Dion of Syracuse.Chosen for mention, because he was Plato’s pupil.
He is yours; take him, with good luck to you.
Epicurean, I want you now. Who will buy him?
He is a pupil of the laugher yonder and of the
drunkard, both of whom we put up a short time ago.The Epicureans took over the atomic theory from Democritus and the idea that pleasure is the highest good from the Cyrenaics.
In one way, however, he knows more than they,
because he is more impious. Besides, he is agreeable
and fond of good eating.
What is his price?
Two minas.
Here you are. But, say! I want to know what
food he likes.
He eats sweets and honey-cakes, and, above all,
figs.
No trouble about that; we shall buy him cakes of
pressed figs from Caria.
Call another, the one over there with the cropped
head, the dismal fellow from the Porch.
Quite right; at all events it looks as if the men
who frequent the public square were waiting for him
in great numbers.Lucian means that the Stoic philosophy was in high favour with statesmen, lawyers, and men of affairs generally. I sell virtue itself, the most
perfect of philosophies. Who wants to be the only
one to know everything ?
What do you mean by that?
That he is the only wise man, the only handsome
man, the only just man, brave man, king, orator,
rich man, lawgiver, and everything else that
there is.Compare Ad summam: sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives,Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum,Praecipue sanus,— nisi cum pituita molestast !Horace, Epp. 1, I 106 ff
Then he is the only cook,—yes and the only
tanner or carpenter, and so forth ?
So it appears.
Come here, my good fellow, and tell your buyer
what you are like, and first of all whether you are
not displeased with being sold and living in slavery?
Not at all, for these things are not in our control,
and all that is not in our control is immaterial.
I don’t understand what you mean by this.
What, you do not understand that of such things
some are “approved,” and some, to the contrary,
“disapproved”’ ? Just as things "in our control” were divided into the good and the bad, so those "not in our control” were divided into the “approved” and the "disapproved,” according as they helped or hindered in the acquirement of virtue.
Even now I do not understand.
Of course not, for you are not familiar with our
vocabulary and have not the faculty of forming concepts; but a scholar who has mastered the science of
logic knows not only this, but what predicaments
and bye-predicaments are, and how they differ from
each other.The hair-splitting Stoics distinguished four forms of predication according to the case of the (logical) subject and the logical completeness of the predicate : the direct, complete predicate, or σύμβαμα (predicament), i.e. Σωκράτης βαδίζει; the indirect, complete predicate, or παρασύμβαμα (bye-predicament), i.e. Σωκράτει μεταμέλει ; the direct, incomplete predicate, e.g. Σωκράτης φιλεῖ, and the indirect, incomplete predicate, i.e. Σωκράτει μέλει.
In the name of wisdom, don’t begrudge telling me
at least what predicaments and bye-predicaments are ;
for I am somehow impressed by the rhythm of the
terms.
Indeed, I do not begrudge it at all. If a man who
is lame dashes his lame foot against a stone and
receives an unlooked-for injury, he was already in a
predicament, of course, with his lameness, and with
his injury he gets into a bye-predicament too.