Orationes 51

416. I have not, then, missed both occasions, if indeed it is a graceful thing to receive and address a man who has come back from abroad — especially one returning from the things for which we joined in prayer — and it would be something also to send him on his way together with a song. But you assigned this latter occasion to come; we received him, then, since the 417. occasion too brought it about thus. "And when a god has shown the beginning," says Pindar, "the path is straight indeed" to grasp the matter before us. And accordingly, may Asclepius our patron and Zeus, the lord who dispenses all things, grant to you throughout that you sail with us before a fair wind and for good ends, and that things still better be reported in your second voyage; and to us in turn that our own affairs be contested before a fair wind, and that with surging oar we may carry our boat past all the Greeks, so far as is in the highest degree possible. And so much, then, for this. But I pass on to another prelude, as Stesichorus did. Now I know somehow that I must fight with shadows, for those against whom what is said will be spoken are not present. So that it comes about that at once the words are made, as it were, almost in vain, and at the same time it is most clear that they will be spoken rightly and fittingly. For it is plain at once, surely, that the fault is not ours — neither now nor ever at any other time, with the gods' leave to say it — but their habitual indifference to everything. Let us examine it, then, as though it were an affidavit or an indictment. They say I do wrong in not making my practice of speeches continuous; for everything, they say, would be in my power and at my disposal, and this is said uniformly by all — the "if he wished"; and "should he ever wish it" — this is the charge. If, then, you seek to hear some pleasing discourse, as when I happen to be giving a festival speech, you are talking nonsense; but if you will endure one who speaks the truth, I think I shall appear not at all deserving of blame. At all events, there is now neither a festival nor so great a presence of strangers, among whom, being refuted, you would take it ill — for I speak as though the men were present — but among fewer than at the Lenaeum the matters of free speech shall be. Now I discoursed to you about these things before too, when the plague was at its height, the god having bidden me come forward; and these things also shall be spoken, holding to the same purpose, that you may know that I, even in the most perilous 418. of times, did not think fit to be slack, while there are others to whom speeches matter little.

Now formerly I, at least, did not understand to what end was said the thing about "charging the thieves besides"; but now I think I understand. For when those whose business it is to come to the practices and the lectures, neglecting this, complain that there is no one who speaks, how do they not reckon their own fault as another's — just as if some men, when the sun is burning clear, should shut their eyes and say that what appears does not exist? But this, I think, is the act of men who deceive themselves while seeming to deceive others. And what is reasonable, and what one ought to think about these things, hear, if you wish. I think that arts and pursuits, up to the handling of them, are the concern of those who practice them, but the end is no longer their concern but lies with others; and that the use of every art is twofold — the one belonging to him who handles the work, the other to those who use it. When, then, a man abandons his own proper actions, he is to that extent accountable; for the one who wished to use them has been hindered. But when one works at his own tasks as best he can, while those others stand aloof, it is not, I think, the man who does what is needful who is accountable, but those who do not use it. What must the good physician do? Have his drugs prepared, his hand, his knowledge; but to bid men use these is no longer a part of the art — rather the sick man must walk, or send, to him. But if the physician must beg the man who needs to be cured, or, by Zeus, the pilot beg those who need to sail, or the judge those who dispute, or the general the soldiers, or the orator the hearers — all things would be upside down. For not only in the serious arts and those of so high a worth, but even in the manual crafts, this was nowhere the custom — that the craftsmen go to those who need them, begging them to use them; rather, those who need to build beg the carpenters, not the carpenters them; and the farmer will go to the doors of the smith, when he needs a mattock or some other such thing, and again the smith to the farmer, when he needs grain. But did you ever yet see a barber going up to someone and saying, "Best of men, 419. allow me to cut your hair, or pare your nails, or scrape you, for this is my art"? No; but, I think, even if a man wears purple and is in any way august, he himself will go to the barber and call him to himself, when he needs any of his services.

And why need one draw out a long catalogue of arts? For we shall find nearly all things, so to speak, to be thus. Then shall those who would not think fit to esteem themselves higher than anyone — nor, I think, even equal to others, but have even this for their art, to serve the many — shall these await those who need them and not be humbled beyond their station, while those who profess the fairest and most liberal of powers, through which all matters are examined and tested, both small and greater and finer and the reverse — shall these, if nothing else, not at least imitate those men, and consider that the care and practice of speeches belongs to themselves, but that the using of them, whether by these others or by themselves, is the work of others? And, it seems, the cobbler and the weaver, if they leave the work at which they sit and go about collecting those who will come to them, will not only fail to do what falls to them, but will even ruin their crafts; but the orator, if he abandons his speeches and collects the hearers, will thus best take counsel for his own affairs? No; rather thus, and most of all, as I would say, he will ruin what he has. And indeed, if everywhere to leave one's post is shameful and against the laws, an orator most of all would thus leave his post, if, courting the chance comers, he should of himself make the bearing of the art baser. For consider whether it seems to you to be among the things that are honourable, or that have left a good name, that those eager to marry should sit at the doors of the maidens, courting either them or their parents or some other of their relatives — but that those who claim to be lovers of speeches should, neglecting this, court the orator himself, and try to persuade him somehow to admit them into the partnership, and then 420. lay the blame on him and say that he, forsooth, does not wish it. And which Calchas or Mopsus, in the gods' name, prophesied these things to you? For you have not tried it yourself. And indeed neither can this be said — that those who pursue the other sciences or arts know well what ought to be deliberated about them, but that those concerned with speeches alone of all, or most of all, are ignorant. Rather, this very thing is the finest and greatest and truest thing to say on behalf of speeches: that nothing prevents those who do something else from knowing the things of their art, but being ignorant of how one ought to deliberate about them; whereas speeches, apart from the rest of their power, furnish the knowledge also of how one must apply oneself to them. And reasonably; for those whose business it is to judge concerning other things, it is not likely that they should be utterly ignorant about themselves.

Come then, these things being thus laid down, behold my case; and if you find me either slack, or making anything in the world more important than my occupation with speeches, whether now or formerly I speak — or rather, having anywhere left off the utmost of eagerness and zeal about these things — accuse and blame me with whatever you wish. But if I have left no room even for a jibe, on the ground that I am, in very fact, a kind of speech personified, and nothing beyond has ever been overdone by me except what concerns the gods — and these things have been worked at and done, with their help be it said, to the utmost of our power most carefully, but have in no way been overdone — if these things should appear to be so, cover your faces on both counts, you who neither dare to use them, and besides imitate the women who, they say, whenever they themselves fail to do what they ought in their judgement, turn their own faults and ills upon their husbands. Consider, then, examining as it were certain accounts from the beginning, as briefly as possible. For the god granted me, while I was still young, to use teachers, and the first reports from them that I should indeed be foremost. 421. And having begun from that point, I have continued ever since occupying myself with learning and speeches, so far as the need of the body did not hinder, or the cycles of the seasons, bringing calamities greater than my choice. But nevertheless even through these we held on, like some Odysseus clinging to his raft, since we at least did not sail abandoned, but under the greatest and most benevolent of pilots, who held off the blasts from us so that we should not sink. And alone of the Greeks we know of, we set our hand to speeches not for the sake of wealth, not of glory, not of honour, not of marriage, not of dominion, not of any addition whatever, but, having become purely lovers of them, we were honoured fittingly by the speeches themselves. To others, then, the company of boy-favourites is sweet, to others to bathe as much as possible, to others to drink in quantity, others horses and dogs have stunned. And, by Zeus, those who attend to play stand apart from speeches, and those who are serious about certain other things. But to me speeches have all appellations and all powers. For I made them my children and parents and actions and recreations and everything. And I call upon Aphrodite over these things. These are my play and these my serious business; in these I rejoice, these I embrace, to their doors I resort; and though I could say many other things besides these, I omit them so as not to seem coarse. But indeed concerning glory I was so minded — to receive and cherish it when it met me (for otherwise I should be altogether a dolt), but to take no trouble at all toward it beyond the speeches themselves and the rightness of life in harmony with them; but, if anyone looking to these should wish to admire me, well; and if not, to let it go.

Now I have made the most public appearances of any I know of, and these not from long ago, if you wish, but consider from these very present times. For what festal gathering, or what assembly, did we pass over without adorning the city in the midst of it? And 422. that too not from any lack of glory. For, with the gods' leave to say it, it has become so great that I need not contend to win it, but can safely keep silent in order to preserve what I have. And indeed to those eager to associate with me privately I presented myself not only contending, but also reasonably demonstrating from those things by which I thought they would become somewhat better. So be it. Such are our affairs, and such as these. But consider your own in turn, against these, you ill-starred lovers, who love thus exceedingly and are persuaded that you are the foremost of the Greeks, and shout this both in the gymnasia and in the market-place, but have suffered — I will say nothing more bitter, take courage — the same as the sons of distinguished men. For to them it suffices that their fathers are such, while they themselves for the most part live in luxury; and to you it suffices that I am present and speak, but the coming and sharing in the strangers' feast you have thought to be entirely my affair. But instead of going to the lectures, the more of you spend your time about the swimming-baths, and then you marvel if some of the speakers escape your notice; but the truth, I think, you do not wish to say to yourselves — that it is not possible for men in love with stones, and hung upon baths, and honouring what they ought not, to know the occupations concerned with speeches; rather, you ascribe your own faults to me and blaspheme with fair words — "for if he wished" — and saying such things, as though I were now plainly nodding off. And yet "speech answers speech," as Homer says, and one must expect to hear such things as one says; but for a man who claims to be an orator, having received an unfitting charge, not to use his own instruments — that is the extreme of calamity.

I, then, the gods being gracious, would not say I greatly fear the contests in the speeches themselves, but I fear my formidable antagonists. Shall I say who they are? These men anointed with oil and carrying around the palm-branch — 423. not, by Zeus, summoning men to lectures of orators, as I both about Cos here, the Meropian isle, and at Cnidus once saw happen in my own case — but you know that they praise reservoirs, and "come hither, go, and bring your ship to anchor," and make such announcements to those putting in and procure such things. When, therefore, from one side the orator comes in to contend, and from the other the wandering, flourishing fellow comes to you promising such things, reasonably, I think, it comes about that the victory falls to that party, and that neither any older nor any younger man readily wishes to be temperate. These are the things that trip up the speakers; these, like a cloud or murky darkness, overshadow all the fair things of education. And besides these, the contemptible sophists persuade you that this too was the greatest thing for Homer — to have been a son of Meles. Every one of you, then, hastens eagerly to his father, intending to philosophize there; and not even from these very things can you reflect, even if they speak the very truth, that not even for Homer himself did it suffice to be encamped beside the banks of his father, nor to swim along with the fishes, who were his brothers, as their story goes, but he lived so squalid a life that he is in many ways plainly content, if he should have a sufficiency of necessities; and improvised baths, and these for the benefit of toiling bodies, as Plato says, he accepted, but did not allow luxury beyond. But what has wrought in all men the greatest contempt of all things is this indescribable corruption. For every one, fearing lest he be ruined beforehand, destroys himself in his hopes, placing all the most shameful things in the rank of gain, and reckoning all that is good a loss and useless toil — as though, if he should not go off both ways maimed, both in mind and in body, to the majority, there will be no place for him there. But the truth, I think, was wholly the contrary: since such things stand apart, one should enjoy the 424. fairest things of life while one may, so that if we should be of the part that is saved, we might be saved among the fairest things, in learning and in speeches, and might not, tuned to the swine's harmony, wallow night after night and day after day; and if not, then everything that one has taken beforehand is gain. Or, in the gods' name, is it gain to have bathed while living — which remains, surely, even when one is dead — but to enjoy while living the speeches from which after death we must of necessity be barred, both speaking oneself and being present to another, is a thing without pleasure? And is consorting with the courtesan the sum of happiness, but to consort even a little with the foremost man of the Greeks amounts to a curse? And must we gratify the belly, from which come most diseases, but reckon all that pertains to speeches mere idle babble and a shadow — O excellent men, who educate the inhabited world before yourselves? But just as you think fit that I should wish to speak, so exhort yourselves to make me wish to speak; and if not, each of us will do his own part. For I shall not even so leave off speaking, so long as the god is gracious; but you will be ignorant forever. These things, then — if you wish, a defence; if you wish, a rebuke from goodwill; and if it is to be called both — yet at any rate things true and profitable for all to hear have been spoken. "Either, then," as Demosthenes says, "you must cease from these habits," or do not so lightly slander, in this way, Hippolytus and Bellerophon.