and there cherish thy bit of flesh, leaving those to expostulate and
find fault with me who have themselves lived a civil and domestic life?
Now such are all those whom Colotes has reviled and railed at in his
book. Amongst whom, Democritus in his writings advises and exhorts to
the learning of political science, as being the greatest of all, and
to the accustoming one’s self to bear fatigues, by which men attain
to great wealth and honor. And as for Parmenides, he beautified and
adorned his native country with most excellent laws which he there
established, so that even to this day the officers every year, when
they enter first on the exercise of their charges, are obliged to
swear that they will observe the laws and ordinances of Parmenides.
Empedocles brought to justice some of the principal of his city, and
caused them to be condemned for their insolent behavior and embezzling
of the public treasure, and also delivered his country from sterility
and the plague—to which calamities it was before subject—by immuring
and stopping up the holes of certain mountains, whence there issued
an hot south wind, which overspread all the plain country and blasted
it. And Socrates, after he was condemned, when his friends offered
him, if he pleased, an opportunity of making his escape, absolutely
refused to make use of it, that he might maintain the authority of
the laws, choosing rather to die unjustly than to save himself by
disobeying the laws of his country. Melissus, being captain general of
his country, vanquished the Athenians in a battle at sea. Plato left
in his writings excellent discourses concerning the laws, government,
and policy of a commonweal; and yet he imprinted much better in the
hearts and minds of his disciples and familiars, which caused Sicily
to be delivered by Dion, and Thrace to be set at liberty by Pytho and
Heraclides, who slew Cotys. Chabrias also and Phocion, those two great
generals of the Athenians, came out of the Academy. As for Epicurus,
he indeed sent certain persons into Asia to chide Timocrates, and
had him removed out of the king’s palace, because he had offended his
brother Metrodorus; and this is written in their own books. But Plato
sent of his disciples and friends, Aristonymus to the Arcadians, to set
in order their commonweal, Phormio to the Eleans, and Menedemus to the
Pyrrhaeans. Eudoxus gave laws to the Cnidians, and Aristotle to the
Stagirites, who were both of them the intimates of Plato. And Alexander
the Great demanded of Xenocrates rules and precepts for reigning well.
And he who was sent to the same Alexander by the Grecians dwelling in
Asia, and who most of all inflamed and stimulated him to embrace and
undertake the war against the barbarian king of Persia, was Delius the
Ephesian, one of Plato’s familiars. Zeno, the disciple of Parmenides,
having attempted to kill the tyrant Demylus, and failing in his design,
maintained the doctrine of Parmenides, like pure and fine gold tried
in the fire, that there is nothing which a magnanimous man ought to
dread but dishonor, and that there are none but children and women, or
effeminate and women-hearted men, who fear pain. For, having with his
own teeth bitten off his tongue, he spit it in the tyrant’s face.
33. But out of the school of Epicurus, and from among those who follow
his doctrine, I will not ask what tyrant-killer has proceeded, nor yet
what man valiant and victorious in feats of arms, what lawgiver, what
prince, what counsellor, or what governor of the people; neither will
I demand, who of them has been tormented or has died for supporting
right and justice. But which of all these sages has for the benefit and
service of his country undertaken so much as one voyage at sea, gone of
an embassy, or expended a sum of money? What record is there extant of
one civil action in matter of government, performed by any of you? And
yet, because Metrodorus went down one day from the city as far as the
haven of Piraeus, taking a journey of forty stadia to assist Mithres
a Syrian, one of the king of Persia’s court who had been arrested and
taken prisoner, he writ of it to every one and in all his letters,
Epicurus also highly magnifying and extolling this wonderful voyage.
What value then, think you, would they have put upon it, if they had
done such an act as Aristotle did, who procured the restoration and
rebuilding of Stagira, the town of his nativity, after it had been
destroyed by King Philip? Or as Theophrastus, who twice delivered his
city, when possessed and held by tyrants? Would not the river Nile
sooner have given over to bear the paper-reed, than they have been
weary of writing their brave exploits?
And it is not the greatest indignity, that, of so many sects of
philosophers as have been extant, they alone should enjoy the benefits
that are in cities, without having ever contributed to them any thing
of their own; but far worse is it that, while there are not even any
tragical or comical poets who do not always endeavor to do or say some
good thing or other in defence of the laws and policy, these men, if
peradventure they write, write of policy, that we may not concern
ourselves in the government of the commonweal,—of rhetoric, that we may
not perform an act of eloquence,—and of royalty, that we may shun the
living and conversing with kings. Nor do they ever name any of those
great personages who have intermeddled in civil affairs, but only to
scoff at them and abolish their glory. Thus they say that Epaminondas
had something of good, but that very little, or μικκόν, for that is the
very word they use. They moreover call him iron-hearted, and ask what
ailed him that he went marching his army through all Peloponnesus, and
why he did not rather keep himself quiet at home with a night-cap on
his head, employed only in cherishing and making much of his belly.
But methinks I ought not in this place to omit what Metrodorus writ
in his book of Philosophy, when, utterly abjuring all meddling in the
management of the state, he said thus: “Some, through an abundance of
vanity and arrogance, have so deep an insight into the business of
it, that in treating about the precepts of good life and virtue, they
suffer themselves to be carried away with the very same desires as were
Lycurgus and Solon.” What is this? Was it then vanity and abundance of
vanity, to set free the city of Athens, to render Sparta well-policied
and governed by wholesome laws, that young men might do nothing
licentiously, nor get children upon common courtesans and whores, and
that riches, delights, intemperance, and dissolution might no longer
bear sway and have command in cities, but law and justice? For these
were the desires of Solon. To this Metrodorus, by way of scorn and
contumely, adds this conclusion: “It is then very well beseeming a
free-born gentleman to laugh heartily, as at other men, so especially
at these Solons and Lycurguses.” But such a one, O Metrodorus, is
not a gentleman, but a servile and dissolute person, and deserves to
be scourged, not with that whip which is for free-born persons, but
with that scourge strung with ankle-bones; with which those gelded
sacrificers called Galli were wont to be chastised, when they failed of
performing their duty in the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Goddess
Cybele, the great Mother of the Gods.
34. But that they made war not against the lawgivers but against the
laws themselves, one may hear and understand from Epicurus. For in his
questions, he asks himself, whether a wise man, being assured that it
will not be known, will do any thing that the laws forbid. To which he
answers: “That is not so easy to determine simply,”—that is, “I will do
it indeed, but I am not willing to confess it.” And again, I suppose,
writing to Idomeneus, he exhorts him not to make his life a slave to
the laws or to the opinions of men, unless it be to avoid the trouble
they prepare, by the scourge and chastisement, so near at hand. If then
those who abolish the laws, governments, and policies of men subvert
and destroy human life, and if Metrodorus and Epicurus do this, by
dehorting and withdrawing their friends from concerning themselves in
public affairs, by hating those who intermeddle in them, by reviling
the first most wise lawgivers, and by advising contempt of the laws
provided there is no fear and danger of the whip and punishment, I do
not see that Colotes has brought so many false accusations against the
other philosophers as he has alleged and advanced true ones against the
writings and doctrines of Epicurus.