Dio Chrysostom, Speeches

ToposText · Dio Chrysostom · 1,517 sections

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0612.tlg001:7.73
§ 7.73 “Is it really so?” they asked him, and he said “Yes.” “And where did you get it?” they enquired. “When we caught the wild sow that had the young ones, they all escaped but one. They ran more swiftly than the hare,” he added. “One, however, I hit with a stone, caught, and covered with my leather jerkin. I exchanged it in the village and got a young pig for it. Then I made a sty out behind and raised it.”
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§ 7.74 “So that is the reason why your mother would laugh,” exclaimed the father, “when I used to wonder on hearing the pig grunt, and you were using the barley so freely.” “Well,” he replied, “the chestnuts were not enough to fatten her, supposing she had been willing to eat nuts without anything else. But if you wish to see her, I will go and fetch her in.” And they bade him do so. So he and the boys were off at once on the run full of glee.
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§ 7.75 Meanwhile the girl had risen and brought from another hut some sliced sorb-apples, medlars, winter apples, and swelling clusters of fine grapes, and placed them on the table after wiping off the stains from the meat with leaves and putting some clean fern beneath. Then the boys came in laughing and full of fun, leading the pig,
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§ 7.76 and with them followed the young man's mother and two small brothers. They brought white loaves of wheaten bread, boiled eggs in wooden platters, parched chickpeas. After the woman had greeted her brother and her niece, his daughter, she sat down beside her husband and said, “See, there is the victim which that boy has long been feeding for his wedding day, and everything else is ready on our side. The barley and wheaten flour have been ground; only perhaps we shall need a little more wine. This too we can easily get from the village.”
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§ 7.77 And close beside her stood her son, glancing at his future father-in law. He smiled at the lad and said, “There is the one who is holding things up. I believe he wants to fatten the pig a bit more.” The young man replied, “Why, she is ready to burst with fat.”
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§ 7.78 And wishing to help him, I said, “take care that your young man doesn't get thin while the pig gets fat.” “Our guest speaks well,” said the mother, “for he has already grown thinner than I have ever seen him before; and I noticed a short time ago that he was wakeful in the night and went out of the hut.” “The dogs were barking,” the young man interrupted, “and I went out to see.”
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§ 7.79 “No, you did not,” said she, “but you were walking around distraught. So don't let us permit him to be tortured any longer.” And throwing her arms about the girl's mother she kissed her; and the latter, turning to her husband, said, “Let us do as they wish.” This they decided to do and said, “Let us have the wedding the day after tomorrow.” They also invited me to stay over,
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§ 7.80 and I did so gladly, at the same time reflecting on the character of weddings and other things among the rich, on the matchmakers, the scrutinies of property and birth, the dowries, the gifts from the bridegroom, the promises and deceptions, the contracts and agreements, and, finally, the wranglings and enmities that often occur at the wedding itself.
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§ 7.81 Now I have not told this long story idly or, as some might perhaps infer, with the desire to spin a yarn, but to present an illustration of the manner of life that I adopted at the beginning and of the life of the poor — an illustration drawn from my own experience for anyone who wishes to consider whether in words and deeds and in social intercourse the poor are at a disadvantage in comparison with the rich on account of their poverty, or in every way have the advantage.
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§ 7.82 And really, when I consider Euripides' words and ask myself whether as a matter of fact the entertainment of strangers is so difficult for them that they can never welcome or succour anyone in need, I find this by no means to be true of their hospitality. They light a fire more promptly than the rich and guide one on the way without reluctance — indeed, in such matters a sense of self-respect would compel them — and often they share what they have more readily. When will you find a rich man who will give the victim of a shipwreck his wife's or his daughter's purple gown or any article of clothing far cheaper than that: a mantle, for example, or a tunic, though he has thousands of them, or even a cloak from one of his slaves?
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§ 7.83 Homer too illustrates this, for in Eumaeus he has given us a slave and a poor man who can still welcome Odysseus generously with food and a bed, while the suitors in their wealth and insolence share with him but grudgingly even what belongs to others, and this, I think, is just what Odysseus himself is represented as saying to Antinous when he upbraids him for his churlishness. “Thou wouldst not give a suppliant even salt In thine own house, — thou who, while sitting here, Fed at another's table, canst not bear To give me bread from thy well-loaded board.”
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§ 7.84 But granted that such meanness on the suitors' part was in accord with their general depravity, yet how was it with Penelope? Though she was an excellent woman, overjoyed to talk with Odysseus and learn about her husband, Homer does not say that even she gave him a cloak as he sat beside her in a bare tunic, but that she merely promised him one if it turned out that he was telling the truth about Odysseus in saying that he would arrive within the month.
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§ 7.85 And afterwards, when he asked for the bow, and the suitors, who could not draw it, were angry at him because he had the hardihood to vie with them in prowess, she urged that it be given to him, adding that of course her promise of marriage could not apply to him; but she promised to give him a tunic, cloak, and shoes, if he succeeded in stretching the bow and shooting through the axes;
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§ 7.86 as though he had to bend the bow of Eurytus and become the enemy of all those young men, and perhaps lose his life at their hands then and there, if he was to receive tunic and shoes, or else must produce Odysseus in person, who had not been seen anywhere for twenty years, and within a stated time at that, with the alternative, in case he could do neither, of departing in the same rags out of the presence of the good and prudent daughter royal of Icarius!
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§ 7.87 Other words of about the same purport Telemachus too addresses to the swineherd regarding Odysseus when he bids the latter to send him to the city as soon as possible that he may beg for alms there, and not to feed him at the steading any longer. And even if this had been agreed upon between them, yet the swineherd feels no surprise at the treatment and its inhumanity,
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§ 7.88 as though it were the regular procedure to deal with needy strangers thus strictly and meanly and to welcome open-heartedly with gifts and presents only the rich, from whom, of course, the host expected a like return, very much as the present custom is in selecting the recipients of our kindly treatment and preferment;
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§ 7.89 for what seem to be acts of kindliness and favours turn out, when examined rightly, to be loans, and that too at a high rate of interest as a usual thing, if, by heavens, conditions today are not worse than they used to be, just as is the case with every other evil.
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§ 7.90 Furthermore, I could state in regard to the Phaeacians also and their generosity, in case anyone imagines that their behaviour towards Odysseus was neither ungenerous nor unworthy of their wealth, just what motives and reasons induced them to be so open-handed and splendid in their generosity. But what I have said so far about this matter is more than sufficient.
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§ 7.91 It is certainly clear that wealth does no great service to its owners as regards the entertainment of strangers or otherwise. On the contrary, it is more likely to make them stingy and parsimonious, generally speaking, than poverty is. Even if some man of wealth may be found — one perhaps in a million — who is liberal and magnanimous in character, this by no means conclusively proves that the majority do not become worse in this regard than those whose means are limited.
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§ 7.92 A poor man, if he be of strong character, finds the little that he has sufficient both to enable him to regain his health when his body has been attacked by an illness not too severe — when, for example, he is visited by the sort of malady that usually attacks hard-working people whenever they overeat — and also to give acceptable gifts to strangers when they come — gifts willingly given that do not arouse the recipient's suspicion or give him offence -
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§ 7.93 perhaps not silver bowls, or embroidered robes, or a four-horse chariot, which were the gifts of Helen and Menelaus to Telemachus. For the poor man would be unlikely to have such guests to welcome as satraps or kings, for instance, unless they were very temperate and good men in whose eyes no gift is inadequate which is prompted by affection. But guests that are dissolute and tyrannical they would neither be able, I suppose, to serve acceptably nor, perhaps, would they care to extend such hospitality.
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§ 7.94 For it surely did not turn out any better for Menelaus that he was able to receive the wealthiest prince of Asia as a guest and that nobody else in Sparta was equal to entertaining the son of King Priam.
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§ 7.95 For, mark you, that prince despoiled his home, appropriated his wife as well as his treasures, left the daughter motherless, and sailed away. And after that Menelaus wasted a great deal of time travelling all over Greece bewailing his misfortunes and begging every king in turn to help him. He was forced also to implore his brother to give his daughter to be sacrificed at Aulis.
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§ 7.96 Then for ten years he sat fighting in Troy-land, where again both he and his brother kept cajoling the leaders of the army. When this was not done, the soldiers would grow angry and on every occasion would threaten to sail for home. Besides, he endured many hardships and dire perils, after which he wandered about and was able to reach his home only after infinite trouble.
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§ 7.97 Is it not, then, most unfitting to admire wealth as the poet does and regard it as really worth seeking? He says that its greatest good lies in giving to guests and, when any who are used to luxury come of the one's house, being in a position to offer them lodging and set such tokens of hospitality before them as would please them most.
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§ 7.98 And in advancing these views we cite the poets, not to gainsay them idly nor because we are envious for their reputation for wisdom that they have won by their poems; no, it is not for these reasons we covet the honour of showing them to be wrong, but because we think that it is in them especially that we shall find the thought and feeling of men generally, just what the many think about wealth and the other objects of their admiration, and what they consider would be the greatest good derived from each of them.
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§ 7.99 For it is evident that men would not love the poets so passionately nor extol them as wise and good and exponents of the truth if the poetry did not echo their own sentiments nor express their own views.
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§ 7.100 Since, then, it is not possible to take each member of the multitude aside and show him his error or to cross-question everybody in turn by saying, “How is it, sir, that you fear poverty so exceedingly and exalt riches so highly?” and again, “What great profit do you expect to win if you happen to have amassed wealth or, let us say, to have turned merchant or even become a king?” Such a procedure would involve infinite trouble and is altogether impracticable.
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§ 7.101 Therefore, because we must, let us go to their prophets and spokesmen, the poets, with the conviction that we shall find among them the beliefs of the many clearly put and enshrined in verse; and in truth I do not think that we fall very far short of our object in so doing.
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§ 7.102 And our present procedure, I believe, is the usual one even with men wiser than myself. Indeed, one very great philosopher has expressly contradicted the sentiments contained in these same lines of Euripides, and he is a man whom I think no one would ever accuse of contradicting them and Sophocles' words about wealth in any spirit of captiousness. He objects briefly in the former instance but in more detail in the case of Sophocles, and yet not at great length as we are now doing, since he was not discussing the question ex tempore with an orator's full privilege but was writing in a book.
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§ 7.103 Now so much for the life of the farmer, the hunter, and the shepherd. Perhaps I have spent more time on this theme than I should have done, but I desired to show in some way or other that poverty is no hopeless impediment to a life and existence befitting free men who are willing to work with their hands, but leads them on to deeds and actions that are far better and more useful and more in accordance with nature than those to which riches are wont to attract most men.
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§ 7.104 Well then, it would now be our duty to consider the life and occupations of poor men who live in the capital or some other city, and see by what routine of life and what pursuits they will be able to live a really good life, one not inferior to that of men who lend out money at excessive rates of interest and understand very well the calculation of days and months, nor to that of those who own large tenement houses and ships and slaves in great numbers!
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§ 7.105 For the poor of this type suitable work may perhaps be hard to find in the cities, and will need to be supplemented by outside resources when they have to pay house-rent and buy everything they get, not merely clothes, household belongings, and food, but even the wood to supply the daily need for fire, and even any odd sticks, leaves, or other most trifling thing they need at any time,
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§ 7.106 and when they are compelled to pay money for everything but water, since everything is kept under lock and key, and nothing is exposed to the public except, of course, the many expensive things for sale. It will perhaps seem hard for men to subsist under such conditions who have no other possession than their own bodies, especially as we do not advise them to take any kind of work that offers or all kinds indiscriminately from which it is possible to make some money.
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§ 7.107 So perhaps we shall be forced in our discussion to banish the respectable poor from the cities in order to make our cities in reality cities “well-inhabited,” as Homer calls them, where only the prosperous dwell, and we shall not allow any free labourer, apparently, within the walls. But what shall we do with all these poor people? Shall we scatter them in settlements in the country as the Athenians are said to have been spread all over Attica in early times and again later when Peisistratus became tyrant?
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§ 7.108 That mode of life did not prove disadvantageous to the Athenians of that time, nor did it produce a degenerate breed of citizens either, but men in every way better and more temperate than those who later on got their living in the city as ecclesiasts, jurymen, and clerks — a lazy and at the same time ignoble crowd. It will not, therefore, cause any great and dire peril if all these respectable poor shall become by any end and every means rustics, but nevertheless I think that even in the city they will not fail to make a living.
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§ 7.109 But let us see what the variety and nature of the occupations are which they are to follow in order to live in what we believe is the proper way and not be often compelled to turn to something unworthy because they are out of work. The occupations and trades in the city, if all are taken into consideration, are many and of all kinds, and some of them are very profitable for those who engage in them if one thinks of money when he says “profitable.”
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§ 7.110 But it is not easy to name them all separately on account of their multitude, and equally because that would be out of place here. Therefore, let this brief criticism and praise of them suffice: All which are injurious to the body by impairing its health or by preventing the maintenance of its adequate strength through their inactive or sedentary character, or which engender in the soul either turpitude or illiberality or, in general, are useless and good for nothing since they owe their origin to the silly luxury of the cities — these cannot properly be called trades or occupations at all; for Hesiod, a wise man, would never have commended all occupations alike if he had thought that any evil or disgraceful thing was entitled to that name -
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§ 7.111 so where any of these evils, be it what it may, is attached to these activities, no self-respecting and honourable man should himself have anything to do with them or know anything about them or teach them to his sons, for he knows that he will not be what either Hesiod or we mean by “workman” if he engages in any such business, but will incur the shameful reproach of being an idler living on disgraceful gains and hear himself bluntly called sordid, good for nothing, and wicked.
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§ 7.112 But, on the other hand, where the occupations are not unbecoming to those who follow them and create no evil condition in their souls nor injure their health by inducing, among other diseases, physical weakness in particular, sluggishness, and softness on account of the almost complete lack of exercise, and, further, enable one to make a satisfactory living -
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§ 7.113 the men who engage zealously and industriously in any of these will never lack work and a living from it, nor will they give the rich any justification for calling them the “poor class,” as is their wont; on the contrary, they will be rather purveyors to the rich and lack practically nothing that is necessary and useful.
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§ 7.114 Now without describing in detail each and every occupation, but simply offering a general outline, let us mention in these two classes the kinds we do not approve of, giving our reasons, and the kinds we urge men to undertake without hesitation. Let them pay no heed to those idle objectors who are wont often to sneer obviously not only at a man's occupation when it has nothing at all objectionable in it, but even at that of his parents, when, for instance, his mother was once on occasion someone's hired servant or a harvester of grapes, or was a paid wet-nurse for a motherless child or a rich man's, or when his father was a schoolmaster or a tutor. Let them, I say, feel no shame before such persons but go right ahead.
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§ 7.115 For if they refer to such things, they will simply be mentioning them as indications of poverty, evidently abusing and holding up poverty itself as something evil and unfortunate, and not any of these occupations. Therefore, since we maintain that to be poor is no worse and no more unfortunate than to be rich, and perhaps no less advantageous to many, the sneer at one's occupation ought not to give any greater offence than the sneer at one's poverty.
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§ 7.116 You see, if, without mentioning the thing with which they found fault, they had to bring up and denounce the things it caused from day today, they would have a great many more and really disgraceful things caused by the possession of wealth to bring up, and not least of all what in Hesiod is adjudged the greatest shame, namely, the charge of idleness, and exclaim, “Sir, ”Never a delver did the gods make thee, nor a ploughman," adding, “In vain hast thou hands; soft and tender are they like those of the suitors.”
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§ 7.117 Now what I have to say next is, I imagine, apparent to every man and perhaps often remarked — that dyeing and perfumery, along with the dressing of men's and women's hair — nearly the same for both sexes today — and practically all adorning, not only of clothing, but even of the hair and skin by the use of alkanet, white lead, and all kinds of chemicals in the attempt to counterfeit youthfulness make a spurious image of the person, and further, the decorating of the roofs, walls, and floor of houses, now with paints, now with precious stones, here with gold and there with ivory,
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§ 7.118 and, again, with carving of the walls themselves — that as for these occupations, the best thing would be that cities should admit none of them at all, but that for us in our present discussion the next best thing would be to rule that none of our poor should adopt any such trade; for we are at present contending against the rich as if with a chorus, and the contest is not for happiness — that is not the prize set before poverty, or before wealth either, but is the especial reward of virtue alone — no, it is for a certain manner of life and moderation therein.
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§ 7.119 Furthermore, we shall not permit our poor to become tragic or comic actors or creators of immoderate laughter by means of certain mimes, or dancers or chorus-men either. We except, however, the sacred choruses, but not if they represent the sorrows of Niobe or Thyestes by song or dance. Nor shall the poor become harpers or flute-players contending for victory in the theatres, even if we shall offend certain distinguished cities by so doing, cities such as Smyrna or Chios, for example, and, of course, Argos too, for not permitting the glory of Homer and Agamemnon to be magnified, at least so far as we can help it.
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§ 7.120 Perhaps the Athenians also will have a grievance because they believe that we are disparaging their poets, tragic and comic, when we deprive them of their assistants, claiming that there is nothing good in their calling. It is likely that the Thebans too will be resentful, on the ground that indignity is being offered their victory in flute-playing which was awarded them by Greece.
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§ 7.121 They cherished that victory so dearly that when their city had been destroyed — almost as it remains today except for a small part, the Cadmea, which is still inhabited — they cared nothing for the other things that had disappeared, for the many temples, many columns and inscriptions, but the Hermes they hunted out and set up again because the inscription about the contest in flute-playing was engraved upon it. “Greece awarded to Thebes the victory in playing on flute-pipes.” And now in the middle of the old market-place stands this one statue surrounded by ruins.
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§ 7.122 But we shall have no fear of any of these people nor of those who will charge us with disparaging the things which the Greeks cherish as most important, but shall declare that all such activities have no place with self-respecting or free men, holding that many evils are due to them, the greatest of which certainly is shamelessness, that overweening pride on the part of the populace, for which arrogance would be a better name.
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§ 7.123 Neither should our poor become auctioneers or proclaimers of rewards for the arrest of thieves or runaways, shouting in the streets and market-place with great vulgarity, or scriveners who draw up contracts and summonses or, in general, documents that have to do with trials and complaints, and claim knowledge of legal forms; nor must they be learned and clever pettifogging lawyers, who pledge their services to all alike for a fee, even to the greatest scoundrels, and undertake to defend unblushingly other men's crimes, and to rage and rant and beg mercy for men who are neither their friends nor kinsmen, though in some cases these advocates bear a high report among their fellow-citizens as most honourable and distinguished men. No, we shall allow none of our poor to adopt such professions but shall leave these to the other sort.
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§ 7.124 For though some of them must of necessity become handcraftsmen, there is no necessity that they should become tongue-craftsmen and law-craftsmen. Still, if any of the occupations of which I have been speaking, and shall yet speak, seem to have their useful place in our cities as they do in these now existing, such as perhaps the registering of judgments and contracts, and perhaps certain proclamations, it is not now the place for us to determine how and by whom these needs shall be met with the least harm.
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§ 7.125 For we are not at present mapping out the form of government that would be best, or better than many, but we did set out to discuss poverty and to show that its case is not hopeless, as the majority think, but that it affords many opportunities of making a living that are neither unseemly nor injurious to men who are willing to work with their hands.
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§ 7.126 Indeed, it was with that very premise that we were led to tell that quite lengthy tale at the beginning about life among farmers and hunters, and to speak now about city occupations, defining those that are befitting and not harmful to men who are not to live on the lowest plane, and those which degrade the men who are employed in them.
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§ 7.127 Further, if much that I have said is, in general, serviceable in moulding public policy and assisting in a proper choice, then there is the greater reason for pardoning the length of my discourse, because I have not dragged it out in idle wandering or talk about useless things. For the study of employments and trades and, in general, of the life fitting or otherwise for ordinary people has proved to be, in and of itself, worthy of a great deal of very careful research.
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§ 7.128 The hearer should therefore not be annoyed at digressions even if they do seem excessively long, if only they are not about trivial or unworthy or irrelevant things, since the speaker has not abandoned the real theme of the whole provided he treats of the matters that are essential and pertinent to philosophy.
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§ 7.129 Probably if we imitated the hunter in this we should not go far astray. When he picks up his first trail and, following it, all at once comes upon another that is clearer and fresher, he does not hesitate to follow up this latter and then, after bagging his game, goes back to the first trail.
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§ 7.130 Neither should we, perhaps, find fault with a man who set out to discuss the just man and justice and then, having mentioned a city for the sake of illustration, expatiated at much greater length on the constitution of a state and did not grow weary until he had enumerated all the variations and the kinds of such organizations, setting forth very clearly and magnificently the features characteristic of each;
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§ 7.131 even though he does find critics here and there who take him to task for the length of his discussion and the time spent upon “the illustration, forsooth!” But if the criticism be that his remarks on the state have no bearing on the matter in hand and that not the least light has been thrown on the subject of investigation which led him into the discussion at the start — for these reasons, if for any, it is not altogether unfair to call him to task.
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§ 7.132 So if we too shall be found to be expounding matters that are not pertinent or germane to the question before us, then we might be found guilty of prolixity. But, strictly speaking, it is not fair on other grounds to commend or to criticize either length or brevity in a discourse. Now we must confidently go on and finish our discussion of the other activities of city life, mentioning some of them and leaving others unmentioned and unrecorded.
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§ 7.133 In dealing with brothel-keepers and their trade we must certainly betray no weakness as though something were to be said on both sides, but must sternly forbid them and insist that no one, be he poor or be he rich, shall pursue such a business, thus levying a fee, which all the world condemns as shameful, upon brutality and lust. Such men bring individuals together in union without love and intercourse without affection, and all for the sake of filthy lucre. They must not take hapless women or children, captured in war or else purchased with money, and expose them for shameful ends in dirty booths which are flaunted before the eyes in every part of the city, at the doors of the houses of magistrates and in market-places, near government buildings and temples,
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§ 7.134 in the midst of all that is holiest. Neither barbarian women, I say, nor Greeks — of whom the latter were in former times almost free but now live in bondage utter and complete — shall they put in such shameful constraint, doing a much more evil and unclean business than breeders of horses and of asses carry on, not mating beasts with beasts where both are willing and feel no shame, but mating human beings that do feel shame and revulsion, with lecherous and dissolute men in an ineffectual and fruitless physical union that breeds destruction rather than life. Yes, and they respect no man nor god -
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§ 7.135 not Zeus, the god of family life, not Hera, the goddess of marriage, not the Fates, who bring fulfilment, not Artemis, protectress of the child-bed, not mother Rhea, not the Eileithyiae, who preside over human birth, not Aphrodite, whose name stands for the normal intercourse and union of male and female.
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§ 7.136 No, we must proclaim that neither magistrate nor lawgiver shall allow such merchandising or legalize it, whether our cities are to house a people of the highest virtue or to fall into a second, third, fourth, or any other class, so long as it is in the power of any one of them to prevent such things.
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§ 7.137 But if old customs and diseases that have become entrenched in the course of time fall to the care of our ruler, he shall by no means leave them without attention and correction, but, with an eye to what is practicable, he shall curb and correct them in some way or other. For evils are never wont to remain as they are; they are ever active and advancing to greater wantonness if they meet no compelling check.
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§ 7.138 It is our duty, therefore, to give some heed to this and under no condition to bear this mistreatment of outcast and enslaved creatures with calmness and indifference, not only because all humanity has been held in honour and in equal honour by God, who begat it, having the same marks and tokens to show that it deserves honour, to wit, reason and the knowledge of evil and good, but also because of the following consideration, which we must always remember: that for flagrant wrong fostered by licence it is difficult to set a limit that it will no longer, through fear of the consequences, dare to transgress. Indeed, beginning with practices and habits that seem trivial and allowable, it acquires a strength and force that are uncontrollable, and no longer stops at anything.
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§ 7.139 Now at this point we must assuredly remember that this adultery committed with outcasts, so evident in our midst and becoming so brazen and unchecked, is to a very great extent paving the way to hidden and secret assaults upon the chastity of women and boys of good family, such crimes being only too boldly committed when modesty is openly trampled upon, and that it was not invented, as some think, to afford security and abstinence from these crimes.
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§ 7.140 Perhaps now someone may say, rather rudely, something like this: “O you wise rulers and lawgivers, who tolerated such practices in the beginning and imagined you had actually discovered some wondrous elixir to produce chastity in our cities, your motive being to keep these open and unbarred brothels from contaminating your barred homes and inner chambers, and keep men who practise their excesses abroad and openly at little cost from turning to your free-born and respected wives with their many bribes and gifts!” For men do grow weary of what is excessively cheap and freely permitted, but pursue in fear and at great expense what is forbidden simply because it is forbidden.
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§ 7.141 I think you will see this more clearly if you just consider. For where men condone even the matter of adultery in a somewhat magnificent fashion and the practice of it finds great and most charitable consideration, where husbands in their simplicity do not notice most things and do not admit knowledge of some things but suffer the adulterers to be called guests and friends and kinsmen, at times even entertaining these themselves and inviting them to their tables at festivals and sacrifices as, I imagine, they might invite their bosom friends,
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§ 7.142 and display but moderate anger at actions that are most glaring and open — where, I say, these intrigues of the married women are carried on with such an air of respectability, in that community it will not be easy to feel quite sure of the maidenhood of the unmarried girls or ever to be confident that the words of the wedding song sung at the marriage of the girls are truthful and honest.
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§ 7.143 Is it not inevitable that in these cities many things occur which are like the old legends? — omitting, of course, the angry and meddlesome fathers — that a great many persons copy the storied amours of the gods and gold pours down in showers through the roofs (and with little difficulty, since the chambers are not of brass or stone),
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§ 7.144 and yes, by heavens, that silver trickles in no small stream nor into the laps of the maidens alone, but into those of mothers also and nurses and tutors — to say nothing of many other handsome gifts which sometimes enter stealthily through the roof and sometimes openly no doubt at the very bedside!
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§ 7.145 Is it not likely, too, that much occurs in rivers and beside springs which is like those happenings of ancient times that the poets describe? Only perhaps they do not occur in the open publicly, but in homes of truly great felicity, at costly lodges in parks and city suburbs, in luxurious artificial bowers and in splendid groves; for it is not a question of poor daughters of penniless kings, the kind that carry water and play on beaches beside the rivers, bathing in cool water, or on wide-spreading beaches of the sea; no, they are the wealthy daughters of wealthy parents in princely establishments that possess all these things in private far surpassing anything in public splendour and magnificence.
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§ 7.146 But perhaps they would nevertheless be expecting children to be born in that city, children of the kind that Homer refers to when he mentions Eudorus, son of Hermes and Polydora, and makes use of an euphemism, as I see it, in referring to his birth: “Virgin's son whom bore Polydora, fair in the chorus.”
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§ 7.147 I suspect that at Sparta as well some boys of a similar paternity received this appellation, since quite a number are called Parthenians. Consequently, if the majority born in such immoral cities did not perish through utter lack, I imagine, of divine protection, then nothing would save the world from being overrun by demigods.
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§ 7.148 But as it is, some die at birth, while those that do survive live on to old age in obscurity in the status of slaves, since those who gave them being can give them no further support. Now then, in a city where the girls' condition is as bad as we have described,
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§ 7.149 what are we to expect the boys to be? What education and training should we expect them to receive? Is there any possibility that this lecherous class would refrain from dishonouring and corrupting the males, making their clear and sufficient limit that set by nature? Or will it not, while it satisfies its lust for women in every conceivable way, find itself grown weary of this pleasure, and then seek some other worse and more lawless form of wantonness?
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§ 7.150 Yes, the seduction of women — especially, one might almost say, of the freeborn and virgins — has been found easy and no task for a man who pursues that kind of game with money; and even against the highly respected wives and daughters of men really respected, the libertine who attacks with the device of Zeus and brings gold in his hands will never fail.
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§ 7.151 But the further developments, I presume, are perfectly evident, since we see so many illustrations. The man whose appetite is insatiate in such things, when he finds there is no scarcity, no resistance, in this field, will have contempt for the easy conquest and scorn for a woman's love, as a thing too readily given — in fact, too utterly feminine — and will turn his assault against the male quarters, eager to befoul the youth who will very soon be magistrates and judges and generals,
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§ 7.152 believing that in them he will find a kind of pleasure difficult and hard to procure. His state is like that of men who are addicted to drinking and wine-bibbing, who after long and steady drinking of unmixed wine, often lose their taste for it and create an artificial thirst by the stimulus of sweatings, salted foods, and condiments.
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§ 8.1 The Eighth Discourse, on Virtue Diogenes or On Virtue When Diogenes was exiled from his native Sinope, he came to Athens, looking like the veriest beggar; and there he found a goodly number still of Socrates' companions: to wit, Plato, Aristippus, Aeschylus, Antisthenes, and Eucleides of Megara; but Xenophon was in exile on account of his campaign with Cyrus. Now it was not long before he despised them all save Antisthenes, whom he cultivated, not so much from approval of the man himself as of the words he spoke, which he felt to be alone true and best adapted to whether mankind.
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§ 8.2 For when he contrasted the man Antisthenes with his words, he sometimes made this criticism, that the man himself was much weaker; and so in reproach he would call him a trumpet because he could not hear his own self, no matter how much noise he made. Antisthenes tolerated this banter of his since he greatly admired the man's character;
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§ 8.3 and so, in requital for being called a trumpet, he used to say that Diogenes was like the wasps, the buzz of whose wings is slight but the sting very sharp. Therefore he took delight in the outspokenness of Diogenes, just as horsemen, when they get a horse that is high-strung and yet courageous and willing to work, do not object to the difficult temper of the animal, but dislike and have no use for the lazy and slow.
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§ 8.4 Sometimes, therefore, he used to key Diogenes up, while at other times he tried to relax his tension, just as those who twist strings for musical instruments stretch the strings, taking care, however, not to break them. After Antisthenes' death he moved to Corinth, since he considered none of the others worth associating with, and there he lived without renting a house or staying with a friend, but camping out in the Craneion.
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§ 8.5 For he observed that large numbers gathered at Corinth on account of the harbours and the hetaerae, and because the city was situated as it were at the cross-roads of Greece. Accordingly, just as the good physician should go and offer his services where the sick are most numerous, so, said he, the man of wisdom should take up his abode where fools are thickest in order to convict them of their folly and reprove them.
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§ 8.6 So, when the time for the Isthmian games arrived, and everybody was at Isthmus, he went down also. For it was his custom at the great assemblies to make a study of the pursuits and ambitions of men, of their reasons for being abroad, and of the things on which they prided themselves.
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§ 8.7 He gave his time also to any who wished to interview him, remarking that he was surprised by the fact that had he claimed to be a physician for the teeth, everybody would flock to him who needed to have a tooth pulled; yes, and by heavens, had he professed to treat the eyes, all who were suffering from sore eyes would present themselves, and similarly, if he had claimed to know of a medicine for diseases of the spleen or for gout or for running of the nose;
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§ 8.8 but when he declared that all who should follow his treatment would be relieved of folly, wickedness, and intemperance, not a man would listen to him or seek to be cured by him, no matter how much richer he might become thereby, as though he were less inconvenienced by these spiritual complaints than by the other kind, or as though it were worse for a man to suffer from an enlarged spleen or a decayed tooth than from a soul that is foolish, ignorant, cowardly, rash, pleasure-loving, illiberal, irascible, unkind, and wicked, in fact utterly corrupt.
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§ 8.9 That was the time, too, when one could hear crowds of wretched sophists around Poseidon's temple shouting and reviling one another, and their disciples, as they were called, fighting with one another, many writers reading aloud their stupid works, many poets reciting their poems while others applauded them, many jugglers showing their tricks, many fortune-tellers interpreting fortunes, lawyers innumerable perverting judgment, and peddlers not a few peddling whatever they happened to have.
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§ 8.10 Naturally a crowd straightway gathered about him too; no Corinthians, however, for they did not think it would be at all worth their while, since they were accustomed to see him every day in Corinth. The crowd that gathered was composed of strangers, and each of these, after speaking or listening for a short time, went his way, fearing his refutation of their views.
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§ 8.11 Just for that reason, said Diogenes, he was like the Laconian dogs; there were plenty of men to pat them and play with them when they were shown at the popular gatherings, but no one was willing to buy any because he did not know how to deal with them. And when a certain man asked whether he too came to see the contest, he said, “No, but to take part.” Then when the man laughed and asked him who his competitors were,
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§ 8.12 he said with that customary glance of his: “The toughest there are and the hardest to beat, men whom no Greek can look straight in the eye; not competitors, however, who sprint, or wrestle or jump, not those that box, throw the spear, and hurl the discus, but those that chasten a man.”
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§ 8.13 “Who are they, pray?” asked the other. “Hardships,” he replied, “very severe and insuperable for gluttonous and folly-stricken men who feast the livelong day and snore at night, but which yield to thin, spare men, whose waists are more pinched in than those of wasps.
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§ 8.14 Or do you think those pot-bellies are good for anything? — creatures whom sensible people ought to lead around, subject to the ceremony of purification, and then thrust beyond the borders, or, rather, kill, quarter, and use as food just as people do with the flesh of large fish, don't you know, boiling it in brine and melting out the fat, the way our people at home in Pontus do with the lard of pigs when they want to anoint themselves. For I think these men have less soul than hogs.
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§ 8.15 But the noble man holds his hardships to be his greatest antagonists, and with them he is ever wont to battle day and night, not to win a sprig of parsley as so many goats might do, nor for a bit of wild olive, or of pine, but to win happiness and virtue throughout all the days of his life, and not merely when the Eleans make proclamation, or the Corinthians, or the Thessalian assembly. He is afraid of none of those opponents nor does he pray to draw another antagonist,
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§ 8.16 but challenges them one after another, grappling with hunger and cold, withstanding thirst, and disclosing no weakness even though he must endure the lash or give his body to be cut or burned. Hunting, exile, loss of reputation, and the like have no terrors for him; nay, he holds them as mere trifles, and while in their very grip the perfect man is often as sportive as boys with their dice and their coloured balls.
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§ 8.17 ”Of course," he continued, “these antagonists do seem terrible and invincible to all cravens; but if you treat them with contempt and meet them boldly, you will find them cowardly and unable to master strong men, in this greatly resembling dogs, which pursue and bite people who run away from them, while some they seize and tear to pieces, but fear and slink away from men who face them and show fight, and in the end wag their tails when they come to know them.
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§ 8.18 Most people, however, are in mortal terror of these antagonists, always avoiding them by flight and never looking them in the face. And indeed, just as skilful boxers, if they anticipate their opponents, are not hit at all, but often actually end by winning the bout themselves, but if, on the contrary, they give ground through fear, they receive the heaviest blow; in the same way, if we accept our hardships in a spirit of contempt for them and approach them cheerfully, they avail very little against us; but if we hang back and give way, they appear altogether greater and more severe.
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§ 8.19 You can see that the same thing applies to fire also: if you attack it most vigorously, you put it out; but if with caution and fear, you get badly burned, just as children do when in sport they sometimes try to put out a fire with their tongues. The adversaries of this class are a good deal like the pancratiasts, who strike, choke, rend, and occasionally kill.
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§ 8.20 ”But there is another battle more terrible and a struggle not slight but much greater than this and fraught with greater danger, I mean the fight against pleasure. Nor is it like that battle which Homer speaks of when he says, Fiercely then around the ships The struggle was renewed. With halberds and with trenchant battle-axe They fought, with mighty sword and two-edged spear.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by James Wilfred Cohoon (1878-1946) and Henry Lamar Crosby (1880-1954). Composed ca. 112 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.