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Title: Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. I.

Author: Plutarch

Translator: T. G. Tucker

Release date: July 11, 2020 [eBook #62618]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Turgut Dincer, David King, and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED ESSAYS OF PLUTARCH, VOL. I. ***




Produced by Turgut Dincer, David King, and the Online
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file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive.)






                      Selected Essays of Plutarch




                      SELECTED ESSAYS OF PLUTARCH

                      TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION

                                   BY

                              T. G. TUCKER

                 LITT.D. (CAMB.), HON. LITT.D. (DUBLIN)
    PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

                               Volume I.

                                 OXFORD
                         AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
                                  1913

                           HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
                 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
                  LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, TORONTO
                          MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY




                                PREFACE


The essays here rendered into English have not been selected as the very
best pieces in Plutarch’s _Moralia_, but, first, as typical examples of
his writing in that kind, and, second, as covering between them a
tolerably large field of interesting matter. The _Moralia_ offer us
perhaps the best of all extant material for judging the civilization of
the middle classes of society just before and after the year 100 of our
era. From them and from Pliny’s _Letters_ we are able to form a fairly
complete picture of a large part of that sounder social element which
lay between the froth and the dregs.

In the Introduction some remarks are offered concerning Plutarch’s
literary style. Here it will suffice to say that the English version
does not seek to be either more formal or more vivacious, either more
imposing or more humorous, than the original. An attempt has been made
to preserve the tone as faithfully as the substance. In making Plutarch
write as he does in the following pages the translator hopes that _il ne
luy a au moins rien presté qui le desmente ou qui le desdie_. It is fair
to add that no modern version of the _Moralia_ has been consulted for
the purposes of this rendering. In the Introduction, however, one cannot
fail to owe much suggestion to Gréard and Volkmann.

In the spelling of Greek proper names every modern scholar must follow
his own best judgement. It does not follow that, because it is necessary
to say ‘Plato’ and usual to say ‘Parmenio’, it is equally judicious to
say ‘Chilo’. Nor can any safe rule be laid down for a choice between
‘Pisistratus’ and ‘Peisistratus’. Perhaps the most advisable course is
to safeguard, as far as possible, the pronunciation of those who are
unfamiliar with Greek, and the spelling ‘Pheidias’ may do something
towards correcting the common English tendency to pronounce the first
syllable as it is pronounced in ‘fiddle’. Notes upon the proper names
will be found after the text by readers who may require them.

The text generally adopted is that of Bernardakis in the Teubner series,
but recourse has been had throughout to Wyttenbach, and in a number of
places which are commonly acknowledged to be corrupt the translator has
ventured on a modest emendation of his own. These places are marked in
the translation by an asterisk in the margin, and the readings adopted
will be found at the end of the book in an appendix on the Greek text.
Critics would have saved themselves much trouble if they had observed
that, though hiatus is regularly avoided in the genuine writings of
Plutarch, no hiatus is created by a word ending in iota or upsilon,
vowels which carry a semi-vowel glide in themselves.

The orthodox order, Greek and Latin titles, and sectional references of
the pieces here chosen are as follows. The English titles belong to the
present version.

    ON BRINGING UP A BOY (περὶ παίδων ἀγωγῆς: _De liberis educandis_),
    1-14 C.

    ON THE STUDENT AT LECTURES (περὶ τοῦ ἀκούειν: _De recta ratione
    audiendi_), 37 C-48 D

    ON FAWNER AND FRIEND (πῶς ἄν τις διακρίνειε τὸν κόλακα τοῦ φίλου:
    _Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur_), 48 E-74 E.

    ADVICE TO MARRIED COUPLES (γαμικὰ παραγγέλματα: _Coniugalia
    praecepta_), 138 B-146.

    DINNER-PARTY OF THE SEVEN SAGES (τῶν ἑπτὰ σοφῶν συμπόσιον: _Septem
    sapientum convivium_), 146 B-164 D.

    ON GARRULOUSNESS (περί ἀδολεσχίας: _De garrulitate_), 502 B-515.

    CONCERNING BUSYBODIES (περὶ πολυπραγμοσύνης: _De curiositate_), 515
    B-523 B.

    ON MORAL IGNORANCE IN HIGH PLACES (πρὸς ἡγεμόνα ἀπαίδευ τον: _Ad
    principem ineruditum_), 779 D-782 F.

    ON OLD MEN IN PUBLIC LIFE (εἰ πρεσβυτέρῳ πολιτευτέον: _An seni
    respublica gerenda sit_), 783 B-797 F.


                              INTRODUCTION


The age in which Plutarch was educated and in which he wrote his
_Ethica_ is, from the literary point of view, closely similar to the
so-called ‘Augustan’ age of English writing. Of all the periods of
English style and thought, he would probably have found himself most at
home in that of Pope, Addison, and Steele, or in its continuation with
Goldsmith and Johnson. He flourished at a time when intellectual
interests were remarkably keen, if not very profound; when literature,
if for the most part it ventured on no high imaginative flights, did at
least aim at some practical bearing upon the conduct of life; when men
found entertainment, and probably some measure of moral or social help,
in the readable essay or the friendly epistle; when facts, merely as
such, were accepted as interesting if interestingly set forth; and when
Philosophy, if she deigned to keep her feet upon the ground and to speak
as one of the mortals, met with a due welcome from either sex. An
eighteenth-century Plutarch might conceivably have written the moral
papers of Johnson without Johnson’s ponderousness, or have contributed
to the _Spectator_ papers more full than Addison’s of those ‘ideas’ in
which Matthew Arnold found that writer so deficient. He might have
written, though in a prose form, the _Essay on Man_, being meanwhile as
willing as Pope to owe the bulk of his matter to other minds, but not so
willing as Pope to play the expositor without first playing the earnest
and critical student. Plutarch did not, so far as we are aware, try his
hand at verse. To judge by his comments upon poetic duty and by his
quotations—which are regularly taken from the best writers of a
classical age already far remote—his conception of the poetic office was
too exalted to permit of his dabbling in that domain. Had he done so,
and had he followed the fashion of his times, he would perhaps have come
nearer to our ‘Augustans’ even than in his prose. In poetry it was the
age of description, reflection, satire, and moralizing, in the highest
degree sensible, studiously informed with ‘wit’—in the broader Queen
Anne sense of that word—and characterized by extreme deftness of pointed
and quotable phrase, but in no sense creative, imaginative, or inspired.
Its ideal contents consisted of ‘what oft was thought, but ne’er so well
expressed’. The attitudes of both prose-writer and poet belonged to the
intellectual and aesthetic spirit of the period, and so far as that
spirit finds an individual embodiment in the Greek half of the Roman
Empire, it finds him in Plutarch of Chaeronea.

It would be difficult to suggest with any precision the place which
Plutarch might have filled in Victorian literature. A distinguished and
popular ‘man of letters’ and an educator of public opinion he assuredly
would have been. Given a width of reading, a persistent self-culture,
and a careful but unpedantic style, corresponding to those which he
practised in his own generation, he might have made—as he did then—an
admirable biographer and essayist. He might have been a contributor of
substantial papers to the quarterlies and other higher reviews. He
might, and probably would, have been an eminent lecturer; possibly, with
a broad practical Christianity substituted for his broad practical
Platonism, a preacher not only eminent but also in the best sense
popular. He would certainly have made a brilliant expositor of whatever
he undertook to expound. He was no Plato or Aristotle; he would have
been no Carlyle or Herbert Spencer; but he might have been much that
Macaulay was outside of politics.

As to the date of Plutarch’s birth there can be no certainty.
Approximately it may be put down as A. D. 48. It is accepted that his
death did not occur before the year 120; it may have taken place
somewhat, though not much, later. Born in the days of Claudius, he lived
through the reigns of Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus,
Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan, and saw at least the first three years of
the rule of Hadrian. He must have been nearly fifty before the last
tyrant of the early Empire fell, but the remainder of his life was spent
under the most beneficent régime, and amid the greatest peace and
prosperity, ever experienced in the ancient world. The _pax Romana_ was
at its profoundest, the sense of security at its fullest; the fact of
general well-being was everywhere most palpable. There was at the same
time, or in consequence, a vigorous revival of intellectual life. At no
period of antiquity would it have been possible for a man of studious
habits and of mild and genial disposition to enjoy a leisure so
undisturbed or a society so free from those forms of preoccupation which
preclude an engrossing interest in things purely of the mind. For the
orator who is fired by the natural heat of democratic politics, for the
patriotic poet from whom thrilling verse must be wrung by the wrongs,
the decline, or the yet unrealized aspirations of his country, there was
indeed no stimulation or scope. But for the cultivation of the
humanities, for the indulgence of a taste for art and _belles-lettres_,
for the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity, for the search after
interesting knowledge—physical, mathematical, antiquarian, historical,
philological—and for the thoughtful observation of men and manners, the
time was almost ideal. In the absence of anxious and absorbing problems
of the present there was leisure for a contemplative and critical survey
of the past, and for making acquaintance with ‘the best that had been
thought and said’ by it. Since the immediate human environment was no
longer distracted and distracting with the clamorous urgencies of
external or internal strife and danger, it was possible to look abroad
over a wider field, to contemplate the more spacious world of man and
his work, of Nature and her facts, beauties, and marvels. It was
therefore the age of the encyclopaedist, the traveller, the commentator,
the describer, the collector—collector of curiosities, of objects of
art, of books, of stories from history, of apophthegms, of pointed and
interesting quotations. The prevailing aim was mental and social
culture. This was the one object of education, however much its
professors might dissent from each other according to the degrees of
philistinism in their respective temperaments.

The aim of contemporary education—generally realized with more
definiteness than educational aims are wont to be in modern times—was to
turn the pupil into a gentleman, to equip him for the art of living and
conducting himself as such. There could, of course, hardly fail to be
those who regarded this _kalokagathia_ too much from the exterior point
of view, while others fixed their attention more decidedly, and often
perhaps too exclusively, upon the inward and spiritual grace. There were
also considerable differences between the Greek and Roman conceptions of
a gentleman. But in the main this end was universally avowed—to turn the
raw material of the boy into a man both capable and clubbable, whether
from a public or a private standpoint. The things to be sought were the
right accomplishments, the right morals, and the right manners. The
accomplishments included, beyond all else, literary information and
culture, argumentative dexterity, and a capacity for speech. The right
morals were based mainly upon reasoned self-command. The right manners
were chiefly those of urbanity, dignity, and that care of the person,
the voice, the dress, and the deportment upon which all ages have
insisted according to their several lights or tastes. It might be that
the teaching ‘philosopher’, whose concern was with the soundness of the
morals, had his quarrel with the teaching ‘sophist’, whose business was
with the rhetoric and its excellence for exhibition purposes or for the
gaining of various forms of influence. The philosopher might think the
sophist superficial, showy, and often actually pernicious, while the
sophist might look upon the philosopher as visionary, pedantic, and
often a positive clog upon practical efficiency. Nevertheless no
typically cultured person of the day would have questioned that, in
order to be complete—or, as Coleridge calls it, ‘orbicular’—education
must include its due measure of both forms of teaching.

After his years of infancy the boy, under the supervision of his
_paedagogus_—ideally a slave of superior character, but too often a
person who was merely useless for harder work—passed into a school,
where he was first taught his letters and then proceeded to the reading,
learning, and recital of classical poetry, to the study of music, and to
some acquaintance with elementary arithmetic and geometry. Next, taken
in hand by the rhetorical teacher in a higher school, he was made to
write and deliver descriptions and essays, mostly on trite and unreal
themes of a historical or pseudo-historical nature, to develop his
powers of invention on either side of a chosen topic, and to cultivate a
fastidious diction, pointed phrase, and the elocutionary arts and
graces. From artificial harangues and the ‘speaking of a piece’ he
advanced to the imaginary pleading of forensic cases, in which the law
was often as fictitious as the facts. When, upon reaching the age for
assuming the _toga virilis_, he was emancipated from the custody of the
_paedagogus_ and the discipline of the school, his formal education
commonly ceased. If he proceeded further, as many did, to what may be
considered as the equivalent of a university course, he might elect to
study philosophy, to study ‘sophistic’, or to dally with both in such
measure as seemed likely to set off the abilities or consolidate the
culture of a gentleman. Even in the more mature years of life the
intellectually-disposed grandee had a habit of maintaining near his
person a salaried philosopher as a kind of domestic monitor, and
audiences of wealth and fashion readily gathered in Rome and elsewhere
to listen to lectures on philosophy by professors who properly
understood the art of clear and pleasant exposition. For the most part
the typical Roman, less genuinely impassioned than the Greek for thought
pure and simple, looked upon any ‘specializing’ in philosophy as likely
to lead either to too cloistered a virtue or to the acquisition of
eccentric, if not dangerous, views. A certain modicum of philosophical
knowledge might be an adornment to life, and a certain modicum of
philosophical training might impart a steadiness to character, but the
study must not be pursued to the point at which the student himself
stood in danger of becoming a ‘philosopher’. With the Greeks
philosophical specializing was commonly subject to no such reprehension,
partly because of the inborn Hellenic ardour for study and esteem of
learning, partly because in this domain, even more than in the
rhetorical, the Greeks were the accepted teachers throughout the Roman
sphere.

This, or nearly this, was the attitude of the educational world in the
first decades of the second century, and it was in this world that
Plutarch of Chaeronea became a figure of special eminence and
distinction. For in whatever light the modern reader may regard Plutarch
as a man of letters, to his own times he was first and foremost an
educator. It is from this point of view that we must consider both his
_Parallel Lives_ and his _Moral Essays_, if we are to perceive in them
that unity of character and purpose which he intended all his work to
possess.

Plutarch, then, was born about A. D. 48 in the very heart of Greece, at
the comparatively small town of Chaeronea, famous as the scene of the
decisive victory of the Macedonians over the southern Greeks, and also
of that in which the forces of Mithridates were routed by Sulla. His
family must have been of high local standing, and the fact that his
father—a man of cultivated tastes and refined manners—was the owner of
the ‘finest kind of horses’ is enough to show, to those who appreciate
the significance of the word _hippotrophia_, that he must have been
possessed of considerable means. The same conclusion may be drawn both
from what Plutarch himself incidentally reveals concerning his brothers,
Lamprias and Timon, as well as other members of the family circle, and
also from what is known of his own life and upbringing. That as a boy he
passed through the orthodox curriculum, is obvious from his wide
acquaintance with literature and his intelligent, if not particularly
profound, references to both music and mathematics. When of an age to
receive an education in philosophy, he was placed, or placed himself,
chiefly under the distinguished Ammonius, an Alexandrian philosopher of
a broad semi-Platonist, semi-Peripatetic school, who had become
established in a prominent intellectual and public position at Athens.
It was the accepted rule for the student to attend, but not necessarily
to confine himself to, the lectures of a selected teacher. Often he
lived in that teacher’s house, or at least, in intimate connexion
therewith. If the philosopher was strictly conscientious he felt it his
duty to watch over the developing character of his pupil, to visit him
with any deserved reproof,[1] to serve as his father confessor, to
answer his questions, and to meet his moral and intellectual
difficulties. The familiar phrase ‘guide, philosopher, and friend’
perhaps describes the relations with unusual exactness. We find both
Plutarch and his brother in the company of Ammonius at Delphi when Nero,
in the year 66, graced that city with his imperial and artistic
presence.

His formal education completed, we discover little of the younger
manhood of Plutarch, except that he must have been in high local
estimation, partly, perhaps, from the position of his family, but
doubtless no less on account of his own conspicuous gifts. Had this not
been the case, he would hardly have been appointed as one of a
delegation of two sent on a mission to the Roman proconsul of the
province. At what age he was first entrusted with civic functions as
aedile, or with a Delphic priesthood (then merely a ceremonial office
open to any layman), or with other public positions, we cannot say. We
can only be sure that to his learning he added a recognizable capacity
for public business. However many hours he may have devoted to study and
to the compilation of those ample commonplace-books which evidently
served him in such good stead, he prided himself on carrying his
philosophic attainments into the local Chamber or on to the local
platform. In his judgement this procedure was not only a vindication of
philosophy and a method of keeping the faculties energetic; it was also
a patriotic duty.

As has been already said, this was an age of travel. Facilities of
transport were plentiful; the seas and main roads were secure from
pirate or enemy; journeys were at least as expeditious as at any modern
time until the employment of steam. We know of visits made by Plutarch
to Alexandria, various parts of Greece, Rome, and the north of Italy.
Rome he must have visited at least twice, and in this metropolis and
‘epitome of the world’ he made acquaintance with a large circle of men
of distinction, transacted public business (presumably on behalf of his
native town, of which he may have been sent as representative),
delivered lectures,[2] and apparently acted as a sort of consulting
physician to morally perturbed members of Roman society. He must have
spoken always in Greek, for he confesses that—like most other Greek
writers—he had given almost no attention to Latin; nor is any such
avowal needed from a person who, even after looking into the language,
believed _sine patris_ to be the Latin for ‘without a father’. Greek,
however, was then as much the universal language of the cultured as,
until recently, French was the universal accomplishment of fashion,
diplomacy, and the traveller.

The Rome with which Plutarch was immediately acquainted was the Rome of
Vespasian and of the earlier half of Domitian’s reign. Had his sojourn
in the capital taken place some fifteen or twenty years later, it is in
the highest degree probable that he would have been further known to us
through an acquaintance with Pliny or some other Roman writer of that
date. That a Greek, and especially one who had a difficulty in reading
Latin, should make no mention of contemporary Latin authors—that in his
heart he should rather despise them—is only characteristic of the
Hellenic attitude of the time. But that the amiable Pliny, who has an
appreciative word to say of almost every one within his social horizon,
including comparatively obscure philosophers like Euphrates, should say
nothing of so eminent a figure as Plutarch, amounts to evidence that the
two had never met. A man who could make close friends of consulars like
Sosius Senecio and Mestrius Florus, and who enjoyed an intimacy with
Paccius and Fundanus, could not have failed to win the notice of the
Horace Walpole of his day. Quintilian, Silius, Statius, Martial, Pliny,
Suetonius, and Juvenal were all writing when Plutarch was already the
coryphaeus of Greek culture, and if not one of them mentions his name,
it is because he was living in remote Chaeronea and forgathering only
with his chosen circle of philosophers, men of letters, artists, or
musicians in that town or in Athens, Corinth, and other Greek centres
near at hand.

To Chaeronea Plutarch must have retired by middle life. There he married
Timoxena, a lady of position, but of quiet tastes, had issue four sons
and a daughter, identified himself with the civic and religious concerns
of his town, delivered lectures, imparted instruction on the lines of a
modified or latitudinarian Platonic philosophy, industriously read the
books in his moderate but useful library, made copious extracts
therefrom, wrote his _Lives_ and those occasional papers known as his
_Ethica_ or _Moral Essays_, and enjoyed the discussion of many a knotty
question—often perhaps of little or no importance beyond the fact of its
forming a problem—in the agreeable society of his relatives or his
cultivated friends and guests. At such gatherings he was the leader,
doubtless dominating the conversation—though in his more courteous
way—somewhat as Johnson dominated the coterie described by Boswell.
Often, we gather, he varied this quiet course of life by means of
excursions to other Greek cities—Athens, Sparta, Aedepsus—where he most
probably delivered an occasional lecture, and where, as we are certain,
he thoroughly enjoyed himself in table-talk.[3]

That he gave philosophical education, though apparently not of a
systematic and pedagogic kind, to persons of both sexes is known from
his own references to the practice. Whether he did so for money or not,
we cannot tell. The later Platonists by no means felt bound to adopt the
attitude of Socrates and Plato towards the taking of fees. The world had
changed, and the _res angusta_ was often more powerful than a principle
which had ceased to appear entirely rational. But there is every reason
to suppose that Plutarch was a man of independent means; we know further
that a genial frugality was the rule of his household, and that he
entertained a becoming contempt for the obsequious or the advertiser.
The day of the endowed professor, whether of philosophy or sophistic,
was still to dawn for Greece under Marcus Aurelius, and it never dawned
at all for so small a town as Chaeronea. We may take it therefore that,
whether with or without fee or present, Plutarch was able to choose his
own pupils—in all likelihood the sons and daughters of his friends—and
that, in dealing with them or with a wider audience, he maintained the
fullest dignity and independence, and practised all the amiable candour
which he explicitly recommends.

For any lack of originality, of speculative audacity, of profundity (or
the obscurity which is so often mistaken for that virtue), Plutarch
fully compensates. To his generation he served as a milch-cow of
practical philosophy on its ethical side. He browsed on literature and
thought, secreted the most valuable constituents, and yielded the cream
to his hearers or readers. So far as he belonged to a philosophic
school, it was that of the Old Academy. In other words, he would have
labelled himself a Platonist. It is probable that he was as much
attracted by the superb literary style of Plato, the nature of the man,
and the nobility of his conceptions, as by anything capable of
crystallization into a philosophy. These qualities attracted even the
dilettante, while in the more specially philosophic world time had done
much to refract the real Plato, to extract dogma from him, and to create
a large _Aberglaube_ about his writings. Be that as it may, there is
much in Plato that Plutarch does not accept, and there is much outside
of Plato to which he gives a welcome. Towards Stoics and
Epicureans—whose doctrines, like those of the Christians, would
logically withhold men from public activity—he is distinctly, though
never virulently, hostile, and when his pen ranges itself against
particular schools, it is against these.[4] It is easier, in fact, to
say to what sect Plutarch did not belong than to associate him
definitively with any other. Nevertheless it is as a Platonist that he
would have classed himself, and it is especially by the later
Neo-Platonists that he was quoted as a divinely gifted writer who lent
literary charm and potency to wisdom. So broad, however, was his
teaching, and in many respects so adaptable even to Christianity, that
early writers of the Church had no scruple in borrowing liberally from
him.[5]

Into whatever shape he may have systematized his views, and however
popular his treatment of them, Plutarch ranked with the philosophers. If
he was opposed to Stoicism and Epicureanism, he was, like other
philosophers, no less opposed to sophistic. To him the representatives
of that art were apt to seem shallow and showy.[6]

He held, with the Socratics in general, that the basis of right action
is knowledge, and he had no belief in empiricism. Not that he rejected
either established moral views or established religion. He was no
sceptic, still less an atheist. As Friedländer has well argued, there
was no ancient cult of atheism. Plutarch, indeed, is remarkably
receptive in the matter of deities. The Egyptian worship of Isis and
Osiris, which had made great progress throughout the Roman Empire,
appeared to him equally tenable with the worship practised by his own
ancestors. In the polytheism in which he acquiesced, such divinities
were only other forms of those known in Hellas, and he found no
difficulty in reconciling and combining the two sets of notions and
cults. He was deeply tinged with Orientalism, though his culture and his
natural good taste made him despise corybantic demonstrations and what
Friedländer has called ‘dirty mortifications’. He held the Eranian
belief in daemonic agencies, which acted upon mankind from the one side
as the gods did from the other. If he appears to rise to the conception
of ‘God’ in the singular, the word is rather to be taken as denoting the
sum of divine wisdom and beneficent dispensation. Like all the best
minds of his own and many a previous generation, he found moral
difficulties in accepting the characters ascribed to the deities in the
best literature of earlier Greece, and therefore, while approving of the
established education in poetry, he necessarily felt some qualms as to
the possible effects. Poetry served in the schools ‘as introduction to
philosophy, history, geography, and astronomy’, and it had much to do
with the formation of religious and ethical notions. Homer, Pindar,
Sophocles, and Menander were ‘learned and wise’, and boys were brought
to regard them as inspired. Hence Plutarch’s treatise on _Poets as Moral
Teachers of the Young_. The point of view in that essay is not, indeed,
entirely rational. It was not so easy for Plutarch as it is for us to
realize that moral and religious ideas in Greek literature had passed
through an evolution corresponding to the development of intellect and
society. Instead of frankly recognizing the limitations of Homer or the
inconsistencies of the dramatists in this respect, he puts a highly
ingenious constraint upon the connexion between any dubious sentiment
and its context. It is only when he fails in such a _tour de force_ that
he consents to censure the poet. In this procedure he was by no means
the first. The battle of the ‘takers of objection’ (προβληματικοί) and
the ‘solvers of difficulties’ (λυτικοί) was centuries old. That Plutarch
should range himself as far as possible with the solvers is a
circumstance which would naturally follow both from his love of
literature and from his constitutionally reverential temperament.

As has been often observed, the purpose running through the _Parallel
Lives_ and the _Moral Essays_ is one and the same. The philosophy of
Plutarch was ethical. For logic and dialectic he shows no liking. His
object was to relate philosophy to life, to bring home a philosophy
which could be lived. By philosophy he meant the best conduct of life,
based on an understanding of the nature of virtue—τὸ καλόν, the right,
the honourable, the becoming. From philosophy we are to learn not only
what is due to ourselves, but what is due to the gods, to the laws, to
parents, children, friends, enemies, fellow-citizens, and strangers. The
_Essays_, like those of Seneca or Bacon, deal with separable components
or manifestations of right and wrong character, with duties and
circumstances: the _Lives_ meanwhile afford us concrete examples or
object lessons from history.[7] Yet life, even that of a philosopher, is
not made up entirely of preaching and exhortation, least of all when the
philosopher is at the same time a man of the world and a man of letters.
Plutarch felt a lively interest in all such posers as were mooted in the
talk of the table or of the loungers’ club. He therefore includes among
his occasional papers—whether written by request or under the
fashionable fiction of a request—a number of treatises on physical,
antiquarian, literary, and artistic topics which can hardly be said to
bear with any immediateness upon the ethical perfection of the reader.
As a change, therefore, from the treatment of _Superstition_ or
_Inquisitiveness_ or _The Restraint of Anger_, of _Rules for Married
Couples_ and _Rules of Health_ and rules for _The Student at Lecture_,
he may in a spare moment discuss such matters as _The Face in the Moon_
or questions in Roman custom.

The majority of the pieces in the present selection speak for
themselves. With the one exception to be mentioned immediately, they all
bear the impress of the man. There is the same moral broadmindedness and
sobriety, the same shrewd sense of _le bonhomme Plutarque_, the same
faculty for popularizing[8] without descending to vapidity, the same
knack of relieving the sermon by means of anecdote, quotation, or
interesting item of information at the point where the discourse
threatens to become tedious. It is true that the German critic, in his
indefatigable search for the _unecht_, has impugned the authorship of
the _Dinner-Party of the Seven Sages_[9] on grounds unintelligible to
those who do not expect a dinner-table conversation to be a systematic
treatise, and who are satisfied to believe that a mixture of serious
talk, banter, and narrative, and a frequent transition of subject, are
precisely the things for which one would look on such an occasion. Every
feature of the style is Plutarchan, and, if Plutarch did not write the
piece, we can only feel unmixed regret that he did not, and unmixed
surprise that its real author should sacrifice the credit of his
performance. With the article on _The Bringing-up of a Boy_ the case is
different. Wyttenbach has sufficiently pointed out its frequent
feebleness of argument, its turbid arrangement, the exceeding triteness
of its ideas, and its unaccountable omissions. To us moderns it is of
great interest for the light which it throws on the education of the
period, and for its incidental revelations of the conditions of domestic
life and the domestic affections. Otherwise it is a puerile performance
and savours of nothing but the student essay. If it be argued that it is
one of Plutarch’s juvenile works, the answer is that it is unlike him to
be disingenuous; and disingenuous he must be, if in his early youth he
pretends to have ‘often impressed upon parents’ this or that. Antiquity
produced far too many amateur essays in imitation of great
authors—imitations actually ascribed to those authors by a recognized
fiction of the schools—for us to do an injustice to Plutarch when an
easier solution lies so close to our hands. Perhaps, again, the piece on
_Fawner and Friend_[10] suffers from an occasional _longueur_, but there
are few writers who do not at some less felicitous moment perpetrate
paragraphs less vivacious than their average.

As a stylist Plutarch is apt to be underrated. He is, it is true, no
laborious atticist, and makes no point of writing like a purist in the
classic manner of a Plato or a Lysias. But this does not mean that he is
in the least negligent in either word or sentence. On the contrary, his
words are selected with extreme care, and his sentences—where the text
is sound, as for the most part it is—are rounded off and interlinked as
watchfully as any natural writing need require. It is true that his
vocabulary is large and his expression full, but, when his words are
properly weighed and their metaphorical and other differentiations duly
perceived, no understanding reader will call him verbose.[11] He
displays an immense command of language, but no word plays an idle part,
and if (like Cicero, whom in many respects he resembles) he is fond of
joining what are erroneously called synonyms, it needs but little
appreciation of verbal values to realize that the added words invariably
carry some amplification, some more precise definition, or some emphasis
helpful to a full grasp upon the sense. It is true also that his
sentences are apt to appear—like the sentences of Ruskin’s earlier
days—somewhat lengthy; nevertheless they commonly atone by lucidity of
construction for any demand they may make upon sustained attention.[12]
In a modern English dress they must necessarily be broken up, but a
practised reader of Plutarch finds no more difficulty with them in the
original than he would find with a passage of Demosthenes or Plato. To
one who becomes familiar with them they are at least as agreeable as the
staccato brevities of Seneca. What chiefly exacts some effort from the
reader of Plutarchan Greek is the fact that its words are
extraordinarily charged with metaphor and allusion.[13] His choice of
one word rather than another is always nicely calculated. This truth
once recognized, a reader cannot fail to admire both the consistency
with which the writer maintains his similitude while he is upon it, and
also the copious resources of vocabulary upon which he draws for the
purpose. Meanwhile, despite any length of sentence and fullness of
praise, Plutarch neither irritates with tricks and mannerisms nor
wearies with pedantry and ponderousness. A pedant he could not be. He is
no writer of Johnsonese. To him the best words are those which best suit
their context, and he has no objection whatever to a dash of the
colloquial or a touch of the homely or naïve. It is one of his
characteristic merits that he knows when to take the higher and when the
lower road of diction. He also knows when he is in danger of stylistic
monotony. Plutarch was a teacher, but, like all truly intelligent
members of that profession, he recognized that the most uninspiring
attitude to adopt is the severely and unremittingly pedagogic. ‘The
knack of style,’ it has been said, ‘is to write like a human being,’ and
Plutarch, a professor of humanity without a chair, is always and
entirely human. That his pen must have moved with extraordinary facility
is evident from the number of his publications. Apart from his _Lives_
(of which not all are extant), his _Moralia_ include over eighty pieces,
long or short, and it is certain that many others had disappeared[14]
before the present collection became available in its eleventh-century
MS.

It is not here implied that he is never culpable, never over-loaded.
There are times, though rare ones, at which we feel that his memory or
his notebook has been unduly exploited. We feel that he might have
spared us an illustration which does not illustrate or a similitude
which is deficient in similarity. To a certain extent he is a Euphuist,
and though Guevara perhaps owed nothing directly to him (as he did to
Seneca[15]), it is manifest that Plutarch sometimes strains a point in
order to achieve an over-ingenious comparison. The contagion of the
thing, like that of Euphuism in the Elizabethan age, was in the air, and
Plutarch assuredly does not err more often or more heinously with one
generation than Shakespeare did with another. Wide reading and natural
fecundity easily slip into sins which narrow resources and slow
invention are impotent to commit.

                  *       *       *       *       *

There are numerous signs that the pendulum of classical interest is
swinging in the direction of the literature of the early Empire. The
exclusive _toujours perdrix_ of the Attic and Ciceronian periods has
apparently begun to jade the palate, and writers like Seneca and
Plutarch are coming into their own once more. There was a time when
these authors were perhaps better known than any others. That they were
worthy of prime consideration is manifest from the immense influence
which they exercised upon the ardent and inquiring spirits of the
sixteenth and following centuries, in England no less than on the
Continent. Authors who could make such an appeal to Montaigne, to the
Elizabethan dramatists, to Bacon, or to Jeremy Taylor,[16] are surely
not to be despised because they belong stylistically to a ‘silver’ age,
or because their strength lies mostly in the fact that they are a mine
of ideas, wise saws, and pointed moral instances. Seneca, as being a
writer of Latin, was naturally the earlier and more widely read,[17] but
from the publication of the _editio princeps_ of Plutarch by Aldus in
1509 our author sprang into peculiar estimation among the recovered
spirits of antiquity. It was, however, due to Amyot that both his
_Lives_ and his _Essays_ became accessible to those who had little or no
Greek. The _Essays_ were rendered into idiomatic French by that
admirable translator in the year 1572,[18] and Montaigne was by no means
the only reader among _nous autres ignorans_ who made the Plutarch of
Amyot his breviary, and who ‘drew his water incessantly’ from him. It
was not the literary etiquette of the Elizabethan age to acknowledge all
the obligations one might owe even to a contemporary, much less to the
ancients, and the stores of Plutarch might be rifled without much fear
of detection, and certainly with no fear of reproach. When Lyly, in
_Euphues and his Ephoebus_,[19] takes it in hand to bring up a child in
the way he should go, he is in a large measure simply translating,
expanding, and emphasizing the pseudo-Plutarch on the _Bringing-up of a
Boy_ and interspersing the discourse with pickings from other essays,
particularly that on _Garrulousness_.[20] Montaigne, of course, with his
bland unreserve, credits Plutarch via Amyot with a multitude of
observations, while Bacon, when following the new vogue of the essay,
sometimes refers us to ‘Plutarke’, and at least on one occasion informs
us that ‘Mountaigny saith’ a thing which on reference to the said
‘Mountaigny’ we find to be Plutarchan.

Though it is no part of the present Introduction to examine in detail
the influence of the philosopher of Chaeronea upon modern writers, or to
make an inventory of his contributions to English literature, it is at
least worth asking whether an author whom genius once delighted to
exploit, and from whom so many good things have filtered down to us
through various channels, may not be well worth reading at first hand.
To Professor Mahaffy[21] Plutarch ‘is a pure and elevating writer, full
of precious information, and breathing a lofty moral tone’, and to
Professor Gilbert Murray[22] he is ‘one of the most tactful and charming
of writers, and one of the most lovable characters in antiquity’. Said
Emerson[23]: ‘Plutarch will be perpetually rediscovered from time to
time as long as books last.’

Footnote 1:

  The reproof might ostensibly be general, but its particular
  application was readily felt. Musonius, we are told by Epictetus, made
  all his hearers feel ‘as if some one had been talking to him about
  them’.

Footnote 2:

  See _Concerning Busybodies_, 522 E.

Footnote 3:

  Over and above his resemblances to Macaulay as a writer of essays and
  biographical history, there is a distinct similarity between their
  conversational tastes. We can imagine a Plutarch fully at home with
  Macaulay at one of those astonishing early Victorian breakfast-parties
  where a man might be asked if he ‘knew his Popes’, and where he might
  be endured while he recited them. Plutarch’s _Table-Talk_, like his
  _Dinner-Party of the Seven Sages_, reveals for contemporary Greek
  society the same deliberate cult of intellectual conversation
  sharpened by challenge and debate. In such conversation he must
  himself have played a conspicuous part. Nevertheless, it may fairly be
  gathered that the Greek or Graeco-Roman interlocutors in the reign of
  Trajan were the more ingenuously athirst for reciprocal enlightenment,
  however dubiously we may regard the value of the information or
  misinformation actually gained. Nor is it easy to believe that
  Plutarch would have thought it etiquette to indulge in the protracted
  monologues to which the more modern society submitted with such grace
  as it best could.

Footnote 4:

  e.g. in his _De repugnantiis Stoicorum_ and his _Non posse suaviter
  vivi secundum Epicurum_. Yet, as Mahaffy says, ‘it would be hard to
  say whether the number of Stoic dogmas which he rejects exceeds that
  which he quotes with approval’ (_The Greek World under Roman Sway_,
  pp. 300 sqq.).

Footnote 5:

  Volkmann names in particular Clement of Alexandria and Basil.

Footnote 6:

  This does not mean that he had no friends among the rhetorical
  teachers (the contrary is shown by his reference to ‘our Niger’ in
  _praec. san._, § 16), but only that he distrusted the type. He refused
  to approve of a fluent and polished style as an end in itself. Pliny
  describes how the amazingly voluble Isaeus would offer his audience a
  choice of subject and allow it to dictate the side which he should
  take. He would then rise and demonstrate his extemporizing powers with
  much show of rhetorical ornament.

Footnote 7:

  Volkmann says of the _Lives_, ‘Das Werthvolle an ihnen sind nicht die
  historischen Details, die er giebt, sondern die eingestreuten
  Reflexionen, die ethischen Betrachtungen, das Eingehen auf
  individuelle Stimmungen und Leidenschaften der grossen Männer.’

Footnote 8:

  _Aulicis tantum scripsit, non doctis_, says Scaliger.

Footnote 9:

  Volkmann guesses that it is _ein Produkt der späteren Sophistik_. If
  so, we may congratulate the Sophist on his perfect reproduction of
  Plutarch’s style and of his non-sophistic tone.

Footnote 10:

  Bacon’s Essay _Of Followers and Friends_ owes almost nothing to
  Plutarch beyond the title. We do, however, find him borrowing the
  words ‘for there is no such Flatterer as a Man’s selfe’.

Footnote 11:

  As Volkmann happily puts it, he writes ‘with comfortable breadth’.

Footnote 12:

  The sentences would doubtless have been easier still if Plutarch had
  not felt bound to follow the fashion of the time and elaborately avoid
  hiatus.

Footnote 13:

  Perhaps this is why Plutarch, as seen through Amyot, appeared to
  Montaigne ‘close and thorny,’ while his sense was nevertheless
  ‘closely-jointed and pithily-continued’.

Footnote 14:

  Stobaeus (sixth century) had access to much of Plutarch that is now
  lost.

Footnote 15:

  See an observation of Professor Summers, _Seneca Select Letters_,
  Introduction, p. lxxiv.

Footnote 16:

  Plutarch ‘is the theme of more than 230 allusions or direct references
  on the part of Jeremy Taylor’ (Sandys, _A History of Classical
  Scholarship_, i. 300).

Footnote 17:

  He was familiar reading of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and
  appears in the _Gesta Romanorum_. Later the _Adagia_ of Erasmus draw
  freely upon him.

Footnote 18:

  ‘Il a en quelque sorte créé Plutarque,’ says Demogeot.

Footnote 19:

  _Euphues_ appeared in 1579. Jusserand (_The English Novel in the Time
  of Shakespeare_, p. 127) remarks that Euphues ‘addresses moral
  epistles to his fellow men to guide them through life’, but he appears
  to be unaware that Lyly borrowed this object, as well as so large a
  quantity of his matter, from Plutarch.

Footnote 20:

  We meet, for example, with the story of Zeno, ‘the olde man in Athens
  that amiddest the pottes could hold his peace.’

Footnote 21:

  _History of Greek Classical Literature_, ii. 427.

Footnote 22:

  _The Literature of Ancient Greece_, p. 396.

Footnote 23:

  Quoted by Sandys (_A History of Classical Scholarship_, i. 300).




                                CONTENTS


             Dinner-Party of the Seven Sages             27

             On Old Men in Public Life                   65

             Advice to Married Couples                   96

             Concerning Busybodies                      113

             On Garrulousness                           130

             On the Student at Lectures                 157

             On Moral Ignorance in High Places          180

             Fawner and Friend                          187

             On Bringing up a Boy                       241

             Notes on Persons and Places                267


             Appendix: Notes on the Greek Text          295




_In the following imaginary ‘Dinner-Party of the Seven Sages’ the
supposed narrator is a certain Diocles of Corinth, a professional
diviner and expiator of omens connected with the court of Periander, who
was despot of Corinth from 625_ B. C. _to 585_ B. C. _The dramatic date
is towards the close of that period. It must not be assumed that
Plutarch is pretending to be historical, and anachronisms must be
disregarded._

_The Seven Sages are here Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Solon, Chilon,
Cleobulus, Anacharsis (see Notes on Persons and Places). The list varies
with different writers, but Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon are
invariably, and Chilon is regularly, included in the canon. Periander is
himself sometimes made one of the number, and a certain Myson also
appears._

_The qualities which constituted a ‘sage’ in this connexion were those
of keen practical sense and insight, and a power of crystallizing the
results into pithy maxims. He was not a ‘philosopher’ in the later sense
of that word._




                    DINNER-PARTY OF THE SEVEN SAGES


We [Sidenote: 146 B] may be sure, Nicarchus, that in process of time
facts will become so obscured as to be altogether beyond ascertainment,
seeing that in the present instance, where they are so fresh and recent,
the world accepts accounts of them which are pure concoctions. In the
first place, the party at dinner did not consist—as you have been
told—merely of seven, but of [Sidenote: C] more than twice that number.
I was myself included, both as being professionally intimate with
Periander and as the host of Thales, who had taken up his quarters with
me by Periander’s directions. In the second place, whoever related the
conversation to you, reported it incorrectly. Presumably he was not one
of the company. Inasmuch, therefore, as I have plenty of spare time and
my years do not warrant me in putting off the narrative with any
confidence, I will—since you are all so eager—tell you the whole story
from the beginning.

Periander [Sidenote: D] had prepared his entertainment, not in the city,
but in the banquet-hall at Lechaeum, close to the temple of Aphrodite,
the festival being in her honour. For after having refused to sacrifice
to Aphrodite since the love-affair which led to his mother’s suicide, he
was now for the first time, thanks to certain dreams on the part of
Melissa, induced to pay honour and court to that goddess.

Inasmuch as it was summer-time and the road all the way to the sea was
crowded with people and vehicles, and therefore full of dust and a
confusion of traffic, each of the invited guests was supplied with a
carriage and pair handsomely caparisoned. Thales, however, on seeing the
carriage at the door, simply [Sidenote: E] smiled and sent it away.
Accordingly we turned off the road and proceeded to walk quietly through
the fields, a third member of our party being Niloxenus of Naucratis, a
man of high character who had formed a close acquaintance with Solon and
Thales in Egypt. His presence was due to his having been sent on another
mission to Bias. Of its purpose he was himself unaware, although he
suspected that the sealed document of which he was the bearer contained
a second problem for solution. He had been instructed, in case Bias
could do nothing, to show the missive to the wisest of the Greeks. ‘It
is a godsend to me,’ [Sidenote: F] said Niloxenus, ‘to find you all
here, and, as you perceive’—showing us the paper—‘I am bringing the
letter to the dinner.’ At this Thales remarked with a laugh, ‘In case of
trouble, once more to Priene![24] For Bias will solve the difficulty, as
he did the first, without assistance.’ ‘What do you mean,’ said I, ‘by
“the first”?’ ‘The king,’ replied Thales, ‘sent him an animal for
sacrifice, and bade him pick out and send back the worst and best
portion of the meat. Thereupon our friend, with excellent judgement,
took out and sent the tongue; and he is manifestly held in high repute
and admiration in consequence.’ [Sidenote: 147] ‘That is not the only
reason,’ said Niloxenus, ‘Bias does not object—as you do—to be, and to
be called, a friend of kings. In your own case the king not only admires
you on general grounds, but he was hugely delighted with your method of
measuring the pyramid. Without any fuss or the need of any instrument,
you stood your stick at the end of the shadow thrown by the pyramid, and
the fall of the sunlight making two triangles, you showed that the
pyramid stood in the same ratio to the stick as the one shadow to the
other.[25] But, as I observed, you were charged with being a king-hater,
and [Sidenote: B] certain outrageous expressions of yours concerning
despots were reported to him. For example, when asked by the Ionian
Molpagoras what was the strangest sight you had seen, you answered, “An
aged despot.” Again, at a drinking-party, when the talk fell upon
animals, you stated that among wild animals the worst was the despot,
and among tame animals the sycophant. However much a king may claim to
differ from a despot, he does not welcome language of that kind.’ ‘Nay,’
said Thales, ‘the former remark belongs to Pittacus, who once made it in
a playful attack on Myrsilus. My own observation [Sidenote: C] was that
I should regard as a strange sight, not an aged despot, but an aged
navigator. None the less, my feelings at the altered version are those
of the young fellow who, after throwing at the dog and hitting his
step-mother, remarked, “Not so bad, after all.” Yes, I regarded Solon as
very wise in refusing to act the despot. Our Pittacus also, if he had
kept clear of monarchy, would not have said that “_it is hard to be
good_”. As for Periander, his despotism may be regarded as an inherited
disease, from which he is making a creditable recovery, inasmuch as up
to the present he keeps wholesome company, cultivates the society of
sensible men, and will have nothing to say to that “cutting down of the
tall poppies” suggested by my fellow-countryman [Sidenote: D]
Thrasybulus. A despot who desires to rule over slaves rather than men is
no better than a farmer who is ready to reap a harvest of darnel and
cammock in preference to wheat and barley. Among the many undesirable
features of despotic rule, the one desirable element is the honour and
glory, in a case where the subjects are good but the ruler is better,
and where they are great but he is regarded as greater. If he is
satisfied with safety without honour, his right course would be to rule
over a herd of sheep, horses, or oxen, not over human beings. However,
[Sidenote: E] your visitor here has launched us upon an inopportune
topic. We are walking to a dinner, and he should have remembered to moot
questions suited to the occasion. For you will doubtless admit that
there is a certain preparation necessary for the guest as well as for
the host. The people of Sybaris, I understand, send their invitations to
the women a year in advance, so that they may have plenty of time to
prepare their dress and their jewelry before coming to dinner. In my own
opinion one who is to play the diner in the proper way requires still
more time for real and true preparation, inasmuch as it is harder to
arrive at the appropriate adornment of character than at the useless and
superfluous adornment of the person. When a man of sense comes to
[Sidenote: F] dinner, he does not bring himself to be filled like a
vessel, but to contribute something either serious or sportive. He is to
listen or talk about such matters as the occasion asks of the company,
if they are to find pleasure in each other’s society. An inferior dish
may be put aside, and if a wine is poor, one may take refuge with the
Nymphs.[26] But when your table-companion is an ill-bred bore who gives
you a headache, he utterly ruins the enjoyment of any wine or dish or
musical entertainment. [Sidenote: 148] Nor have you the resource of an
emetic for that kind of annoyance, but in some cases the mutual
antipathy lasts all your life, an insulting or angry incident at your
wine having resulted in a kind of nausea. Chilon was therefore quite
right when, on receiving his invitation yesterday, he only accepted
after ascertaining the full list of the guests. As he remarked, when
people cannot help going to sea or on a campaign, and a shipmate or
tentmate proves disagreeable, they are obliged to put up with him; but
no sensible man will form one of an indiscriminate wine-party. The mummy
which the Egyptians regularly bring in and exhibit at their parties,
bidding you [Sidenote: B] remember that you will very soon be like it,
may be an unwelcome and unseasonable boon-companion; yet the custom is
not without its point. Even if it may not incite you to drink and enjoy
yourself, it does incite to mutual liking and regard. “Life,” it urges,
“is short in duration; do not make it long by vexations.”’

After talk of this nature on the way we arrived at the house. As we had
anointed ourselves, Thales decided not to take a bath, but proceeded to
visit and inspect the race-tracks, the wrestling-grounds, and the
handsomely decorated park along the shore. Not that he was greatly taken
with anything of that kind, but he would not appear to despise or slight
Periander’s display [Sidenote: C] of public spirit. The other guests, as
soon as each had anointed himself or bathed, were being led by the
servants through the cloister into the dining-room. Anacharsis, however,
was seated in the cloister, and in front of him stood a girl, who was
parting his hair with her hands. Upon her running to meet Thales in the
frankest possible manner, he kissed her and said with a laugh, ‘That’s
right: make our foreign visitor beautiful, so that he may not frighten
us by looking like a savage, when he is really a most civilized person.’
Upon my asking him who the child was, he replied, ‘Don’t you know the
wise and far-famed [Sidenote: D] Eumetis? That, by the way, is her
father’s name for her, though most people call her Cleobuline, after
him.’ ‘I presume,’ said Niloxenus, ‘your compliment refers to the girl’s
cleverness in constructing riddles. Some of her puzzles have found their
way as far as Egypt.’ ‘Not at all,’ rejoined Thales. ‘Those are merely
the dice with which, on occasion, she plays a match for fun in
conversation. There is more in her than that: an admirable spirit, a
practical intellect, and an amiable character, by which she renders her
father’s rule over his fellow country-men more gentle and popular.’
‘Yes,’ remarked Niloxenus, ‘one [Sidenote: E] can see it by looking at
her simplicity and unpretentiousness. But how is it she is attending to
Anacharsis so affectionately?’ ‘Because,’ was the answer, ‘he is a man
of virtue and learning, and has given her zealous and ungrudging
instruction in the Scythian manner of dieting and purging the sick. I
should say that at the present moment, while looking after the gentleman
so amiably, she is getting some lesson and talking it over.’

As we were just approaching the dining-room, we were met by Alexidemus
of Miletus, the natural son of the despot Thrasybulus. [Sidenote: F] He
was coming out in a state of excitement and angrily muttering something
which conveyed no meaning to us. When he saw Thales he collected himself
a little, stopped, and said: ‘Look how we have been insulted by
Periander! He would not allow me to take ship home when I was anxious to
do so, but begged me to stay for the dinner; and, when I come to it, he
assigns me a degrading place at table, and lets Aeolians, islanders, and
goodness knows whom, take precedence of Thrasybulus. For since I was
commissioned by Thrasybulus, it is evident that, in my person, he means
to insult and humiliate [Sidenote: 149] him, by treating him as if he
were nobody.’ ‘I see,’ said Thales, ‘what you are afraid of. In Egypt
they say of the stars, according to their increase or decrease of
altitude in the regions they traverse, that they become ‘better’ or
‘worse’ than themselves. You are afraid that in your own case your place
at table may mean a similar loss of brightness and eminence, and you
propose to show less spirit than the Lacedaemonian, who, upon being put
by the director in the last place in a chorus, remarked, “A capital way
of making even this place one of honour.” When we take our places,’
continued Thales, ‘we should not ask who have seats above us, but how we
are to make ourselves agreeable to our immediate neighbours. As a means
of immediately securing a beginning of friendly feeling on their part,
we should cultivate, [Sidenote: B] or rather bring with us, instead of
irritation, a tone of satisfaction at being placed in such good company.
The man who is annoyed with his place at table is more annoyed with his
next neighbour than with his host, and he earns the dislike of both.’
‘That,’ retorted Alexidemus, ‘is mere talk. In practice I notice that
even you sages are greedy for precedence’—and therewith he passed us and
went off. Upon our expressing surprise at the man’s peculiar behaviour,
Thales said, ‘A crazy person, constitutionally wrong-headed. When he was
still a mere lad and a quantity of valuable perfume had been presented
to Thrasybulus, he emptied it into a big wine-cooler, poured in some
neat wine, and drank it off, thereby bringing ill-odour upon [Sidenote:
C] Thrasybulus instead of the contrary.’

At this point an attendant came up and said, ‘Periander requests you to
take Thales here along with you and examine an object which has just
been brought to him, to see whether it is a mere matter of accident or
signifies something portentous. He appears himself to be greatly
agitated, regarding it as a pollution, and as a smirch upon the
festival.’ Whereupon he proceeded to lead us to one of the apartments
off the garden. Here a youth, apparently a herdsman, still beardless and
with considerable handsomeness of person, opened a leather wrapper and
displayed a baby thing which he told us was the offspring of a mare. The
upper parts, as far as the neck and arms, were human, the lower parts
equine; its voice when it cried was that [Sidenote: D] of a new-born
child. Niloxenus, exclaiming ‘Heaven help us!’ turned away from the
sight; but Thales took a prolonged look at the young fellow, and with a
smile remarked—in accordance with his regular habit of twitting me in
connexion with my profession—‘I suppose, Diocles, you are thinking of
setting your purifications to work and giving trouble to the averting
powers, in the belief that a great and terrible thing has happened?’ ‘Of
course I am, Thales,’ said I, ‘for the token indicates strife and
discord, and I am afraid it may affect no less a matter than marriage
and its issue. As you see, before we have expiated the original offence,
the goddess is giving warning of a second.’ [Sidenote: E] To this Thales
made no answer, but began to move off—laughing. Upon Periander coming to
the door to meet us, and putting questions as to what we had seen,
Thales turned from me, took him by the hand, and said: ‘Anything Diocles
bids you do, you will perform at your leisure. My own advice is to be
more careful as to your herdsmen.’ On hearing this speech Periander
appeared to be greatly delighted, for he burst out laughing and hugged
and kissed Thales, who observed: ‘I should say, Diocles, that the sign
has found its fulfilment already; for you see what a serious misfortune
has befallen us in the [Sidenote: F] refusal of Alexidemus to be present
at dinner.’

When we had actually entered the room, Thales, speaking in a louder
tone, said: ‘And where was the seat to which the gentleman objected?’
Upon the place being pointed out, he went round and occupied it himself,
taking me with him, and remarking: ‘Why, I would have paid something for
the [Sidenote: 150] privilege of sharing the same table with Ardalus.’
The Ardalus in question was a Troezenian, a flute-player and priest of
the Ardalian Muses, whose worship was established by the original
Ardalus of Troezen. Thereupon Aesop—who happened to have arrived
recently on a simultaneous mission from Croesus to Periander and to the
god at Delphi, and was present on a low stool close to where Solon was
reclining above—said, ‘A Lydian mule, having caught sight of his
reflection in a river and conceived an admiration for the size and
beauty of his body, gave a toss of his mane and set out to run like a
horse; but after a while, reflecting that he was the son of an ass, he
quickly [Sidenote: B] stopped his career and dropped his pride and
conceit.’ At this Chilon, speaking in broad Laconian, observed: ‘Ye’re
slow yersel, an’ ye’re running the mule’s gait.’

At this point Melissa came in and reclined beside Periander, whereas
Eumetis sat at her dinner.

Thales, addressing me—I was on the couch above Bias—said: ‘Diocles, why
don’t you inform Bias that our visitor from Naucratis has come to him
again with royal problems to solve, so that he may be sober and capable
of looking after himself when he receives the communication?’ Bias
replied: ‘Nay, our friend here has been trying for a long time to
frighten me with that warning. But I am aware that, besides his other
capacities, Dionysus is styled _Solver_[27] in right of wisdom. I feel
[Sidenote: C] no fear, therefore, that my being “filled with the god”
will cause me to make a less hopeful fight of it.’

While jokes of this kind were passing between these great men over their
dinner, I was noticing that the meal was unusually frugal, and I was led
to meditate on the fact that to invite and entertain wise and good men
means no additional expense, but rather a curtailment of it, since it
eliminates fancy dishes, out-of-the-way perfumes and sweetmeats, and
lavish decantings of costly wines. Though Periander, being a despot and
a person [Sidenote: D] of wealth and power, indulged in such things
pretty nearly every day, on this occasion he was trying to impress the
company with a show of simplicity and modest expenditure. He put aside
and out of sight not only the display usually made in other things, but
also that used by his wife, whom he made present herself in modest and
inexpensive attire.

The tables were removed; Melissa caused garlands to be distributed; and
we poured libations. After the flute-girl had played a short piece to
accompany them, and had then withdrawn, Ardalus, addressing Anacharsis,
asked if there were any flute-girls among the Scythians. Instantly he
replied, ‘No, nor [Sidenote: E] yet vines.’ When Ardalus rejoined:
‘Well, but the Scythians have gods;’ ‘Quite true,’ said he: ‘gods who
understand human language. We are not like the Greeks, who imagine they
speak better than the Scythians, and yet believe that the gods would
rather listen to pieces of bone and wood.’ ‘Ah,’ said Aesop, ‘what if
you knew, Sir Visitor, that the present-day flute-makers have given up
using the bones of fawns and have taken to those of asses? They maintain
that these sound better—a fact which explains Cleobuline’s riddle upon
the Phrygian flute: [Sidenote: F]

                        _With a shin that was horned
                          Did an ass that was dead
                        Deal a blow on my ear._

It is a wonderful thing that the ass, who is otherwise particularly
crass and unmusical, should supply us with a bone particularly fine and
melodious.’ ‘Now that,’ said Niloxenus, ‘is precisely the objection
which the Busirites bring against us of Naucratis; for asses’ bones for
flutes are already in use with us. With them, on the contrary, it is
profanation even to listen to a trumpet, because it sounds like the bray
of an ass. You know, I presume, that the ass is treated contemptuously
by the Egyptians because of Typhon?’

A silence here occurred, and, as Periander perceived that Niloxenus,
though eager to enter upon the subject, was shy [Sidenote: 151] of doing
so, he said: ‘To my mind, gentlemen, it is a commendable practice,
whether of community or ruler, to take the business of strangers first
and of citizens afterwards. On the present occasion, therefore, I
propose that for a short time we suspend any topics of our own, as being
local and familiar, and that we treat ourselves as an Assembly and
‘grant an audience’ to those royal communications from Egypt, of which
our excellent friend Niloxenus is the bearer to Bias, and which Bias
desires that you should join him in considering.’ ‘Yes,’ said Bias: ‘for
where, or with whom, could one more readily face the risk—if it must be
faced—of answering in a case like this, especially when the king’s
instructions are that, though [Sidenote: B] the matter is to begin with
me, it is to go the round of you all?’ Niloxenus thereupon offered him
the document, but Bias bade him open it himself and read every word to
the whole company. The contents of the letter were to the following
effect:

    AMASIS, KING OF EGYPT, TO BIAS, WISEST OF THE GREEKS

    _The King of Ethiopia is engaged in matching his wits against mine.
    Hitherto he has had the worst of it, but has finally concocted a
    terrible poser in the shape of a command that I should ‘drink up the
    sea’. If I meet it with a solution, I am to have a number of his
    villages and towns. If not, I am to surrender the cities in the
    neighbourhood of Elephantine. Do you, therefore, take the matter
    [Sidenote: C] in hand and send Niloxenus back to me at once. Any
    return which friends or countrymen of yours require from me will be
    made without hesitation on my part._

This part of the letter having been read, Bias was not long in
answering. After a few moments of meditation and a brief conversation
with Cleobulus, who was close to him at table, he said: ‘Do you mean to
say, my friend from Naucratis, that Amasis, though reigning over so many
subjects and possessed of so large and excellent a country, will be
ready to drink up the sea in order to win a few miserable insignificant
villages?’ ‘Take it that he will, Bias,’ replied Niloxenus, ‘and
consider how it can be done.’ ‘Very well then,’ said he: ‘let him tell
[Sidenote: D] the Ethiopian _to stop the rivers that run into the ocean,
while he is himself drinking up the sea at present existing_. The
command applies to the sea as it is, not as it is to be later on.’ Bias
no sooner made this speech than Niloxenus was so delighted that he
rushed to embrace and kiss him. After the rest of the company had
cheered and applauded, Chilon said with a laugh, ‘Sir Visitor from
Naucratis, before the sea is all drunk up and lost, set sail and tell
Amasis not to be asking how to make away with all that brine, but rather
how to render his kingship sweet and drinkable for his subjects. Bias is
a past master at teaching [Sidenote: E] such a lesson, and, if Amasis
learns it, he will have no further occasion for his golden footpan[28]
in dealing with the Egyptians. They will all be courting and making much
of him for his goodness, even if he is declared to be of a thousand
times lower birth than he actually is.’ ‘Yes, and by the way,’ said
Periander, ‘it would be a good thing if all—“man after man”, as Homer
has it—were to contribute a similar offering to His Majesty. A bonus of
the kind thrown in would not only make the returns on his venture more
valuable to him, but would also be the best thing in the world for us.’

Chilon thereupon asserted that Solon was the right man to [Sidenote: F]
make a beginning on the subject, not only because he was senior to all
the rest and was in the place of honour at the table, but because,
having legislated for the Athenians, he held the greatest and completest
position as a ruler. At this Niloxenus remarked quietly to me, ‘People
believe a good deal that is false, Diocles; and they mostly take a
delight in inventing for themselves, and in accepting with avidity from
others, mischievous stories about wise men. For instance, it was
reported [Sidenote: 152] to us in Egypt that Chilon had cancelled his
friendship and his relations of hospitality with Solon, because Solon
declared that laws were alterable.’ At this I answered, ‘The story is
ridiculous; for in that case Chilon ought to begin by disclaiming
Lycurgus and all his laws, as having altered the whole Lacedaemonian
constitution.’

After a brief delay Solon said: ‘In my opinion a king or despot would
win most renown _by furnishing his fellow-citizens with a popular, in
place of a monarchical, government_.’ The second to speak was Bias, who
said: ‘_By identifying his behaviour with the laws of his country._’
Thales came next with the statement that he considered a ruler happy
‘_if he died naturally of old age_‘. Fourth Anacharsis: ‘_If good sense
never failed him._’ [Sidenote: *] Fifth Cleobulus: ‘_If he trusted none
of those about him._’ Sixth Pittacus: ‘_If the ruler could get his
subjects to fear, not him, but [Sidenote: B] for him._’ Next Chilon said
that ‘_the ruler’s conceptions should never be mortal, but always
immortal_‘.

After hearing these dicta, we claimed that Periander himself should
express an opinion. With anything but cheerfulness, and pulling a
serious face, he replied: ‘Well, the opinion I have to add is that every
one of the views stated practically disqualifies a man of sense from
being a ruler.’ Whereupon Aesop, as if in a spirit of reproof, said,
‘You ought, of course, to have discussed this subject by yourselves, and
not to have delivered an attack upon rulers under pretence of being
their advisers and friends.’ [Sidenote: C] ‘Don’t you think,’ said
Solon, taking him by the head and smiling, ‘that one can make a ruler
more moderate and a despot more reasonable by persuading him that it is
better to decline such a position than to hold it?’ ‘And pray who,’ he
replied, ‘is likely to follow you in the matter rather than the God,
whose opinion is given in the oracle delivered to yourself:

    _Blessèd the city that hearkens to one commander’s proclaiming._’

‘True,’ said Solon, ‘but, as a matter of fact, the Athenians, though
with a popular government, do listen to one proclaimer [Sidenote: D] and
ruler in the shape of the law. You have a wonderful gift at
understanding ravens and jackdaws, but your hearing of the [Sidenote: *]
voice of modesty is indistinct. While you think that a state is best off
when it listens, as the God says, to “one”, you believe that the best
convivial party is that in which everybody talks on every subject.’
‘Yes,’ said Aesop, ‘for you have not yet legislated to the effect that
“_a slave shall not get tipsy_” is to stand on the same footing with
those Athenian ordinances of yours which say “_a slave shall not indulge
in love or in dry-rubbing with oil_”.’[29] At this Solon broke into a
laugh, and Cleodorus the physician remarked: ‘But, in one respect,
talking when the wine is taking effect does stand on the same footing
with dry-rubbing—it is very pleasant.’ ‘Consequently,’ [Sidenote: E]
broke in Chilon, ‘it is the more to be avoided.’ ‘Yes,’ said Aesop
again,[30] ‘Thales did appear to recommend getting old as quickly as
possible.’ Periander laughed, and said: ‘Aesop, we have been properly
punished for dropping into other questions before bringing forward the
whole of those from Amasis, as we proposed. Pray look at the rest of the
letter, Niloxenus, and take advantage of the gentlemen being all here
together.’ ‘As for that,’ replied Niloxenus, ‘whereas the command sent
by the Ethiopian can only be called a “doleful [Sidenote: F]
dispatch”—as Archilochus would say—your friend Amasis has shown a fine
and more civilized taste in setting such problems. He bade him name the
oldest thing, the most beautiful, the greatest, the wisest, the most
universal, and—not stopping there—the most beneficent, the most harmful,
the most powerful, and the easiest.’ ‘Well, and did his answers give the
solution in each case?’ ‘His replies were these,’ said Niloxenus. ‘It is
[Sidenote: 153] for you to listen and judge; for the king is very
anxious neither to be guilty of pettifogging with the answers, nor to
let any slip on the part of the answerer escape without refutation. I
will read you the replies as given. _What is the oldest thing?_—_Time._
_What the greatest?_—_The universe._ _What the wisest?_—_Truth._ _What
the most beautiful?_—_Light._ _What the most universal?_—_Death._ _What
the most beneficent?_—_God._ _What the most harmful?_—_Evil genius._
_What the strongest?_—_Fortune._ _What the easiest?_—_That which is
pleasant._’

Well, Nicarchus, after the reading of this second passage there was a
silence. Then Thales asked Niloxenus if Amasis was satisfied with the
solutions. Upon his replying that he had [Sidenote: B] accepted some,
but was dissatisfied with others, Thales said, ‘And yet not one of them
is unassailable. There are great blunders and signs of ignorance all
through. For instance, how can Time be the oldest thing, seeing that,
while some of it is past and some present, some of it is future? Time
which is to come after us must be regarded as younger than the events
and persons of the present. Again, to call Truth wisdom appears to me as
bad as making out that the light is the eye. Next, if he considered
Light beautiful—as indeed it is—how came he to ignore the sun? As for
the rest, the answer concerning gods and evil spirits is bold and
dangerous, while in that [Sidenote: C] concerning Fortune the logic is
exceedingly bad. Fortune would not be so readily upset if it was the
strongest and most powerful thing in existence. Nor yet again is Death
the most universal thing, for in the case of the living it has no
existence. However, to avoid seeming merely to criticize the work of
others, let us express views of our own and compare them with his. I am
ready to be the first to be questioned point by point, if Niloxenus so
desires.’

In relating the questions and answers I will put them exactly as they
occurred. _What is the oldest thing?_ ‘_God_,’ said Thales: ‘for He is
without birth.’ _What is greatest?_ ‘_Space_: for [Sidenote: D] while
the universe contains everything else, it is space that contains the
universe.’ _What is most beautiful?_ ‘_The cosmos_: for everything duly
ordered is part of it.’ _What is wisest?_ ‘_Time_: for it is Time that
has either discovered things or will discover them.’ _What most
universal?_ ‘_Expectation_: for those who have nothing else have that.’
_What most beneficent?_ ‘_Virtue_: for it makes other things beneficent
by using them rightly.’ _What most harmful?_ ‘_Vice_: for most things
suffer from its presence.’ _What most powerful?_ ‘_Necessity_: for it is
invincible.’ _What most easy?_ ‘_The natural_; not pleasure, for people
often fail to cope with that.’

The whole company being satisfied with Thales and his [Sidenote: E]
acumen, Cleodorus observed: ‘It is questions and answers of this kind,
Niloxenus, that are proper for kings. On the other hand, the barbarian
who gave Amasis the sea to drink, required the short answer made by
Pittacus to Alyattes, when he wrote the Lesbians a letter containing an
arrogant command. The reply was merely a recommendation to eat onions
and hot bread.’[31]

Here Periander joined in; ‘I may remind you, Cleodorus, that even in old
times the Greeks had a habit of posing each [Sidenote: F] other with
similar difficulties. We are told, for instance, that there was a
gathering at Chalcis of the most distinguished poets among the wise men
of the day, in order to celebrate the funeral of Amphidamas—a great
warrior who had given much trouble to the Eretrians and had fallen in
the fighting for Lelantum. The verses composed by the poets were so well
matched, that it became a difficult and troublesome matter to judge
between them, and the reputation of the competitors—Homer and
Hesiod—caused the jury much diffidence and [Sidenote: 154]
embarrassment. Thereupon they had recourse to questions of the present
kind, and Homer—as Lesches tells us—propounded the following:

      _Tell me, Muse, of such things as neither before have befallen,
      Nor shall hereafter befall?_

To which Hesiod instantly replied:

    _When in eager pursuit of the prize the chariots, one ’gainst the
       other
    Are dashed by the ringing-hoof’d steeds round the tomb where Zeus
       lieth buried._

This answer, it is said, won particular admiration and secured him the
tripod.’

‘But pray what is the difference,’ asked Cleodorus, ‘between such
questions and Eumetis’s riddles? It is no doubt right [Sidenote: B]
enough for her to set women such puzzles by way of amusement,
constructing them as other women plait their bits of girdles or
hair-nets. But for sensible men to treat them with any seriousness is
absurd.’ Eumetis would apparently have liked to make some retort, but
she was too shy, and checked herself, her face mantled with blushes.
‘Nay,’ said Aesop, by way of championing her, ‘it is surely more absurd
to be unable to solve them. Take for example the one she set us just
before dinner:

    _I saw a man glue bronze on a man; with fire did he glue it._

Can you tell me what that means?’ ‘No, and I don’t want [Sidenote: C] to
be told either,’ answered Cleodorus. ‘And yet,’ said Aesop, ‘no one is
so familiar with the thing, or does it so well, as you. If you deny it,
cupping-glasses[32] will bear me out.’ At this Cleodorus laughed, for he
made more use of cupping-glasses than any medical man of the day, and
the estimation in which that remedy is held is especially due to him. ‘I
beg to ask, Periander,’ said Mnesiphilus the Athenian, a close friend
and admirer of Solon, ‘that the conversation, like the wine, shall not
be limited to wealth or rank, but shall be put on a democratic footing
and made to concern all alike. In what has just been [Sidenote: D] said
about wealth and kingship there is nothing for us commoners. We think,
therefore, that you should take a government with equal rights, and each
of you again contribute some opinion, beginning once more with Solon.’
It was decided that this should be done. First came Solon. ‘Well,
Mnesiphilus, you, like every other Athenian, have heard what opinion I
hold about such a government. But if you desire to hear it again now, it
seems to me that a community is in the soundest condition, and its
popular government most securely maintained, _when the wrongdoer is
accused and punished quite as much by those who [Sidenote: E] have not
been wronged as by the man that has_.’ The second to speak was Bias, who
said that the best popular government is ‘_that in which every one fears
the law as he would a despot_.’ Next came Thales with ‘_that in which
there are no citizens either too rich or too poor_.’ Anacharsis followed
with ‘_that in which, while everything else is treated as equal,
superiority is determined by virtue and inferiority by vice_.’ In the
fifth place Cleobulus affirmed that a democracy is most soundly
conducted ‘_when its public men are more afraid of blame than of the
law_‘. Sixth, Pittacus: ‘_Where the bad are not permitted to hold office
and the [Sidenote: F] good are not permitted to decline it._’ Last of
all Chilon expressed the view that the best free government is ‘_that
which pays least attention to the orators and most to the laws_.’
Periander once more summed up at the end by saying that they all
appeared to him to be praising ‘that democratic government which most
resembled an aristocratic.’

Upon the conclusion of this second discussion I begged that they would
also tell us the proper way to deal with a household; ‘for while there
are few who are at the helm of a kingdom or a commonwealth, we all play
our parts in the hearth and home.’ [Sidenote: 155] At this Aesop said
with a laugh: ‘No! not if in “all” you include Anacharsis. He has no
home, but actually prides himself on being homeless, and on using a
wagon—in the same way as they tell us the sun roams about in a chariot,
occupying first one and then another region of the sky.’ ‘Yes,’ retorted
Anacharsis, ‘and that is why, unlike any other—or more than any
other—god, he is free and independent, ruling all and ruled by none, but
always playing the king and holding the reins. You, however, fail to
realize the surpassing beauty and marvellous [Sidenote: B] size of his
car, otherwise you would not have tried to raise a laugh by jocosely
comparing it with ours. It seems to me, Aesop, that to you a home means
those coverings of yours made by clay and wood and tiles. You might as
well regard a “snail” as meaning the shell instead of the animal. It is
therefore natural that you should find cause to laugh at Solon, when he
beheld all the costly splendour in the house of Croesus and yet refused
to declare off-hand that its possessor was happy and blessed in his
home; “for”—he argued—“I am more desirous of looking at the fine things
in the man than at those in his house.” It appears, moreover, that you
have forgotten your own fox. That animal, when she and the leopard were
engaged in a dispute as to which was the more “cunningly marked”, begged
the judge to examine her on the inside, inasmuch as she would be found
to possess more “marks of cunning” from that point of view. But you go
inspecting the productions of carpenters [Sidenote: C] and stone-masons,
and regarding those as the “home”, instead of the inward and domestic
constituents in the case—the children, wife, friends, and servants. If
these have good sense and good morals, a man who shares his best means
with them possesses a good and happy home, even if it be but an ant-hill
or a bird’s-nest.’ ‘That,’ he continued, ‘is my answer to Aesop and my
contribution to Diocles. But it is only fair that each of the others
should express his own views.’

Thereupon Solon said that in his opinion the best household was ‘_that
in which the resources are acquired without dishonesty, [Sidenote: D]
watched over without distrust, and expended without repentance_‘.
According to Bias it was ‘_that inside which the master behaves for his
own sake as well as he does outside for the law’s sake_‘. According to
Thales, ‘_that in which the master can find most time to himself_‘.
According to Cleobulus, ‘_where the master has more who love than fear
him_.’ Pittacus would have it that the best house is ‘_that which wants
no luxury and lacks no necessity_‘. Chilon’s view was that the house
should be ‘_as like as possible to a state ruled by a king_‘, and he
went on to observe that when some one urged Lycurgus to establish a
republic at Sparta, he [Sidenote: E] answered: ‘You begin by creating a
republic at home.’

This topic also having been dealt with, Eumetis left the room in company
with Melissa. Periander then pledged Chilon in a capacious goblet, and
Chilon in turn pledged Bias. At this Ardalus got up, and, addressing
Aesop, said: ‘Perhaps you will be good enough to pass yonder cup on to
us, seeing that these gentlemen are passing theirs to each other, as if
it were a Bathycles’s goblet,[33] and are giving no one else a turn.’
‘Nay,’ [Sidenote: F] replied Aesop, ‘there is to be nothing democratic
about this cup either, for Solon has been keeping it all to himself for
quite an age.’ Thereupon Pittacus, addressing Mnesiphilus, asked why
Solon, by not drinking, was testifying against the verses in which he
had written

    _Now do I welcome the tasks of the Cyprus-born goddess and Bacchus,
    And tasks of the Muses that bring cheer to the heart of mankind._

‘Because,’ said Anacharsis, before Mnesiphilus could speak, ‘he is
frightened at that cruel law of your own, Pittacus, where the words run,
_If any one commit any offence when drunk, the penalty to be double that
paid by a man who was sober._’ ‘And you,’ retorted Pittacus, ‘showed
such wanton contempt of the law that last year, when you had got
intoxicated at that [Sidenote: 156] party at Delphi, you asked for a
prize and a victor’s wreath.’ ‘And why not?’ asked Anacharsis. ‘A prize
was offered to him who drank most, and, since I was the first to get
tipsy, I, of course, claimed the reward of victory. Otherwise will you
gentlemen tell me what is the end and aim of drinking a large quantity
of unmixed wine, if it is not to get intoxicated?’ Pittacus laughed,
while Aesop told the following story. ‘A wolf, having seen some
shepherds eating a sheep in a tent, came close up to them, and said:
“What a to-do you would have made if _I_ had been doing that!”’ At this
Chilon remarked, ‘Aesop has properly taken his revenge. A moment ago we
put the muzzle on him, and now he sees that others have taken the words
out of Mnesiphilus’ mouth. It was Mnesiphilus who was requested to
answer on behalf of Solon.’ ‘Well, in doing so,’ said Mnesiphilus, ‘I
speak with knowledge. In Solon’s opinion [Sidenote: B] the concern of
every art and faculty of man or God is with results rather than with
agencies, the end rather than the means. A weaver, I take it, would
consider his object to be a cloak or mantle rather than the arrangement
of his shuttle-rods or the picking-up of his straightening-stones. To a
blacksmith it is rather the welding of iron and putting an edge on an
axe than any of the processes necessary thereto, such as the kindling of
his charcoal or the preparation of lime. Still more would a
master-builder object if, instead of a ship or a house, we declared his
object to be the boring of wood or the mixing of mortar. The Muses would
utterly scout the notion that their [Sidenote: C] concern is with a harp
or flute, instead of with the cultivation of character and the soothing
of the emotions of their votaries by means of melodies properly attuned.
So—to come to the point—the object of Aphrodite is not sexual
intercourse, nor that of Dionysus wine and tipsiness, but the friendly
feeling, the longing, the companionship, and the close mutual
understanding which they produce in us by those agencies. These are what
Solon calls divine “tasks”, and he means that these are the objects
which he appreciates and cultivates in his old age. Of reciprocal
affection between men and women Aphrodite is the creator, using pleasure
as the means of melting and commingling their souls at the same time
with their bodies; while in ordinary cases, where persons are not very
intimate or particularly acquainted, Dionysus uses wine as a kind of
fire to soften and supple their dispositions, and so provides a
starting-point towards a blending in mutual friendship.

‘But when such men meet together as Periander has invited in your
persons, there is no need, I take it, of the goblet and the wine-ladle.
The Muses set before you all, in the form of conversation, a mixing-bowl
containing no intoxicant and yet abundance of pleasure, grave or gay. In
this they stir friendly feeling, blend it, and pour it forth, while for
the most part the [Sidenote: E] ladle is allowed to lie undisturbed
“above the bowl”—a thing which Hesiod forbids where the company is
better qualified for drinking than for conversation.’

‘As for pledging one another,’ he continued, ‘I gather that with the
ancients the ceremony consisted of one large goblet going the round,
each man drinking a measured “allowance” (as Homer tells us), and then
letting his neighbour take his share, as he would do with a sacrificial
portion.’

When Mnesiphilus had finished, the poet Chersias—who had ceased to be
under censure and had lately been reconciled to [Sidenote: F] Periander
through Chilon’s intercession—remarked, ‘Are we also to understand that,
when the gods were the guests of Zeus and were pledging each other, he
poured in their drink by measure, as Agamemnon did for his chieftains?’
‘And pray, Chersias,’ said Cleodorus, ‘if Zeus has his ambrosia
brought—as you poets say he does—by doves which find the greatest
difficulty in flying over the Clashing Rocks, don’t you think [Sidenote:
157] that his nectar is also scarce and hard to get, and that
consequently he is sparing of it and doles it out economically?’
‘Perhaps so,’ replied Chersias. ‘Since, however, the question of
household economy has again been mooted, perhaps some one will deal with
the remainder of the question. And that, I take it, is to discover what
amount of property will be sufficient to meet all needs.’ ‘To the wise
man,’ said Cleobulus, ‘the law has supplied the standard; but in
reference to weak characters I will repeat a story which my daughter
told her brother. The Moon, she said, asked her mother to weave a tunic
to fit her; whereat the mother answered, “How can I possibly [Sidenote:
B] weave one to fit? At one time I see you as a full moon, at another as
a crescent, and at another gibbous.” Similarly, my dear Chersias, there
is no way of determining the amount of means requisite for a weak and
foolish person. His wants vary with his appetites and experiences, his
case being that of Aesop’s dog, of whom our friend says that in winter
he huddled and curled himself up with the cold, and contemplated making
a house; but in summer it was different; he stretched himself out when
he slept, thought himself a big fellow, and decided that it was both a
laborious and an unnecessary task to build so large a house to cover
him. Don’t you observe, Chersias’—he went on—‘that even insignificant
people, though they will at one moment draw themselves into a very
modest compass, with the idea of living a close and simple Spartan life,
at another [Sidenote: C] time will fancy they are going to die of want
unless they have all the money in the world—all the king’s and all the
private people’s?’

Chersias having nothing to say, Cleodorus joined in. ‘Well, but,’ he
said, ‘I perceive that there is no equal distribution in the properties
which even you sages respectively possess.’ ‘Yes, my dear sir,’ said
Cleobulus, ‘because the law, like a weaver, allots us the amount which
properly and reasonably fits each case. In your own profession,
substituting reason for law, you feed [Sidenote: D] and diet and physic
the sick by prescribing, not the same quantity for everybody, but the
proper quantity for each case.’ Here Ardalus interposed. ‘I suppose,
then,’ he asked, ‘it is at the bidding of some law that Epimenides—the
friend of you gentlemen and the guest of Solon—abstains from other kinds
of food and passes the day without breakfast or dinner by merely putting
in his mouth a little of that “anti-hunger essence” which he makes up
for himself?’ This remark having arrested the attention of the party,
Thales mockingly observed that Epimenides was a sensible man for
refusing to be troubled—as [Sidenote: E] Pittacus was—with grinding and
cooking his own food. ‘You must know,’ he said, ‘that when I was at
Eresus, I heard my hostess singing to the mill:

                   _Grind, mill, grind;
                   For Pittacus is grinding,
                   As he kings it over great Mytilene._’

Then Solon expressed his surprise that Ardalus had not read the law
ordaining the diet in question, seeing that it was written in the verses
of Hesiod. ‘For it is he who first supplied Epimenides with hints for
that form of nourishment, by teaching him to make trial [Sidenote: F]

    _How great and sustaining the food that in mallow and asphodel
    lieth._

‘Nay,’ said Periander, ‘do you imagine Hesiod conceived of anything of
the kind? Don’t you suppose that, with his habitual praise of economy,
he is merely urging us to try the most frugal dishes as being the most
agreeable? The mallow makes good eating, and asphodel-stalk is sweet;
but I am told that anti-hunger and anti-thirst drugs—for they are drugs
rather than foods—include among their ingredients some sort of foreign
honey and cheese, and a large number of seeds which are difficult to
procure. Most certainly, therefore, Hesiod would find that the
“_rudder_” hung “_above the smoke_” and

    _The works of the drudging mules and the oxen’s labour would
    perish_,

[Sidenote: 158] if all that provision is to be made. I am surprised,
Solon, if your guest, on recently making his great purification of
Delos, failed to note how they present to the temple—as commemorative
samples of the earliest form of food—mallow and asphodel-stalk along
with other cheap and self-grown produce. The natural reason for which
Hesiod also recommends them to us is that they are simple and frugal.’
‘Not only so,’ remarked Anacharsis, ‘but both vegetables bear the
highest possible character for wholesomeness.’ ‘You are quite right,’
said Cleodorus. ‘That Hesiod possessed medical knowledge is manifest
from the careful and well-informed manner in which he speaks about diet,
the mixing of wine, good quality in water, [Sidenote: B] bathing, women,
and the way to seat infants. But it seems to me that there is more
reason for Aesop to declare himself a pupil of Hesiod than there is for
Epimenides. It is to the speech of the hawk to the nightingale that our
friend owes the first promptings to his admirably subtle wisdom in many
tongues. But for my part I should be glad to hear what Solon has to say.
We may assume that, in his long association with Epimenides at Athens,
he asked him what motive or subtle purpose he had in adopting such a
diet.’

‘What need was there to ask him that question?’ replied Solon. ‘It was
self-evident that the next best thing to the [Sidenote: C] supreme and
greatest good is to require the least possible food. You allow, I
suppose, that the greatest good is to require no food at all?’ ‘Not I,
by any means,’ answered Cleodorus, ‘if I am to say what I think,
especially with a table in front of us. Take away food, and you take
away the table—that is to say, the altar of the Gods of Friendship and
Hospitality. As Thales tells us that, if you do away with the earth, the
whole cosmos will fall into confusion, so the abolition of food means
the dissolution of house and home. For with it you do away with the
hearth-fire, the hearth, the wine-bowl, all entertainment and
hospitality—the most humanizing and essential elements in our mutual
relations. Or rather you do away with the whole of life, if life is “_a
passing of the time on the part [Sidenote: D] of a human being involving
a series of actions_”, most of those actions being evoked by the need,
and in the acquirement, of food. Of immense importance, my good friend,
is the question [Sidenote: *] of mere agriculture. Let agriculture
perish, and the earth that it leaves us becomes unsightly and foul, a
corrupt wilderness of barren forest and vagabond streams. The ruin of
agriculture means the ruin of all arts and crafts as well; for she takes
the lead of them, and provides them with their basis and their
[Sidenote: E] material. Do away with her, and they count for nothing.
There is an end also to our honouring the gods. Men will thank the Sun
but little, and the Moon still less, for mere light and warmth. Where
will you find altar or sacrifice to Zeus of the Rain, Demeter of the
Plough, or Poseidon the Fosterer of Plants? How can Dionysus be
Boon-Giver, if we need nothing that he gives? What sacrifice or libation
shall we make? What offering of firstfruits? All this means the
overthrow and confounding of our most important interests. Though to
cling to every pleasure in every case is to be a madman, to avoid every
pleasure in every case is to be a block. By all means let the soul have
[Sidenote: F] other pleasures of a superior kind to enjoy; the body can
find no pleasure more right and proper than that derived from taking
food. All the world recognizes the fact, for this pleasure people take
openly, sharing with each other in the table and the banquet, whereas
their amorous pleasure is screened by night and all the darkness
possible. To share that pleasure with others is considered as shameless
and brutelike as it is not to share in the case of the table.’

Here, as Cleodorus paused for a moment, I joined in: ‘And is there not
another point—that in discarding food we also [Sidenote: 159] discard
sleep? If there is no sleep, there is no dreaming either, and we lose
our most important means of divination. Moreover, life will be all
alike, and there will be practically no purpose in wearing a body round
our soul. Most of its parts, and the most important, are provided as
instruments to feeding—the tongue, teeth, stomach, and liver. None of
them is without its work, and none has other business to attend to.
Consequently any one who has no need of food has no need of a body
either. Which means that a person has no need of himself; for it is
thanks to the body that each of us is a “self”.’ ‘Such,’ I added, ‘are
our contributions on behalf of the belly. If Solon or any one else has
objections to bring, we will listen.’

‘Of course I have objections,’ replied Solon. ‘I have no [Sidenote: B]
wish to be thought a poorer judge than the Egyptians. After cutting open
a dead body, they take out the entrails and expose them to the sunlight.
They then throw those parts into the river and proceed to attend to the
rest of the body, which is now regarded as purified. Yes, therein in
truth lies the pollution of our flesh. It is its Tartarus—like that in
Hades—full of “dreadful streams”, a confused medley of wind and fire and
of dead things. For while itself lives, nothing that feeds it can be
alive. We commit the wrong of murdering animate things and of destroying
plants, which can claim to have life through the fact that they feed and
grow. I say destroying, because [Sidenote: C] anything that changes from
what nature has made it into something else, is destroyed; it must
perish utterly in order to become the other’s sustenance. To abstain
from eating flesh, as we are told Orpheus did in ancient times, is more
a quibble than an avoidance of crime in the matter of food. The only way
of avoiding it, and the only way of attaining to justice by a complete
purification, is to become self-sufficing and free of external needs. If
God has made it impossible for a thing to secure its own preservation
without injury to another, He has also endowed it with the principle of
injustice in the shape of its own nature. Would it not, therefore, be a
good thing, my dear friend, if, when cutting out injustice, we could cut
out the belly, the gullet, and the liver, which impart to us no
perception [Sidenote: D] of anything noble and no appetite for it, but
partly resemble the utensils for cooking butcher’s meat—such as choppers
and stew-pans—and partly the apparatus for a bakery—ovens, water-tanks,
and kneading-troughs? Indeed, in the case of most [Sidenote: *] people
you can see their soul shut up in their body as if in a baker’s mill,
and perpetually going round and round at the business of getting food.
Take ourselves, for example. Just now we were neither looking at nor
listening to one another, but we all had our heads down, slaving at the
business of feeding. But now that the tables have been removed, we
have—as you perceive—become free, and with garlands on our heads we are
[Sidenote: E] engaged in sociable and leisurely conversation together,
because we have arrived at the state of not requiring food. Well then,
if the state in which we now find ourselves remains as a permanence all
our lives, shall we not be at perpetual leisure to enjoy each other’s
society? We shall have no fear of poverty. Nor shall we know the meaning
of wealth, since the quest for luxuries is but the immediate consequence
and concomitant of the use of necessaries.

‘But, thinks Cleodorus, there must be food so that there may be tables
and wine-bowls and sacrifices to Demeter and the Maid. Then let some one
else demand that there shall be war and fighting, so that we may have
fortifications and arsenals and [Sidenote: F] armouries, and also
sacrifices in honour of slaying our hundreds, such as they say are the
law in Messenia. Another, I suppose, is aggrieved at the prospect of the
healthfulness which would follow. A terrible thing if, because there is
no illness, there is no more use in soft bedclothes, and no more
sacrificing to Asclepius or the Averting Powers, and if medical skill,
with all its drugs and implements, must be put away into inglorious
hiding! What is the difference between these arguments and the other?
Food is, in fact, “taken” as a “remedy” for hunger, and all who use food
are said to be “taking care” of [Sidenote: 160] themselves and using
some “diet”; and this implies that the act is not a pleasant and
agreeable performance, but one which Nature renders compulsory.
Certainly one can enumerate more pains than pleasures arising from
feeding. Further still; whereas the pleasure affects but a small region
of the body, and lasts but a short time, it needs no telling how full we
become of ugly and painful experiences through the worry and difficulty
of digesting.

Homer had these in view, I suppose, when he used as a proof that the
gods do not die the fact that they do not feed:

    _For they eat not the bread of corn, nor drink they the wine that is
       ruddy,
    And therefore blood have they none in their veins, and are called
       the Immortals._

Food, he gives us to understand, is the necessary means not only
[Sidenote: B] for living, but for dying. From it come our diseases,
feeding themselves with the feeding of our bodies, which suffer quite as
much from repletion as from want. Very often it is an easier business to
get together our supply of victuals than to make away with them and get
quit of them again when once they are in the body. Just suppose it were
a question with the Danaids what sort of life they would live and what
they would do if they could get rid of their menial labour at filling
the cask. When we raise the question, “Supposing it possible to cease
from heaping into this unconscionable flesh all these things from
[Sidenote: C] land and sea, what are we going to do?” it is because in
our ignorance of noble things we are content with the life which our
necessities impose. Well, as those who have been in slavery, when they
are emancipated, do for themselves and on their own account what they
used formerly to do in the service of their masters, so is it with the
soul. As things are, it feeds the body with continual toil and trouble;
but let it get quit of its menial service, and it will presumably feed
itself in the enjoyment of freedom, and will live with an eye to itself
and the truth, with nothing to distract and deter it.’

This, Nicarchus, concluded the discussion as to food.

While Solon was still speaking, Gorgos, Periander’s brother, entered the
room. It happened that, in consequence of certain [Sidenote: D] oracles,
he had been sent on a mission to Taenarum in charge of a sacrificial
embassy. After we had welcomed him, and Periander had taken him to his
arms and kissed him, he sat down by his brother on the couch and gave
him a private account of some occurrence which appeared to cause
Periander various emotions as he listened to it. At one part he was
manifestly vexed, at another indignant; often he showed incredulity, and
this was followed by amazement. Finally he laughed and said to us, ‘I
should like to tell the company the news; but I have [Sidenote: E]
scruples about it, because I heard Thales once say that when a thing is
probable we should speak of it, but when it is impossible we should say
nothing about it.’ At this Bias interposed, ‘Yes, but here is another
wise saying of Thales, that “while we should disbelieve our enemies even
in matters believable, we should believe our friends even when the thing
is unbelievable”. By enemies I presume he meant the wicked and foolish,
and by friends the good and wise.’ ‘Very well then,’ said Periander,
‘you must let every one hear it; or rather you must pit the story you
have brought us against those new-fangled dithyrambs and overcrow them.’

Gorgos then told us his story.

His sacrificial ceremony had occupied three days, and on the [Sidenote:
F] last there was an all-night festival with dancing and frolic by the
sea-shore. The sea was covered with the light of the moon, and, though
there was no wind, but a dead calm, there appeared in the distance a
ripple coming in past the promontory, accompanied by foam and a very
appreciable noise of surge. At this they all ran in astonishment down to
the place where it was [Sidenote: *] coming to land. This happened so
quickly that, before they could guess what was approaching, dolphins
were seen, some of them massed together and moving in a ring, some
leading the way to the levellest part of the shore, and others as it
were [Sidenote: 161] bringing up the rear. In the middle there stood out
above the sea, dim and indistinct, the shape of a body being carried. So
they came on, until, gathering together and coming to land at the same
moment, they put ashore a human being, alive and moving; after which
they themselves retired in the direction of the promontory, leaping out
of the water more than ever and for some reason, apparently, frolicking
and bounding for joy. ‘Many of our number,’ continued Gorgos, ‘fled from
the sea in a panic, but a few found the courage to approach along with
myself, and discovered that it was Arion, the harp-player. Not only did
he utter his own name, but his dress spoke for itself, [Sidenote: B] for
he was actually wearing the festal robes which he adopted when
performing at the competitions. Well, we brought him to a tent, and,
inasmuch as there was nothing the matter with him except that he was
evidently tired and overstrained from the rushing motion, we heard him
tell a story which no one would believe except us who actually saw the
end of it.

‘What Arion told us was this. He had for some time made up his mind to
leave Italy, and had been made the more eager to do so by a letter from
Periander. Accordingly, when a Corinthian merchant-vessel appeared on
the scene, he at once went on board and put to sea. They had a moderate
wind for three days, when he perceived that the sailors were forming a
plot to make away with him, and was afterwards secretly informed
[Sidenote: C] by the pilot that they had resolved to do the deed that
night. At this, being helpless and at a loss what to do, he acted upon a
kind of heaven-sent impulse. He decided that he would adorn his person
and—while still alive—put on his own shroud in the shape of his festal
attire. Then, in meeting his death, he would sing a _finale_ to life,
and in that respect show no less spirit than the swan does. Accordingly,
having dressed himself and given notice that he felt moved to perform
the Pythian hymn on behalf of the safety of himself and the ship and
crew, [Sidenote: D] he took his stand on the poop by the bulwarks. After
some prelude invoking the gods of the sea, he began to sing the piece.
Just before he was half-way through, the sun began to set into the sea
and the Peloponnese to come into sight. Thereupon the sailors no longer
waited for night, but advanced to their murderous deed. Arion, seeing
their knives unsheathed and the pilot beginning to cover his face from
the sight, ran back and hurled himself as far as possible from the
vessel. Before, however, his body had all sunk into the water, a number
of dolphins ran under him and bore him up. At first he was filled with
bewilderment, distress, and alarm; but when he found himself riding
easily, and saw many of them gathering about [Sidenote: E] him in a
friendly way, and taking turns at the work as if it were a necessary
duty belonging to them all; and when the long distance at which the
vessel was left behind showed how great was their speed; he said that
what he felt was not so much fear of death or desire of life, as
eagerness to be rescued, so that he might become recognized as the
object of divine favour, and might have his reputation as a religious
man assured.

At the same time, observing that the sky was full of stars, and that the
moon was rising bright and clear, while the sea [Sidenote: F] on all
sides was waveless and a kind of path was being cut for his course, he
was led to reflect that Justice has more eyes than one, and that God
looks abroad with all those orbs upon whatever deeds are done by land or
sea. By these reflections (he told us) he found relief from the
weariness which was by this time beginning to weigh upon his body, and
when at last, dexterously avoiding and rounding the lofty and
precipitous headland which ran out to meet them, they swam close in by
the shore and [Sidenote: 162] brought him safely to land like a ship
into harbour, he realized beyond doubt that he had been steered on his
voyage by the hand of God. ‘When Arion had told us this story,’
continued Gorgos, ‘I asked him where he thought the ship would put in.
He answered that it would certainly be at Corinth, but that it was left
far behind; for, after throwing himself off it in the evening, he
believed he had been carried over sixty miles and a calm had fallen
immediately.’ Gorgos added, however, that after ascertaining the names
of the captain and pilot, and also the ship’s flag, he had sent out
vessels and soldiers to the various landing-places to keep a watch.
Moreover, he had Arion with [Sidenote: B] him in hiding, so that they
might not hear of his rescue beforehand and make their escape. ‘The
event,’ he said, ‘has proved truly miraculous; for no sooner did we
arrive here than we learned that the ship had been seized by the
soldiers, and the traders and sailors arrested.’

Thereupon Periander ordered Gorgos to get up and go out at once and
place the men in custody where no one would approach them or tell them
of Arion’s escape.

‘Well now,’ said Aesop, ‘you gentlemen make fun of my jackdaws and crows
for talking. Do dolphins behave in this outrageous way?’ To which I
replied, ‘A different matter, [Sidenote: C] Aesop! A story to the same
effect as this has been believed and written among us for more than a
thousand years, ever since the times of Ino and Athamas.’

Solon here interposed: ‘Well, Diodes; let us grant that these events are
in the sphere of the divine and beyond us. But what happened to Hesiod
is on our own human plane. You have probably heard the story.’ ‘For my
part, no,’ I answered. ‘Well, it is worth hearing. Hesiod and a
Milesian—I think it was—shared the same room as guests in a house at
[Sidenote: D] Locri. The Milesian having been found out in a secret
intrigue with the host’s daughter, Hesiod fell under suspicion of having
all along known of the offence and helped in concealing it. Though in no
way guilty, he fell a victim to cruel circumstance at a critical time of
anger and misrepresentation. For the girl’s brothers lay in wait for him
at the Nemeum in Locris and killed him, together with his servant, whose
name was Troilus. Their bodies having been pushed into the sea, that of
Troilus, which was carried out into the current of the river Daphnus,
was caught by a low wave-washed rock projecting a little above the
water. The rock still bears his name. Meanwhile the [Sidenote: E] dead
body of Hesiod was picked up immediately off the shore by a shoal of
dolphins, who proceeded to carry it to Rhium, close to Molycrea. It
happened that the Locrians were engaged in the Rhian festival and fair,
which is still a notable celebration in those parts. At sight of the
body being borne towards them they were naturally amazed, and when, on
running down to the shore, they recognized the corpse—for it was still
fresh—they could think of nothing but tracking out the murder, so high
was the renown of Hesiod. Their object was soon achieved. They
discovered the murderers, threw them into the sea, and razed their house
to the ground. Meanwhile Hesiod was buried near the Nemeum. Most
strangers, however, are ignorant of his tomb, which has been concealed
because the people of [Sidenote: F] Orchomenus are in quest of it, from
a desire, it is said, to recover the remains and bury them in their own
country in accordance with an oracle.

‘If, then, dolphins show such affectionate interest in the dead, it is
still more natural for them to render help to the living, especially if
they have been charmed by the flute or the singing of tunes. For, of
course, we are all aware that music is a thing which these animals enjoy
and court, swimming and gambolling beside a ship as its oarsmen row to
the tune of song and flute in calm weather. They take a delight also in
children when [Sidenote: 163] swimming, and they have diving matches
with them. Hence there is an unwritten law that they shall not be
harmed. No one hunts them or injures them; the only exception being
that, when they get into the nets and do mischief to the catch, they are
punished with a beating, like naughty children. I further remember
hearing some Lesbians tell of a girl having been rescued from the sea by
a dolphin. I am not, however, sure as to the exact details, and, since
Pittacus knows them, he is the right person to tell us about them.’

Pittacus thereupon assured us that the story had good warrant and was
mentioned by many authorities. ‘An oracle was given to the colonizers of
Lesbos that, when on the voyage they came across the reef known as
Mesogeum, they should then and [Sidenote: B] there throw a bull into the
water as an offering to Poseidon, and a live virgin to Amphitrite and
the Nereids. There were seven chiefs, all of whom were kings,
Echelaus—whom the Pythian oracle had assigned as leader of the
colony—making an eighth. Echelaus was still a bachelor. When as many of
the seven as had unmarried girls cast lots, the lot fell upon the
daughter of Smintheus. Upon getting near the place, they decked her in
fine clothes and gold ornaments, and, after offering prayer, were on the
point of lowering her into the water. Now it happened that one of the
party on the ship—assuredly a gallant young man—was in love with her.
His name has been preserved to us as Enalus. This youth, in the passion
of the [Sidenote: C] moment, seized by an eager but utterly hopeless
desire to succour the girl, darted forward at the right instant and,
throwing his arms about her, cast himself along with her into the sea.
Now from the first there was spread among the contingent a rumour,
lacking certainty, but nevertheless widely believed, that they were safe
and had been rescued; and at a later date, it is said, Enalus appeared
in Lesbos and told how they had been carried by dolphins through the sea
and cast ashore without harm upon the mainland. He had other still more
miraculous experiences to tell, which held the crowd spellbound with
amazement, but for all of which he gave actual evidence. For when an
enormous wave was rushing sheer round [Sidenote: D] the island and
people were terrified, he alone ventured to face it. [Sidenote: *] On
its retiring, a number of polypi followed him to the temple of Poseidon.
From the largest of these he took a stone which it was carrying, and
offered it as a dedication. That stone we call Enalus.

‘Speaking generally, the man who knows the difference between impossible
and unfamiliar, between unreasonable and unexpected, will be most a man
after your own heart, Chilon; he will neither believe nor disbelieve
without discrimination, but will carefully observe your own rule of
“_nothing in excess_”.’

Anacharsis next made the remark that, as Thales believed [Sidenote: E]
all the greatest and most important components of the universe to
contain soul, there was no reason to wonder if the most splendid actions
were brought to pass by the will of God. ‘For the body is the instrument
of the soul, and soul is the instrument of God. And as, though many of
the motions of the body proceed from itself, the most and the finest are
produced by the soul, so again is it with the soul. While it performs
many actions on its own motion, in other cases it is but lending itself,
as the aptest of all instruments, to the use of God, for Him to direct
and apply it as He chooses. It would,’ said he, ‘be [Sidenote: F] a very
strange thing if, while fire, wind, water, clouds, and rain are God’s
instruments, by which He often preserves and nourishes and often kills
and destroys, He has never on any occasion at all used animals as His
agents. On the contrary, it is natural that, in their dependence upon
the divine power, they should lend themselves more responsively to
motions from God than does the bow to the Scythian or the lyre and flute
to the Greek.’

After this the poet Chersias mentioned, among other cases of persons
rescued in hopeless situations, that of Cypselus, Periander’s father.
When he was a newborn babe, the men who had been sent to make away with
him were turned from their purpose because he smiled at them. When they
changed their minds and came back to look for him, he was not to be
found, his mother having hidden him in a chest. ‘It is for this reason
[Sidenote: 164] that Cypselus built the house at Delphi, believing that
the god had then stopped him from crying so that he might elude the
search.’

At this Pittacus, addressing Periander, observed, ‘I have to thank
Chersias, Periander, for mentioning that house; for I have often wanted
to ask you the meaning of those frogs which are carved in such large
size at the base of the palm-tree. What reference have they to the god
or to the dedication?’ Periander having bidden him ask Chersias, who
knew the reason and was present when Cypselus consecrated the house,
Chersias said with [Sidenote: B] a smile, ‘No: I will give no
information until these gentlemen have told me the meaning of their
_Nothing in excess_ and _Know thyself_, and of those words which have
kept many people from marrying, made many distrustful, and reduced some
to positive dumbness—the words _Give a pledge, and Mischief is nigh._’
‘Why do you need us to tell you that,’ said Pittacus, ‘seeing that you
have so long admired the stories in which Aesop practically deals with
each of those maxims?’ ‘Nay,’ replied Aesop, ‘he does need it, when he
is joking at me. But when he is in earnest, he proves that Homer was
their inventor. He says that Hector “knew himself”, inasmuch as, though
[Sidenote: C] he attacked the rest,

       _Ajax, Telamon’s son, he would not fight, but he shunned him_,

and that Odysseus recommends “nothing in excess” since he urges Diomede

      _Nay, prithee, Tydeus’ son; nor praise me much nor reprove me_.

As for a pledge, not only is it the general opinion that he is
reprobating it as a misguided and futile thing when he says

      _Sorry, I trow, to take are the pledges that sorry folk offer_,

but our friend Chersias here tells us how “Mischief” was hurled from
heaven by Zeus because she was present when he was tripped [Sidenote: D]
up through pledging his word in connexion with the birth of Heracles.’

Here Solon interposed. ‘Well, Homer was a very wise man, and we should
do well to take his advice:

    _Already the night is here; night bids, and ’tis good to obey her._

Let us therefore pour an offering to the Muses and to Poseidon and
Amphitrite, and then—with your permission—break up the party.’

This, Nicarchus, terminated the party on that occasion.

Footnote 24:

  The home of Bias.

Footnote 25:

  According to another account he waited till the shadow was equal in
  length to the stick. The pyramid was then also equal in height to the
  length of its shadow.

Footnote 26:

  The divinities of spring-water.

Footnote 27:

  The title _Lusios_ or _Luaios_ was popularly interpreted Deliverer
  (from care or difficulty).

Footnote 28:

  See note on _Amasis_.

Footnote 29:

  i.e. anointing himself, not in connexion with bathing, but with
  exercise in the wrestling-schools.

Footnote 30:

  The precise remark is uncertain, the text here being corrupt.

Footnote 31:

  Equivalent to a command to ‘go weep’.

Footnote 32:

  In antiquity these vessels were of bronze.

Footnote 33:

  Which was bequeathed ‘to the wisest’. It was given to Thales, who
  passed it on to another, and the process was repeated till it came
  back to Thales, whereupon he dedicated it to Apollo.




                       ON OLD MEN IN PUBLIC LIFE


It is well known, Euphanes, that as an admirer of Pindar you [Sidenote:
783 B] are fond of quoting his ‘fine and forcible words’:

                      _When struggle is afoot, excuses
                      Cast a deep cloud on valour._

In connexion with the struggles of public life timidity and weakness can
find plenty of excuses, but as a last and most desperate plea they urge
‘advancing years’. This is their pretext _par excellence_ for blunting
ambition and putting it out of countenance. They argue that there is a
fitting close to a public, as much as to an athletic, career. For these
reasons [Sidenote: C] I think it well to take my own ordinary
reflections upon ‘old men in public life’ and lay them before yourself.
They may prevent either of us from deserting that long companionship
which has hitherto followed a common path, and from abandoning that
public life which may be regarded as a familiar friend from youth up, in
order to adopt another which is unfamiliar, and with which there is no
time for us to become thoroughly intimate. I would have us abide by our
original principle, and determine that life and the worthy life shall
end together. It is not for us to convert the brief remainder into a
confession that the bulk of our time has been wastefully applied to no
good purpose. [Sidenote: D]

It is not, indeed, true—as some one told Dionysius—that ‘despotism is a
fine shroud’. In his case the combination of absolutism with injustice
was only made all the more complete a calamity by the fact that it never
ceased. It was therefore a shrewd remark of Diogenes, when at a later
date he saw Dionysius’ son in a humble private station at Corinth.
‘Dionysius,’ said he, ‘you are far from receiving your deserts. Instead
of living a free and fearless life here with us, you ought to have been
there, housed in the despot’s palace and made to live in it, like your
father, till old age.’ It is different with constitutional and
democratic statesmanship. When a man has learned to show himself a
profitable subject as well as a profitable ruler, he [Sidenote: E] does
indeed obtain at death a ‘fine shroud’, in the shape of the good name
earned by his life. For this—to quote Simonides—

              _Is the last thing to sink beneath the ground_,

except in cases where high human interests and noble zeal are earlier to
fail and die than natural desires.

Are the active and divine elements of our being more evanescent than the
passionate and corporeal? That were an unworthy view to hold; as
unworthy as to accept the doctrine that the [Sidenote: F] only thing of
which we never weary is making gain. On the contrary, we should improve
upon Thucydides, and regard as ‘_the only thing that never ages_’ not
‘_the love of honour_‘, but that public spirit and activity which even
ants and bees maintain till the end. No one has ever seen old age
convert a bee into a drone. Yet there are some who claim that public men
who have passed their prime should sit and be fed in seclusion at home,
allowing their practical abilities to rust away in idleness. [Sidenote:
784] Cato used to say that, to the many plagues of its own from which
old age suffers, there is no justification for deliberately adding the
disgrace of vice. There are many vices, but none can do more than weak
and cowardly inactivity to disgrace a man in years—a man who skulks away
from the public offices to look after a houseful of women, or to
supervise gleaners and reapers in the country.

                                 _Where now
                 Is Oedipus? Where the famed riddles now?_

It is one thing to wait till old age before commencing public life, and
to be like Epimenides, who—so they say—fell asleep a youth and fifty
years afterwards awoke an old man. If, in [Sidenote: B] such a case, one
were to divest himself of that quiet habit which has lasted all his
life, and were to plunge into struggles and worries with which he was
unfamiliar, and for which he was not trained by intercourse with public
affairs or with mankind, there would be room for remonstrance. We might
say, as the Pythian priestess said, ‘_You come too late_’ in your quest
of office and leadership. You are past the time for knocking at the door
of the Presidency. You are like some blundering reveller whose surprise
visit is not made till night; or like some stranger who is in quest, not
of a new district or country, but of a new life, about which you know
nothing. If Simonides says

    _The State is a man’s teacher_,

it is true only of those who have the time to change their teacher and
learn a new lesson—a lesson slowly and laboriously acquired by means of
many a struggle and experience, and only when it [Sidenote: C] can take
its hold sufficiently early on a natural genius for bearing toils and
troubles with equanimity.

To resume. We find that, on the contrary, it is striplings and youths
whom sensible men do their best to keep out of public business. Witness
our laws, under which the crier in the Assembly, when inviting speech
and advice, calls upon the platform in the first instance not an
Alcibiades or a Pytheas, but persons over fifty. Foolish audacity and
lack of experience [Sidenote: D] are nowhere so out of place as in a
deliberator or a judge.[34] Cato, when past eighty and on his defence,
said it was hard to have to defend himself before one set of people
after having lived with another. It is agreed on all hands that the
measures of Caesar—the conqueror of Antony—became considerably more
regal and good for the public towards the end of his life. Once, when by
stern application of custom and law he was correcting the rising
generation, and they made an outcry, his own words were: ‘Young men,
listen to an old man to whom old men listened [Sidenote: E] when he was
young.’ It was in old age, too, that the statesmanship of Pericles
reached its greatest influence. This was the time when he induced the
Athenians to enter upon the war, and when he successfully opposed their
ill-timed eagerness to fight a battle against sixty thousand
men-at-arms, by all but sealing up the public armouries and the locks of
the gates. As for what Xenophon writes of Agesilaus, it is best to quote
verbatim. _‘Is there any youth with whom this old man did not compare to
advantage? Who in the prime of life was so formidable to an enemy as
Agesilaus was at the most advanced age? Of whom was the foe so glad to
be rid as of Agesilaus, though he was old [Sidenote: F] when his end
came? Who inspired such courage in his own side as Agesilaus, although
close upon the end of life? What young man was more regretted by his
friends than Agesilaus, though he died when full of years?_’

Well, if time was no hindrance to the great actions of men like these,
what of us, who nowadays enjoy the luxury of a public life which admits
of no despots, no fighting, no sieges, but only of warless contests and
of ambitions which are for the most part settled by just means according
to law and reason? Are we [Sidenote: 785] to play the coward? Must we
confess that we are the inferiors, not merely of the commanders and
popular leaders of those days, but of the poets, leaders of thought, and
actors? Take Simonides. He won choric victories in old age, as is
evident from the last lines of the epigram:

       _And withal to Simonides fell the glory and prize of the poet;
         Fell to Leoprepes’ son, come to his eightieth year._

Take Sophocles. It is said that, when his sons charged him with being in
his dotage, he read in his defence the entrance ode of the _Oedipus at
Colonus_, beginning:

                  _To this land of the steed, O stranger,
                  To the goodliest homes on earth,
                  Thou hast come—to the white Colonus,
                  Fond haunt of the nightingale,
                  Where her clear voice trills its sorrow
                  In the green of the leafy dell...._

a lyric which won such admiration that he left the court, as it
[Sidenote: B] might have been the theatre, amid the applause and cheers
of the audience. A little epigram, admitted to be by Sophocles, contains
the words:

                 _Five years and fifty Sophocles had seen,
                 Ere for Herodotus he wrought a song._

Take Philemon, the comic poet, and Alexis. They were still putting plays
upon the stage, still winning crowns, when death overtook them. Take
Polus, the tragedian. Eratosthenes and Philochorus inform us that,
shortly before his end, and when [Sidenote: C] he was seventy, he acted
eight tragedies in four days.

Is it, I say, creditable that old men of the platform should show a
poorer spirit than old men of the stage? That they should retire from
the sacred contests—for ‘sacred’ these veritably are—and give up the
rôle of the public man in exchange for goodness knows what other part?
From king, say, to farmer is a descent indeed. Demosthenes calls it
cruel treatment of the _Paralus_, to make that sacred warship carry
cargoes of timber, vine-stakes, and cattle for Meidias. But suppose a
public man abandons the Presidentship of Games, his seat on the Federal
Board, his high place in the Sacred League, and is found [Sidenote: D]
measuring out barley-meal and olive-cake, or shearing sheep. It cannot
but look as if he were needlessly courting the status of ‘old worn-out
horse’. As for leaving a public career to engage in vulgar and petty
trade, one might as well take some self-respecting lady, strip off her
gown, give her an apron, and keep her in a tavern. Turn public ability
to mere business and money-making, and its rank and character [Sidenote:
E] are lost.

Or if, as a last alternative, people choose to talk of ‘ease and
enjoyment’, when they mean luxurious self-indulgence; if they recommend
the public man to adopt that process of idle senile decay, I hardly know
which of two ugly comparisons will best hit off such a life. Shall I say
it is a case of sailors taking ‘Aphrodite-holiday’ and keeping it up for
ever, without waiting till their ship is berthed, but deserting it while
still on the voyage? Or is it a case of ‘Heracles-chez-Omphale’—as some
sorry humourists depict him—wearing a saffron gown and quietly allowing
Lydian handmaids to fan him and braid his hair? Are we to treat our
public man in that way? To strip off his [Sidenote: F] lion’s-skin, lay
him on a couch, and feast him, with lute and flute lulling him all the
while? Or should we not take warning by the retort of Pompey the Great
to Lucullus? The latter, after his campaigns and public services, had
given himself up to baths, dinners, social entertainments in the
daytime, profound indolence, and new-fangled notions in the way of
house-building. Meanwhile he accused Pompey of a fondness for place and
power unsuited to his years. Pompey replied that for an old man
effeminacy was more unseasonable than office. When he was [Sidenote:
786] ill and the doctor ordered him fieldfares—the bird being then out
of season and difficult to procure—and when some one told him that
Lucullus had a large number in his preserves, he refused to send for or
receive one, exclaiming, ‘What? Pompey could not live but for the luxury
of Lucullus?’

It may be true that nature ordinarily seeks pleasure and delight. But,
with an old man, the body has become incapable of all pleasures except a
few which are essential. Not only is it the case that

               _The Queen of Love turns weary from the old_,

[Sidenote: B] as Euripides has it. Though they may retain the appetite
for eating and drinking—generally in a dulled or toothless form—they
find a difficulty in whetting the edge or sharpening the teeth even of
that. It is in the mind that one must lay up a stock of pleasures,
though not of the mean and ignoble kind indicated by Simonides, when he
told those who reproached him with avarice that, though age had robbed
him of other joys, he had still one left to support his declining
years—the joy of money-making. In public activity there are pleasures of
the greatest and noblest sort, such as we may believe to be the only, or
the chief, enjoyment of the gods themselves—I mean those which result
from a beneficent deed or a fine achievement.

Nicias the painter was so taken up with his artistic work that he was
often obliged to ask his servants whether he had had his [Sidenote: C]
bath or his breakfast. Archimedes stuck so closely to his drawing-board
that, in order to anoint him, his attendants had to drag him away and
strip him by force. He then went on drawing his diagrams in the ointment
on his body. Carus the flutist (an acquaintance of your own) used to say
that people did not know how much more pleasure he himself got from
playing than he gave to others; otherwise an audience would be paid to
listen instead of paying. Can we fail to perceive how great are the
pleasures derived from fine actions and public-spirited achievements by
those who put high qualities to use? Nor is it by means of those
effeminate titillations which soft and agreeable movements exert upon
the flesh. The ticklings of the flesh [Sidenote: D] are spasmodic,
fickle, intermittent, whereas the pleasures of noble deeds—the creations
of the true statesman’s art—will bear the soul aloft in grandeur and
pride and joy, as if, I will not say upon the ‘_golden wings_’ of
Euripides, but upon those ‘_celestial pinions_’ described by Plato.

Remember the instances of which you have so often heard. Epaminondas,
when asked what had been his most pleasurable experience, replied,
‘Having been victorious at Leuctra while [Sidenote: E] my father and
mother were still alive.’ When Sulla first reached Rome after purging
Italy of its civil wars, he could not sleep a wink that night. As he has
written in his own _Notes and Recollections_, so elated was his mind
with the greatness of his joy and happiness, that it seemed to walk on
air. If we admit, with Xenophon, that ‘_no hearing is so agreeable as
praise_‘, no sight, recollection, or reflection is so fraught with
gratification as the contemplation of exploits of our own in the
conspicuous public arena of office and statesmanship. Not but what, when
[Sidenote: F] a grateful goodwill testifies to our achievements, and
when there is a rivalry of commendation productive of well-earned
popularity, our merit acquires a gloss and brilliance which adds to our
sense of pleasure.

Therefore, instead of permitting our reputation to wither in our old age
like an athlete’s crown, we must be constantly adopting new devices and
making fresh efforts to enliven the sense of past obligation, to enhance
it, and to make it permanent. We must act like the craftsmen who were
required to provide for the security of the Delian ship. They used to
replace unsound timbers by others, and, by means of insertions and
repairs, were regarded as keeping the vessel immortal and indestructible
from [Sidenote: 787] the oldest times. Reputation is like flame. There
is no difficulty in keeping it alive; it merely requires a little
feeding with fuel. But let either of them become extinct and cold, and
it will take some trouble to rekindle.

Lampis, the shipowner, was once asked how he made his fortune. ‘Making
the big one,’ he answered, ‘was easy enough; but it was a long and hard
business to make the little one.’ So with political power and
reputation. Though not easy to get in the first instance, anything will
suffice to maintain and increase them when once they are great. It is as
with a friend, when once he becomes such. He does not look for a large
number of important services in order to retain his friendship;
[Sidenote: B] small tokens, consistently shown, will keep his constant
affection. Nor are the confidence and friendship of the people
perpetually calling for you to open your purse, to play the champion, or
to hold an office. They are retained by mere public spirit—by being in
no haste to desert or shirk the burden of care and watchfulness.

Campaigns are not matters of everlastingly facing the enemy, fighting,
and besieging. They have also their times of sacrifice, their occasional
social gatherings, their periods of ample leisure, when jest and
nonsense are toward. And why should one look upon public life with
dread, as being laborious, wearisome, and devoid of consolations, seeing
that the theatre, processions, awards, ‘_dances of the Muses and
Gladsomeness_,’ and honour [Sidenote: C] after honour to the gods relax
the stern brow of the Bureau or the Chamber, and yield a manifold return
of inviting entertainment?

In the next place jealousy, the greatest bane of public life, is less
severe upon old age. For, to quote Heracleitus, ‘_dogs bark at the man
they do not know_.’ Though jealousy may fight with the beginner at the
doors of the platform and refuse him access, no savageness or fierceness
is shown to a man of familiar and established reputation, but he finds
friendly admittance. For this reason some have compared jealousy to
smoke. In the case of beginners, during the process of kindling, it
pours forth in clouds; when they are in full blaze, it disappears. And
while [Sidenote: D] people resist and dispute other forms of
superiority—in merit, birth, or public spirit—through a belief that any
acknowledgement to others means so much derogation to themselves, the
primacy which is due to time—‘seniority’ in the proper sense—is conceded
without a grudge. Respect paid to the aged has the unique quality of
doing more honour to the giver than to the recipient.

Moreover it is not every one who expects to attain to the power derived
from wealth, eloquence, or wisdom; whereas no public man despairs of
winning the esteem and distinction to which age gradually leads.

Imagine a navigator, who has managed his ship safely in the face of
contrary winds and waves, and then, when the weather [Sidenote: E]
becomes fair and calm, wishes to lay her to. It is just as strange when
a man has fought his ship in a long battle with jealousies, and then,
after they are quietly laid, backs out of public life, and, in
abandoning his activities, abandons his partners and associates. The
more time there has been, the more friends and fellow-workers he has
made; but he is neither in a position to lead them with him off the
stage, as a poet does his chorus, [Sidenote: F] nor has he the right to
leave them in the lurch. A long public life is like an old tree. To pull
it up is no easy task, because of its many roots and its entanglement
with many interests, which involve worse wrenching and disturbance when
you leave them than when you stay.

And if political conflict does leave you some remnant of jealousy or
antagonism to face when you are old, it is better to quell it by means
of your position than to turn your back and retire without armour or
weapons of defence. People are not so ready to attack you out of
jealousy when you are still in action as they are out of contempt when
you give it up.

[Sidenote: 788] We may also appeal to the great Epaminondas and his
remark to the Thebans. It was winter at the time, and the Arcadians were
inviting them to enter the city and live in the houses. This he refused
to allow, observing: ‘At the present time they come to look at you and
admire your wrestling and military exercises; but if they see you
sitting by the fire and chewing your beans, they will regard you as no
better than themselves.’ So with an aged man. When making a speech,
transacting business, or receiving honours, he is a dignified spectacle;
but when he lies all day on a couch or sits in the corner of a public
[Sidenote: B] resort talking drivel and wiping his nose, he is an object
of contempt. This is precisely what Homer teaches, if you read him
rightly. Nestor, who was campaigning at Troy, received high respect and
honour; whereas Peleus and Laertes, the stay-at-homes, were despised,
and counted for nothing.

Nay, even intellectual power begins to fail those who have let
themselves relax. Idleness gradually renders it feeble and flaccid, in
the absence of some necessary exercise of thought to keep the logical
and practical faculty perpetually alive and in trim.

            _Like glossy bronze, ’tis use that makes it shine._

Bodily weakness may be a drawback to public activity in the [Sidenote:
C] case of those who, in spite of their years, make the platform or the
Cabinet their goal. But it is more than compensated by the advantage of
their caution and prudence. They do not dash into public affairs with
the expression of opinions prompted by error or vanity as the case may
be, and carrying the mob with them in as excited a condition as a stormy
sea; but they deal in a mild and reasonable fashion with such matters as
arise. It is for this reason that, in times of disaster or alarm,
communities feel the need of a Board of Government consisting of senior
men. Often they have fetched back from the country [Sidenote: D] an old
man who neither asked nor wished it, and have compelled him to put his
hand to the helm and steer the ship of State into safety, while they
thrust aside generals and popular leaders, despite all their ability to
shout, to talk without taking breath, and also, no doubt, to make
‘_sturdy stand and doughty fight_’ against the enemy. When Chares, the
son of Theochares—a man in the prime of bodily strength and
condition—was brought into the ring in opposition to Timotheus and
Iphicrates by the public speakers of Athens, with the claim that ‘this
is the kind of general the Athenians should have’, Timotheus [Sidenote:
E] replied: ‘By no manner of means. No doubt that is the sort needed to
carry the general’s baggage; but the general should be one who “_sees
before and after_”, and whose calculations as to policy no distractions
can disturb.’ Sophocles said ‘he was glad that old age had enabled him
to escape from sexual passion—a fierce and mad master.’ But in public
life we have to escape, not from one master—the love of women—but from
many madder still; from contentiousness, vanity, and the desire to be
first and greatest—a malady most fertile in envy, jealousy, and
[Sidenote: F] feud. Some of these feelings are abated or dulled, some
are altogether chilled and quenched, by old age. And though old age may
do something to diminish our zest for action, it does more to guard us
from the intemperate heat of passion, so that we can bring a sober and
steady reason to bear upon our thoughts.

By all means, in dealing with one who begins to play the youth when his
hair is grey, let it be—as it is considered—sound warning to say:

                  _Misguided man, stay quiet in thy bed._

[Sidenote: 789] Let us remonstrate with an old man when he rises from a
long privacy, as from a bed of sickness, and bestirs himself to obtain a
command or an official post. But suppose a man has lived a life of
public action and thoroughly played the part. To prevent him from going
on till ‘finis and the torch’, to call him back and bid him change the
road he has long followed, is utterly unfeeling, and bears no
resemblance to the case just given. If an old man has his wreath on and
is scenting himself in readiness to marry, there is nothing unreasonable
in trying to dissuade him by quoting the lines addressed to Philoctetes:

           _But, pray, where is the bride, where the young maid,
           Would welcome thee? Rare bridegroom thou, poor soul!_

Nay, they are fond of making jests of the kind at their own [Sidenote:
B] expense:

              _I’m marrying old, and for the neighbours’ good:
              I know it._

But when a man has been long married, and has lived with his wife for
years without a fault to find, to tell him that he should divorce her
because he is old, and that he should live by himself or get a wretched
concubine in place of his lawful spouse, is the very extreme of
absurdity. In the same way when an aged man seeks to enter
politics—Chlidon the farmer, Lampon the ship’s captain, or some
philosopher from the Garden[35]—there is some reason in admonishing him,
and keeping him to the state of inactivity to which he has been used.
But it is urging a public man to act [Sidenote: C] with injustice and
ingratitude, when we take hold of a Phocion, a Cato, or a Pericles, and
say, ‘Sir Athenian—or Sir Roman—

             _Thine age is wither’d and thy head o’erfrosted_;

therefore sue for a divorce from statesmanship, have done with the
worrying business of the platform and the Board of War, and make haste
into the country, to live with farming “for a waiting-maid” or to occupy
the rest of your days with thrift and the keeping of accounts.’

Well, but (it may be asked) what of the soldier in the comedy with his

              _Discharged! No pay! because of my white hair?_

Quite true, my friend. The War-God’s servants must be in the prime of
manly vigour. Their business is with

                       _War and war’s baleful work_,

in which, though an old man’s grey hair may be hidden by his [Sidenote:
D] helmet,

                   _Yet in secret his thews are aweary_,

and, though the spirit be willing, the strength can no longer respond.

But the ministers of Zeus—the God of Council, of Assembly, of the
State—are not asked for deeds of hand and foot, but for counsel and
foresight. We ask them for advice, not such as to evoke roars of mere
noise in the Assembly, but full of sense and shrewdness, and safe to
follow. In their case the despised white hair and wrinkles become the
visible tokens of experience. They suggest moral force, and are
therefore a help to persuasion. [Sidenote: E] It is the part of youth to
obey; of old age to guide; and that state is safest where

                     _Best are the old men’s counsels,
                     And best the young man’s spear._

Homer’s

        _And first he summon’d to council the old men mighty-hearted
        By the side of the ship of Nestor_,

is a touch greatly admired. For the same reason the Select Board
associated with the kings at Sparta was called by the Pythian oracle
‘elder-born’, but by Lycurgus ‘old men’ _sans phrase_, while the Roman
Council is called _Senatus_ down to the present time. The law crowns a
man with the circlet and the wreath, Nature crowns him with grey hair,
and both are the venerable emblems of sovereign rank. Moreover, the
words [Sidenote: F] _geras_, ‘prerogative,’ and _gerairein_, ‘honour
with prerogative’—derived from _geron_, ‘old man’—retain a dignified
sense, not because the old man’s bath is warmed and his bed a softer
one, but because he amounts to a king in the state by virtue of his
wisdom; and wisdom is like a late-fruiting plant, it is only in old age
that nature brings out its special excellence and perfect quality.

When the king of kings prayed to the gods

     _Would that among the Achaeans were ten such as he to advise me!_

[Sidenote: 790] —meaning Nestor—not one of the ‘_valorous_’ and
‘_prowess-breathing_’ Achaeans complained. They all admitted that not
only in statesmanship, but in war also, age was of great moment, since

             _More worth is one sage thought than many a hand_,

and one rational and cogent judgement achieves the finest and most
important results in public affairs.

Now kingship, the most complete and comprehensive form of public
activity, is full of cares, labours, and preoccupations. Seleucus, it
was said, used to declare that if ordinary people knew what a business
it was merely to write and read so many letters, they would not pick up
the crown if they found it [Sidenote: B] lying in the street. And the
story goes that, when Philip was proposing to encamp in an excellent
position, but was told that there was no fodder for the pack-animals, he
exclaimed: ‘Good Heavens! what is our life worth, when we are obliged to
suit it to the convenience of our asses?’ Ought we then to give the same
advice to a king when he has grown old? Bid him lay aside the crown and
the purple, take to a cloak and a crutched stick, and live in the
country, for fear people should think it officious and unseasonable of
him to be reigning when he is grey?

But we have no right to talk in this way about an Agesilaus, or a Numa,
or a Darius. Neither then should we compel a Solon [Sidenote: C] to
leave the Council of the Areopagus, nor a Cato the Senate, nor yet urge
a Pericles to leave popular government to look after itself. It is
contrary to reason that in our youth we should bounce upon the platform,
spend upon the public all the passionate licence of our ambition, and
then, when age arrives and brings the wisdom of experience, desert and
betray our public standing like a woman whom we have used at our
pleasure.

In Aesop, when the hedgehog wanted to pick off his ticks, the fox would
not let him. ‘These are glutted,’ said he, ‘and [Sidenote: D] if you get
rid of them, hungry ones will be at you in their place.’ So with public
life. If it is perpetually shedding the old men, it will necessarily be
plagued with young ones, who are thirsting for notoriety and power but
devoid of political sense. How can they be otherwise, if they are to
have no elderly statesman to watch and learn from? A ship’s captain is
not made by treatises on navigation. He must often have stood upon the
quarter-deck and watched the struggle with wave and wind and stormy
nights, when

                    _The sailor on the brine longs sore
                    For Tyndareus’ twin sons._

And can the handling of a State and the persuading of Assembly
[Sidenote: E] or Council be rightly left to a young man because he has
read a book or taken down a lecture on statesmanship in the Lyceum?
Though he has not taken his stand many a time beside rudder-rope and
tiller, leaned first to this side and then to that, while generals and
public leaders were pitting their knowledge and experience against each
other, and so learned his lesson in the midst of dangers and
difficulties? Beyond question, No! For the education and training of the
young, if for no other reason, old men should play a public part. A
teacher of letters or of music himself reads or plays a passage over
first by way of example [Sidenote: F] to his pupils. So the authority on
statesmanship must guide a young man, not simply by talking or
suggesting from outside, but by the practical administration of public
business. It is by deeds as well as by words that he will mould him to
the true shape, filled with the breath of life. It is training of this
kind—not in the schools where you practise safe forms of wrestling under
mannerly professors, but in contests truly Olympian and Pythian—that
makes one, as Simonides puts it,

              _Keep pace, as with the steed the wearied colt_;

[Sidenote: 791] —Aristeides with Cleisthenes, Cimon with Aristeides,
Phocion with Chabrias, Cato with Fabius Maximus, Pompeius with Sulla,
Polybius with Philopoemen. It was by attaching themselves when young to
older men, by using them as supports to their own growth, by being
raised to their standard of statesmanlike achievement, that they
acquired the political experience which brought them fame and power.

When certain professors declared that the claim of Aeschines, the
Academic philosopher, to have been a pupil of Carneades was contrary to
fact, he replied, ‘O yes: I was a disciple of Carneades at the time when
age had taken all the fuss and noise [Sidenote: B] out of his teaching
and reduced it to practical and serviceable shape.’ With the
statesmanship of an old man, however, it is not merely the talking, but
the deeds, that lose all ostentation and itch for notoriety. They tell
us that, when the iris has grown old and exhausted all crude exuberance
of perfume, its fragrance gains in sweetness. So with the views and
suggestions of the old. There is no crudeness in them, but always a
quality of quiet solidity. For this reason, as I have said, we must have
elderly men in public life. Plato speaks of mixing water with neat wine
as the bringing of a ‘frenzied god’ to sanity by the [Sidenote: C]
‘chastening of another who is sober’. So when young spirits in the
Assembly are a-boil with the intoxication of glory and ambition, we need
the old men’s caution to qualify them and to eliminate their mad excess
of fire.

There is another consideration. It is an error to suppose that
statesmanship is like a voyage or a campaign—carried on for an ulterior
object and discontinued when that is attained. Statesmanship is not a
public burden, to be borne only so long as needs must. It is the career
of a civilized being with a gift for citizenship and society, and with a
natural disposition to live a life of public influence, worthy aims, and
social helpfulness for as long as occasion calls.

The right course therefore is to _be_ a public man, not to _have_ been
one; just as it is right to speak the truth, not to [Sidenote: D] _have_
spoken it; to act honestly, not to _have_ so acted; to love one’s
country and fellow-citizens, not to _have_ loved them. Those are
Nature’s objects, and where men are not utterly demoralized by idleness
and effeminacy, her promptings are such as these:

                 _Thy sire begat thee for rich use to men_,

and

               _Ne’er let us cease from service to mankind._

To urge the plea of ill-health or disablement is to blame disease and
injury, not old age. Young men are often sickly, old men often vigorous.
It is therefore not the old whom we should discourage, but the
incapable. It is the capable whom [Sidenote: E] we should encourage, not
the young. Aridaeus was young, and Antigonus old; but while Antigonus
annexed nearly the whole of Asia, Aridaeus was like the ‘super’ upon the
stage—a king with nothing to say, and a butt for whoever happened to be
in power. To demand of the sophist Prodicus or the poet Philetas—who,
young though they might be, were thin, sickly, and constantly taking to
their beds through ill-health—that they should take up public life, were
folly. But it were folly also to hinder old men like Phocion, or
Masinissa the African, or the Roman Cato, from holding office or
military command. The [Sidenote: F] Athenians being set upon an
ill-timed war, Phocion ordered that every man under sixty should take up
arms and serve. When this made them angry, he said, ‘There is no
hardship. I, who am to be with you in command, am over eighty.’ And of
Masinissa Polybius relates that he died when he was ninety, leaving a
child of four, of whom he was the father. Shortly before his death he
beat the Carthaginians in a great battle, [Sidenote: 792] and the next
day was seen in front of his tent eating a loaf of cheap coarse bread.
To expressions of surprise he answered that he did so to keep himself in
training.

               _For like to goodly bronze, it shines in use,
               While a house crumbles, if left idle long_,

says Sophocles. We may say the same of that glossy brightness of the
mind, to which we owe calculation, memory, and sound judgement.

For the same reason it is said that wars and campaigns make better kings
than inactivity. Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, was so thoroughly
enervated by long peace and [Sidenote: B] idleness that Philopoemen, one
of his intimates, had simply to shepherd him and keep him fat. In fact,
the Romans used to inquire of arrivals from Asia, whether ‘the king had
any influence with Philopoemen’. It would be hard to find a Roman
general more able than Lucullus, so long as he kept his intellect braced
with action. But he surrendered himself to a life of inactivity, stayed
at home, thought of nothing, and became as lifeless and shrunken as a
sponge in a calm. Afterwards, in his old age, he so tamely accepted a
certain freedman, Callisthenes, for his keeper, that the man [Sidenote:
C] was thought to be bewitching him with spells and drugs, till at last
his brother Marcus drove the fellow away and himself took to managing
and tutoring him for the short remainder of his life. On the other hand,
Darius, the father of Xerxes, used to say that he became his wisest in
times of danger; and Ateas the Scythian declared that, when he had
nothing to do, he could see nothing to distinguish him from his grooms.
When some one asked the elder Dionysius if he had time to spare, he
replied: ‘Heaven forbid I ever should!’ Whereas a bow, they tell us, is
broken by stringing it tight, a mind is broken by leaving it loose. If a
musician gives up listening [Sidenote: D] for pitch, a geometrician the
solving of problems, an arithmetician the constant habit of calculation,
old age will enfeeble the ability along with the loss of its exercise,
although the art in these cases is not a ‘practic’ one, but a
‘theoretic’. In the case of the special ability of the statesman—his
caution, wisdom, and justice, together with an experienced knack of
hitting the right language at the right time; that is to say, a faculty
for creating persuasion—it is kept in good condition by constant speech,
action, calculation, and judicial decision. It would be a dire mistake
for it to abandon such activities [Sidenote: E] and permit all those
important virtues to leak away from the mind. For it naturally means a
decline of kindly interest in man and society—a thing which should be
without limit or end.

Suppose your father had been Tithonus. Suppose, though he was immortal,
old age had made him require close and constant care. You would not, I
imagine, have run away and repudiated the task of tending him, talking
to him, and helping him, just because you had ‘borne the burden for a
long time’. Well, your fatherland—or ‘motherland’ as it is called in
Crete—has claims prior to those of parents, and greater. Your country’s
life has been a long one, but she is not without old age. She is
[Sidenote: F] not sufficient to herself, but is in perpetual need of
watchful and considerate help. She therefore grasps at the statesman and
holds him back:

    _Clutching his garment she stays him, though eager he be for
       departure._

You are aware that I have performed my public duty at many a Pythian
festival. But you would not say ‘Plutarch, you have done enough in the
way of sacrifices, processions, and choruses. You are now in years; it
is time to put off your wreath; age entitles you to leave the shrine
alone’. Well, look at your own duty in the same way. In the sacred
service of the State you are coryphaeus and prophet, and it is not for
you to abandon that worship of Zeus, God of State and Assembly, in which
you have been so long initiated and are so thoroughly versed.

[Sidenote: 793] Permit me now to leave the arguments for quitting public
life, and to examine another point. We must beware of inflicting upon
our old age an unbecoming or exacting task, when so many portions of
public work are so well suited to that time of life. If it had been
proper for us to go on singing all our days, there are at our disposal
many keys and modes, or, as the musicians call them, ‘systems.’ Our
right course in our old age would have been to cultivate, not a mode
both high and sharp, but one combining ease with appropriate character.
And since Nature prompts mankind to act and speak—even more [Sidenote:
B] than it prompts the swan to sing—until the end, our duty is not to
lay action aside, like a lyre of too high a pitch, but to lower the key
and adapt it to such forms of public effort as are light, unexacting,
and within an old man’s compass. We do not leave our bodies entirely
without muscular exercise because we cannot use the spade and the
jumping-weights, or hurl the discus, or practise fencing, as we used to
do. We swing or walk, and in some cases the breathing is exercised and
warmth stimulated by playing a gentle game of ball, or by conversation.

On the one hand, then, do not let us allow ourselves to become
[Sidenote: C] stiff and torpid from inactivity. On the other, let us not
undertake any and every official position, clutch at any and every kind
of public work, and bring such an exposure upon old age that it is
driven to exclaim in despair:

             _Right hand, how fain art thou to grasp the spear!
             How vain thy longing, in thy strengthlessness!_

Even in the prime of strength a man wins no credit if he tries to take
on his shoulders the whole pack of public business, and [Sidenote: D]
refuses—like Zeus, according to the Stoics—to leave anything to others;
if he insinuates himself everywhere and has his finger in everything,
through an insatiable greed for notoriety or through jealousy of any one
who contrives to get a share of honour and power in the community. But
when a man is quite old, then, apart from the discredit, wretchedly hard
work is entailed by that itch for office which is always courting every
ballot-box, that meddlesomeness which lies in wait for every opportunity
of acting on a jury or a committee, that ambition which snaps up every
appointment as delegate or proctor. [Sidenote: E] Such work is a heavy
tax on an old man, even when people are well-disposed. But the opposite
may very well be the case. For young men hate him because he leaves them
no opportunities and prevents them from coming to the front; while the
rest of the community looks upon his itch for office and precedence with
the same disapproval as upon the itch of other old men for money and
pleasure.

When Bucephalus was growing old, Alexander, being unwilling to overwork
him, used to ride some other horse while reviewing the phalanx and
getting it into position before the [Sidenote: F] battle. Then, after
giving the word for the day, he changed his mount to Bucephalus, and at
once led the charge and tried the fortunes of war. In the same way a
sensible public man—in this case handling his own reins—will, when in
years, hold aloof from unnecessary effort, leaving more vigorous persons
to deal with the minor matters of state, but himself playing a zealous
part in great ones.

Athletes keep their bodies from all contact with necessary labours and
in perfect trim for useless ones. We, on the contrary, will leave petty
little details alone, and will keep ourselves in reserve for matters of
moment. No doubt, as Homer says,

                   _To the young all labours are seemly_,

and the world gives consent and approval, calling them ‘public-spirited’
and ‘energetic’ when they do a large number of little things, and
‘noble’ and ‘lofty-minded’ when they do brilliant and distinguished
things. At that time of life there are [Sidenote: 794] occasions when a
venturesome aggressiveness is more or less in season and wears a grace
of its own. But what when an elderly man consents to perform routine
services to the public, such as letting out taxes, or superintending
harbours and markets? What when he seizes opportunities of being sent on
a mission to some governor or other powerful personage—a position for
which there is no necessity, which contains no dignity, and which
necessitates time-serving and complaisance? To my mind, my friend, his
case is one for regret and commiseration; some may even think it
distressingly vulgar.

Not even positions of authority are any longer a suitable [Sidenote: B]
sphere for him, unless they are of high rank and importance; such a
position, for example, as you now hold in the Presidentship of the
Areopagite Council, not to mention the distinguished rank of
Amphictyon,[36] which your country has imposed upon you all your life,
with its

                  _Welcome toil and labour sweet to bear._

Even these honours we should not seek, but should make from holding
them. We should ask, not for them, but to be excused from them. It
should seem, not that we are taking office to ourselves, but that we are
surrendering ourselves to office. The Emperor Tiberius used to say that
a man over sixty should be ashamed of holding out his wrist to a
physician. But he should [Sidenote: C] be more ashamed of holding out
his hand to the public in solicitation of its ‘vote and influence’. That
situation is as humiliating and ignoble as the contrary is honourable
and dignified—I mean when your country chooses you, calls you, and waits
for you, and when you come down amidst respect and welcome, a ‘reverend
signior’ indeed, to meet your distinction with gracious acceptance.

Similarly with speaking in the Assembly. A man of advanced age should
not be perpetually springing upon the platform and crowing back to every
cock that crows. Young men are like horses, and he should not, by
constantly grappling with [Sidenote: D] them and irritating them, lose
control of their respect, or encourage the practice and habit of
resistance to the reins. He should sometimes leave them to make a
restive plunge for distinction, keeping out of the way and not
interfering, unless the matter at stake is vital to the public safety or
to decency and honour. In that case he should not wait to be called, but
should let some one take him by the hand, or carry him in his chair, and
push his way at more than full speed, like Appius Claudius in Roman
history. The Romans had been defeated by Pyrrhus in a great battle, and
Appius heard that the Senate [Sidenote: E] was listening to proposals
for a truce and a peace. This was more than he could bear, and, though
blind of both eyes, along he came in his chair through the Forum to the
Senate House. He went in, planted himself before them, and said:
‘Hitherto I have been distressed at the loss of my sight; now I could
pray to be also unable to hear—that you are meditating so ignoble and
disgraceful a transaction.’ Thereupon, partly by reproaches, partly by
advice and encouragement, he persuaded them to have [Sidenote: F]
immediate recourse to arms and to fight Pyrrhus to a finish for the
prize of Italy.

Again, when it became manifest that, in acting the demagogue,
Peisistratus was aiming at absolutism, and yet no one ventured to resist
or prevent it, Solon brought out his weapons with his own hands, piled
them in front of his house, and called upon the citizens to help. And
when Peisistratus sent and asked him what gave him the confidence to do
so, he replied, ‘My age.’

Things so vital as these, it is true, are rousing enough to fire even
the most worn-out of old men, so long as he possesses the breath of life
at all. Otherwise he will sometimes, as I have said, be showing good
taste if he declines to perform paltry and menial tasks which bring more
worry to the doer than good [Sidenote: 793] to the persons for whom they
are done. There are also occasions when he will wait for the citizens to
call for him, feel the need of him, and come to his house to fetch him.
He is wanted, and therefore his appearance on the scene will carry more
weight. But for the most part, though present, he will be silent and
will leave the younger generation to do the speaking, while he acts as
umpire to the match of political ambition. And if it goes beyond bounds,
he will offer a mild reproof and courteously put an end to outbreaks of
self-assertion, recrimination, or ill-temper. When a motion is wrong, he
will reason with and correct the mover, but without blaming him. When it
is right, he will commend it without reserve and will cheerfully
acquiesce, often surrendering an argumentative victory in order that
[Sidenote: B] a young man may get on in the world and be in good heart.
In some cases he will supply a deficiency while paying a compliment,
like Nestor with his

    _No man, I trow, will find fault with thy words among all the
       Achaeans:
    None say thee nay. Yet not to an end hast thou brought all the
       matter.
    True ’tis, thou art yet but young, and myself might be thine own
       father._

There is a practice still more statesmanlike. One may not merely teach a
lesson openly in public by means of a reproval unaccompanied by any
sting of humiliation or injury to prestige. Still more may be done in
private for persons with good political abilities. We may offer them
kindly suggestions and assistance [Sidenote: C] towards the bringing
forward of useful arguments and public measures, encourage them to high
aims, help them to acquire a distinguished tone of mind, and—as
riding-masters do with their horses—see that at first the people shall
be gentle and docile for them to mount. And if so be a young man should
make a failure, instead of leaving him to despond, we may rouse and
comfort him. It was in this way that the spirits and courage of Cimon
were revived by Aristeides, and those of Themistocles by Mnesiphilus,
when they began by incurring ill-odour and a bad name for forwardness
and recklessness. It is also said of Demosthenes that, when he was in
great distress at his failure [Sidenote: D] in the Assembly, he was
taken to task by a very old man who had heard Pericles, and who told him
that he had no right to despair of himself, seeing that he possessed
gifts so much like those of that eminent person. So when Timotheus was
hissed for his innovations and treated as guilty of an outrage on music,
Euripides bade him keep up his courage, since he would soon be dictating
to his audience.

At Rome the term of the Vestal Virgins is divided into three stages—one
for learning, one for the performance of the ceremonies, and the third
for teaching. So with the votaries of [Sidenote: E] Artemis at Ephesus;
each is called first a novice, next a priestess, and then a
past-priestess. In the same way the complete statesman is during the
first part of his public career still engaged in learning the mysteries;
during the last part he is engaged in teaching and initiating.

Whereas to superintend the athletics of others is to take no part in
them oneself, it is otherwise with those who train a youth in public
business and the political arena, and who make sure that for the good of
his country he shall

                _Be speaker of words and eke doer of deeds._

They perform good service, not in some petty inconsiderable [Sidenote:
F] part of public life, but in one to which Lycurgus devoted his first
and foremost attention—training the young to give to every old man the
same unfailing obedience as to a lawgiver. What had Lysander in his
mind, when he declared that the finest form of old age is to be found at
Lacedaemon? Did he mean that at Lacedaemon elderly people had the best
opportunities of doing nothing, of lending money, of sitting together
and playing dice, or of meeting together at an early hour to drink?
Surely not. He meant that all persons at that time of life hold, as it
were, a magisterial position; that they are, in a sense, public fathers
or guardians, who not only look after matters of state, but take active
cognisance of everything a young [Sidenote: 796] man may do in connexion
with his training-school, his pastimes, or his style of living. Such a
position makes them an object of fear to wrong-doers, and of respect and
affection to the well-behaved. For young men make a point of cultivating
their society, because of the way in which they encourage steadiness and
nobility of character by sympathy and approbation and without jealousy.

The last-named feeling is not a becoming one at any time of life. But
whereas in the case of a young man it finds plenty of respectable
names—‘rivalry’, ‘emulation’, ‘ambition’—in an old man it is a coarse
and vulgar sentiment altogether out of place. The aged statesman should
therefore be entirely free from jealousy. He should be no malignant old
tree, [Sidenote: B] unequivocally snubbing the shoots and checking the
growth of plants which spring up beside or beneath it, but should give
them a kindly welcome and every opportunity to cling to him and twine
about him. He should hold young people upright, lead them by the hand,
and foster them, not only by wise suggestion and advice, but by
surrendering to them political tasks which bring honour and distinction,
or which afford scope for services of an innocent nature and yet welcome
and gratifying to the public.

When a task is a stubborn and arduous one, or when it is like a medicine
which stings and gives pain at the moment, while its beneficial effects
are not produced till afterwards, he [Sidenote: C] should not prescribe
it for young people. Instead of subjecting them in their inexperienced
state to the uproars of an unreasonable mob, he should himself accept
the unpopularity attaching to salutary measures. By this means he will
render a youth both more well-disposed and also more zealous in other
duties.

Meanwhile it must be remembered that statesmanship does not consist
solely in holding office, acting as envoy, shouting loudly in the
Assembly, and indulging in a fine frenzy of speeches and motions on the
platform. The generality of people may think that these make a
statesman, just as they think that talking [Sidenote: D] from a chair
and delivering lectures based on books make a philosopher. But they fail
to discern the sustained statesmanship or philosophy which is revealed
consistently day after day in actions and conduct. As Dicaearchus used
to say, the word _peripatein_, ‘walk’, has now come to be used of
persons taking a turn in the colonnades rather than of those who are
walking into the country or to see a friend. It is the same with acting
the statesman as it is with acting the philosopher. For Socrates to play
the philosopher there was no arranging of forms, seating himself in a
chair, or observing a fixed time—arranged with his associates—for a
discussion or discourse. He played the philosopher while joking with
you, perhaps, or drinking with you, [Sidenote: E] or possibly
campaigning with you, or at market with you, and finally when he was in
prison and drinking the poison. He was thus the first to show that life
affords scope for philosophy at every moment, in every detail, in every
feeling and circumstance whatsoever. Statesmanship should be regarded in
the same light. Foolish persons, even if they are Ministers of War, or
Secretaries, or platform-speakers, should not be considered as acting
the statesman, but as courting the mob, or making a display, or creating
dissension, or doing public service because they must. But when a man
possesses public spirit and broad interests, and is a keen patriot and a
‘state’s man’ in the literal sense, even if he has never worn official
garb, he is playing the statesman all the time. He does so by
stimulating men of [Sidenote: F] ability, giving advice to those who
need it, lending his help to deliberation, discouraging bunglers, and
fortifying persons of sense. And this does not mean that he goes to the
Assembly Theatre or Senate House out of pride of place when canvassed or
pressed, and, when he gets there, merely puts in an appearance—if he
does so—by way of pastime, as he might at a show or entertainment. It
means that, even if not present in body, he [Sidenote: 797] is present
in spirit; that he asks how the business goes, and is pleased or vexed
as the case may be.

Aristeides at Athens and Cato at Rome held few public offices; but they
made their whole life a perpetual service to their country. Though
Epaminondas won many a distinguished success as commander-in-chief, he
is no less famous for what he did in Thessaly at a time when he held no
command or office. The generals had plunged the phalanx into a difficult
situation. The enemy was attacking them with his missiles, [Sidenote: B]
and they were in confusion. Epaminondas was therefore summoned from the
ranks, and, after allaying the panic of the army by words of
encouragement, he proceeded to make an orderly disposition of the
phalanx—which was in a state of turmoil—extricated it with ease, posted
it so as to confront the enemy, and compelled him to change his tactics
and retire.

Once when King Agis was in Arcadia, and was in the act of leading his
army into action in full order of battle, one of the elder Spartans
shouted out that he was proposing to ‘mend one error by another’,
meaning (as Thucydides says) that ‘his [Sidenote: C] present
unseasonable ardour was intended to repair the discredit of his retreat’
from Argos. Agis listened, took the advice, and retired. Menecrates
actually had a seat placed for him every day at the doors of the
Government Office, and the Ephors frequently rose and consulted him upon
questions of the first importance; so great was his reputation for
wisdom and shrewdness. The story goes that, when he had completely lost
all physical strength and was for the most part confined all day to his
bed, upon the Ephors sending for him to the Agora, he got up and set out
to walk. As he was toiling slowly along, he met [Sidenote: D] some
children on the way, and asked them: ‘Do you know anything more binding
than to obey a master?’ Upon their replying, ‘Lack of the power,’ his
reason told him that this brought his service to an end, and he turned
back home. For though zeal should not fail so long as ability lasts, we
must not put pressure upon it when left helpless.

Once more, Scipio, whether in the field or in politics, constantly
sought the advice of Gaius Laelius to such an extent as to make some
people say of his achievements that Scipio was the actor, but the author
was Gaius. And Cicero himself acknowledges that the greatest and finest
of the successful measures of his consulship were devised with the help
of the philosopher Publius Nigidius.

[Sidenote: E] There is, then, nothing to prevent an aged man from
advancing the public good in many a department of statesmanship. He has
the best of means thereto: reason, judgement, plain-speaking, and
‘_thought discreet_‘, as the poets say. It is not merely our hands and
feet or the strength of our bodies that are part and parcel of the
possessions of the State. Most important are the mind and the beauties
of the mind—temperance, justice, and wisdom. It is monstrous that, as
these come late and [Sidenote: F] slowly to their own, our house and
farm and other goods and chattels should get the benefit of them, while,
in a public way, to our country and our fellow-citizens, we make
ourselves of no further use because of ‘time’. For what time takes away
from our powers of active effort is less than what it adds to those of
guidance and statesmanship. It is for this reason that, when Hermes is
represented in an elderly form, though he has no hands or feet, his
virile parts are tense—an indirect way of saying that there is little
need for old men’s bodies to be hard at work, so long as their power of
reasoned speech is—as it ought to be—vigorous and generative.

Footnote 34:

  The text here is corrupt.

Footnote 35:

  i.e. Epicurean.

Footnote 36:

  Member of a religious council which met at Delphi and represented the
  chief states of all Greece.




                       ADVICE TO MARRIED COUPLES


[Sidenote: 138 B] TO POLLIANUS AND EURYDICE WITH PLUTARCH’S BEST WISHES.

When they were shutting you in your bridal chamber, the ancestral ritual
was duly applied to you by the priestess of Demeter. I believe that now,
if reason also were to take you in hand and join in the nuptial song, it
would prove of some service, and would support the tune as prescribed.

In the musical world they used to call one of the modes for the flute
‘the Horse-and-Mare’, because, apparently, the strains in that key were
provocative of union between those animals. Well, philosophy has many
excellent sermons to give, but none [Sidenote: C] more worthy of serious
attention than that upon marriage. By it she exerts a spell upon those
who come together as partners in life, and renders them gentle and
tractable to each other. I have, therefore, taken the main points of the
lessons which you have repeatedly heard, brought up as you have been in
the company of Philosophy. I have arranged them in a series of brief
comparisons to make them easier to remember, and am sending them as a
present to you both. In doing so I pray that the Muses may graciously
lend aid to Aphrodite, since, if it is their province to see that a lyre
or a harp shall be in tune, it is no less so to provide that the music
of the married home shall be harmonized by reason and philosophy. When
people in olden times assigned a seat with Aphrodite to Hermes, it was
because [Sidenote: D] the pleasure of marriage stands in special need of
reason; when to Persuasion and the Graces, it was in order that the
married pair might obtain their wishes from each other by means of
persuasion, and not by contention and strife.


                               THE RULES:


1. Solon bade the bride eat a piece of quince before coming to the
bridegroom’s arms—apparently an enigmatical suggestion that, as a first
requirement, a pleasant and inviting impression should be gathered from
an agreeable mouth and speech.

2. In Boeotia, after veiling the bride, they crown her with a wreath of
thorny asparagus. As that plant yields the sweetest eating from among
the roughest prickles, so a bride, if the groom does not run away in
disgust because he finds her difficult and vexatious at first, will
afford him a sweet and gentle companionship. One who shows no patience
with the girl’s first [Sidenote: E] bickerings is as bad as those who
let the ripe grapes go because once they were sour. Many a young bride
is affected in the same way. First experiences disgust her with the
bridegroom, and she makes as great a mistake as if, after enduring the
sting of the bee, she were to abandon the honeycomb.

3. It is especially at the beginning that married people should beware
of quarrel and friction. Let them note how vessels which have been
mended will at first easily pull to pieces on the slightest occasion,
but as time goes on and they become solid at the seams, it is as much as
fire and iron can do to separate [Sidenote: F] the parts.

4. Fire is readily kindled in chaff, dry rushes, or hare’s fur, but
quickly goes out unless it gets a further hold upon something capable
both of keeping it in and feeding it. So with that fierce blaze of
passion which is produced in the newly-married by physical enjoyment.
You must not rely upon it nor expect it to last, unless it is built
round the moral character, gets a hold upon your rational part, and so
obtains a permanent vitality.

5. Doctoring the water is no doubt a quick and easy way of [Sidenote:
139] catching fish, but it renders them bad and uneatable. So when women
work artificially upon their husbands with philtres and spells, and
control them by the agency of pleasure, they have but crazy simpletons
and dotards for their partners. While Circe derived no good from the men
she had bewitched, and made no use of them when turned into swine and
asses, she found the greatest pleasure in the rational companionship of
the wise Odysseus.

6. A woman who is more desirous of ruling a foolish husband than of
obeying a wise one, is like a traveller who would rather lead a blind
man than follow one who possesses sight and knowledge.

[Sidenote: B] 7. Why should people disbelieve that Pasiphae, though
consort to a king, fell in love with an ox, when they see that some
women find a strict and continent husband wearisome, and prefer to live
with one who is as much a mass of ungoverned sensuality as a dog or a
goat?

8. When a rider is too weak or effeminate to vault upon a horse, he
teaches the animal itself to bend its legs and crouch. In the same way
some men who marry high-born or wealthy women, instead of improving
themselves, put indignities upon their wives, in the belief that they
will be more easily ruled when humbled. The proper course is, while
using the rein, to maintain the dignity of the wife, as one would the
full height of the horse.

[Sidenote: C] 9. When the moon is at a distance from the sun, we see it
bright and luminous. When it comes near him, it fades and is lost to
view. With a properly conducted woman it is the contrary. She should be
most visible when with her husband; in his absence she should keep at
home and out of sight.

10. Herodotus was wrong in saying that when a woman lays aside her tunic
she lays aside her modesty. On the contrary, a chaste wife puts on
modesty in its place. Between married persons the token of greatest
regard is greatest modesty.

11. If two notes are taken in accord, the lower of the two is [Sidenote:
D] the dominant. So, though every action in a well-conducted house is
performed by both parties in tune, it will reveal the husband’s
leadership and priority of choice.

12. The Sun vanquished the North Wind. When the wind endeavoured to take
off the man’s cloak by violence and blowing a gale, he only tightened
his mantle the more and held it the closer. But when, after the wind,
the sun became hot, the man began to grow warm. When at last he
sweltered, he took off not only his cloak but his tunic. The parable
applies to the generality of women. When their husbands take violent
measures to do away with extravagant indulgence, they show [Sidenote: E]
fight and temper; but if you reason with them, they give it up peaceably
and practise moderation.

13. Cato expelled from the Senate a man who had kissed his own wife in
the presence of his daughter. This, perhaps, was too severe a step. But
if—as is the case—it is unseemly to be fondling and kissing and
embracing each other in company, it is surely more unseemly to be
scolding and quarrelling in company, and, while treating your
love-passages as a sacred secret between you and your wife, to make an
open display of fault-finding [Sidenote: F] and reproach.

14. A mirror,[37] though decorated with gold and precious stones, is of
no use unless it shows you your form true to life. Similarly there is no
advantage in a rich wife, if her conduct does not represent that of her
husband and harmonize with it in character. If the reflection which it
offers is glum when you are joyful, but wears a merry grin when you are
gloomy and distressed, the mirror is faulty and bad. A wife is a poor
thing and out of place if she is in the dumps when her husband is
disposed for frolic or love-making, but is all fun and laughter when he
is serious. In the former case she is disagreeable; in [Sidenote: 140]
the latter, she slights you. Geometers tell us that lines and surfaces
make no movement by themselves, but only in conjunction with the bodies
to which they belong. In the same way a woman should be free from
peculiar states of mind of her own, but should act as the husband’s
partner in his earnestness and his jest, in his preoccupation and his
laughter.

15. A man who dislikes to see his wife eating with him, teaches her to
satisfy her appetite when she gets by herself. Similarly one who is
never a merry companion to her, nor shares in her sport and laughter,
teaches her to look for private pleasures apart from him.

[Sidenote: B] 16. When the Persian kings are dining or feasting, their
legitimate wives sit at their side. But when they wish to amuse
themselves or get tipsy, they send those wives away and summon their
minstrel-women and concubines. The practice is a right one, at least to
the extent that they do not permit their wives to take part in wanton
and licentious scenes. So, if a private man, who lacks self-control or
good-breeding in his pleasures, is guilty of a lapse with a common woman
or a menial, the wife should not be indignant and resentful, but should
reflect that, out of respect for her, he finds some other woman to share
his riot and lasciviousness.

[Sidenote: C] 17. When kings are fond of music, they make many
musicians; when of learning, learned men; when of athletics, gymnasts.
So when the love of a husband is for the person, his wife will be all
for dress; when for pleasure, she becomes lewd and wanton; when for
goodness and virtue, she shows herself discreet and chaste.

18. When a Lacedaemonian girl was once asked whether she had already
embraced a man, she answered, ‘No, indeed; but _he_ has embraced _me_.’
Such, I believe, is the right attitude for a lady—not to shun or dislike
caresses, when the husband begins them, nor yet to begin them of her own
accord. The one course is bold and immodest, the other disdainful and
[Sidenote: D] unaffectionate.

19. The woman ought not to possess private friends, but to share those
of the man. But first and greatest are the gods, and it is therefore
right for the wife to reverence or acknowledge only those gods who are
recognized by the husband. Her street-door should be kept shut to
out-of-the-way forms of worship and alien superstitions. No deity finds
gratification in ceremonies which a woman performs in secret and by
stealth.

20. Plato holds that a community is in a state of blissful well-being
when the expressions ‘_mine_’ and ‘_not mine_’ are scarcely ever heard,
inasmuch as the citizens enjoy, as far as [Sidenote: E] possible, the
common use of everything worth considering. Much more ought such
language to be abolished from the married state. In the same way,
however, in which medical men tell us that a blow on the left side
produces an answering sensation in the right, it is proper for a wife to
sympathize with her husband’s concerns and the husband with the wife’s.
In this way, just as ropes, when interwoven, lend each other strength,
so, through each party reciprocating the other’s goodwill, the
partnership will be maintained by both combined. Nature blends us
through the body in such a way as to take [Sidenote: F] a portion from
each, and by commingling produce an offspring common to both, so that
neither can define or distinguish an ‘own’ part from ‘another’s’. The
same sort of partnership between married persons should assuredly exist
in respect of money also. They should pour it all into a single fund,
and blend it in such a way that they never think of one part as ‘own’
and one as ‘another’s’, but treat it all as ‘own’ and none of it as
‘another’s’. And as we call a mixture ‘wine’, though it may contain a
greater proportion of water, so the property of the house should be said
to belong to the man, even though the wife may contribute the larger
share.

21. Helen loved wealth, and Paris loved pleasure: Odysseus was wise, and
Penelope discreet. Hence the union of the latter [Sidenote: 141] pair
was happy and enviable, while that of the former brought upon Greeks and
Asiatics an ‘Iliad of Woes’.

22. When the Roman was admonished by his friends for having divorced a
wife who was chaste, rich, and beautiful, he stretched out his shoe and
remarked: ‘Yes, and this looks fine and new, but no one knows where it
chafes me.’ The wife must not rely upon her dowry, her birth, or her
beauty. The matters in which she touches her husband most closely are
conversation, character, and companionship. Instead of making these
harsh and vexatious day after day, she must render them [Sidenote: B]
compatible, soothing, and grateful. Physicians are more afraid of fevers
which spring from vague causes gradually accumulating, than of those for
which there is a great and manifest reason. So it is these little,
continual, daily frictions between man and wife, which the world knows
nothing of, that do most to create the rifts which ruin married life.

23. King Philip was once enamoured of a Thessalian woman who was charged
with bewitching him. Olympias thereupon became eager to get this person
into her power. When, upon presenting herself, she not only turned out
to be a handsome woman, but spoke with considerable nobility and good
sense, [Sidenote: C] Olympias said: ‘Those calumnies are all nonsense!
Your witchcraft lies in yourself.’ How irresistible a thing is a married
and lawful wife, if, by treating everything—dowry, birth, philtres, the
very girdle[38] of Aphrodite—as lying in herself, she conquers affection
by means of character and virtue!

24. On another occasion, when a youthful courtier had married a handsome
woman of bad repute, Olympias remarked, ‘The fellow has no judgement;
otherwise he would not have married with his eyes.’ Marriage should not
be made with the eyes; neither should it with the fingers, as it is in
the case of some, who reckon up the amount of the dower, instead of
calculating the companionable quality, of the wife they are [Sidenote:
D] marrying.

25. To young men who are fond of looking at themselves in the mirror
Socrates recommended that the ugly should correct their defects by
virtue, while the handsome should avoid spoiling their beauty by vice.
It is a good thing for the married woman also, while she is holding the
mirror, to talk to herself, and, if she is plain, to ask, ‘And what if I
show myself indiscreet?’ if beautiful, ‘And what if I show myself
discreet as well?’ The plain woman may pride herself on being loved for
her character, and the handsome woman on being loved more for her
character than her beauty.

26. When the Sicilian despot sent Lysander’s daughters a set of costly
mantles and chains, he refused to accept them. ‘These bits of
ornaments,’ said he, ‘will rather take from my [Sidenote: E] daughters’
beauty than set it off.’ Lysander, however, was anticipated by Sophocles
in the lines:

              _Nay, ’twould not seem, poor fool, to beautify,
              But to unbeautify, and prove thee wanton._

As Crates used to say, ‘Adornment is that which adorns,’ and that which
adorns is that which adds to a woman’s seemliness. This is not done by
gold or jewels or scarlet, but by whatever invests her with the badges
of dignity, decorum, and modesty.

27. In sacrificing to Hera as goddess of marriage, the gall is not
burned with the other portions of the sacrifice, but is [Sidenote: F]
taken out and thrown down at the side of the altar—an indirect
injunction of the legislator that gall and anger should have no place in
the married state. The austerity of the lady of the house, like the
dryness of wine, should be wholesome and palatable, not bitter like
aloes or unpleasant like a drug.

28. Xenocrates being somewhat harsh in character, though otherwise a
high type of man, Plato recommended him to _sacrifice to the Graces_.
Now I take it that a woman of strict morals stands in special need of
the graces in dealing with her [Sidenote: 142] husband, so that—as
Metrodorus used to say—she may live with him on pleasant terms and not
‘in a temper because she is chaste’. A woman should no more forget to be
amiable because she is faithful, than to be neat because she is thrifty.
Decorum in a woman is rendered as disagreeable by harshness as frugality
is by sluttishness.

29. A wife who is afraid to laugh and joke with her husband for fear of
seeming bold and wanton, is as bad as the woman who, from fear of being
thought to use ointments on her head, does not even oil it,[39] and, to
avoid seeming to rouge her face, does not even wash it. We find that
when poets and orators avoid appealing to the vulgar by bad taste and
affectation in [Sidenote: B] respect of their diction, they practise
every art to attract and stir the hearer with their matter, their
treatment, and their moral quality. So the lady of the house, because
she avoids and deprecates—as she is quite right to do—extravagant or
meretricious demonstration, ought all the more to bring the graces of
character and conduct into play in dealing with her husband, thus
habituating him to proper ways, but in a pleasurable manner. If,
however, a wife shows herself strait-laced and rigidly austere, her
husband must put the best face upon it. When Antipater required Phocion
to perform an improper and [Sidenote: C] degrading action, he answered,
‘I cannot serve you both as your friend and your toady.’ In the same
way, when a woman is staid and strait-laced, our reflection should be,
‘The same woman cannot behave to me as both a wife and a mistress.’

30. By a national custom the Egyptian women wore no shoes, so that they
might keep at home all day. In the case of most women, to deprive them
of gold-worked shoes, bangles, anklets, purple, and pearls, is to make
them stay indoors.

31. Theano, in putting on her mantle, once showed a glimpse of her arm.
Upon some one saying, ‘A beautiful forearm!’ she retorted, ‘But not for
the public!’ A well-conducted woman will keep, not only her forearm, but
her speech, from [Sidenote: D] publicity. She will be as shy and
cautious about her utterances to the outside world as if they were an
exposure of her person, inasmuch as, when she talks, they are a
revelation of feelings, character, and disposition.

32. Pheidias, in representing the Elean Aphrodite with her foot upon a
tortoise, meant women to take it as a symbol of home-keeping and
silence. A woman should talk either to, or through the medium of, her
husband; nor should she resent it if, like a player on the clarinet, she
finds a more impressive utterance through another tongue than through
her own.

33. When rich or royal persons pay respect to a philosopher, they do
honour both to themselves and to him. But when a philosopher pays court
to rich people, he is not conferring [Sidenote: E] distinction upon
them, but lowering his own. The same is the case with women. By
submission to their husbands they win regard; by seeking to govern them
they demean themselves worse than the men so governed. Meanwhile it is
only right that the husband, in controlling the wife, should not be like
an owner dealing with a chattel, but like the mind dealing with the
body—sympathetic with the sympathy of organic union. It is possible to
care for the body without being a slave to its pleasures and desires,
and it is possible to rule a wife and yet do things to please and
gratify her.

34. Compound objects are classified by philosophers as follows. In some
the parts are distinct, as in a fleet or army. [Sidenote: F] In some
they are conjoined, as in a house or ship. In others they form an
organic unity, as in all living creatures. We may say much the same of
marriage. The marriage of love is the ‘organic unity’; the marriage for
a dowry or for children is that of persons ‘conjoined’; marriage without
sharing the same couch is that of persons ‘distinct’, who may be said to
[Sidenote: 143] dwell together, but not to live together. With persons
marrying, there should be a mutual blending of bodies, means, friends,
and relations, in the same way as, according to the scientists, when
liquids are mixed, the mixture runs through the whole. When the Roman
legislator forbade married couples to exchange presents, he did not mean
that they should not impart to each other, but that they should look
upon everything as joint property.

35. At Leptis in Africa it is a traditional custom for the bride, on the
day after marriage, to send to the bridegroom’s mother to borrow a pot.
The latter refuses, saying she has none. The intention is that the bride
may realize from the first the ‘step-mother’ attitude of her
mother-in-law, so that, if anything more disagreeable happens
afterwards, she may not be vexed or irritated. The wife should
understand this fact and apply [Sidenote: B] treatment to its cause,
which is, that the mother is jealous of her son’s affections. There is
but one treatment for this state of mind. While winning the special
affection of her husband for herself, she must avoid detaching or
lessening his affection for his mother.

36. Mothers appear to be more fond of their sons, because those sons are
able to help them, and fathers of their daughters, because daughters
need their help. Maybe also it is out of compliment to each other that
both parties desire to be seen making much of that which is more akin to
the other. This, perhaps, is a trait of no importance, but there is
another which is charming. I mean, when the wife’s respect is seen to
incline rather to the husband’s parents than to her own, and when,
[Sidenote: C] in case of anything troubling her, she refers it to them
and conceals it from her own people. If you are thought to trust, you
are trusted; if you are thought to love, you are loved.

37. The Greeks who accompanied Cyrus received the following order from
their commanders: ‘If the enemy come shouting to the attack, await them
in silence; if they come in silence, charge to meet them with a shout.’
When a husband has his fits of anger, if he raises his voice, a sensible
wife keeps quiet; if he is silent, she soothes him by talking to him in
a coaxing way.

38. Euripides is right in blaming those who have the lyre [Sidenote: D]
played to them at their wine. Music is more properly called in to cure
anger and grief than to encourage further abandonment on the part of
those who are taking their pleasure. So I would have you believe that it
is a wrong principle to share the same bed for the sake of pleasure, and
yet, when you are angry or fall out, to sleep apart. That is exactly the
time to call in the Goddess of Love, who is the best physician for such
cases. This is practically the teaching of the poet, when he makes Hera
say:

                        _And their tangled strife will I loosen,
      When to their couch I bring them, to meet in love and in union._

[Sidenote: E] 39. At all times and everywhere a wife should avoid
offending the husband, and a husband the wife; but especially should
they beware of doing so when together at night. In the story, the wife,
in the vexation of her throes, used to say to those who were putting her
to bed: ‘How can this couch cure a trouble which befell me upon it?’ So
quarrels, recriminations, and tempers which are begotten in the chamber
are not easily got over in another place or at another time.

40. There appears to be a truth in Hermione’s plea: [Sidenote: F]

                ‘_Tis wicked women’s visits have undone me._

This occurs in more than one way, but especially when connubial quarrels
and jealousies offer to such women not only an open door, but an open
ear. At such a time, therefore, should a sensible woman shut her ears,
keep out of the way of slanderous whispers which add fuel to the fire,
and be ready to apply the well-known saying of Philip. We are told that
when his friends were trying to exasperate that monarch against the
Greeks—on the ground that, though he treated them well, they abused
him—he remarked, ‘Well, and what, pray, if we treat them badly?’ So,
when the scandalizers say, ‘Your husband grieves you, in spite of all
your affection and chastity,’ you [Sidenote: 144] should retort, ‘And
what, pray, if I begin to hate and wrong him?’

41. A man caught sight of a slave who had run away some time before, and
gave chase. When the slave was too quick, and took refuge in a mill, he
observed, ‘And in what better place could I have wished to find you than
where you are?‘[40] So let a woman who is declaring for a divorce
through jealousy say to herself, ‘And where would my rival be more glad
to see me? And what would she be more pleased to see me doing, than
harbouring a grievance, at feud with my husband, and actually abandoning
the house and the marriage-chamber?’

[Sidenote: B] 42. The Athenians observe three sacred ploughings; the
first at Sciron, in memory of the oldest sowing of crops; the second in
the Rharian district; and the third—known as the Buzygian festival—close
to the Acropolis. More sacred than all of these is the connubial
ploughing and sowing for the procreation of children. It is a happy
expression of Sophocles, when he calls Aphrodite ‘_fair-fruited
Cytherea_‘. Man and wife should therefore be especially scrupulous in
this connexion, keeping pure from unholy and unlawful intercourse with
others, and forbearing to sow where they desire no crop to grow, or, if
it does, are ashamed of it and seek to conceal it.

43. When Gorgias the rhetorician once read to the Greeks at Olympia a
discourse upon peace and harmony, Melanthius exclaimed, ‘Here is a man
giving us advice about peace and [Sidenote: C] harmony, when in private
life he has failed to harmonize three people—himself, his wife, and his
maidservant.’ For Gorgias, it appears, was enamoured, and his wife
jealous, of the domestic. A man’s house ought to be in tune before he
offers to set in tune a state, a public meeting, or friends. The public
is more likely to hear of offences against a wife than of offences
committed by her.

44. They say that the cat is driven frantic by the smell of unguents. If
it had been the case that women were provoked [Sidenote: D] out of their
senses by the same means, it would have been a monstrous thing for men
not to abstain from unguents, and to let their wives suffer so cruelly
for the sake of a trifling gratification of their own. Now since, though
the husband’s use of unguents does not so afflict them, his dealings
with other women do, it is unjust to cause such vexation and distress to
a wife for the sake of a little pleasure. On the contrary, husbands
should come to their wives pure and untainted by other intercourse, just
as they would approach bees, who are said to show disgust and hostility
towards any one who has been so engaged.

45. People never dress in bright clothes when approaching [Sidenote: E]
an elephant, nor in red when approaching a bull, since the animals in
question are particularly infuriated by those colours. Of tigers it is
said that, if you beat drums all round them, they go mad and tear
themselves to pieces. Surely, then, inasmuch as some men cannot bear to
see scarlet or purple clothes, and some are irritated at cymbals and
tambourines, it is not asking too much for women to leave such things
alone, and not harass or exasperate their husbands, but practise
quietude and consideration in their society.

[Sidenote: F] 46. When Philip was once seizing upon a woman against her
will, she said, ‘Let me go. All women are the same when you take away
the light.’ While this applies well enough to adulterers and
sensualists, it is particularly when the light is taken away that a wife
should _not_ be the same as any ordinary female. Her person may not be
visible, but her modesty, chastity, decorum, and natural affection
should make themselves palpable.

47. Plato used to recommend that respect should rather be paid by
elderly men to the young, so that the latter might behave modestly to
them in return. For, said he, ‘where old men are shameless,’ the young
acquire no modesty or scruple. A husband should bear this in mind, and
show more respect [Sidenote: 145] to his wife than to any one else,
since the nuptial chamber will prove to be her school of propriety or
its opposite. The husband who indulges himself in certain pleasures,
while warning her against the same, is as bad as the man who bids his
wife fight on against an enemy to whom he has himself surrendered.

48. As to love of display, do you, Eurydice, read and endeavour to
remember what Timoxena wrote to Aristylla. And you, Pollianus, must not
expect your wife to refrain from showy extravagance, if she sees that
you do not despise it in other [Sidenote: B] matters, but that you take
a pleasure in cups with gilding, rooms with painted walls, mules with
decorated harness, and horses with neck-trappings. You cannot banish
extravagance from the women’s quarters when it has the free run of the
men’s. You are at the right age to cultivate philosophy. Adorn your
character, therefore, by listening to careful reasoning and
demonstration in improving company and conversation. Be like the bees.
Gather valuable matter from every source. Carry it home in yourself, and
share it with your wife by discussing it and making all the best
principles agreeable and familiar to her. While [Sidenote: C]

       _Thou unto her art father, and honoured mother, and brother_,

it is no less a matter of pride to hear a wife say, ‘Husband, thou unto
me art guide, philosopher, and teacher of the noblest and divinest
lessons.’ It is studies of this kind that tend to keep a woman from
foolish practices. She will be ashamed to be dancing, when she is
learning geometry. She will lend no ear to the incantations of sorcery,
when she is listening to those of Plato and Xenophon. When any one
promises to fetch down the moon,[41] she will laugh at the ignorance and
silliness of women who believe such things; for she will possess a
knowledge of astronomy, and will have heard how Aglaonice, the daughter
of Hegetor of Thessaly, thoroughly understood [Sidenote: D] eclipses of
the full moon, how she knew beforehand the date at which it must be
caught in the shadow, and how she thereby cheated the women into
believing that she was fetching it down herself.

We are told that no woman produces a child without the participation of
the man, though there are shapeless and fleshlike growths—called
‘millstones’—which form themselves spontaneously from corrupted matter.
We must beware of this occurring in women’s minds. If they are not
impregnated with sound doctrines by sharing in the culture of their
husbands, [Sidenote: E] they will of their own accord conceive many an
ill-advised intention or irrational state of feeling.

As for you, Eurydice, above all things do your best to keep touch with
the sayings of wise and good men, and to have continually in your mouth
those utterances which you learned by heart in my school when a girl. By
so doing, you will not only be a joy to your husband, but the admiration
of other women, when they see how, at no expense, you can adorn yourself
with so much distinction and dignity.

This rich woman’s pearls, that foreign lady’s silks, are not to be worn
without paying a large price for them. But the ornaments [Sidenote: F]
of Theano, of Cleobuline, of Gorgo the wife of Leonidas, of Timoclea the
sister of Theagenes, of the Claudia of ancient history, and of Cornelia
the daughter of Scipio, you may wear for nothing; and with this
adornment your life may be as happy as it is distinguished.

[Sidenote: 146] Sappho thought so much of her skill as a lyrist that she
wrote—addressing a wealthy woman—

    _When thou art dead, thou shalt lie with none to remember thy name:
    For no portion hast thou in the roses Pierian...._

You will assuredly have more occasion to think highly and proudly of
yourself, if you have a portion, not only in the roses, but also in the
fruits, which the Muses bring as free gifts to those who prize culture
and philosophy.

Footnote 37:

  Made of polished bronze.

Footnote 38:

  Which contained ‘every charm: love, desire, and sweet converse’
  (Homer, _Il._ xiv. 214).

Footnote 39:

  The use of oil to soften the hair was practically universal.

Footnote 40:

  A common punishment for a slave was to put him to hard labour in
  turning the mill, in place of a horse or ass.

Footnote 41:

  A frequent pretence of ancient witches.




                         CONCERNING BUSYBODIES


If a house is stuffy, dark, chilly, or unhealthy, it is perhaps
[Sidenote: 515 B] best to get out of it. But if long association makes
you fond of the place, you may alter the lights, shift the stairs, open
a door here and close one there, and so make it brighter, fresher, and
more wholesome. Even cities have sometimes been improved [Sidenote: C]
by such rearrangement. For instance, it is said that my own native town,
which used to face the west and receive the full force of the afternoon
sun from Parnassus, was turned by Chairon so as to front the east.
Empedocles, the natural philosopher, once blocked up a mountain gorge,
which sent a destructive and pestilential south wind blowing down upon
the plains. By this means, it was thought, he shut the plague out of the
district.

Well, since there are certain injurious and unhealthy states of mind
which chill and darken the soul, it would be best to get rid of them—to
make a clean sweep to the foundations, and give ourselves the benefit of
a clear sky, light, and pure air [Sidenote: D] to breathe. If not, we
should reform and readjust them by turning them some other way about.

We may take the vice of the busybody as an instance in point. It is a
love of prying into other people’s troubles, a disease tainted—we may
believe—with both envy and malice.

                _Why so sharp-eyed, my most malignant Sir,
                For others’ faults, yet overlook your own?_

Pray turn your pryingness the other way about, and make it face inwards.
If you are so fond of the business of inquiring into defects, you will
find plenty to occupy you at home.

[Sidenote: *] _Abundant as leaves on the oak or the water that rolls
from Alizon_ will you find the errors in your conduct, the disorders in
your heart and mind, and the lapses in your duty.

[Sidenote: E] According to Xenophon, a good householder has a special
place for the utensils of sacrifice, and a special place for those of
the table; agricultural implements are stored in one room, weapons of
war in another. In your own case you have one stock of faults arising
from envy, another from jealousy, another from cowardice, another from
meanness. These are the faults for you to inspect and examine. Block up
the windows [Sidenote: F] and alleys of your inquisitiveness on the side
towards your neighbours, and open others which look into your own
house—the male quarters, the female quarters, the living-rooms of the
servants. Our busy curiosity will find occupation of a profitable and
salutary, instead of a useless and malicious, kind, if each one will say
to himself:

      _How have I err’d? What deed have I done? What duty neglected?_

As it is, we are all of us like the Lamia in the fable, of whom
[Sidenote: 516] we are told that at home she is asleep and blind, with
her eyes stowed away in a jar, but that when she comes abroad she puts
them in and can see. Outside, and in dealing with others, we furnish our
malice with an eye in the shape of our meddlesomeness, but we are
continually being tripped up by our own misdeeds and vices, of which we
are unaware, because we provide ourselves with no light or vision to
perceive them. It follows that the busybody is a better friend to his
enemies than to himself. While censoriously reproving their shortcomings
and showing them what they ought to avoid or amend, he is so taken up
with faults outside that he overlooks most of those at home.

[Sidenote: B] Odysseus refused even to talk to his mother, until he had
got his answer from the seer concerning the business which had brought
him to Hades. When he had received the information, he turned to her,
and also began to put questions to the other women, asking who Tyro was,
and the beautiful Chloris, and why Epicaste met her death by

     _Tying a sheer-hung noose from the height of the lofty roof-tree_.

Not so we. While treating our own concerns with the greatest
indifference, ignorance, and neglect, we begin discussing other people’s
pedigrees—how our neighbour’s grandfather was a Syrian and his
grandmother a Thracian. ‘So-and-So owes more than seven hundred pounds,
and cannot pay the interest.’ We also make it our business to inquire
about such matters as where So-and-So got his wife from, and what
private talk was that between A and B in the corner. Socrates, on the
other [Sidenote: C] hand, went about inquiring, ‘By what arguments did
Pythagoras carry conviction?’ So Aristippus, when he met Ischomachus at
Olympia, proceeded to ask by what kind of conversation Socrates affected
the Athenians as he did. When he had gleaned a few seeds or samples of
his talk, he was so moved that he suffered a physical collapse, and
became quite pale and thin. In the end he set sail for Athens, and
slaked his thirst with draughts from the fountain-head, studying the
man, his discourses and his philosophy, of which the aim was to
recognize one’s own vices and get rid of them.

But there are some to whom their own life is a most distressing
[Sidenote: D] spectacle, and who therefore cannot bear to look at it nor
to reflect the light of reason upon themselves. Their soul is so fraught
with all manner of vices, that, shuddering with horror at what lies
within, it darts away from home, and goes prowling round other men’s
concerns, where it lets its malice batten and grow fat.

It often happens that a domestic fowl, though there is plenty of food
lying at its disposal, will slink into a corner and scratch

       _Where so appeareth, mayhap, one barley-grain in a dunghill._

It is much the same with the busybody. Ignoring the topics and questions
which are open to all, and which no one prevents him from asking about
or is annoyed with him if he does ask, [Sidenote: E] he goes picking out
of every house the troubles which it is endeavouring to bury out of
sight. But surely it was a neat answer which the Egyptian made to the
man who asked him what he was carrying in that wrapper. ‘That,’ said he,
‘is why it _is_ in a wrapper.’ And why, pray, are you so inquisitive
about a thing which is being concealed? If it had not been something
undesirable, there would have been no concealment. It is not usual to
walk into another man’s house without knocking at the door. Nowadays
there are doorkeepers—formerly knockers were beaten upon the doors in
order to give warning—the intention being that the stranger shall not
surprise the lady of the [Sidenote: F] house or her daughter in the
open, or come upon a slave receiving punishment, or the handmaids
screaming. But these are exactly the things which the busybody steals in
to see. At a staid and quiet household he would have no pleasure in
looking, even if he were invited. His object is to uncover and make
public those things to which keys, bolts, and the street-door owe their
existence. ‘The winds which vex us most,’ says Ariston, ‘are those which
pull up our cloaks.’ But the busybody strips off not only our mantles
and tunics, but our walls; he spreads our doors wide open, and makes his
way like a piercing wind through the ‘_maiden of tender skin_‘, prying
and sneaking into [Sidenote: 517] her bacchic revels, her dances, and
her all-night festivals.

As Cleon in the comedy had

           _His hands in Askthorpe and his thoughts in Thefton_,

so the busybody’s thoughts are at one and the same time in the houses of
the rich and the hovels of the poor, in the courts of kings and the
chambers of the newly-wed. He searches into everybody’s
business—business of strangers, and business of potentates. Nor is his
search without danger. If one were to take a taste of aconite because he
was inquisitive as to its properties, he would find that he had killed
the learner before he got his lesson. So those who pry into the troubles
of the [Sidenote: B] great destroy themselves before discovering what
they seek. If any one is not satisfied with the beams which the sun
lavishes so abundantly upon all, but audaciously insists upon gazing
unabashed at the orb itself and probing the light to its heart, the
result is blindness. It was therefore wise of Philippides, the comic
poet, when King Lysimachus once asked him, ‘What can I give you of
mine?’ to reply, ‘Anything, Sire, but your secrets.’ The finest and most
pleasant aspects of royalty are those displayed outwardly—its banquets,
wealth, pomps and shows, graces and favours. But if a king has any
secret, keep away from it and leave it alone. A king does not conceal
his [Sidenote: C] joy when prosperous, nor his laughter when jocose, nor
his intention to do a kindness or confer a boon. When he hides a thing,
when he is glum, unsmiling, unapproachable, it is time for alarm. It
means that he has been storing up anger, and that it is festering; or
that he is sullenly meditating a severe punishment; or that he is
jealous of his wife, or suspicious of his son, or distrustful of a
friend. Run, run from that cloud which is gathering so black! You cannot
possibly miss the thunder and lightning, when the matter which is now a
secret bursts out in storm.

How, then, are we to escape this vice? By turning our inquisitiveness—as
we have said—the other way round, and, as far as possible, directing our
minds to better and more interesting objects. If you are to pry, pry
into questions [Sidenote: D] connected with sky, earth, air, or sea. You
are by nature fond of looking either at little things or at big things.
If at big things, apply your curiosity to the sun; ask where he sets and
whence he rises. Inquire into the changes of the moon, as if she were a
human being. Ask where she loses so much of her light, and whence she
gets it back; how

               _Once dim, she first comes forth and makes
             Her young face beauteous, gathering to the full,
             And, when her greatest splendours she hath shown,
             Fades out, and passes into naught again._

These, too, are secrets—the secrets of Nature; but Nature has [Sidenote:
E] no grievance against those who find them out. Are the big things
beyond you? Then pry into the smaller ones. Ask how it is that some
plants are always flourishing and green, proudly displaying their wealth
at every season, while others are at one moment as good as these, but at
another have squandered their abundance all at once, like some human
spendthrift, and are left bare and beggared. Why, again, do some plants
produce elongated fruits, some angular, some round and globelike?

But perhaps you will have no curiosity for such concerns, [Sidenote: F]
because there is nothing wrong about them. Well, if inquisitiveness
absolutely must be always browsing and passing its time among things
sordid, like a maggot among dead matter, let us introduce it to history
and story, and supply it with bad things in abundance and without stint.
For there it will find

                _Fallings of men and spurnings-off of life_,

seductions of women, assaults by slaves, slanderings of friends,
concoctions of poisons, envies, jealousies, shipwrecks of homes,
overthrows of rulers. Take your fill, enjoy yourself, and cause no
annoyance or pain to any of those with whom you come in contact.

Apparently, however, inquisitiveness finds no pleasure in scandals which
are stale; it wants them hot and fresh. And [Sidenote: 518] while it
enjoys the spectacle of a novel tragedy, it takes no sort of interest in
the comedy or more cheerful side of life. Consequently the busybody
lends but a careless and indifferent ear to the account of a wedding, a
sacrifice, or a complimentary ‘farewell’. He says he has already heard
most of the details, and urges the narrator to cut them short or omit
them. But if any one will sit by him and tell him the news about the
corruption of a girl or the unfaithfulness of a wife or an impending
action at law or a quarrel between brothers, there is no sleepiness or
hurry about him, but

    _More words still doth he ask, and proffers his ears to receive
       them._

As applied to the busybody, the words

                 _How much more apt to reach the ear of man
                 An ill thing than a happy!_

are a true saying. As a cupping-glass sucks from the flesh what
[Sidenote: B] is worst in it, so the inquisitive ear draws to itself the
most undesirable topics. To vary the figure: cities have certain
‘Accursed’ or ‘Dismal’ gates, through which they take out criminals on
their way to death and throw the refuse and offscourings of
purification, while nothing sacred or undefiled goes in or out through
them. So with the ears of the busybody. They give passage to nothing
fine or useful, but serve only as the pathway of gruesome
communications, with their load of foul and polluted gossip.

                _No chance brings other minstrel to my roof,
                But always Lamentation._

[Sidenote: C] That is the one Muse and Siren of the busybody, the most
pleasant of all music to his ear. For his vice is a love of finding out
whatever is secret and concealed, and no one conceals a good thing when
he has one; on the contrary, he will pretend to one which has no
existence. Since therefore it is troubles that the busybody is eager to
discover, the disease from which he suffers is malignant gloating—own
brother to envy and spite. For envy is pain at another’s good; malignity
is pleasure at another’s harm; and the parent of both is ill-nature—the
[Sidenote: D] feeling of a savage or a brute beast.

So painful do we all find it to have our troubles revealed, that there
are many who would rather die than tell a physician of a secret disease.
Imagine Herophilus or Erasistratus, or Asclepius himself—when he was a
mortal man—calling from house to house with his drugs and his
instruments, and asking whether a man had a fistula or a woman a cancer
in the womb! Inquisitiveness in their profession may, it is true, save a
life. None the less, I presume, every one would have scouted such a
person, [Sidenote: E] for coming to investigate other people’s ailments
without waiting till he was required and sent for. Yet our busybody
searches out precisely these, or even worse, ailments; and, since he
does so not by way of curing them, but merely of disclosing them, he
deserves the hatred he gets.

We are annoyed and indignant with the collector of customs,[42] not when
he picks out and levies on those articles which we import openly, but
when, in the search for hidden goods, he ransacks among baggage and
merchandise which are not in [Sidenote: F] question. Yet the law permits
him to do so, and he is the loser if he does not. On the other hand, the
busybody lets his own concerns go to ruin, while he is occupying himself
with those of other people. He rarely takes a walk to the farm; it is
too lonely, and he cannot bear the quiet and silence. And if, after a
time, he does chance along, he has a keener eye for his neighbour’s
vines than for his own. He proceeds to ask how many of his neighbour’s
cattle have died, or how much of his wine turned sour. After a good meal
of such news he is quickly off and away.

Your true and genuine type of farmer has no desire to hear even the news
which finds its own way from the city. Says he:

                   _Then, while he digs, he’ll tell
             The terms o’the treaty. He must now, confound him,
             Go round and poke his nose in things like that!_

[Sidenote: 519] But to your busybody country life is a stale and
uninteresting thing with nothing to fuss about. He therefore flees from
it, and pushes into the Exchange, the Market, or the Harbour. ‘Is there
any news?’ ‘Why, weren’t you at market early this morning? Do you
imagine there has been a revolution in three hours?’ If, however, any
one has a piece of news to tell, down he gets from his horse, grasps the
man’s hand, kisses him, and stands there listening. But if some one
meets him and says there is nothing fresh, he exclaims, as if he were
annoyed: ‘What? Haven’t you been at market? Haven’t you been near the
Board-Room? And haven’t you met the new arrivals from [Sidenote: B]
Italy?’

The Locrian magistrates therefore did right in fining any one who, after
being out of town, came up and asked, ‘Is there any news?’ As the
butchers pray for a good supply of animals, and fishermen for a good
supply of fish, so busybodies pray for a good supply of calamities, for
plenty of troubles, for novelties and changes. They must always have
their fish to catch or carcass to cut up.

Another good rule was that of the legislator of Thurii, who forbade the
lampooning of citizens on the stage, with the exception of adulterers
and busybodies. The one class bears a resemblance to the other, adultery
being a sort of inquisitiveness into [Sidenote: C] another’s pleasure,
and a prying search into matters protected from the general eye, while
inquisitiveness is the illicit denuding and corrupting of a secret.
While a natural consequence of much learning is having much to say, and
therefore Pythagoras enjoined upon the young a five years’ silence,
which he called ‘Truce to Speech’, the necessary concomitant of
curiosity is speaking evil. What the curious delight to hear, they
delight to talk about; what they take pains to gather from others, they
joy in giving out to new hearers. It follows that, besides its
[Sidenote: D] other drawbacks, their disease actually stands in the way
of its own desires. For every one is on his guard to hide things from
them, and is reluctant to do anything when the busybody is looking, or
to say anything when he is listening. People put off a consultation and
postpone the consideration of business until such persons are out of the
way. If, when a secret matter is towards, or an important action is in
the doing, a busybody appears upon the scene, they take it away and hide
it, as they [Sidenote: E] would a piece of victuals when the cat comes
past. Often, therefore, he is the only person not permitted to hear or
see what others may see and hear.

For the same reason the busybody can find no one to trust him. We would
rather trust our letters, papers, or seals to a slave or a stranger than
to an inquisitive relation or friend. Bellerophon, though the writing
which he carried was about himself, would not broach it, but showed the
same continence in keeping his hands off the king’s letter as in keeping
them off his wife.

Yes, inquisitiveness is as incontinent as adultery, and not only
incontinent, but terribly silly and foolish. To pass by so many women
who are public property, and to struggle to get at one [Sidenote: F] who
is kept under lock and key, who is expensive, and perhaps ugly to boot,
is the very height of insanity. The busybody is just as bad. He passes
by much that is admirable to see and hear, many an excellent discourse
or discussion, to dig into another man’s poor little letter or clap his
ear to his neighbour’s wall, listening to slaves and womenfolk
whispering together, and incurring danger often, and discredit always.

[Sidenote: 520] Well, if he wishes to get rid of his vice, the busybody
will find nothing so helpful as to think over the discoveries he has
hitherto made. Simonides used to say that, in opening his boxes after a
lapse of time, he found the fee-box always full and the thanks-box
always empty. So, if one were to open the store-room of inquisitiveness
after an interval, and to contemplate all the useless, futile, and
uninviting things with which it is filled, he would probably become sick
of the business, so nauseating and senseless would it appear.

Suppose a person to run over the works of our old writers and pick out
their faultiest passages, compiling and keeping a book full of such
things as ‘headless’ lines of Homer, solecisms [Sidenote: B] in the
tragedians, the indecent and licentious language to women by which
Archilochus makes a sorry show of himself. Does he not deserve the
execration in the tragedy:

                   _Perish, thou picker-up of miseries!_

Execration apart, his treasury, filled with other men’s faults,
possesses neither beauty nor use. It is like the town which Philip
founded with the rudest riff-raff, and which he called Knaveborough.

With the busybody, however, it is not from lines of poetry, but from
lives, that he goes gleaning and gathering blunders and slips and
solecisms, till the memory which he carries about is the dullest and
dreariest record-box, crammed with ugly things. [Sidenote: C]

At Rome there are those who set no store by the paintings, the statues,
or—failing these—the handsome children or women on sale, but who haunt
the monster-market, examining specimens with no calves to their legs, or
with weasel-elbows, three eyes, or ostrich-heads, and looking out for
the appearance of any

                 _Commingled shape and misformed prodigy._

Yet if you keep on showing them such sights, they will soon become
surfeited and sick of it all. In the same way those who make it their
business to pry into other people’s failures in their affairs, blots on
their pedigree, disturbances and delinquencies in their homes, will do
well to remind themselves how thankless [Sidenote: D] and unprofitable
their previous discoveries have proved.

The most effective way, however, of preventing this weakness is to form
a habit—to begin at an early stage and train ourselves systematically to
acquire the necessary self-control. It is by habit that the vice
increases, the advance of the disease being gradual. How this is, we
shall see, in discussing the proper method of practice.

Let us make a beginning with comparatively trifling and insignificant
matters.

On the roads it can be no difficult matter to abstain from reading
[Sidenote: E] the inscriptions on the tombs. Nor in the promenades can
there be any hardship in refusing to let the eye linger upon the
writings on the walls. You have only to tell yourself that they contain
nothing useful or entertaining. There is A expressing his ‘kind
sentiments’ towards B; So-and-So described as ‘the best of friends’; and
much mere twaddle of the same kind. No doubt it seems as if the reading
of them does you no harm; but harm you it does, without your knowing it,
by inducing a habit of inquiring into things which do not concern you.
Hunters do not permit young hounds to turn aside and [Sidenote: F]
follow up every scent, but pull them sharply back with the leash, so as
to keep their power of smell in perfectly clean condition for their
proper work, and make it stick more keenly to the tracks:

    _With nostril a-search for the trail that the beast gives forth from
       its body_.

The same watchfulness must be shown in suppressing, or in diverting to
useful ends, the tendency of an inquisitive person to run off the track
and wander after everything that he can see or hear. An eagle or a lion
gathers its talons in when it [Sidenote: 521] walks, so as not to wear
the sharp edge from their tips. Similarly let us treat the inquiring
spirit as the keen edge to our love of learning, and refrain from
wasting or blunting it upon objects of no value.

In the next place let us train ourselves, when passing another’s door,
to refrain from looking in, or from letting our inquisitive gaze clutch
at what is passing inside. Xenocrates said—and we shall do well to keep
the remark in mind—that whether we set foot or set eyes in another man’s
house makes no difference. Not only is such prying unfair and improper;
we get no pleasure from the spectacle.

               _Unsightly, stranger, are the sights within_,

is a saying which is generally true of what we see inside—a litter of
pots and pans, or servant-girls sitting about, but nothing of [Sidenote:
B] any importance or interest. This furtive throwing of sidelong
glances, which at the same time gives a kind of squint to the mind, is
ugly, and the habit is demoralizing. When the Olympian victor Dioxippus
was making a triumphal entry in a chariot, and could not drag his eyes
from a beautiful woman among the spectators, but kept turning half round
and throwing side glances in her direction, Diogenes—who saw it
all—remarked, ‘See how a bit of a girl gets the neck-grip on our great
athlete!’ Inquisitive people, however, are to be seen gripped by the
neck and twisted about by any kind of sight, when they once develop a
habit of squandering their glances in all directions.

This is assuredly no right use of the faculty of vision. It should
[Sidenote: C] not go gadding about like some ill-trained maidservant;
but when the mind sends it upon an errand, it should make haste to reach
its destination, deliver its message, and then come quietly home again
to wait upon the commands of the reason. Instead of this, the case is as
in Sophocles:

              _Thereon the Aenean driver’s hard-mouthed colts
              Break from control._

When the faculty of vision has not been tutored and trained in the
proper manner as above described, it runs away, drags [Sidenote: D] the
mind with it, and often brings it into disastrous collisions.

There is a story that Democritus deliberately destroyed his sight by
fixing his eyes upon a red-hot mirror and allowing its heat to be
focussed upon them. His object, it is said, was to block up the windows
toward the street, and thus prevent the disturbance of his intellect by
repeated calls from outside, enabling it to stay at home and devote
itself to pure thinking. Though the story is a fiction, nothing is more
true than that those who make most use of their mind make few calls upon
the senses. Note how our halls of learning are built far out from the
towns, and how night has been styled the ‘_well-minded_‘, from a belief
[Sidenote: E] that quiet and the absence of distraction are a powerful
aid to intellectual discovery and research.

Suppose, again, that people are quarrelling and abusing each other in
the market-place. It requires no great effort of self-denial to keep at
a distance. When a crowd is running towards a certain spot, it is easy
for you to remain seated, or else, if you lack the necessary strength of
mind, to get up and go away. There is no advantage to be got from mixing
yourself with busybodies, whereas you will derive great benefit from
putting a forcible check upon your curiosity and training it to obey the
commands of the reason.

[Sidenote: F] We may now go a step further, and tax ourselves more
severely. It is good practice, when a successful entertainment is going
on in a public hall, to pass it by; when our friends invite us to a
performance by a dancer or comedian, to decline; when there is a roar in
the race-ground or the circus, to take no notice. Socrates used to urge
the avoidance of all foods and drinks which tempt one to eat when he is
not hungry or to drink when he is not thirsty. In the same way we shall
do well to shun carefully all appeals to eye or ear, when, though they
are no business of ours, their attractions prove too much for us.

Cyrus refused to see Panthea, and when Araspes talked of her [Sidenote:
522] remarkable beauty, his answer was: ‘All the more reason for keeping
away from her. If I took your advice and went to see her, she might
perhaps tempt me to be visiting her again when I could not spare the
time, and to be sitting and looking at her to the neglect of much
important business.’ In the same way Alexander refused to set eyes on
Darius’ wife, who was said to be strikingly handsome. Though he visited
the mother—an elderly woman—he would not bring himself to see her young
and beautiful daughter. But what we do is to peep into women’s litters
and hang about their windows, finding nothing improper in encouraging
our curiosity and allowing it such dangerous [Sidenote: B] and unchecked
play.

Note how you may train yourself for other virtues. To learn justice you
should sometimes forgo an honest gain, and so accustom yourself to keep
aloof from dishonest ones. Similarly, to learn continence, you should
sometimes hold aloof from your own wife, and so secure yourself against
temptation from another’s. Apply this habit to inquisitiveness.
Endeavour occasionally to miss hearing or seeing things which concern
yourself. When something happens at home, and a person wishes to tell
you of it, put the matter off; and when things have been said which
appear to affect yourself, refuse to hear them. Remember how Oedipus was
brought into the direst disasters by over-curiosity. Finding he was no
Corinthian, but an alien, he set to work [Sidenote: C] to discover who
he was, and so he met with Laius. He killed him, married his own mother,
with the throne for dowry, and then, while apparently blessed by
fortune, began his search once more. The endeavours of his wife to
prevent him only made him question still more closely, and in the most
peremptory way, the old man who was in the secret. And at last, when
circumstances are already bringing him to suspect, and the old man
cries:

               _Alas! I stand on the dread brink of speech!_

he is nevertheless in such a blaze or spasm of passion that he replies:

                  _And I of hearing; and yet hear I must._

[Sidenote: D] So bitter-sweet, so uncontrollable, is the excitement of
curiosity—like the tickling of a wound, at which one tears till he makes
it bleed. Meanwhile if we are free from that malady, and mild by nature,
we shall ignore a disagreeable thing and say:

                   _Sovran Oblivion, how wise art thou!_

We must therefore train ourselves to this end. If a letter is brought to
us, we must not show all that hurry and eagerness to open it which most
people display, when they bite the fastenings through with their teeth,
if their hands are too slow. When a messenger arrives from somewhere or
other, we must not run to meet him, nor get up from our seats. If a
friend [Sidenote: E] says, ‘I have something new to tell you,’ let us
reply: ‘Better, if you have something useful or profitable.’ When I was
once lecturing at Rome, the famous Rusticus—who was afterwards put to
death by Domitian out of jealousy at his reputation—was among my
hearers. A soldier came through the audience and handed him a note from
the emperor. There was a hush, and I made a pause, to allow of his
reading the letter. This, however, he refused to do, nor would he open
it, until I had finished my discourse and the audience broke up. The
incident caused universal admiration at his dignified behaviour.

But when one feeds his inquisitiveness upon permissible material until
he makes it robust and headstrong, he no longer [Sidenote: F] finds it
easy to master, when force of habit urges it towards forbidden ground.
Such persons will stealthily open their friends’ missives, will push
their way into a confidential meeting, will get a view of rites which it
is an impiety to see, will tread in hallowed places, and will pry into
the doings and sayings of a king.

Now with a despot—who is compelled to know everything—there is nothing
that makes him so detested as the crew known as his ‘ears’ and
‘jackals’. ‘Listeners’ were first instituted by Darius the Younger, who
had no confidence in himself and looked upon every one with fear and
suspicion. ‘Jackals’ were [Sidenote: 523] the creation of the Dionysii,
who distributed them among the people of Syracuse. Naturally, when the
revolution came, these were the first to be seized and cudgelled to
death by the Syracusans.

Blackmailers and informers are a breed belonging to the Busybody clan;
they are members of the family. But, whereas the informer looks to see
if his neighbours have done or plotted any mischief, the busybody brings
to book and drags into public even the misfortunes for which they are
not responsible. It is said that the outcast derived his name of
_aliterios_ in the first instance from being a busybody. It appears that
when a severe famine once occurred at Athens, and when those who were in
possession of wheat, instead of bringing it in to the public [Sidenote:
B] stock, used to grind it (_alein_) secretly by night in their houses,
certain persons, who went round watching for the noise of the mills,
were in consequence called _aliterioi_. It was in the same way, we are
told, that the informer won his name of _sukophantes_. The export of
figs (_suka_) being prohibited, those who gave information (_phainein_)
and impeached the offenders were called _sukophantai_. Busybodies would
do well to reflect upon this fact. It may make them ashamed of the
family likeness between their own practices and those of a class which
is a special object of loathing and anger.

Footnote 42:

  These were farmed.




                            ON GARRULOUSNESS


[Sidenote: 502 B] When philosophy undertakes to cure garrulity it has a
difficult and intractable case in hand. The remedy is reason, which
requires that the patient should listen. But the garrulous person
[Sidenote: C] does not listen, for he is always talking. Herein lies the
first trouble with an inability to keep silent; it means an inability to
listen. It is the deliberate deafness of a person who appears to find
fault with nature for giving him two ears and only one tongue. Euripides
is, of course, right when he says of the unintelligent hearer:

             _I cannot fill a man who cannot hold
             My wise words, poured and poured in unwise ears._

But there is more reason to say of the babbler:

             _I cannot fill a man who takes not in
             My wise words, poured and poured in unwise ears_,

—or rather poured over them, since he talks though you do [Sidenote: D]
not listen, and refuses to listen when you talk. For even if, thanks to
some ebb in his loquacity, he does listen for a moment, he immediately
makes up for it several times over.

There is a colonnade at Olympia which reverberates a single utterance
time after time, and is therefore known as the ‘Seven-Voiced’. Say but
the least thing to set garrulity sounding, and it immediately dins you
with its echoes:

         _Stirring the strings o’ the mind that none should stir._

The passage through the babbler’s ears leads, apparently, not to his
mind, but to his tongue. Consequently, while others [Sidenote: E] retain
what is said, the loquacious person lets it all leak away, and goes
about like a vessel full of noise but void of sense. Nevertheless, if we
are resolved to leave no stone unturned, let us say to the babbler:

                _Hush, boy: in silence many a virtue lies_,

and, first and foremost, the two virtues of hearing and being heard. The
garrulous person can get the benefit of neither, and makes a miserable
failure of the very thing he is aiming at.

In other mental maladies—love of money, love of glory, love of
pleasure—there is at least a chance of gaining the object pursued. But
with the babbler that result can hardly happen. [Sidenote: F] What he
desires is listeners, and listeners he cannot get, for they all run
headlong away. If, when they are sitting in a lounge or taking a walk
together, they catch sight of him approaching, they promptly pass each
other the word to shift camp.

When a silence occurs at some meeting, it is said that _Hermes has
appeared upon the scene_. Similarly, when a chatterer comes in to a
wine-party or a social circle, everybody grows mum, for [Sidenote: 503]
fear of giving him an opportunity. And if he begins of his own accord to
open his lips, then

                _As ere the storm, when the North wind blows
                By the headland that juts to the deep_,

the prospect of being tossed and seasick is so distressing that up they
get and out they go.

For the same reason he finds no welcome from neighbours at a dinner or
from messmates on a journey or a voyage. They merely tolerate him
because they must. For he sticks to you anywhere and everywhere, seizing
you by the clothes or the beard, and slapping you in the ribs.

                    _Then are your feet most precious_,

as Archilochus would say—and not only Archilochus, but that wise man
Aristotle. When the latter was himself once worried [Sidenote: B] by a
chatterer, who bored him with a number of silly stories and kept
repeating, ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Aristotle?’ he retorted, ‘The wonder is
not at that, but at any one tolerating you, when he owns a pair of
legs.’ To another person of the kind, who, after a great deal of talk,
remarked, ‘Master, I have wearied you with my chatter,’ he replied, ‘Not
at all; I was not listening.’ Precisely so. If a chatterer insists on
talking, the mind surrenders the ears to him and lets the stream pour
over them on the outside, while inwardly it goes its own way, opening
[Sidenote: C] and reading to itself a book of quite different thoughts.
It follows that he can get no hearer either to attend to him or to
believe him. A babbler’s talk is as barren of effect as the seed of a
person over-prone to sexualities is said to be.

And yet there is no part of us which Nature has fenced with so excellent
a barricade as the tongue. In front of that organ it has planted a guard
in the shape of the teeth, so that, if it will not obey orders and pull
itself together inside when reason tightens the ‘_silence-working
reins_‘,[43] we may check its rashness by biting it till it bleeds. The
phrase of Euripides is that ‘_disaster is the end_’ not of an
‘unchained’ treasury or storeroom, but of an ‘_unchained mouth_‘. To
recognize that a storeroom without a door, or a purse without a
fastening, is of no use to the owner, and yet to possess a mouth without
lock or door, but with as perpetual an outflow as the mouth of the
[Sidenote: D] Black Sea, is to set the lowest possible value on speech.

The result is that such a person meets with no belief, though all speech
has that object, its final cause being to create precisely such credence
in the hearer. A chatterer is disbelieved even when he tells the truth.
For as wheat, when shut in a bin, is found to increase in bulk but to
deteriorate in quality, so, when a story finds its way into a chatterer,
it generates a large addition of falsehood and its credibility is
thereby corrupted.

Again, any self-respecting and well-behaved person will beware of
drunkenness. For while—as some put it—anger lives next door to madness,
drunkenness lives in the same house. [Sidenote: E] Or rather it _is_
madness, of shorter duration, it is true, but more culpable, as being in
a measure voluntary. But the charge most seriously urged against
drunkenness is its intemperate and irresponsible language:

    _For though right shrewd be a man, wine eggs him on till he singeth;
    It loosens him that he laughs with a feeble laughter, and danceth._

Yet if this were the worst—singing, laughing, and dancing—there would
be, so far, nothing very terrible.

    _And he letteth slip some speech, the which were better unspoken_:—

[Sidenote: F] that is where the mischief and danger begin.

We may, indeed, believe that these lines of the poet give the solution
of the question discussed in the philosophic schools as to the
distinction between mellowness and intoxication: mellowness produces
unbending, but drunkenness foolish twaddling. As the proverb-makers put
it, ‘_What is in the sober man’s heart is on the drunken man’s tongue._’
Hence when Bias once kept silent at a carousal, and a chatterer taunted
him with stupidity, he retorted: ‘And, pray, who could keep silent over
his wine, if he were a fool?’ A certain person at Athens was [Sidenote:
504] once entertaining envoys from a king, and, as they were eager for
him to get together the philosophic teachers, he made every effort to
gratify them. While the rest took part in general discussion, to which
each contributed his quota, Zeno said nothing. At this the visitors,
pledging him in friendly and courteous terms, asked him, ‘And what are
we to say to the king about you, Zeno?’ ‘Merely,’ replied he, ‘that
there is one old man at Athens who is capable of holding his tongue
[Sidenote: *] when drinking.’

Silence, then, goes with depth, the capacity to keep a secret,
[Sidenote: B] and sobriety. Drunkenness, on the other hand, will be
talking, for it means folly and witlessness, and therefore loquacity. In
fact, the philosophic definition of intoxication calls it ‘_silly talk
in one’s cups_‘. The blame, therefore, is not for drinking, if one can
drink and yet at the same time hold his tongue. It is the foolish talk
that converts mellowness into drunkenness.

Well, while the drunken man talks nonsense at his wine, the babbler
talks it everywhere—in the market-place, in the theatre, when walking,
when tipsy, by day and by night. As your doctor, he is a greater
infliction than the disease; as your shipmate, more disagreeable than
the sea-sickness; his praises are more annoying than another person’s
blame. A tactful rogue is more pleasant company than an honest
chatterer. In Sophocles, when [Sidenote: C] Ajax is beginning to use
rough language, Nestor, in endeavouring to soothe him, says politely:

             _I blame thee not; for though thy words are wrong,
             Thine acts are right._

But those are not our feelings towards the twaddler. On the contrary,
the tactlessness of his talk spoils and nullifies anything acceptable in
what he may do.

Lysias once gave a litigant a speech which he had composed for him.
After reading it several times the man came back. In a despondent tone
he told Lysias that, when he first went through the speech, it appeared
wonderfully good, but on taking it up a second and third time, he found
it extremely weak and ineffective. ‘Well,’ said Lysias laughing, ‘isn’t
it only once [Sidenote: D] that you have to speak it before the jury?’
And consider how persuasive and charming Lysias is! For he is another
who

                       _Hath goodly portion, I trow,
                       Of the Muses violet-tress’d._

Of all things that are said about the great bard the truest is this—that
Homer alone manages never to cloy the appetite, since he is always new,
and his charm always at its height. Nevertheless, exclaiming on his own
account in the words of Odysseus: [Sidenote: *]

                        _But to me it is hateful
    To tell o’er a story again, when once right plainly ’tis told you_,

he is continually avoiding that tendency to surfeit which threatens talk
of every kind, carrying his hearers from one story to another, and
relieving their satiety by his constant freshness.

Our babblers, on the contrary, bore us to death with their repetitions,
as if our ears were palimpsests for them to scrawl rubbish upon.

Let this, then, be the first thing of which we remind them. [Sidenote:
E] It is with talking as it is with wine. The purpose of wine is to
create pleasure and friendly feeling; but to insist upon our drinking it
in great quantities and without qualifying it, is to lead us into
offensive and wanton behaviour. So, while talk plays the most pleasant
and human part in our intercourse, those who make a wrong and rash use
of it render it inhuman and insufferable. The means by which they
imagine they are ingratiating themselves and gaining admiration and
friendship, only makes them a nuisance and wins them ridicule and
dislike.

How destitute of charm would be a person who alienated his company and
drove them away with the very ‘girdle of charm’! And how destitute of
culture and tact is the man [Sidenote: F] who arouses annoyance and
hostility by means of speech!

Other infirmities and disorders may be dangerous or detestable or
ridiculous. Garrulity is all three at once. It is derided for relating
what everybody knows; it is hated for bearing bad news; it is endangered
through blabbing secrets. This is the [Sidenote: 505] reason why, when
Anacharsis went to sleep after being entertained at dinner at Solon’s
house, he was seen to be holding his right hand over his mouth. He
believed—quite rightly—that the tongue requires a firmer control than
any other member. It would be difficult, for instance, to count up as
many persons who have been ruined by sensuality, as cities and dominions
which have been brought to destruction by the divulgence of a secret.
When Sulla was besieging Athens, he could not afford to spend much time
upon it,

                      _Since other labour was urging_,

Mithridates having seized upon Asia, and the Marian party [Sidenote: B]
being again masters of Rome. It happened, however, that a number of old
men were talking at a barber’s, to the effect that no watch was kept
upon the Heptachalcon and that the town was in danger of capture at that
point. They were overheard by spies, who gave information to Sulla; and
he promptly brought up his forces at midnight, led in his army, and
almost razed the city to the ground, filling it with carnage till the
Cerameicus flowed with blood. His anger with the Athenians was, however,
due more to their words than to their deeds. They would leap on to the
walls, and abuse him and Metella, and by jeering at him with [Sidenote:
C]

          _A mulberry is Sulla, sprinkled o’er with barley-meal_,

and a number of similar scurrilities, they brought upon themselves—to
use a phrase of Plato—‘_a very heavy penalty_’ for that ‘_very light_’
thing, their words.

It was, again, the talkativeness of one man that prevented Rome from
obtaining its freedom by the removal of Nero. All preparations had been
made, and only a single night was left before the despot was to perish.
It happened, however, that the man who was to perform the assassination,
when on his way to the theatre, saw a prisoner at the palace doors on
the point of being brought before Nero. As he was bewailing his fate,
our friend came up close and whispered to him, ‘My good [Sidenote: D]
man, only pray that to-day may pass, and to-morrow you will be offering
me thanks.’ The prisoner grasped the meaning of the hint, and
reflecting, I suppose, that

    _’Tis a fool who forgoes what he holds, to pursue what is out of his
       keeping_,

chose the surer rather than the more righteous way of saving himself.
That is to say, he informed Nero of the expression used. The man was
thereupon promptly seized, and underwent rack, fire, and lash while
denying, in the face of constraint, what he had betrayed without any
constraint.

The philosopher Zeno, for fear that bodily suffering might force him to
reveal some secret in spite of himself, bit through his tongue and spat
it out at the despot. Leaena, again, has been gloriously rewarded for
her self-command. She was the [Sidenote: E] mistress of Harmodius and
Aristogeiton, and she shared in their plot against the despots—to the
best of her hopes, which was all a woman could do. For she also was
inspired with the bacchic frenzy of that glorious ‘_bowl of love_‘, and
the God had caused her also to be initiated into the secret. Well, after
they had failed and met their death, she was put to the question and
ordered to inform against those who still escaped detection. She
refused, and the firmness with which she bore her sufferings [Sidenote:
F] proved that, in the love of those heroes for such a woman, there was
nothing unworthy of themselves. The Athenians therefore had a bronze
lioness made without a tongue, and set it up in the gates of the
Acropolis, that courageous animal representing her indomitable firmness,
and the absence of a tongue her power of silence in keeping a solemn
secret.

No uttered word has ever done such service as many which have been
unuttered. You may some day utter what you have kept silent, but you
cannot unsay what has been said; it has been poured out, and has run
abroad. Hence, I take it, we have mankind to teach us how to speak, but
gods to teach us how to keep silent, our lesson in that art being
received at initiatory [Sidenote: 506] rites and mysteries. Odysseus,
who possessed most eloquence, the poet has made most reticent; he has
done the same with his son, his wife, and his nurse. You hear how she
says:

    _Like stubborn oak or like iron will I hold your secret and keep
       it._

In the case of Odysseus himself, as he sat beside Penelope,

    _Though in his heart he pitied his wife, and was sore at her
       weeping,
    Steady within their lids stood his eyes as horn or as iron._

[Sidenote: B] So full of self-command was his body in every part, under
such perfect discipline and control did reason hold it, that it forbade
the eyes to shed a tear, the tongue to utter a sound, the heart to
tremble or cry out with rage;

    _And his heart once more did obey, and endure with a patient
       enduring_,

inasmuch as reason had extended even to his irrational movements and
made his very breath and blood amenable to its authority. Most of his
comrades also were of the same character. Self-command and loyalty could
no further go than in their case. Though harried and dashed upon the
ground by the Cyclops, they would not denounce Odysseus to him. They
would not betray the plot against his eye and the implement which had
[Sidenote: C] been sharpened in the fire for that purpose; but they
chose to be eaten raw rather than tell a word of the secret.

Pittacus, therefore, was not far out, when, upon the King of Egypt
sending him a sacrificial victim and bidding him pick out the ‘fairest
and foulest’ part of the meat, he took out and sent him the tongue, as
being the instrument of both the greatest good and the greatest evil.

Euripides’ Ino, making bold to speak for herself, says that she knows
how to be

              _Silent in season, speak where speech is safe._

Those, indeed, who are blessed with a noble and a truly royal education,
know first how to be silent and then how to talk. The famous king
Antigonus, when his son asked him at what [Sidenote: D] hour they were
to break camp, replied, ‘What are you afraid of? That you may be the
only one to miss hearing the trumpet?’ Was it that he did not trust with
a secret the man to whom he intended to bequeath his throne? Rather he
meant to teach him self-mastery and caution in dealing with such
matters. The aged Metellus, on being asked a similar question during a
campaign, answered, ‘If I thought my shirt knew that secret, I would
take it off and put it on the fire.’ When Eumenes heard that Craterus
was advancing, he told the fact to none of his friends, but pretended
that it was Neoptolemus, whom his [Sidenote: E] soldiers despised,
whereas they entertained a great respect for the reputation of Craterus
and a high esteem of his ability. As, however, no one else found out the
truth, they joined battle, won the victory, killed Craterus without
knowing him, and only discovered who he was from his corpse. So good a
general was the silence of Eumenes in the battle, and so formidable the
opponent whose presence it disguised, that his friends admired instead
of blaming him for not forewarning them. Even if some one does find
fault, it is better to be accused when mistrust has saved you than to be
the accuser when trust proves your undoing.

What excuse can one possibly find for himself when blaming another for
not holding his tongue? If the matter ought not to [Sidenote: F] have
been known, it was wrong to tell it to any one else. If you let the
secret slip from yourself, and yet ask another person to keep it, you
take refuge in the loyalty of some one else while abandoning loyalty to
yourself. And if he turns out as bad as you, you are deservedly undone;
if better, you are saved by a miracle, through finding another person
more faithful to you than yourself. ‘But So-and-So is my friend.’ So is
a second person _his_ friend, whom _he_ again will trust as _I_ trust
_him_. So with that person and a third, and thus the talk will go on
[Sidenote: 507] increasing and extending in link after link of weak
betrayal. The Unit never goes beyond its own limit, but is, once and for
all, ‘oneness’—whence its name. But the number ‘two’ is the indefinite
beginning of difference, for by the duplication it at once shifts in the
direction of multitude. In the same way, so long as a piece of
information is confined to the first possessor, it is really and truly a
‘secret’. But if it passes by him to a second, it must be classed as a
‘report’. ‘_Winged words_,’ says the poet. If you let go from your hand
a thing with wings, it is not easy to get it back into your grasp; and
if you let an observation slip from your lips, it is impossible to seize
and secure it, but away it flies

                         _on nimbly-whirling wing_,

and circulates in all directions from one set of people to another.

When a ship is caught by a wind, they put a check upon it [Sidenote: B]
and deaden its speed with cables and anchors; but let a speech run—so to
speak—out of port, and it finds no place to cast and ride at anchor. It
is carried away with a roar, till he who has uttered it is dashed and
sunk upon some great and terrible danger.

                _From but a little torch-light Ida’s heights
                May all be set ablaze; so, tell but one,
                And all the town will know it._

The Roman Senate had been engaged for a number of days [Sidenote: C] in
debating a secret matter of policy. As it gave rise to much
mystification and conjecture, a woman—otherwise irreproachable, but
still a woman—kept pestering her husband and imploring him to tell her
the secret. On her oath, she would be silent: if not, might a curse fall
upon her. She wept and wailed because she was ‘not trusted’. From a
desire to bring home her folly by a proof, the Roman said, ‘Have your
way, wife. But the news is terribly ominous. We have been informed by
the priests that a lark has been seen flying about with a gold helmet
and a spear. We are therefore discussing the portent, and are inquiring,
with the help of the augurs, whether it is good or bad. But mind you
tell nobody.’ With these words he went off to the Forum. The wife at
once seized hold of [Sidenote: D] the first maid-servant to enter the
room, and, beating her own breast and tearing her hair, exclaimed, ‘O my
poor husband and country! What will become of us?‘, her wish being to
give the maid the opportunity of asking ‘Why, what has happened?’ At any
rate she took the question as put, and told the tale, adding the
invariable refrain of every babbler, ‘Tell no one about it, but hold
your tongue.’ The girl no sooner left her than she looked for the
fellow-servant who had least to do, and [Sidenote: E] imparted it to
her. She in turn told it to her lover, who was paying her a visit. The
story went rolling on so rapidly that it reached the Forum before the
man who had invented it, and he was met by an acquaintance, who said,
‘Have you just come down from home?’ ‘This minute,’ he replied. ‘Then
you haven’t heard anything?’ ‘No. Why? Is there any news?’ ‘A lark has
been seen flying about with a gold helmet and a spear, and the
magistrates are about to hold a Senate meeting on the matter.’ At this
the man exclaimed with a laugh, ‘O wife, wife! What a speed! To think
the story has got to the Forum ahead of me!’ First he interviewed the
magistrates and relieved their anxiety; then, on going home, [Sidenote:
F] he proceeded to punish his wife by saying, ‘Wife, you have been the
ruin of me. The secret is public property, and the fault has been traced
to my house. And so I am to be exiled, all because of your loose
tongue.’ Upon her attempting to deny it by arguing ‘But there were three
hundred who heard it as well as you’, he retorted ‘Pooh for your three
hundred! I invented it to try you, all because of your persistence’.

In this case the man took safe precautions in putting his wife
[Sidenote: 508] to the test, by pouring into the leaky vessel not wine
or oil, but water. It was otherwise with Fulvius, the close friend of
Augustus. The emperor in his old age was lamenting to him over his
desolate home and grieving because, two of his daughter’s children being
dead, and Postumius, the only one left, being in exile on some
calumnious charge, he was being driven to adopt his wife’s son as his
successor, although he felt compassion [Sidenote: B] for his grandson
and was considering the question of recalling him from abroad. Fulvius
divulged what he had heard to his wife, and she to Livia; whereupon
Livia took Caesar bitterly to task, asking why, if he had been so long
of this mind, he did not send for his grandson, instead of putting her
in a position of enmity and strife with the successor to the throne.
Accordingly, when Fulvius came to him—as he regularly did—in the morning
and said ‘Good morning, Caesar’, he replied ‘Good-bye, Fulvius’. Fulvius
took the hint, went away home at once, sent for his wife, and said,
‘Caesar knows that I have betrayed his secret, and I propose therefore
to put myself to death.’ ‘Rightly too,’ answered his wife, ‘seeing that,
after living with [Sidenote: C] me so long, you failed to discover the
looseness of my tongue and to guard against it. But after me, if you
please’—and seizing the sword she despatched herself first.

The comic poet Philippides therefore acted rightly when, in answer to
the friendly civilities of King Lysimachus and his question ‘What is
there of mine that I can share with you?‘, he replied ‘What you choose,
Sire, except your secrets.’

On the other hand garrulity goes with the equally objectionable vice of
inquisitiveness. The babbler must find much to hear, so that he may have
much to tell. Especially must he go round tracking and hunting out
hidden secrets, so as to provide himself with a miscellaneous
stock-in-trade for his foolish [Sidenote: D] talk. Then, like a child
with a piece of ice, he neither likes to keep hold nor wants to let go.
Or rather, the secrets are reptiles, which he grasps and puts in his
bosom, but which he cannot hold tight, and so is devoured by them.
Garfish and vipers—so we are told—burst in giving birth to their young.
So the escape of a secret is ruin and destruction to him who lets it
out.

Seleucus the Victorious, having lost all his army and resources in his
fight with the Gauls, tore off his royal circlet with his own hands, and
fled away on horseback with three or four attendants. After a long and
circuitous ride away from the highroads, he was at last so overcome by
want that he approached a homestead, and being fortunate enough to find
the owner in [Sidenote: E] person, asked him for bread and water. The
man not only gave him these, but supplied him liberally and in the most
friendly way with whatever else he had upon his farm. In doing so he
recognized the king’s face. So overjoyed was he at his fortunate
opportunity of rendering him service, that, instead of restraining
himself and playing up to the king’s desire to be unknown, he
accompanied him as far as the road, and, on taking his leave, said,
‘Good-bye, King Seleucus.’ At this the king, holding out his right hand
and drawing the man towards him as if to kiss him, gave a sign to one of
the attendants to cut off his head with a sword;

    _And so, with the word on his lips, his head in the dust lay
       mingled_,—

whereas, if he had then had the patience to hold his tongue [Sidenote:
F] for a little while, he would in all probability, when the king
subsequently won success and power, have earned a larger return for his
silence than for his hospitality.

In this case, it is true, the man’s hopes and kindly feeling formed some
excuse for his lack of self-command. Most babblers, however, have no
excuse at all for their own undoing. For example, people were once
talking in a barber’s shop about the despotism of Dionysius, and saying
how firmly established it was against all assault. At this the barber
remarked laughingly, ‘How can you say that, when every few days I have
my [Sidenote: 509] razor at his throat?’ No sooner did Dionysius hear of
this speech than he impaled the barber.

Barbers, by the way, are generally a garrulous crew. Their chairs being
the resort of the greatest chatterers, they catch the bad habit
themselves. It was a neat quip that Archelaus once gave to a loquacious
barber. After putting the towel round him, the man asked, ‘How shall I
cut your hair, Sire?’ ‘In silence,’ he replied. It was a barber also who
reported the great disaster of the Athenians in Sicily, he having been
the first to hear it at the Peiraeus from a slave, who had run away
[Sidenote: B] from the spot. Abandoning his shop, he hurried at full
speed to town,

                     _Lest another the glory might win_

by imparting the news to the capital,

                   _while he might come but the second_.

A panic naturally ensued, and the people were gathered to an assembly,
where they set to work to trace the rumour to its source. When, however,
the barber was brought forward and questioned, he did not even know the
name of his informant, but could only give as his authority a person
unnamed and unknown. Thereupon the audience shouted in anger: ‘To the
rack and the wheel with the wretch! The thing is a pure concoction! Who
else has heard it? Who believes it?’ The wheel [Sidenote: C] had been
brought, and the man had been stretched upon it, when there appeared
upon the scene the bearers of the disastrous news, who had escaped from
the very midst of the action. At this they all dispersed, to occupy
themselves with their private griefs, leaving the poor wretch bound upon
the wheel. When at a late hour towards evening he was set free, he
proceeded to ask the executioner ‘whether they had also heard in what
manner Nicias, the commander, had met his death’. Such a hopeless and
incorrigible failing does garrulity become through force of habit.

After drinking a bitter and evil-smelling medicine, we are disgusted
with the cup as well. In the same way, if you are the bearer of bad
news, you are regarded with disgust and hatred by those who hear it.
Hence a pretty discussion in Sophocles: [Sidenote: D]

         A. _Is it in ear or heart that thou art stung?_

         B. _Why seek thus to define where lies my pain?_

         A. _’Tis the doer grieves thine heart, I but thine ears._

Be that as it may, a speaker causes pain as well as a doer. Nevertheless
there is no stopping or chastening a loose, glib tongue.

On one occasion it was discovered that the temple of Athena ‘Of the
Bronze House’ at Sparta had been pillaged, and an empty flask was found
lying inside. The crowd which had run together could make nothing of it,
when one of their number said, ‘If you like, I will tell you my notion
as to the flask. I fancy the robbers, realizing all the danger they were
to run, first drank hemlock, and then brought wine with them. If they
managed to escape detection, they were to neutralize [Sidenote: E] the
effects of the poison by drinking the unmixed wine, and so get away in
safety. If they were caught, they were to die an easy and painless death
from the poison, before they could be put to torture.’ The theory was so
ingenious and acute that it appeared to come of knowledge rather than
conjecture. He was therefore surrounded and questioned on every
side—‘Who are [Sidenote: F] you? Who knows you? How do you get to know
all that?‘—till finally, under this searching examination, he confessed
that he was one of the thieves.

Were not the murderers of Ibycus found out in the same way? As they were
sitting in the theatre, a number of cranes happened to come in sight,
and they whispered laughingly to one another, ‘Here are the avengers of
Ibycus!’ They were overheard by persons sitting near them, and as a
search was being made for Ibycus, who had been missing for a
considerable time, the words were seized upon and reported to the
magistrates. By this means the matter was brought home, and the
assassins carried off to prison, where their punishment was due, not to
the cranes, but to their own garrulity, which played the part [Sidenote:
510] of an Erinys or Spirit of Vengeance in compelling them to divulge
the murder. For as in the body, when a part is diseased or in pain, the
neighbouring matter gathers towards it by attraction; so is it with the
babbler’s tongue. Perpetually throbbing and inflamed, it must keep
drawing towards itself some secret or other which ought to be concealed.

We must therefore make ourselves secure. Let Reason lie like a barrier
in the way of the tongue, to restrain its flow or prevent its slipping.
And let us show that we possess no less [Sidenote: B] sense than certain
geese of which we are told. It is said that, when they cross from
Cilicia over the Taurus Range—which is full of eagles—they clap a bolt
or bit upon their utterance. That is to say, they take in their mouths a
good-sized stone, and so fly over at night without being discovered.

Now if it were asked

        _Who it is that is the vilest, who most unredeemed of men_,

it is the traitor who would always be named before any one else. Well,
Euthycrates (as Demosthenes puts it) ‘_roofed his house with the timber
got from Macedon_‘. Philocrates received a large sum of gold and
proceeded to buy ‘_strumpets and fish_‘. Euphorbus and Philagrus, who
betrayed Eretria, received lands [Sidenote: C] from the Persian king.
But the babbler is a traitor who volunteers his services without pay,
not in the way of betraying horses or fortresses, but of divulging
secrets connected with lawsuits, party feuds, or political manœuvres.
Instead of any one thanking him, he actually has to thank people for
listening to him. The line addressed to a man who was recklessly
squandering his money by giving indiscriminate presents—

      _Not generous, you: ’tis your disease; you love to be a-giving_—

fits the prater also. ‘You do not give this information out of
friendliness and goodwill. ’Tis your disease; you love to be a-talking
and a-babbling.’

These remarks are not to be regarded as simply an indictment of
garrulity. They are an attempt to cure it. An ailment is [Sidenote: D]
overcome by diagnosis and treatment, but diagnosis comes first. No one
can be trained to avoid or to rid his mental constitution of a thing
which causes him no distress. That distress we learn to feel at our
disorders, when reason leads us to perceive the injury and shame which
result from them. Thus in the present instance we perceive that the
babbler is hated where he desires to be liked, annoys where he wishes to
ingratiate himself, is derided where he thinks he is admired, and spends
without gaining anything by it. He wrongs his friends, assists his
[Sidenote: E] enemies, and ruins himself. The first step, therefore, in
physicing this disorder, is to reflect upon the disgrace and pain which
it causes. The second is to consider the advantages of the contrary
behaviour, constantly hearing, remembering, and keeping at our call the
praises of reticence, the solemn and sacramental associations of
silence, and the fact that it is not by your unbridled talker at large
that admiration, regard, and reputation for wisdom are won, but by the
man of short and pithy speech, who can pack much sense into few words.

We find Plato commending such persons, and saying that, in [Sidenote: F]
their deliverance of crisp, terse, and compact utterances, they resemble
a skilful javelineer. Lycurgus, again, forced his fellow-citizens to
acquire this gift of compression and solidity by applying the pressure
of silence from their earliest childhood.

The Celtiberians produce steel from iron by first burying it in the
ground and then clearing away the earthy surplusage. So is it with
Lacedaemonian speech. It has no surplusage, but is steadily hardened
down to absolute effectiveness by the removal of everything unessential.
And this knack of theirs of saying a pithy thing, or making a keen and
nimble retort, is the result of a great habit of silence.

[Sidenote: 511] We must not omit to give our chatterer examples of such
brevities, in order to show how pretty and effective they are. For
instance:

          _The Lacedaemonians to Philip_: _Dionysius at Corinth_;

and, again, when Philip wrote to them ‘_If I enter Laconia, I will turn
you out_‘, they wrote back, ‘_If._’ When King Demetrius shouted in his
indignation, ‘Have the Lacedaemonians sent only one envoy to _me_?‘, the
envoy replied undismayed, ‘One to one.’ Among our ancient worthies also
we admire [Sidenote: B] the men of few words. It was not the _Iliad_ or
the _Odyssey_ or the paeans of Pindar that the Amphictyons inscribed
upon the temple of the Pythian Apollo, but the maxims _Know Thyself_:
_Nothing in Excess_: _Give pledge, and Mischief is nigh_, which they
admired for their simple and compact expression, with its
closely-hammered thought in small compass. And does not the god himself
show a love of conciseness and brevity in his oracles, deriving his name
of ‘Loxias’ from the fact that he would rather be obscure than
garrulous?

Do we not also particularly praise and admire those who can say, by
means of a symbol and without speaking a word, all that [Sidenote: C] is
necessary? For instance, when his fellow-citizens insisted upon
Heracleitus proposing some measure for the promotion of concord, he
mounted the platform, took a cup of cold water, sprinkled it with
barley-meal, stirred it with a slip of pennyroyal, drank it off, and
went home. This was his way of intimating that to be satisfied with the
commonest things, and to have no expensive wants, is the way to maintain
a community in peace and concord. Another case is that of Scilurus, the
Scythian king, who left behind him eighty sons. When he was dying, he
called for a bundle of small spears, and bade them take and break it in
pieces, tied together as it was, and in the mass. When they gave up the
task, he himself drew the spears out one by one and snapped them all
with ease, thereby demonstrating [Sidenote: D] how invincible was their
strength if harmoniously united, how weak and short-lived if they did
not hold together.

Any one, I believe, who constantly recalls these and the like examples,
will cease to take a pleasure in chattering. But—speaking for
myself—there is a story of a certain slave which greatly discourages me,
when I reflect how hard it is to be so careful of our words as to make
sure of our purpose. The orator Pupius Piso, not wishing to be troubled,
ordered his slaves to talk only in answer to questions, and not a word
more. Subsequently, being anxious to welcome Clodius in his official
position, he gave orders for him to be invited to dinner, and prepared
what was, of course, a splendid banquet. When the hour arrived, the
other guests were all present and waiting for [Sidenote: E] Clodius. The
slave who regularly carried the invitations was repeatedly sent out to
see whether he was on his way. When evening came and he was given up in
despair, Piso said to the slave, ‘Of course you took him the
invitation?’ ‘I did,’ he answered. ‘Then why has he not appeared?’
‘Because he refused.’ ‘Then why did you not tell me so at once?’
‘Because you did not ask me that question.’

So much for the slave at Rome, whereas at Athens he will tell his master
while digging

                   _What terms are named i’ the treaty_,

so great in all things is the force of habituation. To habituation let
us now turn.

[Sidenote: F] We cannot check the babbler by taking, as it were, a grip
on the reins. The malady can only be overcome by habit.

In the first place, therefore, when questions are asked of your
neighbours, train yourself to keep silent until they have all failed to
answer.

                _Counsel hath other ends than running hath_,

says Sophocles, and so has speech or answer. In running, the victor is
the man who comes in first, but here the case is different. If another
makes a satisfactory reply, the proper course is to lend approval and a
word of support, and so win credit for good [Sidenote: 512] feeling. If
he fails, there is nothing invidious or inopportune in giving the
information which he does not possess, or in supplementing his
deficiencies. But above all things let us be on our guard, when a
question is put to another person, that we do not anticipate him and
take the answer out of his mouth. In any case in which a request is made
of another it is, of course, improper for us to push him aside and offer
our own services. By doing so we shall appear to be casting a slur on
both parties; as if the one were incapable of performing what is asked,
and as if the other did not know the right quarter from which to get
what he asks for. But it is especially in connexion with answers to
questions that such impudent forwardness is an outrage on [Sidenote: B]
manners. To give the answer before the person questioned has time,
implies the remark, ‘What do you want _him_ for?‘, or ‘What does _he_
know?‘, or, ‘When _I_ am present, nobody else should be asked that
question.’

Yet we often put a question to a person, not because we need the
information, but by way of eliciting from him a few words of a friendly
nature, or from a wish to lead him on to converse, as Socrates did with
Theaetetus and Charmides. To take the answer out of another’s mouth, to
divert attention to yourself and wrest it from another, is as bad as if,
when a person desired to be kissed by some one else, you ran forward and
kissed him yourself, or as if, when he was looking at another, you
twisted him round in your own direction. The right and proper [Sidenote:
C] course, even if the person who is asked for information cannot give
it, is to wait, to take your cue to answer from the wish of the
questioner—his invitation not having been addressed to you—and then to
meet the situation in a modest and mannerly way. If a person of whom a
question is asked makes a mistake in answering it, he meets with a due
measure of indulgence; but one who pushes himself forward and insists on
answering first, receives no welcome if he is right, while, if he is
wrong, he becomes an object of positive exultation and derision.

The second item of our regimen concerns the answering of questions put
to ourselves. Our garrulous friend must be particularly careful with
these. In the first place he must not be deceived into giving serious
replies to those who merely provoke him into a discussion in order to
make a laughing-stock of him. [Sidenote: D] Sometimes persons who
require no information simply concoct a question for the amusement and
fun of the thing, and submit it to a character of this kind in order to
set his foolish tongue wagging. Against this trick he must be on his
guard. Instead of promptly jumping at the subject as if he were
grateful, he should consider both the character of the questioner and
the necessity for the question. And when it is clear that information is
really desired, he must make a habit of waiting and leaving some
interval between question and answer. There will then be time for the
inquirer to add anything he wishes, and for himself to reflect upon his
reply, instead of overrunning and muddling the question, hurriedly
giving [Sidenote: E] first one answer and then another while the
question is still going on.

The Pythian priestess, of course, is accustomed to deliver oracles on
the instant, even before the question is asked, inasmuch as the God whom
she serves

      _Understandeth the dumb, and heareth a man though he speak not._

But if you wish your answer to be to the purpose, you must wait for the
questioner’s thought to be expressed, and discover [Sidenote: F]
precisely what he is aiming at. Otherwise it will be a case of the old
saying:

                 _Asked for a bucket, they refused a tub._

In any case that ravenous greed to be talking must be checked. Otherwise
it will seem as if a stream, which has long been banked up at the
tongue, is taking joyful advantage of the question to disgorge itself.
Socrates used to control his thirst on the same principle. He would not
permit himself to drink after exercise without pouring away the first
jugful drawn from the well, thereby training his irrational part to wait
until reason named the time.

[Sidenote: 513] There are three possible kinds of answer to a
question—the barely necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For
instance, to the inquiry, ‘Is Socrates at home?‘, one person may reply,
in an offhand and apparently grudging way, ‘Not at home;’ or, if he is
disposed to adopt the Laconian style, he will omit the ‘at home’ and
merely utter the negative. Thus the Lacedaemonians, when Philip had
written to ask, ‘Do you [Sidenote: *] receive me into your city?‘, wrote
a large _No_ on a piece of paper and sent it back. Another, with more
politeness, answers, ‘No, but you will find him at the bankers’
tables’—going so far, perhaps, as to add, ‘waiting for some strangers.’
But, [Sidenote: B] third, our inordinate chatterbox—at any rate, if he
happens also to have read Antimachus of Colophon—will say, ‘No; but you
will find him at the bankers’ tables, waiting for some strangers from
Ionia, concerning whom he has had a letter from Alcibiades, who is near
Miletus, staying with Tissaphernes, the Great King’s Satrap, the same
who used formerly to help the Lacedaemonians, but who is now attaching
himself to the Athenians, thanks to Alcibiades; for Alcibiades is
anxious to be recalled from exile, and is therefore working upon
Tissaphernes to change sides.’ In fact he will talk the whole eighth
book of Thucydides and will deluge the questioner with it, until, before
he has done, there is war with Miletus and Alcibiades has been exiled
for [Sidenote: C] the second time.

Here especially should loquacity be repressed. It should be forced to
follow in the footsteps of the question, and to confine the answer
within the circle of which the questioner’s requirement gives the centre
and radius. When Carneades, before he became famous, was once
discoursing in the gymnasium, the superintendent sent and requested him
to lower his voice, which was a very loud one. Upon his replying ‘Give
me my limit for reach of voice’, the officer aptly rejoined ‘The person
who is speaking with you’. So, in making an answer, let the limit
[Sidenote: D] be the wishes of the questioner.

In the next place remember how Socrates used to urge the avoidance of
those foods and drinks which induce you to eat when you are not hungry
and to drink when you are not thirsty. So those subjects in which he
most delights, and in which he indulges most immoderately, are the
subjects which the babbler should shun, and whose advances he should
resist. For example, military men are given to prosing about wars. Homer
introduces Nestor in that character, making him relate his own deeds of
prowess time after time. Take, again, those who have scored a victory in
the law-courts, or who have met with surprising success at the courts of
governors or kings. Generally [Sidenote: E] speaking, they are chronic
sufferers from an itch to talk about it, and to describe over and over
again how they came in, how they were introduced, how they played their
parts, how they talked, how they confuted some opponent or accuser, and
what eulogies they won. Their delight is more loquacious than that
‘sleepless night’ in the comedy, and is perpetually fanning itself into
new flame and keeping itself fresh by telling over the tale. They are
therefore prone to slip into such subjects at every pretext. For not
only

               _Where the pain is, there also goes the hand_;

[Sidenote: F] no less does the part which feels pleasure draw the voice
and twist the tongue in its own direction, from a desire to dwell
perpetually on the theme. It is the same also with amorous persons, who
chiefly occupy themselves with such conversation as brings up some
mention of the object of their passion. If they cannot talk to human
beings about it, they do so to inanimate things:

                             _O bed most dear!_

or

             _Bacchis thought thee a god, thou blessed lamp;
             And greatest god thou art, methinks, through her._

No doubt it makes not a pin’s difference to the chatterer [Sidenote:
514] what subject of conversation may arise. Nevertheless, if he has a
greater predilection for one class of subjects than for another, he
ought to be on his guard against that class and force himself to hold
aloof from it, since those are the subjects which can always tempt him
furthest into prolixity for the pleasure of the thing. It is the same
with those matters in which the talker thinks that his experience or
ability gives him a superiority over other people. Through egotism and
vanity such a person

                 _Giveth the most part of the day to that
                 Wherein he showeth to the most advantage._

With the much-read man it is general information; with the [Sidenote: B]
expert in letters, the rules of literary art; with the much-travelled
man, accounts of foreign parts. These subjects also must therefore be
shunned. They are an enticement to loquacity, which is led on to them
like an animal towards its wonted fodder. One admirable feature in the
conduct of Cyrus was that, in his matches with his mates, he challenged
them to compete at something in which he was not more, but less, expert
than they. Thus, while he caused no pain by eclipsing them, he also
derived advantage from a lesson. With the chatterer it is the other way
about. If any subject is mooted which gives him the opportunity of
asking and learning something he does not know, he cannot even pay so
small a fee [Sidenote: C] for it as merely holding his tongue, but he
blocks the topic and elbows it aside, working steadily round till he
drives the conversation into the well-worn track of stale old twaddle.

We have had an example of this among ourselves, where a person who
happened to have read two or three books of Ephorus used to weary every
one to death, and put any convivial party to rout, by everlastingly
describing the battle of Leuctra and its sequel, until he earned the
nickname of ‘Epaminondas’. If, however, we are to choose between evils,
this is the least, and we must divert loquacity into this channel.
Talkativeness will be [Sidenote: D] less disagreeable when its excess is
in an expert connexion.

In the next place such persons should habituate themselves to putting
things in a written or conversational form when alone. The case is not
as with Antipater the Stoic. He gained his sobriquet of ‘Pen-Valiant’
because, being—as it would appear—unable and unwilling to come out and
meet the vehement attacks made by Carneades upon the Porch, he kept
filling his books with written disputations against him. But if the
babbler turns to writing and valiantly fights shadows with his pen, the
occupation will keep him from attacking people at large and will render
him daily more bearable to his company. It will be as with dogs. Let
them vent their anger on sticks and stones, and they are less ferocious
to human beings. [Sidenote: E]

Another extremely beneficial course for talkers to adopt is to associate
continually with their superiors and elders, out of respect for whose
standing they will develop a habit of holding their tongues.

As part and parcel of this training we should always vigilantly apply
the following reflection, when we are on the point of talking and the
words begin running to our mouths: ‘What _is_ this remark that is so
pressing and importunate? With what object is my tongue so impatient?
What honour do I get by speaking, or what harm by keeping quiet?’ If the
thought were an oppressive weight to be got rid of, the matter would be
[Sidenote: F] different; but it remains with you just as much, even if
it is spoken. When men talk, it is either for their own sake, because
they want something, or it is to help the hearer; or else they seek to
ingratiate themselves with each other by seasoning with the salt of
rational conversation the pastime or business in which they happen to be
engaged. But if a remark is neither of advantage to the speaker nor of
importance to the hearer, if it contains nothing pleasant or
interesting, why is it made? The [Sidenote: *] meaningless and futile is
as much to be avoided in words as it is in deeds.

Over and above all this, we should keep in lively recollection
[Sidenote: 515] the saying of Simonides that he ‘had often repented of
talking, but never of holding his tongue’. We should remember also that
practice is a potent thing and overcomes all difficulties. People get
rid even of the hiccoughs or a cough by resolutely resisting them. Yet
this involves trouble and pain, whereas silence not only, as Hippocrates
says, ‘prevents thirst;’ it also prevents pain and suffering.

Footnote 43:

  The Homeric σιγαλόεντα (‘glossy’) is brought, either in error or by a
  deliberate pun, into relation with σιγή (‘silence’).




                       ON THE STUDENT AT LECTURES


MY DEAR NICANDER, [Sidenote: 37 C]

This is an article upon ‘The Attitude of the Student’, which I have
written and am sending to you. Its purpose is to teach you the right
attitude towards your philosophic teacher, now that you are a grown-up
man and are no longer obliged merely to obey orders.

Some young men are so ill-informed as to suppose that absence of
restraint is the same thing as freedom, whereas, by unchaining
[Sidenote: D] the passions, it makes them slaves to a set of masters
more tyrannical than all the teachers and mentors of childhood.
Herodotus says that when women take off the tunic they also take off
shame. It is the same with some young men. In laying aside the garb of
childhood they also lay aside shame and fear. No sooner do they unloose
the cloak which controlled their conduct than they indulge in the utmost
misbehaviour. With you it should be otherwise. You have been told over
and over again that to ‘follow God’ and to ‘obey reason’ are the same
thing. Understand, therefore, that with right-minded persons a coming of
age does not mean rejection of rule, but change of ruler. For the hired
or purchased[44] director of conduct they [Sidenote: E] substitute one
that is divine—namely, reason. Only those who follow reason deserve to
be considered free; for they alone live as they choose, because they
alone have learned to make the right choice, whereas ignorant and
irrational desires and actions give small and paltry scope to the will,
but great scope to repentance.

Note what happens in the case of naturalized citizens. Entire [Sidenote:
F] foreigners from another country will often grumble irritably at their
experiences, whereas those who have previously been denizens of the
state, and have therefore lived in intimate touch with the laws, will
accept their obligations with cheerful readiness. So with yourself. For
a long time you have been growing up in the company of philosophy. From
the first you have been accustomed to a taste of philosophic reason in
everything that you have been taught or told as a child. It should
therefore be in a well-disposed and congenial spirit that you come to
Philosophy, who alone can adorn a youth with that finish of manhood
which genuinely and rationally deserves the name.

You will not, I believe, object to a prefatory remark upon [Sidenote:
38] the sense of hearing. Theophrastus asserts that it is the most
susceptible of all the senses, inasmuch as nothing that can be seen,
tasted, or touched, is the cause of such strong emotional disturbance
and excitement as takes hold upon the mind when certain sounds of
beating, clashing, or ringing fall upon the ear. It is, however, more
rational, rather than more emotional, than the other senses. Vice can
find many places and parts of the body open for it to enter and seize
upon the soul. But the only hold that virtue can take is upon pure young
ears [Sidenote: B] which have at all times been protected from the
corruptions of flattery or the touch of low communications. Hence the
advice of Xenocrates, that ear-guards should be worn by boys more than
by athletes, inasmuch as the latter merely have their ears disfigured by
blows, while the former have their characters disfigured by words. Not
that he would wed us to inattention or deafness. It is but a warning to
beware of wrong communications, and to see that others of the right
nature have first been fostered in our character by philosophy and have
mounted guard in that quarter which is most open to influence and
persuasion.

Bias, the ancient sage, was once bidden by Amasis to send him that piece
of meat from a sacrificial victim which was at the same time the best
and the worst. He replied by taking out and sending the tongue, on the
ground that speech can do both the greatest harm and the greatest good.
It is a general practice in fondling little children to take them by the
ears, and to bid [Sidenote: C] them do the same to us—an indirect and
playful way of suggesting that we should be especially fond of those who
make our ears the instruments to our advantage.

It is, of course, obvious that a youth cannot be debarred from any or
every kind of hearing, or from tasting any discourse at all. Otherwise
not only will he remain entirely without fruit or growth in the way of
virtue; he will actually be perverted in the direction of vice, his mind
being an idle and uncultivated patch producing a plentiful crop of
weeds. Propensity to pleasure and dislike of labour—the springs of
innumerable forms of trouble and disease—are not of external origin, nor
imported [Sidenote: D] from teaching, but they well up naturally from
the soil. If therefore they are left free to take their natural course;
if they are not done away with, or turned aside, by sound instruction;
if nature is not thus brought under control, man will prove more
unreclaimed than any brute beast.

The hearing of lectures, then, may be of great profit, but at the same
time of great danger, to a young man. This being so, I believe it a good
thing to make the matter one of constant discussion, both with oneself
and with others. In most cases [Sidenote: E] we may notice a false
procedure—that of cultivating the art of speaking before being trained
to the art of listening. It is thought that, while speaking requires
instruction and practice, any kind of listening is attended with profit.
But not so. Whereas in ball-play one learns simultaneously how to throw
and how to catch, in the business of speech the right taking in is prior
to the giving out, just as conception is prior to parturition. We are
told that in the case of a hen laying a wind-egg her labour and travail
end in nothing but an abortive and lifeless piece of refuse. So when a
young man lacks the ability to listen, [Sidenote: F] or the training to
gather profit through the ear, the speech which he lets fall is
wind-begotten indeed:

    _Sans all regard and sans note it is lost in the clouds and
       dispersèd._

He will take a vessel and tilt it in the right direction for receiving
anything to be poured into it, and so ensure a real ‘in-pouring’ instead
of a pouring to waste. But he does not learn to lend his own attention
to a speaker and meet the lecture half-way, so as to miss no valuable
point. On the contrary, his behaviour is in the last degree ridiculous.
If he happens upon a person [Sidenote: 39] describing a dinner, a
procession, a dream, or a brawling-match in which he has been engaged,
he listens in silence and is eager for more. But if a teacher to whom he
has attached himself tries to impart something useful, or to urge him to
some duty, to admonish him when wrong, or to soothe him when angry, he
is out of all patience. If possible, he shows fight, and is ambitious to
get the best of the argument. Otherwise he is off and away to discourses
of a different and a rubbishy kind, filling his ears—the poor leaky
vessels—with anything rather than the thing they need.

[Sidenote: B] From the right kind of breeder a horse obtains a good
mouth for the bit, and a lad a good ear for reason. He is taught to do
much listening, but to avoid much speaking. We may quote the remark of
Spintharus in praise of Epaminondas, that he had scarcely ever met with
any man either of greater judgement or of fewer words. Moreover, we are
told, the reason why nature gave each of us two ears, but only one
tongue, was that we should do less speaking than hearing.

A youth is at all times sure to find silence a credit to him; but in one
case it is especially so—when he can listen to another without becoming
excited and continually yelping; when, even [Sidenote: C] if what is
being said is little to his liking, he waits patiently for the speaker
to finish; when, at the close, he does not immediately come to the
attack with his contradiction, but (to quote Aeschines) waits a while,
in case the speaker might wish to supplement his remarks, or perhaps to
adjust or qualify his position. To take instant objection, neither party
listening to the other but both talking at once, is an unseemly
performance. On the other hand, those who have been trained to listen
with modest self-control will accept a valuable argument and make it
their own, while they will be in a better position to see through a
worthless or false one and to expose it, thereby [Sidenote: D] showing
that they are lovers of truth, and not merely contentious, headstrong,
or quarrelsome persons. It is therefore not a bad remark of some, that
there is more need to expel the wind of vanity and self-conceit from the
young, than to expel the air from a skin, when you wish to pour in
anything of value: otherwise they are too swollen and flatulent to
receive it.

The presence of envious and malicious jealousy is, of course, never to
good purpose, but always an impediment to proper action. In the case of
a student at lectures it is the most perverse of prompters. Words which
ought to do him good are rendered vexing, distasteful, and unwelcome by
the fact that there is nothing which an envious man likes so little as
an [Sidenote: E] excellent piece of reasoning. And note that, when a man
is piqued by fame or beauty belonging to others, he is envious and
nothing more; what annoys him is another’s good fortune. But when he is
irritated by admirable argument, his vexation is at his own good, since
reason—if he has a mind to accept it—is as much to the good of one who
hears as light is to the good of one who sees.

Envy in other matters is the result of various coarse or low attitudes
of mind; envy of a speaker is born of inordinate love of glory and
unfair ambition. A person so disposed is prevented [Sidenote: F] from
listening to reason. His mind is perturbed and distracted. At one and
the same time it is looking at its own endowments, to see if they are
inferior to those of the speaker, and at the rest of the company, to see
if they are wondering and admiring. It is disgusted at their applause,
and exasperated at their approval. The previous portions of the speech
it forgets and ignores, because the recollection is irksome. The parts
yet to come it awaits with trembling anxiety, for fear they may prove
better still. When the speaker is at his best, it is most [Sidenote: 40]
eager for him to stop. When the lecture is over, it thinks of nothing
that was said, but takes count of the expressions and attitudes of the
audience. From those who give praise it dances away in a frenzy; and to
those who carp and distort it runs to form one of the herd. If there is
nothing to distort, it makes comparisons with others who have spoken
‘better and more eloquently to the same purpose’. In the end our friend
has so cruelly mishandled the lecture that he has made it of no use or
profit to himself.

[Sidenote: B] Let the love of glory, then, be brought to terms with the
love of learning. Let us listen to a speaker with friendly courtesy,
regarding ourselves as guests at a sacred banquet or sacrificial
offering. Let us praise his ability when he makes a hit, or be satisfied
with the mere goodwill of a man who is making the public a present of
his views and endeavouring to convince others by means of the arguments
which have convinced himself. When he goes right, let us consider that
his rightness is due not to chance or accident, but to painstaking
effort and learning. Let us take a pattern by it, and not only admire
it, but emulate it. When he is at fault, let us stop and think for what
reasons he is so, and at what point he began to go astray. [Sidenote: C]
Xenophon observes that good managers derive profit from their enemies as
well as from their friends. In the same way those who are attentive and
alert derive benefit from a speaker not only when he is in the right,
but also when he is in the wrong. Paltry thought, empty phrase, affected
bearing, vulgar delight and excitement at applause, and the like, are
more palpable to a listener in another’s case than to a speaker in his
own. It is well, therefore, to take the criticism which we apply to him,
and apply it to ourselves, asking whether we commit any mistake of the
kind without being aware of it. It is the easiest thing in [Sidenote: D]
the world to find fault with our neighbour, but it is a futile and
meaningless proceeding, unless made to bear in some way upon the
correction or prevention of similar faults. When lapses are committed,
let us always be prompt to exclaim to ourselves in the phrase of Plato,
‘Am I, perhaps, as bad?’ As in the eyes of our neighbour we see the
reflection of our own, so we should find a picture of our own speech in
that of another. In that way we shall avoid treating others with
over-confident contempt, and shall also look more carefully to our own
deliverances.

There is another way in which comparison serves this useful [Sidenote:
E] purpose. I mean if, when we get by ourselves after the lecture, we
take some point which appears to have been wrongly or unsatisfactorily
treated, and attack the same theme, doing our best to fill in, to
correct, to re-word, or to attempt an entirely original contribution to
the subject, as the case may be—doing, in fact, as Plato did[45] with
the speech of Lysias. While to argue against a certain deliverance is
not difficult, but, on the contrary, very easy, to set up a better in
its stead is an extremely hard matter. As the Lacedaemonian said on
hearing that Philip had razed Olynthus to the ground: ‘Yes, but to
create a city as good is beyond the man’s power’. Accordingly,
[Sidenote: F] when we find that in dealing with the same subject we can
do but little better than the speaker in the case, we make a large
reduction in our contempt and speedily prune down that self-satisfied
conceit which has been exposed during such process of comparison.

Nevertheless, though admiration, as opposed to contempt, certainly
betokens a fairer and gentler nature, it is a thing which, in its own
turn, requires no little—perhaps greater—caution. [Sidenote: 41] For
while a contemptuous and over-confident person derives too little
benefit from a speaker, an enthusiastic and guileless admirer derives
too much injury. He forms no exception to the rule of Heracleitus that
‘_Any dictum will flutter a fool_‘. One should be frank in yielding
praise to the speaker, but cautious in yielding belief to the assertion;
a kindly and candid observer of the diction and delivery of the arguer,
but a sharp and exacting critic of the truth and value of his argument.
[Sidenote: B] While we thus escape dislike from the speaker, we escape
harm from the speech. How many false and pernicious doctrines we
unawares accept through esteeming and trusting their exponent! The
Lacedaemonian authorities, after examining a measure suggested by a man
of evil life, instructed another person, famous for his conduct and
character, to move it—a very proper and statesmanlike encouragement to
the people to be led more by the character of an adviser than by his
speech. But in philosophy we must put aside the reputation of the
speaker and examine the speech in and by itself. In lecturing, as in
war, there is much that is mere show. The speaker’s grey hairs, his
vocal [Sidenote: C] affectations, his supercilious airs, his
self-glorification; above all, the shouting, applauding, and dancing of
the audience overwhelm the young and inexperienced student and sweep him
along with the current. There is deception in the language also, when it
streams upon the question in a delightful flood, and when it contains a
measure of studied art and the grandiose. As, in singing to the
accompaniment of the flageolet, mistakes are generally undetected by an
audience, so an elaborate and pretentious diction dazzles the hearer and
blinds him to the sense. I believe it was Melanthius who, when asked
about [Sidenote: D] Diogenes’ tragedy, replied: ‘I could not get a sight
of it; it was hidden behind the words.’ But with the discourses and
declamations of the majority of our professors it is not merely a case
of using the words to screen the thoughts. They also dulcify the
voice—modulating, smoothing, and intoning—till the hearer is carried
away with a perfect intoxication. They give an empty pleasure, and are
paid with an emptier fame. Their case, in fact, is one for the quip
given by Dionysius. It was he, I think, who, during the performance of a
distinguished harp-player, promised him a liberal reward, but
subsequently gave [Sidenote: E] him nothing, on the ground that he had
made a sufficient return. ‘For as long a time as I was enjoying your
singing’, said he, ‘you were enjoying your expectations.’ The deliverer
of the lectures in question finds that they represent a joint
contribution of the same kind. He receives admiration as long as his
entertainment lasts. As soon as no more pleasure is forthcoming for the
ear, there is no more glory left for him. The one party has wasted his
time, the other his professional life.

Let us, then, strip aside all this empty show of language, and make for
the actual fruit. It is better to imitate the bee than [Sidenote: F] the
garland-maker. The latter looks for the bright-coloured fragrant petals,
and, by twining and plaiting them together, produces an object which is
pleasant enough, but short-lived and fruitless. Bees, on the contrary,
frequently skim through meadows of violets, roses, or hyacinths, to
settle upon the coarsest and bitterest thyme. To this they devote
themselves

                         _Contriving yellow honey_,

and then fly home to their proper business with something worth the
getting. So a student who takes his work in real earnest will pay no
regard to dainty flowery words nor to showy [Sidenote: 42] theatrical
matter. These he will consider as fodder for drones who play the
sophist. For his own part he will probe with keen attention into the
sense of a speech and the quality of the speaker. Therefrom he will suck
such part as will be of service and profit. He will remember that he has
not come to a theatre or concert-hall, but to a classroom in the
schools, and that his object is to get his life corrected by means of
reason. Hence he should form a critical judgement of the lecture from
his own case, that is to say, from a calculation of its effect upon
himself. Has it been the chastening of a passion, the lightening
[Sidenote: B] of a grief? Has it been courage, firmness of spirit,
enthusiasm for excellence and virtue? Upon rising from the barber’s
chair he will stand at the glass and put his hands to his head,
inspecting the trim and arrangement of the hair. No less should he,
immediately on leaving a lecture in the philosophic school, look at
himself and examine his own mind, to see if it has got rid of any
useless and uncomfortable growth and become lighter and more at ease.
‘There is no use’, says Aristo, ‘in either a bath or a speech, unless it
cleanses.’

[Sidenote: C] By all means let a young man, while profiting from a
discourse, find pleasure in the process. But he must not treat the
pleasure of the lecture as its end, nor expect to come out of the
philosopher’s school with a beaming face and humming a tune. He must not
ask for scented unguents when what he needs is a lotion or a poultice.
On the contrary, he should be grateful if a pungent argument acts upon
his mind like smoke upon a hive, and clears out all the darkness and
mistiness that fill it. Though it is quite right for a speaker not to be
altogether without concern for an attractive and persuasive style of
language, that should be a matter least regarded by the young student,
at any rate in the first instance. Later, no doubt, the case may be
[Sidenote: D] different. It is when they are no longer thirsty that
persons engaged in drinking will turn a cup about and inspect the
chasing upon it. Similarly during a breathing-time, after taking our
fill of the lesson, we may be permitted to examine any uncommon elegance
in the language. But if from the very first, instead of taking a grip
upon the substance, you insist upon ‘good pure Attic’ expression, you
are like a person who refuses to take an antidote unless the vessel is
made of the best Attic earthenware; or who declines to put on a thick
cloak in winter unless the wool is from Attic sheep, preferring to sit,
stubborn and impracticable, in the thin napless mantle of the ‘style of
Lysias’. Perversities of this kind are responsible for a plentiful
[Sidenote: E] lack of good sense and an abundance of loquacious claptrap
in the schools. Young fellows keep no watch upon the life, the practical
action, or the public services of a philosopher, but make a great merit
of diction, phrase, and fine method of statement, while they possess
neither the ability nor the desire to find out whether the statement is
valuable or worthless, whether it is vital or a mere futility.

The next rule concerns the propounding of difficulties. A guest at a
dinner is bound to accept what is put upon the [Sidenote: F] table, and
neither to ask for anything else nor to find fault. When the feast
consists of a discourse, any one who comes to it should listen and say
nothing, if there is an understanding to that effect. Persons who cannot
listen in a pleasant and sociable manner, but keep drawing the speaker
off to other topics, interposing questions and mooting side-issues, get
no benefit themselves and confuse both the speaker and the speech. When,
however, he invites the audience to ask questions and advance
difficulties, any that are proposed should prove to be useful and
important. Odysseus, when in the suitors’ company, incurs ridicule
through

    _Begging for morsels and scraps, and not for a sword or a cauldron._

[Sidenote: 43] regard it as a sign of lofty-mindedness not only to give,
but to ask for, something of value. It is, however, more a case for
ridicule when a hearer poses a speaker with petty little problems of the
kind often propounded by young men, when they are talking claptrap in
order to make a show of attainments in logic or mathematics—for example,
concerning ‘division of the indeterminate’ and the nature of ‘lateral’
or ‘diagonal’ [Sidenote: B] motion. The proper answer to such persons is
the remark of Philotimus to a man who was suffering with abscesses and
consumption, but who had been talking to him for some time about
requiring ‘some little thing to cure a whitlow’. Perceiving the man’s
condition from his complexion and breathing, Philotimus observed: ‘My
good sir, a whitlow is not the question with you.’ Nor in your case,
young sir, is it worth while to be discussing such questions as yours,
but how you are to get rid of conceit, swaggering about love-affairs,
and such-like nonsense, and how you are to plant your feet on the way to
a healthy and sober-minded life.

Especially are you bound, in putting your questions, to accommodate
yourself to a speaker’s range of knowledge or natural [Sidenote: C]
ability—to his special _forte_. A philosopher who is more concerned with
ethics should not be attacked with difficulties in natural science or
mathematics, nor should one who prides himself upon his scientific
knowledge be dragged into determining hypothetical syllogisms or solving
fallacies. If you attempted to chop your wood with the key and to open
your door with the axe, it would not be thought that you were making
sport of these implements, but that you were depriving yourself of their
respective powers and uses. In the same way, if you ask of a speaker a
thing for which he has no gift or training, while you make no harvest of
what he possesses and offers, [Sidenote: D] you not only do yourself
harm to that extent, but you incur condemnation for malicious
ill-nature.

Be careful also not to propound difficulties yourself in too great
numbers or too frequently. This is, in a sense, another way of showing
off. Meanwhile, to listen equably when some one else is mooting them,
shows that you are a clubbable person and a student. This is assuming
you have no harassing and urgent trouble of your own, no mental
disturbance to be controlled or malady to be comforted. It may not,
after all, be (as Heracleitus says) ‘better to conceal ignorance’, but
to bring it into the open and cure it. If your mind is upset by a fit of
anger, an attack of superstition, a violent quarrel with your friends,
or a mad amorous passion which

          _Stirreth the heart-strings that should rest unstirred_,

[Sidenote: E] you must not run away from a discourse which searches it
home, and fly to others of a different nature. On the contrary, these
are the very topics to which you should listen, both at lectures and
also by privately approaching the lecturer afterwards and asking for
further light.

The opposite course is the one too generally followed. So long as the
philosopher is dealing with other persons, his hearers are all delight
and admiration. But when he leaves those others alone and frankly
administers some important reminder to themselves personally, they are
disgusted with him for not minding his own business. Generally speaking,
they think [Sidenote: F] a philosopher is entitled to a hearing inside
his school, as the tragedian is in the theatre; but in matters beyond it
they do not consider him in any way superior to themselves. Towards a
sophist their attitude is natural enough; for when he rises from his
chair, lays aside his books and his introductory manuals, and makes his
appearance in the practical departments of life, he ranks in the popular
mind as an unimportant and inferior person. But towards a philosopher in
the real sense their attitude is wrong. They do not recognize that a
tone of earnestness or jest, a sign of approval or disapproval, a smile
or a frown, [Sidenote: 44] on his part—and, above all, his direct
handling of their individual cases—are fruitful in good to those who
have learned the art of listening with submission.

Applause, again, has its duties, which call for a certain caution and
moderation. A gentleman bestows neither too little nor too much of it. A
hearer shows churlishly bad taste when nothing whatever in a lecture
will make him thaw or unbend; when he is diseased with festering conceit
and chronic self-complacency, and is all the time thinking he could
improve upon the deliverance; when he neither makes any appropriate
movement of the brow nor utters any sound to prove that he is [Sidenote:
B] a considerate and willing listener; when he is seeking a reputation
for solidity and depth by means of silence, an affected gravity, and
attitudes of pose, under the notion that applause is like money, and
that whatever amount you give to another you take from yourself. The
fact is that there are many who take up the well-known saying of
Pythagoras and sing it to a false tune. His own gain from philosophy, he
said, was to ‘_wonder at [Sidenote: *] nothing_‘; whereas theirs is to
‘praise nothing’ or to ‘honour nothing’. With them wisdom lies in
contempt, and the way to be dignified is to be disdainful. While, by
means of knowledge [Sidenote: C] and the ascertainment of the cause in a
given case, philosophic reason does away with the wonder and awe due to
unenlightenment and ignorance, it does not destroy a generous
appreciation. Those whose excellence is genuine and firmly seated find
it the highest honour to bestow honour, the highest distinction to
bestow distinction, where honour and distinction are due. Such conduct
implies that they have fame enough and to spare, and are free from
jealousy, whereas those who are niggards of praise to others are in all
probability pinched and hungry for praise of their own.

On the other hand, the opposite type of hearer is the fluttering
feather-head who uses no discrimination, but punctuates with loud cheers
at every word and syllable. While he is frequently obnoxious to the
disputant himself, he is invariably a nuisance [Sidenote: D] to the
hearers. He worries them on to their feet against their judgement, and
drags them willy-nilly to join in the chorus because they are ashamed to
refuse. Thanks to his applause deranging the lecture and making an
imbroglio of it, he gets no good from it, but goes home with one of
three descriptions to his credit—fleerer, sycophant, or ignoramus.

It is true that, when hearing a case in court, we must lean [Sidenote:
E] neither towards hostility nor towards favour, but towards justice as
we best understand it. But at a lecture on a subject of learning there
is neither law nor oath to debar us from granting the speaker an
indulgent reception. The reason why the ancients placed the statue of
Hermes in the company of the Graces was that speaking has a special
claim to a gracious friendliness. It is impossible for any one to be so
complete a failure or so utterly astray as to offer us nothing deserving
of a cheer, in the shape of a thought, a reference to others, the mere
choice of theme or purpose, or, possibly, in the wording or arrangement
of the matter,

                _As among urchin-foot or mid coarse broom
                The tender snowflake springeth into bloom._

[Sidenote: F] There are persons who, for exhibition purposes, can lend a
fair measure of plausibility to a panegyric upon vomiting or fever, or
even a pot; and surely a deliverance by a man who has some sort of claim
to be thought, or to call himself, a philosopher cannot absolutely fail
to afford a well-disposed or courteous audience some opportunity of
finding relief in applause.

According to Plato young persons in the bloom of life can always manage
somehow to excite a lover’s passion. If they are white he calls them
‘saint-like’; if swarthy, ‘virile’. [Sidenote: 45] A hook-nose is
‘regal’, a snub nose ‘piquant’; a sallow skin is a ‘complexion of
honey’. He uses these pretty names, and is pleased and satisfied. Love
has, indeed, an ivy-like gift for clinging to any pretext. Much less
will an eager and earnest student of letters ever fail in inventiveness.
In every speaker he will discover some grounds for reasonable applause.
In the speech of Lysias, though Plato objects to its want of
arrangement, and though he has no praise for its inventiveness, he
nevertheless commends him for his manner of statement, and because there
is ‘a clear round finish in the chiselling of every word’. [Sidenote: B]
We might find fault with Archilochus for his subject-matter, Parmenides
for his versification, Phocylides for his commonplaceness, Euripides for
his garrulity, Sophocles for his inequality. Similarly one of the
orators has no characterization, another exerts no passion, a third is
lacking in grace and charm. Nevertheless each wins praise for a power to
move and sway us in his own peculiar way.

The hearer, then, has ample scope for showing good feeling to a speaker.
In some instances it is sufficient if, without further declaration by
word of mouth, we contribute a kindly eye, a genial expression, a
friendly and agreeable mood. There are certain things for which even the
man who is a total failure may [Sidenote: C] look, and which are but
ordinary items of common etiquette for any and every audience. I mean an
upright posture in our chairs, with no lolling or lounging; eyes kept
directly upon the speaker; an air of businesslike attention; composure
of countenance, with no sign, I need not say of insolence or
peevishness, but of being taken up with other thoughts.

If in every exacting task beauty is made up of a number of factors
happily combined in a due proportion and harmony, ugliness is the prompt
and immediate outcome of the faulty [Sidenote: D] omission or addition
of this or that one element. And in this particular matter of listening,
not only is there impropriety in a scowling brow, a disagreeable
expression, a roving glance, a twisting of the body, and a crossing of
the legs; but nodding or whispering to a neighbour, smiling, yawning
sleepily, looking at the ground, and actions of a similar nature, are
censurable and should be studiously avoided.

There are some who think that, though the speaker has a duty, the hearer
has none. They expect the former to present himself with his thoughts
studiously prepared; yet, without a thought or care for their own
obligations, they drop casually in and take their seats, for all the
world as if they had come to a dinner to enjoy themselves while others
are doing the work. Yet even a polite table-companion has his part to
play, much [Sidenote: E] more a polite hearer. He is a partner in the
speech and a coadjutor of the speaker; and he has no right to be sharply
criticizing the mistakes, and taking every phrase and fact to task,
while himself free from responsibility for the impropriety and the
frequent solecisms which he commits as a hearer. In ball-play the
catcher has to regulate his movements according to those of the thrower.
So, in the case of a speech, there is a certain consonance of action in
which both speaker and listener are concerned, if each is to sustain his
proper part. [Sidenote: F]

Our expressions in applauding must not, however, be used without
discrimination. It is an unpleasing phrase of Epicurus when, in speaking
of the little epistles from his friends, he says, ‘We give them a
rattling clapping.’ But what of those who nowadays introduce such
_outré_ expressions into our lecture-rooms? The _Capital!_ _Well said!_
and _Very true!_ which were the terms of commendation used by the
hearers of Plato, Socrates, and Hypereides, are not enough for these
persons. With their exclamations _Divine!_ _An inspiration!_ or
_Unapproachable!_ they commit a gross impropriety, libellously making
out that the speaker requires far-fetched eulogies of an [Sidenote: 46]
outrageous kind. Highly obnoxious also are those who accompany their
attestations with an oath, as if they were in a court of law. And
equally so those who blunder in their descriptive terms; for instance,
when the lecturer is a philosopher and they call out, _A shrewd hit!_,
or an old man and they exclaim _Cleverly put!_ or _Brilliant!_, thus
misapplying to a philosopher the expressions used at academic exercises,
where the speaking is not serious but merely an exhibition of
adroitness. To offer [Sidenote: B] to a sober discourse such
meretricious praise is like crowning an athlete with a wreath of lilies
or roses instead of laurel or wild olive. Once when the poet Euripides
was going over a song [Sidenote: *] with an original setting for the
benefit of the members of his chorus, and one of them happened to laugh,
he observed: ‘If you had not been an ignorant dolt, you could not have
laughed while I was teaching you a mixolydian[46] piece.’ So, I take it,
a serious and practical philosopher might very well make short work of
the airs and affectations of a hearer by saying, ‘I presume your case is
one of foolishness or ill breeding; otherwise you would not have been
piping out and jigging about at my remarks, when I was teaching, or
admonishing, or arguing concerning religion, statesmanship, or the
duties of [Sidenote: C] office.’ Just frankly consider what it means,
when a philosopher is speaking, and the shouting and hurrahing inside
the building make people outside wonder whether it is a flute-player, a
harpist, or a dancer who is being applauded.

Meanwhile, in listening to admonition and reproof, the pupil must be
neither insensible nor unmanly. There are some who bear the
philosopher’s reproaches with an easy-going indifference, laughing under
the correction and applauding the corrector, just as parasites applaud
in sheer impudence and recklessness when they are abused by those who
keep them. The shamelessness which such persons display is no proper or
genuine proof of courage. When a jibe containing no insult, and uttered
in [Sidenote: D] a playful and tactful way, is borne cheerfully and
without annoyance, it shows neither a want of spirit nor a want of
breeding. On the contrary, it is exactly what a gentleman of the true
Spartan style would do. But it is different when admonition takes in
hand the correction of character by means of a stinging remedy in the
shape of rational reproof. If a young man does not cower under the
lesson and feel his soul burning with shame, till he breaks into a sweat
and is ready to faint; if, on the contrary, he is unperturbed, gives a
broad grin of self-depreciation, and refuses to take the matter
seriously, then he is an extremely vulgar creature beyond all sense of
shame, a constant habituation to misconduct having made his soul no more
capable of a bruise than a thick callus in the flesh.

These form the one class. Youths of the opposite disposition, [Sidenote:
E] if a single hard word is said to them, turn deserters from philosophy
and run away without a glance behind them. While nature has given them,
in the shape of modesty, an excellent start towards moral salvation,
they are so squeamish and timid that they throw their chance away.
Unable to put up with reproof or to accept correction with spirit, they
turn away to listen to the soft and agreeable utterances of some
time-server or sophist, who charms them with melodious phrases as
useless and futile as they are pleasing. If a man runs away from the
surgeon after the operation and objects to be bandaged, he is submitting
to the pain of the treatment but refusing to put up with its benefit. So
when a lesson has lanced and probed his [Sidenote: F] folly, if he will
not permit it to close and dress the wound, he is abandoning philosophy
after feeling the sting and the pain but before deriving any advantage
therefrom.

Euripides says that the wound of Telephus was

            _Soothed by the filings ground from the same spear._

It is no less true that the sting implanted by philosophy in [Sidenote:
47] a youth of parts is cured by the same reasoning that caused the
wound. While, therefore, it is right that the subject of reproof should
feel some pain from the sting, he must not be crushed or dispirited,
but, after undergoing the first discomposing rites of purification, he
should look for some sweet and splendid revelation to follow the
distress and confusion of the moment. For though the reproof may appear
to be unjust, the proper course is to endure it with all patience until
the speaker concludes. Then he may be met by a plea in self-defence, and
by [Sidenote: B] a request to reserve for some real fault all the
vigorous candour which he has shown in the present instance.

To proceed to the next consideration. In reading and writing, playing
the lyre, or wrestling, the first lessons are very harassing, laborious,
and unsure; but, as we advance step by step, it is much as in dealing
with mankind. By dint of frequent and familiar acquaintance we find that
it all becomes pleasant and manageable, and every word or action easy.
It is the same with philosophy. No doubt the language and matter, as
first met with, contain something both hard and strange. But we must not
take fright at the rudiments and prove so timid and spiritless
[Sidenote: C] as to abandon the study. On the contrary, our duty is to
grapple with every question, to persevere, to be resolved on making
progress, and then to wait for that familiarity which converts all right
action into a pleasure. It will not be long before it arrives, casting
upon the study a flood of light, and inspiring an ardent passion for
excellence. To be without such passion and to put up with the ordinary
type of life because one is driven from philosophy by a lack of mettle,
is to be a miserable or cowardly creature.

We may also expect that at first the argumentation will prove somewhat
difficult for young and inexperienced students to understand. For the
most part, however, the obscurity and want of comprehension are due to
themselves. Opposite dispositions [Sidenote: D] lead to the same
mistake. Thus one class, through bashfulness and a desire to spare the
teacher, will shrink from putting questions and making sure of the
argument, and will ostensibly assent as if they quite understood. The
others, led by misplaced ambition and meaningless rivalry to make a show
of cleverness and quickness, pretend to have mastered a thing before
they take it in, and so will not take it in at all. The consequence is
that when the former—the modest and silent kind—go home, they will worry
themselves with their perplexities, and in the end they will be driven
perforce to trouble the speaker by harking back with their questions at
a later date, when they will feel still more ashamed. Meanwhile the bold
and ambitious kind will be perpetually cloaking their ignorance and
hiding the fact that it haunts them.

Let us then thrust aside all this pretentious silliness, and march
[Sidenote: E] on towards learning. Let our business be to get an
intelligent grasp upon valuable instruction. And let us put up with the
laughter of those who are thought to be clever. Remember how Cleanthes
and Xenocrates, though to all appearance slower than their
fellow-pupils, refused to give up or run away from their studies. On the
contrary, they were the first to joke at their own expense, comparing
themselves to a narrow-necked bottle or a brass tablet, inasmuch as,
though slow at taking their instruction in, they were safe and sure at
retaining it. Not only must we, as Phocylides puts it,

    _Oft-times be baulked of our hope while seeking to come unto
       goodness_;

we must also ‘oft-times’ be laughed at, and bear with scoffing
[Sidenote: F] and jeering, meanwhile putting all our heart and energy
into winning the struggle against our ignorance.

We must, however, be quite as careful not to err in the opposite
direction. Some do so from sloth, which makes them a wearisome
infliction. Unwilling to trouble themselves when [Sidenote: 48] alone,
they keep troubling the teacher by repeatedly asking for information on
the same questions. Like unfledged birds in the nest, they are
perpetually agape to be fed from another’s mouth, and expect to receive
everything ready masticated by someone else.

Another kind, in the misplaced quest of a reputation for alertness and
acumen, worry the lecturer with their fussy garrulity, perpetually
mooting some unimportant difficulty or demanding some unnecessary
demonstration,

                  _Till a short journey so becometh long_

[Sidenote: B] —as Sophocles says—not only to themselves but to every one
else. By continually arresting the teacher with superfluous and futile
questions, as if they were merely chatting with a companion, they
interfere with the continuity of the lesson by a series of checks and
delays. Persons of this class are (to quote Hieronymus) like wretched
cowardly puppies, who bite the skins and tear the odds and ends of wild
animals at home, but who never touch the animals themselves.

As for the former and lazy class, let us give them this advice. When
they have managed to comprehend the main points, let them piece the rest
together for themselves, using their [Sidenote: C] memory as a guide to
independent thought. And let them take the reasoning they hear from
another as a beginning—a seed which they are to make grow and thrive.

The mind is not a vessel which calls for filling. It is a pile, which
simply requires kindling-wood to start the flame of eagerness for
original thought and ardour for truth. Suppose someone goes to borrow
from his neighbour’s fire, and then, on finding a large bright blaze,
persists in staying and basking on the spot. It is the same when a man
comes to another to borrow reason, and does not realize that he must
kindle a light of his own in the shape of thinking for himself, but sits
enchanted with enjoyment of the lecture. He derives from the lesson
[Sidenote: D] a ruddy glow or outward brilliance, but he fails to drive
out the mould and darkness from within by the warming power of
philosophy.

If therefore any advice is needed for the hearing of lectures, it is to
remember the rule just given—to practise independent thought along with
learning. We shall thus attain, not to the ability of a sophist or the
‘well-informed’ man, but to a deep-seated philosophic power. Right
listening will be for us the introduction to right living.

Footnote 44:

  The _paedagogus_, an attendant slave, who accompanied the boy and
  watched over his conduct.

Footnote 45:

  In his _Phaedrus_.

Footnote 46:

  i. e. in the mixolydian mode, which was of a sad and dirgelike
  character.




                   ON MORAL IGNORANCE IN HIGH PLACES


[Sidenote: 779 D] When Plato was invited by the Cyrenaeans to draw up a
code of laws for their use and to organize their constitution, he begged
to be excused, on the ground that it was difficult to legislate for so
prosperous a people:

                         _For nought so arrogant_—

nor so impracticable and headstrong—

                                        _as human kind_,

when prosperity—or what is so considered—lies within its grasp.

[Sidenote: E] No less difficult is the task of advising a ruler how to
rule. To admit reason, he fears, is to admit a ruler, whose law of duty
will make a slave of him and curtail the advantage he derives from
power. He has yet to learn a lesson from Theopompus, the Spartan king,
who was the first to modify the powers of the throne by means of that of
the Ephors. When his wife reproached him for proposing to leave to his
children less authority than he had inherited, he replied: ‘Nay,
greater, because more assured.’ By relaxing its excessive absolutism he
escaped the [Sidenote: F] consequent ill-feeling, and therewith its
dangers. But note. Theopompus, in diverting into other channels a
portion of the full stream of power, deprived himself of just so much as
he gave away. But when philosophic reason becomes the established
colleague and protector of a ruler, it merely removes the perilous
element and leaves the healthy—a process as necessary to power as to
sound health.

In most cases, however, monarchs or rulers show as little wisdom as a
tasteless sculptor, who fancies that to represent a figure with a huge
stride, strained muscles, and gaping mouth, is to make it appear massive
and imposing. They imagine that [Sidenote: 780] an arrogant tone, harsh
looks, short temper, and exclusiveness give them the true regal air of
awe and majesty. In reality they are not a bit better than a colossal
statue with the outward shape and form of a god or demigod, while the
inside is a mass of earth, stone, or lead. Indeed, in the case of the
statue, these heavy materials serve to keep it erect and prevent it from
warping; whereas, with an unschooled governor or chief, the unreason
within is often the cause of instability and collapse. [Sidenote: B] His
foundation being out of plumb, the lofty power which he builds upon it
is correspondingly unstable. Now it is only when the builder’s square is
itself faultless in line and angle, that it can make other things true
to line by adjustment to, and comparison with, itself. So a ruler must
begin by acquiring rule within himself. Let him set his own soul
straight, and make his own character firm, and then begin adjusting his
subjects thereto. You cannot set upright, when you are falling; teach,
when you are ignorant; discipline, when unruly; command, when
disobedient; govern, when ungoverned. And yet it is a common error to
suppose that the chief blessing of authority [Sidenote: C] is to be
above authority. To the King of Persia every one was a slave except his
own wife, the very person whose master he ought to have been.

By whom, then, is the ruler to be ruled? By the

                                            _Law,
                  Sovereign of mortals and immortals all_,

as Pindar says; not a law written outwardly in books or on wooden
tables, but a living law of reason in himself, abiding with him,
watching him, and never leaving his soul destitute of guidance. The King
of Persia kept one chamberlain whose special function was to enter in
the morning and say to him: ‘Rise, Sire, and attend to matters which
Great Oromazdes [Sidenote: D] meant for your concern.’ The ruler who has
learned wisdom and self-control hears the same voice of exhortation from
within. It was a saying of Polemo that love is ‘_serving the Gods in the
care and protection of the young_‘. With more truth it might be said
that a ruler serves God in the care and protection of men, by
dispensing, or safeguarding, the blessings which God gives to mankind.

               _See’st thou yon boundless sky and air aloft,
               How in soft arms it clasps the world about?_

From it descend the first principles of seeds in due kind; earth brings
them forth; their growth is fostered by rains or winds or the warmth of
moon and stars; while the sun brings everything [Sidenote: E] to beauty
and tinctures all creation with that peculiar love-spell which is his.
But though the Gods may lavish these great boons and blessings, who can
enjoy or use them rightly, if there be no law, justice, or ruler?
Justice is the end of law; law is the work of the ruler; and a ruler is
an image of the God who orders all things. He needs no Pheidias or
Polycleitus or Myro to fashion him, but brings himself into likeness
with deity [Sidenote: F] by means of virtue, and so creates the fairest
and most divine of effigies. In the heavens the sun and moon were set by
God as His own beauteous image; and, in a state, the same shining
embodiment is to be found in the ruler

                    _Godfearing, who justice upholdeth_,

—that is to say, when he holds, not a sceptre, but a mind which is the
reason of God; not when he holds the thunderbolt or trident with which
some represent themselves in statue or picture, rendering their folly
odious to Heaven by such impossible assertion. For God visits with
righteous wrath him who makes pretence of thunder or thunderbolt or
darting sun-ray; but when a man studies to emulate His goodness, and to
take [Sidenote: 781] a pattern by His virtue and benevolence, He
delights in furthering him and bestowing a portion of His own
righteousness, justice, truth, and mercy. Not fire or light, not the
course of the sun, the risings and settings of the stars,
everlastingness and immortality, are more divine that these attributes.
For it is not by reason of length of life that God is happy, but by
reason of the virtue which rules. This is ‘divine’. ‘Noble’, however, is
the virtue whose part it is only to obey.

When Alexander was in sore distress at killing Cleitus, Anaxarchus told
him, by way of comfort, that Right and Justice were [Sidenote: B] but
the ‘assessors’ of Zeus—making out that any act was right and lawful for
a king. A false and pernicious salve for his repentance at his sin, this
encouragement to repeat it! If we are to use such figures of speech,
Right is no ‘assessor’ of Zeus, but He himself is Right and Justice, the
oldest and most consummate Law. What the ancients tell and write and
teach is that, without Justice, not even Zeus can properly rule.
According to Hesiod

                             _A virgin is she_,

the incorruptible partner of feeling, self-control, and beneficence.
[Sidenote: C] Hence are kings called ‘merciful’, for mercy best becomes
those who are least afraid. A ruler’s fear should be of doing harm
rather than of suffering it; for the former action is the cause of the
latter, and this kind of fear on the part of a ruler is creditable to
humanity. There is nothing ignoble in a fear for his subjects and of
possible injury to them. Such rulers are like

    _Dogs that keep ward o’er the sheep in the farmstead, anxiously
       watching
    At sound of a fierce wild beast_—

their anxiety being not for themselves, but for their charges.

Once when the Thebans had recklessly abandoned themselves [Sidenote: D]
to feasting and carousal, Epaminondas went the round of the walls and
the military posts all by himself, remarking that he was keeping sober
and wakeful so that the rest might be drunk and asleep. When Cato, after
the defeat at Utica, gave orders that every one else should be sent to
sea, saw them on board, prayed that they might have a prosperous voyage,
and then went back home and stabbed himself, it was a lesson on the
text, ‘For whose sake should a ruler feel fear, and for what should he
feel contempt?’ On the other hand, Clearchus, despot of Pontus, used at
bedtime to crawl like a snake into a chest. [Sidenote: E] Similarly,
Aristodemus of Argos crept into an upper room entered by a trap-door.
Over this he would put the couch upon which he passed the night with his
mistress. Meanwhile her mother dragged away the ladder from below,
bringing it back and putting it in place in the morning. How, think you,
must he have shuddered at the theatre, at the Government offices, at the
Senate-House, at the banquet, when he turned his own bedchamber into a
prison? Yes, kings are afraid _for_ their subjects, despots are afraid
_of_ them. It follows that, as they add to their power, they add to
their alarms; the more people they rule, the more people they fear.

[Sidenote: F] It is an improbable and unworthy view to hold of God—as
some philosophers do—that He exists as an element in matter to which all
sorts of things may happen, and in entities which are subject to
innumerable accidents, chances and changes. In reality He is stablished
somewhere aloft ‘_on holy pedestal_’ (as Plato puts it) in the realm of
nature uniform and constant, and there ‘_moves according to Nature in a
straight line towards the accomplishment of His end_‘. And as in heaven
the sun, His beauteous counterfeit, shows itself as His reflection in a
mirror to those who have the power to see Him through it, so, in the
justice and reason which shine in a state, He sets up a likeness of that
which is in Himself, and, by copying that likeness, men [Sidenote: 782]
whom philosophy has gifted and chastened model themselves after the
highest pattern.

This condition of mind nothing can implant except reason acquired from
philosophy. Otherwise we are in the position of Alexander, when he went
to see Diogenes at Corinth. In delight at his talent, and in admiration
of his proud and lofty spirit, he exclaimed: ‘If I had not been
Alexander, I would have been Diogenes.’ And what did this virtually
mean? That he was vexed at his own high fortune, splendour, and
[Sidenote: B] power, because they were an obstacle to the virtue for
which he could find no time, and that he envied the cloak and the
wallet, which made Diogenes as invincible and unassailable as he himself
was made by armour and horses and spears. And yet by the practice of
philosophy he might have secured the moral character of a Diogenes while
retaining the position of an Alexander. Nay, he should have become all
the more a Diogenes for being an Alexander, since his high fortune, so
liable to be tossed by stormy winds, required ample ballast and a master
hand at the helm.

In the case of private men without strength or standing, folly is so
qualified by impotence that in the end no mischief is done. It is as
with a bad dream, in which, though the mind is excited with passion, no
harm results, inasmuch as it is unable to rise and act in accordance
with the desires. When, on the other [Sidenote: C] hand, vice is adopted
by power, the passions acquire sinew and strength. Dionysius spoke truly
when he said that the highest advantage of power was to give speedy
effect to a wish. A most parlous thing, if you can give effect to a
wish, and yet wish what is wrong!

    _No sooner the word had been utter’d, than straightway the deed was
       accomplish’d._

Vice, when enabled by power to run rapid course, forces every passion
into action, converting anger into murder, love into adultery, greed
into confiscation.

                  _No sooner the word hath been utter’d_,

than your opponent has met his doom. No sooner a suspicion, than the
victim of slander is a dead man.

[Sidenote: D] Scientists tell us that, whereas lightning really follows
and issues from thunder like blood from a wound, it is perceived first
because, while the hearing waits for the sound, the vision goes out to
meet the light. So with rulers. The punishment outstrips the charge; the
condemnation does not wait for the proof.

             _For forthwith anger slips and loses hold,
             Like anchor’s tooth in sand when seas swell high_,

unless reason with all its weight puts a heavy drag on power; unless,
that is, the ruler acts like the sun, whose motion is least [Sidenote:
E] when its height is greatest, namely, at the time of its northern
altitude, its course being steadied by the diminished speed.

Vice in high places cannot be hid. When an epileptic is placed upon a
height and made to turn round, he is seized with giddiness and begins to
totter, his malady being betrayed thereby. So with an unschooled and
ignorant person. After a brief uplifting by wealth or fame or place, the
same fortune which raised him up immediately reveals how ready he is to
fall. To put it another way; when a vessel is empty, you cannot detect
the crack or flaw, but when you begin to fill it, the leak appears.
[Sidenote: F] So with a mind which is too unsound to hold power and
authority; its leaks are to be seen in its exhibitions of lust, anger,
pretentiousness, and ignorance. Yet why speak of this, when holes are
picked in eminent and distinguished men for the merest peccadilloes?
Cimon was reproached for his addiction to wine, Scipio for his addiction
to sleep, and Lucullus for his extravagance at table[47]....

Footnote 47:

  The rest of the essay is missing.




                           FAWNER AND FRIEND
                     (WITH AN EXCURSUS ON CANDOUR)


MY DEAR ANTIOCHUS PHILOPAPPUS, [Sidenote: 48 E]

‘Every one,’ says Plato, ‘will pardon a man for admitting that he has a
strong affection for himself,’ but—not to mention [Sidenote: F] numerous
other defects to which he is subject—there is one chief weakness which
precludes him from giving a just and incorruptible verdict in his own
case. ‘The lover is blind where the beloved object is concerned,’ unless
he has learned the habit of prizing things, not because they are his own
or related to himself, but because they are beautiful. Hence, there is
ample opportunity for the flatterer to obtain a place among our friends.
He delivers his attack from an excellent point of vantage in the shape
of that self-love which makes every man his own [Sidenote: 49] first and
greatest flatterer, ready and willing to welcome such external testimony
as will endorse his own conceits and desires. For the man who is
reprobated as a lover of toadies is an ardent lover of himself. Out of
fondness for himself he not only entertains the wish to possess, but
also the conceit that he possesses, all manner of qualities; and though
the desire may be natural enough, the conceit is fallacious and calls
for the greatest watchfulness.

And if truth is divine, and—as Plato asserts—the first principle
[Sidenote: B] of ‘all good things both with Gods and men’, the toady
must be an enemy of the Gods, and especially of the Pythian. For, in
perpetual antagonism to the doctrine of _Know Thyself_, he produces
self-deception in a man, self-ignorance, and error as to his virtues and
vices. The virtues he renders defective and abortive; the vices he
renders incorrigible.

Now if the flatterer had been like most other mischievous things, and
had solely or chiefly attacked mean and petty victims, the harm would
have been neither so great nor so difficult to prevent. But it is into
soft and sweet kinds of wood that worms prefer to bore, and it is
estimable and capable characters—characters with a love of
approbation—that give access and supply nourishment to the flatterer who
fastens upon [Sidenote: C] them. ‘_The breeding of the steed_,’ says
Simonides, ‘_sorts not with Zacynthus,[48] but with wheat-bearing
plains_.’ Similarly we do not find toadyism in attendance upon the poor,
the insignificant, or the uninfluential, but sapping and debilitating
great houses and great fortunes, and frequently subverting rulers and
thrones. Consequently no slight effort or common precaution is required
in considering how it can be most readily detected and so prevented from
doing injury and discredit to friendship.

[Sidenote: D] Vermin quit a dying man and desert the body when the blood
which feeds them becomes exhausted. So with the time-server. You will
never find him approaching a person whose fortune is destitute of sap
and warmth. It is the famous and influential whom he attacks; it is out
of them that he makes capital; and when their circumstances change he
promptly beats a retreat. We should not, however, wait for that test; it
is then not merely useless but fraught with injury and danger. It is a
grievous thing to find out who is not your friend only at the moment
when a friend is needed, since the discovery does not enable you to
exchange the uncertain and counterfeit for the genuine and certain. You
should possess friends as you possess coin—tested [Sidenote: E] before
the occasion, not waiting to be proved by the occasion. Discovery should
not come through injury, but injury should be prevented by our acquiring
a scientific insight into the nature of the toady. Otherwise we shall be
in the position of those who distinguish a deadly poison by tasting it;
we shall meet our death in the effort of judging.

One can neither approve of such a course, nor yet of those who, because
they regard a ‘friend’ as implying a high and wholesome influence,
imagine that an agreeable associate is immediately and manifestly proved
to be a time-server. For there is nothing disagreeable or
uncompromisingly severe about a friend, nor does the high respect we pay
to friendship depend upon harshness or austerity. Nay, its high
influence and claim to respect are actually an agreeable and desirable
thing in themselves, [Sidenote: F]

    _And close at its side do the Graces and Longing Desire set their
       dwellings._

Not only may the unfortunate man say, with Euripides,

              _’Tis sweet to look into a friend’s fond eyes_,

but friendship is a comrade who adds as much pleasure and gratification
to our blessings as it brings relief to the pains and perplexities of
our mishaps. According to Euenus ‘_the best of [Sidenote: 50] seasonings
is fire_‘. So, by making friendship an ingredient of life, God has
rendered all things bright and sweet and enjoyable through its presence
and participation. How, indeed, could the fawner have wormed himself
into our pleasures, if he had seen that friendship refuses all
admittance to what is pleasant? The thing is absurd. No; the toady is
like the mock-gilt and tinsel which merely mimic the sheen and lustre of
gold. It is in order to imitate the attractiveness and charm of a friend
that he makes a constant show of agreeableness and amiability, and never
opposes or contradicts you. It is therefore wrong, [Sidenote: B] when a
person praises you, to suspect at once that he is simply a flatterer.
Friendship is quite as much called upon to praise in season as it is to
blame. In fact, perpetual peevishness and fault-finding is the negation
of friendship and sociability; whereas, when affection bestows zealous
and ungrudging praise upon our good deeds, we also submit readily and
cheerfully to its candid remonstrances, being satisfied with the belief
that the man who is glad to praise will only blame because he must.

[Sidenote: C] ‘It is a hard matter then,’ we may be told, ‘to
distinguish between flatterer and friend, if they are equally pleasant
and equally laudatory, especially when we find that toadyism is often
more than a match for friendship in the tendering of services.’
Naturally so, we reply, if the object of our search is the genuine
toady, with a past-master’s skill at the business; if, that is, we do
not adopt the common view and mean by ‘toady’ your poverty-stricken
trencherman, who ‘begins’—as some one has said—‘to declare himself with
the first course,’ and whose lickspittle character betrays itself by
gross and vulgar [Sidenote: D] buffoonery at the first dish and the
first glass. It needed no test to expose Melanthius, the parasite of
Pherae. It was enough that, when asked ‘how Alexander was stabbed,’ he
replied, ‘Through the ribs, into my belly.’ Nor is there any such need
with those who besiege ‘an opulent table’, and whom

                 _Not fire, nor steel, nor bronze can keep_

from making their way to a dinner. Nor yet with those female toadies of
Cyprus, who, after their transference to Syria, were [Sidenote: E]
called ‘pair o’ steps’ from the fact that they used to allow the king’s
wife to mount her carriage over their bent backs.

Against whom, then, are we to be on our guard? Against the man who is
not confessedly or apparently a toady; one who is not to be found
hanging about the kitchen, nor to be caught watching the dial with a
dinner in prospect; one who is not to be made tipsy and then pitched
into any corner; but one who for the most part keeps sober and bustling,
thinking it his business to take part in all your doings, and to be
privy to your confidential talk—the man, in short, who acts the rôle of
friend, not in the satyric[49] or comic style, but in the high tragic.
According to Plato, ‘the extreme of dishonesty is to appear honest when
you are not.’ So with time-serving. It is [Sidenote: F] to be regarded
as dangerous, not when confessed, but when undetected; when it wears a
serious, not an amusing, air. In this form, unless we are careful, it
casts a slur of discredit even upon genuine friendship, the points of
coincidence being numerous. When the Mage was trying to escape and
Gobryes had plunged with him into a dark room and was grappling with
him, Darius stood at a loss what to do. ‘Stab,’ said Gobryes, ‘though
you stab both.’ With us it is not so easy, inasmuch as we can by no
means give any sanction to the maxim: ‘_Perish friend, if so perish
foe._’ There are so many points of similarity to complicate the fawner
with the friend that we must find it a most parlous business to tear the
one from the other. We may either be casting out the good thing along
with the bad, [Sidenote: 51] or, in trying to spare the right thing, we
may let the wrong one bring us to grief. There are wild plants of which
the seeds are similar in shape and size to those of wheat. When the two
are mixed it is difficult to sift these out; they will not fall through
smaller holes, and, if the holes are wider, one falls through as much as
the other. No less difficult is it to separate time-serving from
friendship, when it blends itself with every feeling, every movement,
need, and habit.

Friendship being the most pleasant and delightful thing in the world, it
follows that the toady also uses pleasure for his [Sidenote: B] bait. To
give pleasure is his main concern. And since agreeableness and
usefulness are concomitants of friendship—whence the saying that ‘_a
friend is more indispensable than fire and water_‘—it follows that the
toady insists on rendering services, and is all eagerness to show
unfaltering promptitude and zeal. But the surest foundation of
friendship is similarity of pursuits and character. The foremost agent
in mutual attraction is similarity of temperament—the liking and
disliking of the same things. This the time-server perceives, and
therefore he adapts himself [Sidenote: C] like wax to the proper shape
and form, endeavouring by imitation to mould himself so as exactly to
fit his victim. His supple versatility, his genius for mimicry, is so
great that it is a case of

                                          _Thou art
                  Achilles’ self, and not Achilles’ son._

And note his craftiest device. He observes that candour is called (what
it appears to be) ‘the characteristic note of friendship’, while lack of
candour is the negation of friendship and spirit. He does not fail,
therefore, to imitate this quality also. As a skilful _chef_ will use
some bitter or piquant juice for a sauce in order to prevent sweets from
cloying, so with the candour [Sidenote: D] of the toady. It is not
genuine, nor is it useful; it is given, as it were, with a wink, and
serves simply as an excitant. The result is that he is as hard to detect
as one of those creatures which possess the natural power of altering
their colour so as to match the spot on which they happen to lie. Since,
therefore, it is under cover of resemblances that he deceives us, our
proper course is to find in the non-resemblances a means of stripping
off his disguise and showing that—as Plato puts it—he is ‘beautifying
himself with borrowed forms and colours through lack of any of his own’.

Let us begin at the very beginning. In most instances, we remarked,
friendship commences with similarity of temperament [Sidenote: E] and
disposition, a taste for very much the same habits and principles, and a
delight in the same pursuits, occupations, and pastimes. Such a
similarity is implied in the lines:

              _Most welcome to the old is old men’s speech;
              Child pleaseth child, and woman pleaseth woman,
              Sick men the sick, and one who meets disaste
              Brings solace to another suffering it._

The toady knows that it is natural to find pleasure in one’s like and to
be fond of his society. This, therefore, is his first device [Sidenote:
F] for approaching you and getting neighbours with you. He acts like
herdsmen on a pasture. He works gently up to you and rubs shoulders with
you in the same pursuits, amusements, tastes, and way of life, until you
give him his chance and let yourself grow tame and accustomed to his
touch. He condemns such circumstances, such conduct, and such persons as
he notices you dislike; while of those that please you he cannot say too
much in praise, exhibiting boundless delight and admiration [Sidenote:
52] for them. He thus confirms you in your loves and hatreds, as being
the results, not of feelings, but of judgement.

How, then, is he to be exposed? By what points of difference are we to
prove that he is not, nor is on the way to be, our like, but only a
pretender thereto? In the first place we must look for consistency and
permanence in his principles. We must see whether he takes pleasure in,
and gives praise to, the same things at all times; whether he directs
and establishes his own life after one pattern, as a frank and free
lover of single-minded friendship and fellowship ought to do. A friend
does act in this manner. On the other hand, the time-server possesses no
one fixed hearthstone to his character. He does not live a life
[Sidenote: B] chosen for himself, but a life chosen for another.
Moulding and adapting himself to suit others, he possesses no singleness
or unity, but adopts all manner of varying shapes. Like water poured
from one vessel into another, he is perpetually flowing hither and
thither and accommodating himself to the form of the receptacle.

The ape, we are told, is captured through endeavouring to imitate man by
copying his motions in dancing. The time-server, on the contrary, is one
who allures and decoys others. Nor does his mimicry take the same form
in all cases. One person he will help to dance and sing: with another he
will share a taste for wrestling and athletics. If he gets hold of a
sportsman devoted to hunting, he follows his lead, and all but shouts,
in the words of Phaedra, [Sidenote: C]

                   _I long, ye Gods, to cheer the hounds
                   Close-pressing on the dappled deer_,

whereas he feels no interest whatever in the animal, but is setting his
toils to catch the huntsman himself. If his next quarry is a young man
with a taste for study and intellectual improvement, he is all for
books, and grows a beard down to his feet; it is a case of wearing the
philosopher’s cloak and his air of ‘indifference’,[50] and of prating
about Plato’s ‘numbers’ and ‘right-angled triangles’. If, next, there
happens along some easy-going bibulous person with plenty of money,

        _Then forthwith are his rags cast off by the wily Odysseus._

[Sidenote: D] Away goes the cloak; shorn off is the beard—’tis a crop
that bears no corn: to the fore are wine-coolers and wine-cups, laughter
in the streets and mockery of the philosophic student.

We are told, for instance, that at Syracuse, when Plato visited the
place and Dionysius was seized with a mania for philosophy, the host of
geometricians turned the palace into a perfect whirl of dust.[51] But
when Dionysius came to logger-heads with Plato, had had enough of
philosophy, and abandoned himself to drink and women and to silly talk
and wanton [Sidenote: E] behaviour, in a moment it was as if Circe had
transformed them every one, and there came a reign of vulgarity,
oblivion, and folly. Examples are also to be found in the conduct of
time-servers on a large scale, such as demagogues. Greatest was
Alcibiades. At Athens he joked, kept horses, and lived like a wit and a
man of the world. At Lacedaemon he cropped his hair close, wore a short
cloak, and bathed in cold water. In Thrace he fought and drank. But when
he attached himself to Tissaphernes, he indulged in luxury, effeminacy,
and ostentation, and sought to win the good graces of his company by
adapting himself in all cases to their likeness and becoming one of
them. Not so Epaminondas or Agesilaus. Despite [Sidenote: F] all their
intercourse with so many persons, communities, and standards of conduct,
they everywhere maintained—in dress, way of life, speech, and
behaviour—their own proper character. So with Plato. He was the same at
Syracuse as at Athens, the same to Dionysius as to Dion.

Our easiest method of exposing the polypus-like changes of the
time-server is to make a show of frequent changes on our own part,
finding fault with conduct of which we formerly approved, and all of a
sudden countenancing actions, conduct, [Sidenote: 53] or talk which used
to fill us with disgust. We shall then perceive that he has no sort of
settled and specific character; that his loves, hatreds, pleasures, and
pains are not matters of his own feeling; that he is merely a mirror
reflecting extraneous moods, principles, and emotions. For observe the
man’s ways. Should you speak disparagingly to him of one of your
friends, he will remark: ‘You have been slow in finding the fellow out;
_I_ never did like him.’ If, on the contrary, you change your tone and
speak in his praise, he will declare that he is ‘right glad and thankful
on the man’s behalf’, because he ‘believes in him’. If you propose to
adopt a different mode of life—if, for example, [Sidenote: B] you are
converted from a political career to a life of quiet inactivity—he will
say, ‘We ought to have got quit of brawlings and jealousies long before
this.’ If, on the other hand, you appear eager for office and the
platform, he seconds you with, ‘A very proper spirit! A quiet life is
pleasant, no doubt, but it lacks honour and distinction.’ We ought
immediately to answer that kind of man with the words:

    ‘_Different, sir, dost thou show thyself now from the man thou wert
       erstwhile._

I do not want a friend who shifts his ground when I do and who nods when
I nod—my shadow can do that better—but one who helps me to truth and
sound judgement.’

[Sidenote: C] Such is one way of applying a test. There is a second
point of difference to be watched, as against the points of resemblance.
It is not in all matters that a genuine friend is prompt to copy or
commend us, but only in the best.

             _Not his to share our hates, but share our loves_,

as Sophocles has it. Yes, and to share our right conduct and high
principles, not our wrong and wanton deeds, unless perhaps—as a result
of familiar association—some contaminating effluence, like that of
ophthalmia, affects him to some extent with a blemish or a fault against
his will. For instance, it is said that [Sidenote: D] Plato’s stoop,
Aristotle’s lisp, King Alexander’s crook of the neck and harshness of
voice in conversation, were tricks borrowed by their respective
intimates. There are persons who, without knowing it, pick up from both
the temperament and conduct of their friends most of what is
characteristic of them. The time-server, however, is exactly like the
chameleon. As the latter assimilates himself to every colour but white,
so the time-server, though utterly unable to arrive at a likeness to
your valuable qualities, leaves no discreditable one uncopied. He is
like a bad painter, who, because beauty lies beyond the reach of his
weak capacity, makes the strikingness of his portraiture [Sidenote: E] a
matter of wrinkles, moles, and scars. So the toady becomes an imitator
of dissoluteness, superstition, irascibility, harshness to servants, and
distrust of friends and relatives. Not only is he by nature and of his
own accord prone to the lower course; it is by imitating a baseness that
he appears to be farthest from blaming it. A man who takes the higher
line, and shows distress and vexation at his friends’ misdeeds, is
dubiously regarded—a fact which accounts for the ruin of Dion with
Dionysius, of Samius with Philip, and of Cleomenes with Ptolemy. But
when a man desires to be, and to be thought, agreeable and to be
depended upon, the worse the thing is, the more display he makes of
liking it, as if the strength of his affection will not permit him to
dislike even your vices, but makes him your [Sidenote: F] natural
sympathizer in all circumstances. Such persons therefore insist upon
sharing even involuntary and accidental shortcomings. When toadying an
invalid, they pretend to suffer with the same complaint. In company with
a person who is somewhat blind or deaf, they pretend to be dim-sighted
and hard of hearing, like the flatterers of Dionysius, whose sight was
so dull that they stumbled against each other and knocked over the
dishes at dinner.

Sometimes they work themselves into closer and more intimate touch with
a trouble or a malady, till they come to participate in afflictions of
the most secret kind. If they see [Sidenote: 54] that the patron is
unhappy in his marriage or on bad terms with his sons or his relatives,
they do not spare themselves, but make lamentations about their own
children, or wife, or relatives, or friends, on certain alleged grounds
which they divulge as a miserable secret. Such similarity creates a
closer understanding with their patron. He has received a sort of
hostage, thereupon betrays to them some secret or other, and, because of
that betrayal, keeps friends with them and is afraid to leave his
confidence to its fate. I know of one time-server who, when the patron
divorced his wife, turned his own wife also out of doors. It was,
however, found out—through a discovery [Sidenote: B] of the patron’s
wife—that he was visiting and sending messages to her in secret. The
toady must have been but little known to the man who thought that the
lines:

              _Body all belly, and an eye that looks
              All round; a thing that crawls upon its teeth_,

were as apt a description for a crab as they are for the flatterer. The
picture is that of the parasite:

               _The friend of saucepan-time and dinner-hour_,

as Eupolis expresses it.

This point, however, we will reserve till its proper place. Meanwhile we
must not omit to mention another shrewd trick played by the time-server
when he imitates you. If he goes so far as to copy some good quality in
the person whom he [Sidenote: C] toadies, he is careful to leave the
advantage with him. Friends in the true sense are neither jealous nor
envious of each other, and, whether they reach or fail to reach the same
degree of excellence, they accept the situation fairly and without a
grudge. But the toady—who never forgets to play second rôle—lets his
resemblance fall short of equality, and owns to being distanced at
everything but vices. In vices, however, he insists on first prize. If
the patron is irritable, he says, ‘_I_ am all bile;’ if superstitious,
‘_I_ am a mass of fears;’ if love-sick, ‘_I_ am frantic.’ [Sidenote: D]
‘It was wrong of you to laugh,’ he will say, ‘but _I_ was absolutely
dying with laughter.’ But where virtues are concerned it is the other
way about. ‘I am a fast runner, but _you_ positively fly.’ ‘I am a
tolerable horseman, but nothing to a centaur like our friend here.’ ‘I
have a neat turn for poetry, and can write a line better than some, but

               _Thunder is not for me, ’tis work for Zeus._’

He thus appears to do two things at once—to give an air of merit to his
patron’s tastes by imitating them, and of unapproachableness to his
ability by failing to match it.

So much for the differences between fawner and friend in the midst of
their resemblances.

Since, as we have observed, pleasure is another point in common—a good
type of man taking as much delight in his friends as a weak man does in
his flatterers—we may proceed to make a distinction here also. The
distinction lies in the relation between the pleasure and its end. Thus,
not only unguents [Sidenote: E] have an agreeable smell; a medicine may
have it also. But there is the difference that the object of the former
is pleasure and nothing else, while in the other case the purgative,
warming, or flesh-making quality happens to be combined with fragrance.
Again, a painter mixes engaging colours and dyes, and there are also
certain medical preparations with a taking appearance and an attractive
colour. Where is the difference? Clearly our distinction will lie in the
end for which they are used. Just so with the case before us. In the
agreeable relations of [Sidenote: F] friend with friend the
pleasant-giving element is a kind of gloss upon a substance of high
value and utility. Sometimes sportiveness, the table, wine, and even
mockery and nonsense are used by them as a seasoning to high and serious
purposes. Hence such expressions as:

    _Then had they joyance in talk and in speaking the one to the
       other_;

or:

    _Nor should aught else have parted us twain in our love and our
       joyance._

But, with the time-server, it is his function and end to be [Sidenote:
55] perpetually dishing up in a spicy form something amusing, something
done or something said which pleases and is meant to please.

To put it briefly, the toady thinks the purpose of his every action
should be to make himself agreeable, whereas the friend will only do
what is right, and therefore, though often agreeable, he is often the
contrary, not because he wishes it, but because, when it is the proper
course, he does not avoid it. It is as with the physician. When it helps
matters he will throw in a pinch of saffron or spikenard, and will
frequently order a pleasant bath and an inviting diet. But there are
times when he will have none of these, but will shake in a dash of
castor

        _Or polium foul of odor, that men e’en shudder to smell it._

[Sidenote: B] Or he will pound a dose of hellebore and make you drink it
off. Neither the unpleasantness in the one case nor the pleasantness in
the other is the end in his mind, but in both cases he has only one
object in view for the patient, and that object is his good. In the same
way there are times when a friend will lead you in the path of duty by
inspiriting you with praise or gratifying you with courtesies, as the
speaker does in

          _Teucer, Telamon’s son, dear prince of a warrior people,
          Shoot as now thou dost_,

or in:

     _How then should I, if ’tis so, be forgetful of godlike Odysseus?_

But when, on the contrary, you need calling to attention, he will
upbraid you in biting terms and with the plain-speaking of a guardian:
[Sidenote: C]

     _Foolish art thou, Menelaus Zeus-foster’d: no time is this present
     For folly like thine._

There are also times when he makes the deed accompany the word, like
Menedemus, when he taught the prodigal and dissolute son of his friend
Asclepiades a wholesome lesson by shutting the door in his face and
refusing to speak to him. Similarly Arcesilaus forbade Bato the
lecture-room for having attacked Cleanthes in a verse of a comedy. He
was reconciled to him, however, when he repented and made his peace with
Cleanthes. For though one must give a friend pain when it does him good,
one must not, while giving the pain, make an end of the friendship. The
sting should be used only as a medicine, for the care and salvation of
the patient. A friend is therefore [Sidenote: D] like a musician. In
converting us to right and salutary courses he will sometimes loosen and
sometimes tighten the strings. Pleasure you will get from him often,
profit always. On the other hand, the time-server, who harps in a single
key and is accustomed to strike no note but that of your pleasure and
gratification, has no notion of any action to check you or word to pain
you. He merely plays the accompaniment to your wishes, with which both
his time and his words are invariably in accord. Xenophon says of
Agesilaus that he welcomed praise from those who were no less ready to
blame. So we should regard that which gives pleasure and gratification
as in the category of ‘friend’, if it can also on occasion oppose us and
give us pain. But a companionship which is uniformly pleasurable and
maintains [Sidenote: E] a perpetual graciousness unqualified by any
sting, calls for suspicion. We ought, in fact, to be ready to ask, like
the Laconian on hearing praise of King Charillus, ‘How can a man be
honest, when he cannot be angry even with a rascal?’

It is close to the ear, we are told, that the gadfly gets into a bull
and the tick into a dog. In the case of a man of ambition, the
time-server with his flatteries takes hold of his ears and sticks so
fast that it is hard to rub him off. Particularly, therefore, in such
circumstances must we keep our judgement vigilant. It must be on the
alert to see whether the praise is given to the [Sidenote: F] thing or
to the man. It is given to the thing when men praise us in our absence
more than in our presence; when they wish and strive for the same
objects themselves, and praise not only us but every one else who does
the like; when we do not find them doing and saying first one thing and
then the opposite; and—most important of all—when our sense does not
tell us that we are repenting or ashamed of the things for which we are
praised, or wishing that we had rather done and said the [Sidenote: 56]
contrary. This inward judgement, which testifies against a flattery and
refuses to accept it, is immune from contamination, and proof against
the time-server.

It is a strange thing that most men, when they meet with a misfortune,
cannot bear to be consoled, but are better pleased with those who will
join in the lamentations; but when they are guilty of a blunder or a
fault, if you make them feel the sting of repentance by means of a
reproof or a reprimand, they think you an enemy and an accuser; whereas,
if you eulogize their conduct, they regard you as a loyal friend and
receive you with open arms.

Now when people give you praise and applause for something [Sidenote: B]
you do or say, whether in sober earnest or in careless jest, the harm
they do is only for the moment, and only affects the matter in hand. But
when their praises go so far as to influence your moral being, and their
flatteries to affect your character, they are as bad as servants who
pilfer ‘_not from the stack, but from the seed_‘. For the moral
disposition and the moral character—first principle and fountain-head of
conduct—are the seed of actions, and these they corrupt by clothing vice
in the titles of virtue. Thucydides tells us that in the midst of war
and faction ‘_the customary acceptation of words was arbitrarily changed
to suit an end. Reckless daring came to be thought devoted courage;
[Sidenote: C] cautious hesitation, an excuse for cowardice; moderation,
weakness in disguise; complete insight, complete inertia_‘. So, when
flattery is at work, we should warily note how prodigality is called
‘generosity’; cowardice, ‘caution’; light-headed caprice, ‘life and
vigour’; meanness, ‘moderation’; the amorous man, ‘amiable and
affectionate’; the arrogant and irascible person, ‘a man of spirit’; a
poor meek creature, ‘civil and obliging’. [Sidenote: D] Remember, how
Plato tells us that the lover—the flatterer of the beloved—calls a snub
nose ‘piquant’, a hook-nose ‘regal’, a swarthy face ‘virile’, a white
face ‘saint-like’, while ‘honey-colour’ is simply the coinage of a lover
who indulgently invents a pretty name for pallor. Yet when an ugly man
is persuaded that he is beautiful, or a little man that he is tall, his
deception is short-lived, and the harm which he sustains is slight and
easily repaired. But flattery may teach him to treat vices as if they
[Sidenote: E] were virtues, and to rejoice in them instead of sorrowing.
It may remove all sense of shame at misconduct. Such flattery spelled
destruction to the Siceliots, when it called the cruelty of Dionysius
and Phalaris a ‘hatred of wickedness’. It spelled ruin to Egypt, when it
gave to Ptolemy’s effeminacy, to his hysterical superstition, to his
shriekings and bangings of tambourines, the name of piety and worship.
It came once within an ace of utterly subverting Roman morals, when it
glossed over Antony’s dissolute and ostentatious self-indulgence with
pretty terms as a ‘festive and genial appreciation of the boons of
unstinted [Sidenote: F] power and fortune’. What made Ptolemy tie on the
mouth-strap and its pair of flutes? What made Nero cultivate the tragic
stage and don the mask and buskin? What else but praise from flatterers?
Is not a king regularly called an Apollo if he warbles, a Dionysius if
he gets drunk, a Hercules if he wrestles? And is he not so pleased with
it, that there is no way of disgracing himself to which flattery will
not lead him? It is therefore in the matter of praise that we should
chiefly beware of the time-server. He is himself alive to the fact, and
[Sidenote: 57] is deft at avoiding suspicion. If therefore he gets hold
of some dull-witted and thick-skinned grandee, he fools him to the top
of his bent. Remember how Strouthias makes a hobby-horse of Bias and
dances his fling upon the man’s stupidity by praising him with:

                _You have drunk more than royal Alexander_,

or:

            _I laugh to think o’ the quip you gave the Cyprian._

But with persons of more discernment he perceives that in this direction
they are particularly on the alert, that in this quarter they keep a
special watch. He does not therefore adopt a direct line of attack with
his flattery, but fetches a circuitous course from a distance, and

                  _Advances noiselessly, as when a beast_

[Sidenote: B] is tentatively approached and fingered. At one moment he
will describe how you have been praised by some one else, using the
public speaker’s device of putting the words in another person’s mouth.
He will say, for instance, that he had the great pleasure of being
present in the market-place when some ‘visitors’—or some ‘elderly
people’—were relating a good many admiring and complimentary stories
about you. At another time he will concoct a number of trivial and
fictitious charges against you, which he purports to have heard from
others, and he will say that he has hastened to find you and desires to
know where you said such-and-such a thing or did so-and-so. If you deny
them—as you naturally will—he at [Sidenote: C] once has you in the trap
for his compliments: ‘It did surprise me that you should speak ill of a
friend, seeing that it is not your nature to do so even of an enemy;’ or
‘that you should have designs on other people’s property, when you are
so liberal with your own’.

Others, again, are like a painter who brings the light and bright parts
into relief by the juxtaposition of dark and shaded portions. By
blaming, abusing, belittling, and ridiculing the opposite qualities,
they give a concealed praise and encouragement to the defects of the
person flattered. To a spendthrift they disparage economy and call it
stinginess. To a grasping knave [Sidenote: D] who makes money by mean
and shabby practices they depreciate honest self-support and call it
want of enterprise and business capacity. When they associate with some
careless idler who shuns the busy centres of affairs, they are not
ashamed to style public life a ‘meddling with other people’s business’,
and public spirit a ‘sterile vanity’. Sometimes, in order to flatter a
public speaker, a philosopher is belittled, or the favour of profligate
women is won by miscalling faithful and loving wives ‘provincial and
unattractive’. Most pitiful in its baseness is the fact that the toady
does not even spare himself. As a wrestler crouches his body in order to
throw another, so he insidiously contrives to compliment his neighbour
by disparaging himself. [Sidenote: E] ‘I am a nervous wretch at sea,’
says he. ‘I cannot face trouble. Hard words make me frantically angry.
But our friend here has no nerves; nothing troubles him. He is a
peculiar person, always good-tempered, never ruffled.’ But if a man
thinks himself particularly sensible, and is so desirous of being
severely matter-of-fact that—out of what he calls straightforwardness—he
is always on the defensive with

       _Tydeus’ son, bepraise me not much, nor, prithee, upbraid me_,

the artist in flattery will not adopt this manner of approaching
[Sidenote: F] him. Such cases are met by another device. He will come
and consult him, as a person of superior wisdom, about affairs of his
own. ‘Though,’ he will say, ‘there are others with whom I am more
intimate, I am compelled to trouble you. For where are we to take refuge
when we need advice? In whom are we to put confidence?’ Then, after
listening to what he has to say, he will take his leave with the remark
that what he has received is ‘not an opinion; it is an oracle’. And if
he sees that you make pretensions to being a judge of literature, he
gives you something he has [Sidenote: 58] written himself, and asks you
to read and correct it. When King Mithridates had a fancy for doctoring,
some of his courtiers actually put themselves in his hands to be lanced
and cauterized. This was flattery by deeds in place of words, since he
accepted their confidence as a sufficient voucher for his skill.

                     _Of many shapes are means divine_,

and this negative class of praise requires to be countered with some
craftiness. The way to confute it is by deliberately offering counsel
and suggestion which are nonsensical, and making corrections [Sidenote:
B] which are absurd. If your man objects to nothing, says ‘Yes’ to
everything, and exclaims ‘Good!’ ‘Capital!’ at every item, he exposes
himself as one who

              _The watchword asks, while other are his aims_,

—those aims being to encourage your self-conceit with his laudations.

Take another case. Painting has been styled ‘silent poetry’. So there is
a way of praising by silent flattery. The sportsman’s purpose is better
concealed from the game when he pretends to be upon other
business—walking, tending cattle, or tilling the soil. In the same way a
toady drives home his eulogies most effectively when the eulogy is
disguised under some different form of action. It may be by giving up
his seat, or his place [Sidenote: C] at table, when you appear upon the
scene. Or if he is addressing the Assembly or Council, and notices that
some wealthy man desires to speak, he may stop his speech and yield him
the platform. His silence indicates more clearly than the loudest
acclamation that he regards the person in question as a better man and
his intellectual superior. Such persons may therefore be seen taking
possession of the front seats at an entertainment or in the
meeting-hall, not because they claim any right to them, but in order
that they may play the toady by giving up their places to rich people.
Or you may see them begin the discussion at a congress or a
board-meeting, and subsequently give way to ‘superior argument’ and
shift round with the [Sidenote: D] greatest readiness to the opposite
view, if their opponent is a person of influence, wealth, or note. The
clearest exposure of such complaisances and concessions is to be sought
in the fact that it is not to knowledge or high abilities or age that
the deference is paid, but to riches and reputations. When Megabyzus
took a seat at Apelles’ side and wanted to prate to him about ‘line’ and
‘shading’, the painter remarked, ‘Do you see those boys yonder grinding
my mixing-earth? When you were silent, they were all eyes of admiration
for your purple and your jewels. But now that you have begun to talk
about things [Sidenote: E] you do not understand, they are laughing at
you.’ Similarly Solon, when Croesus questioned him about ‘happiness’,
declared that Tellus, an Athenian of humble rank, as well as Cleobis and
Biton, were more favoured by fortune. A flatterer, on the contrary, not
only avers that a king, a rich man, or a man in power, is prosperous and
fortunate; he also declares that he is pre-eminent in wisdom, art, and
every form of excellence. Hence while there are persons who have no
patience to listen when the Stoics describe the sage as at the same time
‘rich, beautiful, noble, and king’, a toady will make out that the rich
man is at the same time an orator, a poet, and—if he so wishes—a painter
and a musician. He makes him out swift of foot and [Sidenote: F] strong
of thew by letting himself be thrown in wrestling and outstripped in
running, as Criso of Himera did in a race against Alexander—much to
Alexander’s disgust when he detected it. Carneades used to say that the
only thing that kings’ and rich men’s sons understand is how to ride;
they receive no proper instruction in anything else. For their teacher
flatters them in school with his praises, and their antagonists in the
wrestling-ring by courting defeat; whereas a horse, who neither knows
nor cares whether you are in or out of office, poor or rich, pitches you
head first if you cannot keep your seat. It was therefore a silly and
stupid thing for Bion to say: ‘If by [Sidenote: 59] eulogizing a field
we could make it bear a prolific crop, would it not be a mistake for a
man to go digging and moiling instead? Neither, then, is it irrational
for you to praise a human being, if your praise is productive of good
fruit.’ A field suffers no injury from being praised, whereas insincere
and undeserved compliment puffs a man up and ruins him.

On this point we have said enough. The next consideration is that of
candour.

[Sidenote: B] When Patroclus, on going out to fight, dressed himself in
Achilles’ armour and drove his team, the one thing he let alone and did
not venture to touch was the Pelian spear. So it might have been
expected of the flatterer that, when dressing himself up carefully for
the part of ‘friend’, with its proper tokens and badges, the one thing
he would leave untouched and uncopied would be plain-speaking—a special
attribute,

                       _Heavy and huge and stubborn_,

to be wielded only by friendship. But in his fear that laughter, strong
drink, jest, and fun may mean his betrayal, we find him [Sidenote: C]
putting a solemn face on the business, flattering with a frown and
administering dashes of blame and admonition. Here again, therefore, we
must apply our tests. In a comedy of Menander, the Mock-Hercules comes
in carrying a club which has no strength or solidity, but is merely a
hollow sham. So, I take it, with the flatterer’s plain-speaking. On
trial you will find that it is soft and without weight or vigour; that
it behaves like a woman’s cushion, which, while seeming to offer a firm
support to the head, actually yields it more of its own way. [Sidenote:
D] This spurious candour, with its hollow fullness, its false and
superficial puffiness, is merely meant to shrink and collapse, so as to
induce the person who leans upon it to make himself more comfortable.
The genuine candour of a friend attacks only our misdeeds; it hurts only
out of care and protection; like honey, it merely stings our sores in
cleansing them, its general uses being grateful and sweet. This,
however, is a theme for special discussion.

With the flatterer it is different. In the first place, when he displays
sharpness or heat or inflexibility, it is in dealing with others than
yourself. He is severe upon his own servants; he is terribly hard upon
the misdeeds of his own relations; he shows no admiration or respect for
a stranger, but treats [Sidenote: E] him with contempt; his scandalizing
is merciless when exacerbating other people. His object is to make it
appear that he detests low practices, and that he would not consent to
abate a jot of his candour in your behalf, or to do or say anything to
curry favour. In the next place, when there is something really and
seriously wrong, he pretends to be completely ignorant and unconscious
of it, while he will pounce upon some little immaterial shortcoming and
take it rigorously and vehemently to task—if, for instance, he sees an
implement carelessly placed, or a fault of domestic management, or
negligence in the cut of your hair or the wearing of your clothes, or
lack of [Sidenote: F] proper attention to a dog or a horse. But should
you slight your parents, neglect your children, humiliate your wife,
despise your relatives, and waste your money, it becomes no business of
his. In such circumstances not a word does he venture to utter, but he
is like a trainer who permits an athlete to get drunk and dissipated,
while he is severe upon him in the matter of an oil-flask or a
scraping-iron; or like a grammar-master who scolds a boy for the state
of his slate and pencil, but pretends not to hear his slips of grammar
and expression. The toady is the kind of man who, in dealing with a
ridiculously incompetent public speaker, has nothing to say about his
matter, but finds fault with his voice-production, and blames him
severely for spoiling [Sidenote: 60] his larynx by drinking cold drinks;
or who, when requested to peruse some miserable composition, finds fault
with the roughness of the paper and calls the copyist a slovenly wretch.
It was so in the case of Ptolemy, when he made pretence to literary
tastes. They would fight with him about some out-of-the-way word or bit
of a verse or point of information, and would keep it up till midnight.
But to his indulgence in cruelty and outrage, to his tambourine-playing
and initiating, not one of [Sidenote: B] all their number offered any
opposition. Imagine a man suffering with tumours and abscesses, and some
one taking a surgeon’s knife and cutting—his hair or his nails! That is
what the flatterer does. He employs his candour upon those parts which
feel no pain or soreness.

There is a still craftier species, who make their plain-speaking and
fault-finding an actual means of pleasing. When Alexander was once
making large gifts to a jester, envy and vexation drove Agis, the
Argive, to bawl out, ‘How utterly absurd!’ The king turned upon him
angrily and asked, ‘_What_ is that you say?’ ‘I confess,’ was the reply,
‘to being annoyed and [Sidenote: C] indignant when I see how much alike
all you sons of Zeus are in your fondness for flatterers and ridiculous
persons. Heracles found pleasure in his Cercopes, Dionysus in Sileni,
and we can see what a high regard you have yourself for people of the
kind.’ One day when the emperor Tiberius entered the Senate, one of his
flatterers got up and said that, as free men, they were bound to speak
frankly and to treat important interests without reticence or
reservation. When he had thus aroused every one’s interest and had
secured silence and the attention of Tiberius, he said, ‘Listen, Caesar,
to the charge which we all make against you, but which no one dares to
utter openly. You are neglecting yourself, sacrificing your health and
wearing it out by perpetually working and thinking for us, and giving
yourself [Sidenote: D] no rest day or night.’ As he continued with a
good deal more in the same strain, the orator Cassius Severus is said to
have exclaimed, ‘Such plain-speaking will be the man’s death!’

These devices, however, are of minor moment. The matter becomes grave—as
meaning ruin to foolish people—when a man is accused of the opposite
disorders to those with which he is afflicted; as when the parasite
Himerius used to scold the meanest and most avaricious plutocrat in
Athens by calling him a reckless prodigal, bent on bringing himself and
his children to starvation; or when, on the contrary, a toady reproaches
[Sidenote: E] a prodigal spendthrift with sordid parsimony, as Titus
Petronius did Nero; or when he urges a ruler who behaves with savage
cruelty towards his subjects to divests himself of ‘all that gentleness
and ill-timed and mistaken clemency’.

To the same class belongs the man who pretends to look upon some silly
nincompoop as a clever rogue of whom he is afraid and wary. Or if an
ill-conditioned person who delights in perpetual fault-finding and
scandalizing does happen to be led into praising some distinguished man,
he may take him to task and raise objections, for ‘it is a weakness of
yours, this praising [Sidenote: F] of even quite insignificant people.
What remarkable thing has he ever said or done?’

Love-affairs are favourite ground for the flatterer to play upon his
victim by further inflaming his passion. If he sees you at variance with
your brothers, or neglecting your parents, or contemptuous towards your
wife, he offers neither remonstrance nor reproach, but actually
intensifies the bad feeling. ‘No: you don’t appreciate yourself,’ or,
‘It is you that are to blame, for always playing the humble servant.’
But if anger [Sidenote: 61] and jealousy provoke a tiff with a mistress
of whom you are enamoured, in comes flattery at once with a fine blaze
of frankness, and adds fuel to the fire by pleading cause and accusing
the lover of all sorts of unloverlike, unfeeling, and unforgivable
conduct:

                _O ingrate! after all that rain of kisses!_

Thus, when Antony was becoming passionately enamoured of the Egyptian
queen, his friends did their best to persuade him that the love was on
her side, and they upbraided him with being ‘cold and supercilious’.
‘The lady has forsaken all that royal state and that life of delightful
enjoyments to go wandering [Sidenote: B] about on the march with you,
like any concubine.

    _But, for thee, the heart in thy breast is past all moving or
       charming_,

and you leave her to suffer as she will.’ It gratified Antony to be thus
put in the wrong; no praise could please him like these accusations; and
unconsciously he became perverted to the standard of the man who
pretended to be reproving him. For candour of this kind is like the bite
of a lascivious woman; while pretending to give pain, it arouses a
provoking sensation of pleasure.

Though unmixed wine is, generally speaking, a corrective of hemlock,
yet, if you add it to that drug in the form of a mixture, [Sidenote: C]
you make it impossible to counteract the power of the poison, the heat
driving it rapidly to the heart. So, while aware that candour is a
potent corrective of flattery, your rogue actually uses ‘candour’ as his
instrument for flattering you. Bias was therefore wrong in his answer to
the question: ‘What animal is the most dangerous?’ when he replied,
‘Among wild animals, the despot, among tame animals, the toady.’ It
would have been truer to say that, among toadies, those who merely
frequent your bath and your table are tame, while those who thrust the
[Sidenote: D] tentacles of their slanderous and malicious meddling into
bedchamber and boudoir are savage and unmanageable beasts.

The one method of protecting ourselves appears to lie in recognizing and
never forgetting that our mental being is made up of two parts—one
high-principled and rational, the other irrational, mendacious and
passionate—and that a friend is the unfailing supporter and champion of
the better part—a physician who promotes and watches over good
health—while a flatterer acts as prompter to the passionate and
irrational part, exciting, titillating, coaxing, and divorcing it from
reason by inventing [Sidenote: E] low forms of self-indulgence on its
behalf. There are some kinds of food which yield no benefit to blood or
breath, and put no vigour into muscle or marrow, but simply excite the
sensual appetites and make the flesh flabby and unsound. So with the
advice of a fawner. If does nothing to help sane thought and judgement;
but watch it, and you will find it cosseting an amorous pleasure,
aggravating a foolish fit of anger or provoking an attack of envy,
puffing you up with vulgar and empty pride, encouraging your doleful
dumps, or, where there is a tendency to be ill-natured or mean-spirited
or mistrustful, making the [Sidenote: F] feeling more bitter or shy or
suspicious by constantly suggesting and anticipating evil. For he is
perpetually in wait for some passion or other, which he proceeds to feed
up; and whenever there is a festering or inflammation of your mental
state, you will always find him a kind of bubo, bringing it to a head.
Are you angry? ‘Then punish.’ Do you crave a thing? ‘Then buy it.’ Are
you afraid? ‘Then let us run away.’ Are you suspicious? ‘Then trust the
feeling.’

If it is hard to catch him in connexion with such affections as
these—their strength being so overpowering as to baffle the reason—he
will give you a better opening in smaller matters; for he will be just
the same with them. If you are apprehensive [Sidenote: 62] of a headache
or a surfeit, and are doubtful as to bathing or taking food, a friend
will try to check you and will urge you to be cautious, whereas the
toady will drag you to the bath, or ask them to put some novel dish on
the table, begging you not ‘to keep so tight a hand upon your body as to
be cruel to it’. If he sees you inclined to shirk a journey, a voyage,
or a piece of work, he will say that there is no immediate hurry, and
that it will do just as well if you postpone the matter or send someone
else. If, after promising a friend to make him a loan or a present of a
sum of money, you repent, but have your scruples, the toady [Sidenote:
B] throws his weight into the less honourable scale; he corroborates
‘the argument of the purse’, and makes short work of your sense of shame
by urging you to be economical, ‘seeing that you have so many expenses
and so many persons to support.’

If, therefore, we are able to perceive our own covetousness,
shamelessness, or cowardice, we shall also be able to see when a man is
a toady. Such he is when he is always playing the advocate to those
passions and ‘speaking his mind’ when we deviate from them.

Enough having been said upon this topic, we may next proceed to the
question of the practical services rendered. In this [Sidenote: C]
respect the flatterer makes his distinction from the friend a very
obscure and perplexing matter; he always appears so prompt and
indefatigable in his zeal. While a friend’s way, like the ‘speech of
truth’ as described by Euripides, is ‘single’, open, and unaffected,
that of the flatterer

               _Sick in itself, needs antidotes full shrewd_

—uncommonly so, indeed, and plenty of them. When you meet a friend, he
sometimes passes on without uttering or receiving a word, and with no
more than a glance or a smile; he simply manifests by his expression,
and gathers from yours, the kindly [Sidenote: D] understanding within.
But the toady is on the run to overtake you, greets you from a long way
off, and, if you catch sight of him and speak to him first, he excuses
himself over and over again, calling his witnesses and taking his oath.
So in the matter of actions. A friend will neglect many a trifle; he is
no precisian and makes no fuss; he does not insist upon serving you at
every turn. But the other is persistent, unremitting, unwearied; he
leaves no opportunity or room for any one else to serve you; he is eager
to receive your orders, and, if he does not get them, he is piqued, nay,
absolutely heart-broken with disappointment. A sensible man, then, may
take these as some indications that a friendship is not sincere and
single-minded, [Sidenote: E] but is like a harlot who forces her
embraces upon you before they are asked for.

The first place, however, in which to look for the difference is in
promises. It has already been well said by previous writers that a
friend will put his promise in the form familiar in

    _If I have power to achieve it, and if ’tis a thing for
       achievement_,

while a time-server will put it in this:

                    _Voice me the thought in thy mind._

The comedians present us with such characters:

             _Nicomachus, pit me against the soldier.
             I’ll make ripe pulp of him; I’ll make his face
             Softer than sponge: if not, then flog me soundly._

In the next place no friend will be a party to your actions [Sidenote:
F] unless he has first been a party to planning them. He must first have
looked into the business and helped to put it on a right and proper
footing. Not so the flatterer. Even if you do grant him a share in
weighing the matter and expressing an opinion about it, he is not only
so anxious to gratify you with his complaisance, but is in such dread of
leading you to suspect him of unreadiness to face the action, that he
leaves you to take your course, or only lends spurs to your desire. It
is not easy to find a rich man or a grandee who is ready to say:
[Sidenote: 63]

                _Give me a man, a beggar—nay, no matter,
                Lower than beggar, if he means me well—
                To put fear by, and speak his heart to me._

Like the tragedian, he must have the support of a chorus of friends who
keep his tune, or of an audience who give applause. Merope in the
tragedy advises:

            _Get thee for friends such men as, when they speak,
            Yield not; but when a man will for thy pleasure
            Make himself knave, lock thou thy door against him._

[Sidenote: B] But such persons do the opposite. If, ‘when you speak’ you
‘yield not’, but oppose them for their good, they abominate you; but if
‘for their pleasure’ you are a ‘knave’ and a servile charlatan, they
receive you not merely inside their locked doors but inside their most
secret passions and concerns. The simple kind of flatterer, it is true,
does not aim at so much. What he asks in such important matters is not
to be your adviser, but your minister and servant. But the more crafty
person will stand still—puzzling over the question with puckered brow
and appropriate changes of countenance—but will say nothing. And if you
give your own idea, he will exclaim, ‘How strange! You just managed to
anticipate me. I was about to make exactly your suggestion.’

[Sidenote: C] Mathematicians tell us that lines and surfaces, being
mental perceptions and incorporeal, have in themselves no such thing as
bending, stretching, or motion, but that they are bent, stretched, and
changed in position along with the bodies of which they are the
boundaries. So you will discover that, with the time-server, his assent,
his opinion, even his pleasure and anger, are always dependent. Here,
therefore, it is perfectly easy to detect the difference. It is still
more apparent in the manner in which a service is rendered. With the
good feeling of a friend, as with a living creature, its most vital
functions lie [Sidenote: D] deep. It is marked by no ostentatious
display; but very often, like a physician who conceals the fact that he
is doctoring you, a friend does you a good turn by a word of
intercession or by bringing about an understanding, and so consults your
interests without your knowing it. Arcesilaus was a man of this type.
Not to mention other instances, when Apelles the Chian was ill and
Arcesilaus had discovered how poor he was, he came back later with
twenty drachmae. Taking a seat close to him, he exclaimed, ‘There is
nothing here beyond Empedocles’ four elements:

       _Fire and water and earth and the gentle air of the heavens._

Why, even your bed is made all askew.’ With that he moved his pillow and
meanwhile slipped the coins under it. When the [Sidenote: E] old woman
in attendance found them and told Apelles in amazement, he laughed and
said, ‘It is that thief Arcesilaus.’[52]

And here we may note how philosophy produces ‘_children like unto their
sires_‘. Cephisocrates, who had been impeached, was on his trial, and
beside him, with the rest of his friends, stood Lacudes, one of the
coterie of Arcesilaus. The accuser having asked for his ring,
Cephisocrates quietly dropped it at his side, and Lacudes, who noticed
the action, put his foot upon it and hid it. On that ring depended the
proof of the charge. When Cephisocrates, after his acquittal, went
shaking hands with members of the jury, one of them, who had apparently
[Sidenote: F] seen what occurred, bade him thank Lacudes, and gave an
account of the affair, which Lacudes had mentioned to no one. We may
believe that it is the same with the Gods, and that for the most part
they confer their benefits unperceived, it being their nature to find
pleasure in the mere act of bestowing favours and doing good. But in a
deed done by a flatterer there is nothing honest, sincere,
single-minded, or generous. It is a case of sweating, bawling, bustling,
and of a tense look upon the face, intended to convey the impression of
arduous and urgent business. The thing resembles, in fact, an overdone
painting, [Sidenote: 64] which strives to secure realistic effect by the
use of blatant colours and affected folds, wrinkles, and angles.

He is also offensive enough to relate how the business has meant running
about and anxiety, and he goes on to describe how he has got into
trouble with other people and had no end of worry and some terrible
experiences, until you declare that the thing was not worth it all. Any
obligation thrown in your teeth will cause an unbearable and distressing
sense of annoyance, but with an obligation from a time-server your sense
of reproach and shame is felt at once, from the very moment that the
service [Sidenote: B] is being rendered. A friend, on the other hand, if
he has occasion to speak of the matter, qualifies his account of it, and
about himself he says nothing. For example, the Lacedaemonians once sent
the people of Smyrna some corn at a time of need, and, to their
expressions of admiration of the kindness, they replied, ‘Not at all! To
scrape this together we had only to vote the forgoing of one day’s
dinner for ourselves and our beasts.’ A favour so rendered is not only a
generous one; it is made the more welcome to the recipients by the
thought that no great harm is done to the benefactor.

It is not, however, by the flatterer’s offensive way of rendering his
services nor by the recklessness of his promises that one [Sidenote: C]
can best recognize the breed; an easier criterion consists in the
creditable or discreditable nature of the service, and in the different
character of the pleasure or benefit. A friend will not, as Gorgias
asserted, expect his friend to render him honest services and yet
himself oblige that friend in many ways which are not honest:

               _’Tis his to share the wisdom, not the folly._

Rather, therefore, he will dissuade him also from improper courses. And,
if he fails, there is virtue in Phocion’s answer to Antipater, ‘You
cannot use me both as friend and toady’—that is to say, both as friend
and not friend. We must help a friend in his need, not in his knavery;
in his planning, not in his plotting; with testimony, not conspiracy.
Yes, and we must share in his misfortunes, though not in his misdeeds.
We [Sidenote: D] should not choose even to be privy to the baseness of
our friends; how then to be a party to their misbehaviour? When the
Lacedaemonians, after their defeat by Antipater, were making terms, they
stipulated that, though he might impose any penalty he liked, he should
impose no disgrace. It is the same with a friend. Should occasion call
for expense or danger or hard work, he is foremost in his claim to be
summoned and take a prompt and zealous part; but when disgrace attaches
to it, he will as promptly beg to be spared and left alone. But with the
fawner it is the reverse. In services of difficulty and danger he cries
off, and, if you give him a tap to sound him, his excuse—whatever
[Sidenote: E] it may be—rings false and mean. But in vile and degrading
little jobs, do as you like with him; trample on him; nothing shocks or
insults him.

Look at the ape. He cannot watch the house like a dog, nor carry like a
horse, nor plough the ground like an ox. He is therefore the bearer of
scurrilous insult and buffoonery and the butt of sport, his function
being to serve as a tool for laughter. Precisely so with the toady. He
is unequal to any form of labour and serious effort, and incapable of
helping you by a speech, with a contribution, or in a fight; but in
business which shuns the light he is promptitude itself—a most competent
[Sidenote: F] agent in an amour, an adept at ransoming a strumpet, alert
at checking the bill for a drinking-bout, no sloven in the ordering of
your dinner, deft at attentions to your mistress, and, if you bid him
show insolence to your wife’s relations or bundle her out of doors, he
is beyond all pity or shame.

This, therefore, is another easy means of finding him out. Order him to
do any disreputable and discreditable thing you [Sidenote: 65] choose,
and he is ready to spare no pains in gratifying you accordingly.

A very good indication of the wide difference between our fawner and a
friend may be found in his attitude towards your other friends. The one
is delighted to have many others giving and receiving affection with
him, and his constant aim is to make his friend widely loved and
honoured. He holds that ‘_friends have all things in common_‘, and their
friends, he thinks, [Sidenote: B] should be more ‘in common’ than
anything else. But the other—the false, bastard, and spurious
article—realizes, better than any one, how he is himself sinning against
friendship by—so to speak—debasing its coinage. While, therefore, he is
jealous by nature, it is only against his like that he gives his
jealousy play, by striving to surpass them in grovelling and lickspittle
tricks. Of his betters he stands in fear and dread, we cannot say
because he is

                  _Plodding on foot against a Lydian car_,

but because, as Simonides has it, he

                              _Hath not e’en lead
                      To match the pure refinèd gold._

If, therefore, light in weight, surface-gilt and counterfeit, he finds
himself put in close comparison with genuine friendship, [Sidenote: C]
full-carat and mint-made, he cannot bear the test, and must be detected.
Consequently he acts like the painter whose cocks in a picture were
wretchedly done, and who therefore ordered his slave to drive any real
cocks as far from his canvas as possible. In the same way the flatterer
drives away real friends and prevents them coming near. If he fails,
while openly he will fawn upon them and pay them court and deference as
being his betters, in secret he will throw out calumnious hints and
suggestions. And if the word in secret has given a scratch without at
once absolutely producing a wound, he never forgets Medius’s maxim. This
Medius was what may be called the [Sidenote: D] fugleman or expert
conductor of the chorus of toadies who surrounded Alexander, and was at
daggers drawn with the highest characters. His maxim was, ‘Be bold in
laying on and biting with your slanders, for even if the man who is
bitten salves the wound, the slander will leave its scar.’ It was
through these scars, or rather because he was eaten up with gangrenes
and ulcers, that Alexander put Callisthenes, Parmenio, and Philotas to
death. Meanwhile he surrendered himself unreservedly to a Hagnon, a
Bagoas, an Agesias, or a Demetrius, and allowed them to give him a fall
by salaaming to him and dressing him up after the fashion of an oriental
idol. So powerful an effect [Sidenote: E] has complaisance, and
apparently most of all with those who think most of themselves. Their
wish for the finest qualities goes with the belief that they possess
them, and so the flatterer acquires both credit and confidence. For
while lofty places are difficult of approach or assault for all who have
designs upon them, the lofty conceit produced in a foolish mind by the
gifts of fortune or talent offers the readiest footing to those who are
small and petty.

As therefore we urged at the beginning of this treatise, so we urge
again here; ‘Let us make a clearance of self-love and self-conceit.’
These, by flattering us in advance, render us more [Sidenote: F]
amenable to flattery from outside: we come prepared. But if, in
obedience to the God, we recognize how all-important the maxim _Know
Thyself_ is to each of us; if we therefore examine our own nature,
training, and education, and observe how all alike fall short of
excellence in countless ways, and how they all contain a large admixture
of weakness in the things we do or say or feel, we shall be very slow in
allowing the flatterer to abuse us at his pleasure. Alexander remarked
that what made him give least credence to those who called him a God was
his sleep and his sexualities, his excesses in those things falling
below his own standard. On our own part we shall [Sidenote: 66] always
discover that at many a point and in many a way our qualities are ugly
or a source of pain, defective or misdirected. We shall see ourselves in
our true light, and find that what we need is not a friend who will pay
us compliments and eulogies, but one who will bring us to book when we
are really doing wrong. But only then. There are in any case very few
with the courage to treat a friend with candour rather than
complaisance; yet among these few it will be hard to find such as
understand their business. It will be easier to find persons who imagine
that they are using candour because they abuse and scold. Yet it is with
plain-speaking as with any other medicine. [Sidenote: B] When it is
given at the wrong time the effect is to upset and pain you to no
purpose. In a certain sense it does painfully what flattery does
pleasantly, inasmuch as unseasonable blame works as much harm as
unseasonable praise. More than anything else it is a thing which drives
a man headlong into the arms of the flatterer. Like water, he turns from
the steep unyielding surface and glides away into the receptive
shallows. Candour, therefore, must be tempered by rational courtesy,
which will divest it of excess and over-severity. The light must not be
so strong that in our pain and distress at the invariable reproving and
fault-finding we turn away to escape discomfort and fly to find shade
with the flatterer.

[Sidenote: C] In shunning a vice, Philopappus, our object should always
be virtue, not the contrary vice. Some people think they escape being
shamefaced by being shameless; that they escape being rustic by being
ribald; that their behaviour becomes furthest from timidity and
cowardice when they appear nearest to impudence and insolence. Some
plead to themselves that they would rather be irreligious than
superstitious, rather [Sidenote: D] knaves than simpletons. Their
character may be likened to a piece of wood, which, through lack of the
skill to straighten it, they crook to the opposite side. The ugliest way
of refusing to flatter is to give useless pain. Our social intercourse
must be boorishly ignorant of all the rules of good feeling when it is
by being harsh and disagreeable that we avoid any creeping humbleness in
our friendship, just as if we were the freedman in the comedy, who
thinks that, to be properly enjoyed, ‘speech on equal terms’ means
abusive speech.

Since, therefore, it as an ugly thing when our striving to be agreeable
lands us in flattery, and an ugly thing when, in the avoidance of
flattery, all the spirit of friendly sympathy is ruined by immoderate
plain-speaking; and since we ought to commit neither mistake, but—in
candour as in other things—draw ‘success from moderation’, mere logical
sequence seems to [Sidenote: E] dictate the conclusion to our treatise.

Plain-speaking, we find, is liable to be, as it were, tainted in various
ways. The first thing is to divest it of its selfish aspect, by taking
the greatest care not to let it appear as if your reproaches were due to
a kind of injury or grievance of your own. When the speaker is concerned
about himself, we regard his words as the outcome of anger, not of
goodwill; as grumbling, not as reproof. For whereas candour is a mark of
friendliness which compels respect, grumbling is petty and selfish. We
therefore respect and admire the person who is frank, while a
fault-finder provokes recrimination and contempt. Though Achilles
[Sidenote: F] imagined he was speaking with but reasonable frankness,
Agamemnon lost his temper; but when Odysseus attacked him bitterly in
the words

    _Madman, thou shouldst have commanded some other, some pitiful
       army_,

he patiently gave way, the friendly purpose and good sense of the speech
causing him to draw in his horns. The reason was that, while the
plain-speaking of Odysseus, who had no private [Sidenote: 67] grounds
for anger, was only for the sake of Greece, the vexation of Achilles was
thought to be chiefly on his own account. Nay, Achilles himself, though
possessed of no sweet or gentle temper, but

    _A terrible man, who must blame, e’en though it be blaming the
       blameless_,

silently permitted Patroclus to give him many such hard blows:

    _Man of no pity, no father of thine was Peleus the horseman,
    Thetis no mother of thine; from the green-grey sea wert thou gotten
    By beetling crags; so comes it thy heart is void of all mercy._

[Sidenote: B] The orator Hypereides used to urge the Athenians to
consider not merely whether he was angry, but whether his anger was
gratuitous. So with the admonition of a friend. When pure from any
private feeling, it is a thing of awe, which we cannot face unabashed.
And if, when a man is speaking his mind, it is manifest that he is
casting aside any wrongs his friend may have done to himself; that it is
other misdemeanours on his part which he is bringing home—other reasons
for which he does not shrink from giving him pain—such candour produces
an irresistible effect, the sharpness and severity of the admonition
being intensified by the kindliness of the admonisher. Doubtless,
[Sidenote: C] as has been well said, ‘it is most of all when we are
angry or at variance with our friends that we should do or devise
something to their advantage or credit’; but we show no less true a
friendliness if, when we think ourselves slighted or neglected, it is on
behalf of other victims of neglect that we give them a plain-spoken
reminder. Plato, at a time when his relations with Dionysius were
strained and dubious, asked for an interview. Dionysius granted it, in
the belief that Plato was coming with a tale of grievance of his own.
The conversation, however, took the following shape. ‘Suppose,
Dionysius, you discovered [Sidenote: D] that some ill-disposed person
had made a voyage to Sicily with the intention of doing you an injury,
but that he could find no opportunity. Would you allow him to leave the
country and get away scot-free?’ ‘Certainly not, Plato,’ said Dionysius:
‘enemies must be hated and punished not only for what they do, but for
what they propose to do.’ ‘Then suppose,’ said Plato, ‘some one comes
here in a friendly spirit, with the intention of rendering you a
service, but that you afford him no chance. Is it a proper thing to cast
him aside with ingratitude and contempt?’ Upon Dionysius asking who it
was, he answered, ‘Aeschines, a man who, in rightness of character, will
compare with any of Socrates’ associates, and whose teaching cannot fail
to set any hearer firmly on his feet. Though he has [Sidenote: E] made a
long voyage for the sake of philosophic intercourse with you, he has
been left in neglect.’ These words stirred Dionysius so deeply that, in
admiration of his kindliness and magnanimity, he promptly embraced Plato
with effusion and proceeded to pay to Aeschines the most distinguished
attentions.

In the second place, our candour must be cleared of all excrescences, so
to speak. We must allow it no coarse flavourings in the shape of
insulting ridicule or buffoonish mockery. When a surgeon is performing
an operation, a certain ease and neatness [Sidenote: F] should be
incidentally apparent in his work, but there should be no supple
juggleries of the hand in the way of fantastic and risky _fioriture_. In
the same way candour admits of a dexterous touch of wit, so long as it
is so prettily put as to maintain our respect; but impertinent and
insolent buffoonery utterly destroys that feeling. Hence the harpist
chose a polite as well as a forcible way of stopping Philip’s mouth,
when that monarch attempted to argue with him on a question of musical
note. ‘Sire,’ said he, ‘Heaven forbid you should ever become so badly
off as to know more about these things than I do!’ [Sidenote: 68]
Epicharmus, on the other hand, chose the wrong way, when Hiero, a few
days after putting some of his familiars to death, invited him to
dinner. ‘Nay, but,’ said he, ‘the other day there was no invitation to
your sacrifice of your friends.’[53] It was also a mistake for Antiphon,
when the question: ‘What sort of bronze is the best?’ was under
discussion in the presence of Dionysius, to say, ‘That kind out of which
they made the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton at Athens.’ No good
is done by the stinging bitterness of such speeches, nor is any pleasure
given by their scurrilous pleasantry. Language of the [Sidenote: B] kind
comes only from a want of self-command—which is partly insolent
ill-nature—combined with enmity. Those who use it are courting their own
destruction as well; they are veritably dancing a ‘dance at the well’s
edge’. Antiphon was put to death by Dionysius; Timagenes was banished
from Caesar’s friendship, not because of any free word he ever uttered,
but because, at dinner-parties or when walking, he would perpetually and
with no serious purpose whatever, but

      _For whatsoever him thought might move the Argives to laughter_,

advance some charge against his conduct as a friend, merely by way of
pretext for upbraiding him.

It is the same with the comic poets. Their work contained many serious
and statesmanlike appeals to the audience; but [Sidenote: C] these were
so much mixed up with farce and ribaldry—like good food in a hotch-potch
of greenstuff—that their plain-speaking lost all nutritive power and
use, with the result that the speaker was looked upon as an ill-natured
buffoon, and the hearer derived no benefit from the speech.

In other cases by all means have your fun and laugh with your friends,
but when you give them a piece of your mind, let it be done with
earnestness and with courtesy. And if the matter is one of importance,
impart a cogent and moving effect to your words by your emotions,
gestures, and tone of voice.

There is also the question of the right moment. To disregard it is in
all cases a serious mistake, but is particularly ruinous to good results
when you are ‘speaking your mind’. That we should beware of doing
anything of the kind when wine and inebriation are to the fore, is
obvious. It is to bring a cloud [Sidenote: D] over the bright sky, if,
in the midst of fun and gaiety, you moot a topic which puckers the brow
and stiffens the face, as if to defeat the ‘Relaxing God’, who—to quote
Pindar—

                    _Unbends the harassed brow of care._

Nay, there is actually great danger in such unseasonableness. Wine
renders the mind perilously testy, and tipsiness often takes command of
candour and converts it into enmity. Moreover, instead of showing spirit
and courage, it shows a want of manliness for a person who dare not
speak his mind when sober to become bold at table, like a cowardly dog.

There is, however, no need to dwell further upon this theme. Let us
proceed.

There are many who, when affairs are going well with their [Sidenote: E]
friends, neither make any claim nor possess the courage to put restraint
upon them. Prosperity, they think, lies quite beyond the reach of
admonition. But should one stumble and come to grief, they set upon him.
He is tame and humbled, and they trample upon him. The stream of their
candour has been unnaturally dammed up, and now they let the whole flood
loose upon him. He was once so disdainful, and they so feeble, that they
thoroughly enjoy his change of fortune and make the most of it. It is as
well, therefore, to discuss this class also.

If Euripides asks:

             _When fortune blesses, what the need of friends?_

the answer must be that it is the prosperous man who has most [Sidenote:
F] need of friends to speak their minds and take down any excess of
pride. There are few who can be both prosperous and wise at the same
time. Most men require to import wisdom from abroad; they require that
reasoning from outside should put compression upon them when fortune
puffs them up and sets them swaying in the wind. But when fortune
reduces their inflated bulk, the situation itself carries its own lesson
and brings repentance home. There is consequently no occasion for
friendly candour or for language which bites and distresses. When such
reverses happen, verily [Sidenote: 69]

              _’Tis sweet to look into a friend’s fond eyes_,

while he gives us solace and encouragement. Xenophon says of Clearchus
that in battle and danger there appeared upon his face a look of
geniality which put greater heart into those who were in peril. But to
employ your mordant candour upon a man who is in trouble, is like
administering ‘sharp-sight drops’ to an eye suffering with inflammation.
It does nothing to cure or relieve the pain, but only adds anger to it
by exasperating [Sidenote: B] the sufferer. For instance, when a man is
in health he is not in the least angry or furious with a friend for
blaming his looseness with the other sex, his drinking, his shirking of
work and exercise, his continual bathings and ill-timed gorgings. But
when he is sick, the thing is intolerable. It is more sickening than the
disease to be told, ‘This is the result of your reckless
self-indulgence, your laziness, your rich dishes, and your women.’ ‘What
an unseasonable man you are! I am writing my will; the doctors are
getting castor and scammony ready for me; and you come preaching and
philosophizing!’ So, when a man is in trouble, the situation is not one
for speaking your mind and moralizing. What it requires is sweet
reasonableness [Sidenote: C] and help. When a little child has a fall,
the nurse does not rush up in order to scold it. She picks it up, washes
off the dirt, and straightens its dress. It is afterwards that she
proceeds to reprimand and punish.

An apposite story is told of Demetrius Phalereus, when he was in
banishment and was living at Thebes in mean and obscure circumstances.
It was with no pleasure that he saw Crates coming towards him, inasmuch
as he expected to hear some plain-spoken cynic abuse. Crates, however,
accosted him gently, and then spoke upon the subject of exile—how there
was no calamity in it, and how little need there was to be distressed,
[Sidenote: D] since it meant getting rid of cares, with their dangers
and uncertainties. At the same time he urged him to have confidence in
himself and his inner man. Cheered and heartened by such language,
Demetrius exclaimed to his friends: ‘Alas, for all that engrossing
business which prevented me from getting to know a man like this!’

             _To one in grief a friend should speak kind words,
             But to great folly words of admonition._

Such is the way of a noble friend. But the mean and ignoble flatterer of
the prosperous man is like those ‘ruptures and [Sidenote: E] sprains’ of
which Demosthenes tells us that ‘when the body meets with an injury,
then you begin to feel them’. He seizes upon your change of fortune with
every appearance of delight and enjoyment. If you do require any
reminder when your own ill-advised conduct has brought you to the
ground, it should suffice to say:

    _’Twas not with approval of mine: full oft did I seek to dissuade
       thee._

In what cases, then, ought a friend to be uncompromising? When should he
exert his candour to the full? It is when the proper moment calls for
him to stem the vehement course of pleasure, anger, or insolence; to put
the curb on avarice; to [Sidenote: F] restrain a reckless folly. It was
in this way that, when the precarious favours of fortune had corrupted
Croesus with the pride of luxury, Solon spoke his mind to him, bidding
him wait and see the end. It was in this way that Socrates was wont to
put control on Alcibiades, to wrench his heart and draw genuine tears
from him by bringing his errors home. Such was the method of Cyrus with
Cyaxares. Such too, when Dion’s splendour was at its height and he was
drawing all men’s eyes upon him by the brilliance and greatness of his
exploits, was [Sidenote: 70] the method of Plato, who bade him keep
anxious watch against

                    _Self-will, house-mate of Solitude._

Speusippus also urged Dion in his letters not to be proud because he had
a great name among children and women-folk, but to take care and ‘make
glorious’ the Academy by adorning Sicily with piety and justice and the
best of laws. But not so Euctus and Eulaeus, the associates of Perseus.
In his prosperity they followed him like the rest, always assenting,
always complaisant. But when he met the Romans at Pydna, was defeated,
and fled, they attacked him with bitter censure, reminding him of his
errors and oversights and throwing them one after the other in his
teeth, until the man became so utterly sore and [Sidenote: B] angry that
he made an end of both by stabbing them with his dagger.

This, then, may serve for the general rule as to place and time.

But opportunities are often offered by a man himself, and no one who
cares for his friend should let these occasions slip or omit to use
them. Sometimes a question asked, a story told, blame or praise of a
similar action in the case of other people, gives you the cue for a
piece of plain-speaking. For instance, the story goes that Demaratus
visited Macedonia at a time when [Sidenote: C] Philip was at variance
with his wife and son. Upon Philip welcoming him and inquiring how far
the Greeks were in harmony with each other, Demaratus—who was his
well-wisher and intimate friend—remarked, ‘It becomes you excellently,
Philip, to be asking about the harmonious relations of Athens and the
Peloponnese, while you allow your own house to be so full of feud and
discord.’ A good hit was also made by Diogenes. Philip was on his way to
fight the Greeks, and Diogenes, who had entered the camp, was brought
before him. Philip, being unacquainted with him, asked him if he was a
spy. ‘Certainly I am,’ he replied. ‘I am a spy upon the short-sighted
foolishness which induces you to come, without any compulsion, and risk
[Sidenote: D] your throne and person upon the cast of a single hour.’
This, however, was perhaps somewhat too forcible.

Another good opportunity for admonition occurs when a man has been
abused for his mistakes by some one else and is feeling small and
humbled. A person of discretion will make a happy use of the occasion by
sending the abusive parties to the right about and himself taking his
friend in hand, reminding him that, if there is no other reason for
being careful, he should at least give his enemies no encouragement.
‘How can they open their mouths or say another word, if you cast aside
once for [Sidenote: E] all these faults for which they abuse you?’ By
this means the abuser gets the credit of the pain, and the admonisher
that of the benefit.

Some are more subtle. They convert their familiar friends by blaming
some one else, accusing others of the things they know that those
friends do. Once at a lecture in the afternoon our professor, Ammonius,
aware that some of his class had not lunched as simply as they might,
ordered his freedman to give his own boy a whipping, on the charge that
‘he must have vinegar with his lunch’. Meanwhile the glance he threw at
us brought the reproach home to the guilty parties.

In the next place, we should be cautious of speaking plainly to a friend
before company. Remember the case of Plato. [Sidenote: F] Socrates
having handled one of his associates somewhat vigorously in conversation
at table, Plato remarked, ‘Would it not have been better if this had
been said in private?’ ‘And,’ retorted Socrates, ‘would you not have
done better if you had said that to _me_ in private?’ The story goes
that, when Pythagoras once dealt rather roughly with a pupil before a
number of persons, the youth hanged himself, and from that time
Pythagoras never again reproved anyone in another’s presence. A fault
should be treated like a humiliating complaint. The uncovering and
[Sidenote: 71] prescribing should be secret, not an ostentatious display
to a gathering of witnesses or spectators. It is not the act of a
friend, but of a sophist, to use another’s slips to glorify oneself,
showing off before the company like those medical men who perform
surgical operations in the theatre in order to advertise themselves. And
apart from the insult—which has no right to accompany any curative
treatment—we have to consider the contentiousness and obstinacy of a man
in the wrong. Not merely is it the case that—as Euripides has it—

                                 _Love, when reproved,
                     Is but more tyrannous_,

[Sidenote: B] but if you make no scruple about offering reproof in
public, you drive any moral disease or passion into becoming shameless.
Plato insists that, if old men are to inculcate reverence in the young,
they must themselves first show reverence towards the young. In the same
way the friendly candour which most abashes is that which itself feels
abashed. Let it be gently and considerately that you approach and handle
the offender; then you undermine and destroy his vice, since regard is
contagiously felt where regard is shown. Excellent, therefore, is the
notion:

    _Putting his head close down, to the end that the rest should not
       hear it._

[Sidenote: C] Least propriety of all is there in exposing a husband in
the hearing of the wife, a father before the eyes of his children, a
lover in the presence of the beloved, or a teacher in that of his
pupils. He becomes frantic; so sore and angry is he at being set right
before persons in whose eyes he is all anxiety to shine. When Cleitus
enraged Alexander, it was, I imagine, not so much the fault of the wine
as that he appeared to be humbling him before a large company. Another
case is that of Aristomenes, the tutor[54] of Ptolemy. Once, when an
embassy was in the room, Ptolemy fell asleep and Aristomenes gave him a
hit to wake him up. The flatterers seized the opportunity, and affected
to be indignant on the king’s behalf. ‘If,’ said [Sidenote: D] they,
‘you did drop off, thanks to hard work and want of sleep, we ought to
set you right privately, not lay hands on you before so many people.’ As
the result, he sent Aristomenes a cup of poison and ordered him to drink
it off. Aristophanes also tells us how Cleon tried to exasperate the
Athenians against him by making it a charge that he

                  _Abused the country before foreigners._

This, then, is another of the mistakes to be avoided, if your desire is
not so much to make a self-advertising display as to make your candour
produce helpful and healing results.

In the next place, your plain-speaker ought to bear in mind [Sidenote:
E] the principle which Thucydides makes the Corinthians so properly
express, in saying that they ‘had a right to find fault’ with others. It
was Lysander, I believe, who said to the man from Megara, when he was
delivering himself at the Federal Council concerning the interests of
Greece, ‘You need a country to back your talk.’ In any case, doubtless,
you need character for plain-speaking, but in no case is this so true as
when you are admonishing and lecturing other people. Plato used to say
that it was by his life he admonished Speusippus, and the mere sight of
Xenocrates at lecture, and a glance from him, [Sidenote: F] sufficed to
convert Polemon to better ways. When we lack weight and strength of
character the result of any attempt at plain-speaking on our part is to
draw upon ourselves the words:

                _Why physic us, thyself one mass of sores?_

Nevertheless it often happens that, though a man’s own character is as
weak as that of his neighbour, circumstances drive him to administer
reproof. In that case the civillest behaviour is to contrive somehow to
imply that the speaker is included in the reproach. In this tone are the
words:

      _Tydeus’ son, what ails us, forgetting our prowess and valour?_

[Sidenote: 72] and:

               _But no match are we now for Hector alone...._

Socrates’ way of quietly setting young men right was of the same kind.
He would not be taken as being himself free from ignorance, but as
feeling it a duty to share with them in the cultivation of virtue and
the quest of truth. We inspire affection and confidence when it is
thought that, being equally to blame, we are applying to our friends the
same correction as to ourselves. But if, when rebuking your neighbour,
you put on the superior air of a flawless and passionless being, unless
you are much the senior or possess an acknowledged eminence of character
and reputation, you do no good and only make yourself [Sidenote: B]
offensive and a nuisance. For this reason, when Phoenix introduced the
story of his own misfortunes—how in anger he set to work to kill his
father, but speedily repented:

    _Lest the Achaeans should name me ‘the man who murdered his
       father’_—

it was of set purpose, that it might not seem as if, in reproving
Achilles, he claimed to be an impeccable person whom anger had no power
to corrupt. In such cases the moral effect sinks in, since we yield more
readily to a show of fellow-feeling than to one of contempt.

Another point. Since a mind diseased can no more bear unqualified
candour and reproof than an inflamed eye can [Sidenote: C] be submitted
to a brilliant light, one most useful resource among our remedies is to
add a slight tincture of praise. For example:

    _Ugly is this that ye do, to cease from your valour and prowess,
    All ye best of the host! I would not move me to quarrel,
    If ’twere some other who thus might hold his hand from the fighting,
    Some craven man; but with you is my heart exceedingly anger’d_:

or:

        _Pandarus, where is thy bow, and where thy feathery arrows?
        Where thy glory, the which no man among us doth challenge?_

If a man is giving way, there is also a vigorous rallying power in such
language as

                                          _Where now
                  Is Oedipus and all his far-famed rede?_

or:

                                        _Is ‘t Heracles,
              He who hath borne so many a brunt, speaks thus?_

Not only does it temper the harshness of the punishment [Sidenote: D]
inflicted by the reproach; it sets a man at rivalry with himself. When
reminded of the things which stand to his credit, he is ashamed of those
which degrade him, and he finds an elevating example in his own person.
But when we make comparisons with others—with mates, fellow citizens, or
kinsmen—the contentiousness which belongs to his failings is piqued and
exacerbated. It has a habit of retorting angrily, ‘Then why don’t you go
to my betters, instead of harassing _me_?’ We must therefore beware of
belauding one person while we are speaking our minds to another—always,
of course, with the exception of his parents. Thus Agamemnon can say:

        _Truly, a son little like to himself hath Tydeus begotten_;

[Sidenote: E] or Odysseus, when in Scyrus:

             _But thou o’ersham’st the brilliance of thy race,
             Wool-spinner! thou, whose sire was Greece’s hero!_

By no means should we use reproof to answer reproof, or plain-speaking
in counter-attack to plain-speaking. Otherwise we quickly produce heat
and create a quarrel. Moreover, such disputatiousness is naturally
regarded, not as a return of candour, [Sidenote: F] but as intolerance
of it. It is better, therefore, to listen with a good grace when a
friend believes he is reproving you. For this, if at a later time some
offence of his own calls for reprobation, is the very thing which gives
your plain-speaking its right—as it were—to speak. When, without bearing
any grudge, you remind him that it has not been his own habit to let his
friends go wrong, but to teach them better and set them right, he will
be the more ready to give in and accept the proffered correction; for he
will believe that it is good feeling and good intention, not anger and
fault-finding, which prompt this payment in return.

[Sidenote: 73] In the next place, remember the saying of Thucydides:
‘Well advised is he who accepts unpopularity in a great cause.’ It is
the duty of a friend to accept the odium of reproof when questions of
great moment are at stake. But if he is everywhere and always being
displeased; if he behaves to his intimates as if he were their tutor and
not their friend, his reproofs will possess no edge and produce no
effect when it comes to matters of importance. He will have frittered
away his candour, after the manner of a physician who takes a pungent or
bitter drug [Sidenote: B] of a sovereign and costly character, and
parcels it out in a large number of petty doses for which there is no
necessity. No! while a friend will, for his own part, carefully avoid
such unremitting censoriousness, the incessant niggling and pettifogging
of some other person will afford him an opening to attack those faults
which are more serious. Once when a man with an ulcerated liver showed
the physician Philotimus a sore on his finger, the doctor observed, ‘My
good sir, your case is not a matter of a whitlow!’ So when some one is
finding fault with a number of insignificant peccadilloes, the real
friend will be offered the opportunity of saying to him, ‘What have his
tippling and foolery to do with us? My good sir, let our friend here
dismiss his mistress or stop dicing, and he is otherwise an admirable
fellow.’ If a man finds that allowance is made [Sidenote: C] for his
trifling errors, he will take it in good part when a friend speaks his
mind against those which are of more moment. But to be everlastingly
girding, to be bitter and harsh on all occasions, to be continually
meddling and taking cognisance of every action, is intolerable even to a
child or a brother, nay, unendurable even to a slave.

Again, it is no more true of the folly of our friends than it is—despite
Euripides—of old age, that

                      _All things are wrong with it._

Our friends have their right actions, and we should keep an eye upon
these no less than upon their errors. We should, in fact, begin by
zealously praising them. In dealing with iron we have first to soften it
with heat before the chilling process [Sidenote: D] can impart to it the
consistency and hardness of steel. So with our friends. First we warm
and fuse them with praise; then a quiet application of candour serves as
a tempering douche. We have, for instance, the opportunity of saying,
‘Is there any comparison between the other conduct and this? Do you see
what good fruit comes of doing the right thing? This is what your
friends expect of you; it is like you, and what nature meant you for.
The other conduct is abominable; away with it

     _To the mountain or to the wave of the surging tumultuous ocean!_‘

A sensible physician will always rather cure a sick man with sleep and
feeding than with castor and scammony; and a right-minded friend, or a
kind father or teacher, prefers to use praise [Sidenote: E] rather than
blame as his means of moral correction. For a candid friend to cause
least pain and work most benefit, there is nothing like showing the
least possible anger and treating the offender with polite good feeling.
We must not, therefore, sharply confute him if he denies a thing, nor
try to stop him if he defends himself. On the contrary, we must help him
to contrive some kind of plausible excuse; and, when he refuses to own
to the more discreditable motive, we must ourselves concede him a less
heinous one. Thus Hector says to his brother:

    _Not well is this wrath, foolish man, that thus thou hast stored in
       thy bosom_,

[Sidenote: F] as if his retirement from the battle, instead of being a
dastardly running away, was an exhibition of temper. So Nestor to
Agamemnon:

               _Thou didst yield to the pride of thy spirit._

It is manifestly more courteous to say, ‘You did not stop to think,’ or,
‘You failed to perceive,’ than ‘You behaved badly’, or ‘You behaved
unfairly’; to say, ‘Do not be hard upon [Sidenote: 74] your brother,’
than ‘Do not be jealous of your brother’; to say, ‘Flee from the woman’s
seductions,’ than ‘Stop trying to seduce the woman’. This is the manner
cultivated by curative [Sidenote: *] candour; the other belongs to
vexatious candour.

Suppose a person is about to do wrong and that we are called upon to
check him—to stem the current of some vehement impulse. Or suppose that
he is inclined to be unready in the performance of duty, and we wish to
brace him up and stimulate him. We should do so by making charges which
put the matter in an outrageously unbecoming light. For instance, in
Sophocles, when Odysseus is working upon Achilles, he makes out, not
that Achilles is angry at the affair of the banquet, but [Sidenote: B]

              _Now that thou hast the Trojan burghs in sight,
              Thou art afraid._

And when, in answer to this, Achilles is so enraged that he declares he
is off home:

                _I know what ’tis thou flyest—not reproach:
                Hector is nigh, and ’tis not well to stay._

In inciting to high courses and dissuading from low ones, we may
frighten a man with the reputation he will win: a man of courage and
spirit with that of coward; a man of temperance and self-control with
that of profligate; a man of magnificent generosity with that of miser
and cheeseparer. Where a thing is past cure, we must show ourselves
reasonable; our candour [Sidenote: C] must display more sorrow and
sympathy than blame. But when we are preventing a misdeed or fighting
against a passion, we must be vigorous, inflexible, and insistent. Then
is the right moment for incorruptible affection and genuine frankness.

To blame an action when it is done is no more than we find enemies doing
to each other. Diogenes used to say that, if you are to be kept right,
you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will
warn you, the other will expose you. But it is better to avoid errors by
taking advice than to repent of an error because of abuse. For this
reason [Sidenote: D] we must study tact even in the matter of candour.
As it is the most effective drug that can be employed in friendship, so
it stands in most need of unfailing discretion as to time and moderation
as to strength.

And, finally, since, as I have said, it is in the nature of
plain-speaking that it should often cause pain to the person under
treatment, we must take a pattern by the medical man. He does not use
his lancet and then leave the part to suffer; he eases it with gentle
lotions and fomentations. Similarly, if our admonitions are to be
tactful, we do not administer a sharp sting and then run away. We adopt
a different strain, and soothe [Sidenote: E] and calm the patient with
courteous language, much as sculptors put smoothness and gloss upon a
statue where they have chipped it with hammer and chisel. If we strike
and gash a man with plain-speaking and then leave him in the rough—lumpy
and uneven with anger—it is a hard matter afterwards to call him back
and smooth him over. This, therefore, is a result against which the
admonisher must be especially on his guard. He must not leave the
patient too soon, nor allow the last words of his conversation to be
such as pain and exasperate his intimate friend.

Footnote 48:

  i.e. a rough and mountainous island.

Footnote 49:

  A ‘satyric’ drama was a half-comic interlude or sequel to tragedies.

Footnote 50:

  In the Stoic sense of _adiaphoria_.

Footnote 51:

  Since diagrams were often drawn with sticks in the dust.

Footnote 52:

  The Greek jest does not admit of translation. The same word may mean
  both ‘theft’ and a ‘stealthy act’.

Footnote 53:

  The point lies in an ambiguity which is possible only in the Greek.
  The words may equally mean: ‘You issued no invitation when sacrificing
  your friends,’ and ‘when sacrificing, you did not invite your
  friends’.

Footnote 54:

  Or what French would call the _gouverneur_.




                        ON BRINGING UP A BOY[55]


I propose to offer some remarks upon the bringing-up of [Sidenote: 1]
free-born children, as a means of securing soundness of character.

Perhaps the best starting-point is that at which they are brought into
existence.

Upon one who desires to become the father of reputable [Sidenote: B]
children I would urge that he should be careful as to his consort. She
must be no mistress or concubine. Base birth, whether on mother’s or
father’s side, is an indelible reproach. It sticks to a man all the days
of his life; it offers a handle to those who are minded to discredit or
vilify him; and it is a wise saying of the poet that

                  _When the foundation of a stock is laid
                  Amiss, needs must the issue be unhappy_.

A sure fund of confidence for facing the world lies therefore in
honourable birth, and this must be a first consideration with all who
are anxious for a right and proper procreation of children.

It is quite natural that those whose birth is of base metal which will
not bear scrutiny should tend to be weak-spirited and abject. The poet
is quite right in saying: [Sidenote: C]

               _It slaves a man, stout-hearted though he be,
               To know his mother or his father base._

It is no doubt equally the case that persons of distinguished parentage
become full of pride and self-assertion. Thus Themistocles’ son,
Diophantus, is reported to have said on many occasions and to many
persons that he had only to wish for a thing and the Athenian people
voted for it. ‘What he liked, [Sidenote: D] his mother liked; what his
mother liked, Themistocles liked; and what Themistocles liked, all
Athens liked.’

A most praiseworthy pride was that exhibited by the Lacedaemonians, when
they mulcted their own king Archidamus for condescending to marry a
woman of small stature, their plea being that he intended to provide
them with kinglets instead of kings.

In this connexion there is one observation which my predecessors also
have duly made. It is that those who approach their wives with a view to
offspring should do so either while wholly abstaining from wine or at
least after tasting it in moderation. [Sidenote: 2] This explains the
remark of Diogenes on seeing a youth in a state of mad excitement:
‘Young fellow, your father begat you when he was drunk.’

So much for the question of birth. We will now turn to that of
upbringing.

Speaking generally, we must say of virtue what it is customary to say of
the arts and sciences—that for right action three things must go
together, namely, nature, reason, and habit. By reason I mean
instruction; by habit I mean exercise. The [Sidenote: B] first elements
come from nature; progress, from instruction; the actual use, from
practice; the consummation, from all combined. In so far as any of these
is defective, character must necessarily be maimed. Nature without
instruction is blind; instruction without nature is futile; practice
without both is abortive. In farming, the soil must first be good; next,
the farmer must know his business; third, the seeds must be sound.
Similarly with education. Nature is the soil, the teacher is the farmer,
[Sidenote: C] the lessons and precepts are the seed. It may be
confidently asserted that all three were harmoniously blended in the
souls of those men whose renown is universal—Pythagoras, Socrates,
Plato, and others who have won imperishable glory.

Blest indeed, and divinely favoured, is the man on whom Heaven has
bestowed each and all. Yet it would be a great, or rather a total,
mistake to suppose that, when natural gift is defective, no right moral
instruction and practice will lead one to improve his faulty nature in
some attainable degree. For while neglect will ruin an excellent natural
gift, teaching will correct an inferior one. Be careless, and you miss a
thing, however easy: take pains, and you secure it, however difficult.
You have only to glance at a number of everyday facts in order
[Sidenote: D] to perceive how complete is the success of persistent
effort. Drops of water will hollow a rock; iron and bronze are worn away
by the touch of the hands; wood bent by pressure into a carriage-wheel
can never recover its original straightness. To straighten the curved
sticks used by actors is impossible, the unnatural form having become,
by dint of straining, stronger than the natural.

Nor are these the only examples to prove the efficacy of painstaking.
Instances are countless. Soil may be naturally [Sidenote: E] good; but
neglect it, and it becomes a waste. Indeed, the better it is by nature,
the more hopeless a wilderness will your neglect make of it. On the
other hand, it may be too hard and rugged; yet cultivation will speedily
cause it to produce excellent crops. Is there any tree which will not
grow crooked and cease to bear fruit if left untended, whereas, when
properly trained, it bears well and brings its fruit to perfection? Does
not bodily strength invariably become effete when you take your ease and
neglect to keep in good condition, whereas a feeble physique gains
immensely in strength through gymnastic and athletic exercise? Is there
any horse which a rider cannot render obedient by [Sidenote: F] a
thorough breaking-in, whereas, if left unbroken, it will prove
stiff-necked and full of temper?

But why dwell longer on such cases, when there are so many examples of
the most savage creatures being tamed and made amenable to hard work?

When a Thessalian was asked which of his countrymen were the gentlest in
manner, his answer was a good one: _Those who are giving up war._ But it
is useless to multiply instances. Character is long-standing habit, and
it would scarcely be beside [Sidenote: 3] the mark to speak of the
virtues of the mind as the virtues ‘of minding’.[56] One more
illustration, and we will dispense with further elaboration of the
subject. The Spartan legislator Lycurgus once took two puppies belonging
to the same parents and brought them up in entirely different ways. The
one he turned into a gluttonous good-for-nothing, the other into a keen
and capable hunting-dog. Subsequently he got the Lacedaemonians together
and said to them: ‘A great factor [Sidenote: B] in engendering virtue
consists of habit and education—of instruction in the conduct of life—as
I am about to prove to you here and now.’ He then brought forward the
two young dogs, put down directly in front of them a plate of food and a
hare, and let the dogs loose; whereupon the one darted after the hare,
while the other made for the plate. The Lacedaemonians, who were not yet
in the secret, failed to perceive the meaning of his demonstration,
until he told them: ‘Both these dogs come from the same parents, but the
difference in their education has turned the one into a glutton and the
other into a hunter.’

No more need be said of habit and conduct of life. We may [Sidenote: C]
proceed to the question of nurture.

In my opinion mothers should nurse their own children and offer them the
breast; for their nursing will be of a more sympathetic and painstaking
kind, since their love is from the heart, or, as the saying goes, ‘down
to the finger-tips,’ whereas the affection of professional nurses and
foster-mothers—who are paid for it—can only be spurious and factitious.
That it is the duty of the mother herself to suckle and nurse her
offspring is evident from the arrangement of nature, which has supplied
every animal after parturition with the necessary provision of milk.
Here Providence further shows its wisdom, inasmuch as it has furnished a
woman with a pair of breasts, [Sidenote: D] so that, even if she bears
twins, there may be a double source for them to draw upon. Moreover she
will by so acting become more tender and affectionate to her child. It
can, indeed, scarcely be otherwise; the connexion of nurse and nursling
is the means of raising affection to its highest pitch. One can see how
even a brute beast will yearn for its nursling, if you tear them apart.

If possible, then, the mother should endeavour to nurse the child
herself. But if—as may sometimes happen—she is prevented by physical
weakness, or if other children are speedily on the way, it is at least
desirable not to accept as foster-mother or nurse the first that offers,
but to choose the best possible. [Sidenote: E] To begin with, her
character should be Greek. It is as with the treatment of the body. As
soon as children are born, we have to mould their limbs in order that
they may grow straight and shapely. Similarly their characters ought to
be regulated from the first. For youth is supple and plastic, and it is
while the mind is still soft and yielding that it acts as a mould for
instruction, whereas it is always difficult to knead into shape
[Sidenote: F] anything hard. As it is in soft wax that we make the
impression of a seal, so it is in the minds of those who are still
little children that we imprint a lesson.

That great thinker Plato is right, it seems to me, in exhorting a nurse
to use discretion in the tales she tells to young children; otherwise
their minds may become infected from the first with folly and
corruption. It is also sound advice which the poet Phocylides gives in
the words:

                         _While yet but a child, it behoveth
               To learn such deeds as are good._

Another point which we cannot afford to omit concerns the slave children
who are to serve the young master and to be brought up with him. Pains
must be taken, first, of course, that [Sidenote: 4] they shall be
well-behaved, but also that they shall talk Greek, and talk it with good
articulation. Otherwise, through rubbing against barbarians and bad
characters, he will pick up something of their vices. The proverb-makers
have good reason for saying: _If you have a lame man for a neighbour,
you will learn to limp._

When children reach the age to be put under a mentor, it becomes
especially necessary to take pains in the appointment of such a person.
Otherwise we shall have them entrusted to some uncivilized or rascally
fellow. What actually happens [Sidenote: B] is often in the highest
degree absurd. Respectable slaves are made into farmers, skippers,
traders, stewards, or money-lenders, while any low specimen who is found
to be a glutton and a tippler and of no use in any kind of business is
taken and put in charge of the sons. A fit and proper attendant should
possess the same qualities of mind as Phoenix, the attendant of
Achilles.

We now reach a topic more important and vital than any yet treated—that
of the right teachers for our children. The kind to be sought for are
those whose lives are irreproachable, whose characters are unimpugned,
and whose skill and experience [Sidenote: C] are of the best. The root
or fountain-head of character as a man and a gentleman lies in receiving
the proper education. As farmers put stakes beside their plants, so the
right kind of teacher provides firm support for the young in the shape
of lessons and admonitions, carefully chosen so as to produce an upright
growth of character.

As things are, the behaviour of some fathers is contemptible. Before
making inquiry as to the proposed teachers, they put their children into
the hands of frauds and charlatans, without knowing what they are about,
or, maybe, because they are not competent to judge. In the latter case
their behaviour is not so ridiculous, but there is another case in which
it is in the last degree absurd. I mean, when they know, either from
their own [Sidenote: D] observation or from the accounts of others, how
ignorant and [Sidenote: *] bad certain educators are, and yet entrust
their children to them. Sometimes this is because they cannot resist the
fawning of some obsequious flatterer; sometimes it is done to gratify
the whim of a friend. It would be just as reasonable for a sick man to
gratify a friend by rejecting the doctor whose science could save him,
and preferring the ignoramus who will kill him; or for a man to dismiss
the best ship’s-captain and appoint the worst, because a friend asked
for it. In the name of all that is sacred, can any one called a ‘father’
set the pleasing of [Sidenote: E] somebody who asks a favour above the
education of his children? There was good sense in a frequent saying of
famous old Socrates, ‘If it could be done, one ought to mount the
loftiest part of the city and shout: _Good people, what are you after?
Why in such deadly earnest about making money, while troubling so little
about the sons to whom you are to leave it?_’ We may add that the
conduct of such fathers is like that of a man who is anxious as to his
shoe, while his foot may look after itself. Many fathers go to such
lengths in the way of fondness for their money and [Sidenote: F] want of
fondness for their children, that, to avoid paying a larger fee, they
choose utterly worthless persons to educate their sons, their object
being an inexpensive ignorance. This reminds one of Aristippus and his
neat and witty repartee to a foolish father. Questioned as to what fee
he asked for educating the child, he replied, ‘Forty pounds.’ ‘Good
heavens!’ said the father: ‘What an extravagant demand! For forty pounds
I can buy a slave.’ ‘Very well,’ was the answer: ‘then you [Sidenote: 5]
will have two slaves—your son, and the one you buy.’

To put it shortly, it is surely absurd to train little children to
receive their food with the right hand, and to scold them if they put
out the left, and yet to take no precautions that they shall be taught
moral lessons of a sound and proper kind.

What the consequence is to these admirable fathers, when they bring up
their sons badly and educate them badly, is soon told. On coming of age
and taking rank as men, the sons show an utter disregard of a wholesome
and orderly life, and throw themselves headlong into low and irregular
pleasures. Then [Sidenote: B] at last, when it is of no use, and when
their wrongdoing has brought him to his wits’ end, the father repents of
having sacrificed his children’s education. Some of them take up with
toadies and parasites, wretched nondescripts who are the ruin and bane
of youth; others with haughty and expensive mistresses and strumpets,
whom they ransom from their employers. Some spend recklessly on
gormandizing; some are wrecked upon dice and carousals; some go so far
as to venture on the more daring vices—they commit adultery, and think
death not too much [Sidenote: C] to pay for a single pleasure. Had these
last studied philosophy, they would in all probability not have
succumbed to temptation of this kind. They would have been told of the
advice of Diogenes—who, however coarse in his language, is right in his
facts—‘Go to a brothel, my boy, and you will find that the [Sidenote: *]
expensive article is not a bit better than the cheap one.’

In brief, then, I assert—and it would be fairer to regard me as
repeating an oracle than as giving advice—that in these matters the one
and essential thing, the first, middle, and last, is a sound upbringing
and right education. It is this, I say, which leads to virtue and
happiness.

[Sidenote: D] Other blessings are on the human plane; they are slight
and not worth serious pursuit. Good birth is a distinction, but the boon
depends on one’s ancestors. Wealth is a prize, but its possession
depends on fortune, which often carries it off from those who have it
and bestows it on those who never hoped for it. Moreover, great wealth
is a target exposed to any rogue of a servant or blackmailer who is
minded to ‘aim a purse’ at it. And, worst of all, even the basest of men
have their share of it. Fame, again, is imposing, but uncertain. Beauty,
though greatly courted, is short-lived; health, though highly prized, is
unstable; strength is a thing to be envied, but it falls an easy prey to
disease and age. Let us tell any one who prides himself [Sidenote: E] on
his bodily strength that he is manifestly under a delusion. How small a
fraction is human strength of the might of other animals, such as the
elephant, the bull, and the lion!

Meanwhile culture is the only thing in us that is immortal and divine.
In the nature of man there are two sovereign elements—understanding and
reason. It is the place of the understanding to direct the reason and of
the reason to serve the understanding. Fortune cannot overcome them,
calumny cannot rob us of them, disease cannot corrupt them, old age
cannot impair them. The understanding is the only thing that renews its
youth as it grows old, and, while time carries off everything else, it
brings old age one gift—that of knowledge. When, again, war comes like a
torrent, tearing and sweeping everything away, it is of our mental
culture alone that it cannot rob us. Stilpo, the Megarian philosopher,
made what seems a memorable answer when Demetrius, after enslaving the
city and razing it to the ground, asked him if he had lost anything. ‘O
no!’ said he, ‘for virtue is not made spoil of war.’ The reply of
Socrates is evidently to the same tune and purpose. [Sidenote: 6] It was
Gorgias, I believe, who asked him his opinion of the Great King, and
whether he considered him happy. ‘I have no knowledge,’ said Socrates,
‘as to the state of his character and culture.’ He assumed that
happiness depended upon these, and not upon the gifts of fortune.

Not only should the education of our children be treated as of the very
first importance, but I once more urge that we should insist upon its
being of the sound and genuine kind. From pretentious nonsense our sons
should be kept as far aloof [Sidenote: B] as possible. To please the
many is to displease the wise, an assertion in which I have the support
of Euripides:

              _I am not deft of words before the crowd,
              More skilled when with my compeers and the few.
              ’Tis compensation: they who ‘mid the wise
              Are naught, surpass in gift of speech to mobs._

My own observation tells me that persons who make a business of speaking
in a way to please and curry favour with the rabble, generally prove
correspondingly dissolute and pleasure-loving in their lives. Nor,
indeed, should we expect anything else; for if they have no regard to
propriety when catering for the [Sidenote: C] gratification of other
people, it is not likely that they will permit right and sound
principles to have the upper hand of their own voluptuous
self-indulgence, nor that they will cultivate self-control rather than
enjoyment.

[Sidenote: *] And how can children learn from them anything admirable?
Among admirable things is the practice of neither saying nor doing
anything at random; and, as the proverb goes, ‘admirable things are
difficult.’ Meanwhile, speeches made offhand are a mass of reckless
slovenliness, without a notion where to begin or where to end.

Apart from other faults, extempore speakers drop into a terrible
prolixity and verbiage, whereas premeditation keeps [Sidenote: D] a
speech safe within the lines of due proportion. When Pericles, ‘as
tradition informs us,’ was called upon by the assembly, he frequently
refused the call, on the ground that his thoughts were ‘not arranged’.
Demosthenes, who took him for his own political model, acted in the same
way. If the Athenians called upon him to address them, he would resist,
with the words, ‘I have not arranged my thoughts.’ This, it is true, may
be unauthentic and a fabrication; but in the speech against Meidias we
have an explicit statement as to the advantage of preparation. His words
are: ‘_I admit, gentlemen, that I come prepared; and I have no wish to
deny it. I have even conned over my speech to the best of my poor
ability. It would have been insane conduct, if, after and amid such
harsh treatment, I had paid no regard to what I meant to say to you on
the subject._’

That impromptu speaking should be rejected altogether, or, [Sidenote: E]
failing this, that it should be practised only on unimportant subjects,
I do not say. I am recommending a tonic regimen. Before manhood, I claim
that there should be no speaking on the spur of the moment. But when the
ability has taken firm root, it is only right for speech to enjoy free
play as occasion invites. Though persons who have been in prison for a
long time may subsequently be liberated, they are unsteady on their
feet, [Sidenote: F] a protracted habit of wearing chains making them
unable to step out. Similarly if those who have for a long time kept
their speaking under close constraint some day find it necessary to
speak offhand, they nevertheless retain the same style of expression.
But to let mere children make extempore speeches is to become
responsible for the worst of twaddle and futility. There is a story of a
wretched painter who showed Apelles a picture, with the remark, ‘I have
just painted this at one [Sidenote: 7] sitting.’ ‘I can see,’ said
Apelles, ‘without your telling me, that it has been quick work. But my
wonder is that you haven’t painted more than one as good.’

While (to return to the original matter in hand) we must be careful to
avoid a style which is theatrical and bombastic, we must be equally on
our guard against one which is low and trivial. If the turgid style is
unbusinesslike, too thin a style is ineffective. Just as the body should
be not only healthy but also in good condition, so language must be full
of strength [Sidenote: B] and not simply free from disease. Keep on the
safe side, and you are merely commended: face some risk, and you are
admired. I take the same view of the mental disposition also. One should
neither be over-bold, and so become brazen, nor yet timid and bashful,
and so become mean-spirited. The rule of art and taste is _The middle
course in all things_.

[Sidenote: *] While I am still upon the subject of this part of
education there is an opinion which I desire to express. A style
consisting of single clauses I regard in the first instance as no slight
evidence of poor taste, and, in the next, as too finical a thing ever to
[Sidenote: C] be maintained in practice. Here, as in everything else
that caters for ear or eye, monotony is as cloying and irksome as
variety is delightful.

There is no subject in the ‘regular curriculum’ of which the eye or ear
of a freeborn boy should be permitted to remain uninformed. But while he
receives a cursory education in those subjects in order to taste their
quality, the most important place—complete all-round proficiency being
impossible—must belong to philosophy. We may explain by a comparison
with [Sidenote: D] travel, in which it is an excellent thing to visit a
large number of cities, but good policy to settle in the best. As the
philosopher Bion wittily remarked, when the suitors could obtain no
access to Penelope they satisfied themselves with her handmaids, and
when a man is unable to get hold of philosophy he makes dry bones of
himself upon the remaining subjects, which are of no account.

Philosophy, then, should be put at the head of all mental culture. The
services which have been invented for the care of the body are
two—medicine and gymnastics—the one imparting health, the other good
condition. But for the weaknesses and ailments of the soul philosophy is
the only thing to be prescribed. It is from and with philosophy that we
can tell what is becoming or disgraceful, what is just or unjust,
[Sidenote: E] what course, in short, is to be chosen or shunned. It
teaches us how to behave towards the Gods, our parents, our elders, the
laws, our rulers, friends, wives, children, and servants: that we should
worship the Gods, honour our parents, respect our elders, obey the laws,
give way to our rulers, love our friends, be continent towards our
wives, show affection to our children, and abstain from cruelty to our
slaves. Above all, it warns us against excess of joy when prosperous and
excess of grief when unfortunate; against dissoluteness in our
pleasures, or fury and brutality in our anger. These I judge to be chief
among [Sidenote: F] the blessings conferred by philosophy. To bear
adversity nobly is to act the brave man,[57] to bear prosperity
unassumingly, the [Sidenote: *] modest mortal. To get the better of
pleasures by reason needs wisdom; to master anger requires no ordinary
character.

Perfect men I take to be those who can blend practical ability
[Sidenote: 8] with philosophy, and who can achieve both of two best and
greatest ends—the life of public utility as men of affairs, and the calm
and tranquil life as students of philosophy. For there are three kinds
of life: the life of action, the life of thought, and the life of
enjoyment. When life is dissolute and enslaved to pleasure, it is mean
and animal; when it is all thought and fails to act, it is futile; when
it is all action and destitute of philosophy, it is crude and
blundering. We should therefore do our best to engage both in public
business and in the pursuit [Sidenote: B] of philosophy, as occasion
offers. Of this kind was the public career of Pericles, of Archytas of
Tarentum, of Dion of Syracuse, and of Epaminondas of Thebes. Of these
Dion actually attached himself to Plato as his pupil.

There is no need, I think, to deal at any greater length with mental
cultivation. It is, however, further desirable—or rather it is
essential—that we should not neglect to possess the standard treatises,
but should collect a stock of them, with the result of keeping our
knowledge from starvation.[58] Farmers stock [Sidenote: *] [their
fertilizers], and the employment of books is instrumental to culture in
the same way.

[Sidenote: C] Meanwhile we must not omit to exercise the body also. Our
boys must be sent to the teacher of gymnastics and receive a sufficient
amount of physical training, both to secure a good carriage and also to
develop strength. Good condition is the foundation laid in childhood for
a hale old age, and, just as our preparations for wintry weather should
be made while it is fine, so we should store up provision for age in the
shape of regular and temperate behaviour in youth. Physical exertion
should, however, be so regulated that a boy does not become too
exhausted to devote himself sufficiently to mental culture. [Sidenote:
D] As Plato observes, sleep and weariness are the enemies of study.

Upon this topic I need not dwell, but will pass on at once to the most
important consideration of all—the necessity of training a boy for
service as a fighting-man. For this he must go through hard drill in
hurling the javelin, in shooting with the bow, and in hunting. ‘The
goods of the vanquished,’ it has been said, ‘are prizes offered to the
victor.’ There is no place in war for the physical condition of the
cloister, and a lean soldier accustomed to warlike exercises will break
through [Sidenote: *] a phalanx of fleshy prize-fighters.

[Sidenote: E] ‘Well but,’ some one may urge, ‘while you promised us a
set of rules for the upbringing of free men, it turns out that you have
nothing to say concerning that of poor and common people, but are
satisfied to confine your suggestions to the rich.’ There is a ready
reply to the objection. If possible, I should desire the proposed
education to be applicable to all alike. But if there are cases in which
limited private circumstances make it impossible to carry my rules into
practice, the blame should be laid upon fortune, not upon him who offers
the advice. Though a man is poor, he should make every possible effort
to bring up his children in the ideal way. Failing this, he must come as
near to it as he can.

After thus encumbering our discussion with this side-issue, [Sidenote:
F] I will now proceed with the connected account of such other
[Sidenote: *] matters as contribute to the right upbringing of the
young.

And first, children should be led into right practices of persuasion and
reasoning: flogging and bodily injury should be out of the question.
Such treatment is surely more fit for slaves than for the free, whom the
smart, or even the humiliation, of a beating deprives of all life and
spirit, making their tasks a horror to them. The freeborn find praise a
more effective [Sidenote: 9] stimulus to the right conduct, and blame a
more effective deterrent from the wrong, than any kind of bodily
assault. In the use of such praise and reprimand there should be a
subtle alternation. When a child is too bold, it should first be shamed
by reproof and then encouraged by a word of praise. We may take a
pattern by nurses, who may have to make an infant cry, but who
afterwards comfort it by offering it the breast. We must, however, avoid
puffing children up with eulogies, the consequence of excessive praise
being vanity and conceit.

I have noticed more than one instance in which the over-fondness
[Sidenote: B] of a father has proved to be a lack of fondness. To make
my meaning clear, I will use an illustration. Being in too great haste
for their children to take first place in everything, they impose
extravagant tasks, which prove too great for their strength and end in
failure, besides causing them such weariness and distress that they
refuse to submit patiently to instruction. Water in moderation will make
a plant grow, while a flood of water will choke it. In the same way the
mind will thrive under [Sidenote: C] reasonably hard work, but will
drown if the work is excessive. We must therefore allow children
breathing-time from perpetual tasks, and remember that all our life
there is a division of relaxation and effort. Hence the existence of
sleep as well as waking, of peace as well as war, of fine weather as
well as bad, of holidays as well as business. In a word, it is rest that
seasons toil. The fact is obvious, not merely in the case of living
things, but in that of the inanimate world. We loosen a bow or a lyre,
so that we may be able to tighten it. In fine, the body is kept sound by
want and its satisfaction, the mind by relaxation and labour.

[Sidenote: D] There are some fathers who have a culpable way of
entrusting their sons to attendants and teachers, and then entirely
omitting to keep the instruction of such persons under their own eye or
ear. This is a most serious failure in their duty. Every few days they
should personally examine their children, instead of confiding in the
character of a hireling, whose attention to his pupils will be more
conscientious if he is to be brought continually to book. In this
connexion there is aptness in the groom’s dictum that _nothing is so
fattening to a horse as the eye of the king_.

[Sidenote: E] Above all things one should train and exercise a child’s
memory. Memory serves as the storehouse of culture, and hence the fable
that Recollection is the mother of the Muses—an indirect way of saying
that memory is the best thing in the world to beget and foster wisdom.
Whether children are naturally gifted with a good memory, or, on the
contrary, are naturally forgetful, the memory should be trained in
either case. The natural advantage will be strengthened, or the natural
shortcoming made up. The former class will excel others, the latter will
excel themselves. As Hesiod well puts it: [Sidenote: F]

    _If to the thing that is little you further add but a little,
    And do the same oft and again, full soon it becometh a great thing._

This, then, is another fact for fathers to recognize—that the mnemonic
element in education plays a most important part, not only in culture,
but also in the business of life, inasmuch as the recollection of past
experience serves as a guide to wise policy for the future.

Our sons must also be kept from the use of foul language. ‘The word,’
says Democritus, ‘is the shadow of the deed.’ More than that, we must
render them polite and courteous, [Sidenote: 10] for there is nothing so
detestable as a boorish character. One way in which children may avoid
becoming disagreeable to their company is by refraining from absolute
stubbornness in discussion. Credit is to be gained not merely by
victory, but also by knowing how to accept defeat where victory is
harmful. There is unquestionably such a thing as a ‘Cadmean victory’. _À
propos_ I may quote the testimony of that wise poet Euripides:
[Sidenote: B]

               _When two men speak, and one is full of anger,
               Wiser the one who strives not to reply._

This is the time to remember certain other habits quite as necessary—and
more so—for the young to cultivate as any yet mentioned. These are
modesty of behaviour, restraint of the tongue, mastery of the temper,
and control of the hands. Let us see how important each of them is. We
may take an illustration to bring home the notion more clearly. And we
will begin with the last. There have been those who, by lowering their
hands to ill-gotten gains, have thrown away all the reputation won by
their previous career. This was the case with the Lacedaemonian,
Gylippus, who was driven into exile from Sparta [Sidenote: C] for
secretly broaching the money-bags. Absence of anger, again, is a quality
of wisdom. Socrates once received a kick from a very impudent and gross
young buffoon, but on seeing that his own friends were in such a violent
state of indignation that they wanted to prosecute him, he remarked: ‘If
a donkey had kicked me, would you have condescended to kick him back?’
The fellow did not, however, get off scot-free, but finding himself
universally reproached and nicknamed ‘Kicker’, he hanged himself. When
Aristophanes brought out the _Clouds_, and poured all manner of abuse
upon Socrates, one of those present asked: ‘Pray, are you not indignant
at his ridiculing you in this manner?’ [Sidenote: D] ‘Not I, indeed,’
replied Socrates; ‘this banter in the theatre is only in a big convivial
party.’ A close counterpart of this attitude will be found in the
behaviour of Plato and of Archytas of Tarentum. When the latter, on his
return from the war in which he had held command, found that his land
had gone out of cultivation, he summoned his manager and remarked: ‘You
would have suffered for this, if I had not been too angry.’ When Plato,
again, was once worked into a passion with a greedy and impudent slave,
he called his sister’s son Speusippus and said, ‘Go and give this fellow
a thrashing: I am myself in a great passion.’

But, it may be argued, it is difficult to reach so high a standard
[Sidenote: E] as this. I am well aware of it. We can therefore only do
our best to take a pattern by such conduct, and minimize any tendency to
ungovernable rage. As in other matters, we are no match for either the
moral mastery or the finished character of those great models.
Nevertheless we may act towards them as we might towards the Gods,
serving as hierophants and torch-bearers of their wisdom and
endeavouring to imitate in our nibbling way as much as lies in our
power.

As for the control of the tongue—the remaining point to be considered
according to our promise—any one who regards it as of trivial moment is
very much in the wrong. In a timely [Sidenote: F] silence there is a
wisdom superior to any speech. It is apparently for this reason that men
in old times invented our mystic rites and ceremonies. The notion was
that, through being trained to silence in connexion with these, we
should secure the keeping of human secrets by carrying into them the
same religious fear. Moreover, though multitudes have repented of
talking, no man has repented of silence, and while it is easy to utter
what has been kept back, it is impossible to recall what has been
uttered.

My own reading affords countless instances of the greatest disasters
resulting from an ungoverned tongue. I will content [Sidenote: 11]
myself with mentioning one or two typical examples. When, upon the
marriage of Philadelphus with his sister, Sotades composed a scurrilous
verse, he paid ample atonement for talking out of season by rotting for
a long time in prison. He thus purchased a laugh in others by long
weeping of his own. The [Sidenote: *] story is closely matched by that
of the sophist Theocritus, who endured similar, but much more terrible,
consequences for a similar remark. Alexander had ordered the Greeks to
provide a stock of purple garments, with a view to the thanksgiving
[Sidenote: B] sacrifice on his return from his Persian victories, and
the various peoples were contributing at so much per head. Hereupon
Theocritus observed: ‘I have now become clear upon a point which used to
puzzle me. This is what is meant by Homer’s “purple death”‘—words which
earned him the enmity of Alexander. Antigonus, the Macedonian king, had
but one eye, and Theocritus made him excessively angry by a taunt at
this disfigurement. Eutropion, the chief cook, who had become a person
of importance, was sent to him by the king with a request that he would
come to court and engage him in argument. On receiving repeated visits
from Eutropion with this message, he [Sidenote: C] remarked, ‘I am well
aware that you want to dish me up raw to the Cyclops,’ thus twitting the
one with being disfigured, the other with being a cook. ‘Then,’ replied
Eutropion, ‘it will be without your head, for you shall be punished for
such mad and reckless language.’ Thereupon he reported the words to the
king, who sent and put Theocritus to death.

The last and most sacred requirement is that children should be trained
to speak the truth. Lying is a servile habit; it deserves universal
detestation and is unpardonable even in a decent slave.

[Sidenote: D] So far I have had no doubt or hesitation in what I have
said of the modesty and good behaviour of children. But upon the matter
which now calls for mention I am dubious and undecided, my judgement
swaying in the balance first one way and then the other, without finding
it possible to turn the scale in either direction. It concerns a
practice which I can neither recommend nor discountenance without great
reluctance. Nevertheless one must venture a word upon it. The question
is whether a man who is enamoured of a boy is to be allowed to keep
intimate [Sidenote: E] company with him, or whether, on the contrary,
association with such a person is to be tabooed. When I look at fathers
whose disposition is uncompromisingly harsh and austere, and who regard
such association as an intolerable insult to their children, I have many
scruples in recommending it or speaking in its favour. When, on the
other hand, I think of Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aeschines, Cebes, and
all those great men who have with one accord approved of love between
males, while they have led youths on to culture, to public leadership,
and to [Sidenote: F] a virtuous character, I change my mind and am
inclined to copy those great exemplars. Euripides is on their side, when
he says:

              _Nay, men may feel passion of other sort,
              Love of a just, chaste, virtuous mind and soul._

Nor must we omit the saying of Plato, partly serious and partly
humorous, that those who have shown special excellence should have the
right to kiss any beautiful person they choose. The proper course is to
drive away those who are enamoured of the person, but, generally
speaking, give a sanction to those who are in love with the mind and
soul. While we must have nothing to say to the connexions in vogue at
Thebes or in Elis, or to the so-called ‘abduction’ of Crete, we may well
imitate that kind [Sidenote: 12] which is usual at Athens or in
Lacedaemon.

On this matter it is for every man to hold such convictions as he has
formed for himself. I will now leave it, and, having spoken of the
discipline and good behaviour of the boy, will pass on to deal with the
age of adolescence. I shall do so in very few words, for I have often
expressed my disapproval of those who encourage vicious habits by
proposing to put a boy under the charge of tutors and teachers, whereas,
with a stripling, they would permit his inclinations to range at will.
As a matter of [Sidenote: B] fact, there is need of more anxious
precautions in the case of the stripling than in that of the boy. Every
one is aware that the faults committed by a boy are small matters, which
can be cured without difficulty—such as paying no heed to his tutor, or
trickery and inattention in school. But the sins of adolescence often
reach a flagrant and shocking pitch—stealing the father’s money,
gormandizing, dicing, roistering, drinking, loose passion for young
girls, or corruption of married women. The propensities of young manhood
ought therefore to be carefully watched and kept closely under the
chain. When capacity for [Sidenote: C] pleasure is at its prime, it
rejects control, kicks over the traces, and requires the curb. If
therefore we do not take a firm hold upon this time of life, we are
giving folly a licence to sin. This is the moment when wise fathers
should be most watchful and alert; when they should bring their lads
within bounds by warnings, threats, or entreaties, and by pointing out
instances of disaster caused by devotion to pleasure, and of praise and
good repute won by continence. These two things form what may be called
first principles of virtue, namely, hope of honour and fear of
punishment, the one producing a greater eagerness [Sidenote: D] for the
noblest pursuits, the other a shrinking from bad actions.

One general rule of duty is to keep boys from associating with vicious
persons; otherwise they will pick up something of their vice. This has
been urged by Pythagoras among a number of dark sayings. Since these
also possess great value as aids to the attainment of virtue, I will
proceed to quote them, adding their explanation. _Do not taste
black-tails_[59]—keep no company with persons who are malignant and
therefore ‘black’. _Do not [Sidenote: E] step over a beam_—justice must
be scrupulously respected and not ‘overstepped’. _Do not sit on a
quart-measure_—beware of idleness, and see to the providing of daily
bread. _Do not clasp hands with every man_—we should form no sudden
connexions. _Do not wear a tight ring_—one should carry out the practice
of [Sidenote: *] life, and not fasten it to any chain. _Do not poke a
fire with iron_—do not irritate a wrathful man (the right course being
to let angry men go their own way). _Do not eat the heart_—do not injure
[Sidenote: F] the mind with worry and brooding. _Abstain from
beans_—avoid public life (office in former times being determined by
voting with beans). _Do not put victuals in a chamber-vessel_—clever
speech ought not to be put into a wicked mind, since speech, which is
the food of thought, is polluted by the wickedness in a man. _Do not
turn back on coming to the border_—when about to die, and with the end
of life close in sight, behave calmly and without losing heart.

To return to the topic with which we were dealing before this
digression. While, as I observed, boys should be kept from every kind of
vicious company, especially should they be kept [Sidenote: 13] from
parasites. I venture to repeat here what I am continually urging upon
fathers. There is no set of creatures so pernicious—none which so
quickly and completely brings youth to headlong destruction—as
parasites. They are utter ruin to both father and son, filling the old
age of the one and the youth of the other with vexation. To gain their
purpose they offer an irresistible bait in the shape of pleasure. In the
case of rich men’s sons, the father preaches sobriety, the parasite
drunkenness. The father urges temperance and economy, the parasite
profligacy and extravagance. The father says: ‘Be industrious’; the
parasite says: ‘Be idle; for life is only a moment altogether.
[Sidenote: B] One ought to live, not merely exist. Why trouble about
your father’s threats? He is an old driveller with one foot in the
coffin, and we will promptly pick him up on our shoulders and carry him
off to his grave.’ One person tempts him with a drab, or with the
seduction of a married woman, plundering and stripping the father of all
the provision for his old age. They are an abominable crew; their
friendship is a sham; of candour they have no idea; they toady the rich
and despise the poor. They are drawn to young men like puppets on a
string; they [Sidenote: *] grin, when those who feed them laugh; they
counterfeit the possession of a mind, and give a spurious imitation of
details of real life. They live at the rich man’s beck, and though
fortune [Sidenote: C] has made them free, their own choice makes them
slaves. If they are not insulted, they regard it as an insult, their
maintenance in that case being without a motive. If, therefore, a father
is concerned for the obedient conduct of his children, he must keep
these abominable creatures at a distance. And he must by all means do
the same with vicious fellow-pupils, who are capable of corrupting the
most moral of natures.

While these principles are right and expedient, I have a word to say
upon a human aspect of the matter. I have no desire, all this time, that
a father’s disposition should be altogether [Sidenote: D] harsh and
unyielding. I would have him frequently condone a fault in his junior
and recollect that he was once young himself. The physician mixes his
bitter drugs with syrup, and so finds a way to work benefit through the
medium of enjoyment. In the same way a father should blend his severe
reprimande with kindliness, at one time giving the boy’s desires a loose
or easy rein, at another time tightening it. If possible, he should
[Sidenote: E] take misdeeds calmly; failing that, his anger should be
seasonable and should quickly cool down. It is better for a father to be
sharp-tempered than sullen-tempered; to sulk and bear malice goes far to
prove a lack of parental affection. Sometimes, when a fault is
committed, it is a good thing to pretend ignorance, turning to advantage
the dim sight and defective hearing of old age, and refusing to see or
hear certain occurrences which one hears and sees. We put up with the
lapses of a friend. Is it strange to do so with those of a child? A
slave is often heavy-headed from a debauch, without our taking him to
task. The other day you refused the boy money; there are times to meet
his requests. The other day you were indignant; there are times to be
lenient. Perhaps he has cozened you through a servant; [Sidenote: F]
restrain your anger. Has he borrowed the team from the farm? Does he
come reeking of yesterday’s bout? Do not notice it. Smelling of
perfumes? Say nothing. Such is the way to manage the restiveness of
youth.

A son who cannot resist pleasure and is deaf to remonstrance should be
put into matrimonial harness, that being the surest way of tying a young
man down. The woman who becomes his wife should not, however, be to any
great extent his superior either in birth or means. _Keep to your own
level_ is a sound maxim, and a man who marries much above him finds
himself, [Sidenote: 14] not the husband of the woman, but the slave of
the dowry.

A few words more, and I will conclude my list of principles.

Above all things a father should set an example to his children in his
own person, by avoiding all faults of commission or omission. His life
should be the glass by which they form themselves and are put out of
conceit with all ugliness of act or speech. For him to rebuke his erring
sons when guilty of the same errors himself, is to become his own
accuser while ostensibly theirs. Indeed, if his life is bad, he is
disqualified from reproving even a slave, much more his son. Moreover,
he will naturally [Sidenote: B] become their guide and teacher in
wrongdoing. Where there are old men without shame, inevitably there are
quite shameless young ones also. To obtain good behaviour from our
children we should therefore strive to carry out every moral duty. An
example to follow is that of Eurydice, who, though belonging to a
thoroughly barbarous country like Illyria, nevertheless took to study
and self-improvement late in life for the sake of her children’s
education. Her maternal affection finds apt expression in the lines
inscribed upon her offering to the Muses: [Sidenote: C]

               _In that, when mother to grown boys, she won
               Her soul’s well-known desire—the skill to use
               The lore of letters—this Eurydice
               From Hierapolis sends to each Muse._[60]

To compass the whole of the foregoing elements of success is [Sidenote:
*] perhaps visionary—a counsel of perfection. But to cultivate the
majority of them, though itself requiring good fortune as well as much
care, is at any rate a thing within the reach of a human being.

Footnote 55:

   This article is in all probability not the work of Plutarch. See the
  Introduction.

Footnote 56:

  The play upon words (_ēthikas_, ‘moral’ and _ĕthikas_, ‘of habit’) is
  not adequately translatable.

Footnote 57:

  The Greek text is here corrupt; the translation represents the
  probable sense.

Footnote 58:

  The Greek text is again faulty. The sense here given is approximate.

Footnote 59:

  These maxims were probably in the first instance merely hygienic, or
  even popular superstitions, but subsequently they received recondite
  interpretations.

Footnote 60:

  The Greek verse is doggerel, and no attempt is made to better it in
  the English.




                      NOTES ON PERSONS AND PLACES


The following brief notes are intended to supply the bare amount of
information necessary for an understanding of the text. The
pronunciation marks are, of course, added only for the sake of those who
have no Greek. An accent marks the syllable which should bear the stress
in the English pronunciation, and the signs [ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ] and [ā ē ī ō ū],
imply that the vowels are short or long respectively. q.v. = see the
note on that name.

=Ábaris=: a legendary Scythian or ‘Hyperborean’ priest of Apollo, to
whom miraculous powers were attributed in the way of cures and prophecy.

=Aeolians=: inhabitants of Aeolis, the NE. coast of the Aegean, with the
island of Lesbos.

=Aeschĭnes=: (1) a philosopher, pupil of Socrates (hence Aeschines
Socraticus). In the eyes of Plato he was a sophist, for the reason that
he took fees. His character was not of the highest. Like Plato, he
visited Syracuse during the philosophic pose of the elder Dionysius.

(2) Athenian orator, constant opponent of Demosthenes, who charged him
with being bribed by Philip. Died in exile 314 B.C.

=Aeschylus=: the first in date and most severe in style of the three
great Attic tragedians, 525-466 B.C. A master of condensed and sonorous
language and of powerful situations.

=Aesop=: the famous writer (or promulgator) of fables, _c._ 620-564 B.C.
Said to have been an emancipated slave, who spent some time at the court
of Croesus and was sent by him on a mission to Delphi to distribute
largess. Practically nothing definite is known of him. His fables were
most probably of Indo-Persian origin. Those which now pass under his
name are a comparatively late compilation from various sources.

=Agésilāus=: Agesilaus II, king of Sparta, 398-361 B.C.; the most
important man in the Greek world of his day. His wars were numerous, the
most important being with the Thebans. His character was noble, his
ability great, but his physique and appearance poor.

=Agis=: (1) Agis II, king of Sparta, 427-399 B.C.; commander against the
Athenians in the Peloponnesian War, his greatest exploit being the
victory of Mantinea.

(2) Base and toadying poet of Argos, who accompanied Alexander into
Asia. The histories of the expedition agree with Plutarch as to his
character.

=Alcibíades=: a handsome noble of Athens; a type of ostentatious,
ambitious, and unscrupulous brilliancy. After a measure of military and
political prominence he was banished from Athens for sacrilege (415
B.C.). Becoming hostile to his country he first found a home at Sparta,
thence migrated to Asia Minor and joined the Persian satrap,
Tissaphernes, whom he endeavoured to bring over to the Athenian side as
a means to his own recall. He returned to Athens for a brief space in
407 B.C., then removed to Thrace, and thence again to the Persian
satrap.

=Alcméōn=: son of Amphiaraus (q.v.), who avenged his father by putting
to death his mother Eriphyle.

=Alexander=: (1) the Great, of Macedon.

(2) of Pherae, a despot who dominated Thessaly from 369 B.C. A cruel
tyrant, assassinated through the agency of his wife.

=Alexis=: poet of the ‘Middle Comedy’, who had migrated from South Italy
to Athens. Plutarch says that he lived to the age of 106, and Suidas
that his plays numbered 245.

=Alyáttes=: king of Lydia and father of Croesus, carried on wars with
the Greeks of the Aegean coast of Asia Minor and had apparently some
designs upon the islands.

=Amásis=: an insurgent Egyptian general who secured the throne (569
B.C.). His rule was beneficent and prosperous, and he cultivated the
friendship of the Greeks, handing over to them the town of Naucratis (q.
v.). When reproached with his humble origin he converted his bronze
foot-pan into the effigy of a deity by way of instructive parable. He
was visited by Solon and had amicable relations with Croesus.

=Ammónius=: Peripatetic philosopher from Attica, teacher of Plutarch,
who speaks elsewhere of his great erudition.

=Amphiaráus=: legendary seer of Argos, who accompanied the ‘Seven’ in
their expedition against Thebes. A pious and just man, who was led into
this false step by the persuasions of his wife, who had been bribed.

=Amphíctyons=: members of a religious Council meeting at Delphi and
representing the older Greek communities.

=Amphídămas=: ‘hero’ (i. e. demigod) of Chalcis in Euboea, conceived as
a historical personage.

=Amphitrítë=: wife of Poseidon and queen-goddess of the sea.

=Anacharsis=: Scythian prince (of N. Thrace). To Greek literature he is
the type of the observant and critical visitor from abroad. A pattern of
the simple life and direct thinking. Said to have visited Athens about
600 B.C.

=Anaxarchus=: an easy-going and witty philosopher of the school of
Democritus (q. v.); in the suite of Alexander on his Asiatic expedition.

=Antígŏnus=: a general of Alexander. On the partition of the empire he
received Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphylia, but afterwards extended his rule
over all the Asiatic portion. He fell before a combination of the other
Diadochi in 301 B.C.

=Antímăchus=: epic poet of Colophon, who wrote at great length on the
story of Thebes. He also composed a voluminous elegy on ‘Lyde’. Both
pieces were crammed with mythological and other learning, and Plutarch
appears to treat him as a type of the diffuse. He was a contemporary of
Plato.

=Antípăter=: (1) regent of Macedonia during the Asiatic expedition of
Alexander and after his death (334-320 B.C.). A war with a Greek league
headed by Athens ended in the submission of the latter.

(2) A Stoic philosopher of Tyre; a friend of Cato the younger, about the
middle of the first century B.C.

=Antiphōn=: several persons were so named, e. g.:

(1) an orator of the fifth century B.C.

(2) An Athenian tragic poet, put to death by the elder Dionysius at
Syracuse.

(3) A sophist, epic poet, and antagonist of Socrates.

=Apéllēs=: (1) of Colophon or Cos, _fl._ _c._ 335-305 B.C. The greatest
painter of antiquity, especially favoured by Alexander the Great. His
maxim for draughtsmen _nulla dies sine linea_ is famous.

(2) Of Chios, apparently unknown beyond Plutarch.

=Appius Claudius= (=Caecus=): Roman censor 312 B.C., originator of the
Appian Way.

=Aráspēs=: a Mede, friend of Cyrus, who became enamoured of Panthea (q.
v.).

=Arcĕsiláus=: latter part of third century B.C.; first a disciple of
Theophrastus (q. v.), but took an independent line in philosophy as
founder of the sceptical New Academy. A man of amiable character and a
wit.

=Archeláus=: king of Macedonia 413-399 B.C.; a lover of art and
literature and a patron of Euripides and other Athenian men of letters.

=Archidámus=: Archidamus II, king of Sparta, 469-427 B.C. There were
several other kings of the name.

=Archílŏchus=: of Paros, _fl._ _c._ 710-675 B.C. A lyrist of whom only
fragments are extant; particularly famous for his iambic lampoons.

=Archimédes=: the Newton of antiquity; an eminent scientist of Syracuse
287-212 B.C.; student of astronomy, applied mathematics, and
engineering. He served as mechanical engineer in defending his city from
the Romans, by whose soldiers he was killed in ignorance.

=Archytas=: of Tarentum, in the early part of the fourth century B.C.,
noted as a mathematician and philosophic statesman of the Pythagorean
order. Both in generalship and civil business of state he was eminently
successful and was trusted with extraordinary powers.

=Arēs=: the Greek War-God, answering generally to the Roman Mars.

=Arȋdaeus= (=Arrhidaeus=): (1) feeble half-witted king of Macedonia
after his brother Alexander’s death.

(2) A general of Alexander, joint regent in 321 B.C., afterwards
governor on the Hellespont.

=Aríōn=: _c._ 600 B.C.; the famous bard and harp-player of Lesbos, and
supposed inventor of the dithyramb. His favourite abode was at the court
of Periander.

=Aristarchus=: the prince of Greek grammarians and critics; flourished
at Alexandria 181-146 B.C. Chiefly known for his commentaries on the
language and matter of Homer, and his recension of the divergent
manuscripts.

=Aristeides= (=Aristídes=): with the sobriquet of ‘the Just’; a noble of
Athens, statesman and general, who figures in the stirring times of the
war with Persia. Died _c._ 470 B.C.

=Aristíppus=: of Cyrene, disciple, but not imitator, of Socrates. A
student and teacher of ethics, and founder of the Cyrenaic philosophy
and its cult of pleasure: _fl._ _c._ 380-366 B.C. For a time he was at
the court of Dionysius (q. v.) of Syracuse.

=Arísto=: (1) the chief bearer of the name was a philosopher who became
head of the Peripatetic school about 230 B.C. Anciently considered a
writer of more elegance than weight.

(2) A son of Sophocles, and probably himself a tragedian.

=Aristómĕnes=: practically regent of Egypt from 202 B.C.; a sound
adviser of the young Ptolemy Epiphanes (q. v.), who put him to death for
his frankness in 192 B.C.

=Aristóphănes=: of Athens, 444-380 B.C.; by far the greatest comic poet
of antiquity. His comedy was of the ‘Old’, or personal-political type.
Eleven of his plays are extant.

=Arístŏphōn=: painter, brother of Polygnotus (who _fl._ _c._ 420 B.C.).

=Aristotle=: of Stageira, but commonly domiciled in Athens or in
Macedonia. Pupil of Plato and subsequently tutor of Alexander. Founder
of the Peripatetic school, with its head-quarters in the Lyceum (q. v.).
His whole tone of mind is strikingly unlike that of his teacher, being
eminently precise, logical, and scientific. His writing is without
literary charm. He aimed at sound and comprehensive knowledge as the
basis of right principles in society, conduct, and the arts (384-322
B.C.).

=Asclépius=: (= Aesculapius), the Greek ‘hero’ of medicine, converted by
legend into a son of Apollo and ultimately into a god.

=Atreides= (=Atrídes=): = ‘son of Atreus’, a title of Agamemnon and
Menelaus.

=Áttălus= (brother of Eumenes): Attalus Philadelphus, king of Pergamus,
allied with the Romans in the middle of the second century B.C.
Philopoemen was his controlling minister.

=Bacchýlȋdes=: lyric poet of Ceos, _fl._ _c._ 470 B.C., principally at
the court of Hiero of Syracuse. In general he may be called a smoother
and weaker Pindar.

=Bagóas=: a handsome young eunuch of Darius, afterwards taken into the
service and affections of Alexander.

=Báthycles=: an artist in metal-work, of uncertain date, but probably to
be placed in the early part of the age of the Seven Sages.

=Bato=: comic poet of Athens, _fl._ _c._ 280 B.C.; satirized
philosophers.

=Bias=: of Priene; precise date unknown, but _fl._ _c._ 550 B.C. He is
invariably included in the list of the Seven Sages.

=Biōn=: _fl._ _c._ 250 B.C., a philosopher from Olbia on the Black Sea,
who settled at Athens, tried various systems, and ended by being a
Peripatetic. He was noted for his keen sententious sayings, but was of
dissolute character. Has been called ‘the Greek Voltaire’.

=Brīséïs=: captive woman assigned to Achilles, but taken from him by
Agamemnon when he surrendered Chryseis.

=Busírites=: the people of Busiris (modern Abousir), about the middle of
the Delta; one of the traditional birthplaces of Osiris.

=Calchas=: the seer of the Achaean army before Troy.

=Callísthĕnes=: philosopher and rhetorician; accompanied Alexander into
Asia, where he used over-bold language in reproving him. Put to death
328 B.C. He wrote an account of the expedition and other historical
works.

=Calýpso=: nymph, on whose island the shipwrecked Odysseus was detained
for seven years.

=Carnĕădes=: of Cyrene, 213(?)-129 B.C.; a student of Stoicism, but
leader of the Academics. He was ambassador on behalf of Athens (155
B.C.) to Rome, where he delivered striking discourses on ethics. His
cardinal doctrine was the ‘withholding of assent’ to doctrines.

=Cato=: (1) the elder (or ‘the Censor’), 234-149 B.C. The type of severe
old-fashioned Roman morality; soldier, statesman, orator, and writer.

(2) The younger (or ‘Uticensis’), 95-46 B.C.; modelled himself on his
great-grandfather in respect of the moral and simple life, but was much
inferior in gifts. Committed suicide 46 B.C., when the struggle against
the domination of Julius Caesar had become hopeless.

=Cĕbēs=: of Thebes, a pupil of Socrates and a _persona_ in Plato’s
_Phaedo_. He is chiefly known for his (if it is his) symbolic picture or
‘table’ of human life.

=Cĕrămeicus (-í-)=: a suburb without, and a broad street within, the
west walls of Athens.

=Cercópes=: mythical gnomes, mischievous and thievish, who annoyed
Heracles by their monkey-like tricks.

=Chábrȋas=: Athenian commander at various times between 392 and 357
B.C., gaining some successes by land and sea against the Spartans. An
able tactician, adventurous, but of somewhat dissolute life.

=Chalcis=: chief town of Euboea (Negropont), once a most important
commercial centre.

=Charēs=: Athenian general, of whose various operations we have records
for 367-333 B.C. A man of little principle. He effected little against
the Macedonians, and often followed independent and useless lines of
action.

=Chármȋdes=: uncle of Plato, who names one of his Socratic dialogues
after him. At the supposed date he was a beautiful and charming youth,
and the discussion is upon ‘self-control’.

=Chīlōn=: of Lacedaemon: _fl._ _c._ 600-570 B.C. Poet and coiner of
maxims, and shrewd man of affairs.

=Chryséïs=: captive woman assigned to Agamemnon; surrendered by him at
the bidding of Apollo, in order to check a pestilence.

=Cimōn=: son of Miltiades, became prominent as a commander against the
Persians in 477 B.C. His chief exploit was the victory of Eurymedon, 466
B.C. A handsome, liberal, affable, but somewhat self-indulgent person.

=Cīnésias=: Athenian dithyrambic poet, much satirized by Aristophanes
and others. His verse, music, and character appear all to have been of
an inferior order.

=Claudia=: Roman maiden, who, in full vindication of her chastity, was
enabled to move the vessel containing the image of Cybele when it stuck
fast in the Tiber.

=Cleánthes=: Stoic philosopher, pupil and successor of Zeno (q. v.) 263
B.C. The only fragment of his writing still extant is from a Hymn to
Zeus.

=Cleárchus=: (1) of Heraclea on the Black Sea; availed himself of
faction to make himself despot and tyrant (365 B.C.). Despite the
precautions described by Plutarch he was assassinated in 353 B.C.

(2) Of Sparta, leader of the 10,000 Greeks in the expedition of Cyrus
the Younger against Babylon; decoyed and put to death by the Persians,
401 B.C. The retreat was led by Xenophon (q.v.).

=Cleisthĕnes=: Athenian noble, who adopted the popular cause and made
important democratic changes in the constitution; _fl._ from 510 B.C.

=Cleitus= (=Clītus=): a Macedonian commander under Alexander, whose life
he saved at the battle of Granícus (334 B.C.). He was killed (328 B.C.)
by Alexander with a spear-thrust, after a quarrel at a carousal, in
which he had spoken with excessive freedom to his chief.

=Cleobulínë=: daughter (as the name implies) of Cleobulus (q.v.). Though
her father is said to have named her Eumetis (‘sagacious’), the word may
be suspected of being an afterthought.

=Cleobúlus=: _c._ 610-560 B.C. A citizen of Lindus in Rhodes, who became
its despot. His position may have been similar to that of Pittacus
(q.v.).

=Cleómĕnes=: Cleomenes III, high-minded king of Sparta, 240-222 B.C. On
his defeat by the Achaeans he fled to Ptolemy Euergetes, with whom he
was in alliance. The next Ptolemy (Philopator) suspected and imprisoned
him.

=Cleōn=: a tanner of Athens; an able but coarse-grained leader of the
popular party 428-422 B.C. A special enemy of Aristophanes (q.v.), whose
fiercest political attacks are delivered against him. A self-sufficient
amateur in military operations, in one of which he was slain.

=Clódius=: P. Clodius Pulcher; a daring and unscrupulous person, who
became quaestor in 61 B.C. and tribune of the plebs in 59 B.C. The
notorious and relentless enemy of Cicero. Killed by Milo on the high
road 52 B.C.

=Colónus=: a suburb of Athens outside the north wall, with a small hill,
grove, and sanctuary.

=Cólophōn=: Greek town of Asia Minor, near the Aegean coast, about ten
miles north of Ephesus.

=Cornelia=: daughter of Scipio Africanus; the famous ‘mother of the
Gracchi’; the type of matronly virtue, dignity, cultivation, and high
example.

=Crátĕrus=: a noble type of Macedonian; one of Alexander’s generals.
After the death of his chief (323 B.C.) he became colleague with
Antipater in the Graeco-Macedonian portion of the empire. See also under
Eumenes.

=Cratēs=: of Thebes; pupil of Diogenes (q.v.) at Athens; _fl._ _c._ 320
B.C. A Cynic philosopher in practice as well as theory, he renounced his
wealth and led the simple life in a cheerful manner. A philosophic
writer and a tragic poet.

=Croesus=: king of Lydia 560-546 B.C. A wealthy and powerful ruler, who
made war upon the Persians when their empire was growing rapidly under
Cyrus. Was defeated and carried off in the train of the conqueror. While
in power he was in friendly or hostile relations with various Greek
states, and was particularly noted for his liberality to the Delphian
oracle. Whether Solon ever actually had the famous interview with
Croesus is chronologically doubtful, but it is not impossible.

=Cyáxares=: king of Media, appears in Xenophon’s _Cyropaedia_ as uncle
of Cyrus the Great, but the whole book is something of a romance.

=Cýpsĕlus=: father of Periander, established himself as despot of
Corinth _c._ 656 B.C. His name was commonly associated with _cypsele_
(‘chest’). The designs upon him in his infancy were those of a
Corinthian noble house, and were made in consequence of an oracle
foretelling danger from the child.

=Cyrus=: (1) the elder: the famous Persian monarch, founder of the
empire, and subjugator of Babylon. The stories told of him in the
_Cyropaedia_ of Xenophon are largely romance.

(2) the younger: satrap of Lydia, Phrygia, &c., who sought, but failed,
to dispossess his brother Artaxerxes with the assistance of a Greek
force (401 B.C.). This was the expedition related in Xenophon’s
_Anabasis_.

=Daphnūs=: a river running into the Corinthian Gulf on the north side
not far from the entrance.

=Dāríus=: (1) Darius I; strong and able king of Persia (521-485 B.C.),
previously satrap under Cyrus the Great. This is the Darius mentioned in
connexion with Gobryas.

(2) Darius II (Ochus or Nothus), or Darius the Younger, a weak monarch
endangered by perpetual rebellions, 424-405 B.C.

(3) Darius Codomannus, overthrown by Alexander. Died 330 B.C.

=Délos=: central island of the south half of the Aegean, with a temple
of Apollo, the gathering-place of a great religious confederacy of
Ionians.

=Dēmarátus=: of Corinth, in friendly relations with Philip and a
mediator between him and Alexander after their quarrel in 337 B.C.

=Dēmétrius=: (1) Demetrius I (or Poliorcetes), king of Macedonia. His
father Antigonus, king of Asia, sent him in 307 B.C. to annex Greece,
then under Cassander and Ptolemy. It was at this time that he took
Megara and met with Stilpo (q. v.).

(2) Demetrius Phaléreus: Athenian orator and writer (345-283 B.C.); an
able and cultivated man, put in charge of Athens by the Macedonians, 317
B.C. First highly honoured, then expelled, he made his way to Thebes and
subsequently to Alexandria.

(3) The name of several Macedonian officers in the army of Alexander.

=Dēmócrȋtus=: _c._ 460-360 B.C. Of Abdēra in Thrace. A great traveller
and student, who developed (though he did not invent) the ‘Atomic
Theory’. Ethically his aim was cheerfulness of mind (hence ‘the laughing
philosopher’). His character was of the highest for truth and
simplicity.

=Dicaeárchus=: philosopher from Massana in Sicily; writer on history and
geography. A follower of Aristotle, _fl._ _c._ 300 B.C.

=Díŏcles=: the narrator of the Dinner of the Seven Sages: professional
seer, and interpreter and expiator of omens and dreams. Nothing is known
of such a person outside Plutarch.

=Diógĕnes=: (1) the Cynic philosopher of Sinope, who migrated to Athens,
and after being captured by pirates was sold as a slave to a Corinthian.
Whether or not he ever lived in the famous (earthenware) ‘tub’ is
doubtful. He was distinguished for his plainness of life, his shrewd
good sense, his independence, and his caustic tongue.

(2) Tragic poet of Athens, _c._ 404 B.C.

=Diōn=: of Syracuse, brother-in-law of the elder Dionysius (q. v.). On
the visit of Plato to Sicily he became a disciple of that philosopher.
The younger Dionysius resented his reputation and his harshness. Dion
therefore removed to Athens and other parts of Greece, whence he
returned with a force, expelled Dionysius, and was himself appointed
practically dictator. Assassinated 353 B.C.

=Dionysius=: (i) the elder: despot of Syracuse (‘sole general’) 405-367
B.C. He extended its power over a great part of Sicily, and strongly
fortified the city itself. In the end he became a veritable tyrant. Like
many other despots he affected literature and philosophy, and himself
wrote bad verses. After inviting Plato to Syracuse he quarrelled with
and dismissed that philosopher.

(2) the younger, who succeeded his father. For a time he was under the
influence of Dion (q.v.) assisted by Plato. Of weaker character and more
licentious than his father, he was compelled to abandon Syracuse after a
rule of eleven years. Insecurely restored ten years later he was again
driven out by Timoleon (343 B.C.). The remainder of his life was spent
in poverty at Corinth, where he is said to have taught an elementary
school.

=Dōdóna=: in Epirus, near the modern Janina; a very ancient seat of the
worship of Zeus.

=Dolōn=: a Trojan in the _Iliad_, who undertakes to penetrate the
Achaean camp as a spy, but is slain in the attempt.

=Dryópians=: a people of Central Greece.

=Elephantínë= = Djesiret-el-Sag; a garrisoned island in the Nile (First
Cataract) opposite the modern Assouan; the frontier town of Egypt
towards Ethiopia.

=Empédŏcles=: Sicilian physical and practical philosopher of Acragas (=
Girgenti); _fl._ _c._ 450 B.C. His studies of nature specially qualified
him for the cure or ‘purification’ of epidemics due to insanitary
conditions. His travels took him to Athens and other parts of Greece.
The legend went that he threw himself into the crater of Etna.

=Eōs=: = Aurora, dawn-goddess; wife of Tithonus; mother of Memnon, the
opponent of Achilles.

=Epáminōndas=: a type of patriotism, particularly to his compatriot
Plutarch. The greatest of Theban commanders and statesmen, especially
famous for his victory over the Spartans at Leuctra (371 B.C.). So far
as he applied any philosophy to life, it was that of Pythagoras.

=Éphŏrus=: historian of Cumae, _fl._ _c._ 340 B.C. His history, once
very famous and much discussed, covered a period of 750 years.

=Epichármus=: _c._ 540-450 B.C.; the great comic poet of Sicily, chiefly
associated with the court of Hiero I (q.v.) at Syracuse.

=Epicúrus=: 342-270 B.C. Athenian philosopher and founder of the
Epicurean school, of which the aim was ‘peace of mind’ or ‘freedom from
emotional disturbance’. His own life (as his tenets required) was simple
and wholesome, and the self-indulgence of the sect in later days was
either a parody or a misconception of his teachings. A voluminous writer
on physics and ethics, but with a bad style.

=Epiménȋdes=: priest-prophet and bard of Crete, with peculiar knowledge
of medicine and methods of purification. Many fables were current
concerning him (e.g. of his sleep of fifty-seven years). He was called
in by the Athenians (_c._ 596 B.C.) to cleanse their city of a plague.

=Epimétheus=: brother of Prometheus (q.v.). The name was taken to mean
‘After-thinker’, and hence arose a notion that he ‘thought too late’.

=Erasístrătus=: a very distinguished physician in the earlier part of
the third century B.C. He practised and taught in Syria and Alexandria.
An eminent student of anatomy.

=Eratósthĕnes=: librarian of Alexandria under the Ptolemies; a writer on
mathematical geography, history, and grammar. Died about 196 B.C.

=Érĕsus=: a town on the south-west coast of Lesbos (Mytilene);
birthplace of Theophrastus.

=Erétria=: the second town of Euboea, a little south of Chalcis. See
Lelantum.

=Erínys=: a spirit of vengeance sent up from the underworld to punish
unnatural crimes and offences.

=Éteŏcles=: (legendary): son of Oedipus, joint king of Thebes with
Polyneices, whom he expelled through a selfish desire to rule alone.

=Euénus=: two poets of Paros are so named, one of the date of Socrates
and one earlier. It is, and was anciently, difficult to distinguish
between the two.

=Eúmĕnes=: an eminent and very able general (and also secretary) of
Alexander, after whose death he obtained (322 B.C.) the chief command in
Asia. His subordinate Neoptolemus, governor of Armenia, made head
against him with the help of Craterus. Their defeat, mentioned in the
article on Garrulity, took place in Cappadocia in 321 B.C.

=Eúpŏlis=: one of the three chief poets of the ‘old’ comedy of Athens, a
contemporary of Aristophanes (q.v.).

=Eurípides=: 480-406 B.C.; third in date of the three great Athenian
tragedians. His works were numerous and uneven. His poetical merits were
(and are) variously estimated.

=Fabius Maximus=: the best known person of the name was Q. Fabius
Maximus Cunctator, who saved Rome by his waiting tactics against
Hannibal; but the one who was associated with Polybius, as pupil and
patron, was Q. F. M. Aemilianus, consul in 145 B.C., who served against
Macedonia and in Spain.

=Góbryes=: one of the seven Persian nobles (Darius being another) who
conspired against the usurper Smerdis the Mage. Darius was raised to the
throne and Gobryes became one of his lieutenants.

=Górgȋas=: of Leontini in Sicily: orator, rhetorical teacher, and
sophist, who visited Athens 427 B.C. and subsequently. His style, which
was highly artificial, was widely imitated. He is the Gorgias of Plato’s
dialogue.

=Gorgo=: of Sparta; wife of Leonidas and daughter of Cleomenes I.
Stories of her wisdom and sagacity are told by Herodotus (6. 49, 7.
239).

=Gylippus=: Spartan general who came to the rescue of Syracuse and
chiefly caused the utter collapse of the Athenian attack upon that city.
After the fall of Athens (404 B.C.) it was his business to convey to
Sparta the 1,500 talents of booty. He opened the seams of the sacks,
filched about one-fifth of the amount, but was betrayed by the
inventories enclosed.

=Harmódius=: a handsome youth of Athens associated with Aristogeiton
(the older man) in the assassination of Hipparchus, brother of the
despot Hippias in 514 B.C. Though Athens was not liberated till four
years later, these tyrannicides were canonized as saviours of their
country.

=Hecuba=: the aged wife of Priam, and mother of Hector.

=Hephaestus=: practically the Greek equivalent of the Latin Vulcan or
Fire-God. He is represented as a lame, but sturdy and somewhat humorous
deity, a master of smithcraft.

=Hēracleides= (=Héraclides=): It is not clear to which person of the
name Plutarch refers. The best known was Heracleides Ponticus, a pupil
of Plato and a miscellaneous writer.

=Hēracleitus= (=Hēraclítus=): physical philosopher of Ephesus, _fl._
_c._ 515 B.C. Famous for the compression of his style, which became so
cryptic that he earned the title of the ‘Obscure’. He was something of a
hermit and favoured the simple vegetarian life. The ‘weeping
philosopher’.

=Hermíŏne=: daughter of Menelaus and Helen; married to Neoptolemus (son
of Achilles) and jealous of Andromache, whom she tried to put to death.

=Hēródŏtus=: _c._ 484-400 B.C.; the so-called ‘Father of History’. He
travelled widely in the East and in the Grecian world, and wrote on
Lydia, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and the great Persian war. His desire
is to get at the facts, but he displays a naïve fondness for
story-telling and for wonders and miracles.

=Hēróphȋlus=: of Chalcedon; a most eminent physician and a discoverer in
anatomy and physiology; _fl._ _c._ 300 B.C.

=Hiero I=: or the Magnificent, despot of Gelon and Syracuse (478-467
B.C.), and most powerful Sicilian of his day. Poets at one time or other
associated with his court were Epicharmus, Xenophanes, Simonides,
Aeschylus, Pindar, and Bacchylides.

=Hierónymus=: tragic and dithyrambic poet of Athens and apparently a
writer on poets.

=Hippócrătes=: of Cos; the ‘father of medicine’; the most renowned
physician and medical teacher and writer of antiquity: _c._ 460-357 B.C.

=Hypereides= (=Hyperídes=): Attic orator; patriot, contemporary and, for
the most part, supporter of Demosthenes in his anti-Macedonian policy.
Put to death by Antipater (q.v.), 322 B.C. An elegant speaker, of
dubious private life.

=Íbycus=: of Rhegium, _fl._ _c._ 540 B.C. at the court of the despot of
Samos; a lyric poet of the erotic type. The proverb, ‘the cranes of
Ibycus’, arose from the story that, when being murdered by brigands near
Corinth, he invoked a flock of cranes, then flying past, to avenge his
death. Plutarch tells the sequel (_Garrulity_).

=īno=: or Leucóthea; a mythological personage, daughter of Cadmus and
wife of Athamas. One story went that, when she leapt into the sea, she
was carried to Corinth by a dolphin. Hence the allusion in the story of
Arion.

=īphícrătes=: Athenian general in early part of the fourth century B.C.
An innovator in tactics and military equipment, noted for his prudence
and foresight.

=Ischómăchus=: a character of the name appears in Xenophon’s
_Oeconomicus_ as lecturing his wife upon the principles of domestic
management. Such a philosophically disposed person may be the associate
of Socrates mentioned by Plutarch.

=Ithacans=: the people of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, one of the Ionian
islands, south of Corfu.

=Ixíon=: mythical Thessalian king, who made illicit love to Hera, wife
of Zeus, and was punished by being fastened to a perpetually revolving
wheel in Hades.

=Laelius=: C. Laelius Sapiens, friend of Scipio Africanus Minor. Consul
140 B.C. Cicero’s _De Amicitia_ is otherwise named his _Laelius_.
Philosopher, orator, and scholar.

=Laértes=: aged father of Odysseus; superannuated king of Ithaca.

=Lĕchaeum=: the port of Old Corinth, with which it was connected by
walls one and a half miles in length.

=Lēlántum=: a river of Euboea, flowing through the fertile Lelantine
plain (between Chalcis and Eretria), which was long a bone of contention
between the two cities.

=Leónȋdas=: the famous Spartan king, who so stubbornly held the pass of
Thermopylae against the Persians with his ‘Three Hundred’, 480 B.C.

=Leptis=: a town in Africa near the modern Tripoli; a Phoenician
settlement and afterwards a Roman colony.

=Lesches=: one of the post-Homeric (‘Cyclic’) poets, and writer of the
_Little Iliad_; a native of Lesbos, _fl._ _c._ 705 B.C.

=Leuctra=: Boeotian village; the scene of the great defeat of the
Spartans by Epaminondas, 371 B.C.

=Livia=: Livia Drusilla, 56 B.C.-A.D. 29. Her first husband was Tiberius
Claudius Nero, by whom she was the mother of Tiberius, the future
emperor. Married to Augustus (then Octavianus) in 38 B.C., and having no
children by him, she was anxious to keep the succession in her own
family. A woman of strong character, she exerted a tactful control over
Augustus and attempted one more imperious over Tiberius, but failed.

=Locri=: Locri Epizephyrii, an important Greek town of South Italy,
about the modern Gerace. Its constitutional code was often regarded as a
model.

=Locris=: a Greek community lying along the north side of the middle of
the Corinthian Gulf.

=Loxias=: Apollo as God of Oracles. The name was commonly interpreted as
‘Riddling’ or ‘Indirect’.

=Lucullus=: Roman conqueror of Mithridates, succeeded in his command by
Pompey, 66 B.C. Famous for his wealth and luxury, and particularly for
his lavish feasts. A byword for self-indulgence.

=Lycéum=: an exercise ground with terraces (‘walks’) and colonnades just
outside the wall to the east of Athens. It was here that Aristotle
discoursed on the ‘Walk’ (_peripatos_), whence the name ‘Peripatetic’
became applied to his school.

=Lycurgus=: (1) the more or less legendary lawgiver and
constitution-maker of Sparta. His date and personality are quite
uncertain, and he is not improbably as mythical as Heracles.

(2) son of Dryas, a legendary Thracian king who resisted the worship of
Dionysius and hacked down his sacred plant, the vine. Dionysius punished
him with madness, during which he killed his own son, thinking him a
vine. The story is much varied in particulars.

=Lysander=: Spartan admiral, who won the battle of Aegospotami against
the Athenians and concluded the reduction of Athens in 404 B.C. He was
afterwards distinguished for his ostentation and arrogance.

=Lysias=: orator and professional rhetorician of Athens, distinguished
for the purity and lucidity of his diction and his grace of style: _fl._
_c._ 403 B.C. The majority of his 230 speeches were written for
litigants.

=Lysímăchus=: of Macedonia; became king of Thrace on the partition of
Alexander’s empire. A man of powerful physique and an able soldier.
Later his territory included the western half of Asia Minor. Killed in
battle 281 B.C.

=Masinissa=: king of Numidia; first a supporter, then an enemy, of
Carthage, he lent great assistance to the Romans from 204 B.C. to 148.
His reign was long and he died at ninety.

=Meidias= (=Mídias=): an Athenian citizen and bitter enemy of
Demosthenes, one of whose best known speeches is a violent, and possibly
a rather scurrilous, attack upon him.

=Melánthius=: of Athens: an inferior tragic and elegiac poet of
worthless character: a contemporary of Aristophanes and Plato.

=Meleáger=: legendary prince of Calydon. Having slain his mother’s
brothers, he was cursed by her, and thereupon refused to take further
part in the war against the Curetes. No offers could induce him to leave
his chamber and rout the enemy, until he yielded to the prayers of his
wife Cleopatra.

=Menander=: chief poet of the Athenian New Comedy (or comedy of
manners), 342-291 B.C.; a polished and easy-tempered man of the world.
His sententious writings lent themselves to quotation and were much read
in schools. To moralizing critics of a later age he was to comedy what
Homer was to epic.

=Mĕnedémus=: philosopher and statesman of Euboea, of the ‘Megarian’
school. Died _c._ 277 B.C.

=Méropë=: the name of several mythological semi-goddesses, mostly
connected with the heavenly bodies.

=Metellus=: Q. Caecilius Metellus, who successfully conducted the
Numidian War against Jugurtha (109 B.C.) until superseded by Marius. A
man of high character, military ability, and intellectual culture.

=Mētrodórus=: favourite pupil of Epicurus (q.v.) and almost co-master of
his school. Died 277 B.C.

=Mithridátes=: Mithridates VI, or the Great, king of Pontus 120-63 B.C.,
a Hellenized oriental famed for his physical and intellectual ability,
his ambition and daring; of importance in history for his wars with the
Romans under Lucullus and Pompey. He made a special study of poisons and
their antidotes.

=Mnēsíphȋlus=: Athenian statesman of sound practical ability, taken by
Themistocles as his model. It was he who urged Themistocles to force on
the battle of Salamis (480 B.C.). In the _Dinner-Party_ Plutarch borrows
the name for an imaginary friend of Solon.

=Molycréa=: a town just inside the entrance to the Corinthian Gulf on
the north side.

=Myrōn=: Boeotian sculptor; _fl._ 430 B.C. Best known by his Discobolus
and his ‘Cow’. His work included animal forms, and human figures in a
state of muscular activity or tension.

=Mýrsȋlus=: see Pittacus.

=Naucrătis=: a Greek town in the Delta of Egypt, thirty miles from the
sea. At first only a trading-station, it was granted privileges of
internal self-government by Amasis (q.v.).

=Neoptólĕmus=: see Eumenes.

=Nestor=: the typical wise old man of the _Iliad_.

=Nicander=: poet and physician of Colophon; _fl._ in earlier half of
second century B.C. Two of his poems are extant: the _Theriaca_ on
venomous animals, and the _Alexipharmaca_ (or ‘_Antidotes_‘) on poisons
and their remedies. The verse in itself is poor.

=Nícias=: (1) Athenian general in the calamitous expedition against
Syracuse (415-413 B.C.). A man of wealth, but religious to the point of
disastrous superstition; a commander of experience, though wanting in
promptitude and self-reliance. He was put to death by the victors.

(2) painter of Athens, _fl._ _c._ 310 B.C., particularly noted for his
chiaroscuro and for improvements in encaustic painting.

=Nilóxĕnus=: a character probably invented by Plutarch, with a name
geographically suitable.

=Numa=: Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome, famed for his piety and the
excellence of his legislation. Much of his history is legendary.

=Olympias=: wife of Philip (q.v.) and mother of Alexander. An imperious
and vindictive woman, with good reasons for jealousy, who often figures
in Macedonian feuds.

=Olynthus=: a Greek town on the Chalcidic peninsula, south of
Thessalonica.

=Ómphălë=: queen of Lydia, to whom Heracles was for a time enslaved and
for whom he played an effeminate part. In a sense she played the Delilah
to his Samson.

=Orchómĕnus=: a very ancient town in Boeotia.

=Oromazdes=: = Ahuramazda, the great God of the Zoroastrians; deity of
light and good, as opposed to Ahrimanes.

=Pándărus=: a Lycian warrior on the Trojan side, famous for his skill as
an archer.

=Panthéa=: beautiful wife of Abradatas, king of Susa. Cyrus, who had
captured her, showed her such respect that Abradatas came over to his
side.

=Parménȋdes=: philosopher and legislator of Elea, _fl._ _c._ 476 B.C.
His writings were in the hexameter verse then usual as the vehicle of
literary philosophy.

=Parménio=: general under Philip and Alexander, and right-hand
lieutenant of the latter. Accused of taking part in a conspiracy against
his chief, he was assassinated at the age of seventy in 330 B.C.

=Parrhásius=: painter of Ephesus, domiciled at Athens, _c._ 400 B.C.;
famed for his accurate drawing and proportion. As a man he was arrogant
and luxurious.

=Pāsíphaë=: (legendary): wife of Minos of Crete; enamoured of a bull and
mother of the Minotaur.

=Patróclus=: the ‘squire’ and beloved friend of Achilles. Killed by
Hector in battle, and avenged by Achilles.

=Peísistrătus=: a younger relative of Solon; intrigued himself into the
position of despot of Athens 560 B.C. He was twice expelled, but
re-established himself. A highly capable ruler, beautifier of Athens,
and a lover of literature.

=Pēleides= (-=ī=-): (i.e. ‘son of Peleus’) = Achilles.

=Péleus=: aged father of Achilles; superannuated king in Thessaly.

=Periander=: despot of Corinth, _c._ 625-585 B.C. An able and powerful
ruler, patron of literature and art, generally (but not invariably)
included among the Seven Sages. His early mildness is commonly reported
to have passed into tyranny (see Thrasybulus). His wife was Melissa.

Pericles: the highest name among what may be called ‘Prime Ministers’ of
Athens. His career may be dated 470-429 B.C., but his leadership became
most pronounced about 444 B.C. A man of large conceptions, brilliant
oratorical powers, and philosophic tastes, but of an aristocratic and
exclusive temperament.

=Perséphŏnë=: daughter of Demeter, wife of Pluto, and therefore, in one
of her aspects, Queen of the Dead.

=Perseus=: king of Macedonia, on whom the Romans made war in 171 B.C. At
first victorious or equal, he was defeated at Pydna by L. Aemilius
Paulus 168 B.C. He was carried to Rome and lived for some years at Alba.
A weak, vacillating and parsimonious monarch.

=Petrónius=: Titus (or Gaius) Petronius, the famous ‘arbiter of taste’
under Nero and director of his pleasures. Whether he was the author of
the famous _Satyricon_ is doubtful.

=Phaeácians=: seafaring inhabitants of the rich and fertile island of
Phaeacia, traditionally identified with Corfu, but possibly Crete. When
Odysseus arrived at the island on his raft he was hospitably entertained
by King Alcinous and sent home to Ithaca by him on a ship.

=Phaedra=: wife of Theseus and step-mother of Hippolytus, of whom she
became enamoured. The allusion in Plutarch refers to the fondness of
Hippolytus for hunting.

=Phálăris=: despot of Agrigentum in Sicily _c._ 570 B.C. His name was in
some legends proverbial for cruelty, and with him is associated the
legend of roasting his victims in a brazen bull. Put he is sometimes
represented otherwise and as a student of letters and philosophy.

=Pheidias= (=Phíd=-) of Athens, the most eminent sculptor of antiquity:
died 432 B.C. He is best known for his work upon the Parthenon and his
colossal statue of Zeus at Olympia.

=Phérae=: a town in Thessaly, somewhat west of the modern Volo, which
became dominant under the despots Jason and Alexander (q.v.).

=Philadolphus=: see Ptolemy (1).

=Philémōn=: Athenian poet of the New Comedy, reckoned second only to
Menander. Lived _c._ 360-262 B.C., and wrote ninety-seven plays.

=Philétas=: of Cos, _c._ 300 B.C.; elegiac poet and critic, tutor of
Ptolemy II. His thinness was a matter of jest for the comedians.

=Philip=: 382-336 B.C. king of Macedon, father of Alexander, and, in a
large measure, conqueror of Greece. Demosthenes’ _Philippics_ and other
speeches were directed against him. An able, hard-working, ambitious,
and rather unscrupulous man; a hard drinker and a sensualist, especially
fond of rude jest, but with intellectual tastes.

=Philíppȋdes=: one of the better Athenian poets of the New Comedy; _fl._
_c._ 335 B.C. At first he attacked the Macedonian rulers, but later
became a friend of Lysimachus (q.v.).

=Philóchŏrus=: Athenian writer on the history, antiquities, and legends
of his country, and on miscellaneous subjects: _fl._ _c._ 300-260 B.C.

=Philócrătes=: Athenian orator, first a supporter, then an opponent, of
Demosthenes. His policy was consistently to abet the pretensions of
Philip of Macedon, who had bribed him lavishly, to the detriment of
Athens. He was ultimately impeached and compelled to go into exile, 330
B.C.

=Philoctétos=: Greek hero (in the expedition to Troy) left desolate on
the island of Lemnos, where he suffered deprivations and the agonies of
a gangrened foot.

=Philopoemen=: (1) the most distinguished Greek soldier of his day; head
of the Achaean League several times from 208 B.C.; a man of culture and
high character.

(2) controlling minister of Attalus II (q.v.).

=Philótas=: there were several Macedonians of the name in the service of
Alexander. The two chief were (1) the son of Parmenio, a favourite of
Alexander, but found guilty of conspiracy and executed; (2) a general
who subsequently became governor of Cilicia.

=Philotímus=: a distinguished physician and writer on medicine of the
date of Erasistratus and Herophilus (q.v.), _c._ 300 B.C.

=Philóxĕnus=: a dithyrambic poet of high repute: _fl._ at Athens 400
B.C. He thence moved to the court of Dionysius (q.v.), by whom he is
said to have been imprisoned for his scathing criticism on the despot’s
verses.

=Phóciōn=: 402-317 B.C. An upright Athenian general and statesman, who
favoured, though probably not in an unpatriotic spirit, the submission
of Athens to the Macedonian power under Alexander (335) and Antipater
(q.v.). He was frequently opposed to Demosthenes, and was put to death
by his countrymen on a charge of treason.

=Phōcýlȋdes=: epic and elegiac poet of Miletus, _fl._ _c._ 530 B.C. Many
of his lines passed into current maxims, and were so intended.

=Phoenix=: a fugitive kindly received by Peleus and entrusted with the
bringing-up of his son Achilles. He had quarrelled with his own father,
whose young mistress he had corrupted at the request of his jealous
mother.

=Pindar=: of Thebes, the most eminent lyrist of Greece, composer of
songs, choral and processional odes, dirges, &c. lived _c._ 522-442
B.C.

=Píttăcus=: of Mytilene, _c._ 650-569. Contemporary of Sappho. During
the struggles of the oligarchical and popular parties he was appointed
by the latter ‘elective autocrat’ and legislator. The chief
representative on the other side had been Myrsilus. A philosophic poet
and the originator of moral maxims.

=Plato=: the aristocratic and cultured philosopher of Athens, follower
of Socrates, founder of the Academy, and writer of the Dialogues which
go under his name.

=Pólĕmo=: (1) of Athens, who in his youth abandoned profligate habits
for the cult of the Platonic philosophy under the influence of
Xenocrates (q.v.), whom he succeeded 315 B.C.

(2) a Stoic philosopher, traveller, and geographer, who wrote copiously
on inscriptions, &c. _fl._ _c._ 195 B.C.

=Polýbius=: Greek historian from Arcadia, carried to Italy by the Romans
167 B.C., and taken under the patronage of Q. Fabius Maximus and Scipio
Aemilianus. He accompanied Scipio against Carthage and in Spain. Wrote a
sound, useful, unimaginative history of the years 220-146 B.C. A
practical statesman and a student of the military art.

=Polycleitus= (-=clít=-): of Argos, _fl._ _c._ 450-412 B.C.; a sculptor
of the first rank, particularly distinguished for his representation of
human forms, to which he imparted his ideals of strength and beauty
according to a ‘canon of proportions’. These were best typified in his
_Doryphorus_ (‘spear-bearer’), which was itself sometimes called ‘the
Canon’. His chief colossal statue was the chryselephantine Hera of
Argos.

=Pontus=: in two senses: (1) the Black Sea; (2) a province or region on
the eastern half of the south coast of that sea.

=Praxítĕles=: the second greatest name in Athenian sculpture; _fl._ _c._
365 B.C. He is the head of the ‘later’ (or more graceful) Attic school,
Pheidias (q.v.) representing the earlier, more massive and majestic. He
particularly excelled with his statues of Aphrodite (e.g. the ‘Venus of
Cnidos’).

=Priam=: aged king of Troy, father of Hector, whose dead body he came to
Achilles to ransom.

=Priénë=: an Ionian Greek town in Asia Minor a little south of Ephesus;
the home of Bias.

=Pródȋcus=: of Ceos, sophist and rhetorical teacher; a contemporary of
Plato and a frequent visitor to Athens. His bodily weakness was
notorious.

=Prométheus=: mythical semi-deity, gifted with great foresight; a
benefactor of mankind by giving them fire stolen from heaven (an offence
for which he was cruelly punished by Zeus), and by the invention of the
civilizing arts. His name was commonly interpreted ‘Fore-thinker’.

=Ptolemy=: (1) Ptolemy II (Philadelphus), king of Egypt 285-247 B.C.

(2) Ptolemy III (Euergetes), king of Egypt 247-222 B.C.

(3) Ptolemy IV (Philopator), king 222-205 B.C.; a vicious and sensual
monarch, ruled by his minister Sosibius.

(4) Ptolemy V (Epiphanes), king 205-181 B.C. See _Aristomenes_. It was
in the early part of his reign that Egypt became a Roman protectorate.
He came to the throne at the age of four.

=Publius Nigidius=: contemporary of Cicero; a man of great scientific
and mathematical learning, as became a Pythagorean.

=Pūpius Piso=: Roman orator, and consul in 61 B.C.; a supporter of
Clodius and therefore hostile to Cicero.

=Pyrrhus=: king of Epirus, called in by the people of Tarentum against
the Romans. After a dearly won victory in 280 B.C. he sent his eloquent
minister to Rome to offer humiliating terms of peace. These were
rejected, and after a practically equal contest he retired from Italy.

=Pythagoras=: of Samos, _fl._ _c._ 540-520 B.C. He had apparently
travelled in the East and acquired, besides mathematical knowledge (in
which he made some advances), mystical theological views and probably
also his doctrine of the transmigration of souls. He migrated to Croton
in South Italy, and there became the founder of a close and aristocratic
philosophical brotherhood, to whom the word of the master was sufficient
(_ipse dixit_). Many legends gathered about him and a mystical
interpretation was put upon his rather compressed maxims.

=Pythian=: = ‘belonging to Pytho’, i.e. to Delphi, the seat of the chief
oracle of Apollo.

=Rhium=: the promontory on the south side of the mouth of the Corinthian
Gulf, the north promontory being Antirrhium.

=Rusticus=: L. Junius Arulenus Rusticus, a Roman noble of the Stoic
school and champion of liberty, so far as that was possible under the
Roman emperors. Put to death by Domitian (emperor A.D. 81-96).

=Samius=: lyrist and writer of epigrams at the Macedonian court, _c._
300 B.C.

=Scipio=: (1) P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major; the brilliant and
almost ideal Roman general who conquered Hannibal in 202 B.C.

(2) P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Minor, who completed the
conquest of Carthage 146 B.C.; a student of letters and philosophy.

=Scirōn=: a spot on the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis.

=Scyros=: island in the Aegean off north-east of Euboea. Here Achilles
was for a time hidden by his mother in woman’s dress, and occupied in
feminine tasks to keep him from the dangers of Troy.

=Seleucus=: called Callinicus (the ‘Victorious’); king of Syria 246-226
B.C. He was defeated by Antiochus with the help of Gauls (= Galatians)
at Ancyra, and it was for a time thought that he had perished in the
rout. He managed, however, to retain his kingdom.

=Silániōn=: Athenian portrait sculptor _c._ 324 B.C. His _Jocasta_
represented her as dying, her pallor being realistically rendered by the
unworthy device of mixing silver with bronze.

=Siléni=: a class of tipsy satyrs associated with Dionysus. _The_
Silenus was in a sense the Falstaff of Greek legend.

=Simónȋdes=: a most distinguished poet of Ceos, writer of elegies,
choral and processional odes, epigrams, and drinking songs (556-467
B.C.). He spent part of his life as a kind of court poet in Thessaly and
at Syracuse, and visited Athens. His compositions were of a high order,
and his moral maxims much in vogue, but he was notorious for worldliness
and a love of money.

=Sísyphus=: legendary king of Corinth; type of fraudulent and criminal
cunning; punished in Hades by being compelled to roll a stone up a hill
for ever and never establishing it at the top.

=Socrates=: the Athenian philosopher (468-399 B.C.), from whose thinking
most of the later schools were in some way descended. His object was to
bring philosophy down to earth, and to arrive at true and universal
definitions. His simple character, his whimsical irony, and his
dialectical skill formed the groundwork for many stories. His method was
conversational and non-didactic. He wrote nothing, and what we know of
him is due to his disciples Plato and Xenophon, and to later writers.

=Solōn=: of Athens, _c._ 638-558 B.C.; aristocrat, trader, traveller,
poet and thinker. Chosen at a time of political and financial crisis as
mediator between parties in Attica, and as constitution-maker, he
behaved with strict impartiality and self-effacement. We may believe
that he visited Egypt, but his intercourse with Croesus (q.v.) is of
doubtful warrant. Author of much proverbial wisdom.

=Sophocles=: 496-406 B.C.; second in date, and perhaps in merit, of
three great Athenian tragedians; a genial and practical man of the
world.

=Sótădes=: a poet at Alexandria _c._ 280 B.C. He wrote songs and satires
of a lascivious kind. One account states that in consequence of his
abuse he was thrown into the sea in a leaden chest.

=Speusippus=: of Athens, nephew and disciple of Plato, and his successor
as head of the Academy (347-339 B.C.); a writer on ethical and
dialectical subjects. His character is said to have excelled his
intellect.

=Spínthărus=: the best known person of the name was an inferior tragic
poet of Heraclea on the Black Sea satirized by Aristophanes and other
comedians.

=Stilpo=: a high-minded and sane philosopher of great dialectical
acuteness. Founder of the Megarian school, which made a cult of virtue
while denying the possibility of knowledge. See also under Demetrius.

=Sulla=: the distinguished Roman general, 138-78 B.C. He took charge of
the war against Mithridates in 87 B.C., his capture of Athens taking
place in the next year. His love of pleasure resulted in the pimpled
face referred to in Plutarch’s article on _Garrulity_. Caecilia Metella
was his fourth wife.

=Sýbăris=: the oldest Greek settlement in the southernmost part of
Italy, once large, prosperous, and a by-word for effeminate luxury
(whence ‘sybarite’); afterwards completely overthrown and destroyed, its
place being taken by Thurii (q.v.).

=Taenărum=: now Matapan; cape at the end of the middle prong of the
Peloponnese.

=Télĕphus=: king of Mysia at the time of the Trojan war. He was wounded
by Achilles, and could only be cured by ‘that which had wounded him’.
The remedy turned out to be the rust of Achilles’ spear.

=Tháïs=: a witty and beautiful courtesan of Athens, first associated
with Alexander during his Asiatic campaigns and then with Ptolemy in
Egypt.

=Thales=: of Miletus, _c._ 635-555 B.C. Famous as a physical
philosopher, mathematician, and shrewd practical man. He is regularly
mentioned first among the Seven Sages.

=Theaetétus=: a high-minded Athenian youth, eager for knowledge, who
plays his part in Plato’s dialogue of that name.

=Theágĕnes=: Theban general at Chaeronea (338 B.C.).

=Theánō=: wife or pupil (or both) of Pythagoras (q.v.), herself a writer
on philosophy and a pattern of virtue.

=Themistŏcles=: became political leader at Athens 483 B.C., and
commanded the Athenian contingent at the battle of Salamis. Subsequently
(471 B.C.) this extremely able, but apparently not extremely honest, man
was ostracised. His last days were spent in the service of Persia. His
son Diophantus is of no note.

=Theócritus=: of Chios, rhetorician and sophist, noted for his caustic
wit. The Antigonus who put him to death was Antigonus the ‘One-Eyed’.

=Theógnis=: elegiac poet of the sententious order. He flourished at
Megara _c._ 550-540 B.C. Amid the feuds of his country he sides with the
aristocrats, and allusions to political injustice are frequent. Many
current maxims of proverbial wisdom were fathered on ‘Theognis’ as a
matter of course.

=Theōn=: painter of Samos, contemporary of Apelles (q.v.) and Alexander;
spoken of by Pliny as ‘next to the first’.

=Theophrastus=: of Lesbos and afterwards of Athens; disciple and
successor of Aristotle as head of the Peripatetics (322 B.C.). An
encyclopaedic writer on logic, physics, history, biology, zoology, &c.
His best-known work is his _Characters_.

=Theopompus=: king of Sparta, _fl._ _c._ 750 B.C. To his reign belonged
the change of the form of government by the establishment of the popular
‘ephors’ to control the royal power.

=Thersítes=: misshapen and virulent demagogue in the Greek army before
Troy.

=Thĕtis=: sea-goddess; mother of Achilles.

=Thrasybúlus=: despot of Miletus, contemporary and friend of Periander
(q.v.), over whom he exercised a bad influence, as in advising him to
‘cut down the tall poppies’.

=Thúrii=: Greek city in South Italy on the west side of the Gulf of
Tarentum, noted for its special democratic system.

=Tīmágĕnes=: an Alexandrian or Syrian rhetorician and historian. He
taught and wrote at Rome under Augustus, whose friendship he obtained,
losing it, however, through his caustic freedom.

=Tīmocléa=: of Thebes. Plutarch tells of her noble and daring spirit in
his _Life of Alexander_ (c. 12).

=Tīmomăchus=: painter of Byzantium, first century B.C.; particularly
famed for his _Ajax_ and _Medea_, which were bought by Julius Caesar.
Medea was represented meditating the murder of her children.

=Timóthëus=: (1) an able and spirited Athenian general, who obtained
several rather roving successes, chiefly against the Lacedaemonians.
Something of a free lance; of popular character and considerable
culture; _fl._ 378-354 B.C.

(2) poet and musician of Miletus, settled at Athens; _fl._ _c._ 400-360
B.C. His poems were mainly dithyrambs (high-flown and wordy
compositions) or cognate lyrics. His music, at first ill received on
account of its vulgarizing innovations, became immensely popular.

=Tissaphernes=: Persian satrap of lower Asia Minor. See Alcibiades.

=Tīthónus=: a mortal beloved of Eos (Aurora), who obtained for him
immortality, but forgot to obtain him immortal youth.

=Troezen=: a town in the east of the Peloponnese near the entrance of
the Saronic Gulf.

=Tyndareus’ sons=: Castor and Pollux, the traditional preservers of
seamen.

=Typhōn=: = Set; Egyptian malignant deity; brother, enemy, and slayer of
Osiris.

=Xenócrătes=: 396-314 B.C.: philosopher from Chalcedon, disciple of
Plato, and philosophic teacher and writer. His earnestness of character
and application to study atoned for his lack of the Graces. Became head
of the Academic school next but one after Plato.

=Xenóphănes=: philosopher of Colophon, and afterwards of Elea in Italy,
in later part of sixth century B.C. Noted for his high conception of a
Deity as neither anthropomorphic nor subject to human passions. His
doctrines were embodied in hexameter verse.

=Xenophōn=: of Athens; the well-known historian, and leader of the
retreat of the ‘Ten Thousand’ as recorded in his _Anabasis_. A
philosophical adherent of Socrates and a voluminous writer. Lived _c._
444-359 B.C.

=Zacýnthus= = Zante, the southernmost of the Ionian islands.

=Zéno=: (1) of Citium in Cyprus and subsequently of Athens; founder of
the Stoic philosophy; a man of simple, if rather dour, character, and
capable of an apt retort: _fl._ _c._ 270 B.C. A writer on ethical,
physical, and other philosophic subjects.

(2) Philosopher of Elea; disciple of Parmenides (q.v.); upholder of
popular liberty against a usurping despot.




                                APPENDIX
                        NOTES ON THE GREEK TEXT


4 D ἐνίοτε γὰρ εἰδότες αἰσθομένοις μᾶλλον αὐτοῖς τοῦτο λεγόντων. Read
... εἰδότες, (ἢ) αἰσθόμενοι ἢ καὶ ἄλλων αὐτοῖς τοῦτο λεγόντων.

5 C ἵνα μάθῃς ὅτι τῶν ἀναξίων τὰ τίμια οὐδὲν διαφέρει. The sense
requires ἀξίων ‘cheap’.

6 C πρὸς δὲ τούτοις τί ἄν τοὺς παῖδας ... καλὸν γάρ τοι κτλ. The cause
of the lacuna is obvious if we read τί ἄν τοὺς παῖδας (καλὸν
διδάσκοιεν;) καλὸν γάρ τοι κτλ.

7 B ἕως ἔτι μέμνημαι τῆς παιδείας. Rather ... (ταύτης) τῆς παιδείας.

7 F τὸ μὲν γὰρ εὐγενῶς εὐτυχεῖν ἀνδρός, τὸ δ᾽ ἀνεπιφθόνως εὐηνίου
ἀνθρώπου. Read τὸ μὲν γὰρ εὐγενῶς ἀτυχεῖν ἀνδρός, τὸ δ᾽ ἀνεπιφθόνως
εὐθηνεῖν ἀνθρώπου.

8 B καὶ ἀπὸ πηγῆς τὴν ἐπιστήμην τηρεῖν συμβέβηκεν. Read ἀπὸ πείνης ...

8 D ἰσχνὸς δὲ στρατιώτης πολεμικῶν ἀγώνων ἐθὰς ἀθλητῶν καὶ πολεμίων
φάλαγγας διωθεῖ. Read ... ἀθλητῶν καταπιμέλων ...

8 F καὶ ταῦτα μὲν δὴ τῷ λόγῳ παρεφορτισάμην, ἵν᾽ ἐφεξῆς καὶ τἄλλα ...
συνάψω. Read ... νῦν δ᾽ ἐφεξῆς.

11 A ἵνα δὲ γέλωτα παράσχῃ τοῖς ἄλλοις, αὐτὸς πολὺν χρόνον ἔκλαυσεν. We
require the antithesis γέλωτα (βραχὺν) παράσχῃ.

12 E ὅτι δεῖ τὸν βίον ἐπιτηδεύειν καὶ μὴ δεῖν δεσμῷ προσάπτειν. Read ...
καὶ μηδενὶ δεσμῷ ...

13 B ὡς ἐκ λυρικῆς τέχνης. The sense requires νευροσπαστικῆς, to which
νευρικῆς may be equivalent.

14 C τὸ μὲν οὖν πάσας τὰς προειρημένας ... συμπεριλαβεῖν εὐχῆς ἴσως ἢ
παραινέσεως ἔργον ἐστί. The word most easily lost would be (εὐημερίας).
Also (μἂλλον) is to be supplied.

44 B ἐν τῷ καταφρονεῖν τιθέμενοι καὶ τὸ σεμνὸν ὑπεροψίᾳ διὼκοντες. Read
ἐν τῷ καταφρονεῖν (τὸ φρονεῖν) τιθέμενοι ...

46 B ᾠδήν τινα πεποιημένην ἐφ᾽ ἁρμονίας. Read ἐφ᾽ ἁρμονίας (νέας) or the
like.

74 A τοιοῦτον γὰρ ἡ θεραπευτικὴ παρρησία ζητεῖ τρόπον, ἡ δὲ πρακτικὴ τὸν
ἐναντίον. The sense requires ἡ δὲ ταρακτικὴ ...

152 A εἰ μὴ μόνος εἴη φρόνιμος. Probably εἰ ἐμμόνως εἴη ...

152 D σὺ δὲ δεινὸς εἶ κοράκων ἐπαΐειν καὶ κολοιῶν, τῆς δὲ σοῦ φωνῆς οὐκ
ἀκριβῶς ἐξακούεις. For τῆς δὲ σοῦ (δεσου) read τῆς (δεδουσ i.e.) δ᾽
Αἰδοῦς ...

158 D δεινὸν μὲν οὖν ... καὶ τὸ γεωργίας αὐτῇ. The sense requires αὐτῆς.

159 D ὥσπερ ἐν μυλῶνι τῷ σώματι τὴν ψυχὴν ἐγκεκαλυμμένην. Read
ἐγκεκλῃμένην.

160 F ἐπὶ τὸν τόπον οἷ προσέμελλε. Read προσέκελλε.

163 D ... ἀπαντῆσαι μόνον ... θαλάττῃ ἕπεσθαι κτλ. The sense would be
given by ... ἀπαντῆσαι μόνον (θαρρῆσαι, τὸ δ᾽ ἀπαλλάττεσθαι, καὶ ἐκ τῆς)
θαλάττης ἕπεσθαι κτλ.

504 B ὅτι πρεσβύτης ἐστὶν ἐν Ἀθήναις παρὰ πότον σιωπᾶν δυνάμενος. Rather
... πρεσβύτης (εἷς) ...

504 C ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως εἰπὼν καὶ ἀναφωνήσας ἐκεῖνο περὶ αὑτοῦ τὸ ... Probably
ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως (τὸ τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως) εἰπὼν κτλ.

513 A Φιλίππου γράψαντος εἰ δέχονται τῇ πόλει αὐτόν, εἰς χάρτην ΟΥ μέγα
γράψαντες ἀπέστειλαν. There would be more point in ... εἰς χάρτην (τὴν
αὐτὴν) ... Moreover, what they wrote was simply Ο.

514 F τὸ γὰρ μάτην καὶ διακενῆς οὐχ ἧττον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἢ τοῖς ἔργοις
ἔστιν. Read ... οὐχ ἧττον (εὐλαβητέον) ἐν ...

515 D ὅσσον ὕδωρ κατ᾽ Ἀλίζονος ἢ δρυὸς ἀμφὶ πέτηλα. Perhaps ὅσσον ὕδωρ
καταχεῖ νότος ἦ ...




 ● Transcriber’s Notes:
    ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
    ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
    ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
      when a predominant form was found in this book.
    ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
    ○ Text that was in bold face is enclosed by equals signs (=bold=).
    ○ Page references printed in the margin of the book have been moved
      into the paragraphs near where they appear, contained in square
      brackets, and begun with the word "Sidenote".
    ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are
      referenced.





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