Book 14

Aristotle the son of Nicomachus, a wise man both in being so and in seeming so, when someone took from him the honours that had been decreed him at Delphi, wrote to Antipater about these matters thus: "Concerning the honours decreed me at Delphi and of which I have now been deprived, I am so disposed as neither to care greatly about them nor to care nothing at all." This would not be love of glory, nor would I myself condemn any such thing in Aristotle, but, being right-minded, he thought it was not the same thing not to receive some honour and, having received it, to be deprived of it. For the one, not to attain it, is no great matter; but the painful thing is to attain it and then to be robbed of it.

Agesilaus praised those of the barbarians who broke their oaths, because, having made the gods their enemies by their perjuries, they made them friends and allies to himself.

Timotheus the son of Conon said the best thing of all against Aristophon of the deme Azenia. For since Aristophon was a spendthrift, Timotheus touched him most bitterly, saying: "He for whom nothing is enough — for that man nothing is shameful."

Aristides the Locrian, bitten by a Tartessian weasel and dying, said that it would have been much more pleasant to him to die bitten by a lion or a leopard, if indeed death needed some pretext, and that by such a beast — bearing, as it seems to me, the disgrace of the bite much harder than death itself.

The Athenians did not make use only of those of their own citizens who were fit for office and command, but they chose foreigners too and entrusted public affairs to them, if indeed they judged them to be good men and fit for such things. Apollodorus of Cyzicus they often chose as general, though he was a foreigner, and Heracleides of Clazomenae; for having shown that they were men worth mentioning, they were then not deemed unworthy to rule the Athenians. And for these things one must praise the city, which did not sacrifice the truth to its citizens, but gave honour even to those who did not belong by birth, but through virtue were worthy to be honoured.

Aristippus seemed to speak very forcibly in counselling men neither to be distressed over things past nor to be anxious beforehand over things to come; for such conduct is a sign of cheerfulness and a proof of a serene mind. He bade them keep their thought on the day, and again on that part of the day in which each man is either doing something or planning it. For he said that the present alone is ours, and neither what is past nor what is expected; for the one has perished, and the other is uncertain whether it will be.

This is a Lacedaemonian law, and the law says these things. That no Lacedaemonian should be seen more unmanly in colour, or have more bulk of body than the exercises warrant; for the one was taken to confess idleness, the other not to confess a man. It was added to the law that every ten days, without fail, the youths should present themselves naked before the ephors in public. And if they were well-knit and vigorous, and as it were carved and chiselled by their exercises, they were praised; but if any of their limbs was flabby or too soft, with fat swelling and growing on them through indolence, then they were beaten and chastised. And the ephors made it their care each day to busy themselves about their dress, whether every part of it fell short of the fitting order. And there had to be cooks in Lacedaemon of meat only; but whoever knew anything beyond this was driven out of Sparta, like the purgings of the sick. These same men brought down Naucleides the son of Polybiades, who had grown over-fleshed and over-fat in body through luxury, into the assembly of the spectators, and threatened him with the penalty of exile, unless he should reform for the future the life he then lived, which was blameworthy and Ionian rather than Laconian; for they said that his appearance and the condition of his body brought shame both on Lacedaemon and on the laws.

Polyclitus made two statues at the same time, the one to please the crowd, the other according to the rule of his art. He pleased the many in this way. For each of those who came in, he changed and reshaped something, yielding to each man's suggestion. So he set out both; and the one was praised by all, but the other was laughed at. Taking them up, then, Polyclitus said: "But this one, which you blame, you made; and this one, which you admire, I made." Hippomachus the flute-teacher, when a pupil of his playing the flute made a mistake in his playing but was praised by those present, struck him with his rod and said: "You played badly; for these men would not have praised you otherwise."

Xenocrates of Chalcedon, when mocked unkindly by Plato, never grew indignant, they say; and to the man who urged him on about it, that he might answer Plato something, he very sensibly silenced the man, saying: "But this is good for me."

The Athenians chose Demades to be general in preference to Phocion. He, preferred and proud of it, came to Phocion and said: "Lend me the dirty cloak you used to wear during your generalship." And Phocion said: "You will never lack for anything dirty, so long as you are such as you are."

Philiscus once said to Alexander: "Care for your reputation, but do not be a plague and a great disease, but health." He meant that to rule by force and harshly, and to take cities and destroy peoples, is the work of a plague, but to take thought for the health and safety of one's subjects is the good work of peace.

The king of the Persians, when travelling, that he might not be idle, used to carry a little linden-wood board and a little knife, that he might whittle it. And these the royal hands made; for he had neither book nor thought, that he might read something serious and worthy, or plan something noble and worth mention.

Agathon used many antitheses often. When someone, as if correcting him, wished to remove them from his dramas, he said: "But you, my good man, do not realize that you are obliterating Agathon out of Agathon." So proud was he of these, and he thought that this was his tragedy.

Someone gave Stratonicus the harper a lavish welcome; and he was overjoyed at the invitation, for he happened to have no lodging, having come to a foreign land. So he warmly embraced the man for the readiness of his sharing his roof. But when he saw one man coming in, and another, and that the man's house was in a manner open and unclosed to all who chose to lodge there, then Stratonicus said to his attendant: "Let us go away from here, boy; for it seems we have a wood-pigeon instead of a dove, having found an inn instead of a house."

A story went round saying that the discourses of Socrates were like the paintings of Pauson. For Pauson the painter, having undertaken from someone to paint a horse rolling, painted it running. When the man who had commissioned the picture was indignant, as it was painted contrary to the agreement, the painter answered: "Turn the picture round, and the running horse will be rolling for you." So too Socrates did not converse plainly. If, at any rate, one turned his words round, they were perfectly correct. And the reason was that he did not wish to make himself hateful to those with whom he conversed, and for this reason he made his words riddling and oblique.

Hipponicus the son of Callias wished to set up a statue as a dedication to his country. When someone advised him to have the statue made by Polyclitus, he said he would not attend to such a dedication, the glory of which would belong not to the dedicator but to the maker. For it was plain that those who saw the work would admire Polyclitus and not him.

Socrates said that Archelaus spent four hundred minae on his house, hiring Zeuxis of Heracleia to decorate it, but nothing on himself. Therefore those who wished to see the house came from afar with great eagerness; but for Archelaus's own sake no one journeyed to Macedon, unless he should persuade and lure someone with money — by which a man of worth would not be won.

A man of Chios, angry with his servant, said: "I will not throw you into the mill, but I will take you to Olympia." For he thought, naturally, it was a far harsher punishment for that man to be roasted by the sun's rays while watching at Olympia than to grind, handed over to the mill.

Archytas was temperate in other ways, and indeed he guarded against unseemly words. When once he was forced to say something improper, he was not overcome, but kept silent about it, and wrote it upon the wall, showing what he was forced to say, yet not forced to say it.

A Sybarite man, a tutor — for indeed, along with the other Sybarites, these too lived in luxury — when the boy he was leading along the road came upon a dried fig and picked it up, rebuked him most severely; but most ludicrously he himself snatched the find from the boy and gobbled it down. When I read this in Sybaritic histories, I laughed; and I gave it to memory, not grudging out of love of mankind that another too should laugh.

There was a certain Oeagrus, a poet after Orpheus and Musaeus, who is said to have been the first to sing the Trojan War, having taken up a very great subject and ventured upon it.

A certain tyrant, Tryzus, wishing to root out conspiracies and plots against himself, ordered the inhabitants that no one should converse with anyone, neither in public nor in private. And the thing was impossible and grievous. So they outwitted the tyrant's command, and nodded to one another and made gestures to one another, and looked now fiercely and again calmly and cheerfully; and at sorrowful and incurable things each of them was plainly knit of brow, showing to his neighbour the affliction of his soul from his face. This too troubled the tyrant, and he believed that even their silence would surely breed him some harm, through the variety of their gestures. So he put a stop to this too. One of those distressed at the impossibility of their plight, and chafing, and thirsting to dissolve the monarchy, came to the marketplace, then stood and wept with many and abundant tears. So the crowd stood round him and gathered about, and they too were seized with lamentation. News came to the tyrant that none of them used the nod any longer, but that tears were now in fashion among them. And he, eager to put a stop to this too — not only condemning the tongue to slavery, nor the nods alone, but now shutting off from the eyes too their natural freedom — came as fast as his feet would carry him with his bodyguards, that he might check the tears. But no sooner had they seen him than, snatching the weapons of the bodyguards, they killed the tyrant.

Cleinias was a man earnest in character, and a Pythagorean in his wisdom. Whenever he was provoked to anger and perceived himself being carried away to wrath, at once, before his anger was full and it became plain how he was disposed, he tuned his lyre and played it. To those who asked the reason he answered fittingly: "I am calming myself." And it seems to me that Achilles too in the Iliad, who sang to the lyre and brought to his own memory through the music the glories of men of old, was lulling his wrath; for, being musical, he took the lyre first from the spoils.

They despised wealth and showed greatness of soul, seeing their fellow-citizens in poverty while they themselves were rich: in Corinth Theocles and Thrasonides, and in Mytilene Praxis. And they advised others too to lighten for the destitute the constraint of poverty. When they could not persuade them, they at least remitted the debts owed to themselves, and they profited not in money but in their very lives; for those who were not released, attacking their creditors, putting forward the weapons of their wrath and the most reasonable plea, the irresistible compulsion of their straits, killed the moneylenders.

The Chians once fell into faction with one another, suffering most manfully this most grievous disease. So a man among them, of a statesmanlike nature, said to his companions who were eager to expel all their opponents: "By no means; but since we have prevailed, let us leave some behind, that as time goes on, having no rivals, we may not begin to make war on ourselves." And in saying this he persuaded them; for he seemed to speak well, since he spoke thus.

Antagoras the poet abused Arcesilaus of the Academy, having fallen out with him, and that too in the marketplace; but he, very high-mindedly, where he saw the most people gathered, there he walked along conversing, that the abuser might disgrace himself before more. So those who heard turned away and charged Antagoras with madness.

I praise most of all those who, anticipating the evils that are springing up, cut them off before they take hold of any strength. Agesilaus, at any rate, advised that those who gathered by night during the invasion of the Thebans be put to death without trial.

Someone reproached the orator Pytheas that he was a bad man. He did not deny it — for his conscience would not let him; but he answered this, that of those who had taken part in public life at Athens he had been bad for the shortest time — being proud, evidently, that he had not been such throughout, and thinking he did no wrong, since he did not compare himself with the most wicked. But this was foolish of Pytheas; for not only is he who does wrong bad, but also he who thinks of doing wrong, in my judgment.

Lysander brought money to Lacedaemon and taught the Lacedaemonians to break the god's command, which ordered that Sparta should be untrodden by gold and silver. Some of the right-minded, then, tried to prevent it, still keeping a Laconian spirit worthy of Lycurgus and of the Pythian god; but those who admitted the money were discredited, and their original virtue little by little gave way.

Hanno the Carthaginian through luxury did not deign to remain within the bounds of men, but devised to have reports sown abroad about himself greater than accorded with the nature he had been allotted. For having bought very many singing-birds, he reared them in darkness, teaching them one lesson to say: "Hanno is a god." And when those birds, hearing this one phrase, had mastered it, he let them loose, one this way and one that, thinking that the song about himself would spread abroad through the birds. But they, once they had set their wings free and gained their liberty and come to the habits natural to them, sang their own songs and made the music of birds, bidding a long farewell to Hanno and the lessons learned in slavery.

Ptolemy, called Tryphon — for this they called him from his way of life — when a beautiful woman wished to meet with him, said: "My sister has forbidden me to receive a proposal from a beautiful woman." And she, very unabashed and fittingly, said: "Could you receive one from a beautiful man?" And he, hearing it, praised her.

A Lacedaemonian man, Timandridas by name, going abroad, left his son as caretaker of his house. Then, returning some time later and finding that the son had made the estate greater than he had left it, he said that the son was wronging many — gods and kinsmen and guests; for the surplus of these things is spent upon them by free men. But to appear poor while living and to be found rich at death — this is the most shameful of things among men.

Plato was discoursing on certain matters, and Diogenes, who was present, paid little heed to him. So the son of Ariston was indignant at this and said: "Listen to the discourse, dog." And he, in no way disturbed, said: "But I have not gone back there whence I was sold, as dogs do" — hinting at Plato's journey to Sicily. And Plato, they say, was wont to say of Diogenes that this man was a Socrates gone mad.

The Egyptians say that they were instructed in their laws by Hermes; thus each people chooses to glorify what is their own. The judges in old times among the Egyptians were the priests. The eldest of these was their head, and judged all. And he had to be the most just of men and the most unsparing. He wore too an image of sapphire stone about his neck, and the image was called Truth. But I should think it right that the judge should carry Truth not made of stone and fashioned, but should have her in his very soul.

Lais was also called the Axe. This surname convicted her of the savagery of her character, and that she charged much, and still more from foreigners, since they departed sooner.

One may laugh at those who are proud because of their fathers and their ancestors, seeing that we do not know the father of Marius, yet we admire him for his deeds; and so too with Cato and Servius and Hostilius and Romulus.

I love to look neither at the statues which the plastic art shows us, nor at the images, idly; for there is something wise in the handiwork even in these. And one can recognize many other things in them, and among them this. None of the Muses did any painter or sculptor ever prove able to present to us with most false and counterfeit and alien forms of the daughters of Zeus. Or who was ever so madly daring a craftsman as to make them armed? This confirms that the life among the Muses ought to be at once peaceful and gentle and worthy of them.

Of Epaminondas the Theban I know many other fine things, and among them this. He used to say to Pelopidas that he should not leave the marketplace before he had won over some younger man as a friend to the older.

The king of the Persians — for I wish to tell you something cheerful too — dipping a crown in perfume — and the crown was woven of roses — sent it to Antalcidas, who was on an embassy to him for peace. And he said: "I accept the gift and praise the kindness, but you have destroyed the scent of the roses and the fragrance of nature through the counterfeit of art."

Alexander the tyrant of Pherae was thought to be among the most savage of men. When Theodorus the tragic poet was acting Merope very passionately, he burst into tears and then rose up and left the theatre. Excusing himself, he said to Theodorus that he had gone not out of contempt or disdain for him, but out of shame, that he should be able to pity the sufferings of actors, but not those of his own citizens.

Apollodorus, who drank the most wine of men, did not conceal his own vice, nor did he try to cloak his drunkenness and the evils that came from it, but, kindled and inflamed by the wine, he became more murderous, having, besides his nature, the drink too as a stimulus.

Xenocrates the companion of Plato said that it makes no difference whether one sets one's feet or one's eyes in another's house; for he sins in the same way who looks at places where he ought not, and who passes into places where he ought not.

A certain Ptolemy — which one he was, let it pass — sat at dice and kept gaming; then one standing by him read out the names of those condemned and added their sentences, that the king might mark which were worthy of death. But Berenice his wife, taking the document from the page, then would not allow it to be read through entirely any more, saying that one ought to give very careful thought concerning a man's life and not be at play while doing so; for the fall of the dice and the fall of human lives were not alike. At this Ptolemy was pleased, and never afterward, while gaming, did he hear a man's judgment.

A Laconian youth bought a piece of land very cheaply; then he was brought before the magistrates and fined. And the cause of the condemnation was this, that being young he loved gain too keenly. For it was among the most manly traits of the Lacedaemonians, this too: to be arrayed not only against enemies but also against money.

Among the women of the Greeks we praise Penelope, Alcestis, and the wife of Protesilaus; among the Romans, Cornelia and Porcia and Caestilia. I could have named others too, but I do not wish to name few of the Greeks and flood the rest with the names of the Romans, lest anyone should think I am gratifying myself because of my country.

The Magnesians who dwell along the Maeander, when they were at war with the Ephesians, each of the cavalrymen brought with him as fellow-soldier a hunting-dog and a javelin-throwing servant. And when they had to engage, then the dogs, leaping forward, threw the enemy's array into confusion, being fearful and savage and implacable to meet; and the servants, leaping forward before their masters, hurled their javelins. And so, upon the disorder caused first by the dogs, the deeds of the servants too took effect. Then, in the third place, the men themselves advanced.

Zeuxis of Heracleia painted Helen. So Nicomachus the painter was struck by the picture, and was plainly amazed at the painting. Someone, then, coming up, asked him what had come over him that he so admired the art. And he said: "You would not have asked me, had you possessed my eyes." And I would say this of words too: but only if one has educated ears, just as the craftsmen have skilled eyes.

Philip, taking the sons of the most esteemed men in Macedon, kept them about his own service, in no way, they say, insulting them or making them cheap, but on the contrary training them to endurance and making them ready to do what was needful. But toward those of them who were luxurious and slack at what was commanded he was, they say, hostile. At any rate he flogged Aphthonetus, because, leaving his post, he turned off the road, being thirsty, and went into an innkeeper's. And he killed Archedamus, because, though Philip had ordered him to keep himself in his armour, he stripped it off; for he had hoped, through flattery and fawning, to win over the king, being a man too weak to resist gain."