[De exil. 7] 7 1 The Egyptians indeed, who because of some outbreak of anger and severity on the part of their king, were migrating to Ethiopia, replied to those who entreated them to return to their children and wives by pointing with Cynic licence to their private parts and remarking that they would be at no loss for either marriage or children so long as they had these with them. One can, however, with greater decency and decorum, say that wherever a man happens to find a moderate provision for his livelihood, there that man lacks neither city nor hearth nor is an alien. Only he must also have good sense and reason, as a skipper needs an anchor that he may moor in any haven and make use of it. For while loss of wealth cannot easily and quickly be repaired, every city at once becomes a native city to the man who has learned to make use of it and has roots which can live and thrive everywhere and take hold in any region, roots such as Themistocles and Demetrius of Phalerum had. For Demetrius was after his banishment first among the friends of Ptolemy at Alexandria, and not only lived in plenty himself, but even used to send largesse to the Athenians; 602 while Themistocles, when royally maintained by the King’s bounty, is reported to have said to his wife and children: “It would have been our undoing not to have been undone.” For this reason, to the one who remarked: “The Sinopians condemned you to banishment from Pontus,” Diogenes the Cynic replied: “But I condemned them to stay there,” —
[De exil. 7b] Out where meet the shore
The breakers of the Inhospitable Sea.
[De exil. 7c] Stratonicus asked his host in Seriphos what crime was punished there with banishment; when told that persons guilty of fraud were expelled, he said: “Then why not commit fraud and escape from this confinement?” — Bwhere the comic poet says that the figs are gathered in with slings, and remarks that the island is well provided with every incommodity.
[De exil. 8] 8 1 Indeed, if you lay aside unfounded opinion and consider the truth, the man who has a single city is a stranger and an alien to all the rest; for it is felt he can neither in decency nor in justice forsake his own city to inhabit another:
[De exil. 8b] Your lot is Sparta: look to Sparta then,
[De exil. 8c] whether it be obscure, or unhealthy, or a prey to faction and turbulence. But Fortune grants possession of what city he pleases to the man she has deprived of his own. For that excellent precept of the Pythagoreans, “choose the best life, and familiarity will make it pleasant,” is here too wise and useful: “choose the best and most pleasant city, and time will make of it your native land” — a native land that does not distract you, is not importunate, does not command: “pay a special levy,” “go on an embassy to Rome,” “entertain the governor,” “undertake a public service at your own expense.” For if a person in his senses and not utterly infatuated bears this in mind, he will choose, if exiled, to live even on an island, Gyaros or Cinaros,
[De exil. 8d] Rocky, unfit for corn or vine or tree,
not downcast or lamenting or uttering the words of the women in Simonides
The clamour of the blue salt sea
Tossing about me, hems me in,
[De exil. 8e] but he will rather reason as Philip did, who said, on being thrown in wrestling, as he turned about and saw the imprint of his body: “Good God! How small a portion of the earth we hold by nature, yet we covet the whole world!”
[De exil. 9] 9 1 You have, I think, seen Naxos, if not, Hyria, which is not far from here; yet Naxos had room for Ephialtes and Otus; Hyria was the habitation of Orion. When Alcmaeon was fleeing before the Eumenides, he settled, Eas poets tell, on newly hardened silt built up by the Acheloüs; but my conjecture is that he too, fleeing from the tumults, factions, and fiendish legal blackmail of his countrymen, chose to dwell on a small plot unharassed and in peace. Tiberius Caesar passed the last seven years of his life at Capri; and the ruling part of the inhabited world, as if gathered up into a heart, made not the slightest change in its abode for all that time. Yet in his case the cares of state, pouring in upon him and brought in from everywhere, made the island repose not unmixed and not free from storms; Fwhereas the man who finds that by disembarking on a small island he can be rid of no small troubles, is pitiful indeed if he does not recite to himself the words of Pindar and often repeat them as a spell:
[De exil. 9b] Forgo, my heart, the cypress;
Forgo the contested land;
To me but little earth is given, where grows the oak;
But to my lot has fallen no sorrow, no discord.
[De exil. 10] or commands from the governor or ministrations to the needs of countrymen and public services that are difficult to decline. 10 1 For when Callimachus is applauded for saying,
[De exil. 10b] Use not a Persian rope to measure art,
[De exil. 10c] are we to measure felicity by “ropes” and parasangs, 603 and if we dwell on an island of two hundred stades’ circumference, and not, like Sicily, four days’ sail in circuit, are we to torment ourselves and lament our wretched plight? For what has breadth of land to do with the life free from pain? Have you not heard the words of Tantalus in the tragedy? He says,
[De exil. 10d] The field I sow is twelve days’ journey long,
The Berecynthian land
and then says a little later:
My fate, while reaching upward to the skies,
Falls to the earth, and speaks these words to me:
Learn not to honour human beings too much.
[De exil. 10e] Nausithoüs, by leaving “the broad land of Hypereia” because the Cyclopes were its neighbours, moving to an island “far from industrious men,” and dwelling apart from human traffic “far off in the stormy seas,” provided his countrymen with the most pleasant of lives. It was first the children of Minos, and later the children of Codrus and Neileus, that settled the Cyclades, where at present the thoughtless exiles fancy they are punished. Yet what island of exile is not more spacious than the district of Scillus, where Xenophon after his campaign lived to see a “comfortable old age”? The Academy, a little plot of ground bought for three thousand drachmas, was the dwelling of Plato and Xenocrates and Polemon, who taught and spent their lives there, except for the one day every year when Xenocrates went down to the city for the new tragedies at the Dionysia, and graced the festival, as people said. Theocritus of Chios went so far as to abuse Aristotle, because he had conceived a taste for the style of living at the court of Philip and Alexander, and
[De exil. 10f] preferred to Academe
A dwelling in the flow of Slime, —
[De exil. 10g] there being a river near Pella which the Macedonians call Borborus. Homer, who praises the islands and recommends them to us as though by design —
[De exil. 10h] To Lemnos came she, town of godlike Thoas,
and
All that Lesbos bounds toward the sea,
Seat of the blest,
and
Taking steep Scyros, fortress of Enyeus,
and
Men from Dulichium and the sacred isles
Echinae, facing Elis over the sea —
[De exil. 10i] also says that of famous men Aeolus the dearest to the gods, Odysseus the wisest, Ajax the bravest, and Alcinoüs the most hospitable, dwelt on islands.
[De exil. 11] 11 Zeno indeed, when he learned that his only remaining ship had been engulfed with its cargo by the sea, exclaimed: “Well done, Fortune! thus to confine me to a threadbare cloak” and a philosopher’s life; while a man not wholly infatuated or mad for the mob would not, I think, on being confined to an island, reproach Fortune, but would commend her for taking away from him all his restlessness and aimless roving, wanderings in foreign lands and perils at sea and tumults in the market place, and giving him a life that was settled, leisurely, undistracted, and truly his own, describing with centre and radius a circle containing the necessities that meet his needs. For what island is there that does not afford a house, a walk, a bath, fish and hares for those who wish to indulge in hunting and sport? And best of all, the quiet for which others thirst, you can repeatedly enjoy. But at home, as men play at draughts and retire from the public eye, informers and busybodies track them down and hunt them out of their suburban estates and parks and bring them back by force to the market place and court; whereas it is not the persons who plague us, who come to beg or borrow money, to entreat us to go surety for them or help in canvassing an election, 604 that sail to an island, it is the best of our connexions and intimates that do so out of friendship and affection, while the rest of life, if one desires leisure and has learned to use it, is left inviolate and sacred. He that calls those persons happy who run about in the world outside and use up most of their lives at inns and ferry-stations is like the man who fancies that the planets enjoy greater felicity than the fixed stars. And yet each planet, revolving in a single sphere, as on an island, preserves its station; for “the Sun will not transgress his bounds,” says Heracleitus; “else the Erinyes, ministers of Justice, will find him out.”
[De exil. 12] 12 1 But, my dear friend, let us address the preceding remarks and the like and repeat them as a spell to those others who have been banished to an island and are cut off from the rest of the world by
[De exil. 12b] The grey salt sea, that bars the way to many
Against their will;
[De exil. 12c] but for you, to whom one solitary spot is not appointed, but forbidden, the exclusion from one city is the freedom to choose from all. Further, set off against the consideration “I do not hold office or sit in the council or preside at games” the other consideration: “I am not involved in faction; I am not exhausting my fortune; I wait upon no governor; I care not now who has obtained the province, whom he is quick to anger or in other ways oppressive.” But we are like Archilochus. As he, overlooking the fruitful fields and vineyards of Thasos, because of its steep and rugged surface maligned it, saying
[De exil. 12d] This island, like the backbone of an ass,
Stands up beneath its cover of wild wood,
[De exil. 12e] so we, intent upon one part of exile, lack of fame, overlook its lack of politics, its leisure, and its freedom. Yet the kings of the Persians were called happy for spending the winter in Babylon, the summer in Media, and the most pleasant part of the spring in Susa. Surely the exile too is free to sojourn in Eleusis during the Mysteries, to keep holiday in the city at the Dionysia, and to visit Delphi for the Pythian and Corinth for the Isthmian games, if he is fond of spectacles; Dif not, he has at his command leisure, walking, reading, undisturbed sleep, and what Diogenes expressed when he said: “Aristotle lunches at Philip’s pleasure, Diogenes at his own,” since no politics or magistrate or governor disrupts the customary tenor of his life.
[De exil. 13] 13 1 On this account you will find that few men of the greatest good sense and wisdom have been buried in their own country, and that most of them, under compulsion from no one, weighed anchor of their own accord and found a new haven for their lives, removing some to Athens, some from Athens. For who has pronounced such an encomium on his native land as Euripides?
[De exil. 13b] Where, first, the people are no immigrants
But native to the soil: all other cities,
Disrupted once, as in the game, have been
Pieced out by importation from abroad,
If, madam, you permit a passing boast,
The sky above our land is temperate,
Where neither comes excess of heat nor cold,
And all the fairest fruits of Greece and Asia
With Africa as bait entice we hither.
[De exil. 13c] Yet the writer of these lines went off to Macedonia and spent his remaining years at the court of Archelaüs. You have doubtless also heard this little poem:
[De exil. 13d] The Athenian, Aeschylus, Euphorion’s son,
This grave conceals in Gela’s fields of corn.
[De exil. 13e] For he also sailed away to Sicily, as Simonides did before him. The statement “This is the setting forth of the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus” is altered by many to read “Herodotus of Thurii,” as the author migrated to Thurii and joined in the settlement of that colony. 605 Take that spirit of poetry, holy and inspired,
[De exil. 13f] Who glorified the Phrygian fray,
[De exil. 13g] Homer: what else has made many cities contend for him, but the fact that he eulogizes no single one? So too the honours of Zeus Xenios are numerous and great.
[De exil. 14] 14 1 If it is objected that these men went in quest of fame and honours, go to the wise men and to the schools and resorts of wisdom at Athens; pass in review those in the Lyceum, in the Academy; the Porch, the Palladium, the Odeum. If it is the Peripatetic school you favour and admire most, Aristotle was from Stageira, Theophrastus from Eresus, Straton from Lampsacus, Glycon from the Troad, Ariston from Ceos, Critolaüs from Phaselis; if the Stoic, Zeno was from Citium, Cleanthes from Assos, Chrysippus from Soli, Diogenes from Babylon, Antipater from Tarsus, and the Athenian Archedemus removed to the country of the Parthians and left a Stoic succession at Babylon. Who, then, pursued these men? No one; it was they who pursued peace, which at home is hardly the portion of those who have any fame or power, and thus, while teaching the rest of their doctrines by what they said, teach us this lesson by what they did. So too at present those men who are of most approved and surpassing merit live abroad, not forced to depart, but departing of themselves, and not put to flight, but themselves fleeing the cares, distractions, and press of business that are the product of their native lands. Indeed the Muses, it appears, called exile to their aid in perfecting for the ancients the finest and most esteemed of their writings. “Thucydides of Athens composed the history of the war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians” in Thrace at Scaptê Hylê; Xenophon wrote at Scillus in Elis, Philistus in Epeirus, Timaeus of Tauromenium at Athens, Androtion of Athens at Megara, and the poet Bacchylides in the Peloponnese. All these and many more, when driven from their country, did not despair or lie prostrate in grief, but put their native abilities to use, accepting their exile as a provision granted by Fortune for this end, an exile that has made them everywhere remembered even in death; while of those who banished them and triumphed over them in the struggle of factions not one enjoys at present the slightest recognition.
[De exil. 15] 15 1 He, therefore, who thinks that loss of fame is attendant upon exile is ridiculous. What nonsense! Is Diogenes lacking in fame? Why, Alexander, seeing him sitting in the sun, stopped to ask whether he wanted anything; and when Diogenes merely requested him to stand a bit out of his light, the king, struck with such high spirit, said to his friends: “Were not Alexander, I should be Diogenes.” Was Camillus deprived of fame when he was banished from Rome, of which he is now acclaimed the second founder? Indeed Themistocles after his banishment did not lose his fame among the Greeks, but won new fame among the barbarians; and no one is so indifferent to fame or so ignoble that he would rather have been Leobotes, who brought the indictment, than Themistocles, who was condemned to exile, Clodius the banisher than Cicero the banished, For Aristophon, who made the accusation, than Timotheüs, who withdrew from his native land.
[De exil. 16] 16 1 But since many are stirred by the words of Euripides, who is thought to arraign exile very forcibly, let us see what he has to say on the several counts of his indictment, as he presents them in the form of question and answer:
Joc. What is the loss of country? A great ill?
Pol. Surpassing great; no words can do it justice.
Joc. What is it like? What ills beset the banished?
Pol. One greater than the rest: speech is not free.
Joc. That is a slave’s part — not to speak one’s mind.
606 Pol. The folly of the mighty must be borne.
[De exil. 16b] These initial assumptions are wrong and untrue. In the first place it is not a slave’s part “not to speak one’s mind,” but that of a man of sense on occasions and in matters that demand silence and restraint of speech, as Euripides himself has elsewhere put it better:
[De exil. 16c] Silence in season, speech where speech is safe.
[De exil. 16d] In the next place we are compelled to bear “the folly of the mighty” no less at home than in exile; indeed, those who remain behind are often in even greater terror of men who wield unjust power in cities through chicane or violence than those who have taken their departure. But the last and greatest absurdity is that banishment should deprive the exile of free speech: it is astonishing if Theodorus was without free speech, the man who, when King Lysimachus said to him: “Did your country cast out a man of your qualities?” replied: “Yes I was too much for it, as Dionysus was for Semelê.” And when the king showed him Telesphorus in a cage, his eyes gouged out, and said: “To this plight I bring those who injure me,” Theodorus replied: “What cares Theodorus whether he rots above the ground or under it?” And did Diogenes lack freedom of speech — Diogenes who appeared at the camp of Philip as the king was advancing to join battle with the Greeks, was brought before him as a spy, and answered that he had come to spy indeed — on Philip’s insatiable greed and folly in coming to stake on the cast of the dice in a few decisive moments both his empire and his person? Did Hannibal the Carthaginian mince his words to Antiochus, an exile to a king, on that occasion when he urged him to seize a favourable chance to attack the enemy, and when the king resorted to sacrifice and said that the entrails opposed such a course, Hannibal rebuked him with the words: “You defer to a piece of meat, and not a man of sense”? Nay, exile does not even destroy freedom of speech in geometers and grammarians, when they converse about the subjects they know and have been taught; however, then, could exile destroy it in good and worthy men? It is meanness of spirit that everywhere “stops up the voice, ties the tongue, chokes, imposes silence.”
[De exil. 16e] What are we to say of the next words of Euripides?
‘Tis said that exiles live upon their hopes.
Their eyes hold promise, but they tarry ever.
[De exil. 16f] This too is rather a charge against stupidity than against exile. For it is not those who have learned and know how to put the present to good use, but those who are ever hanging upon the future and longing for what they do not have, that are tossed about on hope as on a raft, though they never go beyond the city wall.
Did not your father’s friends and hosts avail you?
Prosper: your friends are naught when trouble comes.
Nor yet did noble lineage raise you high?
To have not is a curse: birth would not feed me.
[De exil. 16g] These words of Polyneices now smack of ingratitude, when he charges noble birth with depriving him of honours and banishment with robbing him of friends; for he, an exile, won a princess in marriage by his noble birth, and when he took the field had that great and powerful alliance of friends to defend him, Fas he himself admits a few lines later:
[De exil. 16h] And many Danaan chiefs and Mycenaean
Are here to do me kindness — sorry kindness,
But sorry though it be, I need it sore.
[De exil. 16i] In the same vein are his mother’s words, when she laments:
But I have lighted
No ritual torch to celebrate thy nuptials;
No hymeneal pride of soft ablution
Attended this alliance of Hismenus.
[De exil. 16j] She should have rejoiced and been content when she learned that her son dwelt in so great a palace; instead, bewailing the unlit torch and Hismenus, who had provided no ablution, 607 as though in Argos bridegrooms had neither water nor fire, she imputes to exile the miseries arising from infatuation and stupidity.
[De exil. 17] 17 1 But “exile” is a term of reproach. Yes, among fools, who make terms of abuse of “pauper,” “bald,” “short,” and indeed “foreigner” and “immigrant.” But those who are not carried away by such considerations admire good men, even if they are poor or foreigners or exiles. Nay, do we not observe that like the Parthenon and the Eleusinium, so the Theseum is saluted with reverence by all? Yet Theseus was banished from Athens, though it is because of him that Athens is now inhabited; and that city was lost to him which he did not take possession of, but himself created. What glory remains to Eleusis, if we are to be ashamed of Eumolpus, who, a migrant from Thrace, initiated and still initiates the Greeks into the mysteries? Whose son was Codrus, who became king? Was it not of Melanthus, an exile from Messenê? Do you not commend Antisthenes’ retort to the man who remarked, “Your mother is a Phrygian:” “So too is the Mother of the Gods”? Why then do not you, when “exile” is cast in your teeth, make a similar reply: “So too the father of Heracles the victorious was an exile, so too the grandsire of Dionysus, when sent out to find Europa, like her, did not return, though ‘Phoenician born,’ but by coming to Thebes expatriated his ‘descendant,’
[De exil. 17b] Euhius Dionysus,
Rouser of women,
Him that is adored in frenzy”?
[De exil. 17c] Now as to the matters at which Aeschylus hinted darkly when he said
And pure Apollo, god exiled from heaven
[De exil. 17d] “let my lips” in the words of Herodotus “be sealed”; Empedocles, however, when beginning the presentation of his philosophy, says by way of prelude:
[De exil. 17e] A law there is, an oracle of Doom,
Of old enacted by the assembled gods,
That if a Daemon — such as live for ages —
Defile himself with foul and sinful murder,
He must for seasons thrice ten thousand roam
Far from the Blest: such is the path I tread,
DI too a wanderer and exile from heaven,
[De exil. 17f] indicating that not he himself merely, but all of us, beginning with himself, are sojourners here and strangers and exiles. “For,” he says, “no commingling of blood or breath, O mortals, gave our souls their being and beginning; it is the body, earth-born and mortal, that has been fashioned out of these,” and as the soul has come hither from elsewhere, he euphemistically calls birth a “journey, using the mildest of terms. But it is truest to say that the soul is an exile and a wanderer, driven forth by divine decrees and laws; and then, as on an island buffeted by the seas, imprisoned within the body “like an oyster in its shell,” as Plato says, because it does not remember or recall
[De exil. 17g] What honour and what high felicity
[De exil. 17h] it has left, not leaving Sardis for Athens or Corinth for Lemnos or Scyros, but Heaven and the Moon for earth and life on earth, if it shifts but a short distance here from one spot to another, it is resentful and feels strange, drooping like a base-born plant. And yet for a plant one region is more favourable than another for thriving and growth, but from a man no place can take away happiness, as none can take away virtue or wisdom; nay, Anaxagoras in prison was busied with squaring the circle, and Socrates, when he drank the hemlock, engaged in philosophy and invited his companions to do the same, and was by them deemed happy; whereas Phaëthon and Tantalus, as poets tell, when they had ascended to heaven, met with the most grievous disasters through their folly.

## Consolation to his wife

608 B Plutarch to his wife, best wishes.
[Cons. ad ux. 1] 1 1 The messenger you sent to report the death of our little child seems to have missed me on the way as he travelled to Athens; but when I reached Tanagra I learned of it from my granddaughter. Now the funeral, I suppose, has already been held — and my desire is that it has been so held as to cause you the least pain, both now and hereafter; but if you want something done that you are leaving undone while you await my decision, something that you believe will make your grief easier to bear, that too you shall have, so it be done without excess or superstition, faults to which you are not at all prone.
[Cons. ad ux. 2] 2 1 Only, my dear wife, in your emotion keep me as well as yourself within bounds. For I know and can set a measure to the magnitude of our loss, taken by itself; but if I find any extravagance of distress in you, this will be more grievous to me than what has happened. Yet neither was I born “from oak or rock”; you know this yourself, you who have reared so many children in partnership with me, all of them brought up at home under our own care. And I know what great satisfaction lay in this that after four sons the longed-for daughter was born to you, and that she made it possible for me to call her by your name. Our affection for children so young has, furthermore, a poignancy all its own: the delight it gives is quite pure and free from all anger or reproach. She had herself, moreover, a surprising gift of mildness and good temper, and her way of responding to friendship and of bestowing favours gave us pleasure while it afforded an insight into her kindness. For she would invite the nurse to offer the breast and feed with it not only other infants, but even the inanimate objects and playthings she took pleasure in, as though serving them at her own table, dispensing in her kindness what bounty she had and sharing her greatest pleasures with whatever gave her delight.
[Cons. ad ux. 3] 3 1 But I do not see, my dear wife, why these things and the like, after delighting us while she lived, should now distress and dismay us as we take thought of them. Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well, like Clymenê, who said
[Cons. ad ux. 3b] I hate the crooked bow of cornel wood,
I hate the sports of youth: away with them!
[Cons. ad ux. 3c] ever shunning and shrinking from what reminded her of her son, because it was attended with pain; for nature shuns everything unpleasant. But rather, just as she was herself the most delightful thing in the world to embrace, to see, to hear, so too must the thought of her live with us and be our companion, bringing with it joy in greater measure, nay in many times greater measure, than it brings sorrow (if indeed it is reasonable that the arguments we have often used to others should be of seasonable aid to ourselves as well), and we must not sit idle and shut ourselves in, paying for those pleasures with sorrows many times as great.
[Cons. ad ux. 4] 4 1 This also those who were present report — with amazement — that you have not even put on mourning, that you did not subject yourself or your women to any uncomeliness or ill-usage, and that there was no sumptuous display, like that of a festival, at the burial, but that everything was done with decorum and in silence, in the company of our nearest kin. 609 But this was no surprise to me, that you, who have never decked yourself out at theatre or procession, but have regarded extravagance as useless even for amusements, should have preserved in the hour of sadness the blameless simplicity of your ways; for not only “in Bacchic riot” must the virtuous woman remain uncorrupted; but she must hold that the tempest and tumult of her emotion in grief requires continence no less, a continence that does not resist maternal affection, as the multitude believe, but the licentiousness of the mind. For it is yielding to a parent’s love to long for and honour and remember the departed; bwhereas the never-sated passion for lamentation, a passion which incites us to transports of wailing and of beating the breast, is no less shameful than incontinence in pleasures, although it finds an excuse — more apparent than real — in the circumstance that its shamefulness is attended with pain and bitterness instead of delight. For what is more unreasonable than to do away with excess of laughter and jubilation, and yet allow free course to the torrents of weeping and wailing that burst forth from the same source? Or more unreasonable than for husbands to quarrel, as some do, with their wives about scented unguent for the hair and the wearing of purple, but to permit them to crop their heads in mourning, to dye their clothes black, to sit in an uncomely posture and lie in discomfort? And worst of all, if they punish their manservants or maidservants excessively and unjustly, to resist and oppose them, but to pay no heed when they savagely and cruelly punish themselves in the midst of passions and misfortunes that require gentle and kindly treatment?
[Cons. ad ux. 5] 5 1 But we, my dear wife, in our relations with each other have had no occasion for the one quarrel, nor, I think, shall we have any for the other. For, on the one hand, your plainness of attire and sober style of living has without exception amazed every philosopher who has shared our society and intimacy, neither is there any townsman of ours to whom at religious ceremonies, sacrifices, and the theatre you do not offer another spectacle — your own simplicity. On the other hand, you have already shown great steadfastness in circumstances like the present, when you lost your eldest child and again when the fair Charon left us. For I remember that strangers accompanied me in my journey from the sea and gathered at our house with the rest at the news of the little child’s death; and observing great composure and quiet, as they later recounted to others they thought that no tragedy had occurred, and that a false report had got abroad — such was the self-possession with which you kept order in your household at a time that gave full scope to disorderly confusion, and yet you had nursed him at your own breast and had submitted to surgery when your nipple was bruised. For such conduct was noble, and it showed true mother love.
[Cons. ad ux. 6] 6 1 But we observe that most mothers, after others have cleansed and prettied up their children, receive them in their arms like pets; and then, at their death, give themselves up to an unwarranted and ungrateful grief, not out of good will toward them — for good will is rational and right — but because the combination with a little natural feeling of a great deal of vain opinion makes their mourning wild, frenzied, and difficult to calm. And this appears not to have escaped Aesop, who said that when Zeus was apportioning honours among the gods, Grief asked for a share, which Zeus accordingly granted, but only from such as should choose and so desire. At the outset indeed this is true; for each person takes grief in of his own accord. But once it has fixed itself with the passing of time and become his companion and household intimate, it will not quit him even at his earnest desire. We must, therefore, resist it at the door and must not let it in to be quartered on us by wearing mourning or cropping the hair or by any other manifestations of the kind that, 610 confronting the mind daily and shaming it into submission, make it dispirited, cramped, shut in, deaf to all soothing influences, and a prey to vain terrors, in the feeling that it has no part in laughter or the light of day or the friendly board, since it has adopted such habiliments and engages in such practices because of its grief. This unhappy state leads to widespread neglect of the body and aversion to ointment, the bath, and the other usages of our daily life. Quite the contrary should happen; in its own suffering the soul should be helped by a vigorous condition of the body. For its distress loses much of its keenness and intensity when dissipated in the calm of the body, as waves are dispersed in fair weather; whereas if the body is in the interval allowed to become squalid and unkempt from a mean way of life, and if it sends up to the soul nothing benign or good, but only pains and sorrows, like acrid and noisome exhalations, the sufferings that take possession of the soul when it has undergone such ill-usage are so serious that an easy recovery is no longer possible even if desired.
[Cons. ad ux. 7] 7 1 On the other hand, what is most grave and to be dreaded in such a case holds no terrors for me: “the visits of pernicious women” and their cries and their chiming in with lamentations, whereby they polish and whet the keen edge of pain, and do not allow our grief to subside either from other influences or of itself; for I know what struggles you recently sustained when you went to the aid of Theon’s sister and fought off the assaults of the women who came from the world outside with wailing and screaming, as if they were in very truth adding “fire to fire.” For when people see the houses of their friends in flames, they put the fire out with all the speed or power at their command; but when those friends are themselves ablaze with fire in their hearts, they bring more fuel. And whereas men refuse to permit anyone who so desires to lay his hands on a sufferer from ophthalmia, and do not touch the inflammation, the person who mourns sits patiently and allows anyone who happens to pass by to meddle with his suffering das with a rheumatic sore and to envenom it, a little tickling and scratching making it break out into a far-reaching and troublesome affliction. This thing, then, I know you will guard against.
[Cons. ad ux. 8] 8 1 Do, however, try to carry yourself back in your thoughts and return again and again to the time when this little child was not yet born and we had as yet no complaint against Fortune; next try to link this present time with that as though our circumstances had again become the same. For, my dear wife, we shall appear to be sorry that our child was ever born if our conduct leads us to regard the state of things before her birth as preferable to the present. Yet we must not obliterate the intervening two years from our memory; rather, since they afforded us delight and enjoyment of her, we should credit them to the account of pleasure; and we should not consider the small good a great evil, nor, because Fortune did not add what we hoped for, be ungrateful for what was given. For reverent language toward the Deity and a serene and uncomplaining attitude toward Fortune never fail to yield an excellent and pleasant return; while in circumstances like these he who in greatest measure draws upon his memory of past blessings and turns his thought toward the bright and radiant part of his life, averting it from the dark and disturbing part, either extinguishes his pain entirely, or by thus combining it with its opposite, renders it slight and faint. For just as perfume, while always a delight to the smell, serves on occasion to counteract foul odours, so the thought of our blessings has in time of trouble a further, necessary, use: it is an antidote in the hands of those who do not shun the remembrance of happiness and do not insist on reproaching Fortune in everything. It ill becomes us to fall into this state by cavilling at our own life for receiving, 611 like a book, a single stain, while all the rest is clean and unspoiled. 9 1 For you have often heard that felicity depends on correct reasoning resulting in a stable habit, and that the changes due to fortune occasion no serious departure from it and do not bring with them a falling away that destroys the character of our lives.
[Cons. ad ux. 8b] But if, like the multitude, we too are to be guided by external circumstances, to reckon up the dispensations of fortune, and to take any chance persons as our judges of felicity, you must not dwell upon the present tears band lamentations of your visitors, a performance dictated by a pernicious custom and rehearsed to every sufferer; you must rather bear in mind how enviable you still appear in their eyes for your children, home, and way of life. And it is unreasonable, when others would gladly choose your lot, even with our present grief thrown in, for you, whose lot it actually is, to complain and be disconsolate; nor yet to be taught by the very bitterness of your grief how great is the delight for us in what is still left, but instead, like the critics who pick out the “headless” and “docked” lines of Homer, overlooking the many splendid passages of flawless execution, to keep a strict account of the shortcomings of your life and cavil at them, and by noting the advantages without particularity or discrimination, to resemble in your attitude the illiberal and miserly, who make no use of the great wealth they accumulate when it is in their possession, but lament and are disconsolate when it is lost. If you pity her for departing unmarried and childless, you can find comfort for yourself in another consideration, that you have lacked fulfilment of and participation in neither of these satisfactions; for these are not great blessings for those deprived of them, but small for their possessors. That she has passed to a state where there is no pain need not be painful to us; for what sorrow can come to us through her, if nothing now can make her grieve? For even great deprivations lose their power to cause pain when they reach the point where the want is no longer felt; and your Timoxena has been deprived of little, for what she knew was little, and her pleasure was in little things; and as for those things of which she had acquired no perception, which she had never conceived, and to which she had never given thought, how could she be said to be deprived of them?
[Cons. ad ux. 10] 10 1 Furthermore, I know that you are kept from believing the statements of that other set, who win many to their way of thinking when they say that nothing is in any way evil or painful to “what has undergone dissolution,” by the teaching of our fathers and by the mystic formulas of Dionysiac rites, the knowledge of which we who are participants share with each other. Consider then that the soul, which is imperishable, is affected like a captive bird: if it has long been reared in the body and has become tamed to this life by many activities and long familiarity, it alights again and re enters the body, and does not leave off or cease from becoming entangled in the passions and fortunes of this world through repeated births. For do not fancy that old age is vilified and ill spoken of because of the wrinkles, the grey hairs, and the debility of the body; no, its most grievous fault is to render the soul stale in its memories of the other world and make it cling tenaciously to this one, and to warp and cramp it, since it retains in this strong attachment the shape imposed upon it by the body. Whereas the soul that tarries after its capture but a brief space in the body before it is set free by higher powers proceeds to its natural state as though released from a bent position with flexibility and resilience unimpaired. For just as a fire flares up again and quickly recovers, if a person who has extinguished it immediately lights it again, but is harder to rekindle if it remains extinguished for some time, so too those souls fare best whose lot it is, according to the poet,
[Cons. ad ux. 10b] Soon as they may pass through Hades’ gates
[Cons. ad ux. 10c] before much love of the business of our life here has been engendered in them, and before they have been adapted to the body by becoming softened and fused with it as by reagents.
[Cons. ad ux. 11] 11 612 It is rather in our ancestral and ancient usages and laws that the truth of these matters is to be seen; for our people do not bring libations to those of their children who die in infancy, nor do they observe in their case any of the other rites that the living are expected to perform for the dead, as such children have no part in earth or earthly things; nor yet do they tarry where the burial is celebrated, at the graves, or at the laying out of the dead, and sit by the bodies. For the laws forbid us to mourn for infants, holding it impiety to mourn for those who have departed to a dispensation and a region too that is better and more divine. And since this is harder to disbelieve than to believe, blet us keep our outward conduct as the laws command, and keep ourselves within yet freer from pollution and purer and more temperate.

## Table talk


## Book I.

[Quaest. conv. 1.0.1] Some, my dear Sossius Senecio imagine that this sentence, [Greek omitted] was principally designed against the stewards of a feast, who are usually troublesome and press liquor too much upon the guests. For the Dorians in Sicily (as I am informed) called the steward, [Greek omitted] a REMEMBRANCER. Others think that this proverb admonisheth the guests to forget everything that is spoken or done in company; and agreeably to this, the ancients used to consecrate forgetfulness with a ferula to Bacchus, thereby intimating that we should either not remember any irregularity committed in mirth and company, or apply a gentle and childish correction to the faults. But because you are of opinion (as Euripides says) that to forget absurdities is indeed a piece of wisdom, but to deliver over to oblivion all sort of discourse that merry meetings do usually produce is not only repugnant to that endearing quality that most allow to an entertainment, but against the known practice of the greatest philosophers (for Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Speusippus, Epicurus, Prytanis, Hieronymus, Dion the Academic, have thought it a worthy and noble employment to deliver down to us those discourses they had at table), and since it is your pleasure that I should gather up the chiefest of those scattered topics which both at Rome and Greece amidst our cups and feasting we have disputed on, in obedience to your commands I have sent three books, each containing ten problems; and the rest shall quickly follow, if these find good acceptance and do not seem altogether foolish and impertinent.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.1] Whether at Table It is Allowable to Philosophize?
SOSSIUS, SENECIO, ARISTO, PLUTARCH, CRATO, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.1b] The first question is, Whether at table it is allowable to philosophize? For I remember at a supper at Athens this doubt was started, whether at a merry meeting it was fit to use philosophical discourse, and how far it might be used? And Aristo presently cried out: What then, for heaven’s sake, are there any that banish philosophy from company and wine? And I replied: Yes, sir, there are, and such as with a grave scoff tell us that philosophy, like the matron of the house, should never be heard at a merry entertainment; and commend the custom of the Persians, who never let their wives appear, but drink, dance, and wanton with their whores. This they propose for us to imitate; they permit us to have mimics and music at our feasts, but forbid philosophy; she, forsooth, being very unfit to be wanton with us, and we in a bad condition to be serious. Isocrates the rhetorician, when at a drinking bout some begged him to make a speech, only returned: With those things in which I have skill the time doth not suit; and in those things with which the time suits I have no skill.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.2] And Crato cried out: By Bacchus, he was right to forswear talk, if he designed to make such long-winded discourses as would have spoiled all mirth and conversation; but I do not think there is the same reason to forbid philosophy as to take away rhetoric from our feasts. For philosophy is quite of another nature; it is an art of living, and therefore must be admitted into every part of our conversation, into all our gay humors and our pleasures, to regulate and adjust them, to proportion the time, and keep them from excess; unless, perchance, upon the same scoffing pretence of gravity, they would banish temperance, justice, and moderation. It is true, were we to feast before a court, as those that entertained Orestes, and were silence enjoined by law, that might prove no mean cloak of our ignorance; but if Bacchus is really [Greek omitted] (A LOOSER of everything), and chiefly takes off all restraints and bridles from the tongue, and gives the voice the greatest freedom, I think it is foolish and absurd to deprive that time in which we are usually most talkative of the most useful and profitable discourse; and in our schools to dispute of the offices of company, in what consists the excellence of a guest, how mirth, feasting, and wine are to be used and yet deny philosophy a place in these feasts, as if not able to confirm by practice what by precepts it instructs.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.3] And when you affirmed that none ought to oppose what Crato said, but determine what sorts of philosophical topics were to be admitted as fit companions at a feast, and so avoid that just and pleasant taunt put upon the wrangling disputers of the age,
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.3b] Come now to supper, that we may contend;
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.3c] and when you seemed concerned and urged us to speak to that head, I first replied: Sir, we must consider what company we have; for if the greater part of the guests are learned men, — as for instance, at Agatho’s entertainment, characters like Socrates, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Euryximachus; or at Callias’s board, Charmides, Antisthenes, Hermogenes, and the like, — we will permit them to philosohize, and to mix Bacchus with the Muses as well as with the Nymphs; for the latter make him wholesome and gentle to the body, and the other pleasant and agreeable to the soul. And if there are some few illiterate persons present, they, as consonants with vowels, in the midst of the other learned, will participate not altogether inarticulately and insignificantly. But if the greater part consists of such who can better endure the noise of any bird, fiddle-string, or piece of wood than the voice of a philosopher, Pisistratus hath shown us what to do; for being at difference with his sons, when he heard his enemies rejoiced at it, in a full assembly he declared that he had endeavored to persuade his sons to submit to him, but since he found them obstinate, he was resolved to yield and submit to their humors. So a philosopher, midst those companions that slight his excellent discourse, will lay aside his gravity, follow them, and comply with their humor as far as decency will permit; knowing very well that men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but may their philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily, nay, whilst they are piqued upon or repartee. For it is not only (as Plato says) the highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so; but it is the top of wisdom to philosophize, yet not appear to do it; and in mirth to do the same with those that are serious, and still seem in earnest. For as in Euripides, the Bacchae, though unprovided of iron weapons and unarmed, wounded their invaders with their boughs, thus the very jests and merry talk of true philosophers move those that are not altogether insensible.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.4] I think there are topics fit to be used at table, some of which reading and study give us, others the present occasion; some to incite to study, others to piety and great and noble actions, others to make us rivals of the bountiful and kind; which if a man cunningly and without any apparent design inserts for the instruction of the rest, he will free these entertainments from many of those considerable evils which usually attend them. Some that put borage into the wine, or sprinkle the floor with water in which verbena and maiden-hair have been steeped, as good raise mirth and jollity in the guests (in imitation of Homer’s Helen, who with some medicament diluted the pure wine she had prepared), do not understand that that fable, coming from round Egypt, after a long way ends at last in easy and fit discourse. For whilst they were drinking Helen relates the story of Ulysses,
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.4b] How Fortune’s spite the hero did control, And bore his troubles with a manly soul.(“Odyssey,” iv. 242.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.4c] For that, in my opinion, was the Nepenthe, the care-dissolving medicament, viz, that story exactly fitted to the then disasters and juncture of affairs. The pleasing men, though they designedly and apparently instruct, draw on their maxims rather with persuasive and smooth arguments, than the violent force of demonstrations. You see that even Plato in his Symposium, where he disputes of the chief end, the chief good, and is altogether on subjects theological, doth not lay down strong and close demonstrations; he doth not make himself ready for the contest (as he is wont) like a wrestler, that he may take the firmer hold of his adversary and be sure of giving him the trip; but draws men on by more soft and pliable attacks, by pleasant fictions and pat examples.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.5] Besides the questions should be easy, the problems known, the interrogations plain, familiar, and not intricate and dark that they might neither vex the unlearned, nor fright them from the disquisition. For — as it is allowable to dissolve our entertainment into a dance, but if we force our guests to toss quoits or play at cudgels, we shall not only make our feast unpleasant, but hurtful and unnatural — thus light and easy disquisitions do pleasantly and profitably excite us, but we must forbear all contentions and (to use Democritus’s word) wrangling disputes, which perplex the proposers with intricate and inexplicable doubts, and trouble all the others that are present. Our discourse should be like our wine, common to all, and of which every one may equally partake; and they that propose hard problems seem no better fitted for society than Aesop’s fox and crane.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.5b] For the fox vexed the crane with thin broth poured out upon a plain table, and laughed at her when he saw her, by reason of the narrowness of her bill and the thinness of the broth, incapable of partaking what he had prepared; and the crane, in requital, inviting the fox to supper, brought forth her dainties in a pot with a long and narrow neck, into which she could conveniently thrust her bill, whilst the fox could not reach one bit. Just so, when philosophers midst their cups dive into minute and logical disputes, they are very troublesome to those that cannot follow them through the same depths; and those that bring in idle songs, trifling disquisitions, common talk, and mechanical discourse destroy the very end of conversation and merry entertainments, and abuse Bacchus. Therefore, as when Phrynichus and Aeschylus brought tragedy to discourse of fictions and misfortunes, it was asked, What is this to Bacchus? — so methinks, when I hear some pedantically drawing a syllogism into table-talk, I have reason to cry out, Sir, what is this to Bacchus?
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.5c] Perchance one, the great bowl standing in the midst, and the chaplets given round, which the god in token of the liberty he bestows sets on every head, sings one of those songs called [Greek omitted] (CROOKED OR OBSCURE); this is not fit nor agreeable to a feast. Though some say these songs were not dark and intricate composures; but that the guests sang the first song all together, praising Bacchus and describing the power of the god; and the second each man sang singly in his turn, a myrtle bough being delivered to every one in order, which they call an [Greek omitted] because he that received it was obliged [Greek omitted] to sing; and after this a harp being carried round the company, the skilful took it, and fitted the music to the song; this when the unskilful could not perform, the song was called [Greek omitted] because hard to them, and one in which they could not bear a part.
[Quaest. conv. 1.1.5d] Others say this myrtle bough was not delivered in order, but from bed to bed; and when the uppermost of the first table had sung, he sent it to the uppermost of the second, and he to the uppermost of the third; and so the second in like manner to the second; and from these many windings and this circuit it was called [Greek omitted] CROOKED.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.1] Whether the Entertainer Should Seat the Guests, or Let Every Man Take His Own Place.
TIMON, A GUEST, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH’S FATHER, LAMPRIAS, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.1b] My brother Timon, making a great entertainment, desired the guests as they came to seat themselves; for he had invited strangers and citizens, neighbors and acquaintance, and all sorts of persons to the feast. A great many being already come, a certain stranger at last appeared, dressed as fine as hands could make him, his clothes rich, and an unseemly train of foot-boys at his heels; he walking up to the parlor-door, and, staring round upon those that were already seated, turned his back and scornfully retired; and when a great many stepped after him and begged him to return, he said, I see no fit place left for me. At that, the other guests (for the glasses had gone round) laughed abundantly, and desired his room rather than his company.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.2] But after supper, my father addressing himself to me, who sat at another quarter of the table, — Timon, said he, and I have a dispute, and you are to be judge, for I have been upon his skirts already about that stranger; for if according to my directions he had seated every man in his proper place, we had never been thought unskilful in this matter, by one
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.2b] Whose art is great in ordering horse and foot.(“Iliad,” ii 554.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.2c] And story says that Paulus Aemilius, after he had conquered Perseus the king of Macedon, making an entertainment besides his costly furniture and extraordinary provision, was very critical in the order of his feast; saying, It is the same man’s task to order a terrible battle and a pleasing, entertainment, for both of them require skill in the art of disposing right, and Homer often calls the stoutest and the greatest princes [Greek omitted] disposers of the people; and you use to say that the great Creator, by this art of disposing, turned disorder into beauty, and neither taking away nor adding any new being, but setting everything in its proper place, out of the most uncomely figure and confused chaos produced this beauteous, this surprising face of nature that appears. In these great and noble doctrines indeed you instruct us; but our own observation sufficiently assures us, that the greatest profuseness in a feast appears neither delightful nor genteel, unless beautified by order. And therefore it is absurd that cooks and waiters should be solicitous what dish must be brought first, what next, what placed in the middle, and what last; and that the garlands, and ointment, and music (if they have any) should have a proper place and order assigned, and yet that the guests should be seated promiscuously, and no respect be had to age, honor, or the like; no distinguishing order by which the man in dignity might be honored, the inferior learn to give place, and the disposer be exercised in distinguishing what is proper and convenient. For it is not rational that, when we walk or sit down to discourse, the best man should have the best place, and not the same order be observed at table; or that the entertainer should in civility drink to one before another, and yet make no difference in their seats, at the first dash making the whole company one Myconus (as they say), a hodge-podge and confusion. This my father brought for his opinion.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.3] And my brother said: I am not so much wiser than Bias, that, since he refused to be arbitrator between two only of his friends, I should pretend to be a judge between so many strangers and acquaintance; especially since it is not a money matter, but about precedence and dignity, as if I invited my friends not to treat them kindly, but to abuse them. Menelaus is accounted absurd and passed into a proverb, for pretending to advise when unasked; and sure he would be more ridiculous that instead of an entertainer should set up for a judge, when nobody requests him or submits to his determination which is the best and which the worst man in the company; for the guests do not come to contend about precedency, but to feast and be merry. Besides, it is no easy task to distinguish for some claim respect by reason of their age, others — from their familiarity and acquaintance; and, as those that make declamations consisting of comparisons, he must have Aristotle’s [Greek omitted] and Thrasymachus’s [Greek omitted] (books that furnish him with heads of argument) at his fingers’ ends; and all this to no good purpose or profitable effect but to bring vanity from the bar and the theatre into our feasts and entertainments, and, whilst by good fellowship endeavor to remit all other passions, especially pride and arrogance, from which, in my opinion we should be more careful to cleanse our souls than to wash our feet from dirt, that our conversation be free, simple, and full of mirth. And while by such meetings we strive to end all differences that have at any time risen amongst the invited, we should make them flame anew, and kindle them again by emulation, by thus humbling some and puffing up others. And if, according as we seat them, we should drink oftener and discourse more with some than others and set daintier dishes before them, instead of being friendly we should be lordly in our feasts. And if in other things we treat them all equally, why should we not begin at the first part, and bring it into fashion for all to take their seats promiscuously, without ceremony or pride, and to let them see, as soon as they enter, that they are invited to a dinner whose order is free and democratical, and not, as particular chosen men to the government of a city where aristocracy is the form; since the richest and the poorest sit promiscuously together.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4] When this had been offered on both sides, and all present required my determination, I said: Being an arbitrator and not a judge, I shall close strictly with neither side, but go indifferently in the middle between both. If a man invites young men, citizens, or acquaintance, they should (as Timon says) be accustomed to be content with any place, without ceremony or concernment; and this good nature and unconcernedness would be an excellent means to preserve and increase friendship. But if we use the same method to strangers, magistrates, or old men, I have just reason to fear that, whilst we seem to thrust our pride at the fore-door, we bring it in again at the back, together with a great deal of indifferency and disrespect. But in this, custom and the established rules of decency must guide; or else let us abolish all those modes of respect expressed by drinking to or saluting first; which we do not use promiscuously to all the company but according to their worth we honor every one
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4b] With better places, meat, and larger cups,(“Iliad,” xii. 311.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4c] as Agamemnon says, naming the place first, as the chiefest sign of honor. And we commend Alcinous for placing his guest next himself: —
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4d] He stout Laomedon his son removed, Who sat next him, for him he dearly loved;(“Iliad,” xx. 15.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4e] for to place a suppliant stranger in the seat of his beloved son was wonderful kind, and extreme courteous. Nay even amongst the gods themselves this distinction is observed; for Neptune, though he came last into the assembly,
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4f] sat in the middle seat,(“Odyssey,” vii. 170.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4g] as if that was his proper place. And Minerva seems to have that assigned her which is next Jupiter himself; and this the poet intimates, when speaking of Thetis he says,
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4h] She sat next Jove, Minerva giving Place.(Ibid. xxiv. 100.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4i] And Pindar plainly says,
She sits just next the thunder-breathing flames.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.4j] Indeed Timon urges, we ought not to rob many to honor one, which he seems to do himself, even more than others; for he robs that which makes something that is individual common; and suitable honor to his worth is each man’s possession. And he gives that preeminence to running fast and making haste, which belongs to virtue, kindred, magistracies, and such other qualities; and whilst he endeavors not to affront his guests, he necessarily falls into that very inconvenience; for he must affront every one by defrauding them of their proper honor. Besides, in my opinion it is no hard matter to make this distinction, and seat our guests according to their quality; for first, it very seldom happens that many of equal honor are invited to the same banquet; and then, since there are many honorable places, you have room enough to dispose them according to content, if you can but guess that this man must be seated uppermost, that in the middle, another next to yourself, friend, acquaintance, tutor, or the like, appointing every one some place of honor; and as for the rest, I would supply their want of honor with some little presents, affability, and kind discourse. But if their qualities are not easy to be distinguished, and the men themselves hard to be pleased, see what device I have in that case; for I seat in the most honorable place my father, if invited; if not my grandfather, father-inlaw, uncle, or somebody whom the entertainer hath a more particular reason to esteem. And this is one of the many rules of decency that we have from Homer; for in his poem, when Achilles saw Menelaus and Antilochus contending about the second prize of the horse-race, fearing that their strife and fury would increase, he gave the prize to another, under pretence of comforting and honoring Eumelus, but indeed to take away the cause of their contention.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.5] When I had said this, Lamprias, sitting (as he always doth) upon a low bed, cried out: Sirs, will you give me leave to correct this sottish judge? And the company bidding him speak freely and tell me roundly of my faults, and not spare, he said: And who can forbear that philosopher who disposes of places at a feast according to the birth, wealth, or offices of the guests, as if they were in a theatre or the Council House, so that pride and arrogance must be admitted even into our mirth and entertainments? In seating our guests we should not have any respect to honor, but mirth and conversation; not look after every man’s quality, but their agreement and harmony with one another, as those do that join several different things in one composure. Thus a mason doth not set an Athenian or a Spartan stone, because formed in a more noble country, before an Asian or a Spanish; nor a painter give the most costly color the chiefest place; nor a shipwright the Corinthian fir or Cretan cypress; but so distribute them as they will best serve to the common end, and make the whole composure strong, beautiful, and fit for use. Nay, you see even the deity himself (by our Pindar named the most skilful artificer) doth not everywhere place the fire above and the earth below; but, as Empedocles hath it,
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.5b] The Oysters Coverings do directly prove, That heavy Earth is sometimes rais’d above;
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.5c] not having that place that Nature appoints, but that which is necessary to compound bodies and serviceable to the common end, the preservation of the whole. Disorder is in everything an evil; but then its badness is principally discovered, when it is amongst men whilst they are making merry; for then it breeds contentions and a thousand unspeakable mischiefs, which to foresee and hinder shows a man well skilled in good order and disposing right.
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.6] We all agreed that he had said well, but asked him why he would not instruct us how to order things aright, and communicate his skill. I am content, says he, to instruct you, if you will permit me to change the present order of the feast, and will yield as ready obedience to me as the Thebans to Epaminondas when he altered the order of their battle. We gave him full power; and he, having turned all the servants out, looked round upon every one, and said: Hear (for I will tell you first) how I design to order you together. In my mind, the Theban Pammenes justly taxeth Homer as unskilful in love matters, for setting together, in his description of an army, tribe and tribe, family and family; for he should have joined the lover and the beloved, so that the whole body being united in their minds might perfectly agree. This rule will I follow, not set one rich man by another, a youth by a youth, a magistrate by a magistrate, and a friend by a friend; for such an order is of no force, either to beget or increase friendship and good-will. But fitting that which wants with something that is able to supply it, next one that is willing to instruct I will place one that is as desirous to be instructed; next a morose, one good-natured; next a talkative old man a youth patient and eager for a story; next a boaster, a jeering smooth companion; and next an angry man, a quiet one. If I see a wealthy fellow bountiful and kind, I will take some poor honest man from his obscure place, and set him next, that something may run out of that full vessel to the other empty one. A sophister I will forbid to sit by a sophister, and one poet by another;
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.6b] For beggars beggars, poets envy poets.(Hesiod, “Work and Days,” 26)
[Quaest. conv. 1.2.6c] I separate the clamorous scoffers and the testy, by putting some good-nature between them, so they cannot jostle so roughly on one another; wrestlers, hunters, and farmers I put in one company. For some of the same nature, when put together, fight as cocks; others are very sociable as daws. Drinkers and lovers I set together, not only those who (as Sophocles says) feel the sting of masculine love, but those that are mad after virgins or married women; for they being warmed with the like fire, as two pieces of iron to be joined, will more readily agree; unless perhaps they both fancy the same person.
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 1.3.1] Upon What Account is the Place at the Table Called Consular Esteemed Honorable.
THE SAME.
[Quaest. conv. 1.3.1b] This raised a dispute about the dignity of places, for the same seat is not accounted honorable amongst all nations; in Persia the midst, for that is the place proper to the king himself; in Greece the uppermost; at Rome the lowermost of the middle bed, and this is called the consular; the Greeks about Pontus, and those of Heraclea, reckon the uppermost of the middle bed to be the chief. But we were most puzzled about the place called consular; for though it is esteemed most honorable, yet it is not because it is either the first or the midst; and its other circumstances are either not proper to that alone, or very frivolous. Though I confess three of the reasons alleged seemed to have something in them. The first, that the consuls, having dissolved the monarchy and reduced everything to a more equal level and popular estate, left the middle, the kingly place, and sat in a lower seat; that by this means their power and authority might be less subject to envy, and not so grievous to their fellow-citizens. The second, that, two beds being appointed for the invited guests, the third — and the first place in it — is most convenient for the master of the feast, from whence like a pilot, he can guide and order everything, and readily overlook the management of the whole affair. Besides, he is not so far removed that he can easily discourse, talk to, and compliment his guests; for next below him his wife and children usually are placed; next above him the most honorable of the invited, that being the most proper place, as near the master of the feast. The third reason was, that it is peculiar to the this place to be most convenient for the despatch of any sudden business; for the Roman consul will not as Archias, the governor of Thebes, say, when letters of importance are brought to him at dinner, “serious things tomorrow” and then throw aside the packet and take the great bowl; but he will be careful, circumspect, and mind it at that very instant. For not only (as the common saying hath it)
[Quaest. conv. 1.3.1c] Each throw doth make the dicer fear,
but even midst his feasting and his pleasure a magistrate should be intent on intervening business; and he hath this place appointed, as the most convenient for him to receive any message, answer it, or sign a bill; for there the second bed joining with the third, the turning at the corner leaves a vacant space, so that a notary, servant, guard, or a messenger from the army might approach, deliver the message, and receive orders; and the consul, having room enough to speak or use his hand, neither troubles any one, nor is hindered by any the guests.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.1] What Manner of Man Should a Director of a Feast Be?
CRATO, THEON, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.1b] Crato my relative, and Theon my acquaintance, at a certain banquet, where the glasses had gone round freely, and a little stir arose but was suddenly appeased, began to discourse of the office of the steward of a feast; declaring that it was my duty to wear the chaplet, assert the decaying privilege, and restore that office which should take care for the decency and good order of the banquet. This proposal pleased every one, and they were all an end begging me to do it. Well then, said I, since you will have it so, I make myself steward and director of you all, command the rest to drink every one what he will but Crato and Theon, the first proposers and authors of this decree, I enjoin to declare in short what qualifications fit a man for this office, what he should principally aim at and how behave himself towards those under his command. This is the subject, and let them agree amongst themselves which head each shall manage.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.2] They made some slight excuse at first; but the whole company urging them to obey, Crato began thus. A captain of a watch (as Plato says) ought to be most watchful and diligent himself, and the director of merry companions ought to be the best. And such a one he is, that will not be easily overtaken or apt to refuse a glass; but as Cyrus in his epistle to the Spartans says, that in many other things he was more fit than his brother to be a king, and chiefly because he could bear abundance of wine. For one that is drunk must have an ill carriage and be apt to affront; and he that is perfectly sober must be unpleasant, and fitter to be a governor of a school than of a feast. Pericles as often as he was chosen general, when he put on his cloak, used to say to himself, as it were to refresh his memory, Take heed, Pericles, thou dost govern freemen, thou dost govern Greeks, thou dost govern Athenians.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.2b] So let our director say privately to himself, Thou art a governor over friends, that he may remember to neither suffer them to be debauched nor stint their mirth. Besides he ought to have some skill in the serious studies of the guests and not be altogether ignorant of mirth and humor yet I would have him (as pleasant wine ought to be) a little severe and rough, for the liquor will soften and smooth him, and make his temper pleasant and agreeable. For as Xenophon says, that Clearchus’s rustic and morose humor in a battle, by reason of his bravery and heat, seemed pleasant and surprising; thus one that is not of a very sour nature, but grave and severe, being softened by a chirping cup becomes more pleasant and complaisant. But chiefly he should be acquainted with every one of the guests’ humors, what alteration the liquor makes in him, what passion he is most subject to, and what quantity he can bear; for it is not to be supposed different sorts of water bear various proportions to different sorts of wine (which kings’ cup-bearers understanding sometimes pour in more, sometimes less), and that man hath no such relation to them.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.2c] This our director ought to know, and knowing, punctually observe; so that like a good musician, screwing up one and letting down another, he may make between these different natures a pleasing harmony and agreement; so that he shall not proportion his wine by measure, but give every one what was proper and agreeable, according to the present circumstances of time and strength of body. But if this is too difficult a task, yet it is necessary that a steward should know the common accidents of age and nature, such as these, — that an old man will be sooner overtaken than a youth, one that leaps about or talks than he that is silent or sits still, the thoughtful and melancholy than the cheerful and the brisk. And he that understands these things is much more able to preserve quietness and order, than one that is perfectly ignorant and unskilful.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.2d] Besides, I think none will doubt but that the steward ought to be a friend, and have no pique at any of the guests; for otherwise in his injunctions he will be intolerable, in his distributions unequal, in his jests apt to scoff and give offence. Such a figure, Theon, as out of wax, hath my discourse framed for the steward of a feast; and now I deliver him to you.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.3] And Theon replied: He is welcome, — a very well-shaped gentleman, and fitted for the office; but whether I shall not spoil him in my particular application, I cannot tell. In my opinion he seems such a one as will keep an entertainment to its primitive institution, and not suffer it to be changed, sometimes into a mooting hall, sometimes a school of rhetoric, now and then a dicing room, a playhouse, or a stage. For do not you observe some making fine orations and putting cases at a supper, others declaiming or reading some of their own compositions, and others proposing prizes to dancers and mimics? Alcibiades and Theodorus turned Polition’s banquet into a temple of initiation, representing there the sacred procession and mysteries of Ceres; now such things as these, in my opinion, ought not to be suffered by a steward, but he must permit such discourse only, such shows, such merriment, as promote the particular end and design of such entertainments; and that is, by pleasant conversation either to beget or maintain friendship and good-will among the guests; for an entertainment is only a pastime table with a glass of wine, ending in friendship through mutual goodwill.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.3b] But now because things pure and unmixed are usually surfeiting and odious, and the very mixture itself, unless the simples be well proportioned and opportunely put together, spoils the sweetness and goodness of the composition; it is evident that there ought to be a director to take care that the mirth and jollity of the guests be exactly and opportunely tempered. It is a common saying that a voyage near the land and a walk near the sea are the best recreation. Thus our steward should place seriousness and gravity next jollity and humor; that when they are merry, they should be on the very borders of gravity itself, and when grave and serious, they might be refreshed as sea-sick persons having an easy and short prospect to the mirth and jollity on land. For mirth may be exceeding useful, and make our grave discourses smooth and pleasant, —
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.3c] As near the bramble oft the lily grows, And neighboring rue commands the blushing rose.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.3d] But against vain and empty tempers, that wantonly break in upon our feasts, like henbane mixed with the wine, he must advise the guests, lest scoffing and affronts creep in under these, lest in their questions or commands they grow scurrilous and abuse, as for instance by enjoining stutterers to sing, bald-pates to comb their heads, or a cripple to rise and dance. As the company abused Agapestor the Academic, one of whose legs was lame and withered, when in a ridiculing frolic they ordained that every man should stand upon his right leg and take off his glass, or pay a fine; and he, when it was his turn to command, enjoined the company to follow his example drink as he did, and having a narrow earthen pitcher brought in, he put his withered leg into it, and drank his glass and every one in the company, after a fruitless endeavor to imitate, paid his forfeit. It was a good humor of Agapestor’s and thus every little merry abuse must be as merrily revenged. Besides he must give such commands as will both please and profit, putting such as are familiar and easy to the person, and when performed will be for his credit and reputation. A songster must be enjoined to sing, an orator to speak, a philosopher to solve a problem, and a poet to make a song; for every one very readily and willingly undertakes that
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.3e] In which he may outdo himself.
[Quaest. conv. 1.4.3f] An Assyrian king by public proclamation promised a reward to him that would find out any new sort of luxury and pleasure. And let the governor, the king of an entertainments propose some pleasant reward for any one that introduceth inoffensive merriment, profitable delight and laughter, not such as attends scoffs and abusive jests, but kindness, pleasant humor, and goodwill; for these matters not being well looked after and observed spoil and ruin most of our entertainments. It is the office of a prudent man to hinder all sort of anger and contention; in the exchange, that which springs from covetousness; in the fencing and wrestling schools, from emulation; in offices and state affairs, from ambition; and in a feast or entertainment, from pleasantness and joke.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.1] Why It is Commonly Said that Love Makes a Man a Poet.
SOSSIUS, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.1b] One day when Sossius entertained us, upon singing some Sapphic verses, this question was started, how it could be true
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.1c] That love in all doth vigorous thoughts inspire, And teaches ignorants to tune the lyre?
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.1d] Since Philoxenus, on the contrary, asserts, that the Cyclops
With sweet-tongued Muses cured his love.
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.1e] Some said that love was bold and daring, venturing at new contrivances, and eager to accomplish, upon which account Plato calls it the enterpriser of everything; for it makes the reserved man talkative, the modest complimental, the negligent and sluggish industrious and observant; and, what is the greatest wonder, a close, hard, and covetous fellow, if he happens to be in love, as iron in fire, becomes pliable and soft, easy, good-natured, and very pleasant; as if there were something in that common jest. A lover’s purse is tied with the blade of a leek. Others said that love was like drunkenness; it makes men warm, merry, and dilated; and, when in that condition, they naturally slide down to songs and words in measure; and it is reported of Aeschylus, that he wrote tragedies after he was heated with a glass of wine; and my grandfather Lamprias in his cups seemed to outdo himself in starting questions and smart disputing, and usually said that, like frankincense, he exhaled more freely after he was warmed. And as lovers are extremely pleased with the sight of their beloved, so they praise with as much satisfaction as they behold; and as love is talkative in everything, so more especially in commendation; for lovers themselves believe, and would have all others think, that the object of their passion is pleasing and excellent; and this made Candaules the Lydian force Gyges into his chamber to behold the beauty of his naked wife. For they delight in the testimony of others, and therefore in all composures upon the lovely they adorn them with songs and verses, as we dress images with gold, that more may hear of them and that they may be remembered the more. For if they present a cock, horse, or any other thing to the beloved, it is neatly trimmed and set off with all the ornaments of art; and therefore, when they would present a compliment, they would have it curious, pleasing, as verse usually appears.
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.2] Sossius applauding these discourses added: Perhaps we may make a probable conjecture from Theophrastus’s discourse of Music, for I have lately read the book. Theophrastus lays down three causes of music, — grief, pleasure and enthusiasm; for each of these changes the usual tone, and makes the voice slide into a cadence; for deep sorrow has something tunable in its groans, and therefore we perceive our orators in their conclusions, and actors in their complaints, are somewhat melodious, and insensibly fall into a tune. Excess of joy provokes the more airy men to frisk and dance and keep their steps, though unskilful in the art; and, as Pindar hath it,
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.2b] They shout, and roar, and wildly toss their heads.
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.2c] But the graver sort are excited only to sing, raise their voice, and tune their words into a sonnet. But enthusiasm quite changes the body and the voice, and makes it far different from its usual constitution. Hence the very Bacchae use measure, and the inspired give their oracles in measure. And we shall see very few madmen but are frantic in rhyme and rave in verse. This being certain, if you will but anatomize love a little, and look narrowly into it, it will appear that no passion in the world is attended with more violent grief, more excessive joy, or greater ecstasies and fury; a lover’s soul looks like Sophocles’s city: —
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.2d] At once ‘tis full of sacrifice, Of joyful songs, of groans and cries.’(Sophocles, “Oedipus Tyrannus,” 4.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.5.2e] And therefore it is no wonder, that since love contains all the causes of music, — grief, pleasure, and enthusiasm, — and is besides industrious and talkative, it should incline us more than any other passion to poetry and songs.
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 1.6.1] Whether Alexander Was a Great Drinker.
PHILINUS, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.6.1b] Some said that Alexander did not drink much, but sat long in company, discoursing with his friends; but Philinus showed this to be an error from the king’s diary, where it was very often registered that such a day, and sometimes two days together, the king slept after a debauch; and this course of life made him cold in love, but passionate and angry, which argues a hot constitution. And some report his sweat was fragrant and perfumed his clothes; which is another argument of heat, as we see the hottest and driest climates bear frankincense and cassia; for a fragrant smell, as Theophrastus thinks, proceeds from a due concoction of the humors, when the noxious moisture is conquered by the heat. And it is thought probable, that he took a pique at Calisthenes for avoiding his table because of the hard drinking, and refusing the great bowl called Alexander’s in his turn, adding, I will not drink of Alexander’s bowl, to stand in need of Aesculapius’s. And thus much of Alexander’s drinking.
[Quaest. conv. 1.6.2] Story tells us, that Mithridates, the famous enemy of the Romans, among other trials of skill that he instituted, proposed a reward to the greatest eater and the stoutest drinker in his kingdom. He won both the prizes himself; he outdrank every man living, and for his excellency that way was called Bacchus. But this reason for his surname is a vain fancy and an idle story; for whilst he was an infant a flash of lightning burnt his cradle, but did his body no harm, and only left a little mark on his forehead, which his hair covered when he was grown a boy; and after he came to be a man, another flash broke into his bedchambers, and burnt the arrows in a quiver that was hanging under him; from whence his diviners presaged, that archers and light-armed men should win him considerable victories in his wars; and the vulgar gave him this name, because in those many dangers by lightning he bore some resemblance to the Theban Bacchus.
[Quaest. conv. 1.6.3] From hence great drinkers were the subject of our discourse; and the wrestler Heraclides (or, as the Alexandrians mince it, Heraclus), who lived but in the last age, was accounted one. He, when he could get none to hold out with him, invited some to take their morning’s draught, others to dinner, to supper others, and others after, to take a merry glass of wine; so that as the first went off, the second came, and the third and fourth company and he all the while without any intermission took his glass round, and outsat all the four companies.
[Quaest. conv. 1.6.4] Amongst the retainers to Drusus, the Emperor Tiberus’s son, was a physician that drank down all the court; he, before he sat down, would usually take five or six bitter almonds to prevent the operation of the wine; but whenever he was forbidden that, he knocked under presently, and a single glass dozed him. Some think these almonds have a penetrating, abstersive quality, are able to cleanse the face, and clear it from the common freckles; and therefore, when they are eaten, by their bitterness vellicate and fret the pores, and by that means draw down the ascending vapors from the head. But, in my opinion, a bitter quality is a drier, and consumes moisture; and therefore a bitter taste is the most unpleasant. For, as Plato says, dryness, being an enemy to moisture, unnaturally contracts the spongy and tender nerves of the tongue. And green ulcers are usually drained by bitter injections. Thus Homer: —
[Quaest. conv. 1.6.4b] He squeezed his herbs, and bitter juice applied; And straight the blood was stanched, the sore was dried.(“Iliad,” xi. 846.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.6.4c] And he guesses well, that what is bitter to the taste is a drier. Besides, the powders women use to dry up their sweat are bitter, and by reason of that quality astringent. This then being certain, it is no wonder that the bitterness of the almonds hinders the operation of the wine, since it dries the inside of the body and keeps the veins from being overcharged; for from their distention and disturbance they say drunkenness proceeds. And this conjecture is much confirmed from that which usually happens to a fox; for if he eats bitter almonds without drinking, his moisture suddenly fails, and it is present death.
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 1.7.1] Why Old Men Love Pure Wine.
PLUTARCH and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.7.1b] It was debated why old men loved the strongest liquors. Some, fancying that their natural heat decayed and their constitution grew cold, said such liquors were most necessary and agreeable to their age; but this was mean and the obvious, and besides, neither a sufficient nor a true reason; for the like happens to all their other senses. For they are not easily moved or wrought on by any qualities, unless they are in intense degrees and make a vigorous impression; but the reason is the laxity of the habit of their body, for that, being grown lax and weak, loves a smart stroke. Thus their taste is pleased most with strong sapors, their smelling with brisk odors; for strong and unalloyed qualities make a more pleasing impression on the sense. Their touch is almost senseless to a sore, and a wound generally raises no sharp pain. The like also in their hearing may be observed; for old musicians play louder and sharper than others, that they may move their own dull tympanum with the sound. For what steel is to the edge in a knife, that spirit is to the sense in the body; and therefore, when the spirits fail, the sense grows dull and stupid, and cannot be raised, unless by something, such as strong wine, that makes a vigorous impression.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.1] Why Old Men Read Best at a Distance.
PLUTARCH, LAMPRIAS, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.1b] To my discourse in the former problem some objection may be drawn from the sense of seeing in old men; for, if they hold a book at a distance, they will read pretty well, nearer they cannot see a letter and this Aeschylus means by these verses: —
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.1c] Behold from far; for near thou canst not see;A good old scribe thou mayst much sooner be.
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.1d] And Sophocles more plainly: —
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.1e] Old men are slow in talk, they hardly hear; Far off they see; but all are blind when near.
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.1f] And therefore, if old men’s organs are more obedient to strong and intense qualities, why, when they read, do they not take the reflection near at hand, but, holding the book a good way off, mix and weaken it by the intervening air, as wine by water?
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.2] Some answered, that they did not remove the book to lesson the light, but to receive more rays, and let all the space between the letters and their eyes be filled with lightsome air. Others agreed with those that imagine the rays of vision mix with one another; for since there is a cone stretched between each eye and the object, whose point is in the eye and whose basis is the object, it is probable that for some way each cone extends apart and by itself; but, when the distance increases, they mix and make but one common light; and therefore every object appears single and not two, though it is seen by both eyes at once; for the conjunction of the cones makes these two appearances but one. These things supposed, when old men hold the letters close to their eyes, the cones not being joined, but each apart and by itself, their sight is weak; but when they remove it farther, the two lights being mingled and increased, see better, as a man with both hands can hold that for which either singly is too weak.
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.3] But my brother Lamprias, though unacquainted with Hieronymus’s notions, gave us another reason. We see, said he, some species that come from the object to the eye, which at their first rise are thick and great; and therefore when near disturb old men, whose eyes are stiff and not easily penetrated; but when they are separated and diffused into the air, the thick obstructing parts are easily removed, and the subtile remainders coming to the eye gently and easily slide into the pores; and so the disturbance being less, the sight is more vigorous and clear. Thus a rose smells most fragrant at a distance; but if you bring it near the nose, it is not so pure and delightful; and the reason is this, — many earthy disturbing particles are carried with the smell, and spoil the fragrancy when near, but in a longer passage those are lost, and the pure brisk odor, by reason of its subtility, reaches and acts upon the sense.
[Quaest. conv. 1.8.4] But we, according to Plato’s opinion, assert that a bright spirit darted from the eye mixes with the light about the object, and those two are perfectly blended into one similar body; now these must be joined in due proportion one to another; for one part ought not wholly to prevail on the other, but both, being proportionally and amicably joined, should agree in one third common power. Now this (whether flux, illuminated spirit, or ray) in old men being very weak, there can be no combination, no mixture with the light about the object; but it must be wholly consumed, unless, by removing the letters from their eyes, they lessen the brightness of the light, so that it comes to the sight not too strong or unmixed, but well proportioned and blended with the other. And this explains that common affection of creatures seeing in the dark; for their eyesight being weak is overcome and darkened by the splendor of the day; because the little light that flows from their eyes cannot be proportionably mixed with the stronger and more numerous beams; but it is proportionable and sufficient for the feeble splendor of the stars, and so can join with it, and cooperate to move the sense.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 1.9.1] Why Fresh Water Washes Clothes Better Than Salt.
THEON, THEMISTOCLES, METRIUS, FLORUS, PLUTARCH; and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.9.2] Theon the grammarian, when Metrius Florus gave us an entertainment, asked Themistocles the Stoic, why Chrysippus, though he frequently mentioned some strange phenomena in nature (as that salt meat soaked in salt water grows fresher than before; fleeces of wool are more easily separated by a gentle than a quick and violent force, and men that are fasting eat slower than those who took a breakfast), yet never gave any reason for the appearance. And Themistocles replied, that Chrysippus only proposed such things by the by, as instances to correct us, who easily assent and without any reason to what seems likely, and disbelieve everything that seems unlikely at the first sight. But why, sir, are you concerned at this? For if you are speculative and would inquire into the causes of things you need not want subjects in your own profession; but pray tell me why Homer makes Nausicaa wash in the river rather than the sea, though it was near, and in all likelihood hotter, clearer, and fitter to wash with than that? And Theon replied: Aristotle hath already given an account for this from the grossness of the sea water; for in this an abundance of rough earthy particles is mixed, and those make it salt; and upon this account swimmers or any other weights sink not so much in sea water as in fresh for the latter, being thin and weak, yields to every pressure and is easily divided, because it is pure and unmixed and by reason of this subtility of parts it penetrates better than salt water, and so looseneth from the clothes the sticking particles of the spot. And is not this discourse of Aristotle very probable?
[Quaest. conv. 1.9.3] Probable indeed, I replied, but not true; for I have observed that with ashes, gravel, or, if these are not to be gotten, with dust itself they usually thicken the water, as if the earthy particles being rough would scour better than fair water, whose thinness makes it weak and ineffectual. And therefore he is mistaken when he says the thickness of the sea water hinders the effect, since the sharpness of the mixed particles very much conduces to make it cleansing; for that open the pores, and draws out the stain. But since all oily matter is most difficult to be washed out and spots a cloth, and the sea is oily, that is the reason why it doth not scour as well as fresh and that it is oily, even Aristotle himself asserts, for salt in his opinion hath some oil in it, and therefore makes candles, when sprinkled on them, burn the better and clearer than before. And sea water sprinkled on a flame increaseth it, and it more easily kindled than any other; in my opinion, makes it hotter than the fresh. And besides, I may urge another cause; for the end of washing is drying, and that seems cleanest which is driest; and the moisture that scours (as hellebore, with the humors that it purges) ought to fly away quickly together with the stain. The sun quickly draws out the fresh water, because it is so light but the salt water being rough lodges in the pores, and therefore is not easily dried.
[Quaest. conv. 1.9.4] And Theon replied: You say just nothing, sir; for Aristotle in the same book affirms that those that wash in the sea, if they stand in sun, are sooner dried than those that wash in the fresh streams. If it is true, I am answered, he says so; but I hope that Homer asserting the contrary will, by you especially, be more easily believed; for Ulysses (as he writes) after his shipwreck meeting Nausicaa,
[Quaest. conv. 1.9.4b] A frightful sight, and with the salt besmeared
said to her maidens,
Retire a while, till I have washed my skin,
And when he had leaped into the river,
He from his head did scour the foaming sea.(See “Odyssey,” vi. 137, 218, 226.)
[Quaest. conv. 1.9.4c] The poet knew very well what happens in such a case; for when those that come wet out of the sea stand in the sun, the subtilest and lightest parts suddenly exhale, but the salt and rough particles stick upon the body in a crust, till they are washed away by the fresh water of a spring.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 1.10.1] Why at Athens the Chorus of the Tribe Aeantis Was Never Determined to Be the Last.
PHILOPAPPUS, MARCUS, MILO, GLAUCIAS, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 1.10.1b] When we were feasting at Serapion’s, who gave an entertainment after the tribe Leontis under his order and direction had won the prize (for we were citizens and free of that tribe), a very pertinent discourse, and proper to the then occasion, happened. It had been a very notable trial of skill, the king Philopappus being very generous and magnificent in his rewards, and defraying the expenses of all the tribes. He was at the same feast with us and being a very good-humored man and eager for instruction, he would now and then freely discourse of ancient customs, and as freely hear.
[Quaest. conv. 1.10.2] Marcus the grammarian began thus: Neanthes the Cyzicenian, in his book called the “Fabulous Narrations of the City,” affirms that it was a privilege of the tribe Aeantis that their chorus should never be determined to be the last. It is true, he brings some stories for confirmation of what he says; but if he falsifies, the matter is open, and let us all inquire after the reason of the thing. But, says Milo, suppose it be a mere tale. It is no strange thing replied Philopappus, if in our disquisitions after truth we meet now and then with such a thing as Democritus the philosopher did; for he one day eating a cucumber, and finding it of a honey taste, asked his maid where she bought it; and she telling him in such a garden, he rose from table and bade her direct him to the place. The maid surprised asked him what he meant; and he replied, I must search after the cause of the sweetness of the fruit, and shall find it the sooner if I see the place. The maid with a smile replied, Sit still, pray, sir, for I unwittingly put it into a honey barrel. And he, as it were discontented, cried out, Shame take thee, yet I will pursue my purpose, and seek after the cause, as if this sweetness were a taste natural and proper to the fruit. Therefore neither will we admit Neanthes’s credulity and inadvertency in some stories as an excuse and a good reason for avoiding this disquisition; for we shall exercise our thoughts by it, though no other advantage rises from that inquiry.
[Quaest. conv. 1.10.3] Presently every one poured out something in commendation of that tribe, mentioning every matter that made for its credit and reputation. Marathon was brought in as belonging to it, and Harmodius with his associates, by birth Aphidneans, were also produced as glorious members of that tribe. The orator Glaucias proved that that tribe made up the right wing in the battle at Marathon, from the elegies of Aeschylus, who had himself fought valiantly in the same encounter; and farther evinced that Callimachus the field marshal was of that tribe, who behaved himself very bravely, and was the principal cause next to Miltiades, with whose opinion he concurred, that that battle was fought. To this discourse of Glaucias I added, that the edict which impowered Miltiades to lead forth the Athenians, was made when the tribe Aeantis was chief of the assembly, and that in the battle of Plataea the same tribe won the greatest glory; and upon that account, as the oracle directed, that tribe offered a sacrifice for this victory to the nymphs Sphragitides, the city providing a victim and all other necessaries belonging to it. But you may observe (I continued) that other tribes likewise have their peculiar glories; and you know that mine, the tribe Leontids, yields to none in any point of reputation. Besides, consider whether it is not more probable that this was granted out of a particular respect, and to please Ajax, from whom this tribe received its name; for we know he could not endure to be outdone, but was easily hurried on to the greatest enormities by his contentious and passionate humor; and therefore to comply with him and afford him some comfort in his disasters, they secured him from the most vexing grievance that follows the misfortune of the conquered, by ordering that his tribe should never be determined to be last.

## Book II.

[Quaest. conv. 2.0.1] Of the several things that are provided for an entertainment, some, my Sossius Senecio, are absolutely necessary; such are wine, bread, meat, lounges, and tables. Others are brought in, not for necessity, but pleasure; such are songs, shows, mimics, and buffoons; which, when present, delight indeed, but when absent, are not eagerly desired; nor is the entertainment looked upon as mean because such things are wanting. Just so of discourses; some the sober men admit as necessary to a banquet, and others for their pretty nice speculations, as more profitable and agreeable than the fiddle and the pipe. My former book gives you examples of both sorts. Of the first are these, Whether we should philosophize at table? — Whether the entertainer should appoint proper seats, or leave the guests to agree upon there own? Of the second, Why lovers are inclined to poetry? And the question about the tribe of Aeantis. The former I call properly [Greek omitted] but both together I comprehend under the general name of Symposiacs. They are promiscuously set down, not in the exact method, but as each singly occurred to memory. And let not my readers wonder that I dedicate these collections to you, which I have received from others or your own mouth; for if all learning is not bare remembrance, yet to learn and to remember are very commonly one and the same.
QUESTION I
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.1] What, As Xenophon Intimates, are the Most Agreeable Questions and Most Pleasant Raillery at an Entertainment?
SOSSIUS, SENECIO, and PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.1b] Now each book being divided into ten questions, that shall make the first in this, which Socratial Xenophon hath as it were proposed; for he tells that, Gobryas banqueting with Cyrus, amongst other things he found admirable in the Persians, was surprised to hear them ask one another such questions that it was more pleasant to be interrogated than to be let alone, and pass such jests on one another that it was more pleasant to be jested on than not. For if some, even whilst they praise, offend, why should not their polite and neat facetiousness be admired, whose very raillery is delightful and pleasant to him that is the subject of it? Once you said: I wish I could learn what kind of questions those are; for to be skilled in and make right use of apposite questions and pleasant raillery, I think is no small part of conversation.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.2] A considerable one, I replied; but pray observe whether Xenophon himself, in his descriptions of Socrates’s and the Persian entertainments, hath not sufficiently explained them. But if you would have my thoughts, first, men are pleased to be asked those questions to which they have an answer ready; such are those in which the persons asked have some skill and competent knowledge; for when the inquiry is above their reach, those that can return nothing are troubled, as if requested to give something beyond their power; and those that do answer, producing some crude and insufficient demonstration, must needs be very much concerned, and apt to blunder on the wrong. Now, if the answer not only is easy but hath something not common, it is more pleasing to them that make it; and this happens, when their knowledge is greater than that of the vulgar, as suppose they are well skilled in points of astrology or logic. For not only in action and serious matters, but also in discourse, every one hath a natural disposition to be pleased (as Euripides hath it)
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.2b] To seem far to outdo himself.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.2c] And all are delighted when men put such questions as they understand, and would have others know that they are acquainted with; and therefore travellers and merchants are most satisfied when their company is inquisitive about other countries, the unknown ocean, and the laws and manners of the barbarians; they are very ready to inform them, and describe the countries and the creeks, imagining this to be some recompense for their toil, some comfort for the dangers they have passed. In short, whatever though unrequested, we are wont to discourse of, we are desirous to be asked; because then we seem to gratify those whom otherwise our prattle would disturb and force from our conversation. And this is the common disease of travellers. But more genteel and modest men love to be asked about those things which they have bravely and successfully performed, and which modesty will not permit to be spoken by themselves before company; and therefore Nestor did well when, being acquainted with Ulysses’s desire of reputation, he said,
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.2d] Tell, brave Ulysses, glory of the Greeks, How you the horses seized.(“Iliad,” x. 544.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.2e] For man cannot endure the insolence of those who praise themselves and repeat their own exploits, unless the company desires it and they are forced to a relation; therefore it tickles them to be asked about their embassies and administrations of the commonwealth, if they have done anything notable in either. And upon this account the envious and ill-natured start very few questions of that they sort; that thwart and hinder all such kind of motions, being very unwilling to give any occasion or opportunity for that discourse which shall tend to the advantage of the relater. In short, we please those to whom we put them, when we start questions about those matters which their enemies hate to hear.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3] Ulysses says to Alcinous,
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3b] You bid me tell what various ills I bore, That the sad tale might make me grieve the more.(Sophocles, “Oedipus at Colonus,” 510.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3c] And Oedipus says to the chorus,
‘Tis pain to raise again a buried grief.(“Odyssey,” ix. 12.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3d] But Euripides on the contrary,
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3e] How sweet it is, when we are lulled in ease, To think of toils! — when well, of a disease!(Euripides, “Andromeda,” Frag. 131.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3f] True indeed, but not to those that are still tossed, still under a misfortune. Therefore be sure never ask a man about his own calamities; it is irksome to relate his losses of children or estate, or any unprosperous adventure by sea or land; but ask a man how he carried the cause, how he was caressed by the king, how he escaped such a storm, such an assault, thieves, and the like; this pleaseth him, he seems to enjoy it over again in his relation, and is never weary of the topic. Besides, men love to be asked about their happy friends, or children that have made good progress in philosophy or the law, or are great at court; as also about the disgrace and open conviction of their enemies; or of such matters they are most eager to discourse, yet are cautious of beginning it themselves, lest they should seem to insult over and rejoice at the misery of others. You please a hunter if you ask him about dogs, a wrestler about exercise, and an amorous man about beauties; the ceremonious and superstitious man discourses about dreams, and what success he hath had by following the directions of omens or sacrifices, and by the kindness of the gods; and some questions concerning those things will extremely please him. He that inquires anything of an old man, though the story doth not at all concern him, wins his heart, and urges one that is very willing to discourse: —
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3g] Nelides Nestor, faithfully relate How great Atrides died, what sort of fate; And where was Menelaus largely tell? Did Argos hold him when the hero fell?(“Odyssey,” iii. 247.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.3h] Here is a multitude of questions and variety of subjects; which is much better than to confine and cramp his answers, and so deprive the old man of the most pleasant enjoyment he can have. In short, they that had rather please than distaste will still propose such questions, the answers to which shall rather get the praise and good-will than the contempt and hatred of the hearers. And so much of questions.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.4] As for raillery, those that cannot use it cautiously with art, and time it well, should never venture at it. For as in a slippery place, if you but just touch a man as you pass by, you throw him down; so when we are in drink, we are in danger of tripping at every little word that is not spoken with due address. And we are more apt to be offended with a joke than a plain and scurrilous abuse; for we see the latter often slip from a man unwittingly in passion, but consider the former as a thing voluntary, proceeding from malice and ill-nature; and therefore we are generally more offended at a sharp jeerer than a whistling snarler. Such a jest has indeed something designedly malicious about it, and often seems to be an insult skilfully devised and prepared. For instance, he that calls thee salt-fish monger plainly and openly abuseth; but he that says, I remember when you wiped your nose upon your sleeve, maliciously jeers. Such was Cicero’s to Octavius, who was thought to be descended from an African slave; for when Cicero spoke something, and Octavius said he did not hear him, Cicero rejoined, Remarkable, for you have a hole through your ear. And Melanthius, when he was ridiculed by a comedian, said, You pay me now something that you do not owe me. And upon this account jeers vex more; for like bearded arrows they stick a long while, and gall the wounded sufferer. Their smartness is pleasant, and delights the company; and those that are pleased with the saving seem to believe the detracting speaker. For according to Theophrastus, a jeer is a figurative reproach for some fault or misdemeanor; and therefore he that hears it supplies the concealed part, as if he knew and gave credit to the thing. For he that laughs and is tickled at what Theocritus said to one whom he suspected of a design upon his clothes, and who asked him if he went to supper at such a place, — Yes, he replied, I go, but shall likewise lodge there all night, — doth, as it were, confirm the accusation, and believe the fellow was a thief. And therefore an impertinent jeerer makes the whole company seem ill-natured and abusive, as being pleased with and consenting to the scurrility of the jeer. It was one of the excellent laws in Sparta, that none should be bitter in their jests, and the jeered should patiently endure; but if he took offence, the other was to forbear, and pursue the frolic no farther. How is it possible therefore to determine such raillery as shall delight and please the person that is jested on, when to be smart without offence is no mean piece of cunning and address?
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.5] First then, such as will vex and gall the conscious must please those that are clean, innocent, and not suspected of the matter. Such a joke is Xenophon’s, when he pleasantly brings in a very ugly ill-looking fellow, and is smart upon him for being Sambaulas’s minion. Such was that of Aufidius Modestus, who, when our friend Quinitus in an ague complained his hands were cold, replied, Sir, you brought them warm from your province; for this made Quintius laugh, and extremely pleased him; yet it had been a reproach and abuse to a covetous and oppressing governor. Thus Socrates, pretending to compare faces with the beauteous Critobulus, rallied only, and not abused. And Alcibiades again was smart on Socrates, as his rival in Agatho’s affection. Kings are pleased when jests are put upon them as if they were private and poor men. Such was the flatterer’s to Philip, who chided him: Sir, don’t I keep you? For those that mention faults of which the persons are not really guilty intimate those virtues with which they are really adorned. But then it is requisite that those virtues should be evident and certainly belong to them; otherwise the discourse will breed disturbance and suspicion. He that tells a very rich man that he will procure him a sum of money, — a temperate sober man, and one that drinks water only, that he is foxed, or hath taken a cup too much, — a hospitable, generous, good-humored man, that he is a niggard and pinch-penny, — or threatens an excellent lawyer to meet him at the bar, — must make the persons smile and please the company. Thus Cyrus was very obliging and complaisant, when he challenged his playfellows at those sports in which he was sure to be overcome. And Ismenias piping at a sacrifice, when no good omens appeared, the man that hired him snatched the pipe, and played very ridiculously himself; and when all found fault, he said: To play satisfactorily is the gift of Heaven. And Ismenias with a smile replied: Whilst I played, the gods were so well pleased that they were careless of the sacrifice; but to be rid of thy noise they presently received it.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.6] But more, those that jocosely put scandalous names upon things commendable, if it be opportunely done, please more than he that plainly and openly commends; for those that cover a reproach under fair and respectful words (as he that calls an unjust man Aristides, a coward Achilles) gall more than those that openly abuse. Such is that of Oedipus, in Sophocles, —
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.6b] The faithful Creon, my most constant friend.(Sophocles, “Oedipus Tyrannus,” 385.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.6c] The familiar irony in commendations answers to this on the other side. Such Socrates used, when he called the kind endeavor and industry of Antisthenes to make men friends pimping, bawds-craft, and allurement; and others that called Crates the philosopher, who wherever he went was caressed and honored, the door-opener.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.7] Again, a complaint that implies thankfulness for a received favor is pleasant raillery. Thus Diogenes of his master Antisthenes: —
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.7b] That man that made me leave my precious ore, Clothed me with rags, and forced me to be poor; That man that made me wander, beg my bread, And scorn to have a house to hide my head.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.7c] For it had not been half so pleasant to have said, that man that made me wise, content, and happy. And a Spartan, making as if he would find fault with the master of the exercises for giving him wood that would not smoke, said, He will not permit us even to shed a tear. And he calls a hospitable man, and one that treats often, a kidnapper, and a tyrant who for a long time would not permit him to see his own table; and he whom the king hath raised and enriched, that says he had a design upon him and robbed him of his sleep and quiet. So if he that hath an excellent vintage should complain of Aeschlus’s Cabeiri for making him want vinegar, as they haul jocosely threatened. For such as these have a pungent pleasantness, so that the praised are not offended nor take it ill.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.8] Besides, he that would be civilly facetious must know the difference between a vice and a commendable study or recreation; for instance, between the love of money or contention and of music or hunting; for men are grieved if twitted with the former, but take it very well if they are laughed at for the latter. Thus Demosthenes the Mitylenean was pleasant enough when, knocking at a man’s door that was much given to singing and playing on the harp, and being bid come in, he said, I will, if you will tie up your harp. But the flatterer of Lysimachus was offensive; for being frighted at a wooden scorpion that the king threw into his lap, and leaping out of his seat, he said after he knew the humor, And I’ll fright your majesty too; give me a talent.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.9] In several things about the body too the like caution is to be observed. Thus he that is jested on for a flat or hooked nose usually laughs at the jest. Thus Cassander’s friend was not at all displeased when Theophrastus said to him, ‘Tis strange, sir, that your eyes don’t play, since your nose is so near and so well fitted for a pipe to give them the tune; and Cyrus commanded a long hawk-nosed fellow to marry a flat-nosed girl, for then they would very well agree. But a jest on any for his stinking breath or filthy nose is irksome; for baldness it may be borne, but for blindness or infirmity in the eyes it is intolerable. It is true, Antigonus would joke upon himself, and once, receiving a petition written in great letters, he said, This a man may read if he were stark blind. But he killed Theocritus the Chian for saying, — when one told him that as soon as he appeared before the king’s eyes he would be pardoned, — Sir, then it is impossible for me to be saved. And the Byzantine to Pasiades saying, Sir, your eyes are weak, replied, You upbraid me with this infirmity, not considering that thy son carries the vengeance of Heaven on his back: now Pasiades’s son was hunch-backed. And Archippus the popular Athenian was much displeased with Melanthius for being smart on his crooked back; for Melanthius had said that he did not stand at the head of the state but bowed down before it. It is true, some are not much concerned at such jeers. Thus Antigonus’s friend, when he had begged a talent and was denied, desired a guard, lest somebody should rob him of that talent he was now to carry home. Different tempers make men differently affected, and that which troubles one is not regarded by another. Epaminondas feasting with his fellow-magistrates drank vinegar; and some asking if it was good for his health, he replied, I cannot tell that, but I know it makes me remember what I drink at home. Therefore it becomes every man that would rally, to look into the humors of his company, and take heed to converse without offence.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.10] Love, as in most things else, so in this matter causes different effects; for some lovers are pleased and some displeased at a merry jest. Therefore in this case a fit time must be accurately observed; for as a blast of wind puffs out a fire whilst it is weak and little, but when thoroughly kindled strengthens and increaseth it; so love, before it is evident and confessed, is displeased at a discoverer, but when it breaks forth and blazes in everybody’s eyes, then it is delighted and gathers strength by the frequent blasts of joke and raillery. When their beloved is present it will gratify them most to pass a jest upon their passion, but to fall on any other subject will be counted an abuse. If they are remarkably loving to their own wives, or entertain a generous affection for a hopeful youth, then are they proud, then tickled when jeered for such a love. And therefore Arcesilaus, when an amorous man in his school laid down this proposition, in my opinion one thing cannot touch another, replied, Sir you touch this person, pointing to a lovely boy that sat near him.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.11] Besides, the company must be considered; for what a man will only laugh at when mentioned amongst his friends and familiar acquaintance, he will not endure to be told of before his wife, father, or his tutor, unless perhaps it be something that will please those too; as for instance, if before a philosopher one should jeer a man for going barefoot or studying all night; or before his father, for carefulness and thrift; or in the presence of his wife, for being cold to his companions and doting upon her. Thus Tigranes, when Cyrus asked him, What will your wife say when she hears that you are put to servile offices? replied, Sir, she will not hear it, but be present herself and see it.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.12] Again, those jokes are accounted less affronting which reflect somewhat also on the man that makes them; as when one poor man, base-born fellow, or lover jokes upon another. For whatever comes from one in the same circumstances looks more like a piece of mirth than a designed affront; but otherwise it must needs be irksome and distasteful. Upon this account, when a slave whom the king had lately freed and enriched behaved himself very impertinently in the company of some philosophers, asking them, how it came to pass that the broth of beans whether white or black, was always green, Aridices putting another question, why, let the whips be white or not, the wales and marks they made were still red, displeased him extremely, and made him rise from the table in a great rage and discontent. But Amphias the Tarsian, who was supposed to be sprung from a gardener, joking upon the governor’s friend for his obscure and mean birth, and presently subjoining, But ‘tis true, I sprung from the same seed, caused much mirth and laughter. And the harper very facetiously put a cheek to Philip’s ignorance and impertinence; for when Philip pretended to correct him, he cried out, God forbid, sir, that ever you should be brought so low as to understand these things better than I. For by this seeming joke he instructed him without giving any offence. And therefore some of the comedians seem to lay aside their bitterness in every jest that may reflect upon themselves; as Aristophanes, when he is merry upon a baldpate; and Cratinus in his play “Pytine” upon drunkenness and excess.
[Quaest. conv. 2.1.13] Besides, you must be very careful that the jest should seem to be extempore, taken from some present question or merry humor; not far-fetched, as if premeditate and designed. For as men are not much concerned at the anger and disputes among themselves at table while they are drinking, but if any stranger should come in and offer abuse, they would hate and look upon him as an enemy; so they will easily pardon and indulge a jest if undesignedly taken from any present circumstance; but if it is nothing to the matter in hand but fetched from another thing, it must look like a design and be resented as an affront. Such was that of Timagenes to the husband of a woman that often vomited,— “Thou beginnest thy troubles by bringing home this vomiting woman,” saying [Greek omitted] (this vomiting woman), when the poet had written [Greek omitted] (this Muse); and also his question to Athenodorus the philosopher, — Is affection to our children natural? For when the raillery is not founded on some present circumstance, it is an argument of ill-nature and a mischievous temper; and such as these do often for a mere word, the lightest thing in the world (as Plato says), suffer the heaviest punishment. But those that know how to time and apply a jest confirm Plato’s opinion, that to rally pleasantly and facetiously is the business of a scholar and a wit.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 2.2.1] Why in Autumn Men Have Better Stomachs Than in Other Seasons of the Year.
GLAUCLAS, XENOCLES, LAMPRIAS, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 2.2.1b] In Eleusis, after the solemn celebration of the sacred mysteries, Glaucias the orator entertained us at a feast; where after the rest had done, Xenocles of Delphi, as his humor is, began to be smart upon my brother Lamprias for his good Boeotian stomach. I in his defence opposing Xenocles, who was an Epicurean, said, Pray, sir, do not all place the very substance of pleasure in privation of pain and suffering? But Lamprias, who prefers the Lyceum before the Garden, ought by his practice to confirm Aristotle’s doctrine; for he affirms that every man hath a better stomach in the autumn than in other seasons of the year, and gives the reason, which I cannot remember at present. So much the better (says Glaucias), for when supper is done, we will endeavor to discover it ourselves. That being over, Glaucias and Xenocles drew various reasons from the autumnal fruit. One said that it scoured the body, and by this evacuation continually raised new appetites. Xenocles affirmed, that ripe fruit had usually a pleasing, vellicating sapor, and thereby provoked the appetite better than sauces or sweetmeats; for sick men of a vitiated stomach usually recover it by eating fruit. But Lamprias said, that our natural heat, the principal instrument of nutrition, in the midst of summer is scattered and becomes rare and weak, but when autumn comes it unites again and gathers strength, being shut in by the ambient cold and contraction of the pores, and I for my part said: In summer we are more thirsty and use more moisture than in other seasons; and therefore Nature, observing the same method in all her operations, at this change of seasons employs the contrary and makes us hungry; and to maintain an equal temper in the body, she gives us dry food to countervail the moisture taken in the summer. Yet none can deny but that the food itself is a partial cause; for not only new fruit, bread, or corn, but flesh of the same year, is better tasted than that of the former, more forcibly provokes the guests, and enticeth them to eat on.
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.1] Which Was First the Bird or the Egg?
PLUTARCH, ALXanER, SYLLA, FIRMUS, SOSSIUS SENECI0, AND OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.1b] When upon a dream I had forborne eggs a long time, on purpose that in an egg (as in a heart) I might make experiment of a notable vision that often troubled me; some at Sossius Senecio’s table suspected that I was tainted with Orpheus’s or Pythagoras’s opinions, and refused to eat an egg (as some do the heart and brain) imagining it to be the principle of generation. And Alexander the Epicurean ridiculingly repeated,
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.1c] To feed on beans and parents’ heads Is equal sin;
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.1d] As if the Pythagoreans meant eggs by the word [Greek omitted] (BEANS), deriving it from [Greek omitted](TO CONCEIVE), and thought it as unlawful to feed on eggs as on the animals that lay them. Now to pretend a dream for the cause of my abstaining, to an Epicurean, had been a defence more irrational than the cause itself; and therefore I suffered jocose Alexander to enjoy his opinion, for he was a pleasant man and an excellent scholar.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.2] Soon after he proposed that perplexed question, that plague of the inquisitive, Which was first, the bird or the egg? And my friend Sylla, saying that with this little question, as with an engine, we shook the great and weighty problem (whether the world had a beginning), declared his dislike of such questions. But Alexander deriding the question as slight and impertinent, my relation Firmus said:. Well, sir, at present your atoms will do me some service; for if we suppose that small things must be the principles of greater, it is likely that the egg was before the bird; for an egg amongst sensible things is very simple, and the bird is more mixed, and contains a greater variety of parts. It is universally true that a principle is before that whose principle it is; now the seed is a principle, and the egg is somewhat more than the seed and less than the bird for as a disposition or a progress in goodness is something between a tractable mind and a habit of virtue, so an egg is as it were a progress of Nature tending from the seed to a perfect animal.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.2b] And as in an animal they say the veins and arteries are formed first, upon the same account the egg should be before the bird, as the thing containing before the thing contained. Thus art first makes rude and ill-shapen figures and afterwards perfects everything with its proper form; and it was for this that the statuary Polycletus said, Then our work is most difficult, when the clay comes to be fashioned by the fingers. So it is probable that matter, not readily obeying the slow motions of contriving Nature, at first frames rude and indefinite masses, as the egg, and of these moulded anew, and joined in better order, the animal afterward is formed. As the canker is first, and then growing dry and cleaving lets forth a winged animal, called psyche; so the egg is first as it were the subject-matter of the generation. For it is certain that, in every change, that out of which the thing changes must be before the thing changing.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.2c] Observe how worms and caterpillars are bred in trees from the moisture corrupted or concocted; now none can say but that the engendering moisture is naturally before all these. For (as Plato says) matter is as a mother or nurse in respect of the bodies that are formed, and we call that matter out of which anything that is made. And with a smile continued he, I speak to those that are acquainted with the mystical and sacred discourse of Orpheus, who not only affirms the egg to be before the bird, but makes it the first being in the whole world. The other parts, because deep mysteries, we shall now pass by; but let us look upon the various kinds of animals, and we shall find almost every one beginning from an egg, — fowls and fishes; land animals, as lizards; amphibious, as crocodiles; some with two legs, as a cock; some without any, as a snake; and some with many, as a locust. And therefore in the solemn feast of Bacchus it is very well done to dedicate an egg, as the emblem of that which begets and contains everything in itself.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.3] To this discourse of Firmus, Senecio replied: Sir, your last similitude contradicts your first, and you have unwittingly opened the world (instead of the door, as the proverb goes) against yourself. For the world was before all, being the most perfect; and it is rational that the perfect in Nature should be before the imperfect, as the sound before the maimed, and the whole before the part. For it is absurd that there should be a part when there is nothing whose part it is; and therefore nobody says the seed’s man or egg’s hen, but the man’s seed and hen’s egg; because those being after these and formed in them, pay as it were a debt to Nature, by bringing forth another. For they are not in themselves perfect, and therefore have a natural appetite to produce such a thing as that out of which they were first formed; and therefore seed is defined as a thing produced that is to be perfected by another production.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.3b] Now nothing can be perfected by or want that which as yet is not. Everybody sees that eggs have the nature of a concretion or consistence in some animal or other, but want those organs, veins, and muscles which animals enjoy. And therefore no story delivers that ever any egg was formed immediately from earth; and the poets themselves tell us, that the egg out of which came the Tyndaridae fell down from heaven. But even till this time the earth produceth some perfect and organized animals, as mice in Egypt, and snakes, frogs, and grasshoppers almost everywhere, some external and invigorating principle assisting in the production. And in Sicily, where in the servile war much blood was shed, and many carcasses rotted on the ground, whole swarms of locusts were produced, and spoiled the corn over the whole isle. Such spring from and are nourished by the earth; and seed being formed in them, pleasure and titillation provoke them to mix, upon which some lay eggs, and some bring forth their young alive; and this evidently proves that animals first sprang from earth, and afterwards by copulation, after different ways, propagated their several kinds.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.3c] In short, it is the same thing as if you said the womb was before the woman; for as the womb is to the egg, the egg is to the chick that is formed in it; so that he that inquires how birds should be when there were no eggs, might ask as well how men and women could be before any organs of generation were formed. Parts generally have their subsistence together with the whole; particular powers follow particular members, and operations those Powers, and effects those operations. Now the effect of the generative power is the seed and egg; so that these must be after the formation of the whole. Therefore consider, as there can be no digestion of food before the animal is formed, so there can be no seed nor egg; for those, it is likely, are made by some digestion and alterations; nor can it be that, before the animal is, the superfluous parts of the food of the animal should have a being.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.3d] Besides, though seed may perhaps pretend to be a principle, the egg cannot; for it doth not subsist first, nor hath it the nature of a whole, for it is imperfect. Therefore we do not affirm that the animal is produced without a principle of its being; but we call the principle that power which changes, mixes, and tempers the matter, so that a living creature is regularly produced; but the egg is an after-production, as the blood or milk of an animal after the taking in and digestion of the food. For we never see an egg formed immediately of mud, for it is produced in the bodies of animals alone; but a thousand living creatures rise from the mud. What need of many instances? None ever found the spawn or egg of an eel; yet if you empty a pit and take out all the mud, as soon as other water settles in it, eels likewise are presently produced.
[Quaest. conv. 2.3.3e] Now that must exist first which hath no need of any other thing that it may exist, and that after, which cannot be without the concurrence of another thing. And of this priority is our present discourse. Besides, birds build nests before they lay their eggs; and women provide cradles, swaddling cloths and the like; yet who says that the nest is before the egg, or the swaddling cloths before the infant. For the earth (as Plato says doth not imitate a woman, but a woman, and so likewise all other females, the earth. Moreover, it is probable that the first production out of the earth, which was then vigorous and perfect, was self-sufficient and entire, nor stood in need of those secundines, membranes, and vessels, which now Nature forms to help the weakness and supply the defects of breeders.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 2.4.1] Whether or No Wrestling is the Oldest Exercise.
SOSICLES, LYSIMACHUS, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.
[Quaest. conv. 2.4.1b] Sosicles of Coronea having at the Pythian games won the prize from all the poets, gave us an entertainment. And the time for running, cuffing, wrestling, and the like drawing on, there was a great talk of the wrestlers; for there were many and very famous men, who came to try their skill. Lysimachus, one of the company, a procurator of the Amphictyons, said he heard a grammarian lately affirm that wrestling was the most ancient exercise of all, as even the very name witnessed; for some modern things have the names of more ancient transferred to them; thus to tune a pipe is called fitting it, and playing on it is called striking; both these names being transferred to it from the harp. Thus all places of exercise they call wrestling schools, wrestling being the oldest exercise, and therefore giving its name to the newer sorts. That, said I, is no good argument, for these palaestras or wrestling schools are called so from wrestling [Greek omitted] not because it is the most ancient exercise, but because it is the only sort in which they use clay [Greek omitted] dust, and oil; for in these there is neither racing nor cuffing, but wrestling only, and that feature of the pancratium in which they struggle on the ground, — for the pancratium comprises both wrestling and cuffing. Besides, it is unlikely that wrestling, being more artificial and methodical than any other sort of exercise, should likewise be the most ancient; for mere want or necessity putting us upon new inventions, produces simple and inartificial things first, and such as have more of force in them than sleight and skill. This ended, Sosicles said: You speak right, and I will confirm your discourse from the very name; for, in my opinion, [Greek omitted] wrestling, is derived from [Greek omitted] i.e. to throw down by sleight and artifice. And Philinus said, it seems to me to be derived from [Greek omitted] the palm of the hand, for wrestlers use that part most, as cuffers do the [Greek omitted] fist; and hence both these sorts of exercises have their proper names, the one [Greek omitted] the other [Greek omitted]. Besides, since the poets use the word [Greek omitted] for [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted], to sprinkle, and this action is most frequent amongst wrestlers, this exercise [Greek omitted] may receive its name from that word. But more, consider that racers strive to be distant from one another; cuffers, by the judges of the field, are not permitted to take hold; and none but wrestlers come up breast to breast, and clasp one another round the waist, and most of their turnings, liftings, lockings bring them very close. It is probable that this exercise is called [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted] or [Greek omitted] to come up close or to be near together.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1] Why, in Reckoning Up Different Kinds of Exercises, Homer Puts Cuffing First, Wrestling Next, and Racing Last.
LYSIMACHUS, CRATES, TIMON, PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1b] This discourse being ended, and Philinus hummed, Lysimachus began again, What sort of exercise then shall we imagine to be first? Racing, as at the Olympian games? For here in the Pythian, as every exercise comes on, all the contenders are brought in, the boy wrestlers first, then the men, and the same method is observed when the cuffers and fencers are to exercise; but there the boys perform all first, and then the men. But, says Timon interposing, pray consider whether Homer hath not determined this matter; for in his poems cuffing is always put in the first place, wrestling next, and racing last. At this Menecrates the Thessalian surprised cried out, Good God, what things we skip over! But, pray sir, if you remember any of his verses to that purpose, do us the favor to repeat them. And Timon replied: That the funeral solemnities of Patroclus had this order I think every one hath heard; but the poet, all along observing the same order, brings in Achilles speaking to Nestor thus:
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1c] With this reward I Nestor freely grace, Unfit for cuffing, wrestling, or the race.
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1d] And in his answer he makes the old man impertinently brag: —
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1e] I cuffing conquered Oinop’s famous son, With Anceus wrestled, and the garland won, And outran Iphiclus.(“Iliad,” xxiii. 620 and 634.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1f] And again he brings in Ulysses challenging the Phaeacians
To cuff, to wrestle, or to run the race;
and Alcinous answers:
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1g] Neither in cuffing nor in wrestling strong But swift of foot are we.(“Odyssey” viii. 206 and 246.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.1h] So that he doth not carelessly confound the order, and, according to the present occasion, now place one sort first and now another; but he follows the then custom and practice and is constant in the same. And this was so as long as the ancient order was observed.
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.2] To this discourse of my brother’s I subjoined, that I liked what he said, but could not see the reason of this order. And some of the company, thinking it unlikely that cuffing or wrestling should be a more ancient exercise than racing, they desired me to search farther into the matter; and thus I spake upon the sudden. All these exercises seem to me to be representations of feats of arms and training therein; for after all, a man armed at all points is brought in to show that that is the end at which all these exercises and trainings end. And the privilege granted to the conquerors, viz., as they rode into the city, to throw down some part of the wall — hath this meaning; that walls are but a small advantage to that city which hath men able to fight and overcome. In Sparta those that were victors in any of the crowned games had an honorable place in the army and were to fight near the king’s person. Of all other creatures a horse only can have a part in these games and win the crown, for that alone is designed by nature to be trained to war, and to prove assisting in a battle. If these things seem probable, let us consider farther, that it is the first work of a fighter to strike his enemy and ward the other’s blows; the second, when they come up close and lay hold of one another, to trip and overturn him; and in this, they say, our countrymen being better wrestlers very much distressed the Spartans at the battle of Leuctra. And Aeschylus describes a warrior thus, —
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.2b] One stout, and skilled to wrestle in his arms;
and Sophocles somewhere says of the Trojans, —
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.2c] They rid the horse, they could the bow command And wrestle with a rattling shield in hand.
[Quaest. conv. 2.5.2d] But it is the third and last, either when conquered to fly, when conquerors to pursue. And therefore it is likely that cuffing is set first, wrestling next, and racing last; for the first bears the resemblance of charging or warding the blows; the second, of close fighting and repelling; the third, of flying a victorious, or pursuing a routed enemy.
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 2.6.1] Why Fir-Trees, Pine- Trees, and the Like Will Not Be Grafted Upon.
SOCLARUS, CRATO, PHILO.
[Quaest. conv. 2.6.1b] Soclarus entertaining us in his gardens, round which the river Cephissus runs, showed us several trees strangely varied by the different grafts upon their stocks. We saw an olive upon a juniper, a peach upon a myrtle, pear grafts on an oak, apple upon a plane, a mulberry on a fig and a great many such like, which were grown strong enough to bear. Some joked on Soclarus as nourishing stranger kinds of things than the poets’ Sphinxes or Chimaeras, but Crato set us to inquire why those stocks only that are of an oily nature will not admit such mixtures for we never see a pine, fir, or cypress bear a graft of another kind.
[Quaest. conv. 2.6.2] And Philo subjoined: There is, Crato, a reason for this amongst the philosophers, which the gardeners confirm and strengthen. For they say, oil is very hurtful to all plants, and any plant dipped in it like a bee, will soon die. Now these trees are of a fat and oily nature, insomuch that they weep pitch and rosin; and, if you cut then gore (as it were) appears presently in the wound. Besides, a torch made of them sends forth an oily smoke, and the brightness of the flame shows it to be fat; and upon this account these trees are as great enemies to all other kinds of grafts as oil itself. To this Crato added, that the bark was a partial cause; for that, being rare and dry, could not afford either convenient room or sufficient nourishment to the grafts; but when the bark is moist, it quickly joins with those grafts that are let into the body of the tree.
[Quaest. conv. 2.6.3] Then Soclarus added: This too ought to be considered, that that which receives a graft of another kind ought to be easy to be changed, that the graft may prevail, and make the sap in the stock fit and natural to itself. Thus we break up the ground and soften it, that being thus broken it may more easily be wrought upon, and applied to what we plant in it; for things that are hard and rigid cannot be so quickly wrought upon nor so easily changed. Now those trees, being of very light wood, do not mix well with the grafts, because they are very hard either to be changed or overcome. But more, it is manifest that the stock which receives the graft should be instead of a soil to it, and a soil should have a breeding faculty; and therefore we choose the most fruitful stocks to graft on, as women that are full of milk, when we would put out a child to nurse. But everybody knows that the fir, cypress, and the like are no great bearers. For as men very fat have few children (for, the whole nourishment being employed in the body, there remains no overplus to make seed), so these trees, spending all their sap in their own stock, flourish indeed and grow great; but as for fruit, some bear none at all, some very little, and that too slowly ripens; therefore it is no wonder that they will not nourish another’s fruit, when they are so very sparing to their own.
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 2.7.1] About the Fish Called Remora or Echeneis.
CHAEREMONIANUS, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 2.7.1b] Chaeremonianus the Trallian, when we were at a very noble fish dinner, pointing to a little, long, sharp-headed fish, said the echeneis (ship-stopper) was like that, for he had often seen it as he sailed in the Sicilian sea, and wondered at its strange force; for it stopped the ship when under full sail, till one of the seamen perceived it sticking to the outside of the ship, and took it off. Some laughed at Chaeremonianus for believing such an incredible and unlikely story. Others on this occasion talked very much of antipathies, and produced a thousand instances of such strange effects; for example, the sight of a ram quiets an enraged elephant; a viper lies stock-still, if touched with a beechen leaf; a wild bull grows tame, if bound with the twigs of a fig-tree; and amber draws all light things to it, except basil and such as are dipped in oil; and a loadstone will not draw a piece of iron that is rubbed with onion. Now all these, as to matter of fact, are very evident; but it is hard, if not altogether impossible, to find the cause.
[Quaest. conv. 2.7.2] Then said I: This is a mere shift and avoiding of the question, rather than a declaration of the cause; but if we please to consider, we shall find a great many accidents that are only consequents of the effect to be unjustly esteemed the causes of it; as for instance, if we should fancy that by the blossoming of the chaste-tree the fruit of the vine is ripened; because this is a common saying, —
[Quaest. conv. 2.7.2b] The chaste-tree blossoms, and the grapes grow ripe;
[Quaest. conv. 2.7.2c] Or that the little protuberances in the candle-snuff thicken the air and make it cloudy; or the hookedness of the nails is the cause and not an accident consequential to an ulcer. Therefore as those things mentioned are but consequents to the effect, though proceeding from one and the same cause, so one and the same cause stops the ship, and joins the echeneis to it; for the ship continuing dry, not yet made heavy by the moisture soaking into the wood, it is probable that it lightly glides, and as long as it is clean, easily cuts the waves; but when it is thoroughly soaked, when weeds, ooze, and filth stick upon its sides, the stroke of the ship is more obtuse and weak; and the water, coming upon this clammy matter, doth not so easily part from it; and this is the reason why they usually calk their ships. Now it is likely that the echeneis in this case, sticking upon the clammy matter, is not thought an accidental consequent to this cause, but the very cause itself.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 2.8.1] Why They Say Those Horses Called [Greek Omitted] are Very Mettlesome.
PLUTARCH, HIS FATHER, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 2.8.1b] Some say the horses called [Greek omitted] received that name from the fashion of their bridles (called [Greek omitted]), that had prickles like the teeth on the wolf’s jaw; for being fiery and hard-mouthed, the riders used such to tame them. But my father, who seldom speaks but on good reason, and breeds excellent horses, said, those that were set upon by wolves when colts, if they escaped, grew swift and mettlesome, and were called [Greek omitted] Many agreeing to what he said, it began to be inquired why such an accident as that should make them more mettlesome and fierce; and many of the company thought that, from such an assault, fear and not courage was produced; and that thence growing fearful and apt to start at everything, their motions became more quick and vigorous, as they are in wild beasts when entangled in a net. But, said I, it ought to be considered whether the contrary be not more probable; for the colts do not become more swift by escaping the assault of a wild beast, but they had never escaped unless they had been swift and mettlesome before. As Ulysses was not made wise by escaping from the Cyclops, but by being wise before he escaped.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 2.9.1] Why the Flesh of Sheep Bitten by Wolves is Sweeter Than that of Others, and the Wool More Apt to Breed Lice.
PATROCLIAS, THE SAME.
[Quaest. conv. 2.9.1b] After the former discourse, mention was made of those sheep that wolves have bitten; for it is commonly said of them, that their flesh is very sweet, and their wool breeds lice. My relative Patroclias seemed to be pretty happy in his reasoning upon the first part, saying, that the beast by biting it did mollify the flesh; for wolves’ spirits are so hot and fiery, that they soften and digest the hardest bones and for the same reason things bitten by wolves rot sooner than others. But concerning the wool we could not agree, being not fully resolved whether it breeds those lice, or only opens a passage for them, separating the flesh by its fretting roughness or proper warmth; and appeared that this power proceeded from the bite of wolf, which alters even the very hair of the creature that it kills. And this some particular instances seem to confirm; for we know some huntsmen and cooks will kill a beast with one stroke, so that it never breathes after, whilst others repeat their blows, and scarce do it with a great deal of trouble. But (what is more strange) some, as they kill it, infuse such a quality that the flesh rots presently and cannot be kept sweet above a day; yet others that despatch it as soon find no such alteration, but the flesh will keep sweet a long while. And that by the manner of killing a great alteration is made even in the skins, nails, and hair of a beast, Homer seems to witness, when, speaking of a good hide, he says, —
[Quaest. conv. 2.9.1c] An ox’s hide that fell by violent blows;(“Iliad,” iii. 375.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.9.1d] for not those that fell by a disease or old age, but by a violent death, leave us tough and strong hides; but after they are bitten by wild beasts, their hoofs grow black, their hair falls, their skins putrefy and are good for nothing.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.1] Whether the Ancients, by Providing Every One His Mess, Did Best or We, Who Set Many to the Same Dish.
PLUTARCH, HAGIAS.
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.1b] When I was chief magistrate, most of the suppers consisted of distinct messes, where every particular guest had his portion of the sacrifice allowed him. Some were wonderfully well pleased with this order; others blamed it as unsociable and ungenteel, and were of the opinion that, as soon as I was out of my office, the manner of entertainments ought to be reformed; for, says Hagias, we invite one another not barely to eat and drink, but to eat and drink together. Now this division into messes takes away all society, makes many suppers, and many eaters, but no one sups with another; but every man takes his pound of beef, as from the meat shop, sets it before himself, and falls on. And is it not the same thing to provide a different cup and different table for every guest (as the Demophontidae treated Orestes), as now to set each man his loaf of bread and mess of meat, and feed him, as it were, out of his own proper manger?
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.1c] Only, it is true, we are not (as those that treated Orestes were) obliged to be silent and not discourse. Besides, that all the guests should have a share in everything, we may draw an argument from hence; — the same discourse is common to us all, the same songstress sings, and the same musician plays to all. So, when the same cup is set in the midst, not appropriated to any, it is a large spring of good fellowship, and each man may take as much as his appetite requires; not like this most unjust distribution of bread and meat, which prides itself forsooth in being equal to all, though unequal, stomachs; for the same share to a man of a small appetite is too much; to one of a greater, too little. And, sir, as he that administers the very same dose of physic to all sorts of patients must be very ridiculous; so likewise must that entertainer who, inviting a great many guests that can neither eat nor drink alike, sets before every one an equal mess, and measures what is just and fit by an arithmetical not geometrical proportion.
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.1d] When we go to a shop to buy, we all use, it is true, one and the same public measure; but to an entertainment each man brings his own belly, which is satisfied with a portion, not because it is equal to that which others have, but because it is sufficient for itself. Those entertainments where every one had his single mess Homer mentions amongst soldiers and in the camp, which we ought not to bring into fashion amongst us; but rather imitate the good friendship of the ancients, who, to show what reverence they had for all kinds of societies, not only respected those that lived with them or under the same roof, but also those that drank out of the same cup or ate out of the same dish. Let us never mind Homer’s entertainments; they were good for nothing but to starve a man, and the makers of them were kings more stingy and observant than the Italian cooks; insomuch that in the midst of a battle, whilst they were at handy-blows with their enemies, they could exactly reckon up how many glasses each man drank at his table. But those that Pindar describes are much better, —
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.1e] Where heroes mixed sat round the noble board,
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.1f] because they maintained society and good fellowship; for the latter truly mixed and joined friends, but our modern system divides and asperses them as persons who, though seemingly very good friends, cannot so much as eat with one another out of the same dish.
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.2] To this polite discourse of Hagias they urged me to reply. And I said: Hagias, it is true, hath reason to be troubled at this unusual disappointment, because having so great a belly (for he was an excellent trencherman) he had no larger mess than others; for in a fish eaten together Democritus says, there are no bones. But that very thing is likely to increase our share beyond our own proper allowance. For it is equality, as the old woman in Euripides hath it,
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.2b] That fastens towns to towns, and friends to friends;(Euripides, “Phoenissae,” 536.)
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.2c] and entertainments chiefly stand in need of this. The necessity is from nature as well as custom, and is not lately introduced or founded only on opinion. For when the same dish lies in common before all, the man that is slow and eats little must be offended at the other that is too quick for him, as a slow ship at the swift sailor. Besides, snatching, contention, shoving, and the like, are not, in my mind, neighborly beginnings of mirth and jollity; but they are absurd, doggish, and often end in anger or reproaches, not only against one another, but also against the entertainer himself or the carvers of the feast. But as long as Moera and Lachesis (DIVISION and DISTRIBUTION) maintained equality in feasts, nothing uncivil or disorderly was seen, and they called the feasts [Greek omitted], DISTRIBUTIONS, the entertained [Greek omitted], and the carvers [Greek omitted], DISTRIBUTERS, from dividing and distributing to every man his proper mess.
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.2d] The Lacedaemonians had officers called distributers of the flesh, no mean men, but the chief of the city; for Lysander himself by king Agesilaus was constituted one of these in Asia. But when luxury crept into our feasts, distributing was thrown out; for I suppose they had not leisure to divide these numerous tarts, cheese-cakes, pies, and other delicate varieties; but, surprised with the pleasantness of the taste and tired with the variety, they left off cutting it into portions, and left all in common. And this is confirmed from the present practice; for in our religious or public feasts, where the food is simple and inartificial, each man hath his mess assigned him; so that he that endeavors to retrieve the ancient custom will likewise recover thrift and almost lost frugality again. But, you object, where only property is, community is lost.
[Quaest. conv. 2.10.2e] True indeed, where equality is not; for not the possession of what is proper and our own, but the taking away of another’s and coveting that which is common, is the cause of all injury and contention; and the laws, restraining and confining these within the proper bounds, receive their name from their office, being a power distributing equally to every one in order to the common good. Thus every one is not to be honored by the entertainer with the garland or the chiefest place; but if any one brings with him his sweetheart or a singing girl, they must be common to him and his friends, that all possessions may be brought together, as Anaxagoras would have it. Now if propriety in these things doth not in the least hinder but that things of greater moment, and the only considerable, as discourse and civility, may be still common, let us leave off abasing distributions or the lot, the son of Fortune (as Euripides hath it), which hath no respect either to riches or honor, but in its inconsiderate wheel now and then raiseth up the humble and the poor, and makes him master of himself, and, by accustoming the great and rich to endure and not be offended at equality, pleasingly instructs.

## Book III

[Quaest. conv. 3.0.1] Simonides the Poet, my Sossius Senecio, seeing one of the company sit silent and discourse nobody, said: Sir, if you are fool, it is wisely done; if a wise man, very foolishly. It is good to conceal a man’s folly (but as Heraclitus says) it is very hard to do it over a glass of wine, —
[Quaest. conv. 3.0.1b] Which doth the gravest men to mirth advance, And let them loose to sing, to laugh, and dance, And speak what had been better unsaid.(“Odyssey,” xiv. 464.)
[Quaest. conv. 3.0.1c] In which lines the poet in my mind shows the difference between being a little heated and downright drunk; for to sing, laugh, and dance may agree very well with those that have gone no farther than the merry cup; but to prattle, and speak what had been better left unsaid, argues a man to be quite gone. And therefore Plato thinks that wine is the must ingenious discoverer of men’s humors; and Homer, when he says, —
[Quaest. conv. 3.0.1d] At feasts they had not known each other’s minds,(Ibid. xxi. 35.)
[Quaest. conv. 3.0.1e] evidently shows that he knew wine was powerful to open men’s thoughts, and was full of new discoveries. It is true from the bare eating and drinking, if they say nothing we can give no guess at the tempers of the men; but because drinking leads them into discourse, and discourse lays a great many things open and naked which were secret and hid before, therefore to sport a glass of wine together lets us into one another’s humors. And therefore a man may reasonably fall foul on Aesop: Why sir, would you have a window in every man’s breast, through which we may look in upon his thoughts? Wine opens and exposes all, it will not suffer us to be silent, but takes off all mask and visor, and makes us regardless of the severe precepts of decency and custom. Thus Aesop or Plato, or any other that designs to look into a man, may have his desires satisfied by the assistance of a bottle; but those that are not solicitous to pump one another, but to be sociable and pleasant, discourse of such matters and handle such questions as make no discovery of the bad parts of the soul, but such as comfort the good, and, by the help of neat and polite learning, lead the intelligent part into an agreeable pasture and garden of delight This made me collect and dedicate the first to you this third dedication of table discourses, the first of which is about chaplets made of flowers.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.1] Whether It is Fitting to Wear Chaplets of Flowers at Table.
ERATO, AMMONIUS, TRYPHO, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.1b] At Athens Erato the musician keeping a solemn feast to the Muses, and inviting a great many to the treat, the company was full of talk, and the subject of the discourse garlands. For after supper many of all sorts of flowers being presented to the guests, Ammonius began to jeer me for choosing a rose chaplet before a laurel, saying that those made of flowers were effeminate, and fitted toyish girls and women more than grave philosophers and men of music. And I admire that our friend Erato, that abominates all flourishing in songs, and blames good Agatho, who first in his tragedy of the Mysians ventured to introduce the chromatic airs, should himself fill his entertainment with such various and such florid colors; yet, while he shuts out all the soft delights that through the ears can enter to the soul, he should introduce others through the eyes and through the nose, and make these garlands, instead of signs of piety, to be instruments of pleasure. For it must be confessed that this ointment gives a better smell than those trifling flowers, which wither even in the hands of those that wreathe them. Besides, all pleasure must be banished the company of philosophers, unless it is of some use or desired by natural appetite; for as those that are carried to a banquet by some of their invited friends (as, for instance, Socrates carried Aristodemus to Agatho’s table) are as civilly entertained as the bidden guests, but he that goes on his own account is shut out of doors; thus the pleasures of eating and drinking, being invited by natural appetite, should have admission; but all the others which come on no account and have only luxury to introduce them, ought in reason to be denied.
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.2] At this some young men, not thoroughly acquainted with Ammonius’s humor, being abashed, privately tore their chaplets; but I, perceiving that Ammonius proposed this only for discourse and disputation’s sake, applying myself to Trypho the physician, said: Sir, you must put off that sparkling rosy chaplet as well as we, or declare, as I have often heard you, what excellent preservatives these flowery garlands are against the strength of liquor. But here Erato putting in said: What, is it decreed that no pleasure must be admitted without profit? And must we be angry with our delight, unless hired to endure it? Perhaps we may have reason to be ashamed of ointments and purple vests, because so costly and expensive, and to look upon them as (in the barbarian’s phrase) treacherous garments and deceitful odors; but these natural smells and colors are pure and simple as fruits themselves, and without expense or the curiosity of art. And I appeal to any one, whether it is not absurd to receive the pleasant savors Nature gives us, and enjoy and reject those smells and colors that the seasons afford us, because forsooth they blossom with delight, if they have no other external profit or advantage. Besides, we have an axiom against you, for if (as you affirm) Nature makes nothing in vain, those things that have no other use were designed on purpose to please and to delight. Besides, observe that to thriving trees Nature hath given leaves, both for the preservation of the fruit and of the stock itself; for those sometimes warming, sometimes cooling it, the seasons creep on by degrees, and do not assault it with all their violence at once. But now the flower, whilst it is on the plant, is of no profit at all, unless we use it to delight our nose with the admirable smell, and to please our eyes when it opens that inimitable variety of colors. And therefore, when the leaves are plucked off, the plants as it were suffer injury and grief. There is a kind of an ulcer raised, and an unbecoming nakedness attends them; and we must not only (as Empedocles says)
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.2b] By all means spare the leaves that grace the palm,
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.2c] but likewise of all other trees, and not injuriously against Nature robbing them of their leaves, bring deformity on them to adorn ourselves. But to pluck the flowers doth no injury at all. It is like gathering of grapes at the time of vintage; unless plucked when ripe, they wither of themselves and fall. And therefore, like the barbarians who clothe themselves with the skins more commonly than with the wool of sheep, those that wreathe leaves rather than flowers into garlands seem to me to use the plants neither according to the dictates of reason nor the design of Nature. And thus much I say in defence of those who sell chaplets of flowers; for I am not grammarian enough to remember those poems which tell us that the old conquerors in the sacred games were crowned with flowers. Yet, now I think of it, there is a story of a rosy crown that belongs to the Muses; Sappho mentions it in a copy of verses to a woman unlearned and unacquainted with the Muses: —
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.2d] Thou shalt unregarded lie Cause ne’er acquainted with the Muses’ Rose.(From Sappho, Frag. 68.)
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.2e] But if Trypho can produce anything to our advantage from physic, pray let us have it.
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.3] Then Trypho taking the discourse said: The ancients were very curious and well acquainted with all these things, because plants were the chief ingredients of their physic. And of this some signs remain till now; for the Tyrians offer to Agenor, and the Magnesians to Chiron, the first supposed practitioners of physic, as the first fruits, the roots of those plants which have been successful on a patient. And Bacchus was not only counted a physician for finding wine, the most pleasing and most potent remedy, but for bringing ivy, the greatest opposite imaginable to wine, into reputation, and for teaching his drunken followers to wear garlands of it, that by that means they might be secured against the violence of a debauch, the heat of the liquor being remitted by the coldness of the ivy. Besides, the names of several plants sufficiently evidence the ancients curiosity in this matter; for they named the walnut-tree [Greek omitted], because it sends forth a heavy and [Greek omitted] drowsy spirit, which affects their heads who sleep beneath it; and the daffodil, [Greek omitted], because it benumbs the nerves and causes a stupid narcotic heaviness in the limbs, and therefore Sophocles calls it the ancient garland flower of the great (that is, the earthy) gods.
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.3b] And some say rue was called [Greek omitted] from its astringent quality; for, by its dryness preceding from its heat, it fixes [Greek omitted] or dries the seed, and is very hurtful to great-bellied women. But those that imagine the herb amethyst [Greek omitted], and the precious stone of the same name, are called so because powerful against the force of wine are much mistaken; for both receive there names from their color; for its leaf is not of the color of strong wine, but resembles that of weak diluted liquor. And indeed I could mention a great many which have their names from their proper virtues. But the care and the experience of the ancients sufficiently appears in those of which they made their garlands when they designed to be merry and frolic over a glass of wine; for wine, especially when it seizes on the head, and weakens the body just at the very spring and origin of the sense, disturbs the whole man.
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.3c] Now the effluvia of flowers are an admirable preservative against this, they secure the brain, as it were a citadel, against the effects of drunkenness; for those that are hot upon the pores and give the fumes free passage to exhale, and those moderately cold repel and keep down the ascending vapors. Such are the violet and rose; for the odors of both these are prevalent against any ache and heaviness in the head. The flowers of the privet and crocus bring those that have drunk freely into a gentle sleep; for they send forth a smooth and gentle effluvia, which softly takes off all asperities that arise in the body of the drunken; and so all things being quiet and composed, the violence on the noxious humor is abated and thrown off. The smells of some flowers being received into the brain cleanse the organs and instruments of sense, and gently by their heat, without any violence or force, dissolve the humors, and warm and cherish the brain itself, which is naturally cold. And upon this account, they call those little posies they hang about their necks [Greek omitted], and anointed their breasts with the oils that were squeezed from them; and of this Alcaeus is a witness, when he bids his friends,
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.3d] Pour ointments o’er his laboring temples, pressed With various cares, and o’er his aged breast.
[Quaest. conv. 3.1.3e] For the warm odors shoot upward into the very brain, being drawn up by the nostrils. For they did not call those garlands hung about the neck [Greek omitted] because they thought the heart was the seat and citadel of the mind [Greek omitted], for on that account they should rather have called them [Greek omitted], but, as I said before, from their vapor and exhalation. Besides, it is no strange thing that these smells of garlands should be of so considerable a virtue; for some tell us that the shadow of the yew, especially when it blossoms, kills those that sleep under it; and a subtle spirit ariseth from pressed poppy, which suddenly overcomes the unwary squeezers. And there is an herb called alyssus, which to some that take it in their hands, to others that do but look on it, is found a present remedy against the hiccough; and some affirm that planted near the stalls it preserves sheep and goats from the rot and mange. And the rose is called [Greek omitted], probably because it sends forth a stream [Greek omitted] of odors; and for that reason it withers presently. It is a cooler, yet fiery to look upon; and no wonder, for upon the surface a subtile heat, being driven out by the inward heat, looks vivid and appears.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 3.2.1] Whether Ivy is of a Hot or Cold Nature.
AMMONIUS, TRYPHO, ERATO.
[Quaest. conv. 3.2.1b] Upon this discourse, when we all hummed Trypho, Ammonius with a smile said: It is not decent by any contradiction to pull in pieces, like a chaplet, this various and florid discourse of Trypho’s. Yet methinks the ivy is a little oddly interwoven, and unjustly said by its cold powers to temper the heat of strong wine; for it is rather fiery and hot, and its berries steeped in wine make the liquor more apt to inebriate and inflame. And from this cause, as in sticks warped by the fire, proceeds the crookedness of the boughs. And snow, that for many days will lie on other trees, presently melts from the branches of the ivy, and wastes all around, as far as the warmth reaches. But the greatest evidence is this. Theophrastus tells us, that when Alexander commanded Harpalus to plant some Grecian trees in the Babylonian gardens, and — because the climate is very hot and the sun violent — such as were leafy, thick, and fit to make a shade, the ivy only would not grow; though all art and diligence possible were used, it withered and died. For being hot itself, it could not agree with the fiery nature of the soil; for excess in similar qualities is destructive, and therefore we see everything as it were affects its contrary; a cold plant flourishes in a hot ground, and a hot plant is delighted with a cold. Upon which account it is that bleak mountains, exposed to cold winds and snow, bear firs, pines, and the like, full of pitch, fiery, and excellent to make a torch. But besides, Trypho, trees of a cold nature, their little feeble heat not being able to diffuse itself but retiring to the heart, shed their leaves; but their natural oiliness and warmth preserve the laurel, olive, and cypress always green; and the like too in the ivy may be observed. And therefore it is not likely our dear friend Bacchus, who called wine [Greek omitted] intoxicating and himself [Greek omitted], should bring ivy into reputation for being a preservative against drunkenness and an enemy to wine. But in my opinion, as lovers of wine, when they have not any juice of the grape ready, drink ale, mead, cider, or the like; thus he that in winter would have a vine-garland on his head, and finding the vine naked and without leaves, used the ivy that is like it; for its boughs are twisted and irregular, its leaves moist and disorderly confused, but chiefly the berries, like ripening clusters, make an exact representation of the vine. But grant the ivy to be a preservative against drunkenness, — that to please you, Trypho, we may name Bachus a physician, — still I affirm that power to proceed from its heat, which either opens the pores or helps to digest the wine.
[Quaest. conv. 3.2.2] Upon this Trypho sat silent, studying for an answer. Erato addressing himself to us youths, said: Trypho wants your assistance; help him in this dispute about the garlands, or be content to sit without any. Ammonius too bade us not be afraid, for he would not reply to any of our discourses; and Trypho likewise urging me to propose something, I said: To demonstrate that the ivy is cold is not so proper a task for me as Trypho, for he often useth coolers and binders; but that proposition, that wine in which ivy berries have been is more inebriating, is not true; for that disturbance which it raiseth in those that drink it is not so properly called drunkenness as alienation of mind or madness, such as hyoscyamus and a thousand other things that set men beside themselves usually produce. The crookedness of the bough is no argument at all, for such violent and unnatural effects cannot be supposed to proceed from any natural quality or power.
[Quaest. conv. 3.2.2b] Now sticks are bent by the fire, because that draws the moisture, and so the crookedness is a violent distortion; but the natural heat nourishes and preserves the body. Consider, therefore, whether it is not the weakness and coldness of the body that makes it wind, bend, and creep upon the ground; for those qualities check its rise, and depress it in its ascent, and render it like a weak traveller, that often sits down and then goes on again. And therefore the ivy requires something to twine about, and needs a prop; for it is not able to sustain and direct its own branches, because it wants heat, which naturally tends upward. The snow is melted by the wetness of the leaf, for water destroys it easily, passing through the thin contexture, it being nothing but a congeries of small bubbles; and therefore in very cold but moist places the snow melts as soon as in hot.
[Quaest. conv. 3.2.2c] That it is continually green doth not proceed from its heat, for to shed its leaves doth not argue the coldness of a tree. Thus the myrtle and well fern, though not hot, but confessedly cold, are green all the year. Some imagine this comes from the equal and duly proportioned mixture of the qualities in the leaf, to which Empedocles hath added a certain aptness of pores, through which the nourishing juice is orderly transmitted, so that there is still supply sufficient. But now it is otherwise in trees whose leaves fall, by reason of the wideness of their higher and narrowness of their lower pores; for the latter do not send juice enough, nor do the former keep it, but as soon as a small stock is received pour it out. This may be illustrated from the usual watering of our gardens; for when the distribution is unequal, the plants that are always watered have nourishment enough, seldom wither, and look always green.
[Quaest. conv. 3.2.2d] But you further argue, that being planted in Babylon it would not grow. It was well done of the plant, methinks, being a particular friend and familiar of the Boeotian god, to scorn to live amongst the barbarians, or imitate Alexander in following the manners of those nations; but it was not its heat but cold that was the cause of this aversion, for that could not agree with the contrary quality. For one similar quality doth not destroy but cherish another. Thus dry ground bears thyme, though it is naturally hot. Now at Babylon they say the air is so suffocating, so intolerably hot, that many of the more prosperous sleep upon skins full of water, that they may lie cool.
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 3.3.1] Why Women are Hardly, Old Men Easily, Foxed.
FLORUS, SYLLA.
[Quaest. conv. 3.3.1b] Florus thought it strange that Aristotle in his discourse of Drunkenness, affirming that old men are easily, women hardly, overtaken, did not assign the cause, since he seldom failed on such occasions. Therefore he proposed it to us (we were a great many acquaintance met at supper) as a fit subject for our inquiry. Sylla began: One part will conduce to the discovery of the other; and if we rightly hit the cause in relation to the women, the difficulty, as it concerns the old men, will be easily despatched; for their two natures are quite contrary. Moistness, smoothness, and softness belong to the one; and dryness, roughness, and hardness are the accidents of the other. As for women, I think the principal cause is the moistness of their temper; this produceth a softness in the flesh, a shining smoothness, and their usual purgations. Now when wine is mixed with a great deal of weak liquor, it is overpowered by that, loses its strength, and becomes flat and waterish.
[Quaest. conv. 3.3.1c] Some reason likewise may be drawn from Aristotle himself; for he affirms that those that drink fast, and take a large draught without drawing breath, are seldom overtaken, because the wine doth not stay long in their bodies, but having acquired an impetus by this greedy drinking, suddenly runs through; and women are generally observed to drink after that manner. Besides, it is probable that their bodies, by reason of the continual deduction of the moisture in order to their usual purgations, are very porous, and divided as it were into many little pipes and conduits; into which when the wine falls, it is quickly conveyed away, and doth not lie and fret the principal parts, from whose disturbance drunkenness proceeds. But that old men want the natural moisture, even the name [Greek omitted], in my opinion, intimates; for that name was given them not as stooping to the earth [Greek omitted] but as being in the habit of their body [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted], earthlike and earthy.
[Quaest. conv. 3.3.1d] Besides, the stiffness and roughness prove the dryness of their nature. Therefore it is probable that, when they drink, their body, being grown spongy by the dryness of its nature, soaks up the wine, and that lying in the vessels it affects the senses and prevents the natural motions. For as floods of water glide over the close grounds, nor make them slabby, but quickly sink into the open and chapped fields; thus wine, being sucked in by the dry parts, lies and works in the bodies of old men. But besides, it is easy to observe, that age of itself hath all the symptoms of drunkenness. These symptoms everybody knows; viz., shaking of the joints, faltering of the tongue, babbling, passion, forgetfulness, and distraction of the mind; many of which being incident to old men, even whilst they are well and in perfect health, are heightened by any little irregularity and accidental debauch. So that drunkenness doth not beget in old men any new and proper symptoms, but only intend and increase the common ones. And an evident sign of this is, that nothing is so like an old man as a young man drunk.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 3.4.1] Whether the Temper of Women is Colder or Hotter Than that of Men.
APOLLONIDES, ATHRYILATUS.
[Quaest. conv. 3.4.1b] Thus Sylla said, and Apollonides the marshal subjoined: Sir, what you discoursed of old men I willingly admit; but in my opinion you have omitted a considerable reason in relation to the women, viz., the coldness of their temper, which quencheth the heat of the strongest wine, and makes it lose all its destructive force and fire. This reflection seeming reasonable, Athryilatus the Thasian, a physician, kept us from a hasty conclusion in this matter, by saying that some supposed the female sex was not cold, but hotter than the male; and others thought wine rather cold than hot.
[Quaest. conv. 3.4.2] When Florus seemed surprised at this discourse, Athryilatus continued: Sir, what I mention about wine I shall leave to this man to make out (pointing to me, for a few days before we had handled the same matter). But that women are of a hot constitution, some suppose, may be proved, first, from their smoothness, for their heat wastes all the superfluous nourishment which breeds hair; secondly from their abundance of blood, which seems to be the fountain and source of all the heat that is in the body; — now this abounds so much in females, that they would be all on fire, unless relieved by frequent and sudden evacuations. Thirdly, from a usual practice of the sextons in burning the bodies of the dead, it is evident that females are hotter than males; for the bedsmen are wont to put one female body with ten males upon the same pile, for that contains some inflammable and oily parts, and serves for fuel to the rest. Besides, if that that is soonest fit for generation is hottest, and a maid begins to be furious sooner than a boy, this is a strong proof of the hotness of the female sex. But a more convincing proof follows: women endure cold better than men, they are not so sensible of the sharpness of the weather, and are contented with a few clothes.
[Quaest. conv. 3.4.3] And Florus replied: Methinks, sir, from the same topics I could draw conclusions against your assertion. For, first, they endure cold better, because one similar quality doth not so readily act upon another; and then again, their seed is not active in generation, but passive matter and nourishment to that which the male injects. But more, women grow effete sooner than men; that they burn better than the males proceeds from their fat, which is the coldest part of the body; and young men, or such as use exercise, have but little fat. Their monthly purgations do not prove the abundance, but the corruption and badness, of their blood; for being the superfluous and undigested part, and having no convenient vessel in the body it flows out, and appears languid and feculent, by reason of the weakness of its heat. And the shivering that seizes them at the time of their purgations sufficiently proves that which flows from them is cold and undigested. And who will believe their smoothness to be an effect of heat rather than cold, when everybody knows that the hottest parts of a body are the most hairy? For all such excrements are thrust out by the heat, which opens and makes passages through the skin; but smoothness is a consequent of that closeness of the superficies which proceeds from condensing cold. And that the flesh of women is closer than that of men, you may be informed by those that lie with women that have anointed themselves with oil or other perfumes; for though they do not touch the women, yet they find themselves perfumed, their bodies by reason of their heat and rarity drawing the odor to them. But I think we have disputed plausibly and sufficiently of this matter. . . .
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 3.5.1] Whether Wine is Potentially Cold.
ATHRYILATUS, PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 3.5.1b] But now I would fain know upon what account you can imagine that wine is cold. Then, said I, do you believe this to be my opinion? Yes, said he, whose else? And I replied: I remember a good while ago I met with a discourse of Aristotle’s upon this very question. And Epicurus, in his Banquet, hath a long discourse, the sum of which is that wine of itself is not hot, but that it contains some atoms that cause heat, and others that cause cold; now, when it is taken into the body, it loses one sort of particles and takes the other out of the body itself, as it agrees with one’s nature and constitution; so that some when they are drunk are very hot, and others very cold.
[Quaest. conv. 3.5.2] This way of talking, said Florus, leads us by Protagoras directly to Pyrrho; for it is evident that, suppose we were to discourse of oil, milk, honey, or the like, we shall avoid all inquiry into their particular natures by saying that things are so and so by their mutual mixture with one another. But how do you prove that wine is cold? And I, being forced to speak extempore, replied: By two arguments. The first I draw from the practice of physicians, for when their patients’ stomachs grow very weak, they prescribe no hot things, and yet give them wine as an excellent remedy. Besides, they stop looseness and immoderate sweating by wine; and this shows that they think it more binding and constipating than snow itself. Now if it were potentially hot, I should think it as wise a thing to apply fire to snow as wine to the stomach.
[Quaest. conv. 3.5.2b] Again, most teach that sleep proceeds from the coolness of the parts; and most of the narcotic medicines, as mandrake and opium, are coolers. Those indeed work violently, and forcibly condense, but wine cools by degrees; it gently stops the motion, according as it hath more or less of such narcotic qualities. Besides, heat has a generative power; for owing to heat the fluid flows easily and the vital spirit gets vigor and a stimulating force. Now the great drinkers are very dull, inactive fellows, no women’s men at all; they eject nothing strong, vigorous, and fit for generation, but are weak and unperforming, by reason of the bad digestion and coldness of their seed. And it is farther observable that the effects of cold and drunkenness upon men’s bodies are the same, — trembling, heaviness, paleness, shivering, faltering of tongue, numbness, and cramps. In many, a debauch ends in a dead palsy, when the wine stupefies and extinguisheth all the heat. And the physicians use this method in curing the qualms and diseases gotten by debauch; at night they cover them well and keep them warm; and at day they annoint and bathe, and give them such food as shall not disturb, but by degrees recover the heat which the wine hath scattered and driven out of the body. Thus, I added, in these appearances we trace obscure qualities and powers; but as for drunkenness, it is easily known what it is. For, in my opinion, as I hinted before, those that are drunk are very much like old men; and therefore great drinkers grow old soonest, and they are commonly bald and gray before their time; and all these accidents certainly proceed from want of heat. But mere vinegar is of a vinous nature, and nothing quenches fire so soon as that; its extreme coldness overcomes and kills the flame presently. And of all fruits physicians use the vinous as the greatest coolers, as pomegranates and apples. Besides, do they not make wine by mixing honey with rain-water or snow; for the cold, because those two qualities are near akin, if it prevails, changes the luscious into a poignant taste? And did not the ancients of all the creeping beasts consecrate the snake to Bacchus, and of all the plants the ivy, because they were of a cold and frozen nature? Now, lest any one should think this is a proof of its heat, that if a man takes juice of hemlock, a large dose of wine cures him, I shall, on the contrary affirm that wine and hemlock juice mixed is an incurable poison, and kills him that drinks it presently. So that we can no more conclude it to be hot because it resists, than to be cold because it assists, the poison. For cold is the only quality by which hemlock juice works and kills.
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.1] Which is the Fittest Time for a Man to Know His Wife?
YOUTHS, ZOPYRUS, OLYMPICHUS, SOCLARUS.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.1b] Some young students, that had not gone far in the learning of the ancients, inveighed against Epicurus for bringing in, in his Svmposium, an impertinent and unseemly discourse, about what time was best to lie with a woman; for an old man at supper in the company of youths to talk of such a subject, and dispute whether after or before supper was the most convenient time, argued him to be a very loose and debauched man. To this some said that Xenophon, after his entertainment was ended, sent all his guests home on horseback, to lie with their wives. But Zopyrus the physician, a man very well read in Epicurus, said, that they had not duly weighed that piece; for he did not propose that question first, and then discuss that matter on purpose; but after supper he desired the young men to take a walk, and he then discoursed on it, that he might persuade them to continence, and to abate their desires and restrain their appetites; showing them that it was very dangerous at all times, but especially after they had been eating or making merry. But suppose he had proposed this as the chief topic for discourse, doth it never become a philosopher to inquire which is the convenient and proper time? Ought we not to time it well, and direct our embrace by reason? Or may such discourse be otherwise allowed, and must they be thought unseemly problems to be proposed at table? Indeed I am of another mind. It is true, I should blame a philosopher that in the middle of the day, in the schools, before all sorts of men, should discourse of such a subject; but over a glass of wine between friends and acquaintance, when it is necessary to propose something beside dull, serious discourse, why should it be a fault to hear or speak anything that may inform our judgments or direct our practice in such matters? And I protest I had rather that Zeno had inserted his loose topics in some merry discourses and agreeable table-talk, than in such a grave, serious piece as his politics.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.2] The youth, startled at this free declaration, sat silent; and the rest of the company desired Zopyrus to deliver Epicurus’s sentiment. He said: The particulars I cannot remember; but I believe he feared the violent agitations of such exercises, because the bodies employed in them are so violently disturbed. For it is certain that wine is a very great disturber, and puts the body out of its usual temper; and therefore, when thus disquieted, if quiet and sleep do not compose it but other agitations seize it, it is likely that those parts which knit and join the members may be loosened, and the whole frame be as it were unsettled from its foundation and overthrown. For then likewise the seed cannot freely pass, but is confusedly and forcibly thrown out, because the liquor hath filled the vessels of the body, and stopped its way. Therefore, says Epicurus, we must use those sports when the body is at quiet, when the meat hath been thoroughly digested, carried about and applied to several parts of the body, so that we begin to want a fresh supply of food. To this of Epicurus we might join an argument taken from physic. At day-time, while our digestion is performing, we are not so lusty nor eager to embrace; and presently after supper to endeavor it is dangerous, for the crudity of the stomach, the food being yet undigested, may be disorderly motion upon this crudity, and so the mischief be double. Olympicus, continuing the discourse, said: I very much like what Clinias the Pythagorean delivers. For the story goes that, being asked when a man should lie with a woman, he replied, when he hath a mind to receive the greatest mischief that he can. For Zopyrus’s discourse seems rational, and other times as well as those he mentions have their peculiar inconveniences. And therefore, — as Thales the philosopher, to free himself from the pressing solicitations of his mother who advised him to marry, said at first, ‘tis not yet time; and when, now he was growing old, she repeated her admonition, replied, nor is it now time, — so it is best for every man to have the same mind in relation to those sports of Venus; when he goes to bed, let him say, ‘tis not yet time; and when he rises, ‘tis not now time.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4] What you say, Olympicus, said Soclarus interposing, befits wrestlers indeed; it smells, methinks, of their meals of flesh and casks of wine, but is not suitable to the resent company, for there are some young married men here,
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4b] Whose duty ‘tis to follow Venus’ sports.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4c] Nay, we ourselves seem to have some relation to Venus still, when in our hymns to the gods we pray thus to her,
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4d] Fair Venus, keep off feeble age.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4e] But waiving this, let us inquire (if you think fit) whether Epicurus does well, when contrary to all right and equity he separates Venus and the Night, though Menander, a man well skilled in love matters, says that she likes her company better than that of any of the gods. For, in my opinion, night is a very convenient veil, spread over those that give themselves to that kind of pleasure; for it is not fit that day should be the time, lest modesty should be banished from our eyes, effeminacy grow bold, and such vigorous impressions on our memories be left, as might still possess us with the same fancies and raise new inclinations. For the sight (according to Plato) receives a more vigorous impression than any other bodily organ, and joining with the imagination, that lies near it, works presently upon the soul, and ever causes fresh desires by those images of pleasure which it brings. But the night, hiding many and the most furious of the actions, quiets and lulls nature, and doth not suffer it to be carried to intemperance by the eye. But besides this, how absurd is it, that a man returning from an entertainment merry perhaps and jocund, crowned and perfumed, should cover himself up, turn his back to his wife, and go to sleep; and then at day-time, in the midst of his business, send for her out of her apartment to serve his pleasure or in the morning, as a cock treads his hens. No, sir the evening is the end of our labor, and the morning the beginning. Bacchus the Loosener and Terpsichore and Thalia preside over the former; and the latter raiseth us up betimes to attend on Minerva the Work-mistress, and Mercury the merchandiser. And therefore songs, dances, and epithalamiums, merry-meetings, with balls and feasts, and sounds of pipes and flutes, are the entertainment of the one; but in the other, nothing but the noise of hammers and anvils, the scratching of saws, the city cries, citations to court or to attend this or that prince and magistrate are heard.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4f] Then all the sports of pleasure disappear, Then Venus, then gay youth removes: No Thyrsus then which Bacchus loves; But all is clouded and o’erspread with care.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4g] Besides, Homer makes not one of the heroes lie with his wife or mistress in the day-time, but only Paris, who, having shamefully fled from the battle, sneaked into the embraces of his wife; intimating that such lasciviousness by day did not befit the sober temper of a man, but the mad lust of an adulterer. But, moreover, the body will not (as Epicurus fancies) be injured more after supper than at any other time, unless a man be drunk or overcharged, — for in those cases, no doubt, it is very dangerous and hurtful. But if a man is only raised and cheered, not overpowered by liquor, if his body is pliable, his mind agreeing, and then he sports, he need not fear any disturbance from the load he has within him; he need not fear catching cold, or too great a transportation of atoms, which Epicurus makes the cause of all the ensuing harm. For if he lies quiet he will quickly fill again, and new spirits will supply the vessels that are emptied.
[Quaest. conv. 3.6.4h] But this is to be especially taken care of, that, the body being then in a ferment and disturbed, no cares of the soul, no business about necessary affairs, no labor, should distract and seize it, lest they should corrupt and sour its humors, Nature not having had time enough for settling what has been disturbed. For, sir, all men have not the command of that happy ease and tranquillity which Epicurus’s philosophy procured him; for many great incumbrances seize almost upon every one every day, or at least some disquiets; and it is not safe to trust the body with any of these, when it is in such a condition and disturbance, presently after the fury and heat of the embrace is over. Let, according to his opinion, the happy and immortal deity sit at ease and never mind us; but if we regard the laws of our country, we must not dare to enter into the temple and offer sacrifice, if but a little before we have done any such thing. It is fit therefore to let night and sleep intervene, and after there is a sufficient space of time past between, to rise as it were pure and new, and (as Democritus was wont to say) “with new thoughts upon the new day.”
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 3.7.1] Why New Wine Doth Not Inebriate As Soon As Other.
Plutarch, his father, Hagias, Aristaenetus, and OTHER YOUTH.
[Quaest. conv. 3.7.1b] At Athens on the eleventh day of February (thence called [Greek omitted] THE BARREL-OPENING), they began to taste their new wine; and in old times (as it appears), before they drank, they offered some to the gods, and prayed that that cordial liquor might prove good and wholesome. By us Thebans the month is named [Greek omitted], and it is our custom upon the sixth day to sacrifice to our good Genius and then taste our new wine, after the zephyr has done blowing; for that wind makes wine ferment more than any other, and the liquor that can bear this fermentation is of a strong body and will keep well. My father offered the usual sacrifice, and when after supper the young men, my fellow-students, commended the wine, he started this question: Why does not new wine inebriate as soon as other? This seemed a paradox and incredible to most of us; but Hagias said, that luscious things were cloying and would presently satiate, and therefore few could drink enough to make them drunk; for when once the thirst is allayed, the appetite would be quickly palled by that unpleasant liquor; for that a luscious is different from a sweet taste, even the poet intimates, when he says,
[Quaest. conv. 3.7.1c] With luscious wine, and with sweet milk and cheese.(“Odyssey, xx. 69.)
[Quaest. conv. 3.7.1d] Wine at first is sweet; afterward, as it grows old, it ferments and begins to be pricked a little; then it gets a sweet taste.
[Quaest. conv. 3.7.2] Aristaenetus the Nicaean said, that he remembered he had read somewhere that sweet things mixed with wine make it less heady, and that some physicians prescribe to one that hath drunk freely, before he goes to bed, a crust of bread dipped in honey. And therefore, if sweet mixtures weaken strong wine, it is reasonable that wine should not be heady till it hath lost its sweetness.
[Quaest. conv. 3.7.3] We admired the acuteness of the young philosophers, and were well pleased to see them propose something out of the common road and give us their own sentiments on this matter. Now the common and obvious reason is the heaviness of new wine, — which (as Aristotle says) violently presseth the stomach, — or the abundance of airy and watery parts that lie in it; the former of which, as soon as they are pressed, fly out; and the watery parts are naturally fit to weaken the spirituous liquor. Now, when it grows old, the juice is improved, and though by the separation of the watery parts it loses in quantity, it gets in strength.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 3.8.1] Why Do Those that are Stark Drunk Seem Not So Much Debauched As Those that are But Half Foxed?
PLUTARCH, HIS FATHER.
[Quaest. conv. 3.8.1b] Well then, said my father, since we have fallen upon Aristotle, I will endeavor to propose something of my own concerning those that are half drunk; for, in my mind, though he was a very acute man, he is not accurate enough in such matters. They usually say, I think, that a sober man’s understanding apprehends things right and judges well; the sense of one quite drunk is weak and enfeebled; but of him that is half drunk the fancy is vigorous and the understanding weakened, and therefore, following their own fancies, they judge, but judge ill. But pray, sirs, what is your opinion in these matters?
[Quaest. conv. 3.8.2] This reason, I replied, would satisfy me upon a private disquisition; but if you will have my own sentiments, let us first consider, whether this difference doth not proceed from the different temper of the body. For of those that are only half drunk, the mind alone is disturbed, but the body not being quite overwhelmed is yet able to obey its motions; but when it is too much oppressed and the wine has overpowered it, it betrays and frustrates the motions of the mind, for men in such a condition never go so far as action. But those that are half drunk, having a body serviceable to the absurd motions of the mind, are rather to be thought to have greater ability to comply with those they have, than to have worse inclinations than the others. Now if, proceeding on another principle, we consider the strength of the wine itself, nothing hinders but that this may be different and changeable, according to the quantity that is drunk. As fire, when moderate, hardens a piece of clay, but if very strong, makes it brittle and crumble into pieces; and the heat of the spring fires our blood with fevers but as the summer comes on, the disease usually abates; what hinders then but that the mind, being naturally raised by the power of the wine, when it is come to a pitch, should by pouring on more be weakened again and its force abated? Thus hellebore, before it purges, disturbs the body; but if too small a dose be given, disturbs only and purges not at all; and some taking too little of an opiate are more restless than before; and some taking too much sleep well. Besides, it is probable that this disturbance into which those that are half drunk are put, when it comes to a pitch, leads to that decay. For a great quantity being taken inflames the body and consumes the frenzy of the mind; as a mournful song and melancholy music at a funeral raises grief at first and forces tears, but as it continues, by little and little it takes away all dismal apprehensions and consumes our sorrows. Thus wine, after it hath heated and disturbed, calms the mind again and quiets the frenzy; and when men are dead drunk, their passions are at rest.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 3.9.1] What is the Meaning of the Saying: Drink Either Five or Three, But Not Four?
ARISTO, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH’S FATHER.
[Quaest. conv. 3.9.2] When I had said these things Aristo, as his habit was, cried out: A return has been decreed in banquets to a very popular and just standard, which, because it was driven away by unseasonable temperance as if by the act of a tyrant, has long remained in exile. For just as those trained in the canons of the lyre declare the sesquialter proportion produces the symphony diapente, the double proportion the diapason, the sesquiterte the diatessaron, the slowest of all, so the specialists in Bacchic harmonies have detected three accords between wine and water — Diapente, Diatrion, Diatessaron. For so they speak and sing, “drink five or three, but not four.” For five have the sesquialter proportion, three cups of water being mixed in two of wine; three, the double proportion, two being mixed with one; four, the sesquiterce, three cups of water to one of wine, which is the epitrite proportion for those exercising their minds in the council-chamber or frowning over dialectics, when changes of speeches are expected, — a sober and mild mixture. But in regard to those proportions of two to one, that mixture gives the strength by which we are confused and made half drunk, “Exciting the chords of the soul never moved before.” For it does not admit of sobriety, nor does it induce the senselessness of pure wine. The most harmonious is the proportion of two to three, provoking sleep, generating the forgetfulness of cares, and like that cornfield of Hesiod,” which mildly pacifieth children and heals injuries.” It composes in us the harsh and irregular motions of the soul and secures deep peace for it. Against these sayings of Aristo no one had anything to offer in reply, since it was quite evident he was jesting. I suggested to him to take a cup and treat it as a lyre, tuning it to the harmony and order he praised. At the same time a slave came offering him pure wine. But he refused it, saying with a laugh that he was discussing logical not organic music. To what had been said before my father added that Jove seemed to have taken, according to the ancients, two nurses, Ite and Adrastea; Juno one, Euboea; Apollo also two, Truth and Corythalea; but Bacchus several, because he needed several measures of water to make him manageable, trained, milder, and more prudent.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.1] Why Flesh Stinks Sooner When Exposed to the Moon, Than to the Sun.
EUTHYDEMUS, SATYRUS.
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.1b] Euthydemus of Sunium gave us at an entertainment a very large boar. The guests wondering at the bigness of the beast, he said that he had one a great deal larger, but in the carriage the moon had made it stink; he could not imagine how this should happen, for it was probable that the sun, being much hotter than the moon, should make it stink sooner. But, said Satyrus, this is not so strange as the common practice of the hunters; for, when they send a boar or a doe to a city some miles distant, they drive a brazen nail into it to keep it from stinking.
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.2] After supper Euthydemus bringing the question into play again, Moschio the physician said, that putrefaction was a colliquation of the flesh, and that everything that putrefied grew moister than before, and that all heat, if gentle, did stir the humors, though not force them out, but if strong, dry the flesh; and that from these considerations an answer to the question might be easily deduced. For the moon gently warming makes the body moist; but the sun by his violent beams dries rather, and draws all moisture from them. Thus Archilochus spoke like a naturalist,
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.2b] I hope hot Sirius’s beams will many drain,
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.2c] And Homer more plainly concerning Hector, over whose body Apollo spread a thick cloud,
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.2d] Lest the hot sun should scorch his naked limbs.(Iliad, xxiii, 190.)
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.2e] Now the moon’s rays are weaker; for, as Ion says,
They do not ripen well the clustered grapes.
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.3] When he had done, I said: The rest of the discourse I like very well, but I cannot consent when you ascribe this effect to the strength and degree of heat, and chiefly in the hot seasons; for in winter every one knows that the sun warms little, yet in summer it putrefies most. Now the contrary should happen, if the gentleness of the heat were the cause of putrefaction. And besides, the hotter the season is, so much the sooner meat stinks; and therefore this effect is not to be ascribed to the want of heat in the moon, but to some particular proper quality in her beams. For heat is not different only by degrees; but in fires there are some proper qualities very much unlike one another, as a thousand obvious instances will prove. Goldsmiths heat their gold in chaff fires; physicians use fires of vine-twigs in their distillations; and tamarisk is the best fuel for a glass-house. Olive-boughs in a chimney warm very well, but hurt other baths: they spoil the plastering, and weaken the foundation; and therefore the most skilful of the public officers forbid those that rent the baths to burn olive-tree wood, or throw darnel seed into the fire, because the fumes of it dizzy and bring the headache to those that bathe. Therefore it is no wonder that the moon differs in her qualities from the sun; and that the sun should shed some drying, and the moon some dissolving, influence upon flesh. And upon this account it is that nurses are very cautious of exposing their infants to the beams of the moon; for they being full of moisture, as green plants, are easily wrested and distorted. And everybody knows that those that sleep abroad under the beams of the moon are not easily waked, but seem stupid and senseless; for the moisture that the moon sheds upon them oppresses their faculty and disables their bodies. Besides, it is commonly said, that women brought to bed when the moon is a fortnight old, have easy labors; and for this reason I believe that Diana, which was the same with the moon, was called the goddess of childbirth. And Timotheus appositely says,
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.3b] By the blue heaven that wheels the stars, And by the moon that eases women’s pains.
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.3c] Even in inanimate bodies the power of the moon is very evident. For trees that are cut in the full of the moon carpenters refuse, as being soft, and, by reason of their moistness, subject to corruption; and in its wane farmers usually thresh their wheat, that being dry it may better endure the flail; for the corn in the full of the moon is moist, and commonly bruised in threshing. Besides, they say dough will be leavened sooner in the full, for then, though the leaven is scarce proportioned to the meal, yet it rarefies and leavens the whole lump. Now when flesh putrefies, the combining spirit is only changed into a moist consistence, and the parts of the body separate and dissolve. And this is evident in the very air itself, for when the moon is full, most dew falls; and this Alcman the poet intimates, when he somewhere calls dew the air’s and moon’s daughter, saying,
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.3d] See how the daughter of the Moon and AirDoes nourish all things.
[Quaest. conv. 3.10.3e] Thus a thousand instances do prove that the light of the moon is moist, and carries with it a softening and corrupting quality. Now the brazen nail that is driven through the flesh, if, as they say, it keeps the flesh from putrefying, doth it by an astringent quality proper to the brass. The rust of brass physicians use in astringent medicines, and they say those that dig brass ore have been cured of a rheum in their eyes, and that the hair upon their eyelids hath grown again; for the particles rising from the ore, being insensibly applied to the eyes, stops the rheum and dries up the humor, and upon this account, perhaps; Homer calls brass [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted], and Aristotle says, that wounds made by a brazen dart or a brazen sword are less painful and sooner cured than those that are made of iron weapons, because brass hath something medicinal in itself, which in the very instant is applied to the wound. Now it is manifest that astringents are contrary to putrefying, and healing to corrupting qualities. Some perhaps may say, that the nail being driven through draws all the moisture to itself, for the humor still flows to the part that is hurt; and therefore it is said that by the nail there always appears some speck and tumor; and therefore it is rational that the other parts should remain sound, when all the corruption gathers about that.

## Book IV.

[Quaest. conv. 4.0.1] Polybius, my Sossius Senecio, advised Scipio Africanus never to return from the Forum, where he was conversant about the affairs of the city, before he had gained one new friend. Where I suppose the word friend is not to be taken too nicely, to signify a lasting and unchangeable acquaintance; but, as it vulgarly means, a well-wisher, and as Dicearchus takes it, when he says that we should endeavor to make all men well-wishers, but only good men friends. For friendship is to be acquired by time and virtue; but good-will is produced by a familiar intercourse, or by mirth and trifling amongst civil and genteel men, especially if opportunity assists their natural inclinations to good-nature. But consider whether this advice may not be accommodated to an entertainment as well as the Forum; so that we should not break up the meeting before we had gained one of the company to be a well-wisher and a friend. Other occasions draw men into the Forum, but men of sense come to an entertainment as well to get new friends as to make their old ones merry; indeed, to carry away anything else is sordid and uncivil, but to depart with one friend more than we had is pleasing and commendable. And so, on the contrary, he that doth not aim at this renders the meeting useless and unpleasant to himself, and departs at last, having been a partaker of an entertainment with his belly but not with his mind. For he that makes one at a feast doth not come only to enjoy the meat and drink, but likewise the discourse, mirth, and genteel humor which ends at last in friendship and good-will. The wrestlers, that they may hold fast and lock better, use dust; and so wine mixed with discourse is of extraordinary use to make us hold fast of, and fasten upon, a friend. For wine tempered with discourse carries gentle and kind affections out of the body into the mind; otherwise, it is scattered through the limbs, and serves only to swell and disturb. Thus as a marble, by cooling red hot iron, takes away its softness and makes it hard, fit to be wrought and receive impression; thus discourse at an entertainment doth not permit the men that are engaged to become altogether liquid by the wine, but confines and makes their jocund and obliging tempers very fit to receive an impression from the seal of friendship if dexterously applied.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.1] Whether Different Sorts of Food, or One Single Dish Fed Upon at Once, is More Easily Digested.
PHILO, PLUTARCH, MARCION.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.1b] The first question of my fourth decade of Table Discourses shall be concerning different sorts of food eaten at one meal. When we came to Hyampolis at the feast called Elaphebolia, Philo the physician gave us a very sumptuous entertainment; and seeing a boy who came with Philinus feeding upon dry bread and calling for nothing else, he cried out, O Hercules, well I see the proverb is verified,
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.1c] They fought midst stones, but could not take up one,
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.1d] and presently went out to fetch him some agreeable food. He stayed some time, and at last brought them dried figs and cheese; upon which I said: It is usually seen that those that provide costly and superfluous dainties neglect, or are not well furnished with, useful and necessary things. I protest, said Philo, I did not mind that Philinus designs to breed us a young Sosastrus, who (they say) never all his lifetime drank or ate anything beside milk, although it is probable that it was some change in his constitution that made him use this sort of diet; but our Chiron here, — quite contrary to the old one that bred Achilles from his very birth, — feeding his son with unbloody food, gives people reason to suspect that like a grasshopper he keeps him on dew and air. Indeed, said Philinus, I did not know that we were to meet with a supper of a hundred beasts, such as Aristomenes made for his friends; otherwise I had come with some poor and wholesome food about me, as a specific against such costly and unwholesome entertainments. For I have often heard that simple diet is not only more easily provided, but likewise more easily digested, than such variety. At this Marcion said to Philo: Philinus hath spoiled your whole provision by deterring guests from eating; but, if you desire it, I will be surety for you, that such variety is more easily digested than simple food, so that without fear or distrust they may feed heartily. Philo desired him to do so.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.2] When after supper we begged Philinus to discover what he had to urge against variety of food, he thus began: I am not the author of this opinion, but our friend Philo here is ever now and then telling us, first, that wild beasts, feeding on one sort only and simple diet, are much more healthy than men are; and that those which are kept in pens are much more subject to diseases and crudities, by reason of the prepared variety we usually give them. Secondly, no physician is so daring, so venturous at new experiments, as to give a feverish patient different sorts of food at once. No, simple food, and without sauce, as more easy to be digested, is the only diet they allow. Now food must be wrought on and altered by our natural powers; in dyeing, cloth of the most simple color takes the tincture soonest; the most inodorous oil is soonest by perfumes changed into an essence; and simple diet is soonest changed, and soonest yields to the digesting power. For many and different qualities, having some contrariety, when they meet disagree and corrupt one another; as in a city, a mixed rout are not easily reduced into one body, nor brought to follow the same concerns; for each works according to its own nature, and is very hardly brought to side with another’s quality. Now this is evident in wine; mixed wine inebriates very soon, and drunkenness is much like a crudity rising from undigested wine; and therefore the drinkers hate mixed liquors, and those that do mix them do it privately, as afraid to have their design upon the company discovered. Every change is disturbing and injurious, and therefore musicians are very careful how they strike many strings at once; though the mixture and variety of the notes would be the only harm that would follow. This I dare say, that belief and assent can be sooner procured by disagreeing arguments, than concoction by various and different qualities. But lest I should seem jocose, waiving this, I will return to Philo’s observations again. We have often heard him declare that it is the quality that makes meat hard to be digested; that to mix many things together is hurtful, and begets unnatural qualities; and that every man should take that which by experience he finds most agreeable to his temper.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.2b] Now if nothing is by its own nature hard to be digested, but it is the quantity that disturbs and corrupts, I think we have still greater reason to forbear that variety with which Philo’s cook, as it were in opposition to his master’s practice, would draw us on to surfeits and diseases. For by the different sorts of food and new ways of dressing, he still keeps up the unwearied appetite, and leads it from one dish to another, till tasting of everything we take more than is sufficient and enough; as Hypsipyle’s foster-son,
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.2c] Who, in a garden placed, plucked up the flowers, One after one, and spent delightful hours; But still his greedy appetite goes on,And still he plucked till all the flowers were gone.(From the “Hypsipyle” of Euripides, Frag. 754.)
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.2d] But more, methinks, Socrates is here to be remembered, who adviseth us to forbear those junkets which provoke those that are not hungry to eat; as if by this he cautioned us to fly variety of meats. For it is variety that in everything draws us on to use more than bare necessity requires. This is manifest in all sorts of pleasures, either of the eye, ear, or touch; for it still proposeth new provocatives; but in simple pleasures, and such as are confined to one sort, the temptation never carries us beyond nature’s wants. In short, in my opinion, we should more patiently endure to hear a musician praise a disagreeing variety of notes, or a perfumer mixed ointments, than a physician commend the variety of dishes; for certainly such changes and turnings as must necessarily ensue will force us out of the right way of health.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.3] Philinus having ended his discourse, Marcion said: In my opinion, not only those that separate profit from honesty are obnoxious to Socrates’s curse, but those also that separate pleasure from health, as if it were its enemy and opposite, and not its great friend and promoter. Pain we use but seldom and unwillingly, as the most violent instrument. But from all things else, none, though he would willingly, can remove pleasure. It still attends when we eat, sleep, bathe, or anoint, and takes care of and nurses the diseased; dissipating all that is hurtful and disagreeable, by applying that which is proper, pleasing, and natural. For what pain, what want, what poison so quickly and so easily cures a disease as seasonable bathing? A glass of wine, when a man wants it, or a dish of palatable meat, presently frees us from all disturbing particles, and settles nature in its proper state, there being as it were a calm and serenity spread over the troubled humors. But those remedies that are painful do hardly and by little and little only promote the cure, every difficulty pushing on and forcing Nature. And therefore let not Philinus blame us, if we do not make all the sail we can to fly from pleasure, but more diligently endeavor to make pleasure and health, than other philosophers do to make pleasure and honesty, agree. Now, in my opinion, Philinus, you seem to be out in your first argument, where you suppose the beasts use more simple food and are more healthy than men; neither of which is true. The first the goats in Eupolis confute, for they extol their pasture as full of variety and all sorts of herbs, in this manner,
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.3b] We feed almost on every kind of trees, Young firs, the ilex, and the oak we crop: Sweet trefoil fragrant juniper, and yew, Wild olives, thyme, — all freely yield their store.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.3c] These that I have mentioned are very different in taste, smell, and other qualities, and he reckons more sorts which I have omitted. The second Homer skilfully refutes, when he tells us that the plague first began amongst the beasts. Besides, the shortness of their lives proves that they are very subject to diseases; for there is scarce any irrational creature long lived, besides the crow and the chough; and those two every one knows do not confine themselves to simple food, but eat anything. Besides, you take no good rule to judge what is easy and what is hard of digestion from the diet of those that are sick; for labor and exercise, and even to chew our meat well, contribute very much to digestion, neither of which can agree with a man in a fever. Again, that the variety of meats, by reason of the different qualities of the particulars, should disagree and spoil one another, you have no reason to fear. For if Nature takes from dissimilar bodies what is fit and agreeable, the diverse nourishment forces many and sundry qualities into the mass and bulk of the body, applying to every part that which is meet and fit; so that, as Empedocles words it,
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.3d] The sweet runs to the sweet, the sour combines With sour, the sharp with sharp, the salt with salt;
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.3e] and after being mixed it is spread through the mass by the heat, the proper parts are separated and applied to the proper members. Indeed, it is very probable that such bodies as ours, consisting of parts of different natures, should be nourished and built up rather of various than of simple matter. But if by concoction there is an alteration made in the food, this will be more easily performed when there are different sorts of meat, than when there is only one, in the stomach; for similars cannot work upon similars and the very contrariety in the mixture considerably promotes the alteration of the weakened qualities. But if, Philinus, you are against all mixture, do not chide Philo only for the variety of his dishes and sauces, but also for using mixture in his sovereign antidotes, which Erasistratus calls the gods’ hands. Convince him of absurdity and vanity, when he mixes herbs, metals, and animals, and things from sea and land, in one potion; and recommend him to neglect these, and to confine all physic to barley-broth, gourds, and oil mixed with water.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.3f] But you urge farther, that variety enticeth the appetite that hath no command over itself. That is, good sir, cleanly, wholesome, sweet, palatable, pleasing diet makes us eat and drink more than ordinary. Why then, instead of fine flour, do not we thicken our broth with coarse bran? And instead of asparagus, why do we not dress nettle-tops and thistles; and leaving this fragrant and pleasant wine, drink sour, harsh liquor that gnats have been buzzing about a long while? Because, perhaps you may reply, wholesome feeding doth not consist in a perfect avoiding of all that is pleasing, but in moderating the appetite in that respect, and making it prefer profit before pleasure. But, sir, as a mariner has a thousand ways to avoid a stiff gale of wind, but when it is clear down and a perfect calm, cannot raise it again; thus to correct and restrain our extravagant appetite is no hard matter, but when it grows weak and faint, when it fails as to its proper objects, then to raise it and make it vigorous and active again is, sir, a very difficult and hard task.
[Quaest. conv. 4.1.3g] And therefore variety of viands is as much better than simple food, which is apt to satisfy by being but of one sort, as it is easier to stop Nature when she makes too much speed than to force her on when languishing and faint. Besides, what some say, that fullness is more to be avoided than emptiness, is not true; but, on the contrary, fullness then only hurts when it ends in a surfeit or disease; but emptiness, though it doth no other mischief, is of itself unnatural. And let this suffice as an answer to what you proposed. But you sparing men have forgot, that variety is sweeter and more desired by the appetite, unless too sweet. For, the sight preparing the way, it is soon assimilated to the eager receiving body; but that which is not desirable Nature either throws off again, or keeps it in for mere want. But pray observe this, that I do not plead for variety in tarts, cakes, or custards; — those are vain, insignificant, and superfluous things; — but even Plato allowed variety to those fine citizens of his, setting before them onions, olives, leeks, cheese, and all sorts of meat and fish, and besides these, allowed them some comfits.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.1] Why Mushrooms are Thought to Be Produced by Thunder, and Why It is Believed that Men Asleep are Never Thunderstruck.
AGEMACHUS, PLUTARCH, DOROTHEUS.
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.1b] At a supper in Elis, Agemachus set before us very large mushrooms. And when all admired at them, one with a smile said, These are worthy the late thunder, as it were deriding those who imagine mushrooms are produced by thunder. Some said that thunder did split the earth, using the air as a wedge for that purpose, and that by those chinks those that sought after mushrooms were directed where to find them; and thence it grew a common opinion, that thunder engenders mushrooms, and not only makes them a passage to appear; as if one should imagine that a shower of rain breeds snails, and not rather makes them creep forth and be seen abroad. Agemachus stood up stiffly for the received opinion, and told us, we should not disbelieve it only because it was strange, for there are a thousand other effects of thunder and lightning and a thousand omens deduced from them, whose causes it is very hard, if not impossible, to discover; for this laughed-at, this proverbial mushroom doth not escape the thunder because it is so little, but because it hath some antipathetical qualities that preserve it from blasting; as likewise a fig-tree, the skin of a sea-calf (as they say), and that of the hyena, with which sailors cover the ends of their sails. And husbandmen call thunder-showers nourishing, and think them to be so. Indeed, it is absurd to wonder at these things, when we see the most incredible things imaginable in thunder, as flame rising out of moist vapors, and from soft clouds such astonishing noises. Thus, he continued, I prattle, exhorting you to inquire after the cause; and I shall accept this as your club for these mushrooms.
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.2] Then I began: Agemachus himself helps us exceedingly towards this discovery; for nothing at the present seems more probable than that, together with the thunder, oftentimes generative waters fall, which take that quality from the heat mixed with them. For the piercing pure parts of the fire break away in lightning; but the grosser windy part, being wrapped up in cloud, changes it, taking away the coldness and heating the moisture, altering and being altered with it, affects it so that it is made fit to enter the pores of plants, and is easily assimilated to them. Besides, such rain gives those things which it waters a peculiar temperature and difference of juice. Thus dew makes the grass sweeter to the sheep, and the clouds from which a rainbow is reflected make those trees on which they fall fragrant. And our priests, distinguishing it by this, call the wood of those trees Iris-struck, fancying that Iris, or the rainbow, hath rested on them. Now it is probable that when these thunder and lightning showers with a great deal of warmth and spirit descend forcibly into the caverns of the earth, these are rolled around, and knobs and tumors are formed like those produced by heat and noxious humors in our bodies, which we call wens or kernels. For a mushroom is not like a plant, neither is it produced without rain; it hath no root nor sprouts, it depends on nothing, but is a being by itself, having its substance of the earth, a little changed and altered. If this discourse seems frivolous, I assure you that such are most of the effects of thunder and lightning which we see; and upon that account men think them to be immediately directed by Heaven, and not depending on natural causes.
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.3] Dorotheus the rhetorician, one of our company, said: You speak right, sir, for not only the vulgar and illiterate, but even some of the philosophers, have been of that opinion. I remember here in this town lightning broke into a house and did a great many strange things. It let the wine out of a vessel, though the earthen vessel remained whole; and falling upon a man asleep, it neither hurt him nor blasted his clothes, but melted certain pieces of silver that he had in his pocket, defaced them quite, and made them run into a lump. Upon this he went to a philosopher, a Pythagorean, that sojourned in the town, and asked the reason; the philosopher directed him to some expiating rites, and advised him to consider seriously with himself and go to prayers. And I have been told, upon a sentinel at Rome, as he stood to guard the temple, burned the latchet of his shoe, and did no other harm; and several silver candlesticks lying in wooden boxes, the silver was melted while the boxes lay untouched. These stories you may believe or not as you please. But that which is most wonderful, and which everybody knows, is this, — the bodies of those that are killed by thunderbolt never putrefy. For many neither burn nor bury such bodies, but let them lie above ground with a fence about them, so that every one may see the they remain uncorrupted, confuted by this Euripides’s Clymene, who says thus of Phaeton,
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.3b] My best beloved, but now he lies And putrefies in some dark vale.
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.3c] And I believe brimstone is called [Greek omitted] (DIVINE), because its smell is like that fiery offensive scent which rises from bodies that are thunderstruck. And I suppose that, because of this scent, dogs and birds will not prey on such carcasses. Thus far have I gone; let him proceed, since he hath been applauded for his discourse of mushrooms, lest the same jest might be put upon us that was upon Androcydes the painter. For when in his landscape of Scylla he painted fish the best and most to the life of anything in the whole draught, he was said to use his appetite more than his art, for he naturally loved fish. So some may say that we philosophize about mushrooms, the cause of whose production is confessedly doubtful, for the pleasure we take in eating them. . . .
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.4] And when I put in my suggestion, saying that it was as seasonable to dispute about thunder and lightning amidst our banquets as it would be in a comedy to bring in machines to throw out lightning, the company agreed to omit all other questions relating to the subject, and desired me only to proceed on this head, Why men asleep are never struck with lightning. And I, though I knew I should get no great credit by proposing a cause whose reason was common to other things, said thus: Lightning is wonderfully piercing and subtile, partly because it rises from a very pure substance, and partly because by the swiftness of its motion it purges itself and throws off all gross earthy particles that are mixed with it. Nothing, says Democritus, is blasted with lightning, that cannot resist and stop the motion of the pure flame. Thus the close bodies, as brass, silver, and the like, which stop it, feel its force and are melted, because they resist; whilst rare, thin bodies, and such as are full of pores, are passed through and are not hurted, as clothes or dry wood. It blasts green wood or grass, the moisture within them being seized and kindled by the flame. Now if it is true that men asleep are never killed by lightning, from what we have proposed, and not from anything else, we must endeavor to draw the cause. Now the bodies of those that are awake are stiffer and more apt to resist, all the parts being full of spirits; which as it were in a harp, distending and screwing up the organs of sense, makes the body of the animal firm, close, and compacted. But when men are asleep, the organs are let down, and the body becomes rare, lax, and loose; and the spirits failing, it hath abundance of pores, through which small sounds and smells do flow insensibly. For in that case, there is nothing that can resist and by this resistance receive any sensible impression from any objects that are presented, much less from such as are so subtile and move so swiftly as lightning. Things that are weak Nature shields from harm, fencing them about with some hard, thick covering; but those things that cannot be resisted do less harm to the bodies that yield than to those that oppose their force. Besides, those that are asleep are not startled at the thunder; they have no consternation upon them, which kills a great many that are no otherwise hurt, and we know that thousands die with the very fear of being killed. Even shepherds teach their sheep to run together when it thunders, for whilst they lie scattered they die with fear; and we see thousands fall, which have no marks of any stroke or fire about them, their souls (as it seems), like birds, flying out of their bodies at the fright. For many, as Euripides says,
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.4b] A clap hath killed, yet ne’er drew drop of blood.
[Quaest. conv. 4.2.4c] For certainly the hearing is a sense that is soonest and most vigorously wrought upon, and the fear that is caused by an astonishing noise raiseth the greatest commotion and disturbance in the body; from all which men asleep, because insensible, are secure. But those that are awake are oftentimes killed with fear before they are touched; the fear contracts and condenses the body, so that the stroke must be strong, because there is so considerable a resistance.
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 4.3.1] Why Men Usually Invite Many Guests to a Wedding Supper.
SOSSIUS SENECIO, PLUTARCH, THEO.
[Quaest. conv. 4.3.1b] At my son Autobulus’s marriage, Sossius Senecio from Chaeronea and a great many other noble persons were present at the same feast; which gave occasion to this question (Senecio proposed it), why to a marriage feast more guests are usually invited than to any other. Nay even those law-givers that chiefly opposed luxury and profuseness have particularly confined marriage feasts to a set number. Indeed, in my opinion, he continued, Hecataeus the Abderite, one of the old philosophers, hath said nothing to the purpose in this matter, when he tells us that those that marry wives invite a great many to the entertainment, that many may see and be witnesses that they being born free take to themselves wives of the same condition. For, on the contrary, the comedians reflect on those who revel at their marriages, who make a great ado and are pompous in their feasts, as such who are taking wives with not much confidence and courage. Thus, in Menander, one replies to a bridegroom that bade him beset the house with dishes, . . .
[Quaest. conv. 4.3.1c] Your words are great, but what’s this to your bride?
[Quaest. conv. 4.3.2] But lest I should seem to find fault with those reasons others give, only because I have none of my own to produce, continued he, I will begin by declaring that there is no such evident or public notice given of any feast as there is of one at a marriage. For when we sacrifice to the gods, when we take leave of or receive a friend, a great many of our acquaintance need not know it. But a marriage dinner is proclaimed by the loud sound of the wedding song, by the torches and the music, which as Homer expresseth it,
[Quaest. conv. 4.3.2b] The women stand before the doors to see and hear.(Iliad, xviii. 495.)
[Quaest. conv. 4.3.2c] And therefore when everybody knows it, the persons are ashamed to omit the formality of an invitation, and therefore entertain their friends and kindred, and every one that they are anyway acquainted with.
[Quaest. conv. 4.3.3] This being generally approved, Well, said Theo, speaking next, let it be so, for it looks like truth; but let this be added, if you please, that such entertainments are not only friendly, but also kindredly, the persons beginning to have a new relation to another family. But there is something more considerable, and that is this; since by this marriage two families join in one, the man thinks it his duty to be civil and obliging to the woman’s friends, and the woman’s friends think themselves obliged to return the same to him and his; and upon this account the company is doubled. And besides, since most of the little ceremonies belonging to the wedding are performed by women, it is necessary that, where they are entertained, their husbands should be likewise present.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.1] Whether the Sea or and Affords Better Food.
CALLISTRATUS, SYMMACHUS, POLYCRATES.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.1b] Aedepsus in Euboea, where the baths are, is a place by nature every way fitted for free and gentle pleasures, and withal so beautified with stately edifices and dining rooms, that one would take it for no other than the common place of repast for all Greece. Here, though the earth and air yield plenty of creatures for the service of men, the sea no less furnisheth the table with variety of dishes, nourishing a store of delicious fish in its deep and clear waters. This place is especially frequented in the spring; for hither at this time of year abundance of people resort, solacing themselves in the mutual enjoyment of all those pleasures the place affords, and at spare hours pass away the time in many useful and edifying discourses. When Callistratus the Sophist lived here, it was a hard matter to dine at any place besides his house; for he was so extremely courteous and obliging, that no man whom he invited to dinner could have the face to say him nay. One of his best humors was to pick up all the pleasant fellows he could meet with, and put them in the same room. Sometimes he did, as Cimon one of the ancients used to do, and satisfactorily treated men of all sorts and fashions. But he always (so to speak) followed Celeus, who was the first man, it is said, that assembled daily a number of honorable persons of distinction, and called the place where they met the Prytaneum.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.2] Several times at these public meetings divers agreeable discourses were raised; and it fell out that once a very splendid treat, adorned with all variety of dainties, gave occasion for inquiries concerning food, whether the land or sea yielded better. Here when a great part of the company were highly commanding the land, as abounding with many choice, nay, an infinite variety of all sorts of creatures, Polycrates calling to Symmachus, said to him: But you, sir, being an animal bred between two seas, and brought up among so many which surround your sacred Nicopolis, will not you stand up for Neptune? Yes, I will, replied Symmachus, and therefore command you to stand by me, who enjoy the most pleasant part of all the Achaean Sea. Well, says Polycrates, the beginning of my discourse shall be grounded upon custom; for as of a great number of poets we usually give one, who far excels the rest, the famous name of poet; so though there be many sorts of dainties, yet custom has so prevailed that the fish alone, or above all the rest, is called [Greek omitted], because it is more excellent than all others. For we do not call those gluttonous and great eaters who love beef as Hercules, who after flesh used to eat green figs; nor those that love figs, as Plato; nor lastly, those that are for grapes, as Arcesilaus; but those who frequent the fish-market, and soonest hear the market-bell. Thus when Demosthenes had told Philocrates that the gold he got by treachery was spent upon whores and fish, he upbraids him as a gluttonous and lascivious fellow. And Ctesiphon said pat enough, when a certain glutton cried aloud in company that he should burst asunder: No, by no means let us be baits for your fish! And what did he mean, do you think, who made this verse,
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.2b] You capers gnaw, when you may sturgeon eat?
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.2c] And what, for God’s sake, do those men mean who, inviting one another to sumptuous collations, usually say: To-day we will dine upon the shore? Is it not that they suppose, what is certainly true, that a dinner upon the shore is of all others most delicious? Not by reason of the waves and stones in that place, — for who upon the sea-coast would be content to feed upon a pulse or a caper? — but because their table is furnished with plenty of fresh fish. Add to this, that sea-food is dearer than any other. Wherefore Cato inveighing against the luxury of the city, did not exceed the bounds of truth, when he said that at Rome a fish was sold for more than an ox. For they sell a small pot of fish for as much as a hecatomb of sheep and all the accessories of sacrifice. Besides, as the physician is the best judge of physic, and the musician of songs; so he is able to give the best account of the goodness of meat who is the greatest lover of it. For I will not make Pythagoras and Xenocrates arbitrators in this case; but Antagoras the poet, and Philoxenus the son of Eryxis, and Androcydes the painter, of whom it was reported that, when he drew a landscape of Scylla, he drew fish in a lively manner swimming round her, because he was a great lover of them. So Antigonus the king, surprising Antagoras the poet in the habit of a cook, broiling congers in his tent, said to him: Dost thou think that Homer was dressing congers when he writ Agamemnon’s famous exploits? And he as smartly replied: Do you think that Agamemnon did so many famous exploits when he was inquiring who dressed congers in the camp? These arguments, says Polycrates, I have urged in behalf of fishmongers, drawing them from testimony and custom.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.3] But, says Symmachus, I will go more seriously to work, and more like a logician. For if that may truly be said to be a relish which gives meat the best relish, it will evidently follow, that that is the best sort of relish which gets men the best stomach to their meat. Therefore, as those philosophers who were called Elpistics (from the Greek word signifying hope, which above all others they cried up) averred that there was nothing in the world which concurred more to the preservation of life than hope, without whose gracious influence life would be a burden and altogether intolerable; in the like manner that of all other things may be said to get us a stomach to our meat without which all meat would be unpalatable and nauseous. And among all those things the earth yields, we find no such things as salt, which we can only have from the sea.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.3b] First of all, without salt, there would be nothing eatable which mixed with flour seasons bread also. Neptune and Ceres had both the same temple. Besides, salt is the most pleasant of all condiments. For those heroes who like athletes used themselves to a spare diet, banishing from their tables all vain and superfluous delicacies, to such a degree that when they encamped by the Hellespont they abstained from fish, yet for all this could not eat flesh without salt; which is a sufficient evidence that salt is the most desirable of all relishes. For as colors need light, so tastes require salt, that they may affect the sense, unless you would have them very nauseous and unpleasant. For, as Heraclitus used to say, a carcass is more abominable than dung. Now all flesh is dead and part of a lifeless carcass; but the virtue of salt, being added to it, like a soul, gives it a pleasing relish and a poignancy.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.3c] Hence it comes to pass that before meat men use to take sharp things, and such as have much salt in them; for these beguile us into an appetite. And whoever has his stomach sharpened with these sets cheerfully and freshly upon all other sorts of meat. But if he begin with any other kind of food, all on a sudden his stomach grows dull and languid. And therefore salt doth not only make meat but drink palatable. For Homer’s onion, which, he tells us, they were used to eat before they drank, was fitter for seamen and boatmen than kings. Things moderately salt, by being pleasing to the mouth, make all sorts of wine mild and palateable, and water itself of a pleasing taste. Besides, salt creates none of those troubles which an onion does, but digests all other kinds of meat, making them tender and fitter for concoction; so that at the same time it is sauce to the palate and physic to the body.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.3d] But all other seafood, besides this pleasantness, is also very innocent for though it be fleshly, yet it does not load the stomach as all other flesh does, but is easily concocted and digested. This Zeno will avouch for me, and Crato too, who confine sick persons to a fish diet, as of all others the lightest sort of meat. And it stands with reason, that the sea should produce the most nourishing and wholesome food, seeing it yields us the most refined, the purest and therefore the most agreeable air.
[Quaest. conv. 4.4.4] You say right, says Lamprias, but let us think of something else to confirm what you have spoken. I remember my old grandfather was used to say in derision of the Jews, that they abstained from most lawful flesh; but we will say that that is the most lawful meat which comes from the sea. For we can claim no great right over land creatures, which are nourished with the same food, draw the same air, wash in and drink the same water, that we do ourselves; and when they are slaughtered, they make us ashamed of what we are doing, with their hideous cries; and then again, by living amongst us, they arrive at some degree of familiarity and intimacy with us. But sea creatures are altogether strangers to us, and are born and brought up as it were in another world; neither does their voice, look, or any service they have done us plead for their life. For this kind of creatures are of no use at all to us, nor is there any necessity that we should love them. But that place which we inhabit is hell to them, and as soon as ever they enter upon it they die.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 4.5.1] Whether the Jews Abstained From Swine’s Flesh Because They Worshipped that Creature, or Because They Had an Antipathy Against It.
CALLISTRATUS, POLYCRATES, LAMPRIAS.
[Quaest. conv. 4.5.1b] After these things were spoken, and some in the company were minded to say something in defence of the contrary opinion, Callistratus interrupted their discourse and said: Sirs, what do you think of that which was spoken against the Jews, that they abstain from the most lawful flesh? Very well said, quoth Polycrates, for that is a thing I very much question, whether it was that the Jews abstained from swine’s flesh because they conferred divine honor upon that creature, or because they had a natural aversion to it. For whatever we find in their own writings seems to be altogether fabulous, except they have some more solid reasons which they have no mind to discover.
[Quaest. conv. 4.5.2] Hence it is, says Callistratus, that I am of an opinion that this nation has that creature in some veneration; and though it be granted that the hog is an ugly and filthy creature, yet it is not quite so vile nor naturally stupid as a beetle, griffin, crocodile, or cat, most of which are worshipped as the most sacred things by some priests amongst the Egyptians. But the reason why the hog is had in so much honor and veneration amongst them is, because as the report goes, that creature breaking up the earth with its snout showed the way to tillage, and taught them how to use the ploughshare, which instrument for that very reason, as some say, was called HYNIS from [Greek omitted], A SWINE. Now the Egyptians inhabiting a country situated low and whose soil is naturally soft, have no need of the plough; but after the river Nile hath retired from the grounds it overflowed, they presently let in all their hogs into the fields, and they with their feet and snout break up the ground, and cover the sown seed.
[Quaest. conv. 4.5.2b] Nor ought this to seem strange to anyone, that there are in the world those that abstain from swine’s flesh on such an account as this; when it is evident that in barbarous nations there are other animals had in greater honor and veneration for lesser reasons, if not altogether ridiculous. For the field-mouse only for its blindness was worshipped as a god among the Egyptians, because they were of an opinion that darkness was before light and that the latter had its birth from mice about the fifth generation at the new moon; and moreover that the liver of this creature diminishes in the wane of the moon. But they consecrate the lion to the sun, because the lioness alone, of all clawed four-footed beasts, brings forth her young with their eyesight; for they sleep in a moment, and when they are asleep their eyes sparkle. Besides, they place gaping lions’ heads for the spouts of their fountains, because Nilus overflows the Egyptian fields when the sign is Leo: they give it out that their bird ibis, as soon as hatched, weighs two drachms, which are of the same weight with the heart of a newborn infant; and that its legs being spread with the bill an exact equilateral triangle.
[Quaest. conv. 4.5.2c] And yet who can find fault with the Egyptians for these trifles, when it is left upon record that the Pythagoreans worshipped a white cock, and of sea creatures abstained especially from mullet and urtic. The Magi that descended from Zoroaster adored the land hedgehog above other creatures but had a deadly spite against water-rats, and thought that man was dear in the eyes of the gods who destroyed most of them. But I should think that if the Jews had such an antipathy against a hog, they would kill it as the magicians do mice; when, on the contrary, they are by their religion as much prohibited to kill as to eat it. And perhaps there may be some reason given for this; for as the ass is worshipped by them as the first discoverer of fountains, so perhaps the hog may be had in like veneration, which first taught them to sow and plough. Nay, some say that the Jews also abstain from hares, as abominable and unclean creatures.
[Quaest. conv. 4.5.3] They have reason for that, said Lamprias, because a hare is so like an ass which they detest; for in its color, ears, and the sparkling of its eyes, it is so like an ass, that I do not know any little creature that represents a great one so much as a hare doth an ass; except in this likewise imitating the Egyptians, they suppose that there is something of divinity in the swiftness of this creature, as also in its quickness of sense; for the eyes of hares are so unwearied that they sleep with them open. Besides, they seem to excel all other creatures in quickness of hearing; whence it was that the Egyptians painted a hare’s ear amongst their other hieroglyphics, as an emblem of hearing. But the Jews do hate swine’s flesh, because all the barbarians are naturally fearful of a scab and leprosy, which they presume comes by eating such kind of flesh. For we may observe that all pigs under the belly are overspread with a leprosy and scab; which may be supposed to proceed from an ill disposition of body and corruption within, which breaks out through the skin. Besides, swine’s feeding is commonly so nasty and filthy, that it must of necessity cause corruptions and vicious humors; for, setting aside those creatures that are bred from and live upon dung, there is no other creature that takes so much delight to wallow in the mire and in other unclean and stinking places. Hogs’ eyes are said to be so flattened and fixed upon the ground, that they see nothing above them, nor ever look up to the sky, except when turned upon their back they turn their eyes upwards contrary to nature. Therefore this creature, at other times most clamorous’ when laid upon his back, is still, as astonished at the unusual sight of the heavens; while the greatness of the fear he is in (as it is supposed) is the cause of his silence. And if it be lawful to intermix our discourse with fables, it is said that Adonis was slain by a boar. Now Adonis is supposed to be the same with Bacchus; and there are a great many rites in both their sacrifices which confirm this opinion. Others will have Adonis to be Bacchus’s paramour; and Phanocles an amorous love-poet writes thus,
[Quaest. conv. 4.5.3b] Bacchus on hills the fair Adonis saw, And ravished him, and reaped a wondrous joy.
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 4.6.1] What God is Worshipped by the Jews.
SYMMACHUS, LAMPRIAS, MOERAGENES.
[Quaest. conv. 4.6.1b] Here Symmachus, greatly wondering at what was spoken, says: What, Lamprias, will you permit our tutelar god, called Evius, the inciter of women, famous for the honors he has conferred upon him by madmen, to be inscribed and enrolled in the mysteries of the Jews? Or is there any solid reason that can be given to prove Adonis to be the same with Bacchus? Here Moeragenes interposing, said: Do not be so fierce upon him, for I who am an Athenian answer you, and tell you, in short, that these two are the very same. And no man is able or fit to bring the chief confirmation of this truth, but those amongst us who are initiated and skilled in the triennial [Greek omitted] or chief mysteries of the god. But what no religion forbids to speak of among friends, especially over wine, the gift of Bacchus, I am ready at the command of these gentlemen to disclose.
[Quaest. conv. 4.6.2] When all the company requested and earnestly begged it of him; first of all (says he), the time and manner of the greatest and most holy solemnity of the Jews is exactly agreeable to the holy rites of Bacchus; for that which they call the Fast they celebrate in the midst of the vintage, furnishing their tables with all sorts of fruits while they sit under tabernacles made of vines and ivy; and the day which immediately goes before this they call the day of Tabernacles. Within a few days after they celebrate another feast, not darkly but openly, dedicated to Bacchus, for they have a feast amongst them called Kradephoria, from carrying palm-trees, and Thyrsophoria, when they enter into the temple carrying thyrsi. What they do within I know not; but it is very probable that they perform the rites of Bacchus. First they have little trumpets, such as the Grecians used to have at their Bacchanalia to call upon their gods withal.
[Quaest. conv. 4.6.2b] Others go before them playing upon harps, which they call Levites, whether so named from Lusius or Evius, — either word agrees with Bacchus. And I suppose that their Sabbaths have some relation to Bacchus; for even now many call the Bacchi by the name of Sabbi, and they make use of that word at the celebration of Bacchus’s orgies. And this may be discovered out of Demosthenes and Menander. Nor would it be out of place, were any one to say that the name Sabbath was given to this feast from the agitation and excitement [Greek omitted] which the priests of Bacchus display. The Jews themselves witness no less; for when they keep the Sabbath, they invite one another to drink till they are drunk; or if they chance to be hindered by some more weighty business, it is the fashion at least to taste the wine. Some perhaps may surmise that these are mere conjectures.
[Quaest. conv. 4.6.2c] But there are other arguments which will clearly evince the truth of what I assert. The first may be drawn from their High-priest, who on holidays enters their temple with his mitre on, arrayed in a skin of a hind embroidered with gold, wearing buskins, and a coat hanging down to his ankles; besides, he has a great many little bells depending from his garment which make a noise as he walks. So in the nocturnal ceremonies of Bacchus (as the fashion is amongst us), they make use of music, and call the god’s nurses [Greek omitted]. High up on the wall of their temple is a representation of the thyrsus and timbrels, which surely suits no other god than Bacchus. Moreover, they are forbidden the use of honey in their sacrifices, because they suppose that a mixture of honey corrupts and deads the wine. And honey was used for a libation in former days and with it the ancients were wont to make themselves drunk, before the vine was known.
[Quaest. conv. 4.6.2d] And at this day barbarous people who want wine drink metheglin, allaying the sweetness of the honey by bitter roots, much of the taste of our wine. The Greeks offered to their gods these temperate offerings or honey-offerings, as they called them, because that honey was of a nature quite contrary to wine. But this is no inconsiderable argument that Bacchus was worshipped by the Jews, in that, amongst other kinds of punishment, that was most remarkably odious by which malefactors were forbid the use of wine for so long a time as the judge thought fit to prescribe. Those thus punished. . . .
[Quaest. conv. 4.6.2e] (The remainder of the Fourth Book is wanting.)
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 4.7] Why the Days Which Have the Names of the Planets are Not Arranged According to the Order of the Planets, But the Contrary. There is Added a Discourse on the Position of the Sun.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 4.8] Why Signet- Rings are Worn Chiefly on the Fourth Finger.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 4.9] Whether We Ought to Carry in Our Seal- Rings Effigies of Gods, or Those of Wise Personages.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 4.10] Why Women Do Not Eat the Middle Part of Lettuce.

## Book V.

[Quaest. conv. 5.0.1] What is your opinion at present, Sossius Senecio, of the pleasures of mind and body, is not evident to me;
[Quaest. conv. 5.0.1b] Because us two a thousand things divide, Vast shady hills, and the rough ocean’s tide.(“Iliad” i. 156)
[Quaest. conv. 5.0.1c] But formerly, I am sure, you did not lean to nor like their opinion, who will not allow the soul to have any proper agreeable pleasure, which without respect to the body she desires for herself; but define that she lives as a form assistant to the body, is directed by the passions of it, and, as that is affected, is either pleased or grieved, or, like a looking-glass, only receives the images of those sensible impressions made upon the body. This sordid and debasing opinion is especially confuted as follows; for at a feast, the genteel well-bred men after supper fall upon some topic or another as second course, and cheer one another by their pleasant talk. Now the body hath very little or no share in this; which evidently proves that this is a particular banquet for the soul, and that those pleasures are peculiar to her, and different from those which pass to her through the body and are vitiated thereby. Now, as nurses, when they feed children, taste a little of their pap, and have but little pleasure therefrom, but when the infants are satisfied, leave crying, and go to sleep, then being at their own disposal, they take such meat and drink as is agreeable to their own bodies; thus the soul partakes of the pleasures that arise from eating and drinking, like a nurse, being subservient to the appetites of the body, kindly yielding to its necessities and wants, and calming its desires; but when that is satisfied and at rest, then being free from her business and servile employment, she seeks her own proper pleasures, revels on discourse, problems, stories, curious questions, or subtle resolutions. Nay, what shall a man say, when he sees the dull unlearned fellows after supper minding such pleasures as have not the least relation to the body? They tell tales, propose riddles, or set one another a-guessing at names, comprised and hid under such and such numbers. Thus mimics, drolls, Menander and his actors were admitted into banquets, not because they can free the eye from any pain, or raise any tickling motion in the flesh; but because the soul, being naturally philosophical and a lover of instruction, covets its own proper pleasure and satisfaction, when it is free from the trouble of looking after the body.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 5.1.1] Why We Take Delight in Hearing Those that Represent the Passions of Men Angry or Sorrowful, and Yet Cannot Without Concern Behold Those Who are Really So Affected?
PLUTARCH, BOETHUS.
[Quaest. conv. 5.1.1b] Of this we discoursed in your company at Athens, when Strato the comedian (for he was a man of great credit) flourished. For being entertained at supper by Boethus the Epicurean, with a great many more of the sect, as it usually happens when learned and inquisitive men meet together, the remembrance of the comedy led us to this inquiry, — Why we are disturbed at the real voices of men, either angry, pensive, or afraid, and yet are delighted to hear others represent them, and imitate their gestures, speeches, and exclamations. Every one in the company gave almost the same reason. For they said, he that only represents excels him that really feels, inasmuch as he doth not suffer the misfortunes; which we knowing are pleased and delighted on that account.
[Quaest. conv. 5.1.2] But I, though it was not properly my talent, said that we, being by nature rational and lovers of ingenuity, are delighted with and admire everything that is artificially and ingeniously contrived. For as a bee, naturally loving sweet things, seeks after and flies to anything that has any mixture of honey in it; so man, naturally loving ingenuity and elegancy, is very much inclined to accept and highly approve every word or action that is seasoned with wit and judgement. Thus, if any one offers a child a piece of bread, and at the same time, a little dog or ox made in paste, we shall see the boy run eagerly to the latter; so likewise if anyone, offers silver in the lump, and another a beast or a cup of the same metal, he will rather choose that in which he sees a mixture of art and reason. Upon the same account it is that a child is much in love with riddles, and such fooleries as are difficult and intricate; for whatever is curious and subtle doth attract and allure mankind, as antecedently to all instruction agreeable and proper to it.
[Quaest. conv. 5.1.2b] And therefore, because he that is really affected with grief or anger presents us with nothing but the common bare passion, but in the imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are naturally inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights us. It is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one at his last gasp; yet with content we can look upon the picture of Philoctetes, or the statue of Jocasta, in whose face it is commonly said that the workmen mixed silver, so that the brass might depict the face and color of one ready to faint and expire. And this, said I, the Cyrenaics may use as a strong argument against you Epicureans, that all the sense of pleasure which arises from the working of any object on the ear or eye is not in those organs, but in the intellect itself. Thus the continual cackling of a hen or cawing of a crow is very ungrateful and disturbing; yet he that imitates those noises well pleases the hearers.
[Quaest. conv. 5.1.2c] Thus to behold a consumptive man is no delightful spectacle; yet with pleasure we can view the pictures and statues of such persons, because the very imitating hath something in it very agreeable to the mind, which allures and captivates its faculties. For upon what other account, for God’s sake, from what external impression upon our organs, should men be moved to admire Parmeno’s sow so much as to pass it into a proverb? Yet it is reported, that Parmeno being very famous for imitating the grunting of a pig, some endeavoured to rival and outdo him. And when the hearers, being prejudiced, cried out, Very well indeed, but nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow; one took a pig under his arm and came upon the stage. And when, though they heard the very pig, they still continued, This is nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow; he threw his pig amongst them, to show that they judged according to opinion and not truth. And hence it is very evident, that like motions of the sense do not always raise like affections in the mind, when there is not an opinion that the thing done was not neatly and ingeniously performed.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 5.2.1] That the Prize for Poets at the Games Was Ancient.
[Quaest. conv. 5.2.1b] At the solemnity of the Pythian names, there was a consult about taking away all such sports as had lately crept in and were not of ancient institution. For after they had taken in the tragedy in addition to the three ancient, which were as old as the solemnity itself, the Pythian piper, the harper, and the singer to the harp, as if a large gate were opened, they could not keep out an infinite crowd of plays and musical entertainments of all sorts that rushed in after him. Which indeed made no unpleasant variety, and increased the company, but yet impaired the gravity and neatness of the solemnity. Besides it must create a great deal of trouble to the umpires, and considerable dissatisfaction to very many, since but few could obtain the prize. It was chiefly agreed upon, that the orators and poets should be removed; and this determination did not proceed from any hatred to learning, but forasmuch as such contenders are the most noted and worthiest men of all, therefore they reverence them, and were troubled that, when they must judge every one very deserving, they could not bestow the prize equally upon all.
[Quaest. conv. 5.2.1c] I, being present at this consult, dissuaded those who were for removing things from their present settled order, and who thought this variety as unsuitable to the solemnity as many strings and many notes to an instrument. And when at supper, Petraeus the president and director of the sports entertaining us, the same subject was discoursed on, I defended music, and maintained that poetry was no upstart intruder, but that it was time out of mind admitted into the sacred games, and crowns were given to the best performer. Some straight imagined that I intended to produce some old musty stories, like the funeral solemnities of Oeolycus the Thessalian or of Amphidamas the Chalcidean, in which they say Homer and Hesiod contended for the prize. But passing by these instances as the common theme of every grammarian, as likewise their criticisms who, in the description of Patroclus’s obsequies in Homer, read [Greek omitted] ORATORS, and not [Greek omitted], DARTERS, (“Iliad,” xxiii, 886.) as if Achilles had proposed a prize for the best speaker, — omitting all these, I said that Acastus at his father Pelias’s funeral set a prize for contending poets, and Sibylla won it.
[Quaest. conv. 5.2.1d] At this, a great many demanding some authority for this unlikely and incredible relation, I happily recollecting myself produced Acesander, who in his description of Africa hath this relation; but I must confess this is no common book. But Polemo the Athenian’s “Commentary of the Treasures of the City Delphi” I suppose most of you have diligently perused, he being a very learned man in the Greek Antiquities. In him you shall find that in the Sicyonian treasure there was a golden book dedicated to the god, with this inscription: Aristomache, the poetess of Erythraea, dedicated this after she had got the prize at the Isthmian games. Nor is there any reason, I continued, why we should so admire and reverence the Olympic games, as if, like Fate, they were unalterable, and never admitted any change since the first institution. For the Pythian, it is true, hath had three or four musical prizes added; but all the exercises of the body were for the most part the same from the beginning.
[Quaest. conv. 5.2.1e] But in the 0 lympian all beside racing are late additions. They instituted some, and abolished them again; such were the races of mules, either rode or in a chariot as likewise the crown appointed for boys that were victor’s in the five contests. And, in short, a thousand things in those games are mere novelties. At Pisa they had a single combat, where he that yielded or was overcome was killed upon the place. But pray for the future require no author for my story, lest I may appear ridiculous if amidst my cups I should forget the name.
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.1] Why Was the Pine Counted Sacred to Neptune and Bacchus? And Why at First the Conqueror in the Isthmian Games Was Crowned With a Garland of Pine, Afterwards with Parsley, and Now Again with Pine.
LUCANIUS, PRAXITELES.
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.2] This question was started, why the Isthmian garland was made of pine. We were then at supper in Corinth, in the time of the Isthmian games, with Lucanius the chief priest. Praxiteles the commentator brought this fable for a reason; it is said that the body of Melicertes was found fixed to a pine-tree by the sea; and not far from Megara, there is a place called the Race of a Fair Lady, through which the Megarians say that Ino, with her son Melicertes in her arms, ran to the sea. And when many put forth the common opinion, that the pine-tree garland peculiarly belongs to Neptune, Lucanius added that it is sacred to Bacchus too, but yet, for all that, it might also be appropriated to the honor of Melicertes; this started the question, why the ancients dedicated the pine to Neptune and Bacchus. As for my part, it did not seem incongruous to me, for both the gods seem to preside over the moist and generative principle; and almost all the Greeks sacrifice to Neptune the nourisher of plants, and to Bacchus the preserver of trees. Besides, it may be said that the pine peculiarly agrees to Neptune, not, as Apollodorus thinks, because it grows by the seaside, or because it loves a bleak place (for some give this reason), but because it is used in building ships; for it together with the like trees, as fir and cypress, affords the best and the lightest timber, and likewise pitch and rosin, without which the compacted planks would be altogether unserviceable at sea. To Bacchus they dedicate the pine, because it seasons wine, for among the pines they say the sweetest and most delicious grapes grow. The cause of this Theophrastus thinks to be the heat of the soil; for pines grow most in chalky grounds. Now chalk is hot, and therefore must very much conduce to the concoction of the wine; as a chalky spring affords the lightest and sweetest water; and if chalk is mixed with corn, by its heat it makes the grains swell, and considerably increases the heap. Besides, it is probable that the vine itself is bettered by the pine, for that contains several things which are good to preserve wine. All cover the insides of wine casks with rosin, and many mix rosin with wine, as the Euboeans in Greece, and in Italy those that live about the river Po. From the parts of Gaul about Vienna there is a sort of pitched wine brought, which the Romans value very much; for such things mixed with it do not only give it a good flavor, but make the wine generous, taking away by their gentle heat all the crude, watery, and undigested particles. When I had said thus much, a rhetorician in the company, a man well read in all sorts of polite learning, cried out: Good Gods! was it not but the other day that the Isthmian garland began to be made of pine? And was not the crown anciently of twined parsley? I am sure in a certain comedy a covetous man is brought in speaking thus: —
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.2b] The Isthmian garland I will sell as cheap As common wreaths of parsley may be sold.
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.2c] And Timaeus the historian says that, when the Corinthians were marching to fight the Carthaginians in the defence of Sicily, some persons carrying parsley met them, and when several looked upon this as a bad omen, — because parsley is accounted unlucky, and those that are dangerously sick we usually say have need of parsley, — Timoleon encouraged them by putting them in mind of the Isthmian parsley garland with which the Corinthians used to crown the conquerors. And besides, the admiral-ship of Antigonus’s navy, having by chance some parsley growing on its poop, was called Isthmia. Besides, a certain obscure epigram upon an earthen vessel stopped with parsley intimates the same thing. It runs thus: —
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.2d] The Grecian earth, now hardened by the flame, Holds in its hollow belly Bacchus blood; And hath its mouth with Isthmian branches stopped.
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.2e] Sure, he continued, they never read these authors, who cry up the pine as anciently wreathed in the Isthmian garlands, and would not have it some upstart intruder. The young men yielded presently to him, as being a man of various reading and very learned.
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.3] But Lucanius, with a smile looking upon me, cried out: Good God! here’s a deal of learning. But others have taken advantage of our ignorance and unacquaintedness with such matters, and, on the contrary, persuaded us that the pine was the first garland, and that afterwards in honor of Hercules the parsley was received from the Nemean games, which in a little time prevailing, thrust out the pine, as if it were its right to be the wreath; but a little while after the pine recovered its ancient honor, and now flourishes in its glory. I was satisfied, and upon consideration found that I had run across a great many authorities for it. Thus Euphorion writes of Melicertes,
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.3b] They mourned the youth, and him on pine boughs laid Of which the Isthmian victors’ crowns are made. Fate had not yet seized beauteous Mene’s son By smooth Asopus; since whose fall the crown Of parsley wreathed did grace the victor’s brow.
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.3c] And Callimachus is plainer and more express, when he makes Hercules speak thus of parsley,
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.3d] This at Isthmian sports To Neptune’s glory now shall be the crown; The pine shall be disused, which heretofore In Corinth’s fields successful victors wore.
[Quaest. conv. 5.3.3e] And besides, if I am not mistaken, in Procles’s history of the Isthmian games I met with this passage; at first a pine garland crowned the conqueror, but when this game began to be reckoned amongst the sacred, then from the Nemean solemnity the parsley was received. And this Procles was one of Xenocrates’s fellow-students at the Academy.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.1] Concerning that Expression in Homer, [Greek Omitted] (“Iliad,” ix. 203.)
NICERATUS, SOSICLES, ANTIPATER, PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.1b] Some at the table were of opinion that Achilles talked nonsense when he bade Patroclus “mix the wine stronger,” adding this reason,
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.1c] For now I entertain my dearest friends.
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.1d] But Niceratus a Macedonian, my particular acquaintance, maintained that [Greek omitted] did not signify pure but hot wine; as if it were derived from [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted] (LIFE-GIVING and BOILING), and it were requisite at the coming of his friends to temper a fresh bowl, as every one of us in his offering at the altar pours out fresh wine. But Sosicles the poet, remembering a saying of Empedocles, that in the great universal change those things which before were [Greek omitted], UNMIXED, should then be [Greek omitted], affirmed that [Greek omitted] there signified [Greek omitted], WELL-TEMPERED, and that Achilles might with a great deal of reason bid Patroclus provide well-tempered wine for the entertainment of his friends; and it was absurd (he said) to use [Greek omitted] for [Greek omitted] any more than [Greek omitted] for [Greek omitted], or [Greek omitted] for [Greek omitted], for the comparatives are very properly put for the positives. My friend Antipater said that years were anciently called [Greek omitted], and that the particle [Greek omitted] in composition signified greatness; and therefore old wine, that had been kept for many years, was called by Achilles [Greek omitted].
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.2] I put them in mind that some imagine that [Greek omitted], hot, is signified by [Greek omitted], and that hotter means really faster, as when we command servants to move themselves more hotly or in hotter haste. But I must confess, your dispute is frivolous, since it is raised upon this supposition that if [Greek omitted], signifies more pure wine, Achilles’s command would be absurd, as Zoilus of Amphipolis imagined. For first he did not consider that Achilles saw Phoenix and Ulysses to be old men, who are not pleased with diluted wine, and upon that account forbade any mixture. Besides, he having been Chiron’s scholar, and from him having learned the rules of diet, he considered that weaker and more diluted liquors were fittest for those bodies that lay at ease, and were not employed in their customary exercise or labor. Thus with the other provender he gave his horses smallage, and this upon very good reason; for horses that lie still grow sore in their feet, and smallage is the best remedy in the world against that. And you will not find smallage or anything of the same nature given to any other horses in the whole “Iliad.” Thus Achilles, being experienced in physic, provided suitable provender for his horses, and used the lightest diet himself, as the fittest whilst he lay at ease. But those that had been wearied all day in fight he did not think convenient to treat like those that had lain at ease, but commanded more pure and stronger wine to be prepared. Besides, Achilles doth not appear to be naturally addicted to drinking, but he was of a haughty, inexorable temper.
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.2b] No pleasant humor, no, soft mind he bore, But was all fire and rage.(“Iliad,” xx. 467.)
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.2c] And in another place very plainly Homer says, that
Many a sleepless night he knew.(“Iliad,” ix. 325.)
[Quaest. conv. 5.4.2d] Now little sleep cannot content those that drink strong liquors; and in his railing at Agamemnon, the first ill name he gives him is drunkard, proposing his great drinking as the chiefest of his faults. And for these reasons it is likely that, when they came, he thought his usual mixture too weak and not convenient for them.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.1] Concerning Those that Invite Many to a Supper.
PLUTARCH, ONESICRATES, LAMPRIAS THE ELDER.
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.1b] At my return from Alexandria all my friends by turns treated me, inviting all such too as were any way acquainted, so that our meetings were usually tumultuous and suddenly dissolved; which disorders gave occasion to discourses concerning the inconveniences that attend such crowded entertainments. But when Onesicrates the physician in his turn invited only the most familiar acquaintance, and men of the most agreeable temper, I thought that what Plato says concerning the increase of cities might be applied to entertainments. For there is a certain number which an entertainment may receive, and still be an entertainment; but if it exceeds that, so that by reason of the number there cannot be a mutual conversation amongst all, if they cannot know one another nor partake of the same jollity, it ceaseth to be such. For we should not want messengers there, as in a camp, or boatswains, as in a galley; but we ourselves should immediately converse with one another. As in a dance, so in an entertainment, the last man should be placed within hearing of the first.
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.2] As I was speaking, my grandfather Lamprias cried out: Then it seems there is need of temperance not only in our feasts, but also in our invitations. For methinks there is even an excess in kindness, when we pass by none of our friends, but draw them all in, as to see a sight or hear a play. And I think, it is not so great a disgrace for the entertainer not to have bread or wine enough for his, guests, as not to have room enough, with which he ought always to be provided, not only for invited guests, strangers and chance visitants. For suppose he hath not wine and bread enough, it may be imputed either to the carelessness or dishonesty of his servants; but the want of room must be imputed to the imprudence of the inviter. Hesiod is very much admired for beginning thus,
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.2b] A vast chaos first was made.(Hesiod, “Theogony,” 116.)
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.2c] For it was necessary that there should be first a place and room provided for the beings that were afterward to be produced; and not as was seen yesterday at my son’s entertainment, according to Anaxagoras’s saying,
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.2d] All lay jumbled together.
But suppose a man hath room and provision enough, yet a large company itself is to be avoided for its own sake, as hindering all familiarity and conversation; and it is more tolerable to let the company have no wine, than to exclude all converse from a feast. And therefore Theophrastus jocularly called the barbers’ shops feasts without wine; because those that sit there usually prattle and discourse. But those that invite a crowd at once deprive all of free communication of discourse, or rather make them divide into cabals, so that two or three privately talk together, and neither know nor look on those that sit, as it were, half a mile distant.
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.2e] Some took this way to valiant Ajax’s tent, And some the other to Achilles’ went.(“Iliad,” xi. 7.)
[Quaest. conv. 5.5.2f] And therefore some rich men are foolishly profuse, who build rooms big enough for thirty tables or more at once; for such a preparation certainly is for unsociable and unfriendly entertainments, and such as are fit for a panegyriarch rather than a symposiarch to preside over. But this may be pardoned in those; for wealth would not he wealth, it would be really blind and imprisoned, unless it had witnesses, as tragedies would be devoid of spectators. Let us entertain few and often, and make that a remedy against having a crowd at once. For those that invite but seldom are forced to have all their friends, and all that upon any account they are acquainted with together; but those that invite frequently, and but three or four, render their entertainments like little barks, light and nimble. Besides, the very reason why we ask friends teaches us to select some out of the number. For as when we are in want we do not call all together, but only those that can best afford, help in that particular case, — when we would be advised, the wiser part; and when we are to have a trial, the best pleaders; and when we are to go a journey, those that can live pleasantly and are at leisure, — thus to our entertainments we should only call those that are at the present agreeable. Agreeable, for instance, to a prince’s entertainment will be the magistrates, if they are his friends, or chiefest of the city; to marriage or birthday feasts, all their kindred, and such as are under the protection of the same Jupiter the guardian of consanguinity; and to such feasts and merry-makings as this those are to be invited whose tempers are most suitable to the occasion. When we offer sacrifice to one god, we do not worship all the others that belong to the same temple and altar at the same time; but suppose we have three bowls, out of the first we pour oblations to some, out of the second to others and out of the third to the rest, and none of the gods take distaste. And in this a company of friends may be likened to the company of gods; none takes distaste at the order of the invitation, if it be prudently managed and every one allowed a turn.
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 5.6.1] What is the Reason that the Same Room Which at the Beginning of a Supper Seems Too Narrow Appears Wide Enough Afterwards.
[Quaest. conv. 5.6.1b] After this it was presently asked, why the room which at the beginning of supper seems too narrow for the guest is afterwards wide enough; when the contrary is most likely, after they are filled with the supper. Some said the posture of our sitting was the cause; for they sit when they eat, with their full breadth to the table, that they may command it with their right hand; but after they have supped, they sit more sideways, and make an acute figure with their bodies, and do not touch the place according to the superficies, if I may so say, but the line. Now as cockal bones do not take up as much room when they fall upon one end as when they fall flat, so every one of us at the beginning sitting broadwise, and with a full face to the table, afterwards changes the figure, and turns his depth, not his breadth, to the board. Some attribute it to the beds whereon we sat, for those when pressed stretch; as strait shoes after a little wearing have their pores widened, and grow fit for — sometimes too big for — the foot. An old man in the company merrily said, that the same feast had two very different presidents and directors; in the beginning, Hunger, that is not in the least skilled in ordering and disposing, but afterward Bacchus, whom all acknowledge to be the best orderer of an army in the world. As therefore Epaminondas, when the unskilful captains had led their forces into narrow disadvantageous straits, relieved the phalanx that was fallen foul on itself and all in disorder, and brought it into good rank and file again; thus we in the beginning, being like greedy hounds confused and disordered by hunger, the god (hence named the looser and the dancesetter) settles us in a friendly and agreeable order.
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.1] Concerning Those that are Said to Bewitch.
METRIUS FLORUS, PLUTARCH, SOCLARUS, PATROCLES, CAIUS.
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.1b] A discourse happening at supper concerning those that are said to bewitch or have a bewitching eye, most of the company looked upon it as a whim, and laughed at it. But Metrius Florus, who then gave us a supper, said that the strange events wonderfully confirmed the report; and because we cannot give a reason for the thing, therefore to disbelieve the relation was absurd, since there are a thousand things which evidently are, the reasons of which we cannot readily assign. And, in short, he that requires everything should be probable destroys all wonder and admiration; and where the cause is not obvious, there we begin to doubt, that is, to philosophize. So that they who disbelieve all wonderful relations do in some measure take away all philosophy. The cause why anything is so, reason must find out; but that a thing is so, testimony is a sufficient evidence; and we have a thousand instances of this sort attested. We know that some men by looking upon young children hurt them very much, their weak and soft temperature being wrought upon and perverted, whilst those that are strong and firm are not so liable to be wrought upon. And Phylarchus tells us that the Thibians, the old inhabitants about Pontus, were destructive not only to little children, but to some also of riper years; for those upon whom they looked or breathed, or to whom they spake, would languish and grow sick. And this, likely, those of other countries perceived who bought slaves there. But perhaps this is not so much to be wondered at, for in touching and handling there is some apparent principle and cause of the effect. And as when you mix other birds’ wings with the eagles’, the plumes waste and suddenly consume; so there is no reason to the contrary, but that one man’s touch may be good and advantageous, and another’s hurtful and destructive. But that some, by being barely looked upon, are extremely prejudiced is certain; though the stories are disbelieved, because the reason is hard to be given.
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.2] True, said I, but methinks there is some small track to the cause of this effect, if you come to the effluvia of bodies. For smell, voice, breath, and the like, are effluvia from animal bodies, and material parts that move the senses, which are wrought upon by their impulse. Now it is very likely that such effluvia must continually part from animals, by reason of their heat and motion; for by that the spirits are agitated, and the body, being struck by those, must continually send forth effluvia. And it is probable that these pass chiefly through the eye. For the sight, being very vigorous and active, together with the spirit upon which it depends, sends forth a strange fiery power; so that by it men act and suffer very much, and are always proportionably pleased or displeased, according as the visible objects are agreeable or not. Love, that greatest and most violent passion of the soul, takes its beginning from the eye; so that a lover, when he looks upon the fair, flows out as it were, and seems to mix with her. And therefore why should any one, that believes men can be affected and prejudiced by the sight, imagine that they cannot act and hurt is well? For the mutual looks of mature beauties, and that which comes from the eye, whether light or a stream of spirits, melt and dissolve the lovers with a pleasing pain, which they call the bittersweet of love. For neither by touching or hearing the voice of their beloved are they so much wounded and wrought upon, as by looking and being looked upon again. There is such a communication, such a flame raised by one glance, that those must be altogether unacquainted with love that wonder at the Median naphtha, that takes fire at a distance from the flame. For the glances of a fair one, though at a great distance, quickly kindle a fire in the lover’s breast. Besides every body knows the remedy for the jaundice; if they look upon the bird called charadrios they are cured. For that animal seems to be of that temperature and nature as to receive and draw away the disease, that like a stream flows out through the eyes; so that the charadrios will not look on one that hath the jaundice; he cannot endure it, but turns away his head and shuts his eyes, not envying (as some imagine) the cure he performs, but being really hurt by the effluvia of the patient. And of all diseases, soreness of the eyes is the most infectious; so strong and vigorous is the sight, and so easily does it cause infirmities in another.
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.3] Very right, said Patrocles, and you reason well as to changes wrought upon the body; but as to the soul, which in some measure exercises the power of witchcraft, how can this cause any disturbance by the eye? Sir, I replied, do not you consider that the soul, when affected, works upon the body? Ideas of love excite lust, and rage often blinds dogs as they fight with wild beasts. Sorrow, covetousness, or jealousy makes us change color, and destroys the habit of the body; and envy more than any passion, when fixed in the soul, fills the body full of ill humors, and makes it pale and ugly; which deformities good painters in their pictures of envy endeavor to represent. Now, when men thus perverted by envy fix their eyes upon another, and these, being nearest to the soul, easily draw the venom from it, and send out as it were poisoned darts, it is no wonder, in my mind, if he that is looked upon is hurt. Thus the biting of a dog when mad is most dangerous; and then the seed of a man is most prolific, when he embraces one that he loves; and in general the affections of the mind strengthen and invigorate the powers of the body. And therefore people imagine that those amulets that are preservative against witchcraft are likewise good and efficacious against envy; the sight by the strangeness of the spectacle being diverted, so that it cannot make so strong an impression upon the patient. This, Florus, is what I can say; and pray sir, accept it as my club for this entertainment.
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.4] Well, said Soclarus, but let us try whether the money be all good or no; for, in my mind some of it seems brass. But if we admit the general report about these matters to be true, you know very well that it is commonly supposed that some have friends, acquaintance, and even fathers, that have such evil eyes; so that the mothers will not show their children to them, nor for a long time suffer them to be looked upon by such; and how can the effects wrought by these proceed from envy? But what, for God’s sake, wilt thou say to those that are reported to bewitch themselves? — for I am sure you have heard of such, or at least read these lines: —
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.4b] Curls once on Eutel’s head in order stood; But when he viewed his figure in a flood, He overlooked himself, and now they fall . . .
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.4c] For they say that this Eutelidas, appearing very delicate and beauteous to himself, was affected with that sight and grew sick upon it, and lost his beauty and his health. Now, pray sir, what reason can you find for these wonderful effects?
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.5] At any other time, I replied, I question not but I shall give you full satisfaction. But now, sir, after such a large pot as you have seen me take, I boldly affirm, that all passions which have been fixed in the soul a long time raise ill humors in the body, which by continuance growing strong enough to be, as it were, a new nature, being excited by any intervening accident, force men, though unwilling, to their accustomed passions. Consider the timorous, they are afraid even of those things that preserve them. Consider the pettish, they are angry with their best and dearest friends. Consider the amorous and lascivious, in the height of their fury they dare violate a Vestal. For custom is very powerful to draw the temper of the body to anything that is suitable to it; and he that is apt to fall will stumble at everything that lies in his way. So it is no wonder that those that have raised in themselves an envious and bewitching habit, if according to the peculiarity of their passion they are carried on to suitable effects; for when they are once moved, they do that which the nature of the thing, not which their will, leads them to. For as a sphere must necessarily move spherically, and a cylinder cylindrically, according to the difference of their figures; thus his disposition makes an envious man move enviously to all things; and it is likely they should chiefly hurt their most familiar acquaintance and best beloved. And that fine fellow Eutelidas you mentioned, and the rest that are said to overlook themselves, may be easily and upon good rational grounds accounted for; for, according to Hippocrates, a good habit of body, when at height, is easily perverted, and bodies come to their full maturity do not stand at a stay there, but fall and waste down to the contrary extreme. And therefore when they are in very good plight, and see themselves look much better than they expected, they gaze and wonder; but then their body being nigh to change, and their habit declining into a worse condition, they overlook themselves. And this is done when the effluvia are stopped and reflected by the water rather than by any other reflecting body; for this exhales upon them whilst they look upon it, so that the very same particles which would hurt others must hurt themselves. And this perchance often happens to young children, and the cause of their diseases is falsely attributed to those that look upon them.
[Quaest. conv. 5.7.6] When I had done, Caius, Florus’s son-inlaw, said: Then it seems you make no more reckoning or account of Democritus’s images, than of those of Aegium or Megara; for he delivers that the envious send out images which are not altogether void of sense or force, but full of the disturbing and poisonous qualities of those from whom they come. Now these being mixed with such qualities, and remaining with and abiding in those persons that injure them both in mind and body; for this, I think, is the meaning of that philosopher, a man in his opinion and expressions admirable and divine. Very true, said I, and I wonder that you did not observe that I took nothing from those effluvia and images but life and will; lest you should imagine that, now it is almost midnight, I brought in spectres and wise and understanding images to terrify and fright you; but in the morning, if you please, we will talk of those things.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.1] Why Homer Calls the Apple- Tree [Greek Omitted], And Empedocles Calls Apples [GREEK OMITTED].
PLUTARCH, TRYPHO, CERTAIN GRAMMARIANS, LAMPRIAS THE ELDER.
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.1b] As we were at supper in Chaeronea, and had all sorts of fruit at the table, one of the company chanced to speak these verses,
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.1c] The fig-trees sweet, the apple-trees that bear Fair fruit, and olives green through all the year.(“Odyssey,” vii. 115.)
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.1d] Upon this there arose a question, why the poet calls apple-trees particularly [Greek omitted], BEARING FAIR FRUIT. Trypho the physician said that this epithet was given comparatively in respect of the tree, because, it being small and no goodly tree to look upon, bears fair and large fruit. Somebody else said, that the particular excellencies scattered amongst all other fruits are united in this alone. As to the touch, it is smooth and polished, so that it makes the hand that toucheth it odorous without defiling it; it is sweet to the taste, and to the smell and sight very pleasing; and therefore there is reason that it should be duly praised, as being that which congregates and allures all the senses together.
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.2] This discourse pleased us indifferently well. But whereas Empedocles has thus written,
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.2b] Why pomegranates so late do thrive, And apples give a lovely show [Greek omitted];
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.2c] I guess the epithet to be given to pomegranates, because that at the end of autumn, and when the heats begin to decrease, they ripen the fruit; for the sun will not suffer the weak and thin moisture to thicken into a consistence until the air begins to wax colder; therefore, says Theophrastus, this only tree ripens its fruit best and soonest in the shade. But in what sense the philosopher gives the epithet [Greek omitted], to apples, I much question, since it is not his custom to try to adorn his verses with varieties of epithets, as with gay and florid colors. But in every verse he gives some description of the substance and virtue of the subject which he treats; as when he calls the body encircling the soul the mortal-surrounding earth; as also when he calls the air cloud-gathering, and the liver much blooded.
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.3] When now I had said these things myself, certain grammarians affirmed, that those apples were called [Greek omitted] by reason of their vigor and florid manner of growing; for to blossom and flourish after an extraordinary manner is by the poets expressed by the word [Greek omitted]. In this sense, Antimachus calls the city of Cadmeans flourishing with fruit; and Aratus, speaking of the dog-star Sirius, says that he
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.3b] To some gave strength, but others did ruin, Their bloom;
[Quaest. conv. 5.8.3c] calling the greenness of the trees and the blossoming of the fruit by the name of [Greek omitted]. Nay, there are some of the Greeks also who sacrifice to Bacchus surnamed [Greek omitted]. And therefore, seeing the verdure and floridness chiefly recommend this fruit, philosophers call it [Greek omitted]. But Lamprias our grandfather used to say that the word [Greek omitted] did not only denote excess and vehemency, but external and supernal; thus we call the upper frame of a door [Greek omitted], and the upper portion of the house [Greek omitted]; and the poet calls the outward parts of the victim the upper-flesh, as he calls the entrails the inner-flesh. Let us see therefore, says he, whether Empedocles did not make use of this epithet in this sense, seeing that other fruits are encompassed with an outward rind and with certain coatings and membranes, but the only cortex rind that the apple has is a glutinous and smooth tunic (or core) containing the seed, so that the part which can be eaten, and lies without, was properly called [Greek omitted], that IS OVER or OUTSIDE OF THE HUSK.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 5.9.1] What is the Reason that the Fig-Tree, Being Itself of a Very Sharp and Bitter Taste, Bears So Sweet Fruit?
LAMPRIAS THE ELDER, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 5.9.1b] This discourse ended, the next question was about fig-trees, how so luscious and sweet fruit should come from so bitter a tree. For the leaf from its roughness is called [Greek omitted]. The wood of it is full of sap, and as it burns sends forth a very biting smoke; and the ashes of it thoroughly burnt are so acrimonious, that they make a lye extremely detersive. And, which is very strange, all other trees that bud and bear fruit put forth blossoms too; but the fig-tree never blossoms. And if (as some say) it is never thunderstruck, that likewise may be attributed to the sharp juices and bad temper of the stock; for such things are as secure from thunder as the skin of a sea calf or hyena. Then said the old man: It is no wonder that when all the sweetness is separated and employed in making the fruit, that which is left should be bitter and unsavory. For as the liver, all the gall being gathered in its proper place, is itself very sweet; so the fig-tree having parted with its oil and sweet particles to the fruit, reserves no portion for itself. For that this tree hath some good juice, I gather from what they say of rue, which growing under a fig-tree is sweeter than usual, and hath a sweeter and more palatable juice, as if it drew some sweet particles from the tree which mollified its offensive and corroding qualities; unless perhaps, on the contrary, the fig-tree robbing it of its nourishment draws likewise some of its sharpness and bitterness away.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.1] What are Those that are Said to Be [Greek Omitted], And Why Homer Calls Salt Divine?
FLORUS, APOLLOPHANES, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.1b] Florus, when we were entertained at his house, put this question, What are those in the proverb who are said to be about the salt and cummin? Apollophanes the grammarian presently satisfied him, saying, by that proverb were meant intimate acquaintance, who could sup together on salt and cummin. Thence we proceeded to inquire how salt should come to be so much honored as it is; for Homer plainly says,
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.1c] And after that he strewed his salt divine(“Iliad,” ix. 214.)
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.1d] and Plato delivers that by man’s laws salt is to be accounted most sacred. And this difficulty was increased by the customs of the Egyptian priests, who professing chastity eat no salt, no, not so much as in their bread. For if it be divine and holy, why should they avoid it?
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.2] Florus bade us not mind the Egyptians, but speak according to the Grecian custom on the present subject. But I replied: The Egyptians are not contrary to the Greeks in this matter; for the profession of purity and chastity forbids getting children, laughter, wine, and many other very commendable and lawful things; and perhaps these priests avoid salt, as being, according to some men’s opinions, by its heat provocative and apt to raise lust. Or they refuse it as the most pleasant of all sauces, for indeed salt may be called the sauce of all sauces; and therefore some call salt [Greek omitted]; because it makes food, which is necessary for life, to be relishing and pleasant.
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.3] What then, said Florus, shall we say that salt is termed divine for that reason? Indeed that is very considerable, for men for the most part deify those common things that are exceeding useful to their necessities and wants, as water, light, the seasons of the year; and the earth they do not only think to be divine, but a very god. Now salt is as useful as either of these, protecting in a way the food as it comes into the body, and making it palatable and agreeable to the appetite. But consider farther, whether its power of preserving dead bodies from rotting a long time be not a divine property, and opposite to death; since it preserves part, and will not suffer that which is mortal wholly to be destroyed. But as the soul, which is our diviner part, connects the limbs of animals, and keeps the composure from dissolution; thus salt applied to dead bodies, and imitating the work of the soul, stops those parts that were falling to corruption, binds and confines them, and so makes them keep their union and agreement with one another. And therefore some of the Stoics say, that swine’s flesh then deserves the name of a body, when the soul like salt spreads through it and keeps the parts from dissolution. Besides, you know that we account lightning to be sacred and divine, because the bodies that are thunderstruck do not rot for a long time; what wonder is it then, that the ancients called salt as well as lightning divine, since it hath the same property and power?
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.4] I making no reply, Philinus subjoined: Do you not think that that which is generative is to be esteemed divine, seeing God is the principle of all things? And I assenting, he continued: Salt, in the opinion of some men, for instance the Egyptians you mentioned, is very operative that way; and those that breed dogs, when they find their bitches not apt to be hot, give them salt and seasoned flesh, to excite and arouse their sleeping lechery and vigor. Besides, the ships that carry salt breed abundance of mice; the females, as some imagine, conceiving without the help of the males, only by licking the salt. But it is most probable that the salt raiseth an itching in animals, and so makes them salacious and eager to couple. And perhaps for the same reason they call a surprising and bewitching beauty, such as is apt to move and entice, [Greek omitted], SALTISH. And I think the poets had a respect to this generative power of salt in their fable of Venus springing from the sea. And it may be farther observed, that they make all the sea gods very fruitful, and give them large families. And besides, there are no land animals so fruitful as the sea ones; agreeable to which observation is that verse of Empedocles,
[Quaest. conv. 5.10.4b] Leading the foolish race of fruitful fish.

## Book VI.

[Quaest. conv. 6.0.1] Timotheus the son of Conon, Sossius Senecio, after a full enjoyment of luxurious campaign diet, being entertained by Plato in his Academy, at a neat, homely, and (as Ion says) no surfeiting feast (such an one as is constantly attended by sound sleep, and by reason of the calm and pleasant state the body enjoys, rarely interrupted with dreams and apparitions), the next day, being sensible of the difference, said that those that supped with Plato were well treated, even the day after the feast. For such a temper of a body not overcharged, but expedite and fitted for the ready execution of all its enterprises, is without all doubt a great help for the more comfortable passing away of the day. But there is another benefit not inferior to the former, which does usually accrue to those that sup with Plato, namely, the recollection of those points that were debated at the table. For the remembrance of those pleasures which arise from meat and drink is ungenteel, and short-lived withal, and nothing but the remains of yesterday’s smell. But the subjects of philosophical queries and discourses, being always fresh after they are imparted, are equally relished by all, as well by those that were absent as by those that were present at them; insomuch that learned men even now are as much partakers of Socrates’s feasts as those who really supped with him. But if things pertaining to the body had afforded any pleasure, Xenophon and Plato should have left us an account not of the discourse, but of the great variety of dishes, sauces, and other costly compositions that were prepared in the houses of Callias and Agatho. Yet there is not the least mention made of any such things, though questionless they were as sumptuous as possible; but whatever things were treated of and learnedly discussed by their guests were left upon record and transmitted to posterity as precedents, not only for discoursing at table, but also for remembering the things that were handled at such meetings.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 6.1.1] What is the Reason that Those that are Fasting are More Thirsty Than Hungry?
PLUTARCH and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 6.1.1b] I present you with this Sixth Book of Table Discourses, wherein the first thing that cometh to be discussed is an inquiry into the reason why those that are fasting are more inclinable to drink than to eat. For the assertion carries in it a repugnancy to the standing rules of reason; forasmuch as the decayed stock of dry nourishment seems more naturally to call for its proper supplies. Whereupon I told the company, that of those things whereof our bodies are composed, heat only — or, however, above all the rest — stands in continual need of such accessions; for the truth of which this may be urged as a convincing argument: neither air, water, nor earth requires any matter to feed upon, or devours whatsoever lies next it; but fire alone doth. Hence it comes to pass that young men, by reason of their greater share of natural heat, have commonly greater stomachs than old men; whereas on the contrary, old men can endure fasting much better, for this only reason, because their natural heat is grown weaker and decayed. Just so we see it fares with bloodless animals, which by reason of the want of heat require very little nourishment. Besides, every one of us finds by experience, that bodily exercises, clamors, and whatever other actions by violent motion occasion heat, commonly sharpen our stomachs and get us a better appetite. Now, as I take it, the most natural and principal nourishment of heat is moisture, as it evidently appears from flames, which increase by the pouring in of oil, and from ashes, which are of the driest things in nature; for after the humidity is consumed by the fire, the terrene and grosser parts remain without any moisture at all. Add to these, that fire separates and dissolves bodies by extracting that moisture which should keep them close and compact. Therefore, when we are fasting, the heat first of all forces the moisture out of the relics of the nourishment that remain in the body, and then, pursuing the other humid parts, preys upon the natural moisture of the flesh itself. Hence the body like clay becoming dry, wants drink more than meat; till the heat, receiving strength and vigor by our drinking, excites an appetite for more substantial food.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 6.2.1] Whether Want of Nourishment Causeth Hunger and Thirst or the Change in the Figures of the Pores.
PHILO, PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 6.2.1b] After these things were spoke, Philo the physician started the first question, asserting that thirst did not arise from the want of nourishment, but from the different transfiguration of certain passages. For, says he, this may be made evident, partly from what we see happens to those that thirst in the night, who, if sleep chance to steal upon them, though they did not drink before, are yet rid of their thirst; partly from persons in a fever, who, as soon as the disease abates or is removed, thirst no more. Nay, a great many men, after they have bathed or vomited, perceive presently that their thirst is gone; yet none of these add anything to their former moisture, but only the transfiguration of the pores causeth a new order and disposition. And this is more evident in hunger; for many sick persons, at the same time when they have the greatest need of meat, have no stomach. Others, after they have filled their bellies, have the same stomachs, and their appetites are rather increased than abated. There are a great many besides who loathe all sorts of diet, yet by taking of a pickled olive or caper recover and confirm their lost appetites. This doth clearly evince, that hunger proceeds from some change in the pores, and not from any want of sustenance, forasmuch as such kind of food lessens the defect by adding food, but increases the hunger; and the pleasing relish and poignancy of such pickles, by binding and straitening the mouth of the ventricle, and again by opening and loosening of it, beget in it a convenient disposition to receive meat, which we call by the name of appetite.
[Quaest. conv. 6.2.2] I must confess this discourse seemed to carry in it some shadow of reason and probability; but in the main it is directly repugnant to the chief end of nature, to which appetite directs every animal. For that makes it desire a supply of what they stand in need of, and avoid a defect of their proper food. For to deny what especially makes a living creature differ from an inanimate object as given to us for our preservation and conservation (being as it were the receiver of what supplements and agrees with the nature of our body) is the argument of one who takes no account of natural law, especially when he would add that the characteristic proceeds from the great or small size of the pores. Besides, it is absurd to think that a body through the want of natural heat should be chilled, and should not in like manner hunger and thirst through the want of natural moisture and nourishment. And yet this is more absurd, that Nature when overcharged should desire to disburden herself, and yet should not require to be supplied on account of emptiness, but on account of some condition or other, I know not what. Moreover, these needs and supplies in relation to animals have some resemblance to those we see in husbandry. There are a great many like qualities and like provisions on both sides. For in a drought we water our grounds, and in case of excessive heat, we frequently make use of moderate coolers; and when our fruits are too cold, we endeavor to preserve and cherish them, by covering and making fences about them. And for such things as are out of the reach of human power, we implore the assistance of the gods, that is, to send us softening dews, and sunshines qualified with moderate winds; that so Nature, being always desirous of a due mixture, may have her wants supplied. And for this reason I presume it was that nourishment is called [Greek omitted] (from [Greek omitted]), because it observes and preserves Nature. Now Nature is preserved in plants, which are destitute of sense, by the favorable influence of the circumambient air (as Empedocles says), moistening them in such a measure as is most agreeable to their nature. But as for us men, our appetites prompt us on to the chase and pursuance of whatsoever is wanting to our natural temperament.
[Quaest. conv. 6.2.2b] But now let us pass to the examination of the truth of the arguments that seem to favor the contrary opinion. And for the first, I suppose that those meats that are palatable and of a quick and sharp taste do not beget in us an appetite, but rather bite and fret those parts that receive the nourishment, as we find that scratching the skin causes itching. And supposing we should grant that this affection or disposition is the very thing which we call the appetite, it is probable that, by the operation of such kind of food as this, the nourishment may be made small, and so much of it as is convenient for Nature severed from the rest, so that the indigency proceeds not from the transmutation, but from the evacuation and purgation of the passages. For sharp, tart, and salt things grate the inward matter, and by dispersing of it cause digestion, so that by the concoctions of the old there may arise an appetite for new.
[Quaest. conv. 6.2.2c] Nor does the cessation of thirst after bathing spring from the different position of the passages, but from a new supply of moisture received into the flesh, and conveyed from thence to them also. And vomiting, by throwing off whatever is disagreeable to Nature, puts her in a capacity of enjoying what is most suitable for her. For thirst does not call for a superfluity of moisture, but only for so much as sufficeth Nature; and therefore, though a man had plenty of disagreeable and unnatural moisture, yet he wants still, for that stops the course of the natural, which Nature is desirous of, and hinders a due mixture and temperament, till it be cast out and the pores receive what is most proper and convenient for them. Moreover, a fever forces all the moisture downward; and the middle parts being in combustion, it all retires thither, and there is shut up and forcibly detained.
[Quaest. conv. 6.2.2d] And therefore it is usual with a great many to vomit, by reason of the density of the inward parts squeezing out the moisture, and likewise to thirst, by reason of the poor and dry state the rest of the body is in. But after the violence of the distemper is once abated, and the raging heat hath left the middle parts, the moisture begins to disperse itself again; and according to its natural motion, by a speedy conveyance into all the parts, it refreshes the entrails, softens and makes tender the dry and parched flesh. Very often also it causes sweat, and then the defect which occasioned thirst ceases; for the moisture leaving that part of the body wherein it was forcibly detained, and out of which it hardly made an escape, retires to the place where it is wanted. For as it fares with a garden wherein there is a large well, — if nobody draw thereof and water it, the herbs must needs wither and die, — so it fares with a body; if all the moisture be contracted into one part, it is no wonder if the rest be in want and dry, till it is diffused again over the other limbs.
[Quaest. conv. 6.2.2e] Just so it happens to persons in a fever, after the heat of the disease is over, and likewise to those who go to sleep thirsty. For in these, sleep draws the moisture to the middle parts, and equally distributes it amongst the rest, satisfying them all. But, I pray, what kind of transfiguration of the passages is this which causes hunger and thirst? For my part, I know no other distinction of the pores but in respect of their number or that some of them are shut, others open. As for those that are shut, they can neither receive meat nor drink; and as for those that are open, they make an empty space, which is nothing but a want of that which Nature requires. Thus, sir, when men dye cloth, the liquor in which they dip it hath very sharp and abstersive particles; which, consuming and scouring off all the matter that filled the pores, make the cloth more apt to receive the dye, because its pores are empty and want something to fill them up.
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 6.3.1] What is the Reason that Hunger is Allayed by Drinking, But Thirst Increased by Eating?
THE HOST, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 6.3.1b] After we had gone thus far, the master of the feast told the company that the former points were reasonably well discussed; and waiving at present the discourse concerning the evacuation and repletion of the pores, he requested us to fall upon another question, that is, how it comes to pass that hunger is stayed by drinking, when, on the contrary, thirst is more violent after eating. Those who assign the reason to be in the pores seem with a great deal of ease and probability, though not with so much truth, to explain the thing. For seeing the pores in all bodies are of different sorts and sizes, the more capacious receive both dry and humid nourishment, the lesser take in drink, not meat; but the vacuity of the former causes hunger, of the latter thirst. Hence it is that men that thirst are never better after they have eaten, the pores by reason of their straitness denying admittance to grosser nourishment, and the want of suitable supply still remaining. But after hungry men have drunk, the moisture enters the greater pores, fills the empty spaces, and in part assuages the violence of the hunger.
[Quaest. conv. 6.3.2] Of this effect, said I, I do not in the least doubt, but I do not approve of the reason they give for it. For if any one should admit these pores (which some are so unreasonably fond of) to be in the flesh, he must needs make it a very soft, loose, flabby substance; and that the same parts do not receive the meat and drink, but that they run through different canals and strainers in them, seems to me to be a very strange and unaccountable opinion. For the moisture mixes with the dry food, and by the assistance of the natural heat and spirits cuts the nourishment far smaller than any cleaver or chopping-knife, to the end that every part of it may be exactly fitted to each part of the body, not applied, as they would have it, to little vessels and pores, but united and incorporated with the whole substance. And unless the thing were explained after this manner, the hardest knot in the question would still remain unsolved.
[Quaest. conv. 6.3.2b] For a man that has a thirst upon him, supposing he eats and doth not drink, is so far from quenching, that he does highly increase it. This point is yet undiscussed. But mark, said I, whether the positions on my side be clear and evident or not. In the first place, we take it for granted that moisture is wasted and destroyed by heat, that the drier parts of the nourishment qualified and softened by moisture, are diffused and fly away in vapors. Secondly, we must by no means suppose that all hunger is a total privation of dry, and thirst of humid nutriment, but only a moderate one, and such as is sufficient to cause the one or the other; for whoever are wholly deprived of either of these, they neither hunger nor thirst, but die instantly. These things being laid down as a foundation, it will be no hard matter to find out the cause. For thirst is increased by eating for this reason, because that meat by its natural siccity contracts and destroys all that small quantity of moisture which remained scattered here and there through the body; just as happens in things obvious to our senses; we see the earth, dust, and the like presently suck in the moisture that is mixed with them.
[Quaest. conv. 6.3.2c] Now, on the contrary, drink must of necessity assuage hunger; for the moisture watering and diffusing itself through the dry and parched relics of the meat we ate last, by turning them into thin juices, conveys them through the whole body, and succors the indigent parts. And therefore with very good reason Erasistratus called moisture the vehicle of the meat; for as soon as this is mixed with things which by reason of their dryness, or some other quality, are slow and heavy, it raises them up and carries them aloft. Moreover, several men, when they have drunk nothing at all, but only washed themselves, all on a sudden are freed from a very violent hunger, because the extrinsic moisture entering the pores makes the meat within more succulent and of a more nourishing nature, so that the heat and fury of the hunger declines and abates; and therefore a great many of those who have a mind to starve themselves to death live a long time only by drinking water; that is, as long as the siccity does not quite consume whatever may be united to and nourish the body.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 6.4.1] What is the Reason that a Bucket of Water Drawn Out of a Well, If It Stands All Night in the Air that is in the Well, Is, More Cold in the Morning Than the Rest of the Water?
A GUEST, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 6.4.1b] One of the strangers at the the table, who took wonderful great delight in drinking of cold water, had some brought to him by the servants, cooled after this manner; they had hung in the well a bucket full of the same water, so that it could not touch the sides of the well, and there let it remain, all night: the next day, when it was brought to table, it was colder than the water that was newdrawn. Now this gentleman was an indifferent good scholar, and therefore told the company that he had learned this from Aristotle, who gives the reason of it. The reason which he assigned was this. All water, when it hath been once hot, is afterwards more cold; as that which is prepared for kings, when it hath boiled a good while upon the fire, is afterwards put into a vessel set round with snow, and so made colder; just as we find our bodies more cool after we have bathed, because the body, after a short relaxation from heat, is rarefied and more porous, and therefore so much the more fitted to receive a larger quantity of air, which causes the alteration. Therefore the water, when it is drawn out of the well, being first warmed in the air, grows presently cold.
[Quaest. conv. 6.4.2] Whereupon we began to commend the man very highly for his happy memory; but we called in question the pretended reason. For if the air wherein the vessel hangs be cold, how, I pray, does it heat the water? If hot, how does it afterwards make it cold? For it is absurd to say, that the same thing is affected by the same thing with contrary qualities, no difference at all intervening. While the gentleman held his peace, as not knowing what to say; there is no cause, said I, that we should raise any scruple concerning the nature of the air, forasmuch as we are ascertained by sense that it is cold, especially in the bottom of a well; and therefore we can never imagine that it should make the water hot. But I should rather judge this to be the reason: the cold air, though it cannot cool the great quantity of water which is in the well, yet can easily cool each part of it, separate from the whole.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 6.5.1] What is the Reason that Pebble Stones and Leaden Bullets Thrown Into the Water Make It More Cold?
A GUEST, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 6.5.1b] I suppose you may remember that what Aristotle says in his problems, of little stones and pieces of iron, how it hath been observed by some that being thrown into the water they temper and cool it. This is no more than barely asserted by him; but we will go farther and inquire into the reason of it, the discovery of which will be a matter of difficulty. Yes, says I, it will so, and it is much if we hit upon it; for do but consider, first of all, do not you suppose that the air which comes in from without cools the water? But now air has a great deal more power and force, when it beats against stones and pieces of iron. For they do not, like brazen and earthen vessels, suffer it to pass through; but, by reason of their solid bulk, beat it back and reflect it into the water, so that upon all parts the cold works very strongly. And hence it comes to pass that rivers in the winter are colder than the sea, because the cold air has a power over them, which by reason of its depth it has not over the sea, where it is scattered without any reflection. But it is probable that for another reason thinner waters may be made colder by the air than thicker, because they are not so strong to resist its force. Now whetstones and pebbles make the water thinner by drawing to them all the mud and other grosser substances that be mixed with it, that so by taking the strength from it may the more easily be wrought upon by the cold. But besides, lead is naturally cold, as that which, being dissolved in vinegar, makes the coldest of all poisons, called white-lead; and stones, by reason of their density, raise cold in the bottom of the water. For every stone is nothing else but a congealed lump of frozen earth, though some more or less than others; and therefore it is no absurdity to say that stones and lead, by reflecting the air, increase the coldness of the water.
QUESTION VI
[Quaest. conv. 6.6.1] What is the Reason that Men Preserve Snow by Covering It with Chaff and Cloths?
A GUEST, PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 6.6.1b] Then the stranger, after he had made a little pause, said: Men in love are ambitious to be in company with their sweethearts; when that is denied them, they desire at least to talk of them. This is my case in relation to snow; and, because I cannot have it at present, I am desirous to learn the reason why it is commonly preserved by the hottest things. For, when covered with chaff and cloth that has never been at the fuller’s, it is preserved a long time. Now it is strange that the coldest things should be preserved by the hottest.
[Quaest. conv. 6.6.2] Yes, said I, it is a very strange thing, if true. But it is not so; and we cozen ourselves by presently concluding a thing to be hot if it have a faculty of causing heat, when as yet we see that the same garment causes heat in winter, and cold in summer. Thus the nurse in the tragedy,
[Quaest. conv. 6.6.2b] In garments thin doth Niobe’s children fold, And sometimes heats and sometimes cools the babes.
[Quaest. conv. 6.6.2c] The Germans indeed make use of clothes only against the cold, the Ethiopians only against the heat; but they are useful to us upon both accounts. Why therefore should we rather say the clothes are hot, because they cause heat, than cold, because they cause cold? Nay, if we must be tried by sense, it will be found that they are more cold than hot. For at the first putting on of a coat it is cold, and so is our bed when we lie down; but afterwards they grow hot with the heat of our bodies, because they both keep in the heat and keep out the cold. Indeed, feverish persons and others that have a violent heat upon them often change their clothes, because they perceive that fresh ones at the first putting on are much colder; but within a very little time their bodies make them as hot as the others. In like manner, as a garment heated makes us hot, so a covering cooled keeps snow cold. Now that which causes this cold is the continual emanations of a subtile spirit the snow has in it, which spirit, as long as it remains in the snow, keeps it compact and close; but, after once it is gone, the snow melts and dissolves into water, and instantly loses its whiteness, occasioned by a mixture of this spirit with a frothy moisture. Therefore at the same time, by the help of these clothes, the cold is kept in, and the external air is shut out, lest it should thaw the concrete body of the snow. The reason why they make use of cloth that has not yet been at the fuller’s is this, because that in such cloth the hair and coarse flocks keep it off from pressing too hard upon the snow, and bruising it. So chaff lying lightly upon it does not dissolve the body of the snow, besides the chaff lies close and shuts out the warm air, and keeps in the natural cold of the snow. Now that snow melts by the evaporating of this spirit, we are ascertained by sense; for when snow melts it raises a vapor.
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 6.7.1] Whether Wine Ought to Be Strained or Not.
NIGER, ARISTIO.
[Quaest. conv. 6.7.1b] Niger, a citizen of ours, was lately come from school, after he had spent some time under the discipline of a celebrated philosopher, but had absorbed nothing but those faults by which his master was odious to others, especially his custom of reproving and of carping at whatever upon any occasion chanced to be discussed in company. And therefore, when we were at supper one time at Aristio’s, not content to assume to himself a liberty to rail at all the rest of the preparations as too profuse and extravagant, he had a pique at the wine too, and said that it ought not to be brought to table strained, but that, observing Hesiod’s rule, we ought to drink it new out of the vessel. Moreover, he added that this way of purging wine takes the strength from it, and robs it of its natural heat, which, when wine is poured out of one vessel into another, evaporates and dies. Besides he would needs persuade us that it showed too much of a vain curiosity, effeminacy, and luxury, to convert what is wholesome into that which is palatable. For as the riotous, not the temperate, use to cut cocks and geld pigs, to make their flesh tender and delicious, even against Nature; just so (if we may use a metaphor, says he) those that strain wine geld and emasculate it, whilst their squeamish stomachs will neither suffer them to drink pure wine, nor their intemperance to drink moderately. Therefore they make use of this expedient, to the end that it may render the desire they have of drinking plentifully more excusable. So they take all the strength from the wine, leaving the palatableness still: as we use to deal with those with whose constitution cold water does not agree, to boil it for them. For they certainly take off all the strength from the wine, by straining of it. And this is a great argument, that the wine deads, grows flat, and loses its virtue, when it is separated from the lees, as from its root and stock; for the ancients for very good reason called wine lees, as we use to signify a man by his head or soul, as the principal part of him. So in Greek, grape-gatherers are said [Greek omitted], the word being derived from [Greek omitted], which signifies lees; and Homer in one place calls the fruit of the wine [Greek omitted], and the wine itself high-colored and red, — not pale and yellow, such as Aristio gives us to supper, after all the goodness is purged out of it.
[Quaest. conv. 6.7.2] Then Aristio smiling presently replied: Sir, the wine I bring to table does not look so pale and lifeless as you would have it: but it appears only in the cup to be mild and well qualified. But for your part, you would glut yourself with night wine, which raises melancholy vapors; and upon this account you cry out against purgation, which, by carrying off whatever might cause melancholy or load men’s stomachs, and make them drunk or sick, makes it mild and pleasant to those that drink it, such as heroes (as Homer tells us) were formerly wont to drink. And it was not dark wine which he called [Greek omitted], but clear and transparent; for otherwise he would never have named brass [Greek omitted], after characterizing it as man-exalting and resplendent. Therefore as the wise Anacharsis, discommending some things that the Grecians enjoined, commended their coals, because they leave the smoke without doors, and bring the fire into the house; so you judicious men might blame me for some other reason than this. But what hurt, I pray, have I done to the wine, by taking from it a turbulent and noisome quality, and giving it a better taste, though a paler color? Nor have I brought you wine to the table which, like a sword, hath lost its edge and vigorous relish, but such as is only purged of its dregs and filth. But you will say that wine not strained hath a great deal more strength. Why so, my friend? One that is frantic and distracted has more strength than a man in his wits; but when, by the help of hellebore or some other fit diet, he is come to himself, that rage and frenzy leave him and quite vanish, and the true use of his reason and health of body presently comes into its place. In like manner, purging of wine takes from it all the strength that inflames and enrages the mind, and gives it instead thereof a mild and wholesome temper; and I think there is a great deal of difference between gaudiness and cleanliness. For women, while they paint, perfume, and adorn themselves with jewels and purple robes, are accounted gaudy and profuse; yet nobody will find fault with them for washing their faces, anointing themselves, or platting their hair. Homer very neatly expresses the difference of these two habits, where he brings in Juno dressing herself: —
[Quaest. conv. 6.7.2b] With sweet ambrosia first she washed her skin, And after did anoint herself with oil.(“Iliad,” xiv. 170.)
[Quaest. conv. 6.7.2c] So much was allowable, being no more than a careful cleanliness. But when she comes to call for her golden buttons, her curiously wrought earrings, and last of all puts on her bewitching girdle, this appears to be an extravagant and idle curiosity, and betrays too much of wantonness, which by no means becomes a married woman. Just so they that sophisticate wine by mixing it with aloes, cinnamon, or saffron bring it to the table like a gorgeous-apparelled woman, and there prostitute it. But those that only take from it what is nasty and no way profitable do only purge it and improve it by their labor. Otherwise you may find fault with all things whatsoever as vain and extravagant, beginning at the house you live in. As first, you may say, why is it plastered? Why does it open especially on that side where it may have the best convenience for receiving the purest air, and the benefit of the evening sun? What is the reason that our cups are washed and made so clean that they shine and look bright? Now if a cup ought to have nothing that is nasty or loathsome in it, ought that which is drunk out of the cup to be full of dregs and filth? What need is there for mentioning anything else? The making corn into bread is a continual cleansing; and yet what a great ado there is before it is effected! There is not only threshing, winnowing, sifting, and separating the bran, but there must be kneading the dough to soften all parts alike, and a continual cleansing and working of the mass till all the parts become edible alike. What absurdity is it then by straining to separate the lees, as it were the filth of the wine, especially since the cleansing is no chargeable or painful operation?
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 6.8.1] What is the Cause of Bulimy or the Greedy Disease?
PLUTARCH, SOCLARUS, CLEOMENES, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 6.8.1b] There is a certain sacrifice of very ancient institution, which the chief magistrate or archon performs always in the common-hall, and every private person in his own house. ‘Tis called the driving out of bulimy; for they whip out of doors some one of their servants with a bunch of willow rods, repeating these words, Get out of doors, bulimy; and enter riches and health. Therefore in my year there was a great concourse of people present at the sacrifice; and, after all the rites and ceremonies of the sacrifice were over, when we had seated ourselves again at the table, there was an inquiry made first of all into the signification of the word bulimy, then into the meaning of the words which are repeated when the servant is turned out of doors. But the principal dispute was concerning the nature of it, and all its circumstances. First, as for the word bulimy, it was agreed upon by all to denote a great and public famine, especially among us who use the Aeolic dialect, putting [Greek omitted] for [Greek omitted]. For it was not called by the ancients [Greek omitted] but [Greek omitted], that is, [Greek omitted], much hunger. We concluded that it was not the same with the disease called Bubrostis, by an argument fetched out of Metrodorus’s Ionics. For the said Metrodorus informs us that the Smyrnaeans, who were once Aeolians, sacrificed to Bubrostis a black bull cut into pieces with the skin on, and so burnt it. Now, forasmuch as every species of hunger resembles a disease, but more particularly Bulimy, which is occasioned by an unnatural disposition of the body, these two differ as riches and poverty, health and sickness. But as the word NAUSEATE [Greek omitted] first took its name from men who were sea-sick in a ship, and afterwards custom prevailed so far that the word was applied to all persons that were any way in like sort affected; so the word BULIMY, rising at first from hence, was at last extended to a more large and comprehensive signification. What has been hitherto said was a general club of the opinions of all those who were at table.
[Quaest. conv. 6.8.2] But after we began to inquire after the cause of this disease, the first thing that puzzled us was to find out the reason why bulimy seizes upon those that travel in the snow. As Brutus, one time marching from Dyrrachium to Apollonia in a deep snow, was endangered of his life by bulimy, whilst none of those that carried the provisions for the army followed him; just when the man was ready to faint and die, some of his soldiers were forced to run to the walls of the enemies’ city, and beg a piece of bread of the sentinels, by the eating of which he was presently refreshed; for which cause, after Brutus had made himself master of the city, he treated all the inhabitants very mercifully. Asses and horses are frequently troubled with bulimy, especially when they are laden with dry figs and apples; and, which is yet more strange, of all things that are eaten, bread chiefly refreshes not only men but beasts; so that, by taking a little quantity of bread, they regain their strength and go forward on their journey.
[Quaest. conv. 6.8.3] After all were silent, I (who had observed that dull fellows and those of a less piercing judgment were satisfied with and did acquiesce in the reasons the ancients gave for bulimy, but to men of ingenuity and industry they only pointed out the way to a more clear discovery of the truth of the business) mentioned Aristotle’s opinion, who says, that extreme cold without causes extreme heat and consumption within; which, if it fall into the legs, makes them lazy and heavy, but if it come to the fountain of motion and respiration, occasions faintings and weakness. When I had said that, some of the company opposed it, others held with me.
[Quaest. conv. 6.8.4] At length says Soclarus: I like the beginning of this reason very well, for the bodies of travellers in a great snow must of necessity be surrounded and condensed with cold; but that from the heat within there should arise such a consumption as invades the principle of respiration, I can no way imagine. I rather think, says he, that abundance of heat penned up in the body consumes the nourishment, and that failing, the fire as it were goes out. Here it comes to pass, that men troubled with this bulimy, when they are ready to starve with hunger, if they eat never so little meat, are presently refreshed. The reason is, because meat digested is like fuel for the heat to feed upon.
[Quaest. conv. 6.8.5] But Cleomenes the physician would have the word [Greek omitted] (which signifies hunger) to be added to the making up of the word [Greek omitted] without sufficient reason; as [Greek omitted], to drink, is added to [Greek omitted], to swallow; and [Greek omitted] to incline, into [Greek omitted] to raise the head. Nor is bulimy, as it seems, a kind of hunger, but an affection in the stomach causing a faintness on account of the concourse of heat. Therefore as things that have a good smell recall the spirits of those that are faint, so bread affects those that are almost overcome with a bulimy; not that they have any need of food (for the least piece of it restores them their strength), but the bread calls back their vigor and languishing spirits. Now that bulimy is not hunger but a faintness, is manifest from all laboring beasts, which are seized with it very often through the smell of dry figs and apples; for a smell does not cause any want of food, but rather a pain and agitation in the stomach.
[Quaest. conv. 6.8.6] These things seemed to be reasonably well urged; and yet it seemed that much might be said for the contrary opinion, and that it was possible enough to maintain that bulimy ariseth not from condensation but rarefication of the stomach. For the spirit which flows from the snow is nothing but the aether and finest fragment of the frozen substance, endued with a virtue of cutting and dividing not only the flesh, but also silver and brazen vessels; for we see that these are not able to keep in the snow, for it dissolves and evaporates, and glazes over the outmost superficies of the vessels with a thin dew, not unlike to ice, which this spirit leaves as it secretly passes through the pores. Therefore this piercing spirit, like a flame, seizing upon those that travel in the snow, seems to burn their outsides, and like fire to enter and penetrate the flesh. Hence it is that the flesh is more rarefied, and the heat is extinguished by the cold spirit that lies upon the superficies of the body; therefore the body evaporates a dewy thin sweat, which melts away and decays the strength. Now if a man should sit still at such a time, there would not much heat fly out of his body. But when the motion of the body doth quickly heat the nourishment, and that heat bursts through the thin skin, there must necessarily be a great loss of strength. Now we know by experience, that cold hath a virtue not only to condense but also to loosen bodies; for in extreme cold winters pieces of lead are found to sweat. And when we see that a bulimy happens where there is no hunger, we may conclude that at that time the body is rather in a fluid than condensed state. The reason that bodies are rarefied in winter is because of the subtility of the spirit; especially when the moving and tiring of the body stir the heat, which, as soon as it is subtilized and agitated, flies apace, and spreads itself through the whole body. Lastly, it is very possible that apples and dry figs exhale some such thing as this, which rarefies and attenuates the heat of the beasts; for some things have a natural tendency as well to weaken as to refresh different creatures.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 6.9.1] Why Does Homer Appropriate a Certain Peculiar Epithet to Each Particular Liquid, and Call Oil Only Liquid?
PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 6.9.1b] It was the subject once of a discourse, why, when there are several sorts of liquids, the poet should give every one of them a peculiar epithet, calling milk white, honey yellow, wine red, and yet for all this bestow no other upon oil but what it hath in common with all other liquids. To this it was answered that, as that is said to be most sweet which is perfectly sweet, and to be most white which is perfectly white (I mean here by perfectly that which hath nothing of a contrary quality mixed with it), so that ought to be called perfectly humid whereof never a part is dry; and this is proper to oil.
[Quaest. conv. 6.9.2] For first of all, its smoothness shows the evenness of its parts; for touch it where you please, it is all alike. Besides, you may see your face in it as perfectly as in a mirror; for there is nothing rough in it to hinder the reflection, but by reason of its humidity it reflects to the eye the least particle of light from every portion. As, on the contrary, milk, of all other liquids, does not return our images, because it hath too many terrene and gross parts mixed with it; again, oil of all other liquids makes the least noise when moved, for it is perfectly humid. When other liquids are moved or poured out, their hard and grosser parts fall and dash one against another, and so make a noise by reason of their roughness. Moreover, oil only is pure and unmixed; for it is of all other liquids most compact, nor has it any empty spaces and pores between the dry and earthy parts to receive what chances to fall upon it. Besides, because of the similitude of its parts, it is closely joined together, and unfit to be joined to anything else. When oil froths, it does not let any wind in, by reason of the contiguity and subtility of its parts; and this is also the cause why fire is nourished by it. For fire feeds upon nothing but what is moist, for nothing is combustible but what is so; for when the fire is kindled, the air turns to smoke, and the terrene and grosser parts remain in the ashes. Fire only preys upon the moisture, which is its natural nourishment. Indeed, water, wine, and other liquors, having abundance of earthy and heavy parts in them, by falling into fire part it, and by their roughness and weight smother and extinguish it. But oil, because purely liquid, by reason of its subtility, is overcome by the fire, and so changed into flame.
[Quaest. conv. 6.9.3] It is the greatest argument that can be of its humidity, that the least quantity of it spreads itself a great way; for so small a drop of honey, water, or any other liquid does not extend itself so far, but very often, by reason of the dry mixed parts, is presently wasted. Because oil is ductile and soft, men are wont to make use of it for anointing their bodies; for it runs along and spreads itself through all the parts, and sticks so firmly to them that it is not easily washed off. We find by experience, that a garment wet with water is presently dried again; but it is no easy matter to wash out the spots and stain of oil, for it enters deep, because of its most subtile and humid nature. Hence it is that Aristotle says, that the drops of diluted wine are the hardest to be got out of clothes, because they are most subtile, and run farther into the pores of the cloth.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 6.10.1] What is the Reason that Flesh of Sacrificed Beasts, After Being Hung a While Upon a Fig-Tree is More Tender Than Before?
ARISTIO, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 6.10.1b] At supper we were commanding Aristio’s cook, who, amongst other dishes that he had dressed very curiously, brought a cock to table just killed as a sacrifice to Hercules, as tender as though it had been killed a day or two before. When Aristio told us that this was no wonder, — seeing such a thing might very easily be done, if the cock, as soon as he was killed, was hung upon a fig-tree, — we began to inquire into the reason of what he asserted. Indeed, I must confess, our eye assures us that a fig-tree sends out a fierce and strong spirit; which is yet more evident, from what we have heard said of bulls. That is, a bull, after he is tied to a fig-tree, though never so mad before, grows presently tame, and will suffer you to touch him, and on a sudden all his rage and fury cool and die. But the chiefest cause that works this change is the sharp acrimonious quality of the tree. For this tree is the fullest of sap, and so are its figs, wood, and bark; and hence it comes to pass, that the smoke of fig-wood is most offensive to the eyes; and when it is burned, its ashes make the best lye to scour withal. But all these effects proceed from heat. Now there are some that say, when the sap of this tree thrown into milk curds it, that this effect does not arise from the irregular figures of the parts of the milk, which the sap joins and (as it were) sticks together, the smooth and globose parts being squeezed out, but that by its heat it loosens the unstable and watery parts of the liquid body. And we may use as a proof the unprofitableness of the sap of this tree, which, though it is very sweet, yet makes the worst liquor in the world. For it is not the inequality in the parts that affects the smooth part, but what is cold and raw is stopped by heat. And salt help to do this; for it is hot, and works contrary to the uniting of the parts just mentioned, causing rather a dissolution; for to it, above all other things, Nature has given a dissolving faculty. Therefore the fig-tree sends forth a hot and sharp spirit, which cuts and boils the flesh of the bird. The very same thing may be effected by placing the flesh upon a heap of corn, or near nitre; the heat will produce the same that the fig-tree did. Now it may be made manifest that wheat is naturally hot, in that wine, put into a hogshead and placed among wheat, is presently consumed.

## Book VII.

[Quaest. conv. 7.0.1] The Romans, Sossius Senecio, remember a pretty saying of a pleasant man and good companion, who supping alone said that he had eaten today, but not supped; as if a supper always wanted company and agreement to make it palatable and pleasing. Evenus said that fire was the sweetest of all sauces in the world. And Homer calls salt [Greek omitted], divine; and most call it [Greek omitted], graces, because, mixed with most part of our food, it makes it palatable and agreeable to the taste. Now indeed the best and most divine sauce that can be at an entertainment or a supper is a familiar and pleasant friend; not because he eats and drinks with a man, but because he participates of and communicates discourse, especially if the talk be profitable, pertinent, and instructive. For commonly loose talk over a glass of wine raiseth passions and spoils company, and therefore it is fit that we should be as critical in examining what discourses as what friends are fit to be admitted to a supper; not following either the saying or opinion of the Spartans, who, when they entertained any young man or a stranger in their public halls, showed him the door, with these words, “No discourse goes out this way.” What we use to talk of may be freely disclosed to everybody, because we have nothing in our discourses that tends to looseness, debauchery, debasing of ourselves, or back-biting others. Judge by the examples, of which this seventh book contains ten.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.1] Against Those Who Find Fault with Plato for Saying that Drink Passeth Through the Lungs.
NICIAS, PLUTARCH, PROTOGENES, FLORUS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.1b] At a summer entertainment, one of the company pronounced that common verse,
Now drench thy lungs with wine, the Dog appears.
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.1c] And Nicias of Nicopolis, a physician, presently subjoined: It is no wonder that Alcaeus, a poet, should be ignorant of that of which Plato the philosopher was. Though Alcaeus may be defended; for it is probable that the lungs, lying near the stomach, may participate of the steam of the liquor, and be drenched with it. But the philosopher, expressly delivering that most part of our drink passeth through the lungs, hath precluded all ways of excuse to those that would be willing to defend him. For it is a very great and complicated ignorance; for first, it being necessary that our liquid and dry food should be mixed, it is very probable that the stomach is the vessel for them both, which throws out the dry food after it is grown soft and moist into the guts. Besides, the lungs being a dense and compacted body, how is it possible that, when we sup gruel or the like, the thicker parts should pass through them? And this was the objection which Erasistratus rationally made against Plato. Besides, when he considered for what end every part of the body was made, and what use Nature designed in their contrivance, it was easy to perceive that the epiglottis was framed on purpose that when we drink the windpipe should be shut, and nothing be suffered to fall upon the lungs. For if anything by chance gets down that way, we are troubled with retching and coughing till it is thrown up again. And this epiglottis being framed so that it may fall on either side, whilst we speak it shuts the weasand, but when we eat or drink it falls upon the windpipe, and so secures the passage for our breath. Besides, we know that those who drink by little and little are looser than those who drink greedily and large draughts; for in the latter the very force drives it into their bladders, but in the former it stays, and by its stay is mixed with and moistens the meat thoroughly. Now this could not be, if in the very drinking the liquid was separated from the dry food; but the effect follows, because we mix and convey them both together, using (as Erasistratus phraseth it) the liquid as a vehicle for the dry.
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.2] Nicias having done, Protogenes the grammarian subjoined, that Homer was the first that observed the stomach was the vessel of the food, and the windpipe (which the ancients called [Greek omitted] of the breath, and upon the same account they called those who had loud voices [Greek omitted]. And when he describes how Achilles killed Hector, he says,
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.2b] He pierced his weasand, where death enters soon;
and adds,
But not his windpipe, so that he could speak,(“Iliad,” xxii. 325–329.)
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.2c] taking the windpipe for the proper passage of the speech and breath. . . .
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.3] Upon this, all being silent, Florus began thus: What, shall we tamely suffer Plato to be run down? By no means, said I, for if we desert him, Homer must be in the same condition, for he is so far from denying the windpipe to be the passage for our drink, that the dry food, in his opinion, goes the same way. For these are his words: —
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.3b] From his gullet [Greek omitted] flowed The clotted wine and undigested flesh.(“Odyssey,” ix. 373.)
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.3c] Unless perchance you will say that the Cyclops, as he had but one eye, so had but one passage for his food and voice; or would have [Greek omitted] to signify weasand, not windpipe, as both all the ancients and moderns use it. I produce this because it is really his meaning, not because I want other testimonies, for Plato hath store of learned and sufficient men to join with him. For not to mention Eupolis, who in his play called the “Flatterers” says,
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.3d] Protagoras bids us drink a lusty bowl, That when the Dog appears our lungs may still be moist;
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.3e] or elegant Eratosthenes, who says,
And having drenched his lungs with purest wine;
even Euripides, somewhere expressly saying,
The wine passed through the hollows of the lungs,
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.3f] shows that he saw better and clearer than Erasistratus. For he saw that the lungs have cavities and pores, through which the liquids pass. For the breath in expiration hath no need of pores, but that the liquids and those things which pass with them might go through, it is made like a strainer and full of pores. Besides, sir, as to the example of gruel which you proposed, the lungs can discharge themselves of the thicker parts together with the thin, as well as the stomach. For our stomach is not, as some fancy, smooth and slippery, but full of asperities, in which it is probable that the thin and small particles are lodged, and so not taken quite down. But neither this nor the other can we positively affirm; for the curious contrivance of Nature in her operation is too hard to be explained; nor can we be particularly exact upon those instruments (I mean the spirit and the heat) which she makes use of in her works. But besides those we have mentioned to confirm Plato’s opinion, let us produce Philistion of Locri, very ancient and very famous physician, and Hippocrates too, with his disciple Dioxippus; for they thought of no other passage but that which Plato mentions. Dioxippus knew very well that precious talk of the epiglottis, but says, that when we feed, the moist parts are about that separated from the dry, and the first are carried down the windpipe, the other down the weasand; and that the windpipe receives no parts of the food, but the stomach, together with the dry parts, receives some portion of the liquids. And this is probable, for the epiglottis lies over the windpipe, as a fence and strainer, that the drink may get in by little and little, lest descending in a large full stream, it stop the breath and endanger the life. And therefore birds have no epiglottis, because they do not sup or lap when they drink, but take up a little in their beak, and let it run gently down their windpipe.
[Quaest. conv. 7.1.3g] These testimonies I think are enough; and reason confirms Plato’s opinion by arguments drawn first from sense. For when the windpipe is wounded, no drink will go down; but as if the pipe were broken it runs out, though the weasand be whole and unhurt. And all know that in the inflammation of the lungs the patient is troubled with extreme thirst; the heat or dryness or some other cause, together with the inflammation, making the appetite intense. But a stronger evidence than all these follows. Those creatures that have very small lungs, or none at all, neither want nor desire drink, because to some parts there belongs a natural appetite to drink, and those that want those parts have no need to drink, nor any appetite to be supplied by it. But more, the bladder would seem unnecessary; for, if the weasand receives both meat and drink and conveys it to the belly, the superfluous parts of the liquids would not want a proper passage, one common one would suffice as a canal for both that were conveyed to the same vessel by the same passage. But now the bladder is distinct from the guts, because the drink goes from the lungs, and the meat from the stomach; they being separated as we take them down. And this is the reason that in our water nothing can be found that either in smell or color resembles dry food. But if the drink were mixed with the dry meat in the belly, it must be impregnant with its qualities, and not come forth so simple and untinged. Besides, a stone is never found in the stomach, though it is likely that the moisture should be coagulated there as well as in the bladder, if all the liquor were conveyed through the weasand then into the belly. But it is probable at the weasand robs the windpipe of a sufficient quantity of liquor as it is going down, and useth it to soften and concoct the meat. And therefore its excrement is never purely liquid; and the lungs, disposing of the moisture, as of the breath, to all of the parts that want it, deposit the superfluous portion in the bladder. And I am sure that this is a much more probable opinion than the other. But which is the truth cannot perhaps be discovered, and therefore it is not fit so peremptorily to find fault with the most acute and most famed philosopher, especially when the matter is so obscure, and the Platonists can produce such considerable reasons for their position.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 7.2.1] What Humored Man is He that Plato Calls [Greek omitted]? And Why Do Those Seeds that Fall on the Oxen’s Horns Become [Greek omitted]?
PLUTARCH, PATROCLES, EUTHYDEMUS, FLORUS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.2.1b] We had always some difficulty started about [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted], not what humor those words signified (for it is certain that some, thinking that those seeds which fall on the oxen’s horns bear fruit which is very hard, did by a metaphor call a stiff untractable fellow by these names), but what was the cause that seeds falling on the oxen’s horns should bear hard fruit. I had often desired my friends to search no farther, most of all fearing the passage of Theophrastus, in which he has collected many things whose causes we cannot discover. Such are the hen’s using a straw to purify herself with after she has laid, the seal’s consuming her rennet when she is caught, the deer’s burying his horns, and the goat’s stopping the whole herd by holding a branch of sea-holly in his mouth; and among the rest he reckoned this is a thing of which we are certain, but whose cause it is very difficult to find. But once at supper at Delphi, some of my companions — as if we were not only better counsellors when our bellies are full (as one hath it), but wine would make us brisker in our inquiries and bolder in our resolutions desired me to speak somewhat to that problem.
[Quaest. conv. 7.2.2] I refused, though I had some excellent men on my side, namely, Euthydemus my fellow-priest, and Patrocles my relative, who brought several the like instances, which they had gathered both from husbandry and hunting; for instance, that those officers that are appointed to watch the coming of the hail avert the storm by offering a mole’s blood or a woman’s cloths; that a wild fig being bound to a garden fig-tree will keep the fruit from falling and promote their ripening; that deer when they are taken shed salt tears, and boars sweet. But if you have a mind to such questions, Euthydemus will presently desire you to give an account of smallage and cummin; one of the which, if trodden down as it springs, will grow the better, and the other men curse and blaspheme whilst they sow it.
[Quaest. conv. 7.2.3] This last Florus thought to be an idle foolery; but he said, that we should not forbear to search into the causes of the other things as if they were incomprehensible. I have found, said I, your design to draw me on to this discourse, that you yourself may afterward give us a solution of the other proposed difficulties.
[Quaest. conv. 7.2.3b] In my opinion it is cold that causes this hardness in corn and pulse, by contracting and constipating their parts till the substance becomes close and extremely rigid; while heat is a dissolving and softening quality. And therefore those that cite this verse against Homer,
[Quaest. conv. 7.2.3c] The season, not the field, bears fruit,
[Quaest. conv. 7.2.3d] do not justly reprehend him. For fields that are warm by nature, the air being likewise temperate, bear more mellow fruit than others. And therefore those seeds that fall immediately on the earth out of the sower’s hand, and are covered presently, and cherished by being covered, partake more of the moisture and heat that is in the earth. But those that strike against the oxen’s horns do not enjoy what Hesiod names the best position, but seem to be scattered rather than sown; and therefore the cold either destroys them quite, or else, lighting upon them as they lie naked, condenseth their moisture, and makes them hard and woody. Thus stones that lie under ground and, plant-animals have softer parts than those that lie above; and therefore stone-cutters bury the stones they would work, as if they designed to have them prepared and softened by the heat; but those that lie above ground are by the cold made hard, rigid, and very hurtful to the tools. And if corn lies long upon the floor, the grains become much harder than that which is presently carried away. And sometimes too a cold wind blowing whilst they winnow spoils the corn, as it hath happened at Philippi in Macedonia; and the chaff secures the grains whilst on the floor. For is it any wonder that as husband-men affirm, one ridge will bear soft and fruitful, and the very next to it hard and unfruitful corn or — which is stranger — that in the same bean-cod some beans are of this sort, some of the other, as more or less wind and moisture falls upon this or that?
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 7.3.1] Why the Middle of Wine, the Top of Oil, and the Bottom of Honey is Best.
ALEXION, PLUTARCH, and OTHERS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.3.2] My father-inlaw Alexion laughed at Hesiod, for advising us to drink freely when the barrel is newly broached or almost out, but moderately when it is about the middle, since there is the best wine. For who, said he, doth not know, that the middle of wine, the top of oil, and the bottom of honey is the best? Yet he bids us spare the middle, and stay till worse wine runs, when the barrel is almost out. This said, the company minded Hesiod no more, but began to inquire into the cause of this difference. We were not at all puzzled about the honey, everybody almost knowing that that which is lightest is so because it is rare, and that the heaviest parts are dense and compact, and by reason of their weight settle below the others. So, if you turn the vessel, each in a little time will recover its proper place, the heavier subsiding, and the lighter rising above the rest. And as for the wine, probable solutions presently appeared; for its strength consisting in heat, it is reasonable that it should be contained chiefly in the middle, and there best preserved; for the lower parts the lees spoil, and the upper are impaired by the neighboring air. For that the air will impair wine no man doubts, and therefore we usually bury or cover our barrels, that as little air as can be might come near them. And besides (which is an evident sign) a barrel when full is not spoiled so soon as when it is half empty; because a great deal of air getting into the empty space troubles and disturbs the liquor, whereas the wine that is in the unemptied cask is preserved and defended by itself, not admitting much of the external air, which is apt to injure and corrupt it.
[Quaest. conv. 7.3.3] But the oil gave us the most difficulty. One thought that the bottom of the oil was affected, because it was foul and troubled with the lees; and that the top was not really better than the rest, but only seemed so, because it was farthest removed from those corrupting particles. Others thought the thickness of the liquor to be the reason, which thickness keeps it from mixing with other humids, unless blended together and shaken violently; and therefore it will not mix with air, but keeps it off by its smoothness and close contexture, so that it hath no power to corrupt it. But Aristotle seems to be against this opinion, who hath observed that oil grows sweeter by being kept in vessels not exactly filled, and afterwards ascribes this melioration to the air; for more air, and therefore more powerful to produce the effect, flows into a vessel not well filled.
[Quaest. conv. 7.3.4] Well then! said I, the same quality in the air may spoil wine, and better oil. For long keeping improves wine, but spoils oil. Now the air keeps oil from growing old; for that which is cooled continues fresh and new, but that which is kept close up, having no way to exhale its corrupting parts, presently decays, and grows old. Therefore it is probable that the air coming upon the superficies of the oil keepeth it fresh and new. And this is the reason that the top of wine is worst, and of oil best; because age betters the one, and spoils the other.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.1] What Was, the Reason of that Custom of the Ancient Romans to Remove the Table Before All the Meat Was Eaten, and Not to Put Out the Lamp?
FLORUS, EUSTROPHUS, CAESERNIUS, LUCIUS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.1b] Florus, who observed the ancient manners, would not let the table be removed quite empty, but always left some meat upon it; declaring likewise that his father and grandfather were not only curious in this matter, but would never suffer the lamp after supper to be put out, — a thing about which the ancient Romans were very careful, — while those of today put it out immediately after supper, that they may lose no oil. Eustrophus the Athenian being present said: What could they get by that, unless they knew the cunning trick of our Polycharmus, who, after long deliberation how to find out a way to prevent the servants’ stealing of the oil, at last with a great deal of difficulty happened upon this: As soon as you have put out the lamp, fill it up, and the next morning look carefully whether it remains full. Then Florus with a smile replied: Well, since we are agreed about that, let us inquire for what reason the ancients were so careful about their tables and their lamps.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.2] First, about the lamps. And his son-inlaw Caesernius was of opinion that the ancients abominated all extinction of fire, because of the relation that it had to the sacred and eternal flame. Fire, like man, may be destroyed two ways, either when it is violently quenched, or when it naturally decays. The sacred fire was secured against both ways, being always watched and continually supplied; but the common fire they permitted to go out of itself, not forcing or violently extinguishing it, but not supplying it with nourishment, like a useless beast, that they might not feed it to no purpose.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.3] Lucius, Florus’s son, subjoined, that all the rest of the discourse was very good, but that they did not reverence and take care of this holy fire because they thought it better or more venerable than other fire; but, as amongst the Egyptians some worship the whole species of dogs, wolves, or crocodiles, yet keep but one wolf, dog, or crocodile (for all could not be kept), so the particular care which the ancients took of the sacred fire was only a sign of the respect they had for all fires. For nothing bears such a resemblance to an animal as fire. It is moved and nourished by itself, and by its brightness, like the soul, discovers and makes everything apparent; but in its quenching it principally shows some power that seems to proceed from our vital principle, for it makes a noise and resists, like an animal dying or violently slaughtered. And can you (looking upon me) offer any better reason?
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.4] I can find fault, replied I, with no part of the discourse, yet I would subjoin, that this custom is an instruction for kindness and good-will. For it is not lawful for any one that hath eaten sufficiently to destroy the remainder of the food; nor for him that hath supplied his necessities from the fountain to stop it up; nor for him that hath made use of any marks, either by sea or land, to ruin or deface them; but every one ought to leave those things that may be useful to those persons that afterwards may have need of them. Therefore it is not fit, out of a saving covetous humor, to put out a lamp as soon as we need it not; but we ought to preserve and let it burn for the use of those that perhaps want its light. Thus, it would be very generous to lend our ears and eyes, nay, if possible, our reason and understanding, to others, whilst we are idle or asleep. Besides, consider whether to stir up men to gratitude these minute observances were practised. The ancients did not act absurdly when they highly reverenced an oak. The Athenians called one fig-tree sacred, and forbade any one to cut down an olive. For such observances do not (as some fancy) make men prone to superstition, but persuade us to be communicative and grateful to one another, by being accustomed to pay this respect to these senseless and inanimate creatures. Upon the same reason Hesiod, methinks, adviseth well, who would not have any meat or broth set on the table out of those pots out of which there had been no portion offered, but ordered the first-fruits to be given to the fire, as a reward for the service it did in preparing it. And the Romans, dealing well with the lamps, did not take away the nourishment they had once given, but permitted them to live and shine by it.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.5] When I had said thus, Eustrophus subjoined: This gives us some light into that query about the table; for they thought that they ought to leave some portion of the supper for the servants and waiters, for those are not so well pleased with a supper provided for them apart, as with the relics of their master’s table. And upon this account, they say, the Persian king did not only send portions from his own table to his friends, captains, and gentlemen of his bed-chamber, but had always what was provided for his servants and his dogs served up to his own table; that as far as possible all those creatures whose service was useful might seem to be his guests and companions. For, by such feeding in common and participation, the wildest of beasts might be made tame and gentle.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.6] Then I with a smile said: But, sir, that fish there, that according to the proverb is laid up, why do not we bring out into play together with Pythagoras’s choenix, which he forbids any man to sit upon, thereby teaching us that we ought to leave something of what we have before us for another time, and on the present day be mindful of the morrow? We Boeotians use to have that saying frequently in our mouths, “Leave something for the Medes,” ever since the Medes overran and spoiled Phocis and the marches of Boeotia; but still, and upon all occasions, we ought to have that ready, “Leave something for the guests that may come.” And therefore I must needs find fault with that always empty and starving table of Achilles; for, when Ajax and Ulysses came ambassadors to him, he had nothing ready, but was forced out of hand to dress a fresh supper. And when he would entertain Priam, he again bestirs himself, kills a white ewe, joints and dresses it, and in that work spent a great part of the night. But Eumaeus (a wise scholar of a wise master) had no trouble upon him when Telemachus came home, but presently desired him to sit down, and feasted him, setting before him dishes of boiled meat,
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.6b] The cleanly reliques of the last night’s feast.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.6c] But if this seems trifling, and a small matter, I am sure it is no small matter to command and restrain appetite while there are dainties before you to satisfy and please it. For those that are used to abstain from what is present are not so eager for absent things as others are.
[Quaest. conv. 7.4.7] Lucius subjoining said, that he had heard his grandmother say, that the table was sacred, and nothing that is sacred ought to be empty. Besides, continued he, in my opinion, the table hath some resemblance of the earth; for, besides nourishing us, it is round and stable, and is fitly called by some Vesta [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted]. Therefore as we desire that the earth should always have and bear something that is useful for us, so we think that we should not let the table be altogether empty and void of all provision.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.1] That We Ought Carefully to Preserve Ourselves From Pleasures Arising From Bad Music and How It May Be Done.
CALLISTRATUS, LAMPRIAS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.1b] At the Pythian games Callistratus, procurator of the Amphictyons, forbade a piper, his citizen and friend, who did not give in his name in due time, to appear in the solemnity, according to the law. But afterwards entertaining us, he brought him into the room with the chorus, finely dressed in his robes and with chaplets on his head, as if he was to contend for the prize. And at first indeed he played a very fine tune; but afterwards, having tickled and sounded the humor of the whole company, and found that most were inclined to pleasure and would suffer him to play what effeminate and lascivious tunes he pleased, throwing aside all modesty, he showed that music was more intoxicating than wine to those that wantonly and unskilfully use it. For they were not content to sit still and applaud and clap, but many at last leaped from their seats, danced lasciviously, and made such gentle steps as became such effeminate and mollifying tunes. But after they had done, and the company, as it were recovered of its madness, began to come to itself again, Lamprias would have spoken to and severely chid the young men; but as fearing he would be too harsh and give offence, Callistratus gave him a hint, and drew him on by this discourse: —
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.2] For my part, I absolve all lovers of shows and music from intemperance; yet I cannot altogether agree with Aristoxenus, who says that those pleasures alone deserve the approbation “fine.” For we call viands and ointments fine; and we say we have finely dined, when we have been splendidly entertained. Nor, in my opinion, doth Aristotle free those complacencies we take in shows and songs upon good reason from the charge of excess, saying, that those belong peculiarly to man, and of other pleasures beasts have a share. For I am certain that a great many irrational creatures are delighted with music, as deer with pipes; and to mares, whilst they are horsing, they play a tune called [Greek omitted]. And Pindar says, that his songs make him move,
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.2b] As brisk as Dolphins, whom a charming tune Hath raised from th’ bottom of the quiet flood.
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.2c] And certain fish are taken by means of dancing; for as the dance goes on they lift up their heads above water, being much pleased and delighted with the sight, and twisting their backs this way and that way, in imitation of the dancers. Therefore I see nothing peculiar in those pleasures, that they should be accounted proper to the mind, and all others to belong to the body, so far as to end there. But music, rhythm, dancing, song, passing through the sense, fix a pleasure and titilation in the sportive part of the soul and therefore none of these pleasures is enjoyed in secret, nor wants darkness nor walls about it, according to the women’s phrase; but circuses and theatres are built for them. And to frequent shows and music-meetings with company is both more delightful and more genteel; because we take a great many witnesses, not of a luxurious and intemperate, but of a pleasant and respectable, manner of passing away our time.
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.3] Upon this discourse of Callistratus, my father Lamprias, seeing the musicians grow bolder, said: That is not the reason, sir, and, in my opinion, the ancients were much out when they named Bacchus the son of Forgetfulness. They ought to have called him his father; for it seems he hath made you forget that of those faults which are committed about pleasures some proceed from a loose intemperate inclination, and others from heedlessness or ignorance. Where the ill effect is very plain, there intemperate inclination captivates reason, and forces men to sin; but where the just reward of intemperance is not directly and presently inflicted, there ignorance of the danger and heedlessness make men easily wrought oil and secure. Therefore those that are vicious, either in eating, drinking, or venery, which diseases, wasting of estates, and evil reports usually attend, we call intemperate. For instance, Theodectes, who having sore eyes, when his mistress came to see him, said,
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.3b] All hail, delightful light;
or Anaxarchus the Abderite,
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.3c] A wretch who knew what evils wait on sin, Yet love of pleasure drove him back again. Once almost free, he sank again to vice, That terror and disturber of the wise.
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.3d] Now those that take all care possible to secure themselves from all those pleasures that assault them either at the smelling, touch, or taste, are often surprised by those that make their treacherous approaches either at the eye or ear. But such, though as much led away as the others, we do not in like manner call incontinent and intemperate, since they are ruined through ignorance and want of experience. For they imagine they are far from being slaves to pleasures, if they can stay all day in the theatre without meat or drink; as if a pot forsooth should be mighty proud that a man cannot take it up by the bottom or the belly and carry it away, though he can easily do it by the ears. And therefore Agesilaus said, it was all one whether a man were a CINOEDUS before or behind. We ought principally to dread those softening delights that please and tickle through the eyes and ears, and not think that city not taken which hath all its other gates secured by bars, portcullises, and chains, if the enemies are already entered through one and have taken possession; or fancy ourselves invincible against the assaults of pleasure, because stews will not provoke us, when the music-meeting or theatre prevails. For we in one case as much as the other resign up our souls to the impetuousness of pleasures, which pouring in those potions of songs, cadences, and tunes, more powerful and bewitching than the best mixtures of the most skilful cook or perfumer, conquer and corrupt us; and in the meantime, by our own confession as it were, the fault is chiefly ours. Now, as Pindar saith, nothing that the earth and sea hath provided for our tables can be justly blamed; but neither our meat nor broth, nor this excellent wine which we drink, hath raised such a noisy tumultous pleasure as those songs and tunes did, which not only filled the house with clapping and shouting, but perhaps the whole town. Therefore we ought principally to secure ourselves against such delights, because they are more powerful than others; as not being terminated in the body, like those which allure the touch, taste, or smelling, but affecting the very intellectual and judging faculties. Besides, from most other delights, though reason doth not free us, yet other passions very commonly divert us. Sparing niggardliness will keep a glutton from dainty fish, and covetousness will confine a lecher from a costly whore. As in one of Menander’s plays, where every one of the company was to be enticed by the bawd who brought out a surprising whore, but each of them, though all boon companions,
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.3e] Sat sullenly, and fed upon his cates.
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.3f] For to pay interest for money is a severe punishment that follows intemperance, and to open our purses is no easy matter. But these pleasures that are called genteel, and solicit the ears or eyes of those that are frantic after shows and music, may be had without any charge at all, in every place almost, and upon every occasion; they may be enjoyed at the prizes, in the theatre, or at entertainments, at others cost. And therefore those that have not their reason to assist and guide them may be easily spoiled.
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.4] Silence following upon this, What application, said I, shall reason make, or how shall it assist? For I do not think it will apply those ear-covers of Xenocrates, or force us to rise from the table as soon as we hear a harp struck or a pipe blown. No indeed, replied Lamprias, but as soon as we meet with the foresaid intoxications, we ought to make our application to the Muses, and fly to the Helicon of the ancients. To him that loves a costly strumpet, we cannot bring a Panthea or Penelope for cure; but one that delights in mimics and buffoons, loose odes, or debauched songs, we can bring to Euripides, Pindar, and Menander, that he might wash (as Plato phraseth it) his salt hearing with fresh reason. As the exorcists command the possessed to read over and pronounce Ephesian letters, so we in those possessions, during the madness of music and the dance, when
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.4b] We toss our hands with noise, and madly shout,
[Quaest. conv. 7.5.4c] remembering those venerable and sacred writings, and comparing with them those odes, poems, and vain empty compositions, shall not be altogether cheated by them, or permit ourselves to be carried away sidelong, as by a smooth and undisturbed stream.
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.1] Concerning Those Guests that are Called Shadows, and Whether Being Invited by Some to Go to Another’s House, They Ought To Go; and When, and to Whom.
PLUTARCH, FLORUS, CAESERNIUS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.1b] Homer makes Menelaus come uninvited to his brother Agamemnon’s treat, when he feasted the commanders;
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.1c] For well he knew great cares his brother vexed.(“Iliad,” ii. 409.)
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.1d] He did not take notice of the plain and evident omission of his brother, or show his resentments by not coming, as some surly testy persons usually do upon such oversights of their best friends; yet they had rather be overlooked than particularly invited, that they may have some color for their pettish anger. But about the introduced guests (which we call shadows) who are not invited by the entertainer, but by some others of the guests, a question was started, from whom that custom began. Some thought from Socrates, who persuaded Aristodemus, who was not invited, to go along with him to Agatho’s, where there happened a pretty jest. For Socrates by chance staying somewhat behind, Aristodemus went in first; and this seemed very appropriate, for, the sun shining on their backs, the shadow ought to go before the body. Afterwards it was thought necessary at all entertainments, especially of great men, when the inviter did not know their favorites and acquaintance, to desire the invited to bring his company, appointing such a set number, lest they should be put to the same shifts which he was put to who invited King Philip to his country-house. The king came with a numerous attendance, but the provision was not equal to the company. Therefore, seeing his entertainer much cast down, he sent some about to tell his friends privately, that they should keep one corner of their bellies for a large cake that was to come. And they, expecting this, fed sparingly on the meat that was set before them, so that the provision seemed sufficient for them all.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.2] When I had talked thus waggishly to the company Florus had a mind to talk gravely concerning these shadows, and have it discussed whether it was fit for those that were so invited to go, or no. His son-inlaw Caesernius was positively against it. We should, says he, following Hesiod’s advice,
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.2b] Invite a friend to feast,(“Works and Days,” 342.)
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.2c] or at least we should have our acquaintance and familiars to participate of our entertainments, mirth, and discourse over a glass of wine; but now, as ferry-men permit their passengers to bring in what fardel they please, so we permit others to fill our entertainments with any persons, let them be good companions or not. And I should wonder that any man of breeding being so (that is, not at all) invited, should go; since, for the most part, he must be unacquainted with the entertainer, or if he was acquainted, was not thought worthy to be bidden. Nay, he should be more ashamed to go to such a one, if he considers that it will look like an upbraiding of his unkindness, and yet a rude intruding into his company against his will. Besides, to go before or after the guest that invites him must look unhandsomely, nor is it creditable to go and stand in need of witnesses to assure the guests that he doth not come as a principally invited person, but such a one’s shadow. Besides, to attend others bathing or anointing, to observe his hour, whether he goes early or late, is servile and gnathonical (for there never was such an excellent fellow as Gnatho to feed at another man’s table). Besides, if there is no more proper time and place to say,
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.2d] Speak, tongue, if thou wilt utter jovial things,
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.2e] than at a feast, and freedom and raillery is mixed with everything that is either done or said over a glass of wine, how should he behave himself, who is not a true principally invited guest, but as it were a bastard and supposititious intruder? For whether he is free or not, he lies open to the exception of the company. Besides, the very meanness and vileness of the name is no small evil to those who do not resent it but can quietly endure to be called and answer to the name of shadows. For, by enduring such base names, men are insensibly accustomed and drawn on to base actions. Therefore, when I make an invitation, for it is hard to break the custom of a place, I give my guests leave to bring shadows; but when I myself am invited as a shadow, I assure you I refuse to go.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.3] A short silence followed this discourse; then Florus began thus: This last thing you mentioned, sir, is a greater difficulty than the other. For it is necessary when we invite our friends to give them liberty to choose their own shadows, as was before hinted; for to entertain them without their friends is not very obliging, nor is it very easy to know whom the person we invite would be most pleased with. Then said I to him: Consider therefore whether those that give their friends this license to invite do not at the same time give the invited license to accept the invitation and come to the entertainment. For it is not fit either to allow or to desire another to do that which is not decent to be done, or to urge and persuade to that which no one ought to be persuaded or to consent to do. When we entertain a great man or stranger, there we cannot invite or choose his company, but must receive those that come along with him.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.3b] But when we feast a friend, it will be more acceptable if we ourselves invite all, as knowing his acquaintance and familiars; for it tickles him extremely to see that others take notice that he hath chiefly a respect for such and such, loves their company most, and is well pleased when they are honored and invited as well as he. Yet sometimes we must deal with our friend as petitioners do when they make addresses to a god; they offer vows to all that belong to the same altar and the same shrine, though they make no particular mention of their names. For no dainties, wine, or ointment can incline a man to merriment, as much as a pleasant agreeable companion. For as it is rude and ungenteel to inquire and ask what sort of meat, wine, or ointment the person whom we are to entertain loves best; so it is neither disobliging nor absurd to desire him who hath a great many acquaintance to bring those along with him whose company he likes most, and in whose conversation he can take the greatest pleasure.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.3c] For it is not so irksome and tedious to sail in the same ship, to dwell in the same house, or be a judge upon the same bench, with a person whom we do not like, as to be at the same table with him; and the contrary is fully as pleasant. An entertainment is a communion of serious or merry discourse or actions; and therefore, to make a merry company, we should not pick up any person at a venture, but take only such as are known to one another and sociable. Cooks, it is true, mix sour and sweet juices, rough and oily, to make their sauces; but there never was an agreeable table or pleasant entertainment where the guests were not all of a piece, and all of the same humor. Now, as the Peripatetics say, the first mover in nature moves only and is not moved, and the last moved is moved only but does not move, and between these there is that which moves and is moved by others; so there is the same analogy between those three sorts of persons that make up a company, — there is the simple inviter, the simple invited and the invited that invites another.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.3d] We have spoken already concerning the inviter, and it will not be improper, in my opinion, to deliver my sentiments about the other two. He that is invited and invites others, should, in my opinion, be sparing in the number that he brings. He should not, as if he were to forage in an enemy’s country, carry all he can with him; or, like those who go to possess a new-found land, by the excessive number of his own friends, incommode or exclude the friends of the inviter, so that the inviter must be in the same case with those that set forth suppers to Hecate and the gods who turn away evil, of which neither they nor any of their family partake, except of the smoke and trouble. It is true they only speak in waggery that say,
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.3e] He that at Delphi offers sacrifice Must after meat for his own dinner buy.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.3f] But the same thing really happens to him who entertains ill-bred guests or acquaintances, who with a great many shadows, as it were harpies, tear and devour his provision. Besides, he should not take anybody that he may come upon along with him to another’s entertainment, but chiefly the entertainer’s acquaintance, as it were contending with him and preceding him in the invitation. But if that cannot be effected, let him carry such of his own friends as the entertainer would choose himself; to a civil modest man, some of complaisant humor; to a learned man, ingenuous persons; to a man that hath borne office, some of the same rank; and, in short, such whose acquaintance he hath formerly sought and would be now glad of. For it will be extremely pleasing and obliging to bring such into company together; but one who brings to a feast men who have no likeness at all with the feast-maker, but who are entire aliens and strangers to him, — as hard drinkers to a sober man, — gluttons and sumptuous persons to a temperate thrifty entertainer, — or to a young, merry, boon companion, grave old philosophers solemnly speaking in their beards, — will be very disobliging, and turn all the intended mirth into an unpleasant sourness. The entertained should be as obliging to the entertainer as the entertainer to the entertained; and then he will be most obliging, when not only he himself, but all those that come by his means, are pleasant and agreeable.
[Quaest. conv. 7.6.3g] The last of the three which remains to be spoken of is he that is invited by one man to another’s feast. Now he that disdains and is so much offended at the name of a shadow will appear to be afraid of a mere shadow. But in this matter there is need of a great deal of caution, for it is not creditable readily to go along with every one and to everybody. But first you must consider who it is that invites; for if he is not a very familiar friend, but a rich or great man, such who, as if upon a stage, wants a large or splendid retinue, or such who thinks that he puts a great obligation upon you and does you a great deal of honor by this invitation, you must presently deny. But if he is your friend and particular acquaintance, you must not yield upon the first motion: but if there seems a necessity for some conversation which cannot be put off till another time, or if he is lately come from a journey or designs to go on one, and out of mere good-will and affection seems desirous of your company, and doth not desire to carry a great many, or strangers, but only some few friends along with him; or, besides all this, if he designs to bring you thus invited acquainted with the principal inviter, who is very worthy of your acquaintance, then consent and go. For as to ill-humored persons, the more they seize and take hold of us like thorns, we should endeavor to free ourselves from them or leap over them the more. If he that invites is a civil and well-bred person, yet doth not design to carry you to one of the same temper, you must refuse, lest you should take poison in honey, that is, get the acquaintance of a bad man by an honest friend. It is absurd to go to one you do not know, and with whom you never had any familiarity, unless, as I said before, the person be an extraordinary man, and, by a civil waiting, upon him at another man’s invitation, you design to begin an acquaintance with him. And those friends you should chiefly go to as shadows, who would come to you again in the same quality. To Philip the jester, indeed, he seemed more ridiculous that came to a feast of his own accord than he that was invited; but to well-bred and civil friends it is more obliging for men of the same temper to come at the nick of time with other friends, when uninvited and unexpected; at once pleasing both to those that invite and those that entertain. But chiefly you must avoid going to rulers, rich or great men, lest you incur the deserved censure of being impudent, saucy, rude, and unseasonably ambitious.
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 7.7.1] Whether Flute- Girls are to Be Allowed at a Feast?
DIOGENIANUS, A SOPHIST, PHILIP.
[Quaest. conv. 7.7.1b] At Chaeronea, Diogenianus the Pertamenian being present, we had a long discourse once at an entertainment about music; and we had a great deal of trouble to hold out against a great bearded sophister of the Stoic sect, who quoted Plato as blaming a company that admitted flute-girls and were not able to entertain one another with discourse. And Philip the Prusian, of the same sect, said: Those guests of Agatho, whose discourse was more sweet than the sound of any pipe in the world, were no good authority in this case; for it was no wonder that in their company the flute-girl was not regarded; but it is strange that, in the midst of the entertainment, the extreme pleasantness of the discourse had not made them forget their meat and drink. Yet Xenophon thought it not indecent to bring in to Socrates, Antisthenes, and the like the jester Philip; as Homer doth an onion to make the wine relish.
[Quaest. conv. 7.7.1c] And Plato brought in Aristophanes’s discourse of love, as a comedy, into his entertainment; and at the last, as it were drawing all the curtains, he shows a scene of the greatest variety imaginable, — Alcibiades drunk, frolicking, and crowned. Then follows that pleasant raillery between him and Socrates concerning Agatho, and the encomium of Socrates; and when such discourse was going on, good gods! Had it not been allowable, if Apollo himself had come in with his harp ready to desire the god to forbear till the argument was out? These men, having such a pleasant way of discoursing, used these arts and insinuating methods, and graced their entertainment’s by such facetious raillery. But shall we, being mixed with tradesmen and merchants, and some (as it now and then happens) ignorants and rustics, banish out of our entertainments this ravishing delight, or fly the musicians, as if they were Sirens, as soon as we see them coming?
[Quaest. conv. 7.7.1d] Clitomachus the wrestler, rising and getting away when any one talked of love, was much wondered at; and should not a philosopher that banisheth music from a feast, and is afraid of a musician, and bids his link boy presently light his link and be gone, be laughed at, since he seems to abominate the most innocent pleasures, as beetles do ointment? For, if at any time, certainly over a glass of wine, music should be permitted, and then chiefly the harmonious god should have the direction of our souls; so that Euripides, though I like him very well in other things, shall never persuade me that music, as he would have it, should be applied to melancholy and grief. For there sober and serious reason, like a physician, should take care of the diseased men; but those pleasures should be mixed with Bacchus, and serve to increase our mirth and frolic.
[Quaest. conv. 7.7.1e] Therefore it was a pleasant saying of that Spartan at Athens, who, when some new tragedians were to contend for the prize, seeing the preparations of the masters of the dances, the hurry and busy diligence of the instructors, said, the city was certainly mad which sported with so much pains. He that designs to sport should sport, and not buy his case and pleasure with great expense, or the loss of that time which might be useful to other things; but whilst he is feasting and free from business, those should be enjoyed. And it is advisable to try amidst our mirth, whether any profit is to be gotten from our delights.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.1] What Sort of Music is Fittest for an Entertainment?
DIOGENIANUS, A SOPHIST, PHILIP.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.1b] When Philip had ended, I hindered the sophister from returning an answer to the discourse, and said: Let us rather inquire, Diogenianus, since there are a great many sorts of music, which is fittest for an entertainment. And let us beg this learned man’s judgment in this case; for since he is not prejudiced or apt to be biased by any sort, there is no danger that he should prefer that which is pleasantest before that which is best. Diogenianus joining with me in this request, he presently began. All other sorts I banish to the theatre and playhouse, and can only allow that which hath been lately admitted into the entertainments at Rome, and with which everybody is not yet acquainted. You know, continued he, that some of Plato’s dialogues are purely narrative, and some dramatic. The easiest of this latter sort they teach their children to speak by heart; making them to imitate the actions of those persons they represent, and to form their voice and affections to be agreeable to the words. This all the grave and well-bred men exceedingly admire; but soft and effeminate fellows, whose ears ignorance and ill-breeding hath corrupted, and who, as Aristoxenus phraseth it, are ready to vomit when they hear excellent harmony, reject it; and no wonder, when effeminacy prevails.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.2] Philip, perceiving some of the company uneasy at this discourse, said: Pray spare us, sir, and be not so severe upon us; for we were the first that found fault with that custom when it first began to be countenanced in Rome, and reprehended those who thought Plato fit to entertain us whilst we were making merry, and who would hear his dialogues whilst they were eating cates and scattering perfumes. When Sappho’s songs or Anaereon’s verses are recited, I protest I think it decent to set aside my cup. But should I proceed, perhaps you would think me much in earnest, and designing to oppose you, and therefore, together with this cup which I present my friend, I leave it to him to wash your salt ear with fresh discourse.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.3] Then Diogenianus, taking the cup, said: Methinks this is very sober discourse, which makes me believe that the wine doth not please you, since I see no effect of it; so that I fear I ought to be corrected. Indeed, many sorts of music are not to be rejected; first, tragedy, as having nothing familiar enough for an entertainment, and being a representation of actions attended with grief and extremity of passion. I reject the sort of dancing which is called Pyladean from Pylades, because it is full of pomp, very pathetical, and requires a great many persons; but if we would admit any of those sorts that deserve those encomiums which Socrates mentions in his discourse about dancing, I like that sort called Bathyllean, which requires not so high a motion, but hath something of the character of the Cordax, and resembles the motion of an Echo, a Pan, or a Satyr frolicking with love.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.3b] Old comedy is not fit for men that are making merry, by reason of the excuses that appear in it; for that vehemency which they use in the parabasis is loud and indecent, and the liberty they take to scoff and abuse is very surfeiting, too open, and full of filthy words and lewd expressions. Besides, as at great men’s tables every man hath a servant waiting at his elbow, so each of his guests would need a grammarian to sit by him, and explain who is Laespodias in Eupolis, Cinesias in Plato, and Lampo in Cratinus, and who is each person that is jeered in the play. Concerning new comedy there is no need of any long discourse. It is so fitted, so interwoven with entertainments, that it is easier to have a regular feast without wine, than without Menander. Its phrase is sweet and familiar, the Humor innocent and easy, so that there is nothing for men whilst sober to despise, or when merry to be troubled at.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.3c] The sentiments are so natural and unstudied, that midst wine, as it were in fire, they soften and bend the rigidest temper to be pliable and easy. And the mixture of gravity and jests seems to be contrived for nothing so aptly as for the pleasure and profit of those that are frolicking and making merry. The love-scenes in Menander are convenient for those who have already drunk their cups, and who in a short time must retire home to their wives; for in all his plays there is no love of boys mentioned, and all rapes committed on virgins and decently in marriages at last. As for misses, if they are impudent and jilting, they are bobbed, the young gallants turning sober, and repenting of their lewd courses. But if they are kind and constant, either their true parents are discovered, or a time is determined for intrigue, which brings them at last to obliging modesty and civil kindness.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.3d] These things to men busied about other matters may seem scarce worth taking notice of; but whilst they are making merry, it is no wonder that the pleasantness and smoothness of the parts should work a neat conformity and distinction in the hearers and make their manners like the pattern they have from those genteel characters.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.4] Diogenianus, either designedly or for want of breath ended thus. And when the sophister attacked him again, and contended that some of Aristophanes’s verses should be read, Philip speaking to me said: Diogenianus hath had his wish in praising his beloved Menander, and seems not to care for any of the rest. There are a great many sorts which we have not at all considered, concerning which I should be very glad to have your opinion; and the prize for the carvers we will set up tomorrow, when we are sober, if Diogenianus and this stranger think fit. Of representations, said I, some are allegorical, and some are farces; neither of these are fit for an entertainment; the first by reason of their length and cost, and the latter being so full of filthy discourse and lewd actions, that they are not fit to be seen by the foot-boys that wait on civil masters.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.4b] Yet the rabble, even with their wives and young sons, sit quietly to be spectators of such representations as are apt to disturb the soul more than the greatest debauch in drink. The harp ever since Homer’s time was well acquainted with feasts and entertainments, and therefore it is not fitting to dissolve such an ancient friendship and acquaintance; but we should only desire the harpers to forbear their sad notes and melancholy tunes, and play only those that are delighting, and fit for such as are making merry. The pipe, if we would, we cannot reject, for the libation in the beginning of the entertainment requires that as well as the garland. Then it insinuates and passeth through the ears, spreading even to the very soul a pleasant sound, which produceth serenity and calmness; so that, if the wine hath not quite dissolved or driven away all vexing solicitous anxiety this, by the softness and delightful agreeableness of its sound, smooths and calms the spirits, if so be that it keeps within due bounds, and doth not elevate too much, and, by its numerous surprising divisions, raise an ecstasy in the soul which wine hath weakened and made easy to be perverted.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.4c] For as brutes do not understand a rational discourse, yet lie down or rise up at the sound of a shell or whistle, or of a chirp or clap; so the brutish part of the soul, which is either incapable of understanding or obeying reason, men conquer by songs and tunes, and by music reduce it to tolerable order. But to speak freely what I think, no pipe nor harp simply played upon, and without a song with it, can be very fit for an entertainment. For we should still accustom ourselves to take our chiefest pleasure from discourse, and spend our leisure time in profitable talk, and use tunes and airs as a sauce for the discourse, and not singly by themselves, to please the unreasonable delicacy of our palate. For as nobody is against pleasure that ariseth from sauce or wine going in with our necessary food, but Socrates flouts and refuseth to admit that superfluous and vain pleasure which we take in perfumes and odors at a feast; thus the sound of a pipe or harp, when singly applied to our ears, we utterly reject, but if it accompanies words, and together with an ode feasts and delights our reason, we gladly introduce it.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.4d] And we believe the famed Marsyas was punished by Apollo for pretending, when he had nothing but his single pipe, and his muzzle to apply to his lips, to contend with the harp and song of the god. Let us only take care that, when we have such guests as are able to cheer one another with philosophy and good discourse we do not introduce anything that may rather prove an uneasy hindrance to the conversation than promote it. For not only those are fools, who, as Euripides says, having safety at home and in their own power, yet would hire some from abroad; but those too who, having pleasantness enough within, are eager after some external pastimes to comfort and delight them. That extraordinary piece of honor which the Persian king showed Antalcidas the Spartan seemed rude and uncivil, when he dipped a garland composed of crocus and roses in ointment, and sent it him to wear, by that dipping putting a slight upon and spoiling the natural sweetness and beauty of the flowers.
[Quaest. conv. 7.8.4e] He doth as bad, who having a Muse in his own breast, and all the pleasantness that would fit an entertainment, will have pipes and harps play, and by that external adventitious noise destroy all the sweetness that was proper and his own. But in short, all ear-delights are fittest then, when the company begins to be disturbed, to fall out, and quarrel, for then they may prevent raillery and reproach, and stop the dispute that is running on to sophistical and unpleasant wrangling, and bridle all babbling declamatory altercations, so that the company may be freed of noise and quietly composed.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1] That It Was the Custom of the Greeks As Well As Persians to Debate of State Affairs at Their Entertainments.
NICOSTRATUS, GLAUCIAS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1b] At Nicostratus’s table we discoursed of those matters which the Athenians were to debate of in their next assembly. And one of the company saying, It is the Persian fashion, sir, to debate midst your cups; And why, said Glaucias rejoining, not the Grecian fashion? For it was a Greek that said,
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1c] After your belly’s full, your counsel’s best.
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1d] And they were Greeks who with Agamemnon besieged Troy, to whom, whilst they were eating and drinking,
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1e] Old Nestor first began a grave debate;(“Iliad,” vii. 324.)
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1f] and he himself advised the king before to call the commanders together for the same purpose: —
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1g] For the commanders, sir, a feast prepare, And see who counsels best, and follow him.(Ibid, ix. 70 and 74.)
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1h] Therefore Greece, having a great many excellent institutions, and zealously following the customs of the ancients, hath laid the foundations of her polities in wine. For the assemblies in Crete called Andria, those in Sparta called Phiditia, were secret consultations and aristocratical assemblies; such, I suppose, as the Prytaneum and Thesmothesium here at Athens. And not different from these is that night-meeting, which Plato mentions, of the best and most polite men, to which the greatest, the most considerable and puzzling matters are assigned. And those
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1i] Who, when they do design to seek their rest, To Mercury their just libations pour,(“Odyssey,” vii. 138.)
[Quaest. conv. 7.9.1j] do they not join reason and wine together, since, when they are about to retire, they make their vows to the wisest god, as if he was present and particularly president over their actions? But the ancients indeed call Bacchus the good counsellor, as if he had no need of Mercury; and for his sake they named the night [Greek omitted] as it were, GOOD ADVISER.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 7.10.1] Whether They Did Well Who Deliberated Midst Their Cups.
GLAUCIAS, NICOSTRATUS.
[Quaest. conv. 7.10.1b] Whilst Glaucias was discoursing thus, the former tumultuous talk seemed to be pretty well lulled; and that it might be quite forgotten, Nicostratus started another question, saying, he never valued the matter before, whilst he thought it a Persian custom, but since it was discovered to be the Greek fashion too, it wanted (he thought) some reason to excuse or defend its seeming absurdity. For our reason (said he), like our eye, whilst it floats in too much moisture, is hard to be moved, and unable to perform its operations. And all sorts of troubles and discontents, like insects to the sun, creeping forth, and being agitated by a glass of wine, make the mind irresolute and inconstant. Therefore as a bed is more convenient for a man whilst making merry than a chair, because it contains the whole body and keeps it from all disturbing motion, so it is best to have the soul perfectly at quiet; or, if that cannot be, we must give it, as to children that will be doing, not a sword or spear, but a rattle or a ball, — in this following the example of the god himself, who puts into the hands of those that are making merry a ferula, the lightest and softest of all weapons, that, when they are most apt to strike, they may hurt least. Over a glass of wine men should make only ridiculous slips, and not such as may prove tragical, lamentable, or of any considerable concern. Besides, in serious debates, it is chiefly to be considered, that persons of mean understanding and unacquainted with business should be guided by the wise and experienced; but wine destroys this order. Insomuch that Plato says, wine is called [Greek omitted] because it makes those that drink it [Greek omitted] think that they have wit; for none over a glass of wine thinks himself so noble, beauteous, or rich (though he fancies himself all these), as wise; and therefore wine is babbling, full of talk, and of a dictating humor; so that we are rather for being heard than hearing, for leading than being led. But a thousand such objections may be raised, for they are very obvious. But let us hear which of the company, either old or young, can allege anything for the contrary opinion.
[Quaest. conv. 7.10.2] Then said my brother cunningly: And do you imagine that any, upon a sudden, can produce any probable reasons? And Nicostratus replying, Yes, no doubt, there being so many learned men and good drinkers in company; he with a smile continued: Do you think, sir, you are fit to treat of these matters, when wine hath disabled you to discourse of politics and state affairs? Or is not this all the same as to think that a man in his liquor doth not see very well nor understand those that talk and discourse with him, yet hears the music and the pipers very well? For as it is likely that useful and profitable things draw and affect the sense more than fine and gaudy; so likewise they do the mind too. And I shall not wonder that the nice philosophical speculation should escape a man who hath drunk freely; but yet, I think, if he were called to political debates, his wisdom would become more strong and vigorous. Thus Philip at Chaeronea, being well heated, talked very foolishly, and was the sport of the whole company; but as soon as they began to discourse of a truce and peace, he composed his countenance, contracted his brows, and dismissing all vain, empty and dissolute thoughts, he gave an excellent, wise, and sober answer to the Athenians. To drink freely is different from being drunk, and those that drink till they grow foolish ought to retire to bed. But as for those that drink freely and are otherwise men of sense, why should we fear that they will fail in their understanding or lose their skill, when we see that musicians play as well at a feast as in a theatre? For when skill and art are found in the soul, they make the body correct and proper in its operations, and obedient to the motions of the spirit. Besides, wine inspirits some men, and raises a confidence and assurance in them, but not such as is haughty and odious, but pleasing and agreeable. Thus they say that Aeschylus composed his tragedies over a bottle, and that all his plays (though Gorgias thought that one of them, the “Seven against Thebes,” was full of Mars) were Bacchus’s. For wine (according to Plato), heating the soul together with the body, makes the body pliable, quick, and active, and opens the passages; while the fancies draw in discourse with boldness, and daring.
[Quaest. conv. 7.10.2b] For some have a good natural invention, yet whilst they are sober are too diffident and too close, but midst their wine, like frankincense, exhale and open at the heat. Besides, wine expels all fear, which is the greatest hindrance to all consultations, and quencheth many other degenerate and lazy passions; it opens the rancor and malice, as it were, the two-leaved doors of the soul, and displays the whole disposition and qualities of any person in his discourse. Freedom of speech, and, through that, truth it principally produceth; which it once wanting, neither quickness of wit nor experience availeth anything; and many proposing that which comes next rather hit the matter, than if they warily and designedly conceal their present sentiments. Therefore there is no reason to fear that wine will stir up our affections; for it never stirs up the bad, unless in the worst men, whose judgment is never sober. But as Theophrastus used to call the barbers’ shops wineless entertainments; so there is a kind of an uncouth wineless drunkenness always excited either by anger, malice, emulation, or clownishness in the souls of the unlearned. Now wine, blunting rather than sharpening many of these passions, doth not make them sots and foolish, but simple and ingenuous; not negligent of what is profitable, but desirous of what is good and honest. Now those that think craft to be cunning, and vanity or closeness to be wisdom, have reason to think those that over a glass of wine plainly and ingenuously deliver their opinions to be fools. But, on the contrary, the ancients called the god the Freer and Loosener, and thought him considerable in divination; not, as Euripides says, because he makes men raging mad, but because he looseth and frees the soul from all base distrustful fear, and puts them in a condition to speak truth freely to one another.

## Book VIII.

[Quaest. conv. 8.0.1] Those, my Sossius Senecio, who throw philosophy out of entertainments do worse than those who take away a light. For the candle being removed, the temperate and sober guests will not become worse than they were before, being more concerned to reverence than to see one another. But if dulness and disregard to good learning wait upon the wine, Minerva’s golden lamp itself could not make the entertainment pleasing and agreeable. For a company to sit silent and only cram themselves is, in good truth, swinish and almost impossible. But he that permits men to talk, yet doth not allow set and profitable discourses, is much more ridiculous than he who thinks that his guests should eat and drink, yet gives them foul wine, unsavory and nastily prepared meat. For no meat nor drink which is not prepared as it ought to be is so hurtful and unpleasant as discourse which is carried round in company insignificantly and out of season. The philosophers, when they would give drunkenness a vile name, call it doting by wine. Now doting is to use vain and trifling discourse; and when such babbling is accompanied by wine, it usually ends in most disagreeable and rude contumely and reproach. It is a good custom therefore of our women, who in their feasts called Agrionia seek after Bacchus as if he were run away, but in a little time give over the search, and cry that he is fled to the Muses and lurks with them; and some time after, when supper is done, put riddles and hard questions to one another. For this mystery teaches us, that midst our entertainments we should use learned and philosophical discourse, and such as hath a Muse in it; and that such discourse being applied to drunkenness, everything that is brutish and outrageous in it is concealed, being pleasingly restrained by the Muses.
[Quaest. conv. 8.0.1b] This book, being the eighth of my Symposiacs, begins with that discourse in which about a year ago, on Plato’s birthday, I was concerned.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 8.1.1] Concerning Those Days in Which Some Famous Men Were Born; and Also Concerning the Generation of the Gods.
DIOGENIANUS, PLUTARCH, FLORUS, TYNDARES.
[Quaest. conv. 8.1.1b] On the sixth day of May we celebrated Socrates’s birthday, and on the seventh Plato’s; and that first prompted us to such discourse as was suitable to the meeting, which Diogenianus the Pergamenian began thus: Ion, said he, was happy in his expression, when he said that Fortune, though much unlike Wisdom, yet did many things very much like her; and that she seemed to have some order and design, not only in placing the nativities of these two philosophers so near together, but in setting the birthday of the most famous of the two first, who was also the master of the other. I had a great deal to say to the company concerning some notable things that fell out on the same day, as concerning the time of Euripides’s birth and death; for he was born the same day that the Greeks beat Xerxes by sea at Salamis, and died the same day that Dionysius the elder, the Sicilian tyrant, was born, — Fortune (as Timaeus hath it) at the same time taking out of the world a representer, and bringing into it a real actor, of tragedies. Besides, we remembered that Alexander the king and Diogenes the Cynic died upon the same day. And all agreed that Attalus the king died on his own birthday. And some said, that Pompey the great was killed in Egypt on his birthday, or, as others will have it, a day before. We remember Pindar also, who, being born at the time of the Pythian games, made afterwards a great many excellent hymns in honor of Apollo.
[Quaest. conv. 8.1.2] To this Florus subjoined: Now we are celebrating Plato’s nativity, why should we not mention Carneades, the most famous of the whole Academy, since both of them were born on Apollo’s feast; Plato, whilst they were celebrating the Thargelia at Athens, Carneades, whilst the Cyrenians kept their Carnea; and both these feasts are, upon the same day. Nay, the god himself you (he continued), his priests and prophets, call Hebdomagenes, as if he were born on the seventh day. And therefore those who make Apollo Plato’s father do not, in my opinion, dishonor the god; since by Socrates’s as by another Chiron’s instructions he is become a physician for the diseases of the mind. And together with this, he mentioned that vision and voice which forbade Aristo, Plato’s father, to come near or lie with his wife for ten months.
[Quaest. conv. 8.1.3] To this Tyndares the Spartan subjoined: It is very fit we should apply that to Plato,
[Quaest. conv. 8.1.3b] He seemed not sprung from mortal man, but God.(“Iliad,” xxiv. 258.)
[Quaest. conv. 8.1.3c] But, for my part, I am afraid to beget, as well as to be begotten, is repugnant to the incorruptibility of the deity. For that implies a change and passion; as Alexander imagined, when he said that he knew himself to be mortal as often as he lay with a woman or slept. For sleep is a relaxation of the body, occasioned by the weakness of our nature; and all generation is a corruptive parting with some of our own substance. But yet I take heart again, when I hear Plato call the eternal and unbegotten deity the father and maker of the world and all other begotten things; not as if he parted with any seed, but as if by his power he implanted a generative principle in matter, which acts upon, forms, and fashions it. Winds passing through a hen will on occasions impregnate her; and it seems no incredible thing, that the deity, though not after the fashion of a man, but by some other certain communication, fills a mortal creature with some divine conception. Nor is this my sense; but the Egyptians who say Apis was conceived by the influence of the moon, and make no question but that an immortal god may have communication with a mortal woman. But on the contrary, they think that no mortal can beget anything on a goddess, because they believe the goddesses are made of thin air, and subtle heat and moisture.
QUESTION II.
[Quaest. conv. 8.2.1] What is Plato’s Meaning, When He Says that God Always Plays the Geometer?
DIOGENIANUS, TYNDARES, FLORUS, AUTOBULUS.
[Quaest. conv. 8.2.1b] Silence following this discourse, Diogenianus began again and said: Since our discourse is about the gods, shall we, especially on his own birthday, admit Plato to the conference, and inquire upon what account he says (supposing it to be his sentence) that God always plays the geometer? I said that this sentence was not plainly set down in any of his books; yet there are good arguments that it is his, and it is very much like his expression. Tyndares presently subjoining said: Perhaps, Diogenianus, you imagine that this sentence intimates some curious and difficult speculation, and not that which he hath so often mentioned, when he praiseth geometry as a science that takes off men from sensible objects, and makes them apply themselves to the intelligible and eternal Nature, the contemplation of which is the end of philosophy, as the view of the initiatory mysteries into holy rites. For the nail of pain and pleasure, that fastens the soul to the body, seems to do us the greatest mischief, by making sensible things more powerful over us than intelligible, and by forcing the understanding to determine the rather according to passion than reason. For this faculty, being accustomed by the vehemency of pain or pleasure to be intent on the mutable and uncertain body, as if it really and truly were, grows blind as to that which really is, and loses that instrument and light of the soul, which is worth a thousand bodies, and by which alone the deity can be discovered. Now in all sciences, as in plain and smooth mirrors, some marks and images of the truth of intelligible objects appear, but in geometry chiefly; which, according to Philo, is the chief and principal of all, and doth bring back and turn the understanding, as it were, purged and gently loosened from sense. And therefore Plato himself dislikes Eudoxus, Archytas, and Menaechmus for endeavoring to bring down the doubling the cube to mechanical operations; for by this means all that was good in geometry would be lost and corrupted, it falling back again to sensible things, and not rising upward and considering immaterial and immortal images, in which God being versed is always God.
[Quaest. conv. 8.2.2] After Tyndares, Florus, a companion of his, and who always jocosely pretended to be his admirer, said thus: Sir, we are obliged to you for making your discourse not proper to yourself, but common to us all; for you have made it possible to disprove it by demonstrating that geometry is not necessary to the gods, but to us. Now the deity doth not stand in need of science, as an instrument to withdraw his intellect from things created and to turn it to the real things; for these are all in him, with him, and about him. But pray consider whether Plato, though you do not apprehend it, doth not intimate something that is proper and peculiar to you, mixing Lycurgus with Socrates, as much as Dicaearchus thought he did Pythagoras. For Lycurgus, I suppose you know, banished out of Sparta all arithmetical proportion, as being democratical and favoring the crowd; but introduced the geometrical, as agreeable to an oligarchy and kingly government that rules by law; for the former gives an equal share to every one according to number, but the other gives according to the proportion of the deserts. It doth not huddle all things together, but in it there is a fair discretion of good and bad, every one having what is fit for him, not by lot or weight, but according as he is virtuous or vicious. The same proportion, my dear Tyndares, God introduceth, which is called [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted], and which teacheth us to account that which is just equal, and not that which is equal just. For that equality which many affect, being often the greatest injustice, God, as much as possible, takes away; and useth that proportion which respects every man’s deserts, geometrically defining it according to law and reason.
[Quaest. conv. 8.2.3] This exposition we applauded; and Tyndares, saying he envied him, desired Autobulus to engage Florus and confute his discourse. That he refused to do, but produced another opinion of his own. Geometry, said he, considers nothing else but the accidents and properties of the extremities of bodies; neither did God make the world any other way than by terminating matter, which was infinite before. Not that matter was actually without limits as to either magnitude or multitude; but the ancients used to call that infinite which by reason of its confusion and disorder is undetermined and unconfined. Now the terms of everything that is formed or figured are the form and figure of that thing, and without which the thing would be formless and unfigured. Now numbers and proportions being applied to matter, it is circumscribed and as it were bound up by lines, and through lines by surfaces and solids; and so were settled the first types and differences of bodies, as foundations from which to create the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth. For it was impossible that, out of an unsteady and confused matter, the equality of the sides, the likeness of the angles, and the exact proportion of octahedrons, icosahedrons, pyramids, and cubes should be deduced, unless by some power that terminated and shaped every particle of matter. Therefore, terms being fixed to that which was undetermined or infinite before, the whole became and still continues agreeable in all parts, and excellently terminated and mixed; the matter indeed always affecting an indeterminate state, and flying all geometrical confinement, but proportion terminating and circumscribing it, and dividing it into several differences and forms, out of which all things that arise are generated and subsist.
[Quaest. conv. 8.2.4] When he had said this, he desired me to contribute something to the discourse; and I applauded their conceits as their own devices, and very probable. But lest you despise yourselves (I continued) and altogether look for some external explication, attend to an exposition upon this sentence, which your masters very much approve. Amongst the most geometrical theorems, or rather problems, this is one: Two figures being given, to describe a third, which shall be equal to one and similar to the other. And it is reported that Pythagoras, upon the discovery of this problem, offered a sacrifice to the gods; for this is a much more exquisite theorem than that which lays down, that the square of the hypothenuse in a right-angled triangle is equal to the squares of the two sides. Right, said Diogenianus, but what is this to the present question? You will easily understand, I replied, if you call to mind how Timaeus divides that which gave the world its beginning into three parts. One of which is justly called God, the other matter, and the third form. That which is called matter is the most confused subject, the form the most beautiful pattern, and God the best of causes. Now this cause, as far as possible, would leave nothing infinite and indeterminate, but adorn Nature with number, measure, and proportion making one thing of all the subjects together, equal to the matter, and similar to the form. Therefore proposing to himself this problem, he made and still makes a third, and always preserves it equal to the matter, and like the form; and that is the world. And this world, being in constant changes and alterations because of the natural necessity of body, is helped and preserved by the father and maker of all things, who by proportion terminates the substance according to the pattern.
QUESTION III.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.1] Why Noises are Better Heard in the Night Than the Day.
AMMONIUS, BOETHUS, PLUTARCH, THRASYLLUS, ARISTODEMUS.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.1b] When we supped with Ammonius at Athens, who was then the third time captain of the city-bands, there was a great noise about the house, some without doors calling, Captain! Captain! After he had sent his officers to quiet the tumult, and had dispersed the crowd, we began to inquire what was the reason that those that are within doors hear those that are without, but those that are without cannot hear those that are within as well. And Ammonius said, that Aristotle had given a reason for that already; for the sound of those within, being carried without into a large tract of air, grows weaker presently and is lost; but that which comes in from without is not subject to the like casualty, but is kept close, and is therefore more easy to be heard. But that seemed a more difficult question, Why sounds seem greater in the night than in the day, and yet altogether as clear. For my own part (continued he) I think Providence hath very wisely contrived that our hearing should be quickest when our sight can do us very little or no service; for the air of the “blind and solitary Night,” as Empedocles calls it, being dark, supplies in the ears that defect of sense which it makes in the eyes. But since of natural effects we should endeavor to find the causes, and to discover what are the material and mechanical principles of things is the proper task of a natural philosopher, who shall first give us a rational account hereof?
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.2] Boethus began, and said: When I was a novice in letters, I then made use of geometrical postulates, and assumed as undoubted truths some undemonstrated suppositions; and now I shall make use of some propositions which Epicurus hath demonstrated already. Bodies move in a vacuum, and there are a great many spaces interspersed among the atoms of the air. Now when the air being rarefied is more extended, so as to fill the vacant space, there are only a few vacuities scattered and interspersed among the particles of matter; but when the atoms of air are condensed and laid close together, they leave a vast empty space, convenient and sufficient for other bodies to pass through. Now the coldness of the night makes such a constipation. Heat opens and separates parts of condensed bodies, and therefore bodies that boil, grow soft, or melt, require a greater space than before; but, on the contrary, the parts of the body that are condensed or freeze are contracted closer to one another, and leave those vessels and places from which they retired partly empty. Now the sound, meeting and striking against a great many bodies in its way, is either altogether lost or scattered, and very much and very frequently hindered in its passage; but when it hath a plain and smooth way through an empty space, and comes to the ear uninterrupted, the passage is so sudden, that it preserves its articulate distinctness, as well as the words it carries. You may observe that empty vessels, when knocked, answer presently, send out a noise to a great distance, and oftentimes the sound whirled round in the hollow breaks out with a considerable force; whilst a vessel that is filled either with a liquid or a solid body will not answer to a stroke, because the sound hath no room or passage to come through. And among solid bodies themselves, gold and stone, because they want pores, can hardly be made to sound; and when a noise is made by a stroke upon them, it is very flat, and presently lost. But brass is sounding, it being a porous, rare, and light metal, not consisting of parts tightly compacted, but being mixed with a yielding and uncompacted substance, which gives free passage to other motions, and kindly receiving the sound sends it forward; till some touching the instrument do, as it were, seize on it in the way, and stop the hollow; for then, by reason of the hindering force, it stops and goes no further. And this, in my opinion, is the reason why the night is more sonorous, and the day less; since in the day, the heat rarefying the air makes the empty spaces between the particles to be very little. But, pray, let none argue against the suppositions I assumed.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.3] And I (Ammonius bidding me oppose him) said: Sir, your suppositions which demand a vacuum to be granted I shall admit; but you err in supposing that a vacuum is conducive either to the preservation or conveyance of sound. For that which cannot be touched, acted upon, or struck is peculiarly favorable to silence. But sound is a stroke of a sounding body; and a sounding body is that which has homogeneousness and uniformity, and is easy to be moved, light, smooth, and, by reason of its tenseness and continuity, it is obedient to the stroke; and such is the air. Water, earth, and fire are of themselves soundless; but each of them makes a noise when air falls upon or gets into it. And brass hath no vacuum; but being mixed with a smooth and gentle air it answers to a stroke, and is sounding. If the eye may be judge, iron must be reckoned to have a great many vacuities, and to be porous like a honey-comb, yet it is the dullest, and sounds worse than any other metal.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.3b] Therefore there is no need to trouble the night to contract and condense its air, that in other parts we may leave vacuities and wide spaces; as if the air would hinder and corrupt the substance of the sounds, whose very substance, form, and power itself is. Besides, if your reason held, misty and extreme cold nights would be more sonorous than those which are temperate and clear, because then the atoms in our atmosphere are constipated, and the spaces which they left remain empty; and, what is more obvious, a cold day should be more sonorous than a warm summer’s night; neither of which is true. Therefore, laying aside that explication, I produce Anaxagoras, who teacheth that the sun makes a tremulous motion in the air, as is evident from those little motes which are seen tossed up and down and flying in the sunbeams. These (says he), being in the day-time whisked about by the heat, and making a humming noise, lessen or drown other sounds; but at night their motion, and consequently their noise, ceaseth.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.4] When I had thus said, Ammonius began: Perhaps it will look like a ridiculous attempt in us, to endeavor to confute Democritus and correct Anaxagoras. Yet we must not allow that humming noise to Anaxagoras’s little motes, for it is neither probable nor necessary. But their tremulous and whirling motion in the sunbeams is oftentimes sufficient to disturb and break a sound. For the air (as hath been already said), being itself the body and substance of sound, if it be quiet and undisturbed, makes a straight, easy, and continuous way to the particles or the motions which make the sound. Thus sounds are best heard in calm still weather; and the contrary is seen in stormy weather, as Simonides hath it: —
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.4b] No tearing tempests rattled through the skies, Which hinder sweet discourse from mortal ears.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.4c] For often the disturbed air hinders the articulateness of a discourse from coming to the ears, though it may convey something of the loudness and length of it. Now the night, simply considered in itself, hath nothing that may disturb the air; though the day hath, — namely the sun, according to the opinion of Anaxagoras.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.5] To this Thrasyllus, Ammonius’s son, subjoining said: What is the matter, for God’s sake, that we endeavor to solve this difficulty by the unintelligible fancied motion of the air, and neglect the tossing and divulsion thereof, which are evident? For Jupiter, the great ruler above, doth not covertly and silently move the little particles of air; but as soon as he appears, he stirs up and moves everything.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.5b] He sends forth lucky signs, And stirs up nations to their proper work,
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.5c] And they obey; and (as Democritus saith) with fresh thoughts for each new day, as if newly born again, they fall to their worldly concerns with noisy and effectual contrivances. And upon this account, Ibycus oppositely calls the dawning [Greek omitted] (from [Greek omitted], TO HEAR), because then men first begin to hear and speak. Now at night, all things being at rest, the air being quiet and undisturbed must therefore probably transmit the voice better, and convey it whole and unbroken to our ears.
[Quaest. conv. 8.3.6] Aristodemus the Cyprian, being then in the company, said: But consider, sir, whether battles or the marches of great armies by night do not confute your reason; for the noise they make seems as loud as otherwise, though then the air is broken and very much disturbed. But the reason is partly in ourselves; for our voice at night is usually vehement, we either commanding others to do something or asking short questions with heat and concern. For that, at the same time when Nature requires rest, we should stir to do or speak anything, there must be some great and urgent necessity for it; and thence our voices become more vehement and loud.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.1] Why, When in the Sacred Games One Sort of Garland Was Given in One, and Another in Another, the Palm Was Common to All. And Why They Call the Great Dates [Greek omitted].
SOSPIS, HERODES, PROTOGENES, PRAXITELES, CAPHISUS.
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.1b] The Isthmian games being celebrated, when Sospis was the second time director of the solemnity, we avoided other entertainments, — he treating a great many strangers and often all his fellow-citizens, — but once, when he entertained his nearest and most learned friends at his own house, I was one of the company. After the first course, one coming to Herodes the rhetorician brought a palm and a wreathed crown, which one of his acquaintance, who had won the prize for an encomiastic exercise, sent him. This Herodes received very kindly, and sent it back again, but added that he could not tell the reason why, since each of the games gave a particular garland, yet all of them bestowed the palm. For those do not satisfy me (said he) who say that the equality of the leaves is the reason, which growing out one against another seem to resemble some striving for the prize, and that victory is called [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted], not to yield. For a great many other trees, almost by measure and weight dividing the nourishment to their leaves growing opposite to one another, show a decent order and wonderful equality. They seem to speak more probably who say the ancients were pleased with the beauty and figure of the tree. Thus Homer compares Nausicaa to a palm-branch. For you all know very well, that some threw roses at the victors, and others pomegranates and apples, to honor and reward them. But now the palm hath nothing evidently more taking than many other things, since here in Greece it bears no fruit that is good to eat, it not ripening and growing mature enough. But if, as in Syria and Egypt, it bore a fruit that is the most pleasant to the eyes of anything in the world, and the sweetest to the taste, then I must confess nothing could compare with it. And the Persian monarch (as the story goes), being extremely taken with Nicolaus the Peripatetic philosopher, who was a very sweet-humored man, tall and slender, and of a ruddy complexion, called the greatest and fairest dates Nicolai.
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.2] This discourse of Herodes seemed to give occasion for a query about Nicolaus, which would be as pleasant as the former. Therefore, said Sospis, let every one carefully give his sentiments of the matter before us. I begin, and think that, as far as possible, the honor of the victor should remain fresh and immortal. Now a palm-tree is the longest lived of any, as this line of Orpheus testifies: —
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.2b] They lived like branches of a leafy palm.
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.2c] And this almost alone has the privilege (though it is said to belong to many besides) of having always fresh and the same leaves. For neither the laurel nor the olive nor the myrtle, nor any other of those trees named evergreen, is always to be seen with the very same leaves; but as the old fall, new ones grow. So cities continue the same, where new parts succeed those that decay. But the palm, never shedding a leaf, is continually adorned with the same green. And this power of the tree, I believe, men think agreeable to, and fit to represent, the strength of victory.
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.3] When Sospis had done, Protogenes the grammarian, calling Praxiteles the commentator by his name, said. What then, shall we suffer those rhetoricians to be thought to have hit the mark when they bring arguments only from probabilities and conjectures? And can we produce nothing from history to club to this discourse? Lately, I remember, reading in the Attic annals, I found that Theseus first instituted games in Delos, and tore off a branch from the sacred palm-tree, which was called spadix (from [Greek omitted] TO TEAR).
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.4] And Praxiteles said: This is not certain; but perhaps some will demand of Theseus himself, upon what account when he instituted the game, he broke off a branch of palm rather than of laurel or of olive. But consider whether this be not a prize proper to the Pythian games, as appropriate to Amphictyon. For there they first, in honor of the god, crowned the victors with laurel and palm, as consecrating to the god, not the laurel or olive, but the palm. So Nicias did, who defrayed the charges of the solemnity in the name of the Athenians at Delos the Athenians themselves at Delphi; and before these, Cypselus the Corinthian. For this god is a lover of games, and delights in contending for the prize at harping, singing, and throwing the bar, and, as some say, at cuffing; and assists men when contending, as Homer witnesseth, by making Achilles speak thus,
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.4b] Let two come forth in cuffing stout, and try To which Apollo gives the victory.(“Iliad,” xxiii. 659.)
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.4c] And amongst the archers, he that made his address to Apollo made the best shot, and he that forgot to pray to him missed the mark. And besides, it is not likely that the Athenians would rashly, and upon no grounds, dedicate their place of exercise to Apollo. But they thought that the god which bestows health gives likewise a vigorous constitution, and strength for the encounter. And since some of the encounters are light and easy, others laborious and difficult, the Delphians offered sacrifices to Apollo the cuffer; the Cretans and Spartans to Apollo the racer; and the dedication of spoils taken in the wars and trophies to Apollo Pythias show that he is of great power to give victory in war.
[Quaest. conv. 8.4.5] Whilst he was speaking, Caphisus, Theon’s son, interrupted him, and said: This discourse smells neither of history nor comment, but is taken out of the common topics of the Peripatetics, and endeavors to persuade; besides, you should, like the tragedians, raise your machine, and fright all that contradict you with the god. But the god, as indeed it is requisite he should be, is equally benevolent to all. Now let us, following Sospis (for he fairly leads the way), keep close to our subject, the palm-tree, which affords us sufficient scope for our discourse. The Babylonians celebrate this tree, as being useful to them three hundred and sixty several ways. But to us Greeks it is of very little use, but its lack of fruit makes it appropriate for contenders in the games. For being the fairest, greatest, and best proportioned of all sorts of trees, it bears no fruit amongst us; but by reason of its strong nature it exhausts all its nourishment (like an athlete) upon its body, and so has very little, and that very bad, left for seed. Besides all this, it hath something peculiar, which cannot be attributed to any other tree. The branch of a palm, if you put a weight upon it, doth not yield and bend downwards, but turns the contrary way as if it resisted the pressing force. The like is to be observed in these exercises. For those who, through weakness or cowardice, yield to them, their adversaries oppress; but those who stoutly endure the encounter have not only their bodies, but their minds too, strengthened and increased.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 8.5.1] Why Those that Sail Upon the Nile Take Up the Water They are to Use Before Day.
[Quaest. conv. 8.5.1b] One demanded a reason why the sailors take up the water for their occasions out of the river Nile by night, and not by day. Some thought they feared the sun, which heating the liquid would make it more liable to putrefaction. For everything that is warmed becomes more easy to be changed, having already suffered when its natural quality was remitted. And cold constipating the parts seems to preserve everything in its natural state, and water especially. For that the cold of water is naturally constringent is evident from snow, which keeps flesh from corrupting a long time. And heat, as it destroys the proper quality of other things, so of honey, for it being boiled is itself corrupted, though when raw it preserves other bodies from corruption. And that this is the cause, I have a very considerable evidence from standing pools; for in winter they are as wholesome as other water, but in summer they grow bad and noxious. Therefore the night seeming in some measure to resemble the winter, and the day the summer, they think the water that is taken up at night is less subject to be vitiated and changed.
[Quaest. conv. 8.5.1c] To these seemingly probable reasons another was added, which confirmed the ingenuity of the sailors by a very strong proof. For some said that they took up their water by night because then it was clear and undisturbed; but at day-time, when a great many fetched water together, and many boats were sailing and many beasts swimming upon the Nile, it grew thick and muddy, and in that condition it was more subject to corruption. For mixed bodies are more easily corrupted than simple and unmixed; for from mixture proceeds disagreement of the parts, from that disagreement a change, and corruption is nothing else but a certain change; and therefore painters call the mixing of their colors [Greek omitted], corrupting; and Homer expresseth dyeing by [Greek omitted] (TO STAIN OR CONTAMINATE). Commonly we call anything that is simple and unmixed incorruptible and immortal. Now earth being mixed with water soonest corrupts its proper qualities, and makes it unfit for drinking; and therefore standing water stinks soonest, being continually filled with particles of earth, whilst running waters preserve themselves by either leaving behind or throwing off the earth that falls into them. And Hesiod justly commends
[Quaest. conv. 8.5.1d] The water of a pure and constant spring.
[Quaest. conv. 8.5.1e] For that water is wholesome which is not corrupted, and that is not corrupted which is pure and unmixed. And this opinion is very much confirmed from the difference of earths; for those springs that run through a mountainous, rocky ground are stronger than those which are cut through plains or marshes, because they do not take off much earth. Now the Nile running through a soft country, like the blood mingled with the flesh, is filled with sweet juices that are strong and very nourishing; yet it is thick and muddy, and becomes more so if disturbed. For motion mixeth the earthly particles with the liquid, which, because they are heavier, fall to the bottom as soon as the water is still and undisturbed. Therefore the sailors take up the water they are to use at night, by that means likewise preventing the sun, which always exhales and consumes the subtler and lighter particles of the liquid.
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.1] Concerning Those Who Come Late to an Entertainment; and From Whence These Words, [Greek omitted] and, [Greek omitted] are Derived.
PLUTARCH’S SONS, THEON’S SONS, THEON, PLUTARCH, SOCLARUS.
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.1b] My younger sons staying too long at the plays, and coming in too late to supper, Theon’s sons waggishly and jocosely called them supper hinderers, night-suppers, and the like; and they in reply called their runners-to-supper. And one of the old men in the company said [Greek omitted] signified one that was too late for supper; because, when he found himself tardy, he mended his pace, and made more than common haste. And he told us a jest of Battus, Caesar’s jester, who called those that came late supper-lovers, because out of their love to entertainments, though they had business, they would not desire to be excused.
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.2] And I said, that Polycharmus, a leading orator at Athens, in his apology for his way of living before the assembly, said: Besides a great many things which I could mention, fellow-citizens, when I was invited to supper, I never came the last man. For this is more democratical; and on the contrary, those that are forced to stay for others that come late are offended at them as uncivil and of an oligarchical temper.
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.3] But Soclarus, in defence of my sons, said: Alcaeus (as the story goes) did not call Pittacus a night-supper for supping late, but for delighting in base and scandalous company. Heretofore to eat early was accounted scandalous, and such a meal was called [Greek omitted], from [Greek omitted] INTEMPERANCE.
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.4] Then Theon interrupting him said: Not at all, if we must trust those who have delivered down to us the ancients way of living. For they say that those being used to work, and very temperate in a morning, ate a bit of bread dipped in wine, and nothing else, and that they called that meal [Greek omitted] from the [Greek omitted] (WINE). Their supper they called [Greek omitted], because returning from their business they took it [Greek omitted] (LATE). Upon this we began to inquire whence those two meals [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted] took their names. In Homer [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted] seem to be the same meal. For he says that Eumaeus provided [Greek omitted] by the break of day; and it is probable that [Greek omitted] was so called from [Greek omitted], because provided in the morning; and [Greek omitted] was so named from [Greek omitted], EASING FROM THEIR LABOR. For men used to take their [Greek omitted] after they had finished their business, or whilst they were about it. And this may be gathered from Homer, when he says,
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.4b] Then when the woodman doth his supper dress.(“Iliad,” xi. 86.)
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.4c] But some perhaps will derive [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted], EASIEST PROVIDED, because that meal is usually made upon what is ready and at hand; and [Greek omitted] from [Greek omitted], LABORED, because of the pains used in dressing it.
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.5] My brother Lamprias, being of a scoffing, jeering nature, said: Since we are in a trifling humor, I can show that the Latin names of these meals are a thousand times more proper than the Greek; [Greek omitted] SUPPER, they call coena ([Greek omitted]) from community; because they took their [Greek omitted] by themselves, but their coena with their friends. [Greek omitted] DINNER, they call prandium, from the time of the dry; for [Greek omitted] signifies NOON-TIDE, and to rest after dinner is expressed by [Greek omitted]; or else by prandium they denote a bit taken in the morning, [Greek omitted], Before THEY HAVE NEED OF ANY. And not to mention stragula, from [Greek Omitted], vinum from [Greek omitted], oleum from [Greek omitted], mel from [Greek omitted], gustare from [Greek omitted], propinare from [Greek omitted], and a great many more words which they have plainly borrowed from the Greeks, — who can deny but that they have taken their comessatio, BANQUETING, from our [Greek omitted] and miscere, TO MINGLE, from the Greeks too? Thus in Homer,
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.5b] She in a bowl herself mixt ([Greek omitted]) generous wine.(“Odyssey,” x. 356.)
[Quaest. conv. 8.6.5c] They call a table mensam, from [Greek omitted], PLACING IT IN THE MIDDLE; bread, panem, from satisfying [Greek omitted], HUNGER; a garland, coronam, from [Greek omitted], THE HEAD; — and Homer somewhat likens [Greek omitted], a HEAD-PIECE, to a garland; — caedere, TO BEAT, from [Greek omitted]; and dentes, TEETH, from [Greek omitted]; lips they call labra, from [Greek omitted], TAKING OUR VICTUALS WITH THEM. Therefore we must either listen to such fooleries as these without laughing, or not give them so ready entrance by means of words. . . .
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 8.7.1] Concerning Pythagoras’s Symbols, in Which He Forbids Us to Receive a Swallow Into Our House, and Bids Us As Soon As We are Risen to Ruffle the Bedclothes.
SYLLA, LUCIUS, PLUTARCH, PHILINUS.
[Quaest. conv. 8.7.1b] Sylla the Carthaginian, upon my return to Rome after a long absence, gave me a welcoming supper, as the Romans call it, and invited some few other friends, and among the rest, one Lucius an Etrurian, the scholar of Moderatus the Pythagorean. He seeing my friend Philinus ate no flesh, began (as the opportunity was fair) to talk of Pythagoras; and affirmed that he was a Tuscan, not because his father, as others have said, was one, but because he himself was born, bred, and taught in Tuscany. To confirm this, he brought considerable arguments from such symbols as these: — As soon as you are risen, ruffle the bedclothes; leave not the print of the pot in the ashes; receive not a swallow into your house; never step over a besom; nor keep in your house creatures that have hooked claws. For these precepts of the Pythagoreans the Tuscans only, as he said, carefully observe.
[Quaest. conv. 8.7.2] Lucius, having thus said, that precept about the swallow seemed to be most unaccountable, it being a harmless and kind animal; and therefore it seemed strange that that should be forbid the house, as well as the hooked-clawed animals, which are ravenous, wild, and bloody. Nor did Lucius himself approve that only interpretation of the ancients, who say, this symbol aims directly at backbiters and tale-bearing whisperers. For the swallow whispers not at all; it chatters indeed, and is noisy, but not more than a pie, a partridge, or a hen. What then, said Sylla, is it upon the old fabulous account of killing her son, that they deny the swallow entertainment, by that means showing their dislike to those passions which (as the story goes) made Tereus and Procne and Philomel both act and suffer such wicked and abominable things? And even to this day they call the birds Daulides. And Gorgias the sophister, when a swallow muted upon him, looked upon her and said, Philomel, this was not well done. Or perhaps this is all without foundation; for the nightingale, though concerned in the same tragedy, we willingly receive.
[Quaest. conv. 8.7.3] Perhaps, sir, said I, what you have alleged may be some reason; but pray consider whether first they do not hate the swallow upon the same account that they abhor hook-clawed animals. For the swallow feeds on flesh; and grasshoppers, which are sacred and musical, they chiefly devour and prey upon. And, as Aristotle observes, they fly near the surface of the earth to pick up the little animals. Besides, that alone of all house-animals makes no return for her entertainment. The stork, though she is neither covered, fed, nor defended by us, yet pays for the place where she builds, going about and killing the efts, snakes, and other venomous creatures. But the swallow, though she receives all those several kindnesses from us, yet, as soon as her young are fledged, flies away faithless and ungrateful; and (which is the worst of all) of all house-animals, the fly and the swallow only never grow tame, suffer a man to touch them, keep company with or learn of him. And the fly is so shy because often hurt and driven away; but the swallow naturally hates man, suspects, and dares not trust any that would tame her. And therefore, — if we must not look on the outside of these things, but opening them view the representations of some things in others, — Pythagoras, setting the swallow for an example of a wandering, unthankful man, adviseth us not to take those who come to us for their own need and upon occasion into our familiarity, and let them partake of the most sacred things, our house and fire.
[Quaest. conv. 8.7.4] This discourse of mine gave the company encouragement to proceed, so they attempted other symbols, and gave moral interpretations of them. For Philinus said, that the precept of blotting out the print of the pot instructed us not to leave any plain mark of anger, but, as soon as ever the passion hath done boiling, to lay aside all thoughts of malice and revenge. That symbol which adviseth us to ruffle the bedclothes seemed to some to have no secret meaning, but to be in itself very evident; for it is not decent that the mark and (as it were) stamped image should remain to be seen by others, in the place where a man hath lain with his wife. But Sylla thought the symbol was rather intended to prevent men’s sleeping in the day-time, all the conveniences for sleeping being taken away in the morning as soon as we are up. For night is the time for sleep, and in the day we should rise and follow our affairs, and not suffer so much as the print of our body in the bed, since a man asleep is of no more use than one dead. And this interpretation seems to be confirmed by that other precept, in which the Pythagoreans advise their followers not to take off any man’s burthen from him, but to lay on more, as not countenancing sloth and laziness in any.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.1] Why the Pythagoreans Command Fish Not to Be Eaten, More Strictly Than Other Animals.
EMPEDOCLES, SYLLA, LUCIUS, TYNDARES, NESTOR.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.1b] Our former discourse Lucius neither reprehended nor approved, but, sitting silent and musing, gave us the hearing. Then Empedocles addressing his discourse to Sylla, said: If our friend Lucius is displeased with the discourse, it is time for us to leave off; but if these are some of their mysteries which ought to be concealed, yet I think this may be lawfully divulged, that they more cautiously abstain from fish than from other animals. For this is said of the ancient Pythagoreans; and even now I have met with Alexicrates’s scholars, who will eat and kill and even sacrifice some of the other animals, but will never taste fish. Tyndares the Spartan said, they spared fish because they had so great a regard for silence, and they called fish [Greek omitted], because they had their voice SHUT UP ([Greek omitted]); and my namesake Empedocles advised one who had been expelled from the school of Pythagoras to shut up his mind like a fish, and they thought silence to be divine, since the gods without any voice reveal their meaning to the wise by their works.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.2] Then Lucius gravely and composedly saying, that perhaps the true reason was obscure and not to be divulged, yet they had liberty to venture upon probable conjectures, Theon the grammarian began thus: To demonstrate that Pythagoras was a Tuscan is a great and no easy task. But it is confessed that he conversed a long time with the wise men of Egypt, and imitated a great many of the rites and institutions of the priests, for instance, that about beans. For Herodotus delivers, that the Egyptians neither set nor eat beans, nay, cannot endure to see them; and we all know, that even now the priests eat no fish; and the stricter sort eat no salt, and refuse all meat that is seasoned with it. Various reasons are offered for this; but the only true reason is hatred to the sea, as being a disagreeable, or rather naturally a destructive element to man. For they do not imagine that the gods, as the Stoics did that the stars, were nourished by it. But, on the contrary, they think that the father and preserver of their country, whom they call the deflux of Osiris, is lost in it; and when they bewail him as born on the left hand, and destroyed in the right-hand parts, they intimate to us the ending and corruption of their Nile by the sea, and therefore they do not believe that its water is wholesome, or that any creature produced or nourished in it can be clean or wholesome food for man, since it breathes not the common air, and feeds not on the same food with him. And the air that nourisheth and preserves all other things is destructive to them, as if their production and life were unnecessary and against Nature; nor should we wonder that they think animals bred in the sea to be disagreeable to their bodies, and not fit to mix with their blood and spirits, since when they meet a pilot they will not speak to him, because he gets his living by the sea.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.3] Sylla commended this discourse, and added concerning the Pythagoreans, that they then chiefly tasted flesh when they sacrificed to the gods. Now no fish is ever offered in sacrifice. I, after they had done, said that many, both philosophers and unlearned, considering with how many good things it furnisheth and makes our life more comfortable, take the sea’s part against the Egyptians. But that the Pythagoreans should abstain from fish because they are not of the same kind, is ridiculous and absurd; nay, to butcher and feed on other animals, because they bear a nearer relation to us, would be a most inhuman and Cyclopean return. And they say that Pythagoras bought a draught of fishes, and presently commanded the fishers to let them all out of the net; and this shows that, he did not hate or not mind fishes, as things of another kind and destructive to man, but that they were his dearly beloved creatures, since he paid a ransom for their freedom.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.3b] Therefore the tenderness and humanity of those philosophers suggest a quite contrary reason, and I am apt to believe that they spare fishes to instruct men, or to accustom themselves to acts of justice; for other creatures generally give men cause to afflict them, but fishes neither do nor are capable of doing us any harm. And it is easy to show, both from the writings and religion of the ancients, that they thought it a great sin not only to eat but to kill an animal that did them no harm. But afterwards, being necessitated by the spreading multitude of men, and commanded (as they say) by the Delphic oracle to prevent the total decay of corn and fruit, they began to sacrifice, yet they were so disturbed and concerned at the action, that they called it [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted] (TO DO), as if they did some strange thing in killing an animal; and they are very careful not to kill the beast before the wine has been cast upon his head and he nods in token of consent. So very cautious are they of injustice. And not to mention other considerations, were no chickens (for instance) or hares killed, in a short time they would so increase that there could be no living. And now it would be a very hard matter to put down the eating of flesh, which necessity first introduced, since pleasure and luxury hath espoused it. But the water-animals neither consuming any part of our air or water, or devouring the fruit, but as it were encompassed by another world, and having their own proper bounds, which it is death for them to pass, they afford our belly no pretence at all for their destruction; and therefore to catch or be greedy after fish is plain deliciousness and luxury, which upon no just reason unsettle the sea and dive into the deep. For we cannot call the mullet corn-destroying, the trout grape-eating, nor the barbel or seapike seed-gathering, as we do some land-animals, signifying their hurtfulness by these epithets. Nay, those little mischiefs which we complain of in these house-creatures, a weasel or fly, none can justly lay upon the greatest fish. Therefore the Pythagoreans, confining themselves not only by the law which forbids them to injure men, but also by Nature, which commands them to do violence to nothing, fed on fish very little, or rather not at all. But suppose there were no injustice in this case, yet to delight in fish would argue daintiness and luxury; because they are such costly and unnecessary diet. Therefore Homer doth not only make the Greeks whilst encamped near the Hellespont, eat no fish, but he mentions not any sea-provision that the dissolute Phaeacians or luxurious wooers had, though both islanders. And Ulysses’s mates, though they sailed over so much sea, as long as they had any provision left, never let down a hook or net.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.3c] But when the victuals of their ship was spent,(“Odyssey,” xii. 329–332.)
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.3d] little before they fell upon the oxen of the Sun, they caught fish, not to please their wanton appetite, but to satisfy their hunger, —
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.3e] With crooked hooks, for cruel hunger gnawed.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.3f] The same necessity therefore forced them to catch fish and devour the oxen of the Sun. Therefore not only among the Egyptian and Syrians but Greeks too, to abstain from fish was a piece of sanctity, they avoiding (as I think), a superfluous curiosity in diet, as well as being just.
[Quaest. conv. 8.8.4] To this Nestor subjoining said: But sir, of my citizens as of the Megarians in the proverb, you make no account; although you have heard me often say that our priests of Neptune (whom we call Hieromnemons) never eat fish. For Neptune himself is called the Breeder. And the race of Hellen sacrificed to Neptune as the first father, imagining, as likewise the Syrians did, that man rose from a liquid substance. And therefore they worship a fish as of the same production and breeding with themselves, in this matter being more happy in their philosophy than Anaximander; for he says that fish and men were not produced in the same substances, but that men were first produced in fishes, and, when they were grown up and able to help themselves, were thrown out, and so lived upon the land. Therefore, as the fire devours its parents, that is, the matter out of which it was first kindled, so Anaximander, asserting that fish were our common parents, condemneth our feeding on them.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.1] Whether There Can Be New Diseases, and How Caused.
PHILO, DIOGENIANUS, PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.1b] Philo the physician stoutly affirmed that the elephantiasis was a disease but lately known; since none of the ancient physicians speak one word of it, though they oftentimes enlarge upon little, frivolous and obscure trifles. And I, to confirm it, cited Athenodorus the philosopher, who in his first book of Epidemical Diseases says, that not only that disease, but also the hydrophobia or water-dread (occasioned by the biting of a mad dog), were first discovered in the time of Asclepiades. At this the whole company were amazed, thinking it very strange that such diseases should begin then, and yet as strange that they should not be taken notice of in so long a time; yet most of them leaned to this last opinion, as being most agreeable to man, not in the least daring to imagine that Nature affected novelties, or would in the body of man, as in a city, create new disturbances and tumults.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.2] And Diogenianus added, that even the passions and diseases of the mind go on in the same old road that formerly they did; and yet the viciousness of our inclination is exceedingly prone to variety, and our mind is mistress of itself, and can, if it please, easily change and alter. Yet all her inordinate motions have some sort of order, and the soul hath bounds to her passions, as the sea to her overflowings. And there is no sort of vice now among us which was not practised by the ancients. There are a thousand differences of appetites and various motions of fear; the schemes of grief and pleasure are innumerable.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.2b] Yet are not they of late or now produced, And none can tell from whence they first arose.(Sophocles, “Antigone,” 456.)
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.2c] How then should the body be subject to new diseases, since it hath not, like the soul, the principle of its own alteration in itself, but by common causes is joined to Nature, and receives a temperature whose infinite variety of alterations is confined to certain bounds, like a ship moving and tossing in a circle about its anchor. Now there can be no disease without some cause, it being against the laws of Nature that anything should be without a cause. Now it will be very hard to find a new cause, unless we fancy some strange air, water, or food never tasted by the ancients, should out of other worlds or intermundane spaces descend to us. For we contract diseases from those very things which preserve our life; since there are no peculiar seeds of diseases, but the disagreement of their juices to our bodies, or our excess in using them, disturbs Nature. These disturbances have still the very same differences, though now and then called by new names. For names depend on custom, but the passions on Nature; and these being constant and those variable, this error has arisen. As, in the parts of a speech and the syntax of the words, some new sort of barbarism or solecism can suddenly arise; so the temperature of the body hath certain deviations and corruptions into which it may fall, those things which are against and hurtful to Nature being in some sort existent in Nature herself. The mythographers are in this particular very ingenious, for they say that monstrous uncouth animals were produced in the time of the Giants war, the moon being out of its course, and not rising where it used to do. And those who think Nature produces new diseases like monsters, and yet give neither likely nor unlikely reasons of the change, err, as I imagine, my dear Philo, in taking a less or a greater degree of the same disease to be a different disease. The intension or increase of a thing makes it more or greater, but does not make the subject of another kind. Thus the elephantiasis, being an intense scabbiness, is not a new kind; nor is the water-dread distinguished from other melancholic and stomachical affections but only by the degree. And I wonder we did not observe that Homer was acquainted with this disease, for it is evident that he calls a dog rabid from the very same rage with which when men are possessed they are said to be mad.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3] Against this discourse of Diogenianus Philo himself made some objections, and desired me to be the old physicians’ patron; who must be branded with inadvertency and ignorance, unless it appears that those diseases began since their time. First then Diogenianus, methinks, very precariously desires us to think that the intenseness or remissness of degrees is not a real difference, and does not alter the kind. For, were this true, then we should hold that downright vinegar is not different from pricked wine, nor a bitter from a rough taste, darnel from wheat, nor garden-mint from wild mint. For it is evident that these differences are only the several degrees of the same qualities, in some being more intense, in some more remiss. So we should not venture to affirm that flame is different from a white spirit, sunshine from flame, hoarfrost from dew, or hail from rain; but that the former have only more intense qualities than the latter. Besides, we should say that blindness is of the same kind with short-sightedness, violent vomiting (or cholera) with weakness of the stomach, and that they differ only in degree. Though what they say is nothing to the purpose; for if they allow the increase in intensity and strength, but assert that this came but now of late, — the novelty showing itself in the quantity rather than the quality, — the same difficulties which they urged against the other opinion oppress them. Sophocles says very well concerning those things which are not believed to be now, because they were not heretofore, —
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3b] Once at the first all things their being had.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3c] And it is probable that not all diseases, as in a race, the barrier being let down, started together; but that one rising after another, at some certain time, had its beginning and showed itself. It is rational to conclude (continued I) that all the diseases that rise from want, heat, or cold bear the same date with our bodies; but afterwards overeating, luxury, and surfeiting, encouraged by ease and plenty, raised bad and superfluous juices, and those brought various new diseases, and their perpetual complications and mixtures still create more new. Whatever is natural is determined and in order; for Nature is order, or the work of order. Disorder, like Pindar’s sand, cannot be comprised by number, and that which is beside Nature is straight called indeterminate and infinite. Thus truth is simple, and but one; but falsities innumerable. The exactness of motions and harmony are definite, but the errors either in playing upon the harp, singing, or dancing, who can comprehend? Indeed Phrynichus the tragedian says of himself,
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3d] As many figures dancing doth propose As waves roll on the sea when tempests toss.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3e] And Chrysippus says that the various complications of ten single axioms amount to 1,000,000. But Hipparchus hath confuted that account, showing that the affirmative contains 101,049 complicated propositions, and the negative 310,952. And Xenocrates says, the number of syllables which the letters will make is 100,200,000. How then is it strange that the body, having so many different powers in itself, and getting new qualities every day from its meat and drink, and using those motions and alterations which are not always in the same time nor in the same order, should upon the various complications of all these be affected with new diseases? Such was the plague at Athens described by Thucydides, who conjectures that it was new because that birds and beasts of prey would not touch the dead carcasses. Those that fell sick about the Red Sea, if we believe Agatharcides, besides other strange and unheard diseases, had little serpents in their legs and arms, which did eat their way out, but when touched shrunk in again, and raised intolerable inflammations in the muscles; and yet this kind of plague, as likewise many others, never afflicted any beside, either before or since. One, after a long stoppage of urine, voided a knotty barley straw. And we know that Ephebus, with whom we lodged at Athens, threw out, together with a great deal of seed, a little hairy, many-footed, nimble animal. And Aristotle tells us, that Timon’s nurse in Cilicia every year for two months lay in a cave, without any vital operation besides breathing. And in the Menonian books it is delivered as a symptom of a diseased liver carefully to observe and hunt after mice and rats, which we see now nowhere practised.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3f] Therefore let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted; for the cause of those accidents is the nature of our body, whose temperature is subject to be changed. Therefore, if Diogenianus will not introduce a new kind of water or air, we, having no need of it, are very well content. Yet we know some of Democritus’s scholars affirm that, other worlds being dissolved, some strange effluvia fall into ours, and are the principle of new plagues and uncommon diseases. But let us not now take notice of the corruption of some parts of this world by earthquake, droughts, and floods, by which both the vapors and fountains rising out of the earth must be necessarily corrupted. Yet we must not pass by that change which must be wrought in the body by our meat, drink, and other exercises in our course of life. For many things which the ancients did not feed on are now accounted dainties; for instance, mead and swine’s belly. Heretofore too, as I have heard, they hated the brain of animals so much, that they detested the very name of it; as when Homer says, “I esteem him at a brain’s worth.” And even now we know some old men, not bearing to taste cucumber, melon, orange, or pepper. Now by these meats and drinks it is probable that the juices of our bodies are much altered, and their temperature changed, new qualities arising from this new sort of diet. And the change of order in our feeding having a great influence on the alteration of our bodies, the cold courses, as they were called formerly, consisting of oysters, polyps, salads, and the like, being (in Plato’s phrase) transferred “from tail to mouth,” now make the first course, whereas they were formerly the last. Besides, the glass which we usually take before supper is very considerable in this case; for the ancients never drank so much as water before they ate, but now we drink freely before we sit down, and fall to our meat with a full and heated body, using sharp sauces and pickles to provoke appetite, and then we fall greedily on the other meat. But nothing conduceth more to alterations and new diseases in the body than our different baths; for here the flesh, like iron in the fire, grows soft and loose, and is presently constipated and hardened by the cold. For, in my opinion, if any of the last age had looked into our baths, he might have justly said,
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3g] There burning Phlegethon meets Acheron.
[Quaest. conv. 8.9.3h] For they used such mild gentle baths, that Alexander the Great being feverish slept in one. And the Gauls’ wives carry their pots of pulse to eat with their children whilst they are in the bath. But our baths now inflame, vellicate, and distress; and the air which we draw is a mixture of air and water, disturbs the whole body, tosses and displaces every atom, till we quench the fiery particles and allay their heat. Therefore, Diogenianus, you see that this account requires no new strange causes, no intermundane spaces; but the single alteration of our diet is enough to raise new diseases and abolish old.
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 8.10.1] Why We Give Least Credit to Dreams in Autumn.
FLORUS, PLUTARCH, PLUTARCH’S SONS, FAVORINUS.
[Quaest. conv. 8.10.1b] Florus reading Aristotle’s physical problems, which were brought to him to Thermopylae, was himself (as philosophical wits used to be) filled with a great many doubts, and communicated them to others; thereby confirming Aristotle’s saying, that much learning raises many doubts. Other topics made our walks every day very pleasant, but the common saying concerning dreams, — that those in autumn are the vainest, — I know not how, whilst Favorinus was engaged in other matters, was started after supper. Your friends and my sons thought Aristotle had given sufficient satisfaction in this point, and that no other cause was to be sought after or allowed but that which he mentions, the fruit. For the fruit, being new and flatulent, raises many disturbing vapors in the body; for it is not likely that only wine ferments, or new oil only makes a noise in the lamp, the heat agitating its vapor; but new corn and all sorts of fruit are plump and distended, till the unconcocted flatulent vapor is broke away. And that some sorts of food disturb dreams they said, was evident from beans and the polypus’s head, from which those who would divine by their dreams are commanded to abstain.
[Quaest. conv. 8.10.2] But Favorinus himself, though in all other things he admires Aristotle exceedingly and thinks the Peripatetic philosophy to be most probable, yet in this case resolved to scour up an old musty opinion of Democritus. He first laid down that known principle of his, that images pass through the pores into the inmost parts of the body, and being carried upward cause dreams; and that these images fly from everything, vessels, garments, plants, but especially from animals, because of their heat and the motion of their spirits; and that these images not only carry the outward shape and likeness of the bodies (as Epicurus thinks, following Democritus so far and no farther), but the very designs, motions, and passions of the soul; and with those entering into the bodies, as if they were living things, discover to those that receive them the thoughts and inclinations of the persons from whom they come, if so be that they preserve their frame and order entire. And that is especially preserved when the air is calm and clear, their passage then being quick and undisturbed. Now the autumnal air, when trees shed their leaves, being very uneven and disturbed, ruffles and disorders the images, and, hindering them in their passage, makes them weak and ineffectual; when, on the contrary, if they rise from warm and vigorous subjects, and are presently applied, the notices which they give and the impressions they make are clear and evident.
[Quaest. conv. 8.10.3] Then with a smile looking upon Autobulus, he continued: But, sir, I perceive you design to have an airy skirmish with these images, and try the excellence of this old opinion, as you would a picture, by your nail. And Autobulus replied: Pray, sir, do not endeavor to cheat us any longer; for we know very well that you, designing to make Aristotle’s opinion appear the better, have used this of Democritus only as its shade. Therefore I shall pass by that, and impugn Aristotle’s opinion, which unjustly lays the blame on the new fruit. For both the summer and the early autumn witness in its favor, when, as Antimachus says, the fruit is most fresh and juicy; for then, though we eat the new fruit, yet our dreams are not so vain as at other times. And the months when the leaves fall, being next to winter, so concoct the corn and remaining fruit, that they grow shrivelled and less, and lose all their brisk agitating spirit. As for new wine, those that drink it soonest forbear till February, which is after winter; and the day on which we begin we call the day of the Good Genius, and the Athenians the day of cask-opening. For whilst wine is working, we see that even common, laborers will not venture on it. Therefore no more accusing the gifts of the gods, let us seek after another cause of vain dreams, to which the name of the season will direct us. For it is called LEAF-SHEDDING, because the leaves then fall off by reason of their dryness and coldness; except the leaves of hot and oily trees, as of the olive, the laurel, or the palm; or of the moist, as of the myrtle and the ivy. But the temperature of these preserves them, though not others; because in others the vicious humor that holds the leaves is constipated by the cold, or being weak and little is dried up. Now moisture and heat are necessary for the growth and preservation of plants, but especially of animals; and on the contrary, coldness and dryness are very noxious to both. And therefore Homer elegantly calls men moist and juicy: to rejoice he calls to be warmed; and anything that is grievous and frightful he calls cold and icy. Besides, the words [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted] are applied to the dead, those names intimating their extreme dryness. But more, our blood, the principal thing in our whole body, is moist and hot. And old age hath neither of those two qualities. Now the autumn seems to be as it were the old age of the decaying year; for the moisture doth not yet fall, and the heat decays. And its inclining the body to diseases is an evident sign of its cold and dryness. Now it is necessary that the souls should be indisposed with the bodies and that, the subtile spirit being condensed, the divining faculty of the soul, like a glass that is breathed upon, should be sullied; and therefore it cannot represent anything plain, distinct, and clear, as long as it remains thick, dark, and condensed.

## Book IX

[Quaest. conv. 9.0.1] This ninth book, Sossius Senecio, contains the discourses we held at Athens at the Muses feast, for this number nine is agreeable to the number of the Muses. Nor must you wonder when you find more than ten questions (which number I have observed in my other books) in it; for we ought to give the Muses all that belongs to them, and be as careful of robbing them as of a temple, since we owe them much more and much better things than these.
QUESTION I.
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.1] Concerning Verses Seasonably and Unseasonably Applied.
Ammonius, Plutarch, Erato, certain schoolmasters, and FRIENDS OF AMMONIUS.
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.1b] Ammonius, captain of the militia at Athens, would show Diogenianus the proficiency of those youths that learned grammar, geometry, rhetoric, and music; and invited the chief masters of the town to supper. There were a great many scholars at the feast, and almost all his acquaintance. Achilles invited only the single combatants to his feast, intending (as the story goes) that, if in the heat of the encounter they had conceived any anger or ill-will against one another, they might then lay it aside, being made partakers of one common entertainment. But the contrary happened to Ammonius, for the contentions of the masters increased and grew more sharp midst their cups and merriment; and all was disorder and confused babbling.
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2] Therefore Ammonius commanded Erato to sing to his harp, and he sang some part of Hesiod’s Works beginning thus,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2b] Contention to one sort is not confined;(“Works and Days,” 11.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2c] and I commended him for choosing so apposite a song. Then he began to discourse about the seasonable use of verse, that it was not only pleasant but profitable. And straight every one’s mouth was full of that poet who began Ptolemy’s epithalamium (when he married his sister, a wicked and abominable match) thus,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2d] Jove Juno called his sister and his wife;(“Iliad,” xviii. 356.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2e] and another, who refused to sing after supper to Demetrius the king, but after he sent him his young son Philip to be educated sang thus,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2f] Breed thou the boy as doth become Both Hercules’s race and us;
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2g] and Anaxarchus who, being pelted with apples by Alexander at supper, rose up and said,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2h] Some god shall wounded be by mortal hand.(Euripides, “Orestes,” 271.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2i] But that Corinthian captive boy excelled all, who, when the city was destroyed, and Mummius, taking a survey of all the free-born children that understood letters, commanded each to write a verse, wrote thus: —
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2j] Thrice, four times blest, the happy Greeks that fell.(“Odyssey,” v. 306.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2k] For they say that Mummius was affected with it, wept and gave all the free-born children that were allied to the boy their liberty. And some mentioned the wife of Theodorus the tragedian, who refused his embraces a little before he contended for the prize; but, when he was conqueror and came in unto her, clasped him and said,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.2l] Now, Agamemnon’s son, you freely may(Sophocles “Electra,” 2.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.3] After this a great many sayings were mentioned as unseasonably spoken, it being fit that we should know such and avoid them; — as that to Pompey the Great, to whom, upon his return from a dangerous war, the schoolmaster brought his little daughter, and, to show him what a proficient she was, called for a book, and bade her begin at this line,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.3b] Returned from war; but hadst thou there been slain, My wish had been complete;(“Iliad,” iii. 428.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.3c] and that to Cassius Longinus, to whom a flying report of his son’s dying abroad being brought, and he no ways appearing either to know the certain truth or to clear the doubt, an old senator came and said: Longinus, will you not despise the flying uncertain rumor, as if you did not know nor had read this line,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.3d] For no report is wholly false?(Hesiod, “Works and Days,” 763.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.3e] And he that at Rhodes, to a grammarian demanding a line upon which he might show his skill in the theatre, proposed this,
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.3f] Fly from the island, worst of all mankind,(“Odyssey,” x. 72.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.1.3g] either slyly put a trick upon him, or unwittingly blundered. And this discourse quieted the tumult.
Questions ii. and III.
[Quaest. conv. 9.2.1] What is the Reason that Alpha is Placed First in the Alphabet, and What is the Proportion Between the Number of Vowels And Semi- Vowels?
AMMONIUS, HERMEAS, PROTOGENES, PLUTARCH, ZOPYRION.
[Quaest. conv. 9.2.1b] It being the custom of the Muses’ feast to draw lots, and those that were matched to propose curious questions to one another, Ammonius, fearing that two of the same profession might be matched together, ordered, without drawing lots, a geometrician to propose questions to a grammarian, and a master of music to a rhetorician.
[Quaest. conv. 9.2.2] First, therefore, Hermeas the geometrician demanded of Protogenes the grammarian a reason why Alpha was the first letter of the alphabet. And he returned the common answer of the schools, that it was fit the vowels should be set before the mutes and semi-vowels. And of the vowels, some being long, some short, some both long and short, it is just that the latter should be most esteemed. And of these that are long and short, that is to be set first which is usually placed before the other two, but never after either; and that is Alpha. For that put after either Iota or Upsilon will not be pronounced, will not make one syllable with them, but as it were resenting the affront and angry at the position, seeks the first as its proper place. But if you place Alpha before either of those, they are obedient, and quietly join in one syllable, as in these words, [Greek omitted] and a thousand others. In these three respects therefore, as the conquerors in all the five exercises, it claims the precedence, — that of most other letters by being a vowel, that of other vowels by being dichronous, and lastly, that of these double-timed vowels themselves because it is its nature to go before and never after them.
[Quaest. conv. 9.2.3] Protogenes making a pause, Ammonius, speaking to me, said: What! have you, being a Boeotian, nothing to say for Cadmus, who (as the story goes) placed Alpha the first in order, because a cow is called Alpha by the Phoenicians, and they account it not the second or third (as Hesiod doth) but the first of their necessary things? Nothing at all, I replied, for it is just that, to the best of my power, I should rather assist my own than Bacchus’s grandfather. For Lamprias my grandfather said, that the first articulate sound that is made is Alpha; for the air in the mouth is formed and fashioned by the motion of the lips; now as soon as those are opened, that sound breaks forth, being very plain and simple, not requiring or depending upon the motion of the tongue, but gently breathed forth whilst that lies still. And therefore that is the first sound that children make. Thus [Greek omitted], TO HEAR, [Greek omitted], TO SING, [Greek omitted], TO PIPE, [Greek omitted], TO HOLLOW, begin with the letter Alpha; and I think that [Greek omitted], TO LIFT UP, and [Greek omitted], TO OPEN, were fitly taken from that opening and lifting up of the lips when his voice is uttered. Thus all the names of the mutes besides one have an Alpha, as it were a light to assist their blindness; for Pi alone wants it, and Phi and Chi are only Pi and Kappa with an aspirate.
[Quaest. conv. 9.2.3b] Hermeas saying that he approved both reasons, why then (continued I) do not you explain the proportion, if there be any, of the number of the letters; for, in my opinion, there is; and I think so, because the number of mutes and semi-vowels, compared between themselves or with the vowels, doth not seem casual and undesigned, but to be according to the first proportion which you call arithmetical. For their number being nine, eight, and seven, the middle exceeds the last as much as it wants of the first. And the first number being compared with the last, hath the same proportion that the Muses have to Apollo; for nine is appropriated to them, and seven to him. And these two numbers tied together double the middle; and not without reason, since the semi-vowels partake the power of both.
[Quaest. conv. 9.3.2] And Hermeas replied: It is said that Mercury was the first god that discovered letters in Egypt; and therefore the Egyptians make the figure of an Ibis, a bird dedicated to Mercury, for the first letter. But it is not fit, in my opinion, to place an animal that makes no noise at the head of the letters. Amongst all the numbers the fourth is peculiarly dedicated to Mercury, because, as some say, the god was born on the fourth day of the month. And the first letters called Phoenician from Cadmus are four times four, or sixteen; and of those that were afterward added, Palamedes found four, and Simonides four more. Now amongst numbers, three is the first perfect, as consisting of a first, a middle, and a last; and after that six, as being equal the sum of its own divisors (1+2+3). Of these, six multiplied by four makes twenty-four; and also the first perfect number, three, multiplied by the first cube, eight, make the same.
[Quaest. conv. 9.3.3] Whilst he was discoursing thus, Zopyrion the grammarian sneered and muttered between his teeth; and, as soon as he had done, cried out that he most egregiously trifled; for it was mere chance, and not design, that gave such a number and order to the letters, as it was mere chance that the first and last verses of Homer’s Iliads have just as many syllables as the first and last of his Odysseys.
QUESTION IV.
[Quaest. conv. 9.4.1] Which of Venus’s Hands Diomedes Wounded.
HERMEAS, ZOPYRION, MAXIMUS.
[Quaest. conv. 9.4.1b] Hermeas would have replied to Zopyrion, but we desired him to hold; and Maximus the rhetorician proposed to him this far-fetched question out of Homer, Which of Venus’s hands Diomedes wounded. And Zopyrion presently asking him again, of which leg was Philip lame? — Maximus replied, It is a different case, for Demosthenes hath left us no foundation upon which we may build our conjecture. But if you confess your ignorance in this matter, others will show how the poet sufficiently intimates to an understanding man which hand it was. Zopyrion being at a stand, we all, since he made no reply, desired Maximus to tell us.
[Quaest. conv. 9.4.2] And he began: The verses running thus
[Quaest. conv. 9.4.2b] Then Diomedes raised his mighty spear, And leaping towards her just did graze her hand;(“Iliad,” v. 335. It is evident from what follows that Plutarch interprets [Greek omitted] in this passage HAVINGLEAPED TO ONE SIDE. (G.))
[Quaest. conv. 9.4.2c] it is evident that, if he designed to wound her left hand, there had been no need of leaping, since her left hand was opposite to his right. Besides, it is probable that he would endeavor to wound the strongest hand, and that with which she drew away Aeneas; and which being wounded, it was likely she would let him go. But more, after she returned to Heaven, Minerva jeeringly said,
[Quaest. conv. 9.4.2d] No doubt fair Venus won a Grecian dame, To follow her beloved Trojan youths, And as she gently stroked her with her hand, Her golden buckler scratched this petty wound.(“Iliad”, v. 422.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.4.2e] And I suppose, you sir, when you stroke any of your scholars, you use your right hand, and not your left; and it is likely that Venus, the most skilful of all the goddesses, soothed the heroines after the same manner.
QUESTION V.
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.1] Why Plato Says that Ajax’s Soul Came to Draw Her Lot in the Twentieth Place in Hell.
HYLAS, SOSPIS, AMMONIUS, LAMPRIAS.
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.1b] These discourses made all the other company merry; but Sospis the rhetorician, seeing Hylas the grammarian sit silent and discomposed (for he had not been very happy in his exercises), cried out,
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.1c] But Ajax’s soul stood far apart;
and raising his voice repeated the rest to him,
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.1d] But sit, draw near, and patiently attend, Hear what I say, and tame, your violent rage.
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.1e] To this Hylas, unable to contain, returned a scurvy answer saying that Ajax’s soul, taking her lot in the twentieth place in hell, changed her nature, according to Plato, for a lion’s; but, for his part, he could not but often think upon the saying of the old comedian,
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.1f] ‘Tis better far to be an ass than see Unworthwhile men in greater honor shine
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.1g] At this Sospis, laughing heartily, said: But in the meantime, before we have the pack-saddles on, if you have any regard for Plato, tell us why he makes Ajax’s soul, after the lots drawn, to have the twentieth choice. Hylas, with great indignation, refused, thinking that this was a jeering reflection on his former miscarriage. And therefore my brother began thus: What, was not Ajax counted the second for beauty, strength, and courage, and the next to Achilles in the Grecian army? And twenty is the second ten, and ten is the chiefest of numbers, as Achilles of the Greeks. We laughing at this, Ammonius said: Well, Lamprias, let this suffice for a joke upon Hylas; but since you have voluntarily taken upon you to give an account of this matter, leave off jesting, and seriously proceed.
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.2] This startled Lamprias a little, but, after a short pause, he continued thus: Plato often tells merry stories under borrowed names, but when he puts any fable into a discourse concerning the soul, he hath some considerable meaning in it. The intelligent nature of the heavens he calls a flying chariot, intimating the harmonious whirl of the world. And here he introduceth one Er, the son of Harmonius, a Pamphylian, to tell what he had seen in hell; intimating that our souls are begotten according to harmony, and are agreeably united to our bodies, and that, when they are separated, they are from all parts carried together into the air, and from thence return to second generations. And what hinders but that [Greek omitted] twentieth should intimate that this was not a true story, but only probable and fictitious [Greek omitted], and that the lot fell casually [Greek omitted]. For Plato always toucheth upon three causes, he being the first and chiefest philosopher that knew how fate accords with fortune, and how our free-will is mixed and complicated with both. And now he hath admirably discovered what influence each hath upon our affairs. The choice of our life he hath left to our free-will, for virtue and vice are free. But that those who have made a good choice should live religiously, and those who have made an ill choice should lead a contrary life, he leaves to the necessity of fate. But the chances of lots thrown at a venture introduce fortune into the several conditions of life in which we are brought up, and which pre-occupates and perverts our own choice. Now consider whether it is not irrational to inquire after a cause of those things that are done by chance. For if the lot seems to be disposed of by design, it ceaseth to be chance and fortune, and becomes fate and providence.
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.3] Whilst Lamprias was speaking, Marcus the grammarian seemed to be counting to himself, and when he had done, he began thus: Amongst the souls which Homer mentions in his [Greek omitted], Elpenor’s is not to be reckoned as mixed with those in hell, but, his body being not buried, as wandering about the banks of the river Styx. Nor is it fit that we should reckon Tiresias’s soul amongst the rest, —
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.3b] On whom alone, when deep in hell beneath, Wisdom Proserpina conferred,
[Quaest. conv. 9.5.3c] to discourse and converse with the living even before he drank the sacrifice’s blood. Therefore, Lamprias, if you subtract these two, you will find that Ajax was the twentieth that Ulysses saw, and Plato merrily alludes to that place in Homer’s [Greek omitted].
QUESTION VI.
[Quaest. conv. 9.6.1] What is Signified by the Fable About the Defeat of Neptune? And Also, Why Do the Athenians Omit the Second Day of the Month Boedromion?
MENEPHYLUS, HYLAS, LAMPRIAS.
[Quaest. conv. 9.6.1b] While all were making a disturbance, Menephylus, a Peripatetic philosopher, addressing Hylas: You see, he said, how this investigation is no foolery nor insolence. But leave now, my dear fellow, that obstinate Ajax, whose name is ill-omened, as Sophocles says, and side with Poseidon, whom you yourself are wont to tell has often been overcome, once by Athene here, in Delphi by Apollo, in Argos by Here, in Aegina by Zeus, in Naxos by Bacchus, yet in his misfortunes has always been mild and amiable. Here at least he shares a temple in common with Athene, in which there is an altar dedicated to Lethe. And Hylas, as if he had become better tempered: One thing has escaped you, Menephylus, that we have given up the second day of September, not on account of the moon, but because on that day the gods seemed to have contended for the country. By all means, said Lamprias, by as much as Poseidon was more civilized than Thrasybulus, since not like him a winner but a loser. . . .
(The rest of this book to Question XIII is lost; with the exception of the titles that follow, and the fragment of Question XII.)
QUESTION VII.
[Quaest. conv. 9.7.1] Why the Accords in Music are Separated Into Three.
QUESTION VIII.
[Quaest. conv. 9.8.1] Wherein the Intervals Melodious Differ From Those that are Harmonic.
QUESTION IX.
[Quaest. conv. 9.9.1] What is the Cause of Accord? And Also, Why, When Two Accordant Strings are Touched Together, is the Melody Ascribed to The Base?
QUESTION X.
[Quaest. conv. 9.10.1] Why, When the Ecliptic Periods of the Sun and the Moon are Equal in Number, the Moon Appears Oftener Eclipsed Than the Sun.
QUESTION XI.
[Quaest. conv. 9.11.1] That We Continue Not Always the Same, in Regard of the Deflux of Our Substance.
QUESTION XII.
[Quaest. conv. 9.12.1] Is It More Probable that the Number of the Stars is Even or Odd?
[Quaest. conv. 9.12.1b] Men must be cheated by oaths. And Glaucias said: I have heard this saying used against Polycrates the tyrant; probably too it was said against others: but why do you ask these questions? Because, by Zeus, said Sospis, I see the children playing odd and even with jackstones and the Academics with words. For such tempers as these differ in no way from those who ask whether they hold clutched in their hands odd or even. Then Protogenes stood up and called me by name: What is the matter with us that we allow these rhetoricians to he so conceited, and to laugh down others while they are asked nothing, and contribute nothing in the way of argument, — unless they swear that they have no part in the wine as admirers and disciples of Demosthenes, a man who in his whole life never drank wine. That is not the cause of this, said I; but we have never asked them anything. But unless you have something more useful, I think I can put before them from Homer’s poetry a case of antinomy in rhetorical theses.
QUESTION XIII.
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1] A Moot- Point Out of the Third Book of Homer’s Iliads.
PLUTARCH, PROTOGENES, GLAUCIAS, SOSPIS.
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1b] What question will you put them, said Protogenes? I will tell you, continued I, and let them carefully attend. Paris makes his challenge in these express words: —
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1c] Let me and valiant Menelaus fight For Helen, and for all the goods she brought; And he that shall o’ercome, let him enjoy The goods and woman; let them be his own.
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1d] And Hector afterwards publicly proclaiming this challenge in these plain words: —
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1e] He bids the Trojans and the valiant Greeks To fix their arms upon the fruitful ground; Let Menelaus and stout Paris fight For all the goods; and he that beats have all.
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1f] Menelaus accepted the challenge, and the conditions were sworn to, Agamemnon dictating thus: —
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1g] If Paris valiant Menelaus kills, Let him have Helen, and the goods possess; If youthful Menelaus Paris kills, The woman and the goods shall all be his.(See “Iliad,” iii. 68, 88, 255, and 281.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.1h] Now since Menelaus only overcame but did not kill Paris, each party hath somewhat to say for itself, and against the other. The one may demand restitution, because Paris was overcome; the other deny it, because he was not killed. Now how to determine this case and clear the seeming repugnancies doth not belong to philosophers or grammarians, but to rhetoricians, that are well skilled both in grammar and philosophy.
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.2] Then Sospis said: The challenger’s word decides; for the challenger proposed the conditions, and when they were accepted, the opposite party had no power to make additions. Now the condition proposed in this challenge was not killing, but overcoming; and there was reason that it should be so, for Helen ought to be the wife of the bravest. Now the bravest is he that overcomes; for it often happens that an excellent soldier might be killed by a coward, as is evident in what happened afterward, when Achilles was shot by Paris. For I do not believe that you will affirm, that Achilles was not so brave a man as Paris because he was killed by him, and that it should be called the victory, and not rather the unjust good fortune, of him that shot him. But Hector was overcome before he was killed by Achilles, because he would not stand, but trembled and fled at his approach. For he that refuseth the combat or flies cannot palliate his defeat, and plainly grants that his adversary is the better man. And therefore Iris tells Helen beforehand,
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.2b] In single combat they shall fight for you, And you shall be the glorious victor’s wife.(2 Ibid. iii. 137.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.2c] And Jupiter afterwards adjudges the victory to Menelaus in these words:
The conquest leans to Menelaus’s side.(3 Ibid. iv. 13.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.2d] For it would be ridiculous to call Menelaus a conqueror when he shot Podes, a man at a great distance, before he thought of or could provide against his danger, and yet not allow him the reward of conquest over him whom he made fly and sneak into the embraces of his wife, and whom he spoiled of his arms whilst he was yet alive, and who had himself offered the challenge, by the articles of which Menelaus now appeared to be the conqueror.
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3] Glaucias subjoined: in all laws, decrees, contracts, and promises, those latest made are always accounted more valid than the former. Now the later contract was Agamemnon’s, the condition of which was killing, and not only overcoming. Besides the former was mere words, the latter confirmed by oath; and, by the consent of all, those were cursed that broke them; so that this latter was properly the contract, and the other a bare challenge. And this Priam at his going away, after he had sworn to the conditions, confirms by these words: —
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3b] But Jove and other gods alone do know, Which is designed to see the shades below;(“Iliad,” iii. 308.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3c] for he understood that to be the condition of the contract. And therefore a little after Hector says,
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3d] But Jove hath undetermined left our oaths,(Ibid. vii. 69.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3e] for the combat had not its designed and indisputable determination, since neither of them fell. Therefore this question doth not seem to me to contain any contrariety of law, since the former contract is comprised and overruled by the latter; for he that kills certainly overcomes, but he that overcomes doth not always kill. But, in short, Agamemnon did not annul, but only explain the challenge proposed by Hector. He did not change anything, but only added the most principal part, placing victory in killing; for that is a complete conquest, but all others may be evaded or disputed, as this of Menelaus, who neither wounded nor pursued his adversary. Now as, where there are laws really contrary, the judges take that side which is plain and indisputable, and mind not that which is obscure; so in this case, let us admit that contract to be most valid which contained killing, as a known and undeniable evidence of victory. But (which is the greatest argument) he that seems to have had the victory, not being quiet, but running up and down the army, and searching all about,
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3f] To find neat Paris in the busy throng,(Ibid. iii. 450.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3g] sufficiently testifies that he himself did not imagine that the conquest was perfect and complete. For when Paris had escaped he did not forget his own words: —
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3h] And which of us black fate and death design, Let him be lost; the others cease from war.(Iliad, iii. 101,)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3i] Therefore it was necessary for him to seek after Paris, that he might kill him and complete the combat; but since he neither killed nor took him, he had no right to the prize. For he did not conquer him, if we may guess by what he said when he expostulated with Jove and bewailed his unsuccessful attempt: —
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3j] Jove, Heaven holds no more spiteful god than thou. Now would I punish Paris for his crimes; But oh! my sword is broke, my mighty spear, Stretched out in vain, flies idly from my hand!(Ibid. iii, 365.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.13.3k] For in these words he confessed that it was to no purpose to pierce the shield or take the head-piece of his adversary, unless he likewise wounded or killed him.
QUESTION XIV.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.1] Some Observations About the Number of the Muses, Not Commonly Known.
HERODES, AMMONIUS, LAMPRIAS, TRYPHON, DIONYSIUS, MENEPHYLUS, PLUTARCH.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.1b] This discourse ended, we poured out our offerings to the Muses, and together with a hymn in honor of Apollo, the patron of the Muses, we sung with Erato, who played upon the harp, the generation of the Muses out of Hesiod. After the song was done, Herod the rhetorician said: Pray, sirs, hearken. Those that will not admit Calliope to be ours say that she keeps company with kings, not such, I suppose, as are busied in resolving syllogisms or disputing, but such who do those things that belong to rhetoricians and statesmen. But of the rest of the Muses, Clio abets encomiums, for praises are called [Greek omitted]; and Polymnia history, for her name signifies the remembrance of many things; and it is said that all the Muses were somewhere called Remembrances. And for my part, I think Euterpe hath some relation to us too, if (as Chrysippus says) her lot be agreeableness in discourse and pleasantness in conversation. For it belongs to an orator to converse, as well as plead or give advice; since it is his part to gain the favor of his auditors, and to defend or excuse his client. To praise or dispraise is the commonest theme; and if we manage this artfully, it will turn to considerable account; if unskilfully, we are lost. For that saying,
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.1c] Gods! how he is honored and beloved by all,(“Odyssey,” x. 38.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.1d] chiefly, in my opinion, belongs to those men who have a pleasing and persuasive faculty in discourse.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.2] Then said Ammonius to Herod: We have no reason to be angry with you for grasping all the Muses, since the goods that friends have are common, and Jove hath begotten a great many Muses, that every man may be plentifully supplied; for we do not all need skill in hunting, military arts, navigation, or any mechanical trades; but learning and instruction is necessary for every one that
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.2b] Consumes the fruits of the spacious earth.(From Simonides.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.2c] And therefore Jove made but one Minerva, one Diana, one Vulcan, but many Muses. But why there should be nine, and no more nor less, pray acquaint us; for you, so great a lover of, and so well acquainted with, the Muses, must certainly have considered this matter. What difficulty is there in that? replied Herod. The number nine is in everybody’s mouth, as being the first square of the first odd number; and as doubly odd, since it may be divided into three equal odd numbers. Ammonius with a smile subjoined: Boldly said; and pray add, that this number is composed of the two first cubes, one and eight, and according to another composition of two triangles, three and six, each of which is itself perfect. But why should this belong to the Muses more than any other of the gods? For we have nine Muses, but not nine Cereses, nine Minervas or Dianas. For I do not believe that you take it for a good argument, that the Muses must be so many, because their mother’s name (Mnemosyne) consists of just so many letters. Herod smiling, and everybody being silent, Ammonius desired our opinions.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.3] My brother said, that the ancients celebrated but three Muses, and that to bring proofs for this assertion would be pedantic and uncivil in such a company. The reason of this number was (not as some say) the three different sorts of music, the diatonic, the chromatic, and harmonic, nor those stops that make the intervals nete, mese, and hypate, though the Delphians gave the Muses this name erroneously, in my opinion, appropriating it to one science, or rather to a part of one single science, the harmoniac part of music. But, as I think, the ancients, reducing all arts and sciences which are executed and performed by reason or discourse to three heads, philosophy, rhetoric, and mathematics, accounted them the gifts of three gods, and named them the Muses. Afterwards, about Hesiod’s time, the sciences being better and more thoroughly looked into, and men subdividing them found that each science contained three different parts. In mathematics are comprehended music, arithmetic, and geometry; in philosophy are logic, ethics, and physics. In rhetoric, they say the first part was demonstrative or encomiastic, the second deliberative, the third judicial. None of all which they believed to be without a god or a Muse or some superior power for its patron, and did not, it is probable, make the Muses equal in number to these divisions, but found them to be so. Now, as you may divide nine into three threes, and each three into as many units; so there is but one rectitude of reason, which is employed about the highest truth, and which belongs to the whole in common, while each of the three kinds of science is assigned three Muses, and each of these has her distinct faculty assigned to her, which she disposes and orders. And I do not think the poets and astrologers will find fault with us for passing over their professions in silence, since they know, as well as we, that astrology is comprehended in geometry, and poetry in music.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.4] As soon as he had said this, Trypho the physician subjoined: How hath our art offended you, that you have shut the Museum against us? And Dionysius of Melite added: Sir, you have a great many that will side with you in the accusation; for we farmers think Thalia to be ours, assigning her the care of springing and budding seeds and plants. But I interposing said: Your accusation is not just; for you have bountiful Ceres, and Bacchus who (as Pindar phraseth it) increaseth the trees, the chaste beauty of the fruits; and we know that Aesculapius is the patron of the Physicians, and they make their address to Apollo as Paean, but never as the Muses’ leader. All men (as Homer says) stand in need of the gods, but all stand not in need of all. But I wonder Lamprias did not mind what the Delphians say in this matter; for they affirm that the Muses amongst them were not named so either from the strings or sounds in music; but the universe being divided into three parts, the first portion was of the fixed stars, the second of the planets, the third of those things that are under the concave of the moon; and all these are ordered according to harmonical proportions, and of each portion a Muse takes care; Hypate of the first, Nete of the last, and Mese in the middle, combining as much as possible, and turning about mortal things with the gods and earthly with heavenly. And Plato intimates the same thing under the names of the Fates, calling one Atropos, the other Lachesis, and the other Clotho. For he hath committed the revolutions of the eight spheres to so many Sirens, and not Muses.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.5] Then Menephylus the Peripatetic subjoined: The Delphians’ opinion hath indeed somewhat of probability in it; but Plato is absurd in committing the eternal and divine revolutions not to the Muses but to the Sirens, Daemons that neither love nor are benevolent to mankind, wholly passing by the Muses, or calling them by the names of the Fates, the daughters of Necessity. For Necessity is averse to the Muses; but Persuasion being more agreeable and better acquainted with them, in my opinion, than the grace of Empedocles,
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.5b] Intolerable Necessity abhors.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.6] No doubt, said Ammonius, as it is in us a violent and involuntary cause; but in the gods Necessity is not intolerable, uncontrollable, or violent, unless it be to the wicked; as the law in a commonwealth to the best man is its best gift, not to be violated or transgressed, not because they have no power, but because they have no will, to change it. And Homer’s Sirens give us no just reason to be afraid; for he in that fable rightly intimates the power of their music not to be hurtful to man, but delightfully charming, and detaining the souls which pass from hence thither and wander after death; working in them a love for heavenly and divine things, and a forgetfulness of everything on earth; and they extremely pleased follow and attend them. And from thence some imperfect sound, and as it were echo of that music, coming to us by the means of reason and good precepts, rouseth our souls, and restores the notice of those things to our minds, the greatest part of which lie encumbered with and entangled in disturbances of the flesh and distracting passions. But the generous soul hears and remembers, and her affection for those pleasures riseth up to the most ardent passion, whilst she eagerly desires but is not able to free herself from the body.
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.6b] It is true, I do not approve what he says; but Plato seems to me, as he hath strangely and unaccountably called the axes spindles and distaffs, and the stars whirls, so to have named the Muses Sirens, as delivering divine things to the ghosts below, as Ulysses in Sophocles says of the Sirens,
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.6c] I next to Phorcus’s daughters came, Who fix the sullen laws below.
Eight of the Muses take care of the spheres, and one of all about the earth. The eight who govern the motions of the spheres maintain the agreement of the planets with the fixed stars and one another. But that one who looks after the place betwixt the earth and moon and takes care of mortal things, by means of discourse and song introduceth persuasion, aiding our natural consent to community and agreement, and giveth men as much harmony, grace, and order as is possible for them to take; introducing this persuasion to appease and quiet our disturbances, and as it were to recall our wandering desires out of the wrong way, and to set us in the right path. But, as Pindar says,
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.6d] Whom Jove abhors, he starts to hear The Muses sounding in his ear.(Pindar, “Pythian,” i. 25.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.7] To this discourse Ammonius, as he used to do, subjoined that verse of Xenophanes,
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.7b] This fine discourse seems near allied to truth,
[Quaest. conv. 9.14.7c] and desired every one to deliver his opinion. And I after a short silence, said: As Plato thinks by the name, as it were by tracks, to discover the powers of the gods, so let us place in heaven and over heavenly things one of the Muses, Urania. And it is likely that those require no distracting variety of cares to govern them, since they have the same single nature for the cause of all their motions. But where are a great many irregularities and disorders, there we must place the eight Muses, that we may have one to correct each particular irregularity and miscarriage. There are two parts in a man’s life, the serious and the merry; and each must be regulated and methodized. The serious role, which instructs us in the knowledge and contemplation of the gods, Calliope, Clio, and Thalia appear chiefly to look after and direct. The other Muses govern our weak part, which changes presently into wantonness and folly; they do not neglect our brutish and violent passions and let them run their own course, but by appropriate dancing, music, song, and orderly motion mixed with reason, bring them down to a moderate temper and condition. For my part, since Plato admits two principles of every action, viz, the natural desire after pleasure, and acquired opinion which covets and wishes for the best, and calls one reason and the other passion, and since each of these is manifold, I think that each requires a considerable and, to speak the truth, a divine direction. For instance, one faculty of our reason is said to be political or imperial, over which Hesiod says Calliope presides; Clio’s province is the noble and aspiring; and Polymnia’s that faculty of the soul which inclines to attain and keep knowledge (and therefore the Sicyonians call one of their three Muses Polymathia); to Euterpe everybody allows the searches into nature and physical speculations, there being no greater, no sincerer pleasure belonging to any other sort of speculation in the world. The natural desire to meat and drink Thalia reduceth from brutish and uncivil to be sociable and friendly; and therefore we say [Greek omitted] of those that are friendly, merry, and sociable over their cups, and not of those that are quarrelsome and mad. Erato, together with Persuasion, that brings along with it reason and opportunity, presides over marriages; she takes away and extinguisheth all the violent fury of pleasure, and makes it tend to friendship, mutual confidence, and endearment, and not to effeminacy, lust, or discontent. The delight which the eye or ear receives is a sort of pleasure, either appropriate to reason or to passion, or common to them both. This the two other Muses, Terpsichore and Melpomene, so moderate, that the one may only tickle and not charm, the other only please and not bewitch.
QUESTION XV.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.1] That There are Three Parts in Dancing: [Greek omitted], Motion, [Greek omitted], Gesture, and [Greek omitted], Representation.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.1b] What Each of Those is and What is Common to Both Poetry and Dancing.
AMMONIUS and THRASYBULUS.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.1c] After this, a match of dancing was proposed, and a cake was the prize. The judges were Meniscus the dancing-master, and my brother Lamprias; for he danced the Pyrrhic very well, and in the Palaestra none could match him for the graceful motion of his hands and arms in dancing. Now a great many dancing with more heat than art, some desired two of the company who seemed to be best skilled and took most care to observe their steps, to dance in the kind called [Greek omitted]. Upon this Thrasybulus, the son of Ammonius, demanded what [Greek omitted] signified, and gave Ammonius occasion to run over most of the parts of dancing.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2] He said they were three, — [Greek omitted], [Greek omitted] and [Greek omitted]. For dancing is made up of motion and manner [Greek omitted] as a song of sounds and stops; stops are the ends of motion. Now the motions they call [Greek omitted], and the gestures and likeness to which the motions tend, and in which they end, they call [Greek omitted]: as, for instance, when by their own motions they represent the figure of Apollo, Pan, or any of the raging Bacchae. The third is [Greek omitted]; which is not an imitation, but a plain downright indication of the things represented. For as the poets, when they would speak of Achilles, Ulysses, the earth, or heaven, use their proper names, and such as the vulgar usually understand. But for the more lively representation, they use such words as by their very sound express some eminent quality in the thing, or metaphors; as when they say that streams do “babble and flash”; that arrows fly “desirous the flesh to wound”; or when they describe an equal battle by saying “the fight had equal heads.” They have likewise a great many significative compositions in their verses. Thus Euripides of Perseus,
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2b] He that Medusa slew, and flies in air;
and Pindar of a horse,
When by the smooth Alpheus’s banks He ran the race, and never felt the spur;
and Homer of a race,
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2c] The chariots, overlaid with tin and brass, By fiery horses drawn ran swiftly on.(Euripedes, Frag. 975; Pindar, “Olympian,” i. 31;“Iliad,” xxiii. 503.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2d] So in dancing, the [Greek omitted] represents the shape and figure, the [Greek omitted] shows some action, passion, or power; but by the [Greek omitted] are properly and significatively shown the things themselves, for instance, the heaven, earth, or the company. Which, being done in a certain order and method, resembles the proper names used in poetry, decently clothed and attended with suitable epithets. As in these lines,
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2e] Themis the venerable and admired, And Venus beauteous with her bending brows, Fair Dione, and June crowned with gold.(Hesiod, “Theogony,” 16.)
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2f] And in these,
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2g] From Hellen kings renowned for giving laws, Great Dorus and the mighty Xuthus sprang, And Aeolus, whose chief delight was horse.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2h] For if poets did not take this liberty, how mean, how grovelling and flat, would be their verse! As suppose they wrote thus,
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2i] From this sprung Hercules, from the other Iphitus. Her father, husband, and her son were kings, Her brother and forefathers were the same; And she in Greece Olympias was called.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2j] The same faults may be committed in that sort of dancing called [Greek omitted] unless the representation be lively and graceful, decent and unaffected. And, in short, we may aptly transfer what Simonides said of painting to dancing, and call dancing mute poetry, and poetry speaking dancing; for poesy doth not properly belong to painting, nor painting to poesy, neither do they any way make use of one another. But poesy and dancing share much in common especially in that type of song called Hyporchema, in which is the most lively representation imaginable, dancing doing it by gesture, and poesy by words. So that poesy may bear some resemblance to the colors in painting, while dancing is like the lines which mark out the features. And therefore he who was the most famous writer of Hyporchemes, who here even surpassed himself, sufficiently proveth that these two arts stand in need of one another he shows what tendency poetry hath to dancing; whilst the sound excites the hands and feet, or rather as it were by some cords distends and raiseth every member of the whole body; so that, whilst such songs are recited or sung, they cannot be quiet. But nowadays no sort of exercise hath such bad depraved music applied to it as dancing; and so it suffers that which Ibyeus as to his own concerns was fearful of, as appears by these lines,
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2k] I fear lest, losing fame amongst the gods,I shall receive respect from men alone.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2l] For having associated to itself a mean paltry sort of music, and falling from that divine sort of poetry with which it was formerly acquainted, it rules now and domineers amongst foolish and inconsiderate spectators, like a tyrant, it hath subjected nearly all music, but hath lost all its honor with excellent and wise men.
[Quaest. conv. 9.15.2m] These, my Sossius Senecio, were almost the last discourses which we had at Ammonius’s house during the festival of the Muses.

## Dialogue on love

FLAVIANUS AND AUTOBULUS, SONS OF PLUTARCH.
[Amat. 1] 1. Flavianus.
Was it not in Helicon, dear Autobulus, that those discourses were held concerning Love, which — whether thou hast already set them down in writing, or still carriest them in thy memory, as having often desired them from thy father — we are now in expectation that thou wilt recite to us, at our importunate request?
[Amat. 1b] Autobulus.
I was in Helicon, dear Flavianus, among the Muses, at what time the Thespians performed the Erotic solemnities. For they celebrate every four years certain games and festivals very magnificent and splendid in honor of Cupid, as well as of the Muses.
[Amat. 1c] Flav.
Know’st thou then what it is we all desire at thy hands, as many as are gathered here together to be thy auditors?
[Amat. 1d] Autob.
No; but I shall know, when I am once by you informed.
[Amat. 1e] Flav.
Curtail, we beseech ye, your discourse at present, forbearing the descriptions of meadows and shades, together with the crawling ivy, and whatever else poets are so studious to add to their descriptions, imitating with more curiosity than grace Plato’s Ilissus, with the chaste tree and the gentle rising hillock covered with green grass.
[Amat. 1f] Autob.
What needed my relation, dearest Flavianus, such a proem as this? The occasion that gave birth to these discourses of itself (as it were) asks for a chorus, and it requires a theatre; otherwise there is nothing wanting of a complete drama. Therefore let us only beseech Memory, the mother of the Muses, to be propitious and assist us in the discovery of the fable.
[Amat. 2] 2. For a long time before we were born, when our father had newly espoused our mother, an unlucky variance that fell out between their parents caused him to take a journey to Thespiae, with an intention to sacrifice to the God of Love; and he carried my mother also to the feast (for that it properly belonged to her as well to make the feast as to perform the sacrifice), besides several of his familiar acquaintance that accompanied him from his house. Now being arrived at Thespiae, he met with Daphnaeus, the son of Archidamus, who was in love with Lysandra, the daughter of Simon, and who was, above all her suitors, chiefly the most welcome and acceptable to her. There he also found Soclarus, the son of Aristion, who was come from Tithorea; together with Protogenes of Tarsus and Zeuxippus the Lacedaemonian, by whom he had been several times kindly entertained; and he said that most of the chief men among the Boeotians were there also. Thus they stayed for two or three days in the city, entertaining each other with learned discourses, one while in the common wrestling-places, sometimes in the theatres, still keeping company together. After that, avoiding the troublesome contest of the harpers and musicians, — it being found out that all had been settled beforehand by favor and intrigue, — the greatest part brake company, as if they had been discamping out of an enemy’s country, retired to Helicon, and took up their lodgings among the Muses. Thither the next morning came to them Anthemion and Pisias, persons of eminent nobility, and both allied to Baccho, surnamed the Fair, and in some way at difference one with another, by reason of the affection which they severally bore to him. For there was at Thespiae, Is menodora, of an illustrious family, and wealthy withal; and indeed in all other respects discreet and modest; and moreover she had continued a widow no little time, without spot or stain to her reputation, though both young and beautiful.
[Amat. 2b] Now it happened that while this brisk widow was endeavoring to make up a match between Baccho, who was the son of her intimate friend, and a certain just blooming virgin nearly allied to herself, by often talking with the young gentleman and much frequenting his company, she began to feel some sparks of kindness kindled for him in her own breast. Afterwards hearing him highly commended by others, and speaking many things in his praise herself, and finding him beloved by a great number of persons of the best rank, by degrees she fell desperately in love with the youth; nevertheless with a resolution to do nothing unbeseeming her birth and quality, but after public wedlock to acknowledge him as her husband. But as the match seemed impracticable by reason of the distance of their years, so the mother of the young man suspected the nobility and grandeur of her house not to be correspondent to her son’s condition, which rendered him incapable of such a preferment. Moreover, his companions that were wont to go a hunting with him, weighing the difference between his and the age of Ismenodora, filled his head with several scruples, and scaring him with continual frumps and scoffs, more effectually hindered the match than they who labored industriously and seriously to prevent it. And the young man himself felt ashamed at his age to be married to a widow. At last, however, shaking off all others, he applies himself to Pisias and Anthemion for their advice in a matter of so great concernment. The elder of these two, Anthemion, was his cousin, and Pisias the most earnest of his lovers. The latter therefore withstood the match with all his might, and upbraided Anthemion, as one that went about to betray the young man to Ismenodora. On the other side, Anthemion told Pisias, that he did not well to do as he did, having the reputation of a worthy honest man, to imitate those lewd lovers, and endeavor to deprive his friend of a noble house, a rich wife, and other great conveniences, that he might have the pleasure to see him frequently naked in the wrestling-places, fresh and smooth, and a stranger to female sports.
[Amat. 3] 3. However, to prevent the growing of any quarrel between them, through long and passionate disputes, they chose for umpires of the controversy my father and those friends that were with him. And beside them, as if they had been chosen on purpose, Daphnaeus pleaded for Pisias, and for Anthemion, Protogenes; who bitterly inveighing against Ismenodora, O Hercules, cried Daphnaeus, what may we not expect, when Protogenes bids defiance to love? he that all along has spent as well the serious as sportive hours of his life both in love and for love, without regard either to learning or his country; nor like to Laius, who was but five days’ journey distant from home, — for his was a slow sort of love upon the dry land, — whereas your Cupid, Protogenes,
[Amat. 3b] With nimble wings displayed,
[Amat. 3c] crossed the seas from Cilicia to Athens, merely to visit and straggle up and down with lovely boys. And indeed, such at first was the true cause of Protogenes’s peregrination.
[Amat. 4] 4. At which the company falling into a loud laughter; How! said Protogenes, can you believe that I at this time wage war against love, and that I do not rather fight for love against intemperate desire and lascivious wantonness, which, under the shelter of the most honest and fairest names that are, let themselves loose into the most shameful acts of inordinate lust and concupiscence? Then Daphnaeus: Do ye number wedlock and the conjunction of man and wife (than which there is no tie more sacred in this life) among the vile and dishonest actions of the world? Why truly, replied Protogenes, this same bond of wedlock, as being necessary for generation, is not undeservedly perhaps extolled by our grave politicians and lawgivers, and by them recommended to the multitude. But I must tell ye, if you mean true love, there is not a farthing’s worth of it to be found among women. Nor do I believe that either you yourselves, or any other that dote so much as you pretend to do upon women and virgins, love them any otherwise than as flies love milk, or bees love honey-combs; or as cooks and butchers fat up calves and poultry in the dark, not out of any extraordinary affection which they bear to these creatures, but for the gain which they make of them. But as Nature prompts all men to the use of bread and meat with moderation and so far as may suffice the appetite, the excess of which becomes a vice, under the name of gluttony or gormandizing; thus it is natural for men and women to desire the pleasures of mutual enjoyment, but as for that impetuous concupiscence that hurries the greatest part of mankind with so much strength and violence, it is not properly called love. For love that is bred in a young and truly generous heart, by means of friendship, terminates in virtue; whereas all our desires towards women, let them be taken in the best sense he can, serve us only to reap the fruit of pleasure, and to assist us in the fruition of youth and beauty. As Aristippus testified to one that would have put him out of conceit with Lais, for that, as he said, she did not truly love him; no more, said he, am I beloved by pure wine or good fish, and yet I willingly make use of both. For the end of desire is pleasure and enjoyment. But love, having once lost the hopes of friendship, will neither tarry, nor cherish for beauty’s sake that which is irksome, though never so gaudy in the flower of youth, if it bring not forth the fruit of a disposition propense to friendship and virtue. And therefore it is that you hear a certain husband in a tragedy thus talking to his wife:
[Amat. 4b] Now I take him to be not at all a more amorous man than this, that can endure, for the sake of his carnal pleasure, and not for gain, the plague of a curst ill-natured shrew, that is always scolding. The first of which love-martyrs Philippides the comedian thus derided in the person of Stratocles the rhetorician:
[Amat. 4c] Now if this be the passion you talk of which is to be called Love, it is a spurious and effeminate love that sends us to the women’s chambers, as it were to the Cynosarges at Athens. Or rather, as they say there is a sort of generous and true bred mountain eagle, which Homer calls the black eagle and eagle of prey, and then again there is another sort of bastard eagle, that takes fish and birds that are lazy and slow of flight, and wanting food makes a shrill and mournful noise for hunger; thus the true genuine love is that of boys, not flaming with concupiscence, as according to Anacreon the love of maids and virgins does, neither besmeared with odoriferous ointments, nor alluring with smiles and rolling glances; but you shall find him plain and simple and undebauched with pleasures in the schools of the philosophers, or in the wrestling-lists and places of public exercise, smart and generous in the chase of youth, and exhorting to virtue all that he finds to be fit objects of his diligence; whereas that other love, nice and effeminate, and always nestling in the bosoms and beds of women, pursuing soft pleasures, and wasted with unmanly delights, that have no gust of friendship or heavenly ravishment of mind, is to be despised and rejected of all mankind. This indeed Solon did, when he forbade slaves and servants the use of male familiarity and of dry ointment, but granted them the liberty to accompany with women; as looking upon friendship to be laudable and civil, but pleasure to be a vulgar thing and unbecoming a man born free. Whence it appears that to make love to a slave boy is ignoble and unworthy of a freeman; for this is mere mischievous love of copulation, like the affection toward women.
[Amat. 5] 5. Now while Protogenes was desirous to say more, Daphnaeus interrupting him said: Truly you have done well to put us in mind of Solon, and we may make use of him as the judge of a person addicted to love. Hear what he says:
[Amat. 5b] Add to this of Solon that other of Aeschylus:
[Amat. 5c] These are proper judges of love; but others there are who deride all those that would have lovers inspect thighs and haunches, like so many sacrificers and diviners. And for my part I draw from hence a very strong argument on the behalf of the women. For if male converse, which is altogether against nature, neither extinguishes nor is any ways noxious to amorous affection, much more probable is it that the love of women, which is according to nature, should reach to the consummation of friendship, by virtue of that obsequious beauty which attends it. For I must tell you, Protogenes, the submission of the female to the male was by the ancients expressed by the word χάϱις (grace or favor). For which reason Pindar observes that Vulcan was by Juno brought forth without the graces; and Sappho tells a young virgin, not yet ripe for matrimony,
[Amat. 5d] A little child thou seem’st, and without grace.
[Amat. 5e] And a certain person puts the question to Hercules,
[Amat. 5f] But the submission of males to males, whether it be by compulsion and strength, like a violent and forcible rape, or whether it be voluntary, — men suffering themselves weakly and effeminately to be covered by each other, like four-footed beasts, and counterfeiting the act of generation in defiance of nature (as Plato says), — is void of all grace, brutish, and contrary to the end of venereal pleasure. Wherefore I am apt to believe that Solon wrote those lines when he was young, brisk, and full of seed (as Plato phrases it), but when he was grown into years, he sang another note:
[Amat. 5g] as if he had altered his course of life, and retired from the storms and tempests of pederastic fury into the calms of wedlock and philosophy. Now then, Protogenes, let us but consider the truth of the matter, we shall find the passion of lovers to be the same, whether it be for boys or for women; or if, out of a contentious humor, you will distinguish them, you shall find that this affection for boys does not keep itself within bounds, but like a late-born issue, clandestinely brought forth in the dark and out of season, it strives to expel the truly genuine and legitimate love, which is much the more ancient. For give me leave to tell ye, my dear friend, it is but (as it were) of yesterterday’s standing or of the day before — since young boys began to strip and show themselves naked in the public places of exercise — that this frenzy, getting in by degrees and crowding in there, afterwards by little and little became better fledged and gathered strength of wings in the wrestling-rings, so that now the insolence of it can no longer be so restrained but that still it will be affronting and adulterating conjugal love, which is the coadjutrix of Nature and helps to immortalize mortal mankind, raising up and immediately restoring again by generation our human nature when it has been extinguished by death. But this same Protogenes denies there is any pleasure in male concupiscence, for he is ashamed and afraid to acknowledge it. Therefore there must be some decent pretence for the feeling and handling these adult and lovely youths. And truly he has found out a very clever excuse, alleging it to be for the sake of friendship and virtue. Therefore he rolls himself in the dust, washes with cold water, erects his brows, and outwardly pretends to philosophy and chastity, for fear of the law; but when darkness covers the earth, and all people have betaken themselves to their rest,
[Amat. 5h] Sweet the ripe fruit he finds, its keeper gone.
[Amat. 5i] Now if it be as Protogenes says, that no carnal conjunction attends these masculine familiarities, how can it be love, when Venus is absent; seeing that of all the Goddesses, she it is that Cupid is bound to obey and attend, and that he has no honor or power but what she confers upon him? But if there be a sort of love without Venus, as a man may be drunk without wine by drinking the decoctions of figs or barley, the disturbance of such a love must prove fruitless and to no end, and consequently loathsome and offensive.
[Amat. 6] 6. These things thus said, it was apparent that Pisias found himself touched to the quick, and much concerned for what Daphnaeus had spoken. But after he had been silent awhile, O Hercules, said he, what a strange impudence and levity is this in men, to acknowledge themselves tied to women by their generating parts, like dogs to bitches; by this means expelling and banishing love from the places of exercise, from the public porticos, and from conversing under the open sky and sunshine, to the stews, poniards, philters, and sorceries of lascivious women; for it is not convenient for the chaste either to love or to be beloved. At which words, as my father told me, he took Protogenes by the hand, and repeated to him these verses:
[Amat. 6b] For surely (he added) the exorbitant language of Pisias gives us good reason to take Daphnaeus’s part, while he introduces over the head of wedlock a society void of love, and utterly a stranger to that same friendship which descends and is inspired from above; which, if real affection and submission be wanting, can hardly be restrained by all the curbs and yokes of shame and fear. Then Pisias: For my part, said he, I give little heed to this argument; for as for Daphnaeus, I find him in the same condition with brass. For as brass is not so easily melted by the fire as by the force of the same melted and liquid metal being poured upon it, which mollifies both alike, and causes them to run and mix together; so it is not the beauty of Lysandra that inflames him, but the conversing along with one that is already inflamed and full of fire, that sets him all in a flame himself; and it is apparent that, unless he makes haste to us, he will suddenly be melted with his own heat. But I perceive, said he, the same thing will befall me which Anthemion has most reason to desire, that I too shall offend the judges; and therefore I shall say no more. Then Anthemion: ‘Tis very true indeed, your fear is just; for you ought at the first to have spoken to the purpose, and what was proper to the argument in hand.
[Amat. 7] 7. To this Pisias replied: I am willing enough that every woman should have her lover; but withal, it very much concerns Baccho to have a care how he entangles himself in Ismenodora’s wealth; lest, while we match him with so much grandeur and magnificence, we consume him to nothing, like tin among brass. For I must tell you, it would be a hard matter for so young a stripling as he is, though he should marry a plain and ordinary woman, to keep the upper hand, like wine mixed with water. But we see her already design superiority and command; else why should she refuse so many suitors of great wealth and noble extraction that court her daily, to woo herself a mere boy, that has but newly assumed the robes of manhood and is more fit to go to school than to marry. And therefore those husbands that are wise, without any admonition, out of their own foresight, clip their wives’ wings themselves; that is, they prune away their riches, that prompt them to luxury and vanity, and render them inconstant and foolish. For many times, by the help of these wings, they soar out of their husbands’ reach and fly quite away; or if they stay at home, better it were for a man to be chained with fetters of gold, as they chain their prisoners in Ethiopia, than to be tied to the riches of a wife.
[Amat. 8] 8. However, said Protogenes, he has not hinted to us in the least the hazard we run of inverting absurdly and ridiculously the counsel of Hesiod, whose words are these:
[Amat. 8b] Quite contrary to this precept, we are going about to couple a young lad, scarce ripe for marriage, to a lady much older than himself; like those that graft the tender scions of dates and fig-trees upon old stocks, to make them bear fruit before their season. But you will say, The woman is in love up to the ears, and burns with desire. Who is he that will hinder her from masquerading before his doors, from singing her amorous lamentations at his windows, from adorning his statues with chaplets and garlands of flowers, from duelling her rivals, and winning him from them all by feats of arms? For these are acts that demonstrate the height of a passionate affection. Let her knit her brows, refrain all manner of pomp of luxury; let her put on a garb and countenance suitable to such a violent passion. But if bashful and modest, let her sit at home, expecting her suitors and gallants to come and court her there. But who would not fly and abominate a woman that professes love, and loathe the idea of taking one to wife who makes such an impudent incontinence the first step to future nuptials?
[Amat. 9] 9. When Protogenes had thus concluded; Do you not see, Anthemion, saith my father, how they again make common cause against us, enforcing us still to continue our discourse of nuptial love, who deny not ourselves to be the upholders of it, nor ever avoided the being one of that celebrated chorus? Most certainly I do, replied Anthemion; therefore proceed in the defence of conjugal affection; and let us have also your assistance in maintaining the argument about riches, with which Pisias chiefly seems to scare us. ‘Tis the least we can do, said my father; for what in the world will not be made a reproach to womankind, should we reject Ismenodora because she is in love and wealthy to boot? Grant that she is imperious as well as rich. What then if she is beautiful and young? What if she is somewhat stately and haughty, by reason of her illustrious birth? There is nothing of crabbedness, nothing scornful, nothing sour, nothing troublesome, in women truly chaste and modest. And yet their very chastity gains them the name of shrews and furies. But you will say, since it may be a man’s misfortune to be so hampered, would it not be better to marry some Thracian Abrotonon or some Milesian Bacchis, whom he can get in the market for money and a handful of nuts? And yet we have known some men that have been miserably henpecked by this sort of underlings. The Samian minstrels and morrisdancers, such as were Aristonica, Oenanthe with her tabor and pipe, and Agathoclia, insulted over the diadems of sovereigns. The Syrian Semiramis was a poor wench, kept by one of Ninus’s slaves, partly as his servant, partly as his harlot, till Ninus, meeting her and taking a fancy to her, at length doted upon her to that degree, that she not only governed him as she pleased herself, but contemned him; so that, finding she had got the absolute mastery over him, she became so bold as to desire him to do her the favor to see her sit but one day upon his throne, with the royal diadem upon her head, dispatching the public business. To which the king consenting, and giving order to all his officers to yield her the same obedience as to himself, at first she was very moderate in her commands, only to make trial of the guards about her; but when she saw that they obeyed her without the least hesitation or murmuring, she commanded them first to lay hold of Ninus himself, then to bind him, at length to kill him. Which being done, she took the government upon herself, and reigned victoriously over all Asia with great splendor and renown.
[Amat. 9b] And was not Belestiche a barbarian courtesan bought in the market, in whose honor the Alexandrians erected temples and altars, with inscriptions to Venus Belestiche as marks of the king’s affection to her? And as for her who is in this very city enshrined in the same temple and honored with the same solemnities as Cupid, and whose gilded statue stands among kings and queens at Delphi, — I would fain know what dowry of hers it was that brought so many lovers into such subjection to her. But as those great men, through their softness and effeminacy, became a prey to those women; so on the other side, men of low and mean condition, having married women both wealthy and of splendid extraction, neither lowered sail nor abated any thing of their courage and greatness of mind, but lived together with their wives, always honoring them, and keeping that superiority over them which was their right and due. But he that contracts and reduces his wife within a narrow compass, and makes her less, like a ring that is too big for the finger, to prevent her from dropping off, is like to those that dock off their mares’ tails and clip their manes, and then lead them to a river or pond; for it is reported, that when those mares perceive themselves so ill favoredly shorn and disfigured, they lose their natural courage, and will afterwards suffer themselves to be covered by asses.
[Amat. 9c] Now, as it is a base thing to prefer the riches of a woman above her virtue or nobility, so is it as great folly to reject wealth, when accompanied with virtue and illustrious parentage. Antigonus writing to a captain of his, whom he had ordered to fortify the hill Munychia, bade him not only make the collar strong but keep the dog lean; intimating thereby that he should take care to impoverish the Athenians. But there is no necessity for the husband of a rich and beautiful wife to make her poor or to disfigure her; but by self-control and prudence, and by seeming not to admire any thing extravagantly in her, to carry himself so that she may perceive that, as he designs not to be a tyrant, so she must not expect him to be her subject; giving his own character that weight in the balance, that the scale may be turned without offence and for the good of both.
[Amat. 9d] Now, as for Ismenodora, her years are fit for marriage, and she is a woman most likely to bear children; nay, I am informed that she is now in her prime. For, continued he, smiling upon Pisias, she is not elder than any of her rivals; neither has she any gray hairs, as some that keep company with Baccho. Now if those people think their converse with the young gentleman no way misbecoming their gravity, what hinders but that she may affect and cherish him better than any young virgin whatever? For I must needs say, it is a difficult matter many times rightly to mix and blend the tempers of young people; in regard it will require some time to make them sensible of several extravagancies which they may commit, until they have laid aside the pride and wantonness which is incident to youth. For many a blustering tempest will happen between the new-married couple before they can be brought to endure the yoke, and draw quietly together, more especially if the God of Love appear among them; and youthful wantonness — like the wind in the absence of the pilot — will disturb and confuse the happiness of the match, while the one has not skill to govern and the other refuses to be governed.
[Amat. 9e] Now then, if it be so that nurses are sought for to look after sucking infants, and schoolmasters to teach children; if masters of exercise direct young striplings, and the lover his youth; if the law and the captain-general govern those that are of age, so that no man can be said to be at his own liberty to do what he list; where is the absurdity for a wife, that has wit and discretion and the advantage of years, to govern and direct the life and conversation of a youthful husband, profitable to him as exceeding him in wisdom, and augmenting the pleasure of her society by the sweetness of her disposition and reality of affection? To conclude, said he, we that are Boeotians ourselves ought to reverence Hercules, and not to be offended with those that marry women elder than themselves; knowing, as we do, that even Hercules himself gave his own wife Megara, being then three and thirty years old, to Iolaus his son, being no more than sixteen years of age.
[Amat. 10] 10. While they were in the midst of these discourses, one of Pisias’s companions and friends, as my father reported, came galloping towards them out of the city, whip and spur, to bring the news of a strange and wonderful accident. For Ismenodora, believing that Baccho no way disliked being married to her, but only was deterred by the importunities of his friends that dissuaded him from the match, resolved not to let the young man escape her. To this purpose she sent for certain sparks of her acquaintance, whom she knew to be stout and resolute young gentlemen, and some women that were well-wishers to her amours, and observing the hour that Baccho was wont to pass by her house to the wrestling-place, well attended and decently garbed, one day when he came near the outermost door, anointed as he was for the exercise, with two or three more in the same posture, she met him in the street, and gently twitched his upper coat. This signal being given, her friends rushed forth, and fairly and softly catching him up in his mandilion and doublet, in a huddle together they carried him into the house, and locked the door fast after them. Then came the women also, and pulling off his mandilion, threw about him a costly nuptial garment. The servants likewise, running up and down from one place to another, adorned the posts not only of Ismenodora’s but of Baccho’s house with olive and laurel boughs; and a minstrel likewise was ordered to pipe along the street. The story thus related, the Thespians and strangers some of them laughed, some others were heinously offended, and did what they could to exasperate the presidents of the public exercises. For they have a great command over the young gentlemen, and keep a severe and vigilant eye upon all their actions. And now there was not a word said of the sports that were intended; but all the people, forsaking the theatre, flocked to Ismenodora’s house, discoursing and debating the matter one among another.
[Amat. 11] 11. But when Pisias’s friend, with his horse all foaming and in a sweat, as if he had brought intelligence from the army in time of war, had delivered his news, being hardly able to speak for want of breath, and concluding his story with saying that Ismenodora had ravished Baccho; my father told me, that Zeuxippus fell a laughing, and as he was a great admirer of that poet, repeated the verses of Euripides:
[Amat. 11b] But Pisias, starting up out of his seat, made a great exclamation, crying out: O ye Gods! when will ye put an end to this licentiousness, that will in the end subvert our city? For now all things are running into disorder through violation of the laws; but perhaps it is now looked upon as a slight matter to transgress the law and violate justice, for even the law of nature is transgressed and broken by the insolent anarchy of the female sex. Was ever there any such thing committed in the island of Lemnos? Let us go, said he, let us go and deliver up the wrestling-place and the council house to the women, if the city be so effeminate as to put up with these indignities. Thus Pisias brake from the company in a fury; nor would Protogenes leave him, partly offended at what had happened, and partly to assuage and mollify his friend. But Anthemion: ‘Twas a juvenile bold attempt, said he, and a truly Lemnian one — I venture to say so since we are now by ourselves — of a lady warmly in love. To whom Soclarus smiling: Do you then believe, said he, that this was a real ravishment and force, and not rather a stratagem of the young man’s own contrivance (for he has wit at will), to the end he might escape out of the hands of his ruder male lovers into the embraces of a fair and rich widow? Never say so, said Anthemion, nor have such a suspicion of Baccho. For were he not naturally, as he is, of a plain and open temper, he would still never have concealed this thing from me, to whom he has always imparted his secrets, and whom he knew to be always a favorer of Ismenodora’s design. But, according to the saying of Heraclitus, it is a hard matter to withstand love, not anger; for whatever love has a desire to, it will purchase with the hazard of life, fortune, and reputation. Now where is there a more modest and orderly woman in all our city than Ismenodora? When did you ever hear an ill word spoken of her? Or when did ever any thing done in her house give the least suspicion of an ill act? Rather we may say that she seems to be inspired beyond other women with something above human reason.
[Amat. 12] 12. Then Pemptides smiling: Truly, said he, there is a certain disease of the body, which they call sacred; so that it is no wonder if some men give the appellation of sacred and divine to the most raging and vehement passion of the mind. But as in Egypt once I saw two neighbors hotly contending about a serpent which crept before them in the road, while both concluded it to be good luck, and each assumed the happy omen to himself; so seeing some of you at this time haling love into the chambers of men, others into the cabinets of the women, as a divinely transcendent good, I do not wonder, since it is a passion so powerful and greatly esteemed, that it is magnified and held in greatest veneration by those that have most reason to clip its wings and expel and drive it from them. Hitherto therefore I have been silent, perceiving the debate to be rather about a particular concern, than any thing for the public good. But now that Pisias is gone, I would willingly understand from one of you, upon what account it was that they who first discoursed of love were so fond to deify it.
[Amat. 13] 13. So soon as Pemptides had done, and my father was about to say something in answer to his question, another messenger came from the city in Ismenodora’s name, requesting Anthemion to come to her; for that the tumult increased, and the presidents of the games could not agree, while one was of opinion that Baccho was to be demanded and delivered into their hands, and the other thought it an impertinence to meddle with that which nothing concerned them.
[Amat. 13b] Thus Anthemion being gone, my father addressed himself to Pemptides by name, and so entered into the following discourse: You seem to me, sir, to have hit upon a very strange and nice point, or rather, as I may so say, to have endeavored to stir things which are not to be moved, in reference to the opinion which we have of the Gods, while you demand a reason and demonstration of every thing in particular. For it is sufficient to believe according to the faith of our forefathers and the instructions of the country where we have been bred and born, than which we cannot utter or invent a more certain argument;
[Amat. 13c] For this is a foundation and basis common to all piety and religion; of which if the steady rule and decreed maxims be once disordered and shaken, all the rest must totter and become suspected. And no question but you have heard what a clamor was raised against Euripides when he made this beginning of his Melanippe:
[Amat. 13d] But when he exhibited the tragedy a second time, he seems to have had such a confidence in the lofty style and elaborate eloquence of his work, that he thus altered the verse:
[Amat. 13e] What difference then is there between calling in question the name of Jupiter and Minerva, and doubting of the name of Cupid or Love? For it is not of late that Love has challenged altars and sacrifices, neither is he a foreigner started up out of any barbarian superstition, as were the Attae and the Adonii, introduced by I know not what sort of hermaphrodites and idle women. Nor has he clandestinely crept into honors no way becoming him, to avoid the accusation of bastardy and being unduly enrolled in the catalogue of the Gods. But when you hear Empedocles thus saying,
[Amat. 13f] you ought to believe all this to be said of Love. For Love is no more visible than any of the rest of the ancient Deities, but apprehended only by opinion and belief; for every one of which if you require a reason and demonstrative argument, by enquiring after every temple and making a sophistical doubt upon every altar, you shall find nothing free from inquisition and malicious slander. For, that I may go no farther, observe but these:
[Amat. 13g] Therefore Empedocles gives her the epithet of the Giver of Life, and Sophocles calls her Fruitful; both very aptly and pertinently. For indeed the great and wonderful work of generation is properly the work of Venus, where Love is only an assistant when present with Venus; but his absence renders the act itself altogether irksome, dishonorable, harsh, and ungrateful. For the conjunction of man and woman without true affection, like hunger and thirst, terminates in satiety, and produces nothing truly noble or commendable; but when the Goddess by means of Love puts away all loathsome glut of pleasure, she perpetuates delight by a continual supply of friendship and harmony of temper. Therefore Parmenides asserts Love to be the most ancient of all the works of Venus, writing thus in his Cosmogony:
[Amat. 13h] But Hesiod, in my opinion, seems more philosophically to make Love the eldest of all the Gods, as from whom all the other Deities derive their beginning. Therefore, should we deprive Love of the honors which are decreed him, the ceremonies we ascribe to Venus will be no longer in request. For it is not sufficient to say, that some men reproach Love and load him with contumelies, but abstain from giving her an ill word; for upon the same theatre we hear these scandals fixed upon both:
[Amat. 13i] And in another place thus upon Venus:
[Amat. 13j] As indeed we may say of the rest of the Gods, that there is not one that has escaped the scandalous jibes of illiterate scurrility. Look upon Mars, as in a brazen sculpture, possessing the place just opposite to Love, how highly has he been honored, how lowly degraded by men?
[Amat. 13k] Homer also gives him the epithets of murderous and Jack-a-both-sides. Moreover, Chrysippus, explaining the name of this Deity, fixes a villanous accusation upon him. For, says he, Ares is derived from ἀναιϱεῖν, which signifies to destroy; thereby affording an occasion for some to give the name of Ares or Mars to that some proneness and perverse inclination of men to wrath and passion, and to quarrel and fight one with another. Others affirm Venus to be nothing but our concupiscence; that Mercury is no more than the faculty of speech; that the Muses are only the names for the arts and sciences; and that Minerva is only a fine word for prudence. And thus you see into what an abyss of atheism we are like to plunge ourselves, while we go about to range and distribute the Gods among the various passions, faculties, and virtues of men.
[Amat. 14] 14. I plainly perceive it, replied Pemptides; for I neither believe it lawful to make the Gods to be passions, nor on the other side, to make the passions to be Deities. To whom my father: Well then, said he, do you believe Mars to be a God, or a passion of ours? To which when Pemptides replied, that he thought Mars to be the Deity that rectified the angry and courageous part of man; my father presently retorted upon him: Why then? said he, shall our passionate part, and those wrathful inclinations within us that provoke us to mischief and bloodshed, have a Deity to overrule and govern them; and will you not allow the same guardianship over our better propensities to love, friendship, society, and peace? Is there a Deity called Enyalius and Stratius that presides and has the superintendence over those that kill and are slain, a Deity that bears rule in matters of arms, all warlike preparations, assaults of cities, and depredations of countries, and distributes rewards as he sees occasion; and shall there be no Deity to be a witness and overseer, a supreme governor and director, of conjugal affection, which terminates in concord and happy society? Nay, do we find that they who make it their sport to hunt wild goats, hares, and deer, are not without their forest Deity to encourage them; and they that make it their business to trepan wolves and bears into snares and pitfalls, pray for good luck to Aristaeus,
[Amat. 14b] and that Hercules, having bent his bow, before he let fly at the bird which he intended to hit, invoked another Deity, as we find in Aeschylus,
[Amat. 14c] but for men that hunt the most noble game of love and friendship, is there no God nor so much as one Daemon to assist and prosper so laudable an enterprise? Truly, Daphnaeus, for my part, I cannot believe a man to be a more inconsiderable plant than an oak or mulberry tree or the vine which Homer reverently calls by the name of Hemeris, considering that man in his due season also is endued with a powerful faculty to bud and pleasantly put forth the beauties both of his body and mind.
[Amat. 15] 15. To whom Daphnaeus: In the name of all the Gods, who ever thought otherwise? All those must certainly, replied my father, who believe the care of ploughing, sowing, and planting is an employment becoming the Gods (and have they not for this purpose certain Nymphs attending them, called Dryads,
[Amat. 15b] Who with the trees they cherish live and die? —
and does not
[Amat. 15c] as Pindar sings), and who yet will not allow that the nourishment and growth of children and young people, who in the flower of their age are to be formed and shaped into several varieties of beauty, is under the care and tuition of any Deity; or that there is any Divinity to take care that man, being once born, may be guided and conducted in the true paths of virtue, and to prevent the tender plant from being bowed and bent the wrong way for want of a good instructor, or by the depraved conversation of those with whom he lives. For my part, I look upon it as a heinous piece of indignity and ingratitude thus to say, while we are all the time enjoying the bounty and benignity of God, which he is ready to disperse and diffuse over all, and which never abandons the distresses and needs of mortals. And yet in many of these needs the duty to be performed is rather necessary than pleasant. Thus our being delivered from the mother’s womb is no such delightful thing, as being attended with pain and issues of blood; and yet there is a celestial midwife and overseer that takes particular care of that necessity, which is Lucina. And indeed a man had better never be born, than to be made bad and wicked for want of a good tutor and guardian. Nay, we find that the divine power does not desert us in our sickness, nor after we are dead; there being still some Deity or other who claims some certain peculiar employment or function, even upon those occasions. Among the rest, there is one that helps to convey the souls of such as have ended this life into the other world, and lays them asleep, according to this of the poet:
[Amat. 15d] Nevertheless these ministerial functions have many difficulties and troubles which attend them; whereas we cannot imagine any employment more holy, any exercise more sacred, or any contention for prize and glory more becoming a Deity, than to direct and assist the lawful endeavors and pursuits of lovers in their prime of years and beauty. There is nothing dishonorable, nothing of forced necessity in this; but gentle persuasion and alluring grace, rendering labor delightful, leads to virtue and friendship, which never attains the true accomplishment of the end it aims at without some divine assistance, nor can have any other conductor and master than Cupid himself, who is the friend and companion of the Muses, the Graces, and Venus his own mother. For, according to Melannippides,
[Amat. 15e] and he always mingles those things that are sweetest with those that are fairest. What do you say, Zeuxippus? Can we believe it to be otherwise?
[Amat. 16] 16. In truth, I judge it so, replied Zeuxippus; and I think it would be absurd to affirm the contrary. And would it not be absurd indeed, said my father, since there are four sorts of friendships, according to the determination of the ancients, — the first, say they, is natural, the next is that of kindred and relations, the third is that of friends and acquaintance, and last is that of lovers, — if three of these have their several tutelar Deities, under the names of the patron of friendship, the patron of hospitality, and he who knits affection between those of the same race and family; while only amorous affection, as if it were unhallowed and under interdiction, is left without any guardian or protector, which indeed requires the greatest care and government above all the rest? All that you say, replied Zeuxippus, is undeniable.
[Amat. 16b] By the way, replied my father, we may here take notice of what Plato says upon this subject, as pertinent to our discourse. For he says, that there is a certain madness transmitted from the body to the soul, proceeding from a malignant mixture of ill-humors, or a noxious vapor or rather pernicious spirit that possesses the heart; which madness is a rugged and terrible disease. The other is a kind of fury, partaking something of divine inspiration; neither is it engendered within, but is an insufflation from without, and a disturbance of the rational and considerative faculty, deriving its beginning and motion from some stronger power; the common affection of which is called the enthusiastic passion. For as ἔμπνοος signifies filled with breath, and ἔμφϱων denotes replete with prudence; so this commotion of the soul is called enthusiasm (from ἔνϑεος) by reason it participates of a more divine power. Now the prophetic part of enthusiasm derives itself from the inspiration of Apollo possessing the intellect of the soothsayer; but Bacchanal fury proceeds from Father Bacchus.
[Amat. 16c] And with the Corybantes ye shall dance,
[Amat. 16d] says Sophocles. For as for the extravagancies of the priests of Cybele, the mother of the Gods, and those which are called panic terrors and ejaculations, they are all of the same nature with the Bacchanal orgies. There is also a third sort of enthusiasm, proper to the Muses, which, possessing an even tempered and placid soul, excites and rouses up the gifts of poetry and music. But as for that same warlike fury which is called Arimanian, it is well known to descend from the God of War; a sort of fury, wherein there is no grace nor musical sweetness, calling forth tearful Mars, and rousing up the people to discord and tumult.
[Amat. 16e] There remains yet one sort more of alienation of the understanding in man, the same neither obscure, nor yet altogether calm and quiet; concerning which I would fain ask Pemptides,
[Amat. 16f] But without expecting a resolution of this question, I mean that erotic fury that possesses lovely youths and chaste women, yet a hot and vehement transport. For do we not see how the warrior lays down his arms, and submits to this more prevalent rage?
[Amat. 16g] and thus having renounced the hazards of battle, he sits down a quiet spectator of other men’s dangers. As for these Bacchanalian motions and frisking of the Corybantes, there is a way to allay those extravagant transports, by changing the measure from the Trochaic and the tone from the Phrygian. And the Pythian prophetess, descending from her tripos and quitting the prophetic exhalation, becomes sedate and calm again. Whereas the fury of love, wherever it seizes either man or woman, sets them in a flame; no music, no appeasing incantations, no changes of place are able to quench or put a stop to it; but being in presence, they love; being absent, they desire; by day they prosecute their importunate visits; by night they serenade at the windows; sober, they are continually calling upon their loves; and when they are fuddled, are always teasing the company with their love songs and madrigals. Neither, as one was pleased to say, are poetical fancies, by reason of their lively expressions, rightly called waking dreams; but the dialogues of persons enamored, discoursing with their absent loves, and dallying, embracing, and expostulating with them as if they were present, much rather deserve this name. For the sight seems to delineate other fancies in the water, that quickly glide away and slip out of the mind; whereas the imaginations of lovers, being as it were enamelled by fire, leave the images of things imprinted in the memory, moving, living, speaking, and remaining for a long time. So that Cato the Roman was wont to say, that the soul of a lover dwelt in the soul of the person beloved, for that there is settled and fixed in the one the form, shape, manners, conversation and actions of the other; by which being led, the lover quickly dispatches a long journey, — as the Cynics say they have found a compendious and direct road to virtue, — and he is carried from love to friendship, as it were with wind and tide, the God of Love assisting his passion. In short then I say, that the enthusiasm of lovers is neither void of divine inspiration, neither is it under the guardianship and conduct of any other Deity but him whose festivals we solemnize, and to whom we offer our oblations. Nevertheless, in regard we measure the excellency of a Deity by his puissance and by the benefit which we receive at his hands, and esteem power and virtue to be the two chiefest and most divine of all human blessings, it may not be unseasonable to consider whether Love be inferior in power to any other of the Gods. For, according to Sophocles,
[Amat. 16h] Great is also the dominion of Mars; and indeed we see the power of all the rest of the Gods divided in some measure between these two, — the one being most naturally allied to the beautiful, the other most mighty in the resistance of evil, and both being originally bred in the soul, as Plato says of his ideas.
[Amat. 16i] Now then let us consider, the venereal delight is a thing that may be purchased for a drachm, and there is no man that ever underwent any pain or danger for the sake of venereal enjoyments, unless he were inflamed with the fires of love. Insomuch, that not to mention such courtesans as either Phryne or Lais, we find that the harlot Gnathaenion,
[Amat. 16j] is often passed by and neglected;
[Amat. 16k] this makes the pleasure equally esteemed and valued with the treasures of Tantalus and all his vast dominions. So faint and so soon cloyed is venereal desire, unless rendered grateful by the charms and inspiration of love. Which is more evidently confirmed by this; for that many men admit others to partake of their venereal pleasures, prostituting not only their mistresses and concubines, but also their own wives, to the embraces of their friends; as it is reported of the Roman Gabba, who inviting Maecenas to his house, and perceiving him winking and nodding upon his wife, turned away his head upon his pillow, as if he had been asleep, while they dallied together; yet at the same time, when one of the servants came creeping out of the next room, to steal a bottle of wine from the cupboard, presently turning about with his eyes open, Varlet, said he, ‘tis only to pleasure Maecenas that I sleep. But this perhaps is not so strange, considering that Gabba was a low buffoon.
[Amat. 16l] At Argos there was a great animosity between Nicostratus and Phayllus, so that they always opposed each other and quarrelled at the council-board. Now when King Philip made a visit to that city, Phayllus bethought himself, that he could not miss the highest preferment the government could afford, if he could but oblige the king with the company of his wife, who was both beautiful and young. Nicostratus, smelling this design, walked to and fro before Phayllus’s house with some of his servants, to observe who went in and out. They had not stayed long, but out came Phayllus’s wife, whom he had dressed up in high shoes, with a mantle and cap after the Macedonian fashion, like one of the king’s pages, in which disguise she secretly passed in to the king’s lodgings. Since then there ever were and still are so many lovers, did you ever know of any one that ever prostituted his particular male friend, though it were to gain the honors ascribed to Jupiter himself? Truly, I believe there never was any such. For why? There never was any one that would pretend to oppose and contend with a tyrant; but there are many rivals and competitors, that will quarrel and fight for boys that are beautiful and in the prime of their years. It is reported of Aristogiton the Athenian, Antileon of Metapontum, and Melanippus of Agrigentum, that they never contested with tyrants, though they wasted and ruined the commonwealth and indulged the impetuosity of their lust, until they found them attempting their own male concubines: then they withstood them with the utmost peril of their lives, as if they had been to defend their temples and their most sacred sanctuaries. Alexander also is said to have sent to Theodorus, the brother of Proteas, in these words: Send me that musical girl that plays and sings so well, and take ten talents for her, unless thou lovest her thyself. Another time, when one of his minions, Antipatridas, came to be jovial with him, and brought a minstrel in his company to complete the mirth, being greatly affected with the girl’s playing and singing, he asked Antipatridas whether he had any extraordinary kindness for her? He answered, that he loved her as his eyes. Then all the plagues of mankind light upon thee, quoth the prince. However, he would not so much as touch the girl.
[Amat. 17] 17. Consider also what vast power love has over martial men and warriors, not slothful, as Euripides will have it to be, nor unwarlike, nor
[Amat. 17b] Slumbering on a girl’s soft cheek.
[Amat. 17c] For a man that is once inflamed with love wants not Mars himself to be his second, when he is to engage with his enemies; but confiding in the Deity that is within him,
[Amat. 17d] and breaks through all opposition, if his mistress require any proof of his valor. Therefore we read in Sophocles, that the daughters of Niobe being wounded with arrows to death, one of them, as she lay wallowing in blood, calls out for no other help or succor to assist her in her revenge, but her lover.
[Amat. 17e] You know the reason why Cleomachus the Pharsalian fell in battle. I am a stranger to the story, replied Pemptides, and would willingly therefore hear it. Certainly it is very well worth your knowledge, said my father.
[Amat. 17f] In the heat of the war between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians, Cleomachus went with the Thessalian force to aid the Chalcidians; at what time it was evident that the Chalcidians were the stronger in foot, but they found it a difficult thing to withstand the force of the enemies’ horse. Thereupon they requested Cleomachus, being their confederate and a man signalized for his courage, to give the first onset upon the enemies’ cavalry. Presently the youth whom he most entirely loved being present, he asked him whether he would stay and be a spectator of the combat. To which when the lad gave his consent, and after many tender kisses and embraces had put on his helmet, Cleomachus’s love redoubling his courage, being surrounded with some few of the flower of the Thessalian horse, he charged into the thickest of the enemy and put them to the rout; which the heavy-armed infantry seeing, they betook themselves also to flight, so that the Chalcidians obtained a noble victory. However, Cleomachus was there slain, and the Chalcidians show his monument erected in the market-place, with a fair pillar standing upon it to this day; and whereas they abominated pederasty before, after that they admired and affected it above all other pleasures. Nevertheless, Aristotle tells us that Cleomachus indeed lost his life after the victorious battle which he gained from the Eretrians, but as for that Cleomachus who was thus kissed by his male concubine, that he was of Chalcis in Thrace, and sent to aid the Chalcidians in Euboea. Which is the reason of that same ballad generally sung among them:
[Amat. 17g] Dionysius the poet, in his poem entitled Causes, informs us that the name of the lover was Anton, and that the youth beloved was called Philistus.
[Amat. 17h] And is it not a custom among you Thebans, Pemptides, for the lover to present the beloved with a complete suit of armor when he is come of age? And Pammenes, a very great soldier but very amorously given, quite altered the method of embattling the heavy-armed infantry, and blames Homer, as one that knew not what belonged to love, for marshalling the several divisions of the Achaeans according to their tribes and clans, and not placing the lover by his beloved, so that the close order which he afterwards describes might have been the consequence, in which
[Amat. 17i] the only way to render a battalion invincible. For men will desert those of the same tribe or family, nay, their very children and parents; but never any enemy could pierce or penetrate between a lover and his darling minion, in whose sight many times when there is no necessity the lover delights to show his courage and contempt of danger; like Thero the Thessalian, who clapping his left hand to the wall, and then drawing his sword, struck off his thumb, thereby challenging his rival to do the same. Or like another, who falling in battle upon his face, as his enemy was about to follow his blow, desired him to stay till he could turn, lest his male concubine should see that he had been wounded in the back.
[Amat. 17j] And therefore we find that the most warlike of nations are most addicted to love, as the Boeotians, Lacedaemonians, and Cretans. And among the most ancient heroes none were more amorous than Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, and Epaminondas; the latter of which had for his male concubines Asopichus and Caphisodorus, who was slain with him at the battle of Mantinea and lies buried very near him. And when . . . had rendered himself most terrible to the enemy and most resolute, Eucnamus the Amphissean, that first made head against him and slew him, had heroic honors paid him by the Phocians. It would be a task too great to enumerate the amours of Hercules; but among the rest, Iolaus is honored and adored to this day by many, because he is thought to have been the darling of that hero; and upon his tomb it is that lovers plight their troths and make reciprocal vows of their affection. Moreover, Hercules, being skilled in physic, is said to have recovered Alcestis from death’s door in kindness to Admetus, who, as he had a great love for his wife, so was greatly beloved by the hero. For it is said that even Apollo, doting upon Admetus,
[Amat. 17k] Became his slave for a long weary year.
[Amat. 17l] And here, methinks, we have very opportunely mentioned Alcestis; for although the temper of women has little to do with Mars, Love many times drives them to daring attempts beyond their own nature, even to death. And if there be any credit to be given to the fables of the poets, the stories of Alcestis, Protesilaus, and Eurydice the wife of Orpheus, plainly evince us that Pluto himself obeys no other God but Love. For, as Sophocles says,
[Amat. 17m] but to lovers he pays a reverence: to them alone is he neither implacable nor inexorable. And therefore, although it is a very good thing to be initiated into the Eleusinian ceremonies, still I find the condition of those much better in hell who are admitted into the mysteries of love; which I speak as neither altogether confiding in fables, nor altogether misbelieving them. For they speak a great deal of sense, and many times, by a certain kind of divine good hap, hit upon the truth, when they say that lovers are permitted to return from hell to sunlight again; but which way and how, they know not, as wandering from the right path, which Plato, first of all men, by the assistance of philosophy found out. For there are several slender and obscure emanations of truth dispersed among the mythologies of the Egyptians; only they want an acute and experienced huntsman, who is skilled in tracing out great mysteries by small tracks. And therefore let them go.
[Amat. 17n] And now, since we find the power of love to be so great, let us take a little notice of that which we call the benevolence and favor of it towards men; not whether it confers many benefits upon those that are addicted to it, — for that is a thing apparent to all men, — but whether the blessings that men receive by it are more and greater than any other. And here Euripides, notwithstanding that he was a person so amorous as he was, admires the meanest gift it has; for, says he,
[Amat. 17o] And he might well have said, that love makes a man wise and prudent that was a fool and sottish before, and a coward bold and daring, as we have already shown; as when we heat wood in the fire to make it strong, when before it was weak. In like manner, he that was a sordid miser before, falling once in love, becomes liberal and lofty-minded, his covetous and pinching humor being mollified by love, like iron in the fire, so that he is more pleased with being liberal to the objects of his love, than before delighted to receive from others. For ye all know that Anytus, the son of Anthemion, fell in love with Alcibiades; who, understanding that Anytus had invited several of his friends to a noble and splendid banquet, came into the room in masquerade, and going to the table, after he had taken one half of the silver cups and other plate, went his way. Which when some of the guests took very ill, and told Anytus that the young lad had demeaned himself very rudely and saucily; Not so, said Anytus, but very civilly, since, when it was in his power to have taken all the rest, he was so civil as to leave me some.
[Amat. 18] 18. Pleased with this story, O Hercules, quoth Zeuxippus, how have you almost raced out of mind that hereditary hatred which I had conceived against Anytus, for his ill opinion of Socrates and philosophy, since he was become so gentle and generous in his amours. Be it so, said my father; but let us proceed. Love is of that nature, that it renders those that were severe and morose before both affable and pleasant in their humor. For as
[Amat. 18b] so the heat of love renders the soul of man more lively and cheerful. But most men go quite contrary to reason in this particular. For when they behold a glittering light in a house by night, they admire and look upon it as something celestial; but when they see a narrow, pitiful, abject soul of a sudden replenished with understanding, generosity, sense of honor, courtesy, and liberality, they do not believe themselves constrained to say, as Telemachus in Homer,
[Amat. 18c] Surely some God within this house resides.
[Amat. 18d] For the love of the Graces, tell me, said Daphnaeus, is it not a thing altogether as much savoring of divinity, that a man who contemns all other things, not only his friends and familiar acquaintance, but also the laws, the magistrates, even kings and princes themselves, who fears nothing, is astonished at nothing, cares for nothing, but thinks himself able to defy the “barbed lightning,” yet, so soon as he beholds the object of his burning love,
[Amat. 18e] should presently lose all his prowess, and that all his bravery should fail him, as if his heart were quite sunk to the bottom of his body? And it were not impertinent to make mention of Sappho here among the Muses. For the Romans report in their stories that Cacus, the son of Vulcan, vomited fire and flames out of his mouth. And indeed Sappho speaks as if her words were mixed with fire, and in her verses plainly discovers the violent heat of her heart, according to that of Philoxenus,
[Amat. 18f] And here, Daphnaeus, if the love of Lysandra have not buried in oblivion your former sportive dalliances, I would desire you to call to mind and oblige us with the repetition of those elegant raptures of Sappho, wherein she tells us how that, when the person beloved by her appeared, her speech forsook her, her body was all over in a sweat; how she grew pale and wan, and was surprised with a sudden trembling and dizziness. To this Daphnaeus consented; and so soon as he had recited the verses, said my father: So Jupiter help me, is not this an apparent seizure of something more than human upon the soul? Can this be other than some celestial rapture of the mind? What do we find equal to it in the Pythian prophetess, when she sits upon the tripod? Where do we find the flutes which are used in the Bacchanalian orgies, or the tabors played upon in the ceremonies of the Mother of the Gods, rouse up such noble transports among that fanatic sort of enthusiasts? Many there are that behold the same body and the same beauty, but the lover only admires and is ravished with it. And what is the reason, do ye think? For we do not perceive or understand it from Menander, when he says:
[Amat. 18g] But it is the God of Love that gives the occasion, seizing upon some, and letting others go free. What therefore had been more seasonable for me to have spoken before, since it is now chopped into my mouth (as Aeschylus says), I think I will not even now let go, as being a matter of great importance. For it may be, my dear friend, there is not any thing in the world which was not made perceptible by sense, but what gained credit and authority at the first either from fables, or from the law, or else from rational discourse. And therefore poets, lawgivers, and in the third place philosophers, were all along the first that instructed and confirmed us in our opinion of the Gods. For all agree that there are Gods; but concerning their number, their order, their essence and power, they vastly differ one among another. For the philosophers’ Deities are subject neither to age nor diseases, neither do they undergo any labor or pain,
[Amat. 18h] And therefore they will not admit poetical Deities, like Strife and Prayers; nor will they acknowledge Fear and Terror to be Gods or the sons of Mars. They also differ from the lawgivers in many things. Thus Xenophanes told the Egyptians not to worship Osiris as a God if they thought him to be mortal, and if they thought him to be a God not to bewail him. Then again, the poets and lawgivers vary from the philosophers, and will not so much as hear them, while they deify certain ideas, numbers, unities, and spirits; such is the wild variety and vast difference of opinions among this sort of people. Therefore, as there were at Athens the three factions of the Parali, Epacrii, and Pedieis, that could never agree but were always at variance one with another, yet when they were assembled, gave their suffrages unanimously for Solon, and chose him with one consent for their peacemaker, governor, and lawgiver, as to whom the highest reward of virtue was, without all doubt or question, due; so the three different sects or factions in reference to the Gods, in giving their opinions some for one and some for another, as being by no means willing to subscribe one to another, are all positive in their consent as to the God of Love. Him the most famous of the poets, and the numerous acclamations of the philosophers and lawgivers, have enrolled in the catalogue of the Gods “with loud praises and harmonious acclaim,” as Alcaeus says of the Mitylenaeans when they chose Pittacus for their prince. So Hesiod, Plato, and Solon bring forth Cupid out of Helicon, and conduct him in pomp and state into the Academy, to be our king, governor, and director, drawn in by friendship and intercourse with all their pairs of horses, — not the friendship which, as Euripides says, is
[Amat. 18i] With fetters bound, but not of brass,
[Amat. 18j] as if the bonds of love were only the cold and ponderous chains of necessity, made use of as a colorable pretence to excuse and qualify shame, but such friendship as is carried upon winged chariots to the most lovely objects that exist, and to sights more divine than this earth affords. But on this point others have better discoursed.
[Amat. 19] 19. After my father had thus delivered himself; Do you not perceive, said Soclarus, how, being fallen a second time into the same matter, you have as it were by force constrained yourself, and unjustly deprived us — if I may speak what I think — of that same sacred discourse which you were entering into? For as before you gave us a hint concerning Plato and the Egyptians, but passed them over as if it had been done against your will; so you do now again. Now as to what has been notably uttered by Plato, or rather by our Goddesses here (the Muses) through Plato’s mouth, do not trouble yourself to tell us this, even although we should request it. But whereas you have obscurely hinted that the fables of the Egyptians accord with Plato’s opinion concerning love, we know you have too great kindness for us to conceal your knowledge from us; and though it be but a little of those important matters, it shall suffice us.
[Amat. 19b] Thereupon the rest of the company declaring their readiness to give attention, my father thus began: The Egyptians, said he, and also the Grecians set up two Deities of love; the one vulgar, the other celestial; to which they add a third, which they believe to be the sun; and as for Venus, they pay her a very great veneration. We ourselves also do find that there is a great affinity and resemblance between the sun and the God of Love. For neither of them is material fire, as some conjecture. All that we acknowledge is only this, that there is a certain soft and generative heat and warmth proceeding from the sun, which affords to the body nourishment, light, and relaxation of cold; whereas that warmth which comes from love works the same effects in the soul. And as the sun breaking forth from the clouds and after a thick fog is much hotter; so love, after passionate anger and jealousies are over, and the beloved one is again reconciled, grows more delightful and fervent.
[Amat. 19c] Moreover, as some believe the sun to be kindled and extinguished, they also imagine the same things concerning love, as being mortal and unstable. For neither can a constitution not enured to exercise endure the sun, nor the disposition of an illiterate and ill-tutored soul brook love without trouble and pain; for both are alike distempered and diseased, for which they lay the blame upon the power of the God, and not their own weakness. Herein only there may seem to be some difference between them; for that the sun displays to the sight upon the earth both beauty and deformity at once, but love is a luminary that affords us the view of beautiful objects only, and persuades lovers to cast their eyes only upon what is pleasing and delightful, and with a careless eye to overlook all other things. On the other side, they that attribute the name of Venus to the moon, although they have no convincing proof, still have hit upon a certain similarity.
[Amat. 19d] For that the moon is celestial and divine, and the region of mixture between mortal and immortal; but it is weak of itself, obscure and dark without the presence of the sun; as Venus is where love is absent. Therefore more properly and with more probability the moon is likened to Venus, and the sun to Love, rather than to any other of the Gods.
[Amat. 19e] Nevertheless, we must not therefore say they are all one. For neither are the soul and body the same, but distinct; as the sun is visible, but love is perceptible only by sense. And if it might not be thought too harsh a saying, a man might affirm that the sun and love act contrary to one another. For the sun diverts the understanding from things intelligible to sensible objects, alluring and fascinating the sight with the grace and splendor of his rays, and persuading us to search for other things, and even for truth itself, within and about himself, and nowhere else. And we appear to be passionately in love with the sun, because, as Euripides says,
[Amat. 19f] for want of our knowledge of another life, or rather, through our forgetfulness of those things which love calls to our remembrance. For as, when we are newly awaked and come into a bright and dazzling light, we forget whatever appeared to the soul in our dreams; so the sun seems to stupefy our recollection and impoison our understanding, when we change from the former life and enter this world, so that in our pleasure and admiration we forget all other considerations besides that of the present life. Though there indeed are the real substances proper for the contemplation of the soul; here, as in sleep, it embraces only dreams, and gazes in admiration and astonishment at what appears to it most beautiful and divine, while
[Amat. 19g] Fallacious charming dreams about it fly; —
[Amat. 19h] it being persuaded that here every thing is goodly and highly to be prized, unless it happens upon some divine and chaste love to be its physician and preserver. This love, entering through the body, becomes a guide to lead the soul from the world below to truth and the fields of truth, where full, pure, deceitless beauty dwells; and leading forth and guiding upward those that now after a long time are eager to embrace and live with such beauty, it stands by them, like a friendly mystagogue at the sacred ceremonies of initiation. But no sooner is the soul sent from thence again, but love is no longer able to make her approaches of herself, but by the body. And therefore as geometricians, when children are not able of themselves to apprehend the intelligible ideas of incorporeal and impassible substance, form and set before their eyes the tangible and visible imitations of spheres, cubes, and dodecahedrons; in like manner celestial love, having framed lovely mirrors to represent lovely objects, — things mortal and passible to represent things divine, and sensible objects to represent those perceptible only to the eye of reason, — shows them to us glittering in the forms, colors, and shape of youth in its prime, and first insensibly moves the memory inflamed by the sight of these objects.
[Amat. 19i] Whence it comes to pass that some, through the stupidity of their friends and acquaintance, endeavoring by force and against reason to extinguish that flame, have enjoyed nothing of true benefit thereby, but only either disquieted themselves with smoke and trouble, or else rushing headlong into obscure and irregular pleasures, obstinately cast themselves away. But as many as by sober and modest ratiocination have sincerely extinguished the raging heat of the fire, and left behind only a warm and glowing heat in the soul, — which causes no violent earthquake, as it was once called, rousing the seed and causing a gliding of atoms compressed by smoothness and titillation, but a wonderful and engendering diffusion, as in a blossoming and well-nourished plant, which opens the pores of obedience and affection, — these, I say, in a short time passing by the bodies of those whom they love, penetrate more inwardly and fall to admire their manners and dispositions; and calling off their eyes from the body, they converse together, and contemplate one another in their discourses and in their actions, provided there be but the least scrip or appearance of beauty in the understanding. If not, they let them go, and turn their affections upon others, like bees that will not fasten upon many plants and flowers, because they cannot gather honey from them. But where they find any footstep, any emanation, any resemblance of a divinity, ravished with delight and admiration as they recall it to memory, they attract it to themselves, and are revived by striving to attain to what is truly amiable, happy, and beloved by all mankind.
[Amat. 20] 20. True it is, that the poets, according to their sportive humor, seem to write many things in merriment concerning this Deity, and to make him the subject of their lascivious songs in the height of their revelling jollity, making but little serious mention of him; whether out of judgment and reason, or being assured of the truth by divine inspiration, is the question. Among the rest, there is one thing which they say very oddly concerning the birth and generation of this God:
[Amat. 20b] unless the grammarians have likewise persuaded you, by saying that this fable was invented to set forth the variety and gay diversity of passions that attend on love.
[Amat. 20c] To whom Daphnaeus: To what other end or purpose could it be? Hear me then, said my father; for ‘tis no more than what the celestial meteor constrains us to say. The affection of the sight in the case of the rainbow (or Iris) is caused by reflection. For when the sight lights upon a cloud somewhat of a dewy substance, but smooth, and moderately thick withal, and we behold the repercussion of the sunbeams upon it, together with the light and splendor about the sun, it begets an opinion in us that the apparition is in the cloud. In like manner, this same subtle invention of love-sophistry in generous and noble souls causes a repercussion of the memory from objects that here appear and are called beautiful, to the beauty really divine, truly amiable and happy, and by all admired. But most people pursuing and taking hold of the fancied image of this beauty in boys and women, as it were seen in a mirror, reap nothing more assured and certain than a little pleasure mixed with pain. But this seems to be no more than a delirium or dizziness of the vulgar sort, beholding their empty and unsatisfied desires in the clouds, as it were in so many shadows; like children who, thinking to catch the rainbow in their hands, snatch at the apparition that presents itself before their eyes. But a generous and modest lover observes another method; for his contemplations reflect only on that beauty which is divine and perceptible by the understanding; but lighting upon the beauty of a visible body, and making use of it as a kind of organ of the memory, he embraces and loves, and by conversation argumenting his joy and satisfaction still more and more inflames his understanding. But neither do these lovers conversing with bodies rest satisfied in this world with a desire and admiration of this same light; neither when they are arrived at another world after death, do they return hither again as fugitives, to hover about the doors and mansions of new-married people and disturb their dreams with ghosts and visions; which sort of visions really come only from men and women given to pleasure and corporeal delights, who by no means deserve the name and characters of true lovers. Whereas a lover truly chaste and amorous, being got to the true mansion of beauty, and there conversing with it as much as it is lawful for him to do, mounted upon the wings of chaste desire, becomes pure and hallowed; and being initiated into sacred orders, continues dancing and sporting about his Deity, till returning again to the meadows of the Moon and Venus, and there laid asleep, he becomes ready for a new nativity. But these are points too high for the discourse which we have proposed to ourselves.
[Amat. 20d] To return therefore to our purpose; Love, according to Euripides, with all the rest of the Gods, delights
When mortals here his honored name invoke;
[Amat. 20e] on the other side, he is no less offended when any affront or contempt is put upon him, as he is most kind and benign to those that entertain him with proper respect. For neither does Jupiter surnamed the Hospitable so severely prosecute injuries done to strangers and suppliants, nor is Jupiter Genitalis so rigorous in accomplishing the curses of parents disobeyed, as Love is to listen to the complaints of injured lovers; being the scourger and punisher of-proud, ill-natured, and ill-bred people. For, not to mention Euxynthetus and Leucomantis, at this day in Cyprus called the Peeper, ‘tis a hundred to one but you have heard of the punishment inflicted upon Gorgo the Cretan, not much unlike to that of Leucomantis, only that Gorgo was turned into a stone as she looked out of a window to see her love going to his grave. With this Gorgo Asander fell in love, a young gentleman virtuous and nobly descended, but reduced from a flourishing estate to extremity of poverty. However, he did not think so meanly of himself but that, being her kinsman, he courted this Gorgo for a wife, though she had many suitors at the same time by reason of her great fortune; and he so carried this business that, notwithstanding his numerous and wealthy rivals, he had gained the good-will of all her guardians and nearest relations.
[Amat. 21] 21. Now as for those things which they say are the causes that beget love, they are not peculiar to this or the other sex, but common to both. For it cannot be that those images that enter into amorous persons and whisk about from one part to another, by their various forms moving and tickling the mass of atoms that slide into the seed, can come from young boys, and that the same cannot come from young women. But as to these noble and sacred remembrances with which the soul is winged, recalling that same divine, real, and Olympic beauty, what should hinder but that these may pass from boys and young men, and also from virgins and young women, whenever a disposition chaste and good-natured appears united with bloom of youth and grace of body? For, as a handsome and well-made shoe shows the proportion of the foot (as Ariston says), so they that have judgment in these matters can discern the splendid, upright, and uncorrupted footsteps of a noble and generous soul in beautiful forms and features, and bodies undefiled. For, if a voluptuous person, who when the question was put to him,
[Amat. 21b] answered thus,
[Amat. 21c] was thought to have returned a proper and pertinent answer and one that accorded with his passions, is it possible that a noble and generous lover directs his amours not to loveliness and good-nature, but only to the parts that distinguish the sex? For certainly a man that delights in horses will no less value the mettle and swiftness of Podargus, than of Aetha that was Agamemnon’s mare; and he that is a good huntsman does not only delight in dogs, but mixes with his cry the bitches of Crete and Laconia; and shall he that is a lover as well as of civil behavior carry himself with an inequality more to one than to another, and make a distinction, as of garments, between the love of men and women? But some say that beauty is the flower of virtue. Will they then affirm, that the female sex never blossoms nor makes any show of tendency to virtue? It were absurd to think so. Therefore was Aeschylus in the right when he said, that he could never mistake the fire in the eye of a young woman who had once known a man. Now then are those signs and marks of lasciviousness, wantonness, and impudence to be discovered in the visages of women, and shall there be no light shining in their faces for the discovery of modesty and chastity? Nay, shall there be many such signs, and those apparent, and shall they not be able to allure and provoke love? Both are contrary to reason, and dissonant from truth. But every one of these things is common to both sexes, as we have showed.
[Amat. 21d] Now then, Daphnaeus, let us confute the reason that Zeuxippus has but now alleged, by making love to be all one with inordinate desire that hurries the soul to intemperance. Not that it is his opinion, but only what he has frequently heard from men morose and no way addicted to love. Of this class there are some who, marrying poor silly women for the sake of some petty portion, and having nothing to do with them and their money but to make them perpetual drudges in pitiful mechanic employments, are every day brawling and quarrelling with them. Others, more desirous of children than of wives, like cicadae that spill their seed upon squills or some such like herb, discharge their lust in haste upon the next they meet with; and having reaped the fruit they sought for, bid marriage farewell or else regard it not at all, neither caring to love nor to be beloved. And in my opinion, the words στέϱγειν and στέϱγεσθαι, which signify dearly to love and dearly to be beloved again, differing but one letter from στέγειν, which signifies to contain or endure, seem to me to import and denote that mutual kindness called conjugal, which is intermixed by time and custom with necessity. But in that wedlock which love supports and inspires, in the first place, as in Plato’s Commonwealth, there will be no such language as “thine” and “mine.” For properly to speak, there is not community of goods among all friends; but only where two friends, though severed in body, yet have their souls joined and as it were melted together, and neither desire to be two nor believe themselves to be separate persons. And, in the second place, there will be that mutual respect and reverence, which is the chiefest happiness of wedlock. Now as to that respect that comes from without, carrying with it more force of law than voluntary and reciprocal duty, or that comes by fear and shame,
[Amat. 21e] these are always present with those who are coupled in matrimony. Whereas in love there is so much continency, so much modesty, and so much of loyal affection, that even if it happen upon an intemperate and lascivious soul, it is thereby diverted from all other amours, by cutting off all malapert boldness and bringing down the insolence of imperious pride; instead of which it introduces modest bashfulness, silence, and submission, and adorning it with decent and becoming behavior, makes it for ever after the obedient observer of one lover. Most certainly you have heard of that celebrated and highly courted courtesan Lais, how her beauty inflamed all Greece, or rather how two seas strove for her. This famous beauty, being seized with an ardent affection for Hippolochus the Thessalian, leaving the Acrocorinthus, as the poet describes it,
[Amat. 21f] With sea-green water all encompassed round,
and privately avoiding the great army (as I may call it) of those that courted her favor, withdrew herself modestly to the enjoyment of him only; but the women, incensed with jealousy and envying her surpassing beauty, dragged her into the temple of Venus, and there stoned her to death; for which reason it is called to this day the temple of Venus the Murderess. We ourselves have known several young damsels, mere slaves, who never would submit to the embraces of their masters, and private men who have disdained the company of queens, when love had the absolute dominion of their hearts. For, as in Rome, when there is a dictator chosen, all other chief magistrates lay down their offices; so all such persons, where love is truly predominant, are immediately free and manumitted from all other lords and masters, and afterwards live like servants in the temple of Love. And indeed a virtuous and generous lady, once linked to her lawful husband by an unfeigned affection, will sooner choose the embraces of bears and dragons, than to be the bed-fellow of any other person whatsoever but her only spouse.
[Amat. 22] 22. Of this although we might produce examples without number, yet among you, that are now joined (as it were) in the same dance and festival with Love, it will not be from the purpose to relate the story of Camma the Galatian. For she being a woman of transcendent beauty, and married to Sinatus the tetrarch. Synorix, one of the most powerful men in all Galatia, fell desperately in love with her; and that he might enjoy her, murdered her husband Sinatus, since he could not prevail with her either by force or persuasion, while her husband was alive. Thereupon Camma, having no other sanctuary for the preservation of her chastity nor consolation in her affliction, retired to the temple of Diana, where she remained a votaress to the Goddess, not admitting any person so much as to speak to her, though she had many suitors that sought her in wedlock. But when Synorix boldly presumed to put the question to her, she neither seemed to reject his motion, neither did she upbraid him with the crime he had committed; as if he had been induced to perpetrate so vile an act, not out of any malicious intent to Sinatus, but merely out of a pure and ardent love and affection to her. Thereupon he came with greater confidence, and demanded her in marriage. She, on the other side, met him no less cheerfully; and leading him by the hand to the altar of the Goddess, after she had poured forth a small quantity of hydromel well tempered with a rank poison, as it were an atonement offering to the Goddess, she drank off the one half of that which remained herself, and gave the other half to the Galatian. And then, so soon as she saw he had drunk it off, she gave a loud groan, and calling her deceased husband by his name; This day, said she, my most dear and beloved husband, I have long expected, as having lived, deprived of thee, a desolate and comfortless life. But now receive me joyfully; for for thy sake I have revenged myself upon the most wicked among men, willing to have lived with thee, and now no less rejoicing to die with him. Thus Synorix, being carried out of the temple, soon after expired; but Camma, surviving him a day and a night, is reported to have died with an extraordinary resolution and cheerfulness of spirit.
[Amat. 23] 23. Now in regard there have been many such, as well among us as among the barbarians, who can bear with those that reproach Venus that, being coupled and present with Love, she becomes a hindrance of friendship? Whereas any sober and considerate person may rather revile the company of male with male, and justly call it intemperance and lasciviousness,
[Amat. 23b] And therefore, as for those that willingly prostitute their bodies, we look upon them to be the most wicked and flagitious persons in the world, void of fidelity, neither endued with modesty nor any thing of friendship; and but too truly and really, according to Sophocles,
[Amat. 23c] And as for those who, not being by nature lewd and wicked, were circumvented and forced to prostitute themselves, there are no men whom these always look upon with greater suspicion and more perfect hatred than those that deluded and flattered them into so vile an act, and they bitterly revenge themselves when they find an opportunity. For Crateas killed Archelaus, who had rid him in his youth; and Pytholaus slew Alexander of Pherae. Periander tyrant of the Ambraciotes asked his minion, whether he were not yet with child; which the lad took so heinously that he stabbed him.
[Amat. 23d] On the other hand, among women that are married, these are but the beginnings of friendship, as it were, a communicating and imparting of great and sacred mysteries. The pleasure of coition is the least thing; but the honor, the submission to mutual love and fidelity which daily germinates from this, convince us that neither the Delphians raved, who gave the name of Arma (union) to Venus, nor that Homer was in an error, who called the conjunction of man and woman by the name of friendship; but that Solon was a lawgiver the most experienced in conjugal affairs, who decreed that a husband should lie with his wife thrice a month at least, — not for pleasure’s sake, but that, as cities renew their treaties one with another at such a time, so the alliance of matrimony might be renewed by this enjoyment, after the jars which may have arisen in the mean time. But you will say, there are many men in love with women that act amiss and furiously. But are there not more enormities committed by those that are enamored upon boys?
[Amat. 23e] But though there is this raging passion after boys, as well as a dotage upon women, yet can neither be said to be truly love. And therefore it is an absurdity to aver that women are not capable even of other virtues. For why speak of so many signals of their chastity, prudence, justice, and fidelity, when we find others no less eminent for their fortitude, resolution, and magnanimity; after all which, to tax them of being naturally incapable of friendship only — not to mention the other virtues — is a hard case. For they are naturally lovers of their children, affectionate to their husbands; and this same natural affection of theirs, like a fertile soil, as it is capable of friendship, so is no less pliable to persuasion, nor less accompanied with all the graces. But as poetry, adapting to speech the conditements of melody, measure, and rhythm, renders the wholesome and instructive part of it so much the more moving, and the noxious part so much the more apt to corrupt the mind; so, Nature having adorned a woman with the charms of beauty and persuasive language, a lascivious woman makes use of these perfections to please herself and deceive others, but in a modest and sober woman they work wonders towards the gaining and fixing the good will and favor of her husband. Therefore Plato exhorted Xenocrates, otherwise generous and brave, but very morose in his humor, to sacrifice to the Graces; but he would have exhorted a virtuous and modest woman to sacrifice to Love, for his propitious favor to her marriage, in ordering it so that her behavior may prove a sufficient charm to keep her husband at home, . . . and that he may not ramble after other women, and then be forced to exclaim, as in the comedy,
[Amat. 23f] For in wedlock to love is a far greater blessing than to be beloved; since it preserves and keeps people from falling into many errors, nay, all those that corrupt and ruin matrimony.
[Amat. 24] 24. As for those passionate affections which at the beginning of conjugal love raise certain fits, which are somewhat sharp and biting, most fortunate Zeuxippus, I would not have you fear them, like an ulcer or scarification. Though perhaps it would not be amiss, if it should cost you some small wound to be joined to a virtuous woman, like trees that grow together when grafted by incision upon a proper stock. The beginning of conception itself is a kind of exulceration; for there can be no mixture of things that are not affected reciprocally one by the other. The very mathematical rudiments do not a little perplex little children at the first, and philosophy troubles the brains of young beginners; but this corroding humor is not lasting, either to these or to lovers. Insomuch that a man would think that love at first resembled the mixture of two liquors, which, when once they begin to incorporate, by their ebullition discover some little disgusts; for so love at the beginning bubbles up with a kind of effervency, till being settled and purified it acquires a firm and stable constitution. For this indeed is properly that kind of mixture which is called a thorough mixture; whereas the love of other friends, conversing and living together, is like the touches and interweavings of Epicurus’s atoms, subject to raptures and separations, but can never compose such a union as proceeds from love assisting conjugal society. For neither are the pleasures received from any other source so great, nor the benefits conferred on others so lasting, nor is the glory and beauty of any other friendship so noble and desirable,
[Amat. 24b] Moreover, it is a thing warranted by law; while Nature shows us that even the Gods themselves stood in need of love for the sake of common procreation. Thus the poets tell us that earth is in love with the showers, and heaven with the earth; and the natural philosophers are of opinion that the sun is in love with the moon, that they copulate every month, and that the moon conceives by virtue of that conjunction. And it would of necessity follow that the earth, which is the common mother of all mankind, of all animals, and of all manner of plants, would one day cease and be extinguished, should that same ardent love and desire infused by the God forsake matter, and matter cease to pursue and lust after the principles and motions of generation.
[Amat. 24c] But that we may not seem to wander too far or spend our time in trifles, you yourselves are not ignorant that these pederasties are by many said to be the most uncertain and least durable things in the world, and that they are derided by those that make use of them, who affirm that the love of boys, like an egg, may be destroyed by a hair; and the lovers themselves are like the wandering Scythians, who, having spent their spring in flowery and verdant pastures, presently dislodge from thence, as out of an enemy’s country. And Bion the Sophister was yet more sharp and satirical, when he called the beards of young and beautiful striplings by the names of Harmodii and Aristogitons (i.e. tyrant-killers), since by that budding show of manhood their lovers are delivered from their pleasant tyranny. But these imputations are not justly charged upon true lovers. Elegant therefore was that which was said by Euripides. For as he was clasping and embracing the fair Agatho, after the down began to sprout forth upon his chin, he cried that the very autumn of lovely youths was pleasing and delightful. But I say more than this, that the love of virtuous women does not decay with the wrinkles that appear upon their faces, but remains and endures to their graves and monuments. Then again, we shall find but few male couples of true lovers, but thousands of men and women conjoined together in wedlock, who have reciprocally and inviolably observed a community of affection and loyalty to the end of their lives. I shall instance only one example, which happened in our time, during the reign of Caesar Vespasian.
[Amat. 25] 25. Julius, who was the first that occasioned the revolt in Galatia, among many other confederates in the rebellion had one Sabinus, a young gentleman of no mean spirit, and for fame and riches inferior to none. But having undertaken a very difficult enterprise, they miscarried; and therefore expecting nothing but death by the hand of justice, some of them killed themselves, others made their escapes as well as they could. As for Sabinus, he had all the opportunities that could be to save himself by flying to the barbarians; but he had married a lady, the best of women, which they called by the name of Empone, as much as to say a heroess. This woman it was not in his power to leave, neither could he carry her conveniently along with him. Having therefore in the country certain vaults or cellars under ground, where he had hid his treasures and movables of greatest value, which were only known to two of his freed bondmen, he dismissed all the rest of his servants, as if he had intended to poison himself.
[Amat. 25b] And taking along with him his two faithful and trusty servants, he hid himself in one of the vaults, and sent another of his enfranchised attendants, whose name was Martalius, to tell his wife that her husband had poisoned himself and that the house and his corpse were both burnt together, designing by the lamentation and unfeigned grief of his wife to make the report of his death the more easily believed; which fell out according to his wish. For the lady, so soon as she heard the news, threw herself upon the floor, and continued for three days together without meat or drink, making the most bitter outcries, and bewailing her loss with all the marks of a real and unfeigned anguish; which Sabinus understanding, and fearing her sorrow might prevail with her to lay violent hands upon herself, he ordered the same Martalius to tell her that he was yet alive and lay hid in such a place; however, that she should for a while continue her mourning, and be sure so to counterfeit her grief that she should not be discovered.
[Amat. 25c] And indeed in all other things the lady acted her part so well, and managed her passion to that degree, that no woman could do it better. But having still a longing desire to see her husband, she went to him in the night and returned again so privately that nobody took any notice of her. And thus she continued keeping him company for seven months together, that it might be said to differ very little from living in hell itself. Where after she had so strangely disguised Sabinus with a false head of hair, and such odd sort of habit, that it was impossible for him to be known, she carried him to Rome along with her undiscovered to several that met him. But not being able to obtain his pardon, she returned with him back to his den, and for many years lived with him under ground; only between whiles she went to the city, and there showed herself in public to several ladies, her friends and familiar acquaintance.
[Amat. 25d] But that which was the most incredible of all things, she so ordered her business that none of the ladies perceived her being with child, though she bathed at the same time with them. For such is the nature of that same ointment wherewith the women anoint their hair to make it of a red-golden color, that by its fatness and oiliness it plumps and swells up the flesh of the body, and brings it up to an embonpoint. So that the lady, no less liberal of her ointment than diligent to chafe and rub her body limb by limb, by the proportionable rising and swelling of her flesh in every part, concealed the swelling of her belly. And when she came to be delivered, she endured the pains of her child-bearing alone by herself, like a lioness, hiding herself in her den with her husband; and there, as I may say, she bred up in private her two male whelps. For at that time she was delivered of two boys, of which there was one who was slain in Egypt; the other, whose name was also Sabinus, was but very lately with us at Delphi.
[Amat. 25e] For this reason Caesar put the lady to death; but dearly paid for the murder by the utter extirpation of his whole posterity, which in a short time after was utterly cut off from the face of the earth. For during his whole reign, there was not a more cruel and savage act committed; neither was there any other spectacle which in all probability the Gods and Daemons more detested, or any from which they more turned away their eyes in abomination of the sight. Besides, she abated the compassion of the spectators by the stoutness of her behavior and the grandeur of her utterance, than which there was nothing that more exasperated Vespasian; when, despairing of her husband’s pardon, she did as it were challenge the emperor to exchange her life for his, telling him withal, that she accounted it a far greater pleasure to live in darkness under ground as she had done, than to reign in splendor like him.
[Amat. 26] 26. Here, as my father told me, ended the discourse concerning Love in the neighborhood of Thespiae; at what time they saw one of Pisias’s friends, by name Diogenes, coming at a good round pace towards them; to whom when Soclarus, while he was yet at a distance, cried out, No tidings of war, Diogenes, I hope? No, no, said he, that ne’er can be at a wedding; and therefore mend your pace, for the nuptial sacrifice stays only for your coming. All the rest of the company were exceeding glad, only Zeuxippus asked whether Pisias were still angry. On the contrary, said Diogenes, as he before opposed the match, so now he was the first to approve what Ismenodora had done; and at the same time, putting on a garland upon his head and throwing a white nuptial robe about his shoulders, he is to march before all the company through the market-place, to give thanks to the God of Love.
[Amat. 26b] Well done, by Jupiter, come away, come away then, cried my father, that we may laugh and be merry with our friend, and adore the Deity. For there is no doubt that he is propitiously present with his favor and approbation.