[25] Aspasia, daughter of Axiochus, of Miletus. See "Econ." iii. 14; Plat. "Menex." 235 E; Aesch. Socrat. ap. Cic. "de Invent." I. xxxi. 51. See Grote, "H. G." vi. 132 foll.; Cobet, "Pros. Xen."
[26] Reading {ouk ethelein epainein}, or if {ouk ophelein epainousas} with Kuhner transl. "Good matchmakers, she told me, have to consult truth when reporting favourably of any one: then indeed they are terribly clever at bringing people together: whereas false flatterers do no good; their dupes," etc.
Cri. Really, Socrates, you are a wonderfully good friend to me--in so far as I have any merit which will entitle me to win a friend, you will lend me a helping hand, it seems; otherwise you would rather not forge any petty fiction for my benefit.
Soc. But tell me, how shall I assist you best, think you? By praising you falsely or by persuading you to try to be a good man? Or if it is not plain to you thus, look at the matter by the light of some examples. I wish to introduce you to a shipowner, or to make him your friend: I begin by singing your praises to him falsely thus, "You will find him a good pilot"; he catches at the phrase, and entrusts his ship to you, who have no notion of guiding a vessel. What can you expect but to make shipwreck of the craft and yourself together? or suppose by similar false assertions I can persuade the state at large to entrust her destinies to you--"a man with a fine genius for command," I say, "a practised lawyer," "a politician born," and so forth. The odds are, the state and you may come to grief through you. Or to take an instance from everyday life. By my falsehoods I persuade some private person to entrust his affairs to you as "a really careful and business-like person with a head for economy." When put to the test would not your administration prove ruinous, and the figure you cut ridiculous? No, my dear friend, there is but one road, the shortest, safest, best, and it is simply this: In whatsoever you desire to be deemed good, endeavour to be good. For of all the virtues namable among men, consider, and you will find there is not one but may be increased by learning and practice. For my part then, Critobulus, these are the principles on which we ought to go a- hunting; but if you take a different view, I am all attention, please instruct me.
Then Critobulus: Nay, Socrates, I should be ashamed to gainsay what you have said; if I did, it would neither be a noble statement nor a true.[27]
[27] {kala . . . alethe}.
VII
He had two ways of dealing with the difficulties of his friends: where ignorance was the cause, he tried to meet the trouble by a dose of common sense; or where want and poverty were to blame, by lessoning them that they should assist one another according to their ability; and here I may mention certain incidents which occurred within my own knowledge. How, for instance, he chanced upon Aristarchus wearing the look of one who suffered from a fit of the "sullens," and thus accosted him.
Soc. You seem to have some trouble on your mind, Aristarchus; if so, you should share it with your friends. Perhaps together we might lighten the weight of it a little.
Aristarchus answered: Yes, Socrates, I am in sore straits indeed. Ever since the party strife declared itself in the city,[1] what with the rush of people to Piraeus, and the wholesale banishments, I have been fairly at the mercy of my poor deserted female relatives. Sisters, nieces, cousins, they have all come flocking to me for protection. I have fourteen free-born souls, I tell you, under my single roof, and how are we to live? We can get nothing out of the soil--that is in the hands of the enemy; nothing from my house property, for there is scarcely a living soul left in the city; my furniture? no one will buy it; money? there is none to be borrowed--you would have a better chance to find it by looking for it on the road than to borrow it from a banker. Yes, Socrates, to stand by and see one's relatives die of hunger is hard indeed, and yet to feed so many at such a pinch impossible.
[1] i.e. circa 404-403 B.C. See "Hell." II. iv.
After he listened to the story, Socrates asked: How comes it that Ceramon,[2] with so many mouths to feed, not only contrives to furnish himself and them with the necessaries of life, but to realise a handsome surplus, whilst you being in like plight[3] are afraid you will one and all perish of starvation for want of the necessaries of life?
[2] An employer of labour, apparently, on a grand scale.
[3] Lit. "with your large family to feed." L. Dindorf would like to read {su de oligous}, "you with your small family."
Ar. Why, bless your soul, do you not see he has only slaves and I have free-born souls to feed?
Soc. And which should you say were the better human beings, the free- born members of your household or Ceramon's slaves?
Ar. The free souls under my roof without a doubt.
Soc. Is it not a shame, then, that he with his baser folk to back him should be in easy circumstances, while you and your far superior household are in difficulties?
Ar. To be sure it is, when he has only a set of handicraftsmen to feed, and I my liberally-educated household.
Soc. What is a handicraftsman? Does not the term apply to all who can make any sort of useful product or commodity?
Ar. Certainly.
Soc. Barley meal is a useful product, is it not?
Ar. Pre-eminently so.
Soc. And loaves of bread?
Ar. No less.
Soc. Well, and what do you say to cloaks for men and for women-- tunics, mantles, vests?[4]
[4] For these articles of dress see Becker's "Charicles," Exc. i. to Sc. xi. "Dress."
Ar. Yes, they are all highly useful commodities.
Soc. Then your household do not know how to make any of these?
Ar. On the contrary, I believe they can make them all.
Soc. Then you are not aware that by means of the manufacture of one of these alone--his barley meal store--Nausicydes[5] not only maintains himself and his domestics, but many pigs and cattle besides, and realises such large profits that he frequently contributes to the state benevolences;[6] while there is Cyrebus, again, who, out of a bread factory, more than maintains the whole of his establishment, and lives in the lap of luxury; and Demeas of Collytus gets a livelihood out of a cloak business, and Menon as a mantua-maker, and so, again, more than half the Megarians[7] by the making of vests.
[5] Nausicydes. Cobet, "Pros. Xen." cf. Aristoph. "Eccles." 426.
[6] Lit. "state liturgies," or "to the burden of the public services." For these see Gow, "Companion," xviii. "Athenian Finance."
[7] Cf. Arist. "Acharnians," 519, {esukophantei Megareon ta khlaniskia}. See Dr. Merry's note ad loc.
Ar. Bless me, yes! They have got a set of barbarian fellows, whom they purchase and keep, to manufacture by forced labour whatever takes their fancy. My kinswomen, I need not tell you, are free-born ladies.
Soc. Then, on the ground that they are free-born and your kinswomen, you think that they ought to do nothing but eat and sleep? Or is it your opinion that people who live in this way--I speak of free-born people in general--lead happier lives, and are more to be congratulated, than those who give their time and attention to such useful arts of life as they are skilled in? Is this what you see in the world, that for the purpose of learning what it is well to know, and of recollecting the lessons taught, or with a view to health and strength of body, or for the sake of acquiring and preserving all that gives life its charm, idleness and inattention are found to be helpful, whilst work and study are simply a dead loss? Pray, when those relatives of yours were taught what you tell me they know, did they learn it as barren information which they would never turn to practical account, or, on the contrary, as something with which they were to be seriously concerned some day, and from which they were to reap advantage? Do human beings in general attain to well-tempered manhood by a course of idling, or by carefully attending to what will be of use? Which will help a man the more to grow in justice and uprightness, to be up and doing, or to sit with folded hands revolving the ways and means of existence? As things now stand, if I am not mistaken, there is no love lost between you. You cannot help feeling that they are costly to you, and they must see that you find them a burthen? This is a perilous state of affairs, in which hatred and bitterness have every prospect of increasing, whilst the pre-existing bond of affection[8] is likely to be snapped.