Complete Works of Xenophon (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics)

by Xenophon

  His strength is so great that he has some peculiar properties which one would never imagine him to possess. Thus, if you lay hairs on his tusks immediately after he is dead, they shrivel up, such is the heat of the tusks. While he is alive they become intensely hot whenever he is provoked, or the surface of the hounds’ coats would not be singed when he tries to gore them and misses. [18]

  All this trouble, and even more, the male animal causes before he is caught. If the creature in the toils is a sow, run up and stick her, taking care not to be knocked down. Such an accident is bound to result in your being trampled and bitten. So don’t fall under her, if you can help it. If you get into that position unintentionally, the same aids to rise that are used to assist a man under a boar are employed. When on your feet again, you must ply the spear until you kill her. [19]

  Another way of capturing them is as follows. The nets are set up for them at the passages from glens into oak coppices, dells and rough places, on the outskirts of meadows, fens and sheets of water. The keeper, spear in hand, watches the nets. The huntsmen take the hounds and search for the likeliest places. As soon as the boar is found, he is pursued. If he falls into the net, the net-keeper must take [20] his spear, approach the boar, and use it as I have explained. The boar is also captured, in hot weather, when pursued by the hounds; for in spite of his prodigious strength, the animal tires with hard breathing. [21] Many hounds are killed in this kind of sport, and the huntsmen themselves run risks, whenever in the course of the pursuit they are forced to approach a boar with their spears in their hands, when he is tired or standing in water or has posted himself by a steep declivity or is unwilling to come out of a thicket; for neither net nor anything else stops him from rushing at anyone coming near him. Nevertheless approach they must in these circumstances, and show the pluck that led them to take up this hobby. [22] They must use the spear and the forward position of the body as explained; then, if a man does come to grief, it will not be through doing things the wrong way.

  Caltrops are also set for them as for the deer and in the same places. The routine of inspection and pursuit, the methods of approach and the use of the spear are the same. [23]

  The young pigs are not to be caught without difficulty. For they are not left alone so long as they are little, and when the hounds find them or they see something coming, they quickly vanish into the wood; and they are generally accompanied by both parents, who are fierce at such times and more ready to fight for their young than for themselves.

  11. Lions, leopards, lynxes, panthers, bears and all similar wild beasts are captured in foreign countries, about Mt. Pangaeus and Cittus beyond Macedonia, on Mysian Olympus and Pindus, on Nysa beyond Syria, and in other mountain ranges capable of supporting such animals. [2] On the mountains they are sometimes poisoned, owing to the difficulty of the ground, with aconite. Hunters put it down mixed with the animals’ favourite food round pools and in other places that they frequent. [3] Sometimes, while they are going down to the plain at night, they are cut off by parties of armed and mounted men. This is a dangerous method of capturing them. [4] Sometimes the hunters dig large, round, deep holes, leaving a pillar of earth in the middle. They tie up a goat and put it on the pillar in the evening, and pile wood round the hole without leaving an entrance, so that the animals cannot see what lies in front. On hearing the bleating in the night, the beasts run round the barrier, and finding no opening, jump over and are caught.

  12. With the practical side of hunting I have finished. But the advantages that those who have been attracted by this pursuit will gain are many. For it makes the body healthy, improves the sight and hearing, and keeps men from growing old; and it affords the best training for war. [2] In the first place, when marching over rough roads under arms, they will not tire: accustomed to carry arms for capturing wild beasts, they will bear up under their tasks. Again, they will be capable of sleeping on a hard bed and of guarding well the place assigned to them. [3] In an attack on the enemy they will be able to go for him and at the same time to carry out the orders that are passed along, because they are used to do the same things on their own account when capturing the game. If their post is in the van they will not desert it, because they can endure. [4] In the rout of the enemy they will make straight for the foe without a slip over any kind of ground, through habit. If part of their own army has met with disaster in ground rendered difficult by woods and defiles or what not, they will manage to save themselves without loss of honour and to save others. For their familiarity with the business will give them knowledge that others lack. [5] Indeed, it has happened before now, when a great host of allies has been put to flight, that a little band of such men, through their fitness and confidence, has renewed the battle and routed the victorious enemy when he has blundered owing to difficulties in the ground. For men who are sound in body and mind may always stand on the threshold of success. [6] It was because they knew that they owed their successes against the enemy to such qualities that our ancestors looked after the young men. For in spite of the scarcity of corn it was their custom from the earliest times not to prevent hunters from hunting over any growing crops; and, in addition, not to permit hunting at [7] night within a radius of many furlongs from the city, so that the masters of that art might not rob the young men of their game. In fact they saw that this is the only one among the pleasures of the younger men that produces a rich crop of blessings. For it makes sober and upright men of them, because they are trained in the school of truth (and they perceived [8] that to these men they owed their success in war, as in other matters); and it does not keep them from any other honourable occupation they wish to follow, like other and evil pleasures that they ought not to learn. Of such men, therefore, are good soldiers and good generals made. [9] For they whose toils root out whatever is base and froward from mind and body and make desire for virtue to flourish in their place — they are the best, since they will not brook injustice to their own city nor injury to its soil. [10]

  Some say that it is not right to love hunting, because it may lead to neglect of one’s domestic affairs. They are not aware that all who benefit their cities and their friends are more attentive to their domestic affairs than other men. [11] Therefore, if keen sportsmen fit themselves to be useful to their country in matters of vital moment, neither will they be remiss in their private affairs: for the state is necessarily concerned both in the safety and in the ruin of the individual’s domestic fortunes. Consequently such men as these save the fortunes of every other individual as well as their own. [12] But many of those who talk in this way, blinded by jealousy, choose to be ruined through their own evil rather than be saved by other men’s virtue. For most pleasures are evil, and by yielding to these they are encouraged either to say or to do what is wrong. [13] Then by their frivolous words they make enemies, and by their evil deeds bring diseases and losses and death on themselves, their children and their friends, being without perception of the evils, but more perceptive than others of the pleasures. Who would employ these to save a state? [14] From these evils, however, everyone who loves that which I recommend will hold aloof, since a good education teaches a man to observe laws, to talk of righteousness and hear of it. [15] Those, then, who have given themselves up to continual toil and learning hold for their own portion laborious lessons and exercises, but they hold safety for their cities. But if any decline to receive instruction because of the labour and prefer to live among untimely pleasures, they are by nature utterly evil. [16] For they obey neither laws nor good words, for because they toil not, they do not discover what a good man ought to be, so that they cannot be pious or wise men; and being without education they constantly find fault with the educated. [17] In these men’s hands, therefore, nothing can prosper. All discoveries that have benefited mankind are due to the better sort. Now the better sort are those who are willing to toil. And this has been proved by a great example. [18] For among the ancients the companions of Cheiron to whom I referred learnt many noble lessons in th
eir youth, beginning with hunting; from these lessons there sprang in them great virtue, for which they are admired even today. That all desire Virtue is obvious, but because they must toil if they are to gain her, the many fall away. [19] For the achievement of her is hidden in obscurity, whereas the toils inseparable from her are manifest.

  It may be that, if her body were visible, men would be less careless of virtue, knowing that she sees them as clearly as they see her. [20] For when he is seen by his beloved every man rises above himself and shrinks from what is ugly and evil in word or deed, for fear of being seen by him. [21] But in the presence of Virtue men do many evil and ugly things, supposing that they are not regarded by her because they do not see her. Yet she is present everywhere because she is immortal, and she honours those who are good to her, but casts off the bad. Therefore, if men knew that she is watching them, they would be impatient to undergo the toils and the discipline by which she is hardly to be captured, and would achieve her.

  13. I am surprised at the sophists, as they are called, because, though most of them profess to lead the young to virtue they lead them to the very opposite. We have never seen anywhere the man whose goodness was due to the sophists of our generation. Neither do their contributions to literature tend to make men good: but they have written [2] many books on frivolous subjects, books that offer the young empty pleasures, but put no virtue into them. To read them in the hope of learning something from them is mere waste of time, and they keep one from useful occupations and teach what is bad. [3] Therefore their grave faults incur my graver censure. As for the style of their writings, I complain that the language is far-fetched, and there is no trace in them of wholesome maxims by which the young might be trained to virtue. [4] I am no professor, but I know that the best thing is to be taught what is good by one’s own nature, and the next best thing is to get it from those who really know something good instead of being taught by masters of the art of deception. [5] I daresay that I do not express myself in the language of a sophist; in fact, that is not my object: my object is rather to give utterance to wholesome thoughts that will meet the needs of readers well educated in virtue. For words will not educate, but maxims, if well found. [6] Many others besides myself blame the sophists of our generation — philosophers I will not call them — because the wisdom they profess consists of words and not of thoughts.

  I am well aware that someone, perhaps one of this set, will say that what is well and methodically written is not well and methodically written — for hasty and false censure will come easily to them. [7] But my aim in writing has been to produce sound work that will make men not wiseacres, but wise and good. For I wish my work not to seem useful, but to be so, that it may stand for all time unrefuted. [8] The sophists talk to deceive and write for their own gain, and do no good to anyone. For there is not, and there never was, a wise man among them; everyone of them is content to be called a sophist, which is a term of reproach among sensible men. So my advice is: [9] Avoid the behests of the sophists, and despise not the conclusions of the philosophers; for the sophists hunt the rich and young, but the philosophers are friends to all alike: but as for men’s fortunes, they neither honour nor despise them. [10]

  Envy not those either who recklessly seek their own advantage whether in private or in public life — bear in mind that the best of them, though they are favourably judged, are envied, and the bad both fare badly and are unfavourably judged. [11] For engaged in robbing private persons of their property, or plundering the state, they render less service than private persons when plans for securing the common safety are afoot, and in body they are disgracefully unfit for war because they are incapable of toil. But huntsmen offer their lives and their property in sound condition for the service of the citizens. [12] These attack the wild beasts, those others their friends. And whereas those who attack their friends earn infamy by general consent, huntsmen by attacking the wild beasts gain a good report. For if they make a capture, they win victory over enemy forces: and if they fail, they are commended, in the first place, because they assail powers hostile to the whole community; and, secondly, because they go out neither to harm a man nor for sordid gain. [13] Moreover, the very attempt makes them better in many ways and wiser; and we will give the reason. Unless they abound in labours and inventions and precautions, they cannot capture game. [14] For the forces contending with them, fighting for their life and in their own home, are in great strength; so that the huntsman’s labours are in vain, unless by greater perseverance and by much intelligence he can overcome them. [15]

  In fine, the politician whose objects are selfish practises for victory over friends, the huntsman for victory over common foes. This practice makes the one a better, the other a far worse fighter against all other enemies. The one takes prudence with him for companion in the chase, the other base rashness. [16] The one can despise malice and avarice, the other cannot. The language of the one is gracious, of the other ugly. As for religion, nothing checks impiety in the one, the other is conspicuous for his piety. [17] In fact, an ancient story has it that the gods delight in this business, both as followers and spectators of the chase. Therefore, reflecting on these things, the young who do what I exhort them to do will put themselves in the way of being dear to the gods and pious men, conscious that one or other of the gods is watching their deeds. These will be good to parents, good to the whole city, to every one of their friends and fellow-citizens. [18] For all men who have loved hunting have been good: and not men only, but those women also to whom the goddess has given this blessing, Atalanta and Procris and others like them.

  HIERO

  Translated by E. C. Marchant

  Set circa 474 B.C., this short work is composed as a dialogue between Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse, and the lyric poet Simonides. In the dialogue, Xenophon argues that a tyrant has no more access to happiness than a private person.

  Hieron I was the tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily from 478 to 467 BC. During his reign, he greatly increased the power of Syracuse. He removed the inhabitants of Naxos and Catana to Leontini, peopled Catana, which he renamed Aetna, with Dorians, concluded an alliance with Acragas (Agrigentum) and espoused the cause of the Locrians against Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium.

  HIERO

  1. Simonides, the poet, once paid a visit to Hiero, the despot. When both found time to spare, Simonides said: “Hiero, will you please explain something to me that you probably know better than I?”

  “And pray what is it,” said Hiero, “that I can know better than one so wise as yourself?” [2]

  “I know you were born a private citizen,” he answered, “and are now a despot. Therefore, as you have experienced both fortunes, you probably know better than I how the lives of the despot and the citizen differ as regards the joys and sorrows that fall to man’s lot.” [3]

  “Surely,” said Hiero, “seeing that you are still a private citizen, it is for you to remind me of what happens in a citizen’s life; and then, I think, I could best show you the differences between the two.” [4]

  “Well,” said Simonides, taking the suggestion, “I think I have observed that sights affect private citizens with pleasure and pain through the eyes, sounds through the ears, smells through the nostrils, meat and drink through the mouth, carnal appetites — of course we all know how. [5] In the case of cold and heat, things hard and soft, light and heavy, our sensations of pleasure and pain depend on the whole body, I think. In good and evil we seem to feel pleasure or pain, as the case may be — sometimes through the instrumentality of the moral being only, at other times through that of the moral and the physical being together. [6] Sleep, it seems clear to me, affects us with pleasure; but how and by what means and when are puzzles that I feel less able to solve. And perhaps it is no matter for surprise if our sensations are clearer when we are awake than when we are asleep.” [7]

  “For my part, Simonides,” said Hiero in answer to this, “I cannot say how a despot could have any sensations apart from those you have men
tioned. So far, therefore, I fail to see that the despot’s life differs in any respect from the citizen’s.” [8]

  “In this respect it does differ,” said Simonides: “the pleasures it experiences by means of these various organs are infinitely greater in number, and the pains it undergoes are far fewer.”

  “It is not so, Simonides,” retorted Hiero; “I assure you far fewer pleasures fall to despots than to citizens of modest means, and many more and much greater pains.”

  “Incredible!” exclaimed Simonides. [9] “Were it so, how should a despot’s throne be an object of desire to many, even of those who are reputed to be men of ample means? And how should all the world envy despots?” [10]