Selected Dialogues

HERMOTIMUS OR ON PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS

THIS is Lucian’s longest piece, and here he is again taking up one of his favourite themes, philosophy and philosophers. Under his often assumed name Lycinus he presents himself in conversation with an ageing student of Stoicism, who has not yet been able to work himself to the final goal of happiness as seen by the Stoics. The question-and-answer technique used here is very much that of the Platonic dialogue, in which Socrates’ seemingly innocent questions eventually push his opponent into a corner where he is forced to throw in his hand. Here Lycinus is concerned, at great length and in unremitting detail, to ask Hermotimus how he can possibly be sure that only the Stoics, and no other school, have the right answer to the goal of life and the nature of happiness. In the end Hermotimus, like Socrates’ opponents, gives up and agrees with Lycinus that all his years of philosophical study have been a waste of time.

Hermotimus is not otherwise known, but the dialogue contains some biographical references to Lucian which we can probably accept. At the time of the conversation he is about 40 (section 13) and highly critical of philosophy and its pretensions; but at about 25 (section 24) he had shown some interest in it and was offered instruction, but ‘being then young and foolish’ he had not pursued it. So, we may infer, he might have profited by it as a young man, but now at 40 he knows better—and so should Hermotimus.

LYCINUS. To judge from your look and your rapid walking, Hermotimus, you must be hastening to your teacher. At any rate, you were thinking about something as you went along: you were moving your lips and muttering under your breath, and waving your hand as if organizing a speech to yourself, composing some intricate question or thinking over a sophistical speculation. Even when out for a walk you don’t relax, but you’re always busy at something serious which might be useful for your studies.

HERMOTIMUS. Indeed, that’s about right, Lycinus. I was thinking over yesterday’s class and reviewing all that he said. You should, I fancy, never miss an opportunity, but recognize the truth of what the Doctor from Cos * said: ‘Life is short but art is long’. He, however, was referring to medicine, an easier subject; philosophy is unattainable even if you spend a long time over it, unless you are constantly very wide awake and keep your gaze fixed intently on it; and the stakes are high—whether to perish wretchedly among the teeming rabble of the common people, or to win happiness through philosophy.

L. That’s an extraordinarily fine prize you speak of, Hermotimus, and I really think you can’t be far off it, to judge by the time you spend studying philosophy, and also all the tremendous vigour you seem to have long been devoting to it. If I remember, it’s nearly twenty years since I’ve been seeing you solely occupied in attending your teachers, and usually poring over a book and making notes on the lectures, always pale and thin from studying. I imagine you don’t relax even in your dreams; you are so totally involved in it. So, observing all this, I’d guess you’ll soon be grasping happiness, unless you’ve had it for ages and we haven’t noticed.

H. How could I, Lycinus, since I’m only beginning to glimpse the road ahead? Hesiod * tells us that Virtue lives very far off, and the way to her is long and steep and rough, causing much sweat for the travellers.

L. Haven’t you travelled and sweated enough, Hermotimus?

H. No: for once I’m at the top nothing can keep me from complete happiness. As it is, Lycinus, I’m still just beginning.

L. But the same Hesiod * says that the beginning is half of the whole, so we wouldn’t be wrong if we said you were halfway up.

H. No, I’m not even there yet: if I were, I would have achieved a great deal.

L. Well, where can we say you are on the road?

H. Still down in the foothills, Lycinus, just now struggling to go forward. But it’s rough and slippery and needs a helping hand.

L. Surely that’s for your teacher to do, letting down his teaching from the top, like Zeus’ golden rope in Homer,* by which clearly he can draw and lift you up to himself and to Virtue—he got up there himself long ago.

H. You’re absolutely right, Lycinus: so far as he is concerned, I should have been drawn up long ago and joined them, but my own efforts are still falling short.

L. Well, cheer up and don’t lose heart; keep your eye on the end of the road and the happiness up there, especially as he is seconding your enthusiasm. But what hopes does he offer you concerning when you’ll get up there? Did he guess that you’ll be at the top next year, say after the Great Mysteries, or the Panathenaea?*

H. Too soon, Lycinus.

L. Well, the next Olympiad?

H. That’s also too soon for a training in virtue and the achievement of happiness.

L. Then after two Olympiads, at any rate? Or could you people be accused of great laziness if you can’t make it even in that time? You could easily travel from the Pillars of Heracles to India three times and back again in that time, even if you didn’t always go directly, but made detours to visit nations on your way. But how much higher and smoother would you have us put this peak, where your Virtue lives, than Aornos, which Alexander took by storm in a few days?*

H. There’s no comparison whatever, Lycinus, of the sort you are trying to make. It cannot be captured or taken in a short time, even if a host of Alexanders attacked it. If it could, many would have scaled it. As things are, not a few make a very valiant start and achieve a certain amount of progress, some very little, others rather more. But when they get halfway and meet a lot of difficulties and hardships, they give up and turn back, panting and sweating and unable to bear the exhaustion. But those with lasting endurance get to the top, and thereafter enjoy wonderful happiness for the rest of their lives, observing other men from this height as if they were ants.

L. Gracious me, Hermotimus! How tiny you make us; not even pygmies, but creeping around close to the surface of the earth. That’s not surprising, as your thoughts are already way up there; and all of us, the rabble who cleave to the earth, will pray to you people among the gods, when you are above the clouds, having gained the heights you’ve long been striving for.

H. If only I can get up there, Lycinus! But there’s an awfully long way still to go.

L. You still haven’t said how long, in terms of time.

H. I don’t even know accurately myself, Lycinus; but I guess not more than twenty years, after which I’ll surely be at the top.

L. Heavens! That’s a long time.

H. Yes, Lycinus; for great prizes will reward my labours.

L. That may be so, but has your teacher promised you that you will live for those twenty years? Is he not only wise, but a prophet or diviner or an expert in the lore of the Chaldeans? They claim to know such things. For if it is not clear that you will live to reach Virtue, then it’s unreasonable for you to undertake all this toil and to wear yourself out day and night, not knowing whether, when you are near the top, fate will appear and dash your hopes by dragging you down by the foot.

H. Off with you and your ill-omened words, Lycinus! May I live long enough to become wise and be happy even for one day!

L. Would one day be sufficient reward for all your toils?

H. Even a moment would be enough for me.

L. How can you be sure that there is happiness up there and the sort of things which it is worth enduring everything to gain? After all, you’ve not been up there yourself.

H. Well, I trust what my teacher says. He is right at the top and fully informed.

L. In heaven’s name, what did he say about things there, and how did he describe the happiness which is there? I suppose it is some sort of riches and glory and superlative pleasures?

H. Hush, my friend! Those things have nothing to do with a virtuous life.

L. Well, what blessings does he say those who complete their training will achieve, if not those?

H. Wisdom and courage and nobility itself and justice, and the confident certainty of knowing the real nature of everything. Riches and glories and pleasures and bodily concerns are all cast off and left below as you climb up, as we are told happened to Heracles when he was cremated on Mount Oeta and became a god.* He cast off the mortal elements he derived from his mother, and flew up to the gods with his divine element sifted by the fire to become pure and undefiled. So these too are stripped by philosophy, as by a fire, of all those things that other men wrongly judge to be admirable. They climb to the peak and achieve happiness, no longer even remembering wealth and glory and pleasures, and laughing at those who believe in them.

L. By Heracles on Oeta, Hermotimus, you give a manly and happy account of them. But tell me, do they ever come down from the peak, if they wish, to make use of what they have left down below? Or do they have to stay there once they’ve climbed up, and live with Virtue, laughing at wealth and glory and pleasures?

H. It’s not just that, Lycinus; but anyone who has achieved perfect virtue cannot be a slave to anger or fear or desires; he cannot suffer grief or, in short, any other such emotion.

L. Well, to speak the truth without hesitation—but I suppose I’d better shut up, as it’s not permitted to enquire about what wise men get up to.

H. By no means: please say what you want to say.

L. Just see, my friend, how terrified I am!

H. Don’t be afraid, my good fellow: you’re talking only to me.

L. Well, Hermotimus, I followed and I believed the rest of what you said about them becoming wise and brave and just and so on—I was even sort of spellbound by your account. But when you said that they despise wealth and glory and pleasures, and don’t feel anger or grief, then I stopped short (we are alone), as I remembered what I saw someone doing recently—shall I say who? Or is it enough not to name him?

H. By no means: do tell me who it was.

L. This very teacher of yours, a man who on the whole deserves respect, and is now pretty old.

H. So, what was he doing?

L. You know the stranger from Heraclea who was his pupil in philosophy for a long time, the quarrelsome fellow with blonde hair?

H. I know the one you mean: his name is Dion.

L. That’s him. I gather that he didn’t pay his fee on time, so the other day the teacher, shouting with anger, pulled his cloak round his neck and dragged him before the magistrate. If some of the young fellow’s friends hadn’t intervened and pulled him out of his clutches, the old man would certainly have hung on to him and bitten off his nose, he was so furious.

H. That fellow, Lycinus, has always been a knave and careless in paying his debts. There are lots of others to whom the old man lends money, and he has never treated them like that. But they do pay him his interest on time.

L. But, my dear fellow, suppose they don’t? Does it matter to him now he has been purified by philosophy and no longer needs what he left behind on Oeta?

H. Do you think it’s for his own sake that he’s shown such a concern for these things? He has young children and he’s anxious that they shouldn’t live in poverty.

L. He should bring them too up to Virtue, so that they can share his happiness and despise wealth.

H. There’s no time to talk to you about this, Lycinus: I’m rushing off to hear his lecture, or I’ll fall behind before I know where I am.

L. Don’t worry, old fellow. A holiday has been announced for today, so I can save you the rest of your journey.

H. How do you mean?

L. You won’t find him now, if we can trust the notice. There was a little board hanging over the gate proclaiming in large letters, ‘No philosophy class today’. Report has it that he dined with the great Eucrates yesterday, who was celebrating his daughter’s birthday. He had a long philosophical discussion at the party, and was a bit sharp with Euthydemus the Peripatetic, taking issue with him about their usual arguments against the Stoics. Apparently the din went on until midnight, and it gave him a headache and made him sweat a lot. I expect he had also drunk more than he should, as the loving-cup made the usual rounds, and had dined too well considering his age. And so, they say, when he got home he was violently sick; and as soon as he had counted and carefully marked the bits of meat he had given to the lad who was standing behind him at dinner, he gave orders to admit nobody and has been sleeping ever since. All this I heard his servant Midas telling some of his pupils, a lot of whom were themselves coming away from there.

H. Who won the argument, Lycinus, my teacher or Euthydemus? Did Midas say anything about that?

L. Apparently they were level to start with, Hermotimus, but eventually victory went to your side and the old man was way ahead. At any rate, they say Euthydemus didn’t escape unscathed, but he had a bad wound in his head. He was boastful and argumentative, he wouldn’t be persuaded, and he didn’t allow himself readily to be criticized; so your peerless teacher knocked him down with a cup as big as Nestor’s * from his couch near by, and so gained the victory.

H. Good for him! That’s the way to deal with people who don’t respect their betters.

L. That’s well said, Hermotimus. What got into Euthydemus to provoke an old man who is placid and not easily roused, but with such a heavy cup in his hand? But since we are at leisure, why not tell me as a friend how you first took up philosophy, so that if possible I too can start from there and join your group on your journey? For as we are friends you surely won’t exclude me.

H. Please do, Lycinus: you’ll soon see how much you surpass other people. You’ll certainly regard all of them as children compared to you, with all your superior wisdom.

L. It’ll be enough if in twenty years I could be as you are now.

H. Don’t worry: I was your age when I started philosophy, about 40—which I guess is your age now.

L. Correct, Hermotimus. So take me too along the same road: that would be fitting. But first, tell me this: do you allow pupils to argue against anything they disagree with, or do you not let the young do this?

H. Certainly not. But, if you like, you can ask questions and make objections as we go along. That way you’ll learn more easily.

L. Good, by Hermes himself, from whom you are named, Hermotimus. Well, tell me, is your Stoic path the only one that leads to philosophy? Or is it true, as I’ve heard, that there are many others?

H. A great many—the Peripatetics, the Epicureans, those who have enrolled as Platonists; also the devotees of Diogenes and Antisthenes, the Pythagoreans, and a host of others.

L. You’re right: that is a lot. Do they say the same things, Hermotimus, or different things?

H. Very different.

L. But at least one of their creeds must surely be true, though they can’t all be, if they are different.

H. Quite right.

L. Well then, my friend, answer me this. When you first began to study philosophy and there were many doors open to you, you passed by the others and came to the Stoic door, which you entered on your way to virtue, believing it was the one true door which opened up the straight path, while the others led to blind alleys. What made you believe this? What signs then guided you? And don’t think of yourself as you are now: whether you are half-wise or fully wise, you can now make better judgments than we the masses can. Answer as the complete layman you were then and I am now.

H. I don’t see what you are getting at, Lycinus.

L. My question wasn’t very involved. There have been a lot of philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Antisthenes, your own school founders, Chrysippus and Zeno, and all the others. So, what persuaded you to ignore the others and to decide to choose the creed you did to guide your studies? Did Pythian Apollo treat you like Chaerephon,* and send you to the Stoics as the best of all? His practice is to direct different people to different philosophies, as he knows each individual’s requirements.

H. Nothing like that, Lycinus: I didn’t even ask the god about this.

L. Didn’t you consider it worth a divine consultation, or did you think that you could make the best choice on your own without the god?

H. I did.

L. Well, do explain to me first, how we can distinguish right at the start which is the best and the true philosophy, the one we should choose, ignoring the others.

H. I’ll tell you. I saw most people going for it, so I assumed it was the best one.

L. How many more are there than Epicureans, Platonists, or Peripatetics? You must have counted them as we do when people vote.

H. I didn’t count: I made a guess.

L. So, you don’t want to explain things to me. You’re just hiding the truth from me and cheating me with your talk of deciding about all this by guesswork and majorities.

H. Not only that, Lycinus. I also heard everyone saying that the Epicureans were self-indulgent and pleasure-loving; the Peripatetics were avaricious and argumentative; and the Platonists arrogant and vainglorious. But many said that the Stoics were manly and understood everything, and that the man who followed their path was the only king, the only rich man, the only wise man, and the only everything.

L. But these were obviously other people’s views about them. You surely wouldn’t have trusted them praising their own qualities.

H. Of course not: this was what other people said.

L. But presumably not their rivals.

H. No.

L. Then these were laymen’s views?

H. Yes, indeed.

L. You see how you’re still deceiving me and not telling the truth. You think you’re talking to a Margites,* who would believe that Hermotimus, an intelligent man of 40, trusted the views of laymen on philosophy and philosophers, and on that basis made his choice of the better school. I just don’t believe you when you talk like that.

H. But you must know, Lycinus, I did trust my own judgment as well as that of others. I used to watch the Stoics, with their dignified way of walking, their neat dress, always looking thoughtful, with a manly expression, usually short-haired, and neither effeminate nor showing that totally exaggerated indifference of your lunatic Cynic. Theirs is a state of moderation, which everyone agrees is best.

L. Then did you see them also doing the things I told you just now I myself saw your master doing, Hermotimus—lending money, angrily demanding repayment, disputing contentiously in conversation, and showing off in their usual way? Or do you not much mind these things, provided they dress neatly and have long beards and short hair? So from now on we are to have this strict rule and standard for such matters, according to Hermotimus, and we must recognize the best men by their appearance, their deportment, and their haircut; and anyone who doesn’t pass these tests, and doesn’t look sullen and deep in thought, is to be dismissed and rejected? Now look here, Hermotimus, you must be making fun of me, to see if I’m aware that I’m being hoodwinked.

H. Why do you say that?

L. Because, my good fellow, this test you propose from appearance applies to statues. They at least are far more elegant and dignified in their dress if a Pheidias or Alcamenes or Myron * has created them in the best-looking style. But if such features are to be the essential criteria, what is a blind man to do if he is eager to learn philosophy? How does he recognize the one who has chosen the better creed, when he cannot see either appearance or deportment?

H. I’m not talking about the blind, Lycinus, and I’m not concerned with them.

L. But, my good fellow, there has to be some generally accepted token in a field that is so important and useful to everyone. But if that is your view, let us say the blind must stay out of philosophy, since they cannot see—though such people have the greatest need of philosophy to help them not to be totally oppressed by their affliction. But as to those who can see, however keen their sight, what can they detect in the soul from this outer covering? What I’m trying to say is, were you not attracted to these men by love of their minds, and didn’t you expect to improve your own mental qualities?

H. Certainly.

L. Then using the characteristic features you described, how could you distinguish the true philosopher from the false? Such qualities don’t usually appear like that: they are secret and outwardly invisible, though revealed in conversation and social intercourse and actions connected with these, even if it takes time and trouble to grasp them. I expect you’ve heard about the faults Momus found in Hephaestus,* but if not, I’ll tell you. The story is that Athena, Poseidon, and Hephaestus were quarrelling about which was the best artist. Poseidon fashioned a bull, Athena designed a house, and Hephaestus apparently constructed a man. They had appointed Momus as judge, and when they came to him he examined the handiwork of each. His criticisms of the others do not concern us, but the fault he found in the man and his censure of the craftsman Hephaestus, was that he had not made windows in his chest, which could be opened to show everyone his desires and thoughts, and whether he is lying or telling the truth. Of course Momus was short-sighted and that’s why he had these ideas about men; but you have keener sight than Lynceus,* and you seem to see through the chest to what is inside, and everything is open to you, so that you know not only what everyone desires and thinks, but also whether he is better or worse.

H. You’re making fun of me, Lycinus. I chose with divine help, and I don’t regret my choice. At any rate, it’s good enough for me.

L. But won’t you tell me too, my friend, or will you abandon me to perish among the rabble?

H. No, for nothing I say satisfies you.

L. The fact is, my good fellow, that you refuse to say anything to satisfy me. But since you are deliberately being secretive and grudge my becoming a philosopher on your level, I shall try my best to discover for myself what is the accurate test in this field and the safest choice to make. Now you please listen to me.

H. Willingly, Lycinus: you might say something worth knowing.

L. Pay attention, then, and don’t make fun of me if my investigation is completely unprofessional. That is unavoidable, since you’re not willing with your superior knowledge to explain things more clearly.

Let me imagine virtue to be a sort of city, whose citizens are happy (as your teacher would say, having come from there, wherever it is), totally wise, all of them brave, just, reasonable, almost godlike. All that goes on among us, robbery, violence, fraud, they say you would see no one daring to do in that city. They live together in peace and concord, as is very natural: for what I imagine in other cities stirs up strife and contention and the causes of mutual plotting, is completely absent there. They no longer regard gold or pleasures or glory as things worth quarrelling about, but banished them long ago from their city as unnecessary to their corporate life. The result is that they live calm and totally happy lives, with good laws, equality, freedom, and every other blessing.

H. Well, Lycinus, is it not therefore worth while for everyone to long to become a citizen of such a city, without worrying about the laborious journey involved or giving up because of the time it takes, if having arrived they too will be enrolled and share the privileges of the city?

L. Of course, Hermotimus: this must be our most earnest endeavour, to the neglect of everything else. If our country here has a claim on us, we must pay little regard to it; if we have children or parents who cling to us weeping, we must stand firm. Indeed, we should do our best to encourage them to take the same road; but if they don’t want to or cannot, we must shake them off and go straight to that all-blessed city, even casting off our cloak if they hold on to it to drag us back as we hasten there: for there’s no fear of being shut out even if you arrive naked.

I did once earlier hear an old man reporting how things were there, and exhorting me to follow him to the city. He would lead me himself, and when I got there he would enrol me to be a fellow-tribesman and a fellow-clansman, so I might enjoy the universal happiness. ‘But no heed did I pay’,* being then young and foolish—it was about fifteen years ago: perhaps I would now be actually in the suburbs and even at the city gates. He told me a lot about the city, as I recall, and especially the fact that they were all strangers and foreigners, without a single native. There were many aliens too with citizens’ rights, as well as slaves, cripples, dwarfs, and paupers—in short, anyone who wished to have a share in the city. For the legal requirements for enrolment did not include property, dress, height, beauty, or birth. These things did not count: but it was enough for a man to become a citizen if he had intelligence, a longing for what is noble, toughness, perseverance, and would not yield or show weakness in the face of all the hardships he met on his journey. Whoever showed these qualities and completed his journey to the city, at once became a citizen with the same privileges as everyone else. Superior or inferior, well-born or low-born, slave or free, just did not exist nor were they spoken of in the city.

H. So you see, Lycinus, I am toiling not in vain nor for trivial ends when I long to be a citizen myself of such a noble and happy city.

L. Why, yes, Hermotimus, and I too desire the same things as you, and there is nothing I would pray for more. If the city were near by and clearly visible to all, be assured that without any hesitation I would have got there and become a citizen long ago. But since, as you and the poet Hesiod * both say, it is built a very long way off, we have to look for the road that goes there, and the best guide to take us. Don’t you think we have to do this?

H. How else could you get there?

L. Well, as for promises and claiming to know, there’s no lack of would-be-guides. Many are standing ready, all of them saying they are natives of the place. But there is no one identical road in sight, but many different ones, not in the least similar. One seems to go west, another east, another north, another straight southwards. One leads through meadows and orchards and shady places; it is well watered and pleasant, with nothing to cause stumbling or hard going. Another is rough and rocky, offering much sun and thirst and exhaustion. But all these roads are said to lead to the city, though it’s only one city, yet they finish up in completely opposite directions.

There you have the whole of my problem. For whichever I approach, there’s a man at the beginning of every path I take, who stands at the starting-point, a very convincing figure, stretching his hand and urging me to go down his road. Each one says that he alone knows the direct way, and that the others go astray because they have neither been there themselves nor followed others who could lead them. If I go to the next one, he makes the same promises about his own road and abuses the others. The next one to him does the same, and so on with the rest of them. So, the multiplicity of roads and the differences between them, and above all the guides over-exerting themselves in praising what they each have to offer, cause me not a little bother and bewilderment. I don’t know which way to turn, or which one to follow to come to the city.

H. Well, I’ll release you from your bewilderment. Trust those who have gone before you, Lycinus, and you can’t go wrong.

L. Which do you mean? What road did they travel? Which guides did they follow? I seem to have the same problem again in a different form, involving not circumstances but people.

H. How do you mean?

L. That the man who chose Plato’s path and travelled with him will obviously praise that route, and similarly with Epicurus’ path, and so on with the others, as you will with yours. Surely, Hermotimus? Isn’t that right?

H. Naturally.

L. So, you haven’t released me from my bewilderment, and I’m still just as uncertain which of the travellers to trust. I can see that each of them, including the guide himself, has tried one path and praises that one and says that it alone leads to the city. But I can’t know if he is telling the truth. Perhaps I’ll grant that he has arrived at some point and seen some city; but whether he has seen the right one, where you and I want to become citizens, or when he should have gone to Corinth he ended up in Babylon and thinks he has seen Corinth, I still don’t know. For just because you’ve seen a city doesn’t mean you’ve necessarily seen Corinth, since Corinth is not the only city. But my biggest problem is knowing that only one road can possibly be the right one: only one road goes to Corinth, and all others go anywhere except to Corinth, unless you’re so half-witted as to think that the road to the Hyperboreans and the road to India lead to Corinth.

H. Impossible, Lycinus: different roads lead to different places.

L. Well then, my good Hermotimus, it takes no little deliberation to choose roads and guides, and we won’t be doing as the saying has it, and going where our feet take us.* That way, before we know it we shall be off on the road to Babylon or Bactra instead of Corinth. For it doesn’t do to trust to fortune in the hope that we might choose the best road, if we set out on any one at random without asking first. That might happen, and perhaps has happened on occasion over a long period; but in cases of such importance I don’t think we ought to take a reckless risk or limit our hopes so completely, being prepared, as the proverb goes, to cross the Aegean or Ionian Sea on a mat.* We would then have no right to blame fortune, if with her arrow and spear she didn’t quite hit the one true target among the myriad false ones: not even Homer’s archer (Teucer, I think) managed that, as he cut the cord when he should have hit the dove.* In fact it was much more reasonable to expect that one of the many others would be wounded and fall by the arrow than that particular one. I think one can guess that there is no little danger involved, if in our ignorance we rush into one of the paths that go astray instead of the straight one, leaving it to fortune to choose better on our behalf. For it isn’t easy to turn round and return safely, once you have cast off your cable and are running before the wind. You’re bound to be carried adrift on the sea, usually frightened and seasick, with a headache from being tossed about, when you ought in the beginning, before setting sail, to have climbed to some look-out point to see if the wind was fair and favourable for those wishing to sail to Corinth. Indeed you should have chosen the best navigator of all, and a good sound ship capable of withstanding such rough water.

H. That’s much the best way, Lycinus. But I’m sure that if you went the rounds you’d find no other better guides or more experienced navigators than the Stoics. If you want to get to Corinth some day, you’ll have to follow them, tracking the footsteps of Chrysippus and Zeno. There is no other way.

L. Don’t you see, Hermotimus, that your claim is common to everyone? The fellow-traveller of Plato, the follower of Epicurus, and all the others would each say the same thing, that I would not get to Corinth without him. So that I must either believe them all (which is quite absurd), or disbelieve them all alike. The latter is much the safest policy until we find one who offers us the truth.

Well, then, suppose that in my present state of not knowing which of them all knows the truth, I were to choose your way, trusting in you, a friend, but one who knows only the Stoic teaching, and has travelled that route alone; then suppose some god brought back to life Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, and the others, and they stood around and questioned me, or even, Heavens! took me to court on a charge of personal injury, each saying, ‘My good Lycinus, what’s got into you? Who persuaded you to esteem Chrysippus and Zeno more highly than us, who are much older than they—creatures of yesterday or the day before—not giving us a chance to speak and not testing any of our claims?’ Suppose they said this, what could I reply? Would it be sufficient to say that my good friend Hermotimus persuaded me? I know they would say, ‘Lycinus, we don’t know this Hermotimus, whoever he is, and he doesn’t know us. So you had no right to condemn us all and pass judgment in default against us, trusting a man who knows only one way in philosophy, and perhaps not even that one properly. Lawgivers do not prescribe this procedure for jurymen, Lycinus, or let them hear one side but not allow the other to say what it thinks is in its own interest. They must listen to both sides equally, so that by comparing the arguments they can more easily discover what is true and what is false; and if they do not follow this procedure the law grants an appeal to another court.’

That’s more or less what they would reply. One of them might even ask me as well: ‘Tell me, Lycinus: imagine an Ethiopian who had never travelled abroad and so had never seen other men like us, but who stated firmly in an assembly of the Ethiopians that nowhere in the world were there men who were white or yellow or any other colour than black, would they believe him? Or wouldn’t one of the older Ethiopians say to him, “Now this is very bold of you: how do you know it? You’ve never been away from us, and you can’t possibly have seen what life is like among other peoples.” ’ Personally, I would say the old man had asked a fair question. What’s your view, Hermotimus?

H. Agreed: I think his rebuke was just.

L. So do I, Hermotimus. But I don’t know if you’ll also agree with what follows. I certainly think that this too is just.

H. What’s that?

L. The man will certainly add another point, and say to me something like this: ‘By the same token, Lycinus, let us suppose someone who knows only the Stoic creed, like your friend Hermotimus, who has never travelled abroad to Plato’s abode, or Epicurus’, or indeed anyone else’s. Well, if he were to say that there was nothing so fine and so true to be found in all the others as the beliefs and statements of the Stoics, would you not rightly think him over-bold in this sweeping statement, especially when he knows only one creed, and has never set foot outside Ethiopia?’ What answer should I give him?

H. Obviously the truest one: that we certainly make a thorough study of Stoicism, as this is our chosen school; but we are not ignorant of what the others have to say. For our teacher deals with all that in the course of his expositions, and refutes it with his own arguments.

L. Do you really imagine that at this point the followers of Plato and Pythagoras and Epicurus and the rest will keep quiet, and not roar with laughter, saying to me, ‘What is your friend Hermotimus up to, Lycinus? Does he think it right to believe our adversaries in their views about us, and to accept their account of our doctrines, when either they don’t know the truth or they hide it? In that case, if he sees an athlete training before a match, kicking the air, or shadow-boxing as though hitting an opponent, will he as referee announce him to be unbeatable; or will he regard this child’s play as easy and safe when he has no opponent, and judge him the victor only when he has beaten down and defeated an actual antagonist and the latter has yielded, and not otherwise? So don’t let Hermotimus imagine from the shadow-boxing his teachers indulge in against us in our absence, that they are winning and that our beliefs can be easily swept aside. Such an assumption would be like the houses children build: they make them flimsy and knock them down at once. Or indeed it is like archers practising: they tie twigs together and stick them on a pole, and setting this up not far away they take aim and shoot at it. If they happen to hit it and pierce the twigs, they immediately give a loud shout, as if it’s a great achievement that their arrow has gone through the sticks. But you won’t find the Persians or the Scythian archers doing this. First of all, they generally shoot from a moving position on horseback; and secondly, they think that their targets should be moving too, and not motionless and waiting for the arrow to hit them, but running around as fast as they can. They usually shoot at wild animals, and some of them hit birds. If they ever want to test the power of the arrow’s impact on a target, they set up a tough piece of wood or a rawhide shield and shoot through it, thus acquiring confidence that their arrows will even penetrate armour. So you can inform Hermotimus from us, Lycinus, that his teachers are shooting at targets made of sticks and then claiming to have defeated armed men; and they are punching at dummies they have painted to look like us, so that having beaten them, as you’d expect, they think they’ve beaten us. We would each say to them in the words of Achilles about Hector,

They do not see my helmet’s front.*

Well, that’s what they would all say in turn. I imagine Plato would also quote one of the Sicilian stories of which he knows so many. It is said of Gelo of Syracuse that he suffered from bad breath, but was quite unaware of it for a long time, as no one dared to criticize a tyrant, until a foreign woman with whom he had been to bed dared to tell him about it. He went to his wife in a fury because she had not told him of his bad odour, though she was the one most aware of it. She begged his forgiveness on the grounds that, as she had never experienced being close to another man, she thought all men’s breath was like that. ‘So Hermotimus too,’ Plato would say, ‘only having experience of the Stoics, obviously doesn’t know what other men’s mouths are like.’ Chrysippus too might say the same, or express himself even more strongly, if I abandoned him without hearing what he had to say and turned eagerly to Platonism, relying on someone who had followed only Plato’s doctrines. Let me summarize by saying that, so long as it’s not clear which philosophical system is true, choose none. Choosing one is an insult to the others.

H. In the name of Hestia,* Lycinus, let us leave Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the others in peace: I’m no match for them. But let us enquire, just the two of us, whether engaging in philosophy is essentially the sort of thing I say it is. As for Ethiopians and Gelo’s wife—why did you have to bring her from Syracuse into the argument?

L. Well, let them depart if you think they are unnecessary to the argument. It’s your turn to talk now: you look as though you are about to say something marvellous.

H. It seems to me, Lycinus, perfectly possible by studying thoroughly the Stoic teaching to learn the truth from them, without making an extensive and detailed study of the other creeds. Look at it like this. If somebody simply tells you that two and two make four, must you then go around asking all the other mathematicians in case one of them says it’s five or seven? Or would you know immediately that this man is right?

L. I’d know immediately, Hermotimus.

H. Then why do you think it impossible for a man encountering only the Stoics, who speak the truth, to believe them and no longer need the others, knowing that four could never be five, even if countless Platos and Pythagorases say so?

L. That’s not relevant, Hermotimus. You are comparing what is agreed with what is disputed, and they are very different. Or what would you say? Have you ever met anyone who says that putting two twos together adds up to seven or eleven?

H. No, I haven’t. Anyone would be mad not to say it came to four.

L. Well, then: have you ever met (and for the Graces’ sake try to speak the truth) a Stoic and an Epicurean who didn’t disagree about first principles and the goal of life?

H. Never.

L. Then make sure you aren’t reasoning falsely with me, my good fellow, even though I’m your friend. For while we are still seeking those who have the true philosophy, you have anticipated the answer in choosing the Stoics, saying (which is by no means clear) that they are the ones who make twice two equal to four. For the Epicureans or the Platonists might say that they make it this, whereas you people call it five or seven. Don’t you think that this is what they mean, when you believe that only the beautiful is good, while the Epicureans consider it is pleasure? And when you say that everything is corporeal, and Plato thinks that there is an incorporeal element in existing things? No, you have, as I said, most arrogantly seized upon the point at issue and given it to the Stoics, as if it unquestionably belonged to them. But when the others make counter-claims and say it is theirs, then I think we really have to make a judgment. If it becomes clear that it is a monopoly of the Stoics to think that twice two equals four, that will be the time for the others to be silent. But while they are disputing this very point, we must give them all an equal hearing or be accused of bias.

H. You don’t seem to understand, Lycinus, what I’m getting at.

L. Then you should express yourself more clearly if your meaning is different from what I’ve said.

H. You’ll soon grasp what I mean. Let us imagine that two people have entered the Asclepieion or the shrine of Dionysus, and that subsequently one of the sacred bowls has disappeared. Obviously it will be necessary to search both of them to see which has the bowl under his clothes.

L. Certainly.

H. One of them is bound to have it.

L. Clearly, if it has disappeared.

H. So, if you find it on the first, you won’t be stripping the other, as he obviously hasn’t got it.

L. Obviously.

H. And if we don’t find it in the first one’s clothing, the second must have it, and there’s no need to search in this case either.

L. Yes, he has it.

H. Then, similarly, if we find the Stoics already have the bowl, we won’t think we need to search the others, as we have what we’ve long been looking for. What’s the point of taking any further trouble?

L. None at all, if you do find it, and having done so you can be sure that is what was missing, or you really can recognize it as the sacred vessel. But in our case, my friend, to start with, those who are going into the temple aren’t just two, so that one or the other must have the spoil, but a very large number. Secondly, it is not obvious exactly what the missing object is—a bowl, a cup, or a garland. All the priests disagree about it and don’t even concur in what it is made of, some saying copper, others silver, others gold, others tin. So you have to strip all the visitors, if you want to find the lost object. For even if you find a golden bowl on the very first, you still have to strip the others too.

H. Why, Lycinus?

L. Because it’s not obvious that it was the bowl that was lost. And even if everyone agrees on this, they don’t all say the bowl is golden, and if it is absolutely clear that a golden bowl is missing, and you find a golden bowl on the first person, not even then would you stop searching the others, because it wouldn’t be certain that this was the god’s. Don’t you think that there are lots of golden bowls?

H. Yes, I do.

L. Then you’ll have to go around searching everyone, and collecting everything you find on each, and then guess which of them is fit to be the god’s property.

For this is the great difficulty you are up against: each of those who are stripped assuredly has something, one a cup, another a bowl, another a garland, and they may be of copper, gold, or silver. And you’re still not sure if what each one has is the sacred object. So you cannot avoid the difficulty of whom to call a temple-robber, when even if all had similar articles it would not be clear who had taken the god’s property—the things could be privately owned. I imagine that the reason for our uncertainty is that the missing bowl (assuming it is a bowl) is not inscribed, since if it had been inscribed with the name of the god or the dedicator, we would have had less of a problem, and having found the inscribed bowl we would have stopped stripping and bothering the others. I suppose, Hermotimus, you’ve often watched athletic contests?

H. You suppose correctly: many times and in many places.

L. Well, have you ever sat next to the judges themselves?

H. Indeed I have. At the Olympics the other day I was on the left of the chief judges. Euandrides from Elis kept me a seat among his fellow-citizens, as I was eager for a close view of everything that took place among the judges.

L. Well, are you also aware how they draw lots for the pairs in the wrestling matches and the pancratium?

H. I am.

L. So, as you’ve seen it from close at hand you could describe it better than I could.

H. In the old days, when Heracles was presiding, bay leaves—

L. Don’t give me your ‘old days’, Hermotimus: tell me what you saw from close at hand.

H. They put out a silver urn, dedicated to the god, into which are thrown small lots, the size of beans, engraved with letters. There are two marked alpha, two beta, two gamma, and so on with the rest, if there are more entrants, two lots always having the same letter. Each athlete comes up, prays to Zeus, and puts his hand into the urn to take one of the lots. After him comes another man, and there is a guard standing by each who holds his hand and doesn’t allow him to read the letter he has drawn. When they all have their lots the chief officer, I think, or one of the judges themselves (I can’t remember), goes round and inspects the lots of the entrants, who are standing in a circle, and thus he matches the two who have drawn the alpha lots for the wrestling or the pancratium, and so likewise with the two betas and the other matching letters. This is the procedure if there are an even number of entrants, like eight or four or twelve; but if they are an odd number, five or seven or nine, he adds an extra lot with an odd letter on it which has no matching letter. Whoever gets this has a bye, and waits until the others have competed, for he has no matching letter. This indeed is a considerable advantage to the athlete, as he will be competing fresh against tired opponents.

L. Hold on. That’s just what I needed. Let’s say there are nine in all, holding the lots they have drawn. Now, you go round and inspect the letters—I want to make you a judge instead of a spectator. I don’t imagine you would know in advance who is the reserve, unless you go to all of them and pair them off.

H. What are you getting at, Lycinus?

L. You cannot immediately find the letter that tells you the bye; or maybe you might find the letter, but you wouldn’t know if that was it, as there is no advance statement that K or M or I is the one that selects the bye. But when you find A you look for the man who has the other A, and having found him you’ve already matched them. Then, when you find beta, you look for the other beta which corresponds to the one you’ve found, and likewise with all of them, until you are left with the man who has the only letter without a match.

H. Suppose you find that one first or second: what will you do?

L. It’s not a question of what I shall do: you are the judge, and I’d like to know what you will do. Will you immediately say that this man is the bye, or will you need to go round all of them to see if there is a matching letter anywhere? If you didn’t inspect everyone’s lots you wouldn’t find the bye.

H. Oh yes, Lycinus, I could easily find him. If there are nine entrants and I find E first or second, I know that the man with this one is the bye.

L. How, Hermotimus?

H. Like this. Two of them have A and likewise two of them have B, and of the other four two must have drawn C and two D, and four letters have now been used up on eight entrants. So, clearly, only the following letter E can be odd, and the one who has drawn it is the bye.

L. Shall I applaud your intelligence, Hermotimus, or do you want me to give my own contradictory view of this?

H. Please tell me. But I’m at a loss how you could reasonably contradict such a statement.

L. You’ve spoken as though all the letters are written in sequence, that is, alpha first, beta second, and so on in order, until the number of the competitors finishes at one of them. I agree that this is the procedure at the Olympics. But what if we choose five letters at random, chi, sigma, zeta, kappa, and theta, and write four of them twice on eight lots, but zeta only on the ninth, which will tell us the bye. What will you do if you find the zeta first? How will you distinguish the man holding it as the bye unless you go round all the others without finding a matching letter? You cannot, as you did before, judge from the order of the letters.

H. That’s a difficult question to answer.

L. Well then, consider the same question from a different angle. Suppose we didn’t write letters on the lots, but signs and symbols, like all the ones the Egyptians use instead of letters—men with dogs’ heads and lions’ heads. But let’s forget them as they’re so outlandish. Let us inscribe simple, uniform figures, making the best likenesses we can: men on two lots, two horses on two others, two cocks and two dogs, and on the ninth let a lion be stamped. Now, if you find this lion-marked lot first, how can you tell that this is the one that assigns the bye, unless you go around comparing them all to see if another one has a lion too?

H. I can’t answer that, Lycinus.

L. Of course you can’t: there’s no convincing answer. So, if we want to find the man with the sacred bowl or the bye or our best guide to that city of Corinth, we shall have to approach everyone and make a careful trial and examination by stripping and comparing them. Even so we shall have difficulty finding the truth; and if anyone is going to give me trustworthy advice on which philosophy I should follow, he will be the only one who knows what they all say. The others will be useless, and I wouldn’t trust them as long as they are ignorant of even one philosophy, because that might be the best one. If anyone produced a handsome man and told you he was the handsomest of all men, we’d certainly not believe him unless we knew he had seen all the men there are. This man might indeed be handsome, but he couldn’t know he was the handsomest of all if he hadn’t seen all. And we are trying to find not just the beautiful, but the most beautiful; and if we don’t find it, we won’t think we’ve got anywhere. We shall not be satisfied with just any kind of beauty: we are seeking that consummate beauty, of which there can only be one sort.

H. That’s true.

L. Well, can you give me anyone who has tried every philosophical path, who knows the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato and Aristotle and Chrysippus and Epicurus and the rest, and has ended up choosing one of all these paths, having tested its truth and learnt by experience that it alone leads straight to happiness? If we could find someone like that our difficulties will be over.

H. It’s not easy to find such a man, Lycinus.

L. Then what are we going to do, Hermotimus? I think we shouldn’t give up just because we find we have no such guide at present. The best and safest course is for everyone to start by making his own way through every philosophical system and to study critically what each says.

H. That seems to follow. But there is this difficulty which you spoke of a while ago, that once you have committed yourself and spread your sails it’s not easy to retreat. As you say, how can you try out all the paths if you get stuck in the first?

L. I’ll tell you. We’ll imitate that ploy of Theseus, and taking a thread from Ariadne, as in the play, we’ll go into every labyrinth, and by unwinding it find our way out again without difficulty.

H. Well, who’ll be our Ariadne and where shall we get the thread?

L. Don’t worry, my friend. I think I’ve found what to hold on to in order to get out.

H. What’s that?

L. I’ll tell you, though it’s not mine but comes from a wise man: ‘Stay sober and remember to be sceptical’.* For if we are not too quick in believing what we hear, but like a good judge we allow others their turn to speak, perhaps we’ll easily get out of the labyrinth.

H. Well said: let’s do that.

L. Very well. Which path should we first go along? Or will it not matter? If we begin at random, say with Pythagoras; how long do we think it will take to learn all his doctrines? And please don’t ignore those five years of silence.* If we include them I suppose thirty years will be sufficient, or twenty at least.

H. Let’s agree to that.

L. After that we clearly must allow the same number to Plato, and of course not less to Aristotle too.

H. Agreed.

L. I won’t now ask you how many to give to Chrysippus, as I know from what you said that forty would scarcely be enough.

H. True.

L. Then there’s Epicurus and the rest of them. And you can tell that I’m not exaggerating these figures if you consider how many octogenarians there are among the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Platonists, who all admit that they don’t know the full range of their sect’s teaching, so as to have a complete grasp of its doctrines. If they didn’t admit this, then Chrysippus and Aristotle and Plato would do so; and all the more would Socrates, who was in no way inferior to them, and who used to tell the world loudly not only that he didn’t know everything, but that he knew nothing at all, except that he knew nothing. So let’s reckon up from the beginning. We allotted twenty to Pythagoras, the same number to Plato, and the same to all the others in turn. What would that all add up to if we assume only ten schools of philosophy?

H. Over two hundred years, Lycinus.

L. Shall we subtract a quarter, to make a hundred and fifty years enough, or a round half?

H. You would be a better judge. What I see is this, that few would get through them all at this rate, even if they began right from birth.

L. Well, if that is the situation, Hermotimus, what can one do? Should we abandon what we’ve already agreed, that you can’t choose the best out of many if you haven’t tried them all? Didn’t we say that choosing without testing is to seek the truth by divination rather than judgment?

H. Yes.

L. Then it is absolutely necessary for us to live all that time, if we are to test them all and make a good choice, to practise philosophy after we have chosen, and to be happy after practising philosophy. Until we do that, we shall, as they say, be dancing in the dark,* stumbling over anything we come upon, and assuming that whatever first comes to our hands is what we are seeking, because we don’t know the truth. And if we do happen by good fortune to encounter it, we won’t be able to be certain it is what we are seeking. There are a lot of very similar things, each claiming to be the absolute truth.

H. Lycinus, you seem to me to be making a reasonable point; but to tell you the truth, you really irritate me, going through everything in such detail and with such needless nit-picking. It does seem to have been a big mistake for me to leave home today and then meet you. I was almost realizing my hopes, and then you threw me into a quandary by showing that the search for truth is impossible, as it requires so many years.

L. It would surely be much more fair, my friend, if you blamed your father Menecrates, and your mother, whose name I don’t know, or, going back a lot further, our human nature, for not giving you many years and a long life, like Tithonus,* and for limiting human life at most to a hundred years. I just helped you to examine and discover the logical outcome of the argument.

H. Not so. You’re always being high-handed; and I don’t know what makes you hate philosophy and jeer at philosophers.

L. What is truth, Hermotimus, you sages are better qualified to say—you and your teacher. But at least I know this much, that it is not altogether pleasant to the ears and therein is far surpassed by falsehood. Falsehood is more fair to look upon and therefore pleasanter, while truth knows no dishonesty and speaks freely to men, and so causes offence. Just look at us: you are now offended with me for helping you to find the truth in this matter, and for pointing out that what you and I are longing for is not at all easy. It’s as if you were in love with a statue, and supposing it to be human thought you could win it; but I saw it was stone or bronze, and explained to you out of kindness that your love was impossible. In that case too you would think I was being unfriendly, because I didn’t let you deceive yourself by hoping for something hopeless and unnatural.

H. So what you are saying is this, Lycinus, that we shouldn’t study philosophy, but surrender ourselves to idleness and spend our lives as ordinary laymen?

L. When did you hear me say that? My point is not that we shouldn’t study philosophy, but that since we should and since there are many paths, each claiming to lead to philosophy and virtue, and the true one is not obvious, we have to make a careful choice. But it became clear to us that, with many alternatives being offered to us, it was impossible to choose the best without going and testing them all. Then we saw that the testing would be a long process. So what do you think? I’ll ask you again: will you follow the first philosopher you meet and join him in his studies, while he treats you as a gift from the gods?

H. How can I answer that now, when you tell me that no one can judge for himself, unless he lives as long as the phoenix and goes the rounds testing all of them, and when you don’t think it right to trust those who have previously tested them, or the many who praise and bear witness to them?

L. Who are the many you refer to who know and have tested them all? If such a one exists, one is enough for me and there’ll be no need for many. But if you mean those who don’t know, their numbers won’t make me trust them, so long as they are making assertions about all the systems when they know none or just one.

H. But you alone have seen the truth, while all the other students of philosophy are fools!

L. You do me a wrong, Hermotimus, if you say that I am somehow putting myself forward in preference to others, or in general classing myself among those who know. You don’t remember what I said. I did not claim to know the truth more than others do: I admitted that along with everyone else I was ignorant of it.

H. Well, Lycinus, it may be quite reasonable to have to go round everyone, testing what they say, and that no other way of choosing would be better than this; but it is absolutely ridiculous to devote so many years to each test, as if it were not possible to grasp a whole system from a small part of it. My own view is that such a procedure is very easy and doesn’t take much time. Why, they say that some sculptor, Pheidias, I think, from seeing just the claw of a lion could calculate the size of the whole lion, assuming it was fashioned in proportion to the claw. And you too, if someone showed you just the hand of a man, while concealing the rest of the body, would know at once, I guess, that the hidden body was a man, even if you couldn’t see the whole of it. So it is easy to grasp, in a small fraction of a day, the principal points of all the systems, and this over-exact procedure, involving an extensive examination, is quite unnecessary for choosing the better one: you can decide from those principal points.

L. Good heavens, Hermotimus, how confidently you speak when you claim to know the whole from the parts! Yet I can remember hearing just the opposite, that knowing the whole you know the part too, but knowing only the part you don’t yet know the whole.

H. I’ve heard that.

L. And tell me this too. When Pheidias saw the lion’s claw, would he have known it was a lion’s if he had never seen a whole lion? If you saw a man’s hand, could you have said that it was a man’s if you’d never before seen or known a man? Why are you silent? Shall I give your only possible answer for you, that you couldn’t have said so? So it seems likely that Pheidias has retired frustrated, and modelled his lion in vain: he is obviously saying nothing that concerns Dionysus.* Or what sort of comparison is there here? for you and Pheidias there was no other way of recognizing the parts than knowing the whole, that is, the man and the lion. But in philosophy, Stoicism for example, how can you judging from one part know the other parts as well or prove that they are noble? For you don’t know the whole of which they are parts.

As for your saying that it is easy to pick up the principal points of every philosophy in a small fraction of a day—that is, their first principles and ends, their view of the gods and the soul, who state that everything is corporeal, and who claim that there are immaterial entities too, the fact that some identify pleasure and others nobility with goodness and happiness, and so on—if you have picked up all this, it is easy and straightforward to describe them. But to decide which is telling the truth surely requires not a fraction of a day but many days. Otherwise, what induced them all to write hundreds and thousands of books on these very subjects, which I suppose are intended to prove the truth of those few elements which you think straightforward and easily learnt? As it is, I think you’ll need a prophet here too to help choose the best, unless you can bear to spend the time on making a careful selection, after personally inspecting everything in detail. It would in fact be a short cut, avoiding complications and delays, if you sent for a prophet, listened to the principal points of all the systems, and offered a sacrifice for each. The god will relieve you of a huge amount of trouble by revealing the right choice for you in the sacrificial victim’s liver.

If you like, I can also suggest another way, which is less trouble-some, and doesn’t involve slaughtering victims and making sacrifices and employing some expensive prophet. Put some tablets into an urn, each having on it the name of one of the philosophers, and tell a boy—a youth with both parents alive *—to go to the urn and pick up the first tablet that comes to his hand. Then you just follow the philosopher whose name is on the tablet he picked.

H. That’s just buffoonery, Lycinus, and not worthy of you. You tell me this: have you yourself ever bought wine?

L. Yes, frequently.

H. Well, did you go the rounds of all the wine-merchants in the city, tasting and comparing and testing the quality of the wines?

L. Certainly not.

H. I imagine it’s sufficient for you to take the first one you find that is good quality and value for money.

L. Of course.

H. And from that brief tasting could you tell the quality of the whole?

L. I could.

H. Now, if you had gone to the wine-merchants and said, ‘I want to buy half a pint; so will each of you please give me a whole jar to drink, so that having drained them all I can tell who has the best wine and which one I must buy’—if you had said this, don’t you think they would have laughed you to scorn, and if you persisted in being a nuisance you might have been drenched in water?

L. I agree, and I would have deserved it.

H. Well, think of philosophy in the same way. Why must you drain the jar when you can taste a little and so learn the quality of the whole?

L. How slippery you are, Hermotimus, the way you escape my clutches! But you have given me some help: you thought you’d escaped, but you’ve fallen into the same trap.

H. What do you mean?

L. You take something which is self-evident and familiar to everyone, wine, and compare with it things that are totally dissimilar and that everyone argues about because they are so obscure. For myself, I can’t say how you think philosophy and wine are alike, except in this one respect, that philosophers sell their doctrines, as wine-merchants their wines—many of them diluting and adulterating it and giving short measure. But let us examine your reasoning. You say that all the wine in the jar is exactly the same, and there’s certainly nothing odd in that. Also, it follows, as you say, and I certainly would not deny it, that if you draw off and taste the tiniest amount of it, you can tell at once the quality of the whole jar. Now take the next point: do philosophy and philosophers like your teacher say the same things to you on the same subjects every day, or different things on different days?

H. Many different things.

L. Obviously, my friend, you would not have stayed with him, wandering around uncertainly for twenty years like Odysseus, if he had repeated the same things, but you would have been satisfied having heard him once.

H. Yes, of course.

L. Then how could you have known everything from the first taste? It was not the same thing being said, but always a succession of new things, unlike the wine, which was always the same. So, my friend, unless you drain the whole jar, you must have been walking around drunk to no purpose. God seems to me to have well and truly hidden the benefits of philosophy at the bottom, right under the lees. You will need to drain it all completely, or you’ll never find that divine drink for which you seem to have been thirsting for a long time. But you believe that it is such that you have only to draw and taste ever so little of it, in order to become all at once completely wise; just as they say the prophetess at Delphi becomes divinely inspired to give responses to her consultants as soon as she drinks from the sacred spring. But it doesn’t seem to work like this: at any rate, you had drunk more than half the jar and you said you were still at the beginning. But perhaps this is a better analogy for philosophy. Let’s keep your jar and your dealer, but instead of the wine a mixture of seeds—wheat on top, then beans, then barley, and under that lentils, then chick-peas and an assortment of others. You arrive and want to buy some of the seeds, and he has taken a sample of wheat from where it was and put it in your hand for you to inspect. Now, could you tell by looking at it whether the chick-peas were sound, the lentils tender, and the beans not hollow?

H. Of course not.

L. Well then, neither could you learn the nature of the whole of philosophy from the first thing that anyone says. For it is not of one consistency, like the wine you compared it to when you said it was similar to your sample-tasting. For we have seen that it varies in itself and a superficial test is not sufficient. You may lose a couple of obols if you buy bad wine; but to be lost yourself among the rabble, as you said yourself at the beginning, is no minor disaster. Besides, if you insist on drinking the whole jar just to buy half a pint, you will cause the merchant to suffer loss through all your sceptical tasting, whereas philosophy would not suffer such a loss, because however much you drink of it, the jar never gets less and the merchant loses nothing. As the proverb says, the more you empty the fuller it is *—quite the opposite to the jar of the Danaids, which didn’t hold what they put in, but let it run out at once. If you take anything from philosophy, all the more is left behind.

But I’d like to make another similar point about sampling philosophy, and don’t think I’m slandering it if I say it is like a deadly poison, hemlock, say, or aconite or some such. Now, though fatal, not even these will kill you if you scrape off a tiny bit with your finger-nail and taste it. If the amount and the method of having it and the mixture are wrong, you won’t die by taking it. But you claimed that the smallest amount was enough to give you a complete grasp of the whole.

H. I grant you that, Lycinus. So what? Do we have to live a hundred years and put up with all that trouble? Is there no other way to study philosophy?

L. No, Hermotimus: nor is it so awful, if what you said at the beginning is true, that life is short but art is long. And I don’t know what makes you so vexed if you can’t become Chrysippus or Plato or Pythagoras before today’s sunset.

H. You’re penning me in, Lycinus, and driving me into a corner, though I’ve done you no harm. You’re obviously jealous because I’ve got further in my studies, while you’ve neglected yourself in spite of your age.

L. Well, you know what you can do. Ignore my frenzied raving, and let me chatter away foolishly; and you continue as you are on your own journey, and finish the job according to your original decision.

H. But you are so forceful you don’t allow me to choose anything unless I’ve tried everything.

L. Well, be assured I’ll never say anything else. But in calling me forceful you seem to be blaming the blameless, as the poet says,* for I myself am now being forced along, unless you can find some other argument to remove the force. But observe that the argument may have some much more forceful things to tell you, though perhaps you will ignore it and blame me.

H. What things? I’d be surprised if it had anything more to say.

L. It says that to choose the best it is not enough to make a detailed investigation of everything: the most important thing is still missing.

H. What’s that?

L. A critical and enquiring faculty, my good sir, along with a sharp mind and a keen and unbiased intelligence. That’s what you need in order to make a decision on such matters as these, or you will have seen everything in vain. The argument says that the time devoted to such an enquiry must not be stinted, and having placed everything in front of you open to view, you must take your time and delay your decision, making frequent reviews and having no regard for the age of each speaker, or for his appearance or reputation for wisdom. You must act like the court of the Areopagus,* which gives judgments at night in the dark, so as to attend not to the speakers but only to what is said. Then you will be able to make a sound choice and study of philosophy.

H. When I’m dead, you mean. From your account of it, no mortal could live long enough to cover everything and examine every detail precisely, and after examining make a judgment, and after judging choose, and after choosing study philosophy. For you say that only in this way, and in no other, can the truth be discovered.

L. I hesitate to tell you, Hermotimus, that even this is not sufficient. We seem to be in a fool’s paradise, thinking we’d found something secure though really we had found nothing. We are like fishermen who often let down their nets, and when they feel something heavy draw them up, thinking they have caught a great number of fish. Then when they are worn out with hauling in, all that appears is a stone or a jar full of sand. You must consider whether we too have drawn up something similar. 65

H. I don’t see the point of these nets of yours. You have certainly got me in their toils.

L. Well then, try to slip out. With god’s help you know how to swim as well as anyone. Now, even if we visit all the sects and eventually get through the business of testing them, I don’t think even then we will know for sure if any of them has what we are looking for, or if they are all alike in their ignorance.

H. What do you mean? Not one of them has it?

L. It’s uncertain. Do you think it impossible that they are all deceived, and that the truth is something different and that none of them has yet found it?

H. How could that be?

L. Like this. Suppose, for example, we have a true number, twenty, and someone takes twenty beans in his hand, which he then closes, and he asks ten people how many beans he has in his hand. Suppose one guesses seven, another five, another thirty, yet another ten or fifteen, in a word everyone a different number. Yet, it’s possible that someone might happen to guess correctly, isn’t it?

H. Yes.

L. However, it’s not impossible that all may guess different numbers and that all of these are wrong, and no one says that the man has twenty beans. Agreed?

H. It’s not impossible.

L. By the same token then, all who study philosophy are seeking to learn what happiness is, and each gives a different answer, one saying it is pleasure, another beauty, and whatever else they say about it. It’s quite likely that happiness is one of these things, but it’s not unlikely that it is something different altogether. We seem to have done this the wrong way round, rushing on to the end before we have found the beginning. We should first have made sure that the truth has been discovered, and that one of the philosophers really does know it. Having done that, the next step would be to discover whom to believe.

H. So this is what you mean, Lycinus, when you say that even if we make our way through every philosophy we won’t necessarily be able to find the truth.

L. Don’t ask me, my dear fellow: once again, you must ask the argument itself. It may reply that we cannot yet do so, as long as it is not clear whether truth is one of the things they are saying.

H. From what you’re saying, we shall never find it or practise philosophy; but we’ll have to give up philosophy and live the lives of laymen. At least, the inference from what you’re saying is that for an ordinary mortal philosophy is impossible and unattainable. You claim that someone who is going to study philosophy must first choose the best one, and you think the choice would only be correct if we chose the truest after reviewing every philosophy. Then you reckoned up the number of years each one needed, exceeding all bounds as you extended the process into other generations, so that the search for truth lasted longer than any single lifetime. Finally, you declared that even this is not beyond doubt, suggesting that it’s not clear whether the philosophers of old did discover the truth or not.

L. But how could you, Hermotimus, state on your oath that they have found it? I certainly couldn’t; and yet what a lot of other points I have purposely omitted which also require lengthy scrutiny!

H. Like what?

L. Do you not hear some Stoics or Epicureans or Platonists saying that some of them know some particular doctrines, while others do not, though in other respects they are completely trustworthy?

H. That’s true.

L. Then don’t you think it’s a very troublesome task to separate and distinguish those who know from those who don’t but say they do?

H. Yes, very.

L. So, if you are going to know the best Stoic, you will have to go and test most of them, if not all, and choose the best as your teacher, after first training yourself to acquire a critical capacity in such things, so that you don’t without realizing it choose one who is inferior. Just imagine how long this takes! I didn’t mention it on purpose in case you got annoyed, and yet I think this one point is of the greatest and most essential importance in matters of this kind, I mean where we have uncertainty and doubt. And this is the only safe and secure hope you can have for discovering the truth. There is no other hope at all apart from being able to judge and distinguish truth from falsehood, and like assayers of silver to separate the genuine and unadulterated from the counterfeit, and if you can come to test the doctrines equipped with that sort of capacity and skill. If you can’t, you can be sure that nothing will stop you being dragged by the nose by all of them, or following like sheep a leafy twig held in front of you. I’d go further and say you will be like water spilt on a table, moving in whatever direction somebody draws you with the tip of his finger; or indeed like a reed growing on a river bank, which bends to every breath of air, however mild the breeze that blows and stirs it.

So, if you can find an experienced teacher who can train you in exposition and in deciding matters which are disputed, you’ll certainly solve your problems. The best will immediately become obvious to you, and the truth too, subjected to this art of demonstration, and falsehood will be found out; and having made a sound choice and judgment you will practise philosophy and achieve your much longed for happiness, living with her and having all good things in this one single package.

H. Oh good, Lycinus! What you are saying is much better and offers a good deal of hope. It seems we must find a man who can make us capable of selecting and distinguishing, and above all of expounding. The rest will now be easy and trouble-free and won’t take much time. I’m really grateful to you for finding us this excellent short-cut.

L. Well, you have no good reason yet to be grateful to me. I haven’t found or shown you anything that will bring you nearer to your hope. We are actually much further away than before, and, to quote the proverb, ‘after all our toil we are just where we were’.

H. How do you make that out? That seems a distressing and pessimistic remark.

L. Because, my friend, even if we find someone who claims to know the art of exposition and to be able to teach it, I don’t think we shall believe him straightaway, but we shall be looking for another man who can tell if the first is speaking the truth. And even if we find him, we still won’t be sure if this arbiter knows how to distinguish if a man is judging correctly or not, and I think we’ll need yet another arbiter for him. For how could we know how to judge the one with the best judgment? You see how this regresses to infinity and cannot be checked and stopped? You will note that all the proofs you can find are open to question and offer no certainty. Indeed, most of them try to force us to accept them by means of questionable arguments; while others link the most obscure and irrelevant suppositions with quite self-evident ones, and then claim that the former are thereby proved, as if someone thought he could prove the gods exist because we can see their altars. So, Hermotimus, it looks as though we’ve been running in a circle, and have returned to our starting-point and our original difficulty.

H. See what you’ve done to me, Lycinus, proving that my treasure is but ashes,* and all these years of heavy toil are likely to be wasted.

L. Well, Hermotimus, you’ll be much less grieved if you reflect that you aren’t the only one left out of your longed-for blessings. All practising philosophers are, as it were, fighting over a donkey’s shadow.* Who could bear to go through all that I have described? You yourself admit that it is impossible. As it is, you seem to be behaving like someone who weeps and blames fortune because he cannot go up to heaven, or plunge deep into the sea off Sicily and come up off Cyprus, or fly away on wings from Greece to India in a day. The cause of his grief, I suppose, was basing his hopes on some such dream, or inventing the idea himself without first finding out if his wishes were attainable and humanly possible. So too you, my friend, while you were dreaming all your wonderful dreams, the argument gave you a nudge which made you start from your sleep. Then, with your eyes hardly open you are angry with it, and you are having trouble shaking off your sleep because you are so delighted with what you were seeing. People who imagine empty blessings for themselves feel just the same. There they are, rolling in wealth, digging up treasure, ruling as kings, and enjoying any other form of bliss—all that the goddess Prayer, who is rich in gifts and refuses nothing, easily achieves, whether they want to fly, or to be as big as a colossus, or discover whole mountains of gold. Then in the midst of their fantasizing, if a slave comes and asks about some household essential, for example, where’s the money to buy the bread, or what is he to say to the landlord who has been waiting for ages for the rent, they are so annoyed at being deprived of all those blessings by his irritating questions, that they nearly bite off the lad’s nose.

But don’t feel that about me, my dear fellow, if as a friend I didn’t let you spend your whole life in a dream, sweet though it was, digging up treasure, flying on wings, imagining extraordinary visions, and indulging in unattainable hopes; and if I urge you to stir yourself and do some needful tasks, and stick to what will keep your mind for the rest of your life occupied with these ordinary everyday things. For what you have been recently doing and thinking about is just like Hippocentaurs and Chimaeras and Gorgons,* and all the other creations of dreams and the unfettered imaginings of poets and painters, things that never existed and couldn’t exist. Yet most people believe them, and are charmed by seeing or hearing such things because they are strange and outlandish.

You too must have heard from some storyteller of a woman of extraordinary beauty, surpassing the Graces or Aphrodite; and even before finding out if he was telling the truth and whether this creature actually existed anywhere in the world, you immediately fell in love with her, as they say Medea fell in love with Jason in a dream.* But my guess is that what most of all attracted you to this love, and all the others who are in love with the same vision as you, was the fact that when he had first told you about the woman and got you to believe him, he went on to add the details. You all had eyes for nothing else, so once you had let him get a hold on you, he dragged you by the nose and led you to the beloved by what he claimed was a straight path. After that I suppose it was easy, and none of you turned back to the entrance to ask if it was the right one and whether you hadn’t mistakenly gone in where you shouldn’t have. Instead, you followed in the footsteps of those who had gone before, like sheep following their leader, whereas you should have considered right at the start, at the entrance, whether you should go in there.

You might grasp what I’m saying more clearly if you consider this analogy. Imagine one of these over-daring poets saying that there was once a man with three heads and six hands, and say that you blithely accepted this without enquiring if it were possible, but just believed it. He would straightaway continue by adding details: that this man had six eyes, six ears, three mouths which simultaneously uttered three voices and ate food, thirty fingers, not like us with ten on both hands; and if he had to fight, three of his hands held three shields, light, oblong or round, and the other three brandished an axe, a spear, and a sword. Who would not believe these further details, as they matched the original picture—which was the point when you should have considered if it was to be accepted and believed? Once you grant the first account, the rest comes in a flood over you, and cannot be stopped; and it is hard to be sceptical now, as it follows consistently on what you agreed to at the beginning. Now, this is what has been happening to all of you. Because of your passion and your enthusiasm you didn’t investigate the situation at each of the entrances, and you are going ahead, lured by consistency, and not realizing that something can be both consistent and false. For example, suppose someone told you that twice five is seven and you believed him without doing the calculation yourself; obviously he will carry on to say that four times five must be fourteen, and so on for as long as he wants. This is what that wonderful subject of geometry does: it offers us at the start some absurd axioms and requires us to accept them, though they are quite impossible, indivisible points, lines without breadth, and so on; and on these rotten foundations it builds all its system, and claims to establish truths though it starts from false beginnings.

In just the same way, all of you accept the premisses of the different systems, and then you believe what follows from them, because you imagine that the consistency there, though false, proves the truth of it. Then some of you die still hoping, and before you see the truth and can condemn your deceivers; while others, even if they realize too late that they have been deceived, are by now grown old and hesitate through shame to turn back, if they have to acknowledge that at their age they didn’t know they were acting so childishly. Consequently, they carry on in their course through shame, and praise what they have, and encourage anyone they can to follow them, so they won’t be the only ones deceived, but can take comfort from the fact that many others are in the same boat. They also realize that if they speak the truth they won’t be treated with respect as now above ordinary mortals, nor will they have the same honour. So they would not willingly speak out, knowing from what heights they will seem to have fallen to the level of the rest of us. You’ll come across very few who are brave enough to admit that they were deceived, and to dissuade others from making a similar attempt. If you do meet one, you can call him a lover of truth and honest and just, and, if you like, a philosopher. For to him alone I wouldn’t grudge the name. The rest of them either know nothing of the truth, though they think they do, or they know it but conceal it through cowardice and shame and the desire to be highly honoured.

However, in the name of Athena, let us forget all that I’ve said, putting it aside and consigning it to oblivion like everything that happened before Euclides’ archonship.* Let us assume that this philosophy of the Stoics, and no other at all, is the right one, and let us see if it is possible and attainable, or if those who long for it are wasting their efforts. For I hear some marvellous promises it makes about all the happiness in store for those who win to its heights, since only they will grasp and possess all true blessings. As to the next point, which you would know better than I: have you ever met a Stoic, even a perfect specimen of the sect, who does not feel pain, and is not dragged down by pleasure, and never gets angry, who is superior to envy and despises wealth, and, in a word, is a happy man? That has to be our rule and our standard for the virtuous life—for if he falls short in the least respect he is imperfect, even if he possesses everything in abundance—and if he doesn’t match the standard he is not yet happy.

H. I’ve never seen such a person.

L. Well said, Hermotimus: you don’t deliberately tell lies. So what is your aim as a philosopher when you see neither your teacher, nor his teacher, nor his teacher’s teacher, right back to the tenth generation, truly wise and therefore happy? For you couldn’t rightly say that it is sufficient to approximate to happiness: that’s no use. A man standing just outside the door is as much outside the threshold and in the open as a man some distance off. The difference is that the former is more distressed because he has a better view of what he can’t have. Then, in order to approximate to happiness (I don’t dispute this), you take such pains and wear yourself out, while so much of your life has passed by in weariness and toil, bowed down through sleeplessness. And you will continue to toil, you say, for at least another twenty years, so that when you are 80 (if there’s any guarantee that you’ll live that long), you may still become one of those who are not yet happy—unless you think that you alone in your pursuit will find and grasp what a great many good and much swifter men before you have pursued without catching it.

Well, catch it if you fancy, and hang on to all of it when you’ve got it. But, firstly, I don’t see what good you could ever imagine would compensate for all these toils. Then, how long will you have to enjoy it, as by then you’ll be an old man, past it for any pleasures, and with one foot in the grave, as they say? Unless, my good friend, you are doing some advance training for another life, so that knowing how to live you can enjoy it more when you get there: like someone who prepares and gets himself ready for a better dinner for so long that he unwittingly dies of hunger first.

What is more, I think you haven’t yet grasped the fact that virtue surely lies in deeds, in behaving justly, wisely, and bravely; whereas all of you (by which I mean you leading philosophers) ignore such things, and practise how to invent and construct your wretched phrases and your syllogisms and problems. You spend most of your lives on these, and whoever is best at them is your supreme champion. I imagine the reason you admire this old fellow, your teacher, is that he reduces his pupils to a state of perplexity, and knows how to entangle them inextricably with his questions and quibbles and knavish tricks. So, you simply cast away the fruit, which is concerned with actual deeds, and instead occupy yourselves with the husk, and shower each other with its leaves during your discussions. Isn’t that exactly what you all do, Hermotimus, from morning till night?

H. Yes, exactly that.

L. So, would it not be correct to say that you are ignoring the substance and hunting the shadow, or chasing the snake’s slough and not attending to the coiling creature itself? Or rather, that you are like someone who pours water into a mortar and grinds it with an iron pestle, thinking he is doing something essential and useful, and not realizing that you can grind your arms off, as they say, and water stays water?

At this point, allow me to ask you whether, apart from his arguments, you would wish to be like your teacher: he is so quarrelsome, so petty, so contentious, and, my goodness, so pleasure-loving, even if most people don’t realize it. No reply, Hermotimus? Shall I tell you what I heard a very old man saying the other day, when he was expounding some philosophy, with a large group of young men attending him for the sake of his wisdom? He was angrily demanding his fee from one of his pupils, saying it was overdue, for by their agreement it was due on the last day of the month, sixteen days ago.

While he was thus carrying on angrily, the youth’s uncle appeared, a rustic fellow and a layman compared with all of you; and he said, ‘My good sir, do stop saying you’ve been mightily ill-treated because we’ve bought some verbiage from you and not yet paid for it. Anyway, you still have what you sold us, and your store of knowledge is no less. And what about my own wishes when I first recommended the lad to you? He’s shown no improvement through you: he carried off and raped my neighbour Echecrates’ virgin daughter. He barely escaped an action for assault, but I paid Echecrates, who is a poor man, a talent in compensation for the wrong committed. And he struck his mother the other day, because she caught him carrying off the wine-jar under his shirt—his contribution, I suppose, to some entertainment. As for anger and passion and shamelessness and audacity and falsehood, he was much better last year than now. Yet I would have preferred you to help him in these characteristics, rather than he should know all those things he makes us listen to reluctantly every day at dinner: how a crocodile carried off a boy, and promised to return him if his father answered some question or other; or how it can’t be night if it’s day. Sometimes the fine fellow even makes us grow horns,* with his strange twists of language. All this makes us laugh, especially when he covers his ears, and practises to himself his “states” and “relations” and “perceptions” and “images”, and goes through a catalogue of such terms. We hear him saying that god is not in heaven but pervades all things, like sticks and stones and even the humblest of creatures. And if his mother asks him why he talks such drivel, he just laughs at her and says, “If I learn this ‘drivel’ properly, nothing can stop me being the only rich man and the only king, and everyone else being reckoned slaves and outcasts compared to me.”’

So said the man; note the philosopher’s reply, Hermotimus, what a judicious one it was: ‘Well, if he had not attended me, don’t you think his behaviour would have been much worse, and indeed he might have been handed over to the public executioner? As things are, philosophy and his respect for it have put a curb on him, and therefore he is more moderate and still tolerable. For it disgraces him if he shows himself unworthy of his dress and title, which do indeed attend and help to train him. So it’s right for me to claim my fee from you, if not for making him any better, at least for what he has avoided doing through his respect for philosophy. Nurses too say the same about children, that they must go to school: for even if they are too young to benefit from learning, at least they won’t get into mischief while they are there. So, I think I’ve fulfilled all my obligations. If you’d like to come along tomorrow and bring anyone who is familiar with our teaching, you will see how he asks questions and gives replies, and all he has learnt, and all the books he has already read on propositions and syllogisms, on perception, on duties, and all kinds of things. It’s nothing to do with me if he has beaten his mother or carried off girls. You didn’t make me his guardian.’

That was the old man’s defence of philosophy. But would you also agree, Hermotimus, that a sufficient reason for studying philosophy is to avoid bad behaviour? Or did we start out with other hopes that philosophy was worth studying, and not just to go around seeming better behaved than the laymen? Why don’t you answer that too?

H. Just because I’m almost in tears. Such an effect does a true argument have on me, and I’m grieving for all the time I’ve been fool enough to waste, and, what’s more, the high fees my labours have cost me. It’s as though I’ve been drunk and I’m now sober again, and I can see what it was that I was longing for and all I suffered for the sake of it.

L. What need for tears, my good friend? I think there’s a lot of good sense in that fable Aesop tells,* in which a man is sitting on the sea-shore, where the waves are breaking, in order to count the waves. He gets angry and distressed when he can’t do it, until a fox comes up and says to him, ‘My good sir, why are you distressed about those that have gone by? You must forget about them and start counting again where you left off.’ So it is with you: since this is your feeling, you’ll do better for the future by resolving to share our ordinary life. Play your part in the affairs of the city along with many of your fellow-citizens, and give up bizarre and extravagant expectations. If you are sensible, you won’t be ashamed to learn new ways in your old age, and to make a desirable change of direction. Do not think, my friend, that all I have said has been aimed at the Stoa, or that I’ve been actuated by a special hatred for the Stoics. My remarks applied to all alike. I would have said the same things to you if you had joined the school of Plato or Aristotle and condemned all the others untried. As things are, since you have preferred the Stoics, the argument has seemed to be aimed at the Stoa, though there was no special application to it.

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H. You’re quite right: I shall do just that, so as to make a change in myself—including even my dress. So you’ll soon see me without my present long and shaggy beard and the ascetic life-style: I’ll be completely relaxed and easygoing. I might even change into something purple, to show the world that I’ve given up all that rubbish. If only I could disgorge all that I heard from them; and you can be sure that I wouldn’t hesitate even to drink hellebore, for the opposite reason to Chrysippus *—to banish their doctrines from my mind. So I owe you a large debt of gratitude, Lycinus, because you came and pulled me out when I was being whirled along by a rough and turbid torrent, abandoning myself to being carried along with the stream. You appeared just like the deus ex machina in a tragedy. I’m thinking I could reasonably shave my head like men who are free and safe after shipwreck, as a thank-offering for deliverance today, now that I’ve shaken off such a mist from my eyes. And if I ever again even unintentionally meet a philosopher as I’m walking on the road, I’ll turn round and avoid him like a mad dog.