Toxaris vel amicitia

Lucian of Samosata

Selections from Lucian. Smith, Emily James, translators. New York; Harper Brothers, 1892.

Toxaris Now listen, my amazing friend, and observe how much more candidly we barbarians judge good men than you Greeks. In Argos and Mykenai there is not even a noble tomb to be seen of Orestes and Pylades, but in our country there is shown a temple raised to them in common, as was natural since they were comrades, and sacrifices are offered to them and all other honors. The fact that they were foreigners, not Scythians, does not in the least prevent their being adjudged good men. For we do not ask whence noble and good people come, and we bear them no grudge for working good deeds, even if they are not our friends. On the contrary we applaud their acts, and adopt them as countrymen on the strength of them. But what we chiefly wondered at and praised in these men was this, that they seemed to us to be the noblest pair of friends in the world, and authorized to lay down for the rest of mankind the principle that friends must share all fortunes, and thus win the reverence of the best of the Scythians.

Our ancestors inscribed an account of their sufferings with each other, or for each other, on a

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bronze pillar and set it up as an offering in the Oresteion, making a law that the earliest training and education of their children should be to learn by heart the inscription on this pillar. The result is that it would be easier for one of them to forget his father's name than to be in ignorance of the deeds of Orestes and Pylades. Moreover, on the wall enclosing the temple there are ancient pictures displaying everything related on the pillar. One shows Orestes sailing in company with his friend; another shows him captured after his ship went to pieces on the rocks and made ready for the sacrifice, with Iphigeneia in the act of beginning the ceremony. On the opposite wall he is seen at the moment when he had burst his bonds and was killing Thoas and a number of other Scythians, and, finally, they are painted sailing away with Iphigeneia and the goddess. The Scythians are vainly trying to stop the ship, which is already under sail, and are hanging in the rigging and trying to board her; but they fail completely and some get wounded, and others, in fear of a like fate, swim off to land.