Plutarch's Morals
"Apart from men beside the stormy sea,"[923]
yet contrived to make the life of his citizens very pleasant. And the
Cyclades were first inhabited by the sons of Minos, and afterwards by
the sons of Codrus and Neleus, though foolish people now think they are
punished if they are exiled to them. And yet what island used as a place
of exile is not of larger extent than Scillus, where Xenophon after his
military service saw a comfortable old age?[924] And the Academy, a
small place bought for only 3,000 drachmae,[925] was the domicile of
Plato and Xenocrates and Polemo, who taught and lived there all their
lives, except one day every year, when Xenocrates went to Athens to
grace the festival of Dionysus, so they said, and to see the new plays
exhibited. And Theocritus of Chios twitted Aristotle with loving to live
at the courts of Philip and Alexander, and preferring to dwell at the
mouth of the Borborus to dwelling in the Academy. For there is a river
near Pella that the Macedonians call Borborus. As to islands Homer seems
to sing their praise, and recommend them to us as if on purpose, as
"She came to Lemnos, town of sacred Thoas;"[926]
and,
"What Lesbos has, the seat of the immortals;"[927]
and,
"He captured lofty Scyros, citadel
Of Enyeus;"[928]
and,
"And those who from Dulichium came, and from
The sacred islands called th' Echinades,
That lie across the sea opposite Elis;"[929]
and of the illustrious men that dwelt in islands he mentions AEolus the
favourite of the gods, and Odysseus most wise, and Ajax most brave, and
Alcinous most kind to strangers.
Sec. XI. When Zeno learned that the only ship he had left was with all its
freight lost at sea, he said, "Fortune, you deal kindly with me,
confining me to my threadbare cloak and the life of a philosopher." And
a man not altogether silly, or madly in love with crowds, might, I
think, not blame fortune for confining him in an island, but might even
praise her for relieving him from weariness and anxiety, and wanderings
in foreign countries, and perils by sea, and the uproar of the forum,
and for giving him truly a secure, quiet, undistracted and private life,
putting him as it were inside a circle in which everything necessary for
him was contained. For what island has not a house, a promenade, a bath,
and fish and hares for those who love fishing and field-sports? And the
greatest blessing, quiet, which others frequently pant for, you can
freely enjoy.[930] And whereas in the world,[930] when men are playing
at dice or otherwise enjoying the privacy of their homes, informers and
busybodies hunt them up and pursue them from their houses and gardens in
the suburbs, and drag them by force to the forum and court, in an island
no one comes to bother one or dun one or to borrow money, or to beg one
to be surety for him or canvass for him: only one's best friends and
intimates come to visit one out of good will and affection, and the rest
of one's life is a sort of holy retirement to whoever wishes or has
learnt to live the life of leisure. But he who thinks those happy who
are always scouring the country, and pass most of their lives in inns
and ferryboats, is like a person who thinks the planets happier than
fixed stars. And yet every planet keeps its order, rolling in one
sphere, as in an island. For, as Heraclitus says, the sun will never
deviate from its bounds, for if it did, the Furies, who are the
ministers of Justice, would find it out.
Sec. XII. Let us use such and similar language, my friend, and harp upon
it, to those who are banished to an island, and are debarred all access
with others
"By the sea waves, which many keep apart."[931]
But you who are not tied down to one spot, but only forbidden to live in
one, have by that prohibition liberty to go to all others. Moreover to
the considerations, I am not in office, or a member of the senate, or an
umpire in the games, you may oppose these, I do not belong to any
faction, I have no large sums to spend, I have not to dance attendance
at the doors of the prefect, it is no odds to me who has got by lot the
province, whether he is hot-tempered or an objectionable person. But
just as Archilochus overlooked the fruitful fields and vineyards of
Thasos, and abused that island as rocky and uneven, and said of it,
"It stands like donkey's chine crowned with wild forest,"
so we, fixing our eyes only on one aspect of exile, its inglorious
state, overlook its freedom from cares, its leisure, its liberty. And
yet people thought the kings of Persia happy, because they passed their
winter in Babylon, their summer in Media, and the pleasant season of
spring at Susa. So can the exile be present at the Eleusinian mysteries,
at the festival of Dionysus at Athens, at the Nemean games at Argos, at
the Pythian games at Delphi, and can pass on and be a spectator of the
Isthmian and Corinthian games, if he is fond of sight-seeing; and if
not, he has leisure, can walk about, read, sleep without being
disturbed, and can say like Diogenes, "Aristotle has to dine when Philip
thinks fit, Diogenes can dine at any time he himself chooses," having no
business, or magistrate, or prefect, to put him out of his general
habits of living.
Sec. XIII. And so it is that you will find few of the wisest and most
intelligent men buried in their own countries, but most (even without
any compulsion) have themselves weighed anchor, and transferred their
course, and removed, some to Athens, some from it. For who ever bestowed
such encomium upon his country as Euripides did in the following lines?
"First we are not a race brought in from other parts,
But are indigenous, when all other cities
Are, draughts-men like, transferred from place to place,
And are imported from elsewhere. And, lady,
If it is not beside the mark to boast,
We have above us a well-tempered sky,
A climate not too hot, nor yet too cold.
And all the finest things in Greece or Asia
We do procure as an attraction here."[932]
And yet the author of these lines went to Macedonia, and lived all the
latter part of his life at the court of Archelaus. And of course you
have heard the following epitaph;
"Here lies Euphorion's son, Athenian AEschylus,
To whom death came in corn-producing Gela."
For he, like Simonides before him, went to Sicily. And many have changed
the commencing words of Herodotus, "This is the setting forth of the
history of Herodotus of Halicarnassus" into "Herodotus of Thurii." For
he migrated to Thurii, and participated in that colony. As to the divine
and sacred spirit of the Muses, the poet of the Trojan war, Homer, did
not many cities claim him as theirs, because he did not cry up one city
only? And Hospitable Zeus has many great honours.
Sec. XIV. And if anyone shall say that these pursued glory and honour, go
to the philosophers, and their schools and lectures, consider those at
the Lyceum, the Academy, the Porch, the Palladium, the Odeum. If you
admire and prefer the Peripatetic school, Aristotle was a native of
Stagira, Theophrastus of Eresus, Strato of Lampsacus, Glyco of Troas,
Aristo of Ceos, Critolaus of Phaselis. If you prefer the Stoic school,
Zeno was a native of Cittium, Cleanthes of Assus, Chrysippus of Soli,
Diogenes of Babylon, Antipater of Tarsus; and the Athenian Archidemus
migrated to the country of the Parthians, and left at Babylon a
succession of the Stoic school. Who exiled these men? Nobody; it was
their own pursuit of quiet, of which no one who is famous or powerful
can get much at home, that made them teach us this by their practice,
while they taught us other things by their precepts. And even nowadays
most excellent and renowned persons live in strange lands, not in
consequence of being expelled or banished, but at their own option, to
avoid business and distracting cares, and the want of leisure which
their own country would bring them. For it seems to me that the Muses
aided our old writers to complete their finest and most esteemed works
by calling in exile as a fellow-worker. Thus Thucydides the Athenian
wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the
Athenians in Thrace near the forest of Scapte, Xenophon wrote at Scillus
in Elis, Philistus in Epirus, Timaeus of Tauromenium at Athens, Androtion
of Athens at Megara, and Bacchylides the poet[933] in Peloponnesus. All
these and many more, though exiled from their country, did not despair
or give themselves up to dejection, but so happy was their disposition
that they considered exile a resource given them by fortune, whereby
they obtained universal fame after their deaths, whereas no memorial is
left of those who were factious against them and banished them.
Sec. XV. He therefore is ridiculous who thinks that any ignominy attaches
itself to exile. What say you? Was Diogenes without glory, whom
Alexander saw basking in the sun, and stopped to ask if he wanted
anything, and when he answered, "Nothing, but that you would get a
little out of my light," Alexander, astonished at his spirit, said to
his friends, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." Was
Camillus without glory when banished from Rome, of which he is now
accounted the second founder? And indeed Themistocles did not lose by
his exile the glory he had obtained among the Greeks, but he added to it
among the barbarians, and there is no one so without honour, so ignoble,
who would prefer to be Leobates who indicted him rather than
Themistocles the exile, or Clodius who banished Cicero rather than the
banished one, or Aristophon the accuser rather than Timotheus who got
driven by him from his country.
Sec. XVI. But since a good many are moved by the lines of Euripides, who
seems to bring a strong indictment against exile, let us see what it is
he says in each question and answer about it.
_Jocasta._ What is't to be an exile? Is it grievous?
_Polynices._ Most grievous, and in deed worse than in word.
_Jocasta._ What is its aspect? What is hard for exiles?
_Polynices._ This is the greatest, that they have no freedom.
_Jocasta._ This is a slave's life not to speak one's thoughts!
_Polynices._ Then one must put up with one's masters' follies.[934]
But this is not a right or true estimate.[935] For first of all, not to
say out all one thinks is not the action of a slave but of a sensible
man, in times and matters that require reticence and silence, as
Euripides himself has said elsewhere better,
"Be silent where 'tis meet, speak where 'tis safe."
Then as for the follies of one's masters, one has to put up with them
just as much in one's own country as in exile. Indeed, more frequently
have the former reason to fear that the powerful in cities will act
unjustly to them either through calumny or violence. But his greatest
and absurdest error is that he takes away from exiles freedom of speech.
It is wonderful, if Theodorus had no freedom of speech, that when
Lysimachus the king said to him, "Did not your country cast you out
because of your character?" replied, "Yes, as Semele cast out Dionysus,
when unable to bear him any longer." And when he showed him Telesphorus
in a cage,[936] with his eyes scooped out, and his nose and ears and
tongue cut off, and said to him, "This is how I treat those that act ill
to me." * *[937] And had not Diogenes freedom of speech, who, when he
visited Philip's camp just as he was on the eve of offering battle to
the Greeks, and was taken before the king as a spy, told him he had come
to see his insatiable folly, who was going shortly to stake his
dominions and life on a mere die. And did not Hannibal the Carthaginian
use freedom of speech to Antiochus, though he was an exile, and