Vitarum auctio

Lucian of Samosata

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

ZEUS Remove him ; bring on another—stay ! those two, the one from Abdera who laughs and the one from Ephesus who cries, for I want to sell them together.[*](The Schools of Democritus of Abdera, the propounder of the atomic theory, and of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who originated the doctrine of the flux; he held that fire is the first principle, and its manifestations continually change, so that nothing isstable. Both representatives talk Ionic Greck.)

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HERMES Come down among us, you two. I sell the two best philosophies; we offer the two that are sagest of all.

BUYER Zeus ! What a contrast! One of thei never stops laughing, and the other is apparently mourning a death, as he weeps incessantly. What is the matter, man? Why are you laughing?

DEMOCRITEAN Dost thou need to ask? Because to me it seemeth that all your affairs are laughable, and yourselves as well.

BUYER What, are you laughing at us all, and do you think nothing of our affairs?

DEMOCRITEAN Even so; for there is nothing serious in them, but everything is a hollow mockery, drift of atoms, infinitude.

BUYER No indeed, but you yourself are a hollow mockery in very truth and an infinite ass.

Oh, what effrontery! Will you never stop laughing? (Zo the other.) But you, why do youcry? For I think it is much more becoming to talk with you.

HERACLITEAN Because I consider, O stranger, that the affairs of man are woeful and tearful, and there is naught in them that is not foredoomed; therefore I pity and grieve for men. And their present woes I do not consider great, but those to come in future will be wholly bitter; I speak of the great conflagrations

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and the collapse of the universe. It is for this that I grieve, and because nothing is fixed, but all things are in a manner stirred up into porridge, and joy and joylessness, wisdom and unwisdom, great and small are all but the same, circling about, up and down, and interchanging in the game of Eternity.

BUYER And what is Eternity ?

HERACLITEAN A child playing a game, moving counters, in discord, in concord.

BUYER What are men?

HERACLITEAN Mortal gods.

BUYER And the Gods ?

HERACLITEAN Immortal men.

BUYER Are you telling riddles, man, or making conundrums? You are just like Apollo, for you say nothing plainly.[*](Heraclitus was nicknamed ὁ σκοτεινός, “the Obscure.”) HERACLITEAN Because you matter naught to me.

BUYER Then nobody in his sense will buy you.

HERACLITEAN I bid ye go weep, one and all, buy you or buy you not.

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BUYER This fellow’s trouble is not far removed from insanity. However, I for my part will not buy either of them.

HERMES They are left unsold also.

ZEUS Put up another.

HERMES Do you want the Athenian over there, who has so much to say?[*](Both Socrates and Plato contribute to the picture of the typical Academic. Consequently some editors, misled by the manuscripts (see introductory note) ascribe the part of Academic to Socrates, some to Plato, and some divide it between the two.) ZEUS By all means.

HERMES Come here, sir. We are putting up a righteous and intelligent philosophy. Who'll buy the height of sanctity ?

BUYER Tell me what you know best ?

ACADEMIC I am a lover, and wise in matters of love.

BUYER How am I to buy you, then? What I wanted was a tutor for my son, who is handsome.

ACADEMIC But who would be more suitable than I to associate with a handsome lad? It is not the body I love, it is the soul that I hold beautiful. As a matter of

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fact, even if they lie beneath the same cloak with me, they will tell you that I have done them no wrong.[*](See Plato’s Symposium, particularly 216 p-219 D.) BUYER I can’t believe what you say, that you, though a lover, take no interest in anything beyond the soul, even when you have the opportunity, lying beneath the same cloak.

ACADEMIC But I swear to you by the dog and the plane-tree that this is so.

BUYER Heracles! What curious gods!

ACADEMIC What is that you say? Don’t you think the dog is a god? Don’t you know about Anubis in Egypt, how great he is, and about Sirius in the sky and Cerberus in the world below ?

BUYER Quite right ; I was entirely mistaken. But what is your manner of life?

ACADEMIC I dwell in a city that I created for myself, using an imported constitution and enacting statutes of my own.[*](The allusion is to Plato’s Republic.) BUYER I should like to hear one of your enactments.

ACADEMIC Let me tell you the most important one, the view

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that I hold about wives ; it is that none of thei shall belong solely to any one man, but that everyone who so desires may share the rights of the husband.

BUYER You mean by this that you have abolished the laws against adultery ?

ACADEMIC Yes, and in a word, all this pettiness about such matters.

BUYER What is your attitude as to pretty boys?

ACADEMIC Their kisses shall be a guerdon for the bravest after they have done some splendid, reckless deed.

BUYER My word, what generosity! And what is the gist of your wisdom ?

ACADEMIC My “ideas”; I mean the patterns of existing things: for of everything that you behold, the earth, with all that is upon it, the sky, the sea, invisible images exist outside the universe.

BUYER Where do they exist ?

ACADEMIC Nowhere ; for if they were anywhere, they would not be.[*](As space cannot be predicated of anything outside the univerge, it cannot be predicated of the Platonic Ideas. To do so would be to make them phenomena instead of realities, for nothing in the universe is real.) BUYER I do not see these patterns that you speak of.

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ACADEMIC Of course not, for the eye of your soul is blind ; but I see images of everything,—an invisible “you,” another “me,” and in a word, two of everything.

BUYER Then I must buy you for your wisdom and your sharp sight. (Zo Hermes.) Come, let’s see what price you will make me for him?

HERMES Give me two talents.

BUYER He is sold to me at the price you mention, But I will pay the money later on.