Vitarum auctio

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.