Oration 23

Dio. Does it seem to you that a man is happy—or, if not, that he has been or will be happy—or do you hold such a thing impossible in the case of a man, as though one were to say that a man is immortal? For perhaps you might hold the same opinion as Homer and many other of the poets.—And where does Homer declare himself on this matter?—Dio. Where he has made Zeus himself say—not some other of the gods—that there is nothing more wretched than man of all the creatures "that breathe and move upon the earth." Does he not seem to you to call wretchedness outright a kind of ill-fortune?—

To me he does.—Dio. And another poet, not speaking thus in private, but contending publicly before the theatre, brings in the view that we ought to lament the one who is born for all the evils he is going into, but the one who has died and ceased from his toils we ought to send forth with rejoicing and shared gladness.—That is so.—Dio. Then he did not counsel rightly. For if men must once for all weep because of their misfortune, then it is fitting both to lament them at their birth for the sake of the evils that shall come to them, and at their death because they have suffered many terrible things, and while they live because they are in evils.

So that, according to the poet, it would be time never to cease lamenting, far more than the nightingales. For they are said to mourn for Itys in the spring; but men, it would seem, should mourn in summer and winter alike. And how much better to let men, once born, perish at once of their evils, rather than to wrap them in swaddling clothes and bathe them and nurse them, taking such great care that they shall be wretched—for that is the part of enemies, not of friends nor of those who care for them—and, by Zeus, to dispatch ourselves first of all from life?

For, by this argument, the only ones likely to have become prudent are those who were born in Colchis from the dragon's teeth, which Jason sowed. For these, as soon as they perceived that they had come to be, straightway slew one another, until they left not a man—helping one another, plainly, and doing this out of friendship, not out of enmity.—

But this poet, at least, seems to me to be talking nonsense. It is the saying of Homer that troubles me, that, being so wise, he declared this opinion concerning mankind.—Dio. And what strange thing has he said? For he does not say that all men are wretched, but that no creature is more wretched than man—the man, that is, who is wretched—just as, no doubt, we ourselves would say. For perhaps man alone of all creatures is ill-fortuned, just as he alone is happy; since indeed he alone is senseless, just as he alone is prudent. For neither unjust nor licentious could a horse or a pig or a lion be, just as neither unmusical nor unlettered.—

But you seem to me to have set Homer's saying right well, and I answer that I hold a man can be happy.—Dio. Do you say, then, that the man whose daimon is good is happy, and that the man whose daimon is base is ill-fortuned?—I do.—Dio. And do you mean a daimon good in any other sense?—Why, how else?—Dio. As a man is good, and still more a god? Or do you, if indeed you believe the gods to be good, not believe them just and prudent and self-controlled and possessed of the other virtues, but unjust and senseless and licentious?—By no means I.—Dio. Then a daimon too, if you hold any to be good, plainly you hold to be just and useful and prudent?—Of course.—Dio. And the one you reckon evil—do you think this same daimon base and unjust and senseless?—It must wholly be so.—

Dio. What then? Does not each of men live according to his own daimon, of whatever sort it may be, and not according to another's?—By no means according to another's.—Dio. Then the man who has met with a good daimon you hold to live justly and prudently and with self-control? For such, you agree, is his daimon.—Quite so.—Dio. And the man of a base daimon to live basely and senselessly and foolishly and licentiously?—These things appear to follow from what has now been said.—Dio. Then whatever man has sense and is just and self-controlled, this man is happy, consorting with a good daimon; while whoever is wanton and senseless and a knave, must we call ill-fortuned, yoked to and serving an evil daimon?—

True.—Dio. And do you call any other man wise than the prudent and just and holy and brave man, and base the man who is unjust and unholy and cowardly?—I do.—Dio. Then no longer wonder at those who say that the wise man alone, and wholly, is happy, and that of the base there is none who is not ill-fortuned; since indeed this too seems good to you.—

In other respects you seem to me to have argued not contrary to opinion; but how one ought to hold a divine being to be base and unjust and senseless I cannot say. And besides, it is not in keeping with you philosophers, if indeed you hold the divine to be divine, to suppose any such thing.—Dio. But I have now argued most of this not according to my own opinion—save this very point, that to me it seems that the wise man, every one and he alone, is happy—but the rest according to the opinion of the many, that I might not seem to do them violence.

For come: if you do not hold the divine to be divine and good and the cause of no evil to anyone, how do you say a man becomes ill-fortuned? Is it not when men neither attend to nor obey the divine, which is good? Just as if we should reckon all physicians good in the matters of their art, and none of them a base or harmful physician, but should see some of the sick faring badly and being harmed in their illnesses, plainly we should say that these were unwilling to do what was ordered, while those who obeyed must come off well; and we should not wonder at what came to pass.—That is so.—

Dio. Which, then, seem to you to disobey the experienced physicians who prescribe what is beneficial—the self-controlled and prudent and sensible, or, on the contrary, the senseless and licentious?—Plainly the licentious.—Dio. And again, to obey the daimon, being good, and to live according to him—do you hold this to belong to the self-controlled and sensible, or to the base and senseless?—

To the self-controlled.—Dio. And not to obey nor attend, but to act contrary to the divine and the daimon, to the evil and the witless?—How else should we put it?—Dio. And that those who obey the daimon, being such, are happy, but those who disobey ill-fortuned?—It must be so.—Dio. Then here too it follows that the wise and prudent man is wholly happy, and the base man ill-fortuned—not because the daimon is evil, but because the man does not attend to him, good as he is.