“Before these things, I think that everyone would agree that our city was responsible for the most good things and that we held our empire justly. But after that, some people start to criticize us, that once we obtained power over the sea, we were responsible for many evils for the Greeks and they offer as evidence in their speeches our enslavement of the Melians and the slaughter of the Skiônians.
I am of the opinion, first, that it is no indication of our ruling badly if some of those who were fighting against us appear to have been punished severely, but it is a much greater sign that we were running our allies’ affairs well that none of the states who were still subject to us faced these kinds of disasters.
As a second point, if other states had managed similar affairs more gently, then we could be criticized fairly. But since this did not happen and it is not possible to rule a group of so many states unless you punish those who insult you, how would it not be right to praise us when we actually were able to maintain our empire for so long all while being harsh in the fewest number of cases?”
Geometry being especially, according to Philolaos, the beginning and the metropolis of other studies, it excites and turns one’s intellect, such that it is purified and loosened from the objects of perception. For this reason, Plato himself dislikes those like Eudoxus and Archytas and Menaichmos who undertake to apply the squaring of the cube to instrumental or mechanical uses. Thus the good of geometry perishes and is wasted when it rushes back to the realm of the visible, and is not born upward, and does not take hold of the unseen and incorporeal forms, existing in respect to which God is always God.
“Alas! I wish facts had a voice for people
So that clever speakers would be nothing.
Now instead men with turning tongues steal away
The truest things: and what should seem true cannot.”
This is from Euripides’ lost Hippolytus Veiled, a play in which the deception of Theseus results in the death of his son. His words sound idealist and almost noble, but as the story goes his wife Phaedra lies about sexual advances from her stepson Hippolytus and Theseus curses him. One of Theseus’ interlocutors replies (fr. 440):
“Theseus, I advise you that this is best, if you think through it:
Don’t ever believe that you hear the truth from a woman.”
Hugo of St. Victor, Didascalion 3.13 (11-12th Century CE)
“There is no one to whom it has been granted to know everything, but at the same time there is no one who has not chanced to receive some special gift from nature. The prudent reader, then, listens to everyone and reads everything, and spurns no writing, no person, no learning. He seeks from all without discrimination what he sees is lacking in himself, and considers not how much he knows, but how much he does not know. Here, they note that saying of Plato, ‘I prefer to learn everything reverently, rather than to insert my own ideas shamelessly.’ For, why do you blush to learn and feel no shame in ignorance? The first is a greater disgrace than the second. Or, why do you make pretensions to the highest claims when you toss about in the dregs? You should consider, instead, what your abilities are able to accomplish. He approaches the problem best who does so in proper order. Many people, in trying to make a leap, simply fall head-first. Therefore, avoid excessive haste. In this way, you will arrive more quickly to wisdom. Learn gladly what you do not know from everyone, because humility can make common to you what nature has made each person’s private property. You will be wiser than all if you wish to learn from everyone; those who receive gifts from everyone become wiser than everyone.
You should therefore hold no knowledge as worthless, because all knowledge is good. If you have the time, you should not refuse to at least give every writing a once-over. If you find no profit in it, you at least do not waste anything, especially since there is in my opinion no writing which does not at least propose something worthy of being sought, if it is read in a proper spot and order. If a piece of writing does not have anything particularly special about it, the diligent examiner of words will latch on to something not found elsewhere – and the more rare it is, the more delight he will feel.”
nemo est cui omnia scire datum sit, neque quisquam rursum cui aliquid speciale a natura accepisse non contigerit. prudens igitur lector omnes libenter audit, omnia legit, non scripturam, non personam, non doctrinam spernit. indifferenter ab omnibus quod sibi deesse videt quaerit, nec quantum sciat, sed quantum ignoret, considerat. hinc illud Platonicum aiunt: Malo aliena verecunde discere, quam mea impudenter ingerere. cur enim discere erubescis, et nescire non verecundaris? pudor iste maior est illo. aut quid summa affectas cum tu iaceas in imo? considera potius quid vires tuae ferre valeant. aptissime incedit, qui incedit ordinate. [774B] quidam dum magnum saltum facere volunt, praecipitium incidunt. noli ergo nimis festinare. hoc modo citius ad sapientiam pertinges. ab omnibus libenter disce quod tu nescis, quia humilitas commune tibi facere potest quod natura cuique proprium fecit. sapientior omnibus eris, si ab omnibus discere volueris. qui ab omnibus accipiunt, omnibus ditiores sunt.
nullam denique scientiam vilem teneas, quia omnis scientia bona est. nullam, si vacat, scripturam vel saltem legere contemnas. si nihil lucraris, nec perdis aliquid, maxime cum nulla scriptura sit, secundum meam aestimationem, quae aliquid expetendum non proponat, si convenienti loco et ordine tractetur; [774C] quae non aliquid etiam speciale habeat, quod diligens verbi scrutator alibi non inventum, quanto rarius, tanto gratius carpat.
“The rational part of the soul, which is established in the head, [Plato] made the charioteer of the whole, when he says this (Tim. 90a2-5):
Concerning the most lordly part of our soul, we should concern of its form like this: God has granted to each of us that very spirit which we say lives among us at the highest part of our body, to raise us from the earth closer to our relative, heaven, since we are not an earth-bound growth but a heavenly creature.
Plato sprinkles these things into his own dialogues from the Homeric epics as if drawing from a spring.”
“When god has given us this kind of support for life Are we not truculent if it isn’t pleasing to us? Arrogance seeks to be stronger than god— Because we have boasts in our thoughts we think We are wiser than divinities.”
“There are three groups of citizens: the wealthy Are useless and are always longing for more. Those who have nothing and struggling for a living Are frightening because they honor envy too much And aim their wicked barbs at the well-to-do, Directed by the words of their cowardly leaders. Those people in the middle third save cities By preserving the order that each state creates.”
“There is nothing more hateful to a state than a tyrant. There, first, there are no common laws Because one person rules, holding the law In his control. This is not equality. When laws are written both the weak And the wealthy receive equal judgment. It is possible then for the weak to accuse The lucky whenever they are slandered And the smaller person overcomes the great if his cause is just. This is freedom: “Who has a good idea And wants to offer counsel to the state?”
This week keeps us in the city of Thebes and contemplating unburied dead, but with a typical Euripidean twist. Instead of just the body of Polynices being at issue, Euripides’ play centers around the chorus of mothers of the Seven Against Thebes who supplicated Theseus in Athens to force Thebes to allow their bodies to be buried. Beyond the basic expansion of the funerary rites theme to the entire expedition, this play also introduces fascinating questions of Athenian empire and the ability of any one Greek city state to force another to maintain some basic level of civilization.
This play was allegedly performed in 423 BCE and reflects some earlier historical changes in ritual (there were tombs to the seven warriors erected on the borders of Attica in the historical period. But it would not be strange to wonder how this reflects the concerns of the Athenian and people during the Peloponnesian War.
Euripides, Suppliant Women 486-488
“All people certainly understand the better Of two arguments, the good and the bad, By how much peace is better than war for mortals.”
Artistic Director: Paul O’Mahony (Out of Chaos Theatre) Associate Director: Liz Fisher Director of Outreach: Amy Pistone (Gonzaga University) Dramaturg: Emma Pauly Executive Producer: Lanah Koelle (Center for Hellenic Studies) Producers: Keith DeStone (Center for Hellenic Studies), Hélène Emeriaud, Janet Ozsolak, and Sarah Scott (Kosmos Society) Poster Artist: John Koelle Poster Designer: Allie Marbry (Center for Hellenic Studies)
Upcoming Episodes
Euripides, Phoenician Women, September 30
Performing Epic 1, Homer’s Iliad, October 7th
Euripides, Rhesus, October 14th
Euripides, Suppliant Women 1006-1008
“The sweetest death Is to die together with your loved ones If some god will allow such things.”
A poor man, when he tries to imitate the powerful, dies.
Once in a meadow a frog saw a bull
Whose great size exerted on her such a pull
That she inflated her wrinkled skin and asked
Her children whether she was bigger than that.
They denied it and she puffed herself out self again
But when she asked who was bigger, they said “him”.
Finally angry, she didn’t want to blow it,
She puffed again and her body exploded.”
I.24. Rana Rupta
Inops, potentem dum vult imitari, perit.
In prato quondam rana conspexit bovem,
et tacta invidia tantae magnitudinis
rugosam inflavit pellem. Tum natos suos
interrogavit an bove esset latior.
Illi negarunt. Rursus intendit cutem
maiore nisu, et simili quaesivit modo,
quis maior esset. Illi dixerunt “bovem”.
Novissime indignata, dum vult validius
inflare sese, rupto iacuit corpore.
“For men often claim that disease and a life
of a bad reputation should be feared more than Tartaros.
And they claim they know that the nature of the soul is like blood
Or even air, if that fits their current desire.
And they claim that they do not need our arguments.
But what follows will make you see these things as a matter of boasting
rather than because the matter itself has been proved.
The same men, out of their homeland and in a long exile
From the sight of others, charged with some foul crime,
live as they do, even afflicted with all possible troubles.
But, still, wherever they go the outcasts minister to their ancestors
and slaughter dark cattle and make their offerings
to the departed ghosts and when things get worse
they focus more sharply on religion.
For this reason it is better to examine a man in doubt or danger:
Adverse circumstances make it easier to know who a man is,
for then true words finally rise from his deepest heart; when the mask is removed, the thing itself remains.”
nam quod saepe homines morbos magis esse timendos
infamemque ferunt vitam quam Tartara leti
et se scire animi naturam sanguinis esse,
aut etiam venti, si fert ita forte voluntas,
nec prosum quicquam nostrae rationis egere,
hinc licet advertas animum magis omnia laudis
iactari causa quam quod res ipsa probetur.
extorres idem patria longeque fugati
conspectu ex hominum, foedati crimine turpi,
omnibus aerumnis adfecti denique vivunt,
et quo cumque tamen miseri venere parentant
et nigras mactant pecudes et manibus divis
inferias mittunt multoque in rebus acerbis
acrius advertunt animos ad religionem.
quo magis in dubiis hominem spectare periclis
convenit adversisque in rebus noscere qui sit;
nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo
eliciuntur [et] eripitur persona manet res.
Demons From The Livre de la vigne nostre Seigneur, 1450 – 70
“Evil people themselves, too, if they were allowed to catch some sight of the virtue they left through a small imperfection, and they could note that they would put down the filth of their vices thanks to the tortures of their punishments, once they weighed them against the value of acquiring goodness, they would not consider them torturous at all, but they would refuse the aid of defense attorneys and surrender themselves fully to their accusers and judges.
If this happened, there would be no place among wise men any longer for hatred. For who hates good people except for complete fools? But hating the wicked lacks reason too. For if, just as feeling faint is a sickness of the body, in the same way vice is a kind of sickness of minds. And since we should think those sick in body worthy less of hatred than of pity, so much more should those who are sick in mind not be attacked but be pitied, those whose minds are afflicted by a wickedness more cruel than any frailty.”
Ipsi quoque improbi, si eis aliqua rimula virtutem relictam fas esset aspicere vitiorumque sordes poenarum cruciatibus se deposituros viderent, compensatione adipiscendae probitatis nec hos cruciatus esse ducerent defensorumque operam repudiarent ac se totos accusatoribus iudicibusque permitterent. Quo fit ut apud sapientes nullus prorsus odio locus relinquatur. Nam bonos quis nisi stultissimus oderit? Malos vero odisse ratione caret. Nam si, uti corporum languor, ita vitiositas quidam est quasi morbus animorum, cum aegros corpore minime dignos odio sed potius miseratione iudicemus, multo magis non insequendi sed miserandi sunt quorum mentes omni languore atrocior urget improbitas.
“What in reality is this desired and famous power of yours? Won’t you, earth-born creatures, contemplate who it is you think you command and how? If you saw one mouse among the rest declaring that he had right and power over them, you would laugh so much! Indeed, if you consider only our body, can you find anything weaker than man, whom a fly often kills with a bite or by burrowing into some internal place? How, truly, is there any control over anyone except over his body or, over what is less important than his body, his fortune? Is there any way to rule a free mind? Is there any way to disturb a mind strengthened by true reason from a state of fundamental peace?
When a tyrant thought he was going to force a free man to betray the men conspiring against him with torture, that man bit his own tongue, severed it, and spat it at the face of the rabid tyrant. Thus, the torture, which the tyrant believed to be a tool of cruelty, the wise man made his weapon of virtue. What, then, is there which anyone could do against a man which he could not have done to himself by another?”
Quae vero est ista vestra expetibilis ac praeclara potentia? Nonne, o terrena animalia, consideratis quibus qui praesidere videamini? Nunc si inter mures videres unum aliquem ius sibi ac potestatem prae ceteris vindicantem, quanto movereris cachinno! Quid vero, si corpus spectes, inbecillius homine reperire queas quos saepe muscularum quoque vel morsus vel in secreta quaeque reptantium necat introitus? Quo vero quisquam ius aliquod in quempiam nisi in solum corpus et quod infra corpus est, fortunam loquor, possit exserere? Num quidquam libero imperabis animo? Num mentem firma sibi ratione cohaerentem de statu propriae quietis amovebis? Cum liberum quendam virum suppliciis se tyrannus adacturum putaret, ut adversum se factae coniurationis conscios proderet, linguam ille momordit atque abscidit et in os tyranni saevientis abiecit; ita cruciatus, quos putabat tyrannus materiam crudelitatis, vir sapiens fecit esse virtutis. Quid autem est quod in alium facere quisquam possit, quod sustinere ab alio ipse non possit?
