1. Plato, Theaetetus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 179e. THEO. Certainly we must. For it is no more possible, Socrates, to discuss these doctrines of Heracleitus (or, as you say, of Homer or even earlier sages) with the Ephesians themselves—those, at least, who profess to be familiar with them—than with madmen. For they are, quite in accordance with their text-books, in perpetual motion; but as for keeping to an argument or a question and quietly answering and asking in turn |
|
2. Xenophon, Memoirs, 2.1.1-2.1.17, 3.8.5-3.8.6 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 2.1.1. In other conversations I thought that he exhorted his companions to practise self-control in the matter of eating and drinking, and sexual indulgence, and sleeping, and endurance of cold and heat and toil. Aware that one of his companions was rather intemperate in such matters, he said: Tell me, Aristippus, if you were required to take charge of two youths and educate them so that the one would be fit to rule and the other would never think of putting himself forward, how would you educate them? Shall we consider it, beginning with the elementary question of food? Oh yes, replied Aristippus, food does seem to come first; for one can’t live without food. 2.1.2. Well, now, will not a desire for food naturally arise in both at certain times? Yes, naturally. Now which of the two should we train in the habit of transacting urgent business before he satisfies his hunger? The one who is being trained to rule, undoubtedly; else State business might be neglected during his tenure. And must not the same one be given power to resist thirst when both want to drink? Certainly. 2.1.3. And to which shall we give the power of limiting his sleep so that he can go late to bed and get up early, and do without sleep if need be? To the same again. And the power to control his passions, so that he may not be hindered in doing necessary work? To the same again. And to which shall we give the habit of not shirking a task, but undertaking it willingly? That too will go to the one who is being trained to rule. And to which would the knowledge needful for overcoming enemies be more appropriately given? Without doubt to the one who is being trained to rule; for the other lessons would be useless without such knowledge. 2.1.4. Don’t you think that with this education he will be less likely to be caught by his enemy than other creatures? Some of them, you know, are so greedy, that in spite of extreme timidity in some cases, they are drawn irresistibly to the bait to get food, and are caught; and others are snared by drink. Yes, certainly. Others again — quails and partridges, for instance — are so amorous, that when they hear the cry of the female, they are carried away by desire and anticipation, throw caution to the winds and blunder into the nets. Is it not so? 2.1.5. He agreed again. Now, don’t you think it disgraceful that a man should be in the same plight as the silliest of wild creatures? Thus an adulterer enters the women’s quarters, knowing that by committing adultery he is in danger of incurring the penalties threatened by the law, and that he may be trapped, caught and ill-treated. When such misery and disgrace hang over the adulterer’s head, and there are many remedies to relieve him of his carnal desire without risk, is it not sheer lunacy to plunge headlong into danger? Yes, I think it is. 2.1.6. And considering that the great majority of essential occupations, warfare, agriculture and very many others, are carried on in the open air, don’t you think it gross negligence that so many men are untrained to withstand cold and heat? He agreed again. Don’t you think then, that one who is going to rule must adapt himself to bear them lightly? Certainly. 2.1.7. If then we classify those who control themselves in all these matters as fit to rule, shall we not classify those who cannot behave so as men with no claim to be rulers? He agreed again. Well now, as you know the category to which each of these species belongs, have you ever considered in which category you ought to put yourself? 2.1.8. I have; and I do not for a moment put myself in the category of those who want to be rulers. Cyropaedia I. vi. 7; vii. ii, 26 f. For considering how hard a matter it is to provide for one’s own needs, I think it absurd not to be content to do that, but to shoulder the burden of supplying the wants of the community as well. That anyone should sacrifice a large part of his own wishes and make himself accountable as head of the state for the least failure to carry out all the wishes of the community is surely the height of folly. 2.1.9. For states claim to treat their rulers just as I claim to treat my servants. I expect my men to provide me with necessaries in abundance, but not to touch any of them; and states hold it to be the business of the ruler to supply them with all manner of good things, and to abstain from all of them himself. And so, should anyone want to bring plenty of trouble on himself and others, I would educate him as you propose and number him with those fitted to be rulers : but myself I classify with those who wish for a life of the greatest ease and pleasure that can be had. Here Socrates asked: 2.1.10. Shall we then consider whether the rulers or the ruled live the pleasanter life? Certainly, replied Aristippus. To take first the nations known to us. In Asia the rulers are the Persians; the Syrians, Lydians and Phrygians are the ruled. In Europe the Scythians rule, and the Maeotians are ruled. In Africa the Carthaginians rule, and the Libyans are ruled. Which of the two classes, think you, enjoys the pleasanter life? Or take the Greeks, of whom you yourself are one; do you think that the controlling or the controlled communities enjoy the pleasanter life? 2.1.11. Nay, replied Aristippus, for my part I am no candidate for slavery; but there is, as I hold, a middle path in which I am fain to walk. That way leads neither through rule nor slavery, but through liberty, which is the royal road to happiness. 2.1.12. Ah, said Socrates, if only that path can avoid the world as well as rule and slavery, there may be something in what you say. But, since you are in the world, if you intend neither to rule nor to be ruled, and do not choose to truckle to the rulers 2.1.13. — I think you must see that the stronger have a way of making the weaker rue their lot both in public and in private life, and treating them like slaves. You cannot be unaware that where some have sown and planted, others cut their corn and fell their trees, and in all manner of ways harass the weaker if they refuse to bow down, until they are persuaded to accept slavery as an escape from war with the stronger. So, too, in private life do not brave and mighty men enslave and plunder the cowardly and feeble folk? Yes, but my plan for avoiding such treatment is this. I do not shut myself up in the four corners of a community, but am a stranger in every land. 2.1.14. A very cunning trick, that! cried Socrates, for ever since the death of Sinis and Sceiron and Procrustes Highwaymen slain by Theseus, Plutarch, Thes. c. 8 f. no one injures strangers! And yet nowadays those who take a hand in the affairs of their homeland pass laws to protect themselves from injury, get friends to help them over and above those whom nature has given them, encompass their cities with fortresses, get themselves weapons to ward off the workers of mischief; and besides all this seek to make allies in other lands; and in spite of all these precautions, they are still wronged. 2.1.15. But you, with none of these advantages, spend much time on the open road, where so many come to harm; and into whatever city you enter, you rank below all its citizens, and are one of those specially marked down for attack by intending wrongdoers; and yet, because you are a stranger, do you expect to escape injury? What gives you confidence? Is it that the cities by proclamation guarantee your safety in your coming and going? Or is it the thought that no master would find you worth having among his slaves? For who would care to have a man in his house who wants to do no work and has a weakness for high living? 2.1.16. But now let us see how masters treat such servants. Do they not starve them to keep them from immorality, lock up the stores to stop their stealing, clap fetters on them so that they can’t run away, and beat the laziness out of them with whips? What do you do yourself to cure such faults among your servants? 2.1.17. I make their lives a burden to them until I reduce them to submission. But how about those who are trained in the art of kingship, Socrates, which you appear to identify with happiness? How are they better off than those whose sufferings are compulsory, if they must bear hunger, thirst, cold, sleeplessness, and endure all these tortures willingly? For if the same back gets the flogging whether its owner kicks or consents, or, in short, if the same body, consenting or objecting, is besieged by all these torments, I see no difference, apart from the folly of voluntary suffering. 3.8.5. That is the same answer as you gave to my question whether you knew of anything good. You think, do you, that good is one thing and beautiful another? Don’t you know that all things are both beautiful and good in relation to the same things? In the first place, Virtue is not a good thing in relation to some things and a beautiful thing in relation to others. Men, again, are called beautiful and good in the same respect and in relation to the same things: it is in relation to the same things that men’s bodies look beautiful and good and that all other things men use are thought beautiful and good, namely, in relation to those things for which they are useful. 3.8.6. Is a dung basket beautiful then? of course, and a golden shield is ugly, if the one is well made for its special work and the other badly. Do you mean that the same things are both beautiful and ugly? of course — and both good and bad. |
|
3. Horace, Odes, 2.16.13-2.16.14 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
|
4. Horace, Letters, 1.6.6, 1.20.20, 2.2.49-2.2.52 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
|
5. New Testament, Matthew, 24.5 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 24.5. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will lead many astray. |
|
6. Justin, Dialogue With Trypho, 1.2, 2.1-2.2, 2.4, 2.6, 5.6, 35.4 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
7. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 1.18-1.19, 1.21, 2.79-2.80, 2.87-2.88, 2.92, 6.8, 9.112, 10.27 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 2.79. He made a request to Dionysius on behalf of a friend and, failing to obtain it, fell down at his feet. And when some one jeered at him, he made reply, It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet. He was once staying in Asia and was taken prisoner by Artaphernes, the satrap. Can you be cheerful under these circumstances? some one asked. Yes, you simpleton, was the reply, for when should I be more cheerful than now that I am about to converse with Artaphernes? Those who went through the ordinary curriculum, but in their studies stopped short at philosophy, he used to compare to the suitors of Penelope. For the suitors won Melantho, Polydora and the rest of the handmaidens, but were anything but successful in their wooing of the mistress. 2.80. A similar remark is ascribed to Ariston. For, he said, when Odysseus went down into the under-world, he saw nearly all the dead and made their acquaintance, but he never set eyes upon their queen herself.Again, when Aristippus was asked what are the subjects which handsome boys ought to learn, his reply was, Those which will be useful to them when they are grown up. To the critic who censured him for leaving Socrates to go to Dionysius, his rejoinder was, Yes, but I came to Socrates for education and to Dionysius for recreation. When he had made some money by teaching, Socrates asked him, Where did you get so much? to which he replied, Where you got so little. 2.87. The one state is agreeable and the other repellent to all living things. However, the bodily pleasure which is the end is, according to Panaetius in his work On the Sects, not the settled pleasure following the removal of pains, or the sort of freedom from discomfort which Epicurus accepts and maintains to be the end. They also hold that there is a difference between end and happiness. Our end is particular pleasure, whereas happiness is the sum total of all particular pleasures, in which are included both past and future pleasures. 2.88. Particular pleasure is desirable for its own sake, whereas happiness is desirable not for its own sake but for the sake of particular pleasures. That pleasure is the end is proved by the fact that from our youth up we are instinctively attracted to it, and, when we obtain it, seek for nothing more, and shun nothing so much as its opposite, pain. Pleasure is good even if it proceed from the most unseemly conduct, as Hippobotus says in his work On the Sects. For even if the action be irregular, still, at any rate, the resultant pleasure is desirable for its own sake and is good. 2.92. and that wealth too is productive of pleasure, though not desirable for its own sake.They affirm that mental affections can be known, but not the objects from which they come; and they abandoned the study of nature because of its apparent uncertainty, but fastened on logical inquiries because of their utility. But Meleager in his second book On Philosophical Opinions, and Clitomachus in his first book On the Sects, affirm that they maintain Dialectic as well as Physics to be useless, since, when one has learnt the theory of good and evil, it is possible to speak with propriety, to be free from superstition, and to escape the fear of death. 6.8. He used to recommend the Athenians to vote that asses are horses. When they deemed this absurd, his reply was, But yet generals are found among you who had had no training, but were merely elected. Many men praise you, said one. Why, what wrong have I done? was his rejoinder. When he turned the torn part of his cloak so that it came into view, Socrates no sooner saw this than he said, I spy your love of fame peeping through your cloak. Phanias in his work on the Socratics tells us how some one asked him what he must do to be good and noble, and he replied, You must learn from those who know that the faults you have are to be avoided. When some one extolled luxury his reply was, May the sons of your enemies live in luxury. 9.112. The first deals with the same subjects, except that the poem is a monologue. It begins as follows:Ye sophists, ye inquisitives, come! follow!He died at the age of nearly ninety, so we learn from Antigonus and from Sotion in his eleventh book. I have heard that he had only one eye; indeed he used to call himself a Cyclops. There was another Timon, the misanthrope.Now this philosopher, according to Antigonus, was very fond of gardens and preferred to mind his own affairs. At all events there is a story that Hieronymus the Peripatetic said of him, Just as with the Scythians those who are in flight shoot as well as those who pursue, so, among philosophers, some catch their disciples by pursuing them, some by fleeing from them, as for instance Timon. 10.27. hence he has frequently repeated himself and set down the first thought that occurred to him, and in his haste has left things unrevised, and he has so many citations that they alone fill his books: nor is this unexampled in Zeno and Aristotle. Such, then, in number and character are the writings of Epicurus, the best of which are the following:of Nature, thirty-seven books.of Atoms and Void.of Love.Epitome of Objections to the Physicists.Against the Megarians.Problems.Sovran Maxims.of Choice and Avoidance.of the End.of the Standard, a work entitled Canon.Chaeredemus.of the Gods.of Piety. |
|
