Notes

1If the word myattrūtā, which I translate with ‘excellence’, is simply an equivalent of the Greek aretê as it seems (see the note in the Glossary under ‘excellence’), the second part of the title (‘that is the excellence of the soul’) is likely to be an addition by the translator.

2See the note on the title and on ‘excellence’ in the Glossary.

3‘You’ is plural.

4In the Republic, Plato writes of the road leading to the knowledge of the Good as ‘a longer road’ (504A: makrotera periodos and 435D) that ‘does not require less effort in learning than in physical exercise’ (504C: kai oukh hêtton manthanonti ponêteon hê gumnazomenôi). Compare also the intricate and winding road that, in the Phaedo myth, leads to the afterworld (108A: nun de eoike skhiseis te kai triodous pollas ekhein).

5This road, as will become clear below, is the suntomos hodos of the Cynic tradition, the shortcut to virtue (Ps.-Diogenes Ep. 37.4–5 Malherbe; D.L. 7.121 about the Stoic Apollodorus; S. Prince, ‘Antisthenes and the Short Route to Happiness’, in P. Bosman (ed.) Ancient Routes to Happiness, Pretoria 2017, pp. 73–96; V. Emeljanow, ‘A Note on the Cynic Shortcut to Happiness’, Mnemosyne 18.2 (1965), pp. 182–4; G. Giannantoni (ed.), Socratis et Socraticorum reliquiae, 4 vols, Naples 1990, vol. 4, pp. 526–7; A.A. Long, ‘The Socratic Tradition: Diogenes, Crates, and Hellenistic Ethics’, in R. Bracht Branham and M.-O. Goulet-Cazé (eds) The Cynics. The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy, Berkeley, CA 1996, pp. 28–46 at p. 38n25); compare Plutarch Mor. 759D: suntonon homou kai suntomon heurêke tên poreian ep’ aretên and Julian Or. 7, 225C: tên suntomon hodon kai suntonon epi tên aretên, both of whom refer to the Cynics. The image of different philosophical schools as different roads, whose ultimate pedigree is presumably Hesiod (Op. 286–92) and the myth of the choice of Heracles (Xenophon Mem. 2.1.21–34, which is also reported in Themistius Or. 22, 779D–82C with awareness of Dio Chrysostom Or. 1), is found in Themistius in Or. 20, 236B: oudemia gar philosophia porrô apôikistai kai makran aposkênoi tês heteras, all’ hoion eureias hodou kai megalês mikrai diaskhiseis te kai aponeuseis, hai men pleion, hai de elatton perielthousai, eis tauton homôs peras suntheousin. The philosophical short cut may be compared with the rhetorical short cut depicted by Lucian (Rhetorum praeceptor), for which see R. Cribiore, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch, Princeton 2007, pp. 174–96 and eadem, ‘Lucian, Libanius, and the Short Road to Rhetoric’, GRBS 47 (2007), pp. 71–86; also, the rhetorical short cut is depicted by the author of The Tabula of Cebes, and it appears to be a paideutic notion common to philosophical and rhetorical education.

6The formulation strikes one for its similarity to Hermesʼ words in Julianʼs remake of the myth of Heracles at the crossroads in Or. 7, 230C: deuro, eipen, hêgemôn soi esomai leioteras kai homalesteras hodou.

7The word <ʼsklws>, which appears as a loanword from Greek, is not attested in this form. J. Gildemeister and F. Bücheler, ‘Themistios Περὶ ἀρετῆς’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 27 (1872), pp. 438–62 interpret it as a transcription of skholê and translate it as ‘school’, and are followed by R. Mach in G. Downey and A.F. Norman (eds) Themistii orationes quae supersunt, 3 vols, Leipzig 1965 and M. Conterno, Temistio orientale, Brescia 2014. However, the form normally attested for the accusative plural skholas is ʼeskūlas (R. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, Oxford 1879–1901, s.v.), and, accordingly, for <ʼsklws> Margoliouth instead suggested to read ‘Aeschylus’ (J.P. Margoliouth, Supplement to the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith, Oxford 1927, s.v.): if Margoliouth is right, there is the possibility that the previous sentence contains (or contained) a quotation from Aeschylus.

8As in 18,18, 21,14 and 33,8, the translation ‘to tread’ seems the most appropriate given the pervasiveness of the road imagery.

9The same simile is used at the beginning of Or. 24, 302b, where Themistius likewise compares his teaching to this practice of doctors. The image is common in Epicurean literature (M. Erler and M. Schofield, ‘Epicurean Ethics’, in K. Algra et al. (eds) The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, pp. 642–74).

10I do not follow the correction by Gildemeister, op. cit. into zmārā d-pāraḥtā ‘the voice of birds’.

11For the road of Epicurus, compare Cicero Fin. 1.18.57: ‘Here is a magnificent road to happiness: open, simple, and direct!’ (O praeclaram beate vivendi et apertam et simplicem et directam viam!) and Lucretius 6.27–28. For the imagery see the road of Vice in the Choice of Heracles myth (Xenophon Mem. 2.1.23–25), although here Themistius may also be evoking Epicurusʼ garden.

12Conversely T. Nöldeke, ‘Review of E. Sachau (ed.) Inedita Syriaca’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 25 (1871), pp. 282–7 at p. 287, n. 1 corrects into d-lūdāyā ‘of the Lydian (Croesus)’, which I do not follow.

13Gildemeister, op. cit. corrects into ʽesbē ‘grass’, which I do not follow; contrast this with the Cynic road (8–9) and relevant notes.

14This could be related to the savage men of fiery aspect described in the Myth of Er as the punishers of tyrants and private individuals who committed great crimes: entautha dê andres, ephê, agrioi, diapuroi idein, parestôtes kai katamanthanontes to phthegma, tous men dialabontes êgon (Plato Rep. 615E).

15Whether the two fortresses have anything to do with the two peaks of Dio Chrysostom Or. 1.66–68 is unclear.

16Gildemeister, op. cit. corrects into šūlṭānā ‘power’, which seems to be a translation of arkhê.

17Gildemeister, op. cit. understands šūḥlāpā as a translation of metabolê.

18As in the manuscript with Nöldeke, op. cit. and Gildemeister, op. cit.; conversely E. Sachau (ed.) Inedita Syriaca, Halle 1870 corrects into b-ʼawāwnayhēn ‘in their inns’.

19Plato Phaed. 79C reports that, when it uses the body to make an inquiry, the soul ‘is dragged by the body to things that never remain the same, and it wanders about and is confused and dizzy like a drunken man’ (trans. Fowler). The same passage from the Phaedo would form the basis of the criticism of the Epicureans who are unable to see the metaphysical world in Boethius Cons. 3.2.13: ‘though their memory is clouded, their minds none the less are trying to rediscover their proper good, but like a drunkard they do not recognise the path which would bring them back home’ (trans. Walsh).

20The manuscript has nepqūnāh ‘leave the road’, but I follow the correction of Gildemeister, op. cit. into neqpūnāh ‘cleave to the road’.

21I.e. a modest amount of money; Aristotle EN 1.8, 1099A30–B6; conversely A. Brancacci, ‘Temistio e il cinicismo’, Elenchos 21.2 (2000), pp. 381–96 at p. 385, n. 7 links the passage to Aristotle Protrepticus fr. 1 (= Stobaeus Ecl. 4.32.21).

22I follow the correction of Gildemeister, op. cit. of mezdawzēn ‘they are swollen’ into mezdawwdīn ‘they are loaded’.

23Given what follows, I am not convinced that ḥayē should be translated here with its common meaning of ‘life’, and it seems more likely that it is instead a translation of sôtêria ‘safety, means of safety, safe return, security’; see Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, s.v.

24One would perhaps expect ‘expertise’.

25This might be a reference to Aristotleʼs Poetics and Rhetoric.

26This may be a translation of hôsper apo skopias or similar; compare Plato Rep. 445BC: epeiper entautha elêluthamen, hoson hoion te saphestata katidein […] deuro nun, ên d’ egô, hina kai idês […] hôsper apo skopias moi phainetai […].

27Ps.-Diogenes Ep. 30 about Diogenes Ep. 37 about Antisthenes (A.J. Malherbe (ed.) The Cynic Epistles: A Study Edition, Missoula, MT 1977). In Or. 26, 317D–18C, Themistius argues that Socrates did not walk on the older and well-trodden path of philosophy. For the philosophical succession of Socrates, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Crates and Zeno, which ultimately connected Zeno with Socrates and was propagated by early Stoics, see Long, ‘The Socratic Tradition’, pp. 28–46.

28As becomes clear in 13, this has to do with the Stoic doctrine of things indifferent.

29Compare the words that Hermes pronounces in Julian Or. 7, 230CD: ‘Follow me, and I will guide thee by an easier and smoother road as soon as thou hast surmounted this winding and rugged place’ (trans. Wright).

30Compare Ps.-Diogenes Ep. 37.4–5: ‘These things I learned to eat and drink, while being taught at the feet of Antisthenes, not as though they were poor fare but that they were superior to the rest and more likely to be found on the road leading to happiness, which should be regarded as the most esteemed of all possessions. [In a very secure place and precipitous place, one road, steep and rugged, is laid out.] And so, because of its ruggedness, an individual, stripped for action, would barely be able to ascend this road. And if a person were carrying something with him and were weighed down with trouble and obligations, he would not be saved, nor would the person pursuing something “necessary”. Then, too, a person would have to make the grass or cresses along the road his food and common water his drink, and these especially where it would be necessary to proceed most expeditiously’ (ed. and trans. Malherbe). For this reason, the Syriac text ‘the boundary of virtue (aretê)’ might not be fully satisfactory, and one would instead expect ‘next to the edge of the road’: this reading, however, encounters the difficulty of explaining the change of ʼūrḥā ‘road’ into ʼeraṭa ‘virtue’.

31The noise is what prompts the actions of the savage men of fiery aspect described in the Myth of Er as the punishers of tyrants and private individuals who committed great crimes: entautha dê andres, ephê, agrioi, diapuroi idein, parestôtes kai katamanthanontes to phthegma, tous men dialabontes êgon (Plato Rep. 615E).

32As below in 43, kahīnūtā seems to be a translation of eudaimonia, while, given the context, ṭūbā ‘blessing’ is likely to be an addition by the translator.

33Plato Tim. 90A (and perhaps Plato Rep. 611–12); ṭābtā ‘the Good’ may be a translation of to agathon.

34Literally: ‘and flees a flight that has no returning’.

35I follow the correction of G. Hoffmann, ‘Review of E. Sachau (ed.) Inedita Syriaca’, Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen (1871), pp. 1201–36 of ṭābātā ‘good things’ into ṭābtā ‘the Good’.

36The paragraph is unclear, but a parallel may be Plato Ap. 22CE and Aristotle EN 10.9.

37Compare Aristotle EN 1180b5–15: ‘Further, particularised education is actually superior to communal education, just in the case of medicine. For while rest and abstinence from food are in universal terms advantageous for a feverish patient, for a particular patient, presumably, they might not be, nor does a boxing instructor prescribe the same style of fighting for everyone. It would seem, then, that a particular care is treated with exactness when there is individual supervision, since each person is more likely to get what suits him’ (trans. Reeve); see also EN 1181b1–10.

38Conterno, Temistio orientale has rightly identified this as a quotation.

39Themistius Or. 26, 319B–20A points out that the same drugs and food do not benefit both healthy and sick and should be administered according to the condition of the patient to explain the variance in the circulation of the exoteric and the esoteric works by Aristotle. The concept that Philosophy acts like a doctor by applying different remedies according to the condition of the patient is also used by Boethius Cons. 1.5.11–12.

40Nöldeke, op. cit. rightly corrects into netyattar.

41I have followed here the translation by Conterno, Temistio orientale, which does not require the addition as in Gildemeister, op. cit.

42Cicero Fin. 4.72 and 5.90; Stobaeus Ecl. 2.6.6 (144–48, 2.41–43 Meineke); in Stoic terminology adiaphora ‘indifferent’, i.e. neither good nor bad, and proêgmena ‘promoted, advanced’, i.e. things neither good nor bad but promoted or advanced above the zero point of indifference. Compare D.L. 6.105: ‘(The Cynics) hold further that “Life according to Virtue” is the End to be sought, as Antisthenes says in his Heracles: exactly like the Stoics. For indeed there is a certain close relationship between the two schools. Hence it has been said that Cynicism is a short cut to virtue; and after the same pattern did Zeno of Citium live his life. […] Whatever is intermediate between Virtue and Vice they, in agreement with Ariston of Chios, account indifferent’ (trans. Hicks); A. Brancacci, ‘I κοινῇ ἀρέσκοντα dei Cinici e la κοινωνία tra cinicismo e stoicismo nel libro VI (103–105) delle Vite di Diogene Laerzio’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2.36.6 (1992), pp. 4049–75 at pp. 4068–9.

43This may still be a reference to the Stoics mentioned above: see Plutarch De Stoicorum repugnantiis especially 18–19 for this critique to Chrysippus.

44Nöldeke, op. cit. corrected ʽaynē ‘eyes’ into ʽnānē ‘clouds’.

45The text is tlāt mnawān ‘three parts’. Compare Julian Or. 6, 184C: ‘Therefore, I say, let no one divide philosophy into many kinds (eis polla) or cut it up into many parts (eis polla), or rather let no one make it out to be plural instead of one’ (trans. Wright).

46Milo of Croton.

47See Maximus of Tyre 36.3–5 for a similar format: e.g. 36.3: tini dômen ta nikêtêria pherontes?

48Literally: ‘of the goods of human beings’, but see Epicurus Ep. Men. 138: Kai dia touto tên hêdonên arkhên kai telos legomen einai tou makariôs zên.

49This is known as the ‘cradle argument’, see Erler and Schofield, ‘Epicurean Ethics’, pp. 649–50.

50The word <gwrwtʼ> does not seem to be the usual plural form.

51Cicero Fin. 1.30; D.L. 10.31–4; the opposite argument is found in Plato Phaed. 64A–E.

52The expression mêtropolis pantôn tôn kakôn ‘mother-city of all evils’ is an expression used by Diogenes of Sinope in reference to the love of money as reported in D.L. 6.50.

53Cicero Fin. 2.69 reports that, in order to portray Epicurean hedonism, the stoic Cleanthes, in his lectures, used to describe a painting of Pleasure represented as a luxurious queen sitting on a throne whom Virtues would serve as handmaids and act as her slaves; and the same allegory is used in Augustine Civ. 5.20. Themistius must derive this passage from literature hostile to Epicurean philosophy. It is noticeable, however, that here the woman represents ‘desire, cupidity’ (regtā presumably epithumia), while she should represent ‘pleasure’ (in all likelihood hêdonê, which is normally translated as nyāḥā) if one follows the account of Cicero Fin. 2.69 (voluptas) and a quotation on the same subject from Epicurus in Athenaeus Deipn. 12.546 (hêdonê). I wonder whether the presumable change of hêdonê into epithumia might ultimately reveal awareness of the terminological distinction between ‘pleasure’ and ‘desire’ in Aristotle DA 414b4, on which Themistius commented in in DA 47,7. For epithumia see also Julian Or. 6, 197B.

54As in 43, this seems to be a translation of eudaimonia.

55I read <ʼmr> as a present.

56Il. 2.576 and 685, where Achilles is said to have fifty ships. A remark on Homerʼs preference for Achilles over Agamemnon is found in Themistius Or. 25.5, 334C.

57Hoffmann, op. cit. corrects into men lbar yāteh.

58According to other translators, this is the end of the speech by the Cynic speaker.

59Sachau, op. cit. corrects into b-satwā men glīdā.

60An analogous form of argumentation is attributed to Antisthenes by Diogenes in an anecdote that was in turn reported by Epictetus (Arrian Epict. 3.24.67–9): ‘Listen to what Diogenes says: “(Antisthenes) taught me what was mine (ta ema), and what was not mine (ta ouk ema). Property is not mine; kinsmen, members of my household, friends, reputation, familiar places, converse with men – all these are not my own (allotria). What, then, is yours (son)? Power to deal with external impressions (khrêsis phantasiôn)” […]’ (trans. Oldfather). As will become clear as the text proceeds (25–33), however, Themistiusʼ answer to this question will be virtue/excellence, which is gathered in the soul (30) and flourishes in the intellect (31): according to Brancacci, ‘Temistio e il cinicismo’, 390–1, Themistiusʼ reasoning on this subject depends on Antisthenes (D.L. 6.1.12–15).

61I suspect that this was not in the original text.

62Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects into l-ʼeškāpā.

63I suspect that (ʽ)āhen is a translation of epitêdeios on the basis of Plato Euthyd. 280C.

64Although the text may have been abbreviated (it is not obvious what ‘this art alone’ refers to: perhaps knowledge, or wisdom, given what follows?), it appears nonetheless that 25–7 somehow make a case for the identification of the knowledge (of the Good) with virtue/excellence. Themistius writes above that Socrates first found the (Cynic) road (8), and here it may be Socratic intellectualism that provides the foundation for Cynic ethics: true knowledge corresponds to virtue/excellence. It is remarkable that, when he deals with this subject, Socrates uses the same analogy of a carpenter who needs both wood and knowledge to be successful (Plato Euthyd. 280B–81E). Here, however, this analogy is twisted in that it is argued that knowledge of the Good is superior to other tekhnai since it does not need anything from the outside (see also 27). Links are often suggested between the detachment from material things in both Socrates and Diogenes and between the ethical behaviour heedless of convention of the two philosophers (Long, ‘The Socratic Tradition’, pp. 28–46; see also the anecdote that reports that to Plato Diogenes seemed to be Socrates gone mad, in D.L. 6.54 and Aelian VH 14.33, and the report that, according to Antisthenes, virtue needed nothing else other than ‘the strength of a Socrates’, in D.L. 6.11). Here, however, Themistius may be suggesting a more fundamental link between Socrates and Cynicism, underpinned by a similar understanding of the knowledge of the Good (see again below 43).

65D.L. 2.115, and also Plutarch Demetr. 9; Mor. 5F–6A and 475CD; and Seneca Ep. 9.18 and Const. 5.6. In fact, the king was Demetrius I Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus I Monophtalmus. It is not necessary, however, to hypothesise a problem in the manuscript, and the confusion can be explained by a misreading in the process of translation of Dêmêtrios ho Antigonou, as the name appears in D.L. For the Cynic philosopher Stilpo of Megara see Bracht Branham, op. cit., pp. 403–4.

66Mach, op. cit. corrects into da-b-šentā.

67D.L. 6.105; Brancacci, ‘I κοινῇ ἀρέσκοντα dei Cinici’, pp. 4067–8.

68From this point until 34, the subject of inquiry is myattrūtā ‘excellence’ rather than ʼeraṭa ‘virtue’. After 34 (with only one exception in 52) the subject will again be ʼeraṭa ‘virtue’. As is suggested in the note to the glossary, it seems unlikely that this distinction is meaningful, and both words must have originally rendered aretê.

69Gildemeister, op. cit. corrects into w-dālḥīn.

70Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects into d-sūsāyā wa-d-kalbā.

71The text has the problematic <šwyyn>, and I have accepted the anonymous readerʼs emendation into šāwḥān.

72D.L. 6.91–2, who relies on Zenoʼs Aphorisms, remarks on Crates as a hunchback (kurtôn) with a crooked body (kuphos), while here the meaning is ‘emaciated, meagre’. Plutarch (or Ps.-Plutarch) composed a biography of Crates (now lost), which may be the source here; this Life ‘was used in late Roman times as the standard textbook for what we might call a philosophical “course” on cynicism’ (L.E. Navia, Classical Cynicism: A Critical Study, London 1996, p. 121); Julian referred to this life in Or. 6, 200B, and Sopater of Apamea epitomised it (Photius Bibl. cod. 161). Glaucus as paradigmatic of a strong body is mentioned by Lucian Pro imaginibus 19.

73Hoffmann, op. cit. corrects into ḥzīrtā.

74Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects into ḥazzārā w-mārāh.

75Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects into mšallaṭ.

76According to Gildemeister, op. cit., this is a translation of euthalei comparing with Themistius Or. 27, 339C.

77Compare Plato Rep. 10, 617E: ‘Virtue has no master: as he honours or dishonours it, so shall each of you have more or less of it’ (trans. Reeve).

78The attribution of this view to the Stoics is found in D.L. 7.87–9. If this was indeed the original text and was not abbreviated, however, the attribution to Cleanthes is problematic, for D.L. 7.89: ‘By the nature with which our life ought to be in accord, Chrysippus understands both universal nature and more particularly the nature of man, whereas Cleanthes takes the nature of the universe alone as that which should be followed, without adding the nature of the individual’ (trans. Hicks), but see also R. Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind. From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, Oxford 2000, p. 97n28.

79See 19 and note on Cleanthes.

80It is likely that the passage above contained material derived from the two philosophers.

81Literally: ‘he used to say’.

82While the Syriac manuscript has ‘Prometheus told Heracles’, the emendation into ‘Heracles told Prometheus’ argued for by Giannantoni (ed.) Socratis et Socraticorum reliquiae, vol. 4, pp. 312–17 (see Dio Chrysostom 6.29 and 8.33) has been accepted here, although is not followed by S. Prince, Antisthenes of Athens. Texts, Translations, and Commentary, Ann Arbor, MD 2015, pp. 329–31.

83Presumably ponos: see Prince, Antisthenes of Athens, p. 331.

84According to Prince, Antisthenes of Athens, p. 331, gabrā gmīrā ‘accomplished man’ is a translation of sophos, but, in my view, this remains just a possibility since ḥakkīmā would have been the more obvious translation of sophos.

85The construct mlīlūt hawneh ‘the reason of his intellect’ strikes one as unusual.

86The quotation derives from Antisthenesʼ Hêraklês ho meizôn ê peri iskhuos: see D.L. 6.18; Gildemeister, op. cit., p. 450, n. 1; F. Decleva Caizzi (ed.) Antisthenis fragmenta, Milan 1966, p. 32 and pp. 94–7; Giannantoni (ed.) Socratis et Socraticorum reliquiae, vol. 2, pp. 176–7; M. Luz, ‘Antisthenesʼ Prometheus Myth’, in J. Glucker et al. (eds) Jacob Bernays. Un philologue juif, Villeneuve dʼAscq 1996, pp. 89–103. Prince, Antisthenes of Athens, pp. 330–1 writes: ‘This is the clearest surviving evidence for Antisthenesʼ conception of a transcendent object of knowledge’.

87Themistius Or. 26, 327C makes the fact that some celestial bodies do not proceed with the movement of the sky but advance in the opposite direction (eis toumpalin) into a topic of instruction by a philosopher.

88Themistius Or. 1, 3A, possibly depending on Plato Theaet. 186B; Plato Tim. 47AC.

89Themistius Or. 26, 327CD uses a similar expression in a similar context (ouranou anôteron).

90Perhaps the Divine? Compare Julian Or. 5, 175C (summer 362): ‘(god) thereby enjoins that we turn our eyes towards the heavens, or rather above the heavens (huper ton ouranon)’ (trans. Wright, who ad loc. adds ‘to the intelligible world and the One’).

91The manuscript has the gloss <ʼḥšyrš>.

92Dio Chrysostom 3.1–2; Julian Or. 2, 79AC.

93Dio Chrysostom 3.29; Julian Or. 2, 79AC; Cicero Fin. 2.112; the anecdote is used in Themistius Or. 2, 36CD and Or. 22, 264C, in both of which Xerxes is mentioned by name. Conterno, Temistio orientale, p. 51, n. 2, has suggested that the present passage may have been at the origin of the addition to the Syriac translation of Themistius Or. 22, 264C.

94Herodotus 7.31. The golden plane-tree of the Persians (khrusê platanos) is mentioned by Themistius in Or. 13, 166B and 27, 339B.

95Gildemeister, op. cit. deletes the preposition b-, and I follow this reading here, which is confirmed by Sin.

96Two sections of this anecdote are also attested in Dio Chrysostom 3 and Julian Or. 2, 79AC, but the text here contains additional material. A. Brancacci, ‘Struttura compositiva e fonti della terza orazione Sulla regalità di Dione Crisostomo: Dione e lʼArchelao di Antistene’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2.36.5 (1992), pp. 3308–34 and idem, ‘Temistio e il cinicismo’, pp. 392–4 has argued that Dio Chrysostom, Julian and Themistius depended on a common source that should be identified in Antisthenesʼ lost dialogue Archelaus or On Kingship, for which see Giannantoni, Socratis et Socraticorum reliquiae, vol. 4, pp. 350–4.

97Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects into saggīʼē.

98Cambyses is mentioned as Kambusês ho mainomenos in Themistius Or. 2, 36C and 11, 143A, and as Kambusou mania in Themistius Or. 1, 7BC; Themistius Or. 7, 99AB mentions tou Kambusou tên paroinian.

99This may simply be the translation of kitharôideô ‘to sing to the cithara’ with defamatory value as in Themistius Or. 18, 219A (Nerôni kitharôidounti).

100Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects into bīš. The entire point of this paragraph is not clear and does not seem to fit the overall argument (see below). The closing anecdote, which is found in Suetonius Nero 24, is mentioned in Themistius Or. 13, 173B: Toigaroun tês arkhês eksepesen athliôteron ê tôn armatôn ‘Therefore, then, he fell from command more miserably than from the chariot’. Themistius Or. 7, 92B mentions the anecdote about Nero rearranging the Olympic games (Suetonius Nero 23).

101I follow the reading of Sin hālēn melē ‘these words’, while BL reads hālēn ‘these’. If hālēn melē refers to the anecdote above about Nero, this would be a major anachronism. Gildemeister, op. cit., p. 452, n. 1, suggested that we understand hālēn as a translation of toiauta ‘such as these’. I would be inclined, however, to consider the remark on Nero as a simple digression from the story about Socrates (unless the entire section on Cambyses and Nero has been either abbreviated too much to enable us to understand its context or has simply been added to the text by an interpolator). Alternatively, given the moderate degree of faithfulness that one can expect from the translation, it is conceivable that either the text contained other anecdotes about Socrates that the translator omitted or it read ‘since Socrates was saying words that the Athenians could not stand’ or something similar.

102The reference to statues of ivory may indicate that this an ancient anecdote.

103The same point is made in Themistius Or. 13, 164AB, where the two fragments by Euripides are likewise quoted: hubrin te tiktei ploutos and peniê sophian elakhe (fr. 641 N.). Here, however, the text, which is clearly corrupted, reads: ‘wealth generates tyranny and poverty gathers money’.

104The anecdote is not otherwise attested. A similar one about Zeno and Amoebeus is found in Plutarch 443A; see also Plutarch 1029E; Plutarch Arat. 1034E; and Athenaeus 14, 623D.

105The point made here was probably in line with D.L. 6.105: ‘(The Cynics) hold, further, that virtue can be taught, as Antisthenes maintains in his Heracles, and when once acquired cannot be lost’ (trans. Hicks); Brancacci, ‘I κοινῇ ἀρέσκοντα dei Cinici’, pp. 4067–8.

106Literally: ‘all the use of their colours is equal for their art’.

107Gildemeister, op. cit. deletes the preposition b-.

108Literally plural.

109Literally plural.

110This seems to be a translation of kata meros (Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, s.v.).

111The noun kahīnūtā, as below in the same paragraph, seems to be a translation of eudaimonia.

112See above 25–7 and notes. Themistius might be making a case for some form of Socratic intellectualism as the foundation of Cynic ethics (Plato Euthyd. 280B–81E).

113According to Gildemeister, op. cit., pūlḥānā translates ergasia.

114The word is again pūlḥānā as in 38,24.

115In the close of her speech to Heracles, in the Choice of Heracles myth Virtue promises him eudaimonia (Xenophon Mem. 2.1.33).

116As noticed by Gildemeister, op. cit. the text is corrupt but the sense is clear. The possibly original d-ʽap (third person plural perfect feminine) could have been transcribed as d-ʽepat if misunderstood as in agreement with the following singular feminine noun, and then it could have corrupted into <dgpt>.

117Compare Plato Euthyd. 280B–E.

118This might be a reference to the Seven Sages, who were known for their Laconic brevity (Plato Prot. 342E–43B and Rep. 600A), whom Themistius discusses in Or. 26, 317AB.

119Gildemeister, op. cit. instead corrects parrāšē ‘horsemen’ into pārsāyē ‘Persians’, and, although the anecdote as such is not found in Herodotus, he suggested a link between this event and the Greco-Persian wars.

120The name of the character varies in BL (<hrqlys> and <ʼrqlys>), and Hoffmann, op. cit., p. 1221, corrects into <hrqlyṭws>, but it is correctly <hrqlyṭws> in Sin.

121I follow Sin; BL reads instead ‘once they won with weapons’.

122A strangely different version of the anecdote is found in Plutarch 511BC.

123A similar anecdote is in D.L. 6.91.

124The manuscript has the gloss <mḥtḥt> possibly ‘provoking laughter’.

125Gildemeister, op. cit. corrects mezdaynīn ‘are armed’ into mezdayyḥīn ‘are celebrated’, since the repetition seems meaningless.

126Gildemeister, op. cit. corrects naḥṭon ‘they cause to err’ into neḥṭon ‘they err’.

127I correct l-āh into l-eh.

128The anecdote is reported in Plutarch 88E referring to Plato.

129Aesop 287 Hausrath (= 78B Halm).

130I have again respected the Syriac by translating myattrwātā as ‘excellences’, despite the fact that, in all likelihood, the Greek had aretai ‘virtues’; see S. Brock, ‘Review of M. Conterno, Temistio orientale’, Bibliotheca Orientalis 73 (2016), pp. 179–83 at p. 180.

131Plato Rep. 2, 375E.

132D.L. 6.86; Apuleius Flor. 22; Julian Or. 6, 201BC.

133Hoffmann, op. cit. corrects into b-šetqā.

134Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects <tšlytʼ> into tašʽītā.

135The first two lines of the page (f. 38a) are damaged.

136Themistius Or. 27, 332C uses the expression en têi eskhatiai tou pontou to designate the place in which he was educated, and in Or. 20, 239C he refers to the tomb of Anytus near Heraclea Pontica which was allegedly extant at his time.

137BL ‘strives’, Sin ‘strife’.

138This is the reading in BL; Sin. reads ‘the ranks lined up (in battle array)’. Neither reading seems fully satisfactory.

139Sachau, op. cit. corrects into sedrē.

140Sin. ‘and blood was not shed’.

141This is the reading in Sin.; BL appears instead problematic: ‘So great a deed the courage of a philosopher (philosophos) attained with this power!’ and Mach, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 68, proposed instead ḥayleh d-hānā kuleh. This anecdote is not attested elsewhere and gave origin to some speculation. Porphyry Plot. 3 and 20 mentioned a Stoic philosopher Lysimachus who refrained from writing and could be a candidate for the present anecdote. However, there is the possibility that Lysimachus, meaning ‘he who ends the strife’, could be a made-up name, and Gildemeister, op. cit., p. 460, n. 1, has related the passage to similar instances in Aristophanes Lys. 554 and Pax 992. Whether this anecdote should be related to Themistius himself, given the reference to ‘the outmost borders of Pontus’ (see note ad loc.), remains hard to tell.

142This sentence stands out as an aphorism.

143I wonder whether tarʽītā may be a translation of dianoia.

144D.L. 6.89; Plutarch 10C.

145The anecdote is reported in Themistius Or. 7, 95AB, in which Socrates is referred to instead.

146Seneca De ira 3.12.5–7.

147Literally: ‘desire for honour’, but I suspect that reḥmat šūbḥā translates philotimia.

148Gildemeister, op. cit. corrects into l-ʽamā.

149Sachau, op. cit. corrects into meskinūtā.

150Literally ‘magistracy’.

151Nöldeke, op. cit. corrects into myattrūtā.

152I am grateful to Anna Marmodoro and Neil McLynn who organised the Themistius Seminar held in Oxford in 2015, where I presented a preliminary paper on the On Virtue, and to Christian Wildberg, who organised a seminar on Cynicism in Princeton in 2016. I am also indebted to the Princeton University Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, which provided me with the necessary respite to work at the introduction; and for discussions on different aspects of the text, I would like to express heartfelt thanks to the audiences of the two seminars as well as to Gianfranco Agosti, Alice Borgna, Glen Bowersock, Sebastian Brock, Peter Brown, Maria Conterno, Christopher Jones, Billy Kennedy, Robert Penella, Alexander Petkas, Richard Sorabji, Simon Swain, David Taylor, Irini-Fotini Viltanioti and the anonymous reviewers.