couches, I should think, if they are not to have a hard life of it,
and dine off tables, and have the usual dishes and dessert of a
modern dinner.’
“‘Very good: I understand. Apparently we are considering the
growth, not of a city merely, but of a _luxurious_ city. I dare
say it is not a bad plan, for by this extension of our inquiry we
shall perhaps discover how it is that justice and injustice take
root in cities. Now, it appears to me that the city which we have
described is the _genuine_ and, so to speak, _healthy_ city. But
if you wish us also to contemplate a city that is suffering from
inflammation, there is nothing to hinder us. Some people will not
be satisfied, it seems, with the fare or the mode of life which we
have described, but must have, in addition, couches and tables and
every other article of furniture, as well as viands.... Swineherds
again are among the additions we shall require--a class of persons
not to be found, because not wanted, in our former city, but needed
among the rest in this. We shall also need great quantities of all
kinds of cattle for those who may wish to eat them, shall we not?’
“‘Of course we shall.’
“‘Then shall we not experience the need of medical men also to a
much greater extent under this than under the former _régime_?’
“‘Yes, indeed.’
“‘The country, too, I presume, which was formerly adequate to
the support of its then inhabitants, will be now too small, and
adequate no longer. Shall we say so?’
“‘Certainly.’
“‘Then must we not cut ourselves a slice of our neighbours’
territory, if we are to have land enough both for pasture and
tillage? While they will do the same to ours if they, like us,
permit themselves to overstep the limit of necessaries, and plunge
into the unbounded acquisition of wealth.’
“‘It must inevitably be so, Sokrates.’
“‘Will our next step be to go to war, Glaukon, or how will it be?’
“‘As you say.’
“At this stage of our inquiry let us avoid asserting either that
war does good or that it does harm, confining ourselves to this
statement--that we have further traced the origin of war to causes
which are the most fruitful sources of whatever evils befall a
State, either in its corporate capacity or in its individual
members.” (Book II.)[17]
Justly holding that the best laws will be of little avail unless the
administrators of them shall be just and virtuous, Sokrates, in the
Third Book, proceeds to lay down rules for the education and diet of
the magistrates or executive, whom he calls--in conformity with the
Communistic system--_guardians_:--
“‘We have already said,’ proceeds Sokrates, ‘that the persons in
question must refrain from drunkenness; for a guardian is the last
person in the world, I should think, to be allowed to get drunk,
and not know where he is.’
“‘Truly it would be ridiculous for a guardian to require a guard.’
“‘But about eating: our men are combatants in a most important
arena, are they not?’
“‘They are.’
“‘Then will the habit of body which is cultivated by the trained
fighters of the Palæstra be suitable to such persons?’
“‘Perhaps it will.’
“‘Well, but this is a sleepy kind of regimen, and produces a
precarious state of health; for do you not observe that men in the
regular training sleep their life away, and, if they depart only
slightly from the prescribed diet, are attacked by serious maladies
in their worst form?’
“‘I do.’
* * * * *
“‘In fact, it would not be amiss, I imagine, to compare this whole
system of feeding and living to that kind of music and singing
which is adapted to the panharmonicum, and composed in every
variety of rhythm.’
“‘Undoubtedly it would be a just comparison.’
“‘Is it not true, then, that as in music variety begat
dissoluteness in the soul, so here it begets disease in the body,
while simplicity in gymnastic [diet] is as productive of health as
in music it was productive of temperance?’
“‘Most true.’
“‘But when dissoluteness and diseases abound in a city, are not
law courts and surgeries opened in abundance, and do not Law
and Physic begin to hold their heads high, when numbers even
of well-born persons devote themselves with eagerness to these
professions?’
“‘What else can we expect?’
* * * * *
“‘And do you not hold it disgraceful to require medical aid, unless
it be for a wound, or an attack of illness incidental to the time
of the year--to require it, I mean, owing to our laziness and the
life we lead, and to get ourselves so stuffed with humours and
wind, like quagmires, as to compel the clever sons of Asklepios to
call diseases by such names as _flatulence_ and _catarrh_?’
“‘To be sure, these are very strange and new-fangled names for
disorders.’” (Book III.)
Elsewhere, in a well-known passage (in _The Laws_), Plato pronounces
that the springs of human conduct and moral worth depend principally
on diet. “I observe,” says he, “that men’s thoughts and actions are
intimately connected with the threefold need and desire (accordingly as
they are properly used or abused, virtue or its opposite is the result)
of eating, drinking, and sexual love.” He himself was remarkable for
the extreme frugality of his living. Like most of his countrymen, he
was a great eater of figs; and so much did he affect that frugal repast
that he was called, _par excellence_, the “lover of figs” (φιλόσυκος).
The Greeks, in general, were noted among the Europeans for their
abstemiousness; and Antiphanes, the comic poet (in Athenæus), terms
them “leaf-eaters” (φυλλοτρῶγες). Amongst the Greeks, the Athenians and
Spartans were specially noted for frugal living. That of the latter is
proverbial. The comic poets frequently refer, in terms of ridicule,
to what seemed to them so unaccountable an indifferentism to the
“good things” of life on the part of the witty and refined people of
Attica. See the _Deipnosophists_ (dinner-philosophers) of Athenæus (the
great repertory of the _bon-vivantism_ of the time), and Plutarch’s
_Symposiacs_.
It has been pointed out by Professor Mahaffy, in his recent work on
old Greek life, that slaughter-houses and butchers are seldom, or
never, mentioned in Greek literature. “The eating of [flesh] meat,” he
observes, “must have been almost confined to sacrificial feasts; for,
in ordinary language, butchers’ meat was called _victim_ (ἱερεῖον).
The most esteemed, or popular, dishes were _madsa_, a sort of porridge
of wheat or barley; various kinds of bread (see _Deipn._ iii.); honey,
beans, lupines, lettuce and salad, onions and leeks. Olives, dates,
and figs formed the usual fruit portion of their meals. In regard to
non-vegetable food, fish was the most sought after and preferred to
anything else; and the well-known term _opson_, which so frequently
recurs in Greek literature, was specially appropriated to it.
Contemporary with the great master of language was the great master of
medicine, Hippokrates, (460-357) who is to his science what Homer is
to poetry and Herodotus to history--the first historical founder of
the art of healing. He was a native of Kōs, a small island of the S.W.
coast of Lesser Asia, the traditional cradle and home of the disciples
of Asklepios, or Æsculapius (as he was termed by the Latins), the
semi-divine author and patron of medicine. And it may be remarked, in
passing, that the College of Asklepiads of Kōs were careful to exercise
a despotism as severe and exclusive as that which obtains, for the most
part, with the modern orthodox schools.
Amongst a large number of writings of various kinds attributed to
Hippokrates is the treatise _On Regimen in Acute Diseases_ (περὶ
Διαίτης Ὀξέων), which is generally received as genuine; and _On the
Healthful Regimen_ (περὶ Διαίτης Ὑγιεινῆς), which belongs to the same
age, though not to the _canonical_ writings of the founder of the
school himself. He was the author, real or reputed, of some of the
most valuable apophthegms of Greek antiquity. _Ars longa--Vita brevis_
(education is slow; life is short) is the best known, and most often
quoted. What is still more to our purpose is his maxim--“Over-drinking
is _almost as bad_ as over-eating.” Of all the productions of this most
voluminous of writers, his _Aphorisms_ (Ἀφορισμοί), in which these
specimens of laconic wisdom are collected, and which consists of some
four hundred short practical sentences, are the most popular.
About a century after the death of Plato appeared a popular exposition
of the Pythagorean teaching, in hexameters, which is known by the title
given to it by Iamblichus--the _Golden Verses_. “More than half of
them,” says Professor Clifford, “consist of a sort of versified ‘Duty
to God and my Neighbour,’ except that it is not designed by the rich to
be obeyed by the poor; that it lays stress on the laws of health; and
that it is just such sensible counsel for the good and right conduct of
life as an Englishman might now-a-days give to his son.”
Hierokles, an eminent Neo-Platonist of the fifth century, A.D., gave
a course of lectures upon them at Alexandria--which since the time of
the Ptolemies had been one of the chief centres of Greek learning and
science--and his commentary is sufficiently interesting. Suïdas, the
lexicographer, speaks of his matter and style in the highest terms of
praise. “He astonished his hearers everywhere,” he tells us, “by the
calm, the magnificence, the width of his superlative intellect, and
by the sweetness of his speech, full of the most beautiful words and
things.” The Alexandrian lecturer quotes the old Pythagorean maxims:
“You shall honour God best by becoming godlike in your thoughts.
Whoso giveth God honour as to one that needeth it, that man in his
folly hath made himself greater than God. The wise man only is a
priest, is a lover of God, is skilful to pray; ... for that man
only knows how to worship, who begins by offering himself as the
victim, fashions his own soul into a divine image, and furnishes
his mind as a temple for the reception of the divine light.”
The following extracts will serve as a specimen of the religious or
moral character of the _Golden Verses_:--
“Let not sleep come upon thine eyelids till thou hast pondered thy
deeds of the day.
“Wherein have I sinned? What work have I done, what left undone
that I ought to have done?
“Beginning at the first, go through even unto the last, and then
let thy heart smite thee for the evil deeds, but rejoice in the
good work.
“Work at these commandments and think upon them: these commandments
shalt thou love.
“They shall surely set thee in the way of divine righteousness:
yea, by Him who gave into our soul the _Tetrad_,[18] well-spring of
life everlasting.
* * * * *
“Know so far as is permitted thee, that Nature in all things is
like unto herself:
“That thou mayest not hope that of which there is no hope, nor be
ignorant of that which may be.
“Know thou also, that _the woes of men are the work of their own
hands_.
“Miserable are they, _because they see not and hear not the good
that is very nigh them_: and the way of escape from evil few there
be that understand it.
* * * * *
“Verily, Father Zeus, thou wouldst free all men from much evil, if
thou wouldst teach all men what manner of spirit they are of.
* * * * *
“Keep from the meats aforesaid, using judgment both in cleansing
and setting free the soul.
“Give heed to every matter, and set reason on high, who best
holdeth the reins of guidance.[19]
“Then when thou leavest the body, and comest into the free æther,
thou shalt be a god undying, everlasting, neither shall death have
any more dominion over thee.”
Referring to these verses, which inculcate that the human race is
itself responsible for the evils which men, for the most part, prefer
to regret than to remedy, Professor Clifford, to whom we are indebted
for the above version of the _Golden Verses_, remarks on the merits of
this teaching, that it reminds us that “men suffer from _preventible_
evils, that the people perish for lack of knowledge.”[20] Thus we find
that the principal obstructions, in all ages, to human progress and
perfectibility may be ever found in IGNORANCE and SELFISHNESS.
IV.
OVID. 43 B.C.--18 A.D.
The school of Pythagoras and of Plato, although it was not the
fashionable or popular religion of Rome, counted amongst its disciples
some distinguished Italians, and the name of Cicero, who belonged
to the “New Academy,” is sufficiently illustrious. The Italians,
however, who borrowed their religion as well as their literature from
the Greeks, were never distinguished, like their masters, for that
refinement of thought which might have led them to attach themselves
to the Pythagorean teaching. Under the bloody despotism of the Empire,
the philosophy which was most affected by the _literati_ and those who
were driven to the consolations of philosophy was the _stoical_, which
taught its disciples to consider _apathy_ as the _summum bonum_ of
existence. This school of philosophy, whatever its other merits, was
too much centred in self--paradoxical as the assertion may seem--to
have much regard for the rest of mankind, much less for the non-human
species. Nor, while they professed supreme contempt for the luxuries
and even comforts of life, did the disciples of the “Porch,” in
general, practice abstinence from any exalted motive, humanitarian or
spiritual. They preached indifference for the “good things” of this
life, not so much to elevate the spiritual and moral side of human
nature as to show their contempt for human life altogether.
That the Italian was essentially of a more barbarous nature than the
Greek is apparent in the national spectacles and amusements. The
savage scenes of gladiatorial and non-human combat and internecine
slaughter of the Latin amphitheatres, of which the famous Colosseum
in the capital was the model of many others in the provinces, were
abhorrent to the more refined Greek mind.[21] In view of scenes so
sanguinary--the “Roman holiday”--it is scarcely necessary to observe
that humanitarianism was a creed unknown to the Italians; and it
was not likely that a people, addicted throughout their career as
a dominant race to the most bloody wars, not only foreign but also
internecine, with whom fighting and slaughter of their own kind was an
almost daily occupation, should entertain any feeling of pity (to say
nothing of justice) towards their non-human dependants. Nevertheless,
even they were not wholly inaccessible, on occasion, to the prompting
of pity. Referring to a grand spectacle given by Pompeius at the
dedication of his theatre (B.C. 55), in which a large number
of elephants, amongst others, were forced to fight, the elder Pliny
tells us:--
“When they lost the hope of escape, they sought the compassion
of the crowd with an appearance that is indescribable, bewailing
themselves with a sort of lamentation so much to the pain of
the populace that, forgetful of the imperator and the elaborate
munificence displayed for their honour, they all rose up in tears
and bestowed imprecations on Pompeius, of which he soon after
experienced the effect.”[22]
Cicero, who was himself present at the spectacle of the Circus, in a
letter to a friend, Marcus Marius, writes:--
“What followed, for five days, was successive combats between a
man and a wild beast. (_Venationes binæ._) It was magnificent.
No one disputes it. But what pleasure can it be to a person of
refinement, when either a weak man is torn to pieces by a very
powerful beast, or a noble animal is struck through by a hunting
spear?... The last day was that of the elephants, in which there
was great astonishment on the part of the populace and crowd, but
no enjoyment. Indeed there followed a degree of compassion, and a
certain idea that there is a sort of fellowship between that huge
animal and the human race.” (Cicero, _Ep. ad Diversos_ vii., 1.)
Testimonies which might induce one almost to think that, had not they
been systematically and industriously accustomed to these horrible
and gigantic butcheries by their rulers, even the Roman populace
might have been susceptible of better feelings and desires than those
inspired by their amphitheatres, though these savage exhibitions were
perhaps hardly worse than the combats and slaughter in the bull-rings
of Seville or Madrid, or at the courts of the Mohammedan princes of
India recently sanctioned by the presence of English royalty. It is
worth noting, in passing, that while the _gladiatorial_ slaughters were
discontinued some years after the triumph of Christianity, the other
part of the entertainment--the indiscriminate combats and slaughter
of the _non-human_ victims--continued to be exhibited to a much later
period.
If we reflect that the rise of the humanitarian spirit in Christian
Europe, or rather in the better section of it, is of very recent
origin, it might appear unreasonable to look for any distinct
exhibition of so exalted a feeling in the younger age of the
world. Yet, to the shame of more advanced civilisations, we find
manifestations of it in the writings of a few of the more refined
minds of Greece and Italy; and Plutarch and Seneca--the former
particularly--occupy a distinguished place amongst the first preachers
of that sacred truth.[23]
Publius Ovidius Naso, the Latin versifier of the Pythagorean
philosophy, was born B.C. 43. He belonged to the equestrian
order, a position in the social scale which corresponds with the
“higher middle class” of modern days. Like so many other names eminent
in literature, he was in the first instance educated for the law,
for which, also like many other literary celebrities, he soon showed
his genius to be unfitted and uncongenial. He studied at the great
University of that age--Athens--where he acquired a knowledge of
the Greek language, and probably of its rich literature. The most
memorable event in his life--which, in accordance with the fashion of
his contemporaries of the same rank, was for the most part devoted
to “gallantry” and the accustomed amatory licence--is his mysterious
banishment from Rome to the inhospitable and savage shores of the
Euxine, where he passed the last seven years of his existence, dying
there in the sixtieth year of his age. The cause of his sudden exile
from the Court of Augustus, where he had been in high favour, is one
of those secrets of history which have exercised the ingenuity of his
successive biographers. According to the terms of the imperial edict,
the freedom of the poet’s _Ars Amatoria_ was the offence. That this was
a mere pretext is plain, as well from the long interval of time which
had passed since the publication of the poem as from the character of
the fashionable society of the capital. Ovid himself attributes his
misfortune to the fact of his having become the involuntary witness of
some secret of the palace, the nature of which is not divulged.
His most important poems are (1) _The Metamorphoses_, in fifteen books,
so called from its being a collection of the numerous transformations
of the popular theology. It is, perhaps, the most _charming_ of Latin
poems that have come down to us. Particular passages have a special
beauty. (2) _The Fasti_, in twelve books, of which only six are extant,
is the Roman Calendar in verse. Its interest, apart from the poetic
genius of the author, is great, as being the grand repertory of the
Latin feasts and their popular origin. Besides these two principal
poems he was the author of the famous _Loves_, in three books; the
_Letters of the Heroines_, _The Remedies of Love_, and _The Tristia, or
Sad Thoughts_. He also wrote a tragedy--_Medea_--which, unfortunately
has not come down to us. All his poems are characterised by elegance
and a remarkable smoothness and regularity of versification, and in
much of his productions there is an unusual beauty and picturesqueness
of poetic ideas.
The following passage from the fifteenth book of the _Metamorphoses_
has been justly said by Dryden, his translator, to be the finest part
of the whole poem. It is almost impossible to believe but that, in
spite of his misspent life, he must have felt, in his better moments at
least, something of the truth and beauty of the Pythagorean principles
which he so exquisitely versifies. In the touching words which he puts
into the mouth of the jealous Medea--the murderess of her children--he
might have exclaimed in his own case--
“Video meliora proboque
Deteriora sequor.”[24]
“He [Pythagoras], too, was the first to forbid animals to be served
up at the table, and he was first to open his lips, indeed full
of wisdom yet all unheeded, in the following words: ‘Forbear, O
mortals! to pollute your bodies with such abominable food. There
are the _farinacea_ (_fruges_), there are the fruits which bear
down the branches with their weight, and there are the grapes
swelling on the vines; there are the sweet herbs; there are those
that may be softened by the flame and become tender. Nor is the
milky juice denied you; nor honey, redolent of the flower of thyme.
The lavish Earth heaps up her riches and her gentle foods, and
offers you dainties without blood and without slaughter. The lower
animals satisfy their ravenous hunger with flesh. And yet not
all of them; for the horse, the sheep, the cows and oxen subsist
on grass; while those whose disposition is cruel and fierce, the
tigers of Armenia and the raging lions, and the wolves and bears,
revel in their bloody diet.
“‘Alas! what a monstrous crime it is (_scelus_) that entrails
should be entombed in entrails; that one ravening body should grow
fat on others which it crams into it; that one living creature
should live by the death of another living creature! Amid so great
an abundance which the Earth--that best of mothers--produces does,
indeed, nothing delight you but to gnaw with savage teeth the sad
produce of the wounds you inflict and to imitate the habits of
the Cyclops? Can you not appease the hunger of a voracious and
ill-regulated stomach unless you first destroy another being? Yet
that age of old, to which we have given the name of _golden_, was
blest in the produce of the trees and in the herbs which the earth
brings forth, and the human mouth was not polluted with blood.
“‘Then the birds moved their wings secure in the air, and the hare,
without fear, wandered in the open fields. Then the fish did not
fall a victim to the hook and its own credulity. Every place was
void of treachery; there was no dread of injury--all things were
full of peace. In later ages some one--a mischievous innovator
(_non utilis auctor_), whoever he was--set at naught and scorned
this pure and simple food, and engulfed in his greedy paunch
victuals made from a carcase. It was he that opened the road to
wickedness. I can believe that the steel, since stained with blood,
was first dipped in the gore of savage wild beasts; and that was
lawful enough. We hold that the bodies of animals that seek our
destruction are put to death without any breach of the sacred laws
of morality. But although they might be put to death they were
not to be eaten as well. From this time the abomination advanced
rapidly. The swine is believed to have been the first victim
destined to slaughter, because it grubbed up the seeds with its
broad snout, and so cut short the hopes of the year. For gnawing
and injuring the vine the goat was led to slaughter at the altars
of the avenging Bacchus. Its own fault was the ruin of each of
these victims.
“‘But how have you deserved to die, ye sheep, you harmless
breed that have come into existence for the service of men--who
carry nectar in your full udders--who give your wool as soft
coverings for us--who assist us more by your life than by your
death? Why have the oxen deserved this--beings without guile and
without deceit--innocent, mild, born for the endurance of labour?
Ungrateful, indeed, is man, and unworthy of the bounteous gifts of
the harvest who, after unyoking him from the plough, can slaughter
the tiller of his fields--who can strike with the axe that neck
worn bare with labour, through which he had so often turned up the
hard ground, and which had afforded so many a harvest.