Book 13

This is an Arcadian tale about Atalanta the daughter of Iasion. Her father, when she was born, exposed her; for he said that he had need not of daughters but of sons. But the man who took her to expose her did not kill her, and going to Mount Parthenium he laid her near a spring; and there was a hollow rock there, and above it lay a thick-covered thicket. Death had been decreed for the infant, but she was not betrayed by fortune; for a little later a bear, robbed of her own cubs by hunters, came, her teats swollen and heavy with milk. Then, by some divine guidance, taking pleasure in the infant, she suckled it, and at once the beast was relieved of its pain and gave nourishment to the infant. And so, again pouring out her milk and giving suck, since she had not remained a mother to her own, she became nurse to one who was nothing to her. The hunters who from the first had plotted against the beast over her offspring kept watch on her, and having observed each thing that was done, when the bear had gone off as usual to hunt and graze, they carried off Atalanta — though she was not yet so called, for they themselves gave her the name. And she was reared by them on a mountain diet. Little by little her body grew with her age; and she loved virginity and shunned the company of men and longed for solitude, taking the highest of the Arcadian mountains, where there was a well-watered glen and great oaks, and also pines and the deep shade they cast. For what harm does it do us to hear of Atalanta's cave too, as of Calypso's in Homer? In the hollow ravine there was a cave, one and very deep, and in front it was guarded by a deep precipice. Ivy crept around it, and the ivy twined with soft trees and crept up through them. Crocuses too grew about the place in the soft and deep grass. And with them sprang up the hyacinth and many another colour of flowers, able not only to furnish a feast for the eyes, but the scents from them filled the air all around; and one could keep festival both in other ways and feast upon the fragrance. There were many laurels too, the sweet foliage of a plant ever in its bloom to look upon; and vines, flourishing with very plentiful clusters before the cave, displayed the industry of Atalanta. And waters perpetual and ever-flowing, clear to see and cold, as far as one could judge by touch and tell by drinking, flowed in abundance and without stint; and these same waters were also fit for the watering of the trees aforesaid, flowing continually and helping toward their life. So the place was full of graces, and showed at once a most venerable and a chaste maiden's chamber. Atalanta's bedding was the hides of the beasts she had hunted, her food their flesh, her drink the water. She wore a plain dress, of a kind not out of tune with Artemis; for she said that she emulated the goddess both in this and in wishing to be a virgin throughout. She was very swift of foot, and neither beast nor man plotting against her could escape her; and when she wished to flee, no one could overtake her. And not only those who saw her loved her, but already from report men loved her too. Come, let me describe her appearance too, if it does no harm; and it does none, since from this too may be gained both experience and art of words. In height, while still a child, she was beyond grown women; and she was beautiful, as no other of the maidens then in the Peloponnese. Her look was masculine and fierce, this both from her wild rearing and now too from her exercises in the mountains. She had nothing girlish or delicate; for she did not come forth from a bridal chamber, nor was she of those reared under mothers and nurses. Nor did she have the over-plump body either, and that quite naturally, since in the hunts and at the very exercises she worked her whole body hard. Her hair was golden, in no way by womanly fussiness and dyes and cosmetics, but the colour was the work of nature. Her face was reddened too by the suns, and looked like a flush outright. And what flower could be so beautiful as the face of a maiden trained to modesty? She had two startling things: matchless beauty, and with it the power to frighten too. No idle man would have loved her at the sight, nor would he even have dared to look her in the face at first; so great was the radiance that shone, with her beauty, on those who saw her. She was hard to meet, both in other ways and for her rarity. For one could not easily see her; but unexpectedly and unforeseen she would appear, chasing a beast or defending herself against someone, darting like a star, then she would hide herself, running through a thicket or a copse or some other dense growth in the mountain. Once, at midnight, those who dwelt near her — bold lovers and most tiresome revellers — came in revel, two of the Centaurs, Hylaeus and Rhoecus. Their revel was no flute-girls nor indeed the doings of the young men of the city, but pine-torches, and lighting and kindling these, by the first appearance of the fire they would have startled even a whole people, let alone a single maiden. Breaking off fresh-cut boughs of pines, then plaiting them together, they made themselves crowns. Continually and frequently clashing their weapons through the mountains, setting fire to the trees as well, they pressed on toward the girl, evil suitors, with insolence and frenzy paying beforehand the wedding-gifts of their marriage. But the plot did not escape her; seeing the fire from the cave and recognizing who these revellers were, in no way dismayed nor cowering at the sight, she bent her bow, let fly her arrow, and hit the first very opportunely. And he lay there, while the second came on, no longer in revel-fashion but now in war-fashion, wishing to defend his comrade and to glut his own onset. But to him too the girl's other arrow came as avenger. So much, then, for Atalanta the daughter of Iasion.

There was a man of Mytilene, Macareus by name, a priest of Dionysus, who, so far as appearance went, was gentle and fair, but most impious of men above all. A stranger came to him and gave him a great quantity of gold for safekeeping; and Macareus, digging up the ground in the innermost part of the temple, buried the gold. In time the stranger came and demanded the gold back. He, leading him inside as though to give it back, cut his throat, dug up the gold, and put the stranger in its place; and he thought that, as he had escaped men's notice, so he would escape the god's too. But this turned out not so; how could it? When a little time had passed, the god's triennial festival came, and he sacrificed magnificently. And while he was occupied with the Bacchic rites, his children, two in number, were left behind inside the house, and imitating their father's sacred rite they came to the ancestral altar while the offerings were still burning; and the younger offered his neck, and the elder, finding a sacrificial knife that had been left lying, killed his brother like a victim. Those in the house, seeing it, cried out. The mother, hearing the cry, rushed out, and seeing the one dead and the other still holding the bloody knife, snatched up a half-burnt billet from the altar and with it killed the boy. News came to Macareus, and leaving the rite, just as he was, with wrath and fury he rushed into the house, and with the thyrsus he was holding killed his own wife. So his deeds became known to all, and Macareus, arrested and tortured, confessed all that he had done in the temple; and amid the very tortures he gave up his life. And the man unlawfully slain came to public honour, and was buried at the god's command. So Macareus paid no slight penalty — to use the poet's phrase — with his own head and his wife's and, moreover, his children's too.

Xerxes the son of Darius, digging up the tomb of the ancient Belus, found a glass coffin, where the corpse lay in oil. The coffin was not full, but fell short of the rim by about a hand's breadth. Beside the coffin lay a short pillar, on which was written: "For him who opens the tomb and does not fill up the coffin, it shall not be better." Reading this, Xerxes was afraid, and ordered oil to be poured in as quickly as possible; yet it was not filled. He ordered more to be poured in. But it took no increase, until he gave up, spending in vain what he poured. Shutting up the tomb, he went away in distress. And the pillar did not lie in what it had foretold; for having gathered seven hundred thousand men against the Greeks, he fared ill, then returning home died the most shameful of deaths, slain by night in his bed by his son.

King Archelaus prepared a costly feast for his companions. As the drinking went on, Euripides, having drunk rather strong wine, was somehow drawn little by little into intoxication; then, embracing Agathon the tragic poet, who was reclining beside him, he kissed him, though he was about forty years old. When Archelaus asked whether he still seemed to him to be a beloved, he answered: "Yes, by Zeus; for not only the spring of the beautiful is fairest, but the autumn too."

They say that Laius was the first to fall in love with noble youths, having carried off Chrysippus the son of Pelops. And from this it seemed to the Thebans one of the fine things to love youths in their bloom.

In Heraea in Arcadia, I hear, there grow vines from which comes a wine that turns men's reason aside and makes the Arcadians frenzied, but makes the women fruitful. In Thasos, they say, two kinds of wine are produced; and the one, when drunk, brings on a very deep and therefore pleasant sleep, but the other is an enemy to life and produces wakefulness and gives distress. And in Achaea, near Ceryneia, a wine is produced that helps the women who wish to miscarry.

When Alexander took the city of the Thebans, he sold all the free men except the priests. He exempted from sale also his father's guest-friends — for Philip had been a hostage among them while still a boy — and he released their kinsmen too. He honoured the descendants of Pindar, and allowed his house alone to stand. He killed about six thousand of the Thebans, and thirty thousand were taken captive.

They say that Lysander the Lacedaemonian, while spending time in Ionia, cast aside the ordinances of Lycurgus, since they were toilsome, and dissolved his life in luxury.

Lamia the Attic courtesan said: "The lions from Greece have become foxes in Ephesus."

On one day Dionysius married two wives, Doris the Locrian and Aristomache the daughter of Hipparinus, the sister of Dion; and he slept with each in turn. And the one followed him when he campaigned, the other received him on his return.

An account has come to me saying that Isocrates the orator was the cause to the Persians of the enslavement by which the Macedonians enslaved them. For when the fame of the panegyric speech which Isocrates delivered among the Greeks came to Macedonia, it first roused Philip against Asia; and when he died, it prepared Alexander his son, the heir of his father's possessions, to take up the impulse of Philip.

Meton the astronomer, when the Athenians were about to sail against Sicily, was himself already one of the levy. But knowing clearly the fortunes that were to come, he tried to avoid the voyage, fearing it and eager to free himself from the expedition. When he could accomplish nothing, he feigned madness; and he did many other things, wishing to confirm the belief in his sickness, and among them he burned down his own dwelling, which was near the Stoa Poikile. From this the magistrates released him. And it seems to me that Meton feigned madness better than Odysseus of Ithaca; for Palamedes detected that man, but no one of the Athenians detected this one.

They say that Ptolemy the son of Lagus took great delight in enriching his friends. And he used to say that it was better to make others rich than to be rich oneself.

The verses of Homer the ancients formerly sang divided into parts. For instance, they spoke of "The Battle at the Ships" and a certain "Doloneia" and "The Aristeia of Agamemnon" and "The Catalogue of Ships" and "The Patrocleia" and "The Ransom" and "The Games over Patroclus" and "The Breaking of the Oaths." These for the Iliad. And for the other: "The Events in Pylos" and "The Events in Lacedaemon" and "Calypso's Cave" and "The Affair of the Raft" and "The Tales told to Alcinous" and "The Cyclops" and "The Descent to the Dead" and "The Affairs of Circe" and "The Washing of the Feet" and "The Slaying of the Suitors" and "The Events in the Country" and "The Events at Laertes'." Late, Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian was the first to bring the poetry of Homer in a body to Greece; and he brought this freight from Ionia, when he was abroad. Later Pisistratus gathered it together and produced the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The comic poets say that a certain Polydorus was the dullest of mind, and another one named Coecylion, who counted the waves out of excessive folly. There is a story too that Sannyrion was such a man, who looked for a ladder in an oil-flask. And Coroebus and Melitides too they call those fools.

The Apolloniatae inhabit a city near Epidamnus on the Ionian gulf. And in the places near it there is asphalt that is dug up, and pitch springing from the earth in the same way as do most of the springs of water. Not far off the immortal fire too is shown. The burning place is small and does not extend far and has no great circuit, and smells of sulphur and alum. And about it are flourishing trees and green grass; and the fire blazing nearby does no harm either to the growth of the plants or to the flourishing grass. The fire burns both by night and by day, and never ceased, as the Apolloniatae say, until the war with the Illyrians befell them. The Apolloniatae practised the expulsion of foreigners according to the Lacedaemonian law, but the Epidamnians allowed anyone who wished to visit and settle among them.

"Phrynichus cowers like a cock" — a proverb said of those who suffer some ill. For when Phrynichus the tragedian was performing The Capture of Miletus, the Athenians, bursting into tears, expelled him as he cowered and crouched in fear.

Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily embraced and praised tragedy, and indeed worked at composing tragic dramas, but was disposed unfavourably toward comedy, because he was not fond of laughter.

Cleomenes said, in the Laconian manner after the local fashion, that Homer was the poet of the Lacedaemonians, since he tells how one must make war; but Hesiod the poet of the Helots, since he tells how one must farm.

A man of Megalopolis from Arcadia, Cercidas by name, as he was dying said to his kinsmen, who were downcast, that he was leaving life gladly; for he had hope of consorting, among the wise, with Pythagoras, among the historians with Hecataeus, among the musicians with Olympus, among the poets with Homer. And with these words, the story goes, his soul left him.

In Celaenae, if anyone plays upon the flute, before the skin of the Phrygian, the Phrygian mode, the skin moves; but if the mode is for Apollo, it stays still and seems deaf.

Ptolemy Philopator, having built a temple to Homer, set him fairly seated and beautiful, and set in a circle around the statue all the cities that lay claim to Homer. And Galaton the painter painted Homer himself vomiting, and the other poets drawing up what he had vomited.

Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian, the son of Eunomus, wishing to make the Lacedaemonians just, drew for this no fine wages. For it befell him to have his eye knocked out by Alcander, as some say, struck with a stone out of a plot, or, as another story goes about, suffering the injury from a staff. The saying is applied to those who wished for one thing but obtained another. And Ephorus says that he died in exile, having held out against hunger.

Lycurgus the orator proposed that women should not drive in carriages at the mysteries, or that a penalty be imposed on her who did this, which he thought sufficient when he fixed it. The first to disobey the decree was his own wife, and she paid the penalty, being condemned. And Pericles proposed that no one should be an Athenian who was not born of two citizens. Then, having lost his legitimate sons, he was left with the bastard Pericles. It is plain that Pericles too wished for one thing but obtained another. And Cleisthenes the Athenian, who first proposed that men should be ostracized, was himself the first to incur the sentence. Zaleucus the lawgiver of the Locrians ordered that an adulterer caught should have his eyes put out. So things he had not even expected the divine power brought upon him contrary to his judgment and his hope; for his own son, caught in adultery, was then about to suffer what the ancestral law required. There, that what had once been ratified might not be undone, the proposer himself submitted to give his own eye in exchange for one of his son's eyes, that the young man might not be wholly blinded.

Pindar the poet, competing in Thebes and falling among ignorant hearers, was defeated by Corinna five times. Exposing their want of culture, Pindar called Corinna a sow.

Diogenes of Sinope was solitary and cast off alone, and no one received him because of his poverty, nor did anyone entertain him, shunning the man because of the censorious nature of his character and because he was hard to please at what was done and said. So Diogenes was downcast and ate the tips of leaves; for these he had at hand. And a mouse came and made use of the crumbs that fell from his bread. So Diogenes carefully observed what was happening, and smiling and coming to himself, more cheerful and serene, he said: "This mouse has no need of the luxury of the Athenians, but you, Diogenes, are vexed because you do not dine with the Athenians." And he procured himself a timely cheerfulness.

The body of Socrates is believed to have been orderly and master of self-restraint, and in this way. The Athenians were sick in a general plague, and some died, others were near death; but Socrates alone did not fall sick at all. The man, then, who dwelt in such a body — what kind of soul do we think he had?

Diogenes, when he left his country, was followed by one of his servants named Manes, who, not bearing his way of life with him, ran away. When some urged him to seek the man out, he said: "Is it not shameful that Manes has no need of Diogenes, but Diogenes of Manes?" This servant, wandering to Delphi, was torn apart by dogs, paying the penalty for his master's name in return for his running away.

Plato used to say that the hopes of waking men are dreams.

Olympias, the mother of Alexander, learning that her son remained a long time unburied, groaning heavily and lamenting very shrilly, said: "O my child, you who wished to share in heaven and were eager for this, now you cannot even share in what is common and equal to all men — earth and burial." So she pitied her own fortunes and rebuked the conceit of her son.

Xenocrates of Chalcedon, the companion of Plato, was both compassionate in other ways and not only a lover of mankind but also pitied many of the irrational animals. So once, as he was sitting in the open air, a sparrow, hotly pursued by a hawk, flew into his bosom. He gladly received the bird, and kept it hidden until the pursuer had gone away. When he had freed it from fear, opening his bosom he let the bird go, saying that he had not betrayed a suppliant.

Xenophon says that Socrates came to converse with Theodote the courtesan, who was a most beautiful woman. And he came to converse with Callisto too, who said: "I, son of Sophroniscus, am stronger than you; for you cannot draw away any of mine, but I, if I wish, can draw away all of yours." And he said: "Yes, and with good reason; for you lead them down the easy path, but I force them to come to virtue; and the way up is steep and unfamiliar to most."

They say that the Egyptian tales tell of Rhodopis, a most beautiful courtesan. Once, as she was bathing, fortune, which loves to do strange and unexpected things, procured for her something worthy not of her judgment but of her beauty. For as she was bathing and her maids were guarding her clothing, an eagle swooped down, snatched one of her sandals, and went off; and it carried it to Memphis, where Psammitichus was sitting in judgment, and dropped the sandal into his lap. Psammitichus, marvelling at the shape of the sandal and the grace of its workmanship and at what the bird had done, ordered the woman whose sandal it was to be sought throughout all Egypt; and finding her, he made her his wife.

Dionysius, after the order against Leon, having found him, three times bade the bodyguards lead him away, and three times changed his mind, and at each summons kissed him, weeping and cursing himself for having taken up the sword. At the last he was overcome by fear, and ordered him to be slain, saying: "Leon, it is not possible for you to live."

Men learned in nature say that the deer, when it needs purging, eats seseli, and when troubled by the bites of spiders, eats crabs.

Olympias sent to Eurydice, the daughter of Philip — she had been born to Philip by an Illyrian woman — hemlock and a noose and a sword; and she chose the noose.

Gelon the tyrant of the Syracusans held the establishment of his rule most gently; but some seditious men plotted against him. Learning of this, Gelon called the Syracusans together into an assembly and entered armed, and going through all the good he had done them, he uncovered the plot and stripped off his armour, saying to all: "See, then, I stand before you in a tunic, naked of arms, and I give you to do with me whatever you wish." And the Syracusans admired his judgment, and some even handed over the plotters to him to punish, and gave him the rule. But he allowed even these to be punished by the people. And the Syracusans set up a statue of him in an ungirt tunic; and this was a memorial of his popular rule and a lesson to those who should rule in the age to come.

Alcibiades greatly admired Homer, and once, coming to a boys' school, asked for a rhapsody of the Iliad. When the teacher said he had nothing of Homer, he struck him a very hard blow with his knuckles and passed on, showing that the man was uneducated and made the boys such. This man, summoned from Sicily by the Athenians to a capital trial, did not obey, saying: "It is foolish for one who has a lawsuit to seek to escape acquittal when he can escape by flight." When someone said, "Do you not trust your country with the judgment about you?" he said: "Not even my mother; for I fear that, not knowing and missing the truth, she might cast the black pebble instead of the white." So learning that death had been decreed against him by his fellow-citizens, he said: "Let us then show that we are alive," and rushing to the Lacedaemonians he kindled the Decelean war against the Athenians. He used to say that the Lacedaemonians did nothing strange in dying fearlessly in war; for, fleeing the hardship of their laws, they gladly exchanged death for the toils they had. And he was wont, they say, to add of his own doings that he lived the life of the Dioscuri, dying and coming back to life on alternate days; for when he prospered with the people he was thought equal to the gods, but when he fared ill he differed not at all from the dead.

When someone reproached Ephialtes the general with his poverty, he said: "And why do you not mention the other thing, that I am just?"

As a Persian gold necklace lay on the ground, Themistocles, standing by his son, said: "Will you not pick up this find, boy?" — pointing to the necklace — "for you are surely not Themistocles." When the Athenians once dishonoured him, then summoned him again to office, he said: "I do not praise such men, who use the same vessel for chamber-pot and wine-jug." To Eurybiades the Lacedaemonian he said something contrary, and Eurybiades raised his staff against him. And he said: "Strike, but listen." For he knew that what he was about to say would benefit the common good.

When one of those about to die with Phocion was lamenting, Phocion said: "What, Thudippus, are you not content to die with Phocion?"

Epaminondas was on trial for his life, having returned from Laconia, for having added four months to his Boeotarchy contrary to the law. He bade his fellow-magistrates lay the blame on him as having been compelled, but he himself, coming forward into the court, said he had no words better than his deeds; if otherwise, he asked them to put him to death, but to inscribe on the pillar that Epaminondas had compelled the Thebans against their will to burn Laconia, which had been unravaged for five hundred years, to found Messene after two hundred and thirty years, to organize and gather the Arcadians into one, and to restore to the Greeks their independence. And the judges, out of respect, acquitted him. As he returned from the court, a little Maltese dog fawned on him. So he said to those present: "This creature repays me thanks for a kindness, but the Thebans, having often been well treated by me, have condemned me to death."

Timotheus the Athenian general was believed to be fortunate; and they used to say that fortune was the cause, and Timotheus the cause of nothing, mocking him on the stage. And the painters depicted him asleep, and then, hovering over his head, Fortune standing and drawing the cities into a net. When someone asked Themistocles in what he had most delighted in his life, he answered: "To see the theatre at Olympia turning toward me as I passed into the stadium."

Themistocles and Aristides the son of Lysimachus had the same guardians, and for this reason they were reared together and educated under a common teacher. Yet they were at variance even while still boys, and the rivalry remained with them from earliest youth to extreme old age.

Dionysius killed his mother with poisons; and though able to save his brother Leptines in the sea-battle, he looked on while he perished.

Patrae is a city of Achaea. A boy among them bought a small snake and reared it with much care. When it grew, he talked to it as to one who heard, and played with it and slept with it. When the snake reached its greatest size, it was driven by the citizens into the wilderness. Later the boy, having become a young man, was returning from some spectacle, and fell among robbers with his companions; and when a cry arose, behold the snake. And it scattered some, and killed others, and saved him."