Oration 74
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- (Dio.) Do you know of some men who have ere now been harmed by enemies? — How could I not? — (D.) And what of this—by so-called friends and intimates, or even by certain kinsmen, and some indeed by their nearest, brothers or sons or fathers? — Yes, many. — (D.) What, then, is the cause whereby not only do enemies wrong their enemies, but the so-called friends one another, and, by Zeus, many even of those so closely bound? — Plainly the wickedness of men, by which, I think, each man is even harmful to himself. — (D.) Then must one guard against all one's friends alike, and trust none of them the more, even if he seems to be a friend or an intimate or a blood-relation? — All of them, as this argument says. — (D.) Then did he write rightly who wrote this verse: "Be sober and remember to distrust; these are the very joints of the mind"? 2. — Perhaps rightly. — (D.) And indeed it is plain that the poet was laying down these precepts not with regard to enemies, but to those reckoned friends. For surely a man would not give license against himself to those by whom he knows himself hated. How, then, could he enjoin distrust toward those whom no one trusts? Come, then, let us look at this also: by whom have more men perished—by avowed enemies, or, on the contrary, by those who pretend to be friends? For I see that of the cities that have been captured, more have perished through traitors than have been taken by storm by the enemy; and that altogether more men lay blame on friends and intimates than accuse their enemies for their misfortunes. 3. And further, against enemies all have walls and forts prepared, and these sometimes have, for many years, no use at all; but against fellow-citizens, and those who share in the same temples and sacrifices and marriages, and who are of one another's tribe and deme and kin, there are the law-courts and the laws and the magistracies. And these are never at rest. The cities, at any rate, are forever full of men accusing, defending, judging, being judged; and not even in the sacred months or the truces can they refrain from one another. They lay down, at least, other laws concerning the wrongs committed at festivals, and these they call "sacred," as though the name were of any use. For the war of wickedness is continual, of all against all, being truceless and heraldless; and most of all does this war exist among those near to one another. 4. The man, then, who wishes to live in peace and with some security must beware of fellowship with men, and know that the nature of the many is ready to impart some wickedness, and must not trust though one say ten thousand times that he is a friend. For there is nothing stable nor true among them; but the man whom they prefer above all things, even above life itself, if it so chance, they reckon a little later their bitterest foe, and often do not even spare his body. 5. The lover, at any rate, cuts the throat of his beloved through loving him overmuch, as he thinks, being provoked by some chance cause. And others kill themselves, some unwillingly through incontinence, some willingly, though there is nothing amiss in their life save the baseness within them. For the other harms each man does to himself it is plainly not possible to recount in full. What trust, then, is there toward such men, or what security? Or how could he love me who does not even love himself? For the saying spoken to the Athenians, when, being in extremities, they made some claim about Samos, might well, I think, be said to those who creep into the friendship of the base: "He who does not love his own self, how does he love another, whether stranger or child or brother?" 6. What, then, when a man shows kindness and swears by sacred things and is all but ready to cut himself to pieces? One must indeed hear these things of necessity, and, by Zeus, perhaps nod assent; yet one must know clearly that none of them is sound. Electra, when she saw Orestes weeping and embracing her, thought at the time that some relief had come to him, yet she was far from trusting altogether. Seeing him, at any rate, a little later in derangement, she says: "Alas, my brother, your eye is troubled; swiftly have you changed." 7. The sea one may often see so calm that, I think, even the most cowardly man would scorn it. What then? Is one on this account to trust it, and put to sea with neither anchors nor rudder nor the other things needful for safety? For you will see, if it so chance, a little later, when a wind has come down hard, a mighty surge and swelling waves, "monstrous, like mountains, arched and white-crested"; and the man who now appears to you gentle and shows great goodwill and zeal, when some chance cause has overtaken him, you will find savage and harsh and ready to work any evil whatsoever. 8. How many things do you suppose Medea prayed to the gods on behalf of her children, or how often was she in anguish when they were sick, or how often would she have chosen to die in their stead? Yet nevertheless she became their slayer with her own hand. By Zeus, someone will say, when angry and jealous. But do you not think the many too would be jealous? And what of this—envious? And what—hopeful? For they are well-nigh always and continually in these states. Do not, then, trust those who profess goodwill, and that they would never abandon their friendship toward you. For just as the streamers that mark the wind are forever waving according to the set of the breeze, now this way, now toward the other side, in the same manner the mind of the base is thus disposed toward every shifting. 9. No one trusts slaves when they make agreements, because they are not their own masters; far more should one not attend to the agreements of such men. For men are, on the whole, much further from freedom through their wickedness. The law does not allow those younger than a certain age to make contracts, as being untrustworthy; nor, among the Athenians, a woman to transact business beyond the value of a medimnus of barley, on account of the weakness of her judgment. But the base differ in nothing from the very young, or rather not even from little children, except in their power and their cunning; wherefore it is fitting to distrust them more than those. 10. For it would be a blessed thing, if, just as time makes a child and a lad and a young man and an old man, it likewise made one prudent and just and trustworthy. And indeed wicked men are no better than base women. For they differ in body, not in mind. Just, then, as the law in no way allows those women to undertake matters of greater worth, but it is fixed how far it is fitting for them to go—in the same manner, I think, one must share with the many up to the smallest matters, but never in greater affairs, or necessary counsels, or the security that concerns one's life. 11. For even if at any time they abstain from doing harm for whatever cause—just as wild beasts often lie still, sleeping or sated, yet have not cast off their own nature—in like manner those men too, for some time, have done no harm, and then, a pretext arising, they pay off, as they say, both the interest and the principal of their baseness. The Spartan, when in conversation certain men were making an agreement with him and asking him to take from them whatever pledge he chose for their friendship, said that there was one pledge—that they should not be able to do wrong even if they wished—but that all the rest were simple-minded and utterly worthless. 12. This pledge alone must one take from the many, and no other. For that which comes from words and intimacy and oaths and kinship is ridiculous. Atreus was the brother of Thyestes and the uncle of the children whom he cut to pieces; Eteocles and Polynices were not only brothers by law, but, being sprung of a son and a mother, of the closest kin. So that, if kinship were of any use, these above all men ought to have loved one another the more; yet the one who was trusted first cast out the one who trusted him and robbed him of his fatherland, and after that they slew one another. 13. Theseus killed Hippolytus, though he was his father and the son of Poseidon, persuaded by slanders, having cursed him. Priam, formerly preeminent in prosperity and reigning over so many nations and so great a region—"all that Lesbos, the seat of Macar, encloses to the north, and Phrygia above, and the boundless Hellespont"—through his son and that son's incontinence became the most wretched of all. And these are the conspicuous cases. But how great a multitude do you suppose there is in every city of obscure and common Atreuses and Thyesteses, some even killing secretly, others plotting other things? 14. Of Aëropes and Clytemnestras and Stheneboeas it is not even possible to say how many there are. But such are the matters of kinship and intimacy; what of those of oaths? Pandarus swore to Menelaus, as did the rest of the Trojans, but nevertheless wounded him. Did not Tissaphernes swear to Clearchus and his men? And what of this—did not the king send also the royal gods and his right hand? And did not Philip the Macedonian continually, just as with any other thing useful for war, keep perjury prepared too, and take cities by these two means—by breaking treaties and by suborning betrayers? Being altogether on the more familiar footing toward the former; for to the betrayers it was necessary to give money, but to the gods about oaths he paid nothing. 15. And Lysander the Lacedaemonian, they say, declared his opinion that children must be deceived with knucklebones and balls, but men with oaths and words. And the wily fox in Archilochus—what other is it? And do you not think that most men have ere now given the response of Glaucus—to swear—since "death awaits even the man true to his oath"? And these aforesaid men, and others such, have come to be renowned because of their circumstances; but of the more obscure Glaucuses and Pandaruses the marketplaces are full of men, and full the streets. Wherefore they take neither Apollo nor Athena as counsellor of their perjury. 16. But for men intimacy is a great safeguard of doing no wrong, and treaties and shared tables. Eurytus was killed by the man entertained at his house—"wretch, who reverenced neither the regard of the gods nor the table which he set before him; and afterward he slew him too." And yet this man who reverenced neither the gods' regard nor the table was deemed a god, and "takes his pleasure in the feast, holding fair-ankled Hebe." Archilochus was in no way helped by the salt and the table toward the agreement of his marriage, as he himself says. 17. Lycaon, being senseless, falling a second time in the way of Achilles, when he ought either to have fought eagerly or to have fled the faster, says: "For at your house first I tasted the grain of Demeter." And so, earlier, when he had not yet partaken of the food at his house, being sold into Lemnos he was saved; but then, being taken, he was slaughtered. So much did Demeter help him. The ducks and the partridges we do not hunt until they have eaten of our food. 18. And Aegisthus killed Agamemnon "having feasted him, as one slays an ox at the manger." And by the Trojans he suffered nothing in the ten years he made war on them, and was never once a guest at their hearth; but coming to his own house after so long a time, having sacrificed to the gods and set forth his own table, he was so cruelly slain by his own wife. 19. And after this, meeting Odysseus below, he reproaches Clytemnestra; for she did not even close his eyes as he died; and besides this he urges him never to trust a woman, nor to disclose to her a weighty word. And yet it was not because she was a woman that Clytemnestra so disposed of him, but because she was wicked; and one ought to be no more gentle to a woman than to a man. 20. But I think that each of those who have come to grief most suspects that very thing by which he has suffered ill, and forewarns the rest to guard against it: the man stung by a viper, the viper; the man stung by a scorpion, the scorpion; and the man whom a dog has bitten you will see forever carrying a stick about. This very same thing the many have experienced toward men. To one man some dreadful thing befell from a woman; he, then, cries out: "O Zeus, why have you settled women, a counterfeit evil, among men in the light of the sun?" Another, having received a guest, was grieved by him, as Menelaus when Alexander made off with his possessions and his wife. Such a man is set against guests; another against a brother, another against a son. 21. But the matter is not of this kind—for it is not the brother, nor the kinsman, nor the guest, that is by nature given to wrong, but the wicked man; and this kind is found in well-nigh all relations—but, if you have sense, beware of all. A guest? Beware. He says he is moderate? Beware the more. Let this stand unshaken. "By Zeus, but he shows the goodwill of a clever fellow?" Then receive this man, with gratitude to the gods, and, if you will, to him too; but for the future one must guard against him. For what someone said of Fortune might far more be said of men—that no one knows about anyone whether he will remain such even until the morrow. 22. They transgress, at any rate, the agreements they make with themselves, and counsel themselves one thing and another, and, thinking one thing advantageous, do another. Whence, when a man, through trusting, comes to grief at the hands of one of these difficult fellows, he is ridiculous in blaming that man, when he ought to blame himself, and in sometimes calling upon the gods, as having been deceived by a man who was a friend and intimate. But the gods laugh, knowing that he has deceived himself by relying on another. Those who stumble on the roads, or, by Zeus, fall into mud or a pit, are not angry with the stones or the mud; for they would be utterly besotted, when they ought to blame themselves and their own inattention. 23. What then? someone will say; must one choose the life of a wild beast and live in solitude? Not of a wild beast, but of a prudent man who knows how to live safely. For solitude is far safer and better than fellowship with men, if it be without fear and apart from concern for common affairs. Just as, I think, for voyagers the open sea is more advantageous than the land, unless one sails in fair weather and with clear knowledge of the places; for on the open sea it is rare that a ship is anywhere destroyed, but along the shores and about the headlands one may see the wrecks. 24. Therefore, when a storm overtakes them, each of the inexperienced longs for the land, but the helmsman flees as far off as possible. And yet one might find waveless harbours, in which one may trust and ride at anchor in safety, however great the wind may rise; but the most moderate of men resemble summer anchorages, which shelter for the present; for each of these too is reasonable with regard to some one thing in life, but not with regard to the rest. For the sake of money, indeed, none of them would wrong you—grant that there is such a man—but perhaps, when anger or ambition has overtaken him, you would not find him unmoved and trustworthy; another is moved by no passion such that one could trust him securely. 25. With such men, then, one must deal only so far as necessity requires, and utterly little, for the most part keeping oneself awake and on guard—as the poet says of Hector toward the Achaeans: "But he, with the skill of war, his broad shoulders covered by his oxhide shield, watched for the whir of arrows and the thud of javelins." In like manner, in life, one must, with prudence and knowledge held before one and sheltered by it, flee and guard against the wickedness of men and the arts and the plots which they are wont to employ. 26. And, on the whole, it is astonishing if eating at the same table is to be a hindrance to wickedness, and, by Zeus, drinking from the same mixing-bowl, and looking at the same lamp; while beholding the same sun and being nourished from the same earth no wicked man takes into account; but the inn, or, by Zeus, some other house built of stones and timbers, mingles men together and is able to bring them into friendship—as Odysseus claims: "Reverence the roof; we are beneath your shelter." So he holds the hut—and that one built of timbers grown in the enemy's land—more worthy of reverence than the men themselves. But the whole heaven, beneath which we all are from the beginning, helps nothing toward concord, nor the fellowship of the universe, divine and great as it is; but, on the contrary, that of small and worthless things does. 27. And each man's own father, often a worthless old fellow, is a great safeguard, that those of the same family should not plot against one another; but the common father of all, "of men and of gods," from whom we are all sprung, being no Laches nor Simon, cannot restrain nor prevent the wrongdoing of men. And indeed, that one would not trust the words spoken on behalf of friendship—for this is what remains—is surely plain. 28. For it is ridiculous that, when lending money to one's neighbours, a man would not easily trust to word alone, but needs witnesses and writings, and that many transgress even these. What then? someone says; have there not been some friends among men of old? Such as anyone might name—those bruited-of demigods, Orestes and Pylades, and Theseus and Pirithous, and Achilles and Patroclus? Yet even if one should grant that this opinion is true, it is plain that there would have been three friendships in all that time in which one might say the sun has been eclipsed more often.