Piscator

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 3. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921.

TRUTH You others go: I do not-need to hear what I have long known all about.

PHILOSOPHY But it would help us, Truth, if you should join in the trial and give us information on each point.

TRUTH Then shall I bring along these two waitingwomen, who are in very close sympathy with me?

PHILOSOPHY Yes, indeed, as many as you wish.

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TRUTH Come with us, Liberty and Free-speech, so that we may be able to rescue this poor creature, our admirer, who is facing danger for no just reason. You, Investigation, may stay where you are.

FRANKNESS Hold, my lady: let him come too, if anyone is to come. Those whom I shall have to fight to-day are none of your ordinary cattle, but pretentious fellows, hard to argue down, always finding some loophole or other, so that Investigation is necessary.

INVESTIGATION Yes, most necessary: and you had better take Proof along too. :

TRUTH Come, all of you, since you appear to be necessary to the case.

PLATO Do you see that? He is suborning Truth against us, Philosophy.

PHILOSOPHY Then you, Plato and Chrysippus and Aristotle, are afraid that she, Truth, may tell some lie ‘in his behalf?

PLATO It isn’t that, but he is terribly unprincipled and smooth-tongued, so that he will seduce her.

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PHILOSOPHY Have no fear. No injustice will be done while we have Justice here with us.

Let us go up, then. But tell me, what is your name ?

FRANKNESS Mine? Frankness, son of Truthful, son of Renowned Investigator.

PHILOSOPHY And your country?

FRANKNESS I am a Syrian, Philosophy, from the banks of the Euphrates. But what of that? I know that some of my opponents here are just as foreign-born as I: but in their manners and culture they are not like men of Soli or Cyprus or Babylon or Stageira.[*](Although they were born there: Chrysippus in Soli, Aristotle in Stageira. No philosopher. mentioned: by name in this piece came from Cyprus or from Babylon, and these allusions are not clear. Perhaps Lucian has in mind Zeno of Citium and Poseidonius of Seleucia on the Tigris. ) Yet as far as you are concerned it would make no difference even if a man’s speech were foreign, if only his way of thinking were manifestly right and just.

PHILOSOPHY True: it was a needless question, to be sure. But what is your calling? That at least is worth knowing.

FRANKNESS Iam a bluff-hater, cheat-hater, liar-hater, vanityhater, and hate all that sort of scoundrels, who are very numerous, as you know.

PHILOSOPHY Heracles! You follow a hateful calling !

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FRANKNESS You are right. You see, in fact, how many have come to dislike me and how I am imperilled because I follow it. However, I am very well up in the opposite calling, too: I mean the one with love for a base ; for I am a truth-lover, a beauty-lover, a simplicitylover, and a lover of all else that is kindred to love. But there are very few who deserve to have this calling practised upon them, while those who come under the other and are closer akin to hatefulness number untold thousands. So the chances are that by this time I have lost my skill in the pne calling for lack of practice, but have become very expert in the other.

PHILOSOPHY But that ought not to be so, for if a man can do the one, they say, he can do the other. So do not distinguish the two callings; they are but one, though they seem two.

FRANKNESS You know best as to that, Philosophy. For my part, however, I am so-constituted as to hate rascals and to commend and love honest men.

PHILOSOPHY Come, now, since we are where we planned to be, let us hold our court somewhere hereabouts in the portico of Our Lady of the Citadel.[*](Athena Polias, who shared with Erechtheus the temple now known as the Erechtheum. ) Priestess, arrange the benches for us. Let us in the meantime pay our homage to the goddess.

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FRANKNESS Lady of the Citadel, come to my aid against the pretenders, remembering how many oaths thou dost hear them make and break each day, and what they do thou alone seest, dwelling as thou dost upon a lookout. Now is thine hour to requite them. If thou seest that I am being overborne, and that the black ballots are more than the half, add thou thine own and set me free.[*](Frankness aske of Athena more aid than she generally gave ; for the proverbial ballot of Athena merely decided a tie vote in favour of the defendant, as in the trial of Orestes. )

PHILOSOPHY Well and good. Here we are for you, gentlemen, all seated in readiness to hear the speeches. Choose one of your number who in your opinion can best conduct the prosecution, and when you have done so, build up your complaint and establish your charge ; it is not feasible for all to speak at once. You, Frankness, shall make your defence thereafter. PLATO Which. of us, I wonder, would be the best fitted to handle the case?

CHRYSIPPUS You, Plato. Marvellous sublimity, superlatively Attic elegance, charm and _ persuasiveness, insight, subtlety, opportune seductiveness in demonstration— all this is yours to the full. Accept the spokesmanship, therefore, and say whatever is appropriate in behalf of us all. Remember now all your former successes and put together any points you have urged against Gorgias or Polos or Hippias or Prodicus: this man is more able than they. So apply a light

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sprinkling of irony, too, put those clever, incessant questions of yours, and if you think best, also slip it in somewhere that “great Zeus in heaven driving his winged car” would be angry if this man should not be punished.

PLATO No, let us make use of someone more strenuous— Diogenes here, or Antisthenes, or Crates, or you yourself, Chrysippus. For surely what the occasion demands now is not elegance and literary distinction, but some degree of argumentative and forensic equipment: Frankness is a professional speaker.

DIOGENES Well, then, I will be prosecutor, for we shall not require speeches of any great length, I suppose: and besides, I have been insulted beyond all of you, since I was auctioned off the other day for two obols.

PLATO Diogenes will make the speech, Philosophy, for all of us. Remember, friend, not just to speak for yourself in the complaint, but to keep our common interests in view. If we do disagree with one another a little in our doctrines, you must not examine into that, or attempt to say who is the nearer right, but, in general, make an impassioned plea for Philosophy herself, because she has been heaped with insult and shamefully abused in the dialogues of Freespeaker ; ignore the personal views wherein we differ, and fight for what we all have in common. Take note, you are our sole representative and it rests with you whether all our teachings are to seem worthy of high reverence or to be thought no better than this man made them out to be.

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DIOGENES Do not be alarmed ; we shall not come short: I will speak in behalf of all. Even if Philosophy, swayed by his eloquence—for she is naturally kindly and gentle—determines to acquit him, I for my part shall not be found wanting, for I will show him that we do not carry sticks for nothing !

PHILOSOPHY Not by .any means! Use arguments, rather, for that is better. Butdo notdelay. The water already has been poured in,[*](i.e, the water-clock has been filled. ) and the jury has its eyes upon you.

FRANKNESS Let the others[*](The rest of the philosophers, who are to sit on the jury (§ 9). ) take seats, Philosophy, and cast their votes with your company, and let Diogenes be the only prosecutor.

PHILOSOPHY Then are you not afraid they may find you guilty ?

FRANKNESS Not at all. In fact, I wish to win by a larger majority.

PHILOSOPHY That is handsome of you. Well, then, take your seats, and you, Diogenes, begin your speech.

DIOGENES What sort of men we were in life, Philosophy, you know right well, and I need not discuss that point at all; for who is not aware how much beauty was brought into life by Pythagoras here, Plato, Aristotle, Chrysippus and the others, to say nothing of myself?

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I shall proceed to speak of the insults which, in spite of our merit, this double-dyed scoundrel Frankness has dealt us. He is a public speaker, they say: but abandoning the courts and the successes to be gained therein, he concentrated upon us all thé eloquence and power that he had acquired .in rhetoric, and not only unceasingly abuses us himself by calling us cheats and liars, but induces the public to laugh and sneer at us as if we amounted to nothing at all. More than that, he has at last made people actually hate you, Philosophy, as well as us by dubbing your doctrines stuff and nonsense and rehearsing in mockery all that is most serious in what you taught us, so as to get applause and praise from his audience for himself and contumely for us. The common sort are that way by nature; they delight in jesters and buffoons, and most of all when they criticise what is held in high reverence. Just so in days gone by they took delight in Aristophanes and Eupolis, who brought Socrates on the stage to make fun of him and got up monstrous farces about him. The playwrights, however, showed their boldness against only one man, and at the Dionysia, when it was’ permissible to do so, and the joking was considered part of the holiday, and

The god, who loves his joke, no doubt was pleased.[*](Author unknown. )

But this man brings the best people together, after a long period of thinking and preparing and writing

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down slanders in a thick roll, and then loudly abuses Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle here, Chrysippus there, myself,and in a word, one and all, without the sanction of a holiday and without having. had anything done to him personally by us. He would have some excuse for the thing, of course,if he had acted in self-defence instead of starting the quarrel.

What is worst of all, in doing this sort of thing, Philosophy, he shelters himself under your name, and he has suborned Dialogue, our serving-man, employing him against us as a helper and a spokesman. Moreover, he has actually bribed Menippus,[*](The Cynic, of Gadara: Lucian’s chief predecessor in satirical prose. )a comrade of ours, to take part in his farces frequently ; he is the only one who is not here and does not join us in the prosecution, thereby playing traitor to our common cause.

For all this he ought to be punished. What, pray, can he have to say for himself after ridiculing all that is most holy before so many witnesses? In fact, it would be a good thing for them, too, if they were to see him punished, so that no other man might ever again sneer at Philosophy; for to keep quiet and pocket insults might well be thought to betoken weakness and simplicity rather than self-control. And who could put up with his last performances ? Bringing us like slaves to the auction-room and appointing a crier, he sold us off, they say, some for a high price, some for an Attic mina, and me, arrant scoundrel that he is, for two obols! And those present laughed!

On account of this, we ourselves have come up here in a rage, and we think it right that you for your part should avenge us because we have been insulted to the limit.

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PLATO Good, Diogenes! You have splendidly said all that you ought on behalf of us all.

PHILOSOPHY Stop applauding! Pour in the water for the defendant. Now, Frankness, make your speech in turn, for the water now is running for you. Don’t delay, then.