Oration 37

When I first sojourned in your city, about ten years ago, and gave the people and your magistrates a share of my discourses, I seemed to be acceptable, and that too to you so very much as not even Arion the Methymnaean. Of Arion, at least, you did not make a likeness. And when I say "you," I mean your ancestors and Periander the son of Cypselus, the wise, in whose time Arion lived, who also first of men composed the dithyramb and named it and taught it in Corinth.

For he was so beloved of the gods that, sailing up hither with great wealth which he had earned about Tarentum and the Greeks there, when he was about to be thrown into the sea by the sailors on account, doubtless, of this very wealth, he begged them before the throwing to let him sing — just as they say the swans, when about to die and foreseeing death, embark their soul as it were upon the song as upon a chariot.

So then he sang — for there was a calm and stillness over the sea — and the dolphins perceived the song, and perceiving it were about the ship. And when Arion had ceased and the sailors yielded nothing soft, he flung himself into the deep, and a dolphin coming under bore the singer to Taenarum as he was, with his equipment. Arion, then, having been thus saved and having forestalled the sailors, was in Corinth, relating these very things to Periander.

And when the sailors put in and the matter was brought to proof, they were put to death; but Arion — for it was not Periander, but Arion — having made a bronze likeness, not large, dedicated it at Taenarum, himself seated upon his benefactor. And about this same time both Solon was in Corinth, fleeing the tyranny of Peisistratus, but not fleeing that of Periander.

For it was not the same: the one, having abolished the democracy, was tyrant of the Athenians, but Periander had received the kingship from his father, whom the Greeks called tyrant, but the gods king. Or does not the oracle run thus? Blessed is this man who comes to my house, Cypselus son of Eetion, king of glorious Corinth, himself and his children.

Of whom one was Periander himself, who succeeded his father. So then Periander was by the god proclaimed king, but by the Greeks wise; than whom no king or tyrant ever acquired a greater name; not even Antiochus surnamed the god, nor Mithridates the Dionysus. And Pittacus the Mytilenaean would have prayed to be called both at once, both tyrant and wise; but as it is, clinging to the second name, he put off the tyranny. Periander was wise with the few, but tyrant with the many;

but both, tyrant and wise, he alone. To him Solon came and shared in the common things — for friends' things are common — but nonetheless did not obtain a statue, not, doubtless, despising a statue, but making much even of standing in bronze in Salamis; how then not in Corinth, in the promenade of Greece? And Herodotus the chronicler came too to you, bringing Greek tales, both others and ones about the Corinthians not yet false, in return for which he thought fit to win a reward from the city. But failing of this too — for your ancestors did not think fit to buy reputation — he recast those things which we all know, the matters about Salamis and Adeimantus.

But us, when we sojourned twice, you so gladly beheld that you most of all tried to keep us, and seeing it was impossible, at least you made the likeness of our body and bearing it dedicated it in the library, in the front place, where you would most think to incite the young to cling to the same pursuits as ours. For not as one of the many who put in yearly at Cenchreae, a merchant or pilgrim or envoy or one passing through, but as one scarcely after long intervals appearing and welcome, so you honoured us.

But honour, like a dream taking wing, has flown away. So that I am at a loss both with myself and, by Zeus, now with another, whether truly I did not see nor was awake, but what was happening was a dream, or whether these things were so in all exactness — the eagerness of the people and the decision of the council — but the statue happened to be one of the works of Daedalus and, escaping our notice, ran away.

But since Daedalus died, no one to this day has attained to such art as even to put flight into the bronze; rather they make them striding well and beautifully, and some borne even upon horses; yet all these remain in figure and place, even if no one moves them, so far as in them lies the bronze that cannot run, even if it have wings, like the Perseus of Pythagoras.

But that it might even be of the ancient Daedalian art, what suffering would have made it depart from your city, about which they say the two gods strove, Poseidon and the Sun, the one master of fire, the other of water? And having striven and entrusted the arbitration to a third god, an elder, of whom are most heads and most hands, having entrusted the arbitration to this one, both hold this city and the country — no small nor obscure sign of its superiority over the rest.

For the other allotments and possessions of the gods are single: Argos is Hera's, and Athens Athena's; and of these very gods, Rhodes is the Sun's, Onchestus Poseidon's, but Corinth both. You might conjecture that the myth hints at this — that the spot, in the midst of two seas, was made special by the Sun with Poseidon's consent. Now the matter of the myth and the discourse,

somewhat consonant with this, calls upon a third, beyond the two witnesses, the prophetic Sibyl; and she, having received a clear voice from the god, sings very loudly: Happy is the pine-clad blessed neck of Ephyra, daughter of Ocean, where Poseidon, father of my mother Lamia, first set up a contest together with the Sun, and bore away the honours alone.

And indeed they say the first contest was set up here by the two gods, and that Castor won the stadium-race, and Calais the double course — for they say Calais ran, abstaining from flying. And the rest too, since we have begun, must be named prize-winners and victors. Orpheus in the lyre, Heracles in the all-in fight, Polydeuces in boxing, Peleus in wrestling, Telamon in the discus, Theseus in the armed contest. And a horse-race too was set up, and Phaethon won with the single horse, Neleus with the four-horse chariot.

And there was a contest of ships too, and the Argo won, and after that she did not sail, but Jason dedicated her here to Poseidon, and inscribed the epigram which they say is Orpheus': I am the hull Argo, and Jason dedicated me to the god, crowned with the pine of the Isthmus and of Nemea. But where gods preside over the games, and demigods conquer and are conquered, and the Argo rests, what fairer place than this could Daedalus himself have found, flying with wings — to say nothing of the work of Daedalus?

But it neither ran away nor attempted it nor at all intended it. It remains, then, that the Corinthians themselves cast it out, neither with a trial set nor having at all any charge to bring. And was anyone persuaded of this against the Corinthians, whose ancestors of all the Greeks most practised justice? For are not these the men who abolish the tyrannies in the cities and establish the democracies and freed Athens from the tyrants,

formerly from Hippias, later from Cleomenes, and after this, when the Athenians themselves attempted to do the work of Hippias and Isagoras and to establish a tyranny over Greece, were the first to perceive it and most grieved by it, and became leaders of freedom to the rest, and preserved this purpose not only in the case of the Athenians, but also in the case of the Lacedaemonians? For they opposed the Lacedaemonians too, on behalf of the common rights of Greece, with the city of the Thebans and the Eleans; by which they also showed that they were not pro-Laconian, but simply lovers of Greece and of justice and of freedom and haters of wickedness and of tyrants.

For they were such haters of the barbarian that to Thermopylae they sent four hundred of themselves, when the Lacedaemonians too sent three hundred. And at Salamis they were the bravest and became the cause of the victory. For I do not heed Herodotus, but the tomb and Simonides, who inscribed upon the dead of the Corinthians buried in Salamis: O stranger, once we dwelt in the well-watered city of Corinth, but now the isle of Ajax, Salamis, holds us. And easily, having taken the Phoenician ships and the Persians and Medes, we established sacred Greece.

And there is another epigram of Simonides upon the general himself, a special one: This is the tomb of that Adeimantus, through whose counsels Greece put on the crown of freedom. And they freed Sicily too from the barbarians, and Syracuse from the tyrants. And one might see Dionysius in Corinth, a most beautiful spectacle, master of nothing; but nonetheless no one wronged him either, nor cast him out nor drove him of those from Sicily.

But the dedication of the city, who overturned it? Surely not a whirlwind or hurricane or thunderbolt falling, shaking and directing the lightning. But if there is some judging of a statue, such as they say happened in Syracuse — and the manner I shall not shrink from telling, throwing it in: the Syracusans, your colonists, in many wars against the Carthaginians and the other barbarians who inhabit Sicily and Italy, had run short of bronze and of coinage;

they voted, then, to break up the statues of the tyrants — and many of these were among them made of bronze — having made a judgment among them, who of them was worthy to be melted down and who not; and he prevails in the trial — that you may hear this too — Gelon the son of Deinomenes; and all the rest were broken up, except indeed Dionysius the elder of those clad in the form of Dionysus —

but if there should be among you too some such decree, that there be a reckoning of statues — or rather, if you will, as though this had been voted and a contest were at hand, grant me, grant me to make the speech on its behalf before you as in a court. Men, judges, all things, they say, one must expect in the long time; but this one in the short time runs the risk of having been set up as the best of the Greeks, but of being cast out as the most wicked.

That, then, it was set up nobly and justly and advantageously for your city and for all the Greeks, though I have much to say, I wish to relate to you one thing that happened in that very Syracuse. For the example is appropriate; and it is just, perhaps, that as they honour the mother-city, so you too should imitate the deeds of your colony, whichever are noble.

They, then, in those ancient times, a certain Lucanian man, because he reported some embassy to the people in Doric, being pleased with his speech, both sent him away not unsuccessful in the matters for which he had come, and presented him with a talent, and set up the likeness of his body — from the neighbouring states and the Dorians there, both the others and those inhabiting Italy — as having repaid the man well and nobly on behalf of the Doric race, whose speech he had practised to the point of being able to speak it.

But if one not being a Lucanian, but a Roman, nor of the common people, but of the equestrian order, has emulated not the speech only, but also the judgment and the way of life and the bearing of the Greeks, and that too so resolutely and conspicuously as none of the Romans before him nor of the Greeks of his own time — for it shall be said — not one; for of the Greeks one may see the best inclining there toward the affairs of the Romans, but the foremost man inclining toward the affairs of the Greeks, and for these things giving up his substance and his political rank and everything simply, that he may have left him one thing in place of all — to seem and to be a Greek — then ought not such a man to stand in bronze among you?

And city by city: among you, because, being a Roman, he was Hellenized, as your fatherland was; among the Athenians, because he speaks Attic; among the Lacedaemonians, because he loves gymnastics; among all, because he loves wisdom and has already roused many of the Greeks to philosophize with him, and has drawn not a few of the barbarians too.

For to this very end he seemed to have been fashioned by the gods, as it were on purpose: for the Greeks, that the natives of Greece might have an example that being educated differs nothing from being born so toward seeming; for the Romans, that not even those clad in their own peculiar dignity should overlook education for the sake of dignity; for the Celts, that none even of the barbarians should despair of Greek education, looking to this man. He was set up, then, for such reasons (that I may not, saying more, seem to lead myself into hatred),

but it is not the same thing to deliberate about the setting up of a likeness and about its taking down. Why? Because each of these dedicated among you, whether better or worse, is now clad with sanctity, and the city ought to preside over it as over a dedication. One might have much to say that Gorgias the sophist ought not to stand in Delphi, and that too aloft and golden. Gorgias, do I say? When one may see even Phryne the Thespian, she too upon a column, like Gorgias.

But to oppose at once is perhaps lawful and political; but, having come afterward to the dedication, to try to dissolve what has been resolved — Apollo, that is grievous; and none of the Amphictyons would have endured it. For even if they were set up when they ought not, having forestalled by the setting up, they stand as they ought, from the time they forestalled it. For just as of those chosen for a year, even if one be unworthy of office, yet for that year at least into which he was chosen archon he continues, so for the statues too the time must be valid for which they were set up; and this is all the remaining time.

Or in what will you differ from those who mould figures of clay? And what fine thing will you have to say to those who demand of you a reason why with you the honours are mortal, but the dishonours immortal? If, then, this is in no way shameful, though it is dreadful, are not yearly statues, like the crops, the mark of an altogether conceited polity? For those whom you set up in bronze not that they may straightway perish, but that they may abide the longest time, these you declare softer even than the waxen ones.

Or, by Zeus, because it befell that they were seen to be wicked afterward? If they became so afterward, this does not release the city from blame; for you give the honours not for the future, but for the past. But if, being such before, he was descried afterward, in which of the two ways do you think one would be the more of good repute among the Greeks, and in which would you the more incite those who wish to do you good — by making the decision liable to retrial, or by abiding in what was once resolved? I, for my part, think thus. For the one is the mark of unfortunate men, the other of steadfast ones.

I do not yet say the greatest thing, that it must be not from slander, but from condemnation, nor from any chance charge, but from the greatest, that so great an honour, if indeed it must, be overturned. For as concerns slander, even Socrates would be a corruptor of the young and an overthrower of all things believed among men, beginning from the gods. For whom have these men not slandered, who slander everything? Not Socrates? Not Pythagoras? Not Plato? Not Zeus himself and Poseidon and Apollo and the other gods?

And they lay hands on the female deities too, of whom it were fitting to be more in awe than of the male. For now you hear what they say of Demeter and Aphrodite and Eos; and they abstain not even from Athena nor from Artemis; but the one they strip bare for Actaeon, the other they even unite to Hephaestus and make the virgin all but a mother. Knowing these things, then, do you marvel if against this man too some censure has been spread abroad, which it has been possible for no one of all who have lived in repute to escape, but which took its occasion from his — whether one must call it charm in his discourses or whatever — this which you too with wives and children approved?

Will you not consider? Will you not call to mind among yourselves, whether any such thing has been done by him among you? And yet you inhabit a city the most charming of those that are and have been, but nonetheless you heard nothing, and I would say with confidence that no other of the Greeks did either. Then do you think that the man who lived decorously in Greece, with more impunity and indulgence, has in Rome, beside the very ruler and the laws, changed? But this is much as if one should say that the athlete is well-behaved by himself, but in the stadium and before the games-president plays false.

And I have a double frankness, one on account of the conscience, the other of the games-president. For it belonged to one who believed to take vengeance on the offender, but to one who had heard to be wroth; which that man did. But you followed certain men — but I will say nothing against them as in revenge; except that it were more just for them to follow you than you them.

For you are now, as the saying is, the prow and the stern of Greece, called blessed and wealthy and the like names from ancient times by the poets and the gods, when it belonged to some others too both to be rich and to be powerful; but now, since wealth has forsaken Orchomenus and Delphi, they can surpass you in pity, but not one in envy.

And these things are on behalf of the city, which ought not to incur shame among the Greeks, when him whom you have cast out all gladly receive — not only, but also invite and send embassies and honour with the other honours and indeed with the dedication of likenesses. But on behalf of myself and the likeness I will now say a word which Anaxagoras spoke, having lost a son: I knew I had begotten a mortal. But I knew that each of these statues is dedicated as though it will be eternal, but perishes one by one fate, another by another — the most common and most just and set before all things, that of time;

but the poet who made this epigram boasted vainly, which they say was written upon the tomb of Midas: I am a bronze maiden, and I lie upon the tomb of Midas. So long as water flows and tall trees flourish, remaining here on the much-wept tomb, I shall announce to those passing by that Midas is buried here.

But, O self-announcing maiden, we hear the poet, but seeking you we found you not, nor the tomb of Midas. And those waters and trees still flow and flourish, but in time these too, with the rest, seem likely to fail, like Midas, like the maiden. A man's name was Hippaemon, the horse's Podargus, and the dog's Lethargus, and the servant's Babes. Who, then, of the Greeks knows not — I do not say the horse, but Hippaemon himself? Not even of the Magnesians, I think, whence Hippaemon was. He, then, is gone from among men, he and Babes and Podargus.

But others stand and are recognized, but have the inscription of others, and the thing that happens is like the antispast in lyrics: the inscription speaks Roman, and in a manner the poets teach the contrary; for they have the manner of the Greeks, but the fortunes of the Romans. I beheld also the fair Alcibiades, the son of Cleinias — I know not where, except I beheld in a fine part of Greece — having the inscription of Chalcopogon, and another with his hands cut off, which was said to be of the art of Polycles; a dreadful sight, O Earth and Sun, Alcibiades maimed.

And I know that Harmodius and Aristogeiton served as slaves among the Persians, and that the fifteen hundred statues of Demetrius of Phalerum were all taken down by the Athenians in one and the same day. And they dared even to pour chamber-pots over Philip the king. The Athenians, then, poured urine over the likeness, but that man poured over the city blood and ashes and dust. For it was indeed a thing to provoke nemesis, the same man being now spoken of among the gods, now not even among men.

Then I, knowing these things, that men do not spare even the gods, do you think I take thought for a statue? And the rest I think I shall pass over in silence; but the Isthmian, your games-president, Mummius, having torn him up from his base, dedicated to Zeus — alas for the ignorance — his brother as a dedication, an uneducated man and one who had had trial of none of the noble things. Who inscribed Philip the son of Amyntas, whom he took from Thespiae, as Zeus, and the young men from Pheneus the one as Nestor, the other as Priam. And the people of the Romans thought to see in this that famous thing, the descendants of that man, seeing Arcadians from Pheneus.

These things, then, one may even laugh at. But in earnest it has come to me to call Agesilaus the king of the Lacedaemonians blessed for his judgment, who never thought fit either to have a moulded or imitated likeness of his body made — not because he was lame, as they say, and small (for what hindered the statue from being great? what from being sound of foot, like the Hephaestus of Euphranor?) — but he saw this exactly, that one must not stretch out human fortunes nor risk anything about the body in stone and bronze. Would that one could be rid even of the body.

But farewell to Daedalus and the imitative artworks of Daedalus; enough of Prometheus, enough of clay. And yet they say even the body of the noble is alien, since there are very many things between body and soul. For the one is not, nor cares for the body when it suffers. Cambyses was mad, in that he pricked and scourged the corpse of Amasis the king of the Egyptians. For the Egyptians say that Amasis, long suspecting the harshness of Cambyses, hid his own corpse and substituted another in its stead, and that this was the one that fell into Cambyses' hands.

But, O Egyptians and Cambyses, whether it was someone else who suffered these things or Amasis himself, it was a figure bloodless, fleshless, soulless. This, if you please, drag and tear and prick, but Amasis you have not laid hold of. But another, living, breathing, perceiving, said: Pound, pound the sack of Anaxarchus; for Anaxarchus you do not pound. For this man, having fallen into a mortar and being struck with the pestles, himself said he was not being pounded, but that of his own which happened to be wrapped about him; just as they say the peers among the Persians take their blows on the kandys instead of the body.

The Persians, then, are vexed at this; but a Greek man offered his body to be beaten as a kandys, as a cloak; and shall we not offer the statue to be melted down, even if it perceive? But now the one is beyond perception, while I, like the Laodameia of Euripides, would not betray a friend even though soulless. I wish, then, to console it as though perceiving. O silent image of my words, do you not appear? For neither did Aristeas before you; for thus it was with him too, as I conjecture: that he was set up by the Proconnesians, but made to vanish by his enemies; and that a report was spread by these same men, that Aristeas appeared neither living nor dead. But both then and now and for all time Aristeas lived.

I say that another too shall remember us. For Sappho said it very well; and much more nobly Hesiod: Report no one wholly perishes, whatsoever many peoples voice abroad; she too is some goddess. I will set you up beside the goddess, whence none shall take you down — not earthquake, not wind, not snow, not rain, not envy, not enemy; but even now I find you standing. For oblivion has ere now tripped up and deceived some others too, but the judgment of good men has deceived no one, by which you stand upright before me, man by man.