Oration 32

Would you, then, men, be willing to be in earnest for a little while and to give heed? Since you ever pass your time in jesting and inattention, and of jesting and pleasure and laughter, so to speak, you are never at a loss; for you yourselves are laughable and pleasant, and you have many servants of these things; but of earnestness I see in you the utter want.

And yet some praise you as wise and clever, that, being so many myriads of men, you at once conceive what is needful and quickly utter whatever you conceive. But I should rather praise you for uttering slowly, for keeping silent with self-control, and for thinking rightly — which do even now, that you may add to that praise another new one, greater and more august: that, being so many, when useful words were spoken you all kept silent, and over and above this showed that you are competent not only to speak what you conceive, but also to conceive what you hear. For a chorus's praise is to speak together — or rather not even this; for what if they all in common fail of the tune?

But the people's praise is to listen well. For now you commit the very error which the Athenians once committed. For when Apollo said, if they wished good men to arise in the city, that they should put the noblest thing into the ears of their children, they bored one ear and put gold into it, not understanding the god. For this befitted maidens and the children of Lydians or Phrygians rather; but for the children of Greeks, and that too at a god's command, nothing was fitting but education and reason, by obtaining which men reasonably become good and saviours of the cities.

They, then, used their children's ears ill, but you your own worse. For the theatre is the people's hearing; and into this nothing noble or precious enters for you, or rarely; but it is ever full of strummings and uproar and buffoonery and jests in no way resembling gold. For this reason, then, I rightly said that you are at a loss for earnestness. For neither are you yourselves earnest, nor your familiars who often come in to you — mimes and dancers, best at beating the floor with their feet, and riders of swift-footed horses, who most swiftly stirred up great strife among untaught spectators, mere babes, and bring a common evil upon many.

For this you ever look at and are busied about, from which it is not possible to acquire mind or good sense or just disposition or piety toward the gods, but only ignorant strife and immoderate ambition and empty grief and senseless joy and reviling and expense. And I say these things not turning you away nor bidding you abolish such amusements and diversions of the city — for I should be mad — but I think it fitting that you, just as you readily and continually present yourselves to these, should sometimes hear also a useful word and accept the frank speech that is for your advantage;

since even the Athenians, of whom I made mention a little before, we shall not find erring in every respect; rather they did this at least very well, that they allowed the poets not only to censure individuals, but also the city in common, if it did anything not well; so that among many other things such things too were said in the comedies: O people of the Pnyx, peevish little old man, somewhat deaf, and: What thing is there to Athenians not to be forsworn? And these they heard while keeping festival and being a democracy, and being established as masters not only of their own citizens, if in anger they wished to destroy any of those who said such things, but also as rulers of the other Greeks, and being able, if they wished, to hear nothing unpleasant.

But you have no such chorus nor poet nor any other who will reproach you with goodwill and make manifest the city's infirmities. Therefore, whenever the thing appears, you ought eagerly to accept it and then think you keep festival, but not to be burdened, nor, indeed, to be vexed at hearing it, and to say: When will it stop? And when will a juggler come in, or some nonsense, or some other such thing? For that, as I said, is ever present to you, and there is no fear it will ever fail; but such words, through which men prosper and become better and more temperate and are able to govern their cities better, you have not often heard — I do not wish to say, you are unacquainted with them.

And this perhaps is not your fault — you will show whether it is, if you bear with me today — but rather the fault of the so-called philosophers. For some of them do not go among the multitude at all nor wish to risk it, despairing perhaps of making the many better; and others exercise their voices in the so-called lecture-halls, having got hearers in league with them and tame to them.

And of those called Cynics there is in the city no small number, and just as of any other thing, so of this too there has been a crop; a base and ignoble crop, however, of men who know nothing, so to speak, but lack sustenance; and these, at the crossroads and in the alleys and at the gates of temples, beg and deceive little boys and sailors and such a crowd, stringing together jests and much idle babble and these vulgar question-and-answers. Therefore they work no good, but the greatest evil possible, accustoming the foolish to laugh at the philosophers, as one might accustom boys to despise their teachers; and when one ought to cut off their insolence, they rather increase it.

And of those who come before you as educated, some recite show-pieces, and foolish ones at that; others, having composed poems, sing them, having judged you exceedingly fond of song. These, if they are poets and orators, perhaps there is nothing dreadful; but if as philosophers they do this for the sake of gain and their own reputation, not of your benefit, this is now dreadful. For it is like as if some physician, coming in to sick men, should neglect their cure and treatment, but bring them garlands and courtesans and perfume.

But a few have brought frank speech before you, and that too scantily, not so as to fill your ears nor so as to continue speaking, but having said one or two words, and having reviled rather than taught you, they depart in haste, being on their guard lest you should in the midst raise an uproar and dismiss them, like those who in winter venture upon the sea for some brief and short voyage. But to find a man speaking frankly cleanly and without guile, neither pretending for the sake of reputation nor for money, but ready, out of goodwill and care for the others, if need be, to be laughed at too, and to bear the disorder of a multitude and its uproar, is not easy, but the mark of a very fortunate city — in so great a scarcity of noble and free men, and so great an abundance of flatterers and charlatans and sophists.

For I, for my part, do not seem to myself to have chosen this of myself, but by some divine purpose. For those for whom the gods provide, to them they furnish good counsellors unbidden, and words fit and advantageous to be spoken. And this you ought least to disbelieve, among whom the divine is most honoured, and most of all shows its own power well-nigh every day through oracles and dreams. Do not, then, think that the god cares for men only when they sleep, and privately to each declares the advantageous, but neglects the waking and in common to the assembled would show none of the useful things. For often ere now even in waking he has profited men and by day plainly foretold.

You know, doubtless, the utterances of Apis here at Memphis near you, that boys announce in play what seems good to the god, and this has proved unerring. But your god, I think, being more perfect, wishes to benefit you through men and with earnestness, not through a few words, but with a strong and full omen and a clear discourse, teaching about the most necessary things, if you will bear it, with judgment and persuasion.

And first of all — that I may begin, where one ought, from near at hand — be firmly persuaded of this, that the things which befall men for good are all alike divine: whether one sailing happen on an experienced helmsman, or a nation or city on good leaders, or a physician come in season to the sick — this one too one must consider to have come as a helper from the god — or whether one hear wise words, they are sent from thence.

For in general nothing is happy or beneficial which comes to us not according to the purpose and power of the gods, but in every way they themselves are masters of all good things and distribute them lavishly to those willing to receive; but the evils come from elsewhere, as from some other spring lying near us, just as in the case of this water of yours, that which saves and nourishes and is truly fruitful comes down from somewhere above, from some divine spring, but the foul and ill-smelling channels we ourselves make and from us they take their rise. For through men's folly and luxury and ambition life is troublesome and full of deceit, wickedness, grief, and countless other evils.

And of these the gods made one cure and remedy, education and reason, which one who uses through life and continually comes at last to a sound and happy end; but those who rarely and at long intervals meet with it live now one day, now another are dead; yet they have ere now, when extraordinary terrors pressed upon them, been turned away. But those altogether without trial of this remedy and never holding out their ears to a temperate word are wholly wretched, having no shelter nor defense against the passions, but storm-tossed in an uncovered and miserable life, as in a rotten and unjoined skiff, in senseless judgment and wickedness.

And it comes about that the worst and most unfortunate flee as far as possible from reason and will not hear, not even if one force them — as, I think, the too-grievous of sores do not allow themselves to be touched, and this very thing is a sign that they are in a very bad state. But such men go to other physicians, not willingly, stronger ones. For there is a twofold treatment and care of wickedness, as of the other diseases: the one resembling regimen and drugs, the other cautery and the knife, more fitting for rulers and laws and judges, who remove the superfluous and incurable. But better are those who do not do this readily.

The other care I say is the work of those able through persuasion and reason to soothe and soften souls. These are the saviours and guardians of those capable of being saved, restraining and holding back wickedness before it comes to its end. The cities, then, need both, but much more the gentler of those in authority. For one ought to punish sparingly, but to teach unsparingly; and forgiveness belongs to a good ruler, but not to be bitter belongs to a good philosopher. For the harshness of punishment destroys, but the bitterness of reason is by nature apt to save.

There is likely, however, to be a great scarcity among you of those who know the latter. For neither money nor power accrues to them from this, but rather hatred and reviling and insult; of which perhaps one ought to take no thought; therefore through their withdrawal and silence a multitude of strifes and lawsuits grows up for you, and harsh shouting and harmful and licentious tongues, accusers, calumnies, indictments, a crowd of orators — just as, I think, through lack of physicians or through their inexperience the buriers become more numerous.

And of these things I blamed at the beginning those who do not come before the multitude nor dare to discourse to you, but wish to be august and are seen to be useless, and like the ignoble of the athletes, who trouble the wrestling-schools and the gymnasiums, sparring and wrestling, but will not go into the stadium, dreading the sun and the blows. The matter, however, is really difficult, and through your fault too. For it is not easy to bear the uproar of so great a multitude, nor to look in the face of countless inexperienced men without song and lyre. For this is an antidote against your people, as they say the fat of certain animals helps against some grievous thing.

I, at least, if I were a singer, would not have come in here without some tune or song. But now I lack this drug; yet a god, as I said, has given me courage — who both terrifies the brave man and easily robs him of victory, and at another time himself urges and bids him on. If, then, I too should say to you the words of Hermes, as he is represented in the Odyssey making his defense to Calypso for the message which, being unpleasant, he brought, perhaps you would say I am trifling, yet they must be said: Zeus bade me come hither against my will; for who would willingly run across so great a stretch of briny water, unspeakable? And there is no city of mortals near.

He, being a god and flying, is vexed at the waves and the deep and the desolation between the cities and the men; but I, a mere man from nowhere, in a poor little cloak, neither sweet to sing nor speaking louder than another — was I not, then, afraid of your din nor the laughter nor the anger nor the hissings nor the jests, with which you confound all and everywhere always have the advantage over all, both private men and kings? And that too hearing Homer and the other poets ever hymning the crowd as grievous and disobedient and ready for insolence — the one speaking thus:

The assembly was stirred like the long waves of the sea, of the Icarian deep, which the East Wind and the South Wind raise, rushing from the clouds of father Zeus; and another again: The people is a fickle evil, and like the sea is all whipped up by the wind; and in calm a brief breath rears it into crests. And if some pretext arise, it has swallowed up the citizen.

Perhaps, then, you too will swallow me up with your uproar and confusion, though I wish to benefit you. But if you stay and hear me to the end, you will seem marvellous to all, and acquainted not only with strummings and dances, but also with wise words; that I too may have a just defense against those who blame and condemn me for having come in here. For they will blame me, know well, and will say I am a reputation-hunter and mad, having exposed myself to a crowd and an uproar; that I may, then, have it to say that not every multitude is wanton nor deaf, nor that the educated ought to flee from every one.

But I will more clearly, if you wish, go through the nature of the people, that is, about yourselves. For this too is one of the useful things, and would benefit you more than if I spoke about heaven and earth. I say, then, that the people most resembles a man who is a ruler and exceedingly strong, having great authority and might, and a ruler and master of so much the more, the greater the people itself is and of a nobler city.

Of those men, then, there are kings, gods come into being for the common safety, true caretakers and good and just protectors, willing stewards of good things, but rarely and of necessity dispensing the grievous, delighting in the good order of cities. But others, on the contrary, are harsh and savage tyrants, grievous to hear and grievous to deal with; their anger is ready for everything, like that of untamed beasts, and their ears are stopped, and there is no passage into them for reasonable words, but flattery and deceit prevail with them.

And likewise the people too: one is reasonable and gentle and truly calm, such as to taste of frank speech and not to wish to be indulged in everything, fair, magnanimous, respecting good men and good words, grateful to those who admonish and teach; which I assign to the divine and kingly nature, and I say it befits one to approach and to discourse to this, as one leads a noble horse gently by a cheap rein, needing no curb.

But the more part, both the bold and the haughty, hard to please in everything, soon sated, are like tyrants and much worse; inasmuch as their wickedness is not one nor simple, but heaped together out of countless kinds; so that it is a very varied and dreadful beast, such as poets and craftsmen mould — Centaurs and Sphinxes and Chimaeras — putting together out of all manner of natures into one form of image. To grapple with and go to meet such a monster is the work of a truly mad man, or of one exceedingly brave and winged, a Perseus or a Bellerophon.

The people of the Alexandrians, then, in which of the two divisions shall we place it? For I, for my part, have presented myself to you as belonging to the better; but perhaps another of those better than I will choose the other. And indeed you could have no fairer and more wondrous spectacle than yourselves being temperate and attentive. For divine and august truly and magnificent is the face of a people gentle and settled, neither tossed by violent and licentious laughter nor disturbed by continual and disorderly uproar, but a single hearing of so great a multitude.

See yourselves at this present, and what you are when you watch your accustomed sights. For now you seem to me worthy to be seen both by private men and by kings, and there is no one who, coming in, would not be struck with wonder at you and honour you; so that, if nothing else, this at least the discourse has furnished you, no small thing — to be temperate for one hour. For even to the sick there is a great turn toward safety in resting a little. But in your other pursuits, when the spirit of disorder falls upon you, as when a rough wind stirs a muddy and foul sea, simply, I think, according to Homer, there are seen foam and spray and a multitude of seaweed poured forth;

so likewise among you jests, blows, laughter. Who, then, would praise those so disposed? Do you not on this account appear meaner even to the rulers? And someone, they say, said before: But the multitude of the Alexandrians — what could one say of them, to whom one need only throw the abundant bread — for so it is said far better — and a sight of horses; since for none of the rest do they care. For will you not, if one of the greater men behaves unbecomingly in the midst with all looking on, despise him and consider him worth nothing, even if he have ten thousand times some authority over you, while you yourselves can seem august and earnest doing such things?

Do you not know that, as a leader and king, when he comes forth, is then most clearly seen and ought to do nothing ignoble or shameful, likewise also a people, when it comes forth into the open and is gathered together? For one ought, I think, at other times too to be temperate; but nevertheless, whatever one does by himself is not common nor of the city; but in the theatre the public character is seen. And you are there most unguarded and will betray the reputation of the city; like wicked women, who, when they ought, even if at home they are not temperate, to go out at least decorously, most of all in the streets commit the most errors.

What then? Perhaps someone will say: Is this the only error we make, the watching ill? And do you speak to us of this alone, and nothing else? I shrink at once from going through all things. And yet someone will perhaps say that, speaking much, I have counselled you nothing nor said clearly what I most blame; and that this is the work of the teacher. But I think that even now I have said many useful things to those who attend, both about god and about the nature of the people and about the need to hear words, even if you are not persuaded. For this, I think, was most necessary too, first to prepare you to endure to hear. So that, if the discourse has furnished you nothing else great, this at least, that you sit so long a time being temperate. For even to the sick there is a great turn toward safety in resting a little.

And indeed, as to the rest, to go through all things, and that too in one day, and utterly to compel you to acknowledge your wickedness and errors, is not possible; not even if I had ten tongues and ten mouths, and an unbreakable voice, and a heart of bronze within me, unless the Olympian Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, should call to mind how great wickedness is among all — not among you alone. But this very thing about which I began to speak, see how great it is.

For how you feast by yourselves or sleep or each manage your household is not very evident; but how you watch the spectacles, and what sort of people you are here, all the Greeks and barbarians know. For your city in greatness and situation far surpasses, and is conspicuously shown to be second of those under the sun.

For your Egypt, so great a nation, is a body of the city, or rather an appendage; and the river's character, peculiar in its nature and beyond all others greater than words, both its marvel and its usefulness; and you receive all the sea that is among us, by the beauty of harbours and the size of your fleet and the abundance and disposal of products from everywhere; and you have the outer sea beyond, both the Red and the Indian, of which formerly it was hard even to hear the name; so that the commerce not of islands nor harbours nor of certain straits and isthmuses, but well-nigh of the whole inhabited world is yours. For it lies in a kind of bond of the whole earth and of the most distant nations, as a marketplace of one city bringing all into the same place and showing them to one another and, so far as possible, making them of one kindred.

Perhaps, then, you rejoice to hear this, and think you are being praised when I say these things, as by the others who ever flatter you; but I have praised water and earth and harbours and places and everything rather than you. For where did I say that you are wise and temperate and just? Is it not the contrary of these? For the praise of men is good order, gentleness, concord, the good arrangement of the constitution, attending to those who speak rightly, not always seeking pleasures. But sailings-out and landings and excess of multitude and of wares and ships is the encomium of a fair and a harbour and a marketplace, not of a city;

nor, if one praise water, is this a praise of men, but of wells; nor, if one speak of good climate, does he say the men are good, but the country; nor, if of fish, does he praise the city — how could he? — but a sea or lake or river. But you, if one eulogizes the Nile, are exalted, as though you yourselves flowed from Ethiopia. And well-nigh the most of the rest too rejoice in such things, and judge themselves blessed if they dwell, according to Homer, in a wooded or deep island, or some mainland good for pasture, good for sheep, or by shady mountains or clear springs; of which none belongs to those men; but of virtue not even in a dream do they take thought.

But I mentioned these things neither exalting you nor comparing myself with the orators or poets who customarily hymn them. For those men are clever and great sophists and charlatans; but my own things are mean and prosaic in their words, yet not about mean matters. For the things said are themselves not great, but about the greatest, so far as may be. And now I have spoken about the city, wishing to show you that whatever you do unbecomingly is done not secretly nor among few, but among all men.

For I, for my part, see among you not only Greeks nor Italians nor from the neighbouring Syria, Libya, Cilicia, nor those beyond them, Ethiopians nor Arabs, but also Bactrians and Scythians and Persians and some of the Indians, who view the spectacles with you and are present on each occasion; so that you hear one citharode, if it so happen, and that a familiar one, but are heard by countless nations who do not know you; and you see three or four charioteers, but are seen by so many Greeks and so many barbarians.

What, then, do you think these say when they come to the ends of the earth? Is it not: We saw a city in other respects marvellous and a sight surpassing all human sights, in the adornment of its temples and the multitude of its citizens and the abundance of necessities — going through everything exactly as they are able to their own people, the things I mentioned a little before, the matters of the Nile and the country and the sea, and greatest of all the manifestation of the god — but mad with song and horse-races and doing nothing worthy of itself in these things? For the men, while sacrificing, are moderate and walk by themselves and do everything else; but when they come into the theatre or the stadium, as though drugs were buried for them there, they know nothing of their former selves nor are ashamed to say or do whatever occurs to them.

And hardest of all, being eager about the spectacle they do not see, and wishing to hear they do not hear, plainly beside themselves and out of their minds, not men only, but boys and weak women too. And when the dreadful thing ceases and they disperse, the more violent of the disturbance is quenched; but it still remains in the gatherings and alleys and through the whole city for many days; just as, when a great fire has ceased, one may see for a long while the smoke and certain parts still burning.

And yet perhaps one of the Persians or Bactrians will say that they themselves know how to ride and seem well-nigh the best of horsemen — for they practise the thing for the sake of empire and freedom; yet nonetheless they have suffered nothing such nor even like it; but you, never having yourselves touched or mounted horses, cannot restrain yourselves, but are like lame men quarrelling about a race. Therefore, being cowardly and unwarlike, you have already won many cavalry battles.

Consider lest these speak more truly about you than they say Anacharsis the Scythian spoke about the Greeks — for he seemed to be one of the wise, and came to Greece, I think, to view the customs and the men. He said, then, that there is in each city of the Greeks a place set apart in which they are mad daily — meaning the gymnasium; for when they come and strip, they anoint themselves with a drug. This, he said, stirs up their madness. For straightway some run, others throw one another down, others, stretching out their hands, fight against no human being, others are struck. And having done these things, scraping off the drug, they at once become temperate, and being now friendly to one another walk looking down, ashamed of what they have done.

He, in jest and laughing at no mean matter, as I think, said these things. But about you what could one say? For you too, when you come together, box, shout, throw, dance — anointed with what drug? Plainly that of folly; since it was not possible for you to watch these things decently. For do not think I say this, that such things ought not to occur in the cities; for perhaps they must and it is necessary, on account of the weakness and leisure of the many; and perhaps even of the better some need some pastime and consolation in life; but it should be with order and a bearing befitting free men.

For not on this account will any of the horses run slower, nor will any of the singers sing worse, if you behave decorously. But now you consider it dreadful and the greatest of all calamities if one of the charioteers falls from his car; but you yourselves, falling from the becoming order and your own worth, take no thought. And if the citharode sing out of tune and off pitch, you perceive it; but yourselves, being altogether out of the harmony that is according to nature and very unmusical, you are not at variance.

And yet how many of you have perished through these things? For all are in disrepute. But did the Sirens do anything else, as the myth says, than destroy those who too greatly delighted in them? Yet they were in a desolate sea and dwelt apart far off by themselves on some crag, where no one readily passed; and even there the man of sense was saved and heard in quiet. But these of yours do such things well-nigh in the middle of the inhabited world, in the most populous city of all — not, by Zeus, through any pleasure or power of their own, but through your folly. For why are they heard outside in much the same way as the others, and have often seemed unpleasant? Are the ears of those abroad stopped? What, then, does this show?

Not, by Zeus, the strength of music nor excess of art, but the levity of the hearers and the weakness of the city. They say, at least, that some of those who have perished from such a cause have shown bravado, not deprecating death, but begging earnestly that they might hear longer. But this is marvellous, to the reproach and ridicule of the city, if among others champions and tyrant-slayers are remembered, giving themselves for the safety of their fatherlands, but among you men suffer this for a string and for a small pleasure, or rather an empty reputation.

For not so much delighting as supposing and wishing do they give themselves up. So great is the misfortune of the wretched men, that they consider the most unmanly thing of all manly, and the most shameful august. For I, for my part, would choose to die robbing than for such a cause. For the one is the death of a wicked man, the other of an unfortunate slave. And that man, perhaps having been wronged, came to this, trying to avenge himself beyond the laws, and might perhaps have done something noble had he not met with such a fortune; but this one, by mere shouting and folly, perishes ingloriously through an ill-starred note and a bad cadence and the out-of-tune trills and nonsense and Cynic howlings and ruin. And such is the death of a fly. For they too perish at whatever has seemed sweet to them on tasting. What, then, is splendid in this, you wretches?

For on behalf of justice and virtue and ancestral rites and laws and a good king, if need be, to toil and die belongs to a good and not life-loving soul; but to hang oneself for a harp-girl, an ignoble piece of refuse not worthy to live, how great a shame! And let us leave these; but in the very spectacle are not the things done shameful and full of all insolence — the being stretched up and gazing, all but having your souls on your lips, receiving, I think, happiness through the ears, calling a wretched man saviour and god? How great laughter do you think the gods laugh at you, when, again worshipping those gods, you bring the same offerings and through the same means are forced to honour the divine? But the god is reasonable, as a god, I think, and bears gently the folly of the many.

Therefore, as to children, he has given you as pedagogues the more sensible of the city, with whom you both watch and do the rest better. For how else would you keep your hands off one another? And yet what sort of men would you consider those to whom freedom is not advantageous? By Zeus, for the matter is by nature such. For do they not in other cities too sing and, by Zeus, play the flute and run and do all that happens both among you and among certain others? But nowhere is there such a passion for the thing nor such frenzy.

You know the Rhodians, living so near you in freedom and with all security; but among them not even running in the city seems moderate, but they rebuke even the strangers who walk at random. Therefore reasonably they are of good repute and meet with all honour. For respecting themselves first and doing nothing senseless, they reasonably, I think, meet with respect both from the others and from the rulers; since of the rest too we shall find the temperate doing for the most part the same things as the foolish — for instance, eating, walking, playing, watching;

for nature compels men to need many of the same things; yet they differ in all these. To begin at once: in feasting, the one sort pass their time neither ignorantly nor unbecomingly, but with good order and at the same time gently, ruling the good cheer, not the drunkenness, kindly toward their companions, not insolent toward them; the others harshly and licentiously, with shouting and disorder, angry and laughing, taking advantage of one another, not inviting them, and at last depart having given the fellow-drinkers some harm or received it from them — such as they say the carousal of the Centaurs once was.

And what need to go through the rest item by item? But the matter of walking — which is common and simple, doubtless — shows in one the quietness of his character and his attention to himself, in another disturbance and shamelessness; he comes on in haste, talks while walking, or, having fallen, pushes someone, fights with another. Likewise also about the spectacles: some are insatiable and greedy and alike fluttered about all chance things, others share in them decorously and with calm.

But not you; rather you sit thunderstruck, you leap up more than the dancers, you are wrought up by the songs. For other men drink turns them to song and dance; but with you it is the contrary. For song produces in you drunkenness and madness. Now such is the nature of wine, that those who use it clumsily and immoderately cannot be temperate, but are compelled to do many grievous things; but men reeling under song and faring far worse than the drunken straightway from the beginning, not, as in drinking, advancing gradually, it is not possible to see others.

For among some of the barbarians they say a gentle drunkenness occurs through the vapour of certain incenses; then they rejoice and rise laughing and do all that men who have drunk do, yet they work no evil on one another; but you alone of the Greeks suffer this through ears and voice, or rather you rave worse than they and are carried away and resemble more those with a hangover. And yet the gifts of the Muses and of Apollo are mild and gentle. For they call him Paeon and Averter-of-evil, as turning away evils and producing health in souls and bodies, not disease nor madness; and the maidens, as being modest and temperate.

And music seems to have been discovered for the treatment of men's passions, and especially to turn about souls harshly and savagely disposed. For this reason some of the philosophers attuned themselves to the lyre at dawn, putting an end to the disturbance from dreams. And we sacrifice to the gods with melody, that we may be well-ordered and settled. And there is again another mode of flute and song in mournings, healing, I think, the hardness and unyieldingness of grief, and making the sorrow more womanly through song that steals in with wailings, as the physicians, moistening and softening the inflamed sores, made them painless.

And no less in convivial gatherings the power of music seemed fitting, bringing harmony and order of itself into souls and assuaging the perilousness of the pleasure in wine with a kindred power, so that, blended as it were with it, it becomes tuneful and moderate. All these things, then, are now reversed and turned to the contrary. For not by the Muses, but by certain Corybantes are you possessed, and you make trustworthy the fictions of the poets; for they bring in certain Bacchants maddened by melody, and Satyrs; so then for you the matter of fawnskins and thyrsi is lacking, and the carrying of lions in your arms; but in other respects you seem to me very like Nymphs and Satyrs.

For you are ever cheerful and laughter-loving and dance-loving; except that wine does not gush up for you of itself when you thirst from some rock or glen, nor can you so easily have milk and honey, scratching the ground with your fingertips; nay, neither does the water come to you here of itself, nor do you doubtless have the barley-cake in your power, but this too you receive from the hand of your betters; so that perhaps it was time for you to cease your Bacchic frenzies and attend rather to yourselves. But now, if you only hear a string, as though you had heard a trumpet, you can no longer keep the peace.

Do you, perchance, imitate the Lacedaemonians? They say, at least, that of old they made war to the flute; but you do it to the lyre. Or do you wish — since I too compared the peoples to kings — to appear to have the same disease as Nero? But not even him did his too great experience and zeal about this benefit. And how much better to imitate the present ruler, attending to education and reason? Will you not lay aside this shameful and immoderate ambition? Will you not be on your guard, mocking others, and that too in men, if it is lawful to say it, having nothing great or marvellous?

For if Ismenias played the flute among you, or Timotheus the ancient sang, or Arion, at whose singing on the sea they say the dolphins came to the ship, and afterward, when he had fallen overboard by some chance, took him up and saved him, how would you be disposed? For of these men there is no Amphion nor Orpheus; for the one was a son of a Muse, but these have sprung from Unmusicalness itself; for, having shattered and broken down the august quality of melody and in every way outraged the ancient music —

for who of them is able to render a finished song or a noble rhythm? — but songs of women and strummings of dancers and the drunken twitterings, like bad and meddlesome cooks, having ground down the modes, they stir up untaught and greedy hearers. Therefore your emulation of them is named among yourselves not from swans nor nightingales, but, as it seems, you liken it to whinings and barkings. And yet I knew that philosophers are so called; but citharode-Cynics have arisen among you alone. Amphion, then, by melody, as they say, roused and walled the city; but these overturn and dissolve it. And indeed Orpheus tamed and made musical the beasts through song; but these have made you, who are men, savage and untaught.

I can tell you yet another story which I heard from a Phrygian, a kinsman of Aesop, who sojourned here, which he told about Orpheus and you. It is stranger and longer than your jests. Consider, then, if you wish to hear it, and be not displeased. That man said, then, that Orpheus made melody about Thrace and Macedonia, as has been said, and there the animals came to him, a great multitude, I think, of all the beasts.

And most among them were the birds and the sheep. For the lions and such, on account of their might and savagery, were more distrustful, and some did not approach at all, others straightway withdrew, not delighting in the melody. But the winged and the sheep approached more and no longer departed: the latter, I think, through their good nature and tameness, and the race of birds is doubtless itself musical and song-loving. While Orpheus lived, then, they followed him from all sides, hearing him and at the same time grazing; for he too spent most of his time in the mountains and about the glens; but when he died, being bereft they lamented and bore it ill; so that his mother Calliope, through her goodwill and love toward her son, having asked of Zeus, changed their bodies into the form of men, but their souls remained such as they were before.

Difficult, then, now is what remains of the tale, and I shrink from telling it to you plainly. For he said that from those there sprang a certain race of Macedonians, and this again later, crossing over with Alexander, settled here. And on this account the people of the Alexandrians are led by song as none others, and if they hear a lyre of any kind whatever, they are beside themselves and shudder at the memory of Orpheus. But they are light and senseless in character, as from such a seed; since the rest of the Macedonians became brave and warlike and firm in character.

And he told another such story too about the citharodes among you. For of the animals in the company with Orpheus the rest only delighted and were astounded, but attempted to imitate nothing; but some of the dogs, being a shameless and meddlesome race, set themselves to the music, and practising then, straightway departing by themselves and having changed their forms into men, kept up the care. And this very thing is the race of the citharodes; wherefore they cannot at all depart from their own nature, but preserve a little of Orpheus's teaching, while the most of the melody remains canine in them. These things that Phrygian said in jest.

But I wish to tell you a deed of the Lacedaemonians, how they dealt with a citharode then admired among the Greeks. For because he seemed too sweet and excessive, they did not, by Zeus, honour him, but took away his lyre and cut out the strings, bidding him depart from the city. They, then, so regarded the matter with suspicion, and guarded their ears, that their hearing might not be corrupted nor become softer than it ought; but you have so ignobly been enslaved by such pleasure.

And through you the matter now seems to me to lay hold even of the orators and some of the philosophers; or rather the orators it is not even easy to recognize. For as they see your eagerness about this and your desire, all sing, both orators and sophists, and everything is accomplished through song; so that, if one pass a court of justice, he could not easily tell whether they are drinking within or pleading; and if a sophist's house be near, it will not be possible to know the pursuit. And it seems to me that, going into the gymnasium too, they will now exercise to melody and heal the sick. For about their art even now they discourse to us singing.

And life runs the risk of having become well-nigh one revel, not pleasant nor gentle, but savage and grievous, with men dancing, twittering, and shedding blood at the same time. The Lacedaemonians, then, differed from you as much as possible, being, as I said, on their guard about these things. For they were competent to rule, and presided over the Greeks for many years, and ever conquered all the barbarians; but you do not even know how to be ruled well. Therefore, if you had not got those who preside over you, with difficulty, I think, would you even be saved. And a proof is the things that lately befell you, when you were by yourselves.

Did not your king busy himself about flute-playing and attend to this alone, while you were hostilely disposed toward him and factiously toward one another, each set apart and by yourselves ruining affairs — Simaristoi and other such names of clubs — so that you compelled him to flee and afterward to return by war and through the Romans? And at last he piping, and you dancing, you destroyed the city.

And now, having such reasonable governors, you have brought them to suspicion against yourselves, so that they thought a more careful guard necessary than before; and this you have wrought through wantonness, not plotting. For would you revolt from anyone? Would you make war for a single day? In the disturbance that arose, did not the many bluster only as far as jests, while a few, throwing whatever they chanced on once or twice, like those who empty slops on passers-by, lay down straightway singing, and others went to the moorings as if at a festival to drink?

And indeed you remember that ridiculous thing which your excellent Conon did, coming forward where most of your multitude was gathered, and showing a small spot proclaimed that, if he himself came forward there, he would be victorious and you must depart by yourselves and yield; but if you, he said, win four or five steps, I too will walk off — saying this, sparing you and laughing and playing with you as with children. For the army stood by and he allowed no one to touch you, seeing you all unarmed and ready to perish. What then? Afterward the rash and licentious forced the matter, having plotted on purpose to overturn and confound everything, and did not let you go until you tasted of war and the terror advanced to actual trial.

Why, then, have I mentioned these things too? That you may know the things that grow from this disorder about your life. For it is not possible that those so fluttered about the small and worthless things, being mean and intemperate in these things which they do daily, should in the rest be temperate and deliberate rightly about the greater. For the lightness of their characters and their unreason does not allow them to remain in the lesser, nor has the folly of their errors any measure, but it advances alike to everything and lays hold of everything with the same readiness.

Do not, then, think the discourse is about small matters, when one discourses to you about the uproars in the theatres. For poverty is not so quickly apt to come about through small losses, as wickedness advances out of these particular errors and at last, having grown, leads to the very limit and to ruin. And these, indeed, are the matters of the theatre. But when you come to the stadium, who could tell the shouts there and the uproar and the agony and the changes of postures and of complexions and the blasphemies, such and so many as you let fly? For if you did not see the horses contending, and these familiar ones, but were yourselves driven by the scourges in the tragedies, you would not be so grievously disposed.

For you make Ixion himself nonsense, who among the poets is bound on the wheel and punished for some such impiety. Come, then, if one of the gods, standing by you in the midst, should say, with insistence: Sirs, you are mad, and no longer keep food or drink hidden in your heart. Why are you so violently confounded? What is the zeal? What the contest? For it is not Pelops who pursues, nor Oenomaus, nor Myrtilus — the one second in descent from Zeus, the other a son of Hermes — nor is the decision about kingship or a wife or death, but the contest is of slaves over chance money, now defeated, now victorious, ever the same — if he should say this, what will you say?

Or is it plain that you will not even hear at that moment, not even if the ancestor of Pelops himself discourse to you? What aid, then, can one find, or which of the deities must one propitiate? There is at Olympia, in the middle of the hippodrome, an altar of Poseidon Taraxippus, where most the horses were wont to take fright and most of the chariots to be destroyed. It seemed good, then, to the Eleans, as of some divine power, to set up an altar. And ever since, they say, the place has become safe.

Much more, then, do I counsel you to propitiate this god and to set up the same altar — not, by Zeus, on behalf of the horses, but on behalf of yourselves, that you may not be disturbed nor fall out of order. For lest all such things be divine and need a greater averting. They say an ancient queen of the Heliadae in Crete loved a bull, and consorting with it bore a grievous and great monster. I too fear this equine passion of the city, lest it bring you something grievous and strange in time.

And again, that another maiden, loving a certain river, went daily to the stream, and put the foam into her arms and received the water in her bosom. And at Athens this very animal which is esteemed among you too was beloved; and there is now in the city a place so called, the Forbidden ground of Horse and Maiden. For the father shut up the girl with the horse, and they say the maiden was thus destroyed.

Consider lest you too perish through such a desire. For what Homer or what man can tell the things that happen? For he does not say the chariots become low in the midst and very high along the course, as one may see your souls suffering. And he speaks thus — that I may gratify you a little: The chariots at one time clung to the much-nourishing earth, at another sprang aloft; and the drivers stood in their cars, and the heart of each throbbed as they strove for victory, and each called to his horses.

There he has made the charioteers contestants and ambitious, but the spectators watching in quiet, as was fitting. Only at the end he says that Ajax the Locrian watched too unbecomingly and reviled Idomeneus about the horses of Eumelus. This man, however, is the one who again committed impiety against Athena when Troy was being captured, and on this account was himself blasted with the thunderbolt and became to all the cause of the storm and the shipwreck. For he who is bold and rash in such matters cannot be temperate in the rest, as I have already said.

This, then, is such an example of wickedness and folly, like, from such men, to those among you — except that none is competent to fight nor to be a champion nor to take cities, as that man was; but none of you stands still in the spectacle, but you fly far more than the horses and the charioteers, and ridiculously drive and hold the reins and pursue and lead and fall. Therefore one of these rotten poets not badly parodied:

The chariots at one time clung to the much-nourishing earth, at another sprang aloft; and the spectators in their seats neither stood nor sat, pale beneath fear, terrified, while others, for victory, calling to one another and lifting up their hands to all the gods, each prayed greatly. As is the clamour of cranes or jackdaws, which, when they have drunk beer and unspeakable wine, fly clamouring from the stadium-course.

And like a cloud of starlings or jackdaws they go, screaming destruction, when they see coming a horse that brings death to foolish men; so they, screaming, fell upon one another. As wind drives the chaff over the sacred threshing-floors, and as the marvel-blazing fire rages through deep glens, and everywhere the eddying wind drives it, and the bushes fall up by the roots, pressed by the rush of fire; so they fought like fire; nor would you say that ever the sun was safe or the moon.

As is the generation of leaves, such also is that of men — of light-minded men, most song-loving, haughty. And the noise of both reached the upper air and the halls of Zeus. And thus would one say, looking at his neighbour: Wine-heavy, with the eyes of a dog and the heart of a deer, why do you cower? Why do you peer after the chariot in the contest? But come now, make trial, that, well thrashed, you may pay for it.

And Hippocoon, answering, addressed him: Friend, sit in silence and obey my word; feeble is your servant, and slow your horses. And to him spoke from under the yoke the horse swift of foot: Do you not see what I am, both fair and great? Yet upon me too there is death and mighty fate. Would that the white-armed goddess Hera had made you all here armed, that you might not whine, sitting one from another. So he spoke; and they prayed to Zeus, the lordly son of Cronus.

These are a few for you out of many and mean ones, that you may not think you alone are ridiculous. And indeed it is shameful, men of Alexandria, that those who inquire about the city should hear marvellous things on other points, but about yourselves nothing august should be said nor worthy of emulation, but on the contrary that the men should be slandered as mean, mimes and laughter-makers rather, not sturdy men, as one of the comic poets said of such: A licentious crowd and naval disorder.

For it is like as if one should see a very fine house, but the master himself a slave not worthy even to be a doorkeeper. For it is altogether better to behold desolation and fifteen well-off men than a numberless multitude of wretched and mad men, like some deep dunghill heaped up in one place out of all manner of refuse. For one could not rightly call a city the thing made of such, nor a chorus those who however have come together, nor an army every crowd.

For neither was the army of Xerxes brilliant, except perhaps for digging through something or trenching or doing some other such work; nor was the city of the Trojans happy, because it had wicked and licentious citizens. And yet it was great and famous; but nonetheless the citizen of Ithaca sacked it, the man of the small and obscure isle the city that was very spacious. I fear, then, lest you too perish in like manner with those, even if it is rather cold to say that that city too is said to have been destroyed by a horse; except that they perhaps by one, but you have been taken by more.

For do not think this alone is the capture of a city, if some, having cast down the wall, slaughter the men and lead away the women and burn the houses; this is perhaps the last and brief and rather prepares the sufferers to be pitied than laughed at; but among those with whom there is neglect of all noble things and a passion for one ignoble matter, and they look to this alone and spend their time about it, leaping and raging and striking one another and saying forbidden things and often reviling the very gods and casting away their possessions and sometimes walking home naked from the spectacle — this is the shameful and reproachful capture of a city.

For we say that men have been captured not by robbers only, or by male companions, but also by a courtesan and the belly and some other base desire. He would, then, well be said to have become a captive, both a man and a city, which, having let go the better pursuits and neither seeing nor hearing any of the things that lead to safety, but taken by drunkenness or the song of women or chariots, is led and carried away and is wholly throughout disturbed about this and goes out of its mind; and, by Zeus, he too would be said to have been taken by storm and pinioned who has thus been captured. For if a man's body is mastered and surrounded by certain bonds or guards, one must consider these grievous things captivity and slavery and being led away; but when the soul has been enslaved and ruined, shall we dissemble and make light of it?

And yet such things are doubtless dreadful even in individual cases, but altogether more shameful when they appear in public. For the other diseases too, so long as they are among individuals, do not meet with a great or fearful name; but when the thing becomes common, then it is called a plague. For in general one would find all errors everywhere, and there are drunkards and fornicators and woman-mad men in all the cities; but this is not grievous nor extraordinary; but when the passion prevails and is seen as common, then it becomes marked and great and public.

For what city is there, of those not very desolate and small, in which someone is not every day at all events feverish? But Caunians alone has it overtaken, and theirs is the reproach, because all of them suffer it; just as from the better things too some men were admired and got repute. For how many of the Athenians or Megarians or Corinthians do you think exercised their bodies and lived laboriously? Many, plainly, and that too when it was necessary for them to become good men on behalf of their fatherlands.

Why, then, did the Lacedaemonians alone get this name and enjoy the repute even now? Because they acquired the ambition in common. And the Athenians, practising rather the matters of speech and poetry and choruses, made themselves admired for these by the same cause. Consider, then, lest you partake of a repute not like that of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, but rather of certain others — for I do not wish to name them. For, as I have often said, shameful things are more shameful and more ridiculous when they concern cities.

As in the comedies and farces, bringing in Carion drunk and Daos does not greatly move laughter, but to see Heracles such seems ridiculous, carried away and, as they are wont, in a saffron robe; likewise also a people so great droning all its life and again driving without horses becomes shameful and ridiculous. For this very thing Euripides says Heracles suffered when mad: From this point going, having no chariots he said he had them, and mounted the rails of a car, and plied the goad as though he held it in his hand.

Do not, then, you too in emulation of Alexander — for he himself said he was a son of Zeus. Or rather perhaps your people resembles not Heracles, but some Centaur or Cyclops who has drunk and is in love, in body strong and great, but in mind untaught. By Zeus, do you not see how great care your emperor has taken of the city? Therefore you too ought to rival him and make your fatherland better — not, by Zeus, with fountains or gateways; for on these you cannot spend, nor would you ever, I think, surpass his magnanimity; but with good order, decorum, by showing yourselves temperate and steadfast. For thus he would neither repent of what has been done and will work you more good. And perhaps you would give him a longing even for his coming hither.

For not so much can the beauty of the buildings draw him; for he has all things better and more costly than those anywhere; but when he hears that those who will receive him are worthy of goodwill and trust, and each of those sent and governing you prefers you. For do not think that you inquire about those who sail in, what sort they are, and at once have such an opinion of them as you share of their fame, but that they do not curiously inquire about you, what sort the people of the Alexandrians is. So then, if they hear that it is sensible, but not such as is now said — that it is fluttered, that it is light, admiring the small, mastered by chance matters, a lover of charioteers and citharodes — it is not unclear how they will be disposed.

They say that Theophilus, who was a wise man among you, kept silence toward you and would not discourse at all. And yet what opinion do you think he had? Whether that you were wise and needed no treatment? Or rather that he despaired of you as incurable? For it is much as if one of the merchants, having many and precious wares, should sail into a city, then, mastered by certain winds or another fortune and spending a long time there, should neither set out any of his wares nor ever show them; for it is plain that, having judged in them some extreme poverty or inexperience, he would not wish to be troubled in vain, knowing clearly that none of these men would buy nor perhaps even approach.

And Theophilus, then, having many and great wares within him there, was conscious of your extreme want, not of money, but of mind and understanding. Therefore he died having kept silence about your city — that is, having condemned it; and you have often heard so-and-so and remember his jests and the songs of so-and-so, but Theophilus I know not if you ever heard; just as one said that the beetles in Attica, the honey being most pure, never taste of it, not even if it be poured out, but of the other food.

But you are cheerful and the cleverest of all at jesting. This is not the pursuit of a people — how could it be? — nor of a city, but of some Thersites; for Homer has said that he came among all the Greeks as a buffoon — but because he seemed laughable to the Argives. But the laughable is not good nor precious, but joy; and through want and ignorance of joy men pursue laughter. You have heard, at least, of the herb called sardonion, which produces laughter, but a grievous one and unto destruction.

Do not, then, cling so very much to this, nor make the Graces unmusical and vulgar and untaught, but rather imitate Euripides, who speaks thus: May I never cease mingling the Graces with the Muses, sweetest union; that the Museum may not seem to you to be otherwise a place in the city, just as, I think, other places too are named in vain, not having the thing along with the name.

But indeed I fear lest there has befallen me too what they say befell one of the Egyptians, a musician of the very ancient ones. For the divine power once foretold to him in sleep that he would sing into an ass's ears. And during all the rest of the time he gave no heed nor thought to the dream, as being nothing. But when the tyrant of the Syrians came to Memphis, the Egyptians, being struck with awe of him, summoned the musician. He displayed, then, with all eagerness even the more exact points of his art; but the tyrant, since he had no understanding of music, bade him stop, dishonouring him. And he, remembering that dream, This, then, he said, was the singing into an ass's ears. And the tyrant, hearing through the interpreters what sort of things he said, beat and scourged the man; and this they say became a cause of war.