Flaccus And Maro
by
After the death of Socrates, the greatness of Athens was no more. Sparta ruled for a time, and then came the turn of Thebes. Subsequently the Macedonians invaded the country, and governed it till the year 196 B.C., when the Romans conquered both Macedonia and Greece, and completely destroyed Corinth, but spared Athens, which was deprived of its fortifications under Sulla, on account of the great memories which gathered round it.
Now, in Julius Caesar’s time, it had become the fashion to send youths to Athens to study Grammar, Rhetoric, and Philosophy there. There was no great philosopher there, but they studied the history of philosophy. There was also no religion, for no one believed on the gods of the State, although, from old habit, they celebrated the sacrificial feasts.
Athens was dead, and so was the whole of the ancient world–Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor. In Rome they lived on the memories of the past of Greece, and the greatest Roman, Cicero, when he wished to discuss some philosophic theme, always commenced by citing the opinions of the ancient Greeks on the subject; he also closed in the same way, for he had no original opinion of his own on any subject, such as the nature of the gods, etc.
One early spring day, during the last years of Julius Caesar, two students sat in an arbour below Lykabettos, opposite the college of Kynosarges. Wine was on the table, but they did not seem very devoted to their yellow “Chios.” They sat there with an air of indifference, as though they were waiting for something. The same atmosphere of lethargy seemed to pervade their surroundings. The innkeeper sat and dozed; the youths in the college opposite lounged at the door; pedestrians on the high road went by without greeting anyone; the peasant in the field sat on his plough, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
The elder of the two students fingered his glass, and at last opened his mouth.
“Say something!”
“I have nothing to say, for I know nothing.”
“Have you already learnt everything?”
“Yes.” “I came yesterday from Rome with great hopes of being able to learn something new and of hearing something remarkable, but I hear only silence.”
“My dear Maro, I have been here for years, and I have listened, but heard nothing new. I have heard in the Poikile that Thales maintained that there were no gods, but that everything had been produced from moisture. I have further heard Anaximines’ doctrine that air was the source of all things; Pherecydes’ doctrine of ether as the original principle; Heraclitus’ doctrine of fire. Anaximander has taught me that the universe came from some primitive substance; Leucippus and Democritus spoke to me of empty space with primitive corpuscles or atoms. Anaxagoras made believe that the atom had reason. Xenophanes wished to persuade me that God and the Universe were one. Empedocles, the wisest of the whole company, despaired at the imperfection of reason, and went in despair and flung himself head foremost into Etna’s burning mountain.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No! it may well be a lie like everything else. Then I learnt a number of interesting doctrines from Plato which were subsequently all confuted by Aristotle. At last I took up my position with the wisest of the wise–Socrates, who openly declared, as you know, that he knew nothing.”
“That is the same as the Sophists said,–that one knew nothing, and hardly so much.”
“You are right, and our good Socrates was a Sophist, without wishing to be one. But there is one, a single one, who…. Yes, I mean Pythagoras. He has proclaimed this and that doctrine in the East and the West, but I have found one anchor in his philosophy, and I have gripped firm ground with it. I certainly swing in the wind, but I do not drift away from it.”
“Tell me.”
“Do what you think right at the risk of being banished from your country; the mob cannot judge what is right. Therefore you should think little of their praise, and despise their blame. Cultivate the friendship of kindred spirits, but regard the rest of mankind as a worthless mass. Always be at war with ‘the beans’ (he means the democrats). ‘Odi profanum vulgus et arceo!'”