Plutarch's Morals
Lacedaemonians is told by Aristotle, "Oeconom." ii. 9.
[437] A line from Euripides, "Iphigenia in Aulis," 407.
[438] Also in "Conjugal Precepts," Sec. xxix.
[439] See Persius, iii. 21, 22, with Jahn's Note.
[440] See "On Love," Sec. xxi.
[441] "Auri plumbique oppositio fere proverbialis est.
Petronius, 'Satyricon,' 43. Plane fortunae filius: in
manu illius plumbum aureum fiebat."--_Wyttenbach._ The
passage about the Lydian chariot is said to be by Pindar
in our author, "Nicias," p. 523 D.
[442] Wyttenbach compares Seneca, "Epist." cxxiii. p.
495: "Horum sermo multum nocet: nam etiamsi non statim
officit, semina in animo relinquit, sequiturque nos
etiam cum ab illis discesserimus, resurrecturum postea
malum."
[443] Compare Cicero, "De Amicitia," xxvi.: "Assentatio,
quamvis perniciosa sit, nocere tamen nemini potest, nisi
ei, qui eam recipit atque ea delectatur. Ita fit, ut is
assentatoribus patefaciat aures suas maxime, qui ipse
sibi assentetur et se maxime ipse delectet."
[444] Compare Sec. i.
[445] Compare our Author, "Quaestiones Convivalium,"
viii. p. 717 F.
[446] So Horace, "Satires," i. 2, 24: "Dum vitant stulti
vitia in contraria currunt."
[447] Homer, "Iliad," xiv. 84, 85.
[448] Compare Cicero, "De Officiis," i. 25: "Omnis autem
animadversio et castigatio contumelia vacare debet:
neque ad ejus, qui punitur aliquem aut verbis fatigat,
sed ad reipublicae utilitatem referri."
[449] "Iliad," xi. 654.
[450] "Iliad," xvi. 33-35.
[451] Cf. Plutarch, "Phocion," p. 746 D.
[452] A proverb of persons on the brink of destruction.
Wells among the ancients were uncovered.
[453] "Iliad," ii. 215, of Thersites. As to Theagenes,
see Seneca, "De Ira," ii. 23.
[454] Literally, "brings a cloud over fair weather."
[455] The MSS. have Lydian. Lysian Dionysus is also
found in Pausanias, ix. 16. Lyaeus is suggested by
Wyttenbach, and read by Hercher. Lysius or Lyaeus will
both be connected with [Greek: luo], and so refer to
Dionysus as the god that looses or frees us from care.
See Horace, "Epodes," ix. 37, 38.
[456] Compare Juvenal, iii. 73, 74: "Sermo Promptus et
Isaeo torrentior."
[457] "Orestes," 667.
[458] Euripides, "Ion," 732.
[459] "Anabasis," ii. 6, 11.
[460] Perhaps by Euripides.
[461] "Olynth." ii. p. 8 C; "Pro Corona," 341 C.
[462] Homer, "Iliad," ix. 108, 109. They are the words
of Nestor to Agamemnon.
[463] See Herodotus, i. 30-32.
[464] See Plato's "Symposium," p. 215 E.
[465] See Plato, "Epist." iv. p. 321 B.
[466] See our author, "Apophthegmata," p. 179 C.
[467] Compare Horace, "Satires," i. 1. 7, 8: "Quid enim,
concurritur: horae Momento cita mors venit aut victoria
laeta."
[468] And so being dainty. See Athenaeus, ii. ch. 76.
[469] We see from this and other places that the
mountebanks and quacks of the Middle Ages and later
times existed also among the ancients. Human nature in
its great leading features is ever the same. "Omne
ignotum pro magnifico est."
[470] "Laws," p. 729 C.
[471] Homer, "Odyssey," i. 157; iv. 70; xvii. 592.
[472] Ptolemy V., Epiphanes. The circumstances are
related by Polybius, xv. 29; xvii. 35.
[473] See "Acharnians," 501, 502.
[474] Thucydides, i. 70: [Greek: kai hama, eiper tines
kai alloi, nomizomen axioi einai tois pelas psogon
epenenkein].
[475] See our Author, "Apophthegmata," p. 190 E.
[476] A line of Euripides, quoted again in "How a Man
may be benefited by his Enemies," Sec. iv.
[477] Homer, "Iliad," xi. 313.
[478] Do. viii. 234, 235.
[479] Do. ix. 461.
[480] "Iliad," xiii. 116-119.
[481] Do. v. 171, 172.
[482] Euripides, "Phoenissae," 1688.
[483] Euripides, "Hercules Furens," 1250.
[484] "Iliad," v. 800. Athene is the speaker.
[485] A play by Sophocles, now only in fragments,
relating the life of Achilles in the island of Scyros,
the scene of his amour with Deidamia, the daughter of
Lycomedes, by whom he became the father of Pyrrhus.
[486] Thucydides, ii. 64. Quoted again in "On Shyness,"
Sec. xviii.
[487] See also "De Audiendo," Sec. x.
[488] [Greek: potous] comes in rather curiously here.
Can any other word lurk under it?
[489] "Phoenissae," 528, 529.
[490] Homer, "Iliad," vi. 347.
[491] Do. vi. 326.
[492] Homer, "Iliad," ix. 109, 110.
[493] In Dindorf's "Poetae Scenici Graeci," Fragment 152.
[494] As it is not quite clear why Achilles should have
been angry about his supper, [Greek: dia to deipnon],
apropos of the context, Wyttenbach ingeniously suggests,
as this lost play of Sophocles was called [Greek: Syn
deipnon], that Plutarch may have written [Greek: en to
Deipno].
[495] Compare "How One may be aware of one's Progress in
Virtue," Sec. xi.
[496] "Ductum e proverbiali dictione [Greek: balonta
ekpheugein], emisso telo aufugere."--_Wyttenbach._
HOW A MAN MAY BE BENEFITED BY
HIS ENEMIES.
Sec. I. I am well aware, Cornelius Pulcher, that you prefer the mildest
manners in public life, by which you can be at once most useful to the
community, and most agreeable in private life to those who have any
dealings with you. But since it is difficult to find any region without
wild beasts, though it is related of Crete;[497] and hitherto there has
been no state that has not suffered from envy, rivalry, and strife, the
most fruitful seeds of hostility; (for, even if nothing else does, our
friendships involve us in enmities, as Chilo[498] the wise man
perceived, who asked the man who told him he had no enemy, whether he
had a friend either), it seems to me that a public man ought not only to
examine the whole question of enemies in its various ramifications, but
also to listen to the serious remark of Xenophon,[499] that a sensible
man will receive profit even from his enemies. The ideas therefore that
lately occurred to me to deliver, I have now put together nearly in the
identical words and send them to you, with the exception of some matter
also in "Political Precepts,"[500] a treatise which I have often noticed
in your hands.
Sec. II. People in old times were well satisfied if they were not injured
by strange and wild beasts, and that was the only motive of their fights
with them, but those of later days have by now learnt to make use of
them, for they feed on their flesh, and clothe themselves with their
wool, and make medical use of their gall and beestings, and turn their
hides into shields, so that we might reasonably fear, if beasts failed
man, that his life would become brutish, and wild, and void of
resources. Similarly since all others are satisfied with not being
injured by their enemies, but the sensible will also (as Xenophon says)
get profit out of them, we must not be incredulous, but seek a method
and plan how to obtain this advantage, seeing that life without an enemy
is impossible. The husbandman cannot cultivate every tree, nor can the
hunter tame every kind of animal, so both seek means to derive profit
according to their several necessities, the one from his barren trees,
the other from his wild animals. Sea-water also is undrinkable and
brackish, but it feeds fish, and is a sort of vehicle to convey and
transport travellers anywhere. The Satyr, when he saw fire for the first
time, wished to kiss it and embrace it, but Prometheus warned him,
"Goat, thou wilt surely mourn thy loss of beard."[501]
For fire burns whoever touches it, but it also gives light and warmth,
and is an instrument of art to all those who know how to use it.[502]
Consider also in the case of the enemy, if he is in other respects
injurious and intractable, he somehow or other gives us a handle to make
use of him by, and so is serviceable. And many things are unpleasant and
detestable and antagonistic to those to whom they happen, but you must
have noticed that some use even illnesses as a period of rest for the
body, and others by excessive toil have strengthened and trained their
bodily vigour, and some have made exile and the loss of money a passage
to leisure and philosophy, as did Diogenes and Crates. And Zeno, when he
heard of the wreck of the ship which contained all his property, said,
"Thou hast done well, Fortune, to confine me to my threadbare
cloak."[503]
For as those animals that have the strongest and healthiest stomachs eat
and digest serpents and scorpions, and some even feed on stones and
shells, which they convert into nourishment by the strength and heat of
their stomachs, while fastidious people out of health almost vomit if
offered bread and wine, so foolish people spoil even their friendships,
while the wise know how to turn to account even their enmities.
Sec. III. In the first place then it seems to me that what is most
injurious in enmity may become most useful to those that pay attention
to it? To what do I refer? Why, to the way in which your enemy ever wide
awake pries into all your affairs, and analyzes your whole life, trying
to get a handle against you somewhere, able not only to look through a
tree, like Lynceus,[504] or through stones and shells, but through your
friend and domestic and every intimate acquaintance, as far as possible
detecting your doings, and digging and ferreting into your designs. For
our friends are ill and often die without our knowing anything about it
through our delay and carelessness, but we almost pry into even the
dreams of our enemies; and our enemy knows even more than we do
ourselves of our diseases and debts and differences with our wives.[505]
But they pay most attention to our faults and hunt them out: and as
vultures follow the scent of putrid carcases, and cannot perceive sound
and wholesome ones, so the diseases and vices and crimes of life attract
the enemy, and on these those that hate us pounce, these they attack and
tear to pieces. Is not this an advantage to us? Certainly it is. For it
teaches us to live warily and be on our guard, and neither to do or say
anything carelessly or without circumspection, but ever to be vigilant
by careful mode of living that we give no handle to an enemy. For the
cautiousness that thus represses the passions and follows reason
implants a care and determination to live well and without reproach. For
as those states that have been sobered by wars with their neighbours and
continual campaigns love the blessings of order and peace, so those
people who are compelled to lead a sober life owing to their enemies,
and to be on their guard against carelessness and negligence, and to do
everything with an eye to utility, imperceptibly glide into a faultless
mode of life, and tone down their character, even without requiring much
assistance from precepts. For those who always remember the line,
"Ah! how would Priam and his sons rejoice,"[506]
are by it diverted from and learn to shun all such things as their
enemies would rejoice and laugh at. Again we see actors[507] and singers
on the stage oftentimes slack and remiss, and not taking sufficient
pains about their performances in the theatres when they have it all to
themselves; but when there is a competition and contest with others,
they not only wake up but tune their instruments, and adjust their
chords, and play on the flute with more care. Similarly whoever knows
that his enemy is antagonistic to his life and character, pays more
attention to himself, and watches his behaviour more carefully, and