Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom

by Dio Chrysostom

  [43] “Yes,” you say, “for the majority of them are Romans and who would think of touching them? But those who stand beside them here are Macedonians, while these over here are Spartans, and by heavens, it is these we touch.”

  And yet all that stood here formerly, or the most of them at any rate, you will admit were erected in acknowledgement of a benefaction, whereas of those now receiving honour many are being courted owing to their political power. Now the question which of the two classes has the greater right to be held in higher regard I will pass over; but this further question, which of the two classes — assuming that the honours granted are not to belong rightfully to all — can more reasonably be expected to take them on the basis of so uncertain a title, this question, I say, even these men themselves know well how to answer. For all know how much more permanent a benefaction is than power, for there is no strength which time does not destroy, but it destroys no benefaction. [44] Assuming, therefore, that we may reject that extreme view, which in a sense is true, that those who are seeking to be honoured in this way are quite displeased with your city and take what is done as an insult and affront to themselves, yet at least I assert positively that they feel no gratitude whatever to you and do not think that they are getting anything, knowing as they do what is taking place and the unscrupulousness displayed in it. In heaven’s name, when even if the men in question do accept from us honours which we should have no right to take away from their former recipients, are we, then, to take them away from whoever possesses them, even though we do not really ‘give’ them to another set of men?

  [45] Furthermore, if in cases where the city is thought to need anything, we shall consider the expense alone and how the thing can be done most easily, examining into no other aspects of the matter, what is to prevent our having not only this gift ready at hand, but any other favour you may wish to bestow upon any one, such as land, money, or a house, by simply taking them away from those who have them? Or what need is there to seek ways and means and to expend the public money when occasion arises to repair either a wall or ships, instead of merely taking So-and-so’s property, either that of some citizen or of one of the strangers who are sojourning among you?

  “Never, by Zeus,” you say, “they will raise an outcry and say that it is an outrage.”

  [46] Then it will be possible, presumably, to pay no attention to them. For even if there are now those to whom they can appeal when you act this way, in the old days, at any rate, there was no person who had greater authority than the people.

  “Can it be that the men of that time treated individuals in that way?”

  What nonsense! Why, they considered it to be the worst thing imaginable, and prayed the gods that the time might never come in which it would be necessary that each individual citizen should ever be obliged to pay a tax out of his own private means; and it is said that so extreme a measure has only rarely been taken among you in spite of all your wars, except at a time when your city was in extreme peril.

  [47] Now perhaps some one will say that the statues belong to the city. Yes, and the land also belongs to the city, but none the less every one who possesses any has full authority over what is his own. Speaking in a political sense, if anyone inquires who owns the Island or who owns Caria, he will be told that the Rhodians own it. But if you ask in a different sense about this specific estate here or this field, it is clear that you will learn the name of the private owner. So also with the statues; in a general sense men say that they belong to the people of Rhodes, but in the particular or special sense they say that this or that statue belongs to So-and-so or to So-and-so, naming whatever man it has been given to. And yet, whereas in the case of estates, houses, and other possessions, you cannot learn who owns them unless you inquire, the statue has an inscription on it and preserves not only the name but also the lineaments of the man to whom it was first given, so that it is possible to step near and at once know whose it is. I refer to those on which the truth is still given.

  [48] Moreover, the plea that they stand on public property is most absurd, if this is really held to be an indication that they do not belong to those who received them, but to the city. Why, if that be true, it will be possible to say that also the things which are on sale in the centre of the market-place belong to the commonwealth, and that the boats, no doubt, do belong, not to their possessors, but to the city, just because they are lying in the harbours.

  Then, too, an argument which I heard a man advance, as a very strong one in support of that position, I am not disposed to conceal from you: he said that you have made an official list of your statues. What, pray, is the significance of that? Why, the country lying opposite us, Carpathos yonder, the mainland, the other islands, and in general many possessions can be found which the city has listed in its public records, but they have been parcelled out among individuals. [49] And in fine, even if each man who has been honoured does not in this sense ‘possess’ his statue as he would possess anything else he has acquired, it cannot for that reason be said that it belongs to him any the less or that he suffers no wrong when you give his statue to another. For you will find countless senses in which we say that a thing ‘belongs’ to an individual and very different senses too, for instance, a priesthood, a public office, a wife, citizenship, none of which their possessors are at liberty either to sell or to use in any way they like. [50] But certainly a common principle of justice is laid down in regard to them all, to the effect that anything whatsoever which any one has received justly — whether he happens to have got it once for all or for a specified time, just as, for instance, he obtains public offices — that is his secure possession and nobody can deprive him of it. How, then, is it possible to have anything more justly, than when a man who has proved himself good and worthy of gratitude receives honour in return for many noble deeds? Or from whom could he receive it that has fuller authority and is greater than the democracy of Rhodes and your city? For it is no trifling consideration that it was not the Calymnians who gave it, or those ill-advised Caunians; just as in private business the better and more trustworthy you prove the man to be from whom you obtain any possession, the stronger your title to it is, and by so much more no one can dispute it. Yet any city which one might mention is in every way better and more trustworthy than one private citizen, even if he has the highest standing, and arrangements made by the state are more binding than those which are negotiated privately.

  [51] Then consider, further, that all men regard those agreements as having greater validity which are made with the sanction of the state and are entered in the city’s records; and it is impossible for anything thus administered to be annulled, either in case one buys a piece of land from another, a boat or a slave, or if a man makes a loan to another, or frees a slave, or makes gift to any one. How in the world, then, has it come to pass that these transactions carry a greater security than any other? It is because the man who has handled any affair of his in this way has made the city a witness to the transaction. [52] In heaven’s name, will it then be true that, while anything a person may get from a private citizen by acting through the state cannot possibly be taken from him, yet what one has received, not only by a state decree, but also as a gift of the people, shall not be inalienable? And whereas an action taken in this way by anybody else will never be annulled by the authority of the state, yet shall the state, in the offhand way we observe here, cancel what it has itself done? — and that too, not by taking it away in the same manner in which it was originally given, that is, by the commonwealth officially, but by letting one man, if he happens to be your chief magistrate, have the power to do so? [53] And besides, there are official records of those transactions of which I have spoken; for the decrees by which honours are given are recorded, I take it, and remain on public record for all time. For though repaying a favour is so strictly guarded among you, yet taking it back from the recipients is practised with no formality at all. Then, while the one action cannot be taken except by a decree passed
by you as a body, yet the other comes to pass by a sort of custom, even though it is the will of only one person. Note, however, that, as I said, these matters have been recorded officially, not only in the decrees, but also upon the statues themselves, on which we find both the name of the man who received the honour and the statement that the assembly has bestowed it, and, again, that these statues are set up on public property.

  [54] Well then, that there is nothing in the official list, or in the fact that these memorials stand on public property, which tends to show that they do not belong to those who have received them, has perhaps long been evident; but in order that nobody may even attempt to dispute it, let me mention this: You know about the Ephesians, of course, and that large sums of money are in their hands, some of it belonging to private citizens and deposited in the temple of Artemis, not alone money of the Ephesians but also of aliens and of persons from all parts of the world, and in some cases of commonwealths and kings, money which all deposit there in order that it may be safe, since no one has ever yet dared to violate that place, although countless wars have occurred in the past and the city has often been captured. Well, that the money is deposited on state property is indeed evident, but it also is evident, as the lists show, that it is the custom of the Ephesians to have these deposits officially recorded. [55] Well then, do they go on and take any of these monies when any need arises, or do they ‘borrow’ them at any rate — an act which, perhaps, will not seem at all shocking? No; on the contrary, they would sooner, I imagine, strip off the adornment of the goddess than touch this money. Yet you would not say that the Ephesians are wealthier than yourselves. The very opposite is the case, for not only were you the richest of the Greeks in former times, but now you are still richer; whereas the Ephesians, one can see, are less prosperous than many.

  [56] Pray do not say this: “The people who deposited that money have the privilege of withdrawing it, but no one has in this way the disposal of his own statue,” and do not consider the cases dissimilar. For in my desire to show that not all things deposited in a public place and recorded officially belong forthwith to the city, I used this case as an illustration. The fact, however, that no one has a statue for any other purpose than to stand in your midst — the one respect in which these men differ from those who deposit their money there — speaks still more in their behalf. For when it is not lawful for even the recipients of gifts to annul them, can it possibly be right that the donors should have the power to do so?

  [57] However, I seem to be arguing quite needlessly against the man who asserts that all the statues belong to the city; for this is no indication that what is being done is not an outrage. For instance, consider the votive offerings in the sacred places: the city made them at its own expense and dedicated them. No one would dispute that they are the property of the people. Then will it not be an outrage if we misappropriate them for some other purpose?

  “Yes, by heaven,” you rejoin, “for these are dedications, but the statues are marks of honour; the former have been given to the gods, the latter to good men, who, to be sure, are nearest of kin to them.”

  [58] “And yet,” I reply, “all men of highest virtue are both said to be and in fact are beloved of the gods. Can it be, then, that while not he who deprives us of any of our possessions, but whoever does an injury to our friends, is guilty of an altogether greater wrong, yet we are to say of the gods, as it seems we are doing, that they are more inclined to slight their friends than they are their possessions?

  Nay, on the contrary, it is right that in regard to all sorts of possessions those who have acquired them should be secure in their tenure, especially in a democracy and among a people like yourselves, who take the greatest pride in having matters in your state handled in accordance with law and justice, and above all, I should imagine, your honours and expressions of gratitude; not only because even a man of no account might have all other things, such as money, houses, slaves, lands, whereas those two are possessions enjoyed by virtuous men alone, but also for the reason that these things can be acquired through some other means, such as inheritance or purchase, whereas such things as honours and grateful recognition are acquired through virtue alone.

  [59] Furthermore, those things for which a man has paid the price to their owners nobody even thinks of maintaining, I presume, that he cannot justly be permitted to keep for himself, and the more so, the greater price he has paid. Well, each and every one of these men has paid a price for his statue and no moderate price either; some of them brilliant service as generals in defence of the city, others as ambassadors, while others have given trophies won from the enemy, and certain others money as well, perhaps — not, by heavens, a mere matter of a thousand or five hundred drachmas, sums for which it is possible to erect statues.

  [60] Well, what then? Is it not the established usage, at any rate among men who are not utterly lacking in sense of justice, that whoever is dispossessed of any piece of property should recover at least what he paid from those who have seized it? Would you, then, be willing to give back the favours in return for which you voted those honoured men their statues? It is to your advantage, at any rate, to make payment — since there are those who think a man ought to look out for his own advantage from whatever source. [61] Therefore, if a man has carried through a war successfully, a war so threatening that, had he not had the good fortune to win it for the people of his day, we who now live would not have our city, or if he has won back our freedom for us, or is one of the Restorers of our city — for we cannot state specifically what persons have enjoyed this good fortune, or will enjoy it, since that comes as it will and only by caprice, so to speak — I am afraid the conclusion may be unpleasant to state, namely, that if we wish to do the right thing, we shall actually have to cede to him the city herself! But if there should be any man who has indeed made such a splendid offering that even with the best of intentions we are unable to repay him — and countless are those who have sacrificed their lives on behalf of the city and at the price of life itself have bought their statue and the inscription — are they not, as I asked before, being treated shamefully?

  [62] And what is more, we cannot say that it is not ourselves who have received these benefits. For, in the first place, all the obligations incurred by our ancestors are debts which are owed, no less than they were owed by the ancestors themselves, by all those to whom their blood has descended. For you will not say that you withdraw from the succession! In the second place, all the benefits, valuable and great as they are, which have accrued from the services which certain men rendered to your ancestors in their time, and from what they gladly suffered or did in their behalf, are now yours: the glory of your city, its greatness, its pre-eminence over all other cities save one. [63] If, therefore, simply because these benefactors did not receive their gifts from you directly, you think you are committing a lesser wrong than if you take away from a man a piece of property that came into his hands in some other way, you are blind to truths most patent: first, that all those who deprive anybody of anything whatsoever do just as great a wrong to the man from whom he once happens to have received it; for instance, those who demolish any public building which some individual benefactor built as an expression of his gratitude to you, would seem to wrong the builder more than the city. Therefore, when it is the city that has given something to one of its own citizens, the same argument applies to the man who would deprive him of this. For this reason, in addition to wronging the persons whose statues you have set up, you are also, in my opinion, wronging the city which gave them, that is, your own selves. [64] But whereas he who sins against another man and thereby benefits himself is guilty of wrongdoing only, in the eyes of the majority, he who wrongs his own self while wronging another man shows an exceeding measure of depravity and is looked upon as needlessly a fool also.

  Besides this, one might consider another point also. The man who simply takes away from any one that which is justly in his possession, no matter how he got it, errs i
n this very act, since he is doing a thing which is by its very nature unseemly; but the man who deprives any one of what he himself has given in the way of honour and gratitude, not only violates that universal principle which says that we should injure no one, but also does wrong to a good man, and that, too, the man whom he ought least of all to wrong. For in no case do you see honours being given to worthless men or to those from whom no benefit has been received. [65] How very much worse it is to rob good men of honours bestowed than to rob anybody else, and to injure your benefactors than to injure any chance person, is something that nobody fails to see.