4 Marcus Aurelius And His Times
MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS TIMES
preferring what we would call agnosticism; and those men of the new faith which was spreading—in spite of scorn and persecution—through the Empire from Galilee.
In certain of its features, Lucian's life makes us think of a modern "success story."
It wears the familiar pattern of a poor boy rising to fame and riches. He started as a humble, uncouth colonial who, before he could pass as an educated man, had to master the language of culture as a foreign tongue, and who nevertheless attained sufficient stature to attack the favorite philosophy of the emperor himself. There is also a contemporary sound to his choice of vocations. He was, first, a popular lecturer who made an excellent living by amusing and even shocking his audiences, then, in later life, a comfortably-placed civil official, serving the interests of the imperial government in Egypt. Quite apart from his writings, which are full of the spirit of modern agnosticism, these two biographical details seem to link Lucian of Samosata to our own times.
The known facts of Lucian's life are few, and may be quickly recounted. His parents chose for him the respectable career of statuary or stone-cutter, and he was apprenticed to an uncle. The first day ended disastrously: Lucian broke a valuable piece of marble and was sent home. But this accident proved a blessing in disguise, for it turned his mother's thoughts to other and higher callings. It was at length decided that the bright boy should be trained for the profession of scholar or rhetorician, and Lucian left home to achieve this ambition. He was at the time, he tells us somewhere, a "barbarian" unacquainted with Greek, and garbed in Oriental fashion. But ten years among the Sophists in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor and in Greece put a high polish on the rough diamond. He mastered the Greek language, studied all the great Greek writers, and prepared himself for the fields of rhetoric and law. A rhetorician in those days had a number of employments open to him. He might plead cases for a client
Introduction to Lucian
in court; write speeches for other men to deliver; teach, and eventually become the head of a school; or he might follow the career of public lecturer. How many of these activities
Lucian engaged in we do not know, but we have ample data as to his success as a lecturer. It was the custom for lecturers to speak often extemporaneously on whatever subject was proposed by a member of the audience, and to this training we may attribute Lucian's quickness of wit and readiness of tongue.
At all events, it is known that he lived for a time at Rome in the reign of Marcus Aurelius and that he traveled widely in Trans-Alpine Gaul and other corners of the Empire, achieving prestige and prosperity. We can envisage him as an emissary of free thought, carrying advanced ideas from the centers of learning into the more backward hinterland. There is a record of his meeting in Antioch with Lucius Verus,
Marcus Aurelius' coadjutor and half-brother, which would seem to indicate that his talents were recognized in the highest circles. In middle life, however, he settled down in Athens, having brought his father and family from Asia Minor to live with him there. He now turned his attention to serious work as a writer, particularly to the development of the form for which he is most famous—the satiric dialogue. Later he returned to popular lecturing. At the time of his death about 200 a.d.. he was, as we have said, a government official in Egypt.
Although our knowledge of the events of his life is scanty, we may glean much from his writings of his interests and impulses. Many, too, of the people he knew are clearly, even mercilessly, portrayed in his dialogues. Expert as Lucian was in the art of rhetoric, when in middle age he abandoned rhetoric for dialectic, we may assume he no longer cared only to win arguments, which was the business of rhetoricians and lawyers, but to present some view of truth, which was the aim of dialectic or the dialogue. The best of the dialogues
MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS TIMES
have come down through the centuries to enkindle other minds. His penetrating observation of human foibles, his fantasy and lightness of touch are qualities which his admirers prize. He was a crusader particularly against hypocrisy and sham, a shatterer of idols, and no respecter of official cults. In fact, one of his betes noirs was the Stoic school, which enjoyed the support and patronage of Marcus Aurelius. He took pains also to ridicule Platonic doctrines of the immortality and transmigration of souls; even Aristotle did not escape his caustic criticisms.
Lucian's titles have a strangely modern sound. There is an essay called "The Illiterate Bibliophile" which today's dealers in rare books may read with delight. "The Encomium on a Fly" suggests Charles Lamb in its delicate whimsicality. "The Cult of Sigma versus Tau" and "The Purist Purized" are philological fooling at a high level. "The Sale of Creeds" and "The Way to Write History" are full of wit and malice. In the "Dialogues of the Hetaerae" the pitiful trivia of trivial minds are emptied out in a way to remaind us of silly girls' gossip about boy-friends today. "The Dependent Scholar" also has a contemporary application, depicting as it does the plight of the "kept" mind. The "Dialogues of the Gods,"
"The Gods in Council," and several others of the kind, surely helped to give the death-blow to faith in Zeus and his turbulent Olympian family. The parasite, the legacy-seeker, the dealers in marvels and miracles, oracles and warnings, are among Lucian's favorite targets.
More than sixty of his critical essays and dialogues have come down to us. Two dialogues were chosen for inclusion in this volume. "Hermotimus or the Rival Philosophies" is one of the longest. In it Lucian, in the person of Lycinus, a cognomen he frequently used when expressing his own point of view, has excellent sport with Hermotimus, the perpetual student, and in the course of the conversation, takes occasion to challenge most of the prevailing schools of phi-
Introduction to Lucian
iosophy. The second dialogue, the "Icaromenippus," or in other words, "The Flying Menippus," is a saucy mockery of the traditional gods of Olympus, as well as of the philosophers. Icarus, we may remember, was the earliest recorded aviator. Lucian's lesson here, as elsewhere, is to do one's thinking for oneself. He had no pity for man's delusions, errors, and aspirations; to that Christian virtue he was a stranger.
The translation here used is that which H. W. and F. G.
Fowler made from the Greek.
HERMOTIMUS, OR THE
RIVAL PHILOSOPHIES
Lycinus. Hermotimus Ly. Good morning, Hermotimus; I guess by your book and the pace you are going at that you are on your way to lecture, and a little late. You were conning over something as you walked, your lips working and muttering, your hand flung out this way and that as you got a speech into order in your mind; you were doubtless inventing one of your crooked questions, or pondering some tricky problem; never a vacant mind, even in the streets; always on the stretch and in earnest, bent on advancing in your studies.
Her.
I admit the impeachment; I was running over the details of what he said in yesterday's lecture. One must lose no chance, you know; the Coan doctor 1 spoke so truly: ars longa, vita brevis.2 And what he referred to was only physic— simpler matter. As to philosophy, not only will you never attain it, however long you study, unless you are wide awake all the time, contemplating it with intense eager gaze; the stake is so tremendous, too—whether you shall rot miserably with the vulgar herd, or be counted among philosophers and reach
Happiness.
Ly. A glorious prize, indeed! however, you cannot be far off it now, if one may judge by the time you have given to philosophy, and the extraordinary vigor of your long pursuit.
For twenty years now, I should say, I have watched you perpetually going to your professors, generally bent over a book taking notes of past lectures, pale with thought and emaciated in body. I suspect you find no release even in your dreams,
1 Hippocrates.
2 Art is long, life is short.
Lucian: Hermotimus
you are so wrapped up in the thing. With all this you must surely get hold of Happiness soon, if indeed you have not found it long ago without telling us.
Her.
Alas, Lycinus, I am only just beginning to get an inkling of the right way. Very far off dwells Virtue, as Hesiod says, and long and steep and rough is the way thither, and travelers must bedew it with sweat.
Ly. And you have not yet sweated and traveled enough?
Her. Surely not; else should I have been on the summit, with nothing left between me and bliss; but I am only starting yet, Lycinus.
Ly. Ah, but Hesiod, your own authority, tells us, Well begun is half done; so we may safely call you half-way by this time.
Her. Not even there yet; that would indeed have been much.
Ly. Where shall we put you, then?
Her.
Still on the lower slopes, just making an effort to get on; but it is slippery and rough, and needs a helping hand.
Ly. Well, your master can give you that; from his station on the summit, like Zeus in Homer with his golden cord, he can let you down his discourse, and therewith haul and heave you up to himself and to the Virtue which he has himself attained this long time.
Her. The very picture of what he is doing; if it depended on him alone, I should have been hauled up long ago; it is my part that is still wanting.
Ly. You must be of good cheer and keep a stout heart; gaze at the end of your climb and the Happiness at the top, and remember that he is working with you. What prospect does he hold out? when are you to be up? does he think you will be on the top next year—by the Great Mysteries, or the Panathenaea,3 say?
3 Two festivals of this name were celebrated in Athens, the lesser annually, the greater every fourth year.
MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS TIMES
Her. Too soon, Lycinus.
Ly. By next Olympiad, then?
Her. All too short a time, even that, for habituation to Virtue and attainment of Happiness.
Ly. Say two Olympiads, then, for an outside estimate. You may fairly be found guilty of laziness, if you cannot get it done by then; the time would allow you three return trips from the Pillars of Heracles to India, with a margin for exploring the tribes on the way instead of sailing straight and never stopping. How much higher and more slippery, pray, is the peak on which your Virtue dwells than that Aornos crag which Alexander stormed in a few days?
Her. There is no resemblance, Lycinus. This is not a thing, as you conceive it, to be compassed and captured quickly, though ten thousand Alexanders were to assault it; in that case, the scalers would have been legion. As it is, a good number begin the climb with great confidence, and do make progress, some very little indeed, others more; but when they get half-way, they find endless difficulties and discomforts, lose heart, and turn back, panting, dripping, and exhausted. But those who endure to the end reach the top, to be blessed thenceforth with wondrous days, looking down from their height upon the ants which are the rest of mankind.
Ly. Dear me, what tiny things you make us out—not so big as the Pygmies even, but positively groveling on the face of the earth. I quite understand it; your thoughts are up aloft already. And we, the common men that walk the earth, shall mingle you with the Gods in our prayers; for you are translated above the clouds, and gone up whither you have so long striven.
Her.
If but that ascent might be, Lycinus! but it is far yet.
Ly. But you have never told me how far, in terms of time.
Her. No; for I know not precisely myself. My guess is that it will not be more than twenty years; by that time I shall surely be on the summit.
Lucian: Hermotimus
Ly. Mercy upon us, you take long views!
Her. Ay; but, as the toil, so is the reward.
Ly. That may be; but about these twenty years—have you your master's promise that you will live so long, is he prophet as well as philosopher, or is it a soothsayer or Chaldean expert that you trust? Such things are known to them, I understand.
You would never, of course, if there were any uncertainty of your life's lasting to the Virtue-point, slave and toil night and day like this; why, just as you were close to the top, your fate might come upon you, lay hold of you by the heel, and lug you down with your hopes unfulfilled.
Her. God forbid! these are words of ill omen, Lycinus; may life be granted me, that I may grow wise, and have if it be but one day of Happiness!
Ly. For all these toils will you be content with your one day?
Her. Content? yes, or with the briefest moment of it.
Ly. But is there indeed Happiness up there—and worth all the pains? How can you tell? You have never been up yourself.
Her.
I trust my master's word; and he knows well; is he not on the topmost height?
Ly. Oh, do tell me what he says about it; what is Happiness like? wealth, glory, pleasures incomparable?
Her. Hush, friend! all these have nought to do with the Virtuous life.
Ly. Well, if these will not do, what are the good things he offers to those who carry their course right through?
Her. Wisdom, courage, true beauty, justice, full and firm knowledge of all things as they are; but wealth and glory and pleasure and all bodily things—these a man strips off and abandons before he mounts up, like Heracles burning on Mount Oeta before deification; he too cast off whatever of the human he had from his mother, and soared up to the Gods with his divine part pure and unalloyed, sifted by the fire.
I76
MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS TIMES
Even so those I speak of are purged by the philosophic fire of all that deluded men count admirable, and reaching the summit have Happiness with never a thought of wealth and glory and pleasure—except to smile at any who count them more than phantoms.
Ly. By Heracles (and his death on Oeta), they quit themselves like men, and have their reward, it seems. But there is one thing I should like to know: are they allowed to come down from their elevation sometimes, and have a taste of what they left behind them? or when they have once got up, must they stay there, conversing with Virtue, and smiling at wealth and glory and pleasure?
Her. The latter, assuredly; more than that, a man once admitted of Virtue's company will never be subject to wrath or fear or desire any more; no, nor can he feel pain, nor any such sensation.
Ly. Well, but—if one might dare to say what one thinks— but no—let me keep a good tongue in my head—it were irreverent to pry into what wise men do.
Her. Nay, nay; let me know your meaning.
Ly. Dear friend, I have not the courage.
Her. Out with it, my good fellow; we are alone.
Ly. Well, then—most of your account I followed and accepted—how they grow wise and brave and just, and the rest—indeed I was quite fascinated by it; but then you went on to say they despised wealth and glory and pleasure; well, just there (quite between ourselves, you know)
I was pulled up; I thought of a scene t'other day with—shall I tell you whom? Perhaps we can do without a name?
Her. No, no; we must have that too.
Ly. Your own professor himself, then,—a person to whom all respect is due, surely, not to mention his years.
Her. Well?
Ly. You know the Heracleot, quite an old pupil of his in philosophy by this time—red-haired—likes an argument?
Lucian: Hermotimus
Her. Yes; Dion, he is called.
Ly. Well, I suppose he had not paid up punctually; anyhow the other day the old man haled him before the magistrate, with a halter made of his own coat; he was shouting and fuming, and if some friends had not come up and got the young man out of his hands, he would have bitten off his nose, he was in such a temper.
Her. Ah, he is a bad character, always an unconscionable time paying his debts. There are plenty of others who owe the professor money, and he has never treated any of them so; they pay him his interest punctually.
Ly. Not so fast. What in the world does it matter to him, if they do not pay up? he is purified by philosophy, and has no further need of the cast clothes of Oeta.
Her. Do you suppose his interest in such things is selfish? no, but he has little ones; his care is to save them from indigence.
Ly. Whereas he ought to have brought them up to Virtue too, and let them share his inexpensive Happiness.
Her. Well, I have no time to argue it, Lycinus. I must not be late for lecture, lest in the end I find myself left behind.
Ly. Don't be afraid, my duteous one; today is a holiday; I can save you the rest of your walk.
Her. What do you mean?
Ly. You will not find him just now, if the notice is to be trusted; there was a tablet over the door announcing in large print, No meeting this day. I hear he dined yesterday with the great Eucrates, who was keeping his daughter's birthday.
He talked a good deal of philosophy over the wine, and lost his temper a little with Euthydemus the Peripatetic; they were debating the old Peripatetic objections to the Porch.
His long vocal exertions (for it was midnight before they broke up) gave him a bad headache, with violent perspiration.
I fancy he had also drunk a little too much, toasts being the order of the day, and eaten more than an old man should,
MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS TIMES
When he got home, he was very ill, they said, just managed to check and lock up carefully the slices of meat which he had conveyed to his servant at table, and then, giving orders that he was not at home, went to sleep, and has not waked since. I overheard Midas his man telling this to some of his pupils; there were a number of them coming away.
Her. Which had the victory, though, he or Euthydemus —if Midas said anything about that?
Ly. Why, at first, I gathered, it was very even between them; but you Stoics had it in the end, and your master was much too hard for him. Euthydemus did not even get off whole; he had a great cut on his head. He was pretentious, insisted on proving his point, would not give in, and proved a hard nut to crack; so your excellent professor, who had a goblet as big as Nestor's in his hand, brought this down on him as he lay within easy reach, and the victory was his.
Her. Good; so perish all who will not yield to their betters!
Ly. Very reasonable, Hermotimus; what was Euthydemus thinking of, to irritate an old man who is purged of wrath and master of his passions, when he had such a heavy goblet in his hand?
But we have time to spare—you might tell a friend like me the story of your start in philosophy; then I might perhaps, if it is not too late, begin now and join your school; you are my friends; you will not be exclusive?
Her.
If only you would, Lycinus! you will soon find out how much you are superior to the rest of men. I do assure you, you will think them all children, you will be so much wiser.
Ly. Enough for me, if after twenty years of it, I am where you are now.
Her. Oh, I was about your age when I started on philosophy; I was forty; and you must be about that.
Ly. Just that; so take and lead me on the same way; that is but right. And first tell me—do you allow learners to criti-
Lucian: Hermotimus
cize, if they find difficulties in your doctrines, or must juniors abstain from that?
Her. Why, yes, they must; but you shall have leave to ask questions and criticize; you will learn easier that way.
Ly.
I thank you for it, Hermotimus, by your name-God Hermes.
Now, is there only one road to philosophy—the Stoic way? they tell me there are a great many other philosophers; is that so?
Her. Certainly—Peripatetics, Epicureans, Platonists, followers of Diogenes, Antisthenes, Pythagoras, and more yet.
Ly. Quite so; numbers of them. Now, are their doctrines the same, or different?
Her. Entirely different.
Ly. But the truth, I presume, is bound to be in one of them, and not in all, as they differ?
Her. Certainly.
Ly. Then, as you love me, answer this: when you first went in pursuit of philosophy, you found many gates wide open; what induced you to pass the others by, and go in at the Stoic gate? Why did you assume that that was the only true one, which would set you on the straight road to Virtue, while the rest all opened on blind alleys? What was the test you applied then? Please abolish your present self, the self which is now instructed, or half-instructed, and better able to distinguish between good and bad than we outsiders, and answer in your then character of a layman, with no advantage over me as I am now.
Her.
I cannot tell what you are driving at.
Ly. Oh, there is nothing recondite about it. There are a great many philosophers—let us say Plato, Aristotle, Antisthenes, and your spiritual fathers, Chrysippus, Zeno, and all the rest of them; what was it that induced you, leaving the rest alone, to pick out the school you did from among them all, and pin your philosophic faith to it? Were you
l8o
MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS TIMES
favored like Chaerephon with a revelation from Apollo? Did he tell you the Stoics were the best of men, and send you to their school? I dare say he recommends different philosophers to different persons, according to their individual needs?
Her. Nothing of the kind, Lycinus; I never consulted him upon it.
Ly. Why? was it not a dignus vindice nodus? 4 or were you confident in your own unaided discrimination?
Her. Why, yes; I was.
Ly. Then this must be my first lesson from you—how one can decide out of hand which is the best and the true philosophy to be taken, and the others left.
Her.
I will tell you:
I observed that it attracted most disciples, and thence inferred that it was superior.
Ly. Give me figures; how many more of them than of Epicureans, Platonists, Peripatetics? Of course you took a sort of show of hands.
Her. Well, no; I didn't count; I just guessed.
Ly. Now, now! you are not teaching, but hoaxing me; judge by guesswork and impression, indeed, on a thing of this importance! You are hiding the truth.
Her. Well, that was not my only way; everyone told me the Epicureans were sensual and self-indulgent, the Peripatetics avaricious and contentious, the Platonists conceited and vain; about the Stoics, on the contrary, many said they had fortitude and an open mind; he who goes their way, I heard, was the true king and millionaire and wise man, alone and all in one.
Ly. And, of course, it was other people who so described them; you would not have taken their own word for their excellences.
Her. Certainly not; it was others who said it.
Ly. Not their rivals, I suppose?
4 A difficulty great enough to demand a deliverer.
Lucian: Hermotimus
Her. Oh, no.
Ly. Laymen, then?
Her. Just so.
Ly. There you are again, cheating me with your irony; you take me for a blockhead, who will believe that an intelligent person like Hermotimus, at the age of forty, would accept the word of laymen about philosophy and philosophers, and make his own selection on the strength of what they said.
Her. But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgment entirely, but on my own too.
I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently dressed and groomed, ever with a thoughtful air and a manly countenance, as far from effeminacy as from the utter repulsive negligence of the Cynics, bearing themselves, in fact, like moderate men; and everyone admits that moderation is right.
Ly. Did you ever see them behaving like your master, zu I described him to you just now? Lending money and clamoring for payment, losing their tempers in philosophic debates, and making other exhibitions of themselves? Or perhaps these are trifles, so long as the dress is decent, the beard long, and the hair close-cropped? We are provided for the future, then, with an infallible rule and balance, guaranteed by Hermotimus?
It is by appearance and walk and haircutting that the best men are to be distinguished; and whosoever has not these marks, and is not solemn and thoughtful, shall be condemned and rejected?
Nay, do not play with me like this; you want to see whether I shall catch you at it.
Her. Why do you say that?
Ly. Because, my dear sir, this appearance test is one for statues; their decent orderly attire has it easily over the Stoics, because Phidias or Alcamenes or Myron designed them to be graceful. However, granting as much as you like that these are the right tests, what is a blind man to do, if he wants to
l82
MARCUS AURELIUS AND HIS TIMES
take up philosophy? how is he to find the man whose principles are right, when he cannot see his appearance or gait?
Her.
I am not teaching the blind, Lycinus; I have nothing to do with them.
Ly. Ah, but, my good sir, there ought to have been some universal criterion, in a matter of such great and general use.
Still, if you will have it so, let the blind be excluded from philosophy, as they cannot see—though, by the way, they are just the people who most need philosophy to console them for their misfortune; but now, the people who can see—give them the utmost possible acuity of vision, and what can they detect of the spiritual qualities from this external shell?
What I mean is this: was it not from admiration of their spirit that you joined them, expecting to have your own spirit purified?
Her. Assuredly.
Ly. How could you possibly discern the true philosopher from the false, then, by the marks you mentioned?
It is not the way of such qualities to come out like that; they are hidden and secret; they are revealed only under long and patient observation, in talk and debate and the conduct they inspire.
You have probably heard of Momus' 5 indictment of Hephaestus; if not, you shall have it now. According to the myth,
Athene, Poseidon, and Hephaestus had a match in inventiveness. Poseidon made a bull, Athene planned a house, Hephaestus constructed a man; when they came before Momus, who was to judge, he examined their productions; I need not trouble you with his criticisms of the other two; but his objection to the man, and the fault he found with Hephaestus, was this: he should have made a window in his chest, so that, when it was opened, his thoughts and designs, his truth or falsehood, might have been apparent. Momus must have been blear-eyed, to have such ideas about men; but you have sharper eyes than Lynceus, and pierce through the chest to 5 Son of night, and god of criticism.
Lucian: Hermotimus
what is inside; all is patent to you, not merely any man's wishes and sentiments, but the comparative merits of any pair.
Her. You trifle, Lycinus.
I made a pious choice, and do not repent it; that is enough for me.
Ly. And will you yet make a mystery of it to your friend, and let him be lost with the vulgar herd?
Her. Why, you will not accept anything I say.
Ly. On the contrary, my good sir, it is you who will not say anything I can accept. Well, as you refuse me your confidence, and are so jealous of my becoming a philosopher and your equal, I must even do my best to find out the infallible test and learn to choose safely for myself. And you may listen, if you like.
Her. That I will, Lycinus; you will very likely hit on some good idea.
Ly. Then attend, and do not mock me, if my inquiry is quite unscientific; it is all I can do, as you, who know better, will not give me any clearer light.
I conceive Virtue, then, under the figure of a State whose citizens are happy—as your professor, who is one of them, phrases it,—absolutely wise, all of them brave, just, and selfcontrolled, hardly distinguishable, in fact, from Gods. All sorts of things that go on here, such as robbery, assault, unfair gain, you will never find attempted there,
I believe; their relations are all peace and unity; and this is quite natural, seeing that none of the things which elsewhere occasion strife and rivalry, and prompt men to plot against their neighbors, so much as come in their way at all. Gold, pleasures, distinctions, they never regard as objects of dispute; they have banished them long ago as undesirable elements. Their life is serene and blissful, in the enjoyment of legality, equality, liberty, and all other good things.
Her. Well, Lycinus? Must not all men yearn to belong to a State like that, and never count the toil of getting there,
MARCUS AUR£LIUS AND HIS TIMES
nor lose heart over the time it takes? Enough that one day they will arrive, and be naturalized, and given the franchise.
Ly. In good truth, Hermotimus, we should devote all our efforts to this, and neglect everything else; we need pay little heed to any claims of our earthly country; we should steel our hearts against the clingings and cryings of children or parents, if we have them; it is well if we can induce them to go with us; but, if they will not or cannot, shake them off and march straight for the city of bliss, leaving your coat in their hands, if they lay hold of it to keep you back, in your hurry to get there; what matter for a coat? You will be admitted there without one.
I remember hearing a description of it all once before from an old man, who urged me to go there with him. He would show me the way, enroll me when I got there, introduce me to his own circles, and promise me a share in the universal Happiness. But I was stiff-necked, in my youthful folly (it was some fifteen years ago); else might I have been in the outskirts, nay, haply at the very gates, by now. Among the noteworthy things he told me, I seem to remember these: all the citizens are aliens and foreigners, not a native among them; they include numbers of barbarians, slaves, cripples, dwarfs, and poor; in fact anyone is admitted; for their law does not associate the franchise with income, with shape, size, or beauty, with old or brilliant ancestry; these things are not considered at all; anyone who would be a citizen needs only understanding, zeal for the right, energy, perserverance, fortitude and resolution in facing all the trials of the road; whoever proves his possession of these by persisting till he reaches the city is ipso facto a full citizen, regardless of his antecedents. Such distinctions as superior and inferior, noble and common, bond and free, simply do not exist there, even in name.
Her. There, now; you see I am not wasting my pains on trifles; I yearn to be counted among the citizens of that fair and happy State.
Lucian: Hermotimus
Ly. Why, your yearning is mine too; there is nothing I would sooner pray for. If the city had been near at hand and plain for all to see, be assured I would never have doubted, nor needed prompting; I would have gone thither and had my franchise long ago; but as you tell me—you and your bard
Hesiod—that it is set exceeding far off, one must find out the way to it, and the best guide. You agree?
Her. Of course that is the only thing to do.
Ly. Now, so far as promises and professions go, there is no lack of guides; there are numbers of them waiting about, all representing themselves as from there. But instead of one single road there seem to be many different and inconsistent ones. North and south, east and west, they go; one leads through meadows and vegetation and shade, and is well watered and pleasant, with never a stumbling-block or inequality; another is rough and rocky, threatening heat and drought and toil. Yet all these are supposed to lead to the one city, though they take such different directions.
That is where my difficulty lies; whichever of them I try, there is sure to be a most respectable person stationed just at the entrance, with a welcoming hand and an exhortation to go his way; each of them says he is the only one who knows the straight road; his rivals are all mistaken, have never been themselves, nor learnt the way from competent guides. I go to his neighbor, and he gives the same assurances about his way, abusing the other respectable persons; and so the next, and the next, and the next. This multiplicity and dissimilarity of the roads gives me searchings of heart, and still more the assertiveness and self-satisfaction of the guides. I really cannot tell which turning or whose directions are most likely to bring me to the city.
Her. Oh, but I can solve that puzzle for you. You cannot go wrong, if you trust those who have been already.
Ly. Which do you mean? those who have been by which