Oration 41
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- That you, members of the council, and the most moderate of the rest who are present, are disposed gently and in friendly fashion toward me — this I think I know. For I am conscious in myself of setting great store by your goodwill, and of never having either said or done anything against you; and you, the moment I arrived, honoured me by sending a public decree, rejoicing at my return and inviting me to take up residence with you.
- And perhaps you did nothing remarkable; for not only the rest of the cities, but most of those of equal rank with you — wherever I have been — bestowed on me, who asked for nothing, both citizenship and a seat in the council and the foremost honours, holding me neither useless to themselves nor unworthy of honour. But your action is not foreign to you, but is just what one might expect from a fatherland honouring its own citizen out of goodwill and gratitude. That there should be some here — as is natural in a popular assembly — who are perhaps not greatly pleased with me, I should not wonder at, on account of the rivalry between the cities. And yet I know clearly that I am unable to please even all the citizens there, but that some are vexed for this very reason, that I seem excessively devoted to my city and zealous.
- But the reasonable and moderate man ought to grant his own citizens this liberty as well. For that no one in a city should either contradict a single person or find fault with him, even if he plainly does everything well, is not the mark of free peoples nor reasonable, but such a thing is wont to befall tyrants rather than benefactors. If, then, there are some ill-disposed toward me, in these above all I put my trust. For it is plain that they are so disposed because they believe that I love my own fatherland and exalt it in every way. If, then, they are persuaded that I hold this too to be my fatherland, and that I am eager to do on its behalf whatever I can, they will readily change and will cherish me like the rest.
- That I love my fatherland most of all, then, I do not deny. But I ask them whether they think this the mark of an unjust and base man, and whether they would not wish to have such a citizen among themselves. Then it is in your power to have me too as a citizen without suspicion, and the best of the others as well. And indeed for this very reason you might more justly trust me. For whoever is thoughtless toward his natural parents could never be dutiful toward those who have adopted him either.
- But he who loves those who begot him would never neglect those who have become his parents by grace. For the bond of nature is involuntary, but that of grace is freely chosen. I am, then, a citizen of both; but to the one I need owe no thanks for this, whereas it is just to requite you as benefactors. For it is through your goodwill and gift that I share in your city. But to all who have become citizens themselves, the gift alone has the quality of a favour, while the necessary tie of nature is not present. To me, however, both belong.
- For my grandfather, together with my mother, obtained from the emperor of that time, who was his friend, at one and the same time the Roman citizenship and yours; and my father received it from you. So that both by grace and by birth I am your citizen. For to trace one's descent more than two generations back is in no way reasonable; for no one, to tell the truth, will be found a true native of any city in this way. And indeed, of my own children this is the more truly the fatherland. For it is a necessity that children follow their father; but it is far pleasanter for a father to follow his children.
- For these reasons, then, I happen to be well-disposed toward you and to hold the disposition of a citizen; and I have shown it plainly. For when the rivalry between the cities had set in, and when my fatherland was greatly reluctant to trouble me against my will, yet greatly desirous to take up the matter, often inviting me by honours — I did not yield to this one thing alone, though I should have shrunk from nothing for her sake, being able perhaps to accomplish it as well as any, and having friends neither few nor without power (that I may say nothing invidious, nor anything that will pain certain persons), and though I do not shrink from the journey, when I must go in any case for other reasons.
- These things, then, being so, I held aloof from the matter — not betraying them, but out of regard for you, and thinking that I should be of more use both to them and to you, if I am able to make the cities friends, freeing them from their former disputes and turning them henceforth toward goodwill and concord. For this is of all things the best and noblest, not only for equals toward one another, but also for the stronger toward the weaker.
- I know, then, how hard it is to take strife out of men, and that too when it has been nourished over a longer time, like a disease that has grown together with the body from long since and is not easy to be rid of — especially if one would heal it without pain. Nonetheless I trust in the character of the city, holding it to be neither hard nor ignorant, but in truth the true offspring of those men and of that blessed city by which you were sent here, as friends to friends, to dwell here; which, surpassing other men so greatly in good fortune and in power, has surpassed them yet more in fairness and humanity — on the one hand sharing ungrudgingly both citizenship and laws and offices, deeming none of the worthy a stranger, and on the other guarding justice alike for all.
- Imitating her, it befits you to show yourselves gentle and high-minded, and not to be harsh nor haughty neighbours to those so near and all but living with you, with whom you share marriages and children and constitutions and sacrifices to the gods and festal gatherings and spectacles, and with whom you are educated as individuals and feast together and receive one another and pass the greater part of your time together, and are well-nigh one people and one city at no great distance. And indeed you have made many from there your citizens too, and have given them a share in your council, and have not thought it beneath you that they should become magistrates among you, and have shared with them in these august privileges which belong to the city of the Romans.
- How, then, is it reasonable to consider each man individually a friend and to honour him, yet in common to deem the city an enemy — you theirs and they yours? For those who love men, and mingle with them, and take them as fellow citizens — what is left for them but to hate the air and the places, or — what it is not even lawful to say — to be at enmity with the gods? And indeed all enmity toward all men is troublesome and hard; for no enemy is so weak but that he has given pain on occasion even to one who appears exceedingly strong, and has displayed his hatred either by speaking some painful word or by doing some harmful deed.
- For the fruit of hatred is, one may say, never sweet nor profitable, but on the contrary the most unpleasant and most bitter of all things; nor is any burden so hard or so toilsome to bear as enmity. For it ever troubles prosperity and magnifies misfortunes, and to him who is grieved at something else it makes the grief double, and it does not allow those who fare well to rejoice as they deserve. For of necessity, I think, the many are both harmed by one another and despised and ill-reputed among the rest — on the one hand because they have adversaries, and on the other because they are themselves senseless and contentious. But than friendship and concord nothing is finer or more divine, both for man toward man and for city toward city.
- For who acquire good things more honourably than those for whom friends help to provide them? And who escape misfortunes more easily than those whom friends fight beside? And whom do griefs touch less than those who have men to share their pains and to aid them? And to whom is good fortune sweeter than to those who, in faring well, gladden not only themselves but others also? For I, for my part, would not call that man fortunate who has no one to share his joy.
- And what fellow-worker, what omen, is better to those who behold it than a friend met by chance? For this is well-nigh an omen not only of the fairest sound but also the most profitable — and so is any well-disposed man whom one may meet. But the things of hatred and of enmity are everywhere painful and grievous. Hard is the presence of an enemy in time of earnest effort, hard in time of festivity; painful to those who see him, painful to those who remember him, but of all things by far the most harmful to those who make trial of him.