Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom

by Dio Chrysostom

  Int. Very well! But how did the Persians regard beauty?

  [4] Dio. Why, does it need any explanation, seeing that they made eunuchs of the beautiful males in order that they might have them as beautiful as possible? So greatly superior in beauty did they think the female to be. And practically all the barbarians treated them in the same way, just as they did the animals — because the only thing they thought of was the lust of the flesh. Then, just as Daedalus is said to have acted when he deceived the bull by stretching a cow’s hide over a framework of wood, so they try to put a feminine appearance on the males, being incapable of loving them in any other way. [5] But perhaps in the case of the Persians the way the boys are reared is the cause, I mean that for a long time they are brought up by women and the older eunuchs, and that young boys do not associate much with other young boys, nor the striplings with others of their own age, and that they do not go naked in the wrestling schools and gymnasia. This is the reason why, in my opinion, cases have occurred where they had intercourse with their mothers; just as colts, when they still follow their dams although fairly well grown, try to cover them. [6] Moreover, the influence of their nurture is shown in the following case also. A horse is certainly far more beautiful than an ass, but yet the asses, because they are of a different breed, feel no passion for mares, except when they have been raised on mare’s milk; and similarly, a horse that has been suckled by an ass is affected in the same way.

  In human beings unlimited power also is a lawless sort of thing. Take Nero for instance: we all know how in our own time that he not only castrated the youth whom he loved, but also changed his name for a woman’s, that of the girl whom he loved and his subsequent wife, for whom he conceived a passion and wedded after openly incarcerating his former wife, to whom he was already married when he became Emperor.

  [7] Int. And what was the woman’s name which he gave to the eunuch?

  Dio. What concern of yours is that? At any rate she was not called Rhodogunê. But that youth of Nero’s actually wore his hair parted, young women attended him whenever he went for a walk, he wore women’s clothes, and was forced to do everything else a woman does in the same way. And, to cap the climax, great honours and boundless sums of money were actually offered to anyone who should make him his wife.

  Int. Well, then, did they actually promise to do so?

  [8] Dio. Why should they not have promised that man who offered so much? Or do you not know how great the might of the giver is? For example, wherever and whenever it is necessary to appoint an Emperor, they choose the wealthiest man, any one from whom they hope to get the most money; but as to the other qualifications, they do not care what sort of man he is, even if he sooner or later is to geld them all after taking over the government — everybody including the men who have received the money, and, besides, intends to deprive them of every blessed thing they have. [9] This, indeed, was especially true of Nero, and no one contradicted him in anything, whatever he said, or affirmed that anything he commanded was impossible to perform, so that even if he ordered anyone to fly, the man promised that too and for a considerable time he would be maintained in the imperial household in the belief that he would fly. For Nero was the only man who was utterly regardless of money both in giving and in taking. It was solely on account of this wantonness of his, however, that he lost his life — I mean the way he treated the eunuch. For the latter in anger disclosed the Emperor’s designs to his retinue; and so they revolted from him and compelled him to make away with himself as best he could. Indeed the truth about this has not come out even yet; [10] for so far as the rest of his subjects were concerned, there was nothing to prevent his continuing to be Emperor for all time, seeing that even now everybody wishes he were still alive. And the great majority do believe that he is, although in a certain sense he has died not once but often along with those who had been firmly convinced that he was still alive.

  Int. You are everlastingly hunting up reasons for ridiculing what your fellow-men do and think, and now with scarcely a shadow of a pretext you have got round to this topic. Consequently you have given me no chance to ask a question I wanted to ask.

  [11] Dio. Oh yes, I suppose you look down on me and think that I am drivelling because I am not talking about Cyrus and Alcibiades, as the wise-acres do, even at this late date, but about Nero and subjects of that kind, more recent and inglorious, which I can remember. The reason for this is that I do not much care for the writers of Tragedy nor try to emulate them; for I know that it is a disgrace to mention people of the present day in a tragedy, but that it is some ancient event which I should have touched upon and one not very credible either. Yet men of former times certainly were not ashamed to name people of their own day whether in speaking or in writing; but those of the present day strive to name the ancients on any pretext. [12] I shall tell you what wisdom they show in doing this — and don’t you declare everything I say is nonsense; perhaps, however, it is anything but nonsense — for surely you have noticed what some of our booksellers do?

  Int. Just what is your reason for asking me this?

  Dio. Because they, knowing that old books are in demand since better written and on better paper, bury the worst specimens of our day in grain in order that they may take on the same colour as the old ones, and after ruining the books into the bargain they sell them as old. But what was it that you have been wanting all this while to ask me?

  [13] Int. It is about this young man here. Who is he and to whom does he belong? I declare that I have never been so struck with admiration for anyone. For while his appearance shows him to be a boy of sixteen perhaps, or seventeen years, he is as tall as any man; and then his modesty is such that he makes anyone approaching feel abashed at once. And it is impossible to gaze longer at his face unless he himself should chance to look away. For no one is so shameless or made of stone as to hold his ground and stand looking at him face to face, but one must at once turn away and drop one’s eyes. And this effect surprises me very much — that beauty when combined with modesty makes even brazen-faced men turn away and forces them to feel abashed.

  [14] Dio. Yes, for perhaps you have not noticed what occurs in the water.

  Int. What is that?

  Dio. That when the sun is shining straight down, the reflection is strongest. And perhaps you have seen on walls a moving and dancing light, not a real light, but the reflection of the sun’s light in the water — in contrast to the most direct reflection. Now there is a somewhat similar reflection from true modesty, which makes the beholders appear to be abashed. Then as soon as they go away, they are once more unashamed.

  Int. Just as I thought that even the gymnastic trainer, hardened as he is, seemed in the youth’s presence to be, as it were, dumbfounded as well as entranced.

  [15] Dio. Therefore you will be all the more surprised to learn that this handsome youth belongs to no one.

  Int. What do you mean by his belonging to no one?

  Dio. Just what you meant by asking to whom he belongs. For I suppose you were asking whose son he is.

  Int. Well, is he one of the Sown Men?

  Dio. That would be in keeping with his stature and manliness, if they had been gentle and kindly in disposition, just as this youth is, and not altogether rough and wild, real children of the earth; for as to his physique, you are not far wrong in likening him to a Boeotian rather than to a Spartan or an Athenian. For that he is utterly Greek, I presume is quite patent.

  [16] Int. Why, I should like to know? Can there be any racial distinction as regards beauty? Or do you think that no handsome man is to be found among foreigners?

  Dio. Well, do you not think that there is a foreign type of beauty, as there is of general appearance, and an Hellenic type, just as their language and dress differ, or do you think that Achilles and Hector were handsome in just the same way?

  Int. Why, does not the poet discourse about Hector as a brave man only?

  Dio. Yes, where he is setting fire to the ships. For it would
not, I think, have been fitting to mention beauty at that point. But after he had been slain and stripped, the Achaeans were simply amazed on beholding his beauty, so the poet says in about the following words:

  “Then gazed they upon the wonderful form and beauty of Hector.”

  [17] For I imagine that before this they had been too busily occupied to gaze upon him critically. And the poet goes on to describe him more vividly, one may almost say, and in great detail than he describes any other of the most handsome men. For he says that his head was graceful, his hair quite black, and his body not hard. But about Achilles’ appearance he gives no detail except to say that his hair was auburn; and he mentions the hair of Euphorbus and of Patroclus as of men who had died in the very prime of life; and about each of the other men and most beautiful women he has very little to say; however, nobody would assert that these men could have been handsome in the same way, or that Alexander, or Euphorbus, or Troïlus bore any resemblance to Menelaus and Patroclus and Nireus, any more than among the barbarians Sesostris the Egyptian did or Memnon the Ethiopian, or Ninyas, Eurypylus, or Pelops.

  THE TWENTY-SECOND DISCOURSE: CONCERNING PEACE AND WAR

  We have here just a fragment of this Discourse. In § [3] Dio does mention his subject, but all that precedes and follows is of an introductory nature. He says that there are many questions which are the common concern of both philosophers and orators. One class of these common questions comprises those which have to do with the state (πολιτικὰ ζητήματα); and some of these, such as that about peace and war, have to do with what is advisable. Then in questions of advisability the philosophers and orators make a division, the philosophers dealing with those of a general nature and the orators with particular cases.

  This was the division made by Posidonius, the distinguished Stoic philosopher, born in 135 B.C. at Apamea, a city not far from Dio’s native Prusa. That the followers of Plato and Aristotle made the same division appears from Cicero, De Oratore . and . In this matter, then, Dio is clearly siding with the philosophers against the rhetoricians or teachers of oratory such as Hermagoras, who claimed all political questions for oratory and rhetoric. It is possible that what Dio says here is based upon Posidonius, as von Arnim thinks, and at any rate we may conclude that Dio composed this Discourse after his conversion to philosophy.

  The Twenty-second Discourse: Concerning Peace and War

  Many things in general and absolutely everything involving any work or activity will be found common to philosophers and orators — all those orators, that is, who do not carry on their business in the market-place and work for hire with their eyes fixed on matters of money only and on private disputes regarding contracts or loans out at interest, but aspire to advise and legislate for the state. That is, I think, what Pericles and Thucydides must have done at Athens, and Themistocles still earlier, and Cleisthenes, and Peisistratus, so long as he still let himself be called ‘orator’ and ‘popular leader’ — [2] for Aristeides, Lycurgus, Solon, Epaminondas, and others of the same sort should be regarded as philosophers in politics, or orators in the noble and real sense of the term. And I use the word ‘philosopher’ of men who, for example, deliberate and legislate about the training of the young, just as Lycurgus did at Sparta, and about the association of ‘lovers,’ about the acquisition of money — how much one should make and in what manner — about marriage, about the duties of citizenship, about coinage, about civic rights and the loss of them, about the setting up of households, and as to whether one should live in a walled city or, as the god advised the Spartans, in an unwalled one; about training for war and the organization of not merely the heavy-armed troops in general, but also of the formation which Epaminondas is said to have invented, in which he put the ‘lovers’ along with their beloved in order that they might have a better chance of coming through safely and might be witness to one another’s courage or cowardice — and history tells us that this Sacred Band, as it was called, conquered the Spartans in the battle of Leuctra though these were supported by all Greece. [3] But the main question of all, and one with which many have often had to deal, concerns peace and war; and this now, as it so happens, is my theme.

  All problems of this sort are called by the philosophers questions of propriety: for example, whether one should marry, whether one should go into public life, whether a monarchy should be adopted, or a democracy, or some other form of government; and in these subjects, in my opinion, is included this one too, whether war should be entered into.

  Indeed the philosophers not only considered these questions in their general aspect, but also these: when, with reference to whom, and after what occurrence or non-occurrence each separate action should be taken. But there is this important difference — that the orators consider definite cases; for example, whether it is of advantage for the Athenians to make war on the Peloponnesians, for the Corcyraeans to go to the help of Corinthians, for Philip to support the Thebans in the war against the Phocians, or for Alexander to cross over into Asia. [4] Then too, in all these deliberations the following sort of question is apt to crop up: Is it right to go to war with those who have not provoked a war by some wrongful act? if a wrong has been done by those against whom you propose to wage war, how serious is this wrong which has been done?

  But philosophers look at events from a distance and examine into what their character is in the abstract; for it is much better to have already deliberated about everything a long time in advance and since they have already reached a decision, to be able, when the moment for any action has come, with full knowledge either to handle the situation themselves or to give advice to the others, and not to be caught off their guard, as it were, and so be in a state of confusion and obliged to resort to improvising measures concerning situations of which they have no knowledge. [5] For whenever the orator-politicians have to consider any question, since they know nothing more than anybody else and have not considered the matter before, in a sense they both deliberate themselves and give advice to the others at one and the same time. The philosophers, on the other hand, know in advance about the course to be adopted and have deliberated upon it long beforehand. Consequently, if they are called in to advise cities, nations, or kings, they are in a better and safer position to set forth, not just what occurs to them, nor one thing at one moment and the opposite at the next, influenced by anger, contentiousness, or bribery, acting just as the tongue of a balance does, as I believe some one of the orator-politicians themselves said, ever tipping according to what is received. And I say this, not to criticize the art of oratory, or the good orators, but the poor ones and those who falsely claim that profession as their own.

  THE TWENTY-THIRD DISCOURSE: THAT THE WISE MAN IS FORTUNATE AND HAPPY

  This is one of the twelve discourses that are in the form of a dialogue between Dio, the teacher, and one of his pupils, reported directly. It would appear to reproduce an actual experience of Dio’s in which he sets forth the Stoic doctrine that only the wise man is happy.

  The line of thought is as follows: Homer and Euripides have said that man is unfortunate and unhappy; but just the opposite is true, or rather, partially true. For each man has a fortune or guiding spirit; and if this fortune or guiding spirit is good, then the man is good-fortuned (i.e., fortunate) and happy. But if the man has a bad fortune or guiding spirit, then the man is bad-fortuned (i.e. unfortunate) and unhappy. But if the guiding spirit is good in the sense that it gives good fortune, it is also good as meaning ‘just and useful and sensible’ — which is a non sequitur — and since it apparently gives its own qualities to the man who has it, this man is at the same time also just and useful and sensible, in other words, wise. The good δαίμων, to use the Greek word, being good in both senses, gives both happiness and wisdom. The two are inseparable.

  Then the pupil raises the question as to whether any guiding spirit can be bad, since all are divine; and Dio admits that he has merely been accepting the popular belief, not following his own, in as
suming that some guiding spirits are good and others bad. He really believes with the philosophers that all guiding spirits are good. If a man listens to his good and wise guiding spirit, he gets at one and the same time both happiness and wisdom; if he does not, he is both unhappy and a fool. Therefore, only the wise man is happy.

  The Twenty-third Discourse: That the Wise Man is Fortunate and Happy

  Dio. Do you believe man is happy, and if not, that he has been or will be; or do you hold that such a thing as this is impossible to predicate of man, just as if a person were to say that man is immortal? For it is, perhaps, possible that you hold the same view as Homer and a good many others of our poets.

  Interlocutor. And where does Homer express this view on this question?

  Dio. Where he has represented Zeus himself, and not some other one of the gods, as saying that none of all living creatures is more miserable than man,

  Of all that breathe and move upon the earth.

  Do you not think that by misery he means expressly some great unhappiness?

  Int. I do.

  [2] Dio. And another poet, not speaking of any particular man, but expressing a general sentiment to the audience in a contest of tragedies, proposes that we should

  That man bewail who’s born and all life’s ills confronts,

  But him who’s dead and free from all his toils

  he thinks we should “with joy and gladness speed from out the house.”

  Int. That is so.

  Dio. Well, that was not sound advice he gave; for if we ought to weep once for mankind because of their misfortune, then it is fitting that we should both bewail their lot when they are born, because of all the evils that are in store for them, and when they die, because they have had experience of many terrible sufferings, and likewise while they live, because they are in the midst of evils. [3] Consequently there would never be a fitting time, according to the poet, for men to cease lamenting — much more truly than for the nightingales. For while those creatures are said to mourn for Itys in the springtime only — yet in the case of human beings it stands to reason that they should mourn both summer and winter. But how much better it would be to let them perish at once of their ills as soon as they are born, instead of wrapping them up in swaddling clothes and bathing them and nursing them and giving them so much care, simply in order that they may be wretched — for such solicitude would befit enemies, not friends or those who care for them — or, better still, to remove their own selves from life in the first place! [4] For it is very likely, according to this line of reasoning, that the only sensible people to be born were those born in Colchis from the dragon’s teeth which Jason sowed. For these people, just as soon as they understood that they were born, forthwith proceeded to make away with one another until they left not one, helping one another, evidently, and doing this through friendship, not through hatred.