Abdicatus

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

It is no trifling or commonplace benefit, gentlemen of the jury, that I have conferred upon him; and yet I am accounted worthy of treatment like this. Although he himself does not know what happened then, you all know how he acted and felt and what his condition was when, taking him in hand after the other doctors had given up, while the members of the family were avoiding him and not venturing even to approach him, I made him what you see him, so that he is able to bring charges and argue about the laws. Stay! you can see your counterpart, father; you were nearly as your wife is now, when I brought you back to your former sanity. Truly it is not just that I should receive such a recompense for it, or that

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you should employ your reason only against me. That I have done you no little good is clear from the very charges which you bring; you hate me because I do not cure your wife when she is at the end of everything and in an utterly wretched plight. Since I freed you from a similar condition, why are you not far rather overjoyed and thankful to have been liberated from a state so terrible? Instead, and it is most ungrateful—you no sooner recover your sanity than you bring me to court and after your life has been saved, seek to punish me, reverting to that old-time hatred and citing the self-same law. It is a handsome fee, in truth, that you pay in this manner to the art of healing, and a fitting price for your medicines, to employ your sanity only to attack your physician !

Will you, gentlemen of the jury, empower this man to punish his benefactor, to banish his saviour, to hate the one who made him sane, to take vengeance on the one who set him on his feet? Not if you do what is just. For if I were really now guilty of the greatest offences, there was no slight gratitude owing me previously; keeping this in sight and in mind, he would have done well to ignore the present and to be prompt to forgive for the sake of the past, especially if the benefaction were so great as to overtop everything subsequent. That, I think, is true of mine toward this man, whom I saved, who is my debtor for the whole of his life, to whom I have given existence, sanity, and intelligence, and that at a time when all the others had finally given up and were confessing themselves defeated by the malady.

My benefaction, I think, is the greater because,

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although I was not his son at that time and had no imperative reason to take the case but was free and independent, having been released from the responsibility imposed by nature, nevertheless I was not indifferent but came voluntarily, unsummoned, on my own initiative; I gave my assistance, lavished my attentions, brought about a cure, and set my father on his feet, preserving him for myself, pleading my own cause against his disownment, stilling his anger by my friendliness, annulling the law by my love, purchasing by a great benefaction my reentrance into the family, demonstrating my loyalty to my father at a crisis so dangerous, bringing about my own adoption with the help of my profession, and proving myself a legitimate son in his time of dire need.

What do you suppose my sufferings were, what my exertions, to be with him, to wait upon him, to watch my opportunity, now yielding to the full force of the ailment, now bringing my professional skill to bear when the disorder abated a little? And truly, of all these duties that are included in medical science, the most dangerous is to treat such patients and to approach people in that condition, for often they loose their frenzy upon those who are near them, when their ailment has become severe. And yet none of these considerations made me hesitant or faint-hearted. I joined battle with the disease and measured myself against it in every way, and so at last prevailed by means of my remedy.

Let no one, hearing this, be quick to remark: “What sort of feat is it, and how great, to give a remedy?”’ Many things must precede this; one must prepare the way for the medicine, make the

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body easy to cure, and take thought for the patient’s whole condition, purging him, reducing him, nourishing him with the proper foods, rousing him as much as is expedient, planning for periods of sleep, contriving periods of solitude. Those who have any other sickness can readily be persuaded to consent to all this, but the insane because of their independence of spirit are hard to influence and hard to direct, dangerous to the physician, and hard to conquer by the treatment. Often when we think we are near the goal at last and become hopeful, some trivial slip, occurring when the illness has reached its height, easily overturns everything that has been done, hampers the treatment, and thwarts our skill.

When a man has endured all this, has wrestled with an illness so serious, and has conquered the ailment of all ailments most difficult to master, will you empower the plaintiff to disown him again, permit him to interpret the laws in any way he will against a benefactor, and allow him to fight with nature?

I, obeying nature, save and preserve my father for my own sake, gentlemen of the jury, even if he wrongs me; but that father, following, he says, the laws, ruins the son that has done him a benefit, and deprives him of his family. He is his son’s enemy, I am my father’s friend. I cherish nature, he slights and insults her just claims. To think of a father who hates his son unjustly! To think of a son that loves his father still more unjustly! For I bring it as a charge

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against myself, since my father constrains me to do so, that I who am hated love when I should not and love more than I ought. Yet it is nature’s behest that fathers love their sons more than sons their fathers. He, however, deliberately slights even the laws, which preserve for the family sons who have done no wrong, as well as nature, who draws parents into great affection for their children. It cannot be said that, having exceptional grounds for good-will towards me, he pays me exceptional dues of good-will and runs the measure over, or that at least he imitates and rivals me in my love; no, alas! he even hates one who loves him, repels one who cherishes him, injures one who helps him, and disowns one who clings to him. Aye, though the laws are kindly to children, he employs them against me as if they were unkindly. Ah, what a conflict you wish to precipitate, father, between the laws and nature !

Truly, truly, this matter is not as you will have it tobe. Youillinterpret the laws, father, for they are well made. Nature and law are not at war in the matter of good-will; they go hand in hand there, and work together for the righting of wrongs. You mistreat your benefactor; you wrong nature. Why wrong the laws, as well as nature? They mean to be good, and just, and kindly to children, but you will not allow it, inciting them repeatedly against one son as if his name were legion, and not suffering them to rest contented with punishments when they are willing to rest contented with demonstrations of filial affection; and yet they were not made, surely, as a menace to those who have done no wrong. Indeed, the laws permit suit to be brought on the charge of ingratitude against persons who do

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not help those who have helped them.[*](The existence of a law making ingratitude (dyapio7ia) actionable was part of the accepted tradition of the Greek rhetorical seHnee (Sopater in Walz, Rhetores Graect, VIII, 175 and 239; Cyrus, tbsd., 391; cf. Seneca, de Benef., III, 6, 1). For its existence outside the schools the evidence is conflicting. The name of the action is included in the list given by Pollux, VIII, 31, and Valerius Maximus (V, 3, ext. 3) says that Athens had such a law. On the other hand, Xenophon puts into the mouth of Socrates (Mem., II, 2,13; ef. Cyrop. I, 2,7) the statement that Athens took no cognisance of ingratitude except toward parents, and Seneca (loc. cit.) says that no nation except the Macedonians had a law against it, )_ But when a man, besides failing to render like for like, even deems it right to inflict punishment in return for the very benefits that he has received, think whether there is any exaggeration of injustice which he has overlooked !

That it is neither possible for him to disown a son after having already once for all exhausted his paternal right and made use of the laws, nor yet just to thrust away one who has shown himself so great a benefactor and exclude him from the house has been, I think, sufficiently established.

Therefore let us now come to the ground of disownment and let us see what the nature of the charge is. It is necessary to recur once more to the intent of the lawgiver; for, suppose we grant you briefly the right to disown as often as you wish and also concede you this right even against your benefactor, you are not to disown casually, I take it, or for any and eve cause. The lawgiver does not say that the father may disown for any reason that he may chance to allege—that it is enough just to express the wish and find a fault. Else why should we need a court? No, he commits it to you, gentlemen of the jury, to consider whether the father’s anger is based upon just and sufficient grounds or not. This, then, is what you should now look into. And IJ shall begin with what immediately followed his insanity.

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