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PLUTARCH'S    MORALS. 


TRANSLATED    ΓΙΙΟΜ    THE    GREEK    BY    SEVERAL    HANDS. 


r/i/'^^t-c./ius 


CORRECTED    AND    REVISED 


BY 


IVILLL'IM   λΥ.  GOODWIN,  Pii.  D., 

PROFESSOR    OF    GREEK     LITERATURE     IN     HARVARD    UNIVERSITY. 


AN    INTRODUCTION     BY    RALPH    WALDO    E.MERSON. 


Vol.   I. 


BOSTON: 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND   COMPANY. 

1878. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  j'ear  1870,  by 

LITTLE,    rRi)WN,    AND    COMPANlf, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


cambuidgk: 
l-kess  of  juhn  avilson  and  son. 


EDITOR'S    PREFACE. 


The  translation  of  Plutarch's  Morals  "by  Several  Hands"  was 
first  published  in  London  in  1684-1694.  The  fifth  edition,  «  re- 
vised and  corrected  from  the  many  errors  of  the  former  editions," 
published  in  1718,  is  the  basis  of  the  present  translation.  The 
earlier  translation  made  by  Philemon  Holland,  Doctor  of  Physick, 
published  in  London  in  1003  and  a^ain  in  1657,  has  often  been 
of  great  use  in  the  revision.  It  hardly  need  be  stated,  that  the 
name  "Morals"  is  used  by  tradition  to  include  all  the  works 
of  Plutarch  except  the  Lives. 

The  original  editions  of  the  present  work  contained  translations 
of  every  grade  of  merit.  Some  of  the  essays  were  translated 
by  eminent  scholars  like  William  Baxter  (nephew  of  Richard 
Baxter)  and  Thomas  Creech,  whose  work  generally  required 
merely  such  revision  as  every  translation  of  such  an  age  would 
now  need.  But  a  large  number,  including  some  of  the  longest 
and  most  difficult  treatises,  were  translated  by  men  whose 
ignorance  of  Greek  —  or  whatever  language  was  the  immediate 
ancestor  of  their  own  version — was  only  one  of  their  many 
defects  as  translators.  Perhaps  we  may  gain  a  better  idea  than  we 
have  had  of  the  scholars  of  Oxford  whom  Bentley  delighted  to  tor- 
ment, from  these  specimens  of  the  learning  of  their  generation; 
and  it  may  have  been  a  fortunate  thing  for  some  of  our  translators 
that  Bentley  w&s  too  much  occupied  with  the  wise  heads  of 
Christ  Church  to  be  able  to  notice  the  blunders  of  men  who  could 
write  notes  saying  that  the  Parthenon  is  "a  Promontory  shoot- 
ing into  the  Black  Sea,  where  stood  a  Chappel  dedicated  to  some 
Virgin  God-head,  and  famous  for  some  Victory  thereabout  ob- 
tained;"'  or  who  could  torture  a  plain  statement  that  a  certain 
water  when  stirred  produced  bubbles  (^πομ(ρόλνγες'ι  into  a  story  of  a 


Vi  EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 

new  substance  called  Pompholt/x,  "  made  by  Mixture  of  Brass  with 
the  Air"!  See  Vol.  V.  p.  337,  and  Vol.  III.  p.  517,  of  the  orig- 
inal translation. 

]3esides  the  great  variety  of  scholarship  and  ignorance,  each 
translator  had  his  own  theory  of  translation.  While  some  at- 
tempted a  literal  version,  so  as  even  to  bracket  all  words  not 
actually  represented  in  the  Greek,  others  gave  a  mere  paraphrase, 
which  in  one  case  (Mr.  Pulley n's  "  Customs  of  the  Lacedaemo- 
nians •')  became  an  original  essay  on  the  subject,  based  on  the 
facts  supplied  by  Plutarch.  The  present  editor's  duty,  of  course, 
changed  with  each  new  style  of  translation.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  to  bring  the  whole  work  to  a  uniform  standard  of 
verbal  correctness,  unless  essentially  a  new  translation  had  been 
made.  The  original  version  was  often  so  hopelessly  incorrect  that 
no  revision  was  possible;  and  here  the  editor  cannot  flatter  him- 
self that  he  has  succeeded  in  patching  the  English  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  with  his  own  without  detriment.  Fortunately,  the 
earlier  translation  of  Holland  supplied  words,  and  even  whole 
sentences,  in  many  cases  in  which  the  other  was  beyond  the 
help  of  mere  revision.  The  translation  of  Holland  is  generally 
more  accurate  than  the  other,  and,  on  the  whole,  a  more  con- 
scientious work ;  its  antiquated  style  and  diffuseness,  however, 
render  it  less  fitted  for  republication  at  the  present  time.  Not- 
withstanding all  the  defects  of  the  translation  which  is  here  re- 
vised, it  is  beyond  all  question  a  more  readable  version  than  could 
be  made  now;  and  the  liveliness  of  its  style  will  more  than  make 
up  to  most  readers  for  its  want  of  literal  correctness.  It  need 
not  be  stated  to  professional  scholars,  that  translations  made  in 
the  seventeenth  century  cannot,  even  by  the  most  careful  revision, 
be  made  to  answer  the  demands  of  modern  critical  scholarship. 

One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  in  preparing  the  present  work 
has  been  to  decide  how  much  of  the  antiquated  language  of  the 
old  translation  should  be  retained.  On  this  point  the  editor  has 
fortunately  been  able  to  consult  the  wisest  and  most  experienced 
advisers,  to  whose  aid  he  has  been  constantly  indebted  ;  but  even 
the  highest  authorities  occasionally  disagree  on  the  first  princi- 
ples. He  is  fully  aware,  therefore,  that  he  has  dissatisfied  a  large 
number  of  the  friends  of  Plutarch  in  this  respect ;  but  he  is  equally 
sure  that  he  should  have  dissatisfied  an  equal  number' by  any 
other  course  which  he  might  have  followed.     The  general  princi- 


EDITOR'S   PREFACE.  VU 

pie  adopted  has  been  to  retain  such  expressions  as  were  in  good 
use  when  the  translation  was  made,  provided  the  meaning  is 
obvious  or  easy  to  be  learned  from  a  dictionary,  and  to  discard 
such  as  would  be  unintelligible  to  ordinary  readers.  It  has,  in 
some  cases,  been  assumed  that  the  use  of  a  phrase  of  obvious 
meaning  in  this  translation  is  of  itself  authority  for  accepting  it. 
On  these  principles  many  words  and  expressions  are  retained, 
whicli  are  decidedly  weaker  than  their  modern  equivalents,  espe- 
cially many  Latinisms  and  Gallicisms  which  now  seem  pedantic. 
Even  here  consistency  has  been  impossible,  where  the  duty  of  a 
reviser  changed  with  every  new  treatise.  Perhaps  the  editor  can- 
not state  his  own  object  more  correctly,  than  by  saying  that  he  has 
tried  to  make  each  treatise  what  the  original  translator  would 
have  made  it  if  he  had  carried  out  his  own  purpose  conscien- 
tiously and  thoroughly.  Where  so  many  errors  were  to  be  cor- 
rected, it  would  be  absurd  to  hope  that  many  have  not  remained 
still  uimoticed. 

The  corrupt  state  of  the  Greek  text  of  many  parts  of  Plutarch's 
Morals  must  not  be  overlooked.  No  complete  edition  of  the 
Greek  has  been  published  since  Wyttenbach's  (1795-1800), 
except  the  French  one  by  Diibner  in  the  Didot  collection.  The 
latter  gives  no  manuscript  readings;  and  although  it  professes  to 
be  based  partly  on  a  new  collation  of  the  manuscripts  in  the  pub- 
lic library  of  Paris,  nothing  distinguishes  the  changes  made  on 
this  authority  from  conjectures  of  the  editor  and  his  predecessors. 
A  slight  glance  at  Wyttenbach  will  show  that  many  parts  of  the 
text  are  restored  by  conjecture ;  and  many  of  the  conjectures, 
though  plausible  and  ingenious,  are  not  such  as  would  be  ac- 
cepted by  modern  scholarship  if  they  were  made  in  earlier  classic 
authors.  A  translator  must  accept  many  of  these  under  silent 
protest;  to  enumerate  one-half  of  them  would  introduce  a  critical 
commentary  entirely  out  of  place  in  a  translation.  In  fact,  no 
critical  translation  of  these  treatises  is  possible,  until  a  thorough 
revision  of  the  text,  with  the  help  of  the  best  manuscripts,  has  been 
made;  and  this  is  a  task  from  which  most  scholars  would  shrink 
in  dismay.  In  many  cases  in  this  edition,  blanks  have  been  pre- 
ferred to  uncertain  conjectures  or  traditional  nonsense.  The 
treatises  on  Music,  on  the  Procreation  of  the  Soul,  and  the  two 
on  the  Stoics,  have  many  of  their  dark  corners  made  darker  by 
the  utter  uncertainty  of  the  Greek  text. 


Vlll  EDITOR'S   PREFACE. 

The  essays  in  this  edition  follow  the  same  order  as  in  the  old 
translation ;  but  those  on  Fortune,  and  on  Virtue  and  Vice,  with 
the  Conjugal  Precepts,  are  transferred  from  the  beginning  of  vol- 
ume third  to  the  end  of  volume  second.  The  sections  have 
been  numbered  in  accordance  with  the  modern  editions  of  the 
Greek  text.  References  to  most  of  the  classic  authors  quoted  by 
Plutarch  are  given  in  the  foot-notes,  except  where  a  quotation 
is  a  mere  fragment  of  an  unknown  work.  The  tragic  fragments 
are  numbered  according  to  the  edition  of  Nauck  (Leipsic,  1856). 
All  notes  (except  these  references)  introduced  by  the  editor  are 
marked  G.  A  few  notes  are  taken  from  Holland  ;  and  all  which 
are  not  otherwise  marked  are  retained  from  the  old  translation. 

In  conclusion,  the  editor  must  express  his  warmest  thanks  to 
his  colleagues  at  the  University  and  other  friends  who  have 
kindly  aided  him  with  their  advice  and  skill.  Without  their 
help,  the  undertaking  would  sometimes  have  seemed  hopeless. 

Habvard  College, 

November,  1870. 


INTRODUCTION. 


It  is  remarkable  that  of  an  author  so  familiar  as  Plutarch,  not 
only  to  scholars,  but  to  all  reading  men,  and  whose  history  is  so 
easily  gathered  from  his  works,  no  accurate  memoir  of  his  life, 
not  even  tlie  dates  of  his  birth  and  death,  slionld  liave  come  down 
to  us.  Strange  that  the  writer  of  so  many  illustrious  biograjjhies 
should  wait  so  long  for  his  own.  It  is  agreed  that  he  was  born 
about  the  year  50  a.  d.  He  has  been  represented  as  having 
been  the  tutor  of  the  Emperor  Trajan,  as  dedicating  one  of  ins 
books  to  him,  as  living  long  in  Rome  in  great  esteem,  as  having 
received  from  Trajan  the  consular  dignity,  and  as  having  been 
appointed  by  him  the  governor  of  Greece.  lie  was  a  man  whose 
real  superiority  had  no  need  of  these  flatteries.  Meantime,  the 
simple  truth  is,  that  he  was  not  the  tutor  of  Trajan,  that  he 
dedicated  no  book  to  him,  was  not  consul  in  Rome,  nor  governor 
of  Greece ;  appears  never  to  have  been  in  Rome  but  on  two  occa- 
sions, and  then  on  business  of  the  people  of  his  native  city, 
Chasronasa ;  and  thougli  lie  found  or  made  friends  at  Rome,  and 
read  lectures  to  some  friends  or  scholars,  he  did  not  know  or 
learn  tlie  Latin  language  there ;  with  one  or  two  doubtful  excep- 
tions, never  quotes  a  Latin  book  ;  and  thougli  the  contemporary 
in  his  youth,  or  in  his  old  age,  of  Persius,  Juvenal,  Lucan,  and 
Seneca,  of  Quintilian,  Martial,  Tacitus,  Suetonius,  Pliny  the  Elder, 
and  the  Younger,  he  does  not  cite  them,  and  in  return  his  name 
is  never  mentioned  by  any  Roman  writer.  It  would  seem  that  the 
community  of  letters  and  of  personal  news  was  even  more  rare 
at  that  day  than  the  want  of  printing,  of  railroads  and  telegraphs, 
would  suggest  to  us. 

But  this  neglect  by  his  contemporaries  has  been  compensated 
by  an  immense  popularity  in  modern  nations.  Whilst  his  books 
were  never  known  to  the  world  in  their  own  Greek  tongue,  it  is 


χ  INTRODUCTION. 

curious  that  the  "  Lives  "  were  translated  and  printed  in  Latin, 
thence  into  Italian,  French,  and  English,  more  than  a  century 
before  the  original  "  Works"  were  yet  printed.  For  whilst  the 
"  Lives  "  were  translated  in  Rome  in  1471,  and  the  "  Morals," 
part  by  part,  soon  after,  the  first  printed  edition  of  the  Greek 
"  Works "  did  not  appear  until  1572.  Hardly  current  in  his 
own  Greek,  these  found  learned  interpreters  in  the  scholars  of 
Germany,  Spain,  and  Italy.  In  France,  in  the  middle  of  the 
most  turbulent  civil  wars,  Amyot's  translation  awakened  general 
attention.  His  genial  version  of  the  "  Lives  "  in  1559,  of  the 
"  Morals  "  in  1572,  had  signal  success.  King  Henry  IV.  wrote 
to  his  wife,  Marie  de  Medicis :  "  Vive  Dieu.  As  God  liveth,  you 
could  not  have  sent  me  any  thing  which  could  be  more  agreeable 
than  the  news  of  the  pleasure  you  have  taken  in  this  reading. 
Plutarch  always  delights  me  with  a  fresh  novelty.  To  love  him 
is  to  love  me  ;  for  he  has  been  long  time  the  instructor  of  my 
youth.  My  good  mother,  to  whom  I  owe  all,  and  who  would 
not  wish,  she  said,  to  see  her  son  an  illustrious  dunce,  put  this 
book  into  my  hands  almost  when  I  was  a  child  at  the  breast.  It 
has  been  like  my  consciejice,  and  has  whispered  in  my  ear  many 
good  suggestions  and  maxims  for  my  conduct,  and  the  govern- 
ment of  my  affairs."  Still  earlier,  Rabelais  cites  him  with  due 
respect.  Montaigne,  in  1589,  says  :  "  We  dunces  had  been  lost, 
had  not  this  book  raised  us  out  of  the  dirt.  By  this  favor  of  his 
we  dare  now  speak  and  write.  The  ladies  are  able  to  read  to 
schoolmasters.  'Tis  our  breviary."  Montesquieu  drew  from  him 
his  definition  of  law,  and,  in  his  Pensees,  declares, "  I  am  always 
charmed  with  Plutarch  ;  in  his  writings  are  circumstances 
attached  to  persons,  which  give  great  pleasure ; "  and  adds 
examples.  Saint  Evremond  read  Plutarch  to  the  great  Condo 
under  a  tent.  Rollin,  so  long  the  historian  of  antiquity  for 
France,  drew  unhesitatingly  his  history  from  him.  Voltaire 
honored  him,  and  Rousseau  acknowledged  him  as  his  master. 
In  England,  Sir  Thomas  North  translated  the  "  Lives"  in  1579, 
and  Holland  the  "  Morals  "  in  1603,  in  time  to  be  used  by  Shak- 
speare  in  his  plays,  and  read  by  Bacon,  Dryden,  and  Cudworth. 

Then,  recently,  there  has  been  a  remarkable  revival,  in  France, 
in  the  taste  for  Plutarch  and  his  contemporaries,  led,  we  may 
say,  by  the  eminent  critic  Saint-Beuve.  M.  Octave  Greard,  in  a 
critical  work  on  the  "  Morals,"  has  carefully  corrected  the  popular 


INTRODUCTION.  χί 

legends,  and  constructed  from  the  works  of  Plutarch  himself  his 
true  biography.  M.  Leveque  has  given  an  exposition  of  his 
moral  philosophy,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Physician  of  the  Soul," 
in  tlie  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes ;  and  M.  C.  Martha,  chapters  on 
th ;  genius  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  of  Persius,  and  Lucretius,  in 
the  same  journal ;  wliilst  M.  Fustel  de  Coulanges  has  explored 
from  its  roots  in  the  Aryan  race,  then  in  their  Greek  and 
Roman  descendants,  the  primeval  religion  of  the  household. 

Plutarch  occupies  a  unique  place  in  literature  as  an  encyclo- 
pgedia  of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity.  Whatever  is  eminent 
in  fact  or  in  fiction,  in  opinion,  in  character,  in  institutions,  in 
science  —  natural,  moral,  or  metaphysical,  or  in  memorable  say- 
ings, drew  his  attention  and  came  to  his  pen  with  more  or  less 
fulness  of  record.  He  is,  among  prose-writers,  what  Chaucer  is 
among  English  poets,  a  repertory  for  those  who  want  the  story 
without  searching  for  it  at  first  hand,  —  a  compend  of  all 
accepted  traditions.  And  all  this  without  any  supreme  intellect- 
ual gifts.  He  is  not  a  profound  mind  ;  not  a  master  in  any 
science  ;  not  a  lawgiver,  like  Lycurgus  or  Solon  ;  not  a  metaphy- 
sician, like  Parmenides,  Plato,  or  Aristotle  ;  not  the  founder  of 
any  sect  or  community,  like  Pythagoras  or  Zeno  ;  not  a  naturalist, 
like  Pliny  or  LinuEeus  ;  not  a  leader  of  the  mind  of  a  genera- 
tion, like  Plato  or  Goethe.  But  if  he  had  not  the  highest  powers, 
he  was  yet  a  man  of  rare  gifts.  He  had  that  universal  sympathy 
with  genius  which  makes  all  its  victories  his  own  ;  though  he 
never  used  verse,  he  had  many  qualities  of  the  poet  in  the  power 
of  his  imagination,  the  speed  of  his  mental  associations,  and  his 
sharp,  objective  eyes.  But  what  specially  marks  him,  he  is  a 
chief  example  of  the  illumination  of  the  intellect  by  the  force  of 
morals.  Tliough  the  most  amiable  of  boon-companions,  this 
generous  religion  gives  liim  apergus  like  Goethe's. 

Plutarch  was  well-born,  well-taught,  well-conditioned  ;  a  self- 
respecting,  amiable  man,  who  knew  how  to  better  a  good  educa- 
cation  by  travels,  by  devotion  to  affairs  private  and  public ;  a 
master  of  ancient  culture,  he  read  books  with  a  just  criticism : 
eminently  social,  he  was  a  king  in  his  own  house,  surrounded 
himself  with  select  friends,  and  knew  the  high  A^alue  of  good 
conversation  ;  and  declares  in  a  letter  written  to  his  wife  that 
"  he  finds  scarcely  an  erasure,  as  in  a  book  well-written,  in  the 
happiness  of  his  life." 


XI]  INTEODUCTION. 

The  range  of  mind  makes  the  glad  writer.  Tlie  reason  of 
Plutarch's  vast  popularity  is  his  humanity.  A  man  of  society, 
of  affairs;  upright,  practical;  a  good  son,  husband,  father,  and 
friend, — he  has  a  taste  for  common  life,  and  knows  the  court,  the 
camp,  and  the  judgment-hall,  but  also  the  forge,  farm,  kitchen, 
and  cellar,  and  every  utensil  and  use,  and  with  a  wise  man's  or 
a  poet's  eye.  Thought  defends  him  from  any  degradation.  He 
does  not  lose  his  way,  for  the  attractions  are  from  within,  not 
from  without.  A  poet  in  verse  or  prose  must  have  a  sensuous 
eye,  but  an  intellectual  co-perception.  Plutarch's  memory  is  full, 
and  his  horizon  wide.  Nothing  touches  man  but  he  feels  to  be 
his  ;  he  is  tolerant  even  of  vice,  if  he  finds  it  genial;  enough  a 
man  of  the  world  to  give  even  the  devil  his  due,  and  would  have 
hugged  Robert  Burns,  when  he  cried, 

"  0  wad  ye  tak'  a  tliought  and  mend  !  " 

He  is  a  philosopher  with  philosophers,  a  naturalist  with  natural 
ists,  and  sufficiently  a  mathematician  to  leave  some  of  his  readers, 
now  and  then,  at  a  long  distance  behind  him,  or  respectfully 
skipping  to  the  next  chapter.  But  this  scholastic  omniscience  of 
our  author  engages  a  new  respect,  since  they  hope  he  understands 
his  own  diagram. 

He  perpetually  suggests  jMontaigne,  who  was  the  best  reader  he 
has  ever  found,  though  Montaigne  excelled  his  master  in  the 
point  and  surprise  of  his  sentences.  Plutarch  had  a  religion 
which  Montaigne  wanted,  and  which  defends  him  from  wanton- 
ness ;  and  though  Plutarch  is  as  plain-spoken,  his  moral  senti- 
ment is  always  pure.  What  better  praise  has  any  writer  received 
than  he  whom  Montaigne  finds  "  frank  in  giving  things,  not 
words,"  dryly  adding,  "  it  vexes  me  that  he  is  so  exposed  to  the 
spoil  of  those  that  are  conversant  with  him."  It  is  one  of  the 
felicities  of  literary  history,  the  tie  which  inseparably  coui)les  these 
two  names  across  fourteen  centuries.  Montaigne,  wliilst  he  grasps 
Etienne  de  la  Boece  with  one  hand,  reaches  back  the  other  to 
Plutarch.  These  distant  friendships  charm  ns,  and  honor  all  the 
parties,  and  make  the  best  example  of  the  universal  citizenship 
and  fraternity  of  the  human  mind. 

I  do  not  know  where  to  find  a  book  —  to  borrow  a  phrase  of 
Ben  Jonson's  —  "so  rammed  with  life,"  and  this  in  chapters 
chiefly  ethical,  which  are  so  prone  to  be  heavy  and  sentimental. 


INTRODUCTION.  χϋί 

No  poet  could  illustrate  his  thought  with  more  novel  or  striking 
similes  or  hap[)ier  anecdotes.  His  style  is  realistic,  picturesque, 
and  varied ;  his  sharp  objective  eyes  seeing  every  thing  that 
moves,  shines,  or  threatens  in  nature  or  art,  or  thought  or 
dreams.  Indeed,  twilights,  shadows,  omens,  and  spectres  have 
a  charm  for  him.  lie  believes  in  witchcraft  and  the  evil  eye,  in 
demons  and  ghosts,  —  but  prefers,  if  you  please,  to  talk  of  these 
in  the  morning.  His  vivacity  and  abundance  never  leave  him  to 
loiter  or  pound  on  an  incident.  1  admire  his  rapid  and  crowded 
style,  as  if  he  had  such  store  of  anecdotes  of  his  heroes  that  he 
is  forced  to  sujjpress  more  than  he  recounts,  in  order  to  keep  up 
Avith  the  hasting  history. 

His  surprising  merit  is  the  genial  facility  with  which  he  deals 
with  his  manifold  topics.  There  is  no  trace  of  labor  or  pain. 
He  gossips  of  heroes,  philosophers,  and  poets ;  of  virtues  and 
genius  ;  of  love  and  fate  and  empires.  It  is  for  his  pleasure 
that  he  recites  all  that  is  best  in  his  reading:  he  prattles  history. 
But  he  is  no  courtier,  and  no  Boswell :  he  is  ever  manly,  far  from 
fawning,  and  would  be  welcome  to  tlie  sages  and  wai'riors  he 
reports,  as  one  having  a  native  riglit  to  admire  and  recount  these 
stirring  deeds  and  speeclies.  I  find  him  a  better  teacher  of  rhetoric 
than  any  modern.  His  superstitions  are  poetic,  aspiring,  affirma- 
tive. A  poet  might  rhyme  all  day  with  hints  drawn  from  Plutarch, 
page  on  page.  No  doubt,  this  superior  suggestion  for  the  modern 
reader  owes  much  to  the  foreign  air,  the  Greek  wine,  the  religion 
and  history  of  antique  heroes.  Thebes,  Sparta,  Athens,  and 
Rome  charm  us  away  from  the  disgust  of  the  passing  hour.  But 
his  own  cheerfulness  and  rude  health  are  also  magnetic.  In  his 
immense  quotation  and  allusion,  we  quickly  cease  to  discriminate 
between  what  he  quotes  and  what  he  invents.  We  sail  on  his 
memory  into  the  ports  of  every  nation,  enter  into  every  private 
property,  and  do  not  stop  to  discriminate  owners,  but  give  him 
tlie  praise  of  all.  'Tis  all  Plutarch,  bv  right  of  eminent  domain, 
and  all  property  vests  in  this  emperor.  This  facility  and  abun- 
dance make  the  joy  of  his  narrative,  and  he  is  read  to  tlie 
neglect  cf  more  careful  historians.  Yet  he  inspires  a  curiosity, 
sometimes  makes  a  necessity,  to  read  them.  He  disowns  any 
attempt  to  rival  Thucydides ;  but  I  suppose  he  has  a  hundred 
readers  where  Thucydides  finds  one,  and  Thucydides  must  often 
thank  Plutarch  for  that  one.     He  lias  preserved  for  us  a  r-iulti- 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

tude  of  precious  sentences,  in  prose  or  verse,  of  authors  whoso 
books  are  lost ;  and  these  embahned  fragments,  through  his  loving 
selection  alone,  have  come  to  be  proverbs  of  later  mankind.  I 
hope  it  is  only  my  immense  ignorance  that  makes  me  believe 
that  they  do  not  survive  out  of  his  pages,  —  not  only  Thcspis, 
Polemos,  Euphorion,  Ariston,  Evcnus,  <fec.,  but  fragments  of 
Menander  and  Pindar.  At  all  events,  it  is  in  reading  the  frag- 
ments he  has  saved  from  lost  authors  that  I  have  hailed  another 
example  of  the  sacred  care  which  has  unrolled  in  our  times, 
and  still  searches  and  unrolls  papijri  from  ruined  libraries  and 
buried  cities,  and  has  drawn  attention  to  what  an  ancient  might 
call  the  politeness  of  Fate,  —  we  will  say,  more  advisedly,  the 
benign  Providence  which  uses  the  violence  of  war,  of  earthquakes, 
and  changed  watercourses,  to  save  underground  through  barbar- 
ous ages  the  relics  of  ancient  art,  and  thus  allows  us  to  witness 
the  upturning  of  the  alphabets  of  old  races,  and  the  deciphering 
of  forgotten  languages,  so  to  complete  the  annals  of  the  fore- 
fathers of  Asia,  Africa,  and  Europe. 

His  delight  in  poetry  makes  him  cite  with  joy  the  speech  of 
Gorgias,  "  that  the  tragic  poet  who  deceived  was  juster  than  he 
who  deceived  not,  and  he  that  was  deceived  was  wiser  than  he 
who  was  not  deceived." 

It  is  a  consequence  of  this  poetic  trait  in  his  mind,  that  I  con- 
fess that,  in  reading  him,  I  embrace  the  particulars,  and  carry  a 
faint  memory  of  the  argument  or  general  design  of  the  chapter  ; 
but  he  is  not  less  welcome,  and  he  leaves  the  reader  with  a  relish 
and  a  necessity  for  completing  his  studies.  Many  examples 
might  be  cited  of  nervous  expression  and  happy  allusion,  that 
indicate  a  poet  and  an  orator,  though  he  is  not  ambitious  of 
these  titles,  and  cleaves  to  the  security  of  prose  narrative,  and 
only  shows  his  intellectual  sympathy  with  these  ;  yet  I  cannot 
forbear  to  cite  one  or  two  sentences  which  none  Avho  reads 
them  will  forget.  In  treating  of  the  style  of  the  Pythian  Oracle, 
he  says, — 

"  Do  you  not  observe,  some  one  will  say,  what  a  grace  there  is  in  Sap- 
pho's measures,  and  how  tliey  delight  and  tickle  the  ears  and  fancies  of  the 
hearers?  AVhereas  the  Sibyl,  with  her  frantic  grimaces,  uttering  sen- 
tences altogether  thoughtful  and  serious,  neither  fucused  nor  perfumed, 
continues  her  voice  a  thousand  years  through  the  favor  of  the  Divinity 
that  speaks  within  her." 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

Another  gives  an  insight  into  his  mystic  tendencies, — 

"  Early  this  morning,  asking  Epaminondas  about  the  manner  of  Lysis's 
burial,  I  found  that  Lysis  had  taught  him  as  far  as  the  incommunicable 
mysteries  of  our  sect,  and  that  the  same  D;cmon  that  waited  on  Lysis, 
presided  over  him,  if  I  can  guess  at  the  pilot  from  the  sailing  of  the  ship. 
The  paths  of  life  ai'e  large,  but  in  few  are  men  directed  by  the  Demons. 
When  Theanor  had  said  this,  he  looked  attentively  on  Epaminondas,  as  if 
he  designed  a  fresh  search  into  his  nature  and  inclinations." 

And  here  is  his  sentiment  on  superstition,  somewhat  condensed 
in  Lord  Bacon's  citation  of  it :  "1  had  rather  a  great  deal  that 
men  should  say,  There  was  no  such  man  at  all  as  Plutarch,  than 
that  they  should  say,  that  there  was  one  Plutarch  that  would  eat 
up  his  children  as  soon  as  they  were  born,  as  the  poets  speak  of 
Saturn." 

The  chapter  "  On  Fortune  "  should  be  read  by  poets,  and  other 
wise  men  ;  and  the  vigor  of  his  pen  appears  in  the  chapter 
"  Whether  the  Athenians  were  more  Warlike  or  Learned,"  and  in 
his  attack  upon  Usurers. 

Tliere  is,  of  course,  a  wide  difference  of  time  in  the  writing  of 
these  discourses,  and  so  in  their  merit.  Many  of  them  are  mere 
sketches  or  notes  for  chapters  in  preparation,  which  were  never 
digested  or  finished.  Many  are  notes  for  disputations  in  the 
lecture-room.  His  poor  indignation  against  Herodotus  was  per- 
haps a  youthful  prize  essay  :  it  appeared  to  me  captious  and 
labored;  or  perhaps,  at  a  rhetorician's  school,  the  subject  of 
Herodotus  being  the  lesson  of  the  day,  Plutarch  was  appointed  by 
lot  to  take  the  adverse  side. 

The  plain-speaking  of  Plutarch,  as  of  the  ancient  writers  gen- 
erally, coming  from  tlie  habit  of  writing  for  one  sex  only,  lias  a 
great  gain  for  brevity,  and,  in  our  new  tendencies  of  civilization, 
may  tend  to  correct  a  false  delicacy. 

We  are  always  interested  in  the  man  Avho  treats  the  intellect 
well.  We  expect  it  from  the  philosopher,  —  from  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Spinoza,  and  Kant ;  but  we  know  that  metaphysical  studies  in  any 
but  minds  of  large  horizon  and  incessant  inspiration  have  their 
dangers.  One  asks  sometimes  whether  a  metaphysician  can  treat 
the  intellect  well.  The  central  fact  is  the  superhuman  intelligence 
pouring  into  us  from  its  unknown  fountain,  to'be  received  with 
religious  awe,  and  defended  from  any  mixture  of  our  will.     But 


XVI  INTRODUCTION. 

this  high  Muse  comes  and  goes  ;  and  the  danger  is  that,  when  the 
Muse  is  wanting,  the  student  is  prone  to  supply  its  place  with 
microscopic  subtleties  and  logomachy.  It  is  fatal  to  spiritual 
health  to  lose  your  admiration.  "  Let  others  wrangle,"  said  St. 
Augustine  :  "  I  will  wonder."  Plato  and  Plotinus  are  enthusiasts, 
who  honor  the  race  ;  but  the  logic  of  the  sophists  and  material- 
ists, whether  Greek  or  French,  fills  us  with  disgust.  Whilst  we 
expect  this  awe  and  reverence  of  the  spiritual  power  from  the 
philosopher  in  his  closet,  we  praise  it  in  the  man  of  the  world,  — 
the  man  who  lives  on  quiet  terms  with  existing  institutions,  yet 
indicates  his  perception  of  these  high  oracles,  as  do  Plutarch, 
Montaigne,  Hume,  and  Goetlie.  These  men  lift  themselves  at 
once  from  the  vulgar,  and  are  not  the  parasites  of  wealth.  Per 
haps  they  sometimes  compromise,  go  out  to  dine,  make  and  take 
compliments ;  but  they  keep  open  the  source  of  wisdom  and 
health.  Plutarch  is  uniformly  true  to  this  centre.  He  had  not 
lost  his  Λvonder.  He  is  a  pronounced  idealist,  who  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  say,  like  another  Berkeley,  "  Matter  is  itself  privation  ;  " 
and  again,  "  The  Sun  is  the  cause  that  all  men  are  ignorant  of 
Apollo,  by  sense  withdrawing  the  rational  intellect  from  that 
which  is  to  that  which  appears."  He  thinks  that  "  souls  are 
naturally  endowed  with  the  faculty  of  prediction  ; "  he  delights 
in  memory,  -with  its  miraculous  power  of  resisting  time.  He 
thinks  that  "  Alexander  invaded  Persia  with  greater  assistance 
from  Aristotle  than  from  his  father  Philip."  He  thinks  that 
"  he  who  has  ideas  of  his  own  is  a  bad  judge  of  another  man's,  it 
being  true  that  the  Eleans  would  be  the  most  proper  judges  of 
the  Olympic  games,  were  no  Eleans  gamesters."  He  says  of 
Socrates,  that  he  endeavored  to  bring  reason  and  things  together, 
and  make  truth  consist  with  sober  sense.  He  wonders  with  Plato 
at  that  nail  of  pain  and  pleasure  which  fastens  the  body  to  the 
mind.  The  mathematics  give  him  unspeakable  pleasure,  but  he 
chiefly  liked  that  proportion  which  teaches  us  to  account  that 
which  is  just,  equal ;  and  not  that  which  is  equal,  just. 

Of  philosophy  he  is  more  interested  in  the  results  than  in  the 
method.  He  has  a  just  instinct  of  the  presence  of  a  master,  and 
prefers  to  sit  as  a  scholar  with  Plato,  than  as  a  disputant ;  and, 
true  to  his  practical  character,  he  wishes  the  philosopher  not  to 
hide  in  a  corner,  but  to  commend  himself  to  men  of  public  regards 
and  ruling  genius :   "  for,  if  he  once  possess  such  a  man  with 


INTRODUCTION.  XVU 

principles  of  honor  and  religion,  he  takes  a  compendious  method, 
by  doing  good  to  one,  to  oblige  a  great  part  of  mankind."  'Tis 
a  temperance,  not  an  eclecticism,  which  makes  him  adverse 
to  the  severe  Stoic,  or  the  Gymnosophist,  or  Diogenes,  or  any 
other  extremist.  That  vice  of  theirs  shall  not  hinder  him  from 
citing  any  good  word  they  chance  to  drop.  He  is  an  eclectic  in 
su.h  sense  as  Montaigne  was,  —  willing  to  be  an  expectant,  not  a 
dogmatist. 

In  many  of  these  chapters  it  is  easy  to  infer  the  relation 
between  the  Greek  philosophers  and  those  who  came  to  them  for 
instruction.  This  teaching  was  no  play  nor  routine,  but  strict, 
sincere,  and  affectionate.  The  part  of  each  of  the  class  is  as  im- 
portant as  that  of  the  master.  They  are  like  the  base-ball  players, 
to  whom  the  pitcher,  the  bat,  the  catcher,  and  the  scout  are 
equally  important.  And  Plutarch  thought,  with  Ariston,  "  that 
neither  a  bath  nor  a  lecture  served  any  purpose,  unless  they  were 
purgative."  Plutarch  has  such  a  keen  pleasure  in  realities  that 
he  has  none  in  verbal  disputes  ;  he  is  impatient  of  sophistry,  and 
despises  the  Epicharmian  disputations :  as,  that  he  who  ran  in 
debt  yesterday  owes  nothing  to-day,  as  being  another  man  ;  so,  he 
that  was  yesterday  invited  to  supper,  the  next  night  comes  an 
unbidden  guest,  for  that  he  is  quite  another  person. 

Except  as  historical  curiosities,  little  can  be  said  in  behalf 
of  the  scientific  value  of  the  "  Opinions  of  the  Philosophers,"  the 
"  Questions,"  and  the  "  Symposiacs."  They  are,  for  the  most 
part,  very  crude  opinions ;  many  of  them  so  puerile  that  one 
would  believe  that  Plutarch  in  his  haste  adopted  the  notes  of  his 
younger  auditors,  some  of  tliem  jocosely  misreporting  the  dogma 
of  the  professor,  who  laid  them  aside  as  memoranda  for  future 
revision,  which  he  never  gave,  and  they  were  posthumously  pub- 
lished. Now  and  then  there  are  hints  of  superior  science.  You 
may  cull  from  this  record  of  barbarous  guesses  of  shepherds  and 
trav(^llers  statements  that  are  predictions  of  facts  established  in 
modern  science.  Usually,  when  Thales,  Anaximenes,  or  Anaxi 
mander  are  quoted,  it  is  really  a  good  judgment.  The  explanation 
of  the  rainbow,  of  the  floods  of  the  Nile,  and  of  the  remora^&c, 
are  just ;  and  the  bad  guesses  are  not  worse  than  many  of  Lord 
Bacon's. 

His  Natural  History  is  that  of  a  lover  and  poet,  and  not  of  a 

b 


XVlll  INTRODUCTION. 

physicist.  His  humanity  stooped  affectionately  to  trace  the  virtues 
which  he  loved  in  the  animals  also.  "  Knowing  and  not  knowing 
is  the  affirmative  or  negative  of  the  dog  ;  knowing  you  is  to  be  your 
friend  ;  not  knowing  you,  your  enemy."  He  quotes  Thucydides, 
saying,  "that' not  the  desire  of  honor  only  never  grows  old,  but 
much  less  also  the  inclination  to  society  and  affection  to  the 
State,  which  continue  even  in  ants  and  bees  to  the  very  last." 

But  though  curious  in  the  questions  of  the  schools  on  the  nature 
and  genesis  of  things,  his  extreme  interest  in  every  trait  of 
character,  and  his  broad  humanity,  lead  him  constantly  to  MoralS; 
to  the  study  of  the  Beautiful  and  Good.  Hence  his  love  of  heroes, 
his  rule  of  life,  and  his  clear  convictions  of  the  high  destiny  of 
the  soul.  La  Harpe  said  "  that  Plutarch  is  the  genius  the  most 
naturally  moral  that  ever  existed."^ 

'Tis  almost  inevitable  to  compare  Plutarch  with  Seneca, 
who,  born  fifty  years  earlier,  was  for  many  years  his  contem- 
porary, though  they  never  met,  and  their  writings  were  perhaps 
unknown  to  each  other.  Plutarch  is  genial,  with  an  endless 
interest  in  all  human  and  divine  things  ;  Seneca,  a  professional 
philosopher,  a  writer  of  sentences,  and,  though  he  keep  a  sublime 
path,  is  less  interesting,  because  less  humane  ;  and  when  we  have 
shut  his  book,  we  forget  to  open  it  again.  There  is  a  certain 
violence  in  his  opinions,  and  want  of  sweetness.  He  lacks  the 
sympathy  of  Plutarch.  He  is  tiresome  through  perpetual  didac- 
tics. He  is  not  happily  living.  Cannot  the  simple  lover  of  truth 
enjoy  the  virtues  of  those  he  meets,  and  the  virtues  suggested  by 
them,  so  to  find  himself  at  some  time  purely  contented  ?  Seneca 
was  still  more  a  man  of  the  world  than  Plutarch  ;  and,  by  his 
conversation  with  the  Court  of  Nero,  and  his  own  skill,  like  "\  ol 
taire's,  of  living  with  men  of  business,  and  emulating  their  ad- 
dress in  atfairs  by  great  accumulation  of  his  owni  property,  learned 
to  temper  his  philosophy  with  facts.  He  ventured  far  —  appar- 
ently too  far  —  for  so  keen  a  conscience  as  he  inly  had.  Yet  we 
owe  to  that  wonderful  moralist  illustrious  maxims  ;  as  if  the  scar- 
let vices  of  the  times  of  Nero  had  the  natural  effect  of  driving 
virtue  to  its  loftiest  antagonisms.  "  Seneca,"  says  L'Estrange, 
"  was  a  pagan  Christian,  and  is  very  good  reading  for  our  Chris- 
tian pagans."  He  was  Buddhist  in  his  cold  abstract  virtue,  with 
a  certain  impassibility  beyond  humanity.     He  called  "  pity,  that 


INTRODUCTION.  λΙΧ 

fault  of  narrow  souls."  Yet  Λvhat  noble  words  we  owe  to  him : 
"  God  divided  man  into  men,  that  they  might  help  each  other ;  " 
and  again,"  The  good  man  differs  from  God  in  nothing  but  dura- 
tion." His  thoughts  are  excellent,  if  only  he  had  a  right  to  say 
them.  Plutarch,  meantime,  with  every  virtue  under  heaven, 
thought  it  the  top  of  wisdom  to  philosophize,  yet  not  appear  to  do 
it,  and  to  reach  in  mirth  the  same  ends  which  the  most  serious 
are  proposing. 

Plutarcli  thought  "  truth  to  be  tlie  greatest  good  that  man  can 
receive,  and  the  goodliest  blessing  that  God  can  give."  "  When 
you  are  persuaded  in  your  mind  that  you  cannot  either  offer  or 
perform  any  thing  more  agreeable  to  the  gods  than  the  enter- 
taining a  right  notion  of  them,  you  will  then  avoid  superstition  as 
a  no  less  evil  than  atheism."  He  cites  Euripides  to  affirm,  "  If 
gods  do  aught  dishonest,  they  are  no  gods,"  and  the  memorable 
words  of  Antigone,  in  Sophocles,  concerning  the  moral  senti- 
ment :  — 

"  For  neitlier  now  nor  yesterday  began 
These  thoughts,  wliich  have  been  ever,  nor  yet  can 
A  man  be  t'ound  who  their  first  entrance  knew." 

His  faith  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  another  measure  of 
his  deep  Immanity.  He  reminds  his  friends  that  the  Delphic 
oracles  have  given  several  answers  the  same  in  substance  as  that 
formerly  given  to  Coraz  the  Naxian  :  — 

"  It  sounds  profane  impiety 
To  teach  tliat  liuman  souls  e'er  die." 

He  believes  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Providence,  and  that 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  rest  on  one  and  the  same  basis. 
He  thinks  it  impossible  either  that  a  man  beloved  of  tlie  gods 
should  not  be  happy,  or  that  a  wise  and  just  man  should  not  be 
beloved  of  tlie  gods.  To  him  the  Epicureans  are  hateful,  who 
held  that  the  soul  perislies  when  it  is  separated  from  the  body. 
"The  soul,  incapable  of  death,  suffers  in  the  same  manner  in  the 
body,  as  birds  tliat  are  kept  in  a  cage."  He  believes  "  that  the 
souls  of  infants  pass  immediately  into  a  better  and  more  divine 
state." 

I  can  easily  believe  that  an  anxious  soul  may  find  in  Plutarch's 
chapter  called  "  Pleasure  not  attainable  by  Epicurus,"  and  his 
"  Letter  to  his  Wife  Timoxena,"  a  more  sweet  and  reassuring 
argument  on  the  immortality  than  in  tlie  Phaedo  of  Plato ;  for 


XX  INTRODUCTIOX. 

Plutarch  always  addresses  the  question  on  the  human  side,  and 
not  on  the  metaphysical ;  as  Walter  Scott  took  hold  of  boys 
and  young  men,  in  England  and  America,  and  through  them 
of  their  fathers.  His  grand  perceptions  of  duty  lead  him  to 
his  stern  delight  in  heroism  ;  a  stoic  resistance  to  low  indulg- 
ence ;  to  a  fight  with  fortune  ;  a  regard  for  truth  ;  his  love  of 
Sparta,  and  of  heroes  like  Aristides,  Phocion,  and  Cato.  Ele 
insists  that  the  highest  good  is  in  action.  He  thinks  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Asia  came  to  be  vassals  to  one  only,  for  not 
having  been  able  to  pronounce  one  syllable  ;  which  is,  No.  So 
keen  is  his  sense  of  allegiance  to  right  reason,  that  he  makes 
a  fight  against  Fortune  whenever  she  is  named.  At  Rome  he 
thinks  her  wings  were  clipped  :  she  stood  no  longer  on  a  ball, 
but  on  a  cube  as  large  as  Italy.  He  thinks  it  was  by  superior 
virtue  that  Alexander  won  his  battles  in  Asia  and  Africa,  and 
the  Greeks  theirs  against  Persia. 

But  this  Stoic  in  his  fight  with  Fortune,  with  vices,  effeminacy, 
and  indolence,  is  gentle  as  a  woman  when  other  strings  are 
touched.  He  is  the  most  amiable  of  men.  "  To  erect  a  trophy 
in  the  soul  against  anger  is  that  which  none  but  a  great  and  vic- 
torious puissance  is  al)le  to  achieve."  —  "Anger  turns  the  mind 
out  of  doors,  and  bolts  the  door."  He  has  a  tenderness  almost  to 
tears  when  he  writes  on  "  Friendship,"  on  "  Marriage,"  on  "  the 
Training  of  Children,"  and  on  the  "  Love  of  Brothers."  "  There 
is  no  treasure,"  he  says,  "  parents  can  give  to  their  children,  like 
a  brother  ;  'tis  a  friend  given  by  nature,  a  gift  nothing  can  supply  ; 
once  lost,  not  to  be  replaced.  The  Arcadian  prophet,  of  whom 
Herodotus  speaks,  was  obliged  to  make  a  wooden  foot  in  place  of 
that  which  had  been  chopped  off.  A  brother,  embroiled  witli  his 
brother,  going  to  seek  in  the  street  a  stranger  who  can  take  his 
place,  resembles  him  who  will  cut  ofif  his  foot  to  give  himself  one 
of  wood."  *• 

All  his  judgments  are  noble.  He  thought,  with  Epicurus,  that 
it  is  more  delightful  to  do  than  to  receive  a  kindness.  "  This 
courteous,  gentle,  and  benign  disposition  and  behavior  is  not  so 
acceptable,  so  obliging  or  delightful  to  any  of  those  with  whom 
we  converse,  as  it  is  to  those  who  have  it."  There  is  really  no 
limit  to  his  bounty:  "  It  would  be  generous  to  lend  our  eyes  and 
ears,  nay,  if  possible,  our  reason  and  fortitude  to  others,  whilst  wc 
are  idle  or  asleep."     His  excessive  and  fanciful  humanity  reminds 


INTRODUCTION.  XXi 

one  of  Charles  Lamb,  whilst  it  much  exceeds  him.  When  the 
guests  are  gone,  he  "  would  leave  one  lamp  burning,  only  as  a  sign 
of  the  respect  he  bore  to  fires,  for  nothing  so  resembles  an  animal 
as  fire.  It  is  moved  and  nourished  by  itself,  and  by  its  brightness, 
like  the  soul,  discovers  and  makes  every  thing  apparent,  and  in  its 
quenching  shows  some  power  that  seems  to  proceed  from  a  vital 
principle,  for  it  makes  a  noise  and  resists,  like  an  animal  dying,  ur 
violently  slaughtered  ;"  and  he  praises  the  Romans,  who,  when 
the  feast  was  over,  "  dealt  well  with  the  lamps,  and  did  not  take 
away  the  nourishment  they  had  given,  but  permitted  them  to  live 
and  shine  by  it." 

I  can  almost  regret  that  the  learned  editor  of  the  present 
republication  has  not  preserved,  if  only  as  a  piece  of  history,  the 
preface  of  Mr.  Morgan,  the  editor  and  in  part  writer  of  this 
Translation  of  1718.  In  his  dedication  of  the  work  to  the  Arch 
bishop  of  Canterbury,  Wm.  Wake,  he  tells  the  Primate  that 
"  Plutarch  was  the  wisest  man  of  his  age,  and,  if  he  had  been  a 
Christian,  one  of  the  best  too  ;  but  it  ivas  his  severe  fate  to  flour- 
ish in  those  daps  of  ignorance,  which,  His  a  favorable  opinion  to 
hope  that  the  Almighty  toill  sometime  loink  at ;  that  our  souls  may 
be  with  these  philosophers  together  in  the  same  state  of  blissy 
The  puzzle  in  the  worthy  translator's  mind  between  his  theology 
and  his  reason  well  re-appears  in  the  puzzle  of  his  sentence. 

I  know  that  the  chapter  of  "  Apothegms  of  Noble  Command- 
ers "  is  rejected  by  some  critics  as  not  a  genuine  work  of  Plutarch  ; 
but  the  matter  is  good,  and  is  so  agreeable  to  his  taste  and  genius, 
that  if  he  had  found  it,  he  would  have  adopted  it.  If  he  did  not 
compile  the  piece,  many,  perhaps  most,  of  the  anecdotes  were 
already  scattered  in  his  Avorks.  If  I  do  not  lament  that  a  work 
not  his  should  be  ascribed  to  him,  I  regret  that  he  should  have 
suffered  such  destruction  of  his  own.  What  a  trilogy  is  lost  to 
mankind  in  his  Lives  of  Scipio,  Epaminondas,  and  Pindar  ! 

His  delight  in  magnanimity  and  self  sacrifice  has  made  his 
books,  like  Homer's  Iliad,  a  bil)le  for  heroes ;  and  wherever  the 
Cid  is  relished,  the  legends  of  Arthur,  Saxon  Alfred,  and  Richard 
the  Lion-hearted,  Robert  Bruce,  Sydney,  Lord  Herbert  of  Cher- 
bury,  Cromwell,  Nelson,  Bonaparte,  and  Walter  Scott's  Chronicles 
in  prose  or  verse,  —  there  will  Plutarch,  who  told  the  story  of 
Leouidas,  of  Agesilaus,  of  Aristidcb,  Phocion,  Themistocles,  De- 


XXll  INTRODUCTION 

mosthenes,  Epaminondas,  Caesar,  Cato,  and  the  rest,  sit  as  the 
Vjestower  of  the  crown  of  noble  knighthood,  and  laureate  of  the 
ancient  world. 

The  chapters  "  On  the  Fortune  of  Alexander,"  in  the  "  Morals," 
are  an  important  appendix  to  the  portrait  in  the  "  Lives."  The 
union  in  Alexander  of  sublime  courage  with  the  refinement  of  his 
pure  tastes,  making  him  the  carrier  of  civilization  into  the  East, 
are  in  the  spirit  of  the  ideal  hero,  and  endeared  him  to  Plularch. 
That  prince  kept  Homer's  poems,  not  only  for  himself  mder  his 
pillow  in  his  tent,  but  carried  these  for  the  delight  of  the  Persian 
youth,  and  made  them  acquainted  also  with  the  tragedies  of 
Euripides  and  Sophocles.  He  persuaded  the  Sogdians  not  to  kill, 
but  to  cherish  their  aged  parents  ;  the  Persians  to  reverence,  not 
marry  their  mothers ;  the  Scythians  to  bury,  and  not  eat  their 
dead  parents.  What  a  fruit  and  fitting  monument  of  his  best 
days  was  his  city  Alexandria  to  be  the  birthplace  or  home  of 
Plotinus,  St.  Augustine,  Synesius,  Posidonius,  Ammonius,  Jam- 
blichus.  Porphyry,  Origen,  Aratus,  ApoUonius,  and  Apuleius. 

If  Plutarch  delighted  in  heroes,  and  held  the  balance  between 
the  severe  Stoic  and  the  indulgent  Epicurean,  his  humanity  shines 
not  less  in  his  intercourse  with  his  personal  friends.  He  was  a 
genial  host  and  guest,  and  delighted  in  bringing  chosen  compan- 
ions to  the  supper-table.  He  knew  the  laws  of  conversation  and 
the  laws  of  good-fellowship  quite  as  well  as  Horace,  and  has  set 
them  down  with  such  candor  and  grace  as  to  make  them  good 
reading  to-day.  The  guests  not  invited  to  a  private  board  by  the 
entertainer,  but  introduced  by  a  guest  as  his  companions,  the 
Greeks  called  shadows ;  and  the  question  is  debated  whether  it 
was  civil  to  bring  them,  and  he  treats  it  candidly,  but  concludes: 
"  Therefore,  wlien  I  make  an  invitation,  since  it  is  hard  to  break 
the  custom  of  the  place,  I  give  my  guests  leave  to  bring  shadows  ; 
but  when  I  myself  am  invited  as  a  shadow,  I  assure  you  I  refuse 
to  go."  He  has  an  oljjection  to  the  introduction  of  music  at 
feasts.  He  thought  it  wonderful  that  a  man  having  a  muse  in 
his  own  breast,  and  all  the  pleasantness  that  would  fit  an  enter- 
tainment, would  have  pipes  and  harps  play,  and  by  that  external 
noise  destroy  all  the  sweetness  that  was  proper  and  his  own. 

1  cannot  close  these  notes  without  expressing  my  sense  of  the 
valuable  service  which  the  Editor  has  rendered  to  his  Author  and  to 


INTRODUCTION.  Χχίίί 

his  readers.  Professor  Goodwin  is  a  silent  benefactor  to  the  book, 
wherever  I  have  compared  the  editions.  I  did  not  know  liow  care- 
less and  vicious  in  jiarts  tlie  old  book  was,  until  in  recent  reading 
of  the  old  text,  on  coming•  on  any  thing  at)surd  or  unintelligible,  I 
referred  to  the  new  text,  and  found  a  clear  and  accurate  statement 
ir.  its  place.  It  is  the  vindication  of  Plutarch.  The  correction 
is  not  only  of  names  of  authors  and  of  places  grossly  altered  or 
misspelled,  but  of  unpardonable  liberties  taken  by  the  transla- 
tors, whether  from  negligence  or  freak. 

One  proof  of  Plutarch's  skill  as  a  writer  is  that  he  bears  trans- 
lation so  well.  In  spite  of  its  carelessness  and  manifold  faults, 
which,  I  doubt  not,  have  tried  the  patience  of  its  present  learned 
editor  and  corrector,  I  yet  confess  my  enjoyment  of  this  old 
version  for  its  vigorous  English  style.  The  work  of  some 
forty  or  fifty  University  men,  some  of  them  imperfect  in  their 
Greek,  it  is  a  monument  of  the  English  language  at  a  period 
of  singular  vigor  and  freedom  of  style.  I  hope  the  Commission 
of  the  Pliilological  Society  in  London,  charged  with  the  duty  of 
preparing  a  Critical  Dictionary,  will  not  overlook  these  volumes, 
which  show  the  wealth  of  their  tongue  to  greater  advantage 
than  many  books  of  more  renown  as  models.  It  runs  through 
the  whole  scale  of  conversation  in  the  street,  the  market,  the 
coffee-house,  the  law  courts,  the  palace,  the  college,  and  the 
church.  There  are,  no  doubt,  many  vulgar  phrases,  and  many 
blunders  of  the  printer ;  but  it  is  the  speech  of  business  and  con- 
versation, and  in  every  tone,  from  lowest  to  highest. 

We  owe  to  these  translators  many  sharp  perceptions  of  the  wit 
and  humor  of  their  author,  sometimes  even  to  the  adding  of  the 
point.  I  notice  one,  which,  although  the  translator  has  justified 
his  rendering  in  a  note,  the  severer  criticism  of  the  Editor  has 
not  retained.  "  \Vere  there  not  a  sun,  we  might,  for  all  the  other 
stars,  pass  our  days  in  Reverend  Dark,  as  Heraclitus  calls  it." 
I  find  a  humor  in  the  phrase  which  might  well  excuse  its  doubtful 
accuracy. 

It  is  a  service  to  our  Republic  to  puljlish  a  book  that  can  force 
ambitious  young  men,  before  they  mount  the  platform  of  the 
county  conventions,  to  read  the  "  Laconic  Apothegms  "  and  the 
"  Apothegms  of  Great  Commanders."  If  we  could  keep  the 
secret,  and  communicate  it  only  to  a  few  chosen  aspirants,  we 


XXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

might  confide  that,  by  this  noble  infiltration,  they  would  easily 
carry  the  victory  over  all  competitors.  But,  as  it  was  the  desire 
of  these  old  patriots  to  fill  with  their  majestic  spirit  all  Sparta 
or  Rome,  and  not  a  few  leaders  only,  we  hasten  to  ofTer  them  to 
the  American  people. 

Plutarch's  popularity  will  return  in  rapid  cycles.  If  over-read 
ill  this  decade,  so  that  his  anecdotes  and  opinions  become  com- 
tiionplace,  and  to-day's  novelties  are  sought  for  variety,  his 
sterling  values  will  presently  recall  the  eye  and  thought  of  the 
best  minds,  and  his  books  will  be  reprinted  and  read  anew  by 
coming  generations.  And  thus  Plutarch  will  be  perpetually 
rediscovered  from  time  to  time  as  lonji  as  books  last. 


CONTENTS   OF   VOLUME  FIRST. 

WITH  THE  TRANSLATORS'  NAMES. 


A  DISCOURSE  TOUCHING  THE  TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN. 

By  Simon  Ford,  D.D. 

Effect  on  cliildren  of  impurity  in  tlie  parents,  3 ;  of  intemperance  in  the  parents,  4. 
Instruction  and  training  necessary,  5.  Training  must  assist  nature,  5.  Defective 
natural  parts  may  be  improved  by  instruction,  5,  6.  Diligent  effort  may  supply 
native  deficiencies,  6.  A  virtuous  character  partly  the  effect  of  custom  and 
habit,  7.  Mothers  should  nurse  their  own  children,  7,  8.  Manners  of  children 
to  be  well-formed  from  the  beginning,  8.  Care  to  be  taken  of  their  associates,  9 
Teachers  of  children  to  be  carefully  chosen,  9,  10.  Moral  character  of  teachers 
to  be  carefully  regarded,  10,  11.  Unhappy  consequences  of  the  ill-training  of 
children,  11,  12.  A  good  education  preferable  to  the  gifts  of  fortune,  12,  13. 
Learning  better  than  bodily  strength,  13.  Children  should  be  trained  to  think 
before  they  speak,  14,  15.  A  pompous  style  of  speech  to  be  avoided,  16.  Tame- 
ness  of  speech  to  be  avoided,  16.  The  principal  study  of  youtli  should  be  phi- 
losophy, 17, 18.  Bodily  exercise  not  to  be  neglected,  19.  Gymnastic  and  military 
exercises,  19.  Corporal  and  disgraceful  punishments  not  to  be  used,  20.  Motives 
to  be  addressed  to  the  understanding  and  conscience,  20.  Severe  tasks  not  to  be 
imposed  on  children,  21.  Relaxation  to  be  allowed  them,  21.  Memory  to  be  cul- 
tivated, 22.  A  courteous  manner  of  speaking  to  be  inculcated.  22.  Self-control 
to  be  taught,  23,  24.  Restraint  of  tlie  tongue,  23,  24.  Sotades  punished  for  free 
speech,  25.  Severity  to  children  unwise,  26.  Young  men  to  be  restrained  from 
vicious  company,  28,  29.  Flatterers  to  be  avoided,  29.  Allowance  sliould  be 
made  for  jrjuthful  impetuosity,  30.  Marriage  a  security  for  young  men,  31. 
Fathers  not  to  be  severe  and  harsh,  but,  examples  to  their  children,  30,  31. 

CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

By  William  Dillingham,  D.D. 

How  may  a  tendency  to  anger  be  overcome  ?  i.  34.  Not  by  the  interference  of  otner 
persons,  35.  The  mind  being  then  under  the  influence  of  stormy  passion,  36.  The 
aid  of  reason  and  judgment  is  more  effectual,  37.  Resist  the  beginning  of  anger, 
37.  When  inclined  to  anger,  try  to  be  quiet  and  composed,  38,  39.  Anger  is  un- 
reasonable and  foolish,  39.  It  disfigures  the  countenance,  40.  Tends  to  one's 
dishonor  and  discredit,  41.  Produces  absurd  and  insulting  speeches,  42.  Is  dis- 
ingenuous and  unmanly,  42.  Indicates  a  weak  mind,  42.  Discovers  meanness 
of  spirit,  43.     Fortitude  consists  with  a  mild  temper,  44.     Anger  can  destroy,  it 


7:XV1  CONTENTS   OF   VOL.   I. 

cannot  restore,  46.  It  often  overreaches  itself,  47.  Excessive  urgency  often  fails 
of  success,  47.  Forbearance  towards  servants  urged,  48.  Anger  towards  servants 
makes  them  worse,  48.  Never  punish  in  anger,  49.  Allow  anger  to  cool,  49.  No 
harm  arises  from  deferring  anger,  49.  Causes  of  anger  examined  ;  we  think  we 
incur  contempt  without  it,  50  ;  it  arises  from  self-love,  52  ;  and  a  spirit  of  fault- 
finding, 52.  The  absence  of  these  makes  a  man  gentle  towards  others,  53,  54 
Nobody  can  d  fvell  with  an  angry  man,  54.  Anger,  the  essence  of  all  bad  passions, 
56.  Good  temper  in  us  will  disarm  otliers,  55.  Moderate  expectations  prevent 
anger,  56.  Knowledge  of  human  nature  softens  anger,  57.  Make  trial  for  a  few 
days  of  abstinence  from  anger,  59. 

OF  BASHFULNESS. 

By  Thomas  Hot,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College  in  Oxfokd. 

Bashfulness  defined,  60.  Two  extremes  :  too  much  or  too  little  modesty  ;  both  tc 
be  avoided,  61.  Bashfulness,  an  excess  of  modesty,  61.  62.  It  is  injurious,  62, 
leaves  a  person  at  the  mercy  of  others,  63 ;  a  bashful  person  is  liable  to  imposi- 
tion, 63  ;  many  are  thus  ruined,  64.  Deny  an  unreasonable  request,  65.  The 
fear  of  giving  offence  —  bashfulness  —  hinders  the  proper  care  of  our  health,  and 
of  our  property,  67,  68 ;  exposes  to  the  very  evils  it  seeks  to  avoid,  69.  The 
people  of  Asia  are  slaves,  because  they  cannot  say,  "  No,"  69.  Deny  recom- 
mendation to  those  not  known  to  be  worthy,  71.  Undertake  no  services  to  which 
you  are  not  competent,  72.  Cheerfully  render  good  offices  to  those  that  deserve 
them,  72;  but  deny  tiiem  to  the  unworthy,  73.  We  may  not  violate  law  and 
justice  to  please  anybody,  74.  Men  who  would  dread  to  blunder  in  a  matter  of 
literature,  often  violate  law,  74.  Err  not  from  tlie  right,  either  from  fear  or  flat- 
tery, 76.     Remember  wiiat  bashfulness  has  cost  us,  77. 

THAT   VIRTUE   MAY   BE   TAUGHT. 
By    Mr.    Patrick,   of   the    Charterhouse. 

If  men  may  be  taught  to  sing,  dance,  and  read  ;  to  be  skilful  husbandmen  and  good 
riders,  —  why  not  to  order  their  lives  aright  ?  78.  The  practice  of  virtue  is  im- 
mensely more  important  than  graceful  speecli  and  manners,  79.  If  things  of 
trifling  moment  may  be  taught,  much  more  things  of  the  deepest  concern,  80. 

THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  LAWS  AND  CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACE- 
DAEMONIANS. 

By  Mr.  John  Pulleyn,  of  Trinity  College  in  Cambridge. 

Institutions  of  Lycurgus,  82.  The  citizens  ate  at  one  table,  82.  Conversation  at 
the  table,  82.  The  food:  black  broth,  83;  spare  diet,  84.  Learning,  philosophy, 
mechanic  trades,  theatrical  performances,  utterly  banished,  85.  Scanty  apparel, 
86  ;  hard  beds,  86  ;  social  attachments,  86.  A  strict  watch  kept  over  the  }  oung, 
87.  Respect  to  tiie  aged,  88.  Control  by  the  aged  of  other  people's  children,  88, 
89.  Children  allowed  to  -«teal,  if  the  theft  were  carefully  concealed,  89.  Thi 
Spartan  poetry  and  music,  90;  martial  music,  91.  Tenacity  of  ancient  customs, 
92.     Funerals,  92,  93 ;  inscriptions,  93.     Foreign  travel  prohibited,  93.     A  com- 


CONTENTS   OF   VOL.   I.  XXVil 

munity  of  children,  93  ;  and  of  goods  and  estates,  94.  Tlieir  wavlike  expeditions, 
94.  Tiieir  religious  worship,  95.  The  Helots,  when  drunk,  exhibited  before  the 
children,  9G.  None  but  grave  poetry  allowed,  9ΰ.  Meekness  and  forgiveness  of 
injuries  not  tolerated,  97.  Λ  laconic  style  of  speaking  practised,  98.  Whipping 
of  boys  annually  before  the  altar  of  Diana,  98.  Neglect  of  maritime  aiTairs,  99. 
Gold  and  silver  banished,  99.  Final  overthrow  of  the  institutions  of  Lycurgus 
100. 

CONCERNING    MUSIC. 

By  John  Philips,  Gent. 

Principles  of  Greek  music :  the  tetrachord,  heptachord,  octachord ;  scale  of  fifteen 
notes,  102,  103,  note.  History  of  music,  104,  et  seq.  Tiie  lyre,  105.  Amphion, 
Linus,  Antlies,  Pierus,  IMiilammon,  Thamyras,  &c.,  105.  Terpander,  an  inventor, 
105,  lOG,  109, 112, 122.  Olympus,  107, 109, 123 ;  Hyagnis,  107  ;  Clonas,  107.  History 
of  wind  instruments,  108  ;  the  flute,  ih.  Three  musical  moods,  —  tiie  Dorian,  the 
Phrygian,  the  Lydian,  109.  Makers  of  paeans,  110.  The  enharmcmic  species  of 
music,  110.  Its  relations  to  the  diatonic  and  chromatic,  111.  Varieties  of  rhythm, 
112.  The  harp  an  invention  of  Apollo,  113.  His  statue  at  Delos  a  proof  of  this,  ib. 
Manly  and  grave  music  used  by  the  ancients  for  its  wortii,  114.  The  moderns 
have  introduced  an  interior  sort,  114.  Tiie  Lydian  mood,  114  ;  the  Dorian,  115. 
The  chromatic  more  ancient  than  the  enharmonic  scale,  116 ;  though  many  of 
•  the  ancient  musicians  did  not  use  it,  117.  Plato's  remarks  on  harmony,  118, 
Music  a  mathematical  science,  119.  Harmony  as  related  to  the  senses,  121.  Why 
the  Greeks  were  so  careful  to  teach  their  children  music,  121.  The  high  purposes 
of  music,  121,  122.  Archilochus,  his  improvements,  122,  123.  Improvements  of 
Polymnestus,  107,  123.  Improvements  of  Lasus,  123.  Decline  of  the  ancient 
music,  123-125.  To  learn  music,  philosophy  is  needful,  126.  Music  too  much  a 
thing  of  chance,  126.  A  sound  judgment  is  necessary,  127.  A  perfect  judgment 
of  music  not  derived  from  a  partial  knowledge,  12'J.  Degeneracy  of  modern 
music,  130.  Benefits  of  a  proper  acquaintance  with  music,  132;  facts  in  proof 
of  this,  133. 

OF  THE  TRANQUILLITY  OF  THE  MIND. 

By  Matthew  Morgan,  A.M.,  of  St.  John's  College  in  Oxford. 

Plutarch  salutes  his  friend  Paccius,  136.  Worldly  honor  or  wealth  cannot  procure 
quietness  of  mind,  137.  We  should  fortify  ourselves  against  trouble,  ib.  Tran- 
quillity of  mind  not  to  be  procured  by  neglect  of  public  or  private  duty,  ib. 
Idleness  is  to  many  an  affliction,  138.  Changes  in  life  do  not  remoΛ•e  causes  of 
disquiet,  140.  The  mind  itself  renders  life  pleasant  or  otherwise,  14L  Make  the 
best  of  our  circumstances,  142.  Wise  men  derive  benefit  even  from  affliction, 
142.  No  trouble  can  arise,  but  good  may  come  of  it,  143.  Be  not  soured  with 
the  perverseness  of  others,  144 ;  nor  fret  at  their  failings,  145.  A  consideration 
of  the  good  we  enjo}'  may  help  us  bear  our  afflictions,  146.  Thus  balancing  one 
against  the  other,  147.  Consider  what  the  loss  would  be  of  our  present  enjoy- 
ments, 148.  Cultivate  a  contented  mind,  148,  149.  The  want  of  whieii  creates 
suffering,  149.  Look  at  those  worse  off  tiian  ourselves,  150.  Every  one  has  his 
particular  trouble,  '"51;  therefore  give  no  place  to  envy,  ib.    Do  not  repine 


XXviil  CONTENTS  OF   VOL.  I. 

because  some  things  are  be3'ond  your  reach,  152.  Let  every  man  know  what 
he  can  do  and  be  contented  with  doing  it,  154.  Let  alone  what  you  are  not 
capable  of,  155.  It  is  wise  to  call  to  mind  past  enjoyment,  156.  Do  not  distress 
yourself  by  dwelling  on  past  sorrows,  nor  give  way  to  despondency  of  the 
future,  157,  158.  Neither  be  too  sanguine  in  your  hopes,  159.  Afflictions  come 
as  a  matter  of  necessity,  161.  Outward  sufferings  do  not  reach  our  nobler  part, 
the  mind,  162.  Death  not  a  real,  ultimate  evil,  163.  The  Wise  man  may  look 
down  on  things  terrible  to  the  vulgar,  164.  Guilt  produces  remorse,  165  A 
clear  ijonscicnce  a  rich  possession,  165.  Life  should  be  full  of  joy,  106.  That  it 
is  not  to  some  is  their  own  fault,  167. 


OF  SUPERSTITION,  OR  INDISCREET  DEVOTION. 

Bt  William  Baxter,  Gent. 

Ignorance  respecting  God  may  lead  either  to  atheism  or  superstition,  168.  Atheism 
and  superstition  compared,  168,  et  seq.  Atheism  tends  to  indifference,  super- 
stition to  terror,  169.  Superstition  infuses  into  the  mind  a  constant  alarm  and 
dread,  170.  Superstition  allows  of  no  escape  from  fear,  it  jierraits  no  hope,  172. 
It  perverts  the  moral  sense,  173,  174.  The  atheist  may  be  fretful  and  impatient ; 
the  superstitious  man  charges  all  his  misfortunes  and  troubles  to  God,  175.  Is 
full  of  unreasonable  apprehensions,  176.  Converts  tolerable  evils  into  fatal  ones, 
177.  Misinterprets  the  course  of  nature,  177.  Is  afraid  of  thmgs  that  will  not 
hurt  him,  177.  Allows  himself  no  enjoyment,  178.  Entertains  dishonorable 
thoughts  of  God,  180;  and  thus  is  morally  wrong,  181.  He  secretly  hates  God, 
and  \vould  have  no  God,  181.  Superstition  affords  an  apology  for  atheism,  182 
Superstition  of  the  Gauls,  Scythians,  and  Carthaginians;  they  offered  human  sac- 
rifices, 182,  183.     In  avoiding  superstition  do  not  fall  into  atlieism,  184. 

THE  APOPHTHEGMS   OR   REMARKABLE   SAYINGS   OF   KINGS   AND 
GREAT   COMMANDERS,  185-250. 

By  E.  Hinton,  of  Witnet  in  Oxfordshire, 

RULES  FOR   THE   PRESERVATION   OF   HEALTH. 
By  Matthew  Poole,  D.D.,  of  Northampton. 

introduction,  251.  Tlie  hands  to  be  kept  always  warm,  252.  Accustom  yourseli 
in  liealth  to  the  food  proper  in  sickness,  2•'>8.  Avoid  all  excess  in  eating  and 
drinking,  especially  at  feasts,  254.  Be  prepared  to  excuse  yourself  if  invited  to 
drink  to  excess,  255.  Partake  of  agreeable  food  and  drink,  when  needful;  other- 
wise not,  256.  Lean  to  the  side  of  moderation  and  abstinence,  rather  than  the 
gratification  of  appetite,  257.  Intem[)erance  is  as  destructive  of  pleasure  as  of 
health,  258.  Sickness  may  be  avoiiled  by  the  use  of  a  moderate  diet,  259.  A 
luxurious  course  of  living  adds  to  the  force  of  other  causes  of  disease,  260  Be 
especially  careful  of  what  you  do,  when  threatened  with  illness,  261.  When  the 
body  is  out  of  order,  things  that  are  otherwise  pleasant  become  disgusting,  262. 
Extreme  carefulness  in  our  diet  should  be  avoided,  263.  Disturbed  sleep  and 
dislressing  dreams  show  a  diseased  state  of  body,  264.    Avoid  things  which  have 


CONTENTS   OF  VOL.   I.  .  XXIX 

proved  caii)-es  of  disease  to  others,  264,  265.  Reading  or  speaking  aloud  is  to  a 
scholar  conducive  to  health,  266.  Yet  tliis  must  not  be  carried  to  excess,  267. 
Tlie  cold  batli  not  to  be  used  after  exercise  ;  use  the  warm  bath,  268.  Use  solid 
food  cautiously  and  sparingly ;  light  food  more  freely,  268.  Drink  wine  diluted 
with  water,  or  water  simply,  269,  270.  After  supper,  there  should  be  a  consider- 
able interval,  to  be  occupied  with  gentle  exercise  eitiier  of  body  or  mind,  271, 
272.  Sufferers  from  gluttony  or  excess  siiould  not  attempt  to  relieve  themselves 
by  physic  but  by  abstinence,  273.  Uo  not  fast  when  there  is  no  need,  274.  Idle- 
ness is  not  conducive  to  health,  275.  After  severe  labor,  allow  the  body  to  rest, 
even  from  pleasure,  276.  A  man  should  well  study  his  own  case,  and  know  what 
he  can  bear,  277.  The  body  and  the  mind  must  deal  carefully  with  each  other, 
278,  279. 

flow  A  MAN  MAY  EECEIVE  ADVANTAGE  AND   PROFIT  FROM  HIS 

ENEMIES. 

By  John  Hartcliffe,  Fellow  of  King's  College  in  Cambridge. 

Ill-will  always  to  be  expected,  280.  It  is  not  enough  tliat  our  enemies  do  us  no 
harm,  281.  We  may  not  be  able  to  change  bad  men  into  good  men,  282.  But  it 
is  possible  to  derive  good  even  from  bad  men,  283.  An  enemy,  in  order  to  dis- 
cover our  failings,  carefully  watches  all  our  movements  and  affairs,  283.  Learn 
from  this  to  be  wary  and  circumspect,  284.  Learn  to  be  discreet  and  sober,  and 
to  give  offence  to  nobody,  285.  Live  above  reproach,  286,  287.  When  censured 
and  accused,  examine  if  there  be  just  cause  for  it,  288.  Be  willing  to  hear 
the  truth  even  from  the  lips  of  enemies,  289.  If  accused  unjustly,  avoid  even  the 
appearance  of  the  supposed  wrong,  290.  Have  you  given  any  occasion  for  the 
false  accusation  ■?  291.  Learn  to  keep  the  tongue  in  subjection,  292.  Be  magnan- 
imous and  kind  to  your  enemy,  293.  Indulge  no  malignant  passion,  294.  Envv 
not  your  enemy's  success,  297. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

By  Matthew  Morgan,  A.M.,  of  St.  John's  College  in  Oxford. 

The  son  of  Apollonius  had  died,  299.  Apathy  and  excessive  grief  are  alike  unnat* 
ural  and  improper,  300.  Avoid  both  of  these  extremes,  300.  Uninterrupted 
happiness  is  not  to  be  expected,  302,  Everj'  thing  is  subject  to  change,  303. 
Evil  is  to  be  expected,  304,  305.  Sorrow  will  not  remove  suffering,  306,  307. 
Others  are  in  trouble  besides  oui'selves,  303.  Why  should  death  be  considered 
so  great  an  evil  1  308.  Death  is  but  the  debt  of  nature,  309.  Death  is  inevit<able, 
and  the  termination  of  all  human  calamity,  310.  Death  is  the  brother  of  sleep, 
311.  Death  divests  us  of  the  body,  and  thus  frees  us  from  great  evil,  312.  The 
gods  have  often  sent  death  as  a  reward  for  distinguished  piety ;  illustrated  by 
the  cases  of  Biton  and  Cleobis,  of  Agamedes  and  Trophonius,  of  Pindar  and 
Euthynous,  313,  314.  Even  if  death  be  the  extinction  of  our  being,  it  is  no  evil, 
and  why,  315.  i^ven  untimely  death  may  shield  from  evil,  317.  Not  long  life, 
but  virtuous  is  desirable,  317,  318.  Sorrow  for  the  dead  may  proceed  from  selfish 
considerations,  319.  Does  tiie  mourner  intend  to  cherish  grief  as  long  as  he 
lives  ?  320.  Excessive  grief  is  unmanly,  321.  An  untimely  death  dirters  not 
much  from  that  which  is  timely,  322.     It  may  be  desirable,  323,  324.     Excessive 


XXX  CONTENTS   OF   VOL.   1. 

grief  is  unreasonable,  325.  The  state  of  tlie  dead  is  better  than  that  of  the 
living,  326.  Tlie  evil  in  the  world  far  exceeds  the  good,  327.  Life  is  a  loan,  soon 
to  be  recalled,  327.  Some  people  are  querulous  and  can  never  be  satisfied,  329. 
Deatli  is  fixed  by  fate,  331.  Lite  is  short,  and  should  not  be  wasted  in  unavailing 
sorrow,  332.  Derive  comfort  from  the  example  of  those  who  have  borne  the 
death  of  their  sons  bravelj',  332,  333.  Providence  wisely  disposes,  335.  Your 
son  died  at  the  best  time  for  him,  335.  He  is  now  numbered  with  tlie  blest,  33fi. 
The  conclusion;  a  touching  appeal  to  ApoUonius,  339. 

CONCERNING  THE  VIRTUES  OF  WOMEN. 

Br  Isaac  Chauncy,  of  the  College  of  Physicians,  London. 

It  is  right  to  praise  virtuous  women,  340.  Virtue  in  man  and  woman  is  the  same, 
340 ;  even  as  tlie  poetic  art  in  man  and  woman  is  the  same,  341.  There  may 
be  variety,  yet  unity,  341.  Virtue  of  the  Trojan  women  after  landing  in  Italy, 
342.  Of  the  Phocian  women  in  the  war  with  the  Thessalians,  343.  Of  the 
women  of  Chios,  344.  Of  the  Argive  women  and  their  repulse  of  the  Spartan 
army,  346.  Of  the  Persian  women,  347.  Of  the  Celtic  women,  347.  Of  the 
Melian  women,  348.  Of  tlie  Tyrrlieiie  women,  349.  Of  tlie  Lycian  women, 
351.  Of  tiie  women  of  Salmantica  in  Spain,  352.  Of  the  maidens  of  Miletus, 
bent  on  self-murder,  and  how  this  was  prevented,  351.  Of  the  maids  of  Cios, 
354.  Of  tlie  women  of  Pliocis  during  the  Sacred  War,  355.  Of  the  Roman 
Lucretia,  Valeria,  and  Cloelia,  355-357.  Of  Micca  and  Megisto,  and  other  women 
of  Elis,  during  the  tyranny  of  Aristotimus,  357-303.  Of  Pieria  and  other  women 
of  Myus,  at  Rliletus,  363,  364.  Of  Polycrita  in  the  war  between  Naxos  and 
Miletus,  364-366.  Of  Lampsace,  366.  Of  Aretaphila,  and  how  she  delivered 
Cyrene  from  tyranny,  367-37L  Of  Camma  the  Galatian,  372.  Of  Stratonica  of 
Galatia,  373.  Of  Chiomara  of  Galatia,  374.  Of  the  women  of  Pergamus,  374. 
Of  Timoclea  at  the  taking  of  Thebes,  376.  Of  Eryxo  of  Cyrene,  378.  Of 
Xenocrita  of  Cumae,  380.     Of  Pythes  the  Lydian  and  his  wife,  382. 

OF    HEARING. 

By  Thomas  Hoy,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College  in  Oxford 

Introduction,  addressed  to  Nicander,  a  j'oung  man,  441.  Remarks  on  hearing  ii. 
general,  442.  Of  the  sense  of  hearing,  as  an  inlet  of  thought  and  feeling,  442. 
A  guard  to  be  placed  over  it,  443.  How  to  hear  with  benefit,  443.  Faults  to  be 
avoided,  444.  In  hearing  a  discourse,  hear  with  attention  to  the  close,  445. 
Guard  against  envy  and  ill-nature,  445,  446.  Hear  with  calmness  and  candor,  446. 
Endeavor  to  reap  advantage  from  the  speaker's  faults,  447.  Yield  not  to  undue 
admiration,  448.  Examine  the  argument  of  the  speaker  apart  from  his  expres 
sion,  449.  Separate  the  substance  of  a  discourse  from  its  accessories,  450,  451 
Int(!rrupt  not  the  speaker  with  trifling  questions,  452.  Propose  no  impertinent 
questions,  453.  Wait  till  the  proper  time  for  asking,  453.  Withhold  not  praise 
when  it  is  due,  454.  Yet  bestow  not  inordinate  praise,  455.  Something  worthy 
of  praise  may  be  found  in  every  discourse,  456.  The  hearer  owes  a  duty  to  the 
speaker  no  less  than  the  speaker  to  the  hearer,  457.  Be  not  indiscriminate  in 
your  praises,  458.  Bear  admonition  in  a  proper  spirit,  459.  If  you  find  diffi- 
culties in  tlie  lecturer's  instructions,  ask  him  to  explain,  460,  461.  Concluding 
exhortation,  462,  463. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I  χχχί 


OF  LARGE  ACQUAINTANCE:  OR,  AN  ESSAY  TO  PROVE  THE 
FOLLY  OF  SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS. 

By  W.  G. 

True  friendsliip  a  thing  of  rare  occurrence,  464.  In  the  early  times,  friends  went  m 
pairs,  Orestes  and  Pylades,  &c.,  4(J5.  True  friendsliip  cannot  embrace  a  multi- 
tude, 466.  If  we  have  numerous  acquaintances,  there  should  be  one  eminently 
a  friend,  466.  The  requisites  to  a  true  friendship,  467.  Tlie  diiBculty  of  iinding 
a  true  friend,  467.  Be  not  hasty  in  getting  friends,  468.  Admit  none  to  your 
confidence  without  long  and  thorough  trial,  468.  As  true  friendship  cements  two 
hearts  into  one,  so  a  large  acquaintance  divides  and  distracts  the  heart,  469.  We 
cannot  discharge  the  obligations  of  friendship  to  a  multitude,  470  ;  therefore  do 
not  attempt  it,  471.  Joining  one's  self  intimately  to  another  involves  one  in  his 
calamities,  472.  Real  friendship  always  has  its  origin  in  likeness,  even  in  brutes. 
472.  Tliere  must  be  a  substantial  oneness,  473.  Therefore  it  is  next  to  a  mir 
acle  to  find  a  constant  and  sure  friend,  474. 


CONCERNING    THE    FORTUNE    OR   VIRTUE    OF    ALEXANDER    THl•. 

GREAT. 

By  Johx  Philips,  Gent. 

Did  he  recelA'^e  his  empire  as  the  gift  of  Fortune  ?  By  no  means,  475.  It  was  ac 
quired  at  the  expense  of  many  severe  wounds,  476,  507;  of  many  hardships  and 
much  daring,  477  ;  as  the  issue  of  his  training  under  Aristotle,  478.  He  was 
himself  a  great  philosopher,  479.  He  was  the  great  civilizer  of  Asia,  480.  He 
realized  the  dreams  of  philosophers  by  making  the  world  his  country,  481. 
Uniting  the  Greeks  and  the  barbarians,  482.  Gaining  the  affection  of  the  van- 
quished, 483.  Aiming  to  establish  universal  brotherhood,  484.  His  philosophy 
as  exhibited  in  his  recorded  sayings,  485-489.  His  generous  conduct,  490.  His 
patronage  of  learned  men,  491.  So  different  from  other  monarchs,  492.  His  mag- 
nanimity, 495.  Such  a  man  owes  little  to  Fortune,  490.  Contrasted  with  Sar- 
danapalus,  497.  His  greatness  as  seen  in  the  confusion  which  followed  his  death, 
498.  Fortune  cannot  make  an  Alexander,  499.  His  silly  imitators  attest  his 
greatness,  501.  His  self-government,  502.  The  Persian  empire  was  overthrown, 
not  by  Fortune,  but  by  the  superior  genius  and  virtue  of  Alexander,  503.  Alex- 
ander owed  nothing  to  Fortune,  506.•  His  wisdom,  his  jjrowess,  his  many 
wounds,  his  constancy  and  energy,  procured  his  great  success,  507-511.  Com- 
pared with  the  ablest  men  of  antiquity,  he  is  superior  to  all,  512,  513.  His  daring 
courage,  great  dangers,  and  marvellous  escape,  while  besieging  a  town  of  the 
Oxydracae,  513-516. 


PLUTARCH'S    MORALS. 


PLUTARCH'S    MORALS. 


A  DISCOURSE    TOUCHING    THE    TRAINING    OF    CHIL- 
DREN. 

1.  The  course  which  ou2rht  to  be  taken  for  the  trainins: 
of  free-born  children,  and  the  means  whereby  their  man- 
ners may  be  rendered  virtuous,  will,  with  the  reader's  leave, 
be  the  subject  of  our  present  disquisition. 

2.  In  the  management  of  which,  perhaps  it  may  be  ex- 
pedient to  take  our  rise  from  their  very  procreation.  I 
would  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  advise  those  who  desire 
to  become  the  parents  of  famous  and  eminent  children,  that 
they  keep  not  company  with  all  women  that  they  light  on ; 
I  mean  such  as  harlots,  or  concubines.  For  such  children 
as  are  blemished  in  their  birth,  either  by  the  father's  or 
the  mother's  side,  are  liable  to  be  pursued,  as  long  as  they 
live,  with  the  indelible  infamy  of  their  base  extraction,  as 
that  which  offers  a  ready  occasion  to  all  that  desire  to  take 
hold  of  it  of  reproaching  and  disgracing  them  therewith. 
So  that  it  was  a  wise  speech  of  the  poet  who  said,  — 

Misfortune  on  that  family's  entailed, 
Whose  reputation  in  its  founder  failed* 

Wherefore,  since  to  be  well  born  gives  men  a  good  stock 
of  confidence,  the  consideration  hereof  ought  to  be  of  no 
small  value  to  such  as  desire  to  leave  behind  them  a  law- 
ful issue.     For  the  spirits  of  men  who  are  alloyed  and 

*  Eurip.  Hercules  Furens,  1261 


*  OF  THE   TRAINING   OF   CIULDREN. 

counterfeit  in  their  birth  are  naturally  enfeebled  and  de- 
based ;  as  rightly  said  the  poet  again,  — 

A  bold  and  daring  spirit  is  often  daunted, 

When  with  the  guilt  of  parents'  crimes  'tis  haunted.* 

So,  on  the  contrary,  a  certain  loftiness  and  natural  gal- 
lantry of  spirit  is  wont  to  fill  the  breasts  of  those  who  are 
born  of  illustrious  parents.  Of  which  Diophantus,  the 
young  son  of  Themistocles,  is  a  notable  instance  ;  for  he  is 
reported  to  have  made  his  boast  often  and  in  many  compa- 
nies, that  whatsoever  pleased  him  pleased  also  all  Athens : 
for  whatever  he  liked,  his  mother  liked ;  and  whatever  his 
mother  liked,  Themistocles  liked ;  and  whatever  Themisto- 
cles liked,  all  the  Athenians  liked.  AVherefore  it  was 
gallantly  done  of  the  Lacedaemonian  States,  when  they 
laid  a  round  fine  on  their  king  Archidamus  for  marrying 
a  little  woman,  giving  this  reason  for  their  so  doing :  that 
he  meant  to  beget  for  them  not  kings,  but  kinglings. 

8.  The  advice  which  I  am,  in  the  next  place,  about  to 
give,  is,  indeed,  no  other  than  what  hath  been  given  by  those 
who  have  undertaken  this  argument  before  me.  You  will 
ask  me  what  is  that  1  It  is  this  :  that  no  man  keep  com- 
pany with  his  wife  for  issue's  sake  but  when  he  is  sober, 
having  drunk  either  no  wine,  or  at  least  not  such  a  quan- 
tity as  to  distemper  him  ;  for  they  usually  prove  Λvine- 
bibbers  and  drunkards,  whose  parents  begot  them  when 
they  were  drunk.  Wherefore  Diogenes  said  to  a  stripling 
somewhat  crack-brained  and  half-witted :  Surely,  young 
man,  thy  father  begot  thee  Avhen  he  was  drunk.  Let  this 
suffice  to  be  spoken  concerning  the  procreation  of  children  : 
and  let  us  pass  thence  to  their  education. 

4.  And  here,  to  speak  summarily,  what  λΥβ  are  wont  to 
say  of  arts  and  sciences  may  be  said  also  concerning  virtue  : 
that  there  is  a  concurrence  of  three  things  requisite  to  the 

^  *  Eurip.  Hippol.  424. 


OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN.  0 

completing  thereof  in  practice,  —  which  are  nature,  reason, 
and  use.  Now  by  reason  here  I  would  be  understood  to 
mean  learning  ;  and  by  nse,  exercise.  Now  the  principles 
come  from  instruction,  the  practice  comes  from  exercise, 
and  perfection  from  all  three  combined.  And  accordingly 
as  either  of  the  three  is  deficient,  virtue  must  needs  be 
defective.  For  if  nature  be  not  improved  by  instruction,  it 
is  blind ;  if  instruction  be  not  assisted  by  nature,  it  is 
maimed  ;  and  if  exercise  fail  of  the  assistance  of  both,  it  is 
imperfect  as  to  the  attainment  of  its  end.  And  as  in  hus- 
bandry it  is  first  requisite  that  the  soil  be  fertile,  next  that 
the  husbandman  be  skilful,  and  lastly  that  the  seed  he 
sows  be  good;  so  here  nature  resembles  the  soil,  the  in- 
structor of  youth  the  husbandman,  and  the  rational  princi- 
ples and  precepts  Avhich  are  taught,  the  seed.  And  I 
would  peremptorily  affirm  that  all  these  met  and  jointly 
conspired  to  the  completing  of  the  souls  of  those  univer- 
sally celebrated  men,  Pythagoras,  Socrates,  and  Plato, 
together  Avith  all  others  whose  eminent  ΛVorth  hath  gotten 
them  immortal  glory.  And  happy  is  that  man  certainly, 
and  well-beloved  of  the  Gods,  on  whom  by  the  bounty  of 
any  of  them  all  these  are  conferred. 

And  yet  if  any  one  thinks  that  those  in  whom  Nature 
hath  not  thoroughly  done  her  part  may  not  in  some  measure 
make  up  her  defects,  if  they  be  so  happy  as  to  light  upon 
good  teaching,  and  withal  apply  their  ΟΛνη  industry  towards 
the  attainment  of  virtue,  he  is  to  know  that  he  is  very 
much,  nay,  altogether,  mistaken.  For  as  a  good  natural 
capacity  may  be  impaired  by  slothfulness,  so  dull  and 
heavy  natural  parts  may  be  improved  by  instruction ;  and 
whereas  negligent  students  arrive  not  at  the  capacity  of 
understanding  the  most  easy  things,  those  who  are  industri- 
ous conquer  the  greatest  difficulties.  And  many  instances 
we  may  observe,  that  give  us  a  clear  demonstration  of 
the  mighty  force  and  successful  efficacy  of  labor  and  indus- 


b  OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

try.  For  water  continually  dropping  will  wear  hard  rocks 
hollow  ;  yea,  iron  and  brass  are  worn  out  with  constant 
handling.  Nor  can  we,  if  we  Avould,  reduce  the  felloes  of 
a  cart-wheel  to  their  former  straightness,  when  once  they 
have  been  bent  by  force  ;  yea,  it  is  above  the  poAver  of 
force  to  straighten  the  bended  staves  sometimes  used  by 
actors  upon  the  stage.  So  far  is  that  which  labor  effects, 
though  against  nature,  more  potent  than  what  is  produced 
according  to  it.  Yea,  have  Ave  not  many  millions  of  in- 
stances more  which  evidence  the  force  of  industry?  Let 
us  see  in  some  few  that  follow.  A  man's  ground  is  of  itself 
good  ;  yet,  if  it  be  unmanured,  it  will  contract  barrenness  ; 
and  the  better  it  was  naturally,  so  much  the  more  is  it 
ruined  by  carelessness,  if  it  be  ill-husbanded.  On  the 
other  side,  let  a  man's  ground  be  more  than  ordinarily 
rough  and  rugged ;  yet  experience  tells  us  that,  if  it  be 
well  manured,  it  will  be  quickly  made  capable  of  bearing- 
excellent  fruit.  Yea,  Avhat  sort  of  tree  is  there  which  λνϊΐΐ 
not,  if  neglected,  grow  crooked  and  unfruitful ;  and  what 
but  Avill,  if  rightly  ordered,  prove  fruitful  and  bring  its 
fruit  to  maturity?  What  strength  of  body  is  there  which 
Λνίΐΐ  not  lose  its  vigor  and  fall  to  decay  by  laziness,  nice 
usage,  and  debauchery?  And,  on  the  contrary,  Avhere  is 
the  man  of  ne\^er  so  crazy  a  natural  constitution,  who  can- 
not render  himself  far  more  robust,  if  he  will  only  give 
himself  to  exercises  of  activity  and  strength  ?  What  horse 
well  managed  from  a  colt  proves  not  easily  governable  by 
the  rider?  And  where  is  there  one  to  be  found  which,  if 
not  broken  betimes,  proves  not  stiff-necked  and  unmanage- 
able ?  Yea,  why  need  we  wonder  at  any  thing  else  when 
we  see  the  wildest  beasts  made  tame  and  brought  to  hand 
by  industry?  And  lastly,  as  to  men  themselves,  that 
Thessalian  answered  not  amiss,  who,  being  asked  which 
of  his  countrymen  were  the  meekest,  replied :  Those  that 
have  received  their  discharge  from  the  wars. 


OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN.  7 

But  what  need  of  multiplying  more  words  in  this  matter, 
Avhen  even  the  notion  of  the  Avord  ηΟος  in  the  Greek  lan- 
guage imports  continuance,  and  he  that  should  call  moral 
\'irtues  customary  virtues  would  seem  to  speak  not  incon- 
gruously ]  I  shall  conclude  this  part  of  my  discourse, 
therefore,  with  the  addition  of  one  only  instance.  Lycurgus, 
the  Lacedaemonian  lawgiver,  once  took  two  whelps  of  the 
same  litter,  and  ordered  them  to  be  bred  in  a  quite  different 
manner ;  whereby  the  one  became  dainty  and  ravenous, 
and  the  other  of  a  good  scent  and  skilled  in  hunting  ;  which 
done,  a  Avhile  after  he  took  occasion  thence  in  an  assembly 
of  the  Lacedaemonians  to  discourse  in  this  manner :  Of 
great  weight  in  the  attainment  of  virtue,  fellow-citizens, 
are  habits,  instruction,  precepts,  and  indeed  the  whole  man- 
ner of  life,  —  as  I  will  presently  let  you  see  Jby  example. 
And,  withal,  he  ordered  the  producing  those  two  whelps 
into  the  midst  of  the  hall,  where  also  there  were  set  down 
before  them  a  plate  and  a  live  hare.  Wherenpon,  as  they 
had  been  bred,  the  one  presently  flies  upon  the  hare,  and  the 
other  as  greedily  runs  to  the  plate.  And  while  the  people 
Avere  musing,  not  perfectly  apprehending  what  he  meant 
by  producing  those  whelps  thus,  he  added  :  These  whelps 
were  both  of  one  litter,  but  differently  bred  ;  the  one,  you 
see,  has  turned  out  a  greedy  cur,  and  the  other  a  good 
hound.  And  this  shall  suffice  to  be  spoken  concerning 
custom  and  different  ways  of  living. 

5.  The  next  thing  that  falls  under  our  consideration  is 
the  nursing  of  children,  which,  in  my  judgment,  the 
mothers  should  do  themselves,  giving  their  own  breasts  to 
those  they  have  borne.  For  this  office  will  certainly  be 
performed  with  more  tenderness  and  carefulness  by  natu- 
ral mothers,  who  will  love  their  children  intimately,  as 
the  saying  is,  from  their  tender  nails.*  Whereas,  both 
wet  and  dry  nurses,  who  are  hired,  love  only  for  their  pay, 

*  'Έ,ξ  ονύχων  απαλών. 


ο  OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

and  are  aifected  to  their  work  as  ordinarily  those  that  are 
substituted  and  deputed  in  the  place  of  others  are.  Yea, 
even  Nature  seems  to  have  assigned  the  suckling  and  nurs- 
ing of  the  issue  to  those  that  bear  them  ;  for  which  cause  she 
hath  bestowed  upon  every  living  creature  that  brings  forth 
young,  milk  to  nourish  them  withal.  And,  in  conformity 
thereto,  Providence  hath  also  wisely  ordered  that  women 
should  have  two  breasts,  that  so,  if  any  of  them  should  happen 
to  bear  twins,  they  might  have  two  several  springs  of  nour- 
ishment ready  for  them.  Though,  if  they  had  not  that 
furniture,  mothers  would  still  be  more  kind  and  loving  to 
their  own  children.  And  that  not  without  reason  ;  for  con- 
stant feeding  together  is  a  great  means  to  heighten  the 
affection  mutually  betwixt  any  persons.  Yea,  even  beasts, 
when  they  are  separated  from  those  that  have  grazed  with 
them,  do  in  their  way  show  a  longing  for  the  absent. 
Wherefore,  as  I  have  said,  mothers  themselves  should  strive 
to  the  utmost  to  nurse  their  own  children.  But  if  they 
find  it  impossible  to  do  it  themselves,  either  because  of 
bodily  weakness  (and  such  a  case  may  fall  out),  or  because 
they  are  apt  to  be  quickly  with  child  again,  then  are  they 
to  chose  the  honestest  nurses  they  can  get,  and  not  to 
take  whomsoever  they  have  offered  them.  And  the  first 
thino•  to  be  looked  after  in  this  choice  is,  that  the  nurses  be 
bred  after  the  Greek  fashion.  For  as  it  is  needful  that  the 
members  of  children  be  shaped  aright  as  soon  as  they  are 
born,  that  they  may  not  afterwards  prove  crooked  and  dis- 
torted, so  it  is  no  less  expedient  that  their  manners  be  well 
fashioned  from  the  very  beginning.  For  childhood  is  a 
tender  thing,  and  easily  wrought  into  any  shape.  Yea, 
and  the  very  souls  of  children  readily  receive  the  impres- 
sions of  those  things  that  are  dropped  into  them  while  they 
are  yet  but  soft ;  but  when  they  grow  older,  they  will,  as  all 
hard  things  are,  be  more  difficult  to  be  wrought  upon.  And 
as  soft  wax  is  apt  to  take  the  stamp  of  the  seal,  so  are  the 


OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN.  V 

minds  of  children  to  receive  the  instructions  imprinted  on 
them  at  that  age.  AVhence,  also,  it  seems  to  me  good  advice 
Avhich  divine  Plato  gives  to  nurses,  not  to  tell  all  sorts  of 
common  tales  to  children  in  infancy,  lest  thereby  their 
minds  should  chance  to  be  filled  with  foolish  and  corrupt 
notions.*  The  like  good  counsel  Phocylides,  the  poet,  seems 
to  give  in  this  verse  of  his  :  — 

If  we'll  have  virtuous  children,  we  should  choose 
Their  tenderest  age  good  principles  to  infuse. 

6.  Nor  are  we  to  omit  taking  due  care,  in  the  first  place, 
that  those  children  who  are  appointed  to  attend  upon  such 
young  nurslings,  and  to  be  bred  with  them  for  play-fellows, 
be  well-mannered,  and  next  that  they  speak  plain,  natural 
Greek  ;  lest,  being  constantly  used  to  converse  with  persons 
of  a  barbarous  language  and  evil  manners,  they  receive 
corrupt  tinctures  from  them.  For  it  is  a  true  proverb,  that 
if  you  live  with  a  lame  man,  you  will  learn  to  halt. 

7.  Next,  when  a  child  is  arrived  at  such  an  age  as  to  be 
put  under  the  care  of  pedagogues,  great  care  is  to  be  used 
that  we  be  not  deceived  in  them,  and  so  commit  our  chil- 
dren to  slaves  or  barbarians  or  cheating  fellows.  For  it  is 
a  course  never  enough  to  be  laughed  at  which  many  men 
nowadays  take  in  this  affair ;  for  if  any  of  their  servants 
be  better  than  the  rest,  they  dispose  some  of  them  to  follow 
husbandry,  some  to  navigation,  some  to  merchandise,  some 
to  be  stewards  in  their  houses,  and  some,  lastly,  to  put 
out  their  money  to  use  for  them.  But  if  they  find  any 
slave  that  is  a  drunkard  or  a  glutton,  and  unfit  for  any  other 
business,  to  him  they  assign  the  government  of  their  chil- 
dren ;  whereas,  a  good  pedagogue  ought  to  be  such  a  one  in 
his  dis])osition  as  Phoenix,  tutor  to  Achilles,  was. 

And  now  I  come  to  speak  of  that  which  is  a  greater 
matter,  and   of  more  concern  than  any  that  I  have  said. 

*  See  Plato,  Repub.  II.  p.  377  C. 


10  OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

We  are  to  look  after  such  masters  for  our  children  as  are 
blameless  in  their  lives,  not  justly  reprovable  for  their  man- 
ners, and  of  the  best  experience  in  teaching.  For  the  very 
spring  and  root  of  honesty  and  virtue  lies  in  the  felicity  of 
liiihtinii  on  aood  education,  iind  as  husbandmen  are  wont 
to  set  forks  to  prop  up  feeble  plants,  so  do  honest  school- 
masters prop  up  youth  by  careful  instructions  and  admoni- 
tions, that  they  may  duly  bring  forth  the  buds  of  good 
manners.  But  there  are  certain  fathers  nowadays  who 
deserve  that  men  should  spit  on  them  in  contempt,  who, 
before  making  any  proof  of  those  to  whom  they  design  to 
commit  the  teaching  of  their  children,  either  through  un- 
acquaintance,  or,  as  it  sometimes  falls  out,  through  unskil- 
fulness,  intrust  them  to  men  of  no  good  reputation,  or,  it 
may  be,  such  as  are  branded  with  infamy.  Although  they 
are  not  altogether  so  ridiculous,  if  they  offend  herein 
through  unskilfulness  ;  but  it  is  a  thing  most  extremely 
absurd,  Avhen,  as  oftentimes  it  happens,  though  they  know 
and  are  told  beforehand,  by  those  who  understand  better 
than  themselves,  both  of  the  inability  and  rascality  of  cer- 
tain schoolmasters,  they  nevertheless  commit  the  charge 
of  their  children  to  them,  sometimes  overcome  by  their 
fair  and  flattering  speeches,  and  sometimes  prevailed  on 
to  gratify  friends  who  entreat  them.  This  is  an  error  of 
like  nature  with  that  of  the  sick  man,  who,  to  please  his 
friends,  forbears  to  send  for  tlie  physician  that  might  save 
his  life  by  his  skill,  and  employs  a  mountebank  that  quick- 
ly dispatcheth  him  out  of  the  ΛVorld ;  or  of  him  who 
refuses  a 'skilful  shipmaster,  and  then,  at  his  friend's  en- 
treaty, commits  the  care  of  his  vessel  to  one  that  is  therein 
much  his  inferior.  In  the  name  of  Jupiter  and  all  the  Gods, 
tell  me  how  can  that  man  deserve  the  name  of  a  father, 
who  is  more  concerned  to  gratify  others  in  their  requests, 
than  to  have  his  children  well  educated  ?  Or,  is  not 
that  rather  fitly   applicable   to  this  case,  which  Socrates, 


or  THE   TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN.  11 

that  ancient  philosopher,  was  wont  to  say,  —  that,  if  he 
could  get  up  to  the  highest  place  in  the  city,  he  would  lift 
up  his  voice  and  make  this  proclamation  thence :  "  What 
mean  you,  fellow-citizens,  that  you  thus  turn  every  stone  to 
scrape  Λvealth  together,  and  take  so  little  care  of  your 
children,  to  whom,  one  day,  you  must  relinquish  it  all  ?  "  — 
to  which  I  would  add  this,  that  such  parents  do  like  hira 
that  is  solicitous  about  his  shoe,  but  neglects  the  foot  that 
is  to  wear  it.  And  yet  many  fathers  there  are,  who  so 
love  their  money  and  hate  their  children,  that,  lest  it  should 
cost  them  more  than  they  are  willing  to  spare  to  hire  a 
good  schoolmaster  for  them,  they  rather  choose  such  per- 
sons to  instruct  their  children  as  are  of  no  worth  ;  thereby 
beating  down  the  market,  that  they  may  purchase  ignorance 
cheap.  It  was,  therefore,  a  Λvitty  and  handsome  jeer 
which  Aristippus  bestowed  on  a  sottish  father,  who  asked 
him  what  he  would  take  to  teach  his  child.  He  answered, 
A  thousand  drachms.  Whereupon  the  other  cried  out :. 
Ο  Hercules,  what  a  price  you  ask !  for  I  can  buy  a  slave 
at  that  rate.  Do  so,  then,  said  the  philosopher,  and 
thou  shalt  have  two  slaves  instead  of  one,  —  thy  son  for 
one,  and  him  thou  buyest  for  another.  Lastly,  how 
absurd  it  is,  when  thou  accustomest  thy  children  to  take 
their  food  with  their  right  hands,  and  chidest  them  if  they 
receive  it  with  their  left,  yet  thou  takest  no  care  at  all  that 
the  principles  that  are  infused  into  them  be  right  and 
regular. 

And  now  I  will  tell  you  what  ordinarily  is  like  to  befall 
such  prodigious  parents,  when  they  have  had  their  sons  ill 
nursed  and  worse  taught.  For  when  such  sons  are  arrived 
at  mans  estate,  and,  through  contempt  of  a  sound  an) 
orderly  way  of  living,  precipitate  themselves  into  all  man- 
ner of  disorderly  and  servile  pleasures,  then  will  those 
parents  dearly  repent  of  their  own  neglect  of  their  chil- 
dren's education,  when  it  is  too  late  to  amend  it ;  and  vex 


12  OF   THE   TRAIXIXG   OF   CHILDREN. 

themselves,  even  to  distraction,  at  their  vicious  courses. 
For  then  do  some  of  those  children  acquaint  themselves 
with  flatterers  and  parasites,  a  sort  of  infamous  and  execra- 
ble persons,  the  very  pests  that  corrupt  and  ruin  young 
men ;  others  maintain  mistresses  and  harlots,  insolent  and 
extravagant ;  others  waste  their  substance  ;  others,  again, 
come  to  shipwreck  on  gaming  and  revelling.  And  some 
venture  on  still  more  audacious  crimes,  committing  adul- 
tery and  joining  in  the  orgies  of  Bacchus,  being  ready 
to  purchase  one  bout  of  debauched  pleasure  at  the  price 
of  their  lives.  If  now  they  had  but  conversed  with  some 
philosopher,  they  would  never  have  enslaved  themselves 
to  such  courses  as  these  ;  though  possibly  they  might  have 
learned  at  least  to  put  in  practice  the  precept  of  Diogenes, 
delivered  by  him  indeed  in  rude  language,  but  yet  contain- 
ing, as  to  the  scope  of  it,  a  great  truth,  when  he  advised 
a  voung  man  to  go  to  the  public  stews,  that  he  might  then 
inform  himself,  by  experience,  how  things  of  greatest  value 
and  things  of  no  value  at  all  were  there  of  equal  worth. 

8.  In  brief  therefore  I  say  (and  what  I  say  may  justly 
challenge  the  repute  of  an  oracle  rather  than  of  advice), 
that  the  one  chief  thing  in  this  matter  —  which  com 
priseth  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of  all  —  is  good 
education  and  regular  instruction  ;  and  that  these  two  afford 
great  help  and  assistance  toAvards  the  attainment  of  virtue 
and  felicity.  For  all  other  good  things  are  but  human  and 
of  small  value,  such  as  will  hardly  recompense  the  industry 
required  to  the  getting  of  them.  It  is.  indeed,  a  desirable 
thing  to  be  well  descended  ;  but  the  glory  belongs  to  our 
ancestors.  Riches  are  valuable ;  but  they  are  the  goods  of 
Fortune,  Avho  frequently  takes  tliem  from  those  that  have 
them,  and  carries  them  to  those  that  never  so  much  as 
hoped  for  them.  Yea,  the  greater  they  are,  the  fairer 
mark  are  they  for  those  to  aim  at  who  design  to  make  our 
bags  their  prize  ;  I  mean  evil  servants  and  accusers.     But 


OF   THE    TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN.  13 

the  Aveightiest  consideration  of  all  is,  that  riches  may  be 
enjoyed  by  the  Avorst  as  well  as  the  best  of  men.  Glory  is 
a  thing  deserving•  respect,  but  unstable  ;  beauty  is  a  prize 
that  men  fight  to  obtain,  but,  when  obtained,  it  is  of  little 
continuance  ;  health  is  a  precious  enjoyment,  but  easily  im- 
paired ;  strength  is  a  thing  desirable,  but  apt  to  be  the 
prey  of  diseases  and  old  age.  And,  in  general,  let  any  man 
who  values  himself  upon  strength  of  body  know  that  he 
makes  a  great  mistake  ;  for  what  indeed  is  any  proportion 
of  human  strength,  if  compared  to  that  of  other  animals, 
such  as  elephants  and  bulls  and  lions  ?  But  learning  alone, 
of  all  things  in  our  possession,  is  immortal  and  divine.  And 
two  things  there  are  that  are  most  peculiar  to  human 
nature,  reason  and  speech  ;  of  which  two,  reason  is  the 
master  of  speech,  and  speech  is  the  servant  of  reason,  im- 
pregnable against  all  assaults  of  fortune,  not  to  be  taken 
away  by  false  accusation,  nor  impaired  by  sickness,  nor 
enfeebled  by  old  age.  For  reason  alone  grows  youthful 
by  age  ;  and  time,^  which  decays  all  other  things,  increaseth 
knowledge  in  us  in  our  decaying  years.  Yea,  war  itself, 
which  like  a  Avinter  torrent  bears  down  all  other  things 
before  it  and  carries  them  aAvay  with  it,  leaves  learning 
alone  behind.  Whence  the  answer  seems  to  me  very  re- 
markable, which  Stilpo,  a  philosopher  of  Megara,  gave  to 
Demetrius,  Λνΐιο,  when  he  levelled  that  city  to  the  ground 
and  made  all  the  citizens  bondmen,  asked  Stilpo  whether 
he  had  lost  any  thing.  Nothing,  said  he,  for  war  cannot 
plunder  virtue.  To  this  saying  that  of  Socrates  also  is  very 
agreeable  ;  who,  when  Gorgias  (as  I  take  it)  asked  him 
what  his  opinion  Avas  of  the  king  of  Persia,  and  whether 
he  judged  him  happy,  returned  answer,  that  he  could  not 
tell  what  to  think  of  him,  because  he  knew  not  how  he  was 
furnished  with  virtue  and  learning,  —  as  judging  humaii 
felicity  to  consist  in  those  endowments,  and  not  in  those 
which  are  subject  to  fortune. 


14  OF   THE   TRAINING   OF  CHILDREN. 

9.  Moreover,  as  it  is  my  advice  to  parents  that  they  make 
the  breeding  up  of  their  children  to  learning  the  chiefest 
of  their  care,  so  I  here  add,  that  the  learning  they  ought 
to  train  them  up  unto  should  be  sound  and  wholesome,  and 
such  as  is  most  remote  from  those  trifles  wliich  suit  the 
popular  humor.  For  to  please  the  many  is  to  displease 
the  wise.  To  this  saying  of  mine  that  of  Euripides  him- 
self bears  witness :  — 

I'm  better  skilled  to  treat  a  few,  my  peers, 

Than  in  a  crowd  to  tickle  vulgar  ears  ; 

Though  others  have  the  luck  ou't,  when  they  babble 

Most  to  the  wise,  then  most  to  please  the  rabble.* 

Besides,  I  find  by  my  own  observation,  that  those  persons 
who  make  it  their  business  to  speak  so  as  to  deserve  the 
favor  and  approbation  of  the  scum  of  the  people,  ordinarily 
live  at  a  suitable  rate,  voluptuously  and  intemperately. 
And  there  is  reason  for  it.  For  they  who  have  no  regard 
to  Avhat  is  honest,  so  they  may  make  provision  for  other 
men's  pleasures,  will  surely  not  be  very  prepense  to  prefer 
what  is  right  and  wholesome  before  that  Avhich  gratifies 
their  own  inordinate  pleasures  and  luxurious  inclinations, 
and  to  quit  that  which  humors  them  for  that  which  restrains 
them. 

If  any  one  ask  what  the  next  thing  is  wherein  I  ΛνοηΜ 
have  children  instructed,  and  to  what  further  good  qualities 
I  would  have  them  inured,  I  answer,  that  I  think  it  advisa- 
ble that  they  neither  speak  nor  do  any  thing  rashly  ;  for, 
according  to  the  proverb,  the  best  things  are  the  most 
diflacult.  But  extemporary  discourses  are  full  of  much 
ordinary  and  loose  stuff,  nor  do  such  speakers  Λνεΐΐ  know 
where  to  begin  or  where  to  make  an  end.  And  besides 
other  faults  which  those  Avho  speak  suddenly  are  com- 
monly guilty  of,  they  are  commonly  liable  to  this  great 
one,  that  they  multiply  words  without  measure  ;  whereas, 

*  Eurip.  Hippol.  986. 


OF  THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN.  15 

premeditation  Λνΐΐΐ  not  sniFer  a  man  to  enlarge  his  dis- 
course beyond  a  due  proportion.  To  this  purpose  it  is 
reported  of  Pericles,  that,  being  often  called  upon  by 
the  people  to  speak,  he  would  not,  because  (as  he  said) 
he  was  unprepared.  And  Demosthenes  also,  who  imi- 
tated him  in  the  managery  of  public  affairs,  when  the 
Athenians  urged  him  to  give  his  counsel,  refused  it  with 
this  answer :  I  have  not  yet  prepared  myself.  Though  it 
may  be  that  this  story  is  a  mere  fiction,  brought  down  to 
us  by  uncertain  tradition,  without  any  credible  author. 
But  Demosthenes,  in  his  oration  against  Midias,  clearly  sets 
forth  the  usefulness  of  premeditation.  For  there  he  says : 
"  I  confess,  Ο  ye  Athenians  !  that  I  came  hither  provided  to 
speak ;  and  I  will  by  no  means  deny  that  I  have  spent  my 
utmost  study  upon  the  composing  this  oration.  For  it  had 
been  a  pitiful  omission  in  me,  if,  having  suffered  and  still 
suffering  such  things,  I  should  have  neglected  that  Λvhich 
in  this  cause  was  to  be  spoken  by  me."  *  But  here  I 
would  not  be  understood  altogether  to  condemn  all  readi- 
ness to  discourse  extempore,  nor  yet  to  allow  the  use  of  it 
upon  such  occasions  as  do  not  require  it ;  but  we  are  to 
use  it  only  as  we  do  physic.  Still,  before  a  person  arrives 
at  complete  manhood,  I  would  not  permit  him  to  speak 
upon  any  sudden  incident  occasion  ;  though,  after  he  has 
attained  a  radicated  faculty  of  speaking,  he  may  allow  him- 
self a  greater  liberty,  as  opportunity  is  offered.  For  as  they 
who  have  been  a  long  time  in  chains,  when  they  are  at  last 
set  at  liberty,  are  unable  to  walk,  on  account  of  their  former 
continual  restraint,  and  are  very  apt  to  trip,  so  they  who 
have  been  used  to  a  fettered  way  of  speaking  a  great  while, 
if  upon  any  occasion  they  be  enforced  to  speak  on  a  sudden, 
will  hardly  be  able  to  express  themselves  without  some 
tokens  of  their  former  confinement.  But  to  permit  those 
that  are  yet  children  to  speak  extemporally  is  to  give  them 

*  Demosth.  in  Mid.  p.  576,  16. 


16  OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

occasion  for  extremely  idle  talk.  A  wretched  painter,  they 
say,  showing  Apelles  a  picture,  told  him  Avithal  that  he  had 
taken  a  very  little  time  to  paint  it.  If  thou  hadst  not  told 
me  so,  said  Apelles,  I  see  cause  enough  to  believe  it  was  a 
hasty  draught ;  but  I  Avonder  that  in  that  space  of  time 
thou  hast  not  painted  many  more  such  pictures. 

I  advise  therefore  (for  I  return  now  to  the  subject  that  I 
have  digressed  from)  the  shunning  and  avoiding,  not  merely 
of  a  starched,  theatrical,  and  over-tragical  form  of  speaking, 
but  also  of  that  which  is  too  low  and  mean.  For  that 
which  is  too  swelling  is  not  fit  for  the  managery  of  public 
aff"airs  ;  and  that,  on  the  other  side,  which  is  too  thin  is  very 
inapt  to  Avork  any  notable  impression  upon  the  hearers. 
For  as  it  is  not  only  requisite  that  a  man  s  body  be  healthy, 
but  also  that  it  be  of  a  firm  constitution,  so  ought  a  dis- 
course to  be  not  only  sound,  but  nervous  also.  For  though 
such  as  is  composed  cautiously  may  be  commended,  yet 
that  is  all  it  can  arrive  at ;  Avhereas  that  which  hath  some 
adventurous  passages  in  it  is  admired  also.  And  my  opinion 
is  the  same  concerning  the  afi"ections  of  the  speaker's  mind. 
For  he  must  be  neither  of  a  too  confident  nor  of  a  too 
mean  and  dejected  spirit ;  for  the  one  is  apt  to  lead  to 
impudence,  the  other  to  servility  ;  and  much  of  the  orator's 
art,  as  well  as  great  circumspection,  is  required  to  direct  his 
course  skilfully  betwixt  the  two. 

And  now  (whilst  I  am  handling  this  point  concerning  the 
instruction  of  children)  I  will  also  give  you  my  judgment 
concerning  the  frame  of  a  discourse  ;  which  is  this,  that  to 
compose  it  in  all  parts  uniformly  not  only  is  a  great  argu- 
ment of  a  defect  in  learning,  but  also  is  apt,  I  think,  to 
nauseate  the  auditory  when  it  is  practised ;  and  in  no  case 
can  it  give  lasting  pleasure.  For  to  sing  the  same  tune,  as 
the  saying  is,  is  in  every  thing  cloying  and  offensive  ;  but 
men  are  generally  pleased  with  variety,  as  in  speeches  and 
pageants,  so  in  all  other  entertainments. 


OF   THE   TRAINING    OF   CHILDREN.  17 

]  0.  Wherefore,  though  we  ought  not  to  permit  an  ingen- 
uous child  entirely  to  neglect  any  of  the  common  sorts  of 
learning,  so  far  as  they  may  be  gotten  by  lectures  or  from 
public  shows  ;  yet  I  would  have  him  to  salute  these  only  as 
in  his  passage,  taking  a  bare  taste  of  each  of  them  (seeing 
no  man  can  possibly  attain  to  perfection  in  all),  and  to  give 
philosophy  the  pre-eminence  of  them  all.  I  can  illustrate 
my  meaning  by  an  example.  It  is  a  fine  thing  to  sail  round 
and  visit  many  cities,  but  it  is  profitable  to  fix  our  dwellii;g 
in  the  best.  Witty  also  was  the  saying  of  Bias,  the  philos- 
opher, that,  as  the  wooers  of  Penelope,  when  they  could  not 
have  their  desire  of  the  mistress,  contented  themselves  to 
have  to  do  with  her  maids,  so  commonly  those  students  who 
are  not  capable  of  understanding  philosophy  waste  them- 
selves in  the  study  of  those  sciences  that  are  of  no  value. 
\Vhence  it  follows,  that  we  ought  to  make  philosophy  the 
chief  of  all  our  learning.  For  though,  in  order  to  the  wel- 
fare of  the  body,  the  industry  of  men  hath  found  out  two 
arts,  —  medicine,  which  assists  to  the  recovery  of  lost  health 
and  gymnastics,  Avhich  help  us  to  attain  a  sound  constitu- 
tion, —  yet  there  is  but  one  remedy  for  the  distempers  and 
diseases  of  the  mind,  and  that  is  philosophy.  For  by  the 
advice  and  assistance  thereof  it  is  that  we  come  to  under- 
stand what  is  honest,  and  what  dishonest ;  what  is  just,  and 
what  uujust ;  in  a  word,  what  we  are  to  seek,  and  what  to 
avoid.  AVe  learn  by  it  how  we  are  to  demean  ourselves 
towards  the  Gods,  towards  our  parents,  our  elders,  the  laws, 
strangers,  governors,  friends,  wives,  children,  and  servants. 
That  is,  we  are  to  worship  the  Gods,  to  honor  our  parents, 
to  reverence  our  elders,  to  be  subject  to  the  laws,  to  obey 
our  governors,  to  love  our  friends,  to  use  sobriety  towards 
our  wives,  to  be  aifectionate  to  our  children,  and  not  to  treat 
our  servants  insolently  ;  and  (which  is  the  chiefest  lesson  of 
all)  not  to  be  overjoyed  in  prosperity  nor  too  much  dejected 
in  adversity ;  not  to  be  dissolute  in  our  pleasures,  nor  in  our 


lii  OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

anger  to  be  transported  with  brutish  rage  and  fury.  These 
things  I  account  the  principal  advantages  which  we  gain  by 
philosophy.  For  to  use  prosperity  generously  is  the  part  of 
a  man  ;  to  manage  it  so  as  to  decline  envy,  of  a  well  governed 
man  ;  to  master  our  pleasures  by  reason  is  the  property  of 
wise  men  ;  and  to  moderate  anger  is  the  attainment  only  of 
extraordinary  men.  But  those  of  all  men  I  count  most  com- 
plete, who  know  how  to  mix  and  temper  the  managery 
of  civil  affairs  with  philosophy ;  seeing  they  are  thereby 
masters  of  two  of  the  greatest  good  things  that  are,  —  a  life 
of  public  usefulness  as  statesmen,  and  a  life  of  calm  tran- 
quillity as  students  of  philosophy.  For,  whereas  there  are 
three  sorts  of  lives,  —  the  life  of  action,  the  life  of  contem- 
plation, and  the  life  of  pleasure,  —  the  man  who  is  utterly 
abandoned  and  a  slave  to  pleasure  is  brutish  and  mean- 
spirited  ;  he  that  spends  his  time  in  contemplation  without 
action  is  an  unprofitable  man  ;  and  he  that  lives  in  action 
and  is  destitute  of  philosophy  is  a  rustical  man,  and  commits 
many  absurdities.  AVherefore  we  are  to  apply  our  utmost 
endeavor  to  enable  ourselves  for  both  ;  that  is,  to  manage 
public  employments,  and  withal,  at  convenient  seasons,  to 
give  ourselves  to  philosophical  studies.  Such  statesmen 
were  Pericles  and  Archytas  the  Tarentine  ;  such  were  Dion 
the  Syracusan  and  Epaminondas  the  Theban,  both  of  whom 
were  of  Plato's  familiar  acquaintance. 

I  think  it  not  necessary  to  spend  many  more  Avords  about 
this  point,  the  instruction  of  children  in  learning.  Only  it 
may  be  profitable  at  least,  or  even  necessary,  not  to  omit 
procuring  for  them  the  writings  of  ancient  authors,  but  to 
make  such  a  collection  of  them  as  husbandmen  are  wont  to 
do  of  all  needful  tools.  For  of  the  same  nature  is  the  use 
of  books  to  scholars,  as  being  the  tools  and  instruments  of 
learning,  and  withal  enabling  them  to  derive  knowledge 
from  its  proper  fountains. 

11.  In  the  next  place,  the  exercise  of  the  body  must  not 


OF   THE   TRAINING  OF   CHILDREN.  19 

be  neglected  ;  but  children  must  be  sent  to  schools  of  gym- 
nastics, where  they  may  have  sufficient  employment  that 
Avay  also.  This  will  conduce  partly  to  a  more  handsome 
carriage,  and  partly  to  the  improvement  of  their  strength. 
For  the  foundation  of  a  vigorous  old  age  is  a  good  constitu- 
tion of  the  body  in  childhood.  AVherefore,  as  it  is  expe- 
dient to  provide  those  things  in  fair  weather  which  may 
be  useful  to  the  mariners  in  a  storm,  so  is  it  to  keep  good 
order  and  govern  ourselves  by  rules  of  temperance  in  youth, 
as  the  best  provision  we  can  lay  in  for  age.  Yet  must  they 
husband  their  strength,  so  as  not  to  become  dried  up  (as  it 
were)  and  destitute  of  strength  to  follow  their  studies. 
For,  according  to  Plato,  sleep  and  weariness  are  enemies  to 
the  arts.* 

But  why  do  I  stand  so  long  on  these  things  ?  I  hasten  to 
speak  of  that  which  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  even 
beyond  all  that  has  been  spoken  of ;  namely,  I  ΛνοηΜ  have 
boys  trained  for  the  contests  of  wars  by  practice  in  the 
throwing  of  darts,  shooting  of  arrows,  and  hunting  of  wild 
beasts.  For  we  must  remember  in  war  the  goods  of  the 
conquered  are  proposed  as  rewards  to  the  conquerors.  But 
war  does  not  agree  with  a  delicate  habit  of  body,  used  only 
to  the  sliade  ;  for  even  one  lean  soldier  that  hath  been  used 
to  military  exercises  shall  overthrow  whole  troops  of  mere 
wrestlers  who  know  nothing  of  war.  But,  somebody  may 
say,  whilst  you  profess  to  give  precepts  for  the  education 
of  all  free-born  children,  why  do  you  carry  the  matter  so  as 
to  seem  only  to  accommodate  those  precepts  to  the  rich,  and 
neglect  to  suit  them  also  to  the  children  of  poor  men  and 
plebeians  ]  To  which  objection  it  is  no  difficult  thing  to 
reply.  For  it  is  my  desire  that  all  children  Avhatsoever  may 
partake  of  the  benefit  of  education  alike  ;  but  if  yet  any 
persons,  by  reason  of  the  narrowness  of  their  estates,  cau- 

*  Plato,  Repub.  Λ^Ι.  p.  537,  B. 


20 


OF  THE   TRAINING  OF   CHILDREN. 


not  make  use  of  my  precepts,  let  them  not  blame  me  that 
give  them,  but  Fortune,  which  disableth  them  from  makin;^ 
the  advantage  by  them  they  otherwise  might.  Though 
CYQU  poor  men  must  use  their  utmost  endeavor  to  give  their 
children  the  best  education  ;  or,  if  they  cannot,  they  must 
bestow  upon  them  the  best  that  their  abilities  will  reach. 
Thus  much  I  thought  fit  here  to  insert  in  the  body  of  my 
discourse,  that  I  might  the  better  be  enabled  to  annex  what 
I  have  yet  to  add  concerning  the  right  training  of  children. 

12.  I  say  now,  that  children  are  to  be  won  to  follow 
liberal  studies  by  exhortations  and  rational  motives,  and 
on  no  account  to  be  forced  thereto  by  whipping  or  any 
other  contumelious  pimishments.  I  will  not  urge  that  such 
usage  seems  to  be  more  agreeable  to  slaves  than  to  ingenu- 
ous children  ;  and  even  slaves,  when  thus  handled,  are  dulled 
and  discouraged  from  the  performance  of  their  tasks,  partly 
by  reason  of  the  smart  of  their  stripes,  and  partly  because 
of  the  disgrace  thereby  inflicted.  But  praise  and  reproof 
are  more  eff"ectual  upon  free-born  children  than  any  such 
dissrraceful  handling ;  the  former  to  incite  them  to  what  is 
good,  and  the  latter  to  restrain  them  from  that  which  is  evil. 
J3ut  we  must  use  reprehensions  and  commendations  alter- 
natclyf  and  of  various  kinds  according  to  the  occasion ;  so 
that  when  they  grow  petulant,  they  may  be  shamed  by  rep- 
rehension, and  again,  Λνΐιβη  they  better  deserve  it,  they  may 
be  encouraged  by  commendations.  Wherein  Ave  ought  to 
imitate  nurses,  who,  when  they  have  made  their  infants  cry, 
stop  their  mouths  with  the  nipple  to  quiet  them  again.  It 
is  also  useful  not  to  give  them  such  large  commendations  as 
to  puff  them  up  with  pride  ;  for  this  is  the  ready  way  to  fill 
them  with  a  vain  conceit  of  themselves,  and  to  enfeeble 
their  minds. 

13.  Moreover,  I  have  seen  some  parents  whose  too  much 
love  to  their  children  hath  occasioned,  in  truth,  their  not 
loving  them  at  all.     I  will  give  light  to  this  assertion  by  an 


OF   THE   TRAINING  OF   CHILDREN.  21 

example  to  those  who  ask  what  it  means.  It  is  this  :  while 
they  are  over-hasty  to  advance  their  children  in  all  sorts  of 
learning  beyond  their  eqnals,  they  set  them  too  hard  and 
laborious  tasks,  whereby  they  fall  under  discouragement ; 
and  this,  with  other  inconveniences  accompanying  it,  caus- 
eth  them  in  the  issue  to  be  ill  affected  to  learning•  itself. 
For  as  plants  by  moderate  watering  are  nourished,  but  with 
over- much  moisture  are  glutted,  so  is  the  spirit  improved  by 
moderate  labors,  but  overwhelmed  by  such  as  are  excessive. 
W(;  ought  therefore  to  give  children  some  time  to  take 
breath  fiom  their  constant  labors,  considering  that  all  human 
life  is  divided  betwixt  business  and  relaxation.  To  which 
purpose  it  is  that  we  are  inclined  by  nature  not  only  to  wake, 
but  to  sleep  also ;  that  as  we  have  sometimes  wars,  so  like- 
wise at  other  times  peace  ;  as  some  foul,  so  other  fair  days  ; 
and,  as  Λνβ  have  seasons  of  important  business,  so  also  the 
vacation  times  of  festivals.  And,  to  contract  all  in  a  word, 
rest  is  the  sauce  of  labor.  Nor  is  it  thus  in  livinof  creatures 
only,  but  in  things  inanimate  too.  For  even  in  bows  and 
harps,  we  loosen  their  strings,  that  we  may  bend  and  wind 
them  up  again.  Yea,  it  is  universally  seen  that,  as  the  body 
is  maintained  by  repletion  and  evacuation,  so  is  the  mind  by 
employment  and  relaN:ation. 

Those  parents,  moreover,  are  to  be  blamed  who,  when 
they  have  committed  their  sons  to  the  care  of  pedagogues 
or  schoolmasters,  never  see  or  hear  them  perform  their 
tasks  ;  Λvherein  they  fiiil  much  of  their  duty.  For  they 
ought,  ever  and  anon,  after  the  intermission  of  some  days, 
to  make  trial  of  their  children's  proficiency  ;  and  not  in- 
trust their  hopes  of  them  to  the  discretion  of  a  hireling. 
For  even  that  sort  of  men  will  take  more  care  of  the 
children,  when  they  know  that  they  are  regularly  to  be 
called  to  account.  And  here  the  saviui?  of  the  kind's 
groom  is  very  applicable,  that  nothing  made  the  horse 
so  fat  as  the  king's  eye. 


22  OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

But  we  must  most  of  all  exercise  and  keep  in  constant  em- 
ployment the  memory  of  children ;  for  that  is,  as  it  were, 
the  storehouse  of  all  learning.  Wherefore  the  mytholo- 
gists  have  made  Mnemosyne,  or  Memory,  the  mother  of  the 
Muses,  plainly  intimating  thereby  that  nothing  doth  so 
beget  or  nourish  learning  as  memory.  AVherefore  we  must 
employ  it  to  both  those  purposes,  whether  the  children  be 
naturally  apt  or  backward  to  remember.  For  so  shall  we 
both  strengthen  it  in  those  to  Avhom  Nature  in  this  respect 
hath  been  bountiful,  and  supply  that  to  others  wherein  she 
hath  been  deficient.  And  as  the  former  sort  of  boys  will 
thereby  come  to  excel  others,  so  will  the  latter  sort  excel 
themselves.     For  that  of  Hesiod  Avas  well  said,  — 

Oft  little  add  to  little,  and  tiic  account 
Will  swell :  lieapt  atoms  thus  produce  a  mount.* 

Neither,  therefore,  let  the  parents  be  ignorant  of  this, 
that  the  exercising  of  memory  in  the  schools  doth  not 
only  give  the  greatest  assistance  towards  the  attainment  of 
learning,  but  also  to  all  the  actions  of  life.  For  the  remem- 
brance of  things  past  affords  us  examples  in  our  consults 
about  things  to  come. 

14.  Children  ought  to  be  made  to  abstain  from  speaking 
filthily,  seeing,  as  Democritus  said,  words  are  but  the 
shadows  of  actions.  They  are,  moreover,  to  be  instructed 
to  be  affable  and  courteous  in  discourse.  For  as  churlish 
manners  are  always  detestable,  so  children  may  be  kept 
from  being  odious  in  conversation,  if  they  will  not  be 
l)ertinaciously  bent  to  maintain  all  they  say  in  dispute. 
For  it  is  of  use  to  a  man  to  understand  not  only  how  to 
overcome,  but  also  how  to  give  ground  when  to  conquer 
would  turn  to  his  disadvantage.  For  there  is  such  a  thing 
sometimes  as  a  Cadmean  victory  ;  which  the  wise  Euripides 
attesteth,  when  he  saith,  — 

*  Hesiod,  \Yorks  and  Days,  371. 


OF   THE   TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN.  2f3 

Where  two  discourse,  if  the  one's  anger  rise, 
Tlie  man  wlio  lets  the  contest  fall  is  wise.  * 

Add  we  now  to  these  things  some  others  of  which  chil- 
dren ought  to  have  no  less,  yea,  rather  greater  care  ;  to  wit, 
that  they  avoid  luxurious  living,  bridle  their  tongues,  sub- 
due anger,  and  refrain  their  hands.  Of  how  great  moment 
each  of  these  counsels  is,  I  now  come  to  inquire  ;  and  we 
may  best  judge  of  them  by  examples.  To  begin  with  the 
last :  some  men  there  have  been,  who,  by  opening  their 
hands  to  take  what  they  ought  not,  have  lost  all  the  honor 
they  got  in  the  former  part  of  their  lives.  So  Gylippus 
the  Lacedaemonian,!  for  unsewing  the  public  money-bags, 
was  condemned  to  banishment  from  Sparta.  And  to  be  able 
also  to  subdue  anger  is  the  part  of  a  \vise  man.  Such  a 
one  was  Socrates ;  for  when  a  hectoring  and  debauched 
young  man  rudely  kicked  him,  so  that  those  in  his  com- 
pany, being  sorely  offended,  were  ready  to  run  after  him 
and  call  him  to  account  for  it,  AVhat,  said  he  to  them, 
if  an  ass  had  kicked  me,  would  you  think  it  handsomely 
done  to  kick  him  again  ?  And  yet  the  young  man  himself 
escaped  not  unpunished  ;  for  when  all  persons  reproached 
him  for  so  unworthy  an  act,  and  gave  him  the  nickname 
of  Αα•/.τιςτ)[ς,  or  the  kicker,  he  hanged  himself.  The  same 
Socrates.  —  when  Aristophanes,  publishing  his  play  which 
he  called  the  Clouds,  therein  threw  all  sorts  of  the  foulest 
reproaches  upon  him,  and  a  friend  of  his,  who  was  pres- 


*  From  the  Protesilaus  of  Euripides,  Frag.  656. 

t  The  story  is  related  by  our  author  at  large,  in  the  Life  of  Lysander.  It  is  this  : 
Lysander  sent  by  Gylippus  to  the  Ephori,  or  chief  magistrates  of  Sparta,  a  great 
sum  of  money,  sealed  up  in  bags.  Gylippus  unsews  the  bags  at  the  bottom,  and 
takes  what  he  thinks  fit  out  of  each  bag,  and  sews  them  up  again  ;  but  was  dis- 
covered, partly  by  the  notes  which  \vere  put  in  the  bags  by  Lysander,  mentioning 
the  sums  in  each  bag;  and  partly  by  his  own  servant,  who,  when  the  magistrates 
were  solicitous  to  find  what  was  become  of  the  money  that  was  wanting,  told  them 
jestingly  that  there  were  a  great  many  owls  under  the  tiles  at  his  master's  house 
<for  the  money  had  that  bird,  as  the  badge  of  Athens,  where  it  was  coined,  stamped 
on  it)  ;  whither  they  sent,  and  found  it. 


24-  OF  THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

ent  at  the  acting  of  it,  repeated  to  him  what  was  there 
said  in  the  same  comical  manner,  asking  him  Avithal, 
Does  not  this  offend  you,  Socrates?  —  repUed:  Not  at  all, 
for  I  can  as  well  bear  with  a  fool  in  a  play  as  at  a  great 
feast.  And  something  of  the  same  nature  is  reported  to 
have  been  done  by  Archytas  of  Tarentum  and  Plato. 
Archytas,  when,  upon  his  return  from  the  war,  wherein  he 
had  been  a  general,  he  was  informed  that  his  land  had 
been  impaired  by  his  bailiff's  negligence,  sent  for  him,  and 
said  only  thus  to  him  when  he  came :  If  I  were  not  very 
angry  with  thee,  I  would  severely  correct  thee.  And 
Plato,  being  offended  with  a  gluttonous  and  debauched 
servant,  called  to  him  Speusippus,  his  sister's  son,  and  said 
unto  him :  Go  beat  thou  this  fellow ;  for  I  am  too  much 
offended  with  him  to  do  it  myself. 

These  things,  you  will  perhaps  say,  are  very  difficult  to 
be  imitated.  I  confess  it ;  but  yet  we  must  endeavor  to  the 
utmost  of  our  power,  by  setting  such  examples  before  us, 
to  repress  the  extravagancy  of  our  immoderate,  furious 
anger.  For  neither  are  we  able  to  rival  the  experience  or 
virtue  of  such  men  in  many  other  matters  ;  but  we  do, 
nevertheless,  as  sacred  interpreters  of  divine  mysteries  and 
priests  of  wisdom,  strive  to  follow  these  examples,  and,  as 
it  were,  to  enrich  ourselves  with  what  we  can  nibble  from 
them. 

And  as  to  the  bridling  of  the  tongue,  concerning  which 
also  I  am  obliged  to  speak,  if  any  man  think  it  a  small 
matter  or  of  mean  concernment,  he  is  much  mistaken. 
For  it  is  a  point  of  wisdom  to  be  silent  when  occasion  re- 
quires, and  better  than  to  speak,  though  never  so  well. 
And,  in  my  judgment,  for  this  reason  the  ancients  insti- 
tuted mystical  rites  of  initiation  in  religion,  that,  being  in 
them  accustomed  to  silence,  we  might  thence  transfer  the 
fear  Λνο  have  of  the  Gods  to  the  fidelity  required  in  human 
secrets.     Yea,  indeed,  experience  shows  that  no  man  ever 


OF   THE   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN.  25 

repented  of  having  kept  silence  ;  but  mEiny  that  they  have 
not  done  so.  And  a  man  may,  when  he  ΛνϊΠ,  easily  utter 
what  he  hath  by  silence  concealed ;  but  it  is  impossible  for 
him  to  recall  what  he  hath  once  spoken.  And,  moreover, 
I  can  remember  infinite  examples  that  have  been  told  me 
of  those  that  have  procured  great  damages  to  themselves 
by  intemperance  of  the  tongue  ;  one  or  two  of  which  I  will 
give,  omitting  the  rest.  AVlien  Ptolemaeus  Philadelphus 
had  taken  his  sister  Arsinoe  to  wife,  Sotades  for  breaking 
an  obscene  jest*  upon  him  lay  languishing  in  prison  a 
great  while  ;  a  punishment  which  he  deserved  for  his  un- 
seasonable babbling,  whereby  to  provoke  laughter  in  others 
he  purchased  a  long  time  of  mourning  to  himself.  Much 
after  the  same  rate,  or  rather  still  worse,  did  Theocritus  the 
Sophist  both  talk  and  suffer.  For  when  Alexander  com- 
manded the  Grecians  to  provide  him  a  purple  robe,  where- 
in, upon  his  return  from  the  wars,  he  meant  to  sacrifice  to 
the  Gods  in  gratitude  for  his  victorious  success  against  the. 
barbarians,  and  the  various  states  were  bringing  in  the 
sums  assessed  upon  them,  Theocritus  said :  I  now  see 
clearly  that  this  is  what  Homer  calls  purple  death,  which 
I  never  understood  before.  By  which  speech  he  made  the 
king  his  enemy  from  that  time  forwards.  The  same  person 
provoked  Antigonus,  the  king  of  Macedonia,  to  great  wrath, 
by  reproaching  him  with  his  defect,  as  having  but  one  eye. 
Thus  it  was.  Antigonus  commanded  Entropion  his  master- 
cook  (then  in  waiting)  to  go  to  this  Theocritus  and  settle 
some  accounts  with  him.  And  when  he  announced  his 
errand  to  Theocritus,  and  called  frequently  about  the  busi- 
ness, the  latter  said:  I  know  that  thou  hast  a  mind  to  dish 
me  u\)  raw  to  that  Cyclops  ;  thus  reproaching  at  once  the 
king  with  the  want  of  his  eye,  and  the  cook  with  his  em- 
ployment. To  Λvllich  Entropion  replied :  Then  thou  shalt 
lose  thy  head,  as  the  penalty  of  thy  loquacity  and  madness 

*  Eif  ονχ  όσίην  τρνμαλίην  το  κέντρον  ώϋεϊς. 


26 


OF   THE   TRAINING   OF  CHILDREN. 


And  he  was  as  good  as  his  word  ;  for  he  departed  and  in- 
formed the  king,  who  sent  and  put  Theocritus  to  death. 

Besides  all  these  things,  we  are  to  accustom  children  to 
speak  the  truth,  and  to  account  it,  as  indeed  it  is,  a  matter 
of  religion  for  them  to  do  so.  For  lying  is  a  servile  quality, 
deserving  the  hatred  of  all  mankind  ;  yea,  a  fault  for  which 
we  ought  not  to  forgive  our  meanest  servants. 

15.  Thus  far  have  I  discoursed  concerning  the  good- 
breeding  of  children,  and  the  sobriety  requisite  to  that  age, 
Λvithout  any  hesitation  or  doubt  in  my  own  mind  concern- 
ing any  thing  that  I  have  said.  But  in  what  remains  to  be 
said,  I  am  dubious  and  divided  in  my  own  thoughts,  which, 
as  if  they  were  laid  in  a  balance,  sometimes  incline  this, 
and  sometimes  that  way.  I  am  therefore  loath  to  persuade 
or  dissuade  in  the  matter.  But  I  must  venture  to  answer 
one  question,  which  is  this  :  whether  we  ought  to  ad.mit 
those  that  make  love  to  our  sons  to  keep  them  company,  or 
whether  Ave  should  not  rather  thrust  them  out  of  doors,  and 
banish  them  from  their  society.  For  when  1  look  upon 
those  straightforward  parents,  of  a  harsh  and  austere  tem- 
per, who  think  it  an  outrage  not  to  be  endured  that  their 
sons  should  have  any  thing  to  say  to  lovers,  I  am  tender 
of  being  the  persuader  or  encourager  of  such  a  practice. 
But,  on  the  other  side,  Avhen  I  call  to  mind  Socrates,  and 
Plato,  and  Xenophon,  and  Aeschines,  and  Cebes,  with  an 
whole  troop  of  other  such  men,  who  have  approA^d  those 
masculine  loves,  and  still  have  brought  up  young  men  to 
learning,  public  employments,  and  virtuous  living,  I  am 
again  of  another  mind,  and  am  much  influenced  by  my  zeal 
to  imitate  such  great  men.  And  the  testimony  also  of 
Euripides  is  favorable  to  their  opinion,  when  he  says,  — 

Another  love  there  is  in  mortals  found  ; 

The  love  of  just  and  chaste  and  virtuous  souls.* 

And  yet  I  think  it  not  improper  here  to  mention  withal 

*  From  the  Dictys  of  Euripides,  Frag.  312. 


OF  THE   TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN.  Ζ  ι 

that  saying  of  Plato,  spoken  betwixt  jest  and  earnest,  that 
men  of  great  eminence  must  be  allowed  to  show  aifection 
to  what  beautiful  objects  they  please.*  I  would  decide  then 
that  parents  are  to  keep  off  such  as  make  beauty  the  object 
of  their  affection,  and  admit  altogether  such  as  direct  the 
love  to  the  soul ;  whence  such  loves  are  to  be  avoided 
as  are  in  Thebes  and  Elis,  and  that  sort  which  in  Crete  they 
call  ravishment  (άοΛαγμός) ;  -j*  and  such  are  to  be  imitated  as 
are  in  Athens  and  Sparta. 

16.  But  in  this  matter  let  every  man  follow  his  ολνη 
judgment.  Thus  far  have  I  discoursed  concerning  the  right 
ordering  and  decent  carriage  of  children.  I  will  now  pass 
thence,  to  speak  somewhat  concerning  the  next  age,  that 
of  youth.  For  I  have  often  blamed  the  evil  custom  of 
some,  Avho  commit  their  boys  in  childhood  to  pedagogues 
and  teachers,  and  then  suffer  the  impetuosity  of  their  youth 
to  range  Avithout  restraint ;  Avhereas  boys  of  that  age  need 
to  be  kept  under  a  stricter  guard  than  children.  For  who 
does  not  know  that  the  errors  of  childhood  are  small,  and 
perfectly  capable  of  being  amended  ;  such  as  slighting  their 
pedagogues,  or  disobedience  to  their  teachers'  instructions. 
But  when  they  begin  to  grow  towards  maturity,  their 
offences  are  oftentimes  very  great  and  heinous  ;  such  as 
gluttony,  pilfering  money  from  their  parents,  dicing,  revel- 
lings,  drunkenness,  courting  of  maidens,  and  defiling  of 
marriage-beds.  AVherefore  it  is  expedient  that  such  im- 
petuous heats  should  with  great  care  be  kept  under  and 
restrained.  For  the  ripeness  of  that  age  admits  no  bounds 
in  its  pleasures,  is  skittish,  and  needs  a  curb  to  check  it ; 
so  that  those  parents  ΛνΙιο  do  not  hold  in  their  sons  with 
great  strength  about  that  time  find  to  their  surprise  that 
they  are  giving  their  vicious  inclinations  full  swing  in  the 
pursuit  of  the  vilest  actions.     Wherefore  it  is  a  dut}    in- 

*  See  Plato,  Repub.  V.  p.  468,  C. 
t  See  Strabo  X.  pp.  483,  484. 


28  OF   THE    TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN. 

cumbent  upon  wise  parents,  in  that  age  especially,  to  set  a 
strict  watch  upon  them,  and  to  keep  them  within  the  bounds 
of  sobriety  by  instructions,  threatenings,  entreaties,  counsels, 
promises,  and  by  laying  before  them  examples  of  those 
men  (on  one  side)  Avho  by  immoderate  love  of  pleasures 
have  brought  themselves  into  great  mischief,  and  of  tliose 
(on  the  other)  who  by  abstinence  in  the  pursuit  of  them 
have  purchased  to  themselves  very  great  praise  and  glory. 
For  these  two  things  (hope  of  honor,  and  fear  of  punish- 
ment) are,  in  a  sort,  the  first  elements  of  virtue  ;  the  former 
whereof  spurs  men  on  the  more  eagerly  to  the  pursuit  of 
honest  studies,  while  the  latter  blunts  the  edge  of  their 
inclinations  to  vicious  courses. 

17.  And  in  sum,  it  is  necessary  to  restrain  young  men 
from  the  conversation  of  debauched  persons,  lest  they  take 
infection  from  their  evil  examples.  This  was  taught  by 
Pythagoras  in  certain  enigmatical  sentences,  which  I  shall 
here  relate  and  expound,  as  being  greatly  useful  to  further 
virtuous  inclinations.  Such  are  these.  Taste  not  of  fish 
that  have  black  tails  ;  that  is,  converse  not  with  men  that 
are  smutted  \vith  vicious  qualities.  Stride  not  over  the 
beam  of  the  scales ;  wherein  he  teacheth  us  the  regard  we 
ought  to  have  for  justice,  so  as  not  to  go  beyond  its  meas- 
ures. Sit  not  on  a  choenix ;  wherein  he  forbids  sloth,  and 
requires  us  to  take  care  to  provide  ourselves  with  the  neces- 
saries of  life.  Do  not  strike  hands  with  every  man  ;  he 
means  we  ought  not  to  be  over  hasty  to  make  acquaintances 
or  friendships  with  others.  Wear  not  a  tight  ring ;  that 
is,  we  are  to  labor  after  a  free  and  independent  way  of 
living,  and  to  submit  to  no  fetters.  Stir  not  up  the  fire 
with  a  sword ;  signifying  that  Ave  ought  not  to  provoke  a 
man  more  when  he  is  angry  already  (since  this  is  a  most 
unseemly  act),  but  we  should  rather  comply  with  him  while 
his  passion  is  in  its  heat.  Eat  not  thy  heart ;  which  forbids 
to  afflict  our  souls,  and  waste  them  with  vexatious   cares, 


OF    THE   TRAINING   OF    CHILDREN.  29 

Abstain  from  beans  ;  that  is,  keep  out  of  public  offices, 
for  anciently  the  choice  of  the  officers  of  state  was  made 
by  beans.  Put  not  food  in  a  chamber-pot ;  Avherein  he 
declares  that  elegant  discourse  ought  not  to  be  put  into  an 
impure  mind  ;  for  discourse  is  the  food  of  the  mind,  which 
is  rendered  unclean  by  the  foulness  of  the  man  λυΙίο  receives 
it.  When  men  are  arrived  at  the  goal,  they  should  not 
turn  back ;  that  is,  those  who  are  near  the  end  of  their 
days,  and  see  the  period  of  their  lives  approaching, 
ought  to  entertain  it  contentedly,  and  not  to  be  grieved 
at  it. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression,  —  our  children,  as  1 
have  said,  are  to  be  debarred  the  company  of  all  evil  men, 
but  especially  flatterers.  For  I  would  still  affirm  what  I 
have  often  said  in  the  presence  of  divers  fathers,  that  there 
is  not  a  more  pestilent  sort  of  men  than  these,  nor  any  that 
more  certainly  and  speedily  hurry  youth  into  precipices. 
Yea,  they  utterly  ruin  both  fathers  and  sons,  making  the 
old  age  of  the  one  and  the  youth  of  the  other  full  of  sorrow, 
while  they  cover  the  hook  of  their  evil  counsels  Λvith  the  un- 
avoidable bait  of  voluptuousness.  Parents,  Λvhen  they  have 
good  estates  to  leave  their  children,  exhort  them  to  sobriety, 
flatterers  to  drunkenness  ;  parents  exhort  to  continence, 
these  to  lasciviousness  ;  parents  to  good  husbandry,  these 
to  prodigality  ;  parents  to  industry,  these  to  slothfulness. 
And  they  usually  entertain  them  with  such  discourses  as 
these :  The  whole  life  of  man  is  but  a  point  of  time  ;  let 
us  enjoy  it  therefore  while  it  lasts,  and  not  spend  it  to  no 
purpose.  Why  should  you  so  much  regard  the  displeasure 
of  your  father?  —  an  old  doting  fool,  with  one  foot  already 
in  the  grave,  and  'tis  to  be  hoped  it  will  not  be  long  ere  we 
carry  him  thither  altogether.  And  some  of  them  there  are 
Avho  procure  young  men  foul  harlots,  yea,  prostitute  wives 
to  them  ;  and  they  even  make  a  prey  of  those  things  which 
the  careful  fathers  have  provided  for  the  sustenance  of  their 


30  OF    THE    TRAINING    OF    CHILDREN 

old  age.  A  cursed  tribe  !  True  friendship's  hypocrites, 
they  have  no  knowledge  of  plain  dealing  and  frank  speech. 
They  flatter  the  rich,  and  despise  the  poor  ;  and  they  seduce 
the  young,  as  by  a  musical  charm.  When  those  who  feed 
them  begin  to  laugh,  then  they  grin  and  show  their  teeth. 
They  are  mere  counterfeits,  bastard  pretenders  to  humanity, 
living  at  the  nod  and  beck  of  the  rich  ;  free  by  birth,  yet 
slaves  by  choice,  who  always  think  themselves  abused 
when  they  are  not  so,  because  they  are  not  supported  in 
idleness  at  others'  cost.  Wherefore,  if  fathers  have  any 
care  for  the  good  breeding  of  their  children,  they  ought  to 
drive  such  foul  beasts  as  these  out  of  doors.  They  ought 
also  to  keep  them  from  the  companionship  of  vicious 
school-fellows,  for  these  are  able  to  corrupt  the  most  in- 
genuous dispositions. 

18.  These  counsels  Λvhich  I  have  now  given  are  of  great 
worth  and  importance  ;  Avhat  I  have  now  to  add  touches 
certain  allowances  that  are  to  be  made  to  human  nature. 
Again  therefore  I  would  not  have  fathers  of  an  over-rigid 
and  harsh  temper,  but  so  mild  as  to  forgive  some  slips  of 
youth,  remembering  that  they  themselves  were  once  young. 
But  as  physicians  are  wont  to  mix  their  bitter  medicines 
with  sweet  syrups,  to  make  what  is  pleasant  a  vehicle  for 
what  is  wholesome,  so  should  fathers  temper  the  keenness 
of  their  reproofs  with  lenity.  They  may  occasionally  loosen 
the  reins,  and  allow  their  children  to  take  some  liberties 
they  are  inclined  to,  and  again,  when  it  is  fit,  manage  them 
with  a  straighter  bridle.  But  chiefly  should  they  bear  their 
errors  without  passion,  if  it  may  be  ;  and  if  they  chance  to  be 
heated  more  than  ordinary,  they  ou^ht  not  to  sufier  the 
flame  to  burn  long.  For  it  is  better  that  a  father's  anger 
be  hasty  than  severe  ;  because  the  heaviness  of  his  Avrath, 
joined  with  unplacableness,  is  no  small  argument  of  hatred 
towards  the  child.  It  is  good  also  not  to  discover  the 
notice  they  take  of  divers  faults,  and  to  transfer  to  such 


OF    THE    TRAINING    OF    CHILDREN.  31 

cases  that  dimness  of  sight  and  hardness  of  hearing  that 
are  wont  to  accompany  old  age  ;  so  as  sometimes  not  to 
hear  what  they  hear,  nor  to  see  what  tliey  see,  of  their 
children's  miscarriages.  We  use  to  bear  with  some  faiUngs 
in  our  friends,  and  it  is  no  wonder  if  we  do  the  like  to  our 
children,  especially  Avhen  we  sometimes  overlook  drunken- 
ness in  our  very  servants.  Thou  hast  at  times  been  too 
straight-handed  to  thy  son  ;  make  him  at  other  whiles  a  larger 
allowance.  Thou  hast,  it  may  be,  been  too  angry  with 
him  ;  pardon  him  the  next  fault  to  make  him  amends. 
He  hath  made  use  of  a  servant's  wit  to  circumvent  thee  in 
sometliing ;  restrain  thy  anger.  He  hath  made  bold  to 
take  a  yoke  of  oxen  out  of  the  pasture,  or  he  hath  come 
home  smelling  of  his  yesterday's  drink  ;  take  no  notice  of 
it ;  and  if  of  ointments  too,  say  nothing.  For  by  this  means 
the  wild  colt  sometimes  is  made  more  tame.  Besides,  fo) 
those  who  are  intemperate  in  their  youthful  lusts,  and  will 
not  be  amended  by  reproof,  it  is  good  to  provide  wives  ;  for 
marriage  is  the  strongest  bond  to  hamper  wild  youth  withal. 
But  we  must  take  care  that  the  wives  we  procure  for  them 
be  neither  of  too  noble  a  birth  nor  of  too  great  a  portion  to 
suit  their  circumstances  ;  for  it  is  a  wise  saying,  drive  on 
your  own  track.*  Wiiereas  men  that  marry  women  very 
much  superior  to  themselves  are  not  so  truly  husbands  to 
their  wives,  as  they  are  unawares  made  slaves  to  their  por- 
tions. I  will  add  a  few  words  more,  and  put  an  end  to 
these  advices.  The  chiefest  thing•  that  fathers  are  to  look 
to  is,  that  they  themselves  become  effectual  examples  to 
their  children,  by  doing  all  those  things  which  belong  to 
them  and  avoiding  all  vicious  practices,  that  in  their  lives, 
as  in  a  glass,  their  children  may  see  enough  to  give  them 
an  aversion  to  all  ill  words  anl  actions.  For  those  that 
chide  children  for  such  faults  as  they  themselves  fall  into 

*  This  sayinc:,  Την  κατά  σαυτόν  Άα.  is  attributed  to  Pittacus  of  Mitylene  by  Dio 
genes  Laertius,  I.  4,  8.     See  also  Aristoph.  Nub.  25,  and  Aesch.  Prom  8y0.     (G.) 


32 


OF    THE    TRAINING    OF    CHILDREN. 


unconsciously  accuse  themselves,  under  their  children's 
names.  And  if  they  are  altogether  vicious  in  their  own 
lives,  they  lose  the  right  of  reprehending  their  very  ser- 
vants, and  much  more  do  they  forfeit  it  towards  their  sons. 
Yea,  what  is  more  than  that,  they  make  themselves  even 
counsellors  and  instructors  to  them  in  Avickedness.  For 
where  old  men  are  impudent,  there  of  necessity  must  the 
young  men  be  so  too.  AVherefore  we  are  to  apply  our 
minds  to  all  such  practices  as  may  conduce  to  the  good 
breeding  of  our  children.  And  here  we  may  take  example 
from  Eurydice  of  Hierapolis,  who,  although  she  was  an 
Illyrian,  and  so  thrice  a  barbarian,  yet  applied  herself  to 
learning  ΛνΙιοη  she  was  well  advanced  in  years,  that  she 
miiilit  teach  her  children.  Her  love  towards  her  children 
appears  evidently  in  this  Epigram  of  hers,  which  she  dedi- 
cated to  the  Muses  :  — 

Eurydice  to  the  Muses  here  doth  raise 
This  monument,  her  honest  love  to  praise; 
Who  her  grown  sons  that  she  might  sciiolars  breed, 
Then  well  in  yeais,  heraelf  first  learned  to  read. 

And  thus  have  I  finished  the  precepts  which  I  designed 
to  give  concerning  this  subject.  But  that  they  should  all 
be  followed  by  any  one  reader  is  rather,  I  fear,  to  be  wished 
than  hoped.  And  to  follow  the  greater  part  of  them, 
though  it  may  not  be  impossible  to  human  nature,  yet  will 
need  a  concurrence  of  more  than  ordinary  diligence  joined 
with  good  fortune. 


CONCERNING   THE   CURE   OF   ANGER. 


A  DIALOGUE. 


SYLLA,    FUNDANUS. 

1.  Sylla.  Those  painters,  Ο  Fundaniis,  in  my  opinion  do 
very  wisely,  who  never  finish  any  piece  at  the  first  sitting, 
but  take  a  review  of  it  at  some  convenient  distance  of  time  ; 
because  the  eye,  being  relieved  for  a  time,  renews  its  power 
by  making  frequent  and  fresh  judgments,  and  becomes  able 
to  observe  many  small  and  critical  diiFerences  which  con- 
tinual poring  and  familiarity  Avould  prevent  it  from  notic- 
ing. Now,  because  it  cannot  be  that  a  man  should  stand 
off  from  himself  and  interrupt  his  consciousness,  and  then 
after  some  interval  return  to  accost  himself  again  (which  is 
one  principal  reason  why  a  man  is  a  Avorse  judge  of  him- 
self than  of  other  men),  the  next  best  course  that  a  man 
can  take  will  be  to  inspect  his  friends  after  some  time 
of  absence,  and  also  to  offer  himself  to  their  examination, 
not  to  see  whether  he  be  grown  old  on  the  sudden,  or 
whether  the  habit  of  his  body  be  become  better  or  Avorse 
than  it  was  before,  but  that  they  may  take  notice  of  his 
manner  and  behavior,  whether  in  that  time  he  hath  made 
any  advance  in  goodness,  or  gained  ground  of  his  vices. 
Wherefore,  being  after  two  years'  absence  returned  to 
Rome,  and  having  since  conversed  with  thee  here  again 
for  these  five  months,  1  think  it  no  great  matter  of  wonder 
tnat  those  good  qualities  which,  by  the  advantage  of  a 
good  natural  disposition,  von  were  formerly  possessed  of 


34:  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

have  in  this  time  received  so  considerable  an  increase. 
But  truly,  when  I  behold  how  that  vehement  and  fiery  dis- 
position which  you  had  to  anger  is  now  through  the  con- 
duct of  reason  become  so  gentle  and  tractable,  my  mind 
prompts  me  to  say,  with  Homer,  — 

0  wonder !  how  much  gentler  is  he  grown  !  * 

Nor  hath  this  gentleness  produced  in  thee  any  laziness 
or  irresolution  ;  but,  like  cultivation  in  the  earth,  it  hath 
caused  an  evenness  and  a  profundity  very  effectual  unto 
fruitful  action,  instead  of  thy  former  veheraency  and  over- 
eagerness.  And  therefore  it  is  evident  that  thy  former 
2:)roneness  to  anger  hath  not  been  withered  in  thee  by  any 
decay  of  vigor  which  age  might  have  effected,  or  spontane- 
ously ;  but  that  it  hath  been  cured  by  making  use  of  some 
mollifying  precepts. 

And  indeed,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  when  I  heard  our 
friend  Eros  say  the  same  thing,  I  had  a  suspicion  that  he 
did  not  report  the  thing  as  it  was,  but  that  out  of  mere 
good-will  he  testified  those  things  of  you  which  ought  to 
be  found  in  every  good  and  virtuous  man.  And  yet  you 
know  he  cannot  be  easily  induced  to  depart  from  what  he 
judges  to  be  true,  in  order  to  favor  any  man.  But  now, 
truly,  as  I  acquit  him  of  having  therein  made  any  false 
report  of  thee,  so  I  desire  thee,  being  now  at  leisure  from 
thy  journey,  to  declare  unto  us  the  means  and  (as  it  were) 
the  medicine,  by  use  whereof  thou  hastWought  thy  mind  to 
be  thus  manageable  and  natural,  thus  gentle  and  obedient 
unto  reason. 

FuNDANus.  But  in  the  mean  while,  Ο  most  kind  Sylla, 
you  had  best  beware,  lest  you  also  through  affection  and 
friendship  may  be  somewhat  careless  in  making  an  esti- 
mate of  my  affairs.  For  Eros,  having  himself  also  a  mind 
oft-times  unable  to  keep  its  ground  and  to  contain  itself 

*  II.  XXn.  373. 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  35 

within  that  obedience  which  Homer  mentions,  but  subject 
to  be  exasperated  through  an  hatred  of  men's  wickedness, 
may  perhaps  think  I  am  grown  more  mikl  ;  just  as  in 
music,  when  the  key  is  changed,  that  note  which  before 
was  the  base  becomes  a  higher  note  Avith  respect  to  oth- 
ers which  are  now  below  it. 

Sylla.  Neither  of  these  is  so,  Fundanus ;  but,  I  pray 
you,  gratify  us  all  by  granting  the  request  I  made. 

2.  Fundanus.  This  then,  Ο  Sylla,  is  one  of  those 
excellent  rules  given  by  Musonius  which  I  bear  in  memo- 
ry,—  that  those  who  would  be  in  sound  health  must  physic 
themseh^es  all  their  lives.  Now  I  do  not  think  that  reason 
cures,  like  hellebore,  by  purging  out  itself  together  with 
the  disease  it  cures,  but  by  keeping  possession  of  the  soul, 
and  so  governing  and  guarding  its  judgments.  For  the 
power  of  reason  is  not  like  drugs,  but  like  wholesome  food  ; 
and,  with  the  assistance  of  a  good  natural  disposition,  it 
produceth  a  healthful  constitution  in  all  with  whom  it  hath . 
become  familiar. 

And  as  for  those  good  exhortations  and  admonitions 
Avhicli  are  applied  to  passions  while  they  swell  and  are  at 
their  height,  they  work  but  slowly  and  with  small  success  ; 
and  they  differ  in  nothing  from  those  strong-smelling  things, 
which  indeed  do  serve  to  put  those  that  have  the  falling 
sickness  upon  their  legs  again  after  they  are  fallen,  but 
are  not  able  to  remove  the  disease.  For  whereas  other 
passions,  even  when  they  are  in  their  ruff  and  acme,  do  in 
some  sort  yield  and  admit  reason  into  the  soul,  which 
comes  to  help  it  from  without ;  anger  does  not,  as  Melan- 
thius  says, — 

Displace  the  mind,  and  then  act  dismal  things  ; 

but  it  absolutely  turns  the  mind  out  of  doors,  and  bolts 
the  door  against  it ;  and,  like  those  who  burn  their  houses 
and  themselves  within  them,  it  makes  all  things  within  full 


86  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

of  confusion,  smoke,  and  noise,  so  that  the  soul  can  neither 
see  nor  hear  any  thing  that  might  reheve  it.  AVherefore 
sooner  will  an  empty  ship  in  a  storm  at  sea  admit  of  a  pilot 
from  without,  than  a  man  tossed  with  anger  and  rage 
listen  to  the  advice  of  another,  unless  he  have  his  own 
reason  first  prepared  to  entertain  it. 

But  as  those  who  expect  to  be  besieged  are  wont  to 
gather  together  and  lay  in  provisions  of  such  things  as 
they  are  like  to  need,  not  trusting  to  hopes  of  relief 
from  Avithout,  so  ought  it  to  be  our  special  concern  to  fetch 
in  from  philosophy  such  foreign  helps  as  it  affords  against 
anger,  and  to  store  them  up  in  the  soul  beforehand,  seeing 
that  it  will  not  be  so  easy  a  matter  to  provide  ourselves 
when  the  time  is  come  for  using  them.  For  either  the  soul 
cannot  hear  what  is  spoken  without,  by  reason  of  the 
tumult,  unless  it  have  its  own  reason  (like  the  director  of 
the  rowers  in  a  ship)  ready  to  entertain  and  understand 
whatsoever  precept  shall  be  given ;  or,  if  it  do  chance  to 
hear,  yet  ΛνΠΙ  it  be  ready  to  despise  what  is  patiently  and 
mildly  offered,  and  to  be  exasperated  by  what  shall  be 
pressed  upon  it  with  more  vehemency.  For,  since  wrath 
is  proud  and  self-conceited,  and  utterly  averse  from  compli- 
ance Avith  others,  like  a  fortified  and  guarded  tyranny,  that 
which  is  to  overthrow  it  must  be  bred  within  it  and  be  of 
its  own  household. 

3.  Now  the  continuance  of  anger  and  frequent  fits  of  it 
produce  an  evil  habit  in  the  soul  called  Avrath fulness,  or  a 
propensity  to  be  angry,  Λvhich  oft-times  ends  in  choleric 
temper,  bitterness,  and  moroseness.  Then  the  mind  be- 
comes ulcerated,  peevish,  and  querulous,  and  like  a  thin, 
weak  plate  of  iron,  receives  impression  and  is  wounded  by 
even  the  least  occurrence ;  but  when  the  judgment  pres- 
ently seizes  upon  wrathful  ebullitions  and  suppresses  them, 
it  not  only  Λvorks  a  cure  for  the  present,  but  renders  the 
soul  firm  and  not  so  liable  to  such  impressions  for  the  fu- 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  37 

tare.  And  truly,  when  I  myself  had  twice  or  thrice  made 
a  resolute  resistance  unto  anger,  the  like  befell  me  that  did 
the  Thebans  ;  who,  having•  once  foiled  the  Lacedaemonians, 
that  before  that  time  had  held  themselves  invincible,  never 
after  lost  so  much  as  one  battle  Avhich  they  fought  against 
them.  For  I  became  fully  assured  in  my  mind,  that  anger 
might  be  overcome  by  the  use  of  reason.  And  I  perceived 
that  it  might  not  only  be  quieted  by  the  sprinkling  of  cold 
Avater,  as  Aristotle  relates,  but  also  be  extinguished  by  put- 
ting one  into  a  fright.  Yea,  according  to  Homer,  many 
men  have  had  their  anger  melted  and  dissipated  by  sudden 
surprise  of  joy.  So  that  I  came  to  this  firm  resolution, 
that  this  passion  is  not  altogether  incurable  to  such  as  are 
but  Avilling  to  be  cured  ;  since  the  beginnings  and  occa- 
sions of  it  are  not  always  great  or  forcible  ;  but  a  scoif,  or 
a  jest,  or  the  laughing  at  one,  or  a  nod  only,  or  some  other 
matter  of  no  great  importance,  Λνϋΐ  put  many  men  into  a 
passion.  Tbus  Helen,  by  addressing  her  niece  in  the 
words  beginning,  — 

Ο  my  Electra,  now  a  virgin  stale, 

provoked  her  to  make  this  nipping  return :  — 

Thou'rt  wise  too  late,  thou  sliouldst  have  kept  at  home.* 

And  so  did  Callisthenes  provoke  Alexander  by  saying, 
when  the  great  bowl  was  going  round,  I  will  not  drink  so 
deep  in  honor  of  Alexander,  as  to  make  work  for  Aescu- 
lapius. 

4.  As  therefore  it  is  an  easy  matter  to  stop  the  fire  that 
is  kindled  only  in  hare's  wool,  candle-wick,  or  a  little  chaff, 
but  if  it  have  once  taken  hold  of  matter  that  hath  solidity 
and  thickness,  it  soon  inflames  and  consumes,  as  Aeschylus 
says,  — 

With  youthful  vigor  the  carpenter's  lofty  work  ; 

SO  he  that  «.loserves  anger  w^iile  it  is  in  its  beginning,  and 

*  Eurip.  Orestes,  72  and  99. 


38  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

sees  it  by  degrees  smoking  and  taking  fire  from  some 
speech  or  chafF-like  scurrility,  need  take  no  great  pains  to 
extinguish  it,  but  oftentimes  can  put  an  end  to  it  only  by 
silence  or  neglect.  For  as  he  that  adds  no  fuel  to  the  fire 
hath  already  as  good  as  put  it  out,  so  he  that  doth  not  feed 
anger  at  the  first,  nor  blow  the  fire  in  himself,  hath  pre- 
vented and  destroyed  it.  Wherefore  Hieronymus,  although 
he  taught  many  other  useful  things,  yet  hath  given  me  no 
satisfaction  in  saying  that  anger  is  not  perceptible  in  its 
birth,  by  reason  of  its  suddenness,  but  only  after  its  birth 
and  Avhile  it  lives  ;  for  there  is  no  other  passion,  while  it  is 
gathering  and  stirring  up,  which  hath  its  rise  and  increase 
so  conspicuous  and  observable.  This  is  very  skilfully 
taught  by  Homer,  by  making  Achilles  suddenly  surprised 
with  grief  as  soon  as  ever  the  word  fell  on  his  ear,  saying 
of  him,  — 

This  said,  a  sable  cloud  of  grief  covered  him  o'er ;   * 

but  making  Agamemnon  grow  angry  slowly  and  need  many 
words  to  inflame  him,  so  that,  if  these  had  been  stopped 
and  forbidden  when  they  began,  the  contest  had  never 
grown  to  that  degree  and  greatness  which  it  did.  Where- 
fore Socrates,  as  oft  as  he  perceived  any  fierceness  of  spirit 
to  rise  within  him  towards  any  of  his  friends,  setting  him- 
self like  a  promontory  to  break  the  Avaves,  Avould  speak 
Avith  a  lower  voice,  bear  a  smiling  countenance,  and  look 
Avith  a  more  gentle  eye  ;  and  thus,  by  bending  the  other  way 
and  moving  contrary  to  the  passion,  he  kept  himself  from 
falling  or  being  Avorsted. 

5.  For  the  first  way,  my  friend,  to  suppress  auger,  as 
you  would  a  tyrant,  is  not  to  obey  or  yield  to  it  when  it 
commands  us  to  speak  high,  to  look  fiercely,  and  to  beat 
ourselves  ;  but  to  be  quiet,  and  not  increase  the  passion,  as 
we  do  a  disease,  by  impatient  tossing  and  crying  out.     It  is 

*  n.  XVII.  591. 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  39 

true  that  lovers'  practices,  such  as  revelling,  singing,  crown- 
ing tlie  door  with  garlands,  have  a  kind  of  alleviation  in 
them  which  is  neither  rude  nor  unpleasing :  — 

Coming,  I  asked  not  who  or  wliose  she  was, 
But  kissed  lier  door  full  sweetly,  — that  I  wot  ; 
If  this  be  sin,  to  sin  I  can  but  choose. 

So  the  weeping  and  lamentation  which  we  permit  in  mourn- 
ers doubtless  carry  forth  much  of  the  grief  together  with 
the  tears.  But  anger,  quite  on  the  contrary,  is  more  in- 
flamed by  what  the  angry  persons  say  or  do. 

The  best  course  then  is  for  a  man  to  compose  himself, 
or  else  to  run  away  and  hide  himself  and  retreat  into  quiet, 
as  into  an  haven,  as  if  he  perceived  a  flt  of  epilepsy  com- 
ing on,  lest  he  fall,  or  rather  fall  upon  others  ;  and  truly 
we  do  most  and  most  frequently  fall  upon  our  friends. 
For  we  neither  love  all,  nor  envy  all,  nor  fear  all  men ; 
but  there  is  nothing  untouched  and  unset  upon  by  anger. 
AVe  are  angry  with  our  foes  and  with  our  friends  ;  with  our 
own  children  and  our  parents  ;  nay,  with  the  Gods  above, 
and  the  very  beasts  below  us,  and  instruments  that  have  no 
life,  as  Thamyras  was,  — 

His  horn,  though  bound  with  gold,  lie  brake  in's  ire. 
He  brake  his  melodious  and  well-strung  lyre  ;  * 

and  Pandarus,  wishing  a  curse  upon  himself  if  he  did  not 
burn  his  bow, 

First  broken  by  his  hands.t 

But  Xerxes  dealt  blows  and  marks  of  his  displeasure  to 
the  sea  itself,  and  sent  his  letters  to  the  mountain  in  the 
style  ensuing :  "  Ο  thou  wretched  Athos,  whose  top  now 
reaches  to  the  skies,  I  charge  thee,  put  not  in  the  way  of 
my  Λvorks  stones  too  big  and  difficult  to  be  wrought.  If 
thou  do,  I  will  cut  thee  into  pieces,  and  cast  thee  into  the 
sea. 

For  anger  hath  many  terrible  effects,  and  many  also  that 

*  From  the  Thamyras  of  Sophocles,  Frag.  224.  t  H-  V.  216 


40  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

are  ridiculous  ;  and  therefore  of  all  passions,  this  of  anger 
is  iTiost  hated  and  most  contemned,  and  it  is  good  to  con- 
sider it  in  both  respects. 

6.  I  therefore,  whether  rightly  or  not  I  know  not, 
began  this  cure  with  learning  the  nature  of  aiiger  by  be- 
holding it  in  other  men,  as  the  Lacedaemonians  learned  what 
drunkenness  was  by  seeing  it  in  the  Helots.  And,  in  the 
iirst  place,  as  Hippocrates  said  that  that  was  the  most  dan- 
gerous disease  which  made  the  sick  man's  countenance 
most  unlike  to  what  it  was,  so  I  observed  that  men  trans- 
ported with  anger  also  exceedingly  change  their  visage, 
color,  gait,  and  voice.  Accordingly  I  formed  a  kind  of 
image  of  that  passion  to  myself,  withal  conceiving  great  in 
dignation  against  myself  if  I  should  at  any  time  appear  to 
my  friends,  or  to  my  wife  and  daughters,  so  terrible  and  dis- 
composed, not  only  Avith  so  wild  and  strange  a  look,  but  also 
with  so  fierce  and  harsh  a  voice,  as  I  had  met  with  in  some 
others  of  my  acquaintance,  who  by  reason  of  anger  were 
not  able  to  observe  either  good  manners  or  countenance  or 
graceful  speech,  or  even  their  persuasiveness  and  aff"ability 
in  conversation. 

Wherefore  Cains  Gracchus,  the  orator,  being  of  a  rugged 
disposition  and  a  passionate  kind  of  speaker,  had  a  pipe 
made  for  him,  such  as  musicians  use  to  vary  their  voice 
higher  or  lower  by  degrees  ;  and  with  this  pipe  his  ser- 
vant stood  behind  him  while  he  pronounced,  and  gave  him 
a  mild  and  gentle  note,  Avhereby  he  took  him  down  from 
his  loudness,  and  took  off  the  harshness  and  angriness  of 
his  voice,  assuaging  and  charming  the  anger  of  the  orator. 

As  their  shrill  wax-joined  reed  who  herds  do  keep 
Sounds  forth  sweet  measures,  which  invite  to  sleep.  * 

For  my  own  part,  had  I  a  careful  and  pleasant  compan- 
ion who  would  show  me  my  angry  face  in  a  glass,  I  should 
not  at  all  take  it  ill.     In  like  manner,  some  are  wont  to 

*  Aesch.  Prometheus,  574. 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  41 

have  a  looking-glass  held  to  them  after  they  have  bathed, 
though  to  little  purpose  ;  but  to  behold  one's  self  unnaturally 
disguised  and  disordered  will  conduce  not  a  little  to  the 
impeachment  of  anger.  For  those  who  delight  in  pleas- 
ant fables  tell  us,  that  Minerva  herself,  playing  on  a  pipe, 
was  thus  admonished  by  a  satyr :  — 

That  look  becomes  you  not,  lay  down  your  pipes, 
And  take  your  arms,  and  set  your  cheeks  to  rights  ; 

but  would  not  regard  it ;  yet,  when  by  chance  she  beheld 
the  mien  of  her  countenance  in  a  river,  she  was  moved  with 
indignation,  and  cast  her  pipes  away  ;  and  yet  here  art  had 
the  delight  of  melody  to  comfort  her  for  the  deformity. 
And  Marsyas,  as  it  seems,  did  Avith  a  kind  of  muzzle  and 
mouth-piece  restrain  by  force  the  too  horrible  eruption  of 
his  breath  when  he  played,  and  so  corrected  and  concealed 
the  distortion  of  his  visage :  — 

With  shining  gold  he  girt  his  temples  rough, 
And  his  wide  mouth  with  thongs  that  tied  behind. 

Now  anger  doth  swell  and  puff  up  the  countenance  very  in- 
decently, and  sends  forth  a  yet  more  indecent  and  unpleasant 
voice, — 

Moving  the  heart-strings,  which  should  be  at  rest. 

For  when  the  sea  is  tossed  and  troubled  with  winds, 
and  casts  up  moss  and  sea-weed,  they  say  it  is  purged  ;  but 
those  impure,  bitter,  and  vain  words  which  anger  tlirows  up 
when  the  soul  has  become  a  kind  of  Λvhirlpool,  defile  the 
speakers,  in  the  first  place,  and  fill  them  with  dishonor,  ar- 
guing them  to  have  always  had  such  things  in  them  and 
to  be  full  of  them,  only  now  they  are  discovered  to  have  them 
by  their  anger.  So  for  a  mere  word,  the  lightest  of  things  (as 
Plato  says),  they  undergo  the  heaviest  of  punishments,  being 
ever  after  accounted  enemies,  evil  speakers,  and  of  a  ma- 
lignant disposition. 

7.  While  now  I  see  all  this  and  bear  it  in  mind,   the 


42  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

thought  occurs  to  me,  and  I  naturally  consider  by  myself, 
that  as  it  is  good  for  one  in  a  fever,  so  much  better  is  it  for 
one  in  anger,  to  have  his  tongue  soft  and  smooth.  For  if 
the  tongue  in  a  fever  be  unnaturally  affected,  it  is  indeed  an 
evil  symptom,  but  not  a  cause  of  harm ;  but  when  the 
tongue  of  angry  men  becomes  rough  and  foul,  and  breaks 
out  into  absurd  speeches,  it  produces  insults  which  work  ir- 
reconcilable hatred,  and  proves  that  a  poisonous  malevo- 
lence lies  festering  within.  For  wine  does  not  make  men 
vent  any  thing  so  impure  and  odious  as  anger  doth ;  and, 
besides,  what  proceeds  from  wine  is  matter  for  jest  and 
laughter,  but  that  from  anger  is  mixed  with  gall  and  bitter- 
ness. And  he  that  is  silent  in  his  cups  is  counted  a  burthen, 
and  a  bore  to  the  company,  whereas  in  anger  there  is 
nothing  more  commended  than  peace  and  silence ;  as 
Sappho  adviseth, — 

Wlien  anger  once  13  spread  within  thy  breast, 
Shut  up  thy  tongue,  that  vainly  barking  beast. 

8.  Nor  doth  the  constant  observation  of  ourselves  in 
anger  minister  these  things  only  to  our  consideration,  but 
it  also  gives  us  to  understand  another  natural  property  of 
anger,  how  disingenuous  and  unmanly  a  thing  it  is,  and 
how  far  from  true  wisdom  and  greatness  of  mind.  Yet  the 
vulgar  account  the  angry  man's  turbulence  to  be  his  activity, 
his  loud  threats  to  argue  boldness,  and  his  refractoriness 
strength ;  as  also  some  mistake  his  cruelty  for  an  under- 
taking of  great  matters,  his  implacableness  for  a  firmness 
of  resolution,  and  his  morosity  for  an  hatred  of  that  Avhich 
is  evil.  For,  in  truth,  both  the  deeds  and  motions  and  the 
whole  mien  of  angry  men  do  accuse  them  of  much  little- 
ness and  infirmity,  not  only  when  they  vex  little  children, 
scold  silly  women,  and  think  dogs  and  horses  and  asses 
Avorthy  of  their  anger  and  deserving  to  be  punished  (as 
Ctesiphon  the  Pancratiast,  who  vouchsafed  to  kick  the  ass 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  43 

that  had  kicked  him  first)  ;  but  even  in  their  tyrannical 
slaughters,  their  mean-spiritedness  appearing  in  their 
bitterness,  and  their  suffering  exhibited  outwardly  in  their 
actions,  are  but  like  to  the  biting  of  serpents  λυΙιο,  when 
they  themselves  become  burnt  and  full  of  pain,  violently 
thrust  the  venom  that  inflames  them  from  themselves  into 
those  that  have  hurt  them.  For  as  a  great  blow  causes  a 
great  swelling  in  the  flesh,  so  in  the  softest  souls  the  giving 
Λvay  to  a  passion  for  hurting  others,  like  a  stroke  on  the 
soul,  doth  make  it  to  swell  with  anger ;  and  all  the  more, 
the  greater  is  its  weakness. 

For  this  cause  it  is  that  women  are  more  apt  to  be  angry 
than  men  are,  and  sick  persons  than  the  healthful,  and  old 
men  than  those  who  are  in  their  perfect  age  and  strength, 
and  men  in  misery  than  such  as  prosper.  For  the  covetous 
man  is  most  prone  to  be  angry  Avith  his  steward,  the  glutton 
with  his  cook,  the  jealous  man  with  his  wife,  the  vain- 
glorious person  with  him  that  speaks  ill  of  him  ;  but  of  all 
men  there  are  none  so  exceedingly  disposed  to  be  angry  as 
those  who  are  ambitious  of  honor,  and  affect  to  carry  on  a 
fiiction  in  a  city,  which  (according  to  Pindar)  is  but  a 
splendid  vexation.  In  like  manner,  from  the  great  grief 
and  suffering  of  the  soul,  through  weakness  especially,  there 
ariseth  anger,  which  is  not  like  the  nerves  of  the  soul  (as 
one  spake),  but  like  its  straining  and  convulsive  motions 
when  it  vehemently  stirs  itself  up  in  its  desires  and  endeav- 
ors of  revenge. 

9.  Indeed  such  cAdl  examples  as  these  afford  ns  specula- 
tions which  are  necessary,  though  not  pleasant.  But  now, 
from  those  who  have  carried  themselves  mildly  and  gently 
in  their  anger,  I  shall  present  you  with  most  excellent 
sayings  and  beautiful  contemplations  ;  and  I  begin  to  con- 
temn such  as  say.  You  have  wronged  a  man  indeed,  and  is 
a  man  to  bear  this  1  —  Stamp  on  his  neck,  tread  him  down 
in  the  dirt,  —  and  such  like  provoking  speeches,  Avhere- 


44  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

by  some  do  very  unhandsomely  translate  and  remove  anger 
from  the  Avomen's  to  the  men's  apartment.  For  fortitude, 
which  in  other  respects  agrees  with  justice,  seems  only  to 
disagree  in  respect  of  mildness,  which  she  claims  as  more 
properly  her  own.  For  it  sometimes  befalls  even  worser 
men  to  bear  rule  over  those  who  are  better  than  them- 
selves ;  but  to  erect  a  trophy  in  the  soul  against  anger 
(which  Ileraclitus  says  it  is  an  hard  thing  to  fight  against, 
because  whatever  it  resolves  to  have,  it  buys  at  no  less  a 
price  than  the  soul  itself)  is  that  which  none  but  a  great 
and  A'ictorious  power  is  able  to  achieve,  since  that  alone 
can  bind  and  curb  the  passions  by  its  decrees,  as  with 
nerves  and  tendons. 

\Vherefore  I  always  strive  to  collect  and  read  not  only 
the  sayings  and  deeds  of  philosophers,  who  (wise  men  say) 
had  no  gall  in  them,  but  especially  those  of  kings  and 
tyrants.  Of  this  sort  Avas  the  saying  of  Antigonus  to  his 
soldiers,  when,  as  some  were  reviling  him  near  his  tent, 
supposing  that  he  had  not  heard  them,  he  stretched  his 
staff  out  of  the  tent,  and  said :  AVhat !  Avill  you  not  stand 
somewhere  farther  off,  while  you  revile  me  ?  So  was  that 
of  Arcadio  the  Achaean,  who  was  ever  speaking  ill  of  Philip, 
exhorting  men  to  flee 

Till  they  should  come  where  none  would  Philip  know. 

\Yhen  afterwards  by  some  accident  he  appeared  in  Mace- 
donia, Philip's  friends  were  of  opinion  that  he  ought 
not  to  be  suffered,  but  be  punished  ;  but  Philip  meeting 
him  and  speaking  courteously  to  him,  and  then  sending 
him  gifts,  particularly  such  as  were  wont  to  be  given  to 
strangers,  bade  him  learn  for  the  time  to  come  Λvhat  to 
speak  of  him  to  the  Greeks.  And  when  all  testified  that 
the  man  was  become  a  great  praiser  of  Philip,  even  to  ad- 
miration. You  see,  said  Philip,  I  am  a  better  physician 
than  you.      And   Λvhen  he  had  been  reproached  at   the 


CONCERNING   THE    CUllE    OF  ANGER.  45 

Olympic  solemnities,  and  some  said  it  was  fit  to  make  the 
Grecians  smart  and  rue  it  for  reviling  Philip,  who  had 
dealt  well  with  them,  What  then,  said  he,  Λνϋΐ  they  do, 
if  I  make  them  smart  ?  Those  things  also  which  Pisistra- 
tus  did  to  Thrasybulus,  and  Porsena  to  Mutius,  were 
bravely  done ;  and  so  was  that  of  Magas  to  Philemon,  for 
having  been  by  him  exposed  to  laughter  in  a  comedy  on 
the  public  stage,  in  these  words  :  — 

Magas,  the  king  hath  sent  thee  letters  : 
Unliappy  Magas,  thou  dost  know  no  letters. 

And  having  taken  Philemon  as  he  was  by  a  tempest  cast 
on  shore  at  Paraetonium,  he  commanded  a  soldier  only  to 
touch  his  neck  Avith  his  naked  SAVord  and  to  go  quietly  away  ; 
and  then  having  sent  him  a  ball  and  huckle-bones,  as  if  he 
were  a  child  that  wanted  understanding,  he  dismissed  him. 
Ptolemy  was  once  jeering  a  grammarian  for  his  Avant  of 
learning,  and  asked  him  who  was  the  father  of  Peleus  :  I 
will  answer  you  (quoth  he)  if  you  will  tell  me  first  who  Avas 
the  father  of  Lagus.  This  jeer  gave  the  king  a  rub  for 
the  obscurity  of  his  birth,  whereat  all  were  moved  Avith 
indignation,  as  a  thing  not  to  be  endured.  But,  said  Pto- 
lemv,  if  it  is  not  fit  for  a  king  to  be  jeered,  then  no  more 
is  it  fit  for  him  to  jeer  others.  But  Alexander  was  more 
severe  than  he  was  wont  in  his  carriage  towards  Calisthenes 
and  Clitus.  AVherefore  Porus,  being  taken  captive  by 
him,  desired  him  to  treat  him  like  a  king ;  and  when 
Alexander  asked  him  if  he  desired  no  more,  he  answered, 
When  I  say  like  a  king,  I  have  comprised  all.  And  hence 
it  is  that  they  call  the  king  of  the  Gods  Meilichius,  while 
the  Athenians,  I  think,  call  him  Maimactes  ;  but  the  office 
of  punishing  they  ascribe  to  the  Furies  and  evil  Genii, 
never  giving  it  the  epithet  of  divine  or  heavenly. 

10.  As  therefore  one  said  of  Philip,  when  he  razed  the 
city  of  Olynthus,  But  he  is  not  able  to  build  such  another 


^6  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

city  ;  so  may  it  be  said  to  anger,  Thou  canst  overthrow,  and 
destroy,  and  cut  down  ;  but  to  restore,  to  save,  to  spare,  and 
to  bear  with,  is  the  work  of  gentleness  and  moderation,  of  a 
Camilkis,  a  Metellus,  an  Aristides,  and  a  Socrates  ;  but  to 
strike  the  sting  into  one  and  to  bite  is  the  part  of  pismires 
and  horse-flies.  And  truly,  while  I  well  consider  revenge,  1 
fmd  that  the  way  which  anger  takes  for  it  proves  for  the 
most  part  ineifectual,  being  spent  in  biting  the  lips,  gnash- 
ing the  teeth,  vain  assaults,  and  railings  full  of  silly  threats  ; 
and  then  it  acts  like  children  in  a  race,  who,  for  want  of 
governing  themselves,  tumble  down  ridiculously  before 
they  come  to  the  goal  towards  which  they  are  has- 
tening. Hence  that  Rhodian  said  not  amiss  to  the  servant 
of  the  Roman  general,  who  spake  loudly  and  fiercely  to 
him.  It  matters  not  much  what  thou  sayest,  but  what  this 
your  master  in  silence  thinks.  And  Sophocles,  having  in- 
troduced Neoptolemus  and  Eurypylus  in  full  armor,  gave 
a  high  commendation  of  them  when  he  said, — 

Into  the  liosts  of  brazen-armed  men 

Eacli  boldly  charged,  but  ne'er  reviled  liis  foe. 

Some  indeed  of  the  barbarians  poison  their  swords  ;  but 
true  valor  has  no  need  of  choler,  as  being  dipped  in  reason  ; 
but  anger  and  fury  are  weak  and  easily  broken.  Where- 
fore the  Lacedaemonians  are  wont  by  the  sounding  of 
pipes  to  take  off  the  edge  of  anger  from  their  soldiers, 
when  they  fight ;  and  before  they  go  to  battle,  to  sacrifice 
to  the  Muses,  that  they  may  have  the  steady  use  of  their 
reason  ;  and  when  they  have  put  their  enemies  to  flight, 
they  pursue  them  not,  but  sound  a  retreat  (as  it  were)  to 
their  wrath,  which,  like  a  short  dagger,  can  easily  be  han- 
dled and  drawn  back.  But  anger  makes  slaughter  of  thou- 
sands before  it  can  avenge  itself,  as  it  did  of  Cyrus  and 
Pelopidas  the  Theban.  Agathocles,  being  reviled  by  some 
whom  he  besieged,  bore  it  with  mildness ;  and  when  one 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  "        47 

said  to  him,  Ο  Potter,  Avhence  wilt  thou  have  pay  for  thy 
mercenary  soldiers?  he  answered  with  laughter,  From 
your  city,  if  I  can  take  it.  And  when  some  one  from  the 
Avail  derided  Antigonus  for  his  deformity,  he  answei'ed,  I 
thought  surely  I  had  a  handsome  face  :  and  when  he  had 
taken  the  city,  he  sold  those  for  slaves  who  had  scoffed  at 
him,  protesting  that,  if  they  reviled  him  so  again,  he  would 
call  them  to  account  before  their  masters. 

Furthermore,  I  observe  that  hunters  and  orators  are  wont 
to  be  much  foiled  by  anger.  Aristotle  reports  that  the 
friends  of  Satyrus  once  stopped  his  ears  with  wax,  when 
he  was  to  plead  a  cause,  that  so  he  might  not  confound 
the  matter  through  anger  at  the  revilings  of  his  enemies. 
Do  we  not  ourselves  oftentimes  miss  of  punishing  an 
offending  servant,  because  he  runs  away  from  us  in  fright 
when  he  hears  our  threatenino;  words  ?  That  therefore 
which  nurses  say  to  little  children  —  Do  not  cry,  and  thou 
shalt  have  it  —  may  not  unfitly  be  applied  to  our  mind 
Avhen  angry.  Be  not  hasty,  neither  speak  too  loud,  nor  be 
too  urgent,  and  so  what  you  desire  will  be  sooner  and 
better  accomplished.  For  as  a  father,  when  he  sees  his 
son  about  to  cleave  or  cut  something  witli  an  hatchet, 
takes  the  hatchet  himself  and  doth  it  for  him  ;  so  one 
taking  the  work  of  revenge  out  of  the  hand  of  anger  doth 
himself,  without  danger  or  hurt,  yea,  with  profit  also, 
inflict  punishment  on  him  that  deserves  it,  and  not  on  him- 
self instead  of  him,  as  anger  oft-times  doth. 

11.  Now,  whereas  all  passions  do  stand  in  need  of  dis- 
cipline, which  by  exercise  tames  and  subdues  their  un- 
reasonableness and  stubbornness,  there  is  none  about  which 
we  have  more  need  to  be  exercised  in  reference  to  servants 
than  that  of  anger.  For  neither  do  we  envy  nor  fear  them, 
nor  have  we  any  competition  for  honor  Avith  them  ;  but  we 
have  frequent  fits  of  anger  with  them,  which  cause  many 
offences  and  errors,  by  reason  of  the  very  power  possessed 


48  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

by  US  as  masters,  and  which  bring  us  easily  to  the  ground, 
as  if  we  stood  in  a  slippery  place  with  no  one  standing  by 
to  save  us.  For  it  is  impossible  to  keep  an  irresponsible 
poΛver  from  offending  in  the  excitement  of  passion,  unless 
we  gird  up  that  great  power  with  gentleness,  and  can  slight 
the  frequent  speeches  of  wife  and  friends  accusing  us  of 
remissness.  And  indeed  I  myself  have  by  nothing  more 
than  by  such  speeches  been  incensed  against  my  servants, 
as  if  they  were  spoiled  for  want  of  beating.  And  truly  it 
was  late  before  I  came  to  understand,  that  it  was  better 
that  servants  should  be  something  the  worse  by  indulgence, 
than  that  one  should  distort  himself  through  wrath  and  bit- 
terness for  the  amendment  of  others.  And  secondly,  observ- 
ing that  many  by  this  very  impunity  have  been  brought  to 
be  ashamed  to  be  wicked,  and  have  begun  their  change  to 
virtue  more  from  being  pardoned  than  from  being  pun- 
ished, and  that  they  have  obeyed  some  upon  their  nod  only, 
peaceably,  and  more  willingly  than  they  have  done  others 
with  all  their  beating  and  scourging,  I  became  persuaded 
of  this,  that  reason  Avas  fitter  to  govern  with  than  anger. 
For  it  is  not  as  the  poet  said,  — 

Wherever  fear  is,  there  is  modesty ; 

but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  in  the  modest  that  that  fear  is  bred 
which  produces  moderation,  Avhereas  continual  and  unmerci- 
ful beating  doth  not  make  men  repent  of  doing  evil,  but  only 
devise  plans  for  doing  it  without  being  detected.  And  in 
the  third  place  I  always  remember  and  consider  with  my- 
self, that  as  he  who  taught  us  the  art  of  shooting  did  not 
forbid  us  to  shoot,  but  only  to  shoot  amiss,  so  no  more  can 
it  be  any  hindrance  from  punishing  to  teach  us  how  Ave 
may  do  it  seasonably  and  moderately,  with  benefit  and 
decency.  I  therefore  strive  to  put  away  anger,  especially 
by  not  denying  the  punished  a  liberty  to  plead  for  them- 
selves, but  granting  them  an  hearing.     For  time  gives  a 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  -19 

breathing-space  unto  passion,  and  a  delay  which  mitigates 
and  dissolves  it ;  and  a  man's  judgment  in  the  mean  while 
finds  out  both  a  becoming  manner  and  a  proportionable 
measure  of  punishing.  And  moreover  hereby,  he  that  is 
punished  hath  not  any  pretence  left  him  to  object  against 
the  correction  given  him,  if  he  is  punished  not  out  of 
anger,  but  being  first  himself  convinced  of  his  fault.  And 
finally  we  are  here  saved  from  the  greatest  disgrace  of  all, 
for  by  this  means  the  servant  Avill  not  seem  to  speak  mo  -e 
just  things  than  his  master. 

As  therefore  Phocion  after  the  death  of  Alexander,  to 
hinder  the  Athenians  from  rising  too  soon  or  believing  it 
too  hastily,  said :  Ο  Athenians,  if  he  is  dead  to-day,  he 
will  be  so  to-morrow,  and  on  the  next  day  after  that ; 
in  like  manner  do  I  judge  one  ought  to  suggest  to  himself, 
who  through  anger  is  making  haste  to  punish :  If  it  is 
true  to-day  that  he  hath  thus  wronged  thee,  it  will  be  true 
to-morrow,  and  on  the  next  day,  also.  Nor  will  tliere  any. 
inconvenience  follow  upon  the  deferring  of  his  punishment 
for  a  while  ;  but  if  he  be  punished  all  in  haste,  he  will  ever 
after  seem  to  have  been  innocent,  as  it  hath  oftentimes  fallen 
out  heretofore.  For  which  of  us  all  is  so  cruel  as  to  torment 
or  scourge  a  servant  because,  five  or  ten  days  before,  he  burnt 
the  meat,  or  overturned  the  table,  or  did  not  soon  enough 
what  he  was  bidden  ?  And  yet  it  is  for  just  such  tilings  as 
these,  while  they  are  fresh  and  newly  done,  that  we  are  so 
disordered,  and  become  cruel  and  implacable.  For  as 
bodies  through  a  mist,  so  actions  through  anger  seem  greater 
than  they  are.  AVherefore  we  ought  speedily  to  recall 
such  considerations  as  these  are  to  our  mind ;  and  when 
we  are  unquestionably  out  of  passion,  if  then  to  a  pure  and 
composed  reason  the  deed  do  appear  to  be  wicked,  we  ought 
to  animadvert,  and  no  longer  neglect  or  abstain  from  pun- 
ishment, as  if  we  had  lost  our  appetite  for  it.  For  there  is 
nothing  to  which  we  can  more  justly  impute  men's  punish- 


50  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

ing  others  in  their  anger,  than  to  a  habit  of  not  punishing 
them  when  their  anger  is  over,  but  growing  remiss,  and 
doing  like  lazy  mariners,  who  in  fair  weather  keep  loiter- 
ing within  the  haven,  and  then  put  themselves  in  danger 
by  setting  sail  when  the  Avind  blows  strong.  So  Λνο  like- 
wise, condemning  the  remissness  and  over-calmness  of  our 
reason  in  punishing,  make  haste  to  do  it  while  our  anger  is 
up,  pushing  us  forward  like  a  dangerous  wind. 

He  that  useth  food  doth  it  to  gratify  his  hunger,  which 
is  natural ;  but  he  that  inflicts  punishment  should  do  it 
without  either  hungering  or  thirsting  after  it,  not  needing 
anger,  like  sauce,  to  whet  him  on  to  punish  ;  but  when 
he  is  farthest  off  from  desiring  it,  then  he  should  do  it 
as  a  deed  of  necessity  under  the  guidance  of  reason. 
And  though  Aristotle  reports,  that  in  his  time  servants 
in  Etruria  were  Avont  to  be  scourged  while  the  music 
played,  yet  they  who  punish  others  ought  not  to  be  carried 
on  Avith  a  desire  of  punishing,  as  of  a  thing  they  delight  in, 
nor  to  rejoice  when  they  punish,  and  then  repent  of  it  when 
they  have  done,  —  whereof  the  first  is  savage,  the  last 
womanish  ;  but,  without  either  sorrow  or  pleasure,  they 
should  inflict  just  punishment  when  reason  is  free  to  judge, 
leaving  no  pretence  for  anger  to  intermeddle. 

12.  But  this  perhaps  may  seem  to  be  not  a  cure  of 
anger,  but  only  a  thrusting  by  and  avoiding  of  such  mis- 
carriages as  some  men  fall  into  when  they  are  angry.  And 
yet,  as  Hieronymus  tells  us,  although  the  swelling  of  the 
spleen  is  but  a  symptom  of  the  fever,  the  assuaging  thereof 
abates  the  disease.  But,  considering  well  the  origin  of 
anger  itself,  I  have  observed  that  divers  men  fall  into 
anger  for  different  causes  ;  and  yet  in  the  minds  of  all 
of  them  was  probably  an  opinion  of  being  despised  and 
neglected.  We  must  therefore  assist  those  Avho  Avould 
avoid  anger,  by  removing  the  act  which  roused  their  anger 
as  far  as  possible  from  all  suspicion  of  contempt  or  insult, 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  51 

and  by  imputing  it  rather  to  folly  or  necessity  or  disorder 
of  mind,  or  to  the  misadventure  of  those  that  did  it.  Thus 
Sophocles  in  Antigone  :  — 

The  best  resolved  mind  in  misery 
Can't  keep  its  ground,  but  suffers  ecstasy.* 

And  so  Agamemnon,  ascribing  to  Ate  the  taking  away  of 
Briseis,  adds  :  — 

Since  I  so  foolish  was  as  thee  to  wrong, 

I'll  please  thee  now,  and  give  thee  splendid  gifts.t 

For  supplication  is  an  act  of  one  who  is  far  from  con- 
temning ;  and  when  he  that  hath  done  an  injury  appears 
submissive,  he  thereby  removes  all  suspicion  of  contempt. 
But  he  that  is  moved  to  anger  must  not  expect  or  wait  for 
such  a  submission,  but  must  rather  take  to  himself  the 
saying  of  Diogenes,  who,  when  one  said  to  him,  They  de- 
ride thee,  Ο  Diogenes,  made  answer,  But  I  am  not  derided; 
and  he  must  not  think  himself  contemned,  but  rather  him- 
self contemn  that  man  that  offends  him,  as  one  acting  out 
of  weakness  or  error,  rashness  or  carelessness,  rudeness  or 
dotage,  or  childishness.  But,  above  all,  we  must  bear  with 
our  servants  and  friends  herein  ;  for  surely  they  do  not 
despise  us  as  being  impotent  or  slothful,  but  they  think  less 
of  us  by  reason  of  our  very  moderation  or  good-will 
towards  them,  some  because  we  are  gentle,  others  be- 
cause we  are  loving  towards  them.  But  now,  alas ! 
out  of  a  surmise  that  Ave  are  contemned,  we  not  onlv 
become  exasperated  against  our  Avives,  our  servants,  and 
friends,  but  we  oftentimes  fall  out  also  Avith  drunken  inn- 
keepers, and  mariners  and  ostlers,  and  all  out  of  a  suspicion 
that  they  despise  us.  Yea,  we  quarrel  with  dogs  because 
they  bark  at  us,  and  asses  if  they  chance  to  rush  against 
us ;  like  him  who  was  going  to  beat  a  driver  of  asses,  but 

*  Soph.  Antig.  563.  t  II.  XIX.  138. 


52  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

when  the  latter  cried  out,  I  am  an  Athenian,  fell  to  beating 
the  ass,  saying,  Thou  surely  art  not  an  Athenian  too,  and 
so  accosted  him  with  many  a  bastinado. 

13.  And  especially  self-love  and  morosity,  together  Avith 
luxury  and  effeminacy,  breed  in  us  long  and  frequent  fits  of 
anger,  which  by  little  and  little  are  gathered  together  into 
our  souls,  like  a  swarm  of  bees  or  \vasps.  AVherefore  there 
is  nothing  more  conducing  to  a  gentle  behavior  towards  our 
wife  and  servants  and  friends  than  contentedness  and  sim- 
plicity, if  Ave  can  be  satisfied  with  what  we  have,  and  not 
stand  in  need  of  many  superfluities.  Whereas  the  man 
described  in  the  poet,  — 

Who  never  is  content  with  boiled  or  roast, 
Nor  likes  his  meat,  what  way  soever  drest,  — 

λ\Λ\ο  can  never  drink  unless  he  have  snow  by  him,  or  eat 
bread  if  it  be  bought  in  the  market,  or  taste  victuals  out  of 
a  mean  or  earthen  vessel,  or  sleep  on  a  bed  unless  it  be 
swelled  and  puffed  up  wdth  feathers,  like  to  the  sea  when  it  is 
heaved  up  from  the  bottom  ;  but  who  with  cudgels  and 
blows,  with  running,  calling,  and  sweating  doth  hasten  his 
servitors  that  wait  at  table,  as  if  they  were  sent  for  plasters 
for  some  inflamed  ulcer,  he  being  slave  to  a  weak,  morose, 
and  fault-finding  style  of  life,  —  doth,  as  it  were  by  a  contin- 
ual cough  or  many  buffetings,  breed  in  himself,  before  he  is 
aware,  an  ulcerous  and  defluxive  disposition  unto  anger. 
And  therefore  the  body  is  to  be  accustomed  to  contentment 
by  frugality,  and  so  be  made  sufficient  for  itself.  For  they 
who  need  but  few  things  are  not  disappointed  of  many  ;  and 
it  is  no  hard  matter,  beginning  with  our  food,  to  accept 
quietly  whatever  is  sent  to  us,  and  not  by  being  angry  and 
querulous  at  every  thing,  to  entertain  ourselves  and  our 
friends  with  the  most  unpleasant  dish  of  all,  Avhich  is 
anger.     And  surely 

Than  that  supper  nought  can  more  unpleasant  be,* 
*  Odyss.  XX.  392. 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  53 

where  the  servants  are  beaten  and  the  wife  railed  at,  because 
something  is  burnt  or  smoked  or  not  salt  enough,  or 
because  the  bread  is  too  cold.  Arcesilaus  was  once  enter- 
taining his  friends  and  some  strangers  at  a  feast ;  the 
supper  Λvas  set  on  the  board,  but  there  wanted  bread,  the 
serA^aiits  having,  it  seems,  neglected  to  buy  any.  Now,  on 
such  an  occasion,  which  of  us  would  not  have  rent  the  very 
walls  with  outcries  1  But  he  smiling  said  only :  What  a 
fine  thing  it  is  for  a  philosopher  to  be  a  jolly  feaster! 
Once  also  when  Socrates  took  Euthydemus  from  the  wrest- 
ling-house home  with  him  to  supper,  his  wife  Xanthippe 
fell  upon  him  in  a  pelting  cliase,  scolding  him,  and  in  con- 
clusion overthrew  the  table.  Whereupon  Euthydemus  rose 
up  and  went  his  way,  being  very  much  troubled  at  what 
had  happened.  But  Socrates  said  to  him :  Did  not  a  hen 
at  your  house  the  other  day  come  flying  in,  and  do  the  like  ] 
and  yet  I  was  not  troubled  at  it.  For  friends  are  to  be 
entertained  by  good-nature,  by  smiles,  and  by  a  hospitable 
welcome;  not  by  knitting  brows,  or  by  striking  horror  and 
tremblin»  into  those  that  serve. 

We  must  also  accustom  ourselves  to  the  use  of  any  cups 
indifferently,  and  not  to  use  one  rather  than  another,  as 
some  are  wont  to  single  some  one  cup  out  of  many  (as  they 
say  Marius  used  to  do)  or  else  a  drinking-horn,  and  to 
drink  out  of  none  but  that ;  and  they  do  the  same  with 
oil-glasses  and  brushes,  affecting  one  above  all  the  rest,  and 
when  any  one  of  these  chances  to  be  broken  or  lost,  then 
they  take  it  heinously,  and  punish  severely  those  that  did  it. 
And  therefore  he  that  is  prone  to  be  angry  should  refrain 
from  such  things  as  are  rare  and  curiously  Avrought,  such 
ay  cups  and  seals  and  precious  stones  ;  for  such  things  dis- 
tract a  man  by  their  loss  more  than  cheap  and  ordinary 
things  are  apt  to  do.  Wherefore  when  Nero  had  made  an 
octagonal  tent,  a  wonderful  spectacle  for  cost  and  beauty, 
Seneca  said  to  him :    You  have  proved  yourself  to  be  a 


54  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

poor  man ;  for  if  you  chance  to  lose  tliis,  you  cannot  tell 
where  to  get  such  another.  And  indeed  it  so  fell  out  that 
the  ship  was  sunk,  and  this  tent  was  lost  with  it.  But  Nero, 
rememberino;  the  words  of  Seneca,  bore  the  loss  of  it  with 
greater  moderation. 

But  this  contentedness  in  other  matters  doth  make  a 
man  good-tempered  and  gentle  towards  his  servants  ;  and 
if  towards  servants,  then  doubtless  towards  friends  and  sub- 
jects also.  We  see  also  that  newly  bought  servants  enquire 
concerning  him  that  bought  them,  not  whether  he  be  su- 
perstitious or  envious,  but  whether  he  be  an  angry  man  or 
not ;  and  that  universally,  neither  men  can  endure  their 
wives,  though  chaste,  nor  women  their  husbands,  though 
kind,  if  they  be  ill-tempered  withal ;  nor  friends  the  con- 
versation of  one  another.  And  so  neither  wedlock  nor 
friendship  with  anger  is  to  be  endured ;  but  if  anger  be 
away,  even  drunkenness  itself  is  counted  a  light  matter 
For  the  ferule  of  Bacchus  is  a  sufficient  chastiser  of  a 
drunken  man,  if  the  addition  of  anger  do  not  change  the 
God  of  wine  from  Lyaeus  and  Choraeus  (the  looser  of  cares 
and  the  leader  of  dances)  to  the  savage  and  furious  deity. 
And  Anticyra  (with  its  hellebore)  is  of  itself  able  to  cure 
simple  madness  ;  but  madness  mixed  with  anger  furnishes 
matter  for  tragedies  and  dismal  stories. 

14.  Neither  ought  any,  even  in  their  playing  and  jesting, 
to  give  way  to  their  anger,  for  it  turns  good-will  into  hatred  ; 
nor  when  they  are  disputing,  for  it  turns  a  desire  of  know- 
ing truth  into  a  love  of  contention ;  nor  when  they  sit  in 
judgment,  for  it  adds  violence  to  authority ;  nor  when  they 
are  teaching,  for  it  dulls  the  learner,  and  breeds  in  him  a 
hatred  of  all  learning ;  nor  if  they  be  in  prosperity,  for  it 
increases  envy  ;  nor  if  in  adversity,  for  it  makes  them  to  be 
unpitied,  if  they  are  morose  and  apt  to  quarrel  with  those 
Λνΐιο  commiserate  them,  as  Priam  did :  — 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  55 

Be  gone,  ye  upbraiding  scoundrels,  haven't  ye  at  home 
Enougli,  that  to  help  bear  my  grief  ye  come  1  * 

On  the  other  hand,  good  temper  doth  remedy  some 
thmgs,  put  an  ornament  upon  others,  and  sweeten  others ; 
and  it  wholly  overcomes  all  anger  and  moroseness,  by  gen- 
tleness. As  may  be  seen  in  that  excellent  example  of 
Euclid,  who,  when  his  brother  had  said  in  a  quarrel, 
[iOt  me  perish  if  I  be  not  avenged  of  you,  replied,  And 
let  me  perish  if  I  do  not  persuade  you  into  a  better  mind ; 
and  by  so  saying  he  straightway  diverted  him  from  his 
purpose,  and  changed  his  mind.  And  Polemon,  being 
reviled  by  one  that  loved  precious  stones  well  and  was  even 
sick  with  the  love  of  costly  signets,  answered  nothing,  but 
noticed  one  of  the  signets  which  the  man  wore,  and  looked 
Avistfully  upon  it.  Whereat  the  man  being  pleased  said : 
Not  so,  Polemon,  but  look  upon  it  in  the  sunshine,  and 
it  will  appear  much  better  to  you.  And  Aristippus, 
when  there  happened  to  be  a  falling  out  between  him  and 
Aeschines,  and  one  said  to  him,  Ο  Aristippus,  what  is 
now  become  of  the  friendship  that  Λvas  between  you  two? 
answered.  It  is  asleep,  but  I  will  go  and  awaken  it. 
Then  coming  to  Aeschines,  he  said  to  him,  What?  dost 
thou  take  me  to  be  so  utterly  wretched  and  incurable 
as  not  to  be  worth  thy  admonition  ?  No  Avonder,  said 
Aeschines,  if  thou,  by  nature  so  excelling  me  in  every 
thing,  didst  here  also  discern  before  me  what  was  right 
and  fitting  to  be  done. 

A  woman's,  nay  a  little  child's  soft  hand, 
With  gentle  stroking  easier  doth  command, 
And  make  the  bristling  boar  to  couch  and  fall. 
Than  any  boisterous  wrestler  of  them  all. 

But  we  that  can  tame  wild  beasts  and  make  them  gentle, 
carrying  young  Avolves  and  the  whelps  of  lions  in  our 
arms,  do  in  a  fit  of  anger  cast  our  own  children,  friends, 
and  companions  out  of  our  embraces  ;  and  we  let  loose  our 

*  II.  XXIV.  239. 


56  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OE  ANGER. 

ΛΥΓαΛ  like  a  wild  beast  upon  our  servants  and  fellow  citi- 
zens. And  we  but  poorly  disguise  our  rage  wiien  we  giA^e 
it  the  specious  name  of  zeal  against  wickedness  ;  and  it  is 
with  this,  I  suppose,  as  with  other  passions  and  diseases  of 
the  soul,  —  although  we  call  one  forethought,  another  liber- 
ality, another  piety,  we  cannot  so  acquit  and  clear  ourselves 
of  any  of  them. 

15.  And  as  Zeno  has  said  that  the  seed  was  a  mixture 
drawn  from  all  the  powers  of  the  soul,  in  like  manner  an- 
ger seems  to  be  a  kind  of  universal  seed  extracted  from  all 
the  passions.  For  it  is  taken  from  grief  and  pleasure  and 
insolence  ;  and  then  from  envy  it  hath  the  evil  property  of 
rejoicing  at  another's  adversity  ;  and  it  is  even  worse  than 
murder  itself,  for  it  doth  not  strive  to  free  itself  from  suf- 
fering, but  to  bring  mischief  to  itself,  if  it  may  thereby  but 
do  another  man  an  evil  turn.  And  it  hath  the  most  odious 
kind  of  desire  inbred  in  it,  if  the  appetite  for  grieving  and 
hurting  another  may  be  called  a  desire. 

AVherefore,  Avhen  we  go  to  the  houses  of  drunkards,  we 
may  hear  a  Avench  playing  the  flute  betimes  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  behold  there,  as  one  said,  the  muddy  dregs  of 
wine,  and  scattered  fragments  of  garlands,  and  servants 
drunk  at  the  door ;  and  the  marks  of  angry  and  surly  men 
may  be  read  in  the  faces,  brands,  and  fetters  of  the  servants. 
'•  But  lamentation  is  the  only  bard  that  is  always  to  be  heard 
beneath  the  roof"  of  the  angry  man,  while  his  stewards  are 
beaten  and  his  maid-servants  tormented ;  so  that  the  spec- 
tators, in  the  midst  of  their  mirth  and  delight,  cannot  but 
pity  those  sad  effects  of  anger. 

16.  And  even  those  who,  out  of  a  real  hatred  of  wicked- 
ness, often  happen  to  be  surprised  with  anger,  can  abate 
the  excess  and  vehemence  of  it  so  soon  as  they  give  up 
their  excessive  confidence  in  those  with  Avhom  they  con- 
verse. For  of  all  causes  this  doth  most  increase  anger, 
when  one  proves  to  be  wicked  whom  Ave  took  for  a  good 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  57 

man,  or  when  one  Avho  we  thought  had  loved  us  falls  mto 
some  difference  and  chiding  witli  us. 

As  for  my  own  disposition,  thou  knowest  very  well  with 
how  strong  inclinations  it  is  carried  to  show  kindness  to 
men  and  to  confide  in  them ;  and  therefore,  like  those  who 
miss  their  step  and  tread  on  nothing,  when  I  most  of  all 
trust  to  men's  love  and,  as  it  were,  prop  myself  up  with  it, 
I  do  then  most  of  all  miscarry,  and,  finding  myself  disap- 
pointed, am  troubled  at  it.  And  indeed  I  should  never 
succeed  in  freeing  myself  from  this  too  great  eagerness 
and  forwardness  in  my  love  ;  but  against  excessive  confi- 
dence perhaps  I  can  make  use  of  Plato's  caution  for  a 
bridle.  For  he  said  that  he  so  commended  Helicon,  the 
mathematician,  because  he  thought  him  a  naturally  versa- 
tile animal ;  but  that  he  had  a  jealousy  of  those  who  had 
been  well  educated  in  the  city,  lest,  being  men  and  the 
offspring  of  men,  they  should  in  something  or  other  dis- 
cover the  infirmity  of  their  nature.  But  when  Sophocles 
says.  If  you  search  the  deeds  of  mortals,  you  Λνϋΐ  find 
the  most  are  base,  he  seems  to  insult  and  disparage  us 
over  much.  Still  even  such  a  harsh  and  censorious  judg- 
ment as  this  may  make  us  more  moderate  in  our  anger ; 
for  it  is  the  sudden  and  the  unexpected  which  do  most 
drive  us  to  frenzy.  But  we  ought,  as  Panaetius  somewhere 
said,  to  imitate  Anaxagoras  ;  and  as  he  said  upon  the  death 
of  his  son,  I  knew  before  that  I  had  begotten  but  a  mortal, 
so  should  every  one  of  us  use  expressions  like  these  of 
those  offences  which  stir  up  to  anger :  I  knew,  when  I 
bought  mv  servant,  that  I  was  not  baying  a  philosoph(.'r ; 
I  knew  that  I  did  not  get  a  friend  that  had  no  passiims ;  I 
knew  that  I  had  a  wife  that  was  but  a  woman.  But  if 
every  one  would  always  repeat  the  question  of  Plato  to 
himself.  But  am  not  I  perhaps  such  a  one  myself?  and 
turn  his  reason  from  abroad  to  look  into  himself,  and  put 
restraint  upon  his  reprehension  of  others,  he  would  not 


58  CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER. 

make  so  much  use  of  his  hatred  of  evil  in  reprovii.g  other 
men,  seeing  himself  to  stand  in  need  of  great  indulgence. 
But  now  every  one  of  us,  when  he  is  angry  and  punishing, 
can  bring  the  words  of  Aristides  and  of  Cato  :  Do  not  steal, 
Do  not  lie,  and  Why  are  ye  so  slothful?  And,  what  is 
most  truly  shameful  of  all,  we  do  in  our  anger  reprove 
others  for  being  angry,  and  what  was  done  amiss  through 
anger  we  punish  in  our  passion,  therein  not  acting  like 
physicians,  who 

Purge  bitter  choler  with  a  bitter  pill,* 

but  rather  increasing  and  exasperating  the  disease  which 
we  pretend  to  cure. 

While  therefore  I  am  thus  reasoning  with  myself,  I  en- 
deavor also  to  abate  something  of  my  curiosity  ;  because 
for  any  one  over  curiously  to  enquire  and  pry  into  every 
thing,  and  to  make  a  public  business  of  every  employment 
of  a  servant,  every  action  of  a  friend,  every  pastime  of  a 
son,  every  whispering  of  a  wife,  causes  great  and  long  and 
daily  fits  of  anger,  whereof  the  product  and  issue  is  a 
peevish  and  morose  disposition.  Wherefore  God,  as  Euri- 
pides says, 

Afiairs  of  greatest  weight  himself  directeth, 
But  matters  small  to  Fortune  he  committeth.t 

But  I  tliink  a  prudent  man  ought  not  to  commit  any  thing 
at  all  to  Fortune,  nor  to  neglect  any  thing,  but  to  trust  and 
commit  some  things  to  his  Avife,  some  things  to  his  servants, 
and  some  things  to  his  friends  (as  a  prince  to  certain  vice- 
gerents and  accountants  and  administrators),  while  he  him- 
self is  employing  his  reason  about  the  weightiest  matters, 
and  those  of  greatest  concern. 

For  as  small  letters  hurt  the  sight,  so  do  small  matters 
him  that  is  too  much  intent  upon  them ;  they  vex  and  stir 

*  Sophocles,  Frag.  769  t  Euripides,  Frag.  964. 


CONCERNING  THE  CURE  OF  ANGER.  59 

up  anger,  which  begets  an  evil  habit  in  him  in  reference 
to  greater  affairs.  But  above  all  the  rest,  I  look  on  that 
of  Empedocles  as  a  divine  thing,  ''  To  fast  from  evil." 
And  ΐ  commended  also  those  vows  and  professions  made 
in  prayers,  as  things  neither  indecent  in  themselves  nor 
unbecoming  a  philosopher,  —  for  a  whole  year  to  abstain 
from  venery  and  Avine,  serving  God  with  temperance  all 
the  while  ;  or  else  again,  for  a  certain  time  to  abstain  from 
lying,  minding  and  watching  over  ourselves,  that  we  speak 
nothing  but  what  is  true,  either  in  earnest  or  in  jest.  After 
the  manner  of  these  vows  then  I  made  my  own,  supposing 
it  would  be  no  less  acceptable  to  God  and  sacred  than 
theirs ;  and  I  set  myself  first  to  observe  a  few  sacred  days 
also,  wherein  I  would  abstain  from  being  angry,  as  if  it 
were  from  being  drunk  or  from  drinking  Avine,  celebrating 
a  kind  of  i^ephalia  and  Melisponda  *  with  respect  to  my 
anger.  Then,  making  trial  of  myself  little  by  little  for  a 
month  or  two,  I  by  this  means  in  time  made  some  good 
progress  unto  further  patience  in  bearing  evils,  diligently 
observing  and  keeping  myself  courteous  in  language  and 
behavior,  free  from  anger,  and  pure  from  all  wicked  words 
and  absurd  actions,  and  from  passion,  which  for  a  little 
(and  that  no  grateful)  pleasure  brings  Avith  itself  great 
perturbations  and  shameful  repentance.  ΛVhence  experi- 
ence, not  without  some  divine  assistance,  hath,  I  suppose, 
made  it  evident  that  that  was.  a  very  true  judgment  and 
assertion,  that  this  courteous,  gentle,  and  kindly  disposition 
and  behavior  is  not  so  acceptable,  so  pleasing,  and  so  de- 
lightful to  any  of  those  Avith  whom  we  converse,  as  it  is  to 
those  that  have  it. 

*  Nephalia  {νηψω,  to  be  sober)  were  wineless  offerings,  like  those  to  the  Eumen- 
ides.  See  Aesch.  Eumen.  107 :  Χοός  r'  άοίνονς,  νηφάλια  μειλίγματα.  Melisponda  {μ^) 
were  offerings  of  honey.     (G.) 


OF    BASHFULNESS. 


1.  Some  plants  there  are,  in  their  own  nature  wild  and 
barren,  and  hurtful  to  seed  and  garden-sets,  Avhich  yet 
among  able  husbandmen  pass  for  infallible  signs  of  a  rich 
and  promising  soil.  In  like  manner,  some  passions  of  the 
mind  not  good  in  themselves  yet  serve  as  first  shoots  and 
promises  of  a  disposition  which  is  naturally  good,  and  also 
capable  of  much  improvement  by  cultivation.  Among 
these  I  rank  bashfulness,  the  subject  of  our  present  dis- 
course ;  no  ill  sign  indeed,  but  the  cause  and  occasion  of 
a  great  deal  of  harm.  For  the  bashful  oftentimes  run  into 
the  same  enormities  as  the  most  hardened  and  impudent, 
with  this  difference  only,  that  the  former  feel  a  regret  for 
such  miscarriages,  but  the  latter  take  a  pleasure  and  satis- 
faction therem.  The  shameless  person  is  without  sense  of 
grief  for  his  baseness,  and  the  bashful  is  in  distress  at  the 
very  appearance  of  it.  For  bashfulness  is  only  modesty 
in  the  excess,  and  is  aptly  enough  named  δνσωττία  {the 
being  put  out  of  countenance),  since  the  face  is  in  some 
sense  confused  and  dejected  with  the  mind.  For  as  that 
grief  Λvhich  casts  down  the  eyes  is  termed  dejection,  so 
tliat  kind  of  modesty  which  cannot  look  another  in  the 
face  is  called  bashfulness.  The  orator,  speaking  of  a 
shameless  fellow,  said  he  carried  harlots,  not  virgins,  in 
his  eyes  ;  *  on  the  other  hand,  the  sheepishly  bashful  be- 

♦  Oil  κόρας  ύλλα  πόρνος.    Κόρη  means  either  maiden  or  the  pupil  of  the  eye.     (G.) 


BASHFTJLNESS.  f)  1 

trays  no  less  the  eiFeminacy  and  softness  of  his  mind  in 
his  looks,  palHating  his  weakness,  which  exposes  him  to 
the  mercy  of  impudence,  with  the  specious  name  of  mod- 
esty. Cato  indeed  was  wont  to  say  of  young  persons,  he 
had  a  greater  opinion  of  such  as  were  subject  to  color  than 
of  those  that  looked  pale ;  teaching  us  thereby  to  look  with 
greater  apprehension  on  the  heinousness  of  an  action  than 
on  the  reprimand  which  might  follow,  and  to  be  more  afraid 
of  the  suspicion  of  doing  an  ill  thing  than  of  the  danger 
of  it.  However,  too  much  anxiety  and  timidity  lest  we 
may  do  wrong  is  also  to  be  avoided;  because  many  men 
have  become  cowards  and  been  deterred  from  generous 
undertakings,  no  less  for  fear  of  calumny  and  detraction 
than  by  the  danger  or  difficulty  of  such  attempts. 

2.  AVliile  therefore  v/e  must  not  suffer  the  weakness  in 
the  one  case  to  pass  unnoticed,  neither  must  Ave  abet  or 
countenance  invincible  impudence  in  the  other,  such  as  is 
reported  of  Anaxarchus,  — 

Whose  dosi-like  carriage  and  effrontery, 
Despising  infamy,  out-faceil  disgrace. 

A  convenient  mien  betAveen  both  is  rather  to  be  endeav- 
ored after,  by  repressing  the  over  impudent,  and  ani- 
mating the  too  meek  temper.  But  as  this  kind  of 
cure  is  difficult,  so  is  the  restraining  such  excesses  not 
without  danger  ;  for  as  a  gardener,  in  stubbing  up 
some  wild  or  useless  bushes,  makes  at  them  careless- 
ly with  his  spade,  or  burns  them  off  the  ground,  but 
in  dressing  a  vine,  or  grafting  an  apple,  or  pruning  an 
olive,  carries  his  hand  with  the  greatest  wariness  and  de- 
hberation,  that  he  may  not  unluckily  injure  the  tree  ;  so  a 
philosopher,  in  removing  envy,  that  useless  and  untractable 
plant,  or  covetousness  or  immoderate  love  of  pleasure  from 
the  mind  of  youth,  may  cut  deep  safely,  and  make  a  large 
scar  ;  but  if  he  be  to  apply  his  discourse  to  some  more  sen- 
sible or  delicate  part,  such  as  the   restraining  excess  of 


62  BASHFULNESS. 

bashfulness,  it  lies  upon  him  to  be  very  careful  not  to  cut  off 
or  eradicate  modesty  with  the  contrary  vice.  For  nurses  who 
too  often  wipe  away  the  dirt  from  their  infants  are  apt  to 
tear  their  flesh  and  put  them  to  pain.  x\nd  in  like  man- 
ner we  must  not  so  far  extirpate  all  bashfulness  in  youth  as 
to  leave  them  careless  or  impudent;  but  as  those  that  pull 
down  private  houses  adjoining  to  the  temples  of  the  Gods 
prop  up  such  parts  as  are  contiguous  to  them,  so  in  un- 
dermining bashfulness,  due  regard  is  to  be  had  to  adjacent 
modesty,  good  nature,  and  humanity.  And  yet  these  are 
the  very  qualities  by  which  bashfulness  insinuates  itself 
and  becomes  fixed  in  a  man,  flattering  him  that  he  is  good- 
natured,  courteous,  and  civil,  and  has  common  sense,  and 
that  he  is  not  obstinate  and  inexorable.  The  Stoics,  there- 
fore, in  their  discourses  of  modesty,  distinguish  all  along 
betwixt  that  and  bashfulness,  leaving  not  so  much  as 
ambiguity  of  terms  for  a  pretence  to  the  vice.  How- 
ever, asking  their  good  leave,  we  shall  make  bold  to  use 
such  words  indifferently  in  either  sense  ;  or  rather  we 
shall  follow  the  example  of  Homer,  whose  authority  we 
have  for  it,  that 

Much  harm  oft-times  from  modesty  befalls, 
Much  good  oft-times.  * 

And  it  was  not  done  amiss  of  him  to  make  mention  of 
the  hurtfulness  of  it  first,  because  modesty  becomes  profita- 
ble only  through  reason,  which  cuts  off  what  is  superflu- 
ous and  leaves  a  just  mean  behind. 

3.  In  the  first  place,  therefore,  the  bashful  man  must  be 
persuaded  and  satisfied  that  that  distemper  of  the  mind  is 
prejudicial  to  him,  and  that  nothing  which  is  so  can  be 
eligible.  And  withal,  he  must  be  cautious  how  he  suffers 
himself  to  be  cajoled  and  led  by  the  nose  with  the  titles 
of  courteous  or  sociable,  in  exchange  for  those  of  grave, 

•  II.  XXIV.  44. 


BASHFULNESS  63 

great,  and  just ;  nor  like  Pegasus  in  Euripides,  who,  when 
Bellerophon  mounted  him, 

With  trembling  stooped  more  than  his  lord  desired,* 

must  he  debase  himself  and  yield  to  all  who  make  their 
addresses  to  him,  for  fear  of  appearing  hard  and  ungentle. 

It  is  recorded  of  Bocchoris,  king  of  Egypt,  a  man  of  a 
very  cruel  nature,  that  the  goddess  Isis  sent  a  kind  of  a 
serpent  (called  aspis),  which  winding  itself  about  his  head 
cast  a  shadow  over  him  from  above,  and  was  a  means  to 
him  of  determining  causes  according  to  equity.  But  bash- 
fidness,  on  the  contrary,  happening  upon  remiss  and  spirit- 
less tempers,  suffers  them  not  to  express  their  dislike  of 
any  thing  or  to  argue  against  it,  but  perverts  many  times  the 
sentence  of  arbitrators,  and  stops  the  mouths  of  skilful 
pleaders,  forcing  them  often  to  act  and  speak  coiitrary  to 
their  conviction.  And  the  most  reckless  man  Avill  always 
tyrannize  and  domineer  over  such  a  one,  forcing  his  bash- 
fulness  by  his  own  strength  of  impudence.  Upon  this 
account  it  is  that  bashfulncss,  like  a  low  piece  of  soft 
ground,  can  make  no  resistance  and  decline  no  encounter, 
but  is  exposed  to  the  meanest  actions  and  vilest  passions. 
But,  above  all,  this  is  the  worst  guardian  of  raw  and  inex- 
perienced youth.  For,  as  Brutus  said,  he  seems  to  have 
had  but  an  ill  education  that  has  not  learned  to  deny  any 
thing.  And  no  better  overseer  is  it  of  the  marriage-bed 
or  the  woman's  apartment  ;  as  the  repentant  lady  in 
Sophocles  accuses  the  spark  that  had  debauched  her,  — 

Thy  tongue,  tliy  flattering  tongue  prevailed.t 

So  this  vice,  happening  upon  a  disposition  inclinable  to 
debauchery,  prepares  and  opens  the  way,  and  leaves  all 
things  easy  and  accessible  to  such  as  are  ready  to  prefer 
their  Λvicked  designs.  Presents  and  treats  are  irresistible 
baits  for  common  mercenary  creatures  ;   but  importunity, 

*  Eurip.  Bellerophon,  Frag.  311.  t•  Sophocles,  Frag.  772. 


64  BASHFULNESS. 

befriended  with  bashfiilness  on  their  side,  has  sometimes 
undone  the  modestest  women.  I  omit  what  inconveniences 
this  kind  of  modesty  occasions,  Λvhen  it  obhges  men  to 
lend  their  money  to  such  Avhose  credit  is  blown  upon  in 
the  workl,  or  to  give  bail  for  those  they  dare  not  trust ; 
we  do  this,  it  is  true,  with  an  ill-will,  and  in  our  heart 
reflect  upon  that  old  saying.  Be  bail,  and  pay  for  it,  yet 
cannot  make  use  of  it  in  our  practice. 

4.  How  many  this  fault  has  ruined,  it  is  no  easy  thing 
to  recount.  Creon  in  the  play  gave  a  very  good  lesson  for 
others  to  follow,  when  he  told  Medea,  — 

'Tis  better  now  to  brave  thy  direst  hate, 
Than  curse  a  foolish  easiness  too  late.* 

Yet  afterwards,  being  wrought  upon  through  his  bashful- 
ness  to  grant  her  but  one  day  longer,  he  ruined  himself 
and  family  by  it.  For  the  same  reason,  some,  suspecting 
designs  against  them  of  murder  or  poisoning,  have  ne- 
glected to  provide  for  their  safety.  Thus  Dion  could  not 
be  ignorant  of  the  treachery  of  Callippus,  yet  thought  it 
unfit  to  entertain  such  thoughts  of  his  pretended  friend  and 
guest,  and  so  perished.  So  again,  Antipater,  the  son  of 
Cassander,  having  entertained  Demetrius  at  supper,  and 
being  engaged  by  him  for  the  next  night,  because  he  was 
unwilling  to  distrust  one  who  had  trusted  him,  went,  and 
had  his  throat  cut  after  supper.  Polysperchon  had  prom- 
ised Cassander  for  an  hundred  talents  to  murder  Her- 
cules, the  son  of  Alexander  by  Barsine.  Upon  this  he 
invites  him  to  sup  ;  but  the  young  man,  having  some 
suspicion  of  the  thing,  pretends  himself  indisposed.  Poly- 
sperchon coming  to  him  said :  Sir,  above  all  things  en- 
deavor after  your  father  s  courteous  behavior  and  obliging 
way  to  his  friends,  unless  haply  you  look  on  us  with  sus- 
picion as  if  we  were  compassing  your  health.  The  young 
man  out  of  mere  modesty  was  prevailed  upon  to  go,  and 

»  Eurip.  Medea,  290. 


BASHFULNESS.  65 

was  strangled  as  he  sat  at  meat.  It  is  not  therefore  (as 
some  will  have  us  believe)  insignificant  or  ridiculous,  but 
on  the  contrary  very  wise  advice,  which  Hesiod  gives, — 

Welcome  a  friend,  but  never  call  thy  foe.* 

Be  not  bashful  and  mealy-mouthed  in  refusing  him  that 
you  are  satisfied  has  a  pique  against  you  ;  but  never  reject 
him  that  seemeth  to  put  his  trust  in  you.  For  if  you 
invite,  you  must  expect  to  be  invited  again ;  and  some 
time  or  other  your  entertainment  will  be  repaid  you,  if 
bashfulness  have  once  softened  or  turned  the  edge  of  that 
diffidence  which  ought  to  be  your  guard. 

5.  To  the  end  therefore  that  we  may  get  the  better  of 
this  disease,  which  is  the  cause  of  so  many  evils,  we  must 
make  our  first  attempts  (as  our  custom  is  in  other  things) 
upon  matters  of  no  great  difficulty.  As,  if  one  drink  to 
you  after  you  have  taken  what  is  sufficient,  be  not  so  fool- 
ishly modest  to  do  violence  to  your  nature,  but  rather 
venture  to  pass  the  glass.  Another,  it  may  be,  would  tempt 
you  to  play  at  dice  while  drinking ;  be  riot  over-persuaded 
into  a  compliance,  for  fear  of  being  the  subject  of  his 
drollery,  but  reply  with  Xenophanes,  when  Lasus  of 
Hermione  called  him  coward  because  he  refused  to  play 
at  dice  :  Yes,  said  he,  I  confess  myself  the  greatest  cow- 
ard in  the  world,  for  I  dare  not  do  an  ill  thing.  Again, 
you  light  upon  an  impertinent  talker,  that  sticks  upon  you 
like  a  burr ;  don't  be  bashful,  but  break  off  the  discourse, 
and  pursue  your  business.  These  evasions  and  repulses, 
whereby  our  resolution  and  assurance  are  exercised  in  mat- 
ters of  less  moment,  Avill  accustom  us  to  it  by  degrees  in 
greater  occasions.  And  here  it  will  be  but  seasonable  to 
give  you  a  passage,  as  it  is  recorded  of  Demosthenes.  The 
Athenians  having  one  time  been  moved  to  send  succors  to 
Harpalus,  and  themselves  to  engage  in  a  war  against  Alex- 
ander, it  happened  that  Philoxenus,  Alexander's  admiral, 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  342 

VOL.    I.  ό 


66  BASHFULNESS. 

unexpectedly  arrived  on  their  coast ;  and  the  people  being 
so  astonished  as  to  be  speechless  for  very  fear,  Demos- 
thenes cried  out :  How  would  they  endure  the  sun,  who 
are  not  able  to  look  against  a  lamp !  Or  how  would 
you  comport  yourself  in  weightier  concerns,  Avhile  youi 
prince  or  the  people  had  an  awe  over  you,  if  you  cannot 
refuse  a  glass  of  wine  when  an  acquaintance  offers  it,  or 
turn  off  an  impertinent  babbler,  but  suffer  the  eternal 
trifler  to  Avalk  over  you  without  telling  him,  Another  time, 
good  sir,  at  present  I  am  in  haste. 

6.  Besides  all  this,  the  exercising  such  a  resolution  is 
of  great  use  in  praising  others.  If  one  of  my  friend's 
harpers  play  lewdly,  or  a  comedian  he  has  hired  at  a 
great  rate  murder  a  piece  of  Menander  in  the  acting, 
although  the  vulgar  clap  their  hands  and  admire,  I  think 
it  no  moroseness  or  ill-breeding  to  sit  silently  all  the  while, 
without  servilely  joining  in  the  common  applauses  con- 
trary to  my  judgment.  For  if  you  scruple  to  deal  openly 
with  him  in  these  cases,  what  will  you  do,  should  he  repeat 
to  you  an  insipid  composition  of  his  own,  or  submit  to  your 
revisal  a  ridiculous  oration  ]  You  will  applaud,  of  course, 
and  enter  yourself  into  the  list  of  common  parasites  and 
flatterers  !  But  hoAv  then  can  you  direct  him  impartially 
in  the  greatest  administrations  of  his  life  ?  how  be  free  with 
him  where  he  fails  in  any  duties  of  his  trust  or  marriage, 
or  neolects  the  offices  incumbent  on  him  as  a  member  of 
the  community  ?  I  must  confess,  I  cannot  by  any  means 
approve  of  the  reply  Pericles  made  to  a  friend  who  be- 
sought him  to  give  false  evidence,  and  that  too  upon  oath, 
when  he  thus  answered  :  As  far  as  the  altar  I  am  wholly 
at  your  service.  Methinks  he  Avent  too  far.  But  he  that 
has  long  before  accustomed  himself  not  to  commend  any 
thing  against  his  judgment,  or  applaud  an  ill  voice,  or 
seem  pleased  with  indecent  scurrilities,  will  never  suffer 
things  to  come  to  that  issue ;  nor  will  any  one  be  so  bold 


BASHFULNESS.  67 

as  to  solicit  him  in  this  manner:  Swear  on  my  side,  give 
false  evidence,  or  bring  in  an  unjust  verdict. 

7.  After  the  same  manner  we  may  learn  to  refuse  such 
as  come  to  borrow  considerable  sums  of  us,  if  we  have  used 
to  deny  in  little  matters  where  refusal  is  easy.  As  Arche- 
laus,  king  of  Macedon,  sat  at  supper,  one  of  his  retinue,  a 
fellow  who  thought  there  was  nothing  so  honest  as  to  re- 
ceive, begged  of  him  a  golden  cup.  But  the  king  com- 
manded a  waiter  to  give  it  immediately  to  Euripides  :  For 
you,  sir,  said  he,  are  fit  indeed  to  ask  any  thing,  but  to  re- 
ceive nothing  ;  and  he  deserves  to  receive,  thougli  he  lacks 
the  confidence  to  ask.  Thus  Avisely  did  he  make  his  judg- 
ment, and  not  bashful  timidity,  his  guide  in  bestowing  favors. 
Yet  we  oftentimes,  when  the  honesty,  nearness,  and  neces- 
sities of  our  friends  and  relations  are  not  motives  sufficient 
to  prevail  Avith  us  to  their  relief,  can  give  profusely  to  im- 
pudence and  importunity,  not  out  of  any  willingness  to 
bestow  our  money  so  ill,  but  merely  for  want  of  confidence 
and  resolution  to  deny.  This  was  the  case  of  Antigonus 
the  elder.  Being  wearied  out  with  the  importunity  of  Bias, 
Give,  said  he  to  his  servants,  one  talent  to  Bias  and  neces- 
sity. A^et  at  other  times  he  was  as  expert  at  encountering 
such  addresses  as  any  prince,  and  dismissed  them  with  as 
remarkable  answers.  Thus  a  certain  Cynic  one  day  beg- 
ging of  him  a  groat,  he  made  answer,  That  is  not  for  a 
prince  to  give.  And  the  poor  man  replying.  Then  bestow 
a  talent,  he  reparteed  briskly,  Nor  that  for  a  Cynic  (or,  for 
a  dog)  to  receiA^e.  Diogenes  went  about  begging  to  all  the 
statues  in  the  Ceramicus  ;  and  his  answer  to  some  that 
wondered  at  his  fancy  in  it  was,  he  was  practising  how  to 
beai  a  repulse.  But  indeed  it  chiefly  lies  upon  us  to  exer- 
cise ourselves  in  smaller  matters  to  refuse  an  unreasonal)k' 
request,  that  we  may  not  be  at  loss  how  to  refuse  on  occa- 
sions of  greater  magnitude.  For  no  one,  as  Demosthenes 
says,  who  has  spent  all  the  money  that  he  had  in  unneces- 


68  BASHFULNESS. 

sary  expenses,  will  have  plenty  of  money  that  he  has  not 
for  his  necessary  expenses.*  And  our  disgrace  is  increased 
many  fold,  if  Ave  want  what  is  necessary  or  decent,  and 
abound  in  trifles  and  fopperies. 

8,  Yet  bashfulness  is  not  only  a  bad  steward  of  our  es- 
tate, but  even  in  weightier  concerns  it  refuses  to  hearken  to 
the  wholesome  advice  of  right  reason.  Thus,  in  a  danger- 
ous fit  of  sickness,  we  send  not  to  the  ablest  physician,  for 
fear  of  giving  off'ence  to  another  of  our  acquaintance.  Or, 
in  taking  tutors  and  governors  for  our  children,  we  make 
choice  of  such  as  obtrude  themselves  upon  us,  not  such  as 
are  better  qualified  for  that  service.  Or,  in  our  laAvsuits, 
we  regard  not  to  obtain  counsel  learned  in  the  laAv,  be- 
cause we  must  gratify  the  son  of  some  friend  or  relation, 
and  give  him  an  opportunity  to  show  himself  in  the  Avorld. 
Nay,  lastly,  you  shall  find  some  that  bear  the  name  of 
philosophers,  λνΐιο  call  themselves  Epicureans  or  Stoics,  not 
out  of  choice,  or  upon  the  least  conviction,  but  merely 
to  oblige  their  friends  or  acquaintance,  who  have  taken 
advantage  of  their  modesty.  Since  then  the  case  is  so 
with  us,  we  ought  to  prepare  and  exercise  ourselves  in 
things  that  we  daily  meet  with  and  of  course,  not  so  much 
as  indulging  that  foolish  weakness  in  the  choice  of  a  bar- 
ber or  fuller,  or  in  lodging  in  a  paltry  inn  Avhen  better 
accommodation  is  to  be  had,  to  oblige  the  landlord  who  has 
cringed  to  us.  But  if  it  be  merely  to  break  ourselves  of 
such  follies,  in  those  cases  still  \ve  should  make  use  of  the 
best,  though  the  difference  be  but  inconsiderable  ;  as  the 
Pythagoreans  were  strict  in  observing  not  to  cross  their 
right  knee  with  the  left,  or  to  use  an  even  number  with  an 
odd,  though  all  things  else  were  indiiferent.  We  must  ob- 
serve also,  when  we  celebrate  a  sacrifice  or  keep  a  wedding 
or  make  a  public  entertainment,  to  deny  ourselves  so  far  as 
not  to  invite  any  that  have  been  extremely  complacent  to  us  or 

♦  Demosth.  Olynth.  III.  p.  33,  25.    §  19. 


BASHFULNESS.  69 

that  put  themselves  upon  us,  before  those  who  are  known  for 
their  good-humor  or  Avhose  conversation  is  like  to  prove 
beneficial.  For  he  that  has  accustomed  himself  thus  far 
will  hardly  be  caught  and  surprised,  nay,  rather  he  shall  not 
so  much  as  be  tempted,  in  greater  instances. 

9.  And  thus  much  mav  suffice  concernino•  exercisinir 
ourselves.  My  first  use  of  what  has  been  said  is  to  observe, 
that  all  passions  and  distempers  of  the  mind  are  still  ac- 
companied with  those  very  evils  which  by  their  means  we 
hoped  to  avoid.  Thus  disgrace  pursues  ambition ;  pain 
and  indisposition,  sensuality  ;  softness  and  effeminacy  are 
fretted  with  troubles  ;  contentiousness  with  disappointment 
and  defeats.  But  this  is  nowhere  more  conspicuous  than  in 
bashfulness,  which,  endeavoring  to  avoid  the  smoke  of  re- 
proach, throws  itself  into  the  fire.  Such  men,  wanting 
confidence  to  withstand  those  that  unreasonably  importune 
them,  afterwards  feel  shame  before  those  who  justly  accuse 
them,  and  for  fear  of  a  slight  private  rebuke  incur  more 
public  disgrace.  For  example,  not  having  the  heart  to 
deny  a  friend  that  comes  to  borrow,  in  short  time  they  are 
reduced  to  the  same  extremity  themselves,  and  exposed 
openly.  Some  again,  after  promising  to  help  friends  in 
a  lawsuit,  are  ashamed  to  face  the  opposite  party,  and  are 
forced  to  hide  their  heads  and  run  away.  Many  have  been 
so  unreasonably  %veak  in  this  particular  as  to  accept  of  dis- 
advantageous proposals  of  marriage  for  a  daughter  or  sister, 
and  upon  second  thoughts  have  been  forced  to  bring  them- 
selves off  with  an  arrant  lie. 

10.  One  made  this  observation  of  the  people  of  Asia, 
that  they  were  all  slaves  to  one  man,  merely  because  they 
could  not  pronounce  that  syllable  No  ;  but  he  spake  only  in 
raillery.  But  now  the  bashful  man,  though  he  be  notable 
to  say  one  word,  has  but  to  raise  his  brows  or  nod  down- 
ward, as  if  he  minded  not,  and  he  may  decline  many 
ungrateful  and  unreasonable  offices.     Euripides  was  wont 


70  BASHFULNESS. 

to  say,  Silence  is  an  answer  to  a  Avise  man ;  *  but  we  seem 
to  have  greater  occasion  for  it  in  our  dealings  with  fools 
and  unreasonable  persons,  for  men  of  breeding  and  sense 
will  be  satisfied  with  reason  and  fair  words.  Upon  this  ac- 
count we  should  be  always  provided  Avith  some  notable 
sayings  and  choice  apothegms  of  famous  and  excellent  men, 
to  repeat  to  the  bashful,  —  such  as  that  of  Phocion  to 
Antipater,  You  cannot  have  me  for  both  a  friend  and  a 
flatterer ;  and  that  of  his  to  the  Athenians,  when  they 
called  upon  him  to  come  in  for  his  share  to  defray  the  ex- 
penses of  a  festival ;  I  am  ashamed,  said  he.  pointing  to 
Callicles  his  creditor,  to  contribute  towards  your  follies,  with- 
out paying  this  man  his  due.  For,  as  Thucydides  says, 
It  is  an  ill  thing  to  be  ashamed  of  one's  poverty,  but  much 
Avorse  not  to  make  use  of  lawful  endeavors  to  avoid  it.f 
But  he  that  is  so  foolishly  good-natured  that  he  cannot  an- 
swer one  that  comes  to  borrow,  — 

My  friend,  no  silver  white  liave  I  in  all  my  caves, — 

but  gives  him  a  promise  to  be  better  provided,  — 

The  wretch  has  made  himself  a  slave  to  sliame, 
And  drags  a  tiresome,  though  an  unforged  chain.! 

Persaeus,  being  about  to  accommodate  a  friend  with  a  sum 
of  money,  paid  it  publicly  in  the  market,  and  made  the 
conditions  before  a  banker,  remembering,  it  may  be,  that 
of  Hesiod,  — 

Seem  not  thy  brother's  honesty  to  doubt ; 
Yet,  smiling,  call  a  witness  to  liis  hand.  Il 

But  when  his  friend  marvelled  and  asked,  How  now, 
so  formally  and  according  to  law"?  Yea,  quoth  he, 
because  I  would  receive  my  money  again  as  a  friend,  and 
not  have  to  trouble  the  laAV  to  recover  it.  For  many  out 
of  bashfulness,  not  taking,  care  to  have  good  security  at 

*  Eurip.  Frag.  967.     The  verse  is  found  also  in  Menander,  Monos.  222.  (G.) 
t  Thucyd.  II.  40.  J  Eurip.  Pirithous,  Frag.  598. 

U  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  371. 


BASHFULNESS.  71 

first,  have  been  forced    afterwards    to    break   with  their 
friends,  and  to  have  recourse  to  hiw  for  their  moncv. 

11.  Again,  Ph\to  writing  to  Dionysius,  by  llehcon  of 
Cyzicus,  gives  the  bearer  a  good  character  for  honesty  and 
moderation,  but  withal  in  the  postscript  tells  him,  Yet  this 
I  Avrite  of  a  man,  Avho,  as  such,  is  by  nature  an  animal 
subject  to  change.  Xenocrates,  though  a  man  of  rigid 
morals,  was  prevailed  upon  by  this  kind  of  modesty  to 
recommend  to  Polysperchon  a  person,  as  it  proved  in  the 
end,  not  so  honest  as  he  Avas  reputed.  For  Avhen 
the  Macedonian  in  compliment  bade  him  call  for  whatever 
he  wanted,  he  presently  desired  a  talent  of  silver.  Poly- 
sperchon ordered  it  accordingly  to  be  paid  him,  but  des- 
patched away  letters  immediately  to  Xenocrates,  advising 
him  for  the  future  to  be  better  acquainted  with  those  he 
recommended.  Now  all  this  came  to  pass  through  Xeno- 
crates's  ignorance  of  his  man ;  but  we  oftentimes  give 
testimonials  and  squander  away  our  money  to  advance 
such  as  we  are  very  Avell  satisfied  have  no  qualification  or 
desert  to  recommend  them,  and  this  too  Avith  the  forfeiture 
of  our  reputation,  and  without  the  pleasure  that  men  have 
who  are  profuse  upon  Avliores  and  flatterers,  but  all  the 
Avhile  in  an  agony,  and  struggling  with  that  impudence 
which  does  violence  to  our  reason.  Whereas,  if  at  any 
time,  that  verse  can  here  be  properly  used,  — 

I  know  tlie  dreadful  consequence,  and  fear,* 

Avhen  such  persons  are  at  a  man  to  forswear  himself,  or  to 
give  a  wrong  sentence,  or  to  vote  for  an  unjust  bill,  or  last- 
ly to  be  bound  for  one  that  will  never  be  able  to  pay  the 
debt'. 

12.  All  passions  of  the  mind  have  repentance  still  pur- 
suing them  closely,  but  it  overtakes  this  of  bashfulness  in 
the  very  act.     For  we  give  with  regret,  and  we  are  in  con- 

*  Eurip.  Medea,  1078. 


72  BASHFULNESS. 

fusion  while  we  bear  false  witness  ;  our  reputation  is 
questioned  when  we  engage  for  others,  and  when  we  fail 
we  are  condemned  by  all  men.  From  this  imperfection 
also  it  proceeds,  that  many  things  are  imposed  upon  us  not 
in  our  power  to  perform,  as  to  recommend  such  a  man  to 
court,  or  to  carry  up  an  address  to  the  governor,  because 
we  dare  not,  or  at  least  we  will  not,  confess  that  we  are 
unknown  to  the  prince  or  that  another  has  more  of  his  ear. 
Lysander,  on  the  other  hand,  when  he  was  in  disgrace  at 
court,  but  yet  for  his  great  services  was  thought  to  preserve 
something  of  his  former  esteem  with  Agesilaus,  made  no 
scruple  to  dismiss  suitors,  directing  them  .to  such  as  were 
more  powerful  with  the  king.  For  it  is  no  disgrace  not  to 
be  able  to  do  every  thing ;  but  to  undertake  or  pretend  to 
what  you  are  not  made  for  is  not  only  shameful,  but  ex- 
ti'emely  troublesome  and  vexatious. 

13.  But  to  proceed  to  another  head,  we  must  perform 
all  reasonable  and  good  offices  to  those  that  deserve  them, 
not  forced  thereto  by  fear  of  shame,  but  cheerfully  and 
readily.  But  where  any  thing  prejudicial  or  unhandsome 
is  required  of  us,  we  ought  to  remember  the  story  that  is 
related  of  Zeno.  Meeting  a  young  man  of  his  acquaint- 
ance that  slunk  away  under  a  wall,  as  if  he  Avould  not  be 
seen,  and  having  learned  from  him  that  he  withdrew  from  a 
friend  that  importuned  hiin  to  perjure  himself,  AVhat,  re- 
plied he,  you  novice !  is  that  fellow  not  afraid  or  ashamed 
to  require  of  thee  what  is  unreasonable  and  unjust,  and 
darest  thou  not  stand  against  him  in  that  which  is  just 
and  honest?  For  he  that  first  started  that  doctrine,  that 
'knavery  is  the  best  defence  against  a  knave,  was  but  an  ill 
teacher,  advising  us  to  keep  off  Λvickedness  by  imitating  it. 
But  for  such  as  presume  upon  our  modesty,  to  keep  them 
off  with  their  own  weapons,  and  not  gratify  their  unreason- 
able impudence  with  an  easy  compliance,  is  but  just  and 
good,  and  the  duty  of  every  wise  man. 


BASHFULNESS  73 

14.  Neither  is  it  a  hard  matter  to  put  oif  some  mean 
and  ordinary  people,  which  will  be  apt  to  prove  trouble- 
some to  you  in  that  nature.  Some  shift  them  off  with  a 
jest  or  a  smart  repartee  ;  as  Theocritus,  being  asked  in  the 
bath  to  lend  his  flesh-brush  by  two  persons,  whereof  one 
was  a  stranger  to  him,  and  the  other  a  notorious  thief, 
made  answer :  You,  sir,  I  know  not  well  enough,  and  you 
I  know  too  Avell.  And  Lysimache,  the  priestess  of  Minerva 
Polias  in  Athens,  when  the  muleteers  that  brought  the  pro- 
vision for  the  festival  desired  her  to  let  them  drink,  replied. 
No  ;  for  I  fear  it  may  grow  into  a  custom.  So  again,  when 
a  captain's  son,  a  young  fluttering  bully  but  a  great  coward, 
petitioned  Antigonus  for  promotion,  the  latter  answered : 
Sir,  it  is  my  way  to  reward  my  soldiers  for  theh  valor,  not 
their  parentage. 

15.  But  if  he  that  is  importunate  with  us  prove  a  man 
of  great  honor  or  interest  (and  such  persons  are  not  easily 
answered  with  excuses,  when  they  come  for  our  vote  in  the 
senate  or  judicial  cases),  at  such  a  time  perhaps  it  will  be 
neither  easy  nor  necessary  to  behave  ourselves  to  them  as 
C'ato  did  towards  Catulus.  Catulus,  a  person  of  the  highest 
rank  among  the  Romans,  and  at  that  time  censor,  once 
waited  on  Cato,  who  was  then  quaestor  and  still  a  young 
man,  on  behalf  of  a  friend  whom  Cato  had  fined  ;  and  when 
he  had  used  a  great  deal  of  importunity  to  no  purpose,  vet 
would  not  be  denied,  Cato  grew  out  of  patience,  and  told 
him,  It  Avould  be  an  unseemly  sight  to  have  the  censor 
dragged  hence  by  my  officers.  Catulus  at  this  went  away, 
out  of  countenance  and  very  angry.  But  consider  whether 
the  answers  of  Agesilaus  and  Themistocles  have  not  in  them 
much  more  of  candor  and  equity.  Agesilaus,  being  bidden 
by  his  own  father  to  give  sentence  contrary  to  law,  replied : 
I  have  been  always  taught  by  you  to  be  observant  of  the 
laws,  and  I  shall  endeavor  to  obey  you  at  this  time,  by 
domg  nothing  contrary  to  them.     And  Themistocles,  when 


74  BASHFULNESS. 

Sinionides  tempted  him  to  commit  a  piece  of  injustice,  said  : 
You  would  be  no  good  poet,  should  you  break  the  laws  of 
verse  ;  and  should  I  judge  against  the  law,  I  should  make 
no  better  magistrate. 

16.  For  it  is  not  because  of  blunders  in  metre  in 
lyric  songs,  as  Plato  observes,  that  cities  and  friends  are 
set  at  variance  to  their  utter  ruin  and  destruction,  but  be- 
cause of  their  blunders  with  regard  to  laAV  and  justice. 
Yet  there  are  a  sort  of  men  that  can  be  very  curious  and 
critical  in  their  verses  and  letters  and  lyric  measures,  and 
yet  would  persuade  others  to  neglect  that  justice  and  hon- 
esty which  all  men  ought  to  observe  in  offices,  in  passing 
judgments,  and  in  all  actions.  But  these  men  are  to  be 
dealt  with  after  the  following  manner.  An  orator  perhaps 
presses  you  to  show  him  favor  in  a  cause  to  be  heard  before 
you,  or  a  demagogue  importunes  you  when  you  are  a  sen- 
ator :  tell  him  you  are  ready  to  please  him,  on  condition 
that  he  make  a  solecism  in  the  beginning  of  his  oration,  or 
be  guilty  of  some  barbarous  expression  in  his  narration. 
These  terms,  for  shame,  he  will  not  accept ;  for  some  we 
see  so  superstitiously  accurate  as  not  to  allow  of  two  vow- 
els meeting  one  another.  Again,  you  are  moved  by  a  per- 
son of  quality  to  something  of  ill  reputation  :  bid  him  come 
over  the  market-place  at  full  noon  dancing,  or  making 
buffoon-like  grimaces  ;  if  he  refuse,  question  him  once 
more,  whether  he  think  it  a  more  heinous  offence  to  make 
a  solecism  or  a  grimace,  than  to  break  a  law  or  to  perjure 
one's  self,  or  to  show  more  favor  to  a  rascal  than  to  an 
honest  man.  Nicostratus  the  Argive,  \vhen  Archidamus 
promised  him  a  vast  sum  of  money  and  his  choice  of  the 
Spartan  ladies  in  marriage,  if  he  Avould  deliver  up  the  town 
Cromnum  into  his  hands,  returned  him  this  answer :  He 
could  no  longer  believe  him  descended  from  Hercules,  he 
said,  because  Hercules  traversed  the  world  to  destroy  wicked 
men,  but  Archidamus  made  it  his  business  to  debauch  those 


BASIIFULNESS.  75 

that  Avere  good.  In  like  manner,  if  one  that  stands  upon 
his  qiuiHty  or  reputation  presses  us  to  do  any  thing  dishon- 
orable, wo  must  tell  him  freely,  he  acts  not  as  becomes  a 
person  of  his  cliaracter  in  the  world. 

17.  But  if  it  be  a  man  of  no  quality  that  shall  importune 
you,  you  may  enquire  of  the  covetous  man,  whether  he 
would  lend  you  a  considerable  sum  without  any  other  secu- 
rity than  your  word  ;  desire  the  proud  man  to  give  you  the 
higher  seat ;  or  the  ambitious,  to  quit  his  ju-etensions  to 
some  honor  that  lies  fair  for  him.  For,  to  deal  plainly,  it 
is  a  shameful  thing  that  these  men  should  continue  so  stiff, 
so  resolute,  and  so  unmoved  in  their  vicious  habits,  while 
we,  Λνΐιο  ])rofess  ourselves  lovers  of  justice  and  honesty, 
have  too  little  command  of  ourselves  not  to  give  up  and 
betray  basely  the  cause  of  virtue.  If  they  that  would  prac- 
tise upon  our  modesty  do  this  out  of  desire  of  glory  or 
power,  Avhy  should  Ave  contract  disgrace  or  infamy  to  our- 
selves, to  advance  the  authority  or  set  off  the  reputation  of 
others  ?  —  like  those  who  bestow  the  reward  wrongfully  in 
public  games,  or  betray  their  trust  in  collecting  the  poll, 
Avho  confer  indeed  garlands  and  honors  upon  other  men, 
but  at  the  same  time  forfeit  their  own  reputation  and  good 
Avord.  But  suppose  it  be  matter  of  interest  only  that  puts 
them  upon  it ;  why  should  it  not  appear  an  unreasonable 
piece  of  service  for  us  to  forego  our  reputation  and  con- 
science to  no  other  purpose  than  to  satisfy  another  man's 
avarice  or  make  his  coffers  the  heavier  1  After  all,  these  I 
am  afraid  are  the  grand  motives  with  most  men  in  such 
cases,  and  they  are  even  conscious  that  they  are  guilty ;  as 
men  that  are  challenged  and  compelled  to  take  too  large  a 
glass  raise  an  hundred  scruples  and  make  as  many  grim- 
aces before  they  drink. 

18.  This  weakness  of  the  mind  may  be  compared  to  a 
constitution  of  body  that  can  endure  neither  heat  nor 
cold.      For   let   them    be  praised  by  those  that  thus  ini- 


76  BASHFULNESS. 

pudently  set  upon  them,  and  they  are  at  once  mollified 
and  broken  by  the  flattery ;  but  let  them  be  blamed  or  so 
much  as  suspected  by  the  same  men  after  their  suit  has 
been  refused,  and  they  are  ready  to  die  for  woe  and  fear. 
We  ought  therefore  to  prepare  and  fortify  ourselves  against 
both  extremes,  so  as  to  be  made  a  prey  neither  to  such  as 
pretend  to  frighten,  nor  to  such  as  would  cajole  us.  Thu- 
cydides  is  of  opinion,  since  there  is  a  necessary  connection 
between  envy  and. great  undertakings,  tliat  he  takes  the 
wisest  counsel  who  incurs  envy  by  aiming  the  highest  * 
But  we  who  esteem  it  less  difficult  to  avoid  the  envy  of  all 
men  than  to  escape  the  censure  of  those  we  live  among, 
ought  to  order  things  so  as  rather  to  grapple  with  the  un- 
just hatred  of  evil  men,  than  to  deserve  their  just  accusation 
after  we  have  served  tlieir  base  ends.  We  ought  to  go 
armed  against  that  false  and  counterfeit  praise  such  men 
are  apt  to  fling  upon  us,  not  suff"ering  ourselves  like  swine 
to  be  scratched  and  tickled  by  them,  till,  having  got  the  ad- 
vantage of  us,  they  use  us  after  their  own  pleasure.  For 
they  that  reach  out  their  ears  to  flatterers  diff"er  very  little 
from  such  as  stand  fair  and  quiet  to  be  trii)ped  up,  excepting 
that  the  former  catch  the  more  disgraceful  fall.  These  put 
up  with  the  afl'ronts  and  forbear  the  correction  of  wicked 
men,  to  get  the  reputation  of  good-natured  or  merciful  ;  or 
else  are  drawn  into  needless  and  perilous  quarrels  at  the 
instance  of  flatterers,  who  bear  them  in  hand  all  the  while 
for  the  only  men  of  judgment,  the  only  men  not  to  be 
caught  with  flattery,  and  call  them  the  only  men  who  have 
mouths  and  voices.  Bion  used  to  compare  these  men  to 
pitchers  :  Take  them,  said  he,  by  the  ears,  and  you  may 
move  them  as  you  please.  Thus  Alexinus,  the  sophist,  was 
reporting  many  scandalous  things  in  the  lyceum  of  Stilpo 
the  Megarian ;  but  when  one  present  informed  him  that 
Stilpo  always  spake   very   honorably   of  him,  AVhy  truly, 

*  Tlmcyd.  II.  64. 


BASHFULNESS.  77 

says  lie,  he  is  one  of  the  most  obliging  and  best  of  men. 
But  now  Menedemus,  >vhen  it  Avas  told  him  that  Alexinus 
often  praised  him,  replied  :  That  may  be,  but  I  always  talk 
against  him ;  for  he  must  be  bad  who  either  praises  a  bad 
man  or  is  blamed  by  an  honest  one.  So  wary  was  he  of 
being  caught  by  such  baits,  agreeably  to  that  precept 
of  Hercules  in  Antisthenes,*  who  cautioned  his  sons  not  to 
be  thankful  to  such  as  Avere  used  to  praise  them,  —  thereby 
meaning  no  more  than  that  they  should  be  so  far  from 
being  wheedled  thereby  as  not  even  to  return  their  flat- 
teries. That  of  Pindar  was  very  apposite,  and  enough  to 
be  said  in  such  a  case  :  Avhen  one  told  him,  I  cry  you  up 
among  all  men,  and  speak  to  your  adA^antage  on  all  occa- 
sions ;  and  I,  replied  he,  am  always  very  thankful,  in  that 
I  take  care  you  shall  not  tell  a  lie. 

19.  I  shall  conclude  Λvith  one  general  rule,  of  sovereign 
use  against  all  the  passions  and  diseases  of  the  mind,  but 
particularly  beneficial  to  such  as  labor  under  the  present 
distemper,  bashfulness.  And  it  is  this :  whenever  they 
have  given  way  to  this  weakness,  let  them  store  up  careful- 
ly such  failings  in  their  memory,  and  taking  therein  deep 
and  liΛ^ely  impressions  of  what  remorse  and  disquiet  they 
occasioned,  bestow  much  time  in  reflecting  upon  them  and 
keeping  them  fresh.  For  as  tra\*ellers  that  have  got  a 
dangerous  fall  against  such  a  stone,  or  sailors  shipwrecked 
upon  a  particular  promontory,  keeping  the  image  of  their 
misfortune  continually  before  them,  appear  fearful  and  ap- 
prehensive not  only  of  the  same  but  even  the  like  dangers  ; 
so  they  that  keep  in  mind  the  disgraceful  and  prejudicial 
effects  of  bashfulness  will  soon  be  enabled  to  restrain  them- 
selves in  like  cases,  and  will  not  easily  slip  again  on  any 
occasion. 

*  Antisthenes,  in  his  tenth  tome,  had  a  book  entitled  Hercules  or  De  Prudentia  or 
De  Robore  ('Ηρακλής  η  περί  Φρονησεως  η  ισχνός),  mentioned  by  Diogenes  Laertius  in 
his  life.     See  Diogenes  Laert.  VI.  1,  9. 


THAT   Λ^ΙΚΤϋΕ   MAY   BE   TAUGHT. 


1.  Men  deliberate  and  dispute  variously  concerning  vir- 
tue, Λvhether  prudence  and  justice  and  the  right  ordering 
of  one's  life  can  be  taught.  MoreoA^er,  we  marvel  that  the 
works  of  orators,  shipmasters,  musicians,  carpenters,  and 
husbandmen  are  infinite  in  number,  while  good  men  are 
only  a  name,  and  are  talked  of  like  centaurs,  giants,  and 
the  Cyclops,  and  that  as  for  any  virtuous  action  that  is  sin- 
cere and  unblamable,  and  manners  that  are  without  any 
touch  and  mixture  of  bad  passions  and  affections,  they  are 
not  to  be  found ;  but  if  Nature  of  its  own  accord  should 
produce  any  thing  good  and  excellent,  so  many  things  of 
a  foreign  nature  mix  with  it  (just  as  wild  and  impure  pro- 
ductions with  generous  fruit)  that  the  good  is  scarce  dis- 
cernible. Men  learn  to  sing,  dance,  and  read,  and  to  be 
skilful  in  husbandry  and  good  horsemanship  ;  they  learn 
how  to  put  on  their  shoes  and  tlieir  garments  ;  they  have 
those  that  teach  them  how  to  fill  wine,  and  to  dress  and 
cook  their  meat ;  and  none  of  these  things  can  be  done  as 
they  ought,  unless  they  be  instructed  how  to  do  them. 
And  will  ye  say,  Ο  foolish  men !  that  the  skill  of  ordering 
one's  life  well  (for  the  sake  of  which  are  all  the  rest)  is  not 
to  be  taught,  but  to  come  of  its  own  accord,  without  reason 
and  without  art  ? 

2.  Why  do  we,  by  asserting  that  virtue  is  not  to  be  taught, 
make  it  a  thing  that  does  not  at  all  exist  ?     For  if  by  its 


ΤΠΛΤ   VIRTUE   MAY   BE   TAUGHT.  79 

being  learned  it  is  produced,  he  that  hinders  its  being  learned 
destroys  it.  And  now,  as  Plato  *  says,  we  never  heard  that 
because  of  a  blunder  in  metre  in  a  lyric  song,  therefore 
one  brother  made  war  against  another,  nor  that  it  put  friends 
at  variance,  nor  that  cities  hereupon  were  at  such  enmity 
tliat  they  did  to  one  another  and  suffered  one  from  another 
the  extremest  injuries.  Nor  can  any  one  tell  us  of  a  sedi- 
tion raised  in  a  city  about  the  right  accenting  or  pronoun- 
cing of  a  word,  —  as  whether  we  are  to  say  Tulyha^  or 
Τίλχινας,  —  nor  that  a  difference  arose  in  a  family  betwixt 
man  and  wife  about  the  woof  and  the  warp  in  cloth.  Yet 
none  will  go  about  to  weave  in  a  loom  or  to  handle  a  book 
or  a  harp,  unless  he  has  first  been  taught,  though  no  great 
harm  would  follow  if  he  did,  but  onlv  the  fear  of  makinir 
himself  ridiculous  (for,  as  Heraclitus  says,  it  is  a  piece  of 
discretion  to  conceal  one's  ignorance)  ;  and  yet  a  man  with- 
out instruction  presumes  himself  able  to  order  a  family,  a 
wife,  or  a  commonwealth,  and  to  govern  very  well.  Dio- 
genes, seeing  a  youth  devouring  his  victuals  too  greedily, 
gave  his  tutor  a  box  on  the  ear,  and  that  deservedly,  as 
judging  it  the  fault  of  him  that  had  not  taught,  not  of  him 
that  had  not  learned  better  manners.  And  what  I  is  it  neces- 
sary to  begin  to  learn  from  a  boy  how  to  eat  and  drink  hand- 
somely in  company,  as  Aristophanes  expresses  it,  — 

Not  to  devour  their  meat  in  haste,  nor  giggle, 
Nor  awliwardly  their  ieot  across  to  \vriggle,t 

and  yet  are  men  fit  to  enter  into  tlie  fellowship  of  a  fiimily, 
city,  married  estate,  private  conversation,  or  public  ofRce, 
and  to  manage  it  without  blame,  without  any  previous  in- 
struction concerning  good  behavior  in  conversation  ? 

When  one  asked  Aristippus  this  question.  What,  are  you 
eΛΈrywhere  ?  he  laughed  and  said,  I  throw  away  the  fare 
of  the  waterman,  if  I  am  everywhere.  And  why  canst  not 
thou  also  answer,  that  the  salary  given  to  tutors  is  thrown 

•  Plato,  Clitophon,  p.  407  C.  t  Aristopli.  Nub.  983. 


80  THAT   VIRTUE   MAY  BE   TAUGHT. 

away  and  lost,  if  none  are  the  better  for  their  discipline 
and  instruction.  But,  as  nurses  shape  and  form  the  body 
of  a  child  with  their  hands,  so  these  masters,  when  the  nurses 
have  done  with  them,  first  receive  them  into  their  charge, 
in  order  to  the  forming  of  their  manners  and  directing  their 
steps  into  the  first  tracks  of  virtue.  To  which  purpose  the 
Lacedaemonian,  that  was  asked  what  good  he  did  to  the 
child  of  Avhom  he  had  the  charge,  answered  well :  I  make 
good  and  honest  things  pleasant  to  children.  These 
masters  also  teach  them  to  bend  down  their  heads  as  they 
go  along,  to  touch  salt  fish  with  one  finger  only,  but  fresh 
fish,  bread,  and  flesh  with  two  ;  thus  to  scratch  themselves, 
and  thus  to  tuck  up  their  garments. 

3.  Now  he  that  says  that  the  art  of  physic  may  be 
proper  for  a  tetter  or  a  whitlow,  but  not  to  be  made  use  of 
for  a  pleurisy,  a  fever,  or  a  frenzy,  in  what  does  he  differ 
from  him  that  should  say  that  it  is  fit  there  sliould  be  schools, 
and  discourses,  and  precepts,  to  teach  trifling  and  childish 
things,  but  that  all  skill  in  greater  and  more  manly  things 
comes  from  use  without  art  and  from  accidental  opportu- 
nity ?  For  as  he  would  be  ridiculous  who  should  say,  that 
one  who  never  learned  to  row  ought  not  to  lay  hand  on  the 
oar,  but  that  he  might  guide  the  helm  who  was  never  taught 
it ;  so  is  he  that  gives  leave  for  men  to  be  instructed  in  other 
arts,  but  not  in  virtue.  He  seems  to  be  quite  contrary  to 
the  practice  of  the  Scythians,  Avho,  as  Herodotus  *  tells  us, 
put  out  their  servants'  eyes,  to  prevent  them  from  running 
away ;  but  he  puts  the  eye  of  reason  into  these  base  and 
slavish  arts,  and  plucks  it  from  virtue.  But  the  general 
Iphicrates  —  when  Callias,  the  son  of  Chabrias,  asked  him, 
What  art  thou?  Art  thou  an  archer  or  a  targeteer,  a 
trooper  or  a  foot-soldier  ?  —  answered  well,  I  am  none  of 
all  these,  but  one  that  commands  them  all.  He  therefore 
would  be  ridiculous  that  should  say  that  the  skill  of  draw- 

*  See  Herod.  IV.  2. 


THAT    VIRTUE    MAY   BE   TAUGHT.  81 

ing  a  bow,  of  handling  arms,  of  throwing  with  a  shng, 
and  of  good  horsemanship,  might  indeed  be  tanght,  but  the 
skill  of  commanding  and  leading  an  army  came  as  it  hap- 
pened, one  knew  not  how.  And  would  not  he  be  still 
more  ridiculous  who  should  say  that  prudence  only  could 
not  be  taught,  without  Avhicli  all  those  arts  are  useless  and 
unprofitable?  When  she  is  the  governess,  ranking  all 
things  in  due  place  and  order,  every  thing  is  assigned  to  be- 
come useful ;  for  instance,  how  uni^raceful  would  a  feast 
be,  though  all  concerned  were  skilful  and  enough  practised 
in  cookery,  in  dressing  and  serving  up  the  meat,  and  in  fill- 
ing the  wine  as  they  ought,  if  all  things  were  not  well 
disposed  and  ordered  among  those  that  waited  at  the 
table  ?  .  .  . 


THE  ACCOUNT   OF   THE  LAAVS  AND   CUSTOMS 
OF   THE  LACEDAEMONIANS* 


1 .  It  was  a  singular  instance  of  the  Λvisdom  of  this  nation, 
in  that  they  took  the  greatest  care  they  could,  by  an  early 
sober  education,  to  instil  into  their  youth  the  principles  of 
virtue  and  good  manners,  that  so,  by  a  constant  succession 
of  prudent  and  valiant  men,  they  might  the  better  provide 
for  the  honor  and  security  of  their  state,  and  lay  in  the  minds 
of  every  one  a  solid  and  good  foundation  of  love  and  friend- 
ship, of  prudence  and  knowledge,  of  temperance  and  fru- 
gality, of  courage  and  resolution.  And  therefore  their  great 
lawgiver  thought  it  necessary  for  the  ends  of  government  to 
institute  several  distinct  societies  and  conventions  of  the 
people  ;  amongst  which  was  tliat  of  their  solemn  and 
public  living  together  at  one  table,  \vhere  their  custom 
was  to  admit  their  youth  into  the  conversation  of  their 
wise  and  elderly  men,  that  so  by  daily  eating  and  drinking 
with  them  they  might  insensibly,  as  it  were,  be  trained  up 
to  a  right  knowledge  of  themselves,  to  a  just  submission  to 
their  superiors,  and  to  the  learning  of  whatever  might  con- 
duce to  the  reputation  of  their  laws  and  the  interest  of 
their  country.  For  here  they  were  taught  all  the  whole- 
some rules  of  discipline,  and  daily  instructed  how  to  de- 

*  Tliis  is  not  a  translation,  but  rather  an  essay  by  Mr.  Pulleyn  based  upon  the 
text  of  Plutarcli's  brief  notes  on  the  customs  of  the  Lacedaemonians.  It  is  tlierefore 
reprinted  witliout  essential  changes.  The  sections  of  the  original  are  marked  when- 
ever this  is  possible.     (G.) 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.  83 

mean  themselves  from  the  example  and  practice  of  their 
great  ones  ;  and  though  they  did  not  at  this  public  meeting 
confine  themselves  to  set  and  grave  discourses  concerning 
the  civil  government,  but  allowed  themselves  a  larger  free- 
dom, by  mingling  sometimes  with  their  politics  the  easy 
and  familiar  entertainments  of  mirth  and  satire,  yet  this 
was  ever  done  Avith  the  greatest  modesty  and  discretion, 
not  so  much  to  expose  the  person  of  any  one,  as  to  reprove 
the  fault  he  had  committed.  Whatever  was  transacted  at 
these  stated  and  common  feasts  was  to  be  locked  up  in 
every  one's  breast  with  the  greatest  silence  and  secrecy, 
insomuch  as  the  eldest  among  them  at  these  assemblies, 
pointing  to  the  door,  acquainted  him  Avho  entered  the  room 
that  nothing  of  what  was  done  or  spoken  there  was  to  be 
talked  of  afterwards. 

2.  At  all  these  public  meetings  they  used  a  great  deal 
of  moderation,  they  being  designed  only  for  schools  of  tem- 
perance and  modesty,  not  for  luxury  and  indecency  ;  their 
chief  dish  and  only  delicacy  being  a  sort  of  pottage  (called 
by  them  their  black  broth,  and  made  of  some  little  pieces 
of  flesh,  with  a  small  quantity  of  blood,  salt,  and  vinegar), 
and  this  the  more  ancient  among  them  generally  preferred 
to  any  sort  of  meat  Avhatsoever,  as  the  more  pleasing  en- 
tertainment and  of  a  more  substantial  nourishment.  The 
younger  sort  contented  themselves  with  flesh  and  other 
ordinary  provisions,  without  tasting  of  this  dish,  which  was 
reserved  only  for  the  old  men.  It  is  reported  of  Dionysius, 
the  Sicilian  tyrant,  that  having  heard  of  the  great  fame  and 
commendation  of  this  broth,  he  hired  a  certain  cook  of 
Lacedaemon,  who  was  thoroughly  skilled  in  the  make  and 
composition  of  it,  to  furnish  his  table  every  day  with  so 
great  and  curious  a  dainty ;  and  that  he  might  have  it  in 
the  greatest  perfection,  enjoined  him  to  spare  no  cost  in  the 
making  it  agreeable  and  pleasant  to  his  palate.  But  it 
seems  the  end  answered  not  the  pains  he  took  in  it ;  for 


84  THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  LAWS  AND 

after  all  his  care  and  niceness,  the  king,  as  soon  as  he  had 
tasted  of  it,  found  it  both  fulsome  and  nauseous  to  his 
stomach,  and  spitting  it  out  with  great  distaste,  as  if  he 
had  taken  down  a  vomit,  sufficiently  expressed  his  disap- 
probation of  it.  But  the  cook,  not  discouraged  at  this  dis- 
like of  his  master,  told  the  tyrant  that  he  humbly  conceived 
the  reason  of  this  disagreeableness  to  him  was  not  in  the 
pottage,  but  rather  in  himself,  who  had  not  prepared  his 
body  for  such  food  according  to  the  Laconic  mode  and 
custom.  For  hard  labors  and  long  exercises  and  moderate 
abstinence  (the  best  preparatives  to  a  good  and  healthy  ap- 
petite) and  frequent  bathings  in  the  river  Eurotas  were  the 
only  necessaries  for  a  right  relish  and  understanding  of 
the  excellency  of  this  entertainment. 

3.  'Tis  true,  their  constant  diet  was  very  mean  and 
sparing  ;  not  what  might  pamper  their  bodies  or  make  their 
minds  soft  and  delicate,  but  such  only  as  would  barely  serve 
to  supply  the  common  necessities  of  nature.  This  they 
accustomed  themselves  to,  that  so  they  might  become  sober 
and  governable,  active  and  bold  in  the  defence  of  their 
country ;  they  accounting  only  such  men  serviceable  to  the 
state,  who  could  best  endure  the  extremes  of  hunger  and 
cold,  and  Avith  cheerfulness  and  vigor  run  through  the 
fatigues  of  labor  and  the  difficulties  of  hardship.  Those 
who  could  fast  longest  after  a  slender  meal,  and  Avith  the 
least  provision  satisfy  their  appetites,  were  esteemed  the 
most  frugal  and  temperate,  and  most  sprightly  and  healthful, 
the  most  comely  and  well  proportioned ;  nature,  through 
such  a  temperance  and  moderation  of  diet,  not  suffering 
the  constitution  to  run  out  into  an  unwieldy  bulk  or  great- 
ness of  body  (the  usual  consequence  of  full  tables  and  too 
much  ease),  but  rather  rendering  it  thereby  nervous  and 
sinewy,  of  a  just  and  equal  growth,  and  consolidating  and 
knitting  together  all  the  several  parts  and  members  of  it. 
A  very  little  drink  did  serve  their  turn,  who  never  drank 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.  85 

but  when  an  extreme  thirst  provoked  them  to  it ;  for  at 
all  their  common  entertainments  they  studied  the  greatest 
measures  of  sobriety,  and  took  care  they  should  be  de- 
prived of  all  kinds  of  compotations  whatsoever.  And  at 
night  wdien  they  returned  home,  they  went  cheerfully  to 
their  sleep,  without  the  assistance  of  any  light  to  direct 
them  to  their  lodging  ;  that  being  prohibited  them  as  an 
indecent  thing,  the  better  to  accustom  them  to  travel  in 
the  dark,  without  any  sense  of  fear  or  apprehensions  of 
danger. 

4.  They  never  applied  their  minds  to  any  kind  of  learn- 
ing, furtlier  than  Avhat  was  necessary  for  use  and  service  ; 
nature  indeed  liaA'ing  made  them  more  fit  for  the  purposes 
of  Avar  than  for  the  improvements  of  knowledge.      And 
therefore  for  speculative  sciences  and  philosophic  studies, 
they  looked  upon  them  as  foreign  to  their  business   and 
unserviceable  to  their   ends  of  living,  and  for  this  reason 
they  Avould  not  tolerate  them  amongst  them,  nor  suffer  the 
professors  of  them  to  live  within  their  government.     They 
banished  them  their  cities,  as  they  did  all  sorts  of  strangers, 
esteeming  them  as  things  that  did  debase   the  true  worth 
and  excellency  of  vii'tue,  which  they  made  to  consist  only 
in  manly  actions  and  generous  exercises,  and  not  in  vain 
disputations    and   empty  notions.     So    that  the  whole  of 
what  then'  youth  was  instructed  in  was  to  learn  obedience 
to  the  laws  and  injunctions  of  their  governors,  to  endure 
with  patience  the  greatest  labors,  and  where  they  could  not 
conquer,  to  die  valiantly  in  the  field     For  this  reason  like- 
wise it  was,  that  all  mechanic  arts  and  trades,  all  vain  and 
insignificant  employments,  such  as  regarded  only  curiosity 
or  pleasure,  Avere  strictly  prohibited  them,  as  things   that 
Avould  make  them  degenerate  into  idleness  ^nd  covetous- 
ness,  would  render  them  vain  and  effeminate,  useless  to 
themselves,  and   unserviceable  to  the  state  ;    and  on   this 
account  it  was  that  they  would  never  suffer  any  scenes  or 


86  THE  ACCOUNT   OF   THE   LAWS   AND 

interludes,  whether  of  comedy  or  tragedy,  to  be  set  up 
among  them,  lest  there  should  be  any  encouragement  given 
to  speak  or  act  any  thing  that  might  savor  of  contempt  or 
contumely  against  their  laws  and  government,  it  being 
customary  for  the  stage  to  assume  an  indecent  liberty  of 
taxing  the  one  with  faults  and  the  other  with  imperfec- 
tions. 

5.  As  to  their  apparel,  they  were  as  thinly  clad  as  they 
were  dieted,  never  exceeding  one  garment,  which  they 
wore  for  the  space  of  a  whole  year.  And  this  tliey  did, 
the  better  to  inure  them  to  hardship  and  to  bear  up  against 
all  the  injuries  of  the  weather,  that  so  the  extremities  of 
heat  and  cold  should  have  no  influence  at  all  upon  their 
constitution.  They  were  as  regardless  of  their  selves  as 
they  were  negligent  of  their  clothes,  denying  themselves 
(unless  it  were  at  some  stated  time  of  the  year)  the 
use  of  ointments  and  bathings  to  keep  them  clean  and 
sweet,  as  too  expensive  and  signs  of  a  too  soft  and  delicate 
temper  of  body. 

6.  Their  youth,  as  they  were  instructed  and  ate  in  pub- 
lic together,  so  at  night  slept  in  distinct  companies  in  one 
common  ciiamber,  and  on  no  other  beds  than  what  were 
made  of  reeds,  which  they  had  gathered  out  of  the  river 
Eurotas,  near  the  banks  of  which  they  grew.  This  was 
the  only  accommodation  they  had  in  the  summer,  but  in 
winter  they  mingled  with  the  reeds  a  certain  soft  and 
downy  thistle,  having  much  more  of  heat  and  Λvarmth 
in  it  than  the  other. 

7.  It  was  freely  allowed  them  to  place  an  ardent  af- 
fection upon  those  whose  excellent  endowments  recom- 
mended them  to  the  love  and  consideration  of  any  one  ; 
but  then  this  was  always  done  with  the  greatest  innocency 
and  modesty,  and  every  way  becoming  the  strictest  rules 
and  measures  of  virtue,  it  being  accounted  a  base  and  dis- 
honorable passion  in  any  one  to  love  the  body  and  not  the 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.         87 

mind,  as  those  did  who  in  their  yonng  men  preferred  the 
beauty  of  the  one  before  the  excellency  of  the  other. 
Chaste  thoughts  and  modest  discourses  were  the  usual 
entertainments  of  their  loves ;  and  if  any  one  was  accused 
at  any  time  either  of  wanton  actions  or  impure  discourse, 
it  was  esteemed  bv  all  so  infamous  a  thmg;,  that  the  stains 
it  left  upon  his  reputation  could  never  be  wiped  out  during 
his  whole  life. 

8.  So  strict  and  severe  was  the  education  of  their  youth, 
that  whenever  they  were  met  with  in  the  streets  by  your 
grave  and  elderly  persons,  they  underwent  a  close  exami- 
nation ;  it  being  their  custom  to  enquire  of  them  upon 
what  business  and  whither  they  were  going•,  and  if  they 
did  not  give  them  a  direct  and  true  answer  to  the  question 
demanded  of  them,  but  shamed  them  with  some  idle  story 
or  false  pretence,  they  never  escaped  without  a  rigorous 
censure  and  sharp  correction.  And  this  they  did  to  pre- 
vent their  youth  from  stealing  abroad  upon  any  idle  or  bad 
design,  that  so,  through  the  uneasy  fears  of  meeting  these 
grave  examiners,  and  the  impossibility  of  escaping  punish- 
ment upon  their  false  account  and  representations  of  things, 
they  might  be  kept  within  due  compass,  and  do  nothing 
that  might  entrench  upon  truth  or  offend  against  the  rules 
of  virtue.  Nor  was  it  expected  only  from  their  superiors 
to  censure  and  admonish  them  upon  any  miscarriage  or 
indecency  whatsoever,  but  it  was  strictly  required  of  them 
under  a  severe  penalty  ;  for  he  who  did  not  reprove  a  fault 
that  was  committed  in  his  presence,  and  showed  not  his 
just  resentments  of  it  by  a  verbal  correction,  was  adjudged 
equally  culpable  with  the  guilty,  and  obnoxious  to  the  same 
punishment.  For  they  could  not  imagine  that  person  had 
a  serious  regard  for  the  honor  of  their  laws  and  the  repu- 
tation of  their  government,  who  could  carelessly  pass  by 
any  immorality  and  patiently  see  the  least  corruption  of 
good  manners  in  their  youth ;  by  which  means  they  took 


88  THE  ACCOUNT   OF   THE   LAWS   AND 

away  all  occasions  of  fondness,  partiality,  and  indulgence 
in  «the  aged,  and  all  presumption,  irreverence,  and  disobedi- 
ence, and  especially  all  impatiency  of  reproof,  in  the 
younger  sort.  For  not  to  endure  the  reprehension  of  their 
superiors  in  such  cases  was  highly  disgraceful  to  them,  and 
ever  interpreted  as  an  open  renunciation  of  their  authority, 
and  a  downright  opposing  of  the  justice  of  their  proceed- 
ings. 

9.  Besides,  when  any  Avas  surprised  in  the  commission 
of  some  notorious  offence,  he  was  presently  sentenced  to 
walk  round  a  certain  altar  in  the  city,  and  publicly  to  shame 
himself  by  singing  an  ingenious  satire,  composed  by  him- 
self, upon  the  crime  and  folly  he  had  been  guilty  of,  that 
so  the  punishment  might  be  inflicted  by  the  same  hand 
which  had  contracted  the  guilt. 

10.  Their  children  weie  brought  up  in  a  strict  obedience 
to  their  parents,  and  taught  from  their  infancy  to  pay  a 
profound  reverence  to  all  their  dictates  and  commands. 
And  no  less  were  they  enjoined  to  show  an  awful  regard 
and  observance  to  all  their  superiors  in  age  and  authority, 
so  as  to  rise  up  before  the  hoary  head,  and  to  honor  the 
face  of  the  old  man,  to  give  him  the  way  when  they  met 
him  in  the  streets,  and  to  stand  still  and  remain  silent  till 
he  Λvas  passed  by ;  insomuch  as  it  was  indulged  them,  as  a 
peculiar  privilege  due  to  their  age  and  wisdom,  not  only  to 
have  a  paternal  authority  over  their  own  children,  servants, 
and  estates,  but  over  their  neighbors  too,  as  if  they  were  a 
part  of  their  own  family  and  propriety  ;  that  so  in  general 
there  might  be  a  mutual  care,  and  an  united  interest,  zeal- 
ously carried  on  betwixt  them  for  the  private  good  of  every 
one  in  particular,  as  well  as  for  the  public  good  of  the  com- 
munities they  lived  in.  By  this  means  they  never  wanted 
faithful  counsellors  to  assist  \vith  good  advice  in  all  their 
concerns,  nor  hearty  friends  to  prosecute  each  other's  inter- 
est as  it  were  their  own ;  by  this  means  they  never  wanted 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.  89 

careful  tutors  and  guardians  for  their  youth,  who  were 
always  at  hand  to  admonish  and  instruct  them  in  the  solid 
principles  of  virtue. 

11.  Xo  one  durst  show  himself  refractory  to  their  in- 
structions, nor  at  the  least  murmur  at  their  reprehensions  ; 
insomuch  that,  whenever  any  of  their  youth  had  been  piui- 
ished  by  them  for  some  ill  that  had  been  done,  and  a  com- 
plaint thereupon  made  by  them  to  their  parents  of  the 
severity  they  had  suifered,  hoping  for  some  little  relief  from 
their  indulgence  and  affection,  it  was  accounted  highly  dis- 
honorable ixi  them  not  to  add  to  their  punishment  by  a  fresh 
correction  for  the  folly  and  injustice  of  their  complaint. 
For  by  the  common  interest  of  discipline,  and  that  great 
care  that  every  one  Λvas  obliged  to  take  in  the  education  of 
thek  youth,  they  had  a  firm  trust  and  assurance  in  one 
another,  that  they  never  would  enjoin  their  children  the 
])erformance  of  any  thing  that  was  in  the  least  unnecessary 
or  unbecoming  them. 

12.  Though  it  might  seem  very  strange  and  unaccount- 
able in  this  wise  nation,  that  any  thing  which  had  the  least 
semblance  of  baseness  or  dishonesty  should  be  universally 
approved,  commended,  and  encouraged  by  their  laws,  yet 
so  it  Avas  in  the  case  of  theft,  whereby  their  young  children 
were  alloAved  to  steal  certain  things,  as  particularly  the 
fruit  of  their  orchards  or  their  messes  at  their  feasts.  But 
then  this  was  not  done  to  encourage  them  to  the  desires  of 
avarice  and  injustice,  but  to  sharpen  their  wits,  and  to 
make  them  crafty  and  subtle,  and  to  train  them  up  in  all 
sorts  of  Λviles  and  cunning,  watchfulness  aiid  circumspec- 
tion, Avhereby  they  were  rendered  more  apt  to  serve  them 
in  their  wars,  which  Avas  upon  the  matter  the  whole  pro- 
fession of  this  commonwealth.  And  if  at  any  time  they 
were  taken  in  the  act  of  stealing,  they  were  most  certainly 
punished  with  rods  and  the  penance  of  fasting ;  not  be- 
cause they  esteemed  the  stealth  criminal,  but  because  they 


90  THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  LAWS  AND 

wanted  skill  and  cunning  in  the  management  and  conceal- 
ing of  it.* 

14.  They  spent  a  great  part  of  their  studies  in  poetry 
and  music,  which  raised  their  minds  above  the  ordinary 
level,  and  by  a  kind  of  artificial  enthusiasm  inspired  them 
with  generous  heats  and  resolutions  for  action.  Their 
compositions,  consisting  only  of  very  grave  and  moral  sub- 
jects, were  easy  and  natural,  in  a  plain  dress,  and  without 
any  paint  or  ornament,  containing  nothing  else  but  the  just 
commendations  of  those  great  personages  whose  singular 
wisdom  and  virtue  had  made  their  lives  famous  and  exem- 
plary, and  whose  courage  in  defence  of  their  country  had 
made  their  deaths  honorable  and  happy.  Nor  Avere  the 
valiant  and  virtuous  only  the  subject  of  these  songs  ;  but 
the  better  to  make  men  sensible  of  what  rewards  and  hon- 
ors are  due  to  the  memory  of  such,  they  made  invectives 
in  them  upon  those  who  were  signally  vicious  and  cowards, 
as  men  who  died  with  as  much  contempt  as  they  had  lived 
with  infamy.  They  generally  concluded  their  poem  Avith  a 
solemn  profession  of  what  they  would  be,  boasting  of  their 
progress  in  virtue,  agreeable  to  the  abilities  of  their  nature 
and  the  expectations  of  their  age. 

15.  At  all  their  public  festivals  these  songs  were  a  great 
part  of  their  entertainment,  where  there  were  three  com- 
panies of  singers,  representing  the  three  several  ages  of 
nature.  The  old  men  made  up  the  first  chorus,  whose 
business  was  to  present  what  they  had  been  after  this 
manner :  — 

Tliat  active  courage  youthful  blood  contains 
Did  once  with  equal  vigor  warm  our  veins. 

To  which  the  chorus,  consisting  of  young  men  only,  thus 
answers :  — 

Valiant  and  bold  we  are,  let  who  will  try : 
Who  dare  accept  our  challenge  soon  shall  die. 

•  §  13  of  the  original  is  included  in  the  paraphrase  with  §  3.     (Q.) 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.  91 

The  third,  Avhich  λυθιό  of  young  children,  replied  to  them 
in  this  manner  :  — 

Those  seeds  which  Nature  in  our  breast  did  sow 
Shall  soon  to  generous  fruits  of  virtue  grow  ; 
Then  all  those  valiant  deeds  which  you  relate 
We  will  excel,  and  scorn  to  imitate.* 

16.  They  made  use  of  a  peculiar  measure  in  their  songs, 
when  their  armies  were  in  their  march  towards  an  enemy, 
which  being  sung  in  a  full  choir  to  their  flutes  seemed 
proper  to  excite  in  them  a  generous  courage  and  contempt 
of  death.  Lycurgus  was  the  first  who  brought  this  war- 
like music  into  the  field,  that  so  he  might  moderate  and 
soften  tlie  rage  and  fury  of  their  minds  in  an  engagement 
by  solemn  musical  measures,  and  that  their  valor  (which 
should  be  no  boisterous  and  unruly  thing)  might  always  be 
under  the  government  of  their  reason,  and  not  of  passion. 
To  this  end  it  was  always  their  custom  before  the  fight  to 
sacrifice  to  the  Muses,  that  they  might  behave  themselves. 
Λvith  as  much  good  conduct  as  with  courage,  and  do  such 
actions  as  were  worthy  of  memory,  and  which  might  chal- 
lenge the  applauses  and  commendations  of  every  one. 

17.  And  indeed  so  great  an  esteem  and  veneration  had 
they  for  the  gravity  and  simplicity  of  their  ancient  music, 
that  no  one  was  allowed  to  recede  in  the  least  from  the 
established  rules  and  measures  of  it,  insomuch  as  the 
Ephori,  upon  complaint  made  to  them,  laid  a  severe 
mulct  upon  Terpander  (a  musician  of  great  note  and 
eminency  for  his  incomparable  skill  and  excellency  in 
playing  upon  the  harp,  and  who,  as  he  had  ever  pro- 
fessed a  great  veneration  for  antiquity,  so  ever  testified 
by  his  eulogiums  and  commendations  the  esteem  he  ahvays 
had  of  virtuous  and  heroic  actions),  depriving  him  of  his 
harp,  and  (as  a  peculiar  punishment)  exposing  it  to  the  cen- 

*  Tiie  three  songs  were — Ά  μις  ποτ'  ημες  ίλκιμοι  νεανίαι,  We  once  were  valiant 
youth ;  Άμες  δι-  y'  επμίν  ai  δε  ?ής,  ανγύσδεο,  And  we  are  now:  If  you  will,  behold  us , 
Άμες  δε  y'  έσσόμεαΟα  πολλω  κύρρονες,  And  we  will  soon  be  far  more  valiant.     (G.) 


92  THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  LAWS  AND 

sure  of  the  people,  by  fixing  it  upon  a  nail,  because  he  had 
added  one  string  more  to  his  instrument  than  was  the  usual 
and  stated  number,  though  done  with  no  other  design  and 
advantage  than  to  vary  the  sound,  and  to  make  it  more 
useful  and  pleasant.  That  music  Avas  ever  accounted  among 
them  the  best,  which  Avas  most  grave,  simple,  and  natural. 
And  for  this  reason  too,  when  Timotheus  in  their  Carnean 
feasts,  Avhich  Avere  instituted  in  honor  of  Apollo,  contended 
for  a  preference  in  his  art,  one  of  the  Ephori  took  a  knife 
in  his  hand,  and  cut  the  strings  of  his  harp,  for  having  ex- 
ceeded the  number  of  seven  in  it.  So  severely  tenacious 
were  they  of  their  ancient  customs  and  practices,  that  they 
would  not  suifer  the  least  innovation,  though  in  things  that 
were  indifferent  and  of  no  great  importance,  lest  an  indul- 
gence in  one  thing  might  have  introduced  another,  till  at 
length  by  gradual  and  insensible  alterations  the  whole  body 
of  their  laws  might  be  disregarded  and  contemned,  and  so 
the  main  pillar  which  did  support  the  fabric  of  their  gov- 
ernment be  weakened  and  undermined. 

18.  Lycurgus  took  away  that  superstition,  which  for- 
merly indeed  had  been  the  practice  among  them,  concerning 
their  sepulchre  and  funeral  solemnities,  by  permitting  them 
to  bury  the  remains  of  their  departed  friends  within  the 
city,  that  so  they  might  the  better  secure  them  from  the 
rude  and  barbarous  violence  of  an  enemy,  and  to  erect 
their  monuments  for  them  in  separated  places  joining  to 
their  temples  ;  that,  having  their  graves  and  tombs  always 
before  their  eyes,  they  might  not  only  remember  but  imi- 
tate the  worthy  actions  they  had  done,  and  so  lessen  the 
fears  and  apprehensions  of  death  with  the  consideration  of 
those  honors  they  paid  their  memories  when  they  put  off 
theiy  mortalities.  He  took  away  those  pollutions  which 
they  formerly  looked  upon  as  arising  from  their  dead  bodies, 
and  prohibited  all  costly  and  sumptuous  expenses  at  their 
funerals,  it  being  very  improper  for  those  Avho  while  alive 


CUSTOMS   OF   THE  LACEDAEAIONIANS.  9ίί 

generally  abstained  from  whatever  was  vain  and  curious  to  be 
carried  to  the  grave  with  any  pomp  and  magnificence. 
Therefore  without  the  use  of  drugs  and  ointments,  without 
any  rich  odors  and  perfumes,  without  any  art  or  curiosity, 
save  only  the  little  ornament  of  a  red  vestment  and  a  few 
olive-leaves,  they  carried  him  to  the  place  of  burying,  where 
he  was,  Avithout  any  formal  sorrows  and  public  lamentations, 
honorably  and  securely  laid  up  in  a  decent  and  convenient 
sepulchre.  And  here  it  Avas  lawful  for  any  one  who  would 
be  at  the  trouble  to  erect  a  monument  for  the  person  de- 
ceased, but  not  to  engrave  the  least  inscription  on  it ;  this 
being  the  peculiar  reward  of  such  only  who  had  signalized 
themselves  in  war,  and  died  gallantly  in  defence  of  their 
country. 

19,  20.  It  was  not  allowed  any  of  them  to  travel  into 
foreign  countries,  lest  their  conversation  should  be  tinctured 
with  the  customs  of  those  places,  and  they  at  their  return 
introduce  amongst  them  new  modes  and  incorrect  ways  of 
living,  to  the  corruption  of  good  manners  and  the  prejudice 
of  their  own  laws  and  usage  ;  for  Avhich  reason  they  ex- 
pelled all  strangers  from  Sparta,  lest  they  should  insinuate 
their  vices  and  their  folly  into  the  affections  of  the  people, 
and  leave  in  the  minds  of  their  citizens  the  bad  principles 
of  softness  and  luxury,  ease  and  covetousness. 

21.  Nothing  could  sooner  forfeit  the  right  and  privilege 
of  a  citizen,  than  refusing  their  children  that  public  educa- 
tion which  their  laAVS  and  country  demanded  of  them.  For 
as  none  of  them  were  on  any  account  exempt  from  obe- 
dience to  their  laws,  so,  if  any  one  out  of  an  extraordinary 
tenderness  and  indulgence  Avould  not  suffer  his  sons  to  be 
brought  up  according  to  their  strict  discipline  and  insti- 
tutions, he  was  straightway s  disfranchised.  For  they  could 
not  think  that  person  could  ever  prove  serviceable  to  their 
government,  who  had  not  been  educated  with  the  same  care 
and   severity  with  his  fellow-subjects.      And   it   was   no 


94:  THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  LAWS  AND 

less  a  shame  and  reproach  to  the  parents  themselves,  who 
could  be  of  such  mean  and  abject  spirits  as  to  prefer  the 
love  of  their  children  to  the  love  of  their  country,  and 
the  satisfaction  of  a  fond  and  imprudent  passion  to  the 
honor  and  security  of  their  state. 

23.  Nay  further,  as  there  was  a  community  of  children, 
so  there  was  of  their  goods  and  estates,  it  being  free  for 
them  in  case  of  necessity  to  make  use  of  their  neighbor's 
servants,  as  if  they  were  their  own  ;  and  not  only  so,  but  of 
their  horses  and  dogs  too,  unless  the  owners  stood  in  need 
of  them  themselves,  whenever  they  designed  the  diversion 
of  hunting,  an  exercise  peculiar  to  this  nation,  and  to  which 
they  were  accustomed  from  their  youth.  And  if  upon  any 
extraordinary  occasion  any  one  was  pressed  with  the  want 
of  what  his  neig-hbors  were  possessed  of,  he  went  freely  to 
them  and  borrowed,  as  though  he  had  been  the  right  pro- 
prietary of  their  storehouses  ;  and  being  supplied  answer- 
ably  to  his  necessities,  he  carefully  sealed  them  up  again 
and  left  them  secure. 

24.  In  all  t,heir  warlike  expeditions  they  generally  clothed 
themselves  Λvith  a  garment  of  a  purple  color,  as  best 
becoming  the  profession  of  soldiers,  and  carrying  in  them 
a  signification  of  that  blood  they  were  resolved  to  shed  in 
the  service  of  their  country.  It  was  of  use  likewise,  not 
only  to  cast  a  greater  terror  into  their  adversaries  and  to 
secure  from  their  discovery  the  wounds  they  should  receive, 
but  likewise  for  distinction's  sake,  that  in  the  heat  and  fury  of 
the  battle  they  might  discriminate  each  other  from  the 
enemy.  They  always  fought  with  consideration  and  cun- 
ning, craft  being  many  times  of  more  advantage  to  them 
than  downright  blows ;  for  it  is  not  the  multitude  of 
men,  nor  the  strongest  arm  and  the  sharpest  sword,  that 
make  men  masters  of  the  field. 

25.  Whenever  a  victory  was  gained  through  a  well-con- 
trived stratagem,  and  thereby  with  little  loss  of  men  and 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.  95 

blood,  they  always  sacrificed  an  ox  to  INIars  ;  but  when  the 
success  Avas  purely  owing  to  their  valor  and  prowess,  they 
only  offered  up  a  cock  to  him  ;  it  being  in  their  estimation 
more  honorable  for  their  generals  and  commanders  to  over- 
come their  enemies  by  policy  and  subtlety  than  by  mere 
strength  and  courage. 

26,  27.  One  great  part  of  their  religion  lay  in  then- 
solemn  prayers  and  devotion,  which  they  daily  offered  up 
to  their  Gods,  heartily  requesting  of  them  to  enable  them  to 
bear  all  kinds  of  injuries  with  a  generous  and  unshaken 
mind,  and  to  reward  them  with  honor  and  prosperity,  ac- 
cording to  their  performances  of  piety  and  virtue. 

28.  Besides,  it  was  a  great  part  of  that  honor  they  paid 
their  Gods,  of  Avhatever  sex  they  were,  to  adorn  them  with 
military  weapons  and  armor,  partly  out  of  superstition  and 
an  extraordinary  reverence  they  had  for  the  virtue  of  for- 
titude, which  they  preferred  to  all  others,  and  Avliich  they 
looked  upon  as  an  immediate  gift  of  the  Gods,  as  being  the 
greatest  lovers  and  patrons  of  those  who  were  endued  with 
it ;  and  partly  to  encourage  every  one  to  address  his  devo- 
tions to  them  for  it ;  insomuch  as  Venus  herself,  who  in 
other  nations  was  generally  represented  naked,  had  her 
armor  too,  as  well  as  her  particular  altars  and  worshippers. 

29.  ΛVhenever  they  take  any  business  of  moment  in 
hand,  they  generally  pray  to  Fortune  in  a  set  form  of  words 
for  their  success  in  it ;  *  it  being  no  better  in  their  esteem 
than  profaneness  and  irreverence  to  their  Gods  to  invoke 
them  upon  slight  and  trivial  emergencies. 

30.  No  discovery  of  what  is  bad  and  vicious  comes  witli 
greater  evidence  to  the  spirits  and  apprehensions  of  chil- 
dren, who  are  unable  to  bear  the  force  of  reason,  than  that 
which  is  offered  to  them  by  way  of.  example.     Therefore 


» 


Expressed  by  Plutarch  in  the  proverb,  — 

Ύαν  χείρα  ποτιφέροντα  ταν  ήχαν  καΤίεΙν, 
As  thou  Un^test  thy  hand  to  the  work,  invoke  Fortune,     (G.) 


96  THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  LAWS  AND 

the  Spartan  discipline  did  endeaAOi*  to  preserve  their  youth 
(on  whom  philosophical  discourses  Avould  have  made  but 
small  impression)  from  all  kinds  of  intemperance  and  excess 
of  wine,  by  presenting  before  them  all  the  indecencies  of 
their  drunken  Helots,  persons  indeed  who  were  their  slaves, 
and  employed  not  only  in  all  kinds  of  servile  offices,  but 
especially  in  tilling  of  their  fields  and  manuring  of  their 
ground,  which  was  let  out  to  them  at  reasonable  rates,  they 
paying  in  every  year  their  returns  of  rent,  according  to 
Λvhat  was  anciently  established  and  ordained  amongst  them 
at  the  first  o-eneral  division  of  their  lands.  And  if  an  ν  did 
exact  greater  payments  from  them,  it  was  esteemed  an  exe- 
crable thing  amongst  them ;  they  being  desirous  that  the 
Helots  might  reap  gain  and  profit  from  their  labors,  and 
thereupon  be  obliged  faithfully  to  serve  their  masters  as 
Λvell  as  their  own  interest  with  greater  cheerfulness  and 
industry.  And  therefore  their  lords  never  required  more 
of  them  than  Avhat  bare  custom  and  contracts  exacted  of 
them. 

33.  They  adjudged  it  necessary  for  the  preservation  of 
that  gravity  and  seriousness  of  manners  which  was  required 
of  their  youth  for  the  attainments  of  wisdom  and  virtue, 
never  to  admit  of  any  light  and  wanton,  any  ludicrous  or 
eiFeminate  poetry  ;  which  made  them  allow  of  no  poets 
among  them  but  such  only  who  for  their  grave  and  virtu- 
ous compositions  were  approved  by  the  public  magistrate  ; 
that  being  hereby  under  some  restraint,  they  might  neither 
act  nor  write  any  thing  to  the  prejudice  of  good  manners, 
or  to  the  dishonor  of  their  laws  and  government. 

34.  And  therefore  it  was,  that  when  they  heard  of  Ar- 
chilochus's  arrival  at  Sparta  (though  a  Lacedaemonian,  and 
of  an  excellent  wit),  yet  they  presently  commanded  him  to 
depart  the  city,  having  understood  how  that  in  a  poem  of  his 
he  had  affirmed  it  was  greater  wisdom  for  a  man  to  throw 
his  arms  away  and  secure  himself  by  fiight,  than  to  stand 


CUSTOMS   OF   THE   LACEDAEMONIANS.  97 

to  his  own  defence  with  the  hazard  of  his  life,  or  therein 
to  die  valiantly  in  the  field.  His  words  Avere  after  this 
manner :  — 

Let  who  will  boast  their  courage  in  the  field, 
I  find  but  little  safetj'  from  m\'  shield. 
Nature's  not  Honor's  laws  we  must  obey  ; 
This  made  me  cast  my  useless  shield  away, 
And  by  a  prudent  flight  and  cunning  save 
A  life,  which  valor  could  not,  from  the  grave. 
A  better  buckler  I  can  soon  regain, 
But  who  can  get  another  life  again  ?  * 

35.  It  was  a  received  opinion  amongst  many  nations, 
that  some  of  their  Gods  were  propitious  only  to  their  men, 
and  others  only  to  their  Avomen,  which  made  them  some- 
times prohibit  the  one  and  sometimes  the  other  from  being 
present  at  their  sacred  rites  and  solemnities.  But  the 
Lacedaemonians  took  away  this  piece  of  superstition  by 
not  excluding  either  sex  from  their  temples  and  religious 
services  ;  but,  as  they  were  always  bred  up  to  the  same 
civil  exercises,  so  they  were  to  the  same  common  per- 
formances of  their  holy  mysteries,  so  that  by  an  early 
knowledge  of  each  other  there  might  be  a  real  love  and 
friendship  established  betwixt  them,  which  ever  stood  most 
firm  upon  the  basis  of  religion. 

36.  Their  virtuous  man,  as  he  was  to  do  no  wrong,  so 
likewise  was  not  to  suffer  any  without  a  due  sense  and 
modest  resentment  of  it ;  and  therefore  the  Ephori  laid  a 
mulct  upon  Sciraphidas,  because  he  could  so  tamely  receive 
the  many  injuries  and  aff"ronts  that  were  offered  him,  —  con- 
cluding that  he  who  was  so  insensible  of  his  own  interest  as 
not  to  stand  up  in  a  bold  and  honest  vindication  of  himself 
from  the  Λvrongs  and   injustice  that  may  be  done  to  his 

*  ΆστΓίΛ  μεν  ΣαΙ(ι)ν  τις  άγύλλεται,  ην  παρά  θάμνφ 
'Έ,ντος  ΰμώμητον  καλλιπον  ουκ   ίθέλαν 
[AvTdf  δ'  έξέ((>νγον  θανάτου  τέλος-]  άσπις  εκείνη 
^Εββέτω•  έξαντις  κτήσομαι  ού  κακίυ. 

Archilochus,  Fr.  6  (Bergk).     The  passage  in  brackets  is  omitted  by  Plutarch.     (G.) 

VOL.    I.  7 


98  THE   ACCOUNT   OF   THE   LAWS   AND 

good  name  and  honor,  would  without  all  doubt  be  as  dull 
and  listless,  when  an  opportunity  should  invite  him  to  it, 
in  appearing  for  the  defence  of  the  fame  and  reputation  of 
his  country. 

39.  Action  and  not  speaking  was  the  study  and  com- 
mendation of  a  Spartan,  and  therefore  polite  discourses 
and  long  harangues  were  not  with  them  the  character  of  a 
wise  or  learned  man,  their  speech  being  always  grave  and 
sententious,  without  any  ornament  or  tedious  argumenta- 
tion. They  accustomed  themselves  to  brevity,  and  upon 
every  subject  to  express  themselves  in  the  finest  words, 
with  as  much  satire  and  smartness  as  possible  ;  insomuch 
as  they  had  a  law  among  them  for  the  instruction  of  their 
youth,  by  which  they  were  enjoined  to  practise  a  close  and 
compendious  style  in  all  their  orations  ;  which  made  them 
banish  one  Cephisoplion,  a  talkative  rhetorician,  for  boast- 
ing publicly  that  he  could  upon  any  subject  whatsoever 
entertain  his  auditory  for  a  whole  day  together ;  alleging 
this  as  a  sufficient  reason  for  their  justification,  that  it  was 
the  part  of  a  good  orator  to  adjust  his  discourse  according 
to  the  Aveight  and  dignity  of  the  matter  he  was  to  treat  of. 

40.  There  was  indeed  a  strange  and  unnatural  custom 
amongst  them,  annually  observed  at  the  celebration  of  the 
bloody  rites  of  Diana  Orthia,  Avhere  there  was  a  certain 
number  of  children,  not  only  of  the  vulgar  sort  but  of  the 
gentry  and  nobility,  who  Avere  whipped  almost  to  death 
Avith  rods  before  the  altar  of  the  goddess ;  their  parents 
and  relations  standing  by,  and  all  the  Avhile  exhorting  them 
to  patience  and  constancy  in  suffering.  Although  this 
ceremony  lasted  for  the  space  of  a  whole  day,  yet  they 
underwent  this  barbarous  rite  with  such  a  prodigious  cheer- 
fulness and  resolution  of  mind  as  never  could  be  expected 
from  the  softness  and  tenderness  of  their  age.  They  did 
not  so  much  as  express  one  little  sigh  or  groan  during  the 
whole  solemnity,  but  out  of  a  certain  emulation  and  desire 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.         99 

of  glory  there  was  a  great  contention  among  them,  who 
should  excel  his  companions  in  the  constancy  of  enduring 
the  length  and  sharpness  of  their  pains  ;  and  he  Λνΐιο  held 
out  the  longest  was  ever  the  most  esteemed  and  valued 
person  amongst  them,  and  the  glory  and  reputation  where- 
with they  rewarded  his  sufferings  rendered  his  after  life 
much  more  eminent  and  illustrious. 

42.  They  had  a  very  slight  regard  to  maritime  affairs,  on 
the  account  of  an  ancient  law  amongst  them,  whereby  thfy 
were  prohibited  from  applying  of  themselves  to  the  becom- 
ing of  good  seamen  or  engaging  themselves  in  any  sea-fight. 
Afterwards  indeed,  through  the  necessity  of  affairs  and  the 
security  of  their  country,  they  judged  it  convenient,  when 
they  were  invaded  by  the  Athenians  and  other  nations,  to 
furnish  themselves  with  a  navy ;  by  which  it  was  that  Ly- 
sander,  who  was  then  the  general  in  that  expedition, 
obtained  a  great  victory  over  the  Athenians,  and  thereby 
for  a  considerable  time  secured  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas 
to  themselves.  But  finding  afterwards  this  grievance  aris- 
ing from  it,  that  there  was  a  very  sensible  corruption  of 
good  manners  and  decay  of  discipline  amongst  them,  from 
the  conversation  of  their  rude  and  debauched  mariners, 
they  were  obliged  to  lay  this  profession  wholly  aside,  and 
by  a  revival  of  this  law  endeavor  to  retrieve  their  ancient 
sobriety,  and,  by  turning  the  bent  and  inclinations  of  the 
people  into  their  old  channel  again,  to  make  them  tractable 
and  obedient,  modest  and  virtuous.  Though  indeed  they 
did  not  long  hold  to  their  resolution  herein,  any  more  than 
they  were  Avont  to  do  in  other  matters  of  moment,  which 
could  not  but  be  variable,  according  to  the  circumstances 
of  affairs  and  the  necessities  of  their  government.  For 
though  great  riches  and  large  possessions  Avere  things  they 
hated  to  death,  it  being  a  capital  crime  and  punishment  to 
have  any  gold  or  silver  in  their  houses,  or  to  amass  up 
together  heaps  of  money  (which  was  generally  made  with 


100  THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  LAWS  AND 

them  of  iron  or  leather),  —  for  which  reason  several  had 
been  put  to  death,  according  to  that  law  which  banished 
covetousness  out  of  the  city,  on  the  account  of  an  answer 
of  their  oracle  to  Alcamenes  and  Theopompus,  two  of 
their  Spartan  kings, 

That  the  love  of  money  should  be  the  ruin  of  Sparta, — 

vet  notwithstanding  the  severe  penalty  annexed  to  the 
heiiping  up  much  wealth,  and  the  example  of  those  who 
had  suffered  for  it,  Lysander  was  highly  honored  and  re- 
Λvarded  for  bringing  in  a  great  quantity  of  gold  and  silver 
to  Lacedaemon,  after  the  victory  he  had  gained  over  the 
Athenians,  and  the  taking  of  the  city  of  Athens  itself, 
wherein  an  inestimable  treasure  was  found.  So  that  what 
had  been  a  capital  crime  in  others  Avas  a  meritorious  act 
in  him.  It  is  true  indeed  that  as  long  as  the  Spartas  did 
adhere  closely  to  the  observation  of  the  laws  and  rules 
of  Lycurgus,  and  keep  their  oath  religiously  to  be  true  to 
their  own  government,  they  outstripped  all  the  other  cities 
of  Greece  for  prudence  and  valor,  and  for  the  space  of  five 
hundred  years  became  famous  everywhere  for  the  excel- 
lency of  their  laAVS  and  the  Avisdom  of  their  policy.  But 
when  the  honor  of  these  laws  began  to  lessen  and  their 
citizens  grew  luxurious  and  exorbitant,  when  covetousness 
and  too  much  liberty  had  softened  their  minds  and  almost 
destroyed  the  wholesome  constitution  of  their  state,  their 
former  greatness  and  power  began  by  little  and  little  to 
decay  and  dwindle  in  the  estimation  of  men.  And  as  by 
reason  of  these  vices  and  ill  customs  they  proved  unservice- 
able to  themselves,  so  likewise  they  became  less  formidable 
to  others  ;  insomuch  as  their  several  allies  and  confederates, 
Λνΐιο  had  with  them  jointly  carried  on  their  common  good 
and  interest,  were  wholly  alienated  from  them.  But  al- 
though their  affairs  were  in  such  a  languishing  posture, 
Λyhen  Philip  of  Macedon,  after  his  great  victory  at  Chae- 


CUSTOMS  OF  THE  LACEDAEMONIANS.         101 

ronea,  was  by  the  Grecians  declared  their  general  both  by 
land  and  sea,  as  likewise  his  son  Alexander  after  the  con- 
quest of  the  Thebans  ;  yet  the  Lacedaemonians,  though 
their  cities  had  no  other  Λvalls  for  their  security,  but  only 
their  own  courage,  though  by  reason  of  their  frequent  wars 
they  were  reduced  to  low  measures  and  small  numbers  of 
men,  and  thereby  become  so  weak  as  to  be  an  easy  prey  to 
any  powerful  enemy,  yet  retaining  amongst  them  some 
reverence  for  those  few  remains  of  Lycurgus's  institution 
and  government,  they  could  not  be  brought  to  assist  these 
two,  or  any  other  of  their  Macedonian  kings  in  their  Avars 
and  expeditions  ;  neither  could  they  be  prevailed  Avith  to 
assist  at  their  common  assemblies  and  consults  with  them, 
nor  pay  any  tribute  or  contributions  to  them.  But  when 
all  those  laws  and  customs  (which  are  the  main  pillars  that 
support  a  state)  enacted  by  Lycurgus,  and  so  highly  ap- 
proved of  by  the  government,  were  now  universally  despised 
and  unobserved,  they  immediately  became  a  prey  to  the 
ambition  and  usurpation,  to  the  cruelty  and  tyranny  of  their 
fellow-citizens  ;  and  having  no  regard  at  all  to  their  ancient 
virtues  and  constitution,  they  utterly  lost  their  ancient  glory 
and  reputation,  and  by  degrees,  as  well  as  weaker  nations, 
did  in  a  very  little  time  everywhere  degenerate  into  pov- 
erty, contempt,  and  servitude  ;  being  at  present  subject  to 
the  Romans,  like  all  the  other  cities  of  Greece. 


CONCERNING  MUSIC* 


ONESICRATES,  SOTERICHUS,  LYSIAS. 

1.  The  wife  of  Phocion  the  just  was  always  wont  to 
maintain  that  her  chiefest  glory  consisted  in  the  warlike 
achievements   of  her   husband.      For  my   part,  I   am  of 

*  No  one  will  attempt  to  studji  this  treatise  on  music,  witliout  some  previous 
knowledge  of  the  principles  of  Greek  music,  with  its  various  moods,  scales,  and 
combinations  of  tetrachords.  The  whole  subject  is  treated  by  Boeckh,  De  Mt-tris 
Plndari  (in  Vol.  I.  2  of  his  edition  of* Pindar);  and  more  at  lensfth  in  Westphal's 
Hannonik  und  Melopoie  der  Griechen  (in  Kossbach  and  Westphal's  Mvtrik,  Vol.  II.  1). 

An  elementary  explanation  of  the  ordinary  scale  and  of  the  names  of  the  notes 
(which  are  here  retained  without  any  attempt  at  translation)  may  be  of  use  to  the 
reader. 

The  most  ancient  scale  is  said  to  have  liad  only  four  notes,  corresponding  to  the 
four  strings  of  the  tetrachord.  But  before  Terpander's  time  two  forms  of  the 
heptacliord  (with  seven  strings)  were  already  in  use.  One  of  these  was  enlarged  to 
an  octachord  (witli  eiglit  strings)  by  ad(hng  tlie  octave  (called  νήτη].  This  addition 
is  ascribed  to  Terpander  by  Plutarch  (§  28) ;  but  he  is  said  to  have  been  unwilling 
to  increase  the  number  of  strings  permanently  to  eight,  and  to  have  therefore  omitted 
the  string  called  τρίτη,  thus  reducing  the  octachord  again  to  a  heptachord.  The  notes 
of  the  full  octachord  in  this  form,  in  the  ordinary  diatonic  scale,  are  as  follows  :  — 

1.  υπάττ]  e  5.  παμαμέση     b 

2.  παρυπάτη     f  6.  τρίτη  c 

3.  λιχανός       g  7.  παρανηττ/     d 

4.  μέση  a  8.  νητη  e  (octave) 

The  note  called  υπάτη  {hypate,  or  highest)  is  the  lowest  in  tone,  being  named  from 
its  position.     So  νητη  or  νεύτη  (nete,  or  lowest)  is  the  highest  in  tone. 

Tlie  other  of  the  two  heptachords  mentioned  above  contained  the  octave,  but 
omitted  the  παραμέση  and  had  other  changes  in  the  higher  notes.  The  scale  is  as 
follows:  — 

1.  υπάτη  e  5.  τρίτη  b 

2.  παρυπάτη    f  6.  παρανήτη     c 

3.  λοχανός        g  7.  νήτη,  d 

4.  μέση  a 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  103 

opinion  that  all  my  glory,  not  only  that  peculiar  to  myself, 
but  also  what  is  common  to  all  my  familiar  friends  and  rela- 
tions, floAVs  from  the  care  and  diligence  of  my  master  that 
taught  me  learning.  For  the  most  renowned  performances 
of  great  commanders  tend  only  to  the  preservation  of  some 
few  private  soldiers  or  the  safety  of  a  single  city  or  nation, 
but  make  neither  the  soldiers  nor  the  citizens  nor  the 
people  any  thing  the  better.  But  true  learning,  being 
the  essence  and  body  of  felicity  and  the  source  of  pru- 
dence, we  find  to  be  profitable  and  beneficial,  not  only  to 
one  house  or  city  or  nation,  but  to  all  the  race  of  men. 
Therefore  by  how  much  the  more  the  benefit  and  advan- 
tage of  learning  transcends  the  profits  of  military  perform- 
ances, by  so  much  the  more  is  it  to  be  remembered  and 
mentioned,  as  most  worthy  your  study  and  esteem. 

2.  For  this  reason,  upon  the  second  day  of  the  Saturnaliau 
festival,  the  famous  Onesicrates  invited  certain  persons,  the 
best  skilled  in  music,  to  a  banquet ;  by  name  Soterichus 

This  is  not  to  be  confouncletl  with  the  reduced  octachord  of  Terpander.  Tins 
lieptachord  includes  two  tetrachords  so  united  that  the  lowest  note  of  one  is  identical 
with  the  higliest  note  of  the  other;  wliile  tlie  octacliord  includes  two  tetrachords 
entirely  separated,  with  each  note  distinct.  The  former  connection  is  called 
κατά  συναφήν,  the  latter  κατά  όιύζευξιν.  Of  the  eight  notes  of  the  octachord, 
the  first  four  (counting  from  the  lowest),  υπάττ],  παρυπάτη,  λοχανός,  anil  μέσ?ί,  are  the 
same  in  the  heptachord ;  παραμέση  is  omitted  in  the  heptachord ;  while  rpin/, 
παραρτ/τη,  and  vi/ri]  in  the  heptachord  are  designated  as  τρίτη  συνημμένων,  τταρανητη 
συνημμένων,  and  νητη  συνημμένων,  to  distinguish  them  from  the  notes  of  the  same 
name  in  the  octachord,  which  sometimes  have  the  designation  όιεζευγμένων,  but  gen- 
erally are  written  simply  τρίτ?],  &c. 

These  simple  scales  were  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  higher  and  lower  notes, 
four  at  the  bottom  of  tiie  scale  (i.e.  before  υπάτη),  called  προσλαμί3ανύμενος,  ύπάτ?/ 
ύπατων,  παρυπάτη  ύπατων,  λιχανός  ύπατων;  and  three  at  the  top  (above  νητη),  called 
VTjTjj,  παρανητη,  τρίτη,  each  witli  the  designation  ΰπερβολαίων.  The  lowest  three  notes 
of  the  ordinary  octachord  are  here  designated  by  μέσων,  wlien  the  simple  names  are 
not  used.  Thus  a  scale  of  fifteen  notes  was  made ;  and  we  have  one  of  eighteen  by 
including  the  two  classes  of  τρίτη,  παρανητη,  and  νητη  designated  by  συνημμένων  and 
όιεζευγμένων. 

The  harmonic  intervals,  discovered  by  Pythagoras,  are  the  Octave  (δίά  πασών),  with 
its  ratio  of  2:1 ;  the  Fifih  ((5m  πέντε),  with  its  ratio  of  3  :  2  (λόγος  ήμώλως  or  Sesqui- 
alter) ;  tlie  Fourth  (δίά  τεσσάρων),  with  its  ratio  of  4  :  3  (λόγος  επίτριτος  or  Sesquiterce)  ; 
and  tlie  Tone  (τόνος),  with  its  ratio  of  9  :  8  (λόγος  έπόγόοος  or  Sesquioctave).     (G.) 


104  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

of  Alexandria,  and  Lysias,  one  of  those  to  Avhom  lie  gave 
a  yearly  pension.  After  all  had  done  and  the  table  was 
cleared,  —  To  dive,  said  he,  most  worthy  friends,  into  the 
natnre  and  reason  of  the  human  voice  is  not  an  argument 
proper  for  this  merry  meeting,  as  being  a  subject  that 
requires  a  more  sober  scrutiny.  But  because  our  chiefest 
grammarians  define  the  voice  to  be  a  percussion  of  the  air 
made  sensible  to  the  ear,  and  for  that  we  were  yesterday 
discoursing  of  Grammar,  —  which  is  an  art  that  can  give 
the  voice  form  and  shape  by  means  of  letters,  and  store  it 
up  in  the  memory  as  a  magazine,  —  let  us  consider  what 
is  the  next  science  to  this  which  may  be  said  to  relate  to 
the  voice.  In  my  opinion,  it  must  be  music.  For  it  is 
one  of  the  chiefest  and  most  religious  duties  belonging  to 
man,  to  celebrate  the  praise  of  the  Gods,  who  gave  to  him 
alone  the  most  excelling  advantage  of  articulate  discourse, 
as  Homer  has  observed  in  the  following  verses  :  — 

With  sacred  liymns  and  songs  that  s\veetly  please, 
The  Grecian  youth  all  day  tlie  Gods  appease  ; 
Their  lofty  paeans  bright  Apollo  hears, 
And  still  the  charming  sounds  delight  liis  ears.* 

Now  then,  you  that  are  of  the  grand  musical  chorus, 
tell  your  friends,  who  was  the  first  that  brought  music 
into  use ;  Avhat  time  has  added  for  the  advantage  of  the 
science  ;  who  have  been  the  most  famous  of  its  professors  ; 
and  lastly,  for  what  and  how  far  it  may  be  beneficial  to 
mankind. 

3.  This  the  scholar  propounded ;  to  which  Lysias  made 
reply.  Noble  Onesicrates,  said  he,  you  desire  the  solution 
of  a  hard  question,  that  has  been  by  many  already  pro- 
posed. For  of  the  Platonics  the  most,  of  the  Peripatetic 
philosophers  the  best,  have  made  it  their  business  to  com- 
pile several  treatises  concerning  the  ancient  music  and  the 
reasons  why  it  came  to  lose  its  pristine  perfection.     Nay, 

*  n.  I.  472. 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  105 

tlie  Λ'ΘΓγ  grammarians  and  musicians  themselves  who  ar- 
rived to  the  height  of  education  have  expended  much  time 
and  study  upon  the  same  subject,  whence  has  arisen  great 
variety  of  discording  opinions  among  the  several  writers, 
Heraclides  in  his  Compendium  of  Music  asserts,  that 
Amphion,  the  son  of  Jupiter  and  Antiope,  was  the  first 
that  invented  playing  on  the  harp  and  lyric  poesy,  being 
first  instructed  by  his  father  ;  Avhich  is  confirmed  by  a  small 
manuscript,  preserved  in  the  city  of  Sicyon,  wherein  is  set 
doAvn  a  catalogue  of  the  priests,  poets,  and  musicians  of 
Argos.  In  the  same  age,  he  tells  us,  Linus  the  Euboean 
composed  several  elegies  ;  Anthes  of  Anthedon  in  Boeotia 
was  the  first  author  of  hymns,  and  Pierus  of  Pieria  the  first 
that  wrote  in  the  praise  of  the  Muses.  Philammon  also,  the 
Delphian,  set  forth  in  verse  a  poem  in  honor  of  the  nativity 
of  Latona,  Diana,  and  x\pollo,  and  was  the  first  that  insti- 
tuted dancing  about  the  temple  of  Delphi.  Thamyras,  of 
Thracian  extraction,  had  the  best  voice  and  the  neatest 
manner  of  singing  of  any  of  his  time  ;  so  that  the  poets 
feigned  him  to  be  a  contender  with  the  Muses.  He  is  said 
to  have  described  in  a  poem  the  Titans'  Avar  against  the 
Gods.  There  was  also  Demodocus  the  Corcyraean,  who  is 
said  to  have  written  the  Destruction  of  Troy,  and  the  Nup- 
tials of  Vulcan  and  Venus  ;  and  then  Phemius  of  Ithaca 
composed  a  poem,  entitled  The  Return  of  those  who  came 
back  Avith  Agamemnon  from  Troy.  Not  that  any  of  these 
stories  before  cited  were  compiled  in  a  style  like  prose 
without  metre  ;  they  were  rather  like  the  poems  of  Ste- 
sichorus  and  other  ancient  lyric  poets,  who  composed  in 
heroic  verse  and  added  a  musical  accompaniment.  The 
same  Heraclides  writes  that  Terpander,  the  first  that  insti- 
tuted the  lyric  nomes,*  set  verses  of  Homer  as  well  as  his 

*  According  to  K.  0.  Miiller  (History  of  Greek  Literature,  Ciuip.  XII  §  4),  the 
names  were  "  musical  compositions  of  great  simplicity  and  severity,  sometiiing  re- 
sembling the  most  ancient  melodies  of  our  church  music."     (G.) 


106  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

own  to  music  according  to  each  of  these  nomes,  and  sang 
them  at  pubHc  trials  of  skill.  He  also  was  the  first  to  give 
names  to  the  lyric  nomes.  In  imitation  of  Terpander,  Clo- 
nas,  an  elegiac  and  epic  poet,  first  instituted  nomes  for 
flute-music,  and  also  the  songs  called  Prosodia.*  And 
Polymnestus  the  Colophonian  in  later  times  used  the  same 
measure  in  his  compositions. 

4  Now  the  measures  appointed  by  these  persons,  noble 
Onesicrates,  in  reference  to  such  songs  as  are  to  be  sung 
to  the  flutes  or  pipes,  were  distinguished  by  these  names, 
—  Apothetus,  Elegiac,  Comarchius,  Schoenion,  Cepion, 
Tenedius,  and  Trimeles  (or  of  three  parts). 

To  these  succeeding  ages  added  another  sort,  which  were 
called  Polymnastia.  But  the  measures  set  down  for  those 
that  played  and  sung  to  the  harp,  being  the  invention  of 
Terpander,  were  much  more  ancient  than  the  former.  To 
these  he  gave  the  several  appellations  of  Boeotian,  Aeolian, 
Trochaean,  the  Acute,  Cepion,  Terpandrian,  and  Tetraoe- 
dian.f  And  Terpander  made  preludes  to  be  sung  to  the 
lyre  in  heroic  verse.  Besides,  Timotheus  testifies  how  that 
the  lyric  nomes  were  anciently  appropriated  to  epic  verses. 
For  Timotheus  merely  intermixed  the  dithyrambic  style 
with  the  ancient  nomes  in  heroic  measure,  and  thus  sang 
them,  that  he  might  not  seem  to  make  too  sudden  an  inno- 
vation upon  the  ancient  music.  But  as  for  Terpander,  he 
seems  to  have  been  the  most  excellent  composer  to  the 
harp  of  his  age,  for  he  is  recorded  to  have  been  four  times 
in  succession  a  victor  at  the  Pythian  games.  And  certainly 
he  was  one  of  the  most  ancient  musicians  in  the  world  ; 
for  Glaucus  the  Italian  in  his  treatise  of  the  ancient  poets 
and  musicians  asserts  him  to  have  lived  before  Archilochus, 
affirming  him  to  be  the  second  next  to  those  that  first  in- 
vented wind-music. 

*  ΤΙροσόδια  were  songs  sung  to  the  music  of  flutes  by  processions,  as  they  marched 
to  temples  or  altars  ;  hence,  songs  of  supplication.     (G.) 
t  See  Rossbach  and  Westphal,  II.  1,  p.  81.     (G.) 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  107 

5.  Alexander  in  his  Collections  of  Phrygia  says,  that 
Olympus  was  the  first  that  brought  into  Greece  the  man- 
ner of  touchhig  the  strings  with  a  quill ;  and  next  to  him 
were  the  Idaean  Dactyli ;  Hyagnis  was  the  first  that  sang 
to  the  pipe  ;  after  him  his  son  Marsyas,  then  Olympus  ; 
that  Terpander  imitated  Homer  in  his  verses  and  Or- 
pheus in  his  musical  compositions  ;  but  that  Orpheus  never 
imitated  any  one,  since  in  his  time  there  Λvere  none  but 
such  as  composed  to  the  pipe,  which  was  a  manner  quite 
different  from  that  of  Orpheus.  Clonas,  a  composer  of 
nomes  for  flute-music,  and  somewhat  later  than  Terpan- 
der, as  the  Arcadians  affirm,  Avas  born  in  Tegea  or,  as  the 
Boeotians  allege,  at  Thebes.  After  Terpander  and  Clonas 
flourished  Archilochus  ;  yet  there  are  some  writers  who 
affirm,  that  Ardalus  the  Troezenian  taught  the  manner  of 
composing  to  wind-music  before  Clonas.  There  was  also  the 
poet  Polymnestus,  the  son  of  Meles  the  Colophonian,  who 
iuA^ented  the  Polymnestian  measures.  They  farther  write 
that  Clonas  invented  the  nomes  Apothetus  and  Schoenion. 
Of  Polymnestus  mention  is  made  by  Pindar  and  Alcman, 
both  lyric  poets  ;  but  of  several  of  the  lyric  nomes  said  to 
be  instituted  by  Terpander  they  make  Philammon  (the  an- 
cient Delphian)  author. 

6.  Now  the  music  appropriated  to  the  harp,  such  as  it 
was  in  the  time  of  Terpander,  continued  in  all  its  sim- 
plicity, till  Phrynis  grew  into  esteem.  For  it  was  not  the 
ancient  custom  to  make  lyric  poems  in  the  present  style,  or 
to  intermix  measures  and  rhythms.  For  in  each  norae 
they  were  careful  to  observe  its  own  proper  pitch  ;  whence 
came  the  expression  nome  (from  νόμος,  law),  because  it  was 
unlawful  to  alter  the  pitch  appointed  for  each  one.  At 
length,  falling  from  their  devotion  to  the  Gods,  they  began 
to  sing  the  verses  of  Homer  and  other  poets.  This  is 
manifest  by  the  proems  of  Terpander.     Then  for  the  form 


108  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

of  the  harp,  it  was  such  as  Cepion,  one  of  Terpander's 
scholars,  first  caused  to  be  made,  and  it  was  called  the  Asian 
harp,  because  the  Lesbian  harpers  bordering  upon  Asia 
always  made  use  of  it.  And  it  is  said  that  Periclitus,  a 
Lesbian  by  birth,  was  the  last  harper  wlio  won  a  prize  by 
his  skill,  which  he  did  at  one  of  the  Spartan  festivals  called 
Carneia  ;  but  he  being  dead,  that  succession  of  skilful  mu- 
sicians, which  had  so  long  continued  among  the  Lesbians, 
expired.  Some  there  are  who  erroneously  believe  that 
Hipponax  was  contemporary  with  Terpander,  when  it  is 
plain  that  Hipponax  lived  after  Periclitus. 

7.  Having  thus  discoursed  of  the  several  nomes  appro- 
priated to  the  stringed  as  Avell  as  to  the  wind  instruments, 
we  Avill  now  speak  something  in  particular  concerning 
those  peculiar  to  the  wind  instruments.  First  they  say. 
that  Olympus,  a  Phrygian  player  upon  tlie  flute,  invented 
a  certain  nome  in  honor  of  Apollo,  which  he  called  Poly- 
cephalus,*  or  of  many  heads.  This  Olympus,  they  say, 
was  descended  from  the  first  Olympus,  the  scholar  of  Mar- 
syas,  who  invented  several  forms  of  composition  in  honor 
of  the  Gods  ;  and  he,  being  a  boy  beloved  of  Marsyas,  and 
by  him  taught  to  play  upon  the  flute,  first  brought  into 
Greece  the  laws  of  harmony.  Others  ascribe  the  Poly- 
cephalus  to  Crates,  the  scholar  of  Olympus ;  though  Pra- 
tinas  will  have  Olympus  the  younger  to  be  the  author  of  it. 
The  Harmatian  nome  is  also  said  to  be  invented  by  Olympus, 
the  scholar  of  Marsyas.  This  Marsyas  was  by  some  said 
to  be  called  Masses  ;  which  others  deny,  not  allowing  him 
any  other  name  but  that  of  Marsyas,  the  son  of  that  Ilyagnis 
who  invented  the  art  of  playing  upon  the  pipe.     Bat  that 

*  This  seems  to  be  the  nome  referred  to  by  Pindar,  Pytli.  XII.  12,  as  the  invention 
of  Pallas  Athena.  The  Schoha  on  tlie  passage  of  Pindar  tell  us  that  the  goddess 
represented  it  in  the  lamentation  of  the  two  surviving  Gorgons  for  their  sister  Medu- 
sa slain  by  Perseus,  and  the  hissing  of  the  snakes  which  surrounded  their  heads,  — 
whence  the  name  πολυκέφαλος,  or  many-headed.     (G.) 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  109 

Olympus  was  the  author  of  the  Ilarmatian  nome  is  plainly 
to  be  seen  in  Glaucus's  treatise  of  the  ancient  poets ;  and 
that  Stesichorus  of  Himera  imitated  neither  Orpheus  nor 
Terpander  nor  Antilochus  nor  Thales,  but  Olympus,  and 
that  he  made  use  of  the  Harmatian  nome  and  the  dactylic 
dance,  which  some  rather  apply  to  the  Orthian  mood,  while 
others  aver  it  to  have  been  the  invention  of  the  Mysians, 
for  that  some  of  the  ancient  pipers  were  INIysians. 

8.  There  was  also  another  mood  in  use  among  the  an- 
cients, called  Cradias,  Λvhich  Hipponax  says  Mimnermus 
always  delighted  in.  For  formerly  they  that  played  upon 
the  flute  sang  also  elegies  at  the  same  time  set  to  notes. 
Which  the  description  of  the  Panathenaea  concerning  the 
musical  combat  makes  manifest.  Among  the  rest,  Sacadas 
of  Argos  set  several  odes  and  elegies  to  music,  he  himself 
being  also  a  good  flute-player  and  thrice  a  victor  at  the 
Pythian  games.  Of  him  Pindar  makes  mention.  ΝοΛν 
Avhereas  in  the  time  of  Polymnestus  and  Sacadas  there 
existed  three  musical  moods,  the  Dorian,  Phrygian,  and 
Lydian,  it  is  said  that  Sacadas  composed  a  strophe  in  every 
one  of  those  moods,  and  then  taught  the  choruses  to  sing 
the  first  after  the  Dorian  manner,  the  second  according  to 
the  Phrygian,  and  the  third  after  the  Lydian  manner  ;  and 
this  nome  was  called  Trimeres  (or  threefold)  by  reason  of 
the  shifting  of  the  moods,  although  in  the  Sicyonian  cata- 
logue of  the  poets  Clonas  is  said  to  be  the  inventor  of  this 
name. 

9.  Music  then  received  its  first  constitution  from  Ter- 
pander at  Sparta.  Of  the  second  constitution,  Thaletas  the 
Gortinean,  Xenodamus  the  Cytherean,  Xenocritus  the  Lo- 
crian,  Polymnestus  the  Colophonian,  and  Sacadas  the 
Argive  were  deservedly  acknowledged  to  be  the  authors. 
For  these,  having  introduced  the  Gymnopaediae  into  Lace- 
daemon,  settled  the  so-called  Apodeixeis  (or  Exhibitions) 


110  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

among  the  Arcadians,  and  the  Endymatia  in  Argos.  Now 
Thaletas,  Xenodamus,  and  Xenocritus,  and  their  schohirs, 
were  poets  that  addicted  themselves  altogether  to  making 
of  paeans  ;  Polymnestus  was  all  for  the  Orthian  or  military 
strain,  and  Sacadas  for  elegies.  Others,  and  among  the 
rest  Pratinas,  affirm  Xenodamus  to  have  been  a  maker  of 
songs  for  dances  (Hyporchemes),  and  not  of  paeans  ;  and  a 
tune  of  Xenodamus  is  preserved,  which  plainly  appears  to 
have  been  composed  for  a  dance.  Now  that  a  paean  differs 
from  a  song  made  for  a  dance  is  manifest  from  the  poems 
of  Pindar,  Λνΐιο  made  both. 

10.  Polymnestus  also  composed  nomes  for  flute-music ; 
but  in  the  Orthian  nome  he  made  use  of  his  lyric  vein,  as 
the  students  in  harmony  declare.  But  in  this  we  cannot 
be  positiv^e,  because  we  have  nothing  of  certainty  concern- 
ing it  from  antiquity  ;  and  whether  Thaletas  of  Crete  was 
a  composer  of  hymns  is  much  doubted.  For  Glaucus, 
asserting  Thaletas  to  be  born  after  Archilochus,  says  that  he 
imitated  the  odes  of  xlrchilochus,  only  he  made  them  longer, 
and  used  the  Paeonic  and  Cretic  rhythm,  which  neither 
Archilochus  nor  Orpheus  nor  Terpander  ever  did ;  for 
Thaletas  learned  these  from  Olympus,  and  became  a  good 
poet  besides.  As  for  Xenocritus  the  Locrian  from  Italy, 
it  is  much  questioned  whether  he  was  a  maker  of  paeans 
or  not,  as  being  one  that  always  took  heroic  subjects  with 
dramatic  action  for  his  verses,  for  which  reason  some 
there  were  who  called  his  arguments  Dithyrambic.  More 
over,  Glaucus  asserts  Thaletas  to  have  preceded  him  iii 
time. 

11.  Olympus,  by  the  report  of  Aristoxenus,  is  supposed 
by  the  musicians  to  have  been  the  inventor  of  the  enhar- 
monic species  of  music  ;  for  before  him  there  was  no  other 
than  the  diatonic  and  chromatic.  And  it  is  thought  that 
the  invention  of  the  enharmonic  species  was  thus  brought 


CONCERNING   MUSIC.  Ill 

to  pass:*  for  that  Olympus  before  altogether  composing  and 
playing  in  the  diatonic  species,  and  having  frequent  occa- 
sion to  shift  to  the  diatonic  parhypate,  sometimes  from  the 
paramese  and  sometimes  from  the  mese,  skipping  the  dia- 
tonic lichanos,  he  found  the  beauty  that  appeared  in  the 
new  character  ;  and  thus,  admiriuij  a  conjunction  or  scheme 
so  agreeable  to  proportion,  he  made  this  new  species  in  the 
Doric  mood.  For  now  he  held  no  longer  to  what  belonged 
either  to  the  diatonic  or  to  the  chromatic,  but  lie  was 
already  come  to  the  enharmonic.  And  the  first  foundations 
of  enharmonic  music  which  he  laid  Avere  these  :  in  enliar- 
monics  the  first  thing  that  appears  is  the  spondiasmus,f  to 
Avhich  none  of  the  divisions  of  the  tetrachord  seems  prop- 
erly to  belong,  unless  any  one  will  take  the  more  intense 
spondiasmus  to  be  diatonic.  But  he  that  maintained  this 
would  maintain  a  falsehood  and  an  absurdity  in  harmony  ; 
a  falsehood,  because  it  would  be  less  by  a  diesis  than  is 
required  by  the  leading  note  ;  an  absurdity  in  harmony, 
because,  even  if  we  should  place  the  proper  nature  of  the 

*  The  relations  of  the  enharmonic  scale  to  the  ordinary  diatonic  are  thus  stated 
hv  Westphal  (pp.  124-126),  6  being  here  substituted  for  the  German  h:  — 


-^ 


Diatonic.  e  f 


Enharmonic.        e     δ   f  a     .       b     δ 

•g      I       I      X      ^i.  I 


The  δ  inserted  between  e  and  /"and  between  b  and  c  is  called  diesis,  and  represents 
a  q'".arter-tone.  The  section  in  Westphal  containing  this  scheme  will  greatly  aid  the 
Interpretation  of  §  11  of  Plutarch.     (G.) 

t  This  is  Volkmann's  conjecture  for  "spondee."  It  is  defined  by  him  (according 
to  Aristides  Quintilianus)  as  the  raising  of  the  tone  through  three  dieses  (or  quarter- 
tones).     (G.) 


112  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

more  intense  spondiasmus  in  the  simple  chromatic,  it  would 
then  come  to  pass,  that  two  double  tones  would  follow  in 
order,  the  one  compounded,  the  other  uncompounded. 
For  the  thick  enharmonic  now  used  in  the  middle  notes 
does  not  seem  to  be  the  invention  of  the  fore-mentioned 
author.  But  this  is  more  easily  understood  by  hearing  any 
musician  play  in  the  ancient  style  ;  for  then  you  shall  find 
the  semi-tone  in  the  middle  parts  to  be  uncompounded. 

These  were  the  beginnings  of  enharmonic  music ;  after- 
wards the  semitone  was  also  divided,  as  Avell  in  the  Phry- 
gian as  Lydian  moods.  But  Olympus  seems  to  have 
advanced  music  by  producing  something  never  known  or 
heard  of  before,  and  to  have  gained  to  himself  the  honor 
of  being  the  most  excellent,  not  only  in  the  Grecian  but  in 
all  other  music. 

12.  Let  us  now  proceed  to  rhythms  ;  for  there  Avere 
several  varieties  of  these,  as  well  in  musical  as  in  rhythmi- 
cal composition.  And  here  Terpander,  among  all  those 
novelties  with  which  he  adorned  music,  introduced  an 
elegant  manner,  that  gave  it  much  life.  After  him,  beside 
the  Terpandrian,  which  he  did  not  relinquish,  Polymnestus 
brought  in  use  another  of  his  own,  retaining  however  the 
former  elegant  manner,  as  did  also  Thaletas  and  Sacadas. 
Other  innovations  were  also  made  by  Alkman  and  Stesichorus, 
who  nevertheless  receded  not  from  the  ancient  foi'ms.  But 
Crexus,  Timotheus,  and  Philoxenus.  and  those  other  poets 
of  the  same  age,  growing  more  arrogant  and  studious  of 
novelty,  affected  those  other  manners  now  called  Philan- 
thropic and  Thematic.  For  now  the  fewness  of  strings  and 
the  plainness  and  majesty  of  the  old  music  are  looked  upon 
as  absolutely  out  of  date. 

13.  And  now,  having  discoursed  to  the  best  of  my  abihty 
of  the  ancient  music  and  the  first  inventors  of  it,  and  how 
succeeding  ages  brought  it  to  more  and  more  perfection,  I 
shall  make  an  end,  and  give  way  to  my  friend  Soterichus, 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  113 

not  only  greatly  skilled  in  music  but  in  all  the  rest  of  the 
sciences.  For  we  have  always  labored  rather  on  the  prac- 
tical than  the  contemplative  part.  ΛVhich  Λvhen  Lysias 
had  said,  he  forbare  speaking  any  farther ;  but  then  Sote- 
richus  thus  began. 

14.  Most  noble  Onesicrates,  said  he,  since  you  have 
engaged  us  to  speak  our  knowledge  concerning  the  most 
venerable  excellencies  of  music,  which  is  most  pleasing  to 
the  Gods,  I  cannot  but  approve  the  learning  of  our  mastt-r 
Lysias,  and  his  great  memory  in  reciting  all  the  inventors 
of  the  ancient  music,  and  those  who  have  written  concern- 
ing it.  But  1  must  needs  say,  that  he  has  given  us  this 
account,  trusting  only  to  what  he  has  found  recorded.  AVe 
on  the  other  side  have  not  heard  of  any  man  that  Avas  the 
inventor  of  the  benefits  of  music,  but  of  the  God  Apollo, 
adorned  Avith  all  manner  of  virtue.  The  flute  Avas  neither 
the  invention  of  Marsyas  nor  Olympus  nor  Hyagnis  ;  nor 
was  the  harp  Apollo's  invention  only,  but  as  a  God  he  was 
the  inventor  of  all  the  music  both  of  the  flute  and  harp. 
This  is  manifest  from  the  dances  and  sacrifices  which  were 
solemnized  to  Apollo,  as  Alcaeus  and  others  in  their  hymns 
relate.  His  statue  also  placed  in  the  Temple  of  Delos 
holds  in  his  right  hand  a  bow  ;  at  his  left  the  Graces  stand, 
with  every  one  a  musical  instrument  in  her  hands,  one  car- 
rying a  harp,  another  a  flute,  another  with  a  shepherd's 
pipe  set  to  her  lips.  And  that  this  is  no  conceit  of  mine 
appears  from  this,  that  Anticles  and  Ister  have  testified  the 
same  in  their  commentaries  upon  these  things.  And  the 
statue  is  reported  to  be  so  ancient,  that  the  artificers  were 
said  to  have  lived  in  the  time  of  Hercules.  The  youth 
also  that  carries  the  Tempic  laurel  into  Delphi  is  accom- 
panied by  one  playing  upon  the  flute.  And  the  sacred 
presents  of  the  Hyperboreans  were  sent  of  old  to  Delos, 
attended  Avith  flutes,  pipes,  and  harps.  Some  have  thought 
that  the  God  himself  played  upon  the  flute,  as  the  best  of 


114  CONCERNING   MUSIC. 

lyrics,  Alcman,  relates.  Corinna  also  asserts  that  Apollo 
was  by  Minerva  taught  to  pipe.  Venerable  is  therefore 
music  altogether,  as  being  the  invention  of  the  Gods. 

15.  The  ancients  made  use  of  it  for  its  worth,  as  they 
did  all  other  beneficial  sciences.  But  our  men  of  art,  con- 
temning its  ancient  majesty,  instead  of  that  manly,  grave, 
heaven-born  music,  so  acceptable  to  the  Gods,  have  brought 
into  the  theatres  a  sort  of  effeminate  musical  tattling,  mere 
sound  without  substance  ;  which  Plato  utterly  rejects  in  the 
third  book  of  his  commonwealth,  refusing  the  Lydian  har- 
mony as  fit  only  for  lamentations.  And  they  say  that  this 
was  first  instituted  for  doleful  songs.  Aristoxenus,  in  his  first 
book  of  music,  tells  us  how  that  Olympus  sang  an  elegy 
upon  the  death  of  Python  in  the  Lydian  mood,  though 
some  will  have  Menalippides  to  be  the  author  of  that  song. 
Pindar,  in  his  paean  on  the  nuptials  of  Niobe,  asserts  that 
the  Lydian  harmony  was  first  used  by  Anthippus.  Others 
aihrm,  that  Torebus  was  the  first  that  made  use  of  that 
sort  of  harmony;  among  the  rest,  Dionysius  the  iambic 
writer. 

16.  The  mixed  Lydian  moves  the  affections,  and  is  fit 
for  tragedies.  This  mood,  as  Aristoxenus  alleges,  was 
invented  by  Sappho,  from  whom  the  tragedians  learned  it 
and  joined  it  with  the  Doric.  The  one  becomes  a  majestic, 
lofty  style,  the  other  mollifies  and  stirs  to  pity  ;  both  which 
are  the  properties  of  tragedy.  The  history  of  music,  how- 
ever, made  Pythoclides  the  flute-player  to  be  the  author  of 
it;  and  Lysis  reports  that  Lamprocles  the  Athenian,  finding 
that  the  diazeuxis  (or  separation  of  two  tetrachords)  was 
not  where  almost  all  others  thought  it  had  been,  but  toward 
the  treble,  made  such  a  scheme  as  is  now  from  paramese  to 
the  highest  hypate.  But  for  the  softer  Lydian,  being  con- 
trary to  the  mixed  Lydian  and  like  the  Ionian,  they  say  it 
was  invented  by  Damon  the  Athenian.  % 

17.  But  as  for  those  sorts  of  harmony,  the  one  being 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  115 

sad  and  doleful,  the  other  loose  and  effeminate,  Plato  de- 
servedly rejected  them,  and  made  choice  of  the  Dorian,  as 
more  proper  for  sober  and  warlike  men  ;  not  being  igno- 
rant, however  (as  Aristoxenus  discourses  in  his  second 
book  of  music),  that  there  might  be  something  advanta- 
geous in  the  rest  to  a  circumspect  and  wary  commonwealth. 
For  Plato  ^ave  much  attention  to  the  art  of  music,  as  beinu• 
the  hearer  of  Draco  the  Athenian  and  Metellus  the  Agri- 
gentine  ;  but  considering,  as  we  have  intimated  before,  that 
there  was  much  more  majesty  in  the  Dorian  mood,  it  was 
that  he  preferred.  He  knew  moreover  that  Alcman,  Pindar, 
Simonides,  and  Bacchylides  had  composed  several  Parthenia 
in  the  Doric  mood  ;  and  that  several  Prosodia  (or  suppli- 
cations to  the  Gods),  several  hymns  and  tragical  lamenta- 
tions, and  now  and  then  love  verses,  were  composed  to  the 
same  melody.  But  he  contented  himself  with  such  songs 
as  were  made  in  honor  of  Mars  or  Minerva,  or  else  such 
as  Avere  to  be  sung  at  solemn  offerings,  called  Spondeia. 
For  these  he  thought  sufficient  to  fortify. and  raise  the  mind 
of  a  sober  person ;  not  being  at  all  ignorant  in  the  mean 
time  of  the  Lydian  and  Ionian,  of  which  he  knew  the  trage- 
dians made  use. 

18.  Moreover,  the  ancients  well  understood  all  the  sorts 
of  styles,  although  they  used  but  few.  For  it  was  not  their 
ignorance  that  confined  them  to  such  narrow  instruments 
and  so  few  strings  ;  nor  was  it  out  of  ignorance  that  Olym- 
pus and  Terpander  and  those  that  came  after  them  would 
not  admit  of  larger  instruments  and  more  variety  of  strings. 
This  is  manifest  from  the  poems  of  Olympus  and  Terpan- 
der and  all  those  that  were  their  imitators.  For,  being 
plain  and  without  any  more  than  three  strings,  these 
so  far  excelled  those  that  were  more  numerously  strung, 
insomuch  that  none  could  imitate  Olympus's  play  ;  and  they 
were  all  inferior  to  him  when  they  betook  themselves  to 
their  polychords. 


116  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

19.  Then  again,  that  the  ancients  did  not  through  igno- 
rance abstain  from  the  third  string  in  the  spondaic  style, 
their  use  of  it  in  play  makes  apparent.  For  had  they  not 
known  the  use  of  it,  they  would  never  have  struck  it  in 
harmony  with  parhypate  ;  but  the  elegancy  and  gravity  that 
attended  the  spondaic  style  by  omitting  the  third  string  in- 
duced them  to  transfer  the  music  to  paranete.  The  same 
reason  may  serve  for  nete  ;  for  this  in  play  they  struck  in 
concord  to  mese,  but  in  discord  to  paranete,  although  in 
song  it  did  not  seem  to  them  proper  to  the  slow  spondaic 
motion.  And  not  only  did  they  do  this,  but  they  did  the 
same  with  nete  of  the  conjunct  heptachords  ;  for  in  play 
they  struck  it  in  concord  to  mese  and  lichanos,  and  in  discord 
to  paranete  and  parhypate  ;  *  but  in  singing  those  touches 
were  no  way  allowable,  as  being  ungrateful  to  the  ear 
and  shaming  the  performer,  xls  certain  it  is  from  the 
Phrygians  that  Olympus  and  his  followers  were  not  igno- 
rant of  the  third  string ;  for  they  made  use  of  it  not  only 
in  pulsation,  but  in  their  hymns  to  the  Mother  of  the  Gods 
and  several  other  Phrygian  songs.  Nor  is  it  less  apparent, 
with  regard  to  the  ντζάται,  that  they  never  abstained  for 
want  of  skill  from  that  tetrachord  in  the  Dorian  mood ; 
indeed  in  other  moods  they  knowingly  made  use  of  it,  but 
removed  it  from  the  Dorian  mood  to  preserve  its  elegant 
graA^ty. 

20.  The  same  thing  was  done  also  by  the  tragedians. 
For  the  tragedians  have  never  to  this  day  used  either  the 
chromatic  or  the  enharmonic  scale ;  ΛνΜΙβ  the  lyre,  many 
generations  older  than  tragedy,  used  them  from  the  very 
beginning.  Now  that  the  chromatic  was  more  ancient 
than  the  enharmonic  is  plain.  For  we  must  necessarily 
account  it  of  greater  antiquity,  according  to  the  custom  and 
use  of  men  themselves ;  otherwise  it  cannot  be  said  that 

*  See  Westphal's  interpretation  of  this  difficult  and  probably  corrupt  passage,  II. 
l,p.89.     (G.) 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  117 

any  of  the  differences  and  distinctions  were  ancienter 
the  one  than  the  other.  Therefore,  if  any  one  should 
allege  that  Aeschylus  or  Phrynichus  abstained  from  the 
chromatic  out  of  ignorance,  would  he  not  be  thought  to 
maintain  a  very  great  absurdity  1  Such  a  one  might  as  well 
aver  that  Pancrates  lay  under  the  same  blindness,  who 
avoided  it  in  most,  but  made  use  of  it  in  some  things  ; 
therefore  he  forebore  not  out  of  ignorance,  but  judgment, 
imitating  Pindar  and  Simonides  and  that  which  is  at  present 
called  the  ancient  manner. 

21.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Tyrtaeus  the  Mantinean, 
Andreas  the  Corinthian,  Thrasyllus  the  Phliasian,  and 
several  others,  who,  as  we  well  know,  abstained  by  choice 
from  the  chromatic,  from  transition,  from  the  increased 
number  of  strings,  and  many  other  common  forms  of 
rhythms,  tunes,  diction,  composition,  and  expression.  Tele- 
phanes  of  Megara  was  so  great  an  enemy  to  the  pipe  made 
of  reed  (called  syrinx),  that  he  would  not  suffer  the  instru- 
ment maker  to  join  it  to  the  flute  (pipe  made  of  wood  or 
horn),  and  chiefly  for  that  reason  forbore  to  go  to  the  Py- 
thian games.  In  short,  if  a  man  should  be  thought  to  be 
ignorant  of  that  which  he  makes  no  use  of,  there  would 
be  found  a  great  number  of  ignorant  persons  in  this  age. 
For  we  see  that  the  admirers  of  the  Dorian  composition 
make  no  use  of  the  Antiginedian  ;  the  followers  of  the  zVn- 
tiginedian  reject  the  Dorian;  and  other  musicians  refuse 
to  imitate  Timotheus,  being  almost  all  bewitched  with  the 
trifles  and  the  idle  poems  of  Polyidus.  On  the  other 
side,  if  we  dive  into  the  business  of  variety  and  compare 
antiquity  with  the  present  times,  we  shall  find  there 
was  great  variety  then,  and  that  frequently  made  use  of. 
For  then  the  variation  of  rhythm  was  more  highly  esteemed, 
and  the  change  of  their  manner  of  play  more  frequent,  ΛΥβ 
are  now  lovers  of  fables,  they  were  then  lovers  of  rbytlim. 
Plain  it  is  therefore,  that  the  ancients  did  not  refrain  from 


118  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

broken  measures  out  of  ignorance,  but  out  of  judgment. 
And  yet  Avhat  wonder  is  this,  when  there  are  so  many  other 
things  necessary  to  human  life  which  are  not  unknown, 
though  not  made  use  of  by  those  who  have  no  occasion  to 
use  them  ]  But  they  are  refused,  and  the  use  of  them  is 
altogether  neglected,  as  not  being  found  proper  on  many 
occasions. 

22.  Having  already  shown  that  Plato  neither  for  want 
of  skill  nor  for  ignorance  blamed  all  the  other  moods  and 
casts  of  composition,  we  now  proceed  to  show  that  he 
really  was  skilled  in  harmony.  For  in  his  discourse  con- 
cerning the  procreation  of  the  soul,  inserted  into  Timaeus, 
he  has  made  known  his  great  knowledge  in  all  the  sciences, 
and  of  music  among  the  rest,  in  this  manner :  "  After 
this,"  saith  he,  "  he  filled  up  the  double  and  treble  intervals, 
taking  parts  from  thence,  and  adding  them  to  the  midst 
between  them,  so  that  there  were  in  every  interval  two  mid- 
dle terms."  *  This  proem  was  the  effect  of  his  experience 
in  music,  as  we  shall  presently  make  out.  The  means 
from  whence  every  mean  is  taken  are  three,  arithmetical, 
enharmonical,  geometrical.  Of  these  the  first  exceeds  and 
is  exceeded  in  number,  the  second  in  proportion,  the  third 
neither  in  number  nor  proportion.  Plato  therefore,  desirous 
to  show  the  harmony  of  the  four  elements  in  the  soul,  and 
harmonically  also  to  explain  the  reason  of  that  mutual  con- 
cord arising  from  discording  and  jarring  principles,  under- 
takes to  make  out  two  middle  terms  of  the  soul  in  every 
interval,  according  to  harmonical  proportion.  Thus  in  a 
musical  octave  there  happen  to  be  two  middle  distances, 
Avhose  proportion  we  shall  explain.  As  for  the  octaves, 
they  keep  a  double  proportion  between  their  two  extremes. 
For  example,  let  the  double  arithmetical  proportion  be  6 
and  12,  this  being  the  interval  between  the  νηάτη  μ^βων  and 

*  Plato,  Timaeus,  p.  36  A.     See  the  whole  passage  in  the  treatise  Of  the  Procrea- 
tion of  the  Soul  as  discoursed  in  Timaeus,  Chap.  XXIX.     (G.) 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  119 

the  νι]τη  Μζίνγμ^νων,  6  therefore  and  12  being  the  two 
extremes,  the  former  note  contams  the  number  6,  and  the 
hitter  12.  To  these  are  to  be  added  the  intermediate 
numbers,  to  which  the  extremes  must  hold  the  proportion, 
the  one  of  one  and  a  third,  and  the  other  of  one  and  a 
half.  These  are  the  numbers  8  and  9.  For  as  8  contains 
one  and  a  third  of  6,  so  9  contains  one  and  a  half  of  6  ; 
thus  you  have  one  extreme.  The  other  is  12,  containing  9 
and  a  third  part  of  9,  and  8  and  half  8.  These  then  being 
the  numbers  between  6  and  12,  and  the  interval  of  the 
octa\'e  consisting  of  a  diatessaron  and  diapente,  it  is  plain 
that  the  number  8  belongs  to  mese,  and  the  number  9  to 
paramese ;  which  being  so,  it  follows  that  hypate  is  to 
mese  as  paramese  to  nete  of  the  disjunct  tetrachords  ;  for  it 
is  a  fourth  from  the  first  term  to  the  second  of  this  propor- 
tion, and  the  same  interval  from  the  third  term  to  the 
fourth.  The  same  proportion  will  be  also  found  in  the  num- 
bers. For  as  6  is  to  8,  so  is  9  to  12  ;  and  as  6  is  to  9,  so 
is  8  to  12.  For  8  is  one  and  a  third  part  of  6,  and  12  of 
9  ;  while  9  is  one  and  a  half  part  of  6,  and  12  of  8.  AVhat 
has  been  said  may  suffice  to  show  how  great  was  Plato's 
zeal  and  learning  in  the  liberal  sciences. 

23.  Now  that  there  is  something  of  majesty,  something 
great  and  divine  in  music,  Aristotle,  who  was  Plato's 
scholar,  thus  labors  to  convince  the  world:  "Harmony," 
saith  he,  "  descended  from  heaA^en,  and  is  of  a  divine, 
noble,  and  angelic  nature  ;  but  being  fourfold  as  to  its 
efficacy,  it  has  two  means,  —  the  one  arithmetical,  the 
other  enharmonical.  As  for  its  members,  its  dimensions, 
and  its  excesses  of  intervals,  they  are  best  discovered  by 
number  and  equality  of  measure,  the  whole  art  being  con- 
tained in  two  tetrachords."  These  are  his  words.  The 
body  of  it,  he  saith,  consists  of  discording  parts,  yet  con- 
cording  one  with  another ;  whose  means  nevertheless 
agree  according  to  arithmetical  proportion.    For  the  upper 


120  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

strinof  beinj?  fitted  to  the  lowest  in  the  ratio  of  two  to  one 
produces  a  perfect  diapason.  Thus,  as  we  said  before, 
nete  consisting  of  twelve  units,  and  hypate  of  six,  the 
paramese  accords  with  hypate  according  to  the  sesquialter 
proportion,  and  has  nine  units,  whilst  mese  has  eight  units. 
So  that  the  chiefest  intervals  through  the  whole  scale  are 
the  diatessaron  (which  is  the  proportion  of  4  :  3), the  diapente 
(which  is  the  proportion  of  3  :  2),  and  the  diapason  (which 
is  the  proportion  of  2:1);  while  the  proportion  of  9 :  8 
appears  in  the  interval  of  a  tone.  With  the  same  ine- 
qualities of  excess  or  diminution,  all  the  extremes  are 
differenced  one  from  another,  and  the  means  from  tlie 
means,  either  according  to  the  quantity  of  the  numbers 
or  the  measure  of  geometry  ;  which  Aristotle  thus  expkiins, 
observing  tliat  nete  exceeds  mese  by  a  third  part  of 
itself,  and  hypate  is  exceeded  by  paramese  in  the  same 
proportion,  so  that  the  excesses  stand  in  proportion.  For 
by  the  same  parts  of  themselves  they  exceed  and  are  ex- 
ceeded ;  that  is,  the  extremes  (nete  and  hypate)  exceed 
and  are  exceeded  by  mese  and  paramese  in  tlie  same  pro- 
portions, those  of  4  :  3  and  of  3  :  2.  Now  these  excesses  are 
in  what  is  called  harmonic  progression.  But  the  distances 
of  nete  from  mese  and  of  paramese  from  hypate,  expressed 
in  numbers,  are  in  the  same  proportion  (12 :  8  =  9:6);  for 
paramese  exceeds  mese  by  one-eighth  of  the  latter.  Again, 
nete  is  to  hypate  as  2  :  1  ;  paramese  to  hypate  as  3:2;  and 
mese  to  hypate  as  4  :  3.  Tliis,  according  to  Aristotle,  is  the 
natural  constitution  of  harmony,  as  regards  its  parts  and 
its  numbers. 

24.  But,  according  to  natural  philosophy,  both  harmony 
and  its  parts  consist  of  even,  odd,  and  also  even-odd. 
Altogether  it  is  even,  as  consisting  of  four  terms  ;  but  its 
parts  and  proportions  are  even,  odd,  and  even-odd.  So 
nete  is  even,  as  consisting  of  twelve  units ;  paramese  is 
odd,  of  nine  ;  mese  even,  of  eight ;   and  hypate  e\ en-odd, 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  121 

of  six  (i.e.,  2x3).  Whence  it  comes  to  pass,  that  music 
—  herself  and  her  parts  —  being  thus  constituted  as  to  ex- 
cesses and  proportion,  the  whole  accords  with  the  whole, 
and  also  with  each  one  of  the  parts. 

25.  But  now  as  for  the  senses  that  are  created  within 
the  body,  such  as  are  of  celestial  and  heavenly  extraction, 
and  which  by  divine  assistance  affect  the  understanding  of 
men  by  means  of  harmony,  —  namely,  sight  and  hearing,  — 
do  by  the  very  light  and  voice  express  harmony.  And  others 
which  are  their  attendants,  so  far  as  they  are  senses,  like- 
wise exist  by  harmony  ;  for  they  perform  none  of  their 
effects  Λvithout  harmony ;  and  although  they  are  inferior 
to  the  other  two,  they  are  not  independent  of  them.  Nay, 
those  two  also,  since  they  enter  into  human  bodies  at 
the  very  same  time  with  God  himself,  claim  by  reason  a 
vigorous  and  incomparable  nature. 

26.  Manifest  from  hence  therefore  it  is,  why  the  ancient 
Greeks,  with  more  reason  than  others,  were  so  careful  to 
teach  their  children  music.  For  they  deemed  it  requisite 
by  the  assistance  of  music  to  form  and  compose  the  minds  of 
youth  to  what  was  decent,  sober,  and  virtuous  ;  believing 
the  use  of  music  beneficially  efficacious  to  incite  to  all  seri- 
ous actions,  especially  to  the  adventuring  upon  warlike 
dangers.  To  which  purpose  they  made  use  of  pipes  or 
flutes  when  they  advanced  in  battle  array  against  their 
enemies  ;  like  the  Lacedaemonians,  who  upon  the  same  oc- 
casion caused  the  Castorean  melody  to  be  played  before 
their  battalions.  Others  inflamed  their  courage  with 
harps,  playing  the  same  sort  of  harmony  when  they  went 
to  look  danger  in  the  face,  as  the  Cretans  did  for  a  long 
time.  Others,  even  to  our  own  times,  continue  to  use  the 
trumpet.  The  Argives  made  use  of  flutes  at  their  wrest- 
ling matches  called  Stheneia ;  which  sort  of  sport  was  first 
instituted  in  honor  of  Danaus,  but  afterwards  consecrated 
to  Jupiter  Sthenius,  or  Jupiter  the  Mighty.     And  now  at 


Γ22  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

this  day  it  is  the  custom  to  make  use  of  flutes  at  the  games 
called  Pentathla,  although  there  is  now  nothing  exquisite 
or  antique,  nothing  like  Λvhat  Avas  customary  among  men 
of  old  time,  like  the  song  composed  by  Hierax  for  this 
very  game  ;  still,  even  though  it  is  sorry  stuff  and  nothing 
exquisite,  it  is  accompanied  by  flute-music. 

27.  But  among  the  more  ancient  Greeks,  music  in 
theatres  was  never  known,  for  they  employed  their  whole 
musical  skill  in  the  Λvorship  of  the  Gods  and  the  educa- 
tion of  youth  ;  at  which  time,  there  being  no  theatres 
erected,  music  was  yet  confined  within  the  walls  of 
their  temples,  as  being  that  with  which  they  worshipped 
the  supreme  Deity  and  sang  the  praises  of  virtuous  men. 
And  it  is  probable  that  the  word  θίατρον,  at  a  later  period, 
and  θεωηεΐν  (to  heliold)  much  earlier,  were  derived  from  0^6^ 
(God).  But  in  our  age  is  such  another  face  of  new  in- 
ventions, that  there  is  not  the  least  remembrance  or  care 
of  that  use  of  music  which  related  to  education ;  for 
all  our  musicians  make  it  their  business  to  court  the 
theatre  Muses,  and  study  nothing  but  compositions  for  the 
stage. 

28.  But  some  will  say.  Did  the  ancients  invent  nothing 
themselves?  Yes,  say  I,  they  did  invent,  but  their  in- 
ventions were  grave  and  decent.  For  they  who  have  writ- 
ten the  history  of  music  attribute  to  Terpander  the  addition 
of  the  Dorian  nete,  which  before  was  not  in  use.  Even 
the  Λvhole  Mixolydian  mood  is  a  new  invention.  Such  were 
also  the  Orthian  manner  of  melody  with  Orthian  rhythms, 
and  also  the  Trochaeus  Semantus.*  And  if  we  believe 
Pindar,  Terpander  was  the  inventor  of  the  Scolion  (or 
roundelay).  Archilochus  also  invented  the  rhythmic  com- 
position of  the  iambic  trimeter,  the  change  to  rhythms  of 
different   character,  the  melo-dramatic  delivery ,t   and  the 

*  See  Rossbach,  Grieehische  Rhythmik,  p.  96,  §23.     (G.) 

t  So  Rossbach  and  Westplial  interpret  παρακατα?ιογη.  Metrik,III.  pp.  184, 554.  (G.) 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  123 

accompaniment  proper  to  each  of  these.  He  is  also  pre- 
sumed to  be  the  author  of  epodes,  tetrameters,  the  Cretic 
and  the  prosodiac  rhytlims,  and  the  augmentation  of  the 
heroic  verse.  Some  make  him  author  also  of  the  elegiac 
measure,  as  likewise  of  the  extending  the  iambic  to  the 
paeon  epibatus,  the  prolonged  and  heroic  to  the  prosodiac 
and  Cretic.  And  Archilochus  is  first  said  to  have  taught 
how  iambics  could  be  partly  recited  to  the  stroke  of  the 
lyre  and  partly  sung ;  from  him  the  tragedians  learned  it, 
and  from  them  Crexus  took  it,  and  made  use  of  it  in 
dithyrambics.  It  is  thought  that  he  invented  also  playing 
on  the  lyre  at  intervals  in  the  song,  whereas  the  ancients 
played  only  during  the  singing. 

29.  Of  the  Hypolydian  mood  they  make  Polymnestus  the 
inventor,  and  the  first  that  taught  the  lowering  and  raising 
of  the  voice  {βΆναις  and  h^oli]).  To  the  same  Olympus  to 
whom  they  also  ascribe  the  first  invention  of  Grecian  and 
well-regulated  nomic  music  they  attribute  likewise  the 
finding  out  the  enharmonic  music,  the  prosodiac  measure 
to  which  is  composed  the  hymn  to  Mars,  and  the  chorean 
measure  Avhich  he  used  in  the  hymns  to  the  Mother  of  the 
Gods.  Some  report  him  to  be  the  author  also  of  the  bac- 
chius.  And  every  one  of  the  ancient  songs  show  that  this 
is  so.  But  Lasus  of  Hermione,  transferring  the  rhythms 
to  suit  the  dithyrambic  time,  and  making  use  of  an  instru- 
ment with  many  notes,  made  an  absolute  innovation  upon 
the  ancient  music,  by  the  use  of  more  notes,  and  those 
more  widely  distributed. 

30.  In  like  manner  Menalippides  the  lyric  poet,  Philoxe- 
nus  and  Timotheus,  all  forsook  the  ancient  music.  For 
whereas  until  the  time  of  Terpander  the  Antissaean  the 
harp  had  only  seven  strings,  he*  added  a  greater  number, 
and  gave  its  notes  a  wider  range.     The  wind-music  also 

*  It  is  uncertain  here  to  whom  the  pronoun  he  refers.  Volkmann  transfers  the 
whole  sentence  to  tlie  end  of  Cliap.  XXIX.,  referring  it  to  Lasus  of  Hermione.    (Ό.) 


124:  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

exchanged  its  ancient  plainness  for  a  more  copious  variety. 
For  in  ancient  times,  till  Menalippides  the  dithyrambic 
canie  into  request,  the  wind-music  received  salaries  from 
the  poets,  poetry  holding  the  first  rank  and  the  musicians 
being  in  the  service  of  the  poet.  Afterwards  that  custom 
grew  out  of  date  ;  insomuch  that  Pherecrates  the  come- 
dian brings  in  Music  in  woman's  habit,  all  bruised  and 
battered,  and  then  introduces  Justice  asking  the  reason  ;  to 
which  Music  thus  replies  :  — 

Music.     '  Tis  mine  to  speak,  thy  part  to  hear, 

And  therefore  lend  a  willing  ear ; 

Much  have  I  suffered,  long  opprest 

By  Menalippides,  that  beast ; 

He  haled  me  from  I'arnassus'  springs, 

And  plagued  me  with  a  dozen  strings. 

His  rage  howe'er  sufficed  not  yet, 

To  make  my  miseries  complete. 

Cinesias,  that  cursed  Attic, 

A  mere  poetical  pragmatic. 

Such  horrid  strophes  in  mangled  verse 

Made  the  unharmonious  stage  rehearse, 

That  I,  tormented  with  the  pains 

Of  cruel  dithyrambic  strains, 

Distorted  lay,  that  you  would  swear 

The  right  side  now  the  left  side  were. 

Nor  did  my  miseries  end  here ; 

For  Phrynis  with  his  whirlwind  brains. 

Wringing  and  racking  all  my  veins. 

Ruined  me  quite,  while  nine  small  wires 

With  harmonies  twice  six  he  tires. 

Yet  might  not  he  so  mucli  be  blamed. 

From  all  his  errors  soon  reclaimed  ; 

But  then  Timotheus  with  his  freaks 

Furrowed  my  face,  and  ploughed  ray  cheeks. 
Justice.  Say  which  of  them  so  vile  could  be  ? 
Music  .     Milesian  Pyrrhias,  that  was  he, 

Whose  fury  tortured  me  much  more 

Than  all  that  I  have  named  before  ; 

Where'er  I  walk  the  streets  alone, 

If  met  by  him,  the  angry  clown. 

With  his  twelve  cat-guts  strongly  bound, 

He  leaves  me  helpless  on  the  ground.* 

*  The  original  of  this  fragment  of  Pherecrates  may  be  found  in  Meineke's  Poet. 
Comic.  Graec.  Fragm.  II.  p.  326  ;  and  in  Didot's  edition  of  the  same  fragments, 
p.  .110.  Meineke  includes  the  verses  commonly  assigned  to  Aristophanes  in  the 
extract  from  Pherecrates.    (G.) 


CONCERNING  MUSICi  125 

Aristophanes  the  comic  poet,  making  mention  of  Phi- 
loxenus,  complains  of  his  introducing  lyric  verses  among 
the  cyclic  choruses,  where  he  brings  in  Music  thus 
speaking :  — 

He  filled  me  with  discordant  measures  airy, 
Wicked  Ilyperbolaei  and  Niglari  ; 
And  to  uphold  the  follies  of  his  play, 
Like  a  lank  radish  bowed  me  every  way. 

Other  comedians  have  since  set  forth  the  absurdity  of  those 
who  have  been  slicers  and  manglers  of  music. 

31.  Now  that  the  right  moulding  or  ruin  of  ingenuous 
manners  and  civil  conduct  lies  in  a  well-grounded  musical 
education,  Aristoxenus  has  made  apparent.  For,  of  those 
that  were  contemporary  with  him,  he  gives  an  account  of 
Telesias  the  Theban,  who  in  his  youth  was  bred  up  in  the 
noblest  excellences  of  music,  and  moreover  studied  the 
works  of  the  most  famous  lyrics,  Pindar,  Dionysius  the 
Theban,  Lamprus,  Pratinas,  and  all  the  rest  who  were  ac- 
counted most  eminent ;  who  played  also  to  perfection  upon 
the  flute,  and  was  not  a  little  industrious  to  furnish  himself 
with  all  those  other  accomplishments  of  learning  ;  but  be- 
ing past  the  prime  of  his  age,  he  was  so  bewitched  with 
the  theatre's  new  fangles  and  the  innovations  of  multiplied 
notes,  that  despising  those  noble  precepts  and  that  solid 
practice  to  which  he  had  been  educated,  he  betook  him- 
self to  Philoxenus  and  Timotheus,  and  among  those 
delighted  chiefly  in  such  as  were  most  depraved  with 
diversity  of  notes  and  baneful  innovation.  And  yet,  when 
he  made  it  his  business  to  make  verses  and  labor  both 
ways,  as  well  in  that  of  Pindar  as  that  of  Philoxenus,  he 
could  have  no  success  in  the  latter.  And  the  reason 
proceeded  from  the  truth  and  exactness  of  his  first  educa- 
tion. 

32.  Therefore,  if  it  be  the  aim  of  any  person  to  practise 
music  with  skill  and  judgment,  let  him  imitate  the  ancient 


126  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

manner ;  let  him  also  adorn  it  with  those  other  sciences, 
and  make  philosophy  his  tutor,  which  is  sufficient  to  judge 
what  is  in  music  decent  and  useful.  For  music  being  gen- 
erally divided  into  three  parts,  diatonic,  chromatic,  and 
enharnionie,  it  behooΛ^es  one  who  comes  to  learn  music 
to  understand  poetry,  which  uses  these  three  parts,  and  to 
know  how  to  express  his  poetical  inventions  in  proper 
musical  form. 

First  therefore  we  are  to  consider  that  all  musical  learn- 
ing is  a  sort  of  habituation,  which  does  not  teach  the 
reason  of  her  precepts  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  the 
learner.  Moreover,  we  are  to  understand  that  to  such  an 
education  there  is  not  requisite  an  enumeration  of  its  sev- 
eral divisions,  but  every  one  learns  by  chance  what  either 
the  master  or  scholar,  according  to  the  authority  of  the 
one  and  the  liberty  of  the  other,  has  most  aifection  for. 
But  the  more  prudent  sort  reject  this  chance-medley  way 
of  learning,  as  the  Lacedaemonians  of  old,  the  Man- 
tineans,  and  Pallenians,  who,  making  choice  either  of  one 
single  method  or  else  but  very  few  styles,  used  only  that 
sort  of  music  which  they  deemed  most  proper  to  regu- 
late the  inclinations  of  youths. 

33.  This  Λνίΐΐ  be  apparent,  if  any  one  shall  examine 
every  one  of  the  parts,  and  see  what  is  the  subject  of  their 
several  contemplations.  For  harmony  takes  cognizance 
of  intervals,  systems,  classes  of  harmonious  sounds,  notes, 
tones,  and  systematical  transmutations.  Farther  than  this 
it  goes  not.  And  therefore  it  would  be  in  vain  to  enquire 
of  harmony,  whether  the  poet  have  rightly  and  (so  to  speak) 
musically  chosen  the  Dorian  for  the  beginning,  the  mixed 
Lydian  and  Dorian  for  the  end,  or  the  Hypophrygian 
and  Phrygian  for  the  middle.  For  the  industry  of  har- 
mony reaches  not  to  these,  and  it  is  defective  in  many  other 
things,  as  not  understanding  the  force  and  extent  of  elegant 
aptness  and  proper  concinnity.     Neither  did  ever  the  chro- 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  127 

miitic  or  enharmonic  species  arrive  to  such  force  of  aptitude 
as  to  discover  the  nature  and  genius  of  the  poem;  for  that  is 
the  work  of  the  poet.  It  is  as  phiin,  that  the  sound  of  the 
system  is  different  from  the  sound  of  the  descant  sung  in 
the  same  system ;  which,  however,  does  not  belong  to  the 
consideration  of  harmonical  studies.  There  is  the  same  to 
be  said  concerning  rhythms,  for  no  rhythm  can  claim  to  it- 
self the  force  of  perfect  aptitude.  For  we  call  a  thing  apt 
and  proper  when  we  consider  the  nature  of  it.  The 
reason  of  this,  we  say,  is  either  a  certain  plain  and  mixed 
composure,  or  both  ;  like  the  enharmonic  species  of  Olym- 
pus, by  him  set  in  the  Phrygian  mood  and  mixed  with  the 
paeon  epibatos,  which  rendered  the  beginning  of  the  key 
naturally  elegant  in  what  is  called  the  nome  of  Minerva. 
For  having  made  choice  of  his  key  and  measure,  he  only 
changed  the  paeon  epibatos  for  the  trochee,  which  pro- 
duced his  enharmonic  species.  However,  the  enharmonic 
species  and  Phrygian  tone  remaining  together  with  the 
whole  system,  the  elegancy  of  the  character  was  greatly 
altered.  For  that  which  was  called  harmony  in  the  nome 
of  ^linerva  was  quite  another  thing  from  that  in  the  intro- 
duction. He  then  that  has  both  judgment  as  well  as  skill 
is  to  be  accounted  the  most  accurate  musician.  For  he  that 
understands  the  Dorian  mood,  not  being  able  withal  to  dis- 
cern by  his  judgment  what  is  proper  to  it  and  when  it  is  fit 
to  be  made  use  of,  shall  never  know  what  he  does  ;  nay,  he 
shall  quite  mistake  the  nature  and  custom  of  the  key. 
Indeed  it  is  much  questioned  among  the  Dorians  them- 
selves, whether  the  enharmonic  composers  be  competent 
judges  of  the  Dorian  songs.  The  same  is  to  be  said  con- 
cerning the  knowledge  of  rhythm.  For  he  that  understands 
a  paeon  may  not  understand  the  proper  use  of  it,  though 
he  know  the  measure  of  which  it  consists.  Because  it  is 
much  doubted  among  those  that  make  use  of  paeons, 
whether  the  bare  knowledge  make  a  man  capable  to  deter 


128  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

mine  concerning  the  proper  use  of  those  rhythms ;  or,  as 
others  say,  whether  it  aspire  to  presume  so  far.  Therefore 
it  behooves  that  person  to  have  two  sorts  of  knowledge, 
who  will  undertake  to  judge  of  what  is  proper  and  what 
improper ;  first,  of  the  custom  and  manner  of  elegancy  for 
Λvhich  such  a  composition  Avas  intended,  and  next  of  those 
things  of  which  the  composition  consists.  And  thus,  that 
neither  the  bare  knowledge  of  harmony,  nor  of  rhythm,  nor 
of  any  other  things  that  singly  by  themselves  are  but  a  part 
of  the  whole  body  of  music,  is  sufficient  to  judge  and  deter- 
mine either  of  the  one  or  the  other,  what  has  been  already 
said  may  suffice  to  prove. 

34.  [Now  then,  there  being  three  species  into  which  all 
harmony  is  divided,  equal  in  the  magnitude  of  systems  or 
intervals  and  force  of  notes  and  tetrachords,  we  find  that 
the  ancients  never  disputed  about  any  more  than  one  ;  for 
they  never  troubled  themselves  with  the  chromatic  or  dia- 
tonic, but  dift"ered  only  about  the  enharmonic  ;  and  there 
no  farther  than  about  the  great  interval  called  the  diapason. 
The  further  subdivision  indeed  caused  some  little  variance, 
but  they  nearly  all  agreed  that  harmony  itself  is  but  one.*] 
Therefore  he  must  never  think  to  be  a  true  artist  in  the  un- 
derstanding and  practice  of  music,  who  advances  no  fartlier 
than  the  single  knowledge  of  this  or  that  particular :  but 
it  behooves  him  to  trace  through  all  the  particular  members 
of  it,  and  so  to  be  master  of  the  whole  body,  by  under- 
standing how  to  mix  and  join  all  the  divided  members. 
For  he  that  understands  only  harmony  is  confined  to  a 
single  manner.  Wherefore,  in  short,  it  is  requisite  that 
the  sense  and  understanding  concur  in  judging  the  parts  of 
music ;  and  that  they  should  neither  be  too  hasty,  like 
those  senses  which  are  rash  and  forward,  nor  too  slow,  like 
those  which  are  dull  and  heavy ;  though  it  may  happen 

*  The  passage  in  brackets  is  out  of  place  here,  and  is  generally  transferred  to  the 
middle  of  Chapter  XXXVII.     (G.) 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  12^ 

sometimes,  through  the  mequaHty  of  Nature,  that  the  same 
senses  may  be  too  slow  and  too  quick  at  the  same  time. 
Which  things  are  to  be  avoided  by  a  sense  and  judgment 
that  would  run  an  equal  course. 

35.  For  there  are  three  things  at  least  that  at  the  same 
instant  strike  the  ear,  —  the  note,  the  time,  and  the  word  or 
syllable.  By  the  note  we  judge  of  the  harmony,  by  the 
time  of  the  rhythm,  and  by  the  word  of  the  matter  or  sub- 
ject of  the  song.  As  these  proceed  forth  altogether,  it  is 
requisite  the  sense  should  give  them  entrance  at  the  same 
moment.  But  this  is  certain,  Avhere  the  sense  is  not  able  to 
separate  every  one  of  these  and  consider  the  effects  of  each 
apart,  there  it  can  never  apprehend  Avhat  is  well  or  what  is 
amiss  in  any.  First  therefore  let  us  discourse  concerning 
coherence.  For  it  is  necessary  that  coherence  accompany 
the  discerning  faculty.  For  judgment  of  good  or  bad  is 
not  to  be  made  from  notes  disjoined,  broken  time,  and 
shattered  words,  but  from  coherence.  For  there  is  in 
practice  a  certain  commixture  of  parts  which  commonly 
are  not  compounded.     So  much  as  to  coherence. 

36.  We  are  next  to  consider  Avhether  the  masters  of 
music  are  sufficiently  capable  of  being  judges  of  it.  Now 
I  aver  the  negative.  For  it  is  impossible  to  be  a  perfect 
musician  and  a  good  judge  of  music  by  the  knowledge  of 
those  things  that  seem  to  be  but  parts  of  the  whole  body,  as 
by  excellency  of  hand  upon  the  instrument,  or  singing 
readily  at  first  sight,  or  exquisiteness  of  the  ear,  so  far  as 
this  extends  to  the  understanding  of  harmony  and  time. 
Neither  does  the  knowledge  of  time  and  harmony,  pulsa- 
tion or  elocution,  or  Avhatever  else  falls  under  the  same 
consideration,  perfect  their  judgment.  Now  for  the  reasons 
why  a  musician  cannot  gain  a  perfect  judgment  from  any 
of  these,  we  must  endeavor  to  make  them  clear.  First  then 
it  must  be  granted  that,  of  things  about  Avhich  judgment  is 
to  be  made,  some  are  perfect  and  others  imperfect.     Those 

VOL.   I.  θ 


130  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

things  which  are  perfect  are  the  compositions  in  general, 
whether  sung  or  phiyed,  and  the  expression  of  tliose,  whether 
upon  the  instruments  or  by  the  voice,  Λvith  the  rest  of  the 
same  nature.  The  imperfect  are  the  things  to  these  apper- 
taining, and  for  whose  sake  they  are  made  use  of.  Such 
are  the  parts  of  expression.  A  second  reason  may  be 
found  in  poetry,  with  which  the  case  is  the  same.  For  a 
man  that  hears  a  consort  of  voices  or  instruments  can  judge 
whether  they  sing  or  phiy  in  tune,  and  whether  the  language 
be  plain  or  not.  But  every  one  of  these  are  only  parts  of 
instrumental  and  vocal  expression ;  not  the  end  itself,  but 
for  the  sake  of  the  end.  For  by  these  and  things  of  the 
same  nature  shall  the  elegancy  of  elocution  be  judged^ 
whether  it  be  proper  to  the  poem  which  the  performer  un- 
dertakes to  sing.  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  the  several 
passions  expressed  in  the  poetry. 

37.  Tlie  ancients  now  made  principal  account  of  the 
moral  impression,  and  therefore  preferred  that  fashion  of 
the  antique  music  Avhich  was  grave  and  least  affected. 
Therefore  the  Argives  are  said  to  have  punislied  deviation 
from  the  ancient  music,  and  to  have  imposed  a  fine  upon 
such  as  first  adventured  to  play  with  more  than  seven  strings, 
and  to  introduce  the  Mixolydian  mood.*  Pythagoras,  that 
grave  philosopher,  rejected  the  judging  of  music  by  the 
senses,  affirming  that  the  virtue  of  music  could  be  appre- 
ciated only  by  the  intellect.  And  therefore  he  did  not  judge 
of  music  by  the  ear,  but  by  the  harmonical  proportion,  and 
thought  it  sufficient  to  fix  the  knowledge  of  music  within 
the  compass  of  the  diapason. 

38.  But  our  musicians  nowadays  have  so  utterly  ex- 
ploded the  most  noble  of  all  the  moods,  which  the  ancients 
greatly  admired  for  its  majesty,  that  hardly  any  among  them 
make  the  least  account  of  enharmonic  distances.  And  so 
negligent  and  lazy  are  they  grown,  as  to  believe  the  enhar- 

*  See  note  on  Chapter  XXXIV. 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  131 

monic  diesis  to  be  too  contemptible  to  fiill  under  the  appre- 
hension of  sense,  and  they  therefore  exterminate  it  out  of 
their  compositions,  deeming  those  to  be  triflers  that  have  any 
esteem  for  it  or  make  use  of  the  mood  itself.  For  proof 
of  which  they  think  they  bring  a  most  powerful  argument, 
which  rather  appears  to  be  the  dulness  of  their  own  senses  ; 
as  if  whatever  fled  their  apprehensions  Λvere  to  be  rejected 
as  useless  and  of  no  value.  And  then  again  they  urge  that 
its  magnitude  cannot  be  perceived  through  its  concord,  like 
that  of  the  semitone,  tone,  and  other  distances  ;  not  under- 
standing, that  at  the  same  time  they  throw  out  the  third, 
fifth,  and  seventh,  of  which  the  one  consists  of  three,  the 
other  of  five,  and  the  last  of  seven  dieses.  And  on  the 
same  principle  all  the  intervals  that  are  odd  should  be  re- 
jected as  useless,  inasmuch  as  none  of  them  is  perceptible 
through  concord ;  and  this  would  include  all  which  by 
means  of  even  the  smallest  diesis  are  measured  by  odd 
numbers.  Whence  it  necessarily  follows,  that  no  division 
of  the  tetrachord  would  be  of  use  but  that  which  is  to  be 
measured  by  all  even  intervals,  as  in  the  syntonic  diatonic, 
and  in  the  toniaean  chromatic. 

39.  But  these  opinions  are  not  only  contrary  to  appear- 
ance, but  repugnant  one  to  another.  For  they  themselves 
chiefly  make  use  of  those  divisions  of  tetrachords  in  which 
most  of  the  intervals  are  either  unequal  or  irrational.  To 
Λvhich  purpose  they  always  soften  both  lichanos  and  para- 
nete,  and  lower  even  some  of  the  standing  sounds  by  an 
irrational  interval,  bringing  the  trite  and  paranete  to  ap- 
proach them.  And  especially  they  applaud  the  use  of 
those  systems  in  which  most  of  the  intervals  are  irrational, 
by-  relaxing  not  only  those  tones  which  are  by  nature  mov- 
able, but  also  some  which  are  properly  fixed  ;  as  it  is  plain 
to  those  that  rightly  understand  these  things. 

40.  Now  for  the  advantages  that  accrue  to  men  from  the 
use  of  music,  the  famous  Homer  has  taught  it  us,  introduc- 


132  CONCERNING  MUSIG 

ing  Achilles,  in  the  height  of  his  fury  toward  Agamemnon, 
appeased  by  the  music  which  he  learned  from  Chiron,  a 
person  of  great  wisdom.     For  thus  says  he  :  — 

Amused  at  ease,  tlie  god-like  man  they  found, 
Pleased  with  the  solemn  harp's  harmonious  sound. 
The  well-wrought  harp  from  conquered  Thehe  came; 
Of  polished  silver  was  its  costly  frame. 
With  this  he  soothes  his  angry  soul,  and  sings 
The  immortal  deeds  of  heroes  and  of  kings.* 

Learn,  says  Homer,  from  hence  the  true  use  of  music. 
For  it  became  Achilles,  the  son  of  Peleus  the  Just,  to  sing 
the  famous  acts  and  achievements  of  great  and  valiant  men. 
Also,  in  teaching  the  most  proper  time  to  make  use  of  it,  he 
found  out  a  profitable  and  pleasing  pastime  for  one's  leisure 
hours.  For  Achilles,  being  both  valiant  and  active,  by 
reason  of  the  disgust  he  had  taken  against  xlgamemnon 
withdrew  from  the  Λvar.  Homer  therefore  thought  he 
could  not  do  better  than  by  the  laudable  incitements  of  music 
and  poetry  to  inflame  the  hero's  courage  for  those  achieve- 
ments which  he  afterwards  performed.  And  this  he  did, 
calling  to  mind  the  great  actions  of  former  ages.  Such 
was  then  the  ancient  music,  and  such  the  advantages  that 
made  it  profitable.  To  Avhich  end  and  purpose  we  read 
that  Hercules,  Achilles,  and  many  others  made  use  of  it ; 
whose  master,  wisest  Chiron,  is  recorded  to  have  taught 
not  only  music,  but  morality  and  physic. 

41.  In  brief  therefore,  a  rational  person  will  not  blame 
the  sciences  themselves,  if  any  one  make  use  of  them  amiss, 
but  will  adjudge  such  a  failing  to  be  the  error  of  those  that 
abuse  them.  So  that  whoever  he  be  that  shall  give  his 
mind  to  the  study  of  music  in  his  youth,  if  he  meet  with  a 
musical  education,  proper  for  the  forming  and  regulating 
his  inclinations,  he  will  be  sure  to  applaud  and  embrace 
that  which  is  noble  and  generous,  and  to  rebuke  and  blame 
the  contrary,  as  well  in  other  things  as  in  what  belongs  to 

*  II.  IX.  186. 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  133 

music.  And  by  that  means  he  will  become  clear  from  all 
reproachful  actions,  for  now  having  reaped  the  noblest 
fruit  of  music,  he  may  be  of  great  use,  not  only  to  himself 
but  to  the  commonwealth  ;  while  music  teaches  him  to  ab- 
stain from  every  thing  indecent  both  in  Avord  and  deed,  and 
to  observe  decorum,  temperance,  and  regularity. 

42.  Now  that  those  cities  which  were  governed  by  the 
best  laws  took  care  always  of  a  generous  education  in 
music,  many  testimonies  may  be  produced.  But  for  us  it 
shall  suffice  to  have  instanced  Terpander,  who  appeased  a 
sedition  among  the  Lacedaemonians,  and  Thaletas  the  Cre- 
tan, of  whom  Pratinas  writes  that,  being  sent  for  by  the 
Lacedaemonians  by  advice  of  the  oracle,  he  freed  the  city 
from  a  raging  pestilence.  Homer  tells  that  the  Grecians 
stopped  the  fury  of  another  noisome  pestilence  by  the 
power  and  charms  of  the  same  noble  science  :  — 

With  sacred  liymns  and  songs  tliat  sweetly  please. 
The  Grecian  youth  all  day  the  Gods  appease. 
Their  lofty  paeans  bright  Apollo  hears, 
And  still  the  charming  sounds  delight  his  ears. 

These  verses,  most  excellent  master,  I  thought  requisite  to 
add  as  the  finishing  stone  to  my  musical  discourse,  which 
were  by  you  cited  before  *  to  show  the  force  of  harmony. 
For  indeed  the  chiefest  and  sublimest  end  of  music  is  the 
graceful  return  of  our  thanks  to  the  Gods,  and  the  next  is 
to  purify  and  bring  our  minds  to  a  sober  and  harmonious 
temper.  Thus,  said  Soterichus,  most  excellent  master,  I 
have  given  you  what  may  be  called  an  encyclic  discourse  of 
music. 

43.  Nor  was  Soterichus  a  little  admired  for  what  he  had 
spoken,  as  one  that  both  by  his  countenance  and  speech 
had  shown  his  zeal  and  affection  for  that  noble  science. 
After  all,  said  Onesicrates,  I  must  needs  applaud  this  in 
both  of  you,  that  you  have  kept  within  your  own  spheres 

*  See  Section  2. 


13-i  CONCERNING  MUSIC. 

and  observed  your  proper  limits.  For  Lysias,  not  insisting 
any  further,  undertook  only  to  show  us  what  was  necessary 
to  the  making  a  good  hand,  as  being  an  excellent  per- 
former himself.  But  Soterichus  has  feasted  us  with  a 
discovery  of  the  benefit,  the  theory,  the  force,  and  right 
end  of  music.  But  one  thing  I  think  they  have  willingly 
left  for  me  to  say  ;  for  I  cannot  think  them  guilty  of  so 
much  bashfulness  that  they  should  be  ashamed  to  bring 
music  into  banquets,  where  certainly,  if  anywhere,  it  can- 
not but  be  very  useful,  which  Homer  also  confirms  to  be 
true :  — 

Song  and  the  merry  dance,  the  joy  of  feasts.  * 

Not  that  I  would  have  any  one  believe  from  these  words, 
that  Homer  thought  music  useful  only  for  pleasure  and 
delight,  there  being  a  profounder  meaning  concealed  in  the 
verse.  For  he  brought  in  music  to  be  present  at  the  ban- 
quets and  revels  of  the  ancients,  as  believing  it  then  to  be 
of  greatest  use  and  advantage  to  repel  and  mitigate  the 
inflaming  power  of  the  wine.  To  which  our  Aristoxenus 
agrees,  who  alleges  that  music  was  introduced  at  banquets 
for  this  reason,  that  as  Avine  intemperately  drunk  weakens 
both  the  body  and  mind,  so  music  by  its  harmonious  order 
and  symmetry  assuages  and  reduces  them  to  their  former 
constitution.  And  therefore  it  was  that  Homer  reports 
that  the  ancients  made  use  of  music  at  their  solemn  festi- 
vals. 

44.  But  for  all  this,  my  most  honored  friends,  methinks 
you  have  forgot  the  chiefest  thing  of  all,  and  that  which 
renders  music  most  majestic.  For  Pythagoras,  Archytas, 
Plato,  and  many  others  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  were 
of  opinion,  that  there  could  be  no  motion  of  the  Avorld  or 
rolling  of  the  spheres  without  the  assistance  of  music,  since 
the  Supreme  Deity  created  all  things  harmoniously.     But 

•  Odyss.  I.  152. 


CONCERNING  MUSIC.  135 

it  would  be  unseasonable  now  to  enter  upon  such  a  dis- 
course, especially  at  this  time,  when  it  would  be  absurd  for 
Music  to  transgress  her  highest  and  most  musical  office, 
which  is  to  give  the  laws  and  limits  of  time  and  measure 
to  all  things.  Therefore  after  he  had  sung  a  paean,  and 
offered  to  Saturn  and  his  oifs])ring,  with  all  the  other  Gods 
and  the  Muses,  he  dismissed  the  company. 


OF  THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 


PLUTARCH  WISHETH  ALL  HEALTH  TO  HIS  PACCIUS. 

1.  It  wsls  late  before  I  received  your  letter,  wherein  you 
make  it  your  request  that  I  would  write  something  to  you 
concerning  the  tranquillity  of  the  mind,  and  of  those 
things  in  the  Timaeus  which  require  a  more  perspicuous 
interpretation.  At  the  same  time  a  very  urgent  occasion 
called  upon  our  common  friend  and  companion  Eros  to 
sail  directly  to  Rome;  that  which  quickened  him  to  a 
greater  expedition  was  a  dispatch  he  received  from  Funda- 
nus,  that  best  of  men,  who,  as  his  custom  is,  always  enjoins 
the  making  haste.  Therefore,  \vanting  full  leisure  to  con- 
summate those  things  justly  which  you  requested,  and 
being  on  the  other  side  unwilling  to  send  one  from  me  to 
your  dear  self  empty  handed,  I  have  transcribed  my 
commonplace  book,  and  hastily  put  together  those  col- 
lections which  I  had  by  me  concerning  this  subject;  for  I 
thought  you  a  man  that  did  not  look  after  flourishes  of 
style  and  the  afl"ected  elegance  of  language,  but  only 
required  what  was  instructive  in  its  nature  and  useful  to  us 
in  the  conduct  of  our  lives.  And  I  congratulate  that  bravery 
of  temper  in  you,  that  though  you  are  admitted  into  the 
confidence  of  princes,  and  have  obtained  so  great  a  vogue 
of  eloquence  at  the  bar  that  no  man  hath  exceeded  you, 
you  have  not,  like  the  tragic  Μ  crops,  suffered  yourself  to 
be  puffed  up  with  the  applause  of  the  multitude,  and 
transported  beyond  those  bounds  Avhich  are  prescribed  to 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF  THE   MIND.  137 

our  passions ;  but  you  call  to  mind  that  which  you  have  so 
often  heard,  that  a  rich  slipper  will  not  cure  the  gout,  a 
diamond  ring  a  whitlow,  nor  will  an  imperial  diadem  ease 
the  headache.  For  Λvhat  advantage  is  there  in  honor, 
riches,  or  an  interest  at  court,  to  remove  all  perturbations 
of  mind  and  procure  an  equal  tenor  of  life,  if  we  do  not 
use  them  with  decency  when  they  are  present  to  our 
enjoyment,  and  if  we  are  continually  afflicted  by  their  loss 
when  we  are  deprived  of  them  ]  And  what  is  this  but  the 
province  of  reason,  when  the  sensual  part  of  us  grows 
turbulent  and  makes  excursions,  to  check  its  sallies  and 
bring  it  again  Λvithin  the  limits  it  hath  transgressed,  that  it 
may  not  be  carried  away  and  so  perverted  with  the  gay 
appearances  of  things.  For  as  Xenophon  gives  advice,  we 
ought  to  remember  the  Gods  and  pay  them  particular 
de\Otions  when  our  affairs  are  prosperous,  that  so  when 
an  exigency  presseth  us  Ave  may  more  confidently  invoke 
them,  now  we  have  conciliated  their  favor  and  made  them 
our  friends.  So  wise  men  always  ruminate  upon  those 
arguments  which  have  any  efficacy  against  the  troubles  of 
the  mind  before  their  calamities  happen,  that  so  the 
remedies  being  long  prepared,  they  may  acquire  energy, 
and  Avork  with  a  more  powerful  operation.  For  as  angry 
dogs  are  exasperated  by  every  one's  rating  them,  and  are 
flattered  to  be  quiet  only  by  his  voice  to  which  they  are 
accustomed  ;  so  it  is  not  easy  to  pacify  the  brutish  affec- 
tions of  the  soul  but  by  familiar  reasons,  and  such  as  are 
used  to  be  administered  in  such  inward  distempers. 

2.  Besides,  he  that  affirmed  that  whosoever  would  enjoy 
tranquillity  of  mind  must  disengage  himself  from  all 
private  and  public  concerns,  would  make  us  pay  dear  for 
our  tranquillity  by  buying  it  with  idleness  ;  as  if  he  should 
prescribe  thus  to  a  sick  man  :  — 

Lie  still,  poor  wretch,  and  keep  thy  bed.* 
*  Eurip.  Orestes,  258. 


i;i8  Of  THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE  MIND. 

Now  stupefaction  is  a  bad  remedy  for  desperate  pain  in 
the  body,  and  verily  he  would  be  no  better  physician  for 
the  soul  who  should  order  idleness,  softness,  and  neglect 
of  friends,  kinsfolk,  and  country,  in  order  to  remove  its 
trouble  and  grief.  It  is  likewise  a  false  position  that  those 
live  most  contentedly  who  have  the  least  to  do  ;  for  then  by 
this  rule  Avomen  should  be  of  more  sedate  dispositions 
than  men,  since  they  only  sit  at  home  and  mind  theii 
domestic  affairs.  Whereas  in  fact,  as  Hesiod  expresseth 
it,— 

The  virgins'  tender  limbs  are  kept  from  cold  ; 
Not  the  least  wind  to  touch  tliem  is  so  bold  ;  * 

but  nevertheless  we  see  that  grief  and  troubles  and 
discontentments,  arising  from  jealousy  or  superstition  or 
vain  opinions,  flow  as  it  were  with  a  torrent  into  the  apart- 
ments of  the  females.  And  though  Laertes  lived  twenty 
years  in  the  fields  secluded  from  the  world,  and 

Only  a  toothless  hag  did  make  his  bed, 
Draw  him  his  drink,  and  did  his  table  spread, t 

though  he  forsook  his  house  and  country,  and  fled  from  a 
kingdom,  yet  grief  with  his  sloth  and  sadness  still  kept 
him  company.  There  are  some  to  whom  idleness  hath 
been  an  affliction  ;  as  for  instance,  — 

But  raging  still,  amidst  his  navy  sat 

The  stern  Achilles,  steadfast  in  his  hate  ; 

Nor  mix'd  in  combat,  nor  in  council  join'd  ; 

But  wasting  cares  lay  heavy  on  his  mind  : 

In  his  black  thoughts  revenge  and  slaughter  roll, 

And  scenes  of  blood  rise  dreadful  in  his  soul. J 

And  he   himself   complains  of    it,  being  mightily  dis- 
turbed, after  this  manner  :  — 

I  live  an  idle  burden  to  the  ground.il 

Hence  it  is  that  Epicurus  adviseth  those  who  aspire  to 
glory  not  to  stagnate  in  their  ambition,  but  be  in  perpetual 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  519.  t  Odyss.  I.  19L 

}  II.  I.  488.  II  H.  XVIII.  104. 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  139 

motion,  and  so  obey  the  dictates  of  their  genius  in  manag- 
ing the  commonwealth  ;  because  they  would  be  more 
tormented  and  would  suffer  greater  damages  by  idleness, 
if  they  were  disappointed  of  that  they  weve  in  the  eager 
pursuit  of.  But  the  philosopher  is  absurd  in  this,  that  he 
doth  not  ex(;ite  men  who  have  abilities  to  qualify  themselves 
for  charges  in  the  government,  but  only  those  who  are  of  a 
restless  and  unquiet  disposition.  For  the  tranquillity  and 
perturbation  of  the  mind  are  not  to  be  measured  by  the 
fewness  or  multitude  of  our  actions,  but  by  their  beauty  or 
turpitude ;  since  the  omission  of  Avhat  is  good  is  no  less 
troublesome  than  the  commission  of  evil. 

3.  As  for  those  who  think  there  is  one  positive  state  of 
life,  Avhich  is  always  serene,  —  some  fancying  it  to  be  of 
the  husbandmen,  others  of  those  which  are  unmarried,  and 
some  of  kings,  —  Menander  clearly  shows  them  their  error 
in  these  verses : — 

I  thouglit  those  men,  my  Plumia,  always  best, 
Who  take  no  money  up  at  interest; 
Who  disenffaged  from  bushiess  spend  the  day, 
And  in  complaints  don't  sigh  tlie  night  away. 
Who,  troubled,  lamentable  groans  don't  fetch. 
Thus  breatliing  out.  All !  miserable  wretch  ! 
Those  whom  despairing  thoughts  don't  waking  keep, 
But  witliout  starlings  sweetly  take  tlieir  sleep. 

He  goes  on  and  observes  to  us,  that  the  same  lot  of  mis- 
fortune falls  to  the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor :  — 

1        These  neighbors  slender  confines  do  divide, — 
Sorrow  and  human  life  are  still  allied. 
It  the  luxurious  liver  doth  infest. 
And  robs  the  man  of  honor  of  his  rest ; 
In  stricter  ties  doth  with  the  poor  engage, 
With  him  grows  old  to  a  decrepit  age. 

But  as  timorous  and  raw  sailors  in  a  boat,  Avhen  they  grow 
sick  with  the  working  of  the  waves,  think  they  shall  over- 
come their  pukings  if  they  go  on  board  of  a  ship,  but  there 
being  equally  out  of  order,  go  into  a  galley,  but  are  there- 
fore never  the  better,  because  they  carry  their  nauseousness 


140  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

and  fear  along  with  them ;  so  the  several  changes  of  life 
do  only  shift  and  not  wholly  extirpate  the  causes  of  our 
trouble.  And  these  are  only  our  want  of  experience,  the 
weakness  of  our  judgment,  and  a  certain  impotence  of 
mind  which  hinders  us  from  making  a  right  use  of  what 
Ave  enjoy.  The  rich  man  is  subject  to  this  uneasiness  of 
humor  as  Avell  as  the  poor ;  the  bachelor  as  well  as  the 
man  in  wedlock.  This  makes  the  pleader  withdraw  from 
the  bar,  and  then  his  retirement  is  altogether  as  irksome. 
And  this  infuseth  a  desire  into  others  to  be  presented  at 
court ;  and  when  they  come  there,  they  presently  grow 
weary  of  the  life. 

Poor  men  when  sick  do  peevishly  complain, 
The  sense  of  want  doth  aggravate  their  pain.* 

For  then  the  wife  grows  officious  in  her  attendance,  the 
physician  himself  is  a  disease,  and  the  bed  is  not  made 
easy  enough  to  his  mind ;  even  his  friend  importunes  him 
with  his  visits  :  — 

He  doth  molest  him  when  he  first  doth  come, 
And  when  he  goes  away  he's  troublesome, 

as  Ion  expresseth  it.  But  when  the  heat  of  the  disease  is 
over  and  the  former  temperature  of  the  body  is  restored,  then 
health  returns,  and  brings  with  it  all  those  pleasant  images 
which  sickness  chased  away  ;  so  that  he  that  yesterday 
refused  eggs  and  delicate  cakes  and  the  finest  manchets  will 
now  snap  eagerly  at  a  piece  of  household  bread,  Avith  an 
olive  and  a  few  water-cresses. 

4.  So  reason  makes  all  sorts  of  life  easy,  and  every  change 
pleasant.  Alexander  Avept  when  he  heard  from  Anaxarchus 
that  there  was  an  infinite  number  of  worlds,  and  his  friends 
asking  him  if  any  accident  had  befallen  him,  he  returns 
this  answer  :  Do  not  you  think  it  a  matter  worthy  of  lamen- 
tation, that,  when  there  is  such  a  vast  multitude  of  them, 
we  have  not  yet  conquered  one  ?     But  Crates  with  only  his 

*  Eurip.  Orestes,  232. 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   0Γ   THE   MIND.  141 

scrip  and  tattered  cloak  laughed  out  his  life  jocosely,  as 
if  he  had  been  always  at  a  festival.  The  great  power 
and  command  of  Agamemnon  gave  him  an  equal  disturb- 
ance :  — 

Look  upon  Aiiamemiioti,  Atreus's  son, 
What  mighty  loads  of  trouble  he  hath  on. 
He  is  distracted  with  perpetual  care  ; 
Jove  that  inflicts  it  gives  him  strength  to  bear* 

Diogenes,  when  he  was  exposed  to  sale  in  the  market 
and  was  commanded  to  stand  up,  not  only  refused  to  do  il, 
but  ridiculed  the  auctioneer,  with  this  piece  of  raillery : 
AVhat !  if  you  were  selling  a  fish,  would  you  bid  it  rise 
up  ?  Socrates  was  a  philosopher  in  the  prison,  and  dis- 
coursed Λvith  his  friends,  though  he  was  fettered.  But 
Phaeton,  when  he  climbed  up  into  heaven,  thought  himself 
unhappy  there,  because  nobody  would  give  him  his  father's 
chariot  and  the  horses  of  the  sun.  As  therefore  the  shoe 
is  twisted  to  the  shape  of  the  foot  and  not  in  the  opposite 
way,  so  do  the  affections  of  the  mind  render  the  life  con- 
formable to  themselves.  For  it  is  not  custom,  as  one 
observed,  \vhich  makes  even  the  best  life  pleasant  to  those 
who  choose  it,  but  it  must  be  prudence  in  conjunction  with 
it,  which  makes  it  not  only  the  best  for  its  kind,  but  sweet- 
est in  its  enjoyment.  The  fountain  therefore  of  tranquil- 
lity being  in  ourselves,  let  us  cleanse  it  from  all  impurity 
and  make  its  streams  limpid,  that  all  external  accidents,  by 
being  made  familiar,  may  be  no  longer  grievous  to  us,  since 
we  shall  know  how  to  use  them  well. 

Let  not  these  things  thy  least  concern  engage  ; 
For  though  thou  fret,  they  will  not  mind  thy  rage. 
Him  only  good  and  hapjiy  we  may  call 
Who  rightly  useth  what  doth  him  befall.t 

5.  For  Plato  compared  our  life  to  a  game  at  dice,  \vhere 
we  ought  to  throw  for  what  is  most  commodious  for  us, 
but  when  we  have  thrown,  to  make  the  best  of  our  casts. 

*  II.  X.  88.  t  From  Eurip.  Bellerophon. 


1J:2  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE» MIND. 

We  cannot  make  what  chances  we  please  turn  up,  if  we 
play  fair  ;  this  lies  out  of  our  power.  That  which  is  within 
our  power,  and  is  our  duty  if  we  are  wise,  is  to  accept  pa- 
tiently what  Fortune  shall  allot  us,  and  so  to  adjust  things 
in  their  proper  places,  that  what  is  our  own  may  be  dis- 
posed of  to  the  best  advantage,  and  what  hath  happened 
against  our  will  may  offend  us  as  little  as  possible.  But 
as  to  men  \vho  live  without  measures  and  with  no  prudence, 
like  those  whose  constitution  is  so  sickly  and  infirm  that 
they  are  equally  impatient  both  of  heats  and  colds,  pros- 
perity exalts  them  above  their  temper,  and  adversity  dejects 
them  beneath  it ;  indeed  each  fortune  disturbs  them,  or 
rather  they  raise  up  storms  to  themselves  in  either,  and 
they  are  especially  querulous  under  good  circumstances. 
Theodorus,  who  was  called  the  iVtheist,  was  used  to  say, 
that  he  reached  out  his  instructions  with  the  right  hand, 
and  his  auditors  received  them  with  their  left  hands.  So 
men  of  no  education,  when  Fortune  would  even  be  com- 
plaisant to  them,  are  yet  so  awkward  in  their  observance, 
that  they  take  her  addresses  on  the  wrong  side.  On  the 
contrary,  men  that  are  wise,  as  the  bees  draw  honey  from 
the  thyme,  which  is  a  most  unsavory  and  dry  herb,  extract 
something  that  is  convenient  and  useful  even  from  the  most 
bitter  afflictions. 

6,  This  therefore  let  us  learn  and  have  inculcated  upon 
us  ;  like  the  man  Avho  threw  a  stone  at  a  bitch,  but  hit  his 
step-mother,  on  which  he  exclaimed,  Not  so  bad.  So  we 
may  often  turn  the  direction  of  what  Fortune  obtrudes  upon 
us  contrary  to  our  desires.  Diogenes  was  driven  into  ban- 
ishment, but  it  was  "  not  so  bad  "  for  him  ;  for  of  an  exile 
he  became  a  philosopher.  Zeno  of  Citium,  when  he  heard 
that  the  only  ship  he  had  left  was  sunk  by  an  unmerciful 
tempest,  with  all  the  rich  cargo  that  was  in  her,  brake  out 
into  this  exclamation :  Fortune,  I  applaud  thy  contrivance, 
wdio  by  this  means  hast  reduced  me  to  a  threadbare  cloak 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE  MIND.  143 

and  the  piazza  of  the  Stoics.  AVhat  hinders  then  but  that 
these  examples  should  be  the  patterns  of  our  imitation] 
Thou  stoodst  candidate  for  a  place  in  the  government,  and 
wast  baulked  in  thy  hopes  ;  consider  that  thou  wilt  live  at 
ease  in  thy  own  country,  following  thy  own  affairs.  Thou 
wast  ambitious  to  be  the  confidant  of  some  great  person, 
and  sufFeredst  a  repulse  ;  thou  \vilt  gain  thus  much  by  it, 
that  thou  wilt  be  free  from  danger  and  disembarrassed  from 
business.  Again,  hast  thou  managed  any  affairs  full  of 
intricacy  and  trouble  ?  Hot  water  doth  not  so  much  cher- 
ish the  soft  members  of  the  body,  as  Pindar*  expresseth 
it,  as  glory  and  honor  joined  with  poAver  sweeten  all  our 
toils  and  make  labor  easy.  Hast  thou  met  with  any  unfor- 
tunate success '?  Hath  calumny  bit,  or  envy  hissed  at  thee  ? 
There  is  yet  a  prosperous  gale,  which  sits  fair  to  convey 
thee  to  the  port  of  the  Muses  and  land  thee  at  the  Academy. 
This  Plato  did,  after  he  made  shipwreck  of  the  friendship 
of  Diogenes.  And  indeed  it  highly  conduceth  to  the  tran 
quillity  of  the  mind,  to  look  back  upon  illustrious  men  and 
see  with  what  temper  they  have  borne  their  calamities. 
For  instance,  doth  it  trouble  thee  that  thou  wantest 
children]  Consider  that  kings  of  the  Romans  have  died 
Avithout  them,  —  had  kingdoms  to  leave,  but  no  heirs.  Doth 
poverty  and  low  condition  afflict  thee  1  It  is  put  to  thy 
option,  wouldst  thou  not  rather  of  all  the  Boeotians  be 
Epaminondas,  and  of  all  the  Romans  Fabricius?  But  thy 
bed  is  violated,  and  thy  wife  is  an  adulteress.  Didst  thou 
never  read  this  inscription  at  Delphi  1  — 

Here  am  I  set  by  Agis'  royal  hand, 

Who  both  the  earth  and  ocean  did  command. 

And  yet  did  the  report  never  arrive  thee  that  Alcibiades 
debauched  this  king's  wife,  Timaea  ?  —  and  that  she  herself 
whispered  archly  to  her  maids,  that  the  child  was  not  the 
g(>nuine  offspring  of  her  husband,  but  a  voung  Alcibiades] 

*  Pindar,  Nem.  IV.  6. 


144:  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

Yet  this  did  not  obstruct  the  glory  of  the  man  ;  for,  not- 
M'ithstanding  his  being  a  cuckold,  he  Avas  the  greatest  and 
most  famous  among  the  Greeks.  Nor  did  the  dissolute 
manners  of  his  daughter  hinder  Stilpo  from  enlivening 
his  humor  and  being  the  jolliest  philosopher  of  his  time ; 
for  Avhen  Metrocles  upbraided  him  with  it,  he  asked  him 
whether  he  was  the  offender  or  his  mad  girl.  He  answered, 
that  it  was  her  sin  but  his  misfortune.  To  which  Stilpo 
replied :  But  are  not  sins  lapses  1  No  doubt  of  it,  saith 
Metrocles.  And  is  not  that  properly  called  lapse,  when  we 
fall  off  from  the  attainment  of  those  things  λυο  were  in  the 
pursuit  of?  He  could  not  deny  it.  He  pursued  him  fur- 
ther with  this  question  :  And  are  not  these  unlucky  traverses 
misfortunes  to  them  who  are  thus  disappointed  ]  Thus  by 
a  pleasant  and  philosophical  reasoning  he  turned  the  dis- 
course, and  showed  the  Cynic  that  his  calumny  was  idle 
and  he  barked  in  vain. 

7.  But  there  are  some  whom  not  only  the  evil  dispositions 
of  their  friends  and  domestics,  but  those  of  their  enemies, 
give  disturbance  to.  For  a  proneness  to  speak  evil  of 
another,  anger,  envy,  ill-nature,  a  jealous  and  perverse 
temper,  are  the  pests  of  those  who  are  infected  Avith  them. 
And  these  serve  only  to  trouble  and  exasperate  fools,  like 
the  brawls  of  scolding  neighbors,  the  peevishness  of  our 
acquaintance,  and  the  iniquity  or  want  of  qualifications  in 
those  who  administer  the  government.  But  thou  seemest 
to  me  to  be  especially  concerned  with  affairs  of  this  nature  ; 
for,  like  the  physicians  mentioned  by  Sophocles,  — 

Who  bitter  clioler  cleanse  and  scour 
With  drugs  as  bitter  and  as  sour,  — 

thou  dost  let  other  men's  enormities  sour  thy  blood  ;  which 
is  highly  irrational.  For,  even  in  matters  of  private  man- 
agement, thou  dost  not  always  employ  men  of  wit  and 
address,  which  are  the  most  proper  for  such  an  execution, 
but  sometimes  those  of  rough  and  crooked  dispositions ; 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  145 

and  to  animadvert  upon  them  for  every  peccadillo  thou 
must  not  think  belongs  to  thee,  nor  is  it  easy  in  the  per- 
formance. But  if  thou  makest  that  use  of  them,  as  chi- 
rurgeons  do  of  forceps  to  pull  out  teeth  or  ligatures  to 
bind  Avounds,  and  so  appear  cheerful '  whatever  falls  out, 
the  satisfaction  of  thy  mind  will  delight  thee  more  than  the 
concern  at  other  men's  pravity  and  malicious  humor  will 
disturb  thee.  Otherwise,  as  dogs  bark  at  all  persons  indif- 
ferently, so,  if  thou  persecutest  everybody  that  offends 
thee,  thou  wilt  bring  the  matter  to  this  pass  by  thy  impru- 
dence, that  all  things  will  ίΙοΛν  down  into  this  imbecility  of 
thy  mind,  as  a  place  void  and  capable  of  receiving  them, 
and  at  last  thou  wilt  be  filled  Avith  nothing  but  other  men's 
miscarriages.  For  if  some  of  the  philosophers  inveigh 
against  compassion  Avhich  others'  calamities  affect  us  with, 
as  a  soft  affection  (saying,  that  we  ought  to  give  real  assist- 
ance to  those  in  distress,  and  not  to  be  dejected  or  sympa- 
thize with  them),  and  if — which  is  a  thing  of  higher 
moment  —  they  discard  all  sadness  and  uneasiness  Λvhen 
the  sense  of  a  vice  or  a  disease  is  upon  us,  saying  that  we 
ought  to  cure  the  indisposition  without  being  grieved  ;  is  it 
not  highly  consonant  to  reason,  that  we  should  not  storm 
or  fret,  if  those  we  have  to  do  Avith  are  not  so  wise  and 
honest  as  they  should  be  ?  Let  us  consider  the  thing  truly, 
my  Paccius,  lest,  whilst  we  find  fault  Avith  others,  we  pi'ove 
partial  in  our  own  respect  through  inadvertency,  and  lest 
our  censuring  their  failings  may  proceed  not  so  much  from 
a  hatred  of  their  vices  as  from  love  of  ourselves.  AVe 
should  not  have  our  passions  moved  at  every  provocation, 
nor  let  our  desires  grow  exorbitant  beyond  what  is  just ; 
for  these  little  aversions  of  our  temper  engender  suspicions, 
and  infuse  moroseness  into  us,  which  makes  us  surly  to 
those  who  precluded  the  way  to  our  ambition,  or  who  made 
us  fall  into  those  disastrous  events  we  would  willingly  have 
shunned.     But  he  that  hath  a  smoothness  in  his  nature 

VOL.    I.  10 


14:6  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY  OF   THE   MIND. 

and  a  talent  of  moderation  can  transact  and  converse  with 
mankind  easily  and  with  mildness. 

8.  Let  us  recapitulate  therefore  what  we  have  said. 
When  we  are  in  a  fever,  every  thing  that  we  taste  is  not 
only  unsavory  but  bitter ;  but  when  we  see  others  relish  it 
without  any  disgust,  we  do  not  then  lay  the  blame  either 
upon  the  meat  or  drink,  but  conclude  that  only  ourselves 
and  the  disease  are  in  fault.  In  like  manner  we  shall  cease 
to  bear  things  impatiently,  if  we  see  others  enjoy  them  with 
alacrity  and  humor.  And  this  likewise  is  a  great  promoter 
of  the  tranquillity  of  the  mind,  if,  amongst  those  ill  suc- 
cesses which  carry  a  dismal  appearance,  we  look  upon 
other  events  which  have  a  more  beautiful  aspect,  and  so 
blend  them  together  that  we  may  overcome  the  bad  by  the 
mixture  of  the  good.  But  although,  when  our  eyes  are 
dazzled  with  too  intense  a  splendor,  we  refresh  our  sight 
by  viewing  something  that  is  green  and  florid,  yet  we  fix 
the  optics  of  our  minds  upon  doleful  objects,  and  compel 
them  to  dwell  upon  the  recital  of  our  miseries,  plucking 
them  perforce,  as  it  were,  from  the  consideration  of  what 
is  better.  And  here  we  may  insert  that  which  was  said  to 
a  pragmatical  fellow,  handsomely  enough  :  — 

Wh}'  so  quick  sighted  others'  faults  to  find, 
But  to  thy  own  so  partially  art  blind  ? 
'Tis  malice  that  exasperates  thy  mind. 

But  why,  my  friend,  art  thou  so  acute  to  discern  even 
thy  own  misfortunes,  and  so  industrious  to  renew  them 
and  set  them  in  thy  sight,  that  they  may  be  the  more  con- 
spicuous, Λνΐιϋο  thou  never  turnest  thy  consideration  to 
those  good  things  which  are  present  with  thee  and  thou 
dost  enjoy  1  But  as  cupping-glasses  draw  the  impurest 
blood  out  of  the  body,  so  thou  dost  extract  the  quintessence 
of  infelicity  to  afflict  thyself.  In  this  thou  art  no  better 
than  the  Chian  merchant,  who,  while  he  sold  abundance  of 
his  best  and  most  generous  wine  to  others,  called  for  some 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  147 

that  was  pricked  and  vapid  to  taste  at  supper ;  and  one  of 
his  servants  asking  another  what  he  left  his  master  doing, 
he  made  this  answer,  that  he  was  calling  for  bad  when  the 
good  was  by  him.  For  most  men  leave  the  pleasant  and 
delectable  things  behind  them,  and  run  with  haste  to  em- 
brace those  which  are  not  only  difficult  but  intolerable. 
Aristippus  was  not  of  this  number,  for  he  knew,  even  to 
the  niceness  of  a  grain,  to  put  prosperous  against  adverse 
fortune  into  the  scale,  that  the  one  might  outweigh  the 
other.  Therefore  when  he  lost  a  noble  farm,  he  asked  one 
of  his  dissembled  friends,  who  pretended  to  be  sorry,  not 
only  Avith  regret  but  impatience,  for  his  mishap  :  Thou  hast 
but  one  piece  of  land,  but  have  I  not  three  farms  yet  re- 
maining 1  He  assenting  to  the  truth  of  it :  Why  then,  saith 
he,  should  Τ  not  rather  lament  your  misfortune,  since  it  is 
the  raving  only  of  a  mad  man  to  be  concerned  at  what  is 
lost,  and  not  rather  rejoice  in  Avhat  is  left?  Thus,  as  chil- 
dren, if  you  rob  them  of  one  of  their  play-games,  will 
throw  away  the  rest,  and  cry  and  scream  ;  so,  if  Fortune 
infest  us  only  in  one  part,  we  grow  fearful  and  abandon 
ourselves  wholly  to  her  attacks. 

9.  But  somebody  Avill  object  to  me.  What  is  it  that  Ave 
have  ?  Hather,  AVhat  is  it  that  Ave  have  not  ?  One  is 
honorable,  the  other  is  master  of  a  family ;  this  man  hath 
a  good  Avife,  the  other  a  faithful  friend.  Antipater  of  Tar- 
sus, when  he  Avas  upon  his  death-bed  and  reckoning  up  all 
the  good  events  which  had  befallen  him,  Avould  not  omit  a 
prosperous  voyage  Avhich  he  had  AA'hen  he  sailed  from 
Cilicia  to  Athens.  Even  the  trite  and  common  blessings 
are  not  to  be  despised,  but  ought  to  take  up  a  room  in  our 
deliberations.  AVe  should  rejoice  that  Ave  live,  and  are  in 
health,  and  see  the  sun ;  that  there  are  no  Avars  nor  sedi- 
tions in  our  country ;  that  the  earth  yields  to  cultivation, 
and  that  the  sea  is  open  to  our  traffic  ;  that  aa^c  can  talk, 
be  silent,  do  business,  and  be  at  leisure,  Avhen  Ave  please. 


148  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

They  will  afford  us  greater  tranquillity  of  mind  present,  if 
Λ\Έ  form  some  just  ideas  of  them  when  they  are  absent ; 
if  λΥβ  often  call  to  our  remembrance  how  solicitous  the  sick 
man  is  after  health,  how  acceptable  peace  is  to  put  out  a 
war,  and  what  a  courtesy  it  Λνΐΐΐ  do  us  to  gain  credit  and 
acquire  friends  in  a  city  of  note,  where  we  are  strangers 
and  unknown ;  and  contrariwise,  how  great  a  grief  it  is  to 
forego  these  thino^s  when  we  once  have  them.  For  surely 
a  thing  does  not  become  great  and  precious  when  we  huxe 
lost  it,  wdiile  it  is  of  no  account  so  long  as  we  possess  it; 
for  the  value  of  a  thing  cannot  be  increased  by  its  loss. 
But  we  ought  not  to  take  pains  to  acquire  things  as  being 
of  great  value,  and  to  be  in  fear  and  trembling  lest  Λνβ 
may  lose  them,  as  if  they  were  precious,  and  then  all  the 
time  they  are  safe  in  our  possession,  to  neglect  them  as  if 
they  were  of  no  importance.  But  we  are  so  to  use  them  that 
we  may  reap  satisfaction  and  gain  a  solid  pleasui-e  from 
them,  that  so  Λve  may  be  the  better  enabled  to  endure  their 
loss  Avith  evenness  of  temper.  But  most  men,  as  Arcesi- 
laus  observed,  think  they  must  be  critics  upon  other  men's 
poems,  survey  their  pictures  with  a  curious  eye,  and 
examine  their  statues  with  all  the  delicacy  of  sculpture, 
but  in  the  meanwhile  transiently  pass  over  their  own  lives, 
though  there  be  some  things  in  them  which  will  not  only 
detain  but  please  their  consideration.  But  they  will  not 
restrain  the  prospect  to  themselves,  but  are  perpetually 
looking  abroad,  and  so  become  servile  admirers  of  other 
men's  fortune  and  reputation  ;  as  adulterers  are  always 
gloating  upon  other  men's  wives  and  contemning  their 
own. 

10.  Besides,  this  is  a  thing  highly  conducing  to  the 
tranquillity  of  the  mind,  for  a  man  chiefly  to  consider  him- 
self and  his  own  aff"airs.  But  if  this  always  cannot  take 
place,  he  should  not  make  comparisons  wdth  men  of  a 
superior  condition  to  himself;  though  this  is  the  epidemi 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  149 

cal  frenzy  of  the  vulgar.  As  for  instance,  slaves  wlio  lie  in 
fetters  applaud  their  good  fortune  whose  shackles  are  off  ; 
those  who  are  loosed  from  their  bonds  Avould  be  free  men 
by  manumission  ;  these  again  aspire  to  be  citizens  ;  the 
citizen  would  be  rich  ;  the  wealthy  man  would  be  a  gover- 
nor of  a  provhice  ;  the  haughty  governor  would  be  a  king, 
and  the  king  a  God,  hardly  resting  content  unless  he  can 
hurl  thunderbolts  and  dart  lightning.  So  all  are  eager  for 
what  is  above  them,  and  are  never  content  with  what  they 
have. 

The  wealth  of  golden  Gyges  has  no  delight  for  me. 

Likewise,  — 

No  emulation  doth  my  spirits  fire, 
Tiie  actions  of  the  Gods  I  don't  admire. 
I  would  not,  to  be  great,  a  tyrant  be  ; 
The  least  appearances  I  would  not  see. 

But  one  of  Thasis,  another  of  Chios,  one  of  Galatia,  and  a 
fourth  of  Bithynia,  not  contenting  themselves  with  the 
rank  they  enjoyed  amongst  their  fello\v-citizens,  wdiere 
they  had  honor  and  commands,  complain  that  they  have 
not  foreign  characters  and  are  not  made  patricians  of  Kome; 
and  if  they  attain  that  dignity,  that  they  are  not  ])raetors  ; 
and  if  they  arrive  even  to  that  degree,  they  still  think  them- 
selves ill  dealt  with  that  they  are  not  consuls  ;  and  when 
promoted  to  the  fasces,  that  they  were  declared  the  second, 
and  not  the  first.  And  what  is  all  this  but  ungratefully 
accusing  Fortune,  and  industriously  picking  out  occasions 
to  punish  and  torment  ourselves  1  But  he  that  is  in  his 
right  senses  and  wise  for  his  own  advantage,  out  of  those 
many  millions  which  the  sun  looks  upon, 

Who  of  the  products  of  the  earth  do  eat,* 

if  he  sees  any  one  in  the  mighty  throng  who  is  more  rich 
and  honorable  than  himself,  he  is  neither  dejected  in  his 
mind  nor   countenance,  nor   doth    he   pensively  sit  down 

*  Simonidcs,  5,  17. 


150  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

deploring  his  unhappiness,  but  he  walks  abroad  publicly 
with  an  honest  assurance.  He  celebrates  his  own  good 
genius,  and  boasts  of  his  good  fortune  in  that  it  is 
happier  than  a  thousand  other  men's  which  are  in  the 
world.  In  the  Olympic  games  you  cannot  gain  the  victory 
choosing  your  antagonist.  But  in  human  life  affairs 
allow  thee  to  excel  many  and  to  bear  thyself  aloft,  and  to 
be  envied  rather  than  envious  ;  unless  indeed  thou  dost 
match  thyself  unequally  with  a  Briareus  or  a  Hercules. 
Therefore,  M'hcn  thou  art  surprised  into  a  false  admiration 
of  him  who  is  carried  in  his  sedan,  cast  thy  eyes  down- 
ward upon  the  slaves  who  support  his  luxury.  ΛΥΙιοη  thou 
art  wondering  at  the  greatness  of  Xerxes  crossing  the 
Hellespont,  consider  those  Avretches  who  are  digging 
through  Mount  Athos,  who  are  urged  to  thek  labor  with 
blows,  blood  being  mixed  with  their  sweat ;  call  to  mind 
that  they  had  their  ears  and  noses  cut  off,  because  the 
brids'e  was  broken  bv  the  violence  of  the  waves  ;  think 
upon  that  secret  reflection  they  have,  and  how  happy  they 
would  esteem  thy  life  and  condition.  Socrates  heilring 
one  of  his  friends  crying  out.  How  dear  things  are  sold  in 
this  city !  the  Λνΐηο  of  Chios  costs  a  mina,  the  purple 
fish  three,  and  a  half  pint  of  honey  five  drachms,  —  he 
brought  him  to  the  meal-shop,  and  showed  him  that  half  a 
peck  of  flour  was  sold  for  a  penny.  'Tis  a  cheap  city, 
said  he.  Then  he  brought  him  to  the  oil-man's,  and  told 
him  he  might  have  a  quart  of  olives  for  two  farthings.  At 
last  he  went  to  the  salesman's,  and  convinced  him  that  the 
purchase  of  a  sleeveless  jerkin  Λvas  only  ten  drachms.  'Tis 
a  cheap  city,  he  repeated.  So,  when  we  hear  others  de- 
clare that  our  condition  is  afflicted  because  we  are  not 
consuls  and  in  eminent  command,  let  us  then  look  upon 
ourselves  as  living  not  only  in  a  bare  happiness  but  splen- 
dor, in  that  we  do  not  beg  our  bread,  and  are  not  forced 
to  subsist  by  carrying  of  burthens  or  by  flattery. 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  151 

11.  But  such  is  our  folly,  that  we  accustom  ourselves 
rather  to  live  for  other  men's  sakes  than  our  ολνη;  and  our 
dispositions  are  so  prone  to  upbraidings  and  to  be  tainted 
with  envy,  that  the  grief  we  conceive  at  others'  prosperity 
lessens  the  joy  we  ought  to  take  in  our  own.  But  to  cure 
thee  of  this  extravagant  emulation,  look  not  upon  tlie  out- 
side of  these  applauded  men,  which  is  so  gay  and  brilliant, 
but  draw  the  gaudy  curtain  and  carry  thy  eyes  inward,  and 
thou  shalt  find  most  gnawing  disquiets  to  be  dissembled 
under  these  false  appearances.  AVhen  the  renoAvned  Pit- 
tacus,  who  got  him  so  gi'eat  a  name  for  his  fortitude, 
Avisdom,  and  justice,  Avas  entertaining  his  friends  at  a 
noble  banquet,  and  his  spouse  in  an  angry  humor  came 
and  overturned  the  table  ;  his  guests  being  extremely  dis- 
turbed at  it,  he  told  them  :  Every  one  of  you  hath  his 
particular  plague,  and  my  wife  is  mine;  and  he  is  very 
happy  who  hath  this  only. 

The  pleading  lawyer's  happy  at  the  bar  ; 
But  the  scene  openmg  shows  a  civil  war. 
For  the  good  man  hath  a  domestic  strife, 
He's  slave  to  that  imperious  creature,  wife. 
Scolding  without  doors  doth  to  him  belong, 
But  she  within  them  doth  claim  all  the  tongue. 
Pecked  by  his  female  tyrant  liim  I  see. 
Whilst  from  this  grievance  I  mj'self  am  free. 

These  are  the  secret  stings  Λvllich  are  inseparable  from 
honor,  riches,  and  dominion,  and  which  are  unknoAvn  to  the 
vulgar,  because  a  counterfeit  lustre  dazzleth  their  sight. 

All  pleasant  things  Atrides  doth  adorn  ; 
The  merry  genius  smiled  when  he  was  born.* 

And  they  compute  this  happiness  from  his  great  stores  of 
ammunition,  his  variety  of  managed  horses,  and  his  bat- 
talions of  disciplined  men.  But  an  inward  voice  of  sorrow 
seems  to  silence  all  this  ostentation  with  mournful  accents :  — 

Jove  in  a  deep  affliction  did  him  plunge.t 

Observe  this  likewise  :  — 

*  II.  111.  182.  t  H•  II.  111. 


152  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

Old  man,  I  reverence  thy  aged  head. 
Who  to  a  miglity  lengtli  hast  spun  thy  thread; 
Safe  from  all  dangers,  to  the  grave  goest  down 
Ingloriously,  because  thou  art  unknown.* 

Such  expostulations  as  these  with  thyself  will  ser\e  to 
dispel  this  querulous  humor,  which  makes  thee  fondly  ap- 
plaud other  people's  conditions  and  depreciate  thy  own. 

12.  This  likewise  greatly  obstructs  the  tranquillity  of 
the  mind,  that  our  desires  are  immoderate  and  not  suited  to 
our  abilities  of  attainment,  which,  like  sails  beyond  the  pro- 
portion of  the  vessel,  help  only  to  overset  it ;  so  that,  being- 
blown  up  with  extravagant  expectations,  if  ill  success  frus- 
trates our  attempts,  we  presently  curse  our  stars  and  accuse 
Fortune,  when  we  ought  rather  to  lay  the  blame  upon  our 
enterprising  folly.  For  we  do  not  reckon  him  unfortunate 
Λνΐιο  will  shoot  with  a  ploughshare,  and  let  slip  an  ox  at  a 
hare.  Nor  is  he  born  under  an  unlucky  influence  who 
cannot  catch  a  buck  with  a  sling  or  drag-net ;  for  it  Avas 
the  weakness  and  perverseness  of  his  mind  which  inflamed 
him  on  to  impossible  things.  The  partial  love  of  himself 
is  cliiefly  in  fault,  which  infuseth  a  vicious  inclination  to  arro- 
gate, and  an  insatiable  ambition  to  attempt  every  thing.  For 
they  are  not  content  with  the  affluence  of  riches  and  the 
accomplishments  of  the  mind,  that  they  are  robust,  have  a 
complaisance  of  humor  and  strength  of  brain  for  company, 
that  they  are  privadoes  to  princes  and  governors  of  cities, 
unless  they  have  dogs  of  great  sagacity  and  swiftness, 
horses  of  a  generous  strain,  nay,  unless  their  quails  and 
cocks  are  better  than  other  men's.  Old  Dionyshis,  not 
being  satisfied  that  he  was  the  greatest  potentate  of  his 
time,  grew  angry,  even  to  a  frenzy,  that  Philoxenus  the  poet 
exceeded  him  in  the  sweetness  of  his  voice,  and  Plato  in 
the  subtleties  of  disputation ;  therefore  he  condemned  one 
to  the  quarries,  and  sold  the  other  into  Aegina.  But  Alex- 
ander was  of  another  temper ;  for  when  Criso  the  famous 

*  Eurip.  Iph.  Aul.  16. 


OF  THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF    THE   MIND.  153 

runner  contended  with  him  for  swiftness,  and  seemed  to  be 
designedly  lagging  behind  and  yielding  the  race,  he  was  in 
a  great  rage  Avith  him.  And  Achilles  in  Homer  spake  very 
well,  when  he  said  :  — 

None  of  tlie  Greeks  for  courage  me  excel ; 
Let  otliers  have  tlie  praise  of  speaking  well.* 

When  Megabyzus  the  Persian  came  into  the  shop  of 
Apelles,  and  began  to  ask  some  impertinent  questions  con- 
cerning his  art,  the  famous  painter  checked  him  into  silence 
with  this  reprimand :  As  long  as  thou  didst  hold  thy 
peace,  thou  didst  appear  to  be  a  man  of  condition,  and 
I  paid  a  deference  to  the  eclat  of  thy  purple  and  the 
lustre  of  thy  gold ;  but  now,  since  thou  art  ήΐΛ'οΙοηβ,  thou 
exposest  thyself  to  the  laughter  even  of  my  boys  that  mix 
the  colors.  Some  think  the  Stoics  very  childish,  when  they 
hear  them  affirm  that  the  wise  man  must  not  only  deserve 
that  appellation  for  his  prudence,  be  of  exact  justice  and 
great  fortitude,  but  must  likewise  have  all  the  flowers  of  a 
rhetorician  and  the  conduct  of  a  general,  must  have  the 
elegancies  of  a  poet,  be  very  wealthy,  and  called  a  king  ; 
but  these  good  men  claim  all  these  titles  for  themselves,  and 
if  they  do  not  receive  them,  they  grow  peevish  and  are 
presently  out  of  temper.  But  the  qualifications  of  the  Gods 
themselves  are  different ;  for  the  one  is  styled  the  deity  of  war, 
another  of  the  oracle,  a  third  of  traffic  ;  and  Jupiter  makes 
Venus  preside  over  marriages  and  be  goddess  of  the  nuptial 
bed,  the  delicacy  of  her  sex  being  unapt  for  martial  affairs. 

13.  And  there  are  some  things  which  carry  a  contrariety 
in  their  nature,  and  cannot  be  consistent.  As  for  in- 
stance, the  study  of  the  mathematics  and  practice  in  oratory 
are  exercises  which  require  a  great  leisure  and  freedom 
from  other  concerns  ;  but  the  intrigues  of  politics  cannot 
be  managed,  and  the  favor  of  princes  cannot  be  attained  or 
cultivated,  without  severe  application  and  being  involved  in 

*  II.  XVIIL  105. 


154        OF  THE  TRANQUILLITY  OF  THE  MIND. 

affairs  of  high  moment.  Then  the  indulging  ourselves  to 
drink  wine  and  eat  flesh  makes  the  body  strong,  but  it 
effeminates  the  mind.  Industry  to  acquire  and  care  to  pre- 
serve our  wealth  do  infinitely  increase  it ;  but  the  contempt 
of  riches  is  the  best  refreshment  in  our  philosophic  journey. 
Hence  it  is  very  manifest  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  in 
things,  and  that  we  ought  to  obey  the  inscription  of  the 
Pythian  oracle,  that  every  man  should  know  himself,  that 
he  should  not  constrain  his  genius  but  leave  it  to  its  own 
propensions,  and  then  that  he  should  apply  himself  to  that 
to  which  he  is  most  adapted,  and  not  do  violence  to  Nature 
by  dragging  her  perforce  to  this  or  that  course  of  life. 

With  generous  provender  they  the  horse  do  feed, 
That  he  may  win  tlie  race  with  strength  and  speed. 
Tlie  mighty  ox  is  fitted  to  the  yoke, 
And  by  his  toil  the  fertile  clods  are  broke. 
The  dolphin,  when  a  ship  he  doth  espy, 
Straight  the  good-natured  fish  his  fins  doth  ply  ; 
By  the  ship's  motion  he  his  own  doth  guide, 
And  lovingly  swims  constant  to  her  side. 
And  if  you'd  apprehend  the  foaming  boar, 
Tiie  monster  by  a  mastifi'  must  be  tore.* 

But  he  is  stupid  in  his  wishes  who  takes  it  amiss  that  he 
is  not  a  lion, 

Who  with  a  proud  insulting  air  doth  tread, 
Rough  as  the  mountains  where  he  first  was  bred  ;  1 

or  that  he  is  not  a  Malta-shock,  delicately  brought  up  in  the 
lap  of  a  fond  widow.  He  is  not  a  jot  more  rational  who 
ΛνοηΜ  be  an  Empedocles,  a  Plato,  or  a  Democritus,  and  write 
about  the  universe  and  the  reality  of  things  therein,  and 
at  the  same  time  would  sleep  by  the  dry  side  of  an  old 
woman, because  she  is  rich,  as  Euphorion  did ;  or  be  admitted 
to  debauch  with  Alexander  amongst  his  club  of  drunkards, 
as  Medius  was  ;  or  be  concerned  that  he  is  not  in  as  high  a 
vogue  of  admiration  as  Ismenias  was  for  his  riches  and  Epa- 
minondas  for  his  virtue.     For  those  Λνΐιο  run  races  do  not 

*  Pindar,  Frag.  258  (Boeckh),  f  Odyss.  VL  130;  II.  XVII.  61. 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY  OF   THE   MIND.  155 

think  they  have  injury  done  them  if  they  are  not  crowned 
with  those  garlands  which  are  due  to  the  wrestlers,  but  they 
are  rather  transported  with  joy  at  their  own  rewards. 
"Sparta  has  fallen  to  thy  lot ;  honor  and  adorn  her."  Solon 
hath  expressed  himself  to  this  purpose :  — 

Virtue  for  sordid  wealth  shall  not  be  sold  ; 
It's  beauty  far  outshines  the  miser's  gold. 
This  without  Fortune's  siiocks  doth  still  endure ; 
But  that's  possession  is  insecure.* 

And  Strato,  who  wrote  of   physics,  when  he    heard    that 
Menedemus  had  a  great  number  of  scholars,  asked :  \Vhat 
wonder  is  it,  if  more  come  to  wash  than  to  be  anointed  ? 
And  Aristotle,  writing  to  Antipater,  declared,  that  x\lexan- 
der  was  not  the  only  one  who  ought  to  think  highly  of 
himself  because  his  dominion  extended  over  many  subjects, 
since  they  had  a  right  to  think  as  well  of  themselves   who 
entertained  becoming  sentiments  of  the  Gods.     So  that,  by 
having  a  just  opinion  of  our  own  excellences,  we  shall  be 
disturbed  with  the  less  envy  against  those  of  other  men. 
But  now,  although  in  other  cases  we  do  not  expect  figs  from 
the  vine  nor  grapes  from  the  olive-tree,  yet,  if  Λνο  have  not 
the  complicated  titles  of  being  rich  and  learned,  philoso- 
phers in  the  schools  and  commanders  in  the   field,  if  Ave 
cannot  flatter,  and  have  the  facetious  liberty  to  speak  what 
we  please,  nay,  if  we  are   not  counted  parsimonious  and 
splendid  in  our  expenses  at  the  same  time,  we  grow  uneasy 
to  ourselves,  and  despise  our  life  as  maimed  and  imperfect. 
Besides,  Nature  seems  to  instruct  us  herself;  for,   as  she 
ministers  diff"erent  sorts  of  food  to  her  animals,  and  hath 
endowed  them  with  diversity  of  appetites,  —  some  to  eat 
flesh,  others  to  pick  up  seed,  and  others  to  dig  up  roots  for 
their  nourishment,  — so  she  hath  bestowed  upon  her  rational 
creatures  various  sorts  of  accommodations  to  sustain  their 
being.     The  shepherd  hath  one  distinct  from  the  plough - 

*  Solon,  Frag:  15. 


156  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

man  ;  the  fowler  hath  another  peculiar  to  himself ;  and  the 
fourth  lives  by  the  sea.  So  that  in  common  equity  we 
ought  to  labor  in  that  vocation  which  is  appointed  and  most 
commodious  for  us,  and  let  alone  the  rest ;  and  so  not  to 
prove  that  Hesiod  fell  short  of  the  truth  when  he  sj^ake 
after  this  manner  :  — 

The  potter  liates  another  of  the  trade. 

If  by  his  hands  a  finer  disli  is  made  ; 

The  smith  liis  brotlier  snmdge  witli  scorn  doth  trtat, 

If  he  his  iron  strikes  with  brisker  heat.* 

And  this  emulation  is  not  confined  to  mechanics  and 
those  who  follow  the  same  occupations  ;  but  the  rich  man 
envies  the  learned.  He  that  hath  a  bright  reputation 
envies  the  miser's  guineas,  and  the  pettifogger  thinks  he  is 
outdone  in  talking  by  the  sophister.  Nay,  by  Heaven,  he 
that  is  born  free  sottishly  admires  the  servile  attendance  of 
him  who  is  of  the  household  to  a  king  ;  and  the  man 
that  hath  patrician  blood  in  his  \e\ns  calls  the  comedian 
happy  who  acts  his  part  gracefully  and  with  humor,  and 
applauds  even  the  mimic  who  pleaseth  with  fiirce  and 
scaramouchy  gestures  ;  thus  by  a  false  estimate  of  happi- 
ness they  disturb  and  perplex  themselves. 

14.  Now  that  every  man  hath  a  storehouse  of  trouble 
and  contentment  in  his  own  bosom,  and  that  the  vessels 
Avhich  contain  good  and  evil  are  not  placed  at  Jupiter's 
threshold, t  but  in  the  recesses  of  the  mind,  the  variety  of 
our  passions  is  an  abundant  demonstration.  The  fool 
doth  not  discern,  and  consequently  cannot  mind,  the  good 
that  is  obvious  to  him,  for  his  thoughts  are  stdl  intent 
upon  the  future  ;  but  the  prudent  man  retrieves  things 
that  were  lost  out  of  their  oblivion,  by  strength  of  recollec- 
tion renders  them  perspicuous,  and  enjoys  them  as  if  they 
were  present.  Happiness  having  only  a  few  coy  minutes 
to  be  courted  in,  the  man  that  hath  no  intellect  neglects 

*  Ilesiod,  Works  and  Days,  25.  t  See  II.  XXIV.  527. 


OF   THE   TKANQUILLITY   OF   THE  MIXD.  157 

this  o]iportunity,  and  so  it  slides  away  from  his  sense  and 
no  more  belongs  to  him.  But  like  him  that  is  painted  in 
hell  twisting  a  rope,  and  who  lets  the  ass  that  is  by  him 
devour  all  the  laborious  textures  as  fast  as  he  makes  them, 
so  most  men  have  such  a  lethargy  of  forgetfulness  upon 
them,  that  they  lose  the  remembrance  of  all  great  actions, 
and  no  more  call  to  mind  their  pleasant  intervals  of  leisure 
and  repose.  The  relish  of  their  former  banquets  is  grown 
insipid,  and  delight  hath  left  no  piquant  impression  upon 
their  palates  ;  by  this  means  they  break  as  it  were  the  con- 
tinuity of  life,  and  destroy  the  union  of  present  things  to 
the  past ;  and  dividing  yesterday  from  to-day  and  to-day 
from  to-morrow,  they  utterly  efface  all  events,  as  if  they 
had  never  been.  For,  as  those  who  are  dogmatical  in  the 
schools,  and  deny  the  augmentation  of  bodies  by  reason  of 
the  perpetual  flux  of  all  substance,  do  strip  us  out  of  our- 
selves and  make  no  man  to  be  the  same  to-day  that  he  was 
yesterday  ;  so  those  who  bury  all  things  that  have  preceded 
them  in  oblivion,  Avho  lose  all  the  notices  of  former  times 
and  let  them  all  be  shattered  carelessly  out  of  their  minds, 
do  every  day  make  themselves  void  and  empty ;  and  they 
become  utterly  dependent  on  the  morrow,  as  if  those 
things  which  happened  last  year  and  yesterday  and  the 
day  before  were  not  to  affect  their  cognizance  and  be 
occurrences  worthy  their  observation, 

15.  This  is  a  great  impediment  to  the  tranquillity  of  the 
mind.  But  that  which  is  its  more  sensible  disturbance  is 
this,  that  as  flies  upon  a  mirror  easily  slide  down  the 
smooth  and  polished  parts  of  it,  but  stick  to  those  which  are 
rugged  and  uneven  and  fall  into  its  flaws,  so  men  let  what 
is  cheerful  and  pleasant  flow  from  them,  and  dwell  only 
upon  sad  melancholy  remembrances.  Nay,  as  those  of 
Olynthus  carry  beetles  into  a  certain  place,  which  from  the 
destruction  of  them  is  called  their  slaughter-house,  Λvhere, 
all  passages   being  stopped  against  their  escape,  they  are 


158  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

killed  by  the  Aveariness  of  perpetual  flying  about ;  so  when 
men  have  once  fallen  upon  the  memory  of  their  former 
sorrows,  no  consolation  can  take  them  off  from  the  mourn- 
ful theme.  But  as  in  a  landscape  we  draw  the  most 
beautiful  colors,  so  we  ought  to  fill  the  prospect  of  our 
minds  with  the  most  agreeable  and  sprightly  images  ;  that, 
if  we  cannot  utterly  abolish  those  which  are  dark  and  un- 
pleasant, we  may  at  least  obscure  them  by  more  gay  and 
lively  representations.  For  as  the  strings  of  a  lute  or  bow, 
so  is  the  harmony  of  the  world  alternately  tightened  and 
relaxed  by  Adcissitude  and  change  ;  and  in  human  affairs 
there  is  nothing  that  is  unmixed,  nothing  that  is  un- 
allied.  But  as  in  music  there  are  some  sounds  which  are 
fiat  and  some  sharp,  and  in  grammar  some  letters  that  are 
vocal  and  some  mute,  but  neither  the  man  of  concord  nor 
syntax  doth  industriously  decline  one  sort,  but  with  the 
fineness  of  his  art  mixeth  them  together  ;  so  in  things  in 
this  world  which  carry  a  direct  opposition  in  their  nature 
one  to  another,  —  when,  as  Euripides  expresseth  it. 

The  good  things  with  the  evil  still  are  joined, 
And  in  strict  union  mutually  combined  ; 
The  chequered  work  doth  beautiful  appear, 
For  what  is  sweet  allays  the  more  seΛ'ere  ;  — 

yet  we  ought  not  to  be  discouraged  or  have  any  desponden- 
cies. But  in  this  case  let  us  imitate  the  musicians,  who 
drown  the  harsh  cadences  with  others  that  more  caress 
the  ear  ;  so,  by  tempering  our  adverse  fortune  with  what 
is  more  prosperous,  let  us  render  our  lives  pleasant  and  of 
an  equal  tone.  For  that  is  not  true  which  Menander  tells 
us :  — 

Soon  as  an  infant  doth  salute  the  day, 

A  genius  his  first  cryings  doth  obej', 

And  to  his  charge  comes  hastily  away ; 

The  daemon  doth  assist  the  tender  lad, 

Shows  him  what's  good,  and  saves  him  from  the  bad. 

But  the  opinion  of  Empedocles  deserves  more  our  ap- 
probation, who  saith  that,  as  soon  as  any  one  is  born,  he  is 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  159 

carefully  taken  up  and  governed  by  two  guardian  spirits. 
"  There  were  Chthonia  and  far-seeing  Heliope,  and  bloody 
Deris  and  grave-faced  Harmonia,  Kallisto  and  Aeschra, 
Thoosa  and  Uenaea,  with  lovely  Nemertes  and  black-fruit- 
ed Asaphaea." 

16.  By  this  diversity  of  characters  is  expressed  only  the 
variety  of  our  passions  ;  and  these  are  the  seeds  of  dis- 
content we  brought  into  the  world  with  us.  Since  now 
these  disorder  our  lives  and  make  them  unequal,  he  that 
is  master  of  himself  wishes  for  the  better,  but  expects  the 
worse ;  but  he  useth  them  both  with  a  moderation  suitable 
to  that  injunction,  Do  not  any  thing  too  much.  For,  as 
Epicurus  said,  not  only  does  he  that  is  least  impatient  after 
to-morrow  enjoy  it  most  when  it  comes  ;  but  honor,  riches, 
and  power  give  those  the  greatest  complacency  who  are 
not  tormented  with  any  apprehensions  that  the  contrary 
will  befall  them.  For  an  immoderate  craving  after  things 
of  this  nature  infuseth  a  fear  of  losing  them,  equal  to  the 
first  intemperate  desire.  This  deadens  the  fruition,  and 
makes  the  pleasure  as  weak  and  unstable  as  flame  driven 
by  the  wind.  But  he  to  whom  his  reason  hath  given  the 
assurance  that  he  can  boldly  say  to  Fortune, 

Welcome  to  me,  if  good  tliou  bringest  aught, 
And  if  thou  fail,  I  will  take  little  thought,  — 

this  is  the  man  who  can  confidently  enjoy  Avhat  is  present 
with  him,  and  Λvho  is  not  afflicted  with  such  cowardice  of 
thoughts  as  to  be  in  constant  alarms  lest  he  should  lose  his 
possessions,  which  Avould  be  an  intolerable  grievance. 
But  let  us  not  only  admire  but  imitate  that  temper  of  mind 
in  Anaxagoras,  which  made  him  express  himself  in  these 
words  upon  the  death  of  his  son :  — 

I  knew  that  I  had  begotten  a  mortal. 

And  let  us  apply  it  to  all  the  casualties  of  our  life  after 
this  manner.      I  know  my  riches  have  only  the  duration  of  a 


160  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITT   OF   THE   MIND. 

day  ;  I  know  that  the  same  hand  which  bestowed  authority 
upon  me  could  spoil  me  of  those  ornaments  and  take  it 
away  again ;  I  know  my  wife  to  be  the  best  of  women,  but 
still  a  woman  ;  my  friend  to  be  faithful,  yet  the  cement 
might  be  broken,  for  he  Λvas  a  man,  —  which,  as  Plato 
saith,  is  a  very  inconstant  creature.  These  previous  ex- 
postulations and  preparations,  if  any  thing  fall  out  Avhich 
is  against  our  mind  but  not  contrary  to  our  expectation, 
will  cure  the  palpitation  of  our  hearts,  make  our  disturb- 
ances settle  and  go  down,  and  bring  our  minds  to  a 
consistence  ;  not  indulging  us  in  these  lazy  exclamations, 
Who  would  have  thought  it  ?  —  I  looked  for  better,  and 
did  not  expect  this.  Carneades  gives  us  a  short  memoir 
concerning  great  things,  that  the  cause  from  whence  all  our 
troubles  proceed  is  that  they  befciU  unexpectedly.  The 
kingdom  of  Macedon  compared  with  the  Roman  empire 
sank  in  the  competition,  for  it  was  only  an  inconsiderable 
part  of  it  ;  yet  when  Perseus  lost  it,  he  not  only  deplored 
his  own  misfortune,  but  he  was  thought  by  all  the  most 
abject  and  miserable  of  mankind.  Yet  Aemilius  that 
conquered  him,  when  he  delivered  up  the  command  of  sea 
and  land  into  the  hands  of  a  successor,  was  crowned  and 
did  sacrifice,  and  was  esteemed  happy.  For  he  knew, 
when  he  received  his  honor,  that  it  was  but  temporary,  and 
that  he  must  lay  down  the  authority  he  had  taken  up. 
But  Perseus  was  stripped  of  his  dominions  by  surprise. 
The  poet  hath  prettily  illustrated  what  it  is  for  a  thing  to 
fall  out  unexpectedly.  For  Ulysses,  when  his  dog  died, 
could  not  forbear  crying,  yet  would  hot  suffer  himself  to 
weep  when  his  Λvife  sate  by  him  crying,  but  stopped  his 
tears  ;  for  here  he  came  strengthened  with  reason  and 
beforehand  acquainted  with  the  accident,  but  before  it  was 
the  suddenness  of  the  disaster  which  raised  his  sorrow  and 
threw  him  into  complaints. 

17.  Generally  speaking,  those  things  which  happen  to 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  161 

US  against  our  will  afflict  us  partly  by  a  pungency  that  is 
in  their  nature,  and  partly  custom  and  opinion  so  efFem- 
inate  us  that  Ave  are  impatient  under  them.  But  against 
all  contingencies  we  should  have  that  of  Menander  in 
readiness :  — 

Afflictions  to  thyself  thou  flost  create, 
Thy  fancy  only  is  unfortunate. 

For  Avhat  are  afflictions  to  thee,  if  they  touch  neither  thy 
body  nor  thy  soul  1  Of  this  sort  is  the  low  extraction  of 
thy  father,  the  adultery  of  thy  wife,  the  loss  of  a  garland, 
or  being  deprived  of  the  upper  seat  in  an  assembly.  And 
with  all  these  crosses  thou  mayest  have  ease  of  mind  and 
strength  of  body.  But  to  those  things  which  in  their  own 
nature  excite  our  grief,  —  such  as  sickness,  pains  of  the 
body,  and  the  death  of  our  friends  and  children,  —  we  ought 
to  apply  that  of  Euripides  :  — 

Alas  !  alas  !  and  well-a-day  ! 
But  why  alas  and  irell  atvni/  ? 
Naught  else  to  us  hath  yet  been  dealt. 
But  tliat  which  daily  men  have  felt. 

Tliere  is  no  reasoning  more  effectual  to  restrain  our  pas- 
sions and  hinder  our  minds  from  falling  into  despair,  than 
that  Avhich  sets  before  us  a  physical  necessity  and  the 
common  lot  of  nature.  And  it  is  our  bodies  only  that  lie 
exposed  to  this  destiny,  and  which  we  offer  (as  it  Avere)  as 
a  handle  to  Fortune  ;  but  the  fort-royal  is  still  secure,  where 
our  strength  lies  and  our  most  precious  things  are  treas- 
ured up.  AVhen  Demetrius  took  Megara,  he  asked  Stilpo 
whether  he  had  not  suffered  particular  damage  in  the 
plundering ;  to  w4iich  he  made  this  ansAver,  that  he 
saw  nobody  that  could  rob  him.  So  when  Fate  hath  made 
all  the  depredations  upon  us  it  possibly  can  and  hath  left 
us  naked,  yet  there  is  something  still  within  us  which  is 
out  of  the  reach  of  the  pirate,  — 

Which  conquering  Greece  could  never  force  away.* 
*  II.  V.  484. 
voi    I.  11 


162  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE  MIND. 

Therefore  we  ought  not  so  to  Λάΐΐίγ  and  depress  our  na- 
ture as  if  it  could  not  get  the  ascendant  over  Fortune,  and 
had  nothing  of  firmness  and  stabihty  in  it.  But  we  ought 
rather  to  consider  that,  if  any  part  of  us  is  obnoxious  to 
this,  it  is  only  that  which  is  the  smallest,  and  the  most  im- 
pure and  sickly  too ;  Avhilst  the  better  and  more  gen- 
erous Ave  have  the  most  absolute  dominion  of,  and  our 
chiefest  goods  are  placed  in  it,  such  as  true  discipline,  a 
right  notion  of  things,  and  reasonings  Avhich  in  their  last 
results  bring  us  unto  virtue  ;  which  are  so  far  from  being 
abolished,  that  they  cannot  be  corrupted.  We  ought  like- 
wise, with  an  invincible  spirit  and  a  bold  security  as  re- 
gards futurity,  to  answer  Fortune  in  those  words  which 
Socrates  retorted  upon  his  judges :  Anytus  and  Meletus 
may  kill,  but  they  cannot  hurt  me.  So  she  can  afflict  me 
with  a  disease,  can  spoil  me  of  my  riches,  disgrace  me  with 
my  prince,  and  bring  me  under  a  popular  odium  ;  but  she 
cannot  make  a  good  man  wicked,  or  the  brave  man  a  mean 
and  degenerate  coward  ;  she  cannot  cast  envy  upon  a  gen- 
erous temper,  or  destroy  any  of  those  habits  of  tlie  mind 
Avhich  are  more  useful  to  us  in  the  conduct  of  our  lives, 
when  they  are  within  the  command  of  our  Avills,  than  the 
skill  of  a  pilot  in  a  storm.  For  the  pilot  cannot  mitigate 
the  billows  or  calm  the  winds  ;  he  cannot  sail  into  the 
haven  as  often  as  he  has  occasion,  or  Avithout  fear  and 
trembling  abide  any  danger  that  may  befall  him  ;  but  after 
having  used  all  his  efforts,  he  at  last  recommits  himself 
to  the  fury  of  the  storm,  pulls  down  all  his  sails  by  the 
board,  whilst  the  lower  mast  is  within  an  inch  of  the  abyss, 
and  sits  trembling  at  the  approaching  ruin.  But  the 
affections  of  the  mind  in  a  wise  man  procure  tranquillity 
even  to  the  body.  For  he  prevents  the  beginnings  of  dis- 
ease by  temperance,  a  spare  diet,  and  moderate  exercise ; 
but  if  an  evil  begin  more  visibly  to  show  itself,  as  we  some- 
times steer  our  ship  by  rocks  which  lie  in  the  water,  he 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  163 

must  then  furl  in  his  sails  and  pass  by  it,  as  Asclepiadcs 
expresseth  it ;  but  if  the  Λvaves  grow  turbulent  and  the 
sea  rougher,  the  port  is  at  hand,  and  he  may  leave  this 
body,  as  he  would  a  leaky  vessel,  and  swim  ashore. 

18.  For  it  is  not  so  much  the  desire  of  life  as  the  fear 
of  death,  which  makes  the  fool  have  such  a  dependence 
upon  the  body,  and  stick  so  fast  to  its  embraces.  So  Ulys- 
ses held  fast  by  the  fig-tree,  dreading  Charybdis  that  lay 
under  him,  — 

Where  the  wind  would  not  suffer  liim  to  stay, 
Nor  would  it  serve  to  carry  him  away,* 

so  that  on  tliis  side  Λvas  but  a  slender  support,  and  there 
Λvas  inevitable  dani^er  on  the  other.  But  he  who  considers 
the  nature  of  the  soul,  and  that  death  will  transport  it  to  a 
condition  either  far  better  or  not  much  Λvorse  than  what 
he  now  enjoys,  hath  contempt  of  death  to  sustain  him  as 
he  travelleth  on  in  this  pilgrimage  of  his  life,  no  small 
viaticum  towards  tranquillity  of  mind.  For  as  to  one  that 
nan  live  pleasantly  so  long  as  virtue  and  the  better  part  of 
mankind  are  predominant,  and  can  depart  fearlessly  so 
soon  as  hostile  and  unnatural  principles  prevail,  saying  to 
himself,  — 

Faie  shall  release  me  when  I  please  myself ;  t 

what  in  the  whole  scope  of  the  creation  can  be  thought  of 
that  can  raise  a  tumult  in  such  a  man,  or  give  him  the 
least  molestation  1  Certainly,  he  that  threw  out  that  brave 
defiance  to  Fortune  in  these  Avords,  "  I  have  prevented  thee, 
Ο  Fortune,  and  have  shut  up  all  thy  avenues  to  me,"  did 
not  speak  it  confiding  in  the  strength  of  walls  or  bars,  or 
the  security  of  keys  ;  but  it  was  an  effect  of  his  learning, 
and  the  challenge  was  a  dictate  of  his  reason.  And  these 
heights  of  resolution  any  men  may  attain  to  if  they  are 
Avilling ;  and  we  ought  not  to  distrust,  or  despair  of  arriv- 

*  Aesch.  Philoct.  Frag.  246.  t  Eurip.  Bacchae,  498. 


164  or   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

ing  to  the  courage  of  saying  the  same  things.  Therefore 
we  should  not  only  admire,  but  be  kindled  with  emulation, 
and  think  ourselves  touched  Avith  the  impulse  of  a  divine 
instinct,  which  piques  us  on  to  the  trial  of  ourselves  in 
matters  of  less  importance ;  that  thereby  we  may  find  how 
our  tempers  bear  to  be  qualified  for  greater,  and  so  may 
not  incuriously  decline  that  inspection  we  ought  to  have 
over  ourselves,  or  take  refuge  in  the  saying.  Perchance 
nothing  will  be  more  difficult  than  this.  For  the  luxurious 
thinker,  who  withdraws  himself  from  severe  reflections  and 
is  conversant  about  no  objects  but  Avhat  are  easy  and  de- 
lectable, emasculates  his  understanding  and  contracts  a 
softness  of  spirit ;  but  he  that  makes  grief,  sickness,  and 
banishment  the  subjects  of  his  meditation,  who  composeth 
his  mind  sedately,  and  poiseth  himself  Avith  reason  to  sus- 
tain the  burthen,  will  find  that  those  things  are  vain,  empty, 
and  false  which  appear  so  grievous  and  terrible  to  the 
vulgar,  as  his  own  reasonings  will  make  out  to  him  in 
every  particular. 

19.  But  many  are  shocked   at  this   saying  of   Menan- 
der,  — 

No  man  can  tell  what  will  himself  befall ,  — 

in  the  mean  Avhile  being  monstrously  ignorant  what  a  noble 
expedient  this  is  to  disperse  our  sorrows,  to  contemplate 
upon  and  to  be  able  to  look  Fortune  steadily  in  the  face  ; 
and  not  to  cherish  delicate  and  eff"eminate  apprehensions 
of  things,  like  those  bred  up  in  the  shade,  under  false  and 
extravagant  hopes  which  hdxe  not  strength  to  resist  the 
first  adversity.  But  to  the  saying  of  Menander  we  may 
make  this  just  and  serious  reply:  It  is  true  that  a  man 
while  he  lives  can  never  say.  This  will  never  befall  me  ;  but 
he  can  say  this,  I  will  not  do  this  or  that ;  I  Λνϋΐ  scorn  to 
lie  ;  I  Avill  not  be  treacherous  or  do  a  thing  ungenerously  ; 
I  Λνΐΐΐ  not  defraud  or  circumvent  any  one.  And  to  do  this 
lies  within  the  sphere  of  our  performance,  and  conduceth 


ΟΙ    THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  165 

extremely  to  the  tranquillity  of  the  mind.  Whereas,  on 
the  contrary,  the  being  conscious  of  having  done  a  Λvickcd 
action*  leaves  stings  of  remorse  behind  it,  which,  like  an 
ulcer  in  the  flesh,  makes  the  mind  smart  Avith  perpetual 
Avounds  ;  for  reason,  which  chaseth  away  all  other  pains, 
creates  repentance,  shames  the  soul  with  confusion,  and 
punisheth  it  with  torment.  But  as  those  who  are  chilled 
with  an  ague  or  that  burn  with  a  fever  feel  acuter  griefs 
than  those  who  are  scorched  with  the  sun  or  frozen  up 
with  the  severity  of  the  Aveather,  so  those  things  which  are 
casual  and  fortuitous  give  us  the  least  disturbance,  because 
they  are  external  accidents.  But  the  man  whom  tiie  truth 
of  this  makes  uneasy,  — 

Another  did  not  run  me  on  this  shelf; 
I  was  the  cause  of  all  the  ills  myself,  t 

who  laments  not  only  his  misfortunes  but  his  crimes,  finds 
his  agonies  sharpened  by  the  turpitude  of  the  fact.  Ilcuce 
it  comes  to  pass,  that  neither  rich  furniture  nor  abundance 
of  gold,  not  a  descent  from  an  illustrious  family  or  great- 
ness of  authority,  not  eloquence  and  all  the  charms  of 
speaking  can  procure  so  great  a  serenity  of  life  as  a  mind 
free  from  guilt,  kept  untainted  not  only  from  actions  but 
purposes  that  are  wicked.  13y  this  means  the  soul  Λνϋΐ  be 
not  only  unpolluted  but  undisturbed  ;  the  fountain  will  run 
clear  and  unsullied ;  and  the  streams  that  flow  from  it  Avill 
be  just  and  honest  deeds,  ecstasies  of  satisfaction,  a  brisk 
energy  of  spirit  which  makes  a  man  an  enthusiast  in  his 
joy,  and  a  tenacious  memory  sweeter  than  hope,  Avhich  (as 
Pindar  saith)  with  a  virgin  warmth  cherisheth  old  age,  ^ 
For  as  censers,  even  after  they  are  empty,  do  for  a  long 
time  after  retain  their  fragrancy,  as  Carneades  expresseth 
it,  so  the  good  actions  of  a  wise  man  perfume  his  mind, 
and  leave  a  rich  scent  behind  them  ;    so  that  joy  is,  as  it 

*  Eurip.  Orestes,  396.  t  See  II.  1.  335. 

t  See  Plato,  Repub.  I.  p.  331  A. 


166  OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND. 

were,  Λvatered  with  these  essences,  and  owes  its  flourishing 
to  them.  This  makes  him  pity  those  Avho  not  only  bewail 
but  accuse  human  life,  as  if  it  were  only  a  region  of 
calamities  and  a  place  of  banishment  appointed  for  their 
souls. 

20.  That  saying  of  Diogenes  extremely  pleaseth  me, 
who,  seeing  one  sprucing  himself  up  very  neatly  to  go  to 
a  great  entertainment,  asked  him  whether  every  day  was 
not  a  festival  to  a  good  man.  And  certainly,  that  which 
makes  it  the  more  splendid  festival  is  sobriety.  For  the 
world  is  a  spacious  and  beautiful  temple  ;  this  a  man  is 
brouiiht  into  as  soon  as  he  is  born,  where  he  is  not  to  be  a 
dull  spectator  of  immovable  and  lifeless  images  made  by 
•human  hands,  but  is  to  contemplate  sublime  things,  which 
(as  Plato  tells  us)  tlie  divine  mind  has  exhibited  to  our 
senses  as  likenesses  of  things  in  the  ideal  world,  having  the 
principles  of  life  and  motion  in  themselves  ;  such  as  are 
the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  ;  rivers  which  are  still  supplied 
with  fresh  accessions  of  water ;  and  the  earth,  which  with 
a  motherly  indulgence  suckles  the  plants  and  feeds  her 
sensitive  creatures.  Now  since  life  is  the  introduction  and 
the  most  perfect  initiation  into  these  mysteries,  it  is  but 
just  that  it  should  be  full  of  cheerfulness  and  tranquillity. 
For  we  are  not  to  imitate  the  little  vulgar,  who  Avait  impa- 
tiently for  the  jolly  days  which  are  consecrated  to  Saturn, 
Bacchus,  and  Minerva,  that  they  may  be  merry  with  hired 
laughter,  and  pay  such  a  price  to  the  mimic  and  stage- 
dancer  for  their  diversions.  At  all  these  games  and  cere- 
monies we  sit  silent  and  composed ;  for  no  man  laments 
when  he  is  initiated  in  the  rites,  Avhen  he  beholds  the  games 
of  Apollo,  or  drinks  in  the  Saturnalia.  But  when  the 
Gods  order  the  scenes  at  their  own  festivals,  or  initiate  us 
into  their  own  mysteries,  the  enjoyment  becomes  sordid 
to  us ;  and  we  wear  out  our  wretched  lives  in  care,  heavi- 
ness of  spirit,  and  bitter  complaints. 


OF   THE   TRANQUILLITY   OF   THE   MIND.  167 

Men  are  delighted  with  the  harmonious  touches  of  an 
instrument ;  they  are  pleased  likewise  with  the  melody  of 
the  birds  ;  and  it  is  not  Avithout  some  recreation  that  they 
behold  the  beasts  frolicsome  and  sporting  ;  but  when  the 
frisk  is  over  and  they  begin  to  bellow  and  curl  their  brows, 
the  ungrateful  noise  and  their  angry  looks  offend  them. 
But  as  for  their  own  lives,  they  suffer  them  to  pass  away 
Λvithout  a  smile,  to  boil  Avith  passions,  be  involved  in 
business,  and  eaten  out  with  endless  cares.  And  to  ease 
them  of  their  solicitudes,  they  will  not  seek  out  for  reme- 
dies themselves,  nor  will  they  even  hearken  to  the  reasons 
or  admit  the  consolations  of  their  friends.  But  if  they 
would  only  give  ear  to  these,  they  might  bear  their  present 
condition  Avithout  fault-finding,  remember  the  past  Avith 
joy  and  gratitude,  and  live  without  fear  or  distrust,  looking 
forward  to  the  future  with  a  joyful  and  lightsome  hope. 


OF  SUPERSTITION   OR  INDISCREET  DEVOTION. 


1.  Our  great  ignorance  of  the  Divine  Beings  most  natu- 
rally runs  in  two  streams ;  whereof  the  one  in  harsh  and  coarse 
tempers,  as  in  dry  and  stubborn  soils,  produces  atheism, 
and  the  other  in  the  more  tender  and  flexible,  as  in  moist 
and  yielding  grounds,  produces  superstition.  Indeed,  every 
wrong  judgment,  in  matters  of  this  nature  especially,  is 
a  great  unhappiness  to  us  ;  but  it  is  here  attended  with  a 
passion,  or  disorder  of  the  mind,  of  a  worse  consequence 
than  itself.  For  every  such  passion  is,  as  it  were,  an  error 
inflamed.  And  as  a  dislocation  is  the  more  painful  when 
it  is  attended  with  a  bruise,  so  are  the  perversions  of  our 
understandings,  Avhen  attended  with  passion.  Is  a  man  of 
opinion  that  atoms  and  a  void  were  the  first  origins  of 
things  1  It  is  indeed  a  mistaken  conceit,  but  makes  no 
ulcer,  no  shooting,  no  searching  pain.  But  is  a  man  of 
opinion  that  Avealth  is  his  last  good  ?  This  error  contains 
in  it  a  canker ;  it  preys  upon  a  man's  spirits,  it  transports 
him,  it  suffers  him  not  to  sleep,  it  makes  him  horn-mad,  it 
carries  him  over  headlong  precipices,  strangles  him,  and 
makes  him  unable  to  speak  his  mind.  Are  there  some 
again,  that  take  virtue  and  vice  for  substantial  bodies  ? 
This  may  be  sottish  conceit  indeed,  but  yet  it  bespeaks 
neither  lamentations  nor  groans.  But  such  opinions  and 
conceits  as  these,  — 

Poor  virtue  !  thou  wast  but  a  name,  and  mere  jest, 
And  I,  clioust  fool,  did  practise  thee  in  earnest, 


OF  SUPERSTITION.  169 

and  for  thee  have  I  quitted  injustice,  the  way  to  wealth,  and 
excess,  the  parent  of  all  true  pleasure,  —  these  are  the 
thoughts  that  call  at  once  for  our  pity  and  indignation  ;  for 
they  will  engender  swarms  of  diseases,  like  iiy-blows  and 
vermin,  in  our  minds. 

2.  To  return  then  to  our  subject,  atheism,  which  is 
a  false  persuasion  that  there  are  no  blessed  and  incorrupti- 
ble beings,  tends  yet,  by  its  disbelief  of  a  Divinity,  to  bring 
men  to  a  sort  of  unconcernedness  and  indifferency  of  temper  ; 
for  the  design  of  tiiose  that  deny  a  God  is  to  ease  themselves 
of  his  fear.  But  superstition  appears  by  its  appellation 
to  be  a  distempered  opinion  and  conceit,  productive  of 
such  mean  and  abject  apprehensions  as  debase  and  break 
a  man's  spirit,  while  he  thinks  there  are  divine  powers  in- 
deed, but  Avithal  sour  and  vindictive  ones.  So  that  the 
atheist  is  not  at  all,  and  the  superstitious  is  perversely,  affected 
with  the  thoughts  of  God  ;  ignorance  depriving  the  one  of 
the  sense  of  his  goodness,  and  superadding  to  the  other  a 
persuasion  of  his  cruelty.  Atheism  then  is  but  false  reason- 
ing single,  but  superstition  is  a  disorder  of  the  mind  pro- 
duced by  this  false  reasoning. 

3.  Every  distemper  of  our  minds  is  truly  base  and  igno- 
ble ;  yet  some  passions  are  accompanied  with  a  sort  of  levity, 
that  makes  men  appear  gay,  prompt,  and  erect ;  but  none, 
we  may  say,  are  wholly  destitute  of  force  for  action.  But 
the  common  charge  upon  all  sorts  of  passions  is,  that  they 
excite  and  urge  the  reason,  forcing  it  by  their  violent  stings. 
Fear  alone,  being  equally  destitute  of  reason  and  audacity, 
renders  our  whole  irrational  part  stupid,  distracted,  and  un- 
serviceable. Therefore  it  is  called  δεΐμα  because  it  hinds, 
and  τύηβο^'  because  it  distracts  the  mind.*  But  of  all  fears, 
none  so  dozes  and  confounds  as  that  of  superstition.  He 
fears  not  the  sea  that  never  goes  to  sea ;  nor  a  battle,  that 

*  Plutarch  derives  δεΐμα  from  δέω,  to  hind,  and  τάρ3ος  from  ταράσσω,  to  distract  or 
confuse.     (G.) 


170  OF   SUPERSTITION 

follows  not  the  camp  ;  nor  robbers^  that  stirs  not  abroad  ; 
nor  malicious  informers,  that  is  a  poor  man  ;  nor  emulation, 
that  leads  a  private  life  ;  nor  earthquakes,  that  dwells  in 
Gaul ;  nor  thunderbolts,  that  dwells  in  Ethiopia :  but  he 
that  dreads  divine  powers  dreads  every  thing,  the  land,  the 
sea,  the  air,  the  sky,  the  dark,  the  light,  a  sound,  a  silence, 
a  dream.  Even  slaΛ^es  forget  their  masters  in  their  sleep  ; 
sleep  lightens  the  irons  of  the  fettered ;  their  angry  sores, 
mortified  gangrenes,  and  pinching  pains  allow  them  some 
intermission  at  night. 

Dear  sleep,  sweet  easer  of  my  irksome  grief, 
Pleasant  thou  art !  how  welcome  tliy  relief!  * 

Superstition  will  not  permit  a  man  to  say  this.  That 
alone  will  give  no  truce  at  night,  nor  suffer  the  poor  soul 
so  much  as  to  breathe  or  look  up,  or  respite  her  sour  and 
dismal  thoughts  of  God  a  moment ;  but  raises  in  the  sleep 
of  the  superstitious,  as  in  the  place  of  the  damned,  certain 
prodigious  forms  and  ghastly  spectres,  and  perpetually 
tortures  the  unhappy  soul,  chasing  her  out  of  sleep  into 
dreams,  lashed  and  tormented  by  her  own  self,  as  by  some 
other,  and  charged  by  herself  with  dire  and  portentous 
injunctions.  Neither  have  they,  when  awake,  enough  sense 
to  slight  and  smile  at  all  this,  or  to  be  pleased  with  the 
thouglit  that  nothing  of  all  that  terrified  them  was  real ; 
but  they  still  fear  an  empty  shadow,  that  could  never  mean 
them  any  ill,  and  cheat  themselves  afresh  at  noonday,  and 
keep  a  bustle,  and  are  at  expense  upon  the  next  fortune- 
teller or  vagrant  that  shall  but  tell  them  :  — 

If  in  a  dream  hobgoblin  tliou  hast  seen, 

Or  felt'st  the  rambling  guards  o'  th'  Fairy  Queen, 

send  for  some  old  witch  wdio  can  purify  thee,  go  dip  thy- 
self in  the  sea,  and  then  sit  down  .upon  the  bare  ground  the 
rest  of  the  day. 

0  tliat  our  Greeks  should  found  such  barbarous  rites.t 
»  Eurip.  Orestes,  211.  t  Eurip.  Troad.  759. 


OR   INDISCREET   DEVOTION.  171 

as  tumbling  in  mire,  rolling  themselves  in  dunghills,  keep- 
ing of  Sabbaths,  monstrous  prostrations,  long  and  obstinate 
sittings  in  a  place,  and  Λάle  and  abject  adorations,  and  all 
for  vain  superstition !  They  that  were  careful  to  preserve 
good  singing  used  to  direct  the  practisers  of  that  science  to 
sing  with  their  moutlis  in  their  true  and  proper  postures. 
Should  not  we  then  admonish  those  that  would  address 
themselves  to  the  heavenly  powers  to  do  that  also  with  a 
true  and  natural  mouth,  lest,  Avhile  we  are  so  solicitous  that 
the  tongue  of  a  sacrifice  be  pure  and  right,  we  distort  and 
abuse  our  own  with  silly  and  canting  language,  and  there- 
by expose  the  dignity  of  our  divine  and  ancient  piety  to 
contempt  and  raillery  ]  It  was  not  unpleasantly  said  some- 
where by  the  comedian  to  those  that  adorned  their  beds  \vith 
the  needless  ornaments  of  silver  and  gold :  Since  the  Gods 
have  given  us  nothing  gratis  except  sleep,  why  will  )ou 
make  that  so  costly  ]  It  might  as  well  be  said  to  the 
superstitious  bigot :  Since  the  Gods  have  bestowed  sleep  on 
us,  to  the  intent  we  may  take  some  rest  and  forget  our 
sorrows,  why  will  you  needs  make  it  a  continual  irksome 
tormentor,  when  you  know  your  poor  soul  hath  ne'er 
another  sleep  to  betake  herself  to  '?  Ileraclitus  saith  :  They 
who  are  awake  hn.\e  a  world  in  common  amongst  them  ;  but 
they  that  are  asleep  are  retired  each  to  his  own  private 
world.  But  tlie  frightful  visionary  hath  ne'er  a  world  at 
all,  either  in  common  with  others  or  in  private  to  himself; 
for  neither  can  he  use  his  reason  when  awake,  nor  be  free 
from  his  fears  when  asleep  ;  but  he  hath  his  reason  always 
asleep,  and  his  fears  always  awake ;  nor  hath  he  either  an 
hiding-place  or  refuge. 

4.  Polycrates  was  formidable  at  Samos,  and  so  was 
Periander  at  Corinth ;  but  no  man  ever  feared  eitlier  of 
them  that  had  made  his  escape  to  an  equal  and  free 
government.  But  he  that  dreads  the  divine  government, 
as  a  sort  of  inexorable  and  implacable  tyranny,  whither 


172  OF  SUPERSTITION 

nan  he  remove?  AVhitlier  can  he  fly'?  What  land,  \vhat 
sea  can  he  find  where  God  is  not  1  Wretched  and  miser- 
able man  !  in  what  corner  of  the  Avorld  canst  thou  so  hide 
thyself,  as  to  think  thou  hast  now  escaped  hiin  1  Slaves 
are  allowed  by  the  laAvs,  when  they  despair  of  obtaining 
their  freedom,  to  demand  a  second  sale,  in  hopes  of  kinder 
masters.  But  superstition  allows  of  no  change  of  Gods  ; 
nor  could  he  indeed  find  a  God  he  Avould  not  fear,  that 
dreads  his  own  and  his  ancestors'  guardians,  that  quivers  at 
his  preservers  and  benign  patrons,  and  that  trembles  and 
shakes  at  those  of  whom  we  ask  wealth,  plenty,  concord, 
peace,  and  direction  to  the  best  words  and  actions.  Slaves 
again  account  it  their  misfortune  to  become  such,  and  can 
say,  — 

Both  man  and  wife  in  direful  slavery, 

And  with  ill  masters  too  !  Fate's  worst  decree  ! 

But  how  much  less  tolerable,  think  you,  is  their  condition, 
that  can  never  possibly  run  away,  escape,  or  desert?  A 
slave  may  fly  to  an  altar,  and  many  temples  aflford  sanctuary 
to  thieves  ;  and  they  that  are  pursued  by  an  enemy  think 
themselves  safe  if  they  can  catch  hold  on  a  statue  or  a 
shrine.  But  the  superstitious  fears,  quivers,  and  dreads 
most  of  all  there,  Avhere  others  Avhen  fearfuUest  take 
greatest  courage.  Never  hale  a  superstitious  man  from 
the  altar.  It  is  his  place  of  torment ;  he  is  there  chas- 
tised. In  one  word,  death  itself,  the  end  of  life,  puts  no 
period  to  this  vain  and  foolish  dread  :  but  it  transcends 
those  limits,  and  extends  its  fears  beyond  the  grave,  adding 
to  it  the  imagination  of  immortal  ills  ;  and  after  respite  from 
past  sorrows,  it  fancies  it  shall  next  enter  upon  never-end- 
ing ones.  I  know  not  what  gates  of  hell  open  themselves 
from  beneath,  rivers  of  flre  together  Avith  Stygian  torrents 
present  themselves  to  view  ;  a  gloomy  darkness  appears 
full  of  ghastly  spectres  and  horrid  shapes,  with  dreadful 
aspects  and  doleful  groans,  together  with  judges  and  tor- 


OR   INDISCREET   DEVOTION.  173 

mentors,  pits  and  caverns,  full  of  millions  of  miseries  and 
woes.  Thus  does  wretched  superstition  bring  inevitably 
upon  itself  by  its  fancies  even  those  calamities  Avliich  it  has 
once  escaped. 

5.  Atheism  is  attended  with  none  of  this.  True  indeed, 
the  ignorance  is  very  lamentable  and  sad.  For  to  be  blind 
or  to  see  amiss  in  matters  of  this  consequence  cannot  but 
be  a  fatal  unhappiness  to  the  mind,  it  being  then  deprived 
of  the  fairest  and  brightest  of  its  many  eyes,  the  knowledge 
of  God.  Yet  this  opinion  (as  hath  been  said)  is  not  neces- 
sarily accompanied  with  any  disordering,  ulcerous,  frightful, 
or  slavish  passion.  Plato  thinks  the  Gods  never  gave  men 
music,  the  science  of  melody  and  harmony,  for  mere, 
delectation  or  to  tickle  the  ear,  but  in  order  that  the 
confusion  and  disorder  in  the  periods  and  harmonies  of 
the  soul,  which  often  for  want  of  the  Muses  and  of  grace 
break  forth  into  extravagance  through  intemperance  and 
license,  might  be  sweetly  recalled,  and  artfully  wound  up 
to  their  former  consent  and  agreement. 

No  animal  accurst  by  Jove 

Music's  sweet  charms  can  ever  love,* 

saith  Pindar.  For  all  such  will  rave  and  grow  outrageous 
straight.  Of  this  we  have  an  instance  in  tigers,  which 
(as  they  say),  if  they  hear  but  a  tabor  beat  near  them,  Avill 
rage  immediately  and  run  stark  mad,  and  in  fine  tear 
themselves  in  pieces.  They  certainly  suffer  the  less 
inconvenience  of  the  two,  Avho  either  through  defect  of 
hearing  or  utter  deafness  are  Avholly  insensible  of  music, 
and  therefore  unmoved  by  it.  It  was  a  great  misfortune 
indeed  to  Tiresias,  that  he  wanted  sight  to  see  his  friends 
and  children ;  but  a  far  greater  to  Athamas  and  Agave,  to 
see  them  in  the  shape  of  lions  and  bucks.  And  it  had 
been  happier  for  Hercules,  when  he  was  distracted,  if  he 
could  have  neither  seen  nor  known  his  children,  than  to 

*  Pindar,  Pyth.  I.  25. 


17-i  OF   SUPERSTITION 

have  used  like  the  Avorst  of  enemies  those  he  so  tenderly 
loved. 

6.  ΛVell  then,  is  not  this  the  very  case  of  the  atheist, 
compared  with  the  superstitious  ?  The  former  sees  not 
the  Gods  at  all,  the  latter  believes  that  he  really  sees  them  ; 
the  former  wholly  overlooks  them,  but  the  latter  mistakes 
their  benignity  for  terror,  their  paternal  aifection  for 
tyranny,  their  providence  for  cruelty,  and  their  frank  sim- 
plicity for  savageness  and  brutality. 

Again,  the  Avorkman  in  copper,  stone,  and  Avax  can  per- 
suade such  that  the  Gods  are  in  human  shape  ;  for  so  they 
make  them,  so  they  draw  them,  and  so  they  worship  them. 
But  they  will  not  hear  either  philosophers  or  statesmen 
that  describe  the  majesty  of  the  Divinity  as  accompanied 
by  goodness,  magnanimity,  benignity,  and  beneficence. 
The  one  therefore  hath  neither  a  sense  nor  belief  of  that 
divine  good  he  might  participate  of ;  and  the  other  dreads 
and  fears  it.  In  a  Avord,  atheism  is  an  absolute  insensi- 
bility to  God  (or  want  of  jjassion)^  which  does  not 
recognize  goodness  ;  while  superstition  is  a  blind  heap 
of  passions,  which  imagine  the  good  to  be  evil.  They  are 
afraid  of  their  Gods,  and  yet  run  to  them  ;  they  fawn  upon 
them,  and  reproach  them  ;  they  imOke  them,  and  accuse 
them.  It  is  the  common  destiny  of  humanity  not  to  enjoy 
uninterrupted  felicity. 

Nor  pains,  nor  age,  nor  labor  they  e'er  bore, 
Nor  visited  rough  Acheron's  hoarse  shore, 

saith  Pindar  of  the  Gods  ;  but  human  passions  and  affairs 
are  liable  to  a  strange  multiplicity  of  uncertain  accidents 
and  contingencies. 

7.  Consider  well  the  atheist,  and  observe  his  behavior 
first  in  things  not  under  the  disposal  of  his  will.  If  he  be 
otherwise  a  man  of  good  temper,  he  is  silent  under  his 
present  circumstances,  and  is  providing  himself  with  either 
remedies  or  palliatives  for  his  misfortunes.     But  if  he  be  a 


OR  INDISCREET   DEVOTION.  175 

fretful  and  impatient  man,  his  whole  complaint  is  against 
Fortune.  He  cries  out,  that  nothing  is  managed  here 
below  either  after  the  rules  of  a  strict  justice  or  the  orderly 
course  of  a  providence,  and  that  all  human  affairs  are  hur- 
ried and  driven  without  either  premeditation  or  distinction. 
This  is  not  the  demeanor  of  the  superstitious  ;  if  the  least 
thing  do  but  happen  amiss  to  him,  he  sits  him  down 
plunged  in  sorrow,  and  raises  himself  a  vast  tempest  of 
intolerable  and  incurable  passions,  and  presents  his  fancy 
Avith  nothing  but  terrors,  fears,  surmises,  and  distractions, 
until  he  hath  overwhelmed  himself  with  groans  and  fears. 
He  blames  neither  man,  nor  Fortune,  nor  the  times,  nor 
himself;  but  charges  all  upon  God,  from  Λνΐιοηι  he  fancies 
a  whole  deluge  of  vengeance  to  be  pouring  down  upon 
him ;  and,  as  if  he  were  not  only  unfortunate  but  in  open 
hostility  with  Heaven,  he  imagines  that  he  is  punished  by 
God  and  is  now  making  satisfaction  for  his  past  crimes, 
and  saith  that  his  sufferings  are  all  just  and  owing  to  him- 
self. Again,  when  the  atheist  falls  sick,  he  reckons  up 
and  calls  to  his  remembrance  his  several  surfeits  and 
debauches,  his  irregular  course  of  living,  excessive  labors, 
or  unaccustomed  clianges  of  air  or  climate.  Likewise, 
when  he  miscarries  in  any  public  administration,  and  either 
falls  into  popular  disgrace  or  comes  to  be  ill  presented  to 
his  prince,  he  searches  for  the  causes  in  himself  and  those 
about  him,  and  asks, 

IVhere  have  I  erred  ?     What  have  I  done  amiss  ? 
ΛVhat  should  be  done  by  me  that  undone  is  ?  * 

But  the  fanciful  superstitionist  accounts  every  little  dis- 
temper in  his  body  or  decay  in  his  estate,  the  death  of  his 
children,  and  crosses  and  disappointments  in  matters  relat- 
ing to  the  public,  as  the  immediate  strokes  of  God  and 
the  incursions  of  some  vindictive  daemon.  And  therefore 
he  dares  not  attempt  to  remove  or  relieve  his  disasters,  or 

*  Pythagoras,  Carmen  Aur.  41. 


176  0¥  SUPERSTITION 

to  use  the  least  remedy  or  to  oppose  himself  to  them,  for  fear 
he  should  seem  to  struggle  with  God  aud  to  make  resist- 
ance under  correction.  If  he  be  sick,  he  thrusts  away  the 
physician ;  if  he  be  in  any  grief,  he  shuts  out  the  philoso- 
pher that  would  comfort  and  advise  him.  Let  me  alone, 
saith  he,  to  pay  for  my  sins :  I  am  a  cursed  and  vile  offen- 
der, and  detestable  both  to  God  and  angels.  Now  suppose 
a  man  unpersuaded  of  a  Divinity  in  never  so  great  sorrow 
and  trouble,  you  may  yet  possibly  wipe  away  his  tears,  cut 
his  hair,  and  force  away  his  mourning ;  but  how  will  yon 
come  at  this  superstitious  penitentiary,  either  to  speak  to 
him  or  to  bring  him  any  relief?  He  sits  him  down  with- 
out doors  in  sackcloth,  or  wrapped  up  in  foul  and  nasty 
rags  ;  yea,  many  times  rolls  himself  naked  in  mire,  repeat- 
ing over  I  know  not  what  sins  and  transgressions  of  his 
own ;  as,  how  he  did  eat  this  thing  and  drink  the  other 
thing,  or  went  some  way  prohibited  by  his  Genius.  But 
suppose  he  be  now  at  his  best,  and  laboring  under  only  a 
mild  attack  of  superstition  ;  you  shall  even  then  find  him 
sittino;  down  in  the  midst  of  his  house  all  becharmed  and 
bespelled,  with  a  parcel  of  old  Avomen  about  him,  tugging 
all  they  can  light  on,  and  hanging  it  upon  him  as  (to  use 
an  expression  of  Bion's)  upon  some  nail  or  peg. 

8.  It  is  reported  of  Teribazus  that,  being  seized  by  the 
Persians,  he  drew  out  his  scimitar,  and  being  a  very  stout 
person,  defended  himself  bravely  ;  but  when  they  cried 
out  and  told  him  he  was  apprehended  by  the  king's  order,  he 
immediately  put  up  his  sword,  and  presented  his  hands  to 
be  bound.  Is  not  this  the  very  case  of  the  superstitious  ? 
Others  can  oppose  their  misfortunes,  repel  their  troubles, 
and  furnish  themselves  with  retreats,  or  means  of  avoiding 
the  stroke  of  things  not  under  the  disposal  of  their  wills  ; 
but  the  superstitious  person,  without  anybody's  speaking 
to  him,  —  but  merely  upon  his  own  saying  to  himself,  This 
thou  undergoest,  vile  wretch,  by  the  direction  of  Providence, 


OR   INDISCREET   DEVOTION.  177 

and  by  Heaven's  just  appointment,  —  immediately  casts 
away  all  ^liope,  surrenders  himself  up,  and  shuns  and 
affronts  his  friends  that  would  relieve  him.  Thus  do  these 
sottish  fears  oftentimes  convert  tolerable  evils  into  fatal  and 
insupportable  ones.  The  ancient  Midas  (as  the  story  goes 
of  him),  being  much  troubled  and  disquieted  by  certain 
(dreams,  grew  so  melancholy  thereupon,  that  he  made  him- 
self away  by  drinking  bull's  blood.  Aristodemus,  king  of 
Messenia,  when  a  war  broke  out  betwixt  the  Lacedaemo- 
nians and  the  Messenians,  upon  some  dogs  howling  like 
wolves,  and  grass  coming  up  about  his  ancestors'  domestic 
altar,  and  his  divines  presaging  ill  upon  it,  fell  into  such  a 
fit  of  suUeimess  and  despair  that  he  slew  himself.  And 
perhaps  it  had  been  better  if  the  Athenian  general,  Nicias, 
had  been  eased  of  his  folly  the  same  way  that  Midas  and 
Aristodemus  were,  than  for  him  to  sit  still  for  fear  of  a 
lunar  eclipse,  while  he  was  invested  by  an  enemy,  and  so 
be  himself  made  a  prisoner,  together  with  an  army  of  forty 
thousand  men  (that  were  all  either  slain  or  taken),  and  die 
ingloriously.  There  was  nothing  formidable  in  the  inter- 
position of  the  earth  betwixt  the  sun  and  the  moon,  neither 
was  there  any  thing  dreadful  in  the  shadow's  meeting  the 
moon  at  the  proper  time  :  no,  the  dreadfulness  lay  here, 
that  the  darkness  of  ignorance  should  blind  and  befool . 
a  man's  reason  at  a  time  when  he  had  most  occasion  to 
use  it. 

Glaucus,  behold  ! 

The  sea  witli  billows  deep  begins  to  roll ; 

The  seas  begin  in  azure  rods  to  lie  ; 

A  teeming  cloud  of  pitch  hangs  on  the  sky 

Right  o'er  Gyre  rocks ;  there  is  a  tempest  nigh  ;  * 

which  as  soon  as  the  pilot  sees,  he  falls  to  his  prayers  and 
invokes  his  tutelar  daemons,  but  neglects  not  in  the  mean 
time  to  hold  to  the  rudder  and  let  down  the  mainyard ; 
and  so, 

*  Archilochus,  Frag.  56. 
VOL.  I.  12 


178  OF  SUPERSTITION 

By  gathering  in  his  sails,  with  mighty  pain, 
Escapes  the  hell-pits  of  the  raging  main, 

Hesiod  *  directs  his  husbandman,  before  he  either 
plough  or  sow,  to  pray  to  the  infernal  Jove  and  the  vener- 
able Ceres,  but  with  his  hand  upon  the  plough-tail.  Homer 
acquaints  us  how  Ajax,  being  to  engage  in  a  single  combat 
with  Hector,  bade  the  Grecians  pray  to  the  Gods  for  him  ; 
and  while  they  were  at  their  devotions,  he  was  putting  on 
his  armor.  Likewise,  after  Agamemnon  had  thus  prepared 
his  soldiers  for  the  fight,  — 

Each  make  his  spear  to  glitter  as  the  sun, 
Each  see  his  warlike  target  Avell  hung  on,— 

he  then  prayed, — 

Grant  me,  great  Jove,  to  throw  down  Priam's  roof.t 

For  God  is  the  brave  man's  hope,  and  not  the  coward's 
excuse.  The  Jews  indeed  once  sat  on  their  tails,  —  it  be- 
ing forsooth  their  Sabbath  day,  —  and  suffered  their  enemies 
to  rear  their  scaling-ladders  and  make  themselves  masters 
of  their  walls,  and  so  lay  still  until  they  were  caught 
like  so  many  trout  in  the  drag-net  of  their  own  supersti- 
tion.:{: 

9.  Such  then  is  the  behavior  of  superstition  in  times  of 
adversity,  and  in  things  out  of  the  power  of  man's  Λνϋΐ. 
Nor  doth  it  a  jot  excel  atheism  in  the  more  agreeable  and 
pleasurable  part  of  our  lives.  Now  Avhat  we  esteem  the 
most  agreeable  things  in  human  life  are  our  holidays, 
temple-feasts,  initiatings,  processionings,  Λvith  our  public 
prayers  and  solemn  devotions.  Mark  we  now  the  atheist's 
behavior  here.  'Tis  true,  he  laughs  at  all  that  is  done, 
with  a  frantic  and  sardonic  laughter,  and  now  and  then 
whispers  to  a  confidant  of  his.  The  devil  is  in  these  people 
sure,  that  can  imagine  God  can  be  taken  Λvith  these  foole- 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  463.  t  See  II.  VII.  193  ;  II.  382,  414. 

}  See  M.iccabees,  I.  2,  27-38,  cited  by  Wyttenbach.     (G.) 


on  INDISCREET  DEVOTION.  179 

ries :  but  this  is  the  ΛVOΓst  of  his  disasters.  But  now  the 
superstitious  man  would  fain  be  pleasant  and  gay,  but  can- 
not for  his  heart.  The  Avhole  town  is  filled  with  odors  of 
incense  and  perfumes,  and  at  the  same  time  a  mixture  of 
hymns  and  sighs  fills  his  poor  soul.*  He  looks  pale  with 
a  garland  on  his  head,  he  sacrifices  and  fears,  pravs  with  a 
faltering  tongue,  and  offers  incense  with  a  trembling  hand. 
In  a  word,  he  utterly  bafiles  that  saying  of  Pythagoras, 
that  we  are  then  best  when  we  come  near  the  Gods.  For 
the  superstitious  person  is  then  in  his  worst  and  most  piti- 
ful condition,  when  he  approaches  the  shrines  and  temples 
of  the  Gods. 

10.  So  that  I  cannot  but  wonder  at  those  that  charge 
atheism  with  impiety,  and  in  the  mean  time  acquit  super- 
stition. Anaxagoras  Avas  indicted  of  blasphemy  for  having 
affirmed  the  sun  to  be  a  red-hot  stone  ;  yet  the  Cimmerians 
were  never  much  blamed  for  denying  his  being.  What  1 
Is  he  tliat  holds  there  is  no  God  guilty  of  impiety,  and  is 
not  he  that  describes  him  as  the  superstitious  do  much 
more  guilty'?  I,  for  my  own  part,  had  much  rather 
people  should  say  of  me,  that  there  neither  is  nor  ever 
was  such  a  man  as  Plutarch,  than  they  should  say: 
"  Plutarch  is  an  unsteady,  fickle,  froward,  vindictive, 
and  touchy  fellow  ;  if  you  invite  others  to  sup  with  you, 
and  chance  to  leave  out  Plutarch,  or  if  some  business 
falls  out  that  you  cannot  wait  at  his  door  with  the  morn- 
ing salute,  or  if  when  you  meet  with  him  you  don't 
speak  to  him,  he'll  fasten  upon  you  somewhere  with  his 
teeth  and  bite  the  part  through,  or  catch  one  of  your 
children  and  cane  him,  or  turn  his  beast  into  your  corn 
and  spoil  your  crop."  AVhen  Timotheus  the  musician 
was  one  day  singing  at  Athens  an  hymn  to  Diana,  in 
which  among  other  things  was  this,  — 

Mad,  raving,  tearing,  foaming  Deity,  — 
*  Sophocles,  Oed.  Tyr.  4. 


180  OF   SUPERSTITION 

Cinesias,  the  lyric  poet,  stood  up  from  the  midst  of  the 
spectators,  and  spoke  aloud :  I  wish  thee  with  all  my  heart 
such  a  Goddess  to  thy  daughter,  Timotheus.  Such  like, 
nay  \vorse,  are  the  conceits  of  the  superstitious  about  this 
Goddess  Diana :  — 

Thou  dost  on  tlie  bed-clothes  jump, 
And  tliere  liest  like  a  lump. 
Thou  dost  tantalize  the  bride, 
When  love's  charms  by  tiiee  are  tied. 
Thou  look'st  grim  and  full  of  dread, 
When  thou  walk'st  to  find  the  dead. 
Thou  down  chairs  and  tables  rumbl'st, 
When  with  Oberon  tiiou  tumbl'st.* 

Nor  have  they  any  milder  sentiments  of  Apollo,  Juno,  or 
Λ'^enus  ;  for  they  are  equally  scared  with  them  all.  Alas  I 
what  could  poor  Niobe  ever  say  that  could  be  so  reflecting 
upon  the  honor  of  Latona,  as  that  Avhich  superstition 
makes  fools  believe  of  her"?  _ Niobe,  it  seems,  had  given 
her  some  hard  Avords,  for  which  she  fairly  shot  her 

Six  daughters,  and  six  sons  full  in  their  prime  ;  t 

SO  impatient  was  she,  and  insatiate  with  the  calamities  of 
another.  Now  if  the  Goddess  was  really  thus  choleric 
and  vindictive  and  so  highly  incensed  Avith  bad  language, 
and  if  she  had  not  the  wisdom  to  smile  at  human  frailty 
and  ignorance,  but  suffered  herself  to  be  thus  transported 
with  passion,  I  much  marvel  she  did  not  shoot  them  too 
that  told  this  cruel  story  of  her,  and  charged  lier  both  in 
speech  and  writing  with  so  much  spleen  and  rancor.  We 
oft  accuse  Queen  Hecuba  of  barbarous  and  savage  bitter- 
ness, for  having  once  said  in  Homer,  — 

Would  God  I  had  his  liver  'twixt  my  teeth;} 

yet  the  superstitious  believe,  if  a  man  taste  of  a  minnow  or 

*  I  leave  Mr.  Baxter's  conjectural  version  of  this  corrupt  passage,  instead  of 
inserting  another  equally  conjectural.  As  to  the  original  Greek,  hardly  a  word  can 
be  made  out  with  certainty.     (G). 

t  II.  XXIV.  604.  ♦  II.  XXIV.  212. 


OR  INDISCREET  DEVOTION.  181 

bleak,  the  Syrian  Goddess  will  eat  his  shins  through,  fill 
his  body  with  sores,  and  dissolve  his  liver. 

11.  Is  it  a  sin  then  to  speak  amiss  of  the  Gods,  and  is 
it  not  to  think  amiss  of  them  ]  And  is  not  thinking  the 
cause  of  speaking  ill  ]  For  the  only  reason  of  our  dislike 
to  detraction  is  that  we  look  upon  it  as  a  token  of  ill-will 
to  us  ;  and  we  therefore  take  those  for  our  enemies  that 
misrepresent  us,  because  we  look  upon  them  as  untrusty 
and  disaffected.  You  see  then  what  the  superstitious 
think  of  the  divinity,  while  they  fancy  the  Gods  such 
heady,  faithless,  fickle,  revengeful,  cruel,  and  fretful  things. 
The  consequence  of  which  is  that  the  superstitious  person 
must  needs  both  fear  and  hate  them  at  once.  And  indeed, 
how  can  he  otherwise  choose,  while  he  thinks  the  greatest 
calamities  he  either  doth  now  or  must  hereafter  undergo 
are  wholly  owing  to  them  ]  Now  he  that  both  hates  and 
fears  the  Gods  must  of  necessity  be  their  enemy.  And  if 
he  trembles,  fears,  prostrates,  sacrifices,  and  sits  perpetually 
in  their  temples,  that  is  no  marvel  at  all.  For  the  very 
worst  of  tyrants  are  complimented  and  attended,  yea,  have 
statues  of  gold  erected  to  them,  by  those  who  in  private 
hate  them  and  wag  their  heads.  Hermolaus  waited  on 
Alexander,  and  Pausanias  was  of  Philip's  guard,  and  so 
Avas  Chaerea  of  Caligula's  ;  yet  every  one  of  these  said,  I 
warrant  you,  m  his  heart  as  he  went  along,  — 

Had  I  a  power  as  my  will  is  goo  1, 

Ivuovv  this,  bold  tyrant,  I  would  have  thy  blood.* 

The  atheist  believes  there  are  no  Gods  ;  the  superstitious 
would  have  none,  but  is  a  believer  against  his  will,  and 
would  be  an  infidel  if  he  durst.  He  would  be  as  glad  to 
ease  himself  of  the  burthen  of  his  fear,  as  Tantalus  would 
be  to  slip  his  head  from  under  the  great  stone  that  hangs 
over  him,  and  would  bless  the  condition  of  the  atheist  as 

*  II.  XXII.  20. 


182  OF  SUPERSTITION 

absolute  freedom,  compared  with  his  own.  The  atheist 
now  has  nothing  to  do  with  superstition  ;  while  the  super- 
stitious is  an  atheist  in  his  heart,  but  is  too  much  a  coward 
to  think  as  he  is  inclined. 

12.  Moreover,  atheism  hath  no  hand  at  all  in  causing 
superstition  ;  but  superstition  not  only  gave  atheism  its 
first  birth,  but  serves  it  ever  since  by  giving  it  its  best 
apology  for  existing,  which,  although  it  be  neither  a  good 
nor  a  fair  one,  is  yet  the  most  specious  and  colorable.  For 
men  were  not  at  first  made  atheists  by  any  fault  they  found 
in  the  heavens  or  stars,  or  in  the  seasons  of  the  year,  or  in 
those  revolutions  or  motions  of  the  sun  about  the  earth 
that  make  the  day  and  night ;  nor  yet  by  observing  any 
mistake  or  disorder  either  in  the  breeding  of  animals  or 
the  production  of  fruits.  No,  it  \vas  the  uncouth  actions 
and  ridiculous  and  senseless  passions  of  superstition,  her 
canting  words,  her  foolish  gestures,  her  charms,  her  magic, 
her  freakish  processions,  her  taborings,  her  foul  expiations, 
her  vile  methods  of  purgation,  and  her  barbarous  and  in- 
human penances,  and  bemirings  at  the  temples,  —  it  was 
these,  I  say,  that  gave  occasion  to  many  to  affirm,  it  would 
be  far  happier  there  were  no  Gods  at  all  than  for  them 
to  be  pleased  and  delighted  with  such  fantastic  toys,  and  to 
thus  abuse  their  votaries,  and  to  be  incensed  and  pacified 
with  trifles. 

13.  Had  it  not  been  much  better  for  the  so  much  famed 
Gauls  and  Scythians  to  have  neither  thought  nor  imagined 
nor  heard  any  thing  of  their  Gods,  than  to  have  believed 
them  such  as  would  be  pleased  with  the  blood  of  human 
sacrifices,  and  would  account  such  for  the  most  complete 
and  meritorious  of  expiations  ?  How  much  better  had  it 
been  for  the  Carthaginians  to  have  had  either  a  Critias  or 
a  Diagoras  for  their  first  lawmaker,  that  so  they  might 
have  believed  in  neither  God  nor  spirits,  than  to  make  such 
ofi"erings  to  Saturn  as  they  made?• — not  such  as  Empedo- 


OR  INDISCREET  DEVOTION.  183 

cles    speaks   of,  where  he   thus  touches  the  sacrifices  of 
beasts :  — 

Tlie  sire  lifts  up  his  dear  beloved  son, 

Who  first  some  other  form  and  shape  did  take  ; 

He  doth  liim  slay  and  sacrifice  anon, 

And  therewith  vows  and  foolish  prayers  doth  make. 

But  they  knowingly  and  wittingly  themselves  devoted  their 
own  children ;  and  they  that  had  none  of  their  own 
bought  of  some  poor  people,  and  then  sacrificed  them  like 
lambs  or  pigeons,  the  poor  mother  standing  by  the  while 
Λvithout  either  a  sigh  or  tear  ;  and  if  by  chance  she  fetched 
a  sigh  or  let  fall  a  tear,  she  lost  the  price  of  her  child, 
but  it  was  nevertheless  sacrificed.  Λ11  the  places  round 
the  image  were  in  the  mean  time  filled  with  the  noise  of 
hautboys  and  tabors,  to  drown  the  poor  infants'  crvinof. 
Suppose  we  now  the  Typhous  and  Giants  should  depose 
the  Gods  and  make  themselves  masters  of  mankind,  what 
sort  of  sacrifices,  think  you,  would  they  expect?  Or  what 
other  expiations  Avould  they  require  ?  The  queen  of  King 
Xerxes,  Amestris,  buried  twelve  men  alive,  as  a  sacrifice  to 
Pluto  to  prolong  her  own  life ;  and  yet  Plato  saith.  This 
God  is  called  in  Greek  Hades,  because  he  is  placid,  wise, 
and  wealthy,  and  retains  the  souls  of  men  by  persuasion 
and  oratory.  That  great  naturalist  Xenophanes,  seeing 
the  Egyptians  beating  their  breasts  and  lamenting  at  the 
solemn  times  of  their  devotions,  gave  them  this  pertinent 
and  seasonable  admonition :  If  they  are  Gods  (said  he), 
don't  cry  for  them  ;  and  if  they  are  men,  don't  sacrifice  to 
them. 

14.  There  is  certainly  no  infirmity  belonging  to  us  that 
contains  such  a  multiplicity  of  errors  and  fond  passions,  or 
that  consists  of  such  incongruous  and  incoherent,  opinions, 
as  this  of  superstition  doth.  It  behooves  us  therefore  to 
do  our  utmost  to  escape  it ;  but  withal,  we  must  see 
we   do  it  safely  and  prudently,  and  not  rashly  and  incon- 


184  OF   SUPERSTITION. 

siderately,  as  people  run  from  the  incursions  of  robbers 
or  from  fire,  and  fall  into  bewildered  and  untrodden 
paths  full  of  pits  and  precipices.  For  so  some,  while 
they  would  avoid  superstition,  leap  over  the  golden 
mean  of  true  piety  into  the  harsh  and  coarse  extreTr>p> 
of  atheism. 


J 


THE  APOPHTHEGMS  OR   REMARKABLE    SAYINGS    OF 
KINGS   AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS. 


PLUTARCH   TO   TRAJAN   THE    EMPEROR  IVISHETH   PROSPERITY. 

Artaxerxes,  King  of  Persia,  Ο  Caesar  Trajan,  greatest 
of  princes,  esteemed  it  no  less  royal  and  bountiful  kindly 
and  cheerfully  to  accept  small,  than  to  make  great  presents  ; 
and  when  he  was  in  a  progress,  and  a  common  country 
laborer,  having  nothing  else,  took  up  water  with  both  his 
hands  out  of  the  river  and  presented  it  to  him,  he  smiled 
and  received  it  pleasantly,  measuring  the  kindness  not  by 
the  value  of  the  gift,  but  by  the  affection  of  the  giver. 
And  Lycurgus  ordained  in  Sparta  very  cheap  sacrifices, 
that  they  might  always  worship  the  Gods  readily  and 
easily  Avith  such  things  as  were  at  hand.  Upon  the  same 
account,  when  I  bring  a  mean  and  slender  present  of  the 
common  first-fruits  of  philosopliy,  accept  also  (I  beseech 
you)  Avith  my  good  aff"ection  these  short  memorials,  if  they 
may  contribute  any  thing  to  the  knowledge  of  the  manners 
and  dispositions  of  great  men,  which  are  more  apparent  in 
their  Λvords  than  in  their  actions.  My  former  treatise  con- 
tains the  lives  of  the  most  eminent  princes,  lawgivers,  and 
generals,  both  Romans  and  Grecians  ;  but  most  of  their 
actions  admit  a  mixture  of  fortune,  whereas  such  speeches 
and  answers  as  happened  amidst  their  employments,  pas- 
sions, and  events  afford  us  (as  in  a  looking-glass)  a  clear 
discovery  of  each  particular  temper  and  disposition.  Ac- 
cordingly Siramnes  the  Persian,  to  such  as  wondered  that 


186  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

he  usually  spoke  like  a  wise  man  and  yet  was  unsuccessful 
in  his  designs,  replied  :  I  myself  am  master  of  my  words, 
but  the  king  and  fortune  have  power  over  my  actions. 
In  the  former  treatise  speeches  and  actions  are  mingled 
together,  and  require  a  reader  that  is  at  leisure  ;  but  in  this 
the  speeches,  being  as  it  were  the  seeds  and  the  illustrations 
of  those  lives,  are  placed  by  themselves,  and  Avill  not  (I 
think)  be  tedious  to  you,  since  they  will  give  you  in  a  few 
words  a  review  of  many  memorable  persons. 

Cyrus.  The  Persians  affect  such  as  are  hawk-nosed 
and  think  them  most  beautiful,  because  Cyrus,  the  most 
beloved  of  their  kings,  had  a  nose  of  that  shape.  Cyrus 
said  that  those  that  would  not  do  good  for  themselves 
ought  to  be  compelled  to  do  good  for  others  ;  and  that  no- 
body ought  to  govern,  unless  he  was  better  than  those  he 
governed.  When  the  Persians  were  desirous  to  exchange 
their  hills  and  rocks  for  a  plain  and  soft  country,  he  would 
not  suffer  them,  saying  that  both  the  seeds  of  plants  and  the 
lives  of  men  resemble  the  soil  they  inhabit. 

Darius.  Darius  the  father  of  Xerxes  used  to  praise 
himself,  saying  that  he  became  even  Aviser  in  battles  and 
dangers.  AVhen  he  laid  a  tax  upon  his  subjects,  he  sum- 
moned his  lieutenants,  and  asked  them  whether  the  tax 
was  burthensome  or  not?  When  they  told  him  it  was 
moderate,  he  commanded  them  to  pay  half  as  much  as  was 
at  first  demanded.  As  he  was  opening  a  pomegranate, 
one  asked  him  what  it  Avas  of  which  he  would  wish  for 
a  number  equal  to  the  seeds  thereof.  He  said,  Of  men 
like  Zopyrus,  —  Avho  was  a  loyal  person  and  his  friend. 
This  Zopyrus,  after  he  had  maimed  himself  by  cutting  off 
his  nose  and  ears,  beguiled  the  Babylonians  ;  and  being 
trusted  by  them,  he  betrayed  the  city  to  Darius,  who  often 
said  that  he  would  not  have  had  Zopyrus  maimed  to  gain 
a  hundred  Babylons. 

Semiramis.    Semiramis  built  a  monument  for  herself,  with 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  137 

this  inscription  :  "Whatever  king  wants  treasure,  if  he  open 
this  tomb,  he  maybe  satisfied.  Darius  therefore  opening  it 
found  no  treasure,  but  another  inscription  of  this  import : 
If  thou  wert  not  a  Avicked  person  and  of  insatiable  covctous- 
ness,  thou  wouldst  not  disturb  the  mansions  of  the  dead. 

Xerxes.  Arimenes  came  out  of  Bactria  as  a  rival  for 
the  kingdom  with  his  brother  Xerxes,  the  son  of  Darius. 
Xerxes  sent  presents  to  him,  commanding  those  that 
brought  them  to  say  :  ΛYith  these  your  brother  Xerxes  now 
honors  you  ;  and  if  he  chance  to  be  proclaimed  king,  you 
shall  be  the  next  person  to  himself  in  the  kingdom.  When 
Xerxes  was  declared  king,  Arimenes  immediately  did  him 
homage  and  placed  the  croAvn  upon  his  head ;  and  Xerxes 
gave  him  the  next  place  to  himself.  Being  offended  with 
the  Babylonians,  Avho  rebelled,  and  having  overcome 
them,  he  forbade  them  weapons,  but  commanded  they 
should  practise  singing  and  playing  on  the  flute,  keep 
brothel-houses  and  taverns,  and  wear  loose  coats.  He 
refused  to  eat  Attic  figs  that  were  brought  to  be  sold,  until 
he  had  conciuered  the  country  tluit  produced  them.  AVhen 
he  caught  some  Grecian  scouts  in  his  camp,  he  did  them 
no  harm,  but  having  allowed  them  to  A^ew  his  army  as 
much  as  they  pleased,  he  let  them  go. 

Artaxerxes.  Artaxerxes,  the  son  of  Xerxes,  surnamed 
Longimanus  (or  Long-hand)  because  he  had  one  hand 
longer  than  the  other,  said,  it  was  more  princely  to  add 
than  to  take  away.  He  first  gave  leave  to  those  that 
hunted  Avith  him.  if  they  would  and  saw  occasion,  to  throw 
their  darts  before  him.  He  also  first  ordained  that  punish- 
ment for  his  nobles  Avho  had  offended,  that  they  should  be 
stripped  and  their  garments  scourged  instead  of  their  bodies  ; 
and  whereas  their  hair  should  have  been  plucked  out,  that 
the  same  should  be  done  to  their  turbans.  AVhen  Satibar- 
zanes,  his  chamberlain,  petitioned  him  in  an  unjust  matter, 
and  he  understood  he  did  it  to  gain  thirty  thousand  pieces 


188  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF  KINGS 

of  money,  he  ordered  his  treasurer  to  bring  the  said  sum, 
and  gave  them  to  him,  saying :  Ο  Satibarzanes !  take  it ; 
for  when  I  have  given  you  this,  I  shall  not  be  poorer,  but  I 
had  been  more  unjust  if  I  had  granted  your  petition. 

Cyrus  the  Younger.  Cyrus  the  Younger,  when  he  was 
exhorting  the  Lacedaemonians  to  side  with  him  in  the  war, 
said  that  he  had  a  stronger  heart  than  his  brother,  and 
could  drink  more  wine  unmixed  than  he,  and  bear  it  better  ; 
that  his  brother,  when  he  hunted,  could  scarce  sit  his 
horse,  or  when  ill  news  arrived,  his  throne.  He  exhorted 
them  to  send  him  men,  promising  he  would  give  horses 
to  footmen,  chariots  to  horsemen,  villages  to  those  that 
had  farms,  and  those  that  possessed  villages  he  would  make 
lords  of  cities  ;  and  that  he  would  give  them  gold  and 
silver,  not  by  tale  but  by  Aveight. 

Artaxerxes  Mnemon.  Artaxerxes,  the  brother  of  Cyrus 
the  Younger,  called  Mnemon,  did  not  only  give  very  free 
and  patient  access  to  any  that  Avould  speak  with  him,  but 
commanded  the  queen  his  wife  to  draw  the  curtains  of  her 
chariot,  that  petitioners  might  have  the  same  access  to  her 
also.  When  a  poor  man  presented  him  with  a  very  fair 
and  great  apple.  By  the  Sun,  said  he,  'tis  my  opinion,  if  this 
person  \vere  entrusted  Λvith  a  small  city,  he  would  make  it 
great.  In  his  flight,  when  his  carriages  were  plundered, 
and  he  was  forced  to  eat  dry  figs  and  barley-bread.  Of  how 
great  pleasure,  said  he,  have  I  hitherto  lived  ignorant ! 

Parysatis.  Parysatis,  the  mother  of  Cyrus  and  Arta- 
xerxes, advised  him  that  would  discourse  freely  with  the 
king,  to  use  words  of  fine  linen. 

Orontes.  Orontes,  the  son-in-law  of  King  Artaxerxes, 
falliuii  into  diso-race  and  beino:  condemned,  said  :  As  arith- 
meticians  count  sometimes  myriads  on  their  fingers,  some- 
times units  only ;  in  like  manner  the  favorites  of  kings 
sometimes  can  do  every  thing  with  them,  sometimes  little 
or  nothing. 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  189 

Memnon.  Memnon,  one  of  King  Darius's  generals  against 
Alexander,  when  a  mercenary  soldier  excessively  and  im- 
pndently  reviled  Alexander,  struck  him  with  his  spear, 
adding,  I  pay  you  to  fight  against  Alexander,  not  to  re- 
proach him. 

Egyptian  Kings.  The  Egyptian  kings,  according  unto 
their  law,  used  to  swear  their  judges  that  they  should  not 
obey  the  king  when  he  commanded  them  to  give  an  unjust 
sentence. 

PoLTYS.  Poltys  king  of  Thrace,  in  the  Trojan  Λvar, 
being  solicited  both  by  the  Trojan  and  Grecian  ambassa- 
dors, advised  Alexander  to  restore  Helen,  promising  to  give 
him  two  beautiful  women  for  her. 

Teres.  Teres,  the  father  of  Sitalces,  said,  when  he  was 
out  of  the  army  and  had  nothing  to  do,  he  thought  there 
was  no  difference  between  him  and  his  grooms. 

CoTYS.  Cotys,  when  one  gave  him  a  leopard,  gave  him 
a  lion  for  it.  He  was  naturally  prone  to  anger,  and  severe- 
ly punished  the  miscarriages  of  his  servants.  AVhen  a 
stranger  brought  him  some  earthen  vessels,  thin  and  brittle, 
but  delicately  shaped  and  admirably  adorned  Avith  sculp- 
tures, he  requited  the  stranger  for  them,  and  then  brake 
them  all  in  pieces.  Lest  (said  he)  my  passion  should  pro- 
voke me  to  punish  excessively  those  that  brake  them. 

Idathyrsus.  Idathyrsus,  King  of  Scythia,  when  Darius 
invaded  him,  solicited  the  Ionian  tyrants  that  they  Avould 
assert  their  liberty  by  breaking  down  the  bridge  that  was 
made  over  the  Danube  :  which  they  refusing  to  do  because 
they  had  sworn  fealty  to  Darius,  he  called  them  good, 
honest,  lazy  slaves. 

Ateas.  Ateas  wrote  to  Philip  :  You  reign  over  the  Ma- 
cedonians, men  that  have  learned  fighting  ;  and  I  over  the 
Scythians,  which  can  fight  with  hunger  and  thirst.  As  he 
was  rubbing  his  horse,  turning  to  the  ambassadors  of  Philip, 
he  asked  whether  Philip  did  so  or  not.     He  took  prisoner 


190  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

Ismenias,  an  excellent  piper,  and  commanded  him  to  play  ; 
and  when  others  admired  him,  he  swore  it  was  more  pleas- 
ant to  hear  a  horse  neigh. 

SciLURUs.  Scilurus  on  his  death-bed,  being  about  to 
leave  fourscore  sons  surviving,  offered  a  bundle  of  darts  to 
each  of  them,  and  bade  them  break  them.  When  all  refused, 
drawing  out  one  by  one,  he  easily  broke  them  ;  thus  teach- 
ing them  thiit,  if  they  held  together,  they  would  continue 
strong,  but  if  they  fell  out  and  Avere  divided,  they  would 
become  weak. 

Gelo.  Gelo  the  tyrant,  after  he  had  overcome  the  Car- 
thaginians at  Himera,  made  peace  with  them,  and  among 
other  articles  compelled  them  to  subscribe  this,  —  that  they 
should  no  more  sacrifice  their  children  to  Saturn.  He 
often  marched  the  Syracusans  out  to  plant  their  fields,  as 
if  it  had  been  to  Avar,  that  the  country  might  be  improved 
by  husbandry,  and  they  might  not  be  corrupted  by  idleness. 
When  he  demanded  a  sum  of  money  of  the  citizens,  and 
thereupon  a  tumult  was  raised,  he  told  them  he  would  but 
borrow  it ;  and  after  the  war  was  ended,  he  restored  it  to 
them  again.  At  a  feast,  when  a  harp  was  offered,  and 
others  one  after  another  tuned  it  and  played  upon  it,  he 
sent  for  his  horse,  and  with  an  easy  agility  leaped  upon 
him. 

HiERO.  Hiero,  who  succeeded  Gelo  in  the  tyranny,  said 
he  was  not  disturbed  by  any  that  freely  spoke  against  him. 
He  judged  that  those  that  revealed  a  secret  did  an  injury 
to  those  to  whom  they  revealed  it ;  for  we  hate  not  only 
those  who  tell,  but  them  also  that  hear  what  we  would  not 
have  disclosed.  One  upbraided  him  with  his  stinking 
breath,  and  he  blamed  his  wife  that  never  told  him  of  it ; 
but  she  said,  I  thought  all  men  smelt  so.  To  Xenophanes 
the  Colophonian,  who  said  he  had  much  ado  to  maintain 
two  servants,  he  replied  :  But  Homer,  whom  you  disparage, 
maintains  above  ten  thousand,  although  he  is  dead.     He 


AND   GREAT   COxMMANDERS.  191 

fined  Epicharmus    the  comedian,  for    speaking  unseemly 
when  his  wife  was  by. 

DioNYSius.     Dionysius  the  Elder,  when  the  public   ora- 
tors cast  lots  to  know  in  what  order  they  should  speak, 
drew  as  his  lot  the  letter  M.     And  Λvhen  one  said  to  him, 
Μωρολογεΐς,  You  Will  make  a  foolish  speech,  Ο  Dionysius-, 
You  are  mistaken,  said  he,  Μοναρχί^σω,  I  shall  be  a  mouarch. 
And  as  soon  as  his  speech  was  ended,  the  Syracusans  chose 
him  general.      In  the  beginning  of  his  tyranny,  the  citizens 
rebelled  and  besieged  him  ;   and  his  friends  advised  him  to 
resign  the  government,  rather  than  to  be  taken  and  slain 
by  them.     But  he,  seeing  a  cook  butcher  an  ox  and  the  ox 
immediately  fall  down  dead,  said  to  his  friends  :   Is   it  not 
a  hateful  thing,  that  for  fear  of  so  short  a  death  we  should 
resign  so  great  a  government'?     When  his  son,  whom  he 
intended  to  make  his  successor  in   the   government,  had 
been  detected  in  debauching  a  freeman's  wife,  he  asked 
him  in  anger.  When  did  you  ever  know  me  guilty  of  such 
a  crime  ?     But  you,  sir,  replied  the  son,  had  not   a  tyrant 
for  your  father.     Nor  will  you,  said  he,  have  a  tyrant  for 
your  son,  unless  you  mend  your  manners.     And  another 
time,  going  into  his  son's  house  and  seeing  there  abundance 
of  silver  and  gold  plate,  he  cried  out:  Thou  art  not  capa- 
ble of  being  a  tyrant,  who  hast  made  never  a  friend  \vith 
all  the  plate  I  have  given  thee.     When  he  exacted  money 
of  the  Syracusans,  and  they  lamenting  and  beseeching  him 
pretended  they  had  none,  he  still  exacted  more,  twice  or 
thrice  renewing  his  demands,  until  he  heard  them  laugh 
and  jeer  at  him  as  they  went  to  and  fro  in  the  market-place, 
and  then  he  gave  over.     Now,  said  he,  since  they  contemn 
me.  it  is  a  sign  they  have  nothing  left.      When  his  mother, 
being  ancient,  requested  him  to  find  a  husband  for  her,  I 
can,  said  he,  overpower  the  laws  of  the  city,  but  I  cannot 
force   the  laws  of  Nature.     Although  he  punished  other 
malefactors  severely,  he  favored  such  as  stole  clothes,  that 


192  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

the  Syracusans  might  forbear  feasting  and  drunken  clubs. 
A  certain  person  told  him  privately,  he  could  show  him.  a 
way  how  he  might  know  beforehand  such  as  conspired 
against  him.  Let  ns  know,  said  he,  going  aside.  Give 
me,  said  the  person,  a  talent,  that  everybody  may  believe 
that  I  have  taught  you  the  signs  and  tokens  of  plotters  ; 
and  he  gave  it  him,  pretending  he  had  learned  them,  much 
admiring  the  subtilty  of  the  man.  Being  asked  whether 
he  was  at  leisure,  he  replied :  God  forbid  that  it  should 
ever  befill  me.  Hearing  that  two  young  men  very  much 
reviled  him  and  his  tyranny  in  their  cups,  he  invited  both 
of  them  to  supper ;  and  perceiving  that  one  of  them  prat- 
tled freely  and  foolishly,  but  the  other  drank  warily  and 
sparing,  he  dismissed  the  first  as  a  drunken  fellow  whose 
treason  lay  no  deeper  than  his  wine,  and  put  the  other  to 
death  as  a  disaffected  and  resolved  traitor.  Some  blaming 
him  for  rewarding  and  preferring  a  wicked  man,  and  one 
hated  by  the  citizens ;  I  would  have,  said  he,  somebody 
hated  more  than  myself.  When  he  gave  presents  to  the 
ambassadors  of  Corinth,  and  they  refused  them  because 
their  law  forbade  them  to  receive  gifts  from  a  prince  to 
Avhom  they  were  sent  in  embassy,  he  said  they  did  very  ill 
to  destroy  the  only  advantage  of  tyranny,  and  to  declare 
that  it  was  dangerous  to  receive  a  kindness  from  a  tyrant. 
Hearing  that  a  citizen  had  buried  a  quantity  of  gold  in  his 
house,  he  sent  for  it ;  and  when  the  party  removed  to  an- 
other city,  and  bought  a  farm  Avith  part  of  his  treasure 
which  he  had  concealed,  Dionysius  sent  for  him  and  bade 
him  take  back  the  rest,  since  he  had  now  begun  to  use  his 
money,  and  was  no  longer  making  a  useful  thing  useless. 

Dionysius  the  Younger  said  that  he  maintained  many 
Sophists  ;  not  that  he  admired  them,  but  that  he  might  be 
admired  for  their  sake.  AVhen  Polyxenus  the  logician  told 
him  he  had  baffled  him  ;  Yes,  said  he,  in  words,  but  I  have 
caught  you  in  deeds ;  for  you,  leaving  your  own  fortune, 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  19;^ 

attend  me  and  mine.  When  he  was  deposed  from  his  gov- 
ernment, and  one  asked  him  what  he  got  by  Phdo  and 
philosophy,  he  answered,  That  I  may  bear  so  great  a 
change  of  fortune  patiently.  Being  asked  how  it  came  to 
pass  that  his  father,  a  private  and  poor  man,  obtained  the 
goΛ^ernment  of  Syracuse,  and  he  already  possessed  of  it, 
and  the  son  of  a  tyrant,  lost  it,  —  My  father,  said  he,  en- 
tered upon  affairs  when  the  democracy  was  hated,  but  I, 
when  tyranny  was  become  odious.  To  another  that  ask°d 
him  the  same  question,  he  replied :  My  father  bequeathed 
to  me  his  government,  but  not  his  fortune. 

Agathocles  was  the  son  of  a  potter.  When  he  became 
lord  and  was  proclaimed  king  of  Sicily,  he  was  wont  to 
place  earthen  and  golden  vessels  together,  and  show  them 
to  young  men,  telling  them,  Those  I  made  first,  but  now 
I  make  these  by  my  valor  and  industry.  As  he  was  besieg- 
ing a  city,  some  from  the  Λvalls  reviling  him,  saying,  Do 
you  hear,  potter,  Avhere  will  you  have  money  to  pay  your 
soldiers]  —  he  gently  answered,  I'll  tell  you,  if  I  take  this 
city.  And  having  taken  it  by  storm,  he  sold  the  prisoners, 
telling  them.  If  you  reproach  me  again,  I  will  complain  to 
your  masters.  Some  inhabitants  of  Ithaca  complained  of 
his  mariners,  that  making  a  descent  on  the  island  they  had 
taken  aAvay  some  cattle  ;  But  your  king,  said  he,  came  to 
Sicily,  and  did  not  only  take  away  sheep,  but  put  out  the 
shepherd's  eyes,  and  went  his  way. 

Dion.  Dion,  that  deposed  Dionysius  from  the  tyranny, 
when  he  heard  Callippus,  whom  of  all  his  friends  and 
attendants  he  trusted  most,  conspired  against  him,  refused 
to  question  him  for  it,  saying  :  It  is  better  for  him  to  die 
than  to  live,  who  must  be  weary  not  only  of  his  enemies, 
but  of  his  friends  too. 

Archelaus.  Archelaus,  when  one  of  his  companions 
(and  none  of  the  best)  begged  a  golden  cup  of  him,  bade 
the  boy  give  it  Euripides  ;  and  when  the  man  wondered 

VOL.   I.  18 


194  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

at  him,  You,  said  he,  are  worthy  to  ask,  but  he  is  worthy 
to  receive  it  Avithout  asking.  A  prating  barber  asked  him 
how  he  would  be  trimmed.  He  answered.  In  silence. 
When  Euripides  at  a  banquet  en^braced  fair  Agatho  and 
kissed  him,  although  he  was  no  longer  beardless,  he  said, 
turning  to  his  friends :  Do  not  wonder  at  it,  for  the  beauty 
of  such  as  are  handsome  lasts  after  autumn. 

Timotheus  the  harper,  receiving  of  him  a  reward  less 
than  his  expectation,  twitted  him  for  it  not  obscurely  ;  and 
once  singing  the  short  verse  of  the  chorus.  You  commend 
earth-born  silver,  directed  it  to  him.  And  Archelaus 
answered  him  again  singing,  But  you  beg  it.  AVhen  one 
sprinkled  water  upon  him,  and  his  friends  would  have  had 
him  punish  the  man.  You  are  mistaken,  said  he,  he  did  not 
sprinkle  me,  but  some  other  person  whom  he  took  me 
to  be. 

Philip.  Theophrastus  tells  us  that  Philip,  the  father  of 
Alexander,  was  not  only  greater  in  his  port  and  success, 
but  also  freer  from  luxury  than  other  kings  of  his  lime. 
He  said  the  Athenians  were  happy,  if  they  could  find  every 
year  ten  fit  to  be  chosen  generals,  since  in  many  years  he 
could  find  but  one  fit  to  be  a  general,  and  that  was 
Parmenio.  When  he  had  news  brought  him  of  divers  and 
eminent  successes  in  one  day,  Ο  Fortune,  said  he,  for  all 
these  so  great  kindnesses  do  me  some  small  mischief. 
After  he  had  conquered  Greece,  some  advised  him  to  place 
garrisons  in  the  cities.  No,  said  he,  I  had  rather  be  called 
merciful  a  great  while,  than  lord  a  little  while.  His  friends 
advised  him  to  banish  a  railer  his  court,  ΐ  will  not  do  it, 
said  he,  lest  he  should  go  about  and  rail  in  many  places. 
Smicythus  accused  Nicanor  for  one  that  commonly  spoke 
evil  of  King  Philip  ;  and  his  friends  advised  him  to  send  for 
him  and  punish  him.  Truly,  said  he,  Nicanor  is  not  the 
worst  of  the  Macedonians  ;  we  ought  therefore  to  consider 
whether  we  have  given  him  any  cause  or  not.     \Vhen  he 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDEES.  195 

understood  therefore  that  Nicanor,  being  slighted  by  the 
king,  was  much  afflicted  with  poverty,  he  ordered  a  boon 
should  be  given  him.  And  when  Smicythus  reported  that 
Nicanor  was  continually  abounding  in  the  king's  praises. 
You  see  then,  said  he,  that  whether  we  will  be  well  or  ill 
spoken  of  is  in  our  own  power,  lie  said  he  was  beholden 
to  the  Athenian  orators,  who  by  reproaching  him  made  him 
better  both  in  speech  and  behavior ;  for  I  will  endeavor, 
said  he,  both  by  my  words  and  actions  to  prove  them  liars. 
Such  Athenians  as  he  took  prisoners  in  the  fight  at  Chae- 
ronea  he  dismissed  without  ransom.  When  they  also  de- 
manded their  garments  and  quilts,  and  on  that  account 
accused  the  Macedonians,  Philip  laughed  and  said.  Do  ye 
not  think  these  Athenians  imagine  we  beat  them  at  cockal  ? 
In  a  fight  he  broke  his  collar-bone,  and  the  surgeon  that 
had  him  in  cure  requested  him  daily  for  his  reward.  Take 
what  you  will,  said  he,  for  you  have  the  key.*  There 
were  two  brothers  called  Both  and  Either ;  perceiving 
Either  was  a  good  understanding  busy  fellow  and  Both  a 
silly  fellow  and  good  for  little,  he  said  :  Either  is  Both,  and 
Both  is  Neither.  To  some  that  advised  him  to  deal  severely 
with  the  Athenians  he  said  :  You  talk  absurdly,  who  would 
persuade  a  man  that  suffers  all  things  for  the  sake  of  glory, 
to  overthrow  the  theatre  of  glory.  Being  arbitrator  betwixt 
two  wicked  persons,  he  commanded  one  to  fiy  out  of  Mace- 
donia and  the  other  to  pursue  him.  Being  about  to  pitch 
his  camp  in  a  likely  place,  and  hearing  there  was  no  hay 
to  be  had  for  the  cattle.  What  a  life,  said  he,  is  ours,  since 
Ave  must  live  according  to  the  convenience  of  asses  !  I)e- 
siijnino:  to  take  a  strons:  fort,  which  the  scouts  told  him  Avas 
exceeding  difficult  and  impregnable,  he  asked  Avhether  it 
was  so  difficult  that  an  ass  could  not  come  at  it  laden  \vith 
gold.  Lasthenes  the  Olynthian  and  his  friends  being 
aggrieved,  and  com[)laining  that  some  of  Philip's  retinue 

*  The  Greek  αλύς  (clavis),  a  key,  signifies  also  the  collar-bone.     (G.) 


196  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

called  them  traitors,  These  Macedonians,  said  he,  are  a  rude 
and  clownish  people,  that  call  a  spade  a  spade.  He  ex- 
horted his  son  to  behave  himself  coui'teously  toward  the 
Macedonians,  and  to  acquire  influence  with  the  people, 
Avhile  he  could  be  affable  and  gracious  during  the  reign  of 
another.  He  advised  liim  also  to  make  friends  of  men 
of  interest  in  the  cities,  both  good  and  bad,  that  afterwards 
he  might  make  use  of  these,  and  suppress  those.  To  Philo 
the  Theban,  who  had  been  his  host  and  given  him  entertain- 
ment while  he  remained  an  hostage  at  Thebes,  and  after- 
Avards  refused  to  accept  any  present  from  him,  he  said  :  Do 
not  take  from  me  the  title  of  invincible,  by  making  me  inferior 
to  you  in  kindness  and  bounty.  Having  taken  many  prison- 
ers, he  was  selling  them,  sitting  in  an  unseemly  posture,  with 
his  tunic  tucked  up  ;  when  one  of  the  captives  to  be  sold 
cried  out,  Spare  me,  Philip,  for  our  fathers  were  friends. 
When  Philip  asked  him,  Prithee,  how  or  from  Avhence  ? 
Let  me  come  nearer,  said  he,  and  111  tell  you.  When  he 
Avas  come  up  to  him,  he  said  :  Let  down  your  cloak  a  little 
lower,  for  you  sit  indecently.  Whereupon  said  Philip  :  Let 
him  go,  in  truth  he  wisheth  me  well  and  is  my  friend,  though 
I  did  not  know  him.  Being  invited  to  supper,  he  carried 
many  he  took  up  by  the  way  along  with  him  ;  and  perceiv- 
ing his  host  troubled  (for  his  provision  was  not  sufficient), 
he  sent  to  each  of  his  friends,  and  bade  them  reserve  a  place 
for  the  cake.  They,  believing  and  expecting  it,  ate  little, 
and  so  the  supper  was  enough  for  all.  It  appeared  he 
grieved  much  at  the  death  of  Hipparchus  the  Euboean. 
For  when  somebody  said  it  was  time  for  him  to  die,  —  For 
himself,  said  he,  but  he  died  too  soon  for  me,  preventing 
me  by  his  death  from  returning  him  the  kindness  his  friend- 
ship deserved.  Hearing  that  Alexander  blamed  him  for 
having  children  by  several  women.  Therefore,  saith  he  to 
him,  since  you  have  many  rivals  with  you  for  the  kingdom, 
be  just  and  honorable,  that  you  may  not  receive  the  king- 


AND   GEEAT   COMMANDERS.  197 

dom  as  my  gift,  but  by  your  own  merit.  He  charged  him 
to  be  observant  of  Aristotle,  and  study  philosophy.  That 
you  may  not,  said  he,  do  many  things  which  I  now  repent 
of  doing.  He  made  one  of  Antipater's  recommendation  a 
judge  ;  and  perceiving  afterwards  that  his  hair  and  beard 
were  colored,  he  removed  him,  saying,  I  could  not  think 
one  that  was  faithless  in  his  hair  could  be  trusty  in  his  deeds. 
As  he  sate  judge  in  the  cause  of  one  Machaetas,  he  fell 
asleep,  and  for  want  of  minding  his  arguments,  gave  judg- 
ment against  him.  And  when  being  enraged  he  cried  out, 
I  appeal ;  To  whom,  said  he,  wilt  thou  appeal  1  To  you 
yourself,  Ο  king,  said  he,  when  you  are  awake  to  hear  me 
Avith  attention.  Then  Philip  rousing  and  coming  to  him- 
self, and  perceiving  Machaetas  Avas  injured,  although  he 
did  not  reverse  the  sentence,  he  paid  the  fine  himself. 
When  Harpalus,  in  behalf  of  Crates  his  kinsman  and 
intimate  friend,  who  was  charged  with  disgraceful  crimes, 
begged  that  Crates  might  pay  the  fine  and  so  cause  the  action 
to  be  Avithdrawn  and  avoid  public  disgrace  ;  —  It  is  better, 
said  he,  that  he  should  be  reproached  upon  his  own  account, 
than  we  for  him.  His  friends  being  enraged  because  the 
Peloponnesians,  to  Avhom  he  had  shown  favor,  hissed  at 
him  in  the  Olympic  games.  What  then,  said  he,  would  they 
do  if  we  should  abuse  them  ?  Awaking  after  he  had 
overslept  himself  in  the  army  ;  I  slept,  said  he,  securely, 
for  Antipater  watched.  Another  time,  being  asleep  in  the 
day-time,  while  the  Grecians  fretting  with  impatience 
thronged  at  the  gates  ;  Do  not  wonder,  said  Parmenio  to 
them,  if  Philip  be  now  asleep,  for  ΛΛ^ιϋβ  you  slept  he  was 
awake.  AVhen  he  corrected  a  musician  at  a  banquet,  and 
discoursed  with  him  concerning  notes  and  instruments,  the 
musician  replied :  Far  be  that  dishonor  from  your  majesty, 
that  you  should  understand  these  things  better  than  I  do. 
While  he  was  at  variance  with  his  wife  Olympia  and  his  son, 
Demaratus  the  Corinthian  came  to  him,  and  Philip  asked 


198  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

him  how  the  Grecians  held  together.  Demaratus  repUed : 
You  had  need  to  enquire  how  the  Grecians  agree,  who 
aaree  so  well  with  your  nearest  relations.  AVhereupon  he 
let  fall  his  anger,  and  Avas  reconciled  to  them.  A  poor  old 
Λνοηιπη  petitioned  and  dunned  him  often  to  hear  her  cause  ; 
and  he  answered,  I  am  not  at  leisure  ;  the  old  woman 
bawled  out,  Do  not  reign  then.  He  admired  the  speech, 
and  immediately  heard  her  and  others. 

Alexander.  While  Alexander  was  a  boy,  Philip 'had 
great  success  in  his  affairs,  at  which,  he  did  not  rejoice,  bat 
told  the  children  that  Avere  brought  up  with  him,  My  father 
"will  leave  me  nothing  to  do.  The  children  answered,  Your 
father  gets  all  this  for  you.  But  what  good,  saitli  he,  will 
it  do  me,  if  I  possess  much  and  do  nothing  ?  Being  nim- 
ble and  light-footed,  his  father  encouraged  him  to  run  in 
tlie  Olympic  race  ;  Yes,  said  he,  if  there  were  any  kings 
there  to  run  with  me.  A  wench  bein^  brouorht  to  lie  with 
him  late  in  the  evening,  he  asked  why  she  tarried  so  long. 
She  answered,  I  staid  until  my  husband  was  abed ;  and  he 
sharply  reproved  his  pages,  because  through  their  careless- 
ness he  had  almost  committed  adultery.  As  he  was  sacri- 
ficing to  the  Gods  liberally,  and  often  offered  frankincense, 
Leonidas  his  tutor  standing  by  said,  Ο  son,  thus  generously 
will  you  sacrifice,  when  you  have  conquered  the  country 
that  bears  frankincense.  And  when  he  had  conquered  it, 
he  sent  him  this  letter :  I  have  sent  you  an  hundred  talents 
of  frankincense  and  cassia,  that  hereafter  you  may  not  be 
niggardly  towards  the  Gods,  when  you  understand  I  have 
conquered  the  country  in  which  perfumes  grow.  The 
night  before  he  fought  at  the  river  Granicus,  he  exhorted 
the  ]Macedonians  to  sup  plentifully  and  to  bring  out  all 
tliey  had,  as  they  were  to  sup  the  next  day  at  the  charge 
of  their  enemies.  Perillus,  one  of  his  friends,  begged  of 
him  portions  for  his  daughters  ;  and  he  ordered  him  to 
receive  fifty  talents.    And  when  he  said,  Ten  were  enough, 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  199 

Alexander  replied :  Enough  for  you  to  receive,  but  not  for 
me  to  give.  lie  commanded  his  steward  to  give  Anaxar- 
chus  the  philosopher  as  much  as  he  should  ask  for.  He 
asketh,  said  the  steward,  for  an  hundred  talents.  He  doth 
well,  said  he,  knowing  he  hath  a  friend  that  both  can  and 
will  bestow  so  much  on  him.  Seeing  at  Miletus  many 
statues  of  wrestlers  that  had  overcome  in  the  Olympic 
and  Pythian  games,  And  where,  said  he,  were  these  lusty 
fellows  when  the  barbarians  assaulted  your  city  ]  Λλ^ΐιοη 
AdsL  queen  of  Caria  was  ambitious  often  to  send  him 
sauces  and  sweetmeats  delicately  prepared  by  the  best 
cooks  and  artists,  he  said,  I  have  better  confectioners  of 
my  own,  viz.,  my  night-travelling  for  my  breakfast,  and  my 
spare  breakfast  for  my  dinner.  All  things  being  prepared 
for  a  fight,  his  captains  asked  him  whether  he  had  any  thing 
else  to  command  them.  Nothing,  said  he,  but  that  the 
Macedonians  should  shave  their  beards.  Parmenio  won- 
dering at  it,  Do  you  not  know,  said  he,  there  is  no  better 
hold  in  a  fight  than  the  beard  I  When  Darius  offered  him 
ten  thousand  talents,  and  to  divide  Asia  equally  Avith  him ; 
I  would  accept  it,  said  Parmenio,  were  I  Alexander.  And 
so  truly  would  I,  said  Alexander,  if  I  were  Parmenio. 
But  he  answered  Darius,  that  the  earth  could  not  bear 
two  suns,  nor  Asia  two  kings.  ΛΥΙιοη  he  was  going  to 
fight  for  the  world  at  Arbela,  against  ten  hundred  thousand 
enemies  set  in  array  against  him,  some  of  his  friends  came 
to  him,  and  told  him  the  discourse  of  the  soldiers  in  their 
tents,  Avho  had  agreed  that  nothing  of  the  spoils  should  be 
brought  into  the  treasury,  but  they  would  have  all  them- 
selves. You  tell  me  good  ncAvs,  said  he,  for  I  hear  the 
discourse  of  men  that  intend  to  fight,  and  not  to  run  away. 
Several  of  his  soldiers  came  to  him  and  said :  Ο  Kiuii !  be 
of  good  courage,  and  fear  not  the  multitude  of  your  ene- 
mies, for  they  will  not  be  able  to  endure  the  very  stink  of 
our  sweat.     The  army  being  marshalled,  he  saw  a  soldier 


200  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

fitting  his  thong  to  his  javelin,  and  dismissed  him  as  a  use- 
less fellow,  for  fitting  his  weapons  when  he  should  use 
them.  As  he  Avas  reading  a  letter  from  his  mother,  con- 
taining secrets  and  accusations  of  Antipater,  Hephaestion 
also  (as  he  was  wont)  read  it  along  with  him.  Alexander 
did  not  hinder  him ;  but  when  the  letter  was  read,  he  took 
his  ring  off"  his  finger,  and  laid  the  seal  of  it  upon  Ile- 
phaestion's  mouth.  Being  saluted  as  the  son  of  Jupiter  in 
the  temple  of  Ammon  by  the  chief  priest ;  It  is  no  won- 
der, said  he,  for  Jupiter  is  by  nature  ihe  father  of  all,  and 
calls  the  best  men  his  sons.  ΛVllen  he  was  wounded  with 
an  arrow  in  the  ankle,  and  many  ran  to  him  that  were 
wont  to  call  him  a  God,  he  said  smiling :  That  is  blood,  as 
you  see,  and  not,  as  Homer  saith,  — 

Such  liumor  as  distils  from  blessed  Gods.* 

To  some  that  commended  the  frugality  of  Antipater,  whose 
diet  was  sober  and  without  luxury ;  Outwardly,  said  he, 
Antipater  wears  white  clothes,  but  within  he  is  all  purple. 
In  a  cold  Avinter  day  one  of  his  friends  invited  him  to  a 
banquet,  and  there  being  a  little  fire  on  a  small  hearth,  he 
bid  him  fetch  either  wood  or  frankincense.  Antipatridas 
brought  a  beautiful  singing  Avoman  to  supper  with  him  ; 
Alexander,  being  taken  with  her  visage,  asked  Antipatridas 
Avhether  she  was  his  miss  or  not.  And  when  he  confessed 
she  was  ;  Ο  villain,  said  he,  turn  her  immediately  out 
from  the  banquet.  Again,  when  Cassander  forced  a  kiss 
from  Pytho,  a  boy  beloved  by  Evius  the  piper,  and  Alex- 
ander perceived  that  Evius  was  concerned  at  it,  he  was  ex- 
tremely enraged  at  Cassander,  and  said  with  a  loud  A^oice, 
It  seems  nobody  must  be  loved  if  you  can  help  it.  AVhen 
he  sent  such  of  the  Macedonians  as  were  sick  and  maimed  to 
the  sea,  they  showed  him  one  that  Avas  in  health  and  yet 
subscribed  his  name  among  the  sick ;  being  brought  into 

*  II.  V.  340. 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  201 

the  presence  and  examined,  he  confessed  he  used  that  pre- 
tence for  the  love  of  Telesippa,  who  was  going  to  the  sea. 
Alexander  asked,  of  whom  he  could  make  inquiries  about 
this  Telesippa,  and  hearing  she  was  a  free  woman,  he  said. 
Therefore,  my  Antigenes,  let  us  persuade  her  to  stay  with 
us,  for  to  force  her  to  do  so  when  she  is  a  free  woman  is 
not  according  to  my  custom.  Of  the  mercenary  Grecians 
that  fought  against  him  he  took  many  prisoners.  He  com- 
manded the  Athenians  should  be  kept  in  chains,  because 
they  served  for  wages  when  they  were  allowed  a  public 
maintenance  ;  and  the  Thessalians,  because  when  they  had 
a  fruitful  country  they  did  not  till  it ;  but  he  set  the  The- 
bans  free,  saying.  To  them  only  I  have  left  neither  city  nor 
country.  He  took  captive  an  excellent  Indian  archer  that 
said  he  could  shoot  an  arrow  through  a  ring,  and  com- 
manded him  to  show  his  skill ;  and  when  the  man  refused 
to  do  this,  lie  commanded  him  in  a  rage  to  be  put  to  death. 
The  man  told  them  that  led  him  to  execution  that,  not 
having  practised  for  many  days,  he  was  afraid  he  should 
miss.  Alexander,  hearing  this,  wondered  at  him  and  dis- 
missed him  Avith  rewards,  because  he  chose  rather  to  die 
than  show  himself  unworthy  of  his  reputation.  Taxiles, 
one  of  the  Indian  kings,  met  Alexander,  and  advised  him 
not  to  make  war  nor  fight  with  him,  but  if  he  Avere  a 
meaner  person  than  himself,  to  receive  kindness  from  him, 
or  if  he  were  a  better  man,  to  show  kindness  to  him.  He 
answered,  that  was  the  very  thing  they  must  fight  for,  who 
should  exceed  the  other  in  bounty.  AYhen  he  heard  the 
rock  called  Aornus  in  India  was  by  its  situation  impregna- 
ble, but  the  commander  of  it  was  a  coward ;  Then,  said 
he,  the  place  is  easy  to  be  taken.  Another,  commanding 
a  rock  thought  to  be  invincible,  surrendered  himself  and 
the  rock  to  Alexander,  who  committed  the  said  rock  and 
the  adjacent  country  to  his  government,  saying :  I  take  this 
for  a  wise  man,  who  chose  rather  to  commit  himself  to  a 


202  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

good  man  than  to  a  strong  place.  When  the  rock  was 
taken,  his  friends  said  that  it  exceeded  the  deeds  of  Hercu- 
les. But  I,  said  he,  do  not  think  my  actions  and  all  my 
empire  to  be  compared  with  one  word  of  Hercules.  He 
lined  some  of  his  friends  whom  he  caught  playing  at  dice 
in  earnest.  Of  his  chief  and  most  powerful  friends,  he 
seemed  most  to  respect  Craterus,  and  to  love  Hephaestion. 
Craterus,  said  he,  is  the  friend  of  the  king ;  but  Hephaes- 
tion is  the  friend  of  Alexander.  He  sent  fifty  talents  to 
Xenocrates  the  philosopher,  who  would  not  receive  them, 
saying  he  Avas  not  in  want.  And  he  asked  whether  Xeno- 
crates had  no  friend  either ;  For  as  to  myself,  said  he,  the 
treasure  of  Darius  is  hardly  sufficient  for  me  to  bestow 
among  my  friends.  He  demanded  of  Porus,  after  the  fight, 
how  he  should  treat  him.  lloyally,  said  he,  like  a  king. 
And  being  again  asked,  Avhat  farther  he  had  to  request ; 
All  things,  said  he,  are  in  that  word  royally.  Admiring 
his  wisdom  and  valor,  he  gave  him  a  greater  government 
than  he  had  before.  Being  told  a  certain  person  reviled 
him.  To  do  good,  said  he,  and  to  be  evil  spoken  of  is 
kingly.  As  he  was  dying,  looking  upon  his  friends,  I  see, 
said  he,  my  funeral  tournament  λυΙΙΙ  be  great.  When  he 
was  dead,  Demades  the  rhetorician  likened  the  Macedonian 
army  Avithout  a  general  to  Polyphemus  the  Cyclops  when 
his  eye  Avas  put  out. 

Ptolemy.  Ptolemy,  the  son  of  Lagus,  frequently  supped 
with  his  friends  and  lay  at  their  houses  ;  and  if  at  any 
time  he  invited  them  to  supper,  he  made  use  of  their  fur- 
niture, sending  for  vessels,  carpets,  and  tables  ;  for  he  him- 
self had  only  things  that  were  of  constant  use  about  him, 
saying  it  Avas  more  becoming  a  king  to  make  others  rich 
than  to  be  rich  himself. 

xA.NTiGONUS.  Antigonus  exacted  money  severely.  When 
one  told  him  that  Alexander  did  not  do  so,  It  may  be  so, 
said  he  ;  Alexander  reaped  Asia,  and  I  but  glean  after  him. 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  203 

Seeing  some  soldiers  playing  at  ball  in  head-pieces  and 
breast-plates,  he  was  pleased,  and  sent  for  their  officers, 
intending  to  commend  them  ;  bnt  Λvhen  he  heard  the  offi- 
cers were  drinking,  he  bestowed  their  commands  on  the 
soldiers.  When  all  men  wondered  that  in  his  old  age  his 
government  was  mild  and  easy  ;  Formerly,  said  he,  I  songht 
for  power,  but  now  for  glory  and  good-will.  To  Philip  his 
son,  who  asked  him  in  the  presence  of  many  when  the 
army  would  march,  AVhat,  said  he,  are  you  afraid  that  you 
only  should  not  hear  the  trumpet  ]  The  same  young  man 
being  desirous  to  quarter  at  a  widow's  house  that  had  three 
handsome  daughters,  Antigoruis  called  the  quartermaster  to 
him :  Prithee,  said  he,  help  my  son  out  of  these  straits. 
Kecovering  from  a  slight  disease,  he  said  :  No  harm  ;  this 
distemper  puts  me  in  mind  not  to  aim  at  great  things,  since 
we  are  mortal.  Hermodotus  in  his  poems  called  liim  Son 
of  the  Sun.  He  that  attends  my  close-stool,  said  he,  sings 
me  no  such  song.  When  one  said.  All  things  in  kings  are 
just  and  honorable,  —  Indeed,  said  he,  for  barbarian  kings  ; 
but  for  us  only  honorable  things  are  honorable,  and  only 
just  things  are  just.  Marsyas  his  brother  had  a  cause  de- 
pending, and  requested  him  it  might  be  examined  at  his 
house.  Nay,  said  he,  it  shall  be  heard  in  the  judgment- 
hall,  that  all  may  hear  whether  we  do  exact  justice  or  not. 
In  the  winter  being  forced  to  pitch  his  camp  where  neces- 
saries were  scarce,  some  of  his  soldiers  reproached  him, 
not  knowing  he  Avas  near.  He  opened  the  tent  Avitli  his 
cane,  saying  :  Woe  be  to  you,  unless  you  get  you  farther  off 
when  you  revile  me.  Aristodemus,  one  of  his  friends, 
supposed  to  be  a  cook's  son,  advised  him  to  moderate  his  gifts 
and  expenses.  Thy  Λvords,  said  he,  Aristodemus,  smell  of 
the  apron.  The  Athenians,  out  of  a  respect  to  him,  gave 
one  of  his  servants  the  freedom  of  their  city.  And  I  ΛνοηΜ 
not,  said  he,  have  any  Athenian  whipped  by  my  com- 
mand.    A  youth,  scholar  to  Auaximenes  the  rhetorician, 


20-i  THE  Al^OPHTHEGMS   OF  KINGS 

spoke  ill  his  presence  a  prepared  and  studied  speech  ; 
and  he  asking  something  which  he  desired  to  learn,  the 
youth  was  silent.  AVhat  do  you  say,  said  he,  is  all  that 
you  have  said  written  in  your  table-book  ?  AVhen  he  heard 
another  rhetorician  say.  The  snow-spread  season  makes 
the  country  fodder  spent ;  Will  you  not  stop,  said  he, 
prating  to  me  as  you  do  to  the  rabble  ]  Thrasyllus  the 
Cynic  begged  a  drachm  of  him.  That,  said  he,  is  too  little 
for  a  king  to  give.  Why  then,  said  the  other,  give  me  a 
talent.  And  that,  said  he,  is  too  much  for  a  Cynic  (or 
for  a  dog)  to  receive.  Sending  his  son  Demetrius  with 
ships  and  land-forces  to  make  Greece  free  ;  Glory,  said 
he,  from  Greece,  as  from  a  watch-tower,  will  shine  through- 
out the  Avorld.  Antagoras  the  poet  was  boiling  a  conger, 
and  Antigonus,  coming  behind  him  as  he  was  stirring  his 
skillet,  said :  Do  you  think,  Antagoras,  that  Homer  boiled 
congers,  when  he  wrote  the  deeds  of  Agamemnon  ?  An- 
tagoras replied:  Do  you  think,  Ο  King,  that  Agamemnon, 
when  he  did  such  exploits,  was  a  peeping  in  his  army  to 
see  Λνΐιο  boiled  congers  %  After  he  had  seen  in  a  dream 
Mithridates  mowing  a  golden  harvest,  he  designed  to  kill 
him,  and  acquainted  Demetrius  his  son  with  his  design, 
making  him  swear  to  conceal  it.  But  Demetrius,  taking 
INIithridates  aside  and  walking  with  him  by  the  seaside, 
with  the  pick  of  his  spear  wrote  on  the  shore,  •'  Fly, 
Mithridates ; "  Avhich  he  understanding,  fled  into  Pontus, 
and  there  reigned  until  his  death. 

Demetrius.  Demetrius,  while  he  Avas  besieging  Rhodes, 
found  in  one  of  the  suburbs  the  picture  of  lalysus  made 
by  Protogenes  the  painter.  The  Rhodians  sent  a  herald  to 
him,  beseeching  him  not  to  deface  the  picture.  I  will 
sooner,  said  he,  deface  my  father's  statues,  than  such  a 
picture.  When  he  made  a  league  with  the  Rhodians,  he 
left  behind  him  an  engine,  called  the  City  Taker,  that  it 
might  be  a  memorial  of  his  magnificence  and  of  their  cour- 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  205 

nge.  When  the  Athenians  rebelled,  and  he  took  the  city, 
Avhich  had  been  distressed  for  want  of  provision,  he  called 
an  assembly  and  gave  them  corn.  And  while  he  made  a 
speech  to  them  concerning  that  affair,  he  spoke  improp- 
erly ;  and  Avhen  one  that  sat  by  told  him  how  the  word 
ought  to  be  spoken,  he  said :  For  this  correction  I  bestow 
upon  you  five  thousand  bushels  more. 

Antigonus  THE  ShcoxD.  Antigouus  the  Secoud  —  when 
his  father  was  a  prisoner,  and  sent  one  of  his  friends  to 
admonish  him  to  pay  no  regard  to  any  thing  that  he  might 
write  at  the  constraint  of  Seleucus,  and  to  enter  into  no 
obligation  to  surrender  up  the  cities  —  wrote  to  Seleucus 
that  he  would  give  up  his  whole  kingdom,  and  himself  for 
an  hostage,  that  his  father  might  be  set  free.  Being  about 
to  fight  by  sea  Avith  the  lieutenants  of  Ptolemy,  and  the 
pilot  telling  him  the  enemy  outnumbered  him  in  ships,  he 
said :  But  how  many  ships  do  you  reckon  my  presence  to 
be  Avorth  ?  Once  when  he  gave  ground,  his  enemies  press-, 
ing  upon  him,  he  denied  that  he  fled  ;  but  he  betook  him- 
self (as  he  said)  to  an  advantage  that  lay  behind  him.  To 
a  vouth,  son  of  a  valiant  father,  but  himself  no  verv  great 
soldier,  petitioning  he  might  receive  his  f\ither"s  pay  ;  Young 
man,  said  he,  I  pay  and  reward  men  for  their  own,  not  for 
their  fathers'  valor.  When  Zeno  of  Citium,  whom  he 
admired  beyond  all  philosophers,  died,  he  said.  The  theatre 
of  my  actions  is  fallen. 

Lysimachus.  Lysimachus,  when  he  was  overcome  by 
Dromichaetas  in  Thrace  and  constrained  by  thirst,  sur- 
rendered himself  and  his  army,•  When  he  was  a  prisoner, 
and  had  drunk ;  Ο  Gods,  said  he,  for  how  small  a  satisfac- 
tion have  I  made  myself  a  slave  from  a  king !  To  Philip- 
pides  the  comedian,  his  friend  and  companion,  he  said  : 
AVhat  have  I  that  I  may  impart  to  you  ?  He  answered, 
What  you  please,  except  your  secrets. 

Antipater.     Antipater,  hearing  that  Parmenio  was  slain 


206  THE  APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

by  Alexander,  said :  If  Parmenio  conspired  against  Alex- 
ander, whom  may  we  trust]  but  if  he  did  not,  Avhat  is  to 
be  done  ?  Of  Demades  the  rhetorician,  now  grown  old,  he 
said :  As  of  sacrifices  when  finished,  so  there  is  nothing  left 
of  him  but  his  belly  and  tongue. 

Antiochus  the  Third.  Antiochus  the  Third  Avrote  to 
the  cities,  that  if  he  should  at  any  time  ΛνπΙο  for  any  thing 
to  be  done  contrary  to  the  law,  they  should  not  obey,  but 
suppose  it  to  be  done  out  of  ignorance.  AVhen  he  saw 
the  Priestess  of  Diana,  that  she  was  exceeding  beautiful, 
he  presently  removed  from  Ephesus,  lest  he  should  be 
swayed,  contrary  to  his  judgment,  to  commit  some  unholy 
act. 

Antiochus  Hierax.  Antiochus,  surnamed  the  Hawk, 
warred  with  his  brother  Seleucus  for  the  kingdom.  After 
Seleucus  was  overcome  by  the  Galatians,  and  was  not  to  be 
heard  of,  but  supposed  to  be  slain  in  the  fight,  he  laid  aside 
his  purple  and  went  into  mourning.  A  while  after,  hearing 
his  brother  was  safe,  he  sacrificed  to  the  Gods  for  the  good 
news,  and  caused  the  cities  under  his  dominion  to  put  on 
garlands. 

EuMENES.  Eumenes  was  thought  to  be  slain  by  a  con- 
spiracy of  Perseus.  That  report  being  brought  to  Pcrga- 
mus.  Attains  his  brother  put  on  the  crown,  married  his 
wife,  and  took  upon  him  the  kingdom.  Hearing  after- 
Avards  his  brother  was  alive  and  upon  the  way,  he  met  him, 
as  he  used  to  do,  with  his  life-guard,  and  a  spear  in  his 
hand.  Eumenes  embraced  him  kindly,  and  whispered  in 
his  ear :  — 

If  a  widow  you  will  wed, 

Wait  till  you're  sure  her  husband's  dead.* 

But  he  never  afterwards  did  or  spake  any  thing  that  showed 
any  suspicion  all  his  lifetime  ;  but  when  he  died,  be  be- 
queathed to  him  his  queen  and  kingdom.     In  requital  of 

*  Μη  σπονδε  yr/μαι,  πριν  τελεντησαντ''  Ιδι^ς.     Έτοώι  Sophooles's  Tyro,  Frag.   596. 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  207 

which,  his  brother  bred  up  none  of  his  own  children, 
although  he  had  many ;  but  ΛνΙιοη  the  son  of  Eumenes 
Avas  groAvn  up,  he  bestowed  the  kingdom  on  him  in  his 
own  lifetime. 

Pyrrhus  the  Epirot.  Pyrrhus  was  asked  by  his  sons, 
when  they  were  boys,  to  Avhom  he  would  leave  the  king- 
dom. To  him  of  you,  saitli  he,  that  hath  the  sharpest 
sword.  Being  asked  whether  Pytho  or  Caphisius  Avas  the 
better  piper,  Polysperchon,  said  he,  is  the  best  general. 
He  joined  in  battle  with  the  Romans,  and  twice  overcame 
them,  but  with  the  loss  of  many  friends  and  captains.  If 
I  should  o\'ercome  the  Romans,  said  he,  in  another  fight, 
I  were  undone.  Not  being  able  to  keep  Sicily  (as  he  said) 
from  them,  turning  to  his  friends  he  said:  A\^hat  a  fine 
wrestling  ring  do  we  leave  to  the  Romans  and  Carthagi- 
nians !  His  soldiers  called  him  Eagle  ;  And  I  may  deserve 
the  title,  said  he,  while  I  am  borne  upon  the  wings  of  your 
arms.  Hearing  some  young  men  had  spoken  many  re. 
proachful  words  of  him  in  their  drink,  he  summoned  them 
all  to  appear  before  him  next  day  ;  when  they  appeared, 
ne  asked  the  foremost  whether  they  spake  such  things  of 
him  or  not.  The  young  man  ansAvered  :  Such  words  were 
spoken,  Ο  King,  and  more  we  had  spoken,  if  we  had  had 
more  wine. 

Antiochus.  Antiochus,  who  twice  made  an  inroad  into 
Parthia,  as  he  w^as  once  a  hunting,  lost  his  friends  and  ser- 
vants in  the  pursuit,  and  went  into  a  cottage  of  poor  people 
who  did  not  know  him.  As  they  were  at  supper,  he  threw 
out  discourse  concerning  the  king  ;  thev  said  for  the  most 
part  he  was  a  good  prince,  but  overlooked  many  things  he 
left  to  the  management  of  debauched  courtiers,  and  out  of 
love  of  hunting  often  neglected  his  necessary  aff'airs  ;  and 
there  they  stopped.  At  break  of  day  the  guard  arrived  at 
the  cottage,  and  the  king  was  recognized  when  the  crown 
and  purple  robes  w^ere  brought.     From  the  day,  said  he, 


208  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

on  Avliich  I  first  receh^d  these,  I  ne\Tr  heard  truth  con- 
cerning myself  till  yesterday.  When  he  besieged  Jerusa- 
lem, the  Jews,  in  respect  of  their  great  festival,  begged 
of  him  seven  days'  truce  ;  which  he  not  only  granted,  but 
preparing  oxen  with  gilded  horns,  with  a  great  quantity  of 
incense  and  perfumes,  he  went  before  them  to  the  very 
gates,  and  having  delivered  them  as  a  sacrifice  to  their 
priests,  he  returned  back  to  his  army.  The  Jews  won- 
dered at  him,  and  as  soon  as  their  festival  was  finished, 
surrendered  themselves  to  him. 

Themistocles.  Themistocles  in  his  youth  w^as  much 
given  to  wine  and  women.  But  after  Miltiades  the  gen- 
eral overcame  the  Persian  at  Marathon,  Themistocles 
utterlv  forsook  his  former  disorders  ;  and  to  such  as  won- 
dered at  the  change,  he  said,  The  trophy  of  Miltiades  will 
neither  suffer  me  to  sleep  nor  to  be  idle.  Being  asked 
Avhether  he  Avould  rather  be  Achilles  or  Homer,  —  And 
pray,  said  he,  which  would  you  rather  be,  a  conqueror  in 
the  Olympic  games,  or  the  crier  that  proclaims  who  are 
conquerors  ?  When  Xerxes  with  that  great  navy  made  a 
descent  upon  Greece,  he  fearing,  if  Epicydes  (a  popular, 
but  a  covetous,  corrupt,  and  cowardly  person)  were  made 
general,  the  city  might  be  lost,  bribed  him  with  a  sum  of 
money  to  desist  from  that  pretence.  Adimantus  was 
afraid  to  hazard  a  sea-fight,  w hereunto  Themistocles  per- 
suaded and  encouraged  the  Grecians.  Ο  Themistocles, 
said  he,  those  that  start  before  their  time  in  the  Olympic 
games  are  always  scourged.  Aye  ;  but,  Adimantus,  said 
the  other,  they  that  are  left  behind  are  not  crowned. 
Eurybiades  lifted  up  his  cane  at  him,  as  if  he  Avould  strike 
him.  Strike,  said  he,  but  hear  me.  When  he  could  not 
persuade  Eurybiades  to  fight  in  the  straits  of  the  sea,  he 
sent  privately  to  Xerxes,  advising  him  that  he  need  not 
fear  the  Grecians,  for  they  Λvere  running  away.  Xerxes 
upon  this  persuasion,  fighting  in  a  place  advantageous  for 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  209 

the  Grecians,  was  worsted  ;  and  then  he  sent  him  another 
message,  and  bade  him  fly  with  all  speed  o\'er  the  Helles- 
pont, for  the  Grecians  designed  to  break  down  his  bridge ; 
that  under  pretence  of  saving  him  he  might  secure  the 
Grecians.  A  man  from  the  little  island  Seriphus  told 
him,  he  Avas  famous  not  upon  his  own  account  but  through 
the  city  where  he  lived.  You  say  true,  said  he,  for  if  I 
had  been  a  Seriphian,  I  had  not  been  famous  ;  nor  would 
you,  if  you  had  been  an  Athenian.  To  Antiphatus,  a  beau- 
tiful person  that  avoided  and  despised  Themistocles  when 
he  formerly  loved  him,  but  came  to  him  and  flattered  him 
Λνΐιοη  he  was  in  great  power  and  esteem  ;  Hark  you,  lad, 
said  he,  though  late,  yet  both  of  us  are  wise  at  last.  To 
Simonides  desiring  him  to  give  an  unjust  sentence.  You 
ΛνοηΜ  not  be  a  good  poet,  said  he,  if  you  should  sing  out 
of  tune  ;  nor  I  a  good  governor,  if  I  should  give  judgment 
contrary  to  laΛV.  When  his  son  was  a  little  saucy  towards 
his  mother,  he  said  that  this  boy  had  more  power  than  all 
the  Grecians,  for  the  Athenians  governed  Greece,  he  the 
Athenians,  his  Avife  him,  and  his  son  his  wife.  He  pre- 
ferred an  honest  man  that  wooed  his  daughter,  before  a  rich 
man.  I  would  rather,  said  he,  have  a  man  that  wants 
money,  than  money  that  wants  a  man.  Having  a  farm  to 
sell,  he  bid  the  crier  proclaim  also  that  it  had  a  good 
neighbor.  When  the  Athenians  reviled  him  ;  AVhy  do  you 
complain,  said  he,  that  the  same  persons  so  often  befriend 
you  ]  And  he  compared  himself  to  a  row  of  plane-trees, 
under  which  in  a  storm  passengers  run  for  shelter,  but  in 
fair  weather  they  pluck  the  leaves  off  and  abuse  them. 
Scoffing  at  the  Eretrians,  he  said,  Like  the  sword-fish,  they 
have  a  sword  indeed,  but  no  heart.  Being  banished  first 
out  of  Athens  and  afterwards  out  of  Greece,  he  betook 
himself  to  the  king  of  Persia,  Λνΐιο  bade  him  speak  his 
mind.  Speech,  he  said,  Λvas  like  to  tapestry ;  and  like 
it,  when  it  Avas  spread,  it  showed  its  figures,  but  when 

VOL.   I.  14 


210  THE  APOPHTHEGMS  OF  KINGS 

it  was  folded  up,  hid  and  spoiled  them.  And  therefore  he 
requested  time  until  he  might  learn  the  Persian  tongue, 
and  could  explain  himself  without  an  interpreter.  Having 
there  received  great  presents,  and  being  enriched  of  a  sud- 
den ;  Ο  lads,  said  he  to  his  sons,  we  had  been  undone  if 
we  had  not  been  undone. 

Myronides.  INIyronides  summoned  the  Athenians  to 
iiaht  aijainst  the  Boeotians.  AVlien  the  time  was  almost 
come,  and  the  captains  told  him  they  were  not  near  all 
come  out ;  They  are  come,  said  he,  all  that  intend  to  fight. 
And  marching  while  their  spirits  were  up,  he  overcame 
his  enemies. 

Aristides.  Aristides  the  Just  always  managed  liis  offices 
himself,  and  avoided  all  political  clubs,  because  poAver  got- 
ten by  the  assistance  of  friends  was  an  encouragement  to 
the  unjust.  AVhen  the  Athenians  were  fully  bent  to  banish 
him  by  an  ostracism,  an  illiterate  country  fellow  came  to 
him  with  his  shell,  and  asked  him  to  write  in  it  the  name 
of  Aristides.  Friend,  said  he,  do  you  know  Aristides  ? 
Not  1,  said  the  fellow,  but  I  do  not  like  his  surname  of 
Just.  He  said  no  more,  but  Avrote  his  name  in  the  shell 
and  gave  it  him.  He  was  at  variance  with  Themistocles, 
who  was  sent  on  an  embassy  Avith  him.  Are  you  content, 
said  he,  Themistocles,  to  leave  our  enmity  at  the  borders  ? 
and  if  you  please,  we  will  take  it  up  again  at  our  return. 
Λνΐιεη  he  levied  an  assessment  upon  the  Greeks,  he  re- 
turned poorer  by  so  much  as  he  spent  in  the  journey. 

Aeschylus  wrote  these  verses  on  Amphiaraus  :  — 

His  shield  no  emblem  bears  ;  his  generous  soul 
Wishes  to  be,  not  to  appear,  the  best ; 
While  tlie  deep  furrows  of  his  noble  mind 
Harvests  of  wise  and  prudent  counsel  bear.* 

*  Σήμα  δ'  ονκ  ίπην  κύκλω• 

Ον  γαρ  δοκεΐν  άριστος  αλλ'  είναι  θέλει, 

ΒαθεΙαν  άλοκα  δια  φρενυς  καρπονμενος, 

Έξ  ης  τα  κεύνά  βλαστύνει  βουλεύματα. 

Aesch.  Sept.  591.     Thus  the  passage  stands  in  all  MSS.  of  Aeschylus ;  but  it  ie 


AND    GREAT   COMMANDERS.  211 

And  when  they  were  pronounced  in  the  theatre,  all  turned 
their  eyes  upon  Aristides. 

Pericles.  Whenever  he  entered  on  his  command  as  aen- 
cral,  while  he  was  putting  on  his  war-cloak,  he  used  thus 
to  hespeak  himself:  Remember,  Pericles,  you  govern  free- 
men, Grecians,  Athenians.  He  advised  tlie  Athenians  to 
demolish  Aegina,  as  a  dangerous  eyesore  to  the  haven  of 
Piraeus.  To  a  friend  that  wanted  him  to  bear  false  wit- 
ness and  to  bind  the  same  with  an  oath,  he  said:  1  am  a 
friend  only  as  far  as  the  altar.  When  he  lay  on  his  death- 
bed, he  blessed  himself  that  no  Athenian  ever  Avent  into 
mourning  upon  his  account. 

Alcibiades.  Alcibiades  while  he  was  a  boy,  wrestling 
in  a  ring,  seeing  he  could  not  break  his  adversary's  hold, 
bit  him  by  the  hand ;  Avho  cried  out.  You  bite  like  a 
Avoman.  Not  so,  said  he,  but  like  a  lion.  He  had  a  very 
handsome  dog,  that  cost  him  seven  thousand  drachmas  ; 
and  he  cut  off  his  tail,  that,  said  he,  the  Athenians  may 
have  this  story  to  tell  of  me,  and  may  concern  themselves 
no  farther  with  me.  Coming  into  a  school,  he  called  for 
Homer's  Iliads  ;  and  when  the  master  told  him  he  had 
none  of  Homer's  works,  he  gave  him  a  box  on  the  ear,  and 
Avent  his  way.  He  came  to  Pericles's  gate,  and  being  told 
he  was  busy  a  preparing  his  accounts  to  be  given  to  the 
people  of  Athens,  Had  he  not  better,  said  he,  contrive 
how  he  might  give  no  account  at  all "?  Being  summoned  by 
the  Athenians  out  of  Sicily  to  plead  for  his  life,  he  ab- 
sconded, saying,  that  criminal  was  a  fool  who  studied  a 
defence  when  he  might  fly  for  it.  But,  said  one,  will  you 
not  trust  your  country  with  your  cause  1  No,  said  he,  nor 
my  mother  either,  lest  she  mistake  and  cast  a  black  pebble 

qiioted  by  Plutarch  in  liis  Life  of  Aristides,  §  3,  with  δίκαιης  in  the  second  verse  in 
the  place  of  ύμίστος.  It  has  been  plausibly  conjectured,  that  the  actor  who  spoke  tiie 
part  intentionally  substituted  the  word  όίκαιος  as  a  compliment  to  Aristides,  on  seeing 
him  in  a  conspicuous  place  among  the  spectators.  See  Hermann's  note  on  the  passage 
in  his  edition  of  Aeschylus.     (G.) 


212  THE  APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

instead  of  a  white  one.  When  he  heard  death  Λyas  de- 
creed to  him  and  his  associates,  Let  ns  convince  them,  said 
he,  that  we  are  aUve.  And  passhig  over  to  Lacedaemon, 
he  stirred  up  the  Decelean  war  against  the  Athenians. 

Lamachus.  Lamachns  chid  a  captain  for  a  fault ;  and 
when  he  had  said  he  ΛνοηΜ  do  so  no  more.  Sir,  said  he,  in 
war  there  is  no  room  for  a  second  miscarriag-e. 

Iphicrates.  Iphicrates  was  despised  because  he  was 
thought  to  be  a  shoemaker's  son.  The  exploit  that  first 
brought  him  into  repute  was  this  :  when  he  was  wounded 
himself,  he  caught  up  one  of  the  enemies  and  carried  him 
alive  and  in  his  armor  to  his  own  ship.  lie  once  pitched 
his  camp  in  a  country  belonging  to  his  allies  and  confed- 
erates, and  yet  he  fortified  it  exactly  with  a  trench  and 
bulwark.  Said  one  to  him,  What  are  ye  afraid  of?  Of  all 
speeches,  said  he,  none  is  so  dishonorable  for  a  general,  as 
I  should  not  have  thought  it.  As  he  marshalled  his  army 
to  fight  with  barbarians,  I  am  afraid,  said  he,  they  do  not 
know  Iphicrates,  for  his  very  name  used  to  strike  terror 
into  other  enemies.  Being  accused  of  a  capital  crime,  he 
said  to  the  informer :  Ο  fellow !  what  art  thou  doin»•,  Λνΐιο, 
when  Avar  is  at  hand,  dost  advise  the  city  to  consult  con- 
cerning me,  and  not  with  me  ?  To  Harmodius,  descended 
from  the  ancient  Harmodius,  when  he  reviled  him  for  his 
mean  birth.  My  nobility,  said  he,  begins  in  me,  but  yours 
ends  in  you.  A  rhetorician  asked  him  in  an  assembly, 
who  he  was  that  he  took  so  much  upon  him,  —  horseman, 
or  footman,  or  archer,  or  shield-bearer.  Neither  of  them, 
said  he,  but  one  that  understands  how  to  command  all 
those. 

TiMOTHEUs.  Timotheus  Avas  reputed  a  successful  gen- 
eral, and  some  that  envied  him  painted  cities  falling  under 
his  net  of  their  own  accord,  while  he  was  asleep.  Said 
Timotheus,  If  I  take  such  cities  when  I  am  asleep,  what 
do  you  think  I  shall  do  when  I  am  awake  ?     A  confident 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  213 

commander  showed  the  Athenians  a  wound  he  had  re- 
ceived. But  I,  said  he,  when  I  ΛΛ'as  your  general  in 
Sanios,  was  ashamed  that  a  dart  from  an  engine  fell  near 
me.  The  orators  set  up  Chares  as  one  they  thought  fit  to 
be  general  of  the  Athenians.  Not  to  be  general,  said 
Timotheus,  but  to  carry  the  general's  baggage. 

Chabrtas.  Chabrias  said,  they  "were  the  best  commanders 
who  best  understood  the  affairs  of  their  enemies.  He  was 
once  indicted  for  treason  Avith  Iphicrates,  Avho  blamed  him 
for  exposing  himself  to  danger,  by  going  to  the  place  of 
exercise,  and  dining  at  his  usual  hour.  If  the  Athenians, 
said  he,  deal  severely  Avith  us,  you  will  die  all  foul  and 
gut- foundered ;  I'll  die  clean  and  anointed,  with  my  dinner 
in  mv  belh'.  He  was  wont  to  say,  that  an  army  of  staofs, 
with  a  lion  for  their  commander,  was  more  formidable  than 
an  army  of  lions  led  by  a  stag. 

Hegesippus.  AVhen  Hegesippus,  surnamed  Crobylus 
(i.e.  Top-knot),  instigated  the  Athenians  against  Philip, 
one  of  the  assembly  cried  out,  You  would  not  persuade  us 
to  a  war  ?  Yes,  indeed,  Avould  I,  said  he,  and  to  mourning 
clothes  and  to  public  funerals  and  to  funeral  speeches, 
if  Ave  intend  to  live  free  and  not  submit  to  the  pleasure 
of  the  Macedonians. 

Pytheas.  Pytheas,  when  he  Avas  a  young  man,  stood 
forth  to  oppose  the  decrees  made  concerning  Alexander. 
One  said :  Have  you,  young  man,  the  confidence  to  speak 
in  such  Aveighty  affairs  ?  And  Avhy  not  ?  said  he  :  Alexander, 
AA^hom  you  voted  a  God,  is  younger  than  I  am. 

Phociox.  Phocion  the  Athenian  Avas  ne\'er  seen  to 
laugh  or  cry.  In  an  assembly  one  told  him.  You  seem  to 
be  thoughtful,  Phocion.  You  guess  right,  said  he,  for  I 
am  contriving  how  to  contract  what  I  have  to  say  to  the 
people  of  Athens.  The  Oracle  told  the  Athenians,  there 
was  one  man  in  the  city  of  a  contrary  judgment  to  all  the 
rest ;  and  the  Athenians  in  a  hubbub  ordered  search  to  be 


214  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

made,  who  this  should  be.  I,  said  Phocion,  am  the  man  ; 
I  alone  am  pleased  Avith  nothing  the  common  people  say 
or  do.  Once  when  he  had  delivered  an  opinion  which 
pleased  the  people,  and  perceived  it  Λvas  entertained  by  a 
general  consent,  he  turned  to  his  friend,  and  said :  Have  I 
not  unawares  spoken  some  mischievous  thing  or  other  1 
The  Atbenians  gathered  a  benevolence  for  a  certain  sacri- 
fice ;  and  when  others  contributed  to  it,  he  being  often 
spoken  to  said :  I  should  be  ashamed  to  give  to  you,  and 
not  to  pay  this  man,  —  pointing  to  one  of  his  creditors. 
Demosthenes  the  orator  told  him.  If  the  Athenians  should 
be  mad,  they  would  kill  you.  Like  enough,  said  he,  me 
if  they  Avere  mad,  but  you  if  they  were  wise.  Aristo- 
giton  the  informer,  being  condemned  and  ready  to  be 
executed  in  prison,  entreated  that  Phocion  would  come  to 
him.  And  Λνΐιοη  his  friends  would  not  suffer  him  to  go  to 
so  vile  a  person  ;  x\nd  where,  said  he,  would  you  discourse 
with  Aristogiton  more  pleasantly  1  The  Athenians  were 
offended  with  the  Byzantines,  for  refusing  to  receive  Chares 
into  their  city,  who  was  sent  with  forces  to  assist  them 
against  Philip.  Said  Phocion,  You  ought  not  to  be  dis- 
pleased with  the  distrust  of  your  confederates,  but  with 
your  commanders  that  are  not  to  be  trusted.  Whereupon 
he  was  chosen  general,  and  being  trusted  by  the  Byzantines, 
he  forced  Philip  to  return  without  his  errand.  King 
Alexander  sent  him  a  present  of  a  hundred  talents  ;  and 
he  asked  those  that  brought  it,  what  it  should  mean  that, 
of  all  the  Athenians.  Alexander  should  be  thus  kind  to 
him.  They  answered,  because  he  esteemed  him  alone  to 
be  a  worthy  and  upright  person.  Pray  therefore,  said  he, 
let  him  suffer  me  to  seem  as  well  as  to  be  so.  Alexander 
sent  to  them  for  some  ships,  and  the  people  calling  for 
Phocion  by  name,  bade  him  speak  his  opinion.  He  stood 
up  and  told  them :  I  advise  you  either  to  conquer  your- 
selves, or  else  to  side  with  the  conqueror.     An  uncertain 


AND    GREAT    COMMANDERS.  215 

rumor  happened,  that  Alexander  Avas  dead.  Immediately 
the  orators  leaped  into  the  pulpit,  and  advised  them  to 
make  war  without  delay  ;  but  Pliocion  entreated  tliem  to 
tarry  awhile  and  know  the  certainty :  For,  said  he,  if  he 
is  dead  to-day,  he  will  be  dead  to-morrow,  and  so  forwards. 
Leosthenes  hurried  the  city  into  a  war,  with  fond  hopes 
conceited  at  the  name  of  liberty  and  command.  Phocion 
compared  his  speeches  to  cypress-trees  ;  They  are  tall,  said 
he,  and  comely,  but  bear  no  frait.  IIoweΛτr,  the  first 
attempts  were  successful ;  and  when  the  city  Avas  sacrific- 
ing for  the  good  news,  he  was  asked  whether  he  did  not 
wish  he  had  done  this  himself.  I  would,  said  he,  have 
done  what  has  been  done,  but  have  advised  what  I  did. 
When  the  Macedonians  invaded  Attica  and  plundeied  the 
seacoasts,  he  drew  out  the  youth.  When  many  came  to 
him  and  generally  persuaded  him  by  all  means  to  possess 
himself  of  such  an  ascent,  and  thereon  to  marshal  his 
army,  Ο  Hercules !  said  he,  how  many  commanders  do  I 
see,  and  how  few  soldiers  ?  Yet  he  fought  and  overcame, 
and  slew  Nicion,  the  commander  of  the  Macedonians. 
But  in  a  short  time  the  Athenians  were  overcome,  and 
admitted  a  garrison  sent  by  Antipater.  Menyllus,  the 
governor  of  that  garrison,  offered  money  to  Phocion,  who 
was  enraged  thereby  and  said  :  This  man  is  no  better  than 
Alexander  ;  and  what  I  refused  then  I  can  Avith  less  honor 
receive  now.  Antipater  said,  of  the  two  friends  he  had 
at  Athens,  he  could  never  persuade  Phocion  to  accept  a 
present,  nor  could  he  ever  satisfy  Demades  Avith  presents. 
When  Antipater  requested  him  to  do  some  indirect  thing 
or  other,  Antipater,  said  he,  you  cannot  have  Phocion  for 
your  friend  and  flatterer  too.  After  the  death  of  Antipater, 
democracy  was  established  in  Athens,  and  the  assembly 
decreed  the  death  of  Phocion  and  his  friends.  The  rest 
were  led  weeping  to  execution  ;  but  as  Phocion  passed 
silently,  one  of  his  enemies   met  him  and   spat  in  his  face. 


216  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

But  he  turned  himself  to  the  magistrates,  and  said,  AVill 
nobody  restrain  this  insolent  fellow?  One  of  those  that 
were  to  suffer  Avith  him  lamented  and  took  on :  Why, 
Euippus,  said  he,  are  you  not  pleased  that  you  die  with 
Phocion  ?  ΛΥΙιοη  the  cup  of  hemlock  was  brought  to  him, 
being  asked  whether  he  had  any  thing  to  say  to  his  son  ;  I 
command  you,  said  he.  and  entreat  you  not  to  think  of 
any  revenge  upon  the  Athenians. 

PisisTiiATUS.  Pisistratus,  tyrant  of  Athens,  when  some 
of  his  party  revolted  from  him  and  possessed  themselves 
of  Phyle,  came  to  them  bearing  his  baggage  on  his  back. 
They  asked  him  what  he  meant  by  it.  Eitliei,  said  he,  to 
persuade  you  to  return  with  me,  or  if  I  cannot  persuade 
you,  to  tarry  with  you  ;  and  therefore  I  come  prepared 
accordingly.  An  accusation  was  brought  to  him  against 
his  mother,  that  she  was  in  love  and  used  secret  familiarity 
Avith  a  young  man,  who  out  of  fear  for  the  most  ])art  re- 
fused her.  This  young  man  he  invited  to  supper,  and  as 
they  weve  at  supper  asked  him  how  he  liked  his  entertain- 
ment. He  ansAvered,  Very  Avell.  Thus,  said  he,  you  shall 
be  treated  daily,  if  you  please  my  mother.  Thrasybulus 
Avas  in  love  with  his  daughter,  and  as  he  met  her,  kissed 
her  ;  whereupon  his  wife  would  have  incensed  him  against 
Thrasybulus.  If,  said  he,  we  hate  those  that  love  us, 
Avhat  shall  we  do  to  them  that  hate  us]  —  and  he  gave 
the  maid  in  marriage  to  Thrasybulus.  Some  lascivious 
drunken  persons  by  chance  met  his  Avife,  and  used  un- 
seemly speech  and  behavior  to  her  ;  but  the  next  day  they 
beo-o-cd  his  pardon  with  tears.  As  for  vou,  said  he,  learn 
to  be  sober  for  the  future  ;  but  as  for  my  wife,  yesterday 
she  was  not  abroad  at  all.  He  designed  to  marry  another 
wife,  and  his  children  asked  him  whether  he  could  blame 
them  for  any  thing.  By  no  means,  said  he,  but  I  com- 
mend you,  and  desire  to  have  more  such  children  as  you 
are, 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  217 

Demetrius  Phalereus.  Demetrius  Phalcreus  persuaded 
Kiug•  Ptolemy  to  get  and  study  such  books  as  treated  of 
government  and  conduct ;  for  those  things  are  written  iu 
books  which  the  friends  of  kings  dare  not  advise. 

Lycurgus.  Lvcurofus  the  Lacedaemonian  brou":ht  lonir 
hair  into  fashion  among  his  countrymen,  saying  that  it 
rendered  those  that  were  handsome  more  beautiful,  and 
those  that  were  deformed  more  terrible.  To  one  that  ad- 
vised him  to  set  up  a  democracy  in  Sparta,  Pray,  said  he, 
do  you  first  set  up  a  democracy  in  your  own  house.  He 
ordained  that  houses  should  be  built  with  saws  and  axes 
only,  thinking  they  would  be  ashamed  to  bring  plate, 
tapestry,  and  costly  tables  into  such  pitiful  houses.  He 
forbade  them  to  contend  at  boxing  or  in  the  double  contest 
of  boxing  and  wrestling,  that  they  might  not  accustom 
themselves  to  be  conquered,  no,  not  so  much  as  in  jest. 
He  forbade  them  also  to  Avar  often  against  the  same 
people,  lest  they  should  make  them  the  more  warlike. 
Accordingly,  many  years  after,  when  Agesilaus  was  wound- 
ed, Antalcidas  told  him  the  Thebans  had  rewarded  him 
worthily  for  teaching  and  accustoming  them  to  war,  whether 
they  would  or  no. 

Charillus.  King  Charillus,  being  asked  why  Lycurgus 
made  so  few  laws,  answered,  They  who  use  few  words  do 
not  need  many  laws.  When  one  of  the  Helots  behaved 
rather  too  insolently  towards  him.  By  Castor  and  Polhix, 
said  he,  I  would  kill  you,  were  I  not  angry.  To  one  that 
asked  him  why  the  Spartans  wore  long  hair,  Because,  said 
he,  of  all  ornaments  that  is  the  cheapest. 

Teleclus.  King  Teleclus,  when  his  brother  inveighed 
against  the  citizens  for  not  giving  him  that  respect  which 
they  did  to  the  king,  said  to  him,  No  wonder,  you  do  not 
know  how  to  bear  injury. 

Theopompus.  Theopompus,  to  one  that  slioAved  him  tlie 
walls  of  a  city,  and  asked  him  if  they  were  not  high   and 


218  THE   APOPIITIIEGMS   OF   KINGS 

beautiful,    answered,  No,  not  even  if  they  are   built  for 
women. 

Archidamus.  Archidamus,  in  the  Peloponnesian  war, 
when  his  allies  requested  him  to  appoint  tliem  their  quota 
of  tributes,  replied.  War  has  a  wery  irregukir  appetite. 

Brasidas.  Brasidas  caught  a  mouse  among  his  dried 
figs,  which  bit  him,  and  he  let  it  go.  AVhereupon,  turning 
to  the  company.  Nothing,  said  he,  is  so  small  which  may 
not  save  itself,  if  it  have  the  valor  to  defend  itself 
against  its  aggressors.  In  a  fight  he  was  shot  through  his 
shield,  and  pkicking  the  spear  out  of  his  Avound,  with  the 
same  he  slew  his  adversary.  AVhen  he  was  asked  how  he 
came  to  be  wounded.  My  shield,  said  he,  betrayed  me. 
It  was  his  fortune  to  be  slain  in  battle,  as  he  endeavored  to 
liberate  the  Grecians  that  Avere  in  Thrace.  These  sent  an 
embassy  to  Lacedaemon,  which  made  a  visit  to  his  mother, 
Λνΐιο  first  asked  them  whether  Brasidas  died  honorably. 
ΛVhen  the  Thracians  praised  him,  and  afifirmed  that  there 
would  never  be  such  another  man.  My  friends,  said  she, 
you  are  mistaken ;  Brasidas  indeed  was  a  valiant  man,  but 
Lacedaemon  hath  many  more  valiant  men  than  he. 

Agis.  Kina•  Agis  said.  The  Lacedaemonians  are  not  v/ont 
to  ask  how  many,  but  where  the  enemy  are.  At  jNlantinea 
he  was  advised  not  to  fight  the  enemy  that  exceeded  him 
in  number.  It  is  necessary,  said  he,  for  him  to  fight  with 
many,  Λνΐιο  would  rule  over  many.  The  Eleans  were  com- 
mended for  managing  the  Olympic  games  honorably.  What 
Avonder,  said  he,  do  they  do,  if  one  day  in  four  years  they 
do  justice?  When  the  same  persons  enlarged  in  their 
commendation.  What  wonder  is  it,  said  he,  if  they  use 
justice  honorably,  which  is  an  honorable  thing  ?  To  a 
lewd  person,  that  often  asked  who  Avas  the  best  man  among 
tlie  Spartans,  he  answered.  He  that  is  most  unlike  you. 
When  another  asked  what  was  the  number  of  the  Lacedae- 
monians, —  Sufficient,  said  he,  to  defend  themselves  fron• 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  219 

wicked  men.  To  another  that  asked  him  the  same  ques- 
tion, If  you  should  see  them  fight,  said  he,  you  would 
think  them  to  be  many. 

Lysander.  Dionysius  the  Tyrant  presented  Lysander's 
daughters  with  rich  garments,  which  he  refused  to  accept, 
saying  he  feared  they  would  seem  more  deformed  in  them. 
To  such  as  blamed  him  for  managing  much  of  his  affairs 
by  stratagems,  which  Avas  unworthy  of  Hercules  from 
whom  he  was  descended,  he  answered,  Where  the  lion's 
skin  will  not  reach,  it  must  be  pieced  with  the  fox's.  AVhen 
the  citizens  of  Argos  seemed  to  make  out  a  better  title  than 
the  Lacedaemonians  to  a  country  that  was  in  dispute  be- 
tween them,  drawing  his  sword.  He  that  is  master  of  this, 
said  he,  can  best  dispute  about  bounds  of  countries.  AVhen 
the  Lacedaemonians  delayed  to  assault  the  walls  of  Corinth, 
and  he  saw  a  hare  leap  out  of  the  trench  ;  Do  you  fear,  said 
he,  such  enemies  as  these,  whose  laziness  suffers  hares  to 
sleep  on  their  walls  ?  To  an  inhabitant  of  Megara,  that  in 
a  parley  spoke  confidently  unto  him,  Your  words,  said  he, 
want  the  breeding  of  the  city. 

Agesilaus.  Agesilaus  said  that  the  inhabitants  of  Asm 
were  bad  freemen  and  good  servants.  When  they  Avere  wont 
to  call  the  king  of  Persia  the  Great  King,  W^herein,  said  he, 
is  he  greater  than  I,  if  he  is  not  more  just  and  wise  than  I  am] 
Being  asked  which  was  better,  valor  or  justice,  he  answ^ered, 
AVe  should  have  no  need  of  valor,  if  we  were  all  jusc. 
When  he  broke  up  his  camp  suddenly  by  night  in  the  ene- 
my's country,  and  saAV  a  lad  he  loA-ed  left  behind  by  reason 
of  sickness,  and  weeping.  It  is  a  hard  thing,  said  he,  to  be 
pitiful  and  wise  at  the  same  time.  Menecrates  the  phy- 
sician, surnamed  Jupiter,  inscribed  a  letter  to  him  thus : 
Menecrates  Jupiter  to  King  Agesilaus  wisheth  joy.  And 
he  returned  in  answ^er :  King  Agesilaus  to  Menecrates 
wisheth  his  Avits.  AVhen  the  Lacedaemonians  overcame 
the  Athenians  and  their  confederates   at  Corinth,  and  he 


220  THE  APOPHTHEGMS   OF  KINGS 

heard  the  number  of  the  enemies  that  were  slain ;  Alas, 
said  he,  for  Greece,  who  hath  destroyed  so  many  of  her  men 
as  were  enough  to  have  conquered  all  the  barbarians  to- 
gether. He  had  received  an  answer  from  the  Oracle  of 
Jupiter  in  Olympia,  which  was  to  his  satisfaction.  After- 
wards the  Ephori  bade  him  consult  Apollo  in  the  same 
case  ;  and  to  Delphi  he  Avent,  and  asked  that  God  whether 
he  was  of  the  same  mind  with  his  father.  He  interceded 
for  one  of  his  friends  Avith  Idrieus  of  Caria,  and  wrote  to 
him  thus :  If  Nicias  has  not  offended,  set  him  free  ;  but 
if  he  is  guilty,  set  him  free  for  my  sake  ;  by  all  means 
set  him  free.  Behig  .exhorted  to  hear  one  that  imitated 
the  voice  of  a  nightingale,  I  have  often,  said  he,  heard 
niiihtin^ales  themselves.  The  law  ordained  that  such  as 
ran  aAvay  should  be  disgraced.  After  the  fight  at  Leuctra, 
the  Ephori,  seeing  the  city  void  of  men,  were  willing 
to  dispense  with  that  disgrace,  and  empowered  Agesilaus 
to  make  a  law  to  that  purpose.  But  he  standing  in  the 
midst  commanded  that  after  the  next  day  the  laws  should 
remain  in  force  as  before.  He  was  sent  to  assist  the  king 
of  Egypt,  wilh  whom  he  Λvas  besieged  by  enemies  that 
outnumbered  his  own  forces ;  and  Λvhcn  they  had  en- 
trenched their  camp,  the  king  commanded  him  to  go  out 
and  fight  them.  Since,  said  he,  they  intend  to  make  them- 
selves equal  to  us,  I  will  not  hinder  them.  AVlicn  the 
trench  was  almost  finished,  he  drew  up  his  men  in  the  void 
space,  and  so  fighting  with  equal  advantage  he  overcame 
them.  AVhen  he  was  dying,  he  charged  his  friends  that 
no  fiction  or  counterfeit  (so  he  called  statues)  should  be 
made  for  him ;  For  if,  said  he,  I  have  done  any  honorable 
exploit,  that  is  my  monument ;  but  if  I  have  done  none,  all 
your  statues  will  signify  nothing. 

Archidamus.  Λνΐιεη  Archidamus,  the  son  of  Agesilaus, 
beheld  a  dart  to  be  shot  from  an  engine  newly  brought  out 
of  Sicily,  he  cried  out,  Ο  Hercules !  .the  valor  of  man  is 
at  an  end. 


AND   GREAT  COMMANDERS.  221 

Agis  the  Younger.  Demades  said,  the  Laconians' 
swords  were  so  small,  that  jugglers  might  swallow  them. 
That  may  be,  said  Agis,  but  the  Lacedaemonians  can  reach 
their  enemies  very  well  with  them.  The  Ephori  ordered 
him  to  deliver  his  soldiers  to  a  traitor.  I  will  not,  said 
he,  entrust  him  with  strangers,  who  betrayed  his  own 
men. 

Cleomenes.  To  one  that  promised  to  give  him  hardy 
cocks,  that  would  die  fighting.  Prithee,  said  he,  give  me 
cocks  that  will  kill  fighting. 

Paedaretus.  Pacdaretus,  when  he  Λvas  not  chosen 
among  the  Three  Hundred  (which  was  the  highest  office 
and  honor  in  the  city),  Avent  away  cheerfully  and  smiling, 
saying,  he  was  glad  if  the  city  had  three  hnndred  better 
citizens  than  himself. 

Damonidas.  Damonidas,  being  placed  by  him  that  or- 
dered the  chorus  in  the  last  rank  of  it,  said  :  AVell  done, 
you  have  found  a  way  to  make  this  place  also  honorable. 

Nicostratus.  Archidamus,  general  of  the  Argives,  en- 
ticed Nicostratus  to  betray  a  fort,  by  promises  of  a  great 
sum,  and  the  marriage  of  Λvhat  Lacedaemonian  lady  he 
pleased  except  the  king's  daughters.  He  answered,  that 
Archidamus  was  none  of  the  off"spring  of  Hercules,  for  he 
went  about  to  punish  wicked  men,  but  Archidamus  to  cor- 
rupt honest  men. 

EuDAEMONiDAS.  Eudaemouidas  beholding  Xenocrates, 
Avhen  he  was  old,  in  the  Academy  reading  philosophy  to 
his  scholars,  and  being  told  he  was  in  quest  of  virtue, 
asked :  And  when  does  he  intend  to  practise  it  ?  Another 
time,  Λνΐιοη  he  heard  a  philosopher  arguing  that  only  the 
wise  man  can  be  a  good  general,  This  is  a  wonderful 
speech,  said  he,  but  he  that  saitli  it  never  heard  the  sound 
of  trumpets. 

Antiochus.  Antiochus  being  Ephor,  when  he  heard 
Philip  had  given  the  Messenians  a  country,  asked  whether 


222  THE  APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

ne  had  granted  them  that  they  should  be  Λ'ictol■ious  when 
they  fought  for  that  country. 

Antalcidas.  To  an  Athenian  that  called  the  Lacedae- 
monians unlearned,  Therefore  we  alone,  said  Antalcidas, 
have  learned  no  mischief  of  you.  To  another  Athenian 
that  told  him.  Indeed,  we  have  often  driven  you  from  the 
Cephissus,  he  replied.  But  we  neΛ'er  drove  you  from 
the  Eurotas.  When  a  Sophist  was  beginning  to  recite 
the  praise  of  Hercules ;  And  who,  said  he,  ever  spoke 
against  him  ] 

Epaminondas.  No  panic  fear  ever  surprised  the  army 
of  the  Thebans  while  Epaminondas  was  their  general. 
He  said,  to  die  in  war  was  the  most  honorable  death, 
and  the  bodies  of  armed  men  ought  to  be  exercised, 
not  as  wrestlers,  but  in  a  warlike  manner.  Where- 
fore he  hated  fat  men,  and  dismissed  one  of  them,  say- 
ing, that  three  or  four  shields  would  scarce  serve  to  secure 
his  belly,  Avhich  would  not  suffer  him  to  see  his  members. 
He  was  so  frugal  in  his  diet  that,  being  invited  by  a 
neighbor  to  supper,  and  finding  there  dishes,  oint- 
ments, and  junkets  in  abundance,  he  departed  imme- 
diately, saying :  I  thought  you  were  sacrificing,  and  not 
displaying  your  luxury.  When  his  cook  gave  an  account 
to  his  colleagues  of  the  charges  for  several  days,  he  was 
offended  only  at  the  quantity  of  oil ;  and  when  his  col- 
leagues wondered  at  him,  1  am  not,  said  he,  troubled  at 
the  charge,  but  that  so  much  oil  should  be  received  into 
my  body.  ΛVhen  the  city  kept  a  festival,  and  all  gave 
themselves  to  banquets  and  drinking,  he  was  met  by  one 
of  his  acquaintance  unadorned  and  in  a  thoughtful  posture. 
He  wondering  asked  him  why  he  of  all  men  should  walk 
about  in  that  manner.  That  all  of  you,  said  he,  may  be 
drunk  and  revel  secure!}•.  An  ill  man,  that  had  committed 
no  great  fault,  he  refused  to  discharge  at  the  request  of 
Pelopidas  ;  when  his  miss  entreated  for  him,  he  dismissed 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  223 

him,  saying :  Whores  are  fitting  to  receive  such  presents, 
and  not  generals.  The  Lacedaemonians  invaded  the 
Thebans,  and  oracles  were  brought  to  Thebes,  some  that 
promised  victory,  others  that  foretold  an  overthrow.  He 
ordered  those  to  be  placed  on  the  right  hand  of  the  judg- 
ment seat,  and  these  on  the  left.  IVhen  they  Avere  placed 
accordingly,  he  rose  up  and  said :  If  you  will  obey  your 
commanders  and  imanimously  resist  your  enemies,  these 
are  your  oracles,  —  pointing  to  the  better ;  but  if  you 
play  the  cowards,  those,  —  pointing  to  the  worser.  An- 
other time,  as  he  drew  nigh  to  the  enemy,  it  thundered, 
and  some  that  were  about  him  asked  him  Avhat  he  thouo-ht 
the  Gods  would  signify  by  it.  They  signify,  said  he,  that 
the  enemy  is  thunderstruck  and  demented,  since  he  pitches 
his  camp  in  a  bad  place,  Avhen  he  w^as  nigh  to  a  better. 
Of  all  the  happy  and  prosperous  events  that  befell  him, 
he  said  that  in  this  he  took  most  satisfaction,  that  he  over- 
came the  Lacedaemonians  at  Leuctra  while  his  father  and 
mother,  that  begot  him,  Avere  living.  Whereas  he  was 
wont  to  appear  with  his  body  anointed  and  a  cheerful 
countenance,  the  day  after  that  fight  he  came  abroad  meanly 
habited  and  dejected  ;  and  when  his  friends  asked  him 
Avhether  any  misfortune  had  befallen  him.  No,  said  he,  but 
yesterday  I  Avas  pleased  more  than  became  a  wise  man,  and 
therefore  to-day  I  chastise  that  immoderate  joy.  Perceiv- 
ing the  Spartans  concealed  their  disasters,  and  desiring  to 
discover  the  greatness  of  their  loss,  he  did  not  give  them 
leave  to  take  .away  their  dead  altogether,  but  allowed  each 
city  to  bury  its  ΟΛνη ;  whereby  it  appeared  that  above  a 
thousand  Lacedaemonians  were  slain.  Jason,  monarch  of 
Thessaly,  was  at  Thebes  as  their  confederate,  and  sent  two 
thousand  pieces  of  gold  to  Epaminondas,  then  in  great 
Avant ;  but  he  refused  the  gold,  and  when  he  saw  Jason,  he 
said :  You  are  the  first  to  commit  violence.  And  borrow- 
ing fifty  drachms  of  a  citizen,  with  that  money  to  supply 


224  THE  APOPHTHEGMS  OF  KINGS 

h.is  'army  he  invaded  Peloponnesus.  Another  time,  Avhen 
the  Persian  king  sent  him  thirty  thousand  darics,  he  chid 
Diomedon  severely,  asking  him  whether  he  sailed  so  far  to 
bribe  Epaminondas  ;  and  bade  him  tell  the  king,  as  long 
as  he  Avished  the  prosperity  of  the  Thebans,  Epaminondas 
would  be  his  friend  gratis,  but  when  he  Avas  otherwise 
minded,  his  enemy.  AVhen  the  Argives  were  confederates 
Λvith  the  Thebans,  the  Athenian  ambassadors  then  in 
Arcadia  complained  of  both,  ond  Callistratus  the  orator 
reproached  the  cities  with  Orestes  and  Oedipus.  But 
Epaminondas  stood  up  and  said :  We  confess  there  hath 
been  one  amongst  us  that  killed  his  father,  and  among  the 
Argives  one  that  killed  his  mother ;  but  we  banished  those 
that  did  such  things,  and  the  Athenians  entertained  them. 
To  some  Spartans  that  accused  the  Thebans  of  many  and 
great  crimes,  These  indeed,  said  he,  are  they  that  have  put 
an  end  to  your  short  dialect.  The  Athenians  made  friend- 
ship and  alliance  with  Alexander  the  tyrant  of  Pherae,  who 
was  an  enemy  to  the  Thebans,  and  who  had  promised  to 
furnish  them  Avith  flesh  at  half  an  obol  a  pound.  And  we, 
said  Epaminondas,  will  supply  them  with  wood  to  that  flesh 
gratis  ;  for  if  they  grow  meddlesome,  we  will  make  bold 
to  cut  all  the  wood  in  their  country  for  them.  Being  de- 
sirous to  keep  the  Boeotians,  that  were  groAvn  rusty  by 
idleness,  always  in  arms,  when  he  Avas  chosen  their  chief 
magistrate,  he  used  to  exhort  them,  saying :  Yet  consider 
what  you  do,  my  friends  ;  for  if  I  am  your  general,  you 
must  be  my  soldiers.  He  called  their  country,  which  was 
plain  and  open,  the  stage  of  war,  which  they  could  keep 
no  longer  than  their  hands  were  upon  their  shields.  Cha- 
brias,  having  slain  a  few  Thebans  near  Corinth,  that  en- 
gaged too  hotly  near  the  walls,  erected  a  trophy,  Avhich 
Epaminondas  laughed  at,  saying,  it  was  not  a  trophy,  but 
a  statue  of  Trivia,  Avhich  they  usually  placed  in  the  high- 
way before  the  gates.     One  told  him  that  the  Athenians 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  225 

had  sent  an  army  into  Peloponnesus  adorned  with  new 
armor.  What  then  ^  said  he,  doth  Antigenidas  sigh  because 
Telles  hath  got  new  pipes]  (Now  Antigenidas  Λvas  an 
excellent  piper,  but  Telles  a  vile  one.)  Understanding  his 
shield-bearer  had  taken  a  great  deal  of  money  from  a  pris- 
oner, Come,  said  he,  give  me  the  shield,  and  buy  you  a 
victualling-house  to  live  in  ;  for  now  you  are  grown  rich 
and  Avealthy,  you  will  not  hazard  your  life  as  yon  did  ior- 
merlv.  Beini^  asked  whether  he  thought  himself  or  Chi- 
brias  or  Iphicrates  the  better  general.  It  is  hard,  said  he, 
to  judge  while  we  live.  After  he  returned  out  of  Laconia, 
he  Avas  tried  for  his  life,  with  his  fellow-commanders,  for 
continuing  Boeotarch  four  months  longer  than  the  law 
allowed.  He  bade  the  other  commanders  lay  the  blame 
upon  him,  as  if  he  had  forced  them,  and  for  himself,  he 
said,  his  actions  were  his  best  speech  ;'  but  if  any  thing  at 
all  were  to  be  answered  to  the  judges,  he  entreated  them, 
if  they  put  him  to  death,  to  Avrite  his  fault  upon  his  monu- 
ment, that  the  Grecians  might  know  that  Epaminondas 
compelled  the  Thebans  against  their  Avill  to  plunder  and  fire 
Laconia,  —  which  in  five  hundred  years  before  had  never 
suffered  the  like.  —  to  build  Messene  two  hundred  and 
thirty  years  after  it  was  sacked,  to  unite  the  Arcadians, 
and  to  restore  liberty  to  Greece ;  for  those  things  were 
done  in  that  expedition.  Whereupon  the  judges  arose 
with  great  laughter,  and  refused  even  to  receive  the  votes 
against  him.  In  his  last  fight,  being  wounded  and  carried 
into  his  tent,  he  called  for  Diaphantes  and  after  him  f f  r 
loUidas ;  and  \vhen  he  heard  they  Avere  slain,  he  advised 
the  Thebans  to  make  their  peace  with  the  enemy,  since 
tliey  had  never  a  general  left  them  ;  as  by  the  event  proved 
true.     So  well  did  he  understand  his  countrymen. 

Pelopidas.  Pelopidas,  Epaminondas's  colleague,  when 
his  friends  told  him  that  he  neglected  a  necessary  business, 
that  was  the  gathering  of  money,  replied :  In  good  deed 

VOL.  X.  15 


226  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS. 

money  is  necessary  for  this  NicomeJas,  pointing  to  a  lame 
man  that  could  not  go.  As  he  was  going  out  to  fight,  his 
wife  beseeched  him  to  haxe  a  care  of  himself.  To  others 
you  may  give  this  advice,  said  he  ;  but  a  commander  and 
general  you  must  advise  that  he  should  save  his  country- 
men. A  soldier  told  him,  λΥβ  are  fallen  among  the  ene- 
mies. Said  he,  How  are  Ave  fallen  among  them,  more  than 
they  among  us  1  When  Alexander,  the  tyrant  of  Pherae, 
broke  his  faith  and  cast  him  into  prison,  he  reviled  him  ; 
and  when  the  other  told  him  he  did  but  hasten  his  death, 
That  is  my  design,  said  he,  that  the  Thebans  may  be  exas- 
perated against  you,  and  be  revenged  on  you  the  sooner. 
Thebe,  the  wife  of  the  tyrant,  came  to  him,  and  told  him 
she  wondered  to  see  him  so  merry  in  chains.  He  answered, 
he  wondered  more  at  her,  that  she  could  endure  Alexan- 
der without  being"  chained.  When  Epaminondas  caused 
him  to  be  released,  he  said  :  I  thank  Alexander,  for  I  have 
now  found  by  trial  that  I  have  not  only  courage  to  fight, 
but  to  die. 


ROMAN     APOPHTHEGMS. 

M.'  CuRius.  When  some  blamed  M.'  Curius  for  distribut- 
ing but  a  small  part  of  a  country  he  took  from  the  enemy, 
and  preser\ang  the  greater  part  for  the  commonwealth,  he 
prayed  there  might  be  no  Roman  who  Avould  think  that 
estate  little  Avhich  was  enough  to  maintain  him.  The 
Samnites  after  an  overthrow  came  to  him  to  offer  him 
gold,  and  found  him  boiling  rape-roots.  He  answered  the 
Samnites  that  he  that  could  sup  so  wanted  no  gold,  and 
that  he  had  rather  rule  over  those  who  had  gold  than  have 
it  himself. 


AND  GREAT   COMMANDERS.  227 

C.  Fabricius.  C.  Fabricius,  hearing  Pyrrhus  had  over- 
thrown the  Romans,  told  Labienus,  it  was  Pyi-rhus,  not 
the  Epirots,  that  beat  the  Romans.  He  went  to  treat 
about  exchange  of  prisoners  with  Pyrrhus,  who  offered 
him  a  great  sum  of  gold,  which  he  refused.  The  next  day 
Pyrrhus  commanded  a  very  large  elephant  should  secretly 
be  placed  behind  Fabricius,  and  discover  himself  by  roar- 
ing ;  whereupon  Fabricius  turned  and  smiled,  saying,  I  was 
not  astonished  either  at  your  gold  yesterday  or  at  your  beast 
to-day.  Pyrrhus  invited  him  to  tarry  with  him,  and  to 
accept  of  the  next  command  under  him :  That,  said  he, 
will  be  inconvenient  for  you  ;  for,  wdien  the  Epirots  know 
us  both,  they  will  rather  have  me  for  their  king  than  you. 
When  Fabricius  was  consul,  Pyrrhus's  physician  sent  hitn 
a  letter,  wherein  he  promised  him  that,  if  he  commanded 
him,  he  would  poison  Pyrrhus.  Fabricius  sent  the  letter 
to  Pyrrhus,  and  bade  him  conclude  that  he  Avas  a  very  bad 
judge  both  of  friends  and  enemies.  The  plot  was  discov- 
ered ;  Pyrrhus  hanged  his  physician,  and  sent  the  Roman 
prisoners  he  had  taken  Avithout  ransom  as  a  present  to  Fa- 
bricius. He,  however,  refused  to  accept  them,  but  returned 
the  like  number,  lest  he  might  seem  to  receive  a  reward. 
Neither  did  he  disclose  the  conspiracy  out  of  kindness  to 
Pyrrhus,  but  that  the  Romans  might  not  seem  to  kill  him 
by  treachery,  as  if  they  despaired  to  conquer  him  in  open 
Avar. 

Fabius  Maximus.  Fabius  Maximus  would  not  fight, 
but  chose  to  spin  away  the  time  with  Hannibal,  —  who 
Avanted  both  money  and  provision  for  his  army,  —  by 
pursuing  and  facing  him  in  rocky  and  mountainous  places. 
AVhen  many  laughed  at  him  and  called  him  Hannibal's 
schoolmaster,  he  took  little  notice  of  them,  but  pursued 
his  own  design,  and  told  his  friends  :  He  that  is  afraid  of 
scoffs  and  reproaches  is  more  a  coward  than  he  that 
flies  from  the  enemy.     \Vhen  Minucius,  his  fellow-consul, 


228  THE  APOPHTHEGMS   OF  KINGS 

upon  routing  a  party  of  the  enemy,  \vas  highly  extolled  as 
a  man  worthy  of  Rome  ;  I  am  more  afraid,  said  he,  of 
Minucius's  success  than  of  his  misfortune.  And  not  lone: 
after  he  fell  into  an  ambush,  and  was  in  danger  of  perish- 
ing Avith  his  forces,  until  Fabius  succored  him,  slew  many 
of  the  enemy,  and  brought  him  off.  AVhereupon  Hannibal 
told  his  friends :  Did  I  not  often  presage  that  cloud  on  the 
hills  would  some  time  or  other  break  upon  us  ]  After  the 
city  received  the  great  overthrow  at  Cannae,  he  was  chosen 
consul  with  Marcellus,  a  daring  person  and  much  desirous 
to  fight  Hannibal,  Avhose  forces,  if  nobody  fought  him,  he 
hoped  would  shortly  disperse  and  be  dissolved.  Therefore 
Hannibal  said,  he  feared  fighting  Marcellus  less  than 
Fabius  who  would  not  fight.  He  was  informed  of  a 
Lucanian  soldier  that  frequently  wandered  out  of  the 
camp  by  night  after  a  woman  he  loved,  but  otherwise  an 
admirable  soldier;  he  caused  his  mistress  to  be  seized 
privately  and  brought  to  him.  When  she  came,  he  sent 
for  the  soldier  and  told  him  :  It  is  known  you  lie  out 
a  nights,  contrary  to  the  law  ;  but  your  former  good  be- 
havior is  not  forgotten,  therefore  your  faults  are  forgiven 
to  your  merits.  Henceforwards  you  shall  tarry  Avith  me, 
for  I  have  your  surety.  And  he  brought  out  the  woman 
to  him.  Hannibal  kept  Tarentum  with  a  garrison,  all 
but  the  castle ;  and  Fabius  drew  the  enemy  far  from  it, 
and  by  a  stratagem  took  the  town  and  plundered  it. 
ΛVhen  his  secretary  asked  what  Avas  his  pleasure  as  to 
the  holy  images.  Let  us  leave,  said  he,  the  Tarentines 
their  offended  Gods.  When  M.  Livius,  who  kept  a 
garrison  in  the  castle,  said  he  took  Tarentum  by  his 
assistance,  others  laughed  at  him  ;  but  said  Fabius,  You 
say  true,  for  if  you  had  not  lost  the  city,  I  had  not  re- 
took it.  When  he  was  ancient,  his  son  was  consul,  and 
as  he  was  discharging  his  office  publicly  with  many 
attendants,  he  met  him  on  horseback.      The  young  man 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  229 

sent  a  sergeant  to  command  him  to  alight ;  when  others 
Avere  at  a  stand,  Fabius  presently  alighted,  and  running 
faster  than  for  his  age  might  be  expected,  embraced  his 
son.  AVell  done,  son,  said  he,  I  see  you  are  Λvise,  and 
know  whom  you  govern,  and  the  grandeur  of  the  office 
you  have  undertaken. 

SciPio  THE  Elder.  Scipio  the  Elder  spent  on  his 
studies  what  leisure  the  campaign  and  government  Avould 
allow  him,  saying,  that  he  did  most  when  he  was  idle. 
When  he  took  Carthage  by  storm,  some  soldiers  took 
prisoner  a  very  beautiful  virgin,  and  came  and  presented 
her  to  him.  I  ΛνοηΜ  receive  her,  said  he,  with  all 
my  heart,  if  I  were  a  private  man  and  not  a  governor. 
ΛVhile  he  was  besieging  the  city  of  Badia,  Λvhcrein 
appeared  above  all  a  temple  of  Venus,  he  ordered 
appearances  to  be  given  for  actions  to  be  tried  before 
him  within  three  days  in  that  temple  of  A'enus  ;  and  he 
took  the  city,  and  Avas  as  good  as  his  word.  One  asked 
him  in  Sicily,  on  what  confidence  he  presumed  to  pass 
with  his  navv  against  Carthage.  He  showed  him  three 
hundred  disciplined  men  in  armor,  and  pointed  to  a 
high  tower  on  the  shore  ;  There  is  not  one  of  these, 
said  he,  that  would  not  at  my  command  go  to  the  top 
of  that  tower,  and  cast  himself  down  headlong.  Over 
he  Avent,  landed,  and  burnt  the  enemy's  camp,  and  the 
Carthaginians  sent  to  him,  and  covenanted  to  surrender 
their  elephants,  ships,  and  a  sum  of  money.  But  Avhen 
Hannibal  was  sailed  back  from  Italy,  their  reliance  on 
him  made  them  repent  of  those  conditions.  This  coming 
to  Scipio's  ear,  Nor  will  I,  said  he,  stand  to  the  agreement 
if  they  will,  unless  they  pay  me  five  thousand  talents  more 
for  sending  for  Hannibal.  The  Carthaginians,  Avhen  they 
were  utterly  overthrown,  sent  ambassadors  to  make  peace 
and  league  with  him  ;  he  bade  those  that  came  return  im- 
mediately, as  refusing  to   hear  them   before  they  brought 


230  THE  APOPHTHEGM'S   OF  KINGS 

L.  Terentius  with  them,  a  good  man,  whom  the  Carthagi- 
nians had  taken  prisoner.  AVhen  they  brought  him,  he 
placed  him  in  the  council  next  himself,  on  the  judgment- 
seat,  and  then  he  transacted  Avith  the  C'arthaginians  and 
put  an  end  to  the  war.  And  Terentius  followed  him  when 
he  triumphed,  wearing  the  cap  of  one  that  was  made  free  ; 
and  when  he  died,  Scipio  gave  wine  mingled  with  honey  to 
those  that  were  at  the  funeral,  and  performed  other  funeral 
rites  in  his'  honor.  But  these  things  were  done  afterwards. 
King  Antiochus,  after  the  Romans  invaded  him,  sent  to 
Scipio  in  Asia  for  peace  ;  That  should  have  been  done 
before,  said  he,  not  now  Avhen  you  have  received  a  bridle 
and  a  rider.  The  senate  decreed  him  a  sum  of  money  out 
of  the  treasury,  but  the  treasurers  refused  to  open  it  on 
that  day.  Then,  said  he,  I  will  open  it  myself,  for  the 
moneys  with  which  I  filled  it  caused  it  to  be  shut. 
When  Paetilius  and  Quintus  accused  him  of  many  crimes 
before  the  people,  —  On  this  very  day,  said  he,  I  conquered 
Hannibal  and  Carthage  ;  I  for  my  part  am  going  with 
my  crown  on  to  the  Capitol  to  sacrifice  ;  and  let  him  that 
pleaeeth  stay  and  pass  his  vote  upon  me.  Having  thus 
said,  he  went  his  way  ;  and  the  people  followed  him,  leav- 
ing his  accusers  declaiming  to  themselves. 

T.  QuiNCTius.  T.  Quinctius  Avas  eminent  so  early,  that 
before  he  had  been  tribune,  praetor,  or  aedile,  he  was 
chosen  consul.  Being  sent  as  general  against  Philip,  he 
Avas  persuaded  to  come  to  a  conference  with  him.  And 
when  Philip  demanded  hostages  of  him,  because  he  was 
accompanied  Avitli  many  Romans  while  the  Macedonians 
had  none  but  himself;  You,  said  Quinctius,  haA^e  created 
this  solitude  for  yourself,  by  killing  your  friends  and  kin- 
dred. Having  overcome  Philip  in  battle,  he  proclaimed 
in  the  Isthmian  games  that  the  Grecians  were  free  and 
to  be  governed  by  their  own  laws.  And  the  Grecians 
redeemed  all  the  Roman  prisoners  that  in  Hannibal's  days 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  231 

were  sold  for  slaves  in  Greece,  each  of  them  with  two 
hundred  drachms,  and  made  him  a  present  of  them ;  and 
they  followed  him  in  Rome  in  his  triumph,  wearin•^  caps 
on  their  heads  such  as  they  use  to  wear  who  are  made  free. 
lie  advised  the  Achaeans,  who  designed  to  make  war 
upon  the  Island  Zacynthus,  to  take  heed  lest,  like  a  tortoise, 
they  should  endanger  their  head  by  thrusting  it  out  of 
Peloponnesus.  AVhen  King  Antiochus  was  coming  upon 
Greece  with  great  forces,  and  all  men  trembled  at  the 
re[)ort  of  his  numbers  and  equipage,  he  told  the  Achaeans 
this  story :  Once  I  dined  Avitli  a  friend  at  Chalcis,  and 
when  I  wondered  at  the  variety  of  dishes,  said  my  host, 
"  All  these  are  pork,  only  in  dressing  and  sauces  they  dif- 
fer." And  therefore  be  not  you  amazed  at  the  king's 
forces,  when  you  hear  talk  of  spearmen  and  men-at-arms 
and  choice  footmen  and  horse-archers,  for  all  these  are  but 
Syrians,  with  some  little  difference  in  their  Aveapons.  Phil- 
opoemen,  general  of  the  Achaeans,  had  good  store  of 
horses  and  men-at-arms,  but  could  not  tell  what  to  do  for 
money  ;  and  Quinctius  played  upon  him,  saying,  Philopoe- 
men  had  arms  and  legs,  but  no  belly  ;  and  it  happened 
his  body  was  much  after  that  shape. 

Cneus  Domitius.  Cneus  Domitius,  —  whom  Scipio  the 
Great  sent  in  his  stead  to  attend  his  brother  Lucius  in  the 
Avar  against  Antiochus,  —  when  he  had  viewed  the  ene- 
my's army,  and  the  commanders  that  were  with  him  ad- 
vised him  to  set  upon  them  presently,  said  to  them :  We 
shall  scarce  have  time  enough  now  to  kill  so  many  thou- 
sands, plunder  their  baggage,  return  to  our  camp,  and 
refresh  ourselves  too  ;  but  we  shall  have  time  enough  to 
do  all  this  to-morroAV.  The  next  day  he  engaged  them, 
and  slew  fifty  thousand  of  the  enemy. 

Publics  Licinius.  Publius  Liciiiius,  consul  and  general, 
being  worsted  in  a  horse  engagement  by  Perseus  king  of 
Macedon,  with  what  were  slain  and  what  were  took  pris- 


232  THE  APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

oners,  lost  two  thousand  eight  hundred  men.  Presently 
after  the  fight,  Perseus  sent  ambassadors  to  make  peace 
and  league  Λvith  him ;  and  although  he  was  overcome,  yet 
he  advised  the  conqueror  to  submit  himself  and  his  affairs 
to  the  pleasure  of  the  Komans. 

Paulus  Aemilius.  Paulus  Aemilius,  Λvhen  he  stood  for 
his  second  consulship,  was  rejected.  Afterwards,  the  war 
with  Perseus  and  the  Macedonians  being  prolonged  by  the 
ignorance  and  effeminacy  of  the  commanders,  they  chose 
him  consul.  I  thank,  said  he,  the  people  for  nothing ; 
they  choose  me  general,  not  because  I  want  the  office,  but 
because  they  want  an  officer.  As  he  returned  from  the 
hall  to  his  own  house,  and  found  his  little  daughter  Tertia 
Λveeping,  he  asked  her  what  she  cried  for]  Perseus, 
said  she  (so  her  little  dog  was  called),  is  dead.  Luckily 
hast  thou  spoken,  girl,  said  he,  and  I  accept  the  omen, 
AVhen  he  found  in  the  camp  much  confident  prating  among 
the  soldiers,  who  pretended  to  advise  him  and  busy  them- 
selves as  if  they  had  been  all  officers,  he  bade  them  be  quiet 
and  only  whet  their  swords,  and  leave  other  things  to  his 
care. 

He  ordered  night-guards  should  be  kept  without  swords 
or  spears,  that  they  might  resist  sleep,  when  they  liad 
nothing  wherewith  to  resist  the  enemy.  He  invaded  Mace- 
donia by  the  way  of  the  mountains  ;  and  seeing  the  enemy 
drawn  up,  when  Nasica  advised  him  to  set  upon  them  pres- 
ently, he  replied :  So  I  should,  if  I  were  of  your  age ;  but 
long  experience  forbids  me,  after  a  march,  to  fight  an  army 
marshalled  regularly.  Having  overcome  Perseus,  he  feasted 
his  friends  for  joy  of  the  victory,  saying,  it  required  the 
same  skill  to  make  an  army  very  terrible  to  the  enemy,  and 
a  banquet  very  acceptable  to  our  friends.  AVhen  Perseus 
was  taken  prisoner,  he  told  Paulus  that  he  would  not  be 
led  in  triumph.  That,  said  he,  is  as  you  please,  —  mean- 
ing he  might  kill  himself     He  found  an  infinite  quantity 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  ^  233 

of  money,  but  kept  none  for  himself;  only  to  liis  son-in- 
law  Tubero  he  gave  a  silver  bowl  that  weighed  five  pounds, 
as  a  reward  of  his  valor ;  and  that,  they  say,  was  the  first 
piece  of  plate  that  belonged  to  the  Aemilian  family.  Of 
the  four  sons  he  had.  he  parted  with  two  that  were  adopted 
into  other  families  ;  and  of  the  two  that  lived  Avith  him, 
one  of  them  died  at  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  but  five 
days  before  his  triumph;  and  five  days  after  the  triumph, 
at  the  age  of  twelve  years  died  the  other.  When  the 
people  that  met  him  bemoaned  and  compassionated  his 
calamities,  Now,  said  he,  my  fears  and  jealousies  for  my 
country  are  over,  since  Fortune  hath  discharged  her  revenge 
for  our  success  on  my  house,  and  I  have  paid  for  all. 

Cato  the  Elder.  Cato  the  Elder,  in  a  speech  to  the 
people,  inveighed  against  luxury  and  intemperance.  How 
hard,  said  he,  is  it  to  persuade  the  belly,  that  hath  no 
ears '?  And  he  wondered  how  that  city  was  preserved 
Avherein  a  fish  was  sold  for  more  than  an  ox !  Once  he 
scoff"ed  at  the  prevailing  imperiousness  of  women :  All 
other  men.  said  he,  govern  their  wives  ;  but  we  command 
all  other  men,  and  our  Avives  us.  He  said  he  had  rather 
not  be  rewarded  for  his  good  deeds  than  not  punished  for 
his  evil  deeds  ;  and  at  any  time  he  could  pardon  all  other 
offenders  besides  himself.  He  instigated  the  magistrates 
to  punish  all  offenders,  saying,  that  they  that  did  not  pre- 
vent crimes  when  they  might  encouraged  them.  Of  young 
men,  he  liked  them  that  blushed  better  than  those  who 
looked  pale  ;  and  hated  a  soldier  that  moved  his  hands  as 
he  walked  and  his  feet  as  he  fought,  and  whose  sneeze 
was  louder  than  his  outcry  when  he  charged.  He  said,  he 
was  the  worst  governor  who  could  not  govern  himself.  It 
was  his  opinion  that  every  one  ought  especially  to  rever- 
ence himself;  for  every  one  was  always  in  his  own  pres- 
ence. When  he  saw  many  had  their  statues  set  up,  I  had 
rather,  says  he,  men  should  ask  why  Cato  had  no  statue, 


234  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

than  why  he  had  one.  He  exhorted  those  in  power  to  be 
sparing  of  exercising  their  power,  that  they  might  continue 
in  poAver.  They  that  separate  honor  from  virtue,  said  he, 
separate  virtue  from  youth.  A  governor,  said  he,  or  judge 
ought  to  do  justice  without  entreaty,  not  injustice  upon  en- 
treaty. He  said,  that  injustice,  if  it  did  not  endanger  the 
authors,  endangered  all  besides.  He  requested  old  men 
not  to  add  the  disgrace  of  wickedness  to  old  age,  which 
was  accompanied  with  many  other  evils.  He  thought  an 
angry  man  differed  from  a  madman  only  in  the  shorter 
time  which  his  passion  endured.  He  thought  that  they 
who  enjoyed  their  fortunes  decently  and  moderately,  were 
far  from  being  envied;  For  men  do  not  envy  us,  said  he, 
but  our  estates.  He  said,  they  that  were  serious  in  ridicu- 
lous matters  would  be  ridiculous  in  serious  affairs.  Hon- 
orable actions  ought  to  succeed  honorable  sayings  ;  Lest, 
said  he,  they  lose  their  reputation.  He  bhimed  the  people 
for  always  choosing  the  same  men  officers  ;  For  either  you 
think,  said  he,  the  government  little  worth,  or-  very  few  fit 
to  govern.  He  pretended  to  wonder  at  one  that  sold  an 
estate  by  the  seaside,  as  if  he  were  more  powerful  than 
the  sea;  for  he  had  drunk  up  that  which  the  sea  could 
hardly  drown.  When  he  stood  for  the  consulship,  and  saw 
others  begging  and  flattering  the  people  for  votes,  he 
cried  out  aloud :  The  people  have  need  of  a  sharp  phy- 
sician and  a  great  purge  ;  therefore  not  the  mildest  but 
the  most  inexorable  person  is  to  be  chosen.  For  Avhich 
Avord  he  was  chosen  before  all  others.  Encouraging  young 
men  to  fight  boldly,  he  oftentimes  said.  The  speech  and 
voice  terrify  and  put  to  flight  the  enemy  more  than  the 
hand  and  sword.  As  he  warred  against  Baetica,  he  was 
outnumbered  by  the  enemy,  and  in  danger.  The  Celtibe- 
rians  offered  for  two  hundred  talents  to  send  him  a  supply, 
and  the  Romans  would  not  suffer  him  to  engage  to  pay  wa- 
ges to  barbarians.    You  are  out,  said  he  ;  for  if  Ave  overcome, 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  235 

not  we  but  the  enemy  must  pay  them  ;  if  we  are  routed, 
there  will  be  nobody  to  demand  nor  to  pay  either.  Hav- 
ing taken  more  cities,  as  he  saith,  than  he  stayed  days  in 
the  enemies'  country,  he  reserved  no  more  of  the  prey  for 
himself  than  what,  he  ate  or  drank.  He  distributed  to 
every  soldier  a  round  of  silver,  saying,  It  was  better  many 
should  return  out  of  the  campaign  Avith  silver  than  a  few 
with  gold ;  for  governors  ought  to  gain  nothing  by  their 
governments  but  honor.  Five  servants  waited  on  him  in 
the  army,  whereof  one  had  bought  three  prisoners  ;  and 
understanding  Cato  knew  it,  before  he  came  into  his  pres- 
ence he  hanged  himself.  Being  requested  by  Scipio  Africa- 
nus  to  befriend  the  banished  Achaeans,  that  they  might 
return  to  their  own  country,  he  made  as  if  he  would  not  be 
concerned  in  that  business  ;  but  when  the  matter  was  dis- 
puted in  the  senate,  rising  up,  he  said :  We  sit  here,  as 
if  we  had  nothing  else  to  do  but  to  argue  about  a  few  old 
Grecians,  whether  they  shall  be  carried  to  their  graves  by 
our  bearers  or  by  those  of  their  own  country.  Posthu- 
mus  Albinus  wrote  a  history  in  Greek,  and  in  it  begs  the 
pardon  of  his  readers.  Said  Cato,  jeering  him.  If  the  Am- 
phictyonic  Council  commanded  him  to  write  it,  he  ought  to 
be  pardoned. 

SciPio  Junior.  It  is  reported  that  Scipio  Junior  never 
bought  nor  sold  nor  built  any  thing  for  the  space  of  fifty- 
four  years,  and  so  long  as  he  lived ;  and  that  of  so  great 
an  estate,  he  left  but  thirty-three  pounds  of  silver,  and  two 
of  gold  behind  him,  although  he  was  lord  of  Carthage, 
and  enriched  his  soldiers  more  than  other  generals.  He 
observed  the  precept  of  Polybius,  and  endeavored  never  to 
return  from  the  forum,  until  by  some  means  or  other  he 
had  engaged  some  one  he  lighted  on  to  be  his  friend  or  com- 
panion. While  he  Avas  yet  young,  he  had  such  a  repute 
for  valor  and  knowledge,  that  Cato  the  Elder,  being  asked 
his  opinion  of  the  commanders  in  Africa,  of  whom  Scipio 
was  one,  answered  in  that  Greek  verse,  — 


236  THE  APOPHTHEGMS  OF  lONGS 

Others  like  sliadows  Qy; 
He  only  is  wise.* 

When  he  came  from  the  army  to  Rome,  the  people  pre- 
ferred him,  not  to  gratify  him,  but  because  they  hoped  by 
his  assistance  to   conquer  Carthage   with   more   ease   and 
speed.      After  he  was  entered  the  walls,  the  Carthaginians 
defended  themselves  in  the  castle,  separated  by  the  sea, 
not  very  deep.     Polybius  advised  him  to  scatter  caltropi! 
in  the  water,  or  planks  with  iron  spikes,  that  the  enemy 
might  not   pass   over   to   assault   their   bulwark.     He  an- 
swered, that    it  was    ridiculous   for  those   who  had  taken 
the  walls  and  Avere  within  the  city  to  contrive  how  they 
might  not  fight  with  the  enemy.     He  found  the  city  full  of 
Greek  statues  and  presents  brought  thither  from  Sicily,  and 
made  proclamation  that  such  as  ^vere  present  from  those 
cities  might  claim  and  carry  away  what  belonged  to  them. 
When   others   plundered   and   carried   away  the  spoil,  he 
would  not   suffer  any  that  belonged   to  him,  either  slave 
or  freeman,  to  take,  nor  so  much  as  to  buy  any  of  it.     He 
assisted  C.  Laelius,  his  most  beloved  friend,  when  he  stood 
to  be  consul,  and  asked  Pompey  (who  was  thought  to  be  a 
piper's   son)   whether  he  stood  or  not.     He  replied.  No  ; 
and  besides  promised  to  join  with  them  in  going  about  and 
procuring  votes,  which   they  believed   and  expected,  but 
were  deceived  ;  for  news  was  brought  that  Pompey  was 
in  the  forum,  fawning  on  and  soliciting  the  citizens   for 
himself;    whereat  others   being   enraged,   Scipio  laughed. 
AVe  may  thank  our  own  folly  for  this,  said  he,  that,  as  if  we 
w^ere  not  to  request  men  but  the  Gods,  we  lose  our  time 
in  waiting  for  a  piper.     When  he  stood  to  be  censor,  Ap- 
pius  Claudius,  his  rival,  told  him  that  he  could  salute  all 
the  Romans  by  their  names,  Avhereas  Scipio  scarce  knew  any 
of  them.     You  say  true,  said  he,  for  it  hath  been  my  care 
not  to  know  niany,  but  that  all  might  know  me.     He  ad- 

«  See  Odyss.  X.  495. 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  237 

vised  the  city,  which  then  had  an  army  in  Celtiberia,  to 
send  them  both  to  the  army,  either  as  tribunes  or  lieuten- 
ants, that  thus  the  soldiers  might  be  witnesses  and  judges 
of  the  valor  of  each  of  them.  When  he  was  made  censor, 
he  took  away  his  horse  from  a  young  man,  who,  in  the 
time  while  Carthage  was  besieged,  made  a  costly  supper, 
in  Λvhich  was  a  honey-cake,  made  after  the  shape  of  that 
city,  Avhich  he  named  Carthage  and  set  before  his  guests 
to  be  plundered  by  them ;  and  Λvhen  the  young  man  asked 
the  reason  why  he  took  his  horse  from  him,  he  said.  Be- 
cause you  plundered  Carthage  before  me.  As  he  saw  C. 
Licinius  coming  towards  him,  I  know,  said  he,  that  man  is 
perjured;  but  since  nobody  accuses  him,  I  caunot  be  his 
accuser  and  judge  too.  The  senate  sent  him  thrice,  as 
Clitomachus  saith,  to  take  cognizance  of  men,  cities,  and 
manners,  as  an  overseer  of  cities,  kings,  and  countries. 
As  he  came  to  Alexandria  and  landed,  he  went  with  his 
head  covered,  and  the  Alexandrians  running  about  him  en- 
treated he  would  gratify  them  by  uncovering  and  showing 
them  his  desirable  face.  When  he  uncovered  his  head, 
they  clapped  their  hands  with  a  loud  acclamation.  The 
king,  by  reason  of  his  laziness  and  corpulency,  making  a 
hard  shift  to  keep  pace  with  them,  Scipio  Avhispered  softly 
to  Panaetius :  The  x^lexandrians  ha\e  already  received 
some  benefit  of  our  visit,  for  upon  our  account  they  have 
seen  their  king  walk.  There  travelled  with  him  one 
friend,  Panaetius  the  philosopher,  and  five  servants,  whereof 
one  dying  in  the  journey,  he  would  not  buy  another,  but 
sent  for  one  to  Rome.  The  Numantines  seemed  invinci- 
ble, and  having  overcome  several  generals,  the  people  the 
second  time  chose  Scipio  general  in  that  war.  When 
great  numbers  strived  to  list  them  in  his  army,  even  that 
the  senate  forbade,  as  if  Italy  thereby  would  be  left  desti- 
tute. Nor  did  they  allow  him  money  that  Avas  in  bank,  but 
ordered  him  to  receive  the  revenues  .of  tributes  that  were 


238  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS' 

not  yet  payable.  As  to  money,  Scipio  said  he  Avanted  none, 
for  of  his  own  and  by  his  friends  he  could  be  supplied  ; 
but  of  the  decree  concerning  the  soldiers  he  complained, 
for  the  war  (he  said)  Avas  a  hard  and  difficult  one,  Avhether 
their  defeat  had  been  caused  by  the  valor  of  the  enemy  or 
by  the  cowardice  of  their  own  men.  When  he  came  to 
the  army,  he  found  there  much  disorder,  intemperance, 
superstition,  and  luxury.  Immediately  he  drove  away  the 
soothsayers,  priests,  and  panders.  He  ordered  them  to 
send  away  their  household  stuff,  all  except  kettles,  a  spit, 
and  an  earthen  cup.  He  allowed  a  silver  cup,  weighing 
not  more  than  two  pounds,  to  such  as  desired  it.  He  for- 
bade them  to  bathe  ;  and  those  that  anonited  themselves 
were  to  rub  themselves  too  ;  for  horses  wanted  another  to 
rub  them,  he  said,  only  because  they  had  no  hand  of  their 
own.  He  ordered  them  to  eat  their  dinner  standing,  and 
to  have  only  such  food  as  was  dressed  without  fire  ;  but 
they  might  sit  down  at  supper,  to  bread,  plain  porridge,  and 
flesh  boiled  or  roasted.  He  himself  walked  about  clothed 
in  a  black  cassock,  saying,  he  mourned  for  the  disgrace 
of  the  army.  He  met  by  chance  with  the  pack-horses  of 
Memmius,  a  tribune  that  carried  wine-coolers  set  with 
precious  stones,  and  the  best  Corinthian  vessels.  Since 
you  are  such  a  one,  said  he,  you  have  made  yourself  use- 
less to  me  and  to  your  country  for  thirty  days,  but  to  your- 
self all  your  life  long.  Another  showed  him  a  shield  Avell 
adorned.  The  shield,  said  he,  young  man,  is  a  fine  one, 
but  it  becomes  a  Roman  to  have  his  confidence  placed 
rather  in  his  right  hand  than  in  his  left.  To  one  that  was 
building  the  rampart,  saying  his  burthen  was  very  heavy. 
And  deservedly,  said  he,  for  you  trust  more  to  this  wood 
than  to  your  sword.  When  he  saAV  the  rash  confidence  of 
the  enemy,  he  said  that  he  bought  security  with  time  ;  for 
a  good  general,  like  a  good  physician,  useth  iron  as  his  last 
remedy.     And  yet  he  fought  when  he  saw  it  convenient, 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  239 

and  routed  the  enemy.  ΛVhen  tliey  were  worsted,  the  elder 
men  chid  them,  and  asked  why  they  fled  from  those  they 
had  pursued  so  often.  It  is  said  a  Numantine  answered, 
The  sheep  are  the  same  still,  but  they  have  another  shep- 
herd. After  he  had  taken  Numantia  and  triumphed  a 
second  time,  he  had  a  controversy  with  C.  Gracchus  con- 
cerning the  senate  and  the  allies  ;  and  the  abusive  people 
made  a  tumult  about  him  as  he  spake  from  the  pulpit ; 
The  outcry  of  the  army,  said  he,  when  they  charge,  never 
disturbed  me,  much  less  the  clamor  of  a  rabble  of  new- 
comers, to  whom  Italy  is  a  step-mother  (I  am  well  assured) 
and  not  a  mother.  And  when  they  of  Gracchus's  party 
cried  out.  Kill  the  Tyrant,  —  No  wonder,  said  he,  that  they 
who  make  war  upon  their  country  would  kill  me  first ;  for 
Rome  cannot  fall  while  Scipio  stands,  nor  can  Scipio  live 
when  Rome  is  fallen. 

Caecilius  Metellus.  Caecilius  Metellus  designing  to 
reduce  a  strong  fort,  a  captain  told  him  he  would  under- 
take to  take  it  with  the  loss  only  of  ten  men  ;  and  he 
asked  him,  whether  he  himself  would  be  one  of  those  ten. 
A  young  colonel  asked  him  what  design  he  had  in  the 
wheel.  If  I  thought  my  shirt  knew,  said  he,  I  would 
pluck  it  off  and  burn  it.  lie  was  at  variance  with  Scipio 
in  his  lifetime,  but  he  lamented  at  his  death,  and  commanded 
his  sons  to  assist  at  the  hearse  ;  and  said,  he  gave  the  Gods 
thanks  in  the  behalf  of  Rome,  that  Scipio  was  born  in  no 
other  country. 

C.  Marius.  C.  Marius  was  of  obscure  parentage,  pur- 
suing offices  by  his  valor.  He  pretended  to  the  chief 
aedileship,  and  perceiving  he  could  not  reach  it,  the  same 
day  he  stood  for  the  lesser,  and  missing  of  that  also,  yet 
for  all  that  he  did  not  despair  of  being  consul.  Having  a 
Λνοη  on  each  leg,  he  suffered  one  to  be  cut,  and  endured 
the  surgeon  without  binding,  not  so  much  as  sighing  or 
once   contracting   his   eyebroAvs ;    but  when   the    surgeon 


240  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

would  cut  the  other,  he  did  not  suiFer  him,  saying  the  cure 
was  not  worth  the  pain.  In  his  second  consulship,  Lucius 
his  sister's  son  offered  unchaste  force  to  Trebonius,  a  sol- 
dier, who  slew  him  ;  Avhen  many  pleaded  against  him,  he 
did  not  deny  but  confessed  he  killed  the  colonel,  and  told 
the  reason  why.  Hereupon  Marius  called  for  a  crown,  the 
reward  of  extraordinary  valor,  and  put  it  upon  Trebonius's 
head.  He  had  pitched  his  camp,  when  he  fought  against 
the  Teutons,  in  a  place  where  water  was  wanting  ;  Avhen 
the  soldiers  told  him  they  were  thirsty,  he  showed  them  a 
river  running  by  the  enemy's  trench.  Look  you,  said  he, 
there  is  water  for  you,  to  be  bought  for  blood  ;  and  they 
desired  bim  to  conduct  them  to  fight,  while  their  blood  was 
fluent  and  not  all  dried  up  with  thirst.  In  the  Cimbrian 
war,  he  gave  a  thousand  valiant  Camertines  the  freedom  of 
Rome,  which  no  law  did  allow  ;  and  to  such  as  blamed 
him  for  it  he  said,  I  could  not  hear  the  laws  for  the  clash 
of  arrows.  In  the  civil  war,  he  lay  patiently  entrenched 
and  besieged,  waiting  for  a  fit  opportunity  ;  when  Popedius 
Silon  called  to  him, Marius,  if  you  are  so  great  a  general  come 
down  and  fight.  And  do  you,  said  he,  if  you  are  so  great 
a  commander,  force  me  to  fight  against  my  will,  if  you  can. 

LuTATius  Catulus.  Lutatius  Catulus  in  the  Cimbrian 
war  lay  encamped  by  the  side  of  the  river  Athesis,  and  his 
soldiers,  seeing  the  barbarians  attempting  to  pass  the  river, 
gave  back  ;  when  he  could  not  make  them  stand,  he 
hastened  to  the  front  of  them  that  fled,  that  they  might 
not  seem  to  fly  from  their  enemies  but  to  follow  their  com- 
mander. 

Sylla.  Sylla,  surnamed  the  Fortunate,  reckoned  these 
two  things  as  the  chiefest  of  his  felicities,  —  the  friend- 
ship of  Metellus  Pius,  and  that  he  had  spared  and  not 
destroyed  the  city  of  Athens. 

C.  PopiLius.  C.  Popilius  was  sent  to  Antiochus  with  a 
letter  from  the  senate,  commanding  him  to  withdraw  his 


AND   GREAT   COMM.\NDERS.  211 

army  out  of  Egypt,  and  to  renounce  the  protection  of  that 
kmgclom  during  the  minority  of  Ptolemy's  children.  AVhen 
he  came  towards  him  in  his  camp,  Antiochus  kindly  sahited 
him  at  a  distance,  but  witliout  returning  his  salutation  he 
delivered  his  letter ;  which  being  read,  the  king  answered, 
that  he  would  consider,  and  give  his  answer.  Whereupon 
Popilius  with  his  wand  made  a  circle  round  him,  saying,  Con- 
sider and  answer  before  you  go  out  of  this  place  ;  and  when 
Antiochus  ansAvered  that  he  would  give  the  liomans  satis- 
faction, then  at  length  Popilius  saluted  and  embraced  him. 

LucuLLUs.  Lucullus  in  Armenia,  Avith  ten  thousand  foot  in 
armor  and  a  thousand  horse,  was  to  fight  Tigranes  and  his 
army  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  the  day  before  the 
nones  of  October,  the  same  day  on  which  formerly  Scipio's 
army  was  destroyed  by  the  Cimbrians.  When  one  told 
him,  The  Romans  dread  and  abominate  that  day;  Therefore, 
said  he,  let  us  fight  to-day  valiantly,  that  Ave  may  change 
this  day  from  a  black  and  unlucky  one  to  a  joyful  and 
festival  day  for  the  Romans.  His  soldiers  Avere  most  afraid 
of  their  men-at-arms  ;  but  he  bade  them  be  of  good  courage, 
for  it  Avas  more  labor  to  strip  than  to  OA-ercome  them.  He 
first  came  up  to  their  counterscarp,  and  perceiving  the 
confusion  of  the  barbarians,  cried  out,  FelloAv-soldiers,  the 
day's  our  oavu  !  And  Avlien  nobody  stood  him,  he  pursued, 
and,  Avith  the  loss  of  five  Romans,  sleAv  above  a  hundred 
thousand  of  them. 

Cn.  Pompeius.  Cn.  Pompeius  Avas  as  much  beloved  by 
the  Romans  as  his  father  Avas  hated.  When  hoAvas  vouu"•, 
he  Avholly  sided  Avitli  Sylla,  and  before  he  had  borne  many 
offices  or  Avas  chosen  into  the  senate,  he  enlisted  many 
soldiers  in  Italy.  AVhen  Sylla  sent  for  him,  he  returned 
ansAver,  that  he  would  not  muster  his  forces  in  the  presence 
of  his  general,  unfleshed  and  Avithout  spoils  ;  nor  did  he 
come  before  that  in  seA^eral  fights  he  had  overcome  the 
captains  of  the  enemy.     He  Avas  sent  by  Sylla   lieutenant- 

VOL.  I.  16 


24:2  ΤΙίΕ   ArOniTUEGMS   OF   KINGS 

general  into  Sicily,  and  being  told  that  the  soldiers  turned 
out  of  the  Avay  and  forced  and  plundered  the  country,  he 
sealed  the  swords  of  such  as  he  sent  abroad,  and  punished 
all  other  stragglers  and  wanderers.  He  had  resolved  to 
put  the  ]Mamertines,  that  were  of  the  other  side,  all  to  the 
sword  ;  but  Sthenius  the  orator  told  him.  He  would  do  in- 
justice if  he  should  punish  many  that  were  innocent  for 
the  sake  of  one  that  was  guilty  ;  and  that  he  himself 
was  the  person  that  persuaded  his  friends  and  forced  his 
enemies  to  side  with  Marius.  Pompey  admired  the  man, 
and  said,  he  could  not  blame  the  Mamertines  for  being 
inveigled  by  a  person  who  preferred  his  country  beyond 
his  οΛΛ^η  life  ;  and  forgave  both  the  city  and  Sthenius 
too.  When  he  passed  into  Africa  against  Domitius  and 
overcame  him  in  a  great  battle,  the  soldiers  saluted  him 
Imperator.  He  answered,  he  could  not  receive  that 
honor,  so  long  as  the  fortification  of  the  enemy's  camp 
stood  undemolished  ;  upon  this,  although  it  rained  hard, 
they  rushed  on  and  plundered  the  camp.  At  his  re- 
turn, among  other  courtesies  and  honors  Λvherewith  Sylla 
entertained  him,  he  styled  him  The  Great ;  yet  when  he 
was  desirous  to  triumph,  Sylla  would  not  consent,  because 
he  was  not  yet  chosen  into  the  senate.  But  when  Pompey 
said  to  those  that  were  about  him,  Sylla  doth  not  know 
that  more  worship  the  rising  than  the  setting  sun,  Sylla 
cried  aloud.  Let  him  trium.ph.  Hereat  Servilius,  one  of 
the  nobles,  was  displeased  ;  the  soldiers  also  Λvithstood  his 
triumph,  until  he  had  bestowed  a  largess  among  them. 
But  when  Pompey  replied,  I  would  rather  forego  my 
triumph  than  flatter  them,  —  Now,  said  Servilius,  I  see 
Pompey  is  truly  great  and  worthy  of  a  triumph.  It  was  a 
custom  in  Rome,  that  knights  who  had  served  in  the  wars 
the  time  appointed  by  the  laws  should  bring  their  horse 
into  the  forum  before  the  censors,  and  there  give  an 
account  of  their  warfare  and  the  commanders  under  whom 


AND    GP.EAT   COMMANDERS.  2^6 

they  had  served.  Pompey,  then  consul,  brought  also  his 
horse  before  the  censors,  Gellius  and  Lentulus  ;  and  ^γhen 
they  asked  him,  as  the  manner  is,  ^\'hether  he  had  served 
all  his  campaigns.  All,  said  he,  and  under  myself  as 
general.  Having  gotten  into  his  hands  the  Avritings  of 
Sertorius  in  Spain,  among  Avhich  Avere  letters  from 
several  leading  men  in  Rome,  inviting  Sertorius  to  Rome 
to  innovate  and  change  the  government,  he  burnt  them 
all,  by  that  means  giving  opportunity  to  ill-affected  per- 
sons to  repent  and  mend  their  manners.  Phraates,  king 
of  Partliia,  sent  to  him  requesting  that  the  river  Euphrates 
might  be  his  bounds.  He  answered,  the  Romans  had 
rather  the  right  should  be  their  bounds  towards  Parthia. 
L.  Lucullus,  after  he  left  the  army,  gave  himself  up  to 
pleasure  and  luxury,  jeering  at  Pompey  for  busying  himself 
in  affairs  unsuitable  to  his  age.  He  answered,  tliat  govern- 
ment became  old  age  better  than  luxury.  In  a  fit  of  sick- 
ness, his  physician  prescribed  him  to  eat  a  thrush  ;  but 
when  none  could  be  gotten,  because  they  were  out  of 
season,  one  said,  that  LucuUus  had  some,  for  he  kept  them 
all  the  year.  It  seems  then,  said  he,  Pompey  must  not  live, 
nnless  Lucullus  play  the  glutton  ;  and  dismissing  the  ])hy 
sician,  he  ate  such  things  as  were  easy  to  be  gotten.  In  a 
great  dearth  at  Rome,  he  was  chosen  by  title  overseer  of 
the  market,  but  in  reality  lord  of  sea  and  land,  and  sailed 
to  Africa,  Sardinia,  and  Sicily.  Having  procured  great 
quantities  of  wheat,  he  hastened  back  to  Rome  ;  and  Avhen 
by  reason  of  a  great  tempest  the  pilots  Λvere  loath  to  hoist 
sail,  he  went  first  aboard  himself,  and  commanding  the 
anchor  to  be  weighed,  cried  out  aloud.  There  is  a  necessit)• 
of  sailing,  but  there  is  no  necessitv  of  livini^r.  A\^hen  the 
difference  betwixt  him  and  Caesar  broke  out,  and  Marcel- 
linus,  one  of  those  whom  he  had  preferred,  revolted  to 
Caesar  and  iuA^eighed  much  against  Pompey  in  the  senate  ; 
Art  thou  not  ashamed,  said  he,  Marcellinus,  to  reproach 


24-1  THE   ArOPHTHEGxMS   OF   KINGS 

me,  who  taught  you  to  speak  Λyhen  you  ΛveΓe  dumh,  and 
fed  you  full  e\'en  to  vomiting  Avhen  you  were  starved  ?  To 
Cato,  Λνΐιο  severely  blamed  him  because,  when  he  had 
often  informed  him  of  the  growing  power  of  Caesar,  such 
as  was  dangerous  to  a  democracy,  he  took  little  notice  of 
it,  he  answered,  Your  counsels  were  more  presaging,  but 
mine  more  friendly.  Concerning  himself  he  freely  pro- 
fessed, that  he  entered  all  his  offices  sooner  than  he  ex- 
pected, and  resigned  them  sooner  than  was  expected  by 
others.  After  the  fight  at  Pharsalia,  in  his  flight  towards 
Egypt,  as  he  Avas  going  out  of  the  ship  into  the  fisher-boat 
the  kins  sent  to  attend  him,  turning  to  his  wife  and  son,  he 
said  nothing  to  them  beside  those  two  verses  of  Sophocles : 

Wl)oever  comes  within  a  tyrant's  door 
Becomes  his  shive,  though  he  were  free  before. 

As  he  came  out  of  the  boat,  when  he  was  struck  with  a 
sword,  he  said  nothing ;  but  gave  one  groan,  and  covering 
his  head  submitted  to  the  murderers. 

Cicero.  Cicero  the  orator,  Avhen  his  name  was  played 
upon  and  his  friends  advised  him  to  change  it,  answered, 
that  he  would  make  the  name  of  Cicero  more  honorable 
than  the  name  of  the  Catos,  the  Catuli,  or  the  Scauri.  He 
dedicated  to  the  Gods  a  silver  cup  with  a  cover,  with  the 
first  letters  of  his  other  names,  and  instead  of  Cicero  a 
chick-pea  (cicer)  engraven.  Loud  bawling  orators,  he 
said,  were  driven  by  their  weakness  to  noise,  as  lame  men 
to  take  horse.  \'^erres  had  a  son  that  in  his  youth  had  not 
well  secured  his  chastity  ;  yet  he  reviled  Cicero  for  his 
effeminacy,  and  called  him  catamite.  Do  you  not  know, 
said  he,  that  children  are  to  be  rebuked  at  home  within 
doors'?  Metellus  Nepos  told  him  he  had  slain  more  by  his 
testimony  than  he  had  saved  by  his  pleadings.  You  say 
true,  said  he,  my  honesty  exceeds  my  eloquence.  AVhen 
Metellus  asked  him  who  his  father  was,  Your  mother,  said 
he,  hath  made  that  question  a  harder  one  for  you  to  answer 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  245 

than  for  me.  For  she  was  unchaste,  while  Metelkis  him- 
self was  a  light,  inconstant,  and  passionate  man.  The 
same  Metellus,  wlien  Diodotus  his  master  in  rhetoric  died, 
caused  a  marble  crow  to  be  placed  on  his  monument ;  and 
Cicero  said,  he  returned  his  master  a  very  suitable  gratu- 
ity, Λνΐιο  had  taught  him  to  fly  but  not  to  declaim.  Hearing 
that  \'atinius,  his  enemy  and  otherwise  a  lewd  person,  was 
dead,  and  the  next  day  that  he  was  alive,  A  mischief  on 
him,  said  he,  for  lying.  To  one  that  seemed  to  be  an 
African,  who  said  he  could  not  hear  him  when  he  pleaded, 
And  yet,  said  he,  your  ears  are  of  full  bore.  He  had  sum- 
moned Popilius  Cotta,  an  ignorant  blockhead  that  pretended 
to  the  law,  as  a  witness  in  a  cause  ;  and  Avhen  he  told  the 
court  he  knew  nothing  of  the  business,  On  my  conscience, 
I'll  warrant  you,  said  Cicero,  he  thinks  you  ask  him  a 
question  in  the  law.  Verres  sent  a  golden  sphinx  as  a 
present  to  Hortensius  the  orator,  who  told  Cicero,  when 
he  spoke  obscurely,  that  he  was  not  skilled  in  riddles. 
Thafs  strange,  said  he,  since  you  have  a  sphinx  in  your 
house.  Meeting  Voconius  with  his  three  daughters  that 
were  hard  favored,  he  told  his  friends  softly  that  verse,  — 

Children  lie  hath  got, 
Though  Apollo  favored  not. 

AVhen  Faustus  the  son  of  Sylla,  being  very  much  in 
debt,  set  up  a  writing  that  he  would  sell  his  goods  by  auc- 
tion, he  said,  I  like  this  proscription  better  than  his  father's. 
When  Pompey  and  Caesar  fell  out,  he  said,  I  know  whom 
to  fly  from,  but  I  know  not  whom  to  fly  to.  He  blamed 
Pompey  for  leaving  the  city,  and  for  imitating  Themistocles 
rather  than  Pericles,  when  his  affairs  did  not  resemble  the 
former  s  but  the  latter's.  He  changed  his  mind  and  went 
over  to  Pompey,  who  asked  him  where  he  left  his  son-in- 
law  Piso.  He  answered,  AVith  your  father-in-law  Caesar. 
To  one  that  went  over  from  Caesar  to  Pompey,  saying  that 
in  his  haste  and  eagerness  he  had  left  his  horse  behind  him, 


246  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

he  said,  You  have  taken  better  care  of  your  horse  than  of 
yourself.  To  one  that  brought  news  that  the  friends  of 
Caesar  looked  sourly,  You  do  as  good  as  call  them,  said 
he,  Caesar's  enemies.  After  the  battle  in  Pharsalia,  when 
Pompey  Avas  fled,  one  Nonius  said  they  had  seven  eagles 
left  still,  and  advised  to  try  what  they  would  do.  Your 
advice,  said  he,  were  good,  if  we  \vere  to  fight  with  jack- 
daws, Caesar,  now  conqueror,  honorably  restored  the 
statues  of  Pompey  that  were  thrown  down ;  Avhereupon 
Cicero  said,  that  Caesar  by  erecting  Pompey's  statues  had 
secured  his  own.  He  set  so  high  a  value  on  oratory,  and 
did  so  lay  out  himself  especially  that  way,  that  having  a 
cause  to  plead  before  the  centumviri,  when  the  day  ap- 
proached and  his  slave  Eros  brought  him  word  it  was 
deferred  until  the  day  following,  he  presently  made  him 
free. 

C.  Caesar.  Cains  Caesar,  Avhen  he  was  a  young  man, 
fled  from  Sylla,  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  pirates,  who  first 
demanded  of  him  a  sum  of  money  ;  and  he  laughed  at  the 
rogues  for  not  understanding  his  quality,  and  promised 
them  twice  as  much  as  they  asked  him.  Afterwards,  when 
he  was  put  into  custody  until  he  raised  the  money,  he 
commanded  them  to  be  quiet  and  silent  Avhile  he  slept. 
While  he  was  in  prison,  he  made  speeches  and  verses 
Avhich  he  read  to  them,  and  when  they  commended  them 
but  coldly,  he  called  them  barbarians  and  blockheads,  and 
threatened  them  in  jest  that  he  ΛνοηΜ  hang  them.  But 
after  a  while  he  was  as  good  as  his  word ;  for  when  the  monev 
for  his  ransom  was  brought  and  he  discharged,  he  gathered 
men  and  ships  out  of  Asia,  seized  the  pirates  and  crucified 
them.  At  Home  he  stood  to  be  chief  priest  against  Catulus,  a 
man  of  great  interest  among  the  Romans.  To  his  mother, 
who  brought  him  to  the  gate,  he  said.  To-day,  mother,  you 
will  have  your  son  high  priest  or  banished.  He  divorced 
his  Avife  Pompeia,  because  she  was  reported  to  be  over 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  247 

fiimiliar  with  Clodius  ;  yet  when  Clodius  was  brought  to 
trial  upon  that  account,  and  he  was  cited  as  a  witness,  he 
spake  no  evil  against  his  wife  ;  and  when  the  accuser  asked 
him.  Why  then  did  you  divorce  her  ]  —  Because,  said  he, 
Caesar's  wife  ought  to  be  free  even  from  suspicion.  As 
he  was  reading  the  exploits  of  Alexander,  he  wept  and 
told  his  friends,  lie  was  of  my  age  when  he  conquered 
Darius,  and  I  hitherto  have  done  nothing.  He  passed  by 
a  little  inconsiderable  town  in  the  Alps,  and  his  friends 
said,  they  wondered  whether  there  were  any  contentions 
and  tumults  for  offices  in  that  place.  He  stood,  and  after 
a  little  pause  answered,  I  had  rather  be  the  first  in  this 
town  than  second  in  Kome.  He  said,  great  and  surprising 
enterprises  were  not  to  be  consulted  upon,  but  done.  And 
coming  against  Pompey  out  of  his  province  of  Gaul,  he 
l)assed  the  river  Ilubicon,  saying.  Let  every  die  be  thrown. 
After  Pompey  fled  to  sea  from  Rome,  he  went  to  take 
money  out  of  the  treasury :  when  Metellus,  who  had  the 
charge  of  it,  forbade  him  and  shut  it  against  him,  he 
threatened  to  kill  him ;  whereupon  ]\ietellus  being  aston- 
ished, he  said  to  him.  This,  young  man,  is  harder  for  me  to 
say  than  to  do.  ΛVhen  his  soldiers  were  having  a  tedious 
passage  from  Brundisium  to  Dyrrachium,  unknown  to  all 
he  went  aboard  a  small  vessel,  and  attempted  to  pass  the 
sea ;  and  when  the  vessel  Avas  in  danger  of  being  overset, 
he  discovers  himself  to  the  pilot,  crying  out,  Trust  Fortune, 
and  know  that  you  carry  Caesar.  But  the  tempest  being 
vehement,  his  soldiers  coming  about  him  and  expostuhiting 
passionately  with  him,  asking  whether  he  distrusted  them 
and  was  looking  for  another  army,  would  not  suffer  him  to 
pass  at  that  time.  They  fought,  and  Pompey  had  the  bet- 
ter of  it ;  but  instead  of  following  his  blow  he  retreated  to 
his  camp.  To-day,  said  Caesar,  the  enemy  had  the  victory, 
but  none  of  them  know  how  to  conquer.  Pompey  com- 
manded his  army  to  stand  in  array  at  Pharsalia  in  their 


24S  THE   APOPHTHEGMS   OF   KINGS 

place,  and  to  receive  the  charge  from  the  enemy.  In  this 
Caesar  said  he  was  out,  thereby  suffering  the  eagerness  of 
his  soldiers'  spirits,  Avhen  they  were  up  and  inspired  with 
rage  and  success,  in  the  midst  of  their  career  to  languish 
and  expire.  After  he  routed  Pharnaces  Ponticus  at  the 
first  assault,  he  wrote  thus  to  his  friends,  I  came,  I  saw,  I 
conquered.*  After  Scipio  was  worsted  in  Africa  and  tied, 
and  Cato  had  killed  himself,  he  said  :  I  envy  thee  thy  death, 
Ο  Cato  !  since  thou  didst  envy  me  the  honor  of  saving  thee. 
Antonius  and  Dolabelhi  were  suspected  by  his  friends,  who 
advised  him  to  secure  them  ;  he  answered,  I  fear  none  of 
those  fat  and  lazy  fello\vs,  but  those  pale  and  lean  ones, — 
meaning  Brutus  and  Cassius.  As  he  was  at  supper,  the 
discourse  was  of  death,  which  sort  was  the  best.  That, 
said  he,  which  is  unexpected. 

Caesar  Augustus.  Caesar,  who  was  the  first  surnamed 
Augustus,  being  yet  young,  demanded  of  Antony  the  twen- 
ty-five millions  of  money  f  which  he  had  taken  out  of  the 
house  of  Julius  Caesar  when  he  was  slain,  that  he  might 
pay  the  Romans  the  legacies  he  had  left  them,  every  man 
seventy-five  drachms.  But  Avhen  Antony  detained  the 
money,  and  bade  him,  if  he  were  wise,  let  fall  his  demand, 
he  sent  the  crier  to  offer  his  own  paternal  estate  for  sale, 
and  therewith  discharged  the  legacies  ;  by  which  means 
he  procured  a  general  respect  to  himself,  and  to  Antony 
the  hatred  of  the  Romans.  Rymetalces,  king  of  Thrace, 
forsook  Antony  and  went  over  to  Caesar ;  but  bragging 
immoderately  in  his  drink,  and  nauseously  reproaching  his 
new  confederates,  Caesar  drank  to  one  of  the  other 
kings,  and  told  him,  I  love  treason   but  do  not  commend 

*  ^ίίλθον,  είδον,  ενίκησα,  veni,  vidi,  vici. 

t  It  is  doubtful  what  amount  is  liere  intenrled  by  Plutarch.  If  sesterces  are  un- 
derstood, tlie  amount  is  much  less  than  it  is  commonly  stated  ;  and  even  if  we  un- 
derstand drachmas  (or  denarii),  we  shall  still  fall  below  the  amount  commonly  given, 
which  is  700,000,000  sesterces  (or  about  $28,000,000).  See,  for  example.  Veil 
Paterc.  II.  60,  4  :  Sestertium  septiens  miliens.     (G.) 


AND   GREAT   COMMANDERS.  249 

traitors.  The  Alexandrians,  when  he  had  taken  their  city, 
expected  great  severity  from  him  ;  but  when  he  came  upon 
the  judgment-seat,  he  phiced  Arius  the  Alexandrian  by 
him.  and  told  them :  I  spare  this  city,  first  because  it  is 
great  and  beautiful,  secondly  for  the  sake  of  its  founder, 
Alexander,  and  thirdly  for  the  sake  of  Arius  mv  friend. 
When  it  was  told  him  that  Eros,  his  steward  in  Egypt, 
having  bought  a  quail  that  beat  all  he  came  near  and  was 
never  worsted  by  any,  had  roasted  and  eaten  it,  he  sent  for 
him  ;  and  when  upon  examination  he  confessed  the  fact, 
he  ordered  him  to  be  nailed  on  the  mast  of  the  ship.  He 
removed  Theodorus,  and  in  his  stead  made  Arius  his  fac- 
tor in  Sicily^  whereupon  a  petition  was  presented  to  him, 
ill  which  was  written,  Theodorus  of  Tarsus  is  either  a  bald- 
pate  or  a  thief,  what  is  your  opinion  ?  Caesar  read  it,  and 
subscribed,  I  think  so.  ]\iecaenas,  his  intimate  companion, 
presented  him  yearly  on  his  birthday  with  a  piece  of  plate. 
Athenodorus  the  philosopher,  by  reason  of  his  old  age, 
begged  leave  that  he  might  retire  from  court,  which  Caesar 
granted  ;  and  as  Athenodorus  was  taking  his  leave  of  him. 
Remember,  said  he,  Caesar,  whenever  you  are  angry,  to 
say  or  do  nothing  before  you  have  repeated  the  four-and- 
twenty  letters  to  yourself.  Whereupon  Caesar  caught  him 
by  the  hand  and  said,  I  have  need  of  your  presence  still ; 
and  he  kept  him  a  year  longer,  saying.  The  reward  of 
silence  is  a  secure  reward.,  He  heard  Alexander  at  the 
age  of  thirty-two  years  had  subdued  the  greatest  part  of 
the  world  and  was  at  a  loss  what  he  should  do  with  the 
rest  of  his  time.  Bu-t  he  wondered  Alexander  should  not 
think  it  a  lesser  labor  to  gain  a  great  empire  than  to  set  in 
order  Avhat  he  had  gotten.  He  made  a  law  concerning• 
adulterers,  wherein  was  determined  how  the  accused  were 
to  be  tried  and  how  the  guilty  were  to  be  punished.  Af- 
terwards, meeting  with  a  young  man  that  was  reported  to 
have  been  familiar  with  his  daughter  Julia,  being  enraged 


259  THE   ArOPHTIIEGMS   OF   KINGS. 

he  struck  him  Avith  his  hands  ;  but  when  the  young  man 
cried  out,  Ο  Caesar!  you  have  made  a  hiw,  he  was  so 
troubled  at  it  that  he  refrained  from  supper  that  day. 
When  he  sent  Caius  his  daughter's  son  into  Armenia,  he 
begged  of  the  Gods  that  the  favor  of  Pompey,  the  valor 
of  Alexander,  and  his  own  fortune  might  attend  him. 
He  told  the  Romans  he  would  leave  them  one  to  succeed 
him  in  the  government  that  never  consulted  twice  in  the 
same  affair,  meaning  Tiberius.  He  endeavored  to  pacify 
some  young  men  that  were  imperious  in  their  offices ;  and 
when  they  gave  little  heed  to  him,  but  still  kept  a  stir, 
Young  men,  said  he,  hear  an  old  man  to  whom  old  men 
hearkened  when  he  was  young.  Once,  when  the  Athenians 
had  offended  him,  he  wrote  to  them  from  Aegina  :  I  suppose 
you  know  1  am  angry  with  you,  otherwise  I  had  not  win- 
tered at  Aegina.  Besides  this,  he  neither  said  nor  did  any 
thing  to  them.  One  of  the  accusers  of  Eurycles  prated 
lavishly  and  unreasonably,  proceeding  so  far  as  to  say.  If 
these  crimes,  Ο  Caesar,  do  not  seem  great  to  you,  command 
him  to  repeat  to  me  the  seventh  book  of  Thucydides ; 
Avherefore  Caesar  being  enraged  commanded  him  to  prison. 
But  afterwards,  when  he  heard  he  was  descended  from 
Brasidas,  he  sent  for  him  again,  and  dismissed  him  with  a 
moderate  rebuke.  When  Piso  built  his  house  from  top  to 
bottom  with  great  exactness.  You  cheer  my  heart,  said  he, 
who  build  as  if  Rome  would  be  eternal. 


PLUTAHCH'S  IIULES   FOR  THE   PRESERVATION 
OF   HEALTH. 

A    DIALOGUE. 


MOSCHIO,  ZEUXIPPUS. 

1.  MoscHio.  And  you,  Zeuxippus,  diverted  Glaiicus  the 
physician  from  entering  into  a  philosophical  discourse  Avith 
you  yesterday. 

Zeuxippus.  I  did  not  hinder  him  in  the  least,  friend 
Moschio,  it  was  he  that  would  not  discourse  in  philosophy. 
But  I  feared  and  avoided  giving  so  contentious  a  man  any 
opportunity  of  discourse  ;  for  though  in  physic  the  man 
has  (as  Homer*  expresses  it)  an  excellency  before  most  of 
his  profession,  yet  in  philosophy  he  is  not  altogether  so 
candid,  but  indeed  so  rude  in  all  his  disputations,  that  he 
is  hardly  to  be  borne  with,  flying  (as  it  were)  at  us  open 
mouthed.  So  that  it  is  neither  an  easy  nor  indeed  a  just 
thing,  that  Ave  should  bear  those  confusions  in  terms  he 
makes,  when  we  are  disputing  about  a  wholesome  diet. 
Besides,  he  maintains  that  the  bounds  of  philosophy  and 
medicine  are  as  distinct  as  those  of  the  Mysians  and  Phry- 
2:ians.  And  takino•  hold  of  some  of  those  thinsfs  we  Avere 
discoursing  of,  perhaps  not  with  all  exactness,  yet  not 
Avithout  some  profit,  he  made  scurrilous  reflections  on 
them. 

MoscHio.  But  I  am  ready,  Zeuxippus,  to  hear  those 
and  the  other  things  you  shall  discourse  of,  with  a  great 
deal  of  pleasure. 

*  II.  XI.  514. 


25*2     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

Zeuxippus.  You  hiive  naturally  a  philosophical  genius, 
Moschio,  and  are  trouhled  to  see  a  philosopher  have  no 
kindness  for  the  study  of  medicine.  You  are  uneasy  that 
he  should  think  it  concerns  him  more  to  study  geometry, 
logic,  and  music,  than  to  be  desirous  to  understand 

What  in  his  house  is  well  or  ill-designed,* 

his  house  being  his  own  body.  You  shall  see  many  specta- 
tors at  that  play  where  their  charges  are  defrayed  out  of 
the  public  stock,  as  they  do  at  Athens.  Now  among  all 
the  liberal  arts,  medicine  not  only  contains  so  neat  and 
large  a  field  of  pleasure  as  to  give  place  to  none,  but  she 
pays  plentifully  the  charges  of  those  who  delight  in  the 
study  of  her  by  giving  them  health  and  safety ;  so  that  it 
ought  not  to  be  called  transgressing  the  bounds  of  a  philos- 
opher to  dispute  about  those  things  which  relate  to  health, 
but  rather,  all  bounds  being  laid  aside,  we  ought  to  pursue 
our  studies  in  the  same  common  field,  and  so  enjoy  both 
the  pleasure  and  the  profit  of  tlieni. 

MoscHio.  But  to  pass  by  Glaucus,  who  with  his  prp- 
tended  gravity  would  be  thought  to  be  so  perfect  as  not  to 
stand  in  need  of  philosophy,  —  do  you,  if  you  please,  run 
through  the  whole  discourse,  and  first,  those  things  which 
you  say  were  not  so  exactly  handled  and  Avhich  Glaucus 
carped  at. 

2.  Zeuxippus.  A  friend  of  ours  then  heard  one  alleging 
that  to  keep  one's  hands  always  warm  and  never  suffer 
them  to  be  cold  did  not  a  little  conduce  to  health  ;  and,  on 
the  contrary,  keeping  the  extreme  parts  of  the  body  cold 
drives  the  heat  inward,  so  that  you  are  always  in  a  fever 
or  the  fear  of  one.  But  those  things  which  force  the  heat 
outwards  do  distribute  and  draw  the  matter  to  all  parts, 
with  advantage  to  our  health.  If  in  any  work  we  employ 
our  hands,  we  are  able  to  keep  in  them  that  heat  which  is 

*  Odjss.  IV.  392. 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.    253 

induced  by  their  motion.  But  when  we  do  not  work  with 
our  hands,  we  shoukl  take  all  care  to  keep  our  extreme 
parts  from  cold. 

3.  This  Avas  one  of  those  thinofs  he  ridiculed.     The  sec- 

Ο 

ond,  as  I  remember,  was  touching  the  food  allowed  the 
sick,  which  he  advises  us  sometimes  both  to  touch  and 
taste  when  we  are  in  good  health,  that  so  we  may  be  used 
to  it,  and  not  be  shy  of  it,  like  little  children,  or  hate  such 
a  diet,  but  by  degrees  make  it  natural  and  familiar  to  our 
appetite  ;  that  in  our  sickness  we  may  not  nauseate  whole- 
some diet,  as  if  it  were  physic,  nor  be  uneasy  when  we  are 
prescribed  any  msipid  thing,  that  lacks  both  the  smell  and 
taste  of  a  kitchen.  A\'herefore  we  need  not  squeamishly 
refuse  to  eat  before  we  wash,  or  to  drink  water  when  we 
may  have  Avine,  or  to  take  warm  drink  in  summer  when 
there  is  snow  at  hand.  AVe  must,  however,  lay  aside  all 
foppish  ostentation  and  sophistry  as  well  as  vain-glory  in 
this  abstinence,  and  quietly  by  ourselves  accustom  our  ap- 
petite to  obey  reason  with  willingness,  that  thus  we  may 
wean  our  minds  long  beforehand  from  that  dainty  contempt 
of  such  food  which  we  feel  in  time  of  sickness,  and  that 
w^e  may  not  then  effeminately  bewail  our  condition,  as  if  we 
were  fallen  from  great  and  beloved  pleasures  into  a  low 
and  sordid  diet.  It  Avas  well  s;dd.  Choose  out  the  best  condi- 
tion you  can,  and  custom  will  make  it  pleasant  to  you. 
And  this  will  be  beneficial  in  most  things  we  undertake, 
but  more  especially  as  to  diet ;  if,  in  the  height  of  our 
health,  λλο  introduce  a  custom  whereby  those  things  may 
be  rendered  easy,  familiar,  and,  as  it  were,  domestics  of 
our  bodies,  remembering  what  some  suffer  and  do  in  sick- 
ness, who  fret,  and  are  not  able  to  endure  warm  water  or 
gruel  or  bread  when  it  is  brought  to  them,  calling  them 
dirty  and  unseemly  things,  and  the  persons  who  would 
urge  them  to  them  base  and  troublesome.  The  bath  hath 
destroyed  many  whose  distemper  at  the  beginning  was  not 


254    RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

very  bad,  only  because  they  could  not  endure  to  eat  before 
they  washed  ;  among  whom  Titus  the  emperor  was  one, 
as  his  physicians  affirm. 

4.  This  also  was  said,  that  a  thin  diet  is  the  healthfulest 
to  the  body.  But  we  ought  chiefly  to  avoid  all  excess  in 
meat  or  drink  or  pleasure,  when  there  is  any  feast  or  en- 
tertainment at  hand,  or  when  we  expect  any  royal  or 
princely  banquet,  or  solemnity  Avhich  we  cannot  possibly 
avoid;  then  ought  the  body  to  be  light  and  in  readiness  to 
receive  the  winds  and  waves  it  is  to  meet  with.  It  is  a 
hard  matter  for  a  man  at  a  feast  or  collation  to  keep  that 
mediocrity  or  bounds  he  has  been  used  to,  so  as  not  to 
seem  rude,  precise,  or  troublesome  to  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany. Lest  we  should  add  lire  to  fire,  as  the  proverb  is, 
or  one  debauch  or  excess  to  another,  we  should  take  care 
to  imitate  that  ingenious  droll  of  Philip,  which  was  this. 
He  Avas  invited  to  supper  by  a  countryman.  Avho  supposed 
he  Avould  brin^  but  few  friends  with  him  ;  but  when  he 
saw  him  bring  a  great  many,  there  not  being  much  pro- 
vided, he  Avas  much  concerned  at  it :  Avhich  when  Philip 
perceived,  he  sent  privately  to  every  one  of  his  friends,  that 
they  should  leave  a  corner  for  cake  ;  they  believing  this 
and  still  expecting,  ate  so  sparingly  that  there  Avas  supper 
enough  for  them  all.  So  we  ought  beforehand  to  prepare 
ourselves  against  all  unavoidable  invitations,  that  there  may 
be  room  left  in  our  body,  not  only  for  the  meal  and  the 
dessert,  but  for  drunkeiuiess  itself,  by  bringing  in  a  fresh 
and  a  willing  appetite  along  with  us. 

5.  But  if  such  a  necessity  should  surprise  you  when  you 
are  already  loaded  or  indisposed,  in  the  presence  either  of 
persons  of  quality  or  of  strangers  that  come  in  upon  you 
unaAvares,  and  you  cannot  for  shame  but  go  and  drink  with 
them  that  are  ready  for  that  purpose,  then  you  ought  to 
arm  yourself  against  that  modesty  and  prejudicial  shame- 
facedness  with  that  of  Creon  in  the  tragedy,  who  says,  — 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.    255 

'Tis  better,  sirs,  Τ  should  ^'ou  now  displease, 
Than  by  complying  next  day  lose  my  ease.* 

He  who  throws  himself  into  a  pleurisy  or  frenzy,  to 
avoid  being  censured  as  an  uncivil  person,  is  certainly  no 
well-bred  man,  nor  has  he  sense  of  understandino-  enough 
to  converse  with  men,  unless  in  a  tavern  or  a  cook-shop. 
Whereas  an  excuse  ingeniously  and  dexterously  made  is 
no  less  acceptable  than  compliance.  He  that  makes  a 
feast,  though  he  be  as  unwilling  to  taste  of  it  himself  as  if 
it  was  a  sacrifice,  yet  if  he  be  merry  and  jocund  over  his 
glass  at  table,  jesting  and  drolling  upon  himself,  seems 
better  company  than  they  who  are  drunk  and  gluttonized 
together.  Among  the  ancients,  he  made  mention  of  Alex- 
ander, who  after  hard  drinking  was  ashamed  to  resist 
the  importiuiity  of  INIedius,  λυΙιο  invited  him  afresh  to  the 
drinking  of  wine,  of  which  he  died  ;  and  of  our  time,  of 
Regulus  the  wrestler,  who,  being  called  by  break  of  day 
by  Titus  Caesar  to  the  bath,  went  and  washed  Avith  him, 
and  drinking  but  once  (as  they  say)  was  seized  with  an 
apoplexy,  and  died  immediately.  These  things  Glaucus 
in  laughter  objected  to  as  pedantic.  He  was  not  over-fond 
of  hearing  farther,  nor  indeed  were  we  of  discoursing 
more.  But  do  you  give  heed  to  every  thing  that  was 
said. 

6.  First,  Socrates  advises  us  to  beΛvare  of  such  meats 
as  persuade  a  man  to  eat  them  though  he  be  not  hungry, 
and  of  those  drinks  that  would  prevail  with  a  man  to  drink 
them  Avhen  he  is  not  thirsty.  Not  that  he  absolutely  for- 
bade us  the  use  of  them ;  but  he  taught  that  we  might  use 
them  Λvhere  there  Avas  occasion  for  it,  suiting  the  pleasure 
of  them  to  our  necessity,  as  cities  converted  the  money 
which  was  designed  for  the  festivals  into  a  supply  for  war. 
For  that  which  is  agreeable  by  nature,  so  long  as  it  is  a 
part  of   our  nourishment,  is  proper  for  us.      He  that  is 

*  See  Eurip.  Medea,  290. 


256     EULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

hungry  sliould  eat  necessary  food  and  find  it  pleasant ;  but 
when  he  is  freed  from  his  common  appetite,  he  ought  not 
to  raise  up  a  fresh  one.  For,  as  dancing  was  no  unpleasant 
exercise  to  Socrates  himself,  so  he  that  can  make  his  meal 
of  sweetmeats  or  a  second  course  receives  the  less  damajre. 
But  he  that  has  taken  already  what  may  sufficiently  satisfy 
his  nature  ought  by  all  means  to  avoid  them.  And  con- 
cerning these  things,  indecorum  and  ambition  are  no  less 
to  be  avoided  than  the  love  of  pleasure  or  gluttony.  For 
these  often  persuade  men  to  eat  without  hunger  or  drink 
without  thirst,  possessing  them  with  base  and  trouble- 
some fancies,  as  if  it  were  indecent  not  to  taste  of  every 
thing  Avhicli  is  either  a  rarity  or  of  great  price,  as  udder, 
Italian  mushrooms,  Samian  cakes,  or  snow  in  Egypt. 
Again,  these  often  incite  men  to  eat  things  rare  and  much 
talked  of,  they  being  led  to  it,  as  it  were,  by  the  scent  of 
vain-glory,  and  making  their  bodies  to  partake  of  them 
without  any  necessity  of  it,  that  they  may  have  something 
to  tell  others,  who  shall  admire  their  having  eaten  such 
rare  and  superfluous  things.  And  thus  it  is  with  them  in 
relation  to  fine  women  ;  when  they  are  in  bed  with  their 
ΟΛνη  wives,  however  beautiful  and  loving  they  may  be,  they 
are  no  Avay  concerned  ;  but  on  Phryne  or  Lais  they  bestow 
their  money,  inciting  an  infirm  and  unfit  body,  and  pro- 
voking it  to  intemperate  pleasures,  and  all  this  out  of  a 
vain-glorious  humor.  Phryne  herself  said  in  her  old  age, 
that  she  sold  her  lees  and  dregs  the  dearer  because  she 
had  been  in  such  repute  when  she  was  young. 

7.  It  is  indeed  a  great  and  miraculous  thing  that,  if  we 
allow  the  body  all  the  pleasures  Λvhich  nature  needs  and 
can  bear,  —  or  rather,  if  we  struggle  against  its  appetites 
on  most  occasions  and  put  it  off,  and  are  at  last  brouglit 
with  difficulty  to  yield  to  its  necessities,  or  (as  Plato  saith) 
give  way  when  it  bites  and  strains  itself,  —  after  all  we 
should  come  off  without  harm.     But,  on  the  other  hand. 


EULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     257 

those  desires  which  descend  from  the  mind  into  the 
body,  and  urge  and  force  it  to  obey  and  accompany  them 
in  all  their  motions  and  affections,  must  of  necessity  leave 
behind  them  the  greatest  and  severest  ills,  as  the  effects  of 
such  infirm  and  dark  delii^hts.  The  desire  of  our  mind 
ought  no  ways  to  incite  our  bodies  to  any  pleasure,  for  the 
beginning  of  this  is  against  nature.  And  as  the  tickling 
of  one's  armpits  forces  a  laughter,  which  is  neither  mode- 
rate nor  merry,  nor  indeed  properly  a  laughter,  but  ratl;er 
troublesome  and  like  convulsions ;  so  those  pleasures 
Avhich  the  molested  and  disturbed  body  receives  from  the 
mind  are  furious,  troublesome,  and  wholly  strangers  to 
nature.  Therefore  when  any  rare  or  noble  dish  is  before 
you,  you  Avill  get  more  honor  by  refraining  from  it  than 
partaking  of  it.  Remember  what  Simonides  said,  that  he 
never  repented  that  he  had  held  his  tongue,  but  often  that 
he  had  spoken ;  so  Λve  shall  not  repent  that  we  have 
refused  a  good  dish  or  drunk  water  instead  of  Falernian, 
but  the  contrary.  We  are  not  only  to  commit  no  violence 
on  Nature  ;  but  when  any  of  those  things  are  offered  to 
her,  even  if  she  has  a  desire  for  them,  Ave  ought  oftentimes 
to  direct  the  appetite  to  a  more  innocent  and  accustomed 
diet,  that  she  may  be  used  to  it  and  acquainted  Avith  it  ; 
for  as  the  Theban  said  (though  not  over  honestly),  If  the 
law  must  be  violated,  it  looks  best  when  it  is  done  for  an 
empire.*  But  we  say  better,  if  we  are  to  take  pride  in  any 
such  thing,  it  is  best  when  it  is  in  that  moderation  which 
conduces  to  our  health.  But  a  narrowness  of  soul  and  a 
stingy  humor  compel  some  men  to  keep  under  and  defraud 
their  genius  at  home,  \vho,  when  they  enjoy  the  costly  fare 
of  another  man's  table,  do  cram  themselves  as  eagerly  as 
if  it  were  all  plunder  ;  then  they  are  taken  ill,  go  home, 
and  the  next  day  find  the  crudity  of  their  stomachs  the 
reward  of  their  unsatiableness.     AVherefore  Crates,  sup- 

*  Eteocles  the  Theban,  in  Eurip.  Phoeniss.  524. 
VOL.   I.  17 


258     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

posing  that  luxury  and  prodigality  Avere  the  chief  cause 
of  seditions  and  insurrections  in  a  city,  in  a  droll  advises 
that  we  should  never  go  beyond  a  lentil  in  our  meals,  lest 
we  bring  ourselves  into  sedition.  But  let  every  one  exhort 
himself  not  to  increase  his  meal  beyond  a  lentil,  and  not  to 
pass  by  cresses  and  olives  and  fall  upon  pudding  and  fish, 
thyit  he  may  not  by  his  over-eating  bring  his  body  into 
tumults,  disturbances,  and  diarrhoeas ;  for  a  mean  diet 
keeps  the  appetite  within  its  natural  bounds,  but  the  arts 
of  cooks  and  confectioners,  with  their  elaborate  dishes  and 
aromatic  sauces,  do  (according  to  the  comedian)  push  for- 
Avard  and  enlarge  the  bounds  of  pleasure,  and  entrench 
upon  those  of  our  profit.  I  know  not  how  it  comes  to 
pass  that  we  should  abominate  and  hate  those  women  that 
either  bewitch  or  give  philters  to  their  husbands,  and  yet 
give  our  meat  and  drink  to  our  slaves  and  hirelings,  to  all 
but  corrupt  and  poison  them.  For  though  that  may  seem 
too  severe  which  was  said  by  Arcesilaus  against  lascivious 
and  adulterous  persons,  that  it  signifies  little  which  way 
one  goes  about  such  beastly  Avork  ;  *  yet  it  is  not  much 
from  our  purpose.  For  what  difference  is  there  (to  speak 
ingenuously)  whether  satyrion  moves  and  whets  my  lust, 
or  my  taste  is  irritated  by  the  scent  of  the  meat  or  the 
sauce,  so  that,  like  a  part  infected  with  itch,  it  shall  always 
need  scratching  and  tickling  1 

8.  But  we  shall  perhaps  discourse  against  pleasures  in 
another  place,  and  show  the  beauty  and  dignity  that  tem- 
perance has  within  itself ;  but  our  present  discourse  is  in 
praise  of  many  and  great  pleasures.  For  diseases  do  not 
either  rob  or  spoil  us  of  so  much  business,  hope,  journeys, 
or  exercise,  as  they  do  of  pleasure  ;  so  that  it  is  no  way 
convenient  for  those  who  would  follow  their  pleasure  to 
neglect  their  health.  There  are  diseases  which  will  permit 
a  man  to   study  philosophy  and   to  exercise  any  military 

*  Μηδέν  δια<^ίρευν  όπισθεν  τίνα  η  ίμπροσθεν  είναι  κίναιδον. 


UTILES  FOR  THE   TRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.  259 

office,  nay,  to  act  the  kingly  part.  But  the  pleasures  and 
enjoyments  of  the  body  are  such  as  cannot  be  born  alive 
in  the  midst  of  a  distempei  .  or  if  they  are,  the  pleasures 
they  afford  are  not  only  short  and  impure,  but  mixed  with 
much  alloy,  and  they  bear  the  marks  of  that  storm  and 
tempest  out  of  which  they  rise.  Venus  herself  delights 
not  in  a  gorged,  but  in  a  calm  and  serene  body  ;  and 
pleasure  is  tlie  end  of  that,  as  Λνβΐΐ  as  it  is  of  meat  and 
drink.  Health  is  to  pleasure  as  still  weather  to  the  hal- 
cyon, giving  it  a  safe  and  commodious  birth  and  nest. 
Prodicus  seems  elegantly  enough  to  have  said,  that  of  all 
sauces  fire  was  the  best ;  but  most  true  it  is  to  say,  that 
health  gives  things  the  most  divine  and  grateful  relish.  For 
meat,  whether  it  be  boiled,  roasted,  or  stewed,  has  no 
pleasure  or  gusto  in  it  to  a  sick,  surfeited,  or  nauseous 
stomach.  But  a  clean  and  undebauched  appetite  renders 
every  thing  sweet  and  delightful  to  a  sound  body,  and  (as 
Homer  expresses  it)  devourable. 

9.  As  Demades  told  the  Athenians,  who  unseasonably 
made  war,  that  they  never  treated  of  peace  but  in  mourn- 
ing, so  we  never  think  of  a  moderate  and  slender  diet  but 
when  we  are  in  a  fever  or  under  a  course  of  physic.  But 
when  we  are  in  these  extremities,  we  diligently  conceal  our 
enormities,  though  we  remember  them  well  enough  ;  yet  as 
many  do,  we  lay  the  blame  of  our  illness  now  upon  the  air, 
now  upon  the  unhealthfulness  of  the  place  or  the  length 
of  a  journey,  to  take  it  off  from  that  intemperance  and 
luxury  Avhich  was  the  cause  of  it.  As  Lysimachus,  when 
he  Avas  amono;  the  Scvthians  and  constrained  bv  his  thirst, 
delivered  up  himself  and  his  army  into  captivity,  but  after- 
wards, drinking  cold  water,  cried  out,  Ο  ye  Gods  !  for  how 
short  a  pleasure  have  I  thrown  away  a  great  felicity !  —  so 
in  our  sickness,  w^e  ought  to  consider  with  ourselves  that, 
for  the  sake  of  a  draught  of  cold  water,  an  unseasonable 
bath,  or  good  company,  we  spoil  many  of  our  delights  as 


260     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

well  as  our  honorable  business,  and  lose  many  pleasant 
diversions.  The  remorse  that  arises  from  these  considera- 
tions wounds  the  conscience,  and  sticks  to  us  in  our  health 
like  a  scar,  to  make  us  more  cautious  as  to  our  diet.  For 
a  healthful  body  does  not  breed  any  enormous  appetite,  or 
such  as  we  cannot  prevail  Avith  or  overcome.  But  we 
ought  to  put  on  resolution  against  our  extravagant  desires 
or  efforts  towards  enjoyment,  esteeming  it  a  low  and  child- 
ish thing  to  give  ear  to  their  complaints  and  murmurings  ; 
for  they  cease  as  soon  as  the  cloth  is  taken  away,  and  will 
neither  accuse  you  of  injustice,  nor  think  you  have  done 
them  wrong ;  but  on  the  contrary,  you  Avill  find  them  the 
next  day  pure  and  brisk,  no  way  clogged  or  nauseating.  As 
Timotheus  said,  when  he  had  had  a  light  philosophic  dinner 
the  other  day  with  Plato  in  the  Academy,  They  who  dine 
with  Plato  never  complain  the  next  morning.  It  is  re- 
ported that  Alexander  said,  when  he  had  turned  off  his 
usual  cooks,  that  he  carried  always  better  with  him  ;  for 
his  journeys  by  night  recommended  his  dinner  to  him,  and 
the  slenderness  of  his  dinner  recommended  his  supper. 

10.  I  am  not  ignorant  that  fevers  seize  men  upon  a 
fatigue  or  excess  of  heat  or  cold.  But  as  the  scent  of  flow- 
ers, which  in  itself  is  but  faint,  if  mixed  Avith  oil  is  more 
strong  and  fragrant ;  so  an  inward  fulness  gives,  as  it  were, 
a  body  and  substance  to  external  causes  and  beginnings  of 
sickness.  For  without  this  they  could  do  no  hurt,  but 
would  vanish  and  fade  away  if  there  were  lowness  of 
blood  and  pureness  of  spirit  to  receive  the  motion,  which 
in  fulness  and  superabundance,  as  in  disturbed  mud,  makes 
all  things  polluted,  troublesome,  and  hardly  recoverable. 
We  ought  not  to  imitate  the  good  mariner  λυΙιο  out  of  cov- 
etousness  loads  his  ship  hard  and  afterwards  labors  hard 
to  throw  out  the  salt  water,  by  first  clogging  and  over- 
charging our  bodies  and  endeavoring  afterwards  to  clear 
them  by  purges  and  clysters  ;  but  we  ought  to  keep  our 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     261 

bodies  in  right  order,  that  if  at  any  time  they  should  be 
oppressed,  their  lightness  may  keep  them  up  like  a  cork. 

11.  We  ought  chiefly  to  be  careful  in  all  predispositions 
and  forewarnings  of  sickness.  For  all  distempers  do  not 
invade  us,  as  Hesiod  expresses  it,  — 

In  silence,  —  for  the  Gods  have  struck  tliem  dumb  ;  * 

but  the  most  of  them  have  ill  digestion  and  a  kind  of  a 
laziness,  which  are  the  forerunners  and  harbingers  that 
give  us  warning.  Sudden  heaviness  and  weariness  tell  us 
a  distemper  is  not  far  off,  as  Hippocrates  aiRnns,by  reason 
(it  seems)  of  that  fulness  which  doth  oppress  and  load  the 
spirit  in  the  nerves.  Some  men,  when  their  bodies  all  but 
contradict  them  and  invite  them  to  a  couch  and  repose, 
through  gluttony  and  love  of  pleasure  throw  themselves 
into  a  bath  or  make  haste  to  some  drinking  meeting,  as  if 
they  were  laying  in  for  a  siege  ;  being  mightily  in  fear  lest 
the  fever  should  seize  them  before  they  have  dined.  Those 
Λνΐιο  pretend  to  more  elegance  are  not  caught  in  this  man- 
ner, but  foolishly  enough ;  for,  being  ashamed  to  own  their 
qualms  and  debauch  or  to  keep  house  all  day,  when  others 
call  them  to  go  with  them  to  the  gymnasium,  they  arise 
and  pull  off  their  clothes  with  them,  doing  the  same  things 
which  they  do  that  are  in  health.  Intemperance  and  ef- 
feminacy make  many  fly  for  patronage  to  the  proverb, 
AVine  is  best  after  Λνΐηο,  and  one  debauch  is  the  Avay  to 
drive  out  another.  This  excites  their  hopes,  and  persuades 
and  urges  them  to  rise  from  their  beds  and  rashly  to  fall 
to  their  wonted  excesses.  Against  which  hope  he  ought 
to  set  that  prudent  advice  of  Cato,  when  he  says  that  great 
things  ought  to  be  made  less,  and  the  lesser  to  be  quite 
left  οΑ";  and  that  it  is  better  to  abstain  to  no  pui-pose  and 
be  at  quiet,  than  to  run  ourselves  into  hazard  by  foicing 
ourselves  either  to  bath  or  dinner.     For  if  there  be  any  ill 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  102. 


262     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH, 

in  it,  it  is  an  injury  to  us  that  we  did  not  Avatch  over  our- 
selves and  refrain ;  but  if  there  be  none,  it  is  no  incon- 
venience to  your  body  to  have  abstained  and  be  made  more 
pure  by  it.  He  is  but  a  child  who  is  afraid  lest  his  friends 
and  servants  should  perceive  that  he  is  sick  either  of  a 
surfeit  or  a  debauch.  He  that  is  ashamed  to  confess  the 
crudity  of  his  stomach  to-day  will  to-morrow  Λvith  shame 
confess  that  he  has  either  a  diarrhoea,  a  fever,  or  the 
griping  in  the  guts.  You  think  it  is  a  disgrace  to  want, 
but  it  is  a  greater  disgrace  to  bear  the  crudity,  heaviness,  and 
fulness  of  your  body,  when  it  has  to  be  carried  into  the 
bath,  like  a  rotten  and  leaky  boat  into  the  sea.  As  some 
seamen  are  ashamed  to  live  on  shore  when  there  is  a  storm 
at  sea,  yet  when  they  are  at  sea  lie  shamefully  crying  and 
retching  to  vomit ;  so  in  any  suspicion  or  tendency  of  the 
body  to  any  disease,  they  think  it  an  indecorum  to  keep 
their  bed  one  day  and  not  to  have  their  table  spread,  yet 
most  shamefully  for  many  days  together  are  forced  to  be 
purged  and  plastered,  flattering  and  obeying  their  physi- 
cians, asking  for  Avine  or  cold  water,  being  forced  to  do 
and  say  many  unseasonable  and  absurd  things,  by  reason 
of  the  pain  and  fear  they  are  in.  Those  therefore  who 
cannot  govern  themselves  on  account  of  pleasures,  but 
yield  to  their  lusts  and  are  carried  away  by  them,  may 
opportunely  be  taught  and  put  in  mind  that  they  receive 
the  greatest  share  of  their  pleasures  from  their  bodies. 

12.  And  as  the  Spartans  gave  the  cook  vinegar  and  salt, 
and  bade  him  look  for  the  rest  in  the  victim,  so  in  our 
bodies,  the  best  sauce  to  whatsoever  is  brought  before  us  is 
that  our  bodies  are  pure  and  in  health.  For  any  thing  tliat 
is  sweet  or  costly  is  so  in  its  own  nature  and  apart  from 
any  thing  else  ;  but  it  becomes  sweet  to  the  taste  only  wlien 
it  is  in  a  body  which  is  delighted  with  it  and  which  is  dis- 
posed as  nature  doth  require.  But  in  those  bodies  which 
are  foul,  surfeited,  and  not  pleased  with  it,  it  loses  its  beauty 


KULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     2G3 

and  convenience.  Wherefore  we  need  not  be  concerned 
whether  fish  be  fresh  or  bread  fine,  or  whether  the  bath  be 
warm  or  your  she-friend  a  beauty  ;  but  whether  you  are 
not  squeamish  and  foul,  whether  you  are  not  disturbed  and 
do  not  feel  the  dregs  of  yesterday's  debauch.  Otherwise 
it  will  be  as  when  some  drunken  revellers  break  into  a 
house  where  they  are  mourning,  bringing  neither  mirtli  nor 
pleasure  with  them,  but  increasing  the  lamentation.  So 
Venus,  meats,  baths,  and  wines,  in  a  body  that  is  crazy  and 
out  of  order,  mingled  with  what  is  vitiated  and  corrupted, 
stir  up  phlegm  and  choler,  and  create  great  trouble  ;  neither 
do  they  bring  any  pleasure  that  is  answerable  to  their  ex- 
pectations, or  worth  either  enjoying  or  speaking  of. 

13.  A  diet  which  is  very  exact  and  precisely  according 
to  rule  puts  one's  body  both  in  fear  and  danger  ;  it  hinders 
the  gallantry  of  our  soul  itself,  makes  it  suspicious  of  every 
thing  or  of  having  to  do  with  any  thing,  no  less  in  pleasures 
than  in  labors  ;  so  that  it  dares  not  undertake  any  thing 
boldly  and  courageously.  We  ought  to  do  by  our  body  as 
by  the  sail  of  a  ship  in  fair  and  clear  weather:  —  we  must 
not  contract  it  and  draw  it  in  too  much,  nor  be  too  remiss 
or  negligent  about  it  when  we  have  any  suspicion  upon  us, 
but  give  it  some  allowance  and  make  it  pliable  (as  we  have 
said),  and  not  wait  for  crudities  and  diarrhoeas,  or  heat  or 
drowsiness,  by  which  some,  as  by  messengers  and  appari- 
tors, are  frighted  and  moderate  themselves  when  a  fever  is 
at  hand ;  but  Ave  must  long  beforehand  guard  against  the 
storm,  as  if  the  north  wind  blew  at  sea. 

14.  It  is  absurd,  as  Democritus  says,  by  the  croaking  of 
ravens,  the  crowing  of  a  cock,  or  the  wallowing  of  a  sow 
in  the  mire,  rarefully  to  observe  the  signs  of  windy  or  rainy 
weather,  and  not  to  prevent  and  guard  ourselves  against 
the  motions  and  fluctuations  of  our  bodies  or  the  indica- 
tion of  a  distemper,  nor  to  understand  the  signs  of  a  storm 
which  is  just  ready  to  break  forth  within  ourselves.     So 


264     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

th  it  we  are  not  only  to  observe  our  bodies  as  to  meat  and 
exercise,  whether  they  use  them  more  shiggishly  or  unwill- 
ingly than  they  were  wont ;  or  whether  we  be  more  thirsty 
and  hungry  than  we  use  to  be  ;  but  Λve  are  also  to  take  care 
as  to  our  sleep,  whether  it  be  continued  and  easy,  or 
whether  it  be  irregular  and  convulsive.  For  absurd  dreams 
and  irregular  and  unusual  fantasies  show  either  abun- 
dance or  thickness  of  humors,  or  else  a  disturbance  of  the 
spirits  within.  For  the  motions  of  the  soul  shoAV  that  the 
body  is  nigh  a  distemper.  For  there  are  despondencies  of 
mind  and  fears  that  are  without  reason  or  any  apparent 
cause,  which  extinguish  our  hopes  on  a  sudden.  Some 
there  are  that  are  sharp  and  prone  to  anger,  whom  a  little 
thing  makes  sad  ;  and  these  cry  and  are  in  great  trouble 
when  ill  vapors  and  fumes  meet  together  and  (as  Plato  says) 
are  intermingled  in  the  ways  and  passages  of  the  soul. 
ΛVherefore  those  to  whom  such  things  happen  must  con- 
sider and  remember,  that  even  if  there  be  nothing  spiritual, 
there  is  some  bodily  cause  which  needs  to  be  brought  away 
and  purged. 

15.  Besides,  it  is  profitable  for  him  who  visits  his  friends 
in  their  sickness  to  enquire  after  the  causes  of  it.  Let  us  not 
sophistically  or  impertinently  discourse  about  lodgements, 
irruptions  of  blood,  and  commonplaces,  merely  to  show 
our  skill  in  the  terms  of  art  which  are  used  in  medicine. 
But  when  we  have  with  diligence  heard  such  trivial  and 
common  things  discoursed  of  as  fulness  or  emptiness, 
weariness,  lack  of  sleep,  and  (above  all)  the  diet  which  the 
patient  kept  before  he  fell  sick,  then,  —  as  Plato  used  to 
ask  himself,  after  the  miscarriage  of  other  men  he  had 
been  with,  Am  not  1  also  such  a  one  ?  —  so  ought  we  to 
take  care  by  our  neighbor's  misfortunes,  and  diligently  to 
beware  that  we  do  not  fall  into  them,  and  afterwards  cry 
out  upon  our  sick-bed.  How  precious  above  all  other  things 
is  health !     When  another  is  in  sickness,  let  it  teach  us 


SULES  FOR   THL•   PRESERVATION   OF   HEALTH.  265 

how  valuable  a  treasure  health  is,  which  we  ought  to  keep 
and  preserve  Avith  all  possible  care.  Neither  will  it  be 
amiss  for  every  man  to  look  into  his  own  diet.  If  therefore 
Ave  have  been  eating,  drinking,  laboring,  or  doing  any  thing 
to  excess,  and  our  bodies  give  us  no  suspicion  or  hint  of  a 
distemper,  yet  ought  we  nevertheless  to  stand  υ,ροη  our 
guard  and  take  care  of  ourselves,  —  if  it  be  after  venery 
and  labor,  by  giving  of  ourselves  rest  and  quiet ;  if  after 
drinking  of  wine  and  feasting,  by  drinking  of  water ;  but 
especially,  after  we  have  fed  on  flesh  or  solid  meats  or  eaten 
divers  things,  by  abstinence,  that  we  may  leave  no  super- 
fluity in  our  bodies  ;  for  these  very  things,  as  they  are  the 
cause  of  many  diseases,  likewise  administer  matter  and 
force  to  other  causes.  Wherefore  it  was  very  well  said, 
that  to  eat  —  but  not  to  satiety,  to  labor  —  but  not  to  weari- 
ness, and  to  keep  in  nature,  are  of  all  things  the  most 
healthful.  For  intemperance  in  venery  takes  away  that 
by  Avhich  vigor  our  nourishment  is  elaborated,  and  causes 
more  superfluity  and  redundance. 

16.  But  Ave  shall  begin  and  treat  of  each  of  these,  and 
first  we  shall  discourse  of  those  exercises  which  are  proper 
for  a  scholar.  And  as  he  that  said  he  sliould  prescribe 
nothing  for  the  teeth  to  them  that  dwelt  by  the  seaside 
taught  them  the  benefit  of  the  sea-water,  so  one  would 
think  that  there  was  no  need  of  writing  to  scholars  con- 
cerning exercise.  For  it  is  Avonderful  what  an  exercise  the 
daily  use  of  speech  is,  not  only  as  to  health  but  even  to 
strength.  I  mean  not  fleshly  and  athletic  health,  or  such 
as  makes  one's  external  parts  firm,  like  the  outside  of  a 
house,  but  such  as  gives  a  right  tone  and  inward  vigor  to 
the  vital  and  noble  parts.  And  that  the  vital  spirit  in- 
creases strength  is  made  plain  by  them  avIio  anointed  the 
wrestlers,  who  commanded  them,  when  their  limbs  were 
rubbed,  to  withstand  such  frictions  in  some  sort,  in  holding 
their  wind,  observing  carefully  those   parts   of  the   body 


266  RULES   FOll   THE   PRESERVATION   OF   HEALTH. 

which  were  smeared  and  rubbed*  Now  the  voice,  being 
a  motion  of  the  spirit,  not  superficially  but  firmly  seated 
in  the  boAvels,  as  it  Avere  in  a  fountain,  increases  the  heat, 
thins  the  blood,  purges  every  vein,  opens  all  the  arteries, 
neither  does  it  permit  the  coagulation  or  condensation  of 
anv  superfluous  humor,  which  would  settle  like  dregs  in 
those  vessels  which  receive  and  work  our  nourishment. 
AVherefore  we  ought  by  much  speaking  to  accustom  our- 
selves to  this  exercise,  and  make  it  familiar  to  us  ;  and  if 
we  suspect  that  our  bodies  are  weaker  or  more  tired  than 
ordinary,  by  reading  or  reciting.  For  what  riding  in  a 
coach  is  comparediΛvith  bodily  exercise,  that  is  reading 
compared  with  disputing,  if  you  carry  your  voice  softly  and 
low,  as  it  Avere  in  the  chariot  of  another  man's  words. 
For  disputes  bring  Avith  them  a  vehemence  and  contention, 
adding  the  labor  of  the  mind  to  that  of  the  body.  All 
passionate  noise,  and  such  as  would  force  our  lungs,  ought 
to  be  avoided  ;  for  irregular  and  violent  strains  of  our  voice 
may  break  something  within  us,  or  bring  us  into  convul- 
sions. But  when  a  student  has  either  read  or  disputed, 
before  he  walks  abroad,  he  ought  to  make  use  of  a  gentle 
and  tepid  friction,  to  open  the  pores  of  his  body,  as  much  as 
is  possible,  even  to  his  very  bowels,  that  so  his  spirits  may 
gently  and  quietly  diffuse  themselves  to  the  extreme  parts 
of  his  body.  The  bounds  that  this  friction  ought  not  to 
exceed  are,  that  it  be  done  no  longer  than  it  is  pleasant  to 
our  sense  and  without  pain.  For  he  that  so  allays  the  dis- 
turbance which  is  Λvithin  himself  and  the  agitation  of  his 
spirits  ΛνΠΙ  not  be  troubled  by  that  superfluity  which  re- 
mains in  him  ;  and  if  it  be  unseasonable  for  to  Avalk,  or  if 
his  business  hinder  him,  it  is  no  great  matter;  for  nature 
has  already  received  satisfaction.  Whether  one  be  at  sea 
or  in  a  public  inn,  it  is  not  necessary  that  he  should  be 

*  The  text  of  this  passage  is  uncertain,  and  probably  corrupt.     I  have  given 
Holland's  version  of  the  doubtful  expressions.     (G.) 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     267 

silent,  though  all  the  company  laugh  at  him.  For  where 
it  is  no  shame  to  eat,  it  is  certainly  no  shame  to  exercise 
yourself ;  but  it  is  worse  to  stand  in  awe  of  and  be  troubled 
with  seamen,  carriers,  and  innkeepers,  that  laugh  at  you 
not  because  you  play  at  ball  or  tight  a  shadow,  but  because 
in  your  discourse  you  exercise  yourself  by  teaching  others, 
or  by  enquiring  and  learning  something  yourself,  or  else  by 
calling  to  mind  something.  For  Socrates  said,  he  that 
uses  the  exercise  of  dancing  had  need  have  a  room  big 
enough  to  hold  seven  beds  ;  but  he  that  makes  either  sing- 
ing or  discourse  his  exercise  may  do  it  either  standing  or 
lying  in  any  place.  But  this  one  thing  we  must  observe, 
that  Λvhen  we  are  conscious  to  ourselves  that  we  are  too 
full,  or  have  been  concerned  with  Venus,  or  labored  hard, 
we  do  not  too  much  strain  our  voice,  as  so  many  rhetori- 
cians and  readers  in  philosophy  do,  some  of  whom  out  of 
glory  and  ambition,  some  for  reward  or  private  contentions, 
have  forced  themselves  beyond  what  has  been  convenient. 
Our  Niger,  Λνΐιοη  he  Λvas  teaching  philosophy  in  Galatia, 
by  chance  sAvallowed  the  bone  of  a  fish  ;  but  a  stranger 
coming  to  teach  in  his  place,  Niger,  fearing  he  might  run 
away  with  his  repute,  continued  to  read  his  lectures,  though 
the  bone  still  stuck  in  his  throat ;  from  whence  a  great  and 
hard  inflammation  arising,  he,  being  unable  to  undergo  the 
pain,  permitted  a  deep  incision  to  be  made,  by  Avhicli  wound 
the  bone  was  taken  out ;  but  the  wound  growing  worse, 
and  rheum  falling  upon  it,  it  killed  him.  Cut  this  may  be 
mentioned  hereafter  in  its  proper  place. 

17.  After  exercise  to  use  a  cold  bath  is  boyish,  and  has 
more  ostentation  in  it  than  health  ;  for  though  it  may  seem 
to  harden  our  bodies  and  make  them  not  so  subject  to  out- 
ward accidents,  yet  it  does  more  prejudice  to  the  inward 
parts,  by  hindering  transpiration,  fixing  the  humors,  and 
condensing  those  vapors  which  love  freedom  and  trans- 
piration.    Besides,  necessity  Avill  force  those  who  use  cold 


268     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

baths  into  that  exact  and  accurate  way  of  diet  they  Avould 
so  much  avoid,  and  make  them  take  care  they  be  not  in  the 
least  extravagant,  for  every  such  error  is  sure  to  receive 
a  bitter  reproof.  But  a  Avarm  bath  is  much  more  pardon- 
able, for  it  does  not  so  much  destroy  our  natural  \igoY  and 
strength  as  it  does  conduce  to  our  health,  laying  a  soft  and 
easy  foundation  for  concoction,  preparing  those  things  for 
digestion  which  are  not  easily  digested  without  any  pain 
(if  they  be  not  very  crude  and  deep  lodged),  and  freeing 
us  from  all  inward  weariness.  But  when  we  do  sensibly 
perceive  our  bodies  to  be  indifferent  well,  or  as  they  ought 
to  be,  we  should  omit  bathing,  and  anoint  ourselves  by  the 
fire  ;  which  is  better  if  the  body  stand  in  need  of  heat,  for 
it  dispenses  a  warmth  throughout.  But  we  should  make 
use  of  the  sun  more  or  less,  as  the  temper  of  the  air  per- 
mits. So  much  may  suffice  to  have  been  said  concerning 
exercises. 

18.  As  for  what  has  been  said  of  diet  before,  if  any  part 
of  it  be  profitable  in  instructing  us  how  we  should  allay 
and  bring  down  our  appetites,  there  yet  remains  one  thing 
more  to  be  advised :  that  if  it  be  troublesome  to  treat  one's 
belly  like  one  broke  loose,  and  to  contend  with  it  though 
it  has  no  ears  (as  Cato  said),  then  ought  Ave  to  take  care 
that  the  quality  of  what  we  eat  may  make  the  quantity 
more  light ;  and  we  should  eat  cautiously  of  such  food  as 
is  solid  and  most  nourishing  (for  it  is  hard  always  to  re- 
fuse it),  such  as  flesh,  cheese,  dried  figs,  and  boiled  eggs  ; 
but  more  freely  of  those  things  which  are  thin  and  light, 
such  as  moist  herbs,  fowl,  and  fish  if  it  be  not  too  fat  ;  for 
he  that  eats  such  things  as  these  may  gratify  his  appetite, 
and  yet  not  oppress  his  body.  But  ill  digestion  is  chiefly 
to  be  feared  after  flesh,  for  it  presently  very  much  clogs  us 
and  leaves  ill  relics  behind  it.  It  would  be  best  to  accus- 
tom one's  self  to  eat  no  flesh  at  all,  for  the  earth  affords 
plenty  enough  of  things  fit  not  only  for  nourishment,  but 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     269 

for  delight  and  enjoyment ;  some  of  which  you  may  eat 
without  much  preparation,  and  others  you  may  make 
pleasant  hy  adding  divers  other  things  to  them.  But  since 
custom  is  almost  a  second  nature,  we  may  eat  flesh,  but 
not  to  the  cloying  of  our  appetites,  like  Λvolves  or  lions, 
but  only  to  lay  as  it  were  a  foundation  and  bulwark  for  our 
nourishment,  —  and  then  come  to  other  meats  and  sauces 
which  are  more  agreeable  to  the  nature  of  our  bodies  and 
do  less  dull  our  rational  soul,  which  seems  to  be  enlivened 
by  a  light  and  brisk  diet. 

19.  As  for  liquids,  we  should  never  make  milk  our  drink, 
but  rather  take  it  as  food,  it  yielding  much  solid  nourish- 
ment. As  for  wine,  we  must  say  to  it  what  Euripides 
said  to  Venus  :  — 

Tliy  joys  with  moderation  I  would  have, 
And  tliat  I  ne'er  may  want  tliem  liumbly  crave. 

For  wine  is  the  most  beneficial  of  all  drinks,  the  pleas- 
antest  medicine  in  the  world,  and  of  all  dainties  the  least 
cloying  to  the  appetite,  provided  more  regard  be  given  to 
the  opportunity  of  the  time  of  drinking  it  than  even  to  its 
being  properly  mixed  with  water.  Water,  not  only  when 
it  is  mixed  with  wine,  but  also  if  it  be  drunk  by  itself 
between  mixed  wine  and  water,  makes  the  mingled  wine 
the  less  hurtful.  We  should  accustom  ourselves  therefore 
in  our  daily  diet  to  drink  two  or  three  glasses  of  water, 
which  will  allay  the  strength  of  the  wine,  and  make  drink- 
ing of  water  familiar  to  our  body,  that  so  in  a  case  of 
necessity  it  may  not  be  looked  on  as  a  stranger,  and  we  be 
offended  at  it.  It  so  falls  out,  that  some  have  then  the 
greatest  inclination  for  wine  when  there  is  most  need  they 
should  drink  water ;  for  such  men,  when  they  have  been 
exposed  to  great  heat  of  the  sun,  or  have  fallen  into  a 
chill,  or  have  been  speaking  vehemently,  or  have  been 
more  than  ordinarily  thoughtful  about  any  thing,  or  after 
any  fatigue  or  labor,  are  of  the  opinion  that  they  ought  to 


270  RULES   roil   THE   PRESERVATION   OF  HEALTH 

drink  wine,  as  if  nature  required  some  repose  for  the  body 
and  some  diversion  after  its  .labors.  But  nature  requires 
no  such  repose  (if  you  will  call  pleasure  repose),  but  de- 
sires only  such  an  alteration  as  shall  be  between  pleasure 
and  pain  ;  in  which  case  we  ought  to  abate  of  our  diet, 
and  either  wholly  abstain  from  wine,  or  drink  it  allayed 
with  very  much  mixture  of  water.  For  Avine,  being  sharp 
and  fiery,  increases  the  disturbances  of  the  body,  exasper- 
ates them,  and  wounds  the  parts  affected  ;  which  stand 
more  in  need  of  being  comforted  and  smoothed,  which 
Avater  does  the  best  of  any  thing.  If,  when  we  are  not 
thirsty,  we  drink  warm  water  after  labor,  exercise,  or  heat, 
yve  find  our  inward  parts  loosened  and  smoothed  by  it ;  for 
the  moisture  of  water  is  gentle  and  not  violent,  but  that  of 
wine  carries  a  great  force  in  it,  which  is  no  ways  agree- 
able in  the  fore-mentioned  cases.  And  if  any  one  should 
be  afraid  that  abstinence  would  bring  upon  the  body  that 
acrimony  and  bitterness  which  some  say  it  will,  he  is  like 
those  children  who  think  themselves  much  Avronged  because 
they  may  not  eat  just  before  the  fit  of  a  fever.  The  best 
mean  between  both  these  is  drinking  of  Avater.  We  often- 
times sacrifice  to  Bacchus  himself  without  wine,  doing  very 
well  in  accustoming  ourselves  not  to  be  always  desirous 
of  wine.  Minos  made  the  pipe  and  the  crown  be  laid  aside 
at  the  sacrifice  when  there  was  mourning.  And  yet  we 
know  an  aflflicted  mind  is  not  at  all  affected  by  either  the 
pipe  or  crown  ;  but  there  is  no  body  so  strong,  to  Avhich,  in 
commotion  or  a  fever,  wine  does  not  do  a  great  deal  of 
injury. 

20.  The  Lydians  are  reported  in  a  famine  to  have  spent 
one  day  in  eating,  and  the  next  in  sports  and  drollery.  But 
a  lover  of  learning  and  a  friend  to  the  Muses,  when  at  any 
time  he  is  forced  to  sup  later  than  ordinary,  will  not  be  so 
much  a  slave  to  his  belly  as  to  lay  aside  a  geographical 
scheme  when  it  is  before  him,  or  his  book,  or  his  lyre ;  but 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     271 

strenuously  turning  himself,  and  taking  his  mind  off  from 
eating,  he  will  in  the  Muses'  name  drive  away  all  such  de- 
sires, as  so  many  Harpies,  from  his  table.  \Vill  not  the 
Scythian  in  the  midst  of  his  cups  oftentimes  handle  his 
bow  and  twang  the  string,  thereby  rousing  up  himself  from 
that  drunkenness  in  which  he  was  immersed  ?  Will  a 
Greek  be  afraid,  because  he  is  laughed  at,  by  books  and 
letters  gently  to  loosen  and  unbend  any  blind  and  obstinate 
desire  ?  The  young  men  in  Menander,  when  they  were 
drinking,  were  trepanned  by  a  bawd,  which  brought  in  to 
them  a  company  of  handsome  and  richly  attired  women ; 
but  every  one,  as  he  said. 

Cast  down  liis  eyes  and  fell  to  junketing, — 

not  one  daring  to  look  upon  them.  Lovers  of  learmng 
have  many  fair  and  pleasant  diversions,  if  they  can  no 
other  Avay  keep  in  their  canine  and  brutisli  appetites 
when  they  see  the  table  spread.  The  bawling  of  such  fel- 
lows as  anoint  wrestlers,  and  the  opinion  of  pedagogues 
that  it  hinders  our  nourishment  and  dulls  one's  head  to 
discourse  of  learning  at  table,  are  indeed  of  some  force 
then,  when  we  are  called  upon  to  solve  a  fallacy  like  the 
Indus  or  to  dispute  about  the  Kyrieuon  at  a  feast.  For 
though  the  pith  of  the  palm-tree  is  very  sweet,  yet  they 
say  it  will  cause  the  headache.  To  discourse  of  logic  at 
meals  is  not  indeed  a  very  delicious  banquet,  is  rather 
troublesome,  and  pains  one's  head  ;  but  if  there  be  any 
who  will  not  give  us  leave  to  discourse  philosophically  or 
ask  any  question  or  read  any  thing  at  table,  though  it  be 
of  those  things  which  are  not  only  decent  and  profitable 
but  also  pleasantly  merry,  we  will  desire  them  not  to 
trouble  us,  but  to  talk  in  this  style  to  the  athletes  in  the 
Xystum  and  the  Palaestra,  who  have  laid  aside  their  books 
and  are  wont  to  spend  their  whole  time  in  jeers  and  scur- 
rilous jests,  being,  as  Aristo  wittily  expresses  it.  smooth 
and  hard,  like  the  pillars  in  the  gymnasium.     But  we  must 


'272     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

obey  our  pliysicians,  who  advise  us  to  keep  some  interval 
between  supper  and  sleep,  and  not  to  heap  up  together  a 
great  deal  of  victuals  in  our  stomachs  and  so  shorten  our 
breath  (lest  we  presently  by  crude  and  fermenting  aliment 
overcharge  our  digestion),  but  rather  to  take  some  space 
and  breathing-time  before  we  sleep.  As  those  who  have 
a  mind  to  exercise  themselves  after  supper  do  not  do  it  by 
running  or  wrestling,  but  rather  by  gentle  exercise,  such 
as  walking  or  dancing ;  so  when  we  intend  to  exercise  our 
minds  after  supper,  we  are  not  to  do  it  with  any  thing  of 
business  or  care,  or  with  those  sophistical  disputes  which 
bring  us  into  a  vain-glorious  and  violent  contention.  But 
there  are  many  questions  in  natural  philosophy  Avhich  are 
easy  to  discuss  and  to  decide  ;  there  are  many  disquisitions 
Avhich  relate  to  manners,  which  please  the  mind  (as  Homer 
expresses  it)  and  do  no  Λvay  discompose  it.  Questions  in 
history  and  poetry  have  been  by  some  ingeniously  called 
a  second  course  to  a  learned  man  and  a  scholar.  There 
are  discourses  which  are  no  way  troublesome  ;  and,  besides, 
iiibles  may  be  told.  Nay,  it  is  easier  to  discourse  of  the 
pipe  and  lyre,  or  hear  them  discoursed  of,  than  it  is  to 
hear  either  of  them  played  on.  The  quantity  of  time 
allowed  for  this  exercise  is  till  our  meat  be  gently  settled 
within  us,  so  that  our  digestion  may  have  power  enough 
to  master  it. 

21.  Aristotle  is  of  opinion  that  to  walk  after  supper  stirs 
up  our  natural  heat ;  but  to  sleep,  if  it  be  soon  after,  chokes 
it.  Others  again  say  that  rest  aids  digestion,  and  that  mo- 
tion disturbs  it.  Hence  some  walk  immediately  after  supper  ; 
others  choose  rather  to  keep  themselves  still.  But  that 
man  seems  to  obtain  the  design  of  both,  who  cherishes  and 
keeps  his  body  quiet,  not  immediately  suffering  his  mind 
to  become  heavy  and  idle,  but  (as  has  been  said)  gently 
distributing  and  lightening  his  spirits  by  either  hearing  or 
speaking  some  pleasant  thing,  such  as  will  neither  molest 
nor  oppress  him. 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     273 

22.  Medicinal  vomits  and  purges,  which  are  the  bitter 
reliefs  of  gluttony,  are  not  to  be  attempted  without  great 
necessity.  The  manner  of  many  is  to  fill  themselves  be- 
cause they  are  empty,  and  again,  because  they  are  full,  to 
empty  themselves  contrary  to  nature,  being  no  less  tor- 
mented with  being  full  than  being  empty  ;  or  rather,  they 
are  troubled  at  their  fulness,  as  being  a  hindrance  of  their 
appetite,  and  are  always  emptying  themselves,  that  they 
may  make  room  for  new  enjoyment.  The  damage  in  these 
cases  is  evident ;  for  the  body  is  disordered  and  torn  by 
both  these.  It  is  an  inconvenience  that  always  attends 
a  vomit,  that  it  increases  and  gives  nourishment  to  this 
insatiable  humor.  For  it  engenders  hunger,  as  violent  and 
turbulent  as  a  roaring  torrent,  which  continually  annoys  a 
man,  and  forces  him  to  his  meat,  not  like  a  natural  appe- 
tite that  calls  for  food,  but  rather  like  inflammation  that 
calls  for  plasters  and  physic.  Wherefore  his  pleasures  are 
short  and  imperfect,  and  in  the  enjoyment  are  very  furious 
and  unquiet ;  upon  which  there  come  distentions,  and 
affections  of  the  pores,  and  retentions  of  the  spirits,  Avhich 
will  not  wait  for  the  natural  evacuations,  but  run  over  the 
surface  of  the  body,  so  that  it  is  like  an  overloaded  ship, 
Λvhere  it  is  more  necessary  to  throw  something  overboard 
than  to  take  any  thing  more  in.  Those  disturbances  in  our 
bellies  which  are  caused  by  physic  corrupt  and  consume 
our  inward  parts,  and  do  rather  increase  our  superfluous 
humors  than  bring  them  away  ;  which  is  as  if  one  that  was 
troubled  at  the  number  of  Greeks  that  inhabited  the  city, 
should  call  in  the  Arabians  and  Scythians. 

Some  are  so  much  mistaken  that,  in  order  that  they  may 
void  their  customary  and  natural  superfluities,  they  take 
Cnidian-berries  or  scammony,  or  some  other  harsh  and  in- 
congruous physic,  which  is  more  fit  to  be  carried  away  by 
purge  than  it  is  able  to  purge  us.  It  is  best  therefore  by  a 
moderate  and  regular  diet  to  keep  our  body  in  order,  so 

vr»T.     r  io 


274     EULES  FOE  THE  PEESEEVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

that  it  may  command  itself  as  to  fulness  or  emptiness.  If 
at  any  time  there  be  a  necessity,  we  may  take  a  vomit,  but 
Avithout  physic  or  much  tampering,  and  such  a  one  as  will 
not  cause  any  great  disturbance,  only  enough  to  save  us 
from  indigestion  by  casting  up  gently  what  is  superfluous. 
For  as  linen  cloths,  when  they  are  washed  with  soap  and 
nitre,  are  more  worn  out  than  when  they  are  washed  with 
water  only,  so  physical  vomits  corrupt  and  destroy  the 
body.  If  at  any  time  we  are  costive,  there  is  no  medicine 
better  than  some  sort  of  food  which  will  purge  you  gently 
and  with  ease,  the  trial  of  which  is  familiar  to  all,  and  the 
use  without  any  pain.  But  if  it  will  not  yield  to  those,  we 
may  drink  water  for  some  days,  or  fast,  or  take  a  clyster, 
rather  than  take  any  troublesome  purging  physic ;  which 
most  men  are  inclined  to  do,  like  that  sort  of  women 
which  take  things  on  purpose  to  miscarry,  that  they  may 
be  empty  and  begin  afresh. 

23.  But  to  be  done  with  these,  there  are  some  on  the 
other  .side  who  are  too  exact  in  enjoining  themselves  to 
periodical  and  set  fasts,  doing  amiss  in  teaching  nature  to 
want  coercion  Avhen  tliere  is  no  occasion  for  it,  and  mak- 
ing that  abstinence  necessary  which  is  not  so,  and  all  this 
at  times  when  nature  requires  her  accustomed  way  of  liv- 
ing. It  is  better  to  use  those  inj mictions  we  lay  upon  our 
bodies  with  more  freedom,  even  when  we  have  no  ill  symp- 
tom or  suspicion  upon  us  ;  and  so  to  order  our  diet  (as  has 
been  said),  that  our  bodies  may  be  always  obedient  to  any 
change,  and  not  be  enslaved  or  tied  up  to  one  manner  of 
living,  nor  so  exact  in  regarding  the  times,  numbers,  and 
periods  of  our  actions.  For  it  is  a  life  neither  safe,  easy, 
politic,  nor  like  a  man,  but  more  like  the  life  of  an  oyster 
or  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  to  live  so  without  any  variety,  and 
in  restraint  as  to  our  meat,  abstinence,  motion,  and  rest ; 
casting  ourselves  into  a  gloomy,  idle,  solitary,  unsociable, 
and   inglorious   way   of  living,   far  remote   from    the    ad- 


1 


RULES  FOR  THE  TRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     275 

mmistration  of  the  state, — at  least  (I  may  say)  in  my 
opinion. 

24.  For  health  is  not  to  be  purchased  by  sloth  and  idle- 
ness, for  those  are  chief  inconveniences  of  sickness  ;  and 
there  is  no  difference  between  him  who  thinks  to  enjoy  his 
health  by  idleness  and  quiet,  and  him  who  thinks  to  pre- 
serve his  eyes  by  not  using  them,  and  his  voice  by  not 
speaking.  For  such  a  man's  health  will  not  be  any  ad- 
vantage to  him  in  the  performance  of  many  things  he  is 
obliged  to  do  as  a  man.  Idleness  can  never  be  said  to  con- 
duce to  health,  for  it  destroys  the  very  end  of  it.  Ί^ογ  is 
it  true  that  they  are  the  most  healthful  that  do  least.  For 
Xenocrates  was  not  more  healthful  than  Phocion,  or  Theo- 
phrastus  than  Demetrius.  It  signified  nothing  to  Epicurus 
or  his  followers,  as  to  that  so  much  talked  of  good  habit 
of  body,  that  they  declined  all  business,  though  it  were 
never  so  honorable.  AVe  ought  to  preserve  the  natural 
constitution  of  our  bodies  by  other  means,  knowing  every 
part  of  our  life  is  capable  of  sickness  and  health. 

The  contrary  advice  to  that  which  Plato  gave  his  schol- 
ars is  to  be  given  to  those  Λνΐιο  are  concerned  in  public 
business.  For  he  was  wont  to  say,  whenever  he  left  his 
school ;  Go  to,  my  boys,  see  that  you  employ  your  leisure 
in  some  honest  sport  and  pastime.  Now  to  those  that  are 
in  public  office  our  advice  is,  that  they  bestow  their  labor 
on  honest  and  necessary  things,  not  tiring  their  bodies  with 
small  or  inconsiderable  things.  For  most  men  upon  acci- 
dent torment  themselves  with  watchings,  journeyings,  and 
running  up  and  down,  for  no  advantage  and  Avith  no  good 
design,  but  only  that  they  may  do  others  an  injury,  or  be- 
cause they  envy  them  or  are  competitors  with  them,  or 
because  they  hunt  after  unprofitable  and  empty  glory.  To 
such  as  these  I  think  Democritus  chiefly  spoke,  when  he 
said,  that  if  the  body  should  summon  the  soul  before  a 
court  on  an  action  for  ill-treatment,  the  soul  would  lose  the 


276     RULES  FOR  THE  TRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

case.  And  perhaps  on  the  other  hand  Theophrastus  spoke 
Avell,  when  he  said  metaphorically,  that  the  soul  pays  a 
dear  house-rent  to  its  landlord  the  body.  But  still  the 
body  is  very  much  more  inconvenienced  by  the  soul,  when 
it  is  used  beyond  reason  and  there  is  not  care  enough  taken 
of  it.  For  when  it  is  in  passion,  action,  or  any  concern, 
it  does  not  at  all  consider  the  body.  Jason,  being  some- 
what out  of  humor,  said,  that  in  little  things  we  ought  not 
to  stand  upon  justice,  so  that  in  greater  things  we  may  be 
sure  to  do  it.  ΛΥο,  and  that  in  reason,  advise  any  public 
man  to  trifle  and  play  with  little  things,  and  in  such  cases 
to  indulge  himself,  so  that  in  worthy  and  great  concerns 
he  may  not  bring  a  dull,  tired,  and  Λveary  body,  but  one 
that  is  the  better  for  having  lain  still,  like  a  ship  in  the 
dock,  that  when  the  soul  has  occasion  again  to  call  it  into 
business,  "  it  may  run  with  her,  like  a  sucking  colt  with 
the  mare." 

25.  Upon  which  account,  Avhen  business  gives  us  leave, 
we  ought  to  refresh  our  bodies,  grudging  them  neither 
sleep  nor  dinner  nor  that  ease  which  is  the  medium  be- 
tween pain  and  pleasure  ;  not  taking  that  course  which 
most  men  do,  who  thereby  wear  out  their  bodies  by  the 
many  changes  they  expose  them  to,  making  them  like  hot 
iron  thrown  into  cold  Λvater,  by  softening  and  troubling 
them  Λvith  pleasures,  after  they  have  been  very  much 
strained  and  oppressed  Λvith  labor.  And  on  the  other 
side,  after  they  have  opened  their  bodies  and  made  them 
tender  either  by  wine  or  venery,  they  exercise  them  either 
at  the  bar  or  at  court,  or  enter  upon  some  other  business 
which  recpiires  earnest  and  vigorous  action.  Heraclitus, 
Avhen  he  was  in  a  dropsy,  desired  his  physician  to  bring  a 
drought  upon  his  body,  for  it  had  a  glut  of  rain.  Most 
men  are  very  much  in  the  wrong  who,  after  being  tired  or 
having  labored  or  fasted,  moisten  (as  it  were)  and  dissolve 
their  bodies  in  pleasure,  and  again  force  and  distend  them 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     277 

after  those  pleasures.  Nature  does  not  require  that  we 
should  make  the  body  amends  at  that  rate.  But  an  intem- 
perate and  slavish  mind,  so  soon  as  it  is  free  from  labor, 
like  a  sailor,  runs  insolently  into  pleasures  and  deliglits, 
and  again  falls  upon  business,  so  that  nature  can  have  no 
rest  or  leave  to  enjoy  that  temper  and  calmness  which 
it  does  desire,  but  is  troubled  and  tormented  by  all  this 
irregularity.  Those  that  have  any  discretion  never  so  much 
as  offer  pleasure  to  the  body  when  it  is  laboring,  —  for  at 
such  times  they  do  not  require  it  at  all,  —  nor  do  they  so 
much  as  think  of  it,  theii•  minds  being  intent  upon  that 
employ  they  are  in,  either  the  delight  or  diligence  of  the 
soul  getting  the  mastery  over  all  other  desires.  Epamin- 
ondas  is  reported  wittily  to  have  said  of  a  good  man  that 
died  about  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Leuctra,  How  came 
he  to  have  so  much  leisure  as  to  die,  when  there  was  so 
much  business  stirring  ?  It  may  truly  be  asked  concerning 
a  man  that  is  either  of  public  employ  or  a  scholar.  What 
time  can  such  a  man  spare,  either  to  debauch  his  stomach 
or  be  drank  or  lascivious  ?  For  such  men,  after  they  have 
done  their  business,  allow  quiet  and  repose  to  their  bodies, 
reckoning  not  only  unprofitable  pains  but  unnecessary 
pleasures  to  be  enemies  to  nature,  and  avoiding  them  as 
such. 

26.  I  have  heard  that  Tiberius  Caesar  was  wont  to  say, 
that  he  Avas  a  ridiculous  man  that  held  forth  his  hand  to 
a  physician  after  sixty.  But  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a  little 
too  severely  said.  But  this  is  certain,  that  CA^ery  man 
ought  to  have  skill  in  his  own  pulse,  for  it  is  very  different 
in  every  man  ;  neither  ought  he  to  be  ignorant  of  the  tem- 
per of  his  own  body,  as  to  heat  and  cold,  or  what  things 
do  him  good,  and  what  hurt.  For  he  has  no  sense,  and  is 
both  a  blind  and  lame  inhabitant  of  his  body,  that  must 
learn  these  things  from  another,  and  must  ask  his  physi- 
cians whether  it  is  better  with  him  in  winter  or  summer  ; 


278     RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH. 

or  whether  moist  or  dry  things  agree  best  with  him, 
or  whether  his  pulse  be  frequent  or  slow.  For  it  is  neces- 
sary and  easy  to  know  such  things  by  custom  and  expe- 
rience. It  is  convenient  to  understand  more  what  meats 
and  drinks  are  wholesome  than  what  are  pleasant,  and  to 
have  more  skill  in  Avhat  is  good  for  the  stomach  than  in 
what  seems  good  to  the  mouth,  and  in  those  things  that 
are  easy  of  digestion  than  in  those  that  gratify  our  palate. 
For  it  is  no  less  scandalous  to  ask  a  physician  what  is  easy 
and  what  is  hard  of  digestion,  and  what  Avill  agree  with 
your  stomach  and  what  not,  than  it  is  to  ask  what  is  sweet, 
and  what  bitter,  and  Avhat  sour.  They  nowadays  correct 
their  cooks,  being  able  well  enough  to  tell  what  is  too 
sweet,  too  salt,  or  too  sour,  but  themselves  do  not  know 
what  will  be  light  or  easy  of  digestion,  and  agreeable  to 
them.  Therefore  in  the  seasoning  of  broth  they  seldom 
err,  but  they  do  so  scurvily  pickle  themselves  every  day  as  to 
afford  work  enough  for  the  physician.  For  that  pottage 
is  not  accounted  best  that  is  the  sweetest,  but  they  mingle 
bitter  and  sweet  together.  But  they  force  tlie  body  to  par- 
take of  many,  and  those  cloying  pleasures,  either  not  know- 
ing, or  not  remembering,  that  to  things  that  are  good  and 
wholesome  nature  adds  a  pleasure  unmingled  with  any 
regret  or  repentance  afterward.  We  ought  also  to  know 
Avhat  things  are  cognate  and  convenient  to  our  bodies,  and 
be  able  to  direct  a  proper  diet  to  any  one  upon  any  change 
of  weather  or  other  circumstance. 

27.  As  for  those  inconveniences  Avhich  sordidness  and 
poverty  bring  upon  many,  as  gathering  of  fruit,  continual 
labor,  and  running  about,  and  want  of  rest,  Avhich  fall 
heavy  upon  the  weaker  parts  of  the  body  and  such  as  are 
inwardly  infirm,  we  need  not  fear  that  any  man  of  employ 
or  scholar  —  to  whom  our  present  discourse  belongs  —  should 
be  troubled  with  them.  But  there  is  a  severe  sort  of  sordid- 
ness as  to  their  studies,  which  they  ought  to  avoid,  by  which 


RULES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  HEALTH.     279 

they  are  forced  many  times  to  neglect  their  body,  oftentimes 
denying  it  a  supply  when  it  has  done  its  Avork,  making  the 
mortal  part  of  us  do  its  share  in  work  as  well  as  the  im- 
mortal, and  the  earthly  part  as  much  as  the  heavenly.  But, 
as  the  ox  said  to  his  fellow-servant  the  camel,  when  he 
refused  to  ease  him  of  his  burthen.  It  won't  be  long  before 
you  carry  my  burthen  and  me  too :  which  fell  out  to  be 
true,  when  the  ox  died.  So  it  happens  to  the  mind,  when 
it  refuses  that  little  relaxation  and  comfort  which  it  needs 
in  its  labor  ;  for  a  little  while  after  a  fever  or  vertigo  seizes 
us,  and  then  reading,  discoursing,  and  disputing  must  be 
laid  aside,  and  it  is  forced  to  partake  of  the  body's  dis- 
temper. Plato  therefore  rightly  exhorts  us  not  to  employ 
the  mind  without  the  body,  nor  the  body  without  the  mind, 
but  to  drive  them  equally  like  a  pair  of  horses  ;  and  when 
at  any  time  the  body  toils  and  labors  with  the  mind,  then 
to  be  the  more  careful  of  it,  and  thus  to  gain  its  well- 
beloved  health,  believing  that  it  obliges  us  with  the  best 
of  things  when  it  is  no  impediment  to  our  knowledge 
and  enjoyment  of  virtue,  either  in  business  or  discourse. 


HOW  A  MAN  MAY  RECEIVE  ADVANTAGE  AND 
PROFIT  FROM  HIS  ENEMIES. 


Not  to  mention,  Cornelius  Pulcher,  your  gentle  as 
well  as  skilful  administration  of  public  affairs,  for  which 
goodness  and  humanity  you  have  gotten  an  interest  in  man- 
kind, Λνο  clearly  perceive  that  in  your  private  conversation 
you  have  made  a  quiet  and  peaceable  way  of  living  your 
choice  and  continual  practice.  By  this  means  you  are 
justly  esteemed  a  useful  member  of  the  commonwealth  in 
general,  and  also  a  friendly  affable  companion  to  those  who 
familiarly  converse  with  you,  as  being  a  person  free  from 
all  sour,  rough,  and  peevish  humors.  For,  as  it  is  said  of 
Crete,  we  may  by  great  chance  discover  one  single  region 
of  the  world  that  never  afforded  any  dens  or  coverts  for 
wild  beasts.  But  through  the  long  succession  of  ages, 
even  to  this  time,  there  scarce  ever  was  a  state  or  king- 
dom that  hath  not  suffered  under  envy,  hatred,  emulation, 
the  love  of  strife,  fierce  and  unruly  passions,  of  all  others 
the  most  productive  of  enmity  and  ill-will  among  men. 
Nay,  if  nothing  else  will  bring  it  to  pass,  familiarity  will 
at  last  breed  contempt,  and  the  very  friendship  of  men 
doth  frequently  draw  them  into  quarrels,  that  prove  sharp 
and  sometimes  implacable.  Which  that  wise  man  Chilo 
did  well  understand,  ΛνΙιο,  when  he  heard  another  assert 
that  he  had  no  enemy,  asked  him  very  pertinently  whether 
he  had  no  friend.  In  my  judgment  therefore  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  that  a   man,  especially  if  he   sit  at  the 


now  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         281 

helm  and  be  engaged  to  steer  the  government,  should 
AvatchfuUy  observe  every  posture  and  motion  of  his  enemy, 
and  subscribe  to  Xenophon's  opinion  in  this  case  ;  who 
hath  set  it  down  as  a  maxim  of  the  greatest  wisdom,  that 
a  man  should  make  the  best  advantage  he  can  of  him 
that  is  his  adversary. 

Wherefore,  having  lately  determined  to  write  somewhat 
on  this  argument,  I  have  now  gathered  together  all  my 
scattered  thoughts  and  meditations  upon  it,  which  I  have 
sent  to  you,  digested  into  as  plain  a  method  as  I  could  ; 
forbearing  all  along  to  mention  those  observations  I  have 
heretofore  made  and  written  in  my  Political  Precepts, 
because  I  know  you  have  that  treatise  at  your  hand,  and 
often  under  your  eye. 

(β.ΊΟιίΐ  ancestors  were  well  satisfied  and  content  if  they 
could  safely  guard  themselves  from  the  violent  incursions 
of  wild  beasts,  and  this  was  the  end  and  object  of  all  their 
contests  with  these  creatures.  But  their  posterity  have 
laid  down  their  weapons  of  defence,  and  have  invented  a 
quite  contrary  use  of  them,  making  them  serviceable  to 
some  of  the  chief  ends  of  human  life.  For  their  flesh 
serves  for  food,  and  their  hair  for  clothing;  medicines  and 
antidotes  are  devised  out  of  their  entrails ;  and  their  skins 
are  converted  into  armor.  So  that  we  may  upon  good 
grounds  fear  that,  if  these  supplies  should  fail,  their  man- 
ner of  life  would  appear  savage,  destitute  of  convenient 
food  and  raiment,  barbarous  and  naked. 

Although  we  receive  these  benefits  and  comforts  from 
the  very  beasts,  yet  some  men  suppose  themselves  happy 
and  secure  enougli,  provided  they  escape  all  harm  from 
enemies,  not  regarding  Xenophon's  judgment,  whom  they 
ought  to  credit  in  this  matter,  that  every  man  endowed 
with  common  sense  and  understanding  may,  if  he  please, 
make  his  opposites  very  useful  and  profitable  to  him. 

Because  then  we  cannot  live  in  this  world  out  of  the 


282  HOW   το   PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES. 

neighborhood  of  such  as  will  continually  labor  to  do  us 
injury  or  oppose  us,  let  us  search  out  some  way  whereby 
this  advantage  and  profit  from  enemies  may  be  acquired. 

The  best  experienced  gardener  cannot  so  change  the 
nature  of  every  tree,  that  it  shall  yield  pleasant  and  well- 
tasted  fruit ;  neither  can  the  craftiest  huntsman  tame  every 
beast.  One  therefore  makes  the  best  use  he  can  of  his 
trees,  the  other  of  his  beast ;  although  the  first  perhaps  are 
barren  and  dry,  the  latter  wild  and  ungovernable.  So  sea- 
water  is  unwholesome  and  not  to  be  drunk  ;  yet  it  aflfords 
nourishment  to  all  sorts  of  fish,  and  serves  as  it  were  for  a 
chariot  to  convey  those  who  visit  foreign  countries.  The 
Satyr  would  have  kissed  and  embraced  the  fire  the  first 
time  he  saw  it ;  but  Prometheus  bids  him  take  heed,  else  he 
miaht  have  cause  to  lament  the  loss  of  his  beard,*  if  he 
came  too  near  that  which  burns  all  it  touches.  Yet  this 
very  fire  is  a  most  beneficial  thing  to  mankind ;  it  bestows 
upon  us  the  blessings  both  of  light  and  heat,  and  serves 
those  who  know  how  to  use  it  for  the  most  excellent  instru- 
ment of  mechanic  arts.  Directed  by  these  examples,  we 
may  be  able  to  take  right  measures  of  our  enemies,  con- 
sidering that  by  one  handle  or  other  we  may  lay  hold 
of  them  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  our  lives ;  though 
otherwise  they  may  appear  very  untractable  and  hurtful 
to  us. 

There  are  many  things  which,  when  we  have  obtained 
them  by  much  labor  and  sweat,  become  nauseous,  un- 
2:rateful,  and  directly  contrary  to  our  inclinations  ;  but 
there  are  some  (you  know)  who  can  turn  the  very  indispo- 
sitions of  their  bodies  into  an  occasion  of  rest  and  freedom 
from  business.      And    hard  pains   that  have   fallen  upon 

*  Τράγος  γένειον  άρα  πενθήσεις  σί  γε,  Τ/ιοη  goat,  soon  thou  shalt  bewail  the  loss  of 
thy  beard.  This  verse  is  supposed  to  belong  to  tlie  Satyrdrama  Prometheus  of 
Aeschylus,  which  was  exhibited  with  the  trilogy  to  which  the  Persians  belong.  Tlie 
whole  tetralogy,  according  to  the  didascalia,  consisted  of  the  Phineus,  Persians, 
Glaucus,  and  Prometheus.     (G.) 


HOW  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         283 

many  men  have  rendered  them  only  the  more  robust 
through  vigorous  exercise.  There  are  others  who.  as 
Diogenes  and  Crates  did,  have  made  banishment  from  their 
native  country  and  loss  of  all  their  goods  a  means  to  pass 
out  of  a  troublesome  world  into  the  quiet  and  serene  state 
of  pliilosophy  and  mental  contemplation.  So  the  Stoic 
Zeno  welcomed  the  good  fortune,  when  he  heard  the  ship 
was  broken  wherein  his  adventures  were,  because  she  had 
reduced  him  to  a  torn  coat,  to  the  safety  and  innocence 
of  a  mean  and  low  condition.  For  as  some  creatures  of 
strong  constitutions  eat  serpents  and  digest  them  well,  — 
nay,  there  are  some  whose  stomachs  can  by  a  strange 
powerful  heat  concoct  shells  or  stones,  —  while  on  the 
contrary,  there  are  the  weak  and  diseased,  who  loathe 
even  bread  and  wine,  the  most  agreeable  and  best  supports 
of  human  life  ;  so  the  foolish  and  inconsiderate  s[)oil  the 
very  friendships  they  are  engaged  in,  but  the  wise  and 
prujdent  make  good  use  of  the  hatred  and  enmity  of  men. 

(βΤ)  To  those  then  who  are  discreet  and  cautious,  the 
most  malignant  and  worst  part  of  enmity  becomes  advan- 
tageous and  useful.  But  what  is  this  you  talk  of  all  this 
while  ]  An  enemy  is  ever  diligent  and  Avatchful  to  con- 
trive stratagems  and  lay  snares  for  us,  not  omitting  any 
opportunity  whereby  he  may  carry  on  his  malicious  pur- 
poses. He  lays  siege  to  our  whole  life,  and  turns  spy  into 
the  most  minute  action  of  it ;  not  as  Lynceus  is  said  to 
look  into  oaks  and  stones,  but  by  arts  of  insinuation  he 
gets  to  the  knowledge  of  our  secrets,  by  our  bosom  friend, 
domestic  servant,  and  intimate  acquaintance.  As  much  as 
possibly  he  can,  he  enquires  what  we  have  done,  and  labors 
to  dive  into  the  most  hidden  counsels  of  our  minds.  Nay, 
our  friends  do  often  escape  our  notice,  either  Avhen  they 
die  or  are  sick,  because  we  are  careless  and  neglect  them ; 
but  we  are  apt  to  examine  and  pry  curiously  almost  into 
the  very  dreams  of  our  enemies. 


284  HOW  το  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES. 

Now  our  enemy  (to  gratify  his  ill-will  towards  us)  doth 
acquaint  himself  with  the  infirmities  both  of  our  bodies  and 
mind,  with  the  debts  we  have  contracted,  and  with  all  the 
differences  that  arise  in  our  families,  all  which  he  knows 
as  well,  if  not  better,  than  ourselves.  He  sticks  fast  to  our 
faults,  and  chiefly  makes  his  invidious  remarks  upon  them. 
Nay,  our  most  depraved  afi"ections,  that  are  the  worst  dis- 
tempers of  our  minds,  are  always  the  subjects  of  his  inquiry  ; 
just  as  vultures  pursue  putrid  flesh,  noisome  and  corrupted 
carcasses,  because  they  have  no  perception  of  those  that 
are  sound  and  in  health.  So  our  enemies  catch  at  our  fail- 
ings, and  then  they  spread  them  abroad  by  uncharitable 
and  ill-natured  reports. 

Hence  we  are  taught  this  useful  lesson  for  the  direction 
and  management  of  our  conversations  in  the  world,  that 
we  be  circumspect  and  wary  in  every  thing  we  speak  or  do, 
as  if  our  enemy  always  stood  at  our  elbow  and  overlooked 
every  action.  Hence  we  learn  to  lead  blameless  and  inof- 
fensive lives.  Tliis  will  beget  in  us  vehement  desires  and 
earnest  endeavors  of  restraining  disorderly  passions.  Tliis 
will  fill  our  minds  with  good  thoughts  and  meditations,  and 
with  strong  resolutions  to  proceed  in  a  virtuous  and  harm- 
less course  of  life. 

For  as  those  commonwealths  and  cities  know  best  how 
to  value  the  happiness  of  having  good  and  wholesome  laws, 
and  most  admire  and  love  the  safety  of  a  quiet  and  peace- 
able constitution  of  things,  Avhich  have  been  harassed  by 
wars  with  their  neighbors  or  by  long  expeditions  ;  so  those 
persons  who  have  been  brought  to  live  soberly  by  tlie  fear 
and  awe  of  enemies,  who  have  learned  to  guard  against 
negligence  and  idleness,  and  to  do  every  thing  with  a  view 
to  some  profitable  end,  are  by  degrees  (they  know  not  how) 
drawn  into  a  habit  of  living  so  as  to  offend  nobody,  and 
their  manners  are  composed  and  fixed  in  their  obedience  to 
vh-tue  by  custom  and  use,  with  very  little  help  from  the 


now  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         285 

reason.  For  they  always  carry  in  their  minds  that  saying 
of  Homer,  if  we  act  any  thing  amiss, 

Priam  will  laugh  at  us,  and  all  his  brood  ; 

onr  enemies  will  please  themselves  and  scoff  at  our  de- 
fects ;  therefore  we  will  do  nothing  that  is  ridiculous,  sinful, 
base,  or  ignoble,  lest  we  become  a  laughing-stock  to  such 
as  do  not  love  us. 

In  the  theatre  Λνο  often  see  great  artists  in  music  and 
singing  very  supine  and  remiss,  doing  nothing  as  they 
should,  whilst  they  play  or  sing  alone  ;  but  whencA^er  they 
challenge  one  another  and  contend  for  masterv,  thev  do 
not  only  rouse  up  themselves,  but  they  tune  their  instru- 
ments more  carefully,  they  are  more  curious  in  the  choice 
of  their  strings,  and  they  try  their  notes  in  frequent  and 
more  harmonious  consorts.  Just  so  a  man  who  hath  an 
adversary  perpetually  to  rival  him  in  the  well  ordering  of 
his  life  and  reputation  is  thereby  rendered  more  prudent 
in  what  he  does,  looks  after  his  actions  more  circumspectly, 
and  takes  as  much  care  of  the  accurateness  of  them  as  the 
musician  does  of  his  lute  or  organ.  For  evil  hath  this 
peculiar  quality  in  it,  that  it  dreads  an  enemy  more  than  a 
friend.  For  this  cause  Nasica,  when  some  thought  the 
Roman  affairs  were  established  for  ever  in  peace  and  safety, 
after  they  had  razed  Carthage  and  enslaved  Greece,  de- 
clared that  even  then  they  were  in  the  greatest  danger  of 
all  and  most  likely  to  be  undone,  because  there  Λvere  none 
left  whom  they  might  still  fear  and  stand  in  some  awe  of. 

ίί^  And  here  may  be  inserted  that  wise  and  facetious 
aiiaAver  of  Diogenes  to  one  that  asked  him  how  he  might 
be  rcA'enged  of  his  enemy :  The  only  way,  says  he,  to  gall 
and  fret  him  effectually  is  for  yourself  to  appear  a  good 
and  honest  man.  The  common  people  are  generally  envi- 
ous and  vexed  in  their  minds,  as  oft  as  they  see  the  cattle 
of  those  they  have  no  kindness  for,  their  dogs,  or  their 
horses,  in  a  thriving  condition  ;    they  sigh,  fret,  set  their 


286  HOW   το   PROFIT   BY   OUR  ENEMIES. 

teeth,  and  show  all  the  tokens  of  a  malicious  temper,  when 
they  behold  their  fields  well  tilled,  or  their  gardens  adorned 
and  beset  Avith  flowers.  If  these  things  make  them  so 
restless  and  uneasy,  Avhat  dost  thou  think  they  Avould  do, 
Avhat  a  torment  would  it  be  to  them,  if  thou  shouldst  de- 
monstrate thyself  in  the  face  of  the  world  to  be  in  all  thy 
carriage  a  man  of  impartial  justice,  a  sound  understanding, 
unblamable  integrity,  of  a  ready  and  eloquent  speech,  sin- 
cere and  upright  in  all  your  dealings,  sober  and  temperate 
in  all  that  you  eat  or  drink  ; 

While  from  the  culture  of  a  prudent  mind, 
Harvests  of  wise  and  noble  thought  you  reap.* 

Those  that  are  conquered,  saith  Pindar,  must  seal  up 
their  lips  ;  they  dare  not  open  their  mouths,  no,  not  even 
to  mutter.•]•  But  all  men  in  these  circumstances  are  not  so 
restrained  ;  but  such  chiefly  as  come  behind  their  opposites 
in  the  practice  of  diligence,  honesty,  greatness  of  mind, 
humanity,  and  beneficence.  These  are  beautiful  and  glo- 
rious virtues,  as  Demosthenes  X  says,  that  are  too  pure  and 
great  to  be  touched  by  an  ill  tongue,  that  stop  the  mouths 
of  backbiters,  choke  them  and  command  them  to  be  silent. 
Make  it  thy  business  therefore  to  surpass  the  base  ;  for  this 
surely  thou  canst  do.  ||  If  we  would  vex  them  that  hate 
us,  we  must  not  reproach  our  adversary  for  an  eff"eminate 
and  debauched  person,  or  one  of  a  boorish  and  filthy  con- 
versation ;  but  instead  of  throwing  this  dirt,  we  ourselves 
must  be  remarkable  for  a  steady  virtue  and  a  well-gov- 
erned behavior  ;  we  must  speak  the  truth,  and  carry 
ourselves  civilly  and  justly  towards  all  who  hold  any  cor- 
respondence or  maintain  any  commerce  with  us.  But  if  at 
any  time  a  man  is  so  transported  by  passion  as  to  utter  any 
bitter  Avords,  he  must  take  heed  that  he  himself  be  not 

*  Aeschyl.  Septem,  593      See  note  on  page  202.     (G.) 
t  Fragment  253.  J  Fals.  Legat.  p.  406,  4. 

II  Eurip.  Orest.  251. 


HOW  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         287 

chargeable  for  those  crimes  for  which  he  upbraids  others  ; 
he  must  descend  into  himself,  examine  and  cleanse  his  own 
breast,  tliat  no  putrefaction  nor  rottenness  be  lodged  there  ; 
otherwise  he  will  be  condemned  as  the  physician  is  by  the 
tragedian :  — 

Wilt  thou  heal  others,  thou  thyself  being  full  of  sores  ?  * 

If  a  man  should  jeer  you  and  say  that  you  are  a  dunce 
and  illiterate,  upon  this  motive  you  ought  to  apply  your 
mind  to  the  taking  of  pains  in  the  study  of  philosophy  and 
all  kinds  of  learning.  If  he  abuses  you  for  a  coward,  then 
raise  up  your  mind  to  a  courageous  manliness  and  an  un- 
daunted boldness  of  spirit.  If  he  tells  you  you  are  lascivious 
and  Λvanton,  this  scandal  may  be  wiped  off  by  having  your 
mind  barred  up  against  all  impressions  of  lust,  and  your 
discourse  free  from  the  least  obscenity.  These  are  allow- 
able returns,  and  the  most  cutting  strokes  you  can  give  your 
enemy  ;  there  being  nothing  that  carries  in  it  more  vexation 
mid  disgrace,  than  that  scandalous  censures  should  fall 
back  upon  the  head  of  him  who  was  the  first  author  of 
them.  For  as  the  beams  of  the  sun  reverberated  do  most 
severely  affect  and  punish  weak  eyes,  so  those  calumnies 
are  most  vexatious  and  intolerable  which  truth  retorts  back 
upon  their  first  broachers.  For  as  the  north-east  wind 
gathers  clouds,  so  does  a  vicious  life  gather  unto  itself  op- 
probrious speeches. 

r^  Insomuch  that  Plato,  when  he  was  in  company  Avith 
any  persons  that  were  guilty  of  unhandsome  actions,  was 
wont  thus  to  reflect  upon  himself  and  ask  this  question. 
Am  I  of  the  like  temper  and  disposition  with  these  men? 
In  like  manner,  whosoever  passes  a  hard  censure  upon  an- 
other man's  life  should  presently  make  use  of  self-exami- 
nation, and  enquire  what  his  own  is  ;  by  which  means  he 
Avill  come  to  know  what  his  failings  are,  and  how  to  amend 

♦  Eurip.  Frag.  No.  1071. 


288  HOW   το   PROFIT   BY   OUR  ENEMIES. 

them.  Thus  the  very  censures  and  backbitings  of  his 
enemy  will  redound  to  his  advantage,  although  in  itself  this 
censorious  humor  is  a  very  vain,  empty,  and  useless  thing. 
For  every  one  will  laugh  at  and  deride  that  man  who  is 
humpbacked  and  baldpated,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
makes  sport  with  the  natural  deformities  of  his  brethren ; 
it  being  a  very  ridiculous  unaccountable  thing  to  scoff  at 
another  for  those  very  imperfections  for  which  you  yourself 
may  be  abused.  As  Leo  Byzantinus  replied  upon  the  hump- 
backed man,  who  in  drollery  reflected  on  the  Aveakness  of 
his  eyes.  You  mock  me  for  a  human  infirmity,  but  you 
bear  the  marks  of  divine  veno^eance  on  vour  own  back. 

Wherefore  no  man  should  arraign  another  of  adultery, 
when  he  himself  is  addicted  to  a  more  bestial  vice.  Neither 
may  one  man  justly  accuse  another  of  extravagance  or  loose- 
ness, Avhen  he  himself  is  stingy  and  covetous.  Alcmaeon 
told  Adrastus,  that  he  was  near  akin  to  a  \voman  that 
killed  her  husband  ;  to  Avhich  Adrastus  gave  a  very  pat  and 
sharp  answer,  —  Thou  Avith  thy  own  hands  didst  murder  thy 
mother.*  After  the  same  sarcastical  way  of  jesting  did 
Domitius  ask  Crassus  whether  he  did  not  weep  for  the 
death  of  the  lamprey  that  was  bred  in  his  fish-pond  ;  to 
which  Crassus  makes  this  present  reply,  —  But  have  I  not 
heard  that  you  did  not  weep  when  you  carried  out  three 
wives  to  their  burial. 

Whence  we  may  infer  that  it  behooves  every  man  who 
takes  upon  him  to  correct  or  censure  another  not  to  be  too 
clamorous  or  merry  upon  his  f\iults,  but  to  be  guilty  of  no 
such  crime  as  may  expose  him  to  the  chastisement  and 
reproach  of  others.  For  the  great  God  seems  to  have  given 
that  commandment  oi  Know  thyself  to  those  men  more  es- 
pecially Avho  are  apt  to  make  remarks  upon  other  men's 
actions  and  forget  themselves.  So,  as  Sophocles  hath  well 
observed,  They  often  hear  that  which  they  Avould  not,  be- 

*  From  the  Adrastus  of  Euripides. 


HOW  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         289 

cause  they  allow  themselves  the  liberty  of  talking  what 
they  please. 

(p\  This  is  the  use  that  may  be  lawfully  made  of  censur- 
ing and  judging  our  enemies  ;  that  we  may  be  sure  we  are 
not  culpable  for  the  same  misdemeanors  Λvhich  Ave  condemn 
in  them.  On  the  contrary,  we  may  reap  no  less  advantage 
from  our  being  judged  and  censured  by  our  enemies.  In 
this  case  Antisthenes  spake  incomparably  well,  that  if  a  man 
would  lead  a  secure  and  blameless  life,  it  was  necessary  that 
he  should  have  either  very  ingenuous  and  honest  friends,  or 
very  furious  enemies,  because  the  first  would  keep  him  from 
sinning  by  their  kind  admonitions,  the  latter  by  their  evil 
words  and  vehement  invectives. 

But  for  as  mucli  as  in  these  times  friendship  is  grown 
almost  speechless,  and  hath  left  off  that  freedom  it  did 
once  use,  since  it  is  loquacious  in  flattery  and  dumb  in 
admonition,  therefore  we  must  expect  to  hear  truth  only 
from  the  mouths  of  enemies.  As  Telephus,  when  he  could 
find  no  physician  that  he  could  confide  in  as  his  friend, 
thought  his  adversary's  lance  would  most  probably  heal  his 
Avound  ;  so  he  that  hath  no  friend  to  give  him  advice  and 
to  reprove  him  in  what  he  acts  amiss  must  bear  patiently 
the  rebukes  of  an  enemy,  and  thereby  learn  to  amend  the 
errors  of  his  ways  ;  considering  seriously  the  object  which 
these  severe  censures  aim  at,  and  not  what  the  person  is 
who  makes  them.  For  as  he  who  designed  the  death  of 
Prometheus  the  Thessalian,  instead  of  giving  the  fatal  blow, 
only  lanced  a  swelHng  that  he  had,  which  did  really  pre- 
sevve  his  life  and  free  him  from  the  hazard  of  approaching 
death  ;  just  so  may  the  harsh  reprehensions  of  enemies  cure 
some  distempers  of  the  mind  that  were  before  either  un- 
known or  neglected,  though  these  angry  speeches  do  origi 
nally  proceed  from  malice  and  ill-Avill.  But  many,  when 
they  are  accused  of  a  crime,  do  not  consider  whether  they 
are  guilty  of  the  matter  alleged  against  them,  but  are  rather 

VOL.    I.  19 


290  HOW   το   PROFIT  BY   OUR  ENEMIES. 

solicitous  whether  the  accuser  hath  nothing  that  may  be 
laid  to  his  charge  ;  like  the  combatants  in  a  match  at  wrest- 
ling, they  take  no  care  to  wipe  off  the  dirt  that  sticks  upon 
them,  but  they  go  on  to  besmear  one  another,  and  in  their 
mutual  strugglings  they  wallow  and  tumble  into  more  dirt 
and  filthiness. 

It  is  a  matter  of  greater  importance  and  concern  to  a 
man  when  he  is  lashed  by  the  slanders  of  an  enemy,  by 
living  Λdrtuously  to  prevent  and  avert  all  objections  that 
may  be  made  against  his  life,  than  it  is  to  scour  the  spots 
out  of  his  clothes  when  they  are  shown  him.  And  even  if 
any  man  with  opprobrious  language  object  to  you  crimes 
you  know  nothing  of,  you  ought  to  enquire  into  the  causes 
and  reasons  of  such  false  accusations,  that  you  may  learn 
to  take  heed  for  the  future  and  be  very  wary,  lest  unwit- 
tingly you  should  commit  those  offences  that  are  unjustly 
attributed  to  you,  or  something  that  comes  near  them. 
Lacydes,  king  of  the  Argives,  was  abused  as  an  effemi- 
nate person,  because  he  wore  his  hair  long,  used  to  dress 
himself  neatly,  and  his  mien  was  finical.  So  Pompey, 
though  he  was  very  far  from  any  effeminate  softness,  yet 
was  reflected  upon  and  jeered  for  being  used  to  scratch  his 
head  with  one  of  his  fingers.  Crassus  also  suffered  much 
in  the  like  kind,  because  sometimes  he  visited  a  vestal  vir- 
gin and  showed  great  attention  to  her,  having  a  design  to 
purchase  of  her  a  little  farm  that  lay  conveniently  for  him. 
So  Postumia  was  suspected  of  unchaste  actions,  and  was 
e\'en  brought  to  trial,  because  she  would  often  be  very 
cheerful  and  discourse  freely  in  men's  company.  But  she 
was  found  clear  of  all  manner  of  guilt  in  that  nature. 
Nevertheless  at  her  dismission,  Spurius  Minucius  the  Ponti- 
fex  Maximus  gave  her  this  good  admonition,  that  her  words 
s]iould  be  always  as  pure,  chaste,  and  modest  as  her  life 
Avas.  Themistocles,  though  he  had  offended  in  nothing, 
Yet  was  suspected  of  treachery  with  Pausanias,  because  he 


now  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         291 

corresponded  familiarly  with  him,  and  used  every  day  to 
send  him  letters  and  messengers. 

n\  Whenever  then  any  thing  is  spoken  against  you  that 
is  not  true,  do  not  pass  it  by  or  despise  it  because  it  is  false, 
but  forthwith  examine  yourself,  and  consider  what  you  have 
said  or  done,  what  you  have  ever  undertaken,  or  what  con- 
verse you  have  ever  had  that  may  have  given  likelihood  to 
the  slander ;  and  when  this  is  discovered,  decline  for  the 
future  all  things  that  may  provoke  any  reproachful  or  foul 
language  from  others. 

For  if  troubles  and  difficulties,  into  which  some  men  fall 
either  by  chance  or  through  their  own  inadvertency  and 
rashness,  may  teach  others  Avhat  is  fit  and  safe  for  them  to 
do,  —  as  Merope  says, 

Fortune  hath  taken  for  her  salary 

My  dearest  goods,  but  wisdom  she  hath  given;* 

why  should  not  we  take  an  enemy  for  our  tutor,  who  will 
instruct  us  gratis  in  those  things  we  knew  not  before  ?  For 
an  enemy  sees  and  understands  more  in  matters  relating  to 
us  than  our  friends  do ;  because  love  is  blind,  as  Plato  f 
says,  in  discerning  the  imperfections  of  the  thing  beloved. 
But  spite,  malice,  ill-will,  wrath,  and  contempt  talk  much, 
are  very  inquisitive  and  quick-sighted.  When  Hiero  was 
upbraided  by  his  enemy  for  having  a  stinking  breath,  he 
returned  home  and  demanded  of  his  wife  why  she  had  not 
acquainted  him  with  it.  The  innocent  good  woman  makes 
this  answer :  I  thought  all  men's  breath  had  that  smell. 
For  those  things  in  men  that  are  conspicuous  to  all  are 
sooner  understood  from  the  information  of  enemies  than 
from  that  of  friends  and  acquaintance. 

ψ\  Furthermore,  an  exact  government  of  the  tongue  is 
a  strong  evidence  of  a  good  mind,  and  no  inconsiderable 
part  of  virtue.  But  since  every  man  naturally  is  desirous 
to  propagate  his  conceits,  and  without  a  painful  force  can» 

*  From  Euripides.  t  Laws,  V.  p.  731  Ε 


292  HOW   το   PROFIT   BY   OUR  ENEMIES. 

not  smother  his  resentments,  it  is  no  easy  task  to  keep 
this  unruly  member  in  due  subjection,  unless  such  an 
impetuous  aifection  as  anger  be  thoroughly  subdued  by 
much  exercise,  care,  and  study.  For  such  things  as  "'  say- 
ing let  fall  against  our  will,"  or  "  a  word  flying  by  the 
range  of  our  teeth,"  *  or  "  a  speech  escaping  us  by  accident," 
are  all  likely  to  happen  to  those  whose  ill-exercised  minds 
(as  it  were)  fall  and  waste  away,  and  whose  course  of  life 
is  licentious  ;  and  we  may  attribute  this  to  hasty  passion 
or  to  unsettled  judgment.  For  divine  Plato  tells  us  that 
for  a  Avord,  which  is  the  lightest  of  all  things,  both  Gods 
and  men  inflict  the  heaviest  penalties. f  But  silence,  Avhich 
can  never  be  called  to  account,  doth  not  only,  as  Hip- 
pocrates hath  observed,  extinguish  thirst,  but  it  bears  up 
against  all  manner  of  slanders  Avith  the  constancy  of 
Socrates  and  the  courage  of  Hercules,  who  was  no  more 
concerned  than  a  fly  at  what  others  said  or  did.  Now  it 
is  certainly  not  grander  or  better  than  this  for  a  man  to 
bear  silently  and  quietly  the  revilings  of  an  enemy,  taking 
care  not  to  provoke  him,  as  if  he  were  swimming  by  a 
dangerous  rock  ;  but  the  practice  is  better.  For  whoso- 
ever is  thus  accustomed  to  endure  patiently  the  scoff's  of  an 
enemy  will,  without  any  disturbance  or  trouble,  bear  with 
the  chidings  of  a  wife,  the  rebukes  of  a  friend,  or  the 
sharper  reproofs  of  a  brother.  When  a  father  or  mother 
corrects  you,  you  will  not  be  refractory  or  stubborn  under 
the  rod.  Xanthippe,  though  she  was  a  woman  of  a  very 
angry  and  troublesome  spirit,  could  never  move  Socrates  to 
a  passion.  By  being  used  to  bear  patiently  this  heavy 
sufferance  at  home,  he  was  ever  unconcerned,  and  not 
in  the  least  moved  by  the  most  scurrilous  and  abusive 
tongues  he  met  withal  abroad.  For  it  is  much  better  to 
overcome  boisterous  passions  and  to  bring  the  mind  into  a 
calm  and  even  frame  of  spirit,  by  contentedly  undergoing 

*  II.  IV.  350.  t  Plato,  Laws,  XI.  p.  935  A. 


HOW  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         293 

the  scoffs,  outrages,  and  afFronts  of  enemies,  than  to  be 
stirred  up  to  choler  or  revenge  by  the  worst  they  can  say 
or  do. 

\  9^  Thus  we  may  show  a  meek  and  gentle  temper  and  a 
suwiiissive  bearing  of  evil  in  our  enmities  ;  and  even  in- 
tegrity, magnanimity,  and  goodness  of  disposition  are  also 
more  conspicuous  here  than  in  friendship.  For  it  is  not  so 
honorable  and  \irtuous  to  do  a  friend  a  kindness,  as  it  is 
umvorthy  and  base  to  omit  this  good  office  when  he  stands 
in  need  ;  but  it  is  an  eminent  piece  of  humanity,  and  a 
manifest  token  of  a  nature  truly  generous,  to  put  up  with 
the  affronts  of  an  enemy  when  you  have  a  fair  opportunity 
to  revenge  them.  For  if  any  one  sympathizes  Avith  his 
enemy  in  his  affliction,  relieves  him  in  his  necessities,  and 
is  ready  to  assist  his  sons  and  family  if  they  desire  it,  any 
one  that  Avill  not  love  this  man  for  his  compassion,  and 
highly  commend  him  for  his  charity,  "  must  have  a  black 
heart  made  of  adamant  or  iron,"  as  Pindar  says. 

When  Caesar  made  an  edict  that  the  statues  of  Pompev 
Avhich  were  tumbled  down  should  be  rebuilt  and  restored 
to  their  former  beauty  and  magnificence,  Tully  tells  him 
that  by  setting  up  again  Pompey's  statues  he  has  erected  one 
for  himself,  an  everlasting  monument  of  praise  and  honor 
to  after  ages.  So  that  we  must  give  to  every  one  his  due, 
to  an  enemy  such  respect  and  honor  as  he  truly  deserves. 
Thus  a  man  that  praises  his  enemy  for  his  real  deserts 
shall  himself  obtain  the  more  honor  by  it ;  and  whenever 
he  shall  correct  or  censure  him,  he  will  be  credited  in  what 
he  does,  because  every  one  will  beheve  that  he  does  it  out 
of  a  dislike  and  just  abhorrence  of  his  vice  and  not  of  his 
person. 

By  this  practice  we  shall  be  brought  at  length  to  ])er- 
form  the  most  honorable  and  ΛVorthy  actions  ;  for  he  who 
is  wont  to  praise  and  speak  the  best  things  of  his  enemies 
will  never  repine  at  the  prosperity  or  success  of  his  friends 


294  HOW   το  PEOFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES. 

and  acquaintance  ;  he  is  never  troubled,  but  rather  rejoices, 
when  they  thrive  and  are  happy.     And  what  virtue  can 
any  man  exercise  that  will  be  more  profitable  and  delight- 
ful  to    him   than  this,  which    takes   away  from   him   the 
bitterness  of  malice,  and  doth  not  only  break  the  teeth  of 
envy,   but,  by  teaching  him  to   rejoice   at  another  man's 
felicity,  doth  double  his  own  enjoyment  and  satisfaction. 
As  in  war  many  things,  although  they  are  bad  and  evil  in 
themselves,  yet  have  become  necessary,  and  by  long  custom 
and  prescription  have  obtained  the  validity  of  a  law,  so 
that  it  is   not  easy  to  root   them  out,  even  by  those  Λνΐιο 
thereby  suffer  much  harm  ;  just  so  doth  enmity  usher  in 
the  mind  a  long  train  of  vices,  meagre  envy  coupled  with 
grim  hatred,  restless  jealousy  and  suspicion,  unnatural  joy 
at  other  men's  miseries,  and  a  long  remembrance  of  injuries. 
Fraud,  deceit,  and  snares,  joined  to  these  forces  of  wicked- 
ness, work  infinite  mischief  in  the  Avorld,  yet  they  appear 
as  no  evils  at  all  when  they  are  exerted  against  an  enemy. 
By  this  means  they  make  a  deep  entrance  into  the  mind  ; 
they  get  fast  hold  of   it,  and   are  hardly  shaken  off.     So 
that,  unless  we  forbear  the  practice  of  these  ill  qualities 
towards  our  enemies,  they  will  by  frequent  acts  become  so 
habitual  to  us,  that  we  shall  be  apt  to  make  use  of  them  to 
the  manifest  wrong  and  injury  of  our  friends.     Wherefore, 
if  Pythagoras  was  highly  esteemed  for  instructing  his  dis- 
ciples to  avoid  all  manner  of  cruelty  against  beasts  them- 
selves,—  so  that  he  himself  would  redeem  them   out   of 
their  captivity  in  either  the  fowler's  or  the  fisherman's  net, 
and  forbade  his  followers  to  kill  any  creature,  —  it  is  surely 
much  better  and  more  manly  in  our  differences  with  men 
to  show  ourselves  generous,  just,  and  detesters  of  all  false- 
hood, and  to  moderate  and  correct  all  base,  unworthy,  and 
hurtful  passions ;  that    in    all    our   conversation  with  our 
friends  we   may  be  open-hearted,  and    that   we    may  not 
seek  to  overreach  or  deceive  others  in  any  of  our  dealings. 


HOW  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         295 

For  Scaurus  was  a  professed  enemy  and  an  open  accuser 
of  Domitius  ;  whereupon  a  treacherous  servant  of  Domi- 
tius  comes  to  Scaurus  before  the  cause  Avas  to  be  heard, 
and  tells  him  that  he  has  a  secret  to  communicate  to  him 
in  relation  to  the  present  suit,  Λvhich  he  knows  not  of,  and 
which  may  be  very  advantageous  on  his  side.  Yet  Scaurus 
would  not  permit  him  to  speak  a  word,  but  apprehended 
him,  and  sent  him  back  to  his  master.  And  when  Cato 
was  prosecuting  Murena  for  bribery,  and  was  collecting 
evidence  to  support  his  charge,  he  was  accompanied 
(according  to  custom)  by  certain  persons  in  the  interest 
of  the  defendant,  who  watched  his  transactions.  These 
often  asked  him  in  the  morning,  whether  he  intended  on 
that  day  to  collect  evidence  or  make  other  preparation  for 
the  trial  ;  and  so  soon  as  he  told  them  he  should  not,  they 
put  such  trust  in  him  that  they  went  their  way.  This  was 
a  plain  demonstration  of  the  extraordinary  deference  and 
honor  they  paid  to  Cato  ;  but  a  far  greater  testimony,  and 
one  surpassing  all  the  rest,  is  it  to  prove  that,  if  Ave  accus- 
tom ourselves  to  deal  justly  and  uprightly  with  our  enemies, 
then  we  shall  not  fail  to  behave  ourselves  so  towards  our 
friends. 

/lO.  Simonides  Avas  wont  to  say  that  there  was  no  lark 
wkhout  its  crest ;  so  the  disposition  of  men  is  naturally 
pregnant  with  strife,  suspicion,  and  envy,  which  last  (as 
Pindar  observes)  is  "  the  companion  of  emply-brained 
men."  Therefore  no  man  can  do  any  thing  that  will 
tend  more  to  his  own  profit  and  the  preservation  of  his 
peace  than  utterly  to  purge  out  of  his  mind  these  corrupt 
affections,  and  cast  them  off  as  the  very  sink  of  all  iniquity, 
that  they  may  create  no  more  mischief  between  him  and 
his  friends.  This  Onomademus,  a  judicious  and  Avise  man, 
understood  well,  who,  when  he  was  of  the  prevailing  side 
in  a  civil  commotion  at  Chios,  gave  this  counsel  to  his 
friends,  that  they  should  not  quite  destroy  or  drive  away 


296  HOW   το   PROFIT   BY   OUR  ENEMIES. 

those  of  the  adverse  party,  but  let  some  abide  there,  for 
fear  they  should  begin  to  fall  out  among  themselves  as 
soon  as  then'  enemies  were  all  out  of  the  way.  Therefore, 
if  these  uneasy  dispositions  of  the  mind  be  spent  and  con- 
sumed upon  enemies,  they  would  neΛ'er  molest  or  disquiet 
our  friends.  Neither  doth  Hesiod  approve  of  one  potter 
or  one  singer's  envying  another,  or  that  a  neighbor  or 
relation  or  brother  should  resent  it  ill  that  another  pros- 
pers and  is  successful  in  the  world.*  But  if  there  be  no 
other  v^'ay  whereby  we  may  be  delivered  from  emulation, 
envy,  or  contention,  we  may  suffer  our  minds  to  vent  these 
passions  upon  the  prosperity  of  our  enemies,  and  whet  the 
edge  and  sharpen  the  point  of  our  anger  upon  them.  For 
as  gardeners  that  have  knowledge  and  experience  in  plants 
expect  their  roses  and  violets  should  grow  the  better  by 
beinof  set  near  leeks  and  onions,  —  because  all  the  sour 
juices  of  the  earth  are  conveyed  into  these,  —  so  an  enemy 
by  attracting  to  himself  our  vicious  and  peevish  qualities, 
may  render  us  less  humorsome  and  more  candid  and  in- 
genuous to  our  friends  that  are  in  a  better  or  more 
happy  state  than  ourselves. 

AAlierefore  let  us  enter  the  lists  with  our  enemies,  and 
contend  Avith  them  for  true  glory,  lawful,  empire,  and  just 
gain.  Let  us  not  so  much  debase  ourselves  as  to  be  troubled 
and  fret  at  any  possessions  they  enjoy  more  than  we  have. 
Let  us  rather  carefully  observe  those  good  qualities  where- 
in our  enemies  excel  us,  so  that  by  these  motives  we  may 
be  excited  to  outdo  them  in  honest  diligence,  indefatigable 
industry,  prudent  caution,  and  exemplary  sobriety  ;  as 
lliemistocles  complained  that  the  victory  Miltiades  got  at 
Marathon  would  not  let  him  sleep.  But  whosoever  views 
his  adversary  exalted  far  above  him  in  dignities,  in  plead- 
ing of  great  causes,  in  administration  of  state  affairs,  or  in 
favor  and  friendship  with  princes,  and  doth  not  put  forth 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  23. 


HOW  TO  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES.         297 

all  his  strength  and  power  to  get  before  him  in  these 
things,  —  this  man  commonly  pines  away,  and  by  degrees 
sinks  into  the  sloth  and  misery  of  an  envious  and  inactive 
life.  And  we  may  observe,  that  envy  and  hatred  do  raise 
such  clouds  in  the  understanding,  that  a  man  shall  not  be 
able  to  pass  a  right  judgment  concerning  things  which  he 
hates  ;  but  whosoever  with  an  impartial  eye  beholds,  and 
with  a  sincere  mind  judges,  the  life  and  manners,  dis- 
courses, and  actions  of  his  enemy,  will  soon  understand 
that  many  of  those  things  that  raise  his  envy  were  gotten 
by  honest  care,  a  discreet  providence,  and  virtuous  deeds. 
Thus  the  love  of  honorable  and  brave  actions  may  be 
kindled  and  advanced  in  him,  and  an  idle  and  lazy  course 
of  life  may  be  contemned  and  forsaken. 

/^l.  But  if  our  enemies  arrive  at  high  places  in  the 
courts  of  princes  by  flattery  or  frauds,  by  bribery  or  gifts, 
we  should  not  be  troubled  at  it,  but  should  rather  be 
pleased  in  comparing  our  undisguised  and  honest  way  of 
living  with  theirs  which  is  quite  contrary.  For  Plato,  who 
was  a  competent  judge,  was  of  opinion  that  virtue  was  a 
more  valuable  treasure  than  all  the  riches  above  the  earth 
or  all  the  mines  beneath  it.  And  we  ought  evermore  to 
have  in  readiness  this  saying  of  Solon  :  *  But  we  will  not 
give  up  our  virtue  in  exchange  for  their  wealth.  So  will 
we  never  give  up  our  virtue  for  the  applause  of  crowded 
theatres,  which  may  be  won  by  a  feast,  nor  for  the  loftiest 
seats  among  eunuchs,  concubines,  and  royal  satraps.  For 
nothing  that  is  worth  any  one's  appetite,  nothing  that 
is  handsome  or  becoming  a  man,  can  proceed  from  that 
which  is  in  itself  evil  and  base.  But,  as  Plato  repeats 
once  and  again,  the  lover  cannot  see  the  fiiults  of  the  thing 
or  person  that  he  loves,  and  we  apprehend  soonest  what 
our  enemies  do  amiss  ;  therefore  we  must  let  neither  our 
joy  at  their  miscarriages  nor  our  sorrow  at  their  successes 

*  Solon,  Frag.  No.  16. 


298         HOW  το  PROFIT  BY  OUR  ENEMIES. 

be  idle  and  useless  to  ourselves,  but  we  are  bound  to  con- 
sider in  both  respects,  how  we  may  render  ourselves  better 
than  they  are,  by  avoiding  what  is  faulty  and  vicious  in 
them,  and  how  we  may  not  prove  worse  than  they,  if  we 
imitate  them  in  what  they  do  excel. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 


1.  As  soon,  Apollonius,  as  I  heard  the  news  of  the  un- 
timely death  of  your  son,  Avho  was  very  dear  to  us  all,  I 
fell  sick  of  the  same  grief  with  you,  and  shared  your  misfor- 
tune with  all  the  tenderness  of  sympathy.  For  he  was  a 
sweet  and  modest  yoiuig  man,  devout  towards  the  Gods, 
obedient  to  his  parents,  and  obliging  to  his  friends  ;  indeed 
doing  all  things  that  were  just.  But  when  the  tears  of  his 
funeral  were  scarcely  dry,  I  thought  it  a  time  very  improper 
to  call  upon  you  and  put  you  in  mind  that  you  should  bear 
this  accident  like  a  man  ;  for  when  this  unexpected  afflic 
tion  made  you  languish  both  in  body  and  mind,  I  considered 
then  that  compassion  was  more  seasonable  than  advice.  For 
the  most  skilful  physicians  do  not  put  a  sudden  stop  to  a 
flux  of  humors,  but  give  them  time  to  settle,  and  then  fo- 
ment the  swelling  by  softening  and  bringing  it  to  a  head 
with  medicines  outwardly  applied. 

2.  So  now  that  a  competent  time  is  past  —  time  which 
brings  all  things  to  maturity  —  since  the  first  surprise  of 
your  calamity,  I  believed  I  should  do  an  acceptable  piece 
of  friendship,  if  I  should  now  comfort  you  with  those 
reasons  which  may  lessen  your  grief  and  silence  your 
complaints. 

Soft  words  alleviate  a  wounded  heart, 
If  you  in  time  will  mitigate  the  smart.* 

*  Aesch.  Prom.  378. 


300  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

Euripides  hath  said  wisely  to  this  purpose :  — 

Our  applications  should  suited  be 

Unto  the  nature  of  tlie  malady  ; 

Of  sorrow  we  should  wipe  the  tender  eyes, 

But  the  immoderate  weeper  should  chas:ise 

For  of  all  the  passions  which  move  and  afflict  the  mind  of 
man,  sorrow  in  its  nature  is  the  most  grievous  ;  in  some 
they  say  it  hath  produced  madness,  others  have  contracted 
incurable  diseases,  and  some  out  of  the  vehemence  of  it 
have  laid  violent  hands  upon  themselves. 

3.  Therefore  to  be  sad,  even  to  an  indisposition,  for  the 
death  of  a  son  proceeds  from  a  principle  of  nature,  and  it  is 
out  of  our  poAver  to  prevent  it.  I  dislike  those  who  boast 
so  much  of  hard  and  inflexible  temper  which  they  call  apa- 
thy, it  being  a  disposition  Λvllich  never  happens  and  never 
could  be  of  use  to  us ;  for  it  would  extinguish  that  soci- 
able love  we  ought  to  have  for  one  another,  and  which  it  is 
so  necessary  above  all  things  to  preserve.  But  to  mourn 
excessively  and  to  accumulate  grief  I  do  afhrm  to  be 
altog^ether  unnatural,  and  to  result  from  a  depraved  opinion 
we  have  of  things  ;  therefore  Ave  ought  to  shun  it  as  de- 
structive in  itself,  and  unworthy  of  a  virtuous  man ;  but  to 
be  moderately  affected  by  grief  we  cannot  condemn.  It 
were  to  be  Avished,  saith  Grantor  the  Academic,  that  we 
could  not  be  sick  at  all  ;  but  when  a  distemper  seizeth 
us,  it  is  requisite  we  should  have  sense  and  feeling  in  case 
any  of  our  members  be  plucked  or  cut  off.  For  that  talked- 
of  apathy  can  never  happen  to  a  man  without  great  detri- 
ment ;  for  as  now  the  body,  so  soon  the  very  mind  would 
be  λγ'ύά  and  savage. 

4.  Therefore  in  such  accidents,  it  is  but  reasonable  that 
they  who  are  in  their  right  senses  should  avoid  both  ex- 
tremes, of  being  Avithout  any  passion  at  all  and  of  having 
too  much  ;  for  as  the  one  argues  a  mind  that  is  obstinate 
and  fierce,  so  the  other  doth  one  that  is  soft  and  effeminate. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  301 

He  therefore  hath  cast  up  his  accounts  the  best,  Avho,  con- 
fining himself  within  due  bounds,  hath  such  ascendant  over 
his  temper,  as  to  bear  prosperous  and  adverse  fortune  with 
the  same  equaUty,  \vhichsoever  it  is  that  happens  to  him 
in  this  hfe.  He  puts  on  those  resokitions  as  if  he  Avere  in 
a  popuhir  government  where  magistracy  is  decided  by  lot ; 
if  it  luckily  falls  to  his  share,  he  obeys  his  fortune,  but  if 
it  passeth  him,  he  doth  not  repine  at  it.  So  we  must  sub- 
mit to  the  dispensation  of  human  affairs,  Avithout  being 
uneasy  and  querulous.  Those  who  cannot  do  this  Avant 
prudence  and  steadiness  of  mind  to  bear  more  happy  cir- 
cumstances ;  for  amongst  other  things  which  are  prettily 
said,  this  is  one  remarkable  precept  of  Euripides :  — 

If  Fortune  prove  extravagantly  kind, 
Above  its  (emper  do  not  raise  tiiy  mind  ; 
If  she  disclaims  thee  like  a  jilting  dame, 
Be  not  dejected,  but  be  still  the  same, 
Like  gold  unchanged  amidst  the  hottest  flame. 

For  it  is  the  part  of  a  wise  and  well-educated  man,  not 
to  be  transported  beyond  himself  with  any  prosperous 
events,  and  so,  when  the  scene  of  fortune  changeth,  to 
observe  still  the  comeliness  and  decency  of  his  morals.  For 
it  is  the  business  of  a  man  that  lives  by  rule,  either  to  pre- 
vent an  evil  that  threatens  him,  or,  when  it  is  come,  to 
qualify  its  malignity  and  make  it  as  little  as  he  can,  or  put 
on  a  masculine  brave  spirit  and  so  resolve  to  endure  it. 
For  there  are  four  ways  that  prudence  concerns  herself 
about  any  thing  that  is  good  ;  she  is  either  industrious  to 
acquire  or  careful  to  preserve,  she  either  augments  or 
useth  it  Avell.  These  are  the  measures  of  prudence,  and 
consequently  those  of  all  other  virtues,  by  which  we  ought 
to  square  ourselves  in  either  fortune. 

For  no  man  lives  who  always  happy  is.* 

And,  by  Jove,  you  should  not  hinder  what  ought  to  be 
done.  — 

*  From  the  Stheneboea  of  Euripides,  Frag.  0  i2. 


302  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

Those  things  which  in  their  nature  ought  to  be.* 

5.  For,  as  amongst  trees  some  are  very  thick  Avith  fruit, 
and  some  bear  none  at  all ;  amongst  living  creatures  some 
are  very  prolific,  and  some  barren  ;  and  as  in  the  sea  there 
is  alternate  vicissitude  of  calms  and  tempests,  so  in  human 
life  there  are  many  and  various  circumstances  which  dis- 
tract a  man  into  divers  changes  of  fortune.  One  consider- 
ing this  matter  hath  not  said  much  from  the  purpose :  — 

Tliink  not  thyself,  Ο  Atreus'  son,  forlorn ; 
Thou  always  to  be  happy  wast  not  born. 
Even  Agamemnon's  self  must  be  a  shade, 
For  thou  of  frail  materials  art  made. 
Sorrow  and  joy  alternately  succeed ; 
'Spite  of  thy  teeth,  the  Gods  have  so  decreed.f 

These  verses  are  Menander's. 

If  thou,  0  Trophimus,  of  all  mankind, 

Uninterrupted  happiness  coulilst  find  ; 

If  Λνΐιβη  thy  mother  brouglit  thee  forth  with  pain, 

Didst  this  condition  of  thy  life  obtain, 

That  only  prosperous  gales  thy  sails  should  fill. 

And  all  things  happen  'cording  to  thy  will ; 

If  any  of  the  Gods  did  so  engage. 

Such  usage  justly  might  provoke  thy  rage, 

Matter  for  smart  resentment  might  afford, 

For  the  false  Deity  did  break  his  word. 

But  if  thou  une.xcepted  saw'st  the  light, 

Without  a  promise  of  the  least  delight, 

I  say  to  thee  (gravely  in  tragic  style) 

Thou  ought  to  be  more  patient  all  the  while. 

In  short,  —  and  to  say  more  there's  no  one  can, — 

Which  is  a  name  of  frailty,  thou'rt  a  man  ; 

A  creature  more  rejoicing  is  not  found. 

None  more  dejected  creeps  upon  the  ground. 

Though  weak,  yet  he  in  politics  refines, 

Involves  himself  in  intricate  designs  ; 

With  nauseous  business  he  himself  doth  cloy, 

And  so  the  pleasure  of  his  life  destroy. 

In  great  pursuits  thou  never  hast  been  cross'd 

No  disappointments  have  thy  projects  lost; 

Nay,  such  hath  been  the  mildness  of  thy  fate, 

Hast  no  misfortune  had  of  anj'  rate  ; 

If  Fortune  is  at  any  time  severe, 

Serene  and  undisturbed  thou  must  appear. 

♦  From  Euripides.  t  Eurip.  Iph.  Aul.  29. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  303 

But  though  this  be  the  state  of  all  sublunary  things,  yet 
such  is  the  extravagant  pride  and  folly  of  some  men,  that  if 
they  are  raised  above  the  common  by  the  greatness  of  their 
riches  or  functions  of  magistracy,  or  if  they  arrive  to  any 
eminent  charge  in  the  commonwealth,  they  presently  swell 
with  the  titles  of  their  honor,  and  threaten  and  insult  over 
their  inferiors  ;  never  considering  Avhat  a  treacherous  God- 
dess Fortune  is,  and  how  easy  a  revolution  it  is  for  things 
that  are  uppermost  to  be  thrown  down  from  their  height  and 
for  humble  things  to  be  exalted,  and  that  these  changes  of 
Fortune  are  performed  quickly  and  in  the  swiftest  moments 
of  time.  To  seek  for  any  certainty  therefore  in  that  which 
is  uncertain  is  the  part  of  those  who  judge  not  aright  of 
things :  — 

Like  to  a  wheel  that  constantly  goes  round, 
One  part  is  up  whilst  t'other's  on  the  ground. 

6.  But  the  most  sovereign  remedy  against  sorrow  is  our 
reason,  and  out  of  this  arsenal  we  may  arm  ourselves  with 
defence  against  all  the  casualties  of  life  ;  for  every  one  ought 
to  lay  down  this  as  a  maxim,  that  not  only  is  he  himself 
mortal  in  his  nature,  but  life  itself  decays,  and  things  are 
easily  changed  into  quite  the  contrary  to  what  they  are  ; 
for  our  bodies  are  made  up  of  perishing  ingredients.  Our 
fortunes  and  our  passions  too  are  subject  to  the  same  mortal- 
ity ;  indeed  all  things  in  this  Avorld  are  in  perpetual  flux,  — 

Which  no  man  can  avoid  with  all  his  care.* 

It  is  an  expression  of  Pindar,  that  we  are  held  to  the 
dark  bottom  of  hell  by  necessities  as  hard  as  iron.  And 
Euripides  says :  — 

No  worldly  wealth  is  firm  and  sure ; 
But  for  a  day  it  doth  endure.f 

And  also :  — 

From  small  beginnings  our  misfortunes  grow, 

And  little  rubs  our  feet  do  overthrow  ; 

A  single  day  is  able  down  to  cast 

Some  things  from  height,  and  others  raise  as  fast.i 

•  II.  XII.  327.        t  Eurip.  Plioeniss.  558.        ί  From  the  Ino  of  Euripides. 


304  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

Demetrius  Phalereus  affirms  that  this  was  truly  said,  but 
that  the  poet  had  been  more  in  the  right  if  for  a  single  day 
he  had  put  only  a  moment  of  time. 

For  earthly  fruits  and  mortal  men's  estate 
Turn  round  about  in  one  and  selfsame  rate  ; 
Some  live,  wax  strong,  and  prosper  day  by  day, 
While  others  are  cast  down  and  fade  away.* 

And  Pindar  hath  it  in  another  place, 

What  are  we,  what  are  we  not  ? 
Man  is  but  a  shadow's  dream. t 

He  used  an  artificial  and  very  perspicuous  hyperbole  to 
draw  human  life  in  its  genuine  colors  ;  for  Λvhat  is  weaker 
than  a  shadow  ?  Or  what  words  can  be  found  out  whereby 
to  express  a  shadow's  dream  ?  Grantor  hath  something 
consonant  to  this,  Avhen,  condoling  Hippocles  upon  the  loss 
of  his  children,  he  speaks  after  this  manner :  — 

"  These  are  the  things  Avhich  all  the  old  philosophers 
talk  of  and  have  instructed  us  in  ;  which  though  we  do 
not  agree  to  in  every  particular,  yet  this  hath  too  sharp  a 
truth  in  it,  that  our  life  is  painful  and  full  of  difficulties  ; 
and  if  it  doth  not  labor  with  them  in  its  own  nature,  yet 
we  ourselves  have  infected  it  Avith  that  corruption.  For 
the  inconstancy  of  Fortune  joined  us  at  the  beginning  of 
our  journey,  and  hath  accompanied  us  ever  since  ;  so  that 
it  can  produce  nothing  that  is  sound  or  comfortable  unto  us  ; 
and  the  bitter  potion  was  mingled  for  us  as  soon  as  we  were 
born.  For  the  principles  of  our  nature  being  mortal  is  the 
cause  that  our  judgment  is  depraved,  that  diseases,  cares, 
and  all  those  fatal  inconveniences  afflict  mankind." 

But  what  need  of  this  digression "?  Only  that  we  may 
be  made  sensible  that  it  is  no  unusual  thing  if  a  man  be 
unfortunate ;  but  we  are  all  subject  to  the  same  calamity. 
For  as  Theophrastus  saith.  Fortune  surpriseth  us  unawares, 
robs  us  of  those  things  we  have  got  by  the  sweat  of  our 

*  From  the  Ino  of  Euripides.  t  Pindar,  Pyth.  VIII.  135. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  305 

industry,  and  spoils  the  gaudy  appearance  of  a  prosperous 
condition ;  and  this  she  doth  when  she  pleaseth,  not  being 
stinted  to  any  periods  of  time.  These  and  things  of  the  like 
nature  it  is  easy  for  a  man  to  ponder  Avith  himself,  and  to 
hearken  to  the  sayings  of  ancient  and  wise  men;  among 
whom   divine   Homer  is   the  chief,  Λvho    suni?    after   this 


manner 


Of  all  that  breathes  or  grovelling  creeps  on  earth, 
Most  man  is  vain  !    calamitous  by  birth  : 
To-day,  with  power  elate,  in  strengtli  lie  blooms  ; 
Tlie  haughty  creature  on  that  power  presumes  : 
'  Anon  from  Heaven  a  sad  reverse  he  feels  ; 

Untaught  to  bear,  'gainst  Heaven  the  wretch  rebels. 

For  man  is  changeful,  as  his  bliss  or  woe  ; 

Too  high  when  prosperous,  when  distress'd  too  low.* 

And  in  another  place  :  — 

What  or  from  whence  I  am,  or  who  my  sire 
(Replied  the  chief),  can  Tydeus'  son  enquire? 
Like  leaves  on  trees  the  race  of  man  is  found, 
Now  green  in  youth,  now  withering  on  the  ground ; 
Another  race  the  following  spring  supplies  ; 
They  fall  successive,  and  successive  rise. 
So  generations  in  their  course  decay  ; 
So  flourish  these,  when  those  are  past  away.f 

How   prettily   he    managed    this    image    of    human    life 
appears  from  what  he  hath  said  in  another  place :  — 

For  what  is  man  ?     Calamitous  by  birth. 
They  owe  their  life  and  nourishment  to  earth  ; 
Like  yearly  leaves,  that  now  with  beauty  crown'd, 
Smile  on  the  sun,  now  wither  on  tlie  ground.i 

AVhen  Pausanias  the  king  of  Sparta  was  frequently  brag- 
ging of  his  performances,  and  bidding  Simonides  the  lyric 
poet  in  raillery  to  give  him  some  wise  precept,  he,  know- 
ing the  vain-glory  of  him  that  spoke,. admonished  him  to 
remember  that  he  was  a  man.  Philip  the  king  of  Mace- 
don,  when  he  had  received  three  despatches  of  good  news 
at  the  same  time,  of  Avhich  the  first  was  that  his  chariots 

*  Odvss.  XVIII.  130.  t  11.  VI.  145. 

ί  II.  XXI.  463. 
VOL.   I.  20 


306  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

had  won  the  victory  in  the  Olympic  games,  the  second,  that 
his  general  Parmenio  had  overcome  the  Dardanians  in  fight, 
and  the  third,  that  his  wife  Olympias  had  brought  him  forth 
an  heir,  —  lifting  up  his  eyes  to  heaven,  he  passionately  cried 
out,  Propitious  Daemon  !  let  the  affliction  be  moderate  by 
which  thou  intendest  to  be  even  with  me  for  this  compli- 
cated happiness.  Theramenes,  one  of  the  thirty  tyrants 
of  Athens,  when  he  alone  was  preserved  from  the  ruins  of 
a  house  that  fell  upon  the  rest  of  his  friends  as  they  were 
sitting  at  supper,  and  all  came  about  him  to  congratulate 
him  on  his  escape,  —  broke  out  in  an  emphatical  accent, 
Fortune!  for  what  calamity  dost  thou  reserve  mel  And 
not  long  after,  by  the  command  of  his  fellow-tyrants,  he  was 
tormented  to  death. 

7.  But  Homer  seems  to  indicate  a  particular  praise  to 
himself,  when  he  brings  in  Achilles  speaking  thus  to 
Priam,  who  was  come  forth  to  ransom  the  body  of 
Hector  :  — 

Rise  then ;  let  reason  mitigate  our  care  : 
To  mourn  avails  not :  man  is  born  to  bear. 
Such  is,  alas  !  the  Gods'  severe  decree  : 
They,  only  tiiey,  are  blest,  and  only  tree. 
Two  urns  by  Jove's  high  tlirone  have  ever  stood, 
The  source  of  evil  one,  and  one  of  good  ; 
From  thence  the  cup  of  mortal  man  he  fills, 
Blessings  to  tliese,  to  these  distributes  ills  ; 
To  most  he  mingles  both  ;  the  wretcli  decreed 
To  taste  tlie  bad  unmix'd  is  cursed  indeed ; 
Pursued  by  wrongs,  by  meagre  famine  driven. 
He  wanders,  outcast  botli  of  eartii  and  heaven.* 

Hesiod,  who  was  the  next  to  Homer  both  in  respect  of 
time  and  reputation,  and  who  professed  to  be  a  disciple  of 
the  Muses,  fancied  that  all  evils  were  shut  up  in  a  box, 
and  that  Pandora  opening  it  scattered  all  sorts  of  mischiefs 
through  both  the  earth  and  seas  :  — 

The  cover  of  the  box  she  did  remove, 

And  to  fly  out  the  crowding  mischief  strove  ; 

But  slender  hope  upon  tlie  brims  did  stay, 

*  II.  XXIV.  522. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  807 

Ready  to  vanish  into  air  away  ; 
She  with  retrieve  tlie  haggard  in  did  put, 
And  on  the  prisoner  close  the  box  did  shut ; 
But  plagues  innumerable  abroad  did  fly, 
Infecting  all  the  earth,  the  seas,  and  sky. 
Diseases  now  with  silent  feet  do  creep. 
Torment  us  waking,  and  afflict  our  sleep. 
These  midnight  evils  steal  without  a  noise, 
For  Jupiter  deprived  them  of  their  voice.* 

8.  After  these  the  comedian,  talking  of  those  who  beai 
afflictions  uneasily,  speaks  consonantly  to  this  purpose :  — 

If  we  in  wet  complaints  could  quench  our  grief, 

At  any  rate  we'd  purchase  our  relief; 

With  proffered  gold  would  bribe  off  all  our  fears, 

And  make  our  eyes  distil  in  precious  tears. 

But  the  Gods  mind  not  mortals  here  below, 

Nor  the  least  thought  on  our  affairs  bestow  ; 

But  with  an  unregarding  air  pass  by. 

Whether  our  cheeks  be  moist,  or  whether  dry. 

Unhappiness  is  always  sorrow's  root. 

And  tears  do  hang  from  them  like  crystal  fruit. 

And  Dictys  comforts  Danae,  who  Avas  bitterly  taking  on, 
after  this  manner  :  — 

Dost  think  that  thy  repinings  moΛ;e  the  grave, 

Or  from  its  jaws  thy  dying  son  can  save  1 

If  thou  would'st  lessen  it,  thy  grief  compare  ;  — 

Consider  how  unhappy  others  are  ; 

How  many  bonds  of  slavery  do  hold ; 

How  many  of  their  children  robbed  grow  old ; 

How  sudden  Fate  throws  off  th'  usurped  crown, 

And  in  the  dirt  doth  tread  the  tyrant  down. 

Let  this  with  deep  impression  in  thee  sink, 

And  on  these  revolutions  often  think. t 

He  bids  her  consider  the  condition  of  those  who  have 
suffered  equal  or  greater  afflictions,  and  by  such  a  parallel 
to  comfort  up  her  own  distempered  mind. 

9.  And  here  that  opinion  of  Socrates  comes  in  very  perti- 
nently, who  thought  that  if  all  our  misfortunes  were  laid 
in  one  common  heap,  Λvhence  every  one  must  take  an  equal 
portion,  most  people  Avould  be  contented  to  take  their  own 
and  depart.    After  this  manner  Antimachus  the  poet  allayed 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  94.  t  From  the  Danae  of  Euripides. 


308  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

his  grief  when  he  lost  his  wife  Lyde,  whom  he  tenderly 
loved ;  for  he  writ  an  elegy  upon  her,  which  he  called  by 
her  own  name,  and  in  it  he  numbered  up  all  the  calamities 
which  have  befcillen  great  men  ;  and  so  by  the  remembrance 
of  other  men's  sorrows  he  assuaged  his  own.  By  this  it 
may  appear,  that  he  Λνΐιο  comforts  another  who  is  macerat- 
ing himself  with  grief,  and  demonstrates  to  him,  by  reck- 
oning up  their  several  misfortunes,  that  he  suffers  nothing 
but  Avhat  is  common  to  him  with  other  men,  takes  the  surest 
way  to  lessen  the  opinion  he  had  of  his  condition,  and 
brings  him  to  believe  that  it  is  not  altogether  so  bad  as  he 
took  it  to  be. 

10.    Aeschylus  also  doth    justly  reprimand    those  who 
think  death  to  be  an  evil,  declaring  after  this  manner:  — 

Some  as  a  thing  injurious  death  do  fly  ; 
But  of  all  mischiefs  'tis  the  remedy. 

And  he  who  spoke  thus  very  nicely  imitated  him :  — 

Come,  witlT  impatience  I  expect  thee,  Death  ; 
And  stop  with  thy  obliging  liand  my  breath  : 
To  thee  as  a  physician  all  resort. 
And  we  through  tempests  sail  into  thy  port. 

And  it  is  great  to  speak  this  sentence  wdth  courage :  — 

Where  is  the  slave  who  never  fears  to  die  ?  * 

Or  this :  — 

And  shadows  never  scare  me,  thanks  to  hell. 

But  what  is  it  at  length  in  death,  that  is  so  grievous  and 
troublesome  1  For  I  know  not  how  it  comes  to  pass  that, 
w^hen  it  is  so  familiar  and  as  it  were  related  to  us,  it  should 
seem  so  terrible.  How  can  it  be  rational  to  wonder,  if  that 
clea\'es  asunder  which  is  divisible,  if  that  melts  whose 
nature  is  liquefaction,  if  that  burns  which  is  combustible, 
and  so,  by  a  parity  of  reason,  if  that  perisheth  which  by 
nature  is  perishable  ]  For  Avhen  is  it  that  death  is  not  in 
us  ?     For,  as  Heraclitus  saith,  it  is  the  same  thing  to  be 

*  From  Euripides. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  309 

dead  and  alive,  asleep  and  awake,  a  yonng  man  and  de- 
crepit ;  for  these  alternately  are  changed  one  into  another. 
For  as  a  potter  can  form  the  shape  of  an  animal  out  of  his 
clay  and  then  as  easily  deface  it,  and  can  repeat  this  back- 
wards and  forwards  as  often  as  he  pleaseth,  so  Nature  too 
out  of  the  same  materials  fashioned  iii-st  our  grandfathers, 
next  our  fathers,  then  us,  and  in  process  of  time  will  en- 
gender others,  and  again  others  upon  these.  For  as  the 
flood  of  our  generation  glides  on  without  any  intermission 
and  will  never  stop,  so  in  the  other  direction  the  stream 
of  our  corruption  flows  eternally  on,  whether  it  be  called 
Acheron  or  Cocytus  by  the  poets.  So  that  the  same  cause 
Avhich  first  showed  us  the  light  of  the  sun  carries  us  down 
to  infernal  darkness.  And  in  my  mind,  the  air  Avhich  cn- 
compasseth  us  seems  to  be  a  lively  image  of  the  thing ;  for 
it  brings  on  the  vicissitudes  of  night  and  day,  life  and 
death,  sleeping  and  waking.  For  this  cause  it  is  that  life 
is  called  a  fatal  debt,  which  our  fathers  contracted  and  Ave 
are  bound  to  pay ;  which  is  to  be  done  calmly  and  without 
any  complaint,  when  the  creditor  demands  it ;  and  by  this 
means  we  shall  show  ourselves  men  of  sedate  passions. 

11.  And  I  believe  Nature,  knowing  the  confusion  and 
shortness  of  our  life,  hath  industriously  concealed  the  end 
of  it  from  us,  this  making  for  our  advantage.  For  if  we 
were  sensible  of  it  beforehand,  some  would  pine  away  with 
untimely  sorrow,  and  would  die  before  their  death  came. 
For  she  saw  the  woes  of  this  life,  and  with  wdiat  a  torrent 
of  cares  it  is  overflowed,  —  which  if  thou  didst  undertake 
to  number,  thou  Avouldst  grow  angry  with  it,  and  confirm 
that  opinion  which  hath  a  vogue  amongst  some,  that  death 
is  more  desirable  than  life.  Simonides  hath  glossed  upon 
it  after  this  manner :  — 

Our  time  is  of  a  short  and  tender  length, 
Cares  we  have  many,  and  hut  little  strength  ; 
Labors  in  crowds  pusli  one  another  on, 
And  cruel  destiny  we  cannot  shun. 


310  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 


The  casting  of  these  lots  is  very  just, 
For  good  and  bad  lie  in  one  common  dust. 


Pindar  hath  it  so  :  — 


The  Gods  unequal  have  us  mortals  vexed, 
Tor  to  one  good,  two  evils  are  annexed  : 
They  pay  a  single  joy  with  double  care, 
And  fools  such  dispensations  cannot  bear.* 


Sophocles  so 


Why  at  a  mortal's  death  dost  thou  complain  1 
Thou  know'st  not  what  may  be  his  future  gain. 

And  Euripides  so  :  — 

Dost  thou  not  know  the  state  of  human  things? 
A  faithful  monitor  thy  instruction  brings. 
Inevitable  death  hangs  o'er  our  head, 
And  threatens  falling  by  a  doubtful  thread. 
There's  no  man  can  be  certain  over  night. 
If  he  siiall  live  to  see  to-morrow's  light. 
Life  without  any  interruption  flows, 
And  the  results  of  fate  there's  no  man  knows. t 

If  then  the  condition  of  human  hfe  is  such  as  they  speak 
of,  why  do  we  not  rather  applaud  their  good  fortunes  who 
are  freed  from  the  drudgery  of  it,  than  pity  and  deplore 
them,  as  some  men's  folly  prompts  them  to  do? 

12.  Socrates  said  that  death  Avas  like  either  to  a  very 
deep  sleep,  or  to  a  journey  taken  a  great  way  and  for  a 
long  time,  or  else  to  the  utter  extinction  of  soul  and  body  ; 
and  if  we  examine  each  of  these  comparisons,  he  said,  we 
sliall  find  that  death  is  not  an  evil  upon  any  account.  For 
if  death  is  sleep,  and  no  hurt  happens  to  those  who  are  in 
that  innocent  condition,  it  is  manifest  that  neither  are  the 
dead  ill  dealt  with.  To  what  purpose  should  I  talk  of  that 
which  is  so  tritely  known  amongst  all,  that  the  most  pro- 
found sleep  is  always  the  sΛveetest  ?  Homer  %  particularly 
attests  it : — 

His  senses  all  becalmed,  he  drew  his  breath, 
His  sleep  was  sound,  and  quiet  like  to  death. 

*  Pindar,  Pyth.  III.  145.  t  Eurip.  Alcestis,  792. 

ί  See  Odyss.  XIIL  80;  and  II.  XIV.  231;  XVL  672;  XL  241. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  311 

And  in  many  places  lie  saith  thus,  — 

Slie  met  Death's  brother,  Sleep.  — 

And  again,  — 

Twin  brothers,  Sleep  and  Death,  — 

thereby  representing  the  similitude  (as  it  were)  to  the 
sight,  for  twins  especially  indicate  similarity.  And  in 
another  place  he  saith,  Death  is  brazen  sleep,  thereby 
intimating  to  us  that  it  is  insensible.  Neither  hath  he 
spoken  much  amiss  who  calls  sleep  the  lesser  mysteries 
of  death  ;  for  sleep  is  really  the  first  initiation  into  the 
mysteries  of  death. 

Diogenes  the  Cynic,  when  a  little  before  his  death  he  fell 
into  a  slumber,  and  his  physician  rousing  him  out  of  it 
asked  him  whether  any  thing  ailed  him,  wisely  ansΛvered, 
Nothing,  sir,  only  one  brother  anticipates  another,  —  Sleep 
before  Death. 

13.  If  death  be  like  a  journey,  neither  upon  this  account 
is  it  an  evil,  but  rather  the  contrary  ;  for  certainly  it  is  the 
emphasis  of  happiness  to  be  freed  from  the  incumbrances 
of  the  flesh  and  all  those  troublesome  passions  which  attend 
it,  Avhich  serve  onlv  to  darken  the  understandini?,  and  over- 
spread  it  with  all  the  folly  that  is  incident  to  human 
nature. 

"  The  very  body,"  saith  Plato,  "  procures  us  infinite  dis- 
quiet only  to  supply  its  daily  necessities  with  food  ;  but  if  any 
diseases  are  coincident,  they  hinder  our  contemplations,  and 
stop  us  in  our  researches  after  truth.  Besides,  it  distracts 
us  Λvith  irregular  desires,  fears,  and  vain  amours,  setting 
before  us  so  many  fantastic  images  of  things,  that  the  com- 
mon saying  is  here  most  true,  that  on  account  of  the  body 
we  can  never  become  wise.  For  wars,  popular  seditions, 
and  shedding  of  blood  by  the  sword  are  owing  to  no  other 
original  than  this  care  of  the  body  and  gratifying  its  licen- 
tious appetites  ;  for  we  fight  only  to  get  riches,  and  these 


312  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

we  acquire  only  to  please  the  body ;  so  that  those  who  are 
thus  employed  have  not  leisure  to  be  philosophers.  And 
after  all,  when  λυο  have  retrieved  an  interval  of  time  to 
seek  after  truth,  the  body  officiously  interrupts  us,  is  so 
troublesome  and  importune,  that  we  can  by  no  means  dis- 
cern its  nature.  Therefore  it  is  evident  that,  if  we  will 
clearly  know  any  thing,  we  must  divest  ourselves  of  the 
body,  and  behold  things  as  they  are  in  themselves  with  the 
mind  itself,  that  at  last  we  may  attain  what  we  so  mucli 
desire,  and  what  w^  do  profess  ourselves  the  most  partial 
admirers  of,  which  is  Avisdom.  And  this  we  cannot  con- 
summately enjoy  till  after  death,  as  reason  teacheth  us. 
For  if  so  be  that  we  can  understand  nothing  clearly  as  long 
as  we  are  clogged  with  flesh,  one  of  these  things  must 
needs  be,  either  that  we  shall  never  arrive  at  that  knowl- 
edge at  all,  or  only  when  we  die  ;  for  then  the  soul  will 
exist  by  itself,  separate  from  the  body ;  and  whilst  we  are 
in  this  life,  we  shall  make  the  nearest  advances  towards  it, 
if  we  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  body  than  what  decency 
and  necessity  require,  if  we  break  ofl"  all  commerce  Λvith  it, 
and  keep  ourselves  pure  from  its  contagion,  till  God  shall 
give  us  a  final  release,  and  then  being  pure  and  freed  from 
all  its  follies,  we  shall  converse  (it  is  likely)  with  intelli- 
gences as  pure  as  ourselves,  with  our  unaided  vision  be- 
holding perfect  purity,  —  and  this  is  truth  itself.  For  it  is 
not  fit  that  what  is  pure  should  be  apprehended  by  what  is 
impure."  * 

Therefore,  if  death  only  transports  us  to  another  place, 
it  is  not  to  be  looked  upon  as  an  evil,  but  rather  as  an  ex- 
ceeding good,  as  Plato  hath  demonstrated.  The  words  of 
Socrates  to  his  judges  seem  to  me  to  be  spoken  even  with 
inspiration  :  "  To  fear  death,  gentlemen,  is  nothing  else  than 
to  counterfeit  the  being  wise,  when  we  are  not  so.  For 
he  that  fears  death  pretends  to  know  what  he  is  ignorant 

*  Plat.  Phaed.  pp.  G6  Β  —  07  Β. 


CONSOLATION  TO  ArOLLONIUS.  ^13 

of;  for  no  man  is  certain  whether  death  be  not  the  greatest 
good  that  can  befall  a  man,  but  they  positively  dread  it  as 
if  they  were  sure  it  was  the  greatest  of  evils."  Agreeably 
to  this  said  one  after  this  manner :  — 

Let  no  man  fear  what  doth  his  labors  end  ;  — 

and  death  sets  us  free  even  from  the  greatest  evils. 

1-i.  The  Gods  themselves  bear  witness  to  the  truth  of 
this,  for  many  have  obtained  death  as  a  gratuity  from  them. 
The  less  famous  instances  I  will  pass  by,  that  I  may  not  be 
prolix,  and  only  mention  those  who  are  the  most  celebrated 
and  in  all  men  s  mouths.  And  in  the  first  place,  I  will  re- 
late what  befell  Biton  and  Cleobis,  two  young  men  of 
Argos.  They  report  that  their  mother  being  the  priestess 
of  Juno,  and  the  time  being  come  that  she  was  to  go  up  to 
the  temple  to  perform  the  rites  of  the  Goddess,  and  those 
whose  office  it  was  to  draΛV  her  chariot  tarrying  longer  than 
usual,  these  two  young  men  harnessed  themselves  and  took 
it  up,  and  so  carried  their  mother  to  the  temple.  She,  be- 
ing extremely  taken  with  the  piety  of  her  sons,  petitioned 
the  Goddess  that  she  Avould  bestow  upon  them  the  best 
present  that  could  be  given  to  men  ;  accordingly  she  cast 
them  into  that  deep  sleep  out  of  which  they  never  awoke, 
taking  this  way  to  recompense  their  filial  zeal  with  death. 
Pindar  writes  of  Agamedes  and  Trophonius,  that  after  they 
had  built  a  temple  at  Delphi,  they  requested  of  Apollo  a 
reward  for  their  work.  It  was  answered  them  that  they 
should  have  it  Avithin  seven  days,  but  in  the  mean  while 
they  were  commanded  to  live  freely  and  indulge  their 
genius  ;  accordingly  they  obeyed  the  dictate,  and  the 
seventh  night  they  died  in  their  beds.  It  is  said  also  of 
Pindar,  that  when  the  deputies  of  the  Boeotians  were  sent 
to  consult  the  oracle,  he  desired  them  to  enquire  of  it 
which  was  the  best  thing  amongst  men,  and  that  the 
Priestess  of  the  tripod  gave  them  this  answer,  —  that  he 


314  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

could  not  be  ignorant  of  it,  if  he  was  the  author  of  those 
writings  concerning  Agamedes  and  Trophonius  ;  but  if  he 
desired  personally  to  know,  it  should  in  a  little  time  be 
made  manifest  to  him  ;  and  that  Pindar  hearing  this  pre- 
pared himself  for  the  stroke  of  Fate,  and  died  in  a  short 
time  after.  Of  Euthynous  the  Italian  there  is  this  memo- 
rable story,  that  he  died  suddenly,  Avithout  anybody's 
knowing  the  cause  of  his  death.  His  father  Avas  Elysius 
the  Terinean,  who  was  a  man  of  the  first  condition  for  his 
estate  and  virtue,  being  rich  and  honorable,  and  this  being 
his  only  son  and  heir  to  all  his  fortune,  which  was  very 
great,  he  had  a  strong  jealousy  upon  him  that  he  was 
poisoned,  and  not  knowing  how  he  should  come  to  the  in- 
formation of  it,  he  went  into  the  vault  Avhere  they  invoke 
the  dead,  and  after  having  offered  sacrifice,  as  it  is  enjoined 
by  the  law,  he  slept  in  the  place  ;  when  all  things  were  in 
a  midnight  silence,  he  had  this  vision.  His  father  appeared 
to  him,  to  whom  after  having  related  his  lamentable  mis- 
fortune, he  earnestly  desired  the  ghost  that  he  would  assist 
him  in  finding  out  the  cause.  He  answered  that  he  was 
come  on  purpose  to  do  it.  But  first,  saith  he,  receive  from 
this  one  what  he  hath  brought  thee,  and  thereby  thou  wilt 
understand  the  reason  of  all  thy  sorrow.  The  person  that 
the  father  meant  was  very  like  to  Euthynous  both  for  years 
and  stature  ;  and  the  question  being  put  to  him  who  he 
was,  he  answered,  I  am  the  genius  of  thy  son ;  and  at  the 
same  time  he  reached  out  a  book  to  him,  which  he  opened 
and  found  these  verses  written  therein  :  — 

'Tis  ignorance  makes  wretched  men  to  err ; 
Fate  dill  to  liappiness  tliy  son  prefer. 
By  destined  death  Euthynous  seized  we  see  ; 
So  'twas  tlie  better  both  for  him  and  thee. 

These  are  the  stories  which  the  ancients  tell  us. 

15.  But  lastly,  if  death  be  the  entire  dissipation  of  soul 
and  body  (which  was  the  third  part  of  Socrates's  compari- 


CONSOLATION   TO  APOLLONIUS.  315 

son),  even  then  it  cannot  be  an  evil.  For  this  would 
produce  a  privation  of  sense,  and  consequently  a  complete 
freedom  from  all  solicitude  and  care  ;  and  if  no  good,  so  no 
evil  would  befall  us.  For  good  and  evil  alike  must  by 
nature  inhere  in  that  which  has  existence  and  essence ; 
but  to  that  which  is  nothing,  and  wholly  abolished  out  of 
the  nature  of  things,  neither  of  the  two  can  belong.  There- 
fore, when  men  die,  they  return  to  the  same  condition  they 
were  in  before  they  were  born.  For  as,  before  we  came 
into  the  world,  we  were  neither  sensible  of  good  nor  afflict- 
ed with  evil,  so  it  will  be  wlien  we  leave  it ;  and  as  those 
things  which  preceded  our  birth  did  not  concern  us,  so 
neither  will  those  things  which  are  subsequent  to  our 
death :  — 

The  dead  secure  from  sorrow  safe  do  lie, 
'Tis  the  same  thing  not  to  be  born  and  die.* 

For  it  is  the  same  state  of  existence  after  death  as  it  was 
before  Ave  were  born.  Unless  perhaps  you  will  make  a 
difference  between  having  no  being  at  all  and  the  utter  ex- 
tinction of  it,  after  the  same  manner  that  you  make  a 
distinction  between  an  house  and  a  garment  after  they  are 
ruined  and  worn  out,  and  at  the  time  before  the  one  was 
built  and  the  other  made.  And  if  in  this  case  there  is  no 
difference,  it  is  plain  that  there  is  none  between  the  state  be- 
fore we  were  born  and  that  after  we  are  dead.  It  is  elegantly 
said  by  Arcesilaus,  that  death,  which  is  called  an  evil,  hath 
this  peculiarly  distinct  from  all  that  are  thought  so,  that 
when  it  is  present  it  gives  us  no  disturbance,  but  when 
remote  and  in  expectation  only,  it  is  then  that  it  afflicts  us. 
And  indeed  many  out  of  the  poorness  of  their  spirit,  having 
entertained  most  injurious  opinions  of  it,  have  died  even 
to  prevent  death.  Epicharmus  hath  said  excellently  to  this 
purpose :  "-It  was  united,  it  is  now  tiissolved ;  it  returns 
back  whence  it  came,  —  earth  to  earth,  the   spirit  to  re- 

*  From  Aeschylus. 


316  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

gions  above.  What  in  all  this  is  grievous  ^  Nothing  at 
all."  But  that  which  Cresphontes  in  Euripides  saith  of 
Hercules, — 

For  if  he  dwells  below,  beneath  the  earth, 

With  those  whose  life  is  gone,  his  strength  is  nought, 

I  would  have  changed  into  these  words,  — 

For  if  he  dwells  below,  beneath  the  earth, 
With  those  whose  life  is  gone,  his  woes  are  o'er. 

This  Laconic  too  is  very  noble :  — 

Others  before  and  after  us  will  be, 
Whose  age  we're  not  permitted  e'er  to  see. 

And  again :  — 

These  neither  did  live  handsomely  nor  die, 
Though  both  should  have  been  done  with  decency. 

But  Euripides  hath  spoken  incomparably  well  of  those  who 
labor  under  daily  indispositions  :  — 

I  hate  the  man  who  studies  to  defeat 
The  power  of  death  with  artificial  meat, 
To  baffle  and  prevent  his  fate  does  think. 
And  lengthens  out  his  life  witli  magic  drink. 
Whereas,  when  he  a  burden  doth  become, 
Then  he  should  die,  because  he's  troublesome. 
Old  age  in  modesty  should  then  give  place, 
And  so  make  way  unto  a  brisker  race.* 

But  Merope  moved  the  passion  of  the  theatre  with  these 
masculine  expressions :  — 

My  sons  by  death  are  ravished  from  my  side, 

And  I'm  a  widow,  who  was  once  a  bi'ide.  ' 

I  am  not  thus  selected  to  be  crossed, 

Others  their  sons  and  husbands  too  have  lost.t 

And  we  may  not  incongruously  add  these  :  — 

What  is  become  of  that  magnificence  ? 
Where  is  King  Croesus  with  his  opulence  1 
Or  where  is  Xerxes  with  his  mighty  pride, 
Who  with  a  bridge  did  curb  the  raging  tide  ? 
Inhabitants  of  darkness  they  became. 
And  now  are  living  only  in  their  fame. 

Theh  riches  have  perished  with  their  bodies. 

*  Eurip.  Supphants,  1109.  t  From  the  Cresphontes  of  Euripides. 


CONSOLATIOX  TO  APOLLONIUS.  317 

16.  Yes,  we  may  say,  but  an  untimely  death  from  many 
doth  extort  groans  and  passionate  complaints.  But  the  way 
to  dry  up  these  sorrows  is  so  expedite  and  easy,  that  every 
vulgar  poet  hath  prescribed  it.  Consider  what  consolation 
a  comedian  puts  in  the  mouth  of  one  who  comforts  another 
upon  so  sad  an  occasion  :  — 

If  this  \vitli  certainty  thou  coukl'st  have  known, 
Tliat  Fortune  always  wnuhl  have  kindness  sliown. 
That  nothing  but  what's  good  would  him  befall, 
His  death  tiiou  justly  might'st  untimely  call. 
But  if  calamities  were  imminent, 
And  Death  the  fatal  mischief  did  prevent, 
To  give  to  things  the  character  that's  due, 
Death  was  the  most  obliging  of  tiie  two. 

It  therefore  being  uncertain  whether  it  was  for  his  ad- 
vantage that  he  departed  this  life  and  Avas  freed  from  all 
the  miseries  that  attend  it,  we  had  thereby  lost  all  that  we 
fancied  we  could  enjoy  in  him  Avhilst  he  was  living.  And 
Amphiaraus  in  the  poet  doth  not  do  amiss  when  he  consoles 
the  mother  of  Archemorus,  who  Avas  even  sick  with  grief 
for  the  untimely  death  of  her  infant  son.      He  speaks  :  — 

There  is  no  man  whom  sorrow  doth  not  seize  ; 
Our  children  die  while  others  we  beget. 
At  last  we  die  ourselves,  and  mortals  grieve 
As  they  give  dust  to  dust ;  but  human  life 
Must  needs  be  reaped  like  a  full  crop  of  corn. 
One  man  must  live,  another  die  :  why  weep 
For  this,  which  by  necessity  must  be  1 
There  is  no  hardship  in  necessity.* 

17.  In  general,  every  one  should  meditate  seriously  with 
himself,  and  have  the  concurrence  of  other  men's  opinions 
Avith  his  OAvn,  that  it  is  not  the  longest  life  which  is  the  best, 
but  that  which  is  the  most  virtuous.  For  that  musician  is 
not  to  be  commended  who  plays  upon  variety  of  instruments, 
nor  that  orator  that  makes  multiplicity  of  speeches,  nor  the 
pilot  that  conducts  many  ships,  but  he  of  each  faculty  that 
doth  one  of  them  well ;  for  the  beauty  of  a  thing  doth  not 

*  From  the  Hypsipyle  of  Euripides. 


318  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

consist  in  length  of  time,  but  in  the  virtue  and  seasonable 
moderation  wherewith  it  is  transacted.  This  is  that  which 
is  called  happy  and  grateful  to  the  Gods.  And  for  this  reason 
it  is  that  poets  celebrate  those  who  have  died  before  they 
have  become  old,  and  propose  them  for  examples,  as  the  most 
excellent  men  and  of  divine  extraction,  as  him  for  instance, 

Beloved  by  Jove  and  liim  who  gilds  the  skies, 
Yet  short  his  date  of  lifie.* 

And  we  see  in  every  thing  that  preference  is  not  given 
so  much  to  age  as  to  maturity.  For  amongst  trees  and 
plants,  those  are  accounted  the  most  generous  which  bring 
forth  abundance  of  fruit,  and  that  early  ripe.  And  amongst 
living  creatures  too,  those  are  the  most  valued  which  supply 
us  with  the  accommodations  of  life  in  a  short  time.  Be 
sides,  if  we  compare  the  space  of  our  life  with  eternit-, 
Ave  shall  find  no  difference  betwixt  long  and  short ;  foL' 
according  to  Simonides,  thousands  and  millions  of  years  are 
but  as  a  point  to  what  is  infinite,  or  rather  the  smallest  part 
of  that  point.  They  report  that  about  Pontus  there  are 
some  creatures  of  such  an  extempore  being  that  the  whole 
term  of  their  life  is  confined  Avithin  the  space  of  a  day ; 
for  they  are  brought  forth  in  the  morning,  are  in  the  prime 
of  their  existence  at  noon,  grow  old  at  night,  and  then  die. 
Dost  thou  not  think  that  if  these  had  the  soul  and  reason 
of  a  man,  they  would  be  so  affected,  and  that  things  would 
happen  to  them  after  the  same  manner  as  to  us?  —  that 
those  Avho  died  before  the  meridian  would  be  lamented 
with  tears  and  groans  ?  —  and  that  Ave  should  call  tliem 
happy  Avho  lived  their  day  out  ?  For  the  measure  of  a 
man's  life  is  the  Avell  spending  of  it,  and  not  the  length. 

18.  But  such  exclamations  as  this,  "  the  young  man  ought 
not  to  be  taken  off  so  abruptly  in  the  vigor  of  his  years," 
are  very  frivolous,  and  proceed  from  a  great  Aveakness  of 
mind ;  for  Avho  is  it  that  can  say  what  a  thing  ought  to  bo  ? 

♦  Odyss.  XV.  245. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  .         319 

But  things  have  been,  are,  and  will  be  done,  Λvhich  some- 
body or  other  will  say  ought  not  to  be  done.  But  we  do 
not  come  into  this  life  to  be  dogmatical  and  prescribe  to  it ; 
but  we  must  obey  the  dictates  of  the  Gods  who  govern  the 
world,  and  submit  to  the  establishments  of  Fate  and 
Providence. 

19.  But  when  they  mourn  over  those  Λνΐιο  die  so  untimely, 
do  they  do  it  upon  their  own  account,  or  upon  that  of  the 
deceased  ?  If  upon  their  own,  because  they  have  lost  that 
pleasure  they  thought  they  should  have  enjoyed  in  them,  or 
are  deprived  of  that  profit  they  expected  or  that  relief  they 
flattered  themselves  they  should  receive  from  them  in  their 
old  age,  then  self-love  and  personal  interest  prescribe  the 
measures  of  their  sorrow ;  so  that  upon  the  result  they  do 
net  love  the  dead  so  much  as  themselves  and  their  own 
interest.  But  if  they  lament  upon  the  account  of  the  de- 
ceased, that  is  a  grief  easily  to  be  shaken  off",  if  they  only 
consider  that  by  their  very  death  they  will  be  out  of  the 
sphere  of  any  evil  that  can  reach  them,  and  believe  the 
Avise  and  ancient  saying,  that  we  should  always  augment 
what  is  good,  and  extenuate  the  evil.  Therefore  if  grief 
is  a  good  thing,  let  us  enlarge  and  make  it  as  great  as  we 
can  ;  but  if  it  is  numbered  amongst  the  evils,  as  in  truth  it 
ought  to  be,  let  us  endeavor  all  we  can  to  suppress  it.  make 
it  as  inconsiderable  as  we  can,  and  at  last  utterly  eff"ace  it. 
How  easy  this  is  to  be  done,  I  will  make  appear  by  an  il- 
lustrious example  of  consolation.  They  say  that  an  ancient 
pliilosopher  came  to  the  Queen  Arsinoe,  Avho  was  then  sor- 
rowful for  the  death  of  her  son,  and  discoursed  her  after 
this  manner:  "  At  the  time  that  .Jupiter  distributed  hon- 
ors amongst  his  under-deities,  it  happened  that  Grief  was 
absent ;  but  he  came  at  last  when  all  the  dignities  were 
disposed  of,  and  then  desired  that  he  might  have  some 
share  in  the  promotions.  Jupiter,  having  no  better  vacan- 
cies left,  bestowed  upon  him  sorrow  and  funeral  tears."     He 


320  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

made  this  inference  from  the  story :  "  Therefore,"  saith 
he,  "  as  other  daemons  love  and  frequent  those  who  give 
them  hospitable  reception,  so  sadness  will  never  come  near 
you,  if  you  do  not  give  it  encouragement ;  but  if  you 
caress  it  with  those  particular  honors  which  it  challengeth 
as  its  due,  which  are  sighs  and  tears,  it  will  have  an  unlucky 
aifection  for  you,  and  will  always  supply  you  with  fresh 
occasion  that  the  observance  may  be  continued."  By  this 
plausible  speech  he  seems  in  a  wonderful  manner  to  have 
buoyed  this  great  woman  out  of  her  tears,  and  to  have  made 
her  cast  off  her  veil. 

20.  In  short,  I  Avould  ask  the  mourner  whether  he 
designs  to  put  an  end  to  his  grief,  or  to  allow  the  anguish 
to  have  the  same  duration  with  his  life.  If  this  thou  hast 
resolved,  I  must  say  thou  hast  cut  out  for  thyself  the  most 
bitter  infelicity  in  the  world,  and  all  through  the  stupidity 
and  softness  of  thy  mind ;  but  if  thou  wilt  ever  make  a 
change,  why  dost  thou  not  make  it  now,  and  so  free  thyself 
from  misery  ?  Apply  now  the  same  reasons  thou  must  use 
a  great  while  hence,  to  unburden  thy  mind  and  ease  thy 
afflictions  ;  and  as  in  bodily  distempers  the  quickest  remedy 
is  the  best,  so  bestow  the  advantage  thou  must  otherwise 
allow  to  time  upon  reason  and  instruction,  and  so  cease  to 
be  unhappy. 

21.  But  it  is  objected,  the  calamity  was  sudden,  and  I  did 
not  expect  it.  But  thou  oughtest  to  have  done  it,  and  con- 
sidered the  vanity  and  uncertainty  of  human  affairs,  that  thy 
enemies  might  not  have  come  suddenly  upon  thee  and  taken 
thee  unawares.  Theseus  in  Euripides  seems  to  be  excel- 
lently well  prepared  for  events  of  this  nature,  for  he  saith 
thus : — 

This  wholesome  precept  from  the  wise  I  learn, 
To  thhik 'of  misery  without  concern. 
My  meditating  thoughts  are  always  spent 
Either  on  death  or  else  on  banishment. 
Foresight  of  evils  doth  employ  my  mind, 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIuS.  321 

That  me  \vithout  (defence  tliey  may  not  find ; 
And  though  in  ambuscade  the  mischief  lies, 
Kill  me  it  may,  but  shall  not  me  surprise.* 

But  those  who  are  of  a  degenerate  and  thoughtless  spirit 
never  apply  their  mind  to  any  thing  that  is  either  useful  or 
becoming ;  but  they  grow  exorbitant  in  their  sorrows,  and 
afflict  the  innocent  body,  making  it  sick  for  company,  as 
Achaeus  expresseth  it. 

22.  Therefore  Platof  doth  rightly  instruct  us  to  acqui- 
esce in  cases  of  this  nature,  Λvhen  it  is  not  manifest  whether 
they  be  good  or  evil,  and  when  we  get  nothing  by  being 
uneasy  under  them  ;  for  grief  is  the  greatest  obstacle  to 
deliberation  as  to  what  is  best  to  be  done.  Therefore  he 
commands  us,  as  in  the  casting  of  dice,  to  accommodate 
ourselves  to  what  befalls  us,  in  the  way  which  reason  shows 
us  to  be  best ;  and  when  any  thing  ails  us,  not  to  imitate 
the  folly  of  children,  w^io  presently  cry  out  and  clap  their 
hands  to  the  place  affected,  but  to  accustom  our  minds 
to  seek  at  once  for  remedies  which  may  restore  the  part 
that  is  diseased  to  its  first  tone  of  health,  making  lamenta- 
tion give  place  to  the  healing  art.  He  that  instituted  laws 
for  the  Lycians  commanded  the  citizens  that  when  they 
mourned  they  should  put  on  women's  apparel,  intimating 
thereby  that  sorrow  was  an  effeminate  thing,  and  therefore 
was  not  fit  for  men  of  temper  and  liberal  education.  For 
it  is  indeed  a  weak  and  unmanly  passion,  and  women  are 
more  subject  to  it  than  men,  the  barbarians  more  than  the 
Greeks,  and  the  dregs  of  mankind  more  than  the  refined 
part  of  them  ;  and  even  amongst  the  barbarians,  the  brave- 
spirited  Celts  and  Gauls  have  not  a  propensity  to  it,  or  any 
that  have  generous  sentiments ;  but  the  Egyptians,  the 
Syrians,  and  the  Lydians,  and  those  Avho  resemble  them 
in  the  softness  of  their  disposition.  They  report  that  some 
of  these  will  hide  themselves  in  retirements  under  ground, 

*  See  the  Latin  version  in  Cicero,  Tusc.  IIL  14,  29. 
t  Plato,  Repub.  X.  p.  G04  B. 
VOL.  I.  21 


322  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

and  refuse  to  behold  that  sun  of  Λvhich  their  hiinented 
friend  is  deprived.  Ion,  the  tragedian,  who  heard  some- 
thing of  this  extravagance,  introduceth  a  person  speaking 
after  this  manner  :  — 

Your  blooming  children's  nurse,  I  have  come  forth 
A  suiipliant  from  the  caves  where  I  have  mourned. 

Some  of  these  barbarians  have  deformed  their  bodies  by 
cutting  off  their  noses,  ears,  and  other  parts  of  themselves, 
thinking  to  gratify  the  dead  by  these  mutilations,  when  in 
doing  so  they  deviated  excessively  from  that  moderation 
which  Nature  prescribes  us. 

23.  And,  by  Jove,  we  meet  Avith  some  persons  Avho  affirm 
that  the  death  of  every  one  is  not  to  be  lamented,  but  only 
of  those  who  die  untimely  ;  for  they  have  not  tasted  of 
those  things  which  we  call  enjoyments  in  the  world,  as  a 
nuptial  bed,  proficiency  in  learning,  the  coming  up  to  an 
height  in  any  thing,  the  honor  of  magistracy  and  charges 
in  the  government.  It  is  for  the  sake  of  these  things  that 
we  condole  Λνΐΐΐι  those  who  lose  friends  by  untimely  death, 
because  they  were  frustrated  of  their  hopes  ;  but  in  the 
meanΛvhίle  we  are  ignorant  that  a  sudden  death  doth  not 
at  all  differ  from  any  other,  considering  the  condition  of 
human  nature.  For  as  when  a  journey  is  enjoined  into  a 
remote  country,  and  there  is  a  necessity  for  exevy  one  to 
imdertake  it,  and  none  hath  liberty  to  refuse,  though  some 
20  befofe  and  others  follow,  yet  all  must  arrive  at  the  same 
stage  at  last ;  so  when  we  all  lie  under  an  obligation  of 
discharging  the  same  debt,  it  is  not  material  whether  Ave 
pay  sooner  or  later.  But  if  any  one's  death  may  be  called 
untimely,  and  consequently  an  evil,  that  appellation  suits 
only  with  that  of  children  and  infants,  and  especially  of 
those  A\ho  are  newly  born.  But  this  Ave  bear  steadfastly 
and  with  patience ;  but  when  those  that  are  groAvn  up  die, 
we  take  on  heavily,  because  we  fondly  hoped  that  when 
their  years  were  full  blown  they  Avould  then  have  an  unin- 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  323 

teiTupted  state  of  health.  Now  if  the  age  of  man  Avere 
limited  to  the  space  of  twenty  years,  we  should  not  think 
that  he  who  had  arrived  to  fifteen  died  an  untimely  death, 
but  that  he  had  filled  up  a  just  measure  of  living ;  but  one 
that  had  attained  twenty,  or  at  least  had  approached  very 
near  it,  Λνο  should  applaud  for  his  good  fortune,  as  if  he  had 
enjoyed  the  most  happy  and  perfect  life  in  the  Avorld.  So 
if  life  were  prolonged  to  two  hundred  years  as  its  fixed 
period,  and  any  one  died  at  a  hundred,  we  should  howl 
over  him  as  if  he  had  been  hastily  cut  off. 

24.  It  is  manifest  then,  by  Avhat  hath  been  said  now  and 
what  hath  been  mentioned  before,  that  the  death  we  call 
untimely  is  capable  of  consolation  ;  and  the  saying  is  true, 
that  "  Troilus  wept  less  than  Priam,"  *  perishing  as  he  did  in 
his  youth,  while  his  father's  kingdom  flourished  and  his 
riches  abounded,  Avhich  Priam  afterwards  laments  as  most 
deplorably  lost.  For  observe  what  he  saith  to  his  son 
Hector,  when  he  entreats  him  to  decline  the  battle  he  was 
going  to  fight  against  Achilles :  — 

Yet  shun  Achilles  !  enter  yet  the  wall ; 
And  spare  thyself,  thy  father,  spare  us  all ! 
Save  thy  clear  life ;  or,  if  a  soul  so  brave 
Neglect  that  thought,  thy  clearer  glory  save. 
Pity,  while  yet  I  live,  these  silver  hairs ; 
While  yet  thy  father  feels  the  woes  he  bears. 
Yet  curst  with  sense  !  a  wretcii  whom  in  his  rage 
All  trembling  on  the  verge  of  helpless  age 
Great  Jove  has  placed,  sad  spectacle  of  pain  ! 
The  bitter  dregs  of  Fortune's  cup  to  drain  : 
To  fill  with  scenes  of  death  his  closing  eyes, 
And  number  all  his  days  by  miseries  ! 
My  heroes  slain,  my  bridal  bed  o'erturn'd, 
My  daughters  ravish'd,  and  my  city  burn'd, 
My  bleeding  infants  dash'd  against  the  floor ; 
These  I  have  yet  to  see,  perhaps  yet  more  1 
Perhaps  even  I,  reserv'd  by  angry  Fate, 
The  last  sad  relic  of  my  ruin'd  state, 
(Dire  pomp  of  sovereign  wretchedness  !)  must  fall, 

*  Μείον  Τρωίλοζ•  έόύκρυσεν  η  ΤΙρ'υιμος  is  a  saying  of  Callimachus,  as  we  learn  from 
Cicero,  Tusc.  I.  39 :  Quanquam  non  male  ait  Callimachus,  multo  saepius  lacriinasse 
Priamum  quam  Troilum.     (G.) 


324  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS, 

And  stain  the  pavement  of  my  regal  hall ; 
Where  famish'd  ilogs,  late  guardians  of  my  door, 
Sliall  lick  their  mangled  master's  spatter'd  gore. 
But  when  the  Fates,  in  fulness  of  their  rage, 
Spurn  tiie  hoar  head  of  unresisting  age, 
In  dust  the  reverend  lineaments  deform, 
And  pour  to  dogs  the  life-blood  scarcelj'  warm  : 
This,  this  is  misery  !  the  last,  the  worst, 
That  man  can  feel,  —  man,  fated  to  be  cursed  ! 
He  said,  and  acting  what  no  words  can  say, 
Rent  from  his  head  the  silver  locks  away. 
With  him  the  mournful  mother  bears  a  part ; 
Yet  all  her  sorrows  turn  not  Hector's  heart.* 

Having  then  so  many  examples  of  this  kind  before  tnme 
eyes,  thon  oughtest  to  make  thyself  sensible  that  not  a  few 
have  been  saved  by  death  from  those  calamities  they  would 
certainly  have  fallen  into  had  they  lived  longer.  Content- 
ing myself  with  those  I  have  related  already,  1  will  omit 
the  rest,  that  I  may  not  seem  tedious  ;  and  these  are  suffi- 
cient to  show  that  we  ought  not  to  abandon  ourselves  to 
violent  sorrow,  beyond  temper  and  the  bounds  of  nature. 

25.  Grantor  saith,  To  be  innocent  is  the  greatest  comfort 
in  afflictions.  I  assent  to  him,  and  affirm  that  it  is  the 
noblest  remedy.  Besides,  the  indication  of  our  love  to  the 
deceased  consists  not  in  grieving  ourselves  for  him,  but  in 
paying  respect  to  his  fame  by  honorable  remembrance. 
For  no  good  man  deserves  elegies,  but  panegyrics  ;  and  Λνβ 
should  rather  celebrate  his  loss  by  an  honorable  remem- 
brance, than  lament  it ;  and  offer  up  rather  first-fruits  of 
joy  to  the  Gods,  and  not  tears  which  sorrow  extorts  from 
us.  For  he  who  ceaseth  to  be  amongst  men  becomes  par- 
taker of  a  divine  life,  is  free  from  the  servitude  of  the  body, 
and  all  those  solicitous  cares  which  they  who  are  embar- 
rassed Avith  a  mortal  life  of  necessity  must  undergo  till  they 
have  finished  the  course  \vhich  Providence  hath  marked 
out  for  them ;  and  this  life  Nature  hath  not  given  us  as  a 
perpetual  possession,  but  hath  clogged  it  with  restrictions 
and  conditions  of  fate. 

*  II.  XXII.  56 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  325 

26.  Those  therefore  who  are  the  masters  of  their  reason 
ought  not  to  be  transported  by  the  death  of  friends  beyond 
the  Hmits  of  nature  and  a  just  moderation  unto  unprofit- 
able and  barbarous  complaints,  and  so  Λvait  till  that  comes 
upon  them  Avhich  hath  happened  to  many,  to  have  their 
vital  moisture  exhausted  before  their  tears,  and  to  be  car- 
ried to  their  own  graves  in  those  mourning  weeds  they  put 
on  for  others,  where  their  sorrow  must  lie  buried  with 
those  evils  they  provoked  upon  themselves  by  their  own 
imprudence.  To  whom  that  of  Homer  may  be  appositely 
applied :  — 

Whilst  others  they  lament  with  weeping  eyes, 
The  darkness  of  the  night  doth  them  surprise.* 

Wherefore  in  this  case  we  should  often  thus  reason  with 
ourselves :  Shall  Ave  put  an  end  to  our  sorrow,  or  shall  λυο 
grieve  all  the  days  of  our  life  ?  To  make  it  infinite  is  the 
last  degree  of  infatuation  ;  for  we  have  seen  those  who 
have  been  in  the  deepest  circumstances  of  dejection  to  be 
so  mitigated  by  time,  that  they  have  banqueted  upon  those 
tombs  which  before  they  could  not  endure  the  sight  of 
without  screeching  out  and  beating  their  breasts,  but  which 
they  can  now  dance  round  with  music  and  all  the  postures 
of  jollity.  Therefore  to  be  obstinate  in  our  grief  is  tlie 
resolution  of  madness.  If  then  thou  hast  purposed  within 
thyself  that  it  shall  have  an  end,  join  this  consideration 
with  it,  that  time  Λνϋΐ  assuage  it  too  ;  for  what  is  once 
done  even  the  Deity  himself  cannot  unravel ;  therefore  that 
which  hath  happened  to  us  beyond  our  hope  and  contrary 
to  our  opinion  hath  palpably  shown  us  Avhat  is  wont  from 
the  same  causes  to  befall  others.  What's  the  result  then  ? 
Cannot  any  discipline  teach  us,  nor  cannot  we  reason  with 
ourselves ,  that  — 

The  earth  with  evils  doth  abound  ; 
As  many  in  the  sea  are  found  ?  t 

*  See  Ή.  XXIII.  109  ;  Odyss.  I.  423.  t  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  94. 

s 


326  CONSOLATION  TO   APOLLONIUS. 

And  thus  likewise  :  — 

The  Fates  have  so  encompassed  men  with  ills, 
That  even  the  wind  can  find  no  entrance  ? 

27.  For  many,  as  Grantor  tells  us,  and  those  very  wise 
men,  not  now  but  long  ago  have  deplored  the  condition  of 
human  nature,  esteeming  life  a  punishment,  and  to  be  born 
a  man  the  highest  pitch  of  calamity  ;  this,  Aristotle  tells  us, 
Silenus  declared  Avhen  he  was  brought  captive  to  Midas. 
I  think  it  best  to  quote  the  expressions  of  the  philosopher 
himself,  in  his  book  entitled  Eudemus,  or  Of  the  Soul, 
wherein  he  speaks  after  this  manner  :  — 

"  Wherefore,  thou  best  and  happiest  of  mankind,  if  we 
think  those  blessed  and  happy  who  have  departed  this  life, 
then  it  is  not  only  unlawful  but  even  blasphemy  to  speak 
any  thing  that  is  false  or  contumelious  of  them,  since  they 
are  now  changed  into  a  better  and  more  refined  nature. 
And  this  my  opinion  is  so  old,  that  the  original  and  author 
of  it  is  utterly  unknown  ;  but  it  hath  been  derived  down 
to  us  even  from  eternity,  so  established  is  the  truth  of  it. 
Besides,  thou  seest  what  is  so  familiar  in  men's  mouths, 
and  hath  been  for  many  years  a  trite  expression.  AVhat  is 
that,  saith  he  ]  He  answered  him :  It  is  best  not  to  be 
born  at  all ;  and  next  to  that,  it  is  more  eligible  to  die 
than  to  live  ;  and  this  is  confirmed  even  by  divine  testi- 
mony. Pertinently  to  this  they  say  that  Midas,  after 
hunting,  asked  his  captive  Silenus  somewhat  urgently, 
what  was  the  most  desirable  thing  amongst  men.  At  first 
he  would  return  no  answer,  but  was  obstinately  silent.  At 
last,  when  Midas  would  not  give  over  importuning  him,  he 
broke  out  into  these  words,  though  very  unwillingly  :  '  Thou 
seed  of  an  evil  genius  and  precarious  ofi"spring  of  hard 
fortune,  whose  life  is  but  for  a  day,  Avhy  dost  thou  compel 
me  to  tell  thee  those  things  it  is  better  thou  wert  ignorant 
of  ?  For  those  live  the  least  disturbed  who  know  not  their 
misfortunes  ;  but  for  men,  the  best  for  them  is  not  to  be 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  327 

born  at  all,  nor  to  be  made  partakers  of  the  most  excellent 
nature  ;  not  to  be  is  best  for  both  sexes.  This  should 
have  the  first  place  in  our  choice  ;  and  the  next  to  this  is, 
when  we  are  born,  to  die  as  soon  as  we  can.'  It  is  plain 
therefore,  that  he  declared  the  condition  of  the  dead  to  be 
better  than  that  of  the  living." 

I  could  bring  millions  of  examples  to  justify  this  topic, 
but  I  will  not  be  long. 

28.  We  are  not  therefore  to  lament  those  who  die  in 
the  bloom  of  their  years,  as  if  they  were  spoiled  of  things 
Avhich  we  call  enjoyments  in  a  longer  life  ;  for  it  is  uncer- 
tain, as  we  have  often  said,  Avhether  they  are  deprived  of 
good  or  evil,  for  the  evil  in  the  world  far  exceeds  the  good. 
The  good  we  obtain  hardly  and  with  anxious  endeavor,  but 
the  evil  easily  befalls  us  ;  for  they  say  evils  are  linked  to- 
gether, and  by  a  mutual  dependence  of  causes  follow  one 
another,  but  the  good  lie  scattered  and  disjoined,  and  with 
great  difficulty  are  brought  within  the  compass  of  our  life. 
Therefore  we  seem  to  have  forgot  our  condition  ;  for  not 
only  is  it  true,  as  Euripides  hath  it,  that 

The  things  we  do  possess  are  not  our  own ;  * 

but  in  general  no  man  can  claim  a  strict  propriety  in  any 
thing  he  hath  :  — 

When  Gods  do  riclies  lend,  it  is  but  just 

Tliat  wiien  they  please  we  should  resign  our  trust. 

ΛΥβ  ought  not  therefore  to  take  it  amiss  if  they  demand 
those  things  which  they  lent  us  only  for  a  small  time  ;  for 
even  your  common  brokers,  unless  they  are  unjust,  will  not 
be  displeased  if  they  are  called  upon  to  refund  their  pawns, 
and  if  one  of  them  is  not  altogether  so  ready  to  deliver 
them,  thou  mayst  say  to  him  Avithout  any  injury.  Hast  thou 
forgot  that  thou  receivedst  them  upon  the  condition  to  re- 
store them "?  The  same  parity  of  reason  holds  amongst  all 
men.     The  Gods  have  put  life  into  our  hands  by  a  fatal 

*  Eurip.  Phoeniss.  555. 


328  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

necessity,  and  there  is  no  prefixed  time  when  what  is  so 
deposited  will  be  required  of  us,  as  the  brokers  know  not 
when  their  pa\vns  will  be  demanded.  If  therefore  any  one 
is  angry  when  he  is  dying  himself,  or  resents  the  death  of 
his  children,  is  it  not  very  |)lain,  that  he  hath  forgot  that 
he  himself  is  a  man  and  that  he  hath  begotten  children  as 
frail  as  himself?  For  a  man  that  is  in  his  wits  cannot  be 
ignorant  that  he  is  a  mortal  creature,  and  born  to  this  very 
end  that  he  must  die.  If  Niobe,  as  it  is  in  the  fable,  had 
had  this  sentence  always  at  hand,  that  she  must  at  length 
die,  and  could  not 

In  the  ever-flowering  bloom  of  youth  remain, 
Nor  loaded  with  cliildren,  like  a  fruitful  tree, 
Behold  the  sun's  sweet  light, — 

she  would  never  have  sunk  to  such  a  degree  of  desperation 
as  to  desire  to  throw  off  her  life  to  ease  the  burthen  of  her 
sorrow,  and  call  upon  the  Gods  to  hurry  her  into  the  ut- 
most destruction.  There  are  two  sentences  inscribed  upon 
the  Delphic  oracle,  hugely  accommodated  to  the  usages  of 
man  s  life,  Know  thyself,  and  Nothing  too  much  ;  and  upon 
thesf  all  other  precepts  depend.  And  they  themselves 
accord  and  harmonize  with  each  other,  and  each  seems  to 
illustrate  the  energy  of  the  other ;  for  in  Know  thyself  is 
included  JSiothing  too  much  ;  and  so  again  in  the  latter  is 
comprised  Know  thyself.  And  Ion  hath  spoken  of  it 
thus :  — 

This  sentence,  Know  thpelf,  is  but  a  word  ; 
But  only  Jove  himself  could  do  the  thing. 

And  thus  Pindar :  — 

This  sentence  briet,  Do  nothing  to  excess, 
Wise  men  have  always  praised  exceedingly. 

29.  He  therefore  that  hath  these  impressed  upon  his 
mind  as  the  precepts  of  the  Pythian  oracle,  can  easily 
conform  himself  to  all  the  affairs  of  life,  and  bear  them 
handsomely  ;  considering  his  nature,  so  that  he  is  neither 
lifted  up  to  arrogance  upon  a  prosperous  event,  nor  when 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  329 

an  adverse  happens,  is  dejected  into  complaint  through 
pusillanimity  and  that  fear  of  death  which  is  so  congenial 
to  us  ;  both  which  proceed  from  the  ignorance  of  those 
things  which  fall  out  in  human  life  by  necessity  and  fatal 
decree.  The  Pythagoreans  speak  handsomely  to  this  pur- 
pose :  — 

Against  those  evils  thou  shouldest  not  repine, 
Which  are  inflicted  by  the  powers  divine. 

Thus  the  tragedian  Aeschylus :  — 

He  store  of  wisdom  and  of  virtue  hath, 

Whom  nothing  from  tlie  Gods  provokes  to  wrath. 

Euripides  thus  :  — 

He  that  is  passive  when  the  Fates  command 
Is  wise,  and  all  the  Gods  doth  understand. 

In  another  place  so  :  — 

He  that  can  bear  those  things  which  men  befall, 
Him  wise  and  modest  we  may  justly  call. 

30.  But  many  there  are  who  blame  all  things  ;  and 
whatsoever  unexpectedly  happens  to  them,  they  think  is 
procured  them  by  the  malignity  of  Fortune  and  the  spite 
of  some  evil  genius.  Wherefore  they  are  querulous  and 
cry  out  upon  every  occasion,  inveighing  against  the  bitter- 
ness of  their  mishaps.  Their  complaints  we  may  not 
unfitly  obviate  with  this  expression,  — 

The  Gods  do  Imrt  thee  not,  but  thou  thyself,  — 

even  thou  thyself  through  perverseness  and  want  of  good 
instruction.  And  by  reason  of  this  false  and  deceiving 
opinion  they  accuse  any  kind  of  death  ;  for  if  one  die 
upon  his  travel,  they  exclaim  after  this  manner  :  — 

The  Avretch,  his  father  being  absent,  dies  ; 
Nor  did  his  aged  mother  close  his  eyes.* 

If  he  die  in  his  ΟΛνη  country,  with  his  parents  about 
him,  they  lament  that  he  is  ravished  out  of  their  hands, 
and  hath  left  them  nothing  but  regret  for  his  loss.     If  he 

*  II.  XI.  452. 


330  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

die  silent,  giving  them  no  instructions  at  parting,  they 
complain  thus :  — 

His  tender  dying  words  I  did  not  hear, 
Which  I  in  my  remembrance  still  should  bear* 

If  he  spoke  any  thing  before  he  breathed  out  his  soul, 
they  keep  those  last  accents  as  fuel  to  maintain  their 
sorrow  still  kindled.  If  he  die  a  sudden  death,  they  cry 
out  that  he  is  snatched  away  ;  if  chronical  pains  waste  him, 
they  will  tell  you  that  the  slow  distemper  hath  emaciated 
him  to  death.  Thus  every  appearance,  take  it  Avhich  way 
you  will,  is  sufficient  to  stir  up  your  complaints.  These 
things  the  poets  have  introduced,  and  the  chiefest  among 
them,  Homer,  who  sung  after  this  manner :  — 

As  a  poor  father,  helpless  and  undone, 
Mourns  o'er  the  ashes  of  an  only  son. 
Takes  a  sad  pleasure  the  last  bones  to  burn, 
And  pours  in  tears  ere  yet  they  close  the  urn.t 

And  whether  these  things  are  justly  lamented  doth  not  yet 
appear.     But  see  what  he  elsewhere  sings  :  — 

Born  in  his  elder  years,  his  only  boy, 
Λνΐιο  was  designed  his  riches  to  enjoy. f 

31.  Who  knows  but  that  the  Deity,  with  a  fatherly  prov- 
idence and  out  of  tenderness  to  mankind,  foreseeing  what 
would  happen,  hath  taken  some  purposely  out  of  this  life 
by  an  untimely  death  ]  So  we  should  think  that  nothing 
has  befallen  them  which  they  should  have  sought  to  shun, — 

For  nought  that  cometh  by  necessity  is  hard,  1| 

neither  of  those  things  which  fall  out  by  a  precedent 
ratiocination  or  a  subsequent.  And  many  by  a  timely 
death  have  been  withdrawn  from  greater  calamities  ;  so 
that  it  hath  been  good  for  some  never  to  have  been  born 
at  all ;  for  others,  that  as  soon  as  life  hath  been  blown  in  it 
should  be  extinguished ;  for  some,  that  they  should  live  a 
little  longer ;    and  for  others   again,  that  they  should  be 

*  II.  XXIV.  744.  t  II.  XXIII.  222 ;  XVII.  37 

t  II.  IX.  482.  II  From  Euripides. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  331 

cropped  in  the  prime  of  their  youth.  These  several  sorts 
of  deaths  sliould  be  taken  in  good  part,  since  Fate  is 
inevitable.  Therefore  it  becomes  men  Λνοΐΐ  educated  to 
consider  that  those  who  have  paid  their  debt  to  mortality 
have  onlv  «-one  before  us  a  little  time  ;  that  the  lonaest  life 
is  but  as  a  point  in  respect  of  eternity,  and  that  many  who 
have  indulged  their  sorrow  to  excess  have  themselves  fol- 
lowed in  a  small  while  those  that  they  have  lamented, 
having  reaped  no  profit  o'ut  of  their  complaints,  but  mace- 
rated themselves  with  voluntary  afflictions.  Since  then 
the  time  of  our  pilgrimage  in  this  life  is  but  short,  we 
ought  not  to  consume  ourselves  with  sordid  grief,  and  so 
render  ourselves  unhappy  by  afflicting  our  minds  and 
tormenting  our  bodies  ;  but  we  should  endeavor  after  a 
more  manly  and  rational  sort  of  life,  and  not  associate  our- 
selves with  those  who  will  be  companions  in  grief  and  by 
flattering  our  tears  will  only  excite  them  the  more,  but 
rather  Λvith  those  who  will  diminish  our  grief  by  solemn 
and  generous  consolation.  And  we  ought  to  hear  and 
keep  in  our  remembrance  those  words  of  Homer  where- 
with Hector  answers  Andromache,  comforting  her  after 
this  manner :  — 

Andromaclie,  my  soul's  far  better  part, 
Why  with  untimely  sorrows  heaves  thy  heari  t 
No  hostile  hand  can  antedate  my  doom, 
Till  Fate  condemns  me  to  the  silent  tomb. 
Fix'd  is  tlie  term  to  all  the  race  of  earth, 
And  such  the  liard  condition  of  our  birth  : 
No  force  can  then  resist,  no  flight  can  save, 
All  sink  alike,  the  fearful  and  the  brave.* 

Which  the  poet  expresseth  in  another  place  thus : 

The  thread  which  at  his  birth  for  him  was  spun.t 

S2.  Having  these  things  fixed  in  our  minds,  all  vain  and 
fruitless  sorrow  will  be  superseded ;  the  time  that  we  have 
all  to  live  being  but  very  short,  Λνβ  ought  to  spare  and 

*  II.  VI.  486.  t  II.  XX.  128. 


332  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

husband  it,  and  not  lay  it  out  too  prodigally  upon  sorrow, 
but  rather  spend  it  in  tranquillity,  deserting  the  mournful 
colors,  and  so  take  care  of  our  own  bodies,  and  consult  the 
safety  of  those  who  live  Λvith  us.  It  is  requisite  that  we 
should  call  to  mind  what  reasons  Ave  urged  to  our  kinsmen 
and  friends  when  they  were  in  the  like  calamities,  when  we 
exhorted  them  to  suffer  these  usual  accidents  of  life  with  a 
common  patience,  and  bear  mortal  things  with  humanity  ; 
lest  being  prepared  with  instructions  for  other  men's  mis- 
fortunes, we  reap  no  benefit  ourselves  out  of  the  remem- 
brance of  those  consolations,  and  so  do  not  cure  our  minds 
by  the  sovereign  application  of  reason.  For  in  any  thing 
a  delay  is  less  dangerous  than  in  sorrow ;  and  when  by 
every  one  it  is  so  tritely  said,  that  he  that  procrastinates  in 
an  affair  contests  Avith  destruction,  I  think  the  character 
will  more  fitly  sit  upon  him  who  defers  the  removing  his 
troubles  and  the  perturbations  of  his  mind. 

33.  We  ought  also  to  cast  our  eyes  upon  those  conspic- 
uous examples  who  have  borne  the  deaths  of  their  sons 
generously  and  with  a  great  spirit ;  such  as  were  Anaxa- 
goras  of  Clazomenae,  Demosthenes  of  Athens,  Dion  of 
Syracuse,  King  Antigonus,  and  many  others  who  have  lived 
either  in  our  times  or  in  the  memory  of  our  fathers.  They 
report  of  Anaxagoras  that,  when  he  was  reading  natural 
philosophy  to  his  pupils  and  reasoning  with  them,  sudden 
news  Avas  brought  him  of  the  death  of  his  son.  He  pres- 
ently stopped  short  in  his  lecture,  and  said  this  to  his 
auditors,  I  knew  that  I  begot  my  son  mortal.  And  of 
Pericles,  who  was  surnamed  Olympius  for  his  wisdom  and 
the  strength  of  his  eloquence,  when  he  heard  that  both  his 
sons  were  dead,  Paralus  and  Xanthippus,  how  he  behaved 
himself  upon  this  accident  Protagoras  tells  us  in  these 
words.  "  When  his  sons,"  saith  he,  "  being  in  the  first  ver- 
dure of  their  youth  and  handsome  lads,  died  within  eigiit 
days,  he  bore  the  calamity  without  any  repining  ;  for  he  was 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  333 

of  a  pacific  temper,  from  whence  there  was  every  day  an 
accession  of  advantages  towards  the  making  him  happy,  the 
being  free  from  grief,  and  thereby  acquiring  a  great  repu- 
tation amongst  his  fellow-citizens.     For  every  one  that  saw 
him  bear  this  calamity  with  so  brave  a  resolution  thought 
him  magnanimous,  and  indeed  entertained  an  higher  opin- 
ion of  him  than  he  strictly  deserved ;  for  he  was  conscious 
to  himself  of  some  Aveakness  and  defects  in  cases  of  this 
nature."     Now  after  he  had  received  the  news  of  the  death 
of  his  sons,  he  put  on  a  garland  according  to  the  custom 
of  his  country,  and  being  clothed  in  white,  he  made   an 
harangue  to  the  people,  was  the  author  of  safe  and  rational 
counsels,  and  stirred  up  the  courage  of  his  Athenians  to 
warlike  expeditions.     Chronicles  tell  us,  that  when  an  ex- 
press came  out  of  the  field  to  Xenophon  the  Socratic  as  he 
was  sacrificing,  which  acquainted  him  that  his  son  perished 
in  the  fight,  he  pulled  the  garland  from   his   head,  and 
enquired  after  what  manner  he  fell  ;     and  it  being  told 
him  that  he  died  gallantly,  making  a  great  slaughter  of 
his  enemies,  after  he  had  paused  awhile  to  recollect  his 
thoughts  and  quiet  his  first  emotion  of  concern  with  reason, 
he  adorned  his  head  again,  finished  the  sacrifice,  and  spoke 
thus  to  the   messengers :    I  did  not  make  it  my  request  to 
the  Gods,  that  my  son  might  be  immortal  or  long-lived,  for 
it  is  not  manifest  whether  this  was  convenient  for  him  or 
not,  but  that  he  might  have  integrity  in  his  principles  and 
be  a  lover  of  his  country  ;  and  now  I  have  my  desire.    Dion 
of  Syracuse,  as  he  was  consulting  with  his  friends  concern- 
ing some  affairs,  heard  a  great  noise ;  and  crying  out  and 
asking  what  was  the  matter,  he  was  told  the  accident,  that 
his  son  was  killed  Avith  a  fall  from  the  top  of  the  house. 
He  was  not  at  all  surprised  or  astonished  at  the  disaster, 
but  commanded  the  dead  body  to  be  delivered  to  the  women, 
that  they  might  bury  it  according  to  custom.     But  he  went 
on  with  his  first  deliberations,  and  re-assumed  his  discourse 


334:  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

in  that  part  where  this  accident  had  broken  it  off.  It  is 
said  that  Demosthenes  the  orator  imitated  him  upon  the 
loss  of  his  only  and  dearest  daughter ;  about  Avhich  Aes- 
chines,  thinking  to  upbraid  him,  spoke  after  this  manner : 
Within  seven  days  after  the  death  of  his  daughter,  before 
he  had  performed  the  decencies  of  sorrow,  and  paid  those 
common  rites  to  the  memory  of  the  deceased,  he  put  on  a 
garland,  clothed  himself  in  white,  and  sacrificed,  thereby 
outraging  decency,  though  he  had  lost  his  only  daughter, 
the  one  which  had  first  called  him  father.*  Thus  did 
Aeschines  with  the  strokes  of  his  oratory  accuse  Demc^s- 
thenes,  not  knowing  that  he  rather  deserved  a  panegyric 
upon  this  occasion,  when  he  rejected  his  sorrow  and  pre- 
ferred the  love  of  his  country  to  the  tenderness  and  com- 
passion he  ought  to  have  for  his  relations.  King  Antigonus, 
when  he  heard  the  death  of  his  son  Alcyoneus  who  was 
slain  in  battle,  looking  steadily  upon  the  messengers  of 
these  sad  tidings,  after  a  little  interval  of  silence  and  with 
a  modest  countenance,  spoke  thus :  Ο  Alcyoneus,  thou 
hast  fallen  later  than  I  thought  thou  wouldst,  so  brisk  wast 
thou  to  run  upon  the  thickest  of  thy  enemies,  having  no 
regard  either  to  thy  own  safety  or  to  my  admonitions. 
Every  one  praiseth  these  men  for  the  bravery  of  their  spirit, 
but  none  can  imitate  what  they  have  done,  through  the 
weakness  of  their  minds  which  proceeds  from  want  of 
good  instruction.  But  although  there  are  many  examples 
extant,  both  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  stories,  of  those  who 
have  borne  the  death  of  their  relations  not  only  with  de- 
cency but  courage,  I  think  these  that  I  have  related  to  be 
a  sufiScient  motive  to  thee  to  keep  tormenting  grief  at  a 
distance,  and  so  ease  thyself  of  that  labor  Avhich  hath  no 
profit  in  it  and  is  all  in  vain. 

34.    For  that  virtuous  men  die  in  the  prime  of  their 
years  by  the  kindness  of  the  Gods,  to  whom  they  are  pecu- 

*  Aeschines  against  Ctesiphon,  §  77. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  'ό'ΟΓί 

Harly  clear,  I  have  already  told  thee  in  the  former  part  of 
my  discourse,  and  λυΙΙΙ  giA^e  a  short  hint  of  it  now,  bearing 
witness  to  that  which  is  so  prettily  said  by  Menander :  — 

He  whom  the  Gods  do  love  dies  young. 

But  perhaps,  my  dear  Apollonius,  thou  wilt  thus  object 
to  me :  My  young  Apollonius  was  blessed  by  fortune  in 
his  life,  and  I  ought  first  to  have  died  that  he  might  bury 
me  ;  for  this  is  according  to  nature.  According  to  our 
human  nature,  I  confess  ;  but  Providence  hath  other  meas- 
ures, and  that  supreme  order  Avhich  governs  the  world  is 
very  different ;  for  thy  son  being  now  made  happy,  it  was 
not  requisite  according  to  nature  that  he  should  tarry  in 
this  life  longer  than  the  time  prefixed  him,  but  that,  having 
consummated  the  term  of  his  duration,  he  should  perform 
his  fatal  journey,  Nature  recalling  him  to  herself  But  he 
died  untimely,  you  may  say.  Upon  that  account  he  is  the 
happier,  not  having  been  sensible  of  those  evils  which  are 
incident  to  life.     For  Euripides  said  truly :  — 

The  tune  of  being  here  we  style  amiss  ; 
We  call  it  life,  but  truly  labor  'tis. 

Thy  Apollonius  died  in  the  beautiful  flower  of  his  years, 
a  youth  in  all  points  perfect,  who  gained  the  love,  and  pro- 
voked the  emulation  of  all  his  contemporaries  He  was 
dutiful  to  his  father  and  mother,  obliging  to  his  domestics, 
Avas  a  scholar,  and  (to  comprehend  all  in  a  Λvord)  he  was  a 
lover  of  mankind.  He  had  a  veneration  for  the  old  men 
that  were  his  friends,  as  if  they  had  been  his  parents,  had 
an  affection  for  his  companions  and  equals,  reverenced  his 
instructors,  Avas  hospitable  and  mild  to  his  guests  and 
strangers,  gracious  to  all,  and  beloved  by  all,  as  well 
for  his  attractive  countenance  as  for  his  lovely  affability. 
Therefore,  being  accompanied  Avith  the  applauses  of  thy 
piety  and  his  own,  he  hath  only  made  a  digression  from 
this  mortal  life  to  eternity,  as  if  he  had  withdrawn  from  the 
entertainment  before  he  grew  absurd,  and  before  the  stag- 


336  CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS. 

gerings  of  drunkenness  came  upon  him,  which  are  incident 
to  a  long  okl  age.  Now  if  the  sayings  of  the  old  philoso- 
phers and  poets  are  true,  as  there  is  probability  to  think, 
that  honors  and  high  seats  of  dignity  are  conferred  upon 
the  righteous  after  they  are  departed  this  life,  and  if,  as  it 
is  said,  a  particular  region  is  appointed  for  their  souls  to 
dΛvell  in,  you  ought  to  cherish  very  fair  hopes  that  your 
son  stands  numbered  amongst  those  blest  inhabitants. 

35.  Of  the  state  of  the  pious  after  death,  Pindar  dis- 
courseth  after  this  manner :  — 

There  the  sun  sliines  with  an  unsullied  light, 
Wiien  all  the  world  below  is  thick  with  night. 
There  all  the  richly  scented  plants  do  grow, 
And  there  the  crimson-colored  roses  blow ; 
Each  flower  blooming  on  its  tender  stalk, 
And  all  these  meadows  are  their  evening  walk. 
There  trees  peculiarly  delight  tlie  sense, 
With  their  exhaled  perfumes  of  frankincense. 
The  boughs  their  noble  burdens  cannot  hold, 
The  weight  must  sink  them  when  the  fruit  is  gold. 
Some  do  the  horse  unto  the  manege  bring, 
Others  unto  the  tuneful  lute  do  sing ; 
There's  plenty  to  excess  of  every  thing. 
The  region  always  doth  serene  appear, 
The  sun  and  pious  flames  do  make  it  clear, 
Where  fragrant  gums  do  from  the  altars  rise. 
When  to  the  Gods  they  offer  sacrifice. 

And  proceeding  farther,  in  another  lamentation  he  spake 
thus  concerning  the  soul :  — 

Just  we  that  distribution  may  call, 
Which  to  each  man  impartially  doth  fall. 
It  doth  decide  the  dull  contentious  strife, 
And  easeth  the  calamities  of  life. 
Death  doth  its  eflbrts  on  the  body  spend  ; 
But  the  aspiring  soul  dotli .up wards  tend. 
Nothing  can  damp  that  bright  and  subtile  flame, 
Immortal  as  the  Gods  from  whence  it  came. 
But  this  sometimes  a  drowsy  nap  will  take. 
When  all  the  other  members  are  awake. 
Fancy  in  various  dreams  doth  to  it  show. 
What  punishments  unto  each  crime  is  due  ; 
What  pleasures  are  reserved  for  pious  deeds, 
And  with  what  scourges  the  incestuous  bleeds. 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  337 

36.  Divine  Plato  hath  spoken  many  things  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  in  that  book  which  he  calls  his  Phaedo ; 
not  a  few  in  his  Republic,  his  Menon,  and  his  Gorgias  ; 
and  hath  some  scattered  expressions  in  the  rest  of  his  dia- 
logues. The  things  which  are  written  by  liim  in  his  Dia- 
logue concerning  the  Soul  I  will  send  you  by  themselves, 
illustrated  with  my  commentaries  upon  them,  according  to 
your  request.  I  will  now  only  quote  those  which  are  op- 
portune and  to  the  present  purpose,  and  they  are  the  words 
of  Socrates  to  Callicles  the  Athenian,  Avho  was  the  compan- 
ion and  scholar  of  Gorgias  the  rhetorician.  For  so  saith 
Socrates  in  Plato  :  — 

"  Hear  then,"  saith  he,  "  a  most  elegant  story,  Avhich  you, 
1  fancy,  will  think  to  be  a  fable,  but  I  take  it  to  be  a  truth, 
for  the  things  Avhich  I  shall  tell  you  have  nothing  but  real- 
ity in  them.  Jupiter,  Neptune,  and  Pluto,  as  Homer  tells 
us,  divided  amongst  themselves  the  kingdom  Avhich  they 
received  by  inheritance  from  their  father ;  but  there  Avas  a 
law  established  concerning  men  in  the  reign  of  Saturn, 
which  was  then  valid  and  still  remains  in  force  amongst 

ο 

the  Gods,  that  that  mortal  Avhich  had  led  a  just  and  pious 
life  should  go,  when  he  died,  into  the  fortunate  islands  of 
the  blest,  and  there  dwell  in  happiness,  free  from  all  mis- 
ery ;  but  he  that  had  lived  impiously  and  in  contempt  of 
the  Gods  should  be  shackled  with  vengeance,  and  be  thrust 
into  that  prison  which  they  call  Tartarus.  In  the  time  of 
Saturn,  and  in  the  first  beginning  of  Jove's  empire,  the 
living  judged  the  living,  and  tliat  the  same  day  that  the  ν 
were  to  die ;  Avhereupon  the  decisions  of  the  bench  were 
not  rightly  managed.  Therefore  Pluto  and  his  curators 
under  him  came  out  of  these  fortunate  islands,  and  com- 
plained to  Jupiter  that  men  were  sent  to  both  places  Avho 
were  not  worthy.  I,  saith  Jupiter,  will  take  care  that  this 
thing  be  not  practised  for  the  future  ;  for  the  reason  that 
the  sentences  are  now  unjustly  passed  is  that  the  guilty  come 

vor.-    r.  ^" 


33S  CONSOLATION  TO  ArOLLONIUS. 

clothed  to  the  tribunal,  and  whilst  they  are  yet  alive.  For 
some  of  profligate  dispositions  are  yet  palliated  Avith  a 
beautiful  outside,  with  riches,  and  titles  of  nobility  ;  and  so 
when  they  come  to  be  arraigned,  many  Avill  offer  tliemselves 
as  witnesses  to  swear  that  they  have  lived  very  pious  lives. 
The  judges  are  dazzled  with  these  appearances,  and  they 
sit  upon  them  too  in  their  robes  ;  so  tliat  their  minds  are 
(as  it  were)  covered  and  obscured  with  eyes  and  ears,  and 
indeed  with  the  encumbrance  of  the  whole  body.  The 
judges  and  the  prisoners  being  clotlied  is  thus  a  very  great 
impediment.  Therefore  in  the  first  place  the  foreknowl- 
edge of  death  is  to  be  taken  away ;  for  now  they  see  the 
end  of  their  line,  and  Prometheus  has  been  commanded  to 
see  that  this  be  no  longer  allowed.  Next  they  ought  to  be 
divested  of  all  dress  and  ornament,  and  come  dead  to  the 
tribunal.  The  judge  himself  is  to  be  naked  and  dead  too, 
that  with  his  own  soul  he  may  view  the  naked  soul  of  each 
one  so  soon  as  he  is  dead,  Λvhen  he  is  now  forsaken  of  his 
relations,  and  has  left  behind  him  all  his  gayeties  in  the 
other  world  ;  and  so  justice  Λνϋΐ  be  impartially  pronounced. 
Deliberating  on  this  Λvith  myself  before  I  received  your 
advice,  I  have  constituted  my  sons  judges,  Minos  and 
Rhadamanthus  from  Asia,  and  Aeacus  from  Europe  ;  these 
therefore,  after  they  have  departed  this  life,  sliall  assume 
their  character,  and  exercise  it  in  the  field,  and  in  the  road 
where  two  ways  divide  themselves,  the  one  leading  to  the 
fortunate  islands,  and  the  other  to  the  deep  abyss ;  so 
Rhadamanthus  shall  judge  the  Asians,  and  Aeacus  the 
Europeans.  But  to  Minos  I  will  grant  the  authority  of  a 
final  appeal,  that  if  any  thing  hath  escaped  the  notice  of 
the  others,  it  shall  be  subjected  to  his  cognizance,  as  to  the 
last  resort  of  a  supreme  judge  ;  that  so  it  may  be  rightly 
decided  what  journey  every  one  ought  to  take.  These  are 
the  things,  Callicles,  which  I  have  heard  and  think  to  be 
true  ;    and  I  draw  this  rational  inference  from  them,  that 


CONSOLATION  TO  APOLLONIUS.  339 

death  in  my  opinion  is  nothing  else  but  the  separation  of 
two  things  nearly  united,  which  are  soul  and  body."  * 

37.  These  collections,  my  dear  Apollonius,  I  have  joined 
together  with  all  the  accuracy  I  could,  and  out  of  them  com- 
posed this  consolatory  letter  I  now  send  thee,  which  is  verv 
necessary  to  dispel  thy  melancholy  humor  and  put  a  period 
to  thy  sighs.  I  have  paid  likewise  that  deference  which 
became  me  to  the  ashes  of  thy  son,  wdio  is  the  darling  of 
the  Gods,  such  an  honor  being  most  acceptable  to  those 
whom  fame  hath  consecrated  to  immortality.  Thou  wilt 
therefore  do  handsomely  to  believe  the  reasons  I  have 
urged  to  thee,  and  gratify  thy  deceased  son,  by  shaking  off 
this  unprofitable  sorrow,  which  eats  into  thy  mind  and  af- 
flicts thy  body,  and  again  returning  to  that  course  of  humor 
which  nature  hath  chalked  out  and  the  former  customs  of 
thy  life  have  made  familiar  to  thee.  For  as,  when  thy  son 
lived  amongst  us,  he  could  not  Avithout  the  deepest  regret 
see  thee  or  his  mother  sad,  so  now  that  he  is  amonsrst  the 
Gods  enjoying  the  intimacy  of  their  conversation,  such  a 
prospect  from  thence  must  be  much  more  displeasing. 
Therefore  take  up  the  resolutions  of  a  good  and  generous 
man  and  of  one  who  loved  his  son,  and  so  extricate  thyself, 
the  mother  of  the  lad,  thy  kinsmen  and  friends  at  once  from 
this  great  infelicity.  Betake  thyself  to  a  more  tranquil  sort 
of  life  ;  which,  as  it  will  be  acceptable  to  thy  son,  will  also 
be  extremely  pleasing  to  all  of  us  who  have  that  concern 
for  thee  that  we  ought  to  have. 

*  Plat  Gorg.  523  A  — 524  B. 


CONCERNING   THE  VIRTUES   OF  ΛΛΌΜΕΝ. 


CoNCERNWG  the  virtues  of  women,  Ο  Clea,  I  am  not  of 
the  same  mind  with  Thucydides.  For  he  wonld  prove 
that  she  is  the  best  woman  concerning  whom  there  is  the 
least  discourse  made  by  people  abroad,  either  to  her  praise 
or  dispraise  ;  judging  that,  as  the  person,  so  the  very  name 
of  a  good  Avoman  ought  to  be  retired  and  not  gad  abroad. 
But  to  us  Gorgias  seems  more  accurate,  who  requires  that 
not  only  the  face  but  the  fame  of  a  woman  should  be  known 
to  many.  For  the  Roman  law  seems  exceeding  good,  which 
permits  due  praises  to  be  given  publicly  both  to  men  and 
women  after  death.  Wherefore  when  Leontis,  a  most 
excellent  woman,  departed  this  life,  immediately  Ave  made 
a  long  oration  to  thee  about  her,  and  truly  not  devoid  of 
philosophical  consolation  ;  and  now  (as  thou  didst  desire) 
I  send  thee  in  writing  the  rest  of  my  speech  and  conversa- 
tion, carrying  Avitli  it  an  historical  demonstration  that  the 
virtue  of  a  man  and  woman  is  one  and  the  same.  And 
although  it  be  not  composed  for  the  tickling  of  the  ear, 
yet  if  there  be  jucundity  in  the  nature  of  an  example  to 
him  that  is  persuaded  of  the  truth  of  it,  my  narration  fails 
TiOt  of  that  grace  which  works  conviction  ;  neither  is  it 
ashamed  of  commixing  the  Graces  with  the  Muses  in  the 
SAveetest  harmony  (as  Euripides  saith),  Avhile  it  engageth 
confidence  especially  through  that  part  of  the  soul  which 
is  studious  of  grace  and  beauty.  For  surely,  if,  whilst  we 
asserted  the  art  of  painting  to  be  the  same,  whether  per- 


CONCERNING   THE    VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN.  341 

formed  by  men  or  women,  Ave  produced  the  same  sort  of 
draughts  Avrought  by  women  which  Apelles,  Zeuxis,  or 
Nicomachus  hath  left,  is  there  any  one  who  woukl  repre- 
hend us  as  attempting  rather  to  humor  and  cajole  men 
than  to  convince  them  ]  A'erily  I  do  not  think  it.  More- 
over, if,  whilst  we  go  to  make  appear  that  the  poetic 
or  comic  art  is  not  one  thing  in  men  and  another  in 
women,  we  compare  Sappho's  verses  with  Anacreon's,  or 
the  Sibylline  oracles  with  tliose  of  Bacis,  can  any  one  justly 
blame  this  way  oi  argumentation,  because  it  insinuates  a 
credence  into  the  pleased  and  delighted  hearers  ]  No  one 
surely  would  say  this.  Neither  can  a  man  truly  any  way  better 
learn  the  resemblance  and  the  difference  between  femin- 
hie  and  virile  virtue  than  by  comparing  together  lives  with 
lives,  exploits  with  exploits,  as  the  products  of  some  great 
art ;  duly  considering  whether  the  magnanimity  of  Semi- 
ramis  carries  with  it  the  same  character  and  impression  with 
that  of  Sesostris,  or  the  cunning  of  Tanaquil  the  same  with 
that  of  King  Servius,  or  the  discretion  of  Porcia  the  same 
with  that  of  Brutus,  or  that  of  Pelopidas  with  Timoclea,  — 
reg-arding  that  quality  of  these  virtues  Avhcrein  lie  their 
chiefest  point  and  force.  ^Moreover,  virtues  do  admit  some 
other  differences,  like  peculiar  colors,  by  reason  of  men's 
.aispositions,  and  are  assimilated  to  the  manners  and  tem- 
peraments of  the  bodies  wherein  they  are,  yea,  to  the  edu- 
cation and  manner  of  diet.  Achilles  was  courageous  in 
one  manner,  Ajax  in  another ;  the  subtlety  of  Ulysses  Avas 
not  like  that  of  Nestor,  neither  were  Cato  and  x\gesilaus 
just  after  the  same  manner  ;  neither  Avas  Eirene  a  lover  of 
her  husband  as  Alcestis  was  ;  neitlier  Avas  Cornelia  mag- 
nanimous in  the  same  way  with  Olympias.  But,  for  all 
this,  we  do  not  say  that  there  are  many  kinds  of  fortitude, 
prudence,  and  justice  specifically  distinct,  so  long  as  their 
individual  dissimilitudes  exclude  none  of  them  from  the 
specific  definitions. 


342  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

Those  things  now  which  are  very  commonly  discoursed 
of,  and  of  which  I  know  thou  hast  had  the  exact  history 
and  knowledge  froni  solid  books,  I  will  at  present  omit, 
unless  there  be  some  public  and  recorded  matters  worth 
your  hearing,  which  have  escaped  the  historians  of  former 
times. 

And  seeing  that  many  worthy  things,  both  public  and 
private,  have  been  done  by  women,  it  is  not  amiss  to  give 
a  brief  historical  account  of  those  that  are  public,  in  the 
first  place. 

ExAJiPLE  1.      Of  the  Trojan  Women. 

Of  those  that  escaped  at  the  taking  of  Troy  the  most 
part  Λyere  exercised  with  much  tempestuous  weather,  and 
being  inexperienced  in  navigation  and  unacquainted  with 
the  sea,  they  were  Λvafted  over  into  Italy  ;  and  about  the 
river  Tiber  they  made  a  very  narrow  escape  by  putting 
into  such  ports  and  havens  as  they  could  meet  with. 
AVhilst  the  mpu  went  about  the  country  to  enquire  after 
pilots,  there  fell  out  a  discourse  among  the  women,  that  for 
a  people  as  fortunate  and  happy  as  they  had  been,  any  fixed 
habitation  on  the  land  was  better  than  perpetual  wandering 
over  the  sea ;  and  that  they  must  make  a  new  country  for 
themselves,  seeing  it  Avas  impossible  to  recover  that  which, 
they  had  lost.  Upon  this,  complotting  together,  they  set 
fire  on  the  ships,  Roma  (as  they  say)  being  one  of  the  fii'st 
in  the  attempt.  But  having  done  these  things,  they  went  to 
meet  their  husbands,  who  were  running  towards  the  sea  to 
the  relief  of  the  ships  ;  and  fearing  their  indignation,  they 
laid  hold  some  of  them  on  their  husbands,  and  some  on  their 
kinsfolk,  and  fell  a  kissing  them  soundly  ;  by  which  carriage 
they  obtained  their  charitable  reception.  Wherefore  it  hath 
been  formerly,  and  now  remains  to  be  a  custom  among  the 
Romans,  for  the  women  to  salute  their  kinsfolk  that  come 
unto  them  by  kissing. 


CONCERNING   THE   \"IRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  343 

The  Trojans  as  it  seems,  being  sensible  of  the  strait  they 
were  in,  and  having  also  made  some  experience  of  the  na- 
tives entertaining  them  with  mnch  bounty  and  humanity, 
applauded  the  exploit  of  the  women,  and  sat  down  by  the 
Latins. 

Example  2.       Of  the  Phocian  Women. 

The  action  of  the  women  of  Phocis  hath  not  fallen 
under  the  cognizance  of  any  noted  writer  of  that  age,  and 
yet  there  was  never  a  more  memorable  deed  of  virtue 
wrought  by  Avomen,  —  the  which  is  attested  by  those 
famous  sacred  rites  performed  by  the  Phocians  at  Hy- 
ampolis,  and  by  ancient  decrees.  The  total  history  of 
the  transaction  is  particularly  recorded  in  the  Life  of 
Daiphantus. 

The  story  of  those  women  is  this.  There  was  an  im- 
placable war  between  the  Thessalians  and  the  Phocians. 
For  these  (the  Phocians)  slew  all  the  Thessalian  governors 
and  maaistrates  in  tlie  cities  of  Phocis  in  one  dav.  Where- 
upon  they  (the  Thessalians)  slew  two  hundred  and  fifty 
Phocian  hostages,  and  with  their  whole  host  marched  up 
against  them  through  Locris,  pubHshing  their  resolution  to 
spare  no  men  that  were  of  age,  and  to  sell  the  women  and 
children  for  slaves.  Daiphantus  therefore,  the  son  of  Ba- 
thyllius,  a  triumvir,  governor  of  Phocis,  persuaded  the 
Phocian  men  themselves  to  go  to  meet  the  Thessalians  in 
battle  ;  but  as  for  the  women,  together  with  their  children, 
that  they  should  assemble  them  from  all  the  parts  of  Pho- 
cis into  one  place,  which  they  should  pile  round  with  com- 
bustible matter,  and  should  lea\^e  a  watch,  to  whom  they 
should  give  in  charge,  that  if  he  perceived  that  the  men 
Avere  conquered,  he  should  immediately  set  tire  to  tlie  pile 
and  burn  all  the  bodies  to  ashes.  The  counsels  were 
agreed  to  by  some,  but  one  stands  up  and  saith  :  It  is  just 
that  these  things  be  consented  to  by  the  women  also,  and 


344:  CONCERNING   THE  VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN. 

if  they  do  not  cheerfully  submit  to  it,  they  should  have  no 
force  offered  to  them.  The  account  of  this  discourse  bemg 
come  to  the  Λvomen,  they  assembled  together  by  them- 
selves, and  carried  it  by  vote,  and  applauded  Daiphantus 
as  a  man  that  best  consulted  the  affairs  of  Phocis  ;  they 
say  also,  that  the  children  meeting  together  privately  voted 
the  same  things.  These  matters  being  thus  settled,  the 
Phocians  joining  battle  at  Cleonae,  a  town  of  Hyampolis, 
got  the  victory.  Hence  the  Grecians  call  this  vote  of  the 
Phocian  women  Aponoia  (the  desperate  resolve).  And  of 
all  the  festivals  this  of  the  Elaphebolia  is  the  greatest, 
Avhich  they  observe  to  Diana  in  Hyampolis  to  this  day,  in 
remembrance  of  this  victory. 

Example  3.      Of  the    Women  of  Chios. 

The  people  of  Chios  possessed  themselves  of  Leuconla 
upon  this  occasion  following.  A  certain  famous  man  of  the 
nobles  of  Chios  was  married  ;  whilst  the  bride  was  drawn 
in  her  chariot,  King  Hippoclus,  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
bridegroom's,  being  present  with  the  rest,  and  also  fuddled 
and  merry,  leaped  into  the  chariot,  not  designing  any  in- 
civility, but  only  to  keep  up  the  usual  custom  and  to  make 
sport.  However,  the  bridegroom's  friends  slew  him.  The 
effects  of  divine  displeasure  appearing  against  the  people 
of  Chios,  and  the  oracle  commanding  them  to  slay  the 
slayers  of  Hippoclus,  they  replied,  ΛΥο  have  all  of  us  slain 
Hippoclus.  The  oracle  commanded  them  all  therefore  to 
depart  the  city,  if  all  did  partake  of  the  guilt.  So  that  at 
length  the  principals,  accessories,  and  abettors  of  the  mur- 
der by  any  means  whatsoever,  being  not  a  few  in  number 
nor  feeble  for  strength,  transplanted  themselves  into  Leu- 
conia,  which  the  Chians  had  once  taken  from  the  Corone- 
ans  by  the  aid  of  the  Erythraeans.  Afterward  a  war  arising 
between  them  and  the  Erythraeans,  by  far  the  most  potent 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES    OF   WOMEN.  310 

people  among  the  lonians,  when  the  latter  invaded  Leuco 
nia,  the  men  of  Chios  ΛveΓe  not  able  to  defend  themselves 
and  came  to  an  agreement  to  depart  upon  these  terms 
that  every  one  should  take  with  him  only  one  cloak  and 
one  coat,  and  nothing  else.  But  the  women  of  Chios  up- 
braided them  as  mean-spirited  men,  that  they  would  lay 
down  their  Aveapons  and  go  naked  men  through  their 
enemies.  And  when  they  made  answer  that  they  were 
sworn  so  to  do,  they  charged  them  not  to  leave  their 
weapons  behind  them,  but  to  say  to  their  adversaries,  that 
the  spear  is  a  cloak  and  the  buckler  a  coat  to  every  man 
of  courage.  The  men  of  Chios  being  persuaded  to  these 
things,  and  emboldening  themselves  courageously  against 
the  Erythraeans,  and  showing  their  weapons,  the  Ery- 
thraeans  were  amazed  at  their  audacity,  and  none  opposed 
or  hindered  them,  but  were  glad  of  their  departure.  These 
men  therefore,  being  taught  courage  by  the  women  in  this 
manner,  made  a  safe  escape. 

Many  years  after  this  there  was  another  exploit,  nothing 
inferior  to  this  in  fortitude,  performed  by  the  women  of 
Chios.  AVhen  Philip,  the  son  of  Demetrius,  besieged  the 
citv,  he  set  forth  a  barbarous  and  insolent  proclamation, 
inviting  the  servants  to  a  defection  upon  promise  of  liberty 
and  marriage  of  their  mistresses,  saying  that  he  would  give 
them  their  masters'  wives  into  their  possession.  At  this 
the  women  were  dreadfully  and  outrageously  incensed  ;  and 
also  the  servants  were  no  less  provoked  to  indignation,  and 
Avere  ready  to  assist.  Therefore  they  rushed  forth  furiously 
and  ascended  the  wall,  bringing  stones  and  darts,  encourag- 
ing and  animating  the  soldiers  ;  so  that  in  the  end  these 
women  discomfited  and  repulsed  the  enemy,  and  caused 
Philip  to  raise  his  siege,  while  not  so  much  as  one  servant 
fell  off  to  him. 


346  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 


Example  4.      Of  the  Argive  Women. 

Of  all  the  renowned  actions  performed  by  women,  none 
w^as  more  famous  than  the  fight  with  Cleomenes  in  the 
country  of  Argos,  whom  Telesilla  the  poetess  by  her  in- 
fluence defeated.  This  woman  they  say  was  of  an  honora- 
ble family,  but  had  a  sickly  body  ;  she  therefore  sent  to 
consult  the  oracle  concerning  her  health.  Answer  was  made, 
that  she  must  be  a  servant  to  the  Muses.  Accordingly  she 
becomes  obedient  to  the  Goddess,  applying  herself  to  poetry 
and  music  ;  her  distempers  left  her,  and  she  became  the  mir- 
ror of  women  in  the  art  of  poetry.  Now  when  Cleomenes, 
king  of  the  Spartans,  having  slain  many  Argives  (but  not 
so  many  as  some  fabulously  reported,  to  wit,  7,777), 
marched  up  against  the  city,  the  youthful  women  Avere  (as 
it  were)  divinely  inspired  with  desperate  resolution  and 
courage  to  repulse  the  enemies  out  of  their  native  country. 

They '  take  arms  under  the  conduct  of  Telesilla,  they 
place  themselves  upon  the  battlements,  they  crown  the 
walls,  even  to  the  admiration  of  the  enemy  ;  they  by  a  sally 
beat  off"  Cleomenes,  Avith  the  slaughter  of  many  of  his  men  ; 
and  as  for  the  other  king.  Demaratus  (as  Socrates  saith), 
he  having  entered  the  city  and  possessed  him  of  the  so- 
called  Pamphyliacum,  they  beat  him  out.  In  this  manner 
the  city  being  preserved,  those  women  that  were  slain  in 
the  engagement  they  buried  by  the  Argive  road ;  to  them 
that  escaped  they  gave  the  honor  of  erecting  the  statue  of 
Mars,  in  perpetual  memorial  of  their  bravery.  Some  say 
this  fight  was  on  the  βΟΛ'οηίΙι  day  of  the  month ;  others  say 
it  vvas  on  the  first  day  of  the  month,  Λvhich  is  now  called 
the  fourth  and  was  anciently  called  Hermaeus  by  the  Ar- 
gives ;  upon  which  day,  even  to  this  time,  they  perform 
their  Hybristica  (i.e.,  their  sacred  rites  of  incivility),  cloth- 
ing the  women  with  men's  coats  and  cloaks,  but  the  men 
with  women's  veils  and  petticoats.      To  repair  the  scarcity 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  347 

of  men,  they  admitted  not  slaves,  as  Herodotus  saitli,  but 
the  best  sort  of  the  adjacent  inhabitants  to  be  citizens,  and 
married  them  to  the  widows  ;  and  these  the  women  thought 
meet  to  reproach  and  undervahie  at  bed  and  board,  as  worse 
than  themselves ;  whence  there  was  a  law  made,  that  mar- 
ried women  should  wear  beards  Λvhen  they  lay  with  their 
husbands. 

Example   5.      Of  the  Persian  Women. 

Cyrus,  causing  the  Persians  to  revolt  from  King  Asty- 
ages  and  the  Medes,  was  overcome  in  battle  ;  and  the 
Persians  retreating  by  flight  into  the  city,  the  enemy  pur- 
sued so  close  that  they  had  almost  fallen  into  the  city  Avitli 
them.  The  Avomen  ran  out  to  meet  them  before  the  city, 
plucking  up  their  petticoats  to  their  middle,  saying,  Ye 
vilest  varlets  among  men,  whither  so  fast  ?  Ye  surely  can- 
not find  a  refuge  in  these  parts,  from  whence  ye  came 
forth.  The  Persians  blushing  for  shame  at  the  sia'ht  and 
speech,  and  rebuking  themselves,  faced  about,  and  renew- 
ing the  fight  routed  their  enemies.  Hence  a  law  was 
enacted,  that  Λνΐιεη  the  king  enters  the  city,  every  woman 
should  receive  a  piece  of  gold  ;  and  this  law  Cyrus  made. 
And  they  say  that  Ochus,  being  in  other  kinds  a  naughty 
and  covetous  king,  Avould  always,  when  he  came,  compass 
the  city  and  not  enter  it,  and  so  deprive  the  women  of 
their  largess  ;  but  Alexander  entered  twice,  and  gave  all 
the  women  with  child  a  double  benevolence 

Example  6.      Of  the  Celtic  Women, 

There  arose  a  very  grievous  and  irreconcilable  conten- 
tion among  the  Celts,  before  they  passed  over  the  Alps  to 
inhabit  that  tract  of  Italy  which  now  they  inhabit,  which 
proceeded  to  a  civil  war.  The  women  placing  themselves 
between  the  armies,  took  up  the  controversies,  argued 
them  so  accurately,  and  determined  them  so  impartially, 


34:8  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

that  an  admirable  friendly  correspondence  and  general 
amity  ensued,  both  civil  and  domestic.  Hence  the  Celts 
made  it  their  practice  to  take  women  into  consultation 
about  peace  or  war,  and  to  use  them  as  mediators  in  any 
controversies  that  arose  between  them  and  their  allies.  In 
the  league  therefore  made  with  Hannibal,  the  writing  runs 
thus  :  If  the  Celts  take  occasion  of  quarrelling  with  the 
Carthaginians,  the  governors  and  generals  of  the  Cartha- 
ginians in  Spain  shall  decide  the  controversy  ;  but  if  the 
Carthaginians  accuse  the  Celts,  the  Celtic  women  shall  be 
judges. 

Example   7.     Oj  the  Melicm  Women. 

The  Melians  standing  in  need  of  a  larger  country  con- 
stituted Nymphaeus,  a  handsome  man  and  marvellously 
comely,  the  commander  for  the  transplanting  of  the  colony. 
The  oracle  enjoined  them  to  continue  sailing  till  they  cast 
away  their  ships,  and  there  to  pitch  their  colony.  It  hap- 
pened that,  when  they  arrived  at  Caria  and  went  ashore, 
their  ships  were  broken  to  pieces  by  a  storm.  Some  of 
the  Carians  which  dwelt  at  Cryassus,  whether  commiserat- 
ing their  distressed  condition  or  dreading  their  resolution, 
invited  them  to  dwell  in  their  neighborhood,  and  bestowed 
upon  them  a  part  of  their  country  ;  but  then  observing 
their  marvellous  increase  in  a  little  time,  they  conspired  to 
cut  them  off  by  treachery,  and  provided  a  feast  and  great 
entertainment  for  that  end  and  purpose.  But  it  came  to 
pass  that  a  certain  virgin  in  Caria,  Avhose  name  was 
Caphene,  fell  in  love  with  Nymphaeus.  While  these 
things  were  in  agitation,  she  could  not  endure  to  connive 
at  the  destruction  of  her  beloved  Nymphaeus,  and  there- 
fore acquainted  him  privately  with  tlie  conspiracy  of  the 
citizens  against  him.  When  the  Cryassians  came  to  invite 
them,  Nymphaeus  made  this  answer :  It  is  not  the  custom 
of  the  Greeks  to  go  to  a  feast  without  their  wives.      The 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  349 

Carians  hearing  this  requested  them  also  to  bring  their 
wives  ;  and  so  explaining  the  whole  transaction  to  the 
Melians,  he  charged  the  men  to  go  Λvithout  armor  in  plain 
apparel,  but  that  every  one  of  the  Avomen  should  carry  a 
daiiirer  stuck  in  her  bosom,  and  that  each  should  take  her 
place  by  her  husband.  About  the  middle  of  supper,  their 
signal  token  was  given  to  the  Carians  ;  the  point  of  time 
also  the  Grecians  Avere  sensible  of.  Accordingly  the 
women  laid  open  their  bosoms,  αιχά  the  men  laid  hold  of 
the  daggers,  and  sheathing  them  in  the  barbarians,  slew 
them  all  together.  And  possessing  themselves  of  the 
country,  they  overthreΛV  that  city,  and  built  another,  which 
they  called  New  Cryassus.  Moreover,  Caphene  being 
married  to  Nymphaeus  received  due  honor  and  grateful 
acknowledgments  becoming  her  good  services.  Here  the 
taciturnity  and  courage  of  women  is  worthy  of  admiration, 
that  none  of  them  among  so  many  did  so  much  as  un- 
wittingly, by  reason  of  fear,  betray  their  trust. 

Example    8.      Of  the  Tyrrhene  Women. 

At  the  time  when  the  Tyrrhenians  inhabited  the  islands 
Lemnos  and  Imbros,  they  violently  seized  upon  some  Athe- 
nian \vomen  from  Brauron,  on  whom  they  begat  children, 
Avhich  children  the  Athenians  banished  from  the  islands  as 
mixed  barbarians.  But  these  arriving  at  Taenarum  were 
serviceable  to  the  Spartans  in  the  lielotic  war,  and  there- 
fore obtained  the  privilege  of  citizens  and  marriage,  but 
were  not  dignified  Λvith  magistracies  or  admitted  to  the 
senate  ;  for  they  had  a  suspicion  that  they  would  combine 
together  in  order  to  some  innovation,  and  conceived  they 
might  shake  the  present  established  government.  Where- 
fore the  Lacedaemonians,  seizing  on  them  and  securing 
them,  shut  them  up  close  prisoners,  seeking  to  take  them 
oif  by  evident  and  strong  convictions.  But  the  wives  of 
the  prisoners,  gathering  together  about  the  prison,  by  many 


350  CONCERNING   THE  VIRTUES   OF   WOMEii. 

supplications  prevailed  Avith  the  jailers  that  they  might  be 
admitted  to  go  to  salute  their  husbands  and  speak  with 
them.  x\s  soon  as  they  came  in,  they  required  them  to 
change  their  clothes  immediately  and  leave  them  to  their 
wives  ;  while  the  men,  apparelled  in  their  wives'  habits, 
should  go  forth.  These  things  being  eifected,  the  women 
stayed  behind,  prepared  to  endure  all  hard  usages  of  the 
prison,  but  the  deluded  keepers  let  out  the  men  as  if  they 
had  been  their  wives.  Whereupon  they  seized  upon  Tay- 
geta,  exciting  the  Helotic  people  to  revolt,  and  taking  them 
to  their  aid  ;  but  the  Spartans,  alarmed  by  these  things  into 
a  great  consternation,  by  a  herald  proclaimed  a  treaty  of 
peace.  And  they  were  reconciled  upon  these  conditions, 
that  they  should  receive  their  wives  again,  and  furnished 
with  ships  and  provisions  should  make  an  expedition  by 
sea,  and  possessing  themselves  of  a  land  and  a  city  else- 
where should  be  accounted  a  colony  and  allies  of  the  Lace- 
daemonians. These  things  did  the  Pelasgians,  taking 
Pollis  for  their  captain  and  Crataedas  his  brother,  both 
Lacedaemonians,  and  one  part  of  them  took  up  their  seat 
m  Melos ;  but  the  most  part  of  them,  which  were  shipped  with 
Pollis,  sailed  into  Crete,  trying  the  truth  of  the  oracles,  by 
whom  they  were  told  that,  when  they  should  lose  their 
Goddess  and  their  anchor,  then  they  should  put  an  end  to 
their  roving  and  there  build  a  city.  AVherefore,  putting 
into  harbor  on  that  part  of  Crete  called  Chersonesns,  panic 
fears  fell  upon  them  by  night,  at  which  coming  under  a 
consternation,  they  leaped  tumultuously  on  board  their 
ships,  leaving  on  shore  for  haste  the  statue  of  Diana,  which 
was  their  patrimony  brought  from  Brauron  to  Lemnos,  and 
from  Lemnos  carried  about  with  them  wherever  they  went. 
The  tumult  being  appeased,  when  they  had  set  sail,  they 
missed  this  statue  ;  and  at  the  same  time  Pollis,  finding 
that  his  anchor  had  lost  one  of  its  beards  (for  the  anchor, 
having  been  dragged,  as   appeared,  through  some   rocky 


CONCERNING   THE  VIRTUES   OF  ΛΥΟΜΕΝ.  351 

place,  was  accidentally  torn),  said  that  the  oracul<M'  answer 
of  the  Pythia  was  accomplished.  Therefore  he  gave  a  sign 
to  tack  abont,  and  accordingly  made  an  inroad  into  that 
country,  conqnered  those  that  opposed  him  in  many  battles, 
sat  down  at  Lyctus,  and  bronglit  many  other  cities  to  be 
tributary  to  him.  And  now  they  repute  themselves  to 
be  akin  to  the  Athenians  on  their  mothers'  side,  and  to  be 
Spartan  colonies. 

ExAAiPLE   9.      Of  the  Lycian    Women. 

That  Avhich  is  reported  to  have  fallen  out  in  Lycia, 
although  it  be  fabulous,  hath  yet  common  fame  attesting 
it.  Amisodarus,  as  they  say,  Λvhom  the  Lycians  call  Isaras, 
came  from  a  colony  of  the  Lycians  about  Zeleia,  bringing 
with  him  pirate  ships,  Λνΐιίοΐι  Chimarrhus,  a  warlike  man, 
who  was  also  savage  and  brutish,  was  commander  of.  He 
sailed  in  a  ship  which  had  a  lion  carved  on  her  head  and  a 
dragon  on  her  stern.  He  did  much  mischief  to  the  Lycians, 
so  that  they  could  not  sail  on  the  sea  nor  inhabit  the  towns 
nigh  the  sea-coast. 

This  man  Bellerophon  pursued  with  his  Pegasns  and 
slew  him,  and  also  defeated  the  Amazons,  for  Avhich  he 
obtained  no  due  requital,  but  lobates  the  king  was  most 
nnjust  to  him ;  upon  which  Bellerophon  went  to  the  sea- 
shore, and  made  earnest  supplication  by  himself  to  N^ep- 
tune  that  he  would  render  that  country  barren  and 
nnfruitful ;  and  having  said  his  prayers,  he  faced  about. 
LTpon  which  the  waves  of  the  sea  arose  and  overwhelmed 
the  land,  and  it  was  a  dreadful  sight  to  behold  the  lofty 
billows  following  Bellero[)hon  and  drowning  the  plain. 
And  now,  when  the  men  by  their  deprecation,  laboring  to 
put  a  stop  to  Bellerophon,  availed  nothing  at  all,  the 
women  plucking  up  their  petticoats  met  him  full  butt ; 
npon  which  confounded  with  shame  he  turned  back  again, 
and  the  flood,  as  they  say,  returned  with  him.     But  some 


352  CONCERNING   THE  VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN. 

unriddle  the  fabulous  part  of  this  story,  by  telling  us  that 
it  was  not  by  execrations  that  he  brought  up  the  sea ;  but 
the  fattest  part  of  the  plain  lying  lower  than  the  sea,  and 
a  certain  ridoe  extendinq;  itself  all  alons:  the  shore  whicli 
beat  off  the  sea,  Bellerophon  broke  through  this,  so  that 
the  sea  forcibly  flowed  in  and  overwhelmed  the  plain  ;  and 
when  the  men  by  their  humble  addresses  obtained  nothing, 
the  women  assembling  about  him  in  multitudes  gained  re- 
spect from  him  and  pacified  his  wrath.  Some  tell  us  that 
the  celebrated  Chimaera  was  a  mountain  opposite  to  the 
sun,  which  caused  reflections  of  the  suli's  beams,  and  in 
summer  ardent  and  fiery  heats,  Avhich  spread  over  the 
plain  and  withered  the  fruits  ;  and  Bellerophon,  finding  out 
the  reason  of  the  mischief,  cut  through  the  smoothest  part 
of  the  cliff",  which  especially  caused  these  reflections.  But 
on  seeing  that  he  was  treated  ungratefully,  his  indignation 
was  excited  to  take  vengeance  on  the  Lycians,  but  was  ap- 
peased by  the  women.  I'he  reason  which  Nymphis  (in  the 
fourth  book  concerning  Heraclea)  doth  assign  is  to  me  not 
at  all  fabulous  ;  for  he  saith,  when  Bellerophon  slew  a  cer- 
tain wild  boar,  which  destroyed  the  cattle  and  fruits  in  the 
province  of  the  Xanthians,  and  received  no  due  reward  of 
his  service,  he  prayed  to  Neptune  for  vengeance,  and  ob- 
tained that  all  the  fields  should  cast  forth  a  salt  dew  and 
be  universally  corrupted,  the  soil  becoming  bitter ;  which 
continued  till  he,  condescendingly  regarding  the  women  sup- 
pliants, prayed  to  Neptune;  and  removed  his  wrath  from 
them.  Hence  there  was  a  law  among  the  Xanthians,  that 
they  should  not  for  the  future  derive  their  names  from  their 
fathers,  but  from  their  mothers. 

Example  10.     Of  the  Women  of  Salmantica. 

When  Hannibal,  the  son  of  Barca,  besieged  the  great 
city  Salmantica  in  Spain,  before  he  fought  against  the 
Romans,  at  the  first  assault  the  besieged  citizens  were  sur- 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  353 

prised  Avith  fear,  insomuch  that  they  consented  to  grant  him 
his  demands,  and  to  give  him  three  hmidred  talents  of  sil- 
ver and  three  hundred  hostages.  Upon  which  he  raised  his 
siege  ;  when  they  changed  their  minds,  and  would  not  per- 
form any  thing  that  they  had  promised.  Wherefore  return- 
ing again  to  his  siege,  he  g;ive  command  to  his  soldiers  to 
take  the  city  by  storm,  and  fall  to  the  plundering  their 
goods.  At  this  the  barbarians,  struck  universally  into  a 
panic  fear,  came  to  terms  of  composition,  for  the  free  citi- 
zens to  depart  the  city  with  their  clothes  to  their  backs, 
but  to  leave  their  weapons,  goods,  slaves,  and  city  behind 
them.  Now  the  women  supposed  that,  although  the  ene- 
mies would  strictly  search  every  man  as  he  departed,  yet 
the  women  would  go  untouched.  Accordingly,  taking  scim- 
itars and  hiding  them  under  their  coats,  they  fell  in  with 
the  men  as  they  marched  out.  When  they  were  all  gone 
out  of  the  city,  Hannibal  sets  a  guard  of  Masaesylian  sol- 
diers, -fixing  their  post  without  the  gate,  but  the  rest  of  his 
army  fell  promiscuously  into  the  city  to  plunder.  But  the 
Masaesylians,  seeing  them  busy  in  carrying  away  much 
spoil,  were  not  able  any  longer  to  refrain  or  to  mind  the 
charge  of  their  watch,  takino;  it  heinouslv  that  that  was 
their  lot,  and  therefore  left  their  post  and  went  to  take  their 
share  of  the  booty.  Upon  this  the  women  raised  a  shout 
to  animate  their  husbands,  and  delivered  the  scimitars 
into  their  hands,  and  they  themselves  some  of  them  fell 
upon  the  sentinels  ;  insomuch  that  one  of  them,  snatching 
away  the  spear  of  Banon  the  interpreter,  smote  him  with 
it,  though  he  was  armed  with  a  breastplate.  And  as  for 
the  rest,  the  men  routed  and  put  some  to  flight  and  slew 
others,  making  their  escape  by  charging  through  them  in 
a  great  body  together  with  the  women.  Hannibal,  being 
made  acquainted  with  these  things,  pursued  them,  and  those 
he  took  he  slevi^ ;  but  some  betaking  themselves  to  the 
mountains  easily  made  their  escape,  and  afterwards,  send- 

voL.  I.  23 


354  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

ing  in  tlicir  humble  supplications,  were  admitted  by  him 
into  the  city,  obtaining  indemnity  and  civil  usage. 

Example  11.      Of  the  Women  of  Milesia. 

A  certain  dreadful  and  monstrous  distemper  did  seize 
the  iNlilesian  maids,  arising  from  some  hidden  cause.  It  is 
most  likely  the  air  had  acquired  some  infatuating  and  ven- 
omous quality,  that  did  influence  them  to  this  change  and 
alienation  of  mind  ;  for  all  on  a  sudden  an  earnest  longing  for 
death,  Avith  furious  attempts  to  hang  themselves,  did  attack 
them,  and  many  did  privily  accomplish  it.  The  arguments 
and  tears  of  parents  and  the  persuasion  of  friends  availed 
nothing,  but  they  circumvented  their  keepers  in  all  their 
contrivances  and  industry  to  prevent  them,  still  murdering 
themselves.  And  the  calamity  seemed  to  be  an  extraordi- 
nary divine  stroke  and  beyond  human  help,  until  by  the 
counsel  of  a  wise  man  a  decree  of  the  senate  was  passed, 
enacting  that  those  maids  who  hanged  themselves  should 
be  carried  naked  through  the  market-place.  The  passage 
of  this  law  not  only  inhibited  but  quashed  their  desire  of 
slaying  themselves.  Note  Avhat  a  great  argument  of  good 
nature  and  virtue  this  fear  of  disgrace  is  ;  for  they  who 
had  no  dread  upon  them  of  the  most  terrible  things  in  the 
Avorld,  death  and  pain,  could  not  abide  the  imagination  of 
dishonor  and  exposure  to  shame  even  after  death. 

Example  12.      Of  the  Women  of  Cios. 

It  Avas  a  custom  among  the  maids  of  Cios  to  assemble 
together  in  the  public  temples,  and  to  pass  the  day  together 
in  good  fellowship  ;  and  there  their  sweethearts  had  the  fe- 
licity to  behold  how  prettily  they  sported  and  danced  about. 
In  the  evening  this  company  went  to  the  house  of  every 
particular  maid  in  her  turn,  and  waited  upon  each  other's 
parents  and  brethren  very  officiously,  even  to  the  washing 
of  their  feet.     It  oftentimes  so  fell  out  that  many  young 


CONCERNING   ΤίΙΕ   ΛαΚΤΠΕΒ   OF   WOMEN.  355 

men  fell  in  \o\e  with  one  maid ;  but  they  carried  it  so  de- 
cently and  civilly  that,  when  the  maid  was  espoused  to  one, 
the  rest  presently  gave  off  courting  of  her.  The  eifect  of 
this  good  order  among  the  Avomen  Λvas  that  no  mention  was 
made  of  any  adultery  or  fornication  among  them  for  the 
space  of  seven  hundred  years. 

Example   13.      Of  the  Phocian  Women. 

When  the  tyrants  of  Phocis  had  taken  Delphi,  and  the 
Thebans  undertook  that  war  against  them  which  was  called 
the  Holy  AVar,  certain  women  devoted  to  Bacchus  (which 
they  call  Thyades)  fell  frantic  and  went  a  gadding  by  night, 
and  mistaking  their  way  they  came  to  Amphissa ;  and 
being  very  much  tired  and  not  as  yet  in  their  right  Avits, 
they  Hung  down  themselves  in  the  market-place,  and  fell 
asleep  as  they  lay  scattered  up  and  down  here  and  there. 
But  the  Avives  of  the  Amphisseans,  fearing,  because  that 
city  was  engaged  to  aid  the  Phocians  in  the  war  and  abun- 
dance of  the  tyrants'  soldiery  were  present  in  the  city,  the 
Thyades  might  have  some  indignity  put  upon  them,  ran 
forth  all  of  them  into  the  market-place  and  stood  silently 
round  about  them,  neither  would  offer  them  any  disturb- 
ance whilst  they  slept ;  but  Avhen  they  were  awake,  they 
attended  their  service  particularly  and  brought  them  re- 
freshments ;  and  in  fine,  by  persuasions  obtained  leave  of 
their  husbands  to  accompany  them  and  escort  them  in 
safety  to  their  own  borders. 

Example   14.     Valeria  and  Oloelia. 

The  injury  done  to  Lucretia  and  her  great  virtue  Avere 
the  causes  of  banishing  Tarquinius  Superbus,  the  seventh 
Roman  king  from  Romulus,  she  being  married  to  an  illus- 
trious man,  one  of  the  royal  race.  She  was  ravished  by 
one  of  Tarquin's  sons,  who  was  in  a  Avay  of  liospitality 
entertained    by   her ;    and   after  she   had    acquainted    her 


356  CONCEENING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN 

friends  and  family  with  the  abuse  offered  her,  she  imme- 
diately slew  herself.  Tarquinius  having  fallen  from  his  do- 
minion, after  many  battles  that  he  fought  in  attempting  to 
regain  his  kingly  government,  at  last  prevailed  Avith  Por- 
sena,  prince  of  the  Etrurians,  to  encamp  against  Rome 
with  a  powerful  army.  Whereupon  the  Romans,  being 
jiressed  Avith  war  and  famine  at  the  same  time,  like- 
wise knowing  that  Porsena  Λvas  not  only  a  great  soldier 
but  a  just  and  civil  person,  resolved  to  refer  the  matters 
against  Tarquinius  to  him  as  a  judge.  This  proposal  Tar- 
quinius obstinately  refused  to  consent  unto,  saying  that 
Porsena  could  not  be  a  just  arbitrator  if  he  did  not  remain 
constant  to  his  military  alliance.  Whereupon  Porsena  left 
him  to  himself,  and  made  it  his  endeaA-or  to  depart  a  friend 
to  the  Romans,  on  condition  of  having  restored  to  him 
the  tracts  of  land  they  had  cut  off  from  the  Etrurians  and  the 
captives  they  had  taken.  Upon  these  accepted  conditions 
hostages  being  given,  —  ten  male  children,  and  ten  females 
(among  Λvhom  was  Valeria,  the  daughter  of  Publicola  the 
consul),  —  he  immediately  ceased  his  Avarlike  preparations 
before  the  articles  of  agreement  were  quite  finished.  Now 
the  virgin  hostages  going  down  to  the  river,  as  if  they  in- 
tended only  to  wash  themselves  a  little  further  than  ordi- 
nary from  the  camp,  there,  by  the  instigation  of  one  of 
them  Avhose  name  was  Cloelia,  wrapping  their  garments 
about  their  heads,  they  cast  tliemselves  into  that  great  river 
Tiber,  and  assisting  one  another,  swam  tlirough  those  vast 
deptlis  with  much  labor  and  difficulty.  There  are  some 
who  say  that  Cloelia  compassing  a  horse  got  upon  him, 
and  passing  over  gently  before,  the  rest  swimming  after  her, 
conducted,  encouraged,  and  assisted  them  ;  the  argument 
they  use  for  this  we  shall  declare  anon. 

As  soon  as  the  Romans  saw  the  maids  had  made  such  a 
clever  escape,  they  admired  indeed  their  fortitude  and 
resolution,  but  did  not  approve  of  their  return,  not  abiding 


CONCERNING    THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  357 

to  be  ΛΥΟΓβθ  in  their  faith  than  any  one  man  ;  therefore 
they  charged  the  maids  to  return  back,  and  sent  them  away 
with  a  safe  conduct.  Tarquinius  hiid  wait  for  them  as  they 
passed  tlie  river,  and  wanted  but  Uttle  of  intercepting  the 
virains.  But  Valeria  with  three  of  her  household  servants 
made  her  flight  to  the  camp  of  Porsena  ;  and  as  for  the  rest, 
Aruns,  Porsena's  son,  gave  them  speedy  help  and  delivered 
them  from  the  enemies.  When  they  were  brought,  Por- 
sena looking  upon  them  commanded  them  to  tell  him 
which  of  them  advised  and  first  attempted  this  enterprise  ; 
all  of  them  being  surprised  with  fear,  except  Cloelia,  were 
silent,  but  she  said,  that  she  was  the  author  of  it ;  at  which 
Porsena,  mightily  surprised,  commanded  an  horse  curiously 
adorned  Avitli  trappings  should  be  brought,  which  he  gave 
to  Cloelia,  and  dismissed  them  all  Avith  much  generosity 
and  civility  ;  and  this  is  the  ground  which  many  make  of 
saying  that  Cloelia  passed  through  the  river  on  horseback. 
Others  deny  this  story,  but  yet  say  that  Porsena  admiring 
the.  undauntedness  and  confidence  of  the  maid,  as  being 
beyond  Avhat  is  commonly  in  a  woman,  bestowed  a  present 
on  her  becoming  a  man  champion.  It  is  certain  that  there 
is  the  statue  of  a  woman  on  horseback  by  the  side  of  the 
Sacred  Way,  which  some  say  represents  Cloelia,  others, 
Valeria. 

Example   15.      Of  Micca  and  Merj'isto. 

Aristotimus  having  usurped  tyranny  over  the  people 
of  Elis  in  Peloponnesus,  against  Avhom  he  prevailed  by 
the  aid  of  King  Antigonus,  used  not  his  power  with  anv 
meekness  or  moderation.  For  he  was  naturally  a  savage 
man ;  and  being  in  servile  fear  of  a  band  of  mixed  barba- 
rians, who  guarded  his  person  and  his  government,  he  con- 
nived at  many  injurious  and  cruel  things  which  his  subjects 
suffered  at  their  hands,  among  which  was  the  calamity  of 
Philodemus.     This  man  had  a  beautiful  daughter,  whose 


358  CONCERNING   THE     VIRTUES  OF   WOMEN. 

name  Avas  Micca.  This  maid  one  of  the  tyrant's  captains 
of  auxiliaries,  called  Lucius,  attempted  to  lie  with,  more 
out  of  a  design  to  debauch  her  than  for  any  love  he  had 
to  her  ;  and  for  this  end  he  sent  to  fetch  her  to  him.  The 
parents  verily  seeing  the  strait  they  were  in  advised  her  to 
go ;  but  the  maid,  being  of  a  generous  and  courageous 
spirit,  clasped  about  her  father,  beseeching  him  with  earnest 
entreaties  that  he  would  rather  see  her  put  to  death  than 
that  her  virginity  should  be  filthily  and  Avickedly  violated. 
Some  delay  being  made,  Lucius  himself  starts  up  in  the 
midst  of  his  cups,  enraged  with  wrath  and  lust,  and  drunk 
with  wine ;  and  finding  Micca  laying  her  head  on  her 
father's  knees,  he  instantly  commanded  her  to  go  along 
Avith  him ;  but  she  refusing,  he  rent  off  her  clothes,  and 
Avhipped  her  stark  naked,  she  stoutly  enduring  the  smart 
in  silence.  When  her  father  and  mother  perceived  that 
by  their  tears  they  could  not  avail  or  bring  any  succor  to 
her,  they  turned  to  imploring  the  help  of  both  Gods  and 
men,  as  persons  that  were  oppressed  by  the  most  cruel  and 
unrighteous  proceedings.  But  this  barbarous  fellow,  drunk 
and  raging  every  Avay  with  madness,  ran  the  maid  through 
as  she  lay  A\ath  her  face  in  her  father's  bosom.  Neither 
was  the  tyrant  affected  with  these  cruelties,  but  slew  many 
and  sent  more  into  exile  ;  for  they  say  eight  hundred  took 
their  fliglit  into  Aetolia,  petitioning  the  tyrant  that  their 
wives  and  children  might  come  to  them.  A  little  after  he 
made  proclamation,  permitting  the  women  that  Avould  to  go 
to  their  husbands,  carrying  with  them  all  their  household 
goods  that  they  pleased  ;  but  when  he  perceived  that  all 
the  women  received  the  proclamation  with  pleasure  (for  the 
number  was  above  six  hundred),  he  charged  them  all  to  go 
in  great  companies  on  the  appointed  day,  as  if  he  intended  to 
consult  for  their  safety.  When  the  day  came,  they  crowded 
at  the  gates  with  their  goods  packed  up,  carrying  their 
children,  some  in  their  arms  and  some  in  carts,  and  stayed 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  359 

for  one  another.  All  on  a  sudden  many  of  the  tyrant's 
creatures  made  towards  them  in  great  haste,  crying  aloud 
to  them  to  stay,  while  they  were  yet  at  great  distance 
from  them  ;  and  as  they  approached,  they  charged  the 
Avomen  to  return  back.  Likewise  turning  about  their 
chariots  and  carts,  they  forced  them  upon  them,  drove  the 
horses  through  the  midst  of  them  witliout  fear  or  wit,  suf- 
fering the  women  neither  to  follow  nor  to  stay,  nor  to 
reach  forth  any  help  to  the  perishing  infants,  some  of 
whom  were  killed  falling  out  of  the  carts,  others  run  over 
bv  the  carts.  So  they  drove  them  in  (as  so  many  sheep 
which  butchers  drive  along),  hauling  and  whipping  them 
as  they  thronged  upon  one  another,  till  they  had  crowded 
them  all  into  a  prison  ;  but  their  goods  they  returned  to 
Aristotimus.  The  people  of  Elis  taking  these  things  very 
heinously,  the  priestesses  devoted  to  Bacchus  (which  they 
call  the  Sixteen),  taking  with  them  their  suppliant  boughs 
and  wreaths  belonging  to  the  service  of  their  God,  went  to 
meet  Aristotimus  in  the  market-place  ;  the  guards,  out  of  a 
reverential  awe,  stood  off  and  gave  \vay  to  their  approach. 
These  priestesses  stood  still  at  first  with  silence,  solemnly 
reaching  forth  their  supplicatory  rods  ;  but  as  soon  as  they 
appeared  as  petitioners  and  deprecators  of  his  wrath  against 
the  women,  he  fell  into  a  great  rage  at  the  guards,  exclaim- 
ing against  them  that  they  had  suffered  the  priestesses  to 
approach  his  presence,  and  he  caused  some  to  be  thrust 
away,  others  to  be  beaten  and  dragged  through  the  market- 
place, and  fined  them  two  talents  apiece. 

These  thino-s  beimj  transacted  in  this  manner,  one  Hel- 

Do  ' 

lanicus  moved  a  conspiracy  against  this  tyrant.  He  was  a 
man  who,  by  reason  of  old  age  and  the  loss  of  two  sons 
by  death,  was  unsuspected  of  the  tyrant,  as  being  altogether 
unlikely  for  action.  In  the  mean  time  also  the  exiles  waft 
themselves  over  from  Aetolia,  and  take  Amymona,  a  very 
convenient   place  on  the  borders  to  entrench  a  camp  in, 


360  CONCERNING  THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

Avhere  tbey  received  great  numbers  of  the  citizens  who 
made  their  escape  by  flight  from  Elis.  Aristotimus  being 
startled  at  these  things  went  in  to  the  imprisoned  women, 
and  thinking  to  work  them  to  his  pleasure  more  by  fear 
than  by  favor,  charged  them  to  send  letters  to  their  hus- 
bands, enjoining  them  to  depart  out  of  the  coasts  ;  if  they 
Avould  not  write,  he  threatened  them  to  slay  their  children 
before  their  eyes,  and  then  put  them  (the  mothers)  to 
death  by  torments.  AVhilst  he  was  long  provoking  and 
urging  them  to  declare  whether  they  would  obey  his  man- 
dates or  not,  most  of  them  answered  him  nothing,  but 
looked  with  silence  one  upon  another,  signifying  by  nods 
and  gestures  that  they  were  not  at  all  affrighted  at  his 
threat.  But  Megisto  the  wife  of  Timocleon,  Avho  both  in 
respect  of  her  husband  and  her  own  excellent  accomplish- 
ments carried  the  port  of  a  princess  among  them,  would 
not  vouchsafe  to  rise  off  her  seat  to  him  nor  permit  the 
rest  so  to  do,  but  as  she  sat,  she  gave  him  this  answer:  — 

"  Verily  if  thou  wert  a  discreet  man,  thou  wouldst  not 
after  this  manner  discourse  with  Λvomen  about  their  hus- 
bands, but  wouldst  send  to  them  as  to  our  lords,  finding 
out  better  language  than  that  by  which  thou  hast  deluded 
us.  But  if  thou  thyself  despairest  to  prevail  Λvith  them, 
and  therefore  undertakest  to  trepan  them  by  our  means,  do 
not  hope  to  put  a  cheat  upon  us  again.  And  may  they 
never  be  guilty  of  such  baseness,  that  for  the  saving  their 
wives  and  little  ones  they  Λνϋΐ  desert  that  liberty  of  their 
native  country ;  for  it  is  not  so  great  a  prejudice  to  them 
to  lose  us,  Avhom  even  ηολν  they  are  depriA^ed  of,  as  it 
will  be  benefit  to  set  the  subjects  at  liberty  from  thy 
cruelty  and  oppression." 

Aristotimus,  being  not  able  to  refrain  himself  at  this 
speech  of  Megisto,  required  that  her  son  should  be 
brought,  as  if  it  were  to  slay  him  before  her  eyes  ;  but 
whilst  the  officer  was  seeking  out  the  child,  that  was  in  the 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  361 

company  of  other  children  playing  and  wrestling  together, 
his  mother  called  him  by  his  name,  and  said  :  Come  hither, 
my  child  ;  before  thou  hast  any  sense  and  understanding, 
be  thou  delivered  from  bitter  tyranny  ;  for  it  would  be 
much  more  grievous  to  me  to  see  thee  basely  enslaved 
than  to  see  thee  die.  At  which  Aristotimus  drawing  his 
sword  upon  the  mother  herself,  and  transported  with  rage, 
M^as  going  to  fall  upon  her,  Λνΐιοη  one  of  his  favorites,  Cylon 
by  name  (esteemed  his  trusty  confidant,  but  in  reality  a 
hater  of  him,  and  a  confederate  with  Hellanicus  in  the  con- 
spiracy), put  a  stop  to  him,  and  averted  him  in  an  humble 
manner,  telling  him :  This  is  an  ignoble  and  woman-like 
carriage,  not  at  all  becoming  a  person  of  a  princely  mind 
and  a  statesman.  Hereupon  Aristotimus  scarcely  coming 
to  his  senses  departed.  Now  observe  what  an  ominous 
prodigy  happened  to  him.  It  was  about  noon,  when  he 
was  taking  some  repose,  his  wife  sitting  by  ;  and  whilst  his 
servants  were  providing  dinner,  an  eagle  was  seen  in  the 
air  floating  over  the  house,  which  did,  as  it  were  consider- 
ately and  on  purpose,  let  fall  a  stone  of  an  handsome  big- 
ness upon  that  part  of  the  roof  of  the  house  Λvhich  was 
over  the  apartment  where  Aristotimus  lay.  At  the  same 
time  there  was  also  a  great  rattling  from  above,  together 
Avith  an  outcry  made  by  the  people  that  were  abroad  look- 
ing upon  the  bird.  Upon  \vhich  Aristotimus,  falling  into 
a  great  consternation  and  examining  the  matter,  sent  and 
called  his  soothsayer  which  he  usually  consulted  in  his 
public  concerns,  and  being  in  great  perplexity,  desired  to 
be  satisfied  what  that  prodigy  meant.  The  soothsayer  bade 
him  be  of  good  cheer,  for  it  signified  that  Jupiter  now 
wakened  and  assisted  him.  But  to  the  citizens  that  he 
could  confide  in  he  said,  that  vengeance  Avould  no  longer 
be  delayed  from  falling  on  the  tyrant's  head.  ΛVherefore 
it  was  concluded  by  Hellanicus  and  his  friends  not  to  defer 
any  longer,  but  to  bring  matters  to  an  issue  the  next  day. 


3G2  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

At  night  Hellanicus  imagined  in  his  sleep  that  he  saw  one 
of  his  dead  sons  stand  by  him  saying,  What  is  the  matter 
with  thee,  Ο  father  !  that  thou  sleepest  ?  To-morrow  thou 
shalt  be  governor  of  this  city.  Being  animated  by  his 
vision,  he  encouraged  the  rest  concerned  with  him.  i^ow 
Aristotimus  was  informed  that  Craterus,  coming  to  his  aid 
with  great  forces,  was  encamped  in  Olympia  ;  upon  which 
he  became  so  confidently  secure,  that  he  ventured  to  go 
without  his  guards  into  the  market-place,  Cylon  only  ac- 
companying him.  Wherefore  Hellanicus,  observing  this 
opportunity,  did  not  think  good  to  give  the  signal  to  those 
that  Avere  to  undertake  the  enterprise  witli  him,  but  with  a 
clear  voice  and  lifting  up  both  his  hands,  he  spake  saying  : 
Ο  ye  good  men  !  why  do  ye  delay  ?  Here  is  a  fair  theatre 
in  the  midst  of  your  native  country  for  you  to  contend  in 
for  the  prize  of  valor.  Whereupon  Cylon  in  the  first 
place  drawing  his  sword  smote  one  of  Aristotimus's  wait- 
ing gentlemen  ;  but  Thrasybulus  and  Lampis  making  a 
brisk  opposition,  Aristotimus  escaped  by  flight  into  the 
temple  of  Jupiter.  Here  slaying  him,  they  dragged  forth 
his  corpse  into  the  market-place,  and  proclaimed  liberty  to 
the  citizens.  Neither  were  the  men  there  much  before  the 
women,  who  immediately  ran  forth  with  joyful  acclamations, 
environing  the  men  and  binding  triumphant  garlands  about 
their  heads.  The  multitude  presently  rushed  on  upon  the 
tyrant's  palace,  where  his  wife  shutting  herself  into  her 
bed-chamber  hanged  herself  He  had  also  two  daughters, 
maidens  of  most  beautiful  complexions,  ripe  for  marriage. 
Those  they  laid  hands  on,  and  haled  forth,  with  a  despe- 
rate resolution  to  slay  them,  but  first  to  torment  and  abuse 
them.  But  Megisto,  with  the  rest  of  the  women,  meeting 
them  called  out  with  a  loud  voice :  Will  they  perpetrate 
such  enormities  who  reckon  themselves  a  free  people,  in 
imitation  of  the  practices  of  audacious  and  libidinous 
tyrants?     The  multitude  reverencing  the  gravity  of  this 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN.  363 

matron,  pleading  with  them  so  undauntedly  as  alsa  affec- 
tionately Avith  tears,  they  resolved  to  lay  aside  this  oppro- 
brious way  of  proceeding,  and  to  cause  them  to  die  by 
their  own  hands.  As  they  weve  therefore  returned  into 
the  chamber,  they  required  the  maids  immediately  to  be 
their  own  executioners.  Muro,  the  eldest,  untying  her 
girdle  and  tying  it  about  her  neck,  saluted  her  sister,  and 
exhorted  her  to  be  careful  and  do  whatever  she  saw  her 
do  ;  lest  (as  she  said)  we  come  to  our  death  in  a  base  and 
unworthy  manner.  But  the  younii:er  desirins:  it  mi":ht  be 
her  lot  to  die  first,  she  delivered  her  the  girdle,  saying  :  I 
did  never  deny  thee  any  thing  thou  didst  ever  desire, 
neither  Avill  I  now  ;  take  this  favor  also.  I  am  resolved  to 
bear  and  endure  that  which  is  more  grievous  than  death  to 
me,  to  see  my  most  dear  sister  die  before  me.  Upon  this, 
when  she  had  instructed  her  sister  how  to  put  the  girdle 
so  as  to  strangle  her,  and  perceived  her  dead,  she  took  her 
down  and  covered  her.  And  now  the  eldest  sister,  whose 
turn  was  next,  besought  Megisto  to  take  care  of  her,  and 
not  suffer  her  to  lie  indecently  after  slie  was  dead.  So  that 
there  was  not  any  one  present  that  was  so  bitter  and 
vehement  a  tyrant-hater  that  he  did  not  lament  and  com- 
passionate these  maidens  upon  their  brave  and  virtuous 
behavior. 


Of  the  innumerable  famous  exploits  performed  by  wo- 
men, these  examples  may  suffice.  But  as  for  their  par- 
ticular virtues,  we  will  describe  them  according  as  they 
offer  themselves  scattered  here  and  there,  not  supposing 
that  our  present  history  doth  necessarily  require  an  exact 
order  of  time. 

Example  16.     Of  Pieria. 

Some  of  the  lonians  who  came  to  dwell  at  Miletus, 
falling  into  contention  with  the  sons  of  Neleus,  departed  to 


3ΰ4  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMElS. 

Myus,  and  there  took  up  their  situation,  where  they  suf- 
fered many  injuries  from  the  Milesians  ;  for  they  made  war 
upon  them  by  reason  of  their  revolt  from  them.  This  war 
Avas  not  indeed  without  truces  or  commerce,  but  upon  cer- 
tain festival  days  the  women  of  Myus  went  to  Miletus. 
Now  there  was  at  Myus  Pythes,  a  renowned  man  among 
them,  who  had  a  wife  called  lapygia,  and  a  daughter 
Pieria.  Pythes,  when  there  was  a  time  of  feasting  and 
sacrificing  to  Diana  among  the  Milesians,  which  they  called 
Neleis,  sent  his  wife  and  daughter,  who  desired  to  partici- 
pate of  the  said  feast ;  when  one  of  the  most  potent  sons 
of  Neleus,  Phrygius  by  name,  fell  in  love  with  Pieria.  He 
desired  to  know  what  service  he  could  do  Avhicli  might  be 
most  acceptable  to  her.  She  told  him,  that  he  should 
bring  it  to  pass  that  she  with  many  otliers  might  have  their 
frequent  recourse  thither.  Hence  Phrygius  understood 
that  she  desired  friendship  and  peace  with  the  citizens  of 
Miletus  ;  accordingly  he  finished  the  war.  Whence  arose 
that  great  honor  and  renown  of  Pieria  in  both  cities  ;  inso- 
much that  the  Milesian  women  do  to  this  day  make  use  of 
this  benediction  to  new  married  wives,  that  their  husbands 
may  love  them  so  as  Phrygius  loved  Pieria. 

Example    17.    Of  Pohjcrita. 

A  Avar  arose  between  the  Naxians  and  Milesians  upon 
the  account  of  Neaera,  the  wife  of  Hypsicreon,  a  Milesian. 
For  she  fell  in  love  with  Promedon  a  Naxian,  who  was 
Hypsicreon  s  guest.  Promedon  lies  \vith  his  beloved  Ne- 
aera ;  and  she,  fearing  her  husband's  displeasure,  took  ship- 
ping with  her  Promedon,  who  carried  her  over  into  Naxos 
and  placed  her  a  supplicant  to  Testa.  The  Naxians  not 
restoring  her  upon  demand,  for  the  sake  of  Promedon  and 
making  her  devotion  to  Vesta  their  pretence,  a  war  arose. 
To  the  assistance  of  the  Milesians  came  in  many  others  ; 
and  of  the  lonians  the  Erythraeans  were  most  ready.     So 


CONCERNING   THE    VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  365 

that  this  Avar  was  of  long  continuance,  and  had  great  calam- 
ities attending  it.  But  as  it  Avas  begun  by  the  lewdness  of 
a  woman,  so  it  was  ended  by  a  woman's  policy.  Diognetus, 
a  colonel  of  the  Erythraeans,  holding  a  fortification  com- 
mitted to  his  keeping,  Avhich  was  cast  up  against  the  Nax- 
ians,  lying  naturally  to  great  advantage  and  well  furnished 
with  ammunition,  took  great  spoils  from  the  Naxians  ;  yea, 
he  captivated  both  free  married  women  and  virgins  ;  with 
one  of  which,  called  Polycrita,  he  fell  in  love,  and  treated 
her  not  as  a  captive  but  after  the  manner  of  a  married  wife. 
Now  a  festival  comiuii  in  turn  to  be  celebrated  amonir  the 
Milesians  in  the  camp,  and  all  of  them  given  to  their  cups 
and  luxury,  Polycrita  petitioned  Diognetus  that  he  would 
be  pleased  to  permit  her  to  send  some  part  of  the  cakes  to 
her  brethren.  lie  permitting  and  bidding  her  do  it,  she 
thrust  into  a  cake  a  piece  of  lead  engraven  with  writhig, 
and  commanded  the  bearer  to  say  to  her  brethi-en  that  they 
alone  by  themselves  should  eat  up  Avhat  she  had  sent.  Ac- 
cordingly  they  met  with  the  plate  of  lead,  and  read  Poly- 
crita's  hand-writing,  advising  them  that  night  to  fall  upon 
their  enemies,  who,  by  reason  of  excess  caused  by  their 
feastings,  were  overcome  with  wine  and  therefore  in  a  care- 
less secure  condition.  They  acquainted  the  officers  with  it, 
and  urged  them  to  accompnny  them  forth  against  the  ene- 
mies. Upon  engagement  the  stronghold  being  gotten  and 
many  slain,  Polycrita  by  entreaty  of  her  countrymen  obtained 
the  life  of  J3iognetus  and  preserved  him.  But  she  being 
met  by  her  countrymen  at  the  gate,  who  received  her  with 
acclamations  of  joy  and  garlands,  and  greatly  applauded 
her  deed,  could  not  bear  the  greatness  of  the  joy,  but  died, 
falling  down  at  the  gate  of  the  citadel,  where  she  was 
buried  ;  and  it  is  called  the  Sepulchre  of  Envy,  as  though 
some  envious  fortune  had  grudged  Polycrita  the  fruition  of 
so  great  honor.  And  thus  do  the  Naxian  writers  declare 
the  history.      But  Aristotle  saith,  that  Polycrita  was  not 


?ί66  CONCERNING  THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

taken  captive,  but  that  by  some  other  way  or  means  Diogne- 
tus  seeing  her  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  was  ready  to  give 
and  do  all  that  he  could  for  the  enjoying  her.  Polycrita 
promised  to  consent  to  him,  provided  she  might  obtain  one 
only  thing  of  him ;  concerning  which,  as  the  philosopher 
saith,  she  required  an  oath  of  Diognetus.  When  he  had 
sworn,  she  required  Delium  to  be  delivered  up  to  her  (for 
the  stronghold  was  called  Delium),  otherwise  she  would 
not  yield  to  go  with  him.  He,  being  besotted  Λvitll  lust  and 
for  his  oath's  sake,  delivered  up  the  place  into  the  hands 
of  Polycrita,  and  she  to  her  countrymen.  From  hencefor- 
ward they  adjusted  matters  so  equally,  that  the  Naxians  had 
free  conΛ'erse,  as  they  pleased,  with  the  Milesians. 

Example    18.    Of  Lampsace. 

There  Λvere  two  brethren,  Phobus  and  Blepsus,  twins  of 
the  stock  of  Codrus,  natives  of  Phocaea ;  of  which  two 
Phobus,  the  elder,  threw  himself  from  the  Leucadian  rocks 
into  the  sea,  as  Charon  of  Lampsacus  hath  told  us  in  his- 
tory. This  Phobus,  having  potency  and  royal  dignity,  took 
a  voyage  into  Parium  upon  the  account  of  his  ΟΛνη  private 
concerns  ;  and  becoming  a  friend  and  guest  to  Mandron 
king  of  the  Bebrycians,  the  same  that  \vere  called  Pituoes- 
sans,  he  aided  and  assisted  him  in  the  war  against  those  of 
the  bordering  inhabitants  that  molested  him.  So  that  Avhen 
Phobus  was  returning  back  by  sea,  Mandron  showed  great 
civility  to  him,  promising  to  give  him  a  part  of  his  country 
and  city,  if  he  would  bring  over  the  Phocaeans  and  plant 
them  as  inhabitants  in  Pituoessa.  Phobus  therefore  per- 
suading his  countrymen  sent  his  brother  to  conduct  them 
over  as  planters,  and  likewise  the  obligation  was  performed 
on  Mandron's  part  according  to  expectation.  But  the 
Phocaeans  taking  great  booty,  prey,  and  spoils  from  the 
neighboring  barbarians,  Avere  first  envied,  and  afterwards 
became  a  terror  to  the  Bebrycians  ;  and  therefore  they  de- 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  367 

sired  to  be  rid  of  them.  As  for  Mandron,  being  an  honest 
and  righteous  person,  they  could  not  possess  him  against 
the  Grecians  ;  but  he  taking  a  long  journey,  they  provided 
to  destroy  the  Phociieans  by  treachery.  Mandron  had  a 
daughter  called  Lampsace,  a  virgin,  who  was  acquainted 
Λvith  the  plot ;  and  first  she  endeavored  to  take  off  her 
friends  and  familiars  from  it,  admonishing  them  what  a 
dreadful  and  ungodly  enterprise  they  were  going  upon,  —  to 
murder  men  that  were  benefactors,  military  auxiliaries,  and 
now  citizens.  But  when  she  could  not  prevail  with  them, 
she  declared  to  the  Grecians  secretly  Avhat  was  plotting, 
and  wished  them  to  stand  upon  their  guard.  Upon  this, 
the  Phocaeans  provided  a  sacrifice  and  feast,  and  invited 
the  Pituoessans  into  the  suburbs  ;  on  which,  dividing  them- 
selves into  two  parts,  with  one  they  surprised  the  walls  of 
the  city,  Avith  the  other  they  slew  the  men.  Thus  taking 
the  city,  they  sent  to  Mandron,  desiring  him  to  join  with 
their  own  rulers  in  the  government.  As  for  Lampsace, 
she  died  of  a  sickness,  and  they  bui'ied  her  sumptuously, 
and  called  the  city  Lampsace  after  her  name.  But  when 
INIandron,  avoiding  all  suspicion  of  betraying  his  people, 
refused  to  come  to  dwell  among  them,  and  desired  this 
favor  at  their  hands,  that  they  would  send  him  the  wives 
and  children  of  the  deceased,  the  Phocaeans  most  readily 
sent  them,  offering  them  no  injury  at  all.  And  ascribing 
in  the  first  place  heroic  renown  to  Lampsace,  in  the  last 
place  they  decreed  a  sacrifice  to  her  as  a  Goddess,  which 
they  continue  yearly  to  offer. 

Example    19.     Aretaphila. 

Aretaphila,  a  Cyrenaean,  was  not  of  ancient  time,  but 
lived  in  the  time  of  the  Mithridatic  war.  She  arrived  at 
such  a  degree  of  fortitude  and  experience  in  counsel  as 
might  be  compared  with  the  conduct  of  any  heroic  ladies. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  Aeglator  and  the  wife  of  Phaedi- 


3 68  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

mils,  both  renowned  men.     She  was  a  great  beauty,  excel- 
ling in  discretion,  and  was  not  unacquainted  with  the  most 
knotty  pieces  of  policy ;    but  the  common  disasters  of  her 
native  country  rendered  her  famous.*    IS^icocrates,  having 
then  usurped  the  tyranny  over  the   Cyrenaeans,  not  only 
murdered  many  other  citizens,  but  also  assassinated  Mela- 
nippus,  a  priest  of  Apollo,  with  his  ΟΛνη  hand,  and  held  the 
priesthood  himself.     He  slew  also  Phaedimus,  the  husband 
of  Aretaphila,   and   married  Aretaphila  against  her  will. 
Unto  a  thousand  other  Λdllanies  he  added  this,  that  he  set 
guards  at  the  gates,  who  mangled  the  dead  corpses  as  they 
were  carrying  forth,  pricking  them  with  their  daggers  and 
clapping  hot  irons  to  them,  lest  any  citizen  should  be  car- 
ried out   privily   under  pretence  of  being  a  dead   corpse. 
Aretaphila's   own  proper  calamities  were  very  grievous  to 
her,  although  the  tyrant,  for  the  love  that  he  bare  to  her, 
suffered  her  to  enjoy  a  great  part  of  his  regal  power ;  for 
his  love  had  subdued  him  unto  her,  and  to  her  alone  was 
he  gentle  and  manageable,  being  very  rude  and  savage  in 
his  behavior  to  others.     But  that  which  troubled  her  more 
than  other  things  was  to  see  her  miserable  country  suffer- 
ing such  horrid  things  in  so  base  a  manner ;  one  citizen 
being  slaughtered   after  another,  without   any  hopes  of  a 
vindictive  justice  from  any.    The  exiles  also  were  altogether 
enfeebled,  affrighted,  and  scattered  here  and  there.     Are- 
taphila   therefore  supposed  herself  to  be  the  only  hope 
remaining  for  the  state  ;    and  emulating  the  famous  and 
brave  enterprises  of  Thebe  of  Pherae,  although  she  was 
destitute  of  the  faithfiu  friends  and  helpers  which  circum- 
stances afforded  to  Thebe,  she  laid  a  plan  to  despatch  her 
husband  by  poison.     But  in  setting  herself  about  it,  pro- 
viding the  materials,  and   trying  many  experiments  \vith 
poisons,  the  matter  could  not  be  hid,  but  was  discovered ; 
and  there  being  proof  made  of  the  attempt,  Calbia,  Nico- 
crates's  mother,  being  naturally  of  a  murdering  implacable 


CONCERNING  THE  VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN.  369 

spirit,  presently  adjudged  Aretaphila  to  torments  and  then 
to  death.  But  love  abated  the  rage  of  Nicocrates,  and  put 
him  upon  delay  ;  and  the  vigorous  manner  in  which  Are- 
taphila met  the  accusation  and  defended  herself  gave  some 
plausible  ground  for  his  hesitation.  But  when  she  was 
convicted  by  the  clearest  proofs,  and  the  preparation  she 
had  made  for  the  poison  was  even  in  sight,  admitting  no 
denial,  she  confessed  that  she  provided  poison,  but  not 
deadly  poison.  But  truly,  Ο  sir,  she  said,  I  am  contending 
for  matters  of  great  concern,  no  less  indeed  than  the  honor 
and  power  which  by  thy  gracious  favor  1  reap  the  fruit  of. 
I  am  maligned  by  many  ill  women,  whose  poisons  and 
treacheries  I  stand  in  fear  of,  and  therefore  have  been  per- 
suaded to  contrive  something  on  the  other  side  in  my  own 
defence.  These  are  haply  foolish  and  woman-like  plots, 
but  not  such  as  deserve  death,  unless  it  seem  good  to  thee 
as  judge  to  take  away  thy  wife's  life  on  account  of  love- 
potions  and  charms,  which  she  has  used  because  she  wishes 
to  be  loved  by  thee  more  than  thou  wouldst  have  her. 
Notwithstanding  this  defence  which  Aretaphila  had  made 
for  herself,  Nicocrates  thought  good  to  commit  her  to  tor- 
ments ;  and  Calbia  presided  in  the  judicature,  rigid  and 
mexorable.  But  Aretaphila  bore  up  invincibly  under  her 
tortures,  till  Calbia  herself  was  tired,  sore  against  her  will. 
But  Nicocrates  being  pacified  discharged  her,  and  was  sorry 
he  had  tortured  her.  And  it  was  not  very  long  ere  he  went 
in  again  unto  her,  being  highly  transported  with  affection, 
renewing  his  favor  towards  her  with  honors  and  courteous 
behavior.  But  she  would  not  be  brought  under  by  flattery, 
who  had  held  out  so  stoutly  under  tortures  and  pains  ;  and 
an  emulation  of  victory,  conjoined  with  the  love  of  honesty, 
made  her  betake  herself  to  other  measures. 

She  had  a  daughter  marriageable,  an  excellent  beauty. 
Her  she  presented  for  a  bait  to  the  tyrant's  brother,  a  young 
stripling  and   lasciviously  addicted.     There  was  a  report, 

VOL.  I.  24 


370  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOjIEN. 

that  Aretaphila  used  such  enchantments  and  witchcrafts 
towards  the  maid,  that  she  phxiuly  charmed  and  destroyed 
the  young  man's  reason.  He  was  called  Leander.  After 
he  was  entangled,  he  petitioned  his  brother  and  accom- 
plished the  marriage.  Now  the  maid,  being  instructed  by 
her  mother,  instigated  and  persuaded  him  to  set  the  city  at 
liberty,  insinuating  that  he  himself  could  not  live  long  free 
under  an  arbitrary  government,  nor  could  he  marry  a  wife 
or  reserve  her  to  himself.  Also  some  friends,  xlretaphila's 
favorites,  suggested  to  him  continually  some  accusations  or 
surmises  concerning  his  brother.  But  as  soon  as  he  per- 
ceived that  Aretaphila  was  counselling  and  aiding  in  these 
matters,  he  undertook  the  business,  and  excited  Daphnis 
a  household  servant,  who  slew  Nicocrates  by  his  com- 
mand. In  what  followed,  he  attended  not  so  much  to 
Aretaphila,  but  presently  manifested  by  his  actions  that  he 
was  rather  a  fratricide  than  a  tyrannicide  ;  for  he  managed 
his  affairs  perversely  and  foolishly.  But  yet  he  had  some 
honor  for  Aretaphila,  and  she  had  some  influence  with  him  ; 
neither  did  she  manage  any  enmity  or  open  opposition 
against  him,  but  ordered  her  affairs  privily.  First  of  all, 
she  stirred  up  an  African  war  against  him,  and  incited 
Anabiis,  a  certain  duke,  to  invade  his  borders  and  approach 
the  city ;  and  then  she  buzzed  into  Leander's  head  suspi- 
cions against  the  favorites  and  officers,  saying  that  they 
were  not  forward  to  fight  but  rather  ambitious  of  peace 
and  tranquillity,  which  indeed  (she  said)  the  state  of  affairs 
and  the  security  of  his  dominion  required  of  him  if  lie 
would  hold  his  subjects  in  firm  subjection ;  and  she  would 
effect  a  cessation  of  arms  and  bring  Anabus  to  a  parley  with 
him,  if  he  would  permit  it,  before  an  incurable  war  should 
break  forth.  Leander  gave  her  commission.  First  she 
treated  with  the  African,  and  with  the  promise  of  great 
presents  and  treasures  begged  that  he  would  seize  Leander 
when  he  came  to  treat  \vith  him.      The  African  Λναβ  per- 


CONCERNING   THE    VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  371 

suaded,  but  Leander  Avas  backward  to  it ;  only  for  the  re- 
spect that  he  bore  to  Aretaphila,  who  said  that  she  ΛVoιlld 
be  present,  he  went  unarmed  and  unguarded.  But  as  he 
came  nigh  and  saw  Anabus,  he  made  a  halt,  and  would 
have  waited  the  coming  of  his  guards  ;  only  Aretapliila 
being  present  sometimes  encouraged  him,  sometimes  reviled 
him.  But  at  last,  when  he  still  hesitates,  she  undauntedly 
lays  hold  on  him,  and  dragging  him  resolutely  along,  de- 
livers him  to  the  barbarian.  He  was  immediately  seized, 
confined,  and  bound,  and  kept  prisoner  by  the  African, 
until  Aretaphila  s  friends,  Avith  other  citizens,  procured  the 
treasures  promised.  Many  people  acquainted  Avith  this 
ran  forth  to  the  parley  ;  and  as  soon  as  they  saw  Areta- 
phila, they  were  so  transported  that  they  had  like  to  have 
forgot  their  indignation  against  the  tyrant,  and  reckoned 
the  punishing  him  of  no  great  concern.  But  the  first 
work  after  the  enjoyment  of  their  liberty  was  the  saluting 
Aretaphila,  between  acclamations  of  joy  and  weeping,  and 
falling  down  before  her,  as  before  the  statue  of  one  of  the 
Gods.  And  the  people  fiocked  in  one  after  another,  so 
that  thev  scarcely  had  rime  that  eveniuii  to  receive  Lean- 
der  again  and  return  into  the  city.  AVhen  they  had  satis- 
fied themselves  in  honoring  and  applauding  Aretapliila, 
they  turned  themselves  to  the  tyrants  ;  and  Calbia  they 
burnt  alive,  Leander  they  sewed  up  in  a  sack  and  threw 
him  into  the  sea,  but  they  voted  that  Aretaphila  should 
bear  her  share  in  the  government  together  with  the  states- 
men, and  be  taken  into  counsel.  But  she,  by  great  suff"er- 
ings  having  acted  a  tragi-comedy  consisting  of  various 
parts,  and  at  last  obtained  the  reward  of  the  garland,  as 
soon  as  she  saw  the  city  set  at  liberty,  betook  herself  to 
her  private  apartment ;  and  casting  oiF  all  multiplicity  of 
business,  she  led  the  rest  of  her  time  in  spinning,  and 
finished  her  days  in  tranquillity  among  her  friends  and  ac- 
quaintance. 


372  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 


Example  20.      Gamma. 

There  were  two  most  potent  persons  among  the  tetrarchs 
of  Galatia,  allied  by  kin  to  each  other,  Sinatus  and  Synorix  ; 
one  of  which,  Sinatus,  took  a  maid  to  wife,  Camma  by  name, 
very  comely  to  behold  for  person  and  favor,  but  principally 
to  be  admired  for  virtue.  For  she  was  not  only  modest  and 
loving  to  her  husband,  but  discreet  and  of  a  generous  mind. 
And  by  reason  of  her  gentle  and  courteous  behavior  she 
was  extremely  acceptable  to  her  inferiors  ;  yea,  that  Λvhich 
rendered  her  more  eminently  renowned  was,  that  being  a 
priest  of  Diana  (for  the  Galatians  worship  that  goddess 
most)  she  did  always  appear  magnificently  adorned  in  all 
sacred  processions  and  at  the  sacrifices.  Wherefore  Syn- 
orix, falling  in  love  with  her,  could  not  prevail  either  by 
persuasions  or  violence,  Λvhilst  her  husband  lived.  He 
commits  a  horrid  crime,  —  he  slays  Sinatus  treacherously, 
—  and  not  long  after  accosts  Camma,  whilst  she  abode 
within  the  temple,  and  bore  Synorix's  crime  not  in  an  ab- 
ject and  despondent  manner,  but  Avith  a  mind  intent  upon 
revenge  on  Synorix,  and  only  waiting  an  o})portunity.  He 
was  importunate  in  his  humble  addresses,  neither  did  he 
seem  to  use  arguments  that  were  Avithout  all  show  of  hon- 
esty. For  as  in  other  things  he  pretended  that  he  far  ex- 
celled Sinatus,  so  he  slew  him  for  the  love  he  bare  to  Camma 
and  for  no  other  wicked  design.  The  woman's  denials  were 
at  first  not  very  peremptory,  and  then  by  little  and  little  she 
seemed  to  be  softened  towards  him.  Her  familiars  and 
friends  also  lay  at  her  in  the  service  and  favor  of  Synorix, 
who  was  a  man  of  great  power,  persuading  and  even  for- 
cing her.  In  fine  therefore  she  consented,  and  accordingly 
sent  for  him  to  come  to  her,  that  the  mutual  contract  and 
covenant  might  be  solemnized  in  the  presence  of  the  God- 
dess. When  he  came,  she  received  him  with  much  cour- 
tesy, and  bringing  him  before  the  altar  and  pouring  out 


CONCERNING  THE   VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN.  373 

some  of  the  drink-ofFering  upon  the  altar  out  of  the  bowls, 
part  of  the  remainder  she  drank  herself  and  part  she  gave 
him  to  drink.  The  cup  was  poisoned  mead.  As  she  saw 
him  drink  it  all  up,  she  lifted  up  a  shrill  loud  voice,  and  fell 
down  and  worshipped  her  Goddess,  saying :  I  call  thee  to 
witness,  Ο  most  reverend  Divinity !  that  for  this  very  day's 
work's  sake  I  have  over-lived  the  murder  of  Sinatus,  no 
otherwise  taking  any  comfort  in  this  part  of  my  life  but  in 
the  hope  of  revenge  that  I  have  had.  And  now  I  go  down 
to  my  husband.  And  for  thee,  the  lewdest  person  among 
men,  let  thy  relations  prepare  a  sepulchre,  instead  of  a 
bride-chamber  and  nuptials.  AVhen  the  Galatian  henrd 
these  things,  and  perceived  the  poison  to  wamble  up  and 
down  and  indispose  his  body,  he  ascended  his  chariot,  hop- 
ing to  be  relieved  by  the  jogging  and  shaking.  But  he 
presently  alighted,  and  put  himself  into  a  litter,  and  died 
that  evening.  Camma  continued  all  that  night,  and  being 
told  that  he  had  ended  his  life,  she  comfortably  and  cheer- 
fully expired. 

Example   21.     Stratonica. 

Galatia  also  produced  Stratonica  the  Λvife  of  Deiotarus, 
and  Chiomara  the  \vife  of  Ortiagon,  both  of  them  Λνοηιοη 
worth  remembrance.  Stratonica  knowing  that  her  hus- 
band Avanted  children  of  his  own  body  to  succeed  in  his 
kingdom,  she  being  barren  persuaded  him  to  beget  a  child 
on  another  woman,  and  subject  it  to  her  tutelage.  Dei- 
otarus admiring  her  proposal,  committed  all  to  her  care 
upon  that  account.  She  provided  a  comely  virgin  for  him 
from  among  the  captives,  Electra  by  name,  and  brouglit 
her  to  lie  with  Deiotarus.  The  children  begotten  of  her 
she  educated  very  tenderly  and  magnificently,  as  if  they 
had  been  her  own. 


374  CONOERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN. 


Example   22.      Chiomara. 

It  fell  out  that  Chiomara,  the  wife  of  Ortiagon,  was 
taken  captive  with  other  women,  in  the  time  when  the 
Romans  under  Cneus  Manlius  overcame  the  Galatians  of 
Asia  in  battle.  The  centurion  that  took  lier  made  use 
of  his  fortune  soldier-like  and  defiled  her ;  for  he  was,  as 
to  voluptuousness  and  covetousness,  an  ill-bred  and  insatia- 
ble man,  over  Avhom  avarice  had  gotten  an  absolute  con- 
quest. A  great  quantity  of  gold  being  promised  by  the 
woman  for  her  ransom,  in  order  to  her  redemption  he 
brought  her  to  a  certain  bank  of  a  river.  As  the  Gala- 
tians passed  over  and  paid  him  the  money  in  gold,  and 
received  Chiomara  into  their  possession,  she  gave  an  inti- 
mation of  her  pleasure  to  one  of  them  by  nod, —  to  smite 
the  Iloman  while  he  Avas  kissino•  and  takins'  his  leave  of 
her.  He  obeyed  her  commands  and  cut  off  his  head.  She 
takes  it,  wraps  it  up  in  her  apron,  and  carries  it  with  her ; 
and  as  she  comes  to  her  husband,  she  casts  down  the  head 
before  him,  at  which  being  startled  he  said,  Ο  wife !  thy 
fidelity  is  noble.  Yea,  verily,  replied  she,  it  is  a  nobler 
thins:  that  there  is  now  but  one  man  alive  that  hath  ever 
lain  with  me.  Polybius  saith  that  he  discoursed  with  this 
woman  at  Sardis,  and  admired  her  prudence  and  dis- 
cretion. 

Example  23.      Of  the  Woman  of  Pergamus. 

When  Mithridates  sent  for  sixty  noblemen  of  Galatia  as 
friends,  he  seemed  to  carry  himself  abusively  and  imperi- 
ously toAvards  them,  which  they  were  all  mightily  provoked 
at.  Poredorix,  a  man  of  a  robust  body  and  lofty  mind,  who 
Avas  no  less  than  tetrarch  of  the  Tosiopae,  designed  to  lay 
hold  on  Mithridates,  seizing  him  when  he  should  be  de- 
termining causes  on  the  bench  of  judicature  in  the  gym- 
nasium, and  to  force  him  bench  and  all  into   the  ditch ; 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  375 

but  by  a  certain  chance  he  went  not  np  to  the  place  of 
judicature  that  day,  but  sent  for  the  Galatians  to  come 
home  to  him  to  his  house.  Poredorix  encouraged  them  all 
to  be  of  good  courage,  and  when  they  should  be  all  come 
together  there,  to  fall  upon  him  on  eΛ^ery  side,  slay  him, 
and  cut  his  body  in  pieces.  This  conspiracy  Λvas  not  un- 
known to  Mithridates,  an  intimation  of  it  being  given  liim  ; 
accordingly  he  delivers  up  the  Galatians  one  by  one  to 
be  slain.  But  calling  to  mind  a  young  man  among  them, 
who  excelled  in  comeliness  and  beauty  all  whom  he  knew, 
he  commiserated  him  and  repented  himself  and  was  ap- 
parently grieved,  supposing  him  slain  among  the  first,  and 
also  sent  his  command,  that  if  he  were  alive  he  should 
remain  so.  The  young  man's  name  was  Bepolitanus.  There 
Avas  a  strange  accident  befell  this  man.  When  he  was  ap- 
prehended, he  had  on  very  gay  and  rich  apparel,  which 
the  executioner  desired  to  preserve  clean  from  being 
stained  with  blood  ;  and  undressing  the  young  man  leis- 
urely, he  saw  the  king's  messengers  running  to  him  and 
calling  out  the  name  of  the  youth.  So  that  covetousness, 
which  is  the  ruin  of  many,  unexpectedly  saved  the  life  of 
Bepolitanus.  But  Poredorix  being  slain  was  cast  forth 
unburied,  and  none  of  his  friends  did  dare  to  come  near 
him ;  only  a  certain  Avoman  of  Pergamus,  that  was  conver- 
sant with  him  while  he  lived  at  Galatia,  attempted  to  cover 
his  corpse  and  bury  it.  But  Λvhen  the  guards  perceived 
her,  they  laid  hold  on  her  and  brought  her  before  the  king. 
And  it  is  reported  that  Mithridates  was  much  affected  at 
the  sight  of  her,  the  young  maid  seeming  altogether  harm- 
less, and  the  more  so,  as  it  seemed,  because  he  knew  that 
love  was  the  reason  of  her  attempt.  He  gave  her  leave 
therefore  to  take  away  the  corpse  and  bury  it,  and  to  take 
grave-clothes  and  ornaments  at  his  cost. 


376  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 


Example  24.     Timoclea. 

Theagenes  the  Theban,  who  held  the  same  sentiments 
with  regard  to  his  country's  welfare  Avith  Epaminondas, 
Pelopidas,  and  the  other  most  worthy  Thebans,  was  slain  in 
Chaeronea,  in  the  common  disaster  of  Greece,  even  then 
when  he  had  conquered  his  enemies  and  was  in  pursuit  of 
them.  For  it  was  he  that  answered  one  who  cried  out 
aloud  to  him,  How  far  wilt  thou  pursue  ?  Even  (saith  he) 
to  Macedonia.  When  he  Avas  dead,  his  sister  survived  him, 
who  gave  testimony  that  he  Avas  nobly  descended,  and 
that  he  was  naturally  a  great  man  and  excellently  accom- 
plished. Moreover,  this  woman  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
reap  a  great  benefit  by  her  prowess,  so  that  the  more 
public  calamities  fell  upon  her,  so  much  the  easier  she 
bore  them.  For  when  Alexander  took  Thebes  and  the 
soldiers  fell  a  plundering,  some  in  one  part  and  some  in 
another,  it  happened  tliat  a  man,  neither  civil  nor  sober 
but  mischievous  and  mad,  took  up  his  quarters  in  Timo- 
clea's  house.  He  was  a  captain  to  a  Thracian  company, 
and  the  king's  namesake,  but  nothing  like  him ;  for  he 
having  no  regard  either  to  the  family  or  estate  of  this 
woman,  Avlien  he  had  swilled  himself  in  wine  after  supper, 
commanded  her  to  come  and  lie  with  him.  Neither  ended 
he  here,  but  enquired  for  gold  and  silver,  Avhether  she  had 
not  some  hid  by  her ;  sometimes  threatening  as  if  he  would 
kill  her,  sometimes  flattering  as  if  he  would  always  repute 
her  in  the  place  of  a  wife.  She,  taking  the  occasion 
offered  by  him,  said  :  "  Would  God  I  had  died  before  this 
night  came,  rather  than  lived  to  it ;  that  though  all  other 
things  had  been  lost,  I  might  have  preserved  my  body  free 
from  abuse.  But  now  seeing  it  is  thus  come  to  pass,  and 
Divine  Providence  hath  thus  disposed  of  it  that  I  must 
repute  thee  my  guardian,  lord,  and  husband,  I  will  not 
hold  any  thing  from  thee  that  is  thine  own.     And  as  for 


CONCERNING  THE   VIRTUES  OF  WOMEN.  377 

myself,  I  see  I  am  at  thy  disposition.  As  for  corporeal  en- 
joyments, the  Avorld  was  mine,  I  had  silver  bowls,  I  had 
gold,  and  some  money ;  but  when  this  city  \vas  taken,  I 
commanded  my  maids  to  pack  it  up  altogether,  and  threw 
it,  or  rather  put  it  for  security,  into  a  Avell  that  had  no 
water  in  it.  Neither  do  many  know  of  it,  for  it  hath  a 
covering,  and  nature  hath  provided  a  shady  wood  round 
about  it.  Take  then  these  things,  and  much  good  may 
they  do  thee  ;  and  they  shall  lie  by  thee,  as  certain  tokens 
and  marks  of  the  late  flourishing  fortune  and  splendor  of 
our  family." 

When  the  Macedonian  heard  these  things,  he  stayed  not 
for  day,  but  presently  went  to  the  place  by  Timoclea's  con- 
duct, commanding  the  garden-door  to  be  shut,  that  none 
might  perceive  what  they  were  about.  He  descended  in 
his  morning  vestment.  But  the  revengeful  Clotho  brought 
dreadful  things  upon  him  by  the  hand  of  Timoclea,  Λνΐιο 
stood  on  the  top  of  the  well ;  for  as  soon  as  she  perceived 
by  his  voice  that  he  readied  the  bottom,  she  threw  down 
abundance  of  stones  upon  him,  and  her  maids  rolled  in 
many  and  great  ones,  till  they  had  dashed  him  to  pieces 
and  buried  him  under  them.  As  soon  as  the  Macedonians 
came  to  understand  this  and  had  taken  up  the  corpse,  there 
having  been  late  proclamation  that  none  of  the  Thebans 
should  be  slain,  they  seized  her  and  carried  her  before  the 
king  and  declared  her  audacious  exploit ;  but  the  king, 
who  by  the  gravity  of  her  countenance  and  stateliness  of 
her  behavior  did  perceive  in  her  something  that  savored 
of  the  greatest  worth  and  nobility,  asked  her  first.  What 
woman  art  thou  1  She  courageously  and  undauntedly  an- 
swered :  Theagenes  was  my  brother,  who  was  a  com- 
mander at  Chaeronea,  and  lost  his  life  fighting  against 
you  in  defence  of  the  Grecian  liberty,  that  we  might  not 
suffer  any  such  thing ;  and  seeing  I  have  suffered  things 
unworthy  of  my  rank,  I  refuse  not  to  die  ;  for  it  is  better 


378  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN. 

SO  to  do  than  to  experience  another  such  a  night  as  the 
last,  which  awaits  me  unless  thou  forbid  it.  All  the  most 
tender-spirited  persons  that  were  present  broke  out  into 
tears  ;  but  Alexander  was  not  for  pitying  her,  as  being  a 
woman  above  pity.  But  he  admired  her  fortitude  and  elo- 
quence, which  had  taken  strong  hold  on  him,  and  charged 
his  officers  to  have  a  special  care  and  look  to  the  guards, 
lest  any  such  abuse  be  offered  again  to  any  renowned 
ftimily ;  and  dismissed  Timoclea,  charging  them  to  have  a 
special  regard  to  her  and  all  that  should  be  found  to  be  of 
her  family. 

Example  25.     Eryxo. 

Arcesilaus  was  the  son  of  Battus  who  Λvas  surnamed 
Felix,  not  at  all  like  to  his  father  in  his  conversation.  His 
father,  when  he  lived,  laid  a  fine  of  a  talent  upon  him  for 
making  fortifications  about  his  house.  After  his  father's 
death,  he  being  of  a  rugged  disposition  (therefore  surnamed 
the  Severe),  and  following  the  counsels  of  Laarchus,  an  ill 
friend,  became  a  tyrant  instead  of  a  king.  For  Laarchus 
affecting  the  government  for  himself,  either  banished  or  slew 
the  noblemen  of  Cyrene,  and  charged  the  fault  upon  Arcesi- 
laus ;  and  at  last  casting  him  into  a  wasting  and  grievous 
disease,  by  giving  him  the  sea-hare  in  his  drink,  he  deprived 
him  of  his  life.  So  that  Laarchus  assumed  the  government, 
under  pretence  of  being  protector  to  Arcesilaus's  young  son 
Battus ;  but  the  youth,  by  reason  either  of  his  lameness  or 
youthful  age,  was  contemned.  As  for  his  mother,  many 
made  addresses  to  her,  being  a  modest  and  courteous 
woman,  and  she  had  many  of  the  commons  and  nobility  at 
her  devotion.  Therefore  Laarchus,  pretending  to  be  her 
humble  servant,  would  needs  marry  her,  and  thereby  take 
Battus  to  the  dignity  of  being  son  and  then  alloAV  him  a 
share  in  the  government.  But  Eryxo  (for  that  was  the 
woman's  name),  taking  counsel  of  her  brethren,  bade  Laar- 


CONCKRXING  THE   VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN.  379 

chus  treat  with  them  as  if   she  had  designed   marriage  ; 
Laarchus  accordingly  treating  with  Eryxo's  brethren,  they 
on  purpose  delay  and  prolong  the  business.     Eryxo  sends 
one  of   her  maid-servants   acquainting   him,  that  for   the 
present  her  brethren  did   oppose   the   match,  but  if   they 
could  but   accomplish  it  so   as   to   lie   together   once,  her 
brethren  would  cease  arguing  the  matter  any  farther,  and 
would  give  their  consent.      He  should  therefore  come  to 
her  by  night,  if  he  pleased ;  an  entrance  being  once  made 
in  a  business,  the  rest  will  succeed  well  enough.     These 
things  were  m  ghty  pleasing  to  Laarchus,  and  he  was  much 
inflamed  by  the  ΛVoman's  obliging  carriage   towards   him, 
and   declared  that  he  would  come  to  Avhatever  place  she 
should   command   him.      These   things    Eryxo    transacted 
with  the  privity  of  Polyarchus,  her  eldest  brother.     A  time 
being  now  appointed  for  the  congress,  Polyarchus  placed 
himself   in    his    sister's    bed-chamber,  together    with    two 
young  men  that  were  sword-men,  all  out  of   sight,  to  re- 
venge the  death  of  his  father,  whom  Laarchus  had  lately 
murdered.     Eryxo  sending  at  the  time  to  acquaint  him,  he 
entered  without  his  guard,  and  the  young  men  falling  upon 
him,  he  was  wounded  with  the  sword  and  died  ;  the  corpse 
immediately  they  threw  over  the  wall.     Battus  they  brought 
forth  and  proclaimed  king  over  his  father's  dominions,  and 
Polyarchus  restored  to  the  Cyrenaeans  their  ancient   con- 
stitution of  government.     There  Avere  present  at  that  time 
many  soldiers  of  Amasis,  the  Egyptian  king;  Avhom  Laar 
chus  had  employed  and  found  faithful,  and  by  whose  means 
he  had  been  not  a  little  formidable  to  the  citizens.     These 
sent  messengers  to  accuse  Polyarchus  and  Eryxo  to  Amasis. 
At  this  the  king  was  greatly  incensed,  and  determined  to 
make  war  upon  the  Cyrenaeans.     But  it  happened  that  his 
mother  died,  and  while  he  was  solemnizing  her  funeral,  am- 
bassadors came  and  brought  the  news  of  his  intentions  to 
Cyrene.     AVherefore  it  was  thought  best  by  Polyarchus  to 


380  CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN. 

go  and  apologize  for  himself.  Er}  xo  would  not  desert  him, 
but  was  resolved  to  accompany  him  and  run  the  same  haz- 
ard with  him.  Nor  would  his  mother  Critola  leave  him, 
though  she  was  an  old  Avoman ;  for  great  was  her  dignity, 
she  being  the  sister  of  old  Battus,  surnamed  Felix.  As 
soon  as  they  came  into  Egypt,  as  others  with  admiration 
approved  of  the  exploit,  so  even  x\masis  himself  did  not  a 
little  applaud  the  chastity  and  fortitude  of  Eryxo,  honoring 
her  with  presents  and  royal  attendance,  with  which  he  sent 
back  Polyarchus  and  the  ladies  into  Cyrene. 

Example  26.     Xenocrita. 

Xenocrita  of  Cumae  deserves  no  less  to  be  admired  for 
her  exploits  against  Aristodemus  the  tyrant,  whom  some 
have  supposed  to  be  surnamed  the  Effeminate,  being  igno- 
rant of  the  true  story.  He  was  called  by  the  barbarians 
Malakos  (that  is  soft  and  effeminate)  with  regard  merely  to 
his  youth  ;  because,  when  he  was  a  mere  stripling,  with 
other  companions  of  the  same  age  who  Avore  long  hair 
(whence  they  were  called  Coronistae,  as  it  seems  from  their 
long  hair),  he  became  famous  in  the  war  against  the  bar- 
barians. He  was  also  not  only  renowned  for  resolution 
and  activity,  but  very  exceedingly  remarkable  for  his  discre- 
tion and  providence  ;  insomuch  that  being  admired  by  the 
citizens  he  proceeded  to  the  highest  dominion  among  them. 
He  was  to  bring  aid  to  the  Romans  when  they  were  in  Avar 
with  the  Etrurians,  who  engaged  to  restore  Tarquinius 
Superbus  to  his  kingdom  ;  in  all  which  expedition,  that 
was  very  long,  he  managed  all  affairs  so  as  to  ingratiate 
himself  with  the  military  part  of  the  citizens,  aiming  more 
at  the  making  himself  head  of  a  popular  faction  than  gen- 
eral of  the  army.  He  accordingly  prevails  Avith  them  to 
join  with  him  in  attacking  the  senate,  and  in  casting  out  the 
citizens  of  highest  rank  and  most  potent  into  exile.  After- 
wards becoming  tyrant,  he  was  flagitious  in  his  carriage 


CONCERNING   THE   VIRTUES   OF   WOMEN.  381 

toAvards  women  and  free-born  youth,  and  exceeded  even  him- 
self m  vileness.  For  history  reports  of  him  how  that  he  ac- 
customed the  boys  to  Avear  their  hair  long  and  set  with 
golden  ornaments,  and  the  girls  he  compelled  to  be  polled 
round,  and  to  Avear  youths'  jerkins  and  short-tailed  petti- 
coats. Notwithstanding,  he  had  a  peculiar  affection  for 
Xenocrita,  a  girl  of  Cumae,  left  behind  by  her  exiled  father. 
Her  he  kept,  but  could  not  bring  over  to  his  humor  by  any 
insinuations  or  persuasions,  neither  had  he  gained  her 
father's  consent ;  however,  he  reckoned  the  maid  would 
be  brought  to  love  him  by  constant  conversation  with  him, 
since  she  would  be  envied  and  reputed  very  happy  by  the 
citizens.  But  these  things  did  not  at  all  besot  the  maid ; 
but  she  took  it  heinously  that  she  must  be  constrained  to 
dwell  with  him,  not  espoused  or  married.  Neither  did  she 
less  long  for  the  liberty  of  her  native  country  than  did 
those  who  were  hated  by  the  tyrant. 

It  happened  about  that  time  that  Aristodemus  was  cast- 
ing up  an  entrenchment  about  the  borders  of  Cumae,  a 
work  neither  necessary  nor  profitable,  only  because  he  was 
resolved  to  tire  out  the  citizens  with  hard  toil  and  labor ; 
for  every  one  wns  required  to  carry  out  a  stinted  number 
of  baskets  of  earth  daily,  in  order  to  the  delving  this  ditch. 
A  certain  maid,  as  she  saw  Aristodemus  approaching,  ran 
aside  and  covered  her  face  with  her  apron ;  but  when 
Aristodemus  was  withdrawn,  the  young  men  would  sport 
and  jest  Avith  her,  asking  her  whether  out  of  modesty  she 
avoided  only  the  sight  of  Aristodemus  and  Avas  not  so  af- 
fected towards  other  men.  She  made  answer  designedly, 
rather  than  otherwise,  that  of  the  Cumaeans  Aristodemus 
was  the  only  man.  This  sentence  thus  spoken  verily 
touched  them  all  very  near,  for  it  provoked  the  generous- 
minded  men  among  them  for  very  shame  to  the  recovering 
of  their  liberties.  And  it  is  said  that  Xenocrita  was  heard 
to  say,  that  she  had  rather  carry  earth  for  her  father,  if  he 


382  CONCERNING  THE   VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN. 

were  at  home,  than  participate  in  the  great  luxury  and 
pomp  of  Aristodemus.  These  things  added  courage  to 
them  that  were  about  to  make  an  insurrection  against 
Aristodemus,  which  Tliymoteles  had  the  chief  manage- 
ment of;  for  Xenocrita  providing  them  safe  admittance, 
they  easily  rushed  in  upon  Aristodemus,  unarmed  and  un- 
guarded, and  slew  him.  In  this  manner  the  city  of  Cumae 
gained  its  liberty,  by  the  virtue  of  two  women ;  one  by 
suggesting  and  invigorating  the  enterprise,  the  other  by 
bringing  it  to  an  issue.  When  honors  and  great  presents 
were  tendered  to  Xenocrita,  she  refused  all ;  but  requested 
one  thing,  that  she  might  bury  the  corpse  of  Aristodemus. 
This  they  delivered  her,  and  made  her  a  priestess  of  Ceres  ; 
reckoning  that,  as  it  Avas  a  deserved  honor  bestowed  on  her. 
so  she  would  be  no  less  acceptable  to  the  Goddess. 

Example   27.     The  Wife  of  Pythes. 

It  is  reported  that  the  wife  of  Pythes,  who  lived  at  the 
time  of  Xerxes,  was  a  wise  and  courteous  woman.  Pythes, 
as  it  seems,  finding  by  chance  some  gold  mines,  and  falling 
vastly  in  love  with  the  riches  got  out  of  them,  was  insatia- 
bly and  beyond  measure  exercised  about  them  ;  and  he 
brought  down  likewise  the  citizens,  all  of  Λνΐιοηι  alike  he 
compelled  to  dig  or  carry  or  refine  the  gold,  doing  nothing 
else ;  many  of  them  dying  in  the  work,  and  all  being  quite 
worn  out.  Their  wives  laid  down  their  petition  at  his  gate, 
addressing  themselves  to  the  wife  of  Pythes.  She  bade 
them  all  depart  and  be  of  good  cheer  ;  but  those  goldsmiths 
which  she  confided  most  in  she  required  to  wait  upon  her, 
and  confining  them  commanded  them  to  make  up  golden 
loaves,  all  sorts  of  junkets  and  summer-fruits,  all  sorts  of 
fish  and  flesh  meats,  in  which  she  knew  Pythes  Avas  most 
delighted.  All  things  being  provided,  Pythes  coming  home 
then  (for  he  happened  to  go  a  long  journey)  and  asking  for 
his  supper,  his  wife  set  a  golden  table  before  him,  having 


CONCERNING   ΤΠΕ    VIRTUES   OF  WOMEN.  383 

no  edible  food  upon  it,  but  all  golden.  Pythes  admired  the 
Avorkmanship  for  its  imitation  of  nature.  When,  however, 
he  had  sufficiently  fed  his  eyes,  he  called  in  earnest  for 
something  to  eat ;  but  his  wife,  when  he  asked  for  any  sort, 
brouglit  it  of  gold.  Whereupon  being  provoked,  he  cried 
out,  I  am  an  hungered.  She  replied :  Thou  hast  made 
none  other  provisions  for  us  ;  every  skilful  science  and  art 
being  laid  aside,  no  man  works  in  h  sbandry  ;  but  neglect- 
ing sowing,  planting,  and  tilling  the  ground,  we  delve  and 
search  for  useless  things,  killing  ourselves  and  our  subjects. 
These  things  moved  Pythes,  but  not  so  as  to  give  over  all 
his  works  about  the  mine  ;  for  he  now  commanded  a  fifth 
part  of  the  citizens  to  that  work,  the  rest  he  converted  to 
husbandry  and  manufactures.  But  when  Xerxes  made  an 
expedition  into  Greece,  Pythes,  being  most  splendid  in  his 
entertainments  and  presents,  requested  a  gracious  favor  of 
the  king,  that  since  he  had  many  sons,  one  might  be  spared 
from  the  camp  to  remain  Avith  him,  to  cherish  his  old  age. 
At  which  Xerxes  in  a  rage  slew  this  son  only  which  he 
desired,  and  cut  him  in  two  pieces,  and  commanded  the 
army  to  march  between  the  two  parts  of  the  corpse.  The 
rest  he  took  along  with  him,  and  all  of  them  were  slain  in 
the  wars.  At  which  Pythes  fell  into  a  despairing  condition, 
so  that  he  fell  under  the  like  suffering  with  many  Avicked 
men  and  fools.  He  dreaded  death,  but  was  weary  of  his 
life  ;  yea,  he  was  willing  not  to  live,  but  could  not  cast 
away  his  life.  He  had  this  project.  There  was  a  great 
mound  of  earth  in  the  city,  and  a  river  running  by  it,  which 
they  called  Pythopolites.  In  that  mound  he  prepared  him 
a  sepulchre,  and  diverted  the  stream  so  as  to  run  just  by 
the  side  of  the  mound,  the  river  lightly  washing  the  sepul- 
chre. These  things  being  finished,  he  enters  into  the 
sepulchre,  committing  the  city,  and  all  the  government 
thereof  to  his  wife  ;  commanding  her  not  to  come  to  him, 
but  to  send  his  supper  daily  laid  on  a  sloop,  till  the  sloop 


38i  CONCERNING  THE   VIRTUES   OE   WOMEN. 

should  pass  by  the  sepulchre  with  the  supper  untouched ; 
and  then  she  should  cease  to  send,  as  supposmg  him  dead. 
He  verily  passed  in  this  manner  the  rest  of  his  life  ;  but 
his  wife  took  admirable  care  of  the  government,  and 
brought  in  a  reformation  of  all  things  amiss  among  the 
people. 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS;   OR  REMARKABLE  SAYINGS 
OF  THE   SPARTANS. 


Of  Agasicles. 


Agasicles  the  Spartan  king,  when  one  wondered  why, 
smce  he  was  a  great  lover  of  instruction,  he  would  not 
admit  Philophanes  the  Sophist,  freely  said,  I  ought  to  be 
their  scholar  whose  son  I  am.  And  to  one  enquiring  hoΛV 
a  governor  should  be  secure  without  guards,  he  replied, 
If  he  rules  his  subjects  as  fathers  do  their  sons. 

Of  Agesilaus  the  Great. 

Agesilaus  the  Great,  being  once  chosen  steward  of  a 
feast,  and  asked  by  the  butler  how  much  wine  he  allowed 
every  guest,  returned :  If  you  have  a  great  deal  provided, 
as  much  as  every  one  calls  for ;  if  but  a  little,  give  them 
all  an  equal  share.  When  he  saw  a  malefactor  resolutely 
endure  his  torments.  How  great  a  rascal  is  this  fellow,  he 
cried  out,  that  uses  patience,  bravery,  and  courage,  in  such 
an  impious  and  dishonest  case !  To  one  commending  an 
orator  for  his  skill  in  amplifying  petty  matters  he  said,  I 
don't  think  that  shoemaker  a  good  workman  that  makes  a 
great  shoe  for  a  little  foot.  When  one  in  discourse  said  to 
him.  Sir,  you  have  assented  to  such  a  thing  already,  and 
repeated  it  \'ery  often,  he  replied.  Yes,  if  it  is  right;  but 
if  not,  I  said  so  indeed  but  never  assented.  And  the  other 
rejoining,  But,  sir,  a  king  is  obliged  to  perform  whatever 
he  hath  granted  by  his  nod ;  *  No  more,  he  returned,  than 

*  II.  I.  527 

VOL.  I.  25 


386  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

those  that  petition  him  are  bound  to  make  none  but  good 
and  just  requests,  and  to  consider  all  circumstances  of  time 
and  what  befits  a  king.  When  he  heard  any  praise  or 
censure,  he  thought  it  as  necessary  to  enquire  into  the 
character  of  those  that  spake  as  of  those  of  whom  they 
spake.  While  he  was  a  boy,  at  a  certain  solemnity  of 
naked  dancing,  the  person  that  ordered  that  affair  put  him 
in  a  dishonorable  place  ;  and  he,  though  already  declared 
king,  endured  it,  saying,  111  show  that  it  is  not  the  places 
that  grace  men,  but  men  the  places.  To  a  physician  pre- 
scribing him  a  nice  and  tedious  course  of  physic,  he  said, 
By  Castor  and  Pollux,  unless  I  am  destined  to  live  at  any 
rate,  I  surely  shall  not  if  I  take  all  this.  Whilst  he  stood 
by  the  altar  of  Minerva  Chalcioecus  sacrificing  an  ox,  a 
louse  bit  him.  At  this  he  never  blushed,  but  cracked  him 
before  the  whole  company,  adding  these  words,  By  all  the 
Gods,  it  is  pleasant  to  kill  a  plotter  at  the  very  altar.  An- 
other time  seeing  a  boy  pull  a  mouse  by  the  tail  out  of  his 
hole,  and  the  mouse  turn  and  bite  the  boy's  fingers  and  so 
escape  ;  he  bade  his  companions  take  notice  of  it,  saying, 
If  so  little  a  creature  will  oppose  injurious  violence,  what 
think  ye  that  men  ought  to  do  ? 

Being  eager  for  war  against  the  Persians  to  free  the 
Asiatic  Greeks,  he  consulted  the  oracle  of  Jupiter  at  Do- 
dona  ;  and  that  telling  him  to  go  on  as  he  designed,  he 
brought  tlie  answer  to  the  Ephors,  upon  which  they  ordered 
him  to  go  to  Delphi  and  put  the  same  question.  He  went, 
and  put  it  in  this  form :  Apollo,  are  you  of  the  same  mind 
with  your  father  ]  And  the  oracle  agreeing,  he  was  chosen 
general  and  the  war  began.  Now  Tissaphernes,  at  first 
being  afraid  of  Agesilaus,  came  to  articles,  and  agreed  that 
the  Greek  cities  should  be  free  and  left  to  their  own  laws ; 
but  afterward  procuring  a  great  army  from  the  king,  he 
declared  war  against  him  unless  he  should  presently  leave 
Asia.     Glad  of  this  treachery  of  Tissaphernes,  he  marched 


LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS.  387 

as  if  his  design  was  to  make  an  inroad  upon  Cavia ;  but 
when  Tissaphernes  had  brought  his  troops  thither,  he 
turned  upon  Phrygia,  and  took  a  great  many  cities  and 
abundance  of  rich  spoil,  saying  to  his  friend  :  To  break  one's 
promise  is  indeed  impious  ;  but  to  outwit  an  enemy  is  not 
only  just  and  glorious,  but  profitable  and  sweet.  Being 
inferior  to  the  enemy  in  horse,  he  retreated  to  Ephesus,  aud 
ordered  all  the  wealthy  to  provide  each  a  man  and  horse, 
which  should  excuse  them  from  personal  service  in  his 
Λvars.  By  which  means,  in  the  room  of  rich  cowards,  he 
Λvas  soon  furnished  with  stout  men  and  able  horses  ;  and 
this  he  said  he  did  in  imitation  of  Agamemnon,  who 
agreed  for  a  serviceable  mare  to  discharge  a  Λvealthy  cow- 
ard. When  he  ordered  the  captives  to  be  sold  naked  and 
the  chapmen  came,  a  thousand  bid  money  for  the  clothes, 
but  all  derided  the  bodies  of  the  men,  which  were  tender 
and  white  by  reason  of  their  delicate  breeding,  as  useless 
and  worth  nothing.  He  said  to  his  soldiers,  Look,  those 
are  the  things  for  which  ye  fight,  and  these  are  the  things 
with  whom  ye  fight.  Having  beaten  Tissaphernes  in  Lydia 
and  killed  many  of  his  men,  he  wasted  the  territories  of 
the  king  ;  and  the  king  sending  money  and  desiring  a 
peace,  Agesilaus  replied :  To  grant  peace  is  in  the  power 
only  of  the  commonwealth.  I  delight  to  enrich  my  soldiers 
rather  than  myself,  and  think  it  agreeable  to  the  honor  of 
the  Greeks  not  to  receive  gifts  from  their  enemies  but  to 
take  spoils. 

Megabates  the  son  of  Spithridates,  a  very  pretty  boy, 
who  thought  himself  very  well  beloved,  coming  to  him  to 
offer  a  kiss  and  an  embrace,  he  turned  aAvay  his  head.  But 
when  the  boy  had  not  appeared  a  long  time,  Agesilaus  en- 
quired after  him  ;  and  his  friends  replied,  that  it  was  his 
own  fault,  since  he  derided  the  kiss  of  the  pretty  boy,  and 
the  youth  was  afraid  to  come  again.  Agesilaus,  standing 
silent  and  musing  a  pretty  while,  said :  Well,  I  will  use  no 


388  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 

persuasions,  for  methinks  I  had  rather  conquer  such  desires 
than  take  the  most  popular  city  of  ray  eneraies  ;  for  it  is 
better  to  preser\'e  our  own  than  rob  others  of  their  liberty. 
In  all  things  else  he  Avas  very  exact,  and  a  strict  observer 
of  the  law  ;  but  in  his  friends'  concerns  he  thought  that  to 
be  too  scrupulous  Avas  a  bare  pretence  to  cloak  unwilling- 
ness to  use  his  interest.  And  agreeable  to  this,  there  is 
extant  a  sraall  note  of  his,  interceding  for  a  friend  to  one 
Idrieus  a  Carian :  If  Nicias  is  not  guilty,  discharge  him  ; 
if  he  is,  discharge  him  for  my  sake  ;  but  by  all  means  pray 
let  him  be  discharged.  This  was  his  usual  humor  in  his 
friends'  concerns,  yet  sometimes  profit  and  convenience  was 
preferred  ;  for  once  breaking  up  his  camp  in  disorder,  and 
leaving  one  that  he  loved  behind  him  sick,  when  he  begged 
and  beseeched  him  with  tears  to  have  compassion,  he  turned 
and  said.  How  hard  it  is  to  be  pitiful  and  wise  at  once  !  His 
diet  was  the  same  with  that  of  his  attendants  ;  he  never 
fed  to  satisfy,  nor  drank  himself  drunk  ;  he  used  sleep  not 
as  a  master,  but  as  a  servant  to  his  affairs  ;  and  was  so  fitted 
to  endure  heat  or  cold,  that  he  alone  was  undisturbed  at  the 
change  of  seasons.  He  lodged  amongst  his  soldiers,  and 
his  bed  Avas  as  mean  as  any  ;  and  this  he  had  always  in  his 
mouth  :  It  befits  a  governor  to  excel  private  men  not  in 
delicacy  and  softness,  but  in  bravery  and  courage.  And 
therefore  when  one  asked  him  what  good  Lycurgus's  laws 
had  brought  to  Sparta,  he  replied,  Contempt  of  pleasure. 
And  to  one  that  wondered  at  his  and  the  other  Lacedae- 
monians'  mean  fare  and  poor  attire,  he  said,  From  this 
course  of  life,  sir,  we  reap  liberty.  And  to  one  advising 
him  to  indulge  more,  saying,  Chance  is  uncertain,  and  you 
may  never  have  the  opportunity  again,  he  replied,  I  accus- 
tom myself  so  that,  let  whatever  change  happen,  I  shall 
need  no  change.  When  he  was  grown  old,  he  continued 
the  sarae  course  ;  and  to  one  asking  him  why  at  his  age  in 
very  cold  weather  he  would  not  wear  a  coat,  he  replied,  that 


LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS.  389 

the  youth  may  miitate,  havmg  the  old  men  and  governors 
for  example. 

The  Thasians,  when  ho  marched  through  then*  country, 
presented  him  with  corn,  geese,  sweetmeats,  honey-cakes, 
and  all  sorts  of  delicacies,  both  of  meat  and  drink ;  he  ac- 
cepted the  corn,  but  commanded  them  to  carry  back  tlie 
rest,  as  useless  and  unprofitable  to  him.  But  they  impor- 
tunately pressing  him  to  take  all,  he  ordered  them  to  be 
given  to  the  Helots  ;  and  when  some  asked  the  reason,  he 
replied.  They  that  profess  bravery  ought  not  to  meddle 
with  such  delicacies  ;  and  whatever  takes  with  slaves  can- 
not be  agreeable  to  the  free.  Another  time  the  Thasians, 
after  considerable  benefits  received,  made  him  a  God  and 
dedicated  temples  to  his  honor,  and  sent  an  embassy  to 
compliment  him  on  that  occasion.  AVhen  he  had  read 
over  the  honors  the  ambassadors  had  brought  him.  Well, 
said  he,  and  can  your  country  make  men  Gods  ?  And  they 
affirming.  Go  to,  he  rejoined,  make  yourselves  all  Gods 
first ;  and  when  that  is  done,  I'll  believe  you  can  make  me 
one.  The  Greeks  in  Asia  decreeing  him  statues,  he  Avrote 
thus  to  them  :  Let  there  be  no  representation  of  me,  either 
painted,  founded,  or  engraved.  In  Asia,  seeing  a  house  roofed 
with  square  beams,  he  asked  the  master  whether  trees  in 
their  country  Λvere  grown  square.  And  lie  replying,  No, 
but  round ;  What  then,  said  he,  if  they  grew  square,  woukl 
you  make  them  round?  Being  asked  how  far  Sparta's 
bounds  extended,  shaking  a  spear  he  replied,  As  far  as  this 
Λνϋΐ  reach.  And  to  another  enquiring  Avhy  Sparta  was 
Avithout  walls,  he  showed  the  citizens  in  arms,  saving,  Look, 
these  are  the  walls  of  Sparta.  And  to  another  that  ])ut 
the  same  question  he  replied.  Cities  should  be  walled  not 
with  stones  and  timber,  but  with  the  courage  of  the  inhab- 
itants ;  and  his  friends  he  advised  to  strive  to  be  rich  not 
in  money,  but  in  bravery  and  virtue.  When  he  would  have 
his  soldiers  do  any  thing  quickly,  he  before  them  all  put  the 


390  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

first  hand  to  it ;  he  was  proud  that  he  wrought  as  much  as 
any,  and  valued  himself  more  upon  ruling  his  own  desires 
than  upon  being  king.  When  one  saw  a  lame  Spartan 
maiTliing  to  the  war,  and  endeavored  to  procure  a  horse 
for  him.  How,  said  he,  don't  you  know  that  war  needs  those 
that  will  stay,  not  those  that  Avill  fly?  Being  asked  how  he 
got  this  great  reputation,  he  replied.  By  contemning  death. 
And  another  time,  one  enquiring  why  the  Spartans  used 
pipes  and  music  when  they  fought,  he  said,  When  all  move 
in  measure,  it  may  be  known  who  is  brave  and  who  a  cow- 
ard. When  he  heard  one  magnifying  the  king  of  Persia's 
happiness,  who  was  but  young,  Yes,  said  he,  Priam  himself 
was  not  unhappy  at  that  age. 

AVhen  he  had  conquered  a  great  part  of  Asia,  he  de- 
signed to  march  against  the  King  himself,  to  break  his 
quiet  and  hinder  him  from  corrupting  the  popular  men 
amongst  the  Greeks  ;  but  being  recalled  by  the  Ephors  to 
oppose  the  designs  which  the  other  Greek  states,  bought 
with  the  King's  gold,  were  forming  against  Sparta,  he  said, 
A  good  ruler  should  be  governed  by  the  laws,  —  and  sailed 
away  from  Asia,  leaving  the  Greeks  there  extremely  sorry 
at  his  departure.  And  because  the  stamp  of  the  Persian 
money  was  an  archer,  he  said,  when  he  broke  up  his  camp, 
that  he  was  driven  out  of  Asia  by  thirty  thousand  of  the 
King's  archers.  For  so  many  pieces  of  gold  being  carried 
to  Thebes  and  Athens  by  Timocrates,  and  distributed 
amongst  the  popular  men,  the  people  were  excited  to 
war  upon  the  Spartans.  And  this  epistle  he  sent  to  the 
Ephors  :  — 

Agesilaus  to  the  Ephors,  Greeting. 

AVe  have  subdued  a  great  part  of  Asia,  driven  out  the 
barbarians,  and  furnished  Ionia  with  arms.  But  since 
you  command  me  back,  I  follow,  nay  almost  come  before 
this  epistle  ;  for  I  am  not  governor  for  myself,  but  for  the 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  391 

commonwealth.  And  then  a  king  trnly  rules  according  to 
justice,  when  he  is  governed  by  the  laws,  the  Ephors,  or 
others  that  are  in  authority  in  the  commonwealth. 

Passing  the  Hellespont,  he  marched  through  Thrace,  but 
made  no  applications  to  any  of  the  barbarians,  only  send- 
ing to  know  whether  he  marched  through  the  country  of 
an  enemy  or  a  friend.  All  the  others  received  him  as 
friends  and  guided  him  in  his  march  ;  only  the  Troadians 
(of  whom,  as  story  says,  even  Xerxes  bought  his  passage) 
demanded  of  Agesilaus  a  hundred  talents  of  silver  and  as 
many  women.  But  he  scoiRngly  replied,  Why  then  do  not 
you  come  presently  to  receive  what  you  demand?  And 
leading  on  his  army,  he  fought  them  ;  and  having  destroyed 
a  considerable  number,  he  marched  through.  To  the  king 
of  Macedon  he  sent  the  same  question  ;  and  he  replying 
that  he  would  consider  of  it.  Let  him  consider,  saith  he, 
and  we  will  be  marching  on.  Upon  which  the  king,  sur- 
prised at  his  daring  temper  and  afraid  of  his  force,  ad- 
mitted him  as  a  friend.  The  Thessalians  having  assisted 
his  enemies,  he  wasted  their  country,  and  sent  Xenocles 
and  Scythes  to  Larissa  in  order  to  make  a  treaty.  These 
being  seized  and  detained,  all  others  stomached  it  extreme- 
ly, and  were  of  opinion  that  Agesilaus  should  besiege  and 
storm  Larissa.  But  he  replying  that  he  would  not  give 
either  of  their  lives  for  all  Thessaly,  he  had  them  deliv- 
ered upon  articles.  Hearing  of  a  battle  fought  near  Cor- 
inth, in  which  very  few  of  the  Spartans,  but  many  of  the 
Corinthians,  Athenians,  and  their  allies  were  slain,  he  did 
not  appear  joyful,  or  puffed  up  with  his  victory,  but  fetch- 
ing a  deep  sigh  cried  out,  Unhappy  Greece,  that  hath  de- 
stroyed herself  men  enough  to  have  conquered  all  the 
barbarians  !  The  Pharsalians  pressing  upon  him  and  dis- 
tressing his  forces  with  five  hundred  horse,  he  charged 
them,  and  after  the  rout  raised  a  tJOphy  at  the  foot  of 


392  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 

Narthacium.  And  this  victory  pleased  him  more  than  all 
the  others  he  had  won,  because  with  his  single  cavalry  he 
had  beaten  those  that  vaunted  themselves  as  the  best 
horsemen  in  the  world.  Diphridas  bringing  him  com- 
mands immediately  upon  his  march  to  make  an  inroad  into 
Boeoiia,  —  though  he  designed  the  same  thing  in  a  short 
tim(i,  when  he  should  be  better  prepared,  —  he  obeyed, 
and  sending  for  twenty  thousand  men  from  the  camp  at 
Corinth,  marched  into  Boeotia  ;  and  at  Coronea  joining 
battle  with  the  Thebans,  Athenians,  Argives,  Corinthians, 
and  Locrians  altogether,  he  won,  though  desperately 
wounded  himself,  the  greatest  battle  (as  Xenophon  af- 
firms) that  w^as  fought  in  his  age.  And  yet  when  he 
returned,  after  so  much  glory  and  so  many  victories,  he 
made  no  alteration  in  his  course  of  life. 

Λνΐιοη  he  saw  some  of  the  citizens  think  themselves 
brave  fellows  for  breeding  horses  for  the  race,  he  per- 
suaded his  sister  Cunisca  to  get  into  a  chariot  and  put  in 
for  the  prize  at  the  Olympian  games,  intending  by  that  way 
to  convince  the  Greeks  that  it  was  no  argument  of  bravery, 
but  of  wealth  and  profuse  expense.  Having  Xenophon 
the  philosopher  at  his  house,  and  treating  him  with  great 
consideration,  he  urged  him  to  send  for  his  children  and 
have  them  brought  up  in  Sparta,  where  they  might  learn 
the  most  excellent  of  arts,  how  to  govern  and  how  to  be 
governed.  And  at  another  time  being  asked  by  Avhat 
means  the  Lacedaemonians  flourished  above  others.  Be- 
cause, says  he,  they  are  more  studious  than  others  how 
to  rule  and  how  to  obey.  AVhen  Lysander  was  dead, 
he  found  a  strong  faction,  which  Lysander  upon  his  re- 
turn from  Asia  had  associated  against  him,  and  was  very 
eager  to  show  the  people  what  manner  of  citizen  Lysan- 
der was  whilst  he  lived.  And  finding  among  Lysander's 
papers  an  oration  composed  by  Cleon  of  Halicarnassus, 
about  new  desi^^ns  and  changing  the  government,  which 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  393 

Lysander  Avas  to  speak  to  the  people,  he  resolved  to  publish 
it.  But  \vhen  an  old  politician,  perusing  the  discourse  and 
fearing  its  effect  upon  the  people,  advised  him  not  to  dig 
up  Lysander  but  rather  bury  the  speech  Avith  him,  he 
followed  the  advice,  and  made  no  more  of  it.  Tliose  of 
the  contrary  faction  he  did  not  openly  molest,  but  by  cun- 
ning contrivance  he  got  some  of  them  into  office,  and  then 
showed  them  to  be  rascals  when  in  poAver.  And  then 
defending  them  or  getting  their  pardon  when  accused,  he 
brought  them  over  to  his  own  side,  so  that  he  had  no  enemy 
at  last.  To  one  desiring  him  to  write  to  his  acquaintance  in 
Asia,  that  he  might  have  justice  done  him,  he  replied.  My 
acquaintance  will  do  thee  justice,  though  I  do  not  write. 
One  showed  him  the  wall  of  a  city  strongly  built  and  well 
fortified,  and  asked  him  whether  he  did  not  think  it  a  fine 
thing.  Yes,  by  heaven,  he  replied,  for  women,  but  not  for 
men  to  live  in.  To  a  Megarian  talking  great  things  of  his 
city  he  said,  Youth,  thy  Avords  want  an  army. 

What  he  saw  others  admire  he  seemed  not  so  much  as 
to  know  ;  and  when  Callipides,  a  man  famous  among  the 
Greeks  for  acting  tragedies  and  caressed  by  all,  met  him 
and  saluted  him,  and  then  impudently  intruding  amongst 
his  companions  showed  himself,  supposing  that  Agesilaus 
would  take  notice  of  him  and  begin  some  familiar  dis- 
course, and  at  last  asked.  Doth  not  your  majesty  know  me  1 
Have  not  you  heard  Avho  I  am?  —  he  looked  upon  him  and 
said,  Art  not  thou  Callipides,  the  Merry  Andrew  ?  *  (For 
that  is  the  name  the  Lacedaemonians  give  an  actor.)  Be- 
ing once  desired  to  hear  a  man  imitate  a  nightingale,  he 
refused,  saying,  I  have  often  heard  the  bird  itself.  Mene- 
crates  the  physician,  for  his  good  success  in  some  desperate 
diseases,  was  called  Jupiter ;  and  priding  himself  in  the 
name,  he  presumed  to  write  to  Agesilaus  thus  :  Menecrates 
Jupiter  to  King  Agesilaus  wisheth  good  health.     Heading 

*  Αείκηλίκτας,  the  Spartan  word  for  the  more  common  υποκριτής.     (G.) 


394  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 

no    more,  he  presently  wrote   back :    King  Agesilaus  to 
Menecrates  wisheth  a  sound  mind. 

When  Conon  and  Pliarnabazus  with  the  king's  navy 
were  masters  of  the  sea  and  wasted  the  coasts  of  Laconia, 
and  xlthens  —  Pharnabazus  defraying  the  charges  —  was 
surrounded  with  a  wall,  the  Lacedaemonians  made  a  peace 
with  the  Persian  ;  and  sending  Antalcidas,  one  of  their  citi- 
zens, to  Tiribazus,  they  agreed  to  deliver  into  the  King's 
hands  all  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  for  whose  freedom  xlgesilaus 
fought.  Upon  which  account  Agesilaus  Avas  not  at  all 
blemished  by  this  dishonorable  treaty ;  for  Antalcidas  was 
his  enemy,  and  clapped  up  a  peace  on  purpose  because  the 
war  raised  Agesilaus  and  got  him  glory.  ΛVllen  one  said, 
The  Lacedaemonians  are  becoming  medized,  he  replied, 
Kather  the  Modes  are  becoming  laconized.  And  being 
asked  which  was  the  better  virtue,  courage  or  justice,  he 
said :  Courage  Avould  be  good  for  nothing,  if  there  were  no 
justice ;  and  if  all  men  were  just,  there  would  be  no  need 
of  courage.  The  Asians  being  wont  to  style  the  king  of 
Persia  The  Great ;  How,  said  he,  is  he  greater  than  I  am, 
if  he  is  not  more  just  or  temperate?  And  he  used  to  say. 
The  Greeks  in  Asia  are  mean-spirited  freemen,  but  stout 
slaves.  And  being  asked  how  one  might  get  the  greatest 
reputation  amongst  men,  he  replied,  By  speaking  the  best 
and  doing  the  bravest  things.  And  he  had  this  saying  com- 
monly in  his  mouth,  A  commander  should  be  daring  against 
his  enemy,  and  kind  and  good-natured  to  his  own  soldiers. 
ΛVhen  one  asked  him  what  boys  should  learn ;  That,  said 
he,  which  they  shall  use  when  men.  When  he  sat  judge 
upon  a  cause,  the  accuser  spake  floridly  and  well ;  but  the 
defendant  meanly  and  ever  now  and  then  repeated  these 
words,  Agesilaus,  a  king  should  assist  the  laws.  AVhat,  said 
he,  dost  thou  think,  if  any  one  dug  down  thy  house  or  took 
away  thy  coat,  a  mason  or  a  weaver  would  assist  thee  ? 

A  letter  being  brought  him  from  the  king  of  Persia  by 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  395 

a  Persian  that  came  with    Callias  the   Spartan,   after   the 
peace  was  concluded,  offering  him  friendship  and  kind  en- 
tertainment, he  would  not  receive  it,  bidding  the  messenger 
tell  the  king  that  there  was  no  need  to  send  private  letters 
to  him ;  for  if  he  was  a  friend  to  Sparta  and  meant  well  to 
Greece,  he  would  do  his  best  to  be  his  friend ;  but  if  he 
designed  upon  their  liberty,  he  might  know  that,  though 
he  received  a  thousand  letters  from  him,  he  would  be  his 
enemy.     He  was  very  fond  of  his  children  ;  and  it  is  re- 
ported that  once  toying  with  them  he  got  astride  upon  a 
reed  as  upon  a  horse,  and  rode  about  the  room ;  and  being 
seen  by  one  of  his  friends,  he  desired  him  not  to  speak  of 
it  till  he  had  children  of  his  own.     When  he  had  fought 
often  with  the  Thebans   and  was  wounded  in  the  battle, 
Antalcidas,  as  it  is  reported,  said  to  him  :  Indeed,  sir,  you 
have  received  a  Λ^ery  fair  reward  for  instructing  the  The- 
bans, whom,  when  ignorant  and  unwilling,  you  have  forced 
to  learn  the  art  of  war.     For  story  tells  us,  the  Lacedae- 
monians at  that  time  by  frequent  skirmishes  had  made  the 
Thebans  better  soldiers  than  themselves.     And  therefore 
Lycurgus,  the  old  lawgiver,  forbade   them   to   fight  often 
with  the    same  nation,  lest  the  enemy  should  learn  their 
discipline.     When    he    understood  that  the  allies  took  it 
very  ill,  that  in  their  frequent  expeditions  they,  being  great 
in  number,  followed  the  Spartans  that  were  but  few ;  de- 
signing to  show  their  mistake  about  the  number,  he  ordered 
all  the  allies  to  sit  down  in  one  body  and  the  Lacedaemo- 
nians in  another  by  themselves.     Then  he  made  j^i'oclama- 
tion  that  all  the  potters  should  rise  first ;  and  when  they 
stood  up,  the  braziers  next ;  then  the  carpenters,  next  the 
masons,  and  so  all  other  traders  in  order.     Now  almost  all 
the  allies  stood  up  and  not  one  of  the  Spartans,  for  their 
law  forbids  them  all  mechanical  employments.     Then  said 
Agesilaus,  with  a  smile.  See  now  how  many  soldiers  we  pro- 
vide more  than  you.     When  at  the  battle  of  Leuctra  many 


396  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

of  the  Spartans  fled  and  upon  that  account  were  obnoxious 
to  the  hxws,  the  Ephors,  seemg  the  city  had  but  few  men 
and  stood  in  great  need  of  soldiers  at  that  time,  would  free 
them  from  the  infamy  and  yet  still  keep  the  laws  in  force. 
Upon  that  account  they  put  the  power  of  making  laws  into 
the  hands  of  Agesilaus ;  and  he  coming  into  the  assembly 
said,  I  will  make  no  new  laws,  nor  will  I  add  any  thing  to 
those  you  already  have,  nor  take  therefrom,  nor  change 
them  in  any  wise  ;  but  I  will  order  that  the  laws  you 
already  have  be  in  force  from  to-morroΛV. 

Epaminondas  rushing  on  with  a  torrent  and  tide  of  force, 
and  the  Thebans  and  their  allies  being  puffed  up  with  this 
victory,  though  he  had  but  an  inconsiderable  number,  Ages- 
ilaus repulsed  them  from  the  city  and  forced  them  to 
retreat.  In  the  battle  at  Mantinea,  he  advised  the  Spartans 
to  neglect  the  others  and  fight  Epaminondas  only,  saying  : 
The  wise  alone  is  the  stout  man,  and  the  cause  of  victory ; 
and  therefore  if  we  take  him  off,  we  shall  quickly  have 
the  rest ;  for  they  are  fools  and  worth  nothing.  And  it 
happened  accordingly  ;  for  Epaminondas  having  the  better 
of  the  day  and  the  Spartans  being  routed,  as  he  turned 
about  and  encouraged  his  soldiers  to  pursue,  a  Lacedae- 
monian gave  him  his  death-wound.  He  falling,  the  Spar- 
tans that  fled  with  Agesilaus  rallied  and  turned  the  victory  ; 
the  Thebans  appearing  to  have  much  the  worse,  and  the 
Spartans  the  better  of  the  day.  When  Sparta  had  a  gre.it 
many  hired  soldiers  in  pay,  and  wanted  money  to  carry  on 
the  war,  Agesilaus,  upon  the  king  of  Egypt's  desire,  went 
to  serve  him  for  money.  But  the  meanness  of  his  habit 
brought  him  into  contempt  with  the  people  of  that  coun- 
try ;  for  they,  according  to  their  bad  notions  of  princes,  ex- 
pected that  the  king  of  Sparta  should  appear  like  the 
Persian,  gaudily  attired.  But  in  a  little  time  he  sufficiently 
convinced  them  that  majesty  and  glory  were  to  be  gotten 
by  prudence  and  courage.     When  he  found  his   men  dis- 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  ^91 

couragecl  at  the  number  of  the  enemy  (for  they  were 
200,000)  and  their  own  fewness,  just  before  the  engage- 
ment, without  any  man's  privity,  he  contrived  how  to  en- 
courage them :  in  the  hollow  of  his  left  hand  he  Avrote 
VICTORY,  and  taking  the  liver  from  the  priest,  he  put  it  into 
that  hand,  and  held  it  a  pretty  while,  pretending  he  was  in 
doubt  and  perplexity  at  some  appearance,  till  the  charac- 
ters Avere  imprinted  on  the  flesh ;  and  then  he  showed  it  to 
the  soldiers,  telling  them  the  Gods  gave  certain  signs  of 
victory  by  these  characters.  Upon  which,  thinking  they 
had  sure  evidence  of  good  success,  they  marched  reso- 
lutely to  the  battle.  When  the  enemy  much  exceeded 
them  in  number  and  were  making  an  entrenchment  round 
his  camp,  and  Nectabius,  whom  then  he  assisted,  urged 
him  to  fight ;  I  would  not,  said  he,  hinder  our  enemies 
from  making  their  number  as  small  as  ours.  And  when 
the  trench  was  almost  drawn  round,  ordering  his  army 
to  the  space  between,  and  so  fighting  upon  equal  terms, 
with  those  few  soldiers  he  had  he  routed  and  killed  abun- 
dance of  the  enemy,  and  sent  home  a  great  treasure.  Dying 
on  his  voyage  from  Egypt,  he  commanded  his  attendants 
not  to  make  any  figure  or  representation  of  his  body  ;  For, 
said  he,  if  I  have  done  any  brave  action,  that  will  preserve 
my  memory ;  if  not,  neither  will  a  thousand  statues,  the 
works  of  base  mechanics. 

Of  AgesipoUs  the  Son  of  Cleombrotus. 

Agesipolis  the  son  of  Cleombrotus,  when  one  told  him 
that  Philip  had  razed  Olynthus  in  a  few  days,  said,  ΛΥ^Ι, 
but  he  is  not  able  to  build  such  another  in  twice  that  time. 
To  one  saying  that  whilst  he  was  king  he  himself  was  an 
hostage  with  some  other  youths,  and  not  their  wives  or 
children,  he  replied,  Very  good,  for  it  is  fit  we  ourselves 
should  suffer  for  our  own  faults.  AVhen  he  designed  to 
send  for  some  whelps  from  home,  and  one  said,  Sir,  none 


398  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

must  be  carried  out  of  the  country,  he  replied,  Nor  men 
heretofore,  but  now  they  may. 

Of  Agesipolis  the  Son  of  Pausanias. 

Agesipolis  the  son  of  Pausanias,  Λvhen  the  Athenians 
appealed  to  the  Megarians  as  arbitrators  of  the  differences 
between  them,  said.  It  is  a  shame,  Athenians,  that  those 
who  Avere  once  the  lords  of  all  Greece  should  understand 
what  is  right  and  just  less  than  the  people  of  Megara. 

Of  Agis  tJie  Son  of  Arcln'damus. 

Agis  the  son  of  Archidamus,  when  the  Ephors  gave 
orders,  Go  take  the  youth,  and  follow  this  man  into  his 
own  country,  and  he  shall  guide  thee  to  the  very  citadel, 
said :  How  can  it  be  prudent  to  trust  so  many  youths  to  the 
fidelity  of  him  who  betrays  his  own  country  1  Being  asked 
what  art  was  chiefly  learned  in  Sparta,  To  know,  he  re- 
plied, how  to  govern  and  to  be  governed.  He  used  to  say. 
The  Spartans  do  not  enquire  how  many  the  enemy  are,  but 
where  they  are.  At  Mantinea,  being  advised  not  to  fight 
the  enemy,  who  exceeded  him  in  number,  he  said,  It  is 
necessary  for  him  to  fight  a  great  many  that  would  rule  a 
great  many.  To  one  enquiring  how  many  the  Spartans 
Λvere,  Enough,  he  replied,  to  keep  rascals  at  a  distance. 
Marching  by  the  walls  of  Corinth,  and  perceiving  them  to 
be  high  and  strong  and  stretching  out  to  a  great  length,  he 
said,  What  women  live  there?  To  an  orator  that  said 
speech  was  the  best  thing,  he  rejoined.  You  then,  when 
you  are  silent,  are  Avorth  nothing.  AVhen  the  Argi\'es, 
after  they  had  been  once  beaten,  faced  him  more  boldly 
than  before  ;  on  seeing  many  of  the  allies  disheartened,  he 
said,  Courage,  sirs !  for  when  we  conquerors  shake,  what 
do  you  think  is  the  condition  of  the  conquered  ?  To  an 
ambassador  from  the  Abderites,  after  he  had  ended  his 
long  speech,  enquiring  what  answer  he  should  carry  to  his 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  399 

city,  lie  replied,  This  :  As  long  as  you  talked,  so  long  I  qui- 
etly heard.  Some  commending  the  Eleans  for  exact  justice 
in  determining  the  prizes  at  the  Olympian  games,  he  said. 
What  great  wonder  is  it,  that  in  four  years  they  can  be  just 
one  day  ]  To  some  that  told  him  he  was  envied  by  the 
heirs  of  the  other  royal  family,  Well,  said  he,  their  own 
misfortunes  will  torment  them,  and  my  own  and  my  friends' 
success  besides.  AVhen  one  advised  him  to  give  the  flying 
enemy  room  to  run,  he  said,  How  shall  we  fight  those  that 
stand  to  it  and  resist,  if  Ave  dare  not  engage  those  whom 
their  cowardice  makes  fly?  AVhen  one  proposed  a  way  to 
free  Greece,  well  contrived  indeed  but  hard  to  be  brought 
about,  he  said.  Friend,  thy  words  Avant  an  army  and  a  treas- 
ure. To  one  saying,  Philip  won't  let  you  set  foot  upon  any 
other  part  of  Greece,  he  returned,  Sir,  we  have  room 
enough  in  our  own  country.  An  ambassador  from  Perin- 
thus  to  Lacedaemon,  after  a  long  tedious  speech,  asking 
what  answer  he  should  carry  back  to  the  Perinthians,  he 
said,  What  but  this  ]  —  that  thou  couldst  hardly  find  an  end 
to  thy  talk,  and  I  kept  silent.  He  went  by  himself  ambas- 
sador to  Philip  ;  and  Philip  saying,  What !  but  one  ?  he 
replied,  I  am  an  ambassador  but  to  one.  An  old  man,  ob- 
serving that  the  ancient  laws  were  neglected  and  that  new 
evil  customs  crept  in,  said  to  him,  when  he  was  now  grown 
old  himself,  All  things  here  at  Sparta  are  turned  topsy- 
turvy. He  replied  with  a  joke :  If  it  is  so,  it  is  agreeable 
to  reason ;  for  when  I  was  a  boy,  I  heard  my  father  say 
that  all  things  were  then  topsy-turvy ;  and  he  heard  his 
father  say  the  same  ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  if  succeeding 
times  are  worse  than  the  [)receding ;  but  it  is  a  wonder  if 
they  happen  to  be  better,  or  but  just  as  good.  Being 
asked  how  a  man  could  be  always  free,  he  replied,  If  he 
contemns  death. 


400  LACONIC  ArOPIITIIEGMS. 

Of  Agi&  the  Younger. 

Agis  the  Younger,  when  Demades  said,  The  Spartans' 
swords  are  so  short  that  our  jugglers  can  easily  swallow 
them,  replied,  Yet  the  Spartans  can  reach  their  enemies 
Avith  these  swords.  A  base  fellow  often  asking  who  Λvas 
the  bravest  of  the  Spartans,  he  said,  He  that  is  most  un- 
like thee. 

Of  Agis  the  Last. 

Agis,  the  last  king  of  Lacedaemon,  being  taken  and 
condemned  by  the  Ephors  without  hearing,  as  he  was  led 
to  the  gallows,  saw  one  of  the  officers  weeping.  Do  not 
weep  for  me,  he  said,  who,  being  so  unjustly,  so  barbarously 
condemned,  am  in  a  better  condition  than  my  murderers. 
And  having  spoken  thus,  he  quietly  submitted  himself  to 
the  halter. 

Of  Acrotatus. 

Acrotatus,  when  his  parents  commanded  him  to  join  in 
some  unjust  action,  refused  for  some  time  ;  but  when  they 
grew  importunate,  he  said  :  When  I  was  under  your  power 
I  had  no  notion  of  justice,  but  now  you  have  dehvered  me 
to  my  country  and  her  laws,  and  to  the  best  of  your  power 
have  taught  me  loyalty  and  justice,  I  shall  endeavor  to  fol- 
low these  rather  than  you.  And  since  you  would  have  me 
to  do  that  which  is  best,  and  since  just  actions  are  best  for 
a  private  man  and  much  more  for  a  governor,  I  shall  do 
Avhat  you  would  have  me,  and  refuse  what  you  command. 

Of  Alcamenes  the  Son  of  Teleclus. 

Alcamenes  the  son  of  Teleclus,  being  asked  how  a  ruler 
might  best  secure  his  government,  replied.  By  slighting 
gain.  And  to  another  enquiring  why  he  refused  the  pres- 
ents the  Messenians  made  him  he  said.  Because,  if  I  had 
taken  them,  I  and    the    laws  could   never  have   agreed. 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  401 

^Vhen  one  said  that  though  he  had  wealth  enough  he  lived 
but  meanly,  he  replied,  AYell,  it  is  a  glory  for  one  that  hath 
abundance  to  live  as  reason  not  as  appetite  directs. 

Of  Alexandridas. 

Alexandridas,  the  son  of  Leo,  said  to  one  that  was  much 
concerned  at  his  banishment  from  the  city,  Good  sir,  be 
not  concerned  that  you  must  leave  the  city,  but  that  you 
have  left  justice.  To  one  that  talked  to  the  Ephors  very 
pertinently  but  a  great  deal  too  much  he  said,  Sir,  your 
discourse  is  very  good,  but  ill-timed.  And  when  one  asked 
him  why  they  let  their  Helot  slaves  cultivate  the  fields,  and 
did  not  take  care  of  them  themselves,  he  replied,  Because 
we  acquired  our  land  not  caring  for  it  but  for  ourselves. 
Another  saying,  Desire  of  reputation  causes  abundance  of 
mischief,  and  those  are  happy  that  are  free  from  it ;  Then, 
he  subjoined,  it  follows  that  villains  are  happy  ;  for  do  you 
think  that  he  that  commits  sacrilege  or  doth  an  injury  takes 
any  care  for  credit  and  reputation  ?  Another  asking  why 
in  a  battle  the  Spartans  venture  so  boldly  into  danger.  Be- 
cause, said  he,  we  train  ourselves  to  have  a  reverential 
regard  for  our  lives,  not,  as  others  do,  to  tremble  for  them. 
Another  demanding  why  the  judges  took  so  many  days  to 
pass  sentence  in  a  capital  cause,  and  why  he  that  was 
acquitted  still  remained  liable  to  be  brought  to  trial,  he 
replied  :  They  consult  so  long,  because  if  they  make  a  mis- 
take in  judgment  and  condemn  a  man  to  death,  they  cannot 
correct  their  judgment ;  and  the  accused  still  remains  liable, 
because  this  provision  might  enable  them  to  give  even  a 
better  judgment  than  before. 

Of  Anaxnnder  the  Son  of  Eurycrates. 

Anaxander,  the  son  of  Eurycrates,  to  one  asking  him 
why  the  Spartans  laid  up  no  money  in  the  exchequer,  re- 
plied, that  the  keepers  of  it  might  not  be  tempted  to  be 
knaves. 

VOL.   r.  26 


402  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 


Of  Anaxilas. 

Anaxilas,  when  one  wondered  for  what  reason  the  Ephors 
did  not  rise  up  lo  the  king,  since  the  kings  made  them, 
said,  It  is  for  the  same  reason  for  which  they  are  appointed 
Ephors  (or  overseers). 

Of  AndrocUdas. 

Androclidas  a  Spartan,  being  maimed  in  his  leg,  enhsted 
in  the  army  ;  and  when  some  refused  him  because  he  Λvas 
maimed,  he  said.  It  must  not  be  those  that  can  run  away, 
but  those  that  can  stand  to  it,  that  must  fight  the  enemy. 

Of  Aiitalcidas. 

Antalcidas,  Λvhen  he  was  to  be  initiated  in  the  Samothra- 
cian  mysteries,  and  was  asked  by  the  priest  what  great  sin 
he  had  committed  in  all  his  life,  replied.  If  I  have  committed 
any,  the  Gods  know  it  already.  To  an  Athenian  that  called 
the  Lacedaemonians  illiterate  he  said.  True  ;  for  we  alone 
have  learned  no  ill  from  you.  Another  Athenian  saying, 
AVe  have  often  beat  you  back  from  the  Cephissus,  he  sub- 
joined. But  we  never  repulsed  you  from  the  Eurotas.  To 
another  demanding  how  one  might  please  most  men,  he 
replied,  By  speaking  what  delights,  and  doing  what  profits 
them.  A  Sophist  being  about  to  read  him  an  encomium 
of  Hercules,  he  said,  Why,  who  has  blamed  him?  To 
Agesilaus,  when  he  was  wounded  in  a  battle  by  the  The- 
bans,  he  said.  Sir,  you  have  a  fine  reward  for  forcing  them 
to  learn  the  art  of  war  ;  for,  by  the  many  skirmishes  Ages- 
ilaus had  with  them,  they  learned  discipline  and  became 
good  soldiers.  He  said.  The  youth  are  the  walls  of  Sparta, 
and  the  points  of  their  spears  its  bounds.  To  one  enquir- 
ing why  the  Lacedaemonians  fought  with  such  short  swords 
he  replied,  AVe  come  up  close  to  our  enemies. 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  403 

Of  Antiochus. 

Antiochus,  one  of  the  Ephors,  when  he  heard  Philip  had 
bestowed  some  hinds  on  the  Messenians,  said,  Well,  but 
hath  Philip  also  given  them  forces,  that  they  may  be  able 
to  defend  his  gift? 

Of  Aregeus. 

Aregeus,  ΛΛ^Ιιεη  some  praised  not  their  own  but  other 
men's  Avives,  said :  Faith,  about  virtuous  women  there 
should  be  no  common  talk  ;  and  Avhat  beauty  they  have 
none  but  their  own  husbands  should  understand.  As  he 
was  walking  through  Selinus,  a  city  of  Sicily,  he  saw  this 
epitaph  upon  a  tomb,  — 

Those  tliat  extinguished  the  tyrannic  flanae, 
Surprised  by  war  and  hasty  fate, 
Though  they  are  still  alive  in  lasting  fame. 
Lie  buried  near  Selinus'  gate  ;  — 

and  said:  You  died  deservedly  for  quenching  it  wnen 
already  in  a  flame  ;  for  you  should  have  hindered  it  from 
coming  to  a  blaze. 

Of  Ariston. 

Ariston,  when  one  commended  the  saying  of  Cleomenes, 
—  who,  being  asked  what  a  good  king  should  do,  replied. 
Good  turns  to  his  friends,  and  evil  to  his  enemies,  —  said: 
ΗοΛν  much  better  is  it,  sir,  to  do  good  to  our  friends,  and 
make  our  enemies  our  friends !  Though  upon  all  hands  it 
is  agreed  Socrates  spoke  this  first,  yet  he  hath  the  credit  of 
it  too.  To  one  asking  how  many  the  Spartans  Avere  in 
number  he  replied.  Enough  to  chase  our  enemies.  An 
Athenian  making  a  funeral  oration  in  praise  of  those  that 
fell  by  the  hand  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  he  said.  What 
brave  fellows  then  were  ours,  that  conquered  these ! 

Of  Archidamidas. 

Archidamidas  said  to  one  commending  Charilas  for 
being  kind  to  all  alike,  How  can  he  deserve   commenda- 


404  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS 

tion,  that  is  gentle  to  the  wicked  and  unjust?     When  one 
was  angry  with  Hecataeus  the  Sophist  because  when  ad 
mitted  to  the  public  entertainment  he  said  nothing,  he  said, 
Sir,  you  seem  not  to  understand  that  he  that  knows  how  to 
speak  knows  also  when  to  speak. 

Of  Arckidamus  the  Son  of  Zeiixidamns. 

Archidamus  the  son  of  Zeuxidamus,  when  one  asked 
him  who  were  governors  at  Sparta,  replied,  The  laws,  and 
the  magistrates  according  to  those  laws.  To  one  that 
praised  a  fiddler  and  admired  his  skill  he  said,  How  must 
you  prize  brave  men,  when  you  can  give  a  fiddler  such  a 
commendation !  AVhen  one  recommending  a  musician  to 
him  said.  This  man  plays  well  upon  the  harp,  he  returned, 
And  we  have  this  man  who  makes  broth  well ;  —  as  if  it 
were  no  more  to  raise  pleasure  and  tickle  with  a  sound 
than  with  meats  and  broths.  To  one  that  promised  to  make 
his  Avine  sweet  he  said.  To  Avhat  purpose  I  for  we  shall 
spend  the  more,  and  ruin  our  public  mess.  When  he 
besieged  Corinth,  seeing  some  hares  started  under  the 
very  Avails,  he  said  to  his  soldiers,  Our  enemies  may  be 
easily  surprised.  Two  choosing  him  arbitrator,  he  brought 
them  both  into  the  temple  of  Minerva  of  the  Brazen  House, 
and  made  them  swear  to  stand  to  his  determination  ;  and 
Avhen  they  had  both  sworn,  he  said,  I  determine  that  you 
shall  not  go  out  of  this  temple,  till  you  have  ended  all  the 
differences  between  you.  Dionysius  the  Sicilian  tyrant 
sending  his  daughters  some  very  rich  apparel,  he  refused 
it,  saying,  When  this  is  on,  I  am  afraid  they  will  look  ugly 
and  deformed.  When  he  saw  his  son  rashly  engaging  the 
Athenians,  he  said,  Pray  get  more  strength  or  less  spirit. 

Of  Archidamvs  the  Son  of  Agesilaus. 

Archidamus  the  son  of  Agesilaus,  when  Philip  after  the 
battle   at  Chaeronea  sent  him  a  haughty  letter,  returned 


LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS.  40ϋ 

this  answer.  If  you  measure  your  shadow,  you  will  find  it 
no  greater  tiian  before  the  victory.  And  being  asked  how 
much  land  the  Spartans  possessed,  he  said,  As  much  as 
their  spears  reach.  Periander,  a  physician,  being  well 
skilled  in  his  profession  and  of  good  credit,  but  writing 
very  bad  poems,  he  said  to  him,  AVhy,  Periander,  instead 
of  a  good  physician  are  you  eager  to  be  called  a  bad  poet  I 
In  the  Λvar  with  Philip,  when  some  advised  him  to  fight  at 
some  distance  from  his  own  country,  he  replied.  Let  us  not 
mind  that,  but  whether  we  shall  fight  bravely  and  beat  our 
enemies.  To  some  who  commended  him  for  routing  the 
Arcadians  he  said,  It  had  been  better  if  we  had  been  too 
hard  for  them  in  policy  rather  than  in  strength.  A¥hen  he 
invaded  Arcadia,  understanding  that  the  Eleans  were  ready 
to  oppose  him,  he  wrote  thus  :  Archidamus  to  the  Eleans  ; 
It  is  good  to  be  quiet.  The  allies  in  the  Peloponnesian 
war  consulting  what  treasure  would  be  sufficient  to  carry 
on  the  war,  and  desiring  to  set  the  tax,  he  said,  AVar  cannot 
be  put  on  a  certain  allowance.  As  soon  as  ever  he  saw  a 
dart  shot  out  of  an  engine  brought  from  Sicily,  he  cried 
out.  Good  God !  true  valor  is  gone  for  ever.  When  the 
Greeks  refused  to  obey  him  or  to  stand  to  those  conditions 
which  he  had  made  with  Antigonus  and  Craterus  the 
Macedonians,  but  would  be  free,  alleging  that  the 
Spartans  would  prove  more  rigorous  lords  than  the  Ma- 
cedonians, he  said  :  A  sheep  always  uses  the  same  Λ^oice, 
but  a  man  various  and  many,  till  he  hath  perfected  his 
designs. 

Of  Astycratidas. 

Astycratidas,  after  Agis  the  king  Λvas  beaten  by  Anti- 
gonus at  Megalopolis,  Avas  asked.  What  will  you  Spartans 
do  ?  Avill  you  serve  the  Macedonians "?  He  replied.  Why 
so,  can  Antipater  hinder  us  from  dying  in  the  defence 
of  Sparta? 


406  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 


Of  Bias. 

Bias  being  surprised  by  an  ambush  that  Iphicrates  the 
Athenian  general  had  laid,  and  his  soldiers  demanding 
what  must  be  done,  he  replied,"  You  must  pro\'ide  for  your 
own  safety,  and  I  must  fight  manfully  and  die. 

Of  Br  as  Idas. 

Brasidas  catching  a  mouse  amongst  some  dry  figs,  the 
mouse  bit  him  ;  upon  which  he  let  her  go,  and  said  to  his 
com|)anions,  There  is  nothing  so  little  but  it  may  preserve 
itself,  if  it  dares  resist  the  invaders.  In  a  battle,  being 
shot  through  the  shield  into  the  bodv,  he  drew  the  dart 
out  and  with  it  killed  the  enemy.  And  one  asking  how 
his  wound  came,  he  replied.  By  the  treachery  of  my  shield. 
As  he  was  leading  forth  his  army,  he  wrote  to  the  Ephors, 
I  will  accomplish  what  I  wish  in  this  war,  or  I  will  die  for 
it.  Being  killed  as  he  fought  to  free  the  Greeks  in  Thrace, 
the  ambassadors  that  were  sent  to  Sparta  to  condole  his 
loss  made  a  visit  to  his  mother  Argileonis.  And  the  first 
question  she  asked  Avas,  whether  Brasidas  died  bravely. 
And  the  Thracians  extolUng  him  and  saying  there  was  no 
such  man  in  the  world  ;  You  mistake,  sir,  said  she,  it  is 
true,  Brasidas  was  a  good  man,  but  Sparta  can  show  many 
Avho  are  better. 

Of  Damonidas. 

Damonidas,  when  the  master  of  the  festival  set  him  in 
the  lowest  place  in  the  choral  dance,  said,  AVell,  sir,  you 
have  found  a  way  to  make  this  place,  which  was  infamous 
before,  noble  and  honorable. 

Of  Damis. 

Damis  to  some  letters  that  were  sent  to  him  by  Alexan- 
der, intimating  that  he    should  vote   Alexander   a   God, 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  407 

returned  this  answer :  We  are  content  that  Alexander  (if 
he  will)  be  called  a  God. 

Of  Damindas. 

Damindas,  Avhen  Philip  invaded  Peloponnesus,  and  one 
said  that  the  Spartans  would  suffer  great  mischiefs  unless 
they  accepted  his  proposals,  said,  Thou  woman-man,  what 
misery  can  we  suffer  that  despise  death  ? 

Of  DercylUdas. 

Dercyllidas,  being  sent  ambassador  to  Pyrrhus,  —  who 
was  then  Avith  his  army  on  the  borders  of  Sparta,  and  re- 
quired them  either  to  receive  their  king  Cleonymus,  or 
he  would  make  them  know  they  were  no  better  than 
other  men,  —  replied.  If  he  is  a  God,  we  do  not  fear  him, 
for  we  have  committed  no  fault ;  if  a  man,  we  are  as  good 
as  he. 

Of  Demaratus. 

Demaratus,  —  when  Orontes  talked  very  roughly  to  him, 
and  one  said,  Demaratus,  Orontes  uses  you  very  roughly,  — 
replied,  I  have  no  reason  to  be  angry,  for  those  that  speak 
to  please  do  the  mischief,  not  those  that  talk  out  of  malice. 
To  one  enquiring  why  they  disgrace  those  that  lose  their 
shields  in  a  battle  and  not  those  that  lose  their  head-pieces 
or  breastplates,  he  answered,  Because  these  serve  for  their 
private  safety  only,  but  their  shield  for  the  common  de- 
fence and  strength  of  the  Λνΐιοΐβ  army.  Hearing  one  play 
upon  the  harp,  he  said.  The  man  seems  to  play  the  fool 
^velL  In  a  certain  assembly,  when  he  was  asked  whether 
he  held  his  tongue  because  he  was  a  fool  or  for  want  of 
words,  he  replied,  A  fool  cannot  hold  his  tongue.  When 
one  asked  him  why  being  king  he  fled  Sparta,  he  answered. 
Because  the  laws  rule  there.  A  Persian  having  by  many 
presents  enticed  the  boy  that  he  loved  from  him,  and  say- 


4U5S  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 

ing,  Spartan,  I  have  caught  your  love ;  No,  faith,  he  an- 
swered, but  you  have  bought  him.  One  having  revolted 
from  the  king  of  Persia,  and  by  Demaratus's  persuasion 
returning  again  to  his  obedience,  and  the  king  design- 
ing his  death,  Demaratus  said  :  It  is  dishonorable,  Ο  king, 
whilst  he  was  an  enemy  not  to  be  able  to  punish  him  for 
his  revolt,  and  to  kill  him  now  he  is  a  friend.  To  a  para- 
site of  the  king  that  often  jeered  him  about  his  exile  he 
said :  Sir,  I  will  not  fight  you,  for  you  have  lost  your 
post  in  life.* 

Of  Emprepes. 

Emprepes,  one  of  the  Ephors.  cut  out  two  of  the  nine 
strings  of  Phrynis  the  musician's  harp  with  a  hatchet,  say- 
ing, Do  not  abuse  music. 

Of  Epaenetus. 

Epaenetus  said  that  liars  were  the  cause  of  all  villanies 
and  injustice  in  the  Avorld. 

Of  Euboidas. 

Euboidas,  hearing  some  commend  another  man's  wife, 
disliked  it  and  said,  Strangers  who  are  not  of  the  house 
should  never  speak  of  the  manner  of  any  woman. 

Of  Eudamidas  the  Son  of  ArcJiidamus. 

Eudamidas,  the  son  of  Archidamus  and  brother  of  Agis, 
seeing  Xenocrates,  now  groΛvn  old,  philosophizing  in  the 
Academy  with  some  of  his  acquaintance,  asked  what  old 
man  that  was.  And  it  being  answered,  He  is  a  wise  man, 
and  one  of  those  that  seek  after  virtue  ;  he  replied,  When 
will  he  use  it,  if  he  is  seeking  of  it  now  ?  Another  time, 
when  he  heard  a  philosopher  discoursing  that  none  but  a 

*  Following  Wyttenbach's  emendation  for  "  I  have  lost  my  post."     (G.) 


LACONIC  APOrHTIIEGMS.  409 

learned  man  could  be  a  good  general,  he  said,  Indeed  the 
discourse  is  admirable,  but  he  that  makes  it  is  of  no  credit 
in  this  matter,  for  he  hath  never  heard  a  trumpet  sound. 
Just  as  Xenocrates  had  iinislied  his  discourse,  Eudamidas 
came  into  his  school,  and  when  one  of  his  companions  said. 
As  soon  as  we  came  he  ended ;  So  he  ought,  he  replied,  if 
he  had  spoken  all  that  was  needful  on  the  subject.  And 
the  other  saying,  Yet  it  were  a  pleasant  thing  to  hear  him, 
he  replied.  If  we  visited  one  that  had  supped  already, 
should  we  desire  him  to  sit  down  again '?  AVhen  one  asked 
him  why,  when  all  the  citizens  voted  a  war  Λvith  the 
Macedonians,  he  appeared  for  peace,  he  answered.  Because 
I  have  no  mind  to  convince  them  of  their  mistake.  And 
when  another  encouraged  them  to  this  war,  mentioning 
their  various  victories  over  the  Persians,  he  said.  Sir,  you 
appear  not  to  see  that  this  would  be  as  absurd  as  to  set 
upon  fifty  wolves  because  you  have  beaten  a  thousand 
sheep.  A  musician  playing  very  Avell,  some  asked  him 
what  manner  of  man  he  was  in  his  opinion,  and  he  an- 
swered, A  great  seducer  in  a  small  matter.  Hearing  one 
commending  Athens,  he  said.  Who  could  have  reason  to 
praise  that  city  Avhich  no  man  ever  loved  because  he  had 
been  made  better  in  it  ?  An  Argive  saying  that  the  Spar- 
tans being  taken  from  their  own  customs  grew  worse  by 
travel,  he  replied.  But  you,  when  you  come  into  Sparta,  do 
not  return  worse,  but  much  better.  When  Alexander 
ordered  by  public  proclamation  in  the  Olympic  games, 
that  all  exiles  whatever,  except  the  Thebans,  had  free 
liberty  to  return  to  their  own  country,  Eudamidas  said : 
This  is  a  woful  proclamation  to  you  Thebans,  but  yet  hon- 
orable ;  for  of  all  the  Grecians  Alexander  fears  only  you. 
Being  asked  why  before  a  battle  they  sacrificed  to  the 
Muses,  he  replied.  That  our  brave  actions  may  be  worthily 
recorded. 


410  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 

Of  Eurycratidas  the  Son  of  Anaxandridas. 

Eurycratidas  the  son  of  Anaxandridas,  when  one  asked 
him  why  the  Ephor  sat  every  day  to  determine  canses 
abont  contracts,  rephed.  That  Λνβ  may  learn  to  keep  our 
word  even  with  our  enemies. 

Of  Zeuxidamus. 

Zeuxidamus,  when  one  asked  him  Avhy  they  did  not  set 
down  all  their  laws  concerning  bravery  and  courage  in 
writing  and  let  the  young  men  read  them,  answered.  Be- 
cause they  should  be  accustomed  to  mind  valiant  actions, 
rather  than  books  and  writings.  An  Aetolian  saying  that 
war  was  better  than  peace  for  those  that  would  be  brave 
men.  No,  faith,  said  he,  but  death  is  better  than  life. 

Of  Herondas. 

Herondas,  when  one  at  Athens  was  condemned  for  idle- 
ness, being  informed  of  it  desired  one  to  show  him  the 
man  that  had  been  convicted  of  so  gentlemanly  an  oifence. 

Of  Thearidas. 

Thearidas  Λvhetting  his  sword,  being  asked.  Is  it  sharp, 
Thearidas  "J  replied,  Yes,  sharper  than  a  slander. 

Of  Themisteas. 

Themisteas  the  prophet  foretold  to  King  Leonidas  his 
own  and  his  soldiers'  destruction  at  Thermopylae,  and  be- 
ing commanded  by  Leonidas  to  return  to  Sparta,  under 
pretence  of  informing  the  state  how  affairs  stood,  but  really 
that  he  might  not  perish  with  the  rest,  he  refused,  saying, 
I  was  sent  as  a  soldier,  not  as  a  courier  to  carry  news. 

Of  Theopompiis. 

Theopompus,  when  one  asked  him  how  a  monarch  may  be 
safe,  replied,  If  he  will  give  his  friends  just  freedom  to  speak 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  411 

the  truth,  and  to  the  best  of  his  power  not  allow  his  sub- 
jects to  be  oppressed.  To  a  guest  of  his  that  said,  In  my 
own  country  I  am  called  a  lover  of  the  Spartans,  he  replied. 
It  would  be  more  honorable  for  you  to  be  called  a  lover  of 
your  citizens  than  a  lover  of  the  Spartans.  An  ambassa- 
dor from  EUs  saying  that  his  city  sent  him  because  he  was 
the  only  man  amongst  them  that  admired  and  followed  the 
Spartan  way  of  living,  Theopompus  asked.  And  pray,  sir, 
which  Avay  is  best,  yours  or  the  other  citizens  ?  And  the 
ambassador  replying.  Mine  ;  he  subjoined.  How  then  can 
that  city  stand,  in  which  amongst  so  many  inhabitants 
there  is  but  one  good  man?  When  one  said  that  Sparta 
was  preserved  because  the  kings  knew  how  to  govern  ;  No, 
he  replied,  but  because  the  citizens  know  how  to  be  gov- 
erned. The  Pylians  voting  him  greater  honors,  he  wrote  to 
them  thus.  Moderate  honors  time  augments,  but  it  defaces 
the  immoderate. 

Of  Thorycion. 

Thorycion  on  his  return  from  Delphi,  seeing  Philip's 
army  possessed  of  the  narrow  passage  at  the  Isthmus,  said, 
Peloponnesus  hath  very  bad  porters  in  you  Corinthians. 

Of  TJiectamenes. 

Thectamenes,  when  the  Ephors  condemned  him  to  die, 
w^ent  away  smiling ;  and  one  of  the  company  asked  him 
whether  he  despised  the  judicial  proceedings  of  Sparta. 
No,  said  he,  but  I  am  glad  that  I  am  ordered  to  pay  a  fine 
which  I  can  pay  out  of  my  own  stock,  without  being  be- 
holden to  any  man  or  taking  up  money  upon  interest. 

Of  Hippodamus. 

Hippodamus,  Avhen  Agis  was  joined  in  command  with 
Archidamus,  being  sent  with  Agis  to  Sparta  to  look  after 
affairs  there,  said.  But  shall  I  not  die  a  more  glorious  death 


412  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

fighting  valiantly  in  defence  of  Sparta?  He  was  above 
fourscore  years  of  age,  yet  he  jDut  on  his  armor,  fought  on 
the  right  hand  of  the  king,  and  died  bravely. 

Of  Hippocratidas. 

Hippocratidas,  when  the  governor  of  Caria  sent  him 
word  that  he  had  a  Spartan  in  his  hands  who  concealed  a 
conspiracy  that  he  was  privy  to,  and  asked  how  he  should 
deal  with  him,  returned  this  answer :  If  you  have  done 
him  any  great  kindness,  kill  him ;  if  not,  banish  him  as  a 
base  fellow,  too  mean-sphited  to  be  good.  A  youth  Λvhom 
his  lover  followed  meeting  him  and  blushing  at  the  en- 
counter, he  said :  You  should  keep  such  company  that, 
whoever  sees  you,  you  will  ha\e  no  reason  to  change  color. 

Of  Callicratidas. 

Callicratidas  the  admiral,  Λvhen  some  of  Lysander's 
friends  desired  him  to  permit  them  to  kill  one  of  the  enemy, 
and  offered  fifty  talents  for  the  favor,  though  he  wanted 
money  extremely  to  buy  provision  for  his  soldiers,  refused ; 
and  when  Oleander  urged  him,  and  said.  Sir,  I  would  have 
taken  the  money  if  I  were  you,  he  replied.  So  would  I, 
were  I  Oleander.  When  he  came  to  Sardis  to  Cyrus  the 
Younger,  who  Avas  then  an  ally  of  the  Lacedaemonians, 
about  a  sum  of  money  to  equip  his  navy,  on  the  first  day 
he  ordered  his  officers  to  tell  Oyrus  that  he  desired  audi- 
ence ;  but  being  told  that  he  was  drinking,  ΛVell,  said  he, 
I  shall  stay  till  he  hath  done.  But  understanding  that  he 
could  not  be  admitted  that  day,  he  presently  left  the  court, 
and  thereupon  was  thought  a  rude  and  uncivil  fellow.  On 
the  next  day,  when  he  received  the  same  answer  and  could 
not  be  admitted,  he  said,  1  must  not  be  so  eager  for  money 
as  to  do  any  thing  unbecoming  Sparta.  And  presently  he 
retarned  to  Ephesus,  cursing  those  who  had  first  endured 
the  insolence  of  the  barbarians,  and  had  taught  them  to 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  413 

rely  upon  their  Avealth  and  abuse  others  ;  and  he  swore  to 
his  companions  that  as  soon  as  ever  he  came  to  Sparta,  ho 
would  do  all  that  lay  in  his  power  to  reconcile  the  Greek 
states,  that  they  might  be  more  dreadful  to  the  barbarians, 
and  not  forced  to  seek  assistance  from  them  to  ruin  one 
another.  Being  asked  what  manner  of  men  the  lonians 
were,  he  replied,  Bad  freemen,  but  good  shwes.  AVhen 
Cyrus  sent  his  soldiers  their  pay,  and  some  particular  pres- 
ents to  himself,  he  received  the  pay,  but  sent  back  the 
presents,  saying  that  there  was  no  need  of  any  private 
friendship  between  them,  for  the  common  league  with  the 
Lacedaemonians  included  him.  Designing  to  engage  near 
Arginusae,  when  Hermon  the  pilot  said,  It  is  advisable  to 
tack  about,  for  the  Athenians  exceed  us  in  number ;  he  ex- 
claimed :  AVhat  then  !  it  is  base  and  dishonorable  to  Sparta 
to  fly,  but  to  stand  to  it  and  die  or  conquer  is  brave  and 
noble.  As  he  was  sacrificing  before  the  battle,  when  he 
heard  the  priest  presaging  that  the  army  Avould  conquer 
but  the  captain  fall,  undauntedly  he  said :  Sparta  doth  not 
depend  on  one  man  ;  my  country  will  receive  no  great  loss 
by  my  death,  but  a  considerable  one  by  my  yielding  to  the 
enemy.  And  ordering  Oleander  to  succeed  as  admiral,  he 
readily  engaged,  and  died  in  the  battle. 

Of  Cleombrotus  the  Son  of  Pausanias. 

Cleombrotus,  the  son  of  Pausanias,  when  a  friend  of  his 
contended  with  his  father  which  was  the  best  man,  said, 
Sir,  my  father  must  be  better  than  you,  till  you  get  a  son 
as  well  as  he. 

Of  Cleomenes  the  Son  of  Anaxandridas. 

Cleomenes,  the  son  of  Anaxandridas,  was  Avont  to  say 
that  Homer  was  the  poet  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  Hesiod 
of  the  Helots  ;  for  one  taught  the  art  of  war,  and  the  other 
husbandry.     Having  made  a  truce  for  seven  days  with  the 


414  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

Argives,  he  watched  his  opportunity  the  third  night,  and 
perceiving  them  secure  and  neghgent  by  reason  of  the 
truce,  he  fell  upon  them  whilst  they  Avere  asleep,  killed 
some,  and  took  others  prisoners.  Upon  this  being  up- 
braided for  breach  of  articles,  he  said  that  his  oath  did  not 
extend  to  night  as  well  as  day,  and  to  hurt  a  man's  enemies 
any  way,  both  before  God  and  man,  was  much  better  than 
to  be  just.  It  happened  that  he  missed  taking  Argos,  in 
hopes  of  which  he  broke  his  oath  ;  for  the  women  taking 
the  old  arms  out  of  the  temples  defended  the  city.  And 
afterwards  running  stark  mad,  he  seized  a  knife,  and  ripped 
himself  up  from  the  very  ankles  to  the  vital  parts,  and  thus 
died  grinning  and  laughing.  The  priest  advising  him  not 
to  march  to  Argos,  —  for  he  would  be  forced  to  a  dishon- 
orable retreat,  —  when  he  came  near  the  city  and  saw  the 
gates  shut  and  the  women  upon  the  walls,  he  said  :  AVhat, 
sir  priests,  will  this  be  a  dishonorable  retreat,  when,  the 
men  being  all  lost,  the  women  have  shut  the  gates  ?  When 
some  of  the  Argives  railed  at  him  as  an  impious  and  for- 
sworn wretch,  he  said,  Well,  it  is  in  your  power  to  rail  at 
me,  and  in  mine  to  mischief  you.  The  Samian  ambassa- 
dors urging  him  to  make  war  on  the  tyrant  Polycrates,  and 
making  long  harangues  on  that  account,  he  said :  The  be- 
ginning of  your  speech  I  don't  remember,  and  therefore  I 
cannot  understand  the  middle,  and  the  last  I  don't  like,  A 
pirate  spoiUng  the  country,  and  when  he  was  taken  saying, 
I  had  no  provision  for  my  soldiers,  and  therefore  Avent  to 
those  who  had  store  and  would  not  give  it  willingly,  to  force 
it  from  them  ;  Cleomenes  said.  True  villainy  goes  the 
shortest  way  to  work.  A  base  fellow  railing  at  him,  he 
said,  Well,  I  think  thou  railest  at  everybody,  that  being 
employed  to  defend  ourselves,  we  may  have  no  time  to 
speak  of  thy  baseness. 

One  of  the  citizens  saying  that  a  good  king  should  be 
always  mild  and  gracious,  True,  said  he,  as  long  as  he  doth 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  415 

not  make  himself  contemptible.  Being  tormented  with  a 
long  disease,  he  consulted  the  priests  and  expiators,  to 
Avhom  he  formerly  gave  no  credit ;  and  Avhen  a  friend  of 
his  wondered  at  the  action,  AVhy  dost  thou  wonder,  said  he, 
for  I  am  not  the  same  man  I  was  then  ;  and  since  I  am  not 
the  same,  I  do  not  approve  the  same  things.  A  Sophist 
discoursing  of  courage,  he  laughed  exceedingly ;  and  the 
Sophist  saying.  Why  do  you  laugh,  Cleomenes,  when  you 
hear  one  treat  of  courage,  especially  since  you  are  a  king? 
Because,  sir,  said  he,  if  a  swallow  should  discourse  of  it,  I 
should  laugh ;  but  if  an  eagle,  I  should  hearken  atten- 
tively. 

AVhen  the  Argives  boasted  that  they  would  retrieve  then' 
defeat  by  a  new  battle,  he  said,  I  wonder  if  the  addition  of 
two  syllables  *  has  made  you  braver  than  you  were  before. 
AVhen  one  railed  at  him,  and  said,  Thou  art  luxurious, 
Cleomenes ;  Well,  he  replied,  that  is  better  than  to  be 
unjust ;  but  thou  art  covetous,  although  thou  art  master  of 
abundance  of  superfluities.  A  friend  willing  to  recom- 
mend a  musician  to  him,  besides  other  large  commendations, 
said  he  was  the  best  musician  in  all  Greece.  Cleomenes, 
pointing  to  one  that  stood  by,  said,  Faith,  sir,  that  fellow  is 
my  best  cook.  Maeander  the  Samian  tyrant,  flying  to  Sparta 
upon  the  invasion  of  the  Persian,  discovering  what  treasure 
he  had  brought,  and  offering  Cleomenes  as  much  as  he 
would  lia\'e,  Cleomenes  refused,  and  beside  took  care  that 
he  should  not  give  any  of  the  citizens  a  farthing  ;  but  going 
to  the  Ephors,  told  them  that  it  would  be  good  for  Sparta 
to  send  that  Samian  guest  of  his  out  of  Peloponnesus,  lest 
he  should  persuade  any  of  the  Lacedaemonians  to  be  a 
knave.  And  they  taking  his  advice  ordered  Maeander  to 
be  gone  that  very  day.  One  asking  why,  since  they  had 
beaten  the  Argives  so  often,  they  did  not  totally  destroy 
them,  he  replied.  That  we  may  have  some  to  exercise  our 

*  That  is,  changing  μάχεσθαι  (to  fifjht)  into  ΰναμύχεσθαι  [to  retrieve  a  άφαί).  (G.) 


416  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

youth.  One  demanding  why  the  Spartans  did  not  dedicate 
the  spoils  of  their  enemies  to  the  Gods,  Because,  said  he, 
they  are  taken  from  cowards  ;  and  such  things  as  are 
betrayed  to  us  by  the  cowardice  of  the  possessors  are  fit 
neither  for  our  youth  to  see,  nor  to  be  dedicated  to  the 
Gods. 

Of  Cleomenes  the  Son  of  Cleomhrotus. 

Cleomenes,  the  son  of  Cleomhrotus,  to  one  that  presented 
him  some  game-cocks,  and  said.  Sir,  these  Avill  die  before 
they  run,  returned :  Pray  let  me  have  some  of  that  breed 
Λvhich  will  kill  these,  for  certainly  they  are  the  better  of 
the  two. 

Of  Lahotus. 

Labotus  said  to  one  that  made  a  long  discourse :  Why 
such  great  preambles  to  so  small  a  matter  ?  A  speech 
should  be  no  bigger  than  the  subject. 

Of  Leotycliidas. 

Leotycliidas  the  First,  when  one  said  he  was  very  incon- 
stant, replied.  My  inconstancy  proceeds  from  the  variety  of 
times,  and  not  as  yours  from  innate  baseness.  And  to  an- 
other asking  him  what  was  the  best  way  to  secure  his  pres- 
ent happiness,  he  answered.  Not  to  trust  all  to  Fortune. 
And  to  another  enquiring  what  free-born  boys  should  prin- 
cipally learn,  That,  said  he,  which  will  profit  them  Avhen 
they  are  grown  men.  And  to  another  asking  why  the 
Spartans  drink  little,  he  replied.  That  we  may  consult  con- 
cerning others,  and  not  others  concerning  us. 

Of  LeotycMdas  the  Son  of  Arista. 

Leotychidas  the  son  of  Aristo,  Avhen  one  told  him  that 
Demaratus's   sons    spake   ill    of  him,   replied,    Faith,   no  • 
wonder,  for  not  one  of  them  can  speak  well.     A  serpent 


LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS.  417 

twisting  about  the  key  of  his  inmost  door,  and  the  priests 
dedaring  it  a  prodigy ;  I  cannot  think  it  so,  said  he,  but  it 
had  been  one  if  the  key  had  twisted  round  the  serpent. 
To  PhiUp,  a  priest  of  Orpheus's  mysteries,  in  extreme  pov- 
erty, saying  that  those  whom  he  initiated  were  very  happy 
after  death,  he  said,  Why  then,  you  sot,  don't  you  die 
quickly,  and  bewail  your  poverty  and  misery  no  more  ? 

Of  Leo  the  Son  of  Eucratidas. 

Leo  the  son  of  Eucratidas,  being  asked  in  what  city  a 
man  might  live  with  the  greatest  safety,  replied,  In  that 
where  the  inhabitants  have  neither  too  much  nor  too  little  ; 
where  justice  is  strong  and  injustice  weak.  Seeing  the 
racers  in  the  Olympian  games  very  solicitous  at  starting  to 
get  some  advantage  of  one  another,  he  said.  How  much 
more  careful  are  these  racers  to  be  counted  swift  than  just ! 
To  one  discoursing  of  some  profitable  matters  out  of  due 
season  he  said,  Sir,  you  do  a  very  good  thing  at  a  very  bad 
time. 

Of  Leonidas  the  Son  of  Anaxandridas. 

Leonidas,  the  son  of  Anaxandridas  and  brother  to  Cleo- 
menes,  when  one  said  to  him,  Abating  that  you  are  king, 
you  are  no  better  than  we,  replied,  But  unless  I  had  been 
better  than  vou,  I  had  not  been  kins'.  His  wife  Gorgo, 
Avhen  he  went  forth  to  Thermopylae  to  fight  the  Persian, 
asked  him  what  command  he  left  Λvith  her  ;  and  he  replied, 
Marry  brave  men,  and  bear  them  brave  children.  The 
Ephors  saying,  You  lead  but  few  to  Thermopylae ;  They 
are  many,  said  he,  considering  on  what  design  we  go.  And 
Avhen  they  again  asked  him  Avhether  he  had  any  other  en- 
terprise in  his  thought,  he  replied,  I  pretend  to  go  to  hinder 
the  barbarians'  passage,  but  really  to  die  fighting  for  the 
Greeks.  When  he  was  at  Thermopylae,  he  said  to  his 
soldiers :  They  report  the  enemy  is  at  hand,  and  we  lose 

VOL.  I.  27 


418  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

time  ;  for  we  must  either  beat  the  barbarian  or  die  our- 
selves. And  to  another  saying,  ΛVhat,  the  flights  of  the 
Persian  arrows  will  darken  the  very  sun,  he  said.  Therefore 
it  will  be  pleasant  for  us  to  fight  in  the  shade.  And  an- 
other saying,  AVhat,  Leonidas,  do  you  come  to  fight  so  great 
a  number  with  so  few  1  —  he  returned  :  If  you  esteem  num- 
ber, all  Greece  is  not  able  to  match  a  small  part  of  that 
army ;  if  courage,  this  number  is  sufficient.  And  to  an- 
other discoursing  after  the  same  manner  he  said,  I  have 
enough,  since  they  are  to  be  killed.  When  Xerxes  wrote 
to  him  thus,  Sir,  you  may  forbear  to  fight  against  the  Gods, 
but  may  follow  my  interest  and  be  lord  of  all  Greece,  he 
answered :  If  you  understood  wherein  consisted  the  happi- 
ness of  life,  you  would  not  covet  other  men's  ;  but  know 
that  I  Avould  rather  die  for  the  liberty  of  Greece  than  be  a 
monarch  over  my  countrymen.  And  Xerxes  writing  to  him 
again  thus,  Send  me  thy  arms,  he  returned.  Come  and  take 
them.  AVhen  he  resolved  to  fall  upon  the  enemy,  and  his 
captains  of  the  war  told  him  he  must  stay  till  the  forces  of 
the  allies  had  joined  him,  he  said :  Do  you  think  all  those 
that  intend  to  fight  are  not  here  already]  Or  do  you  not 
understand  that  those  only  fight  who  fear  and  reverence 
their  kings  ]  And  he  ordered  his  soldiers  so  to  dine,  as  if 
they  were  to  sup  in  another  world.  x\nd  being  asked  why 
the  bravest  men  prefer  an  honorable  death  before  an  inglo- 
rious life,  he  replied.  Because  they  believe  one  is  the  gift 
of  Nature,  Avhile  the  other  is  peculiarly  their  own.  Being 
desirous  to  save  the  striplings  that  were  with  him,  and 
knowing  very  Λνοΐΐ  that  if  he  dealt  openly  with  them  none 
would  accept  his  kindness,  he  gave  each  of  them  pri\'ately 
letters  to  carry  to  the  Ephors.  He  desired  likewise  to  save 
three  of  those  that  were  grown  men  ;  but  they  having  some 
notice  of  his  design  refused  the  letters.  And  one  of  them 
said,  I  came,  sir,  to  be  a  soldier,  and  not  a  courier ;  and 
the  second,  I  shall  be  a  better  man  if  here  than  if  away ; 


LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS.  419 

and  the  third,  I  will  not  be  behind  these,  but  the  first  in 
the  fight. 

■    Of  Lochagus. 

Lochagns  the  fiither  of  Polyaenides  and  Siron,  when 
one  told  him  one  of  his  sons  was  dead,  said,  I  knew  lon^ 
ago  that  he  must  die. 


ο 


Of  Lycurgus  the  Lawgiver. 

Lycurgus  the  lawgiver,  designing  to  reclaim  his  citizens 
from  their  former  luxury  and  bring  them  to  a  more  sober 
course  of  life  and  make  them  brave  men  (for  they  were 
then  loose  and  delicate),  bred  up  two  whelps  of  the  same 
litter ;  one  he  kept  at  home,  bred  him  tenderly,  and  fed 
him  well ;  but  the  other  he  taught  to  hunt,  and  used  him 
to  the  chase.  Both  these  dogs  he  brought  out  into  the 
public  assembly,  and  setting  down  some  scraps  of  meat  and 
letting  go  a  hare  at  the  same  time,  each  of  the  dogs  ran 
greedily  to  what  they  had  been  accustomed.  And  the 
hunter  catching  the  hare,  Lycurgus  said  :  See,  countrymen, 
how  these  two,  though  of  the  same  litter,  by  my  breeding 
them  are  become  very  diff'erent ;  and  that  custom  and  exer- 
cise conduces  more  than  Nature  to  make  things  brave  and 
excellent.  Some  say  that  he  did  not  bring  out  two  wheljDS 
of  the  same  kind,  but  one  a  house  dog  and  the  other  a 
hunter ;  the  former  of  which  (though  the  baser  kind)  he 
had  accustomed  to  the  woods,  and  the  other  (though  more 
noble)  kept  lazily  at  home  ;  and  when  in  public,  each  of 
them  pursuing  his  usual  delight,  he  had  given  a  clear  evi- 
dence that  education  is  of  considerable  force  in  raising  bad 
or  good  inclinations,  he  said :  Therefore,  countrymen,  our 
honorable  extraction,  that  idol  of  the  crowd,  though  from 
Hercules  himself,  profits  us  little,  unless  we  learn  and  ex- 
ercise all  our  life  in  such  famous  exploits  as  made  him 
accounted  the  most  noble  and  the  most  glorious  in  the 
world. 


420  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

When  lie  made  a  division  of  the  land,  giving  each  man 
an  equal  portion,  it  is  reported  that  some  while  after,  in 
his  return  from  a  journey,  as  he  past  through  the  country 
in  harvest  time  and  saw  the  cocks  of  wheat  all  equal  and 
lying  promiscuously,  he  was  extremely  pleased,  and  with  a 
smile  said  to  his  companions,  All  Sparta  looks  like  the  pos- 
session of  many  loving  brothers  who  have  hitely  divided 
their  estate.  Having  discharged  every  man  from  his  debts, 
he  endeavored  likewise  to  divide  all  movables  equally 
amongst  all,  that  he  might  have  no  inequality  in  his  com- 
monwealth. But  seeing  that  the  rich  men  would  hardly 
endure  this  open  and  apparent  spoil,  he  cried  down  all 
gokl  and  silver  coin,  and  ordered  nothing  but  iron  to  be 
current ;  and  rated  every  man's  estate  and  defined  how 
much  it  was  worth  upon  exchange  for  that  money.  By 
this  means  all  injustice  was  banished  Sparta ;  for  none 
Λvould  steal,  none  take  bribes,  none  cheat  or  rob  any  man 
of  that  which  he  could  not  conceal,  which  none  would 
enΛ7,  which  could  not  be  used  without  discovery,  or  carried 
into  other  countries  with  advantage.  Besides,  this  contriv- 
ance freed  them  from  all  superfluous  arts  ;  for  no  merchant, 
Sophist,  fortune-teller,  or  mountebank  would  live  amongst 
them ;  no  carver,  no  contriver  ever  troubled  Sparta ;  be- 
cause he  cried  down  all  money  that  w^as  advantageous  to 
them,  and  perrhitted  none  but  this  iron  coin,  each  piece 
of  which  was  an  Aegina  pound  in  Aveight,  and  less  than  a 
penny  in  value.*  Designing  farther  to  check  all  luxury 
and  greediness  after  wealth,  he  instituted  public  meals, 
where  all  the  citizens  Λvere  obliged  to  eat.  And  when 
some  of  his  friends  demanded  what  he  designed  by  this 
institution  and  Avliy  he  divided  the  citizens,  when  in  arms, 
into  small  companies,  he  replied:    That  they  may  more 

*  According  to  Plutarch,  the  Spartan  iron  coin  weighed  an  Aeginetan  niina 
(about  Ih  lbs.  avoir.),  and  was  of  the  value  of  four  chalci  (or  3i  farthings,  about  U 
cents).    (G.j 


LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS.  42  i 

easily  hear  the  word  of  command  ;  and  if  there  are  any 
designs  against  the  state,  the  conspiracy  may  join  but 
few ;  and  besides,  that  there  may  be  an  equahty  in  the 
provision,  and  that  neither  in  meat  nor  drink,  seats,  tables, 
or  any  furniture,  the  rich  may  be  better  provided  than  the 
poor.  When  he  had  by  this  contrivance  made  wealth  less 
desirable,  it  being  unfit  both  for  use  and  show,  he  said  to 
his  familiars,  What  a  brave  thing  is  it,  my  friends,  by  our 
actions  to  make  Plutus  appear  (as  he  is  indeed)  blind  ! 
He  took  care  that  none  should  sup  at  home  and  afterwards, 
>vhen  they  were  full  of  other  victuals,  come  to  the  public 
entertainments  ;  for  all  the  rest  reproached  him  that  did 
not  feed  with  them  as  a  glutton  and  of  too  delicate  a  pal- 
ate for  the  public  provision  ;  and  when  he  was  discovered, 
he  was  severely  punished.  And  therefore  Agis  the  king, 
when  after  a  long  absence  he  returned  from  the  camp  (the 
Athenians  were  beaten  in  the  expedition),  Avilling  to  sup 
at  home  with  his  wife  once,  sent  a  servant  for  his  allow- 
ance ;  the  officers  refused,  and  the  next  day  the  Ephors 
fined  him  for  the  fault. 

The  wealthy  citizens  being  offended  at  these  constitu- 
tions made  a  mutiny  against  him,  abused,  threw  stones, 
and  designed  to  kill  him.  Thus  pursued,  he  ran  through 
the  market-place  towards  the  temple  of  Minerva  of  the 
Brazen  House,  and  reached  it  before  any  of  the  others  ; 
only  Alcander  pursuing  close  struck  him  as  he  turned 
about,  and  beat  out  one  eye.  Afterward  the  commonwealth 
delivered  up  this  Alcander  to  his  mercy  ;  but  he  neither 
inflicted  any  punishment  nor  gave  him  an  ill  word,  but 
kindly  entertained  him  at  his  own  house,  and  brought  him 
to  be  his  friend,  an  admirer  of  his  course  of  life,  and  very 
well  affected  to  all  his  laws.  Yet  he  built  a  monument  of 
this  sad  disaster  in  the  temple  of  Minerva,  naming  it  Op- 
tiletis,  —  for  the  Dorians  in  that  country  call  eyes  opt'doi. 
Being  asked  why  he  used  no  written  laws,  he  replied,  Be- 


422  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

cause  those  that  are  well  instructed  are  able  to  suit  matters 
to  the  present  occasion.  And  another  time,  when  some 
enquired  why  he  had  ordained  that  the  timber  which 
roofed  the  houses  should  be  Λvrought  with  the  axe  only, 
and  the  doors  with  no  other  instrument  but  the  saw,  he 
answered  :  That  my  citizens  might  be  moderate  in  every 
tiling  which  they  bring  into  their  houses,  and  possess  noth- 
ing which  others  so  much  prize  and  value.  And  hence 
it  is  reported  that  King  Leotychides  the  First,  supping  with 
a  friend  and  seeing  the  roof  curiously  arched  and  richly 
wrought,  asked  him  whether  in  that  country  the  trees  grew 
square.  And  some  demanding  Avhy  he  forbade  them  to 
war  often  with  the  same  nation,  he  replied,  Lest  being 
often  forced  to  stand  on  their  defence,  they  should  get  ex- 
perience and  be  masters  of  our  art.  And  therefore  it  was  a 
great  fault  in  Agesilaus,  that  by  his  frequent  incursions 
into  Boeotia  he  made  the  Thebans  a  match  for  the  Lace- 
daemonians. And  another  asking  why  he  exercised  the 
virgins'  bodies  with  racing,  wrestling,  throwing  the  bar,  and 
the  like,  he  answered  :  That  the  first  rooting  of  the  children 
being  strong  and  firm,  their  growth  might  be  proportion- 
able ;  and  that  the  women  might  have  strength  to  bear  and 
more  easily  undergo  the  pains  of  travail,  or,  if  necessity 
should  require,  be  able  to  fight  for  themselves,  their  coun- 
try, and  their  children.  Some  being  displeased  that  the 
virgins  Avent  about  naked  at  certain  solemnities,  and  de- 
manding the  reason  of  that  custom,  he  replied  :  That  using 
the  same  exercises  with  men,  they  might  equal  them  in 
strength  and  health  of  body  and  in  courage  and  bravery 
of  mind,  and  be  above  that  mean  opinion  which  the  vulgar 
had  of  them.  And  hence  goes  the  story  of  Gorgo,  wife 
of  Leonidas,  that  Λνΐιοη  a  stranger,  a  friend  of  hers,  said, 
You  Spartan  women  alone  rule  men,  she  replied,  Good 
reason,  for  we  alone  bear  men.  By  ordering  that  no  bache- 
lor should  be  admitted  a  spectator  of  these  naked  solemnities 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  423 

and  fixing  some  other  disgrace  on  them,  he  made  them  all  ea- 
ger to  be  married  and  get  children  ;  besides,  he  deprived  them 
of  that  honor  and  observance  which  the  young  men  Avere 
bound  to  pay  their  elders.  And  upon  that  account  none 
can  blame  what  was  said  to  Dercyllidas,  though  a  brave 
captain ;  for  as  he  approached,  one  of  the  young  men 
refused  to  rise  up  and  give  him  place,  saying,  You  have 
not  begotten  any  to  give  place  to  me. 

When  one  asked  him  why  he  allowed  no  dowry  to  be 
given  with  a  maid,  he  answered,  that  none  might  be  slighted 
for  their  poverty  or  courted  for  their  wealth,  but  that  every 
one,  considering  the  manners  of  the  maid,  might  choose 
for  the  sake  of  virtue.  And  for  the  same  reason  he  for- 
bade all  painting  of  the  face  and  curiousness  in  dress  and 
ornament.  To  one  that  asked  him  why  he  made  a  law 
that  before  such  an  age  neither  sex  should  marry,  he  an- 
swered, that  the  children  might  be  lusty,  being  born  of 
persons  of  full  age.  And  to  one  Avondering  why  he  would 
not  suffer  the  husband  to  lie  all  night  with  his  wife,  but 
commanded  them  to  be  most  of  the  day  and  all  the  night 
with  tlieir  fellows,  and  creep  to  their  wives  cautiously  and 
by  stealth,  he  said  :  I  do  it  that  they  may  be  strong  in 
body,  having  never  been  satiated  and  surfeited  with  pleas- 
ure ;  that  they  may  be  always  fresh  in  love,  and  their  chil- 
dren more  strong  and  lusty.  He  forbade  all  perfumes,  as 
nothing  but  good  oil  corrupted,  and  the  dyer's  art,  as  a 
flatterer  and  enticer  of  the  sensis  ;  and  he  ejected  all  skilled 
in  ornament  and  dressing,  as  those  who  by  their  lewd  de- 
vices corrupt  the  true  arts  of  decency  and  living  well.  x\t 
that  time  the  women  Avere  so  chaste  and  such  strangers  to 
that  lightness  to  Avhich  they  were  afterwards  addicted,  that 
adultery  was  incredible  ;  and  there  goes  a  saying  of  Ge- 
radatas,  one  of  the  ancient  Spartans,  who  being  asked  by 
a  stranger  what  punishment  the  Spartans  appointed  for 
adulterers  (for  Lycurgus  mentioned  none),  he  said.  Sir,  we 


424  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

have  no  adulterers  amongst  us.  And  he  replymg,  But  sup- 
pose there  should  be  ?  Geradatas  made  the  same  reply  ; 
For  how  (said  he)  could  there  be  an  adulterer  in  Sparta, 
where  wealth,  delicacy,  and  all  ornaments  are  disesteemed, 
and  modesty,  neatness,  and  obedience  to  the  governors  only 
are  in  request]  A\^hen  one  desired  him  to  establish  a  de- 
mocracy in  Sparta,  he  said.  Pray,  sir,  do  you  first  set  up  that 
form  in  your  own  family.  And  to  another  demanding  why 
he  ordered  sucli  mean  sacrifices  he  answered,  That  Λνο  may 
always  be  able  to  honor  the  Gods.  He  permitted  the  citi- 
zens those  exercises  only  in  which  the  hand  is  not  stretched 
out ;  and  one  demanding  his  reason,  he  replied,  That  none 
in  any  labor  may  be  accustomed  to  be  weary.  And  an- 
other enquiring  why  he  ordered  that  in  a  Avar  the  camp 
should  be  often  changed,  he  answered,  That  we  may  damage 
our  enemies  the  more.  Another  demanding  why  he  for- 
bade to  storm  a  castle,  he  said.  Lest  my  brave  men  should 
be  killed  by  a  woman,  a  boy,  or  some  man  of  as  mean 
courage. 

When  the  Thebans  asked  his  advice  about  the  sacrifices 
and  lamentation  which  they  instituted  in  honor  of  Leuco- 
thea.  he  gave  them  this  :  If  you  think  her  a  Goddess,  do 
not  lament  ;  if  a  woman,  do  not  sacrifice  to  her  as  a  God- 
dess. To  some  of  the  citizens  enquiring,  How  shall  we 
avoid  the  invasions  of  enemies,  he  replied,  If  you  are 
poor,  and  one  covets  no  more  than  another.  And  to  others 
demanding  why  he  did  not  wall  his  city  he  said.  That  city 
is  not  unwalled  Avhich  is  encompassed  with  men  and  not 
brick.  The  Spartans  are  curious  in  their  hair,  and  tell  us 
that  Lycurgus  said,  It  makes  the  handsome  more  amiable, 
and  the  ugly  more  terrible.  He  ordered  that  in  a  war  they 
should  pursue  the  routed  enemy  so  far  as  to  secure  the 
victory,  and  then  retreat,  saying,  it  was  unbecoming  the 
Grecian  bravery  to  butcher  those  that  fled ;  and  beside, 
it  was  useful,  for  their  enemies,  knowing  that  they  spared 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  425 

all  that  yielded  and  cut  in  pieces  the  opposers,  would 
easily  conclude  that  it  was  safer  to  fly  than  to  stand  stoutly 
to  it  and  resist.  AVhen  one  asked  him  why  he  charged  his 
soldiers  not  to  meddle  with  the  spoil  of  their  slain  enemies, 
he  replied,  Lest  while  they  are  eager  on  their  prey  they 
neglect  their  fighting,  but  also  that  they  may  keep  their 
order  and  their  poverty  together. 

Of  Lysander. 

Lysander,  Avhen  Dionysius  sent  him  two  gowns,  and  bade 
him  choose  which  he  would  to  carry  to  his  daughter,  said, 
She  can  choose  best ;  and  so  took  both  away  with  him. 
This  Lysander  being  a  very  crafty  fellow,  frequently  using 
subtle  tricks  and  notable  deceits,  placing  all  justice  and 
honesty  in  profit  and  advantage,  would  confess  that  truth 
indeed  was  better  than  a  lie,  but  the  worth  and  dignity  of 
either  was  to  be  defined  by  their  usefulness  to  our  affairs. 
And  to  some  that  were  bitter  upon  him  for  these  deceitful 
practices,  as  unworthy  of  Hercules's  family,  and  owing  his 
success  to  little  mean  tricks  and  not  plain  force  and  open 
dealing,  he  answered  with  a  smile,  AVlien  the  lion's  skin 
cannot  prevail,  a  little  of  the  fox's  must  be  used.  x\nd  to 
others  that  upbraided  him  for  breaking  his  oaths  made  at 
Miletus  he  said.  Boys  must  be  cheated  with  cockal-bones, 
and  men  with  oaths.  Having  surprised  the  Athenians  by 
an  ambush  near  the  Goat  Rivers  and  routed  them,  and  after- 
Avards  by  famine  forced  the  city  to  surrender,  he  wrote  to 
the  Ephors,  Athens  is  taken.  When  the  Argives  Avere  iu 
a  debate  with  the  Lacedaemonians  about  their  confines  and 
seemed  to  have  the  better  reasons  on  their  side,  drawing  his 
sword,  he  said.  He  that  hath  this  is  the  best  pleader  about 
confines.  Leading  his  army  through  Boeotia,  and  finding 
til  at  state  wavering  and  not  fixed  on  either  party,  he  sent  to 
know  whether  he  should  march  through  their  country  with 
his  spears  up  or  down.     At  an  assembly  of  the  states  oi 


426  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS.    : 

Greece,  when  a  Megarian  talked  saucily  to  him,  he  said,  Sir, 
your  words  Avant  a  city.     The  Corinthians  revolting,  and  lie 
approaching  to  the  walls  that  he  saAV  the  Spartans  not  eager 
to  storm,  while  at  the  same  time  hares  were  skipping  over 
the  trenches  of  the  town  ;  Are  not  you  ashamed  (said  he) 
to  be  afraid  of  those  enemies  whose  slothfulness   suffers 
even  hares  to  sleep  upon  their  walls?     At  Samothrace,  as 
he  was  consulting  the  oracle,  the  priests    ordered    him    to 
confess  the  greatest  crime  he  had  been   guilty   of   in    his 
whole  life.     AVhat,  said  he,  is  this  your  own,  or  the  God's 
command  ?    And  the  priests  replying,  The  God's  ;  said  he, 
Do  you  withdraw,  and  I  will  tell  them,  if  they  make  any 
such  demand.     A  Persian  asking  him  what  polity  he  liked, 
That,  he  replied,  which  assigns  stout  men  and  cowards  suit- 
able rewards.     To  one  that  said,  Sir,  I  always  commend 
you  and  speak  in  your  behalf,  — Well,  said  he,  I  have  two 
oxen  in  the  field,  and  though  neither  says  one  word,  I  know 
very  Avell  which  is  the  laborious  and  which  the  lazy.     To 
one  that  railed  at  him  he  said,  Speak,  sir,  let  us  have  it  all 
fast,  if  thou  canst  empty  thy  soul  of  those  wicked  thoughts 
which  thou  seemest  full   of.     Some  time  after  his  death, 
there  happening  a  difference   between   the   Spartans   and 
their  allies,  Agesilaus  went  to  Lysander's  house  to  inspect 
some  papers  that  lay  in  his  custody  relating  to  that  matter ; 
and  there  found  an  oration  composed  for  Lysander  con- 
cerning the  government,  setting  forth  that  it  was  expedient 
to  set  aside  the  families  of  the  Europrotidae  and  Agidae,  to 
admit  all   to  an  equal  claim,  and  choose  their  king  out  of 
the  Λvorthiest  men,  that  the  crown  might  be  the  reward  not 
of  those  that  shared  in  the  blood  of  Hercules,  but  of  those 
who  were  like  him  for  virtue  and  courage,  that  virtue  that 
exalted  him  into  a  God.     This  oration  Agesilaus  was  re- 
solved to  publish,  to  show  the  Spartans  how  much  they 
were  mistaken  in  Lysander  and  to  discredit  his  friends ; 
hut  they  say,  Cratidas  the  president  of  the  Ephors  fearing 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS  427 

this  oration,  if  published,  would  prevail  upon  the  people, 
advised  Agesilaus  to  be  quiet,  telling  him  that  he  should 
not  dig  up  Lysander,  but  rather  bury  that  oration  with  him, 
being  so  cunningly  contrived,  so  powerful  to  persuade. 
Those  that  courted  his  daughters,  and  when  at  his  death 
he  appeared  to  be  poor  forsook  them,  the  Ephors  fined, 
because  whilst  they  thought  him  rich  they  caressed  him, 
but  scorned  him  when  by  his  poverty  they  knew  him  to  be 
just  and  honest. 

Of  Namertes. 

Namertes  being  on  an  embassy,  when  one  of  that  country 
told  him  he  was  a  happy  man  in  having  so  many  friends, 
asked  him  if  he  knew  any  certain  Avay  to  try  whether  a 
man  had  many  friends  or  not ;  and  the  other  being  earnest 
to  be  told,  Namertes  replied.  Adversity. 

Of  Nicander. 

Nicander,  when  one  told  him  that  the  Argives  spake 
very  ill  of  him,  said,  Well,  they  suffer  for  speaking  ill  of 
good  men.  And  to  one  that  enquired  why  they  wore  long 
hair  and  long  beards,  he  answered,  Because  man's  natural 
ornaments  are  the  handsomest  and  the  cheapest.  An  Athe- 
nian saying,  Nicander,  you  Spartans  are  extremely  idle  ; 
You  say  true,  he  answered,  but  we  do  not  busy  ourselves 
like  you  in  every  trifle. 

Of  Panthoidas. 

When  Panthoidas  was  ambassador  in  Asia  and  some 
showed  him  a  strong  fortification.  Faith,  said  he,  it  is  a 
fine  cloister  for  women.  In  the  Academy,  when  the  phil- 
osophers had  made  a  great  many  and  excellent  discourses, 
and  asked  Panthoidas  how  he  liked  them  ;  Indeed,  said  he, 
I  think  them  very  good,  but  of  no  profit  at  all,  since  you 
yourselves  do  not  use  them. 


428  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

Of  Pausanias  the  Son  of  Cleombrotus. 

Pausanias  the  son  of  Cleombrotus,  Avhen  the  Delians 
pleaded  theh*  title  to  the  island  against  the  Athenians,  and 
iirsed  that  accordins;  to  their  law  no  women  were  ever 
brought  to  bed  or  any  carcass  buried  in  the  isle,  said. 
How  then  can  that  be  your  country,  in  which  not  one  of 
you  was  born  or  shall  ever  lie  1  The  exiles  urging  him  to 
march  against  the  Athenians,  and  saying  that,  when  he 
was  proclaimed  victor  in  the  Olympic  games,  these  alone 
hissed  ;  How,  says  he,  since  they  hissed  whilst  we  did  them 
good,  what  do  you  think  they  will  do  when  abused]  When 
one  asked  him  why  they  made  Tyrtaeus  the  poet  a  citizen, 
he  ansΛvered,  That  no  foreigner  should  be  our  captain.  A 
man  of  a  weak  and  puny  body  advising  to  fight  the  enemy 
both  by  sea  and  land ;  Pray,  sir,  says  he,  will  you  strip  and 
show  what  a  man  you  are  who  advise  to  engage  I  When 
some  amongst  the  spoils  of  the  barbarians  admired  the 
richness  of  their  clothes  ;  It  had  been  better,  he  said,  that 
they  had  been  men  of  Avortli  themselves  than  that  they 
should  possess  things  of  worth.  After  the  victory  over 
the  Medes  at  Plataea,  he  commanded  his  officers  to  set 
before  him  the  Persian  banquet  that  was  already  dressed  ; 
w^hich  appearing  very  sumptuous,  By  heaven,  quoth  he, 
the  Persian  is  an  abominable  glutton,  who,  when  he  hath 
such  delicacies  at  home,  comes  to  eat  our  barley-cakes. 

Of  Pausanias  the   Son  of  Plistoanax. 

Pausanias  the  son  of  Plistoanax  replied  to  one  that 
asked  him  why  it  was  not  lawful  for  the  Spartans  to  abro- 
gate any  of  their  old  laws.  Because  men  ought  to  be  sub- 
ject to  laws,  and  not  the  laws  to  men.  When  banished 
and  at  Tegea,  he  commended  the  Lacedaemonians.  One 
said  to  him,  Why  then  did  you  not  stay  at  Sparta?  And 
he  returned,  Physicians  are  conversant  not   amongst  the 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  429 

healthy,  but  the  diseased.  To  one  askhig  him  how  they 
should  conquer  the  Thracians,  he  replied,  If  we  make  the 
best  man  our  captain.  A  physician,  after  he  had  felt  his 
pulse  and  considered  his  constitution,  saying,  He  ails  noth- 
ing ;  It  is  because,  sir,  he  replied,  I  use  none  of  your 
physic.  AVhen  one  of  his  friends  blamed  him  for  giving 
a  physician  an  ill  character,  since  he  had  no  experience  of 
his  skill  nor  received  any  injury  from  him  ;  No,  faith,  said 
he,  for  had  I  tried  him,  I  had  not  lived  to  give  this  charac- 
ter. And  when  the  physician  said.  Sir,  you  are  an  old  man  ; 
That  happens,  he  replied,  because  you  were  never  my  doc- 
tor. And  he  was  used  to  say,  that  he  was  the  best  physi- 
cian, who  did  not  let  his  patients  rot  above  ground,  but 
quickly  buried  them. 

Of  Paedaretus. 

Paedaretus,  when  one  told  him  the  enemies  Avere  numei- 
ous,  said.  Therefore  we  shall  get  the  greater  reputation,  for 
we  shall  kill  the  more.  Seeing  a  man  soft  by  nature  and 
a  coward  commended  by  the  citizens  for  his  lenity  and  good 
disposition,  he  said,  We  shoidd  not  praise  men  that  are  like 
women,  nor  women  that  are  like  men,  unless  some  extrem- 
ity forceth  a  woman  to  stand  upon  her  guard.  When  he 
was  not  chosen  into  the  three  hundred  (the  chief  order  in 
the  city),  he  went  aAvay  laughing  and  very  jocund  ;  and  the 
Epliors  calling  him  back  and  asking  why  he  laughed.  Why, 
said  he,  I  congratulate  the  happiness  of  the  city,  that  en- 
joys three  hundred  citizens  better  than  myself. 

Of  Plisiarchns. 

Plistarchus  the  son  of  Leonidas,  to  one  asking  him  why 
they  did  not  take  their  names  from  the  first  kings,  replied, 
Because  the  former  were  rather  captains  than  kings,  but 
the  later  otherwise.  A  certain  advocate  using  a  thousand 
little  jests  in  his  pleading ;  Sir,  said  he,  you  do  not  con- 


430  LACONIC•  APOPHTHEGMS. 

sider  that,  as  those  that  often  wrestle  are  wrestlers  at  last, 
so  you  by  often  exciting  laughter  will  become  ridiculous 
yourself.  AVhen  one  told  him  that  an  notorious  railer 
spoke  well  of  him  ;  I'll  lay  my  life,  said  he,  somebody  hatli 
told  him  I  am  dead,  for  he  can  speak  well  of  no  man 
living. 

Of  Plistoanax. 

Plistoanax  the  son  of  Pausanias,  when  an  Athenian 
orator  called  the  Lacedaemonians  unlearned  fellows,  said, 
'Tis  true,  for  we  alone  of  all  the  Greeks  have  not  learned 
any  ill  from  you. 

Of  PoJydorus. 

Polydorus  the  son  of  Alcamenes,  when  one  often  threat- 
ened his  enemies,  said  to  him,  Do  not  you  perceive,  sir, 
that  you  waste  a  great  part  of  your  revenge  1  As  he 
marched  his  army  against  Messene,  a  friend  asked  him  if 
he  would  fight  against  his  brothers  ]  No,  said  he,  but  I 
put  in  for  an  estate  to  which  none,  as  yet,  hath  any  good 
title.  The  Argives  after  the  fight  of  the  three  hundred 
being  totally  routed  in  a  set  battle,  the  allies  urged  him  not 
to  let  the  opportunity  slip,  but  storm  and  take  the  city  of 
the  enemy;  for  it  would  be  very  easy,  now  all  the  men 
were  destroyed  and  none  but  women  left.  He  replied :  I 
love  to  vanquish  my  enemies  when  I  fight  on  equal  terms  ; 
nor  do  I  think  it  just  in  him  who  was  commissioned  to 
contest  about  the  confines  of  the  two  states,  to  desire  to  be 
master  of  the  city ;  for  I  came  only  to  recover  our  own 
territories  and  not  to  seize  theirs.  Being  asked  once 
why  the  Spartans  ventured  so  bravely  in  battle  ;  Because, 
said  he,  we  have  learned  to  reverence  and  not  fear  our 
leaders. 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  431 


Of  PoJycratidas. 

Polycratidas  being  joined  Ayith  others  in  an  embassy  to 
the  Heutenants  of  the  king,  being  asked  whether  they  came 
as  private  or  pubhc  persons,  returned,  If  we  obtain  our 
demands,  as  pubhc ;  if  not,  as  private. 

Of  Phoehidas. 

Phoebidas,  just  before  the  battle  at  Leuctra,  when  some 
said,  This  day  will  show  who  is  a  brave  man,  replied,  'Tis 
a  fine  day  indeed  that  can  show  a  brave  man  alive. 

Of  Soos. 

It  is  reported  of  Soos  that,  when  his  army  was  shut  up 
by  the  Clitorians  in  a  disadvantageous  strait  and  wanted 
water,  he  agreed  to  restore  all  the  places  he  had  taken, 
if  all  his  men  should  drink  of  the  neighboring  fountain. 
Now  the  enemy  had  secured  the  spring  and  guarded  it. 
These  articles  being  sworn  to,  he  convened  his  soldiers, 
and  promised  to  give  him  the  kingdom  who  would  forbear 
drinking  ;  but  none  accepting  it,  he  went  to  the  water, 
sprinkled  himself,  and  so  departed,  whilst  the  enemies 
looked  on ;  and  he  therefore  refused  to  restore  the  places, 
because  he  himself  had  not  drunk. 

Of  Telecrus. 

Telecrus,  to  one  reporting  that  his  father  spake  ill  of 
him,  replied.  He  would  not  speak  so  unless  he  had  reason 
for  it.  When  his  brother  said,  The  citizens  have  not  that 
kindness  for  me  they  have  for  you,  but  use  me  more  coarse- 
ly, though  born  of  the  same  parents,  he  replied.  You  do 
not  know  how  to  bear  an  injury,  and  I  do.  Being  asked 
what  was  the  reason  of  that  custom  among  the  Spartans 
for  the  younger  to  rise  up  in  reverence  to  the  elder,  Be- 
cause, said  he,  by  this  behavior  towards  those  to  whom 


4-52  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 

they  have  no  relation,  they  may  learn  to  reverence  their 
parents  more.  To  one  enquiring  what  wealth  he  had,  he 
returned,  No  more  than  enough. 

Of  Charillus, 

Charillus  being  asked  why  Lycurgus  made  so  few  laws  ; 
Because,  he  replied,  those  Λvhose  words  are  few  need  but 
few  laws.  Another  enquiring  why  their  virgins  appear  in 
public  unveiled,  and  their  wives  veiled ;  Because,  said  he, 
virgins  ought  to  find  husbands,  married  women  keep  those 
they  have.  To  a  slave  saucily  opposing  him  he  said,  I 
would  kill  thee  if  I  were  not  angry.  And  being  asked 
what  polity  he  thought  best ;  That,  said  he,  in  Avhich  most 
of  the  citizens  without  any  disturbance  contend  about  vir- 
tue. And  to  a  friend  enquiring  Avhy  amongst  them  all  the 
images  of  the  Gods  were  armed  he  replied,  That  those 
reproaches  we  cast  upon  men  for  their  cowardice  may  not 
reflect  upon  the  Gods,  and  that  our  youth  may  not  suppli- 
cate the  Deities  unarmed. 


THE   REMARKABLE    SPEECHES     OF    SOME    OBSCURE 
MEN  AMONGST   THE   SPARTANS. 

When  the  Samian  ambassadors  had  made  a  long  har- 
angue, the  Spartans  answered,  ΛΥο  have  forgot  the  first 
part,  and  so  cannot  understand  the  last.  To  the  Thebans 
violently  contesting  with  them  about  something  they  replied, 
Your  spirit  should  be  less,  or  your  forces  greater.  A  Lace- 
daemonian being  asked  why  he  kept  his  beard  so  long ; 
That  seeing  my  gray  hairs,  he  replied,  I  may  do  nothing 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  433 

but  what  becomes  them.  One  commending  the  best  war- 
riors, a  Spartan  that  overheard  said,  At  Troy.  Another, 
hearing  that  some  forced  their  guests  to  drink  after  supper, 
said,  What !  not  to  eat  too  ?  Pindar  in  his  poems  having 
called  Athens  the  prop  of  Greece,  a  Spartan  said,  Greece 
would  soon  fall  if  it  leaned  on  such  a  prop.  AVhen  one, 
seeing  the  Athenians  pictured  killing  the  Spartans,  said, 
The  Athenians  are  stout  fellows  ;  Yes,  subjoined  a  Spartan, 
in  a  picture.  To  one  that  was  very  attentive  to  a  scandal- 
ous accusation  a  Spartan  said,  Pray,  sir,  be  not  prodigal  of 
your  ears  against  me.  And  to  one  under  correction  that 
cried  out,  I  offend  against  my  will,  another  said,  Therefore 
suffer  against  thy  will.  One  seeing  some  journeying  in  a 
chariot  said,  God  forbid  that  I  should  sit  where  I  cannot 
rise  up  to  reverence  my  elders.  Some  Chian  travellers 
vomiting  after  supper  in  the  consistory,  and  dunging  in  the 
very  seats  of  the  Ephors,  first  they  made  strict  inquiry 
whether  the  offenders  were  citizens  or  not ;  but  finding  they 
were  Chians,  they  publicly  proclaimed  that  they  gave  the 
Chians  leave  to  be  filthy  and  uncivil. 

When  one  saw  a  merchant  sell  hard  almonds  at  double 
the  price  that  others  Λvere  usually  sold  at,  he  said,  Are 
stones  scarce  ]  Another  pulling  a  nightingale,  and  finding 
but  a  very  small  body,  said.  Thou  art  voice  and  nothing 
else.  Another  Spartan,  seeing  Diogenes  the  Cynic  in  very 
cold  Λveather  embrace  a  brazen  statue,  asked  whether  he 
was  not  very  cold  ;  and  he  replying,  No,  he  rejoined,  What 
great  matter  then  is  it  that  you  do  ]  A  Metapontine,  being 
jeered  by  a  Spartan  for  cowardice,  replied.  Nay,  sir,  we  are 
masters  of  some  of  the  territories  of  other  states  ;  Then,  said 
the  Spartan,  you  are  not  only  cowards  but  unjust.  A  travel- 
ler at  Sparta,  standing  long  upon  one  leg,  said  to  a  Lacedae- 
monian, I  do  not  believe  you  can  do  as  much ;  True,  said 
he,  but  every  goose  can.  To  one  valuing  himself  upon 
his  skill  in  oratory  a  Spartan  said,  By  heaven,  there  never 

VOL.  I.  28 


434  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

was  and  never  can  be  any  art  without  truth.  An  Argive 
saying,  AVe  have  the  tombs  of  many  Spartans  amongst  us  ; 
a  Spartan  replied,  But  we  cannot  show  the  grave  of  one 
Argive  ;  meaning  that  they  had  often  invaded  Argos,  but 
the  Argives  never  Sparta.  A  Spartan  that  Avas  taken  cap- 
tive and  to  be  sold,  —  Avhen  the  crier  said.  Here's  a  Spartan 
to  be  sold,  —  stopped  his  mouth,  saying.  Cry  a  captive.  One 
of  the  soldiers  of  Lysimachus,  being  asked  by  him  whether 
he  was  a  true  Spartan  or  one  of  the  Helot  slaves,  replied, 
Do  you  imagine  a  Lacedaemonian  would  serve  you  for  a 
groat  a  day  ?  The  Tliebans,  having  beaten  the  Lacedae- 
monians at  Leuctra,  marched  to  the  river  Eurotas  itself, 
where  one  of  them  boasting  said,  Where  are  the  Spartans 
now?  To  whom  a  captive  replied.  They  are  not  at  hand, 
sir,  for  if  they  had  been,  you  had  not  come  so  far.  The 
Athenians,  having  surrendered  their  own  city  to  the  Spar- 
tans, requested  that  they  might  be  permitted  to  enjoy  Samos 
only  ;  upon  which  the  Spartans  said.  When  you  are  not  at 
your  own  disposal,  would  you  be  lords  of  others  ?  Ana 
hence  came  that  proverb.  He  that  is  not  master  of  himself 
begs  Samos. 

When  the  Lacedaemonians  had  taken  a  town  by  storm, 
the  Ephors  said.  The  exercise  of  our  youth  is  lost,  for  now 
they  will  have  none  to  contend  with  them.  The  Persian 
offering  to  raze  a  city  that  had  frequent  quarrels  and  skir- 
mishes with  the  Spartans,  they  desired  him  to  forbear  and 
not  take  away  the  whetstone  of  their  youth.  They  ap- 
pointed no  masters  to  instruct  their  boys  in  wrestling,  that 
they  might  contend  not  in  sleights  of  art  and  little  tricks, 
but  in  strength  and  courage ;  and  therefore  Lysander, 
being  asked  by  what  means  Charon  was  too  hard  for  him, 
replied.  By  sleights  and  cunning.  When  Philip,  having 
entered  their  territories,  sent  to  know  whether  he  should 
come  as  an  enemy  or  a  friend,  the  Spartans  returned, 
Neither.     Hearing  that  the  ambassador  they  had  sent  to 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  435 

Antigonus  the  son  of  Demetrius  had  called  him  king,  they 
fined  him,  though  he  had  obtained  of   him  in  a  time  of 
scarcity  a  bushel  of  wheat  for  every  person  in  the  city.     A 
vicious  person  giving  excellent  good  counsel,  they  received 
it,  but  took  it  from  him  and  attributed  it  to  another,  a  man 
regular  and  of  a  good  life.     AVlien  some  brothers  differed, 
they  fined  the  father  for  neglecting  his  sons  and  suffering 
them  to  be  at  strife.     They  fined  likewise  a  musician  that 
came  amongst  them,  for  playing  the  harp  with  his  fingers. 
Two  boys  fighting,  one  wounded  the  other  mortally  with  a 
hook.     x\nd  when  his  acquaintance,  just  as  he  was  dying, 
vowed  to  revenge  his  death  and  have  the  blood  of  him  that 
killed  him  ;   By  no  means,  saith  he,  it  is  unjust,  for  I  had 
done  the  same  thing  if  I  had  been  stout  and  more  speedy 
in  my  stroke.     Another  boy,  at  the  time  when  freemen's 
sons  are  allowed  to  steal  what  they  can  and  it  is  a  disgrace 
to  be  discovered,  when  some  of  his  companions  had  stolen  . 
a  young  fox  and  delivered  it  to  him,  and  the  owners  came 
to  search,  hid  it  under  his  gown ;    and  though  the  angry 
little  beast  bit  through  his  side  to  his  very  guts,  he  en- 
dured it  quietly,  that  he  might  not  be  discovered.     AA^hen 
the  searchers  were  gone  and  the  boys  saw  what  had  hap- 
pened, they  chid  him  roundly,  saying,  It  had  been  better  to 
produce  the  fox,  than  thus  to  conceal  him  by  losing  your 
own  life  ;  No,  no !  he  replied,  it  is  much  better  to  die  in 
torments,  than  to  let  niy  softness  betray  me  and  suffer  a 
life    that   had    been    scandalous.      Some    meeting    certain 
Spartans  upon  the  road  said.  Sirs,  you  have  good  luck,  for 
the  robbers  are  just  gone.     Faith,  they  replied,  they  have 
good  luck  that  tliey  did  not  meet  with  us.     A  Lacedae- 
monian, being  asked  what  he  knew,  answered.  To  be  free. 
A  Spartan  boy,  being  taken  by  x\ntigonus  and  sold,  obeyed 
his  master  readily  in  every  thing  that  he  thought  not  below 
a  freeman  to  do  ;  but  when  he  was  commanded  to  bring  a 
chamber-pot,  unable  to  contain  he  said,  I  will  not  serve; 


436  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

but  his  master  pressing  him,  he  ran  to  the  top  of  the 
house,  and  saying,  You  shall  find  what  you  have  bought, 
threw  himself  down  headlong  and  died.  Another  being  to 
be  sold,  when  the  chapman  asked  him,  ΛΥΙΚ  thou  be  tow- 
ardly  if  1  buy  thee  ?  Yes,  he  returned,  and  if  you  do  not 
buy  me.  Another  captive,  when  the  crier  said.  Here's  a 
slave  to  be  sold,  cried  out.  You  villain,  why  not  a  captive  ? 
A  Spartan,  Avho  had  a  iiy  engraven  on  his  shield  no  bigger 
than  Nature  hath  made  that  creature,  Avhen  some  jeered 
him  as  if  he  did  it  on  purpose  that  he  might  not  be  taken 
notice  of,  replied :  It  is  that  I  may  be  known  ;  for  I  ad- 
vance so  near  my  enemies  that  they  can  well  perceive  my 
impress,  as  little  as  it  is.  Another,  when  at  an  entertain- 
ment a  harp  was  brought  in,  said,  It  is  not  the  custom  of 
the  Spartans  to  play  the  fool.  A  Spartan  being  asked 
whether  the  way  to  Sparta  was  safe  or  not,  replied :  That 
is  according  as  you  go  down  thither  ;  for  lions  that  ap- 
proach rue  their  coming,  and  hares  Λνβ  hunt  in  their  very 
coverts.  A  Spartan  wrestling,  when  he  could  not  make 
his  adversary  that  had  got  the  upper  hand  of  him  loose  his 
hold,  and  was  unable  to  avoid  the  fall,  bit  him  by  the  arm ; 
and  the  other  saying.  Spartan,  thou  bitest  like  a  woman ; 
No,  said  he,  but  like  a  lion.  A  lame  man,  marching  out 
to  war  and  being  laughed  at,  said,  There  is  ]io  need  of 
those  that  can  run  away,  but  of  those  that  can  stand  to  it 
and  defend  their  post.  Another  being  shot  through  said 
with  his  last  breath  :  It  doth  not  trouble  me  that  I  die,  but 
that  I  should  be  killed  by  a  woman  before  I  had  performed 
some  notable  exploit.  One  coming  into  an  inn  and  giving 
the  host  a  piece  of  meat  to  make  ready  for  him,  —  when 
the  host  demanded  some  cheese  and  oil  besides,  —  What ! 
says  the  Spartan,  if  I  had  cheese  should  I  Avant  meat? 
When  one  called  Lampis  of  Aegina  happy,  because  he 
seemed  a  rich  man,  having  many  ships  of  his  own  at  sea, 
a  Spartan  said,  I  do  not  like  that  happiness  that  hangs  by 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  437 

a  cord.  One  telling  a  Spartan  that  he  lied,  the  Spartan 
returned  :  True,  for  we  are  free  ;  but  others,  unless  they 
speak  truth,  will  suffer  for  it.  Wlien  one  had  undertaken 
to  make  a  carcass  stand  upright,  and  tried  every  way  to  no 
purpose  ;  Faith,  said  he,  there  wants  something•  within. 
Tynnichus  bore  his  son  Thrasybulus's  death  very  patiently, 
and  there  is  this  epigram  made  upon  him :  — 

Stout  Tlirasybulus  on  his  shield  was  brouglit 

From  bloody  fields,  where  lie  had  bravely  fought  j 

The  Argives  beat,  and  as  he  stoutly  prest, 

Seven  spears,  and  Deatli  attending,  pierced  his  breast. 

The  father  took  the  corpse,  and  as  he  bled, 

He  laid  it  on  the  funeral  pile,  and  said  : 

Be  cowards  mourned,  I'll  spend  no  tear  nor  groan, 

Whilst  thus  I  burn  a  Spartan  and  my  son. 

The  keeper  of  the  bath  allowing  more  water  than  ordinary 
to  Alcibiades  the  Athenian,  a  Spartan  said,  AVliat !  is  he 
more  foul,  that  he  wants  more  than  others  1  Philip  mak- 
ing an  inroad  upon  Sparta,  and, all  the  Spartans  expecting 
to  be  cut  oif,  he  said  to  one  of  them.  Now  what  will  you 
Spartans  do  ^  And  he  replied  :  What,  but  to  die  bravely  ^ 
for  only  we  of  all  the  Greeks  have  learned  to  be  free  and 
not  endure  a  yoke.  When  Agis  was  beaten  and  Antipater 
demanded  fifty  boys  for  hostages,  Eteocles,  one  of  the  then 
Ephors,  answered :  Boys  we  will  not  give,  lest  swerving 
from  the  customs  of  their  country  they  prove  slothful  and 
untoward,  and  so  incapable  of  the  privilege  of  citizens ; 
but  of  women  and  old  men  you  shall  have  twice  as  many. 
And  when  upon  refusal  he  threatened  some  sharp  afflic- 
tions, he  returned :  If  you  lay  upon  us  somewhat  worse 
than  death,  we  shall  die  the  more  readily.  An  old  man 
in  the  Olympic  games  being  desirous  to  see  the  sport,  and 
unprovided  of  a  seat,  went  about  from  place  to  place,  was 
IcUighed  and  jeered  at,  but  none  offered  him  the  civility  : 
but  when  he  came  to  the  Spartans'  quarter,  all  the  boys 
and  some  of  the  men  rose  from  their  seats,  and  made  him 
room.     At  this,  all  the  Greeks  clapped  and  praised   their 


438  .  LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS. 

behavior  ;  upon  which  the  good  old  man  shaking  his  hoary 
hairs,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  said :  Good  God  !  how  well 
all  the  Greeks  know  what  is  good,  and  yet  only  the  Lace- 
daemonians practise  it !  And  some  say  the  same  thing  was 
done  at  Athens.  For  at  the  great  solemnity  of  the  Athe- 
nians, the  Panathenaic  festival,  the  Attics  abused  an  old 
man,  calling  him  as  if  they  designed  to  make  room  for 
him,  and  when  he  came  putting  him  off  again ;  and  when 
after  this  manner  he  had  passed  through  almost  all,  he 
came  to  that  quarter  where  the  Spartan  spectators  sat,  and 
all  of  them  presently  rose  up  and  gave  him  place ;  the 
Λνΐιοΐο  multitude,  extremely  taken  with  this  action,  clapped 
and  shouted  ;  upon  which  one  of  the  Spartans  said :  By 
Heaven,  these  Athenians  know  what  should  be  done,  but 
are  not  much  for  doing  it.  A  beggar  asking  an  alms  of  a 
Lacedaemonian,  he  said :  AVell,  should  I  give  thee  any 
thing,  thou  wilt  be  the  greater  beggar,  for  he  that  first  gave 
thee  money  made  thee  idle,  and  is  the  cause  of  this  base 
and  dishonorable  way  of  living.  Another  Spartan,  seeing 
a  fellow  gathering  charity  for  the  Gods'  sake,  said,  I  will 
never  regard  those  as  Gods  that  are  poorer  than  myself. 
Another,  having  taken  one  in  adultery  with  an  ugly  whore, 
cried  out.  Poor  man.  how  great  was  thy  necessity  !  Another, 
hearing  an  orator  very  lofty  and  swelling  in  his  speech, 
said,  Faith,  this  is  a  brave  man,  how  excellently  he  rolls 
his  tongue  about  nothing !  A  stranger  being  at  Sparta,  and 
observing  how  much  the  young  men  reverenced  the  old, 
said,  At  Sparta  alone  it  is  desirable  to  be  old.  A  Lacedae- 
monian, being  asked  what  manner  of  poet  Tyrtaeus  was, 
replied.  Excellent  to  Avhet  the  courage  of  our  youth. 
Another  that  had  very  sore  eyes  listed  himself  a  soldier  ; 
Avhen  some  said  to  him.  Poor  man,  whither  in  that  con- 
dition, and  what  wilt  thou  do  in  a  fight  ]  He  returned,  If 
Τ  can  do  nothing  else,  1  shall  blunt  the  enemies'  sword. 
Buris  and  Spertis,  two  Lacedaemonians,  going  voluntarily 


LACONIC  APOPHTHEGMS.  439 

to  Xerxes  the  Persian  to  suffer  that  punishment  which  the 
oracle  had  adjudged  due  to  Sparta  for  killing  those  amhas- 
sadors  the  King  had  sent,  as   soon   as   they  came   desired 
Xerxes  to  put   them   to   death   as   he   pleased,  that   they 
might  make  satisfaction  for  the  Spartans.     But   he,   sur- 
prised at  this  gallantry,  forgave  the  men  and  desired  their 
service  in  his  court ;   to  Λvhich  they  replied,  How  can  we 
stay  here,  and  leave  our  country,  our  laws,  and  those  men 
for  whom  we  came  so  far  to  die  ?     Indarnes   the   general 
pressing  them  to  make  peace,  and  promising  them  equal 
honors  with  the  King's  greatest  favorites,  they  returned.  Sir, 
you  seem  to  be  ignorant  of  the  value  of  liberty,  which  no 
man  in  his  wits  would  change  for  the  Persian  empire.     A 
Spartan  in  a  journey,  when  a  friend  of  his  had  purposely 
avoided  him  the  day  before,  and  the  next  day,  having  ob- 
tained very  rich  furniture,  splendidly  received  him,  trampled 
on  his  tapestry  saying.  This  Λvas  the  cause  why  I  had  not 
so  much  as  a  mat  to  sleep  upon  last  night.     Another  com- 
ing to  Athens,  and  seeing  the  x\thenians  crying  salt-fish  and 
dainties  to  sell  up  and  down  the  streets,  others  gathering 
taxes,  keeping  stews,  and  busied  about  a  thousand  such 
dishonest  trades,  and  looking  on  nothing  as  base  and  unbe- 
coming ;   after  his  return,  when  his  acquaintance  enquired 
how  things  Avere  at   Athens,  he  replied,  All  well ;    inti- 
mating by  this  irony  that  all  things  there  were  esteemed 
good  and  commendable,  and  nothing  base.     Another,  being 
questioned  about  something,  denied  it ;    and  the  enquirer 
rejoining,  Thou  liest,  he  replied:   And  art  not  thou  a  fool 
to   ask   me   what  you   know   yourself  very   well  ?     Some 
Lacedaemonians    being    sent    ambassadors    to    the    tyrant 
Lygdamis,  pretending  sickness  he  deferred  their  audience 
a  long  time.     They  said  to  one  of  his  officers.  Pray,  sir, 
assure  him  that  we  did  not  come   to  Avrcstle  but  to   treat 
with  him.     A  priest  initiating  a  Spartan  in  holy  mysteries 
asked  him  what  was  the  greatest  wickedness  he  was  ever 


440  LACONIC   APOPHTHEGMS. 

guilty  of.  And  he  replying,  The  Gods  know  very  well, 
and  the  priest  pressing  him  the  more  and  saying  he  must 
needs  discover,  the  Spartan  asked,  To  Avhom  ?  to  thee  or 
the  God  ]  And  the  priest  saying.  To  the  God,  he  rejoined, 
Tlien  do  you  withdraw.  Another  at  night  passnig  by  a 
tomb  and  imagining  he  saw  a  ghost,  made  towards  it  with 
his  spear,  and  striking  it  through  cried  out.  Whither  dost 
thou  fly,  poor  twice  dead  ghost]  Another  having  vowed 
to  throw  himself  headlong  from  the  Leucadian  rock,  when 
he  came  to  the  top  and  saw  the  vast  precipice,  he  Avent 
doAvn  again  ;  upon  which  being  jeered  by  an  acquaintance, 
he  said,  I  did  not  imagine  that  one  vow  needed  another 
that  was  greater.  Another  in  a  battle  had  his  sword  lifted 
up  to  kill  his  enemy,  but  the  retreat  being  sounded,  he  did 
not  let  the  blow  fall ;  and  when  one  asked  him  why,  when 
his  enemy  was  at  his  mercy,  he  did  not  use  the  advantage. 
Because,  said  he,  it  is  better  to  obey  my  leader  than  kill 
my  enemy.  One  saying  to  a  Spartan  that  Avas  worsted  in 
the  Olympic  games,  Spartan,  thy  adversary  was  the  better 
man ;  No,  he  replied,  but  the  better  tripper. 


OF     HEARING. 


The  Introduction. 

1.  I  HAVE  sent,  Nicander,  the  reflections  of  some  spare 
hours  concernmg  Hearing,  digested  into  the  following  short 
essay,  that  being  out  of  the  hands  of  governors  and  come 
to  man's  estate,  you  may  know  how  to  pay  a  proper  atten- 
tion to  those  who  Avould  advise  you.  For  that  libertinism 
which  some  wild  young  fellows,  for  want  of  more  happy 
education,  mistake  for  liberty,  subjects  them  to  harder 
tyrants  than  their  late  tutors  and  masters,  even  to  their 
own  vicious  inclinations,  which,  as  it  Avere,  break  loose 
upon  them.  And  as  Herodotus  observes  of  women,  that, 
they  put  off  modesty  with  their  shift,*  so  some  young  men 
lay  aside  with  the  badges  of  minority  all  the  sense  of 
shame  or  fear,  and  divested  of  the  garment  of  modesty 
which  sat  so  well  upon  them  are  covered  with  insolence. 
But  you,  who  have  often  heard  that  to  follow  God  and  to 
obey  reason  are  all  one,  cannot  but  believe  that  men  of  best 
sense  in  passing  from  minority  to  manhood  do  not  throw 
off  the  government,  but  simply  change  their  governor.  In 
the  room  of  some  mercenary  pedant,  they  receive  that 
divine  guide  and  governor  of  human  life,  reason,  under 
whose  subjection  alone  men  are  properly  said  to  live  in 
freedom.  For  they  only  live  at  their  own  Avill  who  have 
learned  to  will  as  they  ought ;  and  that  freedom  of  will 
which  appears  in  unconstrained  appetites  and  unreasonable 
actions  is  mean  and  narrow,  and  accompanied  with  much 
repentance. 

*  Herod.  I.  8. 


442  OF    HEARING. 

2.  For  as  newly  naturalized  citizens  who  were  entire 
strangers  and  aliens  are  apt  to  disrelish  many  administra- 
tions of  the  government ;  while  those  who  have  previously 
lived  in  the  country,  bred  up  under  the  constitution  and 
acquainted  with  it,  act  without  difficulty  in  their  several 
stations,  well  satisfied  with  their  condition  ;  in  like  man- 
ner, a  man  should  for  a  long  time  have  been  bred  up 
in  philosophy,  and  accustomed  from  his  earliest  years  to 
receive  his  lessons  and  instruction  mingled  with  philoso- 
phic reason,  that  so  he  may  come  at  last  as  a  kind  and 
familiar  friend  to  philosophy,  which  alone  can  array  young 
men  in  the  perfect  manly  robes  and  ornaments  of  reason. 
Therefore,  I  believe,  some  directions  concerning  hearing 
will  not  be  ill  received  by  you. 

Remarks  about  Hearing  in  general. 

Of  this  Theophrastus  affirms,  that  it  is  the  most  sensitive 
of  all  the  senses.  For  the  several  objects  of  sight,  tasting, 
and  feeling  do  not  excite  in  us  so  great  disturbances  and 
alterations  as  the  sudden  and  frightful  noises  which  assault 
us  only  at  the  ears.  Yet  in  reality  this  sense  is  more 
rational  than  sensitive.  For  there  are  many  organs  and 
other  parts  of  the  body  Avhich  serve  as  avenues  and  inlets 
to  the  soul  to  give  admission  to  vice  ;  there  is  but  one 
passage  of  virtue  into  young  minds,  and  that  is  by  the  ears, 
provided  they  be  preserved  all  along  free  from  the  corrup- 
tions of  flattery  and  untainted  with  lewd  discourses.  For 
tliis  reason  Xenocrates  was  of  opinion  that  children  ought 
to  have  a  defence  fitted  to  their  ears  rather  than  fencers  or 
prize-players,  because  the  ears  only  of  the  latter  suffered 
by  the  blows,  but  the  morals  of  the  former  Λvere  hurt  and 
maimed  by  words.  Not  that,  he  thereby  recommended 
deafness,  or  forbade  that  they  should  be  suffered  to  hear  at 
all ;  but  he  advised  only  that  debauchery  might  be  kept 
out,  till  better  principles,  like  so  many  guardians  appointed 


OF   HEARING.  443 

by  philosophy,  had  taken  charge  of  that  part  which  is  so 
liable  to  be  drawn  aside  and  corrupted  by  discourse.  And 
Bias  of  old,  being  ordered  by  Amasis  to  send  him  the  best 
and  withal  the  worst  part  of  the  sacrifice,  sent  the  tongue  ; 
because  the  greatest  benefits  and  disadvantages  are  derived 
to  us  thereby.  Thus  again  many  diverting  themselves  with 
children  touch  their  ears,  bidding  them  return  the  like 
again ;  by  which  they  seem  to  intimate  to  them  that  such 
best  deserve  their  love  and  esteem  whose  obligations  enter 
at  the  ears.  This  is  evident,  that  he  that  has  lain  fallow 
all  his  days,  without  tasting  instruction,  will  not  only  prove 
barren  and  unfruitful  of  virtue,  but  very  inclinable  to  vice  ; 
for  an  uncultivated  mind,  like  untilled  ground,  will  soon  be 
overrun  Avith  weeds.  For  if  that  violent  propensity  of  the 
mind  to  pleasure,  and  jealousy  of  all  that  carries  any  show 
of  pain,  —  which  proceed  not  from  external  causes  or  re- 
ceived prejudices,  but  are  the  natural  springs  of  evil  affec- 
tions and  infinite  diseases  of  the  mind,  —  are  suff"ered  to 
take  their  course,  and  not  restrained,  or  diverted  some  other 
way  by  wholesome  instructions,  there  can  be  no  beast  so 
savage  that  it  may  not  be  called  tame  and  civilized  in 
respect  of  such  a  man. 

More  General  Rules  about  Hearing. 

3.  Since  then  it  appears  that  hearing  is  of  so  great  use 
and  no  less  danger  to  young  men,  I  think  it  a  very  com- 
mendable thing  for  such  a  one  to  reflect  continually  with 
himself,  and  consult  often  with  others,  how  he  may  hear 
Λvith  benefit.  And  in  this  particular  we  may  observe  many 
to  have  been  mistaken,  that  they  practise  speaking  befoie 
they  have  been  used  enough  to  hearing.  Speaking  they 
think  will  require  some  study  and  attention,  but  hearing 
cannot  be  a  tiling  of  any  difficulty.  Those  indeed  who 
play  the  game  of  tennis  learn  at  the  same  time  how  to 
throw  and  how  to  catch  the  ball  ;  but  in  the  exercise  of 


444  OF  HEARING. 

the  tongue,  we  ought  to  practise  how  to  talk  well  before 
we  pretend  to  return,  as  conception  and  retention  of  the 
foetus  precede  childbirth.  When  fowls  let  fall  wind- 
eggs,  it  is  usually  said  that  they  are  the  rudiments  of  im- 
perfect fruits  which  will  never  quicken  and  have  life  ;  and 
when  young  men  either  hear  not  at  all  or  retain  not  whiit 
they  hear,  their  discourse  comes  from  them  altogether  as 
useless  and  full  of  wind, 

And  vain  and  unregarded  turns  to  air. 

In  filling  one  vessel  from  another,  they  take  care  to  in- 
cline and  turn  it  so  that  nothing  be  spilled,  and  that  it  may 
be  really  filling  and  not  emptying  ;  but  they  think  it  not 
worth  the  heeding  to  regulate  their  attention  and  apply 
themselves  with  advantage  to  a  speaker,  that  nothing  of 
importance  may  fall  beside  or  escape  them.  Yet,  what  is 
beyond  comparison  ridiculous,  if  they  happen  upon  any 
one  who  has  a  knack  at  describing  an  entertainment  or  a 
show,  or  can  relate  his  dream  well,  or  give  an  handsome 
account  of  a  quarrel  between  himself  and  another,  such  a 
one  they  hear  with  the  greatest  attention,  they  court  him 
to  proceed,  and  importune  him  for  every  circumstance. 
Whereas,  let  another  call  them  about  him  for  any  thing 
useful,  to  exhort  to  what  is  decent  or  reprehend  what  is 
irregular,  or  to  make  up  a  quarrel,  they  have  not  temper 
enough  to  away  with  it,  but  they  fight  with  all  their  might 
to  put  him  down  by  argument,  if  they  are  able,  or  if  not, 
they  haste  away  to  more  agreeable  fopperies  ;  as  if  their 
ears,  like  faulty  earthen  vessels,  might  be  filled  with  any 
thing  but  what  is  useful  or  valuable.  But  as  jockeys  take 
great  care  in  breeding  horses  to  bring  them  to  rein  right 
and  endure  the  bit,  so  such  as  have  the  care  of  educating 
children  should  breed  them  to  endure  hearing,  by  allowing 
them  to  speak  little  and  hear  much.  And  Si)intharus, 
speaking  in  commendation  of  Epaminondas,  says  he  scarce 


OF  HEARING.  445 

ever  met  λυιΛ  any  man  who  kneAV  more  and  spoke  less. 
Some  again  make  the  observation,  that  Nature  has  given 
eA'ery  man  two  ears  and  but  one  tongue,  as  a  secret  intima- 
tion that  he  ought  to  speak  less  than  he  hears. 

Directions  concerning  Attention. 

4.  Well  then,  silence  is  at  all  times  a  singular  ornament 
of  a  youth,  but  especially  if  he  does  not  interrupt  the 
speaker  nor  carp  and  except  at  every  thing  he  says,  but 
patiently  expects  the  conclusion,  though  his  discourse  be 
none  of  the  best ;  and  when  he  has  done,  if  he  does  not 
presently  come  over  him  Avith  an  objection,  but  (as 
Aeschines  directs)  allows  time  to  add,  if  he  please,  to 
Avhat  has  been  said,  or  to  alter,  or  retract.  Whereas  such 
as  turn  too  suddenly  upon  a  speaker  neither  hear  nor  are 
heard  themselves,  but  senselessly  chatter  to  one  another, 
and  sin  against  the  laws  and  rules  of  decorum.  But  he 
that  brings  along  with  him  a  modest  and  unwearied  atten- 
tion has  this  advantage,  that  whateΛ'er  is  beneficial  in  the 
discourse  he  makes  his  own,  and  he  more  readily  discovers 
Avhat  is  false  or  impertinent,  appearing  all  the  while  a 
friend  to  truth  rather  than  to  squabbling  or  rashness. 
Therefore  it  Avas  not  ill  said,  that  such  as  design  to  infuse 
goodness  into  the  minds  of  youth  must  first  exclude  thence 
pride  and  self-conceit  more  carefully  than  we  squeeze  air 
out  of  bladders  Λvhich  we  wish  to  fill  with  something  use- 
ful ;  because,  Λνΐύΐο  they  are  puffed  up  with  arrogance, 
there  is  no  room  to  admit  any  thing  else. 

5.  Thus  again,  envy  and  detraction  and  prejudice  are  in 
no  case  good,  but  always  a  great  impediment  to  Λvhat  is  so  ; 
yet  nowhere  worse  than  Λvhen  they  are  made  the  bosom- 
friends  and  counsellors  of  a  hearer,  because  they  represent 
the  best  things  to  him  as  unpleasant  and  impertinent,  and 
men  in  such  circumstances  are  pleased  Avith  any  thing 
rather  than  what  deserves  their  applause.     Yet  he   that 


446  OF   HEARING. 

grieves  at  the  Avealtli,  glory,  or  beauty  of  any  is  but  sim- 
ply envious,  for  he  repines  only  at  the  good  of  others  ;  but 
he  that  is  ill-natured  to  a  good  speaker  is  an  enemy  to  his 
own  happiness.  For  discourse  to  an  hearer,  like  light  to 
the  eve,  is  a  great  benefit,  if  he  will  make  the  best  use  of 
it.  Envy  in  all  other  instances  carries  this  pretence  with 
it,  that  it  is  to  be  referred  to  the  depraved  and  ungovern- 
able affections  of  the  mind,  but  that  which  is  conceived 
against  a  speaker  arises  from  an  unjust  presumption  and 
vain-glorious  affectation  of  praise. 

In  such  a  case,  the  man  has  not  leisure  to  attend  to  what 
he  hears  ;  his  soul  is  in  continual  hurry  and  disturbance,  at 
one  time  examining  her  own  habits  and  endowments,  if  any 
way  inferior  to  the  speaker ;  anon,  watching  the  behavior 
and  inclination  of  others,  if  inclined  to  praise  or  admire 
his  discourse ;  disordered  at  the  praise  and  enraged  at 
the  company,  if  he  meet  with  any  encouragement.  She 
easily  lets  slip  and  willingly  forgets  what  has  been  said, 
because  the  remembrance  is  a  pain  and  vexation  to  her  ; 
she  hears  what  is  to  come  with  a  great  deal  of  uneasiness 
and  concern,  and  is  never  so  desirous  that  the  speaker 
should  hasten  to  an  end,  as  when  he  discourses  best.  After 
all  is  over,  she  considers  not  what  was  said,  but  has  respect 
only  to  the  common  A^ogue  and  disposition  of  the  audience  ;• 
she  avoids  and  flies  like  one  distracted  such  as  seem  to  be 
pleased,  and  herds  among  the  censorious  and  perverse.  If 
she  finds  nothing  to  pervert,  then  she  puts  forward  other 
speakers,  who  (as  she  asserts)  have  spoken  better  and  with 
greater  force  of  argument  on  the  same  subject.  Thus,  by 
abusing  and  corrupting  Avhat  was  said,  she  defeats  the  use 
and  effect  of  it  on  herself. 

6.  He  therefore  Λνΐιο  comes  to  hear  must  for  the  time 
come  to  a  kind  of  truce  and  accommodation  Avith  vain- 
glorv.  and  preserve  the  same  evenness  and  cheerfulness  of 
humor  he  would  bring  Avith  him  if  he  were  invited  to  a 


OF  HEARING.  447 

festival  entertainment  or  the  first-fruits'  sacrifice,  applaud- 
ing the  orators  power  when  he  speaks  to  the  purpose 
and  where  he  fails  receiving  kindly  his  readiness  to  com- 
municate what  he  knows  and  to  persuade  others  by  what 
wrought  upon  himself.  Where  he  comes  off  Avith  success 
he  must  not  impute  it  to  chance  or  peradventure,  but  at- 
tribute all  to  study  and  diligence  and  art,  not  only  admiring 
but  studiously  emulating  the  like ;  where  he  has  done 
amiss,  he  must  pry  curiously  into  the  causes  and  origin  of 
the  mistake.  For  Avhat  Xenophon  says  of  discreet  house 
keepers,  that  they  make  an  advantage  of  their  enemies  as 
well  as  their  friends,  is  in  some  sort  true  of  vigilant  and  at- 
tentive hearers,  who  reap  no  less  benefit  from  an  ill  than  a 
good  orator.  For  the  meanness  and  poverty  of  a  thought, 
the  emptiness  and  flatness  of  an  expression,  the  unseason- 
ableness  of  a  figure,  and  the  impertinence  of  falling  into  a 
foolish  ecstasy  of  joy  or  commendation,  and  the  like,  are 
better  discovered  by  a  by-stander  than  by  the  speaker  him- 
self. Therefore  his  oversight  or  indiscretion  must  be  brought 
home  to  ourselves,  that  we  may  examine  if  nothing  of  the 
same  kind  has  skulked  tliere  and  imposed  on  us  all  the 
while.  For  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  more  easy  than 
to  discover  the  faults  of  others  ;  but  it  is  done  to  no  effect 
if  we  do  not  make  it  useful  to  ourselves  in  correcting  and 
avoiding  the  like  failures.  AVhen  therefore  you  animad- 
fert  upon  other  men's  miscarriages,  forget  not  to  put  that 
question  of  Plato  to  yourself.  Am  not  I  such  another  ?  ΛΥο 
must  trace  out  our  own  way  of  Avriting  in  the  discourses  of 
other  men,  as  in  another's  eyes  we  see  the  reflection  of  our 
own  ;  that  we  may  learn  not  to  be  too  free  in  censuring 
others,  and  may  use  more  circumspection  ourselves  in 
speaking.  To  this  design  the  following  method  of  com- 
parison may  be  very  instrumental ;  if  upon  our  return 
from  hearing  Λνο  take  what  seemed  to  us  not  well  or  suf- 
ficiently handled,  and  attempt  it  afresh  ourselves,  endeav• 


448  OF  HEARING. 

oring  to  fill  out  one  part  or  correct  another,  to  vary  this  or 
model  that  into  a  new  form  from  the  very  beginning.  And 
thus  Plato  examined  the  oration  of  Lysias.  For  it  is  a 
thing  of  no  great  difficulty  to  raise  objections  against  an- 
other man's  oration,  —  nay,  it  is  a  very  easy  matter,  —  but 
to  produce  a  better  in  its  place  is  a  work  extremely 
troublesome  ;  as  the  Spartan,  Λνΐιο  was  told  Philip  had 
demolished  the  city  Olynthus,  made  this  reply,  But  he 
cannot  raise  such  another.  When  then  it  appears,  upon 
handling  the  same  topic,  that  we  do  not  much  excel  those 
who  undertook  it  before,  this  will  abate  much  of  our  cen- 
sorious humor,  and  our  pride  and  self-conceit  will  be  ex- 
posed and  checked  by  such  comparisons. 

Caution  about  Admiration. 

7.  To  contempt  is  opposed  admiration,  which  indeed 
argues  a  more  candid  and  better  disposition  ;  but  even  in 
this  case  no  small  care  is  to  be  observed,  and  perhaps  even 
greater.  For  although  such  as  are  contemptuous  and  self- 
conceited  receive  but  little  good  from  what  they  hear,  yet 
the  good-natured  and  such  as  are  given  to  admire  every 
thins:  take  a  great  deal  of  harm.  And  Heraclitus  was  not 
mistaken  when  he  said  that  a  fool  was  put  in  a  flutter  at 
every  thing  he  heard.  We  ought  indeed  to  use  all  the 
candor  imaginable  in  praising  the  speaker,  yet  withal  as 
great  caution  in  yielding  our  assent  to  Avhat  he  says  ;  to 
look  upon  his  expression  and  action  with  a  favorable  con- 
struction, but  to  inspect  the  usefulness  and  truth  of  his 
doctrine  with  the  nicest  and  most  critical  judgment ;  that 
speakers  may  cease  to  be  malicious,  and  that  what  they  say 
may  do  no  mischief.  For  many  false  and  dangerous  prin- 
ciples steal  upon  us  through  the  authority  of  the  speaker 
and  our  own  credulity.  The  Spartan  Ephors,  approving 
the  judgment  of  one  of  an  ill  conversation,  ordered  it  to 
be  communicated  to  the  people  by  a  person  of  better  life 


OF    HEARING.  419 

and  reputation  ;  thereby  wisely  and  politicly  using  them  to 
give  more  deference  to  the  morals  than  to  the  words  of  such 
as  pretend  to  advise  them.  But  now  in  philosophy  the 
reputation  of  the  speaker  must  be  pulled  off,  and  his  words 
examined  naked  and  Λvithout  a  mask  ;  for  in  hearing  as  in 
war  there  are  many  false  alarms.  The  hoary  head  of  the 
speaker  or  his  gesture,  his  magisterial  look  or  his  assuming- 
pride,  and  above  all  the  noise  and  clapping  of  the  auditory, 
bear  great  sway  with  a  raw  and  inexperienced  hearer,  who 
is  easily  carried  away  Avith  the  tide.  The  very  expression, 
if  sweet  and  full  and  representing  things  with  some  pomp 
and  greatness,  has  a  secret  power  to  impose  upon  us.  For, 
as  many  lapses  in  such  as  sing  to  an  instrument  escape  the 
hearers,  so  luxuriancy  and  pomp  of  style  dazzle  the  hearer 
so  that  he  cannot  see  clearly  the  argument  in  hand.  And 
Melanthius,  as  it  is  said,  being  asked  his  opinion  concern- 
ing a  tragedy  of  Diogenes,  made  answer  that  the  words 
intercepted  his  sight  of  it.  But  most  Sophists  in  their 
declamations  and  speeches  not  only  make  use  of  words  to 
veil  and  muffle  their  design ;  but  with  affected  tone  and 
softness  of  voice  they  draw  aside  and  bewitch  their  follow- 
ers, for  the  empty  pleasure  Avhich  they  create  reaping  a 
more  empty  glory.  So  that  the  saying  of  Dionysius  is  very 
applicable  to  them,  Λνΐιο,  being  one  day  extremely  pleased 
with  an  harper  that  played  excellently  well  before  him, 
promised  the  fellow  a  great  reward,  yet  afterwards  would 
give  him  nothing,  pretending  he  had  kept  his  word  ;  For, 
said  he,  as  long  as  you  pleased  me  by  your  playing,  so  long 
were  you  pleased  by  hope  of  the  reward.  And  such  also 
is  the  reward  this  kind  of  harano^ues  brins:  to  the  authors. 
The  hearers  adaiire  as  long  as  they  are  pleased  and  tickled, 
'but  the  satisfaction  on  one  hand  and  glory  on  the  other 
conclude  with  the  oration ;  and  the  hearers  lose  their  time 
idly,  and  the  speakers  their  whole  life. 


29 


450  OF  HEARING. 

How  to  separate  the  useful  Part  of  a  Discourse. 

8.  No,  we  must  separate  the  trash  and  trumpery  of  an 
oration,  that  we  may  come  at  the  more  fruitful  and  useful 
part ;  not  imitating  those  women  Avho  busy  themselves  in 
gathering  nosegays  and  making  garlands,  but  the  more 
useful  industry  of  bees.  The  former  indeed  plat  and  weave 
together  the  sweetest  and  gayest  flowers,  and  their  skill  is 
mighty  pretty  ;  but  it  lasts  for  one  day  only,  and  even  then 
is  of  little  or  no  use  ;  whereas  the  bees,  passing  by  the 
beds  of  violets  and  roses  and  hyacinth,  fix  on  the  prickly 
and  biting  thyme,  and  settle  upon  this  "  intent  on  the  yel- 
low honey,"  *  and  taking  thence  Avhat  they  need  for  their 
work,  they  fly  home  laden.  In  like  manner,  a  well-mean- 
ing sincere  hearer  oughl  to  pass  by  the  flowers  of  an  oration, 
leaving  the  gaudy  show  and  theatrical  part  to  entertain 
dronish  Sophists  ;  and,  diving  into  the  very  mind  of  the 
speaker  and  the  sense  of  his  speech,  he  must  draw  thence 
what  is  necessary  for  his  own  service  ;  remembering  Avithal 
that  he  is  not  come  to  the  theatre  or  music-meeting,  but  is 
present  at  the  schools  and  auditories  of  philosophy,  to  learn 
to  rectify  his  way  of  life  by  what  he  liears.  In  order  there- 
unto, he  ought  to  inspect  diligently  and  try  faithfully  the 
state  and  temper  of  his  mind  after  hearing,  if  any  of  his 
afl"ections  are  more  moderate,  if  any  afflictions  grow  lighter, 
if  his  constancy  and  greatness  of  spirit  are  confirmed,  if  he 
feels  any  divine  emotions  or  inward  workings  of  virtue  and 
goodness  upon  his  soul.  For  it  becomes  us  but  ill,  when 
we  rise  from  the  barber's  chair,  to  be  so  long  in  consulting 
the  mirror,  or  to  stroke  our  heads  and  examine  so  curiously 
the  style  in  which  our  hair  is  trimmed  and  dressed,  and 
then,  at  our  return  from  hearing  in  the  schools,  to  think  it 
needless  to  look  into  ourselves,  or  examine  whether  our  own 
mind  has  discharged  any  turbulent  or  unprofitable  afi"ec- 

*  Simonides,  Frag.  No.  47.  " 


OF  HEARING.  451 

tions  and  is  grown  more  sedate  and  serene.  For,  as  Ariston 
was  wont  to  say,  The  bath  and  a  discourse  are  of  no  use 
unless  they  are  purgative. 

9.  Let  then  a  young  man  be  pleased  and  entertained 
with  a  discourse  ;  but  let  him  not  make  his  pleasure  the 
only  end  of  hearing,  nor  think  he  may  come  from  the  school 
of  a  philosopher  singing  and  sportive  ;  nor  let  him  call  for 
perfumes  and  essences  when  he  has  need  of  a  poultice  and 
fomentations.  But  let  him  learn  to  be  thankful  to  him 
that  purges  aAvay  the  darkness  and  stupidity  of  his  mind, 
though  (as  we  clear  beehives  by  smoking)  with  an  offen- 
sive or  unpalatable  discourse.  For  though  it  lies  upon  a 
speaker  to  take  some  care  that  his  expression  be  pleasing 
and  plausible,  yet  a  hearer  ought  not  ίο  make  that  the 
first  thing  he  looks  after.  Afterward,  indeed,  when  he  has 
satisfied  his  appetite  with  the  substance  and  has  taken 
breath,  he  may  be  allowed  the  curiosity  of  examining  the 
style  and  expression,  whether  it  has  any  thing  delicate  or 
extraordinary  ;  as  men  quench  their  thirst  before  they  have 
time  to  admire  the  embossing  of  the  bowl.  But  now  such 
a  one  as  is  not  intent  on  the  subject-matter,  but  demands 
merely  that  the  style  shall  be  plain  and  pure  Attic,  is  tiuich 
of  his  foolish  humor  who  refuses  an  antidote  unless  it  be 
mixed  in  Attic  porcelain,  or  who  Λνϋΐ  not  put  on  a  coat  in 
the  winter  because  the  cloth  is  not  made  of  Attic  wool ;  but 
who  can  yet  sit  still,  doing  nothing  and  stirring  not,  under 
such  a  thin  and  threadbare  cloak  as  an  oration  of  Lysias. 
That  extreme  dearth  of  judgment  and  good  sense,  and  that 
abundance  of  subtilty  and  sophistry  which  is  crept  into  the 
schools,  is  all  owing  to  these  corruptions  of  the  young- 
sters ;  Λνΐιο,  observing  neither  the  lives  nor  public  conver- 
sation of  philosophers,  mind  nothing  but  words  and  jingle, 
and  express  themselves  extravagantly  upon  what  they 
think  well  said,  without  ever  understanding  or  enquiring  if 
it  be  useful  and  necessary,  or  needless  and  vain. 


452  OF  HEARING. 

Of  asking  Questions. 

lU.  After  this,  it  will  be  convenient  to  lay  down  some 
directions  touching  asking  of  questions.  For  it  is  true,  he 
that  comes  to  a  great  collation  must  eat  what  is  set  before 
him,  not  rudely  calling  for  what  is  not  to  be  had  nor  finding 
fi\ult  with  the  provision.  But  he  that  is  invited  to  partake 
of  a  discourse,  if  it  be  with  that  proviso,  must  hear  with 
silence  ;  for  such  disagreeable  hearers  as  occasion  digres- 
sions by  asking  impertinent  questions  and  starting  foolish 
doubts  are  an  hindrance  both  to  the  speaker  and  the  dis- 
course, without  benefiting  themselves.  But  when  the 
speaker  encourages  them  to  propose  their  objections,  he 
must  take  care  that  the  question  be  of  some  consequence 
The  suitors  in  Homer  scorned  and  derided  Ulysses.  — 

To  no  brave  prize  aspired  the  worthless  swain, 
'Twas  but  for  scraps  he  asked,  and  asked  in  vain,  * 

because  they  thought  it  required  a  great  and  heroic  soul  no 
less  to  ask  than  to  bestow  great  gifts.  But  there  is  much 
better  reason  to  slight  and  laugh  at  such  a  hearer  as  can 
please  himself  in  asking  little  trifling  questions.  Thus 
some  young  fellows,  to  proclaim  their  smattering  in  logic 
and  mathematics,  upon  all  occasions  enquire  about  the  di- 
visibility of  the  infinite,  or  about  motion  through  a  diagonal 
or  upon  the  sides.  But  we  may  answer  them  with  Philotimus, 
who,  being  asked  by  a  consumptive  phthisical  person  for  a 
remedy  against  a  whitlow,  and  perceiving  the  condition  he 
was  in  by  his  color  and  his  shortness  of  breath,  replied, 
Sir,  you  have  no  reason  to  be  apprehensive  of  that.  So 
we  must  tell  them.  You  have  no  reason,  young  gentlemen, 
to  trouble  yourselves  about  these  questions  ;  but  how  to 
shake  off  your  conceit  and  arrogance,  to  have  done  with 
your  intrigues  and  fopperies,  and  to  settle  immediately 
upon  a  modest  and  well-governed  course  of  life,  is  the 
question  for  you. 

*  Odyss.  XVII.  222. 


OF  HEARING.  453 

11.  Great  regard  is  to  be  had  also  to  the  genius  and 
talent  of  a  speaker,  that  we  may  enquire  about  such  things 
as  are  in  his  way,  and  not  take  him  out  of  his  knowledge ; 
as  if  one  should  propose  physical  or  mathematical  queries 
to  a  moral  philosophy  reader,  or  apply  himself  to  one  who 
prides  himself  on  his  knowledge  of  physics  to  give  his 
opinion  on  conditional  propositions  or  to  resolve  a  fallacy 
in  logic.  For,  as  he  that  goes  about  to  cleave  wood  with  a 
key  or  to  unlock  a  door  with  an  axe  does  not  so  much  mis- 
employ those  instruments  as  deprive  himself  of  the  proper 
use  of  them,  so  such  as  are  not  content  with  Avhat  a  speaker 
offers  them,  but  call  for  such  things  as  he  is  a  stranger  to, 
not  only  are  disappointed,  but  incur  the  suspicion  of  malirf» 
and  ill-nature. 

12.  Be  cautious  also  how  you  ask  questions  yourself,  or 
ask  too  often  ;  for  that  betrays  somewhat  of  conceit  and 
ostentation.  But  to  wait  civilly  while  another  proposes  his 
scruples  argues  a  studious  spirit  and  willingness  that  others 
should  be  informed,  unless  some  sudden  perturbation  of 
mind  require  to  be  repressed  or  some  distemper  to  be 
assuaged.  For  perhaps,  as  Heraclitus  says,  it  is  an  ill 
thing  to  conceal  even  a  man's  ignorance ;  it  must  be 
laid  open,  that  the  remedy  may  be  applied.  So  also  if 
anger  or  superstition  or  a  violent  quarrel  with  your  domes- 
tics or  the  mad  passion  of  love, — 

AVliich  (loth  tlie  very  lieart-strings  move, 
That  ne'er  were  stirred  before, — 

excite  any  commotion  in  your  mind,  you  are  not,  for  fear 
of  being  galled  by  reproof,  to  fly  to  such  as  are  treating  of 
other  arguments  ;  but  you  must  frequent  those  places 
where  your  particular  case  is  stating,  and  after  lecture 
address  yourself  privately  to  the  speaker  for  better  informa- 
tion and  fuller  satisfaction  therein.  On  the  contrary,  men 
commonly  flatter  themselves,  and  admire  the  philosopher 
so  long  as   he  discourses  of  indifferent  things ;  but  if  he 


454  OF   HEARING. 

come  home  to  themselves  and  deal  freely  with  them  about 
thek  real  interests,  this  they  think  is  beyond  all  enduring, 
or  at  best  a  needless  piece  of  supererogation.  For  they 
naturally  think  that  they  ought  to  hear  philosophy  in  tlie 
schools,  like  actors  on  the  stage,  Avhile  in  matters  out  of 
the  school  they  believe  them  to  be  no  better  men  tlian 
themselves  ;  and,  to  confess  the  truth,  they  have  but  reason 
to  think  so  of  many  Sophists,  who,  having  once  left  th(i 
desk  and  laid  aside  their  books,  in  the  serious  concerns  of 
human  life  are  utterly  insignificant  and  even  more  ignorant 
than  the  vulgar.  But  they  do  not  know  that  even  the  aus- 
terity or  raillery  of  real  philosophers,  their  very  nod  or 
look,  their  smile  or  frown,  and  especially  their  admonitions 
directed  to  particular  persons,  are  of  weighty  importance 
to  such  as  can  brook  or  attend  to  them. 

Directions  concerning  Praising. 

13.  As  for  commendation,  some  caution  and  mean  is  to 
be  observed  in  it ;  because  to  be  either  deficient  or  exces- 
sive in  that  particular  shows  a  base  spirit.  He  is  but  a 
morose  and  rigid  hearer  whom  no  part  of  an  oration  can 
work  upon  or  move,  one  who  is  full  of  a  secret  presumptu- 
ous opinion  of  himself,  and  of  an  inbred  conceit  that  he 
could  do  better  things  himself;  one  who  dares  not  alter  his 
countenance  as  occasion  requires,  or  let  fixll  the  least  Λvord 
to  testify  his  good  wishes,  but  with  silence  and  affected 
gravity  hunts  after  the  reputation  of  a  sagacious  and  pro- 
found person,  and  thinks  that  all  the  praise  is  lost  to  him- 
self which  he  bestows  on  others,  as  if  it  were  money.  For 
many  wrest  that  sentence  of  Pythagoras,  who  used  to  say 
that  he  had  learned  by  philosophy  to  admire  nothing  ;  but 
these  men  think  that  to  admire  nobody  and  to  honor  no- 
body consists  in  despising  everybody,  and  they  aim  at  seem- 
ing grave  by  being  contemptuous.  Philosophy  indeed  re- 
moves that  foolish  admiration  and  surprise  which  proceeds 


OF   HEARING.  455 

from  doubt  or  ignorance,  by  laying  open  to  us  the  causes 
of  things,  but  endeavors  not  to  destroy  all  good-nature  and 
humanity.  And  those  who  are  truly  good  take  it  for  their 
greatest  honor  and  commendation  to  be  just  in  paying 
honor  and  commendation  where  it  is  due  to  others  ;  and 
for  a  man  to  adorn  another  is  a  most  glorious  ornament, 
proceeding  from  a  generous  abundance  of  glory  and  honor 
in  himself;  while  those  who  are  niggardly  in  praising 
others  only  betray  how  poor  and  bare  they  are  of  praises 
at  home. 

Not  to  he  too  prone  to  commend. 

Yet  to  use  no  consideration  at  all,  but  to  stand  up  ana 
make  a  clamor  at  every  word  or  syllable,  is  to  offend  in  the 
other  extreme.  Such  fluttering  felloΛvs  for  the  most  part 
oblige  not  the  speakers  themselves,  and  are  always  a  plague 
and  common  grievance  to  the  hearers,  exciting  them  many 
times  against  their  inclination,  and  forcing  them  for  very 
shame  to  join  in  the  tumult.  In  the  end,  he  that  raised 
the  disturbance  receives  no  benefit  by  the  discourse,  but 
goes  away  Avith  the  character  of  a  scoffer  or  flatterer  or 
novice,  A  judge,  it  is  true,  ought  to  hear  and  determine 
without  favor  or  ill-will,  regarding  only  what  is  just  and 
equitable ;  but  in  philosophical  proceedings  the  case  is 
altered,  where  neither  law  nor  oaths  tie  us  up  from  being 
favorable  to  the  speaker.  And  the  ancients  in  their  tem- 
ples were  wont  to  place  the  statue  of  Mercury  among  tlie 
Graces,  intimating  that  orators  ought  to  find  a  propitious 
and  good-natured  audience.  For  they  thought  it  passed  all 
belief,  that  any  man  could  prove  so  much  a  blockhead  or 
come  so  Λvide  of  the  purpose,  that,  though  he  should  make 
no  remarks  of  his  own  and  quote  none  of  others  worthy 
taking  notice  of,  or  though  the  argument  and  design  of  his 
discourse  might  not  be  commendable,  yet  at  least  the  order 
and  disposition  or  the  style  should  not  deserve  some 
applause  ;  — 


45  ΰ  OF  HEAKING. 

As  oft  amirlst  the  furze  and  thorny  brakes 
The  tender  violets  more  securely  peep. 

For  if  some  have  undertaken  successfully  to  speak  in 
commendation  of  vomiting  or  a  fever,  and  have  even  made 
an  encomium  on  a  porridge-pot  not  without  some  accept- 
ance, certainly  a  discourse  from  one  that  has  the  least  pre 
tence  to  philosophy  cannot  but  afford  some  opportunity, 
though  it  be  a  slight  one,  for  commendation  to  a  well- 
disposed  auditory.  Plato  says  that  all  who  are  in  their 
bloom  in  some  way  excite  the  amorous  man; — the  fair  are 
the  children  of  the  Gods,  the  black  are  manly,  the  hook- 
nosed have  a  look  of  majesty,  the  flat-nose  gives  a  graceful 
air,  even  the  sallow  complexion  is  complimented  for  look- 
ing like  honey ;  in  spite  of  all  their  defects,  he  cherishes 
and  loves  them  all  *  Thus  love,  like  ivy,  must  needs  find 
something  or  other  to  lay  hold  on.  But  much  more  will  a  stu- 
dious hearer  and  scholar  be  sure  to  find  some  not  unworthy 
reason  for  praising  every  speaker.  For  Plato  in  an  ora- 
tion of  Lysias,  disliking  the  invention  and  utterly  condemn- 
ing the  disposition  as  confused,  yet  praised  the  style  and 
elocution,  because  every  word  was  Λvrought  off  cleverly 
and  cleanly  turned.  Thus  a  man  may  see  cause  enough 
to  disapprove  the  argument  of  Archilochus,  the  verse  of 
Parmenides,  the  poΛ^erty  of  Phocylides,  the  eternal  talk  of 
Euripides,  and  inequality  of  style  in  Sophocles  ;  and  among 
the  orators,  one  has  no  manner,  another  is  not  moving,  a 
third  has  nothing  of  ornament ;  yet  every  one  has  his 
peculiar  power  of  moving  and  exciting,  for  which  he  is 
praised.  Some  again  do  not  require  of  us  to  testify  our 
acceptance  by  the  voice  ;  a  pleasing  eye  or  cheerful  look, 
or  a  behavior  without  any  thing  of  pain  or  uneasiness,  is 
all  that  they  desire.  For  the  following  favors  are  nowa- 
days bestowed  of  course  upon  every  oration,  though  the 
speaker  may  speak  to  no  purpose  at  all,  —  sitting  modestly 

*  Plato,  Republic,  V.  p.  Hi  D. 


OF  HEAEING.  457 

without  lolling  from  one  side  to  the  other,  looking  earnestly 
on  the  speaker,  in  the  posture  of  an  attentive  listener,  and 
with  a  countenance  which  betrays  not  only  no  contempt  or  ill- 
Avill  but  not  even  a  mind  otherwise  employed.  For  as  the 
beauty  and  excellence  of  every  thing  consists  in  the  con- 
currence of  many  different  accidents,  which  contribute  to 
the  symmetry  and  harmony  of  the  whole,  so  that,  if  but 
one  inconsiderable  part  be  away  or  absurdly  added,  de 
formity  immediately  follows  ;  in  like  manner,  not  only  a 
supercilious  look  or  forbidding  mien  or  roving  eyes  or 
Avaving  the  body  to  and  fro  or  indecent  crossing  of  the 
legs,  but  even  a  nod,  a  whisper  to  another,  a  scornful 
smile,  a  sleepy  yawn,  hanging  of  the  head,  or  the  like, 
are  all  likewise  great  indecorums  and  to  be  avoided  with 
particular  care. 

14.  Yet  some  there  are  who  can  assign  a  speaker  his 
part,  and  think  no  duty  incumbent  on  themselves  all  the 
while ;  who  Avill  have  him  prepare  and  premeditate  what 
he  has  to  deliver,  and  yet  throw  themselves  into  an 
auditory  without  any  preparation  or  consideration,  as  if 
they  were  invited  to  a  feast,  to  revel  and  take  their  pleas- 
ures at  another's  cost.  Yet  it  is  known  that  even  a  guest 
has  some  things  required  of  him  to  make  him  suitable  and 
agreeable,  and  certainly  a  hearer  has  much  more  ;  because 
he  ought  to  be  a  sharer  in  the  discourse  and  an  assistant 
to  the  speaker.  Neither  will  it  become  him  to  be  severe 
at  all  turns  upon  every  slight  miscarriage  or  perpetually 
putting  the  speaker's  elocution  and  action  to  the  test, 
while  he  himself  is  guilty  of  grosser  enormities  in  hear- 
ing, without  danger  or  control.  But  as  at  tennis  he 
that  takes  the  ball  turns  and  winds  his  body  according  to 
the  motion  of  the  server,  so  a  kind  of  proportion  is  to  be 
observed  between  the  speaker  and  the  hearer,  if  both  will 
discharge  their  several  duties. 


458  OF  HEARING. 


Care  to  he  observed  in  Praising  Persons  of  all  Qualities. 

15.  Neither  ought  we  to  use  any  expressions  of  praise 
indifferently.  For  it  is  an  ill  thing  Avhich  Epicurus  relates, 
that,  upon  reading  any  epistles  from  his  friends,  those  about 
him  broke  out  into  tumultuous  applauses  ;  and  such  as 
daily  introduce  ηεΛν  forms  into  our  auditories,  as  Divinely 
said '  Superhuman !  Inimitable !  (as  if  those  used  by 
Plato,  Socrates,  and  Hyperides,  ΛΥβΙΙ !  Wisely !  Truly 
said !  were  not  sufficiently  expressive),  exceed  the  bounds  of 
decency  and  modesty,  nay  indeed,  do  but  affront  the 
speaker,  as  though  he  were  fond  of  such  extravagant 
praises.  Nor  are  they  less  odious  and  troublesome  who 
confirm  approbation  with  impertinent  oaths,  as  if  they  were 
giving  their  testimony  for  a  speaker  in  a  court  of  judica- 
ture. And  so  likcAvise  is  it  with  such  as  observe  not  to 
give  just  deference  to  the  quality  of  persons,  Avho  to  a 
philosopher  are  apt  to  cry  out,  Smartly  said  !  or  to  a  rever- 
end gentleman.  Wittily  !  Floridly  !  applying  to  philosophy 
such  trifles  as  are  proper  to  scholastic  exercises  and  decla- 
mations, and  giving  meretricious  applause  to  a  sober  dis- 
course, —  as  if  a  man  should  compliment  the  conqueror 
in  the  Olympic  games  with  a  garland  of  lilies  or  roses,  in- 
stead of  laurel  or  wild  olive.  Euripides  the  poet  one  day 
at  a  rehearsal  instructing  the  chorus  in  a  part  that  was  set 
to  a  serious  air,  one  of  the  company  unexpectedly  fell  out 
a  laughing ;  Sir,  said  he,  unless  you  were  very  stupid  and 
insensible,  you  could  not  lau'^h  while  I  sing  in  the  grave 
mixolvdian  mood.  In  like  manner  a  master  of  philosophy 
and  politics  may  put  a  stop  to  the  unseasonable  levity  and 
pertness  of  a  youngster,  by  telling  him,  You  seem  to  be  a 
madman  and  unacquainted  with  all  manner  of  civility, 
otherwise  you  would  not  hum  over  your  tunes  or  practise 
your  new  steps  while  I  am  discoursing  of  Gods,  or  the  laws, 
or  the  supreme  magistrate.     For  consider  seriously  what  a 


OF   HEARING.  459 

verv  scandalous  thing  it  is  that,  while  a  philosopher  is  in 
his  discourse,  the  passengers  in  the  street,  from  the  clamor 
and  hooting  of  the  hearers,  should  have  reason  to  make  it 
a  question  whether  some  piper  or  harper  or  morris-dancer 
were  got  in  among  them. 

Of  hearing  Admonitions  and  Reproofs. 

16.  Admonitions  and  reprimands  ought  to  be  taken 
neither  altogether  insensibly  nor  yet  sheepishly.  For  such 
as  carry  off  a  disgrace  from  a  philosopher  carelessly  and 
without  due  concern,  so  as  to  grin  at  his  reprehensions  or 
scoffingly  to  praise  him  for  them,  as  sharping  parasites 
applaud  the  scurrilous  reflection  of  their  cullies,  —  such,  I 
say,  are  shameless  and  insolent,  and  betray  only  their  in- 
vincible impudence,  which  is  no  good  or  true  argument  of 
courage.  Yet  to  bear  handsomely  without  passion  an  in- 
nocent jest  in  raillery  is  not  unbecoming  the  breeding  of 
a  gentleman,  but  a  good  accomplishment  and  altogether 
Avorthy  of  a  Spartan.  But  when  an  exhortation  to  amend- 
ment of  manners,  like  a  bitter  potion,  is  made  up  of  harsh 
and  unpleasant  Avords,  in  such  a  case  for  a  youth — in- 
stead of  hearing  submissively  and  running  into  a  sweat  or 
being  seized  with  dizziness,  when  the  mind  is  on  fire  with 
shame  and  confusion  —  to  remain  unmoved  or  sneer  or 
dissemble  his  concernment  is  the  certain  sign  of  a  dissolute 
and  ill-bred  man,  one  whose  soul,  like  callous  flesh,  being 
hardened  with  a  course  of  debauchery,  Avill  receive  no  scar 
or  impression.  Some  young  men  indeed  there  are  of  a 
contrary  disposition,  who  having  undergone  one  rebuke  fly 
off  without  ever  looking  back,  turn  renegades,  and  quite 
desert  philosophy.  These  being  naturally  very  modest  have 
a  good  disposition  toward  an  healthful  habit  of  mind,  but 
vitiate  it  by  too  much  tenderness  and  effeminacy,  which 
disables  them  for  bearing  a  reproof  or  manfully  submitting 
to  a  correction,  and  run   after  more   pleasing  harangues, 


460  OF  HEARING. 

wherewith  some  flatterers  and  Sophists  soothe  and  bewitch 
them,  without  any  benefit  or  advantage.  For  as  he  that 
flies  from  the  surgeon  after  incision,  and  will  not  suffer  the 
ligature  to  be  applied,  endures  that  part  of  his  skill  only 
Avhich  is  painful,  rejecting  what  would  give  him  ease ;  so 
such  a  one  as  being  lanced  and  scarified  by  a  sharp  ora- 
tion has  not  patience  till  the  wound  be  skinned  over,  goes 
away  from  philosophy  tortured  and  harassed,  without  that 
benefit  he  might  receive  thereby.  For  not  only  Telephus's 
wound  was  cured  by  rusty  filings  of  the  spear  (as  Euripides 
has  it),  but  Avhatever  pain  philosophy  may  occasion  to  a 
meek  disposition  will  be  cured  and  removed  by  the  same 
discourse  that  gave  the  wound.  He  therefore  that  is  repre- 
hended must  endure  awhile  and  away  with  some  pain,  not 
presently  be  discouraged  or  out  of  heart.  Let  him  behave 
himself  as  though  he  were  to  be  initiated  into  the  mysteries 
of  philosophy,  still  hoping,  after  the  lustrations  and  more 
tiOublesome  ceremonies  are  undergone,  he  shall  enjoy  some 
considerable  effect  of  his  present  troubles  and  incouA^n- 
iences.  Or  suppose  he  be  wrongfully  chidden,  it  is  but 
handsome  to  expect  the  conclusion  ;  after  that  he  may 
make  his  defence,  and  desire  that  such  freedom  and  Λdo- 
lence  may  be  reserved  to  repress  some  other  misdemeanor 
which  really  deserves  it. 

The  Difficulties  in  Philosophy  vincible. 

17.  But  besides  this,  —  as  in  grammar,  music,  and  the 
exercises  of  activity,  there  are  many  things  which  to  young 
beginners  appear  troublesome,  laborious,  and  obscure, 
Avhich  yet  a  fuller  knowledge,  like  acquaintance  among 
men,  makes  more  agreeable,  ready,  and  feasible,  —  in  like 
manner,  though  philosophy  in  its  first  terms  and  notions 
may  seem  uncouth  and  strange,  yet  a  man  must  not  be  so 
far  discouraged  at  the  first  elements  as  to  throw  it  up 
altogether,  but  he  must  bid  at  all  and  ply  his  business 


OF  HEARING.  461 

hard  and  patiently  expect  that  acquaintance  which  Avill 
make  all  easy  and  pleasant ;  and  that  will  not  be  long  in 
coming,  bringing  great  light  into  things  and  exciting  ardent 
affections  to  virtue  ;  without  which  to  endure  to  live,  after 
one  has  through  his  own  effeminacy  fallen  from  philosophy, 
is  an  argument  of  a  mean  spirit  and  servile  disposition.  I 
must  confess  there  is  some  difficulty  in  the  things  them- 
selves which  is  not  easily  conquered  by  raw  and  unexperi- 
enced beginners  ;  yet  the  greatest  part  of  the  difficulty  they 
bring  upon  themselves  by  their  own  ignorance  and  inad- 
vertency, fidling  into  the  same  error  from  two  contrary 
causes.  For  some,  out  of  a  foolish  bashfulness  and  desire 
to  be  easy  to  the  speaker,  are  loath  to  be  inquisitive  or  have 
the  thing  made  plain  to  them,  and  so  they  nod  their  assent 
to  every  thing  that  is  said,  as  if  they  fully  comprelicnded  it. 
And  others  out  of  unseasonable  vain-glory,  and  vying  with 
their  fellows  that  they  may  vaunt  their  readiness  of  wit 
and  quickness  of  apprehension,  pretend  to  understand 
things  before  they  do,  and  never  understand  them  at  all. 
Now  the  consequence  in  both  cases  is  tins  ;  the  modest  go 
away  in  a  great  deal  of  anxiety  and  doubt,  and  are  forced  in 
the  end,  Λνΐίΐι  greater  disgrace,  to  interrupt  the  speaker  to  be 
informed  again  ;  and  the  vain-glorious  are  troubled  to  keep 
close  and  conceal  the  ignorance  they  carry  about  them. 

18.  Therefore  all  such  sheepishness  and  self-conceit 
being  set  aside,  let  us  learn  to  lay  up  in  our  minds  what- 
ever is  usefully  said,  enduring  to  be  laughed  at  by  such  as 
set  up  for  wits  and  railers.  This  course  took  Cleanthes 
and  Xenocrates,  who  being  somewhat  slower  than  their 
fellows  did  not  therefore  give  over  hearing  or  despond  ; 
but  prevented  the  jests  of  others,  by  comparing  themselves 
to  narrow-mouthed  vessels  and  to  copper  plates  ;  because, 
though  they  received  learning  with  some  difficulty,  yet  they 
retained  it  surely.  For  he  that  will  be  a  good  man  must 
not  only,  as  Phocylides  says, — 


462  OF  HEARING. 

Expect  much  fraud,  and  many  a  time  be  caught,  — 

but  be  laughed  at  and  disgraced,  and  endure  many  scurrilous 
and  virulent  reflections  ;  he  must  also  encounter  ignorance 
and  wrestle  with  it  with  all  the  strength  of  his  mind,  and 
subdue  it  too. 

Neither  on  the  other  hand  must  the  faults  be  passed  by 
which  some  troublesome  people  commit  out  of  mere 
laziness  and  negligence ;  such  men  as  will  not  bestow  any 
pains  in  considering  themselves,  but  asking  often  the  same 
questions  are  a  perpetual  vexation  to  the  speaker  ;  like 
callow  birds  always  gaping  at  the  bill  of  the  old  one, 
and  still  reaching  after  what  has  been  prepared  and 
worked  over  by  others.  Another  sort  there  are,  who, 
affecting  the  reputation  of  quickness  and  attention,  con- 
found the  speaker  with  their  pragmatical  curiosity  and 
jargon,  always  haling  in  something  unnecessary  and  re- 
quiring demonstrations  of  things  foreign  to  the  business 
in  hand. 

Thus  a  short  way  is  long  and  tedious  made, 

as  Sophocles  *  says,  and  that  not  only  to  themselves,  but 
others  also.  For  by  taking  off"  the  speaker  with  vain  and 
unnecessary  questions  they  retard  the  progress  of  instruc- 
tion, like  travellers  in  the  road,  by  impertinent  halts  and 
stops.  Hieronymus  compares  these  men  to  lazy  and 
greedy  curs,  which  within  doors  bite  and  tear  the  skins  of 
wild  animals  and  lie  tugging  at  their  shaggy  hair,  but  in 
the  field  dare  not  fasten  upon  beasts  themselves. 

A    Concluding   Exhortation.  # 

Yet  one  exhortation  let  me  leave  with  these  people,  that 
having  received  the  general  heads  of  things  they  would 
supply  the  rest  by  their  own  industry,  making  their 
memory  a  guide  to  their  invention ;  and  that,  looking  on 
the  discourse  of  others  only  as  a  kind  of  first  principle  or 

*  Antigone,  232. 


OF  HEARING.  463 

seed,  they  Avould  take  care  to  cherish  and  mcrease  it.  For 
the  mind  requires  not  like  an  earthen  vessel  to  be  filled 
up  ;  convenient  fuel  and  aliment  only  will  inflame  it  with 
a  desire  of  knowledge  and  ardent  love  of  truth.  Now,  as 
it  would  be  Λνϊίΐι  a  man  Λνΐιο,  going  to  his  neighbor's  to 
borrow  Are  and  finding  there  a  great  and  bright  fire, 
should  sit  down  to  warm  himself  and  forget  to  go  home  ; 
so  is  it  with  the  one  who  comes  to  another  to  learn,  if  he 
does  not  think  himself  obliged  to  kindle  his  own  fire  with- 
in and  inflame  his  own  mind,  but  continues  sitting  by  his 
master  as  if  he  were  enchanted,  delighted  by  hearing. 
Such  a  one,  although  he  may  get  the  name  of  a  philo- 
sopher, as  we  get  a  bright  color  by  sitting  by  the  fire, 
Avill  never  clear  away  the  mould  and  rust  of  his  mind,  and 
dispel  the  darkness  of  his  understanding  by  the  help  of 
philosophy.  In  fine,  if  there  is  any  other  precept  con- 
cerning hearing,  it  is  briefly  this,  to  be  careful  in  observing 
the  last  exhortation,  —  that  is,  to  join  the  exercise  of  our 
invention  to  our  hearing ;  that  so,  while  we  lay  down  the 
rule  that  hearing  well  is  the  first  step  to  living  well,  we 
may  not  content  ourselves  with  a  superficial  commonplace 
knowledge,  but  endeavor  after  such  a  philosophical  habit 
as  shall  be  deeply  imprinted  on  the  mind. 


OF  LARGE  ACQUAINTANCE ;  OR,  AN  ESSAY  TO  PROVE 
THE  FOLLY  OF  SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS. 


1.  Menon  the  Thessalian,  a  person  who  had  no  mean 
opinion  of  his  own  parts,  who  thought  himself  well  accom- 
plished in  all  the  arts  of  discourse  and  to  have  reached  (as 
Empedocles  words  it)  the  highest  pitch  of  wisdom,  was 
asked  by  Socrates,  What  is  virtue?  And  he  answered 
readily  enough,  and  as  impertinently,  that  there  is  one 
virtue  belonging  to  childhood,  another  to  old  age  ;  that 
there  are  distinct  virtues  in  men  and  women,  magistrates 
and  private  persons,  masters  and  servants.  Excellently 
well !  repUed  Socrates  in  raillery,  when  you  were  asked 
about  one  virtue,  you  haΛ^e  raised,  as  it  were,  a  whole 
swarm ;  conjecturing,  not  without  reason,  that  the  man 
therefore  named  many  because  he  knew  the  nature  of 
none.  And  may  not  we  ourselves  expect  and  deserve  as 
justly  to  be  scoffed  and  rallied,  who  having  not  yet  con- 
tracted one  firm  friendship  seem  nevertheless  exceeding 
cautious  of  too  many  ?  It  is  almost  the  same  thing  as  if 
one  maimed  and  blind  should  appear  solicitous  lest  like 
Briareus  he  may  chance  to  be  furnished  with  a  hundred 
hands,  and  become  all  over  eyes  like  Argus.  However, 
we  cannot  but  extol  the  sense  of  that  young  man  in  Me- 
nander  the  poet,  who  said  that  he  counted  every  man 
wonderfully  honest  and  happy  who  had  found  even  the 
shadow  of  a  friend. 


OF  THE   FOLLY   OF   SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS.  465 

2.  But  all  the  difficulty  lies  in  finding  him ;  and  the 
chiefest  reason  is  that,  instead  of  one  choice  true  friend, 
nothing  under  a  multitude  will  content  us  ;  like  Avomen  of 
the  town  who  admit  the  embraces  of  all  gallants  that 
come,  at  the  gay  appearance  of  the  last  which  comes  Ave 
neglect  and  slight  the  former,  and  so  are  unable  to  hold 
them.  Or  rather,  like  the  foster-child  of  Hypsipyle,  who 
"  in  a  green  meadow  sat  cropping  the  flowers  one  after 
another,  snatching  each  prize  with  delighted  heart,  in- 
satiable in  his  childish  joy,"  *  —  so  we  of  riper  years,  from 
an  inbred  affection  of  novelty  and  disdain  of  things  already 
possessed,  take  up  presently  with  the  first  promising  aspect 
of  every  fresh  and  new-blooming  friend,  and  lay  all  at 
once  the  foundations  of  several  acquaintances  ;  but  we 
leave  each  unfinished,  and  Avhen  we  have  scarce  fixed  on 
one,  our  love  immediately  palls  there,  while  Ave  passion- 
ately pursue  some  other. 

AVherefore,  in  this  affair,  —  to  begin  at  the  beginning 
(at  the  domestic  altar,  as  the  saying  is),  —  let  us  ask  the 
opinion  and  counsel  of  our  forefathers,  and  consider  what 
report  the  records  of  antiquity  make  concerning  true 
friends.  They  are,  we  find,  ahvays  reckoned  in  pairs;  as 
Theseus  and  Pirithous,  Achilles  and  Patroclus,  Orestes 
and  Pylades,  Phintias  and  Damon,  Epaminondas  and 
Pelopidas.  Friendship  (so  to  speak)  is  a  creature  sociable, 
but  affects  not  a  herd  or  a  flock ;  and  that  we  usually 
esteem  a  friend  another  self,  and  call  him  ήαΐρος  (companion) 
as  much  as  to  say  ίτεοης  (the  other  one),  is  a  convincing 
argument  that  the  number  two  is  the  adequate  and  com- 
plete  measure    of    friendship.      And    in    truth,   a   great 

*  Etc  τον  λειμώνα  καθίσας 
ίόρεπεν  έτερον  έφ'  έτέρφ 
αίρόμενος  άγρευμα  ανθέων 
^  ήόομένα  ψνχα, 

το  VT/mov  άπλΐ/στον  έχων. 

From  the  Hypsipyle  of  Euripides. 
VOL.  I.  SO 


466  OF   THE   FOLLY   OF   SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS. 

niiraber  of  friends  or  servants  is  not  to  be  purchased  at  an 
easy  rate.  That  which  procures  love  and  friendship  in  the 
world  is  a  sweet  and  obliging  temper  of  mind,  a  lively 
readiness  in  doing  good  offices,  together  with  a  constant 
habit  of  virtue  ;  than  w^hich  qualifications  nothing  is  more 
rarely  found  in  nature.  Therefore  to  love  and  to  be  be- 
loved much  can  have  no  place  in  a  multitude  ;  but  the 
most  eager  affection,  if  divided  among  numerous  objects, 
like  a  river  divided  into  several  channels,  must  needs  flow 
at  length  very  weak  and  languid.  Upon  this  score,  those 
animals  love  their  young  most  which  generate  but  one ; 
and  Homer,  describing  a  beloΛ^ed  child,  calls  it  the  only- 
begotten  and  born  in  old  age,  —  that  is,  at  such  a  time 
when  the  parents  neither  have  nor  hope  for  another.* 

3.  Yet  I  do  not  assert  we  ought  to  confine  ourselves  to 
one  only  friend ;  but  among  the  rest,  there  should  be  one 
eminently  so,  like  a  well-beloved  and  only  son,  not  casually 
picked  up  at  a  tavern  or  eating-house  or  in  a  tennis-court, 
nor  at  a  game  of  hazard,  nor  at  an  accidental  meeting  in 
the  wrestling-place  or  the  market,  —  as  is  too  common  nowa- 
days,—  but  one  chosen  upon  long  and  mature  deliberation, 
with  whom  (according  to  that  celebrated  proverb)  we  have 
eaten  a  bushel  of  salt. 

The  palaces  of  noble  men  and  princes  appear  guarded 
Λvith  splendid  retinues  of  diligent  obsequious  servants,  and 
every  room  is  crowded  with  a  throng  of  visitors,  who 
caress  the  great  man  with  all  the  endearing  gestures  and 
expressions  that  wit  and  breeding  can  invent ;  and  it  may 
be  thought,  I  confess,  at  first  sight,  that  such  are  very  for- 
tunate in  having  so  many  cordial,  real  friends  at  their  com- 
mand ;  whereas  it  is  all  bare  pageantry  and  show.  Change 
the  scene,  and  you  may  observe  a  far  greater  number  of 
flies  as  industriously  busy  in  their  kitchens ;  and  as  these 
would  vanish,  were  the  dishes  empty  and  clean,  so  neither 

*  II.  IX.  482. 


OF  THE  FOLLY  OF  SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS.  467 

would  that  other  sort  of  insect  pay  any  farther  respect, 
were  nothing  to  be  got  by  it. 

There  are  chiefly  these  requisites  to  a  true  friendship : 
virtue,  as  a  thing  lovely  and  desirable  ;  famiharity,  as  pleas- 
ant ;  and  advantage,  as  necessary.  For  we  must  first  choose 
a  friend  upon  a  right  judgment  made  of  his  excellent 
qualities ;  having  chosen  him,  we  must  perceive  a  pleasure 
in  his  conversation,  and  upon  occasion  he  must  be  useful 
to  us  in  our  concerns.  All  Λvhich  (especially  judgment  in 
our  choice,  the  main  point  of  all)  are  inconsistent  with  a 
numerous  acquaintance. 

And  first  of  all  (to  draw  a  parallel  in  other  matters),  if 
there  is  no  small  time  required  to  select  a  great  many  per- 
sons together  Λνΐιο  can  dance  and  sing  in  exact  time  to  the 
same  tune,  manage  oars  with  a  like  strength  and  vigor,  be 
fit  stewards  of  our  estates  or  tutors  of  our  children,  cer- 
tainly we  must  acknowledge  it  much  more  difhcult  to  meet 
with  a  considerable  number  of  friends,  ready  to  enter  with 
us  the  trial  of  all  manner  of  fortune,  of  whom  every  one 
will 

Of  his  good  fortune  yield  thy  part  to  thee. 
And  hear  like  part  of  thy  calamity. 

Even  a  ship  at  sea  runs  not  the  risk  of  so  many  storms, 
nor  are  any  castles,  forts,  and  havens  secured  Avith  walls, 
ramparts,  and  dams  against  the  apprehension  of  so  many 
dangers,  as  are  the  misfortunes  against  Avliich  a  constant 
approved  friendship  mutually  undertakes  to  afford  a  de- 
fence and  refuge.  Whoever  without  due  trial  put  them- 
selves upon  us  for  friends  Ave  examine  as  bad  money  ;  and 
the  cheat  being  discovered,  we  are  glad  if  of  their  own 
accord  they  Avithdraw ;  or  if  they  persist,  at  least  we  wish 
Λvith  great  impatience  fairly  to  get  rid  of  them.*  Yet  we 
must  own  it  is  a  hard  and  troublesome  task  to  cast  off  a  dis- 
agreeable acquaintance  ;   for  as  unwholesome  meats  which 

*  Sophocles,  Frag.  778. 


468     OF  THE  FOLLY  OF  SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS. 

nauseate  the  stomach  can  neither  be  retained  without  haz- 
ard of  health,  nor  yet  ejected  sincere  as  they  were  taken, 
but  wholly  disguised  and  defiled  Avith  other  humors  ;  so  a 
mistaken  false  friend  must  either  be  still  entertained,  and 
remain  a  mere  vexation  to  us  as  well  as  uneasy  to  himself, 
or  else  by  a  kind  of  convulsion  be  thrown  up  like  bile, 
leaving  behind  the  continual  torment  of  private  grudgings 
and  hatred. 

4.  Therefore  it  highly  concerns  ns  not  to  be  too  rash  in 
fastening  on  the  next  that  may  accidentally  offer,  nor  pres- 
ently to  affect  every  one  that  pretends  to  be  fond  of  our 
friendship.  Let  the  search  rather  begin  on  our  own  part, 
and  our  choice  fix  on  those  who  approve  themselves  really 
Λvorthy  of  our  respect.  What  is  cheap  and  with  ease  ob- 
tained is  below  our  notice ;  and  we  trample  under  foot 
bushes  and  brambles  that  readily  catch  hold  of  us,  while 
we  diligently  clear  our  way  to  the  vine  and  olive  ;  so  it  is 
always  best  not  to  admit  to  our  familiarity  persons  who 
officiously  stick  and  twist  themselves  about  us,  but  we 
ought  rather  of  our  own  accord  to  court  the  friendship  of 
those  who  are  worthy  of  our  regard,  and  who  prove  ad- 
vantageous to  ourselves. 

5.  Therefore,  as  Zeuxis  replied  to  some  who  blamed  the 
slowness  of  his  pencil,  —  that  he  therefore  spent  a  long 
time  in  painting,  because  he  designed  his  work  should  last 
for  a  long  eternity,  —  so  he  that  would  secure  a  lasting 
friendship  and  acquaintance  must  first  deliberately  judge 
and  thoroughly  try  its  worth,  before  he  settles  it.  Suppose 
then  it  is  hard  to  make  a  right  judgment  in  choosing  many 
friends  together,  it  may  still  be  asked  whether  we  may  not 
maintain  a  familiarity  with  many  persons,  or  whether  that 
too  is  impossible.  Now  familiarity  and  converse  are  the 
genuine  products  and  enjoyments  of  true  friendship,  and 
the  highest  pleasure  the  best  friends  aim  at  is  continual 
intercourse  and  the  daily  frequenting  one  another's  com- 
pany. 


OF   THE   FOLLY   OF   SEEKING   MANY  FRIENDS.  -iGD 

No  more  sliall  meet  Achilles  and  his  iriend  ; 

No  more  our  thoughts  to  those  we  loved  make  known, 

Or  quit  the  dearest,  to  converse  alone.* 

And,  as  Menelaus  says  of  Ulysses  :  — 

There  with  commutual  zeal  we  both  had  strove 
In  acts  of  dear  benevolence  and  love,  — 
Brothers  in  peace,  not  rivals  in  command,  — 
And  death  alone  dissolved  the  friendly  band.t 

Now  much  acquaintance  has  a  clear  contrary  effect ;  and 
Avhcreas   single  friendship   by   kind    discourses   and   good 
offices  cements,  unites,  and  condenses  as  it  were  two  par 
ties, — 

As  when  the  fig-tree's  juice  curdles  and  binds  white  niilk,  } 

as  Empedocles  says ;  this  on  the  other  hand  unties,  rends,  and 
breaks  the  bond,  distracts  our  inclinations  with  too  much 
variety  ;  and  the  agreeable  just  mixture  of  affection,  the 
very  cement  of  true  friends,  is  wholly  lost  in  so  loose  and 
confused  a  conversation.  Hence  at  once  arises  great  ine- 
quality Λvith  respect  to  the  services  of  friendship,  and  a 
foolish  diffidence  in  the  performance  of  them.  For  multi- 
plicity of  friends  renders  those  very  parts  of  friendship 
vain  and  useless  Avhence  advantage  was  most  expected ; 
neither  can  we  hope  it  should  be  otherwise,  if  we  consider 
how  "  one  man  is  acted  upon  by  his  nature  and  another  by 
his  cares  and  anxieties."  Nature  hath  not  bestowed  the 
same  inclinations  on  all,  nor  are  we  all  born  to  the  same 
fortune  ;  and  the  occasions  of  our  actions,  like  the  wind, 
may  often  favor  one  of  our  acquaintance  Avhile  they  stand 
cross  to  another. 

6.  However,  suppose  by  great  chance  all  should  agree 
to  crave  assistance  in  the  same  affair,  whether  at  a  consult, 
exercise  of  a  public  trust  in  the  government,  canvassini^ 
for  preferment,  entertaining  guests,  or  the  like  ;  yet  it  is 
exceeding  hard  to  satisfy  all.  But  now  if  they  are  engaged 
in  diverse  concerns  at  the  very  same  moment  of  time,  and 

*  II.  XXIII.  77.  t  See  Odyss.  IV.  178.  J  See  II.  V.  902. 


470  OF  THE  FOLLY  OF   SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS. 

every  one  should  make  his  particuhir  request  to  you,  one 
to  take  a  voyage  with  him,  another  to  assist  in  pleading  his 
cause,  a  third  to  prosecute  a  criminal,  a  fourth  to  help  in 
managing  his  trade,  another  to  celebrate  his  wedding,  and 
another  to  attend  a  funeral,  — 

And  tlie  whole  city's  filled  with  incense  smoke, 
And  songs  of  triumph  mixt  with  groans  resound;  * 

I  say,  in  this  case,  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  answer  the 
requests  of  all,  to  gratify  none  is  absurd,  and  to  serve  only 
one  and  disoblige  the  rest  is  a  thing  grievous  and  intoler- 
ably rude  ;  —  "  for  no  one,  when  he  loves  a  friend,  will  bear 
to  be  neglected."  f  If  indeed  you  could  persuade  that 
inadvertency  was  the  cause  of  the  omission,  you  might 
more  easily  hope  a  pardon ;  and  to  plead  forgetfulness  is  a 
sort  of  excuse  which  perhaps  might  pass  without  much 
angering  your  friend  ;  but  to  allege  "  I  could  not  be  advo- 
cate in  your  cause,  being  of  counsel  for  another,"  or  "  I 
could  not  visit  you  in  a  fever,  because  1  was  invited  to  a 
feast  elsewhere,"  while  it  is  thus  confessed  that  we  neglect 
one  friend  to  pay  our  respects  to  another,  is  so  far  from 
extenuating  the  offence,  that  it  highly  aggravates  it,  and 
adds  all  the  jealousies  of  rivalry. 

But  commonly  men  overlook  these  and  such  like  incon- 
veniences of  a  numerous  acquaintance,  and  take  only  a 
prospect  of  its  advantages,  not  in  the  least  reflecting  that 
Λvhoever  employs  many  assistants  in  his  affairs  must  in 
gratitude  repay  his  service  to  as  many  when  they  need  it ; 
and  as  Briareus,  who  with  his  hundred  hands  Avas  daily 
obliged  for  his  bare  subsistence  to  feed  fifty  stomachs,  could 
thrive  no  better  than  ourselves,  who  supply  a  single  one 
Avith  two  hands,  so  a  man  of  many  friends  cannot  boast  any 
other  privilege  but  that  of  being  a  slave  to  many,  and  of 
sharing  in  all  the  business,  cares,  and  disquiet  that  may 
befall  them.     Nor  can  Euripides  help  him  by  advising  that 

*  Sophocles,  Oed.  Tjr.  4.  t  From  Menander. 


OF  THE  FOLLY  OF   SEEKING  MANY  FKIENDS.  471 

Best  suited  to  the  state 
Of  mortal  life  are  mutual  friendsliips  formed 
With  moderation,  such  as  take  not  root 
Deep  in  the  soul,  affections  tliat  witli  ease 
May  be  relaxed,  or  closer  bound  at  will,* 

that  is,  we  may  pull  in  and  let  out  our  friendships  like  a  sail, 
as  the  wind  happens  to  blow.  Let  us  rather,  good  Eurip- 
ides, turn  this  saying  of  yours  to  enmity  ;  for  heats  and  ani- 
mosities ought  to  be  moderate,  and  never  reach  the  inmost 
recesses  of  the  soul ;  hatred,  anger,  complaints,  and  jealousies 
may  with  good  reason  be  readily  appeased  and  forgotten. 
Therefore  it  is  far  more  advisable,  as  Pythagoras  directs, 
"not  to  shake  hands  with  too  many," — that  is,  not  to  make 
many  friends,  —  nor  to  affect  that  popular  kind  of  easiness 
Avhich  courts  and  embraces  every  acquaintance  that  occurs, 
but  carries  with  it  on  the  reverse  a  thousand  mischiefs  ; 
among  which  (as  was  before  hinted)  to  bear  part  of  the 
same  cares,  to  be  affectdd  with  the  same  sorrows,  and  to  be 
embroiled  in  the  same  enterprises  and  dangers  with  any 
great  number  of  friends  will  be  a  sort  of  life  hardly  toler- 
able even  to  the  most  ingenuous  and  generous  tempers. 
What  Chilon  the  wise  man  remarked  to  one  wlio  said  he 
had  no  enemies,  namely,  "  Thou  seemest  rather  to  have  no 
friends,"  has  a  great  deal  of  truth  ;  for  enmities  always 
keep  pace  and  are  interwoven  with  friendships. 

7.  And  it  is  impossible  any  should  be  friends  that  resent 
not  mutually  the  affronts  and  injuries  offered  unto  either, 
and  that  do  not  hate  alike  and  in  common.  They  also  who 
are  enemies  to  yourself  will  presently  suspect  and  hate 
your  friend  ;  nay,  your  other  friends  too  will  often  envy, 
calumniate,  and  undermine  him.  Wherefore  what  the 
oracle  foretold  Timesias  concerning  his  planting  a  colony, 
that  an  hive  of  bees  should  be  changed  into  a  nest  of  Avasps, 
may  not  impertinently  be  applied  to  those  who  seek  after 
a  hive  of  friends,  but  light  before  they  knoAV  it  upon  a 
wasps-nest  of  enemies. 

*  Eurip.  Hippol.  253. 


472     OF  THE  FOLLY  OF  SEEKING  MANY  FKIENDS. 

Besides,  we  should  do  well  to  consider  that  the  kindest 
aifections  of  friends  seldom  compensate  for  the  misfortunes 
that  befall  us  from  the  malice  of  enemies.  It  is  well  known 
how  Alexander  treated  the  familiars  of  Philotas  and  Par- 
menio  ;  Dionysius,  those  of  Dion  ;  Nero,  those  of  Plautus  ; 
and  Tiberius,  those  of  Sejanus  ;  all  shared  the  same  hard 
fate  of  being  racked  and  tortured  to  death.  For  as  the 
gold  and  riches  Creon's  daughter  was  adorned  with  could 
not  secure  the  good  old  father  from  being  consumed  in  her 
flames,  endeavoring  too  officiously  to  rescue  her  ;  so  not  a 
few  partake  of  the  calamities  and  ruin  of  their  friends, 
before  they  have  reaped  the  least  advantage  from  their  pros- 
perity ;  a  misfortune  to  which  philosophers  and  the  best- 
natured  men  are  the  most  liable.  This  was  the  case  of 
Theseus,  who  for  the  sake  of  his  dear  Pirithous  shared  his 
punishment,  and  was  bound  with  him  in  the  same  eternal 
chains.*  Thus  in  the  plague  of  Athens,  says  Tlmcydides,f 
the  most  generous  and  virtuous  citizens,  while  without 
regard  to  their  oavu  safety  they  visited  their  sick,  frequently 
perished  with  their  friends. 

8.  Such  accidents  as  these  ought  to  admonish  us  not  to 
be  too  prodigal  of  our  virtue,  nor  inconsiderately  to  prosti- 
tute our  perfections  to  the  enjoyment  of  every  little  thing 
that  pretends  to  be  our  humble  admirer ;  rather  let  us  re- 
serve them  for  the  worthy,  for  those  who  can  love  and  share 
another's  joys  and  sorrows  like  ourselves.  And  truly,  this 
alone  renders  it  most  unlikely  that  many  men  should  remain 
friends,  that  real  friendship  has  always  its  origin  from  like- 
ness. For,  we  may  observe,  even  brute  and  inanimate 
beings  affect  their  like,  very  readily  mixing  and  uniting 
with  those  of  their  own  nature  ;  while  with  great  reluctance 
and  u  kind  of  indignation  they  shrink  from  and  avoid  what- 
eΛ'er  differs  from  themselves,  and  force  can  scarce  oblige 
them  to  the  loathed  embraces.     By  what  motive  then  can 

*  Eurip.  Pirith.  Frag.  598.  t  Thucyd.  II.  51. 


OF  THE  FOLLY  OF  SEEKING  MANY  FRIENDS.     473 

we  imagine  any  league  of  amity  can  be  kept  inviolable 
amidst  a  multitude,  where  manners  admit  of  so  much  vari- 
ety, where  desires  and  humors  will  be  perpetually  jarring, 
where  the  several  courses  of  life  must  needs  be  almost  as 
unlike  as  constitutions  and  faces'?  A  musical  concord  con- 
sists of  contrary  sounds,  and  a  due  composition  of  flat  and 
sharp  notes  makes  a  delightful  tune  ;  but  as  for  friendship, 
that  is  a  sort  of  harmony  all  of  a  piece,  and  admits  not  the 
least  inequality,  unlikeness,  or  discords  of  parts,  but  here 
all  discourses,  opinions,  inclinations,  and  designs  serve  one 
common  interest,  as  if  several  bodies  were  acted  and  in- 
formed by  the  same  soul. 

•  9.  Now  is  there  any  person  living  of  that  industrious, 
pliant,  and  universal  humor,  who  can  take  the  pains  exactly 
to  imitate  all  shapes,  and  will  not  ratlier  deride  the  advice 
of  Theognis  *  as  absurd  and  impossible,  namely,  to  learn 
the  craft  of  the  polypus,  which  puts  on  the  hue  of  every 
stone  it  sticks  to '?  However,  the  changes  of  this  fish  are 
only  superficial,  and  the  colors  are  produced  in  the  skin, 
Avhich  by  its  closeness  or  its  laxity  receives  various  impres- 
sions from  neighboring  objects  ;  whereas  the  resemblance 
betwixt  friends  must  be  far  more  than  skin-deep,  must  be 
substantial,  such  as  may  be  traced  in  every  action  of  their 
lives,  in  all  their  affections,  dispositions,  Avords  and  pur- 
poses, even  to  their  most  retired  thoughts.  To  follow  the 
advice  of  Theognis  Avould  be  a  task  worthy  of  a  Proteus, 
who  was  neither  very  fortunate  nor  very  honest,  but  could 
by  enchantment  transform  himself  in  an  instant  from  one 
shape  to  another.  Even  so,  he  that  entertains  many  friends 
must  be  learned  and  bookish  among  the  learned,  go  into 
the  arena  with  Λvrestlers,  drudge  cheerfully  after  a  pack  of 
hounds  with  gentlemen  that  love  hunting,  drink  Avith  de- 
bauchees, and  sue  for  office  with  politicians ;  in  fine,  he 
must  have  no  proper  principles  of  actions  and  humors  of 

*  Theognis,  vs.  215. 


474     OF  THE  FOLLY  OF  SEEKING  MAN  Γ  FRIENDS. 

his  own,  but  those  of  the  present  company  he  converses 
with.  Thus,  as  the  first  matter  of  the  philosophers  is 
originally  without  shape  or  color,  yet  being  the  subject  of 
all  natural  changes  takes  by  its  own  inherent  forces  the 
forms  of  fire,  water,  air,  and  solid  earth ;  so  a  person  that 
affects  a  numerous  friendship  must  possess  a  mind  full  of 
folds  and  windings,  subject  to  many  passions,  inconstant  as 
water,  and  easy  to  be  transformed  into  an  infinite  variety 
of  shapes.  But  real  friendship  requires  a  sedate,  stable, 
and  unalterable  temper ;  so  that  it  is  a  rare  thing  and  next 
a  miracle  to  find  a  constant  and  sure  friend. 


THE  FIRST  ORATION  OF  PLUTARCH  CONCERNINGr 
THE  FORTUNE  OR  VIRTUE  OF  ALEXANDER 
THE    GREAT. 


1.  This  is  the  oration  of  Fortune,  asserting  and  challeng- 
ing Alexander  to  be  her  masterpiece,  and  hers  alone.  In 
contradiction  to  which  it  behooves  us  to  say  something  on 
the  behalf  of  philosophy,  or  rather  in  the  defence  of  Alexan- 
der himself,  who  cannot  choose  but  spurn  away  the  very 
thought  of  having  received  his  empire  as  a  gift  at  the 
hands  of  Fortune,  knowing  that  it  was  so  dearly  bought 
with  the  price  of  his  lost  blood  and  many  wounds,  and 
that  in  gaining  it, 

Full  many  a  bloody  day 

In  toilsome  fight  he  spent, 
And  many  a  wakeful  night 

In  battle's  management ;  * 

and  all  this  in  opposition  to  armies  almost  irresistible,  num- 
berless nations,  rivers  before  impassable,  and  rocks  impen- 
etrable ;  choosing,  hoAvever,  for  his  chiefest  guides  and 
counsellors  prudence,  endurance,  fortitude,  and  steadiness 
of  mind. 

2.  And  now,  methinks,  I  hear  him  speaking  thus  to  For- 
tune, when  she  signalizes  herself  Avith  his  successes  :  — 

Envy  not  my  virtue,  nor  go  about  to  detract  from  my 
honor.  Darius  was  a  fabric  of  thy  own  rearing,  who  of  a  ser- 
vant and  the  king's  courier  was  by  thee  advanced  to  be  mon- 
arch of  all  Persia.  The  same  was  Sardanapalus,  Λνΐιο  from 
a  comber  of  purple  Λνοοΐ  was  raised  by  thee  to  wear  the 

*  II.  IX.  325. 


476  OF   THE  FORTUNE  OR   VIRTUE 

royal  diadem.  But  I,•  subduing  as  I  marched,  from  Arbela 
forced  my  passage  even  to  Susa  itself.  Cilicia  opened  me 
a  broad  way  into  Egypt ;  and  the  Granicus,  o'er  which  I 
passed  Avithout  resistance,  trampling  under  foot  the  slain 
carcasses  of  Mithridates  and  Spithridates,  opened. the  way 
into  Cilicia.  Pamper  up  thyself,  and  boast  thy  kings  that 
never  felt  a  wound  nor  ever  saw  a  finger  bleed  ;  for  they 
were  fortunate,  it  is  true,  —  thy  Ochi  and  thy  Artaxerxes, 
—  Λνΐιο  were  no  sooner  born  but  they  w^ere  by  thee  estab- 
lished in  the  throne  of  Cyrus.  But  my  body  carries  many 
marks  of  Fortune's  unkindness,  who  rather  fought  against 
me  as  an  enemy  than  assisted  me  as  her  friend.  First, 
among  the  Illyrians  I  was  wounded  in  the  head  with  a 
stone,  and  received  a  blow  in  the  neck  Avith  an  iron  mace. 
Then,  near  the  Granicus  my  head  was  a  second  time  gashed 
with  a  barbarian  scimitar  ;  at  Issus  I  was  run  through  the 
thiah  with  a  sword  ;  at  Gaza  I  was  shot  in  the  ankle  with 
a  dart ;  and  not  long  after,  falling  heavy  from  my  saddle,  I 
forced  my  shoulder  out  of  joint.  Among  the  Maracadartae 
my  shinbone  was  split  with  an  arrow.  The  wounds  I  re- 
ceived in  India  and  my  strenuous  acts  of  daring  courage 
will  declare  the  rest.  Then  among  the  Assacani  I  Avas 
shot  through  the  shoulder  with  another  arrow.  Encoun- 
tering the  Gandridae,  my  thigh  was  wounded  ;  and  one  of 
the  Mallotes  drew  his  bow  with  that  force,  that  the  well- 
directed  arrow  made  way  through  my  iron  armor  to  lodge 
itself  in  my  breast ;  besides  the  blow  in  my  neck,  when 
the  scaling-ladders  brake  that  were  set  to  the  walls,  and 
Fortune  left  me  alone,  to  gratify  with  the  fall  of  so  great 
a  person  not  a  renowned  or  illustrious  enemy,  but  ignoble 
and  worthless  barbarians.  So  that  had  not  Ptolemy  cov- 
ered me  with  his  shield,  and  Limnaeus,  after  he  had 
received  a  thousand  wounds  directed  at  my  body,  fallen 
dead  before  me  ;  or  if  the  Macedonians,  breathing  nothing 
but  courage  and  their  prince's  rescue,  had  not  opened  a 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  477 

timely  breach,  that  barbarous  and  nameless  village  might 
have  proved  Alexander's  tomb. 

3.  Take  the  whole  expedition  together,  and  what  was  it 
but  a  patient  endurance  of  cold  winters  and  parching 
droughts  ;  depths  of  rivers,  rocks  inaccessible  to  the 
winged  fowl,  amazing  sights  of  strange  wild  beasts,  sav- 
age diet,  and  lastly  revolts  and  treasons  of  far-controlling 
potentates.  As  to  Avhat  before  the  expedition  befell  me,  it 
is  Avell  knoAvn  that  all  Greece  lay  gasping  and  panting 
under  the  fatal  effects  of  the  Philippic  wars.  But  then 
the  Thebans,  raising  themselves  upon  their  feet  again 
after  so  desperate  a  fall,  shook  from  their  arms  the  dust 
of  Chaeronea  ;  with  them  also  joined  the  Athenians,  reach- 
ing forth  their  helping  hands.  The  treacherous  Macedo- 
nians, studying  nothing  but  revenge,  cast  their  eyes  upon  the 
sons  of  Aeropus  ;  the  Illyrians  brake  out  into  an  open  war  ; 
and  the  Scythians  hung  in  equal  balance,  seeing  their  neigh- 
bors meditating  new  revolutions  ;  while  Persian  gold,  lib- 
erally scattered  among  the  popular  leaders  of  every  city, 
put  all  Peloponnesus  into  motion. 

King  Philip's  treasuries  were  at  that  time  empty,  and 
besides  he  was  in  debt,  as  Onesicritus  relates,  two  hundred 
talents.  In  the  midst  of  so  much  pressing  want  and  such 
menacing  troubles,  a  youth  but  new  past  the  age  of  child- 
hood durst  aspire  to  the  concμlest  of  Babylon  and  Susa,  or 
rather  project  in  his  thoughts  supreme  dominion  over  all 
mankind  ;  and  all  this,  trusting  only  to  the  strength  of 
thirty  thousand  foot  and  four  thousand  horse.  For  so 
many  there  were,  by  the  account  which  Aristobulus  gives  ; 
by  the  relation  of  King  Ptolemy,  there  were  five  thousand 
horse  ;  from  both  which  Anaximenes  varying  musters  up 
the  foot  to  three  and  forty  thousand,  and  the  horse  to  five 
thousand  five  hundred.  Now  the  glorious  and  magnificent 
sum  which  Fortune  had  raised  up  to  supply  the  necessities 
of  so  great  an  expedition  was  no  more  than  seventy  talents, 


478  OF  THE  FORTUNE  OR  VIRTUE 

according  to  Aristobulus  ;   or,   as   Duris   records   it,   only 
thirty  days'  provision. 

4.  You  will  say  therefore  that  Alexander  Avas  too  rash 
and  daringly  mconsiderate,  Avith  such  a  slender  support  to 
rush  upon  so  vast  an  opposition.  By  no  means :  for  who 
was  ever  better  fitted  than  he  for  splendid  enterprises,  with 
all  the  choicest  and  most  excelling  precepts  of  magnanim- 
ity, consideration,  wisdom,  and  virtuous  fortitude,  with 
which  a  philosophical  education  largely  supplied  him  for 
his  expedition"?  So  that  we  may  properly  affirm  that  he 
invaded  Persia  with  greater  assistance  from  Aristotle  than 
from  his  father  Philip.  As  for  those  Λvho  write  how 
Alexander  was  wont  to  say  that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
had  always  followed  him  in  his  wars,  in  honor  to  Homer  I 
believe  them.  Nevertheless,  if  any  one  affirm  that  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  admitted  of  his  train  merely  as  the 
recreation  of  his  wearied  thoughts  or  pastime  of  his  lei- 
sure hours,  but  that  philosophical  learning,  and  commenta- 
ries concerning  contempt  of  fear,  fortitude,  temperance, 
and  nobleness  of  spirit,  were  the  real  cabinet  provision 
which  he  carried  along  for  his  personal  use,  we  contemn 
their  assertion.  For  he  was  not  a  person  that  ever  wrote 
concerning  arguments  or  syllogisms ;  none  of  those  who 
observed  walks  in  the  Lyceum,  or  held  disputes  in  the 
Academy ;  for  they  Λνΐιο  thus  circumscribe  philosophy  be- 
lieve it  to  consist  in  discoursing,  not  in  action.  And  yet 
we  find  that  neither  Pythagoras  nor  Socrates,  Arcesilaus 
nor  Carneades,  was  ever  celebrated  for  his  writings,  though 
they  were  the  most  approved  and  esteemed  among  all  the 
philosophers.  Yet  no  such  busy  wars  as  these  employed 
their  time  in  civilizing  wild  and  barbarous  kings,  in  build- 
ing Grecian  cities  among  rude  and  unpolished  nations,  nor 
in  settling  government  and  peace  among  people  that  lived 
without  humanity  or  control  of  law.  They  only  lived  at 
ease,  and  surrendered  the  business  and  trouble  of  writing 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  4T9 

to  the  more  contentious  Sophists.  \Vhence  then  came  it 
to  pass  that  they  Avere  belicA^ed  to  be  philosophers  1  It  was 
either  from  their  sayings,  from  the  lives  they  led,  or  from 
the  precepts  which  they  taught.  Upon  these  grounds  let 
us  take  a  prospect  of  Alexander,  and  we  shall  soon  find 
him,  by  what  he  said,  by  \vhat  he  acted,  and  by  the  lessons 
he  taught,  to  be  a  great  philosopher. 

5.  And  first,  if  you  please,  consider  that  which  seems  the 
farthest  distant  of  all  from  the  common  received  opinion, 
and  compare  the  disciples  of  x\lexander  with  the  pupils  of 
Plato  and  Socrates.  The  latter  instructed  persons  ingen- 
uous, such  as  speak  the  same  speech,  well  understanding 
(if  nothing  else)  the  Grecian  language.  But  there  were 
many  with  whom  their  precepts  did  not  prevail ;  for  men 
like  Critias,  Alcibiades,  and  Cleitophon  shook  off  their 
doctrine  like  a  bridle,  and  followed  the  conduct  of  their 
own  inclinations. 

On  the  other  side,  take  a  view  of  Alexander's  discipline, 
and  you  shall  see  how  he  taught  the  Ilyrcanians  the  con- 
veniency  of  Avedlock,  introduced  husbandry  among  the 
Arachosians,  persuaded  the  Sogdians  to  preserve  and  cher- 
ish —  not  to  kill  —  their  aged  parents ;  the  Persians  to 
reverence  and  honor  —  not  to  marry  —  their  mothers. 
Most  admirable  philosophy !  Avhich  induced  the  Indians 
to  worship  the  Grecian  Deities,  and  wrought  upon  the 
Scythians  to  bury  their  deceased  friends,  not  to  feed  upon 
their  carcasses.  \Ve  admire  the  power  of  Carneades's  elo- 
quence, for  forcing  the  Carthaginian  Clitomachus,  called 
Asdrubal  before,  to  embrace  the  Grecian  customs.  No  less 
we  wonder  at  the  prevailing  reason  of  Zeno,  by  whom  the 
Babylonian  Diogenes  was  charmed  into  the  love  of  philoso- 
phy. Yet  no  sooner  had  Alexander  subdued  Asia,  than 
Homer  became  an  author  in  high  esteem,  and  the  Persian, 
Susian,  and  Gedrosian  youth  sang  the  tragedies  of  Eurip- 
ides and  Sophocles.    Among  the  Athenians,  Socrates,  intro• 


480  OE   THE  FORTUNE   OR  VIRTUE 

ducing  foreign  Deities,  was  condemned  to  death  at  the 
prosecution  of  his  accusers.  But  Alexander  engaged  both 
Bactria  and  Caucasus  to  Avorship  the  Grecian  Gods,  which 
they  had  never  knoAvn  before.  Lastly,  Plato,  though  he  pro- 
posed but  one  single  form  of  a  commonwealth,  could  never 
persuade  any  people  to  make  use  of  it,  by  reason  of  the  aus- 
terity of  his  government.  But  Alexander,  building  above 
seventy  cities  among  the  barbarous  nations,  and  as  it  were 
sowing  the  Grecian  customs  and  constitutions  all  over  Asia, 
quite  Aveaned  them  from  their  former  wild  and  savage 
manner  of  living.  The  laws  of  Plato  here  and  there  a 
single  person  may  peradventure  study,  but  myriads  of 
people  have  made  and  still  make  use  of  Alexander's.  And 
they  whom  Alexander  vanquished  were  more  greatly 
blessed  than  the}'  Λνΐιο  fled  his  conquests.  For  these  had 
none  to  deliver  them  from  their  ancient  state  of  misery  ; 
the  others  the  victor  compelled  to  better  fortune.  True 
therefore  was  that  expression  of  Themistocles,  when  he 
was  a  fugitive  from  his  native  country,  and  the  king  enter- 
tained him  Avith  sumptuous  presents,  assigning  him  three 
stipendiary  cities  to  supply  his  table,  one  with  bread,  a 
second  with  wine,  a  third  with  all  manner  of  costly  viands ; 
Ah  !  young  men,  said  he,  had  we  not  been  undone,  we  had 
surely  been  undone.  It  may,  however,  be  more  justly 
averred  of  those  whom  xllexander  subdued,  had  they  not 
been  vanquished,  they  had  never  been  civilized.  Egypt 
had  not  vaunted  her  Alexandria,  nor  Mesopotamia  her 
Seleucia ;  Sogdiana  had  not  gloried  in  her  Propthasia,  nor 
the  Indians  boasted  their  Bucephalia,  nor  Caucasus  its 
neighboring  Grecian  city  ;  by  the  founding  of  all  which  bar- 
barism was  extinguished  and  custom  changed  the  worse 
into  better. 

If  then  philosophers  assume  to  themselves  their  highest 
applause  for  cultivating  the  most  fierce  and  rugged  con- 
ditions of  men,  certainly  Alexander  is  to  be  acknowledged 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GEEAT.  481 

the  chiefest  of  philosophers,  who  changed  the  wild  and 
brutish  customs  of  so  many  various  nations,  reducing  them 
to  order  and  government. 

6.  It  is  true  indeed  that  the  so  much  admired  common- 
Avealth  of  Zeno,  first  author  of  the  Stoic  sect,  aims  singly 
at  this,  that  neither  in  cities  nor  in  towns  we  should  live 
under  laAvs  distinct  one  from  another,  but  that  we  should 
look  upon  all  men  in  general  to  be  our  fellow-countrymen 
and  citizens,  observing  one  manner  of  living  and  one  kind 
of  order,  like  a  flock  feeding  together  with  equal  right  in 
one  common  pasture.  This  Zeno  Avrote,  fancying  to  him- 
self, as  in  a'  dream,  a  certain  scheme  of  civil  order,  and  the 
image  of  a  philosophical  commonwealth.  But  Alexander 
made  good  his  words  by  his  deeds  ;  for  he  did  not,  as 
Aristotle  advised  him,  rule  the  Grecians  like  a  moderate 
prince  and  insult  over  the  barbarians  like  an  absolute  ty- 
rant ;  nor  did  he  take  particular  care  of  the  first  as  his 
friends  and  domestics,  and  scorn  the  latter  as  mere  brutes 
and  vegetables  ;  which  Avould  have  filled  his  empire  with 
fugitive  incendiaries  and  perfidious  tumults.  But  believing 
himself  sent  from  Heaven  as  the  common  moderator  and 
arbiter  of  all  nations,  and  subduing  those  by  force  whom 
he  could  not  associate  to  himself  by  fair  offers,  he  labored 
thus,  that  he  might  bring  all  regions,  far  and  near,  under 
the  same  dominion.  And  then,  as  in  a  festival  goblet, 
mixing  lives,  manners,  customs,  wedlock,  all  together,  he 
ordained  that  every  one  should  take  the  whole  habitable 
world  for  his  country,  of  which  his  camp  and  army  should 
be  the  chief  metropolis  and  garrison  ;  that  his  friends  and 
kindred  should  be  the  good  and  virtuous,  and  that  the 
vicious  only  should  be  accounted  foreigners.  ISJ^or  would 
he  that  Greeks  and  barbarians  should  be  distinguished 
by  long  garments,  targets,  scimitars,  or  turbans  ;  but  that 
the  Grecians  should  be  known  by  their  virtue  and  courage, 
and  the  barbarians  by  their  vices  and  their  cowardice ;  and 

VOL.   I.  31 


482  OF   THE   FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

that  their  habit,  their  diet,  their  marriage  and  custom  of 
converse,  should  be  everywhere  the  same,  engaged  and 
blended  together  by  the  ties  of  blood  and  pledges  of 
offspring. 

7.  Therefore  it  was  that  Demaratus  the  Corinthian,  an 
acquaintance  and  friend  of  Philip,  when  he  beheld  Alex- 
ander in  Susa,  bursting  into  tears  of  more  than  ordinary 
joy,  bewailed  the  deceased  Greeks,  who,  as  he  said,  had 
been  bereaved  of  the  greatest  blessing  on  earth,  for  that 
they  had  not  seen  Alexander  sitting  upon  the  throne  of 
Darius.  Though  most  assuredly,  for  my  part,  I  do  not 
envy  the  beholders  this  show,  Avhich  Avas  only  a  thing  of 
chance  and  a  happiness  of  more  ordinary  kings.  But  I 
would  gladly  have  been  a  spectator  of  those  majestic  and 
sacred  nuptials,  when,  after  he  had  betrothed  together  a 
hundred  Persian  brides  and  a  hundred  Macedonian  and 
Greek  bridegrooms,  he  placed  them  all  at  one  common 
table  witliin  the  compass  of  one  pavilion  embroidered  with 
gold,  as  being  all  of  the  same  family  ;  and  then,  crowned 
with  a  nuptial  garland,  and  being  himself  the  first  to  sing 
an  epithalamium  in  honor  of  the  conjunction  between  two 
of  the  greatest  and  most  potent  nations  in  the  Avorld,  of 
only  one  the  bridegroom,  of  all  the  brideman,  father,  and 
mo'derator,  he  caused  the  several  couples  to  be  severally 
married.  Had  I  but  beheld  this  sight,  ecstasied  with  pleas- 
ure I  should  have  then  cried  out :  "  Barbarous  and  stupid 
Xerxes,  how  vain  was  all  thy  toil  to  cover  the  Hellespont 
with  a  floating  bridge  !  Thus  rather  wise  and  prudent 
princes  join  Asia  to  Europe.  They  join  and  fasten  nations 
together  not  with  boards  or  planks,  or  surging  brigandines, 
not  with  inanimate  and  insensible  bonds,  but  by  the  ties  of 
legitimate  love,  chaste  nuptials,  and  the  infallible  gage  of 
progeny." 

8.  But  then,  when  he  considered  the  Eastern  garments, 
Alexander  preferred  the  Persian  before  the  Median  habit, 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  483 

though  much  the  meaner  and  more  frugal  garb.  There- 
fore rejecting  the  gaudy  and  scenical  ornament  of  barba- 
rian galhintry,  such  as  were  the  tiara  and  candys,  together 
with  the  upper  breeches,  according  to  the  report  of  Eratos- 
thenes, he  ordered  a  mixture  of  the  Macedonian  and  Per- 
sian modes  to  be  observed  in  all  the  garments  which  he 
wore.  As  a  philosopher,  he  contented  himself  with  medi- 
ocrity ;  but  as  the  common  chieftain  of  both  and  as  a  mild 
and  affable  prince,  he  was  willing  to  gain  the  affection  of 
the  vanquished  by  the  esteem  Avhich  he  showed  to  the 
mode  of  the  country ;  that  so  they  might  continue  the 
more  steadfast  and  loyal  to  the  jSIacedonians,  not  hating 
them  as  their  enemies,  but  loving  them  as  their  princes 
and  rulers.  This  behavior  was  contrary  to  that  of  persons 
insipid  and  puffed  up  Avith  prosperity,  who  wedded  to  their 
own  humors  admire  the  single  colored  robe  but  cannot  en- 
dure the  tunic  bordered  with  purple,  or  else  are  well  pleased 
Avith  the  latter  and  hate  the  former,  like  young  children,  in 
love  Λvith  the  mode  in  which,  as  another  nurse,  their  coun- 
try's custom  first  a])parelled  them.  And  yet  we  see  that 
they  who  hunt  wild  beasts  clothe  themselves  with  their 
hairy  skins ;  and  fowlers  make  use  of  feathered  jerkins  ; 
nor  are  others  less  Avary  how  they  show  themselves  to 
Avild  bulls  in  scarlet  or  to  elephants  in  Avhite  ;  for  those 
creatures  are  provoked  and  enraged  at  the  sight  of  these 
colors.  If  then  this  potent  monarch,  designing  to  reclaim 
and  civilize  stubborn  and  warlike  nations,  took  the  same 
course  to  soften  and  allay  their  inbred  fury  which  others 
take  with  wild  beasts,  and  at  length  brought  them  to  be 
tame  and  tractable  by  making  use  of  their  familiar  habits 
and  by  submitting  to  their  customary  course  of  life,  thereby 
removing  animosity  from  their  breasts  and  sour  looks  from 
their  countenances,  shall  we  blame  his  management ;  or 
rather  must  we  not  admire  the  wisdom  of  him  who  by  so 
slight  a  change  of  apparel  ruled  all  Asia,  subduing  their 


484  OF   THE  FOKTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

bodies  with  his  arms  and  vanquishing  their  minds  with  his 
habit  ?  It  is  a  strange  thing  ;  we  applaud  Socratic  Aris- 
tippus,  because,  being  sometimes  dad  in  a  poor  threadbare 
cloak,  sometimes  in  a  ^Milesian  robe,  he  kept  a  decency  in 
both  ;  but  they  censure  Alexander,  because  he  gave  som,e 
respect  to  the  garb  and  mode  of  those  whom  he  had  van- 
quished, as  Λνβΐΐ  as  to  that  of  his  native  country ;  not 
considering  that  he  was  laying  the  foundation  of  vast 
achievements.  It  was  not  his  design  to  ransack  Asia  like 
a  robber,  or  to  despoil  and  ruin  it,  as  the  prey  and  rapine 
of  unexpected  good  fortune,  as  afterwards  Hannibal  pil- 
laged Italy,  and  before  him  the  Treres  ravaged  Ionia  and 
the  Scythians  harassed  Media,  —  but  to  subdue  all  the 
kinodoms  of  the  earth  under  one  form  of  government,  and 
to  make  one  nation  of  all  mankind.  So  that  if  the  same 
Deity  which  hither  sent  the  soul  of  Alexander  had  not  too 
soon  recalled  it,  one  law  had  overlooked  all  the  world,  and 
one  form  of  justice  had  been  as  it  were  the  common  light 
of  one  universal  government ;  while  now  that  part  of  the 
earth  which  Alexander  never  saw  remains  without  a  sun. 

9.  Thus,  in  the  first  place,  the  very  scope  and  aim  of 
Alexander's  expedition  speaks  him  a  philosopher,  as  one 
that  sought  not  to  gain  for  himself  luxurious  splendor  or 
riches,  but  to  establish  concord,  peace,  and  mutual  commu- 
nity among  all  men. 

Next,  let  us  consider  his  sayings,  seeing  that  the  souls  of 
other  kings  and  potentates  betray  their  conditions  and  in- 
clinations by  their  expressions.  Antigonus  the  x'Vged,  hav- 
ing heard  a  certain  poet  sing  before  him  a  short  treatise 
concerning  justice,  said.  Thou  art  a  fool  to  mention  justice 
to  me,  when  thou  seest  me  thundering  down  the  cities  be- 
longing to  other  people  about  their  ears.  Dionysius  the 
Tyrant  was  wont  to  say  that  children  were  to  be  cheated 
with  dice,  but  men  with  oaths.  Upon  the  monument  of 
Sardanapalus  this  inscription  is  to  be  seen  :  — 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  485 

All  I  did  eat  and  drink,  and  all  that  lust 
To  me  vouchsafed,  I  have  ;  all  else  is  gone. 

What  now  can  a  man  say  of  these  apophthegms,  but 
that  the  first  denotes  injustice  and  immoderate  desire  of 
sovereignty  ;  the  next  impiety  ;  and  the  third  sensuality  ? 
But  as  for  the  sayings  of  Alexander,  set  aside  his  diadem, 
his  claimed  descent  from  Amnion,  and  the  nobility  of  his 
Macedonian  extraction,  and  you  would  believe  them  to 
have  been  the  sayings  of  Socrates,  Plato,  or  Pythagoras. 
For  we  omit  the  swelling  hyperboles  of  flattery  which 
poets  have  inscribed  under  his  images  and  statues,  study- 
ing rather  to  extol  the  power  of  Alexander  than  his  mod- 
eration and  temperance  ;  as,  for  example,  — 

The  statue  seems  to  look  to  Jove  and  say, 
Take  thou  Olympus  ;  me  let  Earth  obey  ! 

and  that  other,  — 

This  is  Alexander  the  son  of  Jove. 

But  these,  as  I  said,  were  only  the  flashes  of  poetic  adu- 
lation magnifying  his  good  success.  Let  us  therefore  come 
to  such  sentences  as  were  really  uttered  by  Alexander  him- 
self, beginning  first  with  the  early  blossoms  of  his  childhood. 

It  is  well  known  that  for  swiftness  in  running  he  ex- 
ceeded all  that  were  of  his  years  ;  for  Avhich  reason  some 
of  his  most  familiar  play-fellows  would  have  persuaded 
him  to  show  himself  at  the  Olympic  games.  He  asked 
them  whether  there  were  any  kings  to  contend  with  him. 
And  when  they  replied  that  there  were  none,  he  said,  The 
contest  then  is  unequal,  for  I  can  conquer  only  private  men, 
while  they  may  con(|uer  a  king. 

His  father.  King  Philip,  being  run  through  the  thigh  in 
a  battle  against  the  Triballi,  and,  though  he  escaped  the 
danger,  being  not  a  little  troubled  at  the  deformity  of  his 
limping;  Be  of  good  cheer,  father,  said  he,  and  show 
yourself  in  public,  that  you  may  be  reminded  of  your 
bravery  at  every  step. 


486  OF  THE  FORTUNE  OR  VIRTUE 

Are  not  these  the  products  of  a  mind  truly  philosophi- 
cal, which  by  an  inspired  inclination  to  what  is  noble 
already  contemns  the  disfigurings  of  the  body  ]  Nor  can 
Ave  otherwise  believe  but  that  he  himself  gloried  in  his  own 
wounds,  which  every  time  he  beheld  them  called  to  his 
remembrance  the  conquered  nation  and  the  victory,  what 
cities  he  had  taken,  what  kings  had  surrendered  them- 
selves ;  never  striving  to  conceal  or  cover  those  indelible 
characters  and  scars  of  honor,  which  he  always  carried 
about  him  as  the  engraven  testimonies  of  his  virtue  and 
fortitude. 

10.  Then  again,  if  any  dispute  arose  or  judgment  were 
to  be  given  upon  any  of  Homer's  verses,  either  in  the 
schools  or  at  meals,  this  that  follows  he  always  preferred 
above  the  rest,  — 

Both  a  good  king,  and  far  renowned  in  war  ;  * 

believing  that  the  praise  which  another  by  precedency  of 
time  had  anticipated  was  to  be  a  law  also  to  himself, 
and  saying  that  Homer  in  the  same  verse  had  extolled  the 
fortitude  of  Agamemnon  and  prophesied  of  Alexander's. 
Crossing  therefore  the  Hellespont,  he  viewed  the  city  of 
Troy,  revolving  in  his  mind  the  heroic  acts  of  antiquity. 
At  this  time  one  of  the  chief  citizens  proffering  to  him 
Paris's  harp,  if  he  pleased  to  accept  it ;  I  need  it  not,  said 
he,  for  I  have  that  with  which  Achilles  pleased  himself 
already, 

When  he  the  mighty  deeds  of  heroes  sung, 
Whose  fame  so  loudly  o'er  the  world  has  rung ;  t 

but  as  for  Paris,  his  soft  and  effeminate  harmony  Avas  de- 
voted only  to  the  pleasures  of  amorous  courtship.  Now  it 
is  part  of  a  true  philosopher's  soul  to  love  wisdom  and 
chiefly  to  admire  wise  men ;  and  this  was  Alexander's 
praise  beyond  all  other  princes.     His  high  esteem  for  his 

*  II.  III.  179.  t  II.  IX.  189. 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  487 

master  Aristotle  we  have  already  mentioned.  No  less  honor 
did  he  give  to  Anaxarchus  the  musician,  whom  he  favored 
as  ont  of  his  choicest  friends.  To  Pyrrhon  the  Elean,  the 
first  thne  he  saw  him,  he  gave  a  thousand  crowns  in  gold. 
To  Xenocrates,  the  companion  of  Plato,  he  sent  an  honor- 
ary present  of  fifty  talents.  Lastly,  it  is  recorded  by  sev- 
eral that  he  made  Onesicratus,  the  disciple  of  Diogenes  the 
Cynic,  chief  of  his  pilots.  But  when  he  came  to  discourse 
\ΛΊΐ1ι  Diogenes  himself  at  Corinth,  he  was  struck  in  such  a 
manner  Avith  wonder  and  astonishment  at  the  course  of 
life  and  sententious  learning  of  the  person,  that  frequently 
calling  him  to  mind  he  was  wont  to  say.  Were  I  not  Alex- 
ander, I  Λvould  be  Diogenes.  That  is,  I  would  have  de- 
voted myself  to  the  study  of  words,  had  I  not  been  a 
philosopher  in  deeds.  He  did  not  say.  Were  I  not  a  king, 
I  would  be  Diogenes  ;  nor,  Were  I  not  opulent,  an  Arge- 
ades.  For  he  did  not  prefer  fortune  before  wisdom,  nor 
the  purple  robe  or  regal  diadem  before  the  beggar's  wallet 
and  threadbare  mantle  ;  but  he  said.  Were  I  not  Alex- 
ander, I  would  be  Diogenes.     That  is,  — 

"  Had  I  not  designed  to  intermix  barbarians  and  Greeks 
and  to  civilize  the  earth  as  I  marched  forward,  and  had  I 
not  proposed  to  search  the  limits  of  sea  and  land,  and  so, 
extending  Macedon  to  the  land-bounding  ocean,  to  haA^e 
sown  Greece  in  every  region  all  along  and  to  have  diffused 
justice  and  peace  over  all  nations,  I  would  not  have  sat 
yawning  upon  the  throne  of  slothful  and  voluptuous  power, 
but  would  have  labored  to  imitate  the  fruofalitv  of  Dio- 
genes.  But  now  pardon  us,  Diogenes.  We  follow  the 
example  of  Hercules,  we  emulate  Perseus,  and  tread  in 
the  footsteps  of  Bacchus,  our  divine  ancestor  and  founder 
of  our  race  ;  once  more  we  purpose  to  settle  the  victorious 
( jreeks  in  India,  and  once  more  to  put  those  savage  moun- 
taineers beyond  Caucasus  in  mind  of  their  ancient  Bac- 
chanalian revels.     There,  by  report,  live  certain  people 


488  OF   THE  FORTUNE   OR    VIRTUE 

professing  a  rigid  and  austere  philosophy,  and  more  frugal 
than  Diogenes,  as  going  ahogetlier  naked ;  pious  men, 
governed  hy  their  own  constitutions  and  devoted  wholly  to 
God.  They  have  no  occasion  for  scrip  or  wallet,  for  tuey 
never  lay  up  provision,  having  always  fresh  and  new  gath- 
ered from  the  earth.  The  rivers  afford  them  drink,  and 
at  night  they  rest  upon  the  grass  and  the  leaves  that  fall 
from  the  trees.  By  our  means  shall  they  know  Diogenes, 
and  Diogenes  them.  But  it  behooves  us  also,  as  it  were, 
to  make  a  new  coin,  and  to  stamp  a  new  face  of  Grecian 
civility  upon  the  barbarian  metal." 

11.  Tell  me  now;  can  such  generous  acts  of  Alexander 
as  these  be  thought  to  speak  the  spontaneous  favors  of  For- 
tune, only  an  impetuous  torrent  of  success  and  strength  of 
hand  1  Do  they  not  rather  demonstrate  much  of  fortitude 
and  justice,  much  of  mildness  and  temperance,  in  one  who 
managed  all  things  Avith  decorum  and  consideration,  Avith  a 
sober  and  intelligent  judgment  ^  Not  that  I  (believe  me) 
go  about  to  distinguish  between  the  several  acts  of  Alex- 
ander, and  to  ascribe  this  to  fortitude,  that  to  humanity, 
another  to  temperance  ;  but  I  take  every  act  to  be  an  act 
of  all  the  virtues  mixed  together.  This  is  conformable  to 
that  Stoic  sentence,  ''  What  a  wise  man  does  he  does  by 
the  impulse  of  all  the  virtues  together  ;  only  one  particular 
virtue  seems  to  head  every  action,  and  calling  the  rest  to  her 
assistance  drives  on  to  the  end  proposed."  Therefore  we 
may  behold  in  xllexander  a  warlike  humanity,  a  meek  for- 
titude, a  liberality  poised  with  good  husbandry,  anger  easily 
appeased,  chaste  amours,  a  busy  relaxation  of  mind,  and 
labor  not  wanting  recreation.  Who  ever  like  him  mixed 
festivals  with  combats,  revels  and  jollity  with  expeditions, 
nuptials  and  bacchanals  Avith  sieges  and  difficult  attempts  ? 
To  those  that  offended  against  the  law  who  more  severe  ? 
To  the  unfortunate  who  more  pitiful  ?  To  those  that  made 
resistance  who  more  terrible?     To  suppliants  who  more 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  489 

merciful  ?  This  gives  me  an  occasion  to  insert  here  the 
saying  of  Porus.  For  he  being  brought  a  captive  before 
Alexander,  and  by  him  being  asked  how  he  ex[)ected  to  be 
treated,  E,oyally,  said  he,  Ο  Alexander.  And  being  further 
asked  whether  he  desired  no  more,  he  replied,  Nothing  ;  for 
all  things  are  comprehended  in  that  word  "  royally."  And 
for  my  part,  I  know  not  how  to  give  a  greater  applause  to 
the  actions  of  Alexander,  than  by  adding  the  word  "  philo- 
sophically," for  in  that  word  all  other  things  are  included. 
Being  ravished  with  the  beauty  of  Roxana,  the  daughter 
of  Oxyarthes,  dancing  among  the  captive  ladies,  he  never 
assailed  her  with,  injurious  lust,  but  married  her  philosophi- 
cally. Beholding  Darius  stuck  to  the  heart  with  several 
arrows,  he  did  not  presently  sacrifice  to  the  Gods  or  sing 
triumphal  songs  to  celebrate  the  end  of  so  long  a  war,  but 
unclasping  his  own  cloak  from  his  shoulders  he  threw  it 
over  the  dead  corpse  philosophically,  as  it  were  to  cover 
the  shame  of  royal  calamity.  Another  time,  as  he  was 
perusing  a  private  letter  sent  him  by  his  mother,  he  ob- 
served Hephaestion,  who  was  sitting  by  him,  to  read  it 
along  with  him,  little  understanding  what  he  did.  For 
which  unwary  act  Alexander  forbore  to  reprove  him  ;  only 
clapping  his  signet  to  his  mouth,  he  thus  kindly  admon- 
ished him  that  his  lips  were  then  sealed  up  to  silence  by 
the  friendly  confidence  which  he  reposed  in  him,  —  all 
this  philosophically.  And  indeed  if  these  were  not  acts 
done  philosophically,  where  shall  we  find  them? 

12.  Let  us  compare  with  his  some  few  acts  of  those  who 
are  by  all  allowed  to  be  philosophers.  Socrates  yielded  to 
the  lustful  embraces  of  Alcibiades.  xllexander,  when  Phi- 
loxenus,  governor  of  the  sea-coasts,  wrote  to  him  concern- 
ing an  Ionian  lad  that  had  not  his  equal  for  youthful 
beauty,  and  desired  to  know  whether  he  should  be  sent  to 
him  or  not,  returned  him  this  nipping  answer :  Vilest  of 
men,  when  wast  thou  ever  privy  to  any  desires  of  mine, 


490    OF  THE  FORTUNE  OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT. 

that  thou  shouldst  think  to  flatter  me  with  such  abhorred 
allurements  ?  AVe  admire  the  abstinency  of  Xenocrates 
for  refusing  the  gift  of  fifty  talents  which  Alexander  sent 
him  ;  but  do  we  take  no  notice  of  the  munificence  of  the 
giver  ?  Or  is  the  bountiful  person  not  to  be  thought  as 
much  a  contemner  of  money  as  he  that  refuses  it  ]  Xeno- 
crates needed  not  riches,  by  reason  of  his  philosophy ;  but 
Alexander  wanted  wealth,  by  reason  of  the  same  philoso- 
phy, that  he  might  be  more  liberal  to  such  persons.  .  .  . 
How  often  has  Alexander  borne  witness  to  this  in  the 
midst  of  a  thousand  dangers  ?  It  is  true,  we  believe  that 
it  is  in  the  power  of  all  men  to  judge  rightly  of  things  ; 
for  nature  guides  us  of  herself  to  virtue  and  bravery.  But 
herein  philosophers  excel  all  others,  that  they  have  by 
education  acquired  a  fixed  and  solid  judgment  to  encounter 
whatever  dangers  they  meet  with.  For  most  men  have  no 
such  maxims  to  defend  them  as  this  in  Homer,  — 

Without  a  sign  his  sword  the  brave  man  draws, 
And  needs  no  omen  but  his  country's  cause.* 

And  that  other  of  Demosthenes,  — 

Death  is  the  certain  end  of  all  mankind.t 

But  sudden  apparitions  of  imminent  danger  many  times 
break  our  resolutions  ;  and  the  fancy  troubled  with  the 
imagination  of  approaching  peril  chases  away  true  judg- 
ment from  her  seat.  For  fear  not  only  astonishes  the 
memory,  according  to  the  saying  of  Thucydides,  X  but  it  dis- 
sipates all  manner  of  consideration,  sense  of  honor,  and 
resolution ;  while  philosophy  binds  and  keeps  them  to- 
gether. .  .  . 

Note.  —  Tlie  text  is  defective  at  tlie  end,  and  elsewhere  in  the  last  chapter.  The 
sense  of  the  clau.se  just  preceding  the  quotation  from  Homer  is  cliiefly  conjectural. 
A  similar  deficiency  is  found  at  the  end  of  the  Second  Oration  on  Alexander, 
which  immediately  follows.     (G.) 

*  Ή.  ΧΠ.  243.  t  Demosthenes  on  the  Crown,  p.  258,  20. 

t  Thucyd.  II.  87. 


THE  SECOND  ORATION  OP  PLUTARCH  CONCERNING 
THE  FORTUNE  OR  VIRTUE  OF  ALEXANDER  THE 
GREAT. 


1.  We  forgot  in  our  yesterday's  discourse  to  tell  you,  that 
the  age  wherein  Alexander  iioarished  had  the  happiness 
to  abound  in  sciences  and  in  persons  of  transcending  natu- 
ral endowments.  Yet  this  is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  Alexan- 
der's but  their  own  good  fortune,  which  favored  them  with 
such  a  judge  and  such  a  spectator  of  their  particular  ex- 
cellencies as  was  both  able  rightly  to  discern  and  liberally 
to  reward  their  understood  deserts.  Therefore  it  is  recorded 
of  Archestratus,  born  some  ages  after,  an  elegant  poet  but 
buried  in  his  own  extreme  poverty,  that  a  certain  person 
meeting  him  said,  Hadst  thou  but  lived  when  Alexander 
lived,  for  every  verse  he  would  have  gratified  thee  with  an 
island  of  Cyprus  or  a  territory  fair  as  that  of  Phoenicia. 
AVhich  makes  me  of  opinion  that  those  former  famous 
artists  and  soaring  geniuses  may  not  so  properly  be  said  to 
have  lived  in  the  time  of  Alexander  as  by  Alexander.  For 
as  the  temperature  of  the  season  and  limpid  thinness  of  the 
surrounding  air  produce  plenty  of  grain  and  fruit ;  so  the 
favor,  the  encouragement,  and  benignity  of  a  prince  increase 
the  number  of  aspiring  geniuses,  and  advance  perfection  in 
sciences.  And  on  the  other  side,  by  the  envy,  covetousness, 
and  contentiousness  of  those  in  power,  whatever  soars  to 
the  height  of  true  bravery  or  invention  is  utterly  quelled 
and  extinguished.  Therefore  it  is  reported  of  Dionysius 
the  Tyrant  that,  being  pleased  with  the  music  of  a  certain 


492  OF   THE  FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

player  on  a  harp,  he  promised  him  a  talent  for  his  reward  ; 
but  when  the  musician  claimed  his  promise  the  next  day, 
Yesterday,  said  he,  by  thee  delighted,  while  thou  sangest 
before  me,  I  gave  thee  likewise  the  pleasure  of  thy  hopes ; 
and  thence  immediately  didst  thou  receive  the  reward  of 
thy  delightful  pastime,  enjoying  at  the  same  time  the  charm- 
ing expectation  of  my  promise.  In  like  manner  Alexander 
tyrant  of  the  Pheraeans  (for  it  behooves  us  to  distinguish 
him  by  that  addition,  lest  Ave  should  dishonor  his  namesake), 
sitting  to  see  a  tragedy,  was  so  affected  with  delight  at  the 
acting,  that  he  found  himself  moved  to  a  more  than  ordi- 
nary compassion.  Upon  which,  leaping  suddenly  from  his 
seat,  as  he  hastily  flung  out  of  the  theatre.  How  poor  and 
mean  it  would  look,  said  he,  if  I,  that  have  massacred  so 
many  of  my  own  citizens  and  subjects,  should  be  seen  here 
weeping  at  the  misfortunes  of  Hecuba  and  Polyxena  !  And 
it  was  an  even  lav  but  that  he  had  mischiefed  the  trae^edian 
for  having  mollified  his  cruel  and  merciless  disposition,  like 
iron  softened  by  fire.  Timotheus  also,  singing  to  Archelaus 
who  seemed  too  parsimonious  in  remuneration,  frequently 
upbraided  him  with  the  following  sarcasm :  — 

Base  earth-bred  silver  tliou  admirest. 

To  whom  Archelaus  not  uuAvittily  reparteed,  — 

But  tliou  dost  beg  it. 

Ateas,  king  of  the  Scythians,  having  taken  Ismenias  the 
musician  prisoner,  commanded  him  to  play  during  one  of 
his  royal  banquets.  And  when  all  the  rest  admired  and 
applauded  his  harmony,  Ateas  swore  that  the  neighing  of 
ahorse  was  more  delightful  to  his  ears.  So  great  a  stranger 
was  he  to  the  habitations  of  the  ISIuses ;  as  one  whose 
soul  lodged  always  in  his  stables,  fitter  however  to  hear 
asses  bray  than  horses  neigh.  Therefore,  among  such  kings, 
Avhat  progress  or  advancement  of  noble  sciences  or  esteem 
for  learning  can  be  expected  ?     And  surely  no  more  can  be 


.  OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  493 

expected  from  such  as  would  themselves  be  rivals,  who 
therefore  persecute  real  artists  with  all  the  hatred  and  envy 
imaginable.  In  the  number  of  these  was  Dionysius  before 
mentioned,  who  condemned  Philoxenus  the  poet  to  labor 
in  the  quarries,  because,  being  by  the  tyrant  commanded 
only  to  correct  a  tragedy  by  him  Avritten,  he  struck  out  every 
line  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Nay,  I  must  needs  say 
that  Philip,  who  became  a  student  not  till  his  latter  years, 
in  these  things  descended  beneath  himself.  For  it  being 
once  his  chance  to  enter  into  a  dispute  about  sounds  Avith  a 
musician  whom  he  thought  he  had  foiled  in  his  art,  the 
person  modestly  and  with  a  smile  replied,  May  never  so 
great  a  misfortune  befall  thee,  Ο  King,  as  to  understand 
these  things  better  than  I  do. 

2.  But  Alexander,  well  considering  of  what  persons  and 
things  it  became  him  to  be  the  hearer  and  spectator,  and 
with  whom  to  contend  and  exercise  his  strength,  made  it 
his  business  to  excel  all  others  in  the  art  of  war,  and  ac- 
cording to  Aeschylus,  to  be 

A  mighty  warrior,  terrible  to  his  foes. 

For  having  learned  this  art  from  his  ancestors,  the  Aea- 
cidae  and  Hercules,  he  gave  to  other  arts  their  due  honor 
and  esteem  without  the  least  emulation ;  embracing  and 
favoring  Avhat  was  in  them  noble  and  elegant,  but  never 
suffering  himself  to  be  carried  away  with  the  pleasure  of 
being  a  practitioner  in  any.  In  his  time  flourished  the  two 
tragedians,  Thessalus  and  Athenodorus,  who  contending 
for  the  prize,  the  Cyprian  kings  supplied  the  charges  of  the 
theatre,  and  the  judges  were  to  be  the  most  renowned 
captains  of  the  age.  But  at  length  Athenodorus  being  ad- 
judged the  victor ;  I  could  have  wished,  said  Alexander, 
rather  to  have  lost  a  part  of  my  kingdom  than  to  have  seen 
Thessalus  vanquished.  Yet  he  neither  interceded  with 
the  judges  nor  anywhere  disapproved  or  blamed  the  judg- 


494  OF  THE  FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

ment ;  believing  it  became  him  to  be  superior  to  all  others, 
only  to  submit  to  justice.  To  tlie  comedian  Lyco  of  Scar- 
phe,  who  had  inserted  into  one  of  his  scenes  certain  verses 
in  the  nature  of  a  begging  petition,  he  gave  ten  talents, 
laughing  heartily  at  the  conceit.  Aristonicus  was  in  the 
number  of  the  most  famous  musicians  of  those  times.  This 
man  being  slain  in  battle,  strenuously  fighting  to  assist  and 
save  his  friend,  Alexander  commanded  his  statue  to  be 
made  in  brass  and  set  up  in  the  temple  of  Pythian  Apollo, 
holding  his  harp  in  one  hand  and  his  spear  upright  in  tlie 
other,  not  only  in  memory  of  the  person,  but  in  honor  of 
music  itself,  as  exciting  to  fortitude  and  inspiring  those  Avho 
are  rightly  and  generously  bred  to  it  with  a  kind  of  super- 
natural courage  and  braverv. 

Even  Alexander  himself,  when  Antigenides  played  before 
him  in  the  Harmatian  mood,  was  so  transported  and  warmed 
for  battle  by  the  charms  of  lofty  airs,  that  leaping  from  his 
seat  all  in  his  clattering  armor  he  began  to  lay  about  him 
and  attack  those  who  stood  next  him,  thereby  verifying  to 
the  Spartans  what  was  commonly  sung  among  themselves, — 

Tlie  masculine  touclies  of  tlie  well-tuned  lyre 
Unsheathe  the  sword  and  warlike  rage  inspire.* 

Furthermore,  there  were  also  Apelles  the  painter  and 
Lysippus  the  statuary  both  living  under  the  reign  of  Alex- 
ander. The  first  of  which  painted  him  grasping  Jupiter's 
thunderbolt  in  his  hand,  so  artfully  and  in  such  lively  colors, 
that  it  Avas  said  of  the  two  Alexanders  that  Philip's  was 
invincible,  but  Apelles's  inimitable.  Lysippus,  when  he 
had  finished  the  first  statue  of  Alexander  looking  up  with 
his  face  to  the  sky  (as  Alexander  was  wont  to  look,  with 
his  neck  slightly  bent),  not  improperly  added  to  the  pedestal 
the  following  lines :  — 

The  statue  seems  to  look  to  Jove  and  say, 
Take  thou  Olympus ;  me  let  Earth  obey  1 

*  Alcman,  Frag.  27. 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  495 

For  which  Alexander  gave  to  Lysippus  the  sole  patent  for 
makmg  all  his  statues  ;  because  he  alone  expressed  in  brass 
the  vigor  of  his  mind,  and  in  his  lineaments  represented  the 
lustre  of  his  virtue  ;  Λvhile  others,  who  strove  to  imitate 
the  turning  of  his  neck  and  softness  and  brightness  of  his 
eyes,  failed  to  observe  the  manliness  and  lion-like  fierceness 
of  his  countenance. 

Among  the  great  artists  of  that  time  Λvas  Stasicrates,  who 
ncA^er  studied  elegance  nor  what  Avas  sweet  and  alluring  to 
the  eye,  but  only  bold  and  lofty  Avorkmanship  and  design, 
becoming  the  munificence  of  royal  bounty.  He  attended 
upon  Alexander,  and  found  fault  with  all  the  paintings, 
sculptures,  and  cast  figures  that  Avere  made  of  his  person, 
as  the  works  of  mean  and  slothful  artificers.  "  But  I,"  said 
he,  "  Will  undertake  to  fix  the  likeness  of  thy  body  on  mat- 
ter incorruptible,  such  as  has  eternal  foundations  and  a 
ponderosity  steadfast  and  immovable.  For  the  mountain 
Atlios  in  Thrace,  where  it  rises  largest  and  most  conspicu- 
ous, having  a  just  symmetry  of  breadth  and  height,  with 
members,  limbs,  and  distances  answerable  to  the  shape  of 
human  body,  may  be  so  wrought  and  formed  as  to  be,  not 
only  in  imagination  and  fancy  but  really,  the  effigy  and 
statue  of  Alexander ;  with  his  feet  reaching  to  the  seas, 
grasping  in  his  left  hand  a  fair  and  populous  city,  and  with 
his  right  pouring  forth  an  ever-flowing  river  into  the  ocean 
from  a  bowl,  as  a  perpetual  drink-ofi"ering.  But  as  for  gold, 
brass,  ivory,  wood,  stained  figures,  and  little  wax  images, 
toys  which  may  be  bought  or  stolen,  I  despise  them  all." 
Wlien  Alexander  heard  this  discourse,  he  admired  and 
praised  the  spirit  and  confidence  of  the  artist ;  "  But,"  said 
he,  "  let  Athos  alone  ;  for  it  is  sufiicient  that  it  is  the  mon- 
ument of  the  vanquished  folly  and  presuming  pride  of  one 
king  already.  Our  portraiture  the  snowy  Caucasus,  and 
towering  Emodon,  Tanais,  and  the  Caspian  Sea  shall  draw. 
They  shall  remain  eternal  monuments  of  our  renown." 


496  or  THE  FORTUNE  OR  VIRTUE 

3.  But  grant  that  so  vast  an  undertaking  should  have 
been  brought  to  perfection  ;  is  there  any  person  Hving,  do 
ye  think,  that  would  have  beheved  such  a  figure,  such  a 
form,  and  so  great  a  design,  to  be  the  spontaneous  and  ac- 
cidental production  of  fantastic  Nature]  Certainly,  not 
one.  What  may  we  think  of  the  statue  representing  him 
grasping  thunder,  and  that  other  with  his  spear  in  his 
hand]  Is  it  possible  that  a  Colossus  of  a  statue  should 
ever  be  made  by  Fortune  Avithout  the  help  of  art ;  nay, 
though  she  should  profusely  afford  all  the  materials  im- 
aginable of  gold,  brass,  ivory,  or  any  other  substance  what- 
ever? Much  more,  is  it  probable  that  so  great  a  personage, 
and  indeed  the  greatest  of  all  who  have  ever  lived,  should 
be  the  workmanship  of  Fortune  without  the  assistance  of 
virtue  ]  And  all  this,  perhaps,  because  she  has  made  him 
the  potent  master  of  arms,  horses,  money,  and  wealthy 
cities  ]  —  which  he  who  knows  not  how  to  use  shall  rather 
find  to  be  destructive  and  dangerous  than  aids  to  advance 
his  power  and  magnificence,  as  aifording  proofs  of  his 
weakness  and  pusillanimity.  Noble  therefore  was  the  say- 
ing of  Antisthenes,  that  we  ought  to  wish  an  enemy  all 
things  beneficial  to  mankind  except  fortitude  ;  for  so  these 
blessings  will  belong  not  to  their  possessors  but  to  the  con- 
queror. Therefore  it  was,  they  say,  that  J^ature  provided 
for  the  hart,  one  of  the  most  timorous  of  creatures,  such 
large  and  branchy  horns,  to  teach  us  that  strength  and 
weapons  nothing  avail  where  conduct  and  courage  are  want- 
ing. In  like  manner.  Fortune  frequently  bestowing  wealth 
and  empire  upon  princes  simple  and  faint-hearted,  who 
blemish  their  dignity  by  misgovernment,  honors  and  more 
firmly  establishes  virtue,  as  being  that  which  alone  makes 
a  man  most  truly  beautiful  and  majestic.  For  indeed,  ac- 
cording to  Epicharmus, 

'Tis  the  mind  only  sees,  the  mind 
That  hears  ;  the  rest  are  deaf  iind  blind. 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  497 

For  as  for  the  senses,  they  seem  only  to  have  their  proper 
opportunities  to  act. 

But  that  tiie  mind  alone  is  that  which  gives  both  as- 
sistance and  ornament,  the  mind  that  overcomes,  that 
excels,  and  acts  the  kingly  part,  while  those  other  blind, 
deaf,  and  inanimate  things  do  but  hinder,  depress,  and 
disgrace  the  possessors  void  of  virtue,  is  easily  made  mani- 
fest by  experience.  For  Semiramis,  but  a  Avoman,  set  forth 
great  navies,  raised  mighty  armies,  built  Babylon,  covered 
the  E,ed  Sea  with  her  fleets  and  subdued  the  Ethiopians  and 
Arabians.  On  the  other  side,  Sardanapalus  possessing  the 
same  power  and  dominion,  though  born  a  man,  spent  his 
time  at  home  combing  purple  wool,  lying  among  his  har- 
lots in  a  lascivious  posture  upon  his  back,  with  his  heels 
higher  than  his  head.  After  his  decease,  they  made  for 
him  a  statue  of  stone,  resembling  a  woman  dancing,  Avho 
seemed  to  snap  with  her  fingers  as  she  held  them  over  her 
head,  with  this  inscription,  — 

Eat,  drink,  indulge  thy  lust ;   all  other  things,  are  nothing. 

Whence  it  came  to  pass  that  Crates,  seeing  the  golden 
statue  of  Phryne  the  courtesan  standing  in  the  temple  of 
Delphi,  cried  out.  There  stands  a  trophy  of  the  Grecian 
luxury.  But  had  he  viewed  the  life  or  rather  burial  (for  I 
find  but  little  difference)  of  Sardanapalus,  would  he  have 
imagined  that  statue  to  have  been  a  trophy  of  Fortune's 
indulgences  ?  Shall  we  suffer  the  fortune  of  Alexander  to 
be  sullied  by  the  touch  of  Sardanapalus,  or  endure  that 
the  latter  should  challenge  the  majesty  and  prowess  of  the 
former]  For  what  did  Sardanapalus  enjoy  through  her 
favor,  more  than  other  princes  receive  at  her  hands  —  arms, 
horses,  weapons,  money,  and  guards  of  the  body?  Let 
Fortune,  with  all  these  assistances,  make  Aridaeus  famous, 
if  she  can  ;  let  her,  if  she  can,  advance  the  renown  of 
Ochus,  Amasis,  Oarses,  Tigranes  the  Armenian,  or  Nico- 

voL.  I.  32 


49H  OF   THE   FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

medes  the  Bithynian.  Of  which  last  two,  the  one,  casting 
his  diadem  at  Pompey's  feet,  ignominiously  surrendered  up 
his  kingdom  a  prey  to  the  victor  ;  and  as  for  Nicomedes, 
he,  after  he  had  shaved  his  head  and  put  on  the  cap  of 
liberty,  acknowledged  himself  no  more  than  a  freed  vassal 
of  the  Roman  people. 

4.  Rather  let  us  therefore  affirm  that  Fortune  makes  her 
favorites  little,  poor-spirited,  and  pusillanimous  cowards. 
But  it  is  not  just  to  ascribe  vice  to  misfortune,  fortitude  and 
wisdom  to  prosperity.  Fortune  indeed  was  herself  made 
great  by  Alexander's  reign  ;  for  in  him  she  appeared  illus- 
trious, invincible,  magnanimous,  merciful,  and  just.  Inso- 
much that  after  his  decease  Leosthenes  likened  this  vast 
bulk  of  power  —  wandering  as  in  a  mist,  and  sometimes 
violently  rushing  one  part  against  the  other  —  to  the  giant 
Cyclops,  who  after  he  had  lost  his  eye  went  feeling  and 
groping  about  Avith  his  hands  before  him,  not  knowing 
where  to  lay  them.  So  strangely  did  that  vast  pile  of 
dominion  roll  and  tumble  about  in  the  dark  of  confusion, 
when  shattered  into  anarchy  by  the  loss  of  its  supreme 
head.  Or  rather,  as  dead  bodies,  when  the  soul  takes  her 
flight,  no  longer  grow  together,  no  longer  act  together,  but 
are  broken  up  and  dissolved,  and  are  finally  dissipated  ; 
thus  Alexander's  empire,  wanting  his  enlivening  conduct, 
panted,  gasped,  and  boiled  with  fever,  struggling  with  Per- 
diccas,  Meleager,  Seleucus,  and  Antigonus,  —  as  with  vital' 
spirits  still  remaining  hot,  and  with  irregular  and  intermit- 
tent pulses,  —  till  at  length,  totally  corrupted  and  putrefied, 
it  produced  a  sort  of  degenerate  kings  and  faint-hearted 
princes,  like  so  many  worms.  This  he  himself  seemed  to 
prophesy,  reproving  Hephaestion  for  quarrelling  with  Cra- 
terus  :  What  power,  said  he,  or  signal  achievement  couldst 
thou  pretend  to,  should  any  one  deprive  thee  of  thy 
Alexander  ?  The  same  will  I  be  bold  to  say  to  the  For- 
tune of  that  time  :    Where  would  have  been  thy  grandeur, 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  499 

Avhere  thy  glory,  where  thy  vast  emph'e,  thy  invincibihty, 
should  any  one  have  bereaved  thee  of  thy  Alexander  1  — 
that  is,  should  any  one  have  deprived  thee  of  thy  skill  and 
dexterity  in  war,  thy  magnificence  in  expense,  thy  modera- 
tion in  the  midst  of  so  much  affluence,  thy  prowess  in  the 
field,  thy  meekness  to  the  vanquished'?  Frame,  if  thou 
canst,  another  piece  like  him,  that  missing  all  his  noble 
qualities  shall  neither  be  magnificently  liberal  nor  foremost 
in  battle,  that  shall  not  regard  nor  esteem  his  friends,  that 
shall  not  be  compassionate  to  his  captives,  that  shall  not 
moderate  his  pleasures,  that  shall  not  be  watchful  to  take 
all  opportunities,  whom  victory  shall  make  inexorable  and 
prosperity  insolent  ;  and  try  if  thou  canst  make  him 
another  Alexander.  What  ruler  ever  obtained  renown  by 
folly  and  improbity  1  Separate  virtue  from  the  fortunate, 
and  he  everywhere  appears  little  ;  —  among  those  that 
deserve  his  bounty,  for  his  close-handed  illiberality  ;  among 
the  laborious,  for  his  eff"eminacy ;  among  the  Gods,  for  his 
superstition ;  among  the  good,  for  his  envious  conditions ; 
among  men,  for  his  cowardice  ;  among  women,  for  his 
inordinate  lust.  For  as  unskilful  workmen,  erecting  small 
figures  upon  huge  pedestals,  betray  the  slightness  of  their 
own  understandings  ;  so  Fortune,  Avhen  she  brings  a  person 
of  a  poor  and  narrow  soul  upon  the  stage  of  weighty  and 
glorious  actions,  does  but  expose  and  disgrace  him,  as  a 
person  whom  the  vanity  of  his  own  ill  conduct  has  ren- 
dered worthless. 

5.  So  that  true  grandeur' does  not  consist  in  the  posses- 
sion but  in  the  use  of  noble  means.  For  new-born  infants 
frequently  inherit  their  father's  kingdoms  and  empires. 
Such  an  one  was  Charillus,  whom  Lycurgus  carried  in  his 
swaddling-bands  to  the  public  table,  and  resigning  his  own 
authority  proclaimed  king  of  Lacedaemon.  Yet  was  not 
the  infant  thereby  tlic  more  famous,  but  he  who  surren- 
dered to  the  infant  his  paternal  right,  scorning  fraud  and 


500  OF  THE  FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

usurpation.  But  who  could  make  Aridaeus  great,  whom 
Meleager  seated  in  Alexander's  throne,  differing  from  a 
child  only  in  having  his  sAvaddling-clothes  of  purple  ] 
Prudently  done,  that  so  in  a  few  days  it  might  appear  how 
men  govern  by  virtue,  and  how  by  fortune.  For  after  the 
true  prince  who  swayed  the  empire,  he  brought  in  a  mere 
player  ;  or  rather  he  exposed  the  diadem  of  the  habitable 
world  upon  the  brainless  head  of  a  mere  mute  on  the 
stage. 

Women  may  bear  the  burden  of  a  crown, 
Wlien  a  renowned  commander  puts  it  on* 

Yet  some  may  say,  it  is  possible  for  women  and  chil- 
dren to  confer  dignity,  riches,  and  empire  upon  others. 
Thus  the  eunuch  Bagoas  took  the  diadem  of  Persia,  and 
set  it  upon  the  head  of  Oarses  and  Darius.  But  for  a  man 
to  take  upon  him  the  burden  of  a  vast  dominion,  and  so  to 
manage  his  ponderous  affairs  as  not  to  suffer  himself  to 
sink  and  be  overwhelmed  under  the  immense  weight  of 
wakeful  cares  and  incessant  labor,  that  is  the  character 
which  signalizes  a  person  endued  with  virtue,  understanding, 
and  wisdom.  All  these  royal  qualities  Alexander  had, 
Avhom  some  accuse  of  being  given  to  wine.  But  he  Avas  a 
really  great  man,  who  was  always  sober  in  action  and 
never  drunk  Avith  the  pride  of  his  conquests  and  vast 
poAver  ;  while  others  intoxicated  with  the  smallest  part  of 
his  prosperity  have  ceased  to  be  masters  of  themselves. 
For,  as  the  poet  sings,  — 

The  Λ-ainer  sort,  that  view  their  heaps  of  gold, 
Or  else  advanced  at  court  high  places  hold, 
Grow  wanton  with  tliose  unexpected  showers 
That  Fortune  on  their  happy  greatness  pours. t 

Thus  Clitus,  having  sunk'  some  three  or  four  of  the 
Grecians  galleys  near  the  island  Amorgus,  called  himself 
Neptune  and  carried  a  trident.      So  Demetrius,  to  Avhom 

*  Aristophanes,  Knights,  1056.  t  From  the  Erechtheus  of  Euripides. 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  501 

Fortune  vouchsafed  a  small  portion  of  Alexander's  power, 
assumed  the  title  of  Kataibates  (as  if  descended  from 
heaven),  to  whom  the  several  cities  sent  their  ambassadors, 
by  the  name  of  God-consulters,  and  his  determinations 
were  called  oracles.  Lysimachus,  having  made  himself 
master  of  some  part  of  the  skirts  of  Alexander's  empire, 
viz.,  the  region  about  Thrace,  swelled  to  such  excess  of 
pride  and  vain-glory  as  to  break  forth  into  this  ranting  ex- 
pression :  Now  the  Byzantines  make  their  addresses  to  me, 
because  I  touch  heaven  with  my  spear.  At  which  Avords, 
Pasiades  of  Byzantium  being  then  present  said,  Let  us  be 
gone,  lest  he  pierce  heaven  with  the  point  of  his  lance. 

What  shall  we,  in  the  next  place,  think  of  those  who  pre- 
sumed, as  imitators  of  Alexander,  to  have  high  thoughts 
of  themselves  '?  Clearchus,  having  made  himself  tyrant  of 
Heraclea,  carried  a  sceptre  like  that  of  Jupiter's  in  his 
hand,  and  named  one  of  his  sons  Thunderbolt.  Dionysius 
the  Younger  called  himself  the  son  of  Apollo  in  this  in- 
scription :  — 

The  son  of  Doris,  but  from  Phoebus  sprung. 

His  father  put  to  death  above  ten  thousand  of  his  sub- 
jects, betrayed  his  brother  out  of  envy  to  his  enemies,  and 
not  enduring  to  expect  the  natural  death  of  his  mother,  at 
that  time  very  aged,  caused  her  to  be  strangled,. writing  in 
one  of  his  tragedies,  — 

For  tyranny  is  the  mother  of  injustice. 

Yet  after  all  this,  he  named  one  of  his  daughters  \^n"tue, 
another  Temperance,  and  a  third  Justice.  Others  there 
were  that  assumed  the  titles  of  benefactors,  others  of  glo- 
rious conquerors,  others  of  preservers,  and  others  usurped 
the  title  of  great  and  magnificent.  But  should  we  go 
about  to  recount  their  promiscuous  marriages  like  horses, 
their  continual  herding  among  impudent  and  lawless 
women,    thek   contaminations    of  boys,    their    drumming 


502  OF  THE  FORTUNE   OR  VIRTUE 

among•  efFeminate  eunuchs,  tlieir  perpetual  gaming,  their 
piping  in  theatres,  their  nocturnal  revels,  and  days  con- 
sumed in  riot,  it  would  be  a  task  too  tedious  to  undertake. 
6.  As  for  Alexander,  he  breakfasted  by  break  of  day, 
always  sitting  ;  and  supped  at  the  shutting  in  of  the  even- 
iuCT  ;  he  drank  when  he  had  sacrificed  to  the  Gods.  AVith 
his  friend  Medius  he  played  for  diversion  when  he  was  sick 
with  a  fever,  lie  also  phiyed  upon  the  road  as  he  marched, 
learning  between  Λν1ι11ο&  to  throw  a  dart  and  leap  from  his 
chariot.  He  married  Roxana  merely  for  love  ;  but  Statira, 
the  daughter  of  Darius,  upon  the  account  of  state- 
poHcy,  for  such  a  conjunction  of  both  nations  strengthened 
his  conquest.  As  to  the  other  Persian  women,  he  excelled 
them  in  chastity  and  continence  as  far  as  he  surpassed  the 
men  in  valor.  He  never  desired  the  sight  of  any  virgin 
that  was  unwilling ;  and  those  he  saw,  he  regarded  less 
than  if  he  had  not  seen  them ;  mild  and  affable  to  all 
others,  proud  and  lofty  only  to  fair  youth.  As  for  the  wife 
of  Darius,  a  woman  most  beautiful,  he  never  would  endure 
to  hear  a  word  spoken  in  commendation  of  her  features. 
When  she  was  dead,  he  graced  her  funeral  with  such  a 
regal  pomp,  and  bewailed  her  death  so  piteously,  that  his 
kindness  cast  discredit  upon  his  chastity,  and  his  very 
courtesy  incurred  the  obloquy  of  injustice.  Indeed,  Darius 
himself  had  been  moved  w^itli  suspicion  at  first,  when  he 
thought  of  the  power  and  the  youth  of  the  conqueror ;  for 
lie  was  one  of  those  who  thought  Alexander  to  be  only  the 
darling  of  Fortune.  But  when  he  understood  the  truth, 
"  Well,"  said  he,  "•  I  do  not  yet  perceive  the  condition  of 
the  Persians  so  deplorable,  since  the  world  can  never  tax 
us  now  with  imbecility  or  effeminacy,  Avhose  fate  it  was  to 
be  vanquished  by  such  a  person.  Therefore  my  prayers 
shall  be  to  the  Gods  for  his  prosperity,  and  that  he  may  be 
still  victorious  in  war ;  to  the  end  that  in  well-doing  I  may 
surpass  Alexander.     For  my  emulation  and  ambition  lead 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  503 

mo  in  point  of  honor  to  show  myself  more  cordial  and 
friendly  than  he.  If  then  the  Fates  have  otherwise  deter- 
mined as  to  me  and  mine,  Ο  Jupiter  preserver  of  the 
Persians,  and  you.  Ο  Deities,  to  whom  the  care  of  kings 
belongs,  hear  your  suppliant,  and  suffer  none  but  Alex- 
ander to  sit  upon  the  throne  of  Cyrus."  This  was  the  man- 
ner in  which  Darius  adopted  Alexander,  after  he  had  called 
the  Gods  to  Avitness  the  act. 

1.  So  true  it  is  that  virtue  is  the  Adctor  still.  But  now, 
if  5  on  please,  let  us  ascribe  to  Fortune  Arbela  and  Cilicia, 
and  those  other  acts  of  main  force  and  violence ;  say  that 
Fortune  thundered  doAvn  the  walls  of  Tyre,  and  that  For- 
tune opened  the  Avay  into  Egypt.  Believe  that  by  Fortune 
Halicarnassus  fell,  Miletus  was  taken,  Mazaeus  left  Eu- 
phrates unguarded,  and  the  Babylonian  fields  were  strew^ed 
with  the  carcasses  of  the  slain.  Yet  was  not  his  prudence 
the  gift  of  Fortune,  nor  his  temperance.  Neither  did  For 
tune,  as  it  Avere  empaling  his  inclinations,  preserve  him  im- 
pregnable against  his  pleasures  or  invulnerable  against  the 
assaults  of  his  fervent  desires.  These  Λvere  the  Λveapons 
witli  which  he  overthrew  Darius.  Fortune's  advantages, 
if  so  they  may  be  called,  were  only  the  fury  of  armed  men 
and  horses,  battles,  slaughters,  and  flights  of  routed  adver- 
saries. But  the  great  and  most  undoubted  Λ'ictory  which 
Darius  lost  was  this,  that  he  was  forced  to  yield  to  virtue, 
magnanimity,  prowess,  and  justice,  while  he  beheld  with 
admiration  his  conqueror,  who  was  not  to  be  overcome  by 
pleasure  or  by  labor,  nor  to  be  matched  in  liberality. 

True  it  is,  that  among  the  throngs  of  shields  and  spears, 
in  the  midst  of  war-like  shouts  and  the  clashing  of  weapons, 
Tarrias  tlie  son  of  Dinomenes,  Antigenes  the  Pellenian, 
and  Philotas  the  son  of  Parmenio  were  invincible ;  but  in 
respect  of  their  inordinate  debauchery,  their  love  of  women, 
their  insatiable  covetousness,  they  were  nothing  superior 
to   tlie  meanest  of  their  captives.     For  the  last  of  these 


504  OF  THE   FORTUNE  OR  VIRTUE 

vices  Tarrias  was  particularly  noted  ;  and  when  xVlexander 
set  the  Macedonians  out  of  debt  and  paid  off  all  their 
creditors,  Tarrias  pretended  among  the  rest  to  owe  a  great 
sum  of  money,  and  brought  a  suborned  person  to  demand 
the  sum  as  due  to  him ;  but  being  discovered,  he  would 
have  laid  violent  hands  upon  himself,  had  not  Alexander 
forgiven  him  and  ordered  him  the  money,  remembering  that 
at  the  battle  of  Perinthus  fought  by  Philip,  being  shot  into 
the  eye  with  a  dart,  he  would  not  suffer  the  head  of  it  to 
be  pulled  out  till  the  field  was  clear  of  the  enemy.  An- 
tigenes,  when  the  sick  and  maimed  soldiers  were  to  be  sent 
back  into  Macedon,  made  suit  to  be  registered  down  in  the 
number,  pretending  himself  utterly  disabled  in  the  wars ; 
which  very  much  troubled  Alexander,  who  was  well  ac- 
quainted with  his  valor  and  knew  that  he  wore  the  scars 
about  him  of  many  a  bloody  field.  But  the  fraud  being 
detected,  that  was  concealed  under  some  little  present  in- 
firmity, Alexander  asked  him  the  reason  of  his  design  ;  and 
he  answered,  he  did  it  for  the  love  of  Telesippe,  that  he 
might  accompany  her  to  the  sea,  not  being  able  to  endure 
a  separation  from  her.  Presently  the  King  demanded  to 
whom  the  wench  belonged,  and  who  was  to  be  dealt  Λvith 
in  regard  to  her.  To  which  he  replied,  she  was  free  from 
any  tie.  Well,  then,  said  the  King,  let  us  persuade  her  to 
stay,  if  promises  or  gifts  will  prevail.  So  ready  was  he 
to  pardon  the  dotages  of  love  in  others,  so  rigorous  to  him- 
self. But  Philotas  the  son  of  Parmenio  exercised  his  in- 
continency  after  a  more  offensive  manner.  Antigona  was 
a  Pellaean  virgin  among  the  captives  taken  about  Damas- 
cus, a  prisoner  before  to  Autophradates,  who  took  her 
going  by.  sea  into  Samothrace.  The  beauty  of  this  damsel 
was  such  as  kept  Philotas  constant  to  her  embraces.  Nay, 
she  had  so  softened  and  mellowed  this  man  of  steel,  I  know 
not  how,  that  he  was  not  master  of  himself  in  his  enjoy- 
ments, but  told  her  the  very  secrets  of  his  breast;  among 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  505 

Other  things  he  said :  \Vhat  had  Philip  been,  but  for  Par- 
menio  ?  And  what  would  Alexander  now  be,  but  for  Philo- 
tas  ?  What  would  become  of  Amnion  and  the  dragons, 
should  Ave  be  once  provoked  ?  These  \vords  Antigona  prat- 
tled to  one  of  her  companions,  and  she  told  them  to  Cra- 
terus.  Craterus  brings  Antigona  privately  to  Alexander,  who 
forbore  to  offer  her  the  least  incivility,  but  by  her  means 
piercing  into  Philotas's  breast,  he  detected  the  whole.  Yet 
for  seven  years  after  he  never  discovered  so  much  as  the 
least  sign  of  jealousy,  either  in  his  wine  or  in  his  anger ; 
nor  did  he  ever  disclose  it  to  any  friend,  even  to  Hephaes- 
tion,  from  Avhom  he  never  concealed  the  most  inward  of 
his  counsels  and  designs.  For  it  is  said  that  once,  when 
Alexander  had  just  opened  a  private  letter  from  his  mother 
and  was  quietly  reading  it,  Hephaestion  looked  over  his 
shoulder  and  began  to  read  it  likewise ;  but  Alexander 
forbore  to  reprove  him,  and  only  took  off  his  signet  and 
clapped  it  to  Hephaestion's  mouth. 

8.  These  recitals  may  suffice,  without  being  tedious,  to 
show  that  he  exercised  his  authority  according  to  all  the 
most  illustrious  and  royal  methods  of  government,  'i'o 
which  grandeur  if  he  arrived  by  the  assistance  of  Fortune, 
he  is  to  be  acknowledged  the  greater,  because  he  made  so 
glorious  a  use  of  her.  So  that  the  more  any  man  extols 
his  fortune,  the  more  he  advances  his  vhtue,  which  made 
him  worthy  of  such  fortune. 

But  now  I  shall  return  to  the  beginnings  of  his  advance- 
ment and  the  early  dawnings  of  his  power,  and  endeavor 
to  discover  Avhat  was  there  the  great  work  of  Fortune,  Avhich 
rendered  Alexander  so  great  by  her  assistance.  First  then, 
how  came  it  to  pass  that  some  neighing  barb  did  not  seat 
him  in  the  throne  of  Cyrus,  free  from  wounds,  without  loss 
of  blood,  without  a  toilsome  expedition,  as  formerly  it 
happened  to  Darius  Hystaspes  1  Or  that  some  one  flattered 
by  a  woman,  as  Darius  by  Atossa,  did  not  deliver  up  his 


506  OF   THE   FORTUNE   Oli   VIRTUE 

diadem  to  him,  as  the  other  did  to  Xerxes,  so  that  the  em- 
pire of  Persia  came  home  to  him,  even  to  his  own  doors '? 
Or  Avhy  did  not  some  eunuch  aid  him,  as  Bagoas  did  the 
son  of  Parysatis,  who,  only  throwing  off  the  habit  of  a 
messenger,  immediately  put  on  the  royal  turban  1  Or  why 
was  he  not  elected  on  a  sudden  and  unexpectedly  by  lot  to 
the  empire  of  the  world,  as  at  Athens  the  lawgivers  and 
rulers  are  wont  to  be  chosen  ?  Would  you  know  how  men 
come  to  be  kings  by  Fortune's  help  ?  At  Argos  the  whole 
race  of  the  Ileraclidae  happened  to  be  extinct,  to  whom 
the  sceptre  of  that  kingdom  belonged.  Upon  which  con- 
sulting the  oracle,  answer  was  made  to  them  that  an  eagle 
should  direct  them.  AVithin  a  iew  days  the  eagle  appeared 
towering  aloft,  but  stooping  he  at  length  lighted  upon 
Aegon's  house  ;  thereupon  Aegon  Λva.s  chosen  king.  An- 
other time  in  Paphos,  the  king  that  there  reigned  being 
an  unjust  and  wicked  tyrant,  Alexander  resolved  to  de- 
throne him,  and  therefore  sought  out  for  another,  the  race 
of  the  Kinyradae  seeming  to  be  at  an  end.  They  told  him 
there  was  one  yet  in  being,  a  poor  man  and  of  no  account, 
who  lived  miserable  in  a  certain  garden.  Thereupon  mes- 
sengers were  sent,  who  found  the  poor  man  watering  some 
few  small  beds  of  pot-herbs.  The  miserable  creature  was 
strangely  surprised  to  see  so  many  soldiers  about  him,  but 
go  he  must ;  and  so  being  brought  before  Alexander  in  his 
rags  and  tatters,  he  caused  him  presently  to  be  proclaimed 
king  and  clad  in  purple ;  which  done,  he  was  admitted 
into  the  number  of  those  who  were  called  the  king's  com- 
panions. The  name  of  this  person  was  Alynomus.  Thus 
Fortune  creates  kings  suddenly,  easily  changing  the  habits 
and  altering  the  names  of  those  that  never  expected  or 
hoped  for  any  such  thing. 

9.  All  this  Λνΐιϋο,  what  favors  did  Fortune  shower  upon 
Alexander  but  what  he  merited,  what  he  sweat  for,  what 
he  bled  for  ^.    AVhat  came  gratis  ?    What  without  the  price 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  507 

of  great  achievements  and  illustrious  actions  ?  He  quenched 
his  thirst  in  rivers  mixed  with  blood ;  he  marched  over 
bridges  of  slain  carcasses  ;  he  grazed  the  fields  to  satisfy 
his  present  hunger ;  he  dug  his  way  to  nations  covered 
Avith  snow  and  cities  lying  under  ground  ;  he  made  the 
hostile  sea  submit  to  his  fleets  ;  and,  marching  over  the 
thirsty  and  barren  sands  of  the  Gedrosians  and  Aracho- 
sians,  he  discovered  green  at  sea  before  he  saw  it  at  land. 
So  that  if  I  might  use  the  same  liberty  of  speech  for  Alex- 
ander to  Fortune  as  to  a  man,  I  would  thus  expostulate 
with  her :  — 

'•  Insulting  Fortune,  when  and  where  didst  thou  make 
an  easy  way  for  Alexander's  vast  performances'?  What 
impregnable  rock  was  ever  surrendered  to  him  without  a 
bloody  assault,  by  thy  favor?  AVhat  city  didst  thou  ever 
deliver  unguarded  into  his  hands  ?  Or  what  unarmed  bat- 
talion of  men  ?  What  faint-hearted  prince,  Avhat  negligent 
captain,  or  sleepy  sentinels  did  he  ever  surprise  ?  When 
didst  thou  ever  befriend  him  with  so  much  as  a  fordable 
river,  a  mild  winter,  or  an  easy  summer?  Get  thee  to 
Antiochus  the  son  of  Seleucus,  to  Artaxerxes  the  brother 
of  Cyrus.  Get  thee  to  Ptolemy  Philadelphus.  Their  fathers 
proclaimed  them  kings  in  their  own  lifetime  ;  they  won 
battles  which  no  mothers  wept  for ;  they  spent  their  days 
in  festivals,  admiring  the  pomp  of  shows  and  theatres  ;  and 
still  more  happy,  they  prolonged  their  reigns  till  scarce 
their  feeble  hands  could  wield  their  sceptres.  But  if  noth- 
ing else,  behold  the  body  of  Alexander  wounded  by  the 
enemy,  mangled,  battered,  bruised,  from  the  crown  of  his 
head  to  the  soles  of  his  feet. 

With  spears,  and  swords,  and  mighty  stones.* 

At  the  battle  of  the  Granicus  his  helmet  was  cleft  to  his 
very  scull ;  at  Gaza  he  was  wounded  in  the  shoulder  with 

*  II.  XI.  265. 


508  OF   THE  FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

a  dart.  Among  the  Maragandi  he  was  shot  in  the  shin  so 
desperately,  that  the  bone  of  his  shank  was  broken  and 
started  out  of  the  skin.  In  Hyrcania  he  Λvas  struck  in  the 
neck  with  a  stone,  Avhich  caused  such  a  dimness  in  his  eyes 
that  for  many  days  he  was  in  danger  of  losing  his  sight. 
Among  the  Assaracans  he  was  wounded  in  the  heel  Λvith 
an  Indian  dart ;  at  which  time  he  thus  derided  his  flatterers 
with  a  smiling  countenance,  saying.  This  is  blood,  and  no 
immortal  ichor,  — 

Such  stream  as  issues  from  a  wounded  God.* 

At  Issus  he  was  run  through  the  thigh  with  a  sword  by 
Darius  (as  Chares  relates),  who  encountered  him  hand  to 
hand.  Alexander  also  himself,  Avriting  the  truth  with  all 
sincerity  to  Antipater,  said,  It  Λvas  my  fortune  to  be 
wounded  with  a  poniard  in  the  thigh,  but  no  ill  symptoms 
attended  it  eitlier  Λvhen  it  was  newly  done  or  afterwards 
during  the  cure.  Another  time,  among  the  Malli  he  was 
w^ounded  with  an  arrow  two  cubits  in  length,  that  went  in 
at  his  breast  and  came  out  at  his  neck,  as  Aristobulus  re- 
lates. Crossing  the  Tanais  against  the  Scythians  and 
winning  the  field,  he  pursued  the  flying  enemy  a  hundred 
and  fifty  furlongs,  though  at  the  same  time  laboring  Avitli  a 
dysentery. 

10.  "Well  contrived,  vain  Fortune!  to  advance  and 
aggrandize  Alexander  by  lancing,  broaching,  boring  every 
part  of  his  body.  Not  like  Minerva,  —  who,  to  save 
Menelaus,  directed  the  dart  against  the  most  impenetrable 
parts  of  his  armor,  blunting  the  force  of  the  weapon  with 
his  breastplate,  belt,  and  scarf,  so  that  it  only  glanced  upon 
his  skin,  and  drew  forth  two  or  three  drops  of  blood,  — 
but  contrariwise,  thou  hast  exposed  his  principal  parts 
naked  to  mischief,  driving  the  Avounds  through  the  very 
bones,  rounding  every  corner  of  his  body,  besieging  the 

*  D.  V.  340. 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  509 

eyes,  undermining  the  pursuing  feet,  stopping  the  torrent  of 
victory,  and  disappointing  the  prosecution  of  noble  designs. 
For  my  part,  I  know  no  prince  to  Avhom  Fortune  ever  was 
more  unkind,  though  she  has  been  envious  and  severe 
enough  to  several.  However,  other  princes  she  destroyed 
with  a  swift  and  rapid  destruction,  as  with  a  whirlwind  ; 
but  in  her  hatred  against  Alexander  she  prolonged  her 
malice,  and  persisted  still  implacable  and  inexorable,  as 
she  showed  herself  to  Hercules.  For  what  Typhous  and 
monstrous  giants  did  she  not  oppose  against  him  1  AVhich 
of  Jiis  enemies  did  she  not  fortify  with  store  of  arms,  deep 
rivers,  steep  mountains,  and  the  foreign  strength  of  massy 
elephants '?  Now  had  not  Alexander  been  a  personage  of 
transcending  wisdom,  actuated  by  the  impulse  of  a  more 
than  ordinary  virtue,  but  had  he  been  supported  only  by 
Fortune,  he  would  have  trusted  to  her  as  her  fovorite,  and 
spared  himself  the  labor  and  the  turmoil  of  ranging  so 
many  armies  and  fighting  so  many  battles,  the  toil  of  so 
many  sieges  and  pursuits,  the  vexations  of  revolting  na- 
tions and  haughty  princes  not  enduring  the  curb  of  for- 
eign dominion,  and  all  his  tedious  marches  into  Bactria, 
Maracanda,  and  Sogdiana,  among  faithless  and  rebellious 
nations,  who  were  ever  breaking  out  afresh  with  new  Λvars, 
like  the  Hydra  putting  forth  a  new  head  so  soon  as  one 
Avas  cut  off." 

1 1 .  And  here  I  may  seem  to  utter  an  absurdity,  but  I  will 
venture  to  speak  it,  as  being  an  undoubted  truth  ;  that  it 
was  by  Fortune  that  he  came  very  near  losing  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  the  son  of  Jupiter  Ammon.  For  who  but 
one  sprung  from  the  Gods,  Hercules  excepted,  would  ever 
have  undertaken  and  finished  those  hazardous  and  toil- 
some labors  which  he  did?  Yet  what  did  Hercules  do 
but  terrify  lions,  pursue  wild  boars,  and  scare  birds  ;  en- 
joined thereto  by  one  evil  man,  that  he  might  not  have 
leisure  for  those  greater  actions  of  punishing  Antaeus  and 


510  OF   THE   FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

putting  an  end  to  the  murders  of  Busiris.  But  it  was  vir- 
tue that  enjoined  Alexander  to  undertake  that  godlike 
labor,  not  covetousness  of  the  golden  burden  of  ten  thou- 
sand camels,  not  the  possession  of  the  Median  women  or 
glorious  ornaments  of  Persian  luxury,  not  greediness  'of 
the  Chalybonian  wine  or  tlie  fish  of  Hyrcania,  but  that 
he  might  reduce  all  mankind  as  it  were  into  one  family, 
imder  one  form  of  government  and  the  same  custom  of 
intercourse  and  conversation.  This  love  of  virtue  was 
thoroughly  inbred,  and  increased  and  ripened  as  he  grew  in 
years  ;  so  that  once  being  to  entertain  the  Persian  ambassa- 
dors in  his  father's  absence,  he  never  asked  them  any  ques- 
tions that  savored  of  boyish  imbecility,  —  never  troubled 
them  to  answer  any  questions  about  the  golden  vine,  the 
pendent  gardens,  or  what  habit  the  king  wore,  —  but  still 
desired  to  be  satisfied  in  the  chiefest  concerns  of  the  em- 
pire, what  force  the  Persians  brought  into  the  field,  and  in 
what  part  of  the  army  the  king  fought ;  as  Ulysses  asked, 

Where  are  the  magazines  of  arms  1    And  where 
The  barbed  steeds  provided  for  the  war  Ί  * 

He  also  enquired  which  were  the  nearest  roads  for  them 
that  travelled  from  the  sea  up  into  the  country  ;  at  all  of 
which  the  ambassadors  were  astonished,  and  said.  This 
youth  is  a  great  prince,  but  ours  a  rich  one.  ϊ^ο  sooner 
was  Philip  interred,  but  his  resolution  hurried  him  to 
cross  the  sea ;  and  having  already  grasped  it  in  his  hopes 
and  preparations,  he  made  all  imaginable  haste  to  set  foot 
in  Asia.  Bat  Fortune  opposed  him,  diverted  him,  and  kept 
him  back,  creating  a  thousand  vexatious  troubles  to  delay 
and  stop  him.  First,  she  contrived  the  Illyrian  and 
Triballic  wars,  exciting  to  hostility  the  neighboring  bar- 
barians. But  they,  after  many  dangers  run  and  many 
terrible  encounters,  being  at  length  chased  even  as  far 
as  Scythia  beyond  the  river  Ister,  he  returned  back  to 

*  II.  X.  407. 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  511 

prosecute  liis  first  design.  But  then  again  spiteful  For- 
tune stirred  up  the  Thebans  against  him,  and  entangled 
him  in  the  Grecian  war,  and  in  the  dire  necessity  of 
defending  himself  against  his  fellow-countrymen  and  re- 
lations with  fire  and  sword  and  hideous  slaughter.  Which 
war  being  brought  to  a  dreadful  end,  away  he  presently 
crossed  into  Asia,  —  as  Phylarchus  relates,  with  only  thirty 
days'  provision  ;  as  Aristobulus  reports,  with  seventy  tal- 
ents,—  having  before  sold  and  divided  among  his  friends 
his  own  revenues  and  those  of  his  crown.  Only  Perdiccas 
refused  what  he  offered  him,  asking  him  at  the  same  time 
what  he  had  left  for  himself.  And  when  Alexander  re- 
plied. Nothing  but  hopes.  Then,  said  he,  we  will  be  con- 
tent with  the  same  ;  for  it  is  not  just  to  accept  of  thy 
goods,  but  we  must  wait  for  those  of  Darius. 

12.  ΛVhat  were  then  the  hopes  with  which  Alexander 
passed  into  Asia  1  Not  a  vast  power  mustered  out  of 
populous  cities,  nor  fleets  sailing  through  mountains ;  not 
whips  and  fetters,  the  instruments  of  barbarians'  fury,  to 
curb  and  manacle  the  sea.  But  in  his  small  army  there 
was  surpassing  desire  of  glory,  emulation  among  those  of 
equal  age,  and  a  noble  strife  to  excel  in  honor  and  virtue 
among  friends.  Then,  as  for  himself,  he  carried  with  him 
all  these  great  hopes,  —  piety  towards  the  Gods,  fidelity  to 
his  friends,  generous  frugahty,  temperance,  beneficence, 
contempt  of  death,  magnanimity,  humanity,  decent  affabil- 
ity, candid  integrity,  constancy  in  counsel,  quickness  in 
execution,  love  of  precedence  in  honor,  and  an  effectual 
purpose  to  follow  the  steps  of  virtue.  And  though  Homer, 
in  describing  the  beauty  of  Agamemnon,  seems  not  to 
have  observed  the  rules  of  decorum  or  probability  in  any 
of  his  three  similitudes,  — 

Like  thundering  Jove's,  his  awful  liead  and  eyes 

Tlie  gazing  crowd  with  majtsty  surprise  ; 

In  every  part  with  form  celestial  graced, 

His  breast  like  Neptune's,  and  like  Mars  his  waist;  ♦ 

*  II.  Π.  478. 


512  OF  THE  FORTUNE  Oil  VIRTUE 

yet  as  for  Alexander,  if  his  celestial  parents  formed  and 
composed  him  of  several  virtues,  may  we  not  conclude 
that  he  had  the  wisdom  of  Cyrus,  the  temperance  of 
Agesilaus,  the  foresight  of  Themistocles,  the  skill  of 
Philip,  tlie  daring  courage  of  Brasidas,  the  shreAvdness 
and  political  skill  of  Pericles  ?  Certainly,  if  we  compare 
him  with  the  most  ancient  heroes,  he  was  more  temperate 
than  Agamemnon,  who  preferred  a  captive  before  his  law- 
ful wife,  though  but  newly  wedded,  while  Alexander,  before 
he  was  legally  married,  abstained  from  his  prisoners.  He 
was  more  magnanimous  than  Achilles,  who  accepted  a 
small  sum  of  money  for  the  redemption  of  Hector  s  dead 
body,  while  Alexander  spared  no  expense  to  adorn  the 
funeral  of  Darius.  Achilles  accepted  gifts  and  bribes 
from  his  friends,  as  the  atonement  of  his  wrath ;  Alexan- 
der, when  once  a  victor,  enriched  his  enemies.  He  was 
much  more  pious  than  Diomede.  who  scrupled  not  to  fight 
against  the  Gods,  while  Alexander  ascribed  to  Heaven  all 
his  successes.  Finally,  he  was  more  bewailed  of  his  re- 
lations than  Ulysses,  whose  mother  died  for  grief,  while 
the  mother  of  Alexander's  enemy,  out  of  affection,  bare 
him  company  in  his  death. 

13.  In  short,  if  Solon  proved  so  wise  a  ruler  by  Fortune, 
if  Miltiades  led  his  armies  by  Fortune,  if  Aristides  was  so 
renowned  for  his  justice  by  Fortune,  then  there  is  nothing 
that  can  be  called  the  Avork  of  virtue.  Then  is  virtue 
only  an  airy  fiction,  and  a  word  that  passes  with  some 
show  of  glory  through  the  life  of  man,  but  feigned  and 
magnified  by  Sophists  and  lawgivers.  But  if  every  one 
of  these  whom  we  have  mentioned  was  wealthy  or  poor, 
weak  or  strong,  deformed  or  beautiful,  long  or  short  lived, 
by  Fortune,  but  made  himself  a  great  captain,  a  great  law- 
giver, famous  for  governing  kingdoms  and  commonwealths, 
by  virtue  and  reason  ;  then  in  God's  name  let  us  compare 
Alexander  with  the  best  of  them.     Solon  by  a  law  made  a 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  513 

great  abatement  upon  the  payment  of  the  Athenians'  pri- 
vate debts,  which  he  called  his  burden-easing  law  ;  Alexan- 
der discharged  the  debts  of  his  Macedonians  at  his  own 
expense.  Pericles,  laying  a  tax  upon  the  Greeks,  expended 
the  money  in  building  temples  to  beautify  the  citadel  of 
Atliens  ;  Alexander  sent  home  ten  thousand  talents  out 
of  the  spoils  of  the  barbarians,  for  the  building  of  tem- 
ples to  the  Gods  all  over  Greece.  Brasidas  advanced  his 
fame  all  over  Greece,  by  breaking  through  the  enemy's 
army  lying  encamped  by  the  seaside  near  Methone ;  but 
when  you  read  of  that  daring  jump  of  Alexander's  (so 
astonishing  to  the  hearers,  much  more  to  them  that  beheld 
it)  when  he  threw  himself  from  the  walls  of  the  Oxydra- 
fcian  metropolis  among  the  thickest  of  the  enemy,  assail- 
ing him  on  every  side  with  spears,  darts,  and  swords,  tell 
me  where  you  meet  with  such  an  example  of  matchless 
prowess,  or  to  what  you  can  compare  it  but  to  a  g'eam 
of  lightning  violently  flashing  from  a  cloud,  and  impetu- 
ously driven  by  the  wind  ?  Such  was  the  appearance  of 
Alexander,  as  he  leaped  like  an  apparition  to  the  earth, 
glittering  in  his  flaming  armor.  The  enemy,  at  first  amazed 
and  struck  with  horror,  retreated  and  fell  back  ;  till  seeing 
him  single  they  came  on  again  with  a  redoubled  force. 

Now  was  not  this  a  great  and  splendid  testimony  of 
Fortune's  kindness,  to  throw  him  into  an  inconsiderable 
and  barbarous  town,  and  there  to  enclose  and  immure  him 
a  prey  to  worthless  enemies  ?  xind  Λvhen  his  friends  made 
haste  to  his  assistance,  to  break  the  scaling-ladders,  and 
to  overthrow  and  cast  them  down  ?  Of  three  that  got 
upon  the  walls  and  flung  themselves  down  in  his  defence, 
endearing  Fortune  presently  despatched  one  ;  the  other, 
pierced  and  struck  with  a  shower  of  darts,  could  only  be 
said  to  live.  \Vithout,  the  Macedonians  foamed  and  filled 
the  air  with  helpless  cries,  having  no  engines  at  hand.  All 
they  could  do  Avas  to  dig  down  the  vs^alls  with  their  swords, 


514  or   THE   FORTUNE   OR   VIRTUE 

tear  out  the  stones  with  their  nails,  and  almost  to  rend 
them  out  A\'ith  their  teeth.  All  this  while,  Alexander, 
Fortune's  favorite,  whom  she  always  covered  with  her  pro- 
tection, like  a  Λvild  beast  entangled  in  a  snare,  stood  de- 
serted and  destitute  of  all  assistance,  not  laboring  for  Susa, 
Babylon,  Bactria,  or  to  vanquish  the  mighty  Porus.  For  to 
miscarry  in  great  and  glorious  attempts  is  no  reproach  ; 
but  so  malicious  was  Fortune,  so  kind  to  the  barbarians, 
such  a  hater  of  Alexander,  that  she  aimed  not  only  at  his 
life  and  body,  but  at  bereaving  him  of  his  honor  and  sully- 
ing his  renoAvn.  For  Alexander's  fall  had  never  been  so 
much  lamented  had  he  perished  near  Euphrates  or  Hy- 
daspes  by  the  hand  of  Darius,  or  by  the  horses,  sAvords, 
and  axes  of  the  Persians  fighting  with  all  their  might  and 
main  in  defence  of  their  king,  or  had  he  tumbled  from 
the  walls  of  Babylon,  and  all  his  hopes  together.  Thus 
Pelopidas  and  Epaminondas  fell ;  whose  death  was  to  be 
ascribed  to  their  virtue,  not  to  such  a  poor  misfortune  as 
this.  But  what  was  the  singular  act  of  Fortune's  favor 
which  we  are  now  enquiring  into  ]  What  indeed,  bvit  in 
the  farthest  nook  of  a  barbarous  country,  on  the  farther 
side  of  a  river,  within  the  w^alls  of  a  miserable  village,  to 
pen  up  and  hide  the  lord  and  king  of  the  world,  that  he 
might  there  perish  shamefully  at  the  hands  of  barbarians, 
who  should  knock  him  down  and  pelt  him  with  whatever 
came  next  to  hand  ?  There  tlie  first  blow  he  received  with 
a  battle-axe  cleft  his  helmet  and  entered  his  skull  ;  at  the 
same  time  another  shot  him  with  an  Indian  arrow  in  the 
breast  near  one  of  his  paps,  the  head  being  four  fingers 
broad  and  fi\e  in  length,  which,  together  with  the  weight 
of  the  shaft  which  projected  from  the  wound,  did  not  a 
little  torment  him.  But,  what  was  worst  of  all,  Avhile  he 
was  thus  defending  himself  from  his  enemies  before  him, 
when  he  had  laid  a  bold  attempter  that  approached  his 
person  sprawling  upon  the  earth  with  his  sword,  a  fellow 


OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT.  515 

from  a  mill  close  by  came  behind  him,  and  with  a  great 
iron  pestle  gave  him  such  a  bang  upon  the  neck  as  de- 
prived him  for  the  present  both  of  his  senses  and  his  sight. 
However,  his  virtue  did  not  yet  forsake  him,  but  supplied 
him  still  with  courage,  infusing  strength  withal  and  speed 
into  those  about  him.  For  Ptolemy,  Limnaeus,  and  Leon- 
natus,  and  some  others  who  had  mounted  or  broken  through 
the  wall,  made  to  his  succor,  and  stood  about  him  like  so 
many  bulwarks  of  his  virtue ;  out  of  mere  affection  and 
kindness  to  their  sovereign  exposing  their  bodies,  their 
faces,  and  their  lives  in  his  defence.  For  it  is  not  Fortune 
that  overrules  men  to  run  the  hazard  of  death  for  brave 
princes  ;  but  the  love  of  virtue  allures  them  —  as  natural 
affection  charms  and  entices  bees  —  to  surround  and  guard 
their  chief  commander. 

AVhat  person  then,  at  that  time  beholding  in  security 
this  strange  adventure,  would  not  have  confessed  that  he 
had  seen  a  desperate  combat  of  Fortune  against  virtue, 
and  that  the  barbarians  were  undeservedly  superior  through 
Fortune's  help,  but  that  the  Greeks  resisted  beyond  imagi- 
nation through  the  force  of  virtue "?  So  that  if  the  bar- 
barians had  vanquished,  it  had  been  the  act  of  Fortune 
or  of  some  catlI  genius  or  divine  retribution  ;  but  as  the 
Greeks  became  the  victors,  they  owed  their  conquest  to 
their  virtue,  their  prowess,  their  friendship  and  fidelity  to 
each  other.  For  these  were  all  the  life-guard  Alexander 
had  at  that  time  ;  Fortune  having  interposed  a  wall  between 
him  and  all  his  other  forces,  so  that  neither  fleets  nor 
armies,  cavalry  nor  infantry,  could  stand  him  in  any  stead. 
Therefore  the  Macedonians  routed  the  barbarians,  and 
buried  those  that  fell  under  the  ruins  of  their  own  town. 
But  "this  little  availed  Alexander ;  for  he  w^as  carried  off 
with  the  dart  sticking  in  his  breast,  having  now  a  war  in 
his  own  bowels,  while  the  arrow  in  his  bosom  Avas  a  kind 
of  cord,  or  rather  nail,  that  was  driven  through  his  breast- 


516    OF  THE  FORTUNE  OF  ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT. 

plate  and  fastened  it  to  his  body.  AVhen  they  went  about 
to  dress  him,  the  forked  shape  of  the  iron  head  would  not  per- 
mit the  surgeons  to  draw  it  forth  from  the  root  of  the  Avound. 
being  fixed  in  the  solid  parts  of  the  breast  that  fortify  the 
heart.  Nor  durst  they  attempt  to  cut  away  the  shaft  that 
stuck. out,  fearing  they  should  put  him  to  an  excess  of 
torment  by  the  motion  of  the  iron  in  the  cleft  of  the  bone, 
and  cause  a  new  flux  of  blood  not  easy  to  be  stopped.  Alex- 
ander, observing  their  hesitation  and  delay,  endeavored 
himself  with  a  little  knife  to  cut  off  the  shaft  close  to  tlie 
skin  ;  but  his  hand  failed  him,  being  seized  with  a  heavy 
numbness  by  reason  of  the  inflammation  of  the  wound. 
Thereupon  he  commanded  the  surgeons  and  those  that 
stood  about  him  to  try  the  same  thing  themselves  and  not 
to  be  afraid,  giving  them  all  the  encouragement  he  could. 
Those  that  Avept  he  upbraided  for  their  weakness  ;  others 
he  called  deserters,  that  refused  him  their  assistance  in 
such  a  time  of  need.  At  length,  calling  to  his  friends,  he 
said :  Let  no  one  of  you  fear  for  me  ;  for  how  shall  I  be- 
lieve you  to  be  contemners  of  death,  Avhen  you  betray  your- 
selves to  be  afraid  of  mine  '?  * 

*  See  footnote  at  the  end  of  the  First  Oration  on  Alexander. 


END    OP   VOL.   I. 


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