Orationes 15

Aelius Aristides

Translated by Thothica

14 min

My speech is not on equal terms with the city and with other subjects. For other cities could never display so much as one could say of them, whereas we could never say so much as it is possible to display. Yet I am bound to discharge my duty to custom, since these men too bid me do so. And there is, none the less, in this very task profit for the city, and for the speaker scarcely any risk at all. For the fairer the things seen shall appear, the more reasonably will the speaker be thought to have fallen short, so that he will at once be convicted and yet, out of the very proofs against him, win pardon; while to the city accrues an added glory, if, with things so many and so great to show, she relies not only on what is seen but also on the accounts of her ancestral past. For the city's good fortune is not a thing of yesterday with us, but comes down from our forefathers; and she stands toward herself in the relation of colony and mother-city, for she is the third in succession from the ancient one. For as statues and carefully wrought speeches are brought to perfection by a second and a third hand, so too the city, founded by a third hand, has perfected her beauty; and she has become at once the oldest and the newest, having renewed herself, as they say the sacred bird does. The eldest city, then, was founded on Sipylus, where they say are the resting-places of the gods and the choruses of the Curetes about the mother of Zeus. And from the beginning she was so dear to the gods that the poets say the gods, together with the heroes, used to contribute to a common feast in her, banqueting all together. That city, then, the Nymphs received, and it is now submerged, having sunk beneath the lake, as they say. The second city, after this, was inhabited below Sipylus, by the spur of the shore, midway between the ancient one and the present,
the city now called ancient being established with reference to this present one. These were like rehearsals of the present dwelling-place, made in other, ruder models. But moved, as the poets say, by a third step, the city came to rest in this single present form. As for the people, the eldest stock is autochthonous to her; but since she had also to receive settlers, she received these too from the autochthonous folk of the other continent, and was marvellously blended with the Greeks of the opposite shore, both giving and receiving founders: giving to the Peloponnesians their eponymous hero and the right to take pride in the name, and receiving from Athens the Erechtheidae, as the story goes, in the wake of the war against the Amazons, and later the later comers. From the mother-city they drew both advantages: refinements for everyday life, and daring deeds in war beyond what it profits many to contend over; so that already among certain of the poets such conduct is described as in the Smyrnaean manner. One proof will suffice, of which you will see the memorial as well. For in the first season of spring, at the festival of Dionysus, they summon you, and a sacred trireme is carried in a circuit through the marketplace in honour of Dionysus. This is a token of how once the Chians, sailing against the city to seize it as though it were undefended, the men being away on the mountain, were then sighted by them as the men came down, and not only failed in the attempt but lost their ships besides, since the people then danced the dance in arms for Dionysus and consummated the Bacchic rites upon the bodies of those men. And this is a relish to the achievements of the city and, as it were, a token of the rest, which I must perforce pass over; and for this reason it is on the lips of the many. One could tell of many other contests of hers as well, and indeed of the latest, those waged on your behalf and together with you on every occasion that arose—a task that would require much leisure to recount.
But why need I wear myself out over these things? For those cities whose pride lies in legends or narratives may reasonably retreat into such matters; but a city which, the moment she is seen, takes one captive and leaves no room to inquire into antiquity—why should one dignify her by the past, instead of conducting the listener about as though one held him by the hand, making the spectator a witness to one's words? For I think that, if the image of some city had to appear in the heavens—as they say of the crown of Ariadne and other images of rivers and living creatures, all those honoured by the gods—it is this city's image that would appear and prevail. So perfect a pattern of a city does she seem to me to be by nature, needing neither a poet for her citizen to woo her praises, nor any other art for her commendation, but herself procuring love of herself in all men and herself compelling it, persuading the eyes, not the ears. For she stretches out above the sea, sending forth a continual bloom of beauty, as though she were not built up little by little, but had risen all at once from the earth, presenting her greatness not under constraint nor hurriedly, but everywhere ample and uniform. And her greatness is an abundance of beauty. Nor would you say she is many cities scattered in fragments, but one to outweigh many, one of a single hue and in harmony with herself, presenting her parts, like the body of a man, in agreement with the whole. The ornaments both within her and about her are alike many and splendid, and have left none more to be longed for. The whole of her is, as it were, decked with statues, like robes embroidered all over. Walking from west to east, you will pass from temple to temple and from hill to hill along a single street fairer than its name. And standing upon the acropolis, the sea flows below you and the suburbs lie at anchor; and the city, blending with both, pours out the soul through three of the most delightful spectacles, nor can one find
where to fix the eye; for each draws it to itself, as on a necklace of varied stones. As you come down from the acropolis, the eastern quarters receive you, and again the fairest of temples of the goddess to whom the city has fallen by lot, and the things beside these which it is a task even for an old man to recount in due order. For everything by now, as far as the shore, is ablaze with gymnasia, marketplaces, theatres, enclosures, harbours, beauties both natural and man-made in rivalry with one another. Nothing is idle, whether of spectacle or of use. Baths there are so many that you would be at a loss where to bathe; running-tracks of every kind, some deep within the city, some at its borders, each forbidding the other to be the fairest; fountains and springs by households, and more than one to a household; and lanes that serve as marketplaces, and lanes that intersect one another fourfold for the reception of the sun—I am almost moved to say what I denied before, that by their layout they make many cities, each one an imitation of the whole. And breezes, both of spring and of summer, more clear-toned than the nightingales and cicadas of the poets, darting some through some places and some through others, make the whole city into one grove. What painting or modelling could imitate these things to better effect? Always, as if adorned for a yearly procession, she is decked out by her private and her public structures, a sight more luxurious than a Median pavilion. Delights never fail her, nor do any of the Muses that visit the cities of men dwell apart from her. For much is the native talent, and much the imported; you would say she is the hearth of the continent for the sake of culture. And of theatres, for contests and other displays, the abundance is past telling. Besides these, there are handiworks of every sort, and a yield of earth and sea in rivalry. To speak in sum, for each of the two kinds of men this city alone is most fitting—both for as many as have chosen to pass their life at ease, and for as many as think it right to pursue philosophy without guile. For their rests are a match for their toils,
so that they do not grow weary. And the ornament before her gates, serving for the city as a propylaeum in place of Apollo of the Ways, is Meles, her eponymous river, a channel of the Nymphs from the springs to the sea, that they may have a running bath of their own and may receive the Nereids from Nereus at a short distance. And Meles flows alike out of caverns and houses and trees, rising up in the very middle of his stream and advancing to the sea; and the part of him at the upper springs is a circle, which you would liken most of all to a necklace, while the part that follows is like the Euripus. At his mouth he scarcely roars at all, but, smoothing the surf, mingles soundlessly, lifting up the sea as it comes in from the winds and following it as it withdraws, showing a ridge of each of the two waters, so that you could not tell where they have met. And that he is everywhere full of fish, and these tame and messmates of those who tent upon his banks—and not on the dry land, but dancing in their place to the flute and, in their revelry, tumbling toward the banqueters—these things even the children could explain, and all are free to see them. But the fairer offspring of the river, and the one that is borne to all cities, is Homer, the common nurse and friend of the Greeks, theirs from their fathers and from childhood, each man's own. Wherefore it seems to me that all men do rightly to begin their discourses from the springs of Meles, as he himself spoke of the Spercheus, as though offering the firstfruits of their locks, singing of the river for Homer's sake. And when you have crossed the Meles, a region meets you, a gift of Poseidon, as it seems to me, to the city, somewhat like and yet unlike what is told of Thessaly. For there he parted the mountains and made Thessaly a level land, sending the Peneius out of a lake to run in its course; but here he drew the sea back from the mountains, fitting to the city the ornament from the mainland over against that from the sea. Yet he left behind no slime, nor anything beyond what set firm the
soil; but to one who digs there are signs of the ancient nature, and to one who looks at the surroundings round about, where once the sea pressed up against them; and to one who rides across the salt plain amid orchards and fountains, and these in perfection. And going forward a little, the city appears again, as though escorting you on your way, and here at last her beauties become, through the lesser distance, numerable and measurable. And no one is in such haste, seeing the road ahead, that he does not change his posture, putting some things on his right hand and some on his left before his gaze. For the city draws all to herself like the magnet stone the bits of iron, and masters them by a willing necessity. And the same thing happens both to the city with regard to what lies outside and to what lies outside with regard to the city. For neither does one looking from the town upon the suburbs have his fill, nor, if one gazes upon the city from outside, is there ever lacking an equal measure of not having had enough. For this city alone of cities her renown turns to her own loss; for no one who hears of her abroad could so attain to her as to grasp the whole. And it seems to me that one might even make a resolution among them, as they say that the man bitten by the viper is unwilling to speak of it to any other than one who has himself made trial of it: so too one who has seen the beauties of the city would share the account only with one who has seen, or at least is about to see at once, but would not readily bring out his words to others, as to the profane he would not bring sacred things; just as those held fast by love are unwilling to tell their tale to mere children. For this much, perhaps, even a poet might say, and win souls thereby: that the harbour is at the navel of the city and the open sea before her eye, no less visible to those at the farthest end on the other side than to those who dwell hard by; and that the acropolis holds up the city through her whole extent, while the sea stretches alongside like a base, diverging eastward from the Meles only so far as to turn aside into a curve. But these things one might set in order even part by part; whereas the grace that is over all,
stretched like Iris, and tuning the city like a lyre into concord both with herself and with the ornaments outside, and the radiance running unbroken through all things, like the bronze in Homer reaching to heaven—who can recount these things and attain them? Not so happy in his offspring is the Meles, nor any man so fortunate in speech. And indeed she alone of cities needs to be seen, not heard of; and she alone needs not so much to be seen as to be lived in continually and consorted with, by whoever means to behold her well and to carry off from her the wages of his praises on the spot. But I will add this much more to my circuit; for of the inmost recess of the gulf I made mention a little while ago, but of the whole there remains a brief word. For it is precisely fitting to the city's name, and to no other suited. For in gentleness and usefulness and beauty and form it is a gulf, but in capacity an open sea; and bearing the appellation of a single gulf, it unfolds into many gulfs, like folding tablets; for different headlands shape different recesses, and harbours and resting-places are past counting. You would say it resembled the many-spouted cups, so continually, through a little peninsula, does it hold its anchorages—a circuit of not a few days, if one were to put in at each mooring. And it is now high time for me to bring my speech to anchor here; for about the people, what need is there to speak? For you yourself will judge, and will make my account still better by setting it forth toward what is fairest. For now, I know, both to you and to most of those present I seem to have discoursed in due measure; but presently all these words of mine will be shown to be outdone. And to me it is gain that things of this kind should outdo me.