Together these two themes constitute a meditation on the way of life embraced by Socrates and like-minded philosophers. Outwardly poor but inwardly rich, they support themselves by teaching others their wisdom, a wisdom that increases the value to them and their students of all that they come across and make use of in life. Their skill lies in their arguments, which they take seriously but not to the point of quarrelling, arguments to which they give credence and are personally committed.
Many of the ideas in Eryxias are Socratic commonplaces, and some have parallels in Plato. Socrates prayed, “May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him” (Phaedrus 279c). It is better to know how to use things than to possess them, he argues in advocating philosophy in Euthydemus. But the influence of Plato on the unknown author of Eryxias is probably strongest in the dialogue’s literary composition, which is as subtle as many of Plato’s own ‘Socratic’ dialogues. Scholars have noticed parallels to Stoic and sceptic ideas in Eryxias and have tried to draw chronological conclusions. But the only secure evidence is the gymnasiarch of 399a, holder of an office that took that form at some date between 337 and 318 B.C. The dialogue must be of that date or later, and it may have been written in the Academy, which provided a fertile ground for the later development of Stoicism and scepticism.
D.S.H.
I happened to be strolling about in the Stoa of Zeus the Liberator with [392] Eryxias, from the deme Stiria, when Critias and Erasistratus, the nephew of Phaeax (Erasistratus’ son), came up to us. Erasistratus, it turned out, was just recently back from Sicily and other places nearby. When he came to me he said, “Greetings, Socrates.” [b]
“The same to you,” I replied. “Well now, anything worth reporting to us from Sicily?”
“Certainly. But would you care to sit down first? I walked from Megara yesterday and now I’m exhausted.”
“By all means, if that’s what you want.”
“What would you like to hear first about the situation over there? What the Sicilians are up to, or what attitude they’re taking towards our city? Personally, I think that in their feelings towards us they’re like wasps. If you stir them up and get them angry just a little at a time they become [c] unmanageable; you have to drive them out by attacking their nest. That’s what the Syracusans are like. Unless we make it our business to go to their city with a very large force, there’s no chance they will ever submit to us. Half-measures can only make them angrier, and then they’ll be extremely hard to deal with. In fact they’ve just now sent envoys to us, and I think they intend to trick our city somehow.”
While we were talking the Syracusan envoys happened to pass by. [d] Erasistratus pointed to one of them and said, “That man over there, Socrates, is the wealthiest in all Sicily and Italy. He must be, since he has such an enormous amount of land at his disposal that he could easily farm a huge tract if he wanted to. This land of his is unlike any other, in Greece at any rate. And he also has plenty of the other things that make you wealthy—slaves, horses, gold, and silver.”
When I saw that he was getting ready to babble on about the man’s [393] possessions, I asked him, “But, Erasistratus, what sort of reputation does he have in Sicily?”
“People think that he’s the wickedest of all the Sicilians and Italians, and he really is. He’s even more wicked than he is wealthy, so if you wanted to ask any Sicilian who he thinks is the wickedest man, and who is the wealthiest, everyone will say the same thing: he is.”
I thought that what Erasistratus was talking about was no small matter; on the contrary, it’s what people consider to be of the very highest importance, namely virtue and wealth. So I asked him, “Who’s wealthier, [b] a man who has one talent1 of silver, or a man who has a field worth two talents?”
“The man with the field, I suppose.”
“By the same argument, if someone had clothes or blankets or other things worth yet more than our Sicilian fellow’s property, he would be wealthier.” Erasistratus agreed. “And if someone were to give you a choice between these two, which would you want?”
[c] “I would choose the most valuable of them.”
“Do you think that choice would make you wealthier?”
“I do.”
“So as it stands we think that whoever possesses the most valuable things is the wealthiest person?”
“Yes.”
“Then healthy people would be wealthier than sick people, since health is a more valuable possession than the sick man’s property. Everyone, at [d] any rate, would prefer to be healthy and possess little money than to be sick and possess the Great King’s2 fortune, since they obviously believe that health is more valuable. After all, nobody would ever choose in favor of health unless he thought it was preferable to wealth.”
“Of course not.”
“Again, if something else should seem more valuable than health, the one who possessed this would be the wealthiest person.”
“Yes.”
“And suppose someone were to come up to us now and ask, ‘Can [e] you tell me, Socrates, Eryxias, and Erasistratus, what the most valuable possession for a person is? Is it the thing whose possession would enable him to make the best decisions about how he could most effectively manage both his own affairs and those of his friends?’ What would we say this thing is?”
“In my view, Socrates, prosperity is a person’s most valuable possession.”
“That’s not a bad answer at all. But would we consider the most prosperous people in the world to be the most successful?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“And wouldn’t the most successful people be the ones who make the fewest errors in handling their own affairs and those of others, while doing the most things right?”
“Exactly.”
“So those who know what’s bad and what’s good, and what a person [394] should and shouldn’t do, would have the greatest success and make the fewest errors?” Erasistratus accepted this too. “As it is, then, the same men are apparently the wisest, the most successful, the most prosperous, and the wealthiest, since it turns out that wisdom is the most valuable possession.”
“Yes.”
Eryxias interrupted: “But Socrates, how could it be any advantage to this person if he were wiser than Nestor but didn’t have the things he [b] needed for day to day living—food, drink, clothing, and other things of that kind? What help could wisdom be? How could he be the wealthiest, since he might as well be a beggar if he has none of the basic necessities?”
I thought that Eryxias made a lot of sense, and answered, “But would this happen to the person who possessed wisdom but lacked these necessities? And if someone possessed the house of Poulytion, and it was full of [c] gold and silver, would he need nothing?”
“Why yes! He might very well sell his possessions at once and obtain in exchange whatever he actually needed for his day to day existence, or even spend hard currency, in exchange for which he could acquire those items and then have a good supply of everything right away.”
“True—provided that the other people actually wanted a house like Poulytion’s more than our friend’s wisdom. And yet if they were the sort [d] of people who put greater stock in the man’s wisdom and what it produces, the wise man would be able to sell it much more easily, if it was the case that he needed and wanted to sell it and its products. Do people actually feel such a powerful compulsion to have the use of a house, and does it make such a great difference in a person’s life to live in a house like Poulytion’s rather than in a small and humble dwelling, while the use of [e] wisdom has little value, and it doesn’t make much difference whether a person is wise or ignorant in things that really matter? Do people despise wisdom and refuse to pay for it, and are there many who need and want to purchase the cypress wood in Poulytion’s house and marble from Mt. Pentelicon? At any rate, if a person were a navigator or a doctor skilled at his profession, or were able to have a successful practice in
some other profession along those lines, he would be valued more highly than every one of the greatest material possessions. And what about the person who can offer good advice about how to achieve success, both for himself and for someone else—wouldn’t he be able to sell this skill, if that’s what he wanted to do?”
Eryxias broke in, looking annoyed as though someone had done something [395] wrong to him: “If you had to tell the truth, Socrates, would you really claim that you’re wealthier than Callias, the son of Hipponicus?3 I’m sure you’d agree that you’re no less intelligent in all the most important things, indeed wiser; but that hasn’t made you any wealthier.”
“Maybe, Eryxias, you think these arguments we’re now discussing are just a game, since, as you suppose, they have no reality, like pieces in [b] backgammon which you can move to gain an advantage over your opponents so that they have no move they can make to counter yours. Now maybe with regard to wealth, too, you think that the true situation is no more one way than another, and that some arguments are of the same kind, no more true than false. If a person offered these arguments he could get the better of his opponents in claiming that the wisest are in our view [c] also the wealthiest, even though what he was saying was false while his opponents were speaking the truth. Perhaps this isn’t surprising; it’s as if two men were talking about letters: one claims that the name ‘Socrates’ begins with an ‘S,’ the other that it begins with an ‘A’; and the argument that the name begins with an ‘A’ proves stronger than the argument that it begins with an ‘S’.”
Eryxias cast a glance around at the people who were there, laughing and blushing as though he had not been present at the earliest discussions, [d] and said: “Socrates, I thought that our arguments shouldn’t be the kind that can’t persuade any of the people here and provide some benefit to them. Who in his right mind could ever be persuaded that the wisest are the wealthiest? What we should be discussing, since we’re talking about wealth, is under what conditions it’s an admirable thing to be wealthy and under what conditions it’s a disgraceful thing, and just what kind of thing wealth is, whether it’s good or bad.”
[e] “All right, I’ll be careful from now on; and thank you for your good advice. But since you’re introducing the problem, why don’t you venture to tell us yourself whether you consider it good or bad to be wealthy?—especially since you don’t think that our earlier arguments dealt with this subject.”
“Well then, I think it’s good to be wealthy.”
He wanted to go on speaking, but Critias interrupted and said: “Tell me, Eryxias, do you consider it a good thing to be wealthy?”
“I certainly do. I’d be crazy if I didn’t; and I’m sure the whole world would agree with me about this.”
[396] “But I also think I could convince everybody that for some people, being wealthy is a bad thing. Yet if it really were good, it wouldn’t appear bad to some of us.”
Then I said to them: “If the two of you couldn’t agree over who is the greater authority on expert horsemanship, and I happened to know about horses, I’d try to put a stop to your quarrel. After all, I’d be ashamed if I were there and didn’t do all I could to prevent your quarrelling; likewise [b] if you couldn’t agree about anything else at all and were likely to go away as enemies instead of friends unless you came to an understanding. But as it is your disagreement is over something which you’re bound to deal with throughout your whole life, and it makes a big difference whether you should consider it useful or not. What’s more, the Greeks don’t think it’s any ordinary thing; they hold it in the highest regard—at any rate, [c] that’s why the first thing that fathers advise their sons to consider, as soon as they think their sons have reached the age when they have their wits about them, is how they will become wealthy, since a man who has possessions is worth something, but one who doesn’t is worthless. Now if this is taken so seriously, and you see eye to eye on other things but differ over such an important matter—on top of that, not over whether wealth is black or white, or light or heavy, but whether it’s good or bad—that you actually become the worst of enemies if you argue over what’s good [d] and what’s bad, even though you’re really the closest friends and relatives—well, as far as I can, I’m not going to ignore you while you’re carrying on your argument. If I could explain the situation to you and put a stop to your dispute, I would. But in fact, since I can’t do that, and since each of you thinks he can make the other agree with him, I’m ready to [e] help you all I can to come to an agreement about wealth. So try to make us agree with you, Critias, as you had undertaken to do.”
“As I intended, I’d like to ask Eryxias if he thinks there are just and unjust people.”
“I most certainly do.”
“Then do you think injustice is a good thing or a bad thing?”
“A bad thing.”
“Do you think a man would be behaving unjustly or not if he were to pay money to commit adultery with his neighbor’s wife, when in fact both the city and its laws forbid it?”
“To my mind he would be acting unjustly.”
“So if the unjust man who wanted to do this were wealthy and able to spend money on it, he would commit the crime. But if he weren’t wealthy [397] and didn’t have the resources to spend, he simply wouldn’t be able to carry out what he wanted; and then there’d be no crime at all. It follows that this man would be better off if he weren’t wealthy, since he would have less chance of carrying out what he wanted when what he wanted was wrong.
“And here’s something else: would you say that being sick is bad or good?”
“Bad.”
“Now then, do you think that some people are weak-willed?”
“Yes.” [b]
“Then if it were better for the weak-willed person’s health to stay away from food, drink, and the other things that people regard as pleasurable, but he wasn’t able to do this because of his weakness, would it be better for him if he didn’t have the means to acquire them, rather than if he had a superabundance of what he needed? For in that case he wouldn’t have the opportunity to go wrong, no matter how much he wanted to.”
I was thinking that Critias had conducted this conversation so effectively that if it weren’t for the embarrassment Eryxias was feeling in front of [c] everyone there, he might very well have stood up and hit Critias. Eryxias thought that something important had been taken from him, since it had become apparent to him that his earlier opinions about wealth were wrong. I realized that he was feeling like this and was worried that it might lead to insults and antagonism, so I said: “Just a couple of days ago this very argument was being used in the Lyceum by a wise man named Prodicus, [d] from Ceos.4 The people who were there thought he was talking such nonsense that he couldn’t convince any of them that he was speaking the truth. As a matter of fact a very outspoken young man came up and sat beside Prodicus. He began to laugh and jeer at him and provoke him; he wanted Prodicus to explain what he was saying. What’s more, his standing among the audience was much higher than Prodicus’.”
Erasistratus said, “Would you like to give us a report of the conversation?”
[e] “By all means, provided I can remember it. I think it went something like this.
“The young man asked him in what respect he thought wealth was bad and in what respect good. Prodicus responded as you did just now: ‘It’s good for gentlemen, the people who know in what situations they should use their property; but it’s bad for those who are wicked and ignorant. The situation is the same with everything else as well: the nature of the things people deal in inevitably reflects the people themselves. I think that Archilochus’5 poem said it well: “Men’s thoughts are like the things they encounter.” ’
[398] “‘In that case,’ the young man said, ‘suppose someone were to make me skilled in the same thing that good men are skilled in. He’s bound at the same time to make everything else good for me as well. Yet that wasn’t the point of his efforts, since he was concentrating on th
e thing at which he has made me skilled rather than ignorant. It’s as if someone now were to make me skilled in letters: he would necessarily make the other things that have to do with letters good for me; and likewise with music too. It’s [b] the same story when he makes me good: inevitably he’s made the other things good for me too.’
“To these analogies Prodicus didn’t offer his agreement, yet he went along with the young man’s initial remark.
“ ‘Do you think,’ the young man said, ‘that doing good things is just like building a house, that it’s the work of human hands? Or do things have to go on being the very same as they were at the outset, whether bad or good?’
“Prodicus, I think, was now suspicious about where their argument was [c] headed. So to avoid being defeated by the young man in full view of everyone who was there—though he thought it made no difference if this happened while they were alone—he gave a very shrewd response, that doing good things is the work of human hands.
“ ‘Do you think,’ the young man said, ‘that excellence can be taught, or is it innate?’
“ ‘I believe it can be taught,’ Prodicus said.
“ ‘Do you think a person would be foolish if he supposed that by praying to the gods he could become skilled in letters or music or could gain some other expertise, which he could only possess by learning from another [d] person or by finding it out for himself?’
“ ‘Yes, I do.’
“ ‘So, Prodicus,’ the young man said, ‘whenever you pray to the gods for success and good things, you’re praying on those occasions for nothing other than to become a gentleman, since it’s the case that things are actually good for gentlemen, but bad for mediocre people. But if excellence really can be taught, it would appear that you’re praying for nothing other than to be taught what you don’t know.’
“I told Prodicus that I thought he was under a serious delusion if it [e] turned out that he was wrong in supposing that we receive from the gods what we pray for at the same time that we pray for it. ‘Although you sometimes hurry to the Acropolis and pray to the gods and beg them to give you good things, you don’t know that they can give you what you’re begging for. It’s the same as if you were to go to the doors of a schoolteacher and implore him to give you skill in letters without any effort on your part, so that after you had received it you too would immediately be able to do the work that a schoolteacher does.’
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