F] last there was an all-night festival with dancing and frolic by the sea-shore. The sea was covered with the light of the moon, and, though there was no wind, but a dead calm, there appeared in the distance a ripple coming in past the promontory, accompanied by foam and a very appreciable noise of surge. At this they all ran in astonishment down to the place where it was [Sidenote: *] coming to land. This happened so quickly that, before they could guess what was approaching, dolphins were seen, some of them massed together and moving in a ring, some leading the way to the levellest part of the shore, and others as it were [Sidenote: 161] bringing up the rear. In the middle there stood out above the sea, dim and indistinct, the shape of a body being carried. So they came on, until, gathering together and coming to land at the same moment, they put ashore a human being, alive and moving; after which they themselves retired in the direction of the promontory, leaping out of the water more than ever and for some reason, apparently, frolicking and bounding for joy. ‘Many of our number,’ continued Gorgos, ‘fled from the sea in a panic, but a few found the courage to approach along with myself, and discovered that it was Arion, the harp-player. Not only did he utter his own name, but his dress spoke for itself, [Sidenote: B] for he was actually wearing the festal robes which he adopted when performing at the competitions. Well, we brought him to a tent, and, inasmuch as there was nothing the matter with him except that he was evidently tired and overstrained from the rushing motion, we heard him tell a story which no one would believe except us who actually saw the end of it.
‘What Arion told us was this. He had for some time made up his mind to leave Italy, and had been made the more eager to do so by a letter from Periander. Accordingly, when a Corinthian merchant-vessel appeared on the scene, he at once went on board and put to sea. They had a moderate wind for three days, when he perceived that the sailors were forming a plot to make away with him, and was afterwards secretly informed [Sidenote: C] by the pilot that they had resolved to do the deed that night. At this, being helpless and at a loss what to do, he acted upon a kind of heaven-sent impulse. He decided that he would adorn his person and—while still alive—put on his own shroud in the shape of his festal attire. Then, in meeting his death, he would sing a _finale_ to life, and in that respect show no less spirit than the swan does. Accordingly, having dressed himself and given notice that he felt moved to perform the Pythian hymn on behalf of the safety of himself and the ship and crew, [Sidenote: D] he took his stand on the poop by the bulwarks. After some prelude invoking the gods of the sea, he began to sing the piece.
Just before he was half-way through, the sun began to set into the sea and the Peloponnese to come into sight. Thereupon the sailors no longer waited for night, but advanced to their murderous deed. Arion, seeing their knives unsheathed and the pilot beginning to cover his face from the sight, ran back and hurled himself as far as possible from the vessel. Before, however, his body had all sunk into the water, a number of dolphins ran under him and bore him up. At first he was filled with bewilderment, distress, and alarm; but when he found himself riding easily, and saw many of them gathering about [Sidenote: E] him in a friendly way, and taking turns at the work as if it were a necessary duty belonging to them all; and when the long distance at which the vessel was left behind showed how great was their speed; he said that what he felt was not so much fear of death or desire of life, as eagerness to be rescued, so that he might become recognized as the object of divine favour, and might have his reputation as a religious man assured.
At the same time, observing that the sky was full of stars, and that the moon was rising bright and clear, while the sea [Sidenote: F] on all sides was waveless and a kind of path was being cut for his course, he was led to reflect that Justice has more eyes than one, and that God looks abroad with all those orbs upon whatever deeds are done by land or sea. By these reflections (he told us) he found relief from the weariness which was by this time beginning to weigh upon his body, and when at last, dexterously avoiding and rounding the lofty and precipitous headland which ran out to meet them, they swam close in by the shore and [Sidenote: 162] brought him safely to land like a ship into harbour, he realized beyond doubt that he had been steered on his voyage by the hand of God. ‘When Arion had told us this story,’ continued Gorgos, ‘I asked him where he thought the ship would put in.
He answered that it would certainly be at Corinth, but that it was left far behind; for, after throwing himself off it in the evening, he believed he had been carried over sixty miles and a calm had fallen immediately.’ Gorgos added, however, that after ascertaining the names of the captain and pilot, and also the ship’s flag, he had sent out vessels and soldiers to the various landing-places to keep a watch.
Moreover, he had Arion with [Sidenote: B] him in hiding, so that they might not hear of his rescue beforehand and make their escape. ‘The event,’ he said, ‘has proved truly miraculous; for no sooner did we arrive here than we learned that the ship had been seized by the soldiers, and the traders and sailors arrested.’
Thereupon Periander ordered Gorgos to get up and go out at once and place the men in custody where no one would approach them or tell them of Arion’s escape.
‘Well now,’ said Aesop, ‘you gentlemen make fun of my jackdaws and crows for talking. Do dolphins behave in this outrageous way?’ To which I replied, ‘A different matter, [Sidenote: C] Aesop! A story to the same effect as this has been believed and written among us for more than a thousand years, ever since the times of Ino and Athamas.’
Solon here interposed: ‘Well, Diodes; let us grant that these events are in the sphere of the divine and beyond us. But what happened to Hesiod is on our own human plane. You have probably heard the story.’ ‘For my part, no,’ I answered. ‘Well, it is worth hearing. Hesiod and a Milesian—I think it was—shared the same room as guests in a house at [Sidenote: D] Locri. The Milesian having been found out in a secret intrigue with the host’s daughter, Hesiod fell under suspicion of having all along known of the offence and helped in concealing it. Though in no way guilty, he fell a victim to cruel circumstance at a critical time of anger and misrepresentation. For the girl’s brothers lay in wait for him at the Nemeum in Locris and killed him, together with his servant, whose name was Troilus. Their bodies having been pushed into the sea, that of Troilus, which was carried out into the current of the river Daphnus, was caught by a low wave-washed rock projecting a little above the water. The rock still bears his name. Meanwhile the [Sidenote: E] dead body of Hesiod was picked up immediately off the shore by a shoal of dolphins, who proceeded to carry it to Rhium, close to Molycrea. It happened that the Locrians were engaged in the Rhian festival and fair, which is still a notable celebration in those parts. At sight of the body being borne towards them they were naturally amazed, and when, on running down to the shore, they recognized the corpse—for it was still fresh—they could think of nothing but tracking out the murder, so high was the renown of Hesiod. Their object was soon achieved. They discovered the murderers, threw them into the sea, and razed their house to the ground. Meanwhile Hesiod was buried near the Nemeum. Most strangers, however, are ignorant of his tomb, which has been concealed because the people of [Sidenote: F] Orchomenus are in quest of it, from a desire, it is said, to recover the remains and bury them in their own country in accordance with an oracle.
‘If, then, dolphins show such affectionate interest in the dead, it is still more natural for them to render help to the living, especially if they have been charmed by the flute or the singing of tunes. For, of course, we are all aware that music is a thing which these animals enjoy and court, swimming and gambolling beside a ship as its oarsmen row to the tune of song and flute in calm weather. They take a delight also in children when [Sidenote: 163] swimming, and they have diving matches with them. Hence there is an unwritten law that they shall not be harmed. No one hunts them or injures them; the only exception being that, when they get into the nets and do mischief to the catch, they are punished with a beating, like naughty children. I further remember hearing some Lesbians tell of a girl having been rescued from the sea by a dolphin. I am not, however, sure as to the exact details, and, since Pittacus knows them, he is the right person to tell us about them.’
Pittacus thereupon assured us that the story had good warrant and was mentioned by many authorities. ‘An oracle was given to the colonizers of Lesbos that, when on the voyage they came across the reef known as Mesogeum, they should then and [Sidenote: B] there throw a bull into the water as an offering to Poseidon, and a live virgin to Amphitrite and the Nereids. There were seven chiefs, all of whom were kings, Echelaus—whom the Pythian oracle had assigned as leader of the colony—making an eighth. Echelaus was still a bachelor. When as many of the seven as had unmarried girls cast lots, the lot fell upon the daughter of Smintheus. Upon getting near the place, they decked her in fine clothes and gold ornaments, and, after offering prayer, were on the point of lowering her into the water. Now it happened that one of the party on the ship—assuredly a gallant young man—was in love with her.
His name has been preserved to us as Enalus. This youth, in the passion of the [Sidenote: C] moment, seized by an eager but utterly hopeless desire to succour the girl, darted forward at the right instant and, throwing his arms about her, cast himself along with her into the sea.
Now from the first there was spread among the contingent a rumour, lacking certainty, but nevertheless widely believed, that they were safe and had been rescued; and at a later date, it is said, Enalus appeared in Lesbos and told how they had been carried by dolphins through the sea and cast ashore without harm upon the mainland. He had other still more miraculous experiences to tell, which held the crowd spellbound with amazement, but for all of which he gave actual evidence. For when an enormous wave was rushing sheer round [Sidenote: D] the island and people were terrified, he alone ventured to face it. [Sidenote: *] On its retiring, a number of polypi followed him to the temple of Poseidon.
From the largest of these he took a stone which it was carrying, and offered it as a dedication. That stone we call Enalus.
‘Speaking generally, the man who knows the difference between impossible and unfamiliar, between unreasonable and unexpected, will be most a man after your own heart, Chilon; he will neither believe nor disbelieve without discrimination, but will carefully observe your own rule of Anacharsis next made the remark that, as Thales believed [Sidenote: E] all the greatest and most important components of the universe to contain soul, there was no reason to wonder if the most splendid actions were brought to pass by the will of God. ‘For the body is the instrument of the soul, and soul is the instrument of God. And as, though many of the motions of the body proceed from itself, the most and the finest are many actions on its own motion, in other cases it is but lending itself, as the aptest of all instruments, to the use of God, for Him to direct and apply it as He chooses. It would,’ said he, ‘be [Sidenote: F] a very strange thing if, while fire, wind, water, clouds, and rain are God’s instruments, by which He often preserves and nourishes and often kills and destroys, He has never on any occasion at all used animals as His agents. On the contrary, it is natural that, in their dependence upon the divine power, they should lend themselves more responsively to motions from God than does the bow to the Scythian or the lyre and flute to the Greek.’
After this the poet Chersias mentioned, among other cases of persons rescued in hopeless situations, that of Cypselus, Periander’s father.
When he was a newborn babe, the men who had been sent to make away with him were turned from their purpose because he smiled at them. When they changed their minds and came back to look for him, he was not to be found, his mother having hidden him in a chest. ‘It is for this reason [Sidenote: 164] that Cypselus built the house at Delphi, believing that the god had then stopped him from crying so that he might elude the search.’
At this Pittacus, addressing Periander, observed, ‘I have to thank Chersias, Periander, for mentioning that house; for I have often wanted to ask you the meaning of those frogs which are carved in such large size at the base of the palm-tree. What reference have they to the god or to the dedication?’ Periander having bidden him ask Chersias, who knew the reason and was present when Cypselus consecrated the house, Chersias said with [Sidenote: B] a smile, ‘No: I will give no information until these gentlemen have told me the meaning of their _Nothing in excess_ and _Know thyself_, and of those words which have kept many people from marrying, made many distrustful, and reduced some to positive dumbness—the words _Give a pledge, and Mischief is nigh._’ ‘Why do you need us to tell you that,’ said Pittacus, ‘seeing that you have so long admired the stories in which Aesop practically deals with each of those maxims?’ ‘Nay,’ replied Aesop, ‘he does need it, when he is joking at me. But when he is in earnest, he proves that Homer was their inventor. He says that Hector “knew himself”, inasmuch as, though [Sidenote: C] he attacked the rest, _Ajax, Telamon’s son, he would not fight, but he shunned him_, and that Odysseus recommends “nothing in excess” since he urges Diomede _Nay, prithee, Tydeus’ son; nor praise me much nor reprove me_.
As for a pledge, not only is it the general opinion that he is reprobating it as a misguided and futile thing when he says _Sorry, I trow, to take are the pledges that sorry folk offer_, but our friend Chersias here tells us how “Mischief” was hurled from heaven by Zeus because she was present when he was tripped [Sidenote: D] up through pledging his word in connexion with the birth of Heracles.’
Here Solon interposed. ‘Well, Homer was a very wise man, and we should do well to take his advice: _Already the night is here; night bids, and ’tis good to obey her._ Let us therefore pour an offering to the Muses and to Poseidon and Amphitrite, and then—with your permission—break up the party.’
This, Nicarchus, terminated the party on that occasion.
Footnote 24: The home of Bias.
Footnote 25: According to another account he waited till the shadow was equal in length to the stick. The pyramid was then also equal in height to the length of its shadow.
Footnote 26: The divinities of spring-water.
Footnote 27: The title _Lusios_ or _Luaios_ was popularly interpreted Deliverer (from care or difficulty).
Footnote 28: See note on _Amasis_.
Footnote 29: i.e. anointing himself, not in connexion with bathing, but with exercise in the wrestling-schools.
Footnote 30: The precise remark is uncertain, the text here being corrupt.
Footnote 31: Equivalent to a command to ‘go weep’.
Footnote 32: In antiquity these vessels were of bronze.
Footnote 33: Which was bequeathed ‘to the wisest’. It was given to Thales, who passed it on to another, and the process was repeated till it came back to Thales, whereupon he dedicated it to Apollo.
ON OLD MEN IN PUBLIC LIFE It is well known, Euphanes, that as an admirer of Pindar you [Sidenote: 783 B] are fond of quoting his ‘fine and forcible words’: _When struggle is afoot, excuses Cast a deep cloud on valour._ In connexion with the struggles of public life timidity and weakness can find plenty of excuses, but as a last and most desperate plea they urge ‘advancing years’. This is their pretext _par excellence_ for blunting ambition and putting it out of countenance. They argue that there is a fitting close to a public, as much as to an athletic, career. For these reasons [Sidenote: C] I think it well to take my own ordinary reflections upon ‘old men in public life’ and lay them before yourself.
They may prevent either of us from deserting that long companionship which has hitherto followed a common path, and from abandoning that public life which may be regarded as a familiar friend from youth up, in order to adopt another which is unfamiliar, and with which there is no time for us to become thoroughly intimate. I would have us abide by our original principle, and determine that life and the worthy life shall end together. It is not for us to convert the brief remainder into a confession that the bulk of our time has been wastefully applied to no good purpose. [Sidenote: D] It is not, indeed, true—as some one told Dionysius—that ‘despotism is a fine shroud’. In his case the combination of absolutism with injustice was only made all the more complete a calamity by the fact that it never ceased. It was therefore a shrewd remark of Diogenes, when at a later date he saw Dionysius’ son in a humble private station at Corinth.
‘Dionysius,’ said he, ‘you are far from receiving your deserts. Instead of living a free and fearless life here with us, you ought to have been there, housed in the despot’s palace and made to live in it, like your father, till old age.’ It is different with constitutional and democratic statesmanship. When a man has learned to show himself a profitable subject as well as a profitable ruler, he [Sidenote: E] does indeed obtain at death a ‘fine shroud’, in the shape of the good name earned by his life. For this—to quote Simonides— _Is the last thing to sink beneath the ground_, except in cases where high human interests and noble zeal are earlier to fail and die than natural desires.
Are the active and divine elements of our being more evanescent than the passionate and corporeal? That were an unworthy view to hold; as unworthy as to accept the doctrine that the [Sidenote: F] only thing of which we never weary is making gain. On the contrary, we should improve upon Thucydides, and regard as ‘_the only thing that never ages_’ not ‘_the love of honour_‘, but that public spirit and activity which even ants and bees maintain till the end. No one has ever seen old age convert a bee into a drone. Yet there are some who claim that public men who have passed their prime should sit and be fed in seclusion at home, allowing their practical abilities to rust away in idleness. [Sidenote: 784] Cato used to say that, to the many plagues of its own from which old age suffers, there is no justification for deliberately adding the disgrace of vice. There are many vices, but none can do more than weak and cowardly inactivity to disgrace a man in years—a man who skulks away from the public offices to look after a houseful of women, or to supervise gleaners and reapers in the country.
_Where now Is Oedipus? Where the famed riddles now?_ It is one thing to wait till old age before commencing public life, and to be like Epimenides, who—so they say—fell asleep a youth and fifty years afterwards awoke an old man. If, in [Sidenote: B] such a case, one were to divest himself of that quiet habit which has lasted all his life, and were to plunge into struggles and worries with which he was unfamiliar, and for which he was not trained by intercourse with public affairs or with mankind, there would be room for remonstrance. We might say, as the Pythian priestess said, ‘_You come too late_’ in your quest of office and leadership. You are past the time for knocking at the door of the Presidency. You are like some blundering reveller whose surprise visit is not made till night; or like some stranger who is in quest, not of a new district or country, but of a new life, about which you know nothing. If Simonides says it is true only of those who have the time to change their teacher and learn a new lesson—a lesson slowly and laboriously acquired by means of many a struggle and experience, and only when it [Sidenote: C] can take its hold sufficiently early on a natural genius for bearing toils and troubles with equanimity.
To resume. We find that, on the contrary, it is striplings and youths whom sensible men do their best to keep out of public business. Witness our laws, under which the crier in the Assembly, when inviting speech and advice, calls upon the platform in the first instance not an Alcibiades or a Pytheas, but persons over fifty. Foolish audacity and lack of experience [Sidenote: D] are nowhere so out of place as in a deliberator or a judge.[34] Cato, when past eighty and on his defence, said it was hard to have to defend himself before one set of people after having lived with another. It is agreed on all hands that the measures of Caesar—the conqueror of Antony—became considerably more regal and good for the public towards the end of his life. Once, when by stern application of custom and law he was correcting the rising generation, and they made an outcry, his own words were: ‘Young men, listen to an old man to whom old men listened [Sidenote: E] when he was young.’ It was in old age, too, that the statesmanship of Pericles reached its greatest influence. This was the time when he induced the Athenians to enter upon the war, and when he successfully opposed their ill-timed eagerness to fight a battle against sixty thousand men-at-arms, by all but sealing up the public armouries and the locks of the gates. As for what Xenophon writes of Agesilaus, it is best to quote verbatim. _‘Is there any youth with whom this old man did not compare to advantage? Who in the prime of life was so formidable to an enemy as Agesilaus was at the most advanced age? Of whom was the foe so glad to be rid as of Agesilaus, though he was old [Sidenote: F] when his end came? Who inspired such courage in his own side as Agesilaus, although close upon the end of life? What young man was more regretted by his friends than Agesilaus, though he died when full of years?_’ Well, if time was no hindrance to the great actions of men like these, what of us, who nowadays enjoy the luxury of a public life which admits of no despots, no fighting, no sieges, but only of warless contests and of ambitions which are for the most part settled by just means according to law and reason? Are we [Sidenote: 785] to play the coward? Must we confess that we are the inferiors, not merely of the commanders and popular leaders of those days, but of the poets, leaders of thought, and actors? Take Simonides. He won choric victories in old age, as is evident from the last lines of the epigram: _And withal to Simonides fell the glory and prize of the poet; Fell to Leoprepes’ son, come to his eightieth year._ Take Sophocles. It is said that, when his sons charged him with being in his dotage, he read in his defence the entrance ode of the _Oedipus at Colonus_, beginning: _To this land of the steed, O stranger, To the goodliest homes on earth, Thou hast come—to the white Colonus, Fond haunt of the nightingale, Where her clear voice trills its sorrow In the green of the leafy dell..._ a lyric which won such admiration that he left the court, as it [Sidenote: B] might have been the theatre, amid the applause and cheers of the audience. A little epigram, admitted to be by Sophocles, contains the words: _Five years and fifty Sophocles had seen, Ere for Herodotus he wrought a song._ Take Philemon, the comic poet, and Alexis. They were still putting plays upon the stage, still winning crowns, when death overtook them. Take Polus, the tragedian. Eratosthenes and Philochorus inform us that, shortly before his end, and when [Sidenote: C] he was seventy, he acted eight tragedies in four days.
Is it, I say, creditable that old men of the platform should show a poorer spirit than old men of the stage? That they should retire from the sacred contests—for ‘sacred’ these veritably are—and give up the rôle of the public man in exchange for goodness knows what other part?
From king, say, to farmer is a descent indeed. Demosthenes calls it cruel treatment of the _Paralus_, to make that sacred warship carry cargoes of timber, vine-stakes, and cattle for Meidias. But suppose a public man abandons the Presidentship of Games, his seat on the Federal Board, his high place in the Sacred League, and is found [Sidenote: D] measuring out barley-meal and olive-cake, or shearing sheep. It cannot but look as if he were needlessly courting the status of ‘old worn-out horse’. As for leaving a public career to engage in vulgar and petty trade, one might as well take some self-respecting lady, strip off her gown, give her an apron, and keep her in a tavern. Turn public ability to mere business and money-making, and its rank and character [Sidenote: E] are lost.
Or if, as a last alternative, people choose to talk of ‘ease and enjoyment’, when they mean luxurious self-indulgence; if they recommend the public man to adopt that process of idle senile decay, I hardly know which of two ugly comparisons will best hit off such a life. Shall I say it is a case of sailors taking ‘Aphrodite-holiday’ and keeping it up for ever, without waiting till their ship is berthed, but deserting it while still on the voyage? Or is it a case of ‘Heracles-chez-Omphale’—as some sorry humourists depict him—wearing a saffron gown and quietly allowing Lydian handmaids to fan him and braid his hair? Are we to treat our public man in that way? To strip off his [Sidenote: F] lion’s-skin, lay him on a couch, and feast him, with lute and flute lulling him all the while? Or should we not take warning by the retort of Pompey the Great to Lucullus? The latter, after his campaigns and public services, had given himself up to baths, dinners, social entertainments in the daytime, profound indolence, and new-fangled notions in the way of house-building. Meanwhile he accused Pompey of a fondness for place and power unsuited to his years. Pompey replied that for an old man effeminacy was more unseasonable than office. When he was [Sidenote: 786] ill and the doctor ordered him fieldfares—the bird being then out of season and difficult to procure—and when some one told him that Lucullus had a large number in his preserves, he refused to send for or receive one, exclaiming, ‘What? Pompey could not live but for the luxury of Lucullus?’
It may be true that nature ordinarily seeks pleasure and delight. But, with an old man, the body has become incapable of all pleasures except a few which are essential. Not only is it the case that _The Queen of Love turns weary from the old_, [Sidenote: B] as Euripides has it. Though they may retain the appetite for eating and drinking—generally in a dulled or toothless form—they find a difficulty in whetting the edge or sharpening the teeth even of that. It is in the mind that one must lay up a stock of pleasures, though not of the mean and ignoble kind indicated by Simonides, when he told those who reproached him with avarice that, though age had robbed him of other joys, he had still one left to support his declining years—the joy of money-making. In public activity there are pleasures of the greatest and noblest sort, such as we may believe to be the only, or the chief, enjoyment of the gods themselves—I mean those which result from a beneficent deed or a fine achievement.
Nicias the painter was so taken up with his artistic work that he was often obliged to ask his servants whether he had had his [Sidenote: C] bath or his breakfast. Archimedes stuck so closely to his drawing-board that, in order to anoint him, his attendants had to drag him away and strip him by force. He then went on drawing his diagrams in the ointment on his body. Carus the flutist (an acquaintance of your own) used to say that people did not know how much more pleasure he himself got from playing than he gave to others; otherwise an audience would be paid to listen instead of paying. Can we fail to perceive how great are the pleasures derived from fine actions and public-spirited achievements by those who put high qualities to use? Nor is it by means of those effeminate titillations which soft and agreeable movements exert upon the flesh. The ticklings of the flesh [Sidenote: D] are spasmodic, fickle, intermittent, whereas the pleasures of noble deeds—the creations of the true statesman’s art—will bear the soul aloft in grandeur and pride and joy, as if, I will not say upon the ‘_golden wings_’ of Euripides, but upon those ‘_celestial pinions_’ described by Plato.
Remember the instances of which you have so often heard. Epaminondas, when asked what had been his most pleasurable experience, replied, ‘Having been victorious at Leuctra while [Sidenote: E] my father and mother were still alive.’ When Sulla first reached Rome after purging Italy of its civil wars, he could not sleep a wink that night. As he has written in his own _Notes and Recollections_, so elated was his mind with the greatness of his joy and happiness, that it seemed to walk on air. If we admit, with Xenophon, that ‘_no hearing is so agreeable as praise_‘, no sight, recollection, or reflection is so fraught with gratification as the contemplation of exploits of our own in the conspicuous public arena of office and statesmanship. Not but what, when [Sidenote: F] a grateful goodwill testifies to our achievements, and when there is a rivalry of commendation productive of well-earned popularity, our merit acquires a gloss and brilliance which adds to our sense of pleasure.
Therefore, instead of permitting our reputation to wither in our old age like an athlete’s crown, we must be constantly adopting new devices and making fresh efforts to enliven the sense of past obligation, to enhance it, and to make it permanent. We must act like the craftsmen who were required to provide for the security of the Delian ship. They used to replace unsound timbers by others, and, by means of insertions and repairs, were regarded as keeping the vessel immortal and indestructible from [Sidenote: 787] the oldest times. Reputation is like flame. There is no difficulty in keeping it alive; it merely requires a little feeding with fuel. But let either of them become extinct and cold, and it will take some trouble to rekindle.
Lampis, the shipowner, was once asked how he made his fortune. ‘Making the big one,’ he answered, ‘was easy enough; but it was a long and hard business to make the little one.’ So with political power and reputation. Though not easy to get in the first instance, anything will suffice to maintain and increase them when once they are great. It is as with a friend, when once he becomes such. He does not look for a large number of important services in order to retain his friendship; [Sidenote: B] small tokens, consistently shown, will keep his constant affection. Nor are the confidence and friendship of the people perpetually calling for you to open your purse, to play the champion, or to hold an office. They are retained by mere public spirit—by being in no haste to desert or shirk the burden of care and watchfulness.
Campaigns are not matters of everlastingly facing the enemy, fighting, and besieging. They have also their times of sacrifice, their occasional social gatherings, their periods of ample leisure, when jest and nonsense are toward. And why should one look upon public life with dread, as being laborious, wearisome, and devoid of consolations, seeing that the theatre, processions, awards, ‘_dances of the Muses and Gladsomeness_,’ and honour [Sidenote: C] after honour to the gods relax the stern brow of the Bureau or the Chamber, and yield a manifold return of inviting entertainment?
In the next place jealousy, the greatest bane of public life, is less severe upon old age. For, to quote Heracleitus, ‘_dogs bark at the man they do not know_.’ Though jealousy may fight with the beginner at the doors of the platform and refuse him access, no savageness or fierceness is shown to a man of familiar and established reputation, but he finds friendly admittance. For this reason some have compared jealousy to smoke. In the case of beginners, during the process of kindling, it pours forth in clouds; when they are in full blaze, it disappears. And while [Sidenote: D] people resist and dispute other forms of superiority—in merit, birth, or public spirit—through a belief that any acknowledgement to others means so much derogation to themselves, the primacy which is due to time—‘seniority’ in the proper sense—is conceded without a grudge. Respect paid to the aged has the unique quality of doing more honour to the giver than to the recipient.
Moreover it is not every one who expects to attain to the power derived from wealth, eloquence, or wisdom; whereas no public man despairs of winning the esteem and distinction to which age gradually leads.
Imagine a navigator, who has managed his ship safely in the face of contrary winds and waves, and then, when the weather [Sidenote: E] becomes fair and calm, wishes to lay her to. It is just as strange when a man has fought his ship in a long battle with jealousies, and then, after they are quietly laid, backs out of public life, and, in abandoning his activities, abandons his partners and associates. The more time there has been, the more friends and fellow-workers he has made; but he is neither in a position to lead them with him off the stage, as a poet does his chorus, [Sidenote: F] nor has he the right to leave them in the lurch. A long public life is like an old tree. To pull it up is no easy task, because of its many roots and its entanglement with many interests, which involve worse wrenching and disturbance when you leave them than when you stay.
And if political conflict does leave you some remnant of jealousy or antagonism to face when you are old, it is better to quell it by means of your position than to turn your back and retire without armour or weapons of defence. People are not so ready to attack you out of jealousy when you are still in action as they are out of contempt when you give it up.
[Sidenote: 788] We may also appeal to the great Epaminondas and his remark to the Thebans. It was winter at the time, and the Arcadians were inviting them to enter the city and live in the houses. This he refused