The collection of PYTHAGORIC FRAGMENTS contained in this volume must
be considered by every one as highly valuable if their antiquity
only is regarded; but by the lover of genuine wisdom they will be
deemed inestimable, as proceeding from the school of the father of
philosophy.
Of the greater part of the authors of these fragments little more
than the country in which they lived is known. But of Charondas, and
Zaleucus, those celebrated legislators, Seneca in his 90th Epistle
informs us that they learnt their laws in the silent and sacred
recess of Pythagoras. Though Seneca, however, Diodorus Siculus,
Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus make both Charondas
and Zaleucus to be the disciples of Pythagoras; yet Dr. Bentley,
in his Dissertation on Phalaris, seems more disposed to think that
they were not Pythagoreans than that they were. At the conclusion,
however, of his discussion of this subject he says, “I do not assert
any thing positively on either side of this whole debate about the
two lawgivers [Charondas and Zaleucus]. I rather desire to stand a
neuter, till the matter shall be decided by some abler hand[1].” But
the man of intellect who reads this concession of the doctor, will
doubtless laugh when he finds him also asserting, “Thus much I am
sure may be safely concluded, that if Zaleucus was really Pythagoras’
disciple, the learned Mr. Dodwell’s calculation must be wrong
[respecting the age of Pythagoras]. For which is more probable,
that a Mr. Dodwell was mistaken in this particular, or that Diodorus
Siculus, Laertius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus were wrong, who lived so
many centuries prior to him, and who were able to derive information
so much more decisive respecting Zaleucus, through books which
were then extant, but which have long since utterly perished? By
Vossius[2], however, who, though he was not perhaps so great a verbal
critic as Bentley, was certainly a man of more intellect[3], the
whole of these fragments were considered as precious monuments; and
he wonders, and is at the same time indignant, at their not being
more frequently perused.
Of Hierocles, the author of the ETHICAL FRAGMENTS, something more is
known than of the authors of the POLITICAL FRAGMENTS, through what
is said of him by Suidas, Damascius[4], and Æneas Gazæus. For from
the last of these we learn that he flourished about the end of the
fifth century of the Christian era; and from the other two, that
he was a Platonic philosopher of Alexandria: that his conceptions
were magnificent, and his genius sublime; that he was very eloquent,
astonished his auditors by the beauty and copiousness of his
language, and contended with Plato himself in elegance of diction,
and fertility of intellect. One of his auditors was Theosebius, a man
of great penetration, who at different times twice heard Hierocles
orally explaining the Gorgias of Plato; and though on comparing the
latter with the former explanation, he found nothing in the one
which might be said to be the same with what was in the other, yet
each of them unfolded as much as possible the intention of Plato
in that dialogue—which, as Damascius well observes, was a thing of
a most singular nature, and clearly demonstrates the amplitude of
his conceptions. We are informed, also, by the same Theosebius, that
Hierocles once said, when expounding Plato, that the discourses of
Socrates[5] resembled cubes, because they remained firm wherever they
might fall.
The following circumstance, says Suidas, evinces the fortitude and
magnanimity of Hierocles. On coming to Byzantium, he offended the
_prevailers_ (προσεκρουσε τοις Κρατουσι) i.e. _the Christians_[6];
and being brought into a court of justice by them was whipped. But
while the blood was flowing, he took some of it in the hollow of his
hand, and besprinkled with it the judge, at the same time exclaiming:
Cyclops, since human flesh is thy delight,
Now drink this wine[7].
Being banished, most probably in consequence of this magnanimous
behaviour; and returning some time after to Alexandria, he gave
philosophical lectures to his auditors in his usual manner. Suidas
adds, that the grandeur of the conceptions of Hierocles may be
learnt from the perusal of his Commentaries On the Golden Verses of
the Pythagoreans, and from his treatise On Providence[8]; in which
works it appears that he was sublimely wise in his life, but not
accurate in his knowledge. Damascius also says, that Hierocles was
not at all deficient in any thing pertaining to merely human science,
but that he was by no means replete with _blessed conceptions_, i.e.
with conceptions which are the offspring of an _entheastic_, or
divinely inspired energy; and which are to be found in abundance in
the writings of Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, and Damascius
himself. This, indeed, will be immediately evident[9] to the man
who has penetrated the depth of these writings, but to the merely
verbal critic is a circumstance involved in Cimmerian darkness.