EPICURUS I shall not address you at length, gentlemen of the jury, for I myself do not need many words. If Pleasure had used charms or philtres to constrain Dionysius, whom Stoa claims to be her lover, to desert Stoa and to centre his regard upon her, she might fairly have been held a sorceress and might have been found guilty of using undue influence upon the lovers of others. But suppose a free man in a free city, unstopped by the laws, hating the tedium of life with her and thinking that the happiness which comes, she says, as the consummation of pain is stuff and nonsense, made his escape from her thorny, labyrinthine reasonings and ran away to Pleasure of his own free will, cutting the meshes of her logic as if they weré bonds, because he had the spirit of a human being, not of a clod, and thought pain painful, as indeed it is, and pleasure pleasant, in that case would it have been right to bar him out, plunging him head over ears into a sea of pain when he was swimming from a wreck to a haven and yearned for calm water—to put the poor fellow at the mercy of her dilemmas in spite of the fact that he was seeking asylum with Pleasure like a suppliant at the Altar of Mercy—in order that he might climb “the steep” with copious sweat, cast eyes upon that famous Virtue,

For the Hill of Virtue, see Hesiod, Works and Days, 289 ff., and Simonides, 41.

Who should be considered a better judge than this man himself, who knew the teachings of Stoa if ever a man did, and formerly thought that only what was right was good, but now has learnt that pain is bad, and so has chosen what he has determined to be the better? He saw, no doubt, that her set make a great deal of talk about fortitude and endurance of pain, but privately pay court to Pleasure; that they are bold as brass in the lecture-room, but live under the laws of Pleasure at home; that they are ashamed, of course, to let themselves be seen “lowering their pitch” and playing false to their tenets, but suffer the tortures of Tantalus, poor fellows, so that wherever they think they will be unobserved and can transgress their laws with safety, they eagerly glut themselves with pleasure. In fact, if they should be given the ring of Gyges, so that they could put it on and be unseen, or the Cap of Darkness, without a doubt they would bid good-bye to pain for ever and would go crowding after Pleasure, one and all, imitating Dionysius who, until he was ill, expected to get some benefit from their discourses about fortitude, but when he encountered suffering and illness, and pain came closer home to him, he perceived that his body was contradicting Stoa and maintaining the opposite side. So he put more trust in it than in her set, decided that he was ‘aman, with the body of a man, and thenceforward treated it otherwise than as if it were a statue, well. aware that whoever maintains any other view and accuses Pleasure Doth like to talk, but thinks as others do!Euripides, Phoenissae360. I have done. Cast your ballots with this understanding of the case.

STOA No, no! Let me cross-question him a little.

EPICURUS Put your questions: I will answer them.

STOA Do you consider pain bad?

EPICURUS Yes.

STOA And pleasure good ?

EPICURUS Certainly.

STOA Well, do you know the meaning of “material” and “immaterial,” of ‘approved” and “disapproved” ?

Stoic technical terms: see vol. ii, p. 488. Stoa intends to prove that pleasure and pain are alike “immaterial,” and neither “approved” nor “disapproved,” because they neither help nor hinder the effort to attain Virtue.

HERMES Virtue v. High-living, im re Aristippus. Let Aristippus appear in person.

VIRTUE I ought to speak first ; I am Virtue, and Aristippus belongs to me, as his words and his deeds indicate. HIGH-LIVING No, indeed ; I ought to speak first; I am High-living, and the man is mine, as you can see from his garlands, his purple cloak and his perfumes. JUSTICE Do not wrangle; this case will stand over until Zeus decides the case of Dionysius, for this seems to be similar. Consequently, if Pleasure wins, Highliving shall have Aristippus, but if Stoa prevails, he shall be adjudged to Virtue. So let others appear. Look here, though—these jurors are not to get the fee, for their case has not come to trial.

HERMES Then are they to have come up here for nothing, old as they are, and the hill so high?

JUSTICE It will be enough if they get a third. Go your ways; don’t be angry, you shall serve another day.

HERMES It is time for Diogenes of Sinope to appear. Make your complaint, Banking.

DIOGENES I protest, if she does not stop bothering me, Justice, it will not be running away that she will have me up for, but aggravated assault and battery, for I shall mighty soon.take my staff and. .. .

JUSTICE What have we here? Banking has run away, and he is making after her with his stick raised. The poor creature is likely to catch it pretty badly! Call Pyrrho,

HERMES Painting is here, Justice, but Pyrrho has not come up at all. It might have been expected that he would do this.

JUSTICE Why, Hermes?

HERMES Because he does not believe there is any true standard of judgment.

JUSTICE Then let them bring in a verdict by default against him. Now call the speech-writer, the Syrian. After all, it was only recently that the writs were lodged against him, and there was no pressing need to have tried the cases now. However, since that point has been decided, introduce the suit of Oratory first. Heavens, what a crowd has come together for the hearing!

HERMES Naturally, Justice. The case is not stale, but new and unfamiliar, having been entered only yesterday, as you said, and they hope to hear Oratory and Dialogue bringing charges in turn and the Syrian defending himself against both; this has brought crowds to court. But do begin your speech, Oratory.

ORATORY In the first place, men of Athens, I pray the gods and goddesses one and al] that as much good will as I steadily entertain toward the city and toward all.of you may be shown me by you in this case, and secondly that the gods may move you to do what is above all the just thing to do—to bid my opponent hold his tongue and to let me make the complaint in the way that I have preferred and chosen. I cannot come to the same conclusion when I contemplate my own experiences and the speeches that I hear, for the speeches that he will make to you will be as like as can be to mine, but his actions, as you shall see, have gone so far that measures must be taken to prevent my experiencing worse injury at his hands

Oratory, more concerned about form than content, borrows her prooemium from Demosthenes, adding the first sentence of the Third Olynthiac to the first sentence of the oration on the Crown, and adapting both as best she can.

When this man was a mere boy, gentlemen of the jury, still speaking with a foreign accent and I might almost say wearing a caftan in the Syrian style, I found him still wandering about in Ionia, not knowing what to do with himself; so I took him in hand and gave him an education. As it seemed to me that he was an apt pupil and paid strict attention to me—for he was subservient to me in those days and paid court to me and admired none but me—I turned my back upon all the others who were suing for my hand, although they were rich and goodlooking and of splendid ancestry, and plighted myself to this ingrate, who was poor and insignificant and young, bringing him a considerable dowry consisting in many marvellous speeches. Then, after we were married, I got him irregularly registered among my own clansmen and made him a citizen, so that those who had failed to secure my hand in marriage choked with envy. When he decided to go travelling in order to show how happily married he was, I did not desert him even then, but trailed up and down after him everywhere and made him famous and renowned by giving him finery and dressing him out. On our travels in Greece and in Ionia I do not lay so much emphasis ; but when he took a fancy to go to Italy, I crossed the Adriatic with him, and at length I journeyed with him as far as Gaul, where I made him rich.

For a long time he took my advice in everything and lived with me constantly, never spending a single night away from home:

but when he had laid in plenty of the sinews of war and thought that he was well off for reputation, he became supercilious and vain and neglected me, or rather deserted me completely. Having conceived an inordinate affection for that bearded man in the mantle, Dialogue, who is said to be the son of Philosophy and is older than he is, he lives with him. Showing no sense of shame, he has curtailed the freedom and the range of my speeches and has confined himself to brief, disjointed questions: and instead of saying whatever he wishes in a powerful voice, he fits together and spells out short paragraphs, for which he cannot get hearty praise or great applause from his hearers, but only a smile, or a restrained gesture of the hand, an inclination of the head, or a sigh to point his periods. That is the sort of thing this gallant gentleman fell in love with, despising me! They say, too, that he is not at peace with this favourite, either, but insults him in the same way.

Is he not, then, ungrateful and subject to punishment under the laws that concern desertion, inasmuch as he so disgracefully abandoned his lawful wife, from whom he received so much and through whom he is famous, and sought a new arrangement, now of all times, when I alone am admired and claimed as patroness by everyone? For my part I hold out against all those who court me, and when they knock at my door and call my name at the top of their lungs, I have no desire either to open or to reply, for I see that they bring with them nothing but their voices. But this man even then does not come back to me: no, he keeps his eyes upon his favourite. Ye gods, what good does he expect to get from him, knowing that he has nothing but his short cloak ? I have finished, gentlemen of the jury. But I beg you, if he wishes to make his defence in my style of speaking, do not permit that, for it -would be unkind to turn my own weapon against me; let him defend himself, if he can, in the style of his favourite, Dialogue.

HERMES That is unreasonable. It is not possible, Oratory, for him, all by himself, to make his defence after Dialogue’s manner. Let him make a speech as you did.

THE SYRIAN Gentlemen of the jury, as my opponent was indignant at the thought of my using a long speech when I acquired my power of speaking from her, I shall not say much to you, but shall simply answer the main points of her complaint and then leave it to you to weigh the whole question. In all that she told about me she told the truth. She gave me an education and went abroad with me and had me enfranchized as a Greek, and on this account, at least, I am grateful to her for marrying me. Why I left her and took to my friend here, Dialogue, listen, gentlemen of the jury, and you shall hear; and do not imagine that I am telling any falsehood for the sake of advantage.

Seeing that she was no longer modest and did not continue to clothe herself in the respectable way that she did once when Demosthenes took her to wife, but made herself up, arranged her hair like a courtesan, put on rouge, and darkened her eyes underneath, I became suspicious at once and secretly took note where she directed her glances. I pass over everything else, but every night our street was full of maudlin lovers coming to serenade her, knocking at the door, and sometimes even venturing to force an entrance in disorderly fashion. She herself laughed and enjoyed these performances, and generally, when she heard them singing lovesongs in a hoarse voice, she either peeped over the edge of the roof or else even slyly opened the windows, thinking that I would not notice it, and then. wantoned and intrigued with them. I could not stand this, and as I did not think it best to bring an action for divorce against her on the ground of adultery, I went to Dialogue, who lived near by, and requested him to take me in.

That is the great injustice that I have done Oratory. After all, even if she had not acted as she did, it would have been proper that I, a man already about forty years of age, should take my leave of her stormy scenes and lawsuits, should let the gentlemen of the jury rest in peace, refraining from accusations of tyrants and laudations of princes, and should betake myself to the Academy or the Lyceum to walk about with this excellent person . Dialogue while we converse quietly without feeling any need of praise and applause. Though I have much to say, I will stop now. Cast your vote in accordance with your oath. (The votes are counted.)

JUSTICE Who is the winner?

HERMES The Syrian, with every vote but one.

JUSTICE Very likely it was a public speaker who cast the vote against him.

Let Dialogue plead before the same jury. (To the Jurors) Wait, and you shall get double pay for the two cases.

DIALOGUE For my part, gentlemen of the jury, I should prefer not to make you along speech, but to discuss the matter a little at a time, as is my wont. Nevertheless I will make my complaint in the way that is customary in courts of law, although I am completely uninformed and inexperienced in such matters. Please consider this my introduction. The wrongs done me and the insults put upon me by this man are these. I was formerly dignified, and pondered upon the gods and nature and the cycle of the universe, treading the air

In the Clouds of Aristophanes (225) Socrates says: “I tread the air and contemplate the sun.”

HERMES What are you going to say to this, Master Syrian? THE SYRIAN Gentlemen of the jury, the suit that I am contesting now before you is unexpected. In fact, I should have looked for anything else in the world sooner than that Dialogue should say such things about. me. When I took him in hand, he was still dour, as most people thought, and had been reduced to a skeleton through continual questions. In that guise he seemed awe-inspiring, to be sure, but not in any way attractive or agreeable to the public. So first of all I got him into the way of walking on the ground like a human being; afterwards by washing off all his accumulated grime and forcing him to smile, I made him more agreeable to those who saw him: and on top of all that, I paired him with Comedy, and in this way too procured him great favour from his hearers, who formerly feared his prickles and avoided taking hold of him as if he were a sea-urchin.

I know, however, what hurts him most. It is that I do not sit and quibble with him about those obscure, subtle themes of his, like “whether the soul is immortal,” and “when God made the world, how many pints of pure, changeless substance he poured into the vessel in which he concocted the universe,”

Cf. Plato, Timaeus354 and41D.

That is what he expects of me, naturally ; and he demands those wings of his and gazes on high without seeing what lies at his feet. As far as the rest of it goes, he cannot complain, I am sure, that I have stripped him of that Greek mantle and shifted him into a foreign one, even though I myself am considered foreign. Indeed I should be doing wrong to transgress in that way against him. and to steal away his native costume. I have made the best defence that I can. Please cast the same ballot as before. (The votes are counted.)

HERMES Well, well! You win by all of ten votes! The same one who voted against you before will not vote as the rest even now. Without doubt it is a habit, and the man always casts the ballot that has a hole in it.

Each juror was given two ballots of metal shaped like a Japanese top, a flat circular disk, pierced perpendicularly at its centre by a cylindrical axis, which in the one for acquittal was solid, in the other, tubular.