Consolatio ad Apollonium

The Letter of Condolence to Apollonius, into which quotations from earlier authors have been emptied from the sack rather than scattered by hand, has in comparatively recent years fallen under suspicion as being perhaps not the work of Plutarch. The suspicion rests mainly on two grounds, the unusual length of the quotations, and certain incongruities of style. The latter may here be briefly dismissed with the remark that for every departure from accepted Plutarchean style a striking instance of conformity to his style may be cited, so that no very positive results are to be obtained in this way. The case is much the same with the quotations. Many of them are unusually long, although not longer than we find in other authors. Some of them, for example Euripides, Suppliants 1110 and 1112 (Plut. 110c), show an accuracy of ms. tradition so far superior that the reading given by Plutarch is commonly adopted by editors of Euripides in preference to the traditional reading of the mss. of Euripides. On the other hand, the quotation from Plato, Gorgias 523 a (Plut. 120 e), shows many minor variations from our text of Plato; some of these are interesting in themselves, but none of them really disturbs the meaning of the passage.

We learn from the letter almost nothing about

The title of the letter is not found in Lamprias’ list of Plutarch’s works, nevertheless we have reference to it at a comparatively early date.

Some striking similarities between the letter and Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations are doubtless to be explained by derivation from a common source, and this source was doubtless in large part the works of the Academic philosopher Crantor.

In the absence of actual knowledge it is convenient to assume an hypothesis (as in the realm of science one speaks of atoms or ions or of the electric current). If we assume that this is the original rough draft of the letter which was to be sent to Apollonius, nearly everything can be made to square with the hypothesis. In selecting some of the quotations Plutarch had put down enough of the context, so that later the lines he might finally choose to insert could be smoothly interwoven with the text, and the text itself was no doubt to be subjected to further polish.

However, we may be profoundly grateful for the collection of extracts included in the letter, and, if the hypothesis be right, we may also be grateful for this glimpse of Plutarch’s methods of composition.

We must bear in mind that this particular form of literary composition had developed a style of its

Even before this time, Apollonius, I felt for you in your sorrow and trouble, when I heard of the untimely passing from life of your son, who was very dear to us all—a youth who was altogether decorous and modest, and unusually observant of the demands of religion and justice both toward the gods and toward his parents and friends. In those days, close upon the time of his death, to visit you and urge you to bear your present lot as a mortal man should would have been unsuitable, when you were prostrated in both body and soul by the unexpected calamity; and, besides, I could not help sharing in your feeling. For even the best of physicians do not at once apply the remedy of medicines against acute attacks of suppurating humours, but allow the painfulness of the inflammation, without the application of external medicaments, to attain some assuagement of itself.[*](Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 29 (63), and Pliny, Letters, v. 16.)

Now since time, which is wont to assuage all things, has intervened since the calamity, and your present condition seems to demand the aid of your friends, I have conceived it to be proper to communicate to you some words that can give comfort, for

Words are physicians for an ailing mind, When at the fitting time one soothes the heart.[*](Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 379.)

For divers ills are remedies diverse: The kindly speech of friends for one in grief, And admonitions when one plays the fool.

To many there doth come because of grief Insanity and ills incurable, And some for grief have ended their own life.[*](From Philemon; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 512, Philemon, No. 106, where additional lines are given.)

The pain and pang felt at the death of a son has in itself good cause to awaken grief, which is only natural, and over it we have no control. For I, for my part, cannot concur with those who extol that harsh and callous indifference, which is both impossible and unprofitable.[*](Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 6 (12).) For this will rob us of the kindly feeling which comes from mutual affection and which above all else we must conserve. But to be carried beyond all bounds and to help in exaggerating our griefs I say is contrary to nature, and results from our depraved ideas. Therefore this also must be dismissed as injurious and depraved and most unbecoming to right-minded men, but a moderate indulgence

Reason therefore requires that men of understanding should be neither indifferent in such calamities nor extravagantly affected; for the one course is unfeeling and brutal, the other lax and effeminate. Sensible is he who keeps within appropriate bounds and is able to bear judiciously both the agreeable and the grievous in his lot, and who has made up his mind beforehand to conform uncomplainingly and obediently to the dispensation of things; just as in a democracy there is an allotment of offices, and he who draws the lot holds office, while he who fails to do so must bear his fortune without taking offence. For those who cannot do this would be unable sensibly and soberly to abide good fortune either.

Among the felicitous utterances the following piece of advice is to the point:

Let no success be so unusual That it excite in you too great a pride, Nor abject be in turn, if ill betide; But ever be the same; preserve unchanged Your nature, like to gold when tried by fire.[*](From an unknown play of Euripides; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 963.)

No man exists who’s blest in everything,[*](From the Stheneboea of Euripides, ibid. No. 661.)

What thou must do cannot be made must not. [*](Author unknown; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespot. No. 368.)

For as there are in plants at one time seasons of fruitage and at another time seasons of unfruitfulness, and in animals at one time fecundity and at another time barrenness, and on the sea both fair weather and storm, so also in life many diverse circumstances occur which bring about a reversal of human fortunes. As one contemplates these reversals he might say not inappropriately:

Not for good and no ill came thy life from thy sire, Agamemnon, but joy Thou shalt find interwoven with grief; For a mortal thou art. Though against thy desire Yet the plans of the gods will so have it.[*](Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis, 29; cf. Moralia, 33 E.)

If you alone, young master, at your birth Had gained the right to do whate’er you would Throughout your life, and ever be in luck, And if some god agreed to this with you, Then you have right to feel aggrieved. He has Deceived and strangely treated you. But if Upon the selfsame terms as we, you drew The primal breath of universal life (To speak you somewhat in the tragic style), You must endure this better, and use sense. To sum up all I say, you are a man, Than which no thing that lives can swifter be Exalted high and straight brought low again. And rightly so; for though of puny frame, He yet doth handle many vast affairs, And, falling, ruins great prosperity. But you, young master, have not forfeited Surpassing good, and these your present ills But moderate are; so bear without excess What Fortune may hereafter bring to you.

The wheel goes round, and of the rim now one And now another part is at the top.[*](Author unknown; Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. iii. p. 740.)

Reason is the best remedy for the cure of grief, reason and the preparedness through reason for all the changes of life. For one ought to realize, not merely that he himself is mortal by nature, but also that he is allotted to a life that is mortal and to conditions which readily reverse themselves. For men’s bodies are indeed mortal, lasting but a day, and mortal is all that they experience and suffer, and, in a word, everything in life; and all this

May not be escaped nor avoided by mortals[*](Homer, Il. xii. 326.)

The depths of unseen Tartarus hold you fast by hardforged necessities,

Wealth is inconstant, lasting but a day,

Small things may cause an overthrow; one day Puts down the mighty and exalts the low,[*](See note a on next page.)

Alike the cycle of earth’s fruitful plants And mortal men. For some life grows apace, While others perish and are gathered home.[*](Both this and the preceding quotation are from the Ino of Euripides; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. Euripides, Nos. 420 and 415, where additional lines are given.)

Nothing more wretched than man doth the earth support on its bosom, Never, he says to himself, shall he suffer from evil hereafter, Never, so long as the gods give him strength and his knees are still nimble; Then when the blessed gods bring upon him grievous affliction, Still he endures his misfortune, reluctant but steadfast in spirit.

Such is the mood of the men who here on the earth are abiding, E’en as the day which the father of men and of gods brings upon them.[*](Od. xviii. 136.)

Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why do you ask of my fathers ? As is the race of the leaves, such too is that of all mortals. Some of the leaves doth the wind scatter earthward, and others the forest Budding puts forth in profusion, and springtime is coming upon us. Thus is man’s race: one enters on life, and another’s life ceases.[*](Il. vi. 145.)

Wretched, who like to the leaves, at the one time all ardent Come to their fitting perfection, and eat of the fruit of their acres; Then again helpless they perish, nor is there aught that can help them.[*](Il. xxi. 463.)

Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, who persistently boasted of his own exploits, mockingly urged the lyric poet Simonides to rehearse for him some wise saying, whereupon the poet, being fully cognizant of his conceit, advised him to remember that he was only human.[*](Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, ix. 21.)

Philip, the king of the Macedonians, happened to have three pieces of good news reported to him all at once: the first, that he was victor at the Olympic games in the race of the four-horse chariots; the second, that Parmenio, his general, had vanquished the Dardanians in battle, and the third, that Olympias had borne him a male child; whereupon, stretching out his hands toward the heavens, he said: O God, offset all this by some moderate misfortune ! For he well knew that in cases of great prosperity fortune is wont to be jealous.[*](Cf. Moralia 177 C and Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, chap. iii. (p. 666 A).)

While Theramenes, who afterwards became one of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens, was dining with several others, the house, in which they were, collapsed, and he was the only one to escape death; but as he was being congratulated by everybody, he raised his voice and exclaimed in a loud tone, O Fortune, for what occasion are you reserving me ? And not long afterward he came to his end by torture at the hands of his fellow tyrants.[*](He was condemned to drink hemlock, according to the usual tradition; Cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, ii. 3. 54-56, and Aelian, Varia Historia, ix. 21.)

The Poet [*](Homer, Il. xxiv. 522; Cf. also Moralia, 20 F and 22 B.) is regarded as extraordinarily successful in bestowing consolation, where he represents Achilles as speaking to Priam, who has come to ransom Hector, as follows:

Come then and rest on a seat; let us suffer our sorrows to slumber Quietly now in our bosoms, in spite of our woeful afflictions; Nothing is ever accomplished by yielding to chill lamentation. Thus, then, the gods have spun the fate of unhappy mortals, Ever to live in distress, but themselves are free from all trouble. Fixed on Zeus’ floor two massive urns stand for ever, Filled with gifts of all ills that he gives, and another [*](Such is the meaning of the passage as here quoted from Homer; but in two other places (De audiendis poetis, 24 B, and De exilio, 600 D) Plutarch follows Plato (Republic, p. 379 D), who wrote κηρῶν ἔμπλειοι, ὁ μὲν ἐσθλῶν αὐτὰρ ὁ δειλῶν., thus making one urn of evil and one of good. Metrical considerations make it more than probable that the line found in Plato was not taken from Homer, but it is only fair to say that these considerations could have had no weight with Plutarch.) of blessings; He on whom Zeus, god of thunder, bestows their contents commingled Sometimes meets with the good, and again he meets only with evil. Him upon whom he bestows what is baneful he makes wholly wretched; Ravenous hunger drives him o’er the earth’s goodly bosom, Hither and thither he goes, unhonoured of gods or of mortals.

Then with her hands did the woman, uplifting the urn’s massive cover, Let them go as they would; and on men she brought woeful afflictions.

Hope alone where it was, with its place of abode yet undamaged, Under the rim of the urn still tarried; nor into the open Winged its way forth; for before it escaped she had put on the cover. More are the woes unnumbered among men now freely ranging. Full is the land now of evils, and full of them too is the ocean; Illnesses come upon men in the daytime, and others at nighttime; Hither and thither they go, of themselves bringing evils to mortals; Silent they go, since the wisdom of Zeus has deprived them of voices.

Closely allied with this are the following words of the comic poet [*](Philemon, in the Sardius; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 497, Philemon, No. 73.) spoken with reference to those whose grief over such calamities is excessive: If only tears were remedy for ills, And he who weeps obtained surcease of woe, Then we should purchase tears by giving gold. But as it is, events that come to pass, My master, do not mind nor heed these things, But, whether you shed tears or not, pursue The even tenor of their way. What then Do we accomplish by our weeping ? Naught. But as the trees have fruit, grief has these tears. And Dictys, who is trying to console Danaë in her excessive grief, says:

Think you that Hades minds your moans at all, And will send back your child if you will groan ? Desist. By viewing close your neighbour’s ills You might be more composed,—if you reflect How many mortals have to toil in bonds,

How many reft of children face old age, And others still who from a prosperous reign Sink down to nothing. This you ought to heed.[*](From the Dictys of Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 332.)

In this connexion might be adduced the utterance of Socrates [*](Not original with Socrates, cf. Herodotus, vii. 152; attributed to Solon by Valerius Maximus, vii. 2, ext. 2.) which suggests that if we were all to bring our misfortunes into a common store, so that each person should receive an equal share in the distribution, the majority would be glad to take up their own and depart.

The poet Antimachus, also, employed a similar method. For after the death of his wife, Lyde, whom he loved very dearly, he composed, as a consolation for his grief, the elegy called Lyde, in which he enumerated the misfortunes of the heroes, and thus made his own grief less by means of others’ ills. So it is clear that he who tries to console a person in grief, and demonstrates that the calamity is one which is common to many, and less than the calamities which have befallen others, changes the opinion of the one in grief and gives him a similar conviction— that his calamity is really less than he supposed it to be.

Aeschylus [*](From an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 353.) seems admirably to rebuke those who think that death is an evil. He says:

Men are not right in hating Death, which is The greatest succour from our many ills.

O Death, healing physician, come.[*](Somewhat similar to a line from the Philoctetes of Aeschylus; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 255.)

A harbour from all distress is Hades.[*](Author unknown; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 369.)

What man who recks not death can be a slave?[*](From an unknown play of Euripides; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 958, and Plutarch, Moralia, 34 B.)

With Hades’ help shadows I do not fear.[*](Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 370.)

I imagine also that it was because Nature saw the indefiniteness and the brevity of life that she caused the time allowed us before death to be kept from us. And it is better so; for if we knew this beforehand, some persons would be utterly wasted by griefs before their time, and would be dead long before they died. Observe too the painfulness of life, and the exhaustion caused by many cares; if we should wish to enumerate all these, we should too readily condemn life, and we should confirm the opinion which now prevails in the minds of some that it is better to be dead than to live. Simonides [*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii., Simonides, No. 39.) at any rate says:

Petty indeed is men’s strength; All their strivings are vain; Toil upon toil in a life of no length.

Death hovers over them all, Death which is foreordained. Equal the share by the brave is attained In death with the base.

A pair of miseries with each good The deathless gods mete out to mortal man. The foolish cannot bear them as they should.

Mourn you a mortal if he’s passed away, Not knowing if the future brings him gain ?

Know you the nature of this mortal world ? I wot not. For whence could you ? But hear me. By all mankind is owed a debt to death, And not a single man can be assured If he shall live throughout the coming day. For Fortune’s movements are inscrutable.

Socrates [*](Plato, Apology, p. 40 C.) said that death resembles either a very deep sleep or a long and distant journey, or, thirdly, a sort of destruction and extinction of both the body and the soul, but that by no one of these possibilities is it an evil. Each of these conceptions he pursued further, and the first one first. For if

Slumber the deepest and sweetest, and nearest to death in its semblance.

Here she chanced to encounter the brother of Death, which is Slumber,

Slumber and Death, the twin brothers,[*](Il. xvi. 672, 682.)

If death indeed resembles a journey, even so

So, even if it be likely that death transports us into another place, it is not an evil; for it may possibly prove to be a good, as Plato has shown. Wherefore very wonderful were the words which Socrates [*](Plato, Apology, p. 29 A.) uttered before his judges, to this effect: To be afraid of death, Sirs, is nothing else than to seem to be wise when one is not; for it is to seem to know what one does not know. For in regard to death nobody knows even whether it happens to be for mankind the greatest of all good things, yet they fear it as if they knew well that it is the greatest of evils. From this view it seems that the poet does not dissent who says:

Let none fear death, which is release from toils,[*](Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 371.)

It is said that the Deity also bears witness to this. For tradition tells us that many for their righteousness have gained this gift from the gods. Most of these I shall pass over, having regard to due proportion in my composition; but I shall mention the most conspicuous, whose story is on the lips of all men.

First I shall relate for you the tale of Cleobis and Biton, the Argive youths.[*](Cf.Herodotus, i. 31, and Plutarch, Moralia, Frag. in vol. vii. p. 126 Bernardakis.) They say that their mother was priestess of Hera, and when the time had come for her to go up to the temple, and the mules that always drew her wagon were late in arriving, and the hour was pressing, these young men put themselves to the wagon and drew their mother to the temple; and she, overjoyed at the devotion of her sons, prayed that the best boon that man can receive be given them by the goddess. They then lay down to sleep and never arose again, the goddess granting them death as a reward for their devotion.

Of Agamedes and Trophonius, Pindar [*](Cf. Frag. 2 of Pindar (ed. Christ).) says that after building the temple at Delphi they asked Apollo for a reward, and he promised them to make payment on the seventh day, bidding them in the meantime to eat, drink, and be merry. They did what was commanded, and on the evening of the seventh day lay down to sleep and their life came to an end.

It is said that Pindar himself enjoined upon the

They say that the following incident happened to the Italian Euthynoüs.[*](The story comes from Crantor’s Consolatio, according to Cicero.) He was the son of Elysius, of Terina, a man foremost among the people there in virtue, wealth, and repute, and Euthynoüs came to his end suddenly from some unknown cause. Now it occurred to Elysius, as it might have occurred to anybody large property and estate. Being in perplexity as to how he might put his suspicions to the test, he visited a place where the spirits of the dead are conjured up, and having offered the preliminary sacrifice prescribed by custom, he lay down to sleep in the place, and had this vision. It seemed that his own father came to him, and that on seeing his father he related to him what had happened touching his son, and begged and besought his help to discover the man who was responsible for his son’s death. And his father said, It is for this that I am come. Take from this person here what he brings for you, and from this you will learn about everything over which you are now grieving. The person whom he indicated was a young man who followed him, resembling his son Euthynoüs and close to him in years and stature.

Verily somehow the minds of men in ignorance wander; Dead now Euthynoüs lies; destiny so has decreed. Not for himself was it good that he live, nor yet for his parents.[*](Mullach, Frag. Philos. Graec. iii. p. 148; Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 48 (115).)

If, however, death is really a complete destruction and dissolution of both body and soul (for this was the third of Socrates’ conjectures), even so it is not an evil. For, according to him, there ensues a sort of insensibility and a liberation from all pain and anxiety. For just as no good can attach to us in such a state, so also can no evil; for just as the good, from its nature, can exist only in the case of that which is and has substantiality, so it is also with the evil. But in the case of that which is not, but has been removed from the sphere of being, neither of them can have any real existence. Now those who have died return to the same state in which they were before birth; therefore, as nothing was either good or evil for us before birth, even so will it be with us after death. And just as all events before our lifetime were nothing to us, even so will all events subsequent to our lifetime be nothing to us. For in reality

No suffering affects the dead,[*](From the Philoctetes of Aeschylus; Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 255.)

Not to be born I count the same as death.[*](Euripides, Trojan Women, 636.)

To be and not to be hath been his fate;

Gone is he whence he came, earth back to earth, The soul on high. What here is evil ? Naught.

For if he dwells beneath the depths of earth ’Mid lifeless shades, his vigour would be naught.

For if he dwells beneath the depths of earth ’Mid lifeless shades, his dolour would be naught.

Here now are we; before us others throve, and others still straightway, But we shall never live to see their day;

Those who have died and who counted no honour the living or dying, Only to consummate both nobly were honour for them.[*](Ibid. iii. p. 516; Cf. Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas. chap. i. (p. 278 A).)

I hate the men who would prolong their lives By foods and drinks and charms of magic art, Perverting nature’s course to keep off death; They ought, when they no longer serve the land, To quit this life, and clear the way for youth.

Not mine the only children who have died, Nor I the only woman robbed of spouse; Others as well as I have drunk life’s dregs.

Where now are all those things magnificentGreat Croesus, lord of Lydia ? Xerxes, too, Who yoked the sullen neck of Hellespont ? Gone all to Hades and Oblivion’s house,[*](Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 372, and Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 739.)

True, it may be said, but an untimely death moves most people to mourning and lamentation. Yet, even for this, words of consolation are so readily found that they have been perceived by even uninspired poets, and comfort has been had from them. Observe what one of the comic poets [*](Cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 429, Adespota, No. 116.) says on this subject to a man who is grieving for an untimely death:

Then if you knew that, had he lived this life, Which he did not live, Fate had favoured him, His death was not well timed; but if again This life had brought some ill incurable, Then Death perhaps were kindlier than you.

There is no man that does not suffer ill; Man buries children, and begets yet more,

And dies himself. Men are distressed at this, Committing earth to earth. But Fate decrees That life be garnered like the ripened grain, That one shall live and one shall pass from life. What need to grieve at this, which Nature says Must be the constant cycle of all life ? In what must be there’s naught that man need dread.[*](From the Hypsipyle of Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 757.)

In general everyone ought to hold the conviction, if he seriously reviews the facts both by himself and in the company of another, that not the longest life is the best, but the most efficient. For it is not the man who has played the lyre the most, or made the most speeches, or piloted the most ships, who is commended, but he who has done these things excellently. Excellence is not to be ascribed to length of time, but to worth and timely fitness. For these have come to be regarded as tokens of good fortune and of divine favour. It is for this reason, at any rate, that the poets have traditionally represented those of the heroes who were preeminent and sprung from the gods as quitting this life before old age, like him Who to the heart of great Zeus and Apollo was held to be dearest, Loved with exceeding great love; but of eld he reached not the threshold.[*](Homer, Od. xv. 245.) For we everywhere observe that it is a happy use of opportunity, rather than a happy old age, that wins the highest place.[*](Cf. Marcus Antoninus, 24. 1, and Seneca, Epist. 93. 2.) For of trees and plants the best are those that in a brief time produce the most crops of fruit, and the best of animals are those from which in no long time we have the greatest service toward our livelihood. The terms long and short obviously appear to lose their difference if we fix

We must regard as vain and foolish such exclamations as these: But he ought not to have been snatched away while young ! For who may say what ought to be ? Many other things, of which one may say they ought not to have been done, have been done, and are done, and will be done over and over again. For we have come into this world, not to make laws for its governance, but to obey the commandments of the gods who preside over the universe, and the decrees of Fate or Providence.

But do those who mourn for the untimely dead, mourn on their own account or on account of the departed ? If on their own account, because they have been cut off from some gratification or profit or comfort in old age, which they might have expected from the dead, then is their excuse for grieving wholly

That this is easy is plainly to be seen from the following sort of consolation. They say that one of the ancient philosophers visited Arsinoë, the queen, who was mourning for her son, and made use of this story,[*](Cf. Moralia 609 F, where the idea is attributed to Aesop.) saying that at the time Zeus was distributing to the deities their honours. Mourning did not happen to be present, but arrived after the distribution had been made. But when she said it was only right that some honour be given to her also, Zeus, being perplexed, since all the honours had been used up, finally gave her that honour which is paid in the case of those who have died—tears and griefs. Just as the other deities, therefore, are fond of those by whom they are honoured, so also is Mourning. Therefore, Madame, if you treat her with disrespect, she will not come near you; but if she is strictly honoured by you with the honours which were conceded to her, namely griefs and lamentations, she will love you and affectionately will be ever with you, provided only she be constantly honoured by you. Admirably, it appears, he succeeded, by this story, in convincing the woman and in alleviating her mourning and lamentations.