Pelt, pelt the scoundrel with plenty of stones!
Heap him with clods! Pile him up with broken
dishes, too! Beat the blackguard with your sticks!
Look out he doesn’t get away! Throw, Plato; you
too, Chrysippus ; you too; everybody at once! Let’s
charge him together.
“Let wallet to wallet give succour, and cudgel to
cudgel,” κρῖν᾽ ἄνδρας κατὰ φῦλα, κατὰ φρήτρας, ᾿Ἀγάμεμνον,ὡς φρήτρη φρήτρηφιν ἀρήγῃ, φῦλα δὲ φύλοις.Iliad2, 363
for he is our joint enemy, and there is not a man
of us whom he has not outraged. Diogenes, ply
your stick, if ever you did before; let none of you
weaken; let him pay the penalty for his ribaldry.
What is this? Have yon given out, Epicurus and
Aristippus? Come, that is too bad!
Show yourselves men, ye sages, and call up the
fury of battle.Iliad6, 112; Homer has “friends,” not “sages.”
Aristotle, make haste! Still faster! That’s well; the
game is bagged. We have you, villain! you shall
soon find out what sort of men you have been
insulting. But how are we to punish him, to be
sure? Let us invent a complex death for him, such
as to satisfy us all; in fact he deserves to die seven
times over for each of us.
I suggest he be crucified.
Yes, by Heaven; but flogged beforehand.
Let him have his eyes put out long beforehand
Let him have that tongue of his cut off, even
longer beforehand.
And you, Empedocles—what do you suggest ?
That he be thrown into my crater,
Aetna, into which Eimpedocles is said to have leapt.
so that he may
learn not to abuse his betters.
Indeed, the best suggestion would have been for
him, like another Pentheus or Orpheus,
“To find among the crags a riven doom,”
Both Pentheus and Orpheus were torn to ieces by Maenads. The verse is from a lost tragedy (Nauck, Fr Fragm. p. 895).
so that each of us might have gone off with a scrap
of him.
No, no! In the name of Him who hears the suppliant,
Zeus.
spare me!
Your doom is sealed: you cannot be let go now.
You know, of course, what Homer says:
Since between lions and men there exist no bonds
of alliance.Iliad22, 262.
Indeed, I myself will quote Homer in begging you
for mercy. Perhaps you will revere his verses and
will not ignore me when I have recited them :
Save me, for I am no churl, and I receive what is
fitting in ransom,Copper and gold, that in truth are desirable even
to sages.A cento; Iliad6, 46, 48; 20, 65.
But we ourselves shall not be at a loss for a
Homeric reply to you ; listen to this, for instance :
Think not now in your heart of escape, you
speaker of slander,Even by talking of gold, oncé into our hands you
have fallen.Iliad10, 447-8, with alterations.
Oh, what wretched luck! Homer, in whom I had
my greatest hope, is useless to me. I suppose I
must take refuge with Euripides ; perhaps he might
save me :
Slay not! The suppliant thou shalt not skay.Nauck, p. 663. Cf. Ion1553.
Ah, but is not this by Euripides, too?
No harm for them that wrought to suffer harm.Orestes413.hen will ye slay me now, because of words?Euripides? Nauck, p. 663.
Yes, by Heaven! Anyhow, he himself says :
Of mouths that are curblessAnd fools that are lawlessThe end is mischance.Bacchae386 ff.
Well, then, as you are absolutely determined to
kill me and there is no possibility of my escaping,
do tell me at least who you are and what irreparable
injuries you have received from me that you’ are
irreconcilably angry and have seized me for execution.
What dreadful wrongs you have done us you may
ask yourself, you rascal, and those precious dialogues
of yours in which you not only spoke abusively of
Philosophy herself, but insulted us by advertising for
sale, as if in a slave-market, men who are learned,
and what is more, free-born. Indignant at this, we
requested a brief leave of absence from Pluto and
have come up to get you—Chrysippus here, Epicurus,
Plato (myself), Aristotle over there, Pythagoras here,
who says nothing, Diogenes, and everyone that you
vilified in your dialogues.