Miscellanies 6.2.21
Summary: Lysias echoes Isocrates, the historian Theopompus paraphrases Sarpedon's speech in Homer, and Epicharmus restates Chilon's maxim about pledges.
Greek text · Stählin 2:439
Ἰσοκράτους πάλιν εἰρηκότος ὥσπερ τῶν χρημάτων, ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἐκείνου συγγενὴς οὖσα Λυσίας ἐν τοῖς Ὀρφανικοῖς λέγει· καὶ φανερὸς γέγονεν οὐ τῶν σωμάτων συγγενὴς ὤν, ἀλλὰ τῶν χρημάτων. Ἐπεὶ καὶ Ὁμήρου ποιήσαντος· ὦ πέπον, εἰ μὲν γὰρ πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντες αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τʼ ἀθανάτω τε ἔσσεσθʼ, οὔτε κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην οὔτε κε σὲ στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν· νῦν δʼ, ἔμπης γὰρ κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο μυρίαι, ἃς οὐκ ἔστι φυγεῖν βροτὸν οὐδʼ ὑπαλύξαι, ἴομεν, εἴ κέ τῳ εὖχος ὀρέξομεν, ἠέ τις ἡμῖν, Θεόπομπος γράφει· εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἦν τὸν κίνδυνον τὸν παρόντα διαφυγόντας ἀδεῶς διάγειν τὸν ἐπίλοιπον χρόνον, οὐκ ἂν ἦν θαυμαστὸν φιλοψυχεῖν, νῦν δὲ τοσαῦται κῆρες τῷ βίῳ παραπεφύκασιν ὥστε τὸν ἐν ταῖς μάχαις θάνατον αἱρετώτερον εἶναι δοκεῖν. Τί δʼ; οὐχὶ καὶ Χίλωνος τοῦ σοφιστοῦ ἀποφθεγξαμένου ἐγγύα, πάρα δʼ ἄτα Ἐπίχαρμος τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην ἑτέρῳ ὀνόματι προηνέγκατο εἰπών· ἐγγύας ἄτα ʼστι θυγάτηρ, ἐγγύα δὲ ζαμίας.
English · Claude translation
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”?
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The Homeric passage is Il. 12.322–328. The Isocrates passage is uncertain (perhaps Aegineticus); the others are fragments of Lysias, Theopompus the historian, Chilon, and Epicharmus.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.2.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/6/2/21/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.2.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/6/2/21/).
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