“I guess it is necessary that we die.
Old men—the matters of life are brief,
So complete this course as sweetly as you can,
Going untroubled as the days pass to night.
Time has no idea how to keep hope alive;
No, it hurries on for itself and flits away.
Just look at me: I was once something special to look at,
Famous for my deeds, but luck stole me away
In a single day, just like a feather on the wind.”
This is from Plato the Attic Comedian, not the Attic Philosopher. Who knew there were at least 30 men with the same name?
Plato, Fr. 202 (Stobaeus, 2.3.3)
“If one wicked person
perishes, then two politicians grow in his place.
For there is no Iolaus* in the city
Who might cauterize the politicians’ heads.
If you’ve been bent over, then you’ll be a politician.”
*Iolaus is Herakles’ nephew who helped the hero kill the Hydra by cauterizing its necks to prevent new heads from growing.
Platôn, Alliance (fr. 168)
“They are like those boys who each time they draw a line
in the street to divide themselves into two groups
stand with some of them on one side of the line and some on the other.
One who stands in the middle of the two hurls a pot sherd–
If the white side faces up, one group must flee right away
And the others must chase them.”
“I guess it is necessary that we die.
Old men—the matters of life are brief,
So complete this course as sweetly as you can,
Going untroubled as the days pass to night.
Time has no idea how to keep hope alive;
No, it hurries on for itself and flits away.
Just look at me: I was once something special to look at,
Famous for my deeds, but luck stole me away
In a single day, just like a feather on the wind.”
“Or, as she did, when she left her home and paternal land
And came to Thebes to warlike Amphitryon,
Alkmênê, the daughter of host-rallying Êlektruôn.
She, really, surpassed the whole race of women
In appearance and stature. And no one could rival her mind
Of the women who were born from mortal women who slept with mortal men.
From her head and dark eyebrows [it shone]
Just like from the sight of golden Aphrodite.
And in her heart she honored her husband as
None of the female women had ever honored before.
But he killed her noble father after overcoming him in force,
After he was enraged over some cattle. He left his paternal land
And came to supplicate the shield-shaking Kadmeans.
He lived in a home there with his revered wife
But he did not have sex with her, he could not climb
Into the bed of Êlektruôn’s fine-ankled daughter, until he
Atoned for the murder of her great-hearted brothers
And burned down the villages of the heroes
The Taphians and Têleboans with fire.
For this is how it was decided, and the gods were witnesses.
He feared their rage, and pushed as fast as possible
To complete the great task Zeus had set for him.”
Note: This may be the worst story I have ever read about Herakles
Arrian, Historia Indica, 9
“In this land, where Herakles’ daughter ruled, women come to the age of marriage when they are six years old, while the men live to be forty years at the most. There is also a story circulated about this among the Indians. They say that Herakles, who had this daughter when he was late in years, learned that his own death was near. Because he could not find any man near he considered worthy to marry his daughter, he had sex with her himself when she was seven so that he would leave a race of Indian kings descended through her. And he made this the age of marriage for those descended from her. And from that time Pandaia ruled over this whole race, which took this right from her through Herakles.
It seems to me that since Herakles did many amazing things he would have been able to make himself lover-lived so that he might have sex with his child at a more appropriate time. But if these details about the age of marriage for women there are true, then it seems that they accord in some way with the age of men who die at the oldest in their forties. For old age comes more quickly to them and death follows old age. Therefore, I guess, the peak of life blooms more rapidly, by this logic. So, a month them, men of thirty would, I guess, be like old men; twenty-somethings would be like men in their prime, and the peak of youth would come around age 15. By this logic, the age of marriage for women would appropriately come around age 7—since Megasthenes says that in this land fruit ripens more quickly than in other places and turns rotten quickly as well.”
“When Dionysus was leaving India because he had put everything in good order, he set up Spatembas as king of the land, one of his companions who was the most Bacchic. When he died, he left the kingdom to his son Bouduas—the first ruled the Indians for 52 years, the second for 20. His son Kraduas inherited the kingship. For the most part thereafter the rule passed from father to son. If a blood-heir was absent, the Indians selected kings according to who was best. Then Herakles—as the story goes he came to India and the Indians claim he was born from the earth. This Heracles is especially worshiped by the Sourasênians, an Indian people who have two great cities, Methora and Kleisobora. The passable river Iômanês flows through their land. Megasthenes claims that this Herakles wore a similar apparel to the Theban Herakles, as the Indian themselves claim. This Herakles had many male children born to him in India (for he took many wives, this Herakles) but he only had one daughter. This child’s name was Pandaia and the land in which she was born and over which Herakles gave her authority was named after her. From her father she received five hundred elephants, 4000 cavalry, and 132,000 infantrymen.
A rather select group of Indians tell this story about Herakles, that once he had crossed the whole earth and the sea destroying whatever was evil, he uncovered in the sea a new kind of female jewelry, the type which even today those merchants who come here buying and selling goods acquire eagerly, which Romans and Greeks who were very wealthy bought with even greater excitement, which they call the ocean pearl in the Indian tongue. Herakles, because he thought it was a great possession, gathered pearls from every sea and brought them to India to be jewelry for his own daughter.
Megasthenes also says that the mussel-shell is caught in nets, that they often find many shells together in the sea in the same place, just like bees. And that pearl-mussels have a king or queen just like bees. Whoever is lucky enough to catch the king, gathers together the rest of the swarm easily. If the king gets away, then it is not possible to catch the rest. Fishermen allow the flesh of the mussel to rot, but they use the shells for decoration. Among the Indians, the pearl is worth three times its weight in gold, which is also mined in India.”
“But I am considered well-married, because I am called Hercules’ wife
And because my father-in-law is the one who sounds deeply with swift steeds.
Yet, this is how the unequal colts arrive unhappily at the plow,
The way that a lesser bride matches to a great husband.
This isn’t an honor but merely the appearance of it which pains who carries it more;
If you want to be married happily, marry your equal.
My husband is always absent—he’s more famous as my guest than husband
As he pursues is terrible monsters and beasts.”
At bene nupta feror, quia nominer Herculis uxor,
sitque socer, rapidis qui tonat altus equis.
quam male inaequales veniunt ad aratra iuvenci,
tam premitur magno coniuge nupta minor.
non honor est sed onus species laesura ferentes:
siqua voles apte nubere, nube pari.
vir mihi semper abest, et coniuge notior hospes
monstraque terribiles persequiturque feras.
The following fragment of Pherecydes, the fifth century mythographer, is from a Scholion to Euripides’ Phoenissae 53. Fowler (Early Greek Mythography, 2001) prints this as Pherecydes fr. 95):
“Pherecydes says these things about the children and the marriages of Oedipus: “Kreon,” he says, “gave the kingdom and Laios’ wife, his own mother Iokasta to Oedipus, and from here were born Phrastôr and Laonutos, who died thanks to the Minyans and Erginos. Then a year had passed, Oedipus married Euryganeia, the daughter of Periphas, and from her were born Antigone and Ismene, the girl Tydeus took at the stream and for that reason the stream is called Ismene. The sons Eteokles and Polyneices were also born to Oedipus from here. When Euryganeia died, Oedipus married Astymedea, the daughter of Stenelos. And some people add that Euryganeia was the sister of Oedipus’ mother Iokaste.”
During my travels with students in Italy, we recently visited the Tuscan city of Arezzo where we were introduced to the Amphitheater by Alessandro Barchiesi, a classicist of some repute.
This is from Plato the Attic Comedian, not the Attic Philosopher. Who knew there were at least 30 men with the same name?
Plato, Fr. 202 (Stobaeus, 2.3.3)
“If one wicked person
perishes, then two politicians grow in his place.
For there is no Iolaus* in the city
Who might cauterize the politicians’ heads.
If you’ve been bent over, then you’ll be a politician.”
*Iolaus is Herakles’ nephew who helped the hero kill the Hydra by cauterizing its necks to prevent new heads from growing.
Platôn, Alliance (fr. 168)
“They are like those boys who each time they draw a line
in the street to divide themselves into two groups
stand with some of them on one side of the line and some on the other.
One who stands in the middle of the two hurls a pot sherd–
If the white side faces up, one group must flee right away
And the others must chase them.”
