Oration 57
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- Why, do you suppose, did Homer make Nestor speak these verses to Agamemnon and Achilles, exhorting them and teaching them not to be at variance with one another? — "For ere now I have consorted with better men than you, and never did they make light of me. For never yet have I seen, nor shall I see, such men as Peirithous and Dryas shepherd of peoples, and Caeneus and Exadius and godlike Polyphemus, and Theseus son of Aegeus, like to the immortals. Mightiest, indeed, were they of men reared upon earth; mightiest were they, and with the mightiest they fought, the beast-men of the mountains, and terribly did they destroy them. And with these I held converse, and they hearkened to my counsel and obeyed my word. But do you also obey, since to obey is better."
- Has he then made Nestor a boaster, by saying about Peirithous and Dryas and the others that, being wonderful by nature and far better than those present, they yet had need of his judgement, and that he came summoned into Thessaly from Pylos, they begging him to associate and converse with them? For having said further that they were the mightiest of men, he seems to bear them great witness, that they understood his judgement and obeyed his words. Or is this well-nigh the very thing for which we contend — that no one of those who understand ever disobeys those who speak rightly, but that disobedience is the same as want of understanding?
- Come, then, let us examine the rest also — whether he has spoken rightly or out of boastfulness. The senseless, then, all despise men of no repute and pay no heed to them, not even if they happen to give the best counsel; but those whom they see honoured by the multitude or by the most powerful, these they do not think it beneath them to obey. For this one reason, then, Nestor commends himself: that he was formerly able to persuade many and powerful men, and that those men, according to their own folly and insensibility, will disobey, if they do disobey — not because he is incapable of counselling about the greatest matters.
- As, then, if by reviling himself and saying that no one had ever thought fit to take counsel with him about anything, he were going to prompt Agamemnon and Achilles to obey his words, he would not have shrunk from reviling himself; so, if he thought praise would urge them to this, with reason he praised himself. Or is it not the part of a senseless man to be ashamed to praise himself when he is going to be of the greatest benefit? — just as, I think, conversely, to make much of oneself and to speak on one's own behalf, when some danger or harm attends it.
- As, then, when a physician, wishing that a man should submit to be cut or cauterized, or to drink an unpleasant draught, knowing the man to be cowardly and senseless, makes mention of others saved by him because, persuaded, they endured the treatment — no one says that the man who says these things is boasting — so, it seems to me, neither would Nestor justly incur the charge of boastfulness.
- This one benefit, then, came from the words; and another. He knew that Agamemnon and Achilles erred from no other cause than insolence; and he held that men are insolent well-nigh most of all whenever they despise others and think them far worse than themselves, lifted up by reputation or power; whereby he recognized that both Achilles and Agamemnon were on this account lifted up and at faction, each through arrogance. For the one thought that, being son of Peleus and Thetis and surpassing the men of that time in fighting, it befitted him to obey absolutely no one nor to consider any man his better; and for Agamemnon the cause of his insolence was the power of his kingship and his being the sole ruler of all the Greeks.
- Seeing them, then, corrupted by these things and unable to be of one mind with one another, but swollen in their souls — as Achilles afterward says, "but my heart swells with wrath" — he wished to humble them and, if he could, to bring down their pride, like those who lance or press what is swollen. For this reason he made mention of famous and powerful men, and, moreover, I think, of men born earlier, knowing that reputation more readily attends those of old.
- And indeed he did not leave it to them what judgement they would form about those men, but himself declares outright that they were far better than these — if only they could let down a little of their conceit and madness. Does it seem to you, then, that Homer attached these words to Nestor at random — Nestor, whom he says was the most eloquent of men, and whose power of words he likens to the nature of honey, which to the healthy is the most pleasant and sweetest of all things, but to the sick and the fevered, as they say, is most unpleasant, and is wont to cleanse and to sting what is ulcerated and afflicted?
- For indeed the speech of Nestor, appearing sweet to the rest, seemed bitter to Achilles and Agamemnon, sick and corrupted as they were by anger, so that they were not persuaded by him, on account of their folly. Nor, then, did Homer say even this in vain, nor, as some suppose, by chance. Or does it seem to you that children, whose mouths are gnawed and corrupted by sores, do not grow vexed and cry out when they taste honey? But about these things let us let be.
- But it is worth considering this, from what has been said: if a man, in conversing with men, relates to them that, having formerly conversed with others far better — peoples, or kings, or tyrants — he did not fail with them, but had them obeying and persuaded, is he justly thought a boaster, as making mention of those discourses for this purpose, that he may be admired and seem blessed — or rather that he may have his hearers obedient, imitating the teaching of Nestor?
- For indeed it would be strange if Socrates, moving a little way, reported to those in the Academy the discourses spoken in the Lyceum, and again, coming to the Lyceum, did not shrink from discoursing of those in the Academy, and if for so long a time now men teach the same tragedies and comedies — but we should seem to do a strange thing, if, since you wish to listen to certain discourses, we report now those spoken to the emperor, as though it made no difference to know whether those were profitable and useful, both to you and to all other men, or mean and useless.
- For know well that, in the case of private men, the discourses spoken to them concern those very men and a few others; but those addressed to kings are like public prayers or curses. Whence I think the Persian neither in other respects prudent, nor in this — that he sent chance men everywhere, called "the king's ears," and entrusted to them to hear everything, when he ought to have guarded the king's ears far more than the golden plane-tree, lest he hear something disagreeable and harmful.