Himerius, Orations

ToposText · Himerius · 532 sections

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§ 26.1 When Apollo had set up his prophetic tripod and was foretelling the future to people who came from everywhere, all peoples and all cities visited the god, persuaded to go by his reputation... [ Apollo ], rejoicing, I think, in their embassies, [established] prophetic days for those who came [to his oracle. Let me also speak my “prophetic” words] again. For the people must, I think, taste of the sacred laurel and of the god and his spokesmen.... [Mys]ians and Ionians. For the one group, descended from Heracles,60 and the other group from Ion, from long ago... the settlement
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§ 26.10 of Ionia, because of which the Ionians are almost considered to be Athenians, from where does tradition insist that they set out if not from Delphi and...? So they sacrificed to the Attic Muses, [honoring their land?] with their eloquence, as was the custom at Olympia whenever they [held] a festal assembly [there] in honor of the [god]... [Whoever] boasts of [ Hera ]clids as ancestors, let him first tend to the sacrifices... but, instead of these sacrifices, the Muses...
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§ 26.20 I propose at the outset [of a young man’s career] a fervor for accomplishment, inasmuch as it is customary that... [ Achilles ] was... in battle as a result of the teachings of Chiron... and Socrates equipped Alcibiades for life’s labors more than... did.... Perhaps most people will not find this [following] story unappealing... A young man asked for a first-rate trainer so that [he might win a victory at] the Pythian Games. But his city and his father led him off to another competition. Someone else [urged him?] to forget about [the latter competition] and to trust the [first-rate] trainer...
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§ 26.30 the god granted [the young man] a victory and sent word to his father... [There are some descendants] of Neleus [here]—for my lecture hall is open to all... It will not be a swarm of bees, all clustered together, that will lead the emigration for me... [but, rather, the Muses?]... so as to still everything with their song, in order that... the whole of Attica, just as Orpheus’s lyre, introduced from across the sea, made the island of Lesbos, around which the billowy Aegean is parted, musical, although it had been unmusical before that—his lyre made it so musical that the wonders of that music were spread abroad to all parts of the earth.
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§ 27.i To the Students from His Fatherland [ Prusias. This was delivered in the g[ymnasium?]
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§ 27.1... It is time, then, my boys, to tune up my lyre for my fellow citizens... The Muses have brought here, to see me speak, [a group of young men] who love eloquence so much that... but my words will make you alone, [my fatherland], their subject again; and on this occasion... these [young men] are dancing [with me] in honor of the Muses, but they have waited until this point in my...
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§ 27.10 of this phalanx of students at the common hearth of guests (?)... And I hear this from Hesiod, too, who commands... wise and beautiful words. How can the Muses’ poems not... but also the gods have the same view about the fatherland. [ Apollo ] loves [ Delos ]...; he stabilized the island, which tossed around [in] the sea’s [waves] before he appeared. Dionysus loves Thebes because he brought Semele’s birth pangs to an end there. Pan is proud of the Arcadians, Aphrodite is proud of Paphos, and the Dioscuri are proud of the city on the Eurotas River [i.e., Sparta ]. Homer does not bring on most of the gods from heaven,
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§ 27.20 but from mountains and cities, calling Hera “ Argive,. Zeus “ Dodonaean,” and Apollo “ Lycian -born.” As for the god of my craft [ Hermes ], perhaps [eloquence?]... because it gratified the god by calling him... [I find that Homeric figures] had similar fond feelings toward their fatherland. [ Odysseus ], called (?)..., loves little I[thaca], despite the fact that he often hurls his ashen spear against Troy, and that he alone... Homer does [not] assign [ Nestor ]... to Mycenae, rich in gold, but to little Pylos... Anacreon adorns the city of the Teians with his songs, and he leads off the Erotes from there. Alcaeus adorns Lesbos [with his songs] and mentions Mytilene
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§ 27.30 everywhere in them. Neither Simonides nor Bacchylides has neglected Iulis. Stesichorus not only freed Sicilian Himera from tyrants, but also adorned it with his words. My friends, what shall I do for the city that brought me forth? I do not ride on a chariot pulled by free-ranging horses and am not a poet; so, come now, let me fortify the city with human exemplars and with prose oratory. [After all], Lycurgus [fortified Sparta ] when, with the help of the god [ Apollo ], he [gave] the Lacedaemonians their laws; [whereas Babylon and Nineveh?], which [once] flourished with their lavish [walls], are now known only by their paltry ruins. Time has [hardly] preserved [the walls of Troy ]... for human memory.
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§ 27.40 [ Cadmus merely] erected..., [but the Theb]ans’ walls [were put in place] through Amphion’s lyre. Socrates himself publicly... always... and restored the city with rhetors, and Aesop made Phrygia known for fable alone. When someone faulted Plato for not serving the state in some military or civilian capacity, he said, “Not me the... of Chabrias... pupils (?) of Plato.”6. I also want to tell you something about Pythagoras. [Although he was from Samos ], he spent his time not in Samos, but in Italy. It turned out that his fatherland Samos was [not the center]... of his philosophical teaching. So, since he thought it dreadful if the city
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§ 27.50 where a person spent his earliest years was not adorned by his achievements..., [he made sure] that not only Samos, but the whole of Ionia [was regarded as] blessed because of that [philosophy of his].68
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§ 28.1 To the Comes Athenaeus What in the world inspired that great ringing sound of Homer. Wasn’t it the glory of men?...
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§ 28.2 Pindar [Ol. 1] sang at Olympia of Hieron’s glory to the accompaniment of the lyre. Anacreon sang of Polycrates’ fortune, from which offerings were sent to the Samians’ goddess. And Alcaeus referred to Thales in his songs, when Lesbos an assembly. Now Sappho with her lyre, alone of women, loved and therefore dedicated all her poetry to Aphrodite and the Erotes. She would make and charms of a girl the reason for her songs...
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§ 28.3 For even if these are blissful encomia, they would seem to be encomia of fortune. But I seek after virtue, and I want my praises of men to be based on virtue...
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§ 28.4 There are two signs that a person has the virtue proper to ruling, the emperor’s judgments of him and his subjects’ love of him...
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§ 28.5 When time enrolled this man [ Athenaeus ] in the ranks of [adult] men, he became an emulator, in every respect, of the man of Paeania [i.e., Demosthenes ]. For just as the speaker’s platform and the courts claimed Demosthenes after [he was readied by] Isaeus,109 so too assemblies and eloquence made [ Athenaeus ] their own; he had control over everyone and was admired by everyone...
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§ 28.6 It is appropriate to examine his nature as well as his actions. And one will find that both his deeds and the nature that has allowed those deeds to be successfully accomplished are equally celebrated. What are the marks of this nature? He has a sharp mind, lofty sentiments, he does the right thing without hesitation, and he has an affable disposition. If he needs to speak, he outdoes Pericles; if he needs to act, he imitates Alcibiades. Or we could say that he is “patriotic and too strong to yield to bribery,” which is how history has characterized Pericles. In acting he is much more fervent than the son of Cleinias [i.e., Alcibiades ], and in every action of his he is no less harmonious than any lyre at all...
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§ 28.7 Egyptian myths make clear that this is the kind of person Proteus was, as they turn him now into water, now into a tree or fire. Wanting thus to indicate that he had an adaptable nature, they turn this Proteus into diverse shapes. So [too] the Athenians have portioned out this Hermes logios through the whole city and greet him under various appellations in various sections [of Athens ]111...
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§ 28.8 Before he produced his large [ Athena ] Parthenos, Phidias sculpted a small one on the Acropolis. Since this [small] work of art did not give scope to Phidias’s skill, Pericles urged him to put the effort into it that its size allowed and to save the full power of his skill for the large Parthenos 112...
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§ 28.9 These are the first-fruits of friendship and eloquence for you. My words are prophetic, and they can even foresee [more] things of the kind [you have already enjoyed] and better things as well; they predict good fortune, rule over the Greeks, honors from the emperor, and words of praise.
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§ 29.i To the Roman Privatus, the Teacher of the Proconsul Ampelius’. Son.
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§ 29.1 Desire for the Eleusinian fire even led Anacharsis the Scythian to the mysteries. This Anacharsis was wise and a lover of virtue. Although he was Scythian both in outer appearance and in what he had tasted of eloquence, he immediately became Attic in speech and gave up the Scythian language; that is how remarkably well his disposition overcame what had been customary for him and how effectively his love of virtue transcended ancestral habit. He also busied himself attending to the rest of the Athenians’ marvels—their handiwork, their language, their crafts, their learning, and their laws
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§ 29.10 Nothing escaped this lover of learning, not a [single Athenian ] street, holy precinct, or story.... gave, and he came to know about how Poseidon contended for it.... [He learned about the olive branch] that prevailed, and the wave that resounded on the crest [of the Acropolis ], just as... causes... to make noise. [... Then Anacharsis went] to Solon —for Solon’s fame had reached him, the belief that [ Solon ]... [could] speak like someone divinely inspired. What gave him this [fame], I think, was.... When he was inside [ Solon’s] house, Anacharsis... the story... [ Solon ] was bringing [ Anacharsis ], enamored [of his wisdom] up to that point, back to. Scythian mentality, and he summoned him..., [although?] previously [he] often [... him] to poetry
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§ 29.20 so that Anacharsis too might.... and to tell some other stories, by which one might better.... Polycrates was a youth. This is the Polycrates who [subsequently] was not only king of Samos, but also of the whole Hellenic [ Aegean ] sea, by which the land [of Asia Minor] is bounded. Anyway, this Polycrates loved the music and songs of Rhodes and persuaded his father to support him in his love of music. His father sent for the lyric poet Anacreon and gave him to his son to teach him what he desired to learn. Under Anacreon the boy worked hard on the lyre to achieve kingly virtue, and he would fulfill the Homeric prayer
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§ 29.30 for his father by becoming better [than everyone else] in all respects. And Homer marvels at Achilles’ teacher Phoenix for teaching the young man how to act and speak when Achilles was in Thessaly —for it was there, in company with Achilles, that Phoenix taught him virtue— and for being everything to him in loco parentis when Achilles was at Troy, for he was with him there, too. Thus this hero became so great in deeds and words that he was almost solely responsible for the making of Homer’s great poem [the Iliad ].
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§ 30.i From the Oration He Gave When He Returned from Corinth
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§ 30.1 Poetry [i.e., Homer ] admires many aspects of Odysseus’s mentality, sometimes calling him “sprung from Zeus ” and sometimes “resourceful”..., [but it especially] seems to admire how [...] his love of Ithaca and his desire never [to injure?] the memory of his subjects... as he thinks [of his fatherland], the Lotus-eaters’ fields seem barren to him, [their land?] seems parched and unpleasant... Of course [he] also [rejects] the Sirens’ song, having applied not wax, but yearning for one’s city to [his comrades’] ears. This excellent king... for a good ruler
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§ 30.10 certainly must always be with his subjects, I think. If fortune should physically separate him from them, then he should at least keep his mind focused on them and not be separated from them by any infatuation. I know what Odysseus went through; the poem about him explains my own state of mind. When I was separated from you and was among the sons of the Ephyraeans [i.e., the Corinthians ], their land... seemed depressing and gloomy to me, the waters of Pirene seemed briny, and the Crisaean [i.e., Corinthian ] Gulf seemed agitated even in a gently heaving calm. I was utterly laid low, overwhelmed by my yearning for you. But why dwell on this? I have eloquence back, I have Athens back and... very sweet. This is the finest Attic honey. Let me not, though, completely object to being away, beginning
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§ 30.20... The hierophant seems sweeter to initiates after a long absence; so does the helmsman to the ship. To those who [want?] to dance in chorus... Sometimes even the sun, whom human beings regard as great, hides itself, so that we may look upon it again with eager eyes as it rises up from the ocean. Also, they say that, when Xenophon, the historian and skilled general, saw that he was prevailing as he moved through the [ Persian ] king’s territory and was now in possession of Byzantium, he wanted to make trial of the ranks to see how well disposed they were toward him. So he hid himself from them for a while and then suddenly
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§ 30.30 reappeared, as if coming from somewhere else. The men embraced him when he returned, as if he had been away for a whole year, and addressed him with every [imaginable] title. Satiety, then, is an evil thing, and it causes injury to many a fine situation. We remedy it by limiting our exposure [to others].73
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§ 31.i From the Propemptic Discourse to Ampelius
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§ 31.1 My boys, I was to be, I alone of the Greeks was to be the one who would find the trap that would prevent this man [Ampelius] from escaping. Yesterday he was threatening to flee in his carriage, but today we have seen him easily captured in my nets....
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§ 31.2 Since Simonides of Ceos, when sending Hieron off from Sicily to another land, took hold of the lyre, took hold of it and mixed tears with the sounds he made; and since Philammon, son of Apollo, a victory song and sang it to Jason of Thessaly in the midst of the heroes (this was after Jason obtained the golden fleece, which he brought as a prize to the Greeks upon lulling to sleep the sleepless serpent, and while he was fulfilling the mission of the sacred trireme [i.e., the Argo ])...115
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§ 31.3 Won’t the pipe sound for those who have put the crown on their heads at Olympia and exalt their garlands with song? Then won’t Athenian eloquence also send off those who have run the race of glory with unfaltering resolve?...
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§ 31.4 People have a variety of honors for those who excel. There is fat in Sparta, a cup in Thebes, land among the Argives, a painting in Sicyon, among the Medes, and a table among the Sybarites. But for the people of Attica, the crown of honor is an elegy, an oration, or a poem. These are ancient gifts. Nothing at all can overcome them, and they do not allow the passage of time to triumph over them....
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§ 31.5 It is said that even Alexander [the Great] gave the arts of old something to contend about. So when Lysippus and Apelles assigned themselves the task of representing his form, the latter gave expression to the king’s nature in paint, and the former in bronze. But since speech goes beyond the body and busies itself with the beauty and charms of the soul, let it be [regarded as] a painter who does not deceive....
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§ 31.6... unless he has an officer in command at the bow who is skilled in the whole of seamanship. For when it comes to action, the inexperienced become disconcerted, whereas the well-trained confidently display the skill they have learned....
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§ 31.7 Keep a straight and even course from the gates to the turning-post....
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§ 31.8 Are you mild? You have this virtue in common [with Ampelius]. Do you hate evil? He has fought against evil with you. Did you avoid any contact with unjust gifts? This man also barred the gates of his soul against outrageous gold that is contemptuous of justice. For he understands that justice with meager resources is no reproach, whereas wealth with injustice is an enemy of virtue and of honor....
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§ 31.9 Praise begins where [praiseworthy] actions begin. But, after making that point, what should one say? What should one refrain from saying. For it is difficult to speak and ungrateful not to speak. Consider how, when people behold the beautiful features of statues, their eyes are held fast by the first thing that strikes them; then, as they subsequently focus on other features of the statue, they don’t know what to look at first. But wait a minute! Why do I need an ancient statue? Consider instead how, when people behold some new piece of workmanship, they are compelled by the beauty that embraces the whole thing to look at all the features of it together; then, as feature after feature wins over their desire, their viewing becomes fragmented by the wondrousness [of the individual parts]. So, too, all your achievements, which strike us everywhere, require some kind of narrative other than what we can provide for you; they are not content with the current conventions of eloquence....
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§ 31.10 Should one tell of your deeds or of your judicial decisions? Of your attention to detail or of your concern for the whole? Of your care for the poor or of your gentle chastening of the powerful?...
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§ 31.11 But because of you even Sparta is luxuriating, having exchanged its dirty locks for a fine head of hair. Who could worthily tell of the endless number of buildings [you erected]? The Propylaea and the Parthenon were enough to satisfy Pericles’ ambition, a royal residence was enough for Darius, a golden vine was enough for Artaxerxes —a work of Theodorus of Samos, the useless object of a Mede luxuriating unnaturally. But you have urbanized everything between Pylai and the farthest recess of the Peloponnesus....
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§ 31.12 There was a street in the very middle of the city [of Athens ] called Collytus after its deme. It was honored by its use as an agora. Because of the street’s ancient glory, this man [i.e., Ampelius] went to the place, attracted there by what he had heard about it. When he saw it, he was amazed by the nature of the place, but what he felt more was shame on behalf of the city because of the poor condition the street was in. He would not allow the city to suffer embarrassment any longer over the matter....120
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§ 31.13 [Ampelius is] valued by emperors, cautious with tyrants, kind to the peoples [he comes in contact with].121 He excites respect from the wise, is most pleasant to the elderly, is loved by people of all conditions and ages....
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§ 31.14 Literature [Hom. Od. 4.382ff.] causes the Egyptian sophist Proteus to change into many forms; then it represents him, thus transforming himself, as overcome by those lying in wait for him....
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§ 31.15 Just as poetry [Hom. Il. 18.187–238] says that Achilles, having no arms, achieved victory as the result of a shout alone....
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§ 31.16 For often what is right in our midst escapes notice, while what is rarely seen always wins a spectator. But intricate craftsmanship decks out a work of art, welcoming the spectator who is passing by and the person shopping in the agora....
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§ 31.17 One [city] erects a colonnade, another delights in [constructing] pools. A bath makes one [city] feel pride, a domicile for the [archon] basileus that is named after that official does the same for another. Each [city] produces something, and they all positively pride themselves on your most excellent achievements....
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§ 31.18 You made believable the stories about how stone can be in love and lament and can pour forth tears, like a lover robbed of his beloved. So I fear that longing for you will cause suffering and that some people will themselves give rise to strange tales by taking on a different nature and becoming flowers or trees....
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§ 31.A1 Thinking it outrageous that sculpture and the arts associated with it were being so presumptuous toward the gods...
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§ 32.i From the Oration to the Prefect Anatolius
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§ 32.1 When Achilles in Homer was weeping over the slaughter of his friend [ Patroclus ], Zeus, having sent him a sign from heaven through Hermes, ordered him to take up his weapons. Come, then, let us too, as if with approval from on high, turn misfortune into a festival, and let us dance in honor of [ Apollo ], the leader of the Muses....
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§ 32.2 After [the battle at] Cyzicus, Alcibiades returned to Athens with the victorious fleet. The whole city turned out to meet him, some applauding him, some crowning him, others weeping, and all of them escorted Alcibiades with words of praise....
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§ 32.3 The great prefect has become the prey of my rhetorical skill....[4] Gently singing in the Hypodorian mode...
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§ 32.5 We are not dealing with fables, with Attic fictions, as the Laconians jestingly call them at the city’s expense— Dionysus, the foreigner from Thebes, or Poseidon, who expressed his love for Athens with his wave— but with a real encounter [with Anatolius?]. But [the] education [ Athens offers] and [its] laws, the root and metropolis of [its] blessings...129
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§ 32.6... that Heracles, son of Zeus, struggled through his labors and cleansed the human race of evil solely by means of his club, and that through myth this club is established as a subject of story...130
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§ 32.7 He plants his soul with this plant himself, irrigating it with Attic waters....
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§ 32.8 Fine things are always rare, and they win immortal glory for those who contrive them....
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§ 32.9 The wise Anacharsis was the first to come to the Greeks from Scythia, and Pelops was the first to come from Lydia. Pelops, borne over the calm sea on immortal horses, received as a reward for his unprecedented feat [the right] to give his name to the land [i.e., the Peloponnesus ]. Alexander was the first king to bathe his fame in the [ Indian ] Ocean, and Cyrus was the first... to ride his horse out of Babylon....
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§ 32.10 [My] praise [of you] is still off shore; [my] oration is at sea and spies no anchorage....
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§ 32.11 Music won fame for Timotheus, and wisdom brought repute to Pythagoras, but it was rhetoric that caused golden likenesses of Gorgias to be erected....
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§ 32.12 So it is perhaps best for me, after capturing the nature of this man [ Anatolius ] in a portrait of him, to imitate the example of Phidias. Phidias was not ignorant of how great Zeus was nor of the many ways in which he was great, for his soul was wiser than his hand was skillful. So since he wanted to capture the nature of Zeus in one statue, he mixed ivory with gold and, in one statue, formed an image of the Olympian god, huge as it was, for the Eleans, but also intended this Zeus for the rest of humanity as well....
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§ 32.13 I want to paint a picture for you with divine colors, for earthly colors quickly get washed away with the passage of time. If it pleases anyone to call the picture a glorious decree, I shall not disagree....
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§ 32.14 In my view, whenever this great body that we think of as the earth and as the center of that divine universe is corrupted by the disease of evil, then the spindle of Lachesis, having split heaven with its threads, leads forth from Zeus’s hearth a pure soul, who delivers to us the essence of divine apparitions. This soul brings justice, it brings courage from that hearth. Such a soul is simply absolute prudence. A countless band of cognate virtues follows a soul of this kind: sublimity, magnificence of judgment, independence of tongue, hands that cannot be bribed, a yearning for friendship, love of the truth, a steadfast mind....
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§ 32.15 For nature takes precedence over art....
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§ 32.16 Not using friendship as a basis for judging virtue, but assessing friendship on the basis of virtue....
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§ 33.i From the Oration to Phoebus, Son of the Proconsul Alexander,... [entrusted] to him [i.e., Himerius ] by his father after his schooling in Corinth.
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§ 33.1 It is reasonable, I think, that those who have come from a lesser tongue [i.e., teacher] to the door of a sophist should also find stories about sophists. So here is one about the sophist Isocrates. His name and his orations, I think, are well-known to all, for it was because of him that sophists’ tongues scorned those of poets and embraced a law of their own. Now this Isocrates always opened up the doors of his royal school to lovers of eloquence by means of an oration... He desired thereby to provide young men with an introduction to his teachings
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§ 33.10 especially anyone who was naturally suited to learning and of royal family... and another person was considered to be worthy of this favor. Isocrates’ works quite rightly indicate [who that person was]. [In the past] I have explained that he..., but I want to tell all of you, too, about this. The Cyprian tyrant Evagoras had a son [named Nicocles, who loved] the Lyceum, breathed forth Mt. Lycabettus itself, and in every other way was purely Attic. When his father saw [that he yearned for Attic eloquence] and, in his desire for it, developed an attachment to all things Attic, he deliberated about his son... so that [he might leave]... the Cyprians a worthy heir of his own glory. Now Isocrates held the Athenian chair [at that time], and his glory extended
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§ 33.20 as far as the sun could see, because he had purified rhetoric, which was inflamed with strange diction as a result of its ancient aberrations. By means of his skill he had brought it onto the right path, a regular and orderly one... When Evagoras saw that everyone who desired to acquire the genuine art of rhetoric flocked to Isocrates from everywhere, [he decided] to send his son [to him]. Isocrates welcomed Nicocles. In addition to training him in the rest of learning, through his hortatory [remarks he]..., having taken the zealous young man as a partner in his own exertions—for when eloquence lacks love, it is incomplete, in my opinion, and without wings. When Nicocles took his fill from this font and became the kind of person in deed as [he was in word, he showed himself] to have become a true disciple [of his master’s] eloquence.
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§ 34.i To Arcadius, the Physician and Comes [ Himerius ] addressed these words to Arcadius the [physician and comes]... Arcadius happened to have previously heard [ Himerius’s] epithalamium; and wanting [to put him to the test [as a possible teacher for his son]?]..., to which [ Himerius ] addressed himself.... [Why] don’t we give [him] a taste of our own [lyre]? Why don’t we show him our own armed Muse, under whose aegis [we undertake] to initiate.... For [our Muse ] just now gave an account of young people playing around the bedroom and outdoing the grace of poets with their charms. But now we are faced with another contest, another racecourse, and a Muses’ precinct open to holy initiates. For the unhallowed set their sights on a vulgar initiation... [and on initiators] who will show [them the unsanctified instead of?] the holy. But the soul brought up with every kind of learning
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§ 34.10 [desires], like..., to seek out [the Muses’ fonts] so that it may draw from them to its fill. Now many fathers, [misled] by the number [of sophists], risk their dearest charges on a toss of the dice; and, as you might expect, they are very quickly punished for their ignorance through what befalls their children. [ Peleus?]..., and likewise he was the one who procured for his son [ Achilles a teacher who would have] such great authority over him, since he trusted no one but himself [in this matter].... There were many Centaurs at the time of Chiron. Peleus, though, sent his son, not to any of the others, but to Chiron. Some Athenians at Athens initiated [their sons?] in... as well as in [the mysteries of ] Eleusis and Demeter, but the father
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§ 34.20... sent [his son?] to Athens to participate in these rites [here]. I want to tell a story that applies to the business at hand. They say that Solon, who was a lover of wisdom, traveled around the whole world, always hunting down some bit of wisdom. He came to Lydia, was also seen by the Ionians after being among the Lydians, and then went on to the land of the Egyptians —and what wisdom did he not learn among them, what excellent learning did he not bring to the Greeks from there. When he reached the Greeks, he found Aeschylus. The latter was still young; and, after Thespis and those who produced tragedy before Thespis, he was just then lifting [tragic] poetry way up off the ground
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§ 34.30 so that he would be able to address the spectators from on high. Solon marveled at tragedy and often went, along with his son, to see Aeschylus’s plays, so that the two of them might learn the tragic stories from those plays. They also say that, when Democedes, that famous man of Croton and the first to bring Greek medicine to barbarians, went to hear Pythagoras after he had been to Susa and among the Medes, he marveled more at the bliss of Pythagoras’s wisdom than at the [ Persian ] king’s wealth.
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§ 35.i From a Protreptic Oration Addressed to the Students Who Came Over [to Him] A protreptic oration addressed to the students who came over to him [i.e., Himerius ] from other sophists and on the question of [stylistic] variety....
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§ 35.1... [we see them now?] looking closely at my rites. So where were these young men initiated in [the mysteries of ] the Muses? Why [didn’t they from the first enter] the open [doors of my school]? Well, then, let us lead these initiates forth now; let us show them the mystic fire now. But before... I want to sing a preliminary song. Let this song be a sacred image that explains to them where the [true academic] home of young men is to be found... [In the past] it took some time for people in Athens to find the Lyceum and to begin their studies with Socrates
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§ 35.10 They were busying themselves here and there [with study]... but [still] were not tasting true learning and philosophy. When by good fortune, like..., they looked upon Socrates’ philosophy, they threw away all other instruction and, like..., gave themselves over to his teachings. So just as when, on the stage, engineers position [cranes for a change in the action], one could observe how those men too, after beginning to associate with Socrates, [were changed]... in their lives, their learning, and quite simply in every way. He who had a high-spirited soul came to be called courageous by tempering his emotions with reason. He who led a luxurious life achieved self-control by moderating his nature
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§ 35.20 By removing the mist from his soul he acquired a different kind of sophistication and... [learned] to honor his oath and to reverence the gods. For what person who had learned to swear by a dog or a plane tree would not subsequently have become much more piously cautious when swearing by the gods? And it was only after Alcibiades left the sophists that he filled the whole world with his trophies. It was at that time that [ Plato ] rightly learned to love..., and [he.... Philolaus, who appears as a genuine lover [of knowledge] in Socrates’ conversations [Pl. Phaedo 61d]... [not?] only the theaters, but also wrestling-schools and byways and drinking-parties... and it was not his habit to be very concerned with astronomical phenomena
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§ 35.30 as was the case with other [philosophers]... [But just as] musicians, by giving expression to their skills on a whole range of instruments, entice every one of their listeners by [appealing to] the appropriate part of their souls, so too did [ Plato ] capture every ear that heard him... [by offering] a multifaceted learning. That the sophist Orpheus perhaps also had a similar talent [is hinted at] in the stories about him... [Myth] gathers for him an audience of every kind of creature, I think, to hear him play the lyre, convinced that his resourcefulness and versatility [would enchant] his listeners. And Homer, in his admiration of Odysseus, has made clear the many sides of Odysseus’s skillfulness
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§ 35.40 by means of one utterance: “Tell me, O Muse, of a resourceful man” [Od. 1.1]. For lack of versatility creates a dryness in everything. [Wise men have even found a multiformity in] the laws of nature. For they divide time into a variety of seasons, and they divide... the motion of the heavens. They traditionally separate the soul into three parts, and this whole universe... of various elements. [Even] the governor of this whole universe in the heavens, who the leading wise men declare [is called] either Apollo or the Sun, [is multifaceted]..., he who delights the choruses of human beings as he appears to them in [various] forms. If you desire a musical lyre, [his tunes] sound forth (?) nearby. [If some] ailment [plagues you], the Paean Apollo is at hand. If the earthly medium is weary, the song sent [to him by Apollo ] is not weary
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§ 35.50 If [you want to see] the heavenly torch [i.e., the sun]..., he favors everyone with it. (But I suspect that the Cimmerians, a dejected people who do not have the sun and live in a [perpetual] night, have actually come to hate the sun they have never seen.)5. The meadow owes its sweetness to the fact that it teems with every kind of flower, and it is the necklace [graced by] a beauty gathered [from stones of various kinds] that is valued. Why do people marvel at the peacock more than at other birds? Isn’t this because peacocks are so variegated in their coloring.... And Sybaris is famous because of the variety of its cuisine. The sea, too, varies its nature and takes on many forms. It becomes wine-colored when it flattens out the waves into a calm surface, but it takes on a dark look when it is stirred up and provoked by the winds
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§ 35.60 At one time it... with white foam, [at another time] it surges... Don’t we marvel at Alcinous’s royal palace and the Phaeacian gardens because [in their hospitality...]? Homer’s [poem] allows their land, through a variety of blessings, to have the fruits of all the seasons in one season and to enjoy the horn of Amaltheia. [Their land] has been honored... by those who perhaps [regard] those blessings, too, to be a metaphor for eloquence. For what gift more beautiful than eloquence could fortune have given the human race? [It is varied], as was Socrates’ voice, and so was Homer’s poetry, Pythagoras’s music, Herodotus’s history, and [Mt. Helicon’s sounds, for to Mt. Helicon ] the Muses brought [all] kinds of instruments from everywhere and made the sound of all of them the valley’s lyre
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§ 35.70... [and] because of Socrates [men?] imitated the [ Muses’?] rite. But, as [I] have said, it is time to light the fire.
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§ 36.1 From the Propemptic Oration to Flavianus You flee from me, my friend, as I labor on a better lyre tune to greet you after your stay in Libya [i.e., Africa]; you have suddenly pushed me aside and compelled me to sing a gloomy song. We did not yet see the spring, and now a Hellespontic storm strikes us and freezes our soul. We did not yet see the sun, and now it directs its rays elsewhere and threatens to bring night to the Greeks. We are gloomy before we smile, we pray to the gods of the wayside before offering sacrifice in honor of your arrival....
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§ 36.2 [I think?] that [my] eloquence is being tested, an eloquence less daring than the hand, hesitating to do what wax and iron desire to do....
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§ 36.3 For [your] fame was always crossing over the sea from Libya to the Greeks....
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§ 36.4 He depicted the breeze in a wanton and playful state, like the Lydian women whom painters depict, artfully making them appear intoxicated on their canvases....
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§ 36.5 So having briefly drawn our oration up on land from midcourse, we shall now allow it to flow down through Libya....
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§ 36.6 No one prevails [over Flavianus ], because everything [in him] evokes admiration....
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§ 36.7 For my oration, having followed [its] desire, was almost diverted to another path as it moved along, as if by a forceful stream. So it must be brought back to Libya....
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§ 36.8 For they say that they were mad with a heaven-sent love for one another....
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§ 36.9 [ Flavianus ] has a nature that, from the very start [of any undertaking], points to his divine pedigree. What he says, both at home and in public, is filled with every kind of learning. By these traits of his Pericles was shown to be second in persuasiveness, Themistocles was shown to be rather dull in quickness of judgment, Plato in his nature, Solon in his law-giving.... And everyone knows that, whereas other individuals glory in a single quality each, this man glories in all of them....
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§ 36.10 “What shall I do? What decision shall I make? Shall I send [ Flavianus ] as an [urban] prefect to the Romans? But a people used to luxurious living are unacquainted with a serious governor.”142...
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§ 36.11 “Perhaps Carthage is annoyed with me, a city of Africa that once in its bravery was opposed to Rome, a city that feeds the whole of Italy with all the beautiful things it produces, a city that fails to be first only to the degree that it feels humbled by [the city of ] Rome. A great city, I know, is in peril, and the whole land [of Africa] is presided over by a bad government.”...
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§ 36.12 Absolutely all Greeks between Pylai and the Ionian Gulf in the west, from one side [of Greece] to the other, bear witness in public theaters to the goodwill they feel toward me....
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§ 36.13 “Let us send him [ Flavianus ] as the great holder of the reins of justice.” This was the emperor’s judgment, and the golden tablets of office immediately overtook his decision....
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§ 36.14 Having reached this point in my oration, “what shall I say first, what next, what last” [Hom. Od. 9.14]? For [ Flavianus’s] actions are everywhere set in motion, they are all equal, and it is just as hard not to speak as to speak; the former is hindered by the number [of his deeds], the latter by their magnitude. So I must say not everything that it is possible to say, but everything that I am able to say....
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§ 36.15 Seeing him [i.e., Flavianus ] conducting his convoy in a storm as though the sea were calm, and sporting on the waves as though in a harbor, some yearned for him as for a passionate lover, and others shuddered at him as at one who was unconquerable by any fear at all....
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§ 36.16 They provided a greater procession [for Flavianus ] than the one for Hephaestus. The people sang out in reply to the waves, the applause from the city answered the surf, the shouting from Carthage overpowered the sound of the sea....
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§ 36.17 Let everyone, old and young, pardon me if I speak like an epic poet; for love knows how, yes it knows how to compose an oration subject only to its own laws....

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Robert J. Penella (1947 - ). Composed ca. 380 CE. Licence: copyright Robert J. Penella, used by permission. Source.