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Don't stir the fire with a knife.
PythagorasLet no man by word or deed persuade you
To do or to say that which is not best for you.
PythagorasI myself would wish neither;
but if it were necessary either to do wrong or to be wronged,
I should choose rather to be wronged than to do wrong.
Socrates in Plato, Gorgias 469O that Love would you and me unite in endless harmony.
Aristophanes, The Acharnians 991
Greek religion from at least the time of Hesiod had a divinity
called Peace (Irene),
and in this cult animal sacrifices
were not allowed.
Peace was depicted in sculpture as the mother
of Wealth (Plutus).
Many of the religious cults of ancient
Greece joined together in amphictyonic leagues
in order to preserve
peace by means of mediation and conciliation between the city
states.
They protected people and sacred places by maintaining
neutrality in time of war.
They had a religious authority, but
the council was composed of representatives from
the various cities,
giving it a democratic or federalist structure as a confederation
of states.
The most important amphictyonic council was Delphi
which served the Greek peninsula.
The lonians of Asia Minor were
in the Delian amphictyony.
The Delphic council exercised judicial
powers and could be used to arbitrate disagreements.
Even when
wars did break out, amphictyonic law prohibited member states
from
cutting off water supplies and burning down cities;
those
who disobeyed these rules were liable to be destroyed by total
war.
Pythagoras lived during that sixth century BC which gave
so
many inspired religious leaders to humanity.
He was born in Samos
and traveled widely.
Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras
wrote that he studied
with the Syrian Pherecydes as well as Anaximander
and Thales.
Later he attended Pherecydes when he was dying.
Pythagoras
visited Epimenides and the cave of Ida on the island of Crete.
He was initiated into the mysteries of Greece and those of the
Chaldaeans and Magi.
He entered the sacred temples of Egypt, learned
the Egyptian language,
and gained the secret spiritual knowledge
from the priests.
When he returned to his homeland of Samos, he
found it under the tyranny of Polycrates.
So about 531 BC when
he was about forty years old,
Pythagoras went to Krotona in Italy, where he developed a constitution for the city.
Sybaris with about
100,000 people was perhaps the largest Greek city state then.
Often in conflict with Krotona, the two cities together
destroyed
the town of Siris in about 530 BC.
At Krotona in Italy Pythagoras found people most receptive
to his mystical teachings.
There he founded a school and religious
community, which shared all things in common.
His mystery school
soon had about three hundred students,
and many others came to
listen to him but lived independently.
When someone left the community
after having given them their worldly goods,
twice as much was
returned.
Managers took care of the material things.
Though he
never wrote anything himself and many of his teachings were secret,
they were passed on by his disciples for generations.
Based on
these accounts, later biographers wrote that he could remember
his past lives
and even proved that he had fought in the Trojan
War.
Xenophanes told how Pythagoras stopped the whipping of a
puppy,
because he recognized the soul of a friend.
He taught the
immortality of the soul, which goes through
many lives by reincarnating (metempsychosis).
Many miracles and clairvoyant abilities
were attributed to him,
including having been at two distant places
on the same day.
It was said he never over-indulged his appetites
nor did he punish anyone in anger.
He encouraged people to behave in such a way that they would
turn their enemies
into friends rather than turning friends into
enemies.
As those in the school held their possessions in common,
he advised them to consider nothing their own.
He warned people
not to allow anyone to persuade them by words or action to do
or say
that which is not best for them, thus establishing the
principle of individual conscience.
He taught that humans are
akin to the divine and that God does care about humans.
For Pythagoras
the most important thing in human life
is the art of winning the
soul to good.
Virtue, health, all good and God are harmonious,
and therefore
all things are constructed according to the laws
of harmony.
Friendship is harmony and equality.
Later accounts claimed that his teachings helped to liberate
many cities in southern Italy and Sicily.
He taught the young
to respect their elders and the adults to honor the gods.
As he
encouraged the control of desires, his main method
was educational
in developing the mind through learning.
Instead of calling himself
wise, he pursued wisdom through friendship
and therefore called
himself a philosopher, possibly the first to do so.
Philia
means friendship, and sophia means wisdom.
Life, he
said, is like the great games in which the best role is the spectator;
most people hunt for gain or fame, but philosophers search for
the truth.
Pythagoras urged the Krotonians to build a temple to the Muses,
and he emphasized justice based on equality.
Late in life Pythagoras
married Theano and had a daughter Damo and a son Telauges.
He
and his wife both taught that intercourse within marriage did
not make anyone
impure so that they could enter a temple even
on the same day.
He advised women to love their husbands as much
as they wanted and asked them
not to consider that they had subjected
their husbands
whenever they yielded anything to them.
Pythagoras
especially urged the young to learn.
Music was very important
in his school and was used for healing;
the advanced students
also studied mathematics.
Diet was also important for health,
and those initiated
abstained from animal foods, alcohol, and
beans.
He urged a simple life with a diet of uncooked fruits and
vegetables
and drinking only pure water as the best way to a healthy
body and alert mind.
He forbade the killing of animals.
To be
initiated, candidates had to be tested by the master's assessment
of their characters; a long period of silence was required.
Dressed
in white for purity, each day they took solitary walks
in the
morning and in small groups in the afternoon.
Calmness and gentleness
were encouraged.
They did not hunt nor associate with hunters
or butchers.
Pythagoras suggested reviewing the previous day
upon
awaking and before going to sleep at night.
Pythagoras taught that all life is akin, and so he believed
in universal friendship;
he did not worship at altars where animals
were sacrificed.
Pythagoreans became known for their close friendships
and devotion to each other.
He often taught through symbolism
so that the deeper teachings
were not given to the profane; scholars
are still often baffled by many of his sayings.
The inner meaning
of some of his guidelines was explained
by the classical writer
Diogenes Laertius in his biography of Pythagoras.
Don't stir the fire with a knife:
don't stir the passions or the swelling pride of the great.
Don't step over the beam of a balance:
don't overstep the bounds of equity and justice.
Don't sit down on your bushel:
have the same care of today and the future,
a bushel being the day's ration.
By not eating your heart he meant
not wasting your life in troubles and pains.
By saying do not turn around when you go abroad,
he meant to advise those who are departing this life
not to set their hearts' desire on living
nor to be too much attracted by the pleasures of this life.1
Often someone might play the lyre while others sang, and poetry
might be recited.
Pythagoras discovered the mathematical relationships
of the notes on the scale as well as
the theorem for right triangles
named after him
(although the Babylonians knew it long before).
Pythagoras taught harmony in all things
which meant concord in
friendship and justice in politics.
He and his disciples often
helped to settle disputes by arbitration or mediation.
Pythagoras
did not believe in chance or luck but that divine providence guided
all things.
Thus he warned against being attached to personal
wishes
but instead recommended asking for the will of the gods.
He taught the immortality of the soul and found nothing strange
about
one of his students having had a dream in which he conversed
with his deceased father.
Pythagoras carried on the teachings
of the Orphic mysteries
as well as those of the Egyptian priests.
Yet more than anyone before him, Pythagoras combined the spiritual
teachings
with the pursuit of knowledge and science.
He believed that the soul has a divine source and is immortal;
its proceeding through a series of lifetimes implies that evolution
is the law of spiritual life.
He taught that living creatures
are reproduced from one another by germination
and that there
is no spontaneous generation from earth.
Upon returning home Pythagoras
suggested asking, "Where did I trespass?
What did I achieve?
And what duties did I leave unfulfilled?"2
Pythagoras may
have been the first to use the term cosmos to imply that
the entire universe has order, which he taught could be understood
by mathematics.
He taught that number is the law of the universe,
while unity is the law of God.
Plato credited Pythagoras with
teaching a way of life,
and many of Plato's ideas can be traced
back to Pythagoras.
The analysis of the psyche by its three components
of the appetites, emotions, and the mind
whose respective virtues
are temperance, courage, and wisdom as well as
the justice and
friendship that harmonize all of them
was probably first formally
taught by Pythagoras.
He taught that the seat of the soul extends
from the heart to the brain.
Pythagoras found himself in the middle of a conflict
when there
was a revolution in Sybaris in 510 BC.
Telys took power as king
and got the Sybarites to confiscate the estates and exile
five
hundred of the wealthiest citizens who took refuge in Krotona.
Telys sent ambassadors threatening war unless Krotona gave up
the exiles,
which would have meant certain death for them.
According
to Diodorus of Sicily, Pythagoras persuaded the Krotonians
to
protect the suppliants, whom they had granted political asylum.
In the ensuing war Krotona, with the help of the greatest athlete
in Greece Milon
and perhaps the Spartan prince Dorieus, defeated
the far larger Sybarite forces,
killed many, and destroyed Sybaris
by flooding it with the Krathis River.
Eventually the aristocratic and esoteric ways of the Pythagoreans
aroused animosity.
According to Iamblichus, after Sybaris was
captured, the multitudes grew resentful
that the land was not
divided by lot.
Ninon accused the Pythagoreans of opposing democracy
and
led an attack against them, expelling them from Krotona.
Another
version is that a prominent Krotonian named Cylon was refused
admission
into the community because he was violent and tyrannical.
Frustrated Cylon and his followers set fire to their residence,
and many Pythagoreans
may have died in the fire or were killed
afterward.
According to Porphyry, Pythagoras escaped and fled
to Metapontum,
where he starved himself to death.
Pythagorean teachings were quite influential in classical Greece.
Empedocles who lived in the fifth century BC studied
Pythagorean
doctrine with Telauges, the son of Pythagoras.
When Empedocles
published his poetry and made the teachings public,
the Pythagoreans
decided to exclude poets.
Later on Plato was also excommunicated
for revealing the esoteric doctrines.
Empedocles considered himself
a god, and it was said
that he performed healings, prophecies,
and miracles.
In his two poems, On Nature and Purifications,
he taught that there are two principles
in the universe - Love
and Strife - and that everyone is always following one or the other.
The golden age is when people are following the law of love, friendship,
and concord.
In the golden age love is even extended to animals,
and all of life coexists in peace and harmony.
He also believed
that the soul is divine and immortal and that it may spend
many
lifetimes following Strife until the rule of Love is learned.
Empedocles cried out, "Will you not stop discordant bloodshed?
Do you not see that in reckless folly you are devouring each other?"3
Since humanity is one family, it is like a father slaughtering
his son
and like children eating the flesh of their parents.
Socrates (469-399 BC) took the cue for his life-long search
for wisdom
from the Delphic oracle which declared that no one
was wiser than Socrates.
He tried to find someone who was wiser
but came to realize that
God alone is wise and that the oracle
had recognized him for knowing this truth.
Socrates was a great
teacher although he never claimed to be such
nor did he accept
money for his conversation.
He spent his entire life in the city
of Athens except when he served as a citizen soldier
on the military
expeditions to Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium.
He was praised
for his courage by the general Laches after he fought off foes
during their retreat at Delium, and Alcibiades said that Socrates
saved his life at Potidaea
and then encouraged the generals to
give the prize of valor
to the officer Alcibiades rather than
himself.
Obviously Socrates was not a pacifist, but he stands
out
for his zealous love of justice and obedience to his own conscience.
He struggled for justice as a private citizen because he felt
that if he had become
a public statesman, he would probably have
been put to death even sooner.
However, when his tribe was serving
as Prytanes,
it became his duty to preside over the Athenian Senate.
This assembly attempted to put on trial together the naval commanders
who had not buried the dead after their victory at Arginusae.
Socrates believed that this was clearly illegal - first to group
them together,
second not to allow them time to prepare their
defense,
and third because the popular assembly was not a court
and had no right to condemn to death.
Socrates went against strong
popular opinion of the time
and flatly refused to support the
illegality.
Even though orators threatened to impeach and arrest
him, Socrates decided that
it would be better for him to
run the risk for the sake of the law and justice
rather
than participate in the injustice out of fear of imprisonment
and death.
The six men were condemned and executed,
even though
the illegality was generally recognized afterwards.
This occurred
under a democratic government.
During the oligarchic government of the Thirty, Socrates was
summoned and ordered
with four other men to bring in Leon from
Salamis to be put to death.
Socrates later explained that the
Thirty gave these commands to people
in order to implicate as
many as possible in their crimes.
Socrates again risked death
rather than do something unjust or unholy,
as even the strong
arm of that oppressive government
could not frighten him into
doing wrong.
Although the other four men went to Salamis and fetched
Leon,
Socrates went directly home; he might have forfeited his
life
if the government of the Thirty had not been shortly thrown
out of power.
Finally Socrates was put to death by those who resented his
criticisms
and feared his spiritual influence on others, particularly
the youth.
He would not agree to stop his pursuit of wisdom and
justice as he saw them,
and in his trial he courted death and
was given that sentence.
Although given an opportunity to escape
from prison,
Socrates chose to obey the law - even though in this
case it meant his own execution -
rather than to run away like a
coward.
In Plato's Crito dialog Socrates argues that it
is never correct to wrong or retaliate
by returning evil after
having suffered evil.
The first well-known martyr of recorded
history and the first philosopher
known to have been executed
by a state, Socrates positively worked for good
and did not resist
with any form of violence the evil threats and actions taken against
him.
Socrates often discussed justice and how the ideal state
would
operate both for the individual and in society.
He countered the
traditional idea that we ought to help our friends and harm our
enemies
by showing that justice never does wrong or harm;
therefore
to be just we must not harm anyone.
Since justice is a virtue
of balance, health, and harmony,
and since virtue leads to true
happiness, then it is wise for us to be just.
Justice is good
and healthy for the individual soul and for society,
while injustice
is a spiritual cancer for both.
Only one thing is worse than committing
wrong and that is to fail to correct the wrong.
Thus Socrates
implied that we not only ought to refrain from unjust actions,
but that it is also essential to the health of our society that
we work to correct any injustices that may be occurring.
In addition
to his personal example, the way that Socrates endeavored to do
this
was by educating people to follow justice above all.
In his
conversations he continually worked to bring more awareness
to
the other speakers on whatever topic was being discussed.
Yet
he always allowed them their freedom of choice
as he assisted
them in looking at new viewpoints.
Socrates often discussed the topic of justice.
Xenophon recollected
a long conversation he had with Hippias on justice,
in which Hippias
comments that Socrates is still talking about the same old things.
Hippias boasts that he can say something new about justice,
and
Socrates is eager to hear.
However, Hippias complains that Socrates
is always questioning others,
and he challenges him to give his
own account.
Socrates begins by mentioning that his own deeds
are just,
but Hippias asks him for a definition.
Socrates declares
that "what is lawful is just."
The discussion shows
that this means the laws made by the citizens
as covenants or
agreements with each other, even though some break them.
The just
person who obeys these laws and keeps one's agreements is the
most trustworthy.
However, Socrates does not limit justice to
public laws but includes also "unwritten laws,"
which
must not have been made by persons because
they are shared by
various cultures which speak different languages.
Hippias suggests
that God made these laws for people,
for the first one is to revere
the gods.
Socrates adds the duty of honoring one's parents and
the prohibition against incest.
Hippias disagrees with the latter
because he finds that some transgress it.
However, Socrates points
out that those who do cannot escape punishment.
Another duty,
that of returning benefits, is also broken,
but such persons suffer
the gradual loss of friends.
In conclusion, Socrates suggests
that the gods ordain what is just,
and therefore even the gods
"accept the identification of the just and the lawful."
Apparently Socrates taught the universal principle of law
based
on divine will as the best system for justice.
Defending himself before the jury in Plato's Apology, Socrates
declares that
justice is more important than death, and he cites
the case of Achilles.
Socrates had a deep conviction in the ultimate
justice of life as indicated by his statement:
"I believe
it is not God's will that a better person be injured by a worse."
Socrates refers here to a substantial injury to his soul,
not
mere loss of civil rights, banishment, or even death.
Rather he
warned his accusers that the law of justice would
bring punishment upon them for condemning an innocent man.
Socrates also refused
to bring in his family to make an emotional plea,
because it would
be an attempt to sway the judges to grant favors.
This is not
the duty of a good judge;
instead he exhorted them to judge according
to the laws.
In the Crito he maintains his conviction that
it is just and best to obey the law,
even though it means his
own execution.
Socrates discussed justice in situations where
others, such as Crito,
might have thought other considerations
were more important,
because for Socrates justice was apparently
most important.
In Plato's Gorgias Socrates discusses justice in relation
to rhetoric,
which only attempts to make things appear just.
Socrates
takes the martyr's position that it is better to suffer injustice
than to do it;
for doing injustice injures the soul, while suffering
injustice purifies it.
Socrates believes that all happiness consists
of education and justice.
He shows that it is actually worse for
the wrong-doer not to be punished,
since punishment is the justice
which cures the soul.
The soul is more valuable than the body;
therefore keeping it in balance
through justice is more important
than physical pain and will lead to true happiness.
Justice prevents
wrong-doing from becoming a chronic cancer of the soul.
The best
use of rhetoric, then, is to reveal to a person
his own injustice
so that it may be quickly corrected.
If virtue is happiness, and vice is misery, then the greatest
evil that can happen to someone
is to do wrong and not be corrected
for it by punishment.
Thus it is better to suffer wrong than to
do wrong.
Ultimately this love of goodness can transcend even
the fear of death.
Socrates concludes the discussion with an account
of the judgment
which occurs after death when the soul has departed
from the body.
The judges in the other world pay no attention
to what the body had been like
or the social status, but they
look only at the quality of the soul and its actions.
The wicked
are sent to be punished in Tartarus,
and the virtuous go to the
Islands of the Blessed.
This was Socrates' way of explaining that
ultimately the gods are just,
and every soul gets its due.
Plato's Republic begins as an investigation of what justice
is.
The definitions of Simonides that justice is paying one's
debts and being truthful
are refuted by Socrates by means of exceptional
cases,
although a better dialectician might have been able to
make
the distinctions necessary to rescue these definitions.
Socrates,
however, is clearing the way for a more comprehensive search.
He also refutes the common idea that justice is to benefit one's
friends
and harm one's enemies by showing it is unjust to injure
anyone.
Socrates refutes Thrasymachus' notion that injustice is better
than justice
by describing how complete injustice arouses hatred
and is totally incompetent;
even a gang of thieves has to be somewhat
fair and cooperative
among themselves in order to be successful.
On the other hand, "justice brings oneness of mind and love."
The just are wiser, better, and more capable of action.
Socrates
has made it clear that justice is better than injustice,
but he
is not yet satisfied that he knows what justice is.
Now Glaucon asks Socrates to show that justice is not only good
for its consequences
such as rewards and reputation, but is good
for itself alone even without these other things.
Socrates is
pleased to accept the challenge,
as he is delighted to discuss
justice over and over.
Plato's Republic is supposed to
describe the ideal state, but there is a critical turning point
in the discussion when Socrates and the others disagree on the
best state;
Socrates willingly follows Glaucon and others who
wish to create a "luxurious" state.
Socrates has suggested
a simple life-style, which would be harmonious and peaceful;
but
it soon becomes clear that a state, which wants more than it is
able to produce
and fairly trade for, will have to take over the
land and goods of its neighbors.
Such a luxurious and feverish
state must be
prepared for war and maintain a strong military
force.
Certainly such a military state, which takes advantage
of other states by force of arms,
is suffering from the disease
of injustice, and using resources
to support the army makes it
even worse.
Yet Socrates clearly perceived that the origin of
such an imperialist state can be found
in the greed of its citizens,
who desire more than their fair share
of the goods the world is
able to produce.
The terrible irony is that the misdirection of
human resources into the military
reduces the amount of constructive
goods and increases the suffering
from destructive conflicts between
states.
Thus much of the Republic is really a discussion
of such a militaristic state.
Socrates does describe the good judge.
The training of the judge
is not exactly analogous to the training of the physician.
The
physician benefits from having experience himself with diseases,
but it is better for the judge to keep his soul pure of moral
corruption.
He should not know evil from practice but from long
observation of the evil nature in others.
For Socrates it was
fundamental that a judge be a good person.
Finally when Socrates
has shown that the soul as akin to the eternal
and that the divine
is in its best condition by itself
when it is virtuous and just,
the challenge has been answered.
Then the rewards can be added
also.
The gods love those who are just; in the long run
the just
fare better, and the unjust end up suffering.
Socrates caps his
discussion of justice with a tale of the other world
and the rewards
and purgation which follow the judgment after death.
From the
perspective of the soul, to be just is to be blessed, and to be
unjust is to suffer.
Tragically the heroic battles that the Greeks fought in self-defense
against the Persian invasions of 490 and 480 BC were later followed
by the Peloponnesian War between the Greek city states
of Athens
and Sparta and their respective allies.
The earlier plays of Euripides
seem to promote Athenian imperialism;
but as the war dragged on,
his tragedies criticized war more and more.
However, the comedy
writer Aristophanes satirized the war
and called for peace from
the beginning of the long war.
In 427 BC when the first comedy
of Aristophanes was produced,
he was below the legal age of 18;
so he was probably born in or soon after 445 BC.
He wrote about
forty plays in as many years, but only eleven still exist.
He
was an Athenian citizen whose family owned land on Aegina.
His
second play, The Babylonians, satirized the demagogue Cleon
and portrayed
the allies of Athens as slaves of Athenian imperialism,
causing Cleon to bring charges against him.
He must have been
acquitted because he continued to satirize Cleon the next year.
In The Acharnians, produced in 425 BC, he complained
the
politician had lied, slandered, and abused him nearly to death.
Despite its strong criticism of Athens' current war with Sparta,
The Acharnians won first prize.
Dicaeopolis, whose name
means "just city," is waiting for the assembly to begin;
but the Prytanes as usual are late, and he says they do not care
one jot for peace.
He intends to interrupt the speakers who do
not speak of peace and complains
when a man who only wants peace
is dragged away.
Dicaeopolis gives eight drachmas to an
ambassador
to make peace for him and his family with the Lacedaemonians.
Amphitheus is attacked for carrying treaties in the countryside
where the vineyards have been cut down, but he brings a five-year
treaty,
a ten-year one, and one for thirty years for Dicaeopolis
to taste.
The first smells of tar and naval preparations and the
second of embassies
as though allies are hanging back; but the
third of nectar and ambrosia
he takes with pleasure to release
himself from the war.
Happily he tells his wife that the six weary
years of absence
are over because he has a private treaty.
The Acharnians, however, pelt him with stones for making the
treaty
and call him a traitor, hating him worse than Cleon.
Dicaeopolis
argues that their enemies are not entirely wrong,
as the Spartans
have suffered wrongs from the Athenians.
He offers to debate the
issue with his head on the chopping block.
He notes how the Athenians
love to hear themselves praised by some intriguer,
while they
are bought and sold.
Dicaeopolis goes to Euripides to get some
rags to wear.
The Acharnians become divided between him and Lamachus,
who represents the military.
Dicaeopolis wants to vomit in the
crested helmet, but they debate.
Lamachus goes off to fight the
Peloponnesians,
while Dicaeopolis trades with the Megarians and
Boeotians.
This is against the war boycott for which he may be
turned in by an informer,
but he tries to sell an informer as
Athens' latest product.
The chorus praises reconciliation and
love, which unites all in endless harmony;
the truce of Dicaeopolis
becomes a valued commodity.
In the final feast the harshness of
military life and equipment is contrasted
to tasty food, wine,
and pleasant female company.
Lamachus goes off to be wounded by
a lance,
while Dicaeopolis goes away with two girls to make love.
This comedy is a powerful protest against the war and a call for
a peace treaty.
The Knights was presented the next year a few months
after Demosthenes initiated
and Cleon exploited the successful
Athenian attack on Peloponnesian Sphacteria.
Cleon had become
so popular and powerful that no one would make a mask of his face,
and Aristophanes had to play the part himself using only makeup.
The Paphlagonian tanner represents Cleon, while the masks
of the
other two slaves of Demos, whose name means "people,"
depict the Athenian generals Demosthenes and Nicias.
Demosthenes
tells how Paphlagon has won over the master
not only by making
his boots but by licking them as well.
Demosthenes says that when
he cooked up the Spartan dish at Pylos (Sphacteria),
the tanner
took it to the master as his own;
he also accuses Paphlagon of
collecting protection money.
Demosthenes gets Nicias to steal
Paphlagon's oracles, and they discover that
a sausage peddler
will supplant him.
So they persuade the sausageman to go into
politics so that he can step on the senate,
fire the generals,
and f--- around in the Prytaneum;
his eyes can take in from Caria
to Carthage, and he can buy and sell everything.
The sausage-man wonders if he should learn how to govern the
people first,
but Demosthenes assures him he already has the requisite
abilities from sausage-making.
The knights will support him, and
they begin to attack Paphlagon for bribery.
The sausage-man can
out-yell Cleon, and they rail at each other,
the former routing
him in the duel of abuse.
The sausage-man has beaten the senate
by telling them where they can get
cheap anchovies which distracts
them from caring about peace even more than Cleon.
The sausage-seller
accuses Cleon of using the war to conceal his corruption.
Demos
is won over and asks for his ring as steward back from Cleon.
Demos seems to be aware his servants are robbing him,
but then
he says he forces them with a judgment to vomit it back up.
Finally
the sausage-maker reveals himself as Agoracritus and gives the
truce
of thirty years in the form of a beautiful woman to Demos
to take into the country.
Once again Aristophanes has called for
the replacement of the
war-mongering and corrupt demagogue with
an enduring peace.
While Athens and Sparta were negotiating the peace of Nicias
in 421 BC,
Aristophanes' Peace won second prize.
Trygaeus
is a farmer, who has his servants feeding a giant dung-beetle
so that he can fly up to heaven to see Zeus about the war and
peace.
He intends to pursue him at law as a traitor selling Greece
to the Medes.
First he meets Hermes, who tells him the gods have
moved higher
to get away from the fighting of the Greeks and their
prayers.
There have been opportunities for peace; but when the
Laconians have the advantage,
they want the Athenians to suffer
more.
When it went the other way, the Spartans came with peace
proposals;
then Athens would not listen as long as they held Pylos.
The goddess Peace has been thrown into a deep pit,
while War is
preparing to grind up the Greek cities in a large mortar.
Trygaeus
asks him not to throw in the Attic honey; but he has no pestle
because Cleon and the Spartan general Brasidas have both recently
died.
Although Zeus has decreed death for anyone caught digging
up Peace,
Trygaeus and the chorus of farmers bribe Hermes
with
gold cups and with great effort manage to excavate Peace.
Hermes notices that those who make crested helmets, pikes,
and swords are quite unhappy,
while Trygaeus tells the farmers
to return to their fields and till the earth;
the sickle-maker
is overjoyed.
Hermes explains that Peace began to be lost when
Pheidias was exiled,
and his friend Pericles became afraid and
sparked conflict with the Megarian decree
that grew into a hurricane
of war.
After Athens took Pylos, three times Peace came to them
with truces they repulsed.
Now with Peace revived, Trygaeus asks
the beautiful Theoria to take off her clothes,
and nude she is
given to the senate.
The play concludes joyfully in celebration
and feasting, because now in peace
they can make love at their
ease on their farms.
The armorer and lancemaker are unhappy,
but
Trygaeus buys spears at a discount to use as vine-props.
This
marvelous play affirms the joys of peace.
After Athens was badly defeated in the foolish Sicilian disaster,
Aristophanes produced
perhaps the greatest of the peace protest
plays in 411 BC with Lysistrata.
In this bawdy comedy Lysistrata
has organized the women of Athens
and other cities to insist their
men make peace.
Representatives arrive from Anagyra, Sparta, and
Corinth.
They are frustrated because one husband has been in Thrace
for five months,
and the Spartan is always taking his shield back
to the wars.
Lysistrata proposes that they must refrain from sex
with men until peace is made.
By dressing in transparent gowns
they will get their mates' tools up and then refuse them.
Even
if forced, they will not cooperate so as to remove the real pleasure.
Already the older women are seizing the citadel of the Acropolis.
The women take an oath to have nothing to do with their lovers
or husbands voluntarily,
and they seal it by drinking wine.
Lampito
goes off to organize the Spartan women.
The elderly men of Athens come to the Acropolis with torches,
but instead of fighting fire with fire, the women use water
to
douse the men and their firebrands.
When the men try to break
into the Acropolis, Lysistrata comes out and says
what is needed
is not bolts and bars but common sense.
Each Scythian who tries
to arrest her is met by another woman,
and they fall back in terror
dirtying themselves.
Lysistrata says they have seized the treasury
to stop the war;
the women intend to administer it just as they
do their household expenses.
Their first principle is no war,
and they will save the men whether they like it or not.
So far
the women have been ignored when they asked for peace,
as the
men went from one war madness to another
while telling the women
to stick to their weaving.
Now the women have decided to save
Greece by disentangling the various cities.
They have suffered
the loss of their sons, and the best young men
and their husbands
are not available for the pleasures of love.
However, Lysistrata
soon finds that the women want to lay too,
and some are trying
to escape the protest action;
but she persuades them that the
men want them just as much.
The husband of Myrrhiné arrives looking for her.
His
erection goes unsatisfied as she continues to tease him and delay
undressing
until he agrees to make a sound treaty to end the war.
The magistrate and the Lacedaemonian herald have similar protrusions
under their clothes,
as Lampito has instigated the women of Sparta.
The beautiful goddess of Peace appears in the nude,
as Lysistrata
complains how the men cut each other's throats and sack Hellenic
cities.
She reminds the Laconians how Cimon marched to help them
against Messenia,
and she recalls for the Athenians how the Laconians
helped
fight off the Thessalians and the tyranny of Hippias.
The
lusty men, seeing beautiful Peace, agree to the treaty,
and the
women invite them to a feast.
The magistrate notes how sober envoys
are always picking quarrels with each other.
In his comedy at
least Aristophanes has got the ancient Greeks to make love not
war.
The line of Cynic philosophers goes back to a disciple of Socrates
named Antisthenes, who emulated his hardihood and disregard of
feeling.
Antisthenes, who was about twenty years younger than
Socrates
and about twenty years older than Plato, lived in the
Peiraeus
and walked the five miles each day to hear Socrates.
He considered the most necessary part of learning
getting rid
of having anything to unlearn.
He said it was a royal privilege
to do good and be called evil.
He pointed to Heracles and Cyrus
to show that pain could be a good thing.
Antisthenes said he would
rather be mad than feel pleasure.
He had few students because
he used a silver rod to eject them,
and he criticized them the
way a physician treats a patient.
He preferred crows who eat the
dead to flatterers who devour the living.
He believed those who
would be immortal ought to live justly and piously,
and states
are doomed when they cannot distinguish the good from the bad.
Antisthenes criticized Plato for his pride.
He maintained that
virtue had to do with actions not words.
The wise are guided by
virtue and not by laws of the state.
The good deserve to be loved,
and virtue cannot be taken away
and is the same for men and women.
Diogenes lived to be over eighty and died about the same time
as Alexander in 323 BC.
Diogenes was the son of a banker in Sinope,
and both were banished
for adulterating the coinage, which Diogenes
admitted later.
In Athens, Antisthenes tried to discourage Diogenes,
but Diogenes persisted
by offering his head to the staff of Antisthenes,
saying,
"Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to
keep me away from you,
so long as I think you've something to
say."4
Antisthenes then accepted him as a pupil, and Diogenes
began a simple life.
Wandering and begging for his food, Diogenes
used any place he could find
for eating, sleeping, conversing,
or any other purpose.
He found that the Athenians had provided
him with places to live
in the portico of Zeus and the hall of
the processions.
To inure himself to hardship he would roll in
hot sand in the summer
and embrace snow-covered statues in the
winter.
Diogenes found that despising pleasure itself could be
most pleasurable
once one was accustomed to it.
When begging charity
in his poverty, Diogenes asked them to give to him
if they have
given to anyone else; or if they had not, to begin with him.
The
love of money he called the mother-city of all evils.
Diogenes scorned the school of Euclides as colic, Plato's lectures
as a waste of time,
and Dionysian performances as peep-shows for
fools.
Demagogues he called lackeys of the mob.
When he observed
philosophers and physicians,
he called humans the most intelligent
animal;
but seeing diviners puffed up by wealth, he thought no
animal more silly.
Once Diogenes trampled on the carpets of Plato,
saying he was trampling on his pride;
but Plato replied that Diogenes
had a different kind of pride.
When Plato was applauded for defining
humans as featherless bipeds,
Diogenes plucked a fowl and took
it to Plato's lecture room as "Plato's person."
Diogenes
mocked Plato's ideas of tablehood and cuphood,
and he considered
himself a Socrates gone mad.
One day Diogenes lit a lamp and went around saying he was seeking
a person,
a story that later became a search for an honest person.
Diogenes wondered at the grammarians who investigate the ills
of Odysseus
but are ignorant of their own, or the musicians who
tune their lyres
but leave the dispositions of their souls discordant,
or at orators who make a fuss about justice in their speeches
but never practice it,
or the avaricious who criticize money while
being so fond of it.
He got angry at those who sacrificed to the
gods for health
and feasted to their own health's detriment.
One
day when a child drank out of his hands, he threw away his cup,
because a child had surpassed him in plainness of living.
He reasoned
that all things belong to the gods; the wise are friends of the
gods;
since friends have all things in common, all things belong
to the wise.
Diogenes opposed fortune with courage, convention
with nature, and passion with reason.
When someone complained
that he was not adapted to the study of philosophy,
Diogenes asked
why he lived, if he did not care to live well.
Diogenes held that
education is a controlling grace to the young, consolation to
the old,
wealth to the poor, and an ornament to the rich.
Diogenes
believed that the most beautiful thing in the world is freedom
of speech.
When Athenians urged him to become initiated
so that he would
enjoy a special privilege in the other world,
Diogenes thought
it ludicrous that this could cause those
of no account to live
in the Isles of the Blessed.
Observing a religious purification,
he asked the priest if he knew that
he could no more get rid of
errors of conduct by sprinkling
than he could so correct errors
of grammar.
He reproached people for praying for what they thought
was good
instead of what is truly good.
Diogenes often insisted
that the gods had given humans everything they need to live easily,
but they wanted honeycakes and ointments and other such things.
When he saw temple officials leading away someone for stealing
a bowl
that belonged to the treasurers, Diogenes commented that
the great thieves
were leading away the little thief.
When strangers asked to see Demosthenes, Diogenes pointed him
out
with his middle finger and called him the demagogue of Athens.
He noted how much difference a finger could make in human attitudes.
After the battle of Charonea, Diogenes was taken
and dragged off
to Philip, who asked him who he was.
Diogenes replied that he
was a spy on his insatiable greed,
for which he was admired and
set free.
Alexander said that if he had not been Alexander,
he
would have liked to have been Diogenes.
When Diogenes was sunning
himself in the Craneum, Alexander came
and stood over him saying
that he could have anything he wished.
Diogenes simply asked Alexander
to move out of his sunlight.
Alexander said that he was Alexander,
the great king,
and he said that he was Diogenes, the hound.
Asked
why he was called that, Diogenes replied that he fawned on those
who gave him anything, yelped at those who refused, and put his
teeth into rascals.
When Alexander asked him if he was not afraid
of him,
Diogenes asked if Alexander was a good thing or a bad
thing.
Alexander said he was a good thing, and Diogenes asked
who is afraid of the good.
Asked where he was from one time, Diogenes said that
he was
a citizen of the world, perhaps the first use of the term "cosmopolitan."
He believed that the only true commonwealth is as wide as the
universe,
and he advocated the community of wives with no marriage
other than consenting union by persuasion.
Children thus would
also be held in common.
When Diogenes was captured and put up for sale as a slave
and
was asked what he could do, he said he could govern people and
told the crier
to announce for someone who wanted to purchase
a master for himself.
He told the Corinthian Xeniades, who bought
him, that he must obey him
as though he were a physician, and
he educated his children.
Xeniades entrusted his whole house to
him and said that a good spirit had entered his house.
Finally
Diogenes died either from eating raw octopus,
being bitten by
a dog, or from holding his breath.
The main source for the life of Apollonius of Tyana is the
biography by Philostratus.
The work was requested by Empress Julia
Domna, wife of Septimius Severus,
but it was not completed until
after her death in 217 CE.
Philostratus used the letters of Apollonius,
some of which survive,
but his main source was the now lost memoirs
by Damis of Nineveh,
a devoted companion of Apollonius.
Because
of some historical inconsistencies, some scholars consider
the
adventurous travels to be more historical novel than biography.
This is debatable, but the ethical teachings come across either
way,
though with more power to those believing in the authenticity
of the inspired Pythagorean philosopher's experiences.
During
his life-time the sage was accused by the rival sophist Euphrates
of being a charlatan or a wizard using evil magic.
Philostratus
stated that he ignored the lost work by Moeragenes
which
also
criticized Apollonius because he was ignorant of many circumstances
in his life.
Philostratus wrote that the many letters of Apollonius
dealt with the gods, customs,
moral principles, and laws and that
in all those areas
he corrected the errors into which humans had
fallen.
Philostratus described how his spirit announced he was the
Egyptian god Proteus
before his birth and that Apollonius was
born in a meadow of flowers
surrounded by swans in Tyana of Cappadocia.
Since Philostratus wrote that Apollonius died in the reign of
Nerva (96-98),
if he lived to be a hundred as some said, it is
likely he was born
about the same time as Jesus or some years
after.
As a child, Apollonius moved to Aegae to live in the temple
of Asclepiu
so that he could get a more peaceful and philosophic
education.
He studied with the Pythagorean Euxenus, but this man
lived more like an Epicurean
Apollonius renounced the eating
of flesh and the drinking of wine
because they muddied the mind
and the ether in the soul.
Also he wore linen clothing instead
of animal products.
He believed in praying to the gods for what
he deserved rather than
presuming to tell the godhead what is
best.
When his father died, he buried his body next to his mother's
and gave away
most of his property to his brother and other relatives.
He asked his older brother to advise him and cure him of his faults,
and he would also teach his brother, who had led a riotous life.
Apollonius decided not to wed nor have any connection with
women.
He said his hardest work was the five years he spent in
silence.
Yet the young man could reproach others with a gesture
or by a look,
and his presence would often stop quarrels.
He ended
a famine at Aspendus by reprimanding grain-dealers
for pretending
the Earth was not the mother of all.
When he began speaking again,
his words were concise and powerful.
Asked at Antioch how a sage
should converse, Apollonius replied,
"Like a law-giver, for
it is the duty of the law-giver to deliver to the many
the instructions
of whose truth he has persuaded himself."5
When he told his
seven followers that he was going to Babylon,
only a shorthand
writer and a calligraphist accompanied him.
However, at Nineveh
he met and was joined by Damis.
Apollonius could understand all
languages even those of animals.
When crossing the Euphrates he
was asked what he brought,
and Apollonius said he had temperance,
justice, virtue, continence, valor, and discipline.
The feminine
nouns were taken for slaves, but Apollonius said they are ladies
of quality.
On the frontier of Babylon a satrap asked him why he was trespassing,
but Apollonius said all the Earth is his.
Nearing the king, they
asked him if he thought the king lacked the virtues he brought.
Apollonius answered no, but he would teach him to practice them
if he had them.
Apollonius declined expensive gifts, holding to
his prayer to have little and want nothing.
He pointed out to
Damis that eunuchs did not have chastity,
which consists of not
yielding to passion when the impulse is felt.
He explained that
greed combined all the vices,
because money was needed for various
desires.
The Babylonian king offered him ten gifts.
Apollonius
asked that the Eretrians be allowed to cultivate the earth,
and
the king ended his enmity and made them his friends.
When a eunuch
was caught loving a lady, Apollonius urged the king to let him
live,
for that would be a greater punishment than death.
Asked
about governing, he advised respecting many while confiding in
few.
In regard to Roman villages in his territory, Apollonius
said it was a mistake
to go to war even over large issues, and
this one was paltry.
Apollonius was not impressed by the king's
great wealth and suggested that he spend it.
Upon leaving, Apollonius
hoped to bring back the gift of having become a better man.
At Taxila in India, Apollonius met a philosophic king who lived
simply.
Apollonius commended him for rating his friends more highly
than gold and silver
because of the blessings that result.
The
king told him he also shared his wealth with his enemies on his
borders
so that they protect his frontiers from invaders.
Apollonius
explained to Damis why drinking wine is damaging to divination.
The king provided them with fresh camels and guides for their
journey.
Further in India Apollonius met a group of sages led by Iarchas.
Apollonius considered their lore more profound than his, and he came
to learn.
Observing that they knew everything, Apollonius asked
them if they knew themselves also.
They replied that they know
everything, because they begin by knowing themselves.
They considered
themselves gods, because they are good men.
Then they discussed
the transmigration of souls and the Achaeans ruining Troy,
though
they felt talking so much about this war was the ruin of the Greeks.
Iarchas noted that the Greeks seemed to think that
abstaining
from injustice constitutes justice,
like Romans who do not sell
justice or slaves that do not steal.
He pointed out that Minos
cruelly enslaved many people
but is considered a judge in the
underworld, while Tantalus suffers for
having shared with his
friends his immortality given him by the gods.
Before returning
to Ionia, Apollonius healed a demoniac and others.
Back in Ephesus, Apollonius discussed sharing things in common
by people
supporting each other, like the sparrow that tells his
friends about the spilled grain.
He taught that people ought to
do what they understand best and what they best can do.
He helped
the people of Smyrna get rid of their demon plague.
At Athens
he criticized the lascivious dancing at the festival of Dionysus,
and he refused to watch the gladiator shows.
At Olympia, Apollonius
discussed virtues such as wisdom, courage, and temperance.
Although
Musonius of Babylon was arrested in Rome because Nero suspected
him
of using magic, Apollonius went to Rome anyway.
Some of his
followers refused to go; he did not consider them cowards,
though
he hailed as philosophers those who rose above such fears.
Apollonius
taught the consul Telesinus.
When asked what he prayed for, Apollonius
replied that he prayed that
the laws not be broken, that the wise
may continue to be poor,
but that others may be rich so long as
they are so without fraud.
Apollonius taught in public; he did
not hover around the rich and powerful,
though he welcomed talking
to them just as much as he did to the common people.
Seeing a
bridegroom mourning his bride, Apollonius touched her
and whispered
to her; immediately she woke up from what seemed death and spoke.
Apollonius found the tales of Aesop more conducive to wisdom
than poetry relating stories of outlandish passion, incestuous
marriages,
calumnies of the gods committing crimes and quarreling
that lead jealous and ambitious people to imitate them.
Aesop
made use of humble stories that are clearly fictitious to teach
great truths.
Seeing the Colossus at Rhodes, Apollonius still
believed that a person
who loves wisdom in a sound and innocent
spirit is much greater.
At Alexandria, Apollonius met Vespasian,
though he refused to go to Judea to see him,
believing that land
during the war was polluted
both by what the inhabitants did and
by what they suffered.
Apollonius told Vespasian that in praying
for a king that is
just, temperate, and wise with legitimate sons
he was praying for him.
Vespasian explained why he felt justified
in taking the throne from the drunkard Vitellius.
Euphrates and
Dion gave speeches saying that Vespasian should restore the republic;
but Apollonius argued that a monarchical policy was a foregone
conclusion and that
Vespasian could rule with generosity and self-restraint,
that his sons commanding the armies should not be made hostile,
and that a government
by a single man who is the best, providing
welfare for all the people, is popular government.
Vespasian agreed with Apollonius and asked him to instruct
him.
Apollonius advised him to use his wealth to help the poor
while making the wealth of the rich secure.
He should be governed
by law himself too by respecting the laws,
and he should reverence
the gods.
He should discipline his two sons by threatening not
to bequeath the throne to them
so they will regard it as a reward
rather than a heritage.
He should use moderation and gradual change
in suppressing pleasures,
because it is not easy to convert an
entire people suddenly to wisdom and temperance.
Apollonius suggested
limiting the pride and luxury
of the freedmen and slaves assigned
to the Emperor.
Governors should be selected by merit rather than
by lot, making sure
they speak the language and have affinity
with the people they rule.
Later Apollonius wrote to Vespasian
criticizing him for seriously enslaving the Greeks
when even Nero
playfully had respected their liberties.
Apollonius visited Ethiopia and expressed the wish that it
would be splendid
if wealth were held in less honor, and equality
flourished a little more.
He cited Aristides as an example of
a just person,
for he fixed the tribute to Athens on a fair basis
and returned home in his same poor clothes;
but after his death
excessive valuations and heavy tributes
imposed on the islands
led to the Peloponnesian War.
After Domitian put to death three
vestal virgins for breaking their oaths,
Apollonius publicly criticized
the Emperor
by praying for the purification of the unjust murders.
At Smyrna, knowing that Nerva would soon become sovereign,
Apollonius
explained that tyrants cannot force destiny even by killing their
adversaries.
Even though Domitian was persecuting philosophers,
Apollonius went to Rome
to face his charges so that he could share
the dangers of his friends.
He believed that conscience is the
perpetual companion of the sage who knows oneself,
and thus he
did not cower before what frightens many.
Domitian ordered Apollonius
arrested and brought into his presence.
Apollonius consoled the
other prisoners and defended Nerva before Domitian,
declaring
he was willing to endure all that he could inflict against his
vile body
while he pleaded the causes of those persons.
Apollonius accused Domitian of wronging philosophy, saying
that
philosophy is concerned about the Emperor if he does wrong.
The indictment was reduced to four charges, and Apollonius answered
them this way:
1) he wore peculiar clothes because he does not
like to bother poor animals;
2) he is thought to be a god because
people so honor persons thought to be good;
3) he predicted the
plague in Ephesus because having a lighter diet
he was the first
to sense the danger; and
4) the charge that he sacrificed a boy
for Nerva was easily refuted
for lack of evidence and because
Apollonius never even sacrificed animals.
Domitian acquitted Apollonius
of the charges.
Apollonius told the Emperor that his miscreants
were causing ruin in the cities,
exiles in the islands, lamentation
on the mainland,
cowardice in his armies, and suspicion in the
Senate.
Then Apollonius vanished from the court and soon appeared
to Demetrius and Damis at Dicaearchia.
Apollonius believed that God created all things with the motive
of goodness.
In a letter he asked those who professed to be his
disciples to remain within their houses,
abstain from bathing,
kill no living creature nor eat flesh, and be exempt from
the
feelings of jealousy, spite, hatred, slander, and enmity
in order
to bear the names of free people.
To Democrates he wrote that
to show excessive anger over small offenses
prevents offenders
from distinguishing when they have offended in greater things.
To others he wrote that a quick temper may blossom into madness,
and anger not restrained and cured by social intercourse may become
a physical disease.
To his brothers he wrote that they must not
feel envious,
because the good deserve what they have,
and the
bad, even if they are prosperous, live badly.
He criticized orators
and lawyers for promoting hatred and feuds.
While speaking at
Ephesus, Apollonius clairvoyantly perceived
the murder of Domitian
and announced it to the people
at the time it happened before
news confirmed it.
Nerva became emperor and sent for Apollonius
to gain his advice;
but the sage sent a letter to the new Emperor
with Damis so that he could die alone.
1. Diogenes Laertius, Pythagoras 8:18 tr. R. D. Hicks.
2. Ibid., 8:22.
3. Empedocles, quoted in Sextus Empiricus adv. math. 9:129
tr. Sanderson Beck.
4. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers,
tr. R. D. Hicks, 6:21.
5. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 1:17 tr. F.
C. Conybeare.
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