“And philosophy will grant you this path. So, entrust yourself to it, if you wish to be safe, if you want to be happy, and, really, if you want to be free, which is the most important thing. There’s no other way to approach this. Foolishness is a basic thing, it is wretched, unclean, servile, and overcome by many savage afflictions.
Such afflictions can be harsh masters, controlling us in turns or sometimes simultaneously–but you can fight them with wisdom, which is the only true freedom. There’s one way to get there and the path is direct. You will not get lost. Move along with a sure step: if you want everything under control, then give yourself to reason. You will rule many others, if reason rules you.
From wisdom you will understand what you should attempt and how to do it. You won’t just fall into things. There’s no one you can offer me who knows how they began to desire what they want–one doesn’t get to desire by planning, but by stumbling around impulsively. Fortune does not wage war against us more often than we attack Fortune.
It is shame, then, to be dragged along instead of forging ahead and then in the middle of chaotic events to ask in confusion: “How did I get here?” Goodbye.
Et hanc tibi viam dabit philosophia. Ad hanc te confer, si vis salvus esse, si securus, si beatus, denique si vis esse, quod est maximum, liber. Hoc contingere aliter non potest. Humilis res est stultitia, abiecta, sordida, servilis, multis affectibus et saevissimis subiecta. Hos tam graves dominos, interdum alternis imperantes, interdum pariter, dimittit a te sapientia, quae sola libertas est. Una ad hanc fert via, et quidem recta; non aberrabis. Vade certo gradu; si vis omnia tibi subicere, te subice rationi; multos reges si ratio te rexerit.
Ab illa disces, quidet quemadmodum adgredi debeas; non incides rebus. Neminem mihi dabis, qui sciat, quomodo quod vult, coeperit velle; non consilio adductus illo, sed inpetu inpactus est. Non minus saepe fortuna in nos incurrit quam nos in illam. Turpe est non ire, sed ferri et subito in medio turbine rerum stupentem quaerere: “Huc ego quemadmodum veni?” Vale.
After the suitor Amphimedon arrives in the underworld and tells the story of Penelope’s shroud and Odysseus’ return, Agamemnon responds:
Odyssey 24.192-202:
“Blessed child of Laertes, much-devising Odysseus,
You really secured a wife with magnificent virtue!
That’s how good the brains are for blameless Penelope,
Ikarios’ daughter, how well she remembered Odysseus,
Her wedded husband. The fame of her virtue will never perish,
And the gods will craft a pleasing song
Of mindful Penelope for mortals over the earth.
This is not the way for Tyndareos’ daughter.
She devised wicked deeds and since she killed
Her wedded husband, a hateful song
Will be hers among men, she will attract harsh rumor
To the race of women, even for those who are good.”
More than half of this speech praises Penelope for being a loyal, ‘good’ wife (and that is another issue of its own). Of course, this makes Agamemnon think of Klytemnestra. There’s a lot to be said about how this passage sets up the end of the Odyssey, but Agamemnon’s words are striking because they reflect a sad reality not just about misogynistic thinking but about the operation of human thought.
Let’s start with the misogyny: Agamemnon says here, quite clearly, that because of the behavior of one woman (well, two if we hear ambiguity in the phrase “Tyndareos’ daughter” and think of Helen too) all women have bad fame, even if they are “good”? A simple response to this is to wonder whether the same applies to men (of course not…) Let’s pass over the fact that the murder of Agamemnon was probably well deserved. I think this passage also reflects human cognition: the story of Klytemnestra is paradigmatic. We learn basic patterns about people and the world and apply these patterns (prejudices) as substitutions for deeper thought.
I am not sure whether this serves as a bit of an anticipatory apologetic on the part of epic–that the tale of Penelope cannot match up to negative messages about women. It probably stands as an acknowledgement of a “negative expectancy effect”–we are primed to hear negative tales and to believe negative things. I suspect that on Homer’s part this is probably less about women and more about anticipating the reception of this poem.
But, at the very least, this is a clear indication that Homer knows the way it goes: we live in a cultural system that discounts positive stories about women in favor of negative ones and which, accordingly, downgrades the authority of the stories they tell. In our responses to the testimonies of men and women, men have the privilege of being individuals whose lives might be ruined by rumor and false claims, while women are always already undermined. This is is an example of structural misogyny.
For discussions of this passage see: On the contrasting fame of Klytemnestra and Penelope, see Franco 2012, 60–61. For invocations of Klytemnestra as an example of how a woman can ruin a nostos, see Murnaghan 2011, chapter 4 and Nagy 1999, 36–39.
Classical myth deserves trigger warnings.
Franco, Cristina. 2012. “Women in Homer,” in Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon, eds., A Companion to Women in the Ancient World. London. 55–65.
Marquardt, Patricia. 1989. “Love’s Labor’s Lost: Women in the Odyssey,” in Robert Sutton, ed., Daidalikon: Studies in Honor of Raymond V. Schoder, S.J. Chicago. 239-248.
Murnaghan, Sheila. 2011. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey, Second Edition. Lanham.
Nagy, Gregory 1996. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond. Cambridge
“It is also necessary for a woman to take to heart that she will find no kind of purifying remedy for this mistake [adultery], something that would allow her to approach the temples and altars of the gods as a chaste and god-loved woman. This is because in this crime especially the divine spirit is most unforgiving. The most beautiful achievement of a free woman and the foremost glory is to provide as testimony to her prudence toward her husband her children, if they do in fact bear the imprint of similarity to the father who sowed them. That seems to me to be enough regarding marriage.
The following seems to be right to me when it comes to the management of the body. A woman should wear white, but be dressed simply and without decoration. This style of dressing is achieved without transparent or decorated robes or robes which are made from silk; instead a woman should wear modest and white clothing. She preferably also avoids luxury and ostentation and will not cause vile jealousy in other women. She should also not put on gold or emeralds at all—this behavior would make her seem wealthy and haughty to common women.
It is necessary that the well-governed city which is ordered completely with a view to its whole should be one of common experiences and likemindedness. And it should keep out the craftspeople who create these sorts of baubles from its territory. A prudent woman should not embellish her appearance with foreign decoration and makeup but should use the native beauty of the body—she should decorate her body by washing it in water rather than bringing it shame. For this brings honor to herself and the man she lives with.
Women need to make processions from their homes to make sacrifices to the leading-god of the city for themselves, their husbands, and their households. They must make their expedition to the theater or to the market for household goods, however, not when the evening star is rising nor when it is dark but whenever it is still light, accompanied by a single servant or, at most, two as is proper.
In addition, a prudent woman must also perform sacrificial rites for the gods as is permitted to her, but must abstain from the occult rites and rituals of the Great Mother at home. For the common law prohibits women from performing these rituals, since, in addition to other things, these practices make them drunk and insane. The woman of the home needs to be temperate and uncontaminated by everything, even when she is governing the home.”
“And Death which we fear so much and deny, interrupts life, it doesn’t take it away from us. There will come a time when we return to the light of day–a fact many would refuse, if they did not return without their memories.
I want to explain to you later and more carefully that everything which appears to decay just transforms. Face it with a calm mind since you are meant to return. Note how the circuit of the universe repeats itself. You will see that nothing in the world is destroyed, but instead rises and sets in turns.
Summer is gone, but another year brings it back; winter recedes, but it comes too in the proper time. Night overshadows the sun, but day forces the night back again. The path of the stars traces whatever journey they took before. Part of heaven is always falling; part is always rising again.
I’ll stop this once I offer a final word: infants, children, and those who have lost their minds do not fear death. It is completely shameful, then, if reason cannot provide us the peace foolishness has gained for them.”
Et mors, quam pertimescimus ac recusamus, intermittit vitam, non eripit; veniet iterum, qui nos in lucem reponat dies, quem multi recusarent, nisi oblitos reduceret.
Sed postea diligentius docebo omnia, quae videntur perire, mutari. Aequo animo debet rediturus exire. Observa orbem rerum in se remeantium; videbis nihil in hoc mundo extingui, sed vicibus descendere ac surgere. Aestas abit, sed alter illam annus adducet; hiemps cecidit, referent illam sui menses; solem nox obruit, sed ipsam statim dies abiget. Stellarum iste discursus quicquid praeterit repetit; pars caeli levatur assidue, pars mergitur. Denique finem faciam, si hoc unum adiecero, nec infantes nec2 pueros nec mente lapsos timere mortem et esse turpissimum, si eam securitatem nobis ratio non praestat, ad quam stultitia perducit. Vale
According to some testimonia Melinno was Nossis’ daughter. The Following poem may be a poem to the city of Rome or to strength Personified (in Greek, rhômê)
“They claim that after some time Themis was given by Gaia whatever he share was and then that Apollo received that as a gift from Themis. They say that Apollo gave to Poseidon the portion of land called Kalauria which is near Troizen as an exchange-gift for the oracle. I have also heard that men who were shepherding their flocks chanced upon the oracle and were inspired by the mist and then acted as prophets of Apollo. The account with the most adherents is the story of Phêmonoê, that she was the first prophet of the god and the first person who sang hexameters.
Boiô, a local woman who created a Hymn for the Delphians, used to say that people who visited from the Hyperboreans along with others and Olên created the oracle for the god and that he, Olên, was the first to give prophecies and to sing a hexameter.
Boiô composed these verses: “Here in fact, they built the oracle of good memory / the children of the Hyperboreans, Pagasos and shining Aguieus.”
Once she has named other Hyperboreans, near the end of the hymn she mentioned Olên: “And Olên who was the first prophet of Phoibos / and the first to make the song of ancient epic verses.” There is in common memory no mention of him at all; all that is left is the prophecy of women only.”
“When I encourage you so sternly to study, I am pursuing my own interest. I want to have you as a friend–but this can’t happen unless you keep up as you started, with your self-improvement. Now, while you may love me, you are not my friend. “Wait, what?” you say, “do these words mean different things? truly, they are completely different.
Someone who is a friend loves you; but everyone who loves you isn’t necessarily a friend. Friendship is always useful, but sometimes love also hurts. Forge ahead for this reason if for no other: to learn how to love.”
Cum te tam valde rogo, ut studeas, meum negotium ago; habere te amicum volo, quod contingere mihi, nisi pergis ut coepisti excolere te, non potest. Nunc enim amas me, amicus non es. “Quid ergo? Haec inter se diversa sunt?” Immo dissimilia. Qui amicus est, amat; qui amat, non utique amicus est. Itaque amicitia semper prodest, amor aliquando etiam nocet. Si nihil aliud, ob hoc profice, ut amare discas.
“Ptolemais of Cyrene wrote about these things briefly in her investigation and Didymos the musician addressed it as well among many other this in his work On the Difference Between Aristoksenians and Pythagoreians… Ptolemais wrote this:
What is the difference in those who are exceptional at music? Some put reason forward as the matter, but others offer sensation, while there are those who posit both. The Pythagoreans offer reason as the issue, those of them who challenge musiciians to abandon perception and instead to accept reason itself as a sufficient criterion. Musicians are refuted when they start by taking up perception in the beginning only to forget it. Instrumentalists tend to emphasize perception because the contemplation of theory is useless to them or in some way weak.
What is the difference of those who believe that both reason and perception are important criteria? Some propose that both perception and reason have similar power, while others position one in front of the other. Aristoxenos of Tarantum thinks that they matter equally. He believes that perception cannot sustain itself apart from reason and that reason is not powerful enough alone to persist without the basic foundations of perception and that it eventually returns the product of introspection back to perception.”
Why does he want to set perception before reasons? It is because of order not power. For, he says, whenever what is sensed in any way takes root then we need to privilege reason in any theory about it. Who else values both principles similarly? Pythagoras and his followers. For they want perception, as a kind of guide, to start by taking the inspirations which they pass on to reason and for reason then to move on from receiving these sensations and to adapt them on its own in moving away from perception. For this reason, if a system of thought founded upon reason seems no longer perfectly fit to perception, they do not undermine it, but instead reproach the sensation for departing from its meaning since reason discovers what is correct through itself and refutes perception.
Who is in opposition to them? Some of the musicians from the school of Aristoxenos, especially those who have assumed a theoretical mindset but have also adding to it from instrumental practice. These people believe that perception is the greater power and that reason is second only because it is useful.”
The work of Aisara of Sparta the Pythagorean about the nature of human kind
“Human nature seems to me to be a model for law and justice for home and the city alike. For one who searches the tracks inside themselves might discover and interpret this within: for law and justice, which is the guiding principle of the soul, are inside us. Because our nature is threefold, it supports three types of operations: our intelligence [noos] guides judgment and wisdom; our passion [thumôsis] directs bravery and impulse; and our desire shapes our attractions and affection. These forces are situated in relation to each other in such a way that the most powerful controls them, and the weakest is controlled. The intermediate power has a middle position, to exercise control and to be controlled in turn.
God shaped these traits in such a way and distributed them too along the model of the human body because he believes that the human alone—and none of the other mortal animals—is amenable to law and justice. For the state of any community could not even develop from one thing only, much less many, and those similar to each other—since it is necessary, when materials are different, for the parts of our souls to be different too, just as in the parts of the body when it comes to the instruments of touch, sight, taste, smell, they do not have the same harmony in respect to all things—nor could a common state come from multiple things which are unrelated but just happen to come into contact, but instead [it comes] from parts which have obtained some completeness in their whole arrangement, their composition, and their harmony together. Not only do multiple unrelated things happen to find a whole and complete form but these elements also may brought together in a random way however they happened to come together, and yet are still governed by some law and a kind of wisdom.
If each of the elements takes the same part of power and honor, even though they are unlike and one is worse and one is better and one is in the middle, they are not able of bringing the parts of the soul into harmony. If they are unequal, and the best does not control the greater portion of the soul, but the worse does, then there is great imprudence and disorder in the mind. If the better takes the greater portion and the worse takes the less, but they are not each distributed according to a logical balance, then harmony and love and justice are not able to exist in the mind, since when each one of them is distributed according to a proportional order, that’s the structure I think is most just.
A certain kind of unanimity and similarity of outlook accompanies this kind of composition. This would be rightly said to be a good government of the soul which brings the strength of virtue from the better ruling and the worse being ruled. Friendship and attraction and affection for one’s own kind and family also grow from these parts. For the mind persuades, since it can see consequences; desire longs for things; and passion, when full of energy, seethes with hate and becomes dear to desire. The mind, because it can harmonize pleasure and pain, also balances out the tense and eager portion of the soul with the light and dissolute part.
Each part is apportioned according to the family and state of each trait. The mind sees consequences and keeps track of affairs while the passion provides impulse and courage for what has been anticipated and desire, which is related to tender affection, harmonizes with the mind, taking what is pleasurable and providing a reflection on it to the reflective portion of the mind. Human life seems to me to be best with a mixture of these things, when the pleasurable is mixed with the serious and pleasure is mixed with virtue. The mind is able to harmonize these things, once it has come to love learning and virtue.”
Αἰσάρας Πυθαγορείου Λευκανᾶς ἐκ τοῦ Περὶ ἀνθρώπω φύσιος (Fr. phil. Gr. II p. 51 Mull.) :
“I feel full and I feel joy and I feel warm as if I had slipped out of old age each time I sense from your deeds and your letters how much you have surpassed yourself, since you long ago left the masses behind you. If a tree coming to fruit pleases a farmer, or if a shepherd finds joy in the growth of his flock, if everyone looks at at their own student as if they had been testing them since childhood, what do you think happens to those who have educated a mind and shaped it young when they see it full grown?
I claim you as mine–you are my work. When I noticed your ability, I put my hand on you, encouraged you, I spurred you on and never let you move slowly, but constantly pushed you. I do this now too, but I am rooting for someone already running who cheers for me in turn.
“What’s left?” You ask, “I am still willing.” This means the most, not just the beginning, as they say, “half done is the task begun”–no, this depends on the spirit. The greater task of goodness is the desire to become good. Do you know what I call a good man? Someone complete, certain, one no limitation or desire can debase. I see that person in you, if you persevere, lean in to your labor, and make sure that all your words and deeds relate and support one another and form a unitary person. No one whose actions are disharmonious will have a balanced soul. Bye-bye.
Cresco et exulto et discussa senectute recalesco, quotiens ex iis, quae agis ac scribis, intellego, quantum te ipse, nam turbam olim reliqueras, superieceris. Si agricolam arbor ad fructum perducta delectat, si pastor ex fetu gregis sui capit voluptatem, si alumnum suum nemo aliter intuetur quam ut adulescentiam illius suam iudicet; quid evenire credis iis, qui ingenia educaverunt et quae tenera formaverunt adulta subito vident?
Adsero te mihi; meum opus es. Ego quom vidissem indolem tuam, inieci manum, exhortatus sum, addidi stimulos nec lente ire passus sum, sed subinde incitavi; et nunc idem facio, sed iam currentem hortor et invicem hortantem.
“Quid aliud?” inquis; “adhuc volo.” In hoc plurimum est, non sic quomodo principia totius operis dimidium occupare dicuntur; ista res animo constat. Itaque pars magna bonitatis est velle fieri bonum. Scis quem bonum dicam? Perfectum, absolutum, quem malum facere nulla vis, nulla necessitas possit. Hunc te prospicio, si perseveraveris et incubueris et id egeris, ut omnia facta dictaque tua inter se congruant ac respondeant sibi et una forma percussa sint. Non est huius animus in recto, cuius acta discordant. Vale.
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