exposure, and could not stomach so well deserved an affront; he directed
the company to stone the man, on pain of being involved in his impiety
and called Epicureans. However, when they set to work, a distinguished
Pontic called Demostratus, who was staying there, rescued him by
interposing his own body; the man had the narrowest possible escape from
being stoned to death--as he richly deserved to be; what business had he
to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and needlessly make himself
the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation?
This was a special case; but it was the practice for the names of
applicants to be read out the day before answers were given; the herald
asked whether each was to receive his oracle; and sometimes the reply
came from within, To perdition! One so repulsed could get shelter, fire
or water, from no man; he must be driven from land to land as a
blasphemer, an atheist, and--lowest depth of all--an Epicurean.
In this connexion Alexander once made himself supremely ridiculous.
Coming across Epicurus's _Accepted Maxims_, the most admirable of
his books, as you know, with its terse presentment of his wise
conclusions, he brought it into the middle of the market-place, there
burned it on a fig-wood fire for the sins of its author, and cast its
ashes into the sea. He issued an oracle on the occasion:
The dotard's maxims to the flames be given.
The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon
its readers, of the peace, tranquillity, and independence of mind it
produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and
marvels, vain hopes and inordinate desires, of the judgement and candour
that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches
and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and
frankness.
Perhaps the greatest example of our rogue's audacity is what I now come
to. Having easy access to Palace and Court by Rutilianus's influence, he
sent an oracle just at the crisis of the German war, when M. Aurelius was
on the point of engaging the Marcomanni and Quadi. The oracle required
that two lions should be flung alive into the Danube, with quantities of
sacred herbs and magnificent sacrifices. I had better give the words:
To rolling Ister, swoln with Heaven's rain,
Of Cybelean thralls, those mountain beasts,
Fling ye a pair; therewith all flowers and herbs
Of savour sweet that Indian air doth breed.
Hence victory, and fame, and lovely peace.
These directions were precisely followed; the lions swam across to the
enemy's bank, where they were clubbed to death by the barbarians, who
took them for dogs or a new kind of wolves; and our forces immediately
after met with a severe defeat, losing some twenty thousand men in one
engagement. This was followed by the Aquileian incident, in the course of
which that city was nearly lost. In view of these results, Alexander
warmed up that stale Delphian defence of the Croesus oracle: the God had
foretold a victory, forsooth, but had not stated whether Romans or
barbarians should have it.
The constant increase in the number of visitors, the inadequacy of
accommodation in the city, and the difficulty of finding provisions for
consultants, led to his introducing what he called _night oracles_.
He received the packets, slept upon them, in his own phrase, and gave
answers which the God was supposed to send him in dreams. These were
generally not lucid, but ambiguous and confused, especially when he came
to packets sealed with exceptional care. He did not risk tampering with
these, but wrote down any words that came into his head, the results
obtained corresponding well enough to his conception of the oracular.
There were regular interpreters in attendance, who made considerable sums
out of the recipients by expounding and unriddling these oracles. This
office contributed to his revenue, the interpreters paying him L250 each.
Sometimes he stirred the wonder of the silly by answers to persons who
had neither brought nor sent questions, and in fact did not exist. Here
is a specimen:
Who is't, thou askst, that with Calligenia
All secretly defiles thy nuptial bed?
The slave Protogenes, whom most thou trustest.
Him thou enjoyedst: he thy wife enjoys--
The fit return for that thine outrage done.
And know that baleful drugs for thee are brewed,
Lest thou or see or hear their evil deeds.
Close by the wall, at thy bed's head, make search.
Thy maid Calypso to their plot is privy.
The names and circumstantial details might stagger a Democritus, till a
moment's thought showed him the despicable trick.
He often gave answers in Syriac or Celtic to barbarians who questioned
him in their own tongue, though he had difficulty in finding compatriots
of theirs in the city. In these cases there was a long interval between
application and response, during which the packet might be securely
opened at leisure, and somebody found capable of translating the
question. The following is an answer given to a Scythian:
Morphi ebargulis for night
Chnenchicrank shall leave the light.
Another oracle to some one who neither came nor existed was in prose.
'Return the way thou earnest,' it ran; 'for he that sent thee hath this
day been slain by his neighbour Diocles, with aid of the robbers Magnus,
Celer, and Bubalus, who are taken and in chains.'
I must give you one or two of the answers that fell to my share. I asked
whether Alexander was bald, and having sealed it publicly with great
care, got a night oracle in reply:
Sabardalachu malach Attis was not he.
Another time I did up the same question--What was Homer's birthplace?--in
two packets given in under different names. My servant misled him by
saying, when asked what he came for, a cure for lung trouble; so the
answer to one packet was:
Cytmide and foam of steed the liniment give.
As for the other packet, he got the information that the sender was
inquiring whether the land or the sea route to Italy was preferable. So
he answered, without much reference to Homer:
Fare not by sea; land-travel meets thy need.
I laid a good many traps of this kind for him; here is another. I asked
only one question, but wrote outside the packet in the usual form, So-
and-so's eight Queries, giving a fictitious name and sending the eight
shillings. Satisfied with the payment of the money and the inscription on
the packet, he gave me eight answers to my one question. This was, When
will Alexander's imposture be detected? The answers concerned nothing in
heaven or earth, but were all silly and meaningless together. He
afterwards found out about this, and also that I had tried to dissuade
Rutilianus both from the marriage and from putting any confidence in the
oracle; so he naturally conceived a violent dislike for me. When
Rutilianus once put a question to him about me, the answer was:
Night-haunts and foul debauch are all his joy.
It is true his dislike was quite justified. On a certain occasion I was
passing through Abonutichus, with a spearman and a pikeman whom my friend
the governor of Cappadocia had lent me as an escort on my way to the sea.
Ascertaining that I was the Lucian he knew of, he sent me a very polite
and hospitable invitation. I found him with a numerous company; by good
luck I had brought my escort. He gave me his hand to kiss according to
his usual custom. I took hold of it as if to kiss, but instead bestowed
on it a sound bite that must have come near disabling it. The company,
who were already offended at my calling him Alexander instead of Prophet,
were inclined to throttle and beat me for sacrilege. But he endured the
pain like a man, checked their violence, and assured them that he would
easily tame me, and illustrate Glycon's greatness in converting his
bitterest foes to friends. He then dismissed them all, and argued the
matter with me: he was perfectly aware of my advice to Rutilianus; why
had I treated him so, when I might have been preferred by him to great
influence in that quarter? By this time I had realized my dangerous
position, and was only too glad to welcome these advances; I presently
went my way in all friendship with him. The rapid change wrought in me
greatly impressed the observers.
When I intended to sail, he sent me many parting gifts, and offered to
find us (Xenophon and me, that is; I had sent my father and family on to
Amastris) a ship and crew--which offer I accepted in all confidence. When
the passage was half over, I observed the master in tears arguing with
his men, which made me very uneasy. It turned out that Alexander's orders
were to seize and fling us overboard; in that case his war with me would
have been lightly won. But the crew were prevailed upon by the master's
tears to do us no harm. 'I am sixty years old, as you can see,' he said
to me; 'I have lived an honest blameless life so far, and I should not
like at my time of life, with a wife and children too, to stain my hands
with blood.' And with that preface he informed us what we were there for,
and what Alexander had told him to do.
He landed us at Aegiali, of Homeric fame, and thence sailed home. Some
Bosphoran envoys happened to be passing, on their way to Bithynia with
the annual tribute from their king Eupator. They listened kindly to my
account of our dangerous situation, I was taken on board, and reached
Amastris safely after my narrow escape. From that time it was war between
Alexander and me, and I left no stone unturned to get my revenge. Even
before his plot I had hated him, revolted by his abominable practices,
and I now busied myself with the attempt to expose him; I found plenty of
allies, especially in the circle of Timocrates the Heracleot philosopher.
But Avitus, the then governor of Bithynia and Pontus, restrained me, I
may almost say with prayers and entreaties. He could not possibly spoil
his relations with Rutilianus, he said, by punishing the man, even if he
could get clear evidence against him. Thus arrested in my course, I did
not persist in what must have been, considering the disposition of the
judge, a fruitless prosecution.
Among instances of Alexander's presumption, a high place must be given to
his petition to the Emperor: the name of Abonutichus was to be changed to
Ionopolis; and a new coin was to be struck, with a representation on the
obverse of Glycon, and, on the reverse, Alexander bearing the garlands
proper to his paternal grandfather Asclepius, and the famous scimetar of
his maternal ancestor Perseus.
He had stated in an oracle that he was destined to live to a hundred and
fifty, and then die by a thunderbolt; he had in fact, before he reached
seventy, an end very sad for a son of Podalirius, his leg mortifying from
foot to groin and being eaten of worms; it then proved that he was bald,
as he was forced by pain to let the doctors make cooling applications to
his head, which they could not do without removing his wig.
So ended Alexander's heroics; such was the catastrophe of his tragedy;
one would like to find a special providence in it, though doubtless
chance must have the credit. The funeral celebration was to be worthy of
his life, taking the form of a contest--for possession of the oracle. The
most prominent of the impostors his accomplices referred it to
Rutilianus's arbitration which of them should be selected to succeed to
the prophetic office and wear the hierophantic oracular garland. Among
these was numbered the grey-haired physician Paetus, dishonouring equally
his grey hairs and his profession. But Steward-of-the-Games Rutilianus
sent them about their business ungarlanded, and continued the defunct in
possession of his holy office.
My object, dear friend, in making this small selection from a great mass
of material has been twofold. First, I was willing to oblige a friend and
comrade who is for me the pattern of wisdom, sincerity, good humour,
justice, tranquillity, and geniality. But secondly I was still more
concerned (a preference which you will be very far from resenting)
to strike a blow for Epicurus, that great man whose holiness and divinity
of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the
good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him. Yet I
think casual readers too may find my essay not unserviceable, since it is
not only destructive, but, for men of sense, constructive also.
OF PANTOMIME
[Footnote: 'Pantomime' has been chosen as the most natural translation of
_orchaesis_, which in this dialogue has reference for the most part to the
ballet-dancer (_pantomimus_) of imperial times. On the other hand,
Lycinus, in order to establish the antiquity and the universality of an
art that for all practical purposes dates only from the Augustan era, and
(despite the Greek artists) is Roman in origin, avails himself of the
wider meaning of _orchaesis_ to give us the historic and prehistoric
associations of _dance_ in Greece and elsewhere; and in such passages it
seemed advisable to sacrifice consistency, and to translate _orchaesis_
dance.]
_Lycinus. Crato_
_Ly_. Here are heavy charges, Crato; I suppose you have been getting
up this subject for some time. You are not content with attacking the
whole pantomimic art, practical and theoretic; we too, the pleased
spectators thereof, come in for our share: we have been lavishing our
admiration, it seems, on effeminate triflers. And now let me show you how
completely you have been mistaken; you will find that the art you have
been maligning is the greatest boon of our existence. There is some
excuse for your strictures: how should you know any better, confirmed
ascetic that you are, believing that virtue consists in being
uncomfortable?
_Cr_. Now, my dear sir, can any one who calls himself a man, and an
educated man, and in some sort a student of philosophy,--can such a one
leave those higher pursuits, leave communing with the sages of old, to
sit still and listen to the sound of a flute, and watch the antics of an
effeminate creature got up in soft raiment to sing lascivious songs and
mimic the passions of prehistoric strumpets, of Rhodopes and Phaedras and
Parthenopes, to the accompaniment of twanging string and shrilling pipe
and clattering heel? It is too absurd: these are not amusements for a
gentleman; not amusements for Lycinus. When I first heard of your
spending your time in this way, I was divided betwixt shame and
indignation, to think that you could so far forget Plato and Chrysippus
and Aristotle, as to sit thus having your ears tickled with a feather. If
you want amusements, are there not a thousand things _worth_ seeing
and hearing? Can you not hear classical music performed at the great
festivals? Are there not lofty tragedy and brilliant comedy,--things that
have been deemed worthy of state recognition? My friend, you have a long
reckoning to settle with men of learning, if you would not be repudiated
altogether, and expelled from the congregation of the wise. I think your
best course will be a point-blank denial: declare flatly that you never
did anything of the kind. Anyhow, you must watch your conduct for the
future: we do not want to find that our Lycinus has changed his sex, and
become a Bacchante or a Lydian damsel. That would be as much to our
discredit as to yours: for ours should be Odysseus's part,--to tear you
from the lotus, and bring you back to your accustomed pursuits; to save
you from the clutches of these stage Sirens before it is too late. The
Sirens, after all, did but plot against men's ears; it needed but a
little wax, and a man might sail past them uninjured: but yours is a
captivity of ear and eye, of body and soul.
_Ly_. Goodness gracious! All the Cynic in you is loose, and snarls
at me. At the same time, I think your Lotus-and-Siren simile is rather
off the point: you see, the people who ate the Lotus and listened to the
Sirens paid for the gratification of ear and palate with their lives:
whereas I not only have a great deal more enjoyment than they had, but am
all the better for it. I have experienced no oblivion of my domestic
affairs, nor blindness to my own interests; in fact--if I may venture to
say so--you will find my penetration and practical wisdom considerably
increased by my theatrical experiences. Homer has it exactly: the
spectator
Returns a gladder and a wiser man.
_Cr_. Dear, dear! Yours is a sad case, Lycinus. You are not even ashamed;
you seem quite pleased with yourself. That is the worst of it: there seems
no hope of your recovery, while you can actually commend the mire in which
you wallow.
_Ly_. Now, Crato,--you talk of pantomimes and theatres,--have you seen
these performances yourself, that you are so hard on them? or do you
decide that they are 'foul mire' without personal experience? If you have
seen them, you are just as bad as I am; and if not, are you justified in
censuring them? does it not savour of over-confidence, to condemn what
you know nothing about?
_Cr_. Truly that would be the climax: that I should show my long beard and
white hairs amid that throng of women and lunatics; and clap and yell in
unseemly rapture over the vile contortions of an abandoned buffoon.
_Ly_. I can make allowance for you. But wait till I have prevailed on you
to give it a fair trial, to accept the judgement of your own eyes: after
that you will never be happy till you have secured the best seat in the
theatre, where you may hear every syllable, mark every gesture.
_Cr_. While this beard is yet unplucked, these limbs unshaven, God forbid
that I should ever find happiness in such things. As it is, my poor
friend, I see that _you_ are wholly possessed.
_Ly_. Now suppose you were to abstain from further abuse, and hear what I
have to say of the merits of Pantomime; of the manner in which it combines
profit with amusement; instructing, informing, perfecting the intelligence
of the beholder; training his eyes to lovely sights, filling his ears with
noble sounds, revealing a beauty in which body and soul alike have their
share. For that music and dancing are employed to produce these results is
no disparagement of the art; it is rather a recommendation.
_Cr_. I have not much time for listening to a madman's discourse in praise
of his own madness. However--if you must deluge me with nonsense--I am
prepared to do you that friendly office. My ears are at your service: they
need no wax to render them deaf to foolishness. Henceforth I will be
silent: speak on;--no one is listening.
_Ly._ Thank you, Crato; just what I wanted. As to 'foolishness,' that
remains to be seen. Now, to begin with, you seem to be quite ignorant of
the antiquity of the pantomimic art. It is not a new thing; it does not
date from to-day or yesterday; not, that is to say, from our grandfathers'
times, nor from _their_ grandfathers' times. The best antiquarians, let me
tell you, trace dancing back to the creation of the universe; it is coeval
with that Eros who was the beginning of all things. In the dance of the
heavenly bodies, in the complex involutions whereby the planets are
brought into harmonious intercourse with the fixed stars, you have an
example of that art in its infancy, which, by gradual development, by
continual improvements and additions, seems at length to have reached its
climax in the subtle harmonious versatility of modern Pantomime.
The first step, we learn, was taken by Rhea, who was so pleased with the
art that she introduced it among the Corybantes in Phrygia and the
Curetes in Crete. She was richly rewarded: for by their dancing they
saved her child Zeus, who owes it to them (nor can he with decency deny
it) that he escaped the paternal teeth. The dancing was performed in full
armour; sword clashed against shield, and inspired heels beat martial
time upon the ground. The art was presently taken up by the leading men
in Crete, who by dint of practice became admirable dancers; and this
applies not only to private persons, but to men of the first eminence,
and of royal blood. Thus Homer, when he calls Meriones a dancer, is not
disparaging him, but paying him a compliment: his dancing fame, it seems,
had spread not only throughout the Greek world, but even into the camp of
his enemies, the Trojans, who would observe, no doubt, on the field of
battle that agility and grace of movement which he had acquired as a
dancer. The passage runs as follows:
Meriones, great dancer though thou be,
My spear had stopped thy dancings,--
it did not, however, do so; his practice in that art enabling him,
apparently, to evade without difficulty any spears that might be hurled
at him.
I could mention a number of other heroes who went through a similar
course of training, and made a serious study of dancing: but I will
confine myself to the case of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and a
most eminent dancer. He it was who invented that beautiful dance called
after him the Pyrrhic; a circumstance which may be supposed to have
afforded more gratification to his father than his comeliness, or his
prowess in other respects. Thus Troy, impregnable till then, falls a
victim to the dancer's skill, and is levelled with the dust.
The Lacedaemonians, who are reputed the bravest of the Greeks, ever since
they learnt from Castor and Pollux the Caryatic (a form of dance which is
taught in the Lacedaemonian town of Caryae), will do nothing without the
accompaniment of the Muses: on the field of battle their feet keep time
to the flute's measured notes, and those notes are the signal for their
onset. Music and rhythm ever led them on to victory. To this day you may
see their young men dividing their attention between dance and drill;
when wrestling and boxing are over, their exercise concludes with the
dance. A flute-player sits in their midst, beating time with his foot,
while they file past and perform their various movements in rhythmic
sequence, the military evolutions being followed by dances, such as
Dionysus and Aphrodite love. Hence the song they sing is an invitation to
Aphrodite and the Loves to join in their dance and revel; while the other
(I should have said that they have two songs) contains instructions to
the dancers: 'Forward, lads: foot it lightly: reel it bravely' (i.e.
dance actively). It is the same with the chain dance, which is performed
by men and girls together, dancing alternately, so as to suggest the
alternating beads of a necklace. A youth leads off the dance: his active
steps are such as will hereafter be of use to him on the field of battle:
a maiden follows, with the modest movements that befit her sex; manly
vigour, maidenly reserve,--these are the beads of the necklace.
Similarly, their Gymnopaedia is but another form of dance.
You have read your Homer; so that I need say nothing of the Shield of
Achilles, with its choral dance, modelled on that which Daedalus designed
for Ariadne; nor of the two dancers ('tumblers,' he calls them) there
represented as leading the dance; nor again of the 'whirling dance of
youth,' so beautifully wrought thereon by Hephaestus. As to the
Phaeacians, living as they did in the lap of luxury, nothing is more
natural than that _they_ should have rejoiced in the dance. Odysseus, we
find, is particularly struck with this: he gazes with admiration on the
'twinkling of their feet.' In Thessaly, again, dancing was such a
prominent feature, that their rulers and generals were called 'Dancers-in-
chief,' as may be seen from the inscriptions on the statues of their great
men: 'Elected Prime Dancer,' we read; and again: 'This statue was erected
at the public expense to commemorate Ilation's well-danced victory.'
I need hardly observe that among the ancient mysteries not one is to be
found that does not include dancing. Orpheus and Musaeus, the best
dancers of their time, were the founders of these rites; and their
ordinances show the value they attached to rhythm and dance as elements
in religion. To illustrate this point would be to make the ceremonial
known to the uninitiated: but so much is matter of common knowledge, that
persons who divulge the mysteries are popularly spoken of as 'dancing
them out.' In Delos, not even sacrifice could be offered without dance
and musical accompaniment. Choirs of boys gathered and performed their
dance to the sound of flute and lyre, and the best of them were chosen to
act characters; the songs written for these occasions were known as
chorales; and the ancient lyric poetry abounded in such compositions.