Volume 3 / Book 13 — BOOK XIII. (continued 3)

91. Now, when Myrtilus had said all this in a connected statement; and when all were marvelling at his memory, Cynulcus said—

says Hippon the Atheist. But the divine Heraclitus also says—"A great variety of information does not usually give wisdom." And Timon said—

For what is the use of so many names, my good grammarian, which are more calculated to overwhelm the hearers than to do them any good? And if any one were to inquire of you, who they were who were shut up in the wooden horse, you would perhaps be able to tell the names of one or two; and even this you would not do out of the verses of Stesichorus, (for that could hardly be,) but out of the Storming of Troy, by Sacadas the Argive; for he has given a catalogue of a great number of names. Nor indeed could you properly give a list of the companions of Ulysses, and say who they were who were devoured by the Cyclops, or by the Læstrygonians, and whether they were really devoured or not. And you do not even know this, in spite of your frequent mention of Phylarchus, that in the cities of the Ceans it is not possible to see either courtesans or female flute-players. And Myrtilus said,—But where has Phylarchus stated this? For I have read through all his history. And when he said,—In the twenty-third book; Myrtilus said—

92. Do I not then deservedly detest all you philosophers, since you are all haters of philology,—men whom not only did Lysimachus the king banish from his own dominions, as Carystius tells us in his Historic Reminiscences, but the Athenians did so too. At all events, Alexis, in his Horse, says—

And a certain man named Sophocles, passed a decree to banish all the philosophers from Attica. And Philo, the friend of Aristotle, wrote an oration against him; and Demochares, on the other hand, who was the cousin of Demosthenes, composed a defence for Sophocles. And the Romans, who are in every respect the best of men, banished all the sophists from Rome, on the ground of their corrupting the youth of the city, though, at a subsequent time, somehow or other, they admitted them. And Anaxippus the comic poet declares your folly in his Man struck by Lightning, speaking thus—

FAULTS OF PHILOSOPHERS.

It is, therefore, with good reason that many cities, and especially the city of the Lacedæmonians, as Chamæleon says in his book on Simonides, will not admit either rhetoric or philosophy, on account of the jealousy, and strife, and profitless discussions to which they give rise; owing to which it was that Socrates was put to death; he, who argued against the judges who were given him by lot, discoursing of justice to them when they were a pack of most corrupt men. And it is owing to this, too, that Theodorus the Atheist was put to death, and that Diagoras was banished; and this latter, sailing away when he was banished, was wrecked. But Theotimus, who wrote the books against Epicurus, was accused by Zeno the Epicurean, and put to death; as is related by Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise on People and Things which go by the same Name.

93. And, in short, according to Clearchus the Solensian, you do not adopt a manly system of life, but you do really aim at a system which might become a dog; but although this animal has four excellent qualities, you select none but the worst of his qualities for your imitation. For a dog is a wonderful animal as to his power of smelling and of distinguishing what belongs to his own family and what does not; and the way in which he associates with man, and the manner in which he watches over and protects the houses of all those who are kind to him, is extraordinary. But you who imitate the dogs, do neither of these things. For you do not associate with men, nor do you distinguish between those with whom you are acquainted; and being very deficient in sensibility, you live in an indolent and indifferent manner. But while the dog is also a snarling and greedy animal, and also hard in his way of living, and naked; these habits of his you practise, being abusive and gluttonous, and, besides all this, living without a home or a hearth. The result of all which circumstances is, that you are destitute of virtue, and quite unserviceable for any useful purpose in life. For there is nothing less philosophical than those persons who are called philosophers. For whoever supposed that Æschines, the pupil of Socrates, would have been such a man in his manners as Lysias the orator, in his speeches on the Contracts, represents him to have been; when, out of the dialogues which are extant, and generally represented to be his work, we are inclined to admire him as an equitable and moderate man? unless, indeed, those writings are in reality the work of the wise Socrates, and were given to Æschines by Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates, after his death, which Idomeneus asserts to be the case.

94. But Lysias, in the oration which bears this title—

"Against Æschines, the Pupil of Socrates, for Debt," (for I will recite the passage, even though it be a rather long one, on account of your excessive arrogance, O philosophers,)—begins in the following manner—"I never should have imagined, O judges, that Æschines would have dared to come into court on a trial which is so discreditable to him. For a more disgracefully false accusation than the one which he has brought forward, I do not believe it to be easy to find. For he, O judges, owing a sum of money with a covenanted interest of three drachmæ to Sosinomus the banker and Aristogiton, came to me, and besought me not to allow him to be wholly stripped of his own property, in consequence of this high interest. 'And I,' said he, 'am at this moment carrying on the trade of a perfumer; but I want capital to go on with, and I will pay you nine[60] obols a month interest.'" A fine end to the happiness of this philosopher was the trade of a perfumer, and admirably harmonizing with the philosophy of Socrates, a man who utterly rejected the use of all perfumes and unguents! And moreover, Solon the lawgiver expressly forbade a man to devote himself to any such business: on which account Pherecrates, in his Oven, or Woman sitting up all Night, says—

And presently afterwards he says—

LENDING MONEY.

And after what I have already quoted, the orator proceeds to say—"And I was persuaded by this speech of his, considering also that this Æschines had been the pupil of Socrates, and was a man who uttered fine sentiments about virtue and justice, and who would never attempt nor venture on the actions practised by dishonest and unjust men."

95. And after this again, after he had run through the accusation of Æschines, and had explained how he had borrowed the money, and how he never paid either interest or principal, and how, when an action was brought against him, he had allowed judgment to go by default, and how a branded slave of his had been put forward by him as security; and after he had brought a good many more charges of the same kind against him, he thus proceeded:—"But, O judges, I am not the only person to whom he behaves in this manner, but he treats every one who has any dealings with him in the same manner. Are not even all the wine-sellers who live near him, from whom he gets wine for his entertainments and never pays for it, bringing actions against him, having already closed their shops against him? And his neighbours are ill-treated by him to such a degree that they leave their own houses, and go and rent others which are at a distance from him. And with respect to all the contributions which he collects, he never himself puts down the remaining share which is due from him, but all the money which ever gets into this pedlar's hands is lost as if it were utterly destroyed. And such a number of men come to his house daily at dawn, to ask for their money which he owes them, that passers-by suppose he must be dead, and that such a crowd can only be collected to attend his funeral.

"And those men who live in the Piræus have such an opinion of him, that they think it a far less perilous business to sail to the Adriatic than to deal with him; for he thinks that all that he can borrow is much more actually his own than what his father left him. Has he not got possession of the property of Hermæus the perfumer, after having seduced his wife, though she was seventy years old? whom he pretended to be in love with, and then treated in such a manner that she reduced her husband and her sons to beggary, and made him a perfumer instead of a pedlar! in so amorous a manner did he handle the damsel, enjoying the fruit of her youth, when it would have been less trouble to him to count her teeth than the fingers of her hand, they were so much fewer. And now come forward, you witnesses, who will prove these facts.—This, then, is the life of this sophist."

These, O Cynulcus, are the words of Lysias. But I, in the words of Aristarchus the tragic poet,

will now cease my attack upon you and the rest of the Cynics.