Philopsuedes sive incredulus

Thereupon Antigonus, the physician, said, “I myself, Eucrates, have a bronze Hippocrates about eighteen inches high. As soon as the light is out, he goes all about the house making noises, turning out the vials, mixing up the medicines, and overturning the mortar, particularly when we are behindhand with the sacrifice which we make to him every year.” “Has it gone so far,’ said I, “that even Hippocrates the physician demands sacrifice in his honour and gets angry if he is not feasted on unblemished victims at the proper season ? He ought to be well content if anyone should bring food to his tomb or pour him a libation of milk and honey or put a wreath about his gravestone !”

“Let me tell you,” said Eucrates, “—this, I assure you, is supported by witnesses—what I saw five years ago. It happened to be the vintage season of the year; passing through the farm at midday, I left the labourers gathering the grapes and went off by myself into the wood, thinking about something in the meantime and turning it over in my mind. When I was under cover, there came first a barking of dogs, and I supposed that my son Mnason was at his usual sport of following the hounds, and had

Ion, Deinomachus, Cleodemus, and the rest of them, open-mouthed, were giving him unwavering attention, old men led by the nose, all but doing obeisance to so unconvincing a colossus, a woman half a furlong in height, a gigantic bugaboo! For my part I was thinking in the meantime: “They associate with young men to make them wise and are admired by many, but what are they themselves? Only their grey hair and their beard distinguishes them from infants, and for the rest of it, even infants are not so amenable to falsehood.”

Deinomachus, for instance, said: “Tell me, Eucrates, the dogs of the goddess—how big were they ?” “Taller than Indian elephants,” he replied ; “black, like them, with a shaggy coat of filthy, tangled hair.— Well, at sight of her I stopped, at the same time turning the gem that the Arab gave me to the inside of my finger, and Hecate, stamping

“What were the souls doing, Eucrates?”’ said Ion. “What else would they be doing,” he said, “except lying upon the asphodel to while away the time, along with their friends and kinsmen by tribes and clans ?”’ “Now let the Epicureans go on contradicting holy Plato,” said Ion, “and his doctrine about the souls! But you did not see Socrates himself and Plato among the dead?” “Socrates I saw,” he replied, “and even him not for certain but by guess, because he was bald and pot-bellied ; Plato I could not recognise, for one must tell the truth to friends, I take it.

“No sooner had I seen everything sufficiently well than the chasm came together and closed up; and some of the servants who were seeking me, Pyrrhias here among them, came upon the scene before the chasm had completely closed. Tell them, Pyrrhias, whether I am speaking the truth or not.” “Yes, by Heaven,” said Pyrrhias, “and I heard barking, too, through the chasm and a gleam of fire was

Cleodemus, however, said, “These sights that you saw are not novel and unseen by anyone else, for I myself when I was taken sick not long ago witnessed something similar. Antigonus here visited and attended me. It was the seventh day, and the fever was like a calenture of the most raging type. Leaving me by myself and shutting the door, they all were waiting outside ; for you had given orders to that: effect, Antigonus, on the chance that I might fall asleep. Well, at that time there appeared at my side while I lay awake a very handsome young man, wearing a white cloak ; then, raising me to my feet, he led me through a chasm to Hades, as I realised at once when I saw Tantalus and Ixion and Tityus and Sisyphus. Why should I tell you all the details? But when I came to the court—Aeacus and Charon and the Fates and the Furies were there—a person resembling a king (Pluto, I suppose) sat reading off the names of those about to die because their lease of life chanced to have already expired. The young man speedily set me before him; but Pluto was angry and said to my guide: ‘ His thread is not yet ‘fully spun, so let him be off, and bring me the blacksmith Demylus, for he is living beyond the spindle.’ I hastened back with a joyful heart, and from that time was free from fever ; but I told everyone that Demylus would die. He lived next door to us, and himself had some illness, according to report. And after a little while we heard the wailing of his mourners.”

“What is there surprising in that?” said Antigonus: “I know a man who came to life more than twenty days after his burial, having attended the fellow both before his death and after he came to life.’ “How was it,” said I, “that in twenty days the body neither corrupted nor simply wasted away from inanition? Unless it was an Epimenides[*](The Cretan priest who slept for forty years, or thereabouts. ) whom you attended.”

While we were exchanging these words the sons of Eucrates came in upon us from the palaestra, one already of age, the other about fifteen years old, and after greeting us sat down upon the couch beside their father ; a chair was brought in forme. Then, as if reminded by the sight of his sons, Eucrates said: “As surely as I hope that these boys will be a joy to me”—and he laid his hand upon them— “what I am about to tell you, Tychiades, is true. Everyone knows how I loved their mother, my wife of blessed memory ; I made it plain by what I did for her not only while she was alive but even when she died, for I burned on the pyre with her all the ornaments and the clothing that she liked while she lived. On the seventh day after her death I was lying here on the couch, just as I am now, consoling my grief; for I was peacefully reading Plato’s book about the soul. While I was thus engaged, Demaenete herself in person came in upon me and sat down beside me, just as Eucratides here is sitting now”—with a gesture toward the younger of his sons, who at once shuddered in a very boyish way ; he had already been pale for some time over the story. ‘“When I saw her,” Eucrates continued, “I

“Is it right, Tychiades, to doubt these apparitions any longer, when they are distinctly seen and a matter of daily occurrence?” “No, by Heaven,” I said: “those who doubt and are so disrespectful toward truth deserve to be spanked like children, with a gilt sandal!”

At this juncture Arignotus the Pythagorean came in, the man with the long hair and the majestic face—you know the one who is renowned for wisdom, whom they call holy. As I caught sight of him, I drew a breath of relief, thinking : “There now, a broadaxe has come to hand to use against their lies. The wise man will stop their mouths when they tell such prodigious yarns.” I thought that Fortune had trundled him in to me like a deus ex machina, as the phrase is. But when Cleodemus had made room for him and he was seated, he first asked about the illness, and when Eucrates told him ‘that it was already less troublesome, said : “What were you debating among yourselves? As I came

“We are only trying to persuade this man of adamant,” said Eucrates, pointing at me, “to believe that spirits and phantoms exist, and that souls of dead men go about above ground and appear to whomsoever they will.” I flushed and lowered my © eyes out of reverence for Arignotus. ‘“Perhaps, Eucrates,” he said, “Tychiades means that only the ghosts of those who died by violence walk, for example, if a man hanged himself, or had his head cut off, or was crucified, or departed life in some similar way; and that those of men who died a natural death do not. If that is what he means, we cannot altogether reject what he says.” “No, by Heaven,” replied Deinomachus, “he thinks that such things do not exist at all and are not seen in bodily form.”

“What is that you say?” said Arignotus, with a sour look at me. “Do you think that none of these things happen, although everybody, I may say, sees them?’ “Plead in my defence,” said I,“if I do not believe in them, that I am the only one of all who does not see them; if I saw them, I should believe in them, of course, just as you do.” “Come,” said he, “if ever you go to Corinth, ask where the house of Eubatides is, and when it is pointed out to you beside Cornel Grove, enter it and say to the doorman Tibius that you should like to see where the

“What was that, Arignotus? asked Eucrates. “It was uninhabitable,” he replied, “for a long time because of terrors; whenever anyone took up his abode in it, he fled in panic at once, chased out by a fearful, terrifying phantom. So it was falling in and the roof was tumbling down, and there was nobody at all who had the courage to enter it.

When I heard all this, I took my books—I have a great number of Egyptian works about such matters— and went into the house at bed-time, although my host tried to'dissuade me and all but held me when he learned where I was going—into misfortune with . my eyes open, he thought. But taking a lamp I went in alone; in the largest room I put down the light and was reading peacefully, seated on the ground, when the spirit appeared, thinking that he was setting upon a man of the common sort and expecting to affright me as he had the others; he was squalid and long-haired and blacker than the dark. Standing over me, he made attempts upon me, attacking me from all sides to see if he could get the best of me anywhere, and turning now into a dog, now into a bull or a lion. But I brought into play my most frightful imprecation, speaking the’ Egyptian language, pent him up in a certain corner of a dark room, and laid him. Then, having observed where he went down, I slept for the rest of the night.

“In the morning, when everybody had given up hope and expected to find me dead like the others,

When Arignotus, a man of superhuman wisdom, revered by all, told this story, there was no longer any one of those present who did not hold me convicted of gross folly if I doubted such things, especially as the narrator was Arignotus. Nevertheless I did not blench either at his long hair or at the reputation which encompassed him, but said: “What is this, Arignotus? Were you, Truth’s only hope, just like the rest—full of moonshine and vain imaginings? Indeed the saying has come true: our pot of gold has turned out to be nothing but coals.”

“Come now,” said Arignotus, “if you put no trust either in me or in Deinomachus or Cleodemus here or in Eucrates himself, tell whom you consider more trustworthy in such matters that maintains the opposite view to ours.” A very wonderful man,” said I, “that Democritus who came from Abdera, who surely

“That,” said Eucrates, “amounts to your saying that Democritus, too, was a foolish man, if he really thought so.

But I will tell you another incident derived from my own experience, not from hearsay. Perhaps even you, Tychiades, when you have heard it, may be convinced of the truth of the story.

“When I was living in Egypt during my youth (my father had sent me travelling for the purpose of completing my education), I took it into my head to sail up to Koptos and go from there to the statue of Memnon in order to hear it sound that marvellous salutation to the rising sun. Well, what I heard from it was not a meaningless voice, as in the general experience of common people ; Memnon himself actually opened his mouth and delivered me an oracle in seven verses, and if it were not too much of a digression, I would have repeated the very verses for you.

But on the voyage up, there chanced to be sailing with us a man from Memphis, one of the scribes ot the temple, wonderfully

“You mean Pancrates,” said Arignotus, “my own teacher, a holy man, clean shaven, in white linen, always deep in thought, speaking imperfect Greek, tall, flat-nosed, with protruding lips and thinnish legs.” ‘That self-'same Pancrates,’ he replied: “and at first I did not know who he was, but when I saw him working all sorts of wonders whenever we anchored the boat, particularly riding on crocodiles and swimming in company with the beasts, while they fawned and wagged their tails, I recognised that he was a holy man, and by degrees, through my friendly behaviour, I became his companion and associate, so that he shared all his secret knowledge with me.

“At last he persuaded me to leave all my servants behind in Memphis and to go with him quite alone, for we should not lack people to wait upon us; and thereafter we got on in that way.

But whenever we came to a stopping-place, the man would take either the bar of the door or the broom or even the pestle, put clothes upon it, say a certain spell over it, and make it walk, appearing to everyone else to be a man. It would go off and draw water and buy provisions and prepare meals and in every way deftly serve and wait upon us. Then, when he was through with its

“Though I was very keen to learn this from him, I could not do so, for he was jealous, although most ready to oblige in everything else. But one day I secretly overheard the spell—it was just three syllables—by taking my stand in a dark place. He went off to the square after telling the pestle what it had to do,

and on the next day, while he was transacting some business in the square, I took the pestle, dressed it up in the same way, said the syllables over it, and told it to carry water. When it had filled and brought in the jar, I said, ‘Stop! don’t carry any more water : be a pestle again!’ But it would not obey me now: it kept straight on carrying until it filled the house with water for us by pouring it in! At my wit’s end over the thing, for I feared that Pancrates might come back and be angry, as was indeed the case, I took an axe and cut the pestle in two ; but each part took a jar and began to carry water, with the result that instead of one servant I had now two. Meanwhile Pancrates appeared on the scene, and comprehending what had happened, turned them into wood again, just as they were before the spell, and then for his own part left me to my own devices without warning, taking himself off out of sight somewhere.”

“Then you still know how to turn the pestle into a man?” said Deinomachus. “Yes,’ said he: “only half way, however, for I cannot bring it back to its original form if it once becomes a water-

“Will you never stop telling such buncombe, old men as you are?” said I. “If you will not, at least for the sake of these lads put your amazing and fearful tales off to some other time, so that they may not be filled up with terrors and strange figments before we realise it. You ought to be easy with them and not accustom them to hear things like this which will abide with them and annoy them their lives long and will make them afraid of every sound by filling them with all sorts of superstition.”

“Thank you,’ said Eucrates, “for putting me in ‘mind of superstition by mentioning it. What is your opinion, Tychiades, about that sort of thing— I mean oracles, prophecies, outcries of men under divine possession, voices heard from inner shrines, or verses uttered by a maiden who foretells the future? Of course you doubt that sort of thing also? For my own part, I say nothing of the fact that I have a holy ring with an image of Apollo Pythius engraved on the seal, and that this Apollo speaks to me: you might think that I was bragging about myself beyond belief. I should like, however, to tell you all what I heard from Amphilochus in Mallus,[*](A famous shrine in Cilicia. “After the death of his father Amphiaraus and his disappearance at Thebes, he (Amphilochus) was exiled from his own country and went to Cilicia, where he fared quite well, for he, like his father, foretold the future to the Cilicians and neceived two obols for each oracle.” — Alexander 19. ) when the hero conversed with me in broad day and advised me about my affairs, and what I myself saw, and then in due order what I saw at Pergamon and . what I heard at Patara.

“When I was on my way home from Egypt I heard that this shrine in Mallus was very famous and very trathful, and that it responded clearly, answering word for word whatever one wrote in his tablet and turned over to the prophet. So I thought that it would be well to give the oracle a trial in passing and ask the god for some advice about the future—”

While Eucrates was still saying these words, since I could see how the business would turn out and that the cock-and-bull story about oracles upon which he was embarking would not be short, I left him sailing from Egypt to Mallus, not choosing to oppose everyone all alone: I was aware, too, that they were put out at my being there to criticise their lies. “I am going away,” I said, “to look up Leontichus, for I want to speak to him about something. As for you, since you do not think that human experiences afford you a sufficient field, go ahead and call in the gods themselves to help you out in your romancing.” With that I went out. They were glad to have a free hand, and continued, of course, to feast and to gorge themselves with lies.

There you have it, Philocles! After hearing all that at the house of Eucrates I am going about like a man who has drunk sweet must, with a swollen belly, craving an emetic. I should be glad if I could anywhere buy at a high price a dose of forgetfulness, so that the memory of what I heard may not stay with me and work me some harm. In fact, I think I see apparitions and spirits and Hecates!

PHILOCLES Your story has had the same enjoyable effect upon me, Tychiades. They say, you know, that not only those who are bitten by mad dogs go mad and fear water, but if a man who has been bitten bites anyone else, his bite has the same effect as the dog’s, and the other man has the same fears. It is likely, therefore, that having been bitten yourself by a multitude of lies in the house of Eucrates, you have passed the bite on to me; you have filled my soul so full of spirits !

TYCHIADES Well, never mind; my dear fellow; we have a powerful antidote to such poisons in truth and in sound reason brought to bear everywhere. As long as we make use of this, none of these empty, foolish lies will disturb our peace.