Icaromenippus

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 2. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1915.

For instance, let me put aside generalities and speak of my own case. After raising so many Athenians to high station and making them rich when they were wretchedly poor before and helping all who were in want, nay more, pouring out my wealth in floods to benefit my friends, now that I have become poor thereby I am no longer recognized or even looked at by the men who formerly cringed and kowtowed and hung upon my nod. On the contrary, if I chance to meet any of them in the road, they treat me as they would the gravestone of aman long dead which time has overturned, passing by without even a curious glance..-- Indeed, some of them, on catching sight of me in the distance, turn off in another direction, thinking that the man who not long ago showed himself their saviour and benefactor will be an unpleasant and repulsive spectacle.

Therefore

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my wrongs have driven me to this outlying farm, where, dressed in skins, I till the soil as a hired labourer at four obols a day, philosophizing with the solitude and with my pick. By so doing, I expect to gain at least thus much, that I shall no longer see a great many people enjoying undeserved success; for that, certainly, would be more painful. Come then, son of Cronus and Rhea, shake off at length that deep, sound sleep, for you have slumbered longer than Epimenides;[*](Epimenides of Crete fell asleep in a cave and did not wake for forty years or more.) fan your thunderbolt into flame or kindle it afresh from Aetna, and make a great blaze, evincing anger worthy of a stalwart and youthful Zeus—unless indeed the tale is true that the Cretans tell about you and your tomb in their island.

ZEUS Who is that, Hermes, who is shouting from Attica, near Hymettus, in the foot-hills, all dirty and squalid and dressed in skins? He is digging, I think, with his back bent. A mouthy fellow and an impudent one. Very likely he is a philosopher, otherwise he would not talk so impiously against us.

HERMES What, father! Don’t you know Timon of Collytus, the son of Echecratides? He is the man who often treated us to perfect sacrifices; the one who had just come into a fortune, who gave us the complete hecatombs and used to entertain us brilliantly at his house during the Diasia.

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ZEUS Ah, what a reverse! He the fine gentleman, the rich man, who had all the friends about him? What has happened to him to make hin like this, poor man, a dirty fellow digging ditches and working for wages, it seems, with such a heavy pick to swing?

HERMES Well, you might say that he was ruined by kind-heartedness and philanthropy and compassion on all those who were in want; but in reality it was senselessness and folly and lack of discrimination in regard to his friends. He did not perceive that he was showing kindness to ravens and wolves, and while so many birds of prey were tearing his liver, the unhappy man thought they were his friends and sworn brothers, who enjoyed their rations only on account of the good-will they bore him. But when they had thoroughly stripped his bones and gnawed them clean, and had very carefully sucked out whatever marrow there was in them, they went away and left him like a dry tree with severed roots, no longer recognizing him or looking at him—why should they, pray ?—or giving him help or making him presents in their turn. So, leaving the city out of shame, he has taken to the pick and the coat of skin, as you see, and tills the soil for hire, brooding” crazily over his wrongs because the men whom he enriched pass him by very disdainfully without even knowing whether his name is Timon or not.