Plutarch's Morals
by scales and fur and talons and hoofs worn smooth by use, whereas man
alone, as Plato says, is left by nature naked, unarmed, unshod, and
uncovered. But by one gift, that of reason and painstaking and
forethought, nature compensates for all these deficiencies. "Small
indeed is the strength of man, but by the versatility of his intellect
he can tame the inhabitants of the sea, earth, and air."[951] Nothing is
more agile and swift than horses, yet they run for man; the dog is a
courageous and high-spirited creature, yet it guards man; fish is most
pleasant to the taste, the pig the fattest of all animals, yet both are
food and delicacies for man. What is huger or more formidable in
appearance than the elephant? Yet it is man's plaything, and a spectacle
at public shows, and learns to dance and kneel. And all these things are
not idly introduced, but to the end that they may teach us to what
heights reason raises man, and what things it sets him above, and how it
makes him master of everything.
"For we are not good boxers, nor good wrestlers,
Nor yet swift runners,"[952]
for in all these points we are less fortunate than the beasts. But by
our experience and memory and wisdom and cunning, as Anaxagoras says, we
make use of them, and get their honey and milk, and catch them, and
drive and lead them about at our will. And there is nothing of fortune
in this, it is all the result of wisdom and forethought.
Sec. IV. Moreover the labours of carpenters and coppersmiths and
house-builders and statue-makers are affairs of mortals, and we see that
no success in such trades is got by fortune or chance. For that fortune
plays a very small part in the life of a wise man, whether coppersmith
or house-builder, and that the greatest works are wrought by art alone,
is shown by the poet in the following lines:--
"All handicraftsmen go into the street,
Ye that with fan-shaped baskets worship Ergane,
Zeus' fierce-eyed daughter;"[953]
for Ergane[954] and Athene, and not Fortune, do the trades regard as
their patrons. They do indeed say that Nealces,[955] on one occasion
painting a horse, was quite satisfied with his painting in all other
respects, but that some foam on the bridle from the horse's breath did
not please him, so that he frequently tried to rub it out; at last in
his anger he threw his sponge (just as it was, full of colours) at the
picture, and this very wonderfully produced exactly the effect he
desired. This is the only fortunate accident in art that history
records. Artificers everywhere use rules and weights and measures, that
none of their work may be done at random and anyhow. And indeed the arts
may be considered as wisdom on a small scale, or rather as emanations
from and fragments of wisdom scattered about among the necessities of
life; as the fire of Prometheus is riddled to have been divided and
scattered about in all quarters of the world. For thus small particles
and fragments of wisdom, breaking up as it were and getting divided into
pieces, have formed into order.
Sec. V. It is strange then that the arts do not require fortune to attain
to their ends, and yet that the most important and complete of all the
arts, the sum total of man's glory and merit, should be so completely
powerless. Why, there is a kind of wisdom even in the tightening or
slackening of chords, which people call music, and in the dressing of
food, which we call the art of cooking, and in cleaning clothes, which
we call the art of the fuller, and we teach boys how to put on their
shoes and clothes generally, and to take their meat in the right hand
and their bread in the left, since none of these things come by fortune,
but require attention and care. And are we to suppose that the most
important things which make so much for happiness do not call for
wisdom, and have nothing to do with reason and forethought? Why, no one
ever yet wetted earth with water and then left it, thinking it would
become bricks by fortune and spontaneously, or procured wool and
leather, and sat down and prayed Fortune that it might become clothes
and shoes; nor does anyone getting together much gold and silver and a
quantity of slaves, and living in a spacious hall with many doors, and
making a display of costly couches and tables, believe that these things
will constitute his happiness, and give him a painless happy life secure
from changes, unless he be wise also. A certain person asked the general
Iphicrates in a scolding way who he was, as he seemed neither a
heavy-armed soldier, nor a bowman, nor a targeteer, and he replied, "I
am the person who rule and make use of all these."
Sec. VI. So wisdom is neither gold, nor silver, nor fame, nor wealth, nor
health, nor strength, nor beauty. What is it then? It is what can use
all these well, and that by means of which each of these things becomes
pleasant and esteemed and useful, and without which they are useless;
and unprofitable and injurious, and a burden and disgrace to their
possessor. So Hesiod's Prometheus gives very good advice to Epimetheus,
"not to receive gifts from Olympian Zeus but to send them back,"[956]
meaning external things and things of fortune. For as if he urged one
who knew nothing of music not to play on the pipe, or one who knew
nothing of letters not to read, or one who was not used to horses not to
ride, so he advised him not to take office if he were foolish, nor to
grow rich if he were illiberal, nor to marry if likely to be ruled by
his wife. For success beyond their merit is to foolish persons a cause
of folly, as Demosthenes said,[957] and good fortune beyond their merit
is to those who are not sensible a cause of misfortune.[958]
[946] A line from Chaeremon.
[947] Better known as Paris.
[948] "Oedipus Tyrannus," 110, 111. Wyttenbach compares
Terence, "Heauton Timorumenos," 675. "Nil tam
difficilest, quin quaerende investigari possiet."
[949] Soph., Frag. 723.
[950] AEschylus, Fragm. 180. Reading [Greek: antidoula]
with Reiske and the MSS.
[951] Euripides, "AEolus," Fragm. 27.
[952] Homer, "Odyssey," viii. 246, 247.
[953] Soph., Frag. 724.
[954] "The Worker." Generally a title of Athene, as
Pausanias, i. 24; iii. 17; v. 14; vi. 26; viii. 32; ix.
26. Gataker thinks [Greek: kai ten] should be expunged.
Hercher omits [Greek: kai ten 'Athenan] altogether.
[955] So Hercher after Madvig. See Pliny, "Hist. Nat.,"
XXXV. 36, 20.
[956] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 86, 87.
[957] "Olynth.," i. 23.
[958] The whole of this essay reminds one of the
well-known lines of Juvenal, twice repeated--namely, x.
365, 366; and xiv. 315, 316:--
"Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia; nos te,
Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam caeloque locamus."
INDEX.
Abrotonus, 37.
Absence, the test of affection, 122.
Academy, the, 385.
Achilles, 5, 52, 102, 172, 187, 196, 200, 271, 290, 291, 301, 319.
Acropolis, statue of Leaena in the, 221.
Admetus, 52.
Adonis, 43, 352.
Adultery, the fruit of curiosity, 245.
Love of change, 298.
AEschines, 17, 188, 285.
AEschylus, quoted or referred to, 33, 45, 47, 55, 61, 125,
126, 130, 176, 203, 205, 242, 271, 273, 385, 388, 393, 396.
AEsculapius, 244, 270.
AEsop, fables of alluded to, 72, 81, 88, 125, 142.
Agamemnon, 292, 300, 301.
Agathoclea, 37.
Agathocles, 278, 324, 325, 347.
Agave, 144.
Agesilaus, 129, 136, 161, 166, 262, 264, 326.
Agis, 294.
Aglaonice, her knowledge of eclipses, 83.
Ajax, 113, 347.
Alcaeus, 56, 59.
Alcestis, 53.
Alcibiades, 54, 128, 135, 160, 192, 294, 338.
Alcman, 379.
Alexander, the Great, 16, 50, 113, 124, 137, 151, 162, 172, 174,
184, 185, 195, 250, 270, 277, 280, 292, 301, 303, 314, 321, 389,
390, 394.
Alexinus, 266.
Ammonius, Plutarch's master, 194.
Amoebeus, 102.
Amphictyones, 121, 230.
Anacharsis, 125, 219.
Anacreon, 33.
Anaxagoras, 136, 306, 373, 394, 397.
Anaxarchus, 107, 113, 253, 292.
Anger, how to restrain, 267-288.
Animals, appeal to, 21-25.
Use of, 202.
Answers, three different kinds of, 234.
Anticyra, 284.
Antigonus, 16, 38, 222, 258, 263, 276, 278, 326, 370.
Antileon, 50.
Antimachus, poet, 234.
Antipater, 77, 124, 182, 237, 260, 297.
Antipatridas, 50.
Antiphanes, 125.
Antiphon, 189.
Antisthenes, 266.
Antony, 176.
Anytus, 54, 141.
Apelles, 10, 171, 302.
Aphrodite, 34, 43, 44, 49, 76, 78, 80, 219.
Apollo, 154, 347, 377.
Araspes, 136.
Arcadio, 276.
Arcesilaus, 180, 283.
Archelaus, 258, 388.
Archidamus, king, 2, 264.
Archilochus, 215, 247, 387.
Archytas, of Tarentum, 11, 15, 336.
Ares, 44, 45, 47, 49.
Argus, 146.
Aristaeus (the _Saint Hubert_ of the Middle Ages), 45.
Aristides, 120, 136.
Aristippus, 6, 32, 93, 127, 128, 240, 285, 297.
Aristo, 98, 241.
Aristocrates, 322.
Aristogiton, 50, 67, 189, 220.
Aristomenes, the hero, 52.
Aristomenes, tutor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, 195.
Aristonica, 37.
Aristophanes, 15, 27, 43, 93, 195, 241.
Aristotle, 100, 101, 110, 124, 162, 215, 270, 278, 281, 303, 326,
386.
Arisinoe, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 16.
Artemis, 367.
Asopichus, 52.
Ass-driver, story of Athenian, 282.
Athene, ornament of, 366.
Athene and the Satyr, 273.
Athene Chalcioecus, 228.
Called Ergane, 397.
Athenians, oracle given to the, 367.
Attis, 43.
Augustus, 189, 224, 225.
Aulis, famous for earthenware, 366.
Bacchis, 37.
Barbers, a talkative race, 226, 227.
Baxter, Richard, and Plutarch, Preface, viii, note.
Belestiche, 38.
Bellerophon, 246, 255.
Bessus, story about, 341.
Bias, 176, 217, 332.
Bion, 10, 67, 132, 172, 258, 354.
Bocchoris, 255.
Books, value of, 12.
Boys, not to be overworked, 13.
To be taught to speak the truth, 16.
Love of, 17, 31, 33-35, 50, 51, 52, 54, 61, 64, 65, 67.
Brasidas, 120, 126, 331.
Briareus, 146, 150, 299.
Brides, custom of in Boeotia, 70, 71.
Custom of at Leptis in Libya, 79.
Caeneus, his change of sex, 120.
Caesar, Julius, 210.
Callimachus, 272, 385.
Callisthenes, 270.
Callixenus, 141.
Camma, story about, 63, 64.
Carneades, 172, 235, 237, 306, 310.
Cassander, 256, 339, 351.
Cassandra, 347.
Cato, 48, 72, 211, 212, 263, 325, 369.
Cebes, 17.
Cephisocrates, 181.
Cephisodorus, 52.
Ceramicus, at Athens, 219, 259.
Cestus of Aphrodite, 76, 219.
Chaeron, son of Plutarch, 87.
Chaeron, and Chaeronea, 238.
Chaeronea, Plutarch's native place, 238.
Chalcis, people of, 51.
Chameleon, 158, 162.
Character, moral, 102.
Childless, paid court to, 28.
Chilo, 151, 202.
Chrysippus, 44, 99, 110, 113, 114, 115.
Cicero, 210, 318, 320, 390.
Cimon, father of Miltiades, 27, 52.
Claudia, 84.
Cleanthes, 370.
Clearchus, 191.
Cleomachus, 51.
Cleonice, 343, 344.
Clitus, 113, 195, 277.
Clodius, 231, 232.
Clytaemnestra, dream of, 343.
Conjugal constancy, 81.
Conjugal precepts, 70-84.
Contentedness of mind, on, 289-311.
Contracts, 139.
Corax, 352.
Cornelia, sister of Scipio, 84.
Correction of servants, 279-281.
Crassus, 207, 208.
Crates, 76, 141, 191, 203, 292, 328, 370, 372.
Creon, his daughter, 151.
Crete, 202.
Crisso, 172.
Croesus, 171, 192.
Ctesiphon, 275.
Curiosity, 238-252.
Cybele, 47, 55, 82, 379.
Cyclades, 385.
Cynic, story about, 258.
Cynosarges, 32, note.
Cyrus, 79, 236, 250, 314, 326.
Danaus, 27.
Darius, 157, 250.
Deity, on those who are punished late by the, 331-365.
Demaratus, 193.
Demetrius, 8, 191, 230.
Democritus, 14, 110, 129, 142, 249, 377.
Demosthenes, 9, 128, 192, 205, 257, 259, 320, 321, 323, 331, 399.