Lucian (Collins)/Chapter 4

by William Lucas Collins

CHAPTER IV.

LUCIAN AND THE PHILOSOPHERS.

The great success and reputation achieved by the early Greek philosophers, and especially by those who professed Rhetoric and Dialectics, naturally led to the assumption of the character by a host of successors, many of them mere pretenders. It was a profession not only tempting to a man's self-conceit, but to his love of gain: for, in spite of the protest of one at least of the great teachers of antiquity—Socrates—against debasing philosophy to a mere trade by accepting money for discoursing on it, it had not unnaturally become the custom to take fees both for public lectures and for private instruction. For a philosopher had to live, like other men. The Antonine Cæsars, zealous for the education of their subjects, founding lecture-ships and endowing colleges throughout their empire, possibly encouraged too much the mere pretenders to learning by the liberality of their grants, and the ire of the satirist may have been justly roused by the unworthiness of many of the recipients.^[1]

Athens was still the great resort for professors of all sciences, from all countries, and of all characters. The genius of the people insured such visitors a welcome reception. Talk was the Athenian's privilege and his delight. "To tell or to hear some new thing," is St Paul's brief epitome of the life of the Athenian multitude of his day—and contemporary history does but amplify the apostle's report. Nor is it to be supposed that the wisest or the most honest teacher was always the most popular; rather, the boldest and least scrupulous pretenders were perhaps the most sure of an audience. As in your own days, the medicine which is put forward as a cure for all diseases is secure of a wide sale among the vulgar; so the lecturer who professed universal knowledge—and there were plenty of such——did not fail of commending himself to the greedy ears of the Athenian populace. There were men who announced themselves as prepared—for a consideration—to dispute on any imaginable subject of human knowledge, or to reply to any question which curiosity might propose. Especially were those sought after who professed to teach the great secret of beating an opponent in argument, right or wrong; an enviable accomplishment, unfortunately, in the eyes of most intellectual people, but especially of men who took so much part in public life as did the Athenian commons.

To such an extent had this passion for talk in all its forms—whether in propounding the most startling theories of morals or metaphysics, or in the most ingenious fencing with the weapons of logic and rhetoric—spread itself in Lucian's day, that the abuses of the Schools presented an ample and tempting field for so keen a satirist. Add to this that he himself had been very much as it were behind the scenes; that in so far as he had been a real seeker after wisdom and an honest teacher of the truth, he had seen how these were disregarded by the pretended philosophers of his day; or in so far as he had lent himself to the common temptation, and had regarded gain and reputation more than a conscientious utterance of what truth he knew, he would have experienced how very readily a few specious phrases and plausible assertions pass for wisdom with the multitude, and how often the unintelligible may be made to do duty for the sublime.

Next to the absurdities of the popular religion, then, those of the pretenders to philosophy lay invitingly open to the attack of the satirist. The fact that in both cases such attack had to be made upon a strong position, guarded by much popular prejudice and by many private interests, would he only an additional reason for engaging in it. He looked upon both systems as what a modern satirist would call "enormous shams," and the success of the imposture made the work of unmasking it all the more exciting. In both cases, truth suffered more or less under the undiscriminating ridicule which could not afford to spoil its point by making distinctions and exceptions. As in his merciless dissection of the so-called divinities of the pagan heaven, he seems often to repudiate the existence of any divine principle at all; so when he holds up to derision the charlatans and impostors who sheltered themselves under the names of the great masters of old times, and who pushed their tenets to absurdity, he lays himself open to the charge of caricaturing those venerable sages themselves.

But, in truth, veneration for great names is a luxury in which the satirist by profession can rarely afford to indulge. The exigencies of his craft go nigh to forbid him to hold anything sacred. We know how constantly, even in our more decorous modern days, the man who has a keen taste for humour and reputation for being amusing is tempted to make jests which savour of profanity, while he may very possibly be no more profane at heart than those who profess themselves shocked by his levity of tone. It has been remarked already, in one of the preceding volumes of this series, in speaking of Aristophanes, that we may be quite wrong in assuming that he bore any malice against Socrates, or was insensible to the higher qualities of his character, because he found that it suited his purpose to caricature some of the eccentricities of so well known a personage for the comic stage: and we may be doing Lucian equal injustice in accusing him of atheism, because in his writings he touches only the absurd side of a faith which was fast passing away and leaving as yet nothing in its place; or in thinking that he sneers at all great intellectual discoveries, because he found in the contradictions and the sophistries of the Schools such congenial matter for his pen. And although, like Aristophanes, he uses well-known names from time to time for the persons of his drama, anything like what we call personality was probably far from his thoughts. "Lucian," says Ranke, "spoke after the manner of ancient comedy,—things true, not of this or that individual, but of bodies, of communities, of society in general."

With this reservation the reader will perhaps judge more fairly the broad farce—for this is what it really is—of the Dialogue which follows.

THE SALE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS.

Scene, a Slave-mart; Jupiter, Mercury, Philosophers in the garb of slaves for sale; audience of Buyers.

Jupiter. Now, you arrange the benches, and get the place ready for the company. You bring out the goods, and set them in a row; but trim them up a little first, and make them look their best, to attract as many customers as possible. You, Mercury, must put up the lots, and bid all comers welcome to the sale.—Gentlemen, we are here going to offer you philosophical systems of all kinds, and of the most varied and ingenious description. If any gentleman happens to be short of ready money, he can give his security for the amount, and pay next year.

Mercury (to Jupiter). There are a great many come; so we had best begin at once, and not keep them waiting.

Jup. Begin the sale, then.

Merc. Whom shall we put up first?

Jup.This fellow with the long hair,—the Ionian. He's rather an imposing personage.

Merc. You, Pythagoras! step out, and show yourself to the company.

Jup. Put him up.

Merc. Gentlemen, we here offer you a professor of the very best and most select description—who buys? Who wants to be a cut above the rest of the world? Who wants to understand the harmonies of the universe? and to live two lives?^[2]

Customer (turning the Philosopher round and examining him). He's not bad to look at. What does he know best?

Merc. Arithmetic, astronomy, prognostics, geometry, music, and conjuring—you've a first-rate soothsayer before you.

Cust. May one ask him a few questions?

Merc. Certainly—(aside) and much good may the answers do you.

Cust. What country do you come from?

Pythagoras. Samos.

Cust. Where were you educated?

Pyth. In Egypt, among the wise men there.

Cust. Suppose I buy you, now—what will you teach me?

Pyth. I will teach you nothing—only recall things to your memory.^[3]

Cust. How will you do that?

Pyth. First, I will clean out your mind, and wash out all the rubbish.

Cust. Well, suppose that done, how do you proceed to refresh the memory?

Pyth. First, by long repose, and silence—speaking no word for five whole years.^[4]

Cust. Why, look ye, my good fellow, you'd best go teach the dumb son of Crœsus! I want to talk, and not be a dummy. Well,—but after this silence and these five years?

Pyth. You shall learn music and geometry.

Cust. A queer idea, that one must be a fiddler before one can be a wise man!

Pyth. Then you shall learn the science of numbers.

Cust. Thank you, but I know how to count already.

Pyth. How do you count?

Cust. One, two, three, four—

Pyth. Ha! what you call four is ten, and the perfect triangle, and the great oath by which we swear.^[5]

Cust. Now, so help me the great Ten and Four, I never heard more divine or more wonderful words!

Pyth. And afterwards, stranger, you shall learn about Earth, and Air, and Water, and Fire,—what is their action, and what their form, and what their motion.

Cust. What! have Fire, Air, or Water bodily shape?

Pyth. Surely they have; else, without form and shape, how could they move?—Besides, you shall learn that the Deity consists in Number, Mind, and Harmony.

Cust. What you say is really wonderful!

Pyth. Besides what I have just told you, you shall understand that you yourself, who seem to be one individual, are really somebody else.

Cust. What! do you mean to say I'm somebody else, and not myself, now talking to you?

Pyth. Just at this moment you are; but once upon a time you appeared in another body, and under another name; and hereafter you will pass again into another shape still.

[After a little more discussion of this philosopher's tenets, he is purchased on behalf of a company of professors from Magna Grecia, for ten minæ. The next lot is Diogenes, the Cynic.]

Merc. Who'll you have next? That dirty fellow from Pontus?

Jup. Ay—he'll do.

Merc. Here! you with the wallet on your back,—you round-shouldered fellow! come out, and walk round the ring.—A grand character, here, gentlemen; a most extraordinary and remarkable character, I may say; a really free man here I have to offer you—who'll buy?

Cust. How say you, Mr Salesman? Sell a free citizen?

Merc. Oh yes.

Cust. Are you not afraid he may bring you before the court of Areopagus for kidnapping?

Merc. Oh, he doesn't mind about being sold; he says he’s free wherever he goes or whatever becomes of him.

Cust. But what could one do with such a dirty, wretched-looking body—unless one were to make a ditcher or a water-carrier of him?

Merc. Well, or if you employ him as door-porter, you'll find him more trustworthy than any dog. In fact, 'Dog' is his name.

Cust. Where does he come from, and what does he profess?

Merc. Ask him—that will be most satisfactory.

Cust. I'm afraid of him, he looks so savage and sulky; perhaps he'll bark if I go near him, or even bite me, I shouldn't wonder. Don't you see how he handles his club, and knits his brows, and looks threatening and angry?

Merc. Oh, there's no fear—he's quite tame.

Cust. (approaching Diogenes cautiously). First, my good fellow, of what country are you?

Diogenes (surlily). All countries.

Cust. How can that be?

Diog. I'm a citizen of the world.

Cust. What master do you profess to follow?

Diog. Hercules.

Cust. Why don't you adopt the lion's hide, then? I see you have the club.

Diog. Here's my lion's hide,—this old cloak. Like Hercules, I wage war against pleasure; but not under orders, as he did, but of my own free will. My choice is to cleanse human life.

Cust. A very good choice too. But what do you profess to know best? or of what art are you master?

Diog. I am the liberator of mankind, the physician of the passions; in short, I claim to be the prophet of truth and liberty.

Cust. Come now, Sir Prophet, suppose I buy you, after what fashion will you instruct me?

Diog. I shall first take and strip you of all your luxury, confine you to poverty, and put an old garment on you: then I shall make you work hard, and lie on the ground, and drink water only, and fill your belly with whatever comes first; your money, if you have any, at my bidding you must take and throw into the sea; and you must care for neither wife nor children, nor country; and hold all things vanity; and leave your father's house and sleep in an empty tomb, or a ruined tower,—ay, or in a tub: and have your wallet filled with lentils, and parchments close-written on both sides. And in this state you shall profess yourself happier than the King of the East. And if any man beats you, or tortures you, this you shall hold to be not painful at all.

Cust. How! do you mean to say I shall not feel pain when I'm beaten? Do you think I've the shell of a crab or a tortoise, man?

Diog. You can quote that line of Euripides, you know,—slightly altered.

Cust. And what's that, pray?

Diog.

"Thy mind shall feel pain, but thy tongue confess none."^[6]

But the qualifications you will most require are these: you must be unscrupulous, and brazen-faced, and ready to revile prince and peasant alike; so shall men take notice of you, and hold you for a brave man. Moreover, let your speech be rough, and your voice harsh, and in fact like a dog's growl; and your countenance rigid, and your gait corresponding to it, and your manner generally brute-like and savage. All modesty and gentleness and moderation put far from you; the faculty of blushing you must eradicate utterly. Seek the most crowded haunts of men; but when there, keep solitary, and hold converse with none; address neither friend nor stranger, for that would be the ruin of your empire. Do in sight of all what others are almost ashamed to do alone. At the last, if you choose, choke yourself with a raw polypus, or an onion.^[7] And this happy consummation I devoutly wish you.

Cust. (recovering from some astonishment). Get out with you! what abominable and unnatural principles!

Diog. But very easy to carry out, mind you, and not at all difficult to learn. One needs no education, or reading, or such nonsense, for this system; it's the real short cut to reputation. Be you the most ordinary person,—cobbler, sausagemonger, carpenter, pawnbroker,—nothing hinders your being the object of popular admiration, provided only that you've impudence enough, and brass enough, and a happy talent for bad language.

Cust. Well, I don't require your instructions in that line. Possibly, however, you might do for a bargeman or a gardener,^[8] at a pinch, if this party has a mind to sell you for a couple of oboli,—I couldn't give more.

Merc. (eagerly). Take him at your own bidding; we're glad to get rid of him, he is so troublesome,—bawls so, and insults everybody up and down, and uses such very bad language.

Jup. Call out the next—the Cyrenaic there, in purple, with the garland on.

Merc. Now, gentlemen, let me beg your best attention. This next lot is a very valuable one—quite suited to parties in a good position. Here's Pleasure and Perfect Happiness, all for sale! Who'll give me a bidding now, for perpetual luxury and enjoyment? [A Cyrenaic, bearing traces of recent debauch, staggers into the ring.]

Cust. Come forward here, and tell us what you know: I shouldn't mind buying you, if you've any useful qualities.

Merc. Don't disturb him, sir, if you please, just now—don't ask him any questions. The truth is, he has taken a little too much; that's why he doesn't answer—his tongue's not quite steady.

Cust. And who in their senses, do you suppose, would buy such a debauched and drunken rascal? Faugh! how he stinks of unguents! and look how he staggers and goes from side to side as he walks!^[9] But tell us, now, Mercury, what qualifications he really has, and what he knows anything about.

Merc. Well, he's very pleasant company—good to drink with, and can sing and dance a little—useful to a master who is a man of pleasure and fond of a gay life. Besides, he is a good cook, and clever in made dishes—and, in short, a complete master of the science of luxury. He was brought up at Athens, and was once in the service of the Tyrants of Sicily, who gave him a very good character. The sum of his principles is to despise everything, to make use of everything, and to extract the greatest amount of pleasure from everything.

Cust. Then you must look out for some other purchaser, among the rich and wealthy here; I can't afford to buy such an expensive indulgence.

Merc. I fear, Jupiter, we shall have this lot left on our hands—he's unsaleable.

Jup. Put him aside, and bring out another. Stay,—those two there, that fellow from Abdera who is always laughing, and the Ephesian, who is always crying; I've a mind to sell them as a pair.

Merc. Stand out there in the ring, you two.—We offer you here, sirs, two most admirable characters, the wisest we've had for sale yet.

Cust. By Jove, they're a remarkable contrast! Why, one of them never stops laughing, while the other seems to be in trouble about something, for he's in tears all the time. Holloa, you fellow! what's all this about? What are you laughing at?

Democritus. Need you ask? Because everything seems to me so ridiculous—you yourselves included.

Cust. What! do you mean to laugh at us all to our faces, and mock at all we say and do?

Dem. Undoubtedly; there's nothing in life that's serious. Everything is unreal and empty—a mere fortuitous concurrence of indefinite atoms.

Cust. You're an indefinite atom yourself, you rascal! Confound your insolence, won't you stop laughing? But you there, poor soul (to Heraclitus), why do you weep so? for there seems more use in talking to you.

Heraclitus. Because, stranger, everything in life seems to me to call for pity and to deserve tears; there is nothing but what is liable to calamity; wherefore I mourn for men, and pity them. The evil of to-day I regard not much: bet I mourn for that which is to come hereafter—the burning and destruction of all things. This I grieve for, and that nothing is permanent, but all mingled, as it were, in one bitter cup,—pleasure that is no pleasure, knowledge that knows nothing, greatness that is so little, all going round and round and taking their turn in this game of life.

Cust. What do you hold human life to be, then?

Her. A child at play, handling its toys, and changing them with every caprice.

Cust. And what are men?

Her. Gods—but mortal.

Cust. And the gods?

Her. Men—but immortal.

Cust. You speak in riddles, fellow, and put us off with puzzles. You are as bad as Apollo Loxias, giving oracles that no man can understand.

Her. Yea; I trouble not myself for any of ye.

Cust. Then no man in his senses is like to buy you.

Her. Woe! woe to every man of ye, I say! buyers or not buyers.

Cust. Why, this fellow is pretty near mad!—I'll have nought to do with either of then, for my part.

Merc. (turning to Jupiter). We shall have this pair left on our hands too.

Jup. Put up another.

Merc. Will you have that Athenian there, who talks so much?

Jup. Ay—try him.

Merc. Step out, there!—A highly moral character, gentlemen, and very sensible. Who makes me an offer for this truly pious lot?

[The morality which the satirist puts into the mouth of Socrates, in his replies to the interrogatories of his would-be purchaser, is that which was attributed to him—probably quite without foundation—by his enemies. The customer next asks, where he lives?]

Socrates. I live in a certain city of mine own building, a new model Republic, and I make laws for myself.^[10]

Cust. I should like to hear one of them.

Soc. Listen to my grand law of all, then, about wives—that no man should have a wife of his own, but that all should have wives in common.

Cust. What! do you mean to say you have abrogated all the laws of marriage?

Soc. It puts an end, you see, to so many difficult questions, and so much litigation in the divorce courts.

Cust. Grand idea that! But what is the main feature of your philosophy?

Soc. The existence of ideals and patterns of all things in nature. Everything you see—the earth, and all that is on it, the heavens, the sea—of all these there exist invisible ideals, external to this visible universe.

Cust. And pray where are they?

Soc. Nowhere. If they were confined to any place, you see, they could not be at all.

Cust. I never see any of these ideals of yours.

Soc. Of course not: the eyes of your soul are blind. But I can see the ideals of all things. I see an invisible double of yourself, and another self besides myself—in fact, I see everything double.

Cust. Bless me! I must buy you, you are so very clever and sharp-sighted. Come (turning to Mercury), what do you ask for him?

Merc. Give us two talents for him.

Cust. I'll take him at your price. I'll pay you another time.

Merc. What's your name?

Cust. Dion, of Syracuse.

Merc. (makes a note). Take him, and good luck to you. Now, Epicurus, we want you. Who'll buy this lot? He's a disciple of that laughing fellow, and also of the other drunken party, whom we put up just now. He knows more than either of them, however, on one point—he's more of an infidel. Otherwise, he's a pleasant fellow, and fond of good eating.

Cust. What's his price?

Merc. Two minæ.

Cust. Here's the money. But just tell us what he likes best.

Merc. Oh, anything sweet—honey-cakes, and figs especially.

Cust. They're easily got; Carian figs are cheap enough.

Jup. Now then, call another—him with the shaven crown there, and gloomy looks—the one we got from the Porch yonder.

Merc. You're right. I fancy a good many of our customers who have come to the sale are waiting to bid for him.—Now I'm going to offer you the most perfect article of all—Virtue personified. Who wants to be the only man who knows everything?

Cust. What do you mean?

Merc. I mean that here you have the only wise man, the only handsome man, the only righteous man, the true and only king, general, orator, legislator, and everything else there is.^[11]

Cust. The true and only cook then, I conclude, and cobbler, and carpenter, and so forth?

Merc. I conclude so too.

Cust. Come then, my good fellow—if I'm to purchase you, tell me all about yourself; and first let me ask, with all these wonderful qualifications, are you not mortified at being put up for sale here as a slave?

Chrysippus. Not at all: such things are external to ourselves, and whatever is external to ourselves, it follows must he matters of indifference to us.

[The Stoic proceeds to explain his tenets, in the technical jargon of his school—which his listener declares to be utterly incomprehensible, and on which modern readers would pronounce much the same judgment. His great accomplishment lies, as he himself professes, in the skilful handling of sophisms—"word-nets," as he calls them—in which he entangles his opponents, stops their mouths, and reduces them to silence. He gives an example of his art, which is a curious specimen of the kind of folly to which the wisdom of the ancients occasionally condescended. A crocodile is supposed to have seized a boy in crossing a river, and promises to restore him to his father if this latter can guess correctly what he intends to do with him. If he guesses that the crocodile means to give him back, he has guessed wrong, because the crocodile's real intention is to eat him. If he guesses that the crocodile means to eat him, why then, if the crocodile gives him back after all, the guess would plainly be proved wrong by the result; so that there seems no chance for the father, guess which he will. The philosopher assures his listener that this is but one out of many choice examples of the sophistical art with which he is prepared to furnish him; and when the other retorts upon him somewhat in his own style, the Stoic threatens to knock him down with an "indemonstrable syllogism," the effect of which, he warns him, will be to plunge him into "eternal doubt, everlasting silence, and distraction of mind." In the end, however, he is purchased by his interrogator for "self and company." The next who is put up for sale is "the Peripatetic," by wham Aristotle is clearly intended. With him the satirist deals briefly and lightly, as though he had some tenderness for that particular school. "You will find him," says the auctioneer, "moderate, upright, consistent in his life—and what makes him yet more valuable is that in him you are really buying two men." "How do you make that out?" asks the customer. "Because," explains Mercury, "he appears to be one person outside and another inside; and remember, if you buy him, you must call one 'esoteric' and the other 'exoteric'". With such recommendations, the Peripatetic finds a ready purchaser for the large sum of twenty minæ. Last comes the Sceptic, Pyrrho, who figures, by a slight change of name, as Pyrrhia, a common appellation for a barbarian slave. The intending purchaser asks him a few questions.]

Cust. Tell me, now, what do you know?

Pyrrhia. Nothing.

Cust. What do you mean?

Pyrrh. That nothing seems to me certain.

Cust. Are we ourselves nothing?

Pyrrh. Well, that is what I am not sure of.

Cust. Don't you know whether you are anything yourself?

Pyrrh. That is what I am still more in doubt about.

Cust. What a creature of doubts it is! And what are those scales for, pray?

Pyrrh. I weigh arguments in them, and balance them one against another; and then, when I find them precisely equal and of the same weight, why, I find it impossible to tell which of them is true.

Cust. Well, is there anything you can do in any other line of business?

Pyrrh. Anything, except catch a runaway slave.

Cust. And why can't you do that?

Pyrrh. Because, you see, I've no faculty of apprehension.^[12]

Cust. So I should think—you seem to me quite slow and stupid. And now, what do you consider the main end of knowledge?

Pyrrh. Ignorance—to hear nothing and see nothing.

Cust. You confess yourself blind and deaf then?

Pyrrh. Yea, and void of sense and perception, and in no wise differing from a worm.

Cust. I must buy you. (To Mercury.) What shall we say for him?

Merc. An Attic mina.

Cust. Here 'tis, Now, fellow, have I bought you or not—tell me?

Pyrrh. Well, it's a doubtful question.

Cust. Not at all—at least I've paid for you.

Pyrrh. I reserve my opinion on that point; it requires consideration.

Cust. Follow me, at all events—that's a servant's duty.

Pyrrh. Are you sure you're stating a fact?

Cust. (impatiently). There's the auctioneer, and there's the money, and there are the bystanders to witness.

Pyrrh. Are you sure there are any bystanders?

Cust. I'll have you off to the grinding-house,^[13] sir, and make you feel I'm your master by very tangible proofs.

Pyrrh. Stay—I should like to argue that point a little.

[The doubting philosopher is hurried off, still unconvinced, by Mercury and his new owner, and the sale is adjourned to the next day, when Mercury promises the public that he shall have some cheaper bargains to offer. The whole scene reads like a passage from the old Arislophanic comedy; and though some of the allusions must necessarily lose much of their pungency from our comparative ignorance of the popular philosophy of Lucian's day, the humour of it is still sufficiently entertaining.]

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The professors of the various Schools of Philosophy may well be supposed to have been loud in their indignation at this caricature, and in their denunciation of the author. Or at least it suited Lucian's purpose to assume that they were so, and to make the wrath of the solemn fraternity, real or imagined, the subject of a Dialogue which follows by way of sequel to the first. Possibly, also, he desired to guard against any misconception of his purpose in the satire, and to make it clear that it was not against true philosophy or sound science that he directed his wit, but against shallow and conceited pretenders. This second Dialogue—"The Resuscitated Professors"—presents the author flying for his life, pursued by a body of irate philosophers of all sects, who have obtained one day's leave of absence from the Shades below to avenge themselves on their libeller.

THE RESUSCITATED PROFESSORS.

Socrates. Pelt the wretch! pelt him with volleys of stones,—throw clods at him,—oyster-shells! Beat the blasphemer with your clubs—don't let him escape! Hit him, Plato! and you, Chrysippus! and you!—Form a phalanx, and rush on him all together! As Homer says—"Let wallet join with wallet, club with club!" He is the common enemy of us all, and there is no man among ye whom he has not insulted. You, Diogenes, now use that staff of yours, if ever you did! Don't stop! let him have it, blasphemer that he is! What! tired already, Epicurus and Aristippus? You aught not to be:—

Be men, professors! summon all your pluck!"

Aristotle, do run a little faster!—That's good! we've caught the beast! We've got you, you rascal! You shall soon find out who you've been abusing! Now what shall we do with him? Let us think of some multiform kind of death, that may suffice for all of us—for he deserves a separate death from each.

Philosopher A. I vote that he be impaled.

Phil. B. Yes—but be well scourged first.

Phil. C. Let his eyes be gouged out.

Phil. D. Ay —but his tongue should be cut out first.

Soc. What think you, Empedocles?

Empedocles. He should be thrown down the crater of some volcano, and so learn not to revile his betters.

Plato. Nay—the best punishment for him will be that, like Pentheus or Orpheus,—

"Torn by the ragged rocks he meet his fate."

Lucian. Oh no, no, pray! spare me, for the love of heaven!

Soc. Sentence is passed: nothing can save you. For, as Homer says,—

"'Twixt men and lions, say, what truce can hold?"

Luc. And I implore you, too, in Homer's words—you will respect him, perhaps, and not reject me, when I give you a recitation,—

"Spare a brave foe, and take a ransom meet,
Good bronze, and gold—which even wise men love."^[14]

But his captors have an answer ready out of Homer's inexhaustible repertory; and an appeal which the prisoner makes to Euripides is met in a similar manner. Lucian begs at least to be heard in his own defence. He will prove that he is really the champion and patron of true philosophy, to whom he owes all that he knows. Let him at least have a fair trial, before any judge they please. None can be better than Philosophy herself; but where can she be found? Lucian himself does not know where she lives, though he has often made inquiry. He has seen men in grave habits, with long beards, who ought to have known, but they have always misdirected him. He has seen, too, a flaunting woman, affecting to represent her, whose hail of audience was thronged with visitors; but he had soon detected her as a mere impostor.

Plato agrees with him, that the dwelling of Philosophy is hard to find, nor is her door open to all idle comers. But while they are speaking, they meet her walking in the portico; and to her, by consent of both parties, the prisoner's case is referred. Virtue, and Temperance, and Justice, and Education, who are walking in her company, shall be her assessors in the court; and Truth, "a colourless form, all but imperceptible"—of whom Lucian himself has but a dim glimpse—who brings with her Liberty and Free-speech. The court is held in the temple of Minerva. The aggrieved parties have to choose one of their number as formal accuser; and Chrysippus, in words of high eulogy which may fairly be taken to express the serious opinion of the author himself, suggests Plato as the fittest for that office. The "marvellous sublimity of thought, the Attic sweetness of diction, the persuasive grace, and sagacity, and accuracy, and apposite illustrations; the delicate irony and rapid interrogation," which are here attributed to the great philosopher, are all too genuine characteristics to have been introduced ironically. Bub Plato declines the office, and the Cynic Diogenes undertakes it, readily enough, disgusted as he is at having been valued at no more than two oboli at the late "Sale." He accuses Lucian of endeavouring to bring all philosophy into contempt. He is worse than the comedy-writers, Eupolis and Aristophanes, who could at least plead in their excuse the recognised licence of the Dionysiac festivals. He calls for such a sentence on this profane libeller as may deter others from following his example. Lucian defends himself by protesting that it is only sham philosophers, "asses in lions' skins," who shelter their pretensions under the shadow of great names, that he has attacked; it is they, not he, who bring Philosophy into contempt. Such gross misrepresentations as theirs are the less excusable because of the dignity of the things which they misrepresent. "The actor who performs badly the part of a slave or a messenger is guilty of but a venial fault; but to present a Jupiter or a Hercules to the audience in a fashion unworthy of the dignity of the character becomes wellnigh a profanation."

The satirist is triumphantly acquitted. Even Plato and Diogenes withdrew their accusation, and join in hailing him as the real friend of Truth. It is resolved to call up the false pretenders to philosophy for trial before the same court. Lucian desires "Syllogism"—that useful instrument of argument, who acts as crier of the court—to summon them for this purpose; but a strict logical examination is exactly what these professors shrink from. Lucian succeeds, however, in securing their attendance by a proclamation of his own. He announces a public distribution of money and corn in the Acropolis; and whoever can show a very long beard shall he entitled to a basket of figs into the bargain. They come in crowds—Stoics, Peripatetics, and Epicureans, each claiming to be served first. But as soon as they hear of the investigation into their lives and morals, as well as their professions, which is to take place, all but two or three take to flight in a panic. Then Lucian adopts another plan to catch them for examination: he hangs out from the wall of the Acropolis a fisherman's rod and line, baited with a cluster of figs and a purse of gold. They take the bait eagerly, and are hauled up one after another; and as each of the masters of philosophy repudiates all knowledge of them as true disciples, are thrown headlong from the rock. But as there is a risk lest some strong fish should break the line and make off with the bait, Lucian goes down into the city accompanied by Conviction (one of Philosophy's suite), prepared under her guidance to crown with olive such as can stand the test, and to brand conspicuously on the forehead, with the impression of a fox or an ape, all whose profession is a mere cloak for selfish ends. He foretells that they will require for their purpose very few olive crowns, but a good supply of branding-irons.

THE BANQUET; OR, THE MODERN BATTLE OF THE LAPITHÆ.

This is another humorous attack upon the Schools of Philosophy in general, cast in the form of a dialogue. There has been a wedding supper-party at the house of an Athenian of some rank, on the occasion of the marriage of his son, of which Lycinus (i.e., Lucian) here gives an account in a conversation with a friend. He apologises—ironically—for telling the story at all; he protests against betraying the secrets of hospitality; he declares that, like the poet, he "hates a guest who has a retentive memory;" but since the tale has already, he finds, got abroad,—why, perhaps he had better tell it himself, in order that at least it may be told truly. His friend is sure that in point of fact he is burning to tell it, and threatens, if he affects any more scruple in the matter, to go to some one else for his information.

Then Lucian begins his narrative. There had been invited to this banquet representatives of all the different schools,—Stoic, Peripatetic, and Epicurean, and a "grammarian" (what we should call a "literary man") and a rhetorician besides. Io the Platonist, known in the circles of schoolmen as "The Model," tutor to the young bridegroom, also enters among the guests, and is treated by the host and by most of the company with great consideration and respect, though the Stoic insisted upon being assigned the highest seat. Alcidamas, the Cynic, came in last, without an invitation, quoting, as an impudent sort of apology, the words of Homer—

"But Menelaus uninvited came."

To which one of the guests whispered a very apposite reply from the same poet—

"Howbeit this pleased not Agamemnon's heart."

The good host, however, though all the seats were already filled, with much courtesy offered him a stool; but this the Cynic declined as an effeminate and needless luxury. He preferred, he said, to take his food standing; and accordingly ate his supper, as Lucian describes it, "in a kind of nomad fashion, like the Scythians, looking out the best pastures, and following the dishes as the slaves handed them round." And still, as he ate and drank, he declaimed loudly against the luxury of such entertainments, until the host stopped his mouth with a cup of strong wine. The Peripatetic philosopher was observed to be flirting surreptitiously with a pretty waiting-maid—a proceeding to which the host had to put a stop by sending her quietly out of the room, and substituting a rough-looking groom in her place. As the wine went round, and tongues were loosened, the rhetorician began to recite passages from his orations; while the littérateur, not content with quoting Pindar and Anacreon, went on to favour the company with a very tiresome extempore poem of his own. There was a hired jester present, who, of course, launched his jokes indiscriminately, as occasion offered, at all the company. Most of them took it good-humouredly enough; but the Cynic, accustomed to make jests instead of being the subject of them, lost his temper, and engaged in a match at fisticuffs with the poor buffoon, who was a mere pigmy of a man, but who nevertheless gave him a good thrashing, to the great delight of the company.

But at this stage of the entertainment a slave entered with a note. One Stoic professor had been left out of the list of invitations, and had sent an angry remonstrance, in the form of a kind of speech, which the slave was instructed to read. "Though, as was well known, he disliked and despised feasts, as a mere form of sensual gratification; still, ingratitude was a thing he could not bear. Forgotten? accidentally overlooked? Oh no,—that excuse would not do. Twice that very morning he had purposely made his bow to his friend Aristænetus. No one can be expected to put up with such marked neglect. Even Diana could not forgive not having been invited to the sacrifice of Œneus. He begs to enclose a philosophical problem which he challenges the whole party of these pretenders who have been preferred to him to solve if they can. He could tell a story about the bridegroom, too, but—never mind. And he begs to say in conclusion, that it is no use to think of appeasing his righteous indignation by offering now to send a present of game, or anything of that kind, by his servant,—the man has strict orders not to take it."

Lucian declares he was quite ashamed when he heard this production read. "You could never have expected such mean and unworthy language," he says, "from a man of his hoary hairs and grave demeanour." The Peripatetic philosopher took occasion from it at once to attack the Stoics generally in the most unmeasured language. One of that school who was in the company retaliated in similar terms—all the professors set to work to abuse each other, and ended by throwing wine in each other's faces, and indulging in other social courtesies of a like kind.

"I could not help reflecting," says the satirist, "how little the learning of the Schools avails us, if it does nothing to improve and dignify the intercourse of daily life. Here were scholars of the highest mark making themselves worse than ridiculous in the eyes of the company! Can it be true that, as some say, much poring over books, and stuffing their heads with other people's ideas, makes men lose their common-sense? Such conduct cannot in this case be laid to the charge of the wine,—for the letter-writer at least was sober. Yet here are the unlearned portion of the company behaving themselves quietly and modestly, while such is the example set them by these professors of wisdom!"

Io, the Platonist, now tried to quiet the uproar by proposing a subject for discussion, upon which, after the fashion of the Dialogues of Plato, each should be allowed to speak in his turn and without interruption. He suggested "Marriage" as an appropriate theme, and proceeded to deliver his own opinion thereupon, which is, of course, that of his great master, as broached in his 'Republic,' and as we have had it sot forth by Socrates in his examination at the "Sale."^[15] It would be far better if men would make up their minds to do without it altogether; but as this seems improbable, at least he would recommend the abolition of the prejudice in favour of having separate wives. Lucian thought this expression of opinion somewhat curious, to say the very least, upon such au occasion. The literary gentleman, instead of giving his own views on the question, took the opportunity of reciting to the company an epithalamium of his own composition, which is no doubt a fair burlesque of the common style of such productions. Then, as it grew late, the guests began to make their preparations for departure; and each proceeded to pack up and carry home, as was the custom at such entertainments, some little delicacy set apart for them by their liberal host. They quarrelled again, however, in their greediness, over the largest portions and the fattest fowls. A "free fight" of philosophers ensues, which Lucian could only aptly compare with the battle between the Centaurs and Lapithæ at the marriage of Pirithous. In the midst of it Alcidamas the Cynic, by design or accident, upset the lamp, and the combatants were left for a while in darkness. When it was suddenly relighted, some awkward revelations were made. The Peripatetic moralist was discovered making fierce love to a music-girl, while the Epicurean was concealing under his robe a gold cup which he had snatched from the table. Wounded and bleeding, the combatants were assisted from the room by their attendant slaves. But even thus they could not resist a gibe or two at parting. The Epicurean, with two teeth knocked out in the scuffle, saw the Stoic professor with a damaged eye and his nose bleeding, and bids him remember that, according to his own tenets, "Pain is no real evil." Lucian could only sum up the moral, he tells his friend, in the words of Euripides,—

"How strange and various are the fates of men!
The gods still bring to pass the unforeseen,
And what we look for never comes at all."^[16]

For what could possibly be more unexpected than such a termination to a philosophical and literary symposium?

HERMOTIMUS

This Dialogue, between the author himself as Lycinus and a disciple of the Stoic school, though rather of graver cast than either of the preceding, has yet a great deal of quiet humour in it, and bears token of careful finish. It is a good-humoured blow at the Stoics, and through them at the theories of philosophers generally: but it seems to convey also a graver lesson, which was probably often present to a mind like Lucian's,—that wisdom is hard to find, and that human life is not long enough for the successful pursuit of her.

Lycinus meets Hermotimus going to one of his master's lectures. The student walks with a meditative air, repeating mentally his lesson of yesterday: for, as he explains, he must lose no time; "life is short, and art is long," as said the great Hippocrates; and if it were true of physic, still more true is it of philosophy. Lycinus remarks that as, to his certain knowledge, Hermotimus has been studying hard for the last twenty years, much to the detriment of his health and his complexion, he should have conceived that he must by this time be very near the attainment of the goal of happiness—if that be synonymous with wisdom. "Nay," replies the other; "Virtue, as Hesiod tells us, dwells afar off, and the road to her is long, and very steep and rough, and costs no small toil to them that travel it." He himself is as yet only at the toot of the mountain. And when does he hope to get to the top? Well, Hermotimus thinks possibly in another twenty years or so. Lycinus remarks that a man might go three times round the world in that time: and can his master promise him that he will live so long? He hopes so, at least; and one day—one minute—of enjoyment on the summit, if once attained, will recompense him fully for all his time and pains. But is he sure again that the happiness he seeks there, and of which he can have as yet no kind of experience, will be found worth the search? and in what is it to consist? glory, riches, exquisite pleasures—is that what he expects? Hermotimus bids his friend talk more soberly: the life of virtue is not concerned with such things as these. The fine passage which follows can scarcely be altogether ironical. "Riches and glory, and all pleasures of the body, all these are stripped off and left below, and the man ascends, like Hercules, who rose a god from the pile which consumed him on Mount Œta: so did he throw off there all that was mortal, all that he inherited from his earthly mother, and bearing with him that which was divine, now purified by fire and cleansed from all dross, soared upwards to the gods. And so they who are purified by philosophy, as though by fire, from the love of all those things which men in their ignorance hold in admiration, attain the summit and there enjoy all happiness, remembering no more either riches, or glory, or pleasure, and smiling at those who still believe in their existence."

Lycinus meets him with the weapon which is always at hand—which the weakness of human nature furnishes us with as an answer to all high aspirations. Men's lives are not found to be in accordance with the principles they profess. The actual Stoics whom he sees and knows do not display this insensibility to riches and pleasures which the theoretical Stoic proclaims. He has seen Hermotimus's own master, the great Stoic himself, dragging off a pupil before the magistrates for not paying his fees. The dialogue which follows is amusing.

Hermotimus. Ah! that fellow was a rascal, and very ungrateful in the matter of payment. My master never treated other people so (and there were many he had lent money to)—because, you see, they paid him the interest punctually.

Lycinus. But even suppose they never paid, my good fellow, what difference could it make to a man like him,—purified by philosophy, and not caring for what he had left behind—on Mount Œta, you know?

Herm. You don't suppose it was on his own account he troubled himself about it? He has a young family, and he would not like to see them come to want.

Lyc. But then, my good Hermotimus, he ought to bring them up in virtuous habits too—to be happy like him, and care nothing for money.

Herm. I really have no time now, Lycinus, to discuss such questions with you: I'm in a great hurry to get to his lecture, and am afraid of being too late.

Lycinus begs him to set his mind at rest on that point; to-day, he can assure him, will be a holiday so far as lectures are concerned. He has just seen a notice to that effect, in large letters, posted on the professor's door. He happens to know that the excellent man is keeping his bed, and has given strict orders not to be disturbed; having, in fact, been at a late supper-party the night before, where he had eaten and drunk rather more than was good for him. He had been engaged there, too, in a warm dispute with a Peripatetic, which had helped to disturb his digestion. The scholar is naturally anxious to know whether his master got the better of his opponent. "Yes," says his informant; "the Peripatetic being rather obstinate and argumentative, not willing to be convinced and troublesome to refute, your excellent master, having a cup in his hand such as would have rejoiced the heart of old Nestor,^[17] broke his head with it—they were sitting close together—and so silenced him at once." "An excellent plan, too," says the scholar; "there's no other way of dealing with men who won't be convinced." And Lycinus gravely assures him that he quite concurs in the opinion. "It is extremely wrong and foolish," he admits, "to provoke a philosopher—especially when he happens to have a heavy goblet in his hand."

He proposes, however, that as Hermotimus cannot go to his master's lecture to-day, he should turn lecturer himself for once, so far at least as to give his old friend some account of his experience as a student of philosophy. Only one thing he would be glad to know before they begin—will he permit his present ignorant pupil to ask questions, or even contradict him, if he sees occasion? Hermotimus says it is not usually allowed by the teacher, but in the present case he shall not object.^[18]

The portion of this dialogue which follows is a clever imitation of the Socratic mode of argument by asking continuous questions, and forcing answers from an opponent which have the result of reducing his statement to an absurdity. Lycinus shows himself an adept in this kind of fence. Though too long for extract here, it is doing scanty justice to the author to condense it; yet the spirit of it may perhaps be fairly given.

Is there one only path to philosophy—that of the Stoics—or, as Lycinus has heard, many, and under various names? Many, undoubtedly, is the answer.—And do all teach the same or different? Totally different.—Then, probably, only one can be right? Certainly.—And how came Hermotimus (being at the first outset an ignoramus, of course, like others, and not the wise or half-wise man he is now)—how came he to know which to choose out of all these different schools? how distinguish the true from the false? Well—he saw the greater numbers go one way, and judged that must be the best.—And what majority had the Stoics over the Epicureans? and does he really think that in such a matter it is safe to go by a mere majority of voices? But it was not only that; he heard everybody say the Stoics were the wisest—that your true Stoic is the only complete man—king, and cobbler all in one.—Did the Stoics say this of themselves? (because you can hardly trust a man's own account of himself;) or did other people say it of them? Other people, also, certainly—many of them.—Surely not the philosophers of rival sects? they would not say so? No.—It was people who were not philosophers at all, then? the vulgar and illiterate, in fact? and could a man of sense like Hermotimus really go by what they said on such a question? Nay, but he had acted on his own judgment as well: he had observed the Stoics to be always grave and well-behaved, and respectably dressed; not effeminate like some, or rough like others. Then, says Lycinus, it comes to this,—you judge wisdom by dress, and looks, and gait: which makes it hard for the blind man, does it not? how is he to know which to follow? Hermotimus does not consider himself bound to make provision for the blind: that is an extreme case. Well, suppose we leave the blind to shift without philosophy, says Lycinus—though they seem to want it as much as anybody, poor fellows, to help them to bear their infirmity—still, even those who can see, how can they look inside a man and know what he really is? because you chose these men as guides, I suppose, for their insides, not their outsides? The student feels that he is no match for his opponent, and wants to close the discussion. "Nothing that I say satisfies you," he sulkily exclaims. "Nay," says the other, "you don't try to satisfy me. You want to go and leave me here in the slough of my ignorance: you are afraid lest I should become as good a philosopher as yourself. You won't teach me. So now you must listen to me—only don't laugh at my awkward way of putting things." The passage which follows is too fine to mutilate.

Lycinus. I picture virtue to myself in this way,—as it were a city whose inhabitants are perfectly happy (as your teacher would surely tell us if he could come down from thence), perfectly wise and brave and just and temperate, little less than gods. And in that city you would see none of these deeds which are common here among us—men robbing and committing violence, and overreaching each other: but they live together as fellow-citizens in peace and harmony. And no wonder; for all those things which in other states cause strife and contention, and for the sake of which men plot against each other, are put far away from them: for they regard neither gold, nor sensual pleasure, nor glory, not holding such things necessary to their polity. Thus they lead a calm and entirely happy life, under good laws and with equal rights, liberty, and all other blessings.

Hermotimus. Well, then, Lycinus, is it not good for all men to wish to be citizens of such a city, and neither to regard the toil of the road, nor the long time spent in the pilgrimage, so only they may reach it, and be enrolled on its records and share its privileges?

Lyc. Ay, verily it is, Hermotimus. That would of all things be best worth striving for, even if we had to give up all besides. Nor, though this present land in which we live should seek to hold us back, ought we to regard it; nor, though children or parents, if we have them, should seek with tears to detain us here, ought we to be moved by them, but rather, if we may, urge them to follow us on the same path, and if they cannot or will not, then shake ourselves free from them, and make straight for that blessed city—casting off our very garment, if they cling to that to retain us,—eager only to get there: for there is no fear, believe me, that even the naked should be denied admittance if they reach the gate. There was an old man, I remember, once on a time, who discoursed to me of how matters went in that city, and exhorted me to follow him thither: he would lead the way, he said, and when I came, would enrol me in his own tribe, and let me share his privileges, and so I should live happy there with them all. But I, in my youthful folly (I was scarce fifteen), would not listen to him, or I might now be in the suburbs of that city, or even at its gates.^[19] Many things he told me of it, as I seem to remember, and among them this,—that all there were strangers and immigrants, and that many barbarians and slaves, nay, and deformed persons, and dwarfs, and beggars, were enrolled among its citizens, and in short, that any might win the freedom of that city who would. For that the law there was that a man should be ranked not by his dress, or his station, or his beauty, nor yet by his birth and noble ancestry: of such matters they took no account. But it sufficed, in order to become a citizen, that a man should have sense, and a love of the right, and diligence, and energy, and should not faint or be discouraged under the many difficulties he met with on the road: so that he who displayed these qualities, and made good his way thither, was at once admitted as a citizen with equal rights, be he who he might: and such terms as higher or lower, noble or plebeian, bond or free, were never so much as named in that community.

Herm. You see then, Lycinus, it is no vain or weak aspiration of mine, to become a denizen myself of such a noble and blessed republic.

Lyc. Nay, I also, my friend, have the same longing as yourself, and there is no blessing I would more devoutly pray for. If only that city were near, and manifest to all men's eyes, be sure that I had long ere this become a citizen of it. But since, as you say (both you and Hesiod), it lies far off, we must needs inquire the way, and seek the best guide we can,—is it not so?

Herm. Else we shall hardly get there.

Lyc. Now, so far as promises and professions of knowing the road go, we have guides offering themselves in plenty: many there are, who stand ready, who tell us they are actually natives of the place. But it would seem there is not one road thither, but many, and all in different directions—one east, one west, one north, another south; some lead through pleasant meadows and shady groves, with no obstacles or unpleasantness; others ever rough and stony ground, through much heat and thirst and toil; yet all are said to lead to that one and the same city, though their lines lie so far apart.

There are guides, too, each recommending their own path as the only true one; which of all such are we to follow? There is Plato's road, and Epicurus's road, and the road taken by the Stoics; who is to say which is right? The guides themselves know no road but their own: and though each may declare that they have seen a city at the end of it, who knows whether they mean the same city, after all? The only safe guide would be the man who had tried every path,—who had studied profoundly all the theories of Pythagoras, Plato, Epicurus, Chrysippus, Aristotle, and the rest, and chosen that which, from his own knowledge and experience, he found to he the best and safest. And what lifetime would suffice for this? "Twenty years," says his friend to Hermotimus, "you have already been studying under the Stoics, you told us; and some twenty more you thought you required to perfect yourself in their philosophy. And how many would you give to Plato? and how many to Aristotle? and how long do you expect to live?"

Poor Hermotimus is no match for his Socratic crossexaminer. He declares, with great truth and honesty, that his clever friend has succeeded, like many clever disputants, in making him, at all events, very uncomfortable, and that he heartily wishes he had never met him that morning in his quiet meditations. "You always were overbearing in argument, Lycinus; I don't know what harm Philosophy ever did you, that you hate her so, and make such a joke of us philosophers." "My dear Hermotimus," calmly replies his friend, "you and your master, being philosophers, ought to know more about Truth than I do: I only know this much,—she is not always pleasant to those who listen to her."

The Dialogue is extended to some length, but the neophyte Stoic fails to hold his ground. Lycinus argues that after all there comes no answer to that great question—'What is truth?' It may be, after all, that she is something different from anything yet discovered. All visions of her are but different guesses, and all the guesses may be wrong. And life is too short to waste in interminable speculations. "Words, words," are, in the opinion of Lycinus, the sum of the philosophy of the day, whereas life demands action. Hermotimus becomes convinced that he has hitherto been wasting his time; henceforth he will try to do his duty as a private citizen, and if lie meets a professor of philosophy in the street, will "avoid him as he would a mad dog."

Lucian is best remembered as a satirist and a jester, but this Dialogue is enough to prove to us that he was something more. He jests continually at the falsehoods which were passed off as Truth, and at the doubtful shadows, of various shape and hue, which confident theorists insisted were her true and only embodiment. But if he could have been sure of her identity, there is no reason to think he would not have become her ready and willing worshipper.

THE NEW ICARUS.

Hopelessly puzzled by the contradictory theories of the philosophers, especially on cosmogony, the Cynic Menippus has taken a journey to the stars to see whether he may possibly learn the truth there; and in the Dialogue which bears the above title he gives an account of his aerial travels to a friend. He had made for himself a rather uneven pair of wings by cutting off one from an eagle and one from a vulture, and after some preliminary experiments in flying had succeeded in making good his first stage, to the Moon. The earth and its inhabitants looked wonderfully small from that height; indeed, except the Colossus of Rhodes and the watchtower of Pharos, he could make out little or nothing; until Empedocles, whom he met there (looking as black as a cinder, as well he might, having so lately come out of the crater of Ætna), showed him that by using the eagle's wing only for a while he might also acquire the eagle's vision. Then he saw many things not clearly discernible to ordinary eyes, for his new sight penetrated even into the houses. He saw the Epicurean forswearing himself for a thousand drachmas, the Stoic quarrelling with his pupils about fees, and the Cynic in very bad company. For the rest, the world was going on much as he supposed; the Egyptians were busy cultivating their fields, the Phœnicians making their merchant voyages, the Spartans whipping their children, und the Athenians, as usual, in the law-courts.^[20] "Such," says the traveller, "is the confused jumble of this world. It is as though one should hire a multitude of singers, or rather bands of singers, and then bid each performer choose his own tune, caring nothing for the harmony; each singing his loudest, and going on with his own song, and trying to drown his neighbour's voice—you may judge what music that would make. Even such, my friend, are the performers on earth, and such is the confused discord which makes up human life; they not only sound different notes, but move in imharmonious time and figure, with no common idea or purpose; until the choirmaster drives them all from the stage, and says he has no more need of them." He wondered, too, and could not forbear smiling, at the quarrels which arise between men about their little strips of territory, when to his eyes, as he looked down, "all Greece was but four fingers' breadth." It reminded him of "a swarm of ants running round and round and in and out of their city,—one turning over a bit of dung, another seizing a bean-shell, or half a grain of wheat, and running away with it. Probably among them too, conformably to the requirements of ant-life, they have their architects, and their popular leaders, and public officers, and musicians, and philosophers." [If his friend disapproves of the comparison, he bids him remember the old Thessalian fable of the Myrmidons.]

He was just taking flight again, he says, when the Moon—in a soft and pleasant female voice—begged him to carry something for her up to Jupiter. "'By all means,' said I, 'if it's not very heavy.' 'Only a message,' said she—'just a small petition to him. I'm quite out of patience, Menippus, at being talked about in such a shameful way by those philosophers, who seem to have nothing else to do but speculate about me—what I am, and how big I am, and why I am sometimes halved and sometimes round. Some of them say I'm inhabited, and others, that I hang over the sea like a looking-glass; in short, any fancy that comes into their heads, they apply to me. And, as if that were not enough, they say my very light is not my own, but as it were of a bastard sort, borrowed from the sun; trying to make mischief between me and him—my own brother—on purpose to set us at variance; as if it was not enough for them to say what they have about him,—that he is a stone, and nothing but a mass of fire. How many stories I could tell of them, and their goings-on o' nights, for all the grave faces and severe looks they wear by day! I see it all, though I hold my tongue—it seems to me scarcely decent to bring all their proceedings to light. So, when I see any of them misbehaving, I just wrap myself in a cloud, not to expose them. Yet they do nothing but discuss me in their talk, and insult me in every way. So that I swear I have often had thoughts of going away altogether as far as possible, to escape their troublesome tongues. Be sure you tell Jupiter this; and say besides, that I can't possibly stay where I am, unless he crushes those physical science men, gags the Dialecticians, pulls down the Porch, burns the Academy, and puts a stop to those Peripatetics; so that I may have a little peace, instead of being measured and examined by them every day.' 'It shall be done,' said I, and so took my leave."

So he went on, and reached the abode of Jupiter, where he hoped at first to get in without notice, being almost half an eagle—that bird being under Jupiter's protection; but, remembering that, after all, he was also half a vulture, he thought it best to knock at the door, which was opened by Mercury.^[21] Jupiter complimented him highly upon his courage in making the journey, though the other gods were rather alarmed, thinking it a bad precedent for mortals. The monarch of Olympus asked him a good many questions as to the goings-on below, about which he appeared somewhat curious;—"What the price of wheat was now? What sort of a winter they had last year?" Especially he was anxious to know what mortals really thought about him. Menippus was very diplomatic in his answers. "'What can they think, your majesty,' said I, 'but what they are in duty bound to think,—that you are the sovereign of the gods.' 'Nonsense,' replied his majesty; 'I know very well how fond they are all of something new. There was a time when I was thought good enough to give them oracles, and heal their diseases,—when Dodona and Pisa were in all their glory, and looked up to by everybody, and so full of sacrifices that I could hardly see for the smoke. But ever since Apollo set up his oracle at Delphi, and Æsculapius his surgery at Pergamus, and Bendis has had her worship in Thrace, and Anubis in Egypt, and Diana at Ephesus, they all run there to hold their festivals and offer their hecatombs, and look upon me as old-fashioned and decrepit, and think it quite enough to sacrifice to me once in six years at Olympia.'" They had a good deal more chat together, says Menippus, after which Jupiter took him to see the place where the prayers came up—through holes with covers to them. Their purport was various and contradictory: one sailor praying for a north wind, another for a south; the farmer for rain, and the fuller for sunshine. Jupiter only let the reasonable prayers come through the hole, and blew the foolish ones back again; but was sadly puzzled by the contradictory petitions,—especially when both petitioners promised him a hecatomb. This business over, they went to supper; and Menippus was highly delighted with Apollo's performance on the harp, with Silenus's dancing, and with the recitation of some of Hesiod's and Pindar's poetry by the Muses. A general council of the gods was afterwards called, in which Jupiter announced his intention of making very short work with the philosophers of whom the Moon had complained. Then Menippus was dismissed, under the charge of Mercury, who had orders, however, to take off his wings, that he might not come that way again; and he is now hurrying, he tells his friend, with some malicious enjoyment, to warn the gentlemen of the Schools of what they may very soon expect from Jupiter.

1. "Beaucoup de gens se faisaient philosophes parce que Marc Aurèle les enrichissait."—Champagny, "Les Antonines," iii. 222. The whole passage, as an illustration of Lucian, well deserves attention.
2. Mr Grote, in the introductory chapter of his Plato, thus sketches the Pythagorean doctrine of "The Music of the Spheres." "The revolutions of such grand bodies [the Sun and Planets] could not take place, in the opinion of the Pythagoreans, without producing a loud and powerful sound; and as their distances from the central fire were supposed to be arranged in musical ratios, so the result of all these separate sounds was full and perfect harmony. To the objection—Why were not these sounds heard by us?—they replied, that we had heard them constantly and without intermission from the hour of our birth; hence they had become imperceptible by habit."

   The "two lives" is of course an allusion to Pythagoras's notion of the transmigration of souls. It is said of him that he professed to be conscious of having been formerly Euphorbus, one of the chiefs present at the siege of Troy, and of having subsequently borne other shapes. There is also a story of his having interfered on behalf of a dog which was being beaten, declaring that in its cries he recognised "the voice of a departed friend."

3. That "all knowledge is but recollection" is an assertion attributed both to Pythagoras and Plate. The idea of "an immortal soul always learning and forgetting in successive periods of existence, haying seen and known all things at one time or other, and by association with one thing capable of recovering all," may be seen discussed in Plato's Dialogue, "Meno," 81, 82, &c.
4. The injunction of a period of silence upon neophytes (the "five years" is most likely an exaggeration) was plainly meant as a check upon their presuming to teach before they had matured their knowledge. "It would be not unserviceable" (says Tooke) "in our own age, by preventing many of our raw young divines exposing themselves in the pulpit before they have read their Greek Testament."
5. Ten being the sum of 1, 2, 3, 4. Number, in the system of Pythagoras, was the fundamental principle of all things: in the Monad—Units—he recognised the Deity.
6. This unfortunate quibble of Euripides, which he puts into the month of Hippolytus in his play (Hipp. 612) as a defence of perjury,—

   "My tongue hath sworn it—but my thought was free"—

   was a never-failing subject of parody to his critics and satirists.

7. The first mode of suicide was said to have been adopted by the philosopher Democritus.
8. For the accomplishments of the bargemen and vine-dressers in the way of bad language we have Horace's testimony, Sat. i. 5 and 7. The first-mentioned fraternity bear the same reputation still.
9. If this be really meant for Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaic philosophy, it is the most unfair presentation of all. However some of his followers might have abused his principles, his own character is probably much more fairly described by Horace:—
   "All lives sat well on Aristippus; though
   He liked the high, he yet could grace the low."
   —Ep. I. xvii. 
   
   
10. It must be remembered that Plato, in his 'Republic,' makes Socrates the expositor of his new polity throughout; he had probably derived at least the leading ideas from him.
11. Lucian had evidently in his mind the humorous sketch of the Stoic given by Horace, Sat. i. 3:—
    "What though the wise ne'er shoe or slipper made,
    The wise is still a brother of the trade,—
    Just as Hermogenes, when silent, still
    Remains a singer of consummate skill—
    As sly Alfenius, when he had let drop
    His implements of art and shut up shop,
    Was still a barber,—so the wise is best
    In every craft, a king's among the rest."—(Conington.)
    
    
12. The pun here happens to he the same in English as in Greek. But the Athenians were fonder of such word-play than we are.
13. Slaves who misbehaved were sent there, as the hardest work.
14. Parodied from Homer, Il. x. 378, &c. But the last half-line is Lucian's own.
15. See p. 104.
16. The somewhat weak "tag" common to several of Euripides's plays.
17. "Scarce might another raise it from the board
    When full; but aged Nestor raised with ease."
    —Iliad, xi. 635 (Lord Derby). 
    
    
18. The disciples of Plato were apt to reply do those disputants who were so unreasonable as to ask for proof of any assertion—"He said it himself"—the "ipse dixit" which has passed into a modern phrase.
19. We shall never know Lucian's full meaning here. Is this but another version of "The Dream," and does he imply that he had failed to carry out the nobler ideal of his choice, and had sunk into the mere hired pleader? Or had he some higher "dream" still in his youth, whose invitation he was conscious of having disobeyed?
20. A reminiscence of Aristophanes, who is never weary of satirising the passion of his fellow-citizens for law. In his "Clouds" (l. 280), where Strepsiades is shown Athens on the map, he exclaims—

    "Athens! go to! I see no law-courts sitting."

21. Lucian evidently has in mind Trygæus's reception by Mercury, in the "Peace" of Aristophanes, i. 180, &c.