No More Learning

(From the " Republic " : translated by Benjamin Jewett. )
Socrates — Is not war an art ? Glaucon — Certainly. . . .
But the mere handling of tools will not make a man a skilled workman. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war all in a day become a good fighter ?
Yes, he said, the tools which would teach their own use would be of rare value.
And the greater the business of the guardian is, I said, the more time and art and skill will be needed by him ?
That is what I should suppose, he replied.
Will he not also require natural gifts ?
Certainly.
We shall have to select natures which are suited to their
task of guarding the city ?
That will be our duty.
And anything but an easy duty, I said ; but still we must
endeavor to do our best as far as we can ?
Wemust. . . .
Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight
well? Certainly.
And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit ? Did you never observe how the presence of spirit makes the soul of any creature absolutely fearless and invincible ?
Then now we have a clear idea of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian ?
True.
And also of the mental ones ; his soul is to be full of spirit? Yes.
But then, Glaucon, those spirited natures are apt to be
furious with one another, and with everybody else ?
There is the difficulty, he replied.
Whereas, I said, they ought to be gentle to their friends,
Yes: I have observed that.
128 EDUCATING A CITIZEN.
and dangerous to their enemies ; or, instead of their enemies destroying them, they will destroy themselves.
True, he said.
What is to be done then, I said ; how shall we find a gen tle nature which has also a great spirit, for they seem to be inconsistent with one another ?
True.
And yet he will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities ; and, as the combination of them appears to be impossible, this is equivalent to saying that to be a good guardian is also impossible.
I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied.
Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had pre ceded. My friend, I said, we deserve to be in a puzzle ; for we have lost sight of the simile with which we started.
What do you mean? he said.
I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities.
Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them ; our friend the dog is a very good one : you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers.
Yes, I know.
Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities.
Certainly not.
And where do you find them ?
Would you not say that he should combine with the spirited nature the qualities of a philosopher ?
I do not apprehend your meaning.
The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in an animal.
What trait?
Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry ; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious ?
I never before thought of it, though I quite recognize the truth of your remark.
And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming ; — your dog is a true philosopher.
Why?
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Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not the creature be fond of learning who determines what is friendly and what is unfriendly by the test of knowl edge and ignorance?
Most assuredly.
And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy ?
They are the same, he replied.
And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge ?
That we may safely affirm.
Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength?
Undoubtedly.
Then we have found the desired natures ; and now that we have found them, How are they to be reared and educated ? is the inquiry which may be fairly expected to throw light on the greater inquiry which is our final end — How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want to be tedious and irrelevant, or to leave out anything which is really to the point.
Adeimantus thought that the inquiry would be of great use to us.
Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long.
Certainly not.
Come, then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.
By all means.
And what shall be their education ? Can we find a better than the old-fashioned sort? — and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body and music for the soul.
True.
Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gym nastic afterwards ?
By all means.
And when you speak of music, do you rank literature under music or not ?
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130
EDUCATING A CITIZEN.
I do.
And literature may be either true or false ?
Yes.
And the young are trained in both kinds, and in the false
before the true ?
I do not understand your meaning, he said.
You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories
which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious ; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics.
Very true.
That was my meaning in saying that we must teach music before gymnastics.
Quite right, he said.
You know also that the beginning is the chiefest part of any work, especially in a young and tender thing ; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and most readily receives the desired impression.
Quite true.
And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be framed by casual persons, and to receive into their minds notions which are the very opposite of those which are to be held by them when they are grown up ?
We cannot.
Then the first thing will be to have a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad ; and we desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with their tales, even more fondly than they form the body with their hands ; and most of those which are now in use must be discarded.
You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said ; for they are necessarily cast in the same mold, and there is the same spirit in both of them.
Of what tales are you speaking ? he said.
That may be very true, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater.
Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story tellers of mankind.
But which stories do you mean, he said ; and what fault do you find with them?
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131
A fault which is most serious, I said ; the fault of telling a lie, and, which is more, a bad lie.
But when is this fault committed ?
Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes, — like the drawing of a limner which has not the shadow of a likeness to the truth.
First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too, — I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did and what Cronus did to him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and sim ple persons ; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necesssity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and in order to reduce the number of hearers they should sacrifice not a common (Eleu- sinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim.
Why, yes, said he, those stories are certainly objectionable.
Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable ; but what are the stories which you mean ?
Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be narrated in our State ; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous ; and that if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in any manner he likes, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods.
I quite agree with you, he said ; in my opinion those stories are not fit to be repeated.
Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarreling as dishonorable, should anything be said of the wars in heaven and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, which are quite untrue. Far be it from us to tell them of the battles of the giants, and embroider them on garments ; or of all the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relations. If they would only believe us we would tell them quarreling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens ; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children, and the same when they grow up. And the poets should be required to compose accordingly. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when
132 EDUCATING A CITIZEN.
she was being beaten, — such tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For the young man cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal ; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is apt to become indelible and unalterable ; and therefore the tales which they first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.
There you are right, he replied ; that is quite essential : but, then, where are such models to be found ? and what are the tales in which they are continued ? when that question is asked, what will be our answer ?
I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, are not poets in what we are about just now, but founders of a State : now, the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which should be observed by them, but actually to make the tales is not their business.
Very true, he said ; but what are those forms of theology which you mean?
Something of this kind, I replied : God is always to be represented as he truly is ; that is one form which is equally to be observed in every kind of verse, whether epic, lyric, or tragic.
Right.
And is he not truly good ? and must he not be represented as such?
Certainly.
And no good thing is hurtful ?
No, indeed.
And that which is not hurtful hurts not ?
Certainly not.
And that which hurts not does no evil ?
No.
And that which does no evil is the cause of no evil ? Impossible.
And the good is the advantageous ?
Yes.
And the good is the cause of well-being ?
Yes.
The good is not the cause of all things, but of the good
only, and not the cause of evil ? Assuredly.
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Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone ; of the evils the cause is to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.
That appears to me to be most true, he said.
Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks
"Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots,"
and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two "Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good; "
but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,
" Him wild hunger drives over the divine earth. "
And again
" Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us. " . . .
And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe, which is the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur, or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war, or any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some ex planation of them such as we are seeking : he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished ; but that those who are punished are miserable and that God is the author of their misery, the poet is not to be permitted to say ; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God ; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one, is to be strenuously denied, and not allowed to be sung or said in any well-ordered com monwealth by old or young. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruin ous, impious.
134 THE TEN ATTIC ORATORS.
THE TEN ATTIC ORATORS.
The great critics of Alexandria placed ten names on their list, or canon, of the Athenian orators best worth remembrance ; which, in the order Plutarch afterward wrote their biographies (essentially though not minutely chronological) were : Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, JSschines, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Hy- perides, Dinarchus. Specimens of the oratory of all are here col lected for the first time, four translated specially for this work, and three of the orators represented in translation for the first time. We have arranged them a little differently to bring the debates on Demosthenes' public career together.
Antiphon, born about b. C. 480, was a pupil of Gorgias, the famous teacher of rhetoric. He was of the oligarchic party. Says Professor Jebb : " Antiphon was the ablest debater and pleader of his day, and in his person the new Rhetoric first appears as a political power at Athens. He took a chief part in organizing the Revolution of the Four Hundred, and when they fell was put to death by the people (b. c. 411). " Thucydides calls him one of the three best (i. e. most useful) men in Athens; which the organized assassinations by the Four Hundred make a strange adjective to our ears. All his extant speeches are on trials for homicide.
Andocides, born about b. c. 467, and also belonging to the oligarchic party, was involved in that great and never fully ex plained scandal, the mutilation of the Herman just before the expe dition to Syracuse (b. c. 415). Thrown into prison, he saved his life by denouncing four others, who were executed; but failed to clear himself, and was banished. He made application for return later on, again to the Four Hundred in 411, still again in 410 to the Assembly after their downfall ; but failed, and was a traveling merchant till 402, when he returned under the general amnesty. He held important official positions thereafter, and died after 390, when, as ambassador to Lacedaemon to treat for peace, he made on his return the speech here excerpted.
Lysias, though born at Athens, (b. c. 459 ? ) had a Syracusan father, spent his early and middle life in southern Italy, and only settled at Athens in 412, when growing old. He was a democrat. In 404 the Thirty Tyrants put his brother to death, and he fled ; the next year, on their expulsion by Thrasybulus, he came back and impeached Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty, and some years later impeached one of their tools. He made other speeches on public affairs ; but as with most of the others, his chief work was legal.
Isocrates, born b. c. 436, was a wealthy and highly educated youth, who lost his fortune in the troubles of the Peloponnesian
THE TEN ATTIC ORATORS. 135
War, wrote law speeches for ten years, and about 392 became a teacher of elocution, continuing such till his death at nearly one hundred, in 338. His school was far the most famous in ancient Greece, drawing scholars from all parts, from Sicily to the Crimea. Cicero says they were the foremost orators and authors of their time. Among them were three of our ten (Isaeus, Lycurgus, and Hyperides), two leading historians (Ephorus and Theopompus), and many others eminent in different departments. In the great rhetori cal contest of b. o.
351, in honor of Mausolus prince of Caria, only his pupils dared enter. His life dream was of saving Greece from destroying itself through internal feuds by uniting it against Asia ; first by reconciling Athens and Sparta, then by some " tyrant " or Spartan king as leader, lastly by Philip of Macedon ; — he died in the year of the battle of Chaeronea.
IsiEUS, born about b. c. 420, probably at the Athenian colony in Chalcis, was a professional writer of law speeches, and has little known life outside his work. He is regarded as a master of logical argument and jury tactics. Of the twelve extant speeches, eleven are on will cases, and the other an appeal from arbitration.
Lycurgus, born about b. c. 396-393, was one of the three chief leaders of the anti-Macedonian party in Athens during the great struggle with Philip — Demosthenes and Hyperides being the others. His department was internal government, finances, city improvement and order, etc. He was financial director of Athens about 341-329, disbursing over $20,000,000 with clean hands, and raising the state income to nearly $1,500,000 a year. He was so much trusted that he was chosen banker for many private persons ; and when Alexander the Great demanded his surrender, the people refused to comply. He died about 323.
JSschines, born b. c. 389, was in some respects the most remark able of all, his unassisted talents raising him from the lowest station to the second place among classic orators. Even if not the son of a courtesan, and at first a low comic actor, as Demosthenes asserted, — which we should count to his honor, — he was certainly very poor and uneducated, was a soldier till about forty, then clerk to the Assembly, and began soon after to display mastery as a public speaker. He took from the first, like Isocrates, the Macedonian side in the bickerings and negotiations with Philip ; was twice envoy to him, and probably disbursing agent for his money in Athens and elsewhere, though Demosthenes failed to convict him of bribery; and in 330, eight years after Chaeronea, attempting to prevent pub lic honors to Demosthenes for patriotism, was himself exiled, and set up a school of elocution in Rhodes. He died in Samos, b. c. 314.
Demosthenes, the greatest orator of antiquity, the son of a rich Athenian manufacturer, was born about b. c. 385. His father dying
136 ANTIPHON.
when the boy was small, his education was neglected; but at seventeen he began to train himself in oratory, in spite of a bad stammer and weak lungs. His oratory was applied partly to law cases, but also to politics, especially to opposing the attempts of Philip of Macedon to form a league against Persia under Macedonian hegemony, which he felt must result first or last, as it did, in destroying Grecian freedom. He failed. The allied Athenian and Boeotian army was defeated at Chaeronea, b. o. 338, and Demosthenes was accused of cowardice, bribery, etc. , by his rival ^Eschines ; but turned the tables by his oration "On the Crown," gaining a golden crown for his political conduct, and sending his rival into exile. After several ups and downs, — being once banished, but recalled with enthusiasm after Alexander's death, — he poisoned himself, b. o. 322, to avoid being delivered up to Antipater.
Hyperides, born probably about b. o. 390, began as a writer of law speeches, and entered public life in a very usual fashion, by prosecuting a general for treason. He was one of Demosthenes' supporters against Philip ; but in the affair of Harpalus's money (see note before extract from Dinarchus) was one of the public prosecu tors of Demosthenes, and on the latter's banishment succeeded to his place as chief popular leader. He incited the Lamian War against Antipater and Craterus; and on the success of Antipater at Crannon, b. o. 322, was put to death.
Dinarchus, born at Corinth about b. o. 361, early settled at Athens as a writer of law speeches, and in 324 wrote three orations against Demosthenes and others for the prosecutors in the Harpalus case. He had been a pupil of Demetrius Phalereus, and on De- metrius's accession to power, became a notable public figure, 317- 306. On his fall Dinarchus withdrew to Chalcis, returning only in 292. He died about 291.
Antiphon.
Arguments in a Case of Accidental Homicide.
(Translated for this work. )
[Two youths were throwing javelins in a school of gymnastics : one was fatally wounded by a throw of the other. The father of the slain pros ecuted the slayer for homicide. It is to be remembered that these speeches were to be spoken by the father. ]
I. THE PLEADING.
Notorious facts, it has been decided under the law and by public decrees, are in the hands of the city executive ; but any case where the facts are disputed is assigned to you, citizen
ANTIPHON. 137
gentlemen, to decide. Now I think there is no dispute on this action of mine ; for my son while in the gymnasium, pierced through the side with a dart by this youth, died instantly. I do not charge that he was slain intentionally, but unintention ally ; but the calamity fell on me none the less when uninten tional than if intentional. And nothing weighs on the dead ; all inflictions are on the living. I ask of you who have been stricken by the loss of children, that in pity for my son's pre mature death, you will interdict the slayer from what the law interdicts him from, and not allow the whole city to be contam inated by him.
[The father of the accidental slayer put in the defense that there was no homicide, as the slain youth was the cause of his own death by running toward the target when the dart was thrown, and so getting in its way. He also as matter of equity asked that his son, innocent of intentional wrong, be not visited with unmerited punishment, and his own old age be commiserated. ]
II. REPLY TO THE DEFENSE.
That necessity forces everybody both to speak and act against nature, it seems to me this party makes clear by deed as well as by word. For before the trial he displayed very little impudence or audacity ; but now he is forced by this event to say what I never expected him to. Most foolishly, I did not expect him to contradict my statement, or I should not by making one speech against his two have robbed myself of half my accusation ; and this man would have defended himself by speech for speech, indeed, but not made unan swerable charges. He has done this many times over in his speech, and now begs you against righteousness to accept his defense. But I have committed no offense at all, only suf fered ills and wrongs, and now worse of the same sort in deed and word ; and I too take refuge in your pity, and beg of you, gentlemen, the punishers of unrighteous deeds, the discrimina
tors of righteous ones, not to be persuaded in a plain matter by tricky quibbles in words, but to give truth, in the mouths of those telling it, the victory over falsehood : for we agree that the latter is more plausible than what is truer, but the former will be uttered more guilelessly and less skillfully.
Confiding in justice, then, I scorn this defense ; yet, dis trusting the cruelty of fate, I fear lest not alone I have lost the service of a son, but also that I shall see him condemned
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by you as a suicide. For this man has reached that point of impudence and audacity, where he denies that the thrower and slayer either wounded or slew; he alleges that the one who neither touched the dart nor undertook to throw it, miss ing the whole earth and all the bodies on it, thrust the dart through his own side. Even if I charged that the killing was intentional, it seems to me it would be more plausible than his story, that the other youth neither threw nor slew. For just then, my son, called by his teacher of gymnastics to pick up the darts for the throwers, coming in the way of that hostile dart through the recklessness of the thrower, and committing no error of any kind, perished miserably; the other, though miscalculating the time it took to pick up the darts, was not prevented from hitting the mark — a hapless and bitter mark for me. He did not slay intentionally ; but he had better intentionally have neither thrown nor slain, for unintention ally not less than intentionally he slew my son.
This man denies the slaying altogether, and says he cannot be held under the law, which prohibits all killing whether just or unjust. But some one was the thrower ? Does the homi cide, then, belong to bystanders or teacher ? No one accuses any of them ; for to me the death is not a mystery, but per fectly plain. I say the law rightfully declares that slayers shall be punished ; for not only is it just that the unintentional slayer shall come to unintentional grief, but the unintentionally not less than intentionally slain suffers unjustly if he remains unavenged. For even if the error happens through the god's neglectfulness, yet, being an error, just retribution should fall on the erring ; and if a divine stain rests upon a sacrilegious culprit, it is unrighteous to hinder the divine visitations. But the defense say, too, it is not befitting that those who practice good deeds should be afflicted with ills : then how do we re ceive our deserts if we, no way inferior to them in practice, are punished with death ? But admitting them to be blameless, and the calamity to be accidental and not to be shifted to the blameless, the fact makes for our side. For my son, who sinned against no one in anything, but died at this youth's hands, will fare unjustly if unavenged ; and I, more blameless even than he, shall suffer unrighteously if I do not obtain what the law gives me.
Furthermore, I will make plain that the youth cannot be acquitted of offense nor of unintentional slaying, as they
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allege, but that both these are common to both boys. For if it is correct to say that my boy was his own murderer for running against the throw of the dart and not standing quiet, the other youth is not clear of blame, since my boy died stand ing quiet, and not himself throwing a dart. The death took place between the two : my boy, if erring, punished himself more heavily than according to the measure of his error, by death ; while he who had been his partner and companion in the things which had nothing to do with the error — how is it right that he should escape unpunished ?
Then on the defense of these defenders, that my son was a partner in his own killing, you cannot justly or righteously acquit this youth ; for we who have been ruined by their error should suffer by you, not righteously but unrighteously, if those who have brought death to us are not interdicted from what has been theirs. You will not be acting religiously in absolving the impious. As all the guilt of sacrilege will be fixed upon you by every one, you must exercise great caution in this matter. If you convict him, and interdict him from what the law interdicts him from, you will be clean from such a charge ; but if you acquit him you will stand accountable. Then, regardful of your piety and the laws, you will remove and punish him, and thus not partake in his defilement ; and to us parents, who still living are buried with him, by your judgment you will render the calamity more endurable.
Andocides.
On Making Peace with Lacedcemon (B. C. 390).
(Translated for this work. )
That making an honorable peace is better than war, fellow- citizens, I presume you all realize ; that while your speakers accede to the name of peace, they oppose the means by which peace must come, you certainly do not all perceive. They tell you a peace will be very injurious to the democracy, as the present form of government may be abolished. Now, if the Athenian democracy had never yet made peace with the Lace daemonians, you might reasonably hold such fear, from lack of skill in the business or lack of faith in them ; but when you have often already made peace under a democratic constitution, how unreasonable it is not to look first at what happened then !
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for we must use former events, fellow-citizens, as tokens of those to come.
Here we were, then, at war in Euboea, and held Megara and Pegae and Troezene ; and we wished for peace. Miltiades son of Cimon, ostracized and resident in the Chersonesus, had been received back as consul for the Lacedaemonians ; and we sent him to Lacedaemon, having arranged a truce by herald. And so a thirty-years' peace was made by us with the Lacedaemo nians, and both maintained the peace for thirteen years. You should look at this one first, fellow-citizens. During that peace, how was the Athenian democracy abolished? Nobody can show. What benefits accrued from that peace, I will point out. At that time we first built the Piraeus walls ; then the northern Long Walls ; instead of the old and laid-up war-ships we then had, — those with which we had won sea-fights over the Persian king and the barbarians, — in their place we built a hundred new war-ships ; and then for the first time we estab lished the force of three hundred cavalry and hired the three hundred Scythian archers. These benefits accrued to the city through the peace with the Lacedaemonians, and power over Athens accrued to the democracy.
Subsequently we went to war on account of the iEginetans ; and after enduring many hardships and inflicting many, we again wished for peace, and chose ten aged citizens out of the entire Athenian people, as plenipotentiaries to treat for peace with the Lacedaemonians —one of whom was Andocides my grandfather. These made a thirty-years' peace with the Lace daemonians for you. And at that time too, fellow-citizens, how was the democracy abolished? What then? Did any persons capture the democracy and attempt its abolition ? No one argues that, and the fact is the extreme reverse. For this peace greatly exalted the democracy of Athens, and so strengthened it that during those years, for the first time, hav ing gained peace, we carried a thousand talents [$1,200,000] to
the Acropolis, and by law reserved it specially for public use ; that we built a hundred more ships, and decreed them to be a reserve also ; constructed docks ; established a force of twelve hundred cavalry and as many archers ; and built the southern Long Wall. These benefits accrued to the city from this peace with the Lacedaemonians, and power over Athens accrued to the democracy.
Again making war, on account of the Megarians, the land
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ravaged by invaders, and we stripped of many comforts, we finally made peace, which Nicias the son of Niceratus negotiated for us. I believe you have all seen that through this peace we carried seven thousand coined talents to the Acropolis, and procured more than three hundred war-ships ; that more than twelve hundred talents a year came in for tribute, and we held the Chersonesus and Naxos and more than two-thirds of Euboea — to enumerate the other colonies singly would be tedious. Possessed of all these good things, we again went to war with the Lacedaemonians, incited this time by the Argives.
Now, on this subject, fellow-citizens, remember first of all the counsel I gave you at the beginning of my speech. Other than these, has a peace ever been made where the Athenian democracy has been abolished? It has not been shown, and no one has argued against me, that these things are not the truth. But I have heard some people saying that by our last peace with the Lacedaemonians they set up the Thirty, and many Athenians perished by drinking hemlock and others fled into exile. Those who say this do not make the proper distinc tion ; for a peace and a capitulation often differ from each other. A peace is made on equal terms, each harmonizing with the other the points on which they disagree ; but a capitulation — whichever wins in a war, the stronger enforces it on the weaker by dictation. In this instance the Lacedaemonians, conquering us in war, forced us to pull down our walls and surrender our ships and receive back our refugees. Then, a capitulation was made by force under dictation ; now, you are
consulted as to a peace. Note from the very terms then written by you on the pillar, that under the ones now offered you will make a peace. There it is written to pull down the walls, here in these to build them ; there twelve ships are permitted us, here as many as we wish ; then Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros were to be held by the possessors, now they are to be ours ; and now it is not compulsory to receive back our refugees, then it was compulsory — by which the democracy was abolished. How do these terms resemble those? This, then, fellow- citizens, is the distinction I make : peace is safety and strength to the democracy, war brings about the abolition of the democ racy. So much on this point.
But some say that we are obliged to make war. We will examine first, then, gentlemen of Athens, what we shall make war about ; for I think everybody will agree on the things we
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ought to make war about, — namely, being injured or assisting the injured. Now both we ourselves were injured, and we assisted the injured Boeotians. But if at present our affairs with the Lacedaemonians are in such shape that we shall no longer be injured, and proclamation is issued to the Boeotians that peace will be made with them if they leave Orchomenus self-governing, on what ground shall we make war? That our city may be free ? that lies with ourselves. But how are we to have walls? that will result from peace itself. Is it that we may build war-ships, and repair and own those we have ? that also lies with ourselves ; for it is agreed that self- governing states may do this. But how shall we recover Lemnos and Scyros and Imbros ? why, it is expressly written that they are to belong to Athens. Well, but the Chersonesus and colonies and foreign possessions and debts — how shall we recover them ? but neither the Persian king nor our allies will grant them to us, and it is with their help we must get those things by war.
But in heaven's name, ought we to keep on making war till we have beaten the Lacedaemonians and their allies ? It does not seem to me that that can be done. And if we should accomplish it, what do we suppose the barbarians will have to bear when we have effected it ? And further, even if we ought to make war for this, and we had resources enough and were strong enough in men, we ought not to make war thus. But if there is nothing through which or with which or for which we are to make war, why is it not in every way our duty to make peace ?
But consider, fellow-citizens, both this, that you are now bringing common peace and freedom to all the Greeks, and that you are giving power to all to share in all. Bear in mind how the greatest of the cities are for ending the war in any way ; the Lacedaemonians first, who when they began to make war on us and our allies ruled both land and sea, but now by this peace have neither. And they surrender them without being conquered by us, but for the freedom of all Greece. For in battle they have won three times : once at Corinth, with all our allies present in a body, leaving no excuse, they alone crushing the whole ; then in Boeotia they carried off the victory in the same way ; thirdly, when they took Lechaeum, though all the Argives and Corinthians, ourselves and the Boeotians, were present. Yet after exhibiting such deeds, they
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are ready to make peace, holding only their own — they who have fought and conquered ; the cities to be self-governing, and themselves holding the sea in common with the weaker. Now what kind of a peace would they have got from you if they had lost one solitary battle ?
But how will the Boeotians make peace ? They went to war on account of Orchomenus, not to allow it to be self-governing ; now with a host of them slain, the land partially devastated, heavy contributions paid both from private and public sources, they impoverished, the war prolonged to the fourth year — now they can make peace by leaving Orchomenus self-governing, and will have suffered all this in vain, for at the outset they could have made peace by leaving the Orchomenians their self-government.
But how is it possible for us, fellow-citizens, to make peace ? What kind of Lacedaemonians have we encountered ? Now if any one of you shall be offended, I ask pardon ; for I shall speak the truth. First, then, when we lost our ships in the Hellespont while we were besieged, what sentence was passed on you by those who are now our allies, but were then those of the Lacedaemonians ? Was it not that our citizen body should be sold into slavery and our country made a desert? Were there not some who prevented these things from taking place? Was it not the Lacedaemonians, diverting the allies from the sentence, and themselves not even attempting to deliberate on such proposals ? Then, swearing oaths to them and having them erect a pillar, we made a capitulation on cer tain terms as the choice of evils at that time. Later, when we had made an alliance drawing the Boeotians and Corinthians away from them, and drawing the Argives into our friendship, we were ourselves to blame for the battle at Corinth. Did not certain ones turn the Persian king hostile to them ? and pre pare Conon's sea-fight by which they lost the control of the sea ? Yet after suffering these things from us, they concede the same as the allies, and will give us walls and ships and islands to be ours. What need have we now to go sending ambassadors for peace ? And should we procure by hostilities aught but the same things which friends will give, and on account of which we are to begin war that the city may have them ? Moreover, the others in making peace will lose their possessions, while we shall win besides what we most desire.
144 LYSIAS.
Lyslas.
Against the Younger Alcibiades for deserting his Battalion. [The speech was written for and made by one Tisias. ]
I AM persuaded, gentlemen, that you can expect no apol ogy from me for undertaking this impeachment of Alcibiades ; for such has been the invariable tenor of his behavior toward the state, that even had he avoided giving private cause for offense to any individual among you, he would still deserve to be regarded, on account of his political character, as the public enemy of his country and of every citizen who loves it. His crimes have not been inconsiderable, — they admit of no exten uation, — they leave no room to hope for his future amendment ; they are such that even his enemies, as men, must blush and be ashamed of them.
For my own part, gentlemen, I will acknowledge that I seek vengeance on him, not for your sakesonly, but for my own. His hatred toward me is deep-rooted ; it descends to him by inheritance from his father, and of late he has put in execution all the malicious purposes of his heart.
In many particulars, I have been anticipated by Archestra- tides, who first moved this accusation. He has read and ex plained the laws, and adduced evidence the most unquestionable; but whatever he may have omitted, it shall be my business to supply. Read therefore the law. (It is read. ) This is the first time since the peace that you have sat in judgment, gentlemen, upon such a trial ; and you ought on this account to regard yourselves not merely as judges, but as legislators, convinced that according to your present decision, and according as you either enforce or invalidate the law now read, the consequences must be important to the future happiness of this state. It is at all times the part of a just judge and of a good citizen to take the laws in that sense which is most for the interest of his coun try ; but his duty is more especially useful at the time when they are first plead. Those who would defend Alcibiades have asserted that he could not be guilty of leaving his rank or of cowardice, because there was really no engagement ; and the law, they pretend, runs, " that if any one leave his rank through cowardice, while his companions are engaged with the enemy, that in that case only he shall be subjected to a trial. " This observation, however, is exceedingly ill founded ; for the
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law comprehends not only those who leave their ranks, but such as, being summoned, have not appeared among the foot soldiers.