No More Learning

_Ly_. Once more, noble work, Polystratus. And now your task
must be drawing to a close: here is a whole soul depicted; its
every virtue praised.

_Poly_. Not yet: the highest praise remains. Born to magnificence,
she clothes not herself in the pride of wealth; listens not to
Fortune's flattering tale, who tells her she is more than human;
but walks upon the common ground, far removed from all thought of
arrogance and ostentation. Every man is her equal; her greeting,
her smile are for all who approach her; and how acceptable is the
kindness of a superior, when it is free from every touch of
condescension! When the power of the great turns not to insolence
but to beneficence, we feel that Fortune has bestowed her gifts
aright. Here alone Envy has no place. For how should one man grudge
another his prosperity when he sees him using it with moderation,
not, like the Homeric Ate, an oppressor of the weak, trampling on
men's necks? It is otherwise with those meaner souls--victims of
their own ignoble vanity--, who, when Fortune has raised them
suddenly beyond their hopes into her winged aerial car, know no
rest, can never look behind them, but must ever press upwards. To
such the end soon comes: Icarus-like, with melted wax and moulting
feathers, they fall headlong into the billows, a derision to
mankind. The Daedaluses use their waxen wings with moderation: they
are but men; they husband their strength accordingly, and are
content to fly a little higher than the waves,--so little that the
sun never finds them dry; and that prudence is their salvation.

Therein lies this lady's highest praise. She has her reward: all
men pray that her wings may never droop, and that blessings may
increase upon her.

_Ly_. And may the prayer be granted! She deserves every
blessing: she is not outwardly fair alone, like Helen, but has a
soul within more fair, more lovely than her body. It is a fitting
crown to the happiness of our benevolent and gracious Emperor, that
in his day such a woman should be born; should be his, and her
affections his. It is blessedness indeed, to possess one of whom we
may say with Homer that she contends with golden Aphrodite in
beauty, and in works is the equal of Athene. Who of womankind shall
be compared to her

In comeliness, in wit, in goodly works?

_Poly_. Who indeed? --Lycinus, I have a proposal to make. Let
us combine our portraits, yours of the body and mine of the soul,
and throw them into a literary form, for the enjoyment of our
generation and of all posterity. Such a work will be more enduring
than those of Apelles and Parrhasius and Polygnotus; it will be far
removed from creations of wood and wax and colour, being inspired
by the Muses, in whom alone is that true portraiture that shows
forth in one likeness a lovely body and a virtuous soul.




DEFENCE OF THE 'PORTRAIT-STUDY'

_Polystratus_. _Lycinus_


_Poly_. Well, here is the lady's comment. _Your pages are most kind
and complimentary, I am sure, Lycinus. No one would have so
over-praised me who had not felt kindly towards me. But if you
would know my real feeling, here it is. I never do much like the
complaisant; they always strike me as insincere and wanting in
frankness. But when it comes to a set panegyric, in which my much
magnified virtues are painted in glaring colours, I blush and would
fain stop my ears, and feel that I am rather being made fun of than
commended.

Praise is tolerable up to the point at which the object of it can
still believe in the existence of the qualities attributed to him;
pass that point, and he is revolted and finds the flatterer out. Of
course I know there are plenty of people who are glad enough to
have non-existent qualities added to their praises; who do not mind
being called young and lusty in their decline, or Nireuses and
Phaons though they are hideous; who, Pelias-like, expect praise to
metamorphose or rejuvenate them.

But they are mistaken. Praise would indeed be a most precious
commodity if there were any way of converting its extravagances
into solid fact. But there being none, they can only be compared to
an ugly man on whom one should clap a beautiful mask, and who
should then be proud of those looks that any one could take from
him and break to pieces; revealed in his true likeness, he would be
only the more ridiculous for the contrast between casket and
treasure. Or, if you will, imagine a little man on stilts measuring
heights with people who have eighteen inches the better of him in
stocking feet_.

And then she told this story. There was a noble lady, fair and
comely in all respects except that she was short and ill-proportioned.
A poet wrote an ode in her honour, and included among her beauties
that of tallness; her slender height was illustrated from the poplar.
She was in ecstasies, as though the verses were making her grow, and
kept waving her hand. Which the poet seeing, and realizing her
appetite for praise, recited the lines again and again, till at last
one of the company whispered in his ear, 'Stop, my good man; you will
be making her get up. '

She added a similar but still more absurd anecdote of Stratonice
the wife of Seleucus, who offered a talent to the poet who should
best celebrate her hair. As a matter of fact she was bald, with not
a hair to call her own. But what matter what her head was like, or
that every one knew how a long illness had treated her? she
listened to these abandoned poets telling of hyacinthine locks,
plaiting thick tresses, and making imaginary curls as crisp as
parsley.

All such surrenders to flattery were laughed to scorn, with the
addition that many people were just as fond of being flattered and
fooled by portrait-painters as these by verbal artists. _What
these people look for in a painter_ (she said) _is readiness
to improve nature: Some of them insist upon the artist's taking a
little off their noses, deepening the shade of their eyes, or
otherwise idealizing them to order; it quite escapes them that the
garlands they afterwards put on the picture are offered to another
person who bears no relation to themselves_.

And so she went on, finding much in your composition to approve,
but displeased in particular with your likening her to Hera and
Aphrodite. _Such comparisons are far too high for me_, she
said, _or indeed for any of womankind. Why, I would not have had
you put me on a level with women of the Heroic Age, with a
Penelope, an Arete, a Theano; how much less with the chief of the
Goddesses. Where the Gods are concerned_ (she continued; and
mark her here), _I am very apprehensive and timid. I fear that to
accept a panegyric like this would be to make a Cassiopeia of
myself; though indeed_ she _only challenged the Nereids, and
stopped short of Hera and Aphrodite_.

So, Lycinus, she insisted that you must recast all this; otherwise
she must call the Goddesses to witness that you had written against
her wishes, and leave you to the knowledge that the piece would be
an annoyance to her, if it circulated in its present shape, so
lacking in reverence and piety. The outrage on reverence would be
put down to her, if she allowed herself to be likened to her of
Cnidus and her of the Garden. She would have you bear in mind the
close of your discourse, where you spoke of the unassuming modesty
that attempted no superhuman flights, but kept near the earth. It
was inconsistent with that to take the same woman up to heaven and
compare her with Goddesses.

She would like to be allowed as much sense as Alexander; he, when
his architect proposed to transform Mount Athos into a vast image
of the King with a pair of cities in his hands, shrank from the
grandiose proposal; such presumption was beyond him; such patent
megalomania must be suppressed; leave Athos alone, he said, and do
not degrade a mighty mountain to the similitude of a poor human
body. This only showed the greatness of Alexander, and itself
constituted in the eyes of all future generations a monument higher
than any Athos; to be able to scorn so extraordinary an honour was
itself magnanimity.

So she commends your work of art, and your selective method, but
cannot recognize the likeness. She does not come up to the
description, nor near it, for indeed no woman could. Accordingly
she sends you back your laudation, and pays homage to the originals
from which you drew it. Confine your praises within the limits of
humanity; if the shoe is too big, it may chance to trip her up.
Then there was another point which I was to impress upon you.

_I often hear_, she said,--_but whether it is true, you men
know better than I--that at Olympia the victors are not allowed to
have their statues set up larger than life; the Stewards see to it
that no one transgresses this rule, examining the statues even more
scrupulously than they did the competitor's qualification. Take
care that we do not get convicted of false proportions, and find
our statue thrown down by the Stewards_.

And now I have given you her message. It is for you, Lycinus, to
overhaul your work, and by removing these blemishes avoid the
offence. They shocked and made her nervous as I read; she kept on
addressing the Goddesses in propitiatory words; and such feelings
may surely be permitted to her sex. For that matter, to be quite
frank, I shared them to some extent. At the first hearing I found
no offence; but as soon as she put her finger on the fault, I began
to agree. You know what happens with visible objects; if we look at
them at close quarters, just under our eyes, I mean, we distinguish
nothing clearly; but stepping back to the right distance, we get a
clear conception of what is right and what is wrong about them.
That was my experience here.

After all, to compare a mortal to Hera and Aphrodite is cheapening
the Goddesses, and nothing else. In such comparisons the small is
not so much magnified as the great is diminished and reduced. If a
giant and a dwarf were walking together, and their heights had to
be equalized, no efforts of the dwarf could effect it, however much
he stood on tiptoe; the giant must stoop and make himself out
shorter than he is. So in this sort of portraiture: the human is
not so much exalted by the similitude as the divine is belittled
and pulled down. If indeed a lack of earthly beauties forced the
artist upon scaling Heaven, he might perhaps be acquitted of
blasphemy; but your enterprise was so needless; why Aphrodite and
Hera, when you have all mortal beauty to choose from?

Prune and chasten, then, Lycinus. All this is not quite like you,
who never used to be over-ready with your commendation; you seem to
have gone now to the opposite extreme of prodigality, and developed
from a niggard into a spendthrift of praise. Do not be ashamed to
make alterations in what you have already published, either. They
say Phidias did as much after finishing his Olympian Zeus. He stood
behind the doors when he had opened them for the first time to let
the work be seen, and listened to the comments favourable or the
reverse. One found the nose too broad, another the face too long,
and so on. When the company was gone, he shut himself up again to
correct and adapt his statue to the prevailing taste. Advice so
many-headed was not to be despised; the many must after all see
further than the one, though that one be Phidias. There is the
counsel of a friend and well-wisher to back up the lady's message.

_Ly_. Why, Polystratus, I never knew what an orator you were.
After that eloquent close-packed indictment of my booklet, I almost
despair of the defence. You and she were not quite judicial,
though; you less than she, in condemning the accused when its
counsel was not in court. It is always easy to win a walk-over,
you know; so no wonder we were convicted, not being allowed to
speak or given the ear of the court. But, still more monstrous, you
were accusers and jury at once. Well, what am I to do? accept the
verdict and hold my tongue? pen a palinode like Stesichorus? or
will you grant an appeal?

_Poly_. Surely, if you have anything to say for yourself. For
you will be heard not by opponents, as you say, but by friends.
Indeed, my place is with you in the dock.

_Ly_. How I wish I could, have spoken in her own presence!
that would have been far better; but I must do it by proxy.
However, if you will report me to her as well as you did her to me,
I will adventure.

_Poly_. Trust me to do justice to the defence; but put it
shortly, in mercy to my memory.

_Ly_. So severe an indictment should by rights be met at
length; but for your sake I will cut it short. Put these
considerations before her from me, then.

_Poly_. No, not that way, please. Make your speech, just as
though she were listening, and I will reproduce you to her.

_Ly_. Very well, then. She is here; she has just delivered the
oration which you have described to me; it is now counsel's turn.
And yet--I must confide my feelings to you--you have made my
undertaking somehow more formidable; you see the beads gather on my
brow; my courage goes; I seem to see her there; my situation
bewilders me. Yet begin I will; how can I draw back when she is
there?

_Poly_. Ah, but her face promises a kindly hearing; see how
bright and gracious. Pluck up heart, man, and begin.

_Ly_. Most noble lady, in what you term the great and excessive
praise that I bestowed upon you, I find no such high testimony to
your merits as that which you have borne yourself by your surprise
at the attribution of divinity. That one thing surpasses all that I
have said of you, and my only excuse for not having added this
trait to my portrait is that I was not aware of it; if I had been,
no other should have had precedence of it. In this light I find
myself, far from exaggerating, to have fallen much short of the
truth. Consider the magnitude of this omission, the convincing
demonstration of a sterling character and a right disposition which
I lost; for those will be the best in human relations who are most
earnest in their dealings with the divine. Why, were it decided
that I must correct my words and retouch my statue, I should do it
not by presuming to take away from it, but by adding this as its
crowning grace. But from another point of view I have a great debt
of gratitude to acknowledge. I commend your natural modesty, and
your freedom from that vanity and pride which so exalted a position
as yours might excuse. The best witness to my correctness is just
the exception that you have taken to my words. That instead of
receiving the praise I offered as your right you should be
disturbed at it and call it excessive, is the proof of your
unassuming modesty. Nevertheless, the more you reveal that this is
your view of praise, the stronger proof you give of your own
worthiness to be praised. You are an exact illustration of what
Diogenes said when some one asked him how he might become famous:--
'by despising fame. ' So if I were asked who most deserve praise, I
should answer, Those who refuse it.

But I am perhaps straying from the point. What I have to defend is
the having likened you, in giving your outward form, to the Cnidian
and the Garden _Aphrodite_, to _Hera_ and _Athene_; such
comparisons you find out of all proportion. I will deal directly
with them, then. It has indeed been said long ago that poets and
painters are irresponsible; that is still more true, I conceive, of
panegyrists, even humble prose ones like myself who are not run
away with by their metre. Panegyric is a chartered thing, with no
standard quantitative measure to which it must conform; its one and
only aim is to express deep admiration and set its object in the
most enviable light. However, I do not intend to take that line of
defence; you might think I did so because I had no other open.

But I have. I refer you to the proper formula of panegyric, which
requires the author to introduce illustrations, and depends mainly
on their goodness for success. Now this goodness is shown not when
the illustration is just like the thing illustrated, nor yet when
it is inferior, but when it is as high above it as may be. If in
praising a dog one should remark that it was bigger than a fox or a
cat, would you regard him as a skilful panegyrist? certainly not.
Or if he calls it the equal of a wolf, he has not made very much of
it so either. Where is the right thing to be found? why, in
likening the dog's size and spirit to the lion's. So the poet who
would praise Orion's dog called it the lion-queller. There you have
the perfect panegyric of the dog. Or take Milo of Croton, Glaucus
of Carystus, or Polydamas; to say of them by way of panegyric that
each of them was stronger than a woman would be to make oneself a
laughing-stock; one man instead of the woman would not much mend
matters. But what, pray, does a famous poet make of Glaucus? --

To match those hands not e'en the might
Of Pollux' self had dared;
Alcmena's son, that iron wight,
Had shrunk--

See what Gods he equals him to, or rather what Gods he puts him
above. And Glaucus took no exception to being praised at the
expense of his art's patron deities; nor yet did they send any
judgement on athlete or poet for irreverence; both continued to be
honoured in Greece, one for his might, and the other for this even
more than for his other odes. Do not be surprised, then, that when
I wished to conform to the canons of my art and find an
illustration, I took an exalted one, as reason was that I should.

You used the word flattery. To dislike those who practise it is
only what you should do, and I honour you for it. But I would have
you distinguish between panegyric proper and the flatterer's
exaggeration of it. The flatterer praises for selfish ends,
cares little for truth, and makes it his business to magnify
indiscriminately; most of his effects consist in lying additions of
his own; he thinks nothing of making Thersites handsomer than
Achilles, or telling Nestor he is younger than any of the host; he
will swear Croesus's son hears better than Melampus, and give
Phineus better sight than Lynceus, if he sees his way to a profit
on the lie. But the panegyrist pure and simple, instead of lying
outright, or inventing a quality that does not exist, takes the
virtues his subject really does possess, though possibly not in
large measure, and makes the most of them. The horse is really
distinguished among the animals we know for light-footed speed;
well, in praising a horse, he will hazard:

The corn-stalks brake not 'neath his airy tread.

He will not be frightened of 'whirlwind-footed steeds. ' If his
theme is a noble house, with everything handsome about it,

Zeus on Olympus dwells in such a home,

we shall be told. But your flatterer would use that line about the
swineherd's hovel, if he saw a chance of getting anything out of
the swineherd. Demetrius Poliorcetes had a flatterer called
Cynaethus who, when he was gravelled for lack of matter, found some
in a cough that troubled his patron--he cleared his throat so
musically!

There you have one criterion: flatterers do not draw the line at a
lie if it will please their patrons; panegyrists aim merely at
bringing into relief what really exists. But there is another great
difference: the flatterers exaggerate as much as ever they can; the
panegyrists in the midst of exaggeration observe the limitations of
decency. And now that you have one or two of the many tests for
flattery and panegyric proper, I hope you will not treat all praise
as suspect, but make distinctions and assign each specimen to its
true class.

By your leave I will proceed to apply the two definitions to what I
wrote; which of them fits it? If it had been an ugly woman that I
likened to the Cnidian statue, I should deserve to be thought a
toady, further gone in flattery than Cynaethus. But as it was one
for whose charms I can call all men to witness, my shot was not so
far out.

Now you will perhaps say--nay, you have said already--Praise my
beauty, if you will; but the praise should not have been of that
invidious kind which compares a woman to Goddesses. Well, I will
keep truth at arm's length no longer; I did _not_, dear lady,
compare you to Goddesses, but to the handiwork in marble and bronze
and ivory of certain good artists. There is no impiety, surely, in
illustrating mortal beauty by the work of mortal hands--unless you
take the thing that Phidias fashioned to be indeed Athene, or
Praxiteles's not much later work at Cnidus to be the heavenly
Aphrodite. But would that be quite a worthy conception of divine
beings? I take the real presentment of them to be beyond the reach
of human imitation.

But granting even that it had been the actual Goddesses to whom I
likened you, it would be no new track, of which I had been the
pioneer; it had been trodden before by many a great poet, most of
all by your fellow citizen Homer, who will kindly now come and
share my defence, on pain of sharing my sentence. I will ask him,
then--or rather you for him; for it is one of your merits to have
all his finest passages by heart--what think you, then, of his
saying about the captive Briseis that in her mourning for Patroclus
she was 'Golden Aphrodite's peer'? A little further on, Aphrodite
alone not meeting the case, it is:

So spake that weeping dame, a match for Goddesses.

When he talks like that, do you take offence and fling the book
away, or has _he_ your licence to expatiate in panegyric?
Whether he has yours or not, he has that of all these centuries,
wherein not a critic has found fault with him for it, not he
that dared to scourge his statue [Footnote: Zoilus, called
Homeromastix. ], not he whose marginal pen [Footnote: Aristarclius. ]
bastarded so many of his verses. Now, shall he have leave to match
with Golden Aphrodite a barbarian woman, and her in tears, while I,
lest I should describe the beauty that you like not to hear of, am
forbidden to compare certain images to a lady who is ever bright
and smiling--that beauty which mortals share with Gods?

When he had Agamemnon in hand, he was most chary of divine
similitudes, to be sure! what economy and moderation in his use of
them! Let us see--eyes and head from Zeus, belt from Ares, chest
from Posidon; why, he deals the man out piecemeal among the host of
Heaven. Elsewhere, Agamemnon is 'like baleful Ares'; others have
their heavenly models; Priam's son (a Phrygian, mark) is 'of form
divine,' the son of Peleus is again and again 'a match for Gods. '
But let us come back to the feminine instances You remember, of
course,

--a match
For Artemis or golden Aphrodite;

and

Like Artemis adown the mountain slope.

But he does not even limit himself to comparing the whole man to a
God; Euphorbus's mere hair is called like the Graces--when it is
dabbled with blood, too. In fact the practice is so universal that
no branch of poetry can do without its ornaments from Heaven.
Either let all these be blotted, or let me have the same licence.
Moreover, illustration is so irresponsible that Homer allows
himself to convey his compliments to Goddesses by using creatures
inferior to them. Hera is ox-eyed. Another poet colours Aphrodite's
eyes from the violet. As for fingers like the rose, it takes but
little of Homer's society to bring us acquainted with them.

Still, so far we do not get beyond mere looks; a man is only called
_like_ a God.
But think of the wholesale adaptation of their
names, by Dionysiuses, Hephaestions, Zenos, Posidoniuses,
Hermaeuses. Leto, wife of Evagoras, King of Cyprus, even dispensed
with adaptation; but her divine namesake, who could have turned her
into stone like Niobe, took no offence. What need to mention that
the most religious race on earth, the Egyptian, never tires of
divine names? most of those it uses hail from Heaven.

Consequently, there is not the smallest occasion for you to be
nervous about the panegyric. If what I wrote contains anything
offensive to the deity, you are not responsible, unless you
consider we are responsible for all that goes in at our ears; no, I
shall pay the penalty--as soon as the Gods have settled with Homer
and the other poets. Ah, and they have not done so yet with the
best of all philosophers [Footnote: Lucian's 'best of all
philosophers' might be Plato, who is their spokesman in 'The
Fisher' (see Sections 14, 22), or Epicurus, in the light of two
passages in the 'Alexander' (Sections 47, 61) in which he almost
declares himself an Epicurean. The exact words are not found in
Plato, though several similar expressions are quoted; words of
Epicurus appear to be translated in Cicero, _De nat. Deorum_,
Book I, xviii s. f. , hominis esse specie deos confitendum est: we
must admit that the Gods are in the image of man. ], for saying that
man is a likeness of God. But now, though I could say much more,
madam, I must have compassion upon Polystratus's memory, and cease.

_Poly_. I am not so sure I am equal to it, Lycinus, as it is.
You have made it long, and exceeded your time limit. However, I
will do my best. See, I scurry off with my fingers in my ears, that
no alien sound may find its way in to disturb the arrangement; I do
not want to be hissed by my audience.

_Ly_. Well, the responsibility for a correct report lies with
you alone. And having now duly instructed you, I will retire for
the present. But when the verdict is brought into court, I will be
there to learn the result.




TOXARIS: A DIALOGUE OF FRIENDSHIP

_Mnesippus_. _Toxaris_


_Mne_. Now, Toxaris: do you mean to tell me that you people
actually _sacrifice_ to Orestes and Pylades? do you take them
for Gods?

_Tox_. Sacrifice to them? of course we do. It does not follow
that we think they are Gods: they were good men.

_Mne_. And in Scythia 'good men' receive sacrifice just the
same as Gods?

_Tox_. Not only that, but we honour them with feasts and
public gatherings.

_Mne_. But what do you expect from them? They are shades now,
so their goodwill can be no object.

_Tox_. Why, as to that, I think it may be just as well to have
a good understanding even with shades. But that is not all: in
honouring the dead we consider that we are also doing the best we
can for the living. Our idea is that by preserving the memory of
the noblest of mankind, we induce many people to follow their
example.

_Mne_. Ah, there you are right. But what could you find to
admire in Orestes and Pylades, that you should exalt them to
godhead? They were strangers to you: strangers, did I say? they
were enemies! Why, when they were shipwrecked on your coast, and
your ancestors laid hands on them, and took them off to be
sacrificed to Artemis, they assaulted the gaolers, overpowered the
garrison, slew the king, carried off the priestess, laid impious
hands on the Goddess herself, and so took ship, snapping their
fingers at Scythia and her laws. If you honour men for this kind of
thing, there will be plenty of people to follow their example, and
you will have your hands full. You may judge for yourselves, from
ancient precedent, whether it will suit you to have so many
Oresteses and Pyladeses putting into your ports. It seems to me
that it will soon end in your having no religion left at all: God
after God will be expatriated in the same manner, and then I
suppose you will supply their place by deifying their kidnappers,
thus rewarding sacrilege with sacrifice. If this is not your motive
in honouring Orestes and Pylades, I shall be glad to know what
other service they have rendered you, that you should change your
minds about them, and admit them to divine honours. Your ancestors
did their best to offer them up to Artemis: you offer up victims to
them. It seems an absurd inconsistency.

_Tox_. Now, in the first place, the incident you refer to is
very much to their credit. Think of those two entering on that vast
undertaking by themselves: sailing away from their country to the
distant Euxine [Footnote: See _Euxine_ in Notes. ]--that sea
unknown in those days to the Greeks, or known only to the
Argonauts--unmoved by the stories they heard of it, undeterred by
the inhospitable name it then bore, which I suppose referred to the
savage nations that dwelt upon its shores; think of their
courageous bearing after they were captured; how escape alone would
not serve them, but they must avenge their wrong upon the king, and
carry Artemis away over the seas. Are not these admirable deeds,
and shall not the doers be counted as Gods by all who esteem
prowess? However, this is not our motive in giving them divine
honours.

_Mne_. Proceed. What else of godlike and sublime was in their
conduct? Because from the seafaring point of view, there are any
number of merchants whose divinity I will maintain against theirs:
the Phoenicians, in particular, have sailed to every port in Greek
and foreign waters, let alone the Euxine, the Maeotian Lake and the
Bosphorus; year after year they explore every coast, only returning
home at the approach of winter. Hucksters though they be for the
most part, and fishmongers, you must deify them all, to be
consistent.

_Tox_. Now, now, Mnesippus, listen to me, and you shall see
how much more candid we barbarians are in our valuation of good men
than you Greeks. In Argos and Mycenae there is not so much as a
respectable tomb raised to Orestes and Pylades: in Scythia, they
have their temple, which is very appropriately dedicated to the two
friends in common, their sacrifices, and every honour. The fact of
their being foreigners does not prevent us from recognizing their
virtues. We do not inquire into the nationality of noble souls: we
can hear without envy of the illustrious deeds of our enemies; we
do justice to their merits, and count them Scythians in deed if not
in name. What particularly excites our reverent admiration in the
present case is the unparalleled loyalty of the two friends; in
them we have a model from which every man may learn how he must
share good and evil fortune with his friends, if he would enjoy the
esteem of all good Scythians. The sufferings they endured with and
for one another our ancestors recorded on a brazen pillar in the
Oresteum; and they made it law, that the education of their
children should begin with committing to memory all that is
inscribed thereon. More easily shall a child forget his own
father's name than be at fault in the achievements of Orestes and
Pylades. Again, in the temple corridor are pictures by the artists
of old, illustrating the story set forth on the pillar. Orestes is
first shown on shipboard, with his friend at his side. Next, the
ship has gone to pieces on the rocks; Orestes is captured and
bound; already Iphigenia prepares the two victims for sacrifice.
But on the opposite wall we see that Orestes has broken free;
he slays Thoas and many a Scythian; and the last scene shows
them sailing away, with Iphigenia and the Goddess; the Scythians
clutch vainly at the receding vessel; they cling to the rudder,
they strive to clamber on board; at last, utterly baffled,
they swim back to the shore, wounded or terrified. It is at this
point in their conflict with the Scythians that the devotion of the
friends is best illustrated: the painter makes each of them
disregard his own enemies, and ward off his friend's assailants,
seeking to intercept the arrows before they can reach him, and
counting lightly of death, if he can save his friend, and receive in
his own person the wounds that are meant for the other. Such
devotion, such loyal and loving partnership in danger, such true and
steadfast affection, we held to be more than human; it indicated a
spirit not to be found in common men. While the gale is prosperous,
we all take it very much amiss if our friends will not share equally
with us: but let the wind shift ever so little, and we leave them to
weather the storm by themselves. I must tell you that in Scythia no
quality is more highly esteemed than this of friendship; there is
nothing on which a Scythian prides himself so much as on sharing the
toils and dangers of his friend; just as nothing is a greater
reproach among us than treachery to a friend. We honour Orestes and
Pylades, then, because they excelled in the Scythian virtue of
loyalty, which we place above all others; and it is for this that we
have bestowed on them the name of Coraci, which in our language
means spirits of friendship.

_Mne_. Ah, Toxaris, so archery is not the only accomplishment
of the Scythians, I find; they excel in rhetorical as well as in
military skill. You have persuaded me already that you were right in
deifying Orestes and Pylades, though I thought differently just now.
I had no conception, either, what a painter you were. Your
description of the pictures in the Oresteum was most vivid;--that
battle-scene, and the way in which the two intercepted one another's
wounds. Only I should never have thought that the Scythians would
set such a high value on friendship: they are such a wild,
inhospitable race; I should have said they had more to do with anger
and hatred and enmity than with friendship, even for their nearest
relations, judging by what one is told; it is said, for instance,
that they devour their fathers' corpses.

_Tox_. Well, which of the two is the more dutiful and pious in
general, Greek or Scythian, we will not discuss just now: but that
we are more loyal friends than you, and that we treat friendship
more seriously, is easily shown. Now please do not be angry with me,
in the name of all your Gods: but I am going to mention a few points
I have observed during my stay in this country. I can see that you
are all admirably well qualified to talk about friendship: but
when it comes to putting your words into practice, there is a
considerable falling off; it is enough for you to have demonstrated
what an excellent thing friendship is, and somehow or other, at the
critical moment, you make off, and leave your fine words to look
after themselves. Similarly, when your tragedians represent this
subject on the stage, you are loud in your applause; the spectacle
of one friend risking his life for another generally brings tears to
your eyes: but you are quite incapable of rendering any such signal
services yourselves; once let your friends get into difficulties,
and all those tragic reminiscences take wing like so many dreams;
you are then the very image of the silent mask which the actor has
thrown aside: its mouth is open to its fullest extent, but not a
syllable does it utter. It is the other way with us: we are as much
superior to you in the practice of friendship, as we are inferior in
expounding the theory of it.

Now, what do you say to this proposal? let us leave out of the
question all the cases of ancient friendship that either of us
might enumerate (there you would have the advantage of me: you
could produce all the poets on your side, most credible of
witnesses, with their Achilles and Patroclus, their Theseus and
Pirithous, and others, all celebrated in the most charming verses);
and instead let each of us advance a few instances of devotion that
have occurred within his own experience, among our respective
countrymen; these we will relate in detail, and whoever can show
the best friendships is the winner, and announces his country as
victorious. Mighty issues are at stake: I for my part would rather
be worsted in single combat, and lose my right hand, as the
Scythian custom is, than yield to any man on the question of
friendship, above all to a Greek; for am I not a Scythian?

_Mne_. I have got my work cut out for me, if I am to engage an
old soldier like Toxaris, with a whole arsenal of keen words at his
command. Well, I am not such a craven as to decline the challenge,
when my country's honour is at stake. Could those two overcome the
host of Scythians represented in the legend, and in the ancient
pictures you have just described so impressively,--and shall
Greece, her peoples and her cities, be condemned for want of one to
plead her cause? Strange indeed, if that were so; I should deserve
to lose not my hand like you, but my tongue. Well now, is the
number of friendships to be limited, or does wealth of instances
itself constitute one claim to superiority?

_Tox_. Oh no; number counts for nothing, that must be understood.
We have the same number, and it is simply a question whether
yours are better and more pointed than mine; if they are, of
course, the wounds you inflict will be the more deadly, and I
shall be the first to succumb.

_Mne_. Very well. Let us fix the number: I say five each.

_Tox_. Five be it, and you begin. But you must be sworn first:
because the subject naturally lends itself to fictitious treatment;
there is no checking anything. When you have sworn, it would be
impious to doubt your word.

_Mne_. Very well, if you think it necessary. Have you any
preference among our Gods? How would the God of Friendship meet the
case?

_Tox_. Excellently; and when my turn comes, I will employ the
national oath of the Scythians.

_Mne_. Zeus the God of Friendship be my witness, that all I
shall now relate is derived either from my own experience, or from
such careful inquiry as I was able to make of others; and is free
from all imaginative additions of my own. I will begin with, the
friendship of Agathocles and Dinias. The story is well known in
Ionia. This Agathocles was a native of Samos, and lived not many
years ago. Though his conduct showed him to be the best of friends,
he was of no better family and in no better circumstances than the
generality of the Samians. From boyhood he had been the friend of
Dinias, the son of Lyson, an Ephesian. Dinias, it seems, was
enormously wealthy, and as his wealth was newly acquired, it is not
to be wondered at that he had plenty of acquaintances besides
Agathocles; persons who were quite qualified to share his
pleasures, and to be his boon-companions, but who were very far
indeed from being friends. For some time Agathocles--little as he
cared for such a life--played his convivial part with the rest,
Dinias making no distinction between him and the parasites.
Finally, however, he took to finding fault with his friend's
conduct, and gave great offence: his continual allusions to
Dinias's ancestry, and his exhortations to him to husband the
fortune which had cost his father such labour to acquire, seemed to
his friend to be in indifferent taste. He gave up asking Agathocles
to join in his revels, contented himself with the company of his
parasites, and sought to elude his friend's observation. Well, the
misguided youth was presently persuaded by his flatterers that he
had made a conquest of Chariclea, the wife of Demonax, an eminent
Ephesian, holding the highest office in that city. He was kept well
supplied with billets-doux, half-faded flowers, bitten apples, and
all the stock-in-trade of those intriguing dames whose business it
is to fan an artificial passion that vanity has inspired. There is
no more seductive bait to young men who value themselves on their
personal attractions, than the belief that they have made an
impression; they are sure to fall into the trap. Chariclea was a
charming little woman, but sadly wanting in reserve: any one might
enjoy her favours, and on the easiest of terms; the most casual
glance was sure to meet with encouragement; there was never any
fear of a repulse from Chariclea. With more than professional
skill, she could draw on a hesitating lover till his subjugation
was complete: then, when she was sure of him, she had a variety of
devices for inflaming his passion: she could storm, and she could
flatter; and flattery would be succeeded by contempt, or by a
feigned preference for his rival;--in short, her resources were
infinite; she was armed against her lovers at every point. This was
the lady whom Dinias's parasites now associated with them; they
played their subordinate part well, and between them fairly hustled
the boy into a passion for Chariclea. Such a finished mistress of
the art of perdition, who had ruined plenty of victims before, and
acted love-scenes and swallowed fine fortunes without number, was
not likely to let this simple inexperienced youth out of her
clutches: she struck her talons into him on every side, and secured
her quarry so effectually, that she was involved in his
destruction,--to say nothing of the miseries of the hapless victim.
She got to work at once with the billets-doux. Her maid was for
ever coming with news of tears and sleepless nights: 'her poor
mistress was ready to hang herself for love. ' The ingenuous youth
was at length driven to conclude that his attractions were too much
for the ladies of Ephesus; he yielded to the girl's entreaties, and
waited upon her mistress. The rest, of course, was easy. How was he
to resist this pretty woman, with her captivating manners, her
well-timed tears, her parenthetic sighs? Lingering farewells,
joyful welcomes, judicious airs and graces, song and lyre,--all
were brought to bear upon him. Dinias was soon a lost man, over
head and ears in love; and Chariclea prepared to give the finishing
stroke. She informed him that he was about to become a father,
which was enough in itself to inflame the amorous simpleton; and
she discontinued her visits to him; her husband, she said, had
discovered her passion, and was watching her. This was altogether
too much for Dinias: he was inconsolable; wept, sent messages by
his parasites, flung his arms about her statue--a marble one which
he had had made--, shrieked forth her name in loud lamentation, and
finally threw himself down upon the ground and rolled about in a
positive frenzy. Her apples and her flowers drew forth presents
which were on quite another scale of munificence: houses and farms,
servants, exquisite fabrics, and gold to any extent. To make a long
story short, the house of Lyson, which had the reputation of being
the wealthiest in Ionia, was quite cleared out. No sooner was this
the case, than Chariclea abandoned Dinias, and went off in pursuit
of a certain golden youth of Crete, irresistible as he, and not
less gullible. Deserted alike by her and by his parasites (who
followed the chase of the fortunate Cretan), Dinias presented
himself before Agathocles, who had long been aware of his friend's
situation. He swallowed his first feelings of embarrassment, and
made a clean breast of it all: his love, his ruin, his mistress's
disdain, his Cretan rival; and ended by protesting that without
Chariclea he could not live. Agathocles did not think it necessary
to remind Dinias just then how he alone had been excluded from his
friendship, and how parasites had been preferred to him: instead,
he went off and sold his family residence in Samos--the only
property he possessed--and brought him the proceeds, 750 pounds.
Dinias had no sooner received the money, than it became evident
that he had somehow recovered his good looks, in the opinion of
Chariclea: once more the maid-servant and the notes, with
reproaches for his long neglect; once more, too, the throng of
parasites; they saw that there were still pickings to be had.
Dinias arrived at her house, by agreement, at about bedtime, and
was already inside, when Demonax--whether he had an understanding
with his wife in the matter, as some say, or had got his
information independently--sprang out from concealment, gave orders
to his servants to make the door fast and to secure Dinias, and
then drew his sword, breathing fire and flagellation against the
paramour. Dinias, realizing his danger, caught up a heavy bar that
lay near, and dispatched Demonax with a blow on the temple; then,
turning to Chariclea, he dealt blow after blow with the same
weapon, and finally plunged her husband's sword into her body. The
domestics stood by, dumb with amazement and terror; and when at
length they attempted to seize him, he rushed at them with the
sword, put them to flight, and slipped away from the fatal scene.
The rest of that night he and Agathocles spent at the latter's
house, pondering on the deed and its probable consequences. The
news soon spread, and in the morning officers came to arrest
Dinias. He made no attempt to deny the murder, and was conducted
into the presence of the then Prefect of Asia, who sent him up to
the Emperor. He presently returned, under sentence of perpetual
banishment to Gyarus, one of the Cyclades. All this time,
Agathocles had never left his side: with unfaltering devotion, he
accompanied him to Italy, and was the only friend who stood by him
in his trial. And now even in his banishment he would not desert
him, but condemned himself to share the sentence; and when the
necessaries of life failed them, he hired himself out as a diver in
the purple-fishery, and with the proceeds of his industry
supported Dinias and tended him in his sickness till the end. Even
when all was over, he would not return to his own home, but
remained on the island, thinking it shame even in death to desert
his friend. There you have the history of a Greek friendship, and
one of recent date; I think it can scarcely be as much as five
years ago that Agathocles died on Gyarus.

_Tox_. I wish I were at liberty to doubt the truth of your
story: but alas! you speak under oath. Your Agathocles is a truly
Scythian friend; I only hope there are no more of the same kind to
come.

_Mne_. See what you think of the next--Euthydicus of Chalcidice. I
heard his story from Simylus, a shipmaster of Megara, who vowed
that he had been an eyewitness of what he related. He set sail from
Italy about the setting of the Pleiads, bound for Athens, with a
miscellaneous shipload of passengers, among whom were Euthydicus
and his comrade Damon, also of Chalcidice. They were of about the
same age. Euthydicus was a powerful man, in robust health; Damon
was pale and weakly, and looked as if he were just recovering from
a long illness. They had a good voyage as far as Sicily: but they
had no sooner passed through the Straits into the Ionian Sea, than
a tremendous storm overtook them. I need not detain you with
descriptions of mountainous billows and whirlwinds and hail and the
other adjuncts of a storm: suffice it to say, that they were
compelled to take in all sail, and trail cables after them to break
the force of the waves, and in this way made Zacynthus by about
midnight. At this point Damon, being seasick, as was natural in
such a heavy sea, was leaning over the side, when (as I suppose) an
unusually violent lurch of the vessel in his direction, combining
with the rush of water across the deck, hurled him headlong into
the sea. The poor wretch was not even naked, or he might have had a
chance of swimming: it was all he could do to keep himself above
water, and get out a cry for help. Euthydicus was lying in his
berth undressed. He heard the cry, flung himself into the sea, and
succeeded in overtaking the exhausted Damon; and a powerful
moonlight enabled those on deck to see him swimming at his side for
a considerable distance, and supporting him. 'We all felt for
them,' said Simylus, 'and longed to give them some assistance, but
the gale was too much for us: we did, however, throw out a number
of corks and spars on the chance of their getting hold of some of
them, and being carried to shore; and finally we threw over the
gangway, which was of some size. '--Now only think: could any man
give a surer proof of affection, than by throwing himself into a
furious sea like that to share the death of his friend? Picture to
yourself the surging billows, the roar of crashing waters, the
hissing foam, the darkness, the hopeless prospect: look at
Damon,--he is at his last gasp, he barely keeps himself up, he
holds out his hands imploringly to his friend: and lastly look at
Euthydicus, as he leaps into the water, and swims by his side, with
only one thought in his mind,--Damon must not be the first to
perish;--and you will see that Euthydicus too was no bad friend.

_Tox_. I tremble for their fate: were they drowned, or did
some miraculous providence deliver them?

_Mne_. Oh, they were saved all right; and they are in Athens
at this day, both of them, studying philosophy. Simylus's story
closes with the events of the night: Damon has fallen overboard,
Euthydicus has jumped in to his rescue, and the pair are left
swimming about till they are lost in the darkness. Euthydicus
himself tells the rest. It seems that first they came across some
pieces of cork, which helped to support them; and they managed with
much ado to keep afloat, till about dawn they saw the gangway, swam
up to it, clambered on, and were carried to Zacynthus without
further trouble. These, I think, are passable instances of
friendship; and my third is no way inferior to them, as you shall
hear.

Eudamidas of Corinth, though he was himself in very narrow
circumstances, had two friends who were well-to-do, Aretaeus his
fellow townsman, and Charixenus of Sicyon. When Eudamidas died, he
left a will behind him which I dare say would excite most people's
ridicule: but what the generous Toxaris, with his respect for
friendship and his ambition to secure its highest honours for his
country, may think of the matter, is another question. The terms of
the will--but first I should explain that Eudamidas left behind him
an aged mother and a daughter of marriageable years;--the will,
then, was as follows: _To Aretaeus I bequeath my mother, to tend
and to cherish in her old age: and to Charixenus my daughter, to
give in marriage with such dowry as his circumstances will admit
of: and should anything befall either of the legatees, then let his
portion pass to the survivor_. The reading of this will caused
some merriment among the hearers, who knew of Eudamidas's poverty,
but did not know anything of the friendship existing between him
and his heirs. They went off much tickled at the handsome legacy
that Aretaeus and Charixenus (lucky dogs! ) had come in for:
'Eudamidas,' as they expressed it, 'was apparently to have a death-
interest in the property of the legatees. ' However, the latter had
no sooner heard the will read, than they proceeded to execute the
testator's intentions. Charixenus only survived Eudamidas by five
days: but Aretaeus, most generous of heirs, accepted the double
bequest, is supporting the aged mother at this day, and has only
lately given the daughter in marriage, allowing to her and to his
own daughter portions of 500 pounds each, out of his whole property
of 1,250 pounds; the two marriages were arranged to take place on
the same day. What do you think of him, Toxaris? This is something
like friendship, is it not,--to accept such a bequest as this, and
to show such respect for a friend's last wishes? May we pass this
as one of my five?