Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. I.
Date: 2020-07-11T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Ethics -- Early works to 1800

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Title: Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. I.

Author: Plutarch

Translator: T. G. Tucker

Release date: July 11, 2020 [eBook #62618]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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

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.’

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 |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 |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 |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 |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,’ |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.’ |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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, |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 |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 |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.’ |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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: |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.’ |*| Fifth Cleobulus: ‘If he trusted none of those about him.’ Sixth Pittacus: ‘If the ruler could get his subjects to fear, not him, but |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.’ |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 |D| and ruler in the shape of the law. You have a wonderful gift at understanding ravens and jackdaws, but your hearing of the |*| 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,’ |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.’ |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 |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 |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, |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 |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,’ |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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,

|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, |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 |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 |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 |*| 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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |*| 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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |*| 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 |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, |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |D| the island and people were terrified, he alone ventured to face it. |*| 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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

ON OLD MEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

It is well known, Euphanes, that as an admirer of Pindar you |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 |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. |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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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,

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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; |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 |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 |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 |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, |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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!

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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;

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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.

ADVICE TO MARRIED COUPLES

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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, |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 |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.

|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: |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 |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?’

|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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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.

|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.

CONCERNING BUSYBODIES

If a house is stuffy, dark, chilly, or unhealthy, it is perhaps |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 |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 |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.

|*| 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.

|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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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, |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 |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!

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

ON GARRULOUSNESS

|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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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. |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:—

|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 |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 |*| when drinking.’

Silence, then, goes with depth, the capacity to keep a secret, |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 |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 |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: |*|

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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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: |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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.

|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 |*| 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, |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 |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 |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 |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;

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |*| 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 |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.

ON THE STUDENT AT LECTURES

My dear Nicander, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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. |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 |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 |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, |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. |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.’

|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 |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 |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 |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.

|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’ |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 |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, |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,

|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 |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, |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 |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 |*| 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 |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 |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 |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.

|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’. |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’. |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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |*| 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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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

|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 |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 |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.

ON MORAL IGNORANCE IN HIGH PLACES

|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.

|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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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. |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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. |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]....

FAWNER AND FRIEND
(WITH AN EXCURSUS ON CANDOUR)

My dear Antiochus Philopappus, |48 E|

‘Every one,’ says Plato, ‘will pardon a man for admitting that he has a strong affection for himself,’ but—not to mention |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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, |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 |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, |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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.

|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 |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 |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, |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, |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.’

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.’ |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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: |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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; |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’. |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 |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 |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 |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

|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 |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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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 |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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: |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.

|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.’

|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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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. |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

|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, |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 |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 |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 |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!’ |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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. |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 |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,

|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.

|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 |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 |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, |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?

|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 |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 |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 |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;

|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, |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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,

|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 |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 |*| 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 |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 |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 |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 |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.

ON BRINGING UP A BOY[55]

I propose to offer some remarks upon the bringing-up of |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 |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: |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, |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. |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 |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, |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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, |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. |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |D| observation or from the accounts of others, how ignorant and |*| 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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |*| 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.

|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 |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. |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 |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 |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.

|*| 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 |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, |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, |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 |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 |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.

|*| 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 |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 |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, |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 |F| the blessings conferred by philosophy. To bear adversity nobly is to act the brave man,[57] to bear prosperity unassumingly, the |*| 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 |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 |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 |*| [their fertilizers], and the employment of books is instrumental to culture in the same way.

|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. |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 |*| a phalanx of fleshy prize-fighters.

|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, |F| I will now proceed with the connected account of such other |*| 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 |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 |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 |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.

|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.

|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: |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, |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: |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 |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?’ |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 |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 |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 |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 |*| 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 |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 |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.

|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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |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 |*| 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 |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 |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. |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 |*| 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 |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 |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 |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; |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, |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 |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: |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 |*| 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.

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 ...

Footnotes

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’.

2.  See Concerning Busybodies, 522 E.

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.

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.).

5.  Volkmann names in particular Clement of Alexandria and Basil.

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.

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.’

8.  Aulicis tantum scripsit, non doctis, says Scaliger.

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.

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’.

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

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.

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’.

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

15.  See an observation of Professor Summers, Seneca Select Letters, Introduction, p. lxxiv.

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).

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.

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

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.

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

21.  History of Greek Classical Literature, ii. 427.

22.  The Literature of Ancient Greece, p. 396.

23.  Quoted by Sandys (A History of Classical Scholarship, i. 300).

24.  The home of Bias.

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.

26.  The divinities of spring-water.

27.  The title Lusios or Luaios was popularly interpreted Deliverer (from care or difficulty).

28.  See note on Amasis.

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

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

31.  Equivalent to a command to ‘go weep’.

32.  In antiquity these vessels were of bronze.

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.

34.  The text here is corrupt.

35.  i.e. Epicurean.

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

37.  Made of polished bronze.

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

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

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.

41.  A frequent pretence of ancient witches.

42.  These were farmed.

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

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

45.  In his Phaedrus.

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

47.  The rest of the essay is missing.

48.  i.e. a rough and mountainous island.

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

50.  In the Stoic sense of adiaphoria.

51.  Since diagrams were often drawn with sticks in the dust.

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

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’.

54.  Or what French would call the gouverneur.

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

56.  The play upon words (ēthikas, ‘moral’ and ĕthikas, ‘of habit’) is not adequately translatable.

57.  The Greek text is here corrupt; the translation represents the probable sense.

58.  The Greek text is again faulty. The sense here given is approximate.

59.  These maxims were probably in the first instance merely hygienic, or even popular superstitions, but subsequently they received recondite interpretations.

60.  The Greek verse is doggerel, and no attempt is made to better it in the English.

- 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.

- Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked for ease of reference.

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

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Table of Contents

- Selected Essays of Plutarch
- PREFACE
- INTRODUCTION
- CONTENTS
- DINNER-PARTY OF THE SEVEN SAGES
- ON OLD MEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

- ADVICE TO MARRIED COUPLES

- The Rules:

- CONCERNING BUSYBODIES
- ON GARRULOUSNESS
- ON THE STUDENT AT LECTURES
- ON MORAL IGNORANCE IN HIGH PLACES

- FAWNER AND FRIEND (WITH AN EXCURSUS ON CANDOUR)

- ON BRINGING UP A BOY[55]
- NOTES ON PERSONS AND PLACES
- APPENDIX NOTES ON THE GREEK TEXT
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE