Plutarch's Morals
the bane spreads and grows like a fire, to the destruction and ruin of
all who fall into their clutches, for it consumes one after another; and
the money-lender, who fans and feeds this flame to ensnare many, gets no
more advantage from it but that some time after he can take his
account-book and read how many he has sold up, how many turned out of
house and home, and track the sources of his wealth, which is ever
growing into a larger pile.
Sec. VI. And do not think I say this as an enemy proclaiming war against
the money-lenders,
"For never did they lift my cows or horses,"[890]
but merely to prove to those who too readily borrow money what disgrace
and servitude it brings with it, and what extreme folly and weakness it
is. Have you anything? do not borrow, for you are not in a necessitous
condition. Have you nothing? do not borrow, for you will never be able
to pay back. Let us consider either case separately. Cato said to a
certain old man who was a wicked fellow, "My good sir, why do you add
the shame that comes from wickedness to old age, that has so many
troubles of its own?" So too do you, since poverty has so many troubles
of its own, not add the terrible distress that comes from borrowing
money and from debt; and do not take away from poverty its only
advantage over wealth, its freedom from corroding care. For the proverb
that says, "I cannot carry a goat, put an ox on my shoulder," has a
ridiculous ring. Unable to bear poverty, are you going to put on your
back a money-lender, a weight hard to carry even for a rich man? How
then, will you say, am I to maintain myself? Do you ask this, having two
hands, two legs, and a tongue, in short, being a man, to love and be
loved, to give and receive benefits? Can you not be a schoolmaster or
tutor, or porter, or sailor, or make coasting voyages? Any of these ways
of getting a livelihood is less disgraceful and difficult than to always
have to hear, "Pay me that thou owest."
Sec. VII. The well-known Rutilius went up to Musonius at Rome, and said to
him, "Musonius, Zeus Soter, whom you imitate and emulate, does not
borrow money." And Musonius smilingly answered, "Neither does he lend."
For you must know Rutilius, himself a lender, was bantering Musonius for
being a borrower. What Stoic inflatedness was all this! What need was
there to bring in Zeus Soter? For all nature teaches the same lesson.
Swallows do not borrow money, nor do ants, although nature has given
them no hands, or reason, or profession. But men have intellect in
excess, and so ingenious are they that they keep near them horses, and
dogs, and partridges, and jackdaws. Why then do you despair, who are as
impressible as a jackdaw, have as much voice as a partridge, and are as
noble as a dog, of getting some person to befriend you, by looking after
him, winning his affections, guarding him, fighting his battles? Do you
not see how many opportunities there are both on land and sea? As Crates
says,
"Miccylus and his wife, to ward off famine
In these bad times, I saw both carding wool."
And King Antigonus asked Cleanthes, when he saw him at Athens after a
long interval, "Do you still grind, Cleanthes?" And he replied, "I do, O
king, but for my living, yet so as not to desert philosophy." Such was
the admirable spirit of the man who, coming from the mill and
kneading-trough, wrote with the hand that had baked and ground about the
gods, and the moon, and stars, and the sun. But those kinds of labour
are in our view servile! And so that we may appear free we borrow money,
and flatter and dance attendance on slaves, and give them dinners and
presents, and pay taxes as it were to them, not on account of our
poverty (for no one lends money to a poor man), but from our love of
lavish expenditure. For if we were content with things necessary for
subsistence, the race of money-lenders would be as extinct as Centaurs
and Gorgons are; it is luxury that has created them as much as
goldsmiths, and silversmiths, and perfumers, and dyers in bright
colours. For we do not owe money for bread and wine, but for estates,
and slaves, and mules, and dining-rooms, and tables, and for our lavish
public entertainments, in our unprofitable and thankless ambition. And
he that is once involved in debt remains in it all his time, like a
horse bitted and bridled that takes one rider after another, and there
is no escape to green pastures and meadows, but they wander about like
those demons who were driven out of heaven by the gods who are thus
described by Empedocles:--
"Into the sea the force of heaven thrusts them,
The sea rejects them back upon the land;
To the sun's rays th' unresting earth remits them;
The sun anon whirls them to heaven again."
So one after another usurer or trader gets hold of the poor wretch,
hailing either from Corinth, or Patrae, or Athens, till he gets set on to
by them all, and torn to bits, and cut into mince-meat as it were for
his interest. For as a person who is fallen into the mire must either
get up out of it or remain in it, and if he turns about in it, and
wallows in it, and bedabbles his body all over in it, he contracts only
the greater defilement, so by borrowing from one person to pay another
and changing their money-lenders they contract and incur fresh interest,
and get into greater liabilities, and closely resemble sufferers from
cholera, whose case does not admit of cure because they evacuate
everything they are ordered to take, and so ever add to the disease. So
these will not get cleansed from the disease of debt, but at regular
times in the year pay their interest with pain and agony, and then
immediately another creditor presents his little account, so again their
heads swim and ache, when they ought to have got rid of their debts
altogether, and regained their freedom.
Sec. VIII. I now turn my attention to those who are rich and luxurious, and
use language like the following, "Am I then to go without slaves and
hearth and home?" As if any dropsical person, whose body was greatly
swollen and who was very weak, should say to his doctor, "Am I then to
become lean and empty?" And why not, to get well? And do you too go
without a slave, not to be a slave yourself; and without chattels, not
to be another man's chattel. Listen to a story about two vultures; one
was vomiting and saying it would bring its inside up, and the other who
was by said, "What harm if you do? For it won't be your inside you bring
up, but that dead body we devoured lately." And so any debtor does not
sell his own estate, or his own house, but his creditor's, for he has
made him by law master of them. Nay, but by Zeus, says one, my father
left me this field. Yes, and your father also left you liberty and a
status in the community, which you ought to value more than you do. And
your father begot you with hand and foot, but should either of them
mortify, you pay the surgeon to cut it off. Thus Calypso clad and
"dressed" Odysseus "in raiment smelling sweet,"[891] like the body of an
immortal, as a gift and token of her affection for him; but when his
vessel was upset and he himself immersed, and owing to this wet and
heavy raiment could hardly keep himself on the top of the waves, he
threw it off and stripped himself, and covered his naked breast with
Ino's veil,[892] and "swam for it gazing on the distant shore,"[893] and
so saved his life, and lacked neither food nor raiment. What then? have
not poor debtors storms, when the money-lender stands over them and
says, _Pay_?
"Thus spoke Poseidon, and the clouds did gather,
And lashed the sea to fury, and at once
Eurus and Notus and the stormy Zephyr
Blew all together."[894]
Thus interest rolls on interest as wave upon wave, and he that is
involved in debt struggles against the load that bears him down, but
cannot swim away and escape, but sinks to the bottom, and carries with
him to ruin his friends that have gone security for him. But Crates the
Theban, though he had neither duns nor debts, and was only disgusted at
the distracting cares of housekeeping, gave up a property worth eight
talents, and assumed the philosopher's threadbare cloak and wallet, and
took refuge in philosophy and poverty. And Anaxagoras left his
sheep-farm. But why need I mention these? since the lyric poet
Philoxenus, obtaining by lot in a Sicilian colony much substance and a
house abounding in every kind of comfort, but finding that luxury and
pleasure and absence of refinement was the fashion there, said, "By the
gods these comforts shall not undo me, I will give them up," and he left
his lot to others, and sailed home again. But debtors have to put up
with being dunned, subjected to tribute, suffering slavery, passing
debased coin, and like Phineus, feeding certain winged Harpies, who
carry off and lay violent hands on their food, not at the proper season,
for they get possession of their debtors' corn before it is sown, and
they traffic for oil before the olives are ripe; and the money-lender
says, "I have wine at such and such a price," and takes a bond for it,
when the grapes are yet on the vine waiting for Arcturus to ripen them.
[881] Page 844, A. B. C.
[882] Reading with Wyttenbach [Greek: didousi] and
[Greek: echousi].
[883] See Livy, v. 25.
[884] See Appian, lv. 26.
[885] See Herodotus, vii. 141-143; viii. 51.
[886] Reading with Reiske [Greek: katachrusa].
[887] The technical term for submission to an enemy. See
Pausanias, iii. 12; x. 20. Herodotus, v. 17, 18; vii.
133.
[888] Reading with Reiske [Greek: daneistais]. Perhaps
[Greek: aphanistais] originally came after [Greek:
agriois], and got somehow displaced.
[889] See Homer, "Odyssey," xi. 578, 579, and context.
[890] Homer, "Iliad," i. 154.
[891] "Odyssey," v. 264.
[892] "Odyssey," v. 333-375.
[893] "Odyssey," v. 439.
[894] "Odyssey," v. 291-295.
WHETHER "LIVE UNKNOWN" BE A WISE
PRECEPT.
Sec. I. He who uttered this precept[895] certainly did not wish to live
unknown, for he uttered it to let all the world know he was a superior
thinker, and to get to himself unjust glory by exhorting others to shun
glory.
"I hate the wise man for himself not wise."[896]
They say that Philoxenus the son of Eryxis and Gnatho the Sicilian,
being exceedingly greedy where good fare was going, would blow their
nose in the dishes, to disgust all others at the table, that they alone
might take their fill of the choicest dishes. So those that are
insatiable pursuers of glory calumniate glory to others who are their
rivals, that they may get it without antagonists. In this they resemble
rowers, who face the stern of the vessel but propel it ahead, that by
the recoil from the stroke of their oars they may reach port, so those
that give vent to precepts like this pursue glory with their face turned
in the opposite direction. For otherwise what need was there to utter a
precept like this, or to write and hand it down to posterity, if he
wished to live unknown to his own generation, who did not wish to live
unknown to posterity?
Sec. II. Look at the matter in the following way.[897] Has not that "live
unknown" a villainous ring, as though one had broken open graves? Is
your life so disgraceful that we must all be ignorant of it? For my part
I should say, Even if your life be bad do not live unknown, but be
known, reform, repent; if you have virtue, be not utterly useless in
life; if you are vicious, do not continue unreformed. Point out then and
define to whom you recommend this precept. If to an ignorant or wicked
or senseless person, you resemble one who should say to a person in a
fever or delirium, "Be unknown. Don't let the doctor know your