Delphi Complete Works of Lucian

by Lucian Samosata

  Mi. Not bad, for a Libyan. — Well, Alexander, what do you say to that?

  Alex. Silence, Minos, would be the best answer to such confident self-assertion. The tongue of Fame will suffice of itself to convince you that I was a great prince, and my opponent a petty adventurer. But I would have you consider the distance between us. Called to the throne while I was yet a boy, I quelled the disorders of my kingdom, and avenged my father’s murder. By the destruction of Thebes, I inspired the Greeks with such awe, that they appointed me their commander-in-chief; and from that moment, scorning to confine myself to the kingdom that I inherited from my father, I extended my gaze over the entire face of the earth, and thought it shame if I should govern less than the whole. With a small force I invaded Asia, gained a great victory on the Granicus, took Lydia, lonia, Phrygia, — in short, subdued all that was within my reach, before I commenced my march for Issus, where Darius was waiting for me at the head of his myriads. You know the sequel: yourselves can best say what was the number of the dead whom on one day I dispatched hither. The ferryman tells me that his boat would not hold them; most of them had to come across on rafts of their own construction. In these enterprises, I was ever at the head of my troops, ever courted danger. To say nothing of Tyre and Arbela, I penetrated into India, and carried my empire to the shores of Ocean; I captured elephants; I conquered Porus; I crossed the Tanais, and worsted the Scythians — no mean enemies — in a tremendous cavalry engagement. I heaped benefits upon my friends: I made my enemies taste my resentment. If men took me for a god, I cannot blame them; the vastness of my undertakings might excuse such a belief. But to conclude. I died a king: Hannibal, a fugitive at the court of the Bithynian Prusias — fitting end for villany and cruelty. Of his Italian victories I say nothing; they were the fruit not of honest legitimate warfare, but of treachery, craft, and dissimulation. He taunts me with self-indulgence: my illustrious friend has surely forgotten the pleasant time he spent in Capua among the ladies, while the precious moments fleeted by. Had I not scorned the Western world, and turned my attention to the East, what would it have cost me to make the bloodless conquest of Italy, and Libya, and all, as far West as Gades? But nations that already cowered beneath a master were unworthy of my sword. — I have finished, Minos, and await your decision; of the many arguments I might have used, these shall suffice.

  Sci. First, Minos, let me speak.

  Mi. And who are you, friend? and where do you come from?

  Sci. I am Scipio, the Roman general, who destroyed Carthage, and gained great victories over the Libyans.

  Mi. Well, and what have you to say?

  Sci. That Alexander is my superior, and I am Hannibal’s, having defeated him, and driven him to ignominious flight. What impudence is this, to contend with Alexander, to whom I, your conqueror, would not presume to compare myself!

  Mi. Honestly spoken, Scipio, on my word! Very well, then: Alexander comes first, and you next; and I think we must say Hannibal third. And a very creditable third, too.

  XIII

  Diogenes. Alexander

  Diog. Dear me, Alexander, you dead like the rest of us?

  Alex. As you see, sir; is there anything extraordinary in a mortal’s dying?

  Diog. So Ammon lied when he said you were his son; you were Philip’s after all.

  Alex. Apparently; if I had been Ammon’s, I should not have died.

  Diog. Strange! there were tales of the same order about Olympias too. A serpent visited her, and was seen in her bed; we were given to understand that that was how you came into the world, and Philip made a mistake when he took you for his.

  Alex. Yes, I was told all that myself; however, I know now that my mother’s and the Ammon stories were all moonshine.

  Diog. Their lies were of some practical value to you, though; your divinity brought a good many people to their knees. But now, whom did you leave your great empire to?

  Alex. Diogenes, I cannot tell you. I had no time to leave any directions about it, beyond just giving Perdiccas my ring as I died. Why are you laughing?

  Diog. Oh, I was only thinking of the Greeks’ behaviour; directly you succeeded, how they flattered you! their elected patron, generalissimo against the barbarian; one of the twelve Gods according to some; temples built and sacrifices offered to the Serpent’s son! If I may ask, where did your Macedonians bury you?

  Alex. I have lain in Babylon a full month to-day; and Ptolemy of the Guards is pledged, as soon as he can get a moment’s respite from present disturbances, to take and bury me in Egypt, there to be reckoned among the Gods.

  Diog. I have some reason to laugh, you see; still nursing vain hopes of developing into an Osiris or Anubis! Pray, your Godhead, put these expectations from you; none may re-ascend who has once sailed the lake and penetrated our entrance; Aeacus is watchful, and Cerberus an awkward customer. But there is one thing I wish you would tell me: how do you like thinking over all the earthly bliss you left to come here — your guards and armour-bearers and lieutenant-governors, your heaps of gold and adoring peoples, Babylon and Bactria, your huge elephants, your honour and glory, those conspicuous drives with white-cinctured locks and clasped purple cloak? does the thought of them hurt? What, crying? silly fellow! did not your wise Aristotle include in his instructions any hint of the insecurity of fortune’s favours?

  Alex. Wise? call him the craftiest of all flatterers. Allow me to know a little more than other people about Aristotle; his requests and his letters came to my address; I know how he profited by my passion for culture; how he would toady and compliment me, to be sure! now it was my beauty — that too is included under The Good; now it was my deeds and my money; for money too he called a Good — he meant that he was not going to be ashamed of taking it. Ah, Diogenes, an impostor; and a past master at it too. For me, the result of his wisdom is that I am distressed for the things you catalogued just now, as if I had lost in them the chief Goods.

  Diog. Wouldst know thy course? I will prescribe for your distress. Our flora, unfortunately, does not include hellebore; but you take plenty of Lethe-water — good, deep, repeated draughts; that will relieve your distress over the Aristotelian Goods. Quick; here are Clitus, Callisthenes, and a lot of others making for you; they mean to tear you in pieces and pay you out. Here, go the opposite way; and remember, repeated draughts.

  XIV

  Philip. Alexander

  Phil. You cannot deny that you are my son this time, Alexander; you would not have died if you had been Ammon’s.

  Alex. I knew all the time that you, Philip, son of Amyntas, were my father. I only accepted the statement of the oracle because I thought it was good policy.

  Phil. What, to suffer yourself to be fooled by lying priests?

  Alex. No, but it had an awe-inspiring effect upon the barbarians. When they thought they had a God to deal with, they gave up the struggle; which made their conquest a simple matter.

  Phil. And whom did you ever conquer that was worth conquering? Your adversaries were ever timid creatures, with their bows and their targets and their wicker shields. It was other work conquering the Greeks: Boeotians, Phocians, Athenians; Arcadian hoplites, Thessalian cavalry, javelin-men from Elis, peltasts of Mantinea; Thracians, Illyrians, Paeonians; to subdue these was something. But for gold-laced womanish Medes and Persians and Chaldaeans, — why, it had been done before: did you never hear of the expedition of the Ten Thousand under Clearchus? and how the enemy would not even come to blows with them, but ran away before they were within bow-shot?

  Alex. Still, there were the Scythians, father, and the Indian elephants; they were no joke. And my conquests were not gained by dissension or treachery; I broke no oath, no promise, nor ever purchased victory at the expense of honour. As to the Greeks, most of them joined me without a struggle; and I dare say you have heard how I handled Thebes.

  Phil. I know all about that; I had it from Clitus, whom you ran through the body, in the middle of dinner, because he presumed to mention my achievements
in the same breath with yours. They tell me too that you took to aping the manners of your conquered Medes; abandoned the Macedonian cloak in favour of the candies, assumed the upright tiara, and exacted oriental prostrations from Macedonian freemen! This is delicious. As to your brilliant matches, and your beloved Hephaestion, and your scholars in lions’ cages, — the less said the better. I have only heard one thing to your credit: you respected the person of Darius’s beautiful wife, and you provided for his mother and daughters; there you acted like a king.

  Alex. And have you nothing to say of my adventurous spirit, father, when I was the first to leap down within the ramparts of Oxydracae, and was covered with wounds?

  Phil. Not a word. Not that it is a bad thing, in my opinion, for a king to get wounded occasionally, and to face danger at the head of his troops: but this was the last thing that you were called upon to do. You were passing for a God; and your being wounded, and carried off the field on a litter, bleeding and groaning, could only excite the ridicule of the spectators: Ammon stood convicted of quackery, his oracle of falsehood, his priests of flattery. The son of Zeus in a swoon, requiring medical assistance! who could help laughing at the sight? And now that you have died, can you doubt that many a jest is being cracked on the subject of your divinity, as men contemplate the God’s corpse laid out for burial, and already going the way of all flesh? Besides, your achievements lose half their credit from this very circumstance which you say was so useful in facilitating your conquests: nothing you did could come up to your divine reputation.

  Alex. The world thinks otherwise. I am ranked with Heracles and Dionysus; and, for that matter, I took Aornos, which was more than either of them could do.

  Phil. There spoke the son of Ammon. Heracles and Dionysus, indeed! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Alexander; when will you learn to drop that bombast, and know yourself for the shade that you are?

  XV

  Antilochus. Achilles

  Ant. Achilles, what you were saying to Odysseus the other day about death was very poor-spirited; I should have expected better things from a pupil of Chiron and Phoenix. I was listening; you said you would rather be a servant on earth to some poor hind ‘of scanty livelihood possessed,’ than king of all the dead. Such sentiments might have been very well in the mouth of a poor-spirited cowardly Phrygian, dishonourably in love with life: for the son of Peleus, boldest of all Heroes, so to vilify himself, is a disgrace; it gives the lie to all your life; you might have had a long inglorious reign in Phthia, and your own choice was death and glory.

  Ach. In those days, son of Nestor, I knew not this place; ignorant whether of those two was the better, I esteemed that flicker of fame more than life; now I see that it is worthless, let folk up there make what verses of it they will. ’Tis dead level among the dead, Antilochus; strength and beauty are no more; we welter all in the same gloom, one no better than another; the shades of Trojans fear me not, Achaeans pay me no reverence; each may say what he will; a man is a ghost, ‘or be he churl, or be he peer.’ It irks me; I would fain be a servant, and alive.

  Ant. But what help, Achilles? ’tis Nature’s decree that by all means all die. We must abide by her law, and not fret at her commands. Consider too how many of us are with you here; Odysseus comes ere long; how else? Is there not comfort in the common fate? ’tis something not to suffer alone. See Heracles, Meleager, and many another great one; they, methinks, would not choose return, if one would send them up to serve poor destitute men.

  Ach. Ay, your intent is friendly; but I know not, the thought of the past life irks me — and each of you too, if I mistake not. And if you confess it not, the worse for you, smothering your pain.

  Ant. Not the worse, Achilles; the better; for we see that speech is unavailing. Be silent, bear, endure — that is our resolve, lest such longings bring mockery on us, as on you.

  XVI

  Diogenes. Heracles

  Diog. Surely this is Heracles I see? By his godhead, ’tis no other! The bow, the club, the lion’s-skin, the giant frame; ’tis Heracles complete. Yet how should this be? — a son of Zeus, and mortal? I say, Mighty Conqueror, are you dead? I used to sacrifice to you in the other world; I understood you were a God!

  Her. Thou didst well. Heracles is with the Gods in Heaven,

  And hath white-ankled Hebe there to wife.

  I am his phantom.

  Diog. His phantom! What then, can one half of any one be a God, and the other half mortal?

  Her. Even so. The God still lives. ’Tis I, his counterpart, am dead.

  Diog. I see. You’re a dummy; he palms you off upon Pluto, instead of coming himself. And here are you, enjoying his mortality!

  Her. ’Tis somewhat as thou hast said.

  Diog. Well, but where were Aeacus’s keen eyes, that he let a counterfeit Heracles pass under his very nose, and never knew the difference?

  Her. I was made very like to him.

  Diog. I believe you! Very like indeed, no difference at all! Why, we may find it’s the other way round, that you are Heracles, and the phantom is in Heaven, married to Hebe!

  Her. Prating knave, no more of thy gibes; else thou shalt presently learn how great a God calls me phantom.

  Diog. H’m. That bow looks as if it meant business. And yet, — what have I to fear now? A man can die but once. Tell me, phantom, — by your great Substance I adjure you — did you serve him in your present capacity in the upper world? Perhaps you were one individual during your lives, the separation taking place only at your deaths, when he, the God, soared heavenwards, and you, the phantom, very properly made your appearance here?

  Her. Thy ribald questions were best unanswered. Yet thus much thou shalt know. — All that was Amphitryon in Heracles, is dead; I am that mortal part. The Zeus in him lives, and is with the Gods in Heaven.

  Diog. Ah, now I see! Alcmena had twins, you mean, — Heracles the son of Zeus, and Heracles the son of Amphitryon? You were really half-bothers all the time?

  Her. Fool! not so. We twain were one Heracles.

  Diog. It’s a little difficult to grasp, the two Heracleses packed into one. I suppose you must have been like a sort of Centaur, man and God all mixed together?

  Her. And are not all thus composed of two elements, — the body and the soul? What then should hinder the soul from being in Heaven, with Zeus who gave it, and the mortal part — myself — among the dead?

  Diog. Yes, yes, my esteemed son of Amphitryon, — that would be all very well if you were a body; but you see you are a phantom, you have no body. At this rate we shall get three Heracleses.

  Her. Three?

  Diog. Yes; look here. One in Heaven: one in Hades, that’s you, the phantom: and lastly the body, which by this time has returned to dust. That makes three. Can you think of a good father for number Three?

  Her. Impudent quibbler! And who art thou?

  Diog. I am Diogenes’s phantom, late of Sinope. But my original, I assure you, is not ‘among th’ immortal Gods,’ but here among dead men; where he enjoys the best of company, and snaps my ringers at Homer and all hair-splitting.

  XVII

  Menippus. Tantalus

  Me. What are you crying out about, Tantalus? standing at the edge and whining like that!

  Tan. Ah, Menippus, I thirst, I perish!

  Me. What, not enterprise enough to bend down to it, or scoop up some in your palm?

  Tan. It is no use bending down; the water shrinks away as soon as it sees me coming. And if I do scoop it up and get it to my mouth, the outside of my lips is hardly moist before it has managed to run through my fingers, and my hand is as dry as ever.

  Me. A very odd experience, that. But by the way, why do you want to drink? you have no body — the part of you that was liable to hunger and thirst is buried in Lydia somewhere; how can you, the spirit, hunger or thirst any more?

  Tan. Therein lies my punishment — soul thirsts as if it were body.

  Me. Well, let that pass, as you say thirst is your punishm
ent. But why do you mind it? are you afraid of dying, for want of drink? I do not know of any second Hades; can you die to this one, and go further?

  Tan. No, that is quite true. But you see this is part of the sentence: I must long for drink, though I have no need of it.

  Me. There is no meaning in that. There is a draught you need, though; some neat hellebore is what you want; you are suffering from a converse hydrophobia; you are not afraid of water, but you are of thirst.

  Tan. I would as life drink hellebore as anything, if I could but drink.

  Me. Never fear, Tantalus; neither you nor any other ghost will ever do that; it is impossible, you see; just as well we have not all got a penal thirst like you, with the water running away from us.