Part 51
_Al._ That is evident.
_Soc._ And that which is better is also nobler?
_Al._ True.
_Soc._ And what is nobler is more becoming?
_Al._ Certainly.
_Soc._ Then to the bad man slavery is more becoming, because better?
_Al._ True.
_Soc._ Then vice is only suited to a slave?
_Al._ Yes.
_Soc._ And virtue to a freeman?
_Al._ Yes.
_Soc._ And, O my friend, is not the condition of a slave to be avoided?
_Al._ Certainly, Socrates.
_Soc._ And are you now conscious of your own state? And do you know whether you are a freeman or not?
_Al._ I think that I am very conscious indeed of my own state.
_Soc._ And do you know how to escape out of a state which I do not even like to name to my beauty?
_Al._ Yes, I do.
_Soc._ How?
_Al._ By your help, Socrates.
[Sidenote: _The power of the state may be too much for us._]
_Soc._ That is not well said, Alcibiades.
_Al._ What ought I to have said?
_Soc._ By the help of God.
_Al._ I agree; and I further say, that our relations are likely to be reversed. From this day forward, I must and will follow you as you have followed me; I will be the disciple, and you shall be my master.
_Soc._ O that is rare! My love breeds another love: and so like the stork I shall be cherished by the bird whom I have hatched.
_Al._ Strange, but true; and henceforward I shall begin to think about justice.
_Soc._ And I hope that you will persist; although I have fears, not because I doubt you; but I see the power of the state, which may be too much for both of us.
FOOTNOTES
[55] Cp. Symp. 213 C.
[56] Cp. Symp. 217 E ff.
[57] Cp. Symp. 181 E.
[58] About £406.
[59] Cp. Rep. i. 332 foll.
[60] Cp. Arist. Pol. vii. 1. § 5.
[61] Cp. Arist. Pol. i. 5. § 7.
MENEXENUS.
INTRODUCTION.
[Sidenote: _Menexenus._]
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]
The Menexenus has more the character of a rhetorical exercise than any other of the Platonic works. The writer seems to have wished to emulate Thucydides, and the far slighter work of Lysias. In his rivalry with the latter, to whom in the Phaedrus Plato shows a strong antipathy, he is entirely successful, but he is not equal to Thucydides. The Menexenus, though not without real Hellenic interest, falls very far short of the rugged grandeur and political insight of the great historian. The fiction of the speech having been invented by Aspasia is well sustained, and is in the manner of Plato, notwithstanding the anachronism which puts into her mouth an allusion to the peace of Antalcidas, an event occurring forty years after the date of the supposed oration. But Plato, like Shakespeare, is careless of such anachronisms, which are not supposed to strike the mind of the reader. The effect produced by these grandiloquent orations on Socrates, who does not recover after having heard one of them for three days and more, is truly Platonic.
Such discourses, if we may form a judgment from the three which are extant (for the so-called Funeral Oration of Demosthenes is a bad and spurious imitation of Thucydides and Lysias), conformed to a regular type. They began with Gods and ancestors, and the legendary history of Athens, to which succeeded an almost equally fictitious account of later times. The Persian war usually formed the centre of the narrative; in the age of Isocrates and Demosthenes the Athenians were still living on the glories of Marathon and Salamis. The Menexenus veils in panegyric the weak places of Athenian history. The war of Athens and Boeotia is a war of liberation; the Athenians gave back the Spartans taken at Sphacteria out of kindness—indeed, the only fault of the city was too great kindness to their enemies, who were more honoured than the friends of others (cp. Thucyd. ii. 41, which seems to contain the germ of the idea); we democrats are the aristocracy of virtue, and the like. These are the platitudes and falsehoods in which history is disguised. The taking of Athens is hardly mentioned.
[Sidenote: _The authenticity of the Dialogue._]
The author of the Menexenus, whether Plato or not, is evidently intending to ridicule the practice, and at the same time to show that he can beat the rhetoricians in their own line, as in the Phaedrus he may be supposed to offer an example of what Lysias might have said, and of how much better he might have written in his own style. The orators had recourse to their favourite _loci communes_, one of which, as we find in Lysias, was the shortness of the time allowed them for preparation. But Socrates points out that they had them always ready for delivery, and that there was no difficulty in improvising any number of such orations. To praise the Athenians among the Athenians was easy,—to praise them among the Lacedaemonians would have been a much more difficult task. Socrates himself has turned rhetorician, having learned of a woman, Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles; and any one whose teachers had been far inferior to his own—say, one who had learned from Antiphon the Rhamnusian—would be quite equal to the task of praising men to themselves. When we remember that Antiphon is described by Thucydides as the best pleader of his day, the satire on him and on the whole tribe of rhetoricians is transparent.
The ironical assumption of Socrates, that he must be a good orator because he had learnt of Aspasia, is not coarse, as Schleiermacher supposes, but is rather to be regarded as fanciful. Nor can we say that the offer of Socrates to dance naked out of love for Menexenus, is any more un-Platonic than the threat of physical force which Phaedrus uses towards Socrates (286 C). Nor is there any real vulgarity in the fear which Socrates expresses that he will get a beating from his mistress, Aspasia: this is the natural exaggeration of what might be expected from an imperious woman. Socrates is not to be taken seriously in all that he says, and Plato, both in the Symposium and elsewhere, is not slow to admit a sort of Aristophanic humour. How a great original genius like Plato might or might not have written, what was his conception of humour, or what limits he would have prescribed to himself, if any, in drawing the picture of the Silenus Socrates, are problems which no critical instinct can determine.
[Sidenote: _The authenticity of the Dialogue._]
On the other hand, the dialogue has several Platonic traits, whether original or imitated may be uncertain. Socrates, when he departs from his character of a ‘know nothing’ and delivers a speech, generally pretends that what he is speaking is not his own composition. Thus in the Cratylus he is run away with (410 E); in the Phaedrus he has heard somebody say something (235 C)—is inspired by the _genius loci_ (238 D); in the Symposium he derives his wisdom from Diotima of Mantinea, and the like. But he does not impose on Menexenus by his dissimulation. Without violating the character of Socrates, Plato, who knows so well how to give a hint, or some one writing in his name, intimates clearly enough that the speech in the Menexenus like that in the Phaedrus is to be attributed to Socrates. The address of the dead to the living at the end of the oration may also be compared to the numerous addresses of the same kind which occur in Plato, in whom the dramatic element is always tending to prevail over the rhetorical. The remark has been often made, that in the Funeral Oration of Thucydides there is no allusion to the existence of the dead. But in the Menexenus a future state is clearly, although not strongly, asserted.
Whether the Menexenus is a genuine writing of Plato, or an imitation only, remains uncertain. In either case, the thoughts are partly borrowed from the Funeral Oration of Thucydides; and the fact that they are so, is not in favour of the genuineness of the work. Internal evidence seems to leave the question of authorship in doubt. There are merits and there are defects which might lead to either conclusion. The form of the greater part of the work makes the enquiry difficult; the introduction and the finale certainly wear the look either of Plato or of an extremely skilful imitator. The excellence of the forgery may be fairly adduced as an argument that it is not a forgery at all. In this uncertainty the express testimony of Aristotle, who quotes, in the Rhetoric,[62] the well-known words, ‘It is easy to praise the Athenians among the Athenians,’ from the Funeral Oration, may perhaps turn the balance in its favour. It must be remembered also that the work was famous in antiquity, and is included in the Alexandrian catalogues of Platonic writings.
MENEXENUS.
_PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE._
SOCRATES and MENEXENUS.
[Sidenote: _Menexenus._]
_Socrates._ Whence come you, Menexenus? Are you from the Agora? =Steph.= 234
_Menexenus._ Yes, Socrates; I have been at the Council.
_Soc._ And what might you be doing at the Council? And yet I need hardly ask, for I see that you, believing yourself to have arrived at the end of education and of philosophy, and to have had enough of them, are mounting upwards to things higher still, and, though rather young for the post, are intending to govern us elder men, like the rest of your family, which has always provided some one who kindly took care of us.
_Men._ Yes, Socrates, I shall be ready to hold office, if you allow and advise that I should, but not if you think otherwise. I went to the council chamber because I heard that the Council was about to choose some one who was to speak over the dead. For you know that there is to be a public funeral?
_Soc._ Yes, I know. And whom did they choose?
_Men._ No one; they delayed the election until to-morrow, but I believe that either Archinus or Dion will be chosen.
[Sidenote: The gain of dying in battle.]
[Sidenote: The effect upon Socrates of panegyrical oratory.]
[Sidenote: _Easy to praise Athenians among Peloponnesians._]
_Soc._ O Menexenus! death in battle is certainly in many respects a noble thing. The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral, although he may have been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wise man who has long ago prepared what he has to say, although he who is praised may not have been good for much. The speakers praise him for what he has done and for what he has not done—that is the beauty of them—and they steal away our souls with their embellished words; in every conceivable form they praise 235 the city; and they praise those who died in war, and all our ancestors who went before us; and they praise ourselves also who are still alive, until I feel quite elevated by their laudations, and I stand listening to their words, Menexenus, and become enchanted by them, and all in a moment I imagine myself to have become a greater and nobler and finer man than I was before. And if, as often happens, there are any foreigners who accompany me to the speech, I become suddenly conscious of having a sort of triumph over them, and they seem to experience a corresponding feeling of admiration at me, and at the greatness of the city, which appears to them, when they are under the influence of the speaker, more wonderful than ever. This consciousness of dignity lasts me more than three days, and not until the fourth or fifth day do I come to my senses and know where I am; in the meantime I have been living in the Islands of the Blest. Such is the art of our rhetoricians, and in such manner does the sound of their words keep ringing in my ears.
[Sidenote: Socrates always making fun of the rhetoricians.]
_Men._ You are always making fun of the rhetoricians, Socrates; this time, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosen will not have much to say, for he has been called upon to speak at a moment’s notice, and he will be compelled almost to improvise.
_Soc._ But why, my friend, should he not have plenty to say? Every rhetorician has speeches ready made; nor is there any difficulty in improvising that sort of stuff. Had the orator to praise Athenians among Peloponnesians, or Peloponnesians among Athenians, he would be a good rhetorician who could succeed and gain credit. But there is no difficulty in a man’s winning applause when he is contending for fame among the persons whom he is praising.
_Men._ Do you think not, Socrates?
_Soc._ Certainly ‘not.’
[Sidenote: Could Socrates himself make a funeral oration?]
_Men._ Do you think that you could speak yourself if there should be a necessity, and if the Council were to choose you?
_Soc._ That I should be able to speak is no great wonder, Menexenus, considering that I have an excellent mistress in the art of rhetoric,—she who has made so many good speakers, and one who was the best among all the Hellenes—Pericles, the son of Xanthippus.
[Sidenote: _Aspasia the teacher both of Pericles and of Socrates._]
_Men._ And who is she? I suppose that you mean Aspasia.
[Sidenote: Yes; for he is a pupil of Aspasia.]
_Soc._ Yes, I do; and besides her I had Connus, the son of Metrobius, as a master, and he was my master in music, as 236 she was in rhetoric. No wonder that a man who has received such an education should be a finished speaker; even the pupil of very inferior masters, say, for example, one who had learned music of Lamprus, and rhetoric of Antiphon the Rhamnusian, might make a figure if he were to praise the Athenians among the Athenians.
_Men._ And what would you be able to say if you had to speak?
[Sidenote: The funeral oration composed by Aspasia.]
_Soc._ Of my own wit, most likely nothing; but yesterday I heard Aspasia composing a funeral oration about these very dead. For she had been told, as you were saying, that the Athenians were going to choose a speaker, and she repeated to me the sort of speech which he should deliver, partly improvising and partly from previous thought, putting together fragments of the funeral oration which Pericles spoke, but which, as I believe, she composed.
_Men._ And can you remember what Aspasia said?
_Soc._ I ought to be able, for she taught me, and she was ready to strike me because I was always forgetting.
_Men._ Then why will you not rehearse what she said?
_Soc._ Because I am afraid that my mistress may be angry with me if I publish her speech.
_Men._ Nay, Socrates, let us have the speech, whether Aspasia’s or any one else’s, no matter. I hope that you will oblige me.
_Soc._ But I am afraid that you will laugh at me if I continue the games of youth in old age.
_Men._ Far otherwise, Socrates; let us by all means have the speech.
_Soc._ Truly I have such a disposition to oblige you, that if you bid me dance naked I should not like to refuse, since we are alone. Listen then: If I remember rightly, she began as follows, with the mention of the dead[63]:—
[Sidenote: _The panegyric on the dead._]
There is a tribute of deeds and of words. The departed have already had the first, when going forth on their destined journey they were attended on their way by the state and by their friends; the tribute of words remains to be given to them, as is meet and by law ordained. For noble words are a memorial and a crown of noble actions, which are given to the doers of them by the hearers. A word is needed which will duly praise the dead and gently admonish the living, exhorting the brethren and descendants of the departed to imitate their virtue, and consoling their fathers and mothers and the survivors, if any, who may chance to be alive of the 237 previous generation. What sort of a word will this be, and how shall we rightly begin the praises of these brave men? In their life they rejoiced their own friends with their valour, and their death they gave in exchange for the salvation of the living. And I think that we should praise them in the order in which nature made them good, for they were good because they were sprung from good fathers. Wherefore let us first of all praise the goodness of their birth; secondly, their nurture and education; and then let us set forth how noble their actions were, and how worthy of the education which they had received.
[Sidenote: The departed were the children of the soil; and their country is dear to the Gods, who contended for the possession of her.]
And first as to their birth. Their ancestors were not strangers, nor are these their descendants sojourners only, whose fathers have come from another country; but they are the children of the soil, dwelling and living in their own land. And the country which brought them up is not like other countries, a stepmother to her children, but their own true mother; she bore them and nourished them and received them, and in her bosom they now repose. It is meet and right, therefore, that we should begin by praising the land which is their mother, and that will be a way of praising their noble birth.
[Sidenote: _The pre-eminence of Attica._]
[Sidenote: She first brought forth man, and proved her true motherhood by providing food for her own offspring.]
[Sidenote: The Gods were the rulers of primitive men, and gave them arts.]
The country is worthy to be praised, not only by us, but by all mankind; first, and above all, as being dear to the Gods. This is proved by the strife and contention of the Gods respecting her. And ought not the country which the Gods praise to be praised by all mankind? The second praise which may be fairly claimed by her, is that at the time when the whole earth was sending forth and creating diverse animals, tame and wild, she our mother was free and pure from savage monsters, and out of all animals selected and brought forth man, who is superior to the rest in understanding, and alone has justice and religion. And a great proof that she brought forth the common ancestors of us and of the departed, is that she provided the means of support for her offspring. For as a woman proves her motherhood by giving milk to her young ones (and she who has no fountain of milk is not a mother), so did this our land prove that she was the mother of men, for in those days she alone and first of all brought forth wheat and barley for human food, which is the best and noblest sustenance for man, 238 whom she regarded as her true offspring. And these are truer proofs of motherhood in a country than in a woman, for the woman in her conception and generation is but the imitation of the earth, and not the earth of the woman. And of the fruit of the earth she gave a plenteous supply, not only to her own, but to others also; and afterwards she made the olive to spring up to be a boon to her children, and to help them in their toils. And when she had herself nursed them and brought them up to manhood, she gave them Gods to be their rulers and teachers, whose names are well known, and need not now be repeated. They are the Gods who first ordered our lives, and instructed us in the arts for the supply of our daily needs, and taught us the acquisition and use of arms for the defence of the country.
[Sidenote: We have a good government, which is sometimes called a democracy, but is really an aristocracy, for the best rule with the consent of the many.]
[Sidenote: _The mythical glories of Athens._]
[Sidenote: The principle of our government is equality; the only superiority is that of virtue and wisdom.]
Thus born into the world and thus educated, the ancestors of the departed lived and made themselves a government, which I ought briefly to commemorate. For government is the nurture of man, and the government of good men is good, and of bad men bad. And I must show that our ancestors were trained under a good government, and for this reason they were good, and our contemporaries are also good, among whom our departed friends are to be reckoned. Then as now, and indeed always, from that time to this, speaking generally, our government was an aristocracy—a form of government which receives various names, according to the fancies of men, and is sometimes called democracy, but is really an aristocracy or government of the best which has the approval of the many. For kings we have always had, first hereditary and then elected, and authority is mostly in the hands of the people, who dispense offices and power to those who appear to be most deserving of them. Neither is a man rejected from weakness or poverty or obscurity of origin, nor honoured by reason of the opposite, as in other states, but there is one principle—he who appears to be wise and good is a governor and ruler. The basis of this our government is equality of birth; for other states are made up of all sorts and unequal conditions of men, and therefore their governments are unequal; there are tyrannies and there are oligarchies, in which the one party are slaves and the other masters. But we and our citizens are brethren, the children all of one 239 mother, and we do not think it right to be one another’s masters or servants; but the natural equality of birth compels us to seek for legal equality, and to recognize no superiority except in the reputation of virtue and wisdom.
[Sidenote: The greatness of Persia.]
[Sidenote: _The battle of Marathon._]
[Sidenote: Yet at Marathon the army of Darius was overcome by the Athenians almost single-handed.]
[Sidenote: _Salamis, Artemisium, and Plataea._]
[Sidenote: The men of Marathon should have the first place: those who followed in the war were their disciples, except the men who defeated the Persians at Salamis and first made proof of them at sea; these have the second place.]
[Sidenote: And the third place is to be assigned to those who fought at Plataea.]
[Sidenote: Eurymedon; Cyprus; Egypt.]