Adversus indoctum et libros multos ementem

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,

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.

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,

1. Doris, the wife of Dionysius,
2. Is dead—

1. Alackaday, a right good wife I’ve lost!

1. '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). )

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

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

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. )