Miscellanies 6.2.4–6.2.27

But before setting our hand to the matter proposed, we must by way of preface pay back what was still owing at the end of the fifth Miscellany. We showed that the symbolic form is ancient, and that not only our prophets used it but also most of the ancient Greeks and not a few of the other barbarians among the nations; and it was fitting also to go through the mysteries of those who are initiated. These I put off, to make them plain when we go through and refute what the Greeks have said about first principles; for we shall show that the mysteries too depend on this theory. We have shown that the expression of Greek thought was illuminated by the truth given to us through the Scriptures, understanding in what sense the theft of the truth reached them, if it is not offensive to say so. Come, then, let us bring forward the Greeks themselves as witnesses of the theft against themselves. For those who so openly purloin their own things from one another confirm that they are thieves, and, even against their will, are shown to be secretly appropriating for their own kin the truth that comes from us. For those who do not keep their hands off one another's will hardly keep them off ours.

I shall pass over in silence the doctrines of philosophy, since those who divide themselves into the schools acknowledge in writing, so as not to be convicted of ingratitude, that they received the most important of their doctrines from Socrates. Using the testimonies of a few men who are much talked about and of good repute among the Greeks, and exposing their thieving kind, without regard to the order of their dates, I shall turn to what follows. Well then, when Orpheus composed: “So there was nothing more shameless or more chilling than a woman,” Homer says outright: “So there is nothing more dreadful or more shameless than a woman.” And when Musaeus wrote: “For skill is always much better than strength,” Homer says: “By skill the woodcutter prevails rather than by force.” Again, when Musaeus composed: “And so too the grain-giving field grows leaves: some wither on the ash trees, and others it grows; so too it whirls round the generation and race of men,” Homer rewrites it: “Of the leaves, the wind pours some on the ground, but the flourishing forest grows others, and the season of spring comes on: so of the generation of men, one grows, another ceases.” Again, when Homer said: “It is not holy to boast over slain men,” Archilochus and Cratinus write, the one: “For it is not noble to jeer at men who have died,” and Cratinus in the Laconians: “This again is fearful for men, to boast greatly over slain warriors.”

Again Archilochus, transferring that Homeric line, “I was blinded; I do not deny it myself; worth many men …,” writes thus: “I went astray; and this blindness has perhaps overtaken some other man too.” So too with that verse: “Enyalius is impartial, and slays the one who would slay,” he himself reworked it and brought it out thus: “… I will do it; for truly Ares is impartial to men.” And again, rephrasing this: “For men the ends of victory lie in … of the gods,” he makes it plain in this iambic line: “And encourage the young men; but the ends of victory lie with the gods.”

Again, when Homer said, “with unwashed feet, sleeping on the ground,” Euripides writes in the Erechtheus: “On an unstrewn floor they sleep, and do not wet their feet in springs.” And likewise, when Archilochus had said, “but one man warms his heart with one thing, another with another,” alongside the Homeric “For one man delights in some deeds, another in others,” Euripides says in the Oeneus: “but one man takes pleasure more in some ways, another in others.” And I have heard Aeschylus saying: “He who is truly happy should stay at home, and he who fares badly, he too should stay,” and Euripides crying out the like on the stage: “Blessed is he who, prospering, stays at home,” and Menander too, making comedy of it thus: “One should stay at home and stay free, or no longer be the truly happy man.”

Again, when Theognis says: “An exile has no friend and faithful companion,” Euripides has composed: “Every friend flees out of the way of a poor man in exile.” And when Epicharmus said: “O daughter, alas for your fortune! You live with a young man, though you are older,” and added: “For he takes another, a young girl, and she in turn seeks some other man,” Euripides writes: “It is an evil to yoke a young wife to a young man; for he longs to take another woman's bed, and she, lacking him, plots evil.” Again, when Euripides said in the Medea, “For a bad man's gifts bring no profit,” Sophocles in the Ajax the Whip-Bearer speaks that iambic line: “Enemies' gifts are no gifts, and bring no profit.” And when Solon composed: “For excess breeds insolence, when much prosperity follows,” Theognis writes outright: “Excess breeds insolence, when prosperity follows a bad man.” Hence Thucydides too says in his Histories: “Most people, to whom unexpected good fortune comes most suddenly and in the shortest time, are wont to turn to insolence.” And Philistus likewise imitates the same, saying: “Much good fortune that comes to men in accordance with reason is safer than what comes contrary to expectation; and so too with misfortune; for those who fare well contrary to expectation and unexpectedly are wont above all to turn to insolence.”

Again, when Euripides composed: “For of a father and mother who toil at hard regimens the offspring are better,” Critias writes: “I begin with a man's birth: how would he become best and strongest in body? If the one who begets him should exercise and eat heartily and harden his body, and the mother of the child who is to be should be strong in body and exercise.” Again, when Homer said of the shield wrought by Hephaestus: “On it he made the earth, on it the sky, on it the sea … on it he set the great might of the river Ocean,” Pherecydes of Syros says: “Zas makes a robe, great and beautiful, and on it he embroiders Earth and Ogenus and the halls of Ogenus.” And when Homer said: “Shame, which greatly harms men and also profits them,” Euripides writes in the Erechtheus: “About shame I myself am hard put to judge; for there is need of it, and again it is a great evil.”

You could also take, set side by side, passages of theft from those who flourished together and competed against one another, such as these: from Euripides' Orestes, “O dear charm of sleep, helper in sickness,” and from Sophocles' Eriphyle, “Go away; you are disturbing sleep, the healer of sickness”; and from Euripides' Antigone, “The bastard is blamed in name, but its nature is equal,” and from Sophocles' Aleadae, “Everything good has an equal nature”; again from Euripides' Temenus, “For the god too helps the one who toils,” and from Sophocles in the Minos, “Fortune is no ally to those who do nothing”; and yes, from Euripides' Alexander, “Time will show you; learning by that proof I shall know you to be either good or bad,” and from Sophocles' Hipponous, “Therefore hide nothing, since Time, which sees all and hears all, unfolds all things.”

But let us run through these too in the same way. When Eumelus composed: “Nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus,” Solon begins his elegy thus: “Glorious children of Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus.” Again Euripides, paraphrasing the Homeric line, “Who are you among men, and from where? Where are your city and your parents?” uses these iambics in the Aegeus: “What land shall we say you have left, to be a stranger in this city? What are the bounds of your fatherland? Who begot you? Of what father are you proclaimed the son?” What then? When Theognis said: “Wine drunk in abundance is bad; but if one uses it with understanding, it is not bad but good,” does not Panyassis write: “Wine is the best gift from the gods to mortals when drunk in measure, but beyond measure it is worse”?

And when Hesiod says: “To you, in return for fire, I will give an evil in which all may delight,” Euripides composes: “For in return for fire another fire, greater and harder to fight, sprang up: women.” Besides these, when Homer says: “But it is in no way possible to fill a ravenous belly, the accursed thing, which gives many evils to men,” Euripides composes: “But need overcomes me, and my wretched, accursed belly, from which all evils come.” Further, when Callias the comic poet writes: “They say all must rave alike with those who rave,” Menander in the Men for Sale matches him, saying: “Good sense is not fitting everywhere it is present; one must sometimes join in the madness too.” And when Antimachus of Teos said: “For from gifts many evils come to men,” Agias composed: “For gifts beguile the mind of men, and their deeds too.”

And when Hesiod had said: “For a man wins nothing better than a wife, a good one; and nothing more chilling than a bad one,” Simonides said: “A man wins no possession better than a good wife, nor more chilling than a bad one.” Again, when Epicharmus said: “Think both as one who will live a long time and as one who will live a short time,” Euripides writes: “Why then, standing on a prosperity that is not sure, do we not live as pleasantly as we can, without grief?” Likewise, when the comic poet Diphilus said: “The life of men is easily changed,” Posidippus says: “No one, being human, has passed his life free from grief, nor again has he remained unfortunate to the end.” And Plato speaks in keeping with this, writing about man as a changeable living being. Again, when Euripides said: “O toilsome life of mortals, how slippery you lie in everything! Some things you increase, others you waste away; and there is no fixed boundary set for mortals to reach, except when the chill end of death arrives, sent from Zeus,” Diphilus writes: “There is no life that does not possess evils: griefs, cares, robberies, tortures, diseases. From these death, appearing like a physician, gives rest to those who have them, putting them to rest in sleep.”

Further, when Euripides said: “Many are the forms of divine things, and many things the gods bring to pass unexpectedly,” the tragic poet Theodectes likewise writes: “that the fortunes of mortals are not secure.” And when Bacchylides had said: “To few mortals has a god granted to fare well in due season all their time and to reach grey-templed old age before meeting with misery,” Moschion the comic poet writes: “That man is the most blessed of all who, living to the end, has practiced an even life.” And you would find that when Theognis had said: “A young wife is no use to an old husband; for she does not obey the rudder like a boat,” Aristophanes the comic poet writes: “An old man is a disgrace to a young wife.” For when Anacreon composed: “I sing of tender Love, teeming with garlands of many flowers; he is lord of the gods, he subdues mortals too,” Euripides writes: “For Love comes not upon men alone, nor again on women, but troubles the souls of the gods above and goes over the sea.”

But so that our discourse may not run on further as we eagerly show the Greeks' readiness for theft in both words and doctrines, come, let us bring forward as a direct witness for us Hippias the sophist of Elis, who arrives at the same account on the question before me, speaking thus: “Of these things some perhaps have been said by Orpheus, some by Musaeus, briefly, one here and another there; some by Hesiod, some by Homer, some by the other poets; and some in prose writings, some by Greeks and some by barbarians. But I, putting together from all of these the most important and kindred things, will make this discourse new and of many kinds.”

So that we may not overlook philosophy and history, nor even rhetoric, as having no share in the same exposure, it is reasonable to set out a few examples of these too. When Alcmaeon of Croton said that it is easier to guard against an enemy than against a friend, Sophocles composed in the Antigone: “For what wound could be greater than a bad friend?” and Xenophon said: “One could not harm enemies in any other way than by seeming to be a friend.” And when Euripides said in the Telephus: “Shall we, being Greeks, be slaves to barbarians?” Thrasymachus says in his speech For the Larissaeans: “Shall we, being Greeks, be slaves to Archelaus, a barbarian?”

When Orpheus composed: “Water is for the soul, and death is the exchange for waters; from water comes earth, and from earth again water; from this the soul, exchanging the whole ether,” Heraclitus, putting together his sayings from these, writes thus: “For souls it is death to become water, and for water it is death to become earth; from earth water comes to be, and from water soul.” And indeed, when Athamas the Pythagorean said thus: “The unbegotten beginning of all things, and its roots, are four: fire, water, air, earth; for from these come the births of the things that come to be,” Empedocles of Acragas composed: “First hear the four roots of all things: fire and water and earth and the boundless height of ether; for from these come all that was and will be and is.” And when Plato said: “For this reason the gods too, who know human affairs, take out of life more quickly those whom they hold most dear,” Menander has composed: “He whom the gods love dies young.”

When Euripides writes in the Oenomaus: “We judge the unseen by what is present,” and in the Phoenix: “Things unseen are rightly caught by proofs,” Hyperides says: “What is unseen, those who teach must seek by proofs and probabilities.” And again, when Isocrates said: “One must judge the future by what has happened before,” Andocides does not hesitate to say: “For one must use what has happened before as proofs about what is going to be.” Further, when Theognis composed: “The ruin of counterfeit gold and silver is bearable, Cyrnus, and easy for a wise man to find out; but if the mind of a friend lies hidden in his breast, being false, and he has a deceitful heart within, this is the most counterfeit thing a god has made for mortals, and the most painful of all to discover,” Euripides writes: “O Zeus, why have you given men clear signs for gold that is counterfeit, but in men's bodies there grows no mark by which one must discern the bad man?” And Hyperides himself says: “There is no mark of the mind set on the face of men.”

Again, when Stasinus composed: “Foolish is he who kills the father and leaves the children,” Xenophon says: “For I seem to myself now to have acted as if someone who had killed a father were to spare his children.” And when Sophocles composed in the Antigone: “With mother and father lying in Hades, there is no brother who could ever be born,” Herodotus says: “With mother and father no longer living, I shall have no other brother.” Besides these, when Theopompus composed: “Old men are children twice, by right reasoning,” and before him Sophocles in the Peleus: “Alone, keeping house, I tend Peleus son of Aeacus in his old age and bring him up again; for again the aging man becomes a child,” Antiphon the orator says: “For caring for the old is like caring for children,” and Plato the philosopher too: “So, it seems, the old man would become a child twice.”

Indeed, when Thucydides said: “At Marathon we alone faced the danger in front,” Demosthenes said: “No, by those who faced the danger in front at Marathon.” Nor shall I pass over these: when Cratinus said in the Wine Flask: “You know, perhaps, the preparation,” Andocides the orator says: “The preparation, gentlemen of the jury, and the zeal of my enemies, you will almost all know.” Likewise Nicias too, in his speech against Lysias concerning a deposit, says: “You see the preparation and the zeal of my opponents, gentlemen of the jury,” and after him Aeschines says: “You see the preparation, men of Athens, and the battle array.” Again, when Demosthenes said: “How much zeal, men of Athens, and how much canvassing there has been about this trial, I think nearly all of you have perceived,” Philinus likewise says: “How much zeal and battle array, gentlemen of the jury, has been made about this trial, I think not one of you is unaware.”

Again, when Isocrates had said: “being a relative of his money, but not of him,” Lysias says in the speeches on the orphans: “And he has been shown to be a relative not of their persons but of their money.” For when Homer too composed: “Friend, if by escaping this war we were to be ageless and deathless forever, I would not myself fight among the foremost, nor would I send you into the battle that gives men glory; but now, since in any case the fates of death stand over us, countless, which no mortal can flee or escape, let us go, whether we shall give glory to another or another to us,” Theopompus writes: “If by escaping the present danger we could spend the rest of our time without fear, it would be no wonder to love life; but now so many fates have grown up alongside life that death in battle seems more to be chosen.” What then? When Chilon the sophist uttered: “Give a pledge, and ruin is at hand,” did not Epicharmus bring out the same maxim in other words, saying: “Ruin is the daughter of surety, and surety the daughter of loss”?

And when Hippocrates the physician wrote: “So one must look to the season, the region, the age, and the diseases,” Euripides says in a speech in hexameter: “He who knows how to heal well must look to the ways of life of those who dwell in the city and, having seen the land, consider the diseases.” Again, when Homer composed: “No one of men, I say, has escaped his fate,” Archinus says: “For all men it is owed to die, either sooner or later,” and Demosthenes: “For all men the end of life is death, even if someone shuts himself up in a little room and keeps guard.”

And again, when Herodotus, in his story of Glaucus the Spartan, said that the Pythia declared that to tempt the god and to do the deed amount to the same thing, Aristophanes said: “For to intend is equal to doing,” and before him Parmenides of Elea: “For thinking and being are the same.” Or when Plato said: “We might say this, perhaps not absurdly, that the beginning of love is sight; hope lessens the passion, memory nourishes it, and habit preserves it,” does not Philemon the comic poet write: “All first see, then they admire, then they gaze further, then they fall into hope; thus love comes to be from these”? And when Demosthenes said: “For death is owed by all of us,” and so on, Phanocles writes in his Loves, or Fair Boys: “But the thread of the Fates cannot be unloosed, nor can any escape it, as many as feed on the earth.”

You would also find that when Plato said: “For of every plant the first shoot, if it has made a good start toward excellence, is the most decisive in bringing its own nature to its fitting end,” Ephorus the historian writes: “But none even of wild plants is naturally tamed once they have passed their youthful age.” And that saying of Empedocles: “For already I have once been a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird, and a mute fish in the sea,” Euripides rewrites in the Chrysippus: “Nothing of what comes to be dies, but, separated one thing from another, shows another form.” And when Plato in the Republic said that wives should be held in common, Euripides writes in the Protesilaus: “For the marriage bed of women ought to be common.” But when Euripides writes: “Since what suffices is enough for those who are self-restrained,” Epicurus says outright: “Self-sufficiency is the greatest wealth of all.” And again, when Aristophanes writes: “You will have a secure life if you are just, and you will live well, without tumult and fear,” Epicurus says: “The greatest fruit of justice is freedom from disturbance.”

Let these, then, suffice as the kinds of Greek theft of thought, being such as they are, as a clear example for anyone able to see. But now they have been caught not only stealing and paraphrasing thoughts and phrases, as has been shown; they will also be convicted of holding the stolen goods openly and entire. For they took the works of others outright and published them as their own: so Eugammon of Cyrene took the whole book on the Thesprotians from Musaeus, Pisander of Camirus took the Heraclea of Pisinus of Lindus, and Panyassis of Halicarnassus took the Capture of Oechalia from Creophylus of Samos.

You would find that even Homer, the great poet, took over word for word those lines, “As a man rears a flourishing sapling of olive,” and what follows, from Orpheus' Disappearance of Dionysus. And in the Theogony Orpheus composed of Cronus: “He lay with his thick neck bent aside, and all-conquering sleep took him”; and Homer transferred these lines to the Cyclops. And Hesiod composes in the Melampodia: “Sweet it is also to learn all that the immortals have ordained for mortals, a clear sign of the cowardly and the noble,” and what follows, taking it word for word from the poet Musaeus. Aristophanes the comic poet, in the first Thesmophoriazusae, transferred lines from Cratinus' Men on Fire. Plato the comic poet and Aristophanes in the Daedalus steal from each other. And the Cocalus, composed by Araros the son of Aristophanes, Philemon the comic poet altered and staged in his Changeling. The historians Eumelus and Acusilaus changed Hesiod's works into prose and published them as their own. Gorgias of Leontini and Eudemus of Naxos, the historians, stole from Melesagoras, and besides them Bion of Proconnesus, who also transcribed in summary the works of Cadmus of old; and Amphilochus, Aristocles, Leandrius, Anaximenes, Hellanicus, Hecataeus, Androtion, and Philochorus; and Dieuchidas of Megara transferred the beginning of his account from Hellanicus' Deucalioneia.

I say nothing of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who took most of his ideas from Orpheus. Plato drew from Pythagoras the teaching that the soul is immortal, and Pythagoras from the Egyptians. And many of Plato's followers have written treatises in which they show that the Stoics, as we said at the beginning, and Aristotle took most, and the most important, of their doctrines from Plato. Epicurus too contrived his leading doctrines from Democritus. So much for that. For life would fail me if I chose to go through each case, exposing the self-serving theft of the Greeks and how they claim for themselves the discovery of the finest of their doctrines, which they have received from us.