Delphi Complete Works of Dio Chrysostom

by Dio Chrysostom

  [21] You see what hardships these athletic competitors endure while training, spending money, and finally often even choosing to die in the very midst of the games. Why is it? If we were to abolish the crown for the sake of which they strive, and the inscription which will commemorate their victory at the Olympian or the Pythian games, do you think that they would endure for even one day the heat of the sun, not to mention all the other unpleasant and arduous things which attach to their occupation? Well then, if it becomes clear to them that any statue of them which their countrymen may set up another man is going to appropriate, first removing the name of the victor who dedicated it and then putting his own name there, do you think that anyone will go there any longer even to witness the games, to say nothing of competing? It is for this reason, I think, that kings, too, claim such testimony as this. [22] For all men set great store by the outward tokens of high achievement, and not one man in a thousand is willing to agree that what he regards as a noble deed whole have been done for himself alone and that no other man shall have knowledge of it.

  In Heaven’s name, do you fail to recognize that this action of yours not only deprives those men of honour, but also leaves the city destitute of men who will be well-disposed and strenuous in her behalf? For let not the thought enter the mind of any of you, that even if you do abolish that one honour, the honour of the grant of a statue, the other honours, nevertheless, cannot be taken away. For, in the first place, those who annul the greatest honour and that which every man is most anxious to gain, admit, I presume, that they are doing injury to the state in the greatest degree, since they concede that it would be injurious that all honours should have been abolished.

  [23] Moreover, there is this also to be considered — that wherever one part of an institution has been changed, there all parts alike have suffered change and no similar institution is secure. For those who have infringed the principle by observing which it was believed that a certain undesirable thing would not happen, and because they thought the principle was of no importance, have thereby undermined every institution whose stability rested upon the same premises. For instance, if a person should do away with any one whatsoever of the penalties of the law, he has not left any of the others secure either. [24] And if a man were to do away with the greatest of your punishments, banishment or death, it would necessarily be thought in the future that the lesser penalties also were not even on the statute books. Therefore, just as men who falsely stamp the currency, even if they injure only a part, are regarded as having ruined the whole by making it suspect, in like manner those who annul any of the honours or the punishments are doing away with the whole system and showing that it is worth nothing whatever. [25] Moreover, if anyone were to put this question to me: Admitted that each of the two things causes the greatest possible harm, namely, that there should be no confidence in the honours which a city bestows and that the punishment it inflicts should be ineffectual, if it is not possible to guard against both, which of them I consider more conducive to justice and characteristic of more respectable men, I should unhesitatingly say in reply, “That its punishments should be ineffectual,” since this can be credited to humanity, to pity, and to other sentiments of that nature, the very qualities that characterize good men. But to let the memory of the noblest men be forgotten and to deprive them of the rewards of virtue cannot find any plausible excuse, but must be ascribed to ingratitude, envy, meanness and all the basest motives. Again, whereas the former, when they relax their punishments, merely slacken their constraint upon those who are really bad, the latter are themselves committing the greatest sins against their benefactors. This is just as much worse than the other as committing a wrong yourself is worse than failing rigorously to prevent another man from committing a wrong.

  [26] So, then, it cannot be said, either, that this is not the greatest of the gifts that have been given to any persons, since, apart from the fact that the truth is patent to everyone, those who deny it will be contradicting themselves. For they protest that it is necessary to honour many of the leading men at the present time, and that if it proves necessary to get statues made for them all, enormous expense will be incurred, since the other honours are not in keeping with their position, and the men themselves would not accept them, as being far too inadequate. [27] As to the matter of expense, you will see in a short time what there is in that plea. But that this is the greatest of your honours which they are taking away from the former recipients, is by this protest conceded.

  Again, since it is preposterous to pass over any one of those who are worthy of honour and to offer no recompense for his benefaction, as those men above all others must admit who think it a terrible thing even to bestow a lesser honour than a person deserves; is it not an excess of wrong-doing to honour men and then, though having no fault to find with them, to deprive them of what has been given them? The one act, namely, means being ungrateful to your benefactors, but the other means insulting them; the one is a case of not honouring the good men, the other, of dishonouring them. [28] For whereas in the one case you merely fail to grant to men of excellent character what you believe is their due, in the other case you give them the treatment which is customarily accorded to men who are utterly base. If, for instance, any man who formerly was thought respectable should afterwards commit any unpardonable and grievous sin, such as plotting treason or a tyranny, the practice is to revoke this man’s honours, even if previously he had received the honour of an inscription. Then is it not a disgrace for you to consider that men who are admittedly the noblest deserve the same treatment as that which the laws command to be imposed on the impious and unholy, men who have not even a claim to a burial? [29] Consequently, I think that, great as is the desire which all men have to receive honour among other peoples, they will have just as great a desire, or even a greater, that they may never receive any such honour among you; inasmuch as everyone considers the insult and contumely to be a greater evil than he has regarded the honour a good. If, for instance, you were to invite anyone to take a seat of honour or should enroll him as a citizen with the intention of afterwards unseating him or depriving him of his citizenship, he would earnestly implore you to leave him alone. Take tyrants, for instance, or those kings whose statues were destroyed afterwards and whose names were blotted out by those who had been governed with violence and in defiance of law — the very thing, I am inclined to think, that has happened in your time also — I should emphatically say that, if they had foreseen that this was going to take place, they would not have permitted any city either to set up statues of themselves or to inscribe their names upon them.

  [30] And yet this argument shows, not only that these men are suffering injustice and outrageous treatment, but also that the argument by which some will perhaps urge that you shall continue your present practice is only an empty subterfuge, or rather, that it argues against the practice. I mean, if they shall say that it is both necessary and expedient to honour men of a later time also, is it not the very reverse of this to insult the men who in the past have received these honours? For what any man of former times would not have chosen to accept if he had known that this was going to happen, is it at all reasonable to suppose that any man of the present day is glad to accept when he sees what is being done? Consequently, even if not on account of those former benefactors, yet at any rate on account of these whom we are now honouring, it stands to reason that you should guard against the practice. [31] For all men look with suspicion on gifts which are proffered by those who to their knowledge disregard in this manner any person who formerly received public commendation and was regarded as a friend; but those men are especially suspicious who are getting the very honours of which they see that the previous recipients have been deprived. But if your motive should be that they were to receive this honour themselves, or, rather, be thought to have received it, they must at once look upon the action as downright pretence and a mockery. It would be much better to tell those who prefer to have you give yourselves ver
y little concern about those who have previously been honoured, that there is no longer any need for honouring anybody at all, rather than, on the contrary, to bring into disrepute that practice which men say your city has the greatest need of and with respect to a greater number of persons now than ever before.

  [32] And yet, by Zeus and the gods, even if those who think they are now getting statues were going to feel the warmest gratitude towards you and to praise your democracy to the skies, not even so should this thing have been done. For merely to seek how one can please a person in what one does and how win his good will, and not to consider whether one will be wronging another person whom one should not wrong by so doing, or will be doing anything at all that one should not — by the gods I declare this befits neither liberal-minded men nor men of decent character. For no one, even the most wicked, chooses any base action which he does not think is to his own advantage at the time, but the essence of wickedness consists in being led by the desire of gain and profit to shrink from no base or unjust action and not to care about the nature of the act, but only whether it is profitable. [33] Therefore, the man who courts the person who is present but slights his former friend, and having forgotten the service this friend has rendered, places highest importance upon the hoped-for benefit from the other — do you not know the term that is applied to him? Is such a man not called a toady everywhere? Is he not considered ignoble, a man not to be trusted? As the case now stands, therefore, the city does not even get the advantage that sundry men are courted by her and so think they are getting a grand thing when their names are put into an inscription. For in fact the opposite is the case: they are annoyed and find fault when by themselves, even if on other occasions they are silent because they do not wish to give offence. Or if you should offer a man a counterfeit coin as a present, there is nobody who would ever willingly take it but would consider the offer an insult rather than a gift, and yet do you imagine that a counterfeit honour, a thing utterly worthless, is ever accepted by persons who have any sense? [34] Yet if any one sells another man’s slave, or chattel, falsely claiming that it is his own, the man who is deceived is without exception very indignant, and it would surprise me if you would not even punish the offence with death; but if a person should be tricked into taking another man’s statue to which he has no right from those who have no authority to give it — for what a person gives to another, he no longer has the authority to give to yet another — do you think that he is grateful to those who have duped him? [35] But I ask you, if my words seem rather bitter, not to be at all vexed with me; for I am by no means saying that it is you who do this, but that it happens, in a manner of speaking, against the wish of your city. Still, if the practice is of such a nature that it seems utterly shameful when subjected to examination, the more eagerly ought you to listen to the speaker, so as to be free from the shame of it for the future. For neither can our bodily troubles be healed without pain; and often the very presence of marked pain in the part treated is itself an indication that the treatment is making marked progress.

  [36] So what I said at the beginning I would not hesitate to say at this point also — that in every situation it is proper that good men should show themselves to be morally sound and to have in their character no equivocal or hateful trait, but, on the contrary, should be utterly free from deceit and baseness — I mean men who are like yourselves — and I think this applies especially to conferring honour and the giving of gifts. For to put any shame upon a noble practice, and to carry out unjustly that which is the most just thing in the world, is the mark of men who have no delicate sense of the nature of each act. Hence just as those who commit sacrilege are worse than those who err in respect to anything else, so too are those who prove unjust and wicked in the matter under discussion. [37] For what is more sacred than honour or gratitude? Do you not know that the majority of men regard the Graces as indeed goddesses? Therefore, if anyone mutilated their statues or overturns their altars, you hold this man guilty of impiety; but if injury or ruin is done to that very grace (charis) from which these goddesses have derived their name (Charites) by anyone’s performing a gracious act in a way that is not right, but in an ignoble, illiberal, and crafty manner showing rank ingratitude to his benefactors, can we say that such a man has sense and is more intelligent than his fellows? Nay, tradesmen who cheat in their measures, men whose livelihood from the very nature of the business depends upon base gain, you hate and punish; but if your city shall gain the reputation of playing the knave in connection with her commendations of good men and of making a traffic of her gifts, will you feel no shame that she makes her sacred awards equivocal and subject to repeated sale? [38] And do you give not even a thought to this truth — that nobody will ever again willingly have dealings with those tradesmen whose measures are dishonest?

  And besides, that the practice is in essence such as I have shown, and that it is not my speech which casts reproach upon it, I ask you to see from the following consideration: If anyone were to inquire of you whether you prefer, in the case of those who receive honours from you and on whom you think you are bestowing the statues, that they should know the truth and what sort of transaction it is, or that they should be kept in ignorance, it is perfectly clear what you would say if you are in your right senses. For what was there to prevent your writing explicitly in the decree to begin with, just like its other provisions, this also: that ‘their statue shall be one of those already erected’ or ‘shall be So-and-so’s’, if you really wanted the recipients also to understand? But you will never put this in your decrees, I warrant! [39] Well, it is perfectly clear that no one tries to disguise things that are done in a straightforward fashion and have nothing irregular about them. And I think it is even more obvious that nobody would be in the least inclined to take precautions to prevent men who are receiving favours at their hands from knowing in just what manner they were getting them and anything whatsoever that was being done in connection with the honour, at least if the action taken were done in a sincere and honourable way. So what is now happening must necessarily be contemptible in every way and ill-befitting for even a man in private station. For the man who, in the very act of doing a kindness to others either because he has previously received a kindness from them, or because he is actually taking the initiative and inviting them to be his friends, then deceives and cheats — what would such a man do in an honest fashion?

  So, then, you do know that no one is unaware of what is going on, nay, it is notorious and on everybody’s tongue, not only now that certain cities have followed this practice to great excess and with utter lack of restraint, but because it is being done even among you. [40] For the high standing of your city and her greatness allow nothing that goes on here to remain unknown; and the greater decorum of your conduct as compared with that of any other city; and, besides, I presume, your being the most prosperous of the Greeks, all arouse dislike and jealousy, so that there are many who watch to see if you appear to be at fault in any matter. Therefore those who prefer that what they do shall remain utterly unknown thereby reveal a sign of baseness, while those who think that what nobody is ignorant of goes unnoticed show their simplicity; and you would not care to have your city held guilty of both these faults!

  [41] “Oh yes!” you say, “but we shall be put to expense if we do not use those we already have! And what sums will be required if we are to have new statues made for all those to whom we vote them!”

  And how much better it would be to make the gift to fewer persons rather than to deceive a larger number, since you will be condemned and hated by a larger number, for they know well what you are doing!

  Again, if they are not very distinctly superior men whose memorials you are now setting up in some fashion or other — and if you are wise, you will by no means say that they are — see what takes place: on account of the inferior you are wronging the excellent; for your ancestors, I dare assert, did not bestow their admiration at random or upon any undeserving person. On the oth
er hand, if you are honouring good men, then these have good reason to be indignant at your action. [42] For what fair-minded man would wish another to be ill-treated on his account and deprived of what had been justly given? How could he help being angry at such treatment, instead of feeling grateful? To take another case: no man, if he were honourable, would consent to get a wife through having committed adultery with her, because by that act he had done an injury to her former husband; or rather, a man would not willingly take any woman at all away from another, her husband, although this is often done without any base motive. But an honour, which it is not possible justly to take away from another person or without inflicting an injury on him — do you think that anyone cares to have, even though he is not expecting to be subjected to any such treatment himself? Nay, a man who is buying a slave inquires if he ever ran away, and if he would not stay with his first master; but a gift or a favour which a man believes was not given in good faith and which he knows well enough has no permanence in it at all — would he willingly accept that?