Reader

Can you tell me, Philocles, what in the world it is that makes many men so fond of lying that they delight in telling preposterous tales themselves and listen with especial attention to those who spin yarns of that sort? PHILOCLES There are many reasons, Tychiades, which constrain men occasionally to tell falsehoods with an eye to the usefulness of it. TYCHIADES That has nothing to do with the case, as the phrase is, for I did not ask about men who lie for advantage. They are pardonable—yes, even praiseworthy, some of them, who have deceived national enemies or for safety’s sake have used this kind of expedient in extremities, as Odysseus often did in seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades.An echo of Odyssey1, 5. No, my dear sir, I am speaking of those men who put sheer useless lying far ahead of truth, liking the thing and whiling away their time at it without any valid excuse. I want to know about these men, to what end they do this.

PHILOCLES Have you really noted any such men anywhere in whom this passion for lying is ingrained? TYCHIADES Yes, there are many such men. PHILOCLES What other reason, then, than folly may they be said to have for telling untruths, since they choose the worst course instead of the best? — TYCHIADES That too has nothing to do with the case, Philocles, for I could show you many men otherwise sensible and remarkable for their intelligence who have somehow become infected with this plague and are lovers of lying, so that it irks me when such men, excellent in every way, yet delight in deceiving themselves and their associates. Those of olden time should be known to you before I mention them— Herodotus, and Ctesias of Cnidus, and before them the poets, including Homer himself—men of renown, who made use of the written lie, so that they not only deceived those who listened to them then, but transmitted the falsehood from generation to generation even down to us, conserved in the choicest of diction and rhythm. For my part it. often occurs to me to blush for them when they tell of the castration of Uranus, and the fetters of Prometheus, and the revolt of the Giants, and the whole sorry show in Hades, and how Zeus turned into a bull or a swan on account of a loveaffair, and how some woman changed into a bird or a bear; yes, andof Pegasi, Chimaerae, Gorgons, Cyclopes, and so forth—very strange and wonderful fables, fit to enthrall the souls of children who still dread Mormo and Lamia.

Yet as far as the poets are concerned, perhaps the case is not so bad; but is it not ridiculous that even cities and whole peoples tell lies unanimously and officially? The Cretans exhibit the tomb of Zeus and are not ashamed of it, and the Athenians assert that Erichthonius sprang from the earth and that the first men came up out of the soil of Attica like vegetables; but at that their story is much more dignified than that of the Thebans, who relate that ““Sown Men” grew up from serpents’ teeth. If any man, however, does not think that these silly stories are true, but sanely puts them to the proof and holds that only a Coroebus or a Margites

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can believe either that Triptolemus drove through the air behind winged serpents, or that Pan came from Arcadia to Marathon to take a hand in the battle, or that Oreithyia was carried off by Boreas, they consider that man a sacrilegious fool for doubting facts so evident and genuine; to such an extent does falsehood prevail.

PHILOCLES Well, as far as the poets are concerned, Tychiades, and the cities too, they may properly be pardoned. The poets flavour their writings with the delectability that the fable yields, a most seductive thing, which they need above all else for the benefit of their readers; and the Athenians, Thebans and others, if any there be, make their countries more impressive by such means. In fact, if these fabulous tales should be taken away from Greece, there would be nothing to prevent the guides there from starving to death, as the foreigners would not care to hear the truth, even gratis! On the other hand, those who have no such motive and yet delight in lying may properly be thought utterly ridiculous.

TYCHIADES You are quite right in what you say. For example, I come to you from Eucrates the magnificent, having listened to a great lot of incredible yarns; to put it more accurately, I took myself off in the midst of the conversation because I could not stand the exaggeration of the thing: they drove me out as if they had been the Furies by telling quantities of extraordinary miracles. PHILOCLES But, Tychiades, Eucrates is a trustworthy person, and nobody could ever believe that he, with such a long beard, a man of sixty, and a great devotee of philosophy too, would abide even to hear someone else tell a lie in his presence, let alone venturing to do anything of that sort himself. TYCHIADES Why, my dear fellow, you do not know what sort of statements he made, and how he confirmed them, and how he actually swore to most of them, taking oath upon his children, so that as I gazed at him all sorts of ideas came into my head, now that he was insane and out of his right mind, now that he was only a fraud, after all, and I had failed, in all these years, to notice that his lion’s skin covered a silly ape; so extravagant were the stories that he told. PHILOCLES What were they, Tychiades, in the name of Hestia?The oath amounts to “In the name of friendship.” I should like to know what sort of quackery he has been screening behind that great beard.

TYCHIADES I used to visit. him previously, Philocles, whenever I had a good deal of leisure; and to-day, when I wanted to find Leontichus, a close friend of mine, as you know, and was told by his boy that he had gone off to the house of Eucrates in the early morning to pay him a call because he was ill, I went there for two reasons, both to find Leontichus and to see Eucrates, for I had not known that he was ill. I did not find Leontichus there, for he had just gone out a little while before, they said; but I found plenty of others, among whom there was Cleodemus the Peripatetic, and Deinomachus the Stoic, and Ion —you know the one that thinks he ought to be admired for his mastery of Plato’s doctrines as the only person who has accurately sensed the man’s meaning and can expound it to the rest of the world. You see what sort of men I am naming to you, allwise and all-virtuous, the very fore-front of each school, every one venerable, almost terrible, to look at. In addition, the physician Antigonus was there, called in, I suppose, by reason of the illness. Eucrates seemed to be feeling better already, and the ailment was of a chronic character; he had had another attack of rheumatism in his feet. He bade me sit by him on the couch, letting his voice drop a little to the tone of an invalid when he saw me, although as I was coming in I heard him shouting and vigorously pressing some point or other. I took very good care not to touch his feet, and after making the customary excuses that I did not know he was ill and that when I learned of it I came in hot haste, sat down beside him.

It so happened that the company had already, I think, talked at some length about his ailment and were then discussing it further; they were each suggesting certain remedies, moreover. At any rate Cleodemus said: “Well then, if you take up from the ground in your left hand the tooth of the weasel which has been killed in the way I have already described and wrap it up in the skin of a lion just flayed, and then bind it about your legs, the pain ceases instantly.” “Not in a lion’s skin, I was told,” said Deinomachus, “but that of a hind still immature and unmated; and the thing is more plausible that way, for the hind is fleet and her strength lies especially in her legs. The lion is brave, of course, and his fat and his right fore-paw and the stiff bristles of his whiskers are very potent if one knew how to use them with the incantation appropriate to each; but for curing the feet he is not at all promising.” “I myself,” said Cleodemus, “was of that opinion formerly, that it ought to be the skin of a hind because the hind is fleet; but recently a man from Libya, well informed in such things, taught me better, saying that lions were fleeter than deer. ‘No fear!’ said he: ‘They even chase and catch them!’”

The company applauded, in the belief that the Libyan was right in what he said. But I said, “Do you really think that certain incantations put a stop to this sort of thing, or external applications, when the trouble has its seat within?” They laughed at my remark andclearly held meconvicted of great stupidity if I did not know the most obvious things, of which nobody in his right mind would maintain that they were not so. The doctor Antigonus, however, seemed to me to be pleased with my question, for he had been overlooked a long time, I suppose, when he wanted to aid Eucrates in a professional — way by advising him to abstain from wine, adopt a vegetarian diet, and in general to “lower his pitch.” But Cleodemus, with a faint smile, said: ‘“What is that, Tychiades? Do you consider it incredible that any alleviations of ailments are effected by such means?” “I do,’ said I, “not being altogether full of drivel, so as to believe that external remedies which have nothing to do with the internal causes of the ailments, applied as you say in combination with set phrases and _ hocus-pocus of some sort, are efficacious and bring on the cure. That could never happen, not even if you should wrap sixteen entire weasels in the skin of the Nemean lion; in fact I have often seen the lion himself limping in pain with his skin intact upon him!”

“You are a mere layman, you see,’ said Deinomachus, “and you have not made it a point to learn how such things agree with ailments when they are applied. I do not suppose you would accept even the most obvious instances—periodic fevers driven off, snakes charmed, swellings cured, and whatever else even old wives do. But if all that takes place, why in the world will you not believe that this takes place by similar means?” “You are reasoning from false premises, Deinomachus,” I replied, “and, as the saying goes, driving. out one nail with another; for it is not clear that precisely what you are speaking of takes place by the aid of any such power. If, then, you do not first convince me by logical proof that it takes place in this way naturally, because the fever or the inflammation is afraid of a holy name or a foreign phrase and so takes flight from the swelling, your stories still remain old wives’ fables.”

“It seems to me,” said Deinomachus, “that when you talk like that you do not believe in the gods, either, since you do not think that cures can be effected through holy names.’ “Don’t say that, my dear sir!” I replied. “Even though the gods exist, there is nothing to prevent that sort of thing from being false just the same. For my part, I revere the gods and I see their cures and all the good that they do by restoring the sick to health with drugs and doctoring. In fact, Asclepius himself and his sons ministered to the sick by laying on healing drugs, not by fastening on lions’ skins and weasels.”

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“Never mind him,” said Ion, “and I will tell you a wonderful story. I was still a young lad, about fourteen years old, when someone came and told my father that Midas the vine-dresser, ordinarily a strong and industrious servant, had been bitten by a viper toward midday and was lying down, with his leg already in a state of mortification. While he was tying up the runners and twining them about the poles, the creature had crawled up and bitten him on the great toe; then it had quickly gone down again into its hole, and he was groaning in mortal anguish. “As this report was being maile, we saw Midas himself being brought up on a litter by his fellowslaves, all swollen and livid, with a clammy skin and but little breath left in him. Naturally my father was distressed, but a friend who was there said to him: ‘Cheer up: I will at once go and get you a Babylonian, one of the so-called Chaldeans, who will cure the fellow.’ Not to make a long story of it, the Babylonian came and brought Midas back to life, driving the poison out of his body by a spell, and also binding upon his foot a fragment which he broke from the tombstone of a dead maiden. “Perhaps this is nothing out of the common: although Midas himself picked up the litter on which he had been carried and went off to the farm, so potent was the spell and the fragment of the tombstone.

But the Babylonian did other things that were truly miraculous. Going to the farm in the early morning, he repeated seven sacred names out of an old book, purified the place with sulphur and torches, going about. it three times, and called out all the reptiles that there were inside the boundaries. They came as if they were being drawn in response to the spell, snakes in great numbers, asps, vipers, horned snakes, darters, common toads, and puff-toads; one old python, however, was missing, who on account of his age, I suppose, could not creep out and so failed to comply with the command. The magician said that not all were there, and electing one of the snakes messenger, the youngest, sent him after the python, who presently came too. When they were assembled, the Babylonian blew on them and they were all instantly burned up by the blast, and we were amazed.”

“Tell me, Ion,” said I, “did the messenger snake, the young one, give his arm to the python, who you say was aged, or did the python have a stick and lean on it?” “You are joking,” said Cleodemus: “I myself was formerly more incredulous than you in regard to such things, for I thought it in no way possible that they could happen; but when first I saw the foreign stranger fly—he came from the land of the Hyperboreans, he said—, I believed and was conquered after long resistance. What was I to do when I saw him soar through the air in broad daylight and walk on the water and go through fire slowly on foot?” “Did you see that?’ said I—“the Hyperborean flying, or stepping on the water?” “Certainly,” said he, “with brogues on his feet such as people of that country commonly wear. As for the trivial feats, what is the use of telling all that he performed, sending Cupids after people, bringing up supernatural beings, calling mouldy corpses to life, making Hecate herself appear in plain sight, and pulling down the moon?

But after all, I will tell you what I saw him do in the house of Glaucias, son of Alexicles. “Immediately after Glaucias’ father died and he acquired the property, he fell in love with Chrysis, the wife of Demeas. I was in his employ as his tutor in philosophy, and if that love-affair had not kept him too busy, he would have known all the teachings of the Peripatetic school, for even at eighteen he was solving fallacies and had completed the course of lectures on natural philosophy.Aristotle’s Physics. At his wit’s end, however, with his love-affair, he told me the whole story; and as was natural, since I was his tutor, I brought him that Hyperborean magician at a fee of four minas down (it was necessary to pay something in advance towards the cost of the victims) and sixteen if he should obtain Chrysis. The man waited for the moon to wax, as it is then, for the most part, that such rites are performed; and after digging a pit in an open court of the house, at about midnight he first summoned up for us Alexicles, Glaucias’ father, who had died seven months before. The old gentleman was indignant over the love-affair . and flew into a passion, but at length he permitted him to go on with it after all. Next he brought up Hecate, who fetched Cerberus with her, and he drew down the moon, a many-shaped spectacle, appearing differently at different times; for at first she exhibited the form of a woman, then she turned into a handsome bull, and then she looked like a puppy. Finally, the Hyperborean made a little Cupid out of Clay and said: ‘Go and fetch Chrysis.’ The clay took wing, and before long Chrysis stood on the threshold knocking at the door, came in and embraced Glaucias as if she loved him furiously, and remained with him until we heard the cocks crowing. Then the moon flew up to the sky, Hecate plunged beneath the earth, the other phantasms disappeared, and we sent Chrysis home at just about dawn.

If you had seen that, Tychiades, you would no longer have doubted that there is much good in spells.” “Quite so,” said I, “I should have believed if I had seen it, but as things are I may perhaps be pardoned if I am not able to see as clearly as you. However, I know the Chrysis whom you speak of, an amorous dame and an accessible one, and I do not see why you needed the clay messenger and the Hyperborean magician and the moon in person to fetch her, when for twenty drachmas she could have been brought to the Hyperboreans! The woman is very susceptible to that spell, and her case is the opposite to that of ghosts; if they hear a chink of bronze or iron, they take flight, so you say, but as for her, if silver chinks anywhere, she goes toward the sound. Besides, I am surprised at the magician himself, if he was able to have the love of the richest women and get whole talents from them, and yet made Glaucias fascinating, penny-wise that he is, for four minas.”’ “You act ridiculously,” said Ion, “to doubt everything.

For my part, I should like to ask you what you say to those who free possessed men from their terrors by exorcising the spirits so manifestly. I need not discuss this: everyone knows about the Syrian from Palestine, the adept in it,

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how many he. takes in hand who fall down in the light of the moon and roll their eyes and fill their mouths with foam; nevertheless, he restores them to health and sends them, away normal in mind, delivering them from their straits for a large fee. When he stands beside them as they lie there and asks: ‘Whence came you into his body?’ the patient himself is silent, but the spirit answers in Greek or in the language of whatever foreign country he comes from, telling how and whence he entered into the man; whereupon, by adjuring the spirit and if he does not obey, threatening him, he drives him out. Indeed, I actually saw one coming out, black and smoky in colour.” “It is nothing much,” I remarked, “for you, Ion, to see that kind of sight, when even the ‘ forms’? that the father of your school, Plato, points out are plain to you, a hazy object of vision to the rest of us, whose eyes are weak.”

“Why, is Ion the only one who has seen that kind of sight?” said Eucrates. “Have not many others encountered spirits, some at night and some by day? For myself, I have seen such things, not merely once but almost hundreds of times. At first I was disturbed by them, but now, of course, because of their familiarity, I do not consider that I am seeing anything out of the way, especially since the Arab gave me the ring made of iron from crosses and taught me the spell of many names. But perhaps you will doubt me also, Tychiades.” “How could I doubt Eucrates, the son of Deinon,” said I, “alearned and an uncommonly independent gentleman, expressing his opinions in his own home, with complete liberty?”

“Anyhow,” said Eucrates, “the affair of the statue was observed every night by everybody in the house, boys, young men and old men, and you could hear about it not only from me but from all our people.”” “Statue!” said I, ‘what do you mean?” “Have you not observed on coming in,’ said he, “avery fine statue set up in the hall, the work of Demetrius, the maker of portrait-statues?” “Do you mean the discus-thrower,”’ said I, “the one bent over in the position of the throw, with his head turned back toward the hand that holds the discus, with one leg slightly bent, looking as if he would spring up all at once with the cast?” “Not that one,” said he, “for that is one of Myron’s works, the discus-thrower you speak of. Neither do I mean the one beside it, the one binding his head with the fillet, the handsome Jad, for that is Polycleitus’ work. Never mind those to the right as you come in, among which stand the tyrant-slayers, modelled’ by Critius and Nesiotes; but if you noticed one beside the fountain, pot-bellied, bald on the forehead, half bared by the hang of his cloak, with some of the hairs of his beard wind-blown and his veins prominent, the image of a real man, that is the one I mean; he is thought to be Pellichus, the Corinthian general.”Probably the Pellichus named as the father of Aristeus, a Corinthian general in the expedition against Epidamnus in 434 B.c. The statue would thus be about contemporary with that of Simon by the same Demetrius of Alopece, which is mentioned in Aristophanes. It is surprisingly realistic for so early a period. Furtwangler thought the description inaccurate, but the statue may have been the work of some later Demetrius. Certainly its identification as a portrait of Pellichus was conjectural (δοκεῖ).

“Yes,” I said, “I saw one to the right of the spout, wearing fillets and withered wreaths, his breast covered with gilt leaves.” “I myself puton the gilt leaves,’ said Eucrates, “when he cured me of the ague that was torturing me to death every other day.” “Really, is our excellent Pellichus a doctor also?” said I. “Do not mock,” Eucrates replied, “or before long the man will punish you. I know what virtue there is in this statue that you make fun of. Don’t you suppose that he can send fevers upon whomsoever he will, since it is possible for him to send them away?” “May the manikin be gracious and kindly,” said I, “since he is so manful. But what else does everyone in the house see him doing?” “As soon as night comes,” he said, “he gets down from the pedestal on which he stands and goes all about the house; we all encounter him, sometimes singing, and he has never harmed anybody. One has but to turn aside, and he passes without molesting in any way those who saw him. Upon my word, he often takes baths and disports himself all night, so that the water can be heard splashing.” “See here, then,” said I, “perhaps the statue is not Pellichus but Talos the Cretan, the son of Minos; he was a bronze man, you know, and made the rounds in Crete. If he were made of wood instead of bronze, there would be nothing to hinder his being one of the devices of Daedalus instead of a work of Demetrius; anyhow, he is like them in playing truant from his pedestal, by what you say.”

“See here, Tychiades,” said he, “‘perhaps you will be sorry for your joke later on. I know what happened to the man who stole the obols that we offer him on the first of each month.” “It ought to have been something very dreadful,” said Ion, “since he committed a sacrilege. How was he punished, Eucrates? I should like to hear about it, no matter how much Tychiades here is going to doubt it.” “A number of obols,” he said, “were lying at his feet, and some other small coins of silver had been stuck to his thigh with wax, and leaves of silver, votive offerings or payment for a cure from one or another of those who through him had ceased to be subject to fever. We had a plaguy Libyan servant, a groom; the fellow undertook to steal and did steal everything that was there, at night, after waiting until the statue had descended. But as soon as Pellichus came back and discovered that he had been robbed, mark how he punished and exposed the Libyan! The unhappy man ran about the hall the whole night long unable to get out, just as if he had been thrown into a labyrinth, until finally he was caught in possession of the stolen property when daycame. He got a sound thrashing then, on being caught, and he did not long survive the incident, dying a rogue’s death from being flogged, he said, every night, so that welts showed on his body the next day. In view of this, Tychiades, mock Pellichus and think me as senile as if I were a contemporary of Minos!” “Well, Eucrates,” I said, “as long as bronze is bronze and the work a product of Demetrius of Alopece, who makes men, not gods, I shall never be afraid of the statue of Pellichus, whom I should not have feared very much even when he was alive if he threatened me.”

Thereupon Antigonus, the physician, said, “I myself, Eucrates, have a bronze Hippocrates about eighteen inches high. As soon as the light is out, he goes all about the house making noises, turning out the vials, mixing up the medicines, and overturning the mortar, particularly when we are behindhand with the sacrifice which we make to him every year.” “Has it gone so far,’ said I, “that even Hippocrates the physician demands sacrifice in his honour and gets angry if he is not feasted on unblemished victims at the proper season? He ought to be well content if anyone should bring food to his tomb or pour him a libation of milk and honey or put a wreath about his gravestone!”

“Let me tell you,” said Eucrates, “—this, I assure you, is supported by witnesses—what I saw five years ago. It happened to be the vintage season of the year; passing through the farm at midday, I left the labourers gathering the grapes and went off by myself into the wood, thinking about something in the meantime and turning it over in my mind. When I was under cover, there came first a barking of dogs, and I supposed that my son Mnason was at his usual sport of following the hounds, and had entered the thicket with his companions. This was not the case, however; but after a short time there . came an earthquake and with it a noise as of thunder, and then I saw a terrible woman coming toward me, quite half a furlong in height. She had a torch in her left hand and a sword in her right, ten yards long; below, she had snake-feet, and above she resembled the Gorgon, in her stare, I mean, and the frightfulness of her appearance; moreover, instead of hair she had the snakes falling down in ringlets, twining about her neck, and some of them coiled upon her shoulders.—See,” said he, “how my flesh . creeps, friends, as I tell the story!’ And as he spoke he showed the hairs on his forearm standing on end (would you believe it?) because of his terror!

Ion, Deinomachus, Cleodemus, and the rest of them, open-mouthed, were giving him unwavering attention, old men led by the nose, all but doing obeisance to so unconvincing a colossus, a woman half a furlong in height, a gigantic bugaboo! For my part I was thinking in the meantime: “They associate with young men to make them wise and are admired by many, but what are they themselves? Only their grey hair and their beard distinguishes them from infants, and for the rest of it, even infants are not so amenable to falsehood.”

Deinomachus, for instance, said: “Tell me, Eucrates, the dogs of the goddess—how big were they?” “Taller than Indian elephants,” he replied; “black, like them, with a shaggy coat of filthy, tangled hair.— Well, at sight of her I stopped, at the same time turning the gem that the Arab gave me to the inside of my finger, and Hecate, stamping on the ground with her serpent foot, made a tremendous chasm, as deep as Tartarus; then after a little she leaped into it and was gone. I plucked up courage and looked over, taking hold of a tree that grew close by, in order that I might not get a dizzy turn and fall into it headlong. Then I saw everything in Hades, the River of Blazing Fire, and the Lake, and Cerberus, and the dead, well enough to recognise some of them. My father, for instance, I saw distinctly, still wearing the same clothes in which we buried him.” “What were the souls doing, Eucrates?”’ said Ion. “What else would they be doing,” he said, “except lying upon the asphodel to while away the time, along with their friends and kinsmen by tribes and clans?”’ “Now let the Epicureans go on contradicting holy Plato,” said Ion, “and his doctrine about the souls! But you did not see Socrates himself and Plato among the dead?” “Socrates I saw,” he replied, “and even him not for certain but by guess, because he was bald and pot-bellied; Plato I could not recognise, for one must tell the truth to friends, I take it. “No sooner had I seen everything sufficiently well than the chasm came together and closed up; and some of the servants who were seeking me, Pyrrhias here among them, came upon the scene before the chasm had completely closed. Tell them, Pyrrhias, whether I am speaking the truth or not.” “Yes, by Heaven,” said Pyrrhias, “and I heard barking, too, through the chasm and a gleam of fire was shining, from the torch, I suppose.’ I had to laugh when the witness, to give good measure, threw in the barking and the fire!

Cleodemus, however, said, “These sights that you saw are not novel and unseen by anyone else, for I myself when I was taken sick not long ago witnessed something similar. Antigonus here visited and attended me. It was the seventh day, and the fever was like a calenture of the most raging type. Leaving me by myself and shutting the door, they all were waiting outside; for you had given orders to that: effect, Antigonus, on the chance that I might fall asleep. Well, at that time there appeared at my side while I lay awake a very handsome young man, wearing a white cloak; then, raising me to my feet, he led me through a chasm to Hades, as I realised at once when I saw Tantalus and Ixion and Tityus and Sisyphus. Why should I tell you all the details? But when I came to the court—Aeacus and Charon and the Fates and the Furies were there—a person resembling a king (Pluto, I suppose) sat reading off the names of those about to die because their lease of life chanced to have already expired. The young man speedily set me before him; but Pluto was angry and said to my guide: ‘ His thread is not yet ‘fully spun, so let him be off, and bring me the blacksmith Demylus, for he is living beyond the spindle.’ I hastened back with a joyful heart, and from that time was free from fever; but I told everyone that Demylus would die. He lived next door to us, and himself had some illness, according to report. And after a little while we heard the wailing of his mourners.”

“What is there surprising in that?” said Antigonus: “I know a man who came to life more than twenty days after his burial, having attended the fellow both before his death and after he came to life.’ “How was it,” said I, “that in twenty days the body neither corrupted nor simply wasted away from inanition? Unless it was an Epimenides

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whom you attended.”

While we were exchanging these words the sons of Eucrates came in upon us from the palaestra, one already of age, the other about fifteen years old, and after greeting us sat down upon the couch beside their father; a chair was brought in forme. Then, as if reminded by the sight of his sons, Eucrates said: “As surely as I hope that these boys will be a joy to me”—and he laid his hand upon them— “what I am about to tell you, Tychiades, is true. Everyone knows how I loved their mother, my wife of blessed memory; I made it plain by what I did for her not only while she was alive but even when she died, for I burned on the pyre with her all the ornaments and the clothing that she liked while she lived. On the seventh day after her death I was lying here on the couch, just as I am now, consoling my grief; for I was peacefully reading Plato’s book about the soul. While I was thus engaged, Demaenete herself in person came in upon me and sat down beside me, just as Eucratides here is sitting now”—with a gesture toward the younger of his sons, who at once shuddered in a very boyish way; he had already been pale for some time over the story. ‘“When I saw her,” Eucrates continued, “I caught her in my arms with a cry of grief and began to weep. She would not permit me to cry, however, but began to find fault with me because, although I had given her everything else, I had not burned one of her gilt sandals, which, she said, was under the chest, where it had been thrown aside. That was why we did not find it and burned only the one. We were continuing our conversation when a cursed toy dog that was under the couch, a Maltese, barked, and she vanished at his barking. The sandal, however, was found under the chest and was burned afterwards.

“Is it right, Tychiades, to doubt these apparitions any longer, when they are distinctly seen and a matter of daily occurrence?” “No, by Heaven,” I said: “those who doubt and are so disrespectful toward truth deserve to be spanked like children, with a gilt sandal!”

At this juncture Arignotus the Pythagorean came in, the man with the long hair and the majestic face—you know the one who is renowned for wisdom, whom they call holy. As I caught sight of him, I drew a breath of relief, thinking: “There now, a broadaxe has come to hand to use against their lies. The wise man will stop their mouths when they tell such prodigious yarns.” I thought that Fortune had trundled him in to me like a deus ex machina, as the phrase is. But when Cleodemus had made room for him and he was seated, he first asked about the illness, and when Eucrates told him ‘that it was already less troublesome, said: “What were you debating among yourselves? As I came in, I overheard you, and it seemed to me that you were on the point of giving a fine turn to the conversation!” “We are only trying to persuade this man of adamant,” said Eucrates, pointing at me, “to believe that spirits and phantoms exist, and that souls of dead men go about above ground and appear to whomsoever they will.” I flushed and lowered my © eyes out of reverence for Arignotus. ‘“Perhaps, Eucrates,” he said, “Tychiades means that only the ghosts of those who died by violence walk, for example, if a man hanged himself, or had his head cut off, or was crucified, or departed life in some similar way; and that those of men who died a natural death do not. If that is what he means, we cannot altogether reject what he says.” “No, by Heaven,” replied Deinomachus, “he thinks that such things do not exist at all and are not seen in bodily form.”

“What is that you say?” said Arignotus, with a sour look at me. “Do you think that none of these things happen, although everybody, I may say, sees them?’ “Plead in my defence,” said I,“if I do not believe in them, that I am the only one of all who does not see them; if I saw them, I should believe in them, of course, just as you do.” “Come,” said he, “if ever you go to Corinth, ask where the house of Eubatides is, and when it is pointed out to you beside Cornel Grove, enter it and say to the doorman Tibius that you should like to see where the Pythagorean Arignotus exhumed the spirit and drove it away, making the house habitable from that time on.

“What was that, Arignotus? asked Eucrates. “It was uninhabitable,” he replied, “for a long time because of terrors; whenever anyone took up his abode in it, he fled in panic at once, chased out by a fearful, terrifying phantom. So it was falling in and the roof was tumbling down, and there was nobody at all who had the courage to enter it. When I heard all this, I took my books—I have a great number of Egyptian works about such matters— and went into the house at bed-time, although my host tried to'dissuade me and all but held me when he learned where I was going—into misfortune with . my eyes open, he thought. But taking a lamp I went in alone; in the largest room I put down the light and was reading peacefully, seated on the ground, when the spirit appeared, thinking that he was setting upon a man of the common sort and expecting to affright me as he had the others; he was squalid and long-haired and blacker than the dark. Standing over me, he made attempts upon me, attacking me from all sides to see if he could get the best of me anywhere, and turning now into a dog, now into a bull or a lion. But I brought into play my most frightful imprecation, speaking the’ Egyptian language, pent him up in a certain corner of a dark room, and laid him. Then, having observed where he went down, I slept for the rest of the night. “In the morning, when everybody had given up hope and expected to find me dead like the others, I came forth to the surprise of all and went to Eubatides with the good tidings that he could now inhabit his house, which was purged and free from terrors. So, taking him along and many of the others too—they went wit us because the thing was so amazing—I led them to the place where I had seen that the spirit had gone down and told them to take picks and shovels and dig. When they.did so, there was found buried about six feet deep a mouldering body of which only the bones lay together in order. We exhumed and buried it; and the house from that time ceased to be troubled by the phantoms.”

When Arignotus, a man of superhuman wisdom, revered by all, told this story, there was no longer any one of those present who did not hold me convicted of gross folly if I doubted such things, especially as the narrator was Arignotus. Nevertheless I did not blench either at his long hair or at the reputation which encompassed him, but said: “What is this, Arignotus? Were you, Truth’s only hope, just like the rest—full of moonshine and vain imaginings? Indeed the saying has come true: our pot of gold has turned out to be nothing but coals.” “Come now,” said Arignotus, “if you put no trust either in me or in Deinomachus or Cleodemus here or in Eucrates himself, tell whom you consider more trustworthy in such matters that maintains the opposite view to ours.” A very wonderful man,” said I, “that Democritus who came from Abdera, who surely was thoroughly convinced that nothing of this kind can exist. He shut himself up in a tomb outside the gates, and constantly wrote and composed there by night and by day. Some of the young fellows, wishing to annoy and alarm him, dressed themselves up like dead men in black robes and masks patterned after skulls, encircled him and danced round and round, in quick time, leaping into the air. Yet he neither feared their travesty nor looked up at them at all, but as he wrote said: ‘Stop your foolery!’ So firmly did he believe that souls are nothing after they have gone out of their bodies.” “That,” said Eucrates, “amounts to your saying that Democritus, too, was a foolish man, if he really thought so.

But I will tell you another incident derived from my own experience, not from hearsay. Perhaps even you, Tychiades, when you have heard it, may be convinced of the truth of the story. “When I was living in Egypt during my youth (my father had sent me travelling for the purpose of completing my education), I took it into my head to sail up to Koptos and go from there to the statue of Memnon in order to hear it sound that marvellous salutation to the rising sun. Well, what I heard from it was not a meaningless voice, as in the general experience of common people; Memnon himself actually opened his mouth and delivered me an oracle in seven verses, and if it were not too much of a digression, I would have repeated the very verses for you.

But on the voyage up, there chanced to be sailing with us a man from Memphis, one of the scribes ot the temple, wonderfully learned, familiar with all the culture of the Egyptians. He was said to have lived underground for twenty-three years in their sanctuaries, learning magic from Isis.” “You mean Pancrates,” said Arignotus, “my own teacher, a holy man, clean shaven, in white linen, always deep in thought, speaking imperfect Greek, tall, flat-nosed, with protruding lips and thinnish legs.” ‘That self-'same Pancrates,’ he replied: “and at first I did not know who he was, but when I saw him working all sorts of wonders whenever we anchored the boat, particularly riding on crocodiles and swimming in company with the beasts, while they fawned and wagged their tails, I recognised that he was a holy man, and by degrees, through my friendly behaviour, I became his companion and associate, so that he shared all his secret knowledge with me. “At last he persuaded me to leave all my servants behind in Memphis and to go with him quite alone, for we should not lack people to wait upon us; and thereafter we got on in that way.

But whenever we came to a stopping-place, the man would take either the bar of the door or the broom or even the pestle, put clothes upon it, say a certain spell over it, and make it walk, appearing to everyone else to be a man. It would go off and draw water and buy provisions and prepare meals and in every way deftly serve and wait upon us. Then, when he was through with its services, he would again make the broom a broom or the pestle a pestle by saying another spell over it. “Though I was very keen to learn this from him, I could not do so, for he was jealous, although most ready to oblige in everything else. But one day I secretly overheard the spell—it was just three syllables—by taking my stand in a dark place. He went off to the square after telling the pestle what it had to do,

and on the next day, while he was transacting some business in the square, I took the pestle, dressed it up in the same way, said the syllables over it, and told it to carry water. When it had filled and brought in the jar, I said, ‘Stop! don’t carry any more water: be a pestle again!’ But it would not obey me now: it kept straight on carrying until it filled the house with water for us by pouring it in! At my wit’s end over the thing, for I feared that Pancrates might come back and be angry, as was indeed the case, I took an axe and cut the pestle in two; but each part took a jar and began to carry water, with the result that instead of one servant I had now two. Meanwhile Pancrates appeared on the scene, and comprehending what had happened, turned them into wood again, just as they were before the spell, and then for his own part left me to my own devices without warning, taking himself off out of sight somewhere.” “Then you still know how to turn the pestle into a man?” said Deinomachus. “Yes,’ said he: “only half way, however, for I cannot bring it back to its original form if it once becomes a water- carrier, but we shall be obliged to let the house be flooded with the water that is poured in!”

“Will you never stop telling such buncombe, old men as you are?” said I. “If you will not, at least for the sake of these lads put your amazing and fearful tales off to some other time, so that they may not be filled up with terrors and strange figments before we realise it. You ought to be easy with them and not accustom them to hear things like this which will abide with them and annoy them their lives long and will make them afraid of every sound by filling them with all sorts of superstition.”

“Thank you,’ said Eucrates, “for putting me in ‘mind of superstition by mentioning it. What is your opinion, Tychiades, about that sort of thing— I mean oracles, prophecies, outcries of men under divine possession, voices heard from inner shrines, or verses uttered by a maiden who foretells the future? Of course you doubt that sort of thing also? For my own part, I say nothing of the fact that I have a holy ring with an image of Apollo Pythius engraved on the seal, and that this Apollo speaks to me: you might think that I was bragging about myself beyond belief. I should like, however, to tell you all what I heard from Amphilochus in Mallus,A famous shrine in Cilicia. “After the death of his father Amphiaraus and his disappearance at Thebes, he (Amphilochus) was exiled from his own country and went to Cilicia, where he fared quite well, for he, like his father, foretold the future to the Cilicians and neceived two obols for each oracle.” — Alexander 19. when the hero conversed with me in broad day and advised me about my affairs, and what I myself saw, and then in due order what I saw at Pergamon and . what I heard at Patara. “When I was on my way home from Egypt I heard that this shrine in Mallus was very famous and very trathful, and that it responded clearly, answering word for word whatever one wrote in his tablet and turned over to the prophet. So I thought that it would be well to give the oracle a trial in passing and ask the god for some advice about the future—”

While Eucrates was still saying these words, since I could see how the business would turn out and that the cock-and-bull story about oracles upon which he was embarking would not be short, I left him sailing from Egypt to Mallus, not choosing to oppose everyone all alone: I was aware, too, that they were put out at my being there to criticise their lies. “I am going away,” I said, “to look up Leontichus, for I want to speak to him about something. As for you, since you do not think that human experiences afford you a sufficient field, go ahead and call in the gods themselves to help you out in your romancing.” With that I went out. They were glad to have a free hand, and continued, of course, to feast and to gorge themselves with lies. There you have it, Philocles! After hearing all that at the house of Eucrates I am going about like a man who has drunk sweet must, with a swollen belly, craving an emetic. I should be glad if I could anywhere buy at a high price a dose of forgetfulness, so that the memory of what I heard may not stay with me and work me some harm. In fact, I think I see apparitions and spirits and Hecates!

PHILOCLES Your story has had the same enjoyable effect upon me, Tychiades. They say, you know, that not only those who are bitten by mad dogs go mad and fear water, but if a man who has been bitten bites anyone else, his bite has the same effect as the dog’s, and the other man has the same fears. It is likely, therefore, that having been bitten yourself by a multitude of lies in the house of Eucrates, you have passed the bite on to me; you have filled my soul so full of spirits! TYCHIADES Well, never mind; my dear fellow; we have a powerful antidote to such poisons in truth and in sound reason brought to bear everywhere. As long as we make use of this, none of these empty, foolish lies will disturb our peace.