The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
offering. These treasures they kept secreted in woods and forests,
secured by no other guard than the terrors of their religion; and their
steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than
their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts.
No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind
as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons. And the Romans after their
conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws
and institutions of their masters while it maintained its authority,
were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes, a violence which
had never in any other instance been resorted to by those tolerating
conquerors.”—_Hume’s History of England_, chap. 1. § 1.
[5] “Zamolxis, or Zalmoxis, so called from the bear-skin (ζάλμος) in
which he was wrapped as soon as he was born, was a Getan, and a slave of
Pythagoras at Samos; having been emancipated by his master, he travelled
into Egypt; and on his return to his own country he introduced the ideas
which he had acquired in his travels on the subject of civilisation,
religion, and the immortality of the soul. He was made priest of the
chief deity among the Getæ, and was afterwards himself worshipped as a
divine person. He was said to have lived in a subterraneous cavern for
three years, and after that to have re-appeared among his countrymen.”
Herodotus, however, who records these stories (iv. 95), expresses his
disbelief of them, placing him before the time of Pythagoras by many
years, and seems to incline to the belief that he was an indigenous Getan
deity.
[6] The real time of Zoroaster is, as may be supposed, very uncertain,
but he is said by some eminent writers to have lived in the time of
Darius Hystaspes; though others, apparently on better grounds, place
him at a very far earlier date. He is not mentioned by Herodotus at
all. His native country too is very uncertain. Some writers, among whom
are Ctesias and Ammian, call him a Bactrian, while Porphyry speaks
of him as a Chaldæan, and Pliny as a native of Proconnesus;—Niebuhr
considers him a purely mythical personage. The great and fundamental
article of the system (of the Persian theology) was the celebrated
doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern
philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil with
the attributes of a beneficent Creator and governor of the world. The
first and original being, in whom, or by whom the universe exists, is
denominated, in the writings of Zoroaster, _Time without bounds_.… From
either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time,
which bears but too near an affinity to the Chaos of the Greeks, the two
secondary but active principles of the universe were from all eternity
produced; Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of
creation, but each disposed by his invariable nature to exercise them
with different designs; the principle of good is eternally absorbed
in light, the principle of evil is eternally buried in darkness. The
wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly
provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his
vigilant providence the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons,
and the temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. But the maker
of Ahriman has long since pierced _Ormusd’s Egg_, or in other words,
has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal irruption, the
most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and
agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up among the most salutary
plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the conflict
of nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by vice
and misfortune. While the rest of mankind are led away captives in the
chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his
religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights
under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the
last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive period, the
enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of Ormusd superior
to the furious malice of his rival; Ahriman and his followers, disarmed
and subdued, will sink into their native darkness, and virtue will
maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.… As a legislator,
Zoroaster “discovered a liberal concern for the public and private
happiness seldom to be found among the visionary schemes of superstition.
Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine favour,
he condemns with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of
Providence.”—_Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, c. viii.
[7] This is the account given by Virgil—
Spretæ Ciconum quo munere matres
Inter sacra Deûm nocturnique orgia Bacchi,
Discerptum latos juvenem sparsere per agros.—GEORG. iv. 520.
Which Dryden translates—
The Thracian matrons who the youth accus’d,
Of love disdain’d and marriage rites refus’d;
With furies and nocturnal orgies fir’d,
At length against his sacred life conspir’d;
Whom ev’n the savage beasts had spar’d they kill’d,
And strew’d his mangled limbs about the field.
[8] This was the temple of the national deity of the Ionians, Neptune
Heliconius, on Mount Mycale.—Vide _Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq._
[9] Vide Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, ii. p. 34.
[10] One of the Sporades.
[11] An island near Crete.
[12] Hom. Il. 2. 671. Dryden’s Version.
[13] Vide Herod. lib. 1. c. 30-33.
[14] A drachma was something less than ten pence.
[15] “Ἔνη καὶ νέα the last day of the month: elsewhere τριανιὰς. So
called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar; now the moon’s
monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month
began with the sun and moon together at sunrise, at the month’s end it
would be sunset; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent
this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first
month; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging
to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell
into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Ἔνη καὶ
νέα.”—_L. & S. Greek Lexicon_, in v. ἔνος.
[16] Herodotus mentions the case of Periander’s children, iii. 50, and
the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian
women, v. 92.
[17] Some propose to read καρπὸν, _fruit_, instead of καπνὸν, _smoke_,
here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided
houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the
low cottage, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which would make more
smoke.
[18] This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became
regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on
against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head;
and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he compelled the
Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia.
[19] Φρύγανα, sticks or faggots.
[20] After the battle of Arginusæ.
[21] “This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the dæmon which
attended him, limited his warnings to his own conduct; preventing him
from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right.”—_See
Grote’s admirable chapter on Socrates. Hist. of Greece_, vol. v.
[22] Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this.
[23] The Greek is, ἐν τῷ πρὸς Ξενοφῶντα ἀποστασίου—“ἀποστασίου δίκη,
an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his
προστάτης.”—_L. & S._
[24] This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:—
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æequum.—
_Ep._ i. 23, 24.
[25] Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to
Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.
[26] The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is
meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:—
The _lying_ one is this:—Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies.
If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he
a liar?
The _concealed_ one:—Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do
not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.
The _veiled_ one is much the same as the preceding.
The _electra_ is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones:
Electra sees Orestes: she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not
know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does
not know, her brother at the same time.
The _Sorites_ is universally known.
The _bald_ one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man’s head
will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in
his head is pulled out.
The _horned_ one:—You have what you have not lost. You have not lost
horns, therefore you have horns.
[27] From ἐλέγχω, to confute.
[28] Κρόνος, take away Κ. ρ., leaves ὄνος, an ass.
[29] The quibble here is that θεὸς is properly only masculine, though it
is sometimes used as feminine.
[30] The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus.
Hom. Od. ii. 581, 592. See also, Dryden’s Version, B. ii. 719.
[31] The Greek is τοῦ μιμογράφου. “A _mime_ was a kind of prose drama,
intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any
distinct plot. It was divided into μῖμιοι ἀνδρεῖοι and γυναικεῖοι, also
into μῖμοι σπουδαίων and γελοίων.”—_L. &. S. in voc._ μῖμος.
[32] The Greek is, ὡς ἀνέπλαττε Πλάτων πεπλασμένα θαύματα εἰδώς.
[33] This figure was like a barbed arrow, according to Zevort.
[34] Herophilus was one of the most celebrated physicians of antiquity,
who founded the Medical School at Alexandria, in the time of the first
Ptolemy.
[35] Hom. Od. x. 387. Pope’s Version, 450.
[36] Perhaps there is a pun here; ἀστράγαλος means not only a knout
composed of small bones strung together, but also a die.
[37] This is a quotation from some lost play of Euripides, slightly
altered, the line, as printed in the Variorum Edition, vol. vii., Mc.
Trag. cxxx. is—
ἀκόλαστα πάντα γίνεται, δούλων τέκνα.
[38] There is a pun here which is untranslateable. The Greek is πλὴν ὅταν
τόκος παρῇ, meaning usury, and also offspring or delivery.
[39] Hom. Od. x. 335. Pope’s Version, 387.
[40] Hom. Il. vi. 211. Pope’s Version, 254.
[41] This is a quotation from the Hippolytus of Euripides, v. 424.
[42] I doubt if the wit of these parodies will be appreciated by the
modern reader. The lines of Homer, which they are intended to parody,
are:—
Ὦ μάκαρ Ατρεΐδη, μοιρηγενὲς, ὀλβιοδαίμων.—_Il._ 3, 182.
ἠέ συ Πηλεΐδη, πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ’ ἀνδρῶν.—_Il._ v. 146.
The first of which is translated by Pope:—
Oh, blest Atrides, born of prosperous fate,
Successful monarch of a mighty state!
The Greek parody in the text is:—
Ὦ πέπον Ἀρχύτα, ψαλληγενὲς, ὀλβιότυφε
Τῆς ὑπάτης ἔριδος πάντων ἐμπειρότατ’ ἀνδρῶν.
[43] From λύω, _solvo_, to relax or weaken the limbs.
[44] From περιπατέω, “to walk about.”
[45] Il. 18, 95.
[46] This very spirited version I owe to the kindness of my brother, the
Rev. J. E. Yonge, of Eton College.
[47] “ἐντελέχεια, the actuality of a thing, as opposed to simple
capability or potentiality (δύναμις); a philosophic word invented by
Aristotle.— … quite distinct from ἐνδελέχεια, though Cicero (Tusc. i.
10,) confounded them.”—_L. & S. in voc._
[48] From θεῖος divine, and φράσις diction.