Vitarum auctio

ZEUS (To an attendant.) You arrange the benches and make the place ready for the men that are coming. (To another avrenpant.) You bring on the philosophies and put them in line ; but first groom them up, so that they will look well and will attract as many as possible. (Zo nErmeEs.) You, Hermes, be crier and call them together.

HERMES Under the blessing of Heaven, let the buyers now appear at the sales-room. We shall put up for sale philosophies of every type and all manner of creeds; and if anyone is unable to pay cash, he is to name a surety and pay next year.

ZEUS Many are gathering, so we must avoid wasting time and delaying them. Let us begin the sale, then.

HERMES Which do you want us to bring on first ?

ZEUS This fellow with the long hair, the Ionian, for he seems to be someone of distinction.

ZEUS Hawk him now.

HERMES The noblest of philosophies for sale, the most distinguished ; who'll buy ? Who wants to be more than man? Who wants to apprehend the music of the spheres and to be born again ?

BUYER For looks, he is not bad, but what does he know best ?

HERMES Arithmetic, astronomy, charlatanry, geometry, music and quackery; you see in him a first-class soothsayer.

BUYER May I question him?

HERMES Yes, and good luck to you!

BUYER Where are you from?

PYTHAGOREAN From Samos.[*](The birthplace of Pythagoras. Hence the “‘ Pythagorean philosophy” talks Ionic Greek.) BUYER Where were you educated ?

PYTHAGOREAN In Egypt, with the sages there.

PYTHAGOREAN I shall teach thee nothing, but make thee remember.[*](Before centering upon its round of transmigrations, the soul was all-wise ; learning is merely remembering. Socrates expounds this theory in Plato’s Jeno.) BUYER How will you make me remember ?

PYTHAGOREAN First by making thy soul pure and purging off the filth upon it.

BUYER Well, imagine that my purification is complete, what will be your method of making me remember?

PYTHAGOREAN In the first place, long silence and speechlessness, and for five entire years no word of talk.

BUYER My good man, you had better teach the son of Croesus!?[*](One of the sons of Crocsus was mute: Herod. 1. 34, 85.) I want to be talkative, not a graven image. However, what comes after the silence and the five years?

PYTHAGOREAN Thou shalt be practised in music and geometry.

BUYER That is delightful ; I am to become a fiddler before being wise!

PYTHAGOREAN Then, in addition to this, in counting.

PYTHAGOREAN How dost thou count ?

BUYER One, two, three, four—

PYTHAGOREAN Lo! what thou thinkest four is ten, and a perfect triangle, and our oath.[*](Four is ten, because it contains three, two and one, and 1 2 3 4 10. The perfect triangle is ) BUYER Well, by your greatest oath, by Four, I never heard diviner doctrines or more esoteric.

PYTHAGOREAN Thereafter, my friend, thou shalt learn of earth and air and water and fire, what their flux is, and what form they have and how they move.

BUYER Why, has fire form, or air, or water ?

PYTHAGOREAN Yea, very notably, for without shape and form there can be no motion. And in addition thou shalt learn that God is number and mind and harmony.

BUYER What you say is wonderful.

PYTHAGOREAN And beside all that I have said, thou shalt learn

BUYER What’s that? I am another and not this man who now talks to you!

PYTHAGOREAN Now thou art he, but erstwhile thou didst manifest thyself in another body and under another name, and in time thou shalt again migrate into another person.

BUYER You mean that I shall be immortal, changing into many forms? But enough of this.

How do you stand in the matter of diet ?

PYTHAGOREAN I eat nothing at all that hath life, but all else save beans.

BUYER Why so? Do you dislike beans?

PYTHAGOREAN Nay, but they are holy, and wonderful is their nature. First, they are nought but seed of man, and if thou open a bean while it is still green, thou wilt see that it resembleth in structure the member of a man ; and again, if thou cook it and set it in the light of the moon for a fixed number of nights, thou wilt make blood. But more than this, the Athenians are wont to choose their magistrates with beans.[*](The offices were filled by lot, and beans were used for lots. This appears to be Lucian’s own contribution to the Pythagorean mysticism, but the other particulars are not very remote from the actual teachings of the Neo-Pythagoreans, Cf. Porphyr. Vit. Pythag., 44.)

HERMES Ten minas.

BUYER I'll take him at that figure.

ZEUS Write down the buyer’s name and where he comes from.

HERMES He appears to be an Italian, Zeus, one of those who live in the neighbourhood of Croton and Tarentum and the Greek settlements in that quarter of the world. But there is more than one buyer; about three hundred have bought him in shares.[*](A reference to the brotherhood founded by Pythagoras in Magna Grecia, which wielded great political power until it was extirpated in a general revolt about fifty years after the death of Pythagoras.) ZEUS Let them take him away ; let us bring on another.