No More Learning

Now I can fancy a person who hears all this objecting hastily, 'What a
fuss about giving a man a dose of medicine! ' But the fact is, there are
many preliminaries to be gone through; the ground has to be prepared; the
body must first be made susceptible to treatment; the patient's whole
condition has to be studied; he must be purged, reduced, dieted, properly
exercised, enabled to sleep, coaxed into tranquillity. Now other invalids
will submit to all this; but mania robs its victims of self-control; they
are restive and jib; their physicians are in danger, and treatment at a
disadvantage. Constantly, when we are on the very point of success and
full of hope, some slight hitch occurs, and a relapse takes place which
undoes all in a moment, neutralizing our care and tripping up our art.

Now, after my going through all this, after my wrestle with this
formidable disease and my triumph over so elusive an ailment, is it still
your intention to support him in disinheriting me? Shall he interpret the
laws as he will against his benefactor? Will you look on while he makes
war upon nature? I obey nature, gentlemen of the jury, in saving my
father from death, and myself from the loss of him, unjust as he had
been. He on the contrary defers to law (he calls it law) in ruining and
cutting off from his kin the son who has obliged him. He is a cruel
father, I a loving son. I own the authority of nature: he spurns and
flings it from him. How misplaced is this paternal hate! How worse
misplaced this filial love! For I must reproach myself--my father will
have it so. And the reproach? That where I should hate (for I am hated),
I love, and where I should love little, I love much. Yet surely nature
requires of parents that they love their children more than of children
that they love their parents. But he deliberately disregards both the
law, which secures children their family rights during good behaviour,
and nature, which inspires parents with fervent love for their offspring.
Having greater incentives to affection, you might suppose that he would
confer the fruits of it upon me in larger measure, or at the least
reciprocate and emulate my love. Alas, far from it! he returns hate for
love, persecution for devotion, wrong for service, disinheritance for
respect; the laws which guard, he converts into means of assailing, the
rights of children. Ah, my father, how do you force law into your service
in this battle against nature!

The facts, believe me, are not as you would have them. You are a bad
exponent, sir, of good laws. In this matter of affection there is no war
between law and nature; they hunt in couples, they work together for the
remedying of wrongs. When you evil entreat your benefactor, you are
wronging nature; now I ask, do you wrong the laws as well as nature? You
do; it is their intention to be fair and just and give sons their rights;
but you will not allow it; you hound them on again and again upon one
child as though he were many; you keep them ever busy punishing, when
their own desire is peace and goodwill between father and son. I need
hardly add that, as against the innocent, they may be said to have no
existence. But let me tell you, ingratitude also is an offence known to
the law; an action will lie against a person who fails to recompense his
benefactor. If he adds to such failure an attempt to punish, he has
surely reached the uttermost limits of wrong in this sort. And now I
think I have sufficiently established two points: first, my father has
not the right, after once exerting his parental privilege and availing
himself of the law, to disinherit me again; and secondly, it is on
general grounds inadmissible to cast off and expel from his family one
who has rendered service so invaluable.

Let us next proceed to the actual reasons given for the disinheritance;
let us inquire into the nature of the charge. We must first go back for a
moment to the intention of the legislator. We will grant you for the sake
of argument, sir, that it is open to you to disinherit as often as you
please; we will further concede you this right against your benefactor;
but I presume that disinheritance is not to be the beginning and the
ending in itself; you will not resort to it, that is, without sufficient
cause. The legislator's meaning is not that the father can disinherit,
whatever his grievance may be, that nothing is required beyond the wish
and a complaint; in that case, what is the court's function? No,
gentlemen, it is your business to inquire whether the parental anger
rests upon good and sufficient grounds. That is the question which I am
now to put before you; and I will take up the story from the moment when
sanity was restored.

The first-fruits of this was the withdrawal of the disinheritance; I was
preserver, benefactor, everything. So far my conduct is not open to
exception, I take it. Well, and later on what fault has my father to
find? What attention or filial duty did I omit? Did I stay out o' nights,
sir? Do you charge me with untimely drinkings and revellings? Was I
extravagant? Did I get into some disreputable brawl? Did any such
complaint reach you? None whatever. Yet these are just the offences for
which the law contemplates disherison. Ah, but my step-mother fell ill.
Indeed, and do you make that a charge against me? Do you prefer a suit
for ill health? I understand you to say no.

What _is_ the grievance, then? -_That you refuse to treat her at my
bidding, and for such disobedience to your father deserve to be
disinherited_. --Gentlemen, I will explain presently how the nature of
this demand results in a seeming disobedience, but a real inability.
Meanwhile, I simply remark that neither the authority which the law
confers on him, nor the obedience to which I am bound, is indiscriminate.
Among orders, some have no sanction, while the disregard of others
justifies anger and punishment. My father may be ill, and I neglect him;
he may charge me with the management of his house, and I take no notice;
he may tell me to look after his country estate, and I evade the task. In
all these and similar cases, the parental censure will be well deserved.
But other things again are for the sons to decide, as questions of
professional skill or policy--especially if the father's interests are
not touched. If a painter's father says to him, 'Paint this, my boy, and
do not paint that'; or a musician's, 'Strike this note, and not the
other'; or a bronze-founder's, 'Cast so-and-so'; would it be tolerable
that the son should be disinherited for not taking such advice? Of course
not.

But the medical profession should be left still more to their own
discretion than other artists, in proportion to the greater nobility of
their aims and usefulness of their work; this art should have a special
right of choosing its objects; this sacred occupation, taught straight
from Heaven, and pursued by the wisest of men, should be secured against
all compulsion, enslaved to no law, intimidated and penalized by no
court, exposed to no votes or paternal threats or uninstructed passions.
If I had told my father directly and expressly, 'I will not do it, I
refuse the case, though I could treat it, I hold my art at no man's
service but my own and yours, as far as others are concerned I am a
layman'--if I had taken that position, where is the masterful despot who
would have applied force and compelled me to practise against my will?
The appropriate inducements are request and entreaty, not laws and
browbeating and tribunals; the physician is to be persuaded, not
commanded; he is to choose, not be terrorized; he is not to be haled to
his patient, but to come with his consent and at his pleasure.
Governments are wont to give physicians the public recognition of
honours, precedence, immunities and privileges; and shall the art which
has State immunities not be exempt from the _patria fotestas_?

All this I was entitled to say simply as a professional man, even on the
assumption that you had had me taught, and devoted much care and expense
to my training, that this particular case had been within my competence,
and I had yet declined it. But in fact you have to consider also how
utterly unreasonable it is that you should not let me use at my own
discretion my own acquisition. It was not as your son nor under your
authority that I acquired this art; and yet it was for your advantage
that I acquired it--you were the first to profit by it--, though you had
contributed nothing to my training. Will you mention the fees you paid?
How much did the stock of my surgery cost you? Not one penny. I was a
pauper, I knew not where to turn for necessaries, and I owed my
instruction to my teachers' charity. The provision my father made for my
education was sorrow, desolation, distress, estrangement from my friends
and banishment from my family. And do you then claim to have the use of
my skill, the absolute control of what was acquired independently? You
should be content with the previous service rendered to yourself, not
under obligation, but of free will; for even on that occasion nothing
could have been demanded of me on the score of gratitude.

My kindness of the past is not to be my duty of the future; a voluntary
favour is not to be turned into an obligation to take unwelcome orders;
the principle is not to be established that he who once cures a man is
bound to cure any number of others at his bidding ever after. That would
be to appoint the patients we cure our absolute masters; _we_ should
be paying _them_, and the fee would be slavish submission to their
commands. Could anything be more absurd? Because you were ill, and I was
at such pains to restore you, does that make you the owner of my art?

All this I could have said, if the tasks he imposed upon me had been
within my powers, and I had declined to accept all of them, or, on
compulsion, any of them. But I now wish you to look further into their
nature. 'You cured me of madness (says he); my wife is now mad and in the
condition I was in (that of course is his idea); she has been given up as
I was by the other doctors, but you have shown that nothing is too hard
for you; very well, then, cure her too, and make an end of her illness. '
Now, put like that, it sounds very reasonable, especially in the ears of
a layman innocent of medical knowledge. But if you will listen to what I
have to say for my art, you will find that there _are_ things too
hard for us, that all ailments are not alike, that the same treatment and
the same drugs will not always answer; and then you will understand what
a difference there is between refusing and being unable. Pray bear with
me while I generalize a little, without condemning my disquisition as
pedantic, irrelevant, or ill-timed.

To begin with, human bodies differ in nature and temperament; compounded
as they admittedly are of the same elements, they are yet compounded in
different proportions. I am not referring at present to sexual
differences; the _male_ body is not the same or alike in different
individuals; it differs in temperament and constitution; and from this it
results that in different men diseases also differ both in character and
in intensity; one man's body has recuperative power and is susceptible to
treatment; another's is utterly crazy, open to every infection, and
without vigour to resist disease. To suppose, then, that all fever, all
consumption, lung-disease, or mania, being generically the same, will
affect every subject in the same way, is what no sensible, thoughtful, or
well-informed person would do; the same disease is easily curable in one
man, and not in another. Why, sow the same wheat in various soils, and
the results will vary. Let the soil be level, deep, well watered, well
sunned, well aired, well ploughed, and the crop will be rich, fat,
plentiful. Elevated stony ground will make a difference, no sun another
difference, foothills another, and so on. Just so with disease; its soil
makes it thrive and spread, or starves it. Now all this quite escapes my
father; he makes no inquiries of this sort, but assumes that all mania in
every body is the same, and to be treated accordingly.

Besides such differences between males, it is obvious that the female
body differs widely from the male both in the diseases it is subject to
and in its capacity or non-capacity of recovery. The bracing effect of
toil, exercise, and open air gives firmness and tone to the male; the
female is soft and unstrung from its sheltered existence, and pale with
anaemia, deficient caloric and excess of moisture. It is consequently, as
compared with the male, open to infection, exposed to disease, unequal to
vigorous treatment, and, in particular, liable to mania. With their
emotional, mobile, excitable tendencies on the one hand, and their
defective bodily strength on the other, women fall an easy prey to this
affliction.

It is quite unfair, then, to expect the physician to cure both sexes
indifferently; we must recognize how far apart they are, their whole
lives, pursuits, and habits, having been distinct from infancy. Do not
talk of a mad person, then, but specify the sex; do not confound
distinctions and force all cases under the supposed identical title of
madness; keep separate what nature separates, and then examine the
respective possibilities. I began this exposition with stating that the
first thing we doctors look to is the nature and temperament of our
patient's body: which of the humours predominates in it; is it full-
blooded or the reverse; at, or past, its prime; big or little; fat or
lean? When a man has satisfied himself upon these and other such points,
his opinion, favourable or adverse, upon the prospects of recovery may be
implicitly relied upon.

It must be remembered too that madness itself has a thousand forms,
numberless causes, and even some distinct names. Delusion, infatuation,
frenzy, lunacy--these are not the same; they all express different
degrees of the affection. Again, the causes are not only different in men
and women, but, in men, they are different for the old and for the young;
for instance, in young men some redundant humour is the usual cause;
whereas with the old a shrewdly timed slander, or very likely a fancied
domestic slight, will get hold of them, first cloud their understanding,
and finally drive them distracted. As for women, all sorts of things
effect a lodgement and make easy prey of them, especially bitter dislike,
envy of a prosperous rival, pain or anger. These feelings smoulder on,
gaining strength with time, till at last they burst out in madness.

Such, sir, has been your wife's case, perhaps with the addition of some
recent trouble; for she used to have no strong dislikes, yet she is now
in the grasp of the malady--and that beyond hope of medical relief. For
if any physician undertakes and cures the case, you have my permission to
hate me for the wrong I have done you. Yet I must go so far as to say
that, even had the case not been so desperate--had there been a glimmer
of hope--even then I should not have lightly intervened, nor been very
ready to administer drugs; I should have been afraid of what might
happen, and of the sort of stories that might get about. You know the
universal belief that every step-mother, whatever her general merits,
hates her step-sons; it is supposed to be a feminine mania from which
none of them is exempt. If the disease had taken a wrong turn, and the
medicine failed of its effect, there would very likely have been
suspicions of intentional malpractice.

Your wife's condition, sir--and I describe it to you after close
observation--, is this: she will never mend, though she take ten thousand
doses of medicine. It is therefore undesirable to make the experiment,
unless your object is merely to compel me to fail and cover me with
disgrace. Pray do not enable my professional brethren to triumph over me;
their jealousy is enough. If you disinherit me again, I shall be left
desolate, but I shall pray for no evil upon your head. But suppose--
though God forbid! --suppose your malady should return; relapses are
common enough in such cases, under irritation; what is my course then to
be? Doubt not, I shall restore you once more; I shall not desert the post
which nature assigns to children; I for my part shall not forget my
descent. And then if you recover, must I look for another restitution?
You understand me? your present proceedings are calculated to awake your
disease and stir it to renewed malignancy. It is but the other day that
you emerged from your sad condition, and you are vehement and loud--worst
of all, you are full of anger, indulging your hatred and appealing once
more to the law. Alas, father, even such was the prelude to your first
madness.




PHALARIS, I


We are sent to you, Priests of Delphi, by Phalaris our master, with
instructions to present this bull to the God, and to speak the necessary
words on behalf of the offering and its donor. Such being our errand, it
remains for us to deliver his message, which is as follows:

'It is my desire above all things, men of Delphi, to appear to the Greeks
as I really am, and not in that character in which Envy and Malice,
availing themselves of the ignorance of their hearers, have represented
me: and if to the Greeks in general, then most of all to you, who are
holy men, associates of the God, sharers (I had almost said) of his
hearth and home. If I can clear myself before you, if I can convince you
that I am not the cruel tyrant I am supposed to be, then I may consider
myself cleared in the eyes of all the world. For the truth of my
statements, I appeal to the testimony of the God himself. Methinks
_he_ is not likely to be deceived by lying words. It may be an easy
matter to mislead men: but to escape the penetration of a God--and that
God Apollo--is impossible.

'I was a man of no mean family; in birth, in breeding, in education, the
equal of any man in Agrigentum. In my political conduct I was ever
public-spirited, in my private life mild and unassuming; no unseemly act,
no deed of violence, oppression, or headstrong insolence was ever laid to
my charge in those early days. But our city at that time was divided into
factions: I saw myself exposed to the plots of my political opponents,
who sought to destroy me by every means: if I would live in security, if
I would preserve the city from destruction, there was but one course open
to me--to seize upon the government, and thereby baffle my opponents, put
an end to their machinations, and bring my countrymen to their senses.
There were not a few who approved my design: patriots and men of cool
judgement, they understood my sentiments, and saw that I had no
alternative. With their help, I succeeded without difficulty in my
enterprise.

'From that moment, the disturbances ceased. My opponents, became my
subjects, I their ruler; and the city was freed from dissension. From
executions and banishments and confiscations I abstained, even in the
case of those who had plotted against my life. Such strong measures are
indeed never more necessary than at the commencement of a new rule: but I
was sanguine; I proposed to treat them as my equals, and to win their
allegiance by clemency, mildness, and humanity. My first act was to
reconcile myself with my enemies, most of whom I invited to my table and
took into my confidence.

'I found the city in a ruinous condition, owing to the neglect of the
magistrates, who had commonly been guilty of embezzlement, if not of
wholesale plunder. I repaired the evil by means of aqueducts, beautified
the city with noble buildings, and surrounded it with walls. The public
revenues were easily increased by proper attention on the part of the
fiscal authorities. I provided for the education of the young and the
maintenance of the old; and for the general public I had games and
spectacles, banquets and doles. As for rape and seduction, tyrannical
violence or intimidation, I abhorred the very name of such things.

'I now began to think of laying down my power; and how to do so with
safety was my only concern. The cares of government and public business
had begun to weigh upon me; I found my position as burdensome as it was
invidious. But it was still a question, how to render the city
independent of such assistance for the future. And whilst I--honest man!
--was busied with such thoughts, my enemies were even then combining
against me, and debating the ways and means of rebellion; conspiracies
were forming, arms and money were being collected, neighbour states were
invited to assist, embassies were on their way to Sparta and Athens. The
torments that were in store for me, had I fallen into their hands, I
afterwards learnt from their public confession under torture, from which
it appeared that they had vowed to tear me limb from limb with their own
hands. For my escape from such a fate, I have to thank the Gods, who
unmasked the conspiracy; and, in particular, the God of Delphi, who sent
dreams to warn me, and dispatched messengers with detailed information.

'And now, men of Delphi, I would ask your advice. Imagine yourselves to-
day in the perilous situation in which I then stood; and tell me what was
my proper course. I had almost fallen unawares into the hands of my
enemies, and was casting about for means of safety. Leave Delphi for a
while, and transport yourselves in spirit to Agrigentum: behold the
preparations of my enemies: listen to their threats; and say, what is
your counsel? Shall I sit quietly on the brink of destruction, exercising
clemency and long-suffering as heretofore? bare my throat to the sword?
see my nearest and dearest slaughtered before my eyes? What would this be
but sheer imbecility? Shall I not rather bear myself like a man of
spirit, give the rein to my rational indignation, avenge my injuries upon
the conspirators, and use my present power with a view to my future
security? This, I know, would have been your advice.

'Now observe my procedure. I sent for the guilty persons, heard their
defence, produced my evidence, established every point beyond a doubt;
and when they themselves admitted the truth of the accusation, I punished
them; for I took it ill, not that they had plotted against my life, but
that on their account I was compelled to abandon my original policy. From
that day to this, I have consulted my own safety by punishing conspiracy
as often as it has shown itself.

'And men call me cruel! They do not stop to ask who was the aggressor;
they condemn what they think the cruelty of my vengeance, but pass
lightly over the provocation, and the nature of the crime. It is as if a
man were to see a temple-robber hurled from the rock at Delphi, and,
without reflecting how the transgressor had stolen into your temple by
night, torn down the votive-offerings, and laid hands upon the graven
image of the God, were to exclaim against the inhumanity of persons who,
calling themselves Greeks and holy men, could yet find it in them to
inflict this awful punishment upon their fellow Greek, and that within
sight of the holy place;--for the rock, as I am told, is not far from the
city. Surely you would laugh to scorn such an accusation as this; and
your _cruel_ treatment of the impious would be universally applauded.

'But so it is: the public does not inquire into the character of a ruler,
into the justice or injustice of his conduct; the mere name of tyranny
ensures men's hatred; the tyrant might be an Aeacus, a Minos, a
Rhadamanthus,--they would be none the less eager for his destruction;
their thoughts ever run on those tyrants who have been bad rulers, and
the good, because they bear the same name, are held in the like
detestation. I have heard that many of your tyrants in Greece have been
wise men, who, labouring under that opprobrious title, have yet given
proofs of benevolence and humanity, and whose pithy maxims are even now
stored up in your temple among the treasures of the God.

'Observe, moreover, the prominence given to punishment by all
constitutional legislators; they know that when the fear of punishment is
wanting, nothing else is of avail. And this is doubly so with us who are
tyrants; whose power is based upon compulsion; who live in the midst of
enmity and treachery. The bugbear terrors of the law would never serve
our turn. Rebellion is a many-headed Hydra: we cut off one guilty head,
two others grow in its place. Yet we must harden our hearts, smite them
off as they grow, and--like lolaus--sear the wounds; thus only shall we
hold our own. The man who has once become involved in such a strife as
this must play the part that he has undertaken; to show mercy would be
fatal. Do you suppose that any man was ever so brutal, so inhuman, as to
rejoice in torture and groans and bloodshed for their own sake, when
there was no occasion for punishment? Many is the time that I have wept
while others suffered beneath the lash, and groaned in spirit over the
hard fate that subjected me to a torment more fierce and more abiding
than theirs. For to the man who is benevolent by nature, and harsh only
by compulsion, it is more painful to inflict punishment than it would be
to undergo it.

'Now I will speak my mind frankly. If I had to choose between punishing
innocent men, and facing death myself, believe me, I should have no
hesitation in accepting the latter alternative. But if I am asked,
whether I had rather die an undeserved death than give their deserts to
those who plotted against my life, I answer no; and once more, Delphians,
I appeal to you: which is better--to die when I deserve not death, or to
spare my enemies who deserve not mercy? [Footnote: Apparently the speaker
intended to repeat the last pair of alternatives in different words:
instead of which, he gives us one of those alternatives twice over.
Lucian's tautologic genius fails him for once. ] No man surely can be such
a fool that he would not rather live than preserve his enemies by his
death. Yet in spite of this how many have I spared who were palpably
convicted of conspiring against me; such were Acanthus, Timocrates, and
his brother Leogoras, all of whom I saved out of regard for our former
intercourse.

'If you would learn more of me, apply to any of the strangers who have
visited Agrigentum; and see what account they give of the treatment they
received, and of my hospitality to all who land on my coasts. My
messengers are waiting for them in every port, to inquire after their
names and cities, that they may not go away without receiving due honour
at my hands. Some--the wisest of the Greeks--have come expressly to visit
me, so far are they from avoiding intercourse with me. It was but lately
that I received a visit from the sage Pythagoras. The account that he had
heard of me was belied by his experience; and on taking his departure he
expressed admiration of my justice, and deplored the circumstances which
made severity a duty. Now is it likely that one who is so benevolent to
strangers should deal unjustly with his fellow citizens? is it not to be
supposed that the provocation has been unusually great?

'So much then in defence of my own conduct; I have spoken the words of
truth and justice, and would persuade myself that I have merited your
approbation rather than your resentment. And now I must explain to you
the origin of my present offering, and the manner in which it came into
my hands. For it was by no instructions of mine that the statuary made
this bull: far be it from me to aspire to the possession of such works of
art! A countryman of my own, one Perilaus, an admirable artist, but a man
of evil disposition, had so far mistaken my character as to think that he
could win my regard by the invention of a new form of torture; the love
of torture, he thought, was my ruling passion. He it was who made the
bull and brought it to me. I no sooner set eyes on this beautiful and
exquisite piece of workmanship, which lacked only movement and sound to
complete the illusion, than I exclaimed: "Here is an offering fit for the
God of Delphi: to him I must send it.
" "And what will you say," rejoined
Perilaus, who stood by, "when you see the ingenious mechanism within it,
and learn the purpose it is designed to serve? " He opened the back of the
animal, and continued: "When you are minded to punish any one, shut him
up in this receptacle, apply these pipes to the nostrils of the bull, and
order a fire to be kindled beneath. The occupant will shriek and roar in
unremitting agony; and his cries will come to you through the pipes as
the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings. Your victim
will be punished, and you will enjoy the music. "

'His words revolted me. I loathed the thought of such ingenious cruelty,
and resolved to punish the artificer in kind. "If this is anything more
than an empty boast, Perilaus," I said to him, "if your art can really
produce this effect, get inside yourself, and pretend to roar; and we
will see whether the pipes will make such music as you describe. " He
consented; and when he was inside I closed the aperture, and ordered a
fire to be kindled. "Receive," I cried, "the due reward of your wondrous
art: let the music-master be the first to play. " Thus did his ingenuity
meet with its deserts. But lest the offering should be polluted by his
death, I caused him to be removed while he was yet alive, and his body to
be flung dishonoured from the cliffs. The bull, after due purification, I
sent as an offering to your God, with an inscription upon it, setting
forth all the circumstances; the names of the donor and of the artist,
the evil design of the latter, and the righteous sentence which condemned
him to illustrate by his own agonized shrieks the efficacy of his musical
device.

'And now, men of Delphi, you will be doing me no more than justice, if
you join my ambassadors in making sacrifice on my behalf, and set up the
bull in a conspicuous part of the temple; that all men may know what is
my attitude towards evil-doers, and in what manner I chastise their
inordinate craving after wickedness. Herein is a sufficient indication of
my character: Perilaus punished, the bull consecrated, not reserved for
the bellowings of other victims. The first and last melody that issued
from those pipes was wrung from their artificer; that one experiment
made, the harsh, inhuman notes are silenced for ever. So much for the
present offering, which will be followed by many others, so soon as the
God vouchsafes me a respite from my work of chastisement. '

Such was the message of Phalaris; and his statement is in strict
accordance with the facts. You may safely accept our testimony, as we are
acquainted with the circumstances, and can have no object in deceiving
you on the present occasion. Must entreaty be added? Then on behalf of
one whose character has been misrepresented, and whose severities were
forced upon him against his will, we implore you,--we who are
Agrigentines, Greeks like yourselves and of Dorian origin--to accept his
offer of friendship, and not to thwart his benevolent intentions towards
your community and the individuals of which it is composed. Take the bull
into your keeping; consecrate it; and offer up your prayers on behalf of
Agrigentum and of Phalaris. Suffer us not to have come hither in vain:
repulse not our master with scorn: nor deprive the God of an offering
whose intrinsic beauty is only equalled by its righteous associations.




PHALARIS, II


Men of Delphi: I stand in no public relation to the city of Agrigentum,
in no private relation to its ruler; I am bound to him neither by
gratitude for past favours, nor by the prospect of future friendship: but
I have heard the just and temperate plea advanced by his emissaries, and
I rise to advocate the claims of religion, the interests of our
community, the duties of the priesthood; I charge you, thwart not the
pious intention of a mighty prince, nor deprive the God of an offering
which in the intention of the donor is already his, and which is destined
to serve as an eternal threefold record,--of the sculptor's art, of
inventive cruelty, and of righteous retribution. To me it seems that only
to have raised this question, only to have halted between acceptance and
rejection, is in itself an offence against Heaven; nay, a glaring
impiety. For what is this but a sacrilege more heinous than that of the
temple-robber, who does but plunder those sacred things to which you
would even deny consecration? I implore you,--your fellow priest, your
partner in good report (if so it may be), or in evil (should that now
befall us), implores you: close not the temple-doors upon the devout
worshipper; suffer us not to be known to the world as men who examine
jealously into the offerings that are brought, and subject the donor to
the narrow scrutiny of a court, and to the hazard of a vote. For who
would not be deterred at the thought that the God accepts no offering
without the previous sanction of his priests?

Already Apollo has declared his true opinion. Had he hated Phalaris, or
scorned his gift, it had been easy for him to sink the gift and the ship
that bore it in mid-ocean; instead, we learn that he vouchsafed them a
calm passage and a safe arrival at Cirrha. Clearly the monarch's piety is
acceptable in his sight. It behoves you to confirm his decision, and to
add this bull to the glories of the temple. Strange indeed, if the sender
of so magnificent a gift is to meet with rejection at the temple-door,
and his piety to be rewarded with the judgement that his offering is
unclean.

My opponent tells a harrowing tale of butchery and violence, of plunder
and abduction; it is much that he does not call himself an eyewitness
thereof; we might suppose that he was but newly arrived from Agrigentum,
did we not know that his travels have never carried him on board ship. In
matters of this kind, it is not advisable to place much reliance even on
the assertions of the supposed victims; there is no knowing how far they
are speaking the truth;--as to bringing allegations ourselves, when we
know nothing of the facts, that is out of the question. Granting even
that something of the kind _did_ happen, it happened in Sicily: we
are at Delphi; we are not called upon to interfere. Do we propose to
abandon the temple for the law-court? Are we, whose office it is to
sacrifice, and minister to the God, and receive his offerings,--are we to
sit here debating whether certain cities on the other side of the Ionian
sea are well or ill governed? Let other men's affairs be as they may, it
is our business, as I take it, to know our own: our past history, our
present situation, our best interests. We need not wait for Homer to
inform us that we inhabit a land of crags, and are tillers of a rocky
soil; our eyes tell us that; if we depended on our soil, we must go
hungry all our days. Apollo; his temple; his oracle; his worshippers; his
sacrifices;--these are the fields of the Delphians, these their revenues,
their wealth, their maintenance. I can speak the truth here. It is as the
poets say: we sow not, we plough not, yet all things grow for our use;
for a God is our husbandman, and gives us not the good things of Greece
only; all that Phrygia, all that Lydia, all that Persia, Assyria,
Phoenicia, Italy, and the far North can yield,--all comes to Delphi. We
live in prosperity and plenty; in the esteem of mankind we are second to
none but the God himself. So it was in the beginning: so it is now: and
so may it ever be!

But who has ever heard before of our putting an offering to the vote, or
hindering men from paying sacrifice? No one; and herein, as I maintain,
is the secret of our temple's greatness, and of the abundant wealth of
its offerings. Then let us have no innovations now, no new-fangled
institutions, no inquiries into the origin and nature and nationality and
pedigree of a gift; let us take what is brought to us, and set it in the
store-chamber without more ado. In this way we shall best serve both the
God and his worshippers. I think it would be well if, before you
deliberate further on the question before you, you would consider how
great and how various are the issues involved. There is the God, his
temple, his sacrifices and offerings, the ancient customs and ordinances,
the reputation of the oracle; again, our city as a whole, our common
interests, and those of every individual Delphian among us; lastly--and I
know not what consideration could seem of more vital importance to a
well-judging mind--, our own credit or discredit with the world at large.

I say, then, we have to deal not with Phalaris, not with a single tyrant,
not with this bull, not with so much weight of bronze,--but with every
king and prince who frequents our temple at this day; with gold and
silver and all the precious offerings that should pour in upon the God;
that God whose interests claim our first attention. Say, why should we
change the old-established usage in regard to offerings? What fault have
we to find with the ancient custom, that we should propose innovations?
Never yet, from the day when Delphi was first inhabited, and Apollo
prophesied, and the tripod gave utterance, and the priestess was
inspired, never yet have the bringers of gifts been subjected to
scrutiny. And shall they now? Consider how the ancient custom, which
granted free access to all men, has filled the temple with treasures; how
all men have brought their offerings, and how some have impoverished
themselves to enrich the God. My mind misgives me that, when you have
assumed the censorship of offerings, you will lack employment: men may
refuse to submit themselves to your court; they may think it is enough to
spend their money, without having to undergo the risk of a rejection for
their pains. Would life be worth living, to the man who should be judged
unworthy to offer sacrifice?




ALEXANDER THE ORACLE-MONGER


You, my dear Celsus, possibly suppose yourself to be laying upon me quite
a trifling task: _Write me down in a book and send me the life and
adventures, the tricks and frauds, of the impostor Alexander of
Abonutichus_. In fact, however, it would take as long to do this in
full detail as to reduce to writing the achievements of Alexander of
Macedon; the one is among villains what the other is among heroes.
Nevertheless, if you will promise to read with indulgence, and fill up
the gaps in my tale from your imagination, I will essay the task. I may
not cleanse that Augean stable completely, but I will do my best, and
fetch you out a few loads as samples of the unspeakable filth that three
thousand oxen could produce in many years.

I confess to being a little ashamed both on your account and my own.
There are you asking that the memory of an arch-scoundrel should be
perpetuated in writing; here am I going seriously into an investigation
of this sort--the doings of a person whose deserts entitled him not to be
read about by the cultivated, but to be torn to pieces in the
amphitheatre by apes or foxes, with a vast audience looking on. Well,
well, if any one does cast reflections of that sort upon us, we shall at
least have a precedent to plead. Arrian himself, disciple of Epictetus,
distinguished Roman, and product of lifelong culture as he was, had just
our experience, and shall make our defence. He condescended, that is, to
put on record the life of the robber Tilliborus. The robber we propose to
immortalize was of a far more pestilent kind, following his profession
not in the forests and mountains, but in cities; _he_ was not content to
overrun a Mysia or an Ida; _his_ booty came not from a few scantily
populated districts of Asia; one may say that the scene of his
depredations was the whole Roman Empire.

I will begin with a picture of the man himself, as lifelike (though I am
not great at description) as I can make it with nothing better than
words. In person--not to forget that part of him--he was a fine handsome
man with a real touch of divinity about him, white-skinned, moderately
bearded; he wore besides his own hair artificial additions which matched
it so cunningly that they were not generally detected. His eyes were
piercing, and suggested inspiration, his voice at once sweet and
sonorous. In fact there was no fault to be found with him in these
respects.

So much for externals. As for his mind and spirit--well, if all the kind
Gods who avert disaster will grant a prayer, it shall be that they bring
me not within reach of such a one as he; sooner will I face my bitterest
enemies, my country's foes. In understanding, resource, acuteness, he was
far above other men; curiosity, receptiveness, memory, scientific
ability--all these were his in overflowing measure. But he used them for
the worst purposes. Endowed with all these instruments of good, he very
soon reached a proud pre-eminence among all who have been famous for
evil; the Cercopes, Eurybatus, Phrynondas, Aristodemus, Sostratus--all
thrown into the shade. In a letter to his father-in-law Rutilianus, which
puts his own pretensions in a truly modest light, he compares himself to
Pythagoras. Well, I should not like to offend the wise, the divine
Pythagoras; but if he had been Alexander's contemporary, I am quite sure
he would have been a mere child to him. Now by all that is admirable, do
not take that for an insult to Pythagoras, nor suppose I would draw a
parallel between their achievements. What I mean is: if any one would
make a collection of all the vilest and most damaging slanders ever
vented against Pythagoras--things whose truth I would not accept for a
moment--, the sum of them would not come within measurable distance of
Alexander's cleverness. You are to set your imagination to work and
conceive a temperament curiously compounded of falsehood, trickery,
perjury, cunning; it is versatile, audacious, adventurous, yet dogged in
execution; it is plausible enough to inspire confidence; it can assume
the mask of virtue, and seem to eschew what it most desires. I suppose no
one ever left him after a first interview without the impression that
this was the best and kindest of men, ay, and the simplest and most
unsophisticated. Add to all this a certain greatness in his objects; he
never made a small plan; his ideas were always large.

While in the bloom of his youthful beauty, which we may assume to have
been great both from its later remains and from the report of those who
saw it, he traded quite shamelessly upon it. Among his other patrons was
one of the charlatans who deal in magic and mystic incantations; they
will smooth your course of love, confound your enemies, find you
treasure, or secure you an inheritance. This person was struck with the
lad's natural qualifications for apprenticeship to his trade, and finding
him as much attracted by rascality as attractive in appearance, gave him
a regular training as accomplice, satellite, and attendant. His own
ostensible profession was medicine, and his knowledge included, like that
of Thoon the Egyptian's wife,

Many a virtuous herb, and many a bane;

to all which inheritance our friend succeeded. This teacher and lover of
his was a native of Tyana, an associate of the great Apollonius, and
acquainted with all his heroics. And now you know the atmosphere in which
Alexander lived.

By the time his beard had come, the Tyanean was dead, and he found
himself in straits; for the personal attractions which might once have
been a resource were diminished. He now formed great designs, which he
imparted to a Byzantine chronicler of the strolling competitive order, a
man of still worse character than himself, called, I believe, Cocconas.
The pair went about living on occult pretensions, shearing 'fat-heads,'
as they describe ordinary people in the native Magian lingo. Among these
they got hold of a rich Macedonian woman; her youth was past, but not her
desire for admiration; they got sufficient supplies out of her, and
accompanied her from Bithynia to Macedonia. She came from Pella, which
had been a flourishing place under the Macedonian kingdom, but has now a
poor and much reduced population.

There is here a breed of large serpents, so tame and gentle that women
make pets of them, children take them to bed, they will let you tread on
them, have no objection to being squeezed, and will draw milk from the
breast like infants. To these facts is probably to be referred the common
story about Olympias when she was with child of Alexander; it was
doubtless one of these that was her bed-fellow. Well, the two saw these
creatures, and bought the finest they could get for a few pence.

And from this point, as Thucydides might say, the war takes its
beginning. These ambitious scoundrels were quite devoid of scruples, and
they had now joined forces; it could not escape their penetration that
human life is under the absolute dominion of two mighty principles, fear
and hope, and that any one who can make these serve his ends may be sure
of a rapid fortune. They realized that, whether a man is most swayed by
the one or by the other, what he must most depend upon and desire is a
knowledge of futurity. So were to be explained the ancient wealth and
fame of Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae; it was at the bidding of the
two tyrants aforesaid that men thronged the temples, longed for fore-
knowledge, and to attain it sacrificed their hecatombs or dedicated their
golden ingots. All this they turned over and debated, and it issued in
the resolve to establish an oracle. If it were successful, they looked
for immediate wealth and prosperity; the result surpassed their most
sanguine expectations.

The next things to be settled were, first the theatre of operations, and
secondly the plan of campaign. Cocconas favoured Chalcedon, as a
mercantile centre convenient both for Thrace and Bithynia, and accessible
enough for the province of Asia, Galatia, and tribes still further east.
Alexander, on the other hand, preferred his native place, urging very
truly that an enterprise like theirs required congenial soil to give it a
start, in the shape of 'fat-heads' and simpletons; that was a fair
description, he said, of the Paphlagonians beyond Abonutichus; they were
mostly superstitious and well-to-do; one had only to go there with some
one to play the flute, the tambourine, or the cymbals, set the proverbial
mantic sieve [Footnote: I have no information on Coscinomancy or sieve-
divination. 'This kind of divination was generally practised to discover
thieves . . . They tied a thread to the sieve, by which it was upheld, then
prayed to the Gods to direct and assist them. After which they repeated
the names of the person suspected, and he at whose name the sieve whirled
round or moved was thought to have committed the fact' _Francklin's
Lucian. _] a-spinning, and there they would all be gaping as if he were
a God from heaven.

This difference of opinion did not last long, and Alexander prevailed.
Discovering, however, that a use might after all be made of Chalcedon,
they went there first, and in the temple of Apollo, the oldest in the
place, they buried some brazen tablets, on which was the statement that
very shortly Asclepius, with his father Apollo, would pay a visit to
Pontus, and take up his abode at Abonutichus. The discovery of the
tablets took place as arranged, and the news flew through Bithynia and
Pontus, first of all, naturally, to Abonutichus. The people of that place
at once resolved to raise a temple, and lost no time in digging the
foundations. Cocconas was now left at Chalcedon, engaged in composing
certain ambiguous crabbed oracles. He shortly afterwards died, I believe,
of a viper's bite.

Alexander meanwhile went on in advance; he had now grown his hair and
wore it in long curls; his doublet was white and purple striped, his
cloak pure white; he carried a scimetar in imitation of Perseus, from
whom he now claimed descent through his mother. The wretched
Paphlagonians, who knew perfectly well that his parentage was obscure and
mean on both sides, nevertheless gave credence to the oracle, which ran:

Lo, sprung from Perseus, and to Phoebus dear,
High Alexander, Podalirius' son!

Podalirius, it seems, was of so highly amorous a complexion that the
distance between Tricca and Paphlagonia was no bar to his union with
Alexander's mother. A Sibylline prophecy had also been found:

Hard by Sinope on the Euxine shore
Th' Italic age a fortress prophet sees.
To the first monad let thrice ten be added,
Five monads yet, and then a triple score:
Such the quaternion of th' alexic name.

[Footnote: In 1. 2 of the oracle, the Italic age is the Roman Empire; the
fortress prophet is one who belongs to a place ending in--tichus (fort).
11>> 3-5 mean: Take 1, 30, 5, 60 (the Greek symbols for which are the
letters of the alphabet A, L, E, X), and you will have four letters of
the name of your coming protector (alexic). ]

This heroic entry into his long-left home placed Alexander conspicuously
before the public; he affected madness, and frequently foamed at the
mouth--a manifestation easily produced by chewing the herb soap-wort,
used by dyers; but it brought him reverence and awe. The two had long ago
manufactured and fitted up a serpent's head of linen; they had given it a
more or less human expression, and painted it very like the real article;
by a contrivance of horsehair, the mouth could be opened and shut, and a
forked black serpent tongue protruded, working on the same system. The
serpent from Pella was also kept ready in the house, to be produced at
the right moment and take its part in the drama--the leading part,
indeed.

In the fullness of time, his plan took shape. He went one night to the
temple foundations, still in process of digging, and with standing water
in them which had collected from the rainfall or otherwise; here he
deposited a goose egg, into which, after blowing it, he had inserted some
new-born reptile. He made a resting-place deep down in the mud for this,
and departed. Early next morning he rushed into the market-place, naked
except for a gold-spangled loin-cloth; with nothing but this and his
scimetar, and shaking his long loose hair, like the fanatics who collect
money in the name of Cybele, he climbed on to a lofty altar and delivered
a harangue, felicitating the city upon the advent of the God now to bless
them with his presence. In a few minutes nearly the whole population was
on the spot, women, old men, and children included; all was awe, prayer,
and adoration. He uttered some unintelligible sounds, which might have
been Hebrew or Phoenician, but completed his victory over his audience,
who could make nothing of what he said, beyond the constant repetition of
the names Apollo and Asclepius.

He then set off at a run for the future temple. Arrived at the excavation
and the already completed sacred fount, he got down into the water,
chanted in a loud voice hymns to Asclepius and Apollo, and invited the
God to come, a welcome guest, to the city. He next demanded a bowl, and
when this was handed to him, had no difficulty in putting it down at the
right place and scooping up, besides water and mud, the egg in which the
God had been enclosed; the edges of the aperture had been joined with wax
and white lead. He took the egg in his hand and announced that here he
held Asclepius. The people, who had been sufficiently astonished by the
discovery of the egg in the water, were now all eyes for what was to
come. He broke it, and received in his hollowed palm the hardly developed
reptile; the crowd could see it stirring and winding about his fingers;
they raised a shout, hailed the God, blessed the city, and every mouth
was full of prayers--for treasure and wealth and health and all the other
good things that he might give. Our hero now departed homewards, still
running, with the new-born Asclepius in his hands--the twice-born, too,
whereas ordinary men can be born but once, and born moreover not of
Coronis [Footnote: Coronis was the mother of Asclepius; 'corone' is Greek
for a crow. ] nor even of her namesake the crow, but of a goose! After him
streamed the whole people, in all the madness of fanatic hopes.

He now kept the house for some days, in hopes that the Paphlagonians
would soon be drawn in crowds by the news. He was not disappointed; the
city was filled to overflowing with persons who had neither brains nor
individuality, who bore no resemblance to men that live by bread, and had
only their outward shape to distinguish them from sheep. In a small room
he took his seat, very imposingly attired, upon a couch. He took into his
bosom our Asclepius of Pella (a very fine and large one, as I observed),
wound its body round his neck, and let its tail hang down; there was
enough of this not only to fill his lap, but to trail on the ground also;
the patient creature's head he kept hidden in his armpit, showing the
linen head on one side of his beard exactly as if it belonged to the
visible body.

Picture to yourself a little chamber into which no very brilliant light
was admitted, with a crowd of people from all quarters, excited,
carefully worked up, all a-flutter with expectation. As they came in,
they might naturally find a miracle in the development of that little
crawling thing of a few days ago into this great, tame, human-looking
serpent. Then they had to get on at once towards the exit, being pressed
forward by the new arrivals before they could have a good look. An exit
had been specially made just opposite the entrance, for all the world
like the Macedonian device at Babylon when Alexander was ill; he was
_in extremis_, you remember, and the crowd round the palace were
eager to take their last look and give their last greeting. Our
scoundrel's exhibition, though, is said to have been given not once, but
many times, especially for the benefit of any wealthy new-comers.

And at this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make
some allowance for these Paphlagonians and Pontics; the poor uneducated
'fat-heads' might well be taken in when they handled the serpent--a
privilege conceded to all who choose--and saw in that dim light its head
with the mouth that opened and shut. It was an occasion for a Democritus,
nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus, perhaps, a man whose intelligence
was steeled against such assaults by scepticism and insight, one who, if
he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been
perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a
lie and an impossibility.

By degrees Bithynia, Galatia, Thrace, came flocking in, every one who had
been present doubtless reporting that he had beheld the birth of the God,
and had touched him after his marvellous development in size and in
expression. Next came pictures and models, bronze or silver images, and
the God acquired a name. By divine command, metrically expressed, he was
to be known as Glycon. For Alexander had delivered the line:

Glycon my name, man's light, son's son to Zeus.

And now at last the object to which all this had led up, the giving of
oracular answers to all applicants, could be attained. The cue was taken
from Amphilochus in Cilicia. After the death and disappearance at Thebes
of his father Amphiaraus, Amphilochus, driven from his home, made his way
to Cilicia, and there did not at all badly by prophesying to the
Cilicians at the rate of threepence an oracle. After this precedent,
Alexander proclaimed that on a stated day the God would give answers to
all comers. Each person was to write down his wish and the object of his
curiosity, fasten the packet with thread, and seal it with wax, clay, or
other such substance. He would receive these, and enter the holy place
(by this time the temple was complete, and the scene all ready), whither
the givers should be summoned in order by a herald and an acolyte; he
would learn the God's mind upon each, and return the packets with their
seals intact and the answers attached, the God being ready to give a
definite answer to any question that might be put.

The trick here was one which would be seen through easily enough by a
person of your intelligence (or, if I may say so without violating
modesty, of my own), but which to the ordinary imbecile would have the
persuasiveness of what is marvellous and incredible. He contrived various
methods of undoing the seals, read the questions, answered them as seemed
good, and then folded, sealed, and returned them, to the great
astonishment of the recipients. And then it was, 'How could he possibly
know what I gave him carefully secured under a seal that defies
imitation, unless he were a true God, with a God's omniscience? '

Perhaps you will ask what these contrivances were; well, then--the
information may be useful another time. One of them was this. He would
heat a needle, melt with it the under part of the wax, lift the seal off,
and after reading warm the wax once more with the needle--both that below
the thread and that which formed the actual seal--and re-unite the two
without difficulty. Another method employed the substance called
collyrium; this is a preparation of Bruttian pitch, bitumen, pounded
glass, wax, and mastich. He kneaded the whole into collyrium, heated it,
placed it on the seal, previously moistened with his tongue, and so took
a mould. This soon hardened; he simply opened, read, replaced the wax,
and reproduced an excellent imitation of the original seal as from an
engraved stone. One more I will give you. Adding some gypsum to the glue
used in book-binding he produced a sort of wax, which was applied still
wet to the seal, and on being taken off solidified at once and provided a
matrix harder than horn, or even iron. There are plenty of other devices
for the purpose, to rehearse which would seem like airing one's
knowledge. Moreover, in your excellent pamphlets against the magians
(most useful and instructive reading they are) you have yourself
collected enough of them--many more than those I have mentioned.

So oracles and divine utterances were the order of the day, and much
shrewdness he displayed, eking out mechanical ingenuity with obscurity,
his answers to some being crabbed and ambiguous, and to others absolutely
unintelligible. He did however distribute warning and encouragement
according to his lights, and recommend treatments and diets; for he had,
as I originally stated, a wide and serviceable acquaintance with drugs;
he was particularly given to prescribing 'cytmides,' which were a salve
prepared from goat's fat, the name being of his own invention. For the
realization of ambitions, advancement, or successions, he took care never
to assign early dates; the formula was, 'All this shall come to pass when
it is my will, and when my prophet Alexander shall make prayer and
entreaty on your behalf. '

There was a fixed charge of a shilling the oracle. And, my friend, do not
suppose that this would not come to much; he made something like L3,000
_per annum_; people were insatiable--would take from ten to fifteen
oracles at a time. What he got he did not keep to himself, nor put it by
for the future; what with accomplices, attendants, inquiry agents, oracle
writers and keepers, amanuenses, seal-forgers, and interpreters, he had
now a host of claimants to satisfy.

He had begun sending emissaries abroad to make the shrine known in
foreign lands; his prophecies, discovery of runaways, conviction of
thieves and robbers, revelations of hidden treasure, cures of the sick,
restoration of the dead to life--all these were to be advertised. This
brought them running and crowding from all points of the compass; victims
bled, gifts were presented, and the prophet and disciple came off better
than the God; for had not the oracle spoken? --

Give what ye give to my attendant priest;
My care is not for gifts, but for my priest.

A time came when a number of sensible people began to shake off their
intoxication and combine against him, chief among them the numerous
Epicureans; in the cities, the imposture with all its theatrical
accessories began to be seen through. It was now that he resorted to a
measure of intimidation; he proclaimed that Pontus was overrun with
atheists and Christians, who presumed to spread the most scandalous
reports concerning him; he exhorted Pontus, as it valued the God's
favour, to stone these men. Touching Epicurus, he gave the following
response. An inquirer had asked how Epicurus fared in Hades, and was
told:

Of slime is his bed,
And his fetters of lead.

The prosperity of the oracle is perhaps not so wonderful, when one learns
what sensible, intelligent questions were in fashion with its votaries.
Well, it was war to the knife between him and Epicurus, and no wonder.
What fitter enemy for a charlatan who patronized miracles and hated
truth, than the thinker who had grasped the nature of things and was in
solitary possession of that truth? As for the Platonists, Stoics,
Pythagoreans, they were his good friends; he had no quarrel with them.
But the unmitigated Epicurus, as he used to call him, could not but be
hateful to him, treating all such pretensions as absurd and puerile.
Alexander consequently loathed Amastris beyond all the cities of Pontus,
knowing what a number of Lepidus's friends and others like-minded it
contained. He would not give oracles to Amastrians; when he once did, to
a senator's brother, he made himself ridiculous, neither hitting upon a
presentable oracle for himself, nor finding a deputy equal to the
occasion. The man had complained of colic, and what he meant to prescribe
was pig's foot dressed with mallow. The shape it took was:

In basin hallowed
Be pigments mallowed.