Part 4

Galaxidorus said: ‘I am quite ready to listen to Simmias on this subject, Pheidolaus, if he has himself heard Socrates speak about it, and to join you in believing; but as for all that you and Polymnis have mentioned, it is not hard to refute it. For as in medicine a throb or a pimple is a small matter, but is the indication of what is not small; and as to a pilot the cry of a bird from the open sea, or the scudding of a thin film of cloud, [Sidenote: 582] signifies wind and rougher seas, so to a prophetic soul a sneeze or a voice is nothing great in itself, but is the sign of a great conjuncture. There is no art in which it is thought contemptible to forecast great things by small, many things through few. Suppose a man ignorant of the meaning of letters were to see a few insignificant-looking characters, and to refuse to believe that one who knew grammar could, by their help, repeat the story of great wars between old-world peoples, and foundings of cities, and what kings did or suffered, and then were to say [Sidenote: B] that a voice, or something like a voice, revealed and repeated each of these things to that historian, a pleasant laugh would come over your face, my friend, at the ignorance of that man. Now, consider, may it not be so with us? In our ignorance of the meaning of different things by which the prophetic art hits the coming event, are we simple enough to rebel if a man of intellect uses them to reveal something not yet evident, and says, moreover, that a Divine Sign, not a sneeze or a voice, directs him to the facts? For now I turn to you, Polymnis, who wonder that Socrates, a man who did so very much to make Philosophy human by simplicity and absence of cant, should [Sidenote: C] have named his Sign, not a sneeze or a voice, but, in full tragic phrase, his Divine Sign. I, on the contrary, should be surprised if a man so excellent in Dialectic and mastery of terms had said that the sneeze and not the Divine Sign gave him the intimation. As if a man were to say that he had been wounded “by the javelin”, not “by the thrower with his javelin”, or, again, that the weight had been measured “by the balance”, not “by the weigher with his balance”. For the work is not the work of the tool but of the owner of the tool which he uses for the work; and the Sign is a kind of tool used by the signifying power. But, as I said, if Simmias should have anything to tell us we must listen, for his knowledge is more exact.’

XIII. Then Theocritus said: ‘Yes, but first let us see [Sidenote: D] who these persons are who are coming in; or, rather, it is surely Epaminondas bringing the stranger to us.’ We looked towards the doors, and saw Epaminondas leading the way, then Ismenidorus, Bacchylidas, and Melissus the flute-player, all of them our friends and confederates; then the stranger followed, a man of much nobility of mien, but with a gentle and kindly character apparent beneath it, and dressed in a grave fashion. He took his seat by Simmias, my brother next to me, and the rest as they found places. Then, when there was silence, Simmias called on my brother: ‘Well, Epaminondas, how are we to address our friend? Who and what is he, and [Sidenote: E] whence? That is the usual formula for beginning an introduction and an acquaintance.’[36] Epaminondas replied: ‘Theanor is his name, Simmias, and his family is of Crotona, where he belongs to the local school of Philosophy and does no discredit to the great fame of Pythagoras; he has just taken the long journey from Italy here, to confirm noble doctrines by noble acts.’ The stranger broke in: ‘Indeed, Epaminondas, you are now hindering the noblest of all actions. For if to confer a benefit on friends be noble, it is no shame to receive [Sidenote: F] one from them. A favour needs one to receive, no less than one to bestow it; both must join to ensure a noble result. It is like a ball well delivered; to allow it to drop idle to the ground is to shame it. Now what mark is there for a ball, so agreeable for the thrower to hit and so distressing to miss, as a man at whom one aims a favour when he well deserves it? But in the one case the mark stands still, and he who misses has himself to thank; in the other, he who excuses himself and swerves aside does a wrong to the favour which never reaches its goal. You have yourself heard fully from me the reasons of my voyage here; but I should like to go through the story [Sidenote: 583] as fully to those now present, and let them be judges between us.

‘When the Pythagoreans had been overpowered by faction in the different cities, and their brotherhoods expelled, and when the party of Cylon had piled up a fire round a house in Metapontum in which those still settled there were holding a meeting, and had dispatched all those in the place except Philolaus and Lysis, who were still young, and were strong enough and active enough to push through the fire, Philolaus escaped thence to Lucania and joined in safety the rest of our friends, who were by this time rallying and holding their own against the Cylonians. Where Lysis was, no one knew for a long time; however, Gorgias of Leontini, sailing back from [Sidenote: B] Greece to Sicily, brought certain news to Arcesus and his friends that he had met Lysis, who was staying near Thebes. Arcesus longed to see the man, and was eager to sail straight off himself; but being quite disabled by age and infirmity, gave orders to bring Lysis alive to Italy if possible, or his remains if he should have died. Then came wars, revolutions, and periods of tyranny which made it impossible for the friends to perform the task in his lifetime. But when the spirit of Lysis, now dead, had shown us clearly of his end, and well informed persons told us of all the care and entertainment which he had [Sidenote: C] received from your family, Polymnis; how richly his age had been cared for in a poor house, and how he had been adopted as father to your sons before his blessed end came, I was sent out, a young man and alone, to represent many of my elders who have money and wish to offer it to those who have not, in return for favour and friendship richly bestowed. Lysis lies where you have honourably laid him; yet the honour of that tomb is greater when recompense is made for it to friends by friends dear and close.’

XIV. While the stranger was speaking thus, my father wept a long while over the memory of Lysis, but my brother [Sidenote: D] with his usual gentle smile said to me: ‘What is it to be, Capheisias? Are we to surrender poverty to riches, and to say nothing?’ ‘No! no!’ said I, ‘the dear “good nurse of young manhood”[37]—to her rescue! it is your turn to speak.’ ‘See, father;’ he said, ‘that was the only side on which I used to fear that our house might be captured by money. I mean through Capheisias and his person, which needs beautiful clothes that he may make a brave show before all his admiring friends, and needs food of the best, and plenty of it, that he may have strength for the gymnasia and wrestling matches. Now that he does not betray poverty, or throw off our ancestral poverty like a coat of paint, but, boy though he is, goes proudly [Sidenote: E] in thrift, and is content with what we have, to what possible use could we put money? Shall we plate our armour, say, with gold, and make the shield gay with purple and gold together, as Nicias of Athens did?[38] Shall we buy you, father, a Milesian cloak, or a dress with a purple border for mother? You know, we are not likely to spend the present on our table, or to feast ourselves more sumptuously, as having admitted a guest of such importance as wealth.’ ‘Away with it, boy!’ said my father, ‘never may I see our life new-modelled like that!’ [Sidenote: F] ‘No,’ my brother went on, ‘nor will we sit idle at home and guard our wealth; that would be a “boonless boon”[39] indeed, and a getting with no honour to it.’ ‘Of course’, said our father. ‘You know,’ Epaminondas went on, ‘when Jason, the Thessalian Tagus, lately sent a large sum of money here to us and begged us to take it, he thought me something of a boor when I answered that he was making the first move in wrong and robbery, when a lover of monarchy like himself tempted with money a private citizen of a free self-governed state. From you, Sir, I accept your generous intention, and admire it [Sidenote: 584] more than I can say; it is beautiful and philosophical too; but you are bringing medicines to friends who are not sick! Suppose that you had heard that we were attacked in war, and had sailed with arms and ammunition to help us, and on arrival had found that all was friendliness and peace; you would not think it necessary to hand over the stores and leave them where they were not needed. Even so, you have come to be our ally against poverty, thinking that we were pinched by her, but there is none so easy to be endured as she, our dear fellow-lodger. [Sidenote: B] So no need for money or arms against her who vexes us not. Take back this message to your brotherhood: that they themselves use their wealth most nobly, but that there are friends here who make noble use of poverty: and that, as to the entertainment of Lysis and his burial, Lysis has paid the score in full for himself, not least by teaching us not to fret at poverty.’

XV. Theanor broke in: ‘Then, if it is ignoble to fret at poverty, is it not eccentric to fear and shun wealth?’ ‘Eccentric it is if it is rejected on no rational grounds, but in order to pose or because of insipid taste or affectation of some kind.’ ‘But what rational grounds’, he said, ‘could bar the getting of wealth by good and honest means, Epaminondas? Or rather—and surrender more gently than you did to the Thessalian in [Sidenote: C] answering our questions about these matters—tell me whether you think that the giving of money may sometimes be right, but the receiving never; or that givers and receivers alike are in all cases wrong?’ ‘No, no!’ said Epaminondas, ‘I hold that, as with everything else, so with wealth; there is a giving and a getting which are ugly, and a giving and a getting which are fine.’ ‘Then,’ said Theanor, ‘when a man gives readily and heartily what he owes, is not that beautiful?’ He assented. ‘But when one receives what another beautifully gives, is not the taking beautiful? Or could there be a fairer taking of [Sidenote: D] money than when it comes from one who gives fairly?’ ‘There could not’, he said. ‘Then of two friends, Epaminondas,’ said he, ‘if one is to give, it looks as if the other must take. For in battles one must swerve away from a marksman in the enemy’s ranks; in the conflict of benefits it is not fair to avoid or thrust aside the friend who nobly gives. For, if poverty is no affliction, yet wealth, on its side, is not a thing to be flouted and refused like that.’ ‘It is not,’ said Epaminondas, ‘but there is a case where the gift which may be nobly offered remains more honoured and more noble if it is refused. Look at it with us in this way: you will allow that there are many desires, and desires of many things; some inborn, as we call them, which grow up about the body and are directed towards its necessary pleasures; others adventitious, grounded on mere fancies, but [Sidenote: E] gaining strength and power by time and use, where there is vicious education, and often dragging down the soul more forcibly than do those which are necessary. Now, by habits and training, men have before now succeeded in drawing off and subjecting to reason, in great measure, the innate affections. But the whole force of discipline, my friend, must be brought to bear against those which are adventitious and extraordinary; we must work them out, and hack them off, and use restraints and checks to school them to reason. For if thirst and hunger are forced out by rational resistance in the matter of food and [Sidenote: F] drink, far easier surely is it to stunt, and in the end to annihilate, love of wealth and love of glory by refusing and prohibiting the things at which they aim. Do you not agree?’ The stranger assented. ‘Then, do you see a distinction’, Epaminondas went on, ‘between training and the intended result of the training? Thus the result of athletic exercise would be the contest against a competitor for the crown; training would be the preparation of the body for this contest of the gymnasia. So with virtue, do you allow that there are two things, the result and the training?’ The stranger assented. ‘Now then,’ Epaminondas resumed, ‘tell me first with respect to temperance; do you take abstinence from base and lawless pleasures [Sidenote: 585] to be a training, or rather a result and a proof of training?’ ‘A result and a proof’, he said. ‘But it is a training or study in temperance—is it not?—which still draws all of you on when you go to the gymnasia and have stirred up your desires for food, as though they were wild beasts, and then stand for a long time over bright tables with a variety of dishes, and at last pass the good cheer for your servants to enjoy, offering to your own now chastened appetites only what is plain and simple, since abstinence from pleasures in things allowed is a training for the soul against pleasures which are forbidden?’ ‘No doubt’, he said. ‘Then there is, friend, a way of training ourselves for [Sidenote: B] justice against the love of wealth and money; I do not mean never to enter our neighbour’s premises by night and steal his goods, and never to take his clothes at the bath; nor yet if a man does not betray country and friends for money is he training himself against covetousness (since here, perhaps, the law comes in and fear, to hinder greediness from doing acts of wrong). No, the man who often and voluntarily sets himself aloof from gains which are just and are allowed by law is training and habituating himself in advance to keep his distance from every gain which is unrighteous and forbidden. For as, when it encounters great pleasures which are also strange and hurtful, the mind cannot avoid a flutter unless it has often despised [Sidenote: C] permitted enjoyments, so to pass by vicious gains and great advancement when they come within reach is not easy, unless from a great way off the love of gain has been fettered and chastened; whereas, if it has been brought up to gain, and there has been no check on its license, it makes a riotous growth towards all iniquity, and only with the greatest effort is it withheld from grasping an advantage. But if a man does not surrender himself to the favours of friends or to the bounties of kings, but has said no even to an inheritance which Fortune offers, and has put far off that love of wealth which springs up to meet a treasure as it comes into sight, he finds that covetousness rises up against him no longer, nor tempts him to what is wrong, nor disturbs his understanding. He is gentle, and possesses himself for noble uses; he has great thoughts and [Sidenote: D] shares with his soul the noblest secrets. We, Capheisias and I, are lovers of such men, dear Simmias, and we entreat the stranger to allow us so to train ourselves in poverty that we may reach virtue such as that.’

XVI. My brother finished his argument, and then Simmias nodded his head two or three times. ‘A great man,’ he said, ‘a great man is Epaminondas, and thanks to Polymnis here for that, who procured for his sons from the first the best training in Philosophy. However, with regard to this question, Sir, do you and they settle it between you. Now about Lysis, if we [Sidenote: E] may be allowed to hear. Do you mean to move him from his tomb and to transfer him to Italy; or will you allow him to remain here with us, where he shall find kind and friendly fellow-lodgers when our time comes?’ Theanor smiled on him: ‘Lysis appears, Simmias, to love this country, in which by the good offices of Epaminondas he has wanted nothing that is honourable. For there is a certain holy rite connected with our Pythagorean burials, which if we lack we do not seem to attain our full and blessed consummation. So when we knew from dreams of the death of Lysis (we distinguish by a certain sign which is revealed in sleep whether an appearance belongs [Sidenote: F] to a dead person or a living), this thought came over many of us: so Lysis has been buried in another land with strange rites; he must be moved here to us, that he may share in all that is customary. Coming with such an intention, and guided straight to the tomb by people of the place, I was pouring libations just at evening time, and calling on the soul of Lysis to return and declare solemnly how we ought to act. The night went on and I saw nothing, but thought I heard a voice: “Stir not what is best unstirred; the body of Lysis has been buried with holy rites by friends; his soul has already been parted from it and dismissed to another birth, with another spirit for its partner.” Accordingly, when I met Epaminondas at dawn [Sidenote: 586] and heard the manner in which he buried Lysis, I recognized that he had been well trained by that great teacher, even to the rules which must not be spoken, and had enjoyed the guidance in life from the same spirit as he, unless I fail to guess the pilot aright from the course steered. For “wide are the tracks”[40] of our lives, and few there are of them by which the spirits lead men.’ When Theanor had said this, he looked closely at Epaminondas, as though scrutinizing him afresh without and within.

[Sidenote: B] XVII. In the meantime the surgeon came up and loosened Simmias’ bandage, intending to dress the limb. But Phyllidas came in upon us with Hippostheneidas, and bidding me, and also Charon and Theocritus, rise and follow him, led us to a corner of the colonnade, his face showing great agitation. To my question, ‘Any news, Phyllidas?’ he answered, ‘No news to me; I knew and told you all the time how weak Hippostheneidas was, and implored you not to admit him as an associate of our enterprise.’ We were dismayed at this, and Hippostheneidas said: ‘In Heaven’s name, Phyllidas, do not say that; do not take rashness to be courage, and thereby ruin us and the city too; [Sidenote: C] but allow the men to make their own return in safety if it is so appointed.’ Phyllidas was nettled: ‘Tell me, Hippostheneidas,’ he said, ‘how many do you think share the inner secrets of our plan?’ ‘Not less than thirty, to my knowledge’, he said. ‘Very well,’ said Phyllidas, ‘there is all that number, and you have taken on your single self to annul and check the plan on which all had resolved, you sent a mounted messenger to the men when already on their road, bidding them turn back and not press on to-day, when most of the arrangements for their return have settled themselves without us.’ When Phyllidas had said this we were all much disturbed, but Charon fastened [Sidenote: D] his eyes very severely on Hippostheneidas: ‘Villain!’ he said, ‘what have you done to us?’ ‘Nothing terrible,’ answered Hippostheneidas, ‘if you will drop your harsh tone and listen to the calculations of a man of your own age, with grey hairs like yourself. If we have resolved to give our countrymen an exhibition of a courage which loves danger, and a spirit which makes little of life, then there is much of the day still before us, Phyllidas; let us not wait for the evening, but march at once against the tyrants, our swords in our hands—let us slay, let us die, let us never spare ourselves! But say we find no difficulty in this, whether of action or of endurance, yet to rescue Thebes [Sidenote: E] from an armed force, when encompassed by so many enemies, and to expel the Spartan garrison at a cost of two or three lives, is not easy; for Phyllidas has never prepared so much strong liquor for his parties and receptions that all the fifteen hundred men of Archias’ bodyguard will be made drunk; yet, even if we get rid of him, Herippidas is on for night duty and sober, and Arcesus too. This being so, why hurry to bring home friends and relatives to manifest destruction, and that when the very fact of their return is not unknown to the enemy? Or why have [Sidenote: F] the Thespians been ordered to be under arms for these two days past, and ready whenever the Spartan officers call? Again, I hear that Amphitheus is to be examined and put to death to-day, whenever Archias returns. Are not these strong signs that our action is not unmarked? Is it not best to pause, not for a long time, but long enough to make the auspices right? For the prophets declare, that in sacrificing the ox to Demeter, they found that the entrails prognosticated much commotion and public danger. Again, and this needs the greatest caution on your part, Charon, yesterday Hypatodorus son of Erianthes walked back with me from the farm, quite a good and friendly [Sidenote: 587] person, but certainly not in our secrets. “Charon is your friend, Hippostheneidas,” he said, “but I do not know him well; tell him, if you think good, to be on his guard against a certain danger revealed in a very strange and disagreeable dream. Last night I thought that his house was in pangs as of labour, and that he and the friends who shared his anxiety prayed and stood around it, while it moaned and uttered inarticulate sounds. At last the fire flared out strong and terrible from within, so that most of the city was caught by the blaze, but the Cadmeia was only wrapped in smoke, the fire not spreading [Sidenote: B] up to it.” The vision which the man described was something like this, Charon; I was alarmed at the time, and much more so when I heard to-day that the exiles are to be put up at your house; I am now in an agony lest we may be bringing a load of troubles upon ourselves, yet not doing any harm worth mentioning to the enemies, but simply stirring them up. For I reckon the city to be on our side, the Cadmeia with them, as it certainly is.’