Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom

by Dio Chrysostom

  [27] In like manner democracy is of two kinds: the one is reasonable and gentle and truly mild, disposed to accept frankness of speech and not to care to be pampered in everything, fair, magnanimous, showing respect for good men and good advice, grateful to those who admonish and instruct; this is the democracy which I regard as partaking of the divine and royal nature, and I deem it fitting that one should approach and address it, just as one directs with gentleness a noble steed by means of simple reins, since it does not need the curb. [28] But the more prevalent kind of democracy is both bold and arrogant, difficult to please in anything, fastidious, resembling tyrants or much worse than they, seeing that its vice is not that of one individual or of one kind but a jumble of the vices of thousands; and so it is a multifarious and dreadful beast, like those which poets and artists invent, Centaurs and Sphinxes and Chimaeras, combining in a single shape of unreal existence attributes borrowed from manifold natures. And to engage at close quarters with that sort of monster is the act of a man who is truly mad or else exceedingly brave and equipped with wings, a Perseus or a Bellerophon.

  [29] So, applying our analysis to the populace of Alexandria, the ‘unnumbered multitude,’ to use the current phrase, in which class shall we put it? I for my part offered you my services on the assumption that you were of the better sort; and perhaps someone else, one of my superiors, will decide to do likewise. And assuredly you Alexandrians could present no more beautiful and surprising spectacle than by being yourselves sober and attentive. For indeed it is a supernatural and truly solemn and impressive sight when the countenance of the assembly is gentle and composed, and neither convulsed with violent and unrestrained laughter nor distorted by continuous and disorderly clamour, but, on the contrary, listening as with a single pair of ears, though so vast a multitude.

  [30] But consider yourselves at this moment and then what you are like when you are watching the performances to which you are accustomed. For, to my mind, you now appear to be a sight worth seeing, for kings as well as for plain citizens, and there is nobody who would not admire and honour you as soon as he came into your presence; and so if this address of mine has accomplished nothing else, it has at any rate rendered you this service, and no small one — one hour of sobriety! As, for instance, it is of critical importance toward the recovery of the sick to have had a brief interval of calm. However, amid the varied activities which occupy your attention, whenever there falls upon you the blast of turbulence, as when a harsh gale stirs up a muddy, slimy sea, as Homer says, we see froth and scum and a mass of seaweed being cast up on the beach, so exactly with you, I fancy, we find jibes and fisticuffs and laughter.

  [31] Who, pray, could praise a people with such a disposition? Is not that the reason why even to your own rulers you seem rather contemptible? Someone already, according to report, has expressed his opinion of you in these words: “But of the people of Alexandria what can one say, a folk to whom you need only throw plenty of bread and a ticket to the hippodrome, since they have no interest in anything else?” Why, inasmuch as, in case a leading citizen misbehaves publicly in the sight of all, you will visit him with your contempt and regard him as a worthless fellow, no matter if he has authority a thousand times as great as yours, you yourselves cannot succeed in maintaining a reputation for dignity and seriousness so long as you are guilty of like misconduct. [32] Do you not know, that just as a prince or king is most conspicuous when he appears in public at such a time, the populace also is in like case when it too appears in public and forms a throng? One ought, of course, in my opinion, to behave with sobriety at other times as well; still whatever a man does privately does not concern the general public or the state, but in the theatre the people’s character is revealed. But with you it is there above all that you are off your guard and will prove traitors to the good name of your city: you act like women of low repute, who, however wanton they may be at home, should behave with decorum when they go abroad, and yet it is especially in the streets that they are most guilty of misconduct.

  [33] “How now,” perhaps someone will say, “is that our only fault, our bad behaviour at the theatre? Is that all you have to say about us and nothing more?” I dread the thought of attacking all your failings in one indictment. And yet perhaps someone will claim that, despite my long harangue, I have given you no advice and have not made clear what it is I criticize you for most; and that such is the function of anyone who offers instruction. But for my own part I believe that I have already made many valuable observations — at least for those of you who have been listening — regarding the god, the nature of the demos, and your duty to listen to counsel even though you are not convinced by what is said. For the most urgent need of all, I fancy, was that I should first put you into a frame of mind to listen patiently. And so, if my address has accomplished nothing else of much importance to you, I have this at least to my credit, that for this space of time you have kept your seats in self-restraint. For, let me remind you, with the sick it is of critical importance toward recovery to have had a brief interval of calm. [34] And, on my word, to examine into all your failings, and that too in one day’s time, and to force you to condemn utterly all your vice and your shortcomings, is not within my power,

  E’en though I had ten tongues, as many mouths,

  A voice unyielding, in my breast a heart

  Of bronze; unless the heavenly Muses, sprung

  From Aegis-bearing Zeus, should call to mind

  The varied evils found in all mankind,

  and not in you alone.

  [35] But to take just that topic which I mentioned in the beginning, see how important it is. For how you dine in private, how you sleep, how you manage your household, these are matters in which as individuals you are not at all conspicuous; on the other hand, how you behave as spectators and what you are like in the theatre are matters of common knowledge among Greeks and barbarians alike. For your city is vastly superior in point of size and situation, and it is admittedly ranked second among all cities beneath the sun. [36] For not only does the mighty nation, Egypt, constitute the framework of your city — or more accurately its appendage — but the peculiar nature of the river, when compared with all others, defies description with regard to both its marvellous habits and its usefulness; and furthermore, not only have you a monopoly of the shipping of the entire Mediterranean by reason of the beauty of your harbours, the magnitude of your fleet, and the abundance and the marketing of the products of every land, but also the outer waters that lie beyond are in your grasp, both the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, whose name was rarely heard in former days. The result is that the trade, not merely of islands, ports, a few straits and isthmuses, but of practically the whole world is yours. For Alexandria is situated, as it were, at the cross-roads of the whole world, of even the most remote nations thereof, as if it were a market serving a single city, a market which brings together into one place all manner of men, displaying them to one another and, as far as possible, making them a kindred people.

  [37] Perhaps these words of mine are pleasing to your ears and you fancy that you are being praised by me, as you are by all the rest who are always flattering you; but I was praising water and soil and harbours and places and everything except yourselves. For where have I said that you are sensible and temperate and just? Was it not quite the opposite? For when we praise human beings, it should be for their good discipline, gentleness, concord, civic order, for heeding those who give good counsel, and for not being always in search of pleasures. But arrivals and departures of vessels, and superiority in size of population, in merchandise, and in ships, are fit subjects for praise in the case of a fair, a harbour, or a market-place, but not of a city; [38] nay, if a man speaks in praise of water, he is not praising men but wells; if he talks of good climate, he does not mean that the people are good but the land; if he speaks of fish, he is not praising the city — how absurd! — but a sea, a lake, or a stream. Yet if someone eulogizes the Nile, you Alexandrians are as elated as
if you yourselves were rivers flowing from Ethiopia. Indeed, it is safe to say that most other people also are delighted by such things and count themselves blessed if they dwell, as Homer puts it, ‘on a tree-clad isle’ or one that is ‘deep-soiled’ or on a mainland ‘of abundant pasture, rich in sheep’ or hard by ‘shadowy mountains’ or ‘fountains of translucent waters,’ none of which is a personal attribute of those men themselves; however, touching human virtue, they care not at all, not even in their dreams!

  [39] But my purpose in mentioning such matters was neither to elate you nor to range myself beside those who habitually sing such strains, whether orators or poets. For they are clever persons, mighty sophists, wonder-workers; but I am quite ordinary and prosaic in my utterance, though not ordinary in my theme. For though the words that I speak are not great in themselves, they treat of topics of the greatest possible moment. And what I said just now about the city was meant to show you that whatever impropriety you commit is committed, not in secrecy or in the presence of just a few, but in the presence of all mankind. [40] For I behold among you, not merely Greeks and Italians and people from neighbouring Syria, Libya, Cilicia, nor yet Ethiopians and Arabs from more distant regions, but even Bactrians and Scythians and Persians and a few Indians, and all these help to make up the audience in your theatre and sit beside you on each occasion; therefore, while you, perchance, are listening to a single harpist, and that too a man with whom you are well acquainted, you are being listened to by countless peoples who do not know you; and while you are watching three or four charioteers, you yourselves are being watched by countless Greeks and barbarians as well.

  [41] What, then, do you suppose those people say when they have returned to their homes at the ends of the earth? Do they not say: “We have seen a city that in most respects is admirable and a spectacle that surpasses all human spectacles, with regard both to beauty and sanctuaries and multitude of inhabitants and abundance of all that man requires,” going on to describe to their fellow citizens as accurately as possible all the things that I myself named a short while ago — all about the Nile, the land, and the sea, and in particular the epiphany of the god; “and yet,” they will add, “it is a city that is mad over music and horse-races and in these matters behaves in a manner entirely unworthy of itself. For the Alexandrians are moderate enough when they offer sacrifice or stroll by themselves or engage in their other pursuits; but when they enter the theatre or the stadium, just as if drugs that would madden them lay buried there, they lose all consciousness of their former state and are not ashamed to say or do anything that occurs to them. [42] And what is most distressing of all is that, despite their interest in the show, they do not really see, and, though they wish to hear, they do not hear, being evidently out of their senses and deranged — not only men, but even women and children. And when the dreadful exhibition is over and they are dismissed, although the more violent aspect of their disorder has been extinguished, still at street-corners and in alley-ways the malady continues throughout the entire city for several days; just as when a mighty conflagration has died down, you can see for a long time, not only the smoke, but also some portions of the buildings still aflame.” [43] Moreover, some Persian or Bactrian is likely to say: “We ourselves know how to ride horses and are held to be just about the best in horsemanship” — for they cultivate that art for the defence of their empire and independence— “but for all that we have never behaved that way or anything like it”; whereas you, who have never handled a horse or mounted one yourselves, are unable to restrain yourselves, but are like lame men squabbling over a foot-race. That may explain why, cowards and slackers though you are, you have won so many cavalry battles in the past!

  [44] And take heed lest these people prove to have spoken more truthfully about you than Anacharsis the Scythian is said to have spoken about the Greeks — for he was held to be one of the sages, and he came to Greece, I suppose, to observe the customs and the people. Anacharsis said that in each city of the Greeks there is a place set apart in which they act insanely day after day — meaning the gymnasium — for when they go there and strip off their clothes, they smear themselves with a drug. “And this,” said he, “arouses the madness in them; for immediately some run, others throw each other down, others put up their hands and fight an imaginary foe, and others submit to blows. And when they have behaved in that fashion,” said he, “they scrape off the drug and straightway are sane again and, now on friendly terms with one another, they walk with downcast glance, being ashamed at what has occurred.”

  [45] Anacharsis was jesting and making sport about no trifling matter, it seems to me, when he said these things; but what might a visitor say about yourselves? For as soon as you get together, you set to work to box and shout and hurl and dance — smeared with what drug? Evidently with the drug of folly; as if you could not watch the spectacle sensibly! For I would not have you think I mean that even such performances should not take place in cities; for perhaps they should, and it may be necessary, because of the frailty of the masses and their idle habits; and possibly even among better people too there are those who need some diversion and amusement in life, but they should take it with decorum and as befits free men. [46] For it will not cause any of the horses to run more slowly or any of the singers to sing less pleasingly if you preserve a due decorum. But as things are now, if one of the charioteers falls from his chariot, you think it terrible and the greatest of all disasters, whereas when you yourselves fall from the decorum that befits you and from the esteem you should enjoy, you are unconcerned. And if you hear the harpist sing out of tune or off pitch, you are well aware of it, whereas when you yourselves utterly abandon the harmony prescribed by nature and are most discordant, you are quite indifferent.

  [47] And yet how many here have met destruction because of these allurements? Loss of reputation, at any rate, everyone has suffered. And did the Sirens do anything else according to the story? Did they not regularly destroy those who took extravagant delight in them? Yet the Sirens dwelt in a lonely sea and far away, all by themselves, on a lofty cliff, where no one could easily approach; and even there the man of sense escaped in safety and heard them with composure. These entertainers of Alexandria, however, ply their trade in what is practically the centre of the civilized world and in the most populous city of all, not, by Zeus, because of any charm or power of their own, but rather because of your fatuity. For why is it that outside Alexandria they produce an impression quite like that produced by the usual run of performers, nay, frequently have been thought to be unpleasant? Can it be that the ears of the people in those places have been stopped?

  [48] What, then, does their success with you signify? Not, by Zeus, musical power or artistic pre-eminence, but rather the shallowness of your listeners and the weakness of your city. It is said, at any rate, that some who have already met their ruin through such a cause, instead of trying by entreaty to escape their death, with youthful bravado have implored the privilege of listening to their destroyers even more. And here is an amazing thing which bring reproach and ridicule upon the city — that whereas elsewhere nobles and tyrannicides are held in memory because they gave their lives for the salvation of the fatherland, with you it is for a bit of catgut that men meet their fate and because of an enjoyment that is fleeting, or, more properly, a fancy that has no substance. [49] For it is not through real enjoyment so much as through wishful thinking that these men sacrifice their lives.

  And so great is misfortune of the poor wretches, that they regard as manly what is most unmanly of all, and as dignified what is most shameful. Why, I would rather be put to death for robbery than for such a cause. For in the one case it is the death of a bad man but a man, in the other of a slave in hard luck. The one possibly came to such a pass because he had been wronged and was striving to get redress over and above the laws, and it may be that he might have achieved something actually noble, had he not encountered such an evil genius; but the other came to his inglorious end merely
through shouting and a frenzy caused by an ill-starred voice and a wicked nod of the head, by dissonant variations and nonsense and a cynical, pestilential behaviour. But such is the death of a fly! For whatever tastes sweet to the fly is the thing at which it meets destruction. [50] What distinction, then, can your conduct bring you, you luckless creatures? For whereas in the cause of justice and virtue and ancestral rights and laws and for a good king, a noble soul, one that does not cling to life, will, if need be, suffer and even die; yet if a man hangs himself for the sake of his chorus-girl, a low-born outcast, not fit to live, what depths of disgrace does that betoken!

  And now let us say no more about these poor unfortunates; but, directing our attention to the spectacle itself, is the conduct of the spectators not disgraceful and replete with every variety of wantonness? — I mean the intensity of their gaze, their souls all but hanging on their lips — as if, one would think, it were through the ear that men receive felicity — and applying the terms ‘saviour’ and ‘god’ to a pitiful human being! With what boundless laughter, think you, must the gods laugh you to scorn, when next in your worship of them you conduct yourselves in the same fashion and find yourselves compelled to use those same terms in honouring the deity? However, god is indulgent, I suppose, since he is god, and he treats lightly the folly of the masses. [51] Accordingly to you as his children has he given as guardians and guides those who are more prudent than you Alexandrians, and by their companionship, not only at the theatre but elsewhere too, your conduct is improved. For otherwise how could you keep your hands off one another?