The Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 04

and Sophocles's,

I quote you but these few of the many passages upon the incident, just to suggest the qualities of him whom you have passed over, to entertain, and to have your son taught by, Diphilus! natural enough; of course, the lad fancies him, and finds him an agreeable master! If tale-telling were not beneath me, I would add a piece of information that, if you choose, you can get confirmed by the boy's attendant Zopyrus. But a wedding is not a time for unpleasantness or denunciations, especially of offences so vile. Diphilus deserves it richly at my hands, indeed—two pupils he has stolen from me—; but for the good name of Philosophy I will hold my hand.

My man has instructions, if you should offer him a portion of wild boar or venison or sesame cake to bring me in lieu of my dinner, to refuse it. I would not have you find the motive of my letter in such desires.

My dear fellow, I went all hot and cold as this was read; I was praying that the earth might swallow me up when I saw everybody laughing at the different points; the most amused were those who knew Hetoemocles and his white hair and reverend looks; it was such a surprise to find the reality behind that imposing beard and serious countenance. I felt sure Aristaenetus had passed him over not in neglect, but because he supposed he would never accept an invitation or have anything to do with festivities; he had thought it out of the question, and not worth trying.

As soon as the man stopped reading, all eyes were turned on Zeno and Diphilus, who were pale with apprehension, and confirmed by their embarrassment the insinuations of Hetoemocles. Aristaenetus was uneasy and disturbed, but urged us to drink, and tried to smooth the matter over with an attempt at a smile; he told the man he would see to it, and dismissed him. Zeno disappeared shortly after; his attendant had signed to him, as from his father, to retire.

Cleodemus had been on the look-out for an opportunity; he was spoiling for a fight with the Stoics, and chafing over the difficulty of starting the subject; but the letter had struck the right key, and off he went. 'Now we see the productions of your fine Chrysippus, your glorious Zeno, your Cleanthes—a few poor catch-words, some fruitless posers, a philosophic exterior, and a large supply of—Hetoemocleses. What ripe wisdom does this letter reveal, with its conclusion that Aristaenetus is an Oeneus, and Hetoemocles an Artemis! How auspicious, how suitable to the occasion, its tone!'

'To be sure,' chimed in Hermon, his left-hand neighbour; 'he had no doubt heard that Aristaenetus had bespoken a wild boar, and thought the introduction of the one at Calydon appropriate. Aristaenetus, I adjure you by the domestic altar, let him taste the victim, or we shall have the old man starving, and withering away like his Meleager. Though indeed it would not be so very hard on him; such a fate is one of Chrysippus's things indifferent.'

Here Zenothemis woke up and thundered out: 'Chrysippus? you name that name? because a pretender like Hetoemocles comes short of his profession, you argue from him to the real sages, to Cleanthes and Zeno? And who are the men, pray, who hold such language? Why, Hermon, who shore the curls, the solid golden curls, of the Dioscuri, and who will yet receive his barber's fee from the executioner. And Cleodemus, who was caught in adultery with his pupil Sostratus's wife, and paid the shameful penalty. Silence would better become the owners of such consciences.' 'Who trades in his own wife's favours?' retorted Cleodemus; 'I do not do that, and I do not undertake to keep my foreign pupil's purse and then swear by Polias the deposit was never made; I do not lend money at fifty per cent, and I do not hale my pupils into court if fees are not paid to the day.' 'You will hardly deny, though,' said Zenothemis, 'that you supplied Crito with the poison for his father.'

And therewith, his cup being in his hand, about half full of wine, he emptied it over the pair; and Ion, whose worst guilt was being their neighbour, came in for a good deal of it. Hermon bent forward, dried his head, and entered a protest. Cleodemus, having no wine to reply with, leant over and spat at Zenothemis; at the same time he clutched the old man's beard with his left hand, and was aiming a blow which would have killed him, when Aristaenetus arrested it, stepped over Zenothemis, and lay down between the two, making himself a buffer in the interests of peace.

All this time, Philo, my thoughts were busy enough with the old commonplace, that after all it is no use having all theory at your finger's ends, if you do not conform your conduct to the right. Here were these masters of precept making themselves perfectly ridiculous in practice. Then it was borne in upon me that possibly the vulgar notion is right, and culture only misleads the people who are too much wrapt up in books and bookish ideas. Of all that philosophic company there was not a man—not so much as an accidental exception—who could pass muster; if his conduct did not condemn him, his words did yet more fatally. I could not make the wine responsible, either; the author of that letter was fasting and sober.

Things seemed to go by contraries; you might see the ordinary people behaving quite properly at table; no rioting and disorder there; the most they did was to laugh at and, no doubt, censure the others, whom they had been accustomed to respect and to credit with the qualities their appearance suggested. It was the wise men who made beasts of themselves, abused each other, over-fed, shouted and came to blows. I thought one could find no better illustration for our dinner than the poets' story of Eris. When she was not invited to Peleus's nuptials, she threw that apple on the table which brought about the great Trojan war. Hetoemocles's letter was just such an apple, woeful Iliad and all.

For buffer-Aristaenetus had proved ineffectual, and the quarrel between Zenothemis and Cleodemus was proceeding. 'For the present,' said the latter, 'I am satisfied with exposing your ignorance; to-morrow I will give you your deserts more adequately. Pray explain, Zenothemis, or the reputable Diphilus for you, how it is that you Stoics class the acquisition of wealth among the things indifferent, and then concentrate your whole efforts upon it, hang perpetually about the rich to that end, lend money, screw out your usury, and take pay for your teaching. Or again, if you hate pleasure and condemn the Epicureans, how comes it that you will do and endure the meanest things for it? you resent it if you are not asked out; and when you are, you eat so much, and convey so much more to your servant's keeping'—and he interrupted himself to make a grab at the napkin that Zenothemis's boy was holding, full of all sorts of provender; he meant to get it away and empty the contents on the floor; but the boy held on too tight.

'Quite right, Cleodemus,' said Hermon; 'let them tell us why they condemn pleasure, and yet expect more of it than any one else.' 'No, no,' says Zenothemis; 'you give us your grounds, Cleodemus, for saying wealth is not a thing indifferent.' 'No, I tell you; let us have your case.' So the see-saw went on, till Ion came out of his retirement and called a truce: 'I will give you,' he said, 'a theme worthy of the occasion; and you shall speak and listen without trying for personal triumphs; take a leaf from our Plato this time.' 'Hear, hear,' from the company, especially from Aristaenetus and Eucritus, who hailed this escape from unpleasantness. The former now went back to his own place, confident of peace.

The 'repast,' as they call it, had just made its appearance; each guest was served with a bird, a slice of wild boar, a portion of hare, a fried fish, some sesame cakes and sweet-meats—all these to be taken home if the guest chose. Every man had not a separate dish, however; Aristaenetus and Eucritus shared one little table, from which each was to take what belonged to him; so Zenothemis the Stoic and Hermon the Epicurean; Cleodemus and Ion had the third table, the bridegroom and I the next; Diphilus had a double portion, by the absence of Zeno. Remember these details, Philo; you will find they bear on the story.

Phi. Trust me.

Ly. Ion proceeded: 'I will start, then, if you wish it.' He reflected a moment, and then: 'With so much talent in the room, no less a subject might seem indicated than Ideas[17], Incorporeals, and the Immortality of the Soul. On the other hand our divergent views might make that too controversial; so I will take the question of marriage, and say what seems appropriate. The counsel of perfection here would be to dispense with it, and be satisfied, according to the prescription of Plato and Socrates, with contemplating male beauty. So, and only so, is absolute virtue to be attained. But if marriage is admitted as a practical necessity, then we should adopt the Platonic system of holding our wives in common, thus obviating rivality.'

The unseasonableness of these remarks raised a laugh. And Dionysodorus had another criticism: 'Spare us these provincialisms,' he said; 'or give us your authority for "rivality."' 'Such carpings are beneath contempt,' was the polite reply. Dionysodorus was about to return the compliment with interest, when our good man of letters intervened: 'Stop,' said Histiaeus, 'and let me read you an epithalamium.'

He at once went off at score; and I think I can reproduce the effusion:

By the time the laughter that not unnaturally followed had subsided, it was time to pack up our 'repasts'; Aristaenetus and Eucritus took each his intended portion; Chaereas and I, Ion and Cleodemus, did likewise. But as Zeno was not there, Diphilus expected to come in for his share too. He said everything on that table was his, and disputed possession with the servants. There was a tug of war between them just like that over the body of Patroclus; at last he was worsted and had to let go, to the huge amusement of all, which he heightened by taking the thing as a most serious wrong.

As I told you, Hermon and Zenothemis were neighbours, the latter having the upper place. Their portions were equal enough except in one respect, and the division was peaceful until that was reached. But the bird on Hermon's side was—by chance, no doubt—the fatter. The moment came for them to take their respective birds. At this point—now attend carefully, please, Philo; here is the kernel of the whole affair—at this point Zenothemis let his own bird lie, and took the fatter one before Hermon. But Hermon was not going to be put upon; he laid hold of it too. Then their voices were lifted up, they closed, belaboured each other's faces with the birds, clutched each other's beards, and called for assistance, Hermon appealing to Cleodemus, Zenothemis to Alcidamas and Diphilus. The allies took their sides, Ion alone preserving neutrality.

The hosts engaged. Zenothemis lifted a goblet from the table where it stood before Aristaenetus, and hurled it at Hermon;

This opened the lips of the ladies; most of them indeed jumped down into the battle's interspace, led by the young man's mother, as soon as she saw his blood flowing; the bride too was startled from her place by terror for him. Meanwhile Alcidamas was in his glory maintaining the cause of Zenothemis; down came his stick on Cleodemus's skull, he injured Hermon's jaw, and severely wounded several of the servants who tried to protect them. The other side were not beaten, however; Cleodemus with levelled finger was gouging out Zenothemis's eye, not to mention fastening on his nose and biting a piece off it; and when Diphilus came to Zenothemis's rescue, Hermon pitched him head first from the couch.

Histiaeus too was wounded in trying to part the pair; it was a kick in the teeth, I think, from Cleodemus, who took him for Diphilus. So the poor man of letters lay 'disgorging blood,' as his own Homer describes it. It was a scene of tumult and tears. The women were hanging over Chaereas and wailing, the other men trying to restore peace. The great centre of destruction was Alcidamas, who after routing the forces immediately opposed to him was striking at whatever presented itself. Many a man had fallen there, be sure, had he not broken his stick. I was standing close up to the wall watching the proceedings in which I took no part; Histiaeus's fate had taught me the dangers of intervention. It was a sight to recall the Lapithae and Centaurs—tables upside down, blood in streams, bowls hurtling in the air.

At last Alcidamas upset the lamp, there was a great darkness, and confusion was worse confounded. It was not so easy to procure another light, and many a horrid deed was done in the dark. When some one came at last with a lamp, Alcidamas was discovered stripping and applying compulsion to the flute-girl, and Dionysodorus proved to have been as incongruously engaged; as he stood up, a goblet rolled out of his bosom. His account of the matter was that Ion had picked it up in the confusion, and given it him to save it from damage! for which piece of carefulness Ion was willing to receive credit.

So the party came to an end, tears being resolved in the laughter at Alcidamas, Dionysodorus and Ion. The wounded were borne off in sad case, especially old Zenothemis, holding one hand on his nose and the other on his eye, and bellowing out that the agony was more than he could bear. Hermon was in poor condition himself, having lost a couple of teeth; but he could not let this piece of evidence go; 'Bear in mind, Zenothemis,' he called out, 'that you do not consider pain a thing indifferent.' The bridegroom, who had been seen to by Dionicus, was also taken off with his head in bandages—in the carriage in which he was to have taken his bride home. It had been a sorry wedding-feast for him, poor fellow. Dionicus had done what he could for the rest, they were taken home to bed, and very ill most of them were on the way. Alcidamas stayed where he was; it was impossible to get rid of him, as he had thrown himself down anyhow across a couch and fallen asleep.

And now you know all about the banquet, my dear Philo; a tragedy epilogue seems called for:

It was the unexpected that came to pass here, at any rate. Well, live and learn; I know now that a quiet man had better keep clear of these feasts of reason.

H.

DEMOSTHENES
AN ENCOMIUM

A little before noon on the sixteenth, I was walking in the Porch—it was on the left-hand side as you go out—, when Thersagoras appeared; I dare say he is known to some of you—short, hook-nosed, fair-complexioned, and virile. He drew nearer, and I spoke: 'Thersagoras the poet. Whence, and whither?' 'From home, hither,' he replied. 'Just a stroll?' I asked. 'Why, I do need a stroll too,' he said. 'I got up in the small hours, impressed with the duty of making a poetic offering on Homer's birthday.' 'Very proper,' said I; 'a good way of paying for the education he has given you.' 'That was how I began,' he continued, 'and time has glided by till now it is just upon noon; that was what I meant by saying I wanted a stroll.

'However, I wanted something else much more—an interview with this gentleman' (and he pointed to the Homer; you know the one on the right of the Ptolemies' shrine, with the hair hanging loose); 'I came to greet him, and to pray for a good flow of verse.' 'Ah,' I sighed, 'if prayers would do it! in that case I should have given Demosthenes a worrying for assistance against his birthday. If prayers availed, I would join my wishes to yours; for the boons we desire are the same.' 'Well, I put down to Homer,' he replied, 'my facility of this night and morning; ardours divine and mystic have possessed me. But you shall judge. Here are my tablets, which I have brought with designs upon any idle friend I might light upon; and you, I rejoice to see, are idle.'

'Ah, you lucky man!' I exclaimed; 'you are like the winner of the three miles, who had washed off the dust, and could amuse himself for the rest of the day. He was minded to crack a story with the wrestler, when the wrestling was next on the programme; but the wrestler asked him whether he had felt like cracking stories when he toed the line just now. You have won your poetic three miles, and want me to minister to your amusement just as I am shivering at the thought of my hundred yards.' He laughed: 'Why, how will it make things worse for you?'

'Ah, you probably consider Demosthenes of much less account than Homer. You are very proud of your eulogy on Homer; and is Demosthenes a light matter to me?' 'A trumped up charge,' he exclaimed; 'I am not going to sow dissension between these two mighty ones, though it is true my own allegiance is rather to Homer.'

'Good,' I said, 'and you must allow me to give mine to Demosthenes. But, though you do not disqualify my subject, I am sure you think poetry the only real treatment; you feel about mere rhetoric what the cavalryman feels as he gallops past the infantry.' 'I hope I am not so mad as that,' he said, 'though a considerable touch of madness is required of him who would pass the gates of poetry.' 'If you come to that, prose cannot do without some divine inspiration either, if it is not to be flat and common.' He admitted that at once: 'I often delight myself with comparing passages from Demosthenes and other prose writers with Homer in point of vehemence, pungency, fire. "Flown with wine" I pair off against the revellings and dancings and debauchery of Philip; "One presage that ne'er fails[18]" finds its counterpart in "It is for brave men, founding themselves upon brave hopes—"; "How would old Peleus, lord of steeds, repine—" is matched by "What a cry of lamentation would go up from the men of those days who laid down their lives for glory and freedom—"; "fluent Python" reminds me of Odysseus's "snow-flake speech"; "If 'twere our lot neither to age nor die," I illustrate by "For every man's life must end in death, though he shut himself up in a narrow chamber for safer keeping." In fact the instances are numberless in which they attack their meaning by the same road.

'I love too to study his feelings and moods and transitions, the variety with which he combats weariness, his resumptions after digression, the charm of his opportune illustrations, and the never-failing native purity of his style.

'It has often struck me about Demosthenes—for I will tell the whole truth out—that that looser of the bonds of speech rebukes Athenian slackness with a dignity that is lacking in the "Greekesses" used by Homer of the Greeks; and again he maintains the tragic intensity proper to the great Hellenic drama more consistently than the poet who inserts speeches at the very crisis of battle and allows energy to evaporate in words.

'As often as I read Demosthenes, the balanced clauses, the rhythmic movement and cadence, make me forget that this is not my beloved poetry; for Homer too abounds in contrast and parallel, in figures startling or simple. It is a provision of nature, I suppose, that each faculty should have its proper equipment attached to it. How should I scorn your Muse? I know her powers too well.

'None the less, I consider my task of a Homeric encomium twice as difficult as your praise of Demosthenes; not because it must be in verse, but from the nature of the material; I cannot lay down a foundation of fact to build the edifice of praise upon; there is nothing but the poems themselves. Everything else is uncertain—his country, his family, his time. If there had been any uncertainty about them,

Debate and strife had not divided men;

but as it is, they give him for a country Ios or Colophon or Cumae, Chios, Smyrna, or Egyptian Thebes, or half a hundred other places; his father may be Maeon the Lydian, or he may be a river; his mother is now Melanope, and now in default of satisfactory human descent a dryad; his time is the Heroic Age, or else perhaps it is the Ionic. There is no knowing for certain whether he was before or after Hesiod, even; and no wonder, considering that some object to his very name, and will have him Melesigenes instead. So too with his poverty, and his blindness. However, all these questions are best left alone. So you see the arena open to my panegyric is extremely limited; my theme is a poet and not a man of action; I can infer and collect his wisdom only from his verses.

'Your work, now, can be reeled smoothly off out of hand; you have your definite known facts; the butcher's meat is there, only needing to be garnished with the sauce of your words. History supplies you with the greatness and distinction of Demosthenes; it is all known; his country was Athens, the splendid, the famous, the bulwark of Hellas. Now if I could have laid hands on Athens, I might have used the poet's right to introduce the loves and judgements and sojourns there of the Gods, the gifts they lavished on it, the tale of Eleusis. As for its laws and courts and festivals, its Piraeus and its colonies, the memorials set up in it of victory by land and sea, Demosthenes himself is the authority for saying that no words could do justice to them. My material would have been inexhaustible; and I could not have been accused of hanging up my true theme; the formula of panegyric includes the arraying of the man in the splendours of his country. So too Isocrates ekes out his Helen by introducing Theseus. It is true that poets have their privileges; and perhaps you have to be more careful about your proportions; there must not be too much sack to the proverbial halfpennyworth of bread.

'Well then, let Athens go; but your discourse at once finds another support in his father's wealth—that "golden base" which Pindar likes—; for to be responsible for providing a war-ship was to be among the richest Athenians in those days. And though he died while Demosthenes was quite a child, we are not to count his orphan state a disaster; it led to the distinction that brought his splendid gifts into notice.

'Tradition gives us no hint of how Homer was educated or developed his powers; the panegyrist must plunge straight into his works, and can find nothing to talk about in his breeding and training and pupilage; he has not even the resource of that Hesiodic sprig of bay which could make a facile poet out of a shepherd. But think of your abundance in this branch of the subject. There is Callistratus and all the mighty roll of orators, Alcidamas, Isocrates, Isaeus, Eubulides. Then again, at Athens even those who were subject to paternal control had countless temptations to indulgence, youth is the susceptible time, a neglected ward could have lived as irregular a life as he chose, and yet the objects that Demosthenes set up for himself were philosophy and patriotism, and the doors they took him to not Phryne's, but those of Aristotle and Theophrastus, Xenocrates and Plato.

'And so, my dear sir, your way is open to a disquisition upon the two kinds of human love, the one sprung of a desire that is like the sea, outrageous, fierce, stormily rocking the soul; it is a true sea wave, which the earthly Aphrodite sets rolling with the tempestuous passions of youth; but the other is the steady drawing of a golden cord from heaven; it does not scorch and pierce and leave festering wounds; it impels towards the pure and unsullied ideal of absolute beauty, and is a sane madness in those souls which "yet hold of Zeus and nurse the spark divine."

'Love will find out the way, though that way involve a shaven head, a cavern dwelling, a discouraging mirror and punitive sword, a disciplining of the tongue, a belated apprenticeship to the actor's art, a straining of the memory, a conquest over clamour, and a borrowing of night hours to lengthen toilsome days.[19] All this your Demosthenes endured, and who knows not what an orator it made of him? his speech packed with thought and terse of language, himself convincing in his knowledge of human nature, as splendid in the elevation as mighty in the force of his sentiments, the master and not the slave of his words and his ideas, ever fresh with the graces of his art. He is the one orator whose speech has, in the bold phrase of Leosthenes, at once the breath of life and the strength of wrought iron.

'Callisthenes remarked of Aeschylus that he wrote his tragedies in wine, which lent vigour and warmth to his work. With Demosthenes it was otherwise; he composed not on wine but on water; whence the witticism of Demades, that most men's tongues are regulated by water,[20] but Demosthenes's pen was subject to the same influence. And Pytheas detected the smell of the midnight oil in the very perfection of the speeches. Well, there is much in common between your subject and mine, so far as this branch of them is concerned; on Homer's poems I was no worse off than you are.

'But when you come to your hero's acts of humanity, his pecuniary sacrifices, his grand political achievements' (and he was going on in full swing to the rest of the catalogue, when I interrupted, with a laugh: 'Must I be dowsed with the remainder of your canful, good bath-man?' 'Most certainly,' he retorted, and went straight on), 'the public entertainments he gave, the public burdens he assumed, the ships, the wall, the trench he contributed to, the prisoners he ransomed, the girls he portioned, his admirable policy, the embassies he served on, the laws he got passed, the mighty issues he was concerned in—why, then I cannot but laugh to see your contracted brows; as if a recital of the exploits of Demosthenes could lack matter!'

'I believe you think, my good man,' I protested, 'that I have never had the deeds of Demosthenes drummed into me; I should be singular among rhetoricians, then.' 'It was on the assumption,' he said, 'implied by you, that we want assistance. But perhaps your case is a very different one; is the light so bright that you cannot manage to fix your eyes on the dazzling glory of Demosthenes? Well, I was rather like that about Homer at first. Indeed, I came very near turning mine away, thinking I could not possibly face my subject. However, I got over it somehow or other; became gradually inured, as it were, superior to the weakness of vision that would have condemned me for a bastard eagle and no true son of Homer.

'But now here is another great advantage that I consider you have over me. The poetic faculty has a single aim; from which it follows that Homer's glory must be laid hold of at once and as a whole. You on the other hand, if you were to attempt dealing with the whole Demosthenes all at once, would never know what to say; you would waver and not be able to set your thoughts to work. You would be like the gourmand at a Sicilian banquet, or the aesthete who has a thousand delightful sights and sounds presented to him at once; they do not know which way to turn for their conflicting desires. I suspect that you too are distracted and find concentration impossible; all round you are the varied attractions—his magnanimity, his fire, his orderly life, his oratorical force and practical courage, the endless opportunities of gain that he scorned, his justice, humanity, honour, spirit, sagacity, and each of all his great services to his country. It may well be that, when you behold on this side decrees, ambassadors, speeches, laws, on the other, fleets, Euboea, Boeotia, Chios, Rhodes, the Hellespont, Byzantium, you are pulled to and fro among these too numerous invitations, and cannot tell which to accept.

'Pindar once found himself in a similar difficulty with an over-abundant theme:

You, I dare say, are in the same quandary. Logic and life, rhetoric and philosophy, popularity and death—ay, but which?

'The maze is quite easy to escape from, though; you have only to take hold of one single clue, no matter which—his oratory, if you will, so that it is taken by itself—, and stick to that one throughout your present discourse. You will have ample material; his oratory is not of the Periclean type. Pericles could lighten and thunder, and he could hit the right nail on the head; so much tradition tells us; but we have nothing to judge for ourselves by, no doubt because, beyond the momentary impression produced, there was in his performances no element of permanence, nothing that could stand the searching test of time. But with Demosthenes's work—well, that it will be your province to deal with, if your choice goes that way.

'Or if you prefer his character, or his policy, it will be well to isolate some particular detail—if you are greedy you may pick out two or three—which will give you quite enough to go upon; so great was he at every point. And for such specializing we have Homer's example; the compliments he pays his heroes are attached to parts of them, their feet, their heads, their hair, even their shields or something they have on; and the Gods seem to have had no objection to poets' basing their praises merely on a distaff, a bow, or the aegis; a limb or a quality must pass still more easily; and as for good actions, it is impossible to give an exhaustive list of them. Demosthenes accordingly will not blame you for confining your eulogy to one of his merits, especially as to celebrate the whole of them worthily would be beyond even his powers.'

When Thersagoras had finished this harangue, I remarked: 'Your intention is plain; I am to be convinced that you are more than a good poet; so you have constructed your prose Demosthenes as a pendant to your verse Homer.' 'No, no,' he said; 'what made me run on so long was the idea that, if I could ease your mind by showing how light your task was, I should have secured my listener.' 'Then let me tell you that your object has not been furthered, and my case has only been aggravated.' 'A fine doctor I seem to be!' he said. 'Not knowing where the difficulty lies,' I continued, 'you are a doctor who mistakes his patient's ailment and treats him for another.' 'How so?'

'You have been prescribing for the troubles that would attend a first attempt; unfortunately it is years and years since I got through that stage, and your remedies are quite out of date.' 'Why, then,' he exclaimed, 'the cure is complete; nobody is nervous about a road of which he knows every inch.'

'Ah, but then I have set my heart upon reversing the feat that Anniceris of Cyrene exhibited to Plato and his friends. To show what a fine driver he was, he drove round the Academy time after time exactly in his own track, which looked after it as if it had only been traversed once. Now my endeavour is just the opposite, to avoid my old tracks; and it is by no means so easy to keep out of the ruts.' 'Pauson's is the trick for you,' he said. 'What is that? I never heard of it.'

'Pauson the painter was commissioned to do a horse rolling. He painted one galloping in a cloud of dust. As he was at work upon it, his patron came in, and complained that this was not what he had ordered. Pauson just turned the picture upside down and told his man to hold it so for inspection; there was the horse rolling on its back.' 'You dear innocent!' I said; 'do you suppose I have kept my picture turned the same way all these years? It has been shifted and tilted at every conceivable angle, till I begin to have apprehensions of ending like Proteus.' 'And how was that?' 'Oh, I mean the issue of his attempts to evade human observation; when he had exhausted all shapes of animals and plants and elements, finding no metamorphosis left him, he had to be Proteus again.'

'You have more shifts than ever Proteus had,' he said, 'to get off hearing my poem.'

'Oh, do not say that,' said I; 'off goes my burden of care, and I am at your service. Perhaps when you have got over your own pains of child-birth you will show more feeling for my delicate state.'

He liked the offer, we settled down on a convenient stone step, and I listened to some excellent poetry. In the middle of reading he was seized with an idea, did up his tablets, and said: 'You shall have your hearer's fee, as well deserved as an Athenian's after a day in court or assembly. Thank me, please.' 'I do, before I know what for. But what may it be?' 'It was in the Macedonian royal archives that I came across the book; I was delighted with it at the time, and took considerable trouble to secure it; it has just come into my head that I have it at home. It contains, among details of Antipater's management of the household, facts about Demosthenes that I think you will find worth your best attention.' 'You shall have payment on the spot,' I said, 'in the shape of an audience for the rest of your verses; and moreover I shall not part with you till your promise is fulfilled. You have given me a luscious Homer birthday dinner; and it seems you are to be at the charges of the Demosthenes one too.'

He read to the end, we stayed long enough for me to give the poem its meed of praise, and then adjourned to his house, where after some search the book was found. I took it away with me, and on further acquaintance was so much impressed by it that I shall do no editing, but read it you totidem verbis. Asclepius is not less honoured if his worshippers, in default of original compositions, have the hymns of Isodemus or Sophocles performed before him; there is a failure nowadays in the supply of new plays for Dionysus; but those who produce the works of old masters at the proper season have the credit all the same of honouring the God.

This book, then (the part of the state records that concerns us is the conversation I shall give you)—the book informs us that Archias's name was announced to Antipater. In case any of my younger hearers should not know the fact already, this Archias had been charged with the arrest of all exiles. In particular, he was to get Demosthenes from Calauria into Antipater's presence, but rather by persuasion than by force. Antipater was excited about it, hoping that Demosthenes might arrive any day. So, hearing that Archias was come from Calauria, he gave orders for his instant admittance.

When he entered—but you shall have the conversation as it stands.

Archias. Antipater

Ar. Is it well with you, Antipater?

Ant. It is well, if you have brought Demosthenes.

Ar. I have brought him as I might. I have the urn that holds his remains.

Ant. Ha? my hopes are dashed. What avail ashes and urns, if I have not Demosthenes?

Ar. The soul, O King, may not be prisoned in a man's own despite.

Ant. Why took you him not alive?

Ar. We took him.

Ant. And he has died on the way?

Ar. He died where he was, in Calauria.

Ant. Your neglect is to blame; you took not due care of him.

Ar. Nay, it lies not at our door.

Ant. What mean you? These are riddles, Archias; you took him alive, and you have him not?

Ar. Was it not your charge that we should use no force at first? Yet indeed we should have fared no better if we had; we did intend it.

Ant. You did not well, even in the intention; it may be your violence killed him.

Ar. No, we killed him not; but if we could not persuade him, there was nothing for it but force. But, O King, how had you been the better off, if he had come alive? you could have done no more than kill him.

Ant. Peace, Archias! methinks you comprehend neither the nature of Demosthenes, nor my mind. You think there is no more in the finding of Demosthenes than in the hunting down such scoundrels as Himeraeus or Aristonicus or Eucrates; these are like swollen torrents—mean fellows in themselves, to whom a passing storm gives brief importance; they make a brave show while the disturbance lasts; but they are as sure to vanish soon as the wind to fall at evening. The recreant Hyperides is another—a selfish demagogue, who took no shame to curry favour with the mob by libelling Demosthenes, and make himself its instrument for ends that his dupes soon wished they had never attained; for the libels had not long borne their fruit before the libelled was reinstated with more honour than Alcibiades himself. But what recked Hyperides? he scrupled not to use against what had once been dearest to him the tongue that he deserved, even by that iniquity, to lose.

Ar. How? was Demosthenes not our enemy of enemies?

Ant. Not in the eyes of one who cares for an honourable nature, and loves a sincere consistent character. The noble is noble, though it be in an enemy; and virtue has no country. Am I meaner than Xerxes? he could admire Bulis and Sperchis the Spartans, and release them when they were in his power. No man that ever lived do I admire more than Demosthenes; twice I was in his company at Athens (in hurried times, it is true), and I have heard much from others, and there is his work to judge by. And what moves me is not his skill in speech. You might well suppose so; Python was nothing, matched with him, and the Attic orators but babes in comparison with his finish and intensity, the music of his words, the clearness of his thoughts, his chains of proof, his cumulative blows. We found our mistake when we listened to Python and his promises; we had gathered the Greeks to Athens to see the Athenians confuted; it was Demosthenes who confuted us. But no words of mine can describe the power of his eloquence.

Yet to that I give but a secondary place, as a tool the man used. It was the man himself I marvelled at, his spirit and his wisdom, and the steadiness of soul that steered a straight course through all the tempests of fortune with never a craven impulse. And Philip was of my mind about him; when a speech of his before the Athenian assembly against Philip was reported, Parmenio was angry, and made some bitter jest upon him. But Philip said: Ah, Parmenio, he has a right to say what he pleases; he is the only popular orator in all Greece whose name is missing in my secret service accounts, though I would far rather have put myself in his hands than in those of clerks and third-rate actors. All the tribe of them are down for gold, timber, rents, cattle, land, in Boeotia if not in Macedonia[21]; but the walls of Byzantium are not more proof against the battering-ram than Demosthenes against gold.

This is the way I look at it, Parmenio. An Athenian who speaking in Athens prefers me to his country shall have of my money, but not of my friendship; as for one who hates me for his country's sake, I will assault him as I would a citadel, a wall, a dock, a trench, but I have only admiration for his virtue, and congratulations for the State that possesses him. The other kind I should like to crush as soon as they have served my purpose; but him I would sooner have here with us than the Illyrian and Triballian horse and all my mercenaries; arguments that carry conviction, weight of intellect, I do not put below force of arms.

That was to Parmenio; and he said much the same to me. At the time of the Athenian expedition under Diopithes, I was very anxious, but Philip laughed at me heartily, and said: Are you afraid of these town-bred generals and their men? Their fleet, their Piraeus, their docks, I snap my fingers at them. What is to be looked for from people whose worship is of Dionysus, whose life is in feasting and dancing? If Demosthenes, and not a man besides, had been subtracted from Athens, we should have had it with less trouble than Thebes or Thessaly; deceit and force, energy and corruption, would soon have done the thing. But he is ever awake; he misses no occasion; he makes move for move and counters every stroke. Not a trick of ours, not an attempt begun or only thought of, but he has intelligence of it; in a word he is the obstacle that stands between us and the swift attainment of our ends. It was little fault of his that we took Amphipolis, that we won Olynthus, Phocis, Thermopylae, that we are masters of the Hellespont.

He rouses his reluctant countrymen out of their opiate sleep, applies to their indolence the knife and cautery of frank statement, and little he cares whether they like it or not. He transfers the revenues from state theatre to state armament, re-creates with his navy bill a fleet disorganized to the verge of extinction, restores patriotism to the place from which it had long been ousted by the passion for legal fees, uplifts the eyes of a degenerate race to the deeds of their fathers and emulation of Marathon and Salamis, and fits them for Hellenic leagues and combinations. You cannot escape his vigilance, he is not to be wheedled, you can no more buy him than the Persian King could buy the great Aristides.

This is the direction your fears should take, Antipater; never mind all the war-ships and all the fleets. What Themistocles and Pericles were to the Athens of old, that is Demosthenes to Athens to-day, as shrewd as Themistocles, as high of soul as Pericles. He it was that gained them the control of Euboea and Megara, the Hellespont and Boeotia. It is well indeed that they give the command to such as Chares or Diopithes or Proxenus, and keep Demosthenes to the platform at home. If they had given into his hands their arms and ships and troops, their strategy and their money, I doubt he would have put me on my mettle to keep Macedonia; even now that he has no weapon but his decrees, he is with us at every turn, his hand is upon us; the ways and means are of his finding, the force of his gathering; it is he that sends armadas afar, he that joins power to power, he that meets our every change of plan.

This was his tone about Demosthenes on many other occasions too; he put it down as one of his debts to fortune that armies were never led by the man whose mere words were so many battering-rams and catapults worked from Athens to the shattering and confounding of his plans. As to Chaeronea, even the victory made no difference; he continued to impress upon us how precarious a position this one man had contrived for us. Things went unexpectedly well; their generals were cowards and their troops undisciplined, and the caprice of fortune, which has so often served us well, brought us out victorious; but he had reduced me to hazarding my kingdom and my life on that single throw; he had brought the most powerful cities into line, he had united Greece, he had forced Athens and Thebes and all Boeotia, Corinth, Euboea, Megara—the might of Greece, in short—to play the game out to its end, and had arrested me before I reached Attic soil.

He never ceased to speak thus about Demosthenes. If any one told him the Athenian democracy was a formidable rival, 'Demosthenes,' he would say, 'is my only rival; Athens without him is no better than Aenianes or Thessalians.' Whenever Philip sent embassies to the various states, if Athens had sent any one else to argue against his men, he always gained his point with ease; but when it was Demosthenes, he would tell us the embassy had come to naught: there was not much setting up of trophies over speeches of Demosthenes.

Such was Philip's opinion. Now I am no Philip at the best, and do you suppose, Archias, that if I could have got a man like Demosthenes, I should have found nothing better to do with him than sending him like an ox to the slaughter? or should I have made him my right-hand man in the management of Greece and of the empire? I was instinctively attracted long ago by his public record—an attraction heightened by the witness of Aristotle. He constantly assured both Alexander and myself that among all the vast number of his pupils he had found none comparable to Demosthenes in natural genius and persevering self-development, none whose intellect was at once so weighty and so agile, none who spoke his opinions so freely or maintained them so courageously.

But you (said Aristotle) confuse him with an Eubulus, a Phrynon, a Philocrates, and think to convert with gifts a man who has actually lavished his inheritance half on needy Athenians and half on Athens; you vainly imagine that you can intimidate one who has long ago resolved to set his life upon his country's doubtful fortunes; if he arraigns your proceedings, you try denunciation; why, the nearer terrors of the Assembly find him unmoved. You do not realize that the mainspring of his policy is patriotism, and that the only personal advantage he expects from it is the improvement of his own nature.

All this it was, Archias, that made me long to have him with me, to hear from his own lips what he thought about the state of things, and be able at any time of need, abandoning the flatterers who infest us, to hear the plain words of an independent mind and profit by sincere advice. And I might fairly have drawn his attention to the ungrateful nature of those Athenians for whom he had risked all when he might have had firmer and less unconscionable friends.

Ar. O King, your other ends you might have gained, but that you would have told him to no purpose; his love of Athens was a madness beyond cure.

Ant. It was so indeed; 'twere vain to deny it. But how died he?

Ar. O King, there is further wonder in store for you. We who have had the scene before our eyes are as startled and as unbelieving yet as when we saw it. He must long ago have determined how to die; his preparation shows it. He was seated within the temple, and our arguments of the days before had been spent on him in vain.

Ant. Ay? and what were they?

Ar. Long and kindly I urged him, with promises on your part, not that I looked to see them kept (for I knew not then, and took you to be wroth with him), but in hopes they might prevail.

Ant. And what hearing did he give them? Keep nothing back; I would I were there now, hearing him with my own ears; failing which, do you hide nothing from me. 'Tis worth much to learn the bearing of a true man in the last moments of his life, whether he gave way and played the coward, or kept his course unfaltering even to the end.

Ar. Ah, in him was no bending to the storm; how far from it! With a smiling allusion to my former life, he told me I was not actor enough to make your lies convincing.

Ant. Ha? he left life for want of belief in my promises?

Ar. Not so; hear to the end, and you will see his distrust was not all for you. Since you bid me speak, O King, he told me there was no oath that could bind a Macedonian; it was nothing strange that they should use against Demosthenes the weapon that had won them Amphipolis, and Olynthus, and Oropus. And much more of the like; I had writers there, that his words might be preserved for you. Archias (he said), the prospect of death or torture would be enough to keep me out of Antipater's presence. And if you tell me true, I must be on my guard against the worse danger of receiving life itself as a present at his hands, and deserting, to serve Macedonia, that post which I have sworn to hold for Greece.

Life were a thing to be desired, Archias, were it purchased for me by the power of Piraeus (a war-ship, my gift, has floated there), by the wall and trench of which I bore the cost, by the tribe Pandionis whose festival charges I took upon me, by the spirit of Solon and Draco, by unmuzzled statesmen and a free people, by martial levies and naval organization, by the virtues and the victories of our fathers, by the affection of fellow citizens who have crowned me many a time, and by the might of a Greece whose guardian I have never ceased to be. Or again, if life is to be owed to compassion, though it be mean enough, yet compassion I might endure among the kindred of the captives I have ransomed, the fathers whose daughters I have helped to portion, and the men whose debts I have joined in paying.

But if the island empire and the sea may not save me, I ask my safety from the Posidon at whose altar and under whose sanctuary I stand. And if Posidon's power avails not to keep his temple inviolate, if he scorns not to surrender Demosthenes to Archias, then welcome death; I will not transfer my worship to Antipater. I might have had Macedonia more at my devotion than Athens, might be now a partaker in your fortunes, if I would have ranged myself with Callimedon, and Pytheas, and Demades. When things were far gone, I might yet have made a shift, if I had not had respect to the daughters of Erechtheus and to Codrus. Fortune might desert, I would not follow her; for death is a haven of safety, which he who reaches will do no baseness more. Archias, I will not be at this late day a stain upon the name of Athens; I will not make choice of slavery; be my winding-sheet the white one of liberty.

Sir actor, let me recall to you a fine passage from one of your tragedies[22]: