Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom

by Dio Chrysostom

  Consequently the majority of men are just like spendthrifts, who would be unable to render an accounting for the money they have spent, explaining what they have spent each several item for, although enormous sums have clearly been expended: so neither could these men render an accounting for what they have spent each day, or month, or year, although life is clearly passing by and time being spent, this being of no little value to man, of no less value to him, in my opinion, than money. [5] But all the same, when one drachma has been lost, the man cannot help noticing it and being in some way distressed; and if a person loses several, there are not many who remain undisturbed by such a matter. I do not mean that they are pained and hurt because of their carelessness and because they failed to give heed to avoid such conduct as should properly have hurt them, but simply at the loss of the drachmas. [6] But when a day is gone and lost, or two or three of them, there is no one who gives that a thought! Yet in the one case they are able to reckon thus much: that if they fail to give heed and take thought of such matters, all their property may slip away and be lost without their noticing it. But in the matter we are now discussing, men are not able to apply the same method of reckoning in order to reach the same conclusions, to wit, that if they do not take thought for each day and watch lest they aimlessly throw it away, their whole life may slip away and be lost before they know it.

  [7] But clearly it is not the place where you are nor this going abroad that affords an escape from doing sundry trivial things, nor is it even one’s having retired to Corinth or to Thebes, but rather the being occupied with one’s own self, when one so wishes. For in Thebes and in Megara, yes, anywhere almost that one may go, whether in Greece or in Italy, it is possible for one to live in idleness and to take one’s ease; and one will not lack a pretext, wherever he happens to be, for spending quite a good deal of time, if it so happens, in busying one’s self with affairs as well as in loafing. [8] I am therefore inclined to think that the best and most profitable kind of retirement is retirement into oneself and giving attention to one’s own concerns, whether one happens to be in Babylon, or in Athens, or in a military camp, or alone on a little island. For retirements and sojournings abroad of the kind we have mentioned conduce very little to one’s having leisure and doing only what one ought to do. Sick persons, for instance, by changing from one bed to another do sometimes get a little relief, but certainly not enough nor such as would rid them of their malady. [9] And we often see how even in the midst of a very great turmoil and throng the individual is not hampered in carrying on his own occupation; but, on the contrary, the man who is playing the flute or teaching a pupil to play it devotes himself to that, often holding school in the very street, and the crowd does not distract him at all, nor the din made by the passers-by; and the dancer likewise, or dancing master, is engrossed in his work, being utterly heedless of those who are fighting and selling and doing other things; and so also with the harper and the painter. But here is the most extreme case of all: The elementary teachers sit in the streets with their pupils, nothing hinders them in this great throng from teaching and learning. [10] And I remember once seeing, while walking through the Hippodrome, many people on one spot and each one doing something different: one playing the flute, another dancing, another doing a juggler’s trick, another reading a poem aloud, another singing, and another telling some story or myth; and yet not a single one of them prevented anyone else from attending to his own business and doing the work that he had in hand.

  [11] However, you will object, there is none of these occupations that concentrates the mind, steadies it, and causes it to look with disdain upon all other things; and education, apparently, and philosophy, which best accomplish this, do require great seclusion and retirement; and, just as the sick, unless there is silence and quiet all about them, are unable to get any sleep, so, you see, it is with seekers after learning — unless everybody about them is quiet, and unless there is nothing distracting to be seen or heard, their mind will find it impossible to give attention to its own affairs and to concentrate on these.

  [12] Yet I for my part notice that people who live by the sea are not affected by its sounds, but are able to put their minds on anything they like, that they speak and listen and sleep when they feel that the time has come for these things, because they think that the sound is no concern of theirs and so do not mind it. But if they did care to take notice when the roar increased or diminished, or to count the waves that break upon the shore, or to watch the gulls and other birds, how they alight on the waves and float easily on them, they would not have time to do anything else.

  [13] So, too, the man who can bring himself to reflect in regard to the crowds and the din they cause and their various affairs, that these things differ not one whit from what takes place on the sea, will not be troubled by any of them. Nay, we have in this, it would seem, a very valuable lesson and bit of instruction — that we should accustom the mind to follow reason and not to let it be diverted to any other thing whatsoever than the matters which are before it and thought to be fitting. [14] And when we have thus accustomed the mind by reason will be able to accomplish all its proper work; but the mind that spins this way and that and fidgets and turns to one thing after another, whenever anything comes in sight at any time which offers some pleasure or relaxation, like water that turns in every way as it chances on a piece of uneven ground, will derive no benefit whatever from even perfect quiet and seclusion.

  [15] I myself know that when well trained and willing dogs are unleashed, they straightway pick up the trail, and not even if all the hunters should try to call them back, would they ever leave it; no, not even if many voices from all sides should reach them and many odours emanating from the fruits and flowers should be mingled with the scent, and a great host of men and other creatures should come to view, and tracks of horses here and cattle or sheep there. Such a dog sees none of these things, picks out the trail on all sides and follows until she finds and puts up the hare; and after this she keeps up the pursuit, no matter what country she has to pass through, and neither plain nor road nor exceedingly rough ground, nor ravine nor stream can stop her, in spite of all the doublings the hare makes in its attempts to put her off the scent. [16] But ignorant and untrained dogs I find are slow to pick up the trail and quick to give up the chase, and if a noise reaches their ears from any quarter, whether the barking of dogs, or the shouting of men, whether wayfarers or herdsmen, they straightway lift their noses from the trail and rush off in that direction. For all these things, just as I have said, habit is responsible. And in the same way the mind also should be made accustomed never to turn aside or withdraw from what it regards as its proper work. Otherwise it will not be easy to rise above one’s surroundings or to accomplish anything satisfactorily.

  [17] Or is it not wildernesses and places undisturbed by sounds, or chiefly there, that foolish men, trying not to concentrate their thoughts upon the essential things, have conjured up many strange imaginings, things amid which they yearn to live, shaping for themselves in fancy sovereign power and riches and other such marvels? Some dig up treasures of gold and silver and thus suddenly come into possession of an enormous quantity of them; and others make themselves emperors and absolute rulers of cities and nations, then straightway putting into practice everything that goes with a tyranny: putting some to death and banishing others, making free with any virgins or boys or matrons that they choose, and taking part in the most costly banquets and feasts; [18] others put out money on usury or engage in other enterprises, dreaming all kinds of bright dreams to themselves just as if they were wide awake with their eyes open. Aye, and sometimes, to be sure, as the result of these dreams there comes from them the most trivial and absurd awakening from such dreams! For tyrannies are not at all likely to spring from such things, since a tyranny is not apt to be sought by a mind that is slothful and in a sense always asleep, but on the contrary, by keen and unsleeping thought. But lavish expenditures, love intrigues, and such like adventu
res have undoubtedly often fallen to the lot of many.

  [19] I may cite Alexander as an instance: I fancy that, when he happened to be enjoying a respite from his herdsman’s duties on Mount Ida, the thought and with it the desire came to him, what a fortunate and blissful thing it would be to have the most beautiful woman in the whole world to wife, and that neither a throne was as valuable as this prize, nor wealth, nor the conquest of the whole world in war; next he began to speculate as to who and where this woman of his fancy might be, among what people she lived, and by what means he could compass to splendid an alliance; [20] and so he began to despise the nymphs and maidens of Ilium with a prince’s disdain and to think them not worth his winning, and in the same way also he despised the women of Lydia and Phrygia, and those in Lesbos and Mysia. But learning that in Sparta there was a certain reputed daughter of Zeus, living in wedlock with Menelaus, a king in his own right and brother of the king of all Greece, a woman whom the first and foremost of the Greeks had wooed and sought to win by offering many wedding-gifts and presents and, to crown all, that she had, according to report, brave brothers twain, Polydeuces and Castor, true sons of Zeus. So he coveted this woman for his wife. [21] Now in the ordinary course of events he thought that this was not at all feasible, but that if some god should promise and give her, so wild an ambition might perhaps be realized. What goddess, then, he asked himself, was likely to grant favours of this kind other than she who held authority and ruled over all that pertained to marriage and to love? Therefore, if she offered him this bride, he thought the marriage not impossible. How, then, could he persuade her to grant him this favour unless in some way he should ingratiate himself with the goddess by giving her some boon or favour? But he reflected that she did not stand in need of wealth, since she was ‘golden’ and possessed all the wealth in the world, absolutely; nor sacrifices either, since all men everywhere offered her sacrifice; nor would she readily heed anything else one might say or any mere petition. But if, he thought, one were to present her with the thing which she desired most of all, what she had looked upon as the most valuable thing in the world, and should bear witness for her that she was the most beautiful goddess, perhaps she would consent. [22] Then to win the victory and to be preferred in this contest of beauty — over what divinity, he asked himself, would she think she could afford to prevail except over the foremost and greatest of them, Athena and Hera? And this would be all the more so if these two should put in an appearance, offering great and wonderful gifts for the sake of winning. So after canvassing the matter in this way and elaborating his own imagining and conceit, like a soul which in its sleep follows out its phantasies and imaginings and spins out some long and coherent dream, he is appointed by Zeus, he fancies, umpire over the goddesses; and as to the other goddesses, he disregarded both their persons and their gifts, and chose the third in return for the bribe and gift of winning that woman as wife who had been the object of his thoughts and for whom he had prayed.

  [23] If, then, he had been nothing more than a herdsman and a commoner in rank, no trouble would have come to him from that ambitious dream. But as it was, since he was of kingly blood and a mighty prince, and of great influence owing to his wealth and the dominion over the greatest city of those days, and the affection which his parents bore for him, he forthwith realized the rest of his dream, just as if the first part had actually happened; and after building ships and assembling a retinue, he sailed for Greece and Sparta, entered the home of Menelaus and Helen, where he was hospitably received, induced her to leave her husband and Hellas, and then returned to his home, bringing into Troy the beginning of many grievous troubles and disasters.

  [24] Thus, whereas the thoughts and desires of the soul of a man in private station and without influence are wind-begotten and ineffectual, and no difficulty arises from them, but just as real dreams are gone at once when the dreamers rise from their beds, and no part of them can endure the sun or the day, as the saying is, so it is with desires and hopes of this kind; yet those of monarchs, on the other hand, or of men of wealth or of those who possess some other power, quite often reach a fulfilment that is both grievous and terrible. [25] And this sort of thing, in my opinion, is just like wind-begotten products of generation. For they do indeed say that some eggs are produced in this way without the intercourse and impregnation of the male seed, and they are called wind-eggs as if begotten by a gust of wind. And this is the reason, as it seems to me, why even Homer, in the belief that it was not impossible or incredible that a wind-begotten breed of horses should have appeared to men, said that the North Wind, becoming enamoured of some Trojan mares, impregnated them with his seed so that a breed of horses came from them. In like manner, what begins with a mistaken and impossible idea often ends in an accomplished fact.

  [26] All that I have said follows from that initial digressive remark that the mind should accustom itself to do and think what is essential to it everywhere, even in a perfect din as well as in perfect quiet. Otherwise seclusion and quiet offer no advantage and no greater safeguard, for men who are fools, to keep them from conceiving and committing many strange and wicked deeds.

  THE TWENTY-FIRST DISCOURSE: ON BEAUTY

  The date of this Discourse may be determined roughly from a consideration of § 10, where Dio says that everybody wishes that Nero were still alive. This statement was approximately true if made in the reign of the bloodthirsty tyrant Domitian. At that time even Dio, who was unjustly suffering exile by Domitian’s orders, would have preferred Nero. In the good reigns of Vespasian and Titus, who preceded Domitian, and of Nerva and Trajan, who followed him, Dio could not have made that statement. Then too, at Domitian’s death in A.D. 96 Nero would have been in his sixtieth year had he lived, so that in the following period, some twenty-eight years after Nero’s death, it is unlikely that the great majority, as Dio says in the same section, still believed him to be alive. Finally, at the end of this section Dio’s companion accuses him of “everlastingly” ridiculing his fellow-men. This was a characteristic of the Cynic philosophers, and we infer from the thirteenth Discourse that Dio did not appear in the rôle of a philosopher before his banishment, even if he was converted to a belief in philosophy prior to this.

  At the opening of the Discourse Dio is led by the sight of the statue of a handsome youth to express regret that beauty among males is dying out because unappreciated, while that of females is increasing. If, then, there are no longer any really handsome men, we Greeks are coming round to the view of the Persians that women are superior to men in beauty. The mention of the Persians leads Dio to speak of certain unnatural sexual practices among them, and this in its turn recalls to his mind the wickedness of Nero. Finally Dio’s companion gets a chance to ask about the parentage of the young men represented by the statue and is told that he had no father. However, he is distinctly Greek in type, for maintains that there is a distinctly Greek type of beauty.

  This Discourse, then, is in the form of conversation between Dio and another man, younger probably and a Greek also, in which Dio informally gives some of his views on beauty. One cannot fail to notice the discursiveness and loquacity so characteristic of our author.

  The Twenty-first Discourse: On Beauty

  Dio. How majestic the youth is and handsome; and, what is more, his appearance is ancient or classic in type, such as I have not seen in our modern statues, but only in those set up at Olympia, the very old ones. The images of the subsequent periods even show a steady decline and clearly represent less noble features, to some extent owing to the sculptors, but chiefly because the persons portrayed are themselves like their statues.

  Interlocutor. It is surely a sad state of affairs, according to what you say, if the beautiful have died out in the course of time just like some plant or animal — the fate which they do say has overtaken the lions in Europe; for the race of lions is now extinct there, though formerly they were to be found in Macedonia and in other places as well — it is unfortunate, I repeat, if beauty has
really disappeared from mankind in this way.

  [2] Dio. Masculine beauty at least has, my good sir; feminine beauty, however, is perhaps increasing. But a handsome man is not only getting to be a rare sight nowadays; but when there is one, the majority fails to notice his beauty, much more than muleteers fail to observe beautiful horses. And if people do by any chance take an interest in handsome men, it is in a wanton way and for no good purpose. The result is, in my opinion, that even the handsome men that do appear speedily drop out and disappear. For it is not only virtue that is increased by commendation, but so is beauty likewise by those who honour and revere it. But when it is disregarded and esteemed by no one, or when wicked men esteem it, it fades away like reflections in a mirror.

  Int. Should we, then, adopt the frequent practice of the Athenians and in a similar way record the present time as being an interregnum [3] because there is no beautiful man?

  Dio. Yes indeed we ought, at least as the Persians regarded beauty; but no one of the Greeks so regarded it, except one of the Thirty. Or do you not know the story about that Critias, who was a member of the Thirty? He said that the most beautiful figure among males was the effeminate, but among the females, on the other hand, the opposite. Therefore the Athenians were justified in choosing him as lawgiver that he might alter the old laws, for in fact he left not one of them unchanged.