Oration 69
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- It seems to me a perplexing thing that men praise and admire one set of things, but desire another and have set their hearts upon another. For they praise, one may say, all of them, and call divine and august, courage and justice and prudence, and, in a word, the whole of virtue; and those whom they hold to be such, or to have been such, or near it, they admire and celebrate; and some they declare to be gods, others heroes—such as Heracles and the Dioscuri and Theseus and Achilles and all who are called demigods. And whomever they suppose to resemble these, all are ready to obey and to serve in whatever he commands, and to appoint as their king and ruler, and to entrust their own affairs to him—whomever they suppose to be truly self-controlled and just and prudent, and, in a word, a good man. 2. So that in this respect one could not blame them as not perceiving that virtue is something august and honourable and worth everything. Yet they desire anything rather than to become good, and do everything sooner than to attain self-control and become prudent and just and men of worth—able to govern themselves well, to manage a household well, to rule a city well, to bear wealth well, and poverty well, to behave well toward friends and well toward kinsmen, to care justly for parents, and to serve the gods piously. 3. But some busy themselves about farming, others about trade; some set out for soldiering, others for medicine; some learn building or shipwrightry; others to play the lyre or the flute, to cobble shoes or to wrestle; others have all their zeal directed to seeming clever at speaking in the assembly or the law-court; others to being strong in body. And yet the merchants and farmers and soldiers and physicians and builders and lyre-players and flute-players and trainers, and besides these the so-called orators and those very strong in body—one would find the most of them, or very nearly all, wretched and unfortunate. 4. But if the soul becomes prudent and the mind good, and they are competent both to manage their own affairs rightly and those of others, these must of necessity live happily too, having become law-abiding men, having met with a good genius, and being friends of the gods. For it is not to be expected that some should be prudent and others experienced in human affairs, nor that some should know human things and others divine, nor that some should be knowledgeable about the divine and others holy, nor that some should be holy and others dear to the gods; nor will some be dear to the gods and others happy. Nor are some men senseless and others ignorant of their own affairs; nor do those who are ignorant of their own affairs know the divine; nor are those who have base notions about the divine not unholy. Nor is it possible for the unholy to be dear to the gods, nor for those not dear to the gods to be other than unfortunate. 5. Why, then, do those who strive to be happy not show eagerness to make themselves such men? But the things which they may do without being hindered from living ill and wretchedly—for these they take all care? And yet without flute-players and lyre-players and cobblers and trainers and orators and physicians it is not impossible for men to live very well and lawfully; and, I think, even without farmers and builders. 6. The Scythian nomads, at any rate, though they neither have houses nor sow nor plant the land, are in no way hindered from living justly and according to laws; but without law and justice it is not possible for men to avoid living ill, and far more savagely than the beasts. And further, where the cobblers and farmers and builders are poor, nothing grievous results on that account, but the shoes are worse, and the wheat and barley less; but where the rulers and judges and laws are inferior, the affairs of those men are in worse case, and life is more unfortunate, and factions and injustices and outrages and much impiety spring up among them. 7. And further, it is profitable for a man who is not himself a cobbler to buy shoes from another, and for one who does not know how to build to hire another for this, and for one who is not a farmer to buy grain and pulse; but for a man who is himself unjust it is not profitable to obtain justice from another, nor for one who is senseless and ignorant of what he ought to do and from what to abstain, to go to another, with intelligence in each case. For, besides the rest, the man who needs money or clothes or a house or anything else both knows it and seeks to get it from those who have it; but the man who has no sense does not even know this very thing, that he has no sense; rather he says he is competent and stands firm in his folly, doing and saying everything foolishly; and he denies that he is unjust or foolish or licentious, but says that he is as competent as may be in these matters, of which he never took any care nor learned anything for their sake. 8. For they do not even believe that there is a science by which they will know what they ought to do and what not to do, and how they shall live rightly; but that the written laws are sufficient for them in this. But how they shall obey the laws and willingly do what those laws approve, they give no thought at all. And yet how is the man who seems to abstain from stealing through fear, but does not hate the thing and condemn it, any less a thief than those who pilfer? Unless we are also to say that the man who does not steal by day, but only when night has come, is, in the daytime, not a thief but a just man. Then they need many to threaten and punish them, as being unable themselves to abstain from wrongdoing, even when at home; and, being such men, they choose lawgivers and exact penalties by their laws—just as if, being unmusical, they were to choose the musicians, and, understanding nothing of geometry, the geometers. 9. And here is a sign of the wickedness of men: for if they were to do away with the laws, and there were impunity for striking one another and killing and plundering their neighbours' goods and committing adultery and stealing clothes, who must we suppose would be those that would abstain from these things and not very readily and promptly commit every crime? And even now, no less, we are unwittingly living and sharing citizenship with thieves and kidnappers and adulterers, and in this respect we are no better than the beasts; for they too, if they are afraid of men keeping watch, or of dogs, abstain from seizing their prey.