Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. II. · Plutarch
THE SPEAKERS
A. Introductory BASILOCLES, a citizen of Delphi. PHILINUS, a friend (perhaps also of Delphi). B. Philinus narrates a Conversation between PHILINUS. DIOGENIANUS, a young visitor from Pergamum, son of a friend of the same name. THEON, a literary friend. SERAPION, the Athenian poet. BOETHUS, a geometrician, almost a convinced Epicurean. TWO GUIDES of the temple of Delphi. 1. PHILINUS, coming out of the temple, explains to BASILOCLES why his party has been so long in making the round of the sights. It included an intelligent and inquisitive visitor, the younger Diogenianus, of Pergamum. He continues:— 2. DIOGENIANUS raised a point about the tint of the Corinthian bronze. THEON interposed with a story: 3. And discussed the properties of olive oil, which produces a crust on metals. He refers to Aristotle’s view (which cannot be traced in his extant works). 4. He suggested special properties in the air of Delphi—density and rarity—and quotes Homer for the combination of such opposites. 5. A verse inscription catching the eye of DIOGENIANUS caused him to ask why the verses of oracles are so poor. SERAPION suggested that perhaps our standard ought to be revised by that of the God. BOETHUS told a story about Pauson the painter. He added that there is no excuse in the subject-matter, witness Serapion, who wrote excellent poetry on dry science!
6. SERAPION agreed that our standards are wrong—they lack severity. Pleasure was cast out, once for all, from the seat of the Sibyl. 7. THEON disclaimed the false theory of inspiration. The verses are not the God’s, he only gives the impulse. But there is no pleasing the Epicureans, whether the prophetess uses verse or prose. DIOGENIANUS protested against levity on a subject of profound interest to all Greeks. THEON asked that the question might be reserved, and the round continued. 8. Instances from Hiero’s statue, and others, of the jealous care of Providence for human affairs. BOETHUS thought Chance, or Spontaneity, sufficient to account for all, and was answered by PHILINUS, who continued, 9. And referred to the history of the first Sibyl. BOETHUS mocked, and was met by DIOGENIANUS with instances of prophecies verified, 10. Which BOETHUS would explain as successful guesses. 11. SERAPION called for a distinction to be made between prophecies made in general terms, and those which go into details. 12. DIOGENIANUS asked the emblematic import of the frogs on the Corinthian brazen bowl. SERAPION suggested a reference to the Sun rising out of water. PHILINUS here detected an intrusion of the Stoic ‘Conflagration’ into the discussion. A casual remark raised the question of the identity of the sun with Phoebus. ‘They are as different’, said DIOGENIANUS, ‘as the sun and the moon, only the sun has permanently eclipsed the God, the sensible, the spiritual.’
13. SERAPION asked a question which the guides had already answered: ‘No wonder if they are bewildered by our high-flown talk.’ 14. The statue of Rhodope, the courtesan, called forth a stern protest from DIOGENIANUS. 15. THEON, on an appeal from SERAPION, pointed out the greater scandal of offerings made by Greeks for victories over Greeks. 16. One of the GUIDES reminded the company of the story of Croesus and the baker-woman. 17. DIOGENIANUS begged that, instead of more anecdotes, the original question might be discussed: ‘Why has the use of verse in oracular answers been discontinued?’ The company seated itself in a new position, and BOETHUS genially remarked on its appropriateness, the place of origin of the heroic metre. 18. SERAPION congratulated him on his improved tone, and PHILINUS agreed. Philosophers have dropped verse, yet we do not infer that Philosophy has died out. PHILINUS agreed. 19-end. THEON spoke to the original question. 19. He mentioned ancient oracles delivered in prose, 20. And modern oracles given in verse. 21. To sum up: Soul is the instrument of the God, body of soul; the result must partake in the infirmity of body. The cases of reflecting mirrors, and of the moon. Thus there are two separate emotions in the prophetess—inspiration and Nature. 22. Homeric instances of the choice of human instruments—Story of Battus.
23. Of the ancient oracles (1) many were delivered in prose, (2) the fashion of the times was for verse (cp. c. 18). 24. It is better that oracles should be given in current coin, not in the depreciated coin of verse. History of poetical usage. 25. In old times obscurity was thought dignified, now it provokes impatience; and it has become vulgarized through charlatans. 26. When cities and statesmen used to consult the oracle on questions of high policy, circumlocution was necessary. 27. Again, verse was a great help to memory, when intricate advice was given, as to Battus. 28. In these days of general rest, only homely questions are asked, and are best answered in homely prose. 29. Yet we fear lest the credit acquired in three thousand years by the straight concise answers of the oracle should be lost! We gush out with wealth, as the mythical Galaesus with milk. I am proud to have had some hand in this. 30. People who regret the old obscurity and bombast are like children who admire a rainbow more than the sun which makes it.
In Theon’s long concluding speech (c. 19, p. 403 A to the end) he is no doubt expressing Plutarch’s own views. But the literary references and the touch of levity are quite in Theon’s style; ‘my young friend’, in c. 20, recalls the same phrase in c. 3. Later on, Plutarch is, as Wyttenbach has observed, indicated by τὸν καθηγεμόνα ταύτης τῆς πολιτείας. Professor Hartman (see Preface, p. xx) states his conviction that Theon was an older friend of Plutarch and his predecessor in the priesthood (pp. 166 and 617). In a Dialogue in which the Epicureans are attacked (_Non posse suaviter_, p. 1088 D) a long speech clearly belonging to Theon is introduced by the words ‘I (Plutarch) said’. This slip is probably due to the author. (See, on the general subject, Mr. John Oakesmith’s note on p. 149 of The Religion of Plutarch.) WHY THE PYTHIA DOES NOT NOW GIVE ORACLES IN VERSE [Sidenote: 394 D] _Basilocles._ The shades of evening, Philinus, while you are conducting the stranger round the votive gifts! Here am I, [Sidenote: E] fairly tired out in waiting for you. _Philinus._ Yes, Basilocles, we made slow progress, sowing arguments as we went and reaping them too; battle and war were beneath them, as they sprang and sprouted in our faces, like the ‘sown men’ of old.
_Basilocles._ Then shall I have to call in some one else of your [Sidenote: F] company, or will you oblige us with the whole story? What were the arguments, and who were the speakers? _Philinus._ I shall have to do that myself, Basilocles, it seems, for you will not easily meet with any of the others in the town; I saw most of them going back to the Corycium and the Lycuria with the stranger. _Basilocles._ A good sight-seer this stranger, and a mighty good listener! _Philinus._ Say rather a good scholar and a good learner. Not that these are his most admirable points; there is a gentleness [Sidenote: 395] which is full of charm; and then his readiness to do battle and to raise sensible points: nothing captious or hard in his way of taking the answers. After a very short time in his company you would have to say ‘good father, good child’, for you know that Diogenianus was one of the very best. _Basilocles._ I never saw him myself, but I have met many who spoke with warm approval of his talk and his character, and in just the same terms about this young man. But how did the argument begin, and what started it?
II. _Philinus._ The guides were going through their lectures, as prepared, showing no regard for our entreaties that they would cut short their periods and skip most of the inscriptions. The stranger was but moderately interested in the form and workmanship of the different statues; it appears that he has [Sidenote: B] seen many beautiful objects of art. What he did admire was the lustre on the bronze, unlike rust or deposit, but rather resembling a coat of deep shining blue, so much so, that it rather well became the sea-captains, with whom the round had begun, standing up out of the deep so naively with the true sea tint. ‘Now was there’, he asked, ‘some receipt of pharmacy known to the old artists in brass like that method of tempering swords of which we read? It was forgotten in time, and then bronze had a truce from works of war. As to the Corinthian bronze, that came by its beautiful colour accidentally, not through art. A fire spread over a house in which were stored some gold and silver and a large quantity of bronze. The whole was fused into one stream of metal, which took its name [Sidenote: C] from the bronze, as the largest ingredient.’ Theon broke in: ‘We have heard a different story, with a spice of mischief in it. A Corinthian bronze-worker found a chest containing much gold. Fearing discovery, he chipped it off little by little, and quietly mixed the bits with the bronze; the result was a marvellous blend, which he sold at a high price, as people were delighted with the beauty of the colour. However, the one story is as mythical as the other; what we may suppose is that some method was known of mixing and preparing, much as now they mix gold with silver, and get a peculiar and rare effect, [Sidenote: D] which to me appears a sickly pallor and a loss of colour with no beauty in it.’
III. ‘What has been the cause, then,’ said Diogenianus, ‘do you think, of the colour of the bronze here?’ ‘Here is a case’, said Theon, ‘in which, of the first and most natural elements which are or ever will be, fire, earth, air, water, none approaches or touches the bronze, save air only: clearly then, air is the agent; from its constant presence and contact the bronze gets its exceptional quality, or perhaps _Thus much you knew before Theognis was_,[84] as the comic poet has it; but what you want to learn is the [Sidenote: E] nature of air, and the property in virtue of which its repeated contact has coloured the bronze.’ Diogenianus said that it was. ‘And I too,’ Theon continued, ‘my young friend, let us follow the quest together; and first, if you will agree, ask why olive oil produces a more copious rust on the metal than other liquids; it does not, of course, actually make the deposit, being pure and uncontaminated when it is applied.’ ‘Certainly not;’ said the young man, ‘the real cause appears to me to be something different; the oil is fine, pure, and transparent, so the rust when it meets it is specially evident, whereas with other liquids it becomes invisible.’ ‘Excellent,’ said Theon, ‘my [Sidenote: F] young friend, that is prettily put. But consider also, if you please, the cause given by Aristotle.’ ‘I do please’, he said. ‘Aristotle says that the rust, when it comes over other liquids, passes invisibly through and is dispersed, because the particles are irregular and fine, whereas in the density of oil it is held up and permanently condensed. If, then, we can frame some such hypothesis for ourselves, we shall not be wholly at a loss for a spell to charm away this difficulty.’
It appears that he had contracted to paint a horse rolling, and painted him galloping. The owner was indignant; so Pauson laughed and turned the canvas upside down, with the result that the lower parts became the upper, and there was the horse rolling, not galloping. So [Sidenote: F] it is, Bion tells us, with certain syllogisms when converted. Thus some will tell us not that the oracles are quite beautiful because they are the God’s, but that they are not the God’s because they are bad! That point may be left unsettled. But that the verses used in the oracles are bad poetry,’ he went on, ‘is made clear also in your judgement, my dear Serapion, is it not so? For you write poems which are philosophical and severe as to matter, but in force and grace and diction more like the work of Homer and Hesiod than the utterances of the Pythia.’
VI. Then Serapion: ‘Yes, we are sick, Boethus, sick in ears and in eyes; luxury and softness have accustomed us to think things beautiful as they are more sweet, and to call them so. Soon we shall actually be finding fault with the Pythia because [Sidenote: 397] she does not speak with a more thrilling voice than Glauce the singing-girl, or use costly ointments, or put on purple robes to go down into the sanctuary, or burn on her censer cassia, mastic, and frankincense, but only bay leaves and barley meal. Do you not see’, he went on, ‘what grace the songs of Sappho have, how they charm and soothe the hearers, while the Sibyl “with raving mouth”, as Heraclitus says, “utters words with no laughter, no adornment, no spices”,[86] yet makes her voice carry to ten thousand years, because of the God. And Pindar[87] tells us that Cadmus heard from the God “right music”, not [Sidenote: B] sweet music, or delicate music, or twittering music. What is passionless and pure gives no admission to pleasure; she was cast out in this very place, together with pain,[88] and the most of her has dribbled away, it seems, into the ears of men.’
VII. When Serapion had done, Theon smiled. ‘Serapion’, he said, ‘has paid his usual tribute to his own proclivities, making capital out of the turn which the conversation had taken about pain and pleasure! But for us, Boethus, even if these verses are inferior to Homer, let us never suppose that the God has composed them; he only gives the initial impulse according to the capacity of each prophetess. Why, suppose the answers had [Sidenote: C] to be written, not spoken. I do not think we should suppose that the letters were made by the God, and find fault with the calligraphy as below royal standard. The strain is not the God’s, but the woman’s, and so with the voice and the phrasing and the metre; he only provides the fantasies, and puts light into her soul to illuminate the future; for that is what inspiration is. To put it plainly, there is no escaping you prophets of Epicurus—yes, you too, Boethus, are drifting that way—you blame those old prophetesses because they used bad poetry, and you also blame those of to-day because they speak their answers in [Sidenote: D] prose, and use the first words which come, that they may not be overhauled by you for headless, hollow, crop-tailed lines.’ Then Diogenianus: ‘Do not jest, in Heaven’s name, no! but help us to solve the problem which is common to us all. There is not a Greek[89] living who is not in search of a rational account of the fact that the oracle has ceased to use verse, epic or other.’ Theon interrupted: ‘At the present moment, my young friend, we seem to be doing a shabby turn by the guides, taking the bread out of their mouths. Suffer them first to do [Sidenote: E] their office, afterwards you shall discuss in peace whatever you wish.’
VIII. Our round had now brought us in front of the statue of Hiero, the tyrant. Most of the stories the stranger knew well, but he good-naturedly lent his ear to them. At last, when he heard that a certain bronze pillar given by Hiero, which had been standing upright, fell of its own accord on the very day when Hiero died at Syracuse, he showed surprise. I set myself to remember similar instances, such as the notable one of Hiero the Spartan, how before his death at Leuctra the eyes fell out [Sidenote: F] of his statue, and the gold stars disappeared which Lysander had dedicated after the naval battle of Aegospotami. Then the stone statue of Lysander himself broke out into such a growth of weeds and grass that the face was hidden. At the time of the Athenian disaster at Syracuse, the golden berries kept dropping off from the palm trees, and crows chipped the shield on the figure of Pallas. Again, the crown of the Cnidians, which Philomelus, tyrant of Phocis, had given to Pharsalia the dancing [Sidenote: 398] girl, caused her death, as she was playing near the temple of Apollo in Metapontum, after she had removed from Greece into Italy.
The young men made a rush at the crown, and in their struggle to get it from one another, tore the woman to pieces. Now Aristotle used to say that no one but Homer made ‘words which stir, because of their energy’.[90] But I would say that there have been votive offerings sent here which have movement in a high degree, and help the God’s foreknowledge to signify things; that none of them is void or without feeling, but all are full of Divinity. ‘Very good!’ said Boethus; ‘so it is not enough to shut the God into a mortal body once every month. We will also knead him into every morsel of stone and brass, to [Sidenote: B] show that we do not choose to hold Fortune, or Spontaneity, a sufficient author of such occurrences.’ ‘Then in your opinion’, I said, ‘each of the occurrences looks like Fortune or Spontaneity; and it seems probable to you that the atoms glided forth, and were dispersed, and swerved, not sooner and not later, but at the precise moment when each of the dedicators was to fare worse or better. Epicurus helps you now by what he said or wrote three hundred years ago; but the God, unless [Sidenote: C] he take and shut himself up in all things, and be mingled with all, could not, you think, initiate movement, or cause change of condition in anything which is!’
IX. Such was my answer to Boethus, and to the same effect about the Sibyl and her utterances. For when we stood near the rock by the Council Chamber, on which the first Sibyl is said to have been seated on her arrival from Helicon, where she had been brought up by the Muses (though others say that she came from the Maleans, and was the daughter of Lamia the daughter of Poseidon), Serapion remembered the verses in which she hymned herself; how she will never cease from [Sidenote: D] prophesying, even after death, but will herself go round in the moon, being turned into what we call the ‘bright face’, while her breath is mingled with the air and borne about in rumours and voices for ever and ever; and her body within the earth suffers change, so that from it spring grass and weeds, the pasture of sacred cattle, which have all colour, shapes, and qualities in their inward parts whereby men obtain forecasts of future things. Here Boethus made his derision still more evident. [Sidenote: E] The stranger observed that, although these things have a mythical appearance, yet the prophecies are attested by many overturnings and removals of Greek cities, inroads of barbarian hordes, and upsettings of dynasties. ‘These still recent troubles at Cumae and Dicaearchia[91], were they not chanted long ago in the songs of the Sibyl, so that Time was only discharging his debts in the fires which have burst out of the mountain, the boiling seas, the masses of burning rocks[92] tossed aloft by the winds, the ruin of cities many and great, so that if you visit them in broad daylight you cannot get a clear idea of the site, the ground being covered with confused ruins? It is [Sidenote: F] hard to believe that such things have happened, much harder to predict them without divine power.’
XI. When Boethus had finished, Serapion spoke: ‘The case is quite fairly put by Boethus against prophecies so indefinitely worded as those he mentions, with no basis of circumstance: “If victory has been foretold to a general, he has conquered. If the destruction of a city, it is lost.” But where not only the thing which is to happen is stated, but also the how, the when, after what event, with whose help, then it is not a guess at things which will perhaps be, but a clear prediction of things which will certainly be. Here are the lines[94] with reference to the lameness of Agesilaus: [Sidenote: C] _Sure though thy feet, proud Sparta, have a care, A lame king’s reign may see thee trip—Beware! Troubles unlooked for long shall vex thy shore, And rolling Time his tide of carnage pour._ And then those about the island[95] which the sea cast up off Thera and Therasia, and also about Philip and his war with the Romans: _When Trojan race the victory shall win From Punic foe, lo! wonders shall begin; Unearthly fires from out the sea shall flash, Whirlwinds toss stones aloft, and thunders crash, An isle unnamed, unknown, shall stand upright, The worse shall beat the stronger in the fight._
What happened within a short time—that the Romans mastered the Carthaginians, and brought the war with Philip to a finish, [Sidenote: D] that Philip met the Aetolians and Romans in battle and was defeated, and, lastly, that an island rose out of the depths of the sea, with much fire and boiling waves—could not all be set down to chance and spontaneous occurrence. Why, the order emphasizes the foreknowledge, and so does the time predicted to the Romans, some five hundred years before the event, as that in which they were to be at war with all the races at once, which meant the war with the slaves after their revolt. In all this nothing is unascertainable, the story is not left in dim light to [Sidenote: E] be groped out with reference to Fortune “in Infinity”, it gives many securities, and is open to trial, it points the road which the destined event is to tread. For I do not think that any one will say that the agreement with the details as foretold was accidental. Otherwise, what prevents some one else from saying that Epicurus did not write his _Leading Principles_ for our use, Boethus, but that the letters fell together by chance and just spontaneously, and so the book was finished off?’
Yet, on your own showing, the sun is a creature or plant of the marshes, naturalized by you in the country of frogs or [Sidenote: C] water-snakes. However, all this may be reserved for the Stoics and their tragedies; here we have the incidental works of the artists, and let us examine them incidentally. In many respects they are clever people, but they have not in all cases avoided coldness and elaboration. Just as the man who designed Apollo with the cock in his hand meant to suggest the early morning hour when dawn is coming, so here the frogs may be taken for a symbol of the spring season when the sun begins to have power over the air and to break up winter; always supposing [Sidenote: D] that, with you, we are to reckon Apollo and the sun one God, not two.’ ‘What?’ said Serapion, ‘do you not agree? Do you hold the sun to be different from Apollo?’ ‘As different as the moon from the sun;’ I replied, ‘only she does not hide the sun often or from all the world,[98] whereas the sun has made, we may almost say, all the world ignorant of Apollo, diverting thought by sensation, to the apparent from the real.’
XIII. Next Serapion asked the guides the real reason why they call the chamber not after Cypselus, the Dedicator, but [Sidenote: E] after the Corinthians. When they were silent, being, as I privately believe, at a loss for a reason, I laughed, and said: ‘What can these men possibly know or remember, utterly dazed as they must be by our high celestial talk? Why, it was only just now that we heard them saying that, after the tyranny was overthrown, the Corinthians wished to inscribe the golden statue at Pisa, and also this treasure-house, with the name of the city. So the Delphians granted it as a right, and agreed; but the Corinthians passed a vote to exclude the Eleians, who had shown jealousy of them, from the Isthmian meetings, and from that time to [Sidenote: F] this there has been no competitor from Elis. The murder of the Molionidae by Hercules near Cleonae has nothing to do with the exclusion of the Eleians, though some think that it has. On the contrary, it would have been for them to exclude the Corinthians if that had been the cause of collision.’ Such were my remarks.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.