“Now you extend your hand for the daily gift! I’ll ply you with a golden one. Since we are talking about gold, take this so that its use and benefit may be more pleasing to you. “The one who enjoys riches the most is the one who least needs them.”
“Tell me who said that” you say. Well, so you’ll know how open-minded I am, this quote honors a different school. It’s from Epicurus or Metrodorus or some other of that ilk. Yet what difference does it make who said it. It speaks to everyone.
Whoever needs wealth, has anxiety about it. But no one enjoys a benefit that brings anxiety–they always want to add something more. As long as they are worried about increasing wealth, they forget how to use it. They take their profits, they wear out the forum, they keep looking to the next month. They become wealth’s caretaker instead of its master. Goodbye.”
Nunc ad cotidianam stipem manum porrigis. Aurea te stipe implebo, et quia facta est auri mentio, accipe quemadmodum usus fructusque eius tibi esse gratior possit. “Is maxime divitiis fruitur, qui minime divitiis indiget.” “Ede,” inquis, “auctorem.” Ut scias quam benigni simus, propositum est aliena laudare; Epicuri est aut Metrodori aut alicuius ex Illa officina. Et quid interest quis dixerit? Omnibus dixit. Qui eget divitiis, timet pro illis. Nemo autem sollicito bono fruitur; adicere illis aliquid studet. Dum de incremento cogitat, oblitus est usus. Rationes accipit, forum conterit, kalendarium versat; fit ex domino procurator. Vale.
Baton, the Comic Poet (fr. 3.1-11, preserved in Athenaeus Deipn. 4.163b)
“I am calling the prudent philosophers here,
Those who never allow themselves anything good,
Those who seek a thoughtful man in every walk
And in their discussions as if he were a fugitive slave.
Wretched man, why are you sober if you have money?
Why do you dishonor the gods this much?
Why do you think money is worth more than you are?
Does it have some intrinsic worth?
If you drink water, you’re useless to the city.
You hurt the farmer and the trader at the same time.
But I make them wealthier by getting drunk.”
Another fragmentary author with no Wikipedia page. All the Suda says about him is: Βάτων, κωμικός· δράματα αὐτοῦ Συνεξαπατῶν, ᾿Ανδροφόνος, Εὐεργέται. (“A Comic Poet whose plays were the Conspirators, the Murder and the Goodworkers.”) Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists is the main source for his fragments. This Batôn should not be confused with the historian and orator Batôn (also mentioned in Athenaeus).
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 2.13: Simon
“Simon was an Athenian and a leather-worker. Socrates used to go to his workshop and talk to him and he wrote down everything he remembered. This is why people call his dialogues “leathered”. There are thirty of them in one book.
[list of dialogues]
People say that Simon was the first person to have dialogues in the Socratic fashion. When Pericles said he would fund him and asked him to join his side, Simon said “I would never sell my freedom of speech”. Another Simon composed speeches On Rhetoric; a second was a doctor around the time of Seleukos Nicanor; a third was a sculptor.”
“I know Simôn and Simôn knows me.” There were two leaders, Nikôn and Simôn. Simon overpowered him because he was a man of the worst ways and it is said that he erased all memory of Nikôn. This proverb is used for people who recognize the evil in one another.”
“Telkhines: evil gods. Or jealous and harmful humans. There were two Telkhines, Simôn and Nikôn. Nikôn overpowered and erase dthe memory of Simôn. So, there is the proverb, “I know Simon and Simon knows me. This is used for those who recognize evil in one another.”
“I know Simôn and Simôn knows me”: There were two leaders who were evil Telkhinians by birth—for they were making the land infertile by spraying it with water from the Styx. They were Simôn and Nikôn. Simon overpowered because he was the most evil in his ways with the result that he erased any memory of Nikôn. For this reason in the proverb they only name Simôn. The proverb is applied to those who recognize the evil in one another.”
“Simôn, Simonos: a proper name and also a proverb: “No one is more thieving than Simôn.” And Aristophanes adds that whenever [people] see Simôn, they immediately turn into wolves. He was a Sophist who took public property for his own. Simôn and Theoros and Kleonymos are perjurers. Aristophanes has, “if a thunderbolt hits perjurers, how did it not burn Simôn, or Kleônumos or Theôros?”
Dio Chrysostom, The Fifty-Fourth Discourse: On Socrates 1
“Hippias of Elis, Gorgias of Leontini, along with the sophists Polos and Prodikos were prominent in Greece at a certain time and earned a fantastic reputation, not merely in the rest of the cities, but in Sparta and Athens too. They made a lot of money, both at public expense in some states and from certain aristocrats, kings, and private citizens, to the extent that each was able.
Yet, they gave many public presentations that didn’t have the smallest shred of thought to them, but were the kinds of words from which one can harvest money from fools. There was another man from Abdera, who was so far from gaining wealth from others was not only destroying his own inheritance bit by bit, but he eventually lost all his wealth pursuing philosophy. It is clear that he was foolishly searching for something that brought him no advantage.
“If you knew how much money I made, you’d freak out. This one time, I went to Sicily when Protagoras was visiting–he was well-known then and older than me–and while I was less experienced, I made more than 150 minas in a little time. In one small town alone–Inukon–I made over 20!
When I went home with that much I shocked and awed my father and the rest of our neighbors. I think I made more cash than any other two sophists put together.”
“Why do we need to talk about these guys when the lyric poet Philoxenos who had a share of the land in a Sicilian colony—safeguarding his lifestyle and his home and giving him a lot extra—when he saw that luxury and pleasure, and lack of the arts rose up together, said “By the gods, these good possessions will not ruin me! I should lose them!” He left his goods to others and sailed away.
People who are in debt are forced to beg, to be harvested for interest, enslaved and robbed-they hold on like Phineus, feeding winged Harpies who steal their food and swallow it whole, purchasing their grain, not at the right time, but before it is even harvested, buying up all the oil before the olives are picked.
“Well, I have wine,” he says, “for this much money” and gives an IOU for its cost. The grapes hang on the vine still and linger for the rising of Arcturus.”
Baton, the Comic Poet (fr. 3.1-11, preserved in Athenaeus Deipn. 4.163b)
“I am calling the prudent philosophers here,
Those who never allow themselves anything good,
Those who seek a thoughtful man in every walk
And in their discussions as if he were a fugitive slave.
Wretched man, why are you sober if you have money?
Why do you dishonor the gods this much?
Why do you think money is worth more than you are?
Does it have some intrinsic worth?
If you drink water, you’re useless to the city.
You hurt the farmer and the trader at the same time.
But I make them wealthier by getting drunk.”
Another fragmentary author with no Wikipedia page. All the Suda says about him is: Βάτων, κωμικός· δράματα αὐτοῦ Συνεξαπατῶν, ᾿Ανδροφόνος, Εὐεργέται. (“A Comic Poet whose plays were the Conspirators, the Murder and the Goodworkers.”) Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists is the main source for his fragments. This Batôn should not be confused with the historian and orator Batôn (also mentioned in Athenaeus).
Perhaps it will be the case that you’re called to be an artist. If so, take that fate upon yourself and bear it–its weight and its greatness.
–Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Crinagoras 9.234 (Greek Anthology)
“Tormented soul, how long will you put off
All your dreams except your dreams of riches?
Empty hopes wing you to the closest cold cloud.
Know this: things worth having don’t just come to man.
You must pursue the gifts of the Muses!
And as for your mind’s dim fancies,
Leave them to crazy people.”
Baton, the Comic Poet (fr. 3.1-11, preserved in Athenaeus Deipn. 4.163b)
“I am calling the prudent philosophers here,
Those who never allow themselves anything good,
Those who seek a thoughtful man in every walk
And in their discussions as if he were a fugitive slave.
Wretched man, why are you sober if you have money?
Why do you dishonor the gods this much?
Why do you think money is worth more than you are?
Does it have some intrinsic worth?
If you drink water, you’re useless to the city.
You hurt the farmer and the trader at the same time.
But I make them wealthier by getting drunk.”
Another fragmentary author with no Wikipedia page. All the Suda says about him is: Βάτων, κωμικός· δράματα αὐτοῦ Συνεξαπατῶν, ᾿Ανδροφόνος, Εὐεργέται. (“A Comic Poet whose plays were the Conspirators, the Murder and the Goodworkers.”) Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists is the main source for his fragments. This Batôn should not be confused with the historian and orator Batôn (also mentioned in Athenaeus).
In this beautiful periodic sentence from Demosthenes, he articulates the importance of leveling off income inequality.
De Corona, 103
“Right now, I want to take you back through the things I did when in power in order. And you, examine them again, anew, for what was best for the state. When I saw, Athenian men, that your navy was in disarray, and that some of the wealthy citizens were essentially untaxed because of the limited expenditures while other citizens of moderate or little wealth were losing what they had, and that the city was falling behind its opportunities because of these circumstances, I made a law through which I forced the wealthy to do what was right and I prevented the poor from suffering injustice—and this was most useful to the city: I ensured that her preparations happened at the necessary time.”
