Chapter VI (2)

The prosperity of nations rests mainly upon the numbers and intelligence of its middle classes. It can everywhere be measured by the rise of this class. What wonder then that the nations were poor among whom it scarcely existed? Rome could not go on plundering interminably, and the riches of its provinces in time became exhausted because not replenished. All that the ancient world has left upon record for us, proceeds upon the assumption of a large body of slaves and a small body of free citizens, and breathes a contempt for labor and trade. In most of the Greek states the commercial and manufacturing class consisted chiefly of resident aliens who were also slave-holders, and no citizen was so poor that he did not own at least one slave. To be a slave-owner was a badge of respectability even for those who were not citizens. In the Greek states, so long as they were free polities, war and religion occupied all the time and attention of the citizens, except that small body that were interested in philosophical pursuits. When they were no longer free and no longer had serious affairs in which to employ their time, they spent most of it in idle gossip or as the Acts tell us, “in hearing or telling some new thing.” What legislation they were still permitted to engage in never concerned matters of grave import. They decreed crowns and statues to real or supposed benefactors, only to annul their decrees when those whom they were intended to honor happened to incur the displeasure of the legislators or to fall into disgrace with the higher powers. Then there were deputations between different states about boundary disputes, about festivals, about claims and counter claims of all sorts, the sending of which was often debated with a solemnity that makes us wonder how the participants could themselves fail to see their farcical character. Generally the game at stake was the favor of the emperor, each party striving to outbid the other in professions of loyalty or to outvie it in the length of its bill for services rendered. When, as was frequently the case, these delegations did not find the emperor in Rome, they had, of course, to follow him into provinces or to await his return. This required time that, we may be sure, was in most cases ungrudgingly given. Instead of directing their energies into channels of activity and trying by honest work to better their worldly condition it was talk, talk with the Greeks, and talk without end.

There is no stronger evidence of their fondness for discussion and for listening to the spoken word than Greek literature itself. The historians are in the habit of stating the case of opposing parties by harangues which they put into the mouth of a representative of each. Greek poetry consists in a great measure of dialogue. Philosophy was chiefly developed by means of oral discussion. Comedy, even after it was no longer represented on the stage, still appears as dialogue and not in the usual form of the satire. Among its richest legacies to posterity is its oratory, and in it we have the spoken word in its most effective form; but it still represents words rather than deeds, and belongs for the most part to the declining age of Greece. A solitary thinker like Kant was wholly foreign to Greek ideas. So persistently has this trait remained a characteristic of the Hellenes that many of their best friends deplore their fondness for petty politics; their sleepless anxiety to assist in the management of the government instead of turning their attention to bettering their material condition by a steady devotion to private business. Many of the rich and well-to-do Greeks live outside the kingdom of Greece where their lingual activity is circumscribed and they are compelled by circumstances to turn their energies into more profitable channels. Rarely has a man, distinguished for eloquence alone, profoundly influenced the course of human events. Contemporaries are unanimous in ascribing to Julius Caesar oratorical gifts of the highest order; but he preferred to make his mark as a doer of deeds rather than as a maker of phrases.

In Rome the economic conditions were somewhat different from those prevailing in Greece and the East, yet Rome was not a commercial state. It was founded on military power, extended by valor and endurance in war, and when there were no more worlds to conquer, the forces that had been turned against external enemies began to be turned against herself. Rome was rich while she had other countries to plunder; when this was no longer possible her decay began. And these countries, by which we mean all the provinces outside of the city, were rich so long as the fertility of their soil continued and their mines were productive. That Rome’s moral decline antedated her economic retrogression by centuries is familiar to every reader of ancient history, but it is only the latter that we are concerned with here.

Money was not used for purposes of production, but for the purchase of articles of luxury and display. Much of what had been accumulated in the capital flowed eastward and disappeared. Italy gradually passed into the hands of a small number of largelanded proprietors, whose vast estates were cultivated by persons who had no interest in maintaining their fertility. Great numbers of free citizens flocked to Rome to enjoy the doles distributed to the populace at stated intervals; to feast their eyes on the bloody spectacles, so frequently and so magnificently given; and to die, only to leave room to be filled by the constantly inflowing stream. The empire existed for the City, its capital. We have already spoken of the strange fascination it exercised over all who had once been under its spell. We may safely assume that of the eighty thousand Romans put to death by Mithridates in his dominions, a considerable portion had gone abroad in the hope of enriching themselves in order to spend their gains in the capital. Doubtless, too, so far afield, trade was less despised than at the seat of government. The empire built, and for a time kept in repair, those magnificent highways that are still the admiration of all who see them. But they served military purposes almost exclusively. When no longer needed they were suffered to fall into decay. They were not constructed to facilitate commercial intercourse, and contributed little to the economic welfare of the empire. When the lack of local improvements was sufficiently felt and the people were not too much impoverished, which was seldom the case, to bear the necessary financial burdens these were undertaken by the local authorities. But there is reason to believe that some of the provinces, notably the Grecian, became poorer and poorer from year to year. The capital drained the province; the people lost heart, and gave themselves up to the apathy of indifference or despair.

It was the evil destiny of the Greek polities that they could never be brought to act together for any length of time; nor did all of them ever act together in any common enterprise. And they learned nothing from experience. The misfortunes resulting from this centripetal tendency were pointed out time and again by writers and orators, but to no purpose. Local pride always outweighed the dictates of reason or even of common prudence. Had Greece presented a united front, under competent leadership, it would have been a hard task for even Rome to subdue it. But it was impossible for the different states to forget their reciprocal animosities: the increasing prosperity of one was usually the signal for others to turn their arms against it. In this way all of them were gradually weakened and thus became a comparatively easy prey to any strong foreign foe that might choose to attack them. Their subjugation by Rome was by far the greatest misfortune that ever befell them. Philip of Macedon and his successors were at least more than half Greeks, and had a good deal of sympathy with Greek ideas. The Romans had none whatever. Still, cruelly as they carried out the work of subjugation in certain localities, when their first animosity was appeased they seem not to have interfered systematically with existing municipal administrations. Yet the financial pressure became harder as the people grew poorer, and matters went from bad to worse. The wickedness of Corinth, the most Roman of Greek cities after it had been rebuilt under imperial auspices, affords striking evidence of what Roman influence meant on the morals of a Greek polity.

It is a matter of common knowledge what Roman internecine war brought upon Italy. To a certain extent the same evils were shared by Greece. Three of the fiercest battles between the contestants for the principate were fought in or near Greece. The Greeks were always on the losing side, though her soldiers were not numerously represented in the Roman armies. These battles did but accelerate a retrograde movement that had been quite marked at least since the Mithridatic war, though it did not begin then. The population was rapidly decreasing. Plutarch says that in his time all Greece could not furnish three thousand heavy-armed soldiers. This statement must not be taken too literally; it can hardly mean that there were not this number of able-bodied men in the whole of Greece; it must mean that it did not contain three thousand citizens sufficiently well-to-do to enable them to support themselves in the field. In the days of their glory some of the smallest Greek states were better off than this would indicate. It is certainly proof positive of poverty, if not of a very sparse population. But this, too, had greatly decreased in some places. In the time of Augustus, Thebes had ceased to be anything more than a large village—the same Thebes that had played so prominent a part in legend and history. With a few exceptions, the larger Boeotian towns were in the same sad plight. Cities without inhabitants, or only a few; cattle grazing in the deserted streets, and even in the market-place, seem to have been a common sight. What had become of the inhabitants? We only know that they were gone, most of them, doubtless, to their graves.

In Greece, Sparta excepted, slavery was of a rather mild type, and it was unusual for a Greek to sell a slave to a foreigner. Neither did gladiatorial combats flourish among the Greeks. Even Corinth, that in later times contained a large admixture of Romans, could not acclimate them. While it is true that the Greeks made light of human life and took it upon the slightest pretext, it was rarely done by the cruel methods of the Romans. With all their faults and frailties they belonged to a distinctly higher type of men, and their civilization at a very early period began to move along lines afterward followed by the progressive nations of the world. How infinitely better were their peaceful contests than the bloody spectacles that were the delight of Rome!

Just as the Greeks were reluctant to admit foreigners to citizenship, they were also reluctant to admit exotic gods into their pantheon. In both, their policy was diametrically opposed to that of Rome. Their exclusiveness in the former regard was due to their belief in their own superiority; in the latter, to the conviction that their national gods were sufficient for all human needs. Friedlaender is probably right in his contention that the period here under consideration shows no decay in what we may call religion, either in Greece or Rome. Its external forms and traditional rites were sedulously kept up and scrupulously maintained. Plutarch likewise bears testimony to this condition of things. Scoffers and infidels had become more numerous, mainly because the Romans were more tolerant in such matters than the Greeks. To the ruling class all cults were alike; consequently they made no objections to anything that was spoken or written, so long as their authority was not directly or indirectly attacked. In the various controversies about religion mentioned in the New Testament, the attitude of the government is always one of indifference except as to the maintenance of public order.

The Greeks, generally speaking, preferred, like Plutarch, the limited sphere of local political activity to the larger one offered at Rome. The provincials who came to honor on the other side of the Adriatic were few in number.

In the main the provinces fared better under the imperial government than under the republic. There was a higher degree of probability that wrongs would be redressed. A case in point is that of the apostle Paul who appealed to Caesar even when the Caesar was Nero.

It is a well-known fact of ancient history that property in transit, either by land or sea, was at no time particularly safe at a distance from the centers of population. The thief and the robber are familiar figures in both sacred and profane writings. Pompey’s extensive crusade against the pirates that infested all parts of the Mediterranean forms an important episode in the records of the Roman navy. Even in the cities, the unlighted streets afforded frequent opportunities for plunder and murder to those who had no scruples about taking life or property. As domestic affairs from time to time engrossed the attention of the imperial administration, the outlying provinces were not carefully looked after; roads were neglected and became insecure; the police force lacked efficiency, and commercial intercourse between the different parts of the empire was reduced to a minimum. The people were driven to agriculture as their only means of support, which, in Greece particularly, was never a profitable industry. Nothing affords a more striking contrast between the police system of ancient and modern times than the frequency with which robberies are mentioned in the former and their rarity in the other. Paul tells us that he had been in peril by robbers; we know, too, from the writings of Josephus and others that the conflicts between this class of outlaws and the Roman government were by no means infrequent. Those who had been engaged in rebellion, or who were among the vanquished in battle, or who had become voluntary or compulsory exiles, often felt that they had a right to prey on orderly society.

It is a recognized fact that the monarchical system of the East tended to encourage immorality, a condition of things that usually exists where there is no strong and wholesome public opinion. The usurpers in the Greek cities, and later, the Roman provincial governors, were, with rare exceptions, men of loose morals if not worse. The private life of its representatives was a matter with which the home government did not concern itself, and the subjects were constrained to be dumb. Now and then one of these petty sovereigns ruled wisely according to the standards of the time, and the public was satisfied, especially if they knew how to maintain brilliant courts, and to adorn their capitals with imposing structures. It was so easy to trump up the charge of sedition against persons who refused to be servile flatterers, that only the most courageous dared to stand aloof. Finlay, though somewhat given to painting in strong colors, is probably not far wrong when he says: “It is difficult to imagine a society more completely destitute of moral restraint than that in which the Asiatic Greeks lived. Public opinion was powerless to enforce even an outward respect for virtue; military accomplishments, talents for civil administration, literary eminence and devotion to the power of an arbitrary sovereign, were the direct roads to distinction and wealth; honesty and virtue were very secondary qualities. In old countries or societies where a class becomes predominant, a conventional character is formed, according to the exigencies of the case, as the standard of an honorable man; and it is usually very different indeed from what is really necessary to constitute a virtuous or even an honest citizen.”

The student of Greek history is often inclined to believe that the bane of Hellenic statesmanship was the bitter rivalry that always existed between the different polities. From the standpoint of the philosopher this view is correct. If the energies devoted to the means and methods of mutual destruction had been expended on the arts of peace, not only Greece, but the entire world would, to-day, present a widely different aspect. However much the moralist may deplore the existing conditions, the man who takes the world as it is cannot fail to see that the utmost strength of a nation is always put forth in war and for warlike purposes. It was so with the Greeks. Political rivalry was the strongest stimulus under which they acted. It was their life and growth, and to a large extent the measure of their prosperity. When political rivalries were extinguished by Alexander, and more effectually by the Romans, the spirit of Greece, too, died out. The Romans, especially in their first contact with Greece, were too much barbarians to have any sympathy with the best that Greece had to offer. A genius for government is not necessarily a mark of advanced civilization. It is true there were at all times men among the Romans able to appreciate the proud preeminence of the Greeks in arts and letters, but their numbers were too few to make any general impression. The leading families, including most of the emperors, were familiar with the Greek language and used it with ease; but there were few Romans who did not despise the Greeks and regard them as inferiors. Nations, like individuals, feel more or less contempt for those whose tastes are different from their own; and in the case before us, the Greeks being the weaker, were the chief sufferers. But just as rich men sometimes buy books and statuary of which they do not know the value, and collect libraries which they cannot read, because intelligent people take pleasure in these things, so a certain class of Romans affected a fondness for Greek art and literature and philosophy. An enormous quantity of works of Greek art was transported across the Adriatic by the Romans with small advantage to the pillagers or to the nation. Notwithstanding the predilection of some of the leading families for Greek culture, their influence made no deep and lasting impression on Roman thought, in the better sense. Rome always showed itself much more receptive toward what is debasing than for what was ennobling.

After this hasty survey of the condition of Plutarch’s countrymen we are more than ever inclined to be surprised at his optimism. Yet the explanation is not far to seek, and is consistent with his philosophy. He had an abiding faith in a divine Providence who orders all things for the best. He holds that men are free and therefore responsible. The ills that afflict them are chiefly of their own making; why then should a wise man grieve over them? It is man’s chief business to free himself from unholy desires; to control the volcanic and perturbing impulses of his nature by means of philosophy, which when rightly apprehended is divine. As man is in the last analysis an ethical being, the fundamental problem of philosophy is how to carry out in practice those ethical principles in the observance of which man only can be truly happy. If, then, men’s misfortunes are the natural consequence and result of their own perverseness, there is no reason why we should grieve over them. So far as political conditions are concerned, he doubtless felt that the rule of the Roman emperors had at last given peace to his long distracted country, on as favorable terms as could be expected.

It has been said of Plutarch that there is not a new thought in all his writings,—and this by way of disparagement. The charge is probably true. The men who have put new ideas into the world are few indeed. The world is far less in need of instruction than of reminding. Besides, there is no reason why an artist should not deal with a familiar subject in his own way. If he can tell an old story so as to give it a new interest, or treat a well-worn theme so as to make it seem fresh, he is not the least among his brethren. It is especially writers upon ethics that are apt to be tedious. The more honor to him who can make his preaching attractive and interesting.

Perhaps the chief charm of Plutarch’s writings is the assumption on his part that he is a reasonable man himself and is talking to reasonable men; for as we have already seen, he has always hearers in mind rather than readers. We can imagine him ever and anon saying, You either know what is right, what your duty is, or you want to know. The rules of conduct are plain and simple; you have but to obey them and you will be happy. Perform the duties incumbent upon you, to the gods, to your fellow citizens, to the members of your family, to yourself, and you will be content with the present order of things, and your fellow men with you. If you want to lead a moral life, be humane, be truthful, be sympathetic, be chaste, deal honestly with your fellow men, follow your rational nature rather than your emotions, and you will have no reason to regret that you have lived; your fellow men will be glad that you have for a time sojourned among them, and have left behind you the light of your example to shine for those who come after you.

Lecky in his History of European Morals, already cited, has some interesting passages on the relation of Seneca and Plutarch to certain phases of the thought of their time, a few of which may properly find a place here. He says: “A class of writers began to arise, who, like the Stoics, believed virtue rather than enjoyment, to be the supreme good, and who acknowledged that virtue consisted solely of the control which the enlightened will exercises over the desires, but who at the same time gave free scope to the benevolent affections, and a more religious and mystical tone to the whole scheme of morals.”

“Plutarch, whose fame as a biographer has, I think, unduly eclipsed his reputation as a moralist, may be justly regarded as the leader of this movement, and his moral writings may be profitably compared with those of Seneca, the most ample exponent of the sterner school. Seneca is not unfrequently self-conscious, theatrical, and over-strained. His precepts have something of the affected ring of a popular preacher. The imperfect fusion of his short sentences gives his style a disjointed and, so to speak, granulated character, which the emperor Caligula happily expressed when he compared it to sand without cement; yet he often rises to a majesty of eloquence, a grandeur both of thought and expression, that few moralists have ever rivaled. Plutarch, though far less sublime, is more sustained, equable and uniformly pleasing. The Montaigne of antiquity, his genius coruscates playfully and gracefully around his subject; he delights in illustrations which are often singularly vivid and original, but which by their excessive multiplication appear sometimes rather the texture than the ornament of his discourse. A gentle, tender spirit, and a judgment equally free from paradox, exaggeration, and excessive subtilty, are characteristics of all he wrote. Plutarch excels most in collecting motives of consolation; Seneca in forming characters that need no consolation. There is something of the woman in Plutarch; Seneca is all man.[4] The writings of the first resemble the strains of the flute, to which the ancients attributed the power of calming the possessions and chasing away the clouds of sorrow, and drawing men by gentle suasion into the paths of virtue; the writings of the other are like the trumpet blast which kindles the soul with heroic courage. The first is more fitted to console a mother sorrowing over her dead child; the second to nerve a brave man, without flinching and without illusion, to grapple with an inevitable fate. The elaborate letters which Seneca has left us on distinctive tenets of the Stoical school, such as the equality of the vices, or the evil of the affections, have now little more than an historic interest; but the general tone of his writings gives them a permanent importance, for they reflect and foster a certain type of excellence which, since the extinction of Stoicism, has had no adequate expression in literature. The prevailing moral tone of Plutarch, on the other hand, being formed mainly on the prominence of the amiable virtues has been eclipsed or transcended by the Christian writers, but his definite contribution to philosophy and morals are more important than those of Seneca. He has left us one of the best works on Superstition, and one of the most ingenious on Providence, we possess. He was probably the first writer who advocated very strongly humanity to animals on the broad ground of universal benevolence, as distinguished from the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration, as he was also remarkable, beyond all his contemporaries for his high sense of female excellence, and of the sanctity of female love.”

Seneca, Plutarch, and the Apostle Paul were in a sense contemporaries. All three did what they could to make the world better in their time and after them. All three were preachers of righteousness, each in his way. All three wrote much that has engaged the attention of the world, and stimulated its thought. But how great the contrast between the projects of these men, especially the two last! Plutarch was wholly lacking in Paul’s devotion to an idea. He would have scouted the suggestion that a man should give up friends, social position, country, kindred, everything, to go forth to preach a new doctrine. How widely apart, how almost diametrically opposite the methods of two men who are in a sense seeking the same end! The thoughts of the philosopher, his intellectual vision, was turned toward the setting sun. At most he could only hope, as we now see, to prolong the dim twilight that still hovered over the earth. The world had well-nigh lost faith in the power of human reason to regenerate mankind. The spiritual eyes of the Christian were on the rising sun. Though he saw that it was as yet shining but dimly, he had no doubt that in time it would rise to noonday splendor. The pillar of fire that led and lighted the way for the saint; the beatific vision that always stood before his enraptured gaze; the world-embracing panorama that kept growing larger and larger as the little Christian colonies were planted one after another in Asia Minor, in Greece, in Rome, had no existence for the philosopher. He has, it is true, a belief in an overruling Providence, but it lacks clearness, because weakened by a polytheistic creed, or at least by the remnants of such a creed. To it he still tenaciously clings, though it may be half unconsciously. He too had a belief in an existence after death; but it was not of the sort that made him feel that all the tribulations of this world which were but for a moment were not to be compared with the glory that should follow.

If we would personify Christianity and Philosophy as they met each other at the close of the first century of our era, we may designate the one as the young man, who, though poor in this world’s goods, is strong in hope, in faith, in himself and in his cause. His superb physique, his capital digestion, make him ready for any enterprise, any sacrifice that shall promise success. Any field in which he may display his splendid energies is welcome to him, for he lives not in the past, but in the future. The other is the old man who has, in the main, lived a useful and honorable life, who has performed some noble deeds, and whose chief anxiety is to give the rising generation the benefit of the wisdom that has come to him in a life of study and observation. But, as is usually the case with the aged, his advice has become commonplace and the rising generation passes him by almost unheeded. Few have now any confidence in his teachings, while many of his former disciples have deserted him. It is his sad fate, to see himself jostled at first and finally thrust aside by the passing stream of humanity.

Footnote 3:

Students of German literature are reminded of a certain moral and
intellectual similarity between Plutarch and Gellert. The latter,
though a man of much less natural ability, had all of Plutarch’s
kindliness, moral and religious earnestness, sympathy for those in
distress, and the same popularity among all classes from prince to
peasant. Both were equally religious, though one was a heathen and the
other a Christian; both preserved the same serenity of mind and
cheerfulness of heart in a time of national degradation and
immorality.

Footnote 4:

“When Plutarch, after the death of his daughter; was writing a letter
of consolation to his wife, we find him turning away from all the
commonplaces of the stoics as the recollection of one simple trait of
his little child rushed upon his mind:—‘She desired her nurse to press
even her dolls to her breast. She was so loving that she wished
everything that gave her pleasure to share in the best she had.’” The
statement that Seneca is all man will be questioned by those who know
that two of his Letters of Condolence are addressed to women. These
are almost the only writings in Roman literature so addressed.

* * * * *

The principal works used in the study of Plutarch here placed before the reader are the following:

_Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia. Edidit Daniel Wyttenbach. 8 voll.
Oxonii, 1795-1821._

_R. Volkmann. Leben und Schriften des Plutarch von Chaeronea.
Berlin, 1869._

_O. Grèard. De la Morale de Plutarque. Cinquiéme edition. Paris,
1892._

_Plutarch’s Werke übersetzt von Klaiber, Bähr, u. A. Stuttgart,
1837-57._

_Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia. Recognovit Gregorius N.
Bernardakis. Lipsiae, 1888-96. 7 voll._

The last named contains a revised text only; from it my translation of the De Sera was made. The German translation of Bähr, the well-known Heidelberg professor, in the collection above cited, follows the original very closely and has been of much service to me by its interpretation of obscure passages.

A complete catalogue of Plutarch’s Moralia is given in the appendix. The list is borrowed from the edition of Bernardakis and the question of authenticity is not taken into account.

NOTE:—To translate Plutarch is a very different task from that of
translating Seneca. The style of the latter is terse and
epigrammatic; clauses and sentences often follow each other without
connectives, and are in the main short. That of the former is the
reverse. Most of his sentences are long, many of them very long.
These, as well as clauses and words, are often strung together with
the participles καὶ and γὰρ, or other connectives, until the reader
sometimes wonders whether they will ever end. Seneca is full of
pithy sayings well suited for quotation; in Plutarch they are rare.
The style of both writers is highly rhetorical, but, if we except
the evident striving after effect, they have little else in common.

As in the case of Seneca, it has been my aim to preserve for the
English reader the peculiarities of the Greek, so far as possible.
There is much to be said in favor of making a translation, above
everything else, readable; but in the effort to do so, the
translator is constantly exposed to the danger of displacing the
style of the original with his own. I hope I have in a measure, at
least, succeeded in putting before the English reader, not only what
Plutarch said in the following Tract, but also how he said it.

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,
therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do
evil.”

CONCERNING THE DELAY OF THE DEITY IN PUNISHING THE WICKED.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

PLUTARCH. PATROCLEAS, his son-in-law. TIMON, his brother. OLYMPICHUS.

The scene is the portico of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The
tract is dedicated to a certain Quintus, whose name seems to
indicate that he was a Roman, but of whom nothing definite is known.

When Epicurus had thus spoken, O Quintus, and before any one had replied, he went hurriedly away, as we were now at the end of the porch. We stood for some time in speechless wonder at the strange conduct of the man and looking at one another, then turned back to resume our walk. Thereupon Patrocleas first broke the silence: “Pray, what shall we do?” said he, “Shall we drop the inquiry, or shall we answer the arguments of the speaker who is not present as if he were?” “It would not be fitting to leave the dart he discharged, as he departed, sticking in the wound. Brasidas, as we are told, drew the shaft from his body, and with the same weapon slew the man who had hit him. It is not worth our while, of course, to defend ourselves against all those who assail us with ill-grounded or fallacious arguments, but it will suffice us if we cast them from us before they become firmly fixed in our minds.” “What was there then,” said I, “in what he said that most impressed you? For many things and without any order, one here, another there, the man kept charging against Providence, with anger and vituperation at the same time.”

2. Hereupon Patrocleas said: “The tardiness and delay of the Deity in punishing the wicked seems to me a matter of special importance; and now, by the arguments that have been advanced, I have been led anew and, as it were, a stranger, to the question; but long ago I was offended when I read in Euripides,

‘He procrastinates, and this is the manner of the Deity.’ Yet God ought, least of all things, to be slack towards the wicked, as they are neither slack nor dilatory about doing evil, but are impelled by their unrestrained passions to acts of injustice. And in truth, the retribution, which Thucydides says follows close upon the commission of a crime, forthwith bars the way for those who usually prosper in successful villainy. For there is no debt like overdue justice that makes him who has been wronged so faint-hearted and discouraged, while it emboldens the wicked man in his audacity and violence; but the punishments that follow close upon the commission of crimes are restraints upon those who are meditating wrongs against others, and there is the greatest consolation in this for those who have suffered injustice. So, then, the remark of Bias often troubles me when I reflect upon it; for he said, according to report, to a certain reprobate, that he did not fear lest he might not suffer the punishment of his misdeeds, but only that he might not himself (Bias) live to see it. What profit was it to the Messenians, who were long since dead, that Aristokrates was punished for betraying them at the battle of Taphros, when the matter remained undiscovered for more than twenty years, during which time he had been king of the Arcadians, though he was finally detected and punished, when they were no longer alive? Or what consolation was it to the Orchomenians who had lost children and friends and kinsmen through the treason of Lykiscus, that he was seized a long time afterwards by a disease which gradually ate up his body?—this man who was always dipping his feet into the river to wet them and calling down a curse upon himself, praying that he might rot if he had betrayed and wronged them. And the casting forth of the bodies of the accursed from Athens and their transportation beyond the boundaries was an act that not even the children of those who had been slain were permitted to behold. Wherefore, Euripides inappropriately uses these lines to deter men from the commission of crime, ‘Fear not lest injustice overtake thee and smite thee down, unjust man; but in silence and with slow step it will overtake the wicked when the time is ripe.’ For verily, no other consideration but just such as these, the bad will naturally use to encourage themselves and take as pledges of security in villainy, on the ground that wrong-doing brings forth early and evident fruit, while the penalty comes late, and long after the satisfaction (that arises from success in crime).”

3. When Patrocleas had concluded his remarks, Olympichus spoke up and said, “To what great absurdities do the delays and postponements of the Deity in such matters lead! Because this tardiness destroys faith in Providence, and the fact that retribution does not closely follow each particular act of wrong-doing but is later, thus making room for chance, men, by calling it a misfortune, not a penalty, are they in any wise bettered? Even though they may be grieved at what has befallen them, do they feel regret at what they have done? For just as the immediate stroke of the whip or the spur laid quickly to the horse that makes a false step or stumbles brings it to a sense of duty, but all the subsequent jerking and tugging at the reins and shouting seem rather to be done for some other reason than correction, because they produce pain but not betterment; so vice, if lashed and beaten for each act of villainy committed, would speedily become repentant and humble and fearful of God who beholds men’s acts and sufferings, if He did not postpone justice. And justice that according to Euripides procrastinates and with slow pace overtakes the wicked, seems more like an affair of chance than of Providence, because there is about it so much uncertainty, delay and lack of system. The result is that I do not see what use there is in the saying that the mills of the gods grind late, both because they obscure justice and take away the fear of evil-doing.”

4. Thereupon in reply to these remarks and while I was still absorbed in reflection, Timon said: “Shall I now add to the discussion the climax of my own perplexity or shall I pass it over until after the disposal of the main argument?” “What is the use,” said I, “of sending along a third wave to wash away the subject-matter, if it be found impossible to refute and invalidate the first objection? First, then, beginning, as we say, at the ingle-side and with the caution of the philosophers of the Academy in regard to the divinity, let us beware of assuming that we know just what to say on this subject. In truth, an affair of more serious moment is the consideration of supernal and divine things, for us who are human beings, than when one who has no ear for music discusses this art, or when one who has never served in the army discourses on military affairs; because, though ignorant of the plan of the artificer, we assume to be able to fathom his designs from what we suppose to be probable and fitting. It is not hard for one unacquainted with the healing art to comprehend the reasoning of a physician as to why he did not sooner perform a certain amputation rather than later, or why he ordered a bath yesterday and not to-day; in respect to God, on the other hand, it is not easy for a mortal to say any thing positive except that, knowing best the proper occasion for curing a man of his vices, He administers to each person chastisements as medicaments, but not equally severe in all cases nor at one and the same time. For that the healing art when applied to the soul is called right and righteousness and is the greatest of all arts, Pindar in addition to thousands of others, affirms, when he calls God the ruler and custodian of the whole universe, the ‘master builder,’ for the reason that He is the guardian of justice according to which it shall be determined when and how and to what degree every wicked man is to be punished. And of this art Plato says that Minos the son of Jove was a student, as it is not possible to properly dispense justice, or to recognize what is just unless one has learned and acquired a knowledge of the same. Not even the laws that men enact have always their clear and plain justification and some enactments even seem at first sight ridiculous. For instance, in Lacedaemon, the ephors, immediately upon taking office, issue an edict that no one is to wear a mustache and that the laws are to be obeyed in order that none may feel their severity. The Romans inflict a slight blow with a twig upon those whom they intend to emancipate; and when they make a will they bequeath their property to some persons as their heirs, but sell it to others,—which seems to be absurd. But most absurd one would think the law of Solon to be to the effect that he shall be deprived of civil rights, who, when there are parties and factions in the state, take sides with neither. In short, one could name many anomalies in law, if he did not know the intentions of the law-maker, and did not understand the reason for every single part of the decrees that have been issued. What wonder is it then, if, when it is so hard to see through human purposes, that it is not easy to say with respect to the gods for what reason they punish some transgressors later, others sooner.

5. These things are no excuse for shunning an investigation, but a plea for indulgence, so that the discussion, looking as it were, toward a harbor and port of refuge, may move forward with the greater confidence, in the midst of perplexities. Then consider first this fact, that according to Plato, God having placed Himself in the midst of all that is enchantingly fair, as a sort of model, gives to human worth, which is in some measure an image of Himself, an exemplar which all are to follow so far as they are able. For the universe, being in its natural state devoid of order, began to change and to be transformed into a cosmos when it participated in, and became assimilated to, the divine idea and virtue. This same man also says that nature kindles in us the germ of vision so that by beholding the heavenly bodies borne along in their courses, and by admiration of the same, the soul becomes habituated to take pleasure in and to love what is orderly and systematically arranged, but that it hates all disorderly and uncontrolled passion, and shuns the purposeless and hit-or-miss as being the origin of all vice and discord. It is impossible for man, by his very nature, to have a completer enjoyment of God than when seeking and earnestly striving after virtue by imitating everything that is good and noble. For this reason also God punishes the wicked in due time and with deliberation; not because He is Himself afraid of making a mistake by chastising any one too soon or because He might repent of it, but in order to remove from us what is brutal and hasty in the infliction of punishment, and to teach us not to chastise in anger nor when greatly excited and indignant, ‘rage o’erleaps the bounds of reason’; as if, in order to satisfy our hunger or quench our thirst we rushed upon those who have done us an injury, but imitating His goodness and long-suffering and taking time as our adviser, that gives least room for repentance, we should proceed to inflict punishments in accordance with justice. For, as Socrates said, it is less mischievous to drink murky water, heedlessly, than when one is in a perturbed state of mind and under the influence of anger and has lost the power of self-control before the mind has become calm and clear, to vent one’s wrath on the person of a kinsman or friend. For vengeance does not belong close upon the inquiry, as Thucydides says, but is most in place when as far from it as possible. Since anger, according to Melanthius ‘commits terrible deeds when it has displaced self-control’; so, likewise, reason does what is just and fitting when it has put aside anger and excitement. Further also, men are made humane by the example of others when they learn, for instance, that Plato, after raising his staff to strike his slave, remained standing for a long time, as he himself says, in this way chastening his anger. And Archytas, on learning that his servants were negligent and disorderly in his fields, but noticing that he was greatly angered and incensed at them, did nothing but remark as he walked away, ‘You are lucky that I am very wroth at you.’ If, therefore, the reported sayings of men, treasured up for us, deter us from harshness and the violence resulting from passion; much more does it become us, as we look upon God who lacks nothing and who knows no repentance for any deed, yet postpones punishment to the future and bides His time, to be on our guard in such matters. We ought also to look upon mildness and long-suffering as the divine part of the virtue which God Himself exemplifies (in His dealings with men), and to remember that few are made better by swift chastisement, but that many are profited and admonished by tardiness in punishing.

6. In the second place, let us remember that punishments among men, having regard solely to the infliction of injuries to others, cease with the malefactor and go no further; therefore, like a barking dog they (the penalties) cling to the heels of the transgression and follow up actions closely. But God, as seems reasonable, discerns the passions of the diseased soul upon which He wishes to visit punishment, whether in any way, perchance, it may turn to repentance, and He gives time for amendment to those whose vices are not ineradicable and incurable. For, knowing (as He does) what portion of virtue souls going forth from Him to be born, carry with them, and how strong and ineffaceable is the nobleness implanted in them, and that virtue yields to vice contrary to its nature because corrupted by food and evil communications, and that some, after undergoing a cure, again resume their former nature, He does not inflict upon all a penalty equally severe. But him who is incorrigible He removes forthwith from life and cuts off, because constant association with wickedness is very harmful to others, and in the highest degree harmful to the soul itself. On the contrary, to those who from ignorance of the good rather than from a predilection for evil and to whom it is only second nature to go astray, He gives time for repentance. But if they remain obdurate He visits these also with punishment, for, of course, He has no fear lest they may escape Him. Consider also what transformations have taken place in the character of men and in their life; for which reason also this change and character (ἦθος) is called a turning (τρόπος) as habit (ἔθος) for the most part shapes it and by laying hold of it controls it. I think, therefore, that the ancients represented Kecrops dual in form (a combination of man and dragon), not as some say, because, after he had been an excellent king he became a cruel and ruthless tyrant, but for the opposite reason, namely, that after having been unjust and merciless he turned out to be gentle and kindly, when he had got into power. If this is not certain, we know, at least, that Gelo and Hiero, both Sicilians, and Peisistratus the son of Hippokrates, all men who had put themselves at the head of affairs by base methods, used their power for the furtherance of virtuous ends; and though they had attained power illegally, they nevertheless became just and popular rulers. They promoted good order and the cultivation of the soil; made temperate and industrious citizens out of men who had been gossipers and idlers; and Gelo, after fighting bravely and defeating the Carthaginians in a great battle, would not make the peace with them which they sued for until they had pledged themselves to cease from sacrificing their children to Kronos. In Megalopolis, Lydiades was a usurper; but when at the height of his power a change came over him and, having conceived a loathing for iniquity, he gave a constitution to the citizens, then in a battle with the enemies of his country met a glorious death. If some one had slain the usurper Miltiades in the Chersonesus, or had prosecuted Kimon for incest with his sister, or had driven Themistocles from the city by an indictment, when he was indulging in drunken revelries and insulting people in the market place, as was afterwards done with Alkibiades, would we not have lost the heroes of Marathon, of the Eurymedon and fair Artemisium, ‘where the sons of the Athenians laid the glorious corner-stone of liberty?’ Men cast in a large mold neither do anything in a small way, nor do the vehemence and energy of their titanic natures suffer them to be inactive; but they are tossed to and fro like a ship on the waves until they settle down into a fixed and well-grounded character. Just as a person who was ignorant of agriculture would not take a fancy to land, if he saw it overgrown with weeds and brambles, full of wild animals, running water and marshes; while to one who has learned to discriminate and to judge, these very things show the strength and goodness of the soil; so men cast in a large mold commit irregularities and follies—men whose volcanic and vehement natures we cannot endure, and think they ought to be cut off or kept in check. But the better judge, he who in spite of these things discerns innate worth and nobility, waits until age and maturity become the co-workers of reason and virtue, when nature shall bring forth her proper fruit.”