Oration 55

Dio Chrysostom

Translated by Thothica

In the atlas

12 min

Since you appear to be in other respects an admirer of Socrates and to be struck with wonder at the man in your discourses, can you tell me whose disciple among the wise he was — as Pheidias the maker of statues was of Hegias, and Polygnotus the painter and his brother both of their father Aglaophon, and Pherecydes is said to have become the teacher of Pythagoras, and Pythagoras of Empedocles and others, and of most of the rest we can tell the teachers of the famous men, by associating with whom each became worthy of mention — save only Heraclitus of Ephesus and Hesiod of Ascra? For the one says that, tending his flocks on Helicon, he received his poetry from the Muses in a sprig of laurel, that we may have no trouble seeking his teacher;
and Heraclitus, still more nobly, that he himself discovered the nature of the universe, of what sort it is, with no one teaching him, and became wise from himself. For of Homer, as the other things about him, so this too is unclear to the Greeks. But of Socrates we have heard that, when a boy, he learned his father's craft as a stone-cutter; but the teacher of his wisdom, which proved so profitable and fine — do you tell us clearly, and do not grudge it.
D. Why, this at least, I think, is clear to many — to whoever is acquainted with both men — that Socrates in truth became a disciple of Homer, not, as some say, of Archelaus. — And how is it possible to call him a disciple of Homer who neither associated with Homer nor ever saw him, but was born so many years after Homer? — D. What then? Whoever was born in Homer's time, but heard none of Homer's verses, or, hearing, gave heed to none of them — is there any way we shall call that man a disciple of Homer? —
By no means. — D. Is it not strange, then, that the man who neither associated with him nor saw him, but understood the poetry of Homer and became acquainted with his whole thought, should be called a disciple of Homer? Or will you say that no one is an emulator of anyone among those who did not associate with him? — I, for one, will. — D. If, then, he is an emulator, he would also be a disciple. For he who rightly emulates someone surely knows that man, of what sort he was, and, imitating his deeds and words so far as he can, endeavours to make himself like him.
And this same thing the disciple too seems to do: imitating his teacher and giving heed, he takes up the art. But seeing and associating is nothing toward learning; for many both see the flute-players and associate with them and hear them daily, and yet could not even blow upon the flutes — those, that is, who associate with them not with a view to the art, nor giving heed. But if you scruple to call Socrates a disciple of Homer, and call him only an emulator, it will make no difference to me. —
To me this seems no less strange than the other. For Homer was a poet such as no other; but Socrates a philosopher. — D. So be it; on that reckoning you would not call even Archilochus an emulator of Homer, because he did not use the same metre for his whole poetry, but other metres for the most part; nor Stesichorus, because the one composed epic verses, while Stesichorus was a lyric poet. —
Yes; this at least all the Greeks say — that Stesichorus became an emulator of Homer and very greatly resembled him in his poetry. But in what respect does Socrates seem to you to resemble Homer? — D. First and chiefly in character. For neither of them was a boaster nor shameless, like the most ignorant of the sophists. For Homer did not even think fit to say whence he was, nor of what parents, nor by what name he himself was called; but, for all of him, we should not even have known the name of the man who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Socrates, on the other hand, could not conceal his fatherland, because of the greatness and the very great renown of Athens, and because she ruled the Greeks at that time; yet he never said anything great about himself, nor laid claim to any wisdom, though Apollo had given the oracle that he was wisest of Greeks and barbarians. And at the last he himself did not leave his discourses behind in writing — and in this at least he surpassed Homer. For just as we know the name of that man by hearing it from others, so too we know the discourses of Socrates because others left them behind. So exceedingly chastened and prudent were both the men.
Then they alike disdained the acquisition of money, both Socrates and Homer. And besides, they were both in earnest about the same things and discoursed of them — the one through poetry, the other in prose: about the virtue and vice of men, and about errors and right actions, and about truth and deception, and how the many opine and how the prudent know. And indeed they were both most apt at likening and comparing. — This is wonderful, if to the comparisons of Homer — of fire and winds and the sea and eagles and bulls and lions and the rest, with which Homer adorned his poetry — you will think fit to compare the potters and the cobblers of Socrates. —
D. Yes, my good friend — if indeed we also compare the fox of Archilochus to lions and leopards and say it falls short in nothing, or not by much. But perhaps you reject such things even in Homer — where he makes mention of starlings or jackdaws or locusts or a firebrand or ashes or beans and chickpeas, or has portrayed men winnowing — but these you think the meanest things of Homer's;
and you admire only the lions and the eagles and the Scyllas and the Cyclopes, with which he charmed the insensible, as nurses do children by telling them of the Lamia. And indeed, just as Homer endeavoured through myths and stories to educate men — who are very hard to educate — so too Socrates often used such a method, now confessing to be in earnest, now pretending to jest; and for this reason he benefited men, though perhaps he gave offence to the mythologists and the prose-writers.
Nor, then, did he make Gorgias or Polus or Thrasymachus or Prodicus or Meno or Euthyphro or Anytus or Alcibiades or Laches speak in vain, when he might have removed the names; but he knew that by this above all he would benefit his hearers, if somehow they should understand. For to discern men from their words, and words from the men, is not easy for any but philosophers and the educated. The many, however, suppose that such things are said in vain, and reckon them a mere crowd of names and idle babble.
But Socrates held that, as often as he brings in a boastful man, he is speaking about boastfulness; and whenever a shameless and loathsome one, about shamelessness and loathsomeness; and whenever an unfeeling and irascible one, that he is turning men away from unfeelingness and anger. And in the case of the rest likewise, he showed the passions and the diseases more clearly upon the very men possessed by the passions or the diseases than if he had spoken his discourses bare.
And this too seems to me he took from Homer. For that poet, whenever he relates of Dolon — how he desired the horses of Achilles, and how, able to escape the enemy, he stood still when the spear was fixed near him and his swiftness profited him nothing, and how he chattered with fear and clashed his teeth together, and how he told the enemy not only whatever they asked, but also things about which no one inquired (for he disclosed the Thracian horses and Rhesus, whose arrival no one knew of) — relating these things so very vividly, does he not seem to you to be discoursing of cowardice and love of glory?
And whenever he tells of Pandarus — how he broke the truce, hoping for gifts from Alexander son of Priam, and neither slew Menelaus by his shot, though reputed a competent archer, and, transgressing the oaths, made the Trojans more dispirited toward the war, ever mindful of the perjury: "But now, having sworn false to faithful oaths, we fight; wherefore nothing is the better for us";
and the manner in which he died, his tongue cut out not long after, before Alexander could so much as say in words that he was grateful to him — relating these things so carefully, does he seem to be speaking about anything other than bribe-taking and impiety and, in sum, folly? — Pandarus, who even cursed his arrows and threatened to break them in pieces and burn them, as though the arrows feared him.
And whenever he tells of Asius son of Hyrtacus — that, when the general had ordered them to leave the horses outside the trench, he alone did not obey, but "drove up with them close to the swift ships, the fool; nor was he, escaping the evil fates, destined, exulting in horses and chariot, to return back again from the ships to windy Ilium" —
driving into such difficult ground of trench and wall and ships, where it did not even profit the foot-soldiers, who were caught by the enemy, but, a small sally being made, the greater part perished; while he, lifted up by his horses and the beauty of his chariot, thought to drive over the wall, and was ready, having plunged into the sea, to fight from his car — does he not then appear to be speaking about disobedience and boastfulness?
And again, setting beside these Polydamas, bidding them be wary and not cross the trench, both showing the matter to be perilous and at the same time the omen that had come to them — for otherwise he thought no one would endure his speaking, but with the omen he might perhaps persuade Hector; or Nestor, stopping from their anger those who were reviling about Agamemnon and Achilles, and plainly foretelling what would befall them from the faction, and afterward rebuking Agamemnon as one who had erred and compelling him to entreat Achilles; or Odysseus correcting the error of Agamemnon, who, wishing through it to test the army, how they would bear the protraction of the war, came near to making them flee — does he not seem to be teaching about prudence and generalship and divination, and besides these, about timeliness and untimeliness?
And in the Odyssey I let the rest be, and will mention one only, Antinous. For him he has made the most boastful of the suitors and the most licentious; who, first, despised Odysseus because he was in rags, while he himself was in costly raiment, and drank from golden cups — and those not his own — and dined sumptuously, not from his own patrimony, but sponging upon a masterless house; and he said he was in love with Penelope, yet consorted with the maidservants of Odysseus and in other respects was licentious — not as some men now;
and at the last he tried to shoot, being inexperienced in archery and his hands so ruined by luxury that he could not even touch the bowstring unless someone should smear it with fat — and that too with Odysseus looking on and his beloved present, among so many men — being unable even to bend the bow, nor understanding how Telemachus would set up the axes. Nonetheless, the poet made this man too, when he died, struck not at random through the throat, not just anywhere — just as, indeed, Pandarus through the tongue. For even if such things befall by some chance, yet in many cases one may say that this man ought to die struck through the belly, that one through the private parts, that one through the mouth.
Does Homer, then, seem to you to say anything at random? Nor, then, did Socrates use his discourses or his examples idly, but in conversing with Anytus he made mention of tanners and cobblers; and if he conversed with Lysicles, of lambs and fleeces; with Lycon, of lawsuits and false accusations; with Meno the Thessalian, of lovers and beloveds. Yet he was also at no loss for other examples on occasion, naming friends and friendship when he conversed with Lysis, and about temperance when conversing with Charmides.