Adversus indoctum et libros multos ementem

Lucian of Samosata

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

Truly, what you are now doing is the reverse ot what you are aiming to do. You expect to get a reputation for learning by zealously buying up the finest books, but the thing goes by opposites and in a way becomes proof of your ignorance. Indeed, you do not buy the finest ; you rely upon men who bestow their praise hit-and-miss, you are a godsend to the people that tell such lies about books, and a treasure-trove ready to hand to those who traffic in them. Why, how can you tell what books are old and highly valuable, and what are worthless and simply in wretched repair[*](Not old, though they look old. )— unless you judge them by the extent to which they are eaten into and cut up, calling the book-worms into counsel to settle the question ? As to their correctness and freedom from mistakes, what judgement have you, and what is it worth ?

Yet suppose I grant you that you have selected the very éditions de luxe that were prepared by Callinus or by the famous Atticus with the utmost care.[*](Both Atticus and Callinus are mentioned again as scribes in this piece (24) ; Callinus is not elsewhere mentioned, but Atticus is supposed to be the “publisher” of the Atticiana, editions which had great repute in antiquity. It is hardly likely that he is Cicero’s friend. )

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What good, you strange person, will it do you to own them, when you do not understand their beauty and will never make use of it one whit more than a blind man would enjoy beauty in favourites? To be sure you look at your books with your eyes open and quite as much as you like, and you read some of them aloud with great fluency, keeping your eyes in advance of your lips; but I do not consider that enough, unless you know the merits and defects of each passage in their contents, unless you understand what every sentence means, how to construe the words, what expressions have been accurately turned by the writer in accordance with the canon of good use, and what are false, illegitimate, and counterfeit.

Come now, do you maintain that without instruction you know as much as we? How can you, unless, like the shepherd of old,[*](Hesiod : see the Theogony29 ff. ) you once received a branch of laurel from the Muses? Helicon, which the goddesses are said to haunt, you never even heard of, I take it, and your haunts in your boyhood were not the same as ours. That you should even mention the Muses is impious. They would not have shrunk from showing themselves to a shepherd, a hardbitten, hairy man displaying rich tan on his body, but as for the like of you—in the name of your lady of Lebanon[*](Aphrodite, perhaps, or Astarte; in later times there was a notorious cult of Aphrodite on Lebanon: Eusebius, Vit. Constantini 3, 53. ) dispense me for the present from giving a full description of you in plain language !—they would never have deigned, I am sure, to come near you, but instead of giving you laurel they would have scourged you with myrtle or sprays of mallow and would have made you keep your distance from those

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regions, so as not to pollute either Olmeios or Hippocrene, whose waters only thirsty flocks or the clean lips of shepherds may drink.

No matter how shameless you are and how courageous in such matters, you would never dare to say that you have had an education, or that you ever troubled yourself to associate intimately with books, or that So-and-so was your teacher and you went to school with So-and-so.

You expect to make up for all that now by one single expedient—by getting many books. On that theory, collect and keep all those manuscripts of Demosthenes that the orator wrote with his own hand, and those of Thucydides that were found to have been copied, likewise by Demosthenes, eight times over, and even all the books that Sulla sent from Athens to Italy.[*](Of the copies of his own works and those of Thucydides written by Demosthenes we have no other notice; Sulla took to Italy what was reported to have been the library of Aristotle : Plut. Sulla 26. ) What would you gain by it in the way of learning, even if you should put them under your pillow and sleep on them or should glue them together and walk about dressed in them? “A monkey is always a monkey,” says the proverb, “even if he has birthtokens of gold.”[*](These were trinkets put in the cradle or the clothing of a child when it was abandoned, as proof of good birth and as a possible means of identification later. Hyginus (187) calls them insignia ingenwitatis. ) Although you have a book in your hand and read all the time, you do not understand a single thing that you read, but you are like the donkey that listens to the lyre and wags his ears.

If possessing books made their owner learned, they would indeed be a possession of great price, and only rich men like you would have them, since you could buy them at auction, as it were, outbidding us poor

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men. In that case, however, who could rival the dealers and booksellers for learning, who possess and sell so many books? But if you care to look into the matter, you will see that they are not much superior to you in that point; they are barbarous of speech and obtuse in mind like you—just what one would expect people to be who have no conception of what is good and bad. Yet you have only two or three books which they themselves have sold you, while they handle books night and day.

What good, then, does it do you to buy them—unless you think that even the book-cases are learned because they contain so many of the works of the ancients !

Answer me this question, if you will—or better, as you are unable to answer, nod or shake your head inreply. If a man who did not know how to play the flute should buy the instrument of Timotheus or that of Ismenias,[*](Famous Theban flute-players of the fourth century B.c. for Timotheus, see also Lucian’s Harmonides. ) for which [smenias paid seven talents in Corinth, would that make him able to play, or would it do him no good to own it since he did not know how to use it as a musician would? You did well to shake your head. Even if he obtained the flute of Marsyas or Olympus, he could not play without previous instruction. And what if a man should get the bow of Heracles without being a Philoctetes so as to be able to draw it and shoot straight ? What do you think about him? That he would make any showing worthy of an archer? You shake your head at this, too. So, of course, with a man who does not know how to steer, and one who has not practised riding ; if the one should take the helm of a fine vessel, finely constructed in every detail both for beauty and for seaworthiness, and the other should

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get an Arab or a “Centaur” or a “Koppa-brand,”[*](The “Centaur” horses probably came from Thessaly, the home of the Centaurs and a land of good horses. The “Koppa-brand” were marked ϙ, which in the alphabet of Corinth corresponded to K, and was used (on coins, for instance) as the abbreviation for Korinthos. ) each would give proof, I have no doubt, that he did not know what to do with his property. Do you assent to this? Take my advice, now, and assent to this also; if an ignorant man like you should buy many books, would he not give rise to gibes at himself for his ignorance? Why do you shrink from assenting to this also? To do so is a clear giveaway, I maintain, and everybody who sees it at once quotes that very obvious proverb: “What has a dog to do with a bath ?”

Not long ago there was a rich man in Asia, both of whose feet had been amputated in consequence of an accident; they were frozen, I gather, when he had to make a journey through snow. Well, this of course was pitiable, and to remedy the mischance he had had wooden feet made for him, which he used to lace on, and in that way made shift to walk, leaning upon his servants as he did so, But he did one thing that was ridiculous: he used always to buy very handsome sandals of the latest cut and went to the utmost trouble in regard to them, in order that his timber toes might be adorned with the most beautiful footwear! Now are not you doing just the same thing? Is it not true that although you have a crippled, fig-wood[*](The most worthless sort of wood. ) understanding, you are buying gilt buskins which even a normal man could hardly get about in?

As you have often bought Homer among your other books, have someone take the second book of his Iliad and read it to you. Do not bother about

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the rest of the book, for none of it applies to you ; but he has a description of a man making a speech, an utterly ridiculous fellow, warped and deformed in body.[*](Iliad2,212. ) Now then, if that man, Thersites, should get the armour of Achilles, do you suppose that he would thereby at once become both handsome and strong ; that he would leap the river, redden its stream with Trojan gore, and kill Hector—yes, and before Hector, kill Lycaon and Asteropaeus—when he cannot even carry the “ash tree” on his shoulders?[*](Cf, Iliad 19, 387 fi ) You will hardly say so. No, he would make himself a laughing-stock, limping under the shield, falling on his face beneath the weight of it, showing those squint eyes of his under the helmet every time he looked up, making the corselet buckle up with the hump on his back, trailing the greaves on the ground —disgracing, in short, both the maker of the arms and their proper owner. Do not you see that the same thing happens in your case, when the roll that you hold in your hands is very beautiful, with a slipcover of purple vellum and a gilt knob, but in reading it you barbarize its language, spoil its beauty and warp its meaning? Men of learning laugh at you, while the toadies who live with you praise you —and they themselves for the most part turn to one another and laugh!

I should like to tell you of an incident that took place at Delphi. A man of Tarentum, Evangelus by name, a person of some distinction in Tarentum, desired to obtain a victory in the Pythian games. As far as the athletic competition was concerned, at the very outset that seemed to him to be impossible, as

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he was not well endowed by nature either for strength or for speed; but in playing the lyre and singing he became convinced that he would win easily, thanks to detestable fellows whom he had about him, who applauded and shouted whenever he made the slightest sound in striking up. So he came to Delphi resplendent in every way; in particular, he had provided himself with a gold-embroidered robe and a very beautiful laurel-wreath of gold, which for berries had emeralds as large as berries. The lyre itself was something extraordinary for beauty and costliness, all of pure gold, ornamented with graven gems and many-coloured jewels, with the Muses and Apollo and Orpheus represented upon it in relief—a great marvel to all who saw it.[*](Compare the version of this story given in the Rhetorica ad Herennium 4, 47. )

When the day of the competition at last came, there were three of them, and Evangelus drew second place on the programme. So, after Thespis _ of Thebes had made a good showing, he came in all ablaze with gold and emeralds and beryls and sapphires. The purple of his robe also became him well, gleaming beside the gold. With all this he bedazzled the audience in advance and filled his hearers with wonderful expectations; but when at Jength he had to sing and play whether he would or no, he struck up a discordant, jarring prelude, breaking three strings at once by coming down upon the lyre harder than he ought, and began to sing ‘in an unmusical, thin voice, so that a burst of laughter came from the whole audience, and the judges of the competition, indignant at his presumption, scourged him and turned him out of the theatre. Then indeed

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that precious simpleton[*](The word χρυσοῦς, applied to a person, means “simpleton” (Lapsus1). Here, of course, it also has a punning turn. ) Evangelus cut a comical figure with his tears as he was chivvied across the stage by the scourgers, his legs all bloody from their whips, gathering up the gems of the lyre—for they had dropped out when it shared his flogging.

After a moment’s delay, a man named Eumelus, from Elis, came on, who had an old lyre, fitted with wooden pegs, and a costume that, including the wreath, was hardly worth ten drachmas; but as he sang well and played skilfully, he had the best of it and was proclaimed victor, so that he could laugh at Evangelus for the empty display that he had made with his lyre and his gems. Indeed, the story goes that he said to him: “Evangelus, you wear golden laurel, being rich; but I am poor and I wear the laurel of Delphi! ‘However, you got at least this much by your outfit: you are going away not only unpitied for your defeat but hated into the bargain because of this inartistic lavishness of yours.” There you have your own living image in Evangelus, except that you are not at all put out by the laughter of the audience. 1

It would not be out of place to tell you another story about something that happened in Lesbos long ago. They say that when the women of Thrace tore Orpheus to pieces, his head and his lyre fell into the Hebrus, and were carried out into the Aegean Sea; and that the head floated along on the lyre, singing a dirge (so the story goes) over Orpheus,

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while the lyre itself gave out sweet sounds as the winds struck the strings. In that manner they came ashore at Lesbos to the sound of music, and the people there took them up, burying the head where their temple of Dionysus now stands and hanging up the lyre in the temple of Apollo, where it was long preserved.

In after time, however, Neanthus, the son of Pittacus the tyrant, heard how the lyre charmed animals and plants and stones, and made music even after the death of Orpheus without anyone’s touching it; so he fell in love with the thing, ‘tampered with the priest, and by means of a generous bribe prevailed upon him to substitute another similar lyre, and give him the one of Orpheus. After securing it, he did not think it safe to play it in the city by day, but went out into the suburbs at night with it under his cloak, and then, taking it in hand, struck and jangled the strings, untrained and unmusical lad that he was, expecting that under his touch the lyre would make wonderful music with which he could charm and enchant everybody, and indeed that he would become immortal, inheriting the musical genius of Orpheus. At length the dogs (there were many of them there), brought together by the noise, tore him to pieces; so his fate, at least, was like that of Orpheus, and only the dogs answered his call. By that it became very apparent that it was not the lyre which had wrought the spell, but the skill and the singing of Orpheus, the only distinctive gifts that he had from his mother; while the lyre was just a piece of property, no better than any other stringed instrument.

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But why do I talk to you of Orpheus and Neanthus, when even in our own time there was and still is, I think, a man who paid three thousand drachmas for the earthenware lamp of Epictetus the Stoic: He thought, I suppose, that if he should read by — that lamp at night, he would forthwith acquire the wisdom of Epictetus in his dreams and would be just like that marvellous old man.

And only a day or two ago another man paid a talent for the staff which Proteus the Cynic laid aside before leaping into the fire ;[*](Peregrinus ; nicknamed Proteus because he changed his faith so readily. The story of his life and his voluntary death at Olympia is related in Lucian’s Peregrinus. ) and he keeps this treasure and displays it just as the Tegeans do the skin of the Calydonian boar, the Thebans the bones of Geryon, and the Memphites the tresses of Isis. Yet the original owner of this marvellous possession surpassed even you yourself in ignorance and indecency. You see what a wretched state the collector is in: in all conscience he needs a staff—on his pate.

They say that Dionysius[*](The Elder, Tyrant of Syracuse (431-367 B.C.). ) used to write tragedy in a very feeble and ridiculous style, so that Philoxenus[*](A contemporary poet, ) was often thrown into the quarries on account of it, not being able to control his laughter. Well, when he discovered that he was being laughed at, he took great pains to procure the wax-tablets on which Aeschylus used to write, thinking that he too would be inspired and possessed with divine frenzy in virtue of the tablets. But for all that, what he wrote on those very tablets was far more ridiculous than what he had written before : for example,

Doris, the wife of Dionysius,
Is dead—

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and again,

Alackaday, a right good wife I’ve lost!

—for that came from the tablet ; and so did this:

'Tis of themselves alone that fools make sport.[*](The few extant fragments of Dionysius’ plays are given by Nauck, rag. Graec. Fragm. pp. 793-796. Tzetzes (Chil. 5, 180) says that he repeatedly took second and third place in the competitions at Athens, and first with the ansom of Hector. Amusing examples of his frigidity are given by Athenaeus (iii. p. 98 D). )

The last line Dionysius might have addressed to you with especial fitness, and those tablets of his should have been gilded for it.

For what expectation do you base upon your books that you are always unrolling them and rolling them up, glueing them, trimming them, smearing them with saffron and oil of cedar, putting slip-covers on them, and fitting them with knobs, just as if you were going to derive some profit from them? Ah yes, already you have been improved beyond measure by their purchase, when you talk as you do—but no, you are more dumb than any fish !—and live in a way that cannot even be mentioned with decency, and have incurred everybody’s savage hatred? as the phrase goes, for your beastliness! If books made men like that, they ought to be given as wide a berth as possible.

Two things can be acquired from the ancients, the ability to speak and to act as one ought, by emulating the best models and shunning the worst; and when a man clearly fails to benefit from them either in the one way or in the other, what else is he doing but buying haunts for mice and lodgings for worms, and excuses to thrash his servants for negligence?

Furthermore, would it not be discreditable if someone, on seeing you with a book in your hand(youalways

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have one, no matter what), should ask what orator or historian or poet it was by, and you, knowing from the title, should easily answer that question; and if then—for such topics often spin themselves out to some length in conversation—he should either commend or criticise something in its contents, and you should be at a loss and have nothing to say? Would you not then pray for the earth to open and swallow you for getting yourself into trouble like Bellerophon by carrying your book about?[*](The letter that Bellerophon carried to the King of Lycia contained a request that he be put to death : Iliad 6, 155-195. )

When Demetrius, the Cynic, while in Corinth, saw an ignorant fellow reading a beautiful book (it was the Bacchae of Euripides, I dare say, and he was at the place where the messenger reports the fate of Pentheus and the deed of Agave),[*](1041 ff. ) he snatched it away and tore it up, saying: “It is better for Pentheus to be torn to tatters by me once for all than by you repeatedly.”

Though I am continually asking myself the question, I have never yet been able to discover why you have shown so much zeal in the purchase of books. Nobody who knows you in the least would think that you do it on account of their helpfulness or use, any more than a bald man would buy a comb, or a blind man a mirror, or a deaf-mute a flute-player, or an eunuch a concubine, or a landsman an oar, or a seaman a plough. But perhaps you regard the matter as a display of wealth and wish to show everyone that out of your vast surplus you spepd money even for things of no use to you? Come now, as far as I know—and I too am a Syrian[*](The implication is: “And therefore ought to know about your circumstances, if anyone knows.” )—if you had not

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smuggled yourself into that old man’s will with all speed, you would be starving to death by now, and would be putting up your books at auction!

The only remaining reason is that you have been convinced by your toadies that you are not only handsome and charming but a scholar and an orator and a writer without peer, and you buy the books to prove their praises true. They say that you hold forth to them at dinner, and that they, like stranded frogs, make a clamour because they are thirsty, or else they get nothing to drink if they do not burst themselves shouting.

To be sure, you are somehow very easy to lead by the nose, and believe them in everything ; for once you were even persuaded that you resembled a certain royal person in looks, like the false Alexander, the false Philip (the fuller), the false Nero in our grandfathers’ time, and whoever else has been put down under the title “false.”[*](Balas, in the second century B.c., claimed to be the brother of Antiochus V. Eupator on account of a strong resemblance in looks, and took the name of Alexander. At about the same time, after the defeat of Perses, Andriscus of Adramyttium, a fuller, claimed the name of Philip. The false Nero cropped up some twenty years after Nero’s death, and probably in the East, as he had strong support from the Parthians, who refused to surrender him to Rome. )