Oration 45
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- Fellow citizens, I wish to render you an account of this stay of mine, since I think the time remaining to me will be brief. For how I bore my exile — not overcome by the want of friends, nor by lack of money, nor by bodily weakness, and in addition to all these enduring as an enemy not this man or that, some equal or like myself who now and then raised his voice, but the strongest and most grievous, the one called master and god among all Greeks and barbarians, but who in truth was a wicked demon — and that too neither flattering him nor begging off his enmity, but provoking him outright, and the evils that attached to him, by Zeus, not as one who would say or write them now, but as one who had already both said and written them, and these speeches and writings being everywhere; doing this not lifted up by madness and recklessness, but trusting in a mightier power and in the help that comes from the gods, which the many despise and reckon useless —
- to speak of these things one by one I hold superfluous. For among others these matters are better known, and meet with the repute and honour that befits them. But if I recount among you the time of my exile, someone will say that I am not lamenting, but much rather boasting. Now when that man was dead and the change had come, I went up to visit the most excellent Nerva. But, detained by a grievous illness, I lost that whole opportunity, robbed of an emperor who was humane and who cherished me and was a friend of old. And I swear to you by all the gods that it is not for what I might have got for myself or for any of my own that I grieve at having failed, but for what I could have furnished to you and to the city publicly — this I reckon a great harm and loss.
- For the things we now have obtained, it was then in my power to possess these, and to employ the present occasion for further gifts. Since, then, there was from that man so great a humanity and zeal toward me as those who were present know — and which, if I now relate, I shall greatly grieve some, and perhaps the account will not even seem trustworthy: that one who met with so great honour and intimacy and friendship should let all this go and overlook it, having conceived a longing for the turmoil and the lack of leisure here, that I may say nothing more — nonetheless I laid out that opportunity for none of my private interests, nor used the goodwill of the ruler even in part, such as by setting right my ruined estate, or by gaining some office or power, but turned the whole of it, all that it ever was, toward you, and looked only to the city's interest.
- Whether these things are useful and great, or such as have fallen to the lot not of many other cities but of a single one — and that nearly the most distinguished in Asia, and one which has so great a claim upon the emperor, since the god prophesied among them and foretold to him his sovereignty, and since it was the first of all to declare him openly master of the whole — I say nothing of the kind. But that you above all desired this, and that there was a long time during which you hoped, and that you were deceived — bestowing extraordinary honours, prompted only by certain private men who made the promise (for surely none of the governors ever either expected it or promised it), going out in a body far from the city to meet them, or awaiting them in other cities — this perhaps deserves consideration.
- And yet, when these things turned out small and worth nothing, the noble man, who was not inferior to envy and ill-will, ought then to have said: "You are mad and out of your senses, clinging so exceedingly to such things and courting men so lowly over matters neither necessary nor great, and these still uncertain, and you having nothing secure." But, I think, it was grievous to them, however any of these came about. Yet it did not grieve them in the same way that this or that one of the governors should be the man who did it and provided it, rather than one of our own citizens. And besides, hope crept in and beguiled them, as though these things would never come to pass.
- And yet this too I have heard from many who say that, when previously one of the governors had written in reply about the administration, and the matter had failed, many derided the city — not the neighbours (for that would have been less dreadful), but the citizens themselves — on the ground that she was aiming at things greater than her station and differing in nothing, in folly, from the children of kings. And saying these things they were not ashamed to tear down their own fatherland and to lower themselves senselessly in their words. For if they are among the foremost in her, or among the honoured, they lower themselves by presiding over a weak and inglorious city; but if they are among the cast-out and the lowest, they make their own dishonour still greater and harsher, if they happen to be the lowest of the lowest city.
- But that I may not, through the arguments that crowd in, be driven off from the matter proposed — however these things were finally got and brought here, consider whether I have become burdensome to any of the citizens, either by speaking privately on my own behalf, or by publicly bringing up and reproaching favours, or by advancing any of those I wished; or whether, on the contrary, when no fewer than a hundred councillors had been enrolled, others brought in their own friends and contrived to have men to fight at their side and aid them in whatever they might ever wish, while I did no such thing nor said any such thing — though men would rather have attached themselves to me, had I wished it, than to anyone else.
- For most of all I thought it right that no one else either should introduce such a custom, nor govern by faction, nor tear the city apart into parties; but if that could not be, then at least that I myself should hold aloof from such errors, even if I were to have less power than all and to be thought of no account. What error, then, did I commit in these matters, and what was left undone by me? I am bound to acknowledge to you that I myself did nothing unjust or unlawful, nor did I prevent the others, when it was possible with a single word to prevent it, and to rise up and disclose what was being done, even though you and the governors knew. But if neither you attended nor the matter touched the governors, it was no hard thing to write to the emperor.
- This, then, was what made me keep quiet: that I might not seem to accuse anyone, nor slander the city, nor be at all more troublesome to any of those here. The matter of the council, then, was in other respects rightly managed — for you elected men neither base nor unworthy — except that all, having obtained equal honour (and obtaining it justly, and on their own account), nonetheless, like initiates, had need of mystagogues. But I did not think fit even to cast a vote alone for anyone, lest such a thing should seem to lend some weight and testimony, and certain of the others should shrink from writing and declaring the opposite of me.
- What then? For two or three days, while the election was going on, I went out, and was not minded, by being present at what was done, to have anyone as my debtor, or fellow conspirator, or owing me thanks for the matter. For it was for you, not for myself, that I asked the councillors. And so, now that an administration was held for the first time, though wronged in many ways by many — as is natural for one who returned after so many years of exile — and though against some I had no need even of lawsuits, but rather to speak and make mention concerning the property withheld, against no one did I make mention nor utter any word, though so many slaves had run off to freedom, so many had defrauded me of money, so many were holding my lands, there being no one to prevent it.
- For surely Odysseus, who left at home a father and a good wife and friends, came to be so despised because of his absence that some, seizing his house, feasted and drank, drawing off the wine each day and slaughtering the cattle, and in the end did not even keep their hands from his wife, but tried to force her against her will to marry and to abandon her husband and his house. Yet it was not likely that I should have suffered many such things at the hands of many, with all having given me up and no one any longer expecting that I would come through.
- But in these matters I have perhaps shown myself unlike others — and I mean more temperate not only than private men, but than many of those called philosophers as well. Yet in my deeds I gave the city pain. And concerning these things, how they came about, you have often heard; but perhaps it is necessary to recall them now too. For I, men, confess that I wished to adorn and equip the city not only with porticoes and waters, but, if it had been possible, with walls too, and harbours, and dockyards.
- And this passion — call it boyish, if one will, or senseless — I do not deny: the wish both to settle the city and to gather into it as great a multitude of men as I could, and not only of the natives, but, had it been possible, by compelling other cities to come together as well — just as Epaminondas once settled Boeotia into Thebes, and Theseus Attica into Athens; and the Mytilenaeans too are said once, having occupied Aeolis and the regions about the Hellespont and the Troad, to have gathered all Lesbos into their single city.
- Nonetheless, knowing the dispositions of some of the men here, and my own power, and my lack of leisure, and the length of my stay — that it is altogether brief for me — I neither laid hold of anything greater nor hoped to; only my own mind I could not restrain, but just as lovers ever recount such things about the objects of their desire as they also long for, so I too often made mention of the things I thought it would profit the city to have, for the sake of its equipment and settlement and revenues and countless other ends.
- And if ever an occasion comes for these things to be accomplished, and one of the gods brings it to pass, then you will see the excess of certain men's enmity and of their hatred toward me — not to say toward you — how they will no longer speak and revile ambiguously nor gently, but openly and outright, and, if they cannot prevent it, will hang themselves sooner than behold the city such as, the gods willing, it is not impossible for it to become. At that time, then, when the governor received the matter — perhaps for your sake, perhaps also for mine — and convened an assembly, without my foreknowing it, and read out these things, I could not keep quiet, but rose up and gave counsel and made the matter plain to those who did not know it.
- And after this it was not the case that you, the people, desired the works, while one of those in office spoke against them; nor that no one indeed spoke against them, yet none was found eager and lending a hand; but all, as upon things good and advantageous, lending a hand not in word only and contributing together; and the matter, as a fair and magnificent one and advantageous to the city, came about thus.