Chapter 33

For such is not the self-praise of a demagogue or sophist, or of one that asks for clapping or applause, but of one who makes his valour and experience a pledge of confidence to his friends. For in critical conjunctures the reputation and credit of one who has experience and capacity in command plays a great part in insuring safety.

§ XVII. As I have said before, to pit oneself against another's praise and reputation is by no means fitting for a public man: however, in important matters, where mistaken praise is injurious and detrimental, it is not amiss to confute it, or rather to divert the hearer to what is better by showing him the difference between true and false merit. Anyone would be glad, I suppose, when vice was abused and censured, to see most people voluntarily keep aloof from it; but if vice should be well thought of, and honour and reputation come to the person who promoted its pleasures or desires, no nature is so well constituted or strong that it would not be mastered by it. So the public man must oppose the praise not of men but of bad actions, for such praise is corrupting, and causes people to imitate and emulate what is base as if it were noble. But it is best refuted by putting it side by side with the truth: as Theodorus the tragic actor is reported to have said once to Satyrus the comic actor, "It is not so wonderful to make an audience laugh as to make them weep and cry." But what if some philosopher had answered him, "To make an audience weep and cry is not so noble a thing as to make them forget their sorrows." This kind of self-laudation benefits the hearer, and changes his opinion. Compare the remark of Zeno in reference to the number of Theophrastus' scholars, "His is a larger body, but mine are better taught." And Phocion, when Leosthenes was still in prosperity, being asked by the orators what benefit he had conferred on the city, replied, "Only this, that during my period of office there has been no funeral oration, but all the dead have been buried in their fathers' sepulchres." Wittily also did Crates parody the lines,

"Eating and wantonness and love's delights Are all I value,"

with

"Learning and those grand things the Muses teach one Are all I value."

Such self-praise is good and useful and teaches people to admire and love what is valuable and expedient instead of what is vain and superfluous. Let so much suffice on the question proposed.

§ XVIII. It remains to me now to point out, what our subject next demands and calls for, how everyone may avoid unseasonable self-praise. For there is a wonderful incentive to talking about oneself in self-love, which is frequently strongly implanted in those who seem to have only moderate aspirations for fame. For as it is one of the rules to preserve good health to avoid altogether places where sickness is, or to exercise the greatest precaution if one must go there, so talking about oneself has its slippery times and places that draw it on on any pretext. For first, when others are praised, as I said before, ambition makes people talk about themselves, and a certain desire and impulse for fame which is hard to check bites and tickles that ambition, especially if the other person is praised for the same things or less important things than the hearer thinks he is a proficient in. For as hungry people have their appetite more inflamed and sharpened by seeing others eat, so the praise of one's neighbours makes those who eagerly desire fame to blaze out into jealousy.

§ XIX. In the second place the narration of things done successfully and to people's mind entices many unawares to boasting and bragging in their joy; for falling into conversation about their victories, or success in state affairs, or their words or deeds commended by great men, they cannot keep themselves within bounds. With this kind of self-laudation you may see that soldiers and sailors are most taken. To be in this state of mind also frequently happens to those who have returned from important posts and responsible duties, for in their mention of illustrious men and men of royal rank they insert the encomiums they have passed on themselves, and do not so much think they are praising themselves as merely repeating the praises of others about themselves. Others think their hearers do not detect them at all of self-praise, when they recount the greeting and welcome and kindness they have received from kings and emperors, but only imagine them to be enumerating the courtesy and kindliness of those great personages. So we must be very much on our guard in praising others to free ourselves from all suspicion of self-love and self-recommendation, and not to seem to be really praising ourselves "under pretext of Patroclus."[801]

§ XX. Moreover that kind of conversation that mainly consists of censuring and running down others is dangerous as giving opportunity for self-laudation to those who pine for fame. A fault into which old men especially fall, when they are led to scold others and censure their bad ways and faulty actions, and so extol themselves as being remarkably the opposite. In old men we must allow all this, especially if to age they add reputation and merit, for such fault-finding is not without use, and inspires those who are rebuked with both emulation and love of honour.[802] But all other persons must especially avoid and fear that roundabout kind of self-praise. For since generally speaking censuring one's neighbours is disagreeable and barely tolerable and requires great wariness, he that mixes up his own praise with blame of another, and hunts for fame by defaming another, is altogether tiresome and inspires disgust, for he seems to wish to get credit through trying to prove others unworthy of credit.

§ XXI. Furthermore, as those that are naturally prone and inclined to laughter must be especially on their guard against tickling and touching, such as excites that propensity by contact with the smoothest parts of the body, so those that have a great passion for reputation ought to be especially advised to abstain from praising themselves when they are praised by others. For a person ought to blush when praised, and not to be past blushing from impudence, and ought to check those who extol him too highly, and not to rebuke them for praising him too little; though very many people do so, themselves prompting and reminding their praisers of others of their own acts and virtues, till by their own praise they spoil the effect of the praise that others give them. For some tickle and puff themselves up by self-praise, while others, malignantly holding out the small bait of eulogy, provoke others to talk about themselves, while others again ask questions and put inquiries, as was done to the soldier in Menander, merely to poke fun at him;

"'How did you get this wound?' 'Sir, by a javelin.' 'How in the name of Heaven?' 'I was on A scaling ladder fastened to a wall.' I show my wound to them in serious earnest, But they for their part only mock at me."

§ XXII. As regards all these points then we must be on our guard as much as possible not to launch out into praise of ourselves, or yield to it in consequence of questions put to us to draw us. And the best caution and security against this is to pay attention to others who praise themselves, and to consider how disagreeable and objectionable the practice is to everybody, and that no other conversation is so offensive and tiring. For though we cannot say that we suffer any other evil at the hands of those who praise themselves, yet being naturally bored by the practice, and avoiding it, we are anxious to get rid of them and breathe again; insomuch that even the flatterer and parasite and needy person in his distress finds the rich man or satrap or king praising himself hard to bear and wellnigh intolerable; and they say that having to listen to all this is paying a very large shot to their entertainment, like the fellow in Menander;

"To hear their foolish[803] saws, and soldier talk, Such as this cursed braggart bellows forth, Kills me; I get lean even at their feasts."

For as we may use this language not only about soldiers or men who have newly become rich,[804] who spin us a long yarn of their great and grand doings, being puffed up with pride and talking big about themselves; if we remember that the censure of others always follows our self-praise, and that the end of this vain-glory is a bad repute, and that, as Demosthenes says,[805] the result will be that we shall only tire our hearers, and not be thought what we profess ourselves to be, we shall cease talking about ourselves, unless by so doing we can bestow great benefit on ourselves or our hearers.

[768] Pindar, "Olymp." ix. 57, 58.

[769] Mentioned by Pausanias, iii. 12; viii. 50.

[770] "Memorabilia," ii. l. 31.

[771] Reading as Wyttenbach suggests, [Greek: malista de hotan legêtai ta allô pepragmena] _sq._

[772] Thucydides, ii. 60.

[773] See Pausanias, ix. 14, 15.

[774] Homer, "Iliad," iv. 405.

[775] Homer, "Iliad," iv. 370, 371.

[776] Diomede.

[777] Sophocles, "Trachiniæ," 442.

[778] Homer, "Iliad," xvi. 847, 848. Plutarch only quotes the first line. I have added the second for the English reader, as necessary for the sense.

[779] Homer, "Iliad," i. 128, 129.

[780] "Iliad," ix. 328.

[781] "Iliad," xvi. 70, 71. [782] So Wyttenbach.

[783] Demosthenes, "De Corona," p. 260.

[784] "De Corona," p. 307.

[785] After Wyttenbach.

[786] After Wyttenbach.

[787] That is, laughing-stock. A play on the word Gelon.

[788] Homer, "Iliad," xxii. 379. He speaks of Hector.

[789] Others take it "as fortune's favourite."

[790] Words of Demosthenes, "De Corona," p. 325. Plutarch condenses them.

[791] Homer, "Odyssey," xvi. 187.

[792] Titles of the Ptolemies, Philadelphus Philometor, Euergetes.

[793] Homer, "Iliad," xxiii. 673.

[794] Ibid. 670.

[795] Homer, "Odyssey," xii. 192-194.

[796] Ibid. ix. 228, 229.

[797] Fragments from the "Philoctetes" of Euripides.

[798] Homer, "Iliad," i. 260, 261.

[799] Homer, "Iliad," vi. 127.

[800] Homer, "Odyssey," xii. 209-212.

[801] An allusion to Homer, "Iliad," xix. 302.

[802] Adopting the reading of Dübner.

[803] Adopting the reading of Salmasius.

[804] _Nouveaux riches, novi homines_.

[805] Demosthenes, "De Corona," p. 270.

ON THOSE WHO ARE PUNISHED BY THE DEITY LATE.

_A discussion between Patrocleas, Plutarch, Timon, and Olympicus._

§ I. When Epicurus had made these remarks, Quintus, and before any of us who were at the end of the porch[806] could reply, he went off abruptly. And we, marvelling somewhat at his rudeness, stood still silently but looked at one another, and then turned and pursued our walk as before. And Patrocleas was the first to speak. "Are we," said he, "to leave the question unanswered, or are we to reply to his argument in his absence as if he were present?" Then said Timon, "Because he went off the moment he had thrown his missile at us, it would not be good surely to leave it sticking in us; for we are told that Brasidas plucked the javelin that had been thrown at him out of his body, and with it killed the hurler of it; but there is of course no need for us to avenge ourselves so on those that have launched on us an absurd or false argument, it will be enough to dislodge the notion before it gets fixed in us." Then said I, "Which of his words has moved you most? For the fellow seemed to rampage about, in his anger and abusive language, with a long disconnected and rambling rhapsody drawn from all sources, and at the same time inveighed against Providence."

§ II. Then said Patrocleas, "The slowness and delay of the deity in punishing the wicked used to seem[807] to me a very dreadful thing, but now in consequence of his speech I come as it were new and fresh to the notion. Yet long ago I was vexed when I heard that line of Euripides,

"He does delay, such is the Deity In nature."[808]

For indeed it is not fitting that the deity should be slow in anything, and least of all in the punishment of the wicked, seeing that they are not slow or sluggish in doing evil, but are hurried by their passions into crime at headlong speed. Moreover, as Thucydides[809] says, when punishment follows as closely as possible upon wrong-doing, it blocks up the road at once for those who would follow up their villainy if it were successful. For no debt so much as that of justice paid behind time damps the hopes and dejects the mind of the wronged person, and aggravates the audacity and daring of the wrong-doer; whereas the punishment that follows crime immediately not only checks future outbreaks but is also the greatest possible comfort to the injured. And so I am often troubled when I consider that remark of Bias, who told, it seems, a bad man that he was not afraid that he would escape punishment, but that he would not live to see it. For how did the Messenians who were killed long before derive any benefit from the punishment of Aristocrates? For he had been guilty of treason at the battle of _The Great Trench_, but had reigned over the Arcadians for more than twenty years without being found out, but afterwards was detected and paid the penalty, but they were no longer alive.[810] Or what consolation was brought to the people of Orchomenus, who lost their sons and friends and relatives in consequence of the treason of Lyciscus, by the disease which settled upon him long afterwards and spread all over his body? For he used to go and dip and soak his feet in the river, and uttered imprecations and prayed that they might rot off if he was guilty of treason or crime. Nor was it permitted to the children's children of those that were slain to see at Athens the tearing out of their graves the bodies of those atrocious criminals that had killed them, and the carrying them beyond their borders. And so it seems strange in Euripides using the following argument to deter people from vice:

"Fear not, for vengeance will not strike at once Your heart, or that of any guilty wretch, But silently and with slow foot it moves,[811] And when their time's come will the wicked reach."

This is no doubt the very reason why the wicked incite and cheer themselves on to commit lawless acts, for crime shows them a fruit visible and ripe at once, but a punishment late, and long subsequent to the enjoyment."

§ III. When Patrocleas had said thus much, Olympicus interfered, "There is another consideration, Patrocleas, the great absurdity involved in these delays and long-suffering of the deity. For the slowness of punishment takes away belief in providence, and the wicked, observing that no evil follows each crime except long afterwards, attribute it when it comes to mischance, and look upon it in the light more of accident than punishment, and so receive no benefit from it, being grieved indeed when the misfortune comes, but feeling no remorse for what they have done amiss. For, as in the case of a horse, the whipping or spurring that immediately follows upon a stumble or some other fault is a corrective and brings him to his duty, but pulling and backing him with the bit and shouting at him long afterwards seems to come from some other motive than a desire to teach him, for he is put to pain without being shown his fault; so the vice which each time it stumbles or offends is at once punished and checked by correction is most likely[812] to come to itself and be humble and stand in awe of the deity, as one that beholds men's acts and passions and does not punish behind time; whereas that justice that, according to Euripides, "steals on silently and with slow foot," and falls upon the wicked some time or other, seems to resemble more chance than providence by reason, of its uncertainty, delay, and irregularity. So that I do not see what benefit there is in those mills of the gods that are said to grind late,[813] since they obscure the punishment, and obliterate the fear, of evil-doing."

§ IV. When Olympicus had done speaking, and I was musing with myself on the matter, Timon said, "Am I to put the finishing touch of difficulty on our subject, or am I to let him first contend earnestly against these views?" Then said I, "Why should we bring up the third wave[814] and drown the argument, if he is not able to refute or evade the charges already brought? To begin then with the domestic hearth, as the saying is,[815] let us imitate that cautious manner of speaking about the deity in vogue among the Academic philosophers, and decline to speak about these things as if we thoroughly understood them. For it is worse in us mortals than for people ignorant of music to discuss music, or for people ignorant of military matters to discuss the art of war, to examine too closely into the nature of the gods and demons, like people with no knowledge of art trying to get at the intention of artists from opinion and fancy and probabilities. For if[816] it is no easy matter for anyone not a professional to conjecture why the surgeon performed an operation later rather than sooner, or why he ordered his patient to take a bath to-day rather than yesterday, how is it easy or safe for a mortal to say anything else about the deity than that he knows best the time to cure vice, and applies to each his punishment as the doctor administers a drug, and that a punishment not of the same magnitude, or applied at the same time, in all cases. For that the cure of the soul, which is called justice, is the greatest of all arts is testified by Pindar as well as by ten thousand others, for he calls God, the ruler and lord of all things, the greatest artificer as the creator of justice, whose function it is to determine when, and how, and how far, each bad man is to be punished. And Plato says that Minos, the son of Zeus, was his father's pupil in this art, not thinking it possible that any one could succeed in justice, or understand how to succeed in it, without he had learned or somehow got that science. For the laws which men make are not always merely reasonable, nor is their meaning always apparent, but some injunctions seem quite ridiculous, for example, the Ephors at Lacedæmon make proclamation, directly they take office, that no one is to let his moustache grow, but that all are to obey the laws, that they be not grievous to them. And the Romans lay a light rod on the bodies of those they make freemen, and when they make their wills, they nominate some as their heirs, while to others they sell the property, which, seems strange. But strangest of all is that ordinance of Solon, that the citizen who, when his city is in faction, will not side with either party is to lose his civic rights. And generally one might mention many absurdities in laws, if one did not know the mind of the legislator, or understand the reason for each particular piece of legislation. How is it wonderful then, if human affairs are so difficult to comprehend, that it is no easy task to say in connection with the gods, why they punish some offenders early, and others late?

§ V. This is not a pretext for evading the subject, but merely a request for lenient judgement, that our discourse, looking as it were for a haven and place of refuge, may rise to the difficulty with greater confidence basing itself on probability. Consider then first that, according to Plato, god, making himself openly a pattern of all things good, concedes human virtue, which is in some sort a resemblance to himself, to those who are able to follow him. For all nature, being in disorder, got the principle of change and became order[817] by a resemblance to and participation in the nature and virtue of the deity. The same Plato also tells us that nature put eyesight into us, in order that the soul by beholding and admiring the heavenly bodies might accustom itself to welcome and love harmony and order, and might hate disorderly and roving propensities, and avoid aimless reliance on chance, as the parent of all vice and error. For man can enjoy no greater blessing from god than to attain to virtue by the earnest imitation of the noblest qualities of the divine nature. And so he punishes the wicked leisurely and long after, not being afraid of error or after repentance through punishing too hastily, but to take away from us that eager and brutish thirst for revenge, and to teach us that we are not to retaliate on those that have offended us in anger, and when the soul is most inflamed and distorted with passion and almost beside itself for rage, like people satisfying fierce thirst or hunger, but to imitate the mildness and long-suffering of the deity, and to avenge ourselves in an orderly and decent manner, only when we have taken counsel with time long enough to give us the least possible likelihood of after repentance. For it is a smaller evil, as Socrates said, to drink dirty water when excessively thirsty, than, when one's mind is disturbed and full of rage and fury, before it is settled and becomes pure, to glut our revenge on the person of a relation and kinsman. For it is not the punishment that follows as closely as possible upon wrong-doing, as Thucydides said,[818] but that which is more remote, that observes decorum. For as Melanthius says of anger,

"Fell things it does when it the mind unsettles,"[819]

so also reason acts with justice and moderation, when it banishes rage and passion. So also people are made milder by the example of other men, as when they hear that Plato, when he held his stick over his slave to correct him, waited some time, as he himself has told us, to compose his anger; and that Archytas, having learned of some wrong or disorderly action on the part of some of his farm labourers, knowing that at the time he was in a very great rage and highly incensed at them, did nothing to them, but merely departed, saying, "You may thank your stars that I am in a rage with you." If then the remembrance of the words and recorded acts of men abates the fierceness and intensity of our rage, much more likely is it that we (observing that the deity, though without either fear or repentance in any case, yet puts off his punishments and defers them for some time) shall be reserved in our views about such matters, and shall think that mildness and long-suffering which the god exhibits a divine part of virtue, reforming a few by speedy punishment, but benefiting and correcting many by a tardy one.