Plutarch's Morals
which settled upon him long afterwards and spread all over his body? For
he used to go and dip and soak his feet in the river, and uttered
imprecations and prayed that they might rot off if he was guilty of
treason or crime. Nor was it permitted to the children's children of
those that were slain to see at Athens the tearing out of their graves
the bodies of those atrocious criminals that had killed them, and the
carrying them beyond their borders. And so it seems strange in Euripides
using the following argument to deter people from vice:
"Fear not, for vengeance will not strike at once
Your heart, or that of any guilty wretch,
But silently and with slow foot it moves,[811]
And when their time's come will the wicked reach."
This is no doubt the very reason why the wicked incite and cheer
themselves on to commit lawless acts, for crime shows them a fruit
visible and ripe at once, but a punishment late, and long subsequent to
the enjoyment."
Sec. III. When Patrocleas had said thus much, Olympicus interfered, "There
is another consideration, Patrocleas, the great absurdity involved in
these delays and long-suffering of the deity. For the slowness of
punishment takes away belief in providence, and the wicked, observing
that no evil follows each crime except long afterwards, attribute it
when it comes to mischance, and look upon it in the light more of
accident than punishment, and so receive no benefit from it, being
grieved indeed when the misfortune comes, but feeling no remorse for
what they have done amiss. For, as in the case of a horse, the whipping
or spurring that immediately follows upon a stumble or some other fault
is a corrective and brings him to his duty, but pulling and backing him
with the bit and shouting at him long afterwards seems to come from some
other motive than a desire to teach him, for he is put to pain without
being shown his fault; so the vice which each time it stumbles or
offends is at once punished and checked by correction is most
likely[812] to come to itself and be humble and stand in awe of the
deity, as one that beholds men's acts and passions and does not punish
behind time; whereas that justice that, according to Euripides, "steals
on silently and with slow foot," and falls upon the wicked some time or
other, seems to resemble more chance than providence by reason, of its
uncertainty, delay, and irregularity. So that I do not see what benefit
there is in those mills of the gods that are said to grind late,[813]
since they obscure the punishment, and obliterate the fear, of
evil-doing."
Sec. IV. When Olympicus had done speaking, and I was musing with myself on
the matter, Timon said, "Am I to put the finishing touch of difficulty
on our subject, or am I to let him first contend earnestly against these
views?" Then said I, "Why should we bring up the third wave[814] and
drown the argument, if he is not able to refute or evade the charges
already brought? To begin then with the domestic hearth, as the saying
is,[815] let us imitate that cautious manner of speaking about the deity
in vogue among the Academic philosophers, and decline to speak about
these things as if we thoroughly understood them. For it is worse in us
mortals than for people ignorant of music to discuss music, or for
people ignorant of military matters to discuss the art of war, to
examine too closely into the nature of the gods and demons, like people
with no knowledge of art trying to get at the intention of artists from
opinion and fancy and probabilities. For if[816] it is no easy matter
for anyone not a professional to conjecture why the surgeon performed an
operation later rather than sooner, or why he ordered his patient to
take a bath to-day rather than yesterday, how is it easy or safe for a
mortal to say anything else about the deity than that he knows best the
time to cure vice, and applies to each his punishment as the doctor
administers a drug, and that a punishment not of the same magnitude, or
applied at the same time, in all cases. For that the cure of the soul,
which is called justice, is the greatest of all arts is testified by
Pindar as well as by ten thousand others, for he calls God, the ruler
and lord of all things, the greatest artificer as the creator of
justice, whose function it is to determine when, and how, and how far,
each bad man is to be punished. And Plato says that Minos, the son of
Zeus, was his father's pupil in this art, not thinking it possible that
any one could succeed in justice, or understand how to succeed in it,
without he had learned or somehow got that science. For the laws which
men make are not always merely reasonable, nor is their meaning always
apparent, but some injunctions seem quite ridiculous, for example, the
Ephors at Lacedaemon make proclamation, directly they take office, that
no one is to let his moustache grow, but that all are to obey the laws,
that they be not grievous to them. And the Romans lay a light rod on the
bodies of those they make freemen, and when they make their wills, they
nominate some as their heirs, while to others they sell the property,
which, seems strange. But strangest of all is that ordinance of Solon,
that the citizen who, when his city is in faction, will not side with
either party is to lose his civic rights. And generally one might
mention many absurdities in laws, if one did not know the mind of the
legislator, or understand the reason for each particular piece of
legislation. How is it wonderful then, if human affairs are so difficult
to comprehend, that it is no easy task to say in connection with the
gods, why they punish some offenders early, and others late?
Sec. V. This is not a pretext for evading the subject, but merely a request
for lenient judgement, that our discourse, looking as it were for a
haven and place of refuge, may rise to the difficulty with greater
confidence basing itself on probability. Consider then first that,
according to Plato, god, making himself openly a pattern of all things
good, concedes human virtue, which is in some sort a resemblance to
himself, to those who are able to follow him. For all nature, being in
disorder, got the principle of change and became order[817] by a
resemblance to and participation in the nature and virtue of the deity.
The same Plato also tells us that nature put eyesight into us, in order
that the soul by beholding and admiring the heavenly bodies might
accustom itself to welcome and love harmony and order, and might hate
disorderly and roving propensities, and avoid aimless reliance on
chance, as the parent of all vice and error. For man can enjoy no
greater blessing from god than to attain to virtue by the earnest
imitation of the noblest qualities of the divine nature. And so he
punishes the wicked leisurely and long after, not being afraid of error
or after repentance through punishing too hastily, but to take away from
us that eager and brutish thirst for revenge, and to teach us that we
are not to retaliate on those that have offended us in anger, and when
the soul is most inflamed and distorted with passion and almost beside
itself for rage, like people satisfying fierce thirst or hunger, but to
imitate the mildness and long-suffering of the deity, and to avenge
ourselves in an orderly and decent manner, only when we have taken
counsel with time long enough to give us the least possible likelihood
of after repentance. For it is a smaller evil, as Socrates said, to
drink dirty water when excessively thirsty, than, when one's mind is
disturbed and full of rage and fury, before it is settled and becomes
pure, to glut our revenge on the person of a relation and kinsman. For
it is not the punishment that follows as closely as possible upon
wrong-doing, as Thucydides said,[818] but that which is more remote,
that observes decorum. For as Melanthius says of anger,
"Fell things it does when it the mind unsettles,"[819]
so also reason acts with justice and moderation, when it banishes rage
and passion. So also people are made milder by the example of other men,
as when they hear that Plato, when he held his stick over his slave to
correct him, waited some time, as he himself has told us, to compose his
anger; and that Archytas, having learned of some wrong or disorderly
action on the part of some of his farm labourers, knowing that at the
time he was in a very great rage and highly incensed at them, did
nothing to them, but merely departed, saying, "You may thank your stars
that I am in a rage with you." If then the remembrance of the words and
recorded acts of men abates the fierceness and intensity of our rage,
much more likely is it that we (observing that the deity, though without
either fear or repentance in any case, yet puts off his punishments and
defers them for some time) shall be reserved in our views about such
matters, and shall think that mildness and long-suffering which the god
exhibits a divine part of virtue, reforming a few by speedy punishment,
but benefiting and correcting many by a tardy one.
Sec. VI. Let us consider in the second place that punishments inflicted by
men for offences regard only retaliation, and, when the offender is
punished, stop and go no further; so that they seem to follow offences
yelping at them like a dog, and closely pursuing at their heels as it
were. But it is likely that the deity would look at the state of any
guilty soul that he intended to punish, if haply it might turn and
repent, and would give[820] time for reformation to all whose vice was
not absolute and incurable. For knowing how great a share of virtue
souls come into the world with, deriving it from him, and how strong and
lasting is their nobility of nature, and how it breaks out into vice
against its natural disposition through the corruption of bad habits and
companions, and afterwards in some cases reforms itself, and recovers
its proper position, he does not inflict punishment on all persons
alike; but the incorrigible he at once removes from life and cuts off,
since it is altogether injurious to others, but most of all to a man's
own self, to live in perpetual vice, whereas to those who seem to have
fallen into wrong-doing, rather from ignorance of what was good than
from deliberate choice of what was bad, he gives time to repent. But if
they persist in vice he punishes them too, for he has no fear that they
will escape him. Consider also how many changes take place in the life
and character of men, so that the Greeks give the names [Greek: tropos]
and [Greek: ethos] to the character, the first word meaning _change_,
and the latter the immense force and power of _habit_. I think also that
the ancients called Cecrops half man and half dragon[821] not because,
as some say, he became from a good king wild and dragon-like, but
contrariwise because he was originally perverse and terrible, and
afterwards became a mild and humane king. And if this is uncertain, at
any rate we know that Gelon and Hiero, both Sicilians, and Pisistratus
the son of Hippocrates, though they got their supreme power by bad
means, yet used it for virtuous ends, and though they mounted the throne
in an irregular way, yet became good and useful princes. For by good
legislation and by encouraging agriculture they made the citizens
earnest and industrious instead of scoffers and chatterers. As for
Gelon, after fighting valiantly and defeating the Carthaginians in a
great battle, he would not conclude with them the peace they asked for
until they inserted an article promising to cease sacrificing their sons
to Cronos. And Lydiades was tyrant in Megalopolis, yet in the very
height of his power changing his ideas and being disgusted with
injustice, he restored their old constitution to the citizens,[822] and