Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom

by Dio Chrysostom

  “You, then, if you follow my advice, will take heed and aim first to know yourself; afterwards, having found wisdom, you will then, if it be your pleasure, consult the oracle. [28] For I am persuaded that you will have no need of consulting oracles if you have intelligence. Why just consider! If the god bids you to read and write correctly when you have no knowledge of letters, you will not be able to do so; but if you know your letters, you will read and write well enough, even without any command from the god. In the same way, if he advises you to do anything else when you do not know how, you will not be in a condition to obey. You will not be able to live properly, either, if you do not know how, even though you importune Apollo day after day and he gives you all his time. But if possessed of intelligence, you will know of yourself what you ought to do and how to go about it.

  [29] “There is one thing, however, that I forgot to say about Oedipus: He did not go to Delphi to consult the oracle but fell in with Teiresias and suffered great calamities from that seer’s divination on account of his own ignorance. For he knew that he had consorted with his own mother and that he had children by her; and subsequently, when perhaps he should have concealed this or made it legal in Thebes, in the first place he let everybody know the fact and then became greatly wrought up, lifted up his voice and complained that he was father and brother at once of the same children, and husband and son of the same woman. [30] But domestic fowls do not object to such relationships, nor dogs, nor any ass, nor do the Persians, although they pass for the aristocracy of Asia. And in addition to all this, Oedipus blinded himself and then wandered about blind, as though he could not wander while still keeping his sight.”

  The other on hearing this replied, “You, Diogenes, make Oedipus out to be the greatest dullard in the world; but the Greeks believe that, though he was not a fortunate man, he was the most sagacious of all men. At any rate they say that he alone solved the Sphinx’s riddle.” [31] At this Diogenes broke into a laugh and said, “He solve the Sphinx’s riddle! Have you not heard that the Sphinx prompted him to give the answer ‘man’? As to the meaning of ‘man,’ however, he neither expressed himself nor knew, but when he said the word ‘man’ he thought he was answering the question. It was just as if one were asked, ‘What is Socrates?’ and should give no other answer than the word ‘Socrates.’ Iº have heard someone say that the Sphinx stands for stupidity; [32] that this, accordingly, proved the ruin of the Boeotians in the past just as it does now, their stupidity preventing their knowing anything, such utter dullards they are; and that while the others had an inkling of their ignorance, Oedipus, who thought that he was very wise and had escaped the Sphinx, and who had made the other Thebans believe all this, perished most miserably. For any man who in spite of his ignorance deludes himself with the belief that he is wise is in a much sorrier plight than anyone else. And such is the tribe of sophists.”

  THE ELEVENTH DISCOURSE MAINTAINING THAT TROY WAS NOT CAPTURED

  The eleventh Discourse is interesting to us because it contains a great deal of the criticism of Homer from Plato’s time down; and because it seems to be so evidently just a “stunt” to show what could be done to disprove what everyone believed to be a fact, some would assign it to the period before Dio’s exile when he was a sophist. If this view is accepted, then the hostility Dio shows to the sophists is simply a pretence to make his auditors forget that he is a sophist himself, though he is at that very time performing one of the sophists’ most characteristic acts. Others feel that in view of the self-assurance of the speaker and the skill with which he presents his arguments, the speech belongs to Dio’s riper years and that he had some serious purpose in delivering it.

  The Eleventh Discourse Maintaining that Troy was not Captured

  I am almost certain that while all men are hard to teach, they are easy to deceive. They learn with difficulty — if they do learn anything — from the few that know, but they are deceived only too readily by the many who do not know, and not only by others but by themselves as well. For the truth is bitter and unpleasant to the unthinking, while falsehood is sweet and pleasant. [2] They are, I fancy, like men with sore eyes — they find the light painful, while the darkness, which permits them to see nothing, is restful and agreeable. Else how would falsehood often prove mightier than the truth, if it did not win its victories through pleasure?

  But though, as I have said, it is hard for men to learn, it is immensely more difficult for them to unlearn and learn over again, especially when they have been listening to falsehood for a long time, and not only they themselves, but their fathers, their grandfathers, and, generally speaking, all former generations have been deceived. [3] For it is no easy matter to disabuse these of their opinion, no matter how clearly you show it to be wrong. I presume it is the same as when people have brought up supposititious children: it is hard to get these away from them afterwards when you tell them the truth, but if you had told them in the beginning, they would not have undertaken to rear them. So strong is this tendency that many prefer to claim bad children and to acknowledge them, to their own disadvantage, as their own, if they have originally believed them to be so, rather than good children of whom they learn long afterward.

  [4] Therefore, I should not be surprised at you, men of Ilium, if you were going to put greater faith in Homer, notwithstanding his most grievous misstatements against you, than in my present statement of the truth, and hold him to be a wise and inspired man, and to teach your children his epic from their very earliest years, though he has nothing but denunciation for your city, and untruthful at that, but should refuse to listen to me when I tell the facts as they occurred, just because I was born many years later than Homer. [5] And yet most people say that time is the very best judge of things, but whenever they hear anything after a long lapse of time, they consider it incredible for that very reason. Now if I had the hardihood to contradict Homer before the Argives and to show the error in his poetry regarding the most important things, perhaps it would be natural for them to be angry at me and drive me from their city if they saw that I was dispelling and destroying the reputation which their city has derived from that source. You, on the other hand, should be grateful and hear me gladly, for I have been zealous in defence of your ancestors.

  [6] I wish to say at the outset that this discourse must be delivered before other audiences also, and that many will hear about it, of whom some will not comprehend it, while others will pretend to treat it lightly though they really do not, and yet others will attempt to refute its arguments, especially, I suppose, the miserable sophists. I know quite well that it will not please you, I suppose, either. For most men are so completely corrupted at heart by opinion that they would rather be notorious for the greatest calamities than suffer no ill and be unknown. [7] Even the Argives, I believe, would not wish that the events told of Thyestes, Atreus, and the house of Pelops had happened otherwise, but would be greatly displeased if anyone disproved the myths set forth in the tragic poets by asserting that Thyestes did not defile the wife of Atreus and that the latter did not slay his brother’s sons nor cut them up and then serve their remains as a feast for Thyestes, or that Orestes did not kill his own mother. Should any man make any such assertions, they would feel aggrieved on the ground that they were being insulted. [8] I believe, too, that the feelings of the Thebans would be exactly the same, should anyone assert that there was no truth in their tales of woe and insist that Oedipus did not kill his father or wed his mother or blind himself, or that his sons did not die before the walls, each by the other’s hand, or that the Sphinx did not come and devour the children of the city. Nay, on the contrary, they are delighted to hear that Sphinx was sent to molest them because of Hera’s anger, that Laïus was slain by his son and that Oedipus, after what he did and suffered, wandered in blindness, [9] and that the sons of an earlier king, Amphion, who founded the city, were slain by the arrows Apollo and Artemis because they were the fairest among men. These are the themes that they can endure to hear inter
preted by the flute or song in their theatres, and they offer prizes for the most pathetic interpretation of the story in words or in music; but the man who says that none of these things occurred they expel from their city. [10] So far have the majority carried their folly, and so completely has their infatuation got the better of them. They want to be talked about as much as possible, but as to the nature of what is said, they care not a whit. Generally speaking, men are too cowardly to be willing to undergo severe suffering, since they fear death and pain, but they highly prize being mentioned as having so suffered.

  [11] But as for me, desiring neither to gain your favour nor to quarrel with Homer, much less to rob him of his fame, I shall try to show all the false statements I think he has made with regard to the events which happened here, and I shall use no other means of refuting him than his own poetry. In this I am simply defending the truth, and for Athena’s sake especially, that she may not be thought to have destroyed her own city unjustly or to have set her will against her father’s; but I speak no less in behalf of Hera and Aphrodite also. [12] For it is passing strange that the consort of Zeus did not consider him a competent judge of her beauty unless it should be pleasing to one of the shepherds of Ida also, and that she had any contest at all with Aphrodite for the prize of beauty, she who asserted that she was the eldest of the children of Cronus, as Homer himself has expressed it in the verse,

  “Me as the eldest child hath Cronus the crafty begotten.”

  [13] Furthermore, it is strange that she became so bitterly disposed towards Paris when she herself had entrusted the judgment to him; and yet, even in human affairs, the man who refers a dispute to arbitration does not regard the arbitrator as an enemy when the decision is not in his favour. It is strange also that Aphrodite should have bestowed a gift so scandalous, so fraught with evil and injustice, and that she was so regardless both of Helen, her own sister, and of Paris, who had decided in her favour, but rewarded the latter with such a marriage that he was destined through it to ruin himself, his parents, and his city. [14] Furthermore, the position of Helen, in my judgment, should not be ignored either; for she, the reputed daughter of Zeus, has become through unjust report a byword for disgrace, and yet has been held as a deity among the Greeks on account of her grace. Yet, though such very serious matters are involved in the present discussion, some of the sophists will declare that I am guilty of impiety in gainsaying Homer and will seek to slander me to their wretched disciples, for whom I care less than for so many monkeys.

  [15] In the first place, they say that Homer being constrained by dire poverty, went begging throughout Greece, and yet they think such a man was unable to lie to please those whose dole he received and that he would not have recited the sort of stories that were likely to please them. Beggars of the present time, however, tell nothing but lies, we are told, and nobody would accept the evidence of any of them on any matter whatsoever or receive their praise as sincere. [16] For every one knows that they are compelled to cajole in all they say. It has been said, further, that some gave of their bounty to Homer the beggar, and others to Homer the madman, and it is believed that the people his day held him for a madman when he told the truth rather than when he distorted it. Now on this score I certainly have no criticism to bring against Homer; for there is nothing to prevent a wise man from going begging or pretending to be mad; but I do say that, according to the opinion those men entertain of Homer and his kind, there is probably nothing trustworthy in what he said.

  [17] And, further, they do not think that falsehood was foreign to the character of Homer or that he made no use of it. Odysseus, at any rate, whom he praised most highly, he has represented as telling numerous falsehoods. He says, too, that Autolycus actually perjured himself and that he learned this from Hermes. And as regards the gods, practically every man, including his warmest admirers, admits that Homer does not speak a word of truth, and they seek to offer such excuses as this, that at such times he is not speaking his real mind but is using riddles and figures of speech. [18] Then what is to prevent him having spoken in the same way of men also? For when a man does not frankly tell the truth about the gods, but, on the contrary, puts the matter in such a way that his readers get the wrong idea of them and without any advantage to himself either, why would he hesitate to utter any falsehood whatsoever regarding men? That he has represented the gods as suffering pain, groaning, being wounded, and almost dying; that he tells of their amours withal, of their durance vile, of their giving bonds — on these matters I do not dwell; many others have already done that. For I have no desire to impeach Homer, but only to show how the truth stands. For indeed I shall even tell in his defence what I think to be the facts. [19] But this I do assert, that he made the freest possible use of falsehood and considered it no shame. Whether he was right in this or not, I forbear to consider now.

  Omitting, then, what he has pictured concerning the gods in his poems that is shocking and unbecoming to them, I say merely this, that he did not hesitate to repeat conversations of the gods, which he says they held with one another, not only those held in open court when all the other deities were present, but also those which some had privately with one, [20] as, for instance, when Zeus was angered at Hera for deceiving him and bringing on the defeat of the Trojans, or that previous conversation which she had with Aphrodite, in which she urged her to drug her father and lend her the love charm, to wit, the embroidered girdle — a request which she presumably made in secret. For it is unlikely even in human affairs that any outsider knows of those occasional scenes where husbands and wives fall out and abuse one another. Yet Homer has a passage in which Odysseus puts this matter properly so as not to seem a mere impostor, namely, where he tells of the debates which the gods held concerning him. For he says that he heard these debates from Calypso and that she had learned of them from someone else; but about himself Homer has made no such claim of having received his information from some god. [21] Such utter contempt did Homer show for men, and not a whit did he care if all his statements were regarded as false. For of course he did not imagine that he would convince anyone that he knew [of his own knowledge about] the debates among the gods. He tells also of the dalliance of Zeus and Hera that occurred on Mount Idea, and what words Zeus spoke before the meeting, as though he had personally seen and heard, and apparently no obstacle was presented by the cloud in which Zeus had wrapped himself to escape being seen.

  [22] And to all this Homer has just added the finishing touch. For, not to keep us in doubt as to how he came to understand the gods, he talks to us almost as though he were acquainted with their language, tells us that it was not the same as ours, and that they do not apply the same names to the various things as we do. He draws attention to this in the case of a bird, which he says the gods call chalkis and men kymindis, and in the case of a place before Troy which men call Batieia, but the gods call the Sema Myrines. [23] And after telling us that the river is called not Scamander but Xanthus by the gods, Homer himself proceeds to call it by this latter name in his verses, as though it were his privilege not only to mix the various dialectalº forms of the Greeks freely, using now the Aeolic, now a Dorian, and now an Ionic form, but to employ even the Zeus dialect in the bargain. I have spoken in this way just as I have said, not by way of criticism, but because Homer was the boldest liar in existence and showed no less assurance and pride in his lying than in telling the truth. [24] Thus regarded, none of my statements seems strange and incredible any longer; nay, they appear as but insignificant human falsehoods in comparison with great superhuman ones.

  For when Homer undertook to describe the war between the Achaeans and the Trojans, he did not start at the very beginning, but at haphazard; and this is the regular way with practically all who distort the truth; they entangle the story and make it involved and refuse to tell anything in sequence, thus escaping detection more readily. Otherwise they are convicted by the very subject-matter. [25] This is just what may be seen happening in courts of justice and in t
he case of others who lie skilfully; whereas those who wish to present each fact as it really occurred do so by reporting the first thing first, the second next, and so on in like order. This is one reason why Homer did not begin his poem in the natural way. Another is that he planned especially to do away with its beginning and its end as far as possible and to create the very opposite impression concerning them. [26] That is why he did not dare to tell either the beginning or the end in a straightforward way and did not bind himself to say anything about them, but if he does make mention of them anywhere, it is incidental and brief, and he is evidently trying to confuse. For he was ill at ease with respect to these parts and unable to speak freely. The following device, too, is usually employed by those who wish to deceive: They mention some parts of the story and dwell upon them, but what they are particularly anxious to conceal they do not bring out clearly or when their auditor is paying attention, nor do they put it in its proper place, but where it may best escape notice. They do this, not only for the reason just mentioned, but also because lying makes them ashamed and reluctant to go on with it, especially when it is about the most important matters. [27] And so liars do not speak aloud when they come to this part. Some of them falter and speak indistinctly, others as if they themselves did not know but spoke from hearsay. He, however, who speaks the truth, does so without fear or reserve. Now Homer was not straightforward or frank when telling of the abduction of Helen or the fall of Troy. Nay, with all that boldness which I have said he had, he nevertheless flinched and weakened because he knew he was telling the reverse of the truth and falsifying the essential part of his subject.