PLUTARCH'S MORALIA E-Book

Plutarch

• Herausgeber: Lebooks Editora
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 286

Beschreibung

Plutarch (46-119) was a Greek philosopher, historian, and biographer. He studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens, the same institution studied by Plato, and dedicated himself to politics, achieving high public offices. Plutarch wrote hundreds of texts, among them Parallel Lives, which consists of a collection of 64 biographies of prominent Greek and Roman figures. His work, "Moralia" (in Classical Greek: Ἠθικά Ethika; loosely translated as "Morals" or "Matters relating to customs and morals") by the 1st-century Greek scholar Plutarch is an eclectic collection of 78 essays and transcribed speeches. They provide accounts of both Roman and Greek life but are often also timeless observations in their own right. Many generations of Europeans have read or imitated them, including Michel de Montaigne and the humanists of the Renaissance, as well as Enlightenment philosophers.

Leseprobe

Plutarch

PLUTARCH´S MORALIA

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

LOVE STORIES

THAT A PHILOSOPHER OUGHT TO CONVERSE ESPECIALLY WITH MEN IN POWER

TO AN UNEDUCATED RULER

WHETHER AN OLD MAN SHOULD ENGAGE IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS

PRECEPTS OF STATECRAFT

ON MONARCHY, DEMOCRACY AND OLIGARCHY

THAT WE OUGHT NOT TO BORROW

LIVES OF THE TEN ORATORS

DECREES

INTRODUCTION

Plutarch

46 AD – 119 AD

Plutarch was a Greek philosopher and biographer born in the city of Chaeronea. He studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens (the same one studied by Plato), where he was under the tutelage of Ammonius and later decided to enter politics, reaching high public offices.

After numerous travels throughout Greece and the Mediterranean, Plutarch decided to acquire Roman citizenship and began teaching philosophy in Rome during the reign of Domitian, with the future emperor of Rome, Trajan, among his students.

Plutarch wrote over 200 books, the vast majority of which have survived to our days in complete versions. The wide range of subjects covered includes essays on Plato's work, rhetoric, and religion, as well as comparisons between the intelligence of animals and humans. His most notable work was "Parallel Lives," a collection of 64 biographies of prominent Greek and Roman figures, including legendary characters such as Alexander and Caesar, Demosthenes and Cicero, Pericles and Fabius Maximus, among others. Plutarch is one of the greatest Greek philosophers, and his works are of paramount importance for a better understanding of classical culture, politics, and philosophy.

PLUTARCH´S MORALIA

LOVE STORIES

INTRODUCTION

These five short stories are interesting to the modern reader chiefly as examples of the kind of tale which appealed to the readers of Plutarch’s time ; for they were probably written during his lifetime, though not by him. In style and content they differ greatly from his genuine works. The elements of passion and of sentimental love are made to appear important in them rather on account of their dire consequences than for their own sake.

I

At Haliartus, in Boeotia, there was a girl of remarkable beauty, named Aristocleia, the daughter of Theophanes. She was wooed by Strato of Orchomenus and Callisthenes of Haliartus. Strato was the richer and was rather the more violently in love with the maiden; for he had seen her in Lebadeia bathing at the fountain called Hercyne in preparation for carrying a basket A in a sacred procession in honor of Zeus the King. But Callisthenes had the advantage, for he was a blood-relation of the girl. Theophanes was much perplexed about the matter, for he was afraid of Strato, who excelled nearly all the Boeotians in wealth and in family connections, and he wished to submit the choice to Trophonius; but Strato had been persuaded by the maiden’s servants that she was more inclined towards him, so he asked that the choice be left to the bride-to-be herself. But when Theophanes in the presence of everyone asked the maiden, and she chose Callisthenes, it was plain at once that Strato found the slight hard to bear. But he let two days go by and came to Theophanes and Callisthenes asking that the friendship between him and them be preserved, even though he had been deprived of the marriage by some jealous divinity. And they approved of what he said, so that they even invited him to the wedding-feast. But before he came he got ready a crowd of his friends and a considerable number of servants, who were scattered among the others present and were not noticed; but when the girl went, according to the ancestral custom, to the spring called Cissoessa to make the preliminary sacrifice to the nymphs, then his men who were in ambush all rushed out at once and seized her. Strato also had hold of the maiden and naturally, Callisthenes and his supporters in turn took hold of her and held on until, although they did not know it at the time, she died in their hands as they pulled against each other. Callisthenes immediately disappeared, whether by committing suicide or by going away as an exile from Boeotia ; at any rate nobody could tell what had happened to him. But Strato slew himself in sight of all upon the body of the maiden.

II

A man named Pheidon, who was striving to make himself ruler of the Peloponnesians and wished his own native city of Argos to be the leader of all the other states, plotted first against the Corinthians. He sent and asked of them the thousand young men who were the best in vigor and valor ; and they sent the thousand, putting Dexander in command of them. Now Pheidon intended to make an onslaught upon these young men, that Corinth might be weakened and he might have the city in his power, for he considered that it would be the most advantageous bulwark of the whole Peloponnesus, and he confided this matter to some of his friends, among whom was Habron. Now he was a friend of Dexander and told him of the plot, so before the onslaught was made the thousand young men escaped safely to Corinth ; but Pheidon tried to discover the betrayer of his plot and searched for him with great care. So Habron was frightened and fled to Corinth with his wife and his servants, settling in Melissus, a village in Corinthian territory. There he begot a son whom he called Melissus from the name of the place. This Melissus had a son named Actaeon, the handsomest and most modest youth of his age, who had many lovers, chief of whom was Archias, of the family of the Heracleidae, in wealth and general influence the most outstanding man in Corinth.

Now when he could not gain the boy by persuasion, he determined to carry him off by force. So he got together a crowd of friends and servants, went as in a drunken frolic to the house of Melissus, and tried to take the boy away. But his father and his friends resisted, the neighbors also ran out and pulled against the assailants, and so Actaeon was pulled to pieces and killed ; the assailants thereupon went away. But Melissus took his son’s body and exhibited it in the marketplace of the Corinthians, demanding the punishment of the men who had done the deed ; but the Corinthians merely pitied him and did nothing further. So, being unsuccessful, he went away and waited for the Isthmian festival, when he went up upon the temple of Poseidon, shouted accusations against the Bacchiadae and reminded the people of his father Habron’s benefactions, whereupon, calling upon the gods to avenge him, he threw himself down from the rocks. Not long afterwards the city was afflicted by drought and pestilence, and when the Corinthians consulted the oracle concerning relief, the god replied that the wrath of Poseidon would not relax until they inflicted punishment for the death of Actaeon. Archias knew of this, for he was himself one of those sent to consult the oracle, and voluntarily refrained from returning to Corinth. Instead he sailed to Sicily and founded Syracuse. There he became the father of two daughters, Ortygia and Syracusa, and was treacherously murdered by Telephus, who had been his beloved and had sailed with him to Sicily in command of a ship.

Ill

There was a poor man named Scedasus who lived at Leuctra ; that is a village of the country of the Thespians. This man had two daughters, called Hippo and Miletia, or, as some say, Theano and Euxippe. Now' Scedasus was a worthy man and friendly to strangers, though he was not very well off. So when two Spartan youths came to his house, he received them gladly. They fell in love with the maidens but were restrained from overboldness by the worthy character of Scedasus, and the next day went away to Delphi, for that was the place for which they were bound. And when they had consulted the god about the matters which concerned them, they went back again towards home, and passing through Boeotia they stopped again at the house of Scedasus. Now he, as it happened, was not at Leuctra ; but his daughters, in accordance with their usual custom, received the strangers, who, finding the maidens unprotected, ravished them ; and then, seeing that they were exceedingly distressed by the violent wrong they had suffered, they killed them, threw their bodies into a well, and went away. When Scedasus came home, he missed the girls, but found everything that he had left in the house undisturbed, and so he did not know what to make of it all until, because his dog kept whimpering and often running up to him and from him to the well, he guessed the truth, and so drew up the bodies of his daughters. And finding out from his neighbors that on the previous day they had seen going into his house the Lacedaemonians who had been entertained there shortly before, he guessed that they had done the deed, because during their previous visit they had constantly been praising the girls and talking of the happiness of their future husbands.

Scedasus set out for Lacedaemon to see the ephors, and when he was in the territory of Argos night came upon him, so he put up at an inn, and at the same inn was another elderly man, a native of the city of Oreus in the territory of Hestiaea. Scedasus heard him groaning and uttering curses against the Lacedaemonians, so he asked him what harm the Lacedaemonians had done him. Then he proceeded to tell that he was a subject of Sparta and that Aristodemus, who had been sent by the Lacedaemonians to Oreus as governor, had shown himself very lawless and cruel. “ For,” said he, “ he fell in love with my young son and, when he could not gain him by persuasion, he tried to take him from the palestra by force. But the teacher of gymnastics interfered, and many young fellows came out to help, so for the time being Aristodemus went away ; but the next day he manned a ship of war, seized the boy, sailed from Oreus to the opposite shore, and tried to rape him ; then when the boy would not submit, he cut his throat and killed him, after which he went back to Oreus and gave a dinner-party. But as for me,” he said, “ I learned of the deed, performed the funeral rites over the body, then went to Sparta and had an audience with the epliors ; but they paid no attention to me.” When Scedasus heard this, he was disheartened, for he suspected that the Spartans would pay no attention to him either; and he in turn told the stranger of his own misfortune. Then the stranger advised him not even to go to see the ephors, but to turn back to Boeotia and build his daughters’ tomb. Scedasus, however, did not take this advice, but went to Sparta and spoke with the ephors. They paid no attention to him, so he hurried to the kings, and from them he went up to every one of the citizens and told his tale of woe. And when nothing did any good, he ran through the midst of the city stretching up his hands towards the sun, and again he beat upon the ground and summoned up the Erinyes, and finally he put an end to his life.

Later, however, the Lacedaemonians certainly paid the penalty. For when they were rulers of all the Greeks and had placed their garrisons in the cities, Epaminondas the Theban first slaughtered the garrison of the Lacedaemonians in his own city, and when thereupon the Lacedaemonians made war upon the Thebans, the latter met them at Leuctra, thinking it a place of good omen, because at an earlier time they had gained their freedom there, when Amphictyon, having been driven into exile by Sthenelus, came to the city of the Thebans and, finding them tributaries of the Chalcidians, freed them from the tribute by killing Chalcodon, king of the Euboeans. Now it happened that the utter defeat of the Lacedaemonians took place precisely in the vicinity of the tombstone of the daughters of Scedasus. And the story goes that before the battle Pelopidas, one of the generals of the Theban army, was disturbed by some omens which were considered unfavorable and that in his sleep Scedasus came and stood over him and told him to be of good courage, for the Lacedaemonians were coming to Leuctra to pay the penalty to him and his daughters; and he enjoined upon him one day before fighting the Lacedaemonians to make ready a white colt and sacrifice it at the tomb of the maidens. So Pelopidas, while the Lacedaemonians were still in camp at Tegea, sent some men to Leuctra to find out about this tomb, and when he learned about it from the inhabitants of the place, he led out his army with confidence and was victorious.

IV

Phocus was by birth a Boeotian, for he was from the town of Glisas, and he was the father of Callirrhoe, who excelled in beauty and modesty. She was wooed by thirty young men, the most highly esteemed in Boeotia ; but Phocus found one reason after another for putting off her marriage, for he was afraid that violence would be done to him a ; at last, however, he yielded to their demands, but asked to leave the choice to the Pythian oracle. The suitors were incensed by the proposal, rushed upon Phocus, and killed him. In the confusion the maiden got away and fled through the country, but the young men pursued her. She came upon some farmers making a threshing-floor, and found safety with them, for the farmers hid her in the grain, and so her pursuers passed by. But she waited in safety until the festival of the Pamboeotia, when she went to Coroneia, took her seat on the altar of Athena Itonia and told of the lawless act of the suitors, giving the name and birthplace of each. So the Boeotians pitied the maid and were angry with the young men. When they learned of this, they fled for refuge to Orchomenus, and when the Orchomenians refused to receive them, they forced their way into Hippotae, a village lying on the slope of Mount Helicon between Thisbe and Coroneia.

There they were received. Then the Thebans sent and demanded the slayers of Phocus, and when the people of Hippotae refused to deliver them, the Thebans, along with the rest of the Boeotians, took the field under the command of Phoedus, who at that time administered the government of Thebes. They besieged the village, which was well fortified, and when they had overcome the inhabitants by thirst, they took the murderers and stoned them to death and made slaves of the villagers ; then they pulled down the walls and the houses and divided the land between the people of Thisbe and of Coroneia. It is said that in the night, before the capture of Hippotae, there was heard many times from Helicon a voice of someone saying “ I am here,” and that the thirty suitors recognized the voice as that of Phocus. It is said also that on the day when they were stoned to death the old man’s monument at Glisas ran with saffron ; and that as Phoedus, the ruler and general of the Thebans, was returning from the battle, he received the news of the birth of a daughter and, thinking it of good omen, he named her Nicostrata.

V

Alcippus was a Lacedaemonian by birth; he married Damocrita and became the father of two daughters. Now since he was a most excellent counsellor to the state and conducted affairs to the satisfaction of the Lacedaemonians, he was envied by his political opponents, who misled the ephors by false statements to the effect that Alcippus wished to destroy the constitution, and they thereby brought about his exile. So he departed from Sparta, but when his wife Damocrita, with their daughters, wished to follow her husband, she was prevented from doing so, and moreover his property was confiscated, that the girls might not be provided with dowries. And when even so there were some suitors who wooed the girls on account of their father’s high character, his enemies got a bill passed forbidding anyone to woo the girls, saying that their mother Damocrita had often prayed that her daughters might speedily bear sons who should grow up to be their father’s avengers.

Damocrita, being harassed on all sides, waited for a general festival in which married women along with unmarried girls, slaves, and infant children took part, and the wives of those in authority passed the whole night in a great hall by themselves. Then she buckled a sword about her waist, took the girls, and went by night, into the sacred place, waiting for the moment when all the women were performing the mysteries in the hall. Then, after the entrances had all been closed, she heaped a great quantity of wood against the doors (this had been prepared by the others for the sacrifice belonging to the festival) and set it on fire. And when the men came running up to save their wives, Damocrita killed her daughters with the sword and then herself over their dead bodies. But the Lacedaemonians, not knowing how to vent their anger, threw the bodies of Damocrita and her daughters out beyond the boundaries ; and they say that because the god was offended by this the great earthquake A came upon the Lacedaemonians.

THAT A PHILOSOPHER OUGHT TO CONVERSE ESPECIALLY WITH MEN IN POWER

INTRODUCTION

This brief essay was written in support of the contention that the philosopher should exert himself to influence the thought and conduct of men in power and should not shut himself away from the world. This view is consistent with Plutarch’s own life. The essay is less carefully written than some of the others, and the text is somewhat uncertain in a few places, among which may be mentioned the very first sentence. In this the first word, Sorcanus, appears to be a proper name, but the name does not occur elsewhere, and therefore numerous emendations have been proposed. If the reading is correct, Sorcanus was some important personage and must have been well known to the person, whoever he was, to whom the essay is addressed ; for although not written exactly in the form of a letter, the essay seems to be intended primarily for some one person’s edification or entertainment.

THAT A PHILOSOPHER OUGHT TO CONVERSE ESPECIALLY WITH MEN IN POWER

1. In clasping Sorcanus to your bosom, in prizing, pursuing, welcoming, and cultivating his friendship — a friendship which will prove useful and fruitful to many in private and to many in public life — you are acting like a man who loves what is noble, who is public-spirited and is a friend of mankind, not, as some people say, like one who is merely ambitious for himself. No, on the contrary, the man who is ambitious for himself and afraid of every whisper is just the one who avoids and fears being called a persistent and servile attendant on those in power. For what does a man say who is an attendant upon philosophy and stands in need of it ?“ Let me change from Pericles or Cato and become Simo the cobbler or Dionysius the schoolmaster, in order that the philosopher may converse with me and sit beside me as Socrates did with Pericles.” And while it is true that Ariston of Chios, when the sophists spoke ill of him for talking with all who wished it, said, “ I wish even the beasts could understand words which incite to virtue,” yet as for us, shall we avoid becoming intimate with powerful men and rulers, as if they were wild and savage?

The teaching of philosophy is not, if I may use the words of Pindar “ a sculptor to carve statues doomed to stand idly on their pedestals and no more ” ; no, it strives to make everything that it touches active and efficient and alive, it inspires men with impulses which urge to action, with judgements that lead them towards what is useful, with preferences for things that are honorable, with wisdom and greatness of mind joined to gentleness and conservatism, and because they possess these qualities, men of public spirit are more eager to converse with the prominent and powerful. Certainly if a physician is a man of high ideals, he will be better pleased to cure the eye which sees for many and watches over many, and a philosopher will be more eager to attend upon a soul which he sees is solicitous for many and is under obligation to be wise and self-restrained and just in behalf of many. For surely, if he were skilled in discovering and collecting water, as they say Heracles and many of the ancients were, he would not delight in digging the swineherd’s fount of Arethusa in a most distant spot “ by the Crow’s Rock,” but in uncovering the unfailing sources of some river for cities and camps and the plantations of kings and sacred groves. So we hear Homer calling Minos “ the great god’s oaristes,” which means, according to Plato, “ familiar friend and pupil.” For they did not think that pupils of the gods should be plain citizens or stay-at-homes or idlers, but kings, from whose good counsel, justice, goodness, and high-mindedness, if those qualities were implanted in them, all who had to do with them would receive benefit and profit. Of the plant eryngium they say that if one goat takes it in its mouth, first that goat itself and then the entire herd stands still until the herdsman comes and takes the plant out, such pungency, like a fire which spreads over everything near it and scatters itself abroad, is possessed by the emanations of its potency.

Certainly the teachings of the philosopher, if they take hold of one person in private station who enjoys abstention from affairs and circumscribes himself by his bodily comforts, as by a circle drawn with geometrical compasses, do not spread out to others, but merely create calmness and quiet in that one man, then dry up and disappear. But if these teachings take possession of a ruler, a statesman, and a man of action and fill him with love of honor, through one he benefits many, as Anaxagoras did by associating with Pericles, Plato with Dion, and Pythagoras with the chief men of the Italiote Greeks. Cato himself sailed from his army to visit Athenodorus ; and Scipio sent for Panaetius when he himself was sent out by the senate as Poseidonius says. Now what should Panaetius have said? If you were Bato or Polydeuces or some other person in private station who wished to run away from the midst of cities and quietly in some corner solve or quibble  over the syllogisms of philosophers, I would gladly welcome you and consort with you ; but since you are the son of Aemilius Paulus, who was twice consul, and the grandson of Scipio Africanus who overcame Hannibal the Carthaginian, shall I, therefore, not converse with you ?

2. But the statement that there are two kinds of speech, one residing in the mind, the gift of Hermes the Leader, and the other residing in the utterance, merely an attendant and instrument, is out of date ; we will let it come under the headingbut that would not disturb us, because the aim and end of both the speech in the mind and the speech in the utterance is friendship, towards oneself and towards one’s neighbor respectively ; for the former, ending through philosophy in virtue, makes a man harmonious with himself, free from blame from himself, and full of peace and friendliness towards himself.

Faction is not, nor is ill-starred strife, to be found in his members,  there is no passion disobedient to reason, no strife of impulse with impulse, no opposition of argument to argument, there is no rough tumult and pleasure on the border-line, as it were, between desire and repentance, but everything is gentle and friendly and makes each man gain the greatest number of benefits and be pleased with himself. Hut Pindar says  that the Muse of oral utterance was “ not greedy of gain, nor toilsome ” formerly, and I believe she is not so now either, but because of lack of education and of good taste the common Hermes ” has become venal and ready for hire. For it cannot be that, whereas Aphrodite was angry with the daughters of Propoetus because First they were to devise for young men a shower of abominations, yet Urania, Calliope, and Clio are pleased with those who pollute speech for money. No, I think the works and gifts of the Muses are more conducive to friendship than are those of Aphrodite.

For approbation, which some consider the end and purpose of speech, is admired as the beginning and seed of friendship ; but most people rather bestow reputation altogether by goodwill, believing that we praise those only whom we love. But just as Ixion slipped into the cloud when he was pursuing Hera, so these people seize upon a deceptive, showy, and shifting appearance in lieu of friendship. But the man of sense, if he is engaged in active political life, will ask for so much reputation as will inspire confidence and thereby give him power for affairs ; for it is neither pleasant nor easy to benefit people if they are unwilling, and confidence makes them willing. For just as light is more a blessing to those who see than to those who are seen, so reputation is more a blessing to those who are aware of it than to those who are not overlooked. But he who has withdrawn from public affairs, who communes with himself and thinks happiness is in quiet and uninterrupted leisure, he, “being chaste, worships afar off” the reputation which is popular and widespread in crowds and theatres, even as Hippolytus worshipped Aphrodite, but even he does not despise reputation among the right-minded and estimable ; but wealth, reputation as a leader, or power in his friendships he does not pursue, however neither does he avoid these qualities if they are associated with a temperate character ; nor, for that matter, does he pursue those among the youths who are fine-looking and handsome, but those who are teachable and orderly and fond of learning ; nor does the beauty of those whom he sees endowed with freshness, charm, and the flower of youth frighten the philosopher or scare him off and drive him away from those who are worthy of his attention. So, then, if the dignity that befits leadership and power are associated with a man of moderation and culture, the philosopher will not hold aloof from making him a friend and cherishing him, nor will he be afraid of being called a courtier and a toady. For those of men who too much Cypris shun A re mad as those who follow her too much;  and so are those who take that attitude towards friendship with famous men and leaders. Hence, while the philosopher who abstains from public affairs will not avoid such men, yet one who is interested in public life will even go to them with open arms ; he will not annoy them against their will, nor will he pitch his camp in their ears with inopportune sophistical disquisitions, but when they wish it, he will be glad to converse and spend his leisure with them and eager to associate with them.

3. The field I sow is twelve days’ journey round; Berecynthian land if this speaker was not merely a lover of agriculture but also a lover of his fellow men, he would find more pleasure in sowing the field which could feed so many men than in sowing that little plot of Antisthenes’ which would hardly have been big enough for Autolycus to wrestle in ; but if [he meant] : “I sow all this in order that I may subjugate the whole inhabited world,” I deprecate the sentiment.

And yet Epicurus, who places happiness in the deepest quiet, as in a sheltered and landlocked harbor, says that it is not only nobler, but also pleasanter, to confer than to receive benefits.

For chiefest joy doth gracious kindness give.

Surely he was wise who gave the Graces the names Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Gladness), and Thalia (Good-cheer) ; for the delight and joy are greater and purer for him who does the gracious act. And therefore people are often ashamed to receive benefits, but are always delighted to confer them ; and they who make those men good upon whom many depend confer benefits upon many ; and, on the contrary, the slanderers, backbiters, and flatterers who constantly corrupt rulers or kings or tyrants, are driven away and punished by everyone, as if they were putting deadly poison, not into a single cup, but into the public fountain which, as they see, everyone uses. Therefore, just as people laugh when the flatterers of Callias are ridiculed in comedy, those flatterers of whom Eupolis says:

No fire, no, and no weapon,

Be it of bronze or of iron,

Keeps them from flocking to dinner,

but the friends and intimates of the tyrant Apollodorus, of Phalaris, and of Dionysius they bastinadoed, tortured, and burned, and made them forever polluted and accursed, since the former had done harm to one man, but the latter through one, the ruler, to many. So the philosophers who associate with persons in private station make those individuals inoffensive, harmless, and gentle towards themselves, but he who removes evil from the character of a ruler, or directs his mind towards what is right, philosophizes, as it were, in the public interest and corrects the general power by which all are governed. States pay reverence and honor to their priests because they ask blessings from the gods, not for themselves, their friends, and their families alone, but for all the citizens in common ; and yet the priests do not make the gods givers of blessings, for they are such by nature ; the priests merely invoke them. But philosophers who associate with rulers do make them more just, more moderate, and more eager to do good, so that it is very likely that they are also happier.

4. And I think a lyre-maker would be more willing and eager to make a lyre if he knew that the future owner of that lyre was to build the walls of the city of Thebes, as Amphion did, or, like 'Thales was to put an end to faction among the Lacedaemonians by the music of his charms and his exhortations ; and a carpenter likewise in making a tiller would be more pleased if he knew that it would steer the flagship of Themistocles fighting in defense of Hellas, or that of Pompey when he overcame the pirates. What, then, do you imagine the philosopher thinks about his teaching, when he reflects that the statesman or ruler who accepts it will be a public blessing by dispensing justice, making laws, punishing the wicked, and making the orderly and the good to prosper And I imagine that a clever shipbuilder, too, would take greater pleasure in making a tiller if he knew that it was to steer the Argo, “ the concern of all,’ ft and a carpenter would not be so eager to make a plough or a wagon as the axones on which the laws of Solon were to be engraved. And surely the teachings of philosophers, if they are firmly engraved in the souls of rulers and statesmen and control them, acquire the force of laws ; and that is why Plato sailed to Sicily, in the hope that his teachings would produce laws and actions in the government of Dionysius; but he found Dionysius, like a book which is erased and written over, already befouled with stains and incapable of losing the dye of his tyranny, since by length of time it had become deeply fixed and hard to wash out. No, it is while men are still at their best that they should accept the worthy teachings.

TO AN UNEDUCATED RULER

INTRODUCTION

The brief essay To an Uneducated Ruler may have formed part of a lecture, or it may, as its traditional title suggests, have been composed as a letter to some person in authority, there is nothing in it to prove either assumption. No striking or unusual precepts or doctrines are here promulgated, but the essay is enlivened by a few interesting tales and, considering its brevity, by a somewhat unusual number of rather elaborate similes. As usual Plutarch depends upon earlier writers for most of his material. The ending is so abrupt as to warrant the belief that the essay, in its present form, is only a fragment.

TO AN UNEDUCATED RULER