Orationes 21

Aelius Aristides

Translated by Thothica

13 min

With me, men of Greece, it has happened just as with those in the tragedies who keep silent for a long while and then, when occasion offers, speak out either to the chorus or to whomever it may be. For all the time past I held myself in check, ever since these things befell which you know of; and I neither set out to console my fellow-citizens nor did anything else, save that I sent to the rulers such messages as the occasion required and watched closely what came from there. But now that the gods, in their goodness, and the emperors who govern by the gods' counsel—being themselves piloted by the gods and guiding the affairs of men—have thrust away from the city the alien fortune and brought back instead the good fortune that has long been its due, I think that I too may chance to say something in season. If, then, it were possible for me to move wherever I wished, I should be present and converse with you in person; but since my preserver detains me, communion through letters was all that was left. And if this can be referred to a precedent, there is no cause for wonder; but if it has not yet been done by anyone else up to this time, while it befits us, it is not
right to find fault. When, then, I learned of what had happened—for I did not chance to be present, but I had gone out before, by whose counsel you may reckon—I sang certain monodies, until, saved by my very suffering, I forgot certain laments. For there was no other way to hold out against it, save by giving myself over to these. But now it is high time for me to imitate Stesichorus with my palinode, and to keep silent now of the things that came of my prayers, which I then sang unwillingly. Yet I think I shall differ this much from Stesichorus: for he, in requital for the ill he had spoken of Helen, sang in turn the second song in her praise; but I, the things which I then adorned with my lamentations, these I shall now adorn in my rejoicing, offering a song of good omen pure of all lament. For with us, men of Greece, it befell to stumble according to the common fortune of mankind, which it is not possible to pass through to the end without a share of evils; but to recover by the fortune of the city, through which it has never yet been without a share of any noble thing. And one might know this too by reasoning from the time. For that, when she was destined not to lie fallen, nor to fare like the death of a man, as certain other cities have done before, but to be raised up on better foundations—that at that very moment she should slip—how would not a man of sound mind reckon this part of good fortune? And the deity, as it seems, looked to a fitting conjunction. For to the emperors, best in all things and holding all cities under themselves, there belonged the most honourable ambition of founding the fairest city; and to the city, to be raised up again by these men and to inscribe such founders upon her roll, changed the calamity into prosperity. For before this we knew of Theseus and Alexander, the one, I think, the most humane of those among the Greeks, the other the most admired of all kings for his daring in war. But now we have gained still more brilliant and greater founders, to whom all earth and
sea are subject, both from their fathers and from what they themselves have won besides; and in wisdom and justice and truth and goodness they have no less, if not even more, than their strength in arms. For who is so far beyond the pillars of Heracles, or who beyond the Caucasus, as to be unacquainted with the humanity and greatness of soul of these men? They did not suffer the very name of Smyrna to pass into the rank of legend, but sent forth into her some outflow of their own fortune, and granted us not to lament the fall, but to keep festival at a refounding. Of Alexander, indeed, a sleep is sung, which contained the prelude of the foundation; but these men afforded so great a wakefulness that they were beforehand in raising us up, before the man who was to tell them what we had suffered could go out to them. And they used instruments most divine and at the same time most brilliant: with words they comforted us and showed—what Hesiod once prophesied—how great a thing music is when added to kingship; and they furnished every supply both for the cure of what had befallen and, besides, for the investiture of further ornaments. And not even this sufficed them, but, as though administering the very city, they pointed out sources of revenue, and lured on by hopes those who would vie in generosity, and called for the aid of men's hands, and proclaimed that they would not trouble the willing—nor the unwilling either—and bade us, if we wished anything else at once besides these things, to say it, as men who would grant it. So that to me not even all the wealth that comes from men seems worth this constancy; for they have made, if it is right to say so, the earthquake a benefit to the city. For before she fell into this state of fortune, it was not yet clear to what degree she is honoured, nor how others ought to stand toward her; but now one may say the saying of Themistocles—if indeed this is to be believed of him—that, over the gifts that came to him from the Persian, he uttered some such word to his children, that
now at last they were saved, at the moment when they had been ruined. But he, indeed, is said to have spoken thus when deprived of his fatherland; whereas to us, together with the recovery of our fatherland, money, ornaments, ambitions, emperors for founders and counsellors—all the fairest things have come at once. Must we not say that these belong to the unconquered fortune of those men and to the good fortune of the city, which provides for them immortal remembrance out of what they found and accomplish, and for her out of what is rebuilt? For they had so great an excess that they did not even think it enough to set out of their own accord to the refounding, but, instead of awaiting envoys from us, they themselves became envoys on our behalf to the council at home, thinking fit to vote those things which none of us would have ventured to ask. Has not then every dirge been wiped out by these men, and all memory both of each man's private griefs and of the common hardships, and has not gladness been brought in instead, together with words of good omen and a desire to live now, if ever, in view of the hopes to come, and thanks befitting the gods, the emperors, and the chorus that received with gladness the policies of the foremost men and remembered Smyrna as was fitting? It is worth while, then, men of Greece, to make mention also of the part that belongs to you, my kinsmen, how you were disposed in accordance with these men, and how most plainly you displayed the goodwill which you have borne the city from all time. And one would learn it by considering how the first and most ancient of the Greek cities—I mean that of the Athenians—stood amid its calamities. And I do not say this thinking it right to disparage her—may I never become so excessively a lover of my own city—but wishing at once to console my fellow-citizens and to show those present that for the city, to fare well through all occasions is native, and is, as it were, the allotted portion
of a beloved lot. For when those men had been deprived of their ships, deprived of their walls and of their whole empire, and had come to such a pass that the people were forced to become exiles from their fatherland—for I shall pass over in silence the many things between—when they had fared thus, none, except the Pharsalians and the Argives and the Thebans, remembered any gratitude, great or small, for the benefits of all the ages, nor that the city was sung as the bulwark of the race. But these whom I named, by receiving the fugitives and standing firm against those who demanded their surrender, laid up this gratitude with the city that surpasses all, beside which the oracles say good fortune is enthroned. Come then, let us consider the case of our own city too, lest in any point it should befall one of her lovers to feel shame. She, up to these present times, stood as it were a pattern of a city's beauty, mastering at the very first sight those who put in both from land and from sea, and to those who came within displaying the fairest things and providing such as it was not possible to take one's fill of, whether of the eyes or of length of time spent; which it would now be endless to recount. But when it was needful to make trial also of the other portion, the things which it came into the rulers' minds to take in hand with zeal we have just now gone through; but among you, her peers, what of all things did not come to pass? Were there not lamentations city by city, and in the common assemblies men crying their utmost and longing for the city in the place of a fatherland, thinking fit to break up festivals and making speeches over her, each as he had the power? For as though a common fall of Asia had occurred, so were you minded. But indeed who up to this day among the Greeks remembers the like of the aid given upon the works themselves? Markets came in from every quarter for those who remained in the land, arriving from earth and sea; and there was rivalry and zeal among the greatest cities on either hand, calling them to themselves and
sending out conveyances and means of travel, and furnishing besides dwellings and partnership in councils and every resource, as for their own parents or children; and the like was done by cities falling short in greatness but in nothing falling short of eagerness and honour. For who did not make of it a godsend to himself? Who did not think he was finding rather than conferring this favour—to receive as fellow-settlers men who had held so great a primacy? And the contribution of money, and the promises for the future from either continent, and many other acts of kindness done according to each man's power—who could come to the end of recounting them? And it was not for this reason that the city thought fit to receive all things in turn, nor as the givers wished, but as it was honourable for her to take. And what need is there to recount these things in detail? For all the nations that fill Asia for us vie in a common emulation toward the city, raising up the mightiest of the ancient works. And in the case of this city alone the old saying was convicted of falsehood, that men who fare ill are forgotten by their friends; so great a measure of distinction and favours and renown was preserved for her by the deity even amid her calamity. But now all that belonged to mournful harmony and graceless figures and had its fair-speaking from grief has departed out of the way; the continent is clad in white, Greece keeps festival upon a happy theme, and the city, as in a drama, springs up once more from the beginning, having changed her age, become at once the same old city and new, just as the story tells that the phoenix is brought to life again out of itself; for surely it does not seem good to the god that another phoenix should come into being instead of that one and after that one. And all things appear to have proceeded as by a road. For Theseus founded her at the first, and Alexander afterward advanced her to this form; and a third hand, of those who conquer all things, raises up the same city and puts it together; for they did not think fit to transfer it, out of love for what
already was, but they raise it up upon its own footprints. For the very nature of the city longed for two founders, assigning two as her tutelary heroes. And so the harbours bring back the embraces of the dearest city, and again she is adorned, and there is nothing to hinder the Meles from having his neighbours; and the gates of spring and summer are opened beneath garlands. Choruses of Nymphs and Muses dance both within her and about her, and the west winds will not grieve her with their blowing. O blessed among the elders are those who shall arrive at this day, on which they shall see Smyrna possessing her own adornment; and the children will lose nothing, but will see their fatherland such as their parents dwelt in; and those in their prime, having both worked and toiled together at some things, will at others sacrifice together and keep festival together, both for themselves and for those who arrive—since fairer still than the present good things are the hopes of those to come. But, O Zeus of the city, and you goddesses who hold this city by lot, and Poseidon, who hast received both lots, to shake and to save, and you gods royal and Hellenic, grant that this refounding may be the second, better and more secure, to the great gladness and renown of the founders, and with good fortune for those who shall meet the city through all the time to come; and grant that some part may be mine too among the Greeks, both now and hereafter.