text:lives_of_the_sophists_-_philostratus
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Both sides previous revisionPrevious revision | |||
text:lives_of_the_sophists_-_philostratus [2017/02/22 21:44] – 46.161.9.24 | text:lives_of_the_sophists_-_philostratus [2017/03/02 22:18] (current) – old revision restored (2013/08/26 21:11) fredmond | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
- | wh0cd120768 | + | Philostratus and Eunapius. The Lives of the Sophists with English translation by Wilmer Cave Wright, Ph.D., Professor of Greek, Bryn Mawr College. London and New York: MCMXXII. |
+ | |||
+ | ====== Philostratus: | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Preface ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Dedicated by Flavius Philostratus to the most Illustrious Antonius Gordianus, Consul | ||
+ | |||
+ | I have written for you in two Books an account of certain men who, though they pursued philosophy, ranked as sophists, and also of the sophists properly so called; partly because I know that your own family is connected with that profession, since Herodes the sophist was your ancestor; but I remembered, too, the discussions we once held about the sophists at Antioch, in the temple of Daphnean Apollo. Their fathers' | ||
+ | ===== Book I ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | We must regard the ancient sophistic art as philosophic rhetoric. For it discusses the themes that philosophers treat of, but whereas they, by their method of questioning, | ||
+ | |||
+ | I know the number of the sands of the sea and the measure | ||
+ | thereof [Herodotus i. 147], | ||
+ | |||
+ | and | ||
+ | |||
+ | Far-seeing Zeus gives a wooden wall to the Trito-Born, [Athena] | ||
+ | |||
+ | and | ||
+ | |||
+ | Nero, Orestes, Alcmaeon, matricides, | ||
+ | |||
+ | and many other things of this sort; just like a sophist. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now ancient sophistic, even when it propounded philosophical themes, used to discuss them diffusely and at length [Plato, Sopjhist 217c]; for it discoursed on courage, it discoursed on justice, on the heroes and gods, and how the universe has been fashioned into its present shape. But the sophistic that followed it, which we must not call " | ||
+ | |||
+ | The fountains of extempore eloquence flowed, some say, from Pericles their source, and hence Pericles has won his great reputation as an orator; but others say that it arose with Python of Byzantium, of whom Demosthenes says [Demosthenes, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Athenians when they observed the too great cleverness of the sophists, shut them out of the law-courts on the ground that they could defeat a just argument by an unjust, and that they used their power to warp men's judgment. That is the reason why Aeschines [e.g. Against Timarchus 170] and Demosthenes [e.g. On the Crown 276] branded each other with the title of sophist, not because it was a disgrace, but because the very word was suspect in the eyes of the jury; for in their career outside the courts they claimed consideration and applause on the very ground that they were sophists. In fact, Demosthenes, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The men of former days applied the name " | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Eudoxus of Cnidus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 1. Eudoxus of Cnidus, though he devoted considerable study to the teachings of the Academy, was nevertheless placed on the list of sophists because his style was ornate and he improvised with success. He was honored with the title of sophist in the Hellespont and the Propontis, at Memphis, and in Egypt beyond Memphis where it borders on Ethiopia and the region inhabited by those wise men who are called Naked Philosophers [gymnosophists]. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Leon of Byzantium ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 2. Leon of Byzantium was in his youth a pupil of Plato, but when he reached man's estate he was called a sophist because he employed so many different styles of oratory, and also because his repartees were so convincing. For example, when Philip brought an army against Byzantium, Leon went out to meet him and said: "Tell me, Philip, what moved you to begin war on us?" And when he replied: "Your birthplace, the fairest of cities, lured me on to love her, and that is why I have come to my charmer' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Dias of Ephesus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 3. Dias of Ephesus made fast the cable of his philosophy to the Academy, but he was held to be a sophist for the following reason. When he saw that Philip was treating the Greeks harshly, he persuaded him to lead an expedition against Asia, and went to and fro telling the Greeks that they ought to accompany Philip on his expedition, since it was no dishonor to endure slavery abroad in order to secure freedom at home. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Carneades of Athens ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 4. Carneades of Athens was also enrolled among the sophists, for though his mind had been equipped for the pursuit of philosophy, yet in virtue of the force and vigor of his orations he attained to an extraordinarily high level of eloquence. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Philostratus the Egyptian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 5. I am aware that Philostratus the Egyptian also, though he studied philosophy with Queen Cleopatra, was called a sophist. This was because he adopted the panegyrical and highly-colored type of eloquence; which came of associating with a woman who regarded even the love of letters as a sensuous pleasure. Hence the following elegiac couplet was composed as a parody aimed at him: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Acquire the temperament of that very wise man, | ||
+ | Philostratus, | ||
+ | has taken on colors like hers. [Theognis 215] | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Theomnestus of Naucratis ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 6. Theomnestus of Naucratis was by profession a philosopher, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Dio of Prusa ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 7. As for Dio of Prusa, I do not know what one ought to call him, such was his excellence in all departments; | ||
+ | |||
+ | He lived at a time when Apollonius of Tyana and Euphrates of Tyre were teaching their philosophy, and he was intimate with both men, though in their quarrel with one another they went to extremes that are alien to the philosophic temper. His visit to the Getic tribes I cannot rightly call exile, since he had not been ordered to go into exile, yet it was not merely a traveller' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then Odysseus of many counsels stripped him of his rags, [Odyssey xxii. 1.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | and having said this and thus revealed that he was no beggar, nor what they believed him to be, but Dio the sage, he delivered a spirited and energetic indictment of the tyrant; and he convinced the soldiers that they would be wiser if they acted in accordance with the will of the Roman people. And indeed the persuasive charm of the man was such as to captivate even men who were not versed in Greek letters. An instance of this is that the Emperor Trajan in Rome set him by his side on the golden chariot in which the Emperors ride in procession when they celebrate their triumphs in war, and often he would turn to Dio and say: "I do not understand what you are saying, but I love you as I love myself." | ||
+ | |||
+ | The images employed by Dio in his orations are entirely in the sophistic manner, but though he abounds in them his style is nevertheless clear and in keeping with the matter in hand. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Favorinus the Philosopher ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 8. Favorinus the Philosopher, | ||
+ | |||
+ | When he is wrath with a lesser man, [Iliad i. 80.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | and | ||
+ | |||
+ | Mighty is the anger of Zeus-nurtured kings, | ||
+ | |||
+ | if only it be kept in check by reason. Those who endeavor to guide and amend the morals of princes would do well to add this saying to the sentiments expressed by the poets. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was appointed high priest [president of the public games], whereupon he appealed to the established usage of his birthplace, pleading that, according to the laws on such matters, he was exempt from public services because he was a philosopher. But when he saw that the Emperor intended to vote against him on the ground that he was not a philosopher, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was very intimate with Herodes the sophist who regarded him as his teacher and father, and wrote to him: "When shall I see you, and when shall I lick the honey from your lips?" [An echo of Aristophanes frag. 231.] Accordingly at his death he bequeathed to Herodes all the books that he had collected, his house in Rome, and Autolecythus. [The name means 'he who carries his own oil-flask' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The quarrel that arose between Polemo and Favorinus began in Ionia, where the Ephesians favoured Favorinus, while Smyrna admired Polemo; and it became more bitter in Rome; for there consuls and sons of consuls by applauding either one or the other started between them a rivalry such as kindles the keenest envy and malice even in the hearts of wise men. However they may be forgiven for that rivalry, since human nature holds that the love of glory never grows old [Thucydides ii. 44]; but they are to be blamed for the speeches that they composed assailing one another; for personal abuse is brutal, and even if it be true, that does not acquit of disgrace even the man who speaks about such things. And so when people called Favorinus a sophist, the mere fact that he had quarrelled with a sophist was evidence enough; for that spirit of rivalry of which I spoke is always directed against one's competitors in the same craft. [Hesiod, Works and Days 25.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | His style of eloquence was careless in construction, | ||
+ | |||
+ | When he delivered discourses in Rome, the interest in them was universal, so much so that even those in his audience who did not understand the Greek language shared in the pleasure that he gave; for he fascinated even them by the tones of his voice, by his expressive glance and the rhythm of his speech. They were also enchanted by the epilogue of his orations, which they called "The Ode," though I call it mere affectation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Gorgias of Leontini ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 9. Sicily produced Gorgias of Leontini, and we must consider that the art of the sophists carries back to him as though he were its father. For if we reflect how many additions Aeschylus made to tragedy when he furnished her with her proper costume and the buskin that gave the actor' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Moreover, he played a distinguished part at the religious festivals of the Greeks, and declaimed his Pythian Oration from the altar; and for this his statue was dedicated in gold and was set up in the temple of the Pythian god. His Olympian Oration dealt with a theme of the highest importance to the state. For, seeing that Greece was divided against itself, he came forward as the advocate of reconciliation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | It is said that though Gorgias attained to the age of 108, his body was not weakened by old age, but to the end of his life he was in sound condition, and his senses were the senses of a young man. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Protagoras of Abdera ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 10. Protagoras of Abdera, the sophist, was a pupil of Democritus in the city of his birth, and he also associated with the Persian magi when Xerxes led his expedition against Greece. For his father was Maeander, who had amassed wealth beyond most men in Thrace; he even entertained Xerxes in his house, and, by giving him presents, obtained his permission for his son to study with the magi. For the Persian magi do not educate those that are not Persians, except by command of the Great King. And when he says that he has no knowledge whether the gods exist or not, I think that Protagoras derived this heresy from his Persian education. For though the magi invoke the gods in their secret rites, they avoid any public profession of belief in a deity, because they do not wish it to be thought that their own powers are derived from that source. It was for this saying that he was outlawed from the whole earth by the Athenians, as some say after a trial, but others hold that the decree was voted against him without the form of a trial. And so he passed from island to island and from continent to continent, and while trying to avoid the Athenian triremes [cf. Plutarch Pericles 11] which were distributed over every sea, he was drowned when sailing in a small boat. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was the first to introduce the custom of charging a fee for lectures, and so was the first to hand down to the Greeks a practice which is not to be despised, since the pursuits on which we spend money we prize more than those for which no money is charged. Plato recognized [Protagoas 349a and Gorgias 520c] that though Protagoras had a dignified style of eloquence, that dignity was a mask for his real indolence of mind, and that he was at times too long-winded and lacked a sense of proportion, and so, in a long myth, he hit off the main characteristics of the other' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Hippias of Elis ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 11. Hippias of Elis, the sophist, had such extraordinary powers of memory, even in his old age, that after hearing fifty names only once he could repeat them from memory in the order in which he had heard them. He introduced into his discourses discussions on geometry, astronomy, music, and rhythms, and he also lectured on painting and the art of sculpture. These were the subjects that he handled in other parts of Greece, but in Sparta he described the different types of states and colonies and their activities, because the Spartans, owing to their desire for empire, took pleasure in this kind of discourse. There is also extant by him a Trojan dialogue which is not an oration — Nestor in Troy, after it has been taken, expounds to Neoptolemus the son of Achilles what course one ought to pursue in order to win a good name. On behalf of Elis he went on more embassies than any other Greek, and in no case did he fail to maintain his reputation, whether when making public speeches or lecturing, and at the same time he amassed great wealth and was enrolled in the tribes [i.e. he was given the privileges of a citizen] of cities both great and small. In order to make money he also visited Inycus, a small town in Sicily, to whose people Plato alludes sarcastically [Hippias Major 280e]. In the rest of his time also he won renown for himself, and used to charm the whole of Greece at Olympia by his ornate and carefully studied orations. His style was never meagre, but copious and natural, and he seldom had to take refuge in the vocabulary of the poets. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Prodicus of Ceos ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 12. Prodicus of Ceos had so great a reputation for wisdom that, even the son of Gryllus [Xenophon], when he was a prisoner in Boeotia, used to attend his lectures, after procuring bail for himself. When he, came on an embassy to Athens and appeared before the Senate, he proved to be the most capable ambassador possible, though he was hard to hear and had a very deep bass voice. He used to hunt out well-born youths and those who came from wealthy families [Plato Sophist 231d], so much so that he even had agents employed in this pursuit; for he had a weakness for making money and was addicted to pleasure. Even Xenophon [Memorabilia ii. 1.21] did not disdain to relate the fable of Prodicus called The Choice of Heracles, which I mentioned when I began my narrative. As for the language of Prodicus, why should I describe its characteristics, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Polus of Agrigentum ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 13. Polus of Agrigentum, the sophist, was trained in the art by Gorgias, and for this he paid, as we are told, very high fees; for in fact Polus was a wealthy man. Some say that Polus was the first to use clauses that exactly balance, antitheses, and similar endings; but they are mistaken in so saying; for rhetorical ornament of this kind was already invented, and Polus merely employed it to excess. Hence Plato, to express his contempt for Polus because of this affectation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Thrasymachus of Chalcedon ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 14. Those who include Thrasymachus of Chalcedon among the sophists fail, in my opinion, to understand Plato when he says [Republic 341c] that shaving a lion is the same thing as trying to get the law of Thrasymachus. For this saying really amounts to taunting him with writing legal speeches for clients, and spending his time in the law courts trumping up cases for the prosecution. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Antiphon of Rhamnus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 15. As for Antiphon of Rhamnus, I am uncertain whether one ought to call him a good or a bad man. On the one hand he may be called a good man, for the following reasons. Very often he held commands in war, very often he was victorious; he added to the Athenian navy sixty fully equipped triremes; he was held to be the most able of men, both in the art of speaking and in the invention of themes. On these grounds, then, he deserves praise from me or any other. But on the other hand there are evidently good reasons for regarding him as a bad man, and they are the following. He broke up the democracy; he enslaved the Athenian people; he sided with Sparta, secretly at first, but openly later on; and he let loose on the public life of Athens the mob of the Four Hundred Tyrants. [Thucydides viii. 68.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some say that Antiphon invented rhetoric which before him did not exist, others that it was already invented, but that he widened its scope; some say that he was self-taught, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was put to death in Sicily by Dionysius the tyrant, and I ascribe to Antiphon himself rather than to Dionysius the responsibility for his death. For he used to run down the tragedies of Dionysius, though Dionysius prided himself more on these than on his power as a tyrant; and once when the tyrant was interested in finding out where the best kind of bronze was produced, and asked the bystanders what continent or island produced the best bronze, Antiphon broke into the conversation and said, "The best I know of is at Athens, of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton [who overthrew the tyrants at Athens] have been made." The result of this behavior was that he was put to death on the charge of plotting against Dionysius and turning the Sicilians against him. And Antiphon was in the wrong, in the first place, for provoking a collision with a tyrant under whom he had chosen to live rather than be under a democracy at home; secondly he was wrong in trying to free the Sicilians, whereas he had tried to enslave the Athenians. Furthermore, | ||
+ | |||
+ | A good many of his legal speeches are extant, and they show his great oratorical power and all the effects of art. Of the sophistic type there are several, but more sophistic than any is the speech On Concord, in which are brilliant philosophical maxims and a lofty style of eloquence, adorned moreover with the flowers of poetical vocabulary; and their diffuse style makes them seem like smooth plains. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Critias the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 16. Critias the Sophist, even though he did overthrow democratic government at Athens, was not thereby proved to be a bad man; for the democracy might well have been overthrown from within, since it had become so overbearing and insolent that it would not heed even those who governed according to the established laws. But seeing that he conspicuously sided with Sparta, and betrayed the holy places to the enemy; that he pulled down the walls by the agency of Lysander; that he deprived the Athenians whom he drove into exile of any place of refuge in Greece by proclaiming that Sparta would wage war on any that should harbor an Athenian exile; that in brutality and bloodthirstiness he surpassed even the Thirty; that he shared in the monstrous design of Sparta to make Attica look like a mere pasture for sheep by emptying her of her human herd; for all this I hold him to be the greatest criminal of all who are notorious for crime. Now if he had been an uneducated man, led astray into these excesses, there would be some force in the explanation of those who assert that he was demoralized by Thessaly and the society that he frequented there; for characters that lack education are easily led to choose any sort of life. But since he had been highly educated and frequently delivered himself of philosophical maxims, and his family dated back to Dropides who was archon at Athens next after Solon, he cannot be acquitted in the sight of most men of the charge that these crimes were due to his own natural wickedness. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then again it is a strange thing that he did not grow to be like Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was put to death by Thrasybulus and his party who restored the democracy from Phyle, and there are those who think that he played an honorable part at the last, because his tyranny became his shroud. But let me declare my opinion that no human being can be said to have died nobly for a cause that he took up in defiance of the right. And I believe that this is the reason why this man's wisdom and his writings are held in slight esteem by the Greeks; for unless our public utterances and our moral character are in accord, we shall seem, like flutes, to speak with a tongue that is not our own. | ||
+ | |||
+ | As regards the style of his oratory, Critias abounded in brief and sententious sayings, and he was most skillful in the use of elevated language, but not of the dithyrambic sort, nor did he have recourse to words borrowed from poetry; but his was the kind of elevated language that is composed of the most appropriate words and is not artificial. I observe, moreover, that he was a master of concise eloquence, and that even when he maintained the tone proper to a speech in defense, he used to make vigorous attacks on his opponent; and that he Atticized, but in moderation, nor did he use outlandish words — for bad taste in Atticizing is truly barbarous — but his Attic words shine through his discourse like the gleams of the sun's rays. Critias also secures a charming effect by passing without connectives from one part of his speech to another. Then, too, Critias strives for the daring and unusual both in thought and expression, yet his eloquence is somewhat lacking in virility, though it is agreeable and smooth, like the breath of the west wind. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Isocrates the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 17. The Siren which stands on the tomb of Isocrates the Sophist — its pose is that of one singing — testifies to the man's persuasive charm, which he combined with the conventions and customs of rhetoric. For though he was not the inventor of clauses that exactly balance, antitheses, and similar endings, since they had already been invented, nevertheless he employed those devices with great skill. He also paid great attention to rhetorical amplification, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He shrank from political life and did not attend political assemblies, partly because his voice was not strong enough, partly because of the jealous distrust that in politics at Athens was always especially opposed to those who had a talent above the average for public speaking. [cf. Thucydides iii. 38.] Yet in spite of this he took a strong interest in public affairs. Hence in the letters that he addressed to Philip he tried to reconcile him with the Athenians; in his writings on peace he tried to wean the Athenians from their maritime policy, on the ground that they thereby injured their reputation; and there is also his Panegyric which he delivered at Olympia, when he tried to persuade Greece to cease from domestic quarrels and make war on Asia. This oration, though it is the finest of all, nevertheless gave rise to the charge that it had been compiled from the works of Gorgias on the same subject. The most skillfully composed of all the works of Isocrates are the Archidamus and the speech called Without Witnesses [Against Euthynous]. For the former is animated throughout by the desire to revive men's courage and spirit after the defeat at Leuctra, and not only is its language exquisitely chosen, but its composition is brilliant also, and the whole speech is in the style of a legal argument; so that even the myth in it, the story of Heracles and the oxen [Heracles carried off the oxen of Geryon], is expressed with vigor and energy. Again, the speech Without Witnesses in its rhythms displays a well-restrained energy, for it is composed of periods of equal length, as one idea follows another. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Isocrates had many pupils, but the most illustrious was the orator Hypereides; for as for Theopompus of Chios and Ephorus of Cumae, I will neither criticize nor commend them. Those who think that Comedy aimed her shafts at Isocrates because he was a maker of flutes [cf. pseudo-Plutarch Isocrates 836e], are mistaken; for though his father was Theodorus, who was known in Athens as a flute-maker, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Aeschines ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 18. Aeschines, the son of Atrometus, we are accustomed to call the founder of the Second Sophistic, and with respect to him the following facts must be borne in mind. The whole government at Athens was divided into two parties, of which one was friendly to the Persian king, the other to the Macedonians. Now among those who favored the Persian king, Demosthenes of the deme Paeania was the recognized leader, while Aeschines of the deme Cothidae led those who looked to Philip; and sums of money used to arrive regularly from both these, from the king because with the aid of Athenians he kept Philip too busy to invade Asia; and from Philip in the attempt to destroy the power of Athens which hindered him from crossing over into Asia. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The quarrel between Aeschines and Demosthenes arose partly because of this very fact that the former was working in the interests of one king and the latter in the interests of another; but also, in my opinion, because they were of wholly opposite temperaments. For between temperaments that are antagonistic to one another there grows up a hatred that has no other grounds. And naturally antagonistic the two men were, for the following reasons. Aeschines was a lover of wine, had agreeable and easy manners, and was endowed with all the charm of a follower of Dionysus; and in fact while he was still a mere boy, he actually played minor parts for ranting tragic actors [Demosthenes On the Crown 262]. Demosthenes, | ||
+ | |||
+ | As an extempore speaker he was easy and fluent and employed the inspired manner, in fact he was the first to win applause by this means. For hitherto the inspired manner in oratory had not become a regular device of the sophists, but it dates from Aeschines, who extemporized as though he were carried away by a divine impulse, like one who exhales oracles. He was a pupil of Plato, and Isocrates, but his success was due in great part to natural talent. For in his orations shines the light of perfect lucidity, he is at once sublime and seductive, energetic and delightful, and in a word his sort of eloquence defies the efforts of those who would imitate it. | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are three orations of Aeschines; but some ascribe to him a fourth besides, On Delos, though it does no credit to his eloquence. Nor is it at all likely that after having composed so plausibly and with such charm those speeches about Amphissa, the people by whom the plain of Cirrha was consecrated to the god [Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon, 119 foll.], when his design was to injure Athens, as Demosthenes says, he would have handled so unskillfully the myths about Delos, which are concerned with the nature and descent of the gods and the story of bygone times, and that too when he was arguing the case of the Athenians, who considered it of the utmost importance not to fail to maintain the custody of the temple at Delos. Accordingly we must limit the eloquence of Aeschines to three orations, which are: Against Timarchus, In Defense of the Embassy, and the speech Against Ctesiphon. There is also extant a fourth work of his, the Letters, which, though they are few, are full of learning and character. What that character was he clearly showed at Rhodes. For once after he had read in public his speech Against Ctesiphon, they were expressing their surprise that he had been defeated after so able a speech, and were criticizing the Athenians as out of their senses, but Aeschines. said: "You would not marvel thus if you had heard Demosthenes in reply to these arguments." | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Ariobarzanes of Cilicia, Xenophron of Sicily, and Peithagoras of Cyrene ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 19. We will pass over Ariobarzanes of Cilicia, Xenophron of Sicily, and Peithagoras of Cyrene, who showed no skill either in invention or in the expression of their ideas, though in the scarcity of first-rate sophists they were sought after by the Greeks of their day, as men seek after pulse when they are short of corn; and we will proceed to Nicetes of Smyrna. For this Nicetes found the science of oratory reduced to great straits, and he bestowed on it approaches far more splendid even than those which he himself built for Smyrna, when he connected the city with the gate that looks to Ephesus, and by this great structure raised his deeds to the same high level as his words. He was a man who, when he dealt with legal matters, seemed to be a better lawyer than anything else, and again when he dealt with sophistic themes he seemed to do better as a sophist, because of the peculiar skill and the keen spirit of competition with which he adapted himself to both styles. For he adorned the legal style with sophistic amplification, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Though he was deemed worthy of the highest honour in Smyrna, which left nothing unsaid in its loud praise of him as a marvellous man and a great orator, he seldom came forward to speak in the public assembly; and when the crowd accused him of being afraid: "I am more afraid," | ||
+ | |||
+ | His journey beyond the Alps and the Rhine was made at the command of the Emperor, and the reason for it was as follows. A consul named Rufus was governing Smyrna with great harshness and malevolence, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Isaeus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 20. Isaeus, the Assyrian sophist, had devoted the period of his early youth to pleasure, for he was the slave of eating and drinking, dressed himself in elegant stuffs, was often in love, and openly joined in drunken revels. But when he attained to manhood he so transformed himself as to be thought to have become another person, for he discarded both from his countenance and his mind the frivolity that had seemed to come to the surface in him; no longer did he, even in the theatre, hearken to the sounds of the lyre and the flute; he put off his transparent garments and his many-colored cloaks, reduced his table, and left off his amours as though he had lost the eyes he had before. For instance, when Ardys the rhetorician asked him whether he considered some woman or other handsome, Isaeus replied with much discretion: "I have ceased to suffer from eye trouble." | ||
+ | |||
+ | When Dionysiui of Miletus, who had been his pupil, delivered his declamations in a sing-song, Isaeus rebuked him, saying: "Young man from Ionia, I did not train you to sing." And when a youth from Ionia admired in his presence the grandiloquent saying of Nicetes in his Xerxes, "Let us fasten Aegina to the king's ship," Isaeus burst into a loud laugh and said: " | ||
+ | |||
+ | His declamations were not actually extempore, but he deliberated from daybreak till midday. The style of eloquence that he practiced was neither exuberant nor meagre, but simple and natural and suited to the subject matter. Moreover, a concise form of expression and the summing up of every argument into a brief statement was peculiarly an invention of Isaeus, as was clearly shown in many instances, but especially in the following. He had to represent the Lacedaemonians debating whether they should fortify themselves by building a wall, and he condensed his argument into these few words from Homer: | ||
+ | |||
+ | "And shield pressed on shield, helm on helm, man on man. [Iliad xvi. 215.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus stand fast, Lacedaemonians, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Scopelian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 21. I will now speak of the sophist Scopelian, but first I will deal with those who try to calumniate him. For they say that he is unworthy of the sophistic circle and call him dithyrambic, | ||
+ | |||
+ | For he was himself high-priest of Asia and so were his ancestors before him, all of them, inheriting the office from father to son. And this is a great crown of glory and more than great wealth. He was one of twins, and as both were lying in one cradle, when they were five days old, one of them was struck by lightning, but the other, though he was lying with the stricken child, was not maimed in any one of his senses. And yet, so fierce and sulphurous was the fire of the thunderbolt that some of those who stood near were killed by the shock, others suffered injury to their ears and eyes, while the minds of others were affected by the shock of the bolt. But Scopelian was afflicted by none of these misfortunes, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He frequented the rhetoricians' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The reasons why his father, after being kind and indulgent to him, treated him harshly, are told in many different versions, for they allege now this reason, now that, then more than one, but I shall relate the truest version. After the death of Scopelian' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Cytherus became prominent in public life also, and when he was now an old man and saw that his estate was growing less and that he himself was greatly despised, nay had even received blows at the hands of a man from whom he tried to recover money, he implored Scopelian to lay aside the memory of his wrongs and his anger, and to take back his father' | ||
+ | |||
+ | It is no great wonder that, while Scopelian taught at Smyrna, Ionians, Lydians, Carians, Maeonians, Aeolians also and Hellenes from Mysia and Phrygia nocked thither to his school; for Smyrna is next door to these peoples and is a convenient gateway both by land and sea. But besides these he attracted Cappadocians and Assyrians, he attracted also Egyptians and Phoenicians, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He devoted himself to all kinds of poetry, but tragedies he devoured in his endeavor to rival the grand style of his teacher; for in this branch Nicetes was greatly admired. But Scopelian went so much further in magniloquence that he even composed an Epic of the Giants, and furnished the Homerids ["Sons of Homer" | ||
+ | |||
+ | Though he charged a fee for declaiming, it was not the same for every pupil, and depended on the amount of property possessed by each. And he used to appear before his audience with no arrogance or conceited airs, nor again with the bearing of a timid speaker, but as befitted one who was entering the lists to win glory for himself and was confident that he could not fail. He would argue with suavity, so long as he was seated, but when he stood up to speak his oration became more impressive and gained in vigor. He meditated his theme neither in private nor before his audience, but he would withdraw and in a very short time would review all his arguments. He had an extremely melodious voice and a charming pronunciation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He went on many embassies to the Emperor, and while a peculiar good luck ever accompanied his missions as ambassador, his most successful was that on behalf of the vines. For this embassy was sent, not as in most cases on behalf of Smyrna alone, but on behalf of all Asia in general. I will relate the aim of the embassy. The Emperor [Domitian] resolved that there should be no vines in Asia, because it appeared that the people when under the influence of wine plotted revolution; those that had been already planted were to be pulled up, and they were to plant no more in future. There was clearly need of an embassy to represent the whole community, and of a man who in their defense, like another Orpheus or Thamyris, would charm his hearer. Accordingly they unanimously selected Scopelian, and on this mission he succeeded so far beyond their hopes that he returned bringing not only the permission to plant, but actually the threat of penalties for those who should neglect to do so. How great a reputation he won in this contest on behalf of the vines is evident from what he said, for the oration is among the most celebrated; and it is evident too from what happened as a result of the oration. For by it he won such presents as are usually given at an imperial court, and also many compliments and expressions of praise, and moreover a brilliant band of youths fell in love with his genius and followed him to Ionia. | ||
+ | |||
+ | While he was at Athens he was entertained by Atticus, the father of Herodes the sophist, who admired him for his eloquence more than the Thessalians once admired Gorgias. Atticus accordingly gave orders that all the busts of the ancient orators that were in the porticoes of his house should be pelted with stones, because they had corrupted his son's talent. Herodes at the time was only a stripling and still under his father' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The good fortune that attended his embassies we may gather also from the following. The citizens of Smyrna needed someone to go on an embassy for them, and the mission was on affairs of the greatest moment. But he was now growing old and was past the age for travelling, and therefore Polemo was elected, though he had never before acted as ambassador. So in offering up prayers for good luck, Polemo begged that he might be granted the persuasive charm of Scopelian, embraced him before the assembly, and applied very aptly to him the verses from the exploits of Patroclus: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Give me thy harness to buckle about my shoulders, if | ||
+ | perchance they may take me for thee. [Iliad xvi. 40.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | Apollonius of Tyana also, who in wisdom surpassed mere human achievement, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Dionysius of Miletus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 22. With regard to Dionysius of Miletus, whether, as some say, he was born of highly distinguished parentage, or, as others say, was merely of free birth, let him not be held responsible on this head, seeing that he achieved distinction by his own merits. For to have recourse to one's ancestors is the mark of those who despair of applause for themselves. He was a pupil of Isaeus, that is of one who, as I have said, employed a natural style, and of this style he successfully took the impress, and the orderly arrangement of his thoughts besides; for this too was characteristic of Isaeus. And though he presented his ideas with honeyed sweetness, he was not intemperate in the use of pleasing effects, like some of the sophists, but was economical with them, and would always say to his pupils that honey should be tasted with the finger-tip [a proverb; cf. Lucian, How to write History 4] and not by the handful. This indeed is clearly shown in all the speeches delivered by Dionysius, whether critical works or forensic or moral disputations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Such was in general the style of Dionysius, thus his declamations proceeded, and he used to meditate his themes about as long as Isaeus. As for the story that is told about him that he used to train his pupils in mnemonics by the help of Chaldean arts [for Chaldean astrology cf, Julian, vol. i. Oration 4.], I will show the source of the tradition. There is no such thing as an art of memory, nor could there be, for though memory gives us the arts, it cannot itself be taught, nor can it be acquired by any method or system, since it is a gift of nature or a part of the immortal soul. For never could human beings be regarded as endowed with immortality, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Great honors were paid him by the cities that admired his talent, but the greatest was from the Emperor. For Hadrian appointed him satrap [i.e. prefect] over peoples by no means obscure, and enrolled him in the order of the knights and among those who had free meals in the Museum. (By the Museum I mean a dining-table in Egypt [founded by the first Ptolemy at Alexandria in connection with the Library] to which are invited the most distinguished men of all countries.) He visited very many cities and lived among many peoples, yet he never incurred the charge of licentious or insolent conduct, being most temperate and sedate in his behavior. Those who ascribe to Dionysius the piece called Araspes the Lover of Panthea [Panthea, wife of the Persian king Abradatas, was taken captive by the Elder Cyrus cf. Xenophon, Cyropaedia v. 1. 4], are ignorant not only of his rhythms but of his whole style of eloquence, and moreover they know nothing of the art of ratiocination. For this work is not by Dionysius, but by Celer [Probably the teacher of Marcus Aurelius; cf. To Himself viii. 25] the writer on rhetoric; and Celer, though he was a good Imperial Secretary, lacked skill in declamation and was on unfriendly terms with Dionysius from their earliest youth. | ||
+ | |||
+ | I must not omit the following facts which I heard direct from Aristaeus who was the oldest of all the educated Greeks in my time and knew most about the sophists. When Dionysius was beginning to grow old and enjoyed the most distinguished reputation, and Polemo, on the other hand, was attaining to the height of his career, though he was not yet personally known to Dionysius, Polemo paid a visit to Sardis to plead a case before the Centumviri who had jurisdiction over Lydia. And towards evening Dionysius came to Sardis and asked Dorion the critic, who was his host: "Tell me, Dorion, what is Polemo doing here?" And Dorion replied: "A very wealthy man, a Lydian, is in danger of losing his property, and hence he has brought Polemo from Smyrna to be his advocate by the inducement of a fee of two talents, and he will defend the suit to-morrow." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Dionysius heard Polemo defend the suit, and as he left the court he remarked: "This athlete possesses strength, but it does not come from the wrestling-ground." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Once O once they were strong, the men of Miletus. [cf. Aristophanes, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Famous men have the whole earth for their sepulchre [from Thucydides ii. 43], but the actual tomb of Dionysius is in the most conspicuous part of Ephesus, for he was buried in the market-place, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Lollianus of Ephesus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 23. Lollianus of Ephesus was the first to be appointed to the chair of rhetoric [i.e. the municipal, as distinct from the Imperial chair] at Athens, and he also governed the Athenian people, since he held the office of strategus in that city. The functions of this office were formerly to levy troops and lead them to war, but now it has charge of the food-supplies and the provision-market. Once when a riot arose in the bread-sellers' | ||
+ | |||
+ | This sophist was considered to be deeply versed in his art and very clever in working out successfully the train of reasoning that depends on skill in invention. His style was admirable, and in the invention and arrangement of his ideas he was free from affectation and redundancy. In his oratory brilliant passages flare out and suddenly come to an end like a flash of lightning. This is evident in all that he wrote, but especially in the example that I now quote. His theme was to denounce Leptines on account of his law, because the supply of corn had failed to reach the Athenians from the Pontus [this fictitious theme is based on Demosthenes, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Marcus of Byzantium ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 24. Nor must I omit to speak of Marcus of Byzantium, on whose behalf I will bring this reproach against the Greeks, that though he was as talented as I shall show, he does not as yet receive the honor that he deserves. The genealogy of Marcus dated back as far as the original Byzas [the legendary founder of Byzantium, said to have been the son of Poseidon], and his father, who had the same name, owned slaves who were fishermen at Hieron. (Hieron is near the entrance to the Pontus.) His teacher was Isaeus, and from him he learned the natural style of oratory, but he adorned it with a charming suavity. The most characteristic example of the style of Marcus is his speech of the Spartan advising the Lacedaemonians not to receive the men who had returned from Sphacteria without their weapons. [The punishment of these men by Sparta is described by Thucydides v. 34.] He began this argument as follows: "As a citizen of Lacedaemon who till old age has kept his shield, I would gladly have slain these men who have lost theirs." | ||
+ | |||
+ | The expression of his brows and the gravity of his countenance proclaimed Marcus a sophist, and indeed his mind was constantly brooding over some theme, and he was always training himself in the methods that prepare one for extempore speaking. This was evident from the steady gaze of his eyes which were usually intent on secret thoughts, and, moreover, it was admitted by the man himself. For when one of his friends asked him how he declaimed the day before, he replied: "To myself, well enough, but to my pupils not so well." And when the other expressed surprise at the answer, Marcus said: "I work even when I am silent, and I keep myself in practice with two or three arguments beside the one that I maintain in public." | ||
+ | |||
+ | When, later on, Marcus went to Megara (Byzantium was originally a Megarian colony), the Megarians were still keeping up their quarrel with the Athenians with the utmost energy of their minds, just as if the famous decree [this was the decree by which the Megarians were proscribed by the Athenians in the fifth century B.C.] against them had been lately drawn up; and they did not admit them when they came to the Lesser Pythian games. Marcus, however, came among them, and so changed the hearts of the Megarians that he persuaded them to throw open their houses and to admit the Athenians to the society of their wives and children. The Emperor Hadrian too admired him when he came on an embassy for Byzantium, for of all the Emperors in the past he was the most disposed to foster merit. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Polemo the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 25. Polemo the Sophist was neither a native of Smyrna, as is commonly supposed, nor from Phrygia as some say, but he was born at Laodicea in Caria, a city which lies on the river Lycus and, though far inland, is more important than those on the sea- coast. Polemo' | ||
+ | |||
+ | By opening his school at Smyrna he benefited the city in the following ways. In the first place he made her appear far more populous than before, since the youth flowed into her from both continents and the islands; nor were they a dissolute and promiscuous rabble, but select and genuinely Hellenic. Secondly, he brought about a harmonious government free from faction. For, before that, Smyrna was rent by factions, and the inhabitants of the higher district were at variance with those on the sea-shore. Also he proved to be of great value to the city by going on embassies to the Emperors and defending the community. Hadrian, at any rate, had hitherto favored Ephesus, but Polemo so entirely converted him to the cause of Smyrna that in one day he lavished a million drachmae on the city, and with this the corn-market was built, a gymnasium which was the most magnificent of all those in Asia, and a temple that can be seen from afar, the one on the promontory that seems to challenge Mimas. [" | ||
+ | |||
+ | The following privileges were bestowed on him by the Emperors. By the Emperor Trajan the right to travel free of expense by land and sea, and Hadrian extended this to all his descendants, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Moreover, the Emperor reconciled his own son Antoninus, with Polemo, at the time when he handed over his sceptre and became a god instead of a mortal. I must relate how this happened. Antoninus was proconsul of the whole of Asia without exception, and once he took up his lodging in Polemo' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Let this suffice to show how mild an Emperor could be, and how arrogant a mere man. For in truth Polemo was so arrogant that he conversed with cities as his inferiors, Emperors as not his superiors, and the gods as his equals. For instance, when he gave a display to the Athenians of extempore speeches on first coming to Athens, he did not condescend to utter an encomium on the city, though there were so many things that one might say in honor of the Athenians; nor did he make a long oration about his own renown, although this style of speech is likely to win favor for sophists in their public declamations. But since he well knew that the natural disposition of the Athenians needs to be held in check rather than encouraged to greater pride, this was his introductory speech: "Men say, Athenians, that as an audience you are accomplished judges of oratory. I shall soon find out." And once when the ruler of the Bosporus, a man who had been trained in all the culture of Greece, came to Smyrna in order to learn about Ionia, Polemo not only did not take his place among those who went to salute him, but even when the other begged him to visit him he postponed it again and again, until he compelled the king [at this date there were kings of the Bosporus under the protectorate of Rome] to come to his door with a fee of ten talents. Again, when he came to Pergamon suffering from a disease of the joints, he slept in the temple, and when Asclepius appeared to him and told him to abstain from drinking anything | ||
+ | |||
+ | This proud and haughty temper he contracted from Timocrates [Lucian, Demonax 3, praises Timocrates] the philosopher, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This same humility Polemo showed also towards Scopelian somewhat later, when he was elected to go on an embassy on behalf of Smyrna, and begged for Scopelian' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The scenic effects which he employed in his declamations we may learn from Herodes, since they are described in one of the letters that he wrote to Varus, and I will relate them from that source. He would come forward to declaim with a countenance serene and full of confidence, and he always arrived in a litter, because his joints were already diseased. When a theme had been proposed, he did not meditate on it in public but would withdraw from the crowd for a short time. His utterance was clear and incisive, and there was a fine ringing sound in the tones of his voice. Herodes says also that he used to rise to such a pitch of excitement that he would jump up from his chair when he came to the most striking conclusions in his argument, and whenever he rounded off a period he would utter the final clause with a smile, as though to show clearly that he could deliver it without effort, and at certain places in the argument he would stamp the ground just like the horse in Homer. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Herodes gave Polemo leave not to appear after him to give an exhibition of his oratory, and not to have to maintain a theme after him, and allowed him to depart from Smyrna by night, lest he should be compelled to do this, since Polemo thought it outrageous to be compelled to do anything. And from that time forward he never failed to commend Polemo, and to think him beyond praise. For instance, in Athens, when Herodes had brilliantly maintained the argument about the war trophies, and was being complimented on the fluency and vigor of his speech, he said: "Read Polemo' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The sound of swift-footed horses strikes upon mine ears; [Iliad x. 535.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | thus indicating how resonant and far-echoing was his eloquence. And when Varus the consul asked him what teachers he had had, he replied: "This man and that, while I was being taught, but Polemo, when I was teaching others." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Polemo says that he studied also with Dio, and that in order to do so he paid a visit to the people of Bithynia. He used to say that the works of prose writers needed to be brought out by armfuls, but the works of poets by the wagon-load. Among the honors that he received were also the following. Smyrna was contending on behalf of her temples and their rights, and when he had already reached the last stage of his life, appointed Polemo as one of her advocates. But since he died at the very outset of the journey to defend those rights, the city was entrusted to other advocates. Before the imperial tribunal they presented their case very badly, whereupon the Emperor looked towards the counsel from Smyrna and said: "Had not Polemo been appointed as your public advocate in this suit " " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now inasmuch as, when men have become illustrious, | ||
+ | |||
+ | On another occasion, when the consul was putting to the torture a bandit who had been convicted on several charges, and declared that he could not think of any penalty for him that would match his crimes, Polemo who was present said: "Order him to learn by heart some antiquated stuff." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Polemo' | ||
+ | |||
+ | For hateful to me even as the gates of hell is he that | ||
+ | hideth one thing in his heart and uttereth another. [Iliad ix. 312.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | Perhaps he used to say this with a double meaning, and to illustrate by this allusion how intractable are such themes; nevertheless, | ||
+ | |||
+ | When the doctors were regularly attending him for hardening of the joints, he exhorted them to "dig and carve in the stone-quarries of Polemo." | ||
+ | |||
+ | When he died he was about fifty-six years old, but this age-limit, though for the other learned professions it is the beginning of senility, for a sophist still counts as youthfulness, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He has no tomb in Smyrna, though several there are said to be his. For some say that he was buried in the garden of the temple of Virtue; others, not far from that place near the sea, and there is a small temple thereabouts with a statue of Polemo in it, arrayed as he was when he performed the sacred rites on the trireme, and beneath his statue they say that the man himself lies; while others say that he was buried in the courtyard of his house under the bronze statues. But none of these accounts is true, for if he had died in Smyrna there is not one of the marvellous temples in that city in which he would have been deemed unworthy to lie. But yet another version is nearer the truth, namely that he lies at Laodicea near the Syrian gate, where, in fact, are the sepulchres of his ancestors; that he was buried while still alive, for so he had enjoined on his nearest and dearest; and that, as he lay in the tomb, he thus exhorted those who were shutting up the sepulchre: "Make haste, make haste! Never shall the sun behold me reduced to silence!" | ||
+ | |||
+ | With Polemo ended the house of Polemo, for his descendants, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Secundus the Athenian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 26. I must not fail to mention Secundus the Athenian whom some called " | ||
+ | |||
+ | And the potter envies the potter and the carpenter the orator. [Hesiod, Works and Days 25.] | ||
+ | |||
+ | Nevertheless, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Several of this man's compositions are worthy of mention, but above all the following theme for a disputation: | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Book II ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Herodes the Athenian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 1. Concerning Herodes the Athenian the following facts ought to be known. Herodes the sophist on his father' | ||
+ | |||
+ | No man employed his wealth to better purpose. And this we must not reckon a thing easy to achieve, but very difficult and arduous. For men who are intoxicated with wealth are wont to let loose a flood of insults on their fellow-men. And moreover they bring this reproach on Plutus [the god of wealth] that he is blind; but even if at all other times he appeared to be blind, yet in the case of Herodes he recovered his sight. For he had eyes for his friends, he had eyes for cities, he had eyes for whole nations, since the man watched over them all, and laid up the treasures of his riches in the hearts of those who shared them with him. For indeed he used to say that he who would use his wealth aright ought to give to the needy that they might cease to be in need, and to those that needed it not, lest they should fall into need; and he used to call riches that did not circulate and were tied up by parsimony "dead riches," | ||
+ | |||
+ | The sources of his wealth were many and derived from several families, but the greatest were the fortunes that came from his father and mother. For his grandfather Hipparchus suffered the confiscation of his estate on the charge of aspiring to a tyranny, of which the Emperor was not ignorant, though the Athenians did not bring it forward. [Suetonius, Vespasian 13, refers to the trial of Hipparchus.] His son Atticus, however, the father of Herodes, was not overlooked by Fortune after he had lost his wealth and become poor, but she revealed to him a prodigious treasure in one of the houses which he had acquired near the theatre. And since, on account of its vastness, it made him cautious rather than overjoyed, he wrote the following letter to the Emperor: "O Emperor, I have found a treasure in my own house. What commands do you give about it?" To which the Emperor (Nerva at that time was on the throne) replied: "Use what you have found." | ||
+ | |||
+ | This same Atticus was also distinguished for his lordly spirit. As an instance, at a time when Herodes was governor of the free cities in Asia, he observed that Troy [this is the later city known as Alexandria Troas] was ill-supplied with baths, and that the inhabitants drew muddy water from their wells, and had to dig cisterns to catch rain water. Accordingly he wrote to the Emperor Hadrian to ask him not to allow an ancient city, conveniently near the sea, to perish from drought, but to give them three million drachmae to procure a water-supply, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Since I have mentioned the will of Atticus, I must also record the reasons why Herodes offended the Athenians. The terms of the will were as I have stated, and Atticus drew it up by the advice of his freedmen, who since they saw that Herodes was by nature prone to deal harshly with his freedmen and slaves, tried in this way to prepare a haven for themselves among the people of Athens, by appearing responsible for the legacy. What sort of relation existed between the freedmen and Herodes may be plainly seen in the invective which he composed against them. For in it he shot forth at them every weapon that his tongue could command. When the will had been read, the Athenians made a compact with Herodes that by paying them each five minae down he should redeem his obligation to keep up continued payments. But when they came to the banks to get the sum that had been agreed upon, then and there they had to listen to the recital of contracts made by their fathers and grandfathers, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Furthermore he held the office of archon eponymus [the chief archon at Athens gave his name to the current year] at Athens, and the curatorship of the pan-Hellenic festival; and when he was offered the crowning honor of the charge of the Panathenaic festival he made this announcement: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Herodes also dedicated to the Athenians the theatre in memory of Regilla [the Odeum or Theatre of Music], and he made its roof of cedar wood, though this wood is considered costly even for making statues. These two monuments, then, are at Athens, and they are such as exist nowhere else in the Roman Empire; but I must not neglect to mention also the roofed theatre which he built for the Corinthians, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Further he colonized Oricum in Epirus, which by this time had fallen into decay, and Canusium in Italy, and made it habitable by giving it a water-supply, | ||
+ | |||
+ | As to the being whom most men used to call the Heracles of Herodes, this was a youth in early manhood [Odyssey x. 279; Lucian, Demonax 1, calls him Sostratus], as tall as a tall Celt, and in fact about eight feet high. Herodes describes him in one of his letters to Julian. [Antoninus Julianus is mentioned by Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, xix. 9.] He says that his hair grew evenly on his head, his eyebrows were bushy and they met as though they were but one, and his eyes gave out a brilliant gleam which betrayed his impulsive temperament; | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then he asked him what he lived on, and he said: "I live chiefly on milk, and am fed by goats and herds of cows and brood mares, and the she-ass also provides a sweet sort of milk and light to digest. But when I meet with barley meal, I eat ten quarts [one quart was regarded as a day's ration for an ordinary man], and the farmers of Marathon and Boeotia supply me with this feast; they also nickname me Agathion [" | ||
+ | |||
+ | On this Herodes admired him greatly and begged him to dine with him. " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Those who accused Herodes of having lifted his hand against Antoninus [later the Emperor Antoninus Pius] on Mount Ida, at the time when the former was the governor of the free cities, and the latter of all the cities in Asia, were, in my opinion, unaware of the action brought by Demostratus against Herodes, in which he made many charges against him, but nowhere mentioned this insolent act, for the reason that it never took place. For though they did in a manner shove one another aside, as happens in a rough place and a narrow road, still they did not break the law by coming to blows, and indeed Demostratus would not have neglected to describe the incident in his suit against Herodes, when he attacked the man so bitterly that he actually censured those acts of his which are regularly applauded. | ||
+ | |||
+ | A charge of murder was also brought against Herodes, and it was made up in this way. His wife Regilla, it was said, was in the eighth month of her pregnancy, and Herodes ordered his freedman Alcimedon to beat her for some slight fault, and the woman died in premature childbirth from a blow in the belly. On these grounds, as though true, Regilla' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Two things helped him in his defense. First that he had given orders for no such severe measures against Regilla; secondly, his extraordinary grief at her death. Even this was regarded as a pretense and made a charge against him, but nevertheless the truth prevailed. For he never would have dedicated to her memory so fine a theatre nor would he have postponed for her sake the casting of lots for his second consulship, if he had not been innocent of the charge; nor again would he have made an offering of her apparel at the temple of Eleusis, if he had been polluted by a murder when he brought it, for this was more likely to turn the goddesses into avengers of the murder than to win their pardon. He also altered the appearance of his house in her honor by making the paintings and decorations of the rooms black by means of hangings, dyes, and Lesbian marble, which is a gloomy and dark marble. And they say that Lucius, a wise man, tried to give Herodes advice about this, and since he could not persuade him to alter it, he turned him into ridicule. And this incident must not be omitted from my narrative, since it is held worthy of mention by learned writers. For this Lucius ranked among men renowned for learning, and since he had been trained in philosophy by Musonius of Tyre, his repartees were apt to hit the mark, and he practised a wit well suited to the occasion. Now, as he was very intimate with Herodes, he was with him when he was most deeply afflicted by his grief, and used to give him good advice to the following effect: " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Here is another admirable saying of this Lucius. The Emperor Marcus was greatly interested in Sextus the Boeotian philosopher, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus, then, his grief for Regilla was quenched, while his grief for his daughter Panathenais was mitigated by the Athenians, who buried her in the city, and decreed that the day on which she died should be taken out of the year. But when his other daughter, whom he called Elpinice, died also, he lay on the floor, beating the earth and crying aloud: "O my daughter, what offerings shall I consecrate to thee? What shall I bury with thee?" Then Sextus the philosopher who chanced to be present said: "No small gift will you give your daughter if you control your grief for her." He mourned his daughters with this excessive grief because he was offended with his son Atticus. He had been misrepresented to him as foolish, bad at his letters, and of a dull memory. At any rate, when he could not master his alphabet, the idea occurred to Herodes to bring up with him twenty-four boys of the same age named after the letters of the alphabet, so that he would be obliged to learn his letters at the same time as the names of the boys. He saw too that he was a drunkard and given to senseless amours, and hence in his lifetime he used to utter a prophecy over his own house, adapting a famous verse as follows: | ||
+ | |||
+ | One fool methinks is still left in the wide house, [cf. Odyssey iv. 498] | ||
+ | |||
+ | and when he died he handed over to him his mother' | ||
+ | |||
+ | His quarrel with the Quintilii [these brothers are mentioned by Cassius Dio lxxi. 33] began, as most people assert, over the Pythian festival, when they held different views about the musical competition; | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now the Emperor had his head-quarters among the tribes of Pannonia, with Sirmium for his base, and Demostratus and his friends lodged near the Emperor' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now while they were asleep in one of the towers which was very strongly built, a thunderbolt struck them in the night and killed them. Herodes was driven frantic by this misfortune, and when he came before the Emperor' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some place on record the exile of Herodes, though exiled he was not, and they say that he lived at Oricum in Epirus and that he in fact founded the city in order that it might be a residence suited to his constitution. But though Herodes did actually live in this place and fell ill there, and offered sacrifices in return for his recovery from sickness, still he was never condemned to exile nor did he suffer this penalty. And as a witness to the truth of this statement I will employ the divine Marcus. For after the affair in Pannonia, Herodes lived in Attica in the demes that he loved best, Marathon and Cephisia. And youths from all parts of the world hung on his lips, and they flocked to Athens in their desire to hear his eloquence. But he put it to the test whether the Emperor was offended with him on account of what had happened in the court, by sending him a letter which so far from being an apology was a complaint. For he said that he wondered why the Emperor no longer wrote to him, though in former times he had written to him so often that three letter-carriers had once arrived at his house in a single day, treading in one another' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The letter began with these words: "I greet you, friend Herodes!" | ||
+ | |||
+ | Moreover, the story is told that when Cassius [for the conspiracy and death of Cassius in Syria see Cassius Dio lxxi. 22] the governor of the Eastern provinces was plotting treason against Marcus, Herodes rebuked him in a letter that ran thus: " | ||
+ | |||
+ | The speech which Demostratus delivered against Herodes is, I think, admirable. In regard to its style, its characterization is even throughout, for the impressive manner is sustained from the opening sentences to the end of the speech. But the formal modes of expression are manifold and never alike, but are worthy of all praise. I grant that the speech has become famous among the malicious partly on account of Herodes, because it attacked one so distinguished. But how stoutly Herodes bore himself in the face of abuse will appear also from what he once said to the Cynic Proteus [Lucian in his Pereyrinus gives a full account of the self-immolation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | I will describe also the eloquence of Herodes and proceed to the main characteristics of his oratory. I have already said that he counted Polemo, Favorinus, and Scopelian among his teachers, that he attended the lectures of Secundus the Athenian, but for the critical branch of oratory he studied with Theagenes of Cnidos and Munatius of Tralles; and for the doctrines of Plato, with Taurus of Tyre. The structure of his work was suitably restrained, and its strength lay in subtlety rather than in vigor of attack. He was impressive in the plain style, sonorous after the manner of Critias; his ideas were such as would not occur to the mind of another; he had an easy and urbane wit which was not dragged in, but inspired by the subjects themselves; his diction was pleasing and abounded in figures and had grace and beauty; he was skillful in varying his constructions; | ||
+ | |||
+ | There are extant by Herodes very many letters, discourses and diaries, handbooks and collections of suitable passages in which the flowers of antique erudition have been collected in a small volume. And those who cast in his teeth the fact that while he was yet a youth he broke down in a speech before the Emperor in Pannonia, are, I think, not aware that the same thing happened to Demosthenes also, when he spoke before Philip. And Demosthenes returned to Athens and demanded honors and crowns, though the Athenians never recovered Amphipolis [Philip had taken Amphipolis in 357, eleven years before this embassy]; but Herodes after that humiliation rushed to the river Danube as though he would throw himself in; for so overwhelming was his desire to become famous as an orator, that he assessed the penalty of failure at death. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He died at the age of about seventy-six, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Theodotus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 2. My narrative calls me to consider the sophist Theodotus. Theodotus was a chief magistrate [he was " king archon " at Athens] of the Athenian people at the time when the Athenians had their quarrel with Herodes, and though he never reached the stage of open hostility towards him, he plotted against him in secret, since he had a talent for profiting by any turn of affairs; and indeed he was one of the baser sort. At any rate he became so thoroughly mixed up with Demostratus and his friends that he collaborated with them in the speeches that they were carefully preparing against Herodes. Also he was appointed to the chair of rhetoric to educate the youth of Athens, and was the first to receive a salary of ten thousand drachmae from the Emperor. Yet this fact alone would not be worth mentioning; for not all who ascend this chair are worthy of mention, but I do so because Marcus assigned to Herodes the task of choosing the Platonic philosophers and the Stoics, Peripatetics, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Aristocles of Pergamon ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 3. Aristocles of Pergamon also won renown among the sophists, and I will relate all that I have heard about him from men older than myself. This man belonged to a family of consular rank, and though from boyhood to early manhood he had devoted himself to the teachings of the Peripatetic school, he went over entirely to the sophists, and at Rome regularly attended the lectures of Herodes on extempore oratory. Now, so long as he was a student of philosophy he was slovenly in appearance, unkempt and squalid in his dress, but now he began to be fastidious, discarded his slovenly ways, and admitted into his house all the pleasures that are afforded by the lyre, the flute, and the singing voice, as though they had come begging to his doors. [An echo of Plato, Republic 489b; Phaedrus 233e.] For though hitherto he had lived with such austerity he now began to be immoderate in his attendance at theatres and their loud racket. When he was beginning to be famous at Pergamon, and all the Hellenes in that region hung on his oratory, Herodes travelled to Pergamon and sent all his own pupils to hear him, thereby exalting the reputation of Aristocles as though Athene [the vote of Athene given in the trial of Orestes in Aeschylus, Eumenides, became a proverb] herself had cast her vote. His style of eloquence was lucid and Attic, but it was more suited to formal discourse than to forensic argument, for his language is without acrimony or impulsive outbreaks on the spur of the moment. And even his Atticism, tested by comparison with the language of Herodes, will seem over-subtle and deficient in the qualities of magnificence and sonorousness. Aristocles died when his hair was streaked with grey [the Greek epithet is from Iliad xiii. 361], on the very threshold of old age. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Antiochus the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 4. Antiochus the Sophist was born at Aegae in Cilicia of so distinguished a family that even now his descendants are made consuls. When he was accused of cowardice in not appearing to speak before the assembly and taking no part in public business, he said: "It is not you but myself that I fear." No doubt that was because he knew that he had a bitter and violent temper, and that he could not control it. But nevertheless he used to aid the citizens from his private means as far as he was able, and furnished them not only with corn whenever he saw they were in need, but also with money to restore their dilapidated buildings. [In the sophistic literature of this period there is much evidence of the decay of the Greek towns, especially in Aristeides, Oration 43, and of the generosity of sophists in restoring them.] He used to spend very many nights in the temple of Asclepius, both on account of the dreams that he had there, and also on account of all the intercourse there is between those who are awake and converse with one another, for in his case the god used to converse with him while awake, and held it to be a triumph of his healing art to ward off disease from Antiochus. | ||
+ | |||
+ | As a boy, Antiochus was a pupil of Dardanus the Assyrian, and as he grew to early manhood he studied with Dionysius of Miletus, who was already living in Ephesus. He had no talent for formal discourse, and since he was the shrewdest of men he used to run down this branch of the art as childish, so that he might appear to despise it rather than to be unequal to it. But in declamation he won great fame, for he had a sure touch in simulated arguments, was energetic in accusation and invective, brilliant in defense, strong in characterization, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The other theme is as follows. A tyrant abdicates on condition of immunity for himself. He is slain by one whom he has caused to be made a eunuch, and the latter is on his defense for the murder. In this case Antiochus refuted the strongest point made by the prosecution when they quoted the compact between the people and the tyrant; and threw in an ingenious argument while he set forth the eunuch' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Alexander ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 5. Alexander, who was generally nicknamed " | ||
+ | |||
+ | After he had reached manhood he went on an embassy to Antoninus on behalf of Seleucia, and malicious gossip became current about him, that to make himself look younger he used artificial means. Now the Emperor seemed to be paying too little attention to him, whereupon Alexander raised his voice and said: "Pay attention to me, Caesar." | ||
+ | |||
+ | For the greater part of his life he carried on his profession at Antioch, Rome, Tarsus, and, by Zeus, in the whole of Egypt, for he travelled even to the place where is the sect of the Naked Philosophers. [For the Gymnosophists see Life of Apollonius vi. 6.] His visits to Athens were few, but it would not be proper to ignore them. He journeyed to the tribes of Pannonia at the summons of the Emperor Marcus, who was conducting the war there and bestowed on him the title of Imperial Secretary for the Greeks. When he reached Athens — and it is a journey of no ordinary length for one travelling from the East — " | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Athenians thought his appearance and costume so exquisite that before he spoke a word a low buzz of approval went round as a tribute to his perfect elegance. Now the theme that they chose was this: "The speaker endeavors to recall the Scythians to their earlier nomadic life, since they are losing their health by dwelling in cities." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Here are some more quotations from The Scythians of Alexander. "When the Danube froze I would travel South, but when it thawed I would go North, always in perfect health, not as I am now, an invalid. For what harm can come to a man who follows the seasons in their course?" | ||
+ | |||
+ | Herodes thus characterized him because he had observed that the sophist knew how to combine a sober and tempered eloquence with a bold use of sophistic modes of thought; and when he himself declaimed before Alexander he raised his eloquence to a higher pitch, because he knew that Alexander took the keenest pleasure in intensity and force; and he introduced into his speech rhythms more varied than those of the flute and the lyre, because he considered that Alexander was especially skillful in elaborate variations. The theme elected [this is the technical term to describe the theme voted for by the audience when several had been proposed] by his audience was, "The wounded in Sicily implore the Athenians who are retreating thence to put them to death with their own hands." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now since I have set before my readers certain memorable sayings of the other sophists, I must make Alexander also known to them by quoting several sayings of his. For among the Greeks he has never yet attained to the full measure of the renown that is his due. The following quotations from his discourses show how sublime and at the same time how delightful was his style of eloquence. " | ||
+ | |||
+ | In these quotations I have shown Alexander' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Alexander' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Varus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 6. I must not omit to mention Varus who came from Perge. The father of Varus was Callicles, one of Perge' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Hermogenes ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 7. Hermogenes, who was born at Tarsus, by the time he was fifteen had attained such a reputation as a sophist that even the Emperor Marcus became eager to hear him. At any rate Marcus made the journey to hear him declaim, and was delighted with his formal discourse, but marvelled at him when he declaimed extempore, and gave him splendid presents. But when Hermogenes arrived at manhood his powers suddenly deserted him, though this was not due to any apparent disease, and this provided the envious with an occasion for their wit. For they declared that his words were in very truth " | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Philagrus of Cilicia ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 8. Philagrus of Cilicia was a pupil of Lollianus, and was the most excitable and hot-tempered of the sophists. For instance it is said that when someone in his audience began to go to sleep, he gave him a blow in the face with his open hand. After making a brilliant start in his career while still a mere boy, he did not fall short of it even when he began to grow old, but made such progress that he was regarded as the model of what a teacher should be. But though he lived among many peoples and won a great reputation among them for his dexterity in handling arguments, at Athens he showed no skill in handling his own hot temper, but picked a quarrel with Herodes just as though he had come there for that very purpose. For he was walking towards evening in the Cerameicus with four men of the sort that at Athens chase after the sophists, and saw a young man on his right, with several others, keep turning round, and imagining that he was making some jest at his expense he called out: "Well, and who may you be?" "I am Amphicles," | ||
+ | |||
+ | An outlandish [the second-century sophists, when purists, carefully avoided " | ||
+ | |||
+ | In Asia he had already argued a certain theme entitled: "They reject as allies those whom they have not invited to their aid." [This theme is probably derived from Thucydides viii. 86, where Alcibiades declines the aid of the Argives.] This argument had already been published, and had attracted notice, in fact it had greatly enhanced his reputation. Now a rumor reached the pupils of Herodes that Philagrus, when a theme was proposed to him, used to improvise the first time, but did not do so on a second occasion, but would declaim stale arguments that he had used before. Accordingly they proposed to him this same theme "The Uninvited," | ||
+ | |||
+ | The following quotation shows the characteristic style of Philagrus' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Then the sun rises leaving the fair waters of the sea, [Odyssey iii. 1] | ||
+ | |||
+ | and the stars are nowhere." | ||
+ | |||
+ | In height Philagrus was below the average, his brow was stern, his eye alert and easily roused to anger, and he was himself conscious of his morose temper. Hence when one of his friends asked him why he did not enjoy bringing up a family, he replied: " | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Aristeides ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 9. Aristeides, whether he was the son of Eudaemon, or is himself to be so called, was born at Hadriani, a town of no great size in Mysia. But he was educated at Athens when Herodes was at the height of his fame, and at Pergamon in Asia when Aristocles was teaching oratory there. Though he had poor health from his boyhood, he did not fail to work hard. The nature of his disease and the fact that he suffered from a palsy of the muscles he tells us himself in his Sacred Discourses [Aristeides i. 514]. These discourses served him in some sort as a diary, and such diaries are excellent teachers of the art of speaking well on any subject. [Quoted by Synesius, On Dreams 155 b.] And since his natural talent was not in the line of extempore eloquence, he strove after extreme accuracy, and turned his attention to the ancient writers; he was well endowed with native ability and purified his style of any empty verbosity. Aristeides made few journeys, for he did not discourse with the aim of pleasing the crowd, and he could not control his anger against those who did not applaud his lectures. But the countries that he actually visited were Italy, Greece, and that part of Egypt which is situated near the Delta; and the people of this region set up a bronze statue of him in the market-place of Smyrna. | ||
+ | |||
+ | To say that Aristeides founded Smyrna is no mere boastful eulogy but most just and true. For when this city had been blotted out by earthquakes and chasms that opened in the ground, he lamented its fate to Marcus in such moving words that the Emperor frequently groaned at other passages in the monody, but when he came to the words: "She is a desert through which the west winds blow " the Emperor actually shed tears over the pages, and in accordance with the impulse [literally " | ||
+ | |||
+ | "They have my permission," | ||
+ | |||
+ | This too I have heard from Damianus, that though in his discourses this sophist used to disparage extempore speakers, nevertheless he so greatly admired extempore eloquence that he used to shut himself up in a room and practice it in private. And he used to work it out by evolving it clause by clause and thought by thought. But this process we must regard as chewing rather than eating, for extempore eloquence is the crowning achievement of a fluent and facile tongue. There are some who accuse Aristeides of having made a weak and ineffective prooemiurn when his theme was: "The mercenaries are ordered to give back their lands." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some writers record that Aristeides died at home, others say that it was in Ionia; again some say that he reached the age of sixty, others that he was nearly seventy. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Adrian the Phoenician ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 10. Adrian the Phoenician was born at Tyre, but he was trained in rhetoric at Athens. For, as I used to hear from my own teachers, he came to Athens in the time of Herodes and there displayed a great natural talent for sophistic, and it was generally held that he would rise to greatness in his profession. For he began to attend the school of Herodes when he was perhaps eighteen years old, was very soon admitted to the same privileges as Sceptus and Amphicles, and was enrolled among the pupils belonging to the Clepsydrion. Now the Clepsydrion was conducted in the following manner. After the general lecture which was open to all, ten of the pupils of Herodes, that is to say those who were proved worthy of a reward for excellence, used to dine for a period limited by a water-clock ["a lecture timed by the clock" | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now a discussion was once going on about the style of all the sophists, when Adrian came forward in their midst, and said: "I will now give a sketch of their types of style, not by quoting from memory brief phrases of theirs or smart sayings, or clauses or rhythmical effects. But I will undertake to imitate them, and will reproduce extempore the style of every one of them, with an easy flow of words and giving the rein to my tongue." | ||
+ | |||
+ | So full of self-confidence was Adrian when he ascended the chair of rhetoric at Athens, that in the prooemium of his address to the Athenians he dilated not on their wisdom but on his own, for he began by announcing: "Once again letters have come from Phoenicia." | ||
+ | |||
+ | A charge of murder was brought against him, but he escaped it in the following way. There was in Athens a fellow of no account who had had some training in the curriculum of the sophists. One could easily keep him in a good humor by bestowing on him a jar of wine or a dainty dish, or clothes, or silver, just as men entice hungry animals by waving a branch before them; but if he was ignored he would indulge in abuse and bark like a dog. He had fallen foul of Adrian who disliked him for the levity of his manners, but he was the devoted disciple of Chrestus the sophist, of Byzantium. Adrian used to put up with all his insults, and would call the slanders of such men " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Now at the time when the Emperor Marcus travelled to Athens to be initiated into the Mysteries, this sophist was already in possession of the chair of rhetoric at Athens, and among the things that Marcus wished to investigate at Athens he counted this, that he would inform himself as to the professional skill of Adrian. For he had indeed appointed him to lecture to the Athenian youth without testing him by hearing him lecture, but in acquiescence with the general rumor about him. Now the consul Severus [this was probably Claudius Severus the teacher of Marcus Aurelius, consul in 163] was attacking Adrian for putting too much passion and frenzy into his purely sophistic arguments, because his real strength lay in forensic pleading. Therefore Marcus, who wished to put this to the proof, proposed as the theme for declamation " | ||
+ | |||
+ | When he lay ill at Rome and was in fact dying, Commodus appointed him Imperial Secretary, and made excuses for not having done so sooner, whereupon Adrian invoked the Muses, as was his wont, saluted reverently the Emperor' | ||
+ | |||
+ | This sophist had a copious flow of ideas and handled them brilliantly, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Chrestus of Byzantium ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 11. To Chrestus of Byzantium, the sophist, Greece does less than justice, since it neglects a man who received from Herodes the best education of any Hellene, and himself educated many remarkable men. Among these were Hippodromus the sophist, Philiscus, Isagoras the tragic poet, famous rhetoricians, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He had a weakness for wine, but he kept in check the drunken insolence, levity, and arrogance which wine induces in the minds of men; and his ability to keep sober was so extraordinary that, though his potations went on till cockcrow, he would then attack his studies before he had snatched any sleep. He made himself especially obnoxious to youths of the foolish boasting sort, in spite of the fact that they are more profitable than the rest for the payment of fees. At any rate, when he perceived that Diogenes of Amastris was from his earliest youth puffed up with pride, dreaming ever of satrapies and courts and of being one day the right hand of emperors, and moreover that he asserted that a certain Egyptian had foretold all this to him, Chrestus admonished him and told his own story. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He varied and enriched the style of his oratory with the peculiar excellences of Herodes, but he falls short of these in alertness of mind, just as in the painter' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Pollux of Naucratis ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 12. I am not sure whether one ought to call Pollux of Naucratis unlearned or learned, or, absurd as it will seem, both learned and unlearned. For when one considers his studies in words it seems that his tongue had been well trained in the Attic dialect, yet, when one observes closely the type of his style in his declamations, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Impartial hearers may estimate the quality of this man's speeches as here quoted. And by impartial I mean hearers who are prejudiced neither for nor against. It is said that he used to deliver these declamations in a mellifluous voice, with which he so charmed the Emperor Commodus that he won from him the chair at Athens. He lived to the age of fifty-eight, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Caesarea in Cappadocia ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 13. Caesarea in Cappadocia, near neighbor to Mount Argaeus, was the birthplace of PAUSANIAS the sophist. He was educated by Herodes, and was one of the members of the Clepsydrion, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Theseus, turn me round that I may behold the city. [Mad Heracles, 1406; Pausanias substituted ' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Athenodorus the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 14. Athenodorus the Sophist was, by virtue of his ancestors, the most illustrious of the citizens of Aenus [a town in Thrace; cf. Vergil, Aeneid, iii. 18], and by virtue of his teachers and his education the most notable of the all the educated Greeks in that city. For he was educated by Aristocles while still a mere boy, and by Chrestus when his intelligence began to mature; and from these two he derived his well-tempered dialect, for he both Atticized and employed an ornate style of eloquence. He taught at Athens at the time when Pollux also was teaching there, and in his discourses he used to ridicule him as puerile and would quote "The gardens of Tantalus," | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Ptolemy of Naucratis ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 15. Ptolemy of Naucratis also had a brilliant reputation among sophists. For he was one of those who were admitted to dine at the public expense in the temple of Naucratis, an honor paid to few of her citizens. Moreover, he was a pupil of Herodes, but he did not desire to imitate him, but came rather under the influence of Polemo. For the impetus and force of his style and the ample use of rhetorical ornament he borrowed from the equipment of Polemo. Also it is said that he spoke extemporare with marvellous ease and fluency. He nibbled at legal cases and the courts, but not enough to win fame for himself thereby. They used to call him " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ptolemy is sometimes accused of having failed to comprehend clearly his controversial themes so as to see where they were consistent and where not; and as evidence for this accusation they quote the following instance: "The Thebans accuse the Messanians of ingratitude because they refused to receive the Theban refugees when Thebes was taken by Alexander." | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Eudianus of Smyran ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 16. Eudianus of Smyran by birth ranked as a descendant of Nicetes the sophist, but the honors won by his house ranked him with high-priests and controllers of supplies, and the achievements of his oratory carried him to Rome and the chair of rhetoric in that city. He was appointed also to supervise the artisans of Dionysus [cf. Aulus Gellius xx. 4], a very arrogant class of men and hard to keep in order; but he proved himself most capable in this office, and above all criticism. When his son died at Rome he gave vent to no womanish or ignoble laments, but thrice cried aloud, "O my child!" | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Rufus of Perinthus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 17. It is not for his wealth that I shall hand down to fame the name of Rufus of Perinthus, the sophist, or because his family produced many men of consular rank, or because he presided over the Pan-Hellenic festival at Athens with great distinction. For though I might recount even more honors of this sort, they would yet not be worthy of comparison with the man's skill and learning. But rather let his eloquent tongue be his passport to fame, and that keen intelligence which he employed by preference in simulated arguments. For this type of eloquence he was much admired; in the first place because it is a difficult kind of oratory, since in themes that are composed as simulated arguments one needs to put a curb on what one actually says, but to apply the spur to what one leaves unsaid. Then too I think he was admired because his own natural disposition was taken into account. For though his character was naturally open and without guile, he was clever in portraying characters that were not at all suited to his natural bent. And though he became the wealthiest man in the region of the Hellespont and the Propontis, though he won a great reputation at Athens for extempore eloquence and in Ionia and Italy also, yet he nowhere incurred the enmity of any city or individual, but made money out of his benevolent disposition. It is said of him that he used to harden his body by athletics, that he always followed a rigid diet, and exercised himself like a regular athlete. As a boy he studied with Herodes, with Aristocles when he was a stripling, and he was greatly esteemed by the latter; but he took more pride in Herodes, and used to call him the master, the tongue of the Hellenes, the prince of eloquence, and much more of the same sort. He died at home aged sixty-one years, and left sons about whom I have nothing important to relate, except indeed that they were his offspring. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Onomarchus of Andros ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 18. Onomarchus of Andros, the sophist, was not greatly admired, yet he was evidently not to be despised. He taught in the days when Adrian and Chrestus were lecturing at Athens, and living as he did so near to the coast of Asia, he contracted, as one might ophthalmia, the Ionian manner of oratory, which flourished especially at Ephesus. On this account there were some who did not believe that he had ever so much as attended a lecture by Herodes, but in this they did him an injustice. For though he did debase his style to some extent, from the cause that I have mentioned, nevertheless his abundant use of synonyms was like Herodes, and they were pleasing beyond words. If I shall not be thought too frivolous, we can observe his style in his speech: "The man who fell in love with a statue." | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some say that he died at Athens, others at home, when his hair was beginning to grow grey and he was on the verge of old age; they say too that he was somewhat rustic in appearance and squalid and unkempt, like Marcus of Byzantium. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Apollomus of Naucratis ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 19. Apollomus of Naucratis taught rhetoric as the rival of Heracleides, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Apollonius of Athens ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 20. Apollonius of Athens won a name for himself among the Greeks as an able speaker in the legal branch of oratory, and as a declaimer he was not to be despised. He taught at Athens at the same time as Heracleides and his own namesake [Apollonius of Naucratis], and held the chair of political oratory [or "the municipal chair " as opposed to the imperial] at a salary of one talent. He also won distinction in public affairs, and not only was he sent as ambassador on missions of the greatest importance, but also performed the public functions which the Athenians rank highest, being appointed both archon and food controller, and when already well on in years hierophant [the hierophant delivered the mystic utterances at the Eleusinian rites] of the temple of Demeter. In beauty of enunciation he fell short of Heracleides, | ||
+ | |||
+ | While he was on an embassy to the Emperor Severus at Rome [in A.D. 196 or 197], he entered the lists against the sophist Heracleides to compete in declamation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Apollonius took as the starting-point and basis of his eloquence the style of Adrian, whose pupil he had in fact been. But in spite of this he slips into rhythms that belong to verse, and anapaestic effects; but whenever he avoided these his style has great impressiveness and a stately march. This may be observed in others also of his arguments, but especially in that called " | ||
+ | |||
+ | I have not quoted this passage in order to excuse him for his license in the use of rhythms, but to show that he also knew how to use the more sober sort. For the rest he died aged about seventy-five, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Proclus of Naucratis ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 21. I will proceed to record the life of Proclus of Naucratis also, for I knew the man well, indeed he was one of my own teachers. Proclus, then, was a person of some importance in Egypt, but since he saw that Naucratis was rent by factions and that the State was administered with no regard to law and order, he desired to embrace the peace and quiet of Athens. So he sailed away secretly, and spent his life in that city. He brought with him a large sum of money, many slaves and other household gear, all splendid and ornate. Even while yet a stripling he was well thought of at Athens, but after he had attained to manhood he became far more renowned. This was due in the first place to the manner of life that he elected, but also I think it was because of a beneficent act of his, which, though it concerned only one Athenian citizen, yet furnished clear proof of a noble and generous disposition. For when he had arrived by ship at the Piraeus, he inquired of one of the inhabitants of that place whether a certain person still lived at Athens, and whether his affairs were going well. Now these inquiries concerned a friend and host of his with whom he had been intimate as a young man at Athens, at the time, that is, when he was attending the lectures of Adrian. He was told that he still survived and lived there, but that he was on the point of being evicted from his house, and that it was being advertised for sale in the market-place, | ||
+ | |||
+ | He bought four houses, two in Athens itself, one at the Piraeus, and another at Eleusis., He used to receive direct from Egypt regular supplies of incense, ivory, myrrh, papyrus, books [the book trade has passed from Athens to Alexandria and Rome], and all such merchandise, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Proclus laid down the following rules for attendance at his school of declamation. One hundred drachmae paid down gave one the right to attend his lectures at all times. Moreover, he had a library at his own house which was open to his pupils and supplemented the teaching in his lectures. And to prevent us from hissing or jeering at one another, as so often happens in the schools of the sophists, we were summoned to come in all together, and when we had obeyed the summons we sat down, first the boys, then the pedagogues [i.e. the attendants who had brought the boys to the school] in the middle, and the youths by themselves. It was the rarest thing for him to deliver a formal prooemium, but whenever he did embark on such an address, Hippias and Gorgias were the men whom he resembled. He used to review his declamations on the day before he delivered them in public. Even when he was an old man, aged ninety years, in his powers of memory he surpassed even Simonides. The style of his eloquence was natural, but in his abundant use of synonyms he imitated Adrian. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Phoenix the Thessalian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 22. Phoenix the Thessalian deserves neither to be admired, nor on the other hand to be wholly slighted. He was one of the pupils of Philagrus, but he had more talent for oratorical invention than for eloquence. For though his ideas were disposed in the proper order, and he never uttered any that were unsuited to the occasion, yet his style of eloquence seemed disjointed and destitute of rhythm. He was thought to be better suited to teach youths who were beginners than those who had already acquired some grasp of their studies; for his subject matter was displayed in the barest terms, and his diction failed to clothe it with rhetoric. He died at Athens at the age of seventy, and was buried in no obscure place, for he lies near the graves of those who died in the wars, on the right of the road that goes down to the Academy. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Damianus of Ephesus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 23. In the course of my narrative I now come to a man who became most illustrious, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Even when a stripling he began to spend his wealth to good purpose. For when Aristeides and Adrian held sway, the former at Smyrna, the latter at Ephesus, he attended the lectures of both men, and paid them fees of ten thousand drachmae, declaring that he found it more agreeable to spend money on favorites of that sort than on handsome boys and girls, as some prefer to do. And in fact all that I have recorded above about those sophists I stated on the authority of Damianus, who was well acquainted with the careers of both. The wealth of Damianus was displayed also in what I shall now describe. In the first place all the land that he had acquired was planted with trees, both to bear fruit and to give abundant shade. And for his estate by the sea-shore he made artificial islands and moles for harbors to secure safe anchorage for cargo-boats when they put in or set sail; then his residences in the suburbs were in some cases furnished and equipped like town houses, while others were more like grottoes. In the next place the man's own disposition, | ||
+ | |||
+ | His style was more sophistic than is usual in a legal orator, and more judicial than is usual in a sophist. As old age came on he gave up both these pursuits, from weakness of body rather than of mind. At any rate when students were attracted to Ephesus by his renown he still allowed them access to himself, and so it was that he honored me also with one interview, then with a second and a third. And so I beheld a man who resembled the horse in Sophocles [Electra 25]. For though he seemed sluggish from old age, nevertheless in our discussions he recovered the vigor of youth. He died at home aged seventy years, and was buried in one of his own suburban villas in which he had spent most of his life. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Antipater the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 24. The birthplace of Antipater the Sophist was Hierapolis, which must be reckoned among the flourishing cities of Asia, and his father was Zeuxidemus, one of the most distinguished men in that place. Though he studied under Adrian and Pollux, he modelled himself rather on Pollux, and hence he weakened the force of his ideas by the rhythmical effects of his style. He also attended the lectures of Zeno of Athens, and from him learned the subtleties of his art. Though he had a talent for speaking extempore, he nevertheless did not neglect written work, but used to recite to us Olympic and Panathenaic orations and wrote an historical account of the achievements of the Emperor Severus. For it was by the latter' | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was elevated to the rank of consul, and governed the people of Bithynia, but as he showed himself too ready with the sword he was relieved of the office. Antipater lived to be sixty-eight, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Hermocrates of Phocis ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 25. Hermocrates of Phocis was a member of the sophistic circle who became very celebrated and showed greater natural powers than any whom I describe here. For though he was not trained by any sophist of great repute, but was a pupil of Rufinus of Smyrna who in the sophistic art displayed more audacity than felicity, he easily surpassed all the Greeks of his day in variety, whether of eloquence or invention or arrangement; | ||
+ | |||
+ | But while we acquit Hermocrates of this charge, it is not so easy to acquit him of another. For he had inherited from his father a very handsome property, but he squandered it, not on breeding horses, or on public services from which one may win a great reputation, but on strong drink and boon companions of the sort that furnish a theme for Comedy, such a theme, I mean, as was once furnished by the flatterers of Callias, the son of Hipponicus. [This probably refers to the Flatterers of Eupolis; cf. Athenaeus 506 e.] After Antipater had been promoted to be Imperial Secretary he desired to arrange a marriage between Hermocrates and his daughter who was very unattractive in appearance. But Hermocrates did not jump at the chance to share Antipater' | ||
+ | |||
+ | When the Emperor had heard Hermocrates declaim he admired him as much as his great-grandfather [Polemo], and gave him the privilege of asking for presents. Whereupon Hermocrates said: " | ||
+ | |||
+ | In his public declamations Hermocrates was aided in the first place by his great-grandfather' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Heracleides the Lycian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 26. Heracleides the Lycian was also a very notable person, in the first place as regards his family, since he was descended from distinguished ancestors and so became high-priest of Lycia, an office which, though it concerns a small nation, is highly considered by the Romans, I suppose on account of their long-standing alliance with Lycia. But Heracleides was still more notable as a sophist, because of his great abilities both in invention and oratorical expression; in judicial arguments also he was simple and direct, and in speeches composed for public gatherings he never revelled in a mere frenzy of rhetoric. | ||
+ | |||
+ | When he had been turned out of the chair of rhetoric at Athens in consequence of a conspiracy against him got up by the followers of Apollonius of Naucratis, in which Marcianus of Doliche was first, middle, and last, he betook himself to Smyrna, which more than any other city sacrificed to the sophistic Muses. Now the fact that the youth of Ionia, Lydia, Phrygia, and Caria flocked to Ionia to study with him is not so wonderful, seeing that Smyrna is next door to all these countries, but he attracted thither the Hellenes from Europe, he attracted the youth of the Orient, and he attracted many from Egypt who had already heard him, because in Egypt he had contended for the prize of learning against Ptolemy of Naucratis. Thus, then, he filled Smyrna with a brilliant throng, and he benefited her in several other ways too, as I shall show. A city which is much frequented by foreigners, especially if they are lovers of learning, will be prudent and moderate in its councils, and prudent and moderate in its citizen assemblies, because it will be on its guard against being convicted of wrongdoing in the presence of so many eminent persons; and it will take good care of its temples, gymnasia, fountains and porticoes, so that it may appear to meet the needs of that multitude. And should the city have a sea trade, as Smyrna in fact has, the sea will supply them with many things in abundance. He also contributed to the beauty of Smyrna by constructing in the gymnasium of Asclepius a fountain for olive oil with a golden roof, and he held in that city the office of the priest who wears the crown; the people of Smyrna designate the years by the names of these priests. | ||
+ | |||
+ | They say that in the presence of the Emperor Severus he broke down in an extempore speech, because he was abashed by the court and the Imperial bodyguard. Now if this misfortune were to happen to a forensic orator, he might well be criticized; for forensic orators as a tribe are audacious and self-confident; | ||
+ | |||
+ | It is said that for cutting down sacred cedars he was punished by the confiscation of a great part of his estate. On that occasion, as he was leaving the law-court, his pupils were in attendance to comfort and sustain him, and one of them said: "But your ability to declaim no one will ever take from you, Heracleides, | ||
+ | |||
+ | This sophist, more than any of the others, seems to have acquired his proficiency by means of hard work, since it was denied to him by nature. And there is extant a rather pleasing composition of his, a book of moderate size, called In Praise of Work. Once, when he was carrying this book in his hands, he met Ptolemy the sophist in Naucratis, and the latter asked him what he was studying. When he replied that it was an encomium on work, Ptolemy asked for the book, crossed out the letter " | ||
+ | |||
+ | As for the teachers of Heracleides, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Hippodromus the Thessalian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 27. Let none rate Hippodromus the Thessalian lower than the sophists whom I have described above; for to some of them he is evidently superior, while I am not aware that he falls short of the others in any respect. Now the birthplace of Hippodromus was Larissa, a flourishing city in Thessaly, and his father was Olympiodorus, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Though in Thessaly it was thought a great thing to have been president at the Pythia even once, Hippodromus twice presided over the Pythian games, and he outdid his predecessors in wealth and in the elegance with which he ordered the games, and also in the magnanimity and justice which he showed as umpire. At any rate, his conduct in the affair of the tragic actor has left no one else a chance to surpass him in justice and good judgment. The facts are these. Clemens of Byzantium was a tragic actor whose like has never yet been seen for artistic skill. But since he was winning his victories at a time when Byzantium was being besieged [the siege of Byzantium lasted A.D. 193-196 when it was taken by Severus. See Cassius Dio Ixxv. 10], he used to be sent away without the reward of victory, lest it should appear that a city that had taken up arms against the Romans was being proclaimed victor in the person of one of her citizens. Accordingly, | ||
+ | |||
+ | But though he was so firm in the face of assembled crowds, in his public declamations he displayed an admirable mildness. For though he had adopted a profession that is prone to egotism and arrogance, he never resorted to self-praise, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Such then was his behavior towards those who were older than himself and ranked as his seniors, whether by many years or few; but what was his bearing towards those of his own age the reader may learn from what follows. A young man from Ionia who had come to Athens used to recite the praises of Heracleides till he wearied his hearers out of all patience. So when Hippodromus saw him at his lecture, he said: "This young man is in love with his own teacher. Therefore we should do well to further his cause with his beloved. And certainly it will be a windfall for him if, when he leaves us, he has learned how to make an encomium." | ||
+ | |||
+ | When he had held the chair of rhetoric at Athens for about four years, he resigned it at the instance of his wife, and also on account of his property; for she was a most energetic woman and an excellent guardian of his money, but in the absence of both the property was beginning to deteriorate. Nevertheless he did not fail to attend regularly the public festivals of Greece, but frequented them partly in order to declaim in public, partly that he might not be forgotten. And on these occasions also he showed himself superior by always keeping up his regular studies even after he had ceased to teach. For indeed Hippodromus, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Though he was somewhat rustic in appearance, yet an extraordinary nobility shone out of his eyes, and his glance was at once keen and good-natured. Megistias of Smyrna also says that he noticed this characteristic of his, and he was considered second to none as a physiognomist. For Hippodromus came to Smyrna after the death of Heracleides — he had never been there before — and on leaving the ship he went to the market-place in the hope of meeting someone who was proficient in the local style of eloquence [the Ionian type]. And when he saw a temple with attendants sitting near it, and slaves in waiting carrying loads of books in satchels, he understood that someone of importance was holding his school inside. So he entered, and after greeting Megistias, sat down without making any inquiry. Now Megistias thought that he was going to talk to him about pupils, and that he was some father or guardian of boys, and asked him why he had come. "You shall learn that," he replied, "when we are alone." | ||
+ | |||
+ | When he asked him to suggest a theme, Megistias proposed "The magician who wished to die because he was unable to kill another magician, an adulterer." | ||
+ | |||
+ | His style in introductory discourse was wholly dependent on Plato and Dio, while his declamations had Polemo' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Varus of Laodicea ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 28. Let those who think Varus of Laodicea worthy of mention receive no mention themselves. For he was trivial, vain, and fatuous, and such charm of voice as he had he degraded by uttering snatches of song which might serve as dance music for some shameless person. Why then should I record or describe any teacher or pupil of his, since I am well aware that one would not be likely to teach such arts, and that it would be disgraceful for his pupils to admit that they had listened to such teaching? | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Quirinus the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 29. The birthplace of Quirinus the Sophist was Nicomedia. His family was neither distinguished nor altogether obscure, but he had a natural talent for receiving instruction and a still greater talent for handing it on, for he carefully trained not only his memory, but also his faculty for lucid expression. This sophist' | ||
+ | |||
+ | When the informers in Asia found fault with him for being more lenient in his prosecutions than accorded with the evidence furnished by them, he said: "Nay it were far better that you should adopt my clemency than I your ruthlessness." | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Philiscus the Thessalian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 30. Philiscus the Thessalian was a kinsman of Hippodromus and held the chair of rhetoric at Athens for seven years, but was deprived of the immunity that was attached to it. How this came about I must now relate. The Heordaean Macedonians had summoned Philiscus to perform public services in their city, as was their right in the case of all who on the mother' | ||
+ | |||
+ | All this made the Emperor hostile to Philiscus, so that he kept pulling him up throughout the whole speech, both by interjecting his own remarks in the other' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Aelian ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 31. Aelian was a Roman, but he wrote Attic as correctly as the Athenians in the interior of Attica. This man in my opinion is worthy of all praise, in the first place because by hard work he achieved purity of speech though he lived in a city which employed another language; secondly because, though he received the title of sophist at the hands of those who award that honor, he did not trust to their decision, but neither flattered his own intelligence nor was puffed up by this appellation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Philostratus of Lemnos once met him when he was holding a book in his hands and reading it aloud in an indignant and emphatic voice, and he asked him what he was studying. He replied: "I have composed an indictment of Gynnis [the " | ||
+ | |||
+ | This man used to say that he had never travelled to any part of the world beyond the confines of Italy, and had never set foot on a ship, or become acquainted with the sea; and on these grounds he was all the more highly esteemed in Rome as one who prized their mode of life. He was a pupil of Pausanias, but he admired Herodes as the most various of orators. He lived to be over sixty years of age and died leaving no children; for by never marrying he evaded begetting children. However this is not the right time to speculate as to whether this brings happiness or misery. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Heliodorus ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 32. Since Fortune plays the most important part in all human affairs, Heliodorus must not be deemed unworthy of the sophistic circle; for he was a marvellous instance of her triumphs. He was elected advocate of his own country among the Celtic tribes, with a colleague. And when his colleague was ill, and it was reported that the Emperor [Caracalla] was cancelling many of the suits, Heliodorus hastened to the military headquarters in anxiety about his own suit. On being summoned into court sooner than he expected, he tried to postpone the case till the sick man could be present; but the official who gave the notifications of the suits was an overbearing fellow and would not allow this, but haled him into court against his will, and even dragged him by the beard. But when he had entered he actually looked boldly at the Emperor, asked for time to be allotted to him in which to plead, and then with ready skill delivered his protest, saying: "It will seem strange to you, most mighty Emperor, that one should nullify his own suit by pleading it alone, without having your commands to do so." At this the Emperor sprang from his seat and called Heliodorus "a man such as I have never yet known, a new phenomenon such as has appeared only in my own time," and other epithets of this sort, and raising his hand he shook back the fold of his cloak. [A sign of approval; cf. Eunapius, Life of the Sophist Julian.] Now at first we felt an impulse to laugh, because we thought that the Emperor was really making fun of him. But when he bestowed on him the public honor of equestrian rank and also on all his children, men marvelled at the goddess Fortune who showed her power by events so incredible. And this power was illustrated still more clearly in what followed. | ||
+ | |||
+ | For when the Arab comprehended that things were going well for him, he profited by the Emperor' | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Aspasius the Sophist ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | 33. Ravenna was the birthplace of Aspasius the Sophist — now Ravenna is an Italian city — and he was educated by his father Demetrianus who was skilled in the art of criticism. Aspasius was an industrious student and was diligent in attending the rhetorical schools. He used to praise novelty, but he never lapsed into bad taste, because what he invented he employed with a due sense of proportion. This is, of course, of the greatest importance in music also, for it is the time measures of the notes that have given a voice to the lyre and the flute and taught us melody. But though he took great pains to express himself appropriately and with simplicity, he gave too little thought to vigor and rhetorical amplification. Though he had no natural ability for extempore speaking, he made good the deficiency by hard work. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He visited many parts of the earth, both in the train of the Emperor and travelling independently. He held the chair of rhetoric at Rome with great credit to himself, so long as he was young, but as he grew old he was criticized for not being willing to resign it in another' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The epistle composed by Philostratus called How to Write Letters is aimed at Aspasius, who on being appointed Imperial Secretary wrote certain letters in a style more controversial than is suitable; and others he wrote in obscure language, though neither of these qualities is becoming to an Emperor. For an Emperor when he writes a letter ought not to use rhetorical syllogisms or trains of reasoning, but ought to express only his own will; nor again should he be obscure, since he is the voice of the law, and lucidity is the interpreter of the law. Aspasius was a pupil of Pausanias, but he also attended the school of Hippodromus, | ||
+ | |||
+ | So much for Aspasius. But of Philostratus of Lemnos and his ability in the law courts, in political harangues, in writing treatises, in declamation, |
text/lives_of_the_sophists_-_philostratus.1487821459.txt.gz · Last modified: 2017/02/22 21:44 by 46.161.9.24