Selected Essays of Plutarch

SELECTED ESSAYS OF PLUTARCH

VOL. II

TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION

BY

A. O. PRICKARD

‘But the Author in whom he delighted most was Plutarch, of

whose works he was lucky enough to possess the worthier half;

if the other had perished Plutarch would not have been a popular

writer, but he would have held a higher place in the estimation of

the judicious.’—Southey, The Doctor, chapter vi, p. 1.

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1918

PREFACE

This volume covers about one-eighth part of the miscellaneous works of Plutarch known as the Moralia, much the same quantity as is contained in Professor Tucker’s volume of this series which appeared in 1913. All the pieces now offered are in the form of dialogue, except the short treatise On Superstition, which seemed to justify its inclusion by a certain affinity of thought.

The text followed is that of Wyttenbach, issued by the Clarendon Press in 1795-1800, or rather a text compounded of the Greek text there printed, his own critical notes and revision of the old Latin version, his commentary, where one exists, and his posthumous Index of Greek words used by Plutarch (1830). A few corrections by C. F. Hermann, Emperius, Madvig, and other scholars, have been introduced, for many of which I am indebted, in the first place, as I have acknowledged more particularly, to M. G. N. Bernardakis, the accomplished editor of the Moralia in the Teubner series (1888-96). A very few fresh corrections, mostly on obvious points, have been admitted.

The notes at the foot of the page are intended to show all deviations from Wyttenbach’s text, so constituted, or to give references to the authors of passages quoted by Plutarch; there may be a few exceptions, where an illustrative reference or an obvious explanation is given. For the plays and fragments of the Tragic Poets reference is made to Dindorf’s Poetae Scenici; for Pindar and other lyric poets, to Bergk’s Poetae Lyrici Graeci (ed. 1900); for the fragments of Heraclitus, to Bywater’s Heracliti Ephesii reliquiae (Oxford, 1877); those of other early philosophers will be found in their places in Diels’ Vorsokratiker (1903) or other collections.

To four of the dialogues I have with some reluctance prefixed a short running analysis. It is always a pity to anticipate what the author puts clearly before us;[^[1]] but there is here a real practical difficulty, even for a careful reader, in being sure who is the speaker for the time being; and as he is often introduced by the pronouns ‘I’ or ‘he’, no typographical device quite serves. The other dialogues seem to explain themselves sufficiently. There is no attempt to supply a commentary; but it is hoped that the full index of proper names (which are very numerous) will enable a reader to distinguish those as to whom it is worth his while to inquire further from those who are only of passing interest. I have given here a good many references to other works of Plutarch, but more may usefully be sought, for instance in such an index as is appended to Clough’s edition of the Lives.

I may perhaps be allowed to mention that the dialogue On the Face which appears on the Orb of the Moon was translated by me, and tentatively published in 1911, with the hope of obtaining some helpful criticism. Having received several kind notices, and in particular a very full one in Hermathena by Dr. L. G. Purser, to which I am deeply indebted, I have now ventured to reproduce this dialogue in somewhat fuller form than the others, and to retain some of my original notes. I should add that I have no competence to deal with any scientific matters as such. I have added two longer notes on special points of interest.

Sir Thomas Browne, writing in 1681-2 to his son Edward who was by way of translating the Lives of Plutarch, and in fact accomplished two of them, assumes that he will in the main follow Amyot’s version, which North had followed absolutely, and suggests that, with some corrections and the removal of obsolete words, North’s work might still serve ‘especially with gentlemen, who if the expression bee playne looke not into criticisme’. ‘If you have the Greek Plutarke,’ he writes, ‘have also the Latin adjoyned unto it, so you may consult either upon occasion, though you apply yourself to translate out of French, and the English translation may be sometimes helpful.’ Very likely an acceptable version of the Moralia might now be produced out of Amyot and Philemon Holland, a racy and scholarly translator from the Greek, with the original and the old Latin at hand for reference. But Dr. Edward Browne was a physician, of little leisure and of delicate health, and it might hardly be respectful to Plutarch to adopt this procedure now; indeed it seems to recall that of ‘the dog’ in the proverb, who ‘drinks from the Nile’, running as he drinks, always with an eye on the crocodiles. However this may be, some indulgence may fairly be claimed by a translator of an author, who, however straight-forward himself, abounds in allusion and latent quotation, and also in difficulties of text not of his own making, and upon whom no commentary exists. I will mention, for the sake of clearness, two instances as to which I have troubled myself and, I fear, others a good deal:

In the dialogue On the Genius of Socrates, chap. iii, end (577 A), the speaker says that his brother Epaminondas is keeping out of the patriotic enterprise in hand, on the ground that the more hot-headed members of the party will not stop short of a general massacre and the murder of many of the leading citizens.

I have followed the Latin version in so rendering the words καὶ διαφθεῖραι πολλοὺς τῶν διαφερόντων. But I have felt some doubt—needlessly, I think—whether the Greek participle would bear this meaning, and also whether the sense so given is strong and suitable. Wyttenbach felt doubts too, for in his posthumous Index, s.v. διαφέρω, the rendering given is ‘hostes vel amici’, i.e. ‘friends or foes’. The sense is excellent, but seems hardly to be in the Greek; probably it was a mere query or jotting. The Teubner editor prints τῶν ἰδίᾳ διαφόρων ὄντων, i.e. ‘those with whom they had private differences’, giving Cobet’s name for the last two words. I have not been able to trace the reference in Cobet, but in Novae Lectiones, p. 565, he examines instances where he thinks that ἰδίᾳ should be supplied or suppressed, as the case may be, before compounds of διά. The sense seems good, but too special to be introduced into a text without cogent evidence, since, once given currency, it is difficult for a future critic to go back upon it. Meanwhile, in Wyttenbach’s note on ii, 75 A, he collects many instances where οἱ διάφοροι is used by Plutarch for ‘the enemy’, ‘the other party’, and τῶν διαφερόντων may have grown out of τῶν διαφόρων with τῶν repeated. I have thought it the more peaceable course to preserve the old rendering. I only quote this instance, which is of no great importance but is of some, as one where a Variorum editor would have stated at length and evaluated the possible alternatives. That a translator should do so is perhaps a case of ‘putting the cart before the horse’.

The other instance is one of real interest, where the problem is perhaps insoluble upon our present knowledge. In the long dialogue On the Cessation of the Oracles, c. 20 (420 c.), where Cleombrotus has been pressing a view that there may be daemons with a long, but yet a limited, term of existence, against the Epicureans, whose own strange theory of Eidola he derides, Ammonius replies in words which appear thus in the Latin:

‘Recte, inquit, mihi pronunciare videtur Theophrastus, quid enim obstat quin sententiam gravissimam et philosophiae convenientissimam recipiamus dicentis: opinionem de Daemonibus, si reiciatur, multa eorum simul abolere quae fieri possunt demonstratione autem carent; sin admittatur multa secum trahere impossibilia et quae non exstiterint.’

Amyot and others write ‘Cleombrotus’ for ‘Theophrastus’, a change which, in view of Plutarch’s carelessness as to personal names, seems not unlikely, and helps a little. No doubt Theophrastus is quoted, but his name need not have been mentioned, and may have been brought into the text in the wrong place. The absurdity of the words which I have given in italics seems evident, and I have returned to a suggestion of Xylander,[^[2]] by introducing a negative before πολλά, assuming that Theophrastus is quoted, not for any opinion about daemons, but for a canon of what is logically ‘probable’. More subtle solutions are suggested, which could not be discussed here properly: the question seems too intricate to be settled by a translator as he goes on his way. We really want to know what Theophrastus said.

The remarks on the absence of a commentary do not apply to the dialogue on Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment, fully annotated by Wyttenbach in 1772, nor to the essay On Superstition and the greater part of The E at Delphi, which are dealt with in his continuous commentary. Nor should I omit to mention the great help afforded by Kepler’s notes on the Face in the Moon and his scholarly translation.

The large number of poetical quotations in Plutarch often stop a translator’s hand. Wherever it is possible, I have turned to standard versions: for Homer to that of Worsley completed by Conington, for Pindar’s extant Odes to that of Bishop George Moberly, which it has been an especial pleasure to use; for some lines of the Cyclops of Euripides I have been fortunate enough to draw upon Shelley. There remain a good many fragments, some of them of real poetical quality, and some jingling oracles and the like; for the latter doggerel is the proper vehicle, for the former the best attainable doggerel must serve. The range of Plutarch’s poetical quotations seems strangely limited considering their number. All are Greek, and most from the older poets; indeed, with the exception of a few from the New Comedy, nearly all might have been used by Plato. Those from the Tragedians are always to the point, but he does not appear to care from which of the three he is borrowing.[^[3]] Homer and Hesiod always bring a welcome flavour of an older world. Perhaps Pindar is the poet whom he quotes with most hearty appreciation. Though he has given us many new poetical fragments, he introduces us to few, if any, new poets. Of Bacchylides there are only two slight quotations in all Plutarch’s works. A single reference to a passage of Horace is all that shows a knowledge of the existence of Roman poetry.

Southey’s comparison between the Moralia and the Lives need not be pressed; it is the scholar’s preference for the rare, which is his by privilege, over the popular. But it is well to realize, as it is easy to do with the help of indices, that the author’s hand is one in both. It is agreed that the Lives belong to Plutarch’s later years, and were written at Chaeroneia, under the limitations of his own library; the several books appeared at intervals, of what length we cannot say.[^[4]] The few indications of date mentioned in the introductions to the dialogues now before us suggest the later part of Vespasian’s reign or the years nearly following it, say from A.D. 80 on. The dialogue on the Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment from its simpler psychology and demonology, and perhaps from some crudity in style, suggests a date earlier than that of some of the others. Dr. Max Adler, in his lucid and learned dissertation, has established the close connexion between the Face in the Moon and the Cessation of the Oracles, and thinks the former to have been the earlier, and to have been utilized for the latter piece.[^[5]]

Montaigne, who knew his Plutarch up and down, has said that he is one of the authors whom he likes to take after the manner of the Danaids,[^[6]] which may be described as a method of ‘dip and waste’. You may dip anywhere, as you may into the pages of The Doctor, and be sure of finding something which you would wish to remember; but you may also find, on re-reading the same passage, that you have not remembered it at all, so that the waste is continual. The freshness need not be impaired by a little more system; indeed it would be enhanced, at least for the dialogues, for this reason, that they all represent real conversations between real persons, and it is worth our while to put together our impressions about each. The fullest materials for such an attempt will be found in the Symposiacs or dialogues over wine.[^[7]]

The Symposiacs are arranged in nine books, each of which contains ten conversations of unequal length, but all short, except the last which has fifteen. On the other hand nine, viz. four of the fourth book and five of the last, are missing, only the titles being preserved. All the books are dedicated to Sossius Senecio, who was consul first in A.D. 99; and as there is no reference to the dignity, we may perhaps infer that all were written before that year.[^[8]] There is not a single reference in all the nine books to any public or personal event which might help us to a date. We hear of the ‘year’ of officials of the Greek games, of Plutarch’s return from a visit to Alexandria, and of a marriage in his family, which Sossius Senecio attended, but we cannot follow these clues.[^[9]] Many of the discussions are about wine and wine-parties; in others the range of subject is very wide, from ‘What Plato meant by saying, if he did say, that God geometrizes’ to ‘Whether the table should be cleared after dinner’, or ‘Why truffles grow after thunder’. A good many are on medical subjects; in one of them the promising problem, ‘Whether new diseases can arise, and from what causes’, is well argued. The physicians present show a full knowledge of the Natural History found in the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and the laymen seem to argue with them on equal terms. There is little or no pleasantry about professional habits, the fees or the pedantry, except that in one party a physician is host, and sets on the table an inordinately good dinner, while certain young men of severe habits put him to a great deal of trouble to produce some cheese to eat with their dry bread.[^[10]]

In the first dialogue of the First Book the question is raised, ‘Whether philosophy may be discussed over wine’. The answer appears to be ‘Why not?’ but probably none of the following dialogues would be called ‘philosophical’ by philosophers. Plutarch loved a vigorous set-to, with no quarter given, ‘nothing for hate, but all for honour’, as much as did Montaigne.[^[11]] But he felt deeply about the matters at issue between Stoics and Epicureans, the two schools which mattered. Believing himself in a Providence, kindly and particular, associated by him with the Apollo of Delphi, he disliked equally the Epicurean who flouted a Providence, and the Stoic who lowered it by his pedantry and contradictions. He would not have a scene over the wine. Even in the daylight dialogues now before us, the cynic ‘Planetiades’ is skilfully bowed out before there is trouble, and ‘Epicurus’ takes himself off before the reported discussion begins, leaving the company surprised rather than angry.

The titles of the five lost dialogues of the last book (the others of that book being all on literary subjects) are curious. Three are connected with music; and I should have the permission of those who have kindly helped me here to say that there is about Greek music a considerable region of dim penumbra. Another raises a question discussed in the De Facie and answered there out of Aristotle and Posidonius, as to the eclipses of sun and moon. Another is on the problem ‘Whether the total number of the stars is more probably even than odd’. The speakers (for a fragment is preserved) are quite aware that a game of odd-and-even on such a scale might seem childish. It need not be so, if the treatment were like that of the Arenarius of Archimedes (all the better if in his Doric); it would then have contained some long numbers and some stiff reasoning. Of one thing we may be sure, that if Lamprias, who is much to the fore in the Ninth Book, took a part, he was ready with a received view, framed on the spot.

M. Bernardakis[^[12]] (who quotes a letter from M. Wessely) tells us that in the Paris E there is a blank space here of 2-¼ leaves, but that in the old Vienna MS., no. 148 (which contains the Symposiacs only), three whole pages have been cut out, leaving a gap between what remains of the sixth dialogue and the fragment of the twelfth. Former editions had printed continuously, and our gratitude is due to M. Bernardakis for his restitution of the fragment to its proper place. The inference appears to be that the Vienna MS. is here the parent, though why the fragment stops short where it does is not clear. Probably the scribe was daunted by the technical language, and either left a blank space to be filled up by some one of greater experience, or so spoilt his sheets by errors and erasures that it was better to cut them out. Some such cause has been conjectured for the many gaps left in E, occurring where the subject-matter is difficult.

Some ninety different persons are mentioned by name as taking part in the Symposiac Dialogues, and if we allow for the lost pieces, there must have been at least a hundred. These may be arranged in groups: Plutarch and his family—his grandfather, father, brothers, sons, sons-in-law—the doctors (8), the grammarians (5), and so on. Many of these reappear in the dialogues now before us, and much may be gained in distinctness of personality by following out the references given.[^[13]] Ammonius, Plutarch’s teacher in the Platonic philosophy, comes out as a masterful person, and a past-master in the art of tactful arrangement of a debate. Theon (‘Our Comrade’, an appellation given to some half-dozen others), to be distinguished from ‘Theon the Grammarian’, is a close and much trusted family friend. Very few Roman names appear, but Sossius Senecio, Mestrius Florus, and one or two others, must have been intimates.

None of the conversations in the Symposiacs turn upon points which were Plutarch’s interest when he wrote the Lives; the study of character in stirring times, of the reaction of circumstances upon character and of character upon circumstances, of the insoluble problem which is always solving itself, as to ‘Virtue’ on the one hand and ‘Fortune’ on the other, determining success. The elaborate introduction to the Genius of Socrates, put side by side with that to the Life of Pericles, shows that the author wished to turn from subjects which made good talk over wine in hours of leisure, to others of a more virile stamp. The most convenient hypothesis would be that the success of the Symposiacs suggested to the author to try his hand on more elaborate dialogue, and that, still later on, he settled to the Lives in the spirit, not of an historian, but of an artist, filling his canvas with themes inspired by that great art, Virtue. The lost Life of Epaminondas, his favourite hero, would have told us a great deal about the artist himself. It was not Plutarch’s habit to sum up in such brilliant character sketches as stand out in other historians: this has been done for Epaminondas, on broad and generous lines, by Sir Walter Raleigh, and before him, not less generously, by Montaigne; and much material will be found scattered among Plutarch’s other Lives.

Such an hypothesis can only be ventured in the broadest outline, for no one date covers all the Lives or all the Dialogues, and some of the facts are perplexing. In the Second Pythian Dialogue Diogenianus appears as a very young man, and is introduced as the son of a father known to the company; and Diogenianus of Pergamum takes part in several of the Symposiacs, but there is no mention of a son old enough to be brought with him. On the other hand, Boethus in the same dialogue is ‘on his way to the camp of the Epicureans’; in one of the Symposiacs he is ‘an Epicurean’ simply. In the last book of the Symposiacs Theon’s sons come in, but we do not hear of him elsewhere as a father of grown-up sons.

The dialogue On the Face which appears on the Orb of the Moon is unique as showing the interest taken by men of good general education in scientific subjects in the first century of our era, and as evidence of the point to which the natural sciences had then attained. Professional science may be said to have been almost limited to the province of the mathematician and his congeners. Natural History was part of the general outfit of the ‘Philosophers’, and there was no idea of the ‘Conquest of Nature’ for the relief of man’s estate, unless by the engineer or the physician. With these limitations, the progress made may strike some modern readers as surprisingly great, and a good example may be found in the very precise knowledge of Hipparchus and Ptolemy of the delicate phenomena of the moon’s movements. We are tempted to ask whether, if Greeks had not settled these problems, which men of no other ancient race attacked scientifically, they would have been settled to this day. To come down to a humbler matter: if the properties of the conic sections had not been discovered by Apollonius and his predecessors, would they stand in their place, probably a modest one, on a modern syllabus, and, meanwhile, could the mechanical arts have progressed without them? And the conic sections are simple things compared with the lines, surfaces, and solids determined once for all by Archimedes. Archimedes was a mathematician by the grace of Nature, and an engineer by the order of a prince; and the conic sections themselves were examined, not from any practical interest in the cone, but because they were found to furnish instances of the curves which might facilitate the line of inquiry, suggested by Plato with such amazing foresight, as a half-way house towards a solution of Apollo’s problem.[^[14]] Of course this can only be stated as a question—not a rhetorical question—and must be left on the knees of the gods. The general subject is discussed in D. Ruhnken’s admirable De Graecia artium ac doctrinarum inventrice, an inaugural lecture delivered at Leyden in 1757 (just thirty years after Newton’s death).

A few lines about the scholar to whose prolonged labours upon Plutarch we owe so much are only his due. Daniel Wyttenbach was born at Bern, where his father was a divine of good Swiss family, in 1746. He studied at Marburg and Göttingen, and passed to Holland, filling professorial chairs at Amsterdam, and, from 1798, at Leyden. In Holland he was the colleague and intimate friend of Valckenaer (1715-85) and David Ruhnken (1723-98), himself by birth a German. By their advice, he turned from a meditated edition of the Emperor Julian’s works to Plutarch. The two advisers were not quite at one, and Wyttenbach seemed to crouch between two burdens—Valckenaer wished him to produce a final edition of some one work, Ruhnken (who would gladly have faced the task himself if he had been a younger man) preferred that he should not stop short of all Plutarch. In 1772 he produced his learned and complete commentary on the De sera numinum Vindicta. About this time the Delegates of the Oxford Press were anxious to produce a worthy edition of a great classic; and in 1788 Thomas Burgess, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, afterwards Bishop of St. Davids and of Salisbury, visited Holland and sought an introduction to Wyttenbach, with whom an arrangement was concluded in the autumn of that year. The issue of the volumes of text, with critical notes and revised Latin version, began in 1795 and went on steadily till 1797; but there was much delay and many searchings of heart over the last volume, containing the fragments, the dispatch of which was hindered by the state of war and the occupation of Holland by foreign troops. It was at last discovered in 1800 in the port of Hamburg, and appears to have reached Oxford in that year. The first two volumes of the commentary, to page 242 C, had preceded it in 1798, and were also published in 1800. The last volume must have proceeded slowly, for it had only reached 392 D, near the end of the E at Delphi, when, on January 12, 1807, it was interrupted by an explosion due to the careless use of fire on a barge loaded with gunpowder. The effects of the conflagration which followed are visible in Leyden to this day. The disaster was ill-timed for us, for the commentary stops just short of a passage of great interest (see p. [75]). Wyttenbach bore this trouble, which he has graphically described in several letters, and also those caused by ill health and narrowed means, with much fortitude. He died in 1820, and the last volume of the commentary was sent to Oxford and published in 1821, followed by the two volumes of the Index Graecitatis in 1830. He was a most amiable man, and the letters which passed between him and Ruhnken have much charm of feeling and expression. Both wrote in admirable Latin; Wyttenbach’s style is always fluent and picturesque, but has certain idiosyncrasies, which may delay an English reader.[^[15]]

Of older scholars who had dealt with Plutarch, by far the most important was Turnebus[^[16]] (1512-65). Of Xylander (W. Holzmann, 1532-76), who produced the Latin translation, the basis of his own commentary, and a Greek text, Wyttenbach writes with much respect and sympathy, as he does also of Reiske (1716-74), his own contemporary, who, however, was not quite adequately equipped, in point of material or of critical judgement.

I should like to express my deep sense of the loss caused to classical scholarship by the lamented death of Herbert Richards. I have more than once referred to his critical notes on the Moralia, which have been appearing lately in the Classical Review: many of the finer points of Greek idiom do not concern a translator, but there are several most valuable suggestions and criticisms which I have felt confidence in adopting.

A still more personal loss, which intimately concerns this volume, is that of Ingram Bywater. He had promised a revision of it in its passage through the press; and his vigilance as a Curator as well as his jealousy for the severer traditions of scholarship, apart from his personal kindness, would, I know, have made it a searching one. He did not specially care for English translation, and his own masterly version of the Poetics of Aristotle is prefaced by something like a protest. Nor did he feel much sympathy with what he would call the ‘Realien’. On the realities of life no one had a saner or better informed judgement. For natural science and its representatives he cherished a genuine respect; and perhaps none of the tributes to his memory would have touched him more than one which was paid in the pages of Nature by an old colleague and friend of the Exeter College days. But he had a certain shyness of the intrusion of arguments based, say, upon geometry or music, into problems of language already sufficiently perplexed. How generously his noble library and his own stores of wisdom were thrown open to those who sought them is known to many, as it is to myself.

Yet another great loss to me has been that of the Rev. David Thomas, Rector of Garsington, in Oxfordshire, a veteran mathematician, my near neighbour and most kindly and helpful referee during many years.

I cannot send out even so small a volume without a word of gratitude for affectionate and lifelong help received from John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury 1885-1911. His own enduring contribution to secular scholarship was made in 1874, and holds its place in the judgement of Latin scholars. He was always shouldering new burdens, the last being the mastering, for a definite purpose of friendship and public duty, of the language and history of Sweden. But his great stores of books and of knowledge were always in order, and always made available to others. He would often preface any opinion of his own by ‘My father used to think highly’ of such a book or such a person; and it was always well to be reminded of that true scholar and most courteous gentleman of an older day.

I owe much, for help and advice, to living friends whom I should like to thank, but may not. But I must be allowed to acknowledge, in no conventional spirit, the great care bestowed on these pages by the Reader for the Delegates of the Press, who has entered into difficulties of matter as well as of language as few scholars can be expected to have the patience to do.[^[17]]

The style of Plutarch has not received much favour with scholars. He uses too many words, and writes in cumbrous sentences, and the words often seem ill-shapen. But it has merits which are acknowledged by all those who have dwelt much upon him. His style is a very honest one; at the end of the longest sentence it is always found that he has said something worth saying, and that no word can be retrenched as mere verbiage. And he is so much in earnest that he often reaches an eloquence, which burns, perhaps, with a dull glow, but which cannot be quite lost in any translation. Indeed the modern languages have sometimes an advantage in the fact that they do not possess counterparts, as long and as elaborate, of the terms used in the original. Of the first, and the best, of Plutarch’s translators, Montaigne[^[18]] has written an opinion, to which it should be added that, in the judgement of very capable persons, Amyot[^[19]] was a scholar of real knowledge and penetration, though he is sometimes content to paraphrase:

‘Ie donne avecque raison, ce me semble, la palme à Iacques Amyot sur touts nos escrivains françois, non seulement pour la naïfveté et pureté du langage, en quoy il surpasse touts aultres, ny pour la constance d’un si long travail, ny pour la profondeur de son sçavoir, ayant peu developper si heureusement un aucteur si espineux et ferré (car on m’en dira ce qu’on vouldra, ie n’entends rien au grec, mais ie veois un sens si bien ioinct et entretenu partout en sa traduction, que, ou il a certainement entendu l’imagination vraye de l’aucteur, ou ayant, par longue conversation, planté vifvement dans son ame une generale idee de celle de Plutarque, il ne luy a au moins rien presté qui le desmente ou qui le desdie); mais, sur tout, ie luy sçais bon gré d’avoir seu trier et choisir un livre si digne et si à propos pour en faire present à son pais.’

Since this Preface was written, early in 1916, a study of Plutarch, which should be of great value to his readers, has appeared in the De Plutarcho scriptore et philosopho, by Professor J. J. Hartman of Leyden. Professor Hartman is an enthusiast, and his book covers all the works of Plutarch, the Moralia and the Lives, their relations to one another and to the author’s career. He is of opinion that the Lives were taken in hand after all, or nearly all, the writings included in the Moralia were completed, and then appeared in rapid succession of books. He observes that many of the pieces of the Moralia suggest the date A.D. 107; the Symposiacs he places somewhat later. Two conclusions, of much importance as coming from so serious a student, may be stated: the Christian teaching had never come into Plutarch’s hearing (p. 114, &c.), and there is no suggestion of any tendency to Oriental or Neoplatonic thought; Plutarch was the best living authority on Plato and his works, and aimed at being the Plato of his own day (pp. 389, 680, &c.).

A large list of critical comments is appended to the general notice of each work. Professor Hartman takes as his basis the Teubner edition, and pays a well-merited tribute to the care and skill of M. Bernardakis (p. 237, &c.). His usual complaint is that the editor has lacked the boldness to incorporate in the text ingenious emendations which he mentions in notes. I had myself felt somewhat differently as to all unsupported emendations, though I am glad to repeat my sense of the great usefulness of the edition, my debt to which goes much beyond what I have expressly acknowledged.

CONTENTS

ON THE GENIUS OF SOCRATES

INTRODUCTION

The Dialogue on The Genius of Socrates, to follow the familiar Latin title, is in the main a detailed and spirited account of a gallant exploit, the recovery of the Cadmeia, or citadel of Thebes, treacherously taken by the Spartans, with the aid of the Theban oligarchs, two years before. The recovery was effected in the winter of 379-378 B.C. by a party of Theban patriots, returning from exile in Athens, led by Pelopidas. The discussions as to the real meaning of the ‘daemonic Sign’ of Socrates form interludes which fill in the hours of waiting, and serve to relieve the tension of the narrative. It is as though Ulysses were heard discoursing to Menelaus within the Wooden Horse on the personality of Pallas Athene, with Helen prowling around outside. There is nothing strained or dramatic, in any disparaging sense, in speculation thus rubbing shoulders with action. The simplicity and good faith of the speakers, and the attractive personality of Epaminondas, forbid any suspicion of affectation. Thus the Dialogue serves a double purpose: it redeems the character of the leading Thebans, and of Pelopidas in particular, from the habitual disparagement of Xenophon and others; and it redeems the intellectual character of the Boeotians from the reproach against which the most brilliant of Greek poets, himself a son of Thebes, protests, ‘Swine of Boeotia’. For the chief speaker on the Socratic question is Simmias, and Cebes is present, Thebans whose names are for ever associated with the last hours of the Athenian Master; and the story is brightened by glimpses into the home of Epaminondas, and by hallowed memories of the Pythagorean brotherhood.

Early in 382 B.C. the Spartans had dispatched a force against Olynthus, the first division under Eudamidas, the second under his brother Phoebidas. The latter lingered under the walls of Thebes; and, whether led by personal ambition, or receiving secret orders from home, allowed himself to intrigue with the oligarchical leaders, who, though their party was not in power, were strong enough to be represented on the board of Polemarchs by Leontides, another, or the other, being Ismenias. Guided by Leontides, the Spartans, one hot summer day, seized the Cadmeia; Leontides arrested his colleague Ismenias, and caused Archias to be made Polemarch in his place. The popular leaders, some four hundred in number, took refuge in Athens. The Spartans disclaimed the action of Phoebidas, who was fined and superseded; and appropriated its results, strengthening the garrison of the Cadmeia. A commission of judges from the confederate states was appointed by Sparta to try Ismenias on a vague charge of Medizing; he was condemned and executed. Of the two Polemarchs, Archias was a man of pleasure, Leontides one of severe private life, but an unscrupulous party leader. He caused the lives of the refugees in Athens to be attempted, successfully in at least one case, that of Androcleidas. Of the patriots, Pelopidas, who had been formally exiled, was the leading spirit; Epaminondas, who remained at home, held back for good reasons which are stated in the course of the Dialogue (p. [9]). One of the most useful confederates was Phyllidas; he had himself, when on a visit to Athens, suggested the enterprise, but he managed to retain the confidence of the party now in possession of Thebes, and held the office of Secretary to the Polemarchs.

These facts are assumed to be familiar to his hearers by Capheisias, brother of Epaminondas, who had himself joined the liberators without any scruples, and later on had been sent to Athens on an embassy. His story of the sequel is told to a mixed company of Athenians and Thebans. It is a perfectly clear one, and needs no comment.

The facts are again told by Plutarch in his Life of Pelopidas. The Lives were the work of his later years; and the present Dialogue, with its fuller detail and more varied colouring, is an earlier attempt to draw an historical picture, a work of art which will bear the close inspection of those who love to hear of virtue, or valour, in action.

The events are also narrated by Xenophon, who, from his usual Lacedaemonian and anti-Theban bias, omits all mention of Pelopidas. Thirlwall has preferred to base his account upon Plutarch; Grote follows Xenophon, but with a strong protest against his narrowness.

The conduct of Sparta justifies the allegation made by the Athenians in 416 B.C., ‘that in her political transactions she measured honour by inclination and justice by expediency’ (Thuc. 5, 105). The most scathing verdict upon it is delivered by Xenophon himself, who pauses in his narrative to point the moral, that the fall and degradation of Sparta began from this turning-point:

‘It would be possible to mention many other instances, from Greek and foreign history, proving that the Gods do not fail to notice the authors of impious and wicked deeds; at present I shall only mention the case before us. The Lacedaemonians, who had sworn that they would leave the cities independent, and then seized the Acropolis of Thebes, were punished entirely by those whom they had wronged, having previously been beaten by no man then living. The Theban citizens who had introduced them into the citadel, and who wished the city to be subject to the Lacedaemonians that they themselves might enjoy absolute power, lost their supremacy, which seven exiles were enough to overthrow.’

These remarks are in the spirit of the Greek Tragedians, who love to bring into strong light an act or situation of pride and insolence as the turning-point from prosperity to ruin. Thucydides, as is pointed out by Grote in the masterly pages which end his fifty-sixth chapter, has brought the cynical injustice of the Athenians towards Melos into glaring prominence in order to prepare his readers for the disastrous sequel.

The problem of the true nature of the ‘Divine Sign’ of Socrates is one of great interest and some mystery. The Latin word ‘Genius’, the attendant spirit who makes each of us what he is, in fact, his self, is familiar to us from Horace:

The Genius, guardian of each child of earth,

Born when we’re born and dying when we die.

(Epist. 2, 2, 187.)

The conception is thoroughly Greek, and may be paralleled abundantly from Plato as well as from Plutarch himself and contemporary writers. But it is really misapplied here, and is in fact a mistranslation, since the word used by Plato and Xenophon as well as by Plutarch is invariably not the daemon, but the neuter adjective, ‘the daemonic sc. Sign’. The passages of Plato and Xenophon are collected in the late James Riddell’s edition of the Apology of Plato.[^[20]] It is to be observed that in all the genuine works of Plato the operation of the Sign is negative and deterrent, in Xenophon it is sometimes positive and hortatory. The reader should consult the articles on Socrates by Professor Henry Jackson in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Professor Jackson is inclined to think that the evidence points to some abnormal condition of the sense of hearing, and there are expressions in this Dialogue of Plutarch which seem to bear out such a view. Apuleius’ treatise On the God of Socrates (which St. Augustine tells us that he would have entitled On the daemon of Socrates if he had dared) tells us much which is of interest about the daemons, but not very much about Socrates. He contributes, however, the pertinent remark that the Sign, according to Socrates himself, was not ‘a voice’, but ‘a sort of voice’.

There is no indication of the date of composition of this Dialogue.

Not many points of topography arise. The Cadmeia stood on a low hill or plateau rising from north to south on the eastern side of the Dirce stream and reaching a height of some 200 feet, now occupied by the modern town. The market-place was north-east of this, near the river Ismenus. Of the seven famous gates the returning exiles may probably have entered by the Electran, the one assailed by Capaneus in Aeschylus’ story (Seven against Thebes, 423).

A DIALOGUE HELD AT ATHENS

|573| Containing an Account of the Return of the Theban Exiles, 379 B.C.

SPEAKERS

Capheisias, a Theban (brother of Epaminondas), who tells the story of the return.

Timotheus., Athenian

Archidamus., Athenian

The Sons of Archinus., Athenian

Lysitheides., Athenian

Other Friends.

I. Archidamus. I once heard a painter, Capheisias, say a |B| striking thing about the different people who come to view pictures, which he put as a simile. Spectators with no technical knowledge, he said, are like those who greet a large company in the mass; others, who possess fine taste and a love of art, resemble those who have a personal word for all comers. The former get only a general view of the works before them, which is never accurate; the latter discuss each piece critically and in detail, and no point of execution, good or bad, escapes inspection and remark. Now I think that it is just the same with the |C| actions of real life. Duller minds are satisfied if they learn from history the summary account of what occurred and its outcome; lovers of what is honourable and beautiful take keener delight in hearing all particulars of the performances inspired by that great Art Virtue. To the actual result, Fortune has much to say; but he who dwells on causes and particulars sees Virtue at odds with circumstance, acts of rational daring done in the face of danger, and calculation meeting opportunity and passion. Take it that we belong to the second class. Begin at the beginning of the enterprise, and give us all the incidents and |D| all the speeches which were no doubt delivered in your presence; and believe that I would not have hesitated to go to Thebes on purpose to hear the story, but that the Athenians are already beginning to think me too much of a Boeotian.

Capheisias. Indeed, Archidamus, since you are so kind as to press for the whole story, it would be my duty to make it, as Pindar[^[21]] says, ‘a call before all business’ to come here to tell it; but as we are brought here on an embassy, and have nothing to do until we receive the answers of the people, I feel that any reluctance or embarrassment on my part towards so kind and good a friend might well wake up the old reproach against the Boeotians that they hate discussion. It was already fading |E| away, thanks to your Socrates; but our own care for Lysis,[^[22]] of blessed memory, showed us true enthusiasts. But see whom we have present: is it convenient to them to listen to so long a story and to so many speeches? The narrative is not a short one, since you yourself bid me include the speeches.

Archidamus. You do not know these friends, Capheisias? No, but you should; sons of good fathers who were good friends to your people. This is Lysitheides, nephew of Thrasybulus; |F| this is Timotheus, Conon’s son; these are the sons of Archinus; the others are all of our brotherhood; so your story finds a friendly and congenial audience.

Capheisias. That is well. But what should you think a good point for me to start from, in view of what you know already?

Archidamus. We know fairly well, Capheisias, how things were at Thebes before the return of the exiles. We had heard at Athens how Archias and Leontides persuaded Phoebidas to |576| seize the Cadmeia during a truce; how they expelled some of the citizens and terrorized others, and seized office for themselves in defiance of law. We were the personal hosts here of Melon and Pelopidas, and constantly in their company so long as they were in exile. Again, we had heard how the Lacedaemonians fined Phoebidas for seizing the Cadmeia, removed him from the command against Olynthus, and then replaced him at Thebes by Lysanoridas and two others, and kept a stronger garrison than before in the Citadel. We were aware, too, how Ismenias met an unworthy death, since, immediately after his trial, Gorgidas wrote the whole account in a letter to the |B| exiles here. Thus it remains for you to tell us about the actual return of our friends and the capture of the tyrants.

II. Capheisias. Well then, Archidamus, during those days, all of us who were concerned in the movement were accustomed to meet for conference when necessary in the house of Simmias, who was recovering from a wound in the leg; ostensibly passing the time in philosophical talk, into which, as a blind, we often drew Archias and Leontides, men not altogether strangers to |C| such discussion. For Simmias had spent much time abroad, and wandered among men of other lands, and had shortly before this returned to Thebes full of all sorts of stories and outlandish accounts. These stories Archias used to enjoy when he chanced to have leisure, taking his seat with the young men, and liking us to pass the time in talk rather than attend to their proceedings. On the day upon which the exiles were to reach the walls at dusk, a man came in from here, sent by Pherenicus, known to none of our party except Charon; he proceeded to explain that the younger exiles, twelve in number, had taken hounds to hunt the Cithaeron country, intending to reach Thebes towards evening. He had been sent, he said, in advance |D| to tell us this, and to find out who was to provide the house for their concealment on arrival, so that they might have notice and go straight to it. While we were puzzling it over, Charon agreed to provide his own house. So the man settled to return to the exiles as fast as he could.

III. Here the prophet Theocritus pressed my hand hard, and looking at Charon, who was walking in front, said: ‘This man is no philosopher, Capheisias; he has received no extraordinary training, as Epaminondas your brother has; yet you see how he is naturally drawn by the laws towards the nobler |E| course, volunteering to encounter the greatest danger for our country’s sake. Whereas Epaminondas, who claims to have been trained to virtue above all Boeotians, is dull and spiritless;[^[23]] what better opportunity than this will he ever have to bring into play his fine gifts and training?’ I said: ‘Not so fast, |F| Theocritus the eager! We are carrying out what we ourselves resolved; but Epaminondas, failing to persuade us to drop the plan, as he thinks would be best, naturally resists when invited to a course of action which he dislikes and disapproves. Suppose a physician undertook to cure a disease without the use of knife or fire: you would not be using him fairly, to my thinking, if you compelled him to cut or burn.[^[24]] Very well; my brother, as you know, will not have any citizen die without a trial, yet is eager to work with those who wish to free the city from internal bloodshed and slaughter. As, however, he fails to convince the majority, and as we have embarked on this course, he bids you let him stand out, clear and guiltless of murder, and free to watch opportunities; when justice and expediency |577| meet, he will strike in. He feels that, work once begun, there will be no limitations; perhaps Pherenicus and Pelopidas will turn their attack against the greatest criminals, but Eumolpidas and Samidas, men of fire and passion, when night puts power in their hands, will not sheathe their swords before they have filled the city with murder from end to end, and dispatched many of our leading men.

IV. While I was thus conversing with Theocritus, Galaxidorus kept trying to check us;[^[25]] Archias was near, and Lysanoridas the Spartan, both walking quickly from the Cadmeia, |B| apparently towards the same point as ourselves. So we broke off; Archias called Theocritus, and drew him towards Lysanoridas; then he talked a long time with them apart, having changed his direction a little towards the Amphion. Thus we were in an agony: had some hint or information reached them, upon which they were questioning Theocritus? In the meanwhile Phyllidas, whom you know, Archidamus, and who was at that time acting as clerk to Archias and the Polemarchs, and knew of the expected arrival of the exiles,[^[26]] being privy to our scheme, pressed my hand as it was his way to do, and went on with bantering talk for every one’s benefit, about the gymnasia and the wrestling; then, having drawn me some distance from the others, he began to ask me about the exiles, and whether |C| they were keeping to their day. When I said that they were, he continued: ‘Then I have done right in preparing for to-day the party at which I mean to entertain Archias, and to deliver him into their hand in his cups.’ ‘Better than right, Phyllidas!’ I said; ‘and do you try to collect all or as many as you can of our enemies to the same place.’ ‘That is not easy;’ said he, ‘indeed, it is impossible; for Archias, expecting that a certain lady of high rank will come there to meet him, does not wish Leontides to be present. We must therefore mark |D| them down to separate houses. If Archias and Leontides are once captured, I think that the others will take themselves off, or else will remain quiet, glad to close with any offer of safety.’ ‘We will do so,’ I said, ‘but what can Theocritus have to talk about with these people?’ ‘I cannot answer clearly or from knowledge,’ said Phyllidas, ‘but I heard portents mentioned and prophecies disastrous to Sparta.’ [^[27]][Meanwhile Theocritus rejoined us, and] Pheidolaus of Haliartus came up and said, ‘Simmias wants you to wait hereabouts a little. He is closeted with Leontides, interceding for Amphitheus to get his sentence of death commuted, if possible, to exile.’

V. ‘The very man!’ said Theocritus. ‘You might |E| have come on purpose, for I was longing to hear what the discoveries were, and about the general appearance of the tomb of Alcmena in your country when it was opened, if you were really present yourself when Agesilaus sent and removed the remains to Sparta.’ Pheidolaus answered: ‘I was not present; and vexed and indignant I was with my citizens for leaving me out. However, no vestige of a body was found, only a bracelet of brass, not a large one, and two earthenware jars containing |F| earth which had become solid as stone. Above the tomb lay a brass plate, with many letters wonderful for their great antiquity; they afforded no intelligible sense, though they came out clear to the eye when the brass was washed. The characters were of a peculiar and barbaric type, most closely resembling the Egyptian; and Agesilaus accordingly, as they said, sent copies to the king of Egypt, asking him to show them to the priests, on the chance of their understanding them. However, Simmias may, perhaps, have something to tell you about all this, as he was at that time in Egypt, and philosophy |578| brought him much into the society of the priests. But the people of Haliartus believe that the great scarcity of crops and the advance of the lake were not accidental, but were an angry visitation because they allowed the tomb to be dug open.’ After a short pause Theocritus went on: ‘Nor yet are the Lacedaemonians themselves clear of the wrath of heaven, as is shown by the portents about which Lysanoridas was lately conferring with us. He is now off to Haliartus to fill in the |B| tomb again and to offer libations to Alcmena and Aleus, of course in accordance with some oracle, not knowing who Aleus was. When he comes back from there he intends to investigate the tomb of Dirce, which is unknown to the Thebans, except those who have acted as Hipparchs. The outgoing magistrate takes his successor in office, with no one else present, and shows it him at night; they perform certain fireless rites over the tomb, carefully obliterate all traces, and go off under cover of darkness by separate ways. And much chance, I think, they will have of finding it, Pheidolaus! For most of those who have served legally as Hipparchs are now in exile; I might say all, except |C| Gorgidas and Plato, whom they fear too much to examine. But the present magistrates receive the spear and the seal in the Cadmeia, and know absolutely nothing.’

VI. While Theocritus was saying this, Leontides was going out with his friends. We entered, and began to pay our compliments to Simmias, who was sitting on the couch, having been unsuccessful in his petition, I think, for he seemed wrapped in thought and much annoyed. Looking hard at us all, ‘Hercules!’ |D| he said, ‘what savage barbarous manners! How right, and more than right, old Thales was, when he came home from a long absence abroad, and his friends asked what was his rarest discovery, “An aged tyrant”, he said! For every one, even if he have not been personally wronged, is disgusted at mere oppression, and harshness, and so is an enemy to lawless irresponsible dynasties. Well, the God will see to this, perhaps; now, Capheisias, about your newcomer, do you know who he is?’ ‘I do not know’, said I, ‘whom you mean.’ ‘Yet Leontides tells us’, he said, ‘that a man has been seen by the tomb of Lysis, rising to go when night was done. His retinue and |E| equipment were stately. He had bivouacked there on a rough bed, for piles of agnus castus and tamarisk were visible, and also remains of burnt sacrifices and libations of milk. At dawn he asked those who met him whether he should find the sons of Polymnis in the country.’ ‘But who can the stranger be?’ I said; ‘from what you tell us it must be some uncommon person, one in no private station.’

VII. ‘Certainly not’, said Pheidolaus. ‘However, when he comes we will see to his reception. Now, as to those characters, Simmias, about which we were puzzling just now. If you know more than we do, tell us; for it is said that the Egyptian priests have made out the letters on the plate which Agesilaus |F| took from us when he opened the tomb of Alcmena.’ Simmias remembered at once. ‘I know nothing of that plate, Pheidolaus;’ he said, ‘but Agenoridas the Spartan brought a number of characters from Agesilaus to Memphis, to Chonuphis the prophet, with whom Plato and I and Hellopion of Peparethus were staying to enjoy Philosophy together. He had been sent by the king, who desired Chonuphis, if he could make anything out of the inscription, to interpret and return it quickly. After spending three days in retirement, reading up characters from all countries in ancient books, he wrote his answer to the king. |579| He explained to us that this inscription directs the holding of a competition in honour of the Muses. The characters belonged to the system of the reign of Proteus, the one learnt by Hercules the son of Amphitryon. The God therein directs and charges the Greeks to observe a time of peace and leisure, spending it in continuous philosophical debate, with the help of the Muses and of Reason, for the decision of points relating to Justice, all arms being laid aside. We thought at the time that what Chonuphis said was good, and we thought so still more when, in our journey from Egypt round Caria, we met certain Delians |B| who begged Plato, as a geometrician, to solve the problem propounded in a mysterious oracle of the God. The oracle was this: “The Delians and the other Greeks shall have respite from their present ills when they have doubled the altar at Delos.” The Delians were unable to guess the meaning, and, moreover, had brought themselves into a ludicrous difficulty about the construction of the altar. They had doubled each of the four sides,[^[28]] and so unconsciously produced a solid figure eight times greater than the original, in ignorance of the factor which must be applied to the side, in order to double the solid. |C| So they appealed to Plato for help in the difficulty. Plato, remembering the Egyptian, said that the God was rallying the Greeks on their neglect of liberal studies, mocking our ignorance, and commanding us to take up geometry in real earnest; that it required no slight or dim-sighted intellect, but a first-rate training in linear geometry, to find two mean proportionals, the only method by which a solid in the form of a cube can be doubled, if all its dimensions are to be increased uniformly. Eudoxus of Cnidos, he said, or Helicon of Cyzicus, would work this out for them.[^[29]] However, in his opinion, the God did not desire this; he was enjoining all the Greeks to cease from war |D| and trouble and devote themselves to the Muses, to soften their passions by discussions and Mathematics, and to associate profitably with one another.’

VIII. While Simmias was speaking, our father Polymnis came in upon us. He sat down by Simmias and said: ‘Epaminondas invites you and all present, if you have no more pressing engagement, to wait hereabouts; he wants to introduce to you the stranger, a man noble himself, and brought here by a noble and generous errand. He comes from the Pythagoreans of |E| Italy, to pour offerings on the tomb of old Lysis, in accordance, as he says, with certain dreams and clear visions. He brings a large sum in gold, thinking that Epaminondas ought to be reimbursed for the care of Lysis in his old age, and on this he insists most keenly, though we neither ask nor wish assistance for our poverty.’ Simmias was pleased: ‘A really wonderful man,’ he said, ‘and worthy of Philosophy; but what is the reason that he has not come straight to us?’ ‘He passed the night, I think,’ said he, ‘near the tomb of Lysis; Epaminondas |F| was to take him on to the Ismenus to bathe, and then they will come on to us here. Before he met us, he had made his night’s lodging near the tomb, intending to take up the remains and convey them to Italy, unless prevented by some divine warning in the night.’ Having said this, my father was silent.

IX. Then Galaxidorus spoke: ‘Hercules! how hard it is to find a man quite free from vanity and superstition! Some are caught by these weaknesses against their will, owing to want of experience or of strength. Others, in order to appear singular and to be taken for friends of the Gods, bring the divine into all they do, making dreams and portents and such stuff a pretext for anything that enters their head. Now, to men in public |580| stations, who are compelled to adapt their lives to a self-willed and petulant multitude, this may have its advantage; superstition is a bit wherewith to check a populace, and direct it to what is expedient. But to Philosophy such posturing is unbecoming in itself, and, moreover, it contradicts her professions; she undertakes to teach all that is good and expedient by the reason, and then, as though in despite of reason, goes back upon the Gods and away from the first principles of action; and, dishonouring demonstration, in which her own excellence is supposed to lie, turns to prophecies and visions seen in dreams, |B| things in which the weakest often have as great success as the strongest. This, I think, Simmias, is why your Socrates embraced a system of intellectual training which bore a more philosophical stamp, choosing that simple artless type as being liberal and most friendly to truth; and casting to the winds for the sophists, as a mere smoke from Philosophy, all pretentious nonsense.’ Theocritus broke in: ‘What, Galaxidorus, and has Meletus persuaded even you too that Socrates despised |C| what was divine, for that was the charge which he actually brought before the Athenians?’ ‘What was divine—no;’ he said, ‘but he received Philosophy from Pythagoras and Empedocles full of visions and myths and superstitions, and deeply dipped in mysteries; and trained her to look at facts, and be sensible, and pursue truth in soberness of reason.’

X. ‘Granted;’ said Theocritus, ‘but as to the Divine Sign of Socrates, good friend, are we to call it a falsity or what? To me, nothing recorded about Pythagoras seems to go so far towards the prophetic and divine. For, in plain words, as Homer has drawn Athena to Odysseus

In all his toils a presence and a stay,[^[30]]

even so, apparently, did the spirit attach to Socrates, from the first, a sort of vision to go before and guide his steps in life, which alone

Passing before him shed a light around[^[31]]

|D| in matters of uncertainty, too hard for the wit of man to solve; upon these the spirit used often to converse with him, adding a divine touch to his own resolutions. For more, and more important, instances you must ask Simmias and the other companions of Socrates. But I was myself present, having come to stay with Euthyphron the prophet, when Socrates, as you remember, Simmias, was going up to the Symbolum and the house of Andocides, asking some question as he walked and playfully cross-examining Euthyphron. Suddenly he stopped and closed his lips tightly[^[32]] and was wrapt in thought for some time. Then he turned back and took the way through the |E| Trunkmakers’ Street, and tried to recall those of our friends who were already in advance, saying that the Sign was upon him. Most of them turned in a body, amongst whom was I, keeping close to Euthyphron. But some young members of the party, no doubt to put the Sign of Socrates to the test, held on, and drew into their number Charillus the flute-player, who had come to Athens with myself, staying with Cebes. Now as they were going through the street of the Statuaries near the Law Courts, they were met by a whole herd of swine loaded with mud and hustling one another by press of numbers. There was no |F| getting out of the way; on they charged, upsetting some, bespattering others. At any rate, Charillus came home with his clothes full of mud and his legs too, so that we always laugh when we remember Socrates and his Sign, and wonder that this divine presence of his should never fail him or forget.’

XI. Then Galaxidorus said: ‘Do you think then, Theocritus, that the Sign of Socrates possessed a special and extraordinary power, not that some fragment of the ready wit which we all share determined him by an empiric process, turning the scale of his reasoning in cases which were uncertain and incalculable? For as a single weight does not by itself incline the balance, but, if added to one scale when the weights are even, sinks the whole of that one on its own side, so |581| a cry, or any such feather-weight sign, will fit[^[33]] a mind already weighted, and draw it into action; and when two trains of thought are in conflict, it reinforces one, and solves the difficulty by removing the equality, so that there is a movement and an inclination.’ My father broke in: ‘Well, but I have myself heard, Galaxidorus, from a certain Megarian, who had it from Terpsion, that the Sign of Socrates was a sneeze, proceeding either from himself or from other persons; if some one else sneezed on his |B| right, whether behind or in front, it encouraged him to the action; if on the left, it warned him off it. Of his own sneezings there was one kind which confirmed his purpose when he was still intending to act; another stopped him when he was already acting and checked his impulse. The wonder to me is that if he made use of a sneeze he did not so call it to his companions, but was in the habit of saying that what checked or commanded him was a Divine Sign. For that would be like vanity and idle boasting, not like truth and simplicity, in which lay, as we suppose, his greatness and his superiority to men in general, to be disturbed by a sound from outside or a casual sneeze, and so be diverted from acting, and give up what he had resolved. |C| Now the impulses of Socrates, on the other hand, show firmness and intensity in every direction, as though issuing from a right and powerful judgement and principle. Thus for a man to remain in voluntary poverty all his life, when he might have had plenty, and the givers would have been pleased and thankful, and never to swerve from Philosophy in the face of all those hindrances; and at last, when the zeal and ingenuity of his friends had made his way easy to safety and retreat, not to be bent by their entreaties, nor yield to the near approach of |D| death—all this is not like a man whose judgement might be changed by random voices or sneezings; it is like one led to what is noble by some greater and more sovereign authority. I hear also that he foretold to some of his friends the disaster which befell the power of Athens in Sicily. At a still earlier time, Pyrilampes, the son of Antiphon, when taken prisoner in the pursuit near Delium, after having received from us a javelin wound, as soon as he had heard from those who had arrived from Athens to arrange the truce that Socrates had returned home in safety by The Gullies[^[34]] with Alcibiades and Laches, often called upon him by name, and often on friends and comrades of |E| his own who had fled with him by way of Parnes, and been slain by our cavalry; they had disobeyed the Sign of Socrates, he said, in turning from the battle by a different way instead of following his lead. This, I think, Simmias too must have heard.’ ‘Often,’ said Simmias, ‘and from many persons. For there was no little noise at Athens about the Sign of Socrates in consequence.’

XII. ‘Well, then, Simmias,’ said Pheidolaus, ‘are we to allow Galaxidorus in his jesting way to bring down this great fact of divination to sneezings and cries, which plenty of common |F| ignorant persons apply to trifles in mere sport, whereas, when grave dangers overtake them, or more serious business, we may quote Euripides:[^[35]]

These follies have a truce when steel is near‘?

Galaxidorus said: ‘I am quite ready to listen to Simmias on this subject, Pheidolaus, if he has himself heard Socrates speak about it, and to join you in believing; but as for all that you and Polymnis have mentioned, it is not hard to refute it. For as in medicine a throb or a pimple is a small matter, but is the indication of what is not small; and as to a pilot the cry of a bird from the open sea, or the scudding of a thin film of cloud, |582| signifies wind and rougher seas, so to a prophetic soul a sneeze or a voice is nothing great in itself, but is the sign of a great conjuncture. There is no art in which it is thought contemptible to forecast great things by small, many things through few. Suppose a man ignorant of the meaning of letters were to see a few insignificant-looking characters, and to refuse to believe that one who knew grammar could, by their help, repeat the story of great wars between old-world peoples, and foundings of cities, and what kings did or suffered, and then were to say |B| that a voice, or something like a voice, revealed and repeated each of these things to that historian, a pleasant laugh would come over your face, my friend, at the ignorance of that man. Now, consider, may it not be so with us? In our ignorance of the meaning of different things by which the prophetic art hits the coming event, are we simple enough to rebel if a man of intellect uses them to reveal something not yet evident, and says, moreover, that a Divine Sign, not a sneeze or a voice, directs him to the facts? For now I turn to you, Polymnis, who wonder that Socrates, a man who did so very much to make Philosophy human by simplicity and absence of cant, should |C| have named his Sign, not a sneeze or a voice, but, in full tragic phrase, his Divine Sign. I, on the contrary, should be surprised if a man so excellent in Dialectic and mastery of terms had said that the sneeze and not the Divine Sign gave him the intimation. As if a man were to say that he had been wounded “by the javelin”, not “by the thrower with his javelin”, or, again, that the weight had been measured “by the balance”, not “by the weigher with his balance”. For the work is not the work of the tool but of the owner of the tool which he uses for the work; and the Sign is a kind of tool used by the signifying power. But, as I said, if Simmias should have anything to tell us we must listen, for his knowledge is more exact.’

XIII. Then Theocritus said: ‘Yes, but first let us see |D| who these persons are who are coming in; or, rather, it is surely Epaminondas bringing the stranger to us.’ We looked towards the doors, and saw Epaminondas leading the way, then Ismenidorus, Bacchylidas, and Melissus the flute-player, all of them our friends and confederates; then the stranger followed, a man of much nobility of mien, but with a gentle and kindly character apparent beneath it, and dressed in a grave fashion. He took his seat by Simmias, my brother next to me, and the rest as they found places. Then, when there was silence, Simmias called on my brother: ‘Well, Epaminondas, how are we to address our friend? Who and what is he, and |E| whence? That is the usual formula for beginning an introduction and an acquaintance.’[^[36]] Epaminondas replied: ‘Theanor is his name, Simmias, and his family is of Crotona, where he belongs to the local school of Philosophy and does no discredit to the great fame of Pythagoras; he has just taken the long journey from Italy here, to confirm noble doctrines by noble acts.’ The stranger broke in: ‘Indeed, Epaminondas, you are now hindering the noblest of all actions. For if to confer a benefit on friends be noble, it is no shame to receive |F| one from them. A favour needs one to receive, no less than one to bestow it; both must join to ensure a noble result. It is like a ball well delivered; to allow it to drop idle to the ground is to shame it. Now what mark is there for a ball, so agreeable for the thrower to hit and so distressing to miss, as a man at whom one aims a favour when he well deserves it? But in the one case the mark stands still, and he who misses has himself to thank; in the other, he who excuses himself and swerves aside does a wrong to the favour which never reaches its goal. You have yourself heard fully from me the reasons of my voyage here; but I should like to go through the story |583| as fully to those now present, and let them be judges between us.

‘When the Pythagoreans had been overpowered by faction in the different cities, and their brotherhoods expelled, and when the party of Cylon had piled up a fire round a house in Metapontum in which those still settled there were holding a meeting, and had dispatched all those in the place except Philolaus and Lysis, who were still young, and were strong enough and active enough to push through the fire, Philolaus escaped thence to Lucania and joined in safety the rest of our friends, who were by this time rallying and holding their own against the Cylonians. Where Lysis was, no one knew for a long time; however, Gorgias of Leontini, sailing back from |B| Greece to Sicily, brought certain news to Arcesus and his friends that he had met Lysis, who was staying near Thebes. Arcesus longed to see the man, and was eager to sail straight off himself; but being quite disabled by age and infirmity, gave orders to bring Lysis alive to Italy if possible, or his remains if he should have died. Then came wars, revolutions, and periods of tyranny which made it impossible for the friends to perform the task in his lifetime. But when the spirit of Lysis, now dead, had shown us clearly of his end, and well informed persons told us of all the care and entertainment which he had |C| received from your family, Polymnis; how richly his age had been cared for in a poor house, and how he had been adopted as father to your sons before his blessed end came, I was sent out, a young man and alone, to represent many of my elders who have money and wish to offer it to those who have not, in return for favour and friendship richly bestowed. Lysis lies where you have honourably laid him; yet the honour of that tomb is greater when recompense is made for it to friends by friends dear and close.’

XIV. While the stranger was speaking thus, my father wept a long while over the memory of Lysis, but my brother |D| with his usual gentle smile said to me: ‘What is it to be, Capheisias? Are we to surrender poverty to riches, and to say nothing?’ ‘No! no!’ said I, ‘the dear “good nurse of young manhood”[^[37]]—to her rescue! it is your turn to speak.’ ‘See, father;’ he said, ‘that was the only side on which I used to fear that our house might be captured by money. I mean through Capheisias and his person, which needs beautiful clothes that he may make a brave show before all his admiring friends, and needs food of the best, and plenty of it, that he may have strength for the gymnasia and wrestling matches. Now that he does not betray poverty, or throw off our ancestral poverty like a coat of paint, but, boy though he is, goes proudly |E| in thrift, and is content with what we have, to what possible use could we put money? Shall we plate our armour, say, with gold, and make the shield gay with purple and gold together, as Nicias of Athens did?[^[38]] Shall we buy you, father, a Milesian cloak, or a dress with a purple border for mother? You know, we are not likely to spend the present on our table, or to feast ourselves more sumptuously, as having admitted a guest of such importance as wealth.’ ‘Away with it, boy!’ said my father, ‘never may I see our life new-modelled like that!’ |F| ‘No,’ my brother went on, ‘nor will we sit idle at home and guard our wealth; that would be a “boonless boon”[^[39]] indeed, and a getting with no honour to it.’ ‘Of course’, said our father. ‘You know,’ Epaminondas went on, ‘when Jason, the Thessalian Tagus, lately sent a large sum of money here to us and begged us to take it, he thought me something of a boor when I answered that he was making the first move in wrong and robbery, when a lover of monarchy like himself tempted with money a private citizen of a free self-governed state. From you, Sir, I accept your generous intention, and admire it |584| more than I can say; it is beautiful and philosophical too; but you are bringing medicines to friends who are not sick! Suppose that you had heard that we were attacked in war, and had sailed with arms and ammunition to help us, and on arrival had found that all was friendliness and peace; you would not think it necessary to hand over the stores and leave them where they were not needed. Even so, you have come to be our ally against poverty, thinking that we were pinched by her, but there is none so easy to be endured as she, our dear fellow-lodger. |B| So no need for money or arms against her who vexes us not. Take back this message to your brotherhood: that they themselves use their wealth most nobly, but that there are friends here who make noble use of poverty: and that, as to the entertainment of Lysis and his burial, Lysis has paid the score in full for himself, not least by teaching us not to fret at poverty.’

XV. Theanor broke in: ‘Then, if it is ignoble to fret at poverty, is it not eccentric to fear and shun wealth?’ ‘Eccentric it is if it is rejected on no rational grounds, but in order to pose or because of insipid taste or affectation of some kind.’ ‘But what rational grounds’, he said, ‘could bar the getting of wealth by good and honest means, Epaminondas? Or rather—and surrender more gently than you did to the Thessalian in |C| answering our questions about these matters—tell me whether you think that the giving of money may sometimes be right, but the receiving never; or that givers and receivers alike are in all cases wrong?’ ‘No, no!’ said Epaminondas, ‘I hold that, as with everything else, so with wealth; there is a giving and a getting which are ugly, and a giving and a getting which are fine.’ ‘Then,’ said Theanor, ‘when a man gives readily and heartily what he owes, is not that beautiful?’ He assented. ‘But when one receives what another beautifully gives, is not the taking beautiful? Or could there be a fairer taking of |D| money than when it comes from one who gives fairly?’ ‘There could not’, he said. ‘Then of two friends, Epaminondas,’ said he, ‘if one is to give, it looks as if the other must take. For in battles one must swerve away from a marksman in the enemy’s ranks; in the conflict of benefits it is not fair to avoid or thrust aside the friend who nobly gives. For, if poverty is no affliction, yet wealth, on its side, is not a thing to be flouted and refused like that.’ ‘It is not,’ said Epaminondas, ‘but there is a case where the gift which may be nobly offered remains more honoured and more noble if it is refused. Look at it with us in this way: you will allow that there are many desires, and desires of many things; some inborn, as we call them, which grow up about the body and are directed towards its necessary pleasures; others adventitious, grounded on mere fancies, but |E| gaining strength and power by time and use, where there is vicious education, and often dragging down the soul more forcibly than do those which are necessary. Now, by habits and training, men have before now succeeded in drawing off and subjecting to reason, in great measure, the innate affections. But the whole force of discipline, my friend, must be brought to bear against those which are adventitious and extraordinary; we must work them out, and hack them off, and use restraints and checks to school them to reason. For if thirst and hunger are forced out by rational resistance in the matter of food and |F| drink, far easier surely is it to stunt, and in the end to annihilate, love of wealth and love of glory by refusing and prohibiting the things at which they aim. Do you not agree?’ The stranger assented. ‘Then, do you see a distinction’, Epaminondas went on, ‘between training and the intended result of the training? Thus the result of athletic exercise would be the contest against a competitor for the crown; training would be the preparation of the body for this contest of the gymnasia. So with virtue, do you allow that there are two things, the result and the training?’ The stranger assented. ‘Now then,’ Epaminondas resumed, ‘tell me first with respect to temperance; do you take abstinence from base and lawless pleasures |585| to be a training, or rather a result and a proof of training?’ ‘A result and a proof’, he said. ‘But it is a training or study in temperance—is it not?—which still draws all of you on when you go to the gymnasia and have stirred up your desires for food, as though they were wild beasts, and then stand for a long time over bright tables with a variety of dishes, and at last pass the good cheer for your servants to enjoy, offering to your own now chastened appetites only what is plain and simple, since abstinence from pleasures in things allowed is a training for the soul against pleasures which are forbidden?’ ‘No doubt’, he said. ‘Then there is, friend, a way of training ourselves for |B| justice against the love of wealth and money; I do not mean never to enter our neighbour’s premises by night and steal his goods, and never to take his clothes at the bath; nor yet if a man does not betray country and friends for money is he training himself against covetousness (since here, perhaps, the law comes in and fear, to hinder greediness from doing acts of wrong). No, the man who often and voluntarily sets himself aloof from gains which are just and are allowed by law is training and habituating himself in advance to keep his distance from every gain which is unrighteous and forbidden. For as, when it encounters great pleasures which are also strange and hurtful, the mind cannot avoid a flutter unless it has often despised |C| permitted enjoyments, so to pass by vicious gains and great advancement when they come within reach is not easy, unless from a great way off the love of gain has been fettered and chastened; whereas, if it has been brought up to gain, and there has been no check on its license, it makes a riotous growth towards all iniquity, and only with the greatest effort is it withheld from grasping an advantage. But if a man does not surrender himself to the favours of friends or to the bounties of kings, but has said no even to an inheritance which Fortune offers, and has put far off that love of wealth which springs up to meet a treasure as it comes into sight, he finds that covetousness rises up against him no longer, nor tempts him to what is wrong, nor disturbs his understanding. He is gentle, and possesses himself for noble uses; he has great thoughts and |D| shares with his soul the noblest secrets. We, Capheisias and I, are lovers of such men, dear Simmias, and we entreat the stranger to allow us so to train ourselves in poverty that we may reach virtue such as that.’

XVI. My brother finished his argument, and then Simmias nodded his head two or three times. ‘A great man,’ he said, ‘a great man is Epaminondas, and thanks to Polymnis here for that, who procured for his sons from the first the best training in Philosophy. However, with regard to this question, Sir, do you and they settle it between you. Now about Lysis, if we |E| may be allowed to hear. Do you mean to move him from his tomb and to transfer him to Italy; or will you allow him to remain here with us, where he shall find kind and friendly fellow-lodgers when our time comes?’ Theanor smiled on him: ‘Lysis appears, Simmias, to love this country, in which by the good offices of Epaminondas he has wanted nothing that is honourable. For there is a certain holy rite connected with our Pythagorean burials, which if we lack we do not seem to attain our full and blessed consummation. So when we knew from dreams of the death of Lysis (we distinguish by a certain sign which is revealed in sleep whether an appearance belongs |F| to a dead person or a living), this thought came over many of us: so Lysis has been buried in another land with strange rites; he must be moved here to us, that he may share in all that is customary. Coming with such an intention, and guided straight to the tomb by people of the place, I was pouring libations just at evening time, and calling on the soul of Lysis to return and declare solemnly how we ought to act. The night went on and I saw nothing, but thought I heard a voice: “Stir not what is best unstirred; the body of Lysis has been buried with holy rites by friends; his soul has already been parted from it and dismissed to another birth, with another spirit for its partner.” Accordingly, when I met Epaminondas at dawn |586| and heard the manner in which he buried Lysis, I recognized that he had been well trained by that great teacher, even to the rules which must not be spoken, and had enjoyed the guidance in life from the same spirit as he, unless I fail to guess the pilot aright from the course steered. For “wide are the tracks”[^[40]] of our lives, and few there are of them by which the spirits lead men.’ When Theanor had said this, he looked closely at Epaminondas, as though scrutinizing him afresh without and within.

|B| XVII. In the meantime the surgeon came up and loosened Simmias’ bandage, intending to dress the limb. But Phyllidas came in upon us with Hippostheneidas, and bidding me, and also Charon and Theocritus, rise and follow him, led us to a corner of the colonnade, his face showing great agitation. To my question, ‘Any news, Phyllidas?’ he answered, ‘No news to me; I knew and told you all the time how weak Hippostheneidas was, and implored you not to admit him as an associate of our enterprise.’ We were dismayed at this, and Hippostheneidas said: ‘In Heaven’s name, Phyllidas, do not say that; do not take rashness to be courage, and thereby ruin us and the city too; |C| but allow the men to make their own return in safety if it is so appointed.’ Phyllidas was nettled: ‘Tell me, Hippostheneidas,’ he said, ‘how many do you think share the inner secrets of our plan?’ ‘Not less than thirty, to my knowledge’, he said. ‘Very well,’ said Phyllidas, ‘there is all that number, and you have taken on your single self to annul and check the plan on which all had resolved, you sent a mounted messenger to the men when already on their road, bidding them turn back and not press on to-day, when most of the arrangements for their return have settled themselves without us.’ When Phyllidas had said this we were all much disturbed, but Charon fastened |D| his eyes very severely on Hippostheneidas: ‘Villain!’ he said, ‘what have you done to us?’ ‘Nothing terrible,’ answered Hippostheneidas, ‘if you will drop your harsh tone and listen to the calculations of a man of your own age, with grey hairs like yourself. If we have resolved to give our countrymen an exhibition of a courage which loves danger, and a spirit which makes little of life, then there is much of the day still before us, Phyllidas; let us not wait for the evening, but march at once against the tyrants, our swords in our hands—let us slay, let us die, let us never spare ourselves! But say we find no difficulty in this, whether of action or of endurance, yet to rescue Thebes |E| from an armed force, when encompassed by so many enemies, and to expel the Spartan garrison at a cost of two or three lives, is not easy; for Phyllidas has never prepared so much strong liquor for his parties and receptions that all the fifteen hundred men of Archias’ bodyguard will be made drunk; yet, even if we get rid of him, Herippidas is on for night duty and sober, and Arcesus too. This being so, why hurry to bring home friends and relatives to manifest destruction, and that when the very fact of their return is not unknown to the enemy? Or why have |F| the Thespians been ordered to be under arms for these two days past, and ready whenever the Spartan officers call? Again, I hear that Amphitheus is to be examined and put to death to-day, whenever Archias returns. Are not these strong signs that our action is not unmarked? Is it not best to pause, not for a long time, but long enough to make the auspices right? For the prophets declare, that in sacrificing the ox to Demeter, they found that the entrails prognosticated much commotion and public danger. Again, and this needs the greatest caution on your part, Charon, yesterday Hypatodorus son of Erianthes walked back with me from the farm, quite a good and friendly |587| person, but certainly not in our secrets. “Charon is your friend, Hippostheneidas,” he said, “but I do not know him well; tell him, if you think good, to be on his guard against a certain danger revealed in a very strange and disagreeable dream. Last night I thought that his house was in pangs as of labour, and that he and the friends who shared his anxiety prayed and stood around it, while it moaned and uttered inarticulate sounds. At last the fire flared out strong and terrible from within, so that most of the city was caught by the blaze, but the Cadmeia was only wrapped in smoke, the fire not spreading |B| up to it.” The vision which the man described was something like this, Charon; I was alarmed at the time, and much more so when I heard to-day that the exiles are to be put up at your house; I am now in an agony lest we may be bringing a load of troubles upon ourselves, yet not doing any harm worth mentioning to the enemies, but simply stirring them up. For I reckon the city to be on our side, the Cadmeia with them, as it certainly is.’

XVIII. Theocritus broke in, stopping Charon who wanted to say something to Hippostheneidas: ‘Well, Hippostheneidas, |C| nothing has ever struck me as so encouraging for action (although I have myself always found my sacrifices favourable for the exiles), as this vision; strong, clear light over the city, rising, you tell us, out of a friendly house; the head-quarters of our enemies wrapped in black smoke, which always imports, at the best, tears and confusion; then inarticulate utterances proceeding from our side, so that, even if any one were to attempt to inform against us, only an indistinct rumour and blind suspicion can attach to our enterprise, which will have succeeded by the time it is evident. That the priests should find sacrifices unfavourable is natural; officials and victim belong to those in power, not to the people.’ While Theocritus was still speaking, I turned to Hippostheneidas: ‘What messenger did you send |D| out to them? Unless you have allowed a very long start we will give chase.’ ‘I do not know,’ he said, ‘for I must tell you the truth, Capheisias, whether you could possibly overtake the man; he has the best horse in Thebes. The man is known to you; he is head groom in Melon’s chariot stables, and through Melon knows our enterprise from its beginning.’ Meanwhile I had espied the man, and said, ‘Hippostheneidas, do you not mean Chlidon, who won the single-horse race in last year’s Heraea?’ ‘That is the man’, he said. ‘And who is that,’ I said, ‘standing this long time at the outer gates, and looking in at us?’ Then Hippostheneidas turned: ‘Chlidon,’ he |E| said, ‘yes, by Hercules, I fear something has gone very wrong.’ Meanwhile, the man saw that we were observing him, and drew up quietly from the door. Hippostheneidas gave him a nod and bade him speak out to all present. ‘I know these gentlemen, Hippostheneidas, perfectly well; and finding you neither at home nor in the market-place, I guessed that you had come to them, so I took the shortest way here, that you may all know |F| everything which has happened. When you ordered me to use all speed and meet the party in the hill country, I went home to get my horse; but when I asked for the bridle, my wife could not give it me, but stayed a long time in the store room. She searched and turned out everything inside, and after fooling me to her heart’s content, at last confessed that she had lent the bridle to our neighbour the evening before, his wife having come in to ask for one. I was angry and used strong words to her, upon which she took to horrible imprecations—“A bad journey |588| and a bad return to you all!” May Heaven throw it all back upon herself, by Zeus, yes! At last, in my anger, I got as far as blows; then a crowd of neighbours and women ran up; I have behaved shamefully and have been treated no better, and have just managed to make my way to you, that you may send some one else to the exiles, for I am fairly off my head by this time and feel badly upset.’

XIX. We now experienced a strange revulsion of feeling. A little before we were chafing at the check we had received; now that the crisis was upon us short and sharp, and no delay possible, we found ourselves passing into an anguish of alarm. However, I said a word of greeting and encouragement to Hippostheneidas, to the effect that the very Gods were calling us |B| on to action. After this Phyllidas went out to arrange for his party, and to get Archias plunged straight into his drink, Charon to see to his house, while Theocritus and I returned to Simmias on the chance of getting a word with Epaminondas.

XX. However, they were far on in an inquiry of no mean import, Heaven knows, but one which Galaxidorus and Pheidolaus had started a little earlier, the problem of the real nature |C| and potency of the Divine Sign of Socrates, so called. What Simmias said in reply to the argument of Galaxidorus we did not hear; but he went on to say that he had himself once asked Socrates on the subject, and failed to get an answer, and so had never asked again; but that he had often been with him when he gave his opinion that those who claim intercourse with the divine by way of vision are impostors, whereas he attended to those who professed to hear a voice, and put serious questions to them. Hence it began to occur to us, as we were discussing the matter among ourselves, to suspect that the Divine Sign of Socrates might possibly be no vision but a special sense for |D| sounds or words, with which he had contact in some strange manner; just as in sleep there is no voice heard, but fancies and notions as to particular words reach the sleepers, who then think that they hear people talking. Only sleepers receive such conceptions in a real dream because of the tranquillity and calm of the body in sleep, whereas in waking moments the soul can hardly attend to greater powers, being so choked by thronging emotions and distracting needs that they are unable to listen and to give their attention to clear revelations. But the mind of Socrates, pure and passionless, and intermingling itself but |E| little with the body for necessary purposes, was fine and light of touch, and quickly changed under any impression. The impression we may conjecture to have been no voice, but the utterance of a spirit, which without vocal sound reached the perceiving mind by the revelation itself. For voice is like a blow upon the soul, which perforce admits its utterance by way of the ears, whenever we converse with one another. But the mind of a stronger being leads the gifted soul, touching it with the thing thought, and no blow is needed. To such a being soul yields as it relaxes or tightens the impulses, which are never |F| violent, as when there are passions to resist, but supple and pliant like reins which give. There is nothing wonderful in this; as we see great cargo-vessels turned about by little helms, and, again, potters’ wheels whirling round in even revolution at the light touch of a hand. These are things without a soul no doubt, yet so constructed as to run swiftly and smoothly, and therefore to yield to a motive force when a touch is given. But the soul of a man, being strained by countless impulses, as by cords, is far the easiest of all machines to turn, if it be touched rationally; it accepts the touch of thought, and moves as thought directs. For here the passions and impulses are stretched towards the |589| thinking principle and end in it; if that principle be stirred they receive a pull, and in turn draw and strain the man. And thus we are allowed to learn how great is the power of a thought. For bones, which have no sensation, and nerves and fleshy parts charged with humours, and the whole resultant mass in its ponderous quiescence, do yet, as soon as the soul sets something a going in thought and directs its impulse towards it, rise up, alert and tense, a whole which moves to action in all its members, as though it had wings. But it is hard, nay, perhaps, altogether beyond our powers, to take in at one glance the |B| system of excitation, complex strain, and divine prompting, whereby the soul, after conceiving a thought, draws on the mass of the body by the impulses which it gives.[^[41]] Yet whereas a word thus intellectually apprehended excites the soul, while no sort of voice is heard and no action takes place, even so we need not, I think, find it hard to believe that mind may be led by a stronger mind and a more divine soul external to itself, having contact with it after its kind, as word with word or light with reflection. For in actual fact we recognize the thoughts of one another by groping as it were in darkness with the assistance of voice; whereas the thoughts of spirits have light, they shine upon men capable of receiving them, they need not verbs |C| or nouns, those symbols whereby men in their intercourse with men see resemblances and images of the things thought, yet never apprehend the things themselves, save only those upon whom, as we have said, there shines from within a peculiar and spiritual light. And yet what we see happen in the case of the voice may partly reassure the incredulous. The air is impressed with articulate sounds, it becomes all word and voice, and brings the meaning home to the soul of the hearer. Therefore we need not wonder if, in regard to this special mode of thought also, the air is sensitive to the touch of higher beings, and is so modified as to convey to the mind of godlike and extraordinary men the thought of him who thought it. For as the strokes of miners[^[42]] are caught on brazen shields because of the reverberation, |D| when they rise from below ground and fall upon them, whereas falling on any other surface they are indistinct and pass to nothing, even so the words of spirits pass through all Nature, but only sound for those who possess the soul in untroubled calm, holy and spiritual men as we emphatically call them. The view of most people is that spiritual visitations come to men in sleep; that they should be similarly stirred when awake and in their full faculties they think marvellous and beyond belief. As though a musician were thought to use his lyre when the strings are let down, and not to touch or use it when it is strung up and tuned! They do not see the cause, their |E| own inner tunelessness and discord, from which Socrates our friend had been set free, as the oracle given to his father when he was yet a boy declared. For it bade him allow his son to do whatever came into his mind; not to force nor direct his goings, but to let his impulse have free play, only to pray for him to Zeus Agoraios and to the Muses, but for all else not to meddle with Socrates; meaning no doubt that he had within him a guide for |F| his life who was better than ten thousand teachers and directors.

XXI. This, Pheidolaus, is what has occurred to me to think about the Divine Sign of Socrates, in his lifetime and since his death, dismissing with contempt those who have suggested voices or sneezings or anything of that sort. But what I have heard Timarchus of Chaeroneia relate on this head it may perhaps be better to pass over in silence, as more like myth than history. ‘Not at all;’ said Theocritus, ‘let us have it all. Even myth touches truth, not too closely, perhaps, but it does touch it at points. But first, who was this Timarchus? Explain, for I do not know him.’ ‘Naturally, Theocritus,’ |590| said Simmias, ‘for he died quite young, having begged that he might be buried near Lamprocles, the son of Socrates, who had died a few days before, his own friend and contemporary. He then greatly wished to know what was really meant by the Divine Sign of Socrates, and so, like a generous youth fresh to the taste of Philosophy, having taken no one but Cebes and myself into his plan, went down into the cave of Trophonius, after performing the usual rites of the oracle. Two nights and one day he remained below; and when most people had given him up, and his family was mourning for |B| him, at early dawn he came up very radiant. He knelt to the God, then made his way at once through the crowd, and related to us many wonderful things which he had seen and heard.

XXII. ‘He said that, when he descended into the oracular chamber, he first found himself in a great darkness; then, after a prayer, lay a long while not very clearly conscious whether he was awake or dreaming; only he fancied that his head received a blow, while a dull noise fell on his ears, and then the sutures parted and allowed his soul to issue forth. As it passed upwards, rejoicing to mingle with the pure transparent air, it appeared |C| first to draw a long deep breath, after its narrow compression, and to become larger than before, like a sail as it is filled out. Then he heard dimly a whirring noise overhead out of which came a sweet voice. He looked up and saw land nowhere, only islands shining with lambent fire, from time to time changing colour with one another, as though it were a coat of dye, while the light became spangled in the transition. They appeared to be countless in number and in size enormous, not all equal but all alike circular. He thought that as these moved around there was an answering hum of the air, for the gentleness of |D| that voice which was harmonized out of all corresponded to the smoothness of the motion. Through the midst of the islands a sea or lake was interfused, all shining with the colours as they were commingled over its grey surface. Some few islands floated in a straight course and were conveyed across the current; many others were drawn on by the flood, being almost submerged. The sea was of great depth in some parts towards the south, but [northwards[^[43]]] there were very shallow reaches, and it often swept over places and then left them dry, having no strong |E| ebb. The colour was in places pure as that of the open sea, in others turbid and marsh-like. As the islands passed through the surf they never came round to their starting-point again or described a circle, but slightly varied the points of impact, thus describing a continuous spiral as they went round. The sea was inclined to the approximate middle and highest part of the encompassing firmament by a little less than eight-ninths of the whole, as it appeared to him. It had two openings which |F| received rivers of fire pouring in from opposite sides, so that it was lashed into foam, and its grey surface was turned to white. This he saw, delighted at the spectacle; but as he turned his eyes downwards, there appeared a chasm, vast and round as though hewn out of a sphere; it was strangely terrible and deep and full of utter darkness, not in repose but often agitated and surging up; from which were heard roarings innumerable and groanings of beasts, and wailings of innumerable infants, and with these mingled cries of men and women, dim sounds of all sorts, and turmoils sent up indistinctly from the distant depth, |591| to his no small consternation. Time passed, and an unseen person said to him, “Timarchus, what do you wish to learn?” “Everything,” he replied, “for all is wonderful.” “We”, the voice said, “have little to do with the regions above, they belong to other Gods; but the province of Persephone which we administer, being one of the four which Styx bounds, you may survey if you will.” To his question, “What is Styx?” “A way to Hades,” was the reply, “and it passes right opposite, parting the light at its very vertex, but reaching up, as you see, from Hades below; where it touches the light in its revolution |B| it marks off the remotest region of all. Now, there are four first principles of all things, the first of life, the second of motion, the third of birth, the fourth of death. The first is linked to the second by Unity, in the Unseen: the second to the third by Mind, in the sun: the third to the fourth by Nature, in the moon. Over each of these combinations a Fate, daughter of Necessity, presides, and holds the keys; of the first Atropus, of the second, Clotho, of the one belonging to the moon Lachesis, and the turning-point of birth is there. For the other islands contain Gods, but the moon, which belongs to |C| earthly spirits, only avoids Styx by a slight elevation, and is caught once in one hundred and seventy-seven secondary measures[^[44]]. As Styx moves upon her, the souls cry aloud in terror; for many slip from off her and are caught by Hades. Others the moon bears upwards from below, as they turn towards her; and for these death coincides with the moment of birth, those excepted which are guilty and impure, and which are not allowed to approach her while she lightens and bellows fearfully; mourning for their own fate they slip away and are borne downwards for another birth, as you see.” “But I see |D| nothing,” said Timarchus, “save many stars quivering around the gulf, others sinking into it, others, again, darting up from below.” “Then you see the spirits themselves,” the voice said, “though you do not know it. It is thus: every soul partakes of mind, there is none irrational or mindless; but so much of soul as is mingled with flesh and with affections is altered and turned towards the irrational by its sense of pleasures and pains. But the mode of mingling is not the same for every soul. Some are merged entirely into body, and are disturbed by passions throughout their whole being during life. Others |E| are in part mixed up with it, but leave outside their purest part, which is not drawn in, but is like a life-buoy which floats on the surface, and touches the head of one who has sunk into the depth, the soul clinging around it and being kept upright, while so much of it is supported as obeys and is not overmastered by the affections. The part which is borne below the surface within the body is called soul. That which is left free from dissolution most persons call mind, taking it to be something inside themselves, resembling the reflected images in mirrors; but those who are rightly informed know that it is outside themselves and address it as spirit. The stars, Timarchus,” the voice went on, “which you see extinguished, you are to |F| think of as souls entirely merged in bodies; those which give light again and shine from below upwards, shaking off, as though it were mud, a sort of gloom and dimness, are those which sail up again out of their bodies after death; those which are parted upwards are spirits, and belong to men who are said to have understanding. Try to see clearly in each the bond by which it coheres with soul.” Hearing this, he paid closer attention himself, and saw the stars tossing about, some less, some more, as we see the corks which mark out nets in the sea move over its surface; but some, like the shuttles used in |592| weaving, in entangled and irregular figures, not able to settle the motion into a straight line. The voice said that those who kept a straight and orderly movement were men whose souls had been well broken in by fair nurture and training, and did not allow their irrational part to be too harsh and rough. Those which often inclined upwards and downwards in an irregular and confused manner, like horses plunging off from a halter, were |B| fighting against the yoke with tempers disobedient and ill-trained for want of education; sometimes getting the mastery and swerving round to the right; again bent by passions and drawn on to share in sins, then again resisting and putting force upon them. The coupling bond, like a curb set on the irrational part of the soul whenever it resists, brings on repentance, as we call it, for sins, and shame for all lawless and intemperate pleasures, being really a pain and a stroke inflicted by it on the soul when it is bitted by that which masters and rules it, until at length, being thus punished, it becomes obedient to the rein |C| and familiar with it, and then, like a tame creature, without blow or pain, understands the spirit quickly by signs and hints. These then are led, late in the day and by slow degrees, to their duty. Out of those who are docile and obedient to their spirit from the first birth, is formed the prophetic and inspired class, to which belonged the soul of Hermodorus[^[45]] of Clazomenae, of which you have surely heard; how it would leave the body entirely and wander over a wide range by night and by day, and |D| then come back again, having been present where many things were said and done far off, until the enemy found the body, which his wife had betrayed, left at home deserted by its soul, and burnt it. Now this part is not true; the soul used not to go out from the body; but by always yielding to the spirit, and slackening the coupling-band, he gave it constant liberty to range around, so that it saw and heard and reported many things from the world outside. But those who destroyed the body while he was asleep are paying the penalty in Tartarus unto |E| this day. All this, young man, you shall know more clearly in the third month from this; now begone!” When the voice ceased, Timarchus wished to turn round, he said, and see who the speaker was; but his head again ached violently, as though forcibly compressed, and he could no longer hear or perceive anything passing about him; afterwards, however, he came to |F| by degrees, and saw that he was lying in the cave of Trophonius, near the entrance where he had originally sunk down.

XXIII. ‘Such was the tale of Timarchus. When he died, having returned to Athens in the third month after hearing the voice, and when, in our wonder, we told Socrates of the story, he blamed us for not reporting it while Timarchus was still alive, since he would gladly have heard it more clearly from himself, and have questioned him further. There, Theocritus, you have all, tale and theory both. But perhaps we ought to invite the stranger to join our inquiry; the subject comes nearly home to inspired men.’ ‘Well, but’, the stranger answered, ‘Epaminondas, who puts out from the same port, is not contributing his opinion.’ Our father smiled: ‘That is just his character, Sir. Silent and cautious in speaking, but a glutton for learning and listening. That is why Spintharus of Tarentum, after spending no little time with him here, is always saying, as you know, that he never met |593| any man of his own standing who knew more or who spoke less. So pray let us have all your own thoughts on the subject.’

XXIV. ‘Then, for my part,’ said Theanor, ‘I think that the story of Timarchus ought to be dedicated to the God, as holy and inviolable. But it will be strange to me if any shall be found to discredit what Simmias tells us about the matter; thus, while they designate swans, serpents, dogs and horses as sacred, refusing to believe that men may be godlike and friends of God, yet holding that God is not a friend of birds but a friend of man. As, then, a man who loves horses does not care equally for all individuals which make the class, but always picks out and separates |B| some excellent member of the class, and trains him by himself and feeds him and loves him beyond others; so it is with ourselves; the higher powers extract, if the word may pass, the best out of the herd, and deem them worthy of a very special training, directing their course, not by reins nor by halters, but by reason, through signs utterly incomprehensible to the general herd. Why, most dogs do not understand the signals used in hunting, nor most horses those used in the manège; but those who have learned know at once from a whistle or a chirrup what they are required to do, and easily take the right position. Homer clearly knows the distinction |C| to which I refer. Some of his prophets he calls “readers of dreams” and “priests”, others understand the conversation of the Gods themselves, he thinks, by sympathy, and signify the future to us. For instance:

Thus they conferred: but Helenus, Priam’s son,

That scheme, which pleased them, in his heart divined.[^[46]]

And again:

So the everlasting voice I have heard and known.[^[47]]

The mind of kings and generals is made known to outsiders through the senses, by special beacons or proclamation, or calls on the trumpet; and so the divine message reaches few of us in and |D| through itself, and that rarely; for ordinary men signals are employed and these are the groundwork of what we call divination. The Gods, then, regulate life only for a few, for those whom they wish to make blessed in a single degree, and truly divine; but souls released from coming to the birth, and now for ever at rest from a body, and dismissed into freedom, are spirits who care for men, in Hesiod’s sense. For as athletes, when age has brought them an end of training, do not wholly lose the spirit of competition or of care for the body, but delight to see others in practice, and cheer them on and run beside them, so |E| those who have ceased from the struggles of life, made spirits because of the excellence of their soul, do not utterly despise our earthly affairs, our discussions and our interests: they have a kindly feeling for those training with the same end before them, they share their eagerness for virtue, encourage them, and join them in their bursts, whenever they see them running with hope near at hand and already within touch. For the spirit does not help |F| all men as they come. It is as with swimmers upon the sea; spectators on the shore merely gaze in silence on those who are out in the open, drifting far from land; whereas they run along the beach towards those who are already nearing it, they dash in to meet them, and with hand, and voice, and endeavour, hasten to the rescue. Such, Simmias, is the way of a spirit; while we are dipped beneath the tides of life, changing body for body, like relays on a road, he allows us to struggle out for ourselves, to be brave and patient, to try by our own virtue to reach the harbour in safety. But when any soul through a myriad of births has striven once and again a long-drawn strife well and stoutly, and when, with the cycle now wellnigh complete, it |594| takes the risks, and sets its hope high, as it nears the landing-place, and presses upwards with sweat and endeavour, the God thinks it no wrong that its own spirit should go to the help of such a soul, but lets zeal go free, and the Gods are zealous to encourage and to save, one this soul and one that. The soul hearkens because it is so near, and it is saved; but if it does not hearken the spirit leaves it, and its happy chance is gone.’

XXV. As he finished, Epaminondas looked at me. ‘It is nearly your time, Capheisias, to go to the gymnasium and not fail your comrades; we will take care of Theanor, and break up |B| our conference whenever he likes.’ ‘Let us do so,’ I said, ‘but I think Theocritus here wants a few words with you while Galaxidorus and I are present.’ ‘By all means’, said he; he rose and led the way to the angle of the portico. We stood round and tried to encourage him to join the scheme. He answered that he perfectly well knew the day of the return of the exiles, and had arranged with Gorgidas as to all that was necessary for our friends, but that he refused to take the life of any citizen without trial, unless there were an urgent necessity; also, looking to the body of the Thebans, it was specially convenient that there should be some person with hands clean |C| and beyond suspicion, when the time should come to advise the people for the best. We agreed, and he returned at once to Simmias and his party. We went down to the gymnasium and met our friends, and, pairing off for wrestling matches, exchanged information and plans for action. We saw also Archias and Philippus, anointed and starting for the supper. For Phyllidas, |D| fearing that they might put Amphitheus to death first, called on Archias immediately after he had escorted Lysanoridas, and by suggesting hopes that the lady he desired to meet would come to the place, persuaded him to turn his mind to having a good time with the usual companions of his revels.

XXVI. It was now getting late, and the cold was intense, as the wind had got up. Most people had therefore made for their homes more quickly than usual. We had fallen in with Damocleidas, Pelopidas, and Theopompus, and were taking them with us, as others took others of the exiles. For the party had broken up immediately after crossing Cithaeron; and the bitter |E| weather allowed them to muffle up their faces and pass through the city in security. Some of them were met by a lightning flash on the right without thunder, as they entered through the gates; and the sign seemed favourable for safety and glory, with a bright issue to follow and no danger.

XXVII. So when we were all inside, two short of fifty, while Theocritus was sacrificing by himself in an outbuilding, there was a loud knocking at the door; and presently some one came in to say that two servants of Archias, sent on an urgent message to Charon, were knocking at the courtyard gate and calling for it to |F| be opened, and were angry at the slowness of the response. Charon was much disturbed, and gave orders to open to them at once, while he himself went to meet them, the crown on his head showing that he had sacrificed and was at his wine, and asked the messengers what they wanted. One of them replied: ‘Archias and Philippus sent us, you are to come to them as quickly as you can.’ When Charon asked, ‘What is the reason of this hasty summons, and is there anything new?’ ‘We know nothing further,’ answered the messenger, ‘but what shall we tell them?’ ‘This, by Zeus,’ said Charon, ‘that as soon as I have put off this crown and got my cloak, I will follow you. For, if I go straight off with you, there will be an alarm; people will think that I am in |595| custody.’ ‘Do so,’ they said, ‘for we too have orders to convey from the magistrates to the guard of the lower city.’ So they went off. When Charon came in and told us this, we were all aghast, thinking we had been betrayed. Most of us were inclined to suspect Hippostheneidas; he had tried to hinder the return by sending Chlidon, and when that failed and the dread moment was upon us, he had used his plausible tongue to betray the scheme, out of fear; for he did not come with the rest into the house, but the whole impression he gave us was of a coward and turncoat. However, we all thought that Charon ought to go, and obey the |B| summons of the magistrates. He ordered his son to come in, the handsomest boy in Thebes, Archidamus, and the most painstaking in his gymnastics; barely fifteen, but in strength and size far above others of his age. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘he is my only one, and, as you know, I love him dearly; I place him in your hands, and charge you in the name of the Gods, and in the name of the spirits, if I should appear a traitor to your cause, slay him, and spare us not. For the rest, my gallant friends, set yourselves to meet the event; do not give in like shabby cowards, or allow this scum to slay your bodies; defend yourselves, keep your souls |C| above defeat, they are our country’s!’ As Charon said this, we were wondering at his spirit and noble heart, though indignant at his idea of suspicion on our part, and bade him take the boy away. ‘More than that, Charon,’ said Pelopidas, ‘we think that you have not been well advised in that you have not already removed your son to another house. What need for him to run our risks if taken with us? You must send him away even now, so that, if anything happen to us, one noble nursling may be left to be our avenger on the tyrants.’ ‘Not so;’ said Charon, ‘here he shall stay and share your risks; for, even in his interest, it is not |D| good that he should fall into the enemy’s hands. But you, my boy, be daring beyond your years, taste the struggles which must come, take risks with our many brave countrymen in the cause of freedom and valour; much hope still is left, and I think that a God is surely watching over us in our contest for the right.’

XXVIII. Tears came to many of us, Archidamus, at the words of Charon. Dry-eyed himself and unmoved, he placed his son in the hands of Pelopidas, and made his way through the doors with a word of greeting and encouragement for each of us. Even more would you have admired the bright and fearless bearing of the boy himself in the peril. Like Neoptolemus,[^[48]] he showed no |E| paleness or alarm, but drew the sword of Pelopidas and seemed to study it. In the meantime, Diotonus, a friend of Cephisodorus, came in to us, sword in hand, and wearing a steel breastplate under his clothes; and when we told him of Charon being sent for by Archias, blamed us for losing time, and implored us to go straight to the houses, where we should be upon them before they were ready; failing that, it would be better, he said, to go out into the open and form our parties there out of the scattered and uncombined units, rather than shut ourselves up in a chamber |F| and wait like a swarm of bees to be cut out by the enemy. The prophet Theocritus added his urgent appeal; his victims showed a clear and good result, and assured him of safety.

XXIX. While we were arming and making arrangements, Charon reappeared, his face radiant. Smiling as he looked at us, he bade us take heart; there was no danger and the business was moving on. ‘Archias’, he said, ‘and Philippus, when they heard |596| that I had obeyed their summons, were already heavy with drink, sodden alike in body and mind; it was all they could do to stand upon their feet and move out towards the door. When Archias said: “Charon, we hear that exiles have passed into the city and are being concealed”, I was not a little troubled. “Where are they said to be?” I asked, “and who are they?” “We do not know,” replied Archias, “and therefore ordered you to come, on the chance that you might have heard something more certain.” I took a moment to recover my senses, as if after a blow, and began to put things together. The information given could be no substantial story; the plot had not been betrayed by any of those privy to it; for the tyrants could not be in ignorance as to |B| the house if their information came from any person with real knowledge; it must be merely a suspicion or some indefinite rumour circulating in the city which had reached them. So I answered: “I remember that in the lifetime of Androcleidas there were often reports of the kind floating idly about and causing us annoyance. But at the present time, Archias,” I went on, “I have heard nothing of the sort; however, I will inquire into the story, if you so desire, and, if I hear anything worth attention, you shall not fail to know.” “By all means,” said Phyllidas, “look well into this matter and leave no stone unturned. What is to prevent us? We must think nothing beneath our notice, but must take all precautions and pay attention. Forethought is good; safety is good!” As he said |C| this, he took Archias by the arm and led him off into the house where they are drinking. ‘Now, friends,’ he went on, ‘no delay for us, a prayer to the Gods, and forth we go!’ When Charon had said this, we spent a while in prayer and mutual encouragement.

XXX. It was now the hour at which people are mostly at supper; the wind was still rising and drove beneath it snow with drizzle, so that the narrow streets were quite empty as we made our way through them. The party told off against Leontides and Hypates, who lived near one another, went out cloaked and carrying no arms but a sword apiece (among |D| these were Pelopidas, Damocleidas, and Cephisodorus). Charon, Melon, and the rest who were to attack Archias, wore half-cuirasses, and thick wreaths, some of firwood, some of pine. Some were in women’s tunics, which gave the effect of a drinking procession with women. But our ill-fortune, Archidamus, which set all the weakness and ignorance of the enemy on a level with all our daring and preparation, and chequered our action from the outset with perilous episodes like a stage play, met us at |E| the moment of action, and sharp and terrible was the crisis with its dramatic surprise. Charon, having satisfied Archias and Philippus, had returned home and was putting us through our parts, when there came a letter from this city; it was from Archias the priest to Archias of Thebes, an old friend and guest, it would seem, with full news of the return and plot of the exiles, of the house |F| to which they had repaired, and of those who were acting with them. Archias was by this time drenched with wine, and excited about the expected arrival of the ladies; he took the letter, but when the bearer said that it was addressed to him about certain urgent business: “Then urgent business to-morrow!” he said, and thrust the letter under his head cushion; then he asked for a cup, kept calling for wine, the whole time ordering Phyllidas to go out to the door and see whether the women were near.

XXXI. As they had beguiled their drinking with this hope, we joined the company, and pushing our way through the servants to the banqueting hall stood a short time at the door looking |597| at each of the party. Our crowns and dress and make-up, while apologizing for our presence, caused a silence: but as soon as Melon rushed first up the hall, his hand upon his sword-hilt, Cabirichus, the appointed president, plucked him by the arm as he passed, and shouted out, ‘Phyllidas, is not this Melon?’ Melon shook off his grasp, drawing his sword as he did so, then, rushing upon Archias as with difficulty he found his feet, struck and struck till he had killed him. Philippus received a neck wound from Charon; he tried to defend himself with the drinking-cups |B| which were near his hand, but Lysitheus threw him off the couch to the ground and slew him. We tried to pacify Cabirichus, imploring him not to assist the tyrants, but to join in our country’s deliverance, remembering that he was a holy person and consecrated to the Gods for her sake. As, however, from the wine he had taken, it was not easy to carry his thoughts to the proper course, while he stood excited and confused, and kept presenting the point of his spear (customarily worn by our magistrates at all times), I myself seized it at the middle and swung it over his head, crying to him to let go and save himself, or he would be wounded. But Theopompus, standing near him |C| on the right, struck him with his sword, and said: ‘Lie there with those whom thou hast been flattering; never mayest thou wear a crown in a free Thebes, nor sacrifice any longer to the Gods, in whose names thou hast often called down curses on our country, and prayers for her enemies!’ When Cabirichus was down, Theocritus, who was with us, snatched the sacred spear out of the wound; and we slew a few of the servants who ventured on resistance, while we shut up in the hall those who behaved quietly, not wishing them to slip away and spread news of what had happened, before we knew whether things had gone |D| well with our comrades also.

XXXII. Their history was this. Pelopidas and his party quietly approached the courtyard door of Leontides, and told the servant who answered their knock that they had come from Athens with letters for Leontides from Callistratus. When he had given the message and received orders to open, and had removed the bar and set the door a little ajar, they burst in in a body, upset the man, and charged on through the court to the bedroom of Leontides. His suspicions carrying him at once to the truth he drew his dagger and rushed to defend himself; an unjust and tyrannical man he was, but of sturdy courage and a |E| powerful fighter. However, he did not make up his mind to throw down the torch and close with the attacking party in the dark; but in the light, and in their full view, as soon as they began to open the door, he smote Cephisodorus on the groin, and closed with Pelopidas next, shouting loudly all the time to call the attendants. These were held in check by Samidas’ party, not venturing to come to blows with some of the best known and bravest men in Thebes. Pelopidas and Leontides had to fight it |F| out; it was a sword duel in the doorway of the chamber, a narrow one, in the middle of which lay Cephisodorus, fallen and dying, so that the others could not come in to the rescue. At last our man, having received a slight wound in the head and having given many, and thrown Leontides down, ran him through over the still warm body of Cephisodorus. The latter saw the enemy falling, and placed his hand in that of Pelopidas, saluted the others, and cheerfully breathed his last. Leaving them, they turned against Hypates, and the door having been opened to them there, in the same way, they cut him down while trying to escape over a roof to the neighbours.

|598| XXXIII. Thence they hastened towards us, joining us outside, near the Polystyle. After mutual greetings and talk, we proceeded to the prison. Phyllidas called the head jailer out and said: ‘Archias and Philippus order you to bring Amphitheus to them at once.’ He, remarking the strangeness of the hour, and that Phyllidas did not seem composed as he spoke to him, but hot from the struggle and excited, saw through our artifice: ‘When did the Polemarchs send for a prisoner at such an hour, |B| Phyllidas,’ he asked, ‘and when by you? What password do you bring?’ As he was speaking, Phyllidas, who carried a cavalry lance, drove it through his ribs and brought the scoundrel to the ground, where he was trampled and spat upon the next day by a number of women. We burst open the doors of the prison, and called on the prisoners by name; first Amphitheus, then our acquaintances among the others. As they recognized the voices they leapt up from their pallet beds, dragging their chains, while those whose feet were fast in the stocks stretched out their hands, shouting and imploring us not to leave them behind. As these were being released, many of those who lived near came up, perceiving |C| what was going on and delighting in it. The women, as soon as each heard about her own relation, dropped Boeotian habits, and ran out to one another, asking questions from the men who met them. Those who found their own fathers or husbands followed, and no one tried to hinder them, for all who met them were deeply affected by pity for the men, and by the tears and prayers of modest women.

XXXIV. While things were thus, learning that Epaminondas |D| and Gorgidas were already forgathering with our friends near the temple of Athena, I took my way to join them. Many loyal citizens had already arrived, and more kept pouring in. When I had told them in detail the story of what had happened, and while I was imploring them to rally to the market-place, all agreed to summon the citizens at once ‘For Liberty!’ The crowds now forming up found arms to their hand in the warehouses full of spoils from all lands and in the factories of the swordmakers living near. Hippostheneidas had also arrived with friends and servants, bringing the trumpeters, who had, as it happened, been quartered in the town for the feast of Hercules. All at once they began to sound calls, some in the market-place, |E| others elsewhere, from every direction, to cause a panic among the other side, and make them think that the rising was general. Some lighted smoky fires[^[49]] and so escaped to the Cadmeia, drawing with them also the aristocrats, so called, who were accustomed to pass the night on the low ground near the fortress. Those who were above, seeing this disorderly and confused stream of incomers, and ourselves about the market-place, no quiet anywhere, but indistinct noise and bustle rising up to them from all quarters, never made up their minds to come down, though there were some five thousand of them. They |F| thoroughly lost their heads in the danger, and Lysanoridas was a mere excuse: they professed to wait for his return, which was due that day. In consequence, he was afterwards sentenced to a heavy fine by the Lacedaemonian senate. Herippidas and Arcesus were arrested at Corinth later on and put to death. The Cadmeia was evacuated by them and surrendered to us under treaty, and the garrison withdrawn.

THREE PYTHIAN DIALOGUES

INTRODUCTION

The three Dialogues of Plutarch entitled:

I. On the E at Delphi,

II. Why the Pythia does not now give her Oracles in Verse,

III. On the cessation of the Oracles,

may be conveniently treated as a group, and assumed to be a collection of those ‘Pythian Dialogues’ which the author sent to his friend Serapion. I and II certainly are so, III has a separate dedication. Other Dialogues, e. g. that on Delays in Divine Punishment, are also records of conversations which took place at Delphi; but these three are concerned with questions suggested by the temple and prophetic office of Apollo, as to which they give much curious information. If they leave us unsatisfied as to matters of still deeper interest, and tell us nothing about the policy of Delphi in the Persian wars, the counsel given to Orestes, which is fiercely controversial matter, or the popular feeling towards the oracle represented in the Ion of Euripides, this is only what we learn to put up with in reading Greek books. Indeed it is of a piece with the purposes imputed to Apollo himself, who sets us problems but does not supply their solution. ‘The king whose oracle is in Delphi neither tells nor conceals, but signifies.’

We have few indications of date, or of mutual relations between the three Dialogues. I is based upon the author’s recollection of a conversation which took place ‘a long time ago’, about A. D. 66, the date of Nero’s visit to Greece. A principal speaker is Ammonius the Peripatetic philosopher of Lamprae, Plutarch’s instructor, who also speaks, with the same authority, in III. In II, Serapion, the Athenian poet, to whom the collection is dedicated in I, takes a leading part. Theon, a literary friend, who appears frequently in the Symposiacs and in the Face in the Moon comes into I and II. An interesting person is Demetrius of Tarsus, another literary friend, who, in III, has just returned from Britain, and who has been probably identified with ‘Demetrius the Scribe’, named on two bronze tablets found at York, and now in the York Museum (see Hermes, vol. 46, p. 156). The year of Callistratus at Delphi, which marks the date of III, is conjecturally fixed as A. D. 83-4 (see Pontow in Philologus for 1895, and cp. Sympos. vii. 5). As Agricola’s term of office ended in A. D. 84 or 85, Demetrius may have served under him. The general tranquillity of the world depicted in III hardly gives us much to build upon.

In I Plutarch and his brother Lamprias are both speakers. Lamprias appears in his usual character, a good companion, light-hearted and reckless; Plutarch speaks gravely and at length, and the debate is closed by Ammonius. In III Lamprias, Plutarch not being named, speaks gravely throughout, and, on the suggestion of Ammonius, closes the debate. In II, neither brother is named, and the last speaker is Theon.

In the Symposiac Dialogues one or other brother is usually present, sometimes both. In the Face in the Moon Lamprias alone takes part, and he acts as moderator.

It is not easy to interpret these facts. M. Gréard concludes that Lamprias died early. If so, was the name, which was borne by the grandfather and by one of the sons, transferred, for literary purposes, to Plutarch himself? M. Chenevière, in his pleasant essay on Plutarch’s friends (a Latin prize dissertation) suggests that, under whatever name, the leading speaker always conveys Plutarch’s own views.

Certain topics recur in this series of Dialogues. Thus the problem as to the meaning of the E at Delphi, which is the main subject of I, is glanced at, with some impatience, by Philippus the historian in III.

The identification of Apollo with the sun, dismissed at the end of I as a mere beautiful fancy, is questioned again in III and allowed to stand over as unsettled. It is touched upon in II, c. 12.

The hypothesis of a plurality of worlds, brought forward by Plutarch in I. c. 11, with special reference to the views of Plato in the Timaeus, reappears, again in connexion with the five regular solids, in III.

It may be noticed that Plutarch was not, at the date of the conversation narrated in I, a priest of the temple (see c. 16).

Much of the matter of III reappears, with little variety of substance, in the Face in the Moon, the attack on Aristotle’s theory of the distribution of matter in the one corresponding to that upon the Stoics in the other, and the accounts of the imprisonment of Cronus by his son (or Briareus) being almost identical. It is probable that in both Plutarch has drawn immediately upon Posidonius, and through him from Xenocrates and others. The question is discussed with great thoroughness by Dr. Max Adler (Dissertationes Vindobonenses, 1910).

The situation of Delphi is one of extraordinary beauty, as well as interest:

Some few miles north-east of the ancient site of Cirrha the mountainous range of Parnassus shoots out two little spurs towards the sea, thus locking on three sides an inclined valley, as the tiers of an ancient circus embrace the arena below. Upon the fourth side a small river runs, by name the Pleistus, which has forced its way between the eastern spur and Mount Cirphius, directly south and opposite; crosses laterally at the foot of the glen; then, sweeping round in a shining curve, before many leagues unites its waters to the bay. The descending slope that forms the amphitheatre is broken by ridges into three terraces, such as the traveller is wont to see in hilly countries. On the highest rose the sanctuary; below was the town and the cultivated hollow which poets called the Vale of Delphi; above all towered the ridges of Parnassus itself,[^[50]] sheer walls of rock, rising inland towards the summit of the chain, desolate, grand, and picturesque. Those who stood above the level of the temple, and turned their gaze toward the south-west, might perhaps have looked far over to the smiling gulf of Corinth, an unbroken prospect of well-watered fields. Upon their left was the famous plane-tree, and the spring of Castalia, whose stream, leaping down between two rocks, out of a huge cleft that divided them, lost itself in a dell below, till it fell finally into the Pleistus; and mounting the rough ascent, just beyond the little torrent, might be seen the sacred way, which, issuing from the same gorge as the Pleistus, rounded the flank of the promontory of rock and climbed up its warm side. Few are the shadows that pass over the valley; through the long day the southern sun beats down on it, and the brilliancy of the sky is immortalized in the name which the inhabitants conferred upon the hills about, of Phaedriades, or shining cliffs.

But the property of the temple was not bounded by the extent of the view. Above, on the heights, as far as Ligorea and Tithorea, both Doric villages—towards the west, beyond the Stadium, and the hill on which it nestled, to Amphissa and the pasturages along its stream—all was part of the Ager Apollinis, sacred to the god and to his priests for ever.

From the Arnold Prize Essay for 1859, by Charles (afterwards Lord) Bowen.

The topographical and archaeological facts to be gathered from authorities prior to modern excavations are collected by Dr. J. H. Middleton in the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1888. The results of the subsequent work of the French excavators, directed by M. Homolle, may conveniently be studied in Dr. J. G. Frazer’s Commentary on Pausanias, Book 10, where the history of the successive temples is followed out. The dimensions of the temple itself, which stood on a rocky plateau or terrace, were about 197 feet by 72 feet. The Sacred Way ran round the temple, and close to it on its northern and western sides, and was followed by the party described by Plutarch in the second of the three Dialogues (c. 17) in order to reach the southern steps.

I
ON THE ‘E’ AT DELPHI

(In the Pronaos of the temple at Delphi the visitor was confronted by certain inscriptions (γράμματα): ‘Know thyself’—‘Nothing too much’—‘Go bail and woe is at hand’—all exhortations to wisdom or prudence (Plato, Charmides, 163-4). To these is to be added, on the sole authority of Plutarch’s Dialogue, the letter E, pronounced EI.)

THE SPEAKERS

Ammonius, the Platonist philosopher, Plutarch’s teacher.

Lamprias, Plutarch’s brother.

Plutarch.

Theon, a literary friend.

Eustrophus, an Athenian.

Nicander, a priest of the temple.

Chap. 1. Dedication to Serapion at Athens. I am sending you, as an instalment, some of my Pythian Dialogues. What is the problem put before us by Apollo under the form of the letter E? I had always avoided the question, but here is a report of a conversation with some visitors, of whom Ammonius was one, in, or soon after, the year A. D. 66, when Nero came to Greece.

2. Ammonius was arguing that Apollo propounds subjects for philosophical inquiry in the ordinances and emblems of his temple, not least in this letter E.

3. Lamprias quoted the traditional account, that the Wise Men, who were properly five, not seven, met here, and, after discussion, set up the letter E, as a numeral, for a protest against the intrusion of a sixth and seventh into their company. The ancient wooden E is still called that of the Wise Men.

4. Ammonius smiled, knowing Lamprias to be capable of improvising a ‘traditional view’. One of the company mentioned a Chaldaean visitor, who had lately talked much nonsense about the number seven. The officials of the temple know no view except that the letter is significant as a word (‘if’ or ‘whether’).

5. Nicander confirmed this. ‘If’ is used with us in the formula of questions put to the god, or, as ‘if only’, in prayers.

6. Theon puts in a plea for ‘Dialectic’, i.e. Logic. ‘If’ is the conjunction which holds together the conjunctive proposition or syllogism, the special prerogative of human intellect. Hercules, in his early days, mocked at Logic and the E, and then removed the tripod by force.

7. Eustrophus: ‘Bravo, Theon, a Hercules, all but the lion’s skin!’ He appeals to the devotees of Mathematics to say a word for the arithmetical virtues of the number five (a thrust at Plutarch himself, who had yet to learn Academic moderation in his zeal for Mathematics).

8-16. Plutarch loq.:

8. Yes, five has virtues: 5 = 2 + 3, the first even added to the first odd. It is called ‘Marriage’. After multiplication it reproduces itself, and so symbolizes the ‘Conflagration’ and ‘Renovation’ of Heraclitus (and the Stoics),

9. Which relate to the legends of Apollo and also of Dionysus.

10. Five, when multiplied, gives alternately five itself and the perfect ten. It is also essential in harmonies.

11. Plato holds that, if there are more worlds than one, there may be five, and no more. Aristotle that there is one world composed of five elements, the five regular solids.

12. The five senses are related to the five elements and the five solids.

13. We must not forget Homer, and his five-fold division of the universe. But, going back: Four dimensions (point, line, plane, solid) are all very well. But animate being requires a fifth.

14. The true derivation is not 2 + 3 = 5 but 1 + 4 i.e., unity (which is itself really a square) plus the first square.

15. There are five modes of being (see the Sophist, and Philebus of Plato). Some early inquirer saw this, and set up two E’s.

16. I ask the initiated whether five has not a special virtue in their mysteries. (‘Yes,’ from Nicander, ‘but it is a secret.’) Well I must wait till I become a priest myself.

17. Ammonius, though in sympathy with Mathematics, deprecates too much exactness. There is much to be said for the number seven. But the ‘E’ is really something different from all the suggestions. The God greets his visitors with ‘Know Thyself.’ They answer, Thou Art.

18. We ‘are’ not at all, but always change from state to state, and so (says Heraclitus) does all Nature.

19. In true being is no past, present, or future; our common speech confesses to our not being.

20. But God IS, and is rightly addressed as ‘Thou Art’ or ‘Thou Art One’.

21. The identification of Apollo with the sun is a beautiful attempt to grasp the spiritual through the sensible. Not so the stories of his change into fire, and the like, which are better ascribed to some daemon than to the God. ‘Know Thyself’ calls us back from these lofty speculations: ‘Man, know thy nature and its limitations!’

ON THE ‘E’ AT DELPHI

I. A day or two ago, dear Serapion, I met with some |384 D| rather good lines, addressed, Dicaearchus thinks, to Archelaus by Euripides:[^[51]]

No gifts, my wealthy friend, from humble me;

You’ll think me fool, or think I did but beg.

He who out of his narrow store offers trifles to men of great possessions, confers no favour; no one believes that he gives something for nothing, and he gets credit for a jealous and ungenerous temper. Now surely as money presents fall far |E| below those of literature and learning, so there is beauty in giving these, and beauty in claiming a return in kind. At any rate, I am sending to you, and so to my friends down there, some of our Pythian Dialogues, as a sort of first-fruits; and, in doing so, confess that I expect others from you, and more and better ones, since you enjoy a great city and abundant leisure, with many books and discussions of every sort. Well then, our kind Apollo, in the oracles which he gives his consultants, seems to |F| solve the problems of life and to find a remedy, while problems of the intellect he actually suggests and propounds to the born love of wisdom in the soul, thus implanting an appetite which leads to truth. Among many other instances, this is made clear as to the consecration of the letter ‘E’. We may well guess that it was not by chance, or by lot, that, alone among |385| the letters, it received pre-eminence in the God’s house, and took rank as a sacred offering and a show object. No, the officials of the God in early times, when they came to speculate, either saw in it a special and extraordinary virtue, or found it a symbol for something else of serious importance, and so adopted it. I had often myself avoided the question and quietly declined it when raised in the school. However, I was lately surprised by my sons in earnest discussion with certain strangers, who were just starting from Delphi; it was not decent to put them off with excuses, they were so anxious to receive some |B| account. We sat down near the temple, and I began to raise questions with myself, and to put others to them; and the place, and what they said, reminded me of a discussion which we heard a long time ago from Ammonius and others, at the time of Nero’s visit, when the same problem had been started here in the same way.

II. That the God is no less philosopher than he is prophet appeared to all to come out directly from the exposition which Ammonius gave us of each of his names. He is ‘Pythian’ (The Inquirer) to those who are beginning to learn and to inquire; ‘Delian’ (The Clear One) and ‘Phanaean’ to those who are already getting something clear and a glimmering of |C| the truth; ‘Ismenian’ (The Knowing) to those who possess the knowledge; ‘Leschenorian’ (God of Discourse) when they are in active enjoyment of dialectical and philosophic intercourse. ‘Now since’, he continued, ‘Philosophy embraces inquiry, wonder, and doubt, it seems natural that most of the things relating to the God should have been hidden away in riddles, and should require some account of their purpose, and an explanation of cause. For instance, in the case of the undying fire, why the only woods used here are pine for burning and laurel for fumigation; again, why two Fates are here installed, whereas their number is everywhere else taken as three; why no woman is allowed to approach the place of the oracles; questions about the tripod, and the rest. These problems, |D| when suggested to persons not altogether wanting in reason and soul, lure them on, and challenge them to inquire, to listen, and to discuss. Look again at those inscriptions, KNOW THYSELF and NOTHING TOO MUCH; how many philosophic inquiries have they provoked! What a multitude of arguments has sprung up out of each, as from a seed! Not one of them I think is more fruitful in this way than the subject of our present inquiry.’

III. When Ammonius had said this, my brother Lamprias spoke: ‘After all, the account which we have heard of the matter is simple enough and quite short. They say that the famous Wise Men, also called by some “Sophists”, were |E| properly only five, Chilon, Thales, Solon, Bias, and Pittacus. But Cleobulus, tyrant of Lindos, and, later on, Periander of Corinth, men with no wisdom or virtue in them, but forcing public opinion by influence, friends, and favours, thrust themselves into the list of the wise, and disseminated through Greece maxims and sayings resembling the utterances of the five. Then the five were vexed, but did not choose to expose the imposture, or to have an open quarrel on the matter of title, and to fight it out with such powerful persons. They met here |F| by themselves; and after discussing the matter, dedicated the letter which is fifth in the alphabet, and also as a numeral signifies five, thus making their own protest before the God, that they were five, discarding and rejecting the seventh and the sixth, as having no part or lot with themselves. That this account is not beside the mark may be recognized by any one who has heard the officials of the temple naming the golden “E” as that of Livia the wife of Caesar, the brazen one as that |386| of the Athenians, whereas the original and oldest letter, which is of wood, is to this day called that “Of the Wise Men”, as having been the offering of all in common, not of anyone of them.’

IV. Ammonius gave a quiet smile; he had a suspicion that Lamprias had been giving us a view of his own, making up history and legend at discretion. Some one else said that it was like the nonsense which they had heard from the Chaldaean stranger a day or so before; that there were seven letters which were vowels, seven stars that have an independent motion and |B| are unattached to the heavens; moreover that ‘E’ is the second vowel from the beginning, and the sun the second planet, after the moon, and that all Greeks, or nearly all, identify Apollo with the sun.

‘But all that’, he said, ‘is pernicious nonsense. Lamprias, however, has, probably without knowing it, made a move[^[52]] which stirs up all who have to do with the temple against his view. What he told us was unknown to any of the Delphians; they used to give the regular guides’ account, that neither the appearance nor the sound of the letter has any significance, but only the name.’

|C| V. ‘No, the Delphic Officials’, said Nicander the priest, speaking for them, ‘believe that it is a vehicle, a form assumed by the petition addressed to the God; it has a leading place in the questions of those who consult him, and inquire, If they shall conquer; If they shall marry; If it is advisable to sail; If to farm; If to travel. The God in his wisdom would bow out the dialecticians when they think that nothing practical comes of the “If” part with its clause attached; he admits as practical, in his sense of the word, all questions so attached. Then, since it is our personal concern to question him as prophet, but |D| a general concern to pray to him as God, they hold that the letter embraces the virtue of prayer no less than that of inquiry; “O, If I might!” says every one who prays, as Archilochus,[^[53]]

If it might be mine, prevailing, Neobule’s hand to touch!

When If-so-be is used, the latter part is dragged in (compare Sophron’s “Bereaved of children, I trow”, or Homer’s “As I will break thy might, I trow”[^[54]]). But If gives the sense of prayer sufficiently.’

VI. When Nicander had finished, our friend Theon, whom I am sure you know, asked Ammonius whether Dialectic might |E| speak freely, after the insulting remarks to which she had been treated. Ammonius told him to speak out on her behalf. ‘That the God is a master of Dialectic,’ Theon said, ‘is shown clearly by most of his oracles; for you will grant that the solution of puzzles belongs to the same person as their invention. Again, as Plato used to say, when a response was given that the altar at Delos should be doubled,[^[55]] a matter requiring the most advanced geometry, the God was not merely enjoining this, but was also putting his strong command upon the Greeks to practise geometry. Just so, when the God puts out ambiguous |F| oracles, he is exalting and establishing Dialectic, as essential to the right understanding of himself. You will grant again, that in Dialectic this conjunctive particle has great force, because it formulates the most logical of all sentences. This is certainly the “conjunctive”, seeing that the other animals know the existence of things, but man alone has been gifted by nature with the power of observing and discerning their sequence. That “it is day” and “it is light” we may take it that wolves and dogs and birds perceive. But “if it is day it is light”, is |387| intelligible only to man; he alone can apprehend antecedent and consequent, the enunciation of each and their connexion, their mutual relation and difference, and it is in these that all demonstration has its first and governing principle. Since then Philosophy is concerned with truth, and the light of truth is demonstration, and the principle of demonstration is the conjunctive proposition, the faculty which includes and produces this was rightly consecrated by the wise men to that |B| God who is above all things a lover of truth. Also, the God is a prophet, and prophetic art deals with that future which is to come out of things present or things past. Nothing comes into being without a cause, nothing is known beforehand without a reason. Things which come into being follow things which have been, things which are to be follow things which now are coming into being, all bound in one continuous chain of evolution. Therefore he who knows how to link causes together into one, and combine them into a natural process, can also declare beforehand things

Which are, which shall be, and which were of old.[^[56]]

Homer did well in putting the present first, the future next, and the past last. Inference starts with the present, and works |C| by the force of the conjunction: “If this is, that was its antecedent”, “If this is, that will be.” As we have said, the technical and logical requirement is knowledge of consequence; sense supplies the minor premiss. Hence, though it may perhaps seem a petty thing to say, I will not shrink from it; the real tripod of truth is the logical process which assumes the relation of consequent to antecedent, then introduces the fact, and so establishes the conclusion. If the Pythian God really finds pleasure in music, and in the voices of swans, and the |D| tones of the lyre, what wonder is it that as a friend to Dialectic, he should welcome and love that part of speech which he sees philosophers use more, and more often, than any other. So Hercules, when he had not yet loosed Prometheus, nor yet conversed with the sophists Chiron and Atlas, but was young and just a Boeotian, first abolished Dialectic, made a mock at the “If the first then the second”[^[57]], and bethought him to remove the tripod by force, and to try conclusions with the God for his art. At any rate, as time went on, he also appears to |E| have become a great prophet and a great dialectician.’

VII. When Theon had done, I think it was Eustrophus of Athens who addressed us: ‘Do you see with what a will Theon backs Dialectic? He has only to put on the lion’s skin! Now then for you who put down under number all things in one mass, all natures and principles divine as well as human, and take it to be leader and lord in all that is beautiful and honourable! It is no time for you to keep quiet; offer to the God a first-fruits of your dear Mathematics, if you think that “E” rises above |F| the other letters, not in its own right by power or shape, or by its meaning as a word, but as the honoured symbol of an absolutely great and sovereign number, the “Pempad”, from which the Wise Men took their verb “to count”.’ Eustrophus was not jesting when he said this to us; he said it because I was at the time passionately devoted to Mathematics, though soon to find the value of the maxim, ‘NOTHING TOO MUCH‘, having joined the Academy.

VIII. So I said that Eustrophus’ solution of the problem by number was excellent. ‘For since,’ I continued, ‘when all number is divided into even and odd, unity alone is in its effect |388| common to both, and therefore, if added to an odd number makes it even, and vice versa; and since even numbers start with two, odd numbers with three, and five is produced by combination of these, it has rightly received honour as the product of first principles, and it has further been called “Marriage”, because even resembles the female, odd the male. For when we divide the several numbers into equal segments, the even parts asunder perfectly, and leaves inside a sort of recipient principle or space; if the odd is treated in the same way, a middle part is always left |B| over, which is generative. Hence the odd is the more generative, and when brought into combination invariably prevails; in no combination does it give an even result, but in all cases an odd. Moreover, when each is applied to itself and added, the difference is shown. Even with even never gives odd, or passes out of its proper nature; it wants the strength to produce anything different. Odd numbers with odd yield even numbers in |C| plenty because of their unfailing fertility. The other powers of numbers and their distinctions cannot be now pursued in detail. However, the Pythagoreans called five “Marriage”, as produced by the union of the first male number and the first female. From another point of view it has been called “Nature”, because when multiplied into itself it ends at last in itself. For as Nature takes a grain of wheat, and in the intermediate stages of growth gives forms and shapes in abundance, through which she brings her work to perfection, and, after them all, shows us again a grain of wheat, thus restoring the beginning in the end of the whole process, so it is with numbers. When other numbers are multiplied into themselves, they end in different numbers after being squared; only those formed |D| of five or of six recover and preserve themselves every time. Thus six times six gives thirty-six, five times five twenty-five. And again, a number formed of six does this only once, in the single case of being squared. Five has the same property in multiplication, and also a special property of its own when added to itself; it produces alternately itself or ten, and that to infinity. For this number mimics the principle which orders all things. As Heraclitus[^[58]] tells us that Nature successively produces the universe out of herself and herself out of the universe, bartering “fire for things and things for fire, as goods for gold |E| and gold for goods”, even so it is with the Pempad. In union with itself, it does not by its nature produce anything imperfect or foreign. All its changes are defined; it either produces itself or the Decad, either the homogeneous or the perfect.

IX. ‘Then if any one ask “What is all this to Apollo?”[^[59]] Much, we will answer, not to Apollo only but also to Dionysus, who has no less to do with Delphi than has Apollo. Now we |F| hear theologians saying or singing, in poems or in plain prose, that the God subsists indestructible and eternal, and that, by force of some appointed plan and method, he passes through changes of his person; at one time he sets fire to Nature and so makes all like unto all, at another passes through all phases of difference—shapes, sufferings, powers—at the present time, for instance, he becomes “Cosmos”, and that is his most familiar name. The wiser people disguise from the vulgar the change |389| into fire, and call him “Apollo[^[60]]” from his isolation, “Phoebus[^[61]]” from his undefiled purity. As for his passage and distribution into waves and water, and earth, and stars, and nascent plants and animals, they hint at the actual change undergone as a rending and dismemberment, but name the God himself Dionysus or Zagreus or Nyctelius or Isodaites. Deaths too and vanishings do they construct, passages out of life and new births, all riddles and tales to match the changes mentioned. So they sing to Dionysus dithyrambic strains, charged with sufferings and a change wherein are wanderings and dismemberment. |B|

In mingled cries (says Aeschylus)[^[62]] the dithyramb should ring,

With Dionysus revelling, its King.

‘But Apollo has the Paean, a set and sober music. Apollo is ever ageless and young; Dionysus has many forms and many shapes as represented in paintings and sculpture, which attribute to Apollo smoothness and order and a gravity with no admixture, to Dionysus a blend of sport and sauciness with seriousness and frenzy:

God that sett’st maiden’s blood

Dancing in frenzied mood,

Blooming with pageantry!

Evoe! we cry.

‘So do they summon him, rightly catching the character of either change. But since the periods of change are not equal, that |C| called “satiety” being longer, that of “stint” shorter, they here preserve a proportion, and use the Paean with their sacrifice for the rest of the year, but at the beginning of winter awake the dithyramb, and stop the Paean, and invoke this God instead of the other, supposing that this ratio of three to one is that of the “Arrangement” to the “Conflagration”.[^[63]]

X. ‘But perhaps this has been drawn out at too great length for the present opportunity. This much is clear, that they do associate the Pempad with the God, as it now produces its own |D| self like fire, and again produces the Decad out of itself like the universe. Now take music, which the God favours so highly, are we not to suppose that this number has its share here?

‘Most of the science of harmonies, to put it in a word, is concerned with consonances. That these are five and no more is proved by reason, as against the man who is all for strings and holes, and wants to explore these points irrationally by the senses; they all have their origin in numerical ratios. The ratio of the fourth is four to three, of the fifth three to two, of the octave two to one, of the octave and fifth three to one, of the double octave four to one. The additional consonance which writers of |E| harmony introduce under the name of octave and fourth, does not merit admission, being extra-metrical; to admit it would be to indulge the irrational side of our sense of hearing, and to violate reason, or law. Passing by then five arrangements of tetrachords, and the first five “tones”, or “tropes”, or “harmonies”, whichever name is right, by variations of which, made higher or lower, the remaining scales, high and low, are produced, is it not true that, though intervals are many, indeed infinite, the principles of melody are five only, quarter tone, |F| half tone, tone, tone and a half, double tone? In sounds no other interval of high and low, be it smaller or greater, can be used for melody.

XI. ‘Passing over many similar points, I will’, I said, ‘produce Plato,[^[64]] who, in discussing the question of a single universe, says that if there are others besides ours, and it is not alone, then the whole number of them is five and no more; not but that, if ours is the only universe in being, as Aristotle[^[65]] also thinks, even this one is in a fashion composite and formed out of five; one of earth, one of water, a third of fire, and a fourth of air, |390| while the fifth is called heaven or light or air, or by others “fifth substance”, to which alone of all bodies circular motion is natural, not due to force or other accidental cause. Therefore it is that Plato, observing the five perfect figures of Nature—Pyramid, Cube, Octahedron, Eicosahedron, and Dodecahedron—assigned them to the elements, each to each.

XII. ‘There are some who appropriate to the same elements our own senses, also five in number. Touch, as they see, is |B| resistent and earthy. Taste takes in properties by moisture in the things tasted. Air when struck becomes audible voice or sound. There remain two: smell, the object of our olfactory sense, is an exhalation engendered by heat, and so resembles fire; sight is akin to air and light, which give it a luminous passage, so there is a commixture of both which is sympathetic. Besides these, the animal has no other sense, and the universe no other substance, which is simple and not blended. A marvellous |C| apportionment of the five to the five!’

XIII. Here, I think, I paused, and after an interval I went on: ‘What has happened to us, Eustrophus? We have almost forgotten Homer,[^[66]] as if he had not been the first to divide the universe into five parts, assigning the three in the middle to the three Gods, while he left common and unapportioned the two extremes, Olympus and earth, one the limit of what is below, the other of what is above. “We must cry back”, as Euripides says.[^[67]] Now those who exalt the number four as the basis of the |D| genesis of every body, make out a fairly good case. For every solid body possesses length, breadth, and depth; but length presupposes a point as an unit; the line is called length without breadth, and is length; the movement of a line in breadth produces a plane surface, and that is three; add depth, and we get to a solid with four factors. Any one can see that the number four carries Nature up to this point, that is, to the formation of a complete body, which may be touched, weighed, or struck; there it has left her, wanting in what is greatest. |E| For that which has no soul is, in plain terms, orphaned and incomplete and fit for nothing, unless it be employed by soul. But the movement or disposition which sets soul therein—a change introducing a fifth factor—restores to Nature her completeness, its rational basis is as much more commanding than that of the Tetrad as the animal is above the inanimate. Further, the symmetry and potency of the whole five prevails, so as not to allow the animate to form classes without limit, but gives five types for all living things. There are Gods, we know, and |F| daemons, and heroes, and after these, fourth in all, the race of men: fifth, and last, the irrational order of brutes. Again, if you make a natural division of the soul itself, the first and least distinct principle is that of growth; second is that of sense, then comes appetite, then the spirited part; when it has reached the power of reasoning and perfected its nature, it stays at rest in the fifth stage as its upper limit.

XIV. ‘Now as this number five has powers so many and so great, its origin is also noble: not the process already described, out of the numbers two and three, but that given by the combination of the first principle of number with the first square. The first principle is unity, the first square is four; from these |391| as from idea and limited substance, comes five. Or, if it be really correct, as some hold, to reckon unity as a square, being a power of itself and working out to itself, then the Pempad is formed out of the first two squares, and so has not missed noble birth and that the highest.

XV. ‘My most important point’, I went on, ‘may, I fear, bear hardly on Plato, just as he said that Anaxagoras “was hardly used by the name Selene”, when he had wished to appropriate the theory of her illumination, really a very old one. Are not |B| these Plato’s words, in the Cratylus?‘[^[68]] ‘They certainly are,’ said Eustrophus, ‘but I fail to see the resemblance.’ ‘Very well then; you know, I suppose, that in the “Sophist”[^[69]] he proves that the supreme principles are five: being, identity, difference, and after these, as fourth and fifth, movement and position. But in the Philebus[^[70]] he divides on a different plan. He distinguishes the unlimited and the limited, from whose combination comes the origin of all being. The cause of combination he takes to be a fourth. The fifth, whereby things so mingled are again parted and distinguished, he has left to us to guess. I |C| conjecture that those on the one list are figures of those on the other; to being corresponds that which becomes, to motion the unlimited; to position the limited, to identity the combining principle, to difference that which distinguishes. But if the two sets are different, yet, on one view as on the other, there would be five classes, and five modes of difference. Some early inquirer, it will surely be said, saw into this before Plato, and consecrated two “E’s” to the God, as a manifestation and symbol of the number of all things. But further, having perceived that the good also takes shape under five heads, firstly |D| moderation, secondly symmetry, thirdly mind, fourthly the sciences and arts and true opinions which relate to soul, fifthly every pleasure which is pure and unmingled with what causes pain, he there leaves off, merely suggesting the Orphic verse,

In the sixth order let the strain be stayed!

XVI. ‘Having said so much’, I went on, ‘to you all, I will sing one short stave to Nicander and “his cunning men”.[^[71]]

‘On the sixth day of the new moon, when the Pythia is introduced into the Prytaneum by one person, the first of your three castings of lot is a single one, namely the five: the three |E| against the two.’ ‘It is so,’ said Nicander, ‘but the reason may not be disclosed to others.’ ‘Then,’ I answered with a smile, ‘until such time as we become priests, and the God allows us to know the truth, this much and no more shall be added to what we have to say about the Pempad.’ Such, so far as I remember, was the end of our account of the arithmetical or mathematical reasons for extolling the letter ‘E’.

XVII. Ammonius, as one who himself gave Mathematics no mean place in Philosophy, was pleased at the course the conversation was taking, and said: ‘It is not worth our while to answer our young friends with too absolute accuracy on these points; I will only observe that any one of the numbers will provide not a few points for those who choose to sing its praises. |F| Why speak about the others? Apollo’s holy “Seven” will take up all one day before we have exhausted its powers. Are we then to show the Seven Wise Men at odds with common usage, and “the time which runs”[^[72]], and to suppose that they ousted the “Seven” from its pre-eminence before the God, and consecrated the “Five” as perhaps more appropriate?

‘My own view is that the letter signifies neither number, nor |392| order, nor conjunction, nor any other omitted part of speech; it is a complete and self-operating mode of addressing the God; the word once spoken brings the speaker into apprehension of his power. The God, as it were, addresses each of us, as he enters, with his “Know Thyself”, which is at least as good as “Hail”. We answer the God back with “EI” (Thou Art), rendering to him the designation which is true and has no lie in it, and alone belongs to him, and to no other, that of BEING.

XVIII. ‘For we have, really, no part in real being; all mortal nature is in a middle state between becoming and perishing, and presents but an appearance, a faint unstable image, of itself. If you strain the intellect, and wish to grasp this, it |B| is as with water; compress it too much and force it violently into one space as it tries to flow through, and you destroy the enveloping substance; even so when the reason tries to follow out too closely the clear truth about each particular thing in a world of phase and change, it is foiled, and rests either on the becoming of that thing or on its perishing; it cannot apprehend anything which abides or really is. “It is impossible to go into the same river twice”, said Heraclitus;[^[73]] no more can you grasp mortal being twice, so as to hold it. So sharp and so swift is change; it scatters and brings together again, nay not again, no nor afterwards; even while it is being formed it fails, |C| it approaches, and it is gone. Hence becoming never ends in being, for the process never leaves off, or is stayed. From seed it produces, in its constant changes, an embryo, then an infant, then a child; in due order a boy, a young man; then a man, an elderly man, an old man; it undoes the former becomings and the age which has been, to make those which come after. Yet we fear (how absurdly!) a single death, we who have died so many deaths, and yet are dying. For it is not only that, as Heraclitus[^[74]] would say, “death of fire is birth of air”, and “death of air is birth of water”; the thing is much clearer in |D| our own selves. The man in his strength is destroyed when the old man comes into being, the young man was destroyed for the man in his strength to be, so the boy for the young man, the babe for the boy. He of yesterday has died into him of to-day; he of to-day is dying into him of to-morrow. No one abides, no one is; we that come into being are many, while matter is driven around, and then glides away, about some one appearance and a common mould. Else how is it, if we remain the same, that the things in which we find pleasure now are different from those of a former time; that we love, hate, admire, and censure |E| different things; that our words are different and our feelings; that our look, our bodily form, our intellect are not the same now as then? If a man does not change, these various conditions are unnatural; if he does change, he is not the same man. But if he is not the same man, he is not at all; his so-called being is simply change and new birth of man out of man. In our ignorance of what being is, sense falsely tells us that what appears is.

XIX. ‘What then really is? That which is eternal, was never brought into being, is never destroyed, to which no time ever brings change. Time is a thing which moves and takes the fashion of moving matter, which ever flows or is a sort of leaky vessel which holds destruction and becoming. Of time we use the words “afterwards”, “before”, “shall be”, and |F| “has been”, each on its face an avowal of not being. For, in this question of being, to say of a thing which has not yet come into being, or which has already ceased from being, that “it is”, is silly and absurd. When we strain to the uttermost our apprehension of time, and say “it is at hand”, “it is here”, or “now”, a rational development of the argument brings it all to nothing. “Now” is squeezed out into the future or into the past, as though we should try to see a point, which of necessity passes away to right or left. But if the case be the |393| same with Nature, which is measured, as with time which measures, nothing in it abides or really is. All things are coming into being, or being destroyed, even while we measure them by time. Hence it is not permissible, even in speaking of that which is, to say that “it was”, or “it shall be”; these all are inclinations, transitions, passages, for of permanent being there is none in Nature.

XX. ‘But the God IS, we are bound to assert; he is, with reference to no time but to that age wherein is no movement, or time, or duration; to which nothing is prior or subsequent; no future, no past, no elder, no younger, which by one long “now” has made the “always” perfect. Only with reference to this that which really is, is; it has not come into being, it is |B| not yet to be, it did not begin, it will not cease. Thus then we ought to hail him in worship, and thus to address him as “Thou Art”, aye, or in the very words of some of the old people, “Ei Hen”, “Thou art one thing”.[^[75]] For the Divine is not many things, in the sense in which each one of us is made up of ten thousand different and successive states, a scrap-heap of units, a mob of individuals. No, that which is must be one, as that which is one is. Variety, any difference in being, passes to one side to produce that which is not. Therefore the first |C| of the names of the God is right, and the second, and the third. “Apollo” (Not-many) denies plurality and excludes multitude. Ieïus means one and one only; Phoebus, we know, is a word by which the ancients expressed that which is clean and pure, even as to this day the Thessalians, when their priests pass their solemn days in strict seclusion outside the temple, apply to them a verb formed from Phoebus. Now The One is transparent and pure, pollution comes by commixture of this with that, just as Homer,[^[76]] you remember, says of ivory dyed red that it is stained, and dyers say of mingled pigments that they are |D| destroyed, and call the process “destruction”. Therefore it is the property of that which is indestructible and pure to be one and without admixture.

XXI. ‘There are those who think that Apollo and the sun are the same; we hail them and love them for the fair name they give, and it is fitting to do so; for they associate their idea of the God with that which they honour and desire more than all other things which they know. But now that we see them dreaming of the God in the fairest of nightly visions, let us rise and encourage them to mount yet higher, to contemplate him in a dream of the day, and to see his own being. Let them pay honour also to the image of him and worship the principle of increase which is about it; so far as what is of sense can lead to what is of mind, a moving body to that which abides, it allows presentments and appearances of his kind and blessed |E| self to shine through after a fashion. But as to transitions and changes in himself, that he now discharges fire, and so is drawn up, as they put it, or again presses down and strains himself into earth and sea, winds and animals, and all the strange passages into animals and also plants, piety forbids us so much as to hear them. Otherwise the God will be a greater trifler than the boy in Homer,[^[77]] for ever playing with the universe the game which the boy plays with a pile of sand, which is heaped together and sucked away under his hand; moulding the universe when there is none, and again destroying it when it has come into being. The opposite principle which we find in the |F| universe, whatever its origin, is that which binds being together and prevails over the corporeal weakness tending to destruction. To my thinking the word “EI” is confronted with this false view, and testifies to the God that THOU ART, meaning that no shift or change has place in him, but that such things belong |394| to some other God, or rather to some Spirit set over Nature in its perishing and becoming, whether to effect either process or to undergo it. This appears from the names, in themselves opposite and contradictory. He is called Apollo, another is called Pluto; he is Delius, the other Aidoneus; he is Phoebus, the other “Skotios”; by his side are the Muses, and Memory, with the other are Oblivion and Silence; he is Theorius and Phanaeus, the other is “King of dim Night and ineffectual Sleep”.[^[78]] The other is |B|

Of all the Gods to men the direst foe.[^[79]]

Whereas of him Pindar[^[80]] has pleasantly said:

Well tried and mildest found, to men who live and die.

so Euripides[^[81]] was right:

Draughts to the dead out-poured,

Songs which our bright-haired lord

Apollo hath abhorred.

And still earlier Stesichorus:[^[82]]

Jest and song Apollo owns,

Let Hades keep his woes and groans.

Sophocles again,[^[83]] in his actual assignment of instruments to each, is quite clear, thus:

Nor harp nor lyre to wailing strains is dear,

for it was quite late, indeed only the other day, that the flute |C| ventured to let itself speak “on themes of joy”; in early times it trailed along in mourning, nor was its service therein much esteemed or very cheerful; then there came a general confusion. It was specially by mingling things which were of Gods with those which were of daemons that the distinction of the instruments was lost. Anyhow, the phrase “KNOW THYSELF” seems to stand in a sort of antithesis to the letter “E”, and yet, again, to accord with it. The letter is an appeal, a cry raised in awe and worship to the God, as being throughout all eternity; the phrase is a reminder to mortal man of his own nature and of his weakness.’

II
WHY THE PYTHIA DOES NOT NOW GIVE ORACLES IN VERSE

THE SPEAKERS

A. Introductory

Basilocles, a citizen of Delphi.

Philinus, a friend (perhaps also of Delphi).

B. Philinus narrates a Conversation between

Philinus.

Diogenianus, a young visitor from Pergamum, son of a friend of the same name.

Theon, a literary friend.

Serapion, the Athenian poet.

Boethus, a geometrician, almost a convinced Epicurean.

Two Guides of the temple of Delphi.

1. Philinus, coming out of the temple, explains to Basilocles why his party has been so long in making the round of the sights. It included an intelligent and inquisitive visitor, the younger Diogenianus, of Pergamum. He continues:—

2. Diogenianus raised a point about the tint of the Corinthian bronze. Theon interposed with a story:

3. And discussed the properties of olive oil, which produces a crust on metals. He refers to Aristotle’s view (which cannot be traced in his extant works).

4. He suggested special properties in the air of Delphi—density and rarity—and quotes Homer for the combination of such opposites.

5. A verse inscription catching the eye of Diogenianus caused him to ask why the verses of oracles are so poor. Serapion suggested that perhaps our standard ought to be revised by that of the God. Boethus told a story about Pauson the painter. He added that there is no excuse in the subject-matter, witness Serapion, who wrote excellent poetry on dry science!

6. Serapion agreed that our standards are wrong—they lack severity. Pleasure was cast out, once for all, from the seat of the Sibyl.

7. Theon disclaimed the false theory of inspiration. The verses are not the God’s, he only gives the impulse. But there is no pleasing the Epicureans, whether the prophetess uses verse or prose. Diogenianus protested against levity on a subject of profound interest to all Greeks. Theon asked that the question might be reserved, and the round continued.

8. Instances from Hiero’s statue, and others, of the jealous care of Providence for human affairs. Boethus thought Chance, or Spontaneity, sufficient to account for all, and was answered by Philinus, who continued,

9. And referred to the history of the first Sibyl. Boethus mocked, and was met by Diogenianus with instances of prophecies verified,

10. Which Boethus would explain as successful guesses.

11. Serapion called for a distinction to be made between prophecies made in general terms, and those which go into details.

12. Diogenianus asked the emblematic import of the frogs on the Corinthian brazen bowl. Serapion suggested a reference to the Sun rising out of water. Philinus here detected an intrusion of the Stoic ‘Conflagration’ into the discussion. A casual remark raised the question of the identity of the sun with Phoebus. ‘They are as different’, said Diogenianus, ‘as the sun and the moon, only the sun has permanently eclipsed the God, the sensible, the spiritual.’

13. Serapion asked a question which the guides had already answered: ‘No wonder if they are bewildered by our high-flown talk.’

14. The statue of Rhodope, the courtesan, called forth a stern protest from Diogenianus.

15. Theon, on an appeal from Serapion, pointed out the greater scandal of offerings made by Greeks for victories over Greeks.

16. One of the Guides reminded the company of the story of Croesus and the baker-woman.

17. Diogenianus begged that, instead of more anecdotes, the original question might be discussed: ‘Why has the use of verse in oracular answers been discontinued?’ The company seated itself in a new position, and Boethus genially remarked on its appropriateness, the place of origin of the heroic metre.

18. Serapion congratulated him on his improved tone, and Philinus agreed. Philosophers have dropped verse, yet we do not infer that Philosophy has died out. Philinus agreed.

19-end. Theon spoke to the original question.

19. He mentioned ancient oracles delivered in prose,

20. And modern oracles given in verse.

21. To sum up: Soul is the instrument of the God, body of soul; the result must partake in the infirmity of body. The cases of reflecting mirrors, and of the moon. Thus there are two separate emotions in the prophetess—inspiration and Nature.

22. Homeric instances of the choice of human instruments—Story of Battus.

23. Of the ancient oracles (1) many were delivered in prose, (2) the fashion of the times was for verse (cp. c. 18).

24. It is better that oracles should be given in current coin, not in the depreciated coin of verse. History of poetical usage.

25. In old times obscurity was thought dignified, now it provokes impatience; and it has become vulgarized through charlatans.

26. When cities and statesmen used to consult the oracle on questions of high policy, circumlocution was necessary.

27. Again, verse was a great help to memory, when intricate advice was given, as to Battus.

28. In these days of general rest, only homely questions are asked, and are best answered in homely prose.

29. Yet we fear lest the credit acquired in three thousand years by the straight concise answers of the oracle should be lost! We gush out with wealth, as the mythical Galaesus with milk. I am proud to have had some hand in this.

30. People who regret the old obscurity and bombast are like children who admire a rainbow more than the sun which makes it.

In Theon’s long concluding speech (c. 19, p. 403 A to the end) he is no doubt expressing Plutarch’s own views. But the literary references and the touch of levity are quite in Theon’s style; ‘my young friend’, in c. 20, recalls the same phrase in c. 3. Later on, Plutarch is, as Wyttenbach has observed, indicated by τὸν καθηγεμόνα ταύτης τῆς πολιτείας. Professor Hartman (see Preface, p. [xx]) states his conviction that Theon was an older friend of Plutarch and his predecessor in the priesthood (pp. 166 and 617). In a Dialogue in which the Epicureans are attacked (Non posse suaviter, p. 1088 D) a long speech clearly belonging to Theon is introduced by the words ‘I (Plutarch) said’. This slip is probably due to the author. (See, on the general subject, Mr. John Oakesmith’s note on p. 149 of The Religion of Plutarch.)

WHY THE PYTHIA DOES NOT NOW GIVE ORACLES IN VERSE

|394 D| Basilocles. The shades of evening, Philinus, while you are conducting the stranger round the votive gifts! Here am I, |E| fairly tired out in waiting for you.

Philinus. Yes, Basilocles, we made slow progress, sowing arguments as we went and reaping them too; battle and war were beneath them, as they sprang and sprouted in our faces, like the ‘sown men’ of old.

Basilocles. Then shall I have to call in some one else of your |F| company, or will you oblige us with the whole story? What were the arguments, and who were the speakers?

Philinus. I shall have to do that myself, Basilocles, it seems, for you will not easily meet with any of the others in the town; I saw most of them going back to the Corycium and the Lycuria with the stranger.

Basilocles. A good sight-seer this stranger, and a mighty good listener!

Philinus. Say rather a good scholar and a good learner. Not that these are his most admirable points; there is a gentleness |395| which is full of charm; and then his readiness to do battle and to raise sensible points: nothing captious or hard in his way of taking the answers. After a very short time in his company you would have to say ‘good father, good child’, for you know that Diogenianus was one of the very best.

Basilocles. I never saw him myself, but I have met many who spoke with warm approval of his talk and his character, and in just the same terms about this young man. But how did the argument begin, and what started it?

II. Philinus. The guides were going through their lectures, as prepared, showing no regard for our entreaties that they would cut short their periods and skip most of the inscriptions. The stranger was but moderately interested in the form and workmanship of the different statues; it appears that he has |B| seen many beautiful objects of art. What he did admire was the lustre on the bronze, unlike rust or deposit, but rather resembling a coat of deep shining blue, so much so, that it rather well became the sea-captains, with whom the round had begun, standing up out of the deep so naively with the true sea tint. ‘Now was there’, he asked, ‘some receipt of pharmacy known to the old artists in brass like that method of tempering swords of which we read? It was forgotten in time, and then bronze had a truce from works of war. As to the Corinthian bronze, that came by its beautiful colour accidentally, not through art. A fire spread over a house in which were stored some gold and silver and a large quantity of bronze. The whole was fused into one stream of metal, which took its name |C| from the bronze, as the largest ingredient.’ Theon broke in: ‘We have heard a different story, with a spice of mischief in it. A Corinthian bronze-worker found a chest containing much gold. Fearing discovery, he chipped it off little by little, and quietly mixed the bits with the bronze; the result was a marvellous blend, which he sold at a high price, as people were delighted with the beauty of the colour. However, the one story is as mythical as the other; what we may suppose is that some method was known of mixing and preparing, much as now they mix gold with silver, and get a peculiar and rare effect, |D| which to me appears a sickly pallor and a loss of colour with no beauty in it.’

III. ‘What has been the cause, then,’ said Diogenianus, ‘do you think, of the colour of the bronze here?’ ‘Here is a case’, said Theon, ‘in which, of the first and most natural elements which are or ever will be, fire, earth, air, water, none approaches or touches the bronze, save air only: clearly then, air is the agent; from its constant presence and contact the bronze gets its exceptional quality, or perhaps

Thus much you knew before Theognis was,[^[84]]

as the comic poet has it; but what you want to learn is the |E| nature of air, and the property in virtue of which its repeated contact has coloured the bronze.’ Diogenianus said that it was. ‘And I too,’ Theon continued, ‘my young friend, let us follow the quest together; and first, if you will agree, ask why olive oil produces a more copious rust on the metal than other liquids; it does not, of course, actually make the deposit, being pure and uncontaminated when it is applied.’ ‘Certainly not;’ said the young man, ‘the real cause appears to me to be something different; the oil is fine, pure, and transparent, so the rust when it meets it is specially evident, whereas with other liquids it becomes invisible.’ ‘Excellent,’ said Theon, ‘my |F| young friend, that is prettily put. But consider also, if you please, the cause given by Aristotle.’ ‘I do please’, he said. ‘Aristotle says that the rust, when it comes over other liquids, passes invisibly through and is dispersed, because the particles are irregular and fine, whereas in the density of oil it is held up and permanently condensed. If, then, we can frame some such hypothesis for ourselves, we shall not be wholly at a loss for a spell to charm away this difficulty.’

IV. We encouraged him and agreed, so he (Theon) went |396| on to say that the air of Delphi is thick and close of texture, with a tenseness caused by reflection from the hills and their resistance, but is also fine and biting, as seems to be proved by the facts of digestion of food. The tenuity allows it to enter the bronze, and to scrape up from it much solid rust, which rust again is held up and compressed, because the density of the air does not allow it a passage through; but the deposit breaks out, because it is so copious, and takes on a rich bright colour on the surface. We applauded this, but the stranger remarked that either hypothesis alone was sufficient for the argument. ‘The fineness’, |B| he went on, ‘will be found to be in contradiction to the density of which you speak, but there is no necessity to assume it. The bronze, as it ages, exhales or throws off the rust by its own inherent action; the density holds together and solidifies the rust, and makes it apparent because of its quantity.’ Theon broke in: ‘What is to prevent, Sir, the same thing being both fine and dense, as silks or fine linen stuffs, of which Homer says

And from the close-spun weft the trickling oil will fall,[^[85]]

where he indicates the minute and delicate workmanship of the fabric by the fact that the oil would not remain, but trickled |C| or glided off, the fineness at once and the density refusing it a passage. And, again, the scraping up of the rust is not the only purpose served by the tenuity of the air; it also makes the colour itself pleasanter to the eye and brighter, it mingles light and lustre with the blue.’

V. Here there was an interval of silence; the guides were again getting their speeches in hand. A certain oracle given in verse was mentioned—I think it was one about the reign of Aegon the Argive—when Diogenianus observed that he had often been surprised at the badness and common quality of the verses in which the oracles are delivered. Yet the God is Choirmaster of the Muses, and eloquent language is no less |D| his function than beauty of ode or tune, and he should have a voice far above that of Homer and Hesiod in verse. Here we have most of the oracles saturated with bad taste and poverty of metre and diction. Then Serapion, the poet, who was with us from Athens, said: ‘Then do we really believe that these verses are the God’s, yet venture to say that they fall behind Homer and Hesiod in beauty? Shall we not rather take them for all that is best and most beautiful in poetry, and revise our judgement of them prejudiced by familiarity with a bad standard?’ Boethus, the geometer—you know the man, |E| already on his way to the camp of Epicurus—broke in: ‘Have you ever heard the story of Pauson the painter?’ ‘Not I’, said Serapion. ‘Well, it is worth hearing. It appears that he had contracted to paint a horse rolling, and painted him galloping. The owner was indignant; so Pauson laughed and turned the canvas upside down, with the result that the lower parts became the upper, and there was the horse rolling, not galloping. So |F| it is, Bion tells us, with certain syllogisms when converted. Thus some will tell us not that the oracles are quite beautiful because they are the God’s, but that they are not the God’s because they are bad! That point may be left unsettled. But that the verses used in the oracles are bad poetry,’ he went on, ‘is made clear also in your judgement, my dear Serapion, is it not so? For you write poems which are philosophical and severe as to matter, but in force and grace and diction more like the work of Homer and Hesiod than the utterances of the Pythia.’

VI. Then Serapion: ‘Yes, we are sick, Boethus, sick in ears and in eyes; luxury and softness have accustomed us to think things beautiful as they are more sweet, and to call them so. Soon we shall actually be finding fault with the Pythia because |397| she does not speak with a more thrilling voice than Glauce the singing-girl, or use costly ointments, or put on purple robes to go down into the sanctuary, or burn on her censer cassia, mastic, and frankincense, but only bay leaves and barley meal. Do you not see’, he went on, ‘what grace the songs of Sappho have, how they charm and soothe the hearers, while the Sibyl “with raving mouth”, as Heraclitus says, “utters words with no laughter, no adornment, no spices”,[^[86]] yet makes her voice carry to ten thousand years, because of the God. And Pindar[^[87]] tells us that Cadmus heard from the God “right music”, not |B| sweet music, or delicate music, or twittering music. What is passionless and pure gives no admission to pleasure; she was cast out in this very place, together with pain,[^[88]] and the most of her has dribbled away, it seems, into the ears of men.’

VII. When Serapion had done, Theon smiled. ‘Serapion’, he said, ‘has paid his usual tribute to his own proclivities, making capital out of the turn which the conversation had taken about pain and pleasure! But for us, Boethus, even if these verses are inferior to Homer, let us never suppose that the God has composed them; he only gives the initial impulse according to the capacity of each prophetess. Why, suppose the answers had |C| to be written, not spoken. I do not think we should suppose that the letters were made by the God, and find fault with the calligraphy as below royal standard. The strain is not the God’s, but the woman’s, and so with the voice and the phrasing and the metre; he only provides the fantasies, and puts light into her soul to illuminate the future; for that is what inspiration is. To put it plainly, there is no escaping you prophets of Epicurus—yes, you too, Boethus, are drifting that way—you blame those old prophetesses because they used bad poetry, and you also blame those of to-day because they speak their answers in |D| prose, and use the first words which come, that they may not be overhauled by you for headless, hollow, crop-tailed lines.’ Then Diogenianus: ‘Do not jest, in Heaven’s name, no! but help us to solve the problem which is common to us all. There is not a Greek[^[89]] living who is not in search of a rational account of the fact that the oracle has ceased to use verse, epic or other.’ Theon interrupted: ‘At the present moment, my young friend, we seem to be doing a shabby turn by the guides, taking the bread out of their mouths. Suffer them first to do |E| their office, afterwards you shall discuss in peace whatever you wish.’

VIII. Our round had now brought us in front of the statue of Hiero, the tyrant. Most of the stories the stranger knew well, but he good-naturedly lent his ear to them. At last, when he heard that a certain bronze pillar given by Hiero, which had been standing upright, fell of its own accord on the very day when Hiero died at Syracuse, he showed surprise. I set myself to remember similar instances, such as the notable one of Hiero the Spartan, how before his death at Leuctra the eyes fell out |F| of his statue, and the gold stars disappeared which Lysander had dedicated after the naval battle of Aegospotami. Then the stone statue of Lysander himself broke out into such a growth of weeds and grass that the face was hidden. At the time of the Athenian disaster at Syracuse, the golden berries kept dropping off from the palm trees, and crows chipped the shield on the figure of Pallas. Again, the crown of the Cnidians, which Philomelus, tyrant of Phocis, had given to Pharsalia the dancing |398| girl, caused her death, as she was playing near the temple of Apollo in Metapontum, after she had removed from Greece into Italy. The young men made a rush at the crown, and in their struggle to get it from one another, tore the woman to pieces. Now Aristotle used to say that no one but Homer made ‘words which stir, because of their energy’.[^[90]] But I would say that there have been votive offerings sent here which have movement in a high degree, and help the God’s foreknowledge to signify things; that none of them is void or without feeling, but all are full of Divinity. ‘Very good!’ said Boethus; ‘so it is not enough to shut the God into a mortal body once every month. We will also knead him into every morsel of stone and brass, to |B| show that we do not choose to hold Fortune, or Spontaneity, a sufficient author of such occurrences.’ ‘Then in your opinion’, I said, ‘each of the occurrences looks like Fortune or Spontaneity; and it seems probable to you that the atoms glided forth, and were dispersed, and swerved, not sooner and not later, but at the precise moment when each of the dedicators was to fare worse or better. Epicurus helps you now by what he said or wrote three hundred years ago; but the God, unless |C| he take and shut himself up in all things, and be mingled with all, could not, you think, initiate movement, or cause change of condition in anything which is!’

IX. Such was my answer to Boethus, and to the same effect about the Sibyl and her utterances. For when we stood near the rock by the Council Chamber, on which the first Sibyl is said to have been seated on her arrival from Helicon, where she had been brought up by the Muses (though others say that she came from the Maleans, and was the daughter of Lamia the daughter of Poseidon), Serapion remembered the verses in which she hymned herself; how she will never cease from |D| prophesying, even after death, but will herself go round in the moon, being turned into what we call the ‘bright face’, while her breath is mingled with the air and borne about in rumours and voices for ever and ever; and her body within the earth suffers change, so that from it spring grass and weeds, the pasture of sacred cattle, which have all colour, shapes, and qualities in their inward parts whereby men obtain forecasts of future things. Here Boethus made his derision still more evident. |E| The stranger observed that, although these things have a mythical appearance, yet the prophecies are attested by many overturnings and removals of Greek cities, inroads of barbarian hordes, and upsettings of dynasties. ‘These still recent troubles at Cumae and Dicaearchia[^[91]], were they not chanted long ago in the songs of the Sibyl, so that Time was only discharging his debts in the fires which have burst out of the mountain, the boiling seas, the masses of burning rocks[^[92]] tossed aloft by the winds, the ruin of cities many and great, so that if you visit them in broad daylight you cannot get a clear idea of the site, the ground being covered with confused ruins? It is |F| hard to believe that such things have happened, much harder to predict them without divine power.’

X. ‘My good Sir,’ said Boethus, ‘what does happen in Nature which is not Time paying his debts? Of all the strange unexpected things, by land or sea, among cities and men, is there any which some one might not foretell, and then, after it has happened, find himself right? Yet this is hardly foretelling at all; it is telling, rather it is tossing or scattering words into the infinite, with no principle in them. They wander about, often Fortune meets them and throws in with them, but it is all spontaneous. It is one thing, I think, when what has been foretold happens, quite another when what will happen is foretold. Any statement made about things then non-existent contains intrinsic error, it has no right to await the confirmation |399| which comes from spontaneous happening; nor is it any true proof of having foretold with knowledge that the thing happened after it was foretold, for Infinity brings all things. No, the “good guesser”, whom the proverb[^[93]] has announced to be the best prophet, is like a man who hunts on the trail of the future, by the help of the plausible. These Sibyls and Bacises threw into the sea, that is, into time, without having any real clue, nouns and verbs about troubles and occurrences of every description. Some of these prophecies came about, but they were lies; and what is now pronounced is a lie like them, even if, later on, it should happen to turn out true.’ |B|