Vitarum auctio

BUYER Come here, my good fellow, and tell your buyer what you are like, and first of all whether you are not displeased with being sold and living in slavery?

STOIC Not at all, for these things are not in our control, and all that is not in our control is immaterial.

BUYER I don’t understand what you mean by this.

STOIC What, you do not understand that of such things some are “approved,” and some, to the contrary, “disapproved”’ ?[*]( Just as things "in our control” were divided into the good and the bad, so those "not in our control” were divided into the “approved” and the "disapproved,” according as they helped or hindered in the acquirement of virtue.) BUYER Even now I do not understand.

STOIC Of course not, for you are not familiar with our vocabulary and have not the faculty of forming concepts; but a scholar who has mastered the science of logic knows not only this, but what predicaments and bye-predicaments are, and how they differ from each other.[*](The hair-splitting Stoics distinguished four forms of predication according to the case of the (logical) subject and the logical completeness of the predicate : the direct, complete predicate, or σύμβαμα (predicament), i.e. Σωκράτης βαδίζει; the indirect, complete predicate, or παρασύμβαμα (bye-predicament), i.e. Σωκράτει μεταμέλει ; the direct, incomplete predicate, e.g. Σωκράτης φιλεῖ, and the indirect, incomplete predicate, i.e. Σωκράτει μέλει.) BUYER In the name of wisdom, don’t begrudge telling me

at least what predicaments and bye-predicaments are ; for I am somehow impressed by the rhythm of the terms.

STOIC Indeed, I do not begrudge it at all. If a man who is lame dashes his lame foot against a stone and receives an unlooked-for injury, he was already in a predicament, of course, with his lameness, and with his injury he gets into a bye-predicament too.

BUYER Oh, what subtlety! And what else do you claim to know best ?

STOIC The word-snares with which I entangle those who converse with me and stop their mouths and make them hold their peace, putting a very muzzle on them. This power is called the syllogism of wide renown.[*](The Stoics were noted for their attention to logic and in especial to fallacies. Chrysippus wrote a book on syllogisms, mentioned in the Icuromenippus (311).) BUYER Heracles! An invincible and mighty thing, by what you say.

STOIC See for yourself. Have you a child?

BUYER What of it ?

STOIC If a crocodile should seize it on finding it straying beside the river, and then should promise to give it back to you if you told him truly what he intended

to do about giving it back, what would you say he had made up his mind to do?[*](The commentators do not seem to have noticed that Lucian has (intentionally) spoiled the sophism by using the words δέδοικα and ἐγνωκέναι. It is perfectly possible for the father to guess what the crocodile “had made up his mind” to do, and so to get the child back: for an intention need not be executed. The crocodile should ask, ‘* Am I going to (μέλλω) give up the child?” Then, if the father answers “Yes,” he will say ‘ You are wrong,” and eat it: and if the father says “No,” he will reply “You are right; therefore I am not going to give it up.”) BUYER Your question is hard to answer, for I don’t know which alternative I should follow in my reply, in order to get back the child. Come, in Heaven’s name answer it yourself and save the child for me, for fear the beast may get ahead of us and devour it !

STOIC Courage! I'll teach you other things that are more wonderful.

BUYER What are they ?

STOIC The Reaper, the Master,[*](Neither of these are accurately known. The Reaper was based on the fallacious employment of the negative, and proved that a man who was going to reap a field could not possibly reap it. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, is said to have paid 200 minas to a logician who taught him seven varieties of this fallacy. The Master consisted of four propositions, of which you could take any three and disprove the fourth.) and above all, the Electra and the Veiled Figure.

BUYER What do you mean by the Veiled Figure and the Electra ?

STOIC The Electra is the famous Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, who at once knew and did not know the same thing; for when Orestes stood beside her before the recognition she knew that Orestes was

her brother, but did not know that this was Orestes.[*](Here again Lucian does scant justice to the fallacy, which he really gives away by his statement of it. It should run: ‘she at once knew and did not know that Orestes was her brother, for she did not know that this man was her brother; but this man was Orestes.”) As to the Veiled Figure, you shall hear a very wonderful argument. Tell me, do you know your own father ?

BUYER Yes.

STOIC But if I put a veiled figure before you and asked you if you know him, what will you say?

BUYER That I don’t, of course.

STOIC But the veiled figure turns out to be your own father ; so if you don’t know him, you evidently don’t know your own father.

BUYER Not so: I should unveil him and find out the truth! But to go on—what is the purpose of your wisdom, and what shall you do when you reach the summit of virtue ?

STOIC I shall then devote myself to the chief natural goods, I mean wealth, health, and the like.[*](As the Stoics set great store by “living in harmony with nature,” they divided “things which did not matter” into the “acceptable” and the ‘ unacceptable” according as they were in or out of harmony with the natural wants of man. This did not supersede the classification alluded to above, but was convenient because it enabled them to dispose of certain things which were hard to classify on the other basis. For instance, a good complexion is neither “approved” nor "disapproved” as an aid to the acquirement of virtue, but it is in harmony with nature, and therefore “‘ acceptable.” Hence the Stoics were often accused (as they are constantly accused by indirection in this dialogue) of setting up a double standard.) But first I must go through many preparatory toils, whetting my eyesight with closely-written books,

collecting learned comments and stufting myself with solecisms and uncouth words; and to cap all, a man may not become wise until he has taken the hellebore treatment three times running.[*](A hit at Chrysippus. Hellebore was the specific for insanity, and rumour said that Chrysippus had taken the treatment three times (cf. True Story, 2, 18).) BUYER These projects of yours are noble and dreadfully courageous. But tobe a Gnipho and a usurer—for I see that this is one of your traits too—what shall we say of this? That it is the mark of a man who has already taken his hellebore-treatment and is consumuinate in virtue ?

STOIC Yes; at any rate money-lending is especially appropriate to a wise man, for as drawing inferences is a specialty of his, and as money-lending and drawing interest is next-door to drawing inferences, the one, like the other, belongs particularly to the scholar: and not only getting simple interest, like other people, but interest upon interest. For don’t you know that there is a first interest and a second interest, the offspring,[*](A play upon τάκος, which is literally "offspring.”) as it were, of the first? And you surely perceive what logic says: “If he gets the first interest, he will get the second; but he will get the first, ergo he will get the second.”

BUYER Then we are to say the same of the fees that you get for your wisdom from young men, and obviously none but the scholar will get paid for his virtue ?

STOIC Your understanding of the matter is correct. You see, I donot take pay on my own account, but for the sake of the giver himself: for since there are two classes of men, the disbursive and the receptive, I train myself to be receptive and my pupil to be disbursive.

BUYER On the contrary, the young man ought to be receptive and you, who alone are rich, disbursive !

STOIC You are joking, man. Look out that I don’t shoot you with my indemonstrable syllogism.[*](Indemonstrable in the sense that its propositions do not require demonstration, or indeed admit of it.) BUYER What have I to fear from that shaft ?

STOIC Perplexity and aphasia and a sprained intellect.

But the great thing is that if I wish I can turn you into a stone forthwith.

BUYER How will you turn me into a stone? You are not a Perseus, I think, my dear fellow.

STOIC In this way. Isa stone a substance?

BUYER Yes.

STOIC And how about this—is not an animal a substance ?

BUYER Yes.

STOIC And you are an animal ?

BUYER So it appears, anyhow.

STOIC Then you are a substance, and therefore a stone !

BUYER Don’t say that! Distribute my middle, for Heaven’s sake, and make me a man again.

STOIC That is not difficult. Be a man once more !—Tell me, is every substance an animal?

BUYER No.

STOIC Well, is a stone an animal?

BUYER No.

STOIC You are a substance?

BUYER Yes.

STOIC But even if you are a substance, you are an animal.

BUYER Yes.

STOIC Then you are not a stone, being an animal.

BUYER Thank you kindly ; my legs were already as cold and solid as Niobe’s. Iwill buy you. (Zo uunmes.) How much have I to pay for him?

HERMES Twelve minas.

BUYER Here you are.

HERMES Are you the sole purchaser ?

BUYER No, indeed; there are all these men whom you see.

HERMES Yes, there are many of them, heavy-shouldered fellows, fit associates for the Reaper.

ZEUS Don’t delay ; call another, the Peripatetic.

HERMES (To renivatetic.) I say, you who are handsome, you who are rich! (Yo the buyers.) Come now, buy the height of intelligence, the one who knows absolutely everything !

BUYER What is he like!

HERMES Moderate, gentlemanly, adaptable in his way of living, and, what is more, he is double.

BUYER What do you mean?

HERMES Viewed from the outside, he seems to be one man, and from the inside, another ; so if you buy him, be sure to call the one self “exoteric” and the other “esoteric.”

BUYER What does he know best ?

HERMES That goods are threefold, in the soul, in the body, and in things external.[*](Aristotle, Hth. Nicom. A, 8, 1098 b.) BUYER He has common sense. How much is he?

HERMES Twenty minas.

BUYER Your price is high.

HERMES Not so, bless you, for he himself appears to have a bit of money, so you can’t be too quick about buying him. Besides, he will tell you at once how long a gnat lives, how far down into the sea the sunlight reaches, and what the soul of an oyster is like.

BUYER Heracles, what insight !

HERMES What if I should tell you of other information demanding far keener vision, about sperm and conception and the shaping of the embryo in the womb, and how man is a creature that laughs, while asses do not laugh, and neither do they build houses nor sail boats.

BUYER This is high and helpful information that you tell of, so I shall buy him for the twenty minas.

HERMES Very well.

ZEUS Whom have we left ?

HERMES This Sceptic is still on our hands. Reddy,[*](Pyrrhias (Reddy) is a slave name, brought in for the sake of the pun on the name of the founder of the Sceptic school, Pyrrho.) come here and be put up without delay. The crowd is already drifting away, and there will be but few at his sale. However,—who'll buy this one?

BUYER I will. But first tell me, what do you know?

SCEPTIC Nothing.

BUYER What do you mean by that?

SCEPTIC That in my opinion nothing at all exists.

BUYER Then do not we exist ?

SCEPTIC I don’t even know that.

BUYER Not even that you yourself exist ?

SCEPTIC I am far more uncertain about that.

BUYER Oh, what a state of doubt? But what are these scales of yours for ?

SCEPTIC I weigh arguments in them and make them balance one another, and when I see they are

precisely alike and equal in weight, then, ah! then I do not know which is the truer.

BUYER What else can you do fairly well ?

SCEPTIC Everything except catch a runaway slave.

BUYER Why can’t you do that?

SCEPTIC Because, my dear sir, I am unable to apprehend anything.[*](The same joke is cracked by Lucian in the True Story, 2, 18, at the expense of the New Academy.) BUYER Of course, for you look to be slow and lazy. But what is the upshot of your wisdom ?

SCEPTIC Ignorance, and failure of hearing and vision.

BUYER Then you mean being both deaf and blind?

SCEPTIC Yes, and devoid of judgement and feeling, and, in a word, no better than a worm.

BUYER I must buy you for that reason. (Zo uenmes.) How much may I call him worth?

HERMES An Attie mina.

BUYER Here you are. (Yo scertic.) What have you to say, fellow? Have I bought you?

SCEPTIC Doubtful.

BUYER No, indeed, I have bought you and paid the price in cash.

SCEPTIC I am suspending judgement on that point and thinking it over.

BUYER Come now, fellow, walk along behind me as my servant should.

SCEPTIC Who knows if what you say is true?

BUYER The crier, the mina, and the men present.

SCEPTIC Is there anyone here present ?

BUYER Come, I'll chuck you into the mill and convince you that I am your master, with sorry logic!

SCEPTIC Suspend judgement on that point.

BUYER No, by Heaven! I have already affirmed my judgement.

HERMES (To scertic.) Stop hanging back and go with your buyer. (Zo the company.) We invite you all here to-morrow, for we intend to put up for sale the careers of laymen, workingmen, and tradesmen.