1. AS I was considering with myself to bring forth and propose to the
judgment of this worthy company the discourse I held yesterday in your
presence, methought I heard political virtue—not in the illusion of a
dream, but in a true and real vision—say thus to me.
A golden ground is laid for sacred songs.
We have already laid the foundation of the discourse by persuading
and exhorting persons to concern themselves in managing the affairs
of the commonweal, and now we proceed to build upon it the doctrine
which is due after such an exhortation. For after a man has received
an admonition and exhortation to deal in the affairs of the state,
there ought consequently to be given him the precepts of government,
following and observing which, he may, as much as it is possible for a
man to do, profit the public, and in the mean time honestly prosecute
his own affairs with such safety and honor as shall be meet for him.
There is first then one point to be discoursed, which, as it is
precedent to what we have hereafter to say, so depends on what we have
said before. Now this is, what sort of policy and government is best?
For as there are many sorts of lives in particular men, so also are
there in people and states; and the life of a people or state is its
policy and government. It is therefore necessary to declare which is
the best, that a statesman may choose it from among the rest, or, if
that is not possible for him to do, he may at least take that which has
the nearest resemblance to the best.
2. Now there is one signification of this word policy (πολιτεία) which
imports as much as _burgess-ship_, that is, a participation in the
rights and privileges belonging to a town, city, or borough; as when we
say that the Megarians, by an edict of their city, presented Alexander
the Great with their _policy_, that is, their _burgess-ship_, and that,
Alexander laughing at the offer they made him of it, they answered him,
that they had never decreed that honor to any but Hercules and now to
himself. This he wondering to hear accepted their present, thinking it
honorable inasmuch as it was rare. The life also of a political person,
who is concerned in the government of the commonweal, is called policy,
as when we praise the policy of Pericles or Bias, that is, the manner
of their government, and on the contrary, blame that of Hyperbolus and
Cleon. Some moreover there are, who call a great and memorable action
performed in the administration of a commonweal a policy, such as is
the distribution of money, the suppressing of a war, the introduction
of some notable decree worthy to be kept in perpetual memory. In which
signification it is a common manner of speaking to say, This man to-day
has done a policy, if he has peradventure effected some remarkable
matter in the government of the state.
3. Besides all these significations there is yet another, that is, the
order and state by which a commonweal is governed, and by which affairs
are managed and administered. According to which we say that there are
three sorts of policy or public government,—to wit, Monarchy, which
is regality or kingship, Oligarchy, which is the government by peers
and nobles, and Democracy, which is a popular or (as we term it) a free
state. Now all these are mentioned by Herodotus in his Third Book,[136]
where he compares them one with another. And these seem to be the most
general of all; for all other sorts are, as it were, the depravation
and corruption of these, either by defect or excess; as it is in the
first consonances of music, when the strings are either too straight or
too slack.
Now these three sorts of government have been distributed amongst the
nations that have had the mightiest and the greatest empire. Thus the
Persians enjoyed regality or kingship, because their king had full
absolute power in all things, without being liable to render an account
to any one. The Spartans had a council consisting of a small number,
and those the best and most considerable persons in the city, who
despatched all affairs. The Athenians maintained popular government
free and exempt from any other mixture. In which administration when
there are any faults, their transgressions and exorbitances are styled
tyrannies, oppressions of the stronger, unbridled licentiousness of the
multitude. That is, when the prince who has the royalty permits himself
to outrage whomever he pleases, and will not suffer any remonstrance
to be made him concerning it, he becomes a tyrant; when a few lords or
senators in whose hands the government is arrive at that arrogance as
to contemn all others, they turn oppressors; and when a popular state
breaks forth into disobedience and levelling, it runs into anarchy
and unmeasurable liberty: and in a word, all of them together will be
rashness and folly.
4. Even then as a skilful musician will make use of all sorts of
instruments, and play on every one of them, accommodating himself in
such manner as its quality can bear and as shall be fit to make it
yield the sweetest sound, but yet, if he will follow Plato’s counsel,
will lay aside fiddles, many-stringed virginals, psalteries, and harps,
preferring before all other the lute and bandore; in like manner,
an able statesman will dexterously manage the Laconic and Lycurgian
seignory or oligarchy, fitting and accommodating his companions who
are of equal authority with him, and by little and little drawing and
reducing them to be managed by himself. He will also carry himself
discreetly in a popular state, as if he had to deal with an instrument
of many and differently sounding strings, one while letting down and
remitting some things, and again extending others, as he shall see his
opportunity and find it most convenient for the government, to which he
will vigorously apply himself, well knowing when and how he ought to
resist and contradict; but yet, if he might be permitted to make his
choice from amongst all sorts of government, as from so many musical
instruments, he would not, if Plato’s advice might be taken, choose any
other but monarchy or regal authority, as being that which is indeed
alone able to support that most perfect and most lofty note of virtue,
without suffering him either by force or by grace and favor, to frame
himself for advantage and gain. For all other sorts of governments do
in a manner as much rule a statesman as he does them, no less carrying
him than they are carried by him; forasmuch as he has no certain
power over those from whom he has his authority, but is very often
constrained to cry out in these words of the poet Aeschylus, which King
Demetrius, surnamed the Town-taker, often alleged against Fortune,
after he had lost his kingdom
Thou mad’st me first, and now undoest me quite.
WHETHER THE ATHENIANS WERE MORE RENOWNED FOR THEIR WARLIKE
ACHIEVEMENTS OR FOR THEIR LEARNING.
1.... THESE things he rightly spoke to the commanders that accompanied
him, to whom he opened the way for future performances, while he
expelled the barbarians and restored Greece to her ancient liberty. And
the same thing may be said to those that magnify themselves for their
writings. For if there were none to act, there would be none to write.
Take away the political government of Pericles, and the naval trophies
of Phormio at Rhium, and the brave achievements of Nicias at Cythera,
Megara, and Corinth, Demosthenes’s Pylos, and the four hundred captives
taken by Cleon, Tolmides sailing round the Peloponnesus, and Myronidas
vanquishing the Boeotians at Oenophyta: and you murder Thucydides.
Take away the daring braveries of Alcibiades in the Hellespont, and of
Thrasyllus near Lesbos; the dissolution of the oligarchy by Theramenes;
Thrasybulus, Archippus, and the seventy that from Phylae ventured to
attack the Lacedaemonian tyranny; and Conon again enforcing Athens
to take the sea: and then there is an end of Cratippus. For as for
Xenophon, he was his own historian, relating the exploits of the army
under his command, but saying that Themistogenes the Syracusan had
written the history of them; dedicating the honor of his writing to
another, that writing of himself as of another, he might gain the
more credit. But all the other historians, as the Clinodemi, Diyli,
Philochorus, Philarchus, were but the actors of other men’s deeds,
as of so many plays, while they compiled the acts of kings and great
generals, and thrusting themselves into the memory of their fame,
partake of a kind of lustre and light from them. For there is a certain
shadow of glory which reflects from those that act to those that write,
while the actions of another appear in the discourse as in a mirror.
2. But this city was the mother and charitable nurse of many other arts
and sciences; some of which she first invented and illustrated, to
others she gave both efficacy, honor, and increase. More especially to
her is painting beholden for its first invention, and the perfection to
which it has attained. For Apollodorus the painter, who first invented
the mixing of colors and the softening of shadows, was an Athenian.
Over whose works there is this inscription:
’Tis no hard thing to reprehend me;
But let the men that blame me mend me.
Then for Euphranor, Nicias, Asclepiodorus, and Plistaenetus the brother
of Phidias, some of them painted the victories, others the battles of
great generals, and some of them heroes themselves. Thus Euphranor,
comparing his own Theseus with another drawn by Parrhasius, said, that
Parrhasius’s Theseus ate roses, but his fed upon beef. For Parrhasius’s
piece was daintily painted, and perhaps it might be something like the
original. But he that beheld Euphranor’s Theseus might well exclaim,
Race of Erechtheus bold and stout,
Whom Pallas bred.[137]
Euphranor also painted with great spirit the battle of Mantinea,
fought by the cavalry between the Athenians and Epaminondas. The
story was thus. The Theban Epaminondas, puffed up with his victory at
Leuctra, and designing to insult and trample over fallen Sparta and
the glory of that city, with an army of seventy thousand men invaded
and laid waste the Lacedaemonian territory, stirred up the subject
people to revolt, and not far from Mantinea provoked the Spartans to
battle; but they neither being willing nor indeed daring to encounter
him, being in expectation of a reinforcement from Athens, Epaminondas
dislodged in the night-time, and with all the secrecy imaginable fell
into the Lacedaemonian territory; and missed but little of taking
Sparta itself, being destitute of men to defend it. But the allies of
the Lacedaemonians made haste to its relief; whereupon Epaminondas
made a show as if he would again return to spoiling and laying waste
the country; and by this means deceiving and amusing his enemies, he
retreats out of Laconia by night, and with swift marches coming upon
the Mantineans unexpectedly, at what time they were deliberating to
send relief to Sparta, presently commanded the Thebans to prepare to
storm the town. Immediately the Thebans, who had a great conceit of
their warlike courage, took their several posts, and began to surround
the city. This put the Mantineans into a dismal consternation, and
filled the whole city with dreadful outcries and hurly-burly, as being
neither able to withstand such a torrent of armed men ready to rush in
upon them, nor having any hopes of succor.
But at the same time, and by good fortune, the Athenians came down from
the hills into the plains of Mantinea, not knowing any thing of the
critical moment that required more speedy haste, but marching leisurely
along. However, so soon as they were informed of the danger of their
allies, by one that scouted out from the rest, though but few in
respect of the number of their enemies, single of themselves, and tired
with their march, yet they presently drew up into order of battle; and
the cavalry charging up to the very gates of Mantinea, there happened a
terrible battle between the horse on both sides; wherein the Athenians
got the better, and so saved Mantinea out of Epaminondas’s hands. This
conflict was painted by Euphranor, and you see in the picture with what
strength, what fury and vigor they fought. And yet I do not believe
that any one will compare the skill of the painter with that of the
general; or would endure that any one should prefer the picture before
the trophy, or the imitation before the truth itself.
3. Though indeed Simonides calls painting silent poetry, and poetry
speaking painting. For those actions which painters set forth as they
were doing, those history relates when they were done. And what the
one sets forth in colors and figures, the other relates in words and
sentences; only they differ in the materials and manner of imitation.
However, both aim at the same end, and he is accounted the best
historian, who can make the most lively descriptions both of persons
and passions. Therefore Thucydides always drives at this perspicuity,
to make the hearer (as it were) a spectator, and to inculcate the same
passions and perturbations of mind into his readers as they were in
who beheld the causes of those effects. For Demosthenes embattling the
Athenians near the rocky shore of Pylos; Brasidas hastening the pilot
to run the ship aground, then going to the rowers’ seats, then wounded
and fainting, sinking down in that part of the vessel where the oars
could not trouble him; the land fight of the Spartans from the sea, and
the sea engagement of the Athenians from the land; then again in the
Sicilian war, both a land fight and sea engagement, so fought that
neither had the better,[138]... So that if we may not compare painters
with generals, neither must we equal historians to them.
Thersippus of Eroeadae brought the first news of the victory at
Marathon, as Heraclides of Pontus relates. But most report that Eucles,
running armed with his wounds reeking from the fight, and falling
through the door into the first house he met, expired with only these
words in his mouth, “God save ye, we are well.” Now this man brought
the news himself of the success of a fight wherein he was present in
person. But suppose that any of the goat-keepers or herd-men had beheld
the combat from some high hill at a distance, and seeing the success of
that great achievement, greater than by words can be expressed, should
have come to the city without any wound or blood about him, and should
have claimed the honors done to Cynaegirus, Callimachus, and Polyzelus,
for giving an account of their wounds, their bravery and deaths,
wouldst thou not have thought him impudent above impudence itself;
seeing that the Lacedaemonians gave the messenger that brought the
news of the victory at Mantinea[139] no other reward than a quantity
of victuals from the public mess? But historians are (as it were)
well-voiced relators of the actions of great men, who add grace and
beauty and dint of wit to their relations, and to whom they that first
light upon them and read them are indebted for their pleasing tidings.
And being read, they are applauded for transmitting to posterity the
actions of those that do bravely. For words do not make actions, though
we give them the hearing.
4. But there is a certain grace and glory of the poetic art, when it
resembles the grandeur of the actions themselves; according to that of
Homer,
And many falsities he did unfold,
That looked like truth, so smoothly were they told.[140]
It is reported also, that when one of his familiar friends said to
Menander, The feasts of Bacchus are at hand, and thou hast made ne’er a
comedy; he made him this answer: By all the Gods, I have made a comedy,
for I have laid my plot; and there remains only to make the verses and
measures to it. So that the poets themselves believe the actions to be
more necessary than the words, and the first things to be considered.
Corinna likewise, when Pindar was but a young man and made too daring
a use of his eloquence, gave him this admonition, that he was no poet,
for that he never composed any fables, which was the chiefest office of
poetry; in regard that strange words, figures, metaphors, songs, and
measures were invented to give a sweetness to things. Which admonition
Pindar laying up in his mind, wrote a certain ode which thus begins:
Shall I Ismenus sing,
Or Melia, that from spindles all of gold
Her twisted yarn unwinds,
Or Cadmus, that most ancient king,
Or else the sacred race of Sparti bold,
Or Hercules, that far in strength transcends.
Which when he showed to Corinna, she with a smile replied: When you
sow, you must scatter the seed with your hand, not empty the whole
sack at once. And indeed we find that Pindar intermixes in his poetic
numbers a collection of all sorts of fables. Now that poetry employs
itself in mythology is agreed by Plato likewise. For a fable is the
relation of a false story resembling truth, and therefore very remote
from real actions; for relation is the image of action, as fable is the
image of relation. And therefore they that feign actions fall as far
behind historians as they that speak differ from those that act.
5. Athens therefore never bred up any true artist in epic or lyric
verse. For Cinesias was a troublesome writer of dithyrambics, a person
of mean parentage and of no repute; and being jeered and derided by the
comedians, proved very unfortunate in the pursuit of fame.
Now for the dramatic poets, the Athenians looked upon comedy to be so
ignoble and troublesome, that they published a law that no Areopagite
should make any comedies. But tragedy flourished and was cried up, and
with wonder and admiration heard and beheld by all people in those
days, deceiving them with fables and the display of various passions;
whereby, as Gorgias says, he that deceived was more just than he that
deceived not, and he that was deceived was wiser than he who was not
deceived. He that deceived was more just, because it was no more than
what he pretended to do; and he that was deceived was wiser, for that
he must be a man of no sense that is not taken with the sweetness
of words. And yet what benefit did those fine tragedies procure the
Athenians? But the shrewdness and cunning of Themistocles walled
the city, the industry of Pericles adorned their citadel, and Cimon
advanced them to command their neighbors. But as for the wisdom of
Euripides, the eloquence of Sophocles, the lofty style of Aeschylus,
what calamity did they avert from the city; or what renown or fame did
they bring to the Athenians? Is it fitting then that dramatic poems
should be compared with trophies, the stage with the generals’ office,
or lists of dramas with noble achievements?
6. Would ye that we should introduce the men themselves carrying before
them the marks and signals of their own actions, permitting them to
enter in order, like the actors upon the stage? But then poets must go
before them, with flutes and lyres, saying and singing:
Far from our choirs who in this lore’s unskilled,
Or does not cherish pure and holy thoughts,
Nor views nor joins the Muses’ generous rites,
Nor is perfected in the Bacchic tongue,
With which Cratinus bull-devourer sang.[141]
And then there must be scenes, and vizards, and altars, and versatile
machines. There must be also the tragedy actors, the Nicostrati,
Callippidae, Menisci, Theodori, Poli, the dressers, and sedan-men of
tragedy,—like those of some sumptuously apparelled lady, or rather like
the painters, gilders, and colorers of statues,—together with a costly
preparation of vessels, vizards, purple coats, and machines, attended
by an unruly rabble of dancers and guards; and let all the preparation
be exceeding costly and magnificent. A Lacedaemonian once, beholding
all this, not improperly said: How strangely are the Athenians
mistaken, consuming so much cost and labor upon ridiculous trifles;
that is to say, wasting the expenses of navies and of victualling whole
armies upon the stage. For if you compute the cost of those dramatic
preparations, you will find that the Athenians spent more upon their
Bacchae, Oedipuses, and Antigone, and the woes of Medea and Electra,
than in their wars against the barbarians for liberty and extending
their empire. For their general oft-times led forth the soldiers to
battle, commanding them to make provisions only of such food as needed
not the tedious preparation of fire. And indeed their admirals and
captains of their ships went aboard without any other provision than
meal, onions, and cheese. Whereas the masters of the choruses, feeding
their dancers with eels, lettuce, the kernels of garlic, and marrow,
feasted them for a long time, exercising their voices and pleasing
their palates by turns. And as for these captains, if they were
overcome, it was their misfortune to be contemned and hissed at; and if
they were victors, there was neither tripod, nor consecrated ornament
of victory, as Demetrius says, but a life prolonged among cables, and
an empty house for a tomb. For this is the tribute of poetry, and there
is nothing more splendid to be expected from it.
7. Now then let us consider the great generals as they approach, to
whom, as they pass by, all those must rise up and pay their salutations
who have never been famous for any great action, military or civil, and
were never furnished with daring boldness nor purity of wisdom for such
enterprises, nor initiated by the hand of Miltiades that overthrew the
Medes, or of Themistocles that vanquished the Persians. This is the
martial gang, at once combating with phalanxes by land, and engaging
with navies by sea, and laden with the spoils of both. Give ear, Alala,
daughter of War, to this same prologue of swords and spears.
Hasten to death, when for your country vowed,
as Epaminondas said,—for your country, your sepulchres, and your
altars, throwing yourselves into most noble and illustrious combats.
Their victories methinks I see approaching toward me, not dragging
after them a goat or ox for a reward, nor crowned with ivy and smelling
of the dregs of wine. But whole cities, islands, continents, and
colonies well peopled are their rewards, being surrounded with trophies
and spoils of all sorts. Whose statues and symbols of honor are
Parthenons, a hundred feet in length, South-walls, houses for ships,
the Propylaea, the Chersonesus, and Amphipolis. Marathon displays the
victory of Miltiades, and Salamis the glory of Themistocles, triumphing
over the ruins of a thousand vessels. The victory of Cimon brings
away a hundred Phoenician galleys from the Eurymedon. And the victory
of Cleon and Demosthenes brings away the shield of Brasidas, and the
captive soldiers in chains from Sphacteria. The victory of Conon and
Thrasybulus walls the city, and brings the people back at liberty from
Phylae. The victory of Alcibiades near Sicily restores the languishing
condition of the city; and Greece beheld Ionia raised again by the
victories of Neleus and Androclus in Lydia and Caria.
If you ask what benefit every one of the rest procured to the city; one
will answer Lesbos, another Samos, another Cyprus, another the Pontus
Euxinus, another five hundred galleys with three banks of oars, and
another ten thousand talents, the rewards of fame and trophies won.
For these victories the city observes public anniversary festivals,
for these victories she sacrifices to the Gods; not for the victories
of Aeschylus and Sophocles, not because Carcinus was victorious[142]
with his Aerope, or Astydamas with his Hector. But upon the sixth
of September, even to this day, the Athenians celebrate a festival
in memory of the fight at Marathon. Upon the sixteenth of the same
month libations are poured in remembrance of the naval victory won
by Chabrias near Naxos. Upon the twelfth they offer thanksgiving
sacrifices for the recovery of their liberty. For upon that day they
returned back from Phylae. The third of the same month they won the
battle of Plataea. The sixteenth of April was consecrated to Diana,
when the moon appeared in the full to the Greeks victorious at Salamis.
The twelfth of June was made sacred by the battle of Mantinea, wherein
the Athenians, when their confederates were routed and fled, alone
by themselves obtained the victory and triumph over their victorious
enemies. Such actions as these procured honor and veneration and
grandeur to the city; for these acts it was that Pindar called Athens
the support of Greece; not because she had set the fortune of the
Greeks upright by the tragedies of Phrynichus and Thespis, but because
(as he says) “near Artemisium the Athenian youth laid the first
glorious foundation of freedom;” and afterwards fixing it upon the
adamantine pillars of Salamis, Mycale, and Plataea, they multiplied
their felicity to others.
8. But as for the writings of the poets, they are mere bubbles. But
rhetoricians and orators indeed have something in them that renders
them in some measure fit to be compared with great captains. For
which reason, Aeschines in derision reports of Demosthenes, that he
said he was bringing a suit in behalf of the orator’s stand against
the generals’ office.[143] But for all that, do you think it proper
to prefer the Plataic oration of Hyperides to the Plataic victory
of Aristides? Or the oration of Lysias against the Thirty Tyrants,
to the acts of Thrasybulus and Archias that put them to death? Or
that of Aeschines against Timarchus for unchastity, to the relieving
of Byzantium by Phocion, by which he prevented the sons of the
confederates from being the scorn and derision of the Macedonians?
Or shall we set before the public crowns which Demosthenes received
for setting Greece at liberty, his oration on the Crown, wherein the
rhetorician has behaved himself most splendidly and learnedly, swearing
by their progenitors that ventured their lives at Marathon for the
liberty of Greece,[144] rather than by those that instructed youth in
the schools? And therefore the city buried these heroes at the expense
of the public, honoring the sacred relics of their bodies, not men
like Isocrates, Antiphon, and Isaeus, and the orator has translated
them into the number of the Gods; and by these it was that he chose
to swear, though he did not follow their example. Isocrates also was
wont to say, that they who ventured their lives at Marathon fought
as if they had been inspired with other souls than their own; and
extolling their daring boldness and contempt of life, to one that asked
him (being at that time very aged) how he did,—As well, said he, as
one who, being now above fourscore and ten years old, esteems death
to be the worst of evils. For neither did he spend his years to old
age in whetting his sword, in grinding and sharpening his spear, in
scouring and polishing his helmet, in commanding navies and armies,
but in knitting and joining together antithetical and equally balanced
clauses, and words of similar endings, all but smoothing and adapting
his periods and sentences with files, planes, or chisels. How would
that man have been affrighted at the clattering of weapons or the
routing of a phalanx, who was so afraid of suffering one vowel to clash
with another, or to pronounce a sentence where but one syllable was
wanting!
Miltiades, the very next day after the battle of Marathon, returned
a victor to the city with his army. And Pericles, having subdued the
Samians in nine months, derided Agamemnon that was ten years taking
of Troy. But Isocrates was nearly three Olympiads (or twelve years)
in writing his Panegyric; in all which time he had neither been a
general nor an ambassador, neither built a city, nor been an admiral,
notwithstanding the many wars that harassed Greece within that
time. But while Timotheus freed Euboea from slavery, while Chabrias
vanquished the enemy near Naxos, while Iphicrates defeated and cut to
pieces a whole battalion of the Lacedaemonians near Lechaeum, while the
Athenians, having shaken off the Spartan yoke, set the rest of Greece
at liberty, with as ample privileges as they had themselves; he sits
poring at home in his study, seeking out proper phrases and choice
words for his oration, as long a time as Pericles spent in erecting
the Propylaea and the Parthenon. Though the comic poet Cratinus seems
to deride even Pericles himself as one that was none of the quickest,
where he says of the middle wall:
In words the mighty Pericles
Has rais’d us up a wall;
But ’tis a wall in only words,
For we see none at all.
Consider now the poor spirit of this great orator, who spent the ninth
part of his life in compiling one single oration. But to say no more of
him, is it rational to compare the harangues of Demosthenes the orator
with the martial exploits of Demosthenes the great leader? For example,
the oration against Conon for an assault, with the trophies which the
other erected before Pylos? Or the declamation against Amathusius
concerning slaves, with the noble service which the other performed
in bringing home the Spartan captives? Neither can it be said, that
Demosthenes for his oration in regard to foreigners ... deserved as
much honor as Alcibiades, who joined the Mantineans and Eleans as
confederates with the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians. And yet we
must acknowledge that the public orations of Demosthenes deserve this
praise, that in his Philippics he bravely encourages the Athenians to
take arms, and he extols the enterprise of Leptines....