Oration 67
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- (Dio.) In what, then, do you think the self-controlled and philosophic man differs most from the rest of us, who are carried along at random? — For my part, if I must declare it thus baldly and without elegance, he seems to me to differ in truth, and in knowing—not only the many, but the very few who are deemed blessed. — (D.) A philosopher in very deed, and yet no bald and inelegant saying. And tell me this, in the gods' name: do you mean anything else than that the philosopher differs from the rest by truth, and by examining each thing with reference to truth and not according to opinion? — 2. For it would be with a poor measuring-rod, my excellent friend, and one altogether crooked—not, by Zeus, having a single bend, but ten thousand, and all of them opposed to one another—that he would weigh things, were he to try to set them straight by opinion. — (D.) Does he, then, examine all other things with reference to truth, nowhere applying opinion, as being something that is in truth false and an unsteady weight and a measuring-rod such as you have just described; but, in weighing himself by this rod and this weight, would he be a man of worth? — No, by Zeus, by no means. — (D.) For it is plain that he would never come to know himself by examining himself in this way. — No, he would not come to know himself. — 3. (D.) So that he would no longer obey the Delphic injunction, which bade him above all things know himself? — How could he obey it? — (D.) Then he will know nothing of the rest of his affairs, being ignorant of himself, nor will he be able to test anything with reference to truth, having gone astray about his own first self? — Altogether so. — (D.) He will, then, bid farewell to honours and dishonours, and to blame and praise from foolish men, whether they happen to be many, or few but strong and rich. And what is called reputation he will hold to differ in no way from a shadow, seeing that it becomes small in the case of great men and great in the case of small ones, and often, too, in the case of the same men, now greater, now less. — 4. You seem to me to have made a very apt comparison. — (D.) If, then, there were such a man as to live with regard to his own shadow, so that, when it grew, he was elated and gave himself great airs and sacrificed to the gods and bade his friends do likewise, but, when it grew shorter, was grieved and appeared more dejected, and the more so the smaller it became, as though he himself were wasting away—he would, I think, afford a wonderful spectacle. — He would be far more foolish than Margites, who knew not how a man should use his wife after marriage. — 5. (D.) For on the same day he would now be grieved, now glad. In the morning, when he saw his shadow at dawn very long, almost greater than the cypresses and the towers upon the walls, he would plainly rejoice, as having suddenly become equal to the Aloadae, and would walk to the marketplace and to the theatres and everywhere about the city, that he might be looked upon by all. But about the time when the marketplace is full he would begin to grow gloomier than himself and would withdraw. And at midday he would be ashamed to be seen by anyone, and would stay indoors shut up, whenever he saw his shadow at his feet; but again, toward late afternoon, he would recover himself and appear ever more exultant as evening came on. 6. — You seem to me to be fashioning a most absurd disposition and a foolish man. — (D.) Then the man who attends to reputation is no whit better, but far more wretched. For he would often undergo more changes in a single day; and, not, indeed, like that man, at certain fixed hours, but both in the late afternoon and at dawn nothing will keep him from being the most unfortunate of men—now borne up and flying higher than the clouds, if some chance to bear witness to him and praise him, now contracted and abased, his soul undergoing, in my opinion, far more waxings and wanings than the moon. 7. Has he not, then, drawn a more wretched lot and a far more unfortunate destiny than they say Meleager, the son of Althaea and Oeneus, obtained—for whom they say a certain firebrand held in keeping the span of his life: while it blazed and the fire remained in it, he lived and flourished; but when the brand wasted away, Meleager too wasted under grief and despondency; and when it was quenched, he passed away in death.