MNESIPPUS What about it, Toxaris? Do you Scythians sacrifice to Orestes and Pylades, and have you come to believe that they are gods?

TOXARIS We sacrifice, Mnesippus, we sacrifice; not, however, because we think them gods, but good men.

The existence of a cult of Orestes and Pylades in Scythia is not otherwise attested, and is credible only in a limited sense, as a local development of Greek hero-worship; see below, on the Oresteum, § 6.

TOXARIS Not only that, but we honour them with festivals and pilgrimages.

MNESIPPUS What do you crave from them? For surely it is not to gain their grace that you sacrifice to them, in view of the fact that they are dead. TOXARIS Well, we should be none the worse off, perhaps, if even the dead should be gracious to us. However, we think it will be better for the living if we do not forget men of high achievement, and we honour them after death because we consider that in this way we can get many to wish to become like them.

MNESIPPUS In that matter, to be sure, your judgement is sound. But as regards Orestes and Pylades, on just what ground did you so admire them, that you have put them on a parity with the gods, and that too when they were trespassers upon your soil and— what is most significant—enemies? Why, when the Scythians of that day seized them after their shipwreck and dragged them off intending to sacrifice them to Artemis, they set upon the keepers of their prison, overpowered the watch, and not only slew the king but carried off the priestess,

Both here and below in § 6 Lucian omits as self-understood the point that Orestes discovers the priestess to be his sister Iphigenia, previously thought to have perished at Aulis under the sacrificial knife.

If that is not why you honour Orestes and Pylades, do tell me, Toxaris, what other benefit have they done you to bring it about that although formerly you deemed them anything but gods, now, on the contrary, you have made them pass for gods by sacrificing to them, and you now bring victims to men who at that time very nearly became victims ? This conduct, you know, might be thought ridiculous and inconsistent with that of former times.

TOXARIS As a matter of fact, Mnesippus, even these actions that you have described evince nobility in those men. That two should dare so bold a deed; that they should sail so far from their own country as to cruise out into the Pontus (still unexplored by any of the Greeks except the force that fared upon the Argo to Colchis) undismayed either by the fables regarding it or by its name through any terror inspired by the fact that it was called ‘ Inhospitable” (I suppose because savage peoples dwelt all about it);

According to Apollodorus (Strabo, VII, 298-299) the Pontus was at first called Azeinos (“Inhospitable”) because of its storminess and the ferocity of the tribes that surrounded it; later, after the Ionian settlements on its coast, it was called Huxeinos (“Hospitable”). Pindar knows both names (Pyth., IV, 203; Nem. IV, 49).

MNESIPPUS Please go on and say what else they did that is imposing and godlike ; since as far as concerns their voyage and their foreign travel I could point you many who are more godlike than they—the merchant traders, and particularly the Phoenicians among them, who not only sail into the Pontus or as far as Lake Maeotis and the Cimmerian Bosporus,

The Sea of Azov and the Straits of Kertsch.

TOXARIS Listen then, you amazing fellow, and learn how much more generously than you Greeks we barbarians judge good men. In Argos and Mycenae there is not even a respectable tomb of Orestes or Pylades to be seen, but among us a temple has been assigned them, to both together, as was reasonable since they were comrades, and sacrifices are offered them, and all sorts of honours besides. The fact that they were not Scythians but foreigners is no hindrance to their having been accounted good men and their being cherished by the foremost Scythians ; for we do not enquire what country proper men come from, nor do we bear a grudge if men who are not friendly have done noble deeds; we commend what they have accomplished and count them our own in virtue of their achievements. What especially impressed us in these men and gains our commendation is this: it seemed to us that as friends they, surely, had proved themselves the best in the world, and had established precedents for everyone else in regard to the way in which friends should share all their fortunes.

All that the went through in each other’s company or for eac other’s sake our ancestors inscribed on a tablet of bronze which they set up in the Oresteum;

Nothing could be more natural than for some Graeco- Scythian city in South Russia (Crimea?) to have had an Oresteum like this, with a set of murals commemorating the exploits of Orestes and Pylades. Indeed, the existence of the paintings is practically guaranteed by two considerations: they represent a version of the story of Orestes among the Taurians that is not known to us prior to Lucian except in art; and that version, involving as it does his killing of the king, is not likely to have been preferred to the Euripidean by Lucian for his present purpose, if the paintings were imaginary. Here there seems to be a core of fact which Lucian can have derived only from some previous writer; and we may perhaps also safely believe that the deified heroes obtained sufficient prestige among the native part of the population of the city and its environs to gain them a Scythian name (Korakoi: §7 end). Compare the Herodotean tale (IV, 103) of the worship of Iphigenia among the Taurians. This kernel of fact, however, has been enveloped in a hull of fiction by transporting the sanctuary to a mythical Scythian capital without a name and making it the focus of a great national cult of friendship—a happy conceit in view of the custom of swearing “blood-brotherhood” (§ 37), but sheer fiction none the less. It is perhaps possible that Lucian drew the fact from some Hellenistic AListorian and supplied the fiction himself; but it is more likely that he found both already combined in his source, and connected with one or more of the tales of Scythian friendship that he puts into the mouth of Toxaris (cf. especially p. 173, n. 2).

That great good-will of theirs, that common front amid those perils, that faithfulness and comradely love, that genuineness and solidity of their affection for one another were not, we thought, of this world, but marked a spirit too noble for these men about us of the common sort, who, as long as the course of their friends is with the wind, take it ill if they do not give them an equal share in all their delights, but if even a slight breath sets against them, they bear away, entirely abandoning them to their perils. For I would have you know this also—Scythians think that there is nothing greater than friendship, and there is not anything upon which a Scythian will pride himself more than on aiding a friend and sharing his dangers, just as there is no greater disgrace among us than to bear the name of having played false to friendship. That is why we honour Orestes and Pylades, because they practised best what Scythians hold good, and excelled in friendship, an achievement which we admire before all things else; in token whereof we have given them the name of Korakoi to go by, which in our language is as much as to say “guiding spirits of friendship.”

MNESIPPUS Toxaris, it has turned out that Scythians are not only good archers and better than all others in warfare, but the most convincing of all peoples at making speeches. Anyhow, I, who formerly had a different opinion, now myself think you do right in thus deifying Orestes and Pylades. And I had failed, my accomplished friend, to grasp the fact that you are also a good painter. Very animated indeed was the sketch that you drew for us of the pictures in the Oresteum, of the fighting of your heroes, and the wounds that each bore for the other. However, I should not have expected friendship to be so highly cherished among the Scythians, for as they are inhospitable and uncivilised I thought that they always were well acquainted with hatred, anger, and bad humour but did not enter into friendship even with their closest kin, judging by all that we hear about them, and especially the report that they eat their dead fathers!

Alluded to also in Funerals, 21 (IV, p. 126). Cf. Herodotus, IV, 26 (of the Issedones), and I, 216 (of the Massagetae).

TOXARIS Whether we are in general not only more just than the Greeks towards our parents but more reverential is a question which I would rather not debate with you at present. But that Scythian friends are far more faithful than Greek friends and that friendship matters more with us than with you is easily demonstrated; and in the name of your Gods of Greece, do not listen to me with displeasure if I mention one of the observations which I have made after having lived with your people for a long time now. It seems to me that you Greeks can indeed say all that is to be said about friendship better than others, but not only fail to practise its works in a manner that befits your words,—no, you are content to have praised it and shown what a very good thing it is, but in its times of need you play traitor to your words about it and beat a hasty retreat, somehow or other, out of the press of deeds. And whenever your tragedians put friendships of this kind on the stage and exhibit them to you, you bestow praise and applause, yes, even tears upon them, most of you, when they face danger for each other’s sake; yet you yourselves dare not come out with any praiseworthy deed for the sake of your friends. On the contrary, if a friend happens to stand in need of anything, those many tragic histories take wing and vanish from your path on the instant, like dreams, and leave you looking like those empty, silent masks which, for all their open mouths, widely agape, do not utter even the slightest sound. We are your opposites; for we have as much the better of you in practising friendship as we fall short of you in talking about it.

If you like, then, let us do this; let us leave the friends of former times to rest in peace, whomsoever, I mean, of the ancients either we or you are able to enumerate; for there, to be sure, you would outdo us by citing many trustworthy witnesses, your poets, who have rehearsed in the most beautiful of epic lines and lyric verses the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus and the comradeship of Theseus, Peirithous, and all the rest. Instead, let us take up just a few of our own contemporaries and recount their deeds, I for the Scythian side, you for the Greek; then whichever of us wins in this by bringing out better = of friendship shall not only be adjudged victor himself but shall be allowed to name his country in the proclamation, inasmuch as he will have taken part in a right glorious and noble contest. For my own part, I think I would much rather be defeated in single combat and have my right hand cut off, which is the penalty for defeat in Scythia, than to be pronounced inferior to anyone else in the matter of friendship, and above all to a Greek, when I am myself a Scythian.

MNESIPPUS It is no mean undertaking, Toxaris, to engage in single combat with a man-at-arms like yourself, equipped with very accurate and well-sharpened shafts of speech. Nevertheless, I shall not so ignobly betray of a sudden the whole Greek cause as to yield you the field. It would be shocking if, when they two defeated as many Scythians as are indicated by the stories and by those ancient paintings in your country which you described with such histrionic expressiveness a little while ago, all the Greeks, including so many peoples and so many cities, should lose by default to you alone. If that should take place, it would be fitting for me to be docked, not of my right hand, as your people are, but of my tongue. But ought we to set ourselves a limit to the number of these exploits of friendship, or should we hold that the more of them a man can tell, the better off he is as regards the victory ?

TOXARIS By no means; let us prescribe that the victory does not in this case reside with the greater numbers. No, if yours turn out to be better and more telling ‘than mine, though equal in number, they will obviously inflict more serious wounds upon me and I shall succumb to your blows more quickly. MNESIPPUS You are right, so let us settle how many will do. Five, I should think, for each. .

TOXARIS I think so too; and you may speak first, after taking oath that you will assuredly tell the truth. Merely to make up such tales is not at all hard, and there is no obvious means of disproof. But if you should take your oath, it would not be right to disbelieve you.

MNESIPPUS We shall do so, if you really think an oath is at all essential. But which of our gods will satisfy you? Zeus Philios?

TOXARIS Yes indeed; and I will take the oath of my own country for you when I myself speak.

MNESIPPUS Well then, as Zeus Philios is my witness, I solemnly swear that whatever I shall tell you I will say either from my own knowledge or from information obtained of others with all the accuracy that was possible, without contributing any dramaturgy on my own part. And the first friendship of which I shall give you an account is that of Agathocles and Deinias, which has become far-famed among the Ionians. Agathocles of Samos, to whom I refer, lived not long ago, and was peerless in friendship, as he proved, but otherwise not at all superior to the general run of Samians qjther in family or in means. He and Deinias, the son of Lyson, of Ephesus, were friends from their boyhood. But Deinias turned out to be enormously rich; and as was natural in one whose wealth was new, he had many others about him who were well enough as boon companions and agreeable associates, but as far as could be from friends.

Well, for a time Agathocles was put to the test among them, associating with them and drinking with them, though he took little pleasure in that kind of pastime; and Deinias held him in no higher esteem than his toadies. But at length Agathocles began to give offence by rebuking him frequently, and. came to be considered a nuisance by reminding him always of his ancestors and admonishing him to keep what his father had acquired with much labour and left to him. Consequently Deinias no longer even took him along when he caroused about the town, but used to go alone with those others, trying to escape the eye of Agathocles.

In course of time those flatterers persuaded the poor fellow that Charicleia was in love with him. She was the wife of Demonax, a distinguished man, foremost among the Ephesians in public affairs. Notes from the woman kept coming into his house ; also, half-faded wreaths, apples with a piece bitten out, and every other contrivance with which gobetweens lay siege to young men, gradually working up their love-affairs for them and inflaming them at the start with the thought that they are adored (for this is extremely seductive, especially to those who think themselves handsome), until they fall unawares into the net.

Charicleia was a dainty piece of femininity, but outrageously meretricious, giving herself to anyone who happened to meet her, even if he should want her at very little cost; if you but looked at her, she nodded at once, and there was no fear that Charicleia might perhaps be reluctant. She was clever too, in every way, and an artist comparable with any courtesan you please at alluring a lover, bringing him into complete subjection when he was still of two minds, and when at last he was in her toils working him up and fanning his flame, now by anger, now by flattery, soon by scorn and by pretending to have an inclination for someone else. She was every bit of her thoroughly sophisticated, that woman, and plentifully armed with siege-engines to train upon her lovers.

This, then, was the ally whom Deinias’ toadies at that time enlisted against the boy, and they constantly played up to rer lead, unitedly thrusting him into the affair with Charicleia. And she, who already had given many young fellows a bad fall, * who, times without number, had played at being in love, who had ruined vast estates, versatile and thoroughly practised mischief-maker that she was— once she got into her clutches a simple youngster who had no experience of such enginery, she would not let him out of her talons but encompassed him all round about and pierced him through and through, until, when at last she had him wholly in her power, she not only lost her own life through her quarry but caused poor Deinias misfortunes without end.

From the very first she kept baiting him with those notes, sending her maid continually, making out that she had cried, that she had lain awake, and at last that she would hang herself for love, poor girl, until the blessed simpleton became convinced that he was handsome and adored by the women of Ephesus, and of course made a rendezvous after many entreaties.

After that, naturally, it was bound to be an easy matter for him to be captured by a beautiful woman, who knew how to please him with her company, to weep on occasion, to sigh piteously in the midst of her conversation, to lay hold of him when he was at last going away, to run up to him when he came in, to adorn herself in the way that would best please him, and of course to sing and to strum the lyre.

All this she had brought into play against Deinias ; and then, when she discerned that he was in a bad way, having by that time become thoroughly permeated with love and pliable, she employed another artifice to complete the poor boy’s undoing. She pretended to be with child by him (this too is an effective way to fire a sluggish lover); moreover, she discontinued her visits to him, saying that she was kept in by her husband, who had found out about their affair.

Deinias was now unable to bear the situation and could not endure not seeing her. He wept, he sent his toadies, he called upon the name of Charicleia, he embraced her statue (having had one of marble made for him), he wailed; at last he flung himself on the ground and rolled about, and his condition was absolute insanity. Naturally, the gifts which he exchanged for hers were not on a par with apples and wreaths, but whole apartment-houses, farms, and serving-women, gay clothing, and all the gold that she wanted. Why make a long story of it? In a trice the estate of Lyson, which had been the most famous in Ionia, was completely pumped out and exhausted.

And then, when at last he was drained dry, she left him, pursued another gilded youth from Crete, and went over to him; now she loved him, and he put faith in it. Neglected not only by Charicleia but by the toadies, for they too had now gone over to the Cretan whom she loved, Deinias sought out Agathocles, who had long known that things were going badly with him. Though overcome with shame at first, nevertheless he told the whole story—his passion, his desperate straits, the woman’s disregard, the Cretan rival—and in conclusion said that he would not remain alive if he could not have Charicleia. Agathocles thought it unseasonable at that moment to remind Deinias that he used never to be glad to see him, and him only, of all his friends, but used always to give preference to his toadies in those days. So he sold all that he had, the house that he had inherited in Samos, and came back bringing him the price, three talents. When Deinias received this, it was at once patent to Charicleia that in some way he had once more become handsome. Again the maid, and the notes, and reproof because he had not come for a long while; and the toadies came running up to dangle a line for him, seeing that Deinias was still good for a meal.

But when he had promised to come to her, had actually come, in the early hours of the night, and was inside the house, Demonax, the husband of Charicleia, whether through accidental detection of him or through arrangement with his wife—both stories are told—springing out upon him as if from ambush, gave orders to lock the outer door and to seize Deinias, threatening him with burning and scourging and coming at him with drawn sword, as an adulterer.

Perceiving what a calamitous situation he was in, Deinias seized a bar that lay near and killed not only Demonax himself, striking him on the temple, but also Charicleia, not with one blow in her case, but by striking her first with the bar again and again and afterwards with the sword of Demonax. The servants stood speechless in the meantime, dazed by the suddenness of the thing; then they tried to seize him, but when he made at them too with the sword, they fled, and Deinias made good his escape in spite of his monstrous deed.

The time that remained until dawn he spent with Agathocles in going over all that had happened and considering what would come of it in future. At dawn the magistrates appeared, for by then the thing had been noised abroad; they arrested Deinias, who himself did not deny that he had committed the murders, and brought him before the Salariae’ who then administered Asia. He sent im to the Emperor, and before long Deinias was committed to the island of Gyaros, one of the Cyclades, condemned by the Emperor to live there in perpetual exile.

Agathocles alone of all his friends kept with him, sailed with him to Italy, went to the trial with him, and failed him in nothing. Moreover, when at length Deinias went into exile, he did not desert his comrade even then, but of his own accord sentenced himself to live in Gyaros and share his exile; and when they were completely in want of necessities, he joined the purple-fishers, dived with them, brought home what he earned by this, and so supported Deinias. Besides, when the latter fell ill, he took care of him for a very long time, and when he died, did not care to return again to his own country, but remained there in the island, ashamed to desert his friend even after his death.

There you have the deed of a Greek friend which took place not long ago; I hardly think five years have passed since Agathocles died in Gyaros.

TOXARIS I do wish, Mnesippus, you had told this story without taking an oath, so that I might have been able to disbelieve it, for this Agathocles whom you have described is very much of a Scythian friend. However, I have no fear that you will be able to name any other like him.

MNESIPPUS Listen then, Toxaris, to the tale of another, Euthydicus of Chalcis. It was repeated to me by Simylus, the sea-captain of Megara, who took his solemn oath that he himself had seen the deed. He said that he was making a voyage from Italy to Athens at about the season of the setting of the Pleiades, carrying a miscellaneous collection of assengers, among whom was Euthydicus, and with im Damon, also of Chalcis, his comrade. They were of the same age, but Euthydicus was vigorous and strong, while Damon was pale and sickly, just convalescing, it seemed, from a prolonged illness.

As far as Sicily they had made a fortunate passage, said Simylus; but when they had run through the straits and in due time were sailing in the Adriatic itself, a great tempest fell upon them. Why repeat the many details of his story—huge seas, cyclones, hail, and all the other evils of a storm? But when they were at last abreast of Zacynthos,

Zante.

When Euthydicus, who happened to be undressed and in his bunk, heard him, he flung himself into the sea, got to Damon, who was already giving out (all this was visible at a long distance because the moon was shining) and helped him by swimming beside him and bearing him up. The rest of them, he said, wanted to aid the men and deplored their misfortune, but could not do it because the wind that drove them was too strong; however, they did at least something, for they threw them a number of pieces of cork and some spars, on which they might swim if they chanced upon any of them, and finally even the gang plank, which was not small. Think now, in the name of the gods! what firmer proof of affection could a man display towards a friend who had fallen overboard at night into a sea so wild, than that of sharing his death? I beg you, envisage the tumult of the seas, the roar of the breaking water, the boiling spume, the night, the despair ; then one man strangling, barely keeping up his head, holding his arms out to his friend, and the other leaping after him at once, swimming with him, fearing that Damon would perish first. In that way you can appreciate that in the case of Euthydicus too it is no common friend whom I have described.