Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom

by Dio Chrysostom

  Come then, tell me this: Suppose that it should be necessary to honour all the world in this fashion and that we should assume the city to be in desperate financial straits, how much better it would be to send the simple decree in which the statue is voted to each man so honoured, in order that, if he chooses, he may set it up at his own expense!

  [115] “Good heavens!” you exclaim, “but it would be a disgrace if we are to admit such straightenedº circumstances, and beneath the dignity of the people of Rhodes!”

  And yet what person in his right mind would not prefer to be thought poor rather than unprincipled? Or does the present situation seem to you in a less degree disgraceful than any other — that a person is able to describe your statues in the same way as your houses, saying that this one used to belong to So-and-so but that now it has come into the hands of So-and-so; and when the present owner dies it will in turn belong to whoever has inherited it — or who buys it? And yet it is not possible for any right-minded man to transfer the ownership of a statue as he does that of a house.

  [116] Well, I once heard a man make an off-hand remark to the effect that there are other peoples also where one can see this practice being carried on; and again, another man, who said that even in Athens many things are done now which any one, not without justice, could censure, these being not confined to ordinary matters, but having to do even with the conferring of honours. “Why, they have conferred the title of ‘Olympian,’ “ he alleged, upon a certain person he named, “though he was not an Athenian by birth, but a Phoenician fellow who came, not from Tyre or Sidon, but from some obscure village or from the interior, a man, what is more, who has his arms depilated and wears stays”; and he added that another, whom he also named, that very slovenly poet, who once gave a recital here in Rhodes too, they not only have set up in bronze, but even placed his statue next to that of Menander. Those who disparage their city and the inscription on the statue of Nicanor are accustomed to say that it actually bought Salamis for them. [117] But I, for my part, if any one makes these statements either to reproach the Athenians and to show that its present inhabitants are not worthy of it or of the glory which the Athenians of old bequeathed to them, or to express in a general way a feeling of commiseration for Hellas, that she has fallen to so low an estate, when such acts are committed by a people who for a time were regarded as the foremost of the race, I believe he is right; but if it is his thought that you also should be lacking in pride and should be no better than they, then I am unable to characterize the utter lack of fine feeling shown by the speaker. [118] For as it is the custom of all men to recount the admirable institutions and practices which are found among other peoples for the purpose of encouraging eager emulation of them, we should not in the same way mention any bad practice that is current elsewhere for the sake of encouraging imitation of it, but, on the contrary, only in order that one’s people may be on their guard against it and may not fall unawares into that sort of thing. Indeed if a man were in fact reciting any such things by way of praising that other people and of showing that they enjoyed a reputation no whit worse one that account, he must surely be reckoned a simple, or rather a reckless, person; but yet according to his own opinion he was not offering any incentive to those wishing to do wrong. But if all men cite these practices as a shame and a reproach and not one of those who eulogize the city would mention any such thing, but only a person who wanted either to slander or in some other way to criticize and assail it, that man is an utter simpleton who thinks that by such means he could induce you to abandon your own customs. [119] It is just as if a person, in trying to persuade an athlete to give up and forego the crown for the price of a piece of silver, should say to him: “Do you not see yonder man, the one who is being scourged, just in front of you, because he dropped out of the contest?” Or, by heavens, just as if a man should point out to one of the actors several who were being hissed off the stage, and should offer this sort of encouragement: “See to it that you also pay no attention to your part, but go through the performance the way they did.” And now those whom we have just described are to all intents and purposes saying to you: “Do you not see how the Athenians are disgracing themselves, how they are getting a bad name, how they are an example to all the world of baseness and of the kind of insolence with which they outrage their own country?”

  [120] And yet, let me ask, shall anyone class the Athenians as your rivals, as these persons demand, or rather — and this is in every way better and fairer — hold both them and the Spartans and all others like them to be your co-partners, or you theirs? But it is not sensible to imitate your rivals when they err, but on the contrary to endeavour so much the more to do right yourselves, in order that you may be found superior to them in every respect and ever win credit, not only on account of their demerits, but also on account of your own virtue; nor should you copy your friends and relatives, but should try to check them if possible, or, if you do copy them, should by the merit of your own conduct try to minimize their shortcomings.

  [121] Moreover, if you were no whit superior to the Athenians in other respects, perhaps you would not find it necessary to feel any jealousy of them in this one matter and to consider how you might have a reputation better than theirs. But as matters now stand, there is no practice current in Athens which would not cause any man to feel ashamed. For instance, in regard to the gladiatorial shows the Athenians have so zealously emulated the Corinthians, or rather, have so surpassed both them and all others in their mad infatuation, that whereas the Corinthians watch these combats outside the city in a glen, a place that is able to hold a crowd but otherwise is dirty and such that no one would even bury there any freeborn citizen, the Athenians look on at this fine spectacle in their theatre under the very walls of the Acropolis, in the place where they bring their Dionysus into the orchestra and stand him up, so that often a fighter is slaughtered among the very seats in which the Hierophant and the other priests must sit. [122] And the philosopher who spoke about this matter and rebuked them they refused to obey and did not even applaud; on the contrary, they were so incensed that, although in blood he was inferior to no Roman, but enjoyed a reputation greater than any one man has attained for generations, and was admittedly the only man who since the time of the ancients had lived most nearly in conformity with reason, this man was forced to leave the city and preferred to go and live somewhere else in Greece. But you, O men of Rhodes, would not tolerate any such thing as that, since among you there is a law which prescribes that the executioner must never enter the city.

  [123] What, then, was my object in mentioning this? Not, I assure you, any desire to abuse the Athenians; for, on the contrary, all decent men instinctively feel pity for them; it was rather in order that you might know that from this time on your reckoning is not with them but your own selves and with all others who are sober-minded. And yet everything that might be said in criticism of the Athenians or of the Spartans or any other peoples among whom are found other practices which are bad and due to gross carelessness, will reinforce my argument; for in the matter of statues you can find no such abuse among them as prevails here; must we not, therefore, of necessity conclude that this particular form of wrongdoing, which is not practiced even among those we have mentioned who are utterly lost to shame, is beyond all exaggeration monstrous?

  [124] And this characterization becomes still more convincing if some few details of what happens in connection with the honours you grant are brought into comparison by themselves. If, for instance, it is considered an outrage to place any man of the present day beside any of the ancients, how much more of an outrage is it to deprive, as you are doing, an ancient of his honour for the purpose of bestowing it upon another? And if the inscribing of one person’s name over that of another and a much inferior person brings so great condemnation, completely to erase and remove the name of the better man, if it so happens — in what sort of light do you think this act appears?

  Moreover, if anyone says that you are no
better than the Caunians or Myndians, you will be very angry and think that he is slandering your city; how, then, could any man any longer bring forward before you in defence of any practice prevalent among you the argument that that very thing is done by those other peoples also? [125] It is just as if a person thought that you ought to demolish your own walls, or let them lie when they fall, simply because they lie fallen in the other cities, or rather, in practically all the others. Yet with them the walls are neglected because of their condition of peace and servitude, one of which everybody welcomes, to wit, peace, whereas the other is no longer a sign of baseness; but when people treat in this way their benefactors of long ago, the reason is ingratitude. But I for my part venture to assert that even among your neighbours yonder wrong is not done to benefactors! For who among the Caunians has ever proved himself a noble man? Or who has ever conferred any benefaction upon them? Why, they are in a state of abject slavery, not alone to you but also to the Romans, on account of their excessive folly and wickedness having made their slavery a double one. And this one might also say about others who have the same reputation.

  [126] But, speaking generally, I think that a people who take such pride in themselves as you justly do should not, in shaping their conduct, keep their eyes on these others, especially on those who are so much their inferiors, but rather upon their own reputation and the proud position of their city. It would have been absurd if one of your own citizens, that famous Dorieus, or Leonidas, men who are said to have won so many victories at Olympia, had done his training with his eye on some other athlete, and him a man who had never been crowned. However, if you wish to measure yourselves against the Spartans or the Athenians, I concede the point in regard to the Athenians of the olden days, when any people similar to yourselves might with good reason have tried to be comparable to them. [127] Take, for instance, the athlete: If he is still eager for honours and is not yet declining in bodily vigour, it is not sensible for him to challenge the famous prize-winners of his own time who are sick, nor yet the dead, nay rather, if there are any who are at the top of their strength, he should select these and strive with them for the victory; but if none such are available, he should aim to achieve an exploit of such a kind as will show that he is no whit inferior in strength to any athlete of former times. That is sound reasoning about such matters. But if after all it is necessary to make some concession, do not test the question by making a comparison with the peoples who in former times were the strongest, nor yet with those of the present day who are no better than any people of the most worthless sort, but measure yourselves against those who are in between, or against those who are still lower in the scale than they.

  [128] Well then, among the Athenians of the time of Philip, and at very near the time when they had given up the primacy among the Greeks and their liberty was the only thing to which they still clung, there was a certain Leptines who proposed a law to the effect that all should be deprived of the privileges of exemption from public duties who had received it from the people, with the exception of the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and that for the future it will be no longer permissible to grant to any one this gift. Well, what happened? Did they by any chance accept that law? They did not, but the law’s proposer was convicted on an indictment for introducing an illegal measure. [129] Come then, compare this custom with that law, and if it seems to you in any way better, retain it and make it stronger for the future — which is bound to happen if it is not abolished now — but if after considering it on all sides you find it to be inferior, then imitate the Athenians of that early period and abolish now that practice which is more monstrous than the one abolished formerly by them.

  [130] However, as to any attempt to show that the city is insincere, is faithless in its gifts, and that it wrongs its benefactors by robbing them of their rewards — such reproaches apply in all respects equally to both Athens and Rhodes. But whereas at Athens those who had formerly received exemption from public burdens could not possibly have received no benefit at all — for whatever they had previously acquired from the immunity remained theirs in every respect for the future as for the past, and they could not fail to be better off on account of it; those, on the other hand, who have had their statues taken away from them have nothing left over from the honour they had formerly enjoyed — except the insult and the dishonour. [131] And, in addition, the Athenian who, on the occasion I have mentioned, proposed the law attacked a considerable number of those who had received exemption from public duties and tried to show that the majority of them were knaves, not merely unworthy of any favour, so that the unfairness of it was that, while not accusing all, he was proposing to deprive all of their gifts. But in Rhodes here it is utterly impossible for those who have deprived men of their statues to say anything against them; for when they do not even know who the original recipients were, as they admit, how is it possible to bring a charge against them? [132] Furthermore, that law proposed to make an exception in favour of those who were regarded as having conferred the greatest benefactions upon the city, to wit, the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, but here no exception is made. For since the practice is carried on without any record being kept and is not regulated by either law or decree, absolutely no concession is made for anyone, and this indignity may happen to anyone at the pleasure of the chief magistrate at any time. [133] Again, the Athenian law was thought to be committing an outrage in depriving the people of their authority in the matter, so that not even in the future would it be possible for them to vote this gift. Yet how much better to prevent the people from granting any honour or any privilege than, while leaving the right to confer a favour, to place the power of taking it away in the hands of one man! For while it is disgraceful, as no man would deny, to take any gift away from those who have received it, according to that Athenian law this was happening just once, but according to this Rhodian custom it takes place all the time!

  [134] Besides, if it appears vexatious that your city should be deprived of any power, it is you your own selves who are depriving it of the power to guarantee for the recipients the security of its gifts. For whenever you confer this honour upon a man, it is no longer in your power to allow him to keep it; on the contrary, one official always has this in his control, namely, the chief magistrate. And yet, it is worse for you to lack this power owing to custom than to be estopped by law. For in the one case men in a certain sense have not been deprived of the control of that which they have by law renounced their right willingly because of the advantage thereby gained. [135] But when we have to deal with a custom, one cannot even say that men have deprived themselves — if deprived they have been — of a thing on which they have neither passed judgment nor deliberated.

  And although in Athens the people had some consolation — in that the measure was impartial and general, since all alike were being deprived of their exemption from public burdens — here it is only the recipient of the statue who has been deprived of it, and often he is the better man. Moreover, in Athens it was not in order that another person might receive the exemption that the law proposed to take it away from the possessor, but in your city that is precisely why it is done, a thing that is altogether more distressing than merely to be dispossessed. [136] Furthermore, no one, I presume, is unaware how much more grievous it seems to suffer any harsh treatment on account of another than it is to suffer it on your own account. So, whereas it was the intention of the Athenian law to divest all others of their privilege of exemption in order to prevent certain men, whom it designated as undeserving, from retaining theirs, the result of your custom is that the owners of statues are robbed of them in order that others may receive them; [137] and this treatment is altogether more grievous to those affected.

  If, further, any one wishes, confining his consideration of the matter strictly to those cases in which the loss suffered is most nearly irreparable, to ask who are being wronged by this custom of yours and who were bound to be hurt by that Athenian law, let hi
m disregard, not only those who were enjoying exemption from public burdens there, but also those who have received a statue here, and then let him consider those who are not in either class. Since those who had been honoured at Athens were in a sense not suffering any loss at all, for it was only what they would have received by way of a supplement that they were losing, whereas the greater gift continued to be theirs; but as regards the other gifts, the reckoning would come out the same for both classes. But, I think, the case is quite self-evident: For in proportion as the grant of a statue is a greater honour than the exemption, in just that degree those who receive the former are superior men. The argument can be made still clearer, though, if stated thus: [138] Whereas the exemption from public burdens makes the recipients of it wealthier, and those men are especially eager for it who are interested in money-making, the statue implies only dignity and honour; so just in proportion as those are superior men, as we would all agree, who choose to confer benefits upon others without remuneration and rather for reputation’s sake than those who set a price upon it and are moved by desire for gain, by just so much, as I at least would assert, are not only they better men whom this custom of yours wrongs, but also by just so much are those persons whom you are preventing from conferring benefits upon yourselves superior to those whom the Athenian laws prevented from benefitting the Athenians.

  [139] But for my part I am at a loss to understand why on earth you do not pass a law on this matter to regulate it for the future, if such is your pleasure.

  “Good heavens!” you exclaim, “Why, the existence of a law like that in a city brings no little shame.”

  And so it is not disgraceful to do what you think it is disgraceful to enact in writing? And yet how much better it is to refrain from following any written laws which are badly conceived than to do bad things! Or what class of men would you call the better, those who are so disposed toward improper things that they refrain from doing them even when they are authorized, or those who do them even though they are not allowed? [140] But as for me, I would say that, while it is agreed that one should by no means do any unjust or unseemly act, yet among peoples where such acts are under the control of law there would be less cause for reproach than among people where they are regulated by custom. For, in the first place, the law is explicit and can never become worse, since it is not possible either to take away from or add to its written terms; whereas the custom, if it is a bad one, must necessarily become steadily worse because it is not clearly apprehended or defined. [141] I mean, for instance, the case we now have before us: they tell us that this practice began with the statues that were broken and not even standing on their pedestals; it was these that the chief magistrates used after repairing them and in a way making them altogether different; then the next step was that those which were well preserved but bore no inscriptions were inscribed; and at last came the taking of some statues which did have inscriptions on them, provided they were very old. Well, let us assume that their statement of the case is true. In the future there will necessarily be no distinction made at all — for this is the way it is with all other evils, such as extravagance, disorderly conduct, luxury — [142] you will never find any really bad custom halting or remaining stationary until it is utterly suppressed. For because it continually receives some accretion and because a gradual process is almost impossible to detect and does not readily become perceptible to anyone, inasmuch as the present state is worse than the former it goes on to extremes as, I believe, is the case with some ulcers and all those diseases whose nature it is inevitably to get worse.